"The party visited the island owned by Lilama, where they found the
temperature quite cold, but the island comfortably habitable. It was at
about the same distance from the crater as was Hili-li; and was so
situated as to be of nearly one temperature all the year round. They
found at work there a body of men, numbering not more than fifteen or
twenty. It seems that upon making a trial of the various islands as a
home for the descendants of the animals brought south by the original
settlers, it was found that upon this island conditions were the best
for raising sheep for their wool; and from the wool raised, Lilama's
income was much greater than from the precious stones found there later,
though precious stones were found on no other island in Hili-liland.
Peters knows next to nothing, either theoretically or practically, of
geology; but he says this island looked very different from the others
in that region, and that its mountainous central portion appeared
altogether different from any other of the mountains in Hili-liland.
Asked to say if he had ever seen a mountain-range which Lilama's
mountain resembled, he replied, but could not say why he so thought,
that it reminded him of various parts of the Appalachian range.
"In strolling about the island, the party entered a small warehouse in
which the precious stones were kept. Peters says that the gems which he
there saw were of all sizes up to a large hen-egg, and of all colors
except green. He particularly remembers being given several beautiful
specimens, including blue, red, yellow, violet, gray, and white stones,
all transparent; a black stone, and a brown-gray opaque stone. These
were, of course, the sapphire, ruby, topaz, amethyst, and other
varieties of corundum, the islands evidently containing no emeralds or
diamonds. Lilama selected from a tray a stone the color of pigeon-blood,
and about the size of an English walnut, which she handed to Pym as she
might have handed him a beautiful rose. In Europe or America this stone
would have purchased a fair-sized town.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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