A noiseless drive brought us to the village. Clifton House was deserted--the windows closed, the doors fastened. No gay groups disported on the promenade; but the bird-stuffer’s, the Jew’s museum, the photographer’s shed, the Prince’s triumphal arch, were still extant; and the bazaars, where they sell views, seashells, Indian beadwork and feathers, moccasins, stuffed birds, and the like, were open and anxious for customers. Our party was a godsend; but the worthy Israelite, who has collected such an odd museum here--one, under all the circumstances, most creditable to his industry and perseverance as well as liberality--said that travellers came pretty often in fine winter weather to look at the cataract. We walked in our moccasins to the Table Rock, and thence to the verge of the Falls, and gazed in silence on the struggling fury of the terrible Rapids, which seem as if they wrestled with each other like strong men contending against death, and fighting to the last till the fatal leap must be made. The hateful little wooden staircases, which like black slugs crawl up the precipice from the foot of the Falls, caught the eyes of my companions; and when they were informed that they could go down in safety and get some way behind the Fall itself, the place was invested with a new charm, and ice, rheumatism, and the like, were set at defiance. I knew what it was in summer, and the winter journey did not seem very tempting; but there was no alternative, and the party returned to the museum to prepare for the descent. Whilst we were waiting for our waterproof dresses to go under the Falls, we had an opportunity of surveying the changes produced by winter, and I was the more persuaded that the effect is not so favourable as that of summer. The islands are covered with snow--that which divides the sweep of the cataract looking unusually large; the volume of water, diminished in the front, is also deprived of much of its impressive force by a decrease in the sound produced by its fall. The edges of the bank, covered with glistening slabs of ice, were not tempting to the foot, and could not be approached with the confidence with which they are trod by one of steady nerves when the actual brink is visible.