The Angle Of This Wall Is Great, And Its Appearance From Below Is
Impressive From Its Enormous Breadth, And Its Abrupt Rise Without
Bend Or Droop For A Good 2,000 Feet Into The Air.
It is covered
with short, yellowish grass through which the burnt-up, scoriaceous
lava rock protrudes in rough masses.
I got on up the wall, which when you are on it is not so
perpendicular as it looks from below, my desire being to see what
sort of country there was on the top of it, between it and the final
peak. Sasu had reported to Herr Liebert that it was a wilderness of
rock, in which it would be impossible to fix a tent, and spoke
vaguely of caves. Here and there on the way up I come to holes,
similar to the one my men had been down for water. I suppose these
holes have been caused by gases from an under hot layer of lava
bursting up through the upper cool layer. As I get higher, the
grass becomes shorter and more sparse, and the rocks more
ostentatiously displayed. Here and there among them are sadly tried
bushes, bearing a beautiful yellow flower, like a large yellow wild
rose, only scentless. It is not a rose at all, I may remark. The
ground, where there is any basin made by the rocks, grows a great
sedum, with a grand head of whity-pink flower, also a tall herb,
with soft downy leaves silver grey in colour, and having a very
pleasant aromatic scent, and here and there patches of good honest
parsley.
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