26 THE ARTIST'S POINT OF VIEW. 



cumscribed and the eye cannot reach far up the river. This is 

 a scene which one is loath to leave, but we must on to the hot 

 sulphur spring, where the guardian, an old Scotchman, lights 

 the inflammable gas for our inspection, and seems literally to 

 set the water on fire. Smell enough, and of a similar kind, 

 comes from the Thames in hot weather ; so if the guardians of 

 that not very crystal stream carry their systems too far, they 

 may see the Thames on fire some day yet. When our guide 

 had shown us all, I asked him about the farming in the neigh- 

 bourhood. He was from Aberdeenshire, and had been thirty 

 years here. " Oh, man," said he, " they're meeserable farmers. 

 It would break your heart to see how they just scart the grun'. 

 It's no very guid ony way, but they dinna gie't a chance." 



A few days may be spent with great satisfaction in wan- 

 dering about Niagara, the grandeur and beauty of which seem 

 to increase from day to day. Mr. Church has fallen in love 

 with the Falls. He has made them his mistress, and morning 

 noon and night he watches her in every varying mood and 

 loves her in them all. At the dizzy edge of the Table-rock he 

 will sit sketching all day with his easel before him, and, to the 

 terror of the whole neighbourhood which lost sight of them for 

 twenty minutes, he kept the little steam-boat, which plies be- 

 low the Falls, all that time battling with full steam, to keep 

 her nose in the spray in the very front of the Great Fall, whilst 

 he studied the effect from this new position. If a passion for 

 his subject can secure success to an accomplished artist, we may 

 confidently hope that Mr. Church's second picture of Niagara 

 will even exceed the beauty and fidelity of the first. 



Eeturning by railway to Hamilton, I continued my jour- 

 ney through Canada West. The country to Dun das, and on- 

 wards for forty miles to Paris, is undulating, and seemed an 

 easier and more fertile soil. Very little of it is wholly cleared, 

 certainly more than half is still unbroken forest. But the 



