CHAPTER III.
Unpleasant journey to Niagara—Mr. Seward—The Union and its dangers—Pass Buffalo—Arrival at Niagara—A ‘Touter’—Bad weather—The Road—Climate compared—Desolate appearance of houses—The St. Lawrence viewed from above—One hundred years ago—Canada the great object of the Americans—The Welland Canal—Effect of the Falls from a distance—Gradual approach—Less volume of water in winter—Different effect and dangers in winter—Icicles—Behind the Cataract—Photographs and Bazaar—Visit the “Lions” generally—Brock—American and Canadian sides contrasted—Goat Island—A whisper heard—Mills and Manufactories.
Unpleasant journey to Niagara—Mr. Seward—The Union and its dangers—Pass Buffalo—Arrival at Niagara—A ‘Touter’—Bad weather—The Road—Climate compared—Desolate appearance of houses—The St. Lawrence viewed from above—One hundred years ago—Canada the great object of the Americans—The Welland Canal—Effect of the Falls from a distance—Gradual approach—Less volume of water in winter—Different effect and dangers in winter—Icicles—Behind the Cataract—Photographs and Bazaar—Visit the “Lions” generally—Brock—American and Canadian sides contrasted—Goat Island—A whisper heard—Mills and Manufactories.
It was past noon ere the train once more began its contest with the snow—now conquering, now stubbornly resisted, and brought to a standstill:—the pace exceedingly slow, the scenery that of undulating white tablecloths, the society dull.
The journey to Niagara was as unpleasant as very bad travelling and absence of anything to see could make it. The train contained many soldiers or volunteers going back to their people, who discussed the conduct of the war with earnestness and acuteness; but though we were so far north, I could not hear any of them very anxious about the negro.
Well-dressed men and women got in and out at all the stations, nor did I see persons in the whole line of the cars who seemed to have rubbed elbows with adversity.Schenectady!Utica! Syracuse! Auburn! Here becomminglings!—the Indian, the Phœno-Numidian, the Greek-Sicilian, the Anglo-Irish, all reviving here in fair towns, full of wealth, commerce, and life.
The last-named is, I believe, the birthplace, and is certainly what auctioneers call the residential abode, of Mr. Seward. I remember his Excellency relating how, after the Battle of Bull Run—when he was threatened by certain people from Baltimore with hanging, as the reward of his misdeeds in plunging the country into civil war—he resolved to visit his fellow-citizens and neighbours, to ascertain whether there was any change of feeling amongst them. He was received with every demonstration of kindness and respect, and then, said he, “I felt my head was quite safe on my shoulders.” It is but just to say, Mr. Seward altogether disclaims the intention of seizing on Canada, which has been attributed to him in England; although he certainly is of opinion, that the province cannot continue long to be a dependency of the English Crown. How long does he think California will be content to receive orders from a government at Washington?
The danger which menaces the Union will become far greater after the success of the Unionists than it was during the war, because the extinction of the principle of States Rights will naturally tend to centralise the power of the Federal Government. They cannot restore that which they have pulled down. In virtue of their own principles, they must maintain a strict watch and supreme control over the State Governments and Legislatures. Endless disputes and jealousies will arise. The Democrats, at once the wealthiest and the ablest party in each State, will takeevery opportunity of opposing the centralised Government; and although the Republicans may raise armies to fight for the Union, they will not be able to prevent the slow and certain action of the State Legislatures, which will tend to detach the States more and more from any federation in which their interests are not engaged, and to form them into groups, bound together by community of commerce, manufacture, feeling, and destiny.
Canada must of course accept its fate with the rest; but Englishmen, at least, will not yield it to the menaces or violence of the Northern Americans, as long as the people of the province prefer being our fellow-subjects to an incorporation in the Great Republic, or any section of it that may be desirous of the abstraction.
I fear we mostly look at Mr. Seward’s conduct and language from a point which causes erroneous inferences. It should be remembered that he is an American minister—that he has not only the interests but the passions and prejudices of the American people to consult, and that, like Lord Palmerston, he is not the minister of any country but his own. His son, the Under-secretary of State, is the proprietor and editor of a journal here, which is conducted with the moderation and tact to be expected from the amiable character of the gentleman alluded to.
There was little to be seen of the towns at which we halted, and our journey was continued from one to the other monotonously enough. The weary creeping of the train, the foul atmosphere, the delays, however inevitable and unavoidable, rather spoiled one’s interest in the black smoky-looking cities on the white plainsthrough which we passed; and night found us still “scrooging on,” and occasionally stopping and digging out. Thus we passed by Rochester and the Genessee Falls, which seem extensively used up in mill-working, and arrived at Buffalo (278 miles) a little before midnight. There we branched off to Niagara, which is 22 miles further on.
Up to this time we had been minded to go to the Clifton House, which is on the Canadian side of the river, though it is kept by Americans, and of which we had agreeable memories in the summer, when it was the headquarters of many pleasant Southerners. There were only three or four men in our car, one of whom was, even under such hopeless circumstances, doing a little touting for an hotel at the American side. After a while he threw a fly over us and landed the whole basket. All the large hotels, he said, were shut up on both sides of the Falls, but he could take us to a very nice quiet and comfortable place, where we would meet with every attention, and it was the only house we would find open. This exposition left us no choice.
We surrendered ourselves therefore to the tout, who was a very different being from the type of his class in England: a tall, pleasant-faced man, with a keen eye and bronzed face, ending in an American Vandyke beard, a fur collar round his neck, a heavy travelling coat—from which peered out the ruffles of a white shirt and a glittering watch-chain—rings on his fingers, and unexceptionable shoeing. He smoked his cigar with an air, and talked as if he were conferring a favour. “And I tell you what! I’ll show you all over the Falls to-morrow. Yes, sir!” Why, we wereunder eternal obligations to such a guide, and internally thanking our stars for the treasure-trove at once accepted him.
At the gloomy deserted station we were now shot out, on a sheet of slippery deep snow, an hour after midnight. We followed our guide to an hostelry of the humbler sort, where the attention was not at first very marked or the comfort at all decided. The night was very dark, and a thaw had set in under the influence of a warm rain. The thunder of the Falls could not be heard through the thick air, but when we were in the house a quiet little quivering rattle of the window-panes spoke of its influence. The bar-room was closed—in the tawdry foul-odoured eating-room swung a feeble lamp: it was quite unreasonable to suppose any one could be hungry at such an hour, and we went to bed with the nourishment supplied by an anticipation of feasting on scenery. All through the night the door and window-frames kept up the drum-like roll to the grand music far away.
We woke up early. What evil fortune! Rain! fog! thaw!—the snow melting fast in the dark air. But were we not “bound” to see the Falls? So after breakfast, and ample supplies of coarse food, we started in a vehicle driven by the trapper of the night before. He turned out to be a very intelligent, shrewd American, who had knocked about a good deal in the States, and knew men and manners in a larger field than Ulysses ever wandered over.
The aspect of the American city in winter time is decidedly quite the reverse of attractive, but there was a far larger fixed population than we expected to have seen, and the fame of our arrival had goneabroad, so that there was a small assemblage round the stove in the bar-room and in the passage to see us start. I don’t mean to see us in particular, but to stare at any three strangers who turned up so suspiciously and unexpectedly at this season. The walls of the room in the hotel were covered with placards, offering large bounties and liberal inducements to recruits for the local regiment of volunteers; and I was told that a great number of men had gone for the war after the season had concluded—but Abolition is by no means popular in Niagara.
It was resolved that we should drive round to the British side by the Suspension Bridge, a couple of miles below, as the best way of inducting my companions into the wonders of the Falls; and I prepared myself for a great surprise in the difference between the character of the scene in winter and in summer.
For some time the road runs on a low level below the river bank, and does not permit of a sight of the cataract. The wooden huts of the Irish squatters looked more squalid and miserable than they were when I saw them last year—wonderful combinations of old plank, tarpaulin, tinplate, and stove pipes. “It’s wonderful the settlement doesn’t catch fire!” “But it does catch fire. It’s burned down often enough. Nobody cares: and the Irish grin, and build it up again, and beat a few of the niggers, whom they accuse of having blazed ’em up. They’ve a purty hard time of it now, I think.”
There are too many free negroes and too many Irish located in the immediate neighbourhood of the American town, to cause the doctrines of the Abolitionists to be received with much favour bythe American population; and the Irish of course are opposed to free negroes, where they are attracted by papermills, hotel service, bricklaying, plastering, housebuilding, and the like—the Americans monopolising the higher branches of labour and money-making, including the guide business.
At a bend in the road we caught a glimpse of the Falls, and I was concerned to observe they appeared diminished in form, in beauty, and in effect. The cataract appeared of an ochreish hue, like bog-water, as patches of it came into sight through breaks in the thick screen of trees which line the banks. The effect was partly due to the rain, perhaps, but was certainly developed by the white setting of snow through which it rushed. The expression on my friends’ faces indicated that they considered Niagara an imposition. “The Falls are like one of our great statesmen,” quoth the guide, “just now. There’s nothing particular about them when you first catch a view of them; but when you get close and know them better, then the power comes out, and you feel small as potatoes.”
As we splashed on through the snow, I began to consider the disadvantages to which the poor emigrant who chooses a land exposed to the rigours of a six months’ winter, must be exposed; and I wondered in myself that the early settlers did not fly, if they had a chance, when they first experienced the effects of bitter cold. But I recollected how much better were soil, climate, and communications than they are in the sunny South, where, for seven months, the heat is far more intolerable than the cold of Canada—where the fever revels, where noxious reptiles and insects vexhuman life, and the blood is poisoned by malaria, and where wheat refuses to grow, and bread is a foreign product.
Even in Illinois the winter is, as a rule, as severe as it is in Canada, the heat as great in summer—water is scarce, roads bad. It is better to be a dweller on the banks of the St. Lawrence than a resident in the Valley of the Mississippi, even if a tithe of its fabled future should ever come to pass. There is no reason why the Canadas should be regarded with less favour than the Western States, although the winters are long enough: in the prairie there is a want of wholesome water in summer, and a scarcity of fuel for cold weather, which tend to restore the balance in favour of the provinces.
The country, which I remembered so riant and rich, now was cold and desolate. At the station, near the beautiful Suspension Bridge—which one cannot praise too much, and which I hope may last for ever, though it does not look like it—the houses had closed windows, and half of them seemed empty, but the German proprietors no doubt could have been found in the lagerbeer saloons and billiard-rooms. The toll-takers and revenue officers on the bridge showed the usual apathy of their genus. No novelty moves them. Had the King of Oude appeared with all his court on elephants, they would have merely been puzzled how to assess the animals. They were not in the least disconcerted at a group of travellers visiting the St. Lawrence in winter time.
The sight of the St. Lawrence as we crossed over, roaring and foaming more than a hundred feet below us, and rushing between the precipitous banks on whichthe bridge rests, gave one a sort of “frisson:” it looked like some stream of the Inferno—the waters, black and cold, lashed into pyramids of white foam, and seeming by their very violence to impede their own escape. Some distance below the bridge, indeed, they rise up in a visible ridge, crested with high plumes of tossing spray; but it is related as a fact that the steamer “Maid of the Mist,” which was wont to ply as a ferry-boat below the Falls, was let down this awful sluice by a daring captain, who sought to save her from the grip of certain legal functionaries, and that she got through with the loss of her chimney, after a fierce contest with the waters, in which she was whirled round and buffeted almost to foundering. At that moment the men on board would no doubt have surrendered to the feeblest of bailiffs for the chance of smooth water.
About one hundred years ago, the spot where we now stood was the scene of continual struggles between the Red man, still strong enough to strike a blow for his heritage, and the British. It was on the 14th September, 1764, that the Indians routed a detachment at Niagara, and killed and wounded upwards of two hundred men; and their organisation seemed so formidable that Amherst was glad to make a treaty with the tribes through the instrumentality of Sir W. Johnston. The colonists then left on us the main burden of any difficulty arising from their great cupidity and indifference to the rights of the natives. In ten years afterwards they were engaged in preparing for the grand revolt which gave birth to the United States and to the greatest development of self-government ever seen in the world.
As they were setting about the work of wrestingthe New World from the grasp of the monarchical system, Cook was exploring the shores of the other vast continent in the Southern Sea, where the spirit of British institutions, with the widest extension of constitutional liberty, may yet successfully vindicate the attachment of a great Anglo-Saxon race to the Crown.
There are many in America who think the colonies would never have revolted if the French had retained possession of Canada, and, indeed, it is likely enough the Anglo-Saxons would have held to the connection if the Latin race had been sitting upon them northwards; but the political accidents and the military results which expelled the fleur-de-lys from Canada, doubtless created an unnatural bond of union between the absolutist Court of St. Germains and the precursors of Anacharsis Clootz in the colonies. To the seer there might have been something ominous in the coalition.
The men who were battling for the divine right of kings in Europe could scarce fight for the divine right of man in America without danger. The kiss which was imprinted at Versailles on Franklin’s cheek, by the lips of a royal lady, must have had the smack of the guillotine in it.
Anyway, we must allow, the French-Canadians, who stood by us shoulder to shoulder and beat back the American battalions, whose power to invade was mainly derived from foreign support, showed they had a surprising instinct for true liberty. No doubt they would have fought at least as stoutly, had the arrogant colonists been aided by red-coats, for the sake of the white banner and the fleur-de-lys; but in the timeof trouble and danger they stood loyally by the Crown and connection of England, and their services in that day should not be lightly forgotten.
It is above all things noteworthy, perhaps, that the Americans in all their wars with the mother-country have sought to strike swift hard blows in Canada, and that hitherto, with every advantage and after considerable successes, they have been driven, weather-beaten back, and bootless home. It was actually on the land shaken by the roar of these falling floods that battles have been fought, and that the air has listened in doubt to the voice of cannon mingling with the eternal chorus of the cataract.
There are here two points at which Canada lies open to the invader. The first lies above the Rapids—the latter is below them, where the St. Lawrence flows into the lake. Three considerable actions and various small engagements have taken place on the Canadian side of the river, all of which were characterised by great obstinacy and much bloodshed. Let us consider them, and see what can or ought to be done in order to guard the tempting bank which offers such an excellent base of operations for future hostile occupation.
An inspection of the map will show the Welland Canal, running from Port Maitland, Dunnville, and Port Colborne, on Lake Erie, to Lake Ontario at Port Dalhousie. The command of this canal would be of the very greatest importance to an invading army, as it would establish a communication inside the Falls of Niagara; but it would be very difficult to obtain such a command so as to prevent the destruction of the canal in case of necessity. It is obvious, however, thatthe line of it should be defended, and that garrisons should be stationed to hold points inside the line, such as Erie and Chippewa, to render it unsafe for the enemy to move down inside them. At Fort Erie there is a very insignificant work, but, with that exception, the line of the Welland Canal may be considered as perfectly open and defenceless—not by any means as utterly indefensible.
The river is not broad enough to prevent the dwellers on the banks from indulging in hostilities if they pleased; but no practical advantage would be gained in a campaign by any operation which did not settle the fate of the Welland Canal. The locks will permit vessels 142 feet long, with 26 feet beam, and drawing 10 feet of water, to pass between Erie and Ontario; and from the latter lake to the sea, orvice versâ, they can pass by the St. Lawrence Canal, drawing one foot less water. It would be above all things important to prevent an enemy getting possession of this Welland Canal. It would not suffice for us to destroy it by injuring a lock or the like, as such an act would militate against our own lines of communication,—more important to us, who have an inferior power of transport on the lakes, than it would be to the Americans.
In addition to a well-devised system of field-works, it is desirable that permanent fortifications should be constructed to cover the termini of the canal and the feeder above Port Maitland. At present, the defensive means of Fort Erie, at the entrance of the river above the Rapids, are very poor, and quite inadequate to resist modern artillery. However, this subject will be best discussed when I come to speak of the general defence of Canada.
This yawning gap is barrier enough between the two countries should they ever, unhappily, become belligerent, but the banks can be commanded by either; and in case of war the bridge would no doubt be sacrificed by one or other, as well as the grander structure at Montreal would be, without some special covenant.
When still a mile and a half away, a whirling pillar of a leaden gray colour, with wreaths of a lighter silvery hue playing round it, which rose to the height of several hundred feet in the air, indicated the position of the Falls. The vapour was more solid and gloomy-looking than the cloudlike mantle which shrouds the cataract oftentimes in the summer. I doubt if there is a very satisfactory solution of its existence at all. Of course the cloud is caused by particles of water thrown up into the atmosphere by the violent impact of the water on the surface, and by the spray thrown off in the descent of the torrent; but why those particles remain floating about, instead of falling at once like rain, is beyond my poor comprehension. Sure enough, a certain portion does descend like a thick Scotch mist: why not all? As one of my companions, with much gravity and an air of profound wisdom, remarked last summer, “It’s probable electricity has something to do with it!” Can any one say more?
Assuredly, this ever-rolling mighty cloud draping and overhanging the Falls adds much to their weird and wonderful beauty. Its variety of form is infinite, changing with every current of air, and altering from day to day in height and volume; but I never looked at it without fancying I could trace in the outlines the indistinct shape of a woman, with flowing hair and drooping arms, veiled in drapery—now crouching onthe very surface of the flood, again towering along and tossing up her hands to heaven, or sinking down and bending low to the edge of the cataract as though to drink its waters. With the aid of an active fancy, one might deem it to be the guardian spirit of the wondrous place.
The wind was unfavourable, and the noise of the cataract was not heard in all its majestic violence; but as we came nearer, we looked at each other and said nothing. It grew on us like the tumult of an approaching battle.
There is this in the noise of the Falls: produced by a monotonous and invariable cause, it nevertheless varies incessantly in tone and expression. As you listen, the thunder peals loudly, then dies away into a hoarse grumble, rolls on again as if swelled by minor storms, clangs in the ear, and after a while, like a river of sound welling over and irrepressible, drowns the sense in one vast rush of inexpressible grandeur—then melts away till you are almost startled at the silence and look up to see the Falls, like a green mountain-side streaked with fresh snowdrifts, slide and shimmer over the precipice.
It may well be conceived with what awe and superstitious dread honest Jesuit Hennepin, following his Indian guides through the gloom of the forest primæval, gazed on the dreadful flood, which had then no garniture of trimmed banks, cleared fields, snug hotels, and cockney gazabos to alleviate the natural terror with which man must gaze on a spectacle which conjures up such solemn images of death, time, and eternity.
No words can describe the Falls; and Church’s picture, very truthful and wonderful as to form, cannotconvey an idea of the life of the scene—of the motion and noise and shifting colour which abound there in sky and water. I doubt, indeed, if any man can describe his own sensations very accurately, for they undergo constant change; and for my own part I would say that the effect increases daily, and that one leaves the scene with more vivid impressions of its grandeur and beauty than is produced by the first coup-d’œil.
A gradual approach does not at all diminish the power of the cataract, and the mind is rather unduly excited by the aspect of the Styx-like flood—black, foam-crested, and of great volume, with every indication of profound depth—which hurries on so swiftly and so furiously below the road on which you are travelling, between banks cut down through grim, dark rock, so sheer that the tops of the upper trees which take root in the strata can be nearly touched by the traveller’s stick. The idea that the whole of the great river beneath you has just leaped over a barrier of rock prepares one’s conception for the greatness of the cataract itself.
In summer time there were wild ducks flying about, and terns darted up and down the stream. Now it was deserted and desolate, looking of more inky hue in contrast with the snow. Close to the boiling cataract the fishermen’s tiny barks might then be seen rocking up and down, or the angler sought the bass which loves those turbulent depths; but no such signs of human life and industry are visible in winter.
Before Niagara was, odd creatures enough lived about here, which can now be detected fossilised in themagnesian limestone. How many myriads of years it has been eating away its dear heart and gnawing the rock let Sir Charles Lyell or Sir Roderick Murchison calculate; but I am persuaded that since I saw it some months ago there has been a change in the aspect of the Horseshoe Fall, and that it has become more deeply curved. The residents, however, though admitting the occurrence of changes, say they are very slow, and that no very rapid alteration has taken place since the fall of a great part of Table Rock some years ago: but masses of stone may be washed away every day without their knowing it.
One very natural consequence of a visit in the winter was undeniable—that the Falls were visibly less: they did not extend so far, and they rolled with diminished volume. The water did not look so pure, and incredible icicles and hanging glaciers obscured the outlines of the rocks and even intruded on the watercourse; whilst the trees above, laden with snow, stood up like inverted icicles again, and rendered it difficult to define the boundary between earth, air, and water.
A noiseless drive brought us to the village. Clifton House was deserted—the windows closed, the doors fastened. No gay groups disported on the promenade; but the bird-stuffer’s, the Jew’s museum, the photographer’s shed, the Prince’s triumphal arch, were still extant; and the bazaars, where they sell views, seashells, Indian beadwork and feathers, moccasins, stuffed birds, and the like, were open and anxious for customers. Our party was a godsend; but the worthy Israelite, who has collected such an odd museum here—one, under all the circumstances, most creditable to his industry and perseverance as well asliberality—said that travellers came pretty often in fine winter weather to look at the cataract. We walked in our moccasins to the Table Rock, and thence to the verge of the Falls, and gazed in silence on the struggling fury of the terrible Rapids, which seem as if they wrestled with each other like strong men contending against death, and fighting to the last till the fatal leap must be made.
The hateful little wooden staircases, which like black slugs crawl up the precipice from the foot of the Falls, caught the eyes of my companions; and when they were informed that they could go down in safety and get some way behind the Fall itself, the place was invested with a new charm, and ice, rheumatism, and the like, were set at defiance. I knew what it was in summer, and the winter journey did not seem very tempting; but there was no alternative, and the party returned to the museum to prepare for the descent.
Whilst we were waiting for our waterproof dresses to go under the Falls, we had an opportunity of surveying the changes produced by winter, and I was the more persuaded that the effect is not so favourable as that of summer. The islands are covered with snow—that which divides the sweep of the cataract looking unusually large; the volume of water, diminished in the front, is also deprived of much of its impressive force by a decrease in the sound produced by its fall. The edges of the bank, covered with glistening slabs of ice, were not tempting to the foot, and could not be approached with the confidence with which they are trod by one of steady nerves when the actual brink is visible.
There were some peculiarities, however, worthy of note; and in a brighter day, possibly the effect of thelight on the vast ranges of icicles, and on the fantastic shapes into which the snow is cut on the rocks at the margin of the waters, might be very beautiful. These rocks now looked like a flock of polar bears, twined in fantastic attitudes, or extended singly and in groups by the brink as if watching for their prey. Above them rose the bank, now smooth and polished, with a fringe of icicles—some large as church steeples; above them, again, the lines of the pine trees, draped in white, and looking like church steeples too. At one side, near Table Rock, the icicles were enormous, and now and then one fell with a hissing noise, and was dashed on the rock into a thousand gliding ice arrows, or plunged into the gulf.
By this time our toilette-room was ready, and each man, taking off his overcoat, was encased in a tarpaulin suit with a sou’-wester. In this guise we descended the spiral staircase, which is carried in a perpendicular wooden column down the face of the bank near Table Rock, or what remains of it, to the rugged margin, formed of boulders now more slippery than glass.
Our guide, a strapping specimen of negro or mulatto, in thick solid ungainly boots, planted his splay feet on them with certainty, and led us by the treacherous path down towards the verge of the torrent, which now seemed as though it were rushing from the very heavens. On our left boiled the dreadful caldron from which the gushing bubbles, as if overjoyed to escape, leaped up, and with glad effervescence rushed from the abyss which plummet never sounded. On our right towered the sheer precipice of rock, now overhanging us, and garnished with rows of giant teeth-like icicles.
After a slow cautious advance along this doubtful path, we perceived that the thin edge of the cataract towards which we were advancing shot out from the rock, and left a space between its inner surface and a black shining wall which it was quite possible to enter. There was no wind, the day was dull and raw, but the downright rush of the water created a whirling current of air close to it which almost whisked away the breath; and a vapour of snow, fine sleet, and watery particles careered round the entrance to the recess, which no water kelpie would be venturesome or lonesome enough to select, except in the height of the season.
On we thus went, more and more slowly and cautiously, over the polished ice and rock, till at last we had fairly got behind the cataract, and enjoyed the pleasure of seeing the solid wall of water falling, falling, falling, with the grand monotony of eternity, so nigh that one fancied he could almost touch it with his hand. When last I was here, it was possible to have got as far as a ledge called Termination Rock; but the ice had accumulated to such an extent that the guide declared the attempt to do so would be impracticable or dangerous, and indeed where we stood was not particularly safe at the moment. As I was in the cave, gazing at the downpoured ruin of waters with a sense of security as great as that of a trout in a mill-race, an icicle from the cliff above cracked on the rocks outside, and threw its fragments inside the passage. I own the desire I had to get on still further and pierce in behind the cataract, where its volume was denser, was greater than the gratification I derived from getting so far. But we had reached our ultima thule, and, with many a lingering look, retraced our steps—now andthen halting to contend the better with the gusts from the falls, which threaten to sweep one from the ledge. If the foot once slipped, I cannot conceive a death more rapid: life would die out with the thought, “I am in the abyss!” ere a cry could escape.
Whilst returning, another icicle fell near at hand; therefore it is my humble opinion that going to Termination Rock in winter is not safe except in hard frost, the safer plan being not to go at all. And yet no one has ever been swept or has slipped in, I believe, and so there is a new sensation to be had very easily. The path on our return seemed worse than it was on our going—a very small slippery ridge indeed between us and the gulf; but danger there can be but little. As we emerged from the wooden pillar we submitted to a photographer for our portraits in waterproof.
Poor man! In summer he has a harvest, perhaps; in winter he gleans his corn with toil and sorrow, making scenes for stereoscopes. I am not aware that we omitted anything proper to be done; for we purchased feather fans—the griffs did—and beadwork and other “mementoes of the Falls,” which are certainly not selected for any apposite quality. As if the Falls needed a bunch of feathers and beads to keep them in remembrance! Well, many a time has a lock of hair, a withered flower, the feeblest little atom of substantial matter, been given as memento ere now, and done its office well.
As I passed by Clifton House on my return to the American side, I observed a solitary figure in a blue overcoat and brass buttons, pacing rapidly up and down under cover of the verandah. Who on earth could it be? It can’t be—yes it is—it is, indeed, our excellent guardianof British customs rights and revenues—good Mr. ——. The kindly old Scotchman stares in surprise when he hears his name from an unknown passer-by, but in a moment he remembers our brief acquaintance in summer time. Every one who knows him would, I am sure, be glad, with me, to hear that some better post were got for Mr. —— in his old age than that of watching smugglers on the waters of the St. Lawrence, below Niagara.
After a brief interview, we proceeded on our way, and continued our explorations. Due honour was paid to the Rapids, Bath Island, Goat Island, the Cave of the Winds, Prospect Tower, and all the water lions of the place, though rain and sleet fell at intervals all the time when there was no snow.
When the Prince was here he laid the last stone of the obelisk which marks the place where Brock was killed, in the successful action against the Americans at Queenstown in 1812. The present monument to that general is certainly in as good taste as most British designs of the sort, and seems but little open to the censure I have heard directed against it. Its predecessor was so atrociously bad, that some gentleman of fine feelings in art, who was probably an American and a Canadian patriot as well, blew it up some years ago.
There are not wanting at the present time many men in Canada of the same stuff as Brock and his men. It is astonishing to find the easy and universal conviction prevailing in the minds of Americans, contrary to their experience, that the conquest of Canada would be one of the most natural and facile feats in the world.
Except in their first war, when they displayed energy and skill in the attack on Quebec, the active operationsof the Republicans in Canada were not marked by any military excellence, notwithstanding the very hard fights which took place, but they showed themselves most formidable opponents when they were attacked in position.
The Canadian side of the Falls boasts of charming scenery. Even in the snow, the neat cottages and houses—the plantations, gardens, and shrubberies—evince a degree of taste and comfort which were not so observable on the American side, notwithstanding the superior activity of the population.
Our observations on our return to the right bank of the river confirmed my impression concerning the diminished volume and effect of the cataract. The ice, formed by spray, hung over the torrent, which, always more broken and less ponderous than that on the other side, is in summer very beautiful, by reason of the immense variety of form and colour in the jets and cascades, and of the ease with which you can stand, as it were, amid the very waters of Niagara.
The town half populated; the monster hotel closed; the swimming-baths, in which one could take a plunge into the active rapids safely enclosed in a perforated room, now fastened up for winter,—presented a great contrast to the noise and bustle of the American Niagara in the season. This is the time when the Indians enable the shopkeepers to accumulate their stores of bead and feather work; and a few squaws, dressed in a curious compromise between the garments of the civilised female and the simpler robes of the “untutored savage,” flitted through the snow from one dealer to another with their work. In some houses they are regularly employed all day, and come in fromtheir village in the morning and go home at night when their work is done.
The view of the Rapids from the upper end of Goat Island is not, to my mind, as fine as that obtained from the island on the British side higher up. The sight of that tortured flood, loaded with its charging lines of “sea horses,”—its surging glistening foam-heaps streaking the wide expanse which rolled towards us from a dull leaden horizon,—was inexpressibly grand and gloomy, and struck me more forcibly than the aspect of the Rapids had done in August, when I beheld them in a setting of rich green landscape and forest.
On the whole, I would much rather, were I going to Niagara for the first time, select the Canadian side for my first view. It would be well never to look at the Falls, if that were possible, till the traveller could open his eyes from the remnant of the Table Rock on the Great Horseshoe; but curiosity will probably defeat any purpose of that kind. Still, the Horseshoe is grand enough to grow on the spectator day after day, even if there be some disappointment in the first aspect. The noise, though it shake the earth and air, is not of the violent overwhelming character which might have been expected from its effect on window-panes and shutters. As the voice of a man can be heard in the din of battle by those around him, so can even the low tones of a clear speaker be distinguished most readily close to the brink of a cataract, the roar of which at times is very audible, nevertheless, from twelve to fifteen miles away.
The only drawback to a sojourn on the Canadian side is, perhaps, the feeling of irritation or unrest producedby the ceaseless jar and tumult of the Falls, which become well-nigh unbearable at night, and vex one’s slumbers with unquiet dreams, in which water plays a powerful part. The American side is not so much affected in that way. The Horseshoe presents by far the greatest mass of water; its rush is grander—the terrible fathomless gulf into which it falls is more awe-inspiring than anything on the American side; but the latter offers to the visitor greater variety of colour—I had nigh said of substance—in the water. At its first tremendous blow on the seething surface of the basin, the column of water seems to make a great cavern, into which it plunges bodily, only to come up in myriad millions of foaming particles, very small, bright, and distinct, like minute, highly-polished shot. These gradually expand and melt into each other after a wild dance in the caldron, which boils and bubbles with its awful hell-broth for ever. In the centre of the Horseshoe, which is really more the form of two sides of an obtuse-angled triangle, the water, being of great depth—at least thirty feet where it falls over the precipice—is of an azure green, which contrasts well with the yellow, white, and light emerald colours of the shallower and more broken portions nearer the sides.
It would be considered rather presumptuous in any one to think of improving upon Niagara, but I cannot help thinking that the effect would be increased immensely if the island which divides the cataract into the Horseshoe and the American Falls, and the rock which juts up in the latter and subdivides it unequally, were removed or did not exist; then the river, in one grand front of over one thousand yards, would make its leapen masse. The American Falls are destitute of thebeauty given by the curve of the leap to the Horseshoe; they descend perpendicularly, and are lost in a sea of foam, not in an abyss of water, but in the wild confusion of the vast rocks which are piled up below. But they are still beautiful exceedingly, and there is more variety of scene in the islands, in the passage over the bridges to Goat Island and to the stone tower, which has been built amid the very waters of the cataract, so that one can stand on the outside gallery and look down upon the Falls beneath.
Goat Island is happily intersected with good drives and walks, laid out with sufficiently fair taste through the natural forest, and seats are placed at intervals for the accommodation of visitors. It is no disparagement to the manner in which the grounds have been ornamented to say that a good English landscape gardener would convert the island into the gem of the world. The ornamentation need not be overdone; it should be congruous and in keeping with the Falls, which nature has embellished with such infinity of colouring. As it is, the island is much visited. Strange enough, the softest whispered vows can be heard amid the thunder of Niagara, and it is believed that many marriages owe their happy inspiration to inadvertent walking and talking in these secluded yet much-haunted groves. Sawmills, papermills, and manufactories delight the utilitarian as he gazes on the Rapids which have so long been wasting their precious water-power, and it is not unlikely that a thriving town may grow up to distressing dimensions on the American side of the stream, at all events.