230 TRAVELS IN THE EAST INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 



they miglit not come down upon some one beneatli liim. 

 Our ascent now was extremely slow and difficult, but 

 we kept on, thougli sometimes the top of tlie moun- 

 tain seemed as far oif as tlie stars, until we were 

 within about five hundred feet of the summit, when 

 we came to a horizontal band of loose, angular frag- 

 ments of lava from two to six inches in diameter. 

 The mountain-side in that place rose at least at an 

 angle of thirty-five degrees, but to us, in either look- 

 ing up or down, it seemed almost perpendicular. 

 The band of stones was about two hundred feet wide, 

 and so loose that, when one was touched, fi'equently 

 half a dozen would go rattling down the mountain. 

 I had got about half-way across this dangerous place, 

 when the stones on which my feet were placed gave 

 way. This, of course, threw my whole weight on 

 my hands, and at once the rocks, which I was hold- 

 ing with the clinched grasp of death, also gave way, 

 and I began to slide downward. The natives on 

 either side of me cried out, but no one dared to 

 catch me for fear that I should carry him down also. 

 Among the loose rocks, a few ferns grew up and 

 spread out their leaves to the sunlight. As I felt 

 myself going down, I chanced to roll to my right side 

 and notice one of them, and, quick as a flash of light, 

 the thought crossed my mind that my only hope was 

 to seize that fern. This I did with my right hand, 

 burying my elbow among the loose stones with the 

 same motion, and that, thanks to a kind Providence, 

 was sufficient to stop me ; if it had broken, in less than a 

 minute — probably in thirty or forty seconds — ^I should 

 have been dashed to pieces on the rough rocks be- 



