A STILL ACTIVE VOLCANO 



221 



numerous camels, and keeping alongside of the edge of the 

 masses of lava and rubbish till we rounded the southern base 

 of the active volcano, we turned in a north-westerly direction 

 towards the lake, reaching the bay on the south-west late in 

 the afternoon. We made many very interesting observations 

 on this march. The ground was intersected by numerous 

 narrow fissures running in a north-easterly direction. Near 

 the volcano there was an overwhelming smell of sulphur and 

 chlorine, which soon made our men cough, their respiratory 

 organs appearing to be more sensitive than ours. Black clouds 

 of smoke were driven away from us by the prevailing south- 

 east wind, whilst the slopes of the volcano, the relative height 

 of which we estimated at about 600 feet, the ground at its base, 

 and the leaves of a few isolated knotty shrubs with thorns an 

 inch long and a gleaming bluish-green rind, were alike covered 

 with very fine black dust. The crater at the time of its most 

 recent eruption must have been fissured in a meridional direc- 

 tion, and the masses of ejected matter had taken on the one 

 side a northerly and on the other a southerly course. The 

 edges next the mouth of the crater were covered with a bright 

 orange-tinted efflorescence. As far as we could determine, the 

 clouds of vapour seemed not to issue from a common mouth, 

 but from several situated in various parts of the interior wall 

 of the crater. A few shrubs in full leaf formed a remarkable 

 feature, growing at the top of the eastern and western sides of 

 the crater brim. 



While I was inspecting this sombre scene through the 

 glass from a favourable point of view, in order to discover the 

 easiest way of approaching the brim of the crater, Kharscho 

 informed me that the day before he had wandered out with a 

 few other Somal towards the shore of the lake, and had there 

 discovered what was clearly a volcano, in which the incandescent 

 lava was still bubbling and seething. I very naturally loaded 



