Anything more lonesome and depressing it were impossible to conceive.

Not a tree, not a shrub, not a blade of grass nor any green thing; neither running stream nor gleam of water could be seen.

It was a region in which the blessed rain of heaven had not fallen for untold ages, a region of desolation and death, of naked peaks, rugged precipices, and rocky ravines.

The heat from the overhead sun, intensified by the reverberations from the great masses of rock around us, and unrelieved by the slightest breath of air, was well-nigh suffocating.
Into this plutonic realm we plunged, and, after a scorching ride, reached the head of a pass which led straight down to the desert.

Here the cacique in command of the detachment told me, rather to my surprise, that we were to part company.