I stood now on Mount Hecla, and eagerly sought the crater on the snowless top, but did not find it.

I was the more surprised, as I had read detailed accounts of it in several descriptions of travel.
I traversed the whole summit of the mountain and climbed to the adjoining jokul, but did not perceive an opening, a fissure, a depressed space, nor any sign of a crater.

Lower down in the sides of the mountain, but not in the real cone, I saw some clefts and fissures from which the streams of lava probably poured.

The height of the mountain is said to be 4300 feet.
During the last hour of our ascent the sun had grown dim.

Clouds of mist blown from the neighbouring glaciers enshrouded the hill-tops, and soon enveloped us so closely that we could scarcely see ten paces before us.
At last they dissolved, fortunately not in rain but in snow, which profusely covered the black uneven lava.