Travelers' Original Accounts Since 1 840 



The banks on the sides of the rapids are crowded with pedlars 1874 

 and even fair-stalls. Everything is on sale — especially bracelets e ort 

 of German lapis-lazuli and Vesuvian lava; that is to say, the 

 products of numerous industries that have nothing to do with 

 Niagara and its Falls. This bazaar-like and caravan serail aspect 

 takes much of the grandeur from the spectacle. A wild-beast 

 showman absolutely insisted on my purchasing a bear, which 

 turned sadly about in its cage just as I had done in mine only 

 a few months earlier! Despite the resemblance of our misfor- 

 tunes, I had to regret not being able to deliver this prisoner, whose 

 first act would possibly have been to devour its liberator. Such 

 things do happen; especially in politics. 



We were overloaded with photographs. Clifton Hotel, where 

 we lodged, is built at the end of a suspension bridge. From the 

 centre of this the spectator has a splendid spot whence to con- 

 template the grand cascade, which finishes by giving you the 

 impression of being an immense stick of marsh mallow or barley 

 sugar twisting round a bobbin of an Algerian stall at a suburban 

 fair. The hotel proprietor immediately brought us the inevitable 

 in-folio, in which his clients are practically forced to sing the 

 praises — as in the Voyage de M. Perrichon — of the splendour 

 of the scene and the excellence of the hotel cooking. He did 

 not seem to have recognized us, and as the preparation of my 

 article imposed solitude and incognito, I contented myself with 

 tracing this burlesque phrase on the register that was open for 

 my meditations — 



4 This fall is profound, but my own is still greater ! 



"(Signed) The Shadow of Napoleon III." 



The author, who was returning to France after having escaped from the 

 penal colony of New Caledonia, writes in characteristic fashion of his 

 sojourn at Niagara. 



1875 



The Falls of Niagara. (Harp. w. Sept. 11, 1875. 19:739-741.) i 8 7S 



A general description, which laments the *' prosaic adjuncts of civiliza- 

 tion " in the vicinity of the Falls. 



333 



