seeing Niagara, but the trade in carriages is to all appearance the
most brisk trade there.

Having mounted the hill on the Canada side, you will walk on toward
the falls. As I have said before, you will from this side look
directly into the full circle of the upper cataract, while you will
have before you, at your left hand, the whole expanse of the lesser
fall. For those who desire to see all at a glance, who wish to
comprise the whole with their eyes, and to leave nothing to be
guessed, nothing to be surmised, this no doubt is the best point of
view.

You will be covered with spray as you walk up to the ledge of
rocks, but I do not think that the spray will hurt you. If a man
gets wet through going to his daily work, cold, catarrh, cough, and
all their attendant evils, may be expected; but these maladies
usually spare the tourist. Change of air, plenty of air,
excellence of air, and increased exercise, make these things
powerless. I should therefore bid you disregard the spray. If,
however, you are yourself of a different opinion, you may hire a
suit of oil-cloth clothes for, I believe, a quarter of a dollar.
They are nasty of course, and have this further disadvantage, that
you become much more wet having them on than you would be without
them.

Here, on this side, you walk on to the very edge of the cataract,
and, if your tread be steady and your legs firm, you dip your foot
into the water exactly at the spot where the thin outside margin of
the current reaches the rocky edge and jumps to join the mass of
the fall. The bed of white foam beneath is certainly seen better
here than elsewhere, and the green curve of the water is as bright
here as when seen from the wooden rail across. But nevertheless I
say again that that wooden rail is the one point from whence
Niagara may be best seen aright.

Close to the cataract, exactly at the spot from whence in former
days the Table Rock used to project from the land over the boiling
caldron below, there is now a shaft, down which you will descend to
the level of the river, and pass between the rock and the torrent.
This Table Rock broke away from the cliff and fell, as up the whole
course of the river the seceding rocks have split and fallen from
time to time through countless years, and will continue to do till
the bed of the upper lake is reached. You will descend this shaft,
taking to yourself or not taking to yourself a suit of oil-clothes
as you may think best. I have gone with and without the suit, and
again recommend that they be left behind. I am inclined to think
that the ordinary payment should be made for their use, as
otherwise it will appear to those whose trade it is to prepare them
that you are injuring them in their vested rights.

Some three years since I visited Niagara on my way back to England
from Bermuda, and in a volume of travels which I then published I
endeavored to explain the impression made upon me by this passage
between the rock and the waterfall. An author should not quote
himself; but as I feel myself bound, in writing a chapter specially
about Niagara, to give some account of this strange position, I
will venture to repeat my own words.

In the spot to which I allude the visitor stands on a broad, safe
path, made of shingles, between the rock over which the water
rushes and the rushing water. He will go in so far that the spray,
rising back from the bed of the torrent, does not incommode him.
With this exception, the farther he can go in the better; but
circumstances will clearly show him the spot to which he should
advance. Unless the water be driven in by a very strong wind, five
yards make the difference between a comparatively dry coat and an
absolutely wet one. And then let him stand with his back to the
entrance, thus hiding the last glimmer of the expiring day. So
standing, he will look up among the falling waters, or down into
the deep, misty pit, from which they re-ascend in almost as
palpable a bulk. The rock will be at his right hand, high and
hard, and dark and straight, like the wall of some huge cavern,
such as children enter in their dreams. For the first five minutes
he will be looking but at the waters of a cataract--at the waters,
indeed, of such a cataract as we know no other, and at their
interior curves which elsewhere we cannot see. But by-and-by all
this will change. He will no longer be on a shingly path beneath a
waterfall; but that feeling of a cavern wall will grow upon him, of
a cavern deep, below roaring seas, in which the waves are there,
though they do not enter in upon him; or rather, not the waves, but
the very bowels of the ocean. He will feel as though the floods
surrounded him, coming and going with their wild sounds, and he
will hardly recognize that though among them he is not in them.
And they, as they fall with a continual roar, not hurting the ear,
but musical withal, will seem to move as the vast ocean waters may
perhaps move in their internal currents. He will lose the sense of
one continued descent, and think that they are passing round him in
their appointed courses. The broken spray that rises from the
depths below, rises so strongly, so palpably, so rapidly that the
motion in every direction will seem equal. And, as he looks on,
strange colors will show themselves through the mist; the shades of
gray will become green or blue, with ever and anon a flash of
white; and then, when some gust of wind blows in with greater
violence, the sea-girt cavern will become all dark and black. Oh,
my friend, let there be no one there to speak to thee then; no, not
even a brother. As you stand there speak only to the waters.

Two miles below the falls the river is crossed by a suspension
bridge of marvelous construction. It affords two thoroughfares,
one above the other. The lower road is for carriages and horses,


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