Imagination carried
me back to Thebes, to Palmyra, and the Edomite Paetra, and I could not
help imagining that I was wandering among their ruins.
Our passage out of this chasm was effected with the greatest difficulty.
We were obliged to carry our rifles and saddle-bags in our hands, and,
in clambering up a steep precipice, Roche's horse, striking his shoulder
against a projecting rock, was precipitated some fifteen or twenty feet,
falling upon his back. We thought he must be killed by the fall; but,
singular enough, he rose immediately, shook himself, and a second effort
in climbing proved more successful. The animal had not received the
slightest apparent injury.
Before evening we were safely over, having spent five or six hours in
passing this chasm. Once more we found ourselves upon the level of the
prairie, and after proceeding some hundred yards, on looking back, not a
sign of the immense fissure was visible. The waste we were then
travelling over was at least two hundred and fifty miles in width, and
the two chasms I have mentioned were the reservoirs, and at the same
time the channels of escape for the heavy rains which fall upon it
during the wet season.
This prairie is undoubtedly one of the largest in the world, and the
chasm is in perfect keeping with the size of the prairie.
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