The riotous music of the falls, mingling with enraptured cadence of singing birds, swinging branches and rustling leaves overhead would alone charm and enchant the spectator, but the rocks and cliffs and their delicate draperies of ferns and vines outstrip the imagination. The most appropriate time to enter the sink is at the noon hour, when old Sol hangs a bow of richest colors in the falls, when the observer stands in a ray of sunlight that floods the deep, verdant well from the bottom of which he peers upward at the swaying branches of trees that lean over the edge of this strange receptacle. SOME SOUTHERN WRITERS IRWIN RUSSELL By Kate Alma Orgain This poet was born in Port Gibson, Mississippi, and was among the first of the Southern writers to recognize the possibilities of negro dialect and character in poetry and fiction, and to picture in poetry the unique relation between the Southern slave and his master. It is not surprising that there is no general knowledge of this gifted writer, for he passed away after a brief struggle with life, leaving only one collection of poems, which was published after his death by the Century Company, in 1888. Irwin Russell’s grandfather was a Virginian, who moved west to Ohio. Here the father of Irwin was born. He married a New York lady, and going South he settled in Port Gibson, where Irwin and two other children were born. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Irwin’s father cast his lot with the Confederacy, and after the war sent the boy to St. Louis University in St. Louis, conducted by the Jesuit Fathers. Here he became a diligent student, and his young friends called him a “walking encyclopedia.” He also gave evidence of fine mathematical powers. After graduation he returned to Mississippi and began the practice of law. He was in Port Gibson during the yellow fever epidemic in 1878, and he remained through the whole dreadful tragedy of sickness, serving everywhere as needed, a devoted nurse. He never fully rallied from the fearful strain and the harrowing scenes through which he passed, for he was, says W. W. Baskerville, “that rare union of bright mind with frail body through which the keenest appreciation and most exquisite sensibility are developed.” [Illustration: IRWIN RUSSELL] His father, Dr. William Russell, who had also remained in Port Gibson during the scourge, staying nobly at his post of duty, sank under the strain and died. This left young Russell entirely dependent upon himself. Joel Chandler Harris says: “Russell always had warm personal friends from whom he could command everything that affection could suggest.” Going to New York, he took some literary matter to Charles Scribner’s Sons, who received him with great personal kindness and encouraged him to adopt the profession of authorship.