loitered, eyeing with
their glasses, or sketching on cards the hoary locks of the ancient
river-god. All tended to harmonize with the natural grandeur of the
scene. I gazed long. I saw how here mutability and unchangeableness
were united. I surveyed the conspiring waters rushing against the
rocky ledge to overthrow it at one mad plunge, till, like toppling
ambition, o'er-leaping themselves, they fall on t' other side,
expanding into foam ere they reach the deep channel where they creep
submissively away.

Then arose in my breast a genuine admiration, and a humble adoration
of the Being who was the architect of this and of all. Happy were the
first discoverers of Niagara, those who could come unawares upon this
view and upon that, whose feelings were entirely their own. With what
gusto does Father Hennepin describe "this great downfall of water,"
"this vast and prodigious cadence of water, which falls down after a
surprising and astonishing manner, insomuch that the universe does not
afford its parallel. 'Tis true Italy and Swedeland boast of some such
things, but we may well say that they be sorry patterns when compared
with this of which we do now speak."

CHAPTER II.

THE LAKES.--CHICAGO.--GENEVA.--A THUNDER-STORM.--PAPAW GROVE.

SCENE, STEAMBOAT.--_About to leave Buffalo.--Baggage coming on
board.--Passengers bustling for their berths.--Little boys persecuting
everybody with their newspapers and pamphlets.--J., S., and M. huddled
up in a forlorn corner, behind a large trunk.--A heavy rain falling._

_M._ Water, water everywhere. After Niagara one would like a dry strip
of existence. And at any rate it is quite enough for me to have it
under foot without having it overhead in this way.

_J._ Ah, do not abuse the gentle element. It is hardly possible to
have too much of it, and indeed, if I were obliged to choose amid the
four, it would be the one in which I could bear confinement best.

_S._ You would make a pretty Undine, to be sure!

_J._ Nay. I only offered myself as a Triton, a boisterous Triton of
the sounding shell. You, M., I suppose, would be a salamander, rather.

_M._ No! that is too equivocal a position, whether in modern
mythology, or Hoffman's tales. I should choose to be a gnome.

_J._ That choice savors of the pride that apes humility.

_M._ By no means; the gnomes are the most important of all the
elemental tribes. Is it not they who make the money?

_J._ And are accordingly a dar