"I've seen nothing" - A disappointment - Incongruities - Hotel gaieties and
"doing Niagara" - Irish drosky-drivers - "The Hell of Waters" - Beauties
Of
Niagara - The picnic party - The White Canoe - A cold shower-bath - "The
Thunder of Waters" - A magic word - "The Whirlpool" - Story of "Bloody Run" -
Yankee opinions of English ladies - A metamorphosis - The nigger guide - A
terrible situation - Termination Rock - Impressions of Niagara - Juvenile
precocity - A midnight journey - Street adventures in Hamilton.
"Have you seen the Falls?" - "No." "Then you've seen nothing of America." I
might have seen Trenton Falls, Gennessee Falls, the Falls of Montmorenci
and Lorette; but I had seen nothing if I had not seen the Falls (par
excellence) of Niagara. There were divers reasons why my friends in the
States were anxious that I should see Niagara. One was, as I was
frequently told, that all I had seen, even to the "Prayer Eyes," would
go for nothing on my return; for in England, America was supposed to be a
vast tract of country containing one town - New York; and one astonishing
natural phenomenon, called Niagara. "See New York, Quebec, and Niagara,"
was the direction I received when I started upon my travels. I never could
make out how, but somehow or other, from my earliest infancy, I had been
familiar with the name of Niagara, and, from the numerous pictures I had
seen of it, I could, I suppose, have sketched a very accurate likeness of
the Horse-shoe Fall. Since I landed at Portland, I had continually met
with people who went into ecstatic raptures with Niagara; and after
passing within sight of its spray, and within hearing of its roar - after
seeing it the great centre of attraction to all persons of every class - my
desire to see it for myself became absorbing. Numerous difficulties had
arisen, and at one time I had reluctantly given up all hope of seeing it,
when Mr. and Mrs. Walrence kindly said, that, if I would go with them,
they would return to the east by way of Niagara.
Between the anticipation of this event, and the din of the rejoicings for
the "capture of Sebastopol," I slept very little on the night before
leaving Toronto, and was by no means sorry when the cold grey of dawn
quenched the light of tar-barrels and gas-lamps. I crossed Lake Ontario in
the iron steamer Peerless; the lake was rough as usual, and, after a
promenade of two hours on the spray-drenched deck, I retired to the cabin,
and spent some time in dreamily wondering whether Niagara itself would
compensate for the discomforts of the journey thither. Captain D - -
gravely informed me that there were "a good many cases" below, and I never
saw people so deplorably sea-sick as in this steamer. An Indian officer
who had crossed the Line seventeen times was sea-sick for the first time
on Lake Ontario. The short, cross, chopping seas affect most people. The
only persons in the saloon who were not discomposed by them were two tall
school-girls, who seemed to have innumerable whispered confidences and
secrets to confide to each other.
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