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saturday august fifteenth the sea unbroken all round no land in sight |
the horizon seems extremely distant |
all my danger and sufferings were needed to strike a spark of human feeling out of him but now that i am well his nature has resumed its sway |
you seem anxious my uncle i said seeing him continually with his glass to his eye anxious |
one might be with less reason than now |
i am not complaining that the rate is slow but that the sea is so wide |
we are losing time and the fact is i have not come all this way to take a little sail upon a pond on a raft |
he called this sea a pond and our long voyage taking a little sail |
therefore don't talk to me about views and prospects |
i take this as my answer and i leave the professor to bite his lips with impatience |
sunday august sixteenth |
nothing new weather unchanged the wind freshens |
but there seemed no reason to fear |
the shadow of the raft was clearly outlined upon the surface of the waves |
truly this sea is of infinite width |
it must be as wide as the mediterranean or the atlantic and why not |
these thoughts agitated me all day and my imagination scarcely calmed down after several hours sleep |
i shudder as i recall these monsters to my remembrance |
i saw at the hamburg museum the skeleton of one of these creatures thirty feet in length |
i suppose professor liedenbrock was of my opinion too and even shared my fears for after having examined the pick his eyes traversed the ocean from side to side |
tuesday august eighteenth |
during his watch i slept |
two hours afterwards a terrible shock awoke me |
the raft was heaved up on a watery mountain and pitched down again at a distance of twenty fathoms |
there's a whale a whale cried the professor |
flight was out of the question now the reptiles rose they wheeled around our little raft with a rapidity greater than that of express trains |
two monsters only were creating all this commotion and before my eyes are two reptiles of the primitive world |
i can distinguish the eye of the ichthyosaurus glowing like a red hot coal and as large as a man's head |
its jaw is enormous and according to naturalists it is armed with no less than one hundred and eighty two teeth |
those huge creatures attacked each other with the greatest animosity |
suddenly the ichthyosaurus and the plesiosaurus disappear below leaving a whirlpool eddying in the water |
as for the ichthyosaurus has he returned to his submarine cavern |
the roarings become lost in the distance |
the weather if we may use that term will change before long |
the atmosphere is charged with vapours pervaded with the electricity generated by the evaporation of saline waters |
the electric light can scarcely penetrate through the dense curtain which has dropped over the theatre on which the battle of the elements is about to be waged |
the air is heavy the sea is calm |
from time to time a fleecy tuft of mist with yet some gleaming light left upon it drops down upon the dense floor of grey and loses itself in the opaque and impenetrable mass |
the atmosphere is evidently charged and surcharged with electricity |
the wind never lulls but to acquire increased strength the vast bank of heavy clouds is a huge reservoir of fearful windy gusts and rushing storms |
there's a heavy storm coming on i cried pointing towards the horizon |
those clouds seem as if they were going to crush the sea |
on the mast already i see the light play of a lambent saint elmo's fire the outstretched sail catches not a breath of wind and hangs like a sheet of lead |
but if we have now ceased to advance why do we yet leave that sail loose which at the first shock of the tempest may capsize us in a moment |
that will be safest no no never |
the piled up vapours condense into water and the air put into violent action to supply the vacuum left by the condensation of the mists rouses itself into a whirlwind |
hans stirs not |
from the under surface of the clouds there are continual emissions of lurid light electric matter is in continual evolution from their component molecules the gaseous elements of the air need to be slaked with moisture for innumerable columns of water rush upwards into the air and fall back again in white foam |
i refer to the thermometer it indicates the figure is obliterated |
is the atmospheric condition having once reached this density to become final |
the raft bears on still to the south east |
at noon the violence of the storm redoubles |
each of us is lashed to some part of the raft |
the waves rise above our heads |
they seem to be we are lost but i am not sure |
he nods his consent |
the fireball half of it white half azure blue and the size of a ten inch shell moved slowly about the raft but revolving on its own axis with astonishing velocity as if whipped round by the force of the whirlwind |
here it comes there it glides now it is up the ragged stump of the mast thence it lightly leaps on the provision bag descends with a light bound and just skims the powder magazine horrible |
we shall be blown up but no the dazzling disk of mysterious light nimbly leaps aside it approaches hans who fixes his blue eye upon it steadily it threatens the head of my uncle who falls upon his knees with his head down to avoid it |
a suffocating smell of nitrogen fills the air it enters the throat it fills the lungs |
we suffer stifling pains |
the bogus legislature numbered thirty six members |
this was at the march election eighteen fifty five |
that summer's emigration however being mainly from the free states greatly changed the relative strength of the two parties |
for general service therefore requiring no special effort the numerical strength of the factions was about equal while on extraordinary occasions the two thousand border ruffian reserve lying a little farther back from the state line could at any time easily turn the scale |
the free state men had only their convictions their intelligence their courage and the moral support of the north the conspiracy had its secret combination the territorial officials the legislature the bogus laws the courts the militia officers the president and the army |
this was a formidable array of advantages slavery was playing with loaded dice |
coming by way of the missouri river towns he fell first among border ruffian companionship and influences and perhaps having his inclinations already molded by his washington instructions his early impressions were decidedly adverse to the free state cause |
his reception speech at westport in which he maintained the legality of the legislature and his determination to enforce their laws delighted his pro slavery auditors |
all the territorial dignitaries were present governor shannon presided john calhoun the surveyor general made the principal speech a denunciation of the abolitionists supporting the topeka movement chief justice lecompte dignified the occasion with approving remarks |
all dissent all non compliance all hesitation all mere silence even were in their stronghold towns like leavenworth branded as abolitionism declared to be hostility to the public welfare and punished with proscription personal violence expulsion and frequently death |
of the lynchings the mobs and the murders it would be impossible except in a very extended work to note the frequent and atrocious details |
the present chapters can only touch upon the more salient movements of the civil war in kansas which happily were not sanguinary if however the individual and more isolated cases of bloodshed could be described they would show a startling aggregate of barbarity and loss of life for opinion's sake |
several hundred free state men promptly responded to the summons |
it was in fact the best weapon of its day |
the leaders of the conspiracy became distrustful of their power to crush the town |
one of his militia generals suggested that the governor should require the outlaws at lawrence and elsewhere to surrender the sharps rifles another wrote asking him to call out the government troops at fort leavenworth |
the governor on his part becoming doubtful of the legality of employing missouri militia to enforce kansas laws was also eager to secure the help of federal troops |
sheriff jones had his pockets always full of writs issued in the spirit of persecution but was often baffled by the sharp wits and ready resources of the free state people and sometimes defied outright |
little by little however the latter became hemmed and bound in the meshes of the various devices and proceedings which the territorial officials evolved from the bogus laws |
to embarrass this damaging exposure judge lecompte issued a writ against the ex governor on a frivolous charge of contempt |
the incident was not violent nor even dramatic no posse was summoned no further effort made and reeder fearing personal violence soon fled in disguise |
but the affair was magnified as a crowning proof that the free state men were insurrectionists and outlaws |
from these again sprang barricaded and fortified dwellings camps and scouting parties finally culminating in roving guerrilla bands half partisan half predatory |
their distinctive characters however display one broad and unfailing difference |
the free state men clung to their prairie towns and prairie ravines with all the obstinacy and courage of true defenders of their homes and firesides |
their assumed character changed with their changing opportunities or necessities |
in the shooting of sheriff jones in lawrence and in the refusal of ex governor beeder to allow the deputy marshal to arrest him they discovered grave offenses against the territorial and united states laws |
footnote sumner to shannon may twelfth eighteen fifty six |
private persons who had leased the free state hotel vainly besought the various authorities to prevent the destruction of their property |
ten days were consumed in these negotiations but the spirit of vengeance refused to yield |
he summoned half a dozen citizens to join his posse who followed obeyed and assisted him |
he continued his pretended search and to give color to his errand made two arrests |
the free state hotel a stone building in dimensions fifty by seventy feet three stories high and handsomely furnished previously occupied only for lodging rooms on that day for the first time opened its table accommodations to the public and provided a free dinner in honor of the occasion |
as he had promised to protect the hotel the reassured citizens began to laugh at their own fears |
to their sorrow they were soon undeceived |
the military force partly rabble partly organized had meanwhile moved into the town |
he planted a company before the hotel and demanded a surrender of the arms belonging to the free state military companies |
half an hour later turning a deaf ear to all remonstrance he gave the proprietors until five o'clock to remove their families and personal property from the free state hotel |
atchison who had been haranguing the mob planted his two guns before the building and trained them upon it |
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