till the mind is at loss to find an epithet for its own use. To
realize Niagara, you must sit there till you see nothing else than
that which you have come to see. You will hear nothing else, and
think of nothing else. At length you will be at one with the
tumbling river before you. You will find yourself among the waters
as though you belonged to them. The cool, liquid green will run
through your veins, and the voice of the cataract will be the
expression of your own heart. You will fall as the bright waters
fall, rushing down into your new world with no hesitation and with
no dismay; and you will rise again as the spray rises, bright,
beautiful, and pure. Then you will flow away in your course to the
uncompassed, distant, and eternal ocean.

When this state has been reached and has passed away, you may get
off your rail and mount the tower. I do not quite approve of that
tower, seeing that it has about it a gingerbread air, and reminds
one of those well-arranged scenes of romance in which one is told
that on the left you turn to the lady's bower, price sixpence; and
on the right ascend to the knight's bed, price sixpence more, with
a view of the hermit's tomb thrown in. But nevertheless the tower
is worth mounting, and no money is charged for the use of it. It
is not very high, and there is a balcony at the top on which some
half dozen persons may stand at ease. Here the mystery is lost,
but the whole fall is seen. It is not even at this spot brought so
fully before your eye, made to show itself in so complete and
entire a shape, as it will do when you come to stand near to it on
the opposite or Canadian shore. But I think that it shows itself
more beautifully. And the form of the cataract is such that here,
on Goat Island, on the American side, no spray will reach you,
although you are absolutely over the waters. But on the Canadian
side, the road as it approaches the fall is wet and rotten with
spray, and you, as you stand close upon the edge, will be wet also.
The rainbows as they are seen through the rising cloud--for the
sun's rays as seen through these waters show themselves in a bow,
as they do when seen through rain--are pretty enough, and are
greatly loved. For myself, I do not care for this prettiness at
Niagara. It is there, but I forget it, and do not mind how soon it
is forgotten.

But we are still on the tower; and here I must declare that though
I forgive the tower, I cannot forgive the horrid obelisk which has
latterly been built opposite to it, on the Canadian side, up above
the fall; built apparently--for I did not go to it--with some
camera-obscura intention for which the projector deserves to be put
in Coventry by all good Christian men and women. At such a place
as Niagara tasteless buildings, run up in wrong places with a view
to money making, are perhaps necessary evils. It may be that they
are not evils at all; that they give more pleasure than pain,
seeing that they tend to the enjoyment of the multitude. But there
are edifices of this description which cry aloud to the gods by the
force of their own ugliness and malposition. As to such, it may be
said that there should somewhere exist a power capable of crushing
them in their birth. This new obelisk, or picture-building at
Niagara, is one of such.

And now we will cross the water, and with this object will return
by the bridge out of Goat Island, on the main land of the American
side. But as we do so, let me say that one of the great charms of
Niagara consists in this: that over and above that one great object
of wonder and beauty, there is so much little loveliness--
loveliness especially of water I mean. There are little rivulets
running here and there over little falls, with pendent boughs above
them, and stones shining under their shallow depths. As the
visitor stands and looks through the trees, the rapids glitter
before him, and then hide themselves behind islands. They glitter
and sparkle in far distances under the bright foliage, till the
remembrance is lost, and one knows not which way they run. And
then the river below, with its whirlpool,--but we shall come to
that by-and-by, and to the mad voyage which was made down the
rapids by that mad captain who ran the gantlet of the waters at the
risk of his own life, with fifty to one against him, in order that
he might save another man's property from the sheriff.

The readiest way across to Canada is by the ferry; and on the
American side this is very pleasantly done. You go into a little
house, pay twenty cents, take a seat on a wooden car of wonderful
shape, and on the touch of a spring find yourself traveling down an
inclined plane of terrible declivity, and at a very fast rate. You
catch a glance of the river below you, and recognize the fact that
if the rope by which you are held should break, you would go down
at a very fast rate indeed, and find your final resting-place in
the river. As I have gone down some dozen times, and have come to
no such grief, I will not presume that you will be less lucky.
Below there is a boat generally ready. If it be not there, the
place is not chosen amiss for a rest of ten minutes, for the lesser
fall is close at hand, and the larger one is in full view. Looking
at the rapidity of the river, you will think that the passage must
be dangerous and difficult. But no accidents ever happen, and the
lad who takes you over seems to do it with sufficient ease. The
walk up the hill on the other side is another thing. It is very
steep, and for those who have not good locomotive power of their
own, will be found to be disagreeable. In the full season,
however, carriages are generally waiting there. In so short a
distance I have always been ashamed to trust to other legs than my
own, but I have observed that Americans are always dragged up. I
have seen single young men of from eighteen to twenty-five, from
whose outward appearance no story of idle, luxurious life can be
read, carried about alone in carriages over distances which would
be counted as nothing by any healthy English lady of fifty. None
but the old invalids should require the assistance of carriages in


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