DESCENDING THE SUGAR-LOAF. 51 



the time of sunrise, induced them to seek shelter at the 

 foot of the Sugar-loaf. Their hands and faces were 

 nearly frozen, while their boots were burnt by the soil 

 on which they walked. They descended in the space of 

 a few minutes the Sugar-loaf which they had scaled with 

 so much toil ; and this rapidity was in part in voluntas, 

 for they often rolled down on the ashes. It was with 

 regret that they quitted this solitude, this domain where 

 Nature reigned in all her majesty. 



They traversed the Malpays but slowly ; for their feet 

 found no sure foundation on the loose blocks of lava. 

 Nearer the station of the rocks, the descent became ex- 

 tremely difficult ; the compact short-swarded turf was so 

 slippery that they were obliged to incline their bodies 

 continually backward, in order to avoid falling. In 

 the sandy plain of retama, the thermometer rose to 72° ; 

 and this heat seemed to them suffocating in comparison 

 with the cold, which they had suffered from the air on 

 the summit of the volcano. They were absolutely with- 

 out water ; for their guides, not satisfied with drinking 

 clandestinely their little supply of Malmsey wine, had 

 broken their water jars. 



They at length enjoyed the refreshing breeze in the 

 beautiful region of the arborescent erica and fern, and were 

 enveloped in a thick bed of clouds stationary at three thou- 

 sand six hundred feet above the plain. The clouds having 

 dispersed, they remarked a phenomenon which afterwards 

 became familiar to them on the declivities of the Cordilleras. 

 Small currents of air chased trains of cloud with unequal 

 velocity, and in opposite directions: they bore the ap- 

 pearance of streamlets of water in rapid motion and 

 flowing in all directions, amidst a great mass of stagnant 



