400 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
above us, to the south, winding up the steep and rugged 
sides of the acclivity. 
As we journeyed along this dell all were again struck with 
admiration at the strange and fanciful figures made by the 
washing of the waters during the rainy season. In some 
places perfect walls, formed of reddish clay, were seen 
standing, and were they any where else, it would be 
impossible to believe that other than the hand of man 
formed them. The veins of which these walls were com- 
posed were of even thickness, very hard, and ran perpen 
dicularly ; and when the softer sand which had surrounded 
them was washed away, the veins still remained standing 
upright, in some places a hundred feet high, and three or 
four hundred in length. Columns, too, were there, and such 
was their appearance or architectural order, and so much 
of chaste grandeur was there about them, that we were lost 
in wonder and admiration. Sometimes the breastworks, as 
of forts, would be plainly visible; then again the frowning 
turrets of some castle of the olden time. Cumbrous pillars 
of some mighty pile, such as is dedicated to religion or 
royalty, were scattered about; regularity was strangely 
mingled with disorder and ruin, and Nature had done it all. 
Niagara has been considered one of her wildest freaks, but 
Niagara sinks into insignificance when compared with the 
wild grandeur of this awful chasm—this deep, abyssmal 
solitude, as Carlyle would call it. Imagination carried us 
back to Thebes, to Palmyra, and to ancient Athens, and 
we could not help thinking that we were now among their 
ruins. 
Our passage out of this place was effected with the greatest 
difficulty. We were obliged to carry our rifles, holsters, and 
saddlebags in our hands, and in clambering up a steep pitch, 
one of the horses, striking his shoulders against a projecting 
rock, was precipitated some fifteen or twenty feet directly 
