THE FALLS OF GIT AYR A. 
75 
It sounds an unbelievable thing to do, and 
indeed looked it. It can only be compared to 
the feat of putting on a bathing dress and 
wading across to Goat Island above Niagara. 
It would have been madness without Indian 
guides. They led us zigzag, keeping to the 
high shelves of rock where the water was 
comparatively shallow, always ready to lend a 
hand at the dangerous spots. Even so we were 
often above the waist, and of course there were 
always the Falls below, their pull was on us, 
and it was quite easy to slip. Finally we got 
down and through the top of one of the falls 
and reached a rock half-day down, overlooking 
the main chasm of the gorge. 
Below were the great rapids. The river 
poured in thunder through the opening, lumps 
of shattered water foam and spray, amber and 
ivory. You cannot compare it to water at all. 
It was a substance compacted of air and liquid 
and froth, and yet there was nothing light or 
foamy or airy about it. The rush and the stress 
and the drive of it had hammered it into a 
solidity; and yet it had not that sameness of 
outline, that moving solidity, which is given 
you by the unchanging movement of a great 
waterfall: for it was always changing, never 
the same, tossed and twisted and tortured now 
into this shape and now into that. 
At the head of the rapids stands a high rocky 
island, the safe fortress of many a macaw. 
