466 VAN HORN'S WELLS. Book III. 
races of piled-up and columnar porphyry, the steps of 
which are covered with groups and groves of evergreen 
oaks. In narrow hollows the traveller is surprised by a 
remarkable shrub, a species of Arbutus, with smooth copper- 
red bark. Here, in a corner between the rocks and among 
the bushes, we discovered a spring trickling over the stones, 
filling some holes with a few pailsful of water. Fortunately 
one of our people found a larger spring in another valley, 
a few miles distant, which gave us a sufficient supply of 
water for our cattle. The animals had to be driven several 
hundred feet up on the side of a precipice, as the water was 
lost immediately on reaching the foot of the mountain. 
However we succeeded, and, to give our parched animals 
time to drink, we halted here for the day. The spot was 
remarkably wild and desolate. Here and there a steep 
cliff, upon which we placed our sentinels, rose isolated out 
of the grassy plain at the foot of the mountains. The 
valley in which we first sought for water had all the in- 
terest of which the wildernesses of this region are capable. 
A march of thirty-six miles over a barren and dusty 
plain brought us to Van Horn's Wells, where the cattle of 
a caravan which had preceded us had exhausted all the 
water ; we were therefore obliged to continue our journey 
without watering our animals. All around cattle left be- 
hind by preceding caravans lay dying with thirst. It was 
indeed a melancholy spectacle. Many of the poor beasts, 
still alive, had their eyes dried up and their tongues hang- 
ing out of their mouth : we shot several of them, in passing, 
out of mere compassion. 
We had still twenty-two miles to journey to the " Eagle 
Springs." The road led over a mountain ridge, where, 
between nearly horizontal limestone strata on one side and 
porphyritic masses on the other, a system of metamorphic 
