Niagara — Historical and Reminiscent 



implicitly. I had absolute confidence in the man beneath me 1859 

 and I believed he would get us both across all right. So on we ume 

 went, though from the first our progress seemed to me dreadfully 

 slow. 



The most serious risk and ordeal seemed to be getting on and 

 off his back. Just think of the situation — getting down off a 

 man's back, feeling with your foot for a taut, vibrating rope, 

 then standing on the same, while it swung to and fro, some hun- 

 dreds of feet in air, and holding on to a man in front of you 

 clad in slippery tights, when the least false move or loss of pres- 

 ence of mind of either might plunge you both into eternity, and 

 then climbing again upon his back — and this had to be repeated 

 seven times! 



The sight of the rapidly flowing, seething, tumultuous current 

 beneath us gave me a peculiar sensation; it was that we were 

 moving at a great rate up the river and making but little progress ^ 

 to the opposite bank. From the immense depth the roar of the 

 waters rose like the united voices of a thousand demons. 



The guy lines, placed twenty feet apart, kept the rope compara- 

 tively steady till we reached the space of forty feet in the center, 

 where there were no guy lines. We had made about ten feet of 

 this forty, when suddenly Blondin tottered and swayed in an 

 effort to walk straight, his pole going furiously up and down. 

 He had lost his balance and was unable to regain it ! 



In that awful moment his advice most forcibly impressed 

 itself on me, and I strictly followed it, resting passively, numbly, 

 like a dead weight on his shoulders, to stay or fall with him as 

 might happen. Discipline rose superior to instinct. 



Unable to regain his balance he ran along the rope — the 

 impetus keeping us up, the pole thrashing madly up and down — 

 for thirty feet, when we reached the first guy line on the opposite 

 side. On this line he stepped, when it immediately broke, and the 

 main rope, pulled by the corresponding guy line, was jerked 

 sidewards. 



This was the most critical moment of all. With his wonderful 



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