(as Mr. Manross well phrases it) on
the tops of them?

We pushed on across the lake, over the planks which the Negroes laid
down from island to island. Some, meanwhile, preferred a steeple-
chase with water-jumps, after the fashion of the midshipmen on a
certain second visit to the lake. How the Negroes grinned delight
and surprise at the vagaries of English lads--a species of animal
altogether new to them. And how they grinned still more when
certain staid and portly dignitaries caught the infection, and
proved, by more than one good leap, that they too had been English
schoolboys--alas! long, long ago.

So, whether by bridging, leaping, or wading, we arrived at last at
the little islands, and found them covered with a thick, low scrub;
deep sedge, and among them Pinguins, like huge pine-apples without
the apple; gray wild Pines--parasites on Matapalos, which of course
have established themselves, like robbers and vagrants as they are,
everywhere; a true Holly, with box-like leaves; and a rare Cocoa-
plum, {152} very like the holly in habit, which seems to be all but
confined to these little patches of red earth, afloat on the pitch.
Out of the scrub, when we were there, flew off two or three night-
jars, very like our English species, save that they had white in the
wings; and on the second visit, one of the midshipmen, true to the
English boy's birds'-nesting instinct, found one of their eggs,
white-spotted, in a grass nest.

Passing these little islands, which are said (I know not how truly)
to change their places and number, we came to the very fountains of
Styx, to that part of the lake where the asphalt is still oozing up.

As the wind set toward us, we soon became aware of an evil smell--
petroleum and sulphuretted hydrogen at once--which gave some of us a
headache. The pitch here is yellow and white with sulphur foam; so
are the water-channels; and out of both water and pitch innumerable
bubbles of gas arise, loathsome to the smell. We became aware also
that the pitch was soft under our feet. We left the impression of
our boots; and if we had stood still awhile, we should soon have
been ankle-deep. No doubt there are spots where, if a man stayed
long enough, he would be slowly and horribly engulfed. 'But,' as
Mr. Manross says truly, 'in no place is it possible to form those
bowl-like depressions round the observer described by former
travellers.' What we did see is,