So breakfast as a man who will most likely not have his dinner till very late.” I did honour to the repast. It was composed of several kinds of fish, and slices of holothuridæ (excellent zoophytes), and different sorts of sea-weed. Our drink consisted of pure water, to which the Captain added some drops of a fermented liquor, extracted by the Kamschatcha method from a sea-weed known under the name of Rhodomenia palmata. Captain Nemo ate at first without saying a word. Then he began— “Sir, when I proposed to you to hunt in my submarine forest of Crespo, you evidently thought me mad. Sir, you should never judge lightly of any man.” “But Captain, believe me——” “Be kind enough to listen, and you will then see whether you have any cause to accuse me of folly and contradiction.” “I listen.” “You know as well as I do, Professor, that man can live under water, providing he carries with him a sufficient supply of breathable air. In submarine works, the workman, clad in an impervious dress, with his head in a metal helmet, receives air from above by means of forcing pumps and regulators.” “That is a diving apparatus,” said I. “Just so, but under these conditions the man is not at liberty; he is attached to the pump which sends him air through an india-rubber tube, and if we were obliged to be thus held to the Nautilus, we could not go far.”