It was a weird, rugged spot, covered with great boulders that had rolled down the hill-sides, and with gaps and chasms here and there of considerable depth, that suggested the idea of volcanic action having visited the place at some remote period. These chasms or rents in the earth were overgrown with trees or bushes in many places, and obliged the travellers to make wide detours in some places to avoid them.
R. M. Ballantyne (24 April 1825 - 8 February 1894) was a Scottish juvenile fiction writer.
Born Robert Michael Ballantyne in Edinburgh, he was part of a famous family of printers and publishers. At the age of 16 he went to Canada and was six years in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company. He returned to Scotland in 1847, and published his first book the following year, Hudson's Bay: or, Life in the Wilds of North America. For some time he was employed by Messrs Constable, the publishers, but in 1856 he gave up business for the profession of literature, and began the series of adventure stories for the young with which his name is popularly associated.
(Illustrated)
