But though, at first, these agents do not seem as forceful and extraordinary as a single terrible catastrophe, the slow results thus gained are even more impressive. For what an appalling lapse of time must have been necessary to cut down and remove layers of sandstone, marble, and granite, thousands of feet in thickness; to carve the mighty shrines of Siva and of Vishnu, and to etch out these scores of interlacing cañons! To calculate it one must reckon a century for every turn of the hourglass. It is the story of a struggle maintained for ages between the solid and the fluid elements, in which at last the yielding water won a victory over adamant. It is an evidence, too, of Nature's patient methods; a triumph of the delicate over the strong, the liquid over the solid, the transitory over the enduring. At present, the softer material has been exhausted, and the rapacious river, shrunken in size, must satisfy itself by gnawing only the archaic granite which still curbs its course. Yet if this calculation overpowers us, what shall we say of the reflections awakened by the fact that all the limestone cliffs along the lofty edges of the Cañon are composed of fossils,—the skeletons of creatures that once lived here covered by an ocean, and that ten thousand feet of strata, which formerly towered above the present summits of the Cañon walls, have been eroded and swept downward to the sea! Hence, were the missing strata (all of which are found in regular sequence in the high plateaus of Utah) restored, this Cañon would be sixteen thousand feet in depth, and from its borders one could look down upon a mountain higher than Mont Blanc! To calculate the æons implied in the repeated elevations and subsidences which made this region what it is would be almost to comprehend eternity. In such a retrospect centuries crumble and disappear into the gulf of Time as pebbles into the Cañon of the Colorado.
On my last evening in the pine tree camp I left my tent and walked alone to the edge of the Grand Cañon. The night was white with the splendor of the moon. A shimmering lake of silvery vapor rolled its noiseless tide against the mountains, and laved the terraces of the Hindu shrines. The lunar radiance, falling into such profundity, was powerless to reveal the plexus of subordinate cañons, and even the temples glimmered through the upper air like wraiths of the huge forms which they reveal by day. Advancing cautiously to an isolated point upon the brink, I lay upon my face, and peered down into the spectral void. No voice of man, nor cry of bird, nor roar of beast resounded through those awful corridors of silence. Even thought had no existence in that sunken realm of chaos. I felt as if I were the sole survivor of the deluge. Only the melancholy murmur of the wind ascended from that sepulchre of centuries. It seemed the requiem for a vanished world.
On certain portions of our globe Almighty God has set a special imprint of divinity. The Alps, the Pyrénées, the Mexican volcanoes, the solemn grandeur of Norwegian fjords, the sacred Mountain of Japan, and the sublimity of India's Himalayas—at different epochs in a life of travel—had filled my soul with awe and admiration. But, since the summer of 1896, there has been ranked with these in my remembrance the country of the Yellowstone. Two-thirds across this continent, hidden away in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, eight thousand feet above the level of the sea, there lies a marvelous section of our earth, about one-half as large as the State of Connecticut. On three sides this is guarded by lofty, well-nigh inaccessible mountains, as though the Infinite Himself would not allow mankind to rashly enter its sublime enclosure. In this respect our Government has wisely imitated the Creator. It has proclaimed to all the world the sanctity of this peculiar area. It has received it as a gift from God and, as His trustee, holds it for the welfare of humanity. We, then, as citizens of the United States, are its possessors and its guardians. It is our National Park. Yet, although easy of access, most of us let the years go by without exploring it! How little we realize what a treasure we possess is proven by the fact that, until recently, the majority of tourists here were foreigners! I thought my previous store of memories was rich, but to have added to it the recollections of the Yellowstone will give a greater happiness to life while life shall last. Day after day, yes, hour after hour, within the girdle of its snow-capped peaks I looked upon a constant series of stupendous sights—a blending of the beautiful and terrible, the strange and the sublime—which were, moreover, so peculiar that they stand out distinct and different from those of every other portion of our earth.
To call our National Park the "Switzerland of America" would be absurd. It is not Switzerland; it is not Iceland; it is not Norway; it is unique; and the unique cannot be compared. If I were asked to describe it in a dozen lines, I should call it the arena of an enormous amphitheatre. Its architect was Nature; the gladiators that contended in it were volcanoes. During unnumbered ages those gladiators struggled to surpass one another in destruction by pouring forth great floods of molten lava. Even now the force which animated them still shows itself in other forms, but harmlessly, much as a captive serpent hisses though its fangs are drawn. But the volcanoes give no sign of life. They are dead actors in a fearful tragedy performed here countless centuries before the advent of mankind, with this entire region for a stage, and for their only audience the sun and stars.
I shall never forget our entrance into this theatre of sublime phenomena. The Pullman car, in which we had taken our places at St. Paul, had carried us in safety more than a thousand miles and had left us at the gateway of the park. Before us was a portion of the road, eight miles in length, which leads the tourist to the Mammoth Springs Hotel. On one side an impetuous river shouted a welcome as we rode along. Above us rose gray, desolate cliffs. They are volcanic in their origin. The brand of fire is on them all. They are symbolic, therefore, of the entire park; for fire and water are the two great forces here which have, for ages, struggled for supremacy.
No human being dwells upon those dreary crags, but at one point, as I looked up at them, I saw—poised statue-like above a mighty pinnacle of rock—a solitary eagle. Pausing, with outstretched wings above its nest, it seemed to look disdainfully upon us human pygmies crawling far below. Living at such a height, in voluntary isolation, that king of birds appeared the very embodiment of strength and majesty. Call it a touch of superstition, if you will, yet I confess it thrilled me to the heart to find that here, above the very entrance to the Wonderland of our Republic, there should be stationed midway between earth and heaven, like a watchful sentinel, our national bird,—the bird of freedom!
At length a sudden turn revealed to us our first halting-place within the Park,—the Mammoth Springs Hotel. The structure in itself looked mammoth as we approached it, for its portico exceeds four hundred feet in length. Our first impressions were agreeable. Porters rushed forth and helped us to alight, and on the broad piazza the manager received us cordially. Everything had the air of an established summer resort. This, I confess, surprised me greatly, as I had expected primitive accommodations, and supposed that, though the days of camping-out had largely passed away, the resting-places in the Park were still so crude that one would be glad to leave them. But I lingered here with pleasure long after all the wonders of the Park had been beheld. The furniture, though simple, is sufficient; to satisfy our national nervousness, the halls are so well-stocked with rocking-chairs that European visitors look about them with alarm, and try to find some seats that promise a more stable equilibrium; the sleeping-rooms are scrupulously clean; soft blankets, snow-white sheets, and comfortable beds assure a good night's rest; and the staff of colored waiters in the dining-room, steam-heat, a bell-boy service, and electric lights made us forget our distance from great cities and the haunts of men. Moreover, what is true of this is true, as well, of the other hotels within the Park; and when I add that well-cooked food is served in all of them, it will be seen that tourists need not fear a lengthy sojourn in these hostelries.
Standing on the veranda of the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel, I saw between me and the range of mountains opposite a broad plateau, on which were grouped a dozen neat and tasteful structures. With the exception of the photographer's house in the foreground, these constitute Fort Yellowstone. "A fort!" the visitor exclaims, "impossible! These buildings are of wood, not stone. Where are its turrets, battlements, and guns?" Nevertheless, this is a station for two companies of United States Cavalry; most of the houses being residences for the officers, while in the rear are barracks for the soldiers.
No one who has visited the National Park ever doubts the necessity of having soldiers there. Thus, one of the most important duties of the United States troops, stationed within its area, is to save its splendid forests from destruction. To do this calls for constant vigilance. A fire started in the resinous pines, which cover many of the mountain sides, leaps forward with such fury that it would overtake a horseman fleeing for his life. To guard against so serious a calamity, soldiers patrol the Park continually to see that all the camp-fires have been extinguished. Thanks to their watchful care, only one notable conflagration has occurred here in the last eight years, and that the soldiers fought with energy for twenty days, till the last vestige of it was subdued.
The tourist comprehends the great importance of this work when he beholds the rivers of the Park threading, like avenues of silver, the sombre frame-work of the trees, and recollects that just such forests as adjoin these streams cover no less than eighty-four per cent. of its entire area. In a treeless country like Wyoming these forests are of priceless value, because of their utility in holding back, in spring, the melting snow. Some of the largest rivers of our continent are fed from the well-timbered area of the Yellowstone; and if the trees were destroyed, the enormous snowfall in the Park, unsheltered from the sun, would melt so rapidly that the swollen torrents would quickly wash away roads, bridges, and productive farms, even, far out in the adjacent country, and, subsequently, cause a serious drought for many months.
Another very important labor of the United States soldiers here is to preserve the game within the Park. It is the purpose of our Government to make this area a place of refuge for those animals which man's insatiate greed has now almost destroyed. The remoteness of this lofty region, together with its mountain fastnesses, deep forests, and sequestered glens, makes it an almost perfect game-preserve. There are at present thirty thousand elk within the Park; its deer and antelopes are steadily increasing; and bears, foxes, and small game roam unmolested here. Buffaloes, however, are still few in number. They have become too valuable. A buffalo head, which formerly could be bought for a mere trifle, commands, to-day, a price of five hundred dollars. Hence, daring poachers sometimes run the risk of entering the Park in winter and destroying them.
It is sad to reflect how the buffaloes of this continent have been almost exterminated. As late as thirty years ago, trains often had to halt upon the prairies; and even steamboats were, occasionally, obliged to wait an hour or two in the Missouri River until enormous herds of buffalo had crossed their path. Now only about two hundred of these animals are in existence,—the sole survivors of the millions that once thundered over the western plains, and disputed with the Indians the ownership of this great continent.
Until very recently, travelers on our prairies frequently beheld the melancholy sight of laborers gathering up the buffalo bones which lay upon the plains, like wreckage floating on the sea. Hundreds of carloads of these skeletons were shipped to factories in the east. Now, to protect the few remaining buffaloes, as well as other animals, our troops patrol the Park even in winter. The principal stations are connected by telephone, and information given thus is promptly acted on. No traveler is allowed to carry fire-arms; and any one who attempts to destroy animal life is liable to a fine of one thousand dollars, or imprisonment for two years, or both.
Still another task, devolving upon the Military Governor of the Park, is the building and repairing of its roads. No doubt the Superintendent is doing all he can with the amount of money that the Government allows him; but there is room for great improvement in these thoroughfares, if Congress will but make a suitable appropriation for the purpose. At present, a part of the coaching-route is of necessity traveled over twice. This should be obviated by constructing one more road, by which the tourist could be brought to several interesting features of the Park that are now rarely seen.
Every one knows how roads in Europe climb the steepest grades in easy curves, and are usually as smooth as a marble table, free from obstacles, and carefully walled-in by parapets of stone. Why should not we possess such roads, especially in our National Park? Dust is at present a great drawback to the traveler's pleasure here; but this could be prevented if the roads were thoroughly macadamized. Surely, the honor of our Government demands that this unique museum of marvels should be the pride and glory of the nation, with highways equal to any in the world.
Only a few hundred feet distant from the Mammoth Springs Hotel stands a strange, naturally molded shaft of stone, fifty-two feet in height. From certain points its summit calls to mind the head-dress of the Revolution, and hence its name is Liberty Cap. It is a fitting monument to mark the entrance into Wonderland, for it is the cone of an old geyser long since dead. Within it is a tube of unknown depth. Through that, ages since, was hurled at intervals a stream of boiling water, precisely as it comes from active geysers in the Park to-day. But now the hand of Time has stilled its passionate pulsations, and laid upon its stony lips the seal of silence. At only a little distance from this eloquent reminder of the past I peered into a cavern hundreds of feet deep. It was once the reservoir of a geyser. An atmosphere of sulphur haunts it still. No doubt this whole plateau is but the cover of extinguished fires, for other similar caves pierce the locality on which the hotel stands. A feeling of solemnity stole over me as I surveyed these dead or dying agents of volcanic power. In the great battle of the elements, which has been going on here for unnumbered centuries, they doubtless took an active part. But Time has given them a mortal wound; and now they are waiting patiently until their younger comrades, farther up the Park, shall, one by one, like them grow cold and motionless.
Not more than fifty feet from Liberty Cap rise the famous Hot Spring Terraces. They constitute a veritable mountain, covering at least two hundred acres, the whole of which has been, for centuries, growing slowly through the agency of hot water issuing from the boiling springs. This, as it cools, leaves a mineral deposit, spread out in delicate, thin layers by the soft ripples of the heated flood. Strange, is it not? Everywhere else the flow of water wears away the substance that it touches; but here, by its peculiar sediment, it builds as surely as the coral insect. Moreover, the coloring of these terraces is, if possible, even more marvelous than their creation; for, as the mineral water pulsates over them, it forms a great variety of brilliant hues. Hot water, therefore, is to this material what blood is to the body. With it the features glow with warmth and color; without it they are cold and ghostlike. Accordingly, where water ripples over these gigantic steps, towering one above another toward the sky, they look like beautiful cascades of color; and when the liquid has deserted them, they stand out like a staircase of Carrara marble. Hence, through the changing centuries, they pass in slow succession, from light to shade, from brilliancy to pallor, and from life to death. This mineral water is not only a mysterious architect; it is, also, an artist that no man can equal. Its magic touch has intermingled the finest shades of orange, yellow, purple, red, and brown; sometimes in solid masses, at other places diversified by slender threads, like skeins of multicolored silk. Yet in producing all these wonderful effects, there is no violence, no uproar. The boiling water passes over the mounds it has produced with the low murmur of a sweet cascade. Its tiny wavelets touch the stone work like a sculptor's fingers, molding the yielding mass into exquisitely graceful forms.
The top of each of these colored steps is a pool of boiling water. Each of these tiny lakes is radiant with lovely hues, and is bordered by a colored coping, resembling a curb of jasper or of porphyry. Yet the thinnest knife-blade can be placed here on the dividing line between vitality and death. The contrast is as sudden and complete as that between the desert and the valley of the Nile. Where Egypt's river ends its overflow the desert sands begin; and on these terraces it is the same. Where the life-giving water fails, the golden colors become ashen. This terraced mountain, therefore, seemed to me like a colossal checker-board, upon whose colored squares, the two great forces, Life and Death, were playing their eternal game. There is a pathos in this evanescent beauty. What lies about us in one place so gray and ghostly was once as bright and beautiful as that which we perceive a hundred feet away. But nothing here retains supremacy. The glory of this century will be the gravestone of the next. Around our feet are sepulchres of vanished splendor. It seems as if the architect were constantly dissatisfied. No sooner has he finished one magnificent structure than he impatiently begins another, leaving the first to crumble and decay. Each new production seems to him the finest; but never reaching his ideal, he speedily abandons it to perish from neglect.
It cannot be said of these terraces that "distance lends enchantment to the view." The nearer you come to them the more beautiful they appear. They even bear the inspection of a magnifying glass, for they are covered with a bead-like ornamentation worthy of the goldsmith's art. In one place, for example, rise pulpits finer than those of Pisa or Siena. Their edges seem to be of purest jasper. They are upheld by tapering shafts resembling richly decorated organ-pipes. From parapets of porphyry hang gold stalactites, side by side with icicles of silver. Moreover, all its marvelous fretwork is distinctly visible, for the light film of water pulsates over it so delicately that it can no more hide the filigree beneath than a thin veil conceals a face.
It is a melancholy fact that were it not for United States troops, these beautiful objects would be mutilated by relic-hunters. Hence, another duty of our soldiers is to watch the formations constantly, lest tourists should break off specimens, and ruin them forever, and lest still more ignoble vandals, whose fingers itch for notoriety, should write upon these glorious works of nature their worthless names, and those of the towns unfortunate enough to have produced them. All possible measures are taken to prevent this vandalism. Thus, every tourist entering the Park must register his name. Most travelers do so, as a matter of course, at the hotels, but even the arrivals of those who come here to camp must be duly recorded at the Superintendent's office, If a soldier sees a name, or even initials, written on the stone, he telephones the fact to the Military Governor. At once the lists are scanned for such a name. If found, the Superintendent wires an order to have the man arrested, and so careful is the search for all defacers, that the offending party is, usually, found before he leaves the Park. Then the Superintendent, like the Mikado, makes the punishment fit the crime. A scrubbing brush and laundry soap are given to the desecrator, and he is made to go back, perhaps forty miles or more, and with his own hands wash away the proofs of his disgraceful vanity. Not long ago a young man was arrested at six o'clock in the morning, made to leave his bed, and march without his breakfast several miles, to prove that he could be as skillful with a brush as with a pencil.
After spending several days at the Mammoth Hot Springs, we started out to explore the greater marvels that awaited us in the interior. The mode of travel through the Park is a succession of coaching-parties over a distance of one hundred and eighty miles. The larger vehicles are drawn by six, the smaller ones by four, strong horses, well fed, well groomed, high spirited, yet safe. This feature of our National Park astonished me. I had formed no idea of its perfection or its magnitude. Here, for example, are vehicles enough to accommodate seven hundred tourists for a continuous journey of five days! Here, too, are five hundred horses, all of which can be harnessed at twenty-four hours' notice; and, since the Park is so remote, here also are the company's blacksmith and repair shops. Within the stables, also, are the beautifully varnished coaches, varying in cost from one to two thousand dollars, and made in Concord, New Hampshire, twenty-five hundred miles away. On one of these I read the number, "13½." "Why did you add the fraction?" I inquired of the Manager of Transportation. "Because," he replied, "some travelers would not take a number thirteen coach. They feared a breakdown or a tumble into the river; so I put on the half to take ill-luck away." I dwell at length upon these practical details, because I have found that people, in general, do not know them. Most Americans have little idea whether the driving distance in the Park is ten miles, or a hundred. Especially are they ignorant of the fact that they may leave the coaches at any point, remain at a hotel as long as they desire, and then resume their journey in other vehicles, without the least additional expense for transportation, precisely as one uses a stop-over ticket on a railroad.
The fact that it is possible to go through the Park in four or five days is not a reason why it is best to do so. Hundreds of tourists make the trip three times as rapidly as they would were they aware that they could remain comfortably for months. When this is better known, people will travel here more leisurely. Even now, parents with little children sometimes leave them at the Mammoth Springs Hotel in charge of nurses, and receive messages by telephone every day to inform them how they are. An important consideration, also, for invalids is the fact that two skilled surgeons, attendant on the army, are always easily accessible. Moreover, the climate of the Park in summer is delightful. It is true, the sun beats down at noonday fiercely, the thin air offering scant resistance to its rays, but in the shade one feels no heat at all. Light overcoats are needed when the sun goes down. There is scarcely a night here, through the year, which passes without frost. To me the pure dry air of that great height was more invigorating than any I had ever breathed, save, possibly, that of Norway, and it is, probably, the tonic of the atmosphere that renders even the invalid and aged able to support long journeys in the Park without exhaustion. In all these years no tourist has been made ill here by fatigue.
A few miles after leaving the Hot Springs, we reached the entrance to a picturesque ravine, the tawny color of whose rocks has given it the name of Golden Gate. This is, alike, the entrance to, and exit from, the inner sanctuary of this land of marvels. Accordingly a solitary boulder, detached from its companions on the cliff, seems to be stationed at this portal like a sentinel to watch all tourists who come and go. At all events it echoes to the voices of those who enter almost as eager as seekers after gold; and, a week later, sees them return, browned by the sun, invigorated by the air, and joyful in the acquisition of incomparable memories.
Emerging from this Golden Gate, I looked about me with surprise, as the narrow walls of the ravine gave place to a plateau surrounded everywhere by snow-capped mountains, from which the Indians believed one could obtain a view of Paradise. Across this area, like a railroad traversing a prairie, stretched the driveway for our carriages.
"Do tourists usually seem delighted with the park?" I asked our driver.
"Invariably," he replied. "Of course I cannot understand the words of the foreigners, but their excited exclamations show their great enthusiasm. I like the tourists," he continued, "they are so grateful for any little favor! One of them said to me the other day, 'Is the water here good to drink?' 'Not always,' I replied, 'you must be careful.' At once he pressed my hand, pulled out a flask, and said, 'I thank you!"
While crossing the plateau we enjoyed an admirable view of the loftiest of the mountains which form, around the Park, a rampart of protection. Its sharply pointed summit pierces the transparent air more than eleven thousand feet above the sea, and it is well named Electric Peak, since it appears to be a storage battery for all of the Rocky Mountains. Such are the mineral deposits on its sides, that the best instruments of engineers are thrown into confusion, and rendered useless, while the lightning on this favorite home of electricity is said to be unparalleled.
Presently a turn in the road revealed to us a dark-hued mountain rising almost perpendicularly from a lake. Marvelous to relate, the material of which this mountain is composed is jet-black glass, produced by volcanic fires. The very road on which we drove between this and the lake also consists of glass too hard to break beneath the wheels. The first explorers found this obsidian cliff almost impassable; but when they ascertained of what it was composed, they piled up timber at its base, and set it on fire. When the glass was hot, they dashed upon the heated mass cold water, which broke it into fragments. Then with huge levers, picks, and shovels, they pushed and pried the shining pieces down into the lake, and opened thus a wagon-road a thousand feet in length.
The region of the Yellowstone was to most Indian tribes a place of horror. They trembled at the awful sights they here beheld. But the obsidian cliff was precious to them all. Its substance was as hard as flint, and hence well suited for their arrow-heads. This mountain of volcanic glass was, therefore, the great Indian armory; and as such it was neutral ground. Hither all hostile tribes might come for implements of war and then depart unharmed. While they were here a sacred, inter-tribal oath protected them. An hour later, those very warriors might meet in deadly combat, and turn against each other's breasts the weapons taken from that laboratory of an unknown power.
Can we wonder that, in former times, when all this region was still unexplored, and its majestic streams rolled nameless through a trackless wilderness, the statements of the few brave men who ventured into this enclosure were disbelieved by all who heard them? One old trapper became so angry when his stories of the place were doubted, that he deliberately revenged himself by inventing tales of which Münchhausen would have been proud. Thus, he declared, that one day when he was hunting here he saw a bear. He fired at it, but without result. The animal did not even notice him. He fired again, yet the big bear kept on grazing. The hunter in astonishment then ran forward, but suddenly dashed against a solid mountain made of glass. Through that, he said, he had been looking at the animal. Unspeakably amazed, he finally walked around the mountain, and was just taking aim again, when he discovered that the glass had acted like a telescope, and that the bear was twenty-five miles away! Not far from the volcanic cliff which gave the trapper inspiration for his story, we reached one of the most famous basins of the Park. In briefest terms, these basins are the spots in the arena where the crust is thinnest. They are the trap-doors in a volcanic stage through which the fiery actors in the tragedy of Nature, which is here enacted, come upon the scene. Literally, they are the vents through which the steam and boiling water can escape. In doing so, however, the water, as at the Mammoth Springs, leaves a sediment of pure white lime or silica. Hence, from a distance, these basins look like desolate expanses of white sand. Beside them always flows a river which carries off the boiling water to the outer world.
No illustration can do justice to what is called the Norris Basin, but it is horrible enough to test the strongest nerves. Having full confidence in our guide (the Park photographer) we ventured with him, outside the usual track of tourists, and went where all the money of the Rothschilds would not have tempted us to go alone. The crust beneath our feet was hot, and often quivered as we walked. A single misstep to the right or left would have been followed by appalling consequences. Thus, a careless soldier, only a few days before, had broken through, and was then lying in the hospital with both legs badly scalded. Around us were a hundred vats of water, boiling furiously; the air was heavy with the fumes of sulphur; and the whole expanse was seamed with cracks and honeycombed with holes from which a noxious vapor crept out to pollute the air. I thought of Dante's walk through hell, and called to mind the burning lake, which he describes, from which the wretched sufferers vainly sought to free themselves.
Leaving, at last, this roof of the infernal regions, just as we again stood apparently on solid ground, a fierce explosion close beside us caused us to start and run for twenty feet. Our guide laughed heartily. "Come back," he said, "don't be afraid. It is only a baby geyser, five years old." In fact, in 1891, a sudden outburst of volcanic fury made an opening here, through which, at intervals of thirty minutes, day and night, hot water now leaps forth in wild confusion.
"This, then, is a geyser!" I exclaimed.
"Bah!" said the guide, contemptuously, "if you had seen the real geysers in the Upper Basin, you would not look at this."
Meantime, for half an hour we had been hearing, more and more distinctly, a dull, persistent roar, like the escape of steam from a transatlantic liner. At last we reached the cause. It is a mass of steam which rushes from an opening in the ground, summer and winter, year by year, in one unbroken volume. The rock around it is as black as jet; hence it is called the Black Growler. Think of the awful power confined beneath the surface here, when this one angry voice can be distinctly heard four miles away. Choke up that aperture, and what a terrible convulsion would ensue, as the accumulated steam burst its prison walls! It is a sight which makes one long to lift the cover from this monstrous caldron, learn the cause of its stupendous heat, and trace the complicated and mysterious aqueducts through which the steam and water make their way.
Returning from the Black Growler, we halted at a lunch-station, the manager of which is Larry. All visitors to the Park remember Larry. He has a different welcome for each guest: "Good-day, Professor. Come in, my Lord. The top of the morning to you, Doctor." These phrases flow as lightly from his tongue as water from a geyser. His station is a mere tent; but he will say, with most amusing seriousness: "Gintlemen, walk one flight up and turn to the right, Ladies, come this way and take the elevator. Now thin, luncheon is ready. Each guest take one seat, and as much food as he can get."
"Where did you come from, Larry?" I asked.
"From Brooklyn, Sor," was his reply, "but I'll niver go back there, for all my friends have been killed by the trolley cars."
Larry is very democratic. The other day a guest, on sitting down to lunch, took too much room upon the bench.
"Plaze move along, Sor," said Larry.
The stranger glared at him. "I am a Count," he remarked at last.
"Well, Sor," said Larry, "here you only count wun!"
"Hush!" exclaimed a member of the gentleman's suite, "that is Count Schouvaloff."
"I'll forgive him that," said Larry, "if he won't shuffle off this seat," Pointing to my companion. Larry asked me: "What is that gintleman's business?"
"He is a teacher of singing," I answered.
"Faith," said Larry, "I'd like to have him try my voice. There is something very strange about my vocal chords. Whenever I sing, the Black Growler stops. One tourist told me it was a case of professional jealousy, and said the Black Growler was envious of my forte tones. 'I have not forty tones,' I said, 'I've only one tone,' 'Well,' says he, 'make a note of it!'"
Only once in his life has Larry been put to silence. Two years ago, a gentleman remarked to him: "Well, Larry, good-by; come and visit me next winter in the East. In my house you shall have a nice room, and, if you are ill, shall enjoy a doctor's services free of all expense."
"Thank you," said Larry, "plaze give me your card."
The tourist handed it to him; and Larry, with astonishment and horror, read beneath the gentleman's name these words: "Superintendent of the Insane Asylum, Utica, New York."
Some hours after leaving Larry's lunch-station, we reached another area of volcanic action. Our nerves were steadier now. The close proximity to Hades was less evident; yet here hot mineral water had spread broadcast innumerable little mounds of silica, which look so much like biscuits grouped in a colossal pan that this is called the Biscuit Basin; but they are not the kind that "mother used to make." If a tourist asked for bread here, he would receive a stone; since all these so-called biscuits are as hard as flint. We walked upon their crusts with perfect safety; yet, in so doing, our boots grew warm beneath our feet, for the water in this miniature archipelago is heated to the boiling point.
"Show me a geyser!" I at last exclaimed impatiently, "I want to see a genuine geyser." Accordingly our guide conducted us to what he announced as "The Fountain." I looked around me with surprise. I saw no fountain, but merely a pool of boiling water, from which the light breeze bore away a thin, transparent cloud of steam. It is true, around this was a pavement as delicately fashioned as any piece of coral ever taken from the sea. Nevertheless, while I admired that, I could not understand why this comparatively tranquil pool was called a geyser, and frankly said I was disappointed. But, even as I spoke, I saw to my astonishment the boiling water in this reservoir sink and disappear from view.
"Where has it gone?" I eagerly inquired.
"Stand back!" shouted the guide, "she's coming."
I ran back a few steps, then turned and caught my breath; for at that very instant, up from the pool which I had just beheld so beautiful and tranquil, there rose in one great outburst of sublimity such a stupendous mass of water as I had never imagined possible in a vertical form. I knew that it was boiling, and that a deluge of those scalding drops would probably mean death, but I was powerless to move. Amazement and delight enchained me spellbound. Talk of a fountain! This was a cloud-burst of the rarest jewels which, till that moment, had been held in solution in a subterranean cavern, but which had suddenly crystallized into a million radiant forms on thus emerging into light and air. The sun was shining through the glittering mass; and myriads of diamonds, moonstones, pearls, and opals mingled in splendid rivalry two hundred feet above our heads.
We soon approached another of the many geysers in the basin. They are all different. Around one, a number of colored blocks, exquisitely decorated by the geyser's waves, appeared to have been placed artistically in an oblong frame. When I first beheld them, they looked like huge sea-monsters which, startled by our footsteps, were about to plunge into the depths.
What is there in the natural world so fascinating and mysterious as a geyser? What, for example, is the depth of its intensely-colored pool of boiling water? No one can tell. One thing, however, is certain; the surface of the pool is but the summit of a liquid column. Its base is in a subterranean reservoir. Into that reservoir there flows a volume of cold water, furnished by the rain or snow, or by infiltration from some lake, or river. Meantime, the walls of the deep reservoir are heated by volcanic fire. Accordingly the water, in contact with these walls, soon begins to boil, and a great mass of steam collects above it. There must, of course, be some escape for this, and, finally, it makes its exit, hurling the boiling water to a height of one or two hundred feet, according to the force of the explosion. Imagine, then, the amount of water that even one such reservoir contains; for some of these volcanic fountains play for more than half an hour before their contents are discharged! Think, also, that in this basin there are no less than thirty geysers, seventeen of which have been observed in action simultaneously.