Niagara Falls 

 1834 conquers at last, and shoots his boat into the desired creek; but 



Martineau 



the tossing and whirling amid the driving spray seems a rather 

 dubious affair at first. To be carried down would be no better 

 than to be sucked up the river, as there is a fatal whirlpool below 

 which forbids all navigation as peremptorily as the falls. 



I still think the finest single impression of all is half way up the 

 American Fall, seen, not from the staircase, but from the bank 

 on the very verge of the sheet. Here we stood this first evening, 

 and amid the rapids above. In returning, we saw from the river 

 the singular effect of the clouds of spray being in shadow, and 

 the descending floods in light; while the evening star hung over 

 one extremity of the falls, and the moon over the other, and 

 the little perpetual cloud, amber in the last rays from the west, 

 spread its fine drizzle like a silver veil over the scene. 



There is nothing like patient waiting in a place like this. The 

 gazer, who sits for hours watching what sun and wind may be 

 pleased to reveal, is sure to be rewarded, somewhat as Newton 

 described himself as being when he set a thought before him, 

 and sat still to see what would come out of it. It is surprising 

 what secrets of the thunder cavern were disclosed to me during 

 a few days of still watching; disclosed by a puff of wind 

 clearing the spray for an instant, or by the lightest touch of a 

 sunbeam. The sound of the waters is lulling, even on the very 

 brink ; but if one wishes for stillness, there is the forest all around, 

 where the eyes may become accustomed to common objects again. 

 It is pleasant, after the high excitement, to stroll in the wild 

 woods, and wonder what this new tree is and what that; and 

 to gossip with the pigs, slim and spruce while fed on forest nuts 

 and roots; and to watch the progress of a loghouse, sitting the 

 while on a stump or leaning over a snake- fence; and then to 

 return, with new wonder, to the ethereal vision. 



One morning we found an old man, between seventy and 

 eighty years old, gazing from Table Rock. He was an Amer- 

 ican. Being on a journey, he had walked from Queenstown 

 to see the falls. He quietly observed that he was ashamed to 



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