A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder James De Mille

41
roads winding far away along the plain or up the mountain-sides, and
mighty works of industry in the shape of massive structures, terraced
slopes, long rows of arches, ponderous pyramids, and battlemented
walls.
From the land I turned to the sea. I saw before me an expanse of water
intensely blue--an extent so vast that never before in all my ocean
voyages had anything appeared at all comparable with it. Out at sea,
wherever I had been, the water had always limited the view; the
horizon had never seemed far away; ships soon sank below it, and the
visible surface of the earth was thus always contracted; but here, to
my bewilderment, the horizon appeared to be removed to an immeasurable
distance and raised high in the air, while the waters were prolonged
endlessly. Starting from where I was, they went away to inconceivable
distances, and the view before me seemed like a watery declivity
reaching for a thousand miles, till it approached the horizon far up
in the sky. Nor was it any delusion of the senses that caused this
unparalleled spectacle. I was familiar with the phenomena of the
mirage, and knew well that there was nothing of that kind here; for
the mirage always shows great surfaces of stillness, or a regular
vibration--glassy tides and indistinct distances; but here everything
was sharply defined in the clear atmosphere: the sky overhung a deep
blue vault; the waves danced and sparkled in the sun; the waters
rolled and foamed on every side; and the fresh breeze, as it blew over
the ocean, brought with it such exhilarating influences that it acted
upon me like some reviving cordial.
From the works of nature I turned to those of man. These were visible
everywhere: on the land, in cities and cultivated fields and mighty
constructions; on the sea, in floating craft, which appeared wherever
I turned my eyes--boats like those of fishermen, ships long and low,
some like galleys, propelled by a hundred oars, others provided with
one huge square-sail, which enabled them to run before the wind.
They were unlike any ships which I had ever seen; for neither in the
Mediterranean nor in Chinese waters were there any craft like these,
and they reminded me rather of those ancient galleys which I had seen
in pictures.
I was lost in wonder as to where I was, and what land this could be to
which I had been brought. I had not plunged into the interior of the
earth, but I had been carried under the mountains, and had emerged