7 6 Baron Von Buch's Observations on Madeira 



It is otherwise, when we actually arrive at the foot of the 

 Peak, through the defiles of Portillo. Here we felt as if again 

 placed amidst the sublime stillness and solitude of the glaciers 

 of the Alps, and, as in the Alpine glaciers, the traveller, in wan- 

 dering over the boundless and gently rising acclivities of pumice, 

 becomes bewildered. What seemed mere blocks at a distance, 

 became rocks when we approached them ; and crater hills were 

 transformed into imposing mountains. No scale of the plain 

 could yet be applied. The mass of the peak stood still higher 

 above this level than we had yet seen it ; and black streams of 

 glass descended from the summit like ribbands upon the decli- 

 vity. Continually occupied with the vast spectacle, we were not 

 sensible that we were obliged to travel three hours longer to 

 reach the margin of the stream of lava. Some of the large 

 blocks that compose this margin, are so thrown together as to 

 form benches and apartments of a rude description, among 

 which people commonly wait till the following morning, before 

 they prosecute their journey farther. It is the lower Estancia 

 de los Ingleses. 



The ascent from this is difficult ; and still more so, when, at 

 an additional elevation of 2000 feet, we must actually cross a 

 black sharp field of glass ; although it is never to be compared 

 to the labour of climbing to some of the summits of the Alps. 

 Upwards, above Cueva del Hielo, about 10,300 feet above the 

 sea, we observed the first flakes of snow upon the declivity. 

 They were but small ; and in our farther approach towards the 

 summit, we saw no more of them. Bewildered in looking upon 

 the boundless prospect, which astonishes, rather than delights or 

 elevates^ because the imagination, unsatisfied with the surround- 

 ing shapeless horizon, looks back on it with horror ; we had 

 been already some hours upon the margin, and in the interior 

 of the crater, when Mrs Hammond, a Scotch lady, with her 

 company, appeared above, the first female, who, in the memory 

 of the inhabitants, ever ascended the peak. They went round 

 the whole crater, and likewise round that side towards Chahorro, 

 which is so seldom visited ; and although the sharp obsidian 

 cut their shoes and feet in a dreadful manner, they did not hesi- 

 tate to visit along with us the natural ice-pits between the 

 blocks of obsidian and the Cueva del Hielo, which, during the 



