THE CRATER AND THE SANDY SEA. 69 



looking the very picture of desolation. I could almost 

 imagine it was a portion of the mountain that from some cause 

 had become withered and died away ; all the hills around 

 it were so beautiful and green, while this was a bare heap 

 of ashes and sand without a blade of grass upon it, and 

 on one side, where the mud and sand had been thrown out 

 the rains had furrowed them into hundreds of miniature 

 mountains and ravines. It is supposed that originally the 

 mountain rose up in the shape of a cone similar to that of the 

 Smeroe, and that in the course of time it undermined itself 

 and in some great eruption burst and fell in ; the remains of 

 the upper portion of the mountain became embedded in the 

 centre of the sand which must have been collected in the 

 crater of the old volcano, at the same time the outer surface of 

 the old volcano became a circular range of nearly perpendicular 

 hills completely surrounding the sandy plain. To give some 

 idea of this volcano and its curious formation, imagine a tea 

 cup or circular bowl with the rim broken and jagged ; fill it 

 two-thirds full of fine sand, and place a piece of pumice stone 

 in the centre, bank up the outer surface of the cup to about 

 one third of the lop, the rim will represent the jagged wall, the 

 sand the sandy sea, as it is called, and the pumice stone the 

 present crater, which is about 7,359 feet above the sea level. 

 I remained a short time to make a sketch, and we then rode 

 along the jagged ridge of the outer wall for about four or five 

 miles ; in many places the path was not more than five feet 

 broad, with a precipice of a thousand feet on one side, and 

 from four to five hundred feet on the other. The scenery was 

 magnificent beyond description. We had a fine view of the 

 Smeroe all the time ; it did not look above five or six miles 

 distant, but was in reality I believe, about twenty ; when we 



