Niagara Falls 



1865 swimming-baths, in which one could take a plunge into the active 

 rapids safely enclosed in a perforated room, now fastened up 

 for the winter, — presented a great contrast to the noise and bustle 

 of the American Niagara in the season. This is the time when 

 the Indians enable the shopkeepers to accumulate their stores of 

 bead and feather work; and a few squaws, dressed in a curious 

 compromise between the garments of the civilized female and 

 the simpler robes of the *' untutored savage," flitted through the 

 snow from one dealer to another with their work. In some houses 

 they are regularly employed all day, and come in from their 

 village in the morning, and go home at night when their work 

 is done. 



The view of the Rapids from the upper end of Goat Island 

 is not, to my mind, as fine as that obtained from the island on 

 the British side, higher up. The sight of that tortured flood, 

 loaded with its charging lines of " sea horses," — its surging 

 glistening foam-heaps streaking the wide expanse which rolled 

 towards us from a dull leaden horizon, — was inexpressibly grand 

 and gloomy, and struck me more forcibly than the aspect of the 

 Rapids had done in August, when I beheld them in a setting of 

 rich green landscape and forest. 



On the whole, I would much rather, were I going to Niagara 

 for the first time, select the Canadian side for my first view. It 

 would be well never to look at the Falls, if that were possible, 

 till the traveller could open his eyes from the remnant of the 

 Table Rock on the Great Horseshoe ; but curiosity will probably 

 defeat any purpose of that kind. Still, the Horseshoe is grand 

 enough to grow on the spectator day after day, even if there be 

 some disappointment in the first aspect. . . . As the voice 

 of a man can be heard in the din of battle by those around him, 

 so can even the low tones of a clear speaker be distinguished most 

 readily close to the brink of a cataract, the roar of which at 

 times is very audible, nevertheless, from twelve to fifteen miles 

 away. 



The only drawback to a sojourn on the Canadian side is, per- 



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