A BED OF BOUGHS. 171 



view, insisted upon holding to our original purpose, 

 which was to go farther up the stream. We passed 

 a clearing with three or four houses and a saw-mill. 

 The dam of the latter was filled with such clear water 

 that it seemed very shallow, and not ten or twelve 

 feet deep, as it really was. The fish were as conspic- 

 uous as if they had been in a pail. 



Two miles farther up we suited ourselves and went 

 into camp. 



If there ever was a stream cradled in the rocks, 

 detained lovingly by them, held and fondled in a 

 rocky lap or tossed in rocky arms, that stream is the 

 Rondout. Its course for several miles from its head 

 is over the stratified rock, and into this it has worn a 

 channel that presents most striking and peculiar feat- 

 ures. Now it comes silently along on the top of the 

 rock, spread out and flowing over that thick, dark- 

 green moss that is found only in the coldest streams ; 

 then drawn into a narrow canal only four or five feet 

 wide, through. which it shoots, black and rigid, to be 

 presently caught in a deep basin with shelving, over- 

 hanging rocks, beneath which the phoebe-bird builds 

 in security and upon which the fisherman stands and 

 casts his twenty or thirty feet of line without fear of 

 being thwarted by the brush ; then into a black, well- 

 like pool, ten or fifteen feet deep, with a smooth, 

 circular wall of rock on one side worn by the water 

 through long ages, or else into a deep, oblong pocket, 

 into which and out of which the water glides without 

 a ripple. 



