Page:A Companion and Useful Guide to the Beauties of Scotland.djvu/156

138 take fast hold of the rock on which I sat, lest I should drop from it into the whirling foaming stream. I did not see the Cauldron Lin from the north side of the river, as the south side is far preferable. From the Rumbling Brig the river flows gently down, for about half a mile; and after it escapes from its rough towering sides at the bridge, its banks shew nothing remarkable, till it runs to a narrow chasm formed in a very high rock, rising perpendicularly on each side of the Cauldrons to a considerable height, covered at the top with wood. The passage or gap in the rock may be forty feet in length; I only judged by my eye. The walk to the Cauldrons and Lin, on the south side, is very conveniently and judiciously made, by Mr. Charles Mercer. I came first on the top of the rock, where I looked down, and perceived the river enter the gloomy passage by a low cascade, and fall into one cauldron; from which it enters a second, whence it boils up most furiously, foaming and white. It then falls into a third cauldron, and from that, rushes through its narrow dark passage, till it reaches the end of the chasm, when it precipitates itself over a prodigious mass of rocks, I should imagine, at least two hundred feet high, and dashes