The ferry-boat was just leaving, as I jumped from the vehicle, but the boatman saw me, and began to push back. To reach the boat, I had to step over some stationary rocks that protruded from the water, and in attempting to step from one of them to the boat, I slipped, lost my footing, and down I went into the river, striking my chin on the sharp edge of the rock, as I descended, and cutting it to the bone. I went in up to my neck, and would have gone lower still had I not clung to the rock. I scrambled up into the boat, with some assistance, and the boatman recovered my crutch and cane that were floating on the water. The gash on my chin healed up in a few weeks, but it left a scar that will be unpleasant ground for my barber to get over as long as I live. A couple of days later, having visited all the points of interest in the vicinity of Niagara, I departed for Buffalo, a city at the head of the Niagara river, twenty-two miles from the Falls. I did not leave however, without regret: I fancied I could never grow tired of Niagara Falls. The great cataract, whose youth, and vigor, and might are the same they were a thousand years ago, could never grow old to me! CHAPTER XX. COLONEL JOHN SMITH AT AN HOTEL. I LOCATED in a delightful place called “Cold Spring,” in the suburbs of Buffalo, and there remained two weeks; during which time I recovered from my cough, and the gash on my chin healed up. I made some pleasing acquaintances at Cold Spring, and became as much attached to the beautiful locality as though I had lived there for years. From Buffalo I went to Erie, Pennsylvania; thence, to Cleveland, Ohio, a beautiful city of about forty-five thousand inhabitants, situated on the shore of Lake Erie. As I desired to remain at Cleveland a week or so, I took lodgings at an hotel about two or three miles from the city, near the terminus of the City Railway, where the air was clear and pure and the green fields lay spread out around me; and yet where I could jump on a street-car and ride into the heart of the city in twenty-five or thirty minutes.