ied
with a distant view of the opening through its rocky barrier, and of the
columns of vapour rushing up for 300 to 400 feet, forming a spreading
cloud, and then falling in perpetual rain, he engaged a native, with
nerves as strong as his own and expert in the management of the canoe,
to paddle him down the river, here heaving, eddying, and fretting, as if
reluctant to approach the gorge and hurl itself down the precipice to an
islet immediately above the fall, and from one point of which he could
look over its edge into the foaming caldron below, mark the mad whirl
of its waters, and stand in the very focus of its vapoury columns and
its deafening roar. But unique and magnificent as was the cataract when
Dr. Livingston beheld it, the reports of others, and the inference drawn
by himself, satisfied him that the spectacle was tame compared with what
occurs during the rainy season, when the river flows between banks many
miles apart, and still forces its augmented waters through the same
fissure into the same trough. At these times the columns of spray may be
seen, and the sound heard ten or twelve miles distant."

My traps are all in the ferry-boat: I have crossed the river, been wound
up the opposite bank, paid my fare, and am hissing away for Rochester.
What thoughts does Rochester give rise to? If you are a commercial man,
you will conjure up visions of activity and enterprise; if you are an
inquirer into mysteries and manners, your dreams will be of
"spirit-rapping and Bloomers." Coming fresh from Buffalo, I confess I
was rather interested in the latter. But here I am at the place itself,
and lodged in an hotel wonderfully handy to the station; and before the
front door thereof railways are interlaced like the meshes of a
fisherman's net. Having no conversable companion, I take to my ever
faithful and silent friend, the fragrant cigar, and start for a stroll.
There is a bookseller's shop at the corner; I almost invariably feel
tempted to stop when passing a depot for literature, especially in a
strange place; but on the present occasion a Brobdignagian notice caught
my eye, and gave me a queer sensation inside my waistcoat--"Awful smash
among the Banks!" Below, in more Lilliputian characters, followed a list
of names. I had just obtained notes of different banks for my travelling
expenses, and I knew not how many thereof might belong to the bankrupt
list before me; a short examination sufficed, and with a quieted min