144 
NATURE NOTES. 
as they move round and round upon the black tree-shaded water. 
One may almost imagine it a yawning bottomless pit, giving up 
nothing that it once receives, for the river flows out again behind 
a thick clump of bushes on a corner of the bank and entirely 
out of sight from the seat. 
But on the falls the afternoon sun shines down, and the eye 
returns there in passive enjoyment. Between the boulders 
below the swift water is hidden from sight by piles of fleecy 
foam, heaving and tumbling, soft as carded wool ; only those 
who have seen wool fresh from the combs can appreciate the 
aptness of the simile, whiter and softer even than the very 
choicest part of a newly-shorn fleece. And everywhere amid 
the tumult of foam the grey stones, streaked with the green of 
slippery water-weeds, rear their irregular shapes passive and 
motionless, yet read}', like the horns of an angry bull, to gore 
and batter the sides of any craft or living creature that should 
chance to be borne among them by that cataract of water. 
The stream shoots over the edge of the weir in one smooth 
unbroken sheet, for, as has been said, the water does not follow 
the angles of the stones ; but before it breaks in foam on the 
rocks below its smooth surface is marred. In one place near 
the opposite bank, a large upright stone or wooden pile — it is 
not easy to see which — has fallen outwards from the wall of 
masonry. The falling water strikes the top of this and the 
force of the impact throws a hundred glittering jets in every 
direction. Nearer me one or two boulders larger and higher 
than the others meet the downpour and form similar fountains ; 
so strong are the jets of water that it is hard to realise that they 
are not forced up from below but are merely due to the rebound. 
The wind blowing strongly up the stream sways them this way 
and that, and scatters the falling spray on the stones below and 
on the banks ; some drops fall now and then on my hand. 
The volume of water coming over the weir seems to fall 
about a foot clear of the base ; it may be less or more, appear- 
ances are so deceptive where there is a large body of water. 
The width of a river, the distance of a ship out in the bay, is 
very difficult to judge with an unpractised eye. Through the 
wall of water I can see as through very thick glass — the glass 
of a ship’s portholes — the torrent which pours down the face of 
the weir (without shooting out) and the churning mass of foam 
at the foot. The background, the stone face of the wall, is 
streaked green with the water-weeds ; it is wonderful that these 
weeds here and on the rocks below have time to grow, with the 
never-ceasing rush of water over them. How do they get a 
start, and how is it that the first tiny shoot is not swept away 
and lost ? 
At the edge of the weir where the water curves into convexity 
the sun is reflected in a line of gold all across the stream. It is 
as bright as a reflection can well be, being focussed, and the 
rays strike the curve almost direct, the sun being now well dow.i 
