Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume II.djvu/94

 L 82 ]

and plants; the torrent in the mean time follows a rapid descent, and keeps up an uninterrupted roar. Proceeding onwards, the mural rock rises on each side; the glen becomes narrower, and more gloomy ; and the sound of many waters increasing upon the ear intimates the neighbourhood of a cataract. Nor is the expectation disappointed, for two suc- cessive falls immediately appear. Of these the vSecond is wonderfully impressive, the deep cauldron which recewes the troubled river after its desperate leap, being nearly involved in midnight darkness by the mass of wood that overhangs its abyss. Approaching now more closely to each other, the rocks excite the struggling stream to tenfold fury, who with difficulty pushes his waters through an horrible fissure, and forms a cascade of sixty feet, falling with such prodigious force as to have worked for itself a bason three hundred feet into the rock below. The over-arching cli lis and solemn shades

o

reverberate the roar in a manner truly tremendous. In these beautiful recesses little has been done to assist nature, and that little performed with great skill. An increasing interest is kept up, by the scenes which succeeded each other gradually rising in grandeur and sublimity from the quiet of Pous- sin's pastoral piclures, where nature shews herself in silence and repose, to the dashing and gloomy

�� �