NIAGARA CHICAGO. 15 



Some idea of the volume of water may be gathered from this fact : the Niagara River a 

 mile and a half above the Falls is two and a half miles wide, and is there very deep. At 

 the Falls all this water is narrowed to about 800 yards in breadth. A traveller 

 already mentioned * thus describes her impressions : 



" Nor do I think that the most powerful imagination can, with its greatest effort, 

 attain even an approximate notion of the awful sublimity of this natural wonder. Like 

 all other stupendous things which the mind has been unaccustomed to measure and to 

 contemplate, Niagara requires time to grow upon one. The mind also demands time to 

 struggle up to its dimensions, and time to gather up its harmonies into the mighty tones 

 which finally fill the soul with their overwhelming cadences, and whose theme, ever-varying 

 but still the same as in the hands of a Handel or a Beethoven thunders through the 

 Avhole extent of one's being ' Almighty Power ! ' 



" The chief impression produced upon the mind by Niagara is the perpetuity of im- 

 measurable force and grandeur. This it is which lends such a strange fascination to the 

 Falls ; however pressingly one is desirous of getting away, one is obliged to turn back 

 again, and yet again, like the disturbed needle to the magnetic pole. There is nothing in 

 the way of natural scenery which has stamped itself so clearly, indelibly, and awfully on 

 my mind as this gigantic magnificence ; as this mighty body of waters, gliding stealthily 

 but rapidly on its onward course above the Falls, springing forward more wildly, more 

 exultingly, as it nears the brink, until it leaps over into the abyss to swell the mighty 

 canticle, which, for thousands and thousands of years, by day and by night, through every 

 season, has ascended in tones of subdued thunder to the Creator's throne." 



Passing over all intermediate points, the traveller at length reaches the Garden City, 

 Chicago. This, which used to be counted a western city it is 900 miles west of Ne\v 

 York is now considered almost an eastern one. And it must be remembered that this 

 place of half a million souls is a port. Large sailing-vessels and steamers enter and leave 

 it daily, and through Lake Michigan and the chain of other lakes can reach the ocean 

 direct. There are miles on miles of wharfs, and it is generally considered one of the 

 " livest " business places in America. Handsomely laid-out and built, the city now hardly 

 bears a trace of the terrific conflagration which in 1871 laid three-fourths of the finest 

 streets in ruins. 



From Chicago to Omaha the various routes have little to interest the ordinary traveller, 

 and so, while speeding on together, let us dine in a Pullman hotel car. On entering you will 

 be presented with a bewildering bill of fare, commencing with soups and finishing with ice-cream 

 and black coffee. The dinner is served on little separate tables, while the purity of the 

 cloths and table napkins, the brightness of the plate, and the crystal clearness of the 

 glass-ware, leave nothing to desire. You can have a glass of iced water, for they have an 

 ice-cellar; you can obtain anything, from a bottle of beer to one of Burgundy, port, or 

 champagne ; and cigars are also kept ' ' en board ; " while at the particular point indicated 

 you will not pay more than seventy-five cents (about three shillings) for the dinner. It 

 must be admitted that the liquid refreshments are generally very dear: a " quarter" 



* Margharita "\Vcppncr. 



