ou
feel that it is only a thin crust, and that in a moment you may sink
into the vast cauldron below, and have a hot bath without paying for it.
Continue along the valley, and you will find lakes of still,
deadly-cold water, with hot springs at their verge, throwing the smoke
over their surface, while they pour in their boiling water as if they
would fain raise the temperature; depositing sulphur in cakes and
crystals in their course. And in another spot there is a dark,
unfathomable hole, called the Devil's Mouth: you approach it, and you
hear low moanings and rumblings, as if nature had the stomach-ache; and
then you will have a sudden explosion, and a noise like thunder, and a
shower of mud will be thrown out to a distance of several yards. Wait
again; you will again hear the moans and rumblings, and in about three
minutes the explosion and the discharge will again take place; and thus
has this eternal diarrhoea continued ever since the memory or tradition
of man.

Yet, upon this apparently insecure and dangerous spot have been erected
houses and baths, and it is resorted to by the fashionables of Saint
Michael's, who wish, by its properties, to get rid of certain cutaneous
disorders: for the whole air is loaded with sulphurous vapour, as the
eternal pot keeps boiling.

Observe the advantages of this place:--you may have a bath as hot as you
please, as cold as you please, or you may have a mud _douche_, if you
have that buffalo propensity; and then you will have to rough it, which
is so delightful; you will find little or nothing to eat, and plenty of
bedfellows in all their varieties, a burning sun, and a dense
atmosphere, and you will be very delighted to get back again, which,
after all, is the _summum bonum_ to be obtained by travel.

Not very far from this valley of hot water there is another valley,
containing four small lakes, and in those lakes are found the most
beautiful gold and silver fish, perhaps, in the world. How they came
there, Heaven only knows; but I mention this because there is a curious
coincidence. These lakes are known by the name of the Quadre Cidade, or
four cities. Now, if my readers will recollect, in the "Arabian
Nights," there is a story of a valley with four lakes, which were once
four cities, and that in these lakes were fish of various beautiful
colours, who were once the inhabitants. If I recollect right, when the
fish were caught and put into the frying-pan, they jumped up