WILD LIFE ACROSS THE WORLD 



trapped for a similar reason. I had a look at the 

 captives, and most uncommonly sulky they were. 

 Perhaps they were repenting the evil of their ways. 

 I was told that the dead animals would be buried as 

 they were, without being skinned, as the Government, 

 most wisely, allows no trophy to be obtained in the 

 Park, thus removing a strong temptation from the 

 game-rangers, who might otherwise be incHned to allege 

 that an animal whose hide they coveted had attacked them. 

 We passed numerous geysers and other fearsome 

 holes full of boiling mud ; in fact, the whole place 

 was rumbling, spluttering and spouting. When Randall 

 asked me what I thought of it all, I could only 

 answer that it reminded me of Dante's description 

 of the Inferno, with the souls of the damned 

 mercifully left out, and with a clear sky overhead, 

 robbing it of its horror and leaving its majesty. 

 Within twenty yards of the road you will find holes 

 fifteen or twenty feet across, out of which mud is 

 continually being spouted, only to fall back again and 

 once more be ejected. Another fifty yards farther on, 

 perhaps, a column of water will suddenly rise high into 

 the air, a veritable fountain, which plays for a couple 

 of minutes and then subsides. In one place the whole 

 ground seems to be throwing out great volumes of 

 steam, the roadway itself being enveloped in it. All the 

 trees have been killed by the heat and the gases, and 

 naturally there is neither bush nor grass, a dreary, 



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