Blair Collection > Celtic magazine > Volume 5

THE EDITOR IN CANxiDA. 355
Lake Ontario in full vieAv on the left, a distance of 43 miles to the far-
famed
Falls of Niagara.
I have already attempted to give my impressions of tliis magnificent cat-
aract in my special correspondence to the Free Press. I could not even
attempt another description, and the reader, who may possihly desire
to know what my ideas of thg Falls of Niagara were, must be content
with an abridged reproduction as foUows : — I was told by many people
in Upper Canada that I should at first sight be disappointed with the Falls,
and that warning saved me from being so. My luggage was checked to
the American side, but I left the train at Clifton, on the Canadian side of
the railway suspension bridge which here spans the mighty Niagara
river. As I left the platform I was nearly eaten up by greedy cabmen,
who seemed hungering for whatever little money remained to me. Even
the New York cabman is a saint in comparison with his Niagara proto-
type, who seems to have concentrated in his person aU the vices of the
Yankee and the Canadian combined. I was informed that if one of them
once got possession of me a couple of pounds would not extricate me.
That neither suited my inclination nor my purse. This fellow would take
me to the Falls, two miles off, " for a quarter." That one would take mo
anywhere for the same sum — that is, one shilling. It was too good. I
resented their apparent solicitude for my comfort. A few steps from the
station I met a gentleman of whom I made bold to ask where the post-office
was. It was close by. I called for letters which I expected, but the official
in charge was sorting a newly arrived mail, and no letters coidd be had,
however long they might have been lying there, until he had sorted the
letters just arrived. I could not even get a word of him, for he enclosed
himseK in a sort of box, which made him proof against any eloquence I
coidd bring to bear upon him ; so I went away disgusted with the Clif-
ton postal arrangements, or rather want of arrangements. Disappointed
as to my letters I asked my newly-made friend as to the best way of
seeing the Falls. He at once volunteered to show me the "WTiirlpool and
the AVhu'lpool rapids, the former being more than a mile down the river,
while the Falls were two miles up from where we stood. My friend was
an Englishman, Eobert Law, a native of Kent, and one of the leading
merchants in the village.
In a few minutes we were at the end of the railway suspension bridge.
The first sight of the gi-eat river was disappointing. There, and for half
a mile further down, it sped, 200 feet below the steep bank on which we
stood, careering past, as I afterwards learned, at the incredible rate of
twenty-seven miles an hour, filling at its naiTowest point a guUey 500
feet wide, it is reckoned — for it is impossible to sound it — a depth of
between 250 and 300 feet, and tossing up its waves to a height of over
30 feet above its own natural level. It is impossible at first sight to
realise the vastness and unfathomable magnitude of the mighty torrent as
it tears through the narrow gorge below. It, however, grows upon you.
You soon find that it baffles description. It is altogether grand and awe-
inspiring. Sir Charles LyeU computed that at least fifteen hundred
million cubic feet of water, whatever that may mean, rush through this
gorge every minute since the world took its present form, or rather since