Shichisei Mountain

In 1696, a gunpowder explosion across the strait sent China scrambling for sulfur, and this guide follows the minor Qing official, Yu Yonghe, who volunteered to find it. It traces his 1697 journey north into uncharted territory, his arrival at a steaming, hissing valley he called a horrible and savage land, and the ten months he spent documenting a place almost no outsider had described. The guide then turns to the volcano itself, whose eruption long ago tore the old crater into the seven peaks that give the mountain its name. Look toward Xiaoyoukeng for the sulfur vents still steaming today, just as Yu Yonghe found them.