Securing our horses in the scrub, we scrambled for about a mile over huge boulders, and up rough, narrow watercourses, when, ascending a steep spur of the mountain, we reached the base of the great cone near to its south-eastern side, at a point which marked 4000 feet above the level of the sea. Gazing upwards, the steep, clean-cut sides of the tall mountain looked almost precipitous, and it was clear, at a glance, that the task to reach the summit and make the descent by nightfall would be no easy matter. Just at this part of the cone some volcanic disturbance, which had occurred probably ages ago, had poured down a stream of liquid lava, which, cooling, as it were, by some sudden blast, had congealed into a rugged and almost perpendicular ridge of dark, lustrous, adamantine-like rock in its overflow from the summit of the mountain. It was up this precipitous ridge that we had determined to fight our way. When we first began the ascent, the steep climbing told severely on our backs and legs, while the enormous protruding masses of porous lava which fringed the outside portion of the ridge, and over which we had to climb as much by our hands as by our feet, were as sharp as if they had cooled and crystallized but yesterday. Besides the cautious and often dangerous way we had to pick our footing, it was necessary to be careful, in order to avoid the many holes in the lava formation, which were just large enough to receive a man's body, and which, when we threw stones into them, appeared to be of enormous depth. As we climbed higher and higher, the shelving, colossal sides of the mountain seemed to become steeper and steeper, while the summit appeared to get further away at every step we took.