24 CANADIAN NIGHTS 



moisture on the hills. The sun draws up fresh 

 moisture from the valleys, like drawing water 

 from a well. All nature seems seething in that 

 region of heat and cold, sunshine and tempest, 

 dryness and damp, constantly fabricating those 

 great cloud masses that, breaking away from their 

 cradle, carry rain and fertility over thousands and 

 thousands of miles. Sometimes they over-exert 

 themselves, carry their good intentions too far, 

 exceed their proper limits, and, transgressing the 

 boundaries of their native land, cross the wide 

 Atlantic and pour their accumulated store of rain 

 upon those already sodden little islands. Great 

 Britain and Ireland. 



The parks and valleys which spread out beneath 

 the mountains, or nestle cosily amid the warm 

 folds of the forest mantles which clothe them, 

 play also an important part. They act as reser^ 

 voirs ; they catch the little, tiny, ice-cold rills 

 that trickle out from under the ever-melting but 

 never-melted snow, gather them together, hold 

 them till they grow strong enough to carve their 

 way through the granite flanks that hem them in, 

 and launch them out into the world, forming 

 rivulets bright and sparkling, flecked with light 

 and shade, over which the quivering aspen bends 



