In the car for Niagara was an Englishman of the receptive, guileless,
thin type, inquisitive and overflowing with approval of everything
American--a type which has now become one of the common features of
travel in this country. He had light hair, sandy side-whiskers, a face
that looked as if it had been scrubbed with soap and sandpaper, and he
wore a sickly yellow traveling-suit. He was accompanied by his wife, a
stout, resolute matron, in heavy boots, a sensible stuff gown, with a
lot of cotton lace fudged about her neck, and a broad brimmed hat with
a vegetable garden on top. The little man was always in pursuit of
information, in his guide-book or from his fellow-passengers, and
whenever he obtained any he invariably repeated it to his wife, who
said “Fancy!” and “Now, really!” in a rising inflection that expressed
surprise and expectation.
The conceited American, who commonly draws himself into a shell when he
travels, and affects indifference, and seems to be losing all natural
curiosity, receptivity, and the power of observation, is pretty certain
to undervalue the intelligence of this class of English travelers, and
get amusement out of their peculiarities instead of learning from them
how to make everyday of life interesting. Even King, who, besides his
national crust of exclusiveness, was today wrapped in the gloom of
Irene's letter, was gradually drawn to these simple, unpretending
people. He took for granted their ignorance of America--ignorance of
America being one of the branches taught in the English schools--and he
soon discovered that they were citizens of the world. They not only knew
the Continent very well, but they had spent a winter in Egypt, lived a
year in India, and seen something of China and much of Japan. Although
they had been scarcely a fortnight in the United States, King doubted
if there were ten women in the State of New York, not professional
teachers, who knew as much of the flora of the country as this
plain-featured, rich-voiced woman. They called King's attention to a
great many features of the landscape he had never noticed before, and
asked him a great many questions about farming and stock and wages
that he could not answer. It appeared that Mr. Stanley Stubbs,
Stoke-Cruden--for that was the name and address of the present
discoverers of America--had a herd of short-horns, and that Mrs. Stubbs
was even more familiar with the herd-book than her husband. But before
the fact had enabled King to settle the position of his new acquaintance
satisfactorily to himself, Mrs. Stubbs upset his estimate by quoting
Tennyson.
“Your great English poet is very much read here,” King said, by way of
being agreeable.
“So we have heard,” replied Mrs. Stubbs. “Mr. Stubbs reads Tennyson
beautifully. He has thought of giving some readings while we are here.
We have been told that the Americans are very fond of readings.”
“Yes,” said King, “they are devoted to them, especially readings
by Englishmen in their native tongue. There is a great rage now for
everything English; at Newport hardly anything else is spoken.”
Mrs. Stubbs looked for a moment as if this might be an American joke;
but there was no smile upon King's face, and she only said, “Fancy! You
must make a note of Newport, dear. That is one of the places we must
see. Of course Mr. Stubbs has never read in public, you know. But I
suppose that would make no difference, the Americans are so kind and so
appreciative.”
“Not the least difference,” replied King. “They are used to it.”
“It is a wonderful country,” said Mr. Stubbs.
“Most interesting,” chimed in Mrs. Stubbs; “and so odd!
“You know, Mr. King, we find some of the Americans so clever. We have
been surprised, really. It makes us feel quite at home. At the hotels
and everywhere, most obliging.”
“Do you make a long stay?”
“Oh, no. We just want to study the people and the government, and see
the principal places. We were told that Albany is the capital, instead
of New York; it's so odd, you know. And Washington is another capital.
And there is Boston. It must be very confusing.” King began to suspect
that he must be talking with the editor of the Saturday Review. Mr.
Stubbs continued: “They told us in New York that we ought to go
to Paterson on the Island of Jersey, I believe. I suppose it is as
interesting as Niagara. We shall visit it on our return. But we came
over more to see Niagara than anything else. And from there we shall run
over to Chicago and the Yosemite. Now we are here, we could not think of
going back without a look at the Yosemite.”
King said that thus far he had existed without seeing the Yosemite, but
he believed that next to Chicago it was the most attractive place in the
country.
It was dark when they came into the station at Niagara--dark and silent.
Our American tourists, who were accustomed to the clamor of the hackmen
here, and expected to be assaulted by a horde of wild Comanches in plain
clothes, and torn limb from baggage, if not limb from limb, were unable
to account for this silence, and the absence of the common highwaymen,
until they remembered that the State had bought the Falls, and the
agents of the government had suppressed many of the old nuisances. It
was possible now to hear the roar of the cataract.
This unaccustomed human stillness was ominous to King. He would have
welcomed a Niagara of importunity and imprecations; he was bursting with
impatience to express himself; it seemed as if he would die if he were
silent an hour longer under that letter. Of course the usual American
relief of irritability and impatience suggested itself. He would
telegraph; only electricity was quick enough and fiery enough for his
mood. But what should he telegraph? The telegraph was not invented for
love-making, and is not adapted to it. It is ridiculous to make love by
wire. How was it possible to frame a message that should be commercial
on its face, and yet convey the deepest agony and devotion of the
sender's heart? King stood at the little telegraph window, looking at
the despatcher who was to send it, and thought of this. Depressed and
intent as he was, the whimsicality of the situation struck him. What
could he say? It illustrates our sheeplike habit of expressing ourselves
in the familiar phrase or popular slang of the day that at the instant
the only thing King could think of to send was this: “Hold the fort,
for I am coming.” The incongruity of this made him smile, and he did not
write it. Finally he composed this message, which seemed to him to have
a businesslike and innocent aspect: “Too late. Impossible for me to
change. Have invested everything. Expect letter.” Mechanically he
counted the words when he had written this. On the fair presumption that
the company would send “everything” as one word, there were still two
more than the conventional ten, and, from force of habit, he struck out
the words “for me.” But he had no sooner done this than he felt a sense
of shame. It was contemptible for a man in love to count his words, and
it was intolerable to be haggling with himself at such a crisis over
the expense of a despatch. He got cold over the thought that Irene might
also count them, and see that the cost of this message of passion had
been calculated. And with recklessness he added: “We reach the Profile
House next week, and I am sure I can convince you I am right.”
King found Niagara pitched to the key of his lacerated and tumultuous
feelings. There were few people at the Cataract House, and either the
bridal season had not set in, or in America a bride has been evolved who
does not show any consciousness of her new position. In his present mood
the place seemed deserted, the figures of the few visitors gliding about
as in a dream, as if they too had been subdued by the recent commission
which had silenced the drivers, and stopped the mills, and made the park
free, and was tearing down the presumptuous structures along the bank.
In this silence, which emphasized the quaking of the earth and air,
there was a sense of unknown, impending disaster. It was not to be borne
indoors, and the two friends went out into the night.
On the edge of the rapids, above the hotel, the old bath-house was in
process of demolition, its shaking piazza almost overhanging the flood.
Not much could be seen from it, but it was in the midst of an elemental
uproar. Some electric lamps shining through the trees made high lights
on the crests of the rapids, while the others near were in shadow and
dark. The black mass of Goat Island appeared under the lightning flashes
in the northwest sky, and whenever these quick gleams pierced the gloom
the frail bridge to the island was outlined for a moment, and then
vanished as if it had been swept away, and there could only be seen
sparks of light in the houses on the Canadian shore, which seemed very
near. In this unknown, which was rather felt than seen, there was a
sense of power and of mystery which overcame the mind; and in the black
night the roar, the cruel haste of the rapids, tossing white gleams and
hurrying to the fatal plunge, begat a sort of terror in the spectators.
It was a power implacable, vengeful, not to be measured. They strolled
down to Prospect Park. The gate was closed; it had been the scene of an
awful tragedy but a few minutes before. They did not know it, but they
knew that the air shuddered, and as they skirted the grounds along
the way to the foot-bridge the roar grew in their stunned ears. There,
projected out into the night, were the cables of steel holding the frail
platform over the abyss of night and terror. Beyond was Canada. There
was light enough in the sky to reveal, but not to dissipate, the
appalling insecurity. What an impious thing it seemed to them, this
trembling structure across the chasm! They advanced upon it. There were
gleams on the mill cascades below, and on the mass of the American Fall.
Below, down in the gloom, were patches of foam, slowly circling around
in the eddy--no haste now, just sullen and black satisfaction in the
awful tragedy of the fall. The whole was vague, fearful. Always the
roar, the shuddering of the air. I think that a man placed on this
bridge at night, and ignorant of the cause of the aerial agitation and
the wild uproar, could almost lose his reason in the panic of the scene.
They walked on; they set foot on Her Majesty's dominions; they entered
the Clifton House--quite American, you know, with its new bar and
office. A subdued air about everybody here also, and the same quaking,
shivering, and impending sense of irresponsible force. Even “two
fingers,” said the artist, standing at the bar, had little effect in
allaying the impression of the terror out there. When they returned
the moon was coming up, rising and struggling and making its way slowly
through ragged masses of colored clouds. The river could be plainly seen
now, smooth, deep, treacherous; the falls on the American side showed
fitfully like patches of light and foam; the Horseshoe, mostly hidden
by a cold silver mist, occasionally loomed up a white and ghostly mass.
They stood for a long time looking down at the foot of the American
Fall, the moon now showing clearly the plunge of the heavy column--a
column as stiff as if it were melted silver-hushed and frightened by the
weird and appalling scene. They did not know at that moment that there
where their eyes were riveted, there at the base of the fall, a man's
body was churning about, plunged down and cast up, and beaten and
whirled, imprisoned in the refluent eddy. But a body was there. In the
morning a man's overcoat was found on the parapet at the angle of the
fall. Someone then remembered that in the evening, just before the park
gate closed, he had seen a man approach the angle of the wall where the
overcoat was found. The man was never seen after that. Night first, and
then the hungry water, swallowed him. One pictures the fearful leap into
the dark, the midway repentance, perhaps, the despair of the plunge. A
body cast in here is likely to tarry for days, eddying round and round,
and tossed in that terrible maelstrom, before a chance current ejects
it, and sends it down the fierce rapids below. King went back to the
hotel in a terror of the place, which did not leave him so long as he
remained. His room quivered, the roar filled all the air. Is not life
real and terrible enough, he asked himself, but that brides must cast
this experience also into their honeymoon?
The morning light did not efface the impressions of the night, the
dominating presence of a gigantic, pitiless force, a blind passion of
nature, uncontrolled and uncontrollable. Shut the windows and lock the
door, you could not shut out the terror of it. The town did not seem
safe; the bridges, the buildings on the edge of the precipices with
their shaking casements, the islands, might at any moment be engulfed
and disappear. It was a thing to flee from.
I suspect King was in a very sensitive mood; the world seemed for the
moment devoid of human sympathy, and the savageness and turmoil played
upon his bare nerves. The artist himself shrank from contact with this
overpowering display, and said that he could not endure more than a day
or two of it. It needed all the sunshine in the face of Miss Lamont and
the serenity of her cheerful nature to make the situation tolerable,
and even her sprightliness was somewhat subdued. It was a day of big,
broken, high-sailing clouds, with a deep blue sky and strong sunlight.
The slight bridge to Goat Island appeared more presumptuous by daylight,
and the sharp slope of the rapids above it gave a new sense of the
impetuosity of the torrent. As they walked slowly on, past the now
abandoned paper-mills and the other human impertinences, the elemental
turmoil increased, and they seemed entering a world the foundations
of which were broken up. This must have been a good deal a matter of
impression, for other parties of sightseers were coming and going,
apparently unawed, and intent simply on visiting every point spoken of
in the guide-book, and probably unconscious of the all-pervading
terror. But King could not escape it, even in the throng descending and
ascending the stairway to Luna Island. Standing upon the platform at the
top, he realized for the first time the immense might of the downpour of
the American Fall, and noted the pale green color, with here and there a
violet tone, and the white cloud mass spurting out from the solid
color. On the foam-crested river lay a rainbow forming nearly a complete
circle. The little steamer Maid of the Mist was coming up, riding the
waves, dashed here and there by conflicting currents, but resolutely
steaming on--such is the audacity of man--and poking her venturesome
nose into the boiling foam under the Horseshoe. On the deck are pigmy
passengers in oil-skin suits, clumsy figures, like arctic explorers.
The boat tosses about like a chip, it hesitates and quivers, and then,
slowly swinging, darts away down the current, fleeing from the wrath of
the waters, and pursued by the angry roar.
Surely it is an island of magic, unsubstantial, liable to go adrift and
plunge into the canon. Even in the forest path, where the great tree
trunks assure one of stability and long immunity, this feeling cannot be
shaken off. Our party descended the winding staircase in the tower, and
walked on the shelf under the mighty ledge to the entrance of the Cave
of the Winds. The curtain of water covering this entrance was blown back
and forth by the wind, now leaving the platform dry and now deluging it.
A woman in the pathway was beckoning frantically and calling to a man
who stood on the platform, entirely unconscious of danger, looking up
to the green curtain and down into the boiling mist. It was Mrs. Stubbs;
but she was shouting against Niagara, and her husband mistook her
pantomime for gestures of wonder and admiration. Some moments
passed, and then the curtain swung in, and tons of water drenched the
Englishman, and for an instant hid him from sight. Then, as the curtain
swung back, he was seen clinging to the handrail, sputtering and
astonished at such treatment. He came up the bank dripping, and
declaring that it was extraordinary, most extraordinary, but he wouldn't
have missed it for the world. From this platform one looks down the
narrow, slippery stairs that are lost in the boiling mist, and wonders
at the daring that built these steps down into that hell, and carried
the frail walk of planks over the bowlders outside the fall. A party in
oil-skins, making their way there, looked like lost men and women in
a Dante Inferno. The turbulent waters dashed all about them; the mist
occasionally wrapped them from sight; they clung to the rails, they
tried to speak to each other; their gestures seemed motions of despair.
Could that be Eurydice whom the rough guide was tenderly dragging out of
the hell of waters, up the stony path, that singular figure in oil-skin
trousers, who disclosed a pretty face inside her hood as she emerged?
One might venture into the infernal regions to rescue such a woman; but
why take her there? The group of adventurers stopped a moment on the
platform, with the opening into the misty cavern for a background, and
the artist said that the picture was, beyond all power of the pencil,
strange and fantastic. There is nothing, after all, that the human race
will not dare for a new sensation.
The walk around Goat Island is probably unsurpassed in the world for
wonder and beauty. The Americans have every reason to be satisfied with
their share of the fall; they get nowhere one single grand view like
that from the Canada side, but infinitely the deepest impression of
majesty and power is obtained on Goat Island. There the spectator is in
the midst of the war of nature. From the point over the Horseshoe Fall
our friends, speaking not much, but more and more deeply moved, strolled
along in the lovely forest, in a rural solemnity, in a local calm,
almost a seclusion, except for the ever-present shuddering roar in
the air. On the shore above the Horseshoe they first comprehended the
breadth, the great sweep, of the rapids. The white crests of the waves
in the west were coming out from under a black, lowering sky; all the
foreground was in bright sunlight, dancing, sparkling, leaping, hurrying
on, converging to the angle where the water becomes a deep emerald
at the break and plunge. The rapids above are a series of shelves,
bristling with jutting rocks and lodged trunks of trees, and the
wildness of the scene is intensified by the ragged fringe of evergreens
on the opposite shore.
Over the whole island the mist, rising from the caldron, drifts in
spray when the wind is rable; but on this day the forest was bright and
cheerful, and as the strollers went farther away from the Great Fall;
the beauty of the scene began to steal away its terror. The roar was
still dominant, but far off and softened, and did not crush the ear.
The triple islands, the Three Sisters, in their picturesque wildness
appeared like playful freaks of nature in a momentary relaxation of the
savage mood. Here is the finest view of the river; to one standing on
the outermost island the great flood seems tumbling out of the sky.
They continued along the bank of the river. The shallow stream races by
headlong, but close to the edge are numerous eddies, and places where
one might step in and not be swept away. At length they reached the
point where the river divides, and the water stands for an instant
almost still, hesitating whether to take the Canadian or American
plunge. Out a little way from the shore the waves leap and tumble, and
the two currents are like race-horses parted on two ways to the goal.
Just at this point the water swirls and lingers; having lost all its
fierceness and haste, and spreads itself out placidly, dimpling in the
sun. It may be a treacherous pause, this water may be as cruel as that
which rages below and exults in catching a boat or a man and bounding
with the victim over the cataract; but the calm was very grateful to the
stunned and buffeted visitors; upon their jarred nerves it was like the
peace of God.
“The preacher might moralize here,” said King. “Here is the parting of
the ways for the young man; here is a moment of calm in which he can
decide which course he will take. See, with my hand I can turn the
water to Canada or to America! So momentous is the easy decision of the
moment.”
“Yes,” said the artist, “your figure is perfect. Whichever side the
young man takes, he goes to destruction.”
“Or,” continued King, appealing to Miss Lamont against this illogical
construction, “this is the maiden at the crucial instant of choosing
between two impetuous suitors.”
“You mean she will be sorry, whichever she chooses?”
“You two practical people would spoil any illustration in the world. You
would divest the impressive drop of water on the mountain summit, which
might go to the Atlantic or to the Pacific, of all moral character by
saying that it makes no difference which ocean it falls into.”
The relief from the dread of Niagara felt at this point of peace was
only temporary. The dread returned when the party approached again the
turmoil of the American Fall, and fell again under the influence of the
merciless haste of the flood. And there every islet, every rock, every
point, has its legend of terror; here a boat lodged with a man in it,
and after a day and night of vain attempts to rescue him, thousands of
people saw him take the frightful leap, throwing up his arms as he went
over; here a young woman slipped, and was instantly whirled away out
of life; and from that point more than one dazed or frantic visitor had
taken the suicidal leap. Death was so near here and so easy!
One seems in less personal peril on the Canadian side, and has more
the feeling of a spectator and less that of a participant in the wild
uproar. Perhaps there is more sense of force, but the majesty of the
scene is relieved by a hundred shifting effects of light and color.
In the afternoon, under a broken sky, the rapids above the Horseshoe
reminded one of the seashore on a very stormy day. Impeded by the rocks,
the flood hesitated and even ran back, as if reluctant to take the final
plunge! The sienna color of the water on the table contrasted sharply
with the emerald at the break of the fall. A rainbow springing out of
the centre of the caldron arched clear over the American cataract, and
was one moment bright and the next dimly seen through the mist, which
boiled up out of the foam of waters and swayed in the wind. Through this
veil darted adventurous birds, flashing their wings in the prismatic
colors, and circling about as if fascinated by the awful rush and
thunder. With the shifting wind and the passing clouds the scene was in
perpetual change; now the American Fall was creamy white, and the mist
below dark, and again the heavy mass was gray and sullen, and the mist
like silver spray. Perhaps nowhere else in the world is the force of
nature so overpowering to the mind, and as the eye wanders from the
chaos of the fall to the far horizon, where the vast rivers of rapids
are poured out of the sky, one feels that this force is inexhaustible
and eternal.
If our travelers expected to escape the impression they were under by
driving down to the rapids and whirlpool below, they were mistaken.
Nowhere is the river so terrible as where it rushes, as if maddened
by its narrow bondage, through the canon. Flung down the precipice and
forced into this contracted space, it fumes and tosses and rages with
vindictive fury, driving on in a passion that has almost a human quality
in it. Restrained by the walls of stone from being destructive, it seems
to rave at its own impotence, and when it reaches the whirlpool it is
like a hungry animal, returning and licking the shore for the prey it
has missed. But it has not always wanted a prey. Now and again it has a
wreck or a dead body to toss and fling about. Although it does not need
the human element of disaster to make this canon grewsome, the keepers
of the show places make the most of the late Captain Webb. So vivid
were their narratives that our sympathetic party felt his presence
continually, saw the strong swimmer tossed like a chip, saw him throw up
his hands, saw the agony in his face at the spot where he was last
seen. There are several places where he disappeared, each vouched for
by credible witnesses, so that the horror of the scene is multiplied for
the tourist. The late afternoon had turned gray and cold, and dashes of
rain fell as our party descended to the whirlpool. As they looked over
the heaped-up and foaming waters in this eddy they almost expected to
see Captain Webb or the suicide of the night before circling round in
the maelstrom. They came up out of the gorge silent, and drove back to
the hotel full of nervous apprehension.
King found no telegram from Irene, and the place seemed to him
intolerable. The artist was quite ready to go on in the morning; indeed,
the whole party, although they said it was unreasonable, confessed that
they were almost afraid to stay longer; the roar, the trembling, the
pervading sense of a blind force and rage, inspired a nameless dread.
The artist said, the next morning at the station, that he understood the
feelings of Lot.