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of fire are streaming forth: reddening the night with
flame, blackening with smoke, and spotting it with redhot
stones and cinders, that fly up into the air like feathers,
and fall down like lead. What words can paint the gloom
and grandeur of this scene!

The broken ground; the smoke; the sense of suffoca-
tion from the sulphur; the fear of falling down through
the crevices in the yawning ground; the stopping, every
now and then, for somebody who is missing in the dark
(for the dense smoke now obscures the moon); the intol-
erable noise of the thirty; and the hoarse roaring of the
mountain; make it a scene of such confusion, at the same
time, that we reel again. But, dragging the ladies through
it, and across another exhausted crater to the foot of the
present Volcano, we approach close to it on the windy
side, and then sit down among the hot ashes at its foot,
and look up in silence; faintly estimating the action that
is going on within, from its being full a hundred feet
higher, at this minute, than it was six weeks ago.

There is something in the fire and roar, that generates
an irresistible desire to get nearer to it. We cannot rest
long, without starting off, two of us, on our hands and
knees, accompanied by the head guide, to climb to the
brim of the flaming crater, and try to look in. Meanwhile,
the thirty yell, as with one voice, that it is a dangerous
proceeding, and call to us to come back; frightening the
rest of the party out of their wits.

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