A Journey to the Centre of the Earth
J >> Jules Verne >> A Journey to the Centre of the EarthA JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH
By Jules Verne
[Redactor's Note: Journey to the Centre of the Earth is number
V002 in the Taves and Michaluk numbering of the works of Jules
Verne. First published in England by Griffith and Farran, 1871,
this edition is not a translation at all but a complete re-write
of the novel, with portions added and omitted, and names changed.
The most reprinted version, it is entered into Project Gutenberg
for reference purposes only. A better translation is _A Journey
into the Interior of the Earth_ translated by Rev. F. A. Malleson,
also available on Project Gutenberg.]
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1 MY UNCLE MAKES A GREAT DISCOVERY
CHAPTER 2 THE MYSTERIOUS PARCHMENT
CHAPTER 3 AN ASTOUNDING DISCOVERY
CHAPTER 4 WE START ON THE JOURNEY
CHAPTER 5 FIRST LESSONS IN CLIMBING
CHAPTER 6 OUR VOYAGE TO ICELAND
CHAPTER 7 CONVERSATION AND DISCOVERY
CHAPTER 8 THE EIDER-DOWN HUNTER--OFF AT LAST
CHAPTER 9 OUR START--WE MEET WITH ADVENTURES BY THE WAY
CHAPTER 10 TRAVELING IN ICELAND
CHAPTER 11 WE REACH MOUNT SNEFFELS--THE "REYKIR"
CHAPTER 12 THE ASCENT OF MOUNT SNEFFELS
CHAPTER 13 THE SHADOW OF SCARTARIS
CHAPTER 14 THE REAL JOURNEY COMMENCES
CHAPTER 15 WE CONTINUE OUR DESCENT
CHAPTER 16 THE EASTERN TUNNEL
CHAPTER 17 DEEPER AND DEEPER--THE COAL MINE
CHAPTER 18 THE WRONG ROAD!
CHAPTER 19 THE WESTERN GALLERY--A NEW ROUTE
CHAPTER 20 WATER, WHERE IS IT? A BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT
CHAPTER 21 UNDER THE OCEAN
CHAPTER 22 SUNDAY BELOW GROUND
CHAPTER 23 ALONE
CHAPTER 24 LOST!
CHAPTER 25 THE WHISPERING GALLERY
CHAPTER 26 A RAPID RECOVERY
CHAPTER 27 THE CENTRAL SEA
CHAPTER 28 LAUNCHING THE RAFT
CHAPTER 29 ON THE WATERS--A RAFT VOYAGE
CHAPTER 30 TERRIFIC SAURIAN COMBAT
CHAPTER 31 THE SEA MONSTER
CHAPTER 32 THE BATTLE OF THE ELEMENTS
CHAPTER 33 OUR ROUTE REVERSED
CHAPTER 34 A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY
CHAPTER 35 DISCOVERY UPON DISCOVERY
CHAPTER 36 WHAT IS IT?
CHAPTER 37 THE MYSTERIOUS DAGGER
CHAPTER 38 NO OUTLET--BLASTING THE ROCK
CHAPTER 39 THE EXPLOSION AND ITS RESULTS
CHAPTER 40 THE APE GIGANS
CHAPTER 41 HUNGER
CHAPTER 42 THE VOLCANIC SHAFT
CHAPTER 43 DAYLIGHT AT LAST
CHAPTER 44 THE JOURNEY ENDED
CHAPTER 1
MY UNCLE MAKES A GREAT DISCOVERY
Looking back to all that has occurred to me since that eventful day, I
am scarcely able to believe in the reality of my adventures. They were
truly so wonderful that even now I am bewildered when I think of them.
My uncle was a German, having married my mother's sister, an
Englishwoman. Being very much attached to his fatherless nephew, he
invited me to study under him in his home in the fatherland. This home
was in a large town, and my uncle a professor of philosophy, chemistry,
geology, mineralogy, and many other ologies.
One day, after passing some hours in the laboratory--my uncle being
absent at the time--I suddenly felt the necessity of renovating the
tissues--i.e., I was hungry, and was about to rouse up our old French
cook, when my uncle, Professor Von Hardwigg, suddenly opened the street
door, and came rushing upstairs.
Now Professor Hardwigg, my worthy uncle, is by no means a bad sort of
man; he is, however, choleric and original. To bear with him means to
obey; and scarcely had his heavy feet resounded within our joint
domicile than he shouted for me to attend upon him.
"Harry--Harry--Harry--"
I hastened to obey, but before I could reach his room, jumping three
steps at a time, he was stamping his right foot upon the landing.
"Harry!" he cried, in a frantic tone, "are you coming up?"
Now to tell the truth, at that moment I was far more interested in the
question as to what was to constitute our dinner than in any problem of
science; to me soup was more interesting than soda, an omelette more
tempting than arithmetic, and an artichoke of ten times more value than
any amount of asbestos.
But my uncle was not a man to be kept waiting; so adjourning therefore
all minor questions, I presented myself before him.
He was a very learned man. Now most persons in this category supply
themselves with information, as peddlers do with goods, for the benefit
of others, and lay up stores in order to diffuse them abroad for the
benefit of society in general. Not so my excellent uncle, Professor
Hardwigg; he studied, he consumed the midnight oil, he pored over heavy
tomes, and digested huge quartos and folios in order to keep the
knowledge acquired to himself.
There was a reason, and it may be regarded as a good one, why my uncle
objected to display his learning more than was absolutely necessary: he
stammered; and when intent upon explaining the phenomena of the heavens,
was apt to find himself at fault, and allude in such a vague way to sun,
moon, and stars that few were able to comprehend his meaning. To tell
the honest truth, when the right word would not come, it was generally
replaced by a very powerful adjective.
In connection with the sciences there are many almost unpronounceable
names--names very much resembling those of Welsh villages; and my uncle
being very fond of using them, his habit of stammering was not thereby
improved. In fact, there were periods in his discourse when he would
finally give up and swallow his discomfiture--in a glass of water.
As I said, my uncle, Professor Hardwigg, was a very learned man; and I
now add a most kind relative. I was bound to him by the double ties of
affection and interest. I took deep interest in all his doings, and
hoped some day to be almost as learned myself. It was a rare thing for
me to be absent from his lectures. Like him, I preferred mineralogy to
all the other sciences. My anxiety was to gain real knowledge of the
earth. Geology and mineralogy were to us the sole objects of life, and
in connection with these studies many a fair specimen of stone, chalk,
or metal did we break with our hammers.
Steel rods, loadstones, glass pipes, and bottles of various acids were
oftener before us than our meals. My uncle Hardwigg was once known to
classify six hundred different geological specimens by their weight,
hardness, fusibility, sound, taste, and smell.
He corresponded with all the great, learned, and scientific men of the
age. I was, therefore, in constant communication with, at all events the
letters of, Sir Humphry Davy, Captain Franklin, and other great men.
But before I state the subject on which my uncle wished to confer with
me, I must say a word about his personal appearance. Alas! my readers
will see a very different portrait of him at a future time, after he has
gone through the fearful adventures yet to be related.
My uncle was fifty years old; tall, thin, and wiry. Large spectacles
hid, to a certain extent, his vast, round, and goggle eyes, while his
nose was irreverently compared to a thin file. So much indeed did it
resemble that useful article, that a compass was said in his presence to
have made considerable N (Nasal) deviation.
The truth being told, however, the only article really attracted to my
uncle's nose was tobacco.
Another peculiarity of his was, that he always stepped a yard at a time,
clenched his fists as if he were going to hit you, and was, when in one
of his peculiar humors, very far from a pleasant companion.
It is further necessary to observe that he lived in a very nice house,
in that very nice street, the Konigstrasse at Hamburg. Though lying in
the centre of a town, it was perfectly rural in its aspect--half wood,
half bricks, with old-fashioned gables--one of the few old houses spared
by the great fire of 1842.
When I say a nice house, I mean a handsome house--old, tottering, and
not exactly comfortable to English notions: a house a little off the
perpendicular and inclined to fall into the neighboring canal; exactly
the house for a wandering artist to depict; all the more that you could
scarcely see it for ivy and a magnificent old tree which grew over the
door.
My uncle was rich; his house was his own property, while he had a
considerable private income. To my notion the best part of his
possessions was his god-daughter, Gretchen. And the old cook, the young
lady, the Professor and I were the sole inhabitants.
I loved mineralogy, I loved geology. To me there was nothing like
pebbles--and if my uncle had been in a little less of a fury, we should
have been the happiest of families. To prove the excellent Hardwigg's
impatience, I solemnly declare that when the flowers in the drawing-room
pots began to grow, he rose every morning at four o'clock to make them
grow quicker by pulling the leaves!
Having described my uncle, I will now give an account of our interview.
He received me in his study; a perfect museum, containing every natural
curiosity that can well be imagined--minerals, however, predominating.
Every one was familiar to me, having been catalogued by my own hand. My
uncle, apparently oblivious of the fact that he had summoned me to his
presence, was absorbed in a book. He was particularly fond of early
editions, tall copies, and unique works.
"Wonderful!" he cried, tapping his forehead. "Wonderful--wonderful!"
It was one of those yellow-leaved volumes now rarely found on stalls,
and to me it appeared to possess but little value. My uncle, however,
was in raptures.
He admired its binding, the clearness of its characters, the ease with
which it opened in his hand, and repeated aloud, half a dozen times,
that it was very, very old.
To my fancy he was making a great fuss about nothing, but it was not my
province to say so. On the contrary, I professed considerable interest
in the subject, and asked him what it was about.
"It is the Heims-Kringla of Snorre Tarleson," he said, "the celebrated
Icelandic author of the twelfth century--it is a true and correct
account of the Norwegian princes who reigned in Iceland."
My next question related to the language in which it was written. I
hoped at all events it was translated into German. My uncle was
indignant at the very thought, and declared he wouldn't give a penny for
a translation. His delight was to have found the original work in the
Icelandic tongue, which he declared to be one of the most magnificent
and yet simple idioms in the world--while at the same time its
grammatical combinations were the most varied known to students.
"About as easy as German?" was my insidious remark.
My uncle shrugged his shoulders.
"The letters at all events," I said, "are rather difficult of
comprehension."
"It is a Runic manuscript, the language of the original population of
Iceland, invented by Odin himself," cried my uncle, angry at my
ignorance.
I was about to venture upon some misplaced joke on the subject, when a
small scrap of parchment fell out of the leaves. Like a hungry man
snatching at a morsel of bread the Professor seized it. It was about
five inches by three and was scrawled over in the most extraordinary
fashion.
The lines shown here are an exact facsimile of what was written on the
venerable piece of parchment--and have wonderful importance, as they
induced my uncle to undertake the most wonderful series of adventures
which ever fell to the lot of human beings.
My uncle looked keenly at the document for some moments and then
declared that it was Runic. The letters were similar to those in the
book, but then what did they mean? This was exactly what I wanted to
know.
Now as I had a strong conviction that the Runic alphabet and dialect
were simply an invention to mystify poor human nature, I was delighted
to find that my uncle knew as much about the matter as I did--which was
nothing. At all events the tremulous motion of his fingers made me think
so.
"And yet," he muttered to himself, "it is old Icelandic, I am sure of
it."
And my uncle ought to have known, for he was a perfect polyglot
dictionary in himself. He did not pretend, like a certain learned
pundit, to speak the two thousand languages and four thousand idioms
made use of in different parts of the globe, but he did know all the
more important ones.
It is a matter of great doubt to me now, to what violent measures my
uncle's impetuosity might have led him, had not the clock struck two,
and our old French cook called out to let us know that dinner was on the
table.
"Bother the dinner!" cried my uncle.
But as I was hungry, I sallied forth to the dining room, where I took up
my usual quarters. Out of politeness I waited three minutes, but no sign
of my uncle, the Professor. I was surprised. He was not usually so blind
to the pleasure of a good dinner. It was the acme of German
luxury--parsley soup, a ham omelette with sorrel trimmings, an oyster of
veal stewed with prunes, delicious fruit, and sparkling Moselle. For the
sake of poring over this musty old piece of parchment, my uncle forbore
to share our meal. To satisfy my conscience, I ate for both.
The old cook and housekeeper was nearly out of her mind. After taking so
much trouble, to find her master not appear at dinner was to her a sad
disappointment--which, as she occasionally watched the havoc I was
making on the viands, became also alarm. If my uncle were to come to
table after all?
Suddenly, just as I had consumed the last apple and drunk the last glass
of wine, a terrible voice was heard at no great distance. It was my
uncle roaring for me to come to him. I made very nearly one leap of
it--so loud, so fierce was his tone.
CHAPTER 2
THE MYSTERIOUS PARCHMENT
[Illustration: Runic Glyphs]
"I Declare," cried my uncle, striking the table fiercely with his fist,
"I declare to you it is Runic--and contains some wonderful secret, which
I must get at, at any price."
I was about to reply when he stopped me.
"Sit down," he said, quite fiercely, "and write to my dictation."
I obeyed.
"I will substitute," he said, "a letter of our alphabet for that of the
Runic: we will then see what that will produce. Now, begin and make no
mistakes."
The dictation commenced with the following incomprehensible result:
mm.rnlls esruel seecJde
sgtssmf unteief niedrke
kt,samn atrateS Saodrrn
emtnaeI nuaect rrilSa
Atvaar .nscrc ieaabs
ccdrmi eeutul frantu
dt,iac oseibo KediiY
Scarcely giving me time to finish, my uncle snatched the document from
my hands and examined it with the most rapt and deep attention.
"I should like to know what it means," he said, after a long period.
I certainly could not tell him, nor did he expect me to--his
conversation being uniformly answered by himself.
"I declare it puts me in mind of a cryptograph," he cried, "unless,
indeed, the letters have been written without any real meaning; and yet
why take so much trouble? Who knows but I may be on the verge of some
great discovery?"
My candid opinion was that it was all rubbish! But this opinion I kept
carefully to myself, as my uncle's choler was not pleasant to bear. All
this time he was comparing the book with the parchment.
"The manuscript volume and the smaller document are written in different
hands," he said, "the cryptograph is of much later date than the book;
there is an undoubted proof of the correctness of my surmise. [An
irrefragable proof I took it to be.] The first letter is a double M,
which was only added to the Icelandic language in the twelfth
century--this makes the parchment two hundred years posterior to the
volume."
The circumstances appeared very probable and very logical, but it was
all surmise to me.
"To me it appears probable that this sentence was written by some owner
of the book. Now who was the owner, is the next important question.
Perhaps by great good luck it may be written somewhere in the volume."
With these words Professor Hardwigg took off his spectacles, and, taking
a powerful magnifying glass, examined the book carefully.
On the fly leaf was what appeared to be a blot of ink, but on
examination proved to be a line of writing almost effaced by time. This
was what he sought; and, after some considerable time, he made out these
letters:
[Illustration: Runic Glyphs]
"Arne Saknussemm!" he cried in a joyous and triumphant tone, "that is
not only an Icelandic name, but of a learned professor of the sixteenth
century, a celebrated alchemist."
I bowed as a sign of respect.
"These alchemists," he continued, "Avicenna, Bacon, Lully, Paracelsus,
were the true, the only learned men of the day. They made surprising
discoveries. May not this Saknussemm, nephew mine, have hidden on this
bit of parchment some astounding invention? I believe the cryptograph to
have a profound meaning--which I must make out."
My uncle walked about the room in a state of excitement almost
impossible to describe.
"It may be so, sir," I timidly observed, "but why conceal it from
posterity, if it be a useful, a worthy discovery?"
"Why--how should I know? Did not Galileo make a secret of his
discoveries in connection with Saturn? But we shall see. Until I
discover the meaning of this sentence I will neither eat nor sleep."
"My dear uncle--" I began.
"Nor you neither," he added.
It was lucky I had taken double allowance that day.
"In the first place," he continued, "there must be a clue to the
meaning. If we could find that, the rest would be easy enough."
I began seriously to reflect. The prospect of going without food and
sleep was not a promising one, so I determined to do my best to solve
the mystery. My uncle, meanwhile, went on with his soliloquy.
"The way to discover it is easy enough. In this document there are one
hundred and thirty-two letters, giving seventy-nine consonants to
fifty-three vowels. This is about the proportion found in most southern
languages, the idioms of the north being much more rich in consonants.
We may confidently predict, therefore, that we have to deal with a
southern dialect."
Nothing could be more logical.
"Now," said Professor Hardwigg, "to trace the particular language."
"As Shakespeare says, 'that is the question,"' was my rather satirical
reply.
"This man Saknussemm," he continued, "was a very learned man: now as he
did not write in the language of his birthplace, he probably, like most
learned men of the sixteenth century, wrote in Latin. If, however, I
prove wrong in this guess, we must try Spanish, French, Italian, Greek,
and even Hebrew. My own opinion, though, is decidedly in favor of
Latin."
This proposition startled me. Latin was my favorite study, and it seemed
sacrilege to believe this gibberish to belong to the country of Virgil.
"Barbarous Latin, in all probability," continued my uncle, "but still
Latin."
"Very probably," I replied, not to contradict him.
"Let us see into the matter," continued my uncle; "here you see we have
a series of one hundred and thirty-two letters, apparently thrown
pell-mell upon paper, without method or organization. There are words
which are composed wholly of consonants, such as mm.rnlls, others
which are nearly all vowels, the fifth, for instance, which is unteief,
and one of the last oseibo. This appears an extraordinary combination.
Probably we shall find that the phrase is arranged according to some
mathematical plan. No doubt a certain sentence has been written out and
then jumbled up--some plan to which some figure is the clue. Now, Harry,
to show your English wit--what is that figure?"
I could give him no hint. My thoughts were indeed far away. While he was
speaking I had caught sight of the portrait of my cousin Gretchen, and
was wondering when she would return.
We were affianced, and loved one another very sincerely. But my uncle,
who never thought even of such sublunary matters, knew nothing of this.
Without noticing my abstraction, the Professor began reading the
puzzling cryptograph all sorts of ways, according to some theory of his
own. Presently, rousing my wandering attention, he dictated one precious
attempt to me.
I mildly handed it over to him. It read as follows:
mmessunkaSenrA.icefdoK.segnittamurtn
ecertserrette,rotaivsadua,ednecsedsadne
lacartniiilrJsiratracSarbmutabiledmek
meretarcsilucoYsleffenSnI.
I could scarcely keep from laughing, while my uncle, on the contrary,
got in a towering passion, struck the table with his fist, darted out of
the room, out of the house, and then taking to his heels was presently
lost to sight.
CHAPTER 3
AN ASTOUNDING DISCOVERY
"What is the matter?" cried the cook, entering the room; "when will
master have his dinner?"
"Never."
"And, his supper?"
"I don't know. He says he will eat no more, neither shall I. My uncle
has determined to fast and make me fast until he makes out this
abominable inscription," I replied.
"You will be starved to death," she said.
I was very much of the same opinion, but not liking to say so, sent her
away, and began some of my usual work of classification. But try as I
might, nothing could keep me from thinking alternately of the stupid
manuscript and of the pretty Gretchen.
Several times I thought of going out, but my uncle would have been angry
at my absence. At the end of an hour, my allotted task was done. How to
pass the time? I began by lighting my pipe. Like all other students, I
delighted in tobacco; and, seating myself in the great armchair, I began
to think.
Where was my uncle? I could easily imagine him tearing along some
solitary road, gesticulating, talking to himself, cutting the air with
his cane, and still thinking of the absurd bit of hieroglyphics. Would
he hit upon some clue? Would he come home in better humor? While these
thoughts were passing through my brain, I mechanically took up the
execrable puzzle and tried every imaginable way of grouping the letters.
I put them together by twos, by threes, fours, and fives--in vain.
Nothing intelligible came out, except that the fourteenth, fifteenth,
and sixteenth made ice in English; the eighty-fourth, eighty-fifth,
and eighty-sixth, the word sir; then at last I seemed to find the
Latin words rota, mutabile, ira, nec, atra.
"Ha! there seems to be some truth in my uncle's notion," thought I.
Then again I seemed to find the word luco, which means sacred wood.
Then in the third line I appeared to make out labiled, a perfect
Hebrew word, and at the last the syllables mere, are, mer, which were
French.
It was enough to drive one mad. Four different idioms in this absurd
phrase. What connection could there be between ice, sir, anger, cruel,
sacred wood, changing, mother, are, and sea? The first and the last
might, in a sentence connected with Iceland, mean sea of ice. But what
of the rest of this monstrous cryptograph?
I was, in fact, fighting against an insurmountable difficulty; my brain
was almost on fire; my eyes were strained with staring at the parchment;
the whole absurd collection of letters appeared to dance before my
vision in a number of black little groups. My mind was possessed with
temporary hallucination--I was stifling. I wanted air. Mechanically I
fanned myself with the document, of which now I saw the back and then
the front.
Imagine my surprise when glancing at the back of the wearisome puzzle,
the ink having gone through, I clearly made out Latin words, and among
others craterem and terrestre.
I had discovered the secret!
It came upon me like a flash of lightning. I had got the clue. All you
had to do to understand the document was to read it backwards. All the
ingenious ideas of the Professor were realized; he had dictated it
rightly to me; by a mere accident I had discovered what he so much
desired.
My delight, my emotion may be imagined, my eyes were dazzled and I
trembled so that at first I could make nothing of it. One look, however,
would tell me all I wished to know.
"Let me read," I said to myself, after drawing a long breath.
I spread it before me on the table, I passed my finger over each letter,
I spelled it through; in my excitement I read it out.
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. But no; such
folly and madness cannot be allowed."
I was almost beside myself with rage and fury.
"My worthy uncle is already nearly mad," I cried aloud. "This would
finish him. By some accident he may make the discovery; in which case,
we are both lost. Perish the fearful secret--let the flames forever bury
it in oblivion."
I snatched up book and parchment, and was about to cast them into the
fire, when the door opened and my uncle entered.
I had scarcely time to put down the wretched documents before my uncle
was by my side. He was profoundly absorbed. His thoughts were evidently
bent on the terrible parchment. Some new combination had probably struck
him while taking his walk.