The Sun.
London, England, 1864-11-01 00:00:00

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fundamental principles and truths, which alone will lead
them and us to permanent and lasting peace, with posses-
sion and enjoyment of constitutional liberty. With these
principles once recognised, the future would take care of
itself, and there would be no more war so long as they
should be adhered to.

All questions of boundaries, confederacies, and Union or
Unions, would naturally and easily adjust themselves, ac
cording to the interest cf parties end the exigencies of the
times. Herein lies the true law of the balance of power
and the harmony of States.—Yours respectfully. •

ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS.

The Falls of Niagara,

(Pion the Index.)
Passing by a suspension bridge which cornetts Goat
Island with the mainland, wo walked to the lowest coiner
of the isle, end stood at once upon the brink of the precipice
down which thunders the American Fall, No scene that
I have ever NI itnessed overwhelmed me with such uneon•
trolablo wonder as that which I looked upon as I stood on
the margin cf the plunge of the mighty cataract. The height,
the power and volume of the falls exceeded my utmost ex-
pectations. I had been 'old that I should be disappointed;
but if there be any who have been, I cannot conceive what
their imagination could have anticipated. low a I expected
more noise, hut the sta`e of the atmosphere affects that, and
the roar of the falls (like that of Bottom end Earl Russell)
will at one time be e 9 paltry and insignificant as at
another it will ba grand end terrifying. I should like to
have the power to give you acme idea of the sublimity of
the scene, but it is utterly useless to attempt a description of
what is wholly indescribable. The tortuous surgings of the
rapids, the sudden calmness at the brow of the cataract, the
majestic sea-green curve in which the liquid mass glides
over the edge of the precipice, the silver ringlets into which
it is broken up eoon after leaving the brink of the rock,tho
feathery mist in which it showers down into the cloud of
spray that ever veils the lest 50 feet of the Feel, and the
infernal writhe and whiteness in which it reappears in the
depths of the abyss, all these wondrous features of the
Queen of Cataracts must be seen, watched, sat beside for
hours and days, before the mind can grasp the magnificence
of the scene. But we were as yet only in sight of the Ame-
rican Fall. A walk along the further side of Goat Island
brought us in aiew of the Canadian Fail, and then I found
that I had been spending my fullest admiration and asto-
nishment upon a mere thread of Niagara, the thousandth
part of its volume and grandeur, for there was before me
again the same glorious scene that I have so briefly sketched
—only it was a thousand times intensified.
We ascended and took a view from every one of the
numerous points from which tourists are expected to au-.
vey the Falls, end paid all those preposterous sums which
tourists are invariably doomed to give—for Niagara has its
excursionists by thousands, and its 'look-outs,' 'summer
houses," retreats," staircases," perilous seats,' and such
attractions for an excursion party ; but it is le-s coclneyfied,
for all that, than many a place that I have visited—less so
than Chamouni and Righi, and such favou-ite resorts that
do not draw half so many visitors as the Falls. Having
done our duty as pure excursionists, and been bled accord..
ingly, we took a carriage end drove off to the Canadian side
of the river, crossing by the flina,u suspension !midge
which conncc's the British and America n territories. his
an extraordinary triumph of et:ll:line-W.lg skill to have
thrown across the yawning gulf such a mass of weighty
metal as here spans the torrent. How it ever got there is
to my mind a dark inexplicable mystery, of which 1 Pm not
mathematician or engineer enough to see the solution; but
there it is to testify, in conjunction with the tubu'ar bridge
of Montreal and the canals of the St. Lawrence, to the in-
genuity and enterprise of the people of Ceneda. The
b.idge is two miles below the Fal's, so that the view thence
is too distant to be cif, ciive ; but the drive up Ca them
along the Canadian cliff, past ' The Cliftan House,' the
great Canadian hotel, is, I think, the most beauti Sul road
I have ever s,en. It is from this side that you get in
one grand comprehensive landscape the whole length
of the American end Canadian Falls, with the
steep precipices of Goat Island between them, and the cliffs
of the American bank iuither down the gorge, and above
them the roofs, end spires, and gables of the town, peering
out from amid the forest that forms the heckground of the
picture. Table Rock is a lofty shelvieg promontory of
limestone jutting out from the Canadian shore close upon
the blink of the plunge of the great Horse-shoe Fall; and
there we sat, as ell tourists do, and g. zed in rapture at the
marvels of nature unfolded around, above, beneath us. I
cannot tell you what we saw; you cou'd not depictu-e it to
yourself if I could. I will only say that that one view from
Table Rock would repay any one aaoui ney from the fat Chest
corner of the world. All the landscapes I have ever scan—
all the snow-pictures of the Alpe—all the coast-scenery of
the Meditcrrarean—ell the lochs and moors of the Scatch
Highlande—, ink into insignificance when compa-ed
sith the iacompal Ale grandeur of Ni.-gara. It is not the
Falls themselves alone that eau-e the magnificence of the
scene; but the beauty of the lindscape, or which they ire

Lhe centre, adds a huadredfold to their int i% sic value. But

it is useless to tell how I wondered at the make y of 'he
view from Table Rock ; you must go and a:and 'here yksts--
self, and then you will be amtz:d, as I W.i9, at the
sorbing interest of the scene, end pander s I clld upon the
marvellou force and volume of the waters that every second
plunge down the heigh's before you, end wonder whence
comes the inexhaustible supply, and whither goes, and
how many a long roll of countless summers has looked on
the same unvaried scene; end so you will wish, perhaps, to
put down on paper some little memento of what you saw nd
felt, and find, I dare say, as I do, that the attempt is ftC.le.
But a distant view of the Falls gives but a feint idea of
their solemn grandeur. To comprehend them in their awe-
inspiring sublimity, you must descend to the base of the
cliff, and walk in amongst the spray, and under the curve of
their flight down the precipice, and see the to power
of their waters and the impotence of mva beside them :
in fact, you must do as I did, mace the expedition to the
Cave of the Winds, and then you v.PI have impressed upon
your mind the dote il tf the more aw:ul proper.ies of Niagara,
which a close acquaintance can alone reveal to you.
The Cave lies underneath the American Fall; the trip
is decidedly a petilous one, but it is the thing, and so, to be
fashionable, I did it. The parry of adventu"ers consisted
of eight, and a guide, a French Canadian. At a house by
the foot of the F5ll we were provided wi,h a dress, or at
least an apology for a costume, the very queerest, oddest-
looking, scantiest set of garments in which I have ever
appeared in public. The su't consisted of a remark-
ably thin th-ealbo,a fin eel sYkt, a much tYnner
an I much more three Jbsre prir of fl en eel drawers
A pair of fl nanel socks or slippers, e-id a cord round the
waist, the whole surmounted by an oilskin skall cap. 1
never felt more like the maniac who persisted in confining
his street toilette to hatband and straps, or realised more
painfully the contusing eff et of the penetrating glances of
half a dozen young ladies, than on the occasion when our
little party iu In Sian file threaded the gauntlet of the inqui
silly° ones who had draw.i up to see us enter the cave. But
a bold face and buoyant sprits were necessary for the work
that lay before us. After a few words of counsel from the

guide about not being frightened, but keeping straight
ahead, and energetic assurances that we should not be

drowned—though wa should be sure to Pney that would
be the result, for every one, he said, thought so at firs►—we

descended some steps that led tight down into the spray of
the Fall, and at the bottom came upon a path or na...•ow

ledge that wound along the cliff inside the a,chway of the
Fall. From the moment that we left the stairs, we got i-ito
a fine pelting rein that gradually increased in weight end
volume till it bore dov. a upon our sku'l caps like hcil on
a skylight. But the cave lay on the .urther side of the
sheet of water, through wt ich we had to get as best we
could. How that was I cannot tell you. The ga;de led
the way into the steam and turmoil, bendi-ig h;mself nearly
double to keep beating the spray irom his nast,:is, cud
clinging on to the slimy rock, for the foothold was slipper./
a-td difficult. I believe I did the same, but I cannot say.
The guide was immediate 4 lost to our v:ew; and all that
I could hear amid the thunder of the cataract was an
injunction to pu3h on when it came to the worst, for the
illogical rcasuu that it was shorter to get beyond the sheet
of water then to turn back. I ca-not toll you what a terti-
fying scene it was—how the waters r( ared aror tad

how the stifling spray beat upon our faces so V 9 to drive all
the breath out of our bodies—how the mind, caused by the
falling mass of water, blew about in a thouserd blinding

gusts (as if old /g)lus had untied every single sack, end
let out the whole of his seminary for a t;ener,-1 holiday),

dashing the rain into our faces end chests, or driving it

against our backs and legs, or both ways at once with equal
fury—or what I did, or what I saw. I don't kulw where,

or why, or how I went. I cnly know that I went down
to this watery hell and came up again uninjured, but very

much out of breath and more Lightened, half blinded, more
then half deafened, and three-quarters drowaed. The rest

was comparatively simple—merely a scramble I :trough the

mist over slimy po:ished rocks, a awi-n across a little pool,
and a climb to a chair fixed on a lugged crag, when I

found myself out in front of the Fall, with a splendid view
of it looking upwards before me, and, the g.•eatest novelty

of all, a circular rainbow all around me, at times too

doubled. Five minutes' rest upon the crag, end we retraced

our steps—for there was no other way back again to terra
. . .

firma —and then in again amongst the rrin and the din of
waters, more pawing for breath, more at. uggling a i h the

wanton gusts, more bewildering of the eye and ea-, more

clinging for bare life to the s'inay rock, cud dm:libel:lag ui,
the slippery staircase; and so we reached the 111010
. _ .

pitable regions of the open sir, and again ren the gauntlet
of the curious eyes that awaited our retutu to daylight—
less nervous, perhaps, about their gcze alter What we has
faced below, but very much more deyjages and di•,repu-
table. I don't know that 1 should re to make the expe-
dition again, though I met one rather stout Canadian who
told mo he went down regularly ht ieo a week under the
idea it would reduce his fat—but Icm not by nature amphi•
bious, and I consider the feat well worthy of the cntifieate
with which the guide presents the visitors before they leave
testify ing to the tact that they have 'passed through the
Cave of the Winds.'

THE DIVORCE COURT,—Sir J. P. Wilde, Judge
of the Divorce Court, will sit on Thursday for the purpose
of hearing motions. There are as many as 91 crigival
eases in the list, besides 24 standing over by consent of the
parties.