We dismounted; and, tying our horses to a tree, descended into the vast basin within whose rugged depths the river finds at all seasons ample space for its fury. Opposite to our stand the face of the black rock rose perpendicular for a hundred and fifty feet; and over its brow waved a grove of lofty trees and graceful flowering shrubs, forming together a plume befitting such a crest, and worthy to float above such a mêlée.
Along in front of our position, and only a few yards off, the river was precipitated from a ledge of rock, three huge masses of which towered high over it, lying athwart the line of the torrent at apparently equal distances, as though Nature had 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 fate of these unlucky détenus, who, as the summer advances, must, to say the least of it, become most uncomfortably warm about the middle of the day. K——r wasted, as I considered, much time in sentimentalizing over their probable fate, for I found that he loitered behind by every basin which contained a larger specimen than usual.
After a rather prolonged halt, I was preparing to row my friend for his vexatious display of philanthropy, when he came to me with his right arm soaked up to the shoulder, grievously lamenting his having failed, by an untimous slip, in securing a fellow of at least nine or ten pounds' weight.
"What the devil!" exclaimed I, "is it possible that you contemplated scrambling your way back to give this finny gentleman the freedom of the river?"
"Not at all, my dear fellow," replied my sensitive friend; "I merely contemplated carrying him to Washington, and giving him the freedom of the boiler. The Baron would have rejoiced in him; he was a fish for the Czar himself! Besides, it would have been an act of charity to the poor devil of a fish, the consummation of whose horrid fate is alarmingly nigh, since there is not over six inches of water on the rock, and that already as close as may be upon ninety-four degrees. That one dip has parboiled my right arm; I must plunge it in the first running water to cool it."