Saddle and Mocassin

by Francis Francis

It is a fatal mistake to allow a boy to accompany a party of this kind, the more especially one of these ill-conditioned, never-corrected, western frontier cubs. They seem to think it incumbent upon them to air their smartness and impertinence at the expense of strangers. Dogs, in camp, are apt to lead to trouble, too, in the West. A dog is regarded there with somewhat the same feelings that he would excite in a Mussulman household. Our dog was the cause of annoyance on several occasions. Once the men mutinied in a body, because I collected some scraps after supper, and gave them to him on a plate.

Those who dwell in the neighbourhood of the Yellowstone National Park, love enthusiastically to term it Wonderland, and not without reason. Within its boundaries (one hundred miles square), there are over 10,000 active geysers, hot springs, fumaroles, solfataras, salses, and boiling pools. Of these, over 2,000 are found in the small area comprising the Upper, Middle, and Lower Geyser Basins. Sulphur mountains, an obsidian mountain, a mud volcano, a so-called blood geyser, and various other remarkable phenomena add to the interest of this extraordinary region, whilst there is scenery here that, for grandeur and grotesqueness, may challenge comparison with the world's most striking features. Proceeding at once towards the Upper Geyser Basin, we pass the Lower Basin with its so termed "paint pots," or "cream pots," boiling vats of a semi-silicious clay, which varies in colour from creamy white to pink or slate, some fine geysers, and the intermediate "Hell's half-acre," and adjoining pools. These are at once the most impressive and beautiful pools in the Park. I turned aside twice to them—once on my way to the Upper Basin, and once on my return; seeing them on these occasions under completely diverse aspects, for on the first day a thunderstorm darkened the wonted serenity of the sky.

They are situated in a desolate expanse of white, formed by deposits from the numerous springs that bubble up on all sides. The first pool is of comparative unimportance. The second (whence the locality derives its name) considerably exceeds half-an-acre in size. It has but recently assumed its present dimensions. These are daily increasing, apparently, and it bids fair, if its devouring energies continue unabated, to unite with its fellow pools, and form a lake some acres in extent. Numerous cracks and fissures scallop its edges, indicating the direction of future encroachments, and it is with feelings of some misapprehension that the stranger to these infernal regions cautiously approaches to windward of the stream, to gaze into the awesome gulf below him. The boiling hiss and roar of many waters issues unceasingly from its depths, but heavy clouds veil them from view, and the miniature cliffs that plunge precipitously down are speedily lost in steam. A breath of wind sweeps past, and through a rift in the swelling billows of vapour a glimpse of the seething surface is obtained. It is a sight that alone repays the labour of a journey thither. And seen as I first saw it, when thunder rolled overhead, and the heavens were rent from time to time with the flash of lightning, the wild character of the scene was enhanced.

Unlike "Hell's half-acre," the third and largest pool is brimful, and overflows its edges, forming, with the minerals that its waters contain in solution, a succession of steps and tiny ledges, which entirely surround it. It is impossible to conceive anything more beautiful than the colouring here presented. The water is of the purest, brightest cerulean hue, but near the shallow edges it takes its tone from the enclosing rocks, and the glorious azure is lost in yellow, pale green, or red, whilst chemical deposits, in exquisite arrangements, such as the genius of Nature alone can suggest, of écru and ivory, lemon and orange, buff, chocolate, brown, pink, vermilion, bronze, and fawn encircle the pool, or paint with ribbon-like effect the tiny streams that trickle from its overflow. Nor is this all. In the transparent curtain of languid steam—an airy tissue of impossible delicacy, that is gently wafted across the pine-wood landscape—dim reflections of all these wondrous colours, slowly dissipating and fading from sight, are visible. Alas, that anything so lovely should ever fade! The sleepy stillness, the appearance of profound depth, and the moist brilliancy of colouring in this pool defy description. The brush of the greatest artist, the pen of the finest writer would alike be laid aside in despair, and the genius of man forced to bow before the power of Nature, were it tasked to convey a faithful picture of the fantastic beauty of this unearthly scene.

Passing on through a pine forest, seared and blackened by recent fires, and through the Middle Geyser Basin, with its columns of steam, its subterraneous rumblings, its hollow echoing of our horses' trampling, its hissing craters, and its bubbling springs (lying sometimes within a few feet of the track), we entered the Upper Basin towards evening. Imagine the head of a valley walled in by pine-clad hills, and threaded by a stream that rushes through a bottom of desert white, dotted by clumps of pine-trees, from amidst which dense columns of steam rise on all sides and tower into the heavens. All evidences of the storm had cleared, and sinking amidst gold and purple clouds, the sun shed a fiery glow through the trees upon the ridges, that caused each twig—almost I had said each pine-needle—to stand out clearly against the sky. As we crossed the stream and mounted the opposite bank, a vast body of steam, followed by a jet of water 160 feet high, shot up into the air at the further end of the basin.

"There goes 'Old Faithful'!" exclaimed Dick; "the only reliable geyser in the Park. You can always bet on seeing him every sixty-five minutes."

Already encamped here, we found a large party of ladies and gentlemen from Boston, who were travelling through the Park. They informed us that the "Giantess" (perhaps the finest, but certainly the most capricious geyser of all) was expected to play in the morning, and the "Castle" to perform the next evening. There are nine principal geysers, namely, the Giant, Giantess, Castle, Grand, Beehive, Comet, Fan, Grotto, and Old Faithful. With the exception of the Grotto (which simply churns and makes an uproar), one or other of these tremendous fountains may be expected to cast a stream of water from one to two or even three hundred feet high into the air at any moment.

All geysers have not the same action, and most of them, in style of action, in the duration of their eruptions, and in the intervals that elapse between them, are apt individually to vary. Some play with laboured pumping, others throw a steady jet, some wear themselves out in a single effort, others subside only to commence again repeatedly. Thus an eruption may extend from two to twenty minutes—the approximate time occupied by the Grand—or even to one hour and twenty minutes, a period that the Giant has been known to play.

The colours that tinge the edges of some craters, and stain the courses of the streams which they send forth, are indescribably beautiful. The snowy whiteness of the grounding is relieved by dainty buffs, pale pinks, and softest écrus, deep yellows shot with brown, orange streaked with vermilion, or straying into crimson, chocolate merging into black, and interlined with lemon—by colours, in fact, run riot, and all glistening wet beneath the clearest crystal water, that in the centre of the crater deepens into a heavenly blue. From such brilliancy it is a relief to turn to the sullen pines upon the hills.

Extinct domes and craters overgrown by flourishing trees, or mounds still bare, and even steaming, with otherwise only their immense size to attest the mighty power that formed and has capriciously deserted them, are found here and there amongst those known still to be active. Some of the more modern craters are surrounded by the skeleton trunks of trees that their eruptions have killed, and which, under the action of their mineral waters, are rapidly becoming petrified; whilst in the conflict betwixt desolation and verdure, which, owing to the frequent variation of the centres of action, is constantly in progress, the lowly bunch-grass steals ground wherever it dared draw a blade.