Up to the present moment, marine monsters, fish, and such like animals, had alone been seen alive! The question which rendered us rather uneasy, was a pertinent one. Were any of these men of the abyss wandering about the deserted shores of this wondrous sea of the center of the earth? This was a question which rendered me very uneasy and uncomfortable. How, should they really be in existence, would they receive us men from above?
CHAPTER XXXVI
WHAT IS IT?
For a long and weary hour we tramped over this great bed of bones. We advanced regardless of everything, drawn on by ardent curiosity. What other marvels did this great cavern contain—what other wondrous treasures for the scientific man? My eyes were quite prepared for any number of surprises, my imagination lived in expectation of something new and wonderful.
The borders of the great Central Ocean had for some time disappeared behind the hills that were scattered over the ground occupied by the plane of bones. The imprudent and enthusiastic Professor, who did not care whether he lost himself or not, hurried me forward. We advanced silently, bathed in waves of electric fluid. The light illumined equally the sides of every hill and rock. The appearance presented was that of a tropical country at mid-day in summer—in the midst of the equatorial regions and under the vertical rays of the sun. The rocks, the distant mountains, some confused masses of far-off forests, assumed a weird and mysterious aspect under this equal distribution of the luminous fluid! We resembled, to a certain extent, the mysterious personage in one of Hoffmann's fantastic tales—the man who lost his shadow.
After we had walked about a mile farther, we came to the edge of a vast forest, not, however, one of the vast mushroom forests we had discovered near Port Gretchen. It was the glorious and wild vegetation of the tertiary period, in all its superb magnificence. Huge palms, of a
