d, shapely beauty in so weird and huge
a chamber of night shadows, and amid the rush and roar and tumultuous
dashing of this thunder-voiced fall, is one of the most impressive and
most cheering of all the blessed mountain evangels.

Smaller bows may be seen in the gorge on the plateau between the Upper
and Lower Falls. Once toward midnight, after spending a few hours with
the wild beauty of the Upper Fall, I sauntered along the edge of the
gorge, looking in here and there, wherever the footing felt safe, to see
what I could learn of the night aspects of the smaller falls that dwell
there. And down in an exceedingly black, pit-like portion of the gorge,
at the foot of the highest of the intermediate falls, into which the
moonbeams were pouring through a narrow opening, I saw a well-defined
spray-bow, beautifully distinct in colors, spanning the pit from side
to side, while pure white foam-waves beneath the beautiful bow were
constantly springing up out of the dark into the moonlight like dancing
ghosts.

An Unexpected Adventure

A wild scene, but not a safe one, is made by the moon as it appears
through the edge of the Yosemite Fall when one is behind it. Once, after
enjoying the night-song of the waters and watching the formation of the
colored bow as the moon came round the domes and sent her beams into the
wild uproar, I ventured out on the narrow bench that extends back of the
fall from Fern Ledge and began to admire the dim-veiled grandeur of the
view. I could see the fine gauzy threads of the fall's filmy border by
having the light in front; and wishing to look at the moon through the
meshes of some of the denser portions of the fall, I ventured to creep
farther behind it while it was gently wind-swayed, without taking
sufficient thought about the consequences of its swaying back to its
natural position after the wind-pressure should be removed. The effect
was enchanting: fine, savage music sounding above, beneath, around me;
while the moon, apparently in the very midst of the rushing waters,
seemed to be struggling to keep her place, on account of the
ever-varying form and density of the water masses through which she was
seen, now darkly veiled or eclipsed by a rush of thick-headed comets,
now flashing out through openings between their tails. I was in
fairyland between the dark wall and the wild throng of illumined waters,
but suffered sudden disenchantment; for, like the witch-scene in Alloway
Kirk, "in