RUMBLING BRIDGE. CAULDRON LINN. 143 



trees they support, are seen to vibrate with the shock of the waters by which 

 they are undermined. An old gnarled oak, which projects with fearful incli- 

 nation over the torrent, was often employed in the author's day as a test of 

 courage ; the aspirant to that distinction climbing the trunk, and proceeding, as he 

 best might, to a limb which suspended him directly over the chasm. If he could 

 here find himself sufficiently at ease to cut his initials on the bark, as a memorial 

 of the feat, he was reported as a youth of some just pretensions to courage. 

 It was, at all events, a feat quite as perilous as that of climbing an aiguille in 

 the Alps, and with death in as hideous a form beneath him. To this tree, 

 says tradition, a poor suicide retired many years ago to commit the last act of 

 despair, and was found suspended over the gulf, where no human hand could 

 -ecover the body. 



About a mile lower down the river is the Cauldron Linn, of which the annexed 

 engraving will furnish a vivid picture. In this, however, only a part of the 

 phenomena of the Linn could be represented. The characteristic features of 

 this waterfall are the series of caldrons into which the whole volume of the 

 river is precipitated, churned into foam, and finally discharged over the rocks. 

 These caldrons vary in dimensions, and are continually changing in shape by 

 the boiling impetuosity with which their contents are swallowed up, and again 

 vomited forth in masses of foam. To the spectator the appearance is exactly 

 like that of a caldron in a state of violent ebullition, but with a fierce gyratory 

 motion, like that of some rabid monster plunged suddenly into a pit, and 

 howling and raging for an outlet. This peculiar motion, as we have often 

 experienced, is apt to produce vertigo, and is therefore unsafe to the stranger 

 who contemplates it beyond a very short time.* Volumes of spray are con- 

 tinually hovering over the falls ; and, unconnected with the river, the scene 

 reminds one of those volcanic scenes, where the incumbent water is kept boiling 

 over subterraneous fires. Though gradually lowered in its channel by the 

 continued action of the water, the fall is still, and will long continue, one of 

 the most remarkable in Scotland. It is the favourite resort of summer parties, 

 who, in the course of the same day, can enjoy the scenery of Castle Campbell, 

 and these beautiful falls of the Devon. On a fiat rock of large dimensions, 

 and rising like an islet in the basin under the fall, the repast is generally spread. 

 There the party, squatted like pious moslem at a feast, completely sheltered 

 from the sun, fanned by the breath of the cascade, and filling up the intervals 



With the Cauldron Linn, as with too many other scenes where Nature exhibits herself in beauty and 

 power, the death of a promising youth, whose adventurous spirit led him beyond the bounds of prudence, 

 Ins associated another melancholy story 



