The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1877-09-29

whatever else was injured in packing, hats and
bonnets must be secured against the slightest IN
dentation; but the modes in vogue now DAYS an
pear to have been specially designed to go in cor
ncrs or at the bottom of trunks, fo G more they
arc damned, crushed and musscd the more styl.
ish they appear! A hat now days without rec,
or two in the rim, or one that is perfectly regular
in FORM is altogether out of date much as it is
to wear hat perfectly straight on the head"
NIAGARA FALLS
II Niagara were located in remote part of Eu-
rope no American would consider his or her Euro.
pcan tour complete without visit to this mira
Gle Of nature. But here, in our own land, under
our very noses as IRE, that miracle is only
studied by a few anced at by the many.
OF course cveryhuf" can afford it and can be
away from home ..,s aged to "take in Mag.
ara " at some time or other; but the vast number
of our people 20 there more because they are
ashamed not to go than from any genuine apprc-
citation of the wonder of Niagara. Few Amer.
cans make it the special object of "a visit,
and the hurrying travellers from cast to west may
stop over for day or part of day, take car
riagc and order the driver to ''lct them slickcr"
He sees everything on the wing, and goes away
with the firm conviction that he has seen Niagara
feels entirely qualified that he can give perfect
description fit, writes book perhaps, and never
cares to see ii again. Such visitors have no more
idea Of what Niagara really is than if they had
passed few hours looking ut some picture. The
careless visitor to Niagara sees nothing but A.
huge WATERFALL without anything to mark id
above other waterfalls, except its size. But lei
I "a IL,
blaze of MONDAY sun, and with the fading
shadows of evening; by daylight and by moon
light, in sunshine and IL storm. Let him see M
not only in summer, when all nature is clothed in
her mantle Of green, but in winter, when all is
dead save the eternal flood, rushing between
snow-clad shores to an abyss fringed with pima
Giles Of gittering ice.
From Jlly to September is the summer season,
and about the time everybody goes-a season
in which would not go if could, from the fact
that it is too crowded, and crowd is never pleas
ant. There is sure to be some fool in pantaoons
or petticoats who is q nuisance, and who, if he or
she were transported to the New Jerusalem,
would be more impressed by the gates of pearl
and streets of gold than by the nctfable presence
of Him that sitteth on the throne would there.
fore say to all that want to see Niagara to go'
there before the crowd comes or after it goes
away, Then and only then can you study this
great wonder OF Gods handiwork, and feel the
touch OF that mysterious spirit which broods over
the spot and transforms it into an altar for de-
voutest worship. 1t is then you will be astonished
and amazed to remember that you once thought
80 little of Niagara the like Of which does not
exist any where else beneath the broad canopy of
heaven There it is, in all its grandeur; the
wide river sweeping down the steep inclnes as
Il driven by the invisible hand of Omnipotence,
smooth as mountain lake, until it strikes the
scattered fragments of rock above, and then,
writhing in terrible agony among the barriers
across its path, lurches over in long, steady un-
broken spring into the fathomess pit beneath.
Below in that "hell of waters" sways and whirls
the milk.whitc foam, while shifting columns of
mist rise and fall like restless phantoms for ever
and ever,
Niagara has never been described, ii never can
be, nor can the sensation of the observer be cx-
pressed in language. 1t hes been celebrated in |
song, embalmcd in poetry, pictured on canvas
and dclineated by a thousand pens; but no pen
nor tongue can convey to the minds of those that
have never seen ii the sublime and solemn
grandeur the magntcence ofcolor form and mo,
ton, or the commin Cling of beauty, wild, unman.
ageable strength and loneliness. As the guide
book states, Niagara! the great cataract is the
elimination Of a series of beauties and wonders,
which to fully comprehend one needs to recall
the fact that the breast of this gigantic ledge
fall waters that have flowed from the remotest
west, that the proud spires Of Chicago have been
mrrored in the now leapng flood, that the dark
pines Of Mackinaw have looked down on the
waters now beaten into spray where the torrent
falls, and that city after city and state after state
have witnessed their flow as they layed their
shores, passing through changing forms of beau.
ty, and for thousands of miles they have flowed
onward to their grand leap from this lofty
ledge"
Byron remarked to an American traveller whol
called on him few weeks before his death: 81
have always had a strong desire to visit your
country. | want to see the living form of liberty,
and want TO see Niagara" Since Byron's day
American liberty has undergone some changes not
altogether agreeable to his friends, but the great
Niagara has lost none OF its grandeur and none of
the beauty which would have caught the eye and
fired the pen of the poet who of all the poets
best qualified TO picture them in immortal
verse.
According to the estimate of scientists, the |
Horseshoe fall is wearing away the rock over
which it passes at the rate of a foot year. Con-
scqucntly five thousand years hence Niagara will
be somewhat changed; but what the people of
6S77 will have to delight them at Niagara is more
than we can guess, but If the place is any more
suggestive then than now We envy those who
will visit it.
Go and see Niagara J. ID. II.