Voyage to the Center of the Earth

by Jacques Collin de Plancy

  We were sitting down, but we stood up as they approached; they stopped momentarily when they saw up upright, but soon began to touch us familiarly.

  I had noticed that they were all wearing hats, and that they saluted us by removing them. That circumstance struck us all, because it reminded us of the usages of our own society, and it was the first time we had encountered it on the little globe, the foreigners who frequented the capital of Albur being obliged to wear the costume and follow the customs of the realm. I therefore asked the Alburian why salutations here were different from those in the neighboring land.

  “Everyone has customs in conformity with their way of thinking and feeling,” he told us. “The Alburians salute with the heart, because they give first place to the heart. The Banois salute with the head, because they give predominance to the brain, and accuse the heart of not always knowing what it is doing.”

  With that, several Banois, who spoke the language of Albur perfectly, remarking that we spoke it fluently, engaged us in conversation, but even when speaking a foreign language those people sang continuously, which seemed to us extremely bizarre.

  However, we were invited to go to the nearby town. The Alburian was invited to come too, to relax for a few days, but he replied that he had no time to lose, and that he had to return immediately. We heaped him with thanks, for himself and the amicable governor, after which, we followed our new hosts, who walked a little more rapidly and much more nimbly than the Alburians.

  XXX. The Empire of the Banois. Hunting, Enigmas.

  When we arrived in the town, we were taken to a vast edifice where our lodgings had already been prepared, even though it was scarcely four hours since our arrival. So many workmen had been set to the task that the doorway of our apartment had been raised by two feet to give it a height of six feet, a large table had been constructed, and we found inner served.

  “If these people are less sage than the Alburians,” we said, “they are, in recompense, more hurried.”

  The most important townspeople sat down at table with us on raised chairs, and the dinner commenced, accompanied by an agreeable conversation regarding the mores of the land we had entered.

  We quickly realized that the Banois are more cheerful and noisier than the Alburians, but that long crises of sadness succeed the vivacity of their joy and they are less constantly happy than their neighbors. In addition, their mentality is not the same. Their religion, their government and their laws are all different, and in a single day’s journey we found an enormous distance of mores. The Banois do not kill animals and do not nourish themselves on their flesh, but they cast nets in lakes and rivers and have no scruple about eating the fish that are caught in them. After vegetable dishes we were served several eels, which we attacked like men of good taste.

  “This change is a fortunate augury,” aid the Manseau. “Since they eat fish here, they’ll eat meat a little further on.”

  Meanwhile, the Banois who were dining with us marveled at seeing us expedite the meal of a local man in three minutes. They understood that we could easily eat twelve or fifteen portions for our pittance, and soon made arrangements for our four meals to be assured and ready at the hours we might care to choose, with a small surplus for any citizens who might have the honor of keeping us company.

  The people were extremely sociable, or extremely idle, for we never ceased to have good company around us throughout the time we were in the country. After our meal, the most skillful talker in the society started teaching us the local language. We were able to speak it passably after six weeks, but it was impossible for us to sing it. Our words had a certain cadence, though, which was inherent to the idiom.

  We only stayed for a week in the frontier town. After having traveled to a few others, where we were always well received, we arrived in the capital at the beginning of the third month after our entry to the land. We traveled on foot, because before manufacturing vehicles for us, our advice had been sought, and we much preferred walking agreeably to becoming bored in carriages that had difficulty covering four or five leagues in an eighteen-hour day.

  The land of the Banois was governed by an Emperor submissive to an unalterable constitution. The reigning Prince came to meet us, and lodged us in his own palace, where there were several halls high enough to receive us comfortably.

  “Be welcome,” he said to us, as he introduced us personally. “I know about your sad adventure. You have lived for a long time among a sage people; it’s unfortunate that with all its wisdom, that people has great prejudices—prejudices that nothing has yet been able to destroy. You know that all religions are permitted in the realm of Albur, and yet their laws condemn foreigners who eat meat, if their religion permits them to do so, because the religion of the realm of Albur obliges people to live on fruits and vegetables. Here, we only eat the products of the land and aquatic animals, because we don’t like blood, but we leave all people a veritably entire liberty, and everyone can live as he wishes, act as he wishes and speak as he wishes, provided that he respects God, the constitution, the nation he frequents and the Prince who is its image.”

  “So we could eat meat here?” asked Clairancy.

  “Certainly,” the Prince replied, “provided that you go hunting and prepare your stews yourselves, for you won’t find any cook here who will consent to dip his hands in blood.”

  “If it’s only a matter of hunting and cooking,” Edward replied, “we’re sorry not to have known that earlier, but what is deferred isn’t lost.”

  “You’d even be doing something agreeable to the Banois,” the sovereign said, “if you were to exterminate a few wild boars and other ferocious beasts that are devastating the surrounding area. We do hunt them, but misfortunes often overtake us. It’s as well that you know that the carnivorous animals here are more dangerous than in the realm of Albur, and that’s why we have less pity for them. The boars, which are so redoubtable here, do almost no harm among the Alburians, either because of the difference in the air they breathe or because they’re grateful for the benevolence that the inhabitants show them. But another cause of the sympathy that links the Alburians and animals is that those people make all animals respectable beings, and believe that they were all put on earth by the Divinity to examine the actions of humans—in sum, animals are regarded in Albur as demons.”

  “Oh!” Edward exclaimed. “That’s something no one told us.”

  “Well,” said the Manseau, “let’s talk about the wisdom of the Alburians; their religion is very simple, though, and they claim not to have any superstitions.”

  “It’s necessary to render them the justice,” said the sovereign, “that those superstitions only exist in the minds of the people and a few narrow minds. All learned Alburians have the most beautiful idea of the Divinity, and it’s already a great wisdom to be able to hide popular errors that might damage the renown of the nation. But I’ll leave you—your dinner is arriving.”

  With that, the Prince left us. We were joyful to find ourselves in a country where we could eat meat at our ease. We adopted the habit of going hunting regularly, every third day, and as we were no longer obliged to hide when we had had good hunting, we sometimes came back to town each carrying a family of wild pigs over our shoulders. The people charmed, accompanied us to the palace with loud acclamations, and asked Heaven to conserve our strength, of which we were making such noble use.

  Three months after our arrival in the capital a local café-owner came to ask us to make his fortune while amusing ourselves.

  “How can we do that?” asked Tristan, immediately.

  “This is how,” the Banois replied. “I’ve had a room constructed with a height appropriate to your stature; you can get through the door without bending down. That immense room is already attracting public admiration. Now, I’ve come to ask you to be good enough to consent to spend two evenings out of four in my establishment. The hope of seeing you there will bring in the crowds; you’ll be amused by the eccentrics who’ll
be presented to your eyes. I’ll make a lot of money, and I’ll give you half the profits.”

  “We don’t have much need of money,” Clairancy replied, “and we like our liberty too much to make any promises, but we’ll gladly come to spend a few evenings in your establishing. You can still call your room the Giants’ Cabaret.”

  “Marvelous!” exclaimed the Banois. “May all the sprits in Heaven bless you.”

  “Oh—are there are spirits here?” the Manseau put in.

  “Yes,” the café-owner replied. “And furthermore, I’ll have cups and glasses of good measure made for you, in order for you to be able to take a few refreshments at your ease when you do us the honor of spending the evening with us.”

  He went out thereafter, leaving us his address, and the Manseau opined that the little man had something of a European character.

  One evening, therefore, we went to the establishment in question. Coffee was unknown there, and the liqueurs were much milder than those of Europe. The multitude soon arrived, and we were surrounded by curious people, who seemed delighted to be able to contemplate us and listen to us.

  They asked us for many details about our homeland, for form of our society and our mores; and the listeners, astonished to learn that the “sky” was populated by humans, taller than them, to be sure, but just as mortal and fragile, cried out continually that human knowledge was very limited; that they had been told, for seven or eight thousand years, that there was nothing above them but God and his spirits; and that it was necessary to examine things for a long time before believing them firmly, since it might be the case that, before reaching the throne of God, there might by fifteen or twenty worlds like ours, populated by mortals. Remember that all this was said in song.

  In the meantime, a clever individual came in who asked us if we would like to see the local games. We responded affirmatively; then everyone sat down and some started to pose enigmas, and others to respond to them, while others occupied themselves with manual games.

  When the Manseau had understood the fashion of playing the enigmas, he asked to join in, and the most erudite of the company addressed him as follows:21

  To my lord the giant

  I request to speak.

  The Manseau hastened to respond, doing his best to sing:

  I permit the postulant

  To expose his mystique.

  The Banois

  What is it that resembles best

  A half of a cheese?

  The Manseau

  What resembles it, no jest

  Is the other half, if you please.

  Everyone applauded, and the Banois asked his second question to a different tune:

  Can you also tell me

  What is a hart?22

  The Manseau

  Oh, that one’s easy

  I can play my part.

  The heart is the source

  Of all good cheer.

  The Banois

  Sir, you’ve lost the course

  A hart is a male deer.

  There was further applause, and everyone soon joined in the game. After we had been asked several questions, to which we were content to respond, we asked some prosaic riddles in our turn.

  Clairancy asked what the most powerful of all things was. After a moment he received the reply “Necessity.”

  What, Tristan asked in his turn, destroys everything and produced nothing. A Banois immediately cried out that it was death.

  “And what is an eternal book?” asked the Manseau, in his turn.

  “An old book that has neither a beginning nor an end,” was the reply.23

  “What is,” I asked then, “the wisest of all old men?”

  It’s time, because he has seen everything, etc.

  The Banois were so experienced at the game that it was difficult to pose them anything embarrassing. We amused ourselves with it all night and went to bed very late, in accordance with custom of the land, where people sleep late in order to stay up late.

  XXXI. A desert. A nucleus of light.

  The land of the Noladans. The land of the Felinois.

  A bizarre lawsuit. Superstitions.

  In the various countries thorough which we had already traveled, we had found two civilized peoples who enjoyed, under sage laws, all the pleasures that arts and commerce procure. However, although we were surrounded by intelligent people, at least as sensate as the giants of Europe, a mortal ennui soon took hold of us, far from our fatherland and without the hope of ever seeing it again.

  It was necessary for us to reconcile ourselves to that. Only a miracle could take us back to the pole, and we did not expect any miracles. Besides which, the difficulties we had experienced in the polar regions still frightened us, and when we considered the impossibility of getting away of the subterranean globe, we would have liked to lose the memory, in order to finish the rest of our life in the small world without regretting a land that was lost to us forever, and which it was necessary to forget.

  That is why, as nothing could distract us for long, we decided to travel during the years that still remained to us, and divert ourselves a little with the knowledge of the subterranean globe.

  When we left the Banois Empire we took the route of a great desert twenty leagues across, whose arid terrain rendered it uninhabitable. We were weary of being surrounded by crowds and wanted to find ourselves in solitude for a while. Tristan and the Manseau, who were suffering more ennui than the rest of us, even proposed that we build a hermitage in the desert and live there in philosophical meditation.

  “We don’t have enough to complain of in humans to quit them in that fashion,” Clairancy replied. “We’d be obliged to see them anyway, in order to obtain food, and if they think like those up above, the good folk would come to visit us as saints. If they’re wiser than Europeans, they’ll regard us as madmen, and still come to our hermitage to mock us.”

  “While waiting for a better alternative,” Edward put in, “let’s continue traveling.”

  We therefore resumed walking, laden with a few provisions, and set off across the desert. It was populated by various animals and we hunted successfully. The Banois used bows and blowpipes, which they employed very skillfully. We had adopted the use of the bow, and some of us could do as well with it as with a carbine.

  I ought not to forget to mention a rather singular phenomenon of the little globe, which embarrassed us for a long time during our sojourn among the Banois. In Sanor and Albur we had perceived, in the middle of the sky, a large fixed star, which could be seen by day when the sun was not shining and emitted a bright light at night. In the Banois Empire, especially in the desert where we were, that star was much brighter than our world’s moon when full; its form was that of an enormous hairy comet. Was it the hearth of a great volcano? That was what we could not decide; but it was probably not a veritable planet, unless the material of our globe is transparent, and there was never any reason to adopt the later hypothesis.

  As we had entirely given up on the idea of returning to Europe, I continued writing my memoir of our voyage and adventures in a rather negligent fashion. I conserved the commencement of this story, however, as much for the satisfaction of the troop as to leave a monument in the land of the sojourn we made there and the prodigy that had brought us there.

  I shall therefore relate now, as briefly as possible, the remarkable things of which I have retained the memory. I am not sufficiently skilful, and did not make a careful enough study of that unknown world, to give a very exact description of it. I made known at the beginning its extent and form; I shall add that it is divided into forty-six different states: fifteen kingdoms, six empires, eleven republics, submissive for the most part to a single leader, and fourteen countries still barbaric, whose government is not fixed. The globe is cut by seas and rivers, strewn with lakes of pools, and covered with forests, as ours is. Navigation is less advanced there than in Europe because the seas are less perilous. Few volcanoes are seen, and it is to be presumed
that that earth is solid, for its poles are all its countries are completely known. The temperature is almost equal everywhere. Copper is found there in great abundance, as well as gold, silver and precious stones, as in the sublunar world.

  The land of the Noladans, which we entered on laving the Banois Empire, was a great republic, larger than all its neighbors in extent, but weaker in its population and its laws. Celibacy is to some extent honorable there, and two thirds of the people live without thinking of paying their natural debt. In the realm of Albur, a man of letters, a celebrated poet, was ordinarily the son and pupil of a litterateur. The father had transmitted to his son the studies of his entire life; the son had combined them with further studies, and had attained perfection. Here, a poet lived in celibacy and did not form anyone, with the result that taste and the arts were not very advanced in that land. In addition, mores were in a state of frightful corruption. Prostitutes, more numerous than wives, almost had the advantage of them, and as the country was full of men of good fortune, a husband who could count of conjugal fidelity was already rare. But the Noladans had no prejudice that charged the husband with his wife’s infamy. Only an adulterous spouse was dishonored. It is true that in the towns that dishonor was almost a joke.