A Smooth Silicious Basin,
Seventy-Two Feet In Diameter And Four Feet Deep, With A
Hole At The Bottom As
In a washing-basin on board a
steamer, stood before us brimful of water just upon the
simmer; while up
Into the air above our heads rose a
great column of vapour, looking as if it was going to
turn into the Fisherman's Genie. The ground about the
brim was composed of layers of incrusted silica, like
the outside of an oyster, sloping gently down on all
sides from the edge of the basin.
[Figure: fig-p067.gif with caption
A Basin.
B Funnel.]
Having satisfied our curiosity with this cursory inspection
of what we had come so far to see, hunger compelled us
to look about with great anxiety for the cook; and you
may fancy our delight at seeing that functionary in the
very act of dishing up dinner on a neighbouring hillock.
Sent forward at an early hour, under the chaperonage of
a guide, he had arrived about two hours before us, and
seizing with a general's eye the key of the position, at
once turned an idle babbling little Geysir into a
camp-kettle, dug a bake-house in the hot soft clay, and
improvising a kitchen-range at a neighbouring vent, had
made himself completely master of the situation. It was
about one o'clock in the morning when we sat down to
dinner, and as light as day.
As the baggage-train with our tents and beds had not yet
arrived, we fully appreciated our luck in being treated
to so dry a night; and having eaten everything we could
lay hands on, were sat quietly down to chess, and coffee
brewed in Geysir water; when suddenly it seemed as if
beneath our very feet a quantity of subterraneous cannon
were going off; the whole earth shook, and Sigurdr,
starting to his feet, upset the chess-board (I was just
beginning to get the best of the game), and flung off
full speed towards the great basin. By the time we
reached its brim, however, the noise had ceased, and all
we could see was a slight movement in the centre, as if
an angel had passed by and troubled the water. Irritated
at this false alarm, we determined to revenge ourselves
by going and tormenting the Strokr. Strokr - or the
churn - you must know, is an unfortunate Geysir, with so
little command over his temper and his stomach, that you
can get a rise out of him whenever you like. All that is
necessary is to collect a quantity of sods, and throw
them down his funnel. As he has no basin to protect him
from these liberties, you can approach to the very edge
of the pipe, about five feet in diameter, and look down
at the boiling water which is perpetually seething at
the bottom. In a few minutes the dose of turf you have
just administered begins to disagree with him; he works
himself up into an awful passion - tormented by the qualms
of incipient sickness, he groans and hisses, and boils
up, and spits at you with malicious vehemence, until at
last, with a roar of mingled pain and rage, he throws up
into the air a column of water forty feet high, which
carries with it all the sods that have been chucked in,
and scatters them scalded and half-digested at your feet.
So irritated has the poor thing's stomach become by the
discipline it has undergone, that even long after all
the foreign matter has been thrown off, it goes on retching
and sputtering, until at last nature is exhausted, when,
sobbing and sighing to itself, it sinks back into the
bottom of its den.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 44 of 151
Words from 22841 to 23468
of 79667
