The good folks at home identified it; it was a sharp
earthquake.

At the top of the climb I made my way again to the water-
course; it is here running steady and pretty full; strange
these intermittencies - and just a little below the main
stream is quite dry, and all the original brook has gone down
some lava gallery of the mountain - and just a little further
below, it begins picking up from the left hand in little
boggy tributaries, and in the inside of a hundred yards has
grown a brook again. The general course of the brook was, I
guess, S.E.; the valley still very deep and whelmed in wood.
It seemed a swindle to have made so sheer a climb and still
find yourself at the bottom of a well. But gradually the
thing seemed to shallow, the trees to seem poorer and
smaller; I could see more and more of the silver sprinkles of
sky among the foliage, instead of the sombre piling up of
tree behind tree. And here I had two scares - first, away up
on my right hand I heard a bull low; I think it was a bull
from the quality of the low, which was singularly songful and
beautiful; the bulls belong to me, but how did I know that
the bull was aware of that? and my advance guard not being at
all properly armed, we advanced with great precaution until I
was satisfied that I was passing eastward of the enemy. It
was during this period that a pool of the river suddenly
boiled up in my face in a little fountain. It was in a very
dreary, marshy part among dilapidated trees that you see
through holes in the trunks of; and if any kind of beast or
elf or devil had come out of that sudden silver ebullition, I
declare I do not think I should have been surprised. It was