ay spread an impenetrable
curtain. The mysterious chasm, with its uproar of voices, seemed
like the watery mouth of hell. I looked and listened till the wild
excitement of the scene took such possession of me that, but for
the strong arm that held me back, I really think I should have let
myself slide down into the gulf. It was long before I could utter,
and as I began to draw my breath I could only gasp out, "O God! O
God!" No words can describe either the scene itself, or its effect
upon me.

We staid three days at Niagara, the greater part of which I spent
by the water, under the water, on the water, and more than half in
the water. Wherever foot could stand I stood, and wherever foot
could go I went. I crept, clung, hung, and waded; I lay upon the
rocks, upon the very edge of the boiling caldron, and I stood alone
under the huge arch over which the water pours with the whole mass
of it, thundering over my rocky ceiling, and falling down before me
like an immeasurable curtain, the noonday sun looking like a pale
spot, a white wafer, through the dense thickness. Drenched through,
and almost blown from my slippery footing by the whirling gusts
that rush under the fall, with my feet naked for better safety,
grasping the shale broken from the precipice against which I
pressed myself, my delight was so intense that I really could
hardly bear to come away.

The rock over which the rapids run is already scooped and hollowed
out to a great extent by the action of the water; the edge of the
precipice, too, is constantly crumbling and breaking off under the
spurn of its downward leap. At the very brink the rock is not much
more than two feet thick, and when I stood under it and thought of
the enormous mass of water rushing over and pouring from it, it did
not seem at all improbable that at any moment the roof might give
way, the rock break off fifteen or twenty feet, and the whole huge
cataract, retreating back, leave a still wider basin for its floods
to pour themselves into. You must come and see it before you die,
dear H----.

After our short stay at Niagara, we came down Lake Ontario and the
St. Lawrence to Montreal and Quebec. Before I leave off speaking of
that wonderful cataract, I must tell you that the impression of awe
and terror it