Niagara Falls 



1871 another far out into the furious channel. Three pretty suspension 

 HowelU bridges connect them now with the larger island, and under each 

 of these flounders a huge rapid, and hurls itself away to mingle 

 with the ruin of the fall. The Three Sisters are mere fragments 

 of wilderness, clumps of vine-tangled woods, planted upon 

 masses of rock; but they are part of the fascination of Niagara 

 which no one resists; . . . 



he . . . went alone to the top of the audacious 

 little structure standing on the verge of the cataract, between the 

 smooth curve of the Horse-Shoe and the sculptured front of the 

 Central Fall, with the stormy sea of the Rapids behind, and the 

 river, dim seen through the mists, crawling away between its lofty 

 bluffs before. He knew again the awful delight with which so 

 long ago he had watched the changes in the beauty of the 

 Canadian Fall as it hung a mass of translucent green from the 

 brink, and a pearly white seemed to crawl up from the abyss, and 

 penetrate all its substance to the very crest, and then suddenly 

 vanished from it, and perpetually renewed the same effect. The 

 mystery of the rising vapors veiled the gulf into which the cataract 

 swooped ; the sun shone, and a rainbow dreamed upon them. 



• • • • ■ 



After dinner they drove on the Canada shore up past the 

 Clifton House, towards the Burning Spring, which is not the 

 least wonder of Niagara. As each bubble breaks upon the 

 troubled surface, and yields its flash of infernal flame and its whiff 

 of sulphurous stench, it seems hardly strange that the Neutral 

 Nation should have revered the cataract as a demon ; and another 

 subtle spell (not to be broken even by the business-like composure 

 of the man who shows off the hell-broth) is added to those suc- 

 cessive sorceries by which Niagara gradually changes from a 

 thing of beauty to a thing of terror. By all odds, too, the most 

 tremendous view of the Falls is afforded by the point on this drive 

 whence you look down upon the Horse-Shoe, and behold its three 



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