Niagara Falls 



1902 stretched from Goat Island to the Canadian bank. At first the 

 Dunlap press viewed the plan with suspicion, but Blondin soon gained 



the popular confidence by daily walking up and down the guys 

 of the old railway suspension-bridge, carelessly puffing at a cigar. 

 In June, 1859, he stretched his rope midway between the falls 

 and Whirlpool Rapids, at a place known as White's Pleasure 

 Grounds. A seven-eighths-inch rope was first carried across the 

 gorge, and when the cable arrived, on June 22, 1859, all was 

 in readiness to place it. This cable was about one thousand 

 three hundred feet long, and with it came fully thirty thousand 

 feet of rope for guys. On June 23d, when the big cable had been 

 drawn to within two hundred feet of the Canadian bank, it was 

 feared that the small rope first stretched would not be strong 

 enough to land it; but to the astonishment of all, Blondin tied 

 a rope to his body and walked out on the small rope and attached 

 another rope to the cable. Each day it seemed as though Blondin 

 became more fearless, and the news of his doings greatly excited 

 the locality. 



It was arranged that Blondin's first public performance should 

 be given on June 30, 1859. Previous to the river trip on the 

 cable, he gave a performance on a rope in the Pleasure Grounds. 

 He danced, turned over and over, leaped backward ten to 

 fifteen feet, and bounded high in air, showing astonishing skill. 



It was about five o'clock in the afternoon when he started out 

 on the cable from the American side. When about one hundred 

 feet out he sat down, lay on his back, stood on one foot, and then 

 resumed his journey. At intervals of about one hundred and fifty 

 feet he repeated this performance, until he reached the middle of 

 the river. Then the steamer " Maid of the Mist " came up the 

 river, her flags flying and loaded down with passengers. Blondin 

 dropped a cord to the deck and pulled up a bottle, from which 

 he took a long draft. He then leaped to his feet without touch- 

 ing his hands to the cable, and continued his walk to the Canadian 

 cliff. He was on the rope eighteen minutes, and as he landed the 

 gorge rang with cheers. In half an hour he returned across the 



416 



