Like many a Frenchman, Blondin never mastered the intricacies of the English language. In a rather queer and rambling fragment of autobiography written some years ago, he tells us that the rope he generally used was formed with a flexible core of steel-wire covered with the best manila-hemp, about an inch or three quarters in diameter, several hundred yards in length, and costing about fifteen hundred dollars. A large windlass at either end of the rope served to make it taut, while it was supported by two high poles. His balancing poles of ash wood varied in length and were of three sections, and weighed from thirty-seven to forty-seven pounds. He was indifferent as to the height at which he was to perform. Blondin has never confessed to any nervousness on the rope, and, while walking, he generally looked eighteen or twenty feet ahead, and whistled or hummed some snatch of a song. The time kept by a band frequently aided him in preserving his balance. He was something of both carpenter and blacksmith, and was able to make his own models and fit up his own apparatus.
While Blondin yet performed at the Falls there appeared Signor Farini in 1860, and stretched a cable across the Gorge near the hydraulic canal basin. On August 8, 1864, Farini reappeared walking about the Rapids above the American fall on stilts. He was certainly an expert on the rope and commanded much attention, but he was not able to snatch the laurel from the Frenchman's brow—he has been forgotten, while Blondin's fame has lived. We must, however, chronicle a thrilling incident attached to his performance in 1864. Between Robinson's Island and the precipice Farini was suddenly delayed. He claimed his stilts caught in a crevice. His brother succeeded in reaching a log between the old paper-mill and Robinson's Island, from which he threw a line, with a weight attached, to the adventurer, and by this line a pail of provisions was sent to Farini. A larger line was thrown and both reached shore by way of Goat Island.
The Path to the Cave of the Winds.
From a photograph by Notman, Montreal.
There has hardly been a year in which some tight-rope exhibition has not taken place at Niagara Falls.
Harry Leslie crossed the Gorge on a rope-cable in July and August, 1865. He achieved the title of "The American Blondin."
In 1873, when Signor Balleni (Ballini?) stretched a cable from a point opposite the old Clifton House to Prospect Park, he leaped three times into the river as an extra inducement, aided in his descent by a rubber cord. In 1886 he reappeared, climbed to the iron railing on the upper suspension bridge, knocked the ice from under his feet to secure a footing, and at the signal of a pistol shot jumped into the air. He struck the water in four seconds, broke a rib, lost his senses, and came to the surface some sixty feet from where he entered. This was the same man who jumped from Hungerford Bridge, London, in 1888, and was drowned. In July, 1876, Signorina Maria Spelterini crossed the Gorge on a tight-rope with baskets on her feet. The performance brought out a tremendous crowd, probably because she was the first woman daring to try conclusions with Blondin and his many imitators. She got across safely with her baskets and her name. She won great favour and forever established the fact that a woman is as level-headed as a man. In the seventies of the last century, a young fellow, Stephen Peere, a painter by trade, stretched a cable across the Falls. In 1878 he gave variety to his career by jumping from one of the bridges, and in 1887 he finished it by jumping to his death. He had previously, on June 22, 1887, walked across the Gorge on a wire cable six-eighths of an inch in diameter. This was a wonderful performance, considering the fact that all the others had used a rope two inches in diameter. Only three days later he was found dead on a bank beneath his rope, stretched between the old suspension and the cantilever bridges. It is supposed he attempted to practise in night time, but as nobody saw him he met his fate; this is only supposition. A man, "Professor" De Leon, aspiring to become Peere's successor, started out on August 15, 1887, to cross the latter's cable. After going a short distance he became frightened, slid down a rope, and disappeared in the bushes. He was later seen ascending the bank by a ladder, and thus came back to the bosom of his family. MacDonald made several very creditable attempts, and proved himself an excellent walker. He also went across with baskets on his feet, and frightened the gaping crowd by hanging with his legs from the wire, head downwards.
Another freak, I. F. Jenkins, stretched his cable across the Gorge over the Rapids. With a keen eye for effect and sensation he selected as one of his principal feats, crossing by velocipede. The machine, however, was specially constructed for this purpose; it was a turned-down contrivance, only resembling a bicycle, and had an ingeniously devised balancing apparatus in lieu of a pole attached by a metal framework to the wheels. Thus this pièce de résistance was not so remarkable after all. Samuel John Dixon, a Toronto photographer, was on his way to a Photographers' Annual Convention when he observed Peere's cable still stretched across the Rapids of Niagara. He remarked that he too could cross on it, but the remark was not taken seriously; to prove that he was in earnest, Dixon, on his return, actually made the dangerous trip on the three-quarter inch cable, measuring 923 feet in length. One of this amateur's crack feats was laying down with his back on the wire. He has made several other passages since,—the first occurring on September 6, 1890—always with great éclat. Dixon has always been vigorously applauded. James E. Hardy has also successful crossings at the Gorge to his credit. He also holds the "record" of being the youngest man that ever performed the feat. Another Toronto man, Clifford M. Calverley, has been styled "The World's Champion," and "The American Blondin," but although very clever, many of his feats are just those which made the Frenchman famous over forty years ago. His wheelbarrow feat is certainly middle-aged although it still remains as difficult to perform as it was in Blondin's days. People never tire of it and Calverley was, indeed, a remarkable gymnast. He erected a wire cable at about the same point between the bridges at which Peere and Dixon had crossed, and gave public exhibitions on October 12, 1892, and July 1, 1893. He performed numerous stunning feats as high-kicking, walking with baskets on his feet, cooking meals on the rope, and chair-balancing; he also gave night exhibitions, which was original.
One man at least took the tight-rope route across Niagara who had not practised the feat. This was a criminal who escaped his captors near this locality in 1883; the sheriff was behind him, the river in front, and only the wires of the old bridge at Lewiston to help him across. Hand over hand he began the passage. His hands quickly blistered, and then they bled. Again and again he rested his arms by hanging by his legs, and at last reached the opposite bank where he lay panting fully an hour before he continued his flight.