48 Mr Stewart's Account of an Ascent to the 



some for water for our tea, &c. &c. til], in a few minutes, every 

 thing was in as much readiness as if we had expected at an ear- 

 lier hour to remain there. The darkness, as it gathered round 

 us, rendered more gloomy by a heavily clouded sky, made the 

 novelty of our situation still more striking. Behind the huts, 

 in the distance, an upUfted torch of the blazing tutui nut here 

 and there indistinctly revealed the figures and costume of many 

 of our attendants, spreading their couches under the bushes, or 

 in the open air. A large lamp, suspended from the centre of 

 our rude lodge, which was entirely open in front, presented us, 

 in bolder relief, seated a la Turque round Lord Byron, who 

 poured out " the cup that cheers but not inebriates ," the more 

 curious of our dusky companions, both male and female, in the 

 mean time, pressing in numbers about our circle, as if anxious 

 " to catch the manners living as they rose.""* A large fire of 

 brushwood exhibited the objects of the fore-ground, in still 

 stronger lights and shadows. Groups of both sexes and all ages 

 were seated or standing round, wrapped up, from the chilliness 

 of the mountain air, in their large mantles of w^hite, black, green, 

 yellow and red — some smoking their evening pipe, some throw- 

 ing into the embers, and others scratching from them, a fish or 

 potato, or other article of food — some giving a loud halloo, in 

 answer to the call of a straggler just arriving — others wholly 

 taken up with the proceedings of the sailors cooking our supper, 

 and all chattering on a hundred different subjects, with the vo- 

 lubility of so many magpies. 



" By daylight the next morning we were on the road again. 

 At 9 o'clock we breakfasted at the last houses put up for our 

 accommodation on the way, and, by 11, had arrived within 

 three miles of the object of our curiosity. For the last hour 

 the scenery had become more interesting than it had been du- 

 ring most of the preceding day ; our path was occasionally skirt- 

 ed with groves and clusters of trees, and fringed with a greater 

 variety of vegetation. Here, also, the smoke of the volcano was 

 just descried, settling in light fleecy clouds to the south-west. 

 Our resting place, at this time, was a delightful spot, command- 

 ing a full view of the wide extent of country over which we had 

 travelled, and around it, the ocean, which, from the vast and 

 almost undistinguished extent of its horizon, seemed literally an 



