THE BIRTH OF A VOLCANO 145 



On the right, hell was let loose, a round worthy 

 of Dante's lowest explorations — black, sinister 

 crevasses, rushing steam, swirling ugly gases 

 which swept on and on and finally joined the great 

 noxious cloud which contaminated the clean mantle 

 of Mount Whiton. In the foreground were scar- 

 let, dripping lava and snarling bursts of gas-tor- 

 tured bombs. 



Dusk softened all this, — the gas vanished into the 

 night and the nine lava streams became things of 

 infinite beauty. The flying projectiles from the 

 explosions were now seen as glowing red, not black. 

 We turned and steamed toward James, and until 

 ten o'clock that night, many miles away, the unfor- 

 gettable fires burned over our stern. It was a won- 

 derful farewell, — the very rocks of Galapagos alive. 



Two things remain to be set down. 



Twenty hours after we steamed away from Albe- 

 marle, our steering-gear, without a second's warn- 

 ing, broke down. Twenty hours earlier, with the 

 violent on-shore wind and current, deep water up 

 to the very splash of the lava, — and the good old 

 wooden Arcturus would have contributed a new 

 odor and a few flying sparks, and after that the 

 steam and gas would have continued as usual, and 

 the lava flowed uninterruptedly. 



And now that I have had to reread all these 

 words in hard type, I realize that I have given no 

 more idea of the real happening than if I had at- 

 tempted a description of the single peacock, the 

 one opal, the solitary sunset which I had seen and 

 you had not. 



