We were compelled every quarter of an hour or thereabouts to sit down in order to rest our legs.Our calves ached.We then seated ourselves on some projecting rock with our legs hanging over,and gossiped while we ate a mouthful-drinking still from the pleasantly warm running stream which had not deserted us.
It is scarcely necessary to say that in this curiously shaped fissure the Hansbach had become a cascade to the detriment of its size.It was still,however,sufficient,and more,for our wants.
Besides we knew that,as soon as the declivity ceased to be so abrupt,the stream must resume its peaceful course.At this moment it reminded me of my uncle,his impatience and rage,while when it flowed more peacefully,I pictured to myself the placidity of the Icelandic guide.
During the whole of two days,the sixth and seventh of July,we followed the extraordinary spiral staircase of the fissure,penetrating two leagues farther into the crust of the earth,which put us five leagues below the level of the sea.On the eighth,however,at twelve o'clock in the day,the fissure suddenly assumed a much more gentle slope still trending in a southeast direction.
The road now became comparatively easy,and at the same time dreadfully monotonous.It would have been difficult for matters to have turned out otherwise.Our peculiar journey had no chance of being diversified by landscape and scenery.At all events,such was my idea.
At length,on Wednesday the fifteenth,we were actually seven leagues (twenty-one miles)below the surface of the earth,and fifty leagues distant from the mountain of Sneffels.Though,if the truth be told,we were very tired,our health had resisted all suffering,and was in a most satisfactory state.Our traveler's box of medicaments had not even been opened.
My uncle was careful to note every hour the indications of the compass,of the manometer,and of the thermometer,all which he afterwards published in his elaborate philosophical and scientific account of our remarkable voyage.He was therefore able to give an exact relation of the situation.When,therefore,he informed me that we were fifty leagues in a horizontal direction distant from our starting point,I could not suppress a loud exclamation.
"What is the matter now?"cried my uncle.
"Nothing very important,only an idea has entered my head,"was my reply.
"Well,out with it,My boy."
"It is my opinion that if your calculations are correct we are no longer under Iceland.""Do you think so?"
"We can very easily find out,"I replied,pulling out a map and compasses.
"You see,"I said,after careful measurement,"that I am not mistaken.We are far beyond Cape Portland;and those fifty leagues to the southeast will take us into the open sea.""Under the open sea,"cried my uncle,rubbing his hands with a delighted air.
"Yes,"I cried,"no doubt old Ocean flows over our heads!""Well,my dear boy,what can be more natural!Do you not know that in the neighborhood of Newcastle there are coal mines which have been worked far out under the sea?"Now my worthy uncle,the Professor,no doubt regarded this discovery as a very simple fact,but to me the idea was by no means a pleasant one.And yet when one came to think the matter over seriously,what mattered it whether the plains and mountains of Iceland were suspended over our devoted heads,or the mighty billows of the Atlantic Ocean?
The whole question rested on the solidity of the granite roof above us.However,I soon got used to the ideal for the passage now level,now running down,and still always to the southeast,kept going deeper and deeper into the profound abysses of Mother Earth.
Three days later,on the eighteenth day of July,on a Saturday,we reached a kind of vast grotto.My uncle here paid Hans his usual six-dollars,and it was decided that the next day should be a day of rest.