ari, looking down among the foot hills of this
majestic mountain, you might behold a valley of a singular character--so
singular as at once to fix your attention. You would note that it is of
a regular oval shape; and that instead of being bounded by sloping
declivities, it is girt by an almost vertical cliff that appears to be
continuous all around it. This cliff of dark granitic rock you might
guess with your eye to rise several hundred feet sheer from the bottom
of the valley. If it were in the season of summer, you might further
observe, that receding from its brow a dark-coloured declivity of the
mountain rises still higher, terminating all around in peaks and
ridges--which, being above the snow-line are continually covered with
the pale white mantle that has fallen upon them from the heavens.

These details would be taken in at the first glance; and then your eye
would wander into the valley below, and rest there--fixed by the
singularity of the scene, and charmed by its soft loveliness--so
strongly contrasting with the rude surroundings on which you had been
hitherto gazing.

The form of the valley would suggest the existence of the grand
elliptical crater of some extinct volcano. But instead of the black
sulphuric _scoria_, that you might expect to see strewed over its base,
you behold a verdant landscape of smiling loveliness, park-like plains
interposed with groves and copses, here and there a mound of rock-work,
as if piled artificially and for ornament. Around the cliffs appears a
belt of forest of darker green; and occupying the centre a limpid lake,
on whose silver surface at a certain hour of the day you might see
reflected part of the snow-crowned summit on which you are standing--the
cone of Chumulari itself.

With a good glass you might distinguish quadrupeds of several _species_
straying over the verdant pastures; birds of many kinds upon the wing,
and others disporting themselves upon the surface of the lake.

You would be tempted to look for a grand mansion. You would send your
glance in every direction, expecting to see chimneys and turrets
overtopping the trees; but in this you would be disappointed.

On one side of the valley, near to the base of its bounding cliff, you
might see a white vapour ascending from the surface of the earth. It
would be an error to believe it smoke. It is not that--only the _rime_
rising over a hot-spring bubbling out from the rocks and forming the
little r