A SULPHUR HOT-SPRING. 
243 
to it were wont to hold their noses on account of a bad 
odour that prevailed at such times. I tried to arrive at 
the nature of the odour, hut could only learn that it was 
possessed of a choking sensation, and that it could bo 
tasted in the water; and I wms thinking of passing a few' 
hours in the vicinity, hoping for an opportunity of judg- 
ing in person, when one of our party drew a match across 
the bottom of the box to light a cigar, and the odour was 
immediately recognised by the owner of the bath as that 
in regard to which he had been making signs. It was 
sulphur. 
I at once stooped down, and, leaning over the pool, 
tried to get a cupful of the water before it became 
tainted by admixture with that in which the bathers had 
been floundering all day; but, from the peculiar construc- 
tion of the bathing-place, I found it impracticable. This 
latter was partly hewn out of the i-ock, and partly walled 
up with boards, the seams of which were tightly calked. 
It was some three or four feet deep, and had a bamboo 
joint running through the wall at that height, which 
acted as a constant drain to let escape the surplus water. 
The fountain itself was in the bottom, and consequently 
three or four feet under ■water ; so it wms no easy matter 
to get an uncontaminated cupful. At last I gave up the 
attempt: the risk Avas too great of my tasting water that 
had been in contact with the skin of various bathers; I 
was not sufficiently devoted to science to encounter it. I 
put my hand in it, however, more than once, and tried in 
vain to detect the existence of sulphur through the sense 
of smell. 
It Avas quite Avarm enough even iioaa', while the boiling 
