nd so on. One morsel only was ever
seen, and that about a foot in length, was mashed as by a vice,
and its edges notched like the teeth of a saw. What had become
of the immense quantity of wood which had been precipitated? What
unknown whirlpool had engulphed it, so that, contrary to the very
laws of nature, no vestige of the floating material could find
its way to the surface?

Beyond the horse-shoe is Goat Island, and beyond Goat Island the
American fall, bold, straight, and chafed to snowy whiteness by
the rocks which meet it; but it does not approach, in sublimity
or awful beauty, to the wondrous crescent on the other shore.
There, the form of the mighty cauldron, into which the deluge
poors, the hundred silvery torrents congregating round its verge,
the smooth and solemn movement with which it rolls its massive
volume over the rock, the liquid emerald of its long unbroken
waters, the fantastic wreaths which spring to meet it, and then,
the shadowy mist that veils the horrors of its crash below,
constitute a scene almost too enormous in its features for man to
look upon. "Angels might tremble as they gazed;" and I should
deem the nerves obtuse, rather than strong, which did not quail
at the first sight of this stupendous cataract.

Minute local particulars can be of no interest to those who have
not felt their influence for pleasure or for pain. I will not
tell of giddy stairs which scale the very edge of the torrent,
nor of beetling slabs of table rock, broken and breaking, on
which, shudder as you may, you must take your stand or lose your
reputation as a tourist. All these feats were performed again
and again even on the first day of our arrival, and most earthly
weary was I when the day was done, though I would not lose the
remembrance of it to purchase the addition of many soft and
silken ones to my existence.

By four o'clock the next morning I was again at the little
shantee, close to the horse-shoe fall, which seems reared in
water rather than in air, and took an early shower-bath of spray.
Much is concealed at this early hour by the heavy vapour, but
there was a charm in the very obscurity; and every moment, as the
light increased, cloud after cloud rolled off, till the vast
wonder was again before me.

It is in the afternoon that the rainbow is visible from the
British side; and it is a lovely feature in the mighty landscape.
The gay arch springs from fall to fall, a fairy bridge.

After brea