514 SPRINGS, RIVERS, CANALS, LAKES, 



through trees and bushes of the same beautiful and delightful ap. 

 pearance with those we had seen near Dara. 



The cataract itself was the most magnificent sight that ever I .be- 

 held. The height has been rather exaggerated. The missionaries 

 say, the fall is about sixteen ells, or fifty feet. The measuring is, 

 indeed, very difficult; but, by the position of long sticks, and poles 

 of different lengths, at different heights of the rock, from the water's 

 edge, I may venture to say, that it is nearer forty feet than any 

 other measure. The river had been considerably increased by 

 rains, and fell in one sheet of water, without any interval, above half 

 an English mile in breadth, with a force and noUe that was truly 

 terrible, and which stunned me, for a time, perfectly dizzy. A thick 

 fnnie, or haze, covered the fall all round, and hung over the course 

 of the stream both above and below, marking its track, though the 

 water was not seen. The river, though swelled with rain, pre- 

 served its natural clearness, and fell, as far as I discern, into a deep 

 pool, or bason, in the solid rock, which was full, and in twenty dif- 

 ferent eddies to the very foot of the precipice ; the stream, when it 

 fell, seeming part wf it to run back with great fury upon the rock, as 

 well as forward in the line of its course, raising a wave, or violent 

 ebullition, by chaffing against each other. 



Jerome Lobo pretends, that he has sat under the curve, or arch, 

 made by the projectile force of the water rushing over the precipice. 

 He says he sat calmly at the foot of it, and looking through the 

 curve of the stream, as it was falling, saw a number of rainbows of 

 inconceivable beauty in this extraordinary prism. This, however, 

 I, without hesitation, aver to be a downright falsehood. A deep 

 pool of water, as I mentioned, reaches to the very foot of the rock, 

 and is in perpetual agitation. Now, allowing that there was a seat, 

 or bench, which there is not, in the middle of the pool, I do believe 

 it absolutely impossible, by any exertion of human strength, to have 

 arrived at it. Although a very robust man, in the prime and vigour 

 of life, and a hardy, practised, indefatigable swimmer, I am per- 

 fectly confident 1 could not have got to that seat from the shore 

 through the quietest part of that bason. And, supposing the friar 

 placed in his imaginary seat, under the curve of that immense arch 

 of water, he must have had a portion of firmness, more than falls to 

 the share of ordinary men, and which is not likely to be acquired in 

 a monastic life, to philosophise upon optics in such a situation, where 

 every thing would seem, to his dazzled eyes, to be in motion, and 



