The great split is S-shaped in plan, so that
when we advance into its yawning mouth we are surrounded by limestone
cliffs more than 300 feet high. If one visits Gordale Scar for the
first time alone on a gloomy evening, as I have done, I can promise the
most thrilling sensations to those who have yet to see this astonishing
sight. It almost appeared to me as though I were dreaming, and that I
was Aladdin approaching the magician's palace. I had read some of the
eighteenth-century writer's descriptions of the place, and imagined
that their vivid accounts of the terror inspired by the overhanging
rocks were mere exaggerations, but now I sympathize with every word.
The scars overhang so much on the east side that there is not much
space to get out of reach of the water that drips from every portion.
Great masses of stone were lying upon the bright strip of turf, and
among them I noticed some that could not have been there long; this
made me keep close under the cliff in justifiable fear of another fall.
I stared with apprehension at one rock that would not only kill, but
completely bury, anyone upon whom it fell, and I thought those old
writers had underrated the horrors of the place.
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