A GRAND SIGHT. 107 



water ; to my right, a grassy slope, smooth and 

 green as a well-kept lawn, extends for miles, 

 until lost in the distant haze. A heavy thun- 

 dering sound directs me to the cataract, which 



O ' 



is at present hidden. 1 walk down the slope, and 

 unexpectedly reach the edge of a narrow channel, 

 about thirty feet in width and three hundred in 

 depth. 



Not a hundred yards from where I stand, the 

 entire river plunges over a vertical face of smooth 

 rocks ; down it surges a depth of 300 feet, and 

 possibly more, into the narrow channel into 

 which I am looking. The singularity of this fall 

 consists in the extremely narrow channel of 

 basaltic rock through which the entire river is 

 obliged to make its way before it dashes down this 

 wondrous cliff. The river, at least a hundred 

 feet wide on the plain, is narrowed to about thirty 

 at the place where it falls over the rocks; hence 

 the water leaps, if I may so express it, some 

 distance from the rock on emerging from this 

 natural launder, and falls vertically into the black 

 chasm with a deafening roar like perpetual 

 thunder. 



The sun shining brightly lights up the gloomy 

 chasm, and gives the foaming current a brilliancy 

 unlike anything I have ever seen an effect 



