midday
Further on still the forests ceased and Fernand entered on a wild region of almost universal desolation , yet forming one of the sublimest spectacles that nature can afford . The sounds of torrents , as yet concealed from his view , and resembling the murmur of ocean 's waves , inspired feelings of awe ; and it was now for the first time since he entered on the region of desolation , having left the clime of loveliness nearly a mile behind , that his attention was drawn to the nature of the soil , which was hard and bituminous in appearance . The truth almost immediately struck him : there was a volcano amongst those mountains up which he was ascending ; and it was the lava which had produced that desolation , and which , cold and hardened , formed the soil whereon he walked . It was now past midday ; and he seated himself once more to repose his limbs , wearied with the fatigues of the ascent and overcome by the heat that was there intolerable . At the distance of about two hundred yards on his right was a solitary tree , standing like a sign to mark the tomb of nature 's vegetation . Upon this tree his eyes were fixed listlessly , and he was marveling within himself how that single scion of the forest could have been spared , when the burning lava , whenever the eruption might have taken place , had hurled down and reduced to cinders its verdant brethren . Suddenly his attention was more earnestly riveted upon the dense and wide-spreading foliage of that tree ; for the boughs were shaken in an extraordinary manner , and something appeared to be moving about amongst the canopy of leaves .