These excellent photographs afford a splendid conception of the grandeur of the scenery where these points are located. The winding chasm, the rushing torrent, the glimmer of the sunlight above the tall cliffs, the bold, serrated rocks—all these tell us of the splendors which Nature has fashioned and deposited in this favored region.
PORTLAND CASCADE, HAVANA GLEN.
Though both Watkins and Havana Glens are gems of nature in summer-time, their rarest robes of beauty are worn in winter, when the Ice King takes them in his embrace and bejewels them with crystals more exquisite than ever graced a royal bride. For the winter views which are here presented we are indebted to other photographers, as we are also for the frost pictures of the Lake Superior coast, as our visit was made in the summer-time. Examples of the sublime magnificence, the divine-like embellishment of Watkin’s Glen, when the lips of winter have kissed the noisy waterfalls into frozen silence, are seen in the illustrations of Cavern Cascade, and Hector Falls, and Watkin’s Cascade, where the frost-sprites and the little children of the snow hide beneath opalescent icicles and light the lamp of joy in grottoes that open toward the voiceless gorge.
Further up the chasm, where the broken fronts of vertical walls begin, is a quiet retreat known as the Council Chamber, spanned by a pretty bridge that is hung upon opposite ledges and conducts to a passage that runs along a shelf, then down a stairs to a path that leads from the water’s edge to the town. The walls that enclose this strip of river are exceedingly beautiful, built up as they are with thin layers, of a few inches’ thickness, each strata being very distinct, and the face of the cliffs wrought into lovely shapes, with a shelf here and there as if inviting lovers to seek them for the delightful seclusion which they offer. The glen is about three miles in length, and the walls frequently three hundred feet in height, with enough variableness in the scenery to make it a source of unwearying admiration.
Three miles south of Watkin’s Glen, and properly a continuation, for there is really a very brief interruption in the rugged character of the valley, is Havana Glen, quite as famous as its adjacent brother. The cliffs here are scarcely so vertical, but the general formation is practically the same, and similar means are provided for viewing its wonders to advantage. Bridal Veil Falls is Havana’s most alluring object, and well do they repay the tourist for his visit. The water at this point falls thirty feet down a very steep slope in a great column that, contracted at the plunge, spreads as it flows over a succession of terraces and dashes into the deep stream below with sullen roar.
PEEK-A-BOO FALLS AND PICTURED CLEFT, WATKINS GLEN.—This romantic scene is thus beautifully described: Climbing out of Whirlpool Gorge and moving northward a short distance along a railed ledge, we come in sight of Peek-a-Boo Falls, a beautiful sheet of water plunging over a precipice fifty feet high, and scattering its spray along the walls that confine its descent, for the chasm is very narrow here, and charming for its sylvan weirdness. The cliffs are picturesque in stone, rising in tiers and carved into fantastic forms, while the overhanging trees, graceful ferns and velvety mosses make the place a bower in which fairies might love to dwell.