149 
In the Volcanic Region 
this work did not cause much trouble and hindered our advance 
but little. A good many elephant trails were seen right up to 
the vegetation limit of 2,700 metres. Keeping a moderate 
climbing pace, and striding over bare lava at the finish, we 
reached the crater in two hours. This ascent was the first under¬ 
taken from the southern side, whilst Lieutenant Schwartz, who 
was appointed to the German Congo Boundary Expedition, 
made his first ascent from the eastern side in 1902. 
Namlagira is a flat volcanic peak with a very gentle slope 
traversed by broad longitudinal and latitudinal rifts and, like 
Ninagongo, possesses a very typical broad explosive crater. The 
latter, in fact, is larger than the Graf Gotzen crater, the diameter, 
according to Kirschstein’s measurements, being close on two kilo¬ 
metres! Although we had already received many memorable 
impressions of the grandeur of the African volcanic world, we 
were, nevertheless, taken aback at the spectacle of this colossal 
crater. Its walls fall almost vertically to the depths, and end 
in a kind of terrace which encircles the crater and which in its 
eastern part has a ledge projecting towards the centre. This is 
the remainder of an old and much riven crater-floor which was 
once blown up by an exceedingly violent eruption. The terrace 
falls away steeply to the actual floor, which is perfectly level like 
that of the Graf Gbtzen crater. Smoke of a sulphur-yellow and 
chalky-white colour issues from a large number of cracks and 
fissures. Terraces and crater-floor are formed of congealed lava, 
and are covered, in places, with still smoking layers of cinders 
and lapilli. These spring from the more recent outbreaks of 
Namlagira, not from the crater proper, but, as Kirschstein will 
prove later on, from an eruptive flue blasted up through the 
terrace projection just mentioned. 
We had gone without food since six o’clock in the morning, 
and our hungry stomachs were insistently demanding their rights. 
So at four o’clock in the afternoon we began the descent over 
smooth lava, and before very long we found a favourable spot 
in the vicinity of a small stream. We encountered some diffi¬ 
culty in driving our tent pegs into the cracks in the lava, and 
