Page:Seven Years in South Africa v2.djvu/250

 feet tremble as though there were some convulsion in a subterranean cave beneath; we become every moment more conscious of a desire to witness the origin of the strange commotion; it is hard to suppress the sense of nervousness; no infernal crater in which the elements were all at strife could produce a more thrilling throb of nature! Truly it is a scene in which a man may well become aware of his own insignificance!

There is still another direction in which it remains for us to look. We have yet to make our wondering inspection of the great ravine into which the water in its massive volume is precipitated. That huge ravine is a long zigzag. At first it proceeds for 800 yards due south; it then makes an angle and runs for 1000 yards to the west-south-west; again it turns for 1100 yards to the south-east, and thus it continues to vary its direction. Except where deep chines break in, too precipitous to be crossed, it is not difficult to walk along the edge and to see how perpetually the rugged walls of rock present some fresh diversity of form; at one time they are absolutely perpendicular as though they had been hewn by a mason’s hand, at the next turn they slope like the glacis of a gloomy rampart, and then suddenly they assume the aspect of a huge garden-wall dotted over with clusters of green and crimson in striking contrast with the dull brown ground. Every here and there particles of earth containing the seeds of aloes have been carried into the clefts of the rock, and, nourished by the fertilizing matter already there, have germinated and thriven admirably, as their fine trusses of bloom are present to testify; meanwhile their own seeds are