Travelers* Original Accounts Since 1 840 



those heights and brinks, I was suffering from an inveterate ver- 1 &go 

 tigo, which made plain ground rather difficult for me at times. owe 

 At odd moments it became necessary for me to lay hold of some- 

 thing and stay the reeling world; and the recurrence of these 

 exigencies finally decided me against venturing into the Cave 

 of the Winds. Upon the whole I am glad I did not penetrate it, 

 for now I can think it what I like, and if I had seen it I probably 

 could not do that. I compromised by descending the Biddle 

 Stairs, which had a rail to hold on by, and which, I have no 

 doubt, amount to much the same thing as the Cave of the Winds. 

 At any rate, when I got to the bottom of them, I wondered why 

 in the world I had come down. 



I do not know whether under the present socialistic regime, 

 or state control, of the Falls, there are so many marvels shown 

 as under the old system of private enterprise. But I am sure 

 that their number could have been greatly reduced, with 

 advantage to the visitor. If you find a marvel advertised, and 

 you learn that you cannot see it without paying a quarter, every 

 coin upon your person begins to burn in an intense sympathy with 

 your curiosity, and you cannot be content till you have seen that 

 marvel. This was the principle of human nature upon which 

 private capital had counted, and it did not matter that the Falls 

 themselves were enough to glut the utmost greed of wonder. 

 Their prodigious character was eked out by every factitious 

 device to which the penalty of twenty-five cents could be 

 attached. I remember that at the entrance of Prospect Park, if not 

 within the sacred grove, a hardy adventurer had pitched his tent 

 and announced the presence of a five-legged calf within its canvas 

 walls, in active competition with the great Cataract. I paid 

 my quarter (my Ohio money was all paper, or I might have 

 thought twice about it) in order to make sure that this calf was 

 in no wise comparable to Niagara. I do not say that the picture 

 of the calf on the outside of the tent was not as good as some 

 pictures of Niagara that I have seen. It was at least as much 

 like. 



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