Now in two hours more I was come clear down out of the Gorge, and stood
in that Country; and for all that I did feel fresh troubled and
bewildered, yet was I rejoiceful, as you may believe, in the surprising
light and splendour of that sudden Land.
And before that I had come down out of the great Gorge, I had stood high
within the mouth thereof, and lookt well out over the mighty Country.
And I had counted seven and twenty great volcanoes, and this doth not
take heed of two monstrous ranges of fire-hills that burned afar off,
something unto my right. Neither doth it take account of an hundred
thousand lesser places of fire.
And truly it did seem a very land of fire and water. For there was a
small fire-hill stood within a sea, as it did seem no more than a little
mile from that place where I did stand. And maybe a score to the back of
it, spread all about. And here shall I do proper to tell concerning the
seas.
For there were of these, that I did count at that time, three that
were small, and a mighty sea that went onward for ever into the red
light of the fire-hills, so that it was gone utterly out of my sight,
and did show no ending.
And there rose up out of the seas, islands; and on the islands,
volcanoes. But in other parts the fire-hills did come upward straightly
from the sea. And over the near sea, as it did seem, there lay a
plentitude of steam, as that the sea did boil at whiles and in diverse
places.
And there did seem to me, as it were within the red atmosphere of that
place, as that there were a muttering thunder, low and constant, shaking
the air, now from that distance and now from this, and this did I judge
to be the voices of the fire-hills, speaking with the fire that lived in
them.
And you shall conceive how utter new was all this unto me; for there was
in that Country a constant Voice of the Energy of Life, so that the
World-Noise of this our Age was even there again, and with a keen and
undoubted apparentness; and the more so some ways, than now.
And here shall I set down more closely the things that were ready to my
gaze.
And first, that it did much attract me, there was a huge and blackened
mountain unto the left of the mouth of the Gorge, and the mountain did
go upward into the night, maybe fifteen and maybe twenty miles. And
there was a mighty peaked volcano that grew out from the side of the
mountain so high up as five miles, as I did guess that height; and this
was upon the far side. And above this there was a second, maybe nine or
ten great miles up in the blackness of the night that hung afar upward.