Niagara Falls 



1865 outlines the indistinct shape of a woman, with flowing hair and 

 Russell drooping arms, veiled in drapery — now crouching on the very 



surface of the flood, again towering aloft and tossing up her 

 hands to heaven, or sinking down and bending low to the edge 

 of the cataract, as though to drink its waters. With the aid of 

 an active fancy, one might deem it to be the guardian spirit of 

 the wondrous place. 



The wind was unfavourable, and the noise of the cataract was 

 not heard in all its majestic violence; but as we came nearer, we 

 looked at each other and said nothing. It grew on us like the 

 tumult of an approaching battle. 



There is this in the noise of the Falls: produced by a 

 monotonous and invariable cause, it nevertheless varies incessantly 

 in tone and expression. As you listen, the thunder peals loudly, 

 then dies away into a hoarse grumble, rolls on again as if swelled 

 by minor storms, clangs in the ear, and after a while, like a 

 river of sound welling over and irrepressible, drowns the sense 

 in one vast rush of inexpressible grandeur — then melts away 

 till you are almost startled at the silence and look up to see the 

 Falls, like a green mountain-side streaked with fresh snowdrifts, 

 slide and shimmer over the precipice. 



It may well be conceived with what awe and superstitious 

 dread honest Jesuit Hennepin, following his Indian guides 

 through the gloom of the forest primeval, gazed on the dreadful 

 flood, which had then no garniture of trimmed banks, cleared 

 fields, snug hotels, and cockney gazabos to alleviate the natural 

 terror with which man must gaze on a spectacle which conjures 

 up such solemn images of death, time, and eternity. 



No words can describe the Falls; and Church's picture, very 

 truthful and wonderful as to form, cannot convey an idea of the 

 life of the scene — of the motion and noise and shifting colour 

 which abound there in sky and water. I doubt, indeed, if any 

 man can describe his own sensations very accurately, for they 

 undergo constant change; and for my own part I would say that 

 the effect increases daily, and that one leaves the scene with more 



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