The wonders of the world

by John Loraine Abbott

NIAGARA FALLS.

“The most complete view of the Horseshoe fall is that from the bottom of the cliff, at a point near the ferry landing. If, however, the water is unusually high, the quiet pool which is ordinarily seen in the foreground, becomes a fierce and angry rush of waters, foaming above and around the jagged rocks. If the water is very low, the bed of this pool is entirely dry. Last year [1852] there were but few days when the whole spot was not overflowed. The current nearest the Canada shore runs up-stream, as though seeking an outlet in the direction from which it came. The middle distance is marked by a line of white foam, beyond which the current runs downstream. The center of the Horse-shoe fall is directly in front, defined on the right by the verge of Table Rock, and on the left by the upper extremity of Goat island. Just below the tower which seems to rise from the midst of the waters on the American side, an immense mass of rock is dimly visible, which became detached from the precipice in February, 1852.

“A very charming glimpse of that portion of the fall directly in front of the tower, may be caught through a clump of trees which stand a little above the ferry landing. The limitation of view hightens the effect, when contrasted with the unlimited prospect of the fall presented from almost every other point on the Canada side.

“It is no very difficult task for a stout pedestrian to make his way along under the edge of the precipice from the ferry up to the foot of the fall. The path winds among huge fragments of rock which have tumbled from above, and is slippery with the falling spray. You stop to rest upon a huge rock, where a couple of rough-coated men are fishing. They tell you that it is named ‘Bass rock,’ and you recognize the propriety of the appellation, as you observe the finny spoil that has repaid their labor. The water rushes foaming and eddying around the fragments of rock, sometimes rising in great swells to the spot on which you stand. Fragments of timber, their ends rounded and worn like pebbles on a wave-beaten shore, are scattered around: some groaning and tossing in the water, others stranded high and dry upon the rocks, where they have been flung by some swell higher than usual. You are so near the foot of the fall that the descending sheet of water occupies the entire field of vision: the immense rock which interposes between Bass rock and the descending water has as yet received no distinctive name.

“The path now begins to ascend the sloping bank, winding around huge bowlders, and among gay shrubs which the perpetual spray nourishes in luxuriant greenness, wherever there is a resting-place for a patch of soil. At last you reach the dilapidated staircase which descends the perpendicular face of the cliff, and clambering around its base upon a rotten and slimy plank, you find yourself below the overhanging mass of Table Rock. You are close at the edge of the falling water, which descends in a mass apparently as solid as though carved from marble. You now begin to comprehend the hight of the fall. It makes you dizzy to look up to the upper edge of the rushing column. You stand just midway between the top and the bottom. Above you hangs the imminent mass of Table Rock; below, far down by the wet and jagged rocks, is the seething whirlpool, where the water writhes and eddies as though frenzied with its fearful leap. Round and round it goes in solemn gyrations, bearing with it whatever floating object may have been plunged into its vortex.

“A year ago this very month of August, a young woman walked in the cool gray morning down to the brink of the cliff and flung herself into the whirlpool below. So resolute was the leap, that she shot clear of the jagged rocks at the base, and plunged sheer into the water beyond. When the visitors came sauntering down to the fall, her body was seen whirling round and round in the mad eddies, now submerged for an instant, and then leaping up, as though imploring aid. A day or two afterward, I was one of a group to whom a rough-looking man was describing the scene. He told how he and two others had descended amid the blinding spray close to the foot of the fall. A rope was then fastened to his body, which was held fast from above by the others, while he groped his misty way down to the very edge of the waters, where he waited till they whirled the corpse close inshore. He then darted a spear with a spring-barb into the body, but the force of the current tore out the hold, and it drifted away. Again it came within reach, and again the hold of the spear was too weak to overcome the force of the current. A third time the body approached, and the spear was darted. This time it caught among the strong muscles of the thigh, and held, so that the body was drawn to shore. The narrator was a rough man, roughly clad, and told his story roughly; but there was in his voice a low thrill of horror as he told how he was obliged to cut the spear-head out of the flesh with his knife, before the weapon could be extracted: ‘It was too bad,’ said he; ‘but it couldn’t be helped.’ And it was with unconscious pathos that he told how they stripped off their own rough garments, and tenderly covered the poor maimed and mutilated body before they bore it up the bank. It was a commentary, wrought out into practice, upon Hood’s immortal ‘Bridge of Sighs.’

“With the exception of the fall itself, the Canada side presents little of interest. The brink of the gorge is bare and naked, the trees which once clothed it having been cut away. The regular drive seems to be up to the Burning Spring, and thence back by way of Drummondville and Lundy’s Lane. At the Burning Spring you register your name, pay your fee, and are introduced into a small apartment, in the floor of which is a spring in constant ebullition from the escape of an inflammable gas. The flaxen-pated children of the show-woman place a receiver over the spring, and set fire to the gas, as it comes out of the jet; they then remove the receiver, and light the gas as it rises to the surface of the water; and that is all. You take your departure, looking vastly edified; while the driver thrusts his tongue into his cheek, as though he were mentally quoting a certain proverb touching ‘a fool and his money.’

“In the early morning you commit yourself to the little boat in which you are to be ferried over to the American shore. Your half-felt misgivings are dissipated as you see the dexterous manner with which the brawny boatman handles his oars, and takes advantage of the ‘up-eddy’ and ‘down-eddy;’ and in a few minutes you are landed close at the foot of the American fall. Half-way up the ferry-stairs is an opening which gives access to a path along the foot of the perpendicular precipice to the verge of the falling water. From this point in the early morning, may be gained one of the most picturesque views of Niagara. Your position gives a fine view of the fall on the American side, as seen in the cut; the hight of which forms a standard by which you measure that of the Horseshoe fall, which stretches away in the distant perspective. Completing the ascent of the ferry-stairway, you reach Prospect point, at its head, from whence the same general view is gained, from a more elevated point. It is hard to say whether the view from above or below is the finer. The latter brings more into notice the hight of the falling column of water, thus gaining an additional element of grandeur, while the latter embraces a view of the wooded islands above the fall, adding greatly to the picturesque effect. The precise point from which the artist has taken this sketch is not now attainable. It was a projecting shelf of rock, a few feet below the precipice, which has been cut away to make room for the terribly unpicturesque, but most convenient stairway.