While Blondin yet performed at the Falls there appeared Signor Farini in 1860, and stretched a cable across the Gorge near the hydraulic canal basin. On August 8, 1864, Farini reappeared walking about the Rapids above the American fall on stilts. He was certainly an expert on the rope and commanded much attention, but he was not able to snatch the laurel from the Frenchman's brow--he has been forgotten, while Blondin's fame has lived. We must, however, chronicle a thrilling incident attached to his performance in 1864. Between Robinson's Island and the precipice Farini was suddenly delayed. He claimed his stilts caught in a crevice. His brother succeeded in reaching a log between the old paper-mill and Robinson's Island, from which he threw a line, with a weight attached, to the adventurer, and by this line a pail of provisions was sent to Farini. A larger line was thrown and both reached shore by way of Goat Island. [Illustration: The Path to the Cave of the Winds. From a photograph by Notman, Montreal.] There has hardly been a year in which some tight-rope exhibition has not taken place at Niagara Falls. Harry Leslie crossed the Gorge on a rope-cable in July and August, 1865. He achieved the title of "The American Blondin." In 1873, when Signor Balleni (Ballini?) stretched a cable from a point opposite the old Clifton House to Prospect Park, he leaped three times into the river as an extra inducement, aided in his descent by a rubber cord. In 1886 he reappeared, climbed to the iron railing on the upper suspension bridge, knocked the ice from under his feet to secure a footing, and at the signal of a pistol shot jumped into the air. He struck the water in four seconds, broke a rib, lost his senses, and came to the surface some sixty feet from where he entered. This was the same man who jumped from Hungerford Bridge, London, in 1888, and was drowned. In July, 1876, Signorina Maria Spelterini crossed the Gorge on a tight-rope with baskets on her feet. The performance brought out a tremendous crowd, probably because she was the first woman daring to try conclusions with Blondin and his many imitators. She got across safely with her baskets and her name. She won great favour and forever established the fact that a woman is as level-headed as a man. In the seventies of the last century, a young fellow, Stephen Peere, a painter by trade, stretched a cable across the Falls. In 1878 he gave variety to his career by jumping from one of the bridges, and in 1887 he finished it by jumping to his death. He had previously, on June 22, 1887, walked across the Gorge on a wire cable six-eighths of an inch in diameter. This was a wonderful performance, considering the fact that all the others had used a rope two inches in diameter. Only three days later he was found dead on a bank beneath his rope, stretched between the old suspension and the cantilever bridges. It is supposed he attempted to