Preservation of the Falls 



beautiful but diminutive specimens of this variety of natural 1833 

 scenery with which they abound; and at a later period, there a,ro 

 was not an accessible waterfall within my range of travel, from 

 the Rhine Fall to Tivoli, that I did not contrive to approach, 

 gaze upon and listen to with infinite pleasure. So you may well 

 ask what impression was made upon me by Niagara. 



I am glad that the position and the general features of this 

 celebrated scene are too well known to need description, and 

 that you will require none from me. 



At the commencement of the present century, Niagara, diffi- 

 cult of access, and rarely visited, was still the cataract of the 

 wilderness. The red Indian still lingered in its vicinity, and 

 adored the ' Great Spirit * and ' Master of Life/ as he listened 

 to the * Thunder of the waters.* The human habitations within 

 sound of its Fall were few and far apart. Its few visitors came, 

 gazed, and departed in silence and awe, having for their guide 

 the child of the forest, or the hardy back-woodsman. No staring, 

 painted hotel rose over the woods, and obtruded its pale face 

 over the edge of the boiling river. The journey to it from the 

 east was one of adventure and peril. The scarcely attainable 

 shore of Goat Island, lying between the two great divisions of 

 the cataract, had only been trodden by a few hardy adventurers, 

 depending upon stout hearts and steady hands for escape from 

 the imminent perils of the passage. How is it now? The forest 

 has everywhere yielded to the axe. Hotels, with their snug shrub- 

 beries, outhouses, gardens, and paltry embellishment, stare you 

 in the face; museums, mills, staircases, tolls, and grog-shops, all 

 the petty trickery of Matlock-baths, or Ambleside, greet the 

 eye of the traveller. Bridges are thrown from island to island; 

 and Goat Island is reached without adventure. A scheming com- 

 pany on the Canadian side have planned a * City of the Falls/ 

 to be filled with snug cottages, symmetrically arranged, to let for 

 the season; and, in fine, you write to your friend in Quebec, 

 giving him rendezvous at Niagara for a certain hour, start your- 

 self from Richmond, in Virginia, for the point proposed, with a 



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