THE HALCYON IN CANADA 227 



tain that astonished more than it delighted the look- 

 ers-on. The pilot took us close around the base of 

 the precipice that we might fully inspect it. And 

 here my eyes played me a trick the like of which 

 they had never done before. One of the boys of 

 the steamer brought to the forward deck his hands 

 full of stones, that the curious ones among the pas- 

 sengers might try how easy it was to throw one 

 ashore. "Any girl ought to do it," I said to my- 

 seK, after a man had tried and had failed to clear 

 half the distance. Seizing a stone, I cast it with 

 vigor and confidence, and as much expected to see 

 it smite the rock as I expected to live. "It is a 

 good while getting there, " I mused, as I watched its 

 course: down, down it went; there, it will ring 

 upon the granite in half a breath ; no, down — into 

 the water, a little more than half way ! " Has my 

 arm lost its cunning ? " I said, and tried again and 

 again, but with like result. The eye was completely 

 at fault. There was a new standard of size before 

 it to which it failed to adjust itself. The rock is 

 so enormous and towers so above you that you get 

 the impression it is much nearer than it actually is. 

 When the eye is full it says, "Here we are," and 

 the hand is ready to prove the fact ; but in this case 

 there is an astonishing discrepancy between what the 

 eye reports and what the hand finds out. 



Cape Eternity, the wife of this colossus, stands 

 across a chasm through which flows a small tributary 

 of the Saguenay, and is a head or two shorter, as be- 

 comes a wife, and less rugged and broken in outline. 



