Unofficial letters of an official's wife [by] Edith Moses.

UNOFFICIAL LETTERS OF

steam which floated off high above our heads. We
were all stunned to silence at the magnificent display, too amazed to be frightened, although General
Bell confesses now that he began seriously to calculate our chances of escape. As we were beginning
to feel the tension of the situation the great fountain
slowly and majestically subsided. General Bell
thinks it did not last a minute. It seemed as if it
were hours. After the eruption we stayed some
time at the top of the crater. Our muchachos went
down to the bottom. It was so far below us we
could scarcely follow them with our eyes. It took
them over an hour to return. The crater is said to
be the size of the walled city of Manila: it looked
larger. There are three lakes at the bottom filled
with a white liquid which sends up steam clouds continually. The crater floor is not flat; it contains valleys and a small hill, cliffs and abysses. The walls
are perpendicular on two sides and about three hundred feet high. The two other sides are sloping and
covered with ashes and cinders. The crater is two
or three times as long as it is wide. We waited a
long time, hoping to see another eruption of steam
and mud, but finally hunger and the hot sun drove
us down to the lake.
It was quite as fatiguing going down as it was
going up, for the sun was hotter. Finally, the launch
was reached and we soon had our luncheon spread
out on the deck. The lake reflected the hot sun and
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