I Was Not Distracted By
Parasitic Guides Or Sandwich-Eating Visitors; The Vile Museums, Pagodas,
And Tea-Gardens Were Out Of Sight:
The sublimity of the Falls far exceeded
my expectations, and I appreciated them the more perhaps from having been
disappointed with the first view.
As I sat watching them, a complete
oblivion of everything but the falls themselves stole over me. A person
may be very learned in statistics - he may tell you that the falls are 160
feet high - that their whole width is nearly four-fifths of a mile - that,
according to estimate, ninety million tons of water pass over them every
hour - that they are the outlet of several bodies of water covering one
hundred and fifty thousand square miles; but unless he has seen Niagara,
he cannot form the faintest conception of it. It was so very like what I
had expected, and yet so totally different. I sat there watching that sea-
green curve against the sky till sunset, and then the crimson rays just
fell upon the column of spray above the Canadian Fall, turning it a most
beautiful rose-colour. The sun set; a young moon arose, and brilliant
stars shone through the light veil of mist, and in the darkness the
cataract looked like drifted snow. I rose at length, perfectly unconscious
that I had been watching the Falls for nearly four hours, and that my
clothes were saturated with the damp and mist.
It would be out of place to enter upon the numerous geological
speculations which have arisen upon the structure and recession of
Niagara.
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