ath. As I stood over them in their wild career, listening to
their roaring as if in anger, and watching the madness of their speed, I
felt a sensation of awe--an inward acknowledgment of the tremendous
power of Nature; and, after a time, I departed with feelings of gladness
to escape from thought which became painful when so near to danger.

I gained the lower falls, which now covered the whole width of the rock,
which they seldom do except during the freshets. They were
extraordinary from their variety. On the side where I stood, poured
down a rapid column of water about one-half of the width of the fall; on
the other, it was running over a clear thin stream, as gentle and
amiable as water could be. That part of the fall reminded me of ladies'
hair in flowing ringlets, and the one nearest me of the Lord Chancellor
Eldon, in all the pomposity and frowning dignity of his full-bottomed
wig. And then I thought of the lion and the lamb, not lying down, but
falling down together; and then I thought that I was wet through, which
was a fact; so I climbed up a ladder, and came to a wooden bridge above
the fall, which conveyed me to the other side. The bridge posses over a
staircase of little falls, sometimes diagonally, sometimes at right
angles with the sites, and is very picturesque. On the other side you
climb up a ladder of one hundred feet, and arrive at a little building
with a portico, where travellers are refreshed. Here you have a view of
all the upper falls, but these seem tame after witnessing the savage
impetuosity of the rapids below. You ascend another ladder of one
hundred feet, and you arrive at a path pointed out to you by the broad
chips of the woodman's axe. Follow the chips and you will arrive four
or five hundred feet above both the bridge and the level of the upper
fall. This scene is splendid. The black perpendicular rocks on the
other side; the succession of falls; the rapids roaring below; the
forest trees rising to the clouds and spreading with their majestic
boughs the vapour ascending from the falling waters; together with the
occasional glimpses of the skies here and there--all this induces you to
wander with your eyes from one point of view to another, never tiring
with its beauty, wildness, and vastness: and, if you do not exclaim with
the Mussulman, God is great! you _feel_ it through every sense, and at
every pulsation of the heart.

The mountain was still above me, and I continued m