“But, alas! they soon discovered that they were on an ice-floe, and were moving north toward the open sea. Provisions soon gave out, they prayed to their gods, they floated and suffered, and as the weaker perished, cannibalism was resorted to—for madness possessed the despairing party. Days and weeks passed, an impenetrable fog enveloped them, and they gave themselves up to utter hopelessness.
“However, soon the atmosphere became milder, the distant breakers were heard, the fog rose like a curtain, and behold! land was near. Nearer yet they floated. Night came, the full moon shone, but it moved not up from, but along the rim of the horizon. Morning came, bright and balmy. The floe had entered a strange harbor, and soon the shores were reached. It seemed a ‘goodly land’ with fertile soil and genial climate.
“‘But a remnant of the peaceful tribe of Olif,’ he said, ‘were saved—nine men, thirteen women and five children. They cut boughs and built an habitation, and they said: “This shall be our dwelling place. Our city shall be called Eurania, in honor of our lost one, and here we will tarry until we return to the goddess Oliffa.”’
“‘This country,’ said Oseba, ‘was Cavitorus. These people were the ancestors of my people, the Shadowas, and on the banks of a charming harbour they built the City of Eurania, the most beautiful to-day on this planet.’
“‘Through all the ages, from barbarism to the present,’ said Oseba, ‘there has been a lingering tale, a faint tradition among the people as related, and a vague idea that they dwelt in a shadow, in the hollow of a hand, and that some time in after ages, or in after life, they would return to an upper world, called in nursery tales and by the superstitious, Oliffa, where the inhabitants are called Outeroos—because they dwell on the outer world.’
Leo Bergin soliloquizes:—
“What astounding folly! and yet, I am on my way over the limitless fields of ice and snow and dead men’s bones, to this phantom city, Eurania. Courage! who knows, for—
‘There are more things in heaven, and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’”
“‘Well,’ said Oseba, ‘these few people were of an amiable race, and a common danger, and a common sorrow, had made them brethren. Then the animals of this country were many, strong, amiable, and easily tamed; the mountains were accessible, the climate genial, and the soil so fruitful that there was nothing to suggest savagery. All nature smiled, and man progressed peacefully.’