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fifteen miles. passing these the river becomes of a glassy smoothness & transparency & the air has a peculiar clearness & bracing vigour which is unknown to lower latitudes -- The bluffs on one or the other side rise to four & five hundred feet clothed from summit to river brink with forests except where their vertical position affords no resting place for trees & there the bare rock are seen, like the ruins of old castles guarding the entrance to this chosen haunt of nature - ascending one of these bluffs we found ourselves 400 feet above the river & beheld a magnificent view of the river as it wended its way thro' the surrounding hills & praries now & then seeming to have enclosed within its arms some chosen spot of beauty, some Island for a fairy