, into the space of open
ground immediately in its vicinity, that white volumes of foam are seen,
as if boiling up from a sulphureous gulph. Here a foot-path turns from
the road, towards a wooded cliff. The rapids are beheld on the right,
rushing for the space of a mile, like a tempestuous sea. A narrow tract
descends about sixty feet down the cliff, and continues across a plashy
meadow, through a copse, encumbered with masses of limestone. Beyond
this, Mr. Hall found himself upon what is called the Table Rock, on the
west side of the upper part of the cataract, at the very point where the
river precipitates itself into the abyss. The rapid motion of the
waters, the stunning noise, and the mounting clouds, almost persuade the
startled senses, that the rock itself is tottering, and is on the point
of being precipitated into the gulph, which swallows the mass of
descending waters. He bent over it, to mark the clouds rolling white
beneath him, as in an inverted sky, illuminated by a most brilliant
rainbow; one of those features of softness which nature delights to
pencil amid her wildest scenes, tempering her awfulness with beauty, and
making even her terrors lovely.

There is a ladder about half a mile below the Table Rock; and, by this,
Mr. Hall descended the cliff, to reach the foot of the fall. There was
formerly much difficulty in the descent, but a few years have made a
great change: the present dangers and difficulties may easily be
enumerated. The first is, the ordinary hazard that every one runs who
goes up or down a ladder: this ladder is a very good one, of thirty
steps, or about forty feet; and, from it, the path is a rough one, over
the fragments and masses of rock which have gradually crumbled, or have
been forcibly riven, from the cliff, and which cover a broad declining
space, from its foot to the brink of the river. The only risk, in this
part of the pilgrimage, is that of a broken shin from a false step. The
path gradually becomes smooth as it advances towards the cataract. Mr.
Hall, as he drew near, says that he felt a sensation of awe, like that
caused by the first cannon, on the morning of a battle. He passed, from
sunshine, into gloom and tempest. The spray beat down in a heavy rain; a
violent wind rushed from behind the sheet of water: it was difficult to
respire, and, for a moment, it seemed temerity to encounter the
convulsive workings of the elements, and to intrude into the dark
dwellings of thei