254 VALLEY OF THE CIMARONE. 



mens of mica, of great beauty and transparency, — one, in particular, was 

 nearly a foot square, and two inches thick. 



The only indication of minerals coming under my notice, was iron and 

 salts; though gold has been found in the immediate vicinity of the Hua- 

 quetories, and silver in the neighborhood of the de las Animas, — some very 

 rich specimens of the latter ore, said to have been procured in this region 

 having met my observation. 



Near the Cimarone the country is very rugged and mountainous. Upon 

 the right a lofty expanse of table land, some eight hundred or a thousand 

 feet high, leads far off till it becomes lost in the distance ; while, upon the 

 left, the more elevated tierras templadas of the Colorado, gently curving 

 from south to east, mark the division between the Cimarone and the latter 

 stream. 



Every watercourse is immured by canons of craggy rocks that often 

 preclude all access to it for many successive miles. The side-hills and 

 prairie ridges, to some extent, are clothed with pines, pinion, and cedars ; 

 and the creeks, whenever the narrow space of their prison-walls will per- 

 mit it, afford beautiful groves of cottonwood and thick clusters of fruit-bear- 

 ing shrubs and underbrush. 



Our course for a number of miles, previous to descending to the valley 

 of the Cimarone, lay at the base of the table mountain on the right. 



The entrance to this valley was by a narrow buflklo trail, leading down 

 a perpendicular wall of clay and rock, sidelong in a shelf-iike path, barely 

 wide enough for a single horse or man to advance carefully, as the least 

 misstep might plunge him down the abyss to be dashed in pieces upon 

 the sharp fragments detached from the overhanging cliffs. 



The wall thus descended was from eight hundred to a thousand feet in 

 altitude, and faced by another of equal height at a distance of twenty-tive 

 or thirty yards. 



The spectacle was grand and awful beyond description. A rock, that 

 broke loose about midway as we descended the pass, fell thundering down 

 the frightful steep with a tremendous crash, and made the welkin ring 

 as it reverberated along the vast enclosure with almost deafening clamor. 

 I have witnessed many romantic and picturesque scenes, but never one 

 so magnificently grand, so awe-inspiring in its sublimity, as that faintly 

 delineated in the preceding sketch. 



Entering the caiion at this point, after wandering a short distance among 

 the huge masses of broken rock thrown h*om its towering sides, the travel- 

 ler is ushered into a valley nearly a mile broad, shut in by mural moun- 

 tains that rise to a varied height of from eight to fifteen hundred or two 

 thousand feet, gradually expanding as he proceeds till it attains a width of 

 from two to four miles. 



This valley generally possesses a very rich soil, sometimes of a deep, 

 gravelly mould, and almost of vermilion-like color, assimilating the famous 

 redlands of Texas, and, in appearance, equally fertile, — then, a dark brown 

 loam obtrudes to view, sustaining a dense vegetation of lusty growth, — 

 and, yet again, a light sandy superstratum, affording but small indications 

 of productiveness ; or dimniutive spreads of stiff' clay, frowning in their 

 own nudity ; or barren wastes, of less extent, that, in deep penitence for 



