WATER BORDERS 



stream gets down from the perennial pas- 

 tures of the snow to its proper level and 

 identity as an irrigating ditch. It slips 

 stilly by the glacier scoured rim of an ice 

 bordered pool, drops over sheer, broken 

 ledges to another pool, gathers itself, 

 plunges headlong on a rocky ripple slope, 

 finds a lake again, reinforced, roars down- 

 ward to a pot-hole, foams and bridles, glides 

 a tranquil reach in some still meadow, 

 tumbles into a sharp groove between hill 

 flanks, curdles under the stream tangles, 

 and so arrives at the open country and 

 steadier going. Meadows, little strips of 

 alpine freshness, begin before the timber- 

 line is reached. Here one treads on a 

 carpet of dwarf willows, downy catkins of 

 creditable size and the greatest economy 

 of foliage and stems. No other plant of 

 high altitudes knows its business so well. 

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