The awe felt in looking at this wild mass of raging water
humbles and overwhelms you; you feel the presence of a majesty
and grandeur in its onward sweep before unknown to you. When it
is dashed to gauzy, irised spray it seems as gentle as the
pearly mists of dawn, but its deep thunder-like detonations tell
of a mighty power. Beauty blended with the most awe-inspiring
sublimity is the order of passionate, impetuous Niagara.
The broad river takes the waters of the four lakes - Superior,
Huron, Michigan and Erie - to its turbulent bosom and bears them
about twenty-two miles from Lake Erie, where it becomes a raging
torrent and rushes in frenzied madness over the precipice
forming the incomparable falls. Then, before reaching Lake
Ontario, its water forgets its scourging and glides smoothly
again in its wider channel, presenting a picture of peace and
quietness in striking contrast to the surging tumult of the
noisy rapids above.
The country through which Niagara passes is comparatively level,
interspersed here and there with hills of "vernal loveliness."
Niagara seems to have only one all-absorbing interest. "Not many
features of the country through which it flows correspond in
that wildness and savage grandeur with which the falls are
clothed." The mahogany colored soil is devoted to vegetable and
fruit growing. In spring the well-cultivated trees, including
pear, plum, peach, and cherry, burst into a miracle of delicious
bloom, making patches of pink as vivid as a sunset sea or others
of pure white like snows new-fallen. Such scenes of pastoral
beauty enhance its wildness and surpassing grandeur.
The strange beauty of the ocean is comprehended long before one
reaches its shores. Mountain peaks are seen from afar, blending
imperceptibly with the horizon; at first only their faint
outlines are revealed as you gradually approach. You have,
perhaps, been looking for a rough country with great glacier-
sculptured walls or imposing rugged scenery on nearing the
falls. You do not suspect they are near and if you approach
Prospect Point in an automobile, you are in sight and sound of
them ere you are aware.
Here the vast panorama is presented to you. You are hardly
prepared for so much at once. One gentleman, on being asked what
effect the falls had upon his wife, replied: "She was struck
speechless." Whereupon the other gentleman said: "I shall bring
my wife tomorrow." Had Niagara this beneficent effect upon both
sexes who gaze upon it, one is almost certain that its number of
visitors instead of one million, would amount to many millions
annually, and "there would be more of heaven on earth, before it
is journeyed to."
Those who can see no beauty in Niagara (may the Lord pity such)
may still be rewarded by learning that this river is the
boundary between the United States and Canada and was therefore
the scene of many stirring conflicts between the Mother Country
and her young but plucky, wayward, willful child.
