"[All water courses], from the inch-deep streamlet that crosses the village land in trembling clearness to the massy and silent march of the Amazon and the Ganges, owe their play and power to the ordained elevations of the earth; [to] paths prepared for them by which at some appointed rate of journey they must evermore descend, sometimes slow and sometimes swift, but never pausing, the gateways of guarding mountains opened for them in cleft and chasm, and from afar off the great heart of the sea calling them to itself." That's a poetic way of putting it, but it's a fact nevertheless. II. The Human Nature in Rivers There's a lot of human nature in rivers. To begin with, as we might suppose, they do the most playing and the least work when they are young. Brooks will be brooks, you know! What pretty ways they have in babyhood! Kissing the pebbles, crooning, bubbling, chattering, playing, they are big Mississippis or great oceans that, like Homer's ocean river, flow around the world. Their bubbles are ships, sometimes wrecked on dreadful headlands along the shores. THE CHANT OF THE WATERFALLS Waterfalls are found only in young streams and more often as you near the source. Older streams have worn down their beds more nearly to a level and, as we all know, more rivers begin among the mountains and highlands than in the lower lands. In the mountain regions there are plenty of rocks and cliffs to jump from, and the rivers, you may be sure, make the most of their opportunities. At such falls as the Bridal Veil they jump so far they are turned into white cascades, and as you climb the cliff beside them and feel the wind wafting spray in your face you hear the music of their songs. The more or less regular dash of the water as it swings back and forth in the wind gives that chanting sound described in waterfall poetry. [Illustration: "BROOKS WILL BE BROOKS, YOU KNOW!" Our baby river of the meadow seems to be playing it has a Niagara Falls of its own, "Rock of Ages" and all! See the "huge mass" of rock at the foot of the falls; and the rapids? ] Like children these dancing, singing rivers love pictures and color. You see that in the rainbow tints of the spray as the sunlight strikes the air bubbles the waterfall "blows"; in the green of its waters turned to gray in the foam; in the reflections of mountain, sky, and cloud in the smooth stretches below the falls. And, like pebbles and other little people, rivers love to play in the rain. My! What a time! In a storm, with a gray flood pouring from the sky, you hear, mingled with the voice of wind and rain, the swash and gurgle of the eddies as the river goes along in its dance, wild with the joy of it all. In a mountain stream during a heavy rain, with wind, you can also hear the waves dashing against the rocks along the shore or in the stream, and the smothered, bumping, rumbling made by the boulders on the bottom knocking against each other. STORM CHORUS OF THE MOUNTAIN TORRENTS