down in a minute; and then we went ashore, and while Moseley photographed the Great Foul Rift, the others plunged into the delicious water, that seemed too peaceful and sweet ever to have been violent and brutal.
Half a mile below the Great Foul Rift, we came to the pastoral scene of the voyage, par excellence. It was ideal and idyllic—sunny and varied as a Watteau painting. It was not great or grand in any way; but simply peaceful, pastoral, lovely.
It was a sloping hillside, of two or three farms, rising from the river. There were low-roofed homesteads, smothered in soft domestic-looking foliage. A round-arched stone bridge spanned a stream in the foreground. Cows and horses stood in the shadow of the trees in the fields, and a drove of cows stood in the river, the reflection as distinct as the cow—like Herrick's swans, that "floated double—swan and shadow." Dark woods framed the scene on both sides and on top, children's voices at play filled the air, and a dog barked joyously, joining in some romping game.
We laid our paddles on the canoes in front of us, and floated a full mile through the lovely picture. It can never be forgotten. In its quiet way, nothing equalled it on the whole river.
"Photograph the place," I said to Moseley.
