bubbles of gas arise, loathsome to the smell. We became aware 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 that the
fresh pitch oozes out at the lines of least resistance, namely, in the
channels between the older and more hardened masses, usually at the
upper ends of them, so that one may stand on pitch comparatively hard,
and put one's hand into pitch quite liquid, which is flowing softly
out, like some ugly fungoid growth, such as may be seen in old
wine-cellars, into the water. One such pitch-fungus had grown several
yards in length in the three weeks between our first and second visit;
and on another, some of our party performed exactly the same feat as
Mr. Manross.

"In one of the star-shaped pools of water, some five feet deep, a
column of pitch had been forced perpendicularly up from the bottom. On
reaching the surface of the water it had formed a sort of
centre-table, about four feet in diameter, but without touching the
sides of the pool. The stem was about a foot in diameter. I leaped out
on this table, and found that it not only sustained my weight, but
that the elasticity of the stem enabled me to rock it from side to
side. Pieces torn from the edges of this table sank readily, showing
that it had been raised by pressure, and not by its buoyancy."

True, though strange; but stranger still did it seem to us when we did
at last what the negroes asked us, and dipped our hands into the
liquid pitch, to find that it did not soil the fingers. The old
proverb that one cannot touch pitch without being defiled happily does
not stand true here, or the place would be intolerably loathsome. It
can be scraped up, moulded into any shape you will, wound in a string
(as was done by one of the midshipmen) round a stick, and carried off;
but nothing is left on the hand save clean gray mud and water. It may
be kneaded for an hour before the mud be sufficiently driven out of it
to make it sticky. This very abundance of earthy matter it is which,
while it keeps the pitch from soiling, makes it far less valuable than
it would be were it pure.

It is easy t