The pass on our left appeared the more propitious and seemed to offer a possible route to the summit of the divide. We were anxious to get a view into the valley beyond, even though it were but for a few moments. The unknown regions on the other side of the pass had long been for me a favorite pleasure-ground of the imagination. Some fate had hitherto denied us any idea of the place beyond the vaguest suggestions. Several ascents, or partial ascents, of mountains on all sides of this unknown valley, had revealed the outlines of the surrounding mountains, but some intervening cliff or mountain range had always, with persistent and exasperating constancy, shut off all but the most unsatisfactory glimpses. Starting from these substantial foundations of reality, my imagination had built up a wide circular valley, surrounded on all sides by curious mountains of indefinite and ever changing outline and position. The picture always appeared in a gloomy, weird light, as though under a cloudy sky, or while the sun was near totally eclipsed. By some curious analogy, this faint illumination was similar to that which we always associate with the first creation of land and water; or far back in the geologic ages, when strange and hideous reptiles,—some flying in the murky air, some creeping amid the swampy growths of cycads, calamites, and gigantic tree ferns,—excite a strange thrill of pleasure and awe combined, as though the soul were dimly perceiving some new revelation of the universe, though but vaguely. In this weird, gloomy valley I wandered careless, in my imagination, many days and at many times, among forests infested by strange, wild animals, harmless like those of Eden, and by the shores of ever new, ever changing lakes and rivers.
So strong had this picture become that I felt the most intense anxiety to succeed in reaching the top of our pass, and gain at length a view of the reality, even at the risk of shattering these pleasant air castles, and annihilating, in a single instant, one of my best mental pleasure-grounds.