"I've seen nothing" - A disappointment - Incongruities - Hotel gaieties and
"doing Niagara" - Irish drosky-drivers - "The Hell of Waters" - Beauties
Of
Niagara - The picnic party - The White Canoe - A cold shower-bath - "The
Thunder of Waters" - A magic word - "The Whirlpool" - Story of "Bloody Run" -
Yankee opinions of English ladies - A metamorphosis - The nigger guide - A
terrible situation - Termination Rock - Impressions of Niagara - Juvenile
precocity - A midnight journey - Street adventures in Hamilton.
"Have you seen the Falls?" - "No." "Then you've seen nothing of America." I
might have seen Trenton Falls, Gennessee Falls, the Falls of Montmorenci
and Lorette; but I had seen nothing if I had not seen the Falls (par
excellence) of Niagara. There were divers reasons why my friends in the
States were anxious that I should see Niagara. One was, as I was
frequently told, that all I had seen, even to the "Prayer Eyes," would
go for nothing on my return; for in England, America was supposed to be a
vast tract of country containing one town - New York; and one astonishing
natural phenomenon, called Niagara. "See New York, Quebec, and Niagara,"
was the direction I received when I started upon my travels. I never could
make out how, but somehow or other, from my earliest infancy, I had been
familiar with the name of Niagara, and, from the numerous pictures I had
seen of it, I could, I suppose, have sketched a very accurate likeness of
the Horse-shoe Fall. Since I landed at Portland, I had continually met
with people who went into ecstatic raptures with Niagara; and after
passing within sight of its spray, and within hearing of its roar - after
seeing it the great centre of attraction to all persons of every class - my
desire to see it for myself became absorbing.
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