Niagara Falls 



i860 nearer, we could see that he had wooden buckets on them, of about 

 Howe s t j ie big ness f b u tter firkins; I tell it, not expecting much to be 

 believed, for I did not believe it when I saw it. But till he 

 arrived, I could say to myself that there were no bottoms in those 

 buckets, and that his sagacious feet, though somewhat impeded, 

 had still no doubt a good chance to save him, if he lost his head, 

 and would be equal to any common emergency. That was the 

 opinion of everyone about me, and though I knew how vexed 

 with him the feet must be, I did not wholly lose patience till I 

 was told by one who saw the buckets after Blondin stepped out 

 of them, that they had wooden bottoms like any other butter 

 firkins. Then I v/as glad that I did not see his feet again, for 

 I could imagine the look of cold disgust, the look of haughty 

 injury they must wear at having been made privy to such a mere 

 brutal audacity. 



The man himself looked cool and fresh enough, but I, who 

 was not used to such violent fatigues as he must have undergone 

 in these three transits, was bathed in a cold perspiration, and so 

 weak and worn with making them in sympathy that I could 

 scarcely walk away. 



Long afterwards I was telling about this experience of mine — 

 it was really more mine than Blondin's — in the neat shop of a 

 Venetian pharmacist, to a select circle of the physicians who 

 wait in such places in Venice for the call of their patients. One 

 of these civilized men, for all comment, asked: 'Where was 

 the government? " and I answered in my barbarous pride of our 

 individualism, " The government had nothing to do with it. In 

 America the government has nothing to do with such things." 



But now I think that this Venetian was right, and that such 

 a show as I have tried to describe ought no more to have been 

 permitted than the fight of a man with a wild beast. It was an 

 offence to morality, and it thinned the frail barrier which the aspi- 

 ration of centuries has slowly erected between humanity and 

 savagery. But for the time being I made no such reflections. I 

 got back to my hotel and hastened to send off a whole letter 



292 



