mb to the
summit of the Paunsa'gunt Plateau, which rises above us on the east. Our
way for a mile or more is over a great peat bog, which trembles under
our feet, and now and then a mule sinks through the broken turf and we
are compelled to pull it out with ropes. Passing the bog, our way is up
a gulch at the foot of the Pink Cliffs, which form the escarpment, or
wall, of the great plateau. Soon we leave the gulch and climb a long
ridge which winds around to the right toward the summit of the great
table.

Two hours' riding, climbing, and clambering bring us near the top. We
look below and see clouds drifting up from the south and rolling
tumultuously toward the foot of the cliffs beneath us. Soon all the
country below is covered with a sea of vapor--a billowy, raging,
noiseless sea--and as the vapory flood still rolls up from the south,
great waves dash against the foot of the cliffs and roll back; another
tide comes in, is hurled back, and another and another, lashing the
cliffs until the fog rises to the summit and covers us all. There is a
heavy pine and fir forest above, beset with dead and fallen timber, and
we make our way through the undergrowth to the east.

It rains. The clouds discharge their moisture in torrents, and we make
for ourselves shelters of boughs, only to be soon abandoned, and we
stand shivering by a great fire of pine logs and boughs, which the
pelting storm half extinguishes.

One, two, three, four hours of the storm, and at last it partially
abates. During this time our animals, which we have turned loose, have
sought for themselves shelter under the trees, and two of them have
wandered away beyond our sight. I go out to follow their tracks, and
come near to the brink of a ledge of rocks, which, in the fog and mist,
I suppose to be a little ridge, and I look for a way by which I can go
down. Standing just here, there is a rift made in the fog below by some
current or blast of wind, which reveals an almost bottomless abyss. I
look from the brink of a great precipice of more than 2,000 feet; but
through the mist the forms are half obscured and all reckoning of
distance is lost, and it seems 10,000 feet, ten miles--any distance the
imagination desires to make it.

Catching our animals, we return to the camp. We find that the little
streams which come down from the plateau are greatly swollen, but at
camp they have had no rain. The clouds which drifted up from the south,
striking against the