72 



LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 



[VII. 



consisted of unwholesome-looking red livid clay, or crumpled 

 shreds and shards of slough-like incrustations. Naturally 

 enough, our first impulse on dismounting was to scamper off 

 at once to the Great Geysir. 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 conse- 

 quently 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 com- 

 posed of layers of incrusted silica, like the outside of an 

 oyster, sloping gently down on all sides from the edge of 

 the basin. 



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 for- 

 ward 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 



