ten o'clock, and the whole party, since passing the lake of sulphur, had been walking over a rugged bed of lava, and standing by the side of vast chasms of fathomless depth. They had now arrived at the great crater eight miles in circumference, and stood upon the very brink of a precipice, from which they looked down more than a thousand feet into a horrid gulf, where the elements of nature seemed warring against each other. Huge masses of fire were rolling and tossing like the billowy ocean. From its volcanic cones there was a continuous issue of burning lava glowing with the most intense heat. Hissing, rumbling, agonising sounds came from the very depths of the dread abyss, and dense clouds of smoke and steam rolled from the crater.

"Such awful, thrilling sights and sounds were almost enough to make the stoutest heart recoil with horror, and shrink from the purpose of descending to the great seat of action. But men who had been engaged in acts of the most daring enterprise, whose whole lives had been spent on the stormy deep, were not easily deterred from the undertaking. Each one of the party, with a staff to test the safety of the footing, now commenced a perilous journey down a steep and rugged precipice, sometimes almost perpendicular, and frequently intersected with frightful chasms. In about forty-five minutes, they stood upon the floor of the great volcano. Twenty-six separate volcanic cones were seen, rising from twenty to sixty feet, only eight of which, however, were in operation. Up several of those that were throwing out ashes, cinders, redhot lava, and steam, the party ascended, and so near did they approach to the crater of one that with their canes they dipped out the liquid fire. Into another, they threw large masses of scoria, which were instantly tossed high into the air.

"A striking spectacle in the crater at this time was exhibited by its lakes of molten lava. Of these there

were six, but one (the south-west) occupied more space than all the others put together. Standing by the side of this, the visitors looked down more than three hundred feet upon its surface, glowing with heat, and throwing up huge billows of fire, which dashed themselves on its rocky shore; whilst columns of molten lava, sixty or seventy feet high, were hurled into the air, rendering it so hot that the lookers-on were obliged immediately to retreat. After a few minutes, the violent struggle ceased, and the whole surface of the lake was changing to a black mass of scoriæ; but the pause was only a prelude to fresh exertions, for while the lookers-on were gazing at the change, suddenly the entire crust which had been formed commenced cracking, and the burning lava soon rolled across the lake, heaving the coating on its surface, like cakes of ice upon the ocean-surge. Not far from the centre of the lake, there was an island which the lava was never seen to overflow; but it rocked like a ship upon a stormy sea. The whole of these phenomena were witnessed by the party several times, and their repetition was always accompanied with the same effects.

They now crossed the black and rugged floor of the crater which was at frequent intervals divided by huge fissures, and came to a ridge of lava down which they descended about forty feet, and stood upon a level plain occupying one-fourth of the great floor of the crater. This position, however, was found very uncomfortable to the feet, for the fire was seen in the numerous cracks that intersected the plain, only one inch from the surface. Captain Chase lighted his cigar in one of these cracks, and with his walking-stick he could in almost any place pierce the crust and penetrate the liquid fire. Sulphur abounds everywhere in and around the volcano: but here, the whole side of the precipice, rising more than a thousand feet, was one entire mass of sulphur. They ascended several feet, and were detaching some beautiful crystallised specimens, when a large

body of it was accidentally thrown down and rolled into a broad crack of fire.

"This obliged the visitors immediately to retreat, for the fumes that rose almost suffocated them. They had now been in the crater more than five hours, and would gladly have remained; but the last rays of the setting sun were gilding the cliffs above, and they began their journey upward, which occupied them about an hour and a quarter. They repaired to their rude hut, and while the shades of evening were gathering, ate their frugal meal. Curiosity, however, would not allow them to sleep without revisiting the great crater.

"Groping along, they reached the edge of the precipice and again looked down into the frightful abyss, now lighted up by the glowing lava. The whole surface of the plain, where they had observed cracks filled with fire, appeared as though huge cables of molten lava had been stretched across it. While examining these splendid exhibitions, the entire plain, more than one-fourth of the whole crater, was suddenly changed into a great lake of fire; its crusts and volcanic cones melted away, and mingled with the rolling mass. They now hurried back astonished at the sight, and shuddering at the thought that only a few hours had elapsed since they were standing upon the very spot.

"The next morning they returned to view the crater for the last time. Everything was in the same condition: the new lake still glowed with heat, the volcanic cones hurled high into the air redhot stones mixed with ashes and cinders, accompanied with large volumes of steam hissing and cracking as it escaped, and the great lake in the south-west was still in an agitated state."

CHAPTER XXXIII.

FROM VIENNA TO ORSOVA BY RAIL AND RIVER.

THE paddlewheels send a throb through the long narrow steamship with each turn, as we glide down the Danube in the darkness of the night. As I write, we are passing between Bulgaria and Wallachia; but we might be sailing between Essex and Kent, for anything we can see of the low black shores on either side. For the last thirty hours I have been travelling eastwards, and have during that time traversed the whole length of Hungary. I have skirted Servia and Sclavonia, and am now sailing on Turkish waters; yet, when I seek to recall the scenes I have passed through, my recollections are vague and shadowy. Oftentimes, on journeys like this, I am tempted to doubt whether there is much truth in the popular assertion that steam makes nations better acquainted with each other.

In the oldfashioned days of diligences and "speedwaggons "-falsely so called-the traveller went over much less ground, but he saw what he did see far more thoroughly. One hour's jogtrot over a highroad would have shown me more of the real life of the strange district I have traversed than my two days' rapid travel did. Still, you must take the world as you find it; and if you want nowadays to get from Vienna to Constantinople, you must go by the railway and the Danube steamers. Let me try to bring back some of the impressions left upon my mind by the series of views which I have looked upon from my carriage and cabin-windows.

All round Vienna the country is one of the bestcultivated, most prosperous, and homelike, to be seen in any land with which I am acquainted. From the railwaycarriage-window point of view, Hungary is the dreariest and most desolate of countries. Whatever sunlight and

a blue cloudless sky could give of cheeriness to the scene was given yesterday; but, for all that, nothing could give colour to those endless flat dun plains. Of hedges there were none; the harvest had been gathered in, and one field was distinguished from the other only by the different hues of the stubble. Every now and then, at very long intervals, we crossed a military postroad; but cross-roads were not to be seen, and their places were supplied by rough tracks over the fields, along which carts of the most primitive kind, framed of long poles swung between high wheels, crawled slowly. Oxen, goaded on with iron-tipped poles by rough sheepskin-clad peasants, might be seen from time to time dragging huge wooden rollers over rough-ploughed patches of sandy soil; and ever and anon, gangs of women-distinguishable, as the train shot past, from their male fellow-labourers by the gaudy colours of their striped petticoats were caught sight of gathering up bundles of the withered maize-stocks.

Signs of agricultural labour-at this season of the year at any rate-are few and far between. For the most part we travelled on and on through the endless rolling plains, bare as the prairie but without the grandeur of its unbroken expanse of level greensward, with but little trace of human dwellings. Great herds of cattle could be seen lying crowded in the patches of shadow to be found beneath the hillocks, out of the glare of the blazing sunlight. Troops of horses running loose, and to all appearance untended, galloped away into the distance as our train came rattling by; crowds of pigs, followed by barefooted swineherds, lay wallowing by every pool of muddy water. The trim Austrian stations had vanished, and had given place to low, one-storeyed, whitewashed, thatched sheds, with trees between them and the track. Groups of grave sallow men, with high-tasselled topboots, braided coats, and black woollen skullcaps, loitered about the platform,