"That desolate land and lone,
Where the Big Horn and Yellowstone
Roar down their mountain path."
We had passed Bad Lands in the night. I cannot pretend to describe what I did not see, but I am told that this extraordinary bit of country is in itself worth coming from England to see; there is nothing else in the world like it. One writer tells me that "it owes its singular appearance to the combined action of fuel and water, which have assisted to produce the most fantastic forms and startling contrasts of colours that the most disordered imagination could conceive."
"BAD LANDS."
Mr. E. V. Smalley thus describes it:—
"The change in the scene is so startling, and the appearance of the landscape so wholly novel and so singularly grotesque, that you rub your eyes to make sure that you are not dreaming of some ancient geologic epoch, when the rude, unfinished earth was the sport of Titanic forces, or fancying yourself transported to another planet. Enormous masses of conglomerate—red, grey, black, brown, and blue, in towers, pyramids, peaks, ridges, domes, castellated heights—occupy the face of the country. In the spaces between are grassy, lawn-like expanses, dotted with the petrified stumps of huge trees. The finest effect of colour is produced by the dark red rock—not rock in fact, but actual terra-cotta, baked by the heat of underlying layers of lignite. At some points the coal is still on fire, and the process of transforming mountains of blue clay into mountains of pottery may be observed from day to day. It has been going on for countless ages, no doubt. To bake one of these colossal masses may have required 10,000 years of smouldering heat. I despair of giving any adequate idea of the fantastic forms of the buttes or of the wonderful effects of colour they offer. The pen and brush of a skilful artist would alone be competent for the task. The photographer, be he never so deft with his camera and chemicals, only belittles these marvellous views. He catches only bare outlines, without colour, and colour is the chief thing in the picture. He cannot get the true effect of distance, and his negatives show only staring blacks and whites in place of the infinite variations of light and shadow effects in valleys and gorges and hollows, and upon crags and pinnacles. Look, if you can, by the feeble aid of written words, upon a single butte, and see how impossible it is to photograph it satisfactorily. It rises from a carpet of green grass. Its base has a bluish hue, and appears to be clay solidified by enormous pressure. It is girdled by bands of light grey stone and black lignite coal. Its upper portion is of the rich red colour of old Egyptian pottery. Crumbled fragments strew its sides. Its summit, rising 300 feet above the plain, has been carved by the elements into turrets, battlements, sharp spires, grotesque gargoyles, and huge projecting buttresses—an amazing jumble of weird architectural effects, that startle the eye with suggestions of intelligent design. Above, the sky is wonderfully clear and blue, the rays of the setting sun spread a rosy tint over the crest, and just above its highest tower floats a little flame-coloured cloud like a banner. When I say there are thousands of these buttes, the reader will perceive that the Bad Lands of the Little Missouri are a region of extraordinary interest to the tourist and artist."
I had done my best to keep awake; I really thought I had done so for hours, and I know that I peeped out of my bed many times during the night, but nothing but the dim broad everlasting prairie met my gaze—so I must have fallen asleep just as we were passing through this interesting region, to my great disappointment. I was told by those who had been more wakeful, that they could see the lignite coal a-fire,—fire which has for countless ages been baking these rocks into actual terra-cotta. I was inclined to question the exactness of this statement. Smoke may doubtless be seen; and when I am told by a man that he has lighted a cigar at a hole in the rock the existence of fire can be no longer questioned.
We were told by the guide-books to expect to see hereabouts, herds of buffalo, deer, and elk,—in fact, we have only seen a few prairie dogs, and these looked comical enough as they stood bolt upright on their little hillocks, with their fore-paws hanging down before them. They only wanted a stick in their arms to look like soldiers on guard.