only the somber forest, the naked ledge. While 

 this tramping over trails hardens the muscles, it 

 toughens also the sinews of the mind. One has 

 mountain thoughts as well as mountain air. The 

 single drop of aboriginal blood tingles in the veins, 

 while the tendency is strong to revert to the wild 

 and to a more rude and savage life. There is 

 experienced some furtive desire, as of a wild 

 animal, to scurry away into these grim ravines, or 

 to leap from crag to crag with the bighorn, — 

 presumably a sort of mountain madness, which is 

 dispelled on the descent to the village. 



Who can hear the wild song of the ouzel and 

 not feel an answering thrill ? Perched upon a rock 

 in the midst of the rapids, he is the incarnation 

 of all that is untamed, a wild spirit of the moun- 

 tain stream, as free as a rain-drop or a stmbeam. 

 How solitary he is, a lone little bird, flitting from 

 rock to rock through the desolate gorge, like some 

 spirit in a Stygian world. Yet he sings continually 

 as he takes his solitary way along the stream, and 

 bursts of melody, so eery and sylvan as to fire the 

 imagination, come to the ear, sounding above the 

 roar of the torrent. Like Orpheus, he seeks in 

 the nether world of that wild gorge for his 

 178 



