The hills which enclosed it were equally impracticable, and it was utterly useless to try to get horses over them.

The view to the west was gratifying, for the ranges appeared to run on in undiminished height in that direction, or a little north of it.

From the face of several of the hills climbed to-day, I saw streams of pure water running, probably caused by the late rains.

One hill I passed over I found to be composed of puddingstone, that is to say, a conglomeration of many kinds of stone mostly rounded and mixed up in a mass, and formed by the smothered bubblings of some ancient and ocean-quenched volcano.

The surface of the place now more particularly mentioned had been worn smooth by the action of the passage of water, so that it presented the appearance of an enormous tessellated pavement, before which the celebrated Roman one at Bognor, in Sussex, which I remember, when I was a boy, on a visit to Goodwood, though more artistically but not more fantastically arranged, would be compelled to hide its diminished head.