I thought I never should tire of contemplating the varied scene around me.
“Though sluggards deem it but a foolish chase,
And marvel men should quit their easy chair,
The toilsome way, and long, long league to trace,
Oh! there is sweetness in the mountain air,
And life that bloated ease can never hope to share.”
Time sped too quickly. The day was fast wearing away, and much yet remained to be seen on the mountain top. As yet, I had observed no crater on the summit; but going to the top of a little elevation, about one hundred yards from my dining table, it yawned before me. This was the principal crater of the mountain, and larger than all the four that we had seen on our way up. It was of very irregular form, nearly a quarter of a mile in extent one way—a long chasm some two or three hundred feet deep—and not over one hundred yards wide. Some parts of the sides were perpendicular, and smoke was coming out of fissures and crevices in many places. There were several deep snow-banks in it; and though the entrance to a region of perpetual “fire and brimstone,” yet there has been no eruption from this crater for ages. We rolled some stones down the steep side of the crater, that crashed and thundered to the bottom, and were lost in a vast cloud of smoke. The guides now did nothing without urging; but I was determined, if possible, to go down into the crater. We went to the east end of it, where the descent was most gradual, and on a steep bank of snow, by a process well known to boys as “sliding down hill,” we soon found ourselves at the bottom. Rather a risky place, inside of Hekla’s burning crater; but if the lava and smoke proved too warm friends, we could cool off by jumping into a snow-bank.
We went through every part of this wonderful pit, now holding our hands in a stream of warm smoke, and again clambering over rocks, and standing under arches of snow. The ground under our feet was principally moist earth; the sides of the crater, rock-lava, and in many places loose slags and scoriæ. One most remarkable basaltic rock lay near the center of the crater. It was spherical, nearly as round as a cannon-ball, and about twenty or twenty-five feet in diameter. It lay, apparently, entirely on the surface of the ground, and though of compact and solid structure, there were small cracks all over it, from the twentieth of an inch to a quarter of an inch across. Out of these cracks, on every side of the rock, smoke and hot steam constantly issued. The ground all round it was moist earth and volcanic sand, and showed few signs of heat. Not ten feet from this rock was an abrupt bank of snow, at least twenty feet deep. In one place under it was a crevice in the lava, where the heat came out; and it had melted away the snow, forming a beautiful arch some ten feet high. We walked under it, and found streams of clear water running from the snow. At these pure fountains we filled some of our empty bottles. For the benefit of any future travelers here, I will mention, that had it not been for my own curiosity and perseverance, I never should have gone into this crater, or even have seen it at all. My mountain guide, the farmer of Næfrholt, seemed to think his duty performed after we were once on top of the mountain. I hunted up the crater, quite out of sight from where we arrived on the broad summit of the mountain, went to the brink, and then insisted on descending into it. After getting down to the bottom of the crater, a way selected entirely by myself, he very coolly informed me that he had a short time before gone down into it with some Danish gentlemen. After I had satisfied my curiosity in varied explorations, the guide proposed a place for our exit on the west, but where, I am sure, had we attempted an ascent, we should have broken our necks. As we could not well slide up the hill where we had slidden down, I proposed an egress just to the north of our enormous smoking boulder; and it was so terribly steep that I thought we should inevitably tumble back into the crater after we were nearly to the top. “Festus,” while traveling with Lucifer, says,
“Let us ascend, but not through the charred throat
Of an extinct volcano.”