124 DREARY SCENE. 



the line, affecting to wish that I might see tne lion 

 again, and get the opportunity of a shot at him. We 

 followed a narrow path, ascending and descending 

 the steep sides of numerous low conical-formed hills 

 of large loose stones that occasionally detached them- 

 selves from under the feet, and went dashing with 

 increasing velocity to a little secondary ridge of the 

 debris, accumulating at the bottom. All around 

 me were these hills of stones, treeless, shrubless, 

 herbless ; a greater impression of desolation never 

 occurred to my mind, greater even than that pro- 

 duced by the widely-spreading open deserts of 

 Arabia, or the long and dark valleys between the 

 wave mountains of the seas to the south of the Cape, 

 which, under a gloomy sky, struck me, I recollect, 

 when I was amidst them, as more nearly allied to 

 the character of human despair than anything 

 I could have imagined in the physical world. This 

 is the idea that dreary scenes are apt to suggest, 

 and to which, perhaps, they owe that impress of 

 horror with which we always contemplate them. 



Two hours were occupied in passing through this 

 valley " where the devil lies stoned." It was likened, 

 and very justly I should suppose, to one so called 

 near Mecca, by a "hadji," or pilgrim, who was 

 returning to his tribe with us. We now saw in the 

 distance the spot on the southern border of the lake, 

 where the salt is broken and packed up for con- 

 veyance to Abyssinia ; and on the broad extensive 

 field of this purely white and glistening crystallized 



