r as made by a
rapid torrent, and ere long stopped on the edge of a stream fifty feet
wide, which dashed and foamed over the rocks, breaking into eddies, and
agitated pools, falling in foamy cataracts and splashing forward again
with a rollicking freedom that formed one of the prettiest and most
romantic sights on which they had ever looked.

Directly at their feet was a curious formation. By some means at a
remote day, a number of hard stones had been flung downward and given a
spinning motion, which, acting on the softer sandstone beneath, had
begun hollowing it out, as if by the chisel of an engraver. This
strange operation had gone on for years, until a bowl a dozen feet
across and half as deep had been formed. It was almost mathematically
round, very smooth and with a tapering shape to the bottom that made the
resemblance to an enormous punch bowl strikingly accurate.

This formation (which in accordance with the taste prevailing in all
parts of our country, should be christened the "Devil's Punch Bowl"),
was full of limpid water, fed by a slight overflow from above and
overrunning and flowing calmly over the lower rim. In the bottom lay
three stones, looking like cannon balls. These were the tools with which
the stream had carved the Devil's Punch Bowl. Having done their work,
they were resting in the bottom, where they had lain for a period that
could not be guessed.

Out beyond, a thin sheet of the water hung like a transparent curtain
over the edge of the rocks. It was so smooth and unruffled that it
seemed stationary, like a film of glass, but, after striking the stones
below, it broke into foam, whirlpools and eddies, which helped to form
as lovely and picturesque a scene as the most devoted lover of nature
could long to see.

The picture was so pretty indeed that the boys stood for several minutes
lost in admiration. They had never viewed any thing of the kind, and it
was something that would always be a pleasant memory to them.

But, great as was their admiration, there was a startling question that
came to them: how was this interesting stream to be crossed?

In front and up and down the bank, the eyes searched in vain for a ford.
It was idle to think of ferrying themselves over, while the cascades,
pools, eddies and general "upsetting" of a broad deep stream, made its
passage as perilous as that of the rapids nearer home in which the two
had come so near losing their lives.

"There is no possible