About seven in the evening
If this singular torrent had not been checked in its descent by the peculiar shape of the flanks of the mountain , it would have swept into the sea , and would have formed new islands . Such as it was , it served us admirably . The abrupt character of the slopes momentarily increased , but these remarkable stone steps , a little less difficult than those of the Egyptian pyramids , were the one simple natural means by which we were enabled to proceed . About seven in the evening of that day , after having clambered up two thousand of these rough steps , we found ourselves overlooking a kind of spur or projection of the mountain -- a sort of buttress upon which the conelike crater , properly so called , leaned for support . The ocean lay beneath us at a depth of more than three thousand two hundred feet -- a grand and mighty spectacle . We had reached the region of eternal snows . The cold was keen , searching and intense .