254 THE FOUNTAIN. 



back with a vague, half-regretful feeling, when a scene met my 

 eye which drew from me an exclamation of intense delight- 

 Rising slowly, and, as it seemed, coming from the very midst 

 of the shrubbery in the distance, (for the river was completely 

 hidden by a projecting bank,) we beheld the mass of snow- 

 white waters rising like a gigantic apparition. It continued to 

 ascend, impelled by no perceptible power, yet rising up and up 

 until it reached an immense height, — the waters preserving in a 

 singular manner their columnar form, until they attained almost 

 their greatest altitude, while, flung off from the translucent 

 and apparently unbroken pillar, was a heavy spray which wore 

 the appearance of the most exquisite net-work drapery. A 

 back-ground of dark trees, from which the sunshine had 

 vanished, leaving their summits crowned by those blended hues 

 of gold, and purple, and rose-color that linger so long upon 

 our summer skies ere they darken into evening's sober grey, 

 gave the effect of contrast to this superb picture. 



It was like a scene of enchantment. The silence, the soli- 

 tude, the sudden up-springing of that superb fountain, looking 

 so spectral or rather so spiritual in the soft mellow light of the 

 sunset hour, — the seeming absence of all human appliances in 

 the production of the magnificent spectacle, — all combined to 

 make it seize strongly upon the imagination. 



That scene haunts me like a dream, though I know it to 

 have been a beautiful reality. We had probably been observed 

 by some person left in charge of the unfinished works at the 

 Aqueduct, who, sympathising in our disappointment as we 



