Chap. III. GKANADA — VOLCANIC FISSUEES. 31 
are fissures caused originally by earthquake. They are 
rather an interesting feature in the site of the city, which, 
on each of its two sides, is lined by one of these formations 
beginning in its rear and running down to the lake. By 
one of them the city is entirely separated from one of its 
suburbs, which from that very circumstance is not inappro- 
priately called Otrahanda, — "the other side." There are 
only a few places where this deep ravine can be crossed, 
and some of these crossings can only be effected by passing 
through side branches of the main fissure so narrow that 
there is scarcely room for one man, the walls being quite 
perpendicular. The bottom of the principal trunk of this 
long cleft has been filled up by the material washed, or 
crumbling down from the perpendicular walls of tuff, and 
now forms a horizontal floor through the whole length of the 
cleft, which extends for several miles, with a width nowhere 
exceeding a few paces, and an average height of the walls 
— if I judge right from memory — of twenty to thirty feet. 
The whole, for a certain distance upwards, forms a cool 
alley under the shade of shrubs and trees that grow above 
the banks, uniting their branches over it. The walls, 
always perpendicular, are distinguished by a variety of 
delicate ferns and lycopodiaceous plants, and by the rich 
violet flowers of a Gesnera growing on them. They are 
full of holes and cavities. Some of the latter, even large 
enough for men to enter, seem to be the abode of different 
kinds of animals, while the former are occupied by numerous 
owls, and by the nests of some birds of brilliant plumage 
of the family of the kingfishers, as well as of a peculiar 
bird called Guarda-barranca, of a light greenish blue_, with 
two long feathers in its tail. 1 Near its upper extremity 
1 This bird seems to bo the Hylomaues superciliaris, of the family of the 
Todidae. 
