[Illustration:  LONE STAR GEYSER.]

[Illustration:  THE GROTTO, GEYSER’S CONE.]

[Illustration:  ENTRANCE TO THE PARK.]

To call our National Park the “Switzerland of America” would be absurd.  It is not Switzerland; it is not Iceland; it is not Norway; it is unique; and the unique cannot be compared.  If I were asked to describe it in a dozen lines, I should call it the arena of an enormous amphitheatre.  Its architect was Nature; the gladiators that contended in it were volcanoes.  During unnumbered ages those gladiators struggled to surpass one another in destruction by pouring forth great floods of molten lava.  Even now the force which animated them still shows itself in other forms, but harmlessly, much as a captive serpent hisses though its fangs are drawn.  But the volcanoes give no sign of life.  They are dead actors in a fearful tragedy performed here countless centuries before the advent of mankind, with this entire region for a stage, and for their only audience the sun and stars.

I shall never forget our entrance into this theatre of sublime phenomena.  The Pullman car, in which we had taken our places at St. Paul, had carried us in safety more than a thousand miles and had left us at the gateway of the park.  Before us was a portion of the road, eight miles in length, which leads the tourist to the Mammoth Springs Hotel.  On one side an impetuous river shouted a welcome as we rode along.  Above us rose gray, desolate cliffs.  They are volcanic in their origin.  The brand of fire is on them all.  They are symbolic, therefore, of the entire park; for fire and water are the two great forces here which have, for ages, struggled for supremacy.

[Illustration:  THE WATCHFUL SENTINEL.]

[Illustration:  THE MAMMOTH SPRINGS HOTEL.]

No human being dwells upon those dreary crags, but at one point, as I looked up at them, I saw—­poised statue-like above a mighty pinnacle of rock—­a solitary eagle.  Pausing, with outstretched wings above its nest, it seemed to look disdainfully upon us human pygmies crawling far below.  Living at such a height, in voluntary isolation, that king of birds appeared the very embodiment of strength and majesty.  Call it a touch of superstition, if you will, yet I confess it thrilled me to the heart to find that here, above the very entrance to the Wonderland of our Republic, there should be stationed midway between earth and heaven, like a watchful sentinel, our national bird,—­the bird of freedom!

At length a sudden turn revealed to us our first halting-place within the Park,—­the Mammoth Springs Hotel.  The structure in itself looked mammoth as we approached it, for its portico exceeds four hundred feet in length.  Our first impressions were agreeable.  Porters rushed forth and helped us to alight, and on the broad piazza the manager received us cordially.  Everything had the air of an established summer resort.  This, I confess, surprised me greatly, as I had expected