Chapter 16

CHAPTER XVI.

BOLDLY DOWN THE CRATER

Supper was rapidly devoured, and the little company housed themselvesas best they could. The bed was hard, the shelter not verysubstantial, and our position an anxious one, at five thousand feetabove the sea level. Yet I slept particularly well; it was one of thebest nights I had ever had, and I did not even dream.

Next morning we awoke half frozen by the sharp keen air, but with thelight of a splendid sun. I rose from my granite bed and went out toenjoy the magnificent spectacle that lay unrolled before me.

I stood on the very summit of the southernmost of Snæfell's peaks.The range of the eye extended over the whole island. By an opticallaw which obtains at all great heights, the shores seemed raised andthe centre depressed. It seemed as if one of Helbesmer's raised mapslay at my feet. I could see deep valleys intersecting each other inevery direction, precipices like low walls, lakes reduced to ponds,rivers abbreviated into streams. On my right were numberless glaciersand innumerable peaks, some plumed with feathery clouds of smoke. Theundulating surface of these endless mountains, crested with sheets ofsnow, reminded one of a stormy sea. If I looked westward, there theocean lay spread out in all its magnificence, like a merecontinuation of those flock-like summits. The eye could hardly tellwhere the snowy ridges ended and the foaming waves began.

I was thus steeped in the marvellous ecstasy which all high summitsdevelop in the mind; and now without giddiness, for I was beginningto be accustomed to these sublime aspects of nature. My dazzled eyeswere bathed in the bright flood of the solar rays. I was forgettingwhere and who I was, to live the life of elves and sylphs, thefanciful creation of Scandinavian superstitions. I felt intoxicatedwith the sublime pleasure of lofty elevations without thinking of theprofound abysses into which I was shortly to be plunged. But I wasbrought back to the realities of things by the arrival of Hans andthe Professor, who joined me on the summit.

My uncle pointed out to me in the far west a light steam or mist, asemblance of land, which bounded the distant horizon of waters.

"Greenland!" said he.

"Greenland?" I cried.

"Yes; we are only thirty-five leagues from it; and during thaws thewhite bears, borne by the ice fields from the north, are carried eveninto Iceland. But never mind that. Here we are at the top of Snæfelland here are two peaks, one north and one south. Hans will tell usthe name of that on which we are now standing."

The question being put, Hans replied:

"Scartaris."

My uncle shot a triumphant glance at me.

"Now for the crater!" he cried.

The crater of Snæfell resembled an inverted cone, the openingof whichmight be half a league in diameter. Its depth appeared to be abouttwo thousand feet.