Six hours of waiting were nearly over when, without a single previous hint of change, one descending spout was met by an ascending one, and a vast column of hissing water rose, with a sound of continuous thunder, one hundred feet in air; and stood there like a pillar of cloud in the desert.  The air throbbed as in a cannonade, and the sun brushed away all clouds as if he could not bear to miss a sight he had seen perhaps a million times.  Then the top of this upward Niagara bent over like the calyx of a calla, and the downward Niagara covered all that elevated masonry with a rushing cascade.  Shifting my position a little, I could see that the sun was thrilling the whole glorious outpour with rainbows.  At such times one can neither measure nor express emotions by words.  In the thunder which anyone can hear there is always, for all who can receive it, the ineffably sweet voice of the Father saying, “Thou art my beloved son, and all this grand display is for thy precious sake.”

In sixteen minutes the flow of waters ceased, and a rush of saturated steam succeeded.  At the same time the fierce swish of ascending waters and of descending cascades ceased, and a clear, definite note, as of a trumpet, exceeding long and loud, was blown.  No archangel could have done better.  As the steam rolled skyward it was condensed, and a very heavy rain fell on about an acre at the east as it was drifted by the air.  It looked more like lines of water than separated drops.  I found it thoroughly cooled by its flight in the upper air.

I climbed the huge natural masonry, and stood on the top.  I could have put my hand into the hot rushing of measureless power.  What a sight it was!  There were the brilliant colors of the throat, open, three feet wide, and the dazzling whiteness of the steam.  At thirty-two minutes from the beginning the steam suddenly became drier, like that close to the spout of a kettle, or close to the whistle of an engine.  All pure steam is invisible.  At the same time the note of the trumpet distinctly changed.  The heavy rain at the east as suddenly stopped.  The air could absorb the present amount of moisture.  One could see farther down the terrible throat that seemed about to be rent asunder.  The awful grandeur was becoming too much for human endurance.  The contorted forms of rocks on the summit began to take the forms and heads of dragons, such as the Chinese carve on their monuments.  The awful column began to change its effect from terror to fascination, and I knew how Empedocles felt when he flung himself into the burning Aetna.  It was time to get down and stand further off.

[Illustration:  Bee-Hive Geyser.]

The long waiting had been rewarded.  “To patient faith the prize is sure.”  The grand tumult began to subside.  It was beyond all my expectations.  Nature never disappoints, for she is of God and in her he yet immanently abides.  The next day the sky and all the air were full of falling rain.  How could it be otherwise?  It was the geyser returning to earth.  I sought the place.  The awful trumpet was silent, and the steam exhaled as gently as a sleeping baby’s breath.