Clergy -- England -- Biography; Stoughton, John, 1807-1897
Instead of a unity, I found Niagara manifold, varying as one wanders
about the banks. The channel here is worthy of the stream. It is cut
into precipitous cliffs, picturesque rocks, forests of trees, bridges,
hotels and other houses. In photographs and engravings, there is often
but a tame outline, with which the reality does not correspond. Of the
upper and lower Rapids, I prefer the former in one respect; it gives good
views of the foliage which fringes the water. Emphatically, one may use
the word _beauty_ in reference to the landscape as distinguished from the
Rapids. Colours are charming—greens of all tints; at sunset streaks of
pink, violet, lavender, lilac, along the edge of the Falls; azure tints
in the river; sky with crimson and purple flushes at eventide.
At the expense of repetition, I will quote the words I find in my
notebook written on a rocky bank:—“Opposite, looking west, is the Canada
side, skirted by thick trees, forming a continuous border—the Horse Shoe
form of a rocky ledge, crossed by the sweep of water, would measure the
third of a mile. It still resembles a ridge of emerald, tinged, or
rather lined, with white. Then the flood plunges down, to rise again
from the bottom in columns of vapour. In sunshine the whole is crossed
by a wonderful rainbow. Then, afterwards, it appeared to me like an
altar of frosted silver, spanning the end of a temple choir, sending up
incense for ever and ever! Looking down into the precipitous gulf,
formed by the Canadian and American shores, one sees the river flowing on
steadily like a shifting floor of variegated marble,—green, streaked with
white. I shift my position, walking under the trees of Goat Island,
about a quarter of a mile from the Horse Shoe, and sit upon a bit of
tableland, forming what is called Lunar Island,—dividing into two unequal
limbs the watery flood. At the bottom appears another rainbow. I shift
again, walking up the Goat Island, and cross a bridge over Rapids, and
then enter the grounds called (as just said) Prospect Park; and there one
faces both cataracts—the American in profile, the Horse Shoe full face.”
A suspension bridge crosses the whirling waters on which it makes one
giddy to look down. Then occurs a turn, where a whirlpool is formed, and
pieces of timber are swept round and round by enormous eddies. Four days
I spent at these never-to-be-forgotten spots filled with marvels of
Divine creation.
My visit to Montreal was very short, but we saw enough to indicate the
city’s prosperity; it underwent great reverses afterwards. We were
invited to the handsome dwellings of several wealthy citizens, and
witnessed much zeal in the cause of religion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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