Inglese_, had changed to tender rose, and was now inundated with the
flames of the sun whose disc we began to perceive above the mountains
of Calabria. Upon the sides of these mountains of a dark and uniform
blue, the towns and villages stood out like little white points. The
strait of Messina seemed a simple river, while to the right and left
we saw the sea like an immense mirror. To the left, this mirror was
spotted with several black dots: these black dots were the islands
of the Lipariote archipelago. From time to time one of these islands
glimmered like an intermittent light-house; this was Stromboli,
throwing out flames. In the west, everything was in darkness. The
shadow of Etna cast itself over all Sicily.
For three-quarters of an hour the spectacle did nothing but gain in
magnificence. I have seen the sun rise on Rigi and the Faulhorn, those
two Titans of Switzerland: nothing is comparable to the view on Etna’s
summit; Calabria from Pizzo to Cape dell Armi, the pass from Scylla
to Reggio, the Tyrrhenian Sea, the Ionian Sea and the Æolian Islands
that seem within reach of your hand; to the right, Malta floating
on the horizon like a light mist; around us the whole of Sicily,
seen from a bird’s-eye view with its shores denticulated with capes,
promontories, harbours, creeks and roads; its fifteen cities and three
hundred villages; its mountains which seem like hills; its valleys
which we know are furrowed with ploughs; its rivers which seem threads
of silver, as in autumn they fall from the sky to the grasses of the
meadows; and, finally, the immense roaring crater, full of flames and
smoke, overhead Heaven and at its feet Hell: such a spectacle, made
us forget fatigue, danger, and suffering. I admired it all without
reservation, with my eyes and my soul. Never had God seemed so near
and, consequently, so great.
We remained there an hour, dominating all the old world of Homer,
Virgil, Ovid, and Theocritus, without the idea of touching a pencil
occurring to Jadin or myself, until it seemed to us that this picture
had entered deeply into our hearts and remained graven there without
the aid of ink or sketch. Then we threw a last glance over this horizon
of three hundred leagues, a sight seen once in a lifetime, and we began
our descent.
_Le Speronare: Impressions de Voyage_ (Paris, 1836.)
FOOTNOTE:
[10] The principal eruptions of Etna took place in the year 662, B. C.,
and in A. D. 225, 420, 812, 1169, 1285, 1329, 1333, 1408, 1444, 1446,
1447, 1536, 1603, 1607, 1610, 1614, 1619, 1634, 1669, 1682, 1688, 1689,
1702, 1766, and 1781.
PIKE’S PEAK AND THE GARDEN OF THE GODS
(_UNITED STATES_)
IZA DUFFUS HARDY
Colorado Springs--so called because the springs are at Manitou, five
miles off, is a prairie town on a plateau six thousand feet high,
above which Pike’s Peak stands sentinel, lifting his snow-capped head
fourteen thousand feet into the clear depths of azure light, in which
no fleck of cloud floats from morn to night and night to morn again. It
is April, and not a drop of rain has fallen since the previous August.
Mid-April, and not a leaf upon a tree. Not a flower or a bird seems to
flourish here. No spring-blossom scents the keen fresh life-giving air;
no warbler soars high up into the stainless sapphire sky. The leafless
cottonwood trees stand out white in the flood of sunlight like trees
of silver, their delicate bare branches forming a shining tangle of
silvery network against that intense blue background.
The place all looks bleak and barren to us; the wild grandeur of the
mountains is unrelieved by the rich shadows of the pine forests or the
sunny green glints of meadows that soften Alpine scenery. No flower
gardens, no smiling valleys, no velvet turf, no fragrant orchards, no
luxuriant hedge rows; only the lonely mountain range, the crowning
height of Pike’s Peak stern and solitary in his icy exaltation, and
the dead level of the prairie, stretching away eastward for hundreds
and hundreds of miles, declining always at a gradual and imperceptible
angle till it slopes down to the very banks of the great Mississippi,
over a thousand miles away.
But, although the spot does not seem altogether a Paradise to us, it is
a veritable Eden for consumptive invalids. Here they come to find again
the lost angel of Health, and seldom seek again, unless they come too
late. People live here who can live nowhere else. They long to return
to their far-off homes; but home to them means death. They must live
in this Colorado air, or die. There is a snake in the grass of this
Eden, where they have drunk the elixir of a new life, and its name is
Nostalgia. They long--some of them--for the snowy winters and flowery
summers of their eastern homes. Others settle happily and contentedly
in the endless sunshine of winterless, summerless Colorado.
[Illustration: THE GARDEN OF THE GODS.]
We rattled along cheerily in our light spring-waggon over the smooth,
fine roads, viewing the landscape from beneath the parasols which only
partially shielded us from the blazing sun. Although the gentleman from
Tennessee preserved a truly western taciturnity, our driver beguiled
the way with instructive and amusing converse. He pointed out to us,
flourishing by the wayside, the soap-weed, whose root is a perfect
substitute for soap, and taught us to distinguish between the blue
joint-grass--yellow as hay in winter, but now taking on its hue of
summer green--and the greyish neutral-tinted buffalo-grass, which is
most succulent and nutritious, although its looks belie it, for
a less tempting-looking herb I never had the pleasure of seeing. He
also pointed out the dead body of a cow lying on a desolate plain, and
informed us it would dry up to a mummy in no time; it was the effect of
the air; dead cattle speedily mummified, and were no nuisance. Another
dried-up bovine skeleton bore witness to the truth of his assertion.
We observed that the soil looked barren as desert sand; but he replied
that it only required irrigation to be extremely fertile, showed us the
irrigating ditches cut across the meadows, and described to us some of
the marvellous productions of Colorado--a single cabbage-head weighing
forty pounds, etc. He told us of the wondrous glories of the Arkansas
cañon and the Mount of the Holy Cross--which, alas! we were not to see,
the roads thither being as yet rough travelling for ladies. He sang the
praises of the matchless climate, and the joys of the free, healthful
life, far from the enervating and deteriorating influences of great
cities. Indeed, it appeared from his conversation that nowhere on the
face of the habitable globe could there be found any spot even remotely
emulating the charms of Colorado--an opinion shared by every Coloradian
with whom we held any intercourse.
Our way then led up the Ute Pass, once, in days not so far back
frequented by the Ute Indians. Now, not an Indian is to be seen for
miles; they have all been swept back on to a reservation, and the story
of the Ute outbreak there of the past autumn is yet fresh in the minds
of all. The Ute Pass is a winding, uphill road along the side of a
deep cañon, the rocks here and there overhanging it threateningly, and
affording a welcome shade from the piercing sun-rays, which follow us
even here. The steep walls of the cañon are partly clothed and crowned
with pine-trees, and along its depths a rapid, sparkling stream bubbles
and leaps over the rocks and boulders.
Up the pass a waggon-train is toiling on its way to the great new
mining centre--the giant baby city--Leadville, the youngest and most
wonderful child of the prolific west! In this train we get entangled,
and move slowly along with it--waggons and cattle before us, waggons
and cattle behind us--tourists, teamsters, miners, drivers, drovers,
dogs, all huddled together in seemingly inextricable confusion.
At the top of the pass, we tourists turn: and, while the waggon-train
plods on its slow way, we make the best of our way back down the hill,
and take the road to the Garden of the Gods.
Why the _Garden_ of the Gods? I do not myself perceive the
appropriateness of the appellation. There is not a flower in sight;
only a few stunted shrubs, and forlorn-looking, thin trees. It is a
natural enclosure, of fifty or more acres, such as in Colorado is
called a “park,” scattered with rocks of a rich red hue, and the
wildest and most grotesque shapes imaginable.
The giants might have made it their playground, and left their
playthings around them. Here, tossed and flung about as if by a
careless hand, lie the huge round boulders with which they played at
ball. Here they amused themselves by balancing an immense mass of
stone on a point so cunningly that it has stood there for centuries
looking as if a touch would overturn it. There they have hewn a high
rock into the rough semblance of a veiled woman--here they have
sculptured a man in a hat--there piled up a rude fortress, and there
built a church.
But the giants have deserted their playground ages ago, and trees have
grown up between the fantastic formations they left. It is a strange
weird scene, and suggested to us forcibly that if we would “view it
aright” we should
“Go view it by the pale moonlight!”
How spectral those strange shapes would look in the gloom! What ghostly
life would seem to breathe in them when the white moonbeams bathed
their eerie outlines in her light! There is a something lost in the
Garden of the Gods to us who only saw it with a flood of sunshine
glowing on its ruddy rocks. Most of these have been christened
according to their form--the Nun, the Scotchman, the Camel, and so on.
Two huge walls of red and white stone, rising perpendicularly a sheer
three hundred feet, form the gate of the Garden. Through this colossal
and for-ever-open gate we looked back with a sigh of farewell--our
glimpse of the scene seemed so brief!--and we half-fancied that the
veiled Nun bowed her dark head in the sunshine in parting salute as we
were whirled out of sight.
_Between Two Oceans, or Sketches of American Travel_ (London, 1884).
THE GREAT GEYSIR OF ICELAND
SIR RICHARD F. BURTON
On the eastern slope of the Frachytic pile and extending round the
north of the rock-wall are the Hvers and Geysirs. Nothing can be meaner
than their appearance, especially to the tourist who travels as usual
from Reykjavik; nothing more ridiculous than the contrast of this
pin’s point, this atom of pyritic formation, with the gigantic theory
which it was held to prove, earth’s central fire, the now obsolete
dream of classical philosophers and “celebrated academicians”; nothing
more curious than the contrast between Nature and Art, between what
we see in life and what we find in travellers’ illustrations. Sir
John Stanley, perpetuated by Henderson, first gave consistence to the
popular idea of “that most wonderful fountain, the Great Geysir;”
such is the character given to it by the late Sir Henry Holland, a
traveller who belonged to the “wunderbar” epoch of English travel,
still prevalent in Germany. From them we derive the vast background
of black mountain, the single white shaft of fifty feet high, domed
like the popular pine-tree of Vesuvian smoke, the bouquet of water,
the Prince of Wales feathers, double-plumed and triple-plumed, charged
with stones; and the minor jets and side squirts of the foreground,
where pigmies stand and extend the arm of illustration and the hand of
marvel.
On this little patch, however, we may still study the seven forms of
Geysir life. First, is the baby still sleeping in the bosom of Mother
Earth, the airy wreath escaping from the hot clay ground; then comes
the infant breathing strongly, and at times puking in the nurse’s lap;
third, is the child simmering with impatience; and fourth, is the youth
whose occupation is to boil over. The full-grown man is represented by
the “Great Gusher” in the plenitude of its lusty power; old age, by the
tranquil, sleepy “laug”; and second childhood and death, mostly from
diphtheria or quinsy, in the empty red pits strewed about the dwarf
plain. “Patheticum est!” as the old scholiast exclaimed.
It is hardly fair to enter deeply in the history of the Great Geysir,
but a few words may be found useful. The silence of Ari Fródi (A. D.,
1075), and of the Landnámabók, so copious in its details, suggests
that it did not exist in the Eleventh Century; and the notice of Saxo
Grammaticus in the preface to his History of Denmark proves that it had
become known before the end of the Thirteenth. Hence it is generally
assumed that the volcanic movements of A. D., 1294, which caused the
disappearance of many hot springs, produced those now existing. Forbes
clearly proved the growth of the tube by deposition of silex on the
lips; a process which will end by sealing the spring: he placed its
birth about 1060 years ago, which seems to be thoroughly reasonable;
and thus for its manhood we have a period of about six centuries.
In 1770 the Geyser spouted eleven times a day; in 1814 it erupted every
six hours; and in 1872 once between two and a week. Shepherd vainly
wasted six days; a French party seven; and there are legends of a
wasted fortnight.
Remains now only to walk over the ground, which divides itself into
four separate patches: the extinct, to the north-west, below and
extending round the north of the Laugarfjall buttress; the Great
Geysir; the Strokkr and the Thikku-hverar to the south.
In the first tract earth is uniformly red, oxidized by air, not as
in poetical Syria by the blood of Adonis. The hot, coarse bolus, or
trachytic clay, soft and unctuous, astringent, and adhering to the
tongue is deposited in horizontal layers, snowy-white, yellow-white,
ruddy, light-blue, blue-grey, mauve, purple, violet, and pale-green
are the Protean tints; often mixed and mottled, the effect of alum,
sulphuric acid, and the decomposition of bisulphide of iron. The
saucer of the Great Geysir is lined with Geysirite (silica hydraté),
beads or tubercles of grey-white silica; all the others want these
fungi or coral-like ornaments. The dead and dying springs show only
age-rusty moulds and broken-down piles, once chimneys and ovens,
resembling those of Reykir, now degraded and deformed to countless
heaps of light and dark grey. Like most of the modern features, they
drained to the cold rivulet on the east, and eventually to the south.
The most interesting feature is the Blesi (pronounced _Blese_), which
lies 160 feet north of the Great Geysir. This hot-water pond, a Grotto
Azurra, where cooking is mostly done, lies on a mound, and runs in
various directions. To the north it forms a dwarf river-valley flowing
west of the Great Geysir; eastward it feeds a hole of bubbling water
which trickles in a streak of white sinter to the eastern rivulet
and a drip-hole, apparently communicating underground with an ugly
little boiler of grey-brown, scum-streaked, bubbling mud, foul-looking
as a drain. The “beautiful quiescent spring” measures forty feet
by fifteen,[11] and is of reniform or insect shape, the waist being
represented by a natural arch of stone spanning the hot blue depths
below the stony ledges which edge them with scallops and corrugations.
Hence the name; this bridge is the “blaze” streaking a pony’s face.
Blesi was not sealed by deposition of silex; it suddenly ceased to
erupt in A. D., 1784, the year after the Skaptár convulsion, a fact
which suggests the origin of the Geysirs. It is Mackenzie’s “cave of
blue water”; and travellers who have not enjoyed the _lapis lazuli_ of
the Capri grotto, indulge in raptures about its colouration. North-west
of the Blesi, and distant 200 feet, is another ruin, situated on a much
higher plane and showing the remains of a large silicious mould: it
steams, but the breath of life comes feebly and irregularly. This is
probably the “Roaring Geysir” or the “Old Geysir,” which maps and plans
place eighty yards from the Great Geysir.
The Great Geysir was unpropitious to us, yet we worked hard to see one
of its expiring efforts. An Englishman had set up a pyramid at the edge
of the saucer, and we threw in several hundredweights, hoping that
the silex, acted upon by the excessive heat, might take the effect of
turf; the only effects were a borborygmus which sounded somewhat like
B’rr’rr’t, and a shiver as if the Foul Fiend had stirred the depths.
The last eruption was described to us as only a large segment of the
tube, not exceeding six feet in diameter. About midnight the veteran
suffered slightly from singultus. On Monday the experts mispredicted
that he would exhibit between 8 and 9 A. M., and at 1 A. M. on Tuesday
there was a trace of second-childhood life. After the usual eructation,
a general bubble, half veiled in white vapour, rose like a gigantic
glass-shade from the still surface, and the troubled water trickled
down the basin sides in miniature boiling cascades. There it flowed
eastwards by a single waste-channel which presently forms a delta of
two arms, the base being the cold, rapid, and brawling rivulet; the
northern fork has a dwarf “force,” used as a _douche_, and the southern
exceeds it in length, measuring some 350 paces.
We were more fortunate with the irascible Strokkr, whose name
has been generally misinterpreted. Dillon calls it the piston,
or “churning-staff”; and Barrow the “shaker”: it is simply the
“hand-churn” whose upright shaft is worked up and down--the churn-like
column of water suggested the resemblance. This feature, perhaps
the “New Geysir” of Sir John Stanley and Henderson, formerly erupted
naturally, and had all the amiable eccentricity of youth: now it must
be teased or coaxed. Stanley gave it 130 feet of jet, or 36 higher
than the Great Geysir; Henderson 50 to 80; Symington, 100 to 150 feet;
Bryson, “upwards of a hundred”; and Baring-Gould, “rather higher than
the Geysir.” We found it lying 275 feet (Mackenzie 131 yards) south of
the big brother, of which it is a mean replica. The outer diameter of
the saucer is only seven feet, the inner about eighteen; and it is too
well drained by its silex-floored channel ever to remain full.
The most interesting part to us was the fourth or southern tract. It
is known as the Thikku-hverar, thick caldrous (hot springs), perhaps
in the sense opposed to thin or clear water. Amongst its “eruptiones
flatuum,” the traveller feels that he is walking
“_Per ignes
Suppositos cineri doloso._”
There are at least fifty items in operation over this big lime-kiln;
some without drains, others shedding either by sinter-crusted channels
eastward or westward through turf and humus to the swampy stream.
It shows an immense variety, from the infantine puff to the cold
turf-puddle; from Jack-in-the-box to the cave of blue-green water;
surrounded by ledges of silex and opaline sinter (hydrate of silica),
more or less broad: the infernal concert of flip-flopping, spluttering,
welling, fizzing, grunting, rumbling, and growling never ceases.
The prevalent tints are green and white, but livelier hues are not
wanting. One “gusherling” discharges red water; and there is a spring
which spouts, like an escape pipe, brown, high and strong. The “Little
Geysir,” which Mackenzie places 106 yards south of the Strokkr, and
which has been very churlish of late years, was once seen to throw up
ten to twelve feet of clean water, like the jet of a fire-play. The
“Little Strokkr of older travellers, a wonderfully amusing formation,
which darts its waters in numerous diagonal columns every quarter of an
hour,” is a stufa or steam-jet in the centre of the group, but it has
long ceased its “funning.”
_Ultima Thule; or, a Summer in Iceland_ (London and Edinburgh, 1875).
FOOTNOTE:
[11] More exactly the two divisions are each about twenty feet long;
the smaller is twelve and the greater is eighteen feet broad; the
extreme depth is thirty feet.
THE RAPIDS OF THE DANUBE
(_TURKEY_)
WILLIAM BEATTIE
A short way below Grein commences the rapid called “Greiner-schwall,”
where the river, suddenly contracting its channel, and walled in
by rugged precipices, assumes a new aspect of foam and agitation;
while the roar of its downward course breaks deeper and harsher on
the ear. This rugged defile is the immediate inlet to the Strudel
and Wirbel--the Scylla and Charybdis of the Danube. This is by far
the most interesting and remarkable region of the Danube. It is the
fertile theme of many legends and traditions; and in pages of history
and romance affords ample scope for marvellous incidents and striking
details. Not a villager but can relate a hundred instances of disasters
incurred, and dangers overcome, in this perilous navigation--of lives
sacrificed and cargoes sunk while endeavouring to weather the three
grand enemies of the passage--whirlpools, rocks, and robbers. But,
independently of these local traditions, and the difficulties and
dangers of the strait--the natural scenery which here arrests the
eye is highly picturesque, and even sublime. It is the admiration
of all voyagers on the Upper Danube, and keeps a firm hold of the
memory long after other scenes and impressions have worn off. Between
Ulm and the confines of the Ottoman Empire, there is only one other
scene calculated to make anything like so forcible an impression on
the tourist; and that is near the cataracts of the Iron Gate--a name
familiar to every German reader.
After descending the Greiner-schwall, or rapids of the Grein above
mentioned, the river rolls on for a considerable space, in a deep
and almost tranquil volume, which, by contrast with the approaching
turmoil, gives increased effect to its wild, stormy, and romantic
features. At first, a hollow, subdued roar, like that of distant
thunder strikes the ear and rouses the traveller’s attention. This
increases every second, and the stir and activity which now prevail
among the hands on board shows that additional force, vigilance, and
caution are to be employed in the use of helm and oars. The water
is now changed in its colour--chafed into foam, and agitated like a
seething cauldron. In front, and in the centre of the channel, rises
an abrupt, isolated, and colossal rock, fringed with wood, and crested
with a mouldering tower, on the summit of which is planted a lofty
cross, to which, in the moment of danger, the ancient boatmen were
wont to address their prayers for deliverance. The first sight of this
used to create no little excitement and apprehension on board; the
master ordered strict silence to be observed--the steersman grasped
the helm with a firm hand,--the passengers moved aside--so as to
leave free space for the boatmen, while the women and children were
hurried into the cabin, there to await, with feelings of no little
anxiety, the result of the enterprise. Every boatman, with his head
uncovered, muttered a prayer to his favourite saint; and away dashed
the barge through the tumbling breakers, that seemed as if hurrying it
on to inevitable destruction. All these preparations, joined by the
wildness of the adjacent scenery, the terrific aspect of the rocks,
and the tempestuous state of the water, were sufficient to produce a
powerful sensation on the minds even of those who had been all their
lives familiar with dangers; while the shadowy phantoms with which
superstition had peopled it, threw a deeper gloom over the whole scene.
Now, however, these ceremonies are only cold and formal; for the danger
being removed, the invocation of guardian saints has become less
fervent, and the cross on the Wörther Isle, we fear, is often passed
with little more than the common sign of obeisance.
Within the last fifty years the rocks in the bed of the river have been
blasted, and the former obstruction so greatly diminished, that in the
present day, the Strudel and Wirbel present no other dangers than what
may be caused by the ignorance or negligence of boatmen; so that the
tourist may contemplate the scene without alarm, and enjoy, in all its
native grandeur, the picture here offered to his eye and imagination--