Niagara Falls plunges from a huge elevation by reason of its inability to remain on the sharp edge of a precipice several feet higher than the point to which the falls are now falling. This causes a noise to make its appearance, and a thick mist, composed of minute particles of wetness, rises to its full height and comes down again afterwards. Words are inadequate to show here, even with the aid of a large, powerful new press, the grandeur, what you may call the vertigo, of Niagara. Everybody from all over the world goes to see and listen to the remarks of this great fall. How convenient and pleasant it is to be a cataract like that and have people come in great crowds to see and hear you! How much better that is than to be a lecturer, for instance, and have to follow people to their homes in order to attract their attention!
Many people in the United States and Canada who were once as pure as the beautiful snow, have fallen, but they did not attract the attention that the fall of Niagara does.
For the benefit of those who may never have been able to witness Niagara Falls in winter I give here a rough sketch of the magnificent spectacle as I saw it from the American side. From the Canadian side the aspect of the falls is different, and the names on the cars are not the same, but the effect on one of a sensitive nature is one of intense awe. I know that I cannot put so much of this awe into a hurried sketch as I would like to. In a crude drawing, made while the train was in motion, and at a time when the customs officer was showing the other passengers what I had in my valise, of course I could not make a picture with much sublimity in it, but I tried to make it as true to nature as I could.
The officer said that I had nothing in my luggage that was liable to duty, but stated that I would need heavier underwear in Canada than the samples I had with me.
Toronto is a stirring city of 150,000 people, who are justly proud of her great prosperity. I only regretted that I could not stay there a long time.
I met a man in Cleveland, O., whose name was Macdonald. He was at the Weddell House, and talked freely with me about our country, asking me a great many questions about myself and where I lived and how I was prospering. While we were talking at one time he saw something in the paper which interested him and called him away. After he had gone I noticed the paragraph he had been reading, and saw that it spoke of a man named Macdonald who had recently arrived in town from New York, and who was introducing a new line of green goods.
I have often wondered what there is about my general appearance which seemed to draw about me a cluster of green-goods men wherever I go. Is it the odor of new-mown hay, or the frank, open way in which I seem to measure the height of the loftiest buildings with my eye as I penetrate the busy haunts of men and throng the crowded marts of trade? Or do strangers suspect me of being a man of means?
In Cleveland I was rather indisposed, owing to the fact that I had been sitting up until 2 or 3 o'clock a. m. for several nights in order to miss early trains. I went to a physician, who said I was suffering from some new and attractive disease, which he could cope with in a day or two. I told him to cope. He prescribed a large 42-calibre capsule which he said contained medical properties. It might have contained theatrical properties and still had room left for a baby grand piano. I do not know why the capsule should be so popular. I would rather swallow a porcelain egg or a live turtle. Doctors claim that it is to prevent the bad taste of the medicines, but I have never yet participated in any medicine which was more disagreeable than the gluey shell of an adult capsule, which looks like an overgrown bott and tastes like a rancid nightmare.
I doubt the good taste of any one who will turn up his nose at castor-oil or quinine and yet meekly swallow a chrysalis with varnish on the outside.