Taking his course down the ravine of a tumbling stream,
the commencement of some future river, he descended from rock to rock,
and shelf to shelf, between stupendous cliffs and beetling crags that
sprang up to the sky. Often he had to cross and recross the rushing
torrent, as it wound foaming and roaring down its broken channel, or
was walled by perpendicular precipices; and imminent was the hazard of
breaking the legs of the horses in the clefts and fissures of slippery
rocks. The whole scenery of this deep ravine was of Alpine wildness
and sublimity. Sometimes the travellers passed beneath cascades which
pitched from such lofty heights that the water fell into the stream like
heavy rain. In other places, torrents came tumbling from crag to crag,
dashing into foam and spray, and making tremendous din and uproar.
On the second day of their descent, the travellers, having got beyond
the steepest pitch of the mountains, came to where the deep and rugged
ravine began occasionally to expand into small levels or valleys, and
the stream to assume for short intervals a more peaceful character.
Here, not merely the river itself, but every rivulet flowing into it,
was dammed up by communities of industrious beavers, so as to inundate
the neighborhood, and make continual swamps.
During a mid-day halt in one of these beaver valleys, Captain Bonneville
left his companions, and strolled down the course of the stream to
reconnoitre.
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