This evening I went down with one of our party to view the cataract by moonlight. I took my favourite seat on the projecting rock, at a little distance from the brink of the fall, and gazed till every sense seemed absorbed in contemplation. Although the shades of night increased the sublimity of the prospect and "deepened the murmur of the falling floods," the moon in placid beauty shed her soft influence upon the mind, and mitigated the horrors of the scene. The thunders which bellowed from the abyss, and the loveliness of the falling element, which glittered like molten silver in the moonlight, seemed to complete in absolute perfection the rare union of the beautiful with the sublime.
While reflecting upon the inadequacy of language to express the feelings I experienced, or to describe the wonders which I surveyed, an American gentleman, to my great amusement, tapped me on the shoulder, and "guessed" that it was "pretty droll!" It was difficult to avoid laughing in his face; yet I could not help envying him his vocabulary, which had so eloquently released me from my dilemma....
Though earnestly dissuaded from the undertaking, I had determined to employ the first fine morning in visiting the cavern beneath the fall. The guide recommended my companion and myself to set out as early as six o'clock, that we might have the advantage of the morning sun upon the waters. We came to the guide's house at the appointed hour, and disencumbered ourselves of such garments as we did not wish to have wetted; descending the circular ladder, we followed the course of the path running along the top of the débris of the precipice, which I have already described. Having pursued this track for about eighty yards, in the course of which we were completely drenched, we found ourselves close to the cataract. Although enveloped in a cloud of spray, we could distinguish without difficulty the direction of our path, and the nature of the cavern we were about to enter. Our guide warned us of the difficulty in respiration which we should encounter from the spray, and recommended us to look with exclusive attention to the security of our footing. Thus warned, we pushed forward, blown about and buffeted by the wind, stunned by the noise, and blinded by the spray. Each successive gust penetrated us to the very bones with cold. Determined to proceed, we toiled and struggled on, and having followed the footsteps of the guide as far as was possible consistently with safety, we sat down, and having collected our senses by degrees, the wonders of the cavern slowly developed themselves. It is impossible to describe the strange unnatural light reflected through its crystal wall, the roar of the waters, and the blasts of the hurried hurricane which perpetually rages in its recesses. We endured its fury a sufficient time to form a notion of the shape and dimensions of this dreadful place. The cavern was tolerably light, though the sun was unfortunately enveloped in clouds. His disc was invisible, but we could clearly distinguish his situation through the watery barrier. The fall of the cataract is nearly perpendicular. The bank over which it is precipitated is of concave form, owing to its upper stratum being composed of lime-stone, and its base of soft slate-stone, which has been eaten away by the constant attrition of the recoiling waters. The cavern is about one hundred and twenty feet in height, fifty in breadth, and three hundred in length. The entrance was completely invisible. By screaming in our ears, the guide contrived to explain to us that there was one more point which we might have reached had the wind been in any other direction. Unluckily it blew full upon the sheet of the cataract, and drove it in so as to dash upon the rock over which we must have passed. A few yards beyond this, the precipice becomes perpendicular, and, blending with the water, forms the extremity of the cave. After a stay of nearly ten minutes in this most horrible purgatory, we gladly left it to its loathsome inhabitants the eel and the water-snake, who crawl about its recesses in considerable numbers,—and returned to the inn—De Roos's Travels in the United States, &c.
THE GUILLOTINE.
The first sight, however, which it fell to my lot to witness at Brussels in this second and short visit, was neither gay nor handsome, nor dear in any sense, but the very reverse; it being that of the punishment of the guillotine inflicted on a wretched murderer, named John Baptist Michel. [2] Hearing, at the moment of my arrival, that this tragical scene was on the point of being acted in the great square of the market-place, I determined for once to make a sacrifice of my feelings to the desire of being present at a spectacle, with the nature of which the recollections of revolutionary horrors are so intimately associated. Accordingly, following to the spot a guard of soldiers appointed to assist at the execution, I disengaged myself as soon as possible from the pressure of the immense crowd already assembled, and obtained a seat at the window of a house immediately opposite the Hotel-de-Ville, in front of the principal entrance to which the guillotine had been erected. At the hour of twelve at noon precisely, the malefactor, tall, athletic, and young, having his hands tied behind his back, and being stripped to the waist, was brought to the square in a cart, under an escort of gen-d'armes, attended by an elderly and respectable ecclesiastic; who, having been previously occupied in administering the consolations of religion to the condemned person in prison, now appeared incessantly employed in tranquillizing him on his way to the scaffold. Arrived near the fatal machine, the unhappy man stepped out of the vehicle, knelt at the feet of his confessor, received the priestly benediction, kissed some individuals who accompanied him, and was hurried by the officers of justice up the steps of the cube-form structure of wood, painted of a blood-red, on which stood the dreadful apparatus of death. To reach the top of the platform, to be fast bound to a board, to be placed horizontally under the axe, and deprived of life by its unerring blow, was, in the case of this miserable offender, the work literally of a moment. It was indeed an awfully sudden transit from time to eternity. He could only cry out, "Adieu, mes amis," and he was gone. The severed head, passing through a red-coloured bag fixed under, fell to the ground—the blood spouted forth from the neck like water from a fountain—the body, lifted up without delay, was flung down through a trap-door in the platform. Never did capital punishment more quickly take effect on a human being; and whilst the executioner was coolly taking out the axe from the groove of the machine, and placing it, covered as it was with gore, in a box, the remains of the culprit, deposited in a shell, were hoisted into a wagon, and conveyed to the prison. In twenty minutes all was over, and the Grande Place nearly cleared of its thousands, on whom the dreadful scene seemed to have made, as usual, the slightest possible impression—Stevenson's Tour in France, Switzerland, &c.
THE HEIR PRESUMPTIVE.
Of all the miseries of human life, and God knows they are manifold enough, there are few more utterly heart-sickening and overwhelming than those endured by the unlucky Heir Presumptive; when, after having submitted to the whims and caprices of some rich relation, and endured a state of worse than Egyptian bondage, for a long series of years, he finds himself cut off with a shilling, or a mourning ring; and the El Dorado of his tedious term of probation and expectancy devoted to the endowment of methodist chapels and Sunday schools; or bequeathed to some six months' friend (usually a female housekeeper, or spiritual adviser) who, entering the vineyard at the eleventh hour, (the precise moment at which his patience and humility become exhausted,) carries off the golden prize, and adds another melancholy confirmation, to those already upon record, of the fallacy of all human anticipations. It matters little what may have been the motives of his conduct; whether duty, affection, or that more powerful incentive self-interest; how long or how devotedly he may have humoured the foibles or eccentricities of his relative; or what sacrifices he may have made to enable him to comply with his unreasonable caprices: the result is almost invariably the same. The last year of the Heir Presumptive's purgatory, nay, perhaps even the last month, or the last week, is often the drop to the full cup of his endurance. His patience, however it may have been propped by self-interest, or feelings of a more refined description, usually breaks down before the allotted term has expired; and the whole fabric it has cost him such infinite labour to erect, falls to the ground along with it. It is well if his personal exertions, and the annoyances to which he has subjected himself during the best period of his existence, form the whole of his sacrifices. But, alas! it too often happens that, encouraged by the probability of succeeding in a few years to an independent property, and ambitious, moreover, of making such an appearance in society as will afford the old gentleman or lady no excuse for being ashamed of their connexion with him, he launches into expenses he would never otherwise have dreamed of incurring, and contracts debts without regard to his positive means of liquidating them, on the strength of a contingency which, if he could but be taught to believe it, is of all earthly anticipations the most remote and uncertain. A passion for unnecessary expense is, under different circumstances, frequently repressed by an inability to procure credit; but it is the curse and bane of Mr. Omnium's nephew, and Miss Saveall's niece, that so far from any obstacle being opposed to their prodigality, almost unlimited indulgence is offered, nay, actually pressed upon them, by the trades-people of their wealthy relations; who take especial care that their charges shall be of a nature to repay them for any complaisance or long suffering, as it regards the term of credit, they may be called upon to display. But independently of the additional expense into which the Heir Presumptive is often seduced by the operation of these temptations, and his anxiety to live in a style in some degree accordant with his expectations, what is he not called upon to endure from the caprices, old-fashioned notions, eccentricities, avarice, and obstinacy, of the old tyrant to whom he thus consents to sell himself, and it may be his family, body and soul, for an indefinite number of years.—National Tales.