A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder James De Mille

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which was cooling and hardening into the shape of a vast ledge of
lava. In this way, by the aid of nature, the fish were broiled, and
we made our repast.
There was nothing here to invite a longer stay, and we soon returned
to the athaleb. We found the monster, gorged with food, asleep,
resting upon his hind legs, with his breast supported against the vast
carcass. Almah called it a jantannin. It was about sixty feet in
length and twenty in thickness, with a vast horny head, ponderous
jaws, and back covered with scales. Its eyes were of prodigious size,
and it had the appearance of a crocodile, with the vast size of a
whale. It was unlike a crocodile, however; for it had fins rather than
paws, and must have been as clumsy on the land as a seal or a walrus.
It lay on its side, and the athaleb had fed itself from the uncovered
flesh of its belly.
There was nothing here to induce us to stay, and so we wandered along
the beach in the other direction. On our right was the bay; on our
left the rocky shore, which, beginning at the beach, ran back into
the country, a waste of impassable rocks, where not a tree or plant
or blade of grass relieved the appalling desolation. Once or twice
we made an attempt to penetrate into the country, where openings
appeared. These openings seemed like the beds of dried-up torrents. We
were able to walk but a few paces for invariably we would come to some
immense blocks of rock, which barred all farther progress. In this
way we explored the beach for miles, until it terminated in a savage
promontory that rose abruptly from the sea against which the huge
billows broke in thunder.
Then we retraced our steps, and again reached the spot where the
athaleb was asleep by the jantannin. Almah was now too weary to walk
any farther, nor was it desirable to do so; for, indeed, we had
traversed all that could be visited. On one side of the beach was the
sea, on the other the impassable rocks; at one end the promontory, at
the other the lava fires. There was nothing more for us to do but to
wait here until the athaleb should awake, and then our actions would
depend upon what we might now decide.
This was the question that was now before us, and this we began to
consider. We both felt the most unspeakable aversion for the island,
and to remain here any longer was impossible. We would once more have