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Show 36 BY PATH AND TRAIL. splendor the mind must become familiar with the genius of the place, recognize the influence of the winds and storms on the sqfter material, perceive the variations of colors, forms and trees, till, expanding with the spirit of the mountains, the soul itself has grown colossal or Till, growing with its growth, we thus dilate Our spirits to the size of that we contemplate. With my Mayo guide I camped that night on the gran ite platform high up on the Gran Barranca. We saw the sun descend behind the great hills, the fleecy clouds, suspended and stationary, take on the colors of the solar spectrum, the stars coming out, and then at one stride came the night. Early next morning we began the de scent to the Valley of the Churches. The path was nar row and steep, around rocks honeycombed with water or eaten into by zoophytes. It twisted here and there, through precipitous defiles, where the jagged spurs and salient angles of the huge cliffs shoved it dangerously near the rim of the precipice. We continued to descend, our path winding around rocky projections, across arroyos formed by running water in the rainy season, skirting the danger line of the abysses, till early in the afternoon when we entered the mesa or table land, where, in a huge basin reposes " La Arroyo de las Iglesias" the vale of the churches. It is a labyrinth of architectural forms, endlessly varied in design, and at times painted in every color known to the palette, in pure transparent tones of marvelous delicacy a shifting diorama of col ors advancing into crystalline clearness or disappearing behind slumberous haze. The foliage had assumed the brilliant colors of sum- |