Travelers' Original Accounts Since 1840 



derful combinations of old plank, tarpaulin, tinplate, and stove !865 

 pipes. " It's wonderful the settlement doesn't catch fire! 

 " But it does catch fire. It's burned down often enough. 

 Nobody cares: and the Irish grin, and build it up again, and 

 beat a few of the niggers, whom they accuse of having blazed 

 'em up. They've a purty hard time of it now, I think." 



There are too many free negroes and too many Irish located 

 in the immediate neighbourhood of the American town, to cause 

 the doctrines of the Abolitionists to be received with much favour 

 by the American population ; and the Irish of course are opposed 

 to free negroes, where they are attracted by paper-mills, hotel 

 service, bricklaying, plastering, housebuilding, and the like — the 

 Americans monopolizing the higher branches of labour and 

 money-making, including the guide business. 



At a bend in the road we caught a glimpse of the Falls, and I 

 was concerned to observe they appeared diminished in form, in 

 beauty, and in effect. The cataract appeared of an ochreish hue, 

 like bog-water, as patches of it came into sight through breaks 

 in the thick screen of trees which line the banks. The effect was 

 partly due to the rain, perhaps, but was certainly developed by the 

 white setting of snow through which it rushed. The expression 

 on my friends' faces indicated that they considered Niagara an 

 imposition. ' The Falls are like one of our great statesmen," 

 quoth the guide, " just now. There's nothing particular about 

 them when you first catch a view of them; but when you get 

 close and know them better, then the power comes out, and you 

 feel small as potatoes." 



The country, which I remembered so riant and rich, now was 

 cold and desolate. At the station, near the beautiful Suspension 

 Bridge — which one cannot praise too much, and which I hope 

 may last forever, though it does not look like it — the houses 

 had closed windows, and half of them seemed empty, but the 

 German proprietors no doubt could have been found in the lager- 

 beer saloons and billiard-rooms. The toll-takers and revenue 



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