Page:A voyage round the world, in His Britannic Majesty's sloop, Resolution, commanded by Capt. James Cook, during the years 1772, 3, 4, and 5 (IA b30413849 0001).pdf/177

Rh

in its rapid descent, till it is all collected in a fine bason about sixty yards in circuit, included on three sides by the natural walls of the rocky chasm, and in front by huge masses of stone irregularly piled above each other. Between them the stream finds its way, and runs foaming with the greatest rapidity along the slope of the hill to the sea. The whole neighbourhood of the cascade, to a distance of an hundred yards around, is filled with the steam or watery vapour formed by the violence of the fall. This mist however was so thick, that it penetrated our clothes in a few minutes, as effectually as a shower of rain would have done. We mounted on the highest stone before the bason, and looking down into it, were struck with the sight of a most beautiful rainbow of a perfectly circular form, which was produced by the meridian rays of the sun refracted in the vapour of the cascade. Beyond this circle the rest of the steam was tinged with the prismatic colours, refracted in an inverted order. The scenery on the left consists of steep, brown rocks, fringed on the summits with over-hanging shrubs and trees; on the right there is a vast heap of large stones, probably hurried down from the impending mountain's brow, by the force of the torrent. From thence rises a sloping bank, about seventy-five yards high, on which a wall of twenty-five yards perpendicular is placed, crowned with verdure and shrubberies. Still farther to the right, the broken rocks are clothed with mosses, ferns, grasses,