THE CRATEK AND THE SANDY SEA, 
69 
looking* the very picture of desolation. I could almost 
imagine it was a portion of die 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 top, 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 
