[Illustration]
FROM the precipice whence our first view of this Fall is taken, the
descent is steep and slippery to the very brink of the torrent, which it
is necessary to cross on the wild blocks that lie scattered in its rocky
bed. From thence, literally buried in forest foliage, the tourist will
enjoy a very different, but perhaps more striking and picturesque, view
than the other. The stream, at a vast height above him, is seen leaping
from ledge to ledge,—sometimes lost, sometimes sparkling in sunshine,
till it courses impetuously beneath the rock on which he is seated, and
is lost in the deep unbroken obscurity of the forest. The rocky ledges
above, worn by time, have the appearance of deep caverns, and
beautifully relieve the fall of the light and silvery stream. In the
winter, the vast icicles which are suspended from the ledges of rock,
and shine like pillars against the deep obscurity of the caverns behind,
afford a most romantic spectacle, one which has afforded a subject to
Bryant for one of the most imaginative of his poems.
[Illustration]