usillanimous feelings, I stood and
honoured the Creator in these his marvellous works. For a long time I
stood, and could not tire of gazing into the abysses from whose darkness
the masses of white and foaming water sprung hissing into the air, to
fall again, and hasten in quiet union towards the neighbouring river.
The good pastor found it necessary to remind me several times that our
position here was neither of the safest nor of the most comfortable, and
that it was therefore high time to abandon it. I had ceased to think of
the insecurity of the ground we trod, and scarcely noticed the mighty
clouds of hot vapour which frequently surrounded and threatened to
suffocate us, obliging us to step suddenly back with wetted faces. It
was fortunate that these waters contain but a very small quantity of
brimstone, otherwise we could scarcely have long maintained our elevated
position.

The rock from which these springs rise is formed of a reddish mass, and
the bed of the river into which the water flows is also completely
covered with little stones of the same colour.

On our way back we noticed, near a cottage, another remarkable
phenomenon. It was a basin, in whose depths the water boils and bubbles
violently; and near this basin are two unsightly holes, from which
columns of smoke periodically rise with a great noise. Whilst this is
going on, the basin fills itself more and more with water, but never so
much as to overflow, or to force a jet of water into the air; then the
steam and the noise cease in both cavities, and the water in the
reservoir sinks several feet.

This strange phenomenon generally lasts about a minute, and is repeated
so regularly, that a bet could almost be made, that the rising and
falling of the water, and the increased and lessened noise of the steam,
shall be seen and heard sixty or sixty-five times within an hour.

In communication with this basin is another, situate at a distance of
about a hundred paces in a small hollow, and filled like the former with
boiling water. As the water in the upper basin gradually sinks, and
ceases to seethe, it begins to rise in the lower one, and is at length
forced two or three feet into the air; then it falls again, and thus the
phenomenon is continually repeated in the upper and the lower basin
alternately.

At the upper spring there is also a vapour-bath. This is formed by a
small chamber situate hard by the basin, built of stones and roofed with