There were some peculiarities, however, worthy of note; and in a brighter day, possibly the effect of the light on the vast ranges of icicles, and on the fantastic shapes into which the snow is cut on the rocks at the margin of the waters, might be very beautiful. These rocks now looked like a flock of polar bears, twined in fantastic attitudes, or extended singly and in groups by the brink as if watching for their prey. Above them rose the bank, now smooth and polished, with a fringe of icicles--some large as church steeples; above them, again, the lines of the pine trees, draped in white, and looking like church steeples too. At one side, near Table Rock, the icicles were enormous, and now and then one fell with a hissing noise, and was dashed on the rock into a thousand gliding ice arrows, or plunged into the gulf. By this time our toilette-room was ready, and each man, taking off his overcoat, was encased in a tarpaulin suit with a sou’-wester. In this guise we descended the spiral staircase, which is carried in a perpendicular wooden column down the face of the bank near Table Rock, or what remains of it, to the rugged margin, formed of boulders now more slippery than glass. Our guide, a strapping specimen of negro or mulatto, in thick solid ungainly boots, planted his splay feet on them with certainty, and led us by the treacherous path down towards the verge of the torrent, which now seemed as though it were rushing from the very heavens. On our left boiled the dreadful caldron from which the gushing bubbles, as if overjoyed to escape, leaped up, and with glad effervescence rushed from the abyss which plummet never sounded. On our right towered the sheer precipice of rock, now overhanging us, and garnished with rows of giant teeth-like icicles. After a slow cautious advance along this doubtful path, we perceived that the thin edge of the cataract towards which we were advancing shot out from the rock, and left a space between its inner surface and a black shining wall which it was quite possible to enter. There was no wind, the day was dull and raw, but the downright rush of the water created a whirling current of air close to it which almost whisked away the breath; and a vapour of snow, fine sleet, and watery particles careered round the entrance to the recess, which no water kelpie would be venturesome or lonesome enough to select, except in the height of the season.