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I crossed Lake Ontario in the iron steamer Peerless; the lake was rough as usual, and, after a promenade of two hours on the spray-drenched deck, I retired to the cabin, and spent some time in dreamily wondering whether Niagara itself would compensate for the discomforts of the journey thither.
We reached the Maürs' front porch by a circuitous route through the back garden and the house itself and paused to admire the view. Yes, we looked for Ching Po as if we were tourists and he were Niagara. "He hasn't moved yet." This was Madame Maür's triumphant whimper. Inarticulate noises somewhere near indicated that French Eva was still in sanctuary. Follet grunted.
Just as I had succeeded in attaining the proper degree of mental abstraction with which it is necessary to contemplate Niagara, a ragged drosky-driver came up, "Yer honour, may be ye're in want of a carriage? I'll take ye the whole round Goat Island, Whirlpool, and Deil's Hole for the matter of four dollars."
Upon the departure of Mr. Holcombe south, his business was turned over to C.C. Clay, who after that acted in this capacity. It was during Holcombe's stay in Canada, that the speculative brain of George N. Sanders, first originated the great humbug of the Niagara Falls peace conference, at which there was but one rebel official, and he was not authorized to act in any such capacity.
We know, too, from the history of this country that the Indians used to send a beautiful young girl in a white canoe over the falls of Niagara every year, as a sacrifice offered to the god of the falls. Even yet human sacrifices are offered up on savage islands. Sometimes certain animals were selected to be heathen gods.
The route to the west was barred; the fort at Niagara had to be abandoned; Cataraqui was cut off from succor and ultimately had to be destroyed by its garrison; not a single canoe-load of furs came down from the lakes during the entire summer. The merchants were facing ruin, and the whole colony was beginning to tremble for its very existence.
With crushing and destructive force that mighty volume plunges downward into a great stone bowl which it has carved out for itself, so deep that if the Woolworth Building were set down in it not more than half of it would show above the top of the Falls. Engineers have estimated the total energy of Niagara Falls at sixteen million horse-power!
It may be interesting to visitors to Niagara to know that the army of Stone Giants crossed the river during their journey just below the Falls. How Glooskap had a great Frolic with Kitpooseagunow, a Mighty Giant who caught a Whale. N'kah-nee-oo.
I felt the Laocoon very powerfully, though very quietly; an immortal agony, with a strange calmness diffused through it, so that it resembles the vast rage of the sea, calm on account of its immensity; or the tumult of Niagara, which does not seem to be tumult, because it keeps pouring on for ever and ever.
How slowly you walk across the bridge, still noting the turbulent mass of water rushing past with amazing velocity and grand display of power. Directly in front of the bridge you will see a vast flat rock over whose polished surface the water comes tumbling in a great fan-shaped mass, which is as grand as anything at Niagara.
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