I felt interested with Buffalo, and
had promised myself much pleasure from a visit to
the country occupied by a branch of the Seneca tribe
in its neighbourhood; but Niagara was now within a
few hours,the great object of the journey
was almost in sight. I was for ever fancying that
I heard the sound of the “Thunder-water"
booming on the breeze; so, with a restlessness and
anxiety not to be suppressed, I got into the coach
on the day after my arrival at the capital of the lakes,
and was in a short time set down on the bank of the
swift river Niagara, at the ferry, which is some four
miles from Buffalo.
We found the little rapids about the
shore occupied by fishers of all ages, who required
but a small share of the patience which is deemed so
essential a qualification to the followers of this
melancholy sport, for they were pulling the simple
wretches out as fast as the lines could be baited
and offered.
The shipment was quickly effected,
and in a few minutes our faces were turned from the
dominion of the States. The vessel was a large
horse-boat; that is, a flat propelled by paddle-wheels
similar to those of a steam-boat, only wrought by
horse-power,an animal tread-mill in fact.
Whether the horses working this were here on good behaviour,
or not, I could not rightly ascertain, but certainly
they were scampish-looking steeds, their physiognomical
expression was low and dogged, such as one might expect
from the degrading nature of their unvarying task.
On the larboard gangway of our flat
the American jack floated, and over the starboard
side waved the Union flag of Old England; they fluttered
proudly side by side, a worthy brotherhood, and so
united may they long be found!
The ride along the Canada shore was
very fine, the noble stream being constantly in sight:
the country appeared thickly populated; but the land
poor, the cultivation of it, I believe, is not found
very profitable.
We halted to water the team at a public-house
that stands upon the ground where was fought the battle
of Chippewa, which, as the Yankees say, “eventuated
just no how.” This was the twentieth anniversary;
and, on alighting from the box, I was exceedingly
amused to find the host and a smart wayfaring young
man, with mutual vehemence well worthy the cause,
fighting the battle over again.
From this house the eternal mist caused
by the great fall may be plainly seen curling like
a vast body of light smoke, and shooting occasionally
in spiral columns high above the tree-tops; but not
a sound told of its neighbourhood, although we were
not five miles distant from it, and the day was calm
and clear. At about three miles from this, as
the vehicle slowly ascended a rise, I heard for the
first time the voice of the waters, and called the
attention of my friends within the carriage to the
sound.
Never let any impatient man set out
for Niagara in one of these coaches; a railroad would
hardly keep pace with one’s eagerness, and here
were we crawling at the rate of four miles per hour.
I fancied that the last three miles never would be
accomplished; and often wished internally, as I beat
the devil’s tattoo upon the footboard of the
coach-box, that I had bought or borrowed or stolen
a horse at Chippewa, and galloped to the wonder alone
and silently.
At length the hotel came in view,
and I knew that the rapid was close at hand.
“Now, sir, look out!” quietly said the
driver.
I almost determined upon shutting
my eyes or turning away my head; but I do not think
it would have been within the compass of my will so
to have governed them; for even at this distant moment,
as I write, I find my pen move too slow to keep pace
with the recollections of the impatience which I seek
to record.
It was at the moment we struck the
foot of the hill leading up to the hotel that the
rapid and the great horse-shoe fall became visible
over the sunken trees to our right, almost on a level
with us. I have heard people talk of having felt
disappointed on a first view of this stupendous scene:
by what process they arrived at this conclusion I
profess myself utterly incapable of divining, since,
even now that two years have almost gone by, I find
on this point my feelings are not yet to be analyzed;
I dare not trust myself to their guidance, and only
know that my wildest imaginings were forgotten in
contemplating this awful reality.
A very few minutes after we were released
from the confinement of the coach saw myself and companions
upon the Table-rock; and soon after we were submitting
to the equipment provided by a man resident upon the
spot for persons who chose to penetrate beneath the
great fall, and whose advertisement assured us that
the gratification of curiosity was unattended with
either inconvenience or danger, as water-proof dresses
were kept in readiness, together with an experienced
guide. The water-proof dress given to me I found
still wet through; and, on the arrival of the experienced
guide, I was not a little surprised to see the fellow,
after a long stare in my face, exclaim,
“Och, blur an’ ’oons!
Mr. Power, sure it’s not yer honour that’s
come all this way from home!”
An explanation took place; when I
found that our guide, whom I had seen some two years
before as a helper in the stable of my hospitable friend
Smith Barry, at Foaty, was this summer promoted to
the office of “Conductor,” as he styled
himself, under the waterfall.
And a most whimsical “conductor”
he proved. His cautions, and “divil a fears!”
and “not a hap’orth o’ danger!”
must have been mighty assuring to the timid or nervous,
if any such ever make this experiment, which, although
perfectly safe, is not a little startling.
His directions,when we
arrived at the point where the mist, pent in beneath
the overhanging rock, makes it impossible to distinguish
anything, and where the rush of air is so violent as
to render respiration for a few seconds almost impracticable,were
inimitable.
“Now, yer honour!” he
shouted in my earfor we moved in Indian
file,“whisper the next gintleman
to follow you smart; and, for the love o’ God!
shoulder the rock close, stoop yer heads, and shut
fast yer eyes, or you won’t be able to see an
inch!”
I repeated my orders verbatim, though
the cutting wind made it difficult to open one’s
mouth.
“Now thin, yer honour,”
he cried, cowering down as he spoke, “do as ye
see me do; hould yer breath, and scurry after like
divils!”
With the last word away he bolted,
and was lost to view in an instant. I repeated
his instructions however to the next in file, and,
as directed, scurried after.
This rather difficult point passed,
I came upon my countryman waiting for us within the
edge of the curve described by this falling ocean;
he grasped my wrist firmly as I emerged from the dense
drift, and shouted in my ear,
“Luk up, sir, at the green sea
that’s rowlin’ over uz! Murder! bud
iv it only was to take a shlope in on uz!”
Here we could see and breathe with
perfect ease; and even the ludicrous gestures and
odd remarks of my poetical countryman could not wholly
rob the scene of its striking grandeur.
I next passed beyond my guide as he
stood on tiptoe against the rock upon a ledge of which
we trod, and under his direction attained that limit
beyond which the foot of man never pressed. I
sat for one moment on the Termination Rock, and then
followed my guide back to my companions, when together
we once more “scurried” into day.
“Isn’t it illegant, sir?”
began the “Conductor,” as soon as we were
well clear of the mist.
“Isn’t it a noble sight
intirely? Caps the world for grandness any way,
that’s sartain!”
I need hardly say that in this opinion
we all joined loudly; but Mr. Conductor was not yet
done with us,he had now to give us a taste
of his “larnin.”
“I wish ye’d take notice,
sir,” said he, pointing across the river with
an air of authority and a look of infinite wisdom.
“Only take a luk at the falls, an’ you’ll
see that Shakspeare is out altogether about the discription.”
“How’s that, Pat?”
inquired I, although not a little taken aback by the
authority so gravely quoted by my critical friend.
“Why, sir, Shakspeare first
of all says that there’s two falls; now, ye
may see wid yer own eyes that it’s one river
sure, and one fall, only for the shtrip o’ rock
that makes two af id.”
This I admitted was evident; whilst Pat gravely went
on:
“Thin agin, only luk here, sir;
Shakspeare says, ‘The cloud-cap tower;’
why, if he’d ever taken the trouble to luk at
it, he’d seen better than that; an’ if
he wasn’t a fool,which I’m
sure he wasn’t, bein’ a grand poet,he’d
know that the clouds never can rise to cap the tower,
by reason that it stands up above the fall, and that
the current for ever sets down.”
Again I agreed with him, excusing
Shakspeare’s discrepancies on the score of his
never having had a proper guide to explain these matters.
“I don’t know who at all
showed him the place,” gravely responded Pat;
“but it’s my belief he never was in id
at all at all, though the gintleman that tould me
a heap more about it swears for sartin that he was.”
This last remark, and the important
air with which the doubt was conveyed, proved too
much for my risible faculties, already suffering some
constraint, and I fairly roared out in concert with
my companion, who had been for some time convulsed
with laughter.
Whoever first instructed the “Conductor”
on this point of critical history deserves well of
the visitors so long as the present subject remains
here to communicate the knowledge; indeed, I trust,
before he is drowned in the Niagara, or burnt up with
the whisky required, as he says, “to keep the
could out of the shtomach,” the present possessor
of this curiosity in literature will bequeath it to
his successor, so that it may be handed down in its
integrity to all future visitors.
Next morning at an early hour I revisited
the “Termination Rock,” but excused myself
from being accompanied by “the Conductor.”
I next wandered down the stream, and had a delightful
bathe in it. Accompanied by a friend, I was pulled
in a skiff as close to the fall as possible, and in
short performed duly all the observances that have
been suggested and practised by curiosity or idleness;
but in all these I found no sensation equal to a long
quiet contemplation of the mass entire, not as viewed
from the balconies of the hotel, but from some rocky
point or wooded shade, where house and fence and man
and all his petty doings were shut out, and the eye
left calmly to gaze upon the awful scene, and the
rapt mind to raise its thoughts to Him who loosed this
eternal flood and guides it harmless as the petty
brook.
There never should have been a house
permitted within sight of the fall at least.
How I have envied those who first sought Niagara, through
the scarce trod wilderness, with the Indian for a
guide; and who slept upon its banks with the summer
trees for their only shelter, with the sound of its
waters for their only reveille.
Now, one is awakened here by a bell,
which I never can liken to any other than a dustman’s,
and can hardly find a spot whereto parasols and smart
forage-caps intrude not.
I would even include in my denunciation
the tower which is now erected upon the piece of rock
that abuts upon the great fall, and standing in whose
gallery you actually hang suspended over the abyss;
not but that the tower is in itself rudely simple,
and in good taste perhaps, but that one feels this
place needs no such accessories, and, instead of deriving
advantage from them, is degraded into a mere show by
their presence; and, in saying this much, I feel as
though the application of the term was a profanation.
I only saw three natives near the
fall during my stay; but these formed a little group
I would like much to have had Landseer look upon.
I was walking one morning before breakfast
about a quarter of a mile below the fall, when I suddenly
came upon a squaw leaning against a tree: as
many of the Tuscaroras understand a few words of English,
I addressed her with “Good morning, good morning!”
With a calm bend of the head she placed
her fingers over her lips by way of return to my salutation,
turning herself at the same time a little away as
if to avoid further notice or intercourse: curiosity,
however, overcame good-breeding in me, and mounting
the little bank to a level with the shady tree against
which she passively leaned, I immediately became aware
of her object.
Coiled up, on the earth, by her feet
lay an Indian, his head and shoulders wrapped close
in his blanket; upon this motionless mass her eyes
were calmly fixed: against the opposite side of
the tree sat a very handsome lad, about eight or nine
years old, who never lifted his head to look on the
intruder: near the boy crouched a half-starved
hound of the lurcher kind, a red-coloured, wire-haired
brute, with a keen cold Indian look, and as apparently
incurious as the best-taught warrior of the tribe:
there was no wagging of the tail in friendly recognition,
as might be expected from a kindly European dog; neither
was there the warning growl and spiteful show of bristled
crest and angry teeth, nor any suspicious circling
round the stranger, with tail tucked close and thievish
scrutiny, so common amongst low-bred white curs; this
hound of the Red-man, on the contrary, deported himself
in a manner creditable to his race, and to the tribe
of his adoption: I do not believe his eye was
ever once raised to survey me; or, if it was, the movement
was so well managed that I did not detect it.
Supported against the tree stood a
long rifle, over whose muzzle was hung a scarlet shoulder-belt
and pouch, richly worked with an embroidery of blue
and white beads; by a thong of hide was also suspended
from the rifle a sheath of leather, through which
protruded a couple of inches of the bright broad blade
of a knife: these I readily conceived to be the
appointments of the sleeping man; and the trio thus
patiently watching his slumbers,his wife,
child, and dog.
I looked upon this savage group for
some minutes, and no happier scene could have been
found for such a rencontre:the grassy knoll
which the family occupied; the rich foliage of the
butter-nut tree that shaded them; the wooded heights
above, and the deep-channeled river flowing by; together
with a stillness made more thrilling by the sound of
the cataract, for a moment rumbling like near-coming
thunder, and then dying away into a continuous moan,
soft and absolutely musical, whilst afar off its light
vapoury masses gently rose and fell, converted by the
morning sun into clouds of silver tissue. I have
often, amongst other vain wishes, sighed for the possession
of the painter’s power, but never more than
at this moment; and as I silently looked upon the unchanging
group, and called to mind the artists whom such a chance
would have repaid for longer travel, I grieved to
think it should have been given to one whose attempts
by description to image it must prove so tame a record.
After a long pause, pointing to the
coiled-up sleeper, I ventured on a second inquiry,
saying, “Man,he sick?”
The squaw fixed her fine eyes upon
me, and comprehending my inquiry, nodded once or twice,
articulating in a low musical voice, “Man sick,whisky
too muchmake bad!”
Again her head drooped, and her eyes
rested upon the motionless mass before her; the little
imp and the hound meanwhile never by a sign indicating
their knowledge of the presence of an intruder.
I now turned back towards the hotel, which I had left
to watch the sun rise on the fall from the bed of
the river. My early stirring was every way fortunate,
for the morning was fresh and unseasonably cool, consequently
the misty abyss into which the river tumbled was bridged
by beautiful rainbows in every direction; whilst,
to crown all, with the exception of the group I have
mentioned, no unhallowed foot broke on the holy place.
The family had not appeared on my
return to the house; so seeking my little chamber,
whose window commanded the rapids and the great fall,
I flung myself upon my bed, and gratefully reviewed
all the beauty of earth and sky which I had been so
happily permitted to behold and to enjoy.
The days I passed here must always
be recalled by me as days of unalloyed enjoyment;
I felt an indescribable calm steal, as it were, over
my spirit. Generally active, impatient, and inquiring,
I have seldom found any neighbourhood which I did
not compass in a few days; but from the vicinity of
this spot I had no desire to stir. Finding that
the dinner-hour was two o’clock, which would
have destroyed the day, I requested the proprietor
of the hotel, one of the most obliging persons I ever
met,an Englishman,to give our
little party dinner at five; and from breakfast to
this time I believe our time was usually passed lounging
dreamily about Goat Island, to reach which you cross
the river below the falls to the American side, and
then pass over the rapids on a bridge, which is in
itself a wonder.
The turf of this island, its trees
and flowers, retaining in summer the freshness of
spring, the delicious purity of its atmosphere, and
the brightness of its waters, render it most charming.
The solitude here has no drawback; the strong currents
of air by which it is encircled defy the powers of
the musquito,that bane to all thin-skinned
people with pastoral inclinations, and not an insect
in the least venomous or annoying is to be found here.
This Island of the Rainbow, as it
has been poetically and not inappropriately named,
is situated exactly between the falls; surrounded,
and intersected in part, by rapids frightful to look
on. Before American enterprise and ingenuity
spanned these with the bridge that now connects the
Iris isle with the main land, the approach to it must
have been attended with great difficulty and much danger;
indeed, I believe it was very rarely attempted; at
present it is occupied by one or two poor families,
who tend a garden now in progress, under the care
of the proprietor of the place.
Within these few years, a young man
of good appearance was known to have taken up his
abode here; he shunned all observance, only holding
communion with a poor family who procured him what
necessaries he needed. After a residence of two
years he died, without leaving the slightest clue
to his name or country. That his condition was
gentle may be inferred from his accomplishments:
a flute and a guitar, on both of which he is said
to have played much and well, with a drawing or two,
are all that remain of the recluse, although the man
who attended upon him says he sketched and wrote much.
Certainly no anchorite ever selected
a pleasanter summer solitude: how he got through
the severity of a five or six months’ winter
in a place so exposed can only be imagined, since
the hermit died and “made no sign.”
I visited the other lions of the place,
but took little heed of them. The sulphur springs
were exhibited, and the gas ignited, by a remarkably
fine old man, who was full of anecdote of the late
war: one or two of his stories I took good note
of, and purpose availing myself of them at some future
time.
On one afternoon I forced myself away
to visit the Devil’s Hole and the Whirlpool,
situated about five miles below the falls; and a wilder
scene it is impossible for imagination to conceive
than the deep rocky basin into which the river is
precipitated, and from which it issues at right angles
from its previous course, bearing with it portions
of the wrack accumulated within the black vortex of
this fearful pool, into whose gulf it is impossible
to look without a shudder. The drive through the
forest was delightful; and, if any sight could have
repaid me for leaving the neighbourhood of the falls,
this fitting pendant would be that sight.
The bad weather which occurred so
late in the month of June, and, indeed, continued
through the first days of July, had retarded the advance
of visitors. At the period of our stay there were
but two or three strangers here besides ourselves;
and, not dining at the public table, these I never
saw except at a distance. The weather during the
day was warm without being oppressive, the evenings
and nights deliciously cool.
I had brought my companion, Mr. H e,
thus far on a promise of returning with him in a few
days, and never did I feel more urged to break faith:
but knowing that he was compelled to return in a certain
time, and had accompanied me out of sheer good-nature,
I could not reconcile it to myself to let him journey
back alone; for our companions were bound on a wide
tour through the Cañadas.
After a halt here of only three short
days then, I finally crossed the Niagara for the American
shore, and immediately took a coach for Tonnewanta,
to intercept the boat on its way from Buffalo by the
Erie canal, intending to journey by this route as
far as Rochester.
At Tonnewanta, a pretty little village,
we were detained two or three hours; and here I once
more encountered my family of Tuscarora Indians.
The man was at this time wide awake, but still half
drunk; and, although a fine-made fellow, had that
horrid brutal look which accompanies continued debauch.
He was attended as I at first saw him, only that now,
as he stood by the public-house door talking with a
couple of negroes, the boy and the hound only were
beside him. I looked about for my lady of the
tribe, and perceived her squatted on her heels against
the wall, about fifty paces lower down, “burd
alane.”
From a slight furtive glance of the
urchin, I perceived that he recognised me; he spoke
a couple of words to his father, who, turning his
head in the direction where I stood, muttered an interjectional
“Ugh!” and resumed his previous calm attitude,
contrasting oddly with the insouciant look
and merry grimaces of his negro companions.
I next walked on to the solitary squaw,
in hopes of claiming acquaintance; but she kept her
eyes fixed upon a necklace she was playing with as
gravely as a devotee might tell her beads, and by no
sign of recognition deigned to flatter me.
Miserable and degraded race! on whose
condition much care has been vainly bestowed, much
generous sympathy idly wasted! I say wasted, since
the aborigines of this continent are either above or
below sympathy. I confess my feeling for them
has been much changed by a near view of their condition
and a better knowledge of their history and habits;
and whatever complaints they may advance against the
rapacity of the white man, he must at least be admitted
a generous historian.
I shall have occasion hereafter to
revert to the unpopular view of this question, which
I have adopted against my inclination in obedience
to my judgment, and meantime must quit my family of
the Tuscaroraswhat a name to adorn a tale!for
the canal boat arrived, and in a moment we were hurried
to embark.