y that I had ever seen or heard
of. It was situated in a kind of basin about eight miles wide by about
twenty-two miles long, hemmed in on every side by precipitous mountains,
and approached through one of the weirdest, wildest, and most
forbiddingly picturesque gorges that it is possible for the mind of man
to imagine. A mountain torrent foamed and raged over a rocky bed
through this gorge into the basin, and finally discharged itself into a
gloomy tarn, about two miles wide by three and a half miles long, which
occupied the whole of the lower or northern end of the valley. A wide,
straight road ran lengthwise through the valley from end to end, and was
intersected, at intervals of about a mile, by cross roads, between which
the whole of the valley was under cultivation, except for a patch of
about five miles long adjoining the tarn, one-third of which was pasture
land, while the remainder was devoted to the raising of hay, four crops
of which were cut every year. A road, with which the intersecting roads
communicated, ran right round the valley, at the base of the precipitous
mountain slopes which formed the sides of the basin, and from it other
roads zigzagged up the slopes to the very summit.

These zigzag roads gave access to the rock dwellings honeycombing the
mountains, the sculptured entrances to which were clearly discernible
through the variegated colours that splashed the slopes, these
variegated colours being due to the fact that the mountain slopes had
been terraced from base to summit, filled with earth where required, and
converted into gardens and fruit orchards.

The industrial portion of the city was situated at the northern end of
the valley, the prevailing wind here being from the south; thus the
smoke of the factory furnaces was carried away out of the valley at its
northern end, which obviated all nuisance. The population of Masakisale
numbered fully twenty thousand, according to Pousa; and I afterward had
reason to believe that he was very far within the mark, for I roughly
estimated that there must be nearly that number of dwellings in the
valley, and they would accommodate, on an average, at least four persons
each. There appeared to be nearly or quite five thousand people at work
in the fields when we entered the valley, assisted by some forty or
fifty elephants, which seemed to be employed here and there in ploughing
up the land and preparing it for a new crop. There was also a
conside