us suitors."

"You mean she will be sorry, whichever she chooses?"

"You two practical people would spoil any illustration in the world. You
would divest the impressive drop of water on the mountain summit, which
might go to the Atlantic or to the Pacific, of all moral character by
saying that it makes no difference which ocean it falls into."

The relief from the dread of Niagara felt at this point of peace was
only temporary. The dread returned when the party approached again the
turmoil of the American Fall, and fell again under the influence of the
merciless haste of the flood. And there every islet, every rock, every
point, has its legend of terror; here a boat lodged with a man in it,
and after a day and night of vain attempts to rescue him, thousands of
people saw him take the frightful leap, throwing up his arms as he went
over; here a young woman slipped, and was instantly whirled away out
of life; and from that point more than one dazed or frantic visitor had
taken the suicidal leap. Death was so near here and so easy!

One seems in less personal peril on the Canadian side, and has more
the feeling of a spectator and less that of a participant in the wild
uproar. Perhaps there is more sense of force, but the majesty of the
scene is relieved by a hundred shifting effects of light and color.
In the afternoon, under a broken sky, the rapids above the Horseshoe
reminded one of the seashore on a very stormy day. Impeded by the rocks,
the flood hesitated and even ran back, as if reluctant to take the final
plunge! The sienna color of the water on the table contrasted sharply
with the emerald at the break of the fall. A rainbow springing out of
the centre of the caldron arched clear over the American cataract, and
was one moment bright and the next dimly seen through the mist, which
boiled up out of the foam of waters and swayed in the wind. Through this
veil darted adventurous birds, flashing their wings in the prismatic
colors, and circling about as if fascinated by the awful rush and
thunder. With the shifting wind and the passing clouds the scene was in
perpetual change; now the American Fall was creamy white, and the mist
below dark, and again the heavy mass was gray and sullen, and the mist
like silver spray. Perhaps nowhere else in the world is the force of
nature so overpowering to the mind, and as the eye wanders from the
chaos of the fall to the far horizon, where the vast rivers of rapids
are poured out