iru -au 



Travelers Original Accounts: 1801-1840 



till we reached the crown of the roof, where there is a space 1834 

 railed in for the advantage of the gazer who desires to reach rt 

 the highest point. I think the emotion of this moment was never 

 renewed or equalled. The morning had been cloudy, with a 

 very few wandering gleams. It was now a little after noon ; the 

 sky was clearing, and at this moment the sun lighted up the 

 Horseshoe Fall. I am not going to describe it. The most strik- 

 ing appearance was the slowness with which the shaded green 

 waters rolled over the brink. This majestic oozing gives a true 

 idea of the volume of the floods, but they no longer look like 

 water. 



We wandered through the wood, along Table Rock, and to 

 the ferry. We sat down opposite to the American Falls, finding 

 them the first day of two more level to our comprehension than 

 the Great Horseshoe Cataract: yet throughout, the beauty was 

 far more impressive to me than the grandeur. One's imagination 

 may heap up almost any degree of grandeur; but the subtile 

 colouring of this scene, varying with every breath of wind, refin- 

 ing upon the softness of driven snow, and dimming all the gems 

 of the mine, is wholly inconceivable. The woods on Goat 

 Island were in their gaudiest autumn dress; yet, on looking up 

 to them from the fall, they seemed one dust colour. This will 

 not be believed, but it is true. 



The little detached fall on the American side piqued my 

 interest at once. It looks solitary in the midst of the crowd of 

 waters, coming out of its privacy in the wood to take its leap 

 by itself. In the afternoon, as I was standing on Table Rock, 

 a rainbow started out from the precipice a hundred feet below 

 me, and curved upward as if about to alight on my head. 

 Other such apparitions seemed to have a similar understanding 

 with the sun. They went and came, blushed and faded, the 

 floods rolling on, on, till the human heart, overcharged with 

 beauty, could bear no more. 



We crossed the ferry in the afternoon. Our boat was tossed 

 like a cork in the writhing waves. We soon found that, though 

 driven hither and thither by the currents, the ferryman always 



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