University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XII.

THE FALLS OF THE BLACKWATER.

Undisturbed by any of the wild beasts, we slept
through the rain until broad daylight, when we
crawled out of our litter, and started the nearly-extinguished
fire. The rain had ceased to fall sometime
in the night; but the mist covered the mountains
and enveloped the river; the forest was everywhere
dripping wet, and for a while it was rather
cheerless as we sat drooping before the slow fire.
Soon, however, the flames took hold of the wood,
and, as the blaze spread, our spirits revived.

The worst possible thing for a man to do, under
any circumstances, is to sit down and droop: the
very best, all the philosophers agree, is to go to
work. So we picked up the hatchets and axe, and
soon had a wagon-load of young hemlocks and firs
upon the fire, making a flame that dried the atmosphere
all around our villa. In doing this, it was
discovered that we were as supple of joint and
limb as if we had slept in moonshine; and when
Triptolemus looked for his cold (which he had
brought with him into the country), and couldn't

find it—and Mr. Butcut felt himself lighter and
freer in body than he had done since he started—
it would have puzzled any one, coming fresh among
us, to believe that we had slept out all night in the
open air, in a drenching rain.

After breakfast, however, going beyond the encampment,
and seeing everything still wet and uncomfortable,
the hearts of some of the party began
to fail them—and it was proposed that we should
strike our camp for home.

"What! and not explore the stream, after coming
out all the way here for the purpose!—No—
not so," said the artist, who wished to sketch the
falls.

"Not so," repeated the Master, who wished to
take some of the larger trout of the Blackwater.

"And you mean, then, to keep us out here another
night in the rain!" exclaimed Peter. "I won't submit
to it!"

"I should rather think we have had enough of
it," said Galen—the idea of another night of rain
destroying his romance a little.

"What do you say, Trip? Are you satisfied?"

"Ugh—uh!" replied Trip; but whether he meant
yes or no, was only to be got at from his countenance—which
was rather down.

"It will read badly in our annals, gentlemen,"
observed the Master, "to go back without exploring
the falls. Besides, I want to get in among the

large fish. We have caught nothing to call a trout
yet!"

"We have seen all the falls we are going to see,"
said Peter.

"What's your opinion as to that, Powell?"

"There are certainly larger falls, gentlemen, somewhere
down below us. These couldn't make all the
roar we have heard out here—could they, Conaway?"

"That's onpossible," replied Conway.

"Gentlemen, I am really suffering very much out
here—this climate don't agree with me!" said Peter,
pathetically.

"You look ill, But!"

Peter smiled faintly at this. It was the first trace
of anything of the kind that had illumined his countenance
since day dawned.

The reader will perceive, from the above conversation—which
will serve as a sample of a very considerable
discussion, involving the breaking up of
the expedition at this point—that some of us had
enough of the wilderness. Although we were all
perfectly unharmed by the exposure of the last
night, yet the recollection of it affected the mind
unpleasantly, and suggested visions of the comfort
of Towers's hostel, which made against any very
strong wish to remain out another night—such
night in our Blackwater villa. But the secret of
this desire to leave was attributable to the fact that

the sun had not yet risen high enough to clear the
hilltops, and disperse the mists and fogs of the
morning, which after such a night of rain, had enveloped
everywhere the beautiful world around.
Let but the sun shine awhile, and the glory of the
rhododendron—the beauty of light and shade—
the splendor of the living green of the wild—the
sheen and the sparkle of the waters—the summer-morning
breeze—the song of the birds—all the
glories of the month of June in the mountains—all
these must enter into the heart, and bring gladness
to despair itself. As it was, the Master and the
Signor rather had But, and Galen, and Trip, in their
power; for the two hunters, it was very evident,
were keen-set for the exploration of the falls. No
one up here knew anything about these falls, other
than the conjecture of their existence: at any rate,
there was no known man who had seen them. The
pride of discovery, therefore, operated on the hunters;
and it was apparent that all Andante and the
Master had to do, was to say the word, and they
couldn't be bribed to go back. However, the sun
began to shine out about this time, breaking through
the mists of the valley; and it was agreed that the
exploring party should go out, while the others
would amuse themselves fishing or shooting in the
neighborhood of the camp, and, if they tired of that,
occupy themselves in ornamenting our villa, and in
improving its sleeping-apartment with a roof—so
that, in case we abode here another night, we might
be able to sleep without being drenched with the
rain.

In accordance with this arrangement, the Master
and the artist, with Powell and Conway, prepared
themselves for the day, and set out on their enterprise
of discovery. The heavens seemed to favor
us, for we had scarce yet filed into the stream, when
the sun broke through the vapor of the valley and
lit up the windings of the little river, until it shone
all resplendent of gold, and amber, and snow-white
foam. It was as if some celestial light had suddenly
illumined the dripping and cheerless Canaan,
and we went

Some short distance below the camp, when in the
middle of a small, grassy island, we saw a large doe
standing about fifty yards below us, among a group
of rocks in the middle of the stream, where she was
browsing upon the moss. Presently she saw us,
and raised her head, standing motionless and lost
in wonder—irresolute as Ariadne when she was
about to fly.

"She has fawns," whispered Powell, "back in
the laurel, and has left them for a while, to come
down into the river to drink, and eat the moss upon
the rocks."

"Don't stir," whispered Conway. "Keep still as

you can, till I go back to the camp and get my rifle.
It's an elegant shot!"

The Master clapped his hands, and the deer bounded
in about two leaps to the bank of the river, and
disappeared—vanished.

"No, Conway," said the Master, "you wouldn't
kill that beautiful creature, in cold blood!"

"We hunters," replied the old forester, in some
amazement, "don't think about their beauty, Mr.
Philips; it's their meat we look at."

"It's as well not to have shot it, Conaway," said
Powell. "She has fawns over there in the laurel."

"How do you know that?" asked the Signor.

"Why, come down to the place, and I'll show
you."

We moved down to the rocks and halted. "You
see," said Powell, "here are the tracks of that deer
coming into the water, and here they are going out.
That shows, you see, that she went out the same
way she came in."

"Yes."

"You observed she turned round to jump out of
the river."

"Yes."

"Well, we hunters reason from this, that she
must have fawns over here in the laurel, or she
would have taken out on the other side—which
was natural, as she was standing with her head that
way. What made her turn to get out the same way

she came in? Something turned her; and as it is
about the time now they have their fawns, I say it
was to get back to them."

"The reasoning's good," replied the Signor.

"I am satisfied," observed the Master, "and have
learned a little more of the lore of the forest than I
knew before."

"If it was worth while," said Powell, "I would
go into the laurel and get the fawns for you. But
if there is anything I don't like, it is laurel."

Of course, we had no idea of encumbering ourselves
with the fawns; so we pursued our way down
the stream—now up to our knees in the water—
now stooping under some great tree that had fallen
across the stream—again along the banks, as they
presented a better footway—now through the little
meadows of luxuriant grass that skirted the shores
of the stream—over islands of great rocks—breaking
into the laurel to get round some hanging cliffs
—sometimes stepping on a slippery stone, and going
down soused all over in the water—until at
length, some two miles below our camp, we came
to the second falls. These are twelve feet high—a
clear pitch, and in the shape of a horseshoe. The
pool below them looked deep and dark, spotted with
flakes of white foam and bubbles, and no doubt
contained some large-sized trout. We did not stop,
however, to test it, but proceeded on our course.

The sun by this time had risen high above the

mountains, and was shining down upon the Canaan
with all his refulgence. The river was ever turning
in its course, and every few moments some new
charm of scenery was given to our view. The atmosphere
was soft and pleasantly warm, and the
breeze gently fanned the trees. The wilderness was
rich everywhere with hues of all dyes, and the banks
of the river gleamed for miles with the flowers of
the rhododendron. A scene of more enchantment
it would be difficult to imagine. The forest with its
hues of all shades of green—the river of delicate
amber, filled with flakes of snow-white foam—and
the splendor of the rhododendron everywhere in your
eye. Picture all this in the mind—then remember
that you were far beyond the limits of the world
you had known—and say, was it of heaven, or was
it of earth!

Such pure, unalloyed charm of soul as we felt
that morning, it would be worth any hardship to
enjoy. No disturbing thought had any place in
the mind. It seemed that we had entered into a
new existence, that was one of some land of vision.
As for the world we had left, it was as unknown to
our thoughts as if we had never heard of it; it was
absolutely lapsed from all memory, and nothing but
the beauty and the bliss of the untrodden Canaan
entered into our hearts.

As for myself—without pretending to speak at
all for the Master, or the Signor, or the two hunters

—I am certain I had no idea of having ever been
born of woman—no idea of having ever known a
passion of mortal joy or sorrow: I was some creation
of an undiscovered paradise (hitherto undreamed
of even) altogether, for those few hours of a new
soul. And it seems to me now, when I revert my
thoughts to that morning's exploration of the Blackwater,
that all the divinities of old fable must have
had their dwelling-place out there; that surely Pan
and Faunus dwelt in those wilds; that Diana lived
there, and Latmos, on whose top she nightly
kissed the boy Endymion, was the mountain that
bordered the Blackwater; that Venus—she of the
sea—Anadyomene, sometimes left the sea-foam and
reposed her charms in the amber flow of the river;
that Diana the huntress, with all her attendant
nymphs, pursued those beautiful deer I saw; that
the naiads dwelt in the streams, and the sylphs lived
in the air, and the dryads and hamadryads in the
woods around; that Egeria had her grotto nowhere
else but in the Canaan—all the beautiful creations
of old poesy, the spirits or gods that now

all were around me in the unknown wild—

—Sometimes the fancy has possessed me that I
saw Undine sitting in all her beauty by the foam
of the little Niagara, the most beautiful of all the
falls. Sometimes, too, I have seen Bonny Kilmeney—who
was

sleeping on the purple and gold-cushioned rocks,
even as the Shepherd Poet has so exquisitely created
her—her bosom heaped with flowers, and lovely
beings of the spirit world infusing their thoughts
of heaven into her spotless soul—her

All these images, and many more innumerable, of
the creations of the genius of mankind, are associated
in my mind, henceforth and for ever, with
the Blackwater; and although I am fully aware
that in here giving expression to these fancies, I
run some little risk of stamping this historic narrative
with the character of fiction, yet the judicious
reader will observe that this chronicle was intended
in its inception to be an impress of the body and
soul of the expedition—the motions and affections
of the mind were to be recorded, as well as the motions
and affections of the body—therefore he will
see that it is all in keeping with the high aim of
our undertaking. In accordance, then, with this

just view of things, I have no hesitation in writing
it down here, that the whole expedition felt themselves
in a paradise all the morning; and I will
take this occasion to observe in regard to myself
especially, that I know something of the joys of
this world—have had my reasonable share, and
more too, of the joy that comes of passion—but
that perfect bliss of the soul—that feeling of entire
happiness, which has no taint of our mortal lot in it
—which is beatific, such as an angel ever lives in,
I never had any distinct idea of—never anything
but a glimmering, vague, mystified conjecture of,
until I felt the heaven of that morning down the
exquisite stream.

The reader no doubt is a little startled at this
apparent extravagance, but let him restrain himself.
It is all true, every word of it—as near as
any felicities of the English language will convey a
meaning; and although he may deem the brain of
the chronicler of the expedition a little turned (by
thunder may be), yet I call confidently upon Mr.
Butcut, upon Adolphus, upon the Master of St.
Philip's, upon Triptolemus Todd, Esq., upon the
Signor, and the two hunters, to say if it does not
but poorly convey to their minds the feelings they
experienced. Why, Mr. Butcut, forgetful of all
his sufferings, grows enthusiastic when he thinks
of the Blackwater, even at this day; and Trip
chuckles from ear to ear, with a joyous ugh—uh!

if you but point your finger in the direction of the
Alleganies!

While we have stopped to dilate a little on the
heavenly delights of the Canaan, the exploring expedition
did not stop, but wound its way down the
bed of the stream; and presently turning a rocky
promontory that jutted the mountain side, the
Blackwater, some hundred yards ahead, seemed to
have disappeared entirely from the face of the
earth, leaving nothing visible down the chasm
through which it vanished, but the tops of fir-trees
and hemlocks—and there stood on the perilous
edge of a foaming precipice, on a broad rock high
above the flood, the Signor Andante (who had gone
a-head), demeaning himself like one who had lost
his senses, his arms stretched out wide before him,
and at the top of his voice (which couldn't be
heard for the roar and tumult around him), pouring
forth certain extravagant and very excited utterances;
all that could be made out of which, as the
rest drew close to his side, was something or other
about

and other fragments of sublime madness about cataracts
and waterfalls, to be found at large in the
writings of the higher bards.

Not stopping at all to benefit by the poetic and
otherwise inspired outpouring of the wild and apparently

maddened artist, thus venting himself to the
admiring rocks and mountains and tumbling waters
around, the expedition stepped out upon the furthest
verge and very pinnacle of the foaming battlements,
and gazed upon the sight, so wondrous
and so wild, thus presented to their astonished
eyes.

No wonder that the Signor demeaned himself
with so wild a joy: for

and perhaps in all this broad land of ours, whose
wonders are not yet half revealed, no scene more
beautifully grand ever broke on the eye of poet or
painter, historian or forester. The Blackwater here
evidently breaks its way sheer down through one
of the ribs of the backbone of the Alleganies. The
chasm through which the river forces itself thus
headlong tumultuous down, is just wide enough to
contain the actual breadth of the stream. On
either side, the mountains rise up, almost a perpendicular
ascent, to the height of some six hundred
feet. They are covered down their sides, to the
very edge of the river, with the noblest of firs and
hemlocks, and as far as the eye can see, with the
laurel in all its most luxuriant growth—befitting
undergrowth to such noble growth of forest, where
every here and there some more towering and vast
Balsam fir, shows his grand head, like

From the brink of the falls, where we now stand,
it is a clear pitch of some forty feet. Below, the
water is received in a large bowl of some fifteen or
twenty feet in depth, and some sixty or eighty feet
across. Beyond this, the stream runs narrow for a
short distance, bound in by huge masses of rock
—some of them cubes of twenty feet—then pitches
down another fall of some thirty feet of shelving
descent—then on down among other great rocks,
laying about in every variety of shape and size—all
the time falling by leaps of more or less descent,
until it comes to something like its usual level of
running before it begins the pitch down the mountain.
This level of the stream, however, is but

for it leads you to a second large fall, a clear pitch
again of some forty feet. From the top of this you
look down some two hundred feet more of such
shelving falls and leaping descent, as we have described
above, until you come again to another
short level of the stream. This, in its turn, is the
approach to another large fall. Here the river
makes a clear leap again of about some thirty
feet, into another deep basin; and looking on
below you, you see some two hundred feet or
more of like shelving falls and rapid rush-down of
the stream, as followed upon the other large falls.

Getting down below all these, the river having
now tumbled headlong down some six hundred
feet, more or less, in somewhere about a mile, it
makes a bend in its course, along the base of the
mountain to the left, and mingles its amber waters
with the darker flow of the Cheat: the Cheat some
three times the size of the Blackwater; and roaring
down between mountains (twelve or fifteen hundred
feet sheer up above us), through, not a valley,
but a rocky and savage chasm, scarcely wide
enough to hold the river.

It will be perceived from this description, that
the falls of the Blackwater must be extremely
grand, picturesque, and wild, in their character. A
stream of good size, that breaks down through one
of the bold Allegany mountains—a fall in the
whole, of some six hundred feet, must affect the
mind grandly. If, instead of a beautiful little river
of some fifty feet in breadth, running some two or
three feet deep in the main, it were as large as the
Cheat, the predominating sense of the beautiful
that now belongs to it, would be lost in the terror
it would inspire. As it is, let the floods get out in
the mountains—let the snows of winter linger on in
the Alleganies into the spring; and all at once let
the south wind blow, and the sun returning higher
up this way, pour down his rays; then would you
behold such a mad rush and tumult of waters, roaring
down the Alleganies, as would strike such

awe into your soul, as not even Niagara, in all
his diffused vastness, could impress you with. But,
then, it would be no longer the exquisite Blackwater,
filling the mind with so wondrous and wild
a sense of beauty, that now makes it a picture, such
as no son of genius, who had once hung it up in the
galleries of his brain, would even take down.

But enough of comment. We will leave the falls
to the imagination of the reader, who can now work
up for himself, from the sketch we have given, such
a picture as will best please him; and go on to
relate some little incidents of fishing, which we
hope will impart some pleasure.

If we remember aright, we left the expedition
standing on the brow of the first fall, in some considerable
tumult of soul at the grand sight that had
broken so suddenly and unexpectedly upon them;
and the artist—the Signor Andante, in a frenzy
of inspiration—

now repeating wildly to the Blackwater flood, the
fiery song which the last of the bards uttered over
"Old Conway's" (I don't mean Conway the man,
but the river).

We are happy, however, in being able to inform
all who take any interest in the artist, that he did

not conclude his rant in the grand manner of the
last of the bards; who—

No, Andante, backed himself very carefully out from
the edge of the torrent; and, very much in accordance
with our preconceived estimate of him as a
man of sense, followed the hunters into the hanging
side of the mountain, where he, like the rest of
us, letting himself down by clinging to the branches
of laurel, and sliding on his back down the steep
rocks, with the aid of an occasional precarious foothold,
at length succeeded in getting below the cataract.

We now prepared ourselves for the trout. It was
by this time, near the middle of the day, too late,
as we supposed, for any very good fishing; for the
large fish generally by this time lie about in the
bed of the streams, and are indifferent to the lure
of the bait. Notwithstanding this, we had scarcely
thrown our lines into the deep water before us,
before our bait was seized. The Master drew up
the first fish. He had thrown in just at the edge of
the foam and spray of the fall, and a quick, bold
pull swept his line through the foam. On the
instant, with a switch of his rod sidewise, then
throwing it up aloft, he landed, between his thighs
(for it was water all around him) a fine vigorous
trout, breaking off about two feet of the switch-end

of his maple rod. This trout was a foot long, and
some three inches deep behind the shoulders. Presently
Powell drew out another of about the same
size. Then the artist brought out a fine one from
the bowl. And Conway, who by this time had
picked up the best stick he could find, and tied a
short bit of sea-weed to it—squatting down on
his haunches, on a mossy rock, and looking the
picture of some old sleepy satyr of the woods, pulled
out his large fish without a word to anybody. It
was great work; and the excitement intense. In
the course of a quarter of an hour we had caught,
among all of us, some twenty fine fish—some of
them thirteen inches long—and this with no other
bait than the common red worm. Indeed, if to take
a quantity of trout be your only object, so full is the
stream of them, and so ravenous are they, that
with any sort of a line, and anything of a hook—a
pin-hook if you can get no other—you may take as
many as you can carry. But our tackle was good,
and with the exception of a regular rod (which it
would have been troublesome to have brought
along upon so difficult an enterprise) we were
reasonably well provided for the sport. If the
reader will bear it in mind, that the Blackwater
never in all probability had a line thrown in it
before, he need wonder at nothing we can tell him
about the quantity of trout it contains, or the greediness
with which they bite at any sort of bait.

As our purpose to-day was rather to explore the
falls than fish, we drew up our lines and proceeded
down the torrent. By dint of much scrambling,
and crawling, climbing, leaping, hanging, and every
other sort of means you can think of, of getting
yourself along—sometimes swept down by the
strength of the current, and lodged in some side
eddy or pool—driving out the trout, and getting
up and shaking yourself, with some two or three
craw-fish, about the size of your hand, sticking to
your clothes—we made our way down below the
second of the large falls. Here we fished again for
a while, and caught some fifty more trout; some
of us baiting our hooks with the gullets of the fish,
cut out for that purpose; and some with the red
fins, which we would cut off and use, by way of
substitute for the fly, and which was found to answer
the purpose as well as anything else.

Satisfied with the trial of the stream here, we
drew up, and proceeded down our rugged way.
Presently, missing the artist, who had gone ahead
of us, we were under some apprehension that he
had fallen down some of the rocks, and ended his
mortal career, here and elsewhere—especially,
when, after repeated calls, we could hear no answer
from him. Moving down the stream, therefore,
somewhat rapidly, we came upon a wide rock,
over which the water lay about in pools; and
where we saw scattered about, high and dry, a

goodly number of large trout, dying and dead. Below
this rock the Signor had let himself down some
ten feet; and standing on a flat ledge, enveloped in
spray from the water flowing down on either side of
him, he was intently engaged in hauling out from
a pool before him, the fine trout we saw around
about as fast as he could bait his hook. He told
us he had been here only some fifteen minutes;
and when he ascended, without a dry shred upon
him, from the watery grotto wherein he had enshrined
himself, he gathered up some sixteen fish of
the largest size we had taken that day.

Leaving our rods at this point, we went on as
rapidly as we could make our way, down the falls,
and finished our exploration to the mouth of the
Blackwater. Here, sitting down to rest, we summed
up our review of the falls—in which we settled
down to the estimate above given, that the
leap-down of the Blackwater must be some six hundred
feet, in somewhere about a mile. The reader
will understand that this estimate is made, not by
guesswork, but upon some certain data; for we
measured all the larger falls. It will be perceived,
however, that we can not be far wrong in our computation,
when we make the statement, that from
the top of each of the larger falls, you see, at the distance
of a few hundred yards down before you, the
tops of fir-trees (their bodies not visible) peering up
like bushes; and when you get down to them, you

find they are great trees of some hundred feet or
more in height. Standing upon the top of the first
large fall, you look down upon some hundred and
fifty feet or more, of the leap-down of the river—
going down, then, to this point, you make a turn
for some distance, and presently come upon the
next large fall—from the top of which you look
down upon about the same descent—and so on to
the third. But enough. Let us now go back.

About half way up the falls a thunder-storm passed
over us; and the reverberation down the chasm was
exceedingly grand. Stopping under a hanging
rock that afforded us shelter from the storm, we
saw in the wet sand the footprints of otter, and
other evidences of their inhabiting the stream.
Presently there came a volleyed discharge of the
heaven's cannon; and as the roar muttered itself
away throughout the refts of the mountains, the
sun broke out, and we proceeded on our way up
the steep ascent—a rainbow over-arching the waterfalls,
and the spray everywhere golden with
sunbeams. At length, reaching the top of the
grand chasm, and standing again on the brink of
the impending rocks where we first hailed so rapturously,
the leap-down of the river—we took a
last look of the wild scene and went on our way to
the camp.

Somewhere about five o'clock in the evening we
came in, and depositing our spoils of the stream—

about a hundred and fifty fine trout; we eat and
recounted our adventures alternately, until we and
our audience grew tired and fell asleep; the Prior
murmuring as he went off, the noble lines of Byron—

the Assyrian to his imagination being the dark and
rushing Cheat, and the cohorts gleaming in purple
and gold, the golden Blackwater and the other glittering
streams of the Canaan.