SECOND PART
CHAPTER 3: A Pearl Worth Ten Million
(continued)
In the midst of this moving vegetation, under arbors of water plants,
there raced legions of clumsy articulates, in particular some fanged
frog crabs whose carapaces form a slightly rounded triangle,
robber crabs exclusive to these waterways, and horrible
parthenope crabs whose appearance was repulsive to the eye.
One animal no less hideous, which I encountered several times,
was the enormous crab that Mr. Darwin observed, to which nature
has given the instinct and requisite strength to eat coconuts;
it scrambles up trees on the beach and sends the coconuts tumbling;
they fracture in their fall and are opened by its powerful pincers.
Here, under these clear waves, this crab raced around with
matchless agility, while green turtles from the species frequenting
the Malabar coast moved sluggishly among the crumbling rocks.
Near seven o'clock we finally surveyed the bank of shellfish,
where pearl oysters reproduce by the millions. These valuable
mollusks stick to rocks, where they're strongly attached
by a mass of brown filaments that forbids their moving about.
In this respect oysters are inferior even to mussels, to whom nature
has not denied all talent for locomotion.
The shellfish Meleagrina, that womb for pearls whose valves are
nearly equal in size, has the shape of a round shell with thick
walls and a very rough exterior. Some of these shells were furrowed
with flaky, greenish bands that radiated down from the top.
These were the young oysters. The others had rugged black surfaces,
measured up to fifteen centimeters in width, and were ten or
more years old.
Captain Nemo pointed to this prodigious heap of shellfish, and I
saw that these mines were genuinely inexhaustible, since nature's
creative powers are greater than man's destructive instincts.
True to those instincts, Ned Land greedily stuffed the finest
of these mollusks into a net he carried at his side.
But we couldn't stop. We had to follow the captain,
who headed down trails seemingly known only to himself.
The seafloor rose noticeably, and when I lifted my arms,
sometimes they would pass above the surface of the sea.
Then the level of the oysterbank would lower unpredictably.
Often we went around tall, pointed rocks rising like pyramids.
In their dark crevices huge crustaceans, aiming their long legs
like heavy artillery, watched us with unblinking eyes, while underfoot
there crept millipedes, bloodworms, aricia worms, and annelid worms,
whose antennas and tubular tentacles were incredibly long.
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