106 PASTORAL DAYS. 



on looking at it, that originally it might have been a respectable-looking 

 tree, but that in some rude storm in its early clays it had been struck by 

 lightning, torn up by the roots, and afterward had taken root at the top. 

 The tupelo, whenever seen, is always one of our most picturesque trees, 

 and a never-failing source of surprise, twisting and turning into some 

 unheard-of shape, and seeming always to say, " There ! beat that if you 

 can !" Near the coast it assumes the form of a crazy Italian pine, with 

 spindling trunk and massive head of foliage. Sometimes it divides in the 

 middle, like an hour-glass, and again mimics a fir-tree in caricature ; but 

 he who would keep track of the acrobatic capers of the tupelo would 

 have his hands full. Whatever its shape, however, its brilliant, glossy 

 crimson foliage forms one of the most striking features of our October 

 landscape. 



But I believe we were on the road to that carcling-mill. We had 

 almost forgotten it ; and now, as we look ahead, we see the old lumber- 

 shed that marks the upper ledge of Devil's Hollow. From this old shed 

 • a trout-brook plunges through a series of rocky terraces, now winding 

 among prostrate moss-grown trunks, now gurgling through the bare roots 

 of great Avhite birches, or spreading in a swift, glassy sheet as it pours 

 across some broad shelving rock, and plunges from its edge in a filmy 

 water-fall. It roars pent up in narrow canons, and out again it swirls in 

 a smooth basin worn in the solid rock. At almost every rod or two 

 along its precipitous course there is a mill somewhere hid among the 

 trees — queer, quaint little mills, some built up on high stone walls, oth- 

 ers fed with trickling flumes which span from rock to rock, supporting 

 on every beam a rounded cushion of velvety green moss, and hanging 

 a fringe of ferns from almost every crevice. And one there is in ruins, 

 fallen from its lofty perch, and piled in chaos in the stream. There are 

 saw-mills, and shook-mills, and carding-mills, seven altogether in this one 

 descent of about three hundred feet. The water enters the ravine as 

 pure as crystal ; but in its wild booming through race-ways, dams, and 

 water-wheels, it gradually assumes a rich sienna hue from the debris of 

 sawdust everywhere alono; its course. The interior of the ravine is 

 musical with the trebles of the falling water and the accompaniment of 

 the rumbling mills. Tiny rainbows gleam beneath the water-falls, and 

 swarms of glistening bubbles and little islands of saffron-colored foam 

 float away upon the dark-brown eddies. 



At last we reach the cardine-mill, which is the lowest of them all — in 



