There was no track of man, not even a hunter’s footprint; but instead, tracks of beasts in plenty.  Deer, quenco, {194a} and lapo, {194b} with smaller animals, had been treading up and down, probably attracted by the salt water.  They were safe enough, the old man said.  No hunter dare approach the spot.  There were ’too much jumbies’ here; and when one of the party expressed a wish to lie out there some night, in the hope of good shooting, the Negro shook his head.  He would ’not do that for all the world.  De debbil come out here at night, and walk about;’ and he was much scandalised when the young gentleman rejoined that the chance of such a sight would be an additional reason for bivouacking there.

So we walked out upon the mud, which was mostly hard enough, past shallow pools of brackish water, smelling of asphalt, toward a group of little mud-volcanoes on the farther side.  These curious openings into the nether-world are not permanent.  They choke up after a while, and fresh ones appear in another part of the area, thus keeping the whole clear of plants.

They are each some two or three feet high, of the very finest mud, which leaves no feeling of grit on the fingers or tongue, and dries, of course, rapidly in the sun.  On the top, or near the top, of each is a round hole, a finger’s breadth, polished to exceeding smoothness, and running down through the cone as far as we could dig.  From each oozes perpetually, with a clicking noise of gas-bubbles, water and mud; and now and then, losing their temper, they spirt out their dirt to a considerable height; a feat which we did not see performed, but which is so common that we were in something like fear and trembling while we opened a cone with our cutlasses.  For though we could hardly have been made dirtier than we were, an explosion in our faces of mud with ‘a faint bituminous smell,’ and impregnated with ’common salt, a notable proportion of iodine, and a trace of carbonate of soda and carbonate of lime,’ {195} would have been both unpleasant and humiliating.  But the most puzzling thing about the place is, that out of the mud comes up—­not jumbies, but—­ a multitude of small stones, like no stones in the neighbourhood; we found concretions of iron sand, and scales which seemed to have peeled off them; and pebbles, quartzose, or jasper, or like in appearance to flint; but all evidently long rolled on a sea-beach.  Messrs. Wall and Sawkins mention pyrites and gypsum as being found:  but we saw none, as far as I recollect.  All these must have been carried up from a considerable depth by the force of the same gases which make the little mud-volcanoes.