Martinsburgh gazette. [volume] (Martinsburgh, Va. [W. Va.]) 1810-1825, 1824-07-08

cd 10 iail upon inc car ia tnHS'Oic anu
ceaseless strokes, and surrounded by an
Iunimaginable and oppressive grandeur.
NY mind recoiled from the immensely
of the tumbling tide; and thought Of
time and of eternity, and felt that no.
thing but its own Immortality could rise
against the force of such an element.
The guide now stopped to take breath.
He told us, by hallooing in our ears at
the top of bis 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 pieces OF
rock" With these Instructions he be-
gan to coniuct 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 irregular blasts of wind drove
the water from us; but most ofthe time
it was blown upon us from the sheet
with such fury that every drop seemed
a sting, and in such quantities that the
weight was almost insupportable. My
situation was distracting; it grew darker
at every step, and in addition to the
general tremor with which every thing
in the neighborhood of Niagara is shud-
dering, | could feel the shreds and spin-
tiers of the rock ield as seized them
for support, and my feet were continual
ly slipping upon Shiny stones. was
Obliged, more than once, to have re-
course to the prescription of the guide
to cure my giddiness, and though J
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 it to his DOOM
All my faculties of terror seemed strain
ed to their extreme, and my mind lost
all sensation, except the sole idea of
an universal, prodigious and unbroken
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 suffocatlon of the spray, but the
wind exceeding, as thought, in swift
ness and power, the most desolating
hurricane--how came the wind therel
There, too, in such violence and variety,
as if it were the cave of Eolus in re-
bellion. One would think that the river
above, fearful of the precipice TO which
it was rushing, in the folly of its despe-
ration, had seized with giant arms upon
the upper air, and in its halfway course
abandoned in agony.
We now came opposite to part of
the sheet which was thinner, and of
course lighter. The guide stopped, and
pointed upwards; | looked-and beheld
the sun, "shorn of his beams" indeed,
and SO quenched with the multitudinous
waves, that bis faint rays shed but
pale and silery hue upon the dragged
and ever humid walls of the cavern.
Nothing can be looked at steadily
beneath 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 averted from a steady position,
to escape the sudden and vehement
blasts of wind. One is constantly ex-
posed to the sudden rising of the spray,
which bursts up like smoke from fur
mace, till it fills the whole cavern, and
tn n, condensed with the rapidity Of
steam, is precipitated in rain; in addi-
ton to which, there is no support but
flakes of TIE rock, which are constantly
dropping off; and nothing to stand upon
but bank of loose stones covered with
innumerable eels.
Still there are moments when the eye,
at one glance, can catch a glimpse of
this magnificent saloon. On one side
the enormous ribs Of the precipice arch
themselves with Gothic grandeur more
than a hundred feet above our heads,
with rottenness more threatening than
the waters under which they groan. -
From their summit is projected, with
incalculable intensity. silvery flood, in
which the sun seems to dance like fire
fly.
We had now penetrated to the Utmost
recess. A pillar Of the precipice juts
directly out into the sheet, and beyond
|it no human foot can step, but to i'm
mediate humiliation. The distance
from the edge of the falls to the rock
which arrests our progress is said to be
forty FIVE feet, but do not think this