Niagara Falls 



1738 " La Chute supremante de ce Saut est, me dirent mes 



eau Canadians, de plus de six-cens pieds perpendiculaires ; La Facade 

 a cent vingt toises de large. Elle est composee de deux grandes 

 Nappes d'eau de deux Cascades, avec un Rocher on He entalus 

 au milieu. Les eaux qui tombent de cette grande hauteur, 

 ecument et bouillonment de la maniere du monde la plus terrible. 

 Elles font un bruit si epouvantable, qu'il est impossible de 

 s'entendre parlor quand on en est bien proche. Forsque le vent 

 souffle au Sud on entend ce bruissement effroyable a plus de 

 dis-huit lienes loin." 



A romantic story of adventure under the guise of description and travel. 

 According to his own statement, the author came to Canada in 1 729. He 

 made his home with the Recollect Fathers in Quebec for a time, then with 

 two Indians went to the woods in search of adventures. He sets the time 

 of his visit to Niagara in June, 1731. It is more than probable that he 

 really did visit Canada, and possibly Niagara, but it is equally certain, 

 that when he came to write the story of his travels, romance ran away with 

 fact. 



1764 



1764 Goldsmith, OLIVER. The traveller, or a prospect of society. (In 



Goldsmith his Poetical works. Bost. : Houghton, Mifflin and Co. N. d. P. 24. 

 [British poets.]) 



During the French and Indian wars, Niagara was the farthest point 

 of English dominion in the New World, generally known in the Old. 

 This accounts for the allusion which we find in this poem of Goldsmith's. 



Have we not seen, at pleasure's lordly call, 

 The smiling, long-frequented village fall? 

 Beheld the duteous son, the sire decay'd, 

 The modest matron, and the blushing maid, 

 Forc'd from their homes, a melancholy train, 

 To traverse climes beyond the western main ; 

 Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around 

 And Niagara stuns with thundering sound? 

 Even now, perhaps, as there some pilgrim strays 

 Thro' tangled forests, and thro' dangerous ways ; 

 Where beasts with man divided empire claim, 



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