306 AGONIZING CONDITION. 



These walls are often perpendicular, though they generally accline 

 Bomewhat, and are ornamented with scattering shrubs and cedars, which 

 m vain seek to hide the forbidding deformity of nature. 



They frequently intrude to the very water's edge, and pile at their feel 

 and in the foaming current huge masses of rock, etrown about in all the 

 wild disorder of savage scenery ; then, expanding at brief intervals, they 



f)icture many sweet, enchanting spots, that smile and bloom in unfading 

 oveliness, v.'here angels might recline, and, listening to the chime of their 

 own voices, echoed from rock to rock and reverberated with unheard-of 

 melody, might fancy themselves in heaven ; then again closing, to open in 

 like manner at some favored point, till they finally give place to a broad 

 and beautiful valley, from one to three miles in width, of unsurpassed fer- 

 tility, and abounding at the proper season in every \ ariety of fruit and 

 flower known to the country, which, mingling amid the the scattering cot- 

 ton woods, (free from under-brush and mimicing in their arrangement the 

 regularity of art,) seem to portra,y the fabled fields of Elysian bliss. 



This valley extends from the mouth of the canon to the junction of the de 

 las Animas with the Arkansas — a distance of twenty-five or thirty miles ; for 

 ten or fifteen of which it is skirted with receding hills, that maintain their 

 stern sublimity till they at length become swallowed up in the far-spreading 

 prairie. 



This is a favorite resort for deer, antelope, and turkey, which are found 

 in gi-eat numbers, gambolling amid its varied beauties, or winding along ite 

 narrow defiles and forbidden recesses. 



We entered the canon through a narrow and steep declivity, formed by 

 a small stream, which was shut in by continuous cliffs, that increased in 

 height as they approached their lofty counterparts immuring the angry 

 river. 



After winding a day and a half among the crags and confused masses, 

 whicli constantly intervened to impede our way, in vain searching for an 

 egress, we found it impossible to proceed further, and were forced to climb 

 the almost vertical bank, at an ascent of five or six hundred feet, — frequently 

 lifting our liorses over the rocks by means of ropes attached to their bodies 

 and dravi/n from the impending summit ; — this tedious process occupied 

 nearly a day in its completion, and left us upon the lateral table land ex- 

 hausted in strength and worn down with fatigue. 



We were eleven days en route, during which time we suffered gieatl) 

 from the severity of the weather, hunger, toil, and watching. 



The air was bleak, the winds cold and piercing, and the sky almost 

 continually over-cast with clouds, while two or three snow storms contri- 

 buted their mite to swell the catalogue of comfortless hours. 



Our horses, too, had become so exhausted from hard fare and previous 

 service, we were necessitated to travel on foot for most of the distance. But 

 the grand climax of miseries was experienced through lack of food. 



A scanty supply of buffalo meat, taken with us at the outset, was consumed 

 at tlie next meal, aad we were left without one morsel to appease tlie gnaw- 

 '.ngs of appetite for the two days and three nights succeeding. 



A Btra^gling wolf that chance threw in our way, at the expiration of tbia 



