Niagara Falls 



1859 agility he recovered himself just in time and won equilibrium 

 enough to run to the next brace of guy lines, twenty feet away, 

 where he halted. 



"Get off, quick," he said, and I obeyed. 



He was like a marble statue; every muscle was tense and 

 rigid; large beads of perspiration trickled from him. It was 

 then I most admired his wonderful grit and coolness. Neither by 

 voice nor sign did he manifest his knowledge of the fact that a 

 dastardly attempt had just been made to kill us, probably by 

 some unscrupulous and murderous gambler or gamblers who had 

 adopted this method of trying to save their miserable stakes. 



Again I got on his back, and by and by we toiled up the 

 incline of the rope toward the American shore, confronting a 

 great sea of staring faces, fixed and intense with interest, alarm, 

 fear. Some people shaded their eyes, as if dreading to see us 

 fall; some held their arms extended as if to grasp us and keep 

 us from falling; some excited men had tears streaming down 

 their cheeks. A band was trying to play, but the wrought-up 

 musicians could evoke only discordant notes. 



" Look out, Blondin," I said, " here comes our danger, those 

 people are likely to rush at us on our landing and crowd us over 

 the bank." 



" What will I do? " he asked. 



" Make a rush and drive right through them," I said, which 

 he successfully did. And the scene and excitement that followed 

 our arrival on terra firma was truly indescribable. Cheers rose 

 louder than Niagara and everybody seemed crazy. The 

 journey — to me an age — had occupied forty-five minutes. 



1859 (Trotter, Isabella Strange.) First impressions of the new world 



on two travelers from the old in the autumn of 1858. Lond. : Longman, 

 Brown, Green, Longmans, Roberts. 1859. Pp. 50-61. 



Letters by a mother to her daughter, descriptive of a journey made by 

 father, mother, and brother of the daughter in question. An ordinary 

 gossipy account, concerned more with the doings of the family than with 

 the scenery. 



388 



