1 8 A Recent Visit to America. 



ties, they made an early start for a long day's drive through the 

 forest to the Grand Canon of the Yellowstone. The forest 

 consisted mainly of young trees. In some parts there were 

 miles of space covered with the black stems of trees, the result 

 of forest fires, while the surface underneath was covered with 

 young trees a foot or two high. Their coachman was invaluable 

 in these long drives, of a class one rarely meets with at home. 

 He was familiar with English literature, and full of curiosity as 

 to England and the mode of life there. He had a capital tenor 

 voice, and they asked him to sing the American National 

 Anthem. He struck up the air of '' God Save the Queen" to 

 words which were new to them, and which, he thought, were 

 little known in this country. He would give them the first 

 verse : — 



" My country, 'tis of thee, 

 Sweet land of liberty, 



Of thee I sing. 

 Land where my fathers died — 

 Land of the pilgrims' pride — 

 From every mountain side 



Let freedom ring." 



They all joined in a hearty chorus, recognising in such an 

 apostrophe to liberty wedded to our own national air, another 

 tie of sympathy between the American people and the mother 

 country, which has been the parent of liberty in its best and 

 broadest sense. Although very tired when they reached the 

 tents near the Grand Canon, they started off to the Falls. The 

 Yellowstone was a considerable river, and the height of the 

 lower fall is 350 ft., more than double that of Niagara. The 

 Grand Canon, of which many people spoke with the greatest 

 rapture, surpassed anything he had seen of rugged scenery. A 

 canon is a water course of immense depth. In Colorado and 

 Wyoming there is so little rain that the river banks are not, 

 as in this country, worn to an easy slope, but are so precipitous 

 that they cannot be climbed. In Yellowstone Canon they 

 could not get even half way down to the river, but, standing on 

 a projecting point, they saw the river below, with steep cliffs 

 rising to a height of some 1,200 feet on either si4e. The rocks 



