We did not leave camp until 11.30 a.m., rising again to the summit of the plateau some 50 ft. higher. There we had to describe a wide arc of a circle, as through the trees we perceived on our left an immense chasm, beyond which was a much disturbed landscape of striking ruggedness. We could see a huge circular crater with eroded lips, rising like the chipped edges of a gigantic cup, in the centre of the great volcanic basin. That depression with high vertical walls all round displayed a large gap to the W.N.W. and another to the south-west.
Twelve kilometres from our last camp—and still marching along the edge of the circle on the summit of the plateau—we came to a grassy cuvette, and then to another hollow with a few burity palms. The wall overlooking the great circular depression was perpendicular, of red igneous rock, with projecting spurs ending in conical, much-corrugated hills. The curious opening to the south-west was much broken up in two places with gaps. In the distance beyond were three ranges of hills, the colour of which appeared a pure cobalt blue.
The central crater was formed by rugged red walls with spurs on the east and south-east sides. In the bottom was water with trees all round its edge. There were four square holes from which boiling water gurgled like feeble geysers, and three more holes of a more irregular shape.
The hill range on which we stood projected well into the centre of the great circular basin. It had on the west side perfectly vertical walls of black igneous rock. Its summit was chiefly formed of ferruginous erupted rock thrown up while in a state of ebullition, which had cooled into a conglomerate of minute globular masses, in shape like the bubbles of boiling water. The great circle around us, as we stood on the outermost point of the projecting spur, was most impressive, with its brilliantly coloured red walls.
My men killed a coatí—a peculiar, long-nosed carnivorous animal, which had characteristics in common with dogs, monkeys, and pigs. There were two kinds of coatí or guatí, viz. the coatí de mundeo (Nasua solitaria), and the coatí de bando (Nasua socialis). Ours was a Nasua solitaria. It was a beautiful little animal, about the size of a small cat, with a wonderfully soft brown coat on its back, a yellowish red belly and bright yellow chest and throat. The chin was as white as snow. The long tail, 1½ ft. long—was in black and yellow rings. It possessed powerful fangs on both the upper and lower jaws, a long, black, gritty or granular tongue, short ears, powerful short fore-paws with long nails—quite dog-like; long thighs extremely strong, short hips and hind legs, with callosity up to the knee—evidently to allow that part of the leg to rest flat upon the ground. The coatí had velvety black eyes of great beauty, well set in its small well-shaped head. It was a wild little fellow, extremely agile, and could kill a dog much larger than itself with comparative ease.
We circled the eastern and northern part of the great cauldron, always remaining on the summit of the plateau at elevations varying from 2,250 to 2,300 ft. We came upon patches of violet-coloured and then tobacco-coloured sand, and also upon quantities of dark brown sand, generally consolidated into easily friable rock. There were the usual deposits of grey ashes over the underlying volcanic rock which peeped through here and there.
On June 4th we were at the Cabeçeira Koiteh (temperature, min. 53° Fahr.; max. 80° Fahr.; elev. 2,100 ft.). Close to this camp, from an outstretching spur, I obtained another magnificent view. To the E.S.E. stretched from north-east to south-west a flat plateau, and to the east a flat mountainous block with an eroded passage. Headlands branched off from the northern side of the ridges in a north-easterly direction. Between them were basins thickly wooded in their lower depressions. The north-eastern portion of the flat range was almost vertical, with many angular and sharply pointed spurs projecting from it.
In the centre of the greater basin, of which the others were details, a low convex ridge bulged out, with three conical peaks—two of them at the highest point of the curve. Between the first and second cone two twin sub-craters were visible—evidently the two twin circles had formed part of the same crater—in the mountain side of the distant range. A third crater was some distance off to the south-west.
To the south-west in the background was a lovely view of flat highlands with huge tower-like rocks standing upright upon them. Then to the S.S.W. a regular vertical dyke of rock stood on the top of an elongated conical base.
The elevation on the summit of the spur from which we obtained this lovely panorama was 2,200 ft.—or no more than 100 ft. higher than our camp.