Blondin Crossing the Niagara
As illustrating the power of the imagination over the nerves it may be noted that, if the great spider's-web had been stretched out anywhere on a level surface, and not more than three feet above the ground, a dozen men in any large community could have been found to walk it as unconcernedly, if not as gracefully, as the famous "ascensionist." After three years of successful labor at Niagara, he sought other air-spaces.
The most notable occurrence, however, which emphasized the visit of the Prince of Wales in that year was the illumination of the Falls late in the evening of a moonless night. On the banks above and all about on the rocks below, on the lower side of the road down the Canadian bank, and along the water's edge, were placed numerous colored and white calcium, volcanic, and torpedo lights. At a signal they were set aflame all at once. At the same time rockets and wheels and flying artillery were set off in great abundance. The shores were crowded with spectators, and the scene was a most remarkable one. The steady, lurid light below and the intermittent flashes and explosions overhead, the seething, hissing volumes of flame and smoke rolling up from the deep abyss, the ghostly appearance of the descending stream, the ghastly swift current of white foam, the weird appearance of the cloud of spray with a faint and fantastic illumination at its base, which faded out in the dim light of the stars as it ascended, the peculiarly deep but muffled and solemn monotone of the falling water, the livid hue imparted to the faces of the quiet but deeply interested spectators, all made the scene memorable and impressive. When the Marquis of Lorne and the Princess Louise visited the Falls in January, 1879, they saw them illuminated by electricity, the light having the illuminating power of 32,000 candles.
In December, 1837, the steamer Caroline came down from Buffalo to aid, it was said, the so-called Patriots, then engaged in an insurrection against the Canadian Government. A motley collection of adventurers on Navy Island constituted the disturbing, not to say attacking, force. At Chippewa was stationed a body of Canadian militia, under the command of Colonel—afterward Sir—Allan McNabb, who had the good fortune to win his spurs in a single almost bloodless campaign. By his direction a boat expedition was sent to attack the Caroline, as she lay at the old Schlosser dock. In the mêlée one American was killed. The steamer was set on fire, and her fastenings must have been burnt away, as also a part of her upper works, since the writer, ten years later, while returning from a fishing expedition, discovered her smoke-pipe lying at the bottom of the river, in a quiet basin not thirty rods below the dock. A cat-fish of moderate dimensions appeared to be keeping house in it, and, with his head barely projecting from one end, was serenely watching the current for whatever game it might bring to his iron parlor. After the new bridges were built connecting the Three Sisters with Goat Island, the guides and drivers, in their desire to enhance the interest of the scene, astonished travelers by informing them that it was the boiler of the Caroline which caused the extraordinary elevation of the water which we have before referred to as the Leaping Rock.
Nine miles from the Falls is the Tuscarora Reservation of four thousand acres. On this there are about three hundred and fifty Indians, mostly half-breeds, engaged in agricultural pursuits, which supply a portion of their necessities. The Indian women who are seen at the Falls in the summer season working and vending different articles of bead-work belong to this community. The Tuscaroras have not been more fortunate than others of their race in bargaining with their white brothers, and their lands are now stripped of the fine oak timber and valuable wood which stood upon it a few years since, and which was sold in large quantities at small prices.
Indian Women Selling Bead-work