Re: An Edgar Allen Poe story with a Hollow Earth theme-
Qui n'a plus qu'un moment a vivreN'a plus rien a dissimuler. --Quinault --Atys.
OF my country and of my family I have little to say. Ill usage andlength of years have driven me from the one, and estranged me from theother. Hereditary wealth afforded me an education of no commonorder, and a contemplative turn of mind enabled me to methodize thestores which early study very diligently garnered up. --Beyond allthings, the study of the German moralists gave me great delight; notfrom any ill-advised admiration of their eloquent madness, but fromthe ease with which my habits of rigid thought enabled me to detecttheir falsities. I have often been reproached with the aridity of mygenius; a deficiency of imagination has been imputed to me as a crime;and the Pyrrhonism of my opinions has at all times rendered menotorious. Indeed, a strong relish for physical philosophy has, Ifear, tinctured my mind with a very common error of this age --Imean the habit of referring occurrences, even the least susceptible ofsuch reference, to the principles of that science. Upon the whole,no person could be less liable than myself to be led away from thesevere precincts of truth by the ignes fatui of superstition. I havethought proper to premise thus much, lest the incredible tale I haveto tell should be considered rather the raving of a crude imagination,than the positive experience of a mind to which the reveries offancy have been a dead letter and a nullity.After many years spent in foreign travel, I sailed in the year 18--,from the port of Batavia, in the rich and populous island of Java,on a voyage to the Archipelago of the Sunda islands. I went aspassenger --having no other inducement than a kind of nervousrestlessness which haunted me as a fiend.Our vessel was a beautiful ship of about four hundred tons,copper-fastened, and built at Bombay of Malabar teak. She wasfreighted with cotton-wool and oil, from the Lachadive islands. We hadalso on board coir, jaggeree, g hee, cocoa-nuts, and a few cases ofopium. The stowage was clumsily done, and the vessel consequentlycrank.We got under way with a mere breath of wind, and for many days stoodalong the eastern coast of Java, without any other incident to beguilethe monotony of our course than the occasional meeting with some ofthe small grabs of the Archipelago to which we were bound.One evening, leaning over the taffrail, I observed a verysingular, isolated cloud, to the N.W. It was remarkable, as well forits color, as from its being the first we had seen since our departurefrom Batavia. I watched it attentively until sunset, when it spreadall at once to the eastward and westward, girting in the horizonwith a narrow strip of vapor, and looking like a long line of lowbeach. My notice was soon afterwards attracted by the dusky-redappearance of the moon, and the peculiar character of the sea. Thelatter was undergoing a rapid change, and the water seemed more thanusually transparent. Although I could distinctly see the bottom,yet, heaving the lead, I found the ship in fifteen fathoms. The airnow became intolerably hot, and was loaded with spiral exhalationssimilar to those arising from heat iron. As night came on, everybreath of wind died away, an more entire calm it is impossible toconceive. The flame of a candle burned upon the poop without the leastperceptible motion, and a long hair, held between the finger andthumb, hung without the possibility of detecting a vibration. However,as the captain said he could perceive no indication of danger, andas we were drifting in bodily to shore, he ordered the sails to befurled, and the anchor let go. No watch was set, and the crew,consisting principally of Malays, stretched themselves deliberatelyupon deck. I went below --not without a full presentiment of evil.Indeed, every appearance warranted me in apprehending a Simoom. I toldthe captain my fears; but he paid no attention to what I said, andleft me without deigning to give a reply. My uneasiness, however,prevented me from sleeping, and a bout midnight I went upon deck.--As I placed my foot upon the upper step of the companion-ladder, Iwas startled by a loud, humming noise, like that occasioned by therapid revolution of a mill-wheel, and before I could ascertain itsmeaning, I found the ship quivering to its centre. In the nextinstant, a wilderness of foam hurled us upon our beam-ends, and,rushing over us fore and aft, swept the entire decks from stem tostern.The extreme fury of the blast proved, in a great measure, thesalvation of the ship. Although completely water-logged, yet, as hermasts had gone by the board, she rose, after a minute, heavily fromthe sea, and, staggering awhile beneath the immense pressure of thetempest, finally righted.By what miracle I escaped destruction, it is impossible to say.Stunned by the shock of the water, I found myself, upon recovery,jammed in between the stern-post and rudder. With great difficulty Igained my feet, and looking dizzily around, was, at first, struck withthe idea of our being among breakers; so terrific, beyond thewildest imagination, was the whirlpool of mountainous and foamingocean within which we were engulfed. After a while, I heard thevoice of an old Swede, who had shipped with us at the moment of ourleaving port. I hallooed to him with all my strength, and presently hecame reeling aft. We soon discovered that we were the sole survivorsof the accident. All on deck, with the exception of ourselves, hadbeen swept overboard; --the captain and mates must have perished asthey slept, for the cabins were deluged with water. Withoutassistance, we could expect to do little for the security of the ship,and our exertions were at first paralyzed by the momentary expectationof going down. Our cable had, of course, parted like pack-thread, atthe first breath of the hurricane, or we should have beeninstantaneously overwhelmed. We scudded with frightful velocity beforethe sea, and the water made clear breaches over us. The frame-workof our stern was shattered excessively, and, in almost everyrespect, we had rec eived considerable injury; but to our extreme Joywe found the pumps unchoked, and that we had made no great shifting ofour ballast. The main fury of the blast had already blown over, and weapprehended little danger from the violence of the wind; but we lookedforward to its total cessation with dismay; well believing, that, inour shattered condition, we should inevitably perish in the tremendousswell which would ensue. But this very just apprehension seemed byno means likely to be soon verified. For five entire days and nights--during which our only subsistence was a small quantity ofjaggeree, procured with great difficulty from the forecastle --thehulk flew at a rate defying computation, before rapidly succeedingflaws of wind, which, without equalling the first violence of theSimoom, were still more terrific than any tempest I had beforeencountered. Our course for the first four days was, with triflingvariations, S.E. and by S.; and we must have run down the coast of NewHolland. --On the fifth day the cold became extreme, although the windhad hauled round a point more to the northward. --The sun arose with asickly yellow lustre, and clambered a very few degrees above thehorizon --emitting no decisive light. --There were no clouds apparent,yet the wind was upon the increase, and blew with a fitful andunsteady fury. About noon, as nearly as we could guess, ourattention was again arrested by the appearance of the sun. It gave outno light, properly so called, but a dull and sullen glow withoutreflection, as if all its rays were polarized. Just before sinkingwithin the turgid sea, its central fires suddenly went out, as ifhurriedly extinguished by some unaccountable power. It was a dim,sliver-like rim, alone, as it rushed down the unfathomable ocean.We waited in vain for the arrival of the sixth day --that day tome has not arrived --to the Swede, never did arrive. Thenceforwardwe were enshrouded in patchy darkness, so that we could not haveseen an object at twenty paces from the ship. Eternal nightcontinued to envelop us, all unrelieved by the phosphoricsea-brilliancy to which we had been accustomed in the tropics. Weobserved too, that, although the tempest continued to rage withunabated violence, there was no longer to be discovered the usualappearance of surf, or foam, which had hitherto attended us. Allaround were horror, and thick gloom, and a black sweltering desertof ebony. --Superstitious terror crept by degrees into the spirit ofthe old Swede, and my own soul was wrapped up in silent wonder. Weneglected all care of the ship, as worse than useless, and securingourselves, as well as possible, to the stump of the mizen-mast, lookedout bitterly into the world of ocean. We had no means of calculatingtime, nor could we form any guess of our situation. We were,however, well aware of having made farther to the southward than anyprevious navigators, and felt great amazement at not meeting withthe usual impediments of ice. In the meantime every momentthreatened to be our last --every mountainous billow hurried tooverwhelm us. The swell surpassed anything I had imagined possible,and that we were not instantly buried is a miracle. My companion spokeof the lightness of our cargo, and reminded me of the excellentqualities of our ship; but I could not help feeling the utterhopelessness of hope itself, and prepared myself gloomily for thatdeath which I thought nothing could defer beyond an hour, as, withevery knot of way the ship made, the swelling of the blackstupendous seas became more dismally appalling. At times we gasped forbreath at an elevation beyond the albatross --at times became dizzywith the velocity of our descent into some watery hell, where theair grew stagnant, and no sound disturbed the slumbers of the kraken.We were at the bottom of one of these abysses, when a quick screamfrom my companion broke fearfully upon the night. "See! see!" criedhe, shrieking in my ears, "Almighty God! see! see!" As he spoke, Ibecame aware of a dull, sullen glare of red light which streameddown the sides of the vast chasm where we lay, and threw a fitfulbrilliancy upon our deck. Casting my eyes upwards, I beheld aspectacle which froze the current of my blood. At a terrific heightdirectly above us, and upon the very verge of the precipitous descent,hovered a gigantic ship of, perhaps, four thousand tons. Althoughupreared upon the summit of a wave more than a hundred times her ownaltitude, her apparent size exceeded that of any ship of the line orEast Indiaman in existence. Her huge hull was of a deep dingy black,unrelieved by any of the customary carvings of a ship. A single row ofbrass cannon protruded from her open ports, and dashed from theirpolished surfaces the fires of innumerable battle-lanterns, whichswung to and fro about her rigging. But what mainly inspired us withhorror and astonishment, was that she bore up under a press of sail inthe very teeth of that supernatural sea, and of that ungovernablehurricane. When we first discovered her, her bows were alone to beseen, as she rose slowly from the dim and horrible gulf beyond her.For a moment of intense terror she paused upon the giddy pinnacle,as if in contemplation of her own sublimity, then trembled andtottered, and --came down.At this instant, I know not what sudden self-possession came over myspirit. Staggering as far aft as I could, I awaited fearlessly theruin that was to overwhelm. Our own vessel was at length ceasingfrom her struggles, and sinking with her head to the sea. The shock ofthe descending mass struck her, consequently, in that portion of herframe which was already under water, and the inevitable result wasto hurl me, with irresistible violence, upon the rigging of thestranger.As I fell, the ship hove in stays, and went about; and to theconfusion ensuing I attributed my escape from the notice of thecrew. With little difficulty I made my way unperceived to the mainhatchway, which was partially open, and soon found an opportunity ofsecreting myself in the hold. Why I did so I can hardly tell. Anindefinite sense of awe, which at first sight of the navigators of theship had t aken hold of my mind, was perhaps the principle of myconcealment. I was unwilling to trust myself with a race of people whohad offered, to the cursory glance I had taken, so many points ofvague novelty, doubt, and apprehension. I therefore thought properto contrive a hiding-place in the hold. This I did by removing a smallportion of the shifting-boards, in such a manner as to afford me aconvenient retreat between the huge timbers of the ship.I had scarcely completed my work, when a footstep in the hold forcedme to make use of it. A man passed by my place of concealment with afeeble and unsteady gait. I could not see his face, but had anopportunity of observing his general appearance. There was about it anevidence of great age and infirmity. His knees tottered beneath a loadof years, and his entire frame quivered under the burthen. He mutteredto himself, in a low broken tone, some words of a language which Icould not understand, and groped in a corner among a pile ofsingular-looking instruments, and decayed charts of navigation. Hismanner was a wild mixture of the peevishness of second childhood,and the solemn dignity of a God. He at length went on deck, and Isaw him no more.A feeling, for which I have no name, has taken possession of my soul--a sensation which will admit of no analysis, to which the lessons ofbygone times are inadequate, and for which I fear futurity itself willoffer me no key. To a mind constituted like my own, the latterconsideration is an evil. I shall never --I know that I shall never--be satisfied with regard to the nature of my conceptions. Yet itis not wonderful that these conceptions are indefinite, since theyhave their origin in sources so utterly novel. A new sense --a newentity is added to my soul.It is long since I first trod the deck of this terrible ship, andthe rays of my destiny are, I think, gathering to a focus.Incomprehensible men! Wrapped up in meditations of a kind which Icannot divine, they pass me by unnoticed. Concealment is utter follyon my part, for the people will not s ee. It was but just now that Ipassed directly before the eyes of the mate --it was no long while agothat I ventured into the captain's own private cabin, and tookthence the materials with which I write, and have written. I shallfrom time to time continue this Journal. It is true that I may notfind an opportunity of transmitting it to the world, but I will notfall to make the endeavour. At the last moment I will enclose theMS. in a bottle, and cast it within the sea.An incident has occurred which has given me new room for meditation.Are such things the operation of ungoverned Chance? I had venturedupon deck and thrown myself down, without attracting any notice, amonga pile of ratlin-stuff and old sails in the bottom of the yawl.While musing upon the singularity of my fate, I unwittingly daubedwith a tar-brush the edges of a neatly-folded studding-sail whichlay near me on a barrel. The studding-sail is now bent upon theship, and the thoughtless touches of the brush are spread out into theword DISCOVERY.I have made many observations lately upon the structure of thevessel. Although well armed, she is not, I think, a ship of war. Herrigging, build, and general equipment, all negative a supposition ofthis kind. What she is not, I can easily perceive --what she is I fearit is impossible to say. I know not how it is, but in scrutinizing herstrange model and singular cast of spars, her huge size andovergrown suits of canvas, her severely simple bow and antiquatedstern, there will occasionally flash across my mind a sensation offamiliar things, and there is always mixed up with such indistinctshadows of recollection, an unaccountable memory of old foreignchronicles and ages long ago. I have been looking at the timbers ofthe ship. She is built of a material to which I am a stranger. Thereis a peculiar character about the wood which strikes me as renderingit unfit for the purpose to which it has been applied. I mean itsextreme porousness, considered independently by the worm-eatencondition which is a consequence of navigatio n in these seas, andapart from the rottenness attendant upon age. It will appear perhapsan observation somewhat over-curious, but this wood would haveevery, characteristic of Spanish oak, if Spanish oak were distended byany unnatural means.In reading the above sentence a curious apothegm of an oldweather-beaten Dutch navigator comes full upon my recollection. "It isas sure," he was wont to say, when any doubt was entertained of hisveracity, "as sure as there is a sea where the ship itself will growin bulk like the living body of the seaman."About an hour ago, I made bold to thrust myself among a group of thecrew. They paid me no manner of attention, and, although I stood inthe very midst of them all, seemed utterly unconscious of my presence.Like the one I had at first seen in the hold, they all bore about themthe marks of a hoary old age. Their knees trembled with infirmity;their shoulders were bent double with decrepitude; their shrivelledskins rattled in the wind; their voices were low, tremulous andbroken; their eyes glistened with the rheum of years; and their grayhairs streamed terribly in the tempest. Around them, on every partof the deck, lay scattered mathematical instruments of the most quaintand obsolete construction.I mentioned some time ago the bending of a studding-sail. Fromthat period the ship, being thrown dead off the wind, has continuedher terrific course due south, with every rag of canvas packed uponher, from her trucks to her lower studding-sail booms, and rollingevery moment her top-gallant yard-arms into the most appalling hell ofwater which it can enter into the mind of a man to imagine. I havejust left the deck, where I find it impossible to maintain afooting, although the crew seem to experience little inconvenience. Itappears to me a miracle of miracles that our enormous bulk is notswallowed up at once and forever. We are surely doomed to hovercontinually upon the brink of Eternity, without taking a finalplunge into the abyss. From billows a thousand times more stupendousthan any I hav e ever seen, we glide away with the facility of thearrowy sea-gull; and the colossal waters rear their heads above uslike demons of the deep, but like demons confined to simple threatsand forbidden to destroy. I am led to attribute these frequent escapesto the only natural cause which can account for such effect. --Imust suppose the ship to be within the influence of some strongcurrent, or impetuous under-tow.I have seen the captain face to face, and in his own cabin --but, asI expected, he paid me no attention. Although in his appearancethere is, to a casual observer, nothing which might bespeak him moreor less than man-still a feeling of irrepressible reverence and awemingled with the sensation of wonder with which I regarded him. Instature he is nearly my own height; that is, about five feet eightinches. He is of a well-knit and compact frame of body, neither robustnor remarkably otherwise. But it is the singularity of theexpression which reigns upon the face --it is the intense, thewonderful, the thrilling evidence of old age, so utter, so extreme,which excites within my spirit a sense --a sentiment ineffable. Hisforehead, although little wrinkled, seems to bear upon it the stamp ofa myriad of years. --His gray hairs are records of the past, and hisgrayer eyes are Sybils of the future. The cabin floor was thicklystrewn with strange, iron-clasped folios, and mouldering instrumentsof science, and obsolete long-forgotten charts. His head was boweddown upon his hands, and he pored, with a fiery unquiet eye, over apaper which I took to be a commission, and which, at all events,bore the signature of a monarch. He muttered to himself, as did thefirst seaman whom I saw in the hold, some low peevish syllables of aforeign tongue, and although the speaker was close at my elbow, hisvoice seemed to reach my ears from the distance of a mile.The ship and all in it are imbued with the spirit of Eld. The crewglide to and fro like the ghosts of buried centuries; their eyeshave an eager and uneasy meaning; and when their finger s fallathwart my path in the wild glare of the battle-lanterns, I feel asI have never felt before, although I have been all my life a dealer inantiquities, and have imbibed the shadows of fallen columns at Balbec,and Tadmor, and Persepolis, until my very soul has become a ruin.When I look around me I feel ashamed of my former apprehensions.If I trembled at the blast which has hitherto attended us, shall I notstand aghast at a warring of wind and ocean, to convey any idea ofwhich the words tornado and simoom are trivial and ineffective? All inthe immediate vicinity of the ship is the blackness of eternalnight, and a chaos of foamless water; but, about a league on eitherside of us, may be seen, indistinctly and at intervals, stupendousramparts of ice, towering away into the desolate sky, and looking likethe walls of the universe.As I imagined, the ship proves to be in a current; if thatappellation can properly be given to a tide which, howling andshrieking by the white ice, thunders on to the southward with avelocity like the headlong dashing of a cataract.To conceive the horror of my sensations is, I presume, utterlyimpossible; yet a curiosity to penetrate the mysteries of theseawful regions, predominates even over my despair, and will reconcileme to the most hideous aspect of death. It is evident that we arehurrying onwards to some exciting knowledge --somenever-to-be-imparted secret, whose attainment is destruction.Perhaps this current leads us to the southern pole itself. It mustbe confessed that a supposition apparently so wild has everyprobability in its favor.The crew pace the deck with unquiet and tremulous step; but there isupon their countenances an expression more of the eagerness of hopethan of the apathy of despair.In the meantime the wind is still in our poop, and, as we carry acrowd of canvas, the ship is at times lifted bodily from out the sea--Oh, horror upon horror! the ice opens suddenly to the right, andto the left, and we are whirling dizzily, in immense concentriccircles, round and round the b orders of a gigantic amphitheatre, thesummit of whose walls is lost in the darkness and the distance. Butlittle time will be left me to ponder upon my destiny --the circlesrapidly grow small --we are plunging madly within the grasp of thewhirlpool --and amid a roaring, and bellowing, and thundering of oceanand of tempest, the ship is quivering, oh God! and --going down.NOTE.--The "MS. Found in a Bottle," was originally published in 1831[1833], and it was not until many years afterwards that I becameacquainted with the maps of Mercator, in which the ocean isrepresented as rushing, by four mouths, into the (northern) PolarGulf, to be absorbed into the bowels of the earth; the Pole itselfbeing represented by a black rock, towering to a prodigious height.-THE END-
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