After turning a sharp angle of the mountain,
leaving the cliff abruptly rising to the left from the narrow path, we
descended a ravine worse than any place we had previously encountered,
and we were obliged to dismount, in order to lead our horses up the
steep rocks on the opposite side. On arrival on the summit, a lovely
view burst upon us. The valley of Ellyria was about four hundred feet
below, at about a mile distant. Beautiful mountains, some two or three
thousand feet high, of grey granite, walled in the narrow vale; while
the landscape of forest and plain was bounded at about fifty or sixty
miles' distance to the east by the blue mountains of Latooka. The
mountain of Ellyria was the commencement of the fine range that
continued indefinitely to the south. We were now in the very gorge of
that chain. Below us, in the valley, I observed some prodigious trees
growing close to a Hor (ravine), in which was running water, and the
sides of the valley under the mountains being as usual a mass of debris
of huge detached rocks, were thronged with villages, all strongly
fortified with thick bamboo palisades. The whole country was a series of
natural forts, occupied by a large population.
A glance at the scene before me was quite sufficient;--to fight a way
through a valley a quarter of a mile wide, hemmed in by high walls of
rock and bristling with lances and arrows, would be impossible with my
few men, encumbered by transport animals.
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