Over the crisp snow, and through the clean little town, the sleigh went flying, the roar of the water growing louder as we neared the Falls. Soon we are at the gates of a bridge, where a toll is charged for admission to the island from which the great Falls are best seen. Crossing the bridge, we reach the small island, on which a large paper mill has been erected; and I am pointed to a rock to which last winter a poor fellow—beyond the reach of safety, though in sight—clung for hours, until, unable to hold on any longer, he was finally swept away down the torrent.
We cross another small bridge, and are on the celebrated Goat Island, which divides the great Canadian from the smaller American fall. My driver first took me to a point on the American side of this island, from which a fine view is to be obtained. The sight is certainly most wonderful. I walked down a steep pathway slippery with ice, with steps cut here and there in the rock, and suddenly found myself on the brink of the precipice. Close to my left, the water was pouring down into a chasm a hundred and sixty feet below, disappearing in a great blue cavern of ice that seemed to swallow it up. By the continual freezing of the spray, this great ice-cave reaches higher and higher during winter time. Immense icicles, some fifty feet long, hang down the sides of the rock immediately over the precipice. The trees on the island above were bent down with the weight of the frozen spray, which hung in masses from their branches. The blending of the ice and water far beneath my feet was a remarkable sight. As the spray and mist from time to time cleared off, I looked deep down into the dark icy abyss, in which the water roared, and foamed, and frothed, and boiled again.
Then I went to the other side of the island, quite fairy-like as it glistened in the sunlight, gemmed with ice-drops, and clad in its garment of white. And there I saw that astounding sight, the great Horse-shoe Fall, seven hundred feet across, over which the enormous mass of water pours with tremendous force. As the water rolled over the cliff, it seemed to hang like a green curtain in front of it, until it reached half-way down; then gradually breaking, white streaks appeared in it, broadening as they descended, until at length the mighty mass sprouted in foam, and fell roaring into the terrific gulf some hundred and fifty feet below. A great ice bridge stretched across the river beyond the boiling water at the bottom of the Fall, rough and uneven like some of the Swiss glaciers. Clouds of spray flew about, seemingly like smoke or steam. Words fail to describe a scene of such overpowering grandeur as this.
I was next driven along Goat Island to a small suspension bridge, some distance above the Falls, where I crossed over to one of the three Sister Islands—small bits of land jutting right out into the middle of the rapids. The water passes between each of these islands. I went out to the extreme point of the furthest. The sight here is perhaps second only to the great Fall itself. The river, about a mile and a quarter wide, rushes down the heavy descent, contracting as it goes, before leaping the precipice below. The water was tossing and foaming like an angry sea, reminding me of the ocean when the waves are running high and curling their white crests after a storm.
These rapids had far more fascination for me than the Falls themselves. I could sit and watch for hours the water rushing past; and it was long before I could leave them, though my feet were in deep snow. It must be very fine to sit out at that extreme point in summer time, shaded by the rich foliage of the trees, and dream away the hours. The seat is known as the Lovers' seat, but lovers would need to have strong lungs to shout their whispers to each other there, if they wished them to be heard.
At length I turned my back upon the foaming torrent, and resumed the road to my hotel. On my way back, I stopped at the genuine Niagara curiosity-shop, where photographs, Indian bead and feather work, and articles manufactured out of the "real Niagara spar," are sold. Only the photographs are really genuine and good. The bead-work is a manufacture, and probably never passed through Indian hands; while the Niagara spar is imported from Matlock, much of it doubtless returning to England in the form of curious specimens of workmanship from the Great Falls.
I have very little more to add relating to my journey through the States. I was not making a tour, but passing through America at railway speed on my way home to England; and I have merely described, in the most rapid and cursory way, the things that struck me along my route. All that remained for me to do between Niagara and New York, was to call at Rochester, and pay an unheralded visit to my American cousins there. What English family has not got relations in the States? I find that I have them living in Rochester, Boston, and St. Louis. It is the same blood, after all, in both countries—in Old and New England.
After travelling through the well-cultivated, well-peopled country that extends eastward from Niagara to Rochester, I arrived at my destination about four in the afternoon, and immediately went in search of my American cousins. I was conscious of being a rather untidy sight to look at, after my long railway journey of nearly three thousand miles, and did not know what, in my rough travelling guise, my reception might be. But any misgivings on that point were soon set at rest by the cordiality of my reception. I was at once made one of the family, and treated as such. I enjoyed with my new-found relatives four delightful days of recruiting rest and friendly intercourse. To use the common American phrase, I had a "real good time."
The town of Rochester is much bigger than the English city of the same name. It is a place of considerable trade and importance, with a population of about 60,000. Some of the commercial buildings are very fine; and I was told of one place, that it was "the finest fire-proof establishment in the world." Possibly the American world was meant, and that is by no means a small one. Rochester is especially famous for its nurseries, where trees of all kinds are reared and sent far and near; its principal nursery firms being known all over Europe.