Then the conversation turned on various subjects, and, without being more communicative, Captain Nemo showed himself more amiable.
Amongst other things, we happened to speak of the situation of the Nautilus, run aground in exactly the same spot in this strait where Dumont d'Urville was nearly lost.

Apropos of this: "This D'Urville was one of your great sailors," said the Captain to me, "one of your most intelligent navigators.

He is the Captain Cook of you Frenchmen.

Unfortunate man of science, after having braved the icebergs of the South Pole, the coral reefs of Oceania, the cannibals of the Pacific, to perish miserably in a railway train! If this energetic man could have reflected during the last moments of his life, what must have been uppermost in his last thoughts, do you suppose ?" So speaking, Captain Nemo seemed moved, and his emotion gave me a better opinion of him.

Then, chart in hand, we reviewed the travels of the French navigator, his voyages of circumnavigation, his double detention at the South Pole, which led to the discovery of Adelaide and Louis Philippe, and fixing the hydrographical bearings of the principal islands of Oceania.
"That which your D'Urville has done on the surface of the seas," said Captain Nemo, "that have I done under them, and more easily, more completely than he.