ROMANTIC CHASM. 139 



b ■ 



it rushes in rapid torrents. This frightful 

 chasm is absolutely impassable ; and, viewed 

 from the top, the scene is imposing ha the ex- 

 treme. None but the boldest hearts and firm- 

 est nerves can venture to its brink, and look 

 down its almost perpendicular precipice, over 

 projecting crags and deep crevices, upon the 

 foaming current of the river, which, in some 

 places, appears like a small rippUng brook; 

 wliile in others it winds its serpentine course 

 silently but majestically along, through a nar- 

 row little vailey; with immense plains border- 

 ing and expanding in every direction, yet so 

 smooth and level that the course of the river 

 IS not perceived till mthin a few yards of the 

 verge. .1 have beheld this carbon from the 

 summit of a mountain, over which the road 

 passes some twenty miles below Taos, from 

 "vyhence it looks like the mere fissure of an m- 

 significant ravine. 



Baron Humboldt speaks of an extraordi- 

 nar)' event as having occurred in 1752, of 

 ^vhich he says the mliabitants of Paso del 

 Norte still preserved the recollectioA in his 

 day. " The whole bed of the river," says the 

 learned historian, " became dry all of a sud- 

 den, for more than thirty leagues above and 

 twenty leagues below the Paso : and the wa- 

 ter of the river precipitated itself into a newly 

 formed chasm, and only made its reappear- 

 ance near the Presidio of San Eleazeario. 



At length, after the lapse of several 



weeks, the water resumed its course, no doubt 

 because the chasm and the subterraneous con- 



