We Touched The Wharf At Niagara, A Town On The British Side Of The Niagara
River - "Cars For Buffalo, All
Aboard," - and just crossing a platform, we
entered the Canada cars, and on the top of some frightful precipices, and
Round some terrific curves, we were whirled to the Clifton House at
Niagara. I left the cars, and walked down the slope to the verge of the
cliff; I forgot my friends, who had called me to the hotel to lunch - I
forgot everything - for I was looking at the Falls of Niagara.
"No more than this! - what seem'd it now
By that far flood to stand?
A thousand streams of lovelier flow
Bathe my own mountain land,
And thence o'er waste and ocean track
Their wild sweet voices call'd me back.
They call'd me back to many a glade,
My childhood's haunt of play,
Where brightly 'mid the birchen shade
Their waters glanced away:
They call'd me with their thousand waves
Back to my fathers' hills and graves."
The feelings which Mrs. Hemans had attributed to Bruce at the source of
the Nile, were mine as I took my first view of Niagara. The Horse-shoe
Fall at some distance to my right was partially hidden, but directly in
front of me were the American and Crescent Falls. The former is perfectly
straight, and looked like a gigantic mill-weir. This resemblance is
further heightened by an enormous wooden many-windowed fabric, said to be
the largest paper-mill in the United States. A whole collection of mills
disfigures this romantic spot, which has received the name of Manchester,
and bids fair to become a thriving manufacturing town! Even on the British
side, where one would have hoped for a better state of things, there is a
great fungus growth of museums, curiosity-shops, taverns, and pagodas with
shining tin cupolas. Not far from where I stood, the members of a picnic
party were flirting and laughing hilariously, throwing chicken-bones and
peach-stones over the cliff, drinking champagne and soda-water. Just as I
had succeeded in attaining the proper degree of mental abstraction with
which it is necessary to contemplate Niagara, a ragged drosky-driver came
up, "Yer honour, may be ye're in want of a carriage? I'll take ye the
whole round - Goat Island, Whirlpool, and Deil's Hole - for the matter of
four dollars." Niagara made a matter of "a round," dollars, and cents, was
too much for my equanimity; and in the hope of losing my feelings of
disappointment, I went into the Clifton House, enduring a whole volley of
requests from the half-tipsy drosky-drivers who thronged the doorway.
This celebrated hotel, which is kept on the American plan, is a huge white
block of building, with three green verandahs round it, and can
accommodate about four hundred people. In the summer season it is the
abode of almost unparalleled gaiety. Here congregate tourists, merchants,
lawyers, officers, senators, wealthy southerners, and sallow down-easters,
all flying alike from business and heat.
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