This was another
exciting feat; for, among all the varied experiences of mountaineers,
the crossing of boisterous, rock-dashed torrents is found to be one of
the most trying to the nerves. Yet these fine fellows walked fearlessly
to the brink, and jumped from boulder to boulder, holding themselves in
easy poise above the whirling, confusing current, as if they were doing
nothing extraordinary.
[Illustration: CROSSING A CANON STREAM.]
In the immediate foreground of this rare picture there was a fold of
ice-burnished granite, traversed by a few bold lines in which rock-ferns
and tufts of bryanthus were growing, the gray canon walls on the sides,
nobly sculptured and adorned with brown cedars and pines; lofty peaks in
the distance, and in the middle ground the snowy fall, the voice and
soul of the landscape; fringing bushes beating time to its
thunder-tones, the brave sheep in front of it, their gray forms slightly
obscured in the spray, yet standing out in good, heavy relief against
the close white water, with their huge horns rising like the upturned
roots of dead pine-trees, while the evening sunbeams streaming up the
canon colored all the picture a rosy purple and made it glorious.
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