NIAGARA

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.