piasath, one attains here an exquisite climate. A
summer morning on a cliff overlooking the sea, when
balmy breezes are afoot, has no greater power to lull
and to charm the spirit.
And if the morning on the cliff-tops has her secret
of fresh delights, the evening comes with revelations
of surpassing beauty. The picture she paints is so
tender and so majestic, that it must be difficult to
overstate its charm. First there are the great cliffs
with white faces overlooking the river. Beyond them
there spread the waters, over spaces so vast that the
eye cannot compass them. The river embraces in its
folds a succession of islands, so numerous and varied
that all sense of a single stream is lost. They are
covered with meadows of silver-pink kaing, in the
midst of which lie purple lakes and rosy pathways of
waters ; but where the islands cease, the river spreads
in a single expanse from the foot of the white cliffs to
the low misty western shore. The opal gleams of the
sunset, breaking through grey cloud masses, fall in long
reflections on its surface. To the eye ranging swiftly
over it, the wide world of waters seems absolutely
motionless— a mystic sea of infinite depth. A waterfowl
skims its surface, bird and shadow, and the air is
so clear, the waters are so mirror-like, the environment
so still and lone, that for a long while its wings flapping
lazily over the water convey the only hint of motion
in a spectacle of arrested beauty. In the far west the
gleam of fires and the smoke ascending from villages
and hamlets greet the eye with the wistful suggestion
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