We passed within; and while a moment before there had
not even been hills, we could now see nothing but gorge,
chasm, rock, cliff, precipice, crag, and peak. For a mile
and a half the Pierre-Lis defile exhibits these marvels.
The road is now on a shelf overhanging the foamy Aude,
now is overhung in turn by a bulging precipice, and now
pierces a solid buttress that endeavors to bar the way
completely. Then one passes a few miles of green valley
with farmhouses and villages, leaves picturesque Axat
behind, and enters the defile of St. Georges.

THE WALL OF THE PYRENEES (From Memory).

What shall I say of this? My vocabulary of nouns is
already exhausted and adjectives are unworthy. Here
the volcanic forces of our planet have bowed themselves
like Samson in the temple of the Philistines. In a bit of
stone I counted eleven alternate layers of black and white
--calcite and chlorite--in half an inch of thickness. The
mountain has been seized and broken squarely in two,
and the ends rise vertically about a quarter of a mile
above the pinched river and the narrowed highway.
When the drifting clouds gathered about the summits and

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