NIAGARA. 363 



me with an eye of close scrutiny, answered that breakfast would be on 

 the table as soon as the company should come down from their rooms. 

 I approached this important personage, told him of my avocations, and 

 convinced him that he might feel safe as to remuneration. From this 

 moment, I was, with him at least, on equal footing with every other per- 

 son in his house. He talked a good deal of the many artists who had 

 visited the Falls that season, from different parts, and offered to assist me, 

 by giving such accommodations as I might require to finish the draw- 

 ings I had in contemplation. He left me, and as I looked about the 

 room, I saw several views of the Falls, by which I was so disgusted, that 

 I suddenly came to my better senses. " What !" thought I, " have I 

 come here to mimic nature in her grandest enterprise, and add my cari- 

 cature of one of the wonders of the world to those which I here see .? No. 

 —I give up the vain attempt. I shall look on these mighty cataracts 

 and imprint them, where alone they can be represented, — on my mind !" 



Had T taken a view, I might as well have given you what might be 

 termed a regular account of the form, the height, the tremendous roar of 

 these Falls ; might have spoken of people perilling their lives by going 

 between the rock and the sheet of water, calculated the density of the at- 

 mosphere in that strange position, related wondrous tales of Indians and 

 their canoes having been precipitated the whole depth ; — might have told 

 of the narrow, rapid, and rockbound river that leads the waters of the 

 Erie into those of Ontario, remarking en passant the Devil's Hole and 

 sundry other places or objects ; — but supposing you had been there, my 

 description would prove useless, and quite as puny as my intended view 

 would have been for my family ; and should you not have seen them, 

 and are fond of contemplating the more magnificent of the Creator's 

 works, go to Niagara, reader, for all the pictures you may see, all the de- 

 scriptions you may read, of these mighty Falls, can only produce in your 

 mind the faint ghmmer of a glow-worm compared with the overpowering 

 glory of the meridian sun. 



I breakfasted amid a crowd of strangers, who gazed and laughed at 

 me, paid my bill, rambled about and admired the Falls for a while, saw 

 several young gentlemen sTietching on cards the mighty mass of foaming 

 waters, and walked to Buffalo, where I purchased new apparel and shear^ 

 ed my beard. I then enjoyed civilized life as much as, a month before, I 

 had enjoyed the wildest solitudes and the darkest recesses of mountain 

 and forest. 



