f than
performed, and to their dismay, they found themselves reduced to a
walk, by the time they lost sight of the forest whence they started. A
feeling of loneliness now crept involuntarily over them which deepened
by finding the desert bestrewed with bones bleached in the sun, of
those who had probably been lost in this barren waste, and had perished
with hunger and thirst. The mid-day sun now poured its rays on their
unprotected heads, causing a feeling of dizziness, while its glittering
reflection from the sand almost blinded their sight. At sunset, when
about to halt for the night, they caught a faint glimmer of a body
rising against the horizon, brought into relief by the expiring light.
"A forest!" they all shouted joyously at the sight. But, as they were
now fatigued and hungry, and the object ahead, if a forest, was
apparently miles away, they concluded to spend the night where they
were. That night the sand was their bed, the skins they used for
saddles their pillows, and the star-gemmed canopy above their only
covering. At dawn they were again on their march, and as they proceeded
the objects they had seen the night before faint and indistinctly,
became more clearly defined, having the appearance of uneven bodies,
scattered over a considerable extent of territory. In a few hours, they
came to them and found, instead of a forest, a singular mass of rocks,
sometimes rising in smooth perpendicular columns, some of them capped
by a huge flat rock laying as regularly as if placed there by the hand
of mechanical skill, and then again they were thrown down and lay
scattered around as if by some violent throe of nature. Though there
were vast fields of rock, not a shrub, nor any sign of vegetation could
be seen. All was desolate, sand and rock. What struck them as being
very singular about these rocks, was the fact that, they were divided
into two distinct parts, leaving a pathway through them fifty feet
wide, unincumbered by boulder or stones, and which was smooth and even.
Guiding their horses through this defile, which seemed like a portal to
the desert beyond, they could not refrain from the thought that the
hand of man had built here a barrier, to prevent the incursion of some
foe; still these rocks were so massive, rude, and in such gigantic
proportions, it almost set at defiance the supposition that human
agency could have placed them there. Riding further on a few miles,
they came upon the skeleton of an India