When we reached 8400 feet we experienced great difficulty in climbing up a frozen scoria incline covered with great boulders of volcanic conglomerate. Looking down from this point the whole mountain had a singularly wild and rugged look, and the giant, peaked rocks shot up in the form of bold pinnacles, and seemed to mark the site of an ancient crater, where the raging volcanic fires had rent the rocks into a thousand curious forms, and turned them into a deep-red colour. At 8600 feet, we climbed up a precipitous slope of lava conglomerate, in the form of a rude terrace, upon which were gigantic boulders and masses of broken rock covered with a thick coating of ice and snow. Here it was almost impossible to stand against the wind, and we came to a steep scoria incline, covered with frozen snow as hard as ice. Up this we had to crawl on our hands and knees, as the wind sweeping around the mountain from the right, fearfully cold, and with unabated force, made it impossible to stand. The scoria ridge and masses of rock and gigantic boulders that rose up around, were covered with festoons of ice, and the whole mountain shone and glittered with a dazzling splendour. Above the white snow, the dark ridges of lava rose like stupendous walls, rugged, bare, and desolate, but adamantine and colossal in structure, as if the Architect of nature had intended them to endure for all time. All about this part of the ascent the sides of the mountain were steep and broken, and the climbing along the frozen surface was so difficult that we had to creep along the edge of the great conglomerate walls and hang on to the big stones that jutted out from their surface. We could now only go on for about five minutes at a time without stopping to rest, as we had not only to combat the difficulties of our own track, but the force of the wind, which, blowing with increased force as we mounted higher and higher, threatened at places to blow us over the precipices. Fortunately there was not a single cloud to be seen; nothing but a bright sun and a clear blue sky, from which the wind swept down cold, yet invigorating, but with tremendous force; and, indeed, so steep and slippery with ice was this part of the mountain that it was only by carefully navigating our own course, as it were, by keeping to leeward of the projecting peak above, that we were enabled to make headway.