GOKERN AND YAANA. 91 



dark pinnacles rising above the trees. 

 I seemed to be approaching some lofty 

 abbey in the wilderness, of vast and 

 irregular dimensions. At last I came 

 suddenly on a wide enceinte, bare alike 

 of tree and herb, black, and strewn with 

 ashes, as if some recent conflagration 

 had consumed the very ground as well 

 as what grew upon it. In the centre 

 of this charred and desolate space rose 

 the black rocks of Yaana, a pile of per- 

 haps two hundred feet high, and about 

 three times as much in circumference. 

 In shape the mass seemed like a vast 

 tussock with countless pointed tops, 

 solid indeed for half its height, but split 

 and shivered in its upper half. One 

 deep rift alone reached to the very base, 

 and sundered the rock into two parts. 



