Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/293

Rh barren sand and lava; and here, to our great joy, we emerged from the region of clouds, and saw the top of the volcano, without a vapour upon it, seeming to mingle with the clear blue sky; and at that early hour the sun was not high enough to play upon its top.

Mr. Lawrence, who had exerted himself in walking, lay down to rest, and the doctor and I walked on. The crater was about two miles in circumference, rent and broken by time or some great convulsion; the fragments stood high, bare, and grand as mountains, and within were three or four smaller craters. We ascended on the south side by a ridge running east and west till we reached a high point, at which there was an immense gap in the crater impossible to cross. The lofty point on which we stood was perfectly clear, the atmosphere was of transparent purity, and looking beyond the region of desolation, below us, at a distance of perhaps 2,000 feet, the whole country was covered with clouds, and the city at the foot of the volcano was invisible. By degrees the more distant clouds were lifted, and over the immense bed we saw at the same moment the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. This was the grand spectacle we had hoped but scarcely expected to behold. My companions had ascended the volcano several times, but on account of the clouds had only seen the two seas once before. The points at which they were visible were the Gulf of Nicoya and the harbour of San Juan, not directly opposite, but nearly at right angles to each other, so that we saw them without turning the body. In a right line over the tops of the mountains neither was more than twenty miles distant, and from the great height at which we stood they seemed almost at our feet. It is the only point in the world which commands a view of the two seas; and I ranked the sight with those most interesting occasions, when from the top of Mount Sinai I looked out upon the Desert of Arabia, and from Mount Hor I saw the Dead Sea.

We returned to our horses, and found Mr. Lawrence and the guide asleep. We woke them, kindled a fire, made chocolate, and descended. In an hour we reached the hut at which we had slept, and at two o'clock Cartago.

Toward evening I set out with Mr. Lovel for a stroll. The streets were all alike, long and straight, and there was nobody in them. We fell into one which seemed to have no end, and at some distance were intercepted by a procession coming down a cross street. It was headed by boys playing on violins; and then came a small barrow tastefully decorated, and strewed with flowers. It was a bier carrying the body