300 LANDSCAPE SCENERY. Book II. 
Mountain to this spot, where it terminates. A little further 
south we found a similar spring, with a basin just like the 
former : here we rested, and I bagged a dish of snipes for 
our table ; but in vain endeavoured to secure a large ibis- 
like bird which kept alighting here and there on the edge 
of this little lake. This bird was white, with black wings 
and a long curved beak : it had the flight and cry of the 
curlew. 
To the east of our road we saw, stretching in the dis- 
tance, a sandy acclivity, which, heightened by refraction, 
presented striking pictures of high rocky walls. A salt 
lake lies in this direction, probably at the foot of this ascent, 
into which, at certain times, flow the waters of the brooks of 
Chilili, Manzanas, and Cuarra. Toward evening, when the 
effects of the refraction had disappeared, the effects of sunset 
gave a magic charm even to this desert. Under the crimson 
sky towards the east, the heights of the above-mentioned 
acclivity were grouped in picturesque forms, and hues 
of red, lilac, and blue cast over them ; nearer the fore- 
ground, brown, green and yellow stripes intermingled in 
the plain ; whilst in the immediate neighbourhood, the 
prairie, with dark yucca-bushes scattered here and there, 
presented the appearance of a carpet with a graceful 
pattern. 
We rode through the Manzanas river, over glittering 
masses of micaceous slate ; and, judging by the detached 
blocks and the width of its bed, now almost dry, it must at 
times have a large mass of water. The road soon after led 
into an ascending valley between sandstone mountains, 
which, projecting eastwards, rise above the level plain. The 
mountains appeared to form a jagged part of the summit of 
the plateau itself. A few large-leaved poplars were growing 
by the side of a clear brook, descending into the valley with 
