20
feet high, rising to the upper skirt of the spray-cloud, that sustained it, and resting its lower end upon the surface of the torrent, as if it grew out of the water. In an instant the wind shifted, the vapour was dispersed, and the brilliant image vanished like a spirit.
l The thin and dizzy ledge.
This is a thin plate or slab of rock, projecting from the high bank on the Canadian side, upon a level with, and close by the end of, the horse-shoe fall. It overhangs the base of the cliff, on which it rests, 48 feet; and is the perilous place to which every visiter is conducted, as the most favourable point for viewing the whole, or at least the grandest part, of this indescribable scene.
m Like serpent foul, &c.
See Ovid's Met. lib. 3. l. 48. Pind. Ol. Od. 8. Ep. 2, and Milt. Par. Lost, b. 10. l. 505, and Sequel.
n To yon dark portal.
This is a dark opening formed by the hanging rock, and shooting cataract, in the shape of a lofty gothic arch; under which the author, after several anxious but unsuccessful efforts, was prevented from proceeding more than a few yards, by the violent tempest of wind and rain, which continually issues from it. To account for this singular phenomenon is not easy; it seemed, however, to the author, that the innumerable columns and fragments of air, which are intermingled with, and forced
