With our long train of mules defiling down the pass, we soon reached the floor of the great crater, whose central cone we were to climb before night. The direct distance to be travelled, was but four miles, and the general inclination nothing important, but the roughness was verily inconceivable. One of our reconnoitring parties a few days previously, had tried a straight cut across this lava-covered plain, to save themselves the trouble of going round towards the east, to a smoother region; but after awhile they became entangled amid such terrible stones, that they had to take all the baggage off their mules, and carry everything on their own shoulders.

As we stood on the Canada, the pumice beach of a once fiery sea, its frontal wave of lava, rose between us and the Peak, as a long ridge of rocks piled one over the other, at the steepest angle at which they could avoid falling over. Looking westward, the lava rolled up to the crater wall, formed there by Guajara, whose cliffs and avalanches of broken stones, we loved to trace from the summit, down to the base; where sudden pinnacles and spires shot up, with a strong family resemblance to the “Lunar Rocks.” Some appearances of this phenomenon were seen also in the eastern direction, whither we now pursued our way; gazing upwards in admiration at the range of mural precipices far above our heads.