The precipitous walls, two hundred feet in height, bear
a faithful record of the energy of circling floods; but instead of
frowning, as some good people persistently accuse all noble heights of
doing, they seem to look with conscious pride towards the windings of
the great rough chasm, where every available spot has been seized on as
a homestead for some form of vegetation. All the great, dark rock masses
that interfere with easy progress along the lowest depth, were
surrounded by a feathery setting of blooming white agaratum; and each
turn in the winding course reveals new charms of rock and verdure with
their varying lights and shadows until the crowning glory is reached at
the Natural Bridge, about twelve hundred feet from the upper end of the
canon. This bridge is magnificent. It was impossible to secure
photographs because the abrupt curve by which it is approached gave no
point of view for a small camera; and it was equally impossible to reach
desirable points for taking measurements, but the open arch is not less
than twenty feet wide and considerably more than that in height. From
the floor or bed of the Gulf to the road that crosses the bridge is more
than two hundred feet. The passage under the bridge makes a curve, the
shortest side of which measures exactly two hundred and nineteen feet,
and as the width varies from twenty to forty feet, the other side is
longer.
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