TWO DAYS AT NIAGARA.
“As if God poured it from his hollow hand,
And had bid
Its flood to chronicle the ages back,
And notch his centuries in the eternal rock.”
“No clearing to-day, Norman,” said Mrs. Lester, as they left the
Cataract Hotel in the drizzling rain to cross over to Goat Island. They
paused upon the bridge, and looked upon the rapids, foaming, and
dashing, and roaring beneath.
“I can understand now,” said Norman, “what I have read about morbid
impulses, for I feel as if I would like to jump into the rushing water.”
The path down the hill to Juna Island was very muddy and slippery, and
they were obliged to walk down very carefully, lest a misstep should
plunge them into the mighty current.
Mrs. Lester told Norman of a happy party that once crossed the bridge to
this island; of the little girl playfully thrown toward the fall by a
young man; of the sudden terror that led her to jump from his arms; of
his fearful plunge to save the life he had periled, and of the twain
borne over that giddy verge. Those fresh young lives, gone in one
moment, with all of earthly hope and aspiration.
It was fearful to think of; but how many are daily and hourly borne, by
the mighty tides of worldliness and sin, over a more tremendous
precipice; and there are no cries or prayers of pitying love; no man
careth for their souls!
Norman was very silent as he looked for the first time on that wondrous
fall, the sight of which, he said, took away his strength. He felt awed
and solemnized by this mighty display of God’s mighty works.
By the path on Goat Island, not beautiful and attractive as usual, for
the trees had not put on their heavy foliage, and the path was wet and
muddy, they walked to a little rural building, where, sheltered from the
falling rain, they could look down upon the Horse-Shoe Fall. On one
point in this magnificent cataract Norman loved to look; it was the
angular central point where the stream is greatest in volume, and where
its exquisite hue of emerald green continually breaks into snowy
whiteness.
“I have heard those falling waters compared to the robes of a goddess
continually falling from her shoulders,” said Mrs. Lester; “but the
thought is scarcely spiritual enough to satisfy one.”
“It seems too grand to say anything about it,” said Norman; “it makes me
so silent.”
“‘Come then, expressive Silence, muse thy praise,’
is a most fitting invocation at this place,” replied his mother.
“I have been looking all round for you,” said a lady, whom they had
found the day before to be a most agreeable fellow-traveler, as she
alighted from the carriage, “and they told me at the hotel that you had
gone to Goat Island, so I came here with the expectation of finding
you.”
After looking awhile at the fall, they descended the hill, crossed the
Terrapin bridge, and ascending the winding staircase in the stone tower,
they came out on the circular balcony above. It was fearful to look from
that giddy height down into the foaming depths below, and in the midst
of those maddening waters one could scarcely believe that the town had a
foundation sufficiently firm to resist their onward course. The columns
of spray, driven by the east wind, almost obscured the opposite cliffs.
Mrs. Bushnell wished Mrs. Lester and Norman to accompany her in her
drive round Goat Island home; but they preferred another hour spent in
sight of the fall. Many carriages drove up while they sat there, and men
with cigars in their mouths jumped out, ran down the hill, over the
bridge, and up the stairs to the tower, where they took a hurried look
at the mighty torrent, and speedily regained their carriages and were
off.
“I really think, mother,” said Norman, “that we are enjoying Niagara
more than any one. We are having such a long look.”
In the afternoon they accompanied Mrs. Bushnell and her nephew to the
British side of the river. They crossed the Suspension Bridge, about two
miles below the falls. It is a miracle of art, a beautiful work of man,
in harmonious contrast with the stupendous works of God. Norman, who had
been studying his guide book, told them that there were more than
eighteen million feet of wire, and that the aggregate length of wire was
more than four thousand miles.
They rode over the lower carriage way of the bridge, which is a single
span, eight hundred feet in length between the massive towers by which
it is supported. In crossing they had a fine distant view of the two
falls, and of the fearful chasm beneath, with its solemn deep waters,
quiet as if exhausted by their recent plunge.
The afternoon was decidedly stormy, the rain fell fast, dimming the
glass of the carriage, and driving in upon them, when the window was
open. The spray hung before the falls as a dense cloud, obscuring more
than half of them from view.
On their return Mr. White, Mrs. Bushnell’s nephew, took Norman by the
hand, and walked over the railroad bridge, while the carriage passed
beneath. Norman looked with wonder at those mighty cables, twisted with
so many wires, and supporting with their interlacing ropes that great
structure weighing eight hundred tons. It seemed so solid and
substantial, that Norman did not think of any danger in crossing it, air
hung as it is over the great abyss.
Another cloudy day, but it was a happy day to Norman and his mother. As
they loitered at Point View and on Goat Island, Norman took three or
four pencil sketches, to be copied and filled up at his leisure. He
gathered some pretty white and blue flowers on Goat Island, and arranged
them fancifully in an Indian birch-bark canoe which he had just
purchased.
“Mother,” said he, holding it up to her, “this canoe looks just like one
of which I have seen a picture. It illustrates an Indian legend of the
paradise of flowers. They are represented as still retaining their
flowerlike forms, leisurely reclining in canoes, floating gently in the
placid streams of the spirit land.”
“How pretty it looks,” said his mother, “with those pendant white
blossoms; I shall always associate this flowery canoe and its graceful
legend with this turn in the path on Goat Island.”
“Are we not having a delightful afternoon, mother? the air is so
pleasant, and there are patches of blue sky, and it is nice not to carry
an umbrella,” said Norman.
“We should not have thought of that element of satisfaction, but for the
experience of these two days; as it is, we are prepared fully to
appreciate it.”
They very much enjoyed their walk up to the “Three Sisters;” the rapids
were of the most beautiful green, flecked with white foam, and in the
absence of sunlight they could look, without being dazzled, upon the
graceful majestic flow of waters. How many longing, lingering looks were
given from each spot as, at the approach of evening, they reluctantly
retraced their steps.
Norman had amused himself during the day in looking over Indian
curiosities, and in addition to a birch-bark canoe worked in porcupine
quills, pincushions, and mats worked in beads, had purchased a
Derbyshire-spar cup and whistle at the store near the bridge to Goat
Island, with the assurance that they were turned at Niagara, out of
Table Rock!
A parting glance from Point View the next morning before breakfast,
after which they took the cars for Buffalo, where they found Professor
L. awaiting them. A long ride on the railroad, near the shore of Lake
Erie, (which was not however often visible,) carried them through
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan, and then through Indiana and Illinois.
All these states looked very much alike to Norman as he hurried past
groves, ravines, towns, and prairies, and after a day and night’s travel
arrived at E., a village near Chicago, without any very definite
impressions of the shifting scenery that had passed before his vision.