Massachusetts spy and Worcester advertiser. [volume] ([Worcester, Mass.]) 1823-1825, 1824-05-19

We passed about fifty rods under the
Table rock, beneath whose brow and
crumbling sides we could not stop to
shudder, our minds were at once so ex-
cited and oppressed, as we approached
that eternal gateway, which nature has
built of the motionless rock and the rush
ing torrent, as fitting entrance to her
most awful magnifcence. We turned a
jutting corner fthe rock, and the chasm
yawned upon us. The noise of the cat
aract was most deafening its headlong
grandeur rolled from the very skies we
were drenched by the overfowings Of
the stream; our breath was checked by
the violence of the wind, which for a
moment scattered away the clouds of
spray, when full view of the torrent,
raining down its diamonds in infinite pro-
fusion, opened upon US. Nothing could
equal the flashing brilIiancy of the spec
tacle. The weight of the falling waters
made the very rock beneath us trembIe,
and from the cavern that received them,
issued a roar, as if the confined spirits of
all who had ever been drowned, joined
in an united scream for help Here we
stood, in the very jaws of Niagara
deafened by an uproar, whose tremen-
dous din seemed to fall upon the ear in
tangible and ceaseless strokes, and sur
rounded by an unimaginabEe and oppres-
sive grandeur. My mind recoiled from
the immensity of the tumbling tide; and
thought of time and of eternity, and felt
that nothing but its own Immortality
could rise against the force of such an
element.
The guide now stopped TO take breath.
He told US, by haIlooing in our ears at
the top of his voice, " that we must turn
our heads away from the spray when it
blew against US, draw the hand down.
wards over the face if we felt giddy, and
not rely too much on the loose peices of
rock" With these instructions he be-
gan to conduct us, one by one, beneath
the sheet. A few steps farther, and the
light of the sun no longer shone upon US.
There was grave-like twilight, which
enabled US to see our way, when the ir-
regular blasts of wind drove the water
| from US; but most of the time it was
blown upon US from the sheet with such
fury that every drop seemed sting, and
in such quantities that the weight was
almost indispensable. My situation was
distracting; il grew darker at every step,
and in addition to the general tremor
i with which every thing in the neighbour
hood of Niagara is shuddering, | could
feel the shreds and splinters of the rock
yield as seized them for support, and
my feet were continually slipping upon
the Shiny stones. | was obliged, more
than once, 10 have recourse to the pre-
scEiption of the guide TO cure my giddi-
ness, and though would have given the
world TO retrace my steps, felt myself
following his darkened figure, vanishing
before me, as The maniac, faithful to the
phantoms Of his illusion, pursues tito his
doom. All my faculties of terror seem
ed strained TO their extreme, and nv
mind lost all sensation, except the sole
idea of an universal, prodigious, and IN
broken motion.
Although the noise exceeded by far
the extravaganza of my anticipation,
was in some degree prepared for this.
| expected too, the loss of breath from
the compression of the air, though not
the suffocation of the spray; but The wind,
the violence of the wind exceeding. as'I
thought. in swifIness and power, the
most desolating hurricane-how came
the wind there D.? There too, in such Vi
olence and variety, as if it were the cave
Of Eolus in rebellion, one would think,
that the river above, fearful of the pre-
cipce TO which it was rushing, M the fol-
ly of lis desperation, had seized, with gil
ant arms, upon the upper air, and in lis
halfway course abandoned it in agony.
We now came opposite part of the
sheet. which was thinner, and of course
lighter. The guide stopped and pointed
upwards; looked-and beheId the sun,
osborn Of his beams" indeed, and so
quenched with the multitudinous waves,
tildl MS rant rays sned Dut pale and
sllvery hue upon the cragged and ever
humid walls of the cavern.
Nothing can be looked at steadily be-
meath Niagara. The hand must con-
stantly guard the eyes against the show
ers which are forced from the main body
of the fall, and the head must be con-
stantly ayerted from a steady position,
to escape the sudden and vehement blasts
of wind. One is constantly exposed to
the sudden rising of the spray, which
bursts up like smoke from furnace till
it fills the whole cavern, and then con-
.densed with the rapidly Of steam, is pre-
cipated in rain 10 addition to which,
there is no support but flakes of the rock,
which are constantly dropping off, and
| nothing to stand uDon but a hank of ioosa