At the summit
is a very fine entablature of curved columnar basalt, resembling the
clam shell cave at Staffa, and two high, sharp, and impending peaks
on the other side form a stately gateway for a stream which enters
from another and broader valley; but it is but one among many small
cascades, which round the arc of the falls flash out in foam among
the dark foliage, and contribute their tiny warble to the diapason
of the waterfall. It rewards one well for penetrating the deep gash
which has been made into the earth. It seemed so very far away from
all buzzing, frivolous, or vexing things, in the cool, dark abyss
into which only the noon-day sun penetrates. All beautiful things
which love damp; all exquisite, tender ferns and mosses; all shade-
loving parasites flourish there in perennial beauty. And high above
in the sunshine, the pea-green candle-nut struggles with the dark
ohia for precarious roothold on rocky ledges, and dense masses of
Eugenia, aflame with crimson flowers, and bananas, and all the leafy
wealth born of heat and damp fill up the clefts which fissure the
pali. Every now and then some scarlet tropic bird flashed across
the shadow, but it was a very lifeless and a very silent scene.
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