yes were accustomed to the light we had lost sight of so long,
I used them to rectify the errors of my imagination. Whatever happened,
we should have been at Spitsbergen, and I was in no humor to yield to
anything but the most absolute proof.

After some delay, the Professor spoke.

"Hem!" he said, in a hesitating kind of way, "it really does not look
like Iceland."

"But supposing it were the island of Jan Mayen?" I ventured to observe.

"Not in the least, my boy. This is not one of the volcanoes of the
north, with its hills of granite and its crown of snow."

"Nevertheless--"

"Look, look, my boy," said the Professor, as dogmatically as usual.

Right above our heads, at a great height, opened the crater of a volcano
from which escaped, from one quarter of an hour to the other, with a
very loud explosion, a lofty jet of flame mingled with pumice stone,
cinders, and lava. I could feel the convulsions of nature in the
mountain, which breathed like a huge whale, throwing up from time to
time fire and air through its enormous vents.

Below, and floating along a slope of considerable angularity, the stream
of eruptive matter spread away to a depth which did not give the volcano
a height of three hundred fathoms.

Its base disappeared in a perfect forest of green trees, among which I
perceived olives, fig trees, and vines loaded with rich grapes.

Certainly this was not the ordinary aspect of the arctic regions. About
that there could not be the slightest doubt.

When the eye was satisfied at its glimpse of this verdant expanse, it
fell upon the waters of a lovely sea or beautiful lake, which made of
this enchanted land an island of not many leagues in extent.

On the side of the rising sun was to be seen a little port, crowded with
houses, and near which the boats and vessels of peculiar build were
floating upon azure waves.

Beyond, groups of islands rose above the liquid plain, so numerous and
close together as to resemble a vast beehive.

Towards the setting sun, some distant shores were to be made out on the
edge of the horizon. Some presented the appearance of blue mountains of
harmonious conformation; upon others, much more distant, there appeared
a prodigiously lofty cone, above the summit of which hung dark and heavy
clouds.

Towards the north, an immense expanse of water sparkled beneath the
solar rays, occasionally allowing the extremity of a mast or the
convexity of a sail bellying to the wind,