Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Chapter 17 -- Underground Rivers in Continental Fiction
In the 13th-century French epic Chanson de Esclarmonde, an
angel advises the hero, Huon, to follow the subterranean river
lined with precious stones into the mountain Tenebree.
In the Old English Boke of Duke Huon of Burdeux, a retelling of
the French, the duke's jeweled boat is hurled down a dark
passage having great bars of red-hot iron hissing in the water.
It's an 11-day underground sail until Huon emerges in the
Persian Sea.
In German, French and English, it's the same bejeweled
sojourn on a subterranean river.
Voltaire's Candide (1758) contains parallels to the story of Sinbad, notably where Candide and
his valet Cacambo visit the utopian South American city of Eldorado, surrounded by unscalable
mountains and reachable only by a 24-hour underground boat ride. Whereas the Arabian Nights
focuses on the narrative themes of providence and destiny, Voltaire substitutes the interference
of divine power with human intervention.
Cacambo speaks,
"We can go no farther, we have walked far enough; I can see an empty canoe in the bank, let
us fill it with cocoanuts, get into the little boat and drift with the current; a river always leads to
some inhabited place. If we do not find anything pleasant, we shall at least find something
new."
The river continually became wider; finally it
disappeared under an arch of frightful rocks which
towered up to the very sky. The two travelers were
bold enough to trust themselves to the current
under this arch. The stream, narrowed between
walls, carried them with horrible rapidity and noise.
After twenty-four hours they saw daylight again; but
their canoe was wrecked on reefs; they had to crawl
from rock to rock for a whole league, and at last
they discovered an immense horizon, bordered by
inaccessible mountains. The country was cultivated
for pleasure as well as for necessity; everywhere
the useful was agreeable.
DRAFT 1122//66//22001122
Uppddaatteess aatt hhttttpp::////www. .uunnm. .eedduu//~rrhheeggggeenn//UnnddeerrggrroouunnddRi ivveerrss. .hhttml l
187