Travelers Original Accounts: 1 801 -1 840 



1834 



and up the staircase to our dressing-rooms, after which we wrote 



Martmeau 



our names among those of the adventurers who have performed 

 the same exploit, and received a certificate of our having visited 

 Termination Rock. I was told that a fee and a wetting in the 

 spray may secure such a certificate at any time. Be this as it 

 may, ours were honest. 



We clambered down to the water's edge, where men were 

 gathering spars and other " curiosities." We sat long amusing 

 ourselves with watching the vain attempts of the tree-trunks, 

 which had been carried over from above, to get any farther 

 down the river. They were whisked about like twigs in the 

 boiling waters, and sometimes made a vigorous shoot as if to 

 get free of the eddies; but as often as they reached a particular 

 spot they were sure to be turned back, and sucked up the stream 

 to try again. I think they must be doing penance there still, 

 unless, enormous logs as they are, they have been dashed to 

 pieces. 



At some unknown hour of a bright morning, therefore, we set 

 forth from our hotel, and in due time reached the ferry. The 

 entire party paid sufficient attention to business to sit properly 

 in the boat, which is no place for freak and frolic while bobbing 

 about among the eddies. We dawdled long about the American 

 Fall. I had never before been fully aware of its power over the 

 senses. To-day I saw a lady who was sitting on the bank — as 

 safe a seat as an armchair by the fireside — convulsively turn 

 away from the scene and clasp the ground. Yet the water flows 

 so tranquilly that I should not be afraid to stand in the flood near 

 the bank where it takes the leap. I tried the force of the water 

 there, and found it very moderate. 



We dawdled hours away in Goat Island; now lying on the 

 grassy bank with our feet almost into the rapids; now fanning 

 ourselves in the translucent green shades of the wood, among 



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