THE HIGHEST CATARACT IN THE WORLD. 83 said the puzzled Englishman; "but pray leave off quizzing me in this strange and unmerciful manner, and tell me what is your object. if have any, doing it." you in 13. The grave-looking gentleman now, for the first time, became intelligible. "I am a Dutchman," said he, "and am learning your language. The book you saw in my hand was an English Grammar. I find much difficulty in remembering the peculiarities of the verbs; and my tutor has advised me, in order to fix them in my mind, to conjugate every English verb that I hear spoken. This I have made it a rule to do. I do not like to have my studies broken in upon, or I would have told you this before." 14. The Englishman laughed heartily at this explanation, and invited the conjugating Dutchman to dine with him and his friend. "I will dine," replied he, "thou wilt dine, he will dine; we will dine, ye or you will dine, they will dine, we will all dine together!" This they accordingly did; and the first sentiment that was proposed was, " May all duels have as harmless a termination as ours!" XXX.-THE HIGHEST CATARACT IN THE WORLD. SHEER, a., clear; perpendicular. FIS'SURE, n., a cleft. BA'SIN, n., a hollow place; a dish. NOD'ULE, n., a small knot. SYC'A-MORE, n., a tree. SER PEN-TINE, a., winding; spiral. OP'U-LENCE, n., wealth; riches. COM'PAR-A-BLE, a., worthy to be compared. GE-OL'O-GY, n., the science which treats of the structure of the earth. COM-PLEX'I-TY, N., state of being com'plex or in'tricate. Pronounce Yosemite, Yo-sem'i-te; Sierra, Se-ĕr'ra; a in Ne-va'da like a in father, x in lux-u'ri-ant like gz; th in beneath and in paths vocal as in breathe; toward, toard; basin, ba'sn. Do not say eastun for east'ern; oppusite for op'po-site; medder for mead'ow. 1. THE Yo-Semite valley, in California, is a pass about ten miles long. At its eastern extremity it 84 THE HIGHEST CATARACT IN THE WORLD. leads into three narrower passes, each of which extends several miles, winding, by the wildest paths, into the heart of the Sierra Nevada chain of mountains. For seven miles of the main valley, which varies in width from three quarters of a mile to a mile and a half, the walls on either side are from two thousand to nearly five thousand feet above the road, and are nearly perpendicular. From these walls, rocky splinters, a thousand feet in height, start up, and, every winter, drop a few hundred tons of granite, to adorn the base of the rampart with picturesque ruin. 2. The valley is of such irregular width, and bends so much, and often so abruptly, that there is great variety and frequent surprise in the forms and combinations of the overhanging rocks, as one rides along the bank of the stream. The patches of luxuriant meadow, with their dazzling green, and the grouping of the superb firs, two hundred feet high, that skirt them, and that shoot above the stout and graceful oaks and sycamores, through which the horse-path winds, are delightful rests of sweetness and beauty amid the threatening awfulness. 3. The Merced, which flows through the main pass, is a noble stream, a hundred feet wide and ten feet deep. It is formed chiefly of the streams that leap and rush through the narrower passes, and it is swollen, also, by the bounty of the marvelous waterfalls that pour down from the ramparts of the wider valley. The sublime poetry of Hab'akkuk is needed to describe the impression, and, perhaps, the geology, of these mighty fissures: "Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers." 4. At the foot of the break-neck declivity of nearly three thousand feet, by which we reach the banks of the Merced, we are six miles from the hotel; and every rod of the ride awakens wonder, awe, and a solemn. THE HIGHEST CATARACT IN THE WORLD. 85 joy. As we approach the hotel, and turn toward the opposite bank of the river, what is that "Which ever sounds and shines, A pillar of white light upon the wall Of purple cliffs aloof descried "? That, reader, is the highest waterfall in the world, the Yo-Semite cataract, nearly twenty-five hundred feet in its plunge, dashing from a break or depression in a cliff thirty-two hundred feet sheer. 5. A writer, who visited this valley in September, calls the cataract a mere tape-line of water dropped from the sky. Perhaps it is so, toward the close of the dry season; but as we saw it, the blended majesty and beauty of it, apart from the general sublimities of the Yo-Semite gorge, would repay a journey of a thousand miles. There was no deficiency of water. It was a powerful stream, thirty-five feet broad, fresh from the Nevada, that made the plunge from the brow of the awful precipice. 6. At the first leap it clears fourteen hundred and ninety-seven feet; then it tumbles down a series of steep stairways four hundred and two feet, and then makes a jump to the meadows five hundred and eighteen feet more. The three pitches are in full view, making a fall of more than twenty-four hundred feet. 7. But it is the upper and highest cataract that is most wonderful to the eye, as well as most musical. The cliff is so sheer that there is no break in the body of the water during the whole of its descent of more than a quarter of a mile. It pours in a curve, from the summit, fifteen hundred feet, to the basin that hoards it but a moment for the cascades that follow. 8. And what endless complexities and opulence of beauty in the forms and motions of the cataract! It is comparatively narrow at the top of the precipice, although, as we said, the tide that pours thirty-five feet broad. But it widens as it and curves a little on one side as it widens it shapes itself, before it reaches its first bow ite, into the figure of a comet. More beau the comet, however, we can see the substan watery loveliness ever renew itself, and e itself away. 9. The cataract seems to shoot out a thou pentine heads or knots of water, which wrig deliberately through the air, and expend them mist before half the descent is over. Then a burst from the body and sides of the fall, same fortune on the remaining distance; and most charming fretwork of watery nodules, e ing its vapory train for a hundred feet or woven all over the cascade, which swings, then, thirty feet each way, on the mountain si it were a pendulum of watery lace. Once in too, the wind manages to get back of the fall, it and the cliff, and then it will whirl it ro round, for two or three hundred feet, as if to experiment of twisting it to wring it dry. 10. Of course I visited the foot of the lowes the Yo-Semite, and looked up through the sp hundred feet, to its crown. And I tried to the base of the first or highest cataract, but way among the steep, sharp rocks; for there one line by which the cliff can be scaled. nearer view that I found, or heard described, parable with the picture, from the hotel, of the Curve of the upper cataract, fifteen hundred fe and the two falls immediately beneath it, in wh same water leaps to the level of the quiet Merc REV. T. S. THE KEEPING OF THE BRIDGE. 87 XXXI.—THE KEEPING OF THE BRIDGE. STRAIGHT (strate), a., not crooked;—| VAN'GUARD, n., first line of an army. ad., directly; in the shortest time. CREST, n., an ornament on a helmet. QUOTH (kwōth), v. i. defective, said. ERE (like ere in there), ad., before. DAUNTLESS (au as in father), a., fearless. LE'VER, n., bar for raising weights. HAR'NESS, n., armor; furniture for a GOR'Y, a., stained with clotted blood. In cap'tain, villain, &c., give ai the sound of short i. Do not say bil'ing for boil'ing. It is recorded in the annals of ancient Rome that Horatius, assisted by Lartius and Herminius, defended the Sublician Bridge, over the Tiber, against the whole Etruscan army, under Por'sena, while the Romans broke down the bridge behind the "dauntless Three." When the work was nearly finished, Horatius sent back his two companions. As soon as the bridge was quite destroyed, he plunged into the stream, and swam across to the city in safety, amid the arrows of the enemy. 1. Our spake the Consul roundly: "The bridge must straight go down; For, since Janic'ulum * is lost, And the temples of his gods? 2. "Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul, I, with two more to help me, And keep the bridge with me?" * One of the hills of ancient Rome, from which it was separated by the river Tiber. Por'sena took the fort of Janiculum, and compelled the Romans to retreat, over the bridge, into the city. |