the towering volcanic mass that I have already described. It is quite
impossible for me to describe its grim grandeur as it appeared to me
while my patient bearers toiled along the bed of the ancient watercourse
towards the spot where the rich brown-hued cliff shot up from precipice
to precipice till its crown lost itself in a cloud. All I can say is
that it almost awed me by the intensity of its lonesome and most solemn
greatness. On we went up the bright and sunny slope, till at last the
creeping shadows from above swallowed up its brightness, and presently
we began to pass through a cutting hewn in the living rock. Deeper
and deeper grew this marvellous work, which must, I should say, have
employed thousands of men for many years. Indeed, how it was ever
executed at all without the aid of blasting-powder or dynamite I cannot
to this day imagine. It is and must remain one of the mysteries of that
wild land. I can only suppose that these cuttings and the vast caves
that had been hollowed out of the rocks they pierced were the State
undertakings of the people of Kôr, who lived here in the dim lost
ages of the world, and, as in the case of the Egyptian monuments, were
executed by the forced labour of tens of thousands of captives, carried
on through an indefinite number of centuries. But who were the people?

At last we reached the face of the precipice itself, and found ourselves
looking into the mouth of a dark tunnel that forcibly reminded me of
those undertaken by our nineteenth-century engineers in the construction
of railway lines. Out of this tunnel flowed a considerable stream of
water. Indeed, though I do not think that I have mentioned it, we had
followed this stream, which ultimately developed into the river I have
already described as winding away to the right, from the spot where
the cutting in the solid rock commenced. Half of this cutting formed a
channel for the stream, and half, which was placed on a slightly higher
level--eight feet perhaps--was devoted to the purposes of a roadway. At