t of the region which
they were about to traverse. For several miles the landscape was rolling;
then came elevated plateaux rising in successive steps, the most remote
being apparently sixty miles away; and the colossal scene was bounded by
isolated peaks, at a distance which could not be estimated with anything
like accuracy. Ranges, buttes, pinnacles, monumental crags, gullies,
shadowy chasms, the beds of perished rivers, the stony wrecks left by
unrecorded deluges, diversified this monstrous, sublime, and savage
picture. Only here and there, separated by vast intervals of barrenness,
could be seen minute streaks of verdure. In general the landscape was one
of inhospitable sterility. It could not be imagined by men accustomed only
to fertile regions. It seemed to have been taken from some planet not yet
prepared for human, nor even for beastly habitation. The emotion which it
aroused was not that which usually springs from the contemplation of the
larger aspects of nature. It was not enthusiasm; it was aversion and
despair.

Clara gave one look, and then drew her hat over her eyes with a shudder,
not wishing to see more. Aunt Maria, heroic and constant as she was or
tried to be, almost lost faith in Coronado and glanced at him
suspiciously. Thurstane, sitting bolt upright in his saddle, stared
straight before him with a grim frown, meanwhile thinking of Clara.
Coronado's eyes were filmy and incomprehensible; he was planning,
querying, fearing, almost trembling; when he gave the word to advance, it
was without looking up. There was a general feeling that here before them
lay a fate which could only be met blindfold.

Now came a long descent, avoiding precipices and impracticable slopes,
winding from one stony foot-hill to another, until the party reached what
had seemed a plain. It was a plain because it was amid mountains; a plain
consisting of rolls, ridges, ravines, and gullies; a plain with hardly an
acre of level land. All day they journeyed through its savage interstices
and struggled with its monstrosities of trap and sandstone. Twice they
halted in narrow valleys, where a little loam had collected and a little
moisture had been retained, affording meagre sustenance to some thin grass
and scattered bushes. The animals browsed, but there was nothing for them
to drink, and all began to suffer with thirst.

It was seven in the evening, and the sun had already gone down behind the
sullen barrier of a gigantic plat