the smoke of the Fall, as I lay on my pillow; and with the wild roar of
the cataract sounding in my ears, I closed my first day at Niagara. The
following morning proved fine, and we devoted the forenoon, of course,
to the Falls. Lake Erie had just broken up, and the icebergs came
crushing down the rapids, in a way highly interesting. My friends being
quite at home in all the mazes of the river side, conducted me by a wild
and rugged route to the edge of the Table-rock, when, upon emerging from
a tangled brake, I beheld the Horse-shoe or great British Fall, pouring
down its volume of ice and water, at the distance of a few feet from
where we stood. The rock felt to me as though it vibrated, and a large
mass did in fact lately give way, soon after a party had retired from
the precarious stance. It is limestone, full of ugly fissures and rents.
A narrow wooden staircase conducts adventurous travellers to the bottom
of the Fall, where a sort of entrance is generally effected to a short
distance under the sheet, and for which performance a certificate in due
form is served out. The stair was at this time under repair, and the
accumulation of ice below perfectly reconciled me to wave pretensions
to such slippery honours. At some distance below the Fall, and opposite
to the American staircase, there is a ferry, to which a safe and most
romantic carriage-road has been lately formed, out of the solid rock,
at no small labour and expense. When a similar accommodation shall
have been provided upon the American side, it is expected to prove a
lucrative concern, but at the present foot-passengers only can be landed
in the States. The little skiff had just put off, with a party from the
Canada shores, and got involved in streams of ice, in a way somewhat
hazardous, and which rendered it impossible for the boatmen to return.
The scene from the ferry is indeed magnificent, the Horseshoe, the
American Fall, and Goat Island being all in view, with the great pool or
basin eddying in fearful and endless turmoil. In the evening I walked
up the river side towards the village of Chippeway, to visit a natural