Niagara Falls 



1832 the very laws of nature, no vestige of the floating material could 

 Trollope f^j j ts wa y to j ne surface? 



Beyond the horse-shoe is Goat Island, and beyond Goat 

 Island the American fall, bold, straight, and chafed to snowy 

 whiteness by the rocks which meet it; but it does not approach, 

 in sublimity or awful beauty, to the wondrous crescent on the 

 other shore. There, the form of the mighty caldron, into 

 which the deluge pours, the hundred silvery torrents congre- 

 gating round its verge, the smooth and solemn movement with 

 which it rolls its massive volume over the rock, the liquid emerald 

 of its long unbroken waters, the fantastic wreaths which spring 

 to meet it, and then, the shadowy mist that veils the horrors 

 of its crash below, constitute a scene almost too enormous in 

 its features for man to look upon. ** Angels might tremble as 

 they gazed; " and I should deem the nerves obtuse, rather than 

 strong, which did not quail at the first sight of this stupendous 

 cataract. 



Minute local particulars can be of no interest to those who 

 have not felt their influence for pleasure or for pain. I will not 

 tell of giddy stairs which scale the very edge of the torrent, 

 nor of beetling slabs of table rock, broken and breaking, on 

 which, shudder as you may, you must take your stand or lose 

 your reputation as a tourist. All these feats were performed 

 again and again, even on the first day of our arrival, and most 

 earthly weary was I when the day was done, though I would 

 not lose the remembrance of it to purchase the addition of many 

 soft and silken ones to my existence. 



By four o'clock the next morning I was again at the little 

 shantee, close to the horse-shoe fall, which seems reared in 

 water rather than in air, and took an early shower-bath of 

 spray. Much is concealed at this early hour by the heavy 

 vapour, but there was a charm in the very obscurity; and every 

 moment as the light increased, cloud after cloud rolled off, till 

 the vast wonder was again before me. 



It is in the afternoon that the rainbow is visible from the British 



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