[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]

AMBRYM 2 I 9

It would seem that the whole plain was formerly
one gigantic crater; now only two openings are left,
two craters 500 and 700 metres high, in the north-west
of the plain.

The ground consists of black, coarse-grained slag,
which creaks when walked on, and forms a fine black
dust. Naturally the vegetation in this poor soil is
very scanty,——~only bushes and reed-grass, irregularly
scattered in the valleys between little hillocks ranged
in rows. This arid desert-scene is doubly surprising
to the eye, owing to the sudden change from the
forest to the bare plain.

In this seemingly endless plain, the two craters
rise in a bold silhouette, grimly black. One of them
stands in lifeless rigidity, from the top of the other
curl a few light, white clouds of steam. It is a
depressingly dismal sight, without any organic life
whatever on the steep, furrowed slopes.

We camped on a hillock surrounded by shrubs;
on all sides spread the plain, with low hills, rounded
by rain and storm, radiating from the craters, and
where these touched, a confused wilderness of hills,
' like a black, agitated sea, had formed. The hilltops
were bare, on the slopes there clung some yellowish
moss. The farther away from the craters, the lower
the hills became, disappearing at the edge of the
plain in a bluish—green belt of woods.

The sky was cloudy, a sallow light glimmered
over the plain, and the craters lay in forbidding gloom
and lifelessness, like hostile monsters. Hardly had
I set up my camera, when the western giant began