HAZARDOUS LEAP. 87 



within a few inches ; but on descending and coming to 

 the spot, we found that they were about six feet apart ; 

 and through this narrow passage dashed the whole 

 pent-up force of the river, with a roar of thunder, as it 

 plunged into an oblong basin below, called the "Poit 

 bhruich," or boiling pot. 



Across this chasm Donald leaped backwards and 

 forwards more than once to convince me of the practi- 

 cability of the feat ; but when I came to stand on the 

 edge of the rock, the roaring of the waters as they 

 dashed furiously beneath me, wrought up into one 

 mass of creamy foam, made my brain reel rather 

 unpleasantly, and I began to repent that we had not 

 taken the ford in preference to the leap ; nor was I 

 much assured when told, for my comfort, that no living 

 creature had ever been known to survive an immersion 

 in the waters of the Poit bhruich, which could not be 

 less than forty feet deep. 



While I stood silently watching the stream, as it 

 plunged wildly along, until fairly lost in the brine of 

 the ocean, Donald seemed to derive a malicious amuse- 

 ment from telling me that not only had sundry sheep 

 there found a watery grave, but that more than one 

 unlucky human being had, by a single false step, been 

 hurled into the foaming " pot," there, to boil and roll 

 through its inmost caverns to the end of time. With 

 such consoling thoughts, wherefrom to gather encou- 

 ragement, I determined to put the best face on the 

 matter, and, whatever might be my real sensations, to 

 afford my companions no excuse for cavilling at the 

 courage of an Englishman. " Fortes fortuna adjuvat." 

 Grasping therefore my rod firmly in my hand, without 

 further delay, I sprang over the chasm, which in 

 reality, when viewed apart from all the other enhancing 



