HECLA. 
107 
I could not help thinking how lucky it was that, not 
eating dates, we could not inadvertently fling their stones 
into the eye of any inquisitive genie who might he in 
the neighbourhood. 
After the usual hour’s rest and change of horses, 
we galloped away to the other side of the plain, and, 
doubling the further horn of the semicircle, suddenly 
found ourselves in a district as unlike the cinder 
mountains we had quitted as they had differed from 
the volcanic scenery of the day before. On the left 
lay a long rampart of green hills, opening up every 
now and then into Scottish glens and gorges, while 
from their roots to the horizon stretched a vast breadth 
of meadow-land, watered by two or three rivers, that 
wound, and twisted, and coiled about, like blue serpents. 
Here and there, white volumes of vapour that rose 
in endless wreaths from the ground, told of mighty 
cauldrons at work beneath that moist cool verdant 
carpet; while large silvery lakes, and flat-topped 
isolated hills, relieved the monotony of the level land, 
and carried on the eye to where the three snowy 
peaks of Mount Hecla shone cold and clear against 
the sky. 
