Aug. 2, i$02.| 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
88 
Our -first stopping place to-day was the Prismatic Lake, 
a very large and strikingly beautiful pool, but the air 
was so full of steam, and the soap-sudsy odor was so 
strong, that combined with the altitude and the heat of 
the day, we found it impossible to stay long. We could 
not determine exactly where the prismatic part came in, 
but the bottom was covered with a formation resembling 
brain coral and displaying a great variety of coloring. 
The driver said it got its name from the changes in the 
hues of the stream as it rose from the surface, but we 
were unable to discover them. 
Our way until lunch time lay through a country that 
was a good deal more than half hot water, most of it 
being just as near 212 degrees as an open vessel could be 
at that elevation ; one has to be very careful about testing 
the temperature with the fingers even .at the edges of 
the pools. 
Speaking with only an approximation to scientific accu- 
racy, an elevation of 6,970 feet corresponds to a baro- 
metrical height of 24 inches, and this to a boiling point of 
201 degrees. An elevation of 8,130 feet corresponds to a 
barometric height of 21 inches, and this to a boiling point 
of 199 degrees, which would indicate a fall of one degree 
in the boiling point for about 570 feet increase in elevation. 
As the Park lies somewhere between these elevations, I 
should judge that the heat of the boiling geysers where 
the water first rises, would be about 200 degrees, quite 
enough to scald any one seriously. 
One geyser, about as large as an ordinary room, was 
an almost perfect shell shape, covered and colored with 
an iridescent coating that made it look like a pearl oyster. 
Our driver showed himself ready to stop anywhere and 
to make little side trips to enable us to see everything 
possible, with the result that we saw so many pools and 
geysers that the names in my note book fail to identify 
them. There were the Emerald Pool, the Jewel, the 
Sapphire, the Morning Glory and the Excelsior. 
The Emerald Pool I have utterly forgotten (one might 
as well be honest about it), while Mrs. *** says it was 
strikingly beautiful. The Jewel I remember more be- 
cause I could see no reason in particular for the name. 
The Sapphire didn't seem any bluer than many of the 
others (it couldn't), but the Morning Glory was a won- 
der. It did certainly look like a gigantic flower, in all 
its variety of color, with the deep dark blue cup for the 
bees to poke their heads in after honey. It was nearly 
as large as a ball room, so it would hardly do for a 
boutonnier. The Excelsior on the other hand was a 
tremendous big pot of boiling water, with clouds of steam, 
too dense to allow one to see much of its surface. 
In ample time for lunch we arrived at the hotel at "Old 
Faithful" Station. This hotel had been until recently only ^ 
a lunch station, and its sleeping accommodations were 
far from satisfactory, consisting of several large tents, 
each divided by canvas partitions into sleeping apartments 
about six feet square. The Grayling was luxury in com- 
parison; the table, though, was much better than these 
accommodations had led us to expect. 
Having made things as comfortable as possible in our 
One-sixth of a tent, we set out to get a nearer view of old 
Faithful. 
I don't think much of the name, it hardly seems fitting 
for so grand a subject, but it at least has the merit of 
indicating the regularity with which this, the greatest 
geyser in the world, and one of the greatest wonders, 
gushes. At almost exact intervals of seventy minutes this 
magnificent geyser throws a column of boiling water 
eight feet in diameter a hundred and fifty feet in the 
air, accompanied by clouds of steam and a stupendous 
roar. It plays for ten minutes or so, and then subsides, 
the water in the funnel receding to a depth of fifteen feet. 
The water rushes through an irregular opening in the top 
of a mound built up by precipitation of the materials .held 
in solution, and this opening has evidently been at some 
time not very far distant, much larger than it is now. 
This outlet will, I have no doubt, be entirely closed 
in course of time, and then there will be a grand explo- 
sion, the whole top will be blown of? and it will in all 
probability become, like the Excelsior, only a big boiling 
pot, and wall gush no more, but this will not happen for 
many years. 
After the eruption most oi the party went on a tramp 
over the "formation" to view some of the lesser won- 
ders, but a small thunderstorm came up and sent them 
liurrying for shelter. I was rather in hopes that we 
should have a real good specimen of a thunder and 
lightning display among the mountainSj but it soon passed 
away. 
We had a good deal of a night. The gentleman in the 
next canvas cell seemed to have a good many troubles on 
his mind, and effectually prevented any one else from 
sleeping. WhUe I lay awake I several times heard a big 
mule wagon belonging to the "post" drive past the 
hotel, and wondered what on earth it wanted around at 
that hour. In the course of time it dawned upon my be- 
numbed faculties that it was the roar of Old Faithful, and 
no lunatic in a wagon. During the day the incessant tur- 
moil of a hotel, even though so primitive as this one, 
drowns the roar of the geyser which is about a thousand 
yards away, but in the stillnes* of the night it sounds like 
distant thunder. 
As a consequence of our neighbor's troubles, I did a 
little unwonted early rising, and joined a party of other 
disconsolates on the hotel porch, where I had my reward 
in seeing and hearing the Lion, which was gush'ng and 
roaring at a great rate. He throws a stream, which seems 
largely steam, nearly, if not quite, as high as Old Faith- 
ful, but it is not so large. All about, the valley was dotted 
with steam jets, and clouds of vapor hung over every- 
thing, the cold morning air condensing the steam and 
making it much more apparent than in the heat of noon- 
day. I should have mentioned, too, the Castle Geyser, 
which we stopped to view as we came to the hotel yester- 
day, and which is partly described by its name. It is 
one of those that are active at imcertain intervals, and 
does not rank as one of the great ones, but it was spout- 
ing away this morning about fifty feet in the air. 
Both the accommodations and the management at this 
.hotel (?) leave considerable to be desired, but we were 
told that it was intended to change both and make this 
.station the equal of the others, 
We bade adieu to Old Faithful with many regrets, but 
we left the hotel without a tear, and set out for Yellow- 
Stone Lake. On this day's Journey we crossed the Con- 
tinental Divide twice, for the continent on this part of the 
world seems affected with curvature of the spine, and its 
j'ocky backbone is considerably out of line. We reached 
our greatest elevation at 8,390 feet, but as there was no 
walking to do, nobody suffered any inconvenience in 
consequence. If our stage had rolled off the road on 
one side, we should have been "Pacific Slopers," and on" 
the other "Easterners," but it would have been a very 
gentle roll either way. *** 
Two Glorious Fourths. — L 
JiFLY 4, rgoi. — -After a long night in which fleas and 
mosquitoes had taken turns in keeping me awake, I rolled 
out of my hammock, and out of the palm-thatched hut 
irito the gray dawn. The Indians, oblivious to insects and 
temperature, were snoring on the ground. The four huts 
at Mecanche were all that was left of a large mahogany 
camp, and they were deserted except by vermin. Shaded 
by cocoanut palms they faced the blue waters of Lake 
San Andres, across which we had paddled on the preced- 
ing day. Far out on the water was a lazy cormorant, the 
only animate creature in sight. There were no alligators 
near, and everything was propitious for a bath. Over 
the low rolling, verdant hills of Yucatan, into a cloudless 
.sky, rose the sun. There was none of long, roseate-tinted 
golden dawn of more northern latitudes. Not a breath of 
air was stirring. The lake was glass, and in the jungle 
not a leaf fluttered. Suddenly the forest broke into life. 
The doleful howl of the babboons and the roar of the 
jaguar had not been intermitted during the night! Now 
came the noisy chattering of monkeys, the derisive 
screams of parrots and yells and shrieks from countless 
beasts and birds that I coidd not identify in the pande- 
monium. Remembering the day, I labeled this part of the 
programme "The Sunrise Salute." 
Coming from the water infinitely more coinfortable 
than when I entered it. I aroused my two men and pre- 
pared breakfast. These natives can cook first-rate, but 
somehow I don't like their style. They have serious ob- 
jections to washing either their hands or the dishes, or to 
properly cleaning game. Breakfast consisted of coffee, 
tortillas, chili and delicious whitefish, that had been caught 
in the lake the previous evening. The natives made the 
tortillas, I did the rest. I had not tasted bread, nor seen 
a person who could speak the English language since 
Aprdl 22. The Indians knew only a few words of Spanish 
and I had picked up still fewer words of the Maya dialect, 
.so we were not very sociable. Naturally my thoughts 
were on better meals in the land of firecrackers and cele- 
brations. ' --i - , 
After breakfast the Indians rolled their cigars from the 
tobacco leaves which they always carried and packed up. 
Each took a gourd full of water. The guide had a light 
pack, a machete and a shotgun. I walked second. As I 
was just up from a hard tussle with fever, it was all that 
1 could do to keep pace with the others and carry n» 
weight, but notebooks and writing material that I was 
afraid to trust out of my hands. Indian No. 2 brought up 
the rear Avith a load of about eighty pounds. His sole 
weapon was a machete. There is a venomous little green 
snake in the jungle, one only of hundreds of species, but 
the meanest of them all, that delights in disputing tbe 
trail with travelers. On this account, if on no other, I 
was glad to have a native before me. Every few mo- 
ments he would lop off a snake's head with his machete, 
and he took as much pride in the operation as a Western 
boy takes in .stoning a rattler. 
Near the huts we passed through several abandoned 
in Upas (cornfields), that had been burned off in the days 
of the mahogany camp. Great squared logs of mahogany 
lay beside the trail, and there were the remains of an old 
saw pit. The timber will probably lie there until it rots, 
unless some piece strikes the fancy of an Indian who is 
about to make a new canoe. All the canoes on Lake San 
Andres are of mahogany. When we had traveled for half 
an hour, clearings and trail disappeared. The dense, ap- 
parently impenetrable jungle was on every side. The 
guide swung his machete with his right hand to clear a 
way through the thorns and vines that blocked our pro- 
gress. In his left hand he carried his gun, and at the same 
time he kept up a good three-mile gait that it was diffi- 
cult for me to follow. We were not the first that had 
penetrated the montana that juts out between the Gulf 
of Campeache and the Caribbean Sea. All about us were 
rubber and chicle trees, scarred from base to apex with 
the rude incisions of Indian sap gatherers. Most of these 
trees were more than half-dead, as the native thinks of 
only the present and bleeds a tree for all that it is worth, 
sometimes killing it outright. 
But it was not all travel. Both the Indians were keen 
after game, and often when we came to a little spot where 
the undergrowth was not thick, and the sun shone down 
through the branches, drying the ground that had been 
soaked by yesterday's rain, I was forced to lie down and 
rest. The first game of the day would never have been 
discovered had it not been for the sharp eyes of the guide 
—a little brown creature shuffling through the brush and 
nosing the soft earth for insects and succulent roots. 
Pablo jumps after it. The thing waddles along clumsily 
for a few steps and then disappears. Where it had been 
there is now a dirty, brown football. Pablo gives it one 
or two hard raps with the heavy handle of his machete, 
when, lo ! the thing relaxes and a dead armadillo lies on 
the ground. Of all the meat that the jungle produces, that 
of the armadillo is the most dehcious. When boiled 
sliced and eaten cold, it is even better than veal. 
Pablo did most of the hunting, while Pedro and I 
rested and smoked. At first we tried to sleep, but soon 
gave it up as a bad job. Whenever we would get com- 
fortably settled, the little monkeys would commence their 
chattering right over our heads, and would pelt us with 
twigs and rotten fruit until we were glad to leave them 
in undisputed possession of the territory. We were a 
month too late for the fruits of the jungle, but the sapote 
tiees, covered with half-dried or decaying fruit, were 
visited by flocks of cojolitos — a bird as large as a sage 
hen and very wild. Pablo stalked one pair for an hour 
I and then vvas imable to get a shot. He did, however, 
bring down a male pisano that dressed about 12 pounds. 
This bird had a large black crest, back black, abdomen 
and lower tail coverts white, cere brilliant gamboge yel- 
low, immense. The prevaihng color of the female is red 
and her cere is neither immense nor brilliant. When 
the pisano and the armadillo were put on Pedro's pack he 
became quite indignant, and, if I could understand liim 
correctly, swore that he would not carry another ounce, 
i could not blame him under the circumstances. None 
the less we were blessed with plenty more game, more 
than we had any need of, the Indians' destructive instinct 
being the only excuse for slaughter. After the water 
.supply in the gourds was exhausted we quenched our 
thirst by cutting bujuju vines and collecting the sap in 
cup.s, perhaps half a pint from each incision. This sap 
was much cooler than the water in the gourds, and was 
tasteless, but a trifle sweet. 
About 2 o'clock we neared Xtinto, a seep hole in the 
jungle. From this point for thirty-six hours we would 
be dependent upon the bujuju vines for our water supply, 
unless we should be fortunate enough to catch some dur- 
ing the regular afternoon rain on the morrow. Pal;>lo 
told us that he would blaze a trail that we could follow' 
and darted on ahead. It took but an instant to lose sight 
of him. Llalf an hour later we heard a shot, and when 
we reached our man he was seated On a large, fat doe. 
This deer was as large as the Rocky Mountain black- 
tail, and much larger than the deer that I had shot in 
Mexico. It was only 200 yards to the laguna at Xtinta, 
and Pablo easily shouldered his game for that short dis- 
tance. 
Xtinto ! Even amid the peace and plenty of the beau- 
tiful mountains, my stomach revolts and a kind of a sea- 
sick feeling comes over me at the thought of Xtinto. A 
pool, stagnant, slimy, covering less than an acre of 
ground. Beside the water, an alHgator was sunning 
himself and loathsome snakes wriggled in and out 
through the scum. Coiled up by a stump was a boa con- 
strictor. He had just made a hearty meal and was not at 
all irritable. Pablo dispatched him easily. He meas- 
ured thirteen feet ten inches in length, and was the largest 
reptile that I saw in Yucatan. Then there were wild 
turkeys galore about the water. It was the genuine ocel- 
lated turkey, the most beautiful of its genus and the first 
of Its species that I had ever seen. As it was within the 
political confines of Guatemala, the interrogation marl; 
may as well come out of the last edition of Ridgway's 
Manual. Probably these turkeys had never before seeii, 
a human being. They were so tame tliat at first we could 
kill them with .sticks. 
About the pool the ground was marshy, suggestive olj 
fever and noxious insects and venomous reptiles. The 
very smell of death was about the place. Before any- 
thing else could be done a champa must be built. The 
regular rain might come up at any moment. Literally 
these tropical showers often commence from a cloudless 
sky, the approaching sound through the forest being the 
only monitor. The champa is a hut of palm leaves that 
may be built in ten minutes. It sheds water, but is no pro- 
tection against the creeping, flying or four-footed crea- 
tures of the tropics. Then came the skinning and dressing 
of the deer, and the cooking of the supper. Even the 
coffee was spoiled with the thoughts of the water from 
which it was made. I made my supper of pisano; the 
armadillo was boiled for the next day's lunch, and the 
Indians feasted on the deer's lungs, which they consider a 
great delicacy. After supper the Indians took the gun and 
went for a hunt. This seemed a useless undertaking, as 
we were so loaded already that we could not take any 
of the venison with us. But they were bound to go any- 
way. I heard several shots fired and just at sundown 
they returned, each carrying a wild hog, which they called 
javile. These were dressed and then the natives explained 
that they were going to smoke the meat and take it home 
with them on the return trip. I may as well remark 
that long before we got back to Xtinto the meat had gone 
the way of all flesh. First they made a framework of 
green wood, about two feet high, on which they placed 
the venison and pork, after cutting it into small pieces. 
Over this they built a champa, both to retain the smoke, 
and to keep off the rain, which had not yet put in an ap- 
pearance. The operation was completed by building a 
fire under the meat. In this green wood and dry w^ere 
so mixed that there vvas great heat and dense smoke 
without much blaze. Meanwhile I was tired out and went 
to bed, but not to sleep. There were no large trees near 
by from which to swing a hammock, so I laid my blanket 
on the wet ground, put up my mosquito net pavilion anc| 
stretched out without undressing. The Indians smoked 
silently and kept up the fire. I shall have to confess that 
sickness and fatigue had made me very nervous. A dozen 
boils made it impossible for me to he long in one position. 
The roar of the tiger, the howl of the baboon, the splash 
of the alligator, all seemed very near. Each rustle i 
the brush made me tremble at thoughts of the deadly 
lancehead snake. In fact, had I not been a total ah 
stainer ever since entering the fever zone, I might have 
imagined that I had "snakes in my boots." Hours rolled 
on. Still the Indians smoked and fed the fire. I lay, 
bathed in a cold perspiration. By and by there was a 
s'.gh in the distant forest. It came nearer and grew 
louder — the moaning of surf on a rocky shore. Neare 
yet nearer. All other sounds were drowned. Fla.shes o' 
lightning flared through the jungle and thunder crashes 
made the earth tremble. Dead trees snapped with noise 
like rifle shot, and the verdant crown was twisted from 
more than one stately palni; Then the storm burst. Th.r 
rain fell not in drops, but in sheets. Crash I Thunder! 
Lightning ! Rain ! Chaos ! 
Silence ! The .storm has passed far away. The beasts 
commence again their nightly prowling. Drip, drip, drip 
fall the drops from the plantain tree overhead, I dream of 
fireworks and salutes on Union Square. Another glorioits 
Fourth has gone into history. Shoshonk. 
"Thanks to the human heart by M/hich we liye, 
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears. 
To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.'* 
—Wordsworth, 
