he enjoyed it. 'No traveller,' he said,
'was ever here before.' Soon afterwards, by trusting to a piece of
drift-wood which seemed firm, I was again taken off my feet, but was
immediately caught by a protruding rock.

We clambered over the boulders towards the thickest spray, which soon
became so weighty as to cause us to stagger under its shock. For the
most part nothing could be seen; we were in the midst of bewildering
tumult, lashed by the water, which sounded at times like the cracking
of innumerable whips. Underneath this was the deep resonant roar of
the cataract. I tried to shield my eyes with my hands, and look
upwards; but the defence was useless. The guide continued to move on,
but at a certain place he halted, desiring me to take shelter in his
lee, and observe the cataract. The spray did not come so much from
the upper ledge, as from the rebound of the shattered water when it
struck the bottom. Hence the eyes could be protected from the
blinding shock of the spray, while the line of vision to the upper
ledges remained to some extent clear. On looking upwards over the
guide's shoulder I could see the water bending over the ledge, while
the Terrapin Tower loomed fitfully through the intermittent
spray-gusts. We were right under the tower. A little farther on the
cataract, after its first plunge, hit a protuberance some way down,
and flew from it in a prodigious burst of spray; through this we
staggered. We rounded the promontory on which the Terrapin Tower
stands, and moved, amid the wildest commotion, along the arm of the
Horse-hoe, until the boulders failed us, and the cataract fell into
the profound gorge of the Niagara River.

Here the guide sheltered me again, and desired me to look up; I did
so, and could see, as before, the green gleam of the mighty curve
sweeping over the uipper ledge, and the fitful plunge of the water, as
the spray between us and it alternately gathered and disappeared. An
eminent friend of mine often speaks of the mistake of those physicians
who regard man's ailments as purely chemical, to be met by chemical
remedies only. He contends for the psychological element of cure. By
agreeable emotions, he says, nervous currents are liberated which
stimulate blood, brain, and viscera. The influence rained from
ladies' eyes enables my friend to thrive on dishes which would kill
him if eaten alone. A sanative effect of the same order I experienced
amid the spray and thunde