128 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



large one, and after another half-hour's ghastly 

 toil I again surrendered and changed the angle of 

 our progress to the southwest, toward the nearest, 

 smallest fumarole out of which smoke and gas 

 came. 



Every two hundred yards we stopped for a mo- 

 ment, standing and shifting from one foot to 

 another. I found that even a square foot of 

 shadowed rock yielded a welcome coolness to my 

 boots and feet, but we could not squat coolie-fash- 

 ion, for every breath of air ceased below a height 

 of three feet. 



By the time I could distinguish the separate piles 

 of scoria around my small craters and the separate 

 jets of gas, the going got even worse, for now we 

 found our path intersected with ravines and cross 

 arroyos, the traversing of which was almost impos- 

 sible. The last quarter mile I went ahead blindly, 

 and when I thought I must have reached the fumar- 

 ole I found my way barred by a steep, unclimbable 

 cliff of crumbling lava, and far to the right a tiny 

 spurt of smoke. Disappointed, I turned to the left 

 and managed to surmount a thirty foot elevation 

 composed of scoria, breaking as easily as crackers 

 but of the hardness and sharpness of the steel resi- 

 due of factories. Fighting my way just ahead of 

 the avalanches of lava which I kicked down, I 

 came out on a flattened summit, and went on ten 

 yards farther. A glorious cool wind met me for 

 a moment, then died away and the sun's terrible 

 rays poured down, at the same time that twenty 

 fumaroles in all directions gave vent at once to 



