of dragging the heavy canoes is very painful, yet the men bear it with great patience and good humour.  Once the rope of one of the periogues, the only one we had made of hemp, broke short, and the periogue swung and just touched a point of rock which almost overset her.  At nine miles we came to a high wall of black rock rising from the water’s edge on the south, above the cliffs of the river:  this continued about a quarter of a mile, and was succeeded by a high open plain, till three miles further a second wall two hundred feet high rose on the same side.  Three miles further a wall of the same kind about two hundred feet high and twelve in thickness, appeared to the north:  these hills and river cliffs exhibit a most extraordinary and romantic appearance:  they rise in most places nearly perpendicular from the water, to the height of between two and three hundred feet, and are formed of very white sandstone, so soft as to yield readily to the impression of water, in the upper part of which lie imbedded two or three thin horizontal stratas of white freestone insensible to the rain, and on the top is a dark rich loam, which forms a gradually ascending plain, from a mile to a mile and a half in extent, when the hills again rise abruptly to the height of about three hundred feet more.  In trickling down the cliffs, the water has worn the soft sandstone into a thousand grotesque figures, among which with a little fancy may be discerned elegant ranges of freestone buildings, with columns variously sculptured, and supporting long and elegant galleries, while the parapets are adorned with statuary:  on a nearer approach they represent every form of elegant ruins; columns, some with pedestals and capitals entire, others mutilated and prostrate, and some rising pyramidally over each other till they terminate in a sharp point.  These are varied by niches, alcoves, and the customary appearances of desolated magnificence:  the allusion is increased by the number of martins, who have built their globular nests in the niches and hover over these columns; as in our country they are accustomed to frequent large stone structures.  As we advance there seems no end to the visionary enchantment which surrounds us.  In the midst of this fantastic scenery are vast ranges of walls, which seem the productions of art, so regular is the workmanship:  they rise perpendicularly from the river, sometimes to the height of one hundred feet, varying in thickness from one to twelve feet, being equally broad at the top as below.  The stones of which they are formed are black, thick, and durable, and composed of a large portion of earth, intermixed and cemented with a small quantity of sand, and a considerable proportion of talk or quartz.  These stones are almost invariably regular parallelipeds of unequal sizes in the wall, but equally deep, and laid regularly in ranges over each other like bricks, each breaking and covering the interstice of the two on which it rests:  but though the perpendicular interstice be destroyed,