dually ascending plain, from a mile to
a mile and a half in extent, when the hills again rise abruptly to the
height of about three hundred feet more. In trickling down the cliffs,
the water has worn the soft sandstone into a thousand grotesque figures,
among which with a 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
allusion is increased by the number of martins, who 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
equally broad at the top as below. The stones of which they are formed
are black, thick, and durable, and composed of a large portion of earth,
intermixed and cemented with a small quantity of sand, and a
considerable proportion of talk or quartz. These stones are almost
invariably regular parallelipeds 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 too 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 paralleliped, 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
seven