72 WANDERINGS AND PONDERINGS 



Insect-Hunter has little relish for scenes labouring under these 

 serious disadvantages : but, in this instance, the scribblers had 

 done no injury, because they had given him no idea of what 

 was now before him. The scene possessed none of tha 

 vastness, of the awfulness, of the horror, of the blackness of 

 which so much has been written. The Insect-Hunter was 

 disappointed in its size, and most agreeably so in its loveliness. 

 The beauty of the scene before us was far beyond being 

 expressed by words ; I shall therefore merely describe its 

 character. The chasm of the Mynach is of the kind which 

 I have spoken of as being partially composed of solid rock: 

 the interstices of the rock, in this instance, afforded firm hold 

 for the most luxuriant and vigorous forest trees ; these 

 formed the great filling up of the picture before us : the centre 

 was composed of rock, beautifully varied in colour, and mingled 

 with an infinite diversity of vegetation. Near the top of the 

 picture the Mynach appears to rush out of the solid rock, its 

 prior course being entirely unseen ; the first is not an unbroken 

 fall, as it has often been described, but dashes over rough 

 rocks, which break it up, as it were, into a dazzling whiteness : 

 the fall is about six yards, the bottom part being hidden by 

 the boughs of trees which stretch across the stream, and a series 

 of which continue to intercept the view of the second fall. This 

 is still more interrupted by rough points of rock than the first, 

 and is equally whitened by the contact ; it appears but partially 

 through the boughs, and its entire height is about twenty yards. 

 Immediately from its base issues a broad unbroken fall, of about 

 six yards ; this last, and the basin which receives it, are 

 entirely unconcealed by any intervening boughs. From the 

 rocky basin the river again falls, and this fourth and last fall 

 is full forty yards ; but, like the first and second, its descent is 

 broken and somewhat scattered : the river is now entirely lost to 

 view, the trees in the ravine intercepting a sight of its further 

 progress. Rooted in the clefts and mingled with the rock, the 

 oak, beech, birch, and mountain-ash were principally con- 

 spicuous ; at the roots of these, roses, brambles, and a various 

 undergrowth of vegetation, occupied every chink which a root 

 could penetrate. Ferns particularly prevailed, and where the 

 rock was wholly impenetrable, delicately green mosses and 

 pictorial lichens spread themselves over its surface. All the 

 undergrowth was constantly moistened with the spray of the 



