At this hospital the Prince was received by a Welsh choir, many of the lasses dressed in the tall hats and native laces and fabrics of Wales, and, so that nobody should make mistakes about them, each (men and women) wore a fresh leek at the breast.
The Prince also visited the Sanatorium on the heights, and drove out to the Club, where he lunched, and, on the whole, filled a day with all the bustle that Hamilton knows well how to put into events. It was only at night that he was free to leave this vigorous town, and start for the restful beauties of Niagara.
CHAPTER XXI
NIAGARA AND THE TOWNS OF WESTERN ONTARIO
I
The best first impression of Niagara Falls is, I think, the one the Prince of Wales obtained.
Those who really wish to experience the thrills of grandeur and poetry of this marvel had better delay their visit until a night in summer, and make arrangements with the railway time-table to get there somewhere after dark. Upon arriving they must hire a car, and drive down to the splendid boulevard on the Canadian side. They will then see the great mass of water under the shine of lights, falling eternally, eternally presenting a picture of almost cruel beauty. They will then know an experience that transcends all other experiences as well as all attempts at description.
The curious feeling of disappointment which comes to many in daylight will have been guarded against, and, stimulated by that wondrous first vision, they will tide over that spiritually barren period which many know until the marvel of the Falls begins to "grow on them."
The Prince came from Hamilton to Niagara somewhere very close to midnight on Saturday, the 18th. He was carried through the dark town and country to the house of one of the Falls Commissioners. From here, through a filigree of trees and leaves, he could look across the smoking gorge to the Falls on the American side. Batteries of great arc lights, focused and hidden cunningly, shone upon the curtain of white and tumbling waters, and upon the strong, black mass of Goat Island, that is perched like a diver eternally hesitant on the very brink of the two-hundred-foot plunge.