full length and depth. Yet so excessive, nay, so prodigious, is the effect of foreshortening, that it is impossible to realize their full extensions. Numerous detached masses are also seen flanking the ends of the long promontories. These buttes are of gigantic proportions, and yet so overwhelming is the effect of the wall against which they are projected that they seem insignificant in mass, and the observer is often deluded by them, failing to perceive that they are really detached from the wall and perhaps separated from it by an interval of a mile or two. At the foot of this palisade is a platform through which meanders the inner gorge, in whose dark and sombre depths flows the river. Only in one place can the water surface be seen. In its winding the abyss which holds it extends for a short distance towards us and the line of vision enters the gorge lengthwise. Above and below this short reach the gorge swings its course in other directions and reveals only a dark, narrow opening, while its nearer wall hides its depth. This inner chasm is 1,000 to 2,000 feet deep. Its upper 200 feet is a vertical ledge of sandstone of a dark rich brownish colour. Beneath it lies the granite of a dark iron-grey shade, verging towards black, and lending a gloomy aspect to the lowest deeps. Perhaps half a mile of the river is disclosed. A pale, dirty red, without glimmer or sheen, a motionless surface, a small featureless spot enclosed in the dark shade of the granite, is all of it that is here visible. Yet we know it is a large river, 150 yards wide, with a headlong torrent foaming and plunging over rocky rapids. The walls of the Grand Cañon and the level of the plateau descend by a succession of great steps, produced by faults, until the level of the river is reached at the mouth of the Grand Wash; and thus ends the Grand Cañon. Below the Grand Wash, a dry stream bed which enters the Colorado from the north, the river turns south again and enters the Black Cañon of Lieutenant Ives report—a cañon which would be a remarkable feature were it not brought into such close juxtaposition with that described above. Below it the river runs in narrow valleys and low cañons to its mouth. THE THE AVON JOHN WILSON CROKER HERE are Avons and Avons. Of course, Shakespeare's Avon is the famous stream which takes precedence of all others. It rises at Naseby, in the yard of a small inn near the church. So for two things is that village of Naseby renowned. A good many years ago a hospitable agriculturist, resident near Naseby, asked me to come over and see the battle-field and source of the Avon. I came and saw. The battle-field, truth to say, impressed me in no degree more than the river-head; I saw a quantity of ploughed land, undulating in true Northamptonshire fashion. Doubtless grim old Oliver and hot Prince Rupert saw a good deal more; and that heavy land is responsible for many oaths on the part of the prince, and prayers from the ever-prayerful lips of the Roundhead general. But Naseby field is very much like all the rest of Northamptonshire. There is not a hill in the country, or a brook that a boy cannot leap, or a church spire that a boy cannot throw a stone over, or enough level ground for a game of cricket. Yet it is a capital hunting county nevertheless. Descending the Avon from Naseby, we pass through much dreary Northamptonshire scenery. At a village called Catthorpe, we are reminded of a certain poetaster named Dyer. Poetry was in a poor state when the author of Grongar Hill could be considered a poet. He was an amiable clergyman, who wrote mediocre verse; but Horace's opinion of such verse is peculiarly popular in the |