nd put on more steam--and the practical result is the same.

The cliffs bordering the canon, being of a crumbling nature, are known
as the Maraniousques; but usually are called by the Rhone boatmen the
Monkey Rocks--because of the monkeys who dwelt in them in legendary
times and stoned from their heights the passing travellers. It was a
long while ago that the monkeys were in possession--in the time
immediately succeeding the Deluge. During the subsidence of the waters
it seems that the Ark made fast there for the night, just before laying
a course for Ararat; and the monkey and his wife--desperately bored by
their long cooping-up among so many uncongenial animals--took advantage
of their opportunity to pry a couple of tiles off the roof and get away.
The tradition hints that Noah had been drinking; at any rate, their
absence was not noticed, and the Ark went on without them the next day.
By the time that the Deluge fairly was ended, and the Rhone reopened to
normal navigation, a large monkey family was established on the
Maraniousques; and the monkeys thenceforward illogically revenged
themselves upon Noah's descendants by stoning everybody who came along.

Later, the ill-tempered monkeys were succeeded by more ill-tempered men.
In the fighting times the Defile of Donzere was a famous place in which
to bring armies to a stand. Fortifications upon the cliffs entirely
commanded the river; and at the lower end of the Defile the castle and
the walled town of Donzere, capping a defiant little hill-top, commanded
both the river and the plain. Even the most fire-eating of captains were
apt to stop and think a little before venturing into the Defile in those
days.

All of those perils are ended now. The dangers of the river are so shorn
by steam that the shooting of the canon rapids yields only a pleasurable
excitement, that is increased by the extraordinary wild beauty of that
savage bit of nature in the midst of a long-tamed land; and the ramparts
and the castle of Donzere, having become invitingly picturesque ruins,
are as placable remnants of belligerency as are to be found anywhere in
the world. Indeed, as we saw them--with the afternoon sunlight slanting
down in a way to bring out delectably the warm greys and yellows of the
stone-work and to produce the most entrancing effects of
light-and-shade--it was not easy to believe that people had been killing
each other all over them not so very long ago.

[Illustration: THE