ROCKY CLIFFS. 
107 
on horseback immediately after breakfast, accom- 
panied by Mr. Scott. 
We traced up its stony and rugged bed for about 
seven miles among the hills, to a point where the 
scenery was peculiarly grand and sublime. The 
cliffs rose perpendicularly from the channel of the 
watercourse to a height of from six to eight hundred 
feet, towering above us in awful and imposing pro- 
minencies. At their base was a large pool of clear 
though brackish water ; and a little beyond a clump 
of rushes, indicating the existence of a spring. In the 
centre of these rushes the natives had dug a small 
well, but the water was no better than that in the 
larger pool. 
The natives generally resort to such places as 
these when the rain water is dried up in the plains 
or among the hills immediately skirting them. Far 
among the fastnesses of the interior ranges, these 
children of the wilds find resources which always 
sustain them when their ordinary supplies are cut 
off ; but they are not of corresponding advantage 
to the explorer, because they are difficult of access, 
not easily found, and seldom contain any food for his 
horses, so that he can barely call at them and pass 
on. Such was the wretched and impracticable 
character of the country in which we were now placed. 
Having tied up our horses, Mr. Scott and I 
ascended to the top of the high cliff by winding 
along the ridges at the back of it. From its summit 
we had an extensive view, and I was enabled to take 
