Sometimes we crossed
great and sparkling rivers and sometimes we wended through gorges and
passes of the mountains, but every hour we mounted higher, till at
length the climate became like that of England, only far more bright. At
last on the eighth day we passed through a gorge riven in the red rock,
which was so narrow in places that three horsemen could scarcely have
ridden there abreast. This gorge, that is five miles long, is the high
road to the City of Pines, to which there was no other access except by
secret paths across the mountains, and on either side of it are sheer
and towering cliffs that rise to heights of between one and two thousand
feet.
'Here is a place where a hundred men might hold an army at bay,' I said
to Otomie, little knowing that it would be my task to do so in a day to
come.
Presently the gorge took a turn and I reined up amazed, for before me
was the City of Pines in all its beauty. The city lay in a wheelshaped
plain that may measure twelve miles across, and all around this plain
are mountains clad to their summits with forests of oak and cedar trees.
At the back of the city and in the centre of the ring of mountains is
one, however, that is not green with foliage but black with lava, and
above the lava white with snow, over which again hangs a pillar of smoke
by day and a pillar of fire by night.
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