. American scenery. asms, and is rejoicing to findhimself once more on the open sun-lit prairie, when, withoutthe slightest intimation in tree or shrub of a change in themonotonous landscape before him, he finds himself at themouth of a yawning gorge, which exceeded in grandeur any-thing he had yet beheld. One by one, he says, we left the double-file ranks, andlost in amazement, rode up to the verge of the terrible depth, it could not be less than eight hundred feet, wasfrom three to five hundred yards in width, and at the pointwhere we first struck it, the sides were nearly perpendic
. American scenery. asms, and is rejoicing to findhimself once more on the open sun-lit prairie, when, withoutthe slightest intimation in tree or shrub of a change in themonotonous landscape before him, he finds himself at themouth of a yawning gorge, which exceeded in grandeur any-thing he had yet beheld. One by one, he says, we left the double-file ranks, andlost in amazement, rode up to the verge of the terrible depth, it could not be less than eight hundred feet, wasfrom three to five hundred yards in width, and at the pointwhere we first struck it, the sides were nearly sickly sensation was felt by all as we looked down, as itwere, into the depths of the earth. In the dark and narrowvalley below, an occasional spot of green relieved the eye, anda small stream of water now rising to the view, then sinkingbeneath some huge rock, was foaming and bubbling walls, columns, and, in some places, what appearedto be arches_ were seen standing, modelled by the wear of the. k \ THE FAR WEST. 187 ?water, undoubtedly, yet so perfect in form that we could withdifficulty be brought to believe that the hand of man hadnot fashioned them. The rains of centuries falling upon ourimmense prairies had here formed a reservoir, and their work-ings upon the different veins of earth and stone had madethese strange and fanciful shapes. Before reaching the chasm, we had crossed numerouslarge trails leading a little more to the west than we weretravelling ; and the experience of the previous day had ledus to suppose that they all terminated at a common crossingnear by. In this conjecture we were not disappointed, for atrot of half an hour brought us into a large road, the tho-roughfare, along which millions of Indians, buffaloes, andmustangs had evidently travelled for years. Perilous as thedescent appeared, we well knew that there was no other leading mule was again urged forward, the steadier andolder horses were next driven over the sides,
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Keywords: ., bookauthorrichards, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1850, bookyear1854
