Goat Island. It is a piece of land of about seventy acres, covered with trees, and intersected with lovely avenues with carriage drives. It is like a bouquet thrown between the American and Canadian Falls, separated from the shore by a distance of three hundred yards. We ran under the great trees, climbed the slopes, and went down the steps; the thundering roar of the falls was redoubled, and the air saturated with spray.
"Look!" cried the Doctor.
Coming from behind a mass of rock, the Niagara appeared in all its splendour. At this spot it meets with a sharp angle of land, and falling round it, forms the Canadian cascade, called the "Horse-shoe Fall," which falls from a height of one hundred and fifty-eight feet, and is two miles broad.
In this, one of the most beautiful spots in the world, Nature has combined everything to astonish the eye. The fall of the Niagara singularly favours the effects of light and shade; the sunbeams falling on the water, capriciously diversify the colour; and those who have seen this effect, must admit that it is without parallel. In fact, near Goat Island the foam is white; it is then a fall of snow, or a heap of melted silver, pouring into the abyss. In the centre of the cataract the colour of the water is a most beautiful sea-green, which indicates its depth, so that the "Detroit," a ship drawing twenty feet and launched on the
N 2