NIAGARA.
Of all the sights on this earth of ours which tourists travel to
see,--at least of all those which I have seen,--I am inclined to give
the palm to the Falls of Niagara. In the catalogue of such sights I
intend to include all buildings, pictures, statues, and wonders of
art made by men's hands, and also all beauties of nature prepared by
the Creator for the delight of his creatures. This is a long word;
but as far as my taste and judgment go, it is justified. I know no
other one thing so beautiful, so glorious, and so powerful. I would
not by this be understood as saying that a traveller wishing to do
the best with his time should first of all places seek Niagara. In
visiting Florence he may learn almost all that modern art can teach.
At Rome he will be brought to understand the cold hearts, correct
eyes, and cruel ambition of the old Latin race. In Switzerland he
will surround himself with a flood of grandeur and loveliness, and
fill himself, if he be capable of such filling, with a flood of
romance. The Tropics will unfold to him all that vegetation in its
greatest richness can produce. In Paris he will find the supreme
of polish, the _ne plus ultra_ of varnish according to the world's
capability of varnishing. And in London he will find the supreme
of power, the _ne plus ultra_ of work according to the world's
capability of working. Any one of such journeys may be more valuable
to a man,--nay, any one such journey must be more valuable to a
man,--than a visit to Niagara. At Niagara there is that fall of
waters alone. But that fall is more graceful than Giotto's tower,
more noble than the Apollo. The peaks of the Alps are not so
astounding in their solitude. The valleys of the Blue Mountains in
Jamaica are less green. The finished glaze of life in Paris is less
invariable; and the full tide of trade round the Bank of England is
not so inexorably powerful.
I came across an artist at Niagara who was attempting to draw the
spray of the waters. "You have a difficult subject," said I. "All
subjects are difficult," he replied, "to a man who desires to do
well." "But yours, I fear, is impossible," I said. "You have no
right to say so till I have finished my picture," he replied. I
acknowledged the justice of his rebuke, regretted that I could not
remain till the completion of his work should enable me to revoke
my words, and passed on. Then I began to reflect whether I did not
intend to try a task as difficult in describing the falls, and
whether I felt any of that proud self-confidence which kept him happy
at any rate while his task was in hand. I will not say that it is as
difficult to describe aright that rush of waters, as it is to paint
it well. But I doubt whether it is not quite as difficult to write
a description that shall interest the reader, as it is to paint a
picture of them that shall be pleasant to the beholder. My friend the
artist was at any rate not afraid to make the attempt, and I also
will try my hand.
That the waters of Lake Erie have come down in their courses from the
broad basins of Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, and Lake Huron; that
these waters fall into Lake Ontario by the short and rapid river of
Niagara, and that the Falls of Niagara are made by a sudden break
in the level of this rapid river, is probably known to all who will
read this book. All the waters of these huge northern inland seas run
over that breach in the rocky bottom of the stream; and thence it
comes that the flow is unceasing in its grandeur, and that no eye
can perceive a difference in the weight, or sound, or violence of
the fall, whether it be visited in the drought of autumn, amidst the
storms of winter, or after the melting of the upper worlds of ice in
the days of the early summer. How many cataracts does the habitual
tourist visit at which the waters fail him? But at Niagara the waters
never fail. There it thunders over its ledge in a volume that never
ceases and is never diminished;--as it has done from times previous
to the life of man, and as it will do till tens of thousands of years
shall see the rocky bed of the river worn away, back to the upper
lake.
This stream divides Canada from the States, the western or
farthermost bank belonging to the British Crown, and the eastern or
nearer bank being in the State of New York. In visiting Niagara it
always becomes a question on which side the visitor shall take up his
quarters. On the Canada side there is no town, but there is a large
hotel, beautifully placed immediately opposite to the falls, and this
is generally thought to be the best locality for tourists. In the
State of New York is the town called Niagara Falls, and here there
are two large hotels, which, as to their immediate site, are not so
well placed as that in Canada. I first visited Niagara some three
years since. I stayed then at the Clifton House on the Canada side,
and have since sworn by that position. But the Clifton House was
closed for the season when I was last there, and on that account we
went to the Cataract House in the town on the other side. I now think
that I should set up my staff on the American side if I went again.
My advice on the subject to any party starting for Niagara would
depend upon their habits, or on their nationality. I would send
Americans to the Canadian side, because they dislike walking; but
English people I would locate on the American side, seeing that
they are generally accustomed to the frequent use of their own legs.
The two sides are not very easily approached, one from the other.
Immediately below the falls there is a ferry, which may be traversed
at the expense of a shilling; but the labour of getting up and down
from the ferry is considerable, and the passage becomes wearisome.
There is also a bridge, but it is two miles down the river, making a
walk or drive of four miles necessary, and the toll for passing is
four shillings or a dollar in a carriage, and one shilling on foot.
As the greater variety of prospect can be had on the American side,
as the island between the two falls is approachable from the American
side and not from the Canadian, and as it is in this island that
visitors will best love to linger and learn to measure in their
minds the vast triumph of waters before them, I recommend such of my
readers as can trust a little,--it need be but a little,--to their
own legs to select their hotel at Niagara Falls town.
It has been said that it matters much from what point the falls are
first seen, but to this I demur. It matters, I think, very little,
or not at all. Let the visitor first see it all, and learn the
whereabouts of every point, so as to understand his own position and
that of the waters; and then having done that in the way of business
let him proceed to enjoyment. I doubt whether it be not the best to
do this with all sight seeing. I am quite sure that it is the way in
which acquaintance may be best and most pleasantly made with a new
picture.
The falls are, as I have said, made by a sudden breach in the level
of the river. All cataracts are, I presume, made by such breaches;
but generally the waters do not fall precipitously as they do at
Niagara, and never elsewhere, as far as the world yet knows, has a
breach so sudden been made in a river carrying in its channel such
or any approach to such a body of water. Up above the falls, for
more than a mile, the waters leap and burst over rapids, as though
conscious of the destiny that awaits them. Here the river is very
broad, and comparatively shallow, but from shore to shore it frets
itself into little torrents, and begins to assume the majesty of its
power. Looking at it even here, in the expanse which forms itself
over the greater fall, one feels sure that no strongest swimmer
could have a chance of saving himself, if fate had cast him in even
among those petty whirlpools. The waters, though so broken in their
descent, are deliciously green. This colour as seen early in the
morning, or just as the sun has set, is so bright as to give to the
place one of its chiefest charms.
This will be best seen from the further end of the island,--Goat
Island, as it is called,--which, as the reader will understand,
divides the river immediately above the falls. Indeed the island is a
part of that precipitously broken ledge over which the river tumbles;
and no doubt in process of time will be worn away and covered with
water. The time, however, will be very long. In the meanwhile it is
perhaps a mile round, and is covered thickly with timber. At the
upper end of the island the waters are divided, and coming down in
two courses, each over its own rapids, form two separate falls. The
bridge by which the island is entered is a hundred yards or more
above the smaller fall. The waters here have been turned by the
island, and make their leap into the body of the river below at a
right angle with it,--about two hundred yards below the greater fall.
Taken alone this smaller cataract would, I imagine, be the heaviest
fall of water known, but taken in conjunction with the other it is
terribly shorn of its majesty. The waters here are not green as they
are at the larger cataract, and though the ledge has been hollowed
and bowed by them so as to form a curve, that curve does not deepen
itself into a vast abyss as it does at the horseshoe up above. This
smaller fall is again divided, and the visitor passing down a flight
of steps and over a frail wooden bridge finds himself on a smaller
island in the midst of it.
But we will go at once on to the glory, and the thunder, and the
majesty, and the wrath of that upper hell of waters. We are still,
let the reader remember, on Goat Island, still in the States, and
on what is called the American side of the main body of the river.
Advancing beyond the path leading down to the lesser fall, we come to
that point of the island at which the waters of the main river begin
to descend. From hence across to the Canadian side the cataract
continues itself in one unabated line. But the line is very far from
being direct or straight. After stretching for some little way from
the shore, to a point in the river which is reached by a wooden
bridge at the end of which stands a tower upon the rock,--after
stretching to this, the line of the ledge bends inwards against the
flood,--in, and in, and in till one is led to think that the depth
of that horseshoe is immeasurable. It has been cut with no stinting
hand. A monstrous cantle has been worn back out of the centre of the
rock, so that the fury of the waters converges, and the spectator as
he gazes into the hollow with wishful eyes fancies that he can hardly
trace out the centre of the abyss.
Go down to the end of that wooden bridge, seat yourself on the rail,
and there sit till all the outer world is lost to you. There is no
grander spot about Niagara than this. The waters are absolutely
around you. If you have that power of eye-control which is so
necessary to the full enjoyment of scenery you will see nothing but
the water. You will certainly hear nothing else; and the sound, I beg
you to remember, is not an ear-cracking, agonizing crash and clang of
noises; but is melodious, and soft withal, though loud as thunder. It
fills your ears, and as it were envelopes them, but at the same time
you can speak to your neighbour without an effort. But at this place,
and in these moments, the less of speaking I should say the better.
There is no grander spot than this. Here, seated on the rail of the
bridge, you will not see the whole depth of the fall. In looking at
the grandest works of nature, and of art too, I fancy, it is never
well to see all. There should be something left to the imagination,
and much should be half concealed in mystery. The greatest charm of a
mountain range is the wild feeling that there must be strange unknown
desolate worlds in those far-off valleys beyond. And so here, at
Niagara, that converging rush of waters may fall down, down at once
into a hell of rivers for what the eye can see. It is glorious to
watch them in their first curve over the rocks. They come green
as a bank of emeralds; but with a fitful flying colour, as though
conscious that in one moment more they would be dashed into spray and
rise into air, pale as driven snow. The vapour rises high into the
air, and is gathered there, visible always as a permanent white cloud
over the cataract; but the bulk of the spray which fills the lower
hollow of that horse-shoe is like a tumult of snow. This you will
not fully see from your seat on the rail. The head of it rises ever
and anon out of that caldron below, but the caldron itself will be
invisible. It is ever so far down,--far as your own imagination can
sink it. But your eyes will rest full upon the curve of the waters.
The shape you will be looking at is that of a horse-shoe, but of
a horse-shoe miraculously deep from toe to heel;--and this depth
becomes greater as you sit there. That which at first was only great
and beautiful, becomes gigantic and sublime till the mind is at loss
to find an epithet for its own use. To realize Niagara you must sit
there till you see nothing else than that which you have come to see.
You will hear nothing else, and think of nothing else. At length you
will be at one with the tumbling river before you. You will find
yourself among the waters as though you belonged to them. The cool
liquid green will run through your veins, and the voice of the
cataract will be the expression of your own heart. You will fall as
the bright waters fall, rushing down into your new world with no
hesitation and with no dismay; and you will rise again as the spray
rises, bright, beautiful, and pure. Then you will flow away in your
course to the uncompassed, distant, and eternal ocean.
When this state has been reached and has passed away you may get off
your rail and mount the tower. I do not quite approve of that tower,
seeing that it has about it a gingerbread air, and reminds one of
those well-arranged scenes of romance in which one is told that on
the left you turn to the lady's bower, price sixpence; and on the
right ascend to the knight's bed, price sixpence more, with a view
of the hermit's tomb thrown in. But nevertheless the tower is worth
mounting, and no money is charged for the use of it. It is not very
high, and there is a balcony at the top on which some half dozen
persons may stand at ease. Here the mystery is lost, but the whole
fall is seen. It is not even at this spot brought so fully before
your eye,--made to show itself in so complete and entire a shape,
as it will do when you come to stand near to it on the opposite or
Canadian shore. But I think that it shows itself more beautifully.
And the form of the cataract is such, that, here in Goat Island,
on the American side, no spray will reach you, although you are
absolutely over the waters. But on the Canadian side, the road as it
approaches the fall is wet and rotten with spray, and you, as you
stand close upon the edge, will be wet also. The rainbows as they are
seen through the rising cloud--for the sun's rays as seen through
these waters show themselves in a bow as they do when seen through
rain,--are pretty enough, and are greatly loved. For myself I do
not care for this prettiness at Niagara. It is there, but I forget
it,--and do not mind how soon it is forgotten.
But we are still on the tower; and here I must declare that though
I forgive the tower, I cannot forgive the horrid obelisk which has
latterly been built opposite to it, on the Canadian side, up above
the fall; built apparently,--for I did not go to it,--with some
camera obscura intention for which the projector deserves to be put
in Coventry by all good Christian men and women. 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
gauntlet 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 20 cents, take a seat on a wooden car of wonderful shape,
and on the touch of a spring find yourself travelling 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 and 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 towards
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. You will descend this shaft, taking to
yourself or not taking to yourself a suit of oil-clothes as you
may think best. I have gone with and without the suit, and again
recommend that they be left behind. I am inclined to think that
the ordinary payment should be made for their use, as otherwise it
will appear to those whose trade it is to prepare them that you are
injuring them in their vested rights.
Some three years since I visited Niagara on my way back to England
from Bermuda, and in a volume of travels which I then published I
endeavoured to explain the impression made upon me by this passage
between the rock and the waterfall. An author should not quote
himself; but as I feel myself bound, in writing a chapter specially
about Niagara, to give some account of this strange position, I will
venture to repeat my own words.
In the spot to which I allude the visitor stands on a broad safe
path, made of shingles, between the rock over which the water rushes
and the rushing water. He will go in so far that the spray rising
back from the bed of the torrent does not incommode him. With this
exception, the further he can go in the better; but circumstances
will clearly show him the spot to which he should advance. Unless
the water be driven in by a very strong wind, five yards make the
difference between a comparatively dry coat and an absolutely wet
one. And then let him stand with his back to the entrance, thus
hiding the last glimmer of the expiring day. So standing he will look
up among the falling waters, or down into the deep misty pit, from
which they reascend in almost as palpable a bulk. The rock will be
at his right hand, high and hard, and dark and straight, like the
wall of some huge cavern, such as children enter in their dreams.
For the first five minutes he will be looking but at the waters of a
cataract,--at the waters, indeed, of such a cataract as we know no
other, and at their interior curves which elsewhere we cannot see.
But by-and-by all this will change. He will no longer be on a shingly
path beneath a waterfall; but that feeling of a cavern wall will grow
upon him, of a cavern deep, below roaring seas, in which the waves
are there, though they do not enter in upon him; or rather not the
waves, but the very bowels of the ocean. He will feel as though the
floods surrounded him, coming and going with their wild sounds, and
he will hardly recognize that though among them he is not in them.
And they, as they fall with a continual roar, not hurting the ear,
but musical withal, will seem to move as the vast ocean waters may
perhaps move in their internal currents. He will lose the sense of
one continued descent, and think that they are passing round him in
their appointed courses. The broken spray that rises from the depth
below, rises so strongly, so palpably, so rapidly, that the motion in
every direction will seem equal. And, as he looks on, strange colours
will show themselves through the mist; the shades of grey will become
green or blue, with ever and anon a flash of white; and then, when
some gust of wind blows in with greater violence, the sea-girt cavern
will become all dark and black. Oh, my friend, let there be no one
there to speak to thee then; no, not even a brother. As you stand
there speak only to the waters.
Two miles below the falls the river is crossed by a suspension bridge
of marvellous construction. It affords two thoroughfares, one above
the other. The lower road is for carriages and horses, and the upper
one bears a railway belonging to the Great Western Canada line. The
view from hence both up and down the river is very beautiful, for the
bridge is built immediately over the first of a series of rapids. One
mile below the bridge these rapids end in a broad basin called the
whirlpool, and, issuing out of this, the current turns to the right
through a narrow channel overhung by cliffs and trees, and then makes
its way down to Lake Ontario with comparative tranquillity.
But I will beg you to take notice of those rapids from the bridge and
to ask yourself what chance of life would remain to any ship, craft,
or boat required by destiny to undergo navigation beneath the bridge
and down into that whirlpool. Heretofore all men would have said
that no chance of life could remain to so ill-starred a bark. The
navigation, however, has been effected. But men used to the river
still say that the chances would be fifty to one against any vessel
which should attempt to repeat the experiment.
The story of that wondrous voyage was as follows. A small steamer
called the Maid of the Mist was built upon the river, between the
falls and the rapids, and was used for taking adventurous tourists up
amidst the spray, as near to the cataract as was possible. The Maid
of the Mist plied in this way for a year or two, and was, I believe,
much patronized during the season. But in the early part of last
summer an evil time had come. Either the Maid got into debt, or her
owner had embarked in other and less profitable speculations. At any
rate he became subject to the law, and tidings reached him that the
Sheriff would seize the Maid. On most occasions the Sheriff is bound
to keep such intentions secret, seeing that property is moveable,
and that an insolvent debtor will not always await the officers of
justice. But with the poor Maid there was no need of such secresy.
There was but a mile or so of water on which she could ply, and she
was forbidden by the nature of her properties to make any way upon
land. The Sheriff's prey therefore was easy and the poor Maid was
doomed.
In any country in the world but America such would have been the
case, but an American would steam down Phlegethon to save his
property from the Sheriff; he would steam down Phlegethon or get some
one else to do it for him. Whether or no in this case the captain of
the boat was the proprietor, or whether, as I was told, he was paid
for the job, I do not know; but he determined to run the rapids, and
he procured two others to accompany him in the risk. He got up his
steam, and took the Maid up amidst the spray according to his custom.
Then suddenly turning on his course, he with one of his companions
fixed himself at the wheel, while the other remained at his engine.
I wish I could look into the mind of that man and understand what his
thoughts were at that moment; what were his thoughts and what his
beliefs. As to one of the men I was told that he was carried down,
not knowing what he was about to do, but I am inclined to believe
that all the three were joined together in the attempt.
I was told by a man who saw the boat pass under the bridge, that she
made one long leap down as she came thither, that her funnel was at
once knocked flat on the deck by the force of the blow, that the
waters covered her from stem to stern, and that then she rose again
and skimmed into the whirlpool a mile below. When there she rode with
comparative ease upon the waters, and took the sharp turn round into
the river below without a struggle. The feat was done, and the Maid
was rescued from the Sheriff. It is said that she was sold below at
the mouth of the river, and carried from thence over Lake Ontario and
down the St. Lawrence to Quebec.