GRANDEUR AND LOVELINESS. 265 



their utter worthlessness, exude their briny tears in unremitting- succession, 

 which, as the solar rays strike on them with kind intent to wipe away, 

 spread o'er their parent surfaces bleached shrouds of shining salt. 



The latter part of this description, so far as my observation has extended, 

 will apply to nearly the entire valley of the Cimarone after it emerges from 

 the canon. 



The place at which this romantic valley first attains its full width, is the 

 confluence of a small tributary to the main creek, near an isolated sum- 

 mit, that protrudes far out from the mountain range and commands the ap- 

 proaches from either direction. 



This peak is five or eight hundred feet high, and inaccessible, except 

 from the back ground by a gradual acclivity scarcely wide enough for tn'o 

 persons to ascend abreast. The top presents a small area of level surface, 

 securely defended by an enclosing wall of rock, five or six feet in height, 

 raised at its brow evidently by the hand of art. A better position, in a 

 military point of view, for a fortification, is rarely found. Fifty men, suit- 

 ably provisioned and equipped, might successfully defend it against an army 

 of thousands. 



The rocks of this vicinity exhibit a more striking variety of color than 

 any I ever before witnessed. Their predominant classification enumerates 

 granite, sandstone (generally ferruginous,) limestone, and slate. These 

 were disclosed in abrupt escarpments of several hundred feet altitude, or 

 in isolated, quadrangular masses with vertical sides, assuming the appear- 

 ance of gigantic fortifications, temples and palaces ; — or in a more multi- 

 form aspect, now portraying vast walls with narrow basements, that, diver- 

 ging from the mountains, intersect the valley at intervals from side to side, 

 except, perchance, at a well-formed gateway, — now, towering monuments, 

 spires, and pyramids, and again sculptured statues of men and beasts. 



All these magnificent representations are gorgeously decked with parti- 

 colored strata lying tier above tier, in regular order, some white, others 

 black, blue, brown, green, gray, yellow, red, purple, or orange, and so 

 strangely intermingled that they cannot fail to excite the admiration of 

 every beholder. 



The Cimarone rises in the range of table lands thirty-five or forty miles 

 east-southeast of Taos, and, after following a serpentine course for nearly 

 six hundred miles, empties into the Arkansas some distance above Fort 

 Gibson. As it emerges from the mountains, (where it is a stream of con- 

 iderable depth and a rapid current, confined to a narrow space between 

 high clayey banks, with a bed of rock and pebbles.) it expands to a great 

 width, and, in a short distance, its waters become brackish and unfit for 

 use, till they finally disappear among the quicksands, and leave a dreary 

 waste of worse than emptiness, to mark the course of the transient vol- 

 umes produced by the melting snows of spring and the annual rains of 

 autumn. 



During its course through the Great American Desert, not a tree or 

 shrub graces its banks. Its mountain valley, however, is ornamented with 

 numerous and beautiful groves of cottonwood, that present among their 

 underbrush a profuse abundance of plum, cherry, gooseberry, and cur- 

 rant bushes, with grape vines ; while the adjoining hills afibrd oak, pine, 

 pinion, and cedar. 



