Cataract (river)

“ At the distance of half a mile beneath the cataract, the river is confined between two rocks, over which a strong bridge of a single arch has been thrown, and runs into a deep trough, with great roaring, and an impetuous velocity. On ascending, the cataract presents itself amid groves of beautiful trees, and exhibits a most magnificent and stupendous sight, such as, Mr. Bruce observes, ages, added to the greatest length of human life, could not efface or eradicate from his memory. ”

“ As the river below does not cover the full breadth of the valley, it is quite practicable for a spectator to take his stand almost anywhere at no great distance below the level of the shore above, and so to view the cataract with his face turned to the north. Unfortunately the constant dash of the spray renders the soil too slippery to allow any one to approach the actual branch of the abyss into which the waters are hurled, but many an effective point of view is to be found within a few hundred yards of the cataract. ”

“ Cataracts are formed by the descent of a river over a precipice which is perpendicular, or nearly so, and depend, for their sublimity, upon the height of the fall, and the magnitude of the stream. Rapids are produced by the occurrence of a steeply-inclined plane, over which the flood rushes with great impetuosity, yet without being projected over a precipice. The great rivers of England—the Thames, Trent and Severn—exhibit no example of either cataract or rapid, but pursue a generally even and noiseless course ”

“ By and bye a sound of falling water aroused one of the chiefs; but being told that it was only the noise of the waterfall at the mouth of a nearby river, he again slept. But suddenly the full roar of the tremendous cataract strikes on the ears of the sleepers. Springing to their feet the horror of the situation is at once apparent. Paddles are seized and frantic efforts are made to stem the fierce tide. It is useless, and a terrible cry of despair goes up as they are swept to the brink of the foaming cataract. ”

“ We have before observed, that in almost all rivers the inclination of their beds diminishes towards their mouths in an almost insensible manner; but there are some whose declivity is very sudden in some places, and forms what is termed a cataract, which is nothing more than a fall of water, quicker than the common current of the river. The Rhine, for example, has two cataracts, the one at Bilefield, and the other near Schafhouse: the Nile has many, and among the rest two which are very violent, and fall from a great height between two mountains ”

“ And for this reason chiefly, when the great cataract was at a point about one hundred rods below the upper bridge, it must have presented its sublimest aspect. The secondary bank on each side of the river is here high and firm, whereby the whole mass of water must have been concentrated into a single channel of greater depth at the top of the Fall than it could have had at any other point. ”

“ Enormous masses of stone, piled up by the falling in of the roof, have blocked up and narrowed the bed of the river to fifteen feet, and cause the stream to shoot down in a broad sheet ten feet high. The cataract, madly rushing over the jet-black rocks and casting up flakes of milk-white foam, is very beautiful, and, when brightly illuminated, must produce a truly magical effect. ”

“ Finally we halted on the right, constantly watching the boats’ lines lest the sand should melt away and take our little ships with it. Along the bases of the cliffs above the high waters were narrow strips of rocky soil, supporting a few stunted cottonwoods and hackberry trees, which, with some stramonium bushes in blossom, were the sum total of vegetation. In every way the Junction is a desolate place. It is the beginning of Cataract Canyon, and forty-one miles must be put behind us before we would see its end—forty-one miles of bad river, too. ”

“ Following the curving Hudson River bank around to the westward, another series of rapids and cascades is ascended to the thriving manufacturing town of Glen's Falls. This magnificent cataract pours through a wild ravine having over seventy feet descent, the water flowing upon rough masses of black marble composing the rocky terraces the stream has broken down. The Mohicans had significant names for this famous cataract. One was Kayandorossa, meaning the "long deep hole," applied to the ravine; and another, Che-pon-tuc, or "hard climbing; a difficult place to get around." ”

“ Standing, as one may, upon the very brink of the former cataract, it is easy to call up in imagination the grandeur of the earlier surroundings and to hear the thunder of the falling water. A particularly vivid touch is added when, in digging over the sand about the great blocks of fallen limestone underneath the brink, one comes upon the shells of an animal still living in the Niagara River, though only in the continual spray beneath the cataract. ”

“ And here this hard, compact rock held the cataract for many centuries. The crooked channel which incessant friction and hammering finally cut through that rock is the narrowest in the river, being only two hundred and ninety-two feet wide, and the fierce rush of the water through the narrow, rock-ribbed gorge is almost appalling to the beholder. The average width between the banks of this section is about nine hundred feet. ”

“ One can paddle along in any sort of craft, can leave the river in many places, and in general enjoy himself. I have been over the stretch twice, once at low water and again at high, so I speak from abundant experience. Naively he remarks, “as yet they had seen no natural bridge spanning the chasm above them, nor had fall or cataract prevented their safe advance!” Yet they are supposed to have passed through the forty-one miles of Cataract Canyon’s turmoil, which I venture to say no man could ever forget. ”

“ Four leagues from Lake Frontenac there is an incredible Cataract or Waterfall, which has no equal. The Niagara river near this place is only the eighth of a league wide, but it is very deep in places, and so rapid above the great fall that it hurries down all the animals which try to cross it, without a single one being able to withstand its current. ”

“ We knew Cataract Canyon was rough, but by this time we were in excellent training and thoroughly competent for the kind of navigation required; ready for anything that strong boats like ours could live through. At ten o'clock on Tuesday, September 19th, the cabins were all packed, the life preservers were inflated, and casting off from Camp 62 we were borne down with the swift current. The water was muddy, of a coffee-and-cream colour, and the river was falling. ”

“ Beyond Wady Halfa is the second cataract, and the foaming waters dashing against the black-and-green59 rocks, or forming quiet pools and lakes, so that the Nile expands to two miles in breadth, is a most impressive sight. The rapids render navigation impossible between here and Sukkot, a distance of a hundred miles, and the river is hemmed in sometimes by high banks, as at Mershed, where I could throw a stone over to the opposite side. The rock, which had been sandstone hitherto, changes its nature at the second cataract to granite and quartz. ”

“ From this cataract to the next one above, at Ambigol, is counted seventeen miles, which stretch proved much the same as below Semnah cataract; plenty of dodging and crossing the stream to get the side of the river with the lesser current, the boats being such good travellers and answering their helms so well with a stiff breeze, we found ourselves in a genuine boatman's paradise. In spite of the free wind we had all day, we had to get lines out and track several times. We camped on an island about a mile below Ambigol cataract. ”

“ For we ourselves stand in a perpendicular position, and wells are dug perpendicular to the surface.
Here are stationed three Roman cohorts as a guard.
49. A little above Elephantine is the lesser cataract, where the boatmen exhibit a sort of spectacle to the governors.
The cataract is in the middle of the river, and is formed by a ridge of rock, the upper part [or commencement] of which is level, and thus capable of receiving the river, but terminating in a precipice, where the water dashes down. On each side towards the land there is a stream, up which is the chief ascent for vessels. ”

“ The sides are neither so woody nor verdant as those of the cataract of the Assar; and it is in every shape less magnificent, or deserving to be seen, than is the noble cataract at Alata before described, erroneously called the Second Cataract; for below this there is a water-fall, nearly west of the church of Boskon Abbo, not much above the place where we swam our horses over in May, and less than this first cataract of which I am speaking, and nearer the source; there is another still smaller before the Nile joins the river Gumetti, after falling from the plains of Sacala ”

“ Towards the Montmorenci the borders of the St. Lawrence are, as we have seen, extremely high and steep. At a mile from the gorge of the cataract there is, at high tide, a strand, about the eighth of a mile wide, between the foot of these heights and the river; and beyond this strand the receding tide lays bare a tract of mud nearly half a mile wide. At the edge of the dry ground the French had built a redoubt mounted with cannon, 229
V2 and there were other similar works on the strand a quarter of a mile nearer the cataract. ”

“ Cataract Cañon alone is forty-one miles long, and has seventy-five cataracts and rapids, of which fifty-seven are within a space of nineteen miles. A journey along the bank of a river with a waterfall every twenty feet, on the average, is no joke, and only the hardiest men have been able to accomplish it. In the spring of 1889, the survey party of a projected railroad from Grand Junction to the Gulf of California, made this journey, and from its published description more actual information can be gleaned concerning the cañon itself than almost any mere verbal description. ”

“ The whalers on arriving in Egypt were at once forwarded by rail and river to Assiout. Thence they were towed by steamer to Assouan, over 300 miles further, and just below the First Cataract. Here most of them were placed upon trucks for conveyance by a railway eight miles long to Shellal, on the south side of the cataract. Some few were hauled through the rapids and past the Isle of Philæ. Once through the cataract all was fair sailing as far as Wady Halfa, 200 miles further, where the Second Cataract forms another obstacle to Nile navigation. ”

“ At full high Nile, when the lower rocks are buried deep beneath the surface, the cataract is not a formidable one; but as the river falls and reef after reef makes its appearance, the difficulties of navigation increase, until at low Nile the cataract has become impassable for the larger native craft, and is a grave source of difficulty even to the buoyant English whalers. ”

“ The long desert march from Kosheh to Sadin Fanti was the only natural difficulty by land. Although the river from Kosheh to Kerma is broken by continual rapids, it is, with one interval, freely navigable at half Nile. The Amara Cataract, ten miles beyond Kosheh, is easily ascended by sailing boats with a fair wind, and by steamers without assistance. From Amara to the Kaibar Cataract stretches a reach of sixty-five miles of open water. The Kaibar Cataract is, during the flood, scarcely any hindrance to navigation ”

“ The ordinary observer will recall the common fact that the highest land is universally best supplied with flowing springs, and that these overflows can not be accounted for on the supposition of the fall of waters from higher grounds, since such higher grounds do not adequately exist. "The cataract issuing from the Himalayas, or as it is sometimes called Roodroo, is the source of the river Jumna—a rapid and large river; and in fact, many of the largest rivers of the world proceed immediately from mountains and lakes that are formed from cataracts." ”

“ A stream, issuing from the heights above, fell over the cliffs, forming a roaring cataract; and then, rushing through the cañon, made its way down into the valley, irrigating and fertilising the ground, until it finally reached a large river, the Platte, flowing into the Missouri. From this cataract our location obtained its name of “Roaring Water;” but it was equally well-known as “Uncle Jeff’s Farm.”
Our neighbours, if such they could be called in this wild region, were “birds of passage.” Now and then a few Indian families might fix their tents in the valley below ”

“ After shooting the Dal cataract all safe I asked my captains how the boats behaved. All agreed that they [Pg 26] were slow in answering their helm and required close watching. Travelling between the cataracts against a strong headwind was slow work and we longed for the next one to get along faster. Shooting the Dal, there had been much dodging of rocks and islands, which gave some excitement. In Akaska cataract we discovered a smooth, straight channel in the middle of the river and not very long. ”

“ They cannot translate color.
If a traveler pressed for time asked me whether he should or should not go as far as the second cataract, I{291} think I should recommend him to turn back from Abou Simbel. The trip must cost four days; and if the wind should happen to be unfavorable either way, it may cost six or seven. The forty miles of river that have to be twice traversed are the dullest on the Nile; the cataract is but an enlarged and barren edition of the cataract between Assûan and Philæ; and the great view, as I have said, has not that kind of beauty which attracts the general tourist. ”