THE YELLOWSTONE PARK AND HOW IT WAS NAMED

The Devil was sitting in Hades one day, In a very disconsolate sort of a way. One could tell from his vigorous switching of tail, His scratching his horn with the point of his nail, That something had gone with His Majesty wrong, The steam was so thick and the sulphur so strong. He rose from his throne with a gleam in his eye, And beckoning an agate-eyed imp standing by, Commanded forthwith to be sent to him there Old Charon, employed in collecting the fare Of the wicked, who crossed the waters of Styx, And found themselves soon in a deuce of a fix. Old Charon, thus summoned, came soon to his chief, As the Devil was angry, the confab was brief. Says the Devil to Charon, "Now, what shall I do? The world it grows worse and grows wickeder, too; What with Portland, Chicago, Francisco, New York, I get in my mortals too fast for my fork; I haven't the room in these caverns below, St. Peter, above, is rejecting them so. So hie you, my Charon, to earth, far away, Fly over the globe without any delay, And find me a spot, quite secluded and drear, Where I can drill holes from the center in here. I must blast out more space; so survey the spot well, For the project on hand is the enlargement of Hell. "But recollect one thing, Old Charon, when you Can locate the district where I can bore through, There must be conveniences scattered around To carry on business when I'm above ground. An 'ink-pot' must always be ready at hand To write out the names of the parties I strand. There must be a 'punch-bowl,' a 'frying pan,' too, A 'caldron' in which to concoct a 'ragout.' An 'old faithful' sentinel showing my power, Must shoot a salute on the earth every hour, And should any mortal by accident view The spot you have chosen, why, this you must do: Develop a series of pools, green and blue, That while these poor earth bugs may beauties admire, They'll forget that below I'm poking the fire. Now fly away, Charon, be quick as you can, For my place here's so full that I can't roast a man." To earth flew fleet Charon, to regions of ice; He found these too cold—so away in a trice He sought a location in Africa's sands, He prospected, and finding too much on his hands, He cut out Australia, Siberia, too, The north part of China—no! they would not do; Till, just as about to relinquish the chase, He stumbled upon a most singular place, 'Twas deep in the midst of a mountainous range, Surrounded by valleys secluded and strange, In a country the greatest, the grandest, the best To be found upon earth—America's West. Here the crust seemed quite thin, and the purified air, With the chemicals hidden around everywhere, Would soon make the lakes that the Devil desired; So he flew to Chicago, and there to him wired: "I've found you a place never looked at before; You may heat up the rocks, turn on water, and bore." Then the Devil with mortals kept plying the fire, Extracting the water around from the mire, And boring great holes with a terrible dust, Till soon quite a number appeared near the crust, Then he turned on the steam—and lo! upward did fly, Through rents in the surface, the rocks to the sky. Then with a rumble there came from each spot, Huge volumes of water remarkably hot, That had been there in caverns since Lucifer fell— Thus immensely enlarging the confines of Hell, And it happens that now when Old Charon brings in A remarkable load of original sin, That His Majesty quietly rakes up the coals, And up spouts the water, in jets, through the holes, One may tell by the number of spurts when they come, How many poor mortals the Devil takes home. But Yankees can sometimes, without doing evil, O'ermatch in sagacity even the Devil. For not long ago Uncle Sam came that way And said to himself, "Here's the Devil to pay. Successful I've been in all previous wars; Now Satan shall bow to the Stripes and the Stars. This property's mine, and I hold it in fee; And all of this earth shall its majesty see. The deer and the elk unmolested shall roam, The bear and the buffalo each have a home; The eagle shall spring from her eyrie and soar O'er crags in the canyons where cataracts roar; The wild fowls shall circle the pools in their flight, The geysers shall flash in the moonbeams at night, Now I christen the country—let all nations hark! I name it the Yellowstone National Park."