“Well,” said I, “why do you sigh?”
“Ah! my dear fellow, if you could do the same this afternoon, there would be ‘standing room only’ in the Victoria Hall to-night.”
I left that bridge in no time.
CHAPTER X.
Buffalo—The Niagara Falls—A Frost—Rochester to the Rescue of Buffalo—Cleveland—I Meet Jonathan—Phantasmagoria.
Buffalo, January 14.
This town is situated twenty-seven miles from Niagara Falls. The Americans say that the Buffalo people can hear the noise of the water-fall quite distinctly. I am quite prepared to believe it. However, an hour’s journey by rail and then a quarter of an hour’s sleigh ride will take you from Buffalo within sight of this, perhaps the grandest piece of scenery in the world. Words cannot describe it. You spend a couple of hours visiting every point of view. You are nailed, as it were, to the ground, feeling like a pigmy, awestruck in the presence of nature at her grandest. The snow was falling thickly, and though it made the view less clear, it added to the grandeur of the scene.
I went down by the cable car to a level with the rapids and the place where poor Captain Webb was last seen alive; a presumptuous pigmy, he, to dare such waters as these. His widow keeps a little bazaar near the falls and sells souvenirs to the visitors.