little fancy, may be discerned
elegant ranges of freestone buildings, with columns variously
sculptured, and supporting long and elegant galleries, while the
parapets are adorned with statuary. On a nearer approach they represent
every form of elegant ruins--columns, some with pedestals and capitals
entire, others mutilated and prostrate, and some rising pyramidally over
each other till they terminate in a sharp point. These are varied
by niches, alcoves, and the customary appearances of desolated
magnificence. The illusion is increased by the number of martins, which
have built their globular nests in the niches, and hover over these
columns, as in our country they are accustomed to frequent large
stone structures. As we advance there seems no end to the visionary
enchantment which surrounds us.

"In the midst of this fantastic scenery are vast ranges of walls, which
seem the productions of art, so regular is the workmanship. They rise
perpendicularly from the river, sometimes to the height of one hundred
feet, varying in thickness from one to twelve feet, being as broad at
the top as below. The stones of which they are formed are black, thick,
durable, and composed of a large portion of earth, intermixed and
cemented with a small quantity of sand and a considerable proportion
of talk (talc) or quartz. These stones are almost invariably regular
parallelopipeds of unequal sizes in the wall, but equally deep and
laid regularly in ranges over each other like bricks, each breaking and
covering the interstice of the two on which it rests; but though the
perpendicular interstice be destroyed, the horizontal one extends
entirely through the whole work. The stones are proportioned to the
thickness of the wall in which they are employed, being largest in the
thickest walls. The thinner walls are composed of a single depth of the
parallelopiped, while the thicker ones consist of two or more depths.
These walls pass the river at several places, rising from the water's
edge much above the sandstone bluffs, which they seem to penetrate;
thence they cross in a straight line, on either side of the river, the
plains, over which they tower to the height of from ten to seventy feet,
until they lose themselves in the second range of hills. Sometimes they
run parallel in several ranges near to each other, sometimes intersect
each other at right angles, and have the appearance of walls of ancient
houses or gardens."

The wall-like, cany