TAAL VOLCANO AND ITS DESTRUCTIVE ERUPTION 331 
- From November 12 to 15, 1878, there 
was an eruption during which the entire 
island was covered with "ashes." 
MY FIRST VISIT TO TAAL VOI^CANO 
My personal acquaintance with Taal 
Volcano began in June, 1888. While at- 
tempting to make the Luzon coast from 
Mindoro in a small native sail-boat, in 
company with a fellow ornithologist. Dr. 
Frank S. Bourns, our frail craft was 
caught and badly battered in tide rips, 
and was ultimately dashed upon the coast 
of the Bay of Batangas. 
We made our way overland on foot to 
the town of the same name, walking into 
a quicksand after dark and having our 
shoes pulled off before we could extri- 
cate ourselves. When we finally reached 
our destination, hungry and exhausted, 
we despatched men to save such portion 
of our baggage as had not been de- 
stroyed, slept the clock around, and then 
visited the Spanish provincial governor, 
in order to secure permission to proceed 
to Manila on a local steamer which was 
loading with coffee at the pier. 
The governor, who was a most kindly 
man, assured us that we ought not to fail 
to visit Taal Volcano, even if we had to 
travel all night in order to get back in 
time to catch our steamer. We acted on 
his advice and I have always felt greatly 
indebted to him for it. 
We reached the volcano early the fol- 
lowing morning after a rough journey 
by carromata and native boat. The as- 
cent began with one false start, which 
ended in our being turned back by an 
impassable fissure, but on our second at- 
tempt we reached the rim of the large 
"old crater'' at its lowest point, where it 
has an elevation of only 369 feet above 
the waters of the lake. 
The view that opened before us was 
one of unsurpassed grandeur and beauty. 
We had ascended the eastern slope of 
the volcano. There lay at our feet a 
great depression, roughly circular and 
approximately a mile in diameter. Its 
walls were in most places nearly, or quite, 
perpendicular (page 321). They were 
beautifully stratified and brightly col- 
ored. Immediately in front of us was a 
lunette; - shaped fragment of a second 
crater wall, the remainder of which had 
long since disappeared. 
On the floor of the main crater there 
were three brilliantly colored lakes, of 
which the northernmost was blue, the 
central one yellow, and the southernmost 
a vivid emerald green. The yellow and 
green lakes were boiling violently, and 
from an opening under the southern 
point of the crater fragment above men- 
tioned there arose, with a steady roar 
and occasional subterranean explosions, 
an immense column of steam and sul- 
phur fumes. Numerous solfataras on 
the floor and sides of the crater spat 
forth poisonous vapors and contributed 
assorted hissings to the general chorus 
of strange and awe-inspiring sounds. 
Immediately in front of us the slope 
of the crater wall was somewhat less ab- 
rupt than elsewhere, and we saw extend- 
ing down to the crater floor traces of a 
zigzag path (see picture on page 322), 
said to have been constructed by a love- 
sick governor to satisfy the caprice of 
his enamorata, who desired to descend 
into the crater. 
Lured on by that strange impulse 
which so often leads people into foolish 
adventures, we scrambled down this 
apology for a path, finding the main 
crater floor so hot that we were forced 
to stand first on one foot and then on 
the other to keep the soles of our shoes 
from scorching. We climbed the /'"ag- 
ment of the inner crater wall, worked 
along it to a point immediately above the 
opening from which was steadily issuing 
a great column of fumes and steam, 
craned our necks over the edge and 
stared down into the seemingly bottom- 
less depths below. 
We then retraced our steps and, like 
the idiots that we were, endeavored to 
approach one of the boiling lakes in order 
to secure samples of the water. Soon 
the ground began to ring hollow under 
our feet. At this moment one of our 
Filipino attendants broke through the 
thin crust on which we were standing 
and sank to his knees in boiling mud, 
scalding his legs so that the skin came 
off. We promptly retraced our steps and 
climbed up the crater wall, which proved 
to be a very different undertaking from 
