Page:Atlantis Arisen.djvu/206



forty-five feet, called Wizard Island, and another similar crater fathoms deep beneath the lake’s surface.

The military road from Jacksonville to Fort Klamath runs within about four miles of the lake, and is the route usually taken by tourists. But the approach from the east side is much more easy, being a comfortable afternoon’s drive from the Agency to camp at the turning-off point. Our party found bear tracks close to camp, and deer-tracks in the ashes of our burnt-out fire when we arose from our mosquito tormented slumbers. Our ambulance was taken to the summit, although we walked a good part of the four miles, for the ground was very lumpy with rocks and frozen snowdrifts which July suns had failed to liquefy, and which, to them unaccountable, phenomenon kept our mules in a greatly agitated state of nerves.

On arriving at the summit we found the earth light and ashen, diversified by patches of snow, and by other patches of alpine flowers, some of which were very pretty in form and color. The air was bright and mild: we had left the forest behind us; there was nothing anywhere about more elevated than our position, nor any living thing anywhere near us. We were apparently on the highest point of the earth, for there was nothing to look up to, and it would not have surprised me to have been whirled off into space. The solitude of the situation was thrilling.

One cannot, owing to the sunken position of the lake, discover it until close upon its rim, and I say here, without exaggeration, that no pen can reproduce its image, no picture be painted to do it justice; nor can it, for obvious reasons, be satisfactorily photographed. At the first view a dead silence fell upon our party. A choking sensation arose in our throats, and tears flowed over our cheeks. I do not pretend to analyze the emotion, but, if I were to endeavor to compare it with anything I ever read, I should say it must be such a feeling which causes the Cherubim to veil their faces before God. To me it was a revelation.*

shown by Captain C. E. Dutton’s report of the survey, in which he says, “ It was touching to see the worthy hut untutored people who had ridden a hundred miles in freight-wagons to behold it, vainly strivi
 * That this is not an uncommon effect of the first view of Crater Lake is