way as we passed, and fell with the roar of an avalanche.In other Right and left there were long dark galleries.places were vast clear spaces, apparently man’s handiwork,and I wondered whether some inhabitant of these submarine districts would not suddenly appear!
Captain Nemo still kept ascending, and I could not stay. I followed him boldly. My button was of great assistance; a false step would have *been dangerous on those narrow places, but I walked carefully, and without feeling Sometimes I was obliged to jump a crevasse, the giddy. depth of which would have repelled me on land ; sometimes I ventured across the unsteady trunk of a tree, thrown over an abyss; and without looking to my feet, for my eyes were Monumentalfully occupied in admiring the wild scenery. like rocks, perched upon irregular bases, here seemed to Between their stony embraces defy all laws of equilibrium. trees sprang up, like a jet under the influence of great pressure, and sustained those which sustained them in turn. Then natural towers and escarpments which inclined at an angle that gravitation would never have permitted on land.
I, myself, felt the influence of the great density of the water, for, notwithstanding my heavy clothing, I was able to scale these stiff ascents with the lightness and ease of a chamois.
In thus narrating my expedition under water, I am aware I am merely the historian that it may appear incredible of things apparently impossible, but none the less real and I did not dream all these things; I saw, incontestible. and came in contact with them.
Two hours after leaving the JVautidus, we had cleared the line of trees ; and the mountain, a hundred feet above Some us, threw a long shadow upon the opposite slope. Some petrified trees appeared to move in fantastic zigzags,
