Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/253

Rh poked his head into the holes whence issued the jets of smoke. I could not help thinking of the fearful catastrophes that had taken place—how eruptions, perhaps from that very hole, had desolated Teneriffe—how, perhaps, it was that which had caused Hanno to say that on the coast of Africa it rained fire; and yet here we were fearlessly poking our heads inquisitively into it. What if this should be the instant of another great convulsion?

I did not experience any of the sensations described by most travellers on the Peak, such as sickness, pains in the head or inside, or faintness and difficulty of breathing, though the air was rare in the extreme, and although I am of a highly sensitive and nervous temperament, and suffer all this when obliged to lead a sedentary life and deprived of open air and hard exercise. I found my brain clear and the air and height delightfully exhilarating, and could have travelled so for a month with much pleasure. The only inconvenience that I did experience was a sun that appeared to concentrate itself upon me as a focus (as, I suppose, it appeared to do the same to each of us), and a piercing cold and severe wind besides, which combined to heat and yet freeze my head and face, until the latter became like a perfect mask of hard, red skin, likewise my lips and inside of my mouth. My hands, feet, and knees also were torn by the rocks, and I was a little bruised by sleeping on stones; but that was all, and my only difficulty about breathing proceeded from the labour of climbing on hands and feet, and had no connexion with the rarity of the atmosphere; and as