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Never did a pilgrim approach Niagara with deeper enthusiasm than mine.
I had lingered away from it, and wandered to other scenes, because my
treasury of anticipated enjoyments, comprising all the wonders of the
world, had nothing else so magnificent, and I was loath to exchange the
pleasures of hope for those of memory so soon. At length the day came.
The stage-coach, with a Frenchman and myself on the back seat, had
already left Lewiston, and in less than an hour would set us down in
Manchester. I began to listen for the roar of the cataract, and
trembled with a sensation like dread, as the moment drew nigh, when its
voice of ages must roll, for the first time, on my ear. The French
gentleman stretched himself from the window, and expressed loud
admiration, while, by a sudden impulse, I threw myself back and closed
my eyes. When the scene shut in, I was glad to think, that for me the
whole burst of Niagara was yet in futurity. We rolled on, and entered
the village of Manchester, bordering on the falls.

I am quite ashamed of myself here. Not that I ran, like a madman to the
falls, and plunged into the thickest of the spray,–never stopping to
breathe, till breathing was impossible: not that I committed this, or
any other suitable extravagance. On the contrary, I alighted with
perfect decency and composure, gave my cloak to the black waiter,
pointed out my baggage, and inquired, not the nearest way to the
cataract, but about the dinner-hour. The interval was spent in
arranging my dress. Within the last fifteen minutes, my mind had grown
strangely benumbed, and my spirits apathetic, with a slight depression,
not decided enough to be termed sadness. My enthusiasm was in a
deathlike slumber. Without aspiring to immortality, as he did, I could
have imitated that English traveller, who turned back from the point
where he first heard the thunder of Niagara, after crossing the ocean to
behold it. Many a Western trader, by the by, has performed a similar
act of heroism with more heroic simplicity, deeming it no such wonderful
feat to dine at the hotel and resume his route to Buffalo or Lewiston,
while the cataract was roaring unseen.

Such has often been my apathy, when objects, long sought, and earnestly
desired, were placed within my reach. After dinner–at which an
unwonted and perverse epicurism detained me longer than usual–I lighted
a cigar and paced the piazza, minutely attentive to the aspect and
business of a very ordinary village. Finally, with reluctant step, and
the feeling of an intruder, I walked towards Goat Island. At the
tollhouse, there were further excuses for delaying the inevitable
moment. My signature was required in a huge ledger, containing similar
records innumerable, many of which I read. The skin of a great
sturgeon, and other fishes, beasts, and reptiles; a collection of
minerals, such as lie in heaps near the falls; some Indian moccasins,
and other trifles, made of deer-skin and embroidered with beads; several
newspapers from Montreal, New York, and Boston;–all attracted me in
turn. Out of a number of twisted sticks, the manufacture of a Tuscarora
Indian, I selected one of curled maple, curiously convoluted, and
adorned with the carved images of a snake and a fish. Using this as my
pilgrim’s staff, I crossed the bridge. Above and below me were the
rapids, a river of impetuous snow, with here and there a dark rock amid
its whiteness, resisting all the physical fury, as any cold spirit did
the moral influences of the scene. On reaching Goat Island, which
separates the two great segments of the falls, I chose the right-hand
path, and followed it to the edge of the American cascade. There, while
the falling sheet was yet invisible, I saw the vapor that never
vanishes, and the Eternal Rainbow of Niagara.