[Sidenote: The flood subsides.]

From this time, however, the waters began to subside. The Irish famine had
worked its own sad cure. In compliance with the urgent representations of
the Governor, the mother-country took upon herself all the expenses that
had been incurred by the colony on behalf of the immigrants of 1847; and
improved regulations respecting emigration offer ground for hope that the
fair stream, which ought to be full of life and health both to the colony
and to the parent state, will not again be choked and polluted, and its
plague-stricken waters turned into blood.

[Sidenote: Visit to Upper Canada.]

In the autumn of this year Lord Elgin paid his first visit to Upper
Canada, meeting everywhere with a reception which he felt to be 'most
gratifying and 'ncouraging;' and keenly enjoying both the natural beauties
of the country and the tokens of its prosperity which met his view. From
Niagara he wrote to Mr. Cumming Bruce:--

[Sidenote: Niagara.]

I write with the roar of the Niagara Falls in my ears. We have come
here for a few days' rest, and that I may get rid of a bad cold in the
presence of this most stupendous of all the works of nature. It is
hopeless to attempt to describe what so many have been describing; but
the effect, I think, surpassed my expectations. The day was waning
when we arrived, and a turn of the road brought us all at once in face
of the mass of water forming the American Fall, and throwing itself
over the brink into the abyss. Then another turn and we were in