[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR ENGINE]

TANNA 273

all its accessories complete, hot springs, lake, desert,
etc., always active, rarely destructive, looking like
an overgrown molehill. A wide plain stretches in-
land, utterly deserted owing to the poisonous vapours
always carried across it by the south-east trade-
wind, and in the centre of the plain is a sweet-water
lake.

I climbed the volcano for the first time on a rainy
day. On top, I suddenly found myself at the end
of the world; it was the edge of the crater, com—
pletely filled with steam. As I walked along the
precipice, such an infernal thundering began just
under my feet as it seemed, that I thought best
to retire. My next ascent took place on a clear,
bright day ; but the wind drove sand and ashes along
the desert, and dimmed the sunshine to a yellowish
gloomy light. I traversed the desert to the foot of
the crater, where the cone rose gradually out of
brownish sand, in a beautiful curve, to an angle
of 45°. The lack of all vegetation or other point
of comparison made it impossible to judge whether
the mountain was 100 or 1000 m. high. The silence
was oppressive, and sand columns danced and whirled
up and down, to and fro, like goblins. A smell of
sulphur was in the air, the heat was torturing, the
ground burnt one’s feet, and the climb in the loose
sand was trying. But farther up the sea-breeze
cooled the air deliciously, and stone blocks afforded
a foothold. Soon I was on top, and the sight I
saw seemed one that only the fancy of a morbid,

melancholy genius could have invented, an ugly
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