Jules Verne

“ I was the first to leap on the rock. My uncle followed, while the eider-duck hunter remained still, like a man above any childish sources of astonishment. We were now walking on granite, mixed with silicious sandstone; the soil shivered under our feet like the sides of boilers in which over-heated steam is forcibly confined. It was burning. We soon came in sight of the little central basin from which rose the geyser, I plunged a thermometer into the water which ran bubbling from the center, and it marked a heat of a hundred and sixty-three degrees! ”

“ I leaned over a rock which stood on its edge, and looked down. My hair stood on end, my teeth chattered, my limbs trembled, I seemed utterly to lose my center of gravity, while my head was in a sort of whirl, like that of a drunken man. There is nothing more powerful than this attraction towards an abyss. I was about to fall headlong into the gaping well, when I was drawn back by a firm and powerful hand. It was that of Hans. I had not taken lessons enough at the Freiser's-kirk of Copenhagen in the art of looking down from lofty eminences without blinking! ”

“ The slope, as I expected, was very rapid; but I allowed myself to slip down.
Soon the rapidity of the descent began to assume frightful proportions; and menaced a fearful fall. I clutched at the sides; I grasped at projections of rocks; I threw myself backwards. All in vain. My weakness was so great I could do nothing to save myself.
Suddenly earth failed me. I was first launched into a dark, and gloomy void. I then struck against the projecting asperities of a vertical gallery, a perfect well. My head bounded against a pointed rock, and I lost all knowledge of existence. ”

“ I took up the telescope and carefully examined the horizon—looked over the whole sea; it was utterly and entirely deserted. Doubtless we were still too near the coast.
After an examination of the ocean, I looked upward, towards the strange and mysterious sky. Why should not one of the birds, reconstructed by the immortal Cuvier, flag his stupendous wings aloft in the dull strata of subterranean air? It would of course, find quite sufficient food from the fish in the sea. I gazed for some time up on the void above. It was as silent and as deserted as the shores we had but lately left. ”

“ The sun poured its beaming rays to the very bottom of the crater.
Each hillock, every rock, every stone, every asperity of the soil had its share of the luminous effulgence, and its shadow fell heavily on the soil. Among others, to his insane delight, the shadow of Scartaris was marked and clear, and moved slowly with the radiant star of day.
My uncle moved with it in a state of mental ecstasy. At twelve o'clock exactly, when the sun had attained its highest altitude for the day, the shadow fell upon the edge of the central pit! ”

“ Absolute silence, I felt, would be annihilation.
"Keep up your courage," said my uncle. "As you are so weak do not speak. We have been searching for you in all directions, both by going upwards and downwards in the gallery. My dear boy, I had begun to give up all hope—and you can never know what bitter tears of sorrow and regret I have shed. At last, supposing you to be still on the road beside the Hans-bach we again descended, firing off guns as signals. Now, however, that we have found you, and that our voices reach each other, it may be a long time before we actually meet. ”

“ I looked down upon the plain below, and I saw a vast, prodigious volume of pulverized pumice-stone, of sand, of dust, rising to the heavens in the form of a mighty water-spout. It resembled the fearful phenomenon of a similar character known to the travelers in the desert of the great Sahara.
The wind was driving it directly towards that side of Sneffels on which we were perched. This opaque veil standing up between us and the sun projected a deep shadow on the flanks of the mountain. If this sand-spout broke over us, we must all be completely destroyed, crushed in its fearful embraces. ”

“ I, however, took upon myself to interfere, and to impose some sort of cheek upon such insensate enthusiasm.
"Listen to me, uncle," I said, in a firm but temperate tone of voice, "there must be some limit to ambition here below. It is utterly useless to struggle against the impossible. Pray listen to reason. We are utterly unprepared for a sea voyage; it is simple madness to think of performing a second journey of five hundred leagues upon a wretched pile of beams, with a counterpane for a sail, a paltry stick for a mast, and a tempest to contend with. ”

“ What was the astonishment of Martha, what the joy of Gretchen! I will not attempt to define it. "Now Harry, that you really are a hero," she said, "there is no reason why you should ever leave me again." I looked at her. She was weeping tears of joy.
I leave it to be imagined if the return of Professor Hardwigg made or did not make a sensation in Hamburg. Thanks to the indiscretion of Martha, the news of his departure for the Interior of the Earth had been spread over the whole world. ”

“ My uncle, the Professor, ate greedily, but evidently without appetite, eating simply from some mechanical motion. I put the food inside my lips, and hungry as I was, chewed my morsel without pleasure, and without satisfaction. Hans the guide, just as if he had been eider-down hunting, swallowed every mouthful, as though it were a usual affair. He looked like a man equally prepared to enjoy superfluity or total want. Hans, in all probability, was no more used to starvation than ourselves, but his hardy Icelandic nature had prepared him for many sufferings. ”

“ Eight above our heads, at a great height, opened the crater of a volcano from which escaped, from one quarter of an hour to the other, with a very loud explosion, a lofty jet of flame mingled with pumice stone, cinders, and lava. I could feel the convulsions of nature in the mountain, which breathed like a huge whale, throwing up from time to time fire and air through its enormous vents. ”

“ These thirty leagues of the crust of the earth weighed upon my shoulders like the globe on the shoulders of Atlas. I felt myself crushed by the awful weight. It was indeed a position to drive the sanest man to madness.
I tried to bring my thoughts back to the things of the world so long forgotten. It was with the greatest difficulty that I succeeded in doing so. Hamburg, the house on the Königstrasse, my dear cousin Gretchen—all that world which had before vanished like a shadow floated before my now vivid imagination. ”

“ The combat commenced. We distinctly made out every action of the two hideous monsters. To my excited imagination the other animals appeared about to take part in the fierce and deadly struggle—the monster, the whale, the lizard, and the turtle, I distinctly saw them every moment. I pointed them out to the Icelander. But he only shook his head. "Tva," he said.
"What—two only does he say? Surely he is mistaken," I cried, in a tone of wonder.
"He is quite right," replied my uncle coolly and philosophically, examining the terrible duel with his and speaking as if he were in a lecture room. ”

“ Here and there could be seen an isolated farm, some solitary boĕr, or Icelandic house, built of wood, earth, fragments of lava—looking like beggars on the highway of life. These wretched and miserable huts excited in us such pity that we felt half disposed to leave alms at every door. In this country there are no roads, paths are nearly unknown, and vegetation, poor as it was, slowly as it reached its full growth, soon obliterated all traces of the few travelers who passed from place to place. ”

“ I did require a good night's rest, and I went off reflecting at the last moment that my perilous adventure in the interior of the earth, in total darkness, had lasted four days!
On the morning of the next day, at my awakening, I began to look around me. My sleeping-place, made of all our traveling bedding, was in a charming grotto, adorned with magnificent stalagmites, glittering in all colors of the rainbow, the floor of soft and silvery sand. A dim obscurity prevailed. ”

“ We remain still and dumb from utter horror. They advance upon us, nearer and nearer. Our fate appears certain, fearful and terrible. On one side the mighty crocodile, on the other the great sea serpent. The rest of the fearful crowd of marine prodigies have plunged beneath the briny waves and disappeared!
I was about to risk all and fire, to try the effect of a shot. Hans, the guide, however, interfered by a sign to check me. The two hideous and ravenous monsters passed within fifty fathoms of the raft, and then made a rush at one another—their fury and rage preventing them from seeing us. ”

“ The slope of the waters was ex- cessive. I began to feel that we were no longer go- ing down a slope; we were falling. I felt as one does in a dream, going down bodily— falling ; falling; falling I I felt that the hands of my uncle and Hans were vigorously clasping my arms. Suddenly, after a lapse of time scarcely appreciable, I felt something like a shock. The raft had not struck a bard body, but had suddenly been checked in its course. A water- spout, a liquid column of water, fell upon us. ”

“ What horror and stupefaction took possession of my soul. I was like a man who had received a knock-down blow. Was it possible that I really read the terrible secret, and it had really been accomplished! A man had dared to do—what?
No living being should ever know "Never!" cried I, jumping up; "Never shall my uncle be made aware of the dread secret. He would be quite capable of undertaking the terrible journey. Nothing would check him, nothing stop him. Worse, he would compel me to accompany him, and we should be lost forever. No; such folly and madness cannot be allowed." ”

“ I felt myself quite a new man, ready to go anywhere my uncle chose to lead. I began to think. Why should not a man as seriously convinced as my uncle, succeed, with so excellent a guide as worthy Hans, and so devoted a nephew as myself? These were the brilliant ideas which invaded my brain. Had the proposition now been made to go back to the summit of Mount Sneffels, I should have declined the offer in a most indignant manner. But unfortunately there was no question of going up. We were about to descend farther into the interior of the earth. ”

“ They raised mountains of water, which dashed in spray over the raft, already tossed to and fro by the waves. Twenty times we seemed on the point of being upset and hurled headlong into the waves. Hideous hisses appeared to shake the gloomy granite roof of that mighty cavern—hisses which carried terror to our hearts. The awful combatants held each other in a tight embrace. I could not make out one from the other. Still the combat could not last for ever; and woe unto us, whichsoever became the victor.
One hour, two hours, three hours passed away, without any decisive result. ”

“ It is true that the intensity of weight will diminish just in proportion to the depth to which we go. You know very well that it is on the surface of the earth that its action is most powerfully felt, while on the contrary, in the very center of the earth bodies cease to have any weight at all."
"I know that is the case, but as we progress will not the atmosphere finally assume the density of water?"
"I know it; when placed under the pressure of seven hundred and ten atmospheres," cried my uncle with imperturbable gravity. ”

“ To my right were glaciers upon glaciers, and multiplied peaks, topped with light clouds of smoke.
The undulation of the infinite numbers of mountains, whose snowy summits make them look as though covered by foam, recalled to my memory the surface of a storm-beaten ocean. If I looked towards the west, the ocean lay before me in all its majestic grandeur, a continuation as it were, of these fleecy hill-tops. It was impossible for the eye to distinguish where the land ended and the sea began. ”

“ Hans shut his eyes with an air of indifference, and my uncle looked on without clearly understanding. "Whatever this mountain may be," he said, at last, "I must confess it is rather warm. The explosions do not leave off, and I do not think it is worth while to have left the interior of a volcano and remain here to receive a huge piece of rock upon one's head. Let us carefully descend the mountain and discover the real state of the case. To confess the truth, I am dying of hunger and thirst." ”

“ The sides of the gallery assumed a crystallized tint, with a somber hue; white mica began to commingle more freely with feldspar and quartz, to form what may be called the true rock—the stone which is hard above all, that supports, without being crushed, the four stories of the earth's soil. We were walled in by an immense prison of granite!
It was now eight o'clock, and still there was no sign of water. The sufferings I endured were horrible. My uncle now kept at the head of our little column. Nothing could induce him to stop. ”

“ So many learned men have been here before me."
"Yes, yes, but there is still much to be done," cried M. Fridriksson.
"You think so," said my uncle, his eyes twinkling with hidden satisfaction.
"Yes, you have no idea how many unknown mountains, glaciers and volcanoes there are which remain to be studied. Without moving from where we sit, I can show you one. Yonder on the edge of the horizon, you see Sneffels."
"Oh yes, Sneffels," said my uncle.
"One of the most curious volcanoes in existence, the crater of which has been rarely visited." ”