and warmed themselves. The night that we were
there, the perverse smoke took the same direction as the heated air,
and filled the whole inside to suffocation, so that our condition was
most disagreeable, notwithstanding the arrangements that Mr. Corchado
had made in his own apartment for the comfort of his guests, for the
reflection of the sun on the snow had thrown a film over our eyes, in
spite of our green vails. Our stomachs were nauseated at this giddy
height, and, though we had almost every other kind of eatable and
drinkable, our appetites craved only chocolate, which we could not
obtain. Our heads were dizzy, and our limbs were weary, and we lay down
in a dense smoke to try to sleep.

DESCENT INTO THE CRATER.

"Morning came to our relief, and with it the film had passed from our
eyes. We looked up to the top of the mountain above us, and then down
into that fearful abyss into which we were soon to descend. We could
eat no breakfast, and could drink no coffee, and so we were soon ready
for our day's journey. We followed a narrow footpath until we reached a
shelf, where we were seated in a skid, and let down by a windlass 500
feet or so, to a landing-place, from which we clambered downward to a
second windlass and a second skid, which was the most fearful of all,
because we were dangling about without any thing to steady ourselves,
as we descended before the mouth of one of those yawning caverns, which
are called the 'breathing-holes' of the crater. They are so called from
the fresh air and horrid sounds that continually issue from them. But
we shut our eyes and clung fast to the rope, as we whirled round and
round in mid air, until we reached another landing-place about 500 feet
lower. From this point we clambered down, as best we could, until we
came among the men digging up cinders, from which sulphur, in the form
of brimstone, is made.

"We took no measurements within the crater, and heights and distances
here can only be given by approximation. We only know that all things
are on a scale so vast that old Pluto might here have forged new
thunder-bolts, and Milton's Satan might have here found the material
for his sulphurous bed. All was strange, and wild, and frightful.

"We crawled into several of the 'breathing holes,' but nothing was
there except darkness visible. The sides and bottom were, for the most
part, polished by the molten mass, which had cooled in passing through
them; and if it had not bee