further, owing to the nature and fatigue of the ascent. The first
portion of the road lay over large broken masses of lava, most
wearisome to scramble over. On approaching nearer the apex, the path
was over cinders, fine black sand, and scoria. In wading through this
compound the ascent became so difficult and fatiguing, that we were
all under the necessity of reposing every twenty or thirty yards,
tormented by the sulphureous vapour, which rendered respiration
painful, and was even less supportable than the abruptness of the
mountain path!

At length, after somewhat more than an hour's walk, the most harassing
that can be imagined, we arrived at the top just as the day began to
dawn. To paint the feelings at this dizzy height, requires the pen of
poetic inspiration; or to describe the scene presented to mortal
gaze, when thus looking down with fearful eye on the almost boundless
prospect beneath! The blue expanded ocean, fields, woods, cities,
rivers, mountains, and all the wonted charms of the terrestrial world,
had a magic effect, when viewed by the help of the nascent light;
while hard by yawned that dreadful crater of centuries untold,
evolving thick sulphureous clouds of white smoke, which rolling down
the mountain's side in terrific grandeur, at length formed one vast
column for many miles in extent across the sky. Anon the mountain
growled awfully in its inmost recesses, and the earth was slightly
convulsed! We now attempted to descend a short distance within
the crater; the guides, timid of its horrors, did not relish the
undertaking, but were induced at length, and conducted the party
behind some heaps of lava, from whence was a grand view of this
awful cavern. The noise within the gulf resembled loud continuous
thunderings, and after each successive explosion, there issued columns
of white, and sometimes of black smoke.