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Journey to the Center of the Earth
Chapter 43. DAYLIGHT AT LAST
When I opened my eyes I felt the guide's hand clutching my belt.
With his other hand he supported my uncle.
I wasn't badly wounded, but I was bruised all over in a most remarkable way.
After a moment I looked around and found that I was lying on the slope of a mountain.
I wasn't two yards from a yawning gulf, into which I'd have fallen if I had made the slightest false step.
Hans had saved me from death while I lay senseless on the flanks of the crater.
"Where are we?" dreamily asked my uncle, who really seemed disgusted at having returned to earth.
The eider-down hunter simply shrugged his shoulders to show complete ignorance.
"In Iceland?" I said, not sure but asking a question.
"Nej," said Hans.
"How do you mean?" asked the Professor, "no, what are your reasons?"
"Hans is wrong," I said, rising.
After all the many surprises of this journey, an even stranger one was waiting for us.
I expected to see a cone covered with snow and wide glaciers in the dry deserts of the far north.
I pictured it under the full rays of a polar sky beyond the highest latitudes.
But against all our expectations, my uncle, the Icelander.
And I were thrown onto the slope of a mountain burned by the rays of a sun which was literally baking us.
I couldn't believe my eyes, but the real heat I felt left me no doubt.
We came out of the crater half naked.
The bright star we had seen nothing of for two months gave light and heat we could well have done without.
When our eyes grew used to the light we had been missing, I used them to correct my imagination.
Whatever happened, we should have been at Spitsbergen, and I wasn't in a mood to accept anything but absolute proof.
After some delay, the Professor spoke, clearing his throat and looking round the group.
"Hem!" he said in a hesitant way, "it really doesn't look like Iceland."
"But suppose it were the island of Jan Mayen?" I tried to say.
"Not at all, my boy. This isn't one of the northern volcanoes, with its granite hills and crown of snow."
"Nevertheless, "
"Look, look, my boy," said the Professor, as dogmatic as ever.
Right above our heads, high up, the crater of a volcano opened.
Every quarter of an hour, with a loud explosion, a tall jet of flame mixed with pumice, cinders, and lava shot out.
I could feel the mountain's convulsions, which breathed like a huge whale, throwing up fire and air through its large vents.
Below, flowing down a steep slope, the eruptive stream spread to a depth that gave the volcano no more than three hundred fathoms.
Its base disappeared into a perfect forest of green trees, among which I saw olives, fig trees, and vines heavy with rich grapes.
This certainly wasn't the usual look of the arctic regions.
There could be no doubt about that.
When the eye had had enough of this green expanse, it fell on the waters of a lovely sea or beautiful lake.
This water made the enchanted land an island not many leagues across.
On the sunrise side was a small port with houses, and nearby boats of peculiar build floated on azure waves.
Beyond, groups of islands rose above the water, so many and so close together that they looked like a vast beehive.
Towards the setting sun, distant shores could be seen on the edge of the horizon.
Some looked like blue mountains in pleasing shapes, farther away I saw a tall cone with dark clouds hanging over its summit.
To the north, a huge stretch of water sparkled under the sun, sometimes showing the top of a mast or a rounded sail filled with wind.
The unexpected nature of the scene made its beauty a hundred times more striking.
"Where can we be?" I asked in a low and solemn voice.
Hans shut his eyes with an air of indifference, and my uncle looked on without clearly understanding.
"Whatever this mountain is,"
He said at last, "I must admit it's rather warm."
He said, "The explosions do not stop, and I don't think it's worth staying exposed here."
"He added, "Let's carefully go down the mountain and find out the real situation, to be honest, I'm dying of hunger and thirst.
Clearly the Professor was no longer very thoughtful.
For my part, forgetting my needs and ignoring my tiredness and pain, I'd have liked to stay several hours longer.
But I had to follow my companions.
The volcano's slope was very steep and slippery, we slid over piles of ash, avoiding streams of hot lava that moved like fiery snakes.
Still, as we moved, I spoke very fast because my imagination was too full not to burst into words.
"We're in Asia!"
I cried, "We're on the coast of India, in the great Malay islands, in the center of Oceania."
"We have crossed half the globe to come out at the antipodes of Europe!" I cried.
"But the compass!" my uncle cried, "explain that to me!"
"Yes, the compass," I said with hesitation.
"I admit that's a problem. According to it, we had always been going northward."
"Then it lied."
"Hem, to say it lied is a rather strong word," I answered.
"Then we're at the North Pole, "
"The Pole, no, well, well I give up," I replied.
The plain truth was there was no possible explanation, I couldn't make sense of it.
All the while we were getting closer to this lovely green land, and hunger and thirst tormented me terribly.
After two hours' march, a beautiful country opened before us, covered with olives, pomegranates, and vines that belonged to nobody.
In our state of need, we weren't in a mood to be too picky.
What joy it was to press these delicious fruits to our lips and to bite into grapes and pomegranates fresh from the vine.
Not far off, by mossy grass under the shade of trees, I found a spring where we washed our faces, hands, and feet.
While we were all enjoying these new pleasures, a little child appeared between two tufted olive trees.
"Ah," I cried, "an inhabitant of this happy country."
The little boy was poorly dressed, weak, and in pain, and looked terribly frightened by our appearance.
Half-naked, with tangled, matted, ragged beards, we looked ill-favored, unless this was a lawless land we had no reason to frighten the people.
Just as the boy was about to run away, Hans chased him and brought him back despite his cries and kicks.
My uncle tried to look gentle and then spoke in German.
"What's the name of this mountain, my friend?"
The child didn't answer, only stared at us, trembling and gripping his thin cloak.
"Good," said my uncle with a very firm air, "we aren't in Germany."
He then asked the same question in English, a language he knew well.
The child shook his head and didn't answer, I began to be fairly puzzled.
"Is he mute?" cried the Professor, who was rather proud of his many languages, and he asked the same question in French.
The boy just stared at him for a long moment, wide-eyed and silent.
"I must try him in Italian," said my uncle with a shrug.
"Dove noi siamo?"
"Yes, tell me where we're?" I added impatiently and eagerly.
Again the boy stayed silent, only staring at us with wide frightened eyes.
"My fine fellow, will you or will you not speak?" cried my uncle, who began to get angry.
He shook him and spoke another Italian dialect.
"Come si noma questa isola?" "What's the name of this island?"
"Stromboli," answered the rickety little shepherd, dashing away from Hans and disappearing in the olive groves.
We thought little enough about him and quickly went on our merry way.
Stromboli! What effect those few words had on the imagination!
We were in the center of the Mediterranean, among the eastern archipelago of myth, in Strongylos, where AEolus kept wind and storm chained.
And those blue mountains rising toward the rising sun were the mountains of Calabria.
And that mighty volcano on the southern horizon was Etna, the fierce and famous Etna!
"Stromboli! Stromboli!" I repeated to myself.
My uncle matched my gestures and words like a true accompanist.
We were singing together like an old chorus.
Ah, what a journey, what a marvelous and extraordinary journey!
Here we had entered the earth by one volcano and come out by another.
This other one was more than twelve hundred leagues from Sneffels from that bleak country of Iceland at the world's edge.
The amazing changes of this expedition had carried us to one of the most harmonious and beautiful lands on earth.
We had left the region of eternal snows for one of endless green.
We had also left the gray fog above us to return to Sicily's blue sky.
After a delightful meal of fruit and fresh water, we resumed our journey to reach the port of Stromboli.
To say how we had reached the island would hardly have been wise.
The Italians' superstition would have been active, and we'd have been called demons vomited from the infernal regions.
We had to pretend to be humble and unlucky shipwrecked travelers.
It was less dramatic and romantic, but it was certainly safer.
As we walked, I could hear my worthy uncle muttering to himself,
"But the compass. The compass definitely pointed north. That's a fact I can't explain in any way."
"Well, the fact is," I said with a look of scorn, "we mustn't explain anything. That'll be much easier."
"I'd like to see a professor of the Johanneum Institution who can't explain a cosmic phenomenon, that would indeed be strange."
Saying this, my uncle, half-naked, his leather purse tied around his waist and his spectacles on his nose, became once more the formidable Professor of Mineralogy.
An hour after leaving the olive wood, we reached the fort of San Vicenza, where Hans asked for the pay for his thirteenth week of service.
My uncle paid him, giving him very many warm handshakes.
At that moment, if he didn't fully share our natural emotion, he let his feelings show enough to produce an unusual expression from him.
With the tips of two fingers he gently pressed our hands and smiled.