“As if God poured it from his hollow hand,
And had bid
Its flood to chronicle the ages back,
And notch his centuries in the eternal rock.”

“No clearing to-day, Norman,” said Mrs. Lester, as they left the Cataract Hotel in the drizzling rain to cross over to Goat Island. They paused upon the bridge, and looked upon the rapids, foaming, and dashing, and roaring beneath.

“I can understand now,” said Norman, “what I have read about morbid impulses, for I feel as if I would like to jump into the rushing water.”

The path down the hill to Juna Island was very muddy and slippery, and they were obliged to walk down very carefully, lest a misstep should plunge them into the mighty current.

18Mrs. Lester told Norman of a happy party that once crossed the bridge to this island; of the little girl playfully thrown toward the fall by a young man; of the sudden terror that led her to jump from his arms; of his fearful plunge to save the life he had periled, and of the twain borne over that giddy verge. Those fresh young lives, gone in one moment, with all of earthly hope and aspiration.

It was fearful to think of; but how many are daily and hourly borne, by the mighty tides of worldliness and sin, over a more tremendous precipice; and there are no cries or prayers of pitying love; no man careth for their souls!

Norman was very silent as he looked for the first time on that wondrous fall, the sight of which, he said, took away his strength. He felt awed and solemnized by this mighty display of God’s mighty works.

By the path on Goat Island, not beautiful and attractive as usual, for the trees 19had not put on their heavy foliage, and the path was wet and muddy, they walked to a little rural building, where, sheltered from the falling rain, they could look down upon the Horse-Shoe Fall. On one point in this magnificent cataract Norman loved to look; it was the angular central point where the stream is greatest in volume, and where its exquisite hue of emerald green continually breaks into snowy whiteness.

“I have heard those falling waters compared to the robes of a goddess continually falling from her shoulders,” said Mrs. Lester; “but the thought is scarcely spiritual enough to satisfy one.”

“It seems too grand to say anything about it,” said Norman; “it makes me so silent.”
“‘Come then, expressive Silence, muse thy praise,’

is a most fitting invocation at this place,” replied his mother.

20“I have been looking all round for you,” said a lady, whom they had found the day before to be a most agreeable fellow-traveler, as she alighted from the carriage, “and they told me at the hotel that you had gone to Goat Island, so I came here with the expectation of finding you.”

After looking awhile at the fall, they descended the hill, crossed the Terrapin bridge, and ascending the winding staircase in the stone tower, they came out on the circular balcony above. It was fearful to look from that giddy height down into the foaming depths below, and in the midst of those maddening waters one could scarcely believe that the town had a foundation sufficiently firm to resist their onward course. The columns of spray, driven by the east wind, almost obscured the opposite cliffs.

Mrs. Bushnell wished Mrs. Lester and Norman to accompany her in her drive 21round Goat Island home; but they preferred another hour spent in sight of the fall. Many carriages drove up while they sat there, and men with cigars in their mouths jumped out, ran down the hill, over the bridge, and up the stairs to the tower, where they took a hurried look at the mighty torrent, and speedily regained their carriages and were off.

“I really think, mother,” said Norman, “that we are enjoying Niagara more than any one. We are having such a long look.”

In the afternoon they accompanied Mrs. Bushnell and her nephew to the British side of the river. They crossed the Suspension Bridge, about two miles below the falls. It is a miracle of art, a beautiful work of man, in harmonious contrast with the stupendous works of God. Norman, who had been studying his guide book, told them that there were more than eighteen million feet of wire, and that the 22aggregate length of wire was more than four thousand miles.

They rode over the lower carriage way of the bridge, which is a single span, eight hundred feet in length between the massive towers by which it is supported. In crossing they had a fine distant view of the two falls, and of the fearful chasm beneath, with its solemn deep waters, quiet as if exhausted by their recent plunge.

The afternoon was decidedly stormy, the rain fell fast, dimming the glass of the carriage, and driving in upon them, when the window was open. The spray hung before the falls as a dense cloud, obscuring more than half of them from view.

On their return Mr. White, Mrs. Bushnell’s nephew, took Norman by the hand, and walked over the railroad bridge, while the carriage passed beneath. Norman looked with wonder at those mighty 23cables, twisted with so many wires, and supporting with their interlacing ropes that great structure weighing eight hundred tons. It seemed so solid and substantial, that Norman did not think of any danger in crossing it, air hung as it is over the great abyss.

Another cloudy day, but it was a happy day to Norman and his mother. As they loitered at Point View and on Goat Island, Norman took three or four pencil sketches, to be copied and filled up at his leisure. He gathered some pretty white and blue flowers on Goat Island, and arranged them fancifully in an Indian birch-bark canoe which he had just purchased.

“Mother,” said he, holding it up to her, “this canoe looks just like one of which I have seen a picture. It illustrates an Indian legend of the paradise of flowers. They are represented as still retaining their flowerlike forms, leisurely reclining 24in canoes, floating gently in the placid streams of the spirit land.”

“How pretty it looks,” said his mother, “with those pendant white blossoms; I shall always associate this flowery canoe and its graceful legend with this turn in the path on Goat Island.”

“Are we not having a delightful afternoon, mother? the air is so pleasant, and there are patches of blue sky, and it is nice not to carry an umbrella,” said Norman.

“We should not have thought of that element of satisfaction, but for the experience of these two days; as it is, we are prepared fully to appreciate it.”

They very much enjoyed their walk up to the “Three Sisters;” the rapids were of the most beautiful green, flecked with white foam, and in the absence of sunlight they could look, without being dazzled, upon the graceful majestic flow of waters. How many longing, lingering 25looks were given from each spot as, at the approach of evening, they reluctantly retraced their steps.

Norman had amused himself during the day in looking over Indian curiosities, and in addition to a birch-bark canoe worked in porcupine quills, pincushions, and mats worked in beads, had purchased a Derbyshire-spar cup and whistle at the store near the bridge to Goat Island, with the assurance that they were turned at Niagara, out of Table Rock!

A parting glance from Point View the next morning before breakfast, after which they took the cars for Buffalo, where they found Professor L. awaiting them. A long ride on the railroad, near the shore of Lake Erie, (which was not however often visible,) carried them through Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan, and then through Indiana and Illinois. All these states looked very much alike to Norman as he hurried past groves, ravines, towns, 26and prairies, and after a day and night’s travel arrived at E., a village near Chicago, without any very definite impressions of the shifting scenery that had passed before his vision.