232 AMKRICAN FISHES. 



dred yards distant, the daik liiiicstouo rocks rose sheer and precipitoiis 

 from the very brink of the stream, rifted and broken into angular 

 blocks and tall columnar masses, from the clefts of which, wherever 

 they could find soil enough to support their scanty growth, a few 

 stunted oaks shot out almost horizontally with their gnarled arms and 

 dark-green foliage, and here and there the silvery bark and quivering 

 tresses of the birch relieved the monotony of color by their gay bright- 

 ness. Above, the cliifs were crowned with the beautiful purple hea- 

 ther, now in its very glow of summer bloom, about which were buzzing 

 myriads of wild bees, sipping th -ir nectar from its cups of amethyst. 



" The hither side, though rough and steep and broken, was not in 

 the place where Jasper stood pi-ocipitous ; indeed it seemed as if at 

 some distant period a sort of landslip had occurred, by which the 

 summit of the rocky wall had been broken into massive fragments, and 

 hurled down in an inclined plane into the bed of the stream, on which 

 it had encroach(^d with its shattered blocks and rounded boulders. 



" Time, however, had covered all this abrupt and broken slope with 

 a beautiful growth of oak and hazel coppice, among which, only at dis- 

 tant intervals, could the dun weather-beaten flanks of the great stones 

 be discovered. 



" At the base of this descent, a hundred and fifty feet perhaps below 

 the stand of the yoiing sportsman, flowed the dark arrowy stream-^a 

 wild and perilous water. As clear as crystal, yet as daik as the brown 

 eairn-gorm, it came pouring down among the broken rocks with a 

 rapidity and force which showed what must be its fury when swollen 

 by a storm among the mountains, here breaking into wreaths of rip- 

 pling foam where some unseen ledge chafed its current, there roaring 

 and surging white as December's snow among the great round-headed 

 rocks, and there again wheeling in sullen eddies, dark and deceitful, 

 round and round some deep rock-rimmed basin. 



" Here and there, indeed, it spread out into wide, shallow, rippling 

 rapids, filling tlie whole bottom of the ravine from side to side, but 

 more generally it did not occupy above a fourth part of the space 

 below, leaving sometimes on this margin, sometimes on that, broad 

 p;^bbly banks, or slaty ledges, affording an easy footing and a clear 

 path to the aii'jrler in its troubled waters. 



" After a rapid glance over the well-known scene, Jasper plunged 



