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The Cascade of Melsingah
- University Press of New England
- Chapter
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The Cascade of Melsingah Who does not know the little cascade of Melsingah? If any of my readers have never visited the spot, nor heard it described, let me tell them that it is situated on the east bank of the Hudson, a little below the mouth of its tributary Matoavoan, about sixty miles from New-York at the foot of the northernmost ridge of the Highlands, where it crosses the river and stretches away out of sight to the north-east. A brook comes down the crags and woody sides of this ridge and is fed by the mountain springs throughout the year. After having collected all its waters, it flows for a short distance through the forest in a narrow rocky glen, parallel to the base of the mountain, and finally pours itself in a thin white sheet over a high precipice. From this precipice the rocky banks, rising above the top of the cascade to a considerable height, recede on each side and then return in a curve towards the rivulet, forming a little circular amphitheatre having the blue pool into which the water descends at the bottom and, at the lower end, the passage by which the brook hurries off rapidly towards the Hudson. The face of the rock down which the water falls is covered with a thick mantle of green moss, which keeps its place in spite of the current passing over it and only serves to work the slender sheet to greater whiteness. Trees of the forest overhang the hollow; the maple, the bass-wood, the black ash, and the hemlock mingle their boughs, and the moose-wood rattles its bunches of green keys as you place your hand on its striped trunk. In May the dog-wood whitens the high bank with its flowers; in June the broad-leaved Kalmia hangs out its crimson-spotted cups over the stream where it comes down from the cleft above; and all around, the witch-hazel flaunts with its straw-coloured blossoms in December, like an antiquated belle in the ornaments that belong to the spring of life. Above is a small open circle among the foliage, corresponding with the shape of the banks, at which the sun looks in for a moment at noon; but the wind never descends into the hollow save in the winter, when it sweeps the loose snow into the glen and mars the fantastic frost-work of the waterfall. For three-quarters of the year the stream pours over its the cascade of melsingah 94 rock unvisited and unheard, save by the few who love what is beautiful in nature for its own sake. But in the hot months it is a place of resort for those who come to see what every body talks about, and the woody solitude is invaded by strange feet and the solemn and eternal sound of the falling water mingles with voices that have no business there. Then come the pert citizen, the spruce clerk, the matron with her bevy of giggling girls, the unfledged poet and the fashionable lady, and all whom the dog-star drives from the seat of commerce to rusticate and sport the latest fashions on the banks of the Hudson. There is no more delightful place for passing an hour or two in a summer noon: the high banks and trees create a fresh and grateful shade; there is always a cool breath from the waterfall, and its very noise seems to mitigate the heat. A tall straight birch on one side of the hollow has its bark scored with the initials of the illustrious obscure who have performed this pilgrimage, and fragments of glass bottles mingled with the pebbles on the water’s edge attest the solemnities with which some of them have celebrated their exploit. In the course of my wanderings in various parts of the world, it had been my amusement to gather up the incidents connected with the remarkable features of nature. To my mind they reflect interest upon each other; I like the story better for the scene, and the scene better for the story. A place of such frequent resort as the Cascade of Melsingah could not but furnish matter for narrative, either in the events which happened there or in the fortunes of its visitors. I have amassed a budget of these, but on running them over in my mind, I find few of them worth relating. The story of the...