Niagara Falls 



1871 the sentimental tourist may muse upon the contingency of its 

 james being guarded by the negative homage of empty spaces and absent 



barracks and decent forbearance. The actual abuse of the scene 

 belongs evidently to that immense class of iniquities which are 

 destined to grow very much worse in order to grow a very little 

 better. The good humour engendered by the main spectacle 

 bids you suffer it to run its course. 



Though hereabouts so much is great, distances are small, and 

 a ramble of two or three hours enables you to gaze hither and 

 thither from a dozen standpoints. The one you are likely to 

 choose first is that on the Canada cliff, a little way above the 

 suspension-bridge. The great fall faces you, enshrined in its own 

 surging incense. The common feeling just here, I believe, is one 

 of disappointment at its want of height; the whole thing appears 

 to many people somewhat smaller than its fame. My own sense, 

 I confess, was absolutely gratified from the first; and, indeed, I 

 was not struck with anything being tall or short, but with every- 

 thing being perfect. You are, moreover, at some distance, and 

 you feel that with the lessening interval you will not be cheated of 

 your chance to be dizzied with mere dimensions. Already you 

 see the world-famous green, baffling painters, baffling poets, 

 shining on the lip of the precipice; the more so, of course, for 

 the clouds of silver and snow into which it speedily resolves itself. 

 The whole picture before you is admirably simple. The Horse- 

 shoe glares and boils and smokes from the centre to the right, 

 drumming itself into powder and thunder; in the centre the dark 

 pedestal of Goat Island divides the double flood; to the left 

 booms in vaporous dimness the minor battery of the American 

 Fall ; while on a level with the eye, above the still crest of either 

 cataract, appear the white faces of the hithermost rapids. The 

 circle of weltering froth at the base of the Horseshoe, emerging 

 from the dead white vapours — absolute white, as moonless mid- 

 night is absolute black — which muffle impenetrably the crash of 

 the river upon the lower bed, melts slowly into the darker shades 

 of green. It seems in itself a drama of thrilling interest, this 



1096 



