TEMPLES AND TOWERS OF THE VIRGEN. 
57 
But the controlling object was a great butte which sprang into view imme- 
diately before us, and which the salient of the wall had hitherto masked. 
Upon a pedestal two miles long and 1,000 feet high, richly decorated with 
horizontal moldings, rose four towers highl}^ suggestive of cathedral archi- 
tecture. Their altitude above the plain was estimated at about 1,800 feet. 
They were separated* by vertical clefts made by the enlargement of the 
joints, and many smaller clefts extending from the summits to the pedestal 
carved the turrets into tapering buttresses, which gave a graceful aspiring 
effect with a remarkable definiteness to the forms. We named it Smith- 
sonian Butte, and it was decided that a sketch should be made of it; but 
in a few moments the plan was abandoned or forgotten. For over a notch 
or saddle formed by a low isthmus which connected the butte with the prin- 
cipal mesa there sailed slowly and majestically into view, as we rode along, 
a wonderful object. Deeply moved, we paused a moment to contemplate it, 
and then abandoning the trail we rode rapidly towards the notch, beyond 
which it soon sank out of sight. In an hour’s time we reached the crest of 
the isthmus, and in an instant there flashed before us a scene never to be 
forgotten. In coming time it will, I believe, take rank with a very small 
number of spectacles each of which will, in its own way, be regarded as 
the most exquisite of its kind which the world discloses. The scene before 
us was 
THE TEMPLES AND TOWERS OP THE VIRGEN. 
At our feet the surface drops down by cliff and talus 1,200 feet upon a 
broad and rugged plan cut by narrow canons. The slopes, the winding 
ledges, the bosses of projecting rock, the naked, scanty soil, display 
colors which are truly amazing. Chocolate, maroon, purple, lavender, 
magenta, with broad bands of toned white, are laid in horizontal belts, 
strongly contrasting with each other, and the ever-varying slope of the sur- 
face cuts across them capriciously, so that the sharply defined belts wind 
about like the contours of a map From right to left across the further 
foreground of the picture stretches the inner canon of the Virgen, about 
