At last we reach a spring by the roadside, the steam rising from the flanks of the team like mist from a marsh.  What do I see?  Number one nag with a pailful of water, swigging away like a Glasgow baillie at a bowl of punch.  He drains it dry with a rapidity which says “More, more!” and sure enough they keep on giving pail after pail, till he has taken in enough to burst the tough hide of a rhinoceros.  I naturally concluded the horse was an invalid, or a culprit who had got drunk, and that they were mixing the liquor “black list” fashion, to save his intestines and to improve his manners; but no—­round goes the pailman to every nag, drenching each to the bursting point.

“Ain’t you afraid,” I said, “of killing the poor beasts by giving them such a lot of water?”

“I guess if I was, I shouldn’t give it ’em,” was the terse reply.

Upon making further inquiries into this mysterious treatment, he told me that it was a sulphur spring, and that all tired horses having exhibited an avidity for it far greater than for common water, the instinct of the animal had been given a fair trial, and subsequent experience had so ratified that instinct that it had become a “known fact.”  An intelligent American, sitting at the feet of a quadruped Gamaliel, humbly learning from his instincts, should teach the bigots of every class and clime to let their prejudices hang more loosely upon them.  But half an hour has passed, and Jehu is again on the box, the nags as fresh as daisies, and as full as a corncob.  Half an hour more lands us at Niagara.  Avoiding the hum of men, I took refuge for the night in a snug little cottage handy to the railway, and, having deposited my traps, started on a moonlight trip.  I need scarce say whither.

Men of the highest and loftiest minds, men of the humblest and simplest minds, the poet and the philosopher, the shepherd and the Christian, have alike borne testimony to the fact, that the solitude of night tends to solemnize and elevate the thoughts.  How greatly must this effect be increased when aided by the contemplation of so grand a work of nature as Niagara!  In the broad blaze of a noonday sun, the power of such contemplation is weakened by the forced admixture of the earthly element, interspersed as the scene is with the habitations and works of man.  But, in the hushed repose of night, man stands, as it were, more alone with his Maker.  The mere admirer of the picturesque or the grand will find much to interest and charm him; but may there not arise in the Christian’s mind far deeper and higher thoughts to feed his contemplation?  In the cataract’s mighty roar may he not hear a voice proclaiming the anger of an unreconciled God?  May not the soft beams of the silvery moon above awaken thoughts of the mercies of a pardoning God?  And as he views those beams, veiled, as it wore, in tears by the rising spray, may he not think of Him and his tears, through whom alone those mercies flow to man?