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Show THE STONE WALLS----NOTE FROM POEPPIG S TRAVELS. 235 Mountains. The Fur Company had not a single interpreter for this language, though great pains had been taken to procure one. The Indians who had passed the night near our vessel returned very early, on the 6th of August, to their camp, that they might be able to travel in one day to Fort Me Kenzie. The night, which was very cool, had passed over quietly, and we had every reason to be satisfied with the behaviour of this numerous band of Indians, for few other tribes would have conducted themselves so peaceably and moderately on a similar occasion. This, it is true, was for their own interest, since they had hitherto been sufferers from the bad reputation which they had among the Whites. At break of day the weather was extremely cool and disagreeable; the thermometer at half-past seven was only at 58°, and a bleak wind prevailed, which enabled us to use our sails. The part of the country called The Stone Walls, which now opened before us, has nothing like it on the whole course of the Missouri; and we did not leave the deck for a single moment the whole forenoon. Lewis and Clarke have given a short description of this remarkable tract, without, however, knowing the name of Stone Walls, which has since been given it. In this tract of twelve or fifteen miles, the valley of the Missouri has naked, moderately high mountains, rounded above, or extending like ridges, with tufts of low plants here and there, on which the thick strata* of whitish coarse-grained friable sand-stone, which extends over all this country, are everywhere visible. As soon as we have passed Judith River this white sand-stone begins to stand out in some places, till we have passed Bighorn River, and entered the narrower valley of the Stone * Similar sand-stone strata are said to occur in other parts of North America; and, in South America, Poeppig seems to have met with them, as he describes them in the following passage :-" Towards noon we approached the highest point on this road, the Alto de Lacchagual (4718 metres, according to Rivero). We were much struck with the sand-stone rocks, which we approached about the halfway of the journey, after having already seen them ever since the morning, in different directions before us. As isolated masses, of the most varied forms, they extend in rows along the ridge of the far-stretching chain of hills, and form, in many places, really gigantic walls. Low groups, probably only broken fragments, lie scattered irregularly around, but high, apparently regular pillars rise far above them in the distance, that look partly like basalt, for which they are taken at Lima ; partly like works constructed by art. By their symmetrical arrangement they sometimes seem to be the ruins of an immensely large building; at others, appear like large regular quadrangles with square gates, between what seem to be high bastions. The form of the inverted cone occurs here as among the rocks at Adersbach, only the proportions must be conceived as suitable to the Andes, for many of these dark pillars are, undoubtedly, several hundred feet high. The eye exerts itself in vain to discover the termination of these stony columns. They vanish at a great distance in the north-west, between similar lines, which appear to meet them at a certain angle. At one place only we approached them close enough to be able to examine at least the lowest fragments; we saw, however, little more than a very soft, coarse sand-stone, of a whitish colour, which has become black only by the action of the air, and decomposition of the surface. These remarkable groups have no particular name, and no popular tradition is connected with their romantic forms, as in the Hartz. The Peruvian possesses, in this respect, less imagination than the Chileno, who makes something out of every rock, the form of which is unusual; sees a church on the summit of the Andes of Santa Rosa, and, in a lateral valley of the road from Mendoza, fancies that he discovers a palace, and a long procession of monks performing penance."-(Reisebeschreibung, Vol. II. p. 48.) 4 x Hi ¦ |