o that
a hundred thousand trees lie matted together in swathes; and, since each
tree lies where it falls, you may behold trunk and branch returning to
the earth whence they sprang--exactly as the body of man returns--each
limb making its own little grave, the grass climbing above the bark,
till at last there remains only the outline of a tree upon the rank
undergrowth.

Then we drove under a cliff of obsidian, which is black glass, some two
hundred feet high; and the road at its foot was made of black glass that
crackled. This was no great matter, because half an hour before Tom had
pulled up in the woods that we might sufficiently admire a mountain who
stood all by himself, shaking with laughter or rage.

The glass cliff overlooks a lake where the beavers built a dam about a
mile and a half long in a zig-zag line, as their necessities prompted.
Then came the Government and strictly preserved them, and, as you shall
learn later on, they be damn impudent beasts. The old lady had hardly
explained the natural history of beavers before we climbed some
hills--it really didn't matter in that climate, because we could have
scaled the stars--and (this mattered very much indeed) shot down a
desperate, dusty slope, brakes shrieking on the wheels, the mares
clicking among unseen rocks, the dust dense as a fog, and a wall of
trees on either side. "How do the heavy four-horse coaches take it,
Tom?" I asked, remembering that some twenty-three souls had gone that
way half an hour before. "Take it at the run!" said Tom, spitting out
the dust. Of course there was a sharp curve, and a bridge at the bottom,
but luckily nothing met us, and we came to a wooden shanty called an
hotel, in time for a crazy tiffin served by very gorgeous handmaids with
very pink cheeks. When health fails in other and more exciting
pursuits, a season as "help" in one of the Yellowstone hotels will
restore the frailest constitution.

Then by companies after tiffin we walked chattering to the uplands of
Hell. They call it the Norris Geyser Basin on Earth. It was as though
the tide of desolation had gone out, but would presently return, across
innumerable acres of dazzling white geyser formation. There were no
terraces here, but all other horrors. Not ten yards from the road a
blast of steam shot up roaring every few seconds, a mud volcano spat
filth to Heaven, streams of hot water rumbled under foot, plunged
through the dead pines in steaming cataracts and died