A Cascade of Hot Water I — Internal Fires. 217 



ward to got to our goal before it should burst, we halted here 

 only long enough to change horses. This done we again 

 resumed the ascent, much refreshed by the delay, which im- 

 parted renewed vigour to climb the steep zig-zag pathway, 

 which now led through a gloomy, silent forest, whence not a 

 sound issued except the blowing of our cattle, as they breasted 

 the steep, and far below us the hollow roar of the mountain 

 brook, which swept through the valley beneath. We then 

 found ourselves approaching nearer and nearer to some 

 resounding torrent, which went on increasing, till to our 

 amazement we suddenly perceived amid the keen cool moun- 

 tain breezes a smoking cascade of hot- water ! ! [Tji-oloJcj or 

 Sulphur spring). This warm spring, with a temperature of 

 113° Fahr., which even at its source forms a tolerable-sized 

 brook, issues with much spluttering from a trachytic rock 

 close by the way-side, and rushes, brawling and foaming, 

 down a narrow defile, overgrown with sj^lendid tree-ferns, 

 and which is crossed by means of a slight rustic bridge. 

 Scarcely is it possible to conceive a richer landscape, recall- 

 ing as it were the primeval days of earth in all the luxuriance 

 of Nature in the flush of youth, than this forest of tree-ferns, 

 enveloped in clouds of warm vapour, which rise from this 

 volcanic spring, close alongside of a clear, cold mountain 

 torrent, which just here leaps into^ the same chasm ! This hot 

 spring thus early indicates the presence of volcanic fires, 

 which is further evidenced by a tract of volcanic debris, 

 over w^hich it is necessary to clamber, and which has been 



