artly over one side of a horseshoe shaped precipice which had
evidently, from the huge boulders in the channel below, been eaten back
into the side of the precipice, and partly shoot out through various
hidden channels which the waters have deeply cut through a huge
semicircular platform of rock which overhangs the valley below. As they
thus shoot out the effect is extremely striking and picturesque, and their
resemblance to the spokes of light from a star no doubt caused the natives
to give the very appropriate name of Chuckee (pronounced
Chickee--Kanarese for star) to these beautiful falls. This semicircular
platform of rock stands on one side of the river-bed, next to this we have
the horseshoe-shaped precipice I have mentioned, and next to that again,
as it were by way of quietly beautiful contrast, there is a vast sheet of
steeply sloping rock, which is completely covered by a thin coating of
white, and everywhere foaming water. When the river is at the full this
fine series of falls and cascades vanishes, and is replaced, as in the
case of the falls at Gairsoppa, by one great fall about half a mile wide.

After looking at this beautiful scene, the eye wanders next over some
jungle-clad slopes on the western side of the main falls, to dwell on a
series of cascades and racing waters which descend through channels
flanked on either side by scrubby plants and trees--a series which arises
from a branch which diverges about a mile higher up the river, and the
cascades and runnels of water of which are scattered round precipitous
slopes right up to, and immediately below, the point on which I was
standing. All the falls and cascades unite in a pool below of great width,
from which the water escapes through a narrow gorge, to join, further
down, the river branch on which are the Gangana Chuckee Falls. The general
effect here appears to be that you are looking at falls and cascades
proceeding from two different rivers, the one flowing from the south and
the other from the west, and the effect is the same at the first described
falls. The general height of all the falls is said to be from 200 to 250
feet, and in Mr. Bowring's "Eastern Experiences" 300 feet, but I can find
no account, and could hear of no particulars, as to when or how
measurements were taken, as in the case of the falls at Gairsoppa, which
were carefully surveyed by officers of the Indian Navy. I was particularly
struck with the absence of bird life at these