Their expectations have been overwhetted; and, moreover, the first
glance is usually obtained from the American shore, an edgewise view
that gives but an inkling of the full majesty of the scene. Yet even
from this point of view we behold the river, almost at our feet, rushing
with concentrated energy to the brink of the precipice, and pouring
headlong, in an agony of froth and foam, into a fearful void, from which
forever rises a rainbow-crowned mist. To stand on the brink and gaze
into this terrible abyss, with the foaming waters plunging in a white
wall downward, is apt to rouse an undefined desire to cast one's self
after the torrent, while minute by minute the mind grows into a
realization of the sublimity of Niagara.
But to behold the cataract in the fulness of its might and glory one
must cross to the Canadian shore, and make his way on foot from the
bridge westward. Carriages will be found in abundance, manned by drivers
more importunate than mellifluous; but if the tourist would see the
Falls at leisure and from every point of view, he must be obdurate, and
resolutely foot his way along the river's precipitous bank.
First, arriving opposite the American Fall, we seat ourselves under a
tree, and gaze with admiration on this magnificent water front, spread
before us in one broad, straight sheet of milk-white foam, swooping ever
downward with graceful undulations, until beaten into mist on the rocks
below.
Passing onward, we approach that grand curved reach of falling water,
whose sublime aspect has been a fruitful theme for poet and artist
since America has had poetry and art. The Horseshoe Fall is the paragon
of cataracts. Sitting on what remains of Table-Rock, and gazing on the
tumbling, heaving, foaming world of waters, which seem to fill the whole
horizon of vision, the mind becomes oppressed with a feeling of awe, and
realizes to its full extent nature's grandest vision.
With one vast leap the broad river shoots headlong into an abyss whose
real depth we are left to imagine, since the feet of the cataract are
forever hidden in a white cloud of mist, shrouded in a dense veil which
no eye can penetrate. At the centre of the curve, where the water is
deepest, the creamy whiteness of the remainder of the cataract is
replaced by a hue of deep green. It seems one vast sheet of liquid
emerald, curving gracefully over the edge of the precipice, and swooping
downward with endless change yet endless stability, its green tinge
relieved with countless flecks of white foam.
The mind cannot long maintain its high level of appreciation of so grand
a scene. The mighty monotony of the view soon loses its absorbing hold
on the senses, and from sheer reaction one perforce passes to prosaic
conceptions of the situation. For our part, we found ourselves
purchasing popped corn from a peripatetic merchant who ludicrously
misplaced the h's in his conversation, and, taking a seat above the
Falls, where the edge of the rapids swerved in and broke in mimic
billows at our feet, we enjoyed mental and creature comforts together.
One need but return to the American side, and cross to the islands
which partly fill the river above the Falls, to obtain rest for his
overstrained brain among quieter aspects of nature. Goat Island one
cannot appreciate without a visit. Travellers, absorbed in the wilder
scenery, rarely do justice to its peculiar charm. Instead of the
contracted space one is apt to expect, he finds himself in an area
of many acres in extent, probably a mile in circumference, its whole
surface to the water's edge covered with dense forest. Passing inward
from its shore, scarce twenty steps are taken before every vestige of
the river is lost to sight, and on reaching its centre we find
ourselves, to all appearance, in the heart of a primeval forest,--only
the subdued roar of the rapids reminding us of the grand scene
surrounding. On all sides rise huge trunks of oaks and beeches,
straight, magnificent trees, many of the beeches seemingly from six to
eight feet in circumference, their once smooth bark covered inch by inch
with a directory of the names of notoriety-loving visitors. At our feet
wild flowers bloom, the twittering of birds is heard overhead, nimble
ground-squirrels fearlessly cross our path, soft mosses and thick grass
form a verdant carpet, and on all sides nature presents us one of her
most charming phases, a picture from Arcadia framed in the heart of a
scene of hurry and turmoil undescribable.
Near the edge of the Falls a rickety bridge leads to a small island on
which stands Terrapin Tower, which yields a fine outlook upon the
Horseshoe Fall, with its mists and rainbows. From the opposite side of
Goat Island we pass to the charming little Luna Island, from whose brink
one may lave his hand in the edge of the American Fall. From the upper
end of Goat Island bridges lead to the Three Sisters. These are small,
thickly-timbered islands, standing in the stream far back from the edge
of the precipice, but in the very foam and fume of the rapids, the
contracted stream dashing under their graceful suspension bridges with
frightful speed and roar.
From the bridge joining the two outer islands one may see the rapids in
their wildest aspect. Here the river, dashing fiercely onward, plunges
over a shelf of rock six or eight feet deep, and is tossed upward in so
tumultuous a turmoil of foam that the heart involuntarily stops beating
and the teeth set hard, as if one were preparing for a desperate
conflict with the fierce power beneath him. From every point on the
shore of the outer island the rapids are seen heaving and tossing as far
as the sight can reach, like the waves of a sea fretted by contrary
winds, here tossed many feet into the air, there sweeping fiercely over
a long ledge of rocks, and ever hurrying forward with eager speed to
where in the distance we see a long, curved, liquid edge, with a light
mist floating upward and hovering in the air beyond it. Here one hears
only the roar of the rapids. Indeed, anywhere in the nearer vicinity,
the sound of the rapids is chiefly heard, the voice of the cataract
itself predominating only on the Canadian side near the Horseshoe Fall.
Here, on this outreaching island, I sat for hours on the gnarled trunk
of a fallen tree that overhung the water, drinking in the grandeur and
glory of Niagara with a mental thirst that seemed unquenchable, and
feeling in my soul that I could willingly stretch the hours into days
and the days into weeks, and still descend with regret from the poetry
of life into its prose.
Leaving Niagara, I took car for Lewistown, the railroad running for its
whole length in full view of the river, whose lofty and rigidly-erect
walls, stretching in unbroken lines for miles below the cataract, give
striking evidence of the vast work performed by the stream in cutting
its way, century after century, through the ridge of solid limestone
that separates the lakes. Far down below the level of the railroad the
water is seen, placidly winding through the deep gorge, or speeding
onward in rapids, its hue intensely green, its banks as lofty and
precipitous as the Palisades of the Hudson.
Before Lewistown is reached the ridge sinks to the river level. At this
point the cataract began its long career, inch by inch eating its way
backward through the former rapids, until they were converted into one
mighty vertical downfall. At Lewistown boat is taken for Toronto,--of
which city only a lake view of warehouses and church steeples is seen
as we change boats for the lake journey.
For the rest of the day and evening we steamed along in full view of the
Canadian shore, an ever-changing panorama of farm lands, sandy bluffs,
occasional hamlets, and several towns of some pretensions to size and
beauty. Kingston, a city at the head of the lake, is reached at four
o'clock in the morning. Immediately after leaving this thriving town the
state-rooms begin to disgorge their occupants, for we now enter the
broad throat of the St. Lawrence River, and here the Thousand Islands
begin. Who that has a soul beyond cakes and ale would let the desire to
indulge in his own dreams cheat him from enjoying one of nature's
loveliest visions?
For some four hours thereafter the boat runs through an uninterrupted
succession of the most beautiful island scenery. These islands number,
in fact, more than eighteen hundred, and are of every conceivable size
and shape; some so minute that they seem but rock pediments to the
single tree that is rooted upon their surface, while the rocky shores of
others stretch for a mile or more along the channel. They are all
heavily wooded, with here and there a light-house, or a rude hovel, as
the only indication of man's contest with primitive nature.
[This description, it may be said, does not apply to the
present time, when mansions and hotels have taken possession
of many of these islands, and evidences of man's occupancy
are somewhat too numerous.]
Every few turns of the wheel reveal some new feature of the scene,
unexpected channels cutting through the centre of a long, wooded reach,
broad open spaces studded with islets, narrow creek-like channels
between rocky island shores, in which the whole river seems contracted
to a slender stream, while farther on the channel expands to a mile in
width, and glimpses of other channels open behind distant islands. Quick
turns in our course plunge us into archipelagoes, through which a dozen
channels run and wind in every direction. Sudden openings in the wooded
shore along which we are swiftly gliding yield glimpses of charming
islands, here closing the view, there cut by narrow channels which
reveal more distant wooded shores, and lead the imagination suggestively
onward till we fancy that scenes of fairy-like beauty lie hidden beyond
those leafy coverts, enviously torn from our sight by the remorseless
onward flight of the boat. For hours we sit in rapt delight, drinking in
new beauty at every turn, and heedless of the fact that the breakfast
gong has long since sounded, and the more prosaic of the passengers have
allowed their physical to overcome their mental hunger.
One tall, long-whiskered old devotee of "cakes and ale," hailing from
somewhere in Ohio, shaped somewhat like a note of interrogation, and
sustaining his character by asking everybody all sorts of questions,
did not, I am positive, digest his breakfast well, for I took a wicked
pleasure in assuring him that we had passed far the most beautiful
portions of the scenery while he was engaged in absorbing creature
comforts, and that the world beside had nothing to compare with the
fairy visions he had lost. Old Buckeye, as I had irreverently christened
him, wished his breakfast was in Hades, and at once set out on a tour of
interrogation to learn if he could not return by the same route and pick
up the lost threads of beauty he had so idly dropped.
Another of our fellow-passengers was an English gentleman of perfect
Lord Dundreary pattern, his every movement being so suggestive of
those of his stage counterpart as to furnish us an unfailing source
of amusement. At Prescott, Canada, a New England college boat-club came
on board with their boat, and highly amused the passengers during the
remainder of the journey with a long succession of comical songs. Three
of them were sons of one of our venerable New England professors, one an
unvenerable professor himself, yet their tanned faces, worn habiliments,
and wild songs bore so strong a flavor of the backwoods that it was hard
mentally to locate them within college walls.
We were roused from dinner by the announcement that the Long Sault Rapid
was at hand, and gladly deserted one of the meanest tables we had ever
encountered to partake of one of nature's rarest banquets.
The boat was entering what seemed a heaving sea, the waters lifting into
dangerous billows, and tossing our craft with unmitigated rudeness,
until it became almost impossible to retain a level footing. But the
appearance of these rapids was different from what we had been led to
expect. The frightful aspect of danger, the rapid down-hill plunge of
the boat, and all the fear-inspiring adornments of the guide-books,
while they might be visible from the shore, did not appear to those on
the deck. Apparently the boat was fixed in the heart of a watery
turmoil, her onward motion lost in her various upward and sidelong
movements, while as for fear, its only evidence lay in little shrieks
full of laughter, as the equilibrium of the craft was suddenly
destroyed.
Five minutes or so of this experience carried us through the perilous
portion of the great rapid, and brought us into safe waters again. The
St. Lawrence has various other rapids between the Long Sault and
Montreal, differing in appearance, some of them being, as far as the eye
can reach, a succession of crossing and tumbling waves, which give the
boat unexpected little heaves, and appear like the waves of a tossing
sea. Here the water plunges rapidly down a narrow throat between two
islands, there it curves round a rocky shore, on which it breaks in
ocean-like billows. But the only point where danger becomes apparent to
untrained eyes is at the La Chine Rapids, near Montreal, where the river
runs through a narrow foaming channel between two long ridges of rock,
over which the water tumbles with a terrible suggestion of peril.
The peak of Montreal mountain has been long visible, and now we rapidly
approach the long line of Victoria bridge, the great pride of Canadian
engineering. Under this we glide with a gymnast at the mast-head, whose
erected feet seem nearly to touch the bridge; and in a short time we
round in to the wharf and are ashore in the largest city of Canada.
FROM NEW YORK TO WASHINGTON IN 1866.
HENRY LATHAM.
[It is not our purpose to enter into descriptions of the cities
of the United States. They are sufficiently familiar already to
our readers. But Mr. Latham has given so graphic a picture of
the outward aspect of the two leading coast cities and the
capital of this country during a past generation that we have
been tempted to quote it. It need scarcely be said that this
account represents only in embryo these cities as they appear
to-day.]
Safe arrived last night, after spending twelve days of my life at sea. I
say last night, as it took us so long to land and get through the
custom-house that it was dark before we reached the Fifth Avenue Hotel.
But it was bright daylight and sunshine as we steamed up the splendid
harbor of New York, a view which I should have been sorry to have
missed. As far as our personal experiences go, the custom-house officers
of New York are not half so troublesome as they are said to be. We had
nothing to smuggle, but there was a vast amount of smuggling done by
some of our fellow-passengers. One man landed with his pocket full of
French watches, and another with a splendid Cashmere shawl round his
neck. The custom-house officer, searching the next luggage to mine,
unearthed two boxes of cigars; of course these were contraband. He spoke
as follows: "Which are the best?" Opens box. "Have you a light? I
forgot; we must not smoke here. Well, I will take a few to smoke after
my supper." Takes twenty cigars, and passes the rest.
_December 14, 1866._--I have been on my feet all day, delivering letters
of introduction. These are plants that require to be put in early, or
they are apt to flower after the sower has quitted the country. The
stores of the Broadway are the most wonderfully glorified shops ever
seen. Something between a Manchester warehouse and a London club-house.
I have spent all my day in going to and fro in Broadway, the wonderful
street of New York; in ten years' time the finest street in the world.
At present there are still so many small old houses standing in line
with the enormous stores, that the effect is somewhat spoiled, by
reason of the ranks not being well dressed. Broadway is now much in
the condition of a child's mouth when cutting its second set of
teeth,--slightly gappy. The enormous stores look even larger now than
they will do when the intervals are filled up. The external splendor of
the shops is chiefly architectural; they make no great display of goods
in the windows; but the large size of the rooms within enables them to
set out and exhibit many times the amount of goods that an English
shop-keeper shows.
The city of New York is on the southern point of Manhattan Island,
having the East River running along one side, and the North River or
Hudson along the other. Some day far in the future, when the present
municipality is purged or swept away, and the splendor of the Thames
Embankment scheme has been realized, New York will probably have two
lines of quays, planted with trees and edged with warehouses, which will
make it one of the finest cities in the world. The business quarter is
at the point of the peninsula. The fashionable quarter is to the north,
reaching every year farther inland. As the city increases, the stores
keep moving northward, taking possession of the houses, and driving the
residents farther back. The land is not yet built over up to Central
Park, said to be called so because it will be the future centre of the
city that is to be.
The concentrated crowd that passes along Broadway in the morning
"down-town" to its business, and back in the evening "up-town" to its
homes, is enormous; but the pavements are bad for men and abominable for
horses: to-day I saw five horses down, and two lying dead. At the same
time, allowance must be made for the fact that it has been snowing and
thawing and freezing again; but as this is no uncommon state of things
in this climate, why pave the streets with flat stones that give no
foothold? The "street-cars" are the universal means of conveyance. These
are omnibuses running on tramways, but the name of omnibus is unknown:
if you speak of a "bus" you are stared at. A young New Yorker, recently
returned from London, was escorting his cousin home one evening; as the
way was long, he stopped and said, "Hold on, Mary, and let's take a
bus." "No, George, not here in the street," the coy damsel replied....
We went to-day to the top of Trinity Church tower; a beautiful panorama,
with the bay of New York to the south, the city stretching away
northward, and a great river on either side. But it was bitterly cold at
the top, as we had heavy snow yesterday, and the wind was blowing
keenly. We went also to the Gold Exchange, and gold happened to be "very
sensitive" this morning, in consequence of some rumors from Mexico which
made it possible that the time for United States interference was nearer
than had been supposed. The noise was deafening; neither the Stock
Exchange nor the ring at Epsom at all approach it. All the men engaged
in a business which one would suppose required more experience than any
other, the buying and selling of gold, seemed to be under twenty-five
years of age; most of them much younger, some quite boys. The reason
given me was that older heads could not stand the tumult, all
gesticulating, all vociferating, every man with a note-book and pencil,
crowded round a ring in the centre of the hall like a little cock-pit,
to which you descend by steps. Every now and then a man rushes out of
the telegraph corner with some news, which oozes out and makes the crowd
howl and seethe again. The hands of a big dial on the wall are moved on
from time to time, marking the hour of the day and the price of gold.
This is the dial of the barometer of national prosperity, marked by gold
instead of mercury....
[Illustration: NEW YORK AND THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE]
A huge sum of money has been laid out on Central Park, the Bois de
Boulogne of New York. When the timber has grown larger it will be very
pretty. The ground is rocky, with little depth of soil in it; this makes
it difficult to get the trees to grow, but, on the other hand, gives the
place a feature not to be found in our parks or at the Bois, in the
large masses of brown sandstone cropping up through the turf here and
there, and in the rocky shores of the little lakes.
In the evening we went, by invitation of our courteous banker, to the
Assembly at Delmonico's rooms. In this we consider ourselves highly
honored and introduced to the best society of New York. The toilets
and the diamonds were resplendent, and one figure of the "German"
(cotillon), in which the ladies formed two groups in the centre, facing
inward with their bright trains spread out behind them, was a splendid
piece of color and costume. Prince Doria was there, and most of the
magnates of the city looked in. Some of the wealthiest people in the
room were pointed out to me as the present representatives of the
families of the old Dutch settlers; those are the pedigrees respected
here.
_December 20, 1866._--We left New York, having stayed exactly a week,
and meaning to return again. By rail to Philadelphia, ninety-two miles,
through a flat, snow-covered country, which, under the circumstances,
looked as dismal as might be. The latter part of our journey lay along
the left bank of the Delaware, which we crossed by a long wooden bridge,
and arrived at the Continental Hotel just at dusk. It is evident we are
moving South. The waiters at this hotel are all darkies.
_December 21, 1866._--Philadelphia is a most difficult town just now for
pedestrians, the door-steps being all of white marble glazed with ice,
and sliding on the pavement may be had in perfection. Spent the best
part of the day in slipping about, trying to deliver letters of
introduction. The system of naming the streets of Philadelphia and of
numbering the houses is extremely ingenious, and answers perfectly when
you have made yourself acquainted with it; but as it takes an ordinary
mind a week to find it out, the stranger who stops four or five days is
apt to execrate it. All the streets run at right angles to one another,
so that a short cut, the joy of the accomplished Londoner, is
impossible. It is a chess-board on which the bishop's move is unknown.
Nothing diagonal can be done. The city is ruled like the page of a
ledger, from top to bottom with streets, from side to side with avenues.
It is all divided into squares. When you are first told this, a vision
arises of the possibility of cutting across these squares from corner to
corner. Not a bit of it: a square at Philadelphia means a solid block of
houses, not an open space enclosed by buildings. When you have wandered
about for some time, the idea suggests itself that every house is
exactly like the house next to it; although the inhabitants have given
up the old uniformity of costume, the houses have not; and without this
elaborate system of numbering, the inhabitants of Philadelphia would
never be able to find their way home.
Nevertheless, if that is the finest town in which its inhabitants are
best lodged, Philadelphia is the finest town in the world. It lodges a
much smaller population than that of New York in more houses. In no
other large town are rents comparatively so cheap. Every decent
workingman can afford to have his separate house, with gas and water
laid on, and fitted with a bath.
We have been making a study of the negro waiters. Perhaps cold weather
affects them; but the first thing about them that strikes you is the
apathetic infantine feeble-mindedness of the "colored persons" lately
called niggers. I say nothing of the seven colored persons, of various
shades, who always sit in a row on a bench in the hall, each with a
little clothes-brush in his hand, and never attempt to do anything;
I allude to those who minister to my wants in the coffee-room with
utterly unknown dishes. I breakfasted yesterday off dun-fish and cream,
Indian pudding, and dipped toast; for dinner I had a baked black-fish
with soho sauce, and stewed venison with port wine; for vegetables,
marrow, squash, and stewed tomatoes; and for pudding, "floating island."
You see there is something exciting about dinner. After you have ordered
four courses of the unknown, and your colored person has gone in the
direction of the kitchen, you sit with the mouth of expectation wide
open. Sometimes you get grossly deceived. Yesterday F---- ordered
"jole," and was sitting in a state of placid doubt, when his colored
person returned with a plate of pickled pork. At present I am quite of
the opinion of the wise man who discovered that colored persons are born
and grow in exactly the same way as uncolored persons up to the age of
thirteen, and that they then cease to develop their skulls and their
intelligence. All the waiters in this hotel appear to be just about the
age of thirteen. There are two who in wisdom are nearly twelve, and one
gray-headed old fellow who is just over fourteen.