RA WAIIA N G UIDE BOOK. 85 



from it for a week, and as nothing was to be seen but a 

 very faint blnisb vapor banging round its margin, the 

 prospect was not encouraging. * * * 



" Tbe first descent down the terminal wall of the cra- 

 ter is very precipitous, but it and tbe slope wbicb extends 

 to tbe second descent are tbickly covered witb ohias, 

 ohelos (a species of whortleberry), sadlerias, polopodi- 

 ums, silver grass, and a great variety of bulbous plants, 

 many of which bore clusters of berries of a brilliant tur- 

 quoise blue. The "beyond" looked terrible. I could 

 not help clinging to these vestiges of the kindlier mood 

 of nature in which she sought to cover the horrors she 

 bad wrought. The next descent is over rough blocks 

 and ridges of broken lava, and appears to form part of 

 a break whioh extends irregularly round the whole cra- 

 ter, and which probably marks a tremendous subsidence 

 of its floor. Here the last apparent vegetation was left 

 behind, and the familiar earth. We were in a new Plu- 

 tonic region of blackness and awful desolation, the ac- 

 customed sights and sounds of nature all gone. Terra- 

 ces, cliffs, lakes, ridges, rivers, mountain sides, whirl- 

 pools, chasms of lava surrounded us, solid, black, and 

 shining, as if vitrified, or an ashen gray, stained yellow 

 with sulphur here and there, or white with alum. The 

 lava was fissured and upheaved everywhere by earth- 

 quakes, hot underneath, and emitting a hot breath. 



"After more than an hour of very difficult climbing 

 we reached the lowest level of the crater, pretty nearly 

 a mile across, presenting from above the appearance of 

 a sea at rest, but on crossing it we found it to be an ex- 

 panse of waves and convolutions of ashy-colored lava, 

 with huge cracks filled up with black iridescent rolls of 

 8 



