r he is still alive, a very wonderful-looking old
man, who sat to Millais for his picture, exhibited in 1874, of the "Old
Sea-Captain."]

We all liked him so well that my father invited him to join our
party, and travel with us to Niagara, whither he was bound as well
as ourselves. He had seen it before, and though almost all the
wonders of the world are familiar to him, he said it was the only
one that he cared much to see again.

We reached Queenstown on the Niagara River, below the falls, at
about twelve o'clock, and had three more miles to drive to reach
them. The day was serenely bright and warm, without a cloud in the
sky, or a shade in the earth, or a breath in the air. We were in an
open carriage, and I felt almost nervously oppressed with the
expectation of what we were presently to see. We stopped the
carriage occasionally to listen for the giant's roaring, but the
sound did not reach us until, within three miles over the thick
woods which skirted the river, we saw a vapory silver cloud rising
into the blue sky. It was the spray, the breath of the toiling
waters ascending to heaven. When we reached what is called the
Niagara House, a large tavern by the roadside, I sprang out of the
carriage and ran through the house, down flights of steps cut in
the rock, and along a path skirted with low thickets, through the
boughs of which I saw the rapids running a race with me, as it
seemed, and hardly faster than I did. Then there was a broad,
flashing sea of furious foam, a deafening rush and roar, through
which I heard Mr. Trelawney, who was following me, shout, "Go on,
go on; don't stop!" I reached an open floor of broad, flat rock,
over which the water was pouring. Trelawney seized me by the arm,
and all but carried me to the very brink; my feet were in the water
and on the edge of the precipice, and then I looked down. I could
not speak, and I could hardly breathe; I felt as if I had an iron
band across my breast. I watched the green, glassy, swollen heaps
go plunging down, down, down; each mountainous mass of water, as it
reached the dreadful brink, recoiling, as in horror, from the
abyss; and after rearing backward in helpless terror, as it were,
hurling itself down to be shattered in the inevitable doom over
which eternal clouds of foam and spr