It was necessary to take these precautions, as of course she was quite ignorant of its nature.

After this I left her and tried to follow the torrent.
This, however, I soon found to be impossible, for the brook on reaching a huge rock plunged underneath it and became lost to view.

I then went toward the shore as well as I could--now climbing over sharp rocks, now going round them, until at length after immense labor I succeeded in reaching the water.

Here the scene was almost as wild as the one I had left.

There was no beach whatever--nothing but a vast extent of wild fragments of fractured lava-blocks, which were evidently the result of some comparatively recent convulsion of nature, for their edges were still sharp, and the water had not worn even those which were within its grasp to anything like roundness, or to anything else than the jagged and shattered outlines which had originally belonged to them.