d designed to bridge this fearful caldron,
but, having raised these piers had rested, content with this evidence of
her power, and so left the work unfinished.

Through the intervals of these piers then, if they may be so
denominated, the water was impelled in three distinct columns of foam
with inconceivable impetuosity; then, after forming many vortices,
frightful to contemplate steadily, whirled boiling away beneath the
boldly jutting table-rock, which afforded us sound footing amidst a din
that of necessity made admiration dumb, since to hear your own voice or
any other person's was quite out of the question.

Oh what a pit of Acheron was here! I would have given a million a-year
to have had Martin with me, pencil in hand, looking upwards upon the
centre one of those three terrible piers. What a throne would it have
made in his hands for the arch enemy of man! How his fancy would have
imaged the lost angel forth, standing there in his might armed for
hopeless combat, shadowed grandly out amidst the silvery vapours curling
round him, whilst up through the raging whirlpools drove the countless
columns of hell in battle array; what tossing of co-mingled plumes and
waves above the thick squadrons of horse, who, with flowing manes and
fiery nostrils, would be seen breaking through and riding over the
foaming torrent, all shadowed forth in a dim reality he knows so well to
deal with, and which, in his creations, leaves the fancy, already
startled by that it can define, afraid to guess at all which yet remains
only half told!

We wandered here, from point to point, unable to express our
bewilderment and delight otherwise than by pantomimic gestures more
amusing than intelligible; and then, in consideration of the lone
condition of our excellent comrade, began to crawl and climb our way
back to the shade where we had left the horses.

The table-rocks were everywhere worn into circular basins of greater or
less dimensions; when the floods of spring and autumn subside, these
pools are left well stocked with pike, trout, and other sorts of fish;
the water was at this time exceedingly low, and a long continuance of
premature heat had shortened the allowance of the denizens of these
pools; our near neighbourhood, therefore, deprived as they were of the
means of retreat or concealment, caused a great sensation amongst them,
and much rushing, and floundering, and darting to and fro.

We joined cordially in commiserating the f