242 
WANDERINGS IN 
.FOURTH 
JOURNEY 
Perhaps, indeed, there was an unwarrantable 
tincture of vanity in an unknown wanderer wishing 
to have it in his power to tell the world, that he had 
held his sprained foot under a fall of water, which 
discharges six hundred and seventy thousand two 
hundred and fifty-five tons per minute. A gentle 
purling stream would have suited better. Now, it 
would have become Washington to have quenched 
his battle-thirst in the fall of Niagara; and there 
was something royal in the idea of Cleopatra drink¬ 
ing pearl-vinegar, made from the grandest pearl in 
Egypt; and it became Cains Marius to send word 
that he was sitting upon the ruins of Carthage. 
Here, we have the person suited to the thing, and 
the tiling to the person. 
If, gentle reader, thou wouldst allow me to indulge 
a little longer in this harmless pen-errantry, I would 
tell thee, that I have had my ups and downs in life, 
as well as other people; for I have climbed to the 
point of the conductor above the cross on the top of 
St. Peter’s, in Rome, and left my glove there. I 
have stood on one foot, upon the Guardian Angel’s 
head, on the castle of St. Angelo; and, as I have 
just told thee, I have been low down under the fall 
of Niagara. But this is neither here nor there; let 
us proceed to something else. 
When the pain of my foot had become less violent, 
and the swelling somewhat abated, I could not resist 
the inclination I felt to go down Ontario, and so on 
to Montreal and Quebec, and take Lakes Champlain 
and George in my way back to Albany. 
