Page:Monthly scrap book, for July.pdf/17

Rh bursts like smoke from a furnace, till it fills the whole cavern, and then, condensed with the rapidity of steam, is precipitated in rain; in addition to which, there is no support but flakes of the stones covered with innumerable eels.

Still there are moments when the eye, at one glance, can catch a glimpse of this magnificent saloon. On one side the enormous ribs of the precipice arch themselves with Gothic grandeur more than one hundred feet above our heads, with a rottenness more threatening than the water under which they groan. From their summit is projected, with incalculable intensity, a silvery flood, in which the sun seems to dance like a fire-fly. Beneath, is a chasm of death; an anvil, upon which the hammers of the cataract beat with unsparing and remorseless might; an abyss of wrath!

We had now penetrated to the utmost recess. A pillar of the precipice juts directly out into the sheet, and beyond it no human foot can step, but to immediate annihilation. The distance from the edge of the falls, to the rock which arrests our progress, is said to be forty-five feet, but I do not think this has ever been accurately ascertained. The arch under which we passed, is evidently undergoing a rapid decay at the bottom, while the rock, too, unwasted, juts out like the leaf of a table. Consequently a fall must happen, and, judging from its appearance, may be expected every day; and this is probably the only real danger in going beneath the sheet. We passed to our temporary home, through the valley which skirts the upper stream, among gilded clouds, and rainbows, and