The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1878-11-16

whose clutch sought to drag me with
them to share their awful doom. lhad
grown so used to the roar of the cata-
ract Gas | now recollected, SO nearD
that my thoughts had ceased to be cog
infant of it; now it almost stunned me.
Il talk stagily, don't |? tell you,
stranger, if you want to wake up your
fancy real well, just try an hour pull
against Niagara, with the feeling that
perhaps fate is against you. You'll be
far from cool and commonplace in
thought or speech if you think or utter
anything.
"Minutes that had seemed hours had
passed, and still | was struggling fran
tically, streaming with my frenzied ex-
ertions. | had won some way. | had
edged some distance from the central
rush of the river, and safety would be
found in the slower waters that skirted
the bank, could | but reach them.
81 bent still more madly to the eff
fort. In a moment had lost my hold
on existence, and was rushing, helpless
and hopeless, to the dreadful fate | had
been fighting against. One of my pad
dies, overstrained, had broken, and, at
the mercy of the mighty flood, l was
speeding every minute more swiftly to
what | knew so well-what | saw as
plainly with my minds eye as | had
thousands of times seen it with my liv
ing sight.
How | saw all we We're looking
down on here! Not sight, not sound,
we are seeing and hearing, but it was in
that moment heard and seen by me
more wildly than now. / was literally
bewildered with the roar | now hear so
calmly.
g shrieked aloud in my agony as |
clasped my useless hands over my sight,
vainiy, to shut out the smooth side of
the inland sea, as | saw it flashing back
the morning sun as it leapt into the
misty gulf into whose thunder it shot
"A few moments bore me down to
the rapids. A few minutes and | was
through them safely. How l escaped
wreck among them puzzles me. l was
too paralyzed with horror to use my
one paddle, to in any way steer my
light craft through the foaming cur
rent on which it tossed. Had it been a
heavier built boat it would have been
dashed to shreds score of times before
we reached smooth water. As it was
it danced along, frollicking as it seemed
to me, with CHASTITY defiance of the
destiny to which it so surely hurried.
II gasped cry of blessing for de-
liverance. Deliverance? Was it de-
liverance? for how longP Iyet breathed,
but who would, who could save NE
from the rushing flood that tore past
me, from the laundering cataract
that fell almost within reach of my
touch?
go, heaven! What had | saved life
for? For a prolonged agony? For
such misery rs must end in starvation,
madness, suicide? Could my mind
long bear the strain now upon it? How
long?
Let your eyes skirt the rounding
edge of this nearest fall. You can see
the very rock was on. 1t looks but
yards from the larger space of Goat
Island, but those yards were as bad as
miles. There was an impossible gulf
between me and the stretch ofrock that
seems so near.
"What were my chances of escape?
Dare | hope there were any? / was
almost too wild with terror to think at
all. Yet the brain seemed fevered
with life in such moments.
Z" Even while hope was for an instant
flashing through my bewildered brain,
| was entering the very heart of the
thunder of the fall. Moments only
separated me from my release from
agony. But the Indian stoieism
was foreign to me; | could have
yelled aloud in the terror that pos
sessed me.
81 dared not await seated the awful
last moment that was so near. | faced
my fate; turned; | stood up. | looked
straight ahead to where the curving
waters were to launch me to peace
| eternal.
1.-The flood had scarcely ripple on
its surface.
"Was it real? Within a few yards
of the awful brink the canoe had shot
by flat speck of rock that off the shores
of Goat Island lay stirless on the very
edge of the abyss.
"With hardly conscious effort in
passing | had sprung to its slippery sur
face. That moment had saved me from
instant annihilation The canoe was
gone. was standing, as yet, alive,
while, almost washing my very feet,
the sea of waters hurried on-on-on
either side of me and disappeared.
'Out of the kissing! out of the
frothing foam! We were on the calm,
majestic mass of waters-the sea tide
you might surely call it, that woult
hurl itself and me to atoms.
"How oddly the mind acts in sucf
moments of horror! Would you believe
it? A tradition of Niagara occurred tC
me as flashed along. 1t was an Indiar
legend. remembered how an Indian
squaw, long the favorite of famous
chief, found young maiden was t.
supplant her in her wigwam. | recol
lected-I swear saw it as plainly as i
imagination and reality were one-sh,
bore the bestowed child she had born
to its father from her forest home, til
she had reached a canoe. Then sh
padded herself and her boy into tn
full stream, and cast the paddles from
her, and with heavy heart nerved b
hate and revenge and misery unendura
BILE, stood up chanting her death sons
that recounted her wrong and her mis-
cry, and welcomed her coming escap
from it, till they shot into eternity ami
! tho NUhir1 of NUafarq hnlpW