Next day the professor and I, obeying a common impulse of travellers, got up early and went forth to survey our new quarters.  It was a splendid morning, the whole atmosphere steeped in sunshine, and musical with the songs of birds.  The big sun was peeping over the distant wall of the crater, but we did not feel his rays uncomfortably hot.  A sky of the loveliest azure was streaked with thin white clouds, drawn across it like muslin curtains, and a cooling breeze played gently upon the skin.  The dewy air, so spring-like, fresh and sweet, was a positive pleasure to breathe, and we both felt the intoxication, the rapture of life, as we had never felt it since our boyhood.  The grass underfoot was green as emerald, and soft as velvet; fountains were flashing in the sunshine, statues gleaming amongst the flowering trees, and birds of brilliant plumage glancing everywhere.

The square opened on the lake, and afforded us a magnificent view of the island.  It was conical in shape, and the peak, no doubt, of an old volcanic vent.  I should say it was at least a thousand feet in height; the sides were a veritable “hanging garden,” wild and luxuriant; and the summit was crowned by a glittering mass of domes, minarets, and spires.  Numbers of people, old and young, were bathing along the beach, and swimming, diving, and splashing each other in the water with innocent glee.  Large birds, resembling swans, double the size of ours, and of pale blue, rose, yellow, and green, as well as white plumage, were floating in and out, and some of the children were riding on their backs.  Fantastic boats, with carved and painted prows, might be seen crossing the lake in all directions, some under sail, and others with rowers, keeping stroke to the rhythm of their songs.  The shores of the lake, sloping quietly to the waterside, were covered more or less thickly with the houses and gardens of the city, and far in the distance, perhaps fifty, perhaps a hundred miles away, the view was bounded by the dim and ruddy precipice of the crater wall.

Regaling our eyes on the beautiful prospect, and our lungs on the pure atmosphere, we wandered along the beach, ever and anon pausing to admire the strange forms and beautiful colouring of the shells and seaweeds, or to pick up a rare pebble, then shie it away again, little thinking that it might have been a ruby, sapphire, or topaz, worth a king’s ransom on the earth.  At length the way was barred by the mouth of a broad river, and after a refreshing plunge in the lake, we returned home to breakfast.

During our absence Carmichael had been visited by our venerable host of the evening, whose name was Dinus, and a young man called Otare, who turned out to be his son.  They had brought a fresh supply of dainties, and what was still more important, some pictorial dictionaries and drawings which would enable us to learn their language.  As the structure of it was simple, and the vocabulary not very copious, and as we also enjoyed the tuition of the young man, who was devoted to our service, and conducted us in most of our walks abroad, at the end of a fortnight we could maintain a conversation with tolerable fluency.