University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

All persons who have visited Niagara
(and who has not?) are aware, that the rocks
stretching in a broken chain from Goat Island
far out into the Horseshoe Fall, giving
foundation to the bridge by which the visiter
reaches the brink of the cataract, are designated
as the Terrapin Rocks—a name scarce
worthy the dignity of their position, but rendered
somewhat appropriate by a resemblance,
which fancy readily traces in them,
to a cluster of gigantic turtles, sprawling in

the torrent. They lie confusedly along the
verge of the watery precipice, extending a
distance of a hundred yards or more from the
island, of which they seem to have formed
originally a part—the ruins of a jutting promontory
long since washed away. The
bridge—a low path of logs and planks, as is
well known—gives access to many of these
fragments: others again may be reached
without such assistance, from the island: and
the adventurous spirit, tempted by the very
wildness of the exploit, will often seek among
them some convenient perch, where, poised
perhaps over the tremendous gulf, with the
flood on either side of him, shooting furiously
by, he enjoys a spectacle of unequalled magnificence
in itself, and to which the feelings
inspired by the situation add double sublimity.

The bridge, at its termination, projects
several feet over the fall; and here the visiter
may enjoy both the scene and the excitement
of a half-fancied peril, without encountering
the risk, which would certainly attend a
scramble among the rocks, by any one not
having his nervous propensities under full
command. A fall—the consequence of a
single mis-step—into a current that rather

darts than runs, and a whirl down an abyss
of a hundred and sixty feet perpendicular
depth—are consequences that may easily
happen; and the thought of them is, in general,
sufficient to keep visiters on the bridge.

Yet use doth breed a habit in a man, I do
not think I possess any philosophic contempt
of raging billows: and I have, especially,
very poor and unhappy brains for looking
down precipices. Yet there was something
in the glory of Niagara that chased away my
fears—it may be, swallowed them up in the
all-engrossing passion of delight; something
in the sublime position of those naked rocks,
too, which, when once reached, substituted
for trembling apprehension a nobler feeling
—a feeling as of enthronement, and rule, and
power over the majestic torrent.

One day, while sitting upon one of these
grim thrones, speculating, after the true
motley-manner, upon the ever-falling flood,
in which fancy saw represented the river of
human life, with the cataract of death, over
which it was eternally falling, and wondering
what difference it made to the drop pitching
down the steep, whether rocks had vexed, or
smoother channels lulled it into security, on
the way; my attention was attracted to a

stranger, whom I had previously noticed on
the bridge, and who, besides myself, was the
only living creature at that moment to be
seen on, or near, the fall. He stood grasping
the rail of the bridge, pale, agitated, and
eyeing myself, as I soon found, with a look
that I interpreted into a call for assistance—
a call which terror, sickness, or some unknown
cause, I supposed, prevented his making
by word of mouth.

I left my rock, which was only rendered
temporarily accessible, in consequence of a
huge log having lodged against it, as well as
against another nearer the bridge, forming a
stepping-tree that the first swell of the flood
must wash away, and hurried to the stranger's
assistance, without, however, having
any very clear idea what ailed him. As I
stepped upon the bridge, he seized me by the
hand, and with the fervent ejaculation,
“Heaven be praised!” hurried me up to his
side, pretty much with the air of one who, in
mortal affright himself, has just snatched
another out of imminent danger. “Heaven
be praised!” he cried; “I was frightened for
you; or, rather, I—I—” Here he became
confused, as if awaking from a dream—“I
was frightened for myself!”

All this was very mysterious and incomprehensible
to me; which my countenance
showing, the gentleman—for indeed he was
a man both of good appearance and manners
—exclaimed, “I beg your pardon: I believe
I have been acting like a fool, and talking
like one. But the appearance of a human
being sitting on that rock, unmanned me: I
thought it was myself, and—and—. In short,
sir, I scarce know what I am saying. You
seem amazed at my trepidation. Yet I can
tell you of an adventure on that rock, which
will excuse my weakness. Yes—that is, if
you will but walk with me to some secure
place—to the island; for, I freely admit, my
thoughts are here too much disordered.”

My curiosity being raised, and somewhat
of an interest excited in the stranger, whose
years, for he was in the prime of life, his tall
and robust frame, and manly countenance,
seemed inconsistent with the weakness of
fear,—I readily attended him to the island.
His agitation decreased, as we approached it;
and, by and by, when we had plunged amid
its sweet bowers, walking towards its upper
borders, whither he begged me to accompany
him, it vanished so entirely, that he was able
like myself, to note and admire the numberless

beauties, which make almost an elysium
of this fairy island.

Was there ever, indeed, a spot so lovely
as Goat Island? Couched on the breast of
the fall, surrounded by the mighty floods, that
go rushing by with the velocity, and ten times
the power and fury, of the wind—a very hurricane
of waters; lashed, beaten, worried,
perpetually devoured by them; it lies amid
the roar and convulsion, its little islets around
it, green, lovely, and peaceful, an Eden on
the face of chaos. Hid in its groves of beech
and maple, of larch and hemlock, oak, linden
and tuliptree; in its peeping glades, embowered
with vines and ivies, and towering sumachs
that cluster rich and red as Persian roses all
around; the raspberry hanging from the bush,
the strawberry and the bluebell glimmering
together on the ground; the bee and the butterfly,
the grasshopper and the humming-bird
pursuing their pretty tasks all around; the
sparrow and the mocking bird singing aloft;
the dove cooing, the woodpecker tapping, in
the shade; you might here dream away an
anchoritish existence, scarce conscious of
the proximity of the cataract, whose voice
comes to your ear, a softened murmur, that
seems only the hum of other birds and insects

a little further off. A step brings you to its
borders, and here you look over a wall of torrent
to the world, from which you are yet
sundered far enough to satisfy even the complaining
Timon. Here you may muse and
moralize over “man, that quintessence of
dust,” and yet indulge the yearning to be near
him of which no misanthrope can wholly
divest himself; here, in your island, your
you may rail at the monster, without being
exasperated by, or entirely banished from, his
presence.

Following my new friend through the lovely
walks of the island, and still keeping on
its western borders, we reached a charming
nook, where a cluster of several rocky and
wooded islets was separated from Goat Island
only by a narrow channel, through which,
however, the current flowed with great tumult
and violence. The trunk of a spruce
tree, half submerged by the flood, in which it
shook with perpetual tremor, offered a passage
to the nearer islet to such as were inclined
to avail themselves of it. But that

was not I; I liked not the appearance of the
aguish log, over which, every now and then,
the torrent made a complete breach, leaping
into the air like a gallant and impatient
hunter taking a five-barred gate, and then
plunging down again to pursue its impetuous
course. Nor was my companion a whit
more disposed to the adventure than myself.
On the contrary, he gazed upon the
foamy bridge with some share of the agitation
he had previously displayed. From
this, however, he soon recovered, and even
laughed at his weakness; after which, sitting
down with me at the roots of an ancient
tree, the roaring channel at our feet, he related
the incident of adventure the mere
allusion to which had aroused my curiosity.
He was, he gave me to understand a citizen of
the West—of Illinois; but born in the Empire
State, which he was now revisiting with no
other object than to renew a brief acquaintance
with the scenes of his youth. But it
is proper he should speak his story in his
own words.