The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1878-10-24
FALLS OF GARSOPPA.
The Great Fourfold Waterfall Of Indi
from FraSer,s Magazine I

!
These are the falls of Garsoppa, not
SO famous as they should be, for no
where the world throughout can there
be another such vision. From the lip
of the precipice to the dark pools at its
foot is an accurate measured distance
of $50 feet, more than twice the height
of the top of the cross that surmounts
ST. Pauls Cathedral, and down this pro-
dlgious descent pour the four cataracts,
each arrayed in it's own special robes Of
grandeur and beauty. First on the
western side is the Great or Rajah fall !;
a branch of the river runs oper@a pro-
jecting ledge, and, nowhere touching
the Titanic wall, which lhollows in, de-
sends in stately unbroken9 column,
gradually widening it's shining skirts,
into black unfathomable pool $50 feet
below. Imperially sublime, the trans
figured water passes with majestic
calmness through the void I'M fold after
fold of ermine whiteness, spreading out
it's magnifcence as it silently nears the
end. The precipice runs backward,
carving an irregular bay, on whose
farther side the next fall, named
the Roarer, shoots .slantingjE down
a third of the height into a rocky
basin that shoulders out, whence it
boils out in a broad, massive cataract,
plunging 500 feet in the same pool OPP
posite its kingly neighbor All the
thunder and madness of the element
are gathered in this writhing, lheadlong
food and it is the voice of the fury
that comes up from the abyss, like the
roar and tumult Of hurrying multitudes
in the face of some great monarch NOV
ing to his doom. leaving the bay, next
on the general plane of precipice comes
the Rocket fall, running impetuously
over the brim and down the face of the
stupendous wall, to which it only just
clings with a broad band of glistening
White-foam water, y speeding in quick
gushes, necessarily darting out myriads
of watery rockets and vaporous arrows,
with which all its volume seems alive,
and pouring clear at last in a dense,
shining curtain into it's own pool. Last
and loveiest, La Dame Blanche glides
down the grim, colossal y rampant in
lapse after lapse of delicate lace-like.
wells, now blowing out in bright, misty
spray and quickly gathering up the
white folds, and SO stealing downward
with Ia whispering murmur till
gently sinking in sparkling shower
into pool whose ink-black surface is
hardly ruffled. At a point a furlong or
two below the falls on the farther side
Of the mighty ravine that, cleaves the
mountains, from their feet, platform
had been hewn in the rock, whence the
whole overpowering precipice and the
four falls are disclosed from top to bot
tom the eye at once takes in the sub
lime column of the Great fall, the
wild, tumultuous plunge Of the Roarer,
the impetuous gush- and foaming
sheaves of the Rocket, and the hesitat-
ing, tremulous beauty of La Dame
Blanche. All around the world there
can be nothing to match the sight The
opposite side of the profound ravine,
depth as far as seen, rising tree-crowned
crests higher than the line Of the falls,
sinks in perpendicular drop of stern
gray walls for more than thousand
feet to the floor of the colossal chasm;
only here and there a dark rent or
stunted tree rooted in a crevice breaks
the awful uniformity On the side
where we sit the slopes, densely forest
clad, descend with only less than pre-
cipitous steepness. Looking down the
ravine, the gaunt, rocky faces gradually
disappear and majestic wooded mount
ain closes the view. But one cannot
turn long from the sublime vision of
the falls, and the long pillar of bright
Waterloo long to be taken in at
glance, the eye must follow them
bathed in light, as the Indian sun darts
it's radiance to their feet. Small trees,
patches of heritage and grassy shelves,
kept fresh by. the spray rain, soften the
front of the abyss about the Rocket and
the White Lady; but gloomy, cavern
GUS recesses, which no sunshine reaches,
lie behind the Great fall as it pours
from it's beetling rim. Above in the
background the higher SUBMITS of the
mountains lift green peaks and darkly
wooded crests into midair, and at the
bottom of the fall sunbow, ever rising
slowly higher as the suns rays opene-
trate deeper, arches the dark pools with
it's beautiful, soft splendor In the
morning it lies long and low, but as
cends with the sun, and after noontide
spans the ravine with glorious, lofty
seni7circle, Not much mist cloud arises
except where the Roarer hurls down it's
massive volume, but the air is laden
with moisture and often fushes with
brilliant colors as blasts of wind below
scatter for moment the symmetry of
the sunbow, and fling wider the shining
robes Of the Great fall. No, there can
be nothing comparable to it elsewhere.
The Staubbach dropping it's single
smoke-like veil from as lofty brow,
and the enormous flood and breadth and
massiveness of Niagara, far less in,
height, belong to different order of
sublimity. The many torrents of the
Zambesi falls descend but 100 feet into
O 1onU narrow fissTra ga oiUantio crack !"