We Had Now Been Keeping Watch For Three Days Over The
Geysir, In Languid Expectation Of The Eruption Which Was
To Set Us Free.
All the morning of the fourth day I had
been playing chess with Sigurdr; Fitzgerald was
photographing, Wilson was in the act of announcing
luncheon, when a cry from the guides made us start to
our feet, and with one common impulse rush towards the
basin.
The usual subterranean thunders had already
commenced. A violent agitation was disturbing the centre
of the pool. Suddenly a dome of water lifted itself up
to the height of eight or ten feet, - then burst, and
fell; immediately after which a shining liquid column,
or rather a sheaf of columns wreathed in robes of vapour,
sprung into the air, and in a succession of jerking leaps,
each higher than the last, flung their silver crests
against the sky. For a few minutes the fountain held its
own, then all at once appeared to lose its ascending
energy. The unstable waters faltered, drooped, fell,
"like a broken purpose," back upon themselves, and were
immediately sucked down into the recesses of their pipe.
The spectacle was certainly magnificent; but no description
can give any idea of its most striking features. The
enormous wealth of water, its vitality, its hidden
power, - the illimitable breadth of sunlit vapour, rolling
out in exhaustless profusion, - all combined to make one
feel the stupendous energy of nature's slightest movements.
And yet I do not believe the exhibition was so fine as
some that have been seen:
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