o my left, the water was pouring down into a
chasm a hundred and sixty feet below, disappearing in a great blue
cavern of ice that seemed to swallow it up. By the continual freezing
of the spray, this great ice-cave reaches higher and higher during
winter time. Immense icicles, some fifty feet long, hang down the
sides of the rock immediately over the precipice. The trees on the
island above were bent down with the weight of the frozen spray, which
hung in masses from their branches. The blending of the ice and water
far beneath my feet was a remarkable sight. As the spray and mist from
time to time cleared off, I looked deep down into the dark icy abyss,
in which the water roared, and foamed, and frothed, and boiled again.

Then I went to the other side of the island, quite fairy-like as it
glistened in the sunlight, gemmed with ice-drops, and clad in its
garment of white. And there I saw that astounding sight, the great
Horse-shoe Fall, seven hundred feet across, over which the enormous
mass of water pours with tremendous force. As the water rolled over
the cliff, it seemed to hang like a green curtain in front of it,
until it reached half-way down; then gradually breaking, white streaks
appeared in it, broadening as they descended, until at length the
mighty mass sprouted in foam, and fell roaring into the terrific gulf
some hundred and fifty feet below. A great ice bridge stretched across
the river beyond the boiling water at the bottom of the Fall, rough
and uneven like some of the Swiss glaciers. Clouds of spray flew
about, seemingly like smoke or steam. Words fail to describe a scene
of such overpowering grandeur as this.

I was next driven along Goat Island to a small suspension bridge, some
distance above the Falls, where I crossed over to one of the three
Sister Islands--small bits of land jutting right out into the middle
of the rapids. The water passes between each of these islands. I went
out to the extreme point of the furthest. The sight here is perhaps
second only to the great Fall itself. The river, about a mile and a
quarter wide, rushes down the heavy descent, contracting as it goes,
before leaping the precipice below. The water was tossing and foaming
like an angry sea, reminding me of the ocean when the waves are
running high and curling their white crests after a storm.

These rapids had far more fascination for me than the Falls
themselves. I could sit and watch for hours the water rushing past;