Travelers' Original Accounts Since 1840 



dashed into beads of foam. Let the visitor not turn aside from 1859 

 the route I have attempted to describe to look at the American Woods 

 Falls. Elsewhere, perhaps, they would be grand and beautiful. 

 Here, close to the great Horseshoe Cataract, on the Canadian 

 side of Goat Island, they seem almost nothing — a mere pic- 

 turesque accident of the situation. The traveller should pass at 

 once across Goat Island, and at its furthest extremity is a frail 

 wooden bridge, which, stretching from rock to rock on the very 

 verge of the great Fall, leads to Terrapin Tower. And here 

 my humble duty as guide ends, for, — 



" Lo! where it comes, like an eternity, 

 As if to sweep down all things in its track, 

 Charming the eye with dread " 



— Niagara. The idol of all worshippers of nature — the goal 

 and object of western travel — the cataract of all the cataracts 

 of the world is before you, and you pause with devotional sad- 

 ness as " deep calleth unto deep " with thundering roar, and the 

 great amphitheatre of green waters pouring down in silent majesty 

 is lost forever in the clouds of spray which rise so dense beneath 

 them. Here words are powerless, guides are useless, and he 

 who wishes to see and feel Niagara must watch it for himself. 

 He must study it, he must live near it, he must hear its solemn 

 roar, and fill his mind with its every hue and aspect. He must 

 rise at dawn and see the sun break through the pine woods, till 

 its rays fall on the cataract, and wake its colours into life and 

 play, lighting it up in the distance like a gigantic glacier. He 

 must watch it hour by hour as the deep green mass always keeps 

 nearing the edge, and no longer struggling now in waves yields 

 to its fate, and flowing smooth as oil nearer and nearer, comes 

 slowly and solemnly over the cliff like a green curtain, and with 

 one stately massive plunge pours down and down, till the eye 

 loses its rush, and the bright emerald hill of water shades into 

 dazzling white, as broken at last in its long fall it parts into spray 

 and disappears in the mist. He must watch its feathery edges 



18 m 



