After a time there came emergence into a bare, houseless, almost treeless plain or plateau.

The narrow, little-traveled road went on upon the edge of this, but a bridle-path led into and across the bareness.
Alexander followed it.

Before him, across the waste, sprang cliffs with forest at their feet.

But the waste was wide, and in the sun they showed like nothing more than a burnished, distant wall.

His path would turn before he reached them.