see the cataracts from all points of view; to stand upon the edge
of the great Horse-Shoe Fall, marking the hurried water gathering
strength as it approached the verge, yet seeming, too, to pause
before it shot into the gulf below; to gaze from the river’s level
up at the torrent as it came streaming down; to climb the
neighbouring heights and watch it through the trees, and see the
wreathing water in the rapids hurrying on to take its fearful
plunge; to linger in the shadow of the solemn rocks three miles
below; watching the river as, stirred by no visible cause, it
heaved and eddied and awoke the echoes, being troubled yet, far
down beneath the surface, by its giant leap; to have Niagara before
me, lighted by the sun and by the moon, red in the day’s decline,
and grey as evening slowly fell upon it; to look upon it every day,
and wake up in the night and hear its ceaseless voice: this was
enough.
I think in every quiet season now, still do those waters roll and
leap, and roar and tumble, all day long; still are the rainbows
spanning them, a hundred feet below. Still, when the sun is on
them, do they shine and glow like molten gold. Still, when the day
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is gloomy, do they fall like snow, or seem to crumble away like the
front of a great chalk cliff, or roll down the rock like dense
white smoke. But always does the mighty stream appear to die as it
comes down, and always from its unfathomable grave arises that
tremendous ghost of spray and mist which is never laid: which has
haunted this place with the same dread solemnity since Darkness
brooded on the deep, and that first flood before the Deluge – Light
– came rushing on Creation at the word of God.
CHAPTER XV – IN CANADA; TORONTO; KINGSTON; MONTREAL; QUEBEC; ST.
JOHN’S. IN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN; LEBANON; THE SHAKER VILLAGE;
WEST POINT
I wish to abstain from instituting any comparison, or drawing any
parallel whatever, between the social features of the United States
and those of the British Possessions in Canada. For this reason, I
shall confine myself to a very brief account of our journeyings in
the latter territory.
But before I leave Niagara, I must advert to one disgusting
circumstance which can hardly have escaped the observation of any
decent traveller who has visited the Falls.
On Table Rock, there is a cottage belonging to a Guide, where
little relics of the place are sold, and where visitors register
their names in a book kept for the purpose. On the wall of the
room in which a great many of these volumes are preserved, the
following request is posted: ‘Visitors will please not copy nor
extract the remarks and poetical effusions from the registers and
albums kept here.’
But for this intimation, I should have let them lie upon the tables
on which they were strewn with careful negligence, like books in a
drawing-room: being quite satisfied with the stupendous silliness
of certain stanzas with an anti-climax at the end of each, which
were framed and hung up on the wall. Curious, however, after
reading this announcement, to see what kind of morsels were so
carefully preserved, I turned a few leaves, and found them scrawled
all over with the vilest and the filthiest ribaldry that ever human
hogs delighted in.
It is humiliating enough to know that there are among men brutes so
obscene and worthless, that they can delight in laying their
miserable profanations upon the very steps of Nature’s greatest
altar. But that these should be hoarded up for the delight of
their fellow-swine, and kept in a public place where any eyes may
see them, is a disgrace to the English language in which they are
written (though I hope few of these entries have been made by
Englishmen), and a reproach to the English side, on which they are
preserved.
The quarters of our soldiers at Niagara, are finely and airily
situated. Some of them are large detached houses on the plain