A rustic walk with many bridges and stairways has been built
along the chasm, passing all the wild beauty spots in the gorge.
The silvery babble of water passing over rocks, mingled with the
gurgling liquid notes of the woodthrush.
The sides of the canyon in places were vast streets of ferns,
moss and vines, which resembled cataracts of varying shades of
green or great pieces of hanging tapestry inwrought with rare
designs of woodland flowers. We could stay in so romantic a spot
many days, for in a short time we had seen paintings; read
poems, heard the silvery tongues of running brooks, and ringing
texts from the sermons in stone. We only tarried long enough to
pass up the gorge and view Rainbow falls, which drop seventy
feet to the rock below. To the opposite bank from this we made
our way and were amply repaid by a commanding view of the
tumbling waters. The rays of the sun falling upon this sheet of
water produced an exquisite effect. Here from the thick-growing
shrubbery as we watched the amber waters concentrate for their
fall, and break into silken streamers of irised spray, we knew
they had been appropriately named "Rainbow Falls."
We recalled many a cascade among the Alps, where from remote
heights the small avalanches of snowy water form comet-like
streamers of rarest beauty. We saw again the shimmering rainbow
mist of others more remote, whose murmurs died away in the
gloomy depth of some Italian forest.
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