THE SAN LUIS VALLEY. 205 



" A lovely, smiling plain, with a wild chaos of white glisten- 

 ing domes and pinnacles, and dark intervening shadows, 

 enclosing it on every side. 



" The few scattered patches of snow in the valley 

 heightened, by contrast, the bright green of its broad border 

 of junipers and dwarf cedars, and the olive-gray of the masses 

 of sage-brush dotted over it. 



"Down its centre flowed, in many a broad sweep and 

 graceful curve, the gleaming waters of the Rio Grande- 

 del-Norte'; there a broad and rapid river, though twelve 

 hundred miles from where it pours its flood into the Gulf 

 of Mexico. And on either side considerable streams, issuing 

 out of the rocky canons and dark gorges of the mountains, 

 wound their silvery way over the plain to join its majestic 

 course. 



" We stood on the very brink and edge of the mountain 

 plateau. From our feet the mountain's side, a bare smooth 

 wall of granite, sunk sheer down a thousand feet perhaps 

 two thousand perhaps several thousand. How could we 

 tell? 



" The foot-hills below, upon whose tops we looked, seemed 

 to be but inconsiderable hillocks. The minute scattered 

 points, and hardly perceptible patches of green upon them, 

 were giant pines and groups of forest timber. 



" We gazed down through such a thickness of air that a 

 faint bluish tint pervaded everything, as though seen through 

 clearest of pale violet glasses. Involuntarily the mind realised 

 the reason why the sky is blue. 



" It was a grand sight, but it was a great disappointment ; 

 evidently we had to seek further to find a way to descend in 



