grandeur of this scene!

The broken ground; the smoke; the sense of suffocation from the sulfur;
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 intolerable 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 can not 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.

What with their noise, and what with the trembling of the thin crust of
ground, that seems about to open underneath our feet and plunge us in
the burning gulf below (which is the real danger, if there be any); and
what with the flashing of the fire in our faces, and the shower of
red-hot ashes that is raining down, and the choking smoke and sulfur; we
may well feel giddy and irrational, like drunken men. But, we contrive
to climb up to the brim, and look down, for a moment, into the hell of
boiling fire below. Then, we all three come rolling down; blackened, and
singed, and scorched, and hot, and giddy; and each with his dress alight
in half-a-dozen places.

You have read, a thousand times, that the usual way of descending, is,
by sliding down the ashes; which, forming a gradually-increasing ledge
below the feet, prevent too rapid a descent. But, when we have crossed
the two exhausted craters on our way back, and are come to this
precipitous place, there is (as Mr. Pickle has foretold) no vestige of
ashes to be seen; the whole being a smooth sheet of ice.

In this dilemma, ten or a dozen of the guides cautiously join hands, and
make a chain of men; of whom the foremost beat, as well as they can, a