108 EA WAIIA N G HIDE B OK 



three and four hundred feet in height, and forming so 

 complete a circle that no outlet except that which the 

 stream makes, is seen ; and it is only by following up 

 its bed through dense thickets that this spot can be 

 reached. The circle is small and the rocks abo^e partly 

 project over the outlet, so that it appears like a tunnel, 

 and the sun can reach its bottom only when vertical. 

 Nothing can be seen except a few scattering shrubs 

 which border the top. Fleecy clouds drive rapidly past 

 before the strong gusts of these mountain regions. 

 The air here is exceedingly cold and chilly, and the 

 rocks wet and slippery with spray. If the visitor is 

 heated by this excursion, it would be dangerous for him 

 to approach the fall before he is cooled, as the perspira- 

 tion is liable to be suddenly checked. Opposite and far 

 above him is the waterfall ; there, about ten feet in 

 width and several in depth, but ranging in volume ac- 

 cording to the rains, springing from between two nar- 

 row and overhanging masses of basaltic columns, it 

 leaps thirty feet, strikes a ledge of rocks, and gradually 

 spreading and lessening in thickness, falls many more 

 feet and strikes another ledge ; from whence, falling 

 again an equal distance into a deep and circiimseribed 

 gulf below, or whitens with its foam the whole surface 

 of the rock from the height above." 



Another writer says of this fall, " Coming out of a 

 romantic and picturesque gorge, formed in the loftiest 

 peaks in the central range, it leaps through its mountain 

 gateway of basaltic pillars from precipice to precipice, 

 nearly four hundred feet, into the bright elysian valley 

 below. From the clear sheet of pure, rushing, leaping 

 water above, it gradually expands in spray, whitening 



