74 
THE GOLDEN RIVER. 
direction. Ferns, and small delicate yellow 
flowers, grew here and there, but wilted as soon 
as picked. 
Silently we made our way along, every sense 
alert, and by degrees a faint hum began to make 
itself heard, a hum that strengthened as we 
went further. It was the distant sound of the 
Falls. Legend has it that the roar can be 
heard twenty miles off, that people become deaf 
from living within reach of them, that no 
animal life can exist within a radius of some 
miles. Fables all. The noise is stupendous 
when standing just above the Falls, but there 
is no truth in these wild exaggerations. 
To see them properly it is necessary to wade 
right out into the river, and we had brought 
bathing dresses to put on. Rope shoes and 
poles had been provided, and we stepped into 
the cold water, following our guides. The 
current was terrific in some places, and the 
stones and rocks were slippery. From where 
we started you looked across about fifty yards 
of fast shallow water to a flat wooded island, 
which shut out the view. We waded across to 
this; the bottom was tricky and uneven, with 
shelves of rock, such as you get on many salmon 
rivers. We walked across the narrow island, 
entered the river again, and waded across and 
down about one hundred yards to the top of the 
Falls, and then got to a rock half-way down one 
of the subsidiary falls at the side of the gorge. 
