Memories of delight steal o'er you as you recall again the many
noble trees at Mt. Vernon. Just north of the brick wall of the
flower garden are two magnificent tulip trees towering in their
stately grandeur far above their companions; filling their
branches with a wealth of creamy bell-shaped blossoms which like
innumerable swinging censers scatter delicious incense on the
passing breeze. The master of those beautiful and spacious
grounds has long since departed; but when we gaze upon those
magnificent trees planted by his hands we seem to catch the
spirit of the man whispered by all their green leaves, melodies
clearer and sweeter than any music we had heard before.
We have been straying from the Falls but as we said people are
more interesting.
At the edge of the Canadian channel are the Three Sister
Islands, so named because the three daughters of General Whitney
were the first white women to cross to the outer island long
before the bridges were built.
The river below the Falls is very narrow and the descent is very
steep, about three-quarters of a mile below the suspension
bridge. Here a sudden turn in the channel causes the waters to
impinge against the Canadian shore, where they have made a deep
indentation, and to rush back to the American side in a great
whirl or eddy, rendered more furious by the uneven bed of the
river, and the narrow space into which it contracts. "Here the
most terrific commotion of any of Niagara's tumultuous
demonstrations is seen. The frenzied waters form a seething
vortex, the terror of the most daring navigators." Here the
hissing, clashing, seething, upswirling mass of water where it
strikes the rocks is whirled in swift eddies as if drawn
downward by some awful river monster below. The waves produced
are like the billows of the ocean, and have the same quality of
loud booming tones, possessing the same wild exuberance of
motion. The passionate torrent swirls in wild ecstasy around the
rocks, springing aloft and tipping the waves with a silvery
radiance or clashing its emerald waters in plumes of spray. One
never tires gazing at the waters leaping and gliding like living
creatures as they dash themselves to pieces on the rocks, or
listening to the swash and gurgle of the rapid waters or the
keen clash of heavier waves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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