336 DOMAIN XII. VOLCANIC. 



culties, my guides informed me I should have to 

 pass three places where the lava was still red- 

 hot, though it was now eleven months since it 

 had ceased to flow. These obstacles, however, 

 could not overcome my resolution to surmount 

 them, and I then experienced, as I have fre- 

 quently done at other times, how much may be 

 effected in difficulties and dangers like these, by 

 mere physical courage, by the assistance of 

 which we may proceed along the edge of a pre- 

 cipice in safety ; while the adventurer who suf- 

 fers himself to be surprised by a panic fear, will 

 be induced cowardly to desist from the enter- 

 prize he might have completed. In several 

 places, it is true, the scoriae broke under my 

 feet; and in others I slipped, and had nearly 

 fallen into cavities from which I should have 

 been with difficulty extricated. One of the 

 three places pointed out by the guides had like- 

 wise, from its extreme heat, proved highly dis- 

 agreeable ; yet at length I surmounted all these 

 obstacles and reached the opposite side, not 

 without making several cursory observations on 

 the-places whence these heats originated. Two 

 large clefts, or apertures, in different places 

 appeared in the lava, which there, notwithstand- 

 ing the clearness of the day, had an obscure red- 

 ness j and on applying the end of the staff which 



