ACROSS THE MALPAYS. 47 



constantly directed towards the same point, which was 

 towards that part of the horizon where the disk of 

 the sun was to appear ; and that making allowance for 

 the motion of the star in its declination, the image re- 

 turned always to the same place. These appearances 

 of lateral refraction ceased long before daylight rendered 

 the stars quite invisible. 



The road, which they were obliged to clear for them- 

 selves across the Malpays, was extremely fatiguing. The 

 ascent was steep, and the blocks of lava rolled from 

 beneath their feet. At the peak the lava, broken into 

 sharp pieces, left hollows, in which they risked falling 

 up to their waists. Unfortunately the listlessness of 

 their guides contributed to increase the difficulty of this 

 ascent. Models of the phlegmatic, they had wished to 

 persuade Humboldt and Bonpland on the preceding 

 evening not to go beyond the station of the rocks. Every 

 ten minutes they sat down to rest themselves, and when 

 unobserved they threw away the specimens of obsidian 

 and pumice-stone, which the geologists had carefully 

 collected. They discovered at length that none of the 

 guides had ever visited the summit of the volcano. 



After three hours' walking, they reached, at the ex- 

 tremity of the Malpays, a small plain, called La Ram- 

 bleta, from the centre of which the Sugar-loaf took its 

 rise. They had yet to scale the steepest part of the 

 mountain, the Sugar-loaf, which formed the summit. 

 The slope of this small cone, covered with volcanic 

 ashes, and fragments of pumice-stone, was so steep, that 

 it would have been almost impossible to reach the top, 

 had they not ascended by an old current of lava, the 

 debris of which had resisted the ravages of time. These 



