ation. So we all go together back to Prospect
Park, on the American side, and get into an electric car, which swings
over a bridge just below the Falls, where we can see the whole grand
panorama and both Falls. The Canadian one is called the Horseshoe Fall.
Often you must have seen pictures of Niagara; but pictures do not convey
much, and this is one of the few sights in the world that runs beyond
expectation. As the torrent pouring over strikes the water below, the
foam flies up in a vast frothy mass into the air; we, from our height,
look down upon it and upon a tiny steamer in the basin just below. The
reason why the steamer is able to sail so near the Falls without being
swept down is because the falling water descends with such force that it
goes right below the surface of the bay and does not agitate it at all.
On the other side, away from the Falls, farther down the river, there
is a high suspension bridge belonging to the Grand Trunk Railway of
Canada, with a place for carriages and foot-passengers below the lines.
A carriage crawling over it looks like a small beetle. There was an
awful scene here not so long ago in the winter-time, when the river was
frozen from shore to shore. Some people were on the ice, which began to
break up in large blocks, and in the very sight of hundreds of their
fellow-creatures, who vainly tried to save them by throwing ropes,
several were swept away, including a man and his wife, who were on a
floating hummock. The man actually got hold of one of the ropes, but his
wife had fainted, and in trying to support her the rope slipped through
his fingers, and together the two black specks on the white ice-block
were borne by the current to their doom. A never-to-be-forgotten
tragedy!

[Illustration: THE FALLS OF NIAGARA.]

After we have crossed the water we run along on the Canadian side close
to the edge of the cliff, high up, following the course of the current
downward; we go round a great curve, where it boils in a whirlpool, we
pass by a tall monument, and then, much farther down, we cross another
bridge, and are brought back on the American side, where the line runs
at first low down and gradually mounts till, after passing below the
suspension bridge, we reach our starting-place. While we are close to
the surface of the water we see the Rapids splendidly. This is where the
swift water from the Falls has come again to the surface, and, hemmed in
by the walls of the gorge, it tosses