ces! Why is it so exquisite a pleasure to stand for hours
drenched in spray, stunned by the ceaseless roar, trembling from
the concussion that shakes the very rock you cling to, and
breathing painfully in the moist atmosphere that seems to have
less of air than water in it? Yet pleasure it is, and I almost
think the greatest I ever enjoyed. We more than once approached
the entrance to this appalling cavern, but I never fairly entered
it, though two or three of my party did. I lost my breath
entirely; and the pain at my chest was so severe, that not all my
curiosity could enable me to endure it.

What was that cavern of the winds, of which we heard of old,
compared to this? A mightier spirit than Aeolus reigns here.

Nor was this spot of dread and danger the only one in which we
found ourselves alone. The path taken by "the company" to the
shantee, which contained the "book of names" was always the same;
this wound down the steep bank from the gate of the hotel garden,
and was rendered tolerably easy by its repeated doublings; but it
was by no means the best calculated to manage to advantage the
pleasure of the stranger in his approach to the spot. All
others, however, seemed left for us alone.

During our stay we saw the commencement of another staircase,
intended to rival in attraction that at present in use; it is but
a few yards from it, and can in no way, I think, contribute to
the convenience of the descent. The erection of the central
shaft of this spiral stair was a most tremendous operation, and
made me sick and giddy as I watched it. After it had been made
fast at the bottom, the carpenters swung themselves off the
rocks, by the means of ropes, to the beams which traversed it;
and as they sat across them, in the midst of the spray and the
uproar, I thought I had never seen life periled so wantonly. But
the work proceeded without accident, and was nearly finished
before we left the hotel.

It was a sort of pang to take what we knew must be our last look
at Niagara; but "we had to do it," as the Americans say, and left
it on the 10th June, for Buffalo.

The drive along the river, above the Falls, is as beautiful as a
clear stream of a mile in width can make it; and the road
continues close to it till you reach the ferry at Black Rock.

We welcomed, almost with a shout, the British colours which we
saw, for the first time, on Commodore Barrie's pretty sloop, the
_Bull Dog_, which we passed as it