Flowing through a dark flume in the rock, on both sides it left a dry, elevated shelf, to which you ascend from the arbor by three artificially-wrought steps, sideways disposed, to avoid the spray of the rejoicing cataract.

Mounting these, and pursuing the edge of the flume, the grotto gradually expands and heightens; your way lighted by rays in the inner distance.

At last you come to a lofty subterraneous dome, lit from above by a cleft in the mountain; while full before you, in the opposite wall, from a low, black arch, midway up, and inaccessible, the stream, with a hollow ring and a dash, falls in a long, snowy column into a bottomless pool, whence, after many an eddy and whirl, it entered the flume, and away with a rush.

Half hidden from view by an overhanging brow of the rock, the white fall looked like the sheeted ghost of the grotto.
Yet gallantly bedecked was the cave, as any old armorial hall hung round with banners and arras.

Streaming from the cleft, vines swung in the air; or crawled along the rocks, wherever a tendril could be fixed.