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

The Falls of Niagara.

(From the Index.)
Passing by a suspension bridge which connects Goat
Island with the mainland, we walked to the lowest corner
of the isle, and stood at once upon the brink of the precipice
down which thunders the American Fall. No scene that
I have ever witnessed overwhelmed me with such uncon
troluble 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 told that I should be disappointed ;
but if there be sty who have been, I cannot conceive what
their imagination could have anticipated. I own I expected
more noise, but the eta'e of the atmesphen affects that, and
the roar of the falls (like that of Bottom and Earl RuEsell)
will at one time bo as paltry and insignificant as at
another it will be grand and terrifying. I should like to
have the power to give you some 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 soon after leaving the brink of the rock,the
feathery mist in which it showers down into the cloud of
spray that ever veils the lest 50 feet of the Fall, 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 view of the Canadian Fall, 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.
Wo ascended and took a view from every one of the
numerous points from which tourists are expected to sur •
vey the Falls, and 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 less cockneyfied,
for all that, than many a place that I have visited—less so
than Chamouni and Righi, and such favourite 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 and drove off to the Canadian side
of the river, crossing by the famous suspension bridge
which connects the British and American territories. It is
an extraordinary triumph of engineering 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 am not
mathematician or engineer enough to see the solution; but
there it is to testify, in conjunction with the tubular bridge
of Montreal and the canals of the St. Lawrence, to the in-
genuity and enterprise of the people of Canada. The
bridge is two miles below the Falls, so that the view thence
is too distant to be effective; but the drive up to them
along the Canadian cliff, past The Clifton House,' the
great Canadian hotel, is, I think, the most beautiful road
I have ever seen. It is from this side that you get in
one grand comprehensive landscape the whole length
of the American and Canadian Falls, with the
steep precipices of Goat Island between them, and the cliffs
of the American bank further down the gorge, and above
them the roofs, and spires, and gables of the town, peering
out from amid the forest that forms the background of the
picture. Table Rock is a lofty shelving promontory of
limestone jutting out from the Canadian shore close upon
the brink of the plunge of the great Horse-shoe Fall; and
there we sat, as all tourists do, and gazed in rapture at the
marvels of nature unfolded around, above, beneath us. I
cannot tell you what we saw; you could not depicture it to
yourself if I could. I will only say that that one view from
Table Rock would repay any one a journey from the farthest
corner of the world. All the landscapes I have ever seen—
all the snow-pictures of the Alps—all the coast-scenery of
the Mediterrarean—all the lochs and moors of the Scotch
Highlands—sink into insignificance when compared
with the incomparable grandeur of Niagara. It is not the
Falls themselves alone that cause the magnificence of the
scene; but the beauty of the landscape, of which they are
the centre, adds a hundredfold to their intrinsic value. But
it is useless to tell how I wondered at the msjesty of the
view from Table Rock ; you must go and stand there your-
self, and then you will bo amszad, as I was, at the all-ab-
sorbing interest of the scene, and ponder as I did upon the
marvellous force and volume of the waters that every second
plunge down the heights before you, and wonder whence
comes the inexhaustible supply, and whither it goes, and
how many a long roll of countless summers has looked on
the same unvaried scene; and so you will wish, perhaps, to
put down on paper some little memento of what you saw and
felt, and find, I dare say, as I do, that the attempt is futile.
But a distant view of the Falls gives but a faint 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 terrific power
of their waters and the impotence of man beside them :
in fact, you must do as I did, make the expedition to the
Cave of the Winds, and then you will have impressed upon
your mind the detail of the more awful properties of Niagara,
which a close acquaintance can alone reveal to you.
The Cave lies underneath the American Fall; the trip
is decidedly a perilous one, but it is the thing, and so, to be
fashionable, I did it. The party of adventurers consisted
of eight, and a guide, a French Canadian. At a house by
the foot of the Fall we were provided with 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 publi'. The suit consisted of a remark-
ably thin threadbare flannel shirt, a much thinner
an i much more threadbare pair of flannel drawers
a pair of flannel socks or slippers, and a cord round the
waist, the whole surmounted by an oilskin skull cap. I
never felt more like the maniac who persisted in confining
his street toilette to hatband and straps, or realised more
painfully the confusing effect of the penetrating glances of
half a dozen young ladies, than on the occasion when our
little party in Indian file threaded the gauntlet of the ingei
sitive ones who had drawn up to see us enter the cave, But
a bold face and buoyant spirits 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 we should be sure to fancy that would
be the result, for every mee, he said, thought so at first—we
descended some steps that led right down into the spray of
the Fall, and at the bottom came upon a path or narrow
ledge that wound along the cliff inside the a:chway of the
Fall. From the moment that we left the stairs, we got into
a fine pelting rain that gradually increased in weight and
volume till it bore down upon our skull caps like hail on
a skylight. But the cave lay on the further side of the
sheet of water, through which we had to get as best we
could. How that was I cannot tell you. The guide led
the way into the steam and turmoil, bending himself nearly
double to keep beating the spray from his nostrils, and
clinging on to the slimy rock, for the foothold was slippery
and difficult. I believe I did the same, but I cannot say,
The guide was immediately lost to our view; and all that
I could hear amid the thunder of the cataract was an
injunction to push on when it came to the worst, for the
illogical reason that it was shorter to get beyond the sheet
of water than to turn back. I cannot tell you what a terri-
fying scene it was—how the waters roared around us—
how the stifling spray beat upon our faces so as to drive all
the breath out of our bodies—how the wind, caused by the
falling mass of water, blew about in a thousand blinding
gusts (as if old .2W plus had untied every single sack, and
let out the whole of his seminary for a general holiday),
dashing the rain into our faces and 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. 1 don't know where,
or why, or how I went. I only know that I went down
to this watery hell and came up again uninjured, but very
much out of breath and more frightened, half blinded, more
than half deafened, and three-quarters drowned. The rest
was comparatively simple—merely a scramble through the
mist over slimy polished rocks, a swim across a little pool,
and a climb to a chair fixed on a rugged crag, when I
found myself out in front of the Fall, with a splendid view
of it looking upwards before me, and, the greatest novelty
of all, a circular rainbow all around me, at times too
doubled. Five minutes' rest upon the crag, and we retraced
our steps—for there was no other way back again to terra
firma—and then in again amongst the rein and the din of
waters, more petting for breath, more struggling wi,le the
wanton gusts, more bewildering of the eye and ear, more
clinging for bare life to the slimy rock, and clambering up
the slippery staircase; and so we reached the mole hos-
pitable regions of the open sir, and again ran the gauntlet
of the curious eyes that awaited our return to daylight--
less nervous, perhaps, about their gaze after What we had
faced below, but very much more tit,yages and disrepu-
table. I don't know that 1 should care to make the expe-
dition again, thOugh I wet one rather stout Canadian who
told mo he went down regularly twice a week under the
idea it would reduce his fat—but lam not by nature amphi-
bious, and I consider the feat well worthy of the certificate
with which the guide presents the visitors before they leave
testifying to the fact that they have 'passed through the
Cave et the Winds.'

THE DIVORCE COURT.—Sir J. P. Wilde, Judge
of the Divorce Court, will it on Thursday fur the purpe:Ai
of hearing motions. 'There are as many as 91 Grigival
Cases in the list-, besides 24 standing over by cowent of the
parties,

SUN OFFICE, SEVEN O'CLOCK.

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE—This Day,

WORCESTER RACES—This DAY.

(BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.)
HANDICAP SWEEPSTAKES.

Warrior
1
Vanquisher
___ .

Five ran.
NURSERY HANDICAP.

Leoville
Cedric
2
Vision
3
Sixteen ran.
IVORCESI'ER HANDICAP.

Grosvenor colt
Prince Plausible . 1
.... 2
Welbeck
Nine ran.
SELLING STAKES.

Wild Huntress
Juneuton

Nine ran.
SEVERN BANK STAKES.

Acrobat
Meanwood......
Twelve ran. Winner of to.