On either side the hills were covered with wild oat as thick as it could grow; its golden-yellow tints, contrasting with the dark glossy-green of the cypress, the oak, and the manzanita, had an indescribably charming effect. As we advanced the valley gradually narrowed, until it became a mere cañon (the Spanish for funnel), shut in by vast masses of rock that looked like heaps of slag and cinder—bare, black, and treeless. A small stream of bitter, dark, intensely salt water trickled slowly through the gorge.
Following a rough kind of road, that led up the base of the hills for about two miles, we entered what I imagine was the crater of an extinct volcano nearly circular, about a mile in diameter, and shut in on every side by columnar walls of basalt. There was a weird desolation about the place that forcibly reminded me of the Wolf’s Glen in Der Freischütz—a fit haunt for Zamiel! Scarce a trace of forest-life was to be seen, not a tree or flower; everything looked scorched and cinderous, like the débris of a terrible fire, and smelt like a limekiln on a summer-night. A long narrow house, resembling a cattle-shed, stood in the centre of this circle.
‘Waal, Cap’en, I guess we’ve made the ranch anyhow,’ said the Major, as we drew up at the door of this most uninviting-looking establishment. ‘A mighty tall smell of brimstone,’ he further added, ‘seems coming up from “Old Hoof’s” stove-pipe. Calkilate he’s doing a tallish kind of dinner below.’
I had no time to reply, ere the host, owner, and general manager of the Tuscan Springs made his appearance. ‘How’s your health, Doctor?’ inquired the Major. ‘I’ve brought up Cap’en —— to have a peep at your location; he’s mighty curious about these kind of diggins.’
‘Waal, Cap’en,’ said the Doctor, in a long drawling voice, ‘I am glad to see you. I raither guess you don’t see such nat’ral ready-made places, for curin’ jist every sickness, in the old country as we have in California.—Here, boy, put up the mustangs: and now step in, and I’ll tell old aunty to scramble up some eggs and bacon, and then we can take a look round the springs.’
Aunty was a quaint specimen of the feminine gender, not at all suggestive of the gentler sex. Her features were small, but sharply cut. She was bent naturally, but not from age, and reminded me of a witch. One would not have felt at all astonished at seeing her mount a broomstick, and start on an aërial trip over the burnt-up rocks. But all honour to her skill as a cook,—she did her fixings admirably!
During dinner I had ample time to take stock of Doctor Ephraim Meadows. His face would have been a fortune as a study to a painter; his forehead high but narrow, his eyebrows thick, bushy, and overhanging; his hair would have joined his eyebrows, had not a narrow line of yellow skin formed a kind of boundary between them. Peering out from beneath his shaggy hair were two little twinkling, restless grey eyes, more roguish than good-natured. His nose, crooked and sharp, was like the beak of a buzzard; with thin dry lips that shut in a straight line, which told in pretty plain language he could be resolute and rusty if need be. The tip of his chin, bent up in an easy curve, was covered with a yellowish beard, that had been guiltless of comb or shears for many a day. His nether limbs were clad in leather never-mention-ums, kept up by a wide belt, from which dangled a six-shooter. A red shirt, with an immense collar that reached the point of the shoulders, and a dirty jean jacket completed his costume.
Our meal over, we started out to see the wonders of the doctor’s establishment. The house or hospital, as he designated it, was a long frame-building, divided into numerous small rooms, all opening on a kind of platform that extended the entire length of the building; and sheltered overhead by a rough kind of verandah. A camp-bed, wash-basin, and stool constituted the furniture of each apartment. Four sickly-looking men were walking feebly up and down the platform. These, the Doctor assured me, were giants now as compared to what they had been ere they stumbled on the Tuscan Springs and his water-cure.
The springs are about ten in number, but not all alike. In some of them, the water rises at a temperature near to boiling, and densely impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen-gas, perfectly poisoning the air with a most insufferable stench. In others, again, the waters bubble up tepid, but bitter and saline. From two of them, that widen into pools, gas (I imagine some compound of hydrogen) rises constantly to the surface; and when I applied a match to the water, a sudden flash lighted up the pool for a second or two, and this could be repeated at intervals of three or four minutes. This gas, by a simple contrivance, is collected and conveyed into a small shanty, dignified with the name of ‘Steam Bath,’ the gas being used to heat the water from one of the springs so as to fill a small room with steam.
It is one of the most singular and interesting places I have ever visited. There can be no doubt that the springs rise from the crater of an extinct volcano, and that there is some active volcanic action still going on in the depths below. Incrustations of various salts and sulphur covered the edges of the pools and rocks over which the water runs. The water they drink has to be brought from a spring the other side of the encircling hills.