A huge mass
of lovely colors, like an arch of glory, rises from the boiling
spray near you, while a breeze causes the larger mass to waver
from color to color and mingle with the trees on the Canadian
shore. A secondary bow with softer colors is visible like a long
remembered dream you have had with which you associate some real
event of life.
What a sublime view we get from the Terrapin Rocks! "Here are
tremendous flat-shaped boulders left here ages ago, when those
vast geological forces were at work hewing out this gorge. Here
you gaze through ever rising columns of spray into the bright
green water. Here the velocity is amazing and in its deep bass
roar that, "night and day, weeks, months, years and centuries,
speaks in the same mighty voice," you gain the real might and
majesty of Niagara. Here you will have that trinity of grandeur,
power, and beauty indelibly impressed upon your memory. Here,
too, you gaze again in silence and admiration at the awful mass
of troubled water. The marvelous flood of livid green waters
rushes into the yawning abyss below, where it is broken into
fine spray that rises like steam from an immense cauldron. One
feels an irresistible fascination at this point but all good
things must end and you reluctantly turn away.
Now you find yourself observing the wild flowers, ferns, and
grasses with which the cliffs are clothed. All along these
inaccessible walls are "hanging gardens" whose masses of the
dainty fern make smaller Niagaras of brightest verdure. Virginia
creeper and various vines throw down long ropes of green, as if
to help their flower friends up the steep walls; thatching their
sides with softest beauty. The bluemint, butterfly weed and
harebell venture far out along the slightest ledges where only a
few, "who are willing to gain beauty as well as bread by the
sweat of their brows observe them."
People are after all more interesting than natural phenomena.
Here some will sit through the long summer hours discussing
morals, industry, women's suffrage, the immortality of the soul
or some item about the latest divorce scandal, while the
sublimity of Niagara lies all unnoticed before them. One feels
as if his senses were playing him false, and that he is back
again in some particular town, the memory of which is painfully
familiar, where from daylight till dawn and dawn till daylight
such timely topics are discussed from that loafer's haven, the
village store.
Goat Island is said to be covered with verdant forest, but it is
no longer verdant, for it shows the ravages of those who wish
some one to know they had visited Niagara. Important news, this,
that requires those beautiful registers of God's own building
for its recording. The large majestic beech trees, among whose
verdant branches the orioles and tanagers poured forth their
rich notes once whispered from all their wealth of emerald
leaves invitations to the weary to come and enjoy the sanctuary
of healing coolness and restful shade and shelter. Many were the
travelers who left the hot, dusty highways for the cool, dewy
carpet of velvety moss in the woodland solitude, where numerous
wild flowers and sweet-scented ferns filled all the air with
fragrance. The noble beech trees throw up their naked branches
as if pointing ghostly fingers of accusation to the carelessness
and indifference of those vandal days. Now these decaying
emblems stand scarred and desolate, "Monuments to fond hearts
and foolish heads."
"Here, as in by-gone days, no song of bird or wealth of plumage
gladdens its forlorn branches; no lovely flowers or shade-loving
moss and fern make patches of emerald and gold;" no weary
pedestrian turns aside from the hot, dusty path where the heated
air flows in tremendous rays unless to decipher some name on the
bark where Nature in pity is covering the scars with the lovely
woodbine.
Some people evidently spent more time in laboriously carving
their names than in viewing the wondrous beauty of the Falls.
When they perchance do gaze at them one can almost hear them
shooting, "Behold us, Niagara, we are here," or "Just as we
expected, only a big pile of water." Better it were to leave a
living tree like the palm that the loving hands of Queen
Victoria planted in the Hiles' estate at Cannes, France. Here
groups of weary American soldiers gazing up at its lovely
fronded foliage, then out over the deep blue Mediterranean,
beheld a sunset sky like a more vast sea of amethyst through
which a few orange colored clouds were idly drifting. They
forgot for a time the horrors of war and as they caught a view
of the far-flushing Alpine peaks that appeared like vast walls
of alternate shades of crimson and purple rising from a golden
sea of light they joined in the twilight prayer of the universe
to Him who made such wondrous beauty for the delight of man.
It was here that Victoria showed by her queenly life the right
to her title. Her memory still remains verdant in the hearts of
her countrymen whom she showed in a thousand acts of charity and
nobleness that "The crown does not make the queen."
Memories of delight steal o'er you as you recall again the many
noble trees at Mt. Vernon. Just north of the brick wall of the
flower garden are two magnificent tulip trees towering in their
stately grandeur far above their companions; filling their
branches with a wealth of creamy bell-shaped blossoms which like
innumerable swinging censers scatter delicious incense on the
passing breeze. The master of those beautiful and spacious
grounds has long since departed; but when we gaze upon those
magnificent trees planted by his hands we seem to catch the
spirit of the man whispered by all their green leaves, melodies
clearer and sweeter than any music we had heard before.
