The lava was fissured and upheaved
everywhere by earthquakes, hot underneath, and emitting a hot
breath.
After more than an hour of very difficult climbing we reached the
lowest level of the crater, pretty nearly a mile across, presenting
from above the appearance of a sea at rest, but on crossing it we
found it to be an expanse of waves and convolutions of ashy-coloured
lava, with huge cracks filled up with black iridescent rolls of
lava, only a few weeks old. Parts of it are very rough and ridgy,
jammed together like field ice, or compacted by rolls of lava which
may have swelled up from beneath, but the largest part of the area
presents the appearance of huge coiled hawsers, the ropy formation
of the lava rendering the illusion almost perfect. These are riven
by deep cracks which emit hot sulphurous vapours. Strange to say,
in one of these, deep down in that black and awful region, three
slender metamorphosed ferns were growing, three exquisite forms, the
fragile heralds of the great forest of vegetation, which probably in
coming years will clothe this pit with beauty. Truly they seemed to
speak of the love of God. On our right there was a precipitous
ledge, and a recent flow of lava had poured over it, cooling as it
fell into columnar shapes as symmetrical as those of Staffa.
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