268 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA 



ing to have it in liis power to tell the world, that 

 he had held his sprained foot under a fall of 

 water which discharges six hundred and seventy 

 thousand two hundred and fifty-five tons per 

 minute. A gentle purling stream would have 

 suited better. Now, it would have become Wash- 

 ington to have quenched his battle-thirst in the 

 fall of Niagara; and there was something royal 

 in the idea of Cleopatra drinking pearl-vinegar, 

 made from the grandest pearl in Egypt; and it 

 became Caius Marius to send word, that he was 

 sitting upon the ruins of Carthage. Here, we 

 have the person suited to the thing, and the thing 

 to the person. 



If, gentle reader, thou wouldst allow me to 

 indulge a little longer in this harmless pen- 

 errantry, I would tell thee, that I have had my 

 ups and downs in life, as well as other people ; for 

 I have climbed to the point of the conductor above 

 the cross on the top of St. Peter's, in Rome, and 

 left my glove there. I have stood on one foot, 

 upon the Guardian Angel's head, on the castle of 

 St. Angelo ; and, as I have just told thee, I have 

 been low down under the fall of Niagara. But 

 this is neither here nor there; let us proceed to 

 something else. 



When the pain in my foot had become less vio- 

 lent, and the swelling somewhat abated, I could 

 not resist the inclination I felt to go down On- 

 tario, and so on to Montreal and Quebec, and 

 take Lakes Champlain and George in my way 

 back to Albany. 



Just as I had made up my mind to it, a family 

 from the Bowling-green, in New York, who was 



