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 be comminglings!--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 take every
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 plains
through 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
were under 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 gone abroad, 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 by the 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
vex human 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 which the 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 wresting the 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 time of 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, that the 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, or _vice 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 on the 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, cannot convey 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 the magnesian 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 as liberality--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 the light 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 and then 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 guardian of 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 operations of 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 from their 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 produced by 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 leap _en masse_. The
American Falls are destitute of the beauty 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.