, where it was darkened by a rough
weatherboarding, or lower down, where the unobstructed light showed the
grim tearful face of the cliff, bedrabbled with oozy springs, and the
audacious slightness of the elevator.

An abiding distrust of the machinery overhead mingled in Isabel's heart
with a doubt of the value of the scene below, and she could not look
forward to escape from her present perils by the conveyance which had
brought her into them, with any satisfaction. She wanly smiled, and
shrank closer to Basil; while the other matron made nothing of seizing
her husband violently by the arm and imploring him to stop it whenever
they experienced a rougher jolt than usual.

At the bottom of the cliff they were helped out of their prison by a
humid young Englishman, with much clay on him, whose face was red and
bathed in perspiration, for it was very hot down there in his little
inclosure of baking pine boards, and it was not much cooler out on the
rocks upon which the party issued, descending and descending by repeated
and desultory flights of steps, till at last they stood upon a huge
fragment of stone right abreast of the rapids. Yet it was a magnificent
sight, and for a moment none of them were sorry to have come. The surges
did not look like the gigantic ripples on a river's course as they were,
but like a procession of ocean billows; they arose far aloft in vast
bulks of clear green, and broke heavily into foam at the crest. Great
blocks and shapeless fragments of rock strewed the margin of the awful
torrent; gloomy walls of dark stone rose naked from these, bearded here
and there with cedar, and everywhere frowning with shaggy brows of
evergreen. The place is inexpressibly lonely and dreadful, and one feels
like an alien presence there, or as if he had intruded upon some mood or
haunt of Nature in which she had a right to be forever alone. The slight,
impudent structure of the elevator rises through the solitude, like a
thing that merits ruin, yet it is better than something more elaborate,
for it looks temporary, and since there must be an elevator, it is well
to have it of the most transitory aspect. Some such quality of rude
impermanence consoles you for the presence of most improvements by which
you enjoy Niagara; the suspension bridges for their part being saved from
offensiveness by their beauty and unreality.

Ascending, none of the party spoke; Isabel and the other matron blanched
in each other's faces; t