On either side a continuous forest confines the view, thus depriving the scene of that solemn grandeur which the horizonless desert or the boundless main is calculated to inspire.

The signs of human life, like angels' visits, are few and far between.

No beast is seen in the forest, no bird in the air, except from time to time a flight of water-fowl.

At times the eye is gratified by a convocation of wild swans, geese, and ducks, assembled in conclave upon the edge of some bank; or, if perchance at sunrise or sunset you happen to come to some broad bend of the river, the gorgeous rays light up its surface till it appears a lake of liquid fire, rendered brighter by the surrounding darkness of the dense and leafless forest.

Occasionally the trumpet-toned pipe of the engine--fit music for the woods--bursts forth; but there are no mountains or valleys to echo its strains far and wide.
The grenadier ranks of vegetable life, standing like sentries along the margin of the stream, refuse it either an entry or an answer, and the rude voice of mechanism finds a speedy and certain sepulture in the muddy banks.