xxx] BOSTON TO WASHINGTON 127 



In the evening I dined with Professor Goldvvin Smith and 

 a party of scientific men in his fine old house, with black 

 walnut staircase and furniture. Afterwards we adjourned 

 to his spacious library, where we discussed politics and litera- 

 ture. The next evening was spent at Mr. Allen's, where I 

 saw a fine collection of Canadian birds, and was struck by 

 the large number of handsome woodpeckers and other bright- 

 coloured birds as compared with Europe. On my way back 

 to Washington I spent four days at Niagara, living at the old 

 hotel on the Canadian side, in a room that looked out on the 

 great fall, and where its continuous musical roar soothed me 

 to sleep. It was a hard frost, and the American falls had 

 great ice-mounds below them, and ranges of gigantic icicles 

 near the margins. At night the sound was like that of a strong, 

 steady wind at sea, but even more like the roar of the London 

 streets heard from the middle of Hyde Park. When in bed a 

 constant vibration was felt. I spent my whole time wander- 

 ing about the falls, above and below, on the Canadian and 

 the American sides, roaming over Goat Island and the Three 

 Sisters Islands far in the rapids above the Horse-shoe Fall, 

 which are almost as impressive as the fall itself. The small 

 Luna Island dividing the American falls was a lovely sight ; 

 the 3rbor-vitae trees {Thuya Americana), with which it is 

 covered, young and old, some torn and jagged, but all to 

 the smallest twigs coated with glistening ice from the frozen 

 spray, looked like groves of gigantic tree corals — the most 

 magnificent and fairy-like scene I have ever beheld. All the 

 islands are rocky and picturesque, the trees draped with wild 

 vines and Virginia creepers, and afford a sample of the original 

 American forest vegetation of very great interest. During 

 these four days I was almost entirely alone, and was glad 

 to be so. I was never tired of the ever-changing aspects of 

 this grand illustration of natural forces engaged in modelling 

 the earth's surface. Usually the centre of the great falls, 

 where the depth and force of the water are greatest, is hidden 

 by the great column of spray which rises to the height of four 

 hundred or five hundred feet ; but occasionally the wind drifts 

 it aside, and allows the great central gulf of falling water 



