At last we reached the lee of a lofty perpendicular island part way across the lake, and, although its upright sides offered no chance to land, yet they kept off that southeast wind. The men shut their teeth hard, and in due course moved our bark around the point and out into more moonlight and breeze. The lights and shadows on the great lump of rock standing a thousand feet out of the water behind us were worth looking at, and in many places huge basaltic columns seemed to be holding up the mass above. Not to put as much labor into these lines as our men put into the oars, at half after ten we came to land, seven hours from the shore of the volcano, a distance which in fair wind ought to be covered in a little over one. On shore there seemed to be about four huts, two pig-sties, and nothing more. Stared at by a crowd of natives whom our arrival suddenly incubated from somewhere, and who swarmed down to see who we were, we talked with our boatman, but only succeeded in finding out that we had come to a place not down on the map or on the highroad to the next village whither we were bound. It was simply a collection of huts, children, and pigs, situated at the lake's edge and connected with the outer world by a foot-path that led up over the hills eight miles to the nearest pueblo. To walk those eight miles at eleven o'clock was out of the question, and to sleep in one of those little dirty huts ashore was just as bad. The crowd of natives had grown, and so, to avoid being overrun with the eminently curious, we pushed off from shore and anchored out in the lake, to eat a little "chow" and decide what to do. Weariness tempered our decision, which was to sleep where we were, in the banca, under the hen-coop, and, having made it known to our trusty but hard-looking crew, they fell down like shots and, in less than a minute, were asleep in all sorts of jackstraw positions. One slept on the oars, another on the poles, a third on our collection of volcanic rocks, a fourth in the bottom of the boat, a fifth sitting up, and a sixth--I don't know where.