Page:Extracts from the letters and journals of George Fletcher Moore.djvu/127

 Rh in my bosom. I was sorry for it, and buried it. Set out on our expedition southward, the party consisting of Mr. Dale, Mr. Thompson, myself, and Sheridan, mounted on horses in rather an odd way. Those which Sheridan and I had were without saddles, which had been left behind; we had for substitutes our cloaks doubled under us, with rope stirrups, and in this way we rode 300 miles! Mr. Dale's horse was the only one properly equipped. Mr. Thompson rode his own horse, which had a pad on him: and each of us carried his proportion of provisions as well as his clothes, in saddle bags or other contrivances, with his gun slung across his shoulder. We passed over a beautiful country for seven miles, and halted during the middle of the day in a picturesque valley, in which we saw a singular cavern, which had been discovered the preceding year; it is a large mass of granite, forming the abrupt side of a hill on one part of the valley, and appearing as if the outer side wall of the cave had fallen away, and had left its length exposed; its extreme end is a round figure, supposed to represent the sun, with the impressions of open hands round it. It appeared to us as if the rock had been covered with reddish pigment, and that the impressions had been formed by the friction of a stone on the rock. The roof is covered with what looks like the remains of broken swallows' or hornets' nests. This cave is supposed to have