Having thus by such distant references--with Rodondo the only possibleones--settled our relative place on the sea, let us consider objects notquite so remote. Behold the grim and charred Enchanted Isles. Thisnearest crater-shaped headland is part of Albemarle, the largest of thegroup, being some sixty miles or more long, and fifteen broad. Did youever lay eye on the real genuine Equator? Have you ever, in the largestsense, toed the Line? Well, that identical crater-shaped headland there,all yellow lava, is cut by the Equator exactly as a knife cuts straightthrough the centre of a pumpkin pie. If you could only see so far, justto one side of that same headland, across yon low dikey ground, youwould catch sight of the isle of Narborough, the loftiest land of thecluster; no soil whatever; one seamed clinker from top to bottom;abounding in black caves like smithies; its metallic shore ringing underfoot like plates of iron; its central volcanoes standing grouped like agigantic chimney-stack.
