FORCE OF THE WATERS. 101 



object that opposed their progress, and rushed in foaming waves among the 

 timber that every where blocked up tlie passage. Presently a slow, heavy 

 motion was perceived in the mass of logs ; one might have imagined that 

 some mighty monster lay convulsively writhing beneath them, struggling 

 with a fearful energy to extricate himself from the crushing weight. As 

 the waters rose, this movement increased ; tlie mass of timber extended 

 in all directions, appearing to become more and more entangled each 

 moment ; the logs bounced against each other, thrusting aside, demers- 

 ing, or raising into the air those with which they came in contact : — it 

 seemed as if they were waging a war of destruction, such as ancient au- 

 thors describe the efforts of the Titans, the foamings of whose wrath 

 might to the eye of the painter have been represented by the angry cur- 

 hngs of the waters, while the tremulous and rapid motions of the logs, 

 which at times reared themselves almost perpendicularly, might by the 

 poet have been taken for the shakings of the confounded and discomfited 

 giants. 



Now the rusliing element filled up the gorge to its brim. The logs, 

 once under way, rolled, reared, tossed and tumbled amid the foam, as 

 they were carried along. Many of the smaller trees broke across, from 

 others great splinters were sent up, and all were in some degree seamed 

 and scarred. Then in tumultuous majesty swept along the mingled 

 wreck, the current being now increased to such a pitch, that the logs as they 

 were dashed against the rocky shores, resounded like the report of dis- 

 tant artillery, or the angry rumblings of the thunder. Onward it rolls, the 

 emblem of wreck and ruin, destruction and chaotic strife. It seemed 

 to me as if I witnessed the rout of a vast army, surprised, overwhelmed, 

 and overthrown. The roar of the cannon, the groans of the dying, and 

 the shouts of the avengers, were thundering through my brain ; and 

 amid the frightful confusion of the scene, there came over my spirit, a 

 melancholy feeling, Avhich had not entirely vanished at the end of many 

 days. 



In a few hours, almost all the timber that had lain heaped in the 

 rocky gorge, was floating in the great pond of the millers ; and as we 

 walked homewards, we talked of the Force of the Waters. 



