388 VALLEY OF THE QUANGO. 



though so weak that I had to be led by my companions to pre- 

 vent my toppling over in walking down. It was annoying to 

 feel myself so helpless, for I never liked to see a man, either sick 

 or well, giving in effeminately. Below us lay the valley of the 

 Quango. If you sit on the spot where Mary Queen of Scots 

 viewed the battle of Langside, and look down on the vale of 

 Clyde, you may see in miniature the glorious sight which a much 

 greater and richer valley presented to our view. It is about a 

 hundred miles broad, clothed with dark forest, except where 

 the light green grass covers meadow-lands on the Quango, which 

 here and there glances out in the sun as it wends its way to 

 the north. The opposite side of this great valley appears like 

 a range of lofty mountains, and the descent into it about a mile, 

 which, measured perpendicularly, may be from a thousand to 

 twelve hundred feet. Emerging from the gloomy forests of Lon- 

 da, this magnificent prospect made us all feel as if a weight had 

 been lifted off our eyelids. A cloud was passing across the 

 middle of the valley, from which rolling thunder pealed, while 

 above all was glorious sunlight ; and when we went down to the 

 part where we saw it passing, we found that a very heavy thun- 

 der-shower had fallen under the path of the cloud ; and the bot- 

 tom of the valley, which from above seemed quite smooth, we dis- 

 covered to be intersected and furrowed by great numbers of deep- 

 cut streams. Looking back from below, the descent appears as 

 the edge of a table-land, with numerous indented dells and spurs 

 jutting out all along, giving it a serrated appearance. Both the 

 top and sides of the sierra are covered with trees, but large patches 

 of the more perpendicular parts are bare, and exhibit the red soil, 

 which is general over the region we have now entered. 



The hollow affords a section of this part of the country ; and 

 we find that the uppermost stratum is the ferruginous con- 

 glomerate already mentioned. The matrix is rust of iron (or 

 hydrous peroxide of iron and hematite), and in it are imbedded 

 water-worn pebbles of sandstone and quartz. As this is the rock 

 underlying the soil of a large part of Londa, its formation must 

 have preceded the work of denudation by an arm of the sea, 

 which washed away the enormous mass of matter required before 

 the valley of Cassange could assume its present form. The stra- 

 ta under the conglomerate are all of red clay shale of different 



