Life in the Clearings Versus the Bush Read online

  The Falls are seen to the least possible advantage from the brow of the steep bank. In looking down upon them, you can form no adequate idea of their volume, height, and grandeur; yet that first glance can never be effaced. You feel a thrilling, triumphant joy, whilst contemplating this masterpiece of nature – this sublime idea of the Eternal – this wonderful symbol of the power and strength of the divine Architect of the universe.

  It is as if the great heart of nature were laid bare before you, and you saw and heard all its gigantic throbbings, and watched the current of its stupendous life flowing perpetually forward.

  I cannot imagine how anyone could be disappointed in this august scene; and the singular indifference manifested by others; – it is either a miserable affectation of singularity, or a lamentable want of sensibility to the grand and beautiful. The human being who could stand unmoved before the great cataract, and feel no quickening of the pulse, no silent adoration of the heart towards the Creator of this wondrous scene, would remain as indifferent and as uninspired before the throne of God!

  Throwing out of the question the romantic locality, – the rugged wooded banks, the vast blocks of stone scattered at the edge of the torrent, the magic colour of the waters, the overhanging crags, the wild flowers waving from the steep, the glorious hues of the ever-changing rainbow that spans the river, and that soft cloud of silvery brightness for ever flowing upward into the clear air, like the prayer of faith ascending from earth to heaven, – the enormous magnitude of the waters alone, their curbless power, and eternal motion, are sufficient to give rise to feelings of astonishment and admiration such as never were experienced before.

  Not the least of these sensations is created by the deep roar of the falling torrent, that shakes the solid rocks beneath your feet, and is repeated by the thousand hidden echoes among those stern craggy heights.

  It is impossible for language to convey any adequate idea of the grandeur of the Falls, when seen from below, either from the deck of the “Maid of the Mist,” – the small steamer that approaches within a few yards of the descending sheet of the Horse-shoe Falls – or from the ferry boat that plies continually between the opposite shores. From the frail little boat, dancing like a feather upon the green swelling surges, you perhaps form the best notion of the vastness and magnitude of the descending waters, and of your own helplessness and insignificance. They flow down upon your vision like moving mountains of light; and the shadowy outline of black mysterious-looking rocks, dimly seen through clouds of driving mist, adds a wild sublimity to the scene. While the boat struggles over the curling billows, at times lifted up by the ground-swells from below, the feeling of danger and insecurity is lost in the whirl of waters that surround you. The mind expands with the scene, and you rejoice in the terrific power that threatens to annihilate you and your fairy bark. A visible presence of the majesty of God is before you, and, sheltered by His protecting hand, you behold the glorious spectacle and live.

  The dark forests of pine that form the background to the Falls, when seen from above, are entirely lost from the surface of the river, and the descending floods seem to pour down upon you from the skies.

  The day had turned out as beautiful as heart could wish; and though I felt very much fatigued with the journey, I determined to set all aches and pains at defiance whilst I remained on this enchanted ground.

  We had just time enough to spare before dinner to walk to the table rock, following the road along the brow of the steep bank. On the way we called in at the Curiosity Shop, kept by an old grey-haired man, who had made for himself a snug little California by turning all he touched into gold; his stock-in-trade consisting of geological specimens from the vicinity of the Falls – pebbles, plants, stuffed birds, beasts, and sticks cut from the timber that grows along the rocky banks, and twisted into every imaginable shape. The heads of these canes were dexterously carved to imitate snakes, snapping turtles, eagles’ heads, and Indian faces. Here, the fantastic ends of the roots of shrubs from which they were made were cut into a grotesque triumvirate of legs and feet; here a black snake, spotted and coloured to represent the horrid reptile, made you fancy its ugly coils already twisting in abhorrent folds about your hands and arms. There was no end to the old man’s imaginative freaks in this department, his wares bearing a proportionate price to the dignity of the location from which they were derived.

  A vast amount of Indian toys, and articles of dress, made the museum quite gay with their tawdry ornaments of beads and feathers. It is a pleasant lounging place, and the old man forms one of its chief attractions.

  Proceeding on to the table rock, we passed many beautiful gardens, all bearing the same rich tint of verdure, and glowing with fruit and flowers. The showers of spray, rising from the vast natural fountain in their neighbourhood, fill the air with cool and refreshing moisture, which waters these lovely gardens, as the mists did of yore that went up from the face of the earth to water the garden of Eden.

  The Horse-shoe Fall is much lower than its twin cataract on the American side; but what it loses in height, it makes up in power and volume, and the amount of water that is constantly discharged over it. As we approached the table rock, a rainbow of splendid dyes spanned the river; rising from out the driving mist from the American Fall, until it melted into the leaping snowy foam of the great Canadian cataract. There is a strange blending, in this scene, of beauty and softness with the magnificent and the sublime: a deep sonorous music in the thundering of the mighty floods, as if the spirits of earth and air united in one solemn choral chant of praise to the Creator; the rocks vibrate to the living harmony, and the shores around seem hurrying forward, as if impelled by the force of the descending torrent of sound. Yet, within a few yards of all this whirlpool of conflicting elements, the river glides onward as peacefully and gently as if it had not received into its mysterious depths this ever-falling avalanche of foaming waters.

  Here you enjoy a splendid view of the Rapids. Raising your eyes from the green, glassy edge of the Falls, you see the mad hubbub of boiling waves rushing with headlong fury down the watery steep, to take their final plunge into the mist-covered abyss below. On, on they come – that white-crested phalanx of waves – pouring and crowding upon each other in frantic chase!

  “Things of life, and light, and motion,

  Spirits of the unfathom’d ocean,

  Hurrying on with curbless force,

  Like some rash unbridled horse;

  High in air their white crests flinging,

  And madly to destruction springing.”

  These boiling breakers seem to shout and revel in a wild ecstasy of freedom and power; and you feel inclined to echo their shout, and rejoice with them. Yet it is curious to mark how they slacken their mad speed when they reach the ledge of the fall, and melt into the icy smoothness of its polished brow, as if conscious of the superior force that is destined to annihilate their identity, and dash them into mist and spray. In like manner the waves of life are hurried into the abyss of death, and absorbed in the vast ocean of eternity.

  Niagara would be shorn of half its wonders divested of these glorious Rapids, which form one of the grandest features in the magnificent scene.

  We returned to our inn, the Clifton House, just in time to save our dinner: having taken breakfast in Toronto at half-past six, we were quite ready to obey the noisy summons of the bell, and follow our sable guide into the eating room.

  The Clifton House is a large, handsome building, directly fronting the Falls. It is fitted up in a very superior style, and contains ample accommodations for a great number of visitors. It had been very full during the summer months, but a great many persons had left during the preceding week, which I considered a very fortunate circumstance for those who, like myself, came to see instead of to be seen.

  The charges for a Canadian hotel are high; but of course you are expected to pay something extra at a place of such general resort, and for the grand view of the Falls, which can be enjoyed at any mo
ment by stepping into the handsome balcony into which the saloon opens, and which runs the whole length of the side and front of the house. The former commands a full view of the American, the latter of the Horse-shoe Fall; and the high French windows of this elegantly furnished apartment give you the opportunity of enjoying both.

  You pay four dollars a-day for your board and bed; this does not include wine, and every little extra is an additional charge. Children and servants are rated at half-price, and a baby is charged a dollar a-day. This item in the family programme is something new in the bill of charges at an hotel in this country; for these small gentry, though they give a great deal of trouble to their lawful owners, are always entertained gratis at inns and on board steamboats.

  The room in which dinner was served could have accommodated with ease treble the number of guests. A large party, chiefly Americans, sat down to table. The dishes are not served on the table; a bill of fare is laid by every plate, and you call for what you please.

  This arrangement, which saves a deal of trouble, seemed very distasteful to a gentleman near us, to whom the sight of good cheer must have been almost as pleasant as eating it, for he muttered half aloud –“that he hated these new-fangled ways; that he liked to see what he was going to eat; that he did not choose to be put off with kickshaws; that he did not understand the French names for dishes. He was not French, and he thought that they might be written in plain English.”

  I was very much of the same opinion, and found myself nearly in the same predicament with the grumbler at my left hand; but I did not betray my ignorance by venturing a remark. This brought forcibly to my mind a story that had recently been told me by a dear primitive old lady, a daughter of one of the first Dutch settlers in the Upper Province, over which I had laughed very heartily at the time; and now it served as an illustration of my own case.

  “You know, my dear,” said old Mrs. C—, “that I went lately to New York to visit a nephew of mine, whom I had not seen from a boy. Well, he has grown a very great man since those days, and is now one of the wealthiest merchants in the city. I never had been inside such a grandly furnished house before. We know nothing of the great world in Canada, or how the rich people live in such a place as New York. Ours are all bread and butter doings when compared with their grand fixings. I saw and heard a great many things, such as I never dreamed of before, and which for the life of me I could not understand; but I never let on.

  “One morning, at luncheon, my nephew says to me, ‘Aunty C—, you have never tasted our New York cider; I will order up some on purpose to see how you like it.’

  “The servant brought up several long-necked bottles on a real silver tray, and placed them on the table. ‘Good Lord!’ thinks I, ‘these are queer looking cider bottles. P’raps it’s champagne, and he wants to get up a laugh against me before all these strange people.’ I had never seen or tasted champagne in all my life, though there’s lots of it sold in Canada, and our head folks give champagne breakfasts, and champagne dinners; but I had heard how it acted, and how, when you drew the corks from the bottles, they went pop – pop. So I just listened a bit, and held my tongue; and the first bounce it gave, I cried out, ‘Mr. R—, you may call that cider in New York, but we call it champagne in Canada!’

  “ ‘Do you get champagne in Canada, Aunty?’ says he, stopping and looking me straight in the face. “‘Oh, don’t we?’ says I; ‘and it’s a great deal better than your New York cider.’

  “He looked mortified, I tell you, and the company all laughed; and I drank off my glass of champagne as bold as you please, as if I had been used to it all my life. When you are away from home, and find yourself ignorant of a thing or two, never let others into the secret. Watch and wait, and you’ll find it out by and by.”

  Not having been used to French dishes during my long sojourn in Canada, I was glad to take the old lady’s advice, and make use of my eyes and ears before I ordered my own supplies.

  It would have done Mrs. Stowe’s heart good to have seen the fine corps of well-dressed negro waiters who served the tables, most of whom were runaway slaves from the States. The perfect ease and dexterity with which they supplied the guests, without making a single mistake out of such a variety of dishes, was well worthy of notice.

  It gave me pleasure to watch the quickness of all their motions, the politeness with which they received so many complicated orders, and the noiseless celerity with which they were performed. This cost them no effort, but seemed natural to them. There were a dozen of these blacks in attendance, all of them young, and some, in spite of their dark colouring, handsome, intelligent looking men.

  The master of the hotel was eloquent in their praise, and said that they far surpassed the whites in the neat and elegant manner in which they laid out a table, – that he scarcely knew what he would do without them.

  I found myself guilty of violating Lord Chesterfield’s rules of politeness, while watching a group of eaters who sat opposite to me at table. The celerity with which they despatched their dinner, and yet contrived to taste of everything contained in the bill of fare, was really wonderful. To them it was a serious matter of business; they never lifted their eyes from their plates, or spoke a word beyond ordering fresh supplies, during feeding time.

  One long-ringletted lady in particular attracted my notice, for she did more justice to the creature comforts than all the rest. The last course, including the dessert, was served at table, and she helped herself to such quantities of pudding, pie, preserves, custard, ice, and fruit, that such a medley of rich things I never before saw heaped upon one plate. Some of these articles she never tasted; but she seemed determined to secure to herself a portion of all, and to get as much as she could for her money.

  I wish nature had not given me such a quick perception of the ridiculous – such a perverse inclination to laugh in the wrong place; for though one cannot help deriving from it a wicked enjoyment, it is a very troublesome gift, and very difficult to conceal. So I turned my face resolutely from contemplating the doings of the long-ringletted lady, and entered into conversation with an old gentleman from the States – a genuine Yankee, whom I found a very agreeable and intelligent companion, willing to exchange, with manly, independent courtesy, the treasures of his own mind with another; and I listened to his account of American schools and public institutions with great interest. His party consisted of a young and very delicate looking lady, and a smart active little boy of five years of age. These I concluded were his daughter and grandson, from the striking likeness that existed between the child and the old man. The lady, he said, was in bad health – the boy was hearty and wide-awake.

  After dinner the company separated; some to visit objects of interest in the neighbourhood, others to the saloon and the balcony. I preferred a seat in the latter; and ensconcing myself in the depths of a large comfortable rocking chair, which was placed fronting the Falls, I gave up my whole heart and soul to the contemplation of their glorious beauty.

  I was roused from a state almost bordering on idolatry by a lady remarking to another, who was standing beside her, “that she considered the Falls a great humbug; that there was more fuss made about them than they deserved; that she was satisfied with having seen them once; and that she never wished to see them again.”

  I was not the least surprised, on turning my head, to behold in the speaker the long-ringletted lady. A gentleman to whom I told these remarks laughed heartily. –“That reminds me of a miller’s wife who came from Black Rock, near Buffalo, last summer, to see the Falls. After standing here, and looking at them for some minutes, she drawled through her nose –”Well, I declare, is that all? And have I come eighteen miles to look at you? I might ha’ spared myself the expense and trouble; my husband’s mill-dam is as good a sight, – only it’s not just as high.”

  This lady would certainly have echoed the sublime sentiment expressed by our friend the poet, –

  “Oh, what a glorious place for washing sheep

  Nia
gara would be!”

  In the evening my husband hired a cab, and we drove to see the Upper Suspension Bridge. The road our driver took was very narrow, and close to the edge of the frightful precipice that forms at this place the bank of the river, which runs more than two hundred feet below.

  The cabman, we soon discovered, was not a member of the temperance society. He was very much intoxicated; and, like Jehu the son of Nimshi, he drove furiously. I felt very timid and nervous. Sickness makes us sad cowards, and what the mind enjoys in health, becomes an object of fear when it is enfeebled and unstrung by bodily weakness.

  My dear husband guessed my feelings, and placed himself in such a manner as to hide from my sight the danger to which we were exposed by our careless driver. In spite of the many picturesque beauties in our road, I felt greatly relieved when we drove up to the bridge, and our short journey was accomplished.

  The Suspension Bridge on which we now stood – surveying from its dizzy height, two hundred and thirty feet above the water, the stream below – seems to demand from us a greater amount of interest than the one at Queenstone, from the fact of its having been the first experiment of the kind ever made in this country, – a grand and successful effort of mechanical genius over obstacles that appeared insurmountable.

  The river is two hundred feet wider here than at Queenstone, and the bridge is of much larger dimensions. The height of the stone tower that supports it on the American side is sixty-eight feet, and of the wooden tower on the Canadian shore fifty feet. The number of cables for the bridge is sixteen; of strands in each cable, six hundred; of strands in the ferry-cable, thirty-seven, the diameter of which is seven-eighths of an inch. The ultimate tension is six thousand five hundred tons, and the capacity of the bridge five hundred. A passage across is thrillingly exciting.