_Clifton House, September 18th._--Papa got into a melancholy mood at the International Hotel yesterday evening, on account of the hotel being an enormous one, and like a huge barrack; half of it we suspect is shut up, for they gave us small room _au second_, though they acknowledged they made up four hundred beds, and had only one hundred guests in the house. The dining room was about one hundred and fifty feet long, and the hotel was half in darkness from the lateness of the hour, and had no view of the Falls; so papa got more and more miserable, and I could only comfort him by reminding him we could be off to this hotel early in the morning; for as it is the fashion to try first one side for the view, and then the other, there was no offence in going from the United States to our own English possessions. On this he cheered up and we went out, and the first sight we got of this glorious river was at about eleven o'clock, when he insisted upon my passing over the bridge to Goat Island. It was the most lovely moonlight night conceivable, and the beams lit up the crests of the foaming waves as they came boiling over the rapids. It was a glorious sight, though I was rather frightened, not knowing what perils might be in store for us. To-day we made out our move to the Canada side, and are most comfortably lodged. Before coming to this hotel, we took a long drive down the river, on the American side. We got out of the carriage to see the Devil's Hole, a deep ravine, often full of water, but now dry. We stood on a high precipice, and had a grand view of the river. The _river_ is generally passed over in silence in all descriptions of Niagara, and yet it is one of the most lovely parts of the scene. Its colour after it has left the Falls, and proceeds on its rapid way, full of life and animation, to Lake Ontario, is a most tender sea green. We drove on about six miles, and then crossed a slight suspension bridge (_the_ suspension bridge being a ponderous structure for the railroad trains to pass over); but the one by which we crossed looked like a spider's-web; and the view midway, whether we looked up or down, was the finest specimen of river scenery I ever beheld. We then turned up the stream, and came by the English side to a most wonderful whirlpool, formed by the river making a rapid bend, and proceeding in a course at right angles to the one it had been previously pursuing; but the violence of the stream had caused it to proceed a long way first in the original direction; and it was evidently not till it had scooped, or hollowed out, a large basin, that it was forced to yield to the barrier that was opposed to it. This is the sort of bend it takes. [Illustration: Whirlpool]