VII.] THE GEYSIRS. 73 



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 our- 

 selves 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 boil- 

 ing 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 sick- 

 ness, 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 be- 

 come by the discipline it has undergone, that even long after 

 all the foreign matter has been thrown off, it goes on retch- 



