of clustering towns, or more crowded cities, obscure on the horizon the clouds of spray, which at present tower without a rival.

Passing along the bank you soon reach Grand Island, embraced in the forking of the river. Each arm of the stream is more than a mile in width; the western channel is the boundary between the British and American possessions, and this island, nearly seven miles long and containing between twenty and thirty thousand acres, is of course left within the territory of New York. It is of an irregular lozenge shape, and as yet thickly covered with pines and cedars.

Passing Grand Island, and Navy Island a smaller one which succeeds it, the stream becomes about two miles and a half wide, and you reach Chippawa creek, village, and fort, between two and three miles above the falls. Here terminates the navigation of the upper part of the Niagara, for the rapidity of the stream soon increases so considerably, that vessels cannot with safety venture farther. The change becomes very soon obvious on the surface of the water. Neither waves however, nor any violent agitation is visible for some time; you see only

"The torrent's smoothness ere it dash below."

Dimples and indented lines, with here and there a little eddying whirl, run along near the shore; betokening at once the depth of the channel, the vast body of water, and the accelerated impetus with

GOAT ISLAND-GREAT RAPID.

35

which it hurries along. Every straw also that floats past, though motionless upon the bosom of the river and undisturbed by a single ripple, is the index of an irresistible influence, which sweeps to one common issue all within its grasp.

Goat Island, the lowest of all, now appears inserted like a wedge in the centre of the stream. By it the river is divided into two currents, which issue in the two great falls; and the nearer channel shelves down into a steep and rocky declivity, over which an extensive rapid foams and rushes with prodigious fury. Before reaching the island the traveller remarks at a distance the agitated billows, then the white crested breakers, and at length he has a full view of the rapid, nearly a mile in length, the immediate and most appropriate prelude to the great fall.

Nearly opposite the middle of Goat Island the channel of the rapid suddenly widens, encroaching with a considerable curvature upon the bank, as if a portion of the water sought to shun by a circuitous route its inevitable destiny. In this little bay, if it may be so called, are a number of islets covered with wood, and to all appearance securely anchored amid the brawling torrent; but before approaching them, you discover with surprise that the daring foot of man has ventured to descend the steep bank, to erect a cluster of mills, which dip their water wheels into the impetuous rapid. Immediately below, the shore bends to the right, contracting the

channel, and throwing back the reluctant water which had left the main current; and immediately the whole is engulfed in the great Horse Shoe Fall, which like an immense cauldron sends up to the sky a stupendous column of smoke and spray.

A few minutes' ride now gives you the first view of the falls. The road winds along pretty close by the bank of the stream, till past the centre of the great rapid, where the channel makes the returning bend to the right. The road does not follow this

FIRST VIEW OF THE FALLS.

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bend, but going very nearly straight forward, recedes of course very considerably from the bank. The level of the road is by this time greatly higher than the surface of the river, which begins gradually to descend near Chippawa, and sinks about fifty feet in perpendicular height, between the commencement of the rapid and its termination. As the distance increases a little between the road and the bank, the vast concave of the falls of Niagara begins to open upon your view, inclining towards the road at an angle of about forty-five degrees. First you see the American fall, the farther extremity of the semicircle, breaking in a broad white sheet of foam upon a heap of rocks below. Close by its inner extremity is a gush of water which in any other situation would be esteemed a considerable cascade, but here seems but a fragment of the larger cataract separated by a small island or rock in the bed of the river. The eye then rests upon the precipitous end of Goat Island, consisting of accumulated masses of stone, in horizontal strata, supporting a scanty covering of earth, and crowded to the edge with pines. Last of all, about a third part of the concave of the British fall rounds into prospect; the remainder is concealed by the bend, and the elevation of the intervening bank. From the interior of this vast semicircle the spray is volumed upwards in prodigious masses, which conceal at intervals various portions of the scenery; and the deep hollow thun

der of the cataracts is mingled with the roar of the long and angry rapid.

Perhaps you may ask, what was the impression produced on my mind by the first view of the falls? Decidedly that of disappointment. "And are

these," thought I," the great falls of Niagara, which I have been accustomed to think of with such profound astonishment, ever since I unfolded 'Science in sport, or the Pleasures of Natural Philosophy,' and read the wonderful account which is there given of them?"

What monstrous lies some travellers will tell!"

Disappointment is I believe a very common feeling when strangers first visit these cataracts. They have gathered their ideas of them from books of Geography and Travels, in which all the parts of speech, and degrees of comparison, are fatigued by a seemingly fruitless effort to sketch the stupendous scene. On the second occasion of my visiting them, the party consisted of five besides myself, and four of them returned to the tavern perfectly out of humour with the falls, and all who had ever written or spoken in their praise.

In my first visit I was quite alone, and piloted my way from the tavern to the edge of the precipitous bank, by the directions which I received from the landlord. Crossing a field or two, which slope from the road towards the river, a little below the