Travelers' Original Accounts Since 1840 



(278 miles) a little before midnight. There we branched off to 186S 

 Niagara, which is 22 miles further on. USie 



Up to this time we had been minded to go to the Clifton 

 House, which is on the Canadian side of the river, though it is 

 kept by Americans, and of which we had agreeable memories 

 in the summer, when it was the headquarters of many pleasant 

 Southerners. There were only three or four men in our car, 

 one of whom was, even under such hopeless circumstances, doing 

 a little touting for an hotel at the American side. After a while 

 he threw a fly over us and landed the whole basket. All the 

 large hotels, he said, were shut up on both sides of the Falls, but 

 he could take us to a very nice quiet and comfortable place, 

 where we would meet with every attention, and it was the only 

 house we would find open. This exposition left us no choice. 



We surrendered ourselves therefore to the tout, who was a 

 very different being from the type of his class in England : a tall, 

 pleasant-faced man, with a keen eye and bronzed face, ending 

 in an American Vandyke beard, a fur collar round his neck, a 

 heavy travelling coat — from which peered out the ruffles of a 

 white shirt, and a glittering watch-chain — rings on his fingers, 

 and unexceptionable shoeing. He smoked his cigar with an air, 

 and talked as if he were conferring a favour. "And I tell you 

 what! I'll show you all over the Falls to-morrow. Yes, sir! " 

 Why, we were under eternal obligations to such a guide, and 

 internally thanking our stars for the treasure-trove, at once 

 accepted him. 



At the gloomy deserted station we were now shot out, on a 

 sheet of slippery deep snow, an hour after midnight. We fol- 

 lowed our guide to an hostelry of the humbler sort, where the 

 attention was not at first very marked or the comfort at all 

 decided. The night was very dark, and a thaw had set in under 

 the influence of a warm rain. The thunder of the Falls could 

 not be heard through the thick air, but when we were in the house 

 a quiet little quivering rattle of the window-panes spoke of its 

 influence. The bar-room was closed — in the tawdry foul- 



315 



