What was that cavern of the winds, of which we heard of old, compared to this?  A mightier spirit than Aeolus reigns here.

Nor was this spot of dread and danger the only one in which we found ourselves alone.  The path taken by “the company” to the shantee, which contained the “book of names” was always the same; this wound down the steep bank from the gate of the hotel garden, and was rendered tolerably easy by its repeated doublings; but it was by no means the best calculated to manage to advantage the pleasure of the stranger in his approach to the spot.  All others, however, seemed left for us alone.

During our stay we saw the commencement of another staircase, intended to rival in attraction that at present in use; it is but a few yards from it, and can in no way, I think, contribute to the convenience of the descent.  The erection of the central shaft of this spiral stair was a most tremendous operation, and made me sick and giddy as I watched it.  After it had been made fast at the bottom, the carpenters swung themselves off the rocks, by the means of ropes, to the beams which traversed it; and as they sat across them, in the midst of the spray and the uproar, I thought I had never seen life periled so wantonly.  But the work proceeded without accident, and was nearly finished before we left the hotel.

It was a sort of pang to take what we knew must be our last look at Niagara; but “we had to do it,” as the Americans say, and left it on the 10th June, for Buffalo.

The drive along the river, above the Falls, is as beautiful as a clear stream of a mile in width can make it; and the road continues close to it till you reach the ferry at Black Rock.

We welcomed, almost with a shout, the British colours which we saw, for the first time, on Commodore Barrie’s pretty sloop, the Bull Dog, which we passed as it was towing up the river to Lake Erie, the commodore being about to make a tour of the lakes.

At Black Rock we crossed again into the United States, and a few miles of horrible jolting brought us to Buffalo.

Of all the thousand and one towns I saw in America, I think Buffalo is the queerest looking; it is not quite so wild as Lockport, but all the buildings have the appearance of having been run up in a hurry, though every thing has an air of great pretension; there are porticos, columns, domes, and colonnades, but all in wood.  Every body tells you there, as in all their other new-born towns, and every body believes, that their improvement, and their progression, are more rapid, more wonderful, than the earth ever before witnessed; while to me, the only wonder is, how so many thousands, nay millions of persons, can be found, in the nineteenth century, who can be content so to live.  Surely this country may be said to spread rather than to rise.

The Eagle Hotel, an immense wooden fabric, has all the pretension of a splendid establishment, but its monstrous corridors, low ceilings, and intricate chambers, gave me the feeling of a catacomb rather than a house.  We arrived after the table d’hote tea-drinking was over, and supped comfortably enough with a gentleman, who accompanied us from the Falls:  but the next morning we breakfasted in a long, low, narrow room, with a hundred persons, and any thing less like comfort can hardly be imagined.