THE SAIMA SEE. 23 



breadth, and the great excess of this above the height of 

 it, occasions to many a feeling of disappointment on its 

 first being seen, which continues until the spectator is 

 enabled to realise what the height of the fall actually is, 

 and then what the immensity of the flow must be, seeing 

 that it is a fall of such a breadth and of such a height. In 

 the Falls of Imatra, we have what the spectator is at first 

 disposed to call a rapid rather then a waterfall ; but such 

 a rapid ! The Falls remind me of the Falls of Clyde ; 

 but while there is a similarity, what a difference ! Here 

 you have Corralinn, and Stonebyres Linn, with its upper 

 and lower fall, and much more, all combined into one 

 continuous plunging, dashing, foaming, pouring torrent, 

 rushing through a rocky defile, apparently exceeding half- 

 a-mile in length. There is on the eastern side a table- 

 rock, whence the whole can be seen in one coup d'oeil or 

 rather, I should say, whence the whole can be traced with 

 a continuous sweep of the eye for this cannot take in 

 the whole at one glance. But view it whence you may, 

 there it is : the torrent like a charge of cavalry, the 

 cavalry rushing onward broken trying to re-form, all 

 the while pushing on failing to form rushing and 

 plunging, dashing, foaming, roaring on, on, still on. I 

 have seen it in sunshine and rain, at sunrise and at 

 sunset, by moonlight and in darkness such darkness 

 as there was when dawn and dusk constitute a single 

 twilight in clear light and with an overcast sky, and 

 I was filled with a growing and continually expanding 

 idea what I saw of the Falls. 



The vegetation of the whole locality was luxuriant. 

 Amongst its productions were many of my countrymen 

 plants with which I at once claimed acquaintance, as 

 often do townsmen and even fellow-countrymen when 

 they meet in a strange land, though, perhaps, had they 

 met at their home they might have passed without even 

 a look of recognition and with these were many which told 

 of a foreign land ; and this gave a peculiar relish to the 

 enjoyment experienced in recognising the former, by the 



