CHAP. VII - DROUGHT AND LIGHT

Summary

About a mile to the south of our station, along; the descending slope, was a curving ridge of rocks, the mouldering rim of a small crater; and interesting, from the rare feature of verticality in some parts of its exterior. Just in front of it, was apparently, a road across the mountain; the “road of the Guanche kings,” we felt inclined to name it. Not a bush or rock was there visible, and the sides were bordered or marked out, by large blocks at short intervals. But then who would make so grand a line for traffic through desolate parts of the mountain, when there were only mule paths in the cultivated regions; a line too, from 100 to 150 feet broad, and leading only from a precipice on the west, over a barren and stony ridge, to another precipice on the east?

We went down to examine the place; and as soon as we arrived on the seeming road—a tract sure enough cleared of all large obstacles—we at once began to sink in over our ankles, in a gravel of yellow and brown stones, of remarkably small specific gravity, and acting almost like a quicksand. The change was startling, after the rock-firm surface of Guajara; and tracing the line both ways, we found neither more nor less, than these symptoms of a danger of sinking in.