220 "WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



York, England, arrived at the Falls of Niagara, in 

 July, 1824, and "begs leave to pen down the following 

 dreadful accident : 



" He sprain'd his foot, and hurt his toe, 

 On the rough road near Buffalo. 

 It quite distresses him to stagger a- 

 Long the sharp rocks of famed Niagara. 

 So thus he's doomed to drink the measure 

 Of pain, in lieu of that of pleasure. 

 On Hope's delusive pinions borne, 

 He came for wool and goes back shorn. 

 N.B. Here he alludes to nothing but 

 Th' adventure of his toe and foot ; 

 Save this, he sees all that which can 

 Delight and charm the soul of man, 

 But feels it not, because his toe 

 And foot together plague him so." 



I remember once to have sprained my ankle very 

 violently many years ago, and that the doctor ordered 

 me to hold it under the pump two or three times a day. 

 Now, in the United States of America, all is upon a 

 grand scale, except taxation ; and I am convinced that 

 the traveller's ideas become much more enlarged as he 

 journeys through the country. This being the case, 

 I can easily account for the desire I felt to hold my 

 sprained foot under the fall of Niagara. I descended 

 the winding staircase which has been made for the ac- 

 commodation of travellers, and then hobbled on to the 

 scene of action. As I held my leg under the fall, I 

 tried to meditate on the immense difference there was 

 betwixt a house-pump and this tremendous cascade of 

 nature, and what effect it might have upon the sprain ; 

 but the magnitude of the subject was too overwhelming, 

 and I was obliged to drop it. 



Perhaps, indeed, there was an unwarrantable tincture 

 of vanity in an unknown wanderer wishing to have it 

 in his power to tell the world, that he had held his 



