164- THE AMERICAN MAINLAND 



the following spring I paid a second visit to it, 

 approaching from the western bank. The road to it, 

 which I then traversed in snow-shoes, was fatiguing in 

 the extreme, and scarcely less dangerous ; for, to say 

 nothing of the steep ascents, fissures in the rocks, and 

 deep snow in the valleys, we had sometimes to creep 

 along the narrow shelves of precipices slippery with the 

 frozen mist that fell on them. But it was a sight that 

 well repaid any risk. My first impression was of a 

 strong resemblance to an iceberg in Smeerenberg 

 Harbour, Spitsbergen. The whole face of the rocks 

 forming the chasm was entirely coated with blue, 

 green, and white ice, in thousands of pendent icicles ; 

 and there were, moreover, caverns, fissures, and over- 

 hanging ledges in all imaginable varieties of form, so 

 curious and beautiful as to surpass anything of which I 

 had ever heard or read. The immediate approaches 

 were extremely hazardous, nor could we obtain a per- 

 fect view of the lower fall, in consequence of the pro- 

 jection of the western cliffs. At the lowest position 

 we were able to attain, we were still more than a 

 hundred feet above the level of the river beneath ; and 

 this, instead of being narrow enough to step across, as it 

 had seemed from the opposite heights, was found to be 

 at least two hundred feet wide. The colour of the water 

 varied from a very light to a very dark green ; and the 

 spray, which spread a dimness above, was thrown up in 

 clouds of light grey. Niagara, Wilberforce Falls on 

 Hood River, the falls of Kakabikka near Lake 

 Superior, the Swiss or Italian falls although they may 

 each charm the eye with dread are not to be compared 

 to this for splendour of effect. It was the most im- 



