VOYAGE TO NEW YORK.

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CHAPTER XXIII.

CONCLUSION.

FROM Bermuda I took a sailing vessel to New York, in company with a rather large assortment of potatoes and onions. I had declared during my unlucky voyage from Kingston to Cuba that no consideration should again tempt me to try a sailing vessel, but such declarations always go for nothing. A man in his misery thinks much of his misery; but as soon as he is out of it it is forgotten, or becomes matter for mirth. Of even a voy

age in a sailing vessel one may say that at some future time it will perhaps be pleasant to remember that also. And so I embarked myself along with the potatoes and onions on board the good ship 'Henrietta.'

Indeed, there is no other way of getting from Bermuda to New York; or of going anywhere from Bermuda -except to Halifax and St. Thomas, to which places a steamer runs once a month. In going to Cuba I had been becalmed, starved, shipwrecked, and very nearly quaranteened. In going to New York I encountered only the last misery. The doctor who boarded us stated that a vessel had come from Bermuda with a sick man, and that we must remain where we were till he had learnt what was the sick man's ailment. Our skipper, who knew the vessel in question, said that one of their crew had been drunk in Bermuda for two or three days, and had not yet worked it off. But the doctor called again in the course of the day, and informed us that it was intermittent fever. So we were allowed to pass. It does seem

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strange that sailing vessels should be subjected to such annoyances. I hardly think that one of the mail steamers going to New York would be delayed because there was a case of intermittent fever on board another vessel from Liverpool.

It is not my purpose to give an Englishman's ideas. of the United States, or even of New York, at the fag end of a volume treating about the West Indies. On the United States I should like to write a volume, seeing that the government and social life of the people there -of that people who are our chidren-afford the most interesting phenomena which we find as to the new world; -the best means of prophesying, if I may say so, what the world will next be, and what men will next do. There, at any rate, a new republic has become politically great and commercially active; whereas all other new republics have failed in those points, as in all others.

cannot be attempted now.

But this

From New York I went by the Hudson river to Albany, and on by the New York Central Railway to Niagara; and though I do not mean to make any endeavor to describe that latter place as such descriptions should be-and doubtless are and have been-written, I will say one or two words which may be of use to any one going thither,

The route which I took from New York would be, I should think, the most probable route for Englishmen. And as travelers will naturally go up the Hudson river by day, and then on from Albany by night train,* seeing that there is nothing to be seen at Albany, and that these trains have excellent sleeping accommodation—a lady, or indeed a gentleman, should always take a double sleep

*It would be well, however, to visit Trenton Falls by the way, which I did not do. They are but a short distance from Utica, a town on this line of railway.

SUSPENSION BRIDGE AND NIAGARA FALLS. 381

ing-berth, a single one costs half a dollar, and a double one a dollar. This outlay has nothing to do with the traveling ticket ;—it will follow that he, she, or they will reach Niagara at about 4 a.m.

In that case let them not go on to what is called the Niagara Falls station, but pass over at a station called the Suspension Bridge-very well known on the roadto the other or Canada side of the water, and thence go to the Clifton Hotel. There can be no doubt as to this being the site at which tourists should stop. It is one of those cases in which to see is to be sure. But if the traveler be carried on to Niagara Falls station, he has a long and expensive journey to make back; and the United States side of the water will be antagonistic to him in doing so. The ticket from Albany to Niagara cost me six dollars; the carriage from Niagara to the Clifton Hotel cost me five. It was better to pay the five than to remain where I was; but it would have been better still to have saved them. I mention this as passengers to the Falls have no sort of intimation that they should get out at the Suspension Bridge; though they are all duly shaken out of their berths, and inquired of whether or not they be going west.

Nothing ever disappointed me less than the Falls of Niagara—but my raptures did not truly commence for the first half-day. Their charms grow upon one like the conversation of a brilliant man. Their depth and breadth and altitude, their music, color, and brilliancy, are not fully acknowledged at the first moment. It may be that my eye is slow; but I can never take in to its full enjoyment any view or any picture at the first glance. I found this to be especially the case at Niagara. It was only by long gazing and long listening that

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I was able to appreciate the magnitude of that waste of

waters.

My book is now complete, and I am not going to "do the Falls," but I must bid such of my readers as may go there to place themselves between the rocks and the waters of the Horse-shoe Fall after sunset-well after sun. set; and there remain-say for half an hour. And let every man do this alone; or if fortune have kindly given him such a companion, with one who may leave him as good as alone. But such companions are rare.

The spot to which I allude will easily make itself known to him, nor will he have any need of a guide. He will find it, of course, before the sun shall set. And, indeed, as to guides, let him eschew them, giving a twenty-five cent piece here and there, so that these men be not ruined for want of custom. Into this spot I made my way, and stood there for an hour, dry enough. The spray did reach my coat, and the drops settled on my hair; but nevertheless, as a man not over delicate, I was dry enough. Then I went up, and when there was enticed to put myself into a filthy oil-skin dress, hat, coat, and trousers, in order that I might be conducted under the Falls. Under the Falls! Well I had been under the Falls; but still, wishing to see everything, I allowed myself to be caparisoned.

A sable conductor took me exactly to the spot where I had been before. But he took me also ten yards further, during which little extra journey I became soaking wet through, in spite of the dirty oil-cloth. The ducking cost me sixty cents, or half a crown.

But I must be allowed one word as to that visit after sunset; one word as to that which an obedient tourist will then see. In the spot to which I allude the visitor stands on a broad safe path, made of shingles, between

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383

the rock over which the water rushes and the rushing water. He will go in so far that the spray rising back from the bed of the torrent does not incommode him. With this exception, the further he can go the better; but here also circumstances will clearly show him the spot. Unless the water be driven in by a very strong wind, five yards make the difference between a comparatively dry coat and an absolutely wet one.

And then let him stand with his back to the entrance, thus hiding the last glimmer of the expiring day. So standing he will look up among the falling waters, or down into the deep misty pit, from which they reascend in almost as palpable a bulk. The rock will be at his left hand, high and hard, and dark and straight, like the wall of some huge cavern, such as children enter in their dreams. For the first five minutes he will be looking but at the waters of a cataract,—at the waters, indeed, of such a cataract as we know no other, and at their interior curves, which elsewhere we cannot see. But by-and-by all this will change. He will no longer be on a shingly path beneath a waterfall; but that feeling of a cavern wall will grow upon him, of a cavern deep, deep below roaring seas, in which the waves are there, though they do not enter in upon him; or rather not the waves, but the very bowels of the deep ocean. He will feel as though the floods surrounded him, coming and going with their wild sounds, and he will hardly recognize that though among them he is not in them. And they, as they fall with a continual roar, not hurting the ear, but musical withal, will seem to move as the vast ocean waters may perhaps move in their internal currents. He will lose the sense of one continued descent, and think that they are passing round him in their appointed courses. The broken spray that rises from the depth be