Next morning we set off in a little waggon, under a glorious sun, and a refreshing breeze. Seven miles of a pleasant road which ran up the ridge we had observed the preceding night, brought us to the cataract. In the way we alighted to look down from a broad platform of rock, on the edge of the precipice, at a fine bend of the river. From hence the blue expanse of Ontario bounded a third of the horizon; fort Niagara on the American shore; fort George on the Canadian, guarding the mouth of the river, where it opens into the lake; the banks, rising as they approached us, finely wooded, and winding now hiding and now revealing the majestic waters of the channel. Never shall I forget the moment when, throwing down my eyes, I first beheld the deep, slow, solemn tide, clear as crystal, and green as the ocean, sweeping through its channel of rocks with a sullen dignity of motion and sound, far beyond all that I had heard, or could ever have conceived. You saw and felt immediately that it was no river you beheld, but an imprisoned sea; for such indeed are the lakes of these regions. The velocity of the waters, after the leap, until they issue from the chasm at Queenston, flowing over a rough and shelving bed, must actually be great; but, from their vast depth they move with an apparent majesty, that seems to temper their vehemence, rolling onwards in heavy volumes, and with a hollow sound, as if labouring and groaning with their own weight. I can convey to you no idea of the solemnity of this moving ocean. Our eyes followed its waves until they ached with gazing.
A mile farther, we caught a first and partial glimpse of the cataract, on which the opposing sun flashed for a moment, as on a silvery screen that hung suspended in the sky. It disappeared again behind the forest, all save the white cloud that rose far up into the air, and marked the spot from whence the thunder came.
Two foot-bridges have latterly been thrown, by daring and dexterous hands, from island to island, across the American side of the channel, some hundred feet above the brink of the fall; gaining in this manner the great island which divides the cataract into two unequal parts, we made its circuit at our leisure. From its lower point, we obtained partial and imperfect views of the falling river; from the higher, we commanded a fine prospect of the upper channel. Nothing here denotes the dreadful commotion so soon about to take place; the thunder, indeed, is behind you, and the rapids are rolling and dashing on either hand; but before, the vast river comes sweeping down its broad and smooth waters between banks low and gentle as those of the Thames. Returning, we again stood long on the bridges, gazing on the rapids that rolled above and beneath us; the waters of the deepest sea-green, crested with silver, shooting under our feet with the velocity of lightning, till, reaching the brink, the vast waves seemed to pause, as if gathering their strength for the tremendous plunge. Formerly it was not unusual for the more adventurous traveller to drop down to the island in a well-manned and well-guided boat. This was done by keeping between the currents, as they rush on either side of the island, thus leaving a narrow stream, which flows gently to its point, and has to the eye, contrasted with the rapidity of the tide, where to right and left the water is sucked to the falls, the appearance of a strong back current.
It is but an inconsiderable portion of this imprisoned sea which flows on the American side; but even this were sufficient to fix the eye in admiration. Descending the ladder, (now easy steps,) and approaching to the foot of this lesser fall, we were driven away blinded, breathless, and smarting, the wind being high and blowing right against us. A young gentleman, who incautiously ventured a few steps farther, was thrown upon his back, and I had some apprehension, from the nature of the ground upon which he fell, was seriously hurt; he escaped, however, from the blast, upon hands and knees, with a few slight bruises. Turning a corner of the rock (where, descending less precipitously, it is wooded to the bottom) to recover our breath, and wring the water from our hair and clothes, we saw, on lifting our eyes, a corner of the summit of this graceful division of the cataract hanging above the projecting mass of trees, as it were in mid air, like the snowy top of a mountain. Above, the dazzling white of the shivered water was thrown into contrast with the deep blue of the unspotted heavens; below, with the living green of the summer foliage, fresh and sparkling in the eternal shower of the rising and falling spray. The wind, which, for the space of an hour, blew with some fury, rushing down with the river, flung showers of spray from the crest of the fall. The sun’s rays glancing on these big drops, and sometimes on feathery streams thrown fantastically from the main body of the water, transformed them into silvery stars, or beams of light; while the graceful rainbow, now arching over our heads, and now circling in the vapour at our feet, still flew before us as we moved. The greater division of the cataract was here concealed from our sight by the dense volumes of vapour which the wind drove with fury across the immense basin directly towards us; sometimes indeed a veering gust parted for a moment the thick clouds, and partially revealed the heavy columns, that seemed more like fixed pillars of moving emerald than living sheets of water. Here, seating ourselves at the brink of this troubled ocean, beneath the gaze of the sun, we had the full advantage of a vapour bath; the fervid rays drying our garments one moment, and a blast from the basin drenching them the next. The wind at length having somewhat abated, and the ferryman being willing to attempt the passage, we here crossed in a little boat to the Canada side. The nervous arm of a single rower stemmed this heavy current, just below the basin of the falls, and yet in the whirl occasioned by them; the stormy north-west at this moment chafing the waters yet more. Blinded as we were by the columns of vapour which were driven upon us, we lost the panoramic view of the cataract, which, in calmer hours, or with other winds, may be seen in this passage. The angry waters, and the angry winds together, drove us farther down the channel than was quite agreeable, seeing that a few roods more, and our shallop must have been whirled into breakers, from which ten such arms as those of its skilful conductor could not have redeemed it.
Being landed two-thirds of a mile below the cataract, a scramble, at first very intricate, through, and over, and under huge masses of rock, which occasionally seemed to deny all passage, and among which our guide often disappeared from our wandering eyes, placed us at the foot of the ladder by which the traveller descends on the Canada side. From hence a rough walk, along a shelving ledge of loose stones, brought us to the cavern formed by the projection of the ledge over which the water rolls, and which is known by the name of the Table Rock.
The gloom of this vast cavern, the whirlwind that ever plays in it, the deafening roar, the vast abyss of convulsed waters beneath you, the falling columns that hang over your head, all strike, not upon the ears and eyes only, but upon the heart. For the first few moments, the sublime is wrought to the terrible. This position, indisputably the finest, is no longer one of safety. A part of the Table Rock fell last year, and in that still remaining, the eye traces an alarming fissure, from the very summit of the projecting ledge over which the water rolls; so that the ceiling of this dark cavern seems rent from the precipice, and whatever be its hold, it is evidently fast yielding to the pressure of the water. You cannot look up to this crevice, and down upon the enormous masses which lately fell, with a shock mistaken by the neighbouring inhabitants for that of an earthquake, without shrinking at the dreadful possibility which might crush you beneath ruins, yet more enormous than those which lie at your feet.
The cavern formed by the projection of this rock, extends some feet behind the water, and, could you breathe, to stand behind the edge of the sheet were perfectly easy. I have seen those who have told me they have done so; for myself, when I descended within a few paces of this dark recess, I was obliged to hurry back some yards to draw breath. Mine to be sure are not the best of lungs, but theirs must be little short of miraculous, that can play in the wind, and foam, that gush from the hidden depths of this watery cave. It is probable, however, that the late fracture of the rock has considerably narrowed this recess, and thus increased the force of the blast that meets the intruder.
From this spot, (beneath the Table Rock,) you feel, more than from any other, the height of the cataract, and the weight of its waters. It seems a tumbling ocean; and that you yourself are a helpless atom amid these vast and eternal workings of gigantic nature! The wind had now abated, and what was better, we were now under the lee, and could admire its sport with the vapour, instead of being blinded by it. From the enormous basin into which the waters precipitate themselves in a clear leap of one hundred and forty feet, the clouds of smoke rose in white volumes, like the round-headed clouds you have sometimes seen in the evening horizon of a summer sky, and then shot up in pointed pinnacles, like the ice of mountain glacières. Caught by the wind, it was now whirled in spiral columns far up into the air, then, re-collecting its strength, the tremulous vapour again sought the upper air, till, broken and dispersed in the blue serene, it spread against it the only silvery veil which spotted the pure azure. In the centre of the fall, where the water is the heaviest, it takes the leap in an unbroken mass of the deepest green, and in many places reaches the bottom in crystal columns of the same hue, till they meet the snow-white foam that heaves and rolls convulsedly in the enormous basin. But for the deafening roar, the darkness and the stormy whirlwind in which we stood, I could have fancied these massy volumes the walls of some fairy palace—living emeralds chased in silver. Never surely did nature throw together so fantastically so much beauty, with such terrific grandeur. Nor let me pass without notice the lovely rainbow that, at this moment, hung over the opposing division of the cataract as parted by the island, embracing the whole breadth in its span. Midway of this silvery screen of shivered water, stretched a broad belt of blazing gold and crimson, into which the rainbow dropped its hues, and seemed to have based its arch. Different from all other scenes of nature that have come under my observation, the cataract of Niagara is seen to most advantage under a powerful and opposing sun; the hues assumed by the vapour are then by far the most varied and brilliant; and of the beauty of these hues, I can give you no idea. The gloom of the cavern (for I speak always as if under the Table Rock) needs no assistance from the shade of evening; and the terrible grandeur of the whole is not felt the less for being distinctly seen.
We again visited this wonder of nature in our return from Lake Erie; and have now gazed upon it in all lights, and at all hours,—under the rising, meridian, and setting sun, and under the pale moon when
“riding in her highest noon.”