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As we stood there that morning on the top of Boroboedoer's highest bell, lines of Edna St. Vincent Millay swung into my soul: "All I could see from where I stood Was three tall mountains and a wood." Only in this instance all I could see were three volcanos. And the one in the center, old Merapi was belching out a trail of black smoke. These three volcanos, take turns through the centuries.
I have marked with vermilion spots all the many known active volcanos within the limits of this same map.
Chiloe, about 340 miles southward of Concepcion, appears to have been shaken more strongly than the intermediate district of Valdivia, where the volcano of Villarica was noways affected, whilst in the Cordillera in front of Chiloe two of the volcanos burst forth at the same instant in violent action.
As we advanced into the plain, a most remarkable and interesting view of a great number of peaks and domes opened to the N.N.W. and N.W. There seemed no end of apparently isolated conical mountains, which, as they resemble very much the chain of extinct volcanos in Auvergne, might easily be mistaken for such; but, after changing the aspect a little, they assumed the appearance of immense tents, with very short ridge-poles.
The route to Ngandwona discloses the Tengger in a different aspect; the volcanos are far away, and this central region is rich in pastoral pictures full of lulling charm.
Its contrast of vivid greens, of white quintas, of the two extinct volcanos overlooking Orotava, and of the picturesque townlets facing the misty blue sea, fringed with a ceaseless silvery surf by the brisa, or north-east trade, the lord of these latitudes, had not a symptom of the Madeiran monotony of verdure.
And what are the black lines across, marked E E E? They are the streams of lava which have burrowed out, some covered up again in cinders, some lying bare in the open air, some still inside the cone, bracing it together, holding it up. Something like this is the inside of a volcano. Why, you ask, are there such terrible things as volcanos? Of what use can they be?
From the top, the view of rock, river, forest, and plain, was very fine, the eye ranging over a broad flat, girt by precipitous hills; West, the Kymore or Vindhya range rose again in rugged elevations; South, flowed the Soane, backed by ranges of wooded hills, smoking like volcanos with the fires of the natives; below, lay the bed of the stream we had left at the foot of the hills, cutting its way through the alluvium, and following a deep gorge to the Soane, which was there hidden by the rugged heights we had crossed, on which the greater part of our camp might be seen still straggling onwards; east, and close above us, the bold spur of Mungeesa shot up, terminating a continuous stretch of red precipices, clothed with forest along their bases, and over their horizontal tops.
South of them again, there is a long gap, and then another line of red dots Arequiba, Chipicani, Gualatieri, Atacama, as high as, or higher than those in Quito; and this, remember, is the other country which has just been shaken. On the sea-shore below those volcanos stood the hapless city of Arica, whose ruins we saw in the picture. What a line we have traced!
And then it cools, of course; but often not before it has killed the fish by its sulphurous gases and heat, perhaps for miles around. I could tell you many stories of fish being killed in thousands by earthquakes and volcanos during the last few years. But we have not time to tell about everything.
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