When I woke I found that we were passing through a rocky defile
of a lava formation with precipitous sides, in which grew many beautiful
trees and flowering shrubs.

Presently this defile took a turn, and a lovely sight unfolded itself
to my eyes. Before us was a vast cup of green from four to six miles in
extent, in the shape of a Roman amphitheatre. The sides of this great
cup were rocky, and clothed with bush, but the centre was of the richest
meadow land, studded with single trees of magnificent growth, and
watered by meandering brooks. On this rich plain grazed herds of goats
and cattle, but I saw no sheep. At first I could not imagine what this
strange spot could be, but presently it flashed upon me that it must
represent the crater of some long-extinct volcano which had afterwards
been a lake, and was ultimately drained in some unexplained way. And
here I may state that from my subsequent experience of this and a much
larger, but otherwise similar spot, which I shall have occasion to
describe by-and-by, I have every reason to believe that this conclusion
was correct. What puzzled me, however, was, that although there were
people moving about herding the goats and cattle, I saw no signs of any
human habitation. Where did they all live? I wondered. My curiosity was
soon destined to be gratified. Turning to the left the string of litters
followed the cliffy sides of the crater for a distance of about half
a mile, or perhaps a little less, and then halted. Seeing the old
gentleman, my adopted "father," Billali, emerge from his litter, I did
the same, and so did Leo and Job. The first thing I saw was our wretched
Arab companion, Mahomed, lying exhausted on the ground. It appeared that
he had not been provided with a litter, but had been forced to run the
entire distance, and, as he was already quite worn out when we started,
his condition now was one of great prostration.

On looking round we discovered that the place where we had halted was
a platform in front of the mouth of a great cave, and piled upon this
platform were the entire contents of the whale-boat, even down to the
oars and sail. Round the cave stood groups of the men who had escorted
us, and other men of a similar stamp. They were all tall and all
handsome, though they varied in their degree of darkness of skin, some
being as dark as Mahomed, and some as yellow as a Chinese. They were
naked, except for the leopard-skin round the waist, and each of them