e is perfectly smooth. Far
across it is a dark-blue serried line of mountains. Houses, twenty miles
distant, stand out white in the last light of the sun. From the
tin-covered spire of a church far away, the flash of the rays comes back
like the glow of fire. Standing in shadow we look out on a realm of
light:

"As when the sun prepared for rest
Hath gained the precincts of the West,
Though his departing radiance fail
To illuminate the hollow vale,
A lingering light he fondly throws
On the fair hills, where first he rose."

The shore is strangely silent; one hears only the occasional puffing of
the white whale or the sad cry of the loon.

A thrilling diversion is that of running the rapids in the Murray River.
The canoe is sent up by _charette_ and after luncheon it is a walk or
drive of eight or nine miles up the river to the starting point--a deep,
dark-brown pool, which soon narrows into a swift rapid, the worst in all
the stretches to the river's mouth. Formerly a procession of half a
dozen canoes would go through the rapid with light hearts, but, long
ago, when the river was very high, a canoe upset here and one of its
occupants was never seen alive again. As one paddles out into the pool
and is drawn into the dark current moving silently and swiftly to the
rapid the heart certainly beats a little faster. The water's surface is
an inclined plane as it flows over the ledge of rock. Straight ahead the
current breaks on a huge black rock in a cloud of white foam. One must
sweep off to the right, with the great volume of the water, and need
catch only a little spray in swinging safely past the danger point.
Then, in the waves caused by the current, before the canoe is quite
turned "head-on" a wave may curl over the bow and leave the occupants
kneeling in half an inch of water. In such a case it is wise to land and
empty the canoe. In the next rapid, a tangled maze, the water is shallow
and skill is required to wind in and out among the rocks and find water
enough to keep afloat. Then the canoe slips over a ledge with plenty of
water and the only care is to curve sharply to the left with the current
before it strikes the bank straight ahead. The whole trip down the river
occupies two glorious hours. There are short stretches of smooth and
deep water; then the river contracts and pours with impetuous swiftness
down a rocky slope. Sometimes trees stand close to the river; then there
are bare g