RAMBLES OF A GEOLOGIST. 337 



And over the sullen pool in front we may see the stern pil- 

 lars of the portal rising from eighty to a hundred feet in height, 

 and scarce twelve feet apart, like the massive obelisks of some 

 Egyptian temple ; while, in gloomy vista within, projection 

 starts out beyond projection, like column beyond column in 

 some narrow avenue of approach to Luxor or Carnac. The 

 precipices are green, with some moss or byssus, that, like the 

 miner, chooses a subterranean habitat, for here the rays of 

 the sun never fall ; the dead mossy water beneath, from which 

 the cliffs rise so abruptly, bears the hue of molten pitch ; the 

 trees, fast anchored in the rock, shoot out their branches 

 across the opening, to form a thick tangled roofj at the height 

 of a hundred and fifty feet overhead ; while from the recesses 

 within, where the eye fails to penetrate, there issues a com- 

 bination of the strangest and wildest sounds ever yet pro- 

 duced by water : there is the deafening rush of the torrent, 

 blent as if with the clang of hammers, the roar of vast bel- 

 lows, and the confused gabble of a thousand voices. The sun, 

 hastening to its setting, shone red, yet mellow, through the 

 foliage 'of the Wooded banks on the west, where, high above, 

 they first curve from the sloping level of the fields, to bend 

 over the stream ; or fell more direct on the jutting cliffs and 

 bosky dingles opposite, burnishing them as if with gold and 

 fire ; but all was coldly-hued at the bottom, where the torrent 

 foamed gray and chill under the brown shadow of the banks ; 

 and where the narrow portal opened an untrodden way into 

 the mysterious recesses beyond, the shadow deepened almost 

 into blackness. The scene lacked but a ghost to render it 

 perfect An apparition walking from within, like the genius 

 in one of Goldsmith's essays, " along the surface of the water," 

 would have completed it at once. 



Laying hold of an overhanging branch, I warped myself 

 upwards from the bed of the stream along the face of a pre- 

 cipice, and, reaching its sloping top, forced my way to the 



