The beauty of
the locality lay entirely within itself. Innumerable red ridges
ornamented with fig-trees, rising out of green and grassy slopes, met
the eye everywhere to the east, north, and northeast, and the country
between each was just sufficiently timbered to add a charm to the
view. But the appearance of water still was wanting; no signs of it,
or of any basin or hollow that could hold it, met the gaze in any
direction, This alone was wanting to turn a wilderness into a garden.
There were four large mounts in this chain, higher than any of the
rest, including the one I was on. Here we saw a quantity of what I at
first thought were white sea-shells, but we found they were the
bleached shells of land snails. Far away to the north some ranges
appeared above the dense ocean of intervening scrubs. To the south,
scrubs reigned supreme; but to the west, the region for which I was
bound, the prospect looked far more cheering. The far horizon, there,
was bounded by a very long and apparently connected chain of
considerable elevation, seventy to eighty miles away. One conspicuous
mountain, evidently nearer than the longer chain, bore 15 degrees to
the south of west, while an apparent gap or notch in the more distant
line bore 23 degrees south of west.
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