I tarried awhile till it was day in eastern Asia, and, after some repose, continued my wandering. I traced through both Americas the mountain chain which constitutes the highest known acclivities on our globe. I stalked slowly and cautiously from summit to summit, now over flaming volcanoes, now snow-crowned peaks, often breathing with difficulty, when, reaching Mount Saint Elias, I sprang across Behring's Straits to Asia. I followed the western shores in their manifold windings, and examined with especial care to ascertain which of the islands were accessible to me. From the peninsula of Malacca my boots carried me to Sumatra, Java, Bali and Lamboc. I attempted often with danger, and always in vain, a northwest passage over the lesser islet and rocks with which this sea is studded, to Borneo and the other islands of this Archipelago. I was compelled to abandon the hope. At length I seated myself on the extreme portion of Lamboc, and gazing toward the south and east, wept, as at the fast closed bars of my prison, that I had so soon discovered my limits. New Holland so extraordinary and so essentially necessary to the comprehension of the earth and its sun-woven garment, the vegetable and the animal world, with the South Sea and its Zoophyte islands, was interdicted to me, and thus, at the very outset, all that I should gather and build up was destined to remain a mere fragment! Oh, my Adelbert, what, after all, are the endeavors of men!
Often did I in the severest winter of the southern hemisphere, endeavor, passing the polar glaciers westward, to leave behind me those two hundred strides out from Cape Horn, which sundered me probably from Van Diemen's Land and New Holland, regardless of my return or whether this dismal region should close upon me as my coffin-lid—making desperate leaps from ice-drift to ice-drift, and bidding defiance to the cold and the sea. In vain! I never reached New Holland, but, every time, I came back to Lamboc, seated myself on its farthest peak, and wept again, with my face turned toward the south and east, as at the fast closed bars of my prison.
I tore myself at length from this spot, and returned with a sorrowful heart into inner Asia. I traversed that farther, pursuing the morning dawn westward, and came, yet in the night, to my proposed home in the Thebais, which I had touched upon in the afternoon of the day before.
As soon as I was somewhat rested, and when it was day again in Europe, I made it my first care to procure everything which I wanted. First of all, stop-shoes; for I had experienced how inconvenient it was when I wished to examine near objects, not to be able to slacken my stride except by pulling off my boots. A pair of slippers drawn over them had completely the effect which I anticipated, and later I always carried two pairs, since I sometimes threw them from my feet, without having time to pick them up again, when lions, men, or hyenas startled me from my botanizing. My very excellent watch was, for the short duration of my passage, a capital chronometer. Besides this I needed a sextant, some scientific instruments, and books.
To procure all this, I made several anxious journeys to London and Paris, which, auspiciously for me, a mist just then overshadowed. As the remains of my enchanted gold was now exhausted, I easily accomplished the payment by gathering African ivory, in which, however, I was obliged to select only the smallest tusks, as not too heavy for me. I was soon furnished and equipped with all these, and commenced immediately, as private philosopher, my new course of life.
I roamed about the earth, now determining the altitudes of mountains; now the temperature of its springs and the air; now contemplating the animal, now inquiring into the vegetable tribes. I hastened from the equator to the pole, from one world to the other, comparing facts with facts. The eggs of the African ostrich or the northern sea-fowl, and fruits, especially of the tropical palms and bananas, were even my ordinary food. In lieu of happiness I had tobacco, and of human society and the ties of love, one faithful poodle, which guarded my cave in the Thebais, and, when I returned home with fresh treasures, sprang joyfully toward me and gave me still a human feeling that I was not alone on the earth. An adventure was yet destined to conduct me back amongst mankind.
CHAPTER XI
As I once scotched my boots on the shores of the north and gathered lichens and sea-weed, an ice-bear came unawares upon me round the corner of a rock. Flinging off my slippers, I would step over to an opposite island, to which a naked crag which protruded midway from the waves offered me a passage. I stepped with one foot firmly on the rock, and plunged over on the other side into the sea, one of my slippers having unobserved remained fast on the foot.
The excessive cold seized on me; I with difficulty rescued my life from this danger; and the moment I reached land, I ran with the utmost speed to the Lybyan desert in order to dry myself in the sun, but, as I was here exposed, it burned me so furiously on the head that I staggered back again very ill toward the north. I sought to relieve myself by rapid motion, and ran with swift, uncertain steps, from west to east, from east to west. I found myself now in the day, now in the night; now in summer, now in the winter's cold.
I know not how long I thus reeled about on the earth. A burning fever glowed in my veins; with deepest distress I felt my senses forsaking me. As mischief would have it, in my incautious career, I now trod on some one's foot; I must have hurt him; I received a heavy blow, and fell to the ground.