saying "Oh! Nonsense, we can never start in rain like this with the girls. "

The aforementioned door flew open, followed fancy, by Mrs. Benedict’s head, and a
voice that threw its indignation I could yet perceive was hers, said:

"Why not? Are we so fragile that we cannot weather a shower? Of course we shall
start. Remember the taunts of your angelic clubmen at home, the jeers if we fail."

"And the cheers if we succeed, " answered Nip.

"All right girls "——this soothingly—-"we’ll start, but you’re mighty plucky, so get your
[?] back and hurry down to breakfast. "

And we did start, right in a down-pour of rain, whose mist and grayness shut out all
too soon the long, little village of Elora, whose sight would be a fortune to it were some
spectator only to erect a summer hotel therein. In the very heart of the village the Grand Fall
pitches itself over a height of fifty feet, splitting at its brow against an anvil—shaped,
cedar—crowned rock that looms up amid the fall like some huge obstruction hurled from the
hand of a giant god to stem the on-dashing waters that with reunited force precipitate
themselves in myriads of lesser cascades until, amid clouds of spray and renewed violence,
they leap into the canyon’s throat, whose ever- gaping granite jaw awaits greedily to swallow
the tumultuous stream into its immutable cavern. Immediately below the fall the river twists
itself into the Corkscrew Rapids, then squeezes its breadth into the Narrows, after flinging
past the Lovers’ Leap, a huge jagged promontory at the junction of the Grand and a lesser
stream called the Irvin, at which point the gorge rises perpendicularly almost a hundred feet
in a massive pile, its shelving irregularity perforated by numerous caves and crested by the
hardy cedar, whose [roots?] miraculously draw their nutriment from those earthless cliffs.

Below the Narrows another rock frowns out conspicuously. It is called "The Old
Man’s Face," as it bears a striking resemblance to a human profile. Then the river breaks
into a turbulent little cascade some five feet high, and finally sinks exhausted and lulled into a
huge stone basin known as "The Devil’s Punch Bowl." Below this we launched our three
frail craft. The temptation to run this magnificent wildcat was almost irresistible, but our
cautious pilots refused all importunities. Few canoes have ever run the gorge, it seems, and
only two have ever lived through it, the occupants of the other gladly escaping with their
lives and that experience, nor bemoaning the canoes silvered and wrecked or their kit lost
forever in the angry swirl of those tremendous rapids.

In Elora they tell of some French trappers who, some fifty years ago, were running
this then unknown river. They had heard of the fall, and made a successful portage thereat.
Launching again in the Corkscrew, they reached the Devil’s Punch Bowl with barely their
souls in their bodies but their birch-bark, guns, ammunition, and provender the river had torn
to shreds beyond recognition. So we decided not to emulate these worthy pioneer Voyageurs-—
the rain was quite yet enough for us without trying the river.

We packed our kit in, covered it with rubber sheets, donned our waterproof coats,
sorted ourselves into congenial pairs and, amid good wishes from the teamsters ashore, we
shot out into the swollen stream and the long, singular cruise began.

The only things that made life worth living that day were the beauty of the landscape
and——dinner. Our course lay through one of Ontario’s finest farming districts, for, after
leaving Elora, all hints of stone and granite disappeared as though by magic. The world
seemed to be just waking to the realization that it had a boundless warmth of life stowed
away under its brown bosom, life that was welling up into the trees, the simple wild flowers,
the silent fields. It was the first flush of May time, and, despite the drizzle that monotonously