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

try up river is flattish. The river slides
along quiet enough 200. No crags, no
precipices. no darksome forests; all is
fertile and good to the eyes of man
just peace and plenty. 1t is different,
though, as the sound of the thunder
ahead grows upon you, dull, awful, ev-
erlasting, that has sounded on from
creation, and will Outlast you and me,
stranger, and thousands of generations
yet to come.
"Where | lived was, as | said, but a
few miles above this. Farther down
the calm flow of the river swirls into
ripples, and whirls and grows scared
like of what's before it. Then it exer-
cises itself for the hell it is to pass
through. 1t tastes of purgatory. It's all
foam and dash. and splitter and growl,
| through the frothy rapids that roughen
it for awhile. Then it settles for steady
work. 1t braces itself for endurance,
and then pluckily smooths itself to face
its fate.
Chow grand that calm, deep flood
is that pours along without any stay or
hurry, that you can see, to its awful
plunge? But, stranger, smooth and
peaceful as it looks, it's deep enough
and strong enough to astOnlsh weak
nerves or iron ones, | know well, and
you'll know before I've done, if my
tongue does its duty.
"Just look across the fall. You see
it best from the British side. Run your
eye round the great horseshoe near
YOU. The curve is some 1000 feet
broad and $50 feet deep. Then there's
Goat Island, snug in the midst of the
mighty plunge. Can you see a small
flat speck of rock not so many yards
off its shoreP No? know it as you'll
hear. Our American fall beyond
knuckles under little 20 this nearer to
us. But it's mighty respectable wa
ter-shed, too. Twelve hundred feet in
breadth, 1870 feet high. Your know-alls
guess that, every passing minute, some
100000 tons of good fresh river roll
over that rock into spray and foam in
the dim gulf below.
CAS- boy, used to see beauty as
well as wonder in all this. Where it S
not hid white with foam, see what a
clear sea-green the flood is as it shoots
over. You can measure the force of
the rush of waters, for the curve of the
shining sheet is fifty feet from the wall
of rock it slips down.
"How does it strike you? You see
it, dare say, as | saw it two score
years ago. To you it is terrible, but
not all terror. It's lovely, too. And
to me? Well, to me it is horror only;
it has been SO since that day when |
hung on its very brink for hours, and
thought of it as one might think in a
nightmare dream of some hideous
thing, incOnceivable, unutterable, that
held one in its awful grasp. But mine
was no vision of the night to be laughed
at when awakened. Those hours
grizzled the then brown of my young
head into the iron-gray you see it now
Their iron entered into my soul, as
they say. 1t has lived there ever since,
night and day, season and season.
There it will stay till the death-rattle
kills the memory of all this side of my
coffin.
Il hunted and fished then. That $
how | lived Visitors then came pretty
plentiful to see this wonder. | could
get ready sale for what | caught,
whether it was fur or fin. had canoed
it from when | could recollect and was
pretty spry, L tell you, with paddles,
and pretty venturesome, too, | became
till | thought | was strong enough and
skilled enough to run risks hereabouts
that others would have shuddered
from.
Il thought l knew Niagara too well
to be in any danger from it, |
was 50 familiar with it, | thought
of 1t with none of the scare newcomers
found in it. | used to laugh at their
genuine fears at the very sight and
sound of it. | knew it by night, when
the calm moonlight poured down light
through the silver spray clouds that
hung over it; by day, when the glad
sun danced rainbows above its flashing
| floods. Then it was too old friend to
be dreaded by me.
Zone day changed all this, and |
knew it for the hungry monster that it
is-pitiless, craving for its human
prey.
cit was one Wednesday in August.
The hotels were full. Fish was in re-
quest, as much as | could bring. Price
didn't matter. Pleasure-seekers bleed
freely. was paid well for what could
be charged for as they liked. | had
found that the nearer the rapids | got
the finer seemed what | caught, and
the more freely the bait was taken.
had so often gone where most were toe
timid to venture that had come to be-
lieve | come skim anywhere.
Even now, | think, had my paddle
been sound, l should have come of
safe.
"Well, that morning l was out al
sunrise, and pretty successful | was.
steadied my course, letting the canoe
drift little by little toward the rapids that
frothed and raved some miles below.
felt at any moment | could shoot it on
of the strength of the current into thu
smoother waters by the shore.
81 got fully employed with my lines
for as l glided down the stream, m,
take was rapid, and that of the finest
So eager was that failed to pay tina
attention to the drift of my canoe whicl
, was SO needful.
alt was with start at last felt
, was too much in the full deep curren
of the river, and that its strength would
need my utmost efforts to escape from
t its grasp. For the first time | fel
t real dread, for the boiling and hiss o
Al. ,l,, - l.