619 
Mrs. Wright's Travels 
{where, descending less precipitously 
it is wooded to the bottom) to recover 
our breath, and wring the writer from 
our hair and clothes, we saw, on lifting 
our eyes, a comer of the summit of this 
graceful division of the cataract hang¬ 
ing above the projecting mass of trees, 
as it were in mid air, like the snowy 
top of a mountain. Above, the daz¬ 
zling white of the shivered water was 
thrown into contrast with the deep blue 
of the unspotted heavens; below, with 
the living green of the summer foliage, 
fresh and sparkling in the eternal 
shower of the rising and falling spray. 
The wind, which, for the space of an 
hour, blew with some fury, rushing 
down with the river, flung showers of 
spray from the crest of the fall. The 
sun's rays glancing on these big drops, 
and sometimes on feathery streams 
thrown fantastically from the main 
body of the water, transformed them 
into silvery stars, or beams of light ; 
while the graceful rainbow, now arch¬ 
ing over our heads, and now circling 
in the vapor at our feet, still flew be¬ 
fore us as we moved. The greater di¬ 
vision of the cataract was here con¬ 
cealed from our sight by the dense vo¬ 
lumes of vapor which the wind drove 
with fury across the immense basin 
directly towards us; sometimes, in¬ 
deed, a veering gust parted for a mo¬ 
ment the thick clouds, and partially re¬ 
vealed the heavy columns, that seemed 
more like fixed pillars of moving eme¬ 
rald than living sheets of water. Here, 
seating ourselves at the brink of this 
troubled ocean, beneath the gaze of the 
sun, we had the full advantage of a 
vapour hath ; the fervid rays drying 
our garments one moment, and a blast 
from the basin drenching them the 
next. The wind at length having 
somewhat abated, and the ferryman 
being willing to attempt the passage, 
we here crossed in a little boat to the 
Canada side. 
The gloom of this vast cavern, the 
whirlwind that ever plays in it, the 
deafening roar, the vast abyss ot con¬ 
vulsed waters beneath you, the falling 
columns that hang over your head, all 
strike, not upon the ears and eyes only, 
hut upon the heart. For the first few 
moments, the sublime is wrought to the 
terrible. 
From this spot, (beneath the Table 
Rock,) you feel, more than from any 
other, the height of the cataract, and 
the weight of its waters. It seems a 
tumbling ocean; and you yourself what 
in the United States . 
a helpless atom amid these vast and 
eternal workings of gigantic nature! 
The wind had now abated, and what 
was better, we were now under the lee, 
and could admire its sport with the va¬ 
pour, instead of being blinded by it. 
From the enormous basin into which 
the waters precipitate themselves in a 
clear leap of 140 feet, the clouds of 
smoke rose in white volumes, like the 
round-headed clouds you have some¬ 
times seen in the evening horizon of a 
summer sky, and then shot up in point- 
el pinnacles, like the ice of mountain 
glayieres. Caught by the wind, it was 
now whirled in spiral columns far up 
into the air, then, re-collecting its 
strength, the tremulous vapour again 
sought the upper air. till, broken and 
dispersed in the blue serene, it spread 
against it the only silvery veil which 
spotted the pure azure. In the centre 
of the Fall, where the water is the 
heaviest, it takes the leap in an un¬ 
broken mass of the deepest green, and 
in many places reaches the bottom in 
crystal columns of the same hue, till 
they meet the snow-white foam that 
heaves and rolls convulsedly in the 
enormous basin. But for the deafening 
roar, the darkness and stormy whirl¬ 
wind in which we stood, I could have 
fancied these massy volumes the walls 
of some fairy palace—living emeralds 
chased in silver. Never surely did na¬ 
ture throw together so fantastically so 
much beauty with such terrific gran¬ 
deur. 
LAKE ERIE. 
It is a pleasant drive from Ontario 
to Lake Erie along the banks of the 
magnificent Niagara. There is some¬ 
thing truly sublime in the water scenery 
of America ; her lakes, spreading into 
inland seas, their vast, deep, and pure 
waters, reflecting hack the azure of 
heavens, untainted with a cloud ; her 
rivers, collecting the waters of hills and 
plains interminable, rolling their massy 
volumes for thousands of miles, now 
broken into cataracts to which the 
noblest cascades of the old hemisphere 
are those of rivulets, and then sweeping 
down their broad channels to the far- 
off ocean the treasures of a world. The 
lakes and rivers of this continent seem 
to despise all foreign auxiliaries of na¬ 
ture or art, and trust to their own un¬ 
assisted majesty to produce effect upon 
the eye and the mind; without alpine 
mountains or moss-grown ruins, they 
strike the spectator with awe. Extent, 
weight, depth—it is by these intrinsic 
- rjualititf 
