222 THE ATLANTIC. [chap, i v. 



Clarence Bay, off Tartar Stairs, the landing -pier of George 

 Town. The smi was just setting, and the outlines and coloring 

 had a most improbable effect ; the near cones perfectly sym- 

 metrical and of a deep crimson ; intermediate rough lava-mass- 

 es, like cinders seen through a huge magnifying -glass, deep 

 brown or pitch-black ; and in the middle Green Mountain, an 

 irregular peak of gray trachyte, the gray of the rock melting 

 into tiie curious blue green of the Australian foliage above. 



Ascension is certainly a strange little place. It is purely 

 volcanic ; and although there is now no sign whatever of vol- 

 canic activity, the cones of tufa are so fresh, and so defined and 

 vivid in their different shades of brown and red, and the lava- 

 beds are so rugged, apparently utterly unaffected by atmos- 

 pheric action, that the impression is irresistible that it is a lately 

 formed heap of cinders and ashes, probably still resting upon 

 slumbering fires. The island is irregularly oval in form, about 

 seven and a half miles long by six wide ; the position of the cen- 

 tral peak is lat. Y° 56' 58'' S., long. 14° 20' W. It is directly 

 in the path of the south-east trade ; so that there is an exposed 

 weather side, with abrupt cliffs and precipices and unsafe land- 

 ing, and a lee side, where there is the settlement and anchorage. 

 As in almost all these volcanic islands in the path of constant 

 winds, during the periods of eruption the scoriae and ashes have 

 been driven to leeward of the centre of action, and have pro- 

 duced a bank which now forms good holding anchorage-ground. 



From the anchorage there is not a particle of vegetation to 

 be seen, except the slight green tinge near the top of Green 

 Mountain, about six miles distant ; only a waste of lava and 

 ashes, black, gray, and red, rising peak after peak and ridge 

 after ridge, until the harsh outlines and abrupt alternations of 

 color become somewhat softened down and mellowed in the 

 distance. The little town is placed on a dreary plot of cinders 

 at the end of a valley w^hich winds up between two great cones 

 of red ashes, and eventually reaches the foot of Green Mount- 



