Niagara Falls 



1853 are, however, brought into connection by sundry bridges and sev- 

 eral small islands. Wandering about on this spot, was perfect 

 enchantment. Magnificent trees of oak, ash, maple, pine, and 

 cedar trunks, fallen from age, or the wintry blast, stretching their 

 limbs across the stream, all added to the agitated turmoil created 

 by the rapids, the roaring of the great fall, and the murmuring of 

 the lesser streams. 



I could have wished to have visited this enchanted 

 place at the time when the red man alone communed with the 

 Great Spirit, surrounded with Indian tribes, or pioneers; but a 

 town is springing up on the very edge of the precipice ; saw mills, 

 and hotels, as large as the "Astor," or " Irvine House " are 

 erected: so that in one step, from the most perfect artificial 

 existence, you are in a moment plunged into all the magnificence 

 of nature! 



1855 



1855 Baxter, W. E. America and the Americans. Lond. : George 



Baxter Rutledge and Co. 1855. Pp. 225-226. 



A day on Goat Island! Would that no stormy ocean sep- 

 arated us from the groves of arborvitae and forests of maple, which 

 overhang the rapids and clothe the steeps! Would that every 

 summer we could for a few short hours at least recline on its 

 grassy banks, watching the racing and eddying streams, listening 

 to the growl of the cataract, and shaded by the foliage which 

 waves and weeps over little channels between the rocks. There 

 is one spot on it deserving special notice, near the beginning of the 

 wilder rapids opposite the Canadian shore. A splendid vine, 

 from which I plucked delicious grapes, and a red honeysuckle 

 have there climbed to the very top of an arborvitae situated on 

 a promontory, round which the water moans and bounds like a 

 wounded tiger struggling to be free. 



Swaying to and fro the awful pillar which shall rise in middle 

 air from the base of the Horse Shoe Fall till time shall be no 



460 



