398 A SOLILOQUY BENEATH THE FALLS. 



yard or so wide, and at its edge the boil of the sparkling, 

 frothing tide that whirled up from its crushing fall on 

 rocks worn fathoms on fathoms deep. Deep, deep, down 

 fast and far below, and yet within a yard of us, fell that 

 enormous avalanche of liquid death, for all of life that 

 felt its force (could all life have a tongue) might well, 

 with Byron, say, on encountering its rage 



Hope, withering, fled, and Mercy sighed farewell. 



Having gloated on this strange sight, I turned from my 

 guide to go on, when he touched my arm and roared 

 something which seemed to be a caution not to go further, 

 or, that that was as far as people went ; but, on looking 

 on the path and so understanding him, I saw it would 

 yet afford space enough, with care, for a further advance ; 

 so, taking on myself the initiative, I proceeded some 

 distance further, and had I not had nails in my 

 shooting-boots, I could have gone a few feet further still. 

 However, having nails, I let prudence be the better part 

 of valour, stood still, and called my dingy, tall companion 

 to my side. He came, and we stood shoulder to shoulder 

 for some little time. In that short pause, and in the dim, 

 strange place, I thought, as my guide was an athletic, 

 not over well-looking, runaway slave, of the possibility, 

 supposing I had been a less powerful man, of his seizing 

 me, robbing me, and then pushing me but six inches on 

 one side ! How easy it would have been for him to have 

 gone back and said I had fallen in by accident and 

 been lost. There were no human eyes to see, no ears 

 that could hear, and there would have been no signs of 

 human violence on a body, if the body had ever been 

 found, whatever signs there might have been of blows 

 from the pointed rocks ; and, thinking all this, I hugged 

 myself in the knowledge that any attempt of the kind on 



