VII.] THE GEYSIRS. 77 



my fair tire-woman was engaged in neatly folding up the 

 ravished garments on a neighbouring chair. She then in 

 the most simple manner in the world, helped me into bed, 

 tucked me up, and having said a quantity of pretty things in 

 Icelandic, gave me a hearty kiss and departed. If," he 

 added, " you see anything remarkable in my appearance, it 

 is probably because — 



' This very morn I've felt the sweet surprise 

 Of unexpected lips on sealed eyes ; ' " 



by which he poetically intimated the pleasing ceremony 

 which had awaked him to the duties of the clay. I think it 

 needless to subjoin that the Doctor's cold did not get better 

 as long as we remained in the neighbourhood, and that, 

 had it not been for the daily increasing fire of his looks, 

 I should have begun to be alarmed at so protracted an 

 indisposition. 



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 sub- 

 terranean 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. 



