The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1860-02-03
The Falls of Niagara Surpassed I'm
India.

Did any of our readers ever hear of the
Gairsoppa Falls, near Honore? If not,
they will probably read with some pleasure
description which has just appeared in the
Calcutta papers. 1t is curious that fall
six times the depth of Niagara should re.
main almost unknown. From the village
of Gairsoppa, reached by river of the
same name, the writer was carried for
twelve miles up the Malimunch Pass, and
reached the Falls Bungalow about three
hours and half after leaving the top of the
pass. An amphitheatre of woods, and a
river about five hundred yards wide, rush.
ing and boiling to certain point, where it
is lost in perpetual mist, and an unceasing
deafening roar, must first be imagined.
Leaving the Bungalow ON the Madras side
of the river, and descending to a position
below the river level, you work your way
up carefully and tediously over slippery
rocks until you reach point where rock
about thrice the size of a mans body juts
out over precipice. Resting fiat upon the
rock, and looking over it, you see directly
before you two out of the four principal
falls these two are called the "Great
Fall +" and "The Rocket" The one con-
tains large body of water, the main body
of the river, perhaps fifty ards across, which
falls massively and apparently sluggishly
into the chasm below, and the other con-
tans smaller body of water, which shoots
out in successive sprays over successive
points of rocks, till it falls into the same
chasm.
This chasm is at least nine hundred feet
in depth-six times the depth of Niagara
Falls, which are about one hundred aud fit
ty feet, and perhaps quarter to half mile
in width. These are the first two falls
to be visited. Then move little be-
low your first position, and you will observe
first turbid boiling body of water of greater
volume than the Rocket Fall, rushing and
steaming down in the same chasm this is
the third fall, the "Roarer." Then, carrying
your eye little further down, you will OBJ.
serve another fall, the loveliest, softest and
most graceful of all, being broad expanse
of shallow water, falling like transparent
silver lace over smooth surface of polished
rock into this same chasm; this is ola
Dame Blanche" and the White Lady Of
Avenel could not have been more graceful
and ethereal. But do not conine yourself
to any one place in order to view these falls !;
scramble everywhere you can, and get as
many views as you can of them, and you
will be unable to decide upon which is the
most beautiful.
And do you want to have faint idea of
the depth of the chasm into which these
glorious waters fall? Take out your watch
and drop as large piece of rock as you can
hold, from your viewing place; it will be
several seconds before you even lose sight of
the piece of rock, and then even it will not
have reached the water at the foot of the
chasm-it will only have been lost to hu
man sight or watch the blue pigeons,
wheeling and circlng in and out the great
fall within the chasm, and looking like spar
rows in size in the depths beneath you. But
you have yet only seen one, and that not
perhaps the loveliest, and at least not the
most comprehensive view of the falls. You
must proceed two miles up the river above
the falls, and cross over at ferry, where
the waters are still and smooth as glass and
sluggish as Hollander, and proceed to the
Mysore side of the falls, walking first to a
point where you will see them at glance,
and then descending as near as you can to
to the foot of these, to be drenched by the
spray, deafened by the noise, and awe-struck
by the grandeur of the scene, and by the
presence of the Creator of it, in the perpet-
ual rainbow of many and brilliant hues
which spans the foot of the chasm.