he light green grass covers meadow-lands on
the Quango, which here and there glances out in the sun as it wends its
way to the north. The opposite side of this great valley appears like a
range of lofty mountains, and the descent into it about a mile, which,
measured perpendicularly, may be from a thousand to twelve hundred feet.
Emerging from the gloomy forests of Londa, this magnificent prospect
made us all feel as if a weight had been lifted off our eyelids. A cloud
was passing across the middle of the valley, from which rolling thunder
pealed, while above all was glorious sunlight; and when we went down
to the part where we saw it passing, we found that a very heavy
thunder-shower had fallen under the path of the cloud; and the bottom
of the valley, which from above seemed quite smooth, we discovered to be
intersected and furrowed by great numbers of deep-cut streams. Looking
back from below, the descent appears as the edge of a table-land, with
numerous indented dells and spurs jutting out all along, giving it a
serrated appearance. Both the top and sides of the sierra are covered
with trees, but large patches of the more perpendicular parts are bare,
and exhibit the red soil, which is general over the region we have now
entered.

The hollow affords a section of this part of the country; and we find
that the uppermost stratum is the ferruginous conglomerate already
mentioned. The matrix is rust of iron (or hydrous peroxide of iron and
hematite), and in it are imbedded water-worn pebbles of sandstone and
quartz. As this is the rock underlying the soil of a large part of
Londa, its formation must have preceded the work of denudation by an
arm of the sea, which washed away the enormous mass of matter required
before the valley of Cassange could assume its present form. The strata
under the conglomerate are all of red clay shale of different degrees of
hardness, the most indurated being at the bottom. This red clay shale
is named "keele" in Scotland, and has always been considered as an
indication of gold; but the only thing we discovered was that it had
given rise to a very slippery clay soil, so different from that which
we had just left that Mashauana, who always prided himself on being an
adept at balancing himself in the canoe on water, and so sure of foot on
land that he could afford to express contempt for any one less gifted,
came down in a very sudden and undignified manner, to the delight of all
whom he had p