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. It seems as if the faint light which science has shed upon the
abyss of bygone ages were but to show that its depths must remain for ever
unlighted by human reason and research.
There was such an air of gloom about the Clifton House that we sat in the
balcony till the cold became intense; and as it was too dark to see
anything but a white object in front, I could not help regretting the
waste (as it seems) of this wonderful display going on, when no eyes can
feast upon its sublimity. In the saloon there was a little fair-haired boy
of seven years old, with the intellectual faculties largely developed -
indeed, so much so as to be painfully suggestive of water on the brain.
His father called him into the middle of the room, and he repeated a long
oration of Daniel Webster's without once halting for a word, giving to it
the action and emphasis of the orator. This was a fair specimen of the
frequent undue development of the minds of American children.
At Niagara I finally took leave of the Walrences, as I had many visits to
pay, and near midnight left for Hamilton, under the escort of a very kind,
but very Grandisonian Scotch gentleman. I was intensely tired and sleepy,
and it was a very cheerless thing to leave a warm room at midnight for an
omnibus-drive of two miles along a bad, unlighted road. There did not
appear to be any waiting-room at the bustling station at the suspension
bridge, for, alas! the hollow scream of the locomotive is heard even above
the thunder of Niagara. I slept in the cars for an hour before we started,
and never woke till the conductor demanded payment of my fare in no very
gentle tones. We reached Hamilton shortly after two in the morning, in the
midst of a high wind and pouring rain; and in company with a dozen very
dirty emigrants we entered a lumber waggon with a canvas top, drawn by one
miserable horse. The curtains very imperfectly kept out the rain, and we
were in continual fear of an upset. At last the vehicle went down on one
side, and all the Irish emigrants tumbled over each other and us, with a
profusion of "Ochs," "murders," and "spalpeens." The driver composedly
shouted to us to alight; the hole was only deep enough to sink the vehicle
to the axletree. We got out into a very capacious lake of mud, and in
again, in very ill humour. At last the horse fell down in a hole, and my
Scotch friend and I got out and walked in the rain for some distance to a
very comfortable hotel, the City Arms. The sun had scarcely warmed the
world into waking life before I was startled from my sleep by the cry,
"Six o'clock; all aboard for the 'bus at half-past, them as goes by the
Passport and Highlander:" but it was half-past, and I had barely time
to dress before the disagreeable shout of "All aboard!" echoed through the
house, and I hurried down stairs into an omnibus, which held twenty-two
persons inside, commodiously seated in arm-chairs. I went down Lake
Ontario in the Highlander; Mr. Forrest met me on the wharf, and in a few
hours I was again warmly welcomed at his hospitable house.
My relics of my visit to Niagara consisted of a few Indian curiosities,
and a printed certificate filled up with my name, [Footnote: "Niagara
Falls, C. W.: Register Office, Table Rock. - This is to certify, that Miss
- - has passed behind the Great Falling Sheet of Water to Termination
Rook, being 230 feet behind the Great Horse-shoe Fall. - Given under my
hand this 13th day of - - , 1854. - THOMAS BARNETT."] stating that I had
walked for 230 feet behind the great fall, which statement, I was assured
by an American fellow-traveller, was "a sell right entirely, an almighty
all-fired big flam."
CHAPTER XII.
A scene at starting - That dear little Harry - The old lady and the race -
Running the Rapids - An aside - Snow and discomfort-A new country - An
extemporised ball - Adventure with a madman - Shooting the cataract - First
appearance of Montreal - Its characteristics - Quebec in a fog - "Muffins" -
Quebec gaieties - - The pestilence - Restlessness - St. Louis and St. Roch -
The shady side - Dark dens - External characteristics - Lord Elgin - Mistaking
a senator.
The Arabian, by which I left Toronto, was inferior to any American
steamer I had travelled in. It was crowded with both saloon and steerage
passengers, bound for Cobourg, Port Hope, and Montreal. It was very
bustling and dirty, and the carpet was plentifully sprinkled with tobacco-
juice. The captain was very much flustered with his unusually large living
cargo, but he was a good-hearted man, and very careful, having, to use his
own phrase, "climbed in at the hawse-holes, and worked his way aft,
instead of creeping in at the cabin window with his gloves on." The
stewards were dirty, and the stewardess too smart to attend to the
comforts of the passengers.
As passengers, crates, and boxes poured in at both the fore and aft
entrances, I went out on the little slip of deck to look at the prevalent
confusion, having previously ascertained that all my effects were secure.
The scene was a very amusing one, for, acting out the maxim that "time is
money," comparatively few of the passengers came down to the wharf more
than five minutes before the hour of sailing.
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