Chapter V: The Final Ascent

In the lower regions the ‘smokes,’ or hazy season, last from early December to the end of January, and they seem gradually extending up the mountain. On the 12th January the clouds rose for the first time overhead. On the 19th, after a still, clear morning, the mist settled upon us, and a few heavy drops, heralded by the smell of rain mixing with the nutty odour of the forest, fell at 4·30 P.M., and between 5 and 6 P.M. Then a double bank of clouds, lightning cumuli, with flesh-tint lights and steely-blue shades upon a grey ground, forging up portentously from the S.E. to the zenith, showed us for the first time a mountain storm.

On beginning, the thunder growled as usual far below our feet; frequently it seemed to ascend, and the low continuous rumbling of the distance was broken by rattling peals, seemingly around us. The lightning flashed bright from N. to S., veering to the S.W., and lastly to the N.W.; it was mostly globular, shooting like Roman-candles through the lower air, whilst in places a web-work of vivid zigzag flame played, darting into groups, over the mountain and the dwarf crater near us. The wind, at this time usually northerly, blew heavily from the west, and the storm once more worked round to the S.E., with occasional coruscations from the N.W. and due N. Little Camaroons appeared to be the centre of attraction; the head was covered with a thick cap of cumuli, dense and grandiose, that moved gradually eastward. As the loud thunder died away in the several gradations of distance—sheet-lightning still appeared in the north—a cold wind set in from the east, and, freshening to a gale, brought with it an hour’s heavy rain from the tumultuous rollers around. After two hours of atmospheric commotion all was again quiet, and a clear moonlit night induced sound sleep.

The savage appearance of the lightning upon these Acroceraunian Hills made me guard against possible accidents, by planting upon the southern lip of Earthwork Crater directly above our camp a young tree with a matchet lashed to the top. It was ‘strong medicine’ to the dejected Krumen, who disliked the appearance of fire-globes shooting across the path at least as much as their master did. Our rude _paratonnère_, however, was not struck, although it had the best of opportunities.

The 22nd January was to me a _dies mirabilis_. At 8·30 A.M. there was another bad storm, lightning volleying, and thunder cracking and pealing in unpleasant proximity. The phenomenon wore the usual aspect of Tornado,—the Turner: beginning in the N.W., it veered round through the S.E., and returned to its original direction, often dying away and presently resuscitating. At 10 A.M. a high north-easterly gale brought with it large scattered gouts, which presently thickened to a close shower. I was afterwards informed that those below saw the north-eastern flank of Pico Grande sheeted with snow.

At noon the weather had improved, and the tonic of oxygen developed by the storm enabled me to leave my leafy bower, after nearly four weeks of not unpleasant prison. Selim reported that Fernando Po was in sight for the first time. I crept a few yards along the south-western slope of Earthwork Crater, and, armed with sketching materials, sighted a peculiar view. The mists, at first thickly rising from the south-west, thinned out and floated northwards. They met and tussled, wearying themselves in the fray, now rendering everything invisible beyond ten yards, then opening out a prospect of twenty miles. At length the sickly sun became victorious. The horizon seemed raised high above its proper place, and in the dark grey abyss below purple-grey masses of cloud floated over a sea undistinguishable from the misty sky, whilst on the extreme line of sight rose Fernando Po, a ghastly form, like one of Ossian’s favourite mountains. The Peak, which was apparently double, bore 229° 15′ (M.), and Clarence, or Sta. Isabel, a darker dot at the base, was 225°.

The change of air and scene worked miracles for me: the next day and the next saw me on foot in picnicking guise, attended by my factotum and two Kruboys, laying down a base to check the distance of Mount Helen, and sketching the several craters that lay upon our line of ascent.

At 1·30 P.M. on the 25th of January, M. Mann returned with three Krumen; he had made a gallant march, having left Victoria but yesterday morning. His health had been restored by a diet of iron-rust burned in brandy or rum, and cold arrowroot tempered with chalk,[90] the prescription of the good Mr. Johnson. The traveller had procured little in the way of provision, only forty kokos were forthcoming: for his scarlet blanket he had been offered, in ascending series, a pig, a fat goat, a small boy, and a large girl; but he could not afford to part with it.

The next day was one of rest. M. Mann botanized in the woody region, and I visited some caves which the Judge had reported to be three miles off; actual measurement placed them at 3400 feet. It was a beautiful morning after a stormy night and a misty dawn; clouds like a congeries of white balloons lay against the blue empyrean, and caught the radiance of the golden shower from the east. The path lay to the west, along Earthwork Crater; and presently it plunged into a perfumed wood spangled with the yellow marigolds of the senecio, the pretty heath _Blæria spicata_, one of the seventeen plants already found to be absolutely peculiar to Abyssinia and Fernando Po, a red and yellow seed-casting impatiens,[91] somewhat like a ‘lady’s slipper,’ and a honeysuckle-like plant unknown to the herbalist. A clearing in the forest showed us a hunter’s old hut, with evidence of modern tenure; and a little beyond it we found, in a hollow tree, a deserted bee-hive. Presently we saw the caves: two holes under a heap of lava, in a little barranca, a segment of one of those arched tunnels or galleries found under lava currents in Iceland, Bourbon, and elsewhere. The direction of the larger is from N. to S., and the dimensions are 24 feet long by 7 broad, and 2½ high. Water deeply deposited in the soil trickles into it from above; the drops fall with a ceaseless tinkle upon a slimy floor, into which the water apparently sinks, and thus—perhaps a Cueva de Yelo may eventually be found—it may become useful to settlers.

Monday, the 27th January—exactly a month from the day of my accident—was appointed for our final ascent, and for the ceremony of taking possession. The party consisted of M. Mann and myself, Selim and half a dozen Krumen carrying water, provisions, and sleeping tackle. We started at seven o’clock on a fine clear morning, soon emerged from the weald, and sighted, beyond the ascending foreground of dry white clover, spangled with gentian, dwarf heaths, little white bells (a Wahlenbergia?), and a sechorium not unlike the wild aster of the Western Prairies, Mount Helen, our Carmel. From that point we pursued a more direct course than we had yet made, passed to the left of Mount Selim, and after a short tough pull we reached the first nighting place, a deep grassy hollow in the northern counterslope of Mount Isabel. The Krumen straggled in long afterwards, pretending that they had missed the way: as they had not turned a hair, it is more probable that they had sat down and anathematized us in some quiet corner.

On the topmost lip of Mount Isabel we now lingered long to enjoy the view behind us, which, though not so grand, was fully as peculiar as that before us. Use, which lessens marvel, now enabled us to keep our eyes off the Pico Grande. The southern horizon was a broken line of numerous cones, each grisly with its own crater, some acute hills, others truncated hillocks—the smallest thing of the lot was named Mount ‘Wood’—all gashed and broken in every direction, mostly grassy, but in some places showing tufts and scatters of trees in their hollows on their lee side: and they rose from a manner of plain, whose crevasses showed it to be an old bed of degraded lava. After sketching this subrange of the main line, we ascended Mount Isabel, and found another ‘vacuity obscure,’ whose north-western rim formed an excellent position for a surveying pole: here we took a round of angles. On the north the main spiracle of the great central fire rose splendid, steely blue and sun-gilt; the strong east wind, sweeping the right side, kept clear the deep azure against which its form stood sharply out. On the west of the cone, the mist clouds,[92] gathering thick and heavy, melting away, but, immediately renewed, as if spread by the hands of genii, formed by their lightness and mobility a charming contrast with the fixed gigantesque forms below.

Long before sunset we were forced to vacate our eyrie, which was nearly the height of Fernando Po Peak. The thermometer showed only 45°, but the cold dry gusts cut our hands. We retired before dark to our more genial resting-place, where food and fire, and waterproofs, and hanging rocks of basalt and conglomerate helped us through the evening and the dreary night. From Mount Helen to Mount Isabel the tape showed 8648 feet, and the total distance from camp was 16,462 feet. The crater in which we slept was 10,187 feet, and the summit 10,590 feet above sea-level.

The next morning broke red, dull, and raw, with a high and gusty east wind, which was an inducement to activity. At 7·30 A.M., after passing the Gateway, we crossed Lava Bed No. 3 to a grassy crater, which Mr. Saker had named Mount Leopold. We walked along its side, and then resumed the passage of the stream of extinguished fire till we reached the eastern base of a similar formation, Arthur Crater. As experience on Mount Etna, at Madeira, and at other places proves, decomposed lava makes a fruitful soil; it is, however, of slow growth, rarely attaining any depth before 2000 years.[93] Altitude and latitude would greatly modify calculations; excessive humidity and fierce sunshine would, of course, accelerate the operation. In the dry atmosphere of Tenerife, above the lower clouds there is little decay. The black cascades of stones on the more northern Peak, though probably outpoured before the age of man, appear to be the exudations of yesterday: the contrary must be the case here. This bed, then, must be very modern; in the artery, green with small mosses, and in the sheltered nooks and clefts were found stunted ferns, thyme, a lovely red mint, large yellow immortelles, and the delicate blue _Veronica Mannii_.

Not feeling disposed to tempt the cold hollow under Mount Hooker, where Messrs. Calvo and Mann had passed the night, we left this lava-bed and turned to the right, rounding the eastern selvage of Mount Arthur, which in this direction is greatly elongated. We then crossed another lava- stream, which encircles the cone, and anastomozes with No. 3: it is composed of a soft green artery, rather more rugged than the former, and a hard black vein. The unlovely surface was lit up with the red bloom of the viscid _Blæria spicata_, and a chrysanthemum (?) with large golden flowers and long glaucous leaves doubled with silvery white. The chief arborescent plants were the leucothoë and monica, which attained a height of twenty feet, but grew only in sheltered bottoms. There was a beautiful gorse-like cytisus,[94] covered with yellow bloom, or short black pods: it brought to mind the old lines:

Non me pascente capellæ,

Florentem cytisum et salices carpetis amaras.

Here it is a stiff, round-topped tree, not more than six feet high; the last shrub found in the midst of the main cone had been dwarfed to six inches. The hypericum also occurred only as a shrub, not taller than eight feet.

After a two hours’ march, during which we had accomplished 6937 feet, ‘Black Beggar,’ who had accompanied Mr. Saker, pointed out to us a kind of form in which the reverend gentleman had passed the night: we called it Saker’s Camp. The position is a natural fosse between the slope of Mount Arthur, which defends it from the angry north-easter, and the last traversed lava-bed, which can supply a modicum of fuel. By B. P. thermometer the height proved to be 10,595 above sea-level, about the altitude of Mount Isabel’s summit, and five hundred feet more elevated than Mount Etna.

The main cone rose temptingly near; we breakfasted hurriedly, and, sending back three Krumen for water and other stores, we set out at 11 A.M. towards the south-eastern ridge of Victoria Mountain. Forty-five minutes of stumbling over the rough lava placed us at the base of the mighty spiracle, and in the depression forming a grassy rim round the foundation we boiled the thermometer, and found that it showed 10,530 feet. We then impatiently resumed the path, thinking that, as the Pico of Tenerife is not three geographical miles in circumference, we might easily encompass the head of Camaroons, and obtain a view of a new country towards the north. M. Mann pressed forwards from S.E. to E., and through a gap in the clouds now fast rolling up the side he caught sight of the lower platform, which he described as a ridge trending to the N.E., and looking like a plain patched with white and dark green. I espied a way northwards towards a dark chasm which afterwards proved to be the mouth of Victoria Crater. Selim and Seabreeze had remained in rear packing up the B. P. We were now scattered, and hallooing was of no avail.

After making another tack, and walking over a true Mal Passo of lava ridge and loose scoriæ, I reached Victoria Crater at 2 P.M., and sat down to await the gathering of the party, which would inevitably be attracted by the aspect of the spot. The position upon the highest crest reminded me of the Chinese poet who celebrated the cataract of Leu Shan:—

I am like a white bird among the clouds;

I insult the winds and invade the profound abyss.

Northwards was the dividing ridge separating Victoria from Albert Crater. Southwards the former was burst by an eruption of once fiery matter, whose greenish course ‘like a river manifold’ swept down the cone’s side towards the wooded region below. The site was broken and uneven, cumbered with huge _débris_, and at the point of efflux stood a ‘Lot’s Wife,’ a solitary pillar of honeycombed black basalt conspicuous from the camp below. At 3 P.M. we met in the crater, and after remaining for some time in the mist—unhappily I had no hygrometer—we hastened down the south-western slope, reached the foot of Mount Milnes at 4 P.M., and after another hour found ourselves in camp.

Over-eagerness had spoilt this day’s work. M. Mann had found the eastern side more interesting than the western; it was more or less covered with vegetation up to the crater, though completely exposed to the north-east wind. He brought a few shrubs, ericanella, cytisus, the helichrysum, a senecio which he was kind enough to name _S. Burtoni_, an anthospermum, and a ‘petty rerect lycopodium,’ whose flowers, red in the lower regions, here became a light pink. I added to my collection only some specimens of the coarse quartzose stone before seen in Victoria Mountains. We had both seen traces of deer, which seem to visit the highest regions; but our guns had not once occasion to break the silence.

The night was raw, the clouds threatening; and although the hill- shoulder defended us from the cutting squalls, the hoar-frost bit our hands and faces. At 2 P.M. the thermometer showed 37° (Fah.), and the aspect was that of a thunderstorm, which, combined with snow, would not have been pleasant to hutless men. Towards morning a gradual improvement took place, and we enjoyed a wonderful dawn. The tall black Piton, partially white, and powdered with congealed dew, rose sharply in the dull morning air with a peculiarly ghostly effect. The atmosphere kindled with a beautiful glow, soon quenching the stars and widening the horizon, which half an hour before seemed to be closing upon us. Then a flood of ruddy light poured over the eastern side of the Mount of Heaven, leaving the other still cold and grey, and lastly the large red sun arose, bringing in his train a bevy of rushing white clouds. The appearance was that of a dry day, for which we had reason to be grateful.

We started early. M. Mann had agreed to ascend Victoria Mountain by the long south-eastern ridge, which forms a natural road. I undertook the steely-blue slope of burnt scoriæ between Victoria and Albert Mountains: all had deemed the passage not feasible, but ‘_è impossibile, signorino_’ had in early youth sent me over the crumbling natural arch at Sorrento. After an hour’s slow walking we—factotum Selim and three Kruboys—had crossed at 8 A.M. the 4000 feet of broken lava and rugged ground separating us from Mount Milnes. Here we halted for breakfast, lit our fire, and leisurely prepared for work. A measurement from the base to the apex of Victoria Mountain gave 3300 feet along the slope, not quite the dimensions of Stromboli; the perpendicular height by B. P. was 2166 feet.[95]

After forty-five minutes we resumed our march, working towards the ‘Half-way Rocks’ that rose from the slope of Victoria Mountain. Here, after measuring a base, I halted to impress upon my mind the features of the wild scene. Looking southwards no great extent of country was visible from this point, and the breadth of the plateau shut out the sea from sight: the atmosphere, however, was so clear that all the minutiæ of scenery rose vivid and distinct. There was a perfect view of the first or loftiest range—a Puy de Dôme highly magnified, and the vast torrent of black lava surging and re-surging, winding, dividing, and joining again between and around a ‘_plaine bombée_’ of cinder cones and vent-hills, tall and short, naked and grass-clothed, perfect and truncated, buttressing ridges, pit-craters, high flues, chimney-pots and mamelons, Monteneros, Maladettas, Campi Phlegræi and clinker-fields—in fact a compilation of volcanoes the slow growth of countless ages, that fell off in long perspective towards the horizon, appeared for the first time to flow from, not towards, my feet. The shape of the ‘Katakaumen’ before us seemed to be an immense Plutonic triangle whose apex was the majestic Mount Isabel—in this direction it appeared pierced with many a crater—which here completely shut out the view of the sub-ranges. On the right, or westward, was a ledge, with a clean cut, as if made by the hand of man, and beyond it nothing showed but clouds surging up from the void below, giving it the appearance of resting on air. On the left Mount Eliza and the Three Sisters proved themselves by blurred outline and green tinge a connecting link between the Mal Pais and the Regione Culta of the lesser altitudes. The further distance exposed undulations of the fire torrent, rivers of black and green lava, and plains, here black and bare, there untouched by oxidating influence, there tawny with shrubs, mosses, and lichens, which flourish in 70° N. lat. in Europe. The immediate foreground was worthy of the rest,—a rapid slope of black scoriæ, loose, finely powdered, reeking in the fiery sun, exposing under every footstep an under-crust of greyish ashes, and in rare places held together by a block of lava or a bunch of lichens.

Viewed from this point the whole platform ground between Mount Isabel and the Pico Grande resembles the vast and far older ‘Crater of Elevation’—according to the _soulèvement_ theory of the great ‘upheavalists’ Baron von Buch and M. Elie de Beaumont, or submarine according to Mr. Jukes—eight miles in diameter, with walls like giant mountain ranges, and 7000 feet above sea-level, which characterizes the Pico do Teyde. If such be the case, the central cone or crater of eruption does not stand in the midst of the ‘cirque,’ but has last broken out at the northern edge of the plateau. Thus the present Peak would be the Vesuvian as opposed to the ancient Monte Somma cone.

After Half-Way Rocks it was necessary to cross the blue slide of comminuted scoriæ stretching between Victoria and Albert mountains; and this was done by treading on the edges of our feet, at times condescending to crawl when the mass under us appeared, from its extremity of steepness, likely to slide down to the base. This occupied but a few minutes, and we all reached in safety the slope of Albert Mountain, where a tolerably regular ridge-line of blocks and boulders formed stepping-stones, and pointed out a stable path to the summit of the Ash cone. Having measured a second base, we began the ascent seriously. Again I noticed the utter absence of all suffering from the subtilty of the air. The height is considerable, though not sufficient of course to cause the effusion of blood which according to Humboldt burst from his ears and lips on the Andes, or the sufferings of M. Gay- Lussac in his balloon. The effects of sudden change from an equatorial climate to an altitude which showed many of the features of Hecla, were however mitigated probably by the high east wind. In half an hour after leaving Half-Way Rocks I sat down upon the terrepleine to await the arrival of the Krumen.

The Regione Deserta had a wild and weird aspect. Due north of the boulder upon which I reposed rose a V-shaped dyke of close-textured grey stone, apparently a jaspidified or altered schist, piled in cyclopean blocks, as large as the Titanic stones in the unfinished quarries of Baalbak, to the height of about twenty-five feet above ground. It separated like a wall Victoria from Albert Crater; the longer or western arm descended from the high rim of the latter, and the shorter bordered the margin of the former. When the party reassembled our first visit was to a smaller ‘_caldera_,’ which when seen from below looked like a chink or gash in the neck of the cone, whose apex is the wall behind Albert Crater. This escape-valve by which the ‘topping process’ was effected, was found to be a deep and precipitous cavity opening southwards, and separated from its E.N.E. neighbour, Albert Crater, by a thin rugged wall of black trachyte. The next visit was to Albert Crater, a bowl about 1000 feet in circumference, and whose greatest depth, viewed from the S.E., is fifty yards: it also discharged to the south, and on the N.E. and E. it is bounded by the V-shaped dyke before alluded to. The form is a regular inverted cone, with a slope varying from 45° to perpendicularity: the colours are red, white, and yellow where stone occupies the surface, a deep metallic blue shows the slides of scoriæ, and the sole is a floor of lamp-black. The north-western wall rises high above the lower rim of the bowl, and when the eye is acquainted with the details of the scene, it easily distinguishes from below this hog-shaped back which is the loftiest portion of the Camaroons Mountain. Albert Crater is at first view recognized as a more modern formation than Victoria: whilst the latter, though exposed to the furious N.E. wind, which everywhere renders vegetation poorer and scantier, has an abundant growth of cryptogams, the former is almost bare. As in Stromboli, the main axis of the cone’s ellipse appears to have been shifted, here, however, the mountain has grown by subsequent eruptions, not by accumulated ejections upon the north-eastern flank.

Meanwhile M. Mann had ascended this ‘Furnster Punkte,’ and found to his regret one of the self-registering thermometers hanging only on one hook, with the bulb uppermost. The wind had broken down the frail stand, and thus the result of a month was lost. The spirit also had changed from the usual red to a pale straw-yellow. Having re-arranged it and enjoyed a good view of the unvisited mountain-chain to the N.E., he met us below. We turned to the E.S.E. and ascended the tufty slope leading to the head of Victoria Mountain. The distance was short, and we presently gazed into the depths where brooded

Nox omnibus nigrior densiorque.

Having thus reached our goal, Selim hoisted on the ‘very lip of the volcanic lion’ the Union Jack, and our last bottle of champagne was emptied in honour of the day. As a token of our visit we left a slip of sheet-lead upon which our names were roughly cut, and two sixpences in an empty bottle—rather a bright idea, not emanating from my pericranium. Mongo ma Loba, Theon Ochema is now ours. The B. P. showed Victoria Mountain to be 12,700 feet above sea-level.[96]

After the ceremony we separated. M. Mann determined to return to camp, collecting specimens on the way. I was by no means satisfied with what had been done, and still felt that restlessness with which the good Genius should inspire his _protégé_. So, leaving one Kruman to rest, and taking with me Selim and Seabreeze, I climbed without difficulty the V-shaped dyke which runs up the background of Albert Mountain, narrowing and diminishing in height as it ascends. Then striking due north, we fell into a kind of depression between the outer walls of the two craters, a short, smooth valley of scoriæ, scantily dotted with stunted herbage, and with dun-coloured butterflies, whose ill-fated bodies the violent oblique wind had urged up from below. I have read of such things in ascents of Mont Blanc; Richard Lander found these lepidopters exceptionally numerous in the Nigerian regions; and in the ‘Elevation Crater,’ Tenerife, Mr. Piazzi Smyth found drowned butterflies (_Polyommatus Webbianus_) like floating spots of purple in a little pool. A walk of about a quarter of a mile placed us at the further end of the gorge; the cold mist-clouds had cleared away, and the unknown land lay before me like a mappamondo. I felt as joyful as if my eyes had gazed upon ‘all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them.’ An inverted arch of volcanic substance formed our foreground; on the right it was striated with lines of green; on the left the slope showed barren strata, hardly tinged with verdure. Over the key of the arch, and at the base of the Peak upon which we stood, rose a small hillock, a parasite showing verdant spots in the dreary waste of brown. Beyond it, on the further side of a deep but gradual fall, began the background, stretching far to the N.E., from 50° to 75°, bounded by a quoin-shaped range of hill bluff to the eastward, and falling, with serrated back, to the west. The lowlands at its base were white-yellow with dark streaks, like the formation which we had seen looking southwards from Mount Isabel, and the extreme distance of the hilly background might have been five miles—in these misty regions the near appears far. Such was my first glance at the ‘Rumbi Hills;’ they did not, as has been shown, appear at all ‘towering in rude and rugged masses, like the tombstones of a past earthquake.’[97] The counter-slope northwards was a perfect copy of that over which we had passed to ascend the Peak. But Capt. Owen saw them from a distance of many miles at sea, and the same phenomenon appears to the voyager as he coasts along the Gaboon shores, whilst the traveller in the interior finds the mountains assume entirely different forms.

Finding an offset to this gorge from the north-west, we resumed our way, winding through the hills, and were encouraged to persevere by the sight of deep cracks and longitudinal fissures, with corresponding indentations in the rock. These evidences, on a small scale, of modern volcanic action, which are usually considered the preliminaries to the formation of a crater,[98] were from one to two feet broad and from four to five feet deep, with a clean cut hardly weathered; they proved, however, to be extinct, nor could I detect in them any empyreumatic odour. At this place, too, appeared extensive deposits of a fresh lava, and curiously ropy filamentous basalt—Mr. Scrope compares it to barley- sugar—which appeared at first sight, from its long vesicular grain, to be the remains of a fossilized or imperfectly petrified forest. The colour was sometimes ochreish by oxidation, more often a dull black with the slightest admixture of green. In this form of lava exudation Professor Smyth discovered obsidian on the Peak of Tenerife. Somewhat disappointed by finding no vapour in the fissures, I crossed them, and, bending round to the S.S.E., ascended the slope upon whose crest M. Mann had placed his thermometers. It was about half a mile due north of the Victoria Mountain, and the B. P. thermometers showed 180°·2 (Fah.), temp. 62° = 13,129 feet, or 435 feet higher than Victoria Mountain.[99]

The summit of Camaroons is thus eighteen statute miles of indirect, and thirteen geographical miles of direct, distance from Victoria.[100] Assuming its altitude in round numbers at 13,000 feet, it is 3000 feet higher than Etna, the highest volcano in Europe, and 3300 feet below Mont Blanc, the highest European mountain. Situated in 4° N. lat., it is 3000 feet below the line of perpetual congelation, which, between the equator and 10° of N. or S. lat., is usually laid down at 16,000 feet. It must be observed that African mountains, like those of North America, are stunted in comparison with the gigantic size of the continent, and of its other geographical features—rivers, cataracts, lakes, and prairies. The peaks of Abyssinia, once so grossly exaggerated, have been reduced to 13,000 feet; and Miltsin, the loftiest of the Atlas, is now assumed at 11,400. According to those who distribute mountains into ten classes according to their heights—25,000 to 30,000 feet being No. 1, and 1000 to 3000 being No. 10—Camaroons Mountain occupies the sixth place, viz. those ranging from 12,000 to 14,000, as the Peak of Tenerife (12,180), the Jungfrau (13,730), and Ophir in Sumatra (13,840). Finally its phase is paroxysmal, neither permanently eruptive nor in a condition of moderate activity.

Meanwhile Selim continued his course to the N.E., attracted by the glaring colours of the neighbourhood, a tricolor of white, red, and yellow, disposed in streaks along the perpendicular faces of dwarf cliffs, and conspicuous in the brown and russet hues of its entourage. As my B. P. observation was ended, he appeared in hot haste, as he had seen something which justified even our risking a night, without any to assist in ‘a finding,’ in the open. Hurriedly I descended the chasm, climbed up the gay-tinted cliffs, and, turning a little eastward, emerged upon a Solfatara in full action.

The site is on the northern counterslope of the high wall above Albert Crater—unfortunately the B. P. apparatus struck work for want of candle—a few feet below the summit, and in sight of the lower regions to the N.E. The surface of the _soufrière_ is a convexity striated with alternate bands of bright green moss, white lime, and sulphurous marl, red and yellow. It was soft and yielding to the tread, and regular lines of smoke-jets and puffs rose in rings and curls from the stripes, somewhat like the Steamboat Springs in the Californian Sierra Nevada, or the vapour from the ‘narix’ of the Pico de Teyde. The flues smelled strongly of sulphur, and, though the wind blew cold and hard from the north-east, the thermometer, raised four feet above the ground, showed 52°, and many small birds, attracted by the genial heat, were hopping upon the green ground.[101] When there is much moisture in the atmosphere the vapour must raise its fitful breaths in considerable volumes, and perhaps exhibit at night flashes of lambent flame.

Here, then, was a discovery. Camaroons Mountain is so far _banale_ that it follows the rule of other volcanoes in action, and rises in immediate proximity to the sea. On the other hand, it has the high distinction of being the only mountain on the body of the great continent whose fires have not wholly been extinguished, which still

Spirat inexhaustum flagranti pectore sulphur.

Nor is there any cause to doubt that it will in some future time break out again. Though it lacks its pristine vigour of destructiveness, the vital principle is not extinct. It knows as yet none of those varieties of form and character which denote permanently-burnt out, or even of temporarily-quiescent volcanoes.[102]

This Burning Field, with its escapes of volcanic breath, explains many a doubtful point. ‘From the present condition of the mountain’s surface,’ says Capt. W. Allen,[103] writing in 1842, ‘it must have been for ages in a condition of repose, though there is reason to think it sometimes betrays its latent fires. Mr. Lilley, a trader who resides near the Camaroons River, says that he has seen flames near the summit. This might have been accounted for by the practice of the natives, who set fire to the grass in the dry season for the purpose of catching wild animals; but several of the principal natives of Bimbia declare that, about the year 1838, “fire came out of the ground.” They said “God made it,” in contradistinction from that caused by the burning of the grass.[104] They all saw it, and at Mongo they felt the earth shake like a steamboat. The people feared that it would kill them all.’

Africa suffers sadly from want of all classic associations; like America, she is yet sadly prosaic. No poet has sung the glories of this ‘pillared prop of heaven;’ no Proserpine has wandered over the Ennian fields below; Vulcan has no temple here, where he and his associates—

Brontesque Steropesque et nudus arma Pyracmon,—

are revered by man; no Ennosigæus shakes earth with infernal force; no Enceladus confined by Jupiter

Interdum scopulos avulsaque viscera montis,

Erigit eructans, liquefactaque saxa sub auras,

Cum gemitu glomerat fundoque exæstuat imo.

Neither Plato nor Pliny ever visited our grand volcano, and the ‘fears and reverence of ages’ have yet to be expressed. It is not, however, wholly barbarous, having an antiquity of its own; and it is something for us to boast that we have carried out a discovery, initiated, I believe, by Hanno the Carthaginian in B.C. 600, and neglected until the present day.

The following are the words of the Periplus (chap. xvi.):—Τέτταρας δ’ἡμέρας φερόμενοι, νυκτὸς τὴν γῆν ἀφεωρῶμεν φλογὸς μεστήν. Ἐν μέσῳ δ’ἦν ἠλιβατόν τι πῦρ τῶν ἄλλων μεῖζον ἁπτόμενον, ὡς ἐδόκει, τῶν ἄστρων. Τοῦτο δ’ἡμέρας ὅρος ἐφαίνετο μέγιστον θεῶν ὄχημα καλούμενον. ‘After a run of four days, by night we saw the land full of flame. And in the midst of it was a kind of lofty fire, bigger than the rest, touching, it appeared, the stars. This by day showed itself a very high mountain, called Theon Ochema’—_i.e._ the Vahana, or Vehicle of the Gods. There is absolutely no other mountain on the West Coast of Africa between Capes Spartel and Good Hope that suits this description, and, despite the discrepancy of the distance and the number of days which it occupied, the proximity of the Gorilla country determines the spot.

And may not Dante—who, it will be remembered, distinctly described the Southern Cross—have borrowed from the Periplus of Hanno? Ulysses when tired, as might be expected, of the highly respectable but elderly Penelope, set out once more on his travels to become wiser in the wisdom of the world, of man’s vices and his virtues. He _passed through the Pillars of Hercules_, leaving the morning sun right astern; and made wings of his oars for the idle flight, always gaining upon the left: _i.e._ he started westward and turned to the south-west. _He beheld all the stars of the other pole, while their own was so low that it arose not out of the sea-floor_: _i.e._ he was somewhere near the Equator. ‘Five times,’ he says, ‘the night had arisen underneath the moon, and five times fallen, since we put forth upon the great deep, _when we descried a dim mountain in the distance which appeared higher to me than any I had seen before_.’ We rejoiced, and as soon mourned, for there sprung a whirlwind from the new land (our N.E. wind?) and struck the foremost frame of our vessel, and

Tre volte il fè girare con tutte l’acque,

E la quarta levar la poppa in suso,

E la prora ire in giù come altrui piacque,

Infin che ’l mar fra sopra noi richiuso.

Thus the adventurous explorer found himself in the Place paved with Good Intentions, where doubtless he met many of the confraternity of Master Shoe-tie.

Before taking final leave of the Solfatara, I sketched the scene outstretched in wild magnificence, all desert as the burnt-up moon, before us. Below my feet the counterslope fell rapidly, the angle being much more abrupt than the slope—hence the difficulty with which Messrs. Calvo and Mann had ascended it. On the right, looking to the E.N.E., the horizon was a vast conglomeration of peaks, and waves of ground already purpling in the obliquer rays of the sun. Beyond, the western end or left shoulder of this range, showed a long perspective of mountains rising in the distance; but their intervening depths and distances were concealed by volumes of fleecy cumulus. At the western foot of the main range, and far below the summit, rose a remarkable pyramidal formation, with well-defined faces, which M. Mann afterwards called Mount Dorothy. The hollow between Pico Grande and this south-western face of the Rumbi Mountains justifies Captain Owen’s description: ‘a plain, with several conical hills rising abruptly from the surface, and giving to the scene a novel and extraordinary appearance.’ And on the extreme left, looking to the N.W., and distant about half a mile, yawned a tremendous crevasse, or voragine, not unlike that immense ‘_caldera_’ which in fine weather appears upon the north-eastern side of Fernando Po Peak, a little below the clear ground capping the region of forest. Suboval in shape, it seemed to shelve down rapidly, and in places precipitously, from the plain in which it was sunk; and clouds issued from the ground seething and springing from its dark bosom like the smoke of a conflagration. Having now seen three sides of the Pico Grande, I was able to make a conjecture touching the local periphery of the compilation forming the main cone, which may be assumed to be about equal to that of Pico de Teyde, Tenerife.

But the shadows deepening in the livid air warned us away. We hurried back to camp: in half an hour we found shelter under the lee of Mount Milnes, and at 6 P.M. we were seated before a blazing bivouac-fire, where the immediate adhibition of hot porridge and grog effectually expelled the cold. M. Mann regretted that his precipitancy had prevented his seeing the Solfatara; he promised himself, however, a visit to it on the next day, when ascending the mountain to remove his thermometers. He probably missed the place, as he says, ‘I visited the chinks[105] to ascertain the temperature in them, which I found to be _lower_ than outside; no smoke issuing from them.’ It is hardly necessary to say that I had collected some of the burning sand and sulphur, of which a canister full was forwarded to the Geological Museum in Jermyn Street.

The night was cross and noisy. A furious N.E. wind swept round ‘Arthur’s Seat,’ and in its teeth, quaintly-shaped, ever-varying clouds—England, flying elephants, sitting children, spectres, saurians, and other monsters, vomiting many a flash of lightning—rose from the S.W. invading the sky. I had expected to find unusual whiteness and brilliancy in the heavenly bodies, to see each star shining like a planet, each planet like a little moon; on the contrary, they were exceedingly dim, though earth looked painted with Indian ink, and the peak shot up like a shadowy silhouette. Presently the umbral mass passed away from above our heads, and left exposed a canopy of open indigo-blue and black sky, the fittest for the formation of heavy dew. Our night was excited and disturbed, despite the soothing influence of ginger and rum. When we awoke the thermometer showed 32° 50′ (Fah.), and when we arose 37°. The white blankets were stiff, and our darker travelling rugs showed in places a thick icy deposit. When it is remembered that our lair was 2500 feet below the summit, it is clear that rain must on the peak often become snow, and that frost must prevail there all the year round.

On the morning of the 30th January we parted. M. Mann returned in light marching order to recover his thermometers; I resumed the road to camp, and took charge of the Krumen, promising to station some of them in readiness for my companion, with requisite necessaries, at our old nighting place on Mount Isabel. Setting out at 9 A.M., I occupied two hours in crossing little more than a mile;[106] so cutting was the lava- bed, and tedious the operation of taping. After breakfasting on Mount Isabel we resumed our weary way—the advance on such occasions has its pleasures, the return is irksome. I had resolved to make a bend eastwards from Mount Helen, and to ascend the various peaks which range between that cone and the Three Sisters. But the weather pronounced an emphatic—No! Hardly had we passed Mount Selim than the storm from the S.W. was upon us: it broke with heavy thunder, drops the size of my thumb-nail, a sheet of water when the wind ceased; and lastly, as it veered round to the north, with hail the size of buckshot, which made us happy to take refuge under a natural grot of basalt.

It was the worst day we had experienced upon the mountains. The surface became muddy and soppy, and in the myriad little pits formed between the grass tussocks, water stood in ankle-deep puddles. After a truly _mauvais pas_ arriving at Mount Helen, and sorely longing for a ‘sketch’ of ‘something,’ I sought the Kruboys, but did not find them. The villains had taken leave from the clerk of the weather, and, privileged by the storm, had bolted for camp. Two-Glass was sent to recall them: meanwhile, wet—soppy wet,—cold and hungry, I waited vainly for two hours, and gave up all hopes of further exploration that day. Hardly, however, had we descended half a mile than the sky cleared, the sun shone fiery till we perspired, and the face of the country opened with beautiful distinctness. But it was now too late. Presently my three recreants were found about half way down the hill, stretched luxuriously before the hearth of heaven, and probably contrasting their wisdom with their master’s stupidity. But ah!—let them laugh who win. After an energetic scene, their lighter loads were placed on those who had not deserted me, and they were sent back to M. Mann for the night. They suffered more severely than I had intended. Not meeting M. Mann, and prevented by darkness from returning, they had passed the night without fire, and returned in the morning blue as nitrate of silver could have made them. They shook the head of contrition when asked—What cheer? and promised not to do it again, which promise they will keep until the very first opportunity of breaking it.

A hot walk led us to camp: there is nothing more _triste_ than a return home in Africa. All was foul with a smell of decayed vegetation, which promised no good. Tom Bushman, the fellow in charge, pleaded sore feet—he had improved a little hurt till it became serious—for not sweeping; and the grass huts unexpectedly leaking, all our belongings were as wet as the forest. As more rain rose from the N.E., Selim and I lighted a fire. The Krumen sat perseveringly on their ‘hunkers:’ they were told—‘no work, no food;’ they were hungry, those inexplicable beings! yet all, except Black Beggar, the cook, went to bed supperless rather than bring in a few logs of wood.

I was beginning to think that

Satis est requiescere lecto

Si licet et solito membra levare toro

Quam juvat immites ventos audire cubantem

Et——!

and to feel for M. Mann, when his voice was heard in camp, which he had prudently preferred to the bivouac in the wilderness. He had removed his thermometers from Albert Mountain, fixing the maximum temperature 55°, the minimum 27°; and at the time of his return 35°. He had also boiled his thermometers at the base and on the summit of Mount Hooker, which he found to be 10,875 and 11,725—a good check to our altitude-observations of the Cone. On the exposed N.E. of that mountain he found only a graminea; the sheltered S.W. side, however, was entirely clothed with hypericum, ericinella, cytisus, and other shrubs. He had also passed a place where water stands for nine months in the year—a rare thing in these anhydrous formations where there is an utter absence of argillaceous substrata; and he had seen a beautiful white antelope pacing leisurely away from him at the distance of sixty or seventy yards.

[Footnote 90: In the Old Calabar and Camaroons Rivers the boys are fond of eating a greyish clay brought up from under the water; I know not whether it contains organic remains.]

[Footnote 91: Four species of this herbaceous plant have been found at Fernando Po. The Proceedings of the Linnæan Society inform us that it is common in the hill regions of tropical Africa, and that only one species is known from Abyssinia and one from South Africa.]

[Footnote 92: They must have been upwards of 14,000 feet high.]

[Footnote 93: Observations made on the well-known lava-beds of Mount Etna give about 1 inch of soil per century, 8 inches in 450 years, and 1 foot in 600.]

[Footnote 94: According to the Proceedings of the Linnæan Society, this and two other leguminous plants (_Trifolium subrotundum_ and _sinense_) found by M. Mann on Fernando Po Peak, are all essentially temperate forms growing upon the Canary Islands, but ‘hitherto unknown in tropical Africa, and known by one species only in Abyssinia.’]

[Footnote 95: The observation at the base, however, was taken on the previous day at the very bottom of the cone, a much lower position than the place from which we taped. Stromboli, the type of a permanently active volcano, is an elliptical cone of nearly 3000 feet, rising from deep water with a crater at the summit, breached upon its weakest side; from this vent a plain steeper than the other sides of the mountain runs to the sea.]

[Footnote 96: Capt. Owen’s altitude of Camaroons Mountain is 13,760 feet; Mr. Saker’s (46 feet more), 13,806; mine (641 less) 13,119. Mr. Saker’s boiling point at a place 150 feet below the summit was 188° (Fah.), temp. 59°. On the summit of Albert Mountain mine showed at 189°·2, temp. 62°. I prefer my own for this reason: M. Mann made the foot of Mount Hooker 10,875 feet, I the base of the Great Peak 10,530 feet, and taping up the slope found the cone to be 3300 feet long, thus rendering 13,800 feet too great an altitude. All, however, are mere approximations.]

[Footnote 97: Capt. Owen, vol. ii. chap. xxviii.]

[Footnote 98: Mr. Scrope (‘Volcanoes,’ Longman and Co., 1862) clearly explains how these fissures, injected by gas, steam, and lava from beneath, burst open at the weak points and thus form the circular or elliptical volcanic vent. The expansion and explosion of the pent-up steam, when coming in contact with the external air, is like the ignition of powder in a gun-barrel. The rocks, which are the walls of the fissure, are broken up and yield by the equal pressure on every side, and the character of the surface thus becomes approximately circular and elliptical where the sides of the fissure offer more resistance than its length.]

[Footnote 99: The regular gradation of the altitude observations speaks favourably for the correctness of my B. P.]

[Footnote 100: The stages are:—

1. From Victoria to Bosumbo 23,420 feet.

2. „ Bosumbo to Mapanya 17,300 „

3. „ Mapanya to Ridge Camp 6,000 „

4. „ Ridge Camp to Black Crater 14,080 „

5. „ Black Crater to Spring Camp (Earthwork Crater) 9,594 „

6. „ Spring Camp to Mount Helen 7,814 „

7. „ Mount Helen to Mount Isabel 8,648 „

8. „ Mount Isabel to foot of Main Cone 10,232 „

9. „ Foot to summit of Main Cone 3,300 „
-------
Total 100,392 „

This would be a little upwards of 19 statute miles, but it involves a détour to Saker’s Camp.]

[Footnote 101: Similarly on Tenerife the expiration of steam tempers the sharpness of the air and attracts a population of swallows, linnets (_Fringilla Teydensis_), bees, flies, and spiders: ‘a remarkable little colony,’ says Mr. Piazzi Smyth, ‘an oasis of life and activity in the midst of an elevated desert of lava.’]

[Footnote 102: Thus Vesuvius in the dormant period between 1139 A.D. and 1306 A.D. showed chestnut groves and standing pools on the sides and at the bottom of the crater. These hanging woods are also to be seen in the largest crater of Fernando Po.]

[Footnote 103: Vol. ii. chap. ix.]

[Footnote 104: This accident also often takes place. On the 2nd February M. Mann saw the north side of the mountain on fire, and the conflagration became extensive.]

[Footnote 105: As has been seen, there were no chinks in the Solfatara. M. Mann probably alludes to the deep cracks in the lava-bed, where I had vainly sought for vapour.]

[Footnote 106: More exactly, 6937 feet.]