EXTRAORDINARY SCENERY 
foliage, especially at the summit, but also lower down at 
the sides. Then burity palms were fairly abundant 
wherever one met landir trees in groups or tufts. We 
were now travelling at an elevation of 2,050 feet, then 
soon after at 2,100 feet above the sea level. There was 
merely stunted vegetation growing upon the red earth 
and sand. 
On descending from that high point we came upon 
extraordinary scenery. To our right (north) was an¬ 
other concave depression with a further subsidence in its 
central part. Due west and northwest, from the spot 
where we first observed the scene, appeared four curious 
hemispherical domes forming a quadrangle with three less 
important ones beyond. In the southeasterly portion of 
the depression was a great rocky mass, while due north 
another, and higher, conical mount, much higher than all 
the others, could be observed. 
In the eastern part of the depression a wide circle of 
big volcanic boulders — undoubtedly an extinct crater — 
was to be seen, with huge masses of spattered yellow lava 
in large blocks as well as ferruginous rock. That great 
depression, taken in its entirety, was subdivided into three 
distinct terraces, counting as third the summit of the 
plateau. A mighty, deep, impressive chasm, smothered in 
vegetation, could be observed within the central crater, 
in the northeast side of the circle. 
The summit of the plateau, varying in elevation from 
2,000 feet to 2,100 feet, on which we were travelling, was 
entirely covered by sand and grey ashes. 
The valley in the depression extended in lovely campos 
from southwest to northeast — in fact, as far as the giant 
tableland which stood majestic in the distance. 
The scene, as we stood on the edge of the plateau, was 
impressive in its grandeur, in its silence. In the morning 
the sky was almost entirely covered with the trans¬ 
parent clouds in scales like a fish. In the afternoon the 
vol. i.— 16 241 
