air, nor room enough to grow properly. We
pushed through this brake for about a mile, working steadily uphill all
the time, and frequently being compelled to cut a way for ourselves with
our cutlasses, finally emerging upon a kind of ridge, bare of scrub, but
richly carpeted with guinea grass, with a few tall trees of various
kinds scattered here and there about it. But although this ridge, or
plateau, was comparatively open, our view was still exceedingly
circumscribed, for we were hemmed in on every hand by the bush belt,
which seemed completely to cover the entire island, except the plateau
upon which we stood and the bald summit of the curious-looking hill or
mountain about two miles distant. The summit of this hill, which
appeared to be flat, and which we estimated to be about three thousand
feet higher than the ridge upon which we were then standing, promised to
afford us a perfect view of the whole island; therefore, as the day was
still young, we at once decided to make our way to and survey our domain
from it.

The crest of the ridge upon which we stood appeared to lead straight
toward the mountain, moreover it was not nearly so densely overgrown as
was the lower ground; our progress, therefore, was tolerably rapid, and
in the course of an hour we found ourselves clear of the bush and
standing upon the lower slopes of the mountain. And then we knew that
the towering mass in front of us could be nothing else than a volcano,
either dormant or extinct, for there was no sign of smoke rising from
its summit, although the nature of the soil around us, consisting as it
did of pumice stone, scoriae, and ancient lava, left no doubt as to the
character of the mountain.

And now began the really difficult part of our task. Although the
ground was entirely bare of vegetation the surface was so exceedingly
rough and broken, and so loose, that progress was very slow, becoming
more so with every forward step; for while the lower slopes of the
mountain were of quite an easy grade, they rapidly steepened as we
advanced, until the last five hundred feet or so approached so nearly to
the perpendicular that at length further progress seemed to be all but
impossible, and we could only advance a yard or two at a time, climbing
upon hands and knees, with short spells of rest between the spurts.

But when at length, about midday, we finally reached the summit, it was
unanimously agreed that our toil was amply rewarded, for the