_27th._ This morning proved rainy, and Sir Humphry was in despair, as he had ordered a small carriage, intending to go and see the Falls of the Traun, about ten miles down the river; it cleared up, however, about eleven o'clock, and turning out very fine, we set off, Sir Humphry armed with all his fishing-tackle, and I with my sketch-book. After a fine drive along the top of the precipitous and highly picturesque banks of the Traun, passing by many smaller falls and rapids, we reached the inn near the great fall, the roar of which is heard at a considerable distance. A little below the cataract a lofty wooden bridge is thrown over the Traun, and from beneath it one beholds a truly sublime scene. The greater part of the river here precipitates itself from a height of nearly fifty feet, in one immense mass of foam over the impeding rocks, which are of considerable breadth. Thick clouds of mist are continually rising from the boiling pool, and the spectator standing within a few feet of the descending river is completely wetted in an instant. In the centre of the river stands a large rock, from which three smaller falls throw themselves into the greater pool; and again, higher up on the right is another large cascade, where the water falls in a perpendicular sheet between two rocks, which serve as a support to a small wooden house that has been erected over the fall. Below the bridge the whole river is one white stream of foam, with dark black rocks here and there jutting out of it. The banks are formed of lofty rocks (chiefly pudding-stone,) and are topped with woods of dark black pine. Boats descending the river avoid the danger of this cataract by means of a small canal, which has been cut through the right bank of the river in a sloping direction from the fall, and again joins the river at some distance below it. This canal is immediately filled with water by raising a sluice gate close to the fall, and the boat keeping near the shore is very easily guided into it, and descends quickly and safely. Sir Humphry finding the fish would not bite, we returned home, after spending a short hour in this sublime and romantic spot. The drive back to Gmünden is finer than the drive to the Falls, the river presenting more beautiful openings and turnings, and the lake gradually rising into view. In the evening Sir Humphry determined not to remain at the baths of Ischl, about twenty miles distant, as he had intended doing, but to proceed to Laybach, three hundred miles off, as he thought the snipe-shooting, which he much wished to enjoy, would not yet be over there.