nk, and with the casual
spectators looking down from the same elevation.

The sheet of foam which breaks over the ridge, is more and more divided
as it is dashed against the successive layers of rocks, which it
almost completely veils from view; the spray becomes very delicate and
abundant, from top to bottom, hanging over, and revolving around the
torrent, till it becomes lighter and more evanescent than the whitest
fleecy clouds of summer, than the finest attenuated web, than the
lightest gossamer, constituting the most airy and sumptuous drapery that
can be imagined. Yet, like the drapery of some of the Grecian statues,
which, while it veils, exhibits more forcibly the form beneath, this
does not hide, but exalts the effect produced by this noble cataract.

The rainbow we saw in great perfection; bow within bow, and (what I
never saw elsewhere so perfectly), as I advanced into the spray, the
bow became complete, myself being a part of its circumference, and its
transcendent glories moving with every change of position.

This beautiful and splendid sight was to be enjoyed only by advancing
quite into the shower of spray; as if, in the language of ancient
poetry, and fable, the genii of the place, pleased with the beholder's
near approach to the seat of their empire, decked the devotee with the
appropriate robes of the cataract, the vestal veil of fleecy spray, and
the heavenly splendors of the bow.

* * * * *

=_John L. Stephens, 1808-1852._= (Manual, p. 504.)

From the "Travels in Central America."

=_269._= DISCOVERY OF A RUINED CITY IN THE WOODS

The sight of this unexpected monument put at rest, at once and forever,
in our minds, all uncertainty in regard to the character of American
antiquities, and gave as the assurance that the objects we were in
search of were interesting, not only as the remains of an unknown
people, but as works of art, proving, like newly-discovered historical
records, that the people who once occupied the continent of America were
not savages. With an interest perhaps stronger than we had ever felt
in wandering among the ruins of Egypt, we followed our guide, who,
sometimes missing his way, with a constant and vigorous use of his
machete, conducted us through the thick forest, among half-buried
fragments, to fourteen monuments of the same character and appearance,
some with more elegant designs, and some in workmanship equal to the
finest monuments