A Journey into the Interior of the Earth Chapter 8

**Jules Verne** (0:12)
CHAPTER VIII. SERIOUS PREPARATIONS FOR A VERTICAL DESCENT.
Altona, which is but a suburb of Hamburg, is the terminus of the Kiel railway, which was to carry us to the Belz. In twenty minutes we were in Holstein. At half past six the carriage stopped at the station. My uncle's numerous packages, his voluminous impedimenta, were unloaded, removed, labelled, weighed, put into the luggage vans, and at seven we were seated face to face in our compartment. The whistle sounded, the engine started, we were off.
Was I resigned? No, not yet. Yet the cool morning air and the scenes on the road rapidly changed by the swiftness of the train drew me away somewhat from my sad reflections.
As for the professor's reflections, they went far in advance of the swiftest express. We were alone in the carriage, but we sat in silence. My uncle examined all his pockets and his travelling bag with the minutest care. I saw that he had not forgotten the smallest matter of detail.
Amongst other documents, a sheet of paper, carefully folded, bore the heading of the Danish Consulate with the signature of W. Christensen, Consul at Hamburg, and the professor's friend. With this we possessed the proper introductions to the governor of Iceland. I also observed the famous document most carefully laid up in his secret pocket in his portfolio. I bestowed a malediction upon it and then proceeded to examine the country.
It was a very long succession of uninteresting loamy and fertile flats, a very easy country for the construction of railways, and propitious for the laying down of these direct-level lines so dear to railway companies. I had no time to get tired of the monotony, for in three hours we stopped at Kiel, close to the sea. The luggage being labelled for Copenhagen we had no occasion to look after it. Yet the professor watched every article with jealous vigilance, until all were safe on board. There they disappeared in the hold. My uncle, notwithstanding his hurry, had so well calculated the relations between the train and the steamer that we had a whole day to spare. The steamer Eleonora did not start until night. Thence sprang a fever state of excitement in which the impatient, irascible traveller devoted to perdition the railway directors and the steamboat companies and the governments which allowed such intolerable slowness.
I was obliged to act chorus to him when he attacked the captain of the Eleonora upon this subject. The captain disposed of us summarily. At Keele, as elsewhere, we must do something to while away the time. What with walking on the verdant shores of the bay, within which nestles the little town, exploring the thick woods which made it look like a nest embowered amongst thick foliage, admiring the villas, each provided with a little bathing house, and moving about and grumbling, at last ten o'clock came. The heavy coils of smoke from the Eleonora's funnel unrolled in the sky. The bridge shook with the quivering of the struggling steam. We were on board, and owners for the time of two births, one over the other, in the only saloon cabin on board. At quarter past, the moorings were loosed and the throbbing steamer pursued her way over the dark waters of the great belt. The night was dark. There was a sharp breeze and a rough sea. A few lights appeared on shore through the thick darkness. Later on, I cannot tell when, a dazzling light from some lighthouse threw a bright stream of fire along the waves. And this is all I can remember of this first portion of our sail.
At seven in the morning we landed at Corsair, a small town on the west coast of Zealand. There we were transferred from the boat to another line of railway, which took us by just as flat a country as the plain of Holstein. Three hours travelling brought us to the capital of Denmark. My uncle had not shut his eyes all night. In his impatience, I believe, he was trying to accelerate the train with his feet. At last he discerned a stretch of sea.
The sound! he cried. At our left was a huge building that looked like a hospital.
That's a lunatic asylum, said one of our travelling companions. Very good, thought I, just the place we want to end our days in. And, great as it is, that asylum is not big enough to contain all Professor Ledenbrock's madness.
At ten in the morning, at last, we set our feet in Copenhagen. The luggage was put upon a carriage and taken with ourselves to the Phoenix Hotel in Bredegate. This took half an hour, for the station is out of the town. Then my uncle, after a hasty toilet, dragged me after him. The porter at the hotel could speak German and English, but the professor, as a polyglot, questioned him in good Danish, and it was in the same language that that person has directed him to the Museum of Northern Antiquities.