Niagara Falls 



1865 officers on the bridge showed the usual apathy of their genus. 

 No novelty moves them. Had the King of Oude appeared with 

 all his court on elephants, they would merely have been puzzled 

 how to assess the animals. They were not in the least discon- 

 certed at a group of travellers visiting the St. Lawrence in 

 winter time. 



The sight of the St. Lawrence as we crossed over, roaring 

 and foaming more than a hundred feet below us, and rushing 

 between the precipitous banks on which the bridge rests, gave 

 one a sort of "frisson:" it looked like some stream of the 

 Inferno — the waters, black and cold, lashed into pyramids of 

 white foam, and seeming by their very violence to impede their 

 own escape. Some distance below the bridge, indeed, they rise 

 up in a visible ridge, crested with high plumes of tossing spray; 

 but it is related as a fact that the steamer " Maid of the Mist," 

 which was wont to ply as a ferry-boat below the Falls, was let 

 down this awful sluice by a daring captain, who sought to save 

 her from the grip of certain legal functionaries, and that she got 

 through with the loss of her chimney, after a fierce contest with 

 the waters, in which she was whirled round and buffeted almost 

 to foundering. At that moment the men on board would no 

 doubt have surrendered to the feeblest of bailiffs for the chance 

 of smooth water. 



It is above all things noteworthy, perhaps, that the Americans 

 in all their wars with the mother-country have sought to strike 

 swift hard blows in Canada, and that hitherto, with every advan- 

 tage and after considerable successes, they have been driven, 

 weather-beaten back, and bootless home. It was actually on the 

 land shaken by the roar of these falling floods that battles have 

 been fought, and that the air has listened in doubt to the voice 

 of cannon mingling with the eternal chorus of the cataract. 



There are here two points at which Canada lies open to the 

 invader. The first lies above the Rapids — the latter is below 



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