sian rug. Hence both sides of the canon present successive
miles of Oriental tapestry. Moreover, every passing cloud works
here almost a miracle; for all the lights and shades that follow one
another down this gorge vary its tints as if by magic, and make of it
one long kaleidoscope of changing colors.

[Illustration: BELOW THE UPPER FALLS.]

[Illustration: MILES OF COLORED CLIFFS.]

Nor are these cliffs less wonderful in form than color. The substance
of their tinted rocks is delicate. The rain has, therefore, plowed
their faces with a million furrows. The wind has carved them like a
sculptor's chisel. The lightning's bolts have splintered them, until,
mile after mile, they rise in a bewildering variety of architectural
forms. Old castles frown above the maddened stream, a thousand times
more grand than any ruins on the Rhine. Their towers are five hundred
feet in height. Turrets and battlements, portcullises and
draw-bridges, rise from the deep ravine, sublime and inaccessible;
yet they are still a thousand feet below us! What would be the effect
could we survey them from the stream itself, within the gloomy
crevice of the canon? Only their size convinces us that they are
works of Nature, not of Art. Upon their spires we see a score of
eagles' nests. The splendid birds leave these at times, and swoop
down toward the stream; not in one mighty plunge, but gracefully, in
slow, majestic curves, lower and lower, till we can follow them only
through a field-glass, as they alight on trees which look to us like
shrubs.

[Illustration: TEMPLES SCULPTURED BY THE DEITY.]

But many of these forms are grander than any castles. In one place is
an amphitheatre. Within its curving arms a hundred thousand people
could be seated. Its foreground is the emerald river; its
drop-curtain the radiant canon wall. Cathedrals, too, are here, with
spires twice as high as those which soar above the minster of
Cologne. Fantastic gargoyles stretch out from the parapets. A hundred
flying buttresses connect them with the mountain side. From any one
of them as many shafts shoot heavenward as statues rise from the
Duomo of Milan; and each of these great canon shrines, instead of
stained glass windows, has walls, roof, dome, and pinnacles, one mass
of variegated color. The awful grandeur of these temples, sculptured
by the Deity, is overpowering. We feel that we must worship here. It
is a place where the Finite prays, the Infinite hears, and Immen