rce; well, the fall was once a few yards below us, and I dare to say
was, in its time, as regular and as handsome a sheet of water as any
along the Hudson. But old age is a great injury to good looks, as these
sweet young ladies have yet to l'arn! The place is sadly changed! These
rocks are full of cracks, and in some places they are softer than at
othersome, and the water has worked out deep hollows for itself, until
it has fallen back, ay, some hundred feet, breaking here and wearing
there, until the falls have neither shape nor consistency."

"In what part of them are we?" asked Heyward.

"Why, we are nigh the spot that Providence first placed them at, but
where, it seems, they were too rebellious to stay. The rock proved
softer on each side of us, and so they left the center of the river bare
and dry, first working out these two little holes for us to hide in."

"We are then on an island!"

"Ay! there are the falls on two sides of us, and the river above and
below. If you had daylight, it would be worth the trouble to step up
on the height of this rock, and look at the perversity of the water. It
falls by no rule at all; sometimes it leaps, sometimes it tumbles;
there it skips; here it shoots; in one place 'tis white as snow, and in
another 'tis green as grass; hereabouts, it pitches into deep hollows,
that rumble and crush the 'arth; and thereaways, it ripples and sings
like a brook, fashioning whirlpools and gullies in the old stone, as if
'twas no harder than trodden clay. The whole design of the river seems
disconcerted. First it runs smoothly, as if meaning to go down the
descent as things were ordered; then it angles about and faces the
shores; nor are there places wanting where it looks backward, as if
unwilling to leave the wilderness, to mingle with the salt. Ay, lady,
the fine cobweb-looking cloth you wear at your throat is coarse,
and like a fishnet, to little spots I can show you, where the river
fabricates all sorts of images, as if having broke loose from order, it
would try its hand at everything. And yet what does it amount to! After
the water has been suffered so to have its will, for a time, like a
headstrong man, it is gathered together by the hand that made it, and a
few rods below you may see it all, flowing on steadily toward the sea,
as was foreordained from the first foundation of the 'arth!"

While his auditors received a cheering assurance of the security of
their place of concealment f