world, amidst the bowels of the earth.



Chapter III.


Slowly and cautiously I went my solitary way down the lamplit road and
towards the large building I have described. The road itself seemed like
a great Alpine pass, skirting rocky mountains of which the one through
whose chasm I had descended formed a link. Deep below to the left lay
a vast valley, which presented to my astonished eye the unmistakeable
evidences of art and culture. There were fields covered with a strange
vegetation, similar to none I have seen above the earth; the colour of
it not green, but rather of a dull and leaden hue or of a golden red.

There were lakes and rivulets which seemed to have been curved into
artificial banks; some of pure water, others that shone like pools of
naphtha. At my right hand, ravines and defiles opened amidst the rocks,
with passes between, evidently constructed by art, and bordered by trees
resembling, for the most part, gigantic ferns, with exquisite varieties
of feathery foliage, and stems like those of the palm-tree. Others were
more like the cane-plant, but taller, bearing large clusters of flowers.
Others, again, had the form of enormous fungi, with short thick stems
supporting a wide dome-like roof, from which either rose or drooped long
slender branches. The whole scene behind, before, and beside me far as
the eye could reach, was brilliant with innumerable lamps. The world
without a sun was bright and warm as an Italian landscape at noon, but
the air less oppressive, the heat softer. Nor was the scene before me
void of signs of habitation. I could distinguish at a distance, whether