Travelers' Original Accounts Since I &40 



covered with snow — that which divides the sweep of the cata- 1865 

 ract looking unusually large ; the volume of water, diminished in 

 the front, is also deprived of much of its impressive force by a 

 decrease in the sound produced by its fall. The edges of the 

 bank, covered with glistening slabs of ice, were not tempting to 

 the foot, and could not be approached with the confidence with 

 which they are trod by one of steady nerves when the actual 

 brink is visible. 



There were some peculiarities, however, worthy of note ; and in 

 a brighter day, possibly the effect of the light on the vast ranges 

 of icicles, and on the fantastic shapes into which the snow is cut 

 on the rocks at the margin of the waters, might be very beautiful. 

 These rocks now looked like a flock of polar bears, twined in 

 fantastic attitudes, or extended singly and in groups by the brink 

 as if watching for their prey. Above them rose the bank, now 

 smooth and polished, with a fringe of icicles — some large as 

 church steeples; above them, again, the lines of the pine-trees, 

 draped in white, and looking like church steeples too. At one 

 side, near Table Rock, the icicles were enormous, and now and 

 then one fell with a hissing noise, and was dashed on the rock 

 into a thousand gliding ice arrows, or plunged into the gulf. 



By this time our toilette-room was ready, and each man, tak- 

 ing off his overcoat, was encased in a tarpaulin suit with a sou'- 

 wester. In this guise we descended the spiral staircase, which 

 is carried in a perpendicular wooden column down the face of 

 the bank near Table Rock, or what remains of it, to the rugged 

 margin, formed of boulders now more slippery than glass. 



Our guide, a strapping specimen of negro or mulatto, in thick 

 solid ungainly boots, planted his splay feet on them with certainty, 

 and led us by the treacherous path down towards the verge of 

 the torrent, which now seemed as though it were rushing from the 

 very heavens. On our left boiled the dreadful caldron from 

 which the gushing bubbles, as if overjoyed to escape, leaped up, 

 and with glad effervescence rushed from the abyss which plum- 

 met never sounded. On our right towered the sheer precipice 



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