Many people suffer from mountain sickness on
this ascent, but I suffered from nothing but the excruciating cold,
which benumbed my limbs and penetrated to my bones; and though I
dismounted several times and tried to walk, uphill exercise was
impossible in the rarefied air. The atmosphere was but one degree
below the freezing-point, but at that height, a brisk breeze on
soaked clothes was scarcely bearable.
The sunrise turned the densely packed clouds below into great rosy
masses, which broke now and then, showing a vivid blue sea, and
patches of velvety green. At seven, after toiling over a last steep
bit, among scoriae, and some very scanty and unlovely vegetation, we
reached what was said to be the summit, where a ragged wall of rock
shut out the forward view. Dismounting on some cinders, we stepped
into a gap, and from thence looked down into the most gigantic
crater on the earth. I confess that with the living fires of
Kilauea in my memory, I was at first disappointed with the deadness
of a volcano of whose activity there are no traditions extant.
Though during the hours which followed, its majesty and wonderment
grew upon me, yet a careful study of the admirable map of the
crater, a comparison of the heights of the very considerable cones
which are buried within it, and the attempt to realize the figures
which represent its circumference, area, and depth, not only give a
far better idea of it than any verbal description, but impress its
singular sublimity and magnitude upon one far more forcibly than a
single visit to the actual crater.
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