nelling had been possible, but the river winds at its own
sweet will. Without sound of hammer or axe, by force of its own
heaven-born instincts, it has levelled its lovely way unerring, and
wherever it goes, thither goes the railroad, to its own infinite gain.
Railroads are not generally considered picturesque, but from the
standpoint of that hennery, and from several other standpoints, I had
no fault to find. Unable to go straight on, as the manner of railroads
is, it bends to all the wayward little fancies of the river, piercing
the wild wood, curling around the base of the granite hills, now let
loose a space to shoot across the glade, joyful of the permission to
indulge its railroad instinct of straightness; and, amid so much
irregularity and headlong wilfulness, a straight line is really
refreshing. Up the sides of its embankment wild vines have twisted and
climbed, and wild-flowers have budded into bloom.

Berlin Falls is hardly a wet-day resource, but the day on which we saw
it changed its mind after we left the hotel, and from clouds and
promise of sunshine turned into clouds and certainty of rain. For all
that, the drive along the river, within sound of its roaring and
gurgling and rippling and laughing overflow of joy, with occasional
glimpses of it through the trees, with gray cloud-curtains constantly
dropping, then suddenly lifting, and gray sheets of rain fringing down
before us, and the thirsty, parched leaves, intoxicated with their much
mead of the mountains, slapping us saucily on the check, or in mad
revel flinging into our faces their goblets of honey-dew,--ah! it was a
carnival of tricksy delight, making the blood glow like wine. The
falls, which chanced to be indeed no falls, but shower-swollen into
rapids, are one of the most wonderful presentations of Nature's masonry
that I have ever seen. It is not the water, but the rock, that amazes.
The whole Androscoggin River gathers up its strength and plunges
through a gorge,--a gateway in the solid rock is regular, as upright,
as if man had brought in the whole force of his geometry and gunpowder
to the admeasurement and excavation,--plunges, conscious of
imprisonment and the insult to its slighted majesty,--plunges with
fierce protest and frenzy of rage, breaks against a grim, unyielding
rock to dash itself into a thousand whirling waves; then rushes on to
be again imprisoned between the pillars of another gorge, only less
regular, not less inexo