Travelers' Original Accounts Since 1840 



than any other feature of Niagara. They have been a i860 

 great deal exploited since Blondin's time by adventurers who HowelIs 

 have attempted to swim them, and to navigate them in barrels 

 and buoys and India-rubber balls, or if not quite India-rubber 

 balls, I do not know why. But at that time no craft but the 

 Maid of the Mist, the little steamboat which used to run up to 

 the foot of the cataract, had ever dared them. She, indeed, 

 flying from the perennial pun involved in her name, not to men- 

 tion the sheriff's officer who had an attachment for her, weathered 

 the rapids and passed in and out of the Whirlpool, and escaped 

 into the quiet of Canadian waters, with the pilot and her engineer 

 on board. Afterwards I saw her at Quebec, where she had 

 changed her name, as other American refugees in Canada have 

 done, and had now become the Maid of Orleans, in recognition 

 of her peaceful employ of carrying people to and from the Isle 

 of Orleans. But her adventurous voyage was still fresh on the 

 lips of guides and hackmen when I was first at Niagara, and I 

 looked at the Rapids and the Whirlpool with an interest pecu- 

 liarly fearful because of it. 



As usual, I walked to the scene of the exploit I was about to 

 witness, but there were a good many people walking, and they 

 debated on the way whether Blondin would cross that day or not. 

 It had been raining over night, and some said his cable was not 

 in condition; others, that the guys which stayed it on either 

 side were too slack, or too taut from the wet. Nevertheless, we 

 found a great crowd on the Canada shore, which seemed to com- 

 mand the best view of Blondin as well as of Niagara, and the 

 American shore was dense with spectators, too. As the hour 

 drew near for Blondin to do his feat, we were lost in greater 

 and greater doubt whether he would do it or not, and perhaps if 

 a vote had been taken the skeptics would have carried the day, 

 when he suddenly danced out upon the cable before our unbeliev- 

 ing eyes. 



The dizzy path was of the bigness of a ship's cable, at the 

 shore, but it seemed to dwindle to a thread where it sank over 

 the centre of the gulf, down toward those tusked and frothing 

 19 289 



