Page:The Columbia River - Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery Its Commerce.djvu/400

306 slippery verge, and sounds like voices, trampling of armies, clatter of innumerable hoofs, rattling of artillery, all the grandeur and frenzy of conflict, seem to rise from that wild gorge. Now the mist eddies forth and blurs the vision, and then falls back, and that dazzling bow hangs there unmarred. The bridge of Iris or Heimdall, we say,—but no; it is no more a bridge, it is a perfect circle, the symbol of eternity. The symbol also of peace, for eternity is peace. That mist-hung bow becomes to us an emblem of the harmony of all jarring sounds and discordant forces. And so with that bow of peace swaying behind us, and the deep thunder fading in musical diminuendo, we pass on to the next wonder; and this is not far, for every mile brings its special revelation.

Time forbids that we pause for more than one added scene on the Stehekin, and this is the Horseshoe Basin, thirty miles up the river. This is in the upper cañon. Imagine yourself perched upon a granite pinnacle, looking possibly a little anxiously for bear in the thick copses at its bases, for this is said to be the greatest bear region in the country, but soon lifting your eyes to the heights on either side. Six thousand feet deep is that stupendous gorge. On the south side you see the "castled crags," glacier-crested, while on the north, Horseshoe Basin stands revealed. A long line of dark-red minarets, at whose foot stretches two miles of glistening and twisted ice, then below that a great terrace, vivid green with spring foliage, and over it falling a perfect symposium of waterfalls, if we may be allowed such an expression. Twenty-one falls and cataracts all in one view. They vary in descent from two hundred to two thousand