Niagara Falls 



1851 along a staging, unstable almost as the water, yet quite firm 

 enough, you stand directly upon the rocks, and Niagara plunges 

 and tumbles above and around you. 



There at sunset, and only there, you may see three circular 

 rainbows, one within another. For Niagara has unimagined 

 boons for her lovers — rewards of beauty so profound that she 

 enjoins silence as the proof of fidelity. 



Returning, there is an overhanging shelf of rock, and there, 

 except that it is cold and wet, you sit secluded from the spray. 

 It is a lonely cave, curtained from the sun by the Cataract, 

 forever. And if still your daring is untamed, you may climb 

 over slippery rocks in the blinding mist and the deafening roar, 

 and feel yourself as far under the Great American Fall as 

 human foot may venture. 



A charming description of an August visit. 



1851 (DUNCAN, Mrs. M. G. LUNDIE.) America as I found it. Lond.: 

 Duncan Nisbet i 8 52. Pp. 365-380. 



The author was at the Falls in Indian summer and, apparently, in 

 sympathetic mood. She writes pleasantly of the hermit of Niagara, the 

 recession of the Falls and the reflections on eternity which were inspired 

 by the cataract. Her impression of the Falls is interesting. " It may 

 sound strange," she writes, " to say that, after the rapid, the fall itself 

 seemed a helpless thing. When it reaches the edge of the precipice, what 

 can the torrent do but fall! It must go down! The rapid looks like a 

 thing of life. It seems possessed of Volition. The fall, like other falling 

 things, tumbles into the boiling pool below, because it must. How can 

 it avoid it? 



"Nay — more strange! I have seen smaller cascades which seemed 

 to have more a will of their own than has this mighty Niagara." 



1852 



1852 MARJORIBANKS, ALEXANDER. Travels in South and North America. 

 Marjoribanks Lond> . Simpkin, Marshall, and Co. 1853. Pp. 266-275. 



1852 TlCKNOR, GEORGE. Life, letters, and journals of George Ticknor. 



Ticknor . . . 12th ed. Bost.: Houghton, Mifflin. 1:386. 2:221,225, 



277, 281. 



260 



