The cañon wall rises sheer from the water's edge on the south, but on the opposite side there is sufficient space and sunshine for a sedgy daisy garden, the center of which is brilliantly lighted with lilies, castilleias, larkspurs, and columbines, sheltered from the wind by leafy willows, and forming a most joyful outburst of plant-life keenly emphasized by the chill baldness of the onlooking cliffs.

The wadi Janus was a deep slit in the ground with sides of clay falling almost sheer to the stony bottom.

The walls of these park valleys of the Yosemite kind are made up of rocks mountains in size, partly separated from each other by narrow gorges and side-cañons; and they are so sheer in front, and so compactly built together on a level floor, that, comprehensively seen, the parks they inclose look like immense halls or temples lighted from above.

she called, shuddering at the thought of the perilous descent of nearly three, hundred feet, sheer through the darkness.

The vertical curves and angles of the most precipitous torrents he traces with the same rigid fidelity, swooping down the inclines of cascades, dropping sheer over dizzy falls amid the spray, and ascending with the same fearlessness and ease, seldom seeking to lessen the steepness of the acclivity by beginning to ascend before reaching the base of the fall.

" A sudden and broad sheer of the boat caused him to turn to the left, and then they whirled round an angle of the precipice, and found themselves in a reach of the river, between steep declivities, running at right angles to their former course.

Sometimes the road ran along the edge of rocky gorges, dropping sheer for hundreds of feet below, with a great mountain wall on the other hand rising sheer above us.

They number many heads in that hard flock, Trim swordsmen they push forth, yet try thy steel; Thou, fighting for poor human kind, shalt feel The strength of Roland in thy wrist to hew A chasm sheer into the barrier rock, And bring the army of the faithful through.

Sometimes it slipped along the horse and tightened with a bang, for the clumsy hulk sheered about.

He looked at the gloomy walls that rose a thousand feet sheer above the circling pines around him; at the sky, ominously clouded; at the valley below, already deepening into shadow.

Then came a long ridge, a spine from which the world dropped almost sheer on both sides, with the wind raging so that it seemed Buck must be blown off his feet, or the girl torn from the saddle and borne far out like a thistledown.

When they reached the Vicarage gate he sheered off the path and held out his hand.

" "Yes, Massa," replied Tom, sheering out of the way of the upraised whip; "but it peers like Massa's watch be leetle bit faster dan de sun dis ere mornin'.

I have seen men look sheer at Death with far less fear.

He saw crowds of people standing before the little stalls where the merchants spread brocades, stiff satins, heavy gold cloth, shimmery velvet, delicate veiling, and laces as sheer as a spider's web.

The summit-cannon plunge their flame Sheer down the primal wall, But up and up each linking troop In stretching festoons crawl Nor fire a shot.

He had risen above the foothills and the more laborious slopes of the Eagles lifted at angles sheer and more sheer towards the top.

Raoul then whispered a few words to Ithuel, when, the boat being by this time far enough ahead, he gave it a sheer alongside of the ship, seized a man-rope, and went up the cleets as actively as a cat.

It would seem that there was some design on the part of the ship in coming so near, for she made a sheer toward the yawl in a way to frighten the timid helmswoman and to induce her to relinquish her hold of the tiller.