Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
the minutest objects are plainly seen on the volcanic sand at a depth of seven or eight
fathoms. The ever smoking volcano rears its bare cone on one side, while the two larger is-
lands are clothed with vegetation to the summit of the hills.
Going on shore, I walked up a pretty path which leads to the highest point of the island on
which the town is situated, where there is a telegraph station and a magnificent view. Below
lies the little town, with its neat red-tiled white houses and the thatched cottages of the nat-
ives, bounded on one side by the old Portuguese fort. Beyond, about half a mile distant, lies
the larger island in the shape of a horseshoe, formed of a range of abrupt hills covered with
fine forest and nutmeg gardens; while close opposite the town is the volcano, forming a
nearly perfect cone, the lower part only covered with a light green bushy vegetation. On its
north side the outline is more uneven, and there is a slight hollow or chasm about one-fifth
of the way down, from which constantly issue two columns of smoke, as well as a good deal
from the rugged surface around and from some spots nearer the summit. A white efflores-
cence, probably sulphur, is thickly spread over the upper part of the mountain, marked by
the narrow black vertical lines of water gullies. The smoke unites as it rises, and forms a
dense cloud, which in calm damp weather spreads out into a wide canopy hiding the top of
the mountain. At night and early morning it often rises up straight and leaves the whole out-
line clear.
It is only when actually gazing on an active volcano that one can fully realize its awful-
ness and grandeur. Whence comes that inexhaustible fire whose dense and sulphureous
smoke for ever issues from this bare and desolate peak? Whence the mighty forces that pro-
duced that peak, and still from time to time exhibit themselves in the earthquakes that al-
ways occur in the vicinity of volcanic vents? The knowledge from childhood, of the fact that
volcanoes and earthquakes exist, has taken away somewhat of the strange and exceptional
character that really belongs to them. The inhabitant of most parts of northern Europe, sees
in the earth the emblem of stability and repose. His whole life-experience, and that of all his
age and generation, teaches him that the earth is solid and firm, that its massive rocks may
contain water in abundance but never fire; and these essential characteristics of the earth are
manifest in every mountain his country contains. A volcano is a fact opposed to all this mass
of experience, a fact of so awful a character that, if it were the rule instead of the exception,
it would make the earth uninhabitable; a fact so strange and unaccountable that we may be
sure it would not be believed on any human testimony, if presented to us now for the first
time, as a natural phenomenon happening in a distant country.
The summit of the small island is composed of a highly crystalline basalt; lower down I
found a hard stratified slaty sandstone, while on the beach are huge blocks of lava, and
