jecting bluff on our right glows with the glare of fountains playing at the base. And now and then along these crimson lines cutting the dark surface of the lake, which slowly change their shape, clots of lava leap and fall like big fish jumping out of water, and the crimson liquid wells up a little and overflows, as water on a frozen lake through an ice-crack, soon cooling to the dark colour of the lava on which it rests. There is no fire, and very little smoke; simply molten lava in violent agitation, flameless, and accompanied by a hissing, swishing, and clashing, a dull throb and rush of escaping gases, the sound of which is quite unlike anything heard on the shores of the ocean. It tells of a liquid far heavier than water. This noise one can hear a long way off. 7. All this time baby Vesuvius is bursting and playing beautifully; liquid lava comes leaping up above the edges, some falling straight back, some flying over and all round its outer slope, pouring and streaming down its pitch-black sides, while sparks of lava spray and red-hot little bombs are thrown high up, spreading as they go, and falling all round in a shower, sprinkling the ground, rebounding, and rolling away. It is the prettiest, most active little volcano imaginable. 8. The little South lake too is in intense activity. There the molten lava is in such tremendous commotion that the faces of the low broken-topped cliffs are always coated with a dripping, streaming cascade of lava, while quantities are flung clean over. And as we watch we see the surface of the lake -flecked and furrowed with fiery lines-rise steadily, till at a point opposite us, where the cliff is low, it almost overflows, and in fact does pour out in a small stream on one side, just the glow and edge of which is visible to us, and then again it sinks to its former level. As with the large lake close to us, so here, we see the spray flung above the level on the near side of the encircling cliff. 9. As we cross the hot belt which we noticed in coming, we see fire gleaming redly through the network of cracks over which we are stepping-not fire either, but red-hot lava- in a solid condition here, though who can tell how near the melting point— sometimes a few inches only from the surface, sometimes much deeper. Below that a stream of lava runs by an underground passage. Another night we saw it break out against a bank and overflow. In the daylight we had not seen that the lava was red-hot, though we had very palpably felt the hot air ascending from it, and I think if I had had to come back alone, and for the first time found myself walking on a lava bed, red-hot only a few inches below me, I should have been much inclined to remain quite still, quake, and long for daylight. 10. The night display is of course a hundred times finer than that seen by daylight, the chief beauty of Kilauea being the glare thrown out from the lakes. and the intense crimson-white colouring of the molten lava. Visiting the scene a second time we found that baby Vesuvius had put on a black cap and was at first very quiet. After a while, however, the little volcano began to roar at intervals, as gases were invisibly blown up. Just as one of us was taking out a watch to see if these blasts were at regular intervals, it suddenly began to roar most awfully and continuously, as if something dreadful was going to happen, and a white flame blew out from a glowing hole at one side, as of gas burning as it escaped at some tremendous pressure, and out of this hole, too, it now and then spat viciously. Other small holes in the top crust showed us that the interior of the cone was red-hot, or perhaps the redness was due to the reflection from fires below. 11. Returning, we kept more to the right than yesterday, and looked into a blazing hole-a furnace of unknown depth-with a white flame burning fiercely over the open lips. Imagine a small mound on a slope; this mound split broadly across; from the slightly overhanging lips white hot precipices drop sheer down, their depths lost in fierce white light which is painful to look on, and between these precipices falls a cascade of molten lava. How far it falls you cannot see. A fearful row was going on, a hissing, and rumbling, and sharp roar which was most alarming to a novice1 in volcanoes. We stood slightly below the level of the open lips, and could look down at only a foot's distance, and as, when so doing, we were evidently in the line of fissure, it was with a feeling of something very much like relief that I, for one, turned and went away. 2 From Lord G. CAMPBELL'S Log Letters from the Challenger, by permission of Messrs. MACMILLAN and Co. 'Novice, a person new to this experience. 2 The line of fissure is the line or direction in which the sur face would crack or gape with pressure from heat below. I. A GOOD OLD SERVANT. SCENE--Oliver's House. Enter Orlando and Adam, meeting. Orl. Who's there? Adam. What, my young master?-O my gentle master! O my sweet master! O you memory Of old Sir Rowland! why, what make you here? The bony priser1 of the humorous 2 duke? Your praise is come too swiftly home before you. 10. Know you not, master, to some kind of men Their graces serve them but as enemies? No more do yours: your virtues, gentle master, O, what a world is this, when what is comely Orl. Why, what's the matter? O unhappy youth, Your brother-(no, no brother; yet the son20. Yet not the son-I will not call him son— Of him I was about to call his father)Hath heard your praises; and this night he means To burn the lodging where you use to lie, 'Priser, prize-fighter. 2 Humorous, changeable, fanciful. 30. And you within it: if he fail of that, He will have other means to cut you off: This is no place; this house is but a butchery: Orl. Why, whither, Adam, wouldst thou have me go? Adam. No matter whither, so you come not here. Orl. What! wouldst thou have me go and Or with a base and boist'rous sword enforce This I must do, or know not what to do: Adam. But do not so. I have five hundred crowns, The thrifty hire I sav'd under your father, Take that; and He that doth the ravens feed, Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood; |