John Whopper, Page 3

  CHAPTER III.

  HOW JOHN WHOPPER GOT CAUGHT IN THE EARTH, AND THEN GOT OUT AGAIN.

  The idea that came to me was at first very vague and indefinite; neitherwas it at all certain that my plan could be carried out. It had beensuggested by a peculiar sound which fell upon my ear as soon as I becamestationary, and which had continued to reverberate through the darknessall the while. As I had been obliged, while in China, to be about somuch at night, I had provided myself with one of those compact lanterns,which can be folded up, and carried in the pocket, with a good supplyof best wax matches. The first thing to be done was to strike a light,and see what sort of a place I was floating in. The sensation offloating in equilibrium was delightful and soothing; and yet I felt thatit would be a relief to touch something solid. As soon as my candlelighted up the cavity, I saw that the walls of my strange abode wereperforated in various places by holes, some of which were large enoughto admit my body. Taking my cap from my head, I found that by waving itin the air I could readily waft my body in whatever direction I chose;and, in less than a minute, I found myself comfortably seated in thelargest and most convenient of these cavities. I now felt the need offood and drink; and, before proceeding to do any thing else, I openedone of the cans of concentrated meat, and with a glass of water from thejar which I had so fortunately brought with me, I made quite a nicemeal. With all the burden that weighed upon my mind, I could not helpsmiling when I thought that I was the only person that had ever dined inthat particular locality. After dinner, I stretched myself out, and tooka good long sleep. At last I awoke as bright as a lark, and began toexplore the surrounding region. The point that I wished particularly todetermine was this: What is the cause of the low, grinding sound that Icontinually hear? and from what locality does it proceed? Upon theanswer to these questions depended all my hopes of escape. Strappingthe jar and cans securely about me, I thought that I would try topenetrate the orifice which I had entered; but, as soon as I got upon myfeet, the slight muscular effort that I made in walking lifted me againinto the air, and I found myself once more in equilibrium. At first thisdiscouraged and perplexed me; but observing that I could propel myselfwith the greatest ease by just fanning the air, as before, with my cap,I concluded that this was a very easy as well as rapid mode oflocomotion. As I advanced farther and farther into the cavity, I foundthat the grating noise, to which I have alluded, grew louder and moredistinct; and after moving along, perhaps about two miles, I came insight of an immense cylinder, the size of which it was impossible forme to estimate, as I could see only a small section of the surface.Floating on, I laid myself alongside of the great tube, and, taking myknife from my pocket, tapped the cylinder several times, and found thatit was composed of some very hard and resonant metal, entirely unlikeany thing that I had ever seen before. It was of a bright vermilioncolor, highly polished in certain places, and somewhat rough andhoney-combed in others. From the vibration that came when I struck itwith my knife, I inferred that it must be hollow. I only needed to tryone further experiment, in order to be satisfied that my suspicions andhopes as to the nature of this cylinder, and the cause of the peculiarsound that I had heard, and which now reverberated loudly on everyside, were correct. Observing that, at a point not far off, the cylindercame almost in contact with the wall that surrounded it, I approachedthe spot, and stuck two red wafers, one on the cylinder, and the otherdirectly opposite to it on the wall, with a distance of not more than aninch between them. I would here observe, in explanation of my happeningto have these wafers about me, that they still continued to be used inChina, and I generally carried half a dozen or more about me in a stiffenvelope. Now came the crisis of my destiny! If the relative position ofthe wafers remained for an hour unchanged, there was no hope for poorJohn Whopper. With my watch--which, by the way, I had protected againstthe disturbance of the magnetic currents by a compensation balance--inmy hand, I gazed earnestly and anxiously upon the two wafers. Fifteenminutes passed. In this time, the earth had revolved one ninety-sixthpart of its daily course, and the inhabitants on the surface hadtravelled two hundred and fifty miles. If my hopes are well founded, itis hardly time yet for me to perceive any change in the two red spotsupon which my gaze is fixed. A half hour slowly passes. I do believethat the wafers are not directly opposite to each other! let me wait alittle while longer, that I may be certain. There is no mistake aboutit,--the right edge of one wafer just touches the left edge of theother. Eureka! Hurrah! I am right. I am right. This big cylinder is_the axis of the earth_, fixed and immovable; and these huge walls arerevolving round it. There's a discovery to make a man immortal! Whatfools the old geographers were that used to say,--"the axis is an_imaginary line_, running through," etc., etc. The name of Whopper willnow be heralded to all coming generations with the names of Bacon andNewton and La Place and Humboldt, and all the rest of them! Fame, withher great silver trumpet--

  "Stop, my boy," I imagine the impatient reader is now saying. "You hadbetter get out into daylight before you crow so loud; we don't see howyour great discovery is going to help you to do that." I presume not;but you _will_ see, if you are only patient.

  I now reasoned thus with myself: "If the axis of the earth ishollow,--about which I have no doubt,--and open at both ends,--inasmuchas it is winter at the south pole when it is summer at the north, and_vice versa_,--there must always be a strong current of air passingthrough it,--the cold air of one extreme rushing into the warmer regionat the opposite pole. I have, then, only to find some way of introducingmy body into the interior of this axis; and, by taking advantage of thecurrent, I shall soon be able to see daylight again."

  The next thing, therefore, to be done was to find out whether it wouldbe possible for me to get inside the cylinder. I had observed, that insome places the metal of which it was composed, showed the appearanceof being honey-combed; and this gave me some encouragement. I nowcrawled, or rather swam, about the surface of this cylindrical mass ofmetal, and soon found an orifice large enough for me to thrust in myhand and arm up to the elbow. True enough, there _was_ a strong draughtin there, so strong that it seemed as if my arm would be wrenched fromthe socket. Every doubt and difficulty were now removed, if I could onlyfind a hole in the cylinder three feet in diameter; and after an hour'ssearch, I lighted upon just what I wanted,--a good smooth opening, andsomewhat larger than was actually needed to pass my body through. This,however, was fortunate, because I must have space enough to projectmyself with some force from the orifice, or I might strike the side ofthe cylinder, and be dashed into fragments.

  Every thing was now ready: nerving my whole system for the terribleeffort and the frightful risk, I sprang with all my might into the axisof the earth. After what I had experienced when I put my arm into thecylinder, I expected, of course, as soon as my whole body was thrown inthere, that I should undergo the terrible sensation of being whirledupward by a tornado. Instead of this, to my astonishment, the momentthat I had cleared the orifice through which I jumped I felt as though Iwere floating stationary in the air. Could it be that I was deceived inregard to the existence of the current? This could hardly be: it was notpossible that I was stationary, for the hole through which I leaped hadvanished in a flash. It then for the first time occurred to me, thatbeing in the current, and as it were _a part_ of the current, moving init and _with_ it without any resistance, it was impossible for me totell whether I was advancing or not; and then I remembered how men thatwent up in balloons, after they had lost sight of the earth, could notperceive whether they were in motion or at rest; and how our teacher atthe Roxbury school used to explain the fact that we were not consciousof the rotation of the globe on which we stood, upon the same principle.When I thought of all this, I broke into a loud laugh, and for a longtime I could hear the echoes thundering through the cylinder.

  I cannot say how glad I felt that my journey through the axis of theearth occurred at that period of the year when the current set from thesouth to the north. The prospect of safety if I were to be dischargedfr
om the south pole, would be slight indeed; but familiarity with thewritings of various explorers in the Arctic regions gave me the verynatural feeling that I should be in a measure at home in that part ofthe world.

  The absence of any sense of motion, with the quietness and darkness thatsurrounded me, began to induce a feeling of weariness; and I thoughtthat I should like to see how it looked where I was; so I lighted mylantern, which I had extinguished when I leaped into the axis, when themost dazzling and marvellous sight burst upon my view. I found that Iwas not very far from the side of the cylinder, which waspolished--probably by the constant friction of the swift current passingthrough it--so that it glistened like a diamond, only it was of oneuniform vermilion hue. Reflected, as in a fiery mirror, I caught anoccasional glimpse of myself, magnified to a gigantic size by theconcave form of the cylinder, and elongated in the most remarkablemanner by the rapidity with which I shot by the surface; and, afterthis, I had no further doubts as to whether I was moving on or standingstill. I next amused myself by making all sorts of uproarious sounds,which were repeated up and down, and back and forth, from the metallicwalls, until I was somewhat frightened at the cries I made; for itseemed as if fifty wild demons were shouting and yelling around me.There are some of my readers who will remember the old chemical chimneyin Roxbury, and what strange sounds were heard there when the boys stoodbelow, laughing and talking. What I now heard recalled most vividly allthose experiences. To soothe my mind a little, I then took a jews-harpfrom my pocket and played the "Star-spangled Banner." The effect wasbeautiful and almost magical, and I sank at once into a deliciousreverie.

  But, as the time drew near when I supposed that I might expect to emergefrom my present position, I began to feel anxious as to what wouldbecome of me when I came out. I anticipated, of course, that, moving atsuch a fearful rate, I must expect to shoot up rather high in the air;and the question was, where I should probably land. If, as is generallysupposed, it is a clear, open sea at the pole, I shall not _land_ atall, but come down into the water. In this case, I am inevitably lost:but still my faith was not shaken; after all that I had endured, it didnot seem likely that I should be left to perish in the sea. I could donothing but trust and wait.

  In process of time the light began to steal in upon the darkness, and Iknew that another crisis was approaching,--the most trying andformidable that I had been called to encounter. And, shortly, out Iwent, high up in the air,--higher--higher,--until I thought that Ishould never come down again. But, after a time, I felt that I wasdescending; and the fear came upon me that I might tumble back once moreinto the axis of the earth. If I had reflected a moment, I might haveperceived that this would be impossible; for, as soon as I had sunk frommy elevation down to a point not more than a hundred feet from the endof the pole, I met the swift current of air rushing out, and was oncemore hoisted up in the clouds. This was repeated several times over; andI found myself in the condition of a cork ball, sustained in the air bya stream of water from a fountain. It is a little odd, that at this timethere came to my mind a vivid recollection of such a cork ball that Iused to see tossing about in front of the hotel that formerly stood atthe corner of Tremont and Boylston streets, in Boston. At last itoccurred to me, that if at the time when I had nearly reached thehighest point of my ascent, and therefore must be moving very slowly, Ishould fan the air with my cap, as I did before, it might waft me out ofthe line of the north pole; and that I might as well come down into thesea and be drowned, as to keep on bobbing up and down in this wayforever. The experiment was successful; and the next time that Idescended, I came gently, not into the water, but into a soft yieldingdrift of snow, which entirely broke the force of my fall.

  I felt sure now that all was right; and, scrambling out of the snow, Ilooked about to see where I was. All around, in every direction, therewas an open sea extending to the horizon; and it was evident that I hadlighted upon an iceberg, which had floated northward from a moresouthern region. After I had refreshed myself with a little food, Iproceeded to explore the frozen island, of which I had so unexpectedlybecome the sole proprietor.

  I am afraid that some of my readers may think that there is a tone ofexaggeration in my story as I proceed to narrate what I found there.Thus far, it must be allowed by all that I have kept within range of_possibility_, if not of probability; I have been careful to explainminutely and scientifically just how every thing came about; and if itshould ever become as familiar a thing to travel _through_ the earth asit is now to shoot over its surface on railroads, and send messagesinstantaneously from one end of the world to the other, this narrativewill not sound so very strange after all. But in telling what I found onthe iceberg, and what happened to me there, I may have to tax somewhatthe credulity of my readers.