The Canadian side of the Falls boasts of charming scenery. Even in the snow, the neat cottages and houses—the plantations, gardens, and shrubberies—evince a degree of taste and comfort which were not so observable on the American side, notwithstanding the superior activity of the population.
Our observations on our return to the right bank of the river confirmed my impression concerning the diminished volume and effect of the cataract. The ice, formed by spray, hung over the torrent, which, always more broken and less ponderous than that on the other side, is in summer very beautiful, by reason of the immense variety of form and colour in the jets and cascades, and of the ease with which you can stand, as it were, amid the very waters of Niagara.
The town half populated; the monster hotel closed; the swimming-baths, in which one could take a plunge into the active rapids safely enclosed in a perforated room, now fastened up for winter,—presented a great contrast to the noise and bustle of the American Niagara in the season. This is the time when the Indians enable the shopkeepers to accumulate their stores of bead and feather work; and a few squaws, dressed in a curious compromise between the garments of the civilised female and the simpler robes of the “untutored savage,” flitted through the snow from one dealer to another with their work. In some houses they are regularly employed all day, and come in from their village in the morning and go home at night when their work is done.
The view of the Rapids from the upper end of Goat Island is not, to my mind, as fine as that obtained from the island on the British side higher up. The sight of that tortured flood, loaded with its charging lines of “sea horses,”—its surging glistening foam-heaps streaking the wide expanse which rolled towards us from a dull leaden horizon,—was inexpressibly grand and gloomy, and struck me more forcibly than the aspect of the Rapids had done in August, when I beheld them in a setting of rich green landscape and forest.
On the whole, I would much rather, were I going to Niagara for the first time, select the Canadian side for my first view. It would be well never to look at the Falls, if that were possible, till the traveller could open his eyes from the remnant of the Table Rock on the Great Horseshoe; but curiosity will probably defeat any purpose of that kind. Still, the Horseshoe is grand enough to grow on the spectator day after day, even if there be some disappointment in the first aspect. The noise, though it shake the earth and air, is not of the violent overwhelming character which might have been expected from its effect on window-panes and shutters. As the voice of a man can be heard in the din of battle by those around him, so can even the low tones of a clear speaker be distinguished most readily close to the brink of a cataract, the roar of which at times is very audible, nevertheless, from twelve to fifteen miles away.
The only drawback to a sojourn on the Canadian side is, perhaps, the feeling of irritation or unrest produced by the ceaseless jar and tumult of the Falls, which become well-nigh unbearable at night, and vex one’s slumbers with unquiet dreams, in which water plays a powerful part. The American side is not so much affected in that way. The Horseshoe presents by far the greatest mass of water; its rush is grander—the terrible fathomless gulf into which it falls is more awe-inspiring than anything on the American side; but the latter offers to the visitor greater variety of colour—I had nigh said of substance—in the water. At its first tremendous blow on the seething surface of the basin, the column of water seems to make a great cavern, into which it plunges bodily, only to come up in myriad millions of foaming particles, very small, bright, and distinct, like minute, highly-polished shot. These gradually expand and melt into each other after a wild dance in the caldron, which boils and bubbles with its awful hell-broth for ever. In the centre of the Horseshoe, which is really more the form of two sides of an obtuse-angled triangle, the water, being of great depth—at least thirty feet where it falls over the precipice—is of an azure green, which contrasts well with the yellow, white, and light emerald colours of the shallower and more broken portions nearer the sides.
It would be considered rather presumptuous in any one to think of improving upon Niagara, but I cannot help thinking that the effect would be increased immensely if the island which divides the cataract into the Horseshoe and the American Falls, and the rock which juts up in the latter and subdivides it unequally, were removed or did not exist; then the river, in one grand front of over one thousand yards, would make its leap en masse. The American Falls are destitute of the beauty given by the curve of the leap to the Horseshoe; they descend perpendicularly, and are lost in a sea of foam, not in an abyss of water, but in the wild confusion of the vast rocks which are piled up below. But they are still beautiful exceedingly, and there is more variety of scene in the islands, in the passage over the bridges to Goat Island and to the stone tower, which has been built amid the very waters of the cataract, so that one can stand on the outside gallery and look down upon the Falls beneath.
Goat Island is happily intersected with good drives and walks, laid out with sufficiently fair taste through the natural forest, and seats are placed at intervals for the accommodation of visitors. It is no disparagement to the manner in which the grounds have been ornamented to say that a good English landscape gardener would convert the island into the gem of the world. The ornamentation need not be overdone; it should be congruous and in keeping with the Falls, which nature has embellished with such infinity of colouring. As it is, the island is much visited. Strange enough, the softest whispered vows can be heard amid the thunder of Niagara, and it is believed that many marriages owe their happy inspiration to inadvertent walking and talking in these secluded yet much-haunted groves. Sawmills, papermills, and manufactories delight the utilitarian as he gazes on the Rapids which have so long been wasting their precious water-power, and it is not unlikely that a thriving town may grow up to distressing dimensions on the American side of the stream, at all events.