A Journey to the Centre of the Earth pdf book download

Looking back to all that has occurred to me since that eventful day, I am

scarcely able to believe in the reality of my adventures. They were truly so

wonderful that even now I am bewildered when I think of them.

My uncle was a German, having married my mother’s sister, an

Englishwoman. Being very much attached to his fatherless nephew, he invited

me to study under him in his home in the fatherland. This home was in a large

town, and my uncle a professor of philosophy, chemistry, geology, mineralogy,

and many other ologies.

One day, after passing some hours in the laboratory—my uncle being absent

at the time—I suddenly felt the necessity of renovating the tissues—i.e., I was

hungry, and was about to rouse up our old French cook, when my uncle,

Professor Von Hardwigg, suddenly opened the street door, and came rushing

upstairs.

Now Professor Hardwigg, my worthy uncle, is by no means a bad sort of man;

he is, however, choleric and original. To bear with him means to obey; and

scarcely had his heavy feet resounded within our joint domicile than he shouted

for me to attend upon him.

“Harry—Harry—Harry—”

I hastened to obey, but before I could reach his room, jumping three steps at a

time, he was stamping his right foot upon the landing.

“Harry!” he cried, in a frantic tone, “are you coming up?”

Now to tell the truth, at that moment I was far more interested in the question

as to what was to constitute our dinner than in any problem of science; to me

soup was more interesting than soda, an omelette more tempting than arithmetic,

and an artichoke of ten times more value than any amount of asbestos.

But my uncle was not a man to be kept waiting; so adjourning therefore all

minor questions, I presented myself before him.

He was a very learned man. Now most persons in this category supply

themselves with information, as peddlers do with goods, for the benefit of

others, and lay up stores in order to diffuse them abroad for the benefit of society

in general. Not so my excellent uncle, Professor Hardwigg; he studied, he

consumed the midnight oil, he pored over heavy tomes, and digested huge

quartos and folios in order to keep the knowledge acquired to himself.

There was a reason, and it may be regarded as a good one, why my uncle

objected to display his learning more than was absolutely necessary: he

stammered; and when intent upon explaining the phenomena of the heavens, was

apt to find himself at fault, and allude in such a vague way to sun, moon, and

stars that few were able to comprehend his meaning. To tell the honest truth,

when the right word would not come, it was generally replaced by a very

powerful adjective.

In connection with the sciences there are many almost unpronounceable

names—names very much resembling those of Welsh villages; and my uncle

being very fond of using them, his habit of stammering was not thereby

improved. In fact, there were periods in his discourse when he would finally give

up and swallow his discomfiture—in a glass of water.

As I said, my uncle, Professor Hardwigg, was a very learned man; and I now

add a most kind relative. I was bound to him by the double ties of affection and

interest. 

I took deep interest in all his doings, and hoped some day to be almost

as learned myself. It was a rare thing for me to be absent from his lectures. Like

him, I preferred mineralogy to all the other sciences. My anxiety was to gain real

knowledge of the earth. Geology and mineralogy were to us the sole objects of

life, and in connection with these studies many a fair specimen of stone, chalk,

or metal did we break with our hammers.

Steel rods, loadstones, glass pipes, and bottles of various acids were oftener

before us than our meals. My uncle Hardwigg was once known to classify six

hundred different geological specimens by their weight, hardness, fusibility,

sound, taste, and smell.

He corresponded with all the great, learned, and scientific men of the age. I

was, therefore, in constant communication with, at all events the letters of, Sir

Humphry Davy, Captain Franklin, and other great men.

But before I state the subject on which my uncle wished to confer with me, I

must say a word about his personal appearance. Alas! my readers will see a very

different portrait of him at a future time, after he has gone through the fearful

adventures yet to be related.

My uncle was fifty years old; tall, thin, and wiry. Large spectacles hid, to a

certain extent, his vast, round, and goggle eyes, while his nose was irreverently

compared to a thin file. So much indeed did it resemble that useful article, that a

compass was said in his presence to have made considerable N (Nasal)

deviation.

The truth being told, however, the only article really attracted to my uncle’s

nose was tobacco.

Another peculiarity of his was, that he always stepped a yard at a time,

clenched his fists as if he were going to hit you, and was, when in one of his

peculiar humors, very far from a pleasant companion.

It is further necessary to observe that he lived in a very nice house, in that

very nice street, the Konigstrasse at Hamburg. Though lying in the centre of a

town, it was perfectly rural in its aspect—half wood, half bricks, with old-

fashioned gables—one of the few old houses spared by the great fire of 1842.

When I say a nice house, I mean a handsome house—old, tottering, and not

exactly comfortable to English notions: a house a little off the perpendicular and

inclined to fall into the neighboring canal; exactly the house for a wandering

artist to depict; all the more that you could scarcely see it for ivy and a

magnificent old tree which grew over the door.

My uncle was rich; his house was his own property, while he had a

considerable private income. To my notion the best part of his possessions was

his god-daughter, Gretchen. And the old cook, the young lady, the Professor and

I were the sole inhabitants.

I loved mineralogy, I loved geology. To me there was nothing like pebbles—

and if my uncle had been in a little less of a fury, we should have been the

happiest of families. To prove the excellent Hardwigg’s impatience, I solemnly

declare that when the flowers in the drawing-room pots began to grow, he rose

every morning at four o’clock to make them grow quicker by pulling the leaves!

Having described my uncle, I will now give an account of our interview.

First published in England by Griffith and Farran in 1871, this edition is not a translation at all but a complete re-write of the novel, with portions added and omitted, and names changed. A better translation is A Journey into the Interior of the Earth translated by Rev. F. A. Malleson.

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ore to share our meal. To satisfy my conscience, I ate for both.

The old cook and housekeeper was nearly out of her mind. After taking so much trouble, to find her master not appear at dinner was to her a sad disappointment–which, as she occasionally watched the havoc I was making on the viands, became also alarm. If my uncle were to come to table after all?

Suddenly, just as I had consumed the last apple and drunk the last glass of wine, a terrible voice was heard at no great distance. It was my uncle roaring for me to come to him. I made very nearly one leap of it–so loud, so fierce was his tone.

CHAPTER 2

THE MYSTERIOUS PARCHMENT

[Illustration: Runic Glyphs]

“I Declare,” cried my uncle, striking the table fiercely with his fist, “I declare to you it is Runic–and contains some wonderful secret, which I must get at, at any price.”

I was about to reply when he stopped me.

“Sit down,” he said,