Niagara Falls 

 1808 course of travellers, who come expressly to see the falls, that 



T. C. 



they do not provide at least a sound and safe ladder, and expend 

 twenty or thirty dollars in laying the stones at the bottom in such 

 a manner as to enable the female part of the visitants to contem- 

 plate the scene under the Table Rock, if they wish so to do: at 

 present it is an undertaking too arduous and fatiguing for the 

 female sex. 



Those who wish to descend will be directed to a house about 

 half a mile from the flats, where a ladder is kept for the pur- 

 pose. When I was there nobody had gone down it since the 

 preceding season, and I was advised not to try; an advice which 

 I readily complied with. From the flats where the habitations 

 are, you can ascend again into the main road, which I think is 

 about eighty or ninety feet perpendicular above the edge of the 

 water. This, therefore, is the descent which forms the rapids of 

 the river, before the perpendicular fall of one hundred and fifty 

 feet commences. 



When you have again got upon the high road by an ascent 

 at the further end of the flats, you see about a hundred yards 

 before you a house, with a field before it, fenced with a worm 

 fence. It is now occupied by Charles Wilson, but has lately 

 been sold to a Mr. Shannon. Do not go so far as the house, 

 but skirt round the fence, and in about one hundred and fifty or 

 two hundred yards, you will see two or three knolls or promi- 

 nences on which you may again take your stand, and have per- 

 haps a still more complete view of the whole scenery than from 

 the Table Rock. There is an oak tree on the best brow that I 

 found for the purpose, on which about four feet high I cut a 

 small blaze with my penknife. A small island in the river on 

 the American side, in the midst of the falls on the American 

 side ; a mill seat in the distance ; and the beauty of the smaller fall 

 which is made by that island, are objects worth noticing, as adding 

 to the picturesque of the scenery, after you have sufficiently con- 

 templated the grand whole. I gave the man who went with me 

 from Hardie's, the tanner, half a dollar, with which he was well 



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