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contains a stratum of truth invested with a fabulous legend. In remote times the 

 inhabitants of Bogota were barbarians, living without religion, laws, or arts. An old 

 man on a certain occasion suddenly appeared among them of a race unlike that of the 

 natives, and having a long bushy beard. He instructed them in the arts, but he brought 

 with him a malignant, although beautiful woman, who thwarted all his benevolent 

 enterprises. By her magical power she swelled the current of the Funza, and inundated 

 the valley, so that most of the inhabitants perished, a few only having found refuge in 

 the neighbouring mountains. The aged visitor then drove his consort from the earth, 

 and she became the moon. He next broke the rocks that enclosed the valley on the 

 Tequendama side, and by this means drained off the waters. Then he introduced the 

 worship of the sun, appointed two chiefs, and finally withdrew to a valley, where he lived 

 in the exercise of the most austere penitence during 2000 years. The Tequendama 

 cataract is remarkably picturesque. The river a little above it is 144 feet in breadth, 

 but at the crevice it is much narrower. The height of the fall is 574 feet, and the 

 column of vapour that rises from it is visible from Santa Fe at the distance of 17 miles. 

 At the foot of the precipice the vegetation has a totally different appearance from that 

 at the summit, and the traveller, following the course of the river, passes from a plain 

 in which the cereal plants of Europe are cultivated, and which abounds with oaks, elms, 

 and other trees resembling those of the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere, 

 and enters a country covered with palms, bananas, and sugar-canes. 



In Northern America, however, we find the greatest of all cataracts, that of the Niagara, 

 the sublimest object on earth, according to the general opinion of all travellers. More 

 varied magnificence is displayed by the ocean, and giant masses of the Andes and Himalaya ; 

 but no single spectacle is so striking and wonderful as the descent of this sea-like flood, 

 the overplus of four extensive lakes. The river is about thirty -three miles in length, 

 extending from lake Erie to lake Ontario, and three quarters of a mile wide at the fall. 

 There is nothing in the neighbouring country to indicate the vicinity of the astonishing 

 phenomenon here exhibited. Leaving out lake Erie, the traveller passes over a level 

 though somewhat elevated plain, through which the river flows tranquilly, bordered by 

 fertile and beautiful banks ; but soon a deep awful sound, gradually growing louder, 

 breaks upon the ear: the roar of the distant cataract. Yet the eye discerns no sign of 

 the spectacle about to be disclosed until a mile from it, when the water begins to ripple, 

 and is broken into a series of dashing and foaming rapids. After passing these, the 

 river becomes more tranquil, though rolling onwards with tremendous force, till it reaches 

 the brink of the great precipice. The fall itself is divided into two unequal portions by the 

 intervention of Goat Island, a facade near 1000 feet in breadth. The one on the British 

 side of the river, called the Horse Shoe fall, from its shape, according to the most 

 careful estimate, is 2100 feet broad, and 149 feet 9 inches high. The other or American 

 fall is 1140 feet broad, and 164 feet high. The former is far superior to the latter in 

 grandeur. The great body of the water passes over the precipice with such force, that 

 it forms a curved sheet which strikes the stream below at the distance of 50 feet from the 

 base, and some travellers have ventured between the descending flood and the rock itself. 

 Hannequin asserts that four coaches might be driven abreast through this awful chasm. 

 The quantity of water rolling over these falls has been estimated at 670,250 tons per 

 minute. It is impossible to appreciate the scene created by this immense torrent, apart 

 from its site. 



" The thoughts are strange that crowd into my brain, 

 While I look upward to thee. It would seem 

 As if God pour'd thee from his hollow hand, 

 And hung his bow upon thine awful front ; 



