Sunny Lands in the Blue Mediterranean
When I opened my eyes again I felt myself grasped by the belt with the strong hand of our guide. With the other arm he supported my uncle. I was not seriously hurt, but I was shaken and bruised and battered all over. I found myself lying on the sloping side of a mountain only two yards from a gaping gulf, which would have swallowed me up had I leaned at all that way. Hans had saved me from death whilst I lay rolling on the edge of the crater.
“Where are we?” asked my uncle irascibly, as if he felt much injured by being landed upon the earth again.
The hunter shook his head in token of complete ignorance.
“Is it Iceland?” I asked.
“ Nej ,” replied Hans.
“What! Not Iceland?” cried the Professor.
“Hans must be mistaken,” I said, raising myself up.
This was our final surprise after all the astonishing events of our wonderful journey. I expected to see a white cone covered with the eternal snow of ages rising from the midst of the barren deserts of the icy north, faintly lighted with the pale rays of the arctic sun, far away in the highest latitudes known; but contrary to all our expectations, my uncle, the Icelander, and myself were sitting halfway down a mountain baked under the burning rays of a southern sun, which was blistering us with the heat, and blinding us with the fierce light of his nearly vertical rays.