Ch. 23 - The Dal Elv - Page 2

the rushing, rapid stream under Avista's yellow clay
declivities: the yellow water falls like fluid amber in picturesque
cataracts before the copper-works, where rainbow-coloured tongues of
fire shoot themselves upwards, and the hammer's blows on the copper
plates resound to the monotonous, roaring rumble of the elv-fall.

And now, as a concluding passage of splendour in the life of the
Dal-elvs, before they lose themselves in the waters of the Baltic, is
the view of Elvkarleby Fall. Schubert compares it with the fall of
Schafhausen; but we must remember, that the Rhine there has not such a
mass of water as that which rushes down Elvkarleby.

Two and a half Swedish miles from Gefle, where the high road to Upsala
goes over the Dal-elv, we see from the walled bridge, which we pass
over, the whole of that immense fall. Close up to the bridge, there is
a house where the bridge toll is paid. There the stranger can pass the
night, and from his little window look over the falling waters, see
them in the clear moonlight, when darkness has laid itself to rest
within the thicket of oaks and firs, and all the effect of light is in
those foaming, flowing waters, and see them when the morning sun
stretches his rainbow in the trembling spray, like an airy bridge of
colours, from the shore to the wood-grown rock in the centre of the
cataract.

We came hither from Gefle, and saw at a great distance on the way, the
blue clouds from the broken, rising spray, ascend above the dark-green
tops of the trees. The carriage stopped near the bridge; we stepped
out, and close before us fell the whole redundant elv.

The painter cannot give us the true, living image of a waterfall on
canvas--the movement is wanting; how can one describe it in words,
delineate this majestic grandeur, brilliancy of colour, and arrowy
flight? One cannot do it; one may however attempt it; get together, by
little and little, with words, an outline of that mirrored image which
our eye gave us, and which even the strongest remembrance can only
retain--if not vaguely, dubiously.

The Dal-elv divides itself into three branches above the fall: the two
enclose a wood-grown rocky island, and rush down round its smooth-worn
stony wall. The one to the right of these two falls is the finer; the
third branch makes a circuit, and comes again to the main stream,
close outside the united fall; here it dashes out as if to meet or
stop the others, and is now hurried along in boiling eddies with the
arrowy stream, which rushes on foaming against the walled pillars that
bear the bridge, as if it would tear them away along with it.

The landscape to the left was enlivened by a herd of goats, that were
browsing amongst the hazel bushes. They