"The cataract itself," says Bruce, "was the most magnificent sight that ever I beheld. The height has been rather exaggerated. The missionaries say the fall is about sixteen ells, or fifty feet. The measuring is indeed very difficult; but, by the position of long sticks and poles of different lengths, at different heights of the rock, from the water's edge, I may venture to say, that it is nearer forty feet than any other measure. The river had been considerably increased by rains, and fell in one sheet of water, without any interval, above half an English mile in breadth, with a force and noise that was truly terrible, and which stunned, and made me, for a time, perfectly dizzy. A thick fume or haze covered the fall all round, and hung over the course of the stream both above and below, marking its track, though the water was not seen. The river, though swelled with rain, preserved its natural clearness, and fell, as far as I could discern, into a deep pool or basin in the solid rock. It was a magnificent sight, that ages, added to the greatest length of human life, would not efface or eradicate from my memory; it struck me with a kind of stupor, and a total oblivion of where I was, and of every other sublunary concern. It was one of the most magnificent, stupendous sights in the creation. "I measured the fall, and believe, within a few feet, it was the height I have mentioned; but I confess I could at no time in my life less promise upon precision; my reflection was suspended or subdued; and, while in sight of the fall, I think I was under a temporary alienation of mind; it seemed to me as if one element had broke loose from, and become superior to, all laws of subordination; that the fountains of the great deep were again extraordinarily opened, and the destruction of a world was once more begun by the agency of water." From the cataract Bruce returned to the house of his Moorish friend Negade Ras Mohammed, and on the 22d of May he resumed his journey to join the king. After passing a number of hills covered with trees and shrubs of indescribable beauty and extraordinary fragrance, he descended towards the passage of the Nile. Here he experienced the use of Mohammed's servants, three of whom, each with a lance in one hand, holding that of his companion in the other, waded across the violent stream, sounding with the end of their lances every step they took. "From the passage to Tsoomwa," says Bruce, "all the country was forsaken, the grass trodden down, and the fields without cattle. Everything that had life and strength fled before that terrible leader (Ras Michael) and his no less terrible army: a profound silence was in the fields around us, but no marks yet of desolation." After travelling two days under a very hot sun, they came to a flat country, which, from the constant rains that now fell, began to stand in large pools, threatening to turn it all into a lake.