Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/423

 VOLCANOES. 889 the roll of distant artillery. No lavas, however, are discharged, although the vapours floating round the peak have a ruddy hue during the night. At the foot of the mount^iin, and alung the margin of the lake, thermal waters bubble up at a temperature hot enough for the caravan jKJOple to cook thtir food in. Northwards stretches a boundless saline steppe, maintaining in unbroken monotony the dead level formerly produced by the lacustrine alluvial depositn. This is the dreary Dogiluni wilderness, which is everywhere strewn with fragments of obsidian resembling broken pieces of glass bottles. Westwards rise the blackish escarpments of the plateau, which here takes the name of l^Iau, while on the opposite side the plains are skirted by the no less imposing rocky walls of the Eapte and Kiluyu tablelands. In the midst of these rugged ramparts are developed numerous bays or inlets, where the bed of the long dried-up basin contrasts sharply with the rich verdure of the headlands. Here also the regular line of cliffs forming the scarp of the plateau is broken by magnificent ignebus cones, con- spicuous amongst which is the Dunye la-Nyuki, largest and southernmost of the group. Seen from a distance this volcano appears to terminate in a great crater, one side of which has been blown away and in the centre of which has risen a secondary cone encircled as by a wall or embankment by the southern half of the crater rim. Farther north stands out the lofty Dunye Longonok, or " Mountain of the Big Pit," ascended in 1884 by Joseph Thomson, who on reaching the top found him- self on the sharp rim of an enormous pit, apparently from 1,500 to 2,000 feet deep. " It was not, however, an inverted cone, as volcanic craters frequently are, but a great circular cavity with perfectly perpendicular walls, and about three miles in circumference, without a bresik in any part, though on the south-western side rose a peak several hundred foot above tlje general level of the rim. So perpen- dicular were the enclosing walls, that immediately in front of me I could not trace the descent owing to a slight angle near the top. So sharp also was the edge of this marvellous crater, that I literally sat astride on it, with one log dangling over the abyss internally, and the other down the side of the mountain. The bottom of the pit seemed to be quite even and level, covered with acacia trees, the tops of which at that great depth had much the general aspect of a grass plain. There were no bushes or creepers to cover in the stern and forbidding walls, which were com • posed of beds of lava and conglomerate. The scene was of such an astounding character that I was completely fascinated, and felt under an almost irresistible impulse madly to plunge into the fearful chasm. Looking towards the north, the first sight that riveted my gaze was the glimmering, many-isled expanse of Naivasha, backed to the west by the Mau escarpment. To the east rose abruptly the plateau which we had so recently left, and over the bamboo-clad heights of Mianzi-ni could be seen tile higher masses of a splendid range of niountain«. To the south stretched the desert of Dogilani, with the less perfect but larger crater mass of Donye la-Xyuki. ^ly observations indicated a height of 8,300 feet ; the highest point, however, would be little short of 9,000 feet." * The natives assured the explorer that the great pit is inhabited by snakes of
 * Throuffh Maaaikmd, p 332.