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saw, in full view, the most beautiful cascade, perhaps, in the world. It issued from a mountain on the right, about eight hundred feet above the subjacent valley, and at the distance of about two miles from us. The stream ran over a series of rocks almost perpendicular, with a course so little broken as to preserve the appearance of a uniform current, and yet so far disturbed as to be perfectly white. The sun shone with the clearest splendor from a station in the heavens the most advantageous to our prospect; and the cascade glittered down the vast steep like a stream of burnished silver.

At the distance of three-quarters of a mile from the entrance we passed a brook known in this region by the name of the Flume, from the strong resemblance to that object exhibited by the channel which it has worn for a considerable length in a bed of rocks, the sides being perpendicular to the bottom. This elegant piece of water we determined to examine further, and, alighting from our horses, walked up the acclivity perhaps a furlong. The stream fell from a height of two hundred and forty or two hundred and fifty feet over three precipices; the second receding a small distance from the front of the first, and the third from that of the second. Down the first and second it fell in a single current; and down the third in three, which united their streams at the bottom in a fine basin, formed by the hand of nature in the rocks immediately beneath us. It is impossible for a brook of this size to be modelled into more diversified or more delightful forms, or for a cascade to descend over precipices more happily fitted to finish its beauty. The cliffs, together with a level at their foot, furnished a considerable opening, surrounded by the forest. The sunbeams, penetrating through the trees, painted here a great variety of fine images of light, and edged an equally numerous and 41*

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diversified collection of shadows; both dancing on the waters, and alternately silvering and obscuring their course. Purer water was never seen. Exclusively of its murmurs, the world around us was solemn and silent. Everything assumed the character of enchantment; and had I been educated in the Grecian mythology I should scarcely have been surprised to find an assemblage of Dryads, Naiads, and Oreades sporting on the little plain below our feet. The purity of this water was discernible not only by its limpid appearance and its taste, but from several other circumstances. Its course is wholly over hard granite; and the rocks and the stones in its bed and at its side, instead of being covered with adventitious substances, were washed perfectly clean, and by their neat appearance added not a little to the beauty of the

scenery..

From this spot the mountains speedily began to open with increased majesty, and in several instances rose to a perpendicular height little less than a mile. The bosom. of both ranges was overspread, in all the inferior regions, by a mixture of evergreens with trees whose leaves are deciduous. The annual foliage had been already changed by the frost. Of the effects of this change it is, perhaps, impossible for an inhabitant of Great Britain, as I have been assured by several foreigners, to form an adequate conception without visiting an American forest. When I was a youth I remarked that Thomson had entirely omitted, in his Seasons, this fine part of autumnal imagery. Upon inquiring of an English gentleman the probable cause of the omission, he informed me that no such scenery existed in Great Britain. In this country it is often among the most splendid beauties of nature. All the leaves of trees which are not evergreens are by the first severe frost changed from their verdure towards the perfection

of that color which they are capable of ultimately assuming, through yellow, orange, and red, to a pretty deep. brown. As the frost affects different trees, and the different leaves of the same tree, in very different degrees, a vast multitude of tinctures are commonly found on those of a single tree, and always on those of a grove or forest. These colors also, in all their varieties, are generally full, and in many instances are among the most exquisite which are found in the regions of nature. Different sorts of trees are susceptible of different degrees of this beauty. Among them the maple is pre-eminently distinguished by the prodigious varieties, the finished beauty, and the intense lustre of its hues; varying through all the dyes. between a rich green and the most perfect crimson, or, more definitely, the red of the prismatic image.

There is, however, a sensible difference in the beauty of this appearance of nature in different parts of the country, even where the forest trees are the same. I have seen no tract where its splendor was so highly finished as in the region which surrounds Lancaster for a distance of thirty miles. The colors are more varied and more intense; and the numerous evergreens furnish, in their deep hues, the best groundwork of the picture.

I have remarked that the annual foliage on these mountains had been already changed by the frost. Of course, the darkness of the evergreens was finely illumined by the brilliant yellow of the birch, the beech, and the cherry, and the more brilliant orange and crimson of the maple. The effect of this universal diffusion of gay and splendid light was to render the preponderating deep green more solemn. The mind, encircled by this scenery, irresistibly remembered that the light was the light of decay, autumnal and melancholy. The dark was the gloom of evening, approximating to night. Over the whole the

azure of the sky cast a deep, misty blue, blending, toward the summits, every other hue, and predominating over all.

As the eye ascended these steeps, the light decayed, and gradually ceased. On the inferior summits rose crowns of conical firs and spruces. On the superior eminences, the trees, growing less and less, yielded to the chilling atmosphere, and marked the limit of forest vegetation. Above, the surface was covered with a mass of shrubs, terminating, at a still higher elevation, in a shroud of dark-colored moss.

As we passed onward through this singular valley, occasional torrents, formed by the rains and dissolving snows at the close of winter, had left behind them, in many places, perpetual monuments of their progress, in perpendicular, narrow, and irregular paths of immense length, where they had washed the precipices naked and white, from the summit of the mountain to the base.

Wide and deep chasms also at times met the eye, both on the summits and the sides, and strongly impressed the imagination with the thought that a hand of immeasurable power had rent asunder the solid rocks and tumbled them into the subjacent valley. Over all, hoary cliffs, rising with proud supremacy, frowned awfully on the world below, and finished the landscape.

By our side, the Saco was alternately visible and lost, and increased almost at every step by the junction of tributary streams. Its course was a perpetual cascade, and with its sprightly murmurs furnished the only contrast to the majestic scenery around us.

SONG OF THE REDWOOD-TREE.

WALT WHITMAN.

[We can only say of Walt Whitman's poetry that it is never likely to become popular. Its lack of rhyme and rhythm reduces it to the form of prose, above which its poetical power seldom elevates it. It is frequently a rhapsody, without beginning, middle, or end, and, though full of imaginative fervor, and with many passages of fine power, there is an apotheosis of the grosser bodily element, and a lack of the spiritual element of thought. The poem we quote has a deeper and more elevating significance than is usual with the author, and if judiciously pruned might take high rank in the poetic world. Walt Whitman was born in 1819, at West Hills, Long Island.]

A CALIFORNIA song,

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A prophecy and indirection, a thought impalpable to breathe as air,

A chorus of dryads, fading, departing, or hamadryads departing,

A murmuring, fateful, giant voice, out of the earth and sky,

Voice of a mighty dying tree in the redwood forest dense.

Farewell, my brethren,

Farewell, O earth and sky, farewell, ye neighboring waters, My time has ended, my term has come.

Along the northern coast,

Just back from the rock-bound shore and the caves,

In the saline air from the sea, in the Mendocino country, With the surge for bass and accompaniment low and hoarse,

With crackling blows of axes sounding musically, driven by strong arms,

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