Come—come! Now to the Table Rock. See with what treacherous glitter the wide Niagara stretches in perfect smoothness far towards Chippewa, till, descending upon us, it shoots the rapids o’er their rocky beds like things of life, and with wild rush around the island, sweeps resistless o’er the awful cataracts, a roaring hurricane of waters. Give me your hand—lean forward—look into the abyss—careful. Evil spirits take us at advantage at such times, and whisper us to leap forward. How lashed in milky whiteness the huge gulf boils and foams as the waters plunge fractured, disjointed, tumbling in masses—and the wild birds, how fearlessly they skim amid the white mist rising from its surface. How the earth shudders and trembles around us. You are already dizzy. Come back from the edge. How awful—how terribly sublime! How tame—how useless, helpless description! Would that I, with voice of inspiration, could command language adequate to pourtray the grandeur of the scene under stern Winter’s reign! Transcendantly beautiful once I saw it! A thaw and rain, followed by sudden chill and cold, had clothed all the forest—every hedge and shrub, with transparent coat of ice. Gnarled oaks, from massive trunk to their extremest twigs, became huge crystal chandeliers. The ever-green pines and hemlocks, with long lancing branches,—great emeralds; lithe willows, sweeping, glassy cascades; the wild vines, stiff in silvery trellices between them; the undergrowth, with scarlet, blue and purple berries, candied fruits. The pools of frozen water at their feet, dark sheets of adamant; and ever and anon, as the north wind passed o’er them, the forest was Golconda, Araby—one Ind of radiant gems, quivering with diamonds, rubies, sapphires, in glittering splendour; pearls, emeralds, hyacinths, chrysolites, falling in showers, as fractured from their crackling branches, they strewed the snowy bed stretched smooth around them. That wide, smooth river, far above the Rapids, ice-chained, a solid snow-white bed, gleaming in the midday sun. Yon tower, misshapen giant phantom, ice god, in frozen shroud and winding-sheet, firmly fixed ’mid the swift running waters:—huge stalactite icicles, Winter’s hoary beard, hanging in fantastic curtains from each rock ledge—pinnacle—projection; while on the black rapids, the vast ice-fields breaking in masses, piled in wild confusion, grinding and swaying on their treacherous holds, till gathering momentum, with slide and plunge—submerged, they swept onward ’mid the wild roar of the cataracts, which, with stern, resistless power, held their terrific course. Those huge sheets, those watery arches, those green beryl masses, plunging in resistless fury, unabated vastness, with desperate leaps into the foaming abyss below, the spray falling in silver showers, pierced by the sun’s rays dancing around them in countless rainbows; while the ice avalanches, breaking from their grasps on the surrounding rocks and