against the almost black indigo of the
sky, like the broken battlements of a giant ruined fortress. The rays of
the sun heated to white heat one of the sides of the funeral valley, the
other being bathed in that crude blue tint of torrid lands which strikes
the people of the North as untruthful when it is reproduced by
painters, and which stands out as sharply as the shadows on an
architectural drawing.

The valley sometimes made sudden turns, sometimes narrowed into defiles
as the boulders and cliffs drew closer or apart. The thoroughly dry
atmosphere in these climates being perfectly transparent, there was no
aerial perspective in this place of desolation. Every detail, sharp,
accurate, bare, stood out, even in the background, with pitiless
dryness, and the distance could only be guessed at by the smaller
dimensions of objects. It seemed as though cruel nature had resolved not
to conceal any wretchedness, any sadness of this bare land, deader even
than the dead it contained. Upon the sun-lighted cliff streamed like a
cascade of fire a blinding glare like that which is given out by molten
metal; every rock face, transformed into a burning-glass, returned it
more ardent still. These reflections, crossing and recrossing each
other, joined to the flaming rays which fell from heaven and which were
reflected by the ground, produced a heat equal to that of an oven, and
the poor German doctor had hard work to wipe his face with his
blue-checked handkerchief, which was as wet as if it had been dipped in
water.

There was not a particle of loam to be found in the whole valley,
consequently not a blade of grass, not a bramble, not a creeper, not
even a patch of moss to break the uniformly whitish tone of the
torrified landscape. The cracks and recesses of the rocks did not hold
coolness enough for the thin, hairy roots of the smallest rock plant.
The place looked as if it held the ashes of a chain of mountains,
consumed in some great planetary conflagration, and the accuracy of the
parallel was completed by great black strips looking like cauterised
cicatrices which rayed the chalky slopes.

Deep silence reigned over this waste; no sign of life was visible; no
flutter of wing, no hum of insect, no flash of lizard or reptile; even
the shrill song of the cricket, that lover of burning solitudes, was
unheard. The soil was formed of a micaceous, brilliant dust like ground
sandstone, and here and there rose hummocks formed of the