All these things had been made a frequent subject of discussion in our desultory conversations around the fires at night; and my own mind had become tolerably well filled with their indefinite pictures, and insensibly colored with their romantic descriptions, which, in the pleasure of excitement, I was well disposed to believe, and half expected to realize.
"In about six miles' travel from our encampment we reached one of the points in our journey to which we had always looked forward with great interest--the famous Beer Springs, which, on account of the effervescing gas and acid taste, had received their name from the voyageurs and trappers of the country, who, in the midst of their rude and hard lives, are fond of finding some fancied resemblance to the luxuries they rarely have the good fortune to enjoy.
"Although somewhat disappointed in the expectations which various descriptions had led me to form of unusual beauty of situation and scenery, I found it altogether a place of very great interest; and a traveller for the first time in a volcanic region remains in a constant excitement, and at every step is arrested by something remarkable and new.

There is a confusion of interesting objects gathered together in a small space.

Around the place of encampment the Beer Springs were numerous but, as far as we could ascertain, were entirely confined to that locality in the bottom.

In the bed of the river in front, for a space of several hundred yards, they were very abundant; the effervescing gas rising up and agitating the water in countless bubbling columns.

In the vicinity round about were numerous springs of an entirely different and equally marked mineral character.