Niagara Falls 



1859 by trees, now lost in spray, till, when they do really stand before 

 them, they are apt at last to experience a feeling which, if not 

 disappointment, is at least one of less surprise. Let the visitor 

 fortify himself against indulging in these hurried glances. If 

 anything can possibly lessen one's appreciation, or rather awe, 

 of these tremendous cataracts, it is this. If he comes to the 

 Canadian side, as most visitors do, he must pass over the beauti- 

 ful suspension-bridge, which, like a web of iron, thin and delicate 

 as a net, spans a tremendous ravine between the cliffs, which on 

 either side hem the rapids in some two miles below the Falls. 

 Let him from this look down the stream. There is quite enough 

 to occupy attention as the mass of deep blue water rushes madly 

 through the gorge far below him, checked here and there for a 

 moment by a sunken rock, over which they storm and rave and 

 seem to turn upon their hidden enemies in a circle of dreadful 

 whirlpools, the ring of angry froth in which shows the vortex 

 where beams, and trees, and logs of timber are dragged beneath 

 and hurried down for miles and miles till they emerge at last 

 in the quiet, solemn-looking waters of Lake Ontario. Who that 

 has ever gazed down here from this bridge can wonder at the 

 belief of the Indians that an evil spirit resided beneath these 

 dreadful waters? for ever and anon out of its least angry spots 

 a huge green wave will suddenly upheave and seem to choke 

 and struggle with the rest. For an instant it spreads dark and 

 terrible from cliff to cliff, as though it strove for room; then, 

 with a fierce roar, tumbling headlong forward in a cloud of 

 spray is carried off with a rush like the sweep of destiny. To 

 watch these rapids as, stayed for a moment by rocks too solid 

 even for their dash, they go pouring down wave on wave for 

 ever will occupy the traveller sufficiently till his carriage crosses 

 the bridge. Then let him by a winding road drive far above 

 the Falls on the American side, and beyond where the swiftest 

 and most awful of all rapids, those which are pouring towards 

 the cataract, begin to show their force. Before him he will see 

 a noble river, more than three times the width of the Thames at 



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