From the mouths of the Ems to those of the Scheldt Holland is an impenetrable fortress, of whose immense bastions the mills are the towers, the cataracts are the gates, the islands the advanced forts; and like a true fortress, it shows to its enemy, the sea, only the tops of its bell-towers and the roofs of its houses, as if in defiance and derision.

By this time the skies had cleared, and the cataract was a creek again.

Lofty plumes of foam fell into hoary, flattened sheets; curling and howling cataracts became suddenly deep hollows.

To go back was impossible; before us, the cataract was a sheet of foam; and, shut up in the chasm by the rocks, which, in some places, seemed almost to meet overhead, the roar of the water was deafening, We pushed off again; but, after making a little distance, the force of the current became too great for the men on shore, and two of them let go the rope.