As It Lay At
The Furthest End Of The Congeries Of Hot Springs, In
Order To Reach It We Had To Run The Gauntlet Of All The
Pools Of Boiling Water And Scalding Quagmires Of Soft
Clay That Intervened, And Consequently Arrived On The
Spot With Our Ankles Nicely Poulticed.
But the occasion
justified our eagerness.
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.
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