If
A Curse Had Been Pronounced Upon The Land It Could Not Have Worn An
Aspect Of More Dreary And Forlorn Barrenness.
There were abrupt
broken hills, deep hollows, and wide plains; but all alike glared
with an insupportable whiteness under the burning sun.
The country,
as if parched by the heat, had cracked into innumerable fissures and
ravines, that not a little impeded our progress. Their steep sides
were white and raw, and along the bottom we several times discovered
the broad tracks of the terrific grizzly bear, nowhere more abundant
than in this region. The ridges of the hills were hard as rock, and
strewn with pebbles of flint and coarse red jasper; looking from
them, there was nothing to relieve the desert uniformity of the
prospect, save here and there a pine-tree clinging at the edge of a
ravine, and stretching out its rough, shaggy arms. Under the
scorching heat these melancholy trees diffused their peculiar
resinous odor through the sultry air. There was something in it, as
I approached them, that recalled old associations; the pine-clad
mountains of New England, traversed in days of health and buoyancy,
rose like a reality before my fancy. In passing that arid waste I
was goaded with a morbid thirst produced by my disorder, and I
thought with a longing desire on the crystal treasure poured in such
wasteful profusion from our thousand hills. Shutting my eyes, I more
than half believed that I heard the deep plunging and gurgling of
waters in the bowels of the shaded rocks.
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