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Journey to the Center of the Earth
Chapter 11. WE REACH MOUNT SNEFFELS. THE "REYKIR"
Stapi is a town of thirty huts built on a large plain of lava, exposed to the sun's rays reflected from the volcano.
It stretches its humble houses along the end of a little fjord, surrounded by a basaltic wall of a very singular character.
Basalt is a brown igneous rock, it takes regular forms that surprise by their strange appearance.
Here we found Nature working geometrically, almost in a human way, as if she had used a plumb line, a compass and a ruler.
Elsewhere she piles huge masses without order or connection, here we see truncated cones and imperfect pyramids with odd lines.
Here, as if wanting to teach order, and before the architects of early ages, she has built a strict kind of architecture.
This architecture neither the splendors of Babylon nor the wonders of Greece ever surpassed.
I had often heard of the Giant's Causeway in Ireland and of Fingal's Cave in the Hebrides.
But the grand sight of a real basaltic formation had not yet come before my eyes.
This at Stapi gave us an idea of one in all its wonderful beauty and grace.
The wall of the fjord, like nearly the whole peninsula, consisted of a series of vertical columns about thirty feet high.
These upright pillars of stone, of fine proportions, supported an archivault of horizontal columns which formed a kind of half-vaulted roof above the sea.
At certain intervals below this natural basin the eye was surprised by oval openings through which outward waves came in volleys of foam.
Some banks of basalt, torn from their fastenings by the fury of the waves, lay scattered on the ground like the ruins of an ancient temple.
They were ruins forever young, over which the storms of ages passed without any clear effect.
This was the last stage of our journey.
Hans had brought us along with fidelity and intelligence.
And I began to feel a little more comfortable when I thought that he was to accompany us further on our way.
We stopped before the house of the Rector, a small and uncomfortable cabin no neater than his neighbors'.
I saw a man shoeing a horse.
He held a hammer in his hand and wore a leather apron tied round his waist.
"Be happy," said the eider-down hunter, using his national salutation in his own language.
"God dag, good day!" replied the former in excellent Danish.
"Kyrkoherde," cried Hans, turning and introducing him to my uncle.
"The Rector," repeated the worthy Professor.
"It appears, my dear Harry, that this worthy man is the Rector, and isn't above doing his own work."
While he spoke the guide told the Kyrkoherde our real situation.
The good man, stopping his work, gave a kind of halloo, upon which a tall woman, almost a giantess, came out of the hut.
She was at least six feet high, which in that region is something remarkable.
My first feeling was horror, I thought she had come to give us the Icelandic kiss.
I had, however, nothing to fear, for she didn't seem at all ready to receive us into her house.
The room for strangers seemed to me by far the worst in the presbytery.
It was narrow, dirty and offensive, there was, however, no choice.
The Rector had no idea of showing the usual cordial and old-fashioned hospitality, Far from it.
Before the day was over, I found we had to do with a blacksmith, a fisherman, a hunter, a carpenter, anything but a clergyman.
I must say, in his favor, that we had caught him on a weekday, he probably looked better on Sunday.
These poor priests get a ridiculously small salary from the Danish Government and collect one quarter of the tithe of their parish.
This is not more than sixty marks current, about L3 10s. sterling.
Hence the need to work to live.
In truth, we soon found that our host didn't count civility among his chief virtues.
My uncle soon learned what kind of man he was dealing with.
Instead of a worthy and learned scholar, he found a dull ill-mannered peasant.
He therefore decided to start on his great expedition as soon as possible.
He didn't care about fatigue, and planned to spend a few days in the mountains.
The preparations for our departure were made the very next day after our arrival at Stapi.
Hans now hired three Icelanders to take the place of the horses which could no longer carry our luggage.
When, however, these islanders had reached the bottom of the crater, they were to go back and leave us to ourselves.
This point was settled before they agreed to start.
On this occasion my uncle trusted Hans and told him he intended to continue his exploration of the volcano to its furthest limits.
Hans listened calmly, and then nodded his head.
To go there, or elsewhere, to bury himself in the earth, or to travel over its summits, was all the same to him.
Amused and busy with travel's incidents, I had begun to forget the inevitable future, but now I was forced to face real situation.
What was to be done? Run away?
But if I had meant to leave Professor Hardwigg to his fate, it should have been at Hamburg and not at the foot of Sneffels.
One idea, above all, began to trouble me, a very terrible idea, enough to shake the nerves of a man less sensitive than myself.
"Let us think," I said to myself.
"We're going to climb the Sneffels mountain".
Good, we're about to visit the very bottom of the crater.
Good still, Others have done it and didn't die from that.
"That, however, isn't the whole matter".
If a road really leads down into the dark underground bowels of Mother Earth, and if this thrice unhappy Saknussemm told the truth,
We'll certainly be lost in the maze of underground galleries of the volcano.
Now we have no proof that Sneffels is really extinct.
What proof have we that an eruption isn't soon to take place?
Because the monster has slept since 1219, does it follow that he'll never wake?
"If he wakes what will become of us?"
These were questions worth thinking about, and I thought on them long and deeply.
I couldn't lie down in search of sleep without dreaming of eruptions.
The more I thought, the more I opposed being turned to dross and ashes.
I couldn't stand it any longer, so I resolved to speak up at once.
So I decided at last to put the whole case to my uncle in the most clever way possible, and as a totally unlikely hypothesis.
I found him, I told him my fears, and then stepped back to let him show his anger at his ease.
"I have been thinking about the matter," he said in the quietest tone in the world.
What did he mean? Was he at last going to listen to reason?
Did he plan to stop his projects?
It was almost too much happiness to be true.
I made no remark, I was only too anxious not to interrupt him, and let him think, After some moments he spoke.
"I have been thinking about the matter," he went on.
Ever since we have been at Stapi I have pondered the grave question you submitted, nothing would be more unwise than to act with imprudence.
"I heartily agree with you, my dear uncle," was my somewhat hopeful reply.
"It's now six hundred years since Sneffels last spoke, but though now silent he may speak again."
"New volcanic eruptions are always preceded by well known signs."
"I have closely examined the people of this region."
"I have carefully studied the soil, and I tell you firmly, my dear Harry, there will be no eruption at present."
As I listened to his definite statements I was stunned and could say nothing.
"I see you doubt my word," said my uncle.
"Follow me."
I obeyed without thinking, following him silently over the rough basalt path.
Leaving the presbytery, the Professor took a road through an opening in the basalt rock which led far from the sea.
We were soon in open country, if we can call such a place open when it's covered with volcanic deposits.
The whole land seemed crushed under enormous stones of trap, of basalt, of granite, of lava, and of many other volcanic substances.
I could see many jets of steam rising in the air.
These white vapors, called in Icelandic "reykir," come from hot springs and show by their force the volcanic activity of the ground.
Now the sight of these seemed to prove my fear.
I was therefore all the more surprised and ashamed when my uncle spoke to me.
"You see all this smoke, Harry, my boy?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, as long as you see them like this, you have nothing to fear from the volcano."
"How can that be?"
"Remember this," continued the Professor.
When an eruption is near, these vents of vapor increase their activity and then disappear altogether during the volcanic eruption.
The elastic fluids, no longer having the needed tension, go back into the crater instead of escaping through the cracks in the earth.
If the steam stays in its normal state and their energy doesn't grow.
Then you may be quite sure there's no fear of any immediate eruption.
If the wind isn't replaced by heavy atmospheric pressure and stillness, that also indicates no immediate eruption.
"But-"
"Enough, my boy. When science has given its word it's only to be heard and obeyed."
I returned to the house quite downcast and disappointed.
My uncle had completely defeated me with his scientific arguments.
Still I had one hope, once we were at the bottom of the crater, it would be impossible to go any deeper.
This would hold true if there was no gallery or tunnel, despite all the learned Saknussemms of the world.
I spent the whole next night with a nightmare on my chest.
After unheard of miseries and torments I found myself in the very depths of the earth.
From there I was suddenly thrown into space in the form of an eruptive rock.
Next day, June 23, Hans calmly waited for us outside the presbytery with his three companions loaded with provisions, tools and instruments.
Two iron shod poles, two guns and two large game bags were for my uncle and myself.
Hans, who never forgot small precautions, had added to our baggage a large skin full of water as extra for our gourds.
This gave us water for eight days.
It was nine o'clock in the morning when we were ready.
The rector and his huge wife or servant, I never knew which, stood at the door to see us off.
They looked as if they were going to give us the usual last kiss of the Icelanders.
To our great surprise, their farewell was a large bill that even charged for use of the pastoral house.
It was truly the most abominable and dirty place I had ever been in.
The worthy couple cheated and robbed us like a Swiss innkeeper, making us feel splendor of their hospitality from the sum we paid.
My uncle, however, paid without arguing, and handed over the money calmly.
A man who has decided to undertake a voyage into the Interior of the Earth isn't the man to haggle over a few rix dollars.
This important matter settled, Hans gave the signal for departure, and a few moments later we had left Stapi.