ye looked down beyond
grottoes and caves of beryl into an abyss that communicated directly
with the central fires of earth. And the pool was in pain, so that it
could not refrain from talking about it; muttering and chattering and
moaning. From the lips of the lime-ledges, forty feet under water,
spurts of silver bubbles would fly up and break the peace of the crystal
atop. Then the whole pool would shake and grow dim, and there were
noises. I removed myself only to find other pools all equally unhappy,
rifts in the ground, full of running, red-hot water, slippery sheets of
deposit overlaid with greenish grey hot water, and here and there
pit-holes dry as a rifled tomb in India, dusty and waterless. Elsewhere
the infernal waters had first boiled dead and then embalmed the pines
and underwood, or the forest trees had taken heart and smothered up a
blind formation with greenery, so that it was only by scraping the earth
you could tell what fires had raged beneath. Yet the pines will win the
battle in years to come, because Nature, who first forges all her work
in her great smithies, has nearly finished this job, and is ready to
temper it in the soft brown earth. The fires are dying down; the hotel
is built where terraces have overflowed into flat wastes of deposit; the
pines have taken possession of the high ground whence the terraces first
started. Only the actual curve of the cataract stands clear, and it is
guarded by soldiers who patrol it with loaded six-shooters, in order
that the tourist may not bring up fence-rails and sink them in a pool,
or chip the fretted tracery of the formations with a geological hammer,
or, walking where the crust is too thin, foolishly cook himself.

I manoeuvred round those soldiers. They were cavalry in a very
slovenly uniform, dark-blue blouse, and light-blue trousers unstrapped,
cut spoon-shape over the boot; cartridge belt, revolver, peaked cap, and
worsted gloves--black buttons! By the mercy of Allah I opened
conversation with a spectacled Scot. He had served the Queen in the
Marines and a Line regiment, and the "go-fever" being in his bones, had
drifted to America, there to serve Uncle Sam. We sat on the edge of an
extinct little pool, that under happier circumstances would have grown
into a geyser, and began to discuss things generally. To us appeared yet
another soldier. No need to ask his nationality or to be told that the
troop called him "The Henglishman." A cockney was he, who