The Rhine, at Schaffhause, falls about seventy or eighty feet, and is by no means impressive, even when viewed from the camera obscura directly opposite the cataract. We drove from the town on a beautiful moonlight night, and descending the stairs on the left bank of the river, we came close to the water’s edge, and also to that of the fall itself. Here is the spot to see and hear the deluge of water, all sparkling with foam, in the mild light of the moon, come thundering from aloft, and threatening every instant to overwhelm the spectator in the boiling flood. If terror be a source of the sublime, there certainly is some degree of this emotion, mixed with the contemplation of a vast mass of water rolling down from a great height, apparently in a direct course towards us. The roar of the cataract, too, is unlike that of any other sound, and adds considerably to the effect produced on the sense of sight.
I do not know how the association of ideas first commenced, but I never see a great waterfall, or a rapid river, without their suggesting themselves as emblems of time or eternity. The torrent rolling along in the same course through countless ages—
“In omne volubilis ævum”—
without change or rest, is calculated to excite reflections on the great stream of time itself—and that inconceivable abyss—eternity—to which it leads. But all things move in circles. The water that runs in the river, must first fall from the clouds—and the rains that descend from the air, must first rise from the earth. And so, perhaps, time and eternity may be but parts of one vast, immeasurable, and incomprehensible cycle, without beginning, middle, or end!
It is probable that, ere many centuries roll away, the falls of the Rhine will become merely a rapid. The stream has worn down four or five channels in the rocky barrier, leaving three or four fragments, resembling the broken arches or piers of a natural bridge, standing up many feet above the surface of the water where it begins to curl over the precipice. The centre fragment is much higher than its brethren, and it is surmounted by a wooden shield, (how they managed to place it there is not easily imagined,) with the arms and motto of Schaffhause.
“Deus spes
Nostra es.”
The torrent, thus split into four or five divisions, has given rise to some extravagant comparisons, one of which is their similitude to five foaming white steeds, that have broke away from their keepers.
Hark! ’tis the voice of the falling flood!
And see where the torrents come—