Twenty thousand leagues of underwater travel (Vingt mille lieues sous les mers) is one of the best known literary works of the French writer Julio Verne.
An expedition aboard a ship of the US Navy, Abraham Lincoln, commanded by Admiral Farragut, seeks to hunt a strange cetacean, with a long and sharp horn in the snout, which has caused the mysterious disappearance of various boats

During the expedition, the protagonists are thrown overboard as a result of an onslaught of the animal. Professor Aronnax and his companion Conseil are rescued by Canadian harpooner Ned Land, and the three manage to swim to the mainland. Once safe, they discover that they are not really on an island.