On the Gascon side of the great mountains there had been running
streams, meadows, forests, and little nestling villages. Here, on
the contrary, were nothing but naked rocks, poor pasture, and
savage, stone-strewn wastes. Gloomy defiles or barrancas
intersected this wild country with mountain torrents dashing and
foaming between their rugged sides. The clatter of waters, the
scream of the eagle, and the howling of wolves the only sounds
which broke upon the silence in that dreary and inhospitable
region.
Through this wild country it was that Sir Nigel and his Company
pushed their way, riding at times through vast defiles where the
brown, gnarled cliffs shot up on either side of them, and the sky
was but a long winding blue slit between the clustering lines of
box which fringed the lips of the precipices; or, again leading
their horses along the narrow and rocky paths worn by the
muleteers upon the edges of the chasm, where under their very
elbows they could see the white streak which marked the _gave_
which foamed a thousand feet below them.
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