Journey to the Center of the Earth (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (12 page)

Everything became clear when Mr. Fridriksson informed me that this calm individual was only a “hunter of the eider duck,” whose inner plumage constitutes the greatest wealth of the island. This is in fact what is called eider down, and gathering it requires no great energy of movement.

In the first days of summer the female, a kind of pretty duck, goes to build her nest among the rocks of the fjords that lie all along the coast. After building the nest she feathers it with down plucked from her breast. Immediately the hunter, or rather the trader, comes, robs the nest, and the female starts her work over. This goes on as long as she has any down left. When she has stripped herself bare the male takes his turn to pluck himself. But as the hard and coarse plumage of the male has no commercial value, the hunter does not take the trouble to steal the bedding for his brood; so the nest is completed; the female lays the eggs; the young are hatched, and the following year the down harvest begins again.

Now, since the eider duck does not choose steep cliffs for her nest, but rather the easy and horizontal rocks that slope to the sea, the Icelandic hunter could exercise his calling without any great exertion. He was a farmer who did not have to either sow or reap his harvest, but merely to gather it in.

This grave, phlegmatic, and silent individual was called Hans Bjelke; he came recommended by Mr. Fridriksson. He was our future guide. His manners contrasted strikingly with my uncle’s.

Nevertheless, they easily came to terms with each other. Neither one debated the amount of the payment: the one was ready to accept whatever was offered; the other was ready to give whatever was demanded. Never was a bargain struck more easily.

The outcome of the negotiations was that Hans committed himself to lead us to the village of Stapi, on the southern shore of the Snaefells peninsula, at the very foot of the volcano. By land this would be about twenty-two miles,
^ab
a journey of about two days, according to my uncle’s opinion.

But when he found out that a Danish mile was 24,000 feet long, he was forced to modify his calculations and, given the poor condition of the roads, allow seven or eight days for the march.

Four horses were to be placed at his disposal—two to carry him and me, two for the luggage. Hans would walk, as was his custom. He knew that part of the coast perfectly, and promised to take us the shortest way.

His contract was not to terminate with our arrival at Stapi; he would continue in my uncle’s service for the whole period of his scientific excursions, for the price of three rix-dollars
^ac
a week. But it was explicitly agreed that this sum would be paid to the guide every Saturday evening, a sine qua
non
condition of his contract.

The departure was set for June 16. My uncle wanted to pay the hunter a portion in advance, but the latter refused with one word:

“Efter,” he said.

“After,” said the professor for my edification.

The negotiations concluded, Hans promptly withdrew.

“An excellent man,” my uncle exclaimed, “but he doesn’t know the marvelous role that the future has in store for him.”

“So he goes with us as far as—”

“Yes, Axel, as far as the center of the earth.”

Forty-eight hours were left until our departure; to my great regret I had to use them for our preparations; all our intelligence was devoted to pack every item in the most convenient way, instruments on one side, weapons on the other, tools in this package, food supplies in that: four sets of packages in all.

The instruments included:

The weapons consisted of two Purdley More and Co. rifles and two Colt revolvers. Why weapons? We had neither savages nor wild beasts to fear, I suppose. But my uncle seemed to rely on his arsenal as on his instruments, above all on a considerable quantity of gun cotton, which is unaffected by moisture, and whose explosive force far exceeds that of ordinary gunpowder.

The tools included two ice-picks, two pickaxes, a silk rope ladder, three iron-tipped walking sticks, an axe, a hammer, a dozen wedges and iron spikes, and long knotted ropes. Inevitably, this made for a large load, for the ladder was 300 feet long.

Finally there were the food supplies: this parcel was not large, but comforting, for I knew that it contained six months’ worth of dried meat and dry biscuits. Gin was the only liquid, and there was no water at all; but we had flasks, and my uncle counted on springs from which to fill them. Whatever objections I had raised as to their quality, their temperature, and even their absence had remained ineffectual.

To complete the exact inventory of all our travel supplies, I should mention a portable medical kit containing blunt scissors, splints for broken limbs, a piece of unbleached linen tape, bandages and compresses, band-aid, a bowl for bleeding, all frightful things; then there was a range of phials containing dextrin, pure alcohol, liquid acetate of lead, ether, vinegar, and ammonia, all drugs whose purpose was not reassuring; finally, all the articles necessary for the Ruhmkorff devices.

My uncle took care not to leave out a supply of tobacco, hunting powder, and tinder, nor a leather belt he wore around his waist, where he carried a sufficient quantity of gold, silver, and paper money. Six pairs of good shoes, made waterproof with a layer of tar and rubber, were packed among the tools.

“Clothed, shod, and equipped like this, there’s no telling how far we may go,” my uncle said to me.

The 14th was entirely spent in arranging all our different items. In the evening we dined at the Baron Trampe’s, in the company of the mayor of Reykjavik, and Dr. Hyaltalin, the great doctor of the country. Mr. Fridriksson was not present; I learned afterwards that he and the Governor disagreed on some administrative issue and did not speak to each other. I therefore could not understand a single word of what was said during this semi-official dinner. I only noticed that my uncle talked the whole time.

On the 15th, our preparations were complete. Our host gave the professor very great pleasure by providing him with an immeasurably more perfect map of Iceland than Handerson’s: the map of Mr. Olaf Nikolas Olsen, at a scale of 1 to 480,000, and published by the Icelandic Literary Society on the basis of Mr. Frisac Scheel’s geodesic works and Bjorn Gumlaugssonn’s
^ae
topographical survey. It was a precious document for a mineralogist.

Our last evening was spent in intimate conversation with Mr. Fridriksson, with whom I felt the most lively sympathy; the conversation was followed by rather restless sleep, on my part at least.

At five in the morning the neighing of four horses pawing under my window woke me up. I dressed in haste and went down to the street. Hans was finishing the loading of our luggage, as it were without moving a limb. Yet he executed his work with uncommon skill. My uncle generated more noise than effort, and the guide seemed to pay very little attention to his instructions.

All was ready by six o’clock. Mr. Fridriksson shook hands with us. My uncle thanked him in Icelandic for his kind hospitality, with much heartfelt sentiment. As for me, I sketched a cordial greeting in my best Latin; then we got into the saddle, and with his last farewell Mr. Fridriksson treated me to a line of Virgil that seemed to be made for us, travelers on an uncertain route:

WE HAD STARTED UNDER an overcast but calm sky. There was no fear of heat, none of disastrous rain. Weather for tourists.

The pleasure of riding on horseback through an unknown country made me easy to please at the start of our venture. I gave myself wholly to the pleasure of the traveler, made up of desires and freedom. I was beginning to take a share in the enterprise.

“Besides,” I said to myself, “what’s the risk? Traveling in a very interesting country! Scaling very remarkable mountain! At worst, scrambling down into an extinct crater! It’s obvious that Saknussemm did nothing more than that. As for a passage leading to the center of the globe, pure fantasy! Perfectly impossible! So let’s get all the benefit we can out of this expedition, without haggling.”

I had scarcely finished this reasoning when we left Reykjavik behind.

Hans moved on steadily, keeping ahead of us at an even, smooth, and rapid pace. The two pack horses followed him without needing any directions. Then came my uncle and myself, looking not too bad on our small but hardy animals.

Iceland is one of the largest islands in Europe. Its surface is 14,000 square miles, and it has only 60,000 inhabitants. Geographers have divided it into four quarters, and we were traveling almost diagonally across the south-west quarter, called the ‘Sudvestr Fjordùngr.’

On leaving Reykjavik Hans took us along the seashore. We crossed lean pastures trying very hard to look green; they succeeded better at yellow. The rugged peaks of the trachytic rocks blurred in the mists on the eastern horizon; at times a few patches of snow, attracting the vague light, glittered on the slopes of the distant mountains; certain peaks, rising up boldly, pierced the grey clouds, and reappeared above the moving mists, like reefs emerging in the sky.

Often these chains of barren rocks reached all the way to the sea, and encroached on the pasture: but there was always enough room to pass. Besides, our horses instinctively chose the proper places without ever slackening their pace. My uncle did not even have the satisfaction of stirring on his beast with voice or whip. He had no reason to be impatient. I could not help smiling to see so tall a man on so small a horse, and as his long legs nearly touched the ground he looked like a six-legged centaur.

“Good animal! good animal!” he kept saying. “You’ll see, Axel, that there is no more intelligent animal than the Icelandic horse. Snow, storm, impassable roads, rocks, glaciers, nothing stops it. It’s courageous, sober, and reliable. Never a false step, never an adverse reaction. If there is a river or fjord to cross—and we’ll encounter them—you’ll see it plunge in at once, just as if it were amphibious, and reach the opposite bank. But let’s not interfere with it, let’s let it have its way, and we’ll cover ten miles a day, one carrying the other.”

“Undoubtedly we might,” I answered, “but how about our guide?”

“Oh, never mind him. People like him walk without even being aware of it. This one moves so little that he’ll never get tired. Besides, if necessary, I’ll let him have my horse. I’ll soon get cramped if I don’t move a little. The arms are all right, but I have to think of the legs.”

We advanced at a rapid pace. The country was already almost a desert. Here and there an isolated farm, a solitary boër
^ag
made of wood, mud, or pieces of lava, appeared like a poor beggar by the way-side. These run-down huts seemed to solicit charity from passersby, and one was almost tempted to give them alms. In this country there were not even roads or paths, and the vegetation, however slow, quickly effaced the rare travelers’ footsteps.

Yet this part of the province, at a short distance from the capital, is considered to be among the inhabited and cultivated portions of Iceland. What, then, must other areas look like, more desolate than this desert? In the first half mile we had not yet seen even one farmer standing at his cabin door, nor one shepherd tending a flock less wild than himself, nothing but a few cows and sheep left to themselves. What would the regions look like that were convulsed, turned upside down by eruptive phenomena, sprung from volcanic explosions and subterranean movements?

We would get to know them before long, but when I consulted Olsen’s map, I saw that we avoided them by following the sinuous edge of the shore. Indeed, the great underground movement is confined to the central portion of the island; there, horizontal layers of superimposed rocks called ‘trapps’ in Scandinavian, trachytic strips, eruptions of basalt, tuff and all the volcanic mixtures, streams of lava and molten porphyry have created a land of supernatural horror. I had no idea yet of the spectacle which was awaiting us on the Snaefells peninsula, where these residues of a fiery nature create a frightful chaos.

Two hours after leaving Reykjavik we arrived at the town of Gufunes, called ‘aoalkirkja,’ or principal church. There was nothing remarkable here. Just a few houses. Scarcely enough for a hamlet in Germany.

Hans stopped here for half an hour. He shared our frugal breakfast, answered my uncle’s questions about the road with yes and no, and when he was asked where he planned for us to spend the night, he only said, “Gardär.”

I consulted the map to see where Gardär was. I saw a small town of that name on the banks of the Hvalfjord, four miles from Reykjavik. I showed it to my uncle.

“Only four miles!” he said. “Four miles out of twenty-two! Now that’s a pretty stroll!”

He was about to make an observation to the guide, who without answering resumed his place in front of the horses, and started to walk.