A MOUNTAIN RIVULET. 49 



It was beside such a pool that I paused at last, 

 and seated myself with infinite content. Before 

 me the glen narrowed into a rocky chasm, over 

 which the adventurous trees that clung to the pre 

 cipitous hillsides spread a dense roof of foliage. 

 The dark pool at my feet was full of mysterious 

 shadows and seemed to cover epochs of buried 

 history. As I studied its motionless surface the 

 old medieval legends of black, fathomless pools 

 came back to me, and I felt the air of enchantment 

 stealing over me, lulling my latter-day skepticism 

 into sleep, and making all mysteries rational and 

 all marvels probable. In these silent depths no 

 magical art had ever submerged cities or castles ; 

 on the stillest of all quiet afternoons no muffled 

 echoes, faint and far, float up through the waveless 

 waters. But who knows what shadows have sunk 

 into these sunless depths ; what reflections of 

 waving branches, what siftings of subdued light, 

 what hushed echoes of the forgotten summers that 

 perished here ages ago ? 



In such a place, at such an hour, one feels the 

 most subtle and the most searching spell which Na 

 ture ever throws over those that seek her ; a spell 

 woven of many charms, magical potions, and pow 

 erful incantations. The quiet of the place, awful 

 with the unbroken silence of centuries ; the soft, 

 half light, which conceals more than it discloses ; 

 the retreating trunks of trees interlacing their 

 branches against invasion from light or heat or 



