There was considerable excitement among the “women” when I started away. They had doubtless been instructed to keep me there in safety till the return of the males. Fatty made an eloquent verbal protest, singularly plain to comprehend, although the words were the merest gibberish, but seeing that I intended to be master of my actions, he followed anxiously at my heels. Fortunately there was open country between the camp and the volcanic pile. Nevertheless the way was not all of grass and flowers, for we were obliged to fight our way through narrow belts of trees and vines and to scale the sides of several chasms, all but one of which had been formed, apparently, by earthquakes of the greatest violence. In the one exception, which was the bed of an ancient river, I saw much evidence of mineral deposits, chiefly iron. Strewn along here, in the sand, were bright, crystalline formations which I recognised presently as being pyrites of iron. Afterward I thought of these, having remembered that with this stuff and flint, a spark of fire may be procured quite readily. None of the mineral features held my attention above a moment, however, the peak being the objective point of my march. It is difficult for me to express the feverish anxiety I felt to mount the summit of that hill. It seemed as if everything depended on what I should see from the elevation. Half way up the slope, which was not at all steep, my weight broke away the top of a ledge of crumbling stuff, which proved to be sulphur of great purity. I had never seen a deposit of natural sulphur before, although I had read of mines of the mineral on volcanoes of Mexico, notably Popocatapetl. I merely placed a bit in the pocket of my shirt and went on. Further up, my attention was attracted by innumerable fragments of glass-like substance, with dark, smoky lines woven through, in the form of a rude feather. Such stuff had often come to my notice on the mountains of Nevada, where, as boys, we called it flint, erroneously, I was afterward informed. A few pieces of this I likewise placed in my pocket, but my main desire was to hurry upward. We reached the summit, from which all traces of the crater had disappeared, through lapse of time since the last eruption, and there my heart sank within me. There was no sight nor sign of the sea on all the wide horizon. Far and away below me lay the dark, undulating cloth-of-green, jungle after jungle and range after range of densely wooded hills. In one direction, about forty miles away, were mountains of greater height than the one I was on. These tempted me to hurry onward toward their peaks, but I knew how vain was such a desire. To the eastward I caught a glimpse of a shimmering lake, hedged about with forest which I knew to be practically impenetrable.