48 THE REDISCOVERED COUNTRY 



At camp found that Cuninghame had hit on my same 

 route from above. The cHffs opposite are hung with 

 traiHng rope-Hke cactus, and inhabited by many ba- 

 boons. 



Made only 4 miles, but walked nine and a half hours; 

 elevation, 5, 400; morning, 50; noon, SS; night, 57. 



July 22. — Started the day with a terrific cKmb, almost 

 straight up to the summit of the ridge. The footing 

 was very bad and it made very sweaty hard work for 

 men and beasts. Got there finally. Very fine view 

 back over the way we have come. Wondered how we 

 ever got through. From above it looks absolutely 

 hopeless. This looks like the top. 



From here south the ranges get smaller, so that we 

 can look out over lesser and lesser systems until far 

 away we could guess at the brown of plains. Men fairly 

 cheered at the sight of the latter. But it looked like a 

 puzzler to get down there. Our river has hopelessly 

 plunged somewhere off to the right, leaving us marooned 

 in the high country, and the ridges and canons seemed 

 to be heavily grown with a kind of chaparral and to 

 have no order or system or open passes. Far away to 

 the south we dimly made out two enormous craters 

 that must be upward of 12,000 feet high. 



However, across the shallow canon head that ran 

 up from the profundities of the river, and in the next 

 transverse ridge, was a notch opposite, so we made for 

 that. From its saddle we saw another small valley, 



