VAUX VOLCANIC ROCKS OF ICELAND. 



177 



The chief object which Lord Dufferin and his party had in going so 

 far inland was to see an eruption of the Great Gey sir." As this only 

 takes place at intervals, they were detained some days on the spot, 

 eagerly watching for some premonitory symptom of an approaching 

 crisis. On one occasion a sudden roar, as of subterranean cannon 

 beneath their feet, caused a general rush to the great basin ; the noise, 

 however, ceased as suddenly, and there was nothing to see save a 

 slight rippling of the water : — 



Irritated at this false alarm, we determined to revenge ourselves 

 by going and tormenting Strokr. Strokr, or the churn, you may 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 boiling 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 sickness, 

 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 become by the discipline it has undergone, that even long 

 after all foreign matter has been thrown oft", it goes on retching and 

 sputtering until, at last, nature is exhausted, when, sobbing and 

 sighing to itself, it sinks back into the bottom of its den." 



On the fourth day of their a'hxious watch over the Great Geysir, a 

 sudden cry is raised, and with one common impulse they 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 jumping leaps each higher than the last, 

 flung their silver crests against the sky. For a few minutes the foun- 



