Travelers' Original Accounts: 1801-1840 



fields. This cloud of vapour has frequently, in clear weather, 1801 

 been observed from Lake Ontario, at the distance of ninety 

 miles from the falls. 



The bed of the river is so deep, that it undergoes not such a 

 degree of agitation as the reception of those bodies of water 

 perpetually pouring down into it might be supposed to produce. 

 Except at the places immediately underneath each of the falls, 

 there are no broken billows; the stream is comparatively tranquil, 

 but the water continues for a long way down its course, to revolve 

 in numerous whirlpools. Its colour is a deep blue; quantities of 

 foam float upon the surface and almost cover a large bay formed 

 between projecting points, containing several insulated rocks. 



Proceeding along the beach to the basis of the Table Rock, 

 the distance is about two miles, and the way thither is over 

 masses of stone which have been torn from the bank above, 

 and over trees which have been carried down the falls, and have 

 been deposited in the spring by bodies of ice, in situations above 

 twenty feet in height from the level of the river. 



About half a mile from hence, in descending the course of 

 the river, and behind some trees which grow upon the lower 

 bank, is placed the Indian ladder, composed of a tall cedar tree, 

 whose boughs have been lopped off to within three inches of 

 the trunk, and whose upper end is attached by a cord of bark 

 to the root of a living tree; the lower end is planted amid stones. 

 It is upwards of forty feet in length, and trembles and bends 

 under the weight of a person upon it. As this is the nearest 

 way to the river-side, many people descend by the ladder, led 

 either by curiosity, or for the purpose of spearing fish, which in 

 the summer are found in great abundance in this vicinity. 



The spear in use is a fork with two or three prongs, with 

 moving barbs, and fixed to a long handle. The fisherman takes 

 possession of a prominent rock, from whence he watches for his 

 prey, and when it approaches within his reach, he pierces it with 

 his instrument, with an almost inevitable certainty. 



9 129 



