and almost carried away by the ants, as peacefully as though he had gone to rest under the canopy of costly state, and lulled with sounds of sweetest melody.  I could not help moralising, as I often stood near him, wondering at his peace and placidity, upon the differences of our mental and physical conditions:  here was one human being, young and strong, certainly, sleeping away the, to me, dreary hours of night, regaining that necessary vigour for the toils of the coming day, totally oblivious of swarms of creeping insects, that not only crawled all over him, but constantly bit into his flesh; while another, who prided himself perhaps too much upon the mental powers bestowed by God upon him, was compelled by the same insects to wander through the whole night, from rock to rock and place to place, unable to remain for more than a moment or two anywhere; and to whom sleep, under such circumstances, was an utter impossibility.  Not, indeed, that the loss of sleep troubles me, for if any one could claim to be called the sleepless one, it would be I—­that is to say, when engaged in these arduous explorations, and curtained by night and the stars; but, although I can do without sleep, I require a certain amount of horizontal repose, and this I could not obtain in this fearful glen.  It was, therefore, with extreme pleasure that I beheld the dawn, and:—­

   “To the eastward where, cluster by cluster,
    Dim stars and dull planets that muster,
    Waxing wan in a world of white lustre,
    That spread far and high.”

No human being could have been more pleased than I at the appearance of another day, although I was yet doomed to several hours more misery in this dreadful gorge.  The pigeons shot last night were covered within and without by ants, although they had been put in a bag.  The horses looked wretched, even after watering, and I saw that it was actually necessary to give them a day’s rest before I ventured with them into the frightful sandhills which I could see intervened between us and the distant ridges.  Truly the hours I spent in this hideous gorge were hours of torture; the sun roasted us, for there was no shade whatever to creep into; the rocks and stones were so heated that we could neither touch, nor sit upon them, and the ants were more tormenting than ever.  I almost cried aloud for the mountains to fall upon me, and the rocks to cover me.  I passed several hours in the marble bath, the only place the ants could not encroach upon, though they swarmed round the edge of the water.  But in the water itself were numerous little fiendish water-beetles, and these creatures bit one almost as badly as the ants.  In the bath I remained until I was almost benumbed by the cold.  Then the sunshine and the heat in the gorge would seem delightful for a few minutes, till I became baked with heat again.  The thermometer stood at 106 degrees in the shade of the only tree.  At three p.m. the horses came up to water.  I was so horrified with the place