'A smooth, silicious basin, seventy-two feet in diameter and four feet deep, wide at the bottom, as in washing basins on board a steamer, stood before us, brimful of water just upon the simmer; while up into the air above our heads rose a great column of vapor, looking as if it was going to turn into the Fisherman's Genie. The ground above the brim was composed of layers of incrusted silica like the outside of an oyster shell, sloping gently down on all sides from the edge of the basin. 'As the baggage train with our tents and beds had not yet arrived, we fully appreciated our luck in being treated to so dry a night; and having eaten everything we could lay hands on, we sat quietly down to chess, and _coffee brewed in geyser water_; when suddenly it seemed as if beneath our very feet a quantity of subterranean cannon were going off: the whole earth shook, and Sigurdr, starting to his feet, upset the chess board (I was just beginning to get the best of the game), and started off at full speed toward the great basin. By the time we reached its brim, however, the noise had ceased, and all we could see was a slight movement in the centre, as if an angel had passed by and troubled the water. Irritated by this false alarm, we determined to revenge ourselves by going and tormenting the Strokr. 'The Strokr--or the _Churn_--you must know, is an unfortunate geyser, with so little command over his temper and his stomach that you can get a _rise_ out of him whenever you like. All that is necessary is to collect a quantity of sods, and throw them down his funnel. As he has no basin to protect him from these liberties, you can approach to the very edge of the pipe, about five feet in diameter, and look down at the boiling water, which is perpetually seething at the bottom. In a few minutes the dose of turf you have administered begins to disagree with him; he works himself up into an awful passion--tormented by the qualms of incipient sickness; he groans and hisses, and boils up and spits at you with malicious vehemence, until at last, with a roar of mingled pain and rage, he throws up into the air a column of water forty feet high, which carries with it all the sods that have been chucked in, and scatters them scalded and half digested at your feet. So irritated has the poor thing's stomach become by the discipline it has undergone, that long after all foreign matter has been thrown off, it goes on retching and spluttering, until, at last, nature is exhausted, when, sobbing and sighing to itself, it sinks back into the bottom of its den. Put into the highest spirits by the success of this performance, we turned to examine the remaining springs. I do not know, however, that any of the rest are worthy of any particular mention.