seemed like a watery declivity
reaching for a thousand miles, till it approached the horizon far up
in the sky. Nor was it any delusion of the senses that caused this
unparalleled spectacle. I was familiar with the phenomena of the
mirage, and knew well that there was nothing of that kind here; for
the mirage always shows great surfaces of stillness, or a regular
vibration--glassy tides and indistinct distances; but here everything
was sharply defined in the clear atmosphere: the sky overhung a deep
blue vault; the waves danced and sparkled in the sun; the waters
rolled and foamed on every side; and the fresh breeze, as it blew over
the ocean, brought with it such exhilarating influences that it acted
upon me like some reviving cordial.

From the works of nature I turned to those of man. These were visible
everywhere: on the land, in cities and cultivated fields and mighty
constructions; on the sea, in floating craft, which appeared wherever
I turned my eyes--boats like those of fishermen, ships long and low,
some like galleys, propelled by a hundred oars, others provided with
one huge square-sail, which enabled them to run before the wind.
They were unlike any ships which I had ever seen; for neither in the
Mediterranean nor in Chinese waters were there any craft like these,
and they reminded me rather of those ancient galleys which I had seen
in pictures.

I was lost in wonder as to where I was, and what land this could be to
which I had been brought. I had not plunged into the interior of the
earth, but I had been carried under the mountains, and had emerged
again into the glad light of the sun. Could it be possible, I thought,
that Agnew's hope had been realized, and that I had been carried into
the warm regions of the South Pacific Ocean? Yet in the South Pacific
there could be no place like this--no immeasurable expanse of waters,
no horizon raised mountain high. It seemed like a vast basin-shaped
world, for all around me the surface appeared to rise, and I was in
what looked like a depression; yet I knew that the basin and the
depression were an illusion, and that this appearance was due to
the immense extent of level surface with the environment of lofty
mountains. I had crossed the antarctic circle; I had been borne onward
for an immense distance. Over all the known surface of the earth no
one had ever seen anything like this; there were but two places
where such an immeasurable plain was possible, and those