During dinner, and after, I read the book, with some difficulty, for it was pen-written in French, and discoloured, and it turned out to be the journal of someone, a passenger and voyager, I imagine, who called himself Albert Tissu, and the ship the Marie Meyer. There was nothing remarkable in the narrative that I could see—commonplace descriptions of South Sea scenes, records of weather, cargoes, and the like—till I came to the last written page: and that was remarkable enough. It was dated the 13th of April—strange thing, my good God, incredibly strange—that same day, twenty long years ago, when I reached the Pole; and the writing on that page was quite different from the neat look of the rest, proving immoderate excitement, wildest haste; and he heads it “Cinq Heures,”—I suppose in the evening, for he does not say: and he writes: “Monstrous event! phenomenon without likeness! the witnesses of which must forever live immortalised in the annals of the universe, an event which will make even Mama, Henri and Juliette admit that I was justified in undertaking this most eventful voyage. Talking with Captain Tombarel on the poop, when a sudden exclamation from him—‘Mon Dieu!’ His visage whitens! I follow the direction of his gaze to eastward! I behold! eight kilomètres perhaps away—, ten monstrous waterspouts, reaching up, up, high enough—all apparently in one straight line, with intervals of nine hundred mètres, very regularly placed. They do not wander, dance, nor waver, as waterspouts do; nor are they at all lily-shaped, like waterspouts: but ten hewn pillars of water, with uniform diameter from top to bottom, only a little twisted here and there, and, as I divine, fifty mètres in girth. Five, ten, stupendous minutes we look, Captain Tombarel mechanically repeating and repeating under his breath ‘Mon Dieu!’ ‘Mon Dieu!’ the whole crew now on the poop, I agitated, but collected, watch in hand. And suddenly, all is blotted out: the pillars of water, doubtless still there, can no more be seen: for the ocean all about them is steaming, hissing higher than the pillars a dense white vapour, vast in extent, whose venomous sibilation we at this distance can quite distinctly hear. It is affrighting, it is intolerable! the eyes can hardly bear to watch, the ears to hear! it seems unholy travail, monstrous birth! But it lasts not long: all at once the Marie Meyer commences to pitch and roll violently, and the sea, a moment since calm, is now rough! and at the same time, through the white vapour, we see a dark shadow slowly rising—the shadow of a mighty back, a newborn land, bearing upwards ten flames of fire, slowly, steadily, out of the sea, into the clouds. At the moment when that sublime emergence ceases, or seems to cease, the grand thought that smites me is this: ‘I, Albert Tissu, am immortalised: my name shall never perish from among men!’ I rush down, I write it. The latitude is 16° 21′ 13″ South; the longitude 176° 58′ 19″ West.2 There is a great deal of running about on the decks—they are descending. There is surely a strange odour of almonds—I only hope—it is so dark, mon D—”
So the Frenchman, Tissu.
With all that region I would have no more
