SIMBALU. 23 



passage to the other side, and none but a native 

 of this rugged solitude could have guessed where 

 a route might be. A way there was, however, 

 but a dizzy one, and in places the horses could 

 scarcely get along, sometimes clambering over 

 slippery ledges not two feet broad, sometimes 

 bending under gigantic impending blocks, which 

 had fallen from above, and been arrested in their 

 descent. One of the great boundary precipices 

 presented a most singular aspect, in consequence 

 of being partly formed of beds of shale, con- 

 torted so as to shew as many as fifty doublings, 

 which lay pressed, as it were, between great 

 masses of horizontal strata of scaglia. There 

 is not in all Europe a wilder or grander scene 

 than this pass through the Seven Capes of 

 Cragus. 



Afterwards we wound along the hills towards 

 Simbalu, every now and then meeting with beau^ 

 tiful spots. Near Simbalu are numerous ruins of 

 middle-age or late Roman architecture, crypts, and 

 tombs, which were noticed by Captain Beaufort. 

 The road here is an ancient paved road, and many 

 parts of our route along the coast lay over a con- 

 tinuation of the same. From the sea-side we as- 

 cended to the elevated plain on which stands the 



