Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/252

220 I had reached the Peak. I was now, at the outside computation, twelve thousand three hundred feet high.

The guides again suggested a Gloria Patri, in thanksgiving—Richard a cigar. Both were accomplished. The guides had been a little anxious about this first winter attempt. They now told us it had been deemed impossible in Orotava to accomplish it; and as for the Señora, they had said, she could not even reach the second Estancia de los Ingleses, and lo! there she stood on the corona! From where we stood at this moment, it is said that on a clear day the eye can take in the unparalleled distance of eight hundred miles in circumference of ocean, grasping the whole of Teneriffe as from a balloon, and its coast, and the whole fourteen Canaries and coast of Africa. Unfortunately for us, the banks of clouds below were too thick for us to do more than obtain a view of the surrounding mountain-tops and country, and see the crater. The sea we could only behold at a great distance. We spent forty minutes at the top, examining the crater, and looking all around us; during the latter part of which operation, I am sorry to say, I fell fast asleep from sheer fatigue, and was aroused by Richard hallooing to me that my clothes were on fire, which, alas! was too true. I pocketed specimens of obsidian, sulphur, and pumice. It was piercing cold, with a burning sun; and we experienced a nasty, choking, sickening smell of sulphur, which arose in fetid puffs from the many-coloured surface—dead white, purple, dull red, green, and brilliant yellow. A sense of awe stole over me as Richard almost