vered with short grass and a few scattered cotton-wood
trees. A large body of Indians had encamped on this very spot but a few
days previous; the _blazed_ limbs of the trees and other "signs" shewing
that they had made it a resting-place. We, too, halted a couple of
hours to give our horses an opportunity to graze and rest themselves.
The trail which led up to the prairie on the opposite side was
discovered a short distance above us to the south.

As we journeyed along this chasm, we were struck with admiration at the
strange and fanciful figures made by the washing of the waters during
the rainy season. In some places, perfect walls, formed of a reddish
clay, were to be seen standing; in any other locality it would have been
impossible to believe but that they had been raised by the hand of man.
The strata of which these walls were composed was regular in width,
hard, and running perpendicularly; and where the softer sand which had
surrounded them had been washed away, the strata still remained,
standing in some places one hundred feet high, and three or four hundred
in length.

Here and there were columns, and such was their architectural
regularity, and so much of chaste grandeur was there about them, that we
were lost in admiration and wonder. In other places the breastworks of
forts would be plainly visible, then again the frowning turrets of some
castle of the olden time. Cumbrous pillars, apparently ruins of some
mighty pile, formerly raised to religion or royalty, were scattered
about; regularity and perfect design were strangely mixed up with ruin
and disorder, and nature had done it all. Niagara has been considered
one of her wildest freaks; but Niagara falls into insignificance when
compared with the wild grandeur of this awful chasm. Imagination
carried me back to Thebes, to Palmyra, and the Edomite Paetra, and I
could not help imagining that I was wandering among their ruins.

Our passage out of this chasm was effected with the greatest difficulty.
We were obliged to carry our rifles and saddle-bags in our hands, and,
in clambering up a steep precipice, Roche's horse, striking his shoulder
against a projecting rock, was precipitated some fifteen or twenty feet,
falling upon his back. We thought he must be killed by the fall; but,
singular enough, he rose immediately, shook himself, and a second effort
in climbing proved more successful. The animal had not received the
slightest apparent injury.