Travelers Original Accounts: 1 801 -1 840 



think that there had been wars near such a place, and that he 1834 

 hoped the English and Americans were grown wiser now, and Mar,ineau 

 would not think of fighting any more. This came in echo of 

 my thought. I had been secretly wishing that all the enemies 

 in the world could be brought together on this rock: they could 

 not but love as brethren. 



The second time I visited Niagara I accomplished the feat 

 of going behind the fall. In October it was loo cold; on a 

 sunny 8th of June there was no imprudence in it. . . . We 

 ascended to the guide's house, and surveyed the extraordinary 

 costume in which we were to make the expedition. Stout socks 

 and shoes (but I would recommend ladies to go shod as usual), 

 thick cotton garments reaching to the feet, green oilskin jackets 

 and hats; in this mountaineer sort of costume is the adventure 

 to be gone through. 



We had a stout negro for a guide. He took me by the hand, 

 and led me through the spray. I presently found the method of 

 keeping myself at my ease. It was to hold down the brim of my 

 hat, so as to protect my eyes from the dashing water, and to keep 

 my mouth shut. With these precautions I could breathe and 

 see freely in the midst of a tumult which would otherwise be 

 enough to extinguish one's being. A hurricane blows up from 

 the caldron; a deluge drives at you from all parts; and the noise 

 of both wind and waters, reverberated from the cavern, is 

 inconceivable. Our path was sometimes a wet ledge of rock 

 just broad enough to allow one person at a time to creep along; 

 in other places we walked over heaps of fragments both slippery 

 and unstable. If all had been dry and quiet, I might probably 

 have thought this path above the boiling basin dangerous, and 

 have trembled to pass it; and amid the hubbub of gusts and 

 floods, it appeared so firm a footing that I had no fear of slipping 

 into the caldron. From the moment that I perceived that we 

 were actually behind the cataract, and not in a mere cloud of 

 spray, the enjoyment was intense. I not only saw the watery 



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