d (we had seen the comet
at Rochester), and the moon was so bright as to make it almost as light
as day; you may imagine our excitement when we saw, in the distance,
rising above the trees, a light cloud of mist from the Falls of
Niagara.?

_Clifton House, September 18th._--Papa got into a melancholy mood at the
International Hotel yesterday evening, on account of the hotel being an
enormous one, and like a huge barrack; half of it we suspect is shut up,
for they gave us small room _au second_, though they acknowledged they
made up four hundred beds, and had only one hundred guests in the house.
The dining room was about one hundred and fifty feet long, and the hotel
was half in darkness from the lateness of the hour, and had no view of
the Falls; so papa got more and more miserable, and I could only comfort
him by reminding him we could be off to this hotel early in the morning;
for as it is the fashion to try first one side for the view, and then
the other, there was no offence in going from the United States to our
own English possessions. On this he cheered up and we went out, and the
first sight we got of this glorious river was at about eleven o'clock,
when he insisted upon my passing over the bridge to Goat Island. It was
the most lovely moonlight night conceivable, and the beams lit up the
crests of the foaming waves as they came boiling over the rapids. It was
a glorious sight, though I was rather frightened, not knowing what
perils might be in store for us.

To-day we made out our move to the Canada side, and are most comfortably
lodged. Before coming to this hotel, we took a long drive down the
river, on the American side. We got out of the carriage to see the
Devil's Hole, a deep ravine, often full of water, but now dry. We stood
on a high precipice, and had a grand view of the river. The _river_ is
generally passed over in silence in all descriptions of Niagara, and yet
it is one of the most lovely parts of the scene. Its colour after it has
left the Falls, and proceeds on its rapid way, full of life and
animation, to Lake Ontario, is a most tender sea green. We drove on
about six miles, and then crossed a slight suspension bridge (_the_
suspension bridge being a ponderous structure for the railroad trains to
pass over); but the one by which we crossed looked like a spider's-web;
and the view midway, whether we looked up or down, was the finest
specimen of river scenery I ever beheld. We then turned up the