Fridrikssen treated me to a line of Virgil eminently applicable to
such uncertain wanderers as we were likely to be:

"Et quacumque viam dedent fortuna sequamur."

"Therever fortune clears a way,

Thither our ready footsteps stray."



CHAPTER XII.

A BARREN LAND

We had started under a sky overcast but calm. There was no fear of
heat, none of disastrous rain. It was just the weather for tourists.

The pleasure of riding on horseback over an unknown country made me
easy to be pleased at our first start. I threw myself wholly into the
pleasure of the trip, and enjoyed the feeling of freedom and
satisfied desire. I was beginning to take a real share in the
enterprise.

"Besides," I said to myself, "where's the risk? Here we are
travelling all through a most interesting country! We are about to
climb a very remarkable mountain; at the worst we are going to
scramble down an extinct crater. It is evident that Saknussemm did
nothing more than this. As for a passage leading to the centre of the
globe, it is mere rubbish! perfectly impossible! Very well, then; let