We descended the long ladder leading into the ravine, and were soon below the reach of the moonlight, which came slant as yet, and only rimmed the black wall above us with a long strip of white, which, where the wavy line of moss and creepers ran into it, resembled the edging of lace upon a velvet coat in a dark old Flemish picture. The water in this part of the gulf quite fills up the chasm, and rolls, even by day-light, in a black and sullen stream between the bare cliffs which frown over it. The only path here is a giddy ledge, half way up the precipice, which is passed with the aid of a chain run along the rock; and, as we stood on this, looking over into the uncertain darkness below, with the murmur of the far-down and invisible current ascending faintly to our ears, and the light of heaven ceasing so far above us, it seemed to us not an inapt image of the infernal river. We crept on till we came to the foot of the principal Fall, and sat down on the platform below, to wait the gradual descent of the moon. The mist over the Fall began to show like a film of gauze waving in the air; the sharp angles and crevices in the precipice caught the light one by one, and soon the whole upper ravine was illuminated, while through the gorge below the stream still made its way darkly and solemnly to the outlet. No pencil, no language, can describe the splendour with which the moon drew her light across the face of the Fall. The other objects in the ravine drank her beams soberly, and gave back only their own calm outlines to the eye; but, from this wall of waters, every spray-drop gave back a diamond—every column of the descending element, a pillar of silver. If there were gates to fairy-land opening from this world of ours, and times when they are visible and recognizable by the chance passing eye of man, I should have believed that we had fallen on the hour, and that some inner and slowly opening portal was letting the brightness of a fairy world through these curtains of crystal. [Illustration] VIEW FROM MOUNT HOLYOKE. * * * * *