The volcanoes of the two French islands lay quiet, and left their English brother to do the work.

On the same day a stream of lava rushed down from the mountain, reached the sea in four hours, and then all was over.

The earthquakes which had shaken for two years a sheet of the earth's surface larger than half Europe were stilled by the eruption of this single vent.
No wonder if, with such facts on my memory since my childhood, I looked up at that Souffriere with awe, as at a giant, obedient though clumsy, beneficent though terrible, reposing aloft among the clouds when his appointed work was done.
The strangest fact about this eruption was, that the mountain did not make use of its old crater.

The original vent must have become so jammed and consolidated, in the few years between 1785 and 1812, that it could not be reopened, even by a steam-force the vastness of which may be guessed at from the vastness of the area which it had shaken for two years.

So when the eruption was over, it was found that the old crater-lake, incredible as it may seem, remained undisturbed, as far as has been ascertained.