to descend.  From hence across to the Canadian side the cataract continues itself in one unabated line.  But the line is very far from being direct or straight.  After stretching for some little way from the shore to a point in the river which is reached by a wooden bridge at the end of which stands a tower upon the rock,—­after stretching to this, the line of the ledge bends inward against the flood—­in, and in, and in—­till one is led to think that the depth of that horseshoe is immeasurable.  It has been cut with no stinting hand.  A monstrous cantle has been worn back out of the center of the rock, so that the fury of the waters converges; and the spectator, as he gazes into the hollow with wishful eyes, fancies that he can hardly trace out the center of the abyss.

Go down to the end of that wooden bridge, seat yourself on the rail, and there sit till all the outer world is lost to you.  There is no grander spot about Niagara than this.  The waters are absolutely around you.  If you have that power of eye-contrio which is so necessary to the full enjoyment of scenery, you will see nothing but the water.  You will certainly hear nothing else; and the sound, I beg you to remember, is not an ear-cracking, agonizing crash and clang of noises, but is melodious and soft withal, though loud as thunder.  It fills your ears, and, as it were, envelops them, but at the same time you can speak to your neighbor without an effort.  But at this place, and in these moments, the less of speaking, I should say, the better.  There is no grander spot than this.  Here, seated on the rail of the bridge, you will not see the whole depth of the fall.  In looking at the grandest works of nature, and of art too, I fancy it is never well to see all.  There should be something left to the imagination, and much should be half concealed in mystery.  The greatest charm of a mountain range is the wild feeling that there must be strange, unknown, desolate worlds in those far-off valleys beyond.  And so here, at Niagara, that converging rush of waters may fall down, down at once into a hell of rivers, for what the eye can see.  It is glorious to watch them in their first curve over the rocks.  They come green as a bank of emeralds, but with a fitful, flying color, as though conscious that in one moment more they would be dashed into spray and rise into air, pale as driven snow.  The vapor rises high into the air, and is gathered there, visible always as a permanent white cloud over the cataract; but the bulk of the spray which fills the lower hollow of that horseshoe is like a tumult of snow.  This you will not fully see from your seat on the rail.  The head of it rises ever and anon out of that caldron below, but the caldron itself will be invisible.  It is ever so far down—­far as your own imagination can sink it.  But your eyes will rest full upon the curve of the waters.  The shape you will be looking at is that of a horseshoe, but of a horseshoe miraculously deep from toe to heel;