about ten o'clock
This was to be regretted , for it increased the risk of collision with the floating ice . Of course fog could not be a surprise to us , being where we were , but what did surprise us was the gradually increasing speed of our boat , although the falling of the wind ought to have lessened it . This increase of speed could not be due to the current for we were going more quickly than it . This state of things lasted until morning , without our being able to account for what was happening , when at about ten o'clock the mist began to disperse in the low zones . The coast on the west reappeared -- a rocky coast , without a mountainous background ; the _ Paracuta _ was following its line . And then , no more than a quarter of a mile away , we beheld a huge mound , reared above the plain to a height of three hundred feet , with a circumference of from two to three hundred feet . In its strange form this great mound resembled an enormous sphinx ; the body upright , the paws stretched out , crouching in the attitude of the winged monster which Grecian Mythology has placed upon the way to Thebes .