At Such A Place
As Niagara Tasteless Buildings, Run Up In Wrong Places With A View
To Money Making, Are Perhaps Necessary Evils.
It may be that they
are not evils at all; that they give more pleasure than pain,
seeing that they tend to the enjoyment of the multitude.
But there
are edifices of this description which cry aloud to the gods by the
force of their own ugliness and malposition. As to such, it may be
said that there should somewhere exist a power capable of crushing
them in their birth. This new obelisk, or picture-building at
Niagara, is one of such.
And now we will cross the water, and with this object will return
by the bridge out of Goat Island, on the main land of the American
side. But as we do so, let me say that one of the great charms of
Niagara consists in this: that over and above that one great object
of wonder and beauty, there is so much little loveliness -
loveliness especially of water I mean. There are little rivulets
running here and there over little falls, with pendent boughs above
them, and stones shining under their shallow depths. As the
visitor stands and looks through the trees, the rapids glitter
before him, and then hide themselves behind islands. They glitter
and sparkle in far distances under the bright foliage, till the
remembrance is lost, and one knows not which way they run. And
then the river below, with its whirlpool, - but we shall come to
that by-and-by, and to the mad voyage which was made down the
rapids by that mad captain who ran the gantlet of the waters at the
risk of his own life, with fifty to one against him, in order that
he might save another man's property from the sheriff.
The readiest way across to Canada is by the ferry; and on the
American side this is very pleasantly done. You go into a little
house, pay twenty cents, take a seat on a wooden car of wonderful
shape, and on the touch of a spring find yourself traveling down an
inclined plane of terrible declivity, and at a very fast rate. You
catch a glance of the river below you, and recognize the fact that
if the rope by which you are held should break, you would go down
at a very fast rate indeed, and find your final resting-place in
the river. As I have gone down some dozen times, and have come to
no such grief, I will not presume that you will be less lucky.
Below there is a boat generally ready. If it be not there, the
place is not chosen amiss for a rest of ten minutes, for the lesser
fall is close at hand, and the larger one is in full view. Looking
at the rapidity of the river, you will think that the passage must
be dangerous and difficult. But no accidents ever happen, and the
lad who takes you over seems to do it with sufficient ease. The
walk up the hill on the other side is another thing. It is very
steep, and for those who have not good locomotive power of their
own, will be found to be disagreeable. In the full season,
however, carriages are generally waiting there. In so short a
distance I have always been ashamed to trust to other legs than my
own, but I have observed that Americans are always dragged up. I
have seen single young men of from eighteen to twenty-five, from
whose outward appearance no story of idle, luxurious life can be
read, carried about alone in carriages over distances which would
be counted as nothing by any healthy English lady of fifty. None
but the old invalids should require the assistance of carriages in
seeing Niagara, but the trade in carriages is to all appearance the
most brisk trade there.
Having mounted the hill on the Canada side, you will walk on toward
the falls. As I have said before, you will from this side look
directly into the full circle of the upper cataract, while you will
have before you, at your left hand, the whole expanse of the lesser
fall. For those who desire to see all at a glance, who wish to
comprise the whole with their eyes, and to leave nothing to be
guessed, nothing to be surmised, this no doubt is the best point of
view.
You will be covered with spray as you walk up to the ledge of
rocks, but I do not think that the spray will hurt you. If a man
gets wet through going to his daily work, cold, catarrh, cough, and
all their attendant evils, may be expected; but these maladies
usually spare the tourist. Change of air, plenty of air,
excellence of air, and increased exercise, make these things
powerless. I should therefore bid you disregard the spray. If,
however, you are yourself of a different opinion, you may hire a
suit of oil-cloth clothes for, I believe, a quarter of a dollar.
They are nasty of course, and have this further disadvantage, that
you become much more wet having them on than you would be without
them.
Here, on this side, you walk on to the very edge of the cataract,
and, if your tread be steady and your legs firm, you dip your foot
into the water exactly at the spot where the thin outside margin of
the current reaches the rocky edge and jumps to join the mass of
the fall. The bed of white foam beneath is certainly seen better
here than elsewhere, and the green curve of the water is as bright
here as when seen from the wooden rail across. But nevertheless I
say again that that wooden rail is the one point from whence
Niagara may be best seen aright.
Close to the cataract, exactly at the spot from whence in former
days the Table Rock used to project from the land over the boiling
caldron below, there is now a shaft, down which you will descend to
the level of the river, and pass between the rock and the torrent.
This Table Rock broke away from the cliff and fell, as up the whole
course of the river the seceding rocks have split and fallen from
time to time through countless years, and will continue to do till
the bed of the upper lake is reached.
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