Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/243

 that we entered we found it so carved and finished as to resemble a work of art. A projection, some three feet high, ran along on either side far down into the  passage, very elegantly molded, and making splendid  seats. The floor was smooth. Overhead were hanging lava "icicles," two to three feet long, from which was  slowly dripping very sweet but extremely cold water. We penetrated this cave for more than half a mile. Once there flowed through it a stream of boiling lava which has so completely inundated the whole island.

In another cave we found the remains of birds and the skeleton of a human being. On the plain were many chasms and crevices, from which steam issued. In these we scalded our hogs and cooked our food.

The next morning we resumed our journey up the mountain. The hangers-on, in the shape of wives and sweethearts, were so much in our way, and such consumers of our food, that all of them were forbidden following us, and so they went back to their wigwams.

As we advanced the air grew cooler, and the way rougher. In two days, after much hard traveling, we had left all shrubbery behind us, and had ascended  above the clouds and could look down upon them. After leaving here we had no path to follow, the whole surface being a mass of lava.

The next day was Sunday, and a day of rest to our weary limbs. In the afternoon of Monday, finding it impossible to drive the bullock any farther, he was  killed. Water had become very scarce, and the natives were hawking it about the camp at half a dollar a quart. They did not sell much.