The first view of the Devil's Canon is obtained from one of these desolate hills. At our very feet, fully two thousand feet below, seemingly a sheer descent, rises a little column of smoke or vapor, and the opposing hills, which rise abruptly to the height of a thousand feet, seem cleft by a narrow chasm, the sides of which and the neighboring hillside seem to have been burnt over by fire, and baked of many colors, like the neighborhood of an old brick kiln. Any one who has seen the island of St. Helena will at once recognize it as the same phenomenon which is famous in the 'Hangings,' the blasted precipice by the side of Longwood Farm, overhanging the valley which Napoleon chose for his last resting place. This striking similarity is all the more worthy of note from its occurring there in a purely volcanic island, every inch of which is decomposed or crumbling lava or lava rock. At the 'Hangings' the soil has the appearance of having been slowly roasted, long after the central fires which produced the island had lost their energy. Descending the mountain we find ourselves on the brink of a precipice, overhanging a turbulent stream about two hundred feet below, and facing the ravine or canon, which contains these wonders, and which is smoking incessantly throughout its entire length. Just at this commanding point a hotel has been erected, from the portico of which in the early morning we can watch the grand columns of vapor opposite, before they are shorn of a portion of their splendor by the rising sun. It is possible to walk the entire length of the ravine, surrounded by jets of steam, and little bubbling springs of mineral water; some hissing, some sputtering, others roaring, and others shrieking; the ground being soft and hot, your stick sinking into the clayey ooze, and a puff of spiteful steam following it as withdrawn; your shoes white or yellow, as you tread the chalk or the sulphur banks, and your feet burning with the hot breath of the sulphur blasts below. If you are not stifled by the sulphur fumes above, be thankful; and when at last you reach the 'Mountain of Fire' at the head of the ravine, and look back upon the perils of your upward journey, you think of poor Christian in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Bunyan in his dreams never imagined a more horrible place. It is a vale of wonders--Nature's laboratory, where chemistry is to be studied. The name and number of the springs is 'legion,' Hot Sulphur, Warm Sulphur, Blue Sulphur, White Sulphur, Alum, Salt, and nobody knows all the mineral compounds. You may stand with one foot in a cold bath and another in a hot one--if you can. With one hand you may dip up alum water, as bitter and pure as chemistry can compound it, and with the other sulphur water, that shall sicken your very soul. If you have rheumatism, bathe in the splendid sulphur baths or the Indian Spring; if your eyes are weak, use the eye-water, which beats any ever charmed by magical incantations.