Down the River to the Sea

by Agnes Maule Machar

Next morning the party met at breakfast in good time, as they had a long day before them, and meant to make the best possible use of it. It was a charming morning, and they all set off in the best possible spirits, enjoying the Falls both in the present and the future. To begin with, however, there was a difficulty to be got over. The juniors were all eager to cross the river in the ferry-boat, so as to have the glorious view of the great cataract from a point of view which gives a different and grander impression than almost any other. But Aunt Bella stoutly refused even to consider the suggestion of trusting herself to the tender mercies of a cockle-shell of a boat tossed on that “boiling flood.” The difficulty was finally settled by Kate, who put her aunt under the care of a hackman who promised to take her across the suspension bridge and meet them at Prospect Point. The rest of the party, in high glee, followed the winding road that leads down to the ferry, and were soon packed into the large, heavy skiff. Here, indeed, they had the full view of both of the magnificent falls and of the boiling, white caldron below, and the dark, malachite-green rapids that seem to press like a solid body down the narrow river gorge, after leaving the turbulence of the boiling basin behind them. The cool spray dashed in the faces of the happy party as the boat danced lightly over the heaving waters, under the strong strokes of the sturdy rowers; and, when they reached the other side, after a short passage, they all felt as if the exciting pleasure had been quite too brief. On landing they ascended in the elevator to the bank above, and at once took their way to Prospect Point, where they stood for some time lost in the fascination of the scene before them—the majestic American Fall rushing down in snowy foam from the slope of furious white-crested rapids just above the headlong torrent. The thundering sheet filled their ears with its mighty music, and as they could now see its outline curved inwards almost as much as that of the “Horse-shoe” itself, for, of course, the action of falling water is the same on both sides of the river. But the fact that the rapids are here compressed by scattered islands seems to add to the force and fury with which they dash themselves wildly over the stony ledges with a resistless strength which makes us realize the power of the one spiritual force which is described as stronger than “many waters.” After they had stood silently watching the ceaseless progress of the waters, until all their senses had seemed to be filled with its mighty rush and roar, they joined Mrs. Sandford in the carriage, and were speedily driven across the bridge leading over the rapids to Goat Island, which seemed to May like a little tranquil paradise nestling amid the wild fury of the raging floods. Here, indeed, they could have all varieties of scenery. The whole party left the carriage, so that they might feel at liberty to enjoy all the charming nooks of the island at their own sweet will; Aunt Bella, however, preferring to make a leisurely circuit in the carriage, and take them up again at the end of it.

“Only see that Hugh doesn’t tire himself out,” she called out as they left her behind, and Kate, who noticed the young man’s rising color and expression of repressed annoyance at the allusion to them, hurried into a lively talk about the natural history of the island, explaining that it was fast wearing away under the force of the torrent; that it had been gradually growing smaller during the last hundred years, and that probably, in the course of another century, it would have almost entirely disappeared.

“Now, come round this way,” she said, “and soon you will almost forget that you are on the edge of the biggest waterfall in the world.”

They followed her lead, taking the woodland path to the left, catching charming glimpses of the fleecy rapids between the overhanging boughs of the trees, on which birds sang sweetly and merry squirrels frisked and chattered, as if in a solitary wilderness far from the busy haunts of men. As they came out presently on the open ground at the head of the island, they found themselves beside “still waters,” the shoal water rippling gently over the gravel, as if it were a quiet reach of woodland stream; while, above them, lay a smooth stretch of Lake Erie, with Grand Island in the distance, its apparent placidity concealing the fierce undercurrent which no power of man could stem.

“One might ‘moralize the spectacle’ to any extent,” said Hugh Macnab, as Kate told some stories of the deadly strength of that hidden current—that delusively peaceful expanse of water.

“But we haven’t time for moralizing,” retorted Kate. “Now for a change of scene.”

A change of scene it was, when they came out on one of the light rustic bridges which lead across the foaming rapids to the nearest small island, and from one to another of these fairy islets, so tiny that it only seems strange that they are not swept bodily over the Falls, with their wave-worn rocks and trees, gnarled and twisted by the prevailing winds. Under the bridges they saw pretty silver cascades, and swift rushing streams, looking innocent enough, but all charged with a portion of the same overpowering force. On the outer verge of the farthest one they stood, gazing across the boiling sea of rapids that extends unbroken from the Canada shore. Kate pointed out the column of spray which rose at one point, produced by the collision of cross-currents, driving the water forcibly upwards. Then, recrossing the little bridges, they slowly walked along the road leading by the edge of the island overlooking the rapids, till they found themselves standing on the verge of the great Horse-shoe Fall.

“Our Canadian Fall is the grandest, after all,” said May.

“Yes,” replied Kate, “only it isn’t all Canadian, you see, for the boundary-line runs somewhere about the middle of the river. The Americans have more than their own share—all their own, and nearly half of ours.”

“I shouldn’t think it mattered much,” observed Hugh, “as they certainly can’t take it away, or fence it in, and forbid trespassers.”