The expedition so far had been such a fatiguing one, and the heat was so great, that the children and I decided to remain here, and to let the gentlemen proceed alone to the summit of the Peak.  We tried to find some shade, but the sun was so immediately above us that this was almost an impossibility.  However, we managed to squeeze ourselves under some slightly overhanging rocks, and I took some photographs while the children slept.  The guides soon returned with water-barrels full of ice, procured from a cavern above, where there is a stream of water constantly running; and nothing could have been more grateful and refreshing.

It was more than three hours before Tom and Captain Lecky reappeared, to be soon followed by the rest of the party.  Whilst they rested and refreshed themselves with ice, they described the ascent as fatiguing in the extreme, in fact, almost an impossibility for a lady.  First they had scrambled over huge blocks of rough lava to the tiny plain of the Rambleta, 11,466 feet above the level of the sea, after which they had to climb up the cone itself, 530 feet in height, and sloping at an angle of 44 degrees.  It is composed of ashes and calcined chalk, into which their feet sank, while, for every two steps they made forwards and upwards, they slipped one backwards.  But those who reached the top were rewarded for their exertions by a glorious view, and by the wonderful appearance of the summit of the Peak.  The ground beneath their feet was hot, while sulphurous vapours and smoke issued from various small fissures around them, though there has been no actual eruption from this crater of the volcano since 1704.  They brought down with them a beautiful piece of calcined chalk, covered with crystals of sulphur and arsenic, and some other specimens.  Parched and dry as the ground looked where I was resting, a few grains of barley, dropped by mules on the occasion of a previous visit, had taken root and had grown up into ear; and there were also a few roots of a sort of dog-violet, showing its delicate lavender-coloured flowers 11,000 feet above the sea, and far beyond the level of any other vegetation.

It was impossible to ride down to the spot where we had left the baggage animals, and the descent was consequently very fatiguing, and even painful.  At every step our feet sank into a mass of loose scoriae and ashes; and so we went slipping, sliding, and stumbling along, sometimes running against a rock, and sometimes nearly pitching forward on our faces.  All this too beneath a blazing sun, with the thermometer at 78 deg., and not a vestige of shade.  At last Tom and I reached the bottom, where, after partaking of luncheon and draughts of quinine, we lay down under the shadow of a great rock to recruit our weary frames.