Travelers' Original Accounts Since 1840 

 1899 guarded by man. Whoever will may gather them by the 



8 Rensselaer armful. 



It is good to see Niagara at this time. But it is still better to 

 see it when its trees and shrubs and vines are in fullest leaf and 

 many of them in blossom. Then their value is greatest as a 

 setting for the endless series of large and small, near and distant 

 water pictures; and then the temperature incites to lingering. 

 The very best time of all is in June. 



" It was worth while to come to Niagara," I heard some one 

 exclaim, in June, " just for the sake of its odors." They are 

 indeed many and pervasive, yet one of them dominates the rest. 

 Centuries ago Pliny wrote that the vineyards of Italy gave it 

 sovereignty over all other lands, " even those that bring forth 

 odoriferous spices and aromatical drugs; " and he added, "to 

 say a truth, there is no smell whatsoever that outgoeth vines 

 when they be in their fresh and flowering time." He would 

 surely have written the same words had he stood on 

 Niagara's islands in one of his far-back Junes. Everywhere are 

 wild grape-vines, draped in thick curtains or swung in wide 

 loops, and they bloom a long time, for one species begins to 

 open its flowers as another is setting its fruit. For many days 

 this most dainty, individual, and bewitching of all odors meets 

 us on every soft puff of wind, with such persistence that wherever 

 it may meet us again in future years it will seem like a message 

 from Niagara. 



And the noise of Niagara? Alarming things have been said 

 about it, but they are not true. It is a great and mighty noise, 

 but it is not, as Hennepin thought, an " outrageous noise." It is 

 not a roar. It does not drown the voice or stun the ear. Even at 

 the actual foot of the falls it is not oppressive. It is much less rough 

 than the sound of heavy surf — steadier, more homogeneous, 

 less metallic, very deep and strong, yet mellow and soft; soft, 

 I mean, in its quality. As to the noise of the rapids, there is none 



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