A short walk up the village street, a sudden turn to the right, and we stand facing an irregular cleft in a high wall of rock. The first sight is a disappointment. We have come to see a glen, and find the angular mouth of a deep ravine-a cabinet edition of the Colorado cañon. Perhaps the scenery will soften within, however, and the precipitous cliffs give place to grassy slopes and graceful curves, as becomes a proper glen. Climbing the icy stairway at the entrance, we look forward into the cavernous gorge beyond, and begin to appreciate the sly humor of the man who first applied the pastoral name of glen to such a rugged chasm. The joke grows on us as we proceed.

Mile after mile of this "grand, gloomy, and peculiar" passage into the mountain repeats, with infinite variations and sharpest contrasts, scenes of exquisite prettiness and savage grandeur;' here a placid pool; there a thundering waterfall; beyond a ribbon of foam, where the stream tears through a crooked rift in the rock; then a series of rippling cascades, followed by long reaches of still water, so clear and glassy that one seems to look through the slaty bottom into an under-world of fantastic forms, an inverted spiritual counterpart of the wonderful region around and above. Every angle of the overhanging cliff is reproduced, every tree and shrub and dripping fern,-the distance doubled, and the effects of light and shade curiously complicated. Now the stream overspreads a broad channel as level as a pavement; now it rushes through a narrow sluiceway with square-cut sides and polished bottom, or through a long, tortuous rough-hewn gully in the shale; again it sleeps in a chain of oval pools, the

UNDER THE FALL, LOOKING TOWARD THE CATHEDRAL: WATKINS GLEN.

foot-prints of waterfalls long since receded. Sometimes a single well of most pellucid water stands in the middle of a level space, to mark the place of an ancient fall. Through such varying scenes we make our way, one moment creeping along a narrow ledge, water-worn and icy; a minute after climbing steep and slender stairways that cross from cliff to cliff, sometimes in front of, sometimes over, waterfalls that leap fifty or a hundred feet, in one sheer plunge into the black pool below. What magical effects of light and shadow a bright sun might produce here it is impossible to conjecture. Under a cloudy sky, in spite of drizzling rain and slippery walks, we find enough to prove the glen worth a ten days' journey to see.

A longer and steeper climb than ordinary brings us in sight of the Glen House, a

ARTIST'S DREAM: WATKINS GLEN.

welcome resting-place after so fatiguing a scramble. There is only a matronly cat with two half-grown kittens to receive us; but the proprietor himself, had we come "in season," could not have given us a warmer greeting. Poor neglected pets! How they must miss the good times past, when guests were numerous, caresses common, and food abundant.

"There ought to be some one in charge here," says the Executive, starting in search of that somebody. The others tramp up and down the deserted balcony and peer into the empty rooms in a vain search for something to sit on, until the Executive returns with the ancient "superintendent," who leads the way to an inner office where there is a fire. Then he fetches the big register and invites us to append our names

to the long list of visitors from every corner of the globe to view this freak of nature. As we hug the stove, warming our fingers and drying our coats, the Traveled Man searches the column of "remarks" for the opinions of our predecessors touching the character of the Glen. The young ladies are chiefly "delighted;" the young men "drunk," but, happily, that obnoxious word is usually set down by another hand. Brown records, with many flourishes, that the glen is "worth coming to see; Jones, laconically, "big." Miss Smith is "lost in wonder and surprise;" while portly Mrs. Robinson finds it "Uphill Business." In the midst of all these commonplaces one genius is inspired to sing with a perceptible glint of hu

mor :

"Oh the steps that you climb,

And the sights that you see, And the cliffs you wind round, In this wild weird gor-gee, Is something to dream and remember!"

We think we have passed through every variety of miniature cañon scenery that water and rock are capable of forming, but are

assured that the best views are beyond. Pushing on, we find the story true. Days instead of the hours we have at command would be required to enjoy all the surprises this singular place has in store, and a volume instead of a page to convey any adequate idea of them.

"It isn't possible for water to have done all this," the Artist declares as the, Geologist accredits the formation of the gorge to the little stream that flows through it. "No doubt the water has helped; but there must have been an immense fissure in the rocks to begin with."

"Is there any sign of a fissure along the present bottom of the Glen? And how could a fissure make this deep pool,-such as we see under high falls,--here in the middle of a level space? There must have been a fall here; and if so, all the space from this point to that fall, a hundred rods above, must have been filled with rock that has since been cut out. The whole cañon is a chain of such conditions, all going to prove the theory of erosion."

"But if the Glen has been cut out by the stream, why do we not see signs of water

action all along the sides of the cliffs? It is only near the bed of the brook that the rocks are water-worn."

"And there only when the rock is thickbedded. See how the frost is everywhere breaking up the shale and destroying the water-marks at the very edge of the stream. It acts in the same way on the whole face of the cliff. But the solid rock retains its water-marks with considerable persis tence; indeed until the shale is crumbled from below, so that the thick stratum falls from its unsupported weight. There's a worn spot,-there's another, fifty feet above our heads, the curved edge of a pool, once the foot of a fall. I've seen a hundred such since we started. You can see slight traces of water-action on that cliff the stream is undermining. By and by the toppling mass will fall and the signature of the stream will be rubbed out."

The two disputants hurry from under the frowning cliff into a wide amphitheater, where for the first time the Glen walls degenerate into steep hill-slopes. Then they hear the Junior shouting from the summit on the right, "Come up this way!"

Believing that to be the proper way home, the laggards pass the call on to the Jolly Man, who brings up the rear, and start for the face of the hill.

"Rather a steep climb for a man of my build," observes the Jolly Man, doubtfully; "but hold on a minute till I get my breath again, and I'll try it."

Steep indeed the climbers find it, and slippery, and provokingly fenced with briers. At last, however, they reach the summit, with scratched hands and shaky knees, but

EAGLE CLIFF AND FALL HAVANA GLEN.

only to have their self-gratulations cut short by the cruel question

"Why didn't you come by the road?" The Jolly Man gives one look at the nicely graded pathway he might have taken, and doubles up like a jack-knife.

"I shouldn't have cared for the climb," he groans, slowly recovering from his collapse, "if it had been necessary. But-"

Only a look of unutterable disgust can give expression to his feelings.

"But where's the Executive, and the Quiet Man?"

"Gone on, I suppose," replies the Traveled Man. "We found this road leading up the hill and followed it, expecting every moment to overtake them. They must be ahead somewhere; but I can't account for their leaving us strangers to

find the way out of the gorge alone."

As soon as the climbers are able to go on we press forward along the crest of the ridge in pursuit of our hosts. Half an hour's brisk walking brings us to the edge of the woods on the brow of the hill overlooking the broad and beautiful Chemung Valley, and a long stretch of high land on the eastern shore of the lake. At another time we should tarry long to enjoy such a charming prospect, but now our minds are preoccupied. Where can our friends have gone? All the road to the village lies as it were under our feet, in plain sight.

"They can't possibly have gained all that distance," says the Geologist. "Perhaps they didn't leave the Glen at all," suggests the Artist.

"Where, then, could they have gone?" asks the Junior. "We went to the end of the Glen. They were not there, and they couldn't have passed us coming back without our seeing them."

The Traveled Man is of opinion that they are still in the Glen, so we go back along a road that seems to come from the Glen House. A sharp turn round the point of the hill, and we stand face to face with the lost.

"You didn't go half way to the end of the Glen," says the Executive, on hearing our story. "There's a mile of splendid scenery beyond the place you came out at. We stopped at a particularly handsome fall to wait for you. As you didn't come, we turned back, and failing to meet you, we concluded you had become tired and returned to wait for us at the Glen House. Learning you had not been there, we concluded that you must have left the Glen by the hill road, and hurried on to overtake you here."

There is no time for retracing our steps, for it is nearly noon, and we have Havana Glen yet to visit. So, despite the assurances of our friends to the contrary, we console ourselves with the thought that the portion

we have not seen can be only a repetition of the lower half, and descend to the hotel amply satisfied that the attractions of the Glen have not been overrated.

From the point of the terraced hill, which the people of Watkins have appropriated as a burying-ground, the view up the valley and down the lake is remarkably fine, though less imposing than the prospect from the higher ridge above. If the village wiseacres did not plant our mammoth hotel here, their speculations are sure to come to naught. Here, if anywhere, it shall be built. All the ghosts of the adjacent grave-yard could not keep visitors from such an enticing place. In the rear lies the high wooded ridge in closing the myriad marvels of the Glen; in front, the flat valley, part village, part meadow, and beyond, miles of swelling ridgeland dotted with farmhouses; to the right, the shallow concave of the upper valley stretches away into the dim distance; to the left lies Seneca Lake, from whose fair bosom the trim steamers have driven the wild swan's snowy sail, but which in every other particular sustains the truth of Percival's poetic description. And the air! Even on this dullest of days there is life in the breath that comes up from the long lake-valley.

Two well-worn vehicles-carriages once-are waiting at the hotel to convey us to Havana. There are eleven to go,-our party of seven, the owner of the Glen, who desires to show off the wonders of his property and explain the plans he has in view for increasing its attractions; the owner of Watkins Glen, who does not want us to forget the attractions of his property; and the two drivers. The carriage springs are sorely tried, and revenge the severity of their treatment by periodic losses of flexibility. We are too closely packed to permit of any lateral vibration to our sides in response to the Jolly Man's comments; and, to crown all, the clouds cease to drizzle and begin to pour. "A clearing-up shower," the driver calls it, and so, fortunately, it proves to be. By the time the three miles to Havana are made there are most encouraging signs of clearing, and when we arrive at the Glen the rain is almost over.

From the very beginning Havana Glen impresses the visitor as having

a character of its own. The stream is smaller than that of Watkins Glen. The rock is less shaly, and it has a strongly-marked system of rectangular joints dividing the cliffs into square towers and buttresses. When a portion of cliff falls it does not leave a jagged face, as in Watkins Glen, but a mural surface as smooth and even as a fortress wall, giving the sides of the cañon the appearance of great solidity and grand simplicity. The eroding current follows the lines of division, zigzagging at right angles rather than curving after the fashion of ordinary streams. At times, as in the Council Chamber, it cuts out perfect halls, with square corners and perpendicular sides, as unlike anything in Watkins Glen as can be imagined. The walls are lower than in Watkins, but they seem higher because of their clean-cut faces. In Watkins there is a persistent sameness in diversity,-a monotony of fantastic outlines. Havana has a statelier, more majestic cast. Watkins confuses while it amazes, bewildering by its multitude of details, infinitely various yet constantly similar. Havana has

CURTAIN CASCADE: HAVANA GLEN.