ver
them, as sometimes happens. As you come near the falls, you can hear
the roaring which makes everything tremble, but on reaching them and
looking at them you see something wonderful, a great manifestation of
God's power and sovereignty, of His wisdom and glory. We arrived there
about noon. They are on one of the two branches into which the North
River is divided up above, of almost equal size. This one turns to
the west out of the high land, and coming here finds a blue rock which
has a steep side, as long as the river is broad, which according to my
calculation is two hundred paces or more, and rather more than less,
and about one hundred feet high.[333] The river has more water at one
time than another; and was now about six or eight feet deep. All this
volume of water coming on this side fell headlong upon a stony bottom,
this distance of an hundred feet. Any one may judge whether that was
not a spectacle, and whether it would not make a noise. There is a
continual spray thrown up by the dashing of the water, and when the
sun shines the figure of a rainbow may be seen through it. Sometimes
there are two or three of them to be seen, one above the other,
according to the brightness of the sun and its parallax. There was now
more water than usual in consequence of its having rained hard for
several days, and the snow water having begun to run down from the
high land.

[Footnote 331: Mohawk River.]

[Footnote 332: The falls of Niagara had been mentioned by Cartier and
by Champlain, but the first full description of them, that of Hennepin
in his _Description de la Louisiane_, was not published till 1683.]

[Footnote 333: The falls at Cohoes are at present about 900 feet broad
and 75 feet high.]

On our return we stopped at the house of our guide, whom we had taken
on the way up, where there were some families of Indians living.
Seeing us, they said to each other, "Look, these are certainly real
Dutchmen, actual Hollanders." Robert Sanders asked them how they knew
it. We see it, they said, in their faces and in their dress. "Yes,"
said one, "they have the clothes of real Hollanders; they look like
brothers." They brought us some ground-nuts, but although the Dutch
call them so, they were in fact potatoes, for of ground-nuts, or _mice
with tails_,[334] there are also plenty. They cooked them, and gave us
some to eat, which we did. There was a canoe made of the bark of
trees, and the Indians have many of them for th