CHAP. XXVII.

First sight of the rapids above the falls-Visit to the great cataract above and below-Impressions created by the different views— Lines addressed to Niagara-Repeated excursions to every part of the falls-General description of the locality--Indian etymology" The thunder of the waters"-Difference between the American and Canadian falls-Circuit of Goat IslandBridges, and ferry-Breadth of the strait, and of the two cataracts

Quantity of water discharged every minute-Gradual retrocession of the falls-Facts of recent date in support of this-Daring leap over the cataract—Appearance of the scene in winter-Vast mound of ice-Ascent to its summit-Historical notices of the falls-Register of travellers-Village of Manchester-City of the falls-Hotels.

THE hotel in which we slept was so near the rapids, just above the brink of the great Fall, on the American side, that the tremulation occasioned by the rolling waters kept our windows in a constant rattle; while the unceasing roar of the rushing torrent, flowing within a few yards of the balcony of our bed-room, kept us awake till a late hour, and when we awoke, at day-light, after a broken and feverish sleep, our first act was to hasten into the veranda, to survey the scene around us. Being on the higher level of the river, we could see from hence, looking downward to the north-west, the immense mass of rising mist, which told us where the foaming cataract descended, and between our own position and this rising cloud was a beautifully varied surface of

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islands and islets, bridges thrown across the turbulent rapids from rock to rock, thickly foliaged woods, and turbulent and rushing torrents, here and there broken by drifts of wreck, or impeded by forest trees that had got entangled in the rocks, and the whole mass boiling like a cauldron. The combination was full of beauty and of grandeur; but this was

scene.

We therefore devoted the whole of the day to a visit to the Falls, and after seeing them from all the most interesting points of view, on both sides the river, as well as from the lower level of the stream below-from the northern and western extremities of Goat Island, overhanging the cataracts, on the American side-from the table-rock and pavilion heights on the Canada side--and from the ferry across

the river just at the foot of the Falls, and between the two; we returned at night more gratified with the beauties and wonders of the spot, than we had ever been before with any work of nature or of art. Our feelings, as we stood on different points of the scenc, lost in awe and admiration, were too deep for verbal utterance, and our walk was therefore more than usually silent; my wife, my son, and myself, scarcely interchanging any other words than ejaculations of delight, or expressions of awe, at the splendour and sublimity of the whole.

During one of these silent pauses, as we sat upon a rock, surrounded by an almost untrodden, grassy sward, and thickly overhung by the wild foliage of the woods, but within full sight of one of the grandest views of the watery mass, I traced with a pencil some lines to Niagara, which, as they may give the reader some idea of the feelings by which I was impressed, I have placed with the other documents assigned to the Appendix, where they will be found.*

We remained, on the whole, five days at Niagara, two of which we passed on the American side, and three on the British; and during all that period, we were almost constantly engaged, from sunrise to sunset, in examining every part of the Falls and their surrounding scenery, crossing the river from side to side in boats at least a dozen times; and being often enveloped in the thick spray occasioned by the descent of the waters, from the nearness of our approach to their falling columns, so that we had an opportunity of seeing all its beauties in every variety of * See Appendix, No. IV

position, light, and shade, and watching its everchanging hues at each successive hour of the day.

༥.

Many persons had expressed to us their disappointment at the first sight of the Falls, though they admitted that a longer stay near them had gradually developed all their grandeur and beauty. I know not to what cause, or to what kind of temperament, to attribute this; but certainly we needed no progressive developement, to give us the fullest impressions of their magnificence and sublimity. It appeared to us from the first as one of the grandest scenes of nature that we had ever visited, and it continued to leave the same impression on our minds to the last; nor was there any single moment between these two periods in which our admiration or our wonder abated in the slightest degree.

During our stay on both sides of the Falls, we had personal communication with many who had resided near them all their lives,-with others, who

had visited them almost every year-and with many who might be called the depositaries of all the traditional information that exists respecting them; and with the assistance of these authorities, and such published details as were accessible through other sources, the following history and description of them was prepared :

Niagara is not, strictly speaking, a river, though it is constantly so called, but rather a strait; being merely a channel of about thirty-five miles in length, and from one to five miles in breadth, by which the waters of the upper Lake Erie are discharged into the lower Lake Ontario, and, proceeding onward from thence, form the river St. Lawrence, which empties itself into the sea. Nearly midway between these two lakes, Erie and Ontario, or at the exact distance of about twenty miles below the former, and fifteen miles above the latter, occurs a sudden break in the continuity of the upper level, over which the waters flow; and this break, exhibiting itself in the form of a series of perpendicular cliffs, stretching right across the stream, with curvatures and irregular hollows or recesses, to the height of 164 feet, the sudden descent of the whole body of water over these perpendicular cliffs, in its passage from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, constitutes the Falls of Niagara. The name is Indian, and is pronounced thus, Nee-agg-arah, and not Nia-ga-rah, as is sometines erroneously done. It is an Iroquois word, and signifies the thunder of the waters ;" and certainly no name could be more significantly appropriate than this.

The Falls are broken into two separate masses by