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It was an afternoon of glorious sunshine, without a cloud, save those of
the cataracts. I gained an insulated rock, and beheld a broad sheet of
brilliant and unbroken foam, not shooting in a curved line from the top
of the precipice, but falling headlong down from height to depth. A
narrow stream diverged from the main branch, and hurried over the crag
by a channel of its own, leaving a little pine-clad island and a streak
of precipice, between itself and the larger sheet. Below arose the
mist, on which was painted a dazzling sun-bow with two concentric
shadows,–one, almost as perfect as the original brightness; and the
other, drawn faintly round the broken edge of the cloud.

Still I had not half seen Niagara. Following the verge of the island,
the path led me to the Horseshoe, where the real, broad St. Lawrence,
rushing along on a level with its banks, pours its whole breadth over a
concave line of precipice, and thence pursues its course between lofty
crags towards Ontario. A sort of bridge, two or three feet wide,
stretches out along the edge of the descending sheet, and hangs upon the
rising mist, as if that were the foundation of the frail structure.
Here I stationed myself in the blast of wind, which the rushing river
bore along with it. The bridge was tremulous beneath me, and marked the
tremor of the solid earth. I looked along the whitening rapids, and
endeavored to distinguish a mass of water far above the falls, to follow
it to their verge, and go down with it, in fancy, to the abyss of clouds
and storm. Casting my eyes across the river, and every side, I took in
the whole scene at a glance, and tried to comprehend it in one vast
idea. After an hour thus spent, I left the bridge, and, by a staircase,
winding almost interminably round a post, descended to the base of the
precipice. From that point, my path lay over slippery stones, and among
great fragments of the cliff, to the edge of the cataract, where the
wind at once enveloped me in spray, and perhaps dashed the rainbow round
me. Were my long desires fulfilled? And had I seen Niagara?

O that I had never heard of Niagara till I beheld it! Blessed were the
wanderers of old, who heard its deep roar, sounding through the woods,
as the summons to an unknown wonder, and approached its awful brink, in
all the freshness of native feeling. Had its own mysterious voice been
the first to warn me of its existence, then, indeed, I might have knelt
down and worshipped. But I had come thither, haunted with a vision of
foam and fury, and dizzy cliffs, and an ocean tumbling down out of the
sky,–a scene, in short, which nature had too much good taste and calm
simplicity to realize. My mind had struggled to adapt these false
conceptions to the reality, and finding the effort vain, a wretched
sense of disappointment weighed me down. I climbed the precipice, and
threw myself on the earth, feeling that I was unworthy to look at the
Great Falls, and careless about beholding them again.

All that night, as there has been and will be, for ages past and to
come, a rushing sound was heard, as if a great tempest were sweeping
through the air. It mingled with my dreams, and made them full of storm
and whirlwind. Whenever I awoke, and heard this dread sound in the air,
and the windows rattling as with a mighty blast, I could not rest again,
till looking forth, I saw how bright the stars were, and that every leaf
in the garden was motionless. Never was a summer night more calm to the
eye, nor a gale of autumn louder to the ear. The rushing sound proceeds
from the rapids, and the rattling of the casements is but an effect of
the vibration of the whole house, shaken by the jar of the cataract.
The noise of the rapids draws the attention from the true voice of
Niagara, which is a dull, muffed thunder, resounding between the cliffs.
I spent a wakeful hour at midnight, in distinguishing its
reverberations, and rejoiced to find that my former awe and enthusiasm
were reviving.