44 TENERIFFE. 
to give lip the point ; and having prevailed on one of the 
guides and muleteers to accompany us, we proceeded up the 
mountain. As we advanced in height, the wind and the rain 
became more violent. We reached a plain, of which we 
could perceive no limit, Avhose surface was strewed over with 
huge unshapen masses of lava, which had probably been 
hurled from the crater on the summit of the peak. The mule- 
teers, after having endeavoured in vain to induce us, first by 
persuasion and then by threats, to turn the heads of the 
mules down the hill, thought fit to desert us. The thermo- 
meter ^y3.s now doMii to 36° ; and the mules became as obsti- 
nate and refractor}" as their drivers, who had just left us. It 
blew indeed so very strong, that they were literally unable to 
proceed. Dr. Gillan and his mule were carried to the brink 
of a precipice, where the beast luckily fell, or both must 
inevitably have perished. AVe now dismounted and, tying 
our mules together, endeavoured to walk along the bottom of 
a A^allcy that seeiiied to lead to the foot of the great cone ; 
but the surface being entirely stre^ved over with pumice 
stones, Ave sunk to the ankle at every step ; and the dust and 
sulphureous smell were equally obnoxious and intolerably 
suffocating. We noAV perceived that every hope must be 
abandoned of making farther progress. The thermometer 
was down to 30°. The storm continued to increase, and to 
such a degree of violence, as to oblige us to return to the spot 
where we had passed the night. Having here dried our 
clothes and taken some refreshment, we remounted and in 
the course of five hours, in the midst of the heaviest rain I 
ever experienced, reached Oratava where not a drop of 
7 
