210 Notice of the Tochoa and Tallulah Falls. 



above Augusta. The perpendicular fall is one hundred and 

 eighty six feet, measured by a line. It is surrounded by no 

 wild scenery. The rivulet disturbed by no rapids, moves 

 with a gentle current, and drops without warning into a 

 beautiful basin below, expanding into fine rain before it 

 reaches the bottom ; and the breeze which always plays 

 there, spreads a thick spray around, and ornaments the fal- 

 ling water, the rock and the shrubbery, with rainbows. A 

 carriage road is within a stone's throw of the fall, and our 

 party rode to the base and to the summit of the precipice. 



Two beech trees grow near the base which are so closely 

 covered with names down into the very ground, that he who 

 will carve his own, must intrude upon a present occupant. 

 Old and venerable names have been obliterated to give a 

 conspicuous position to some young aspirant for immortal- 

 ity. These beeches, said a lady of our party, are the politi- 

 cal world in miniature. 



The Tockoa produces a sensation rather of the beautiful 

 than the sublime — it pleases, but does not terrify — it satis- 

 fies, but does not overwhelm the expectation. It is a fine 

 preparation for the tremendous scenery which awaits the 

 traveller sixteen miles northward. 



The rapids of Tallulah* are in Georgia, ten miles above 

 the union of the Tallulah and Chatooga rivers which form 

 the Tugaloo, five miles from South Carolina, and about 

 twenty miles from the line of North Carolina. The river, 

 which is forty yards wide above the rapids, is forced, for a 

 mile and a fourth through a range of mountains, into a chan- 

 nel scarcely twenty feet broad. The mountain receives 

 the water into a broad basin, surrounded by solid rock one 

 hundred feet in height. Here the stream pauses in antici- 

 pation of the awful gulf, — then rushes down a cataract forty 

 feet, — then hurrying through a narrow winding passage, 

 dashing from side to side against the precipice, and repeat- 

 edly turning at right angles, is precipitated one hundred feet 

 — and in a moment after fifty feet more — and then making 

 many short turns, it rushes down three or four falls of twen- 

 ty and ten feet. The sum of the fall in the distance of a 

 mile is estimated at three hundred and fifty feet. 



The rapids, however splendid, apart from the sublimity 

 with which they are surrounded, are only an appendage to 



* Entered Turroree on most maps, but the old deeds spell it Tallulah, and 

 this is its pronunciation by the inhabitants in its vicinity. 



