254 



HA WAIL 



[letter XXIX. 



fearful joy," out of a pain and terror which were unendurable. 

 For two or three minutes we kept going to the edge, seeing 

 the spectacle as with a flash, through half closed eyes, and 

 going back again ; but a few trials, in which throats, nostrils, 

 and eyes were irritated to torture by the acid gases, convinced 

 us that it was unsafe to attempt to remain by the lake, as the 

 pain and gasping for breath which followed each inhalation, 

 threatened serious consequences. 



With regard to the north lake we were more fortunate, and 

 more persevering, and I regard the three hours we spent by it 

 as containing some of the most solemn, as well as most fasci- 

 nating, experiences of my life. The aspect of the volcano had 

 altogether changed within four months. At present there are 

 two lakes surrounded by precipices about eighty feet high. 

 Owing to the smoke and confusion it is most difficult to esti- 

 mate their size even approximately, but I think that the dia- 

 meter of the two cannot be less than a fifth of a mile. 



Within the pit or lake by which we spent the morning, there 

 were no fiery mountains, or regular plashings of fiery waves 

 playing in indescribable beauty in a faint, blue atmosphere, 

 but lurid, gory, molten, raging, sulphurous, tormented masses 

 of matter, half seen through masses as restless, of lurid smoke. 

 Here, the violent action appeared centripetal, but with a south- 

 ward tendency. Apparently, huge, bulging masses of a lurid- 

 coloured lava were wallowing the whole time one over another 

 in a central whirlpool, which occasionally flung up a wave of 

 fire thirty or forty feet. The greatest intensity of action was 

 always preceded by a dull, throbbing roar, as if the imprisoned 

 gases were seeking the vent which was afforded them by the 

 upward bulging of the wave and its bursting into spray. The 

 colour of the lava which appeared to be thrown upwards from 

 great depths, was more fiery and less gory than that nearer the 

 surface. Now and then, through rifts in the smoke, we saw a 

 convergence of the whole molten mass into the centre, which 

 rose wallowing and convulsed to a considerable height. The 

 awful sublimity of what we did see, was enhanced by the know- 

 ledge that it was only a thousandth part of what we did not see, 

 mere momentary glimpses of a terror and fearfulness which 

 otherwise could not have been borne. 



A ledge, only three or four feet wide, hung over the lake, 

 and between that and the comparative terra firma of the old 

 lava, there was a fissure of unknown depth, emitting hot blasts 

 of pernicious gases. The guide would not venture on the out- 



