Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 7.djvu/113

Rh the day when the Terrapin Tower falls, there will be some eccentrics who will descend the Niagara with it."

I looked at the Doctor, as if to ask him if he would be of that number, but he signed for me to follow him, and we went out again to look at the "Horse-shoe Fall," and the surrounding country. We could now distinguish the American Fall, slightly curtailed and separated by a projection of the island, where there is another small central cataract one hundred feet wide; the American cascade, equally fine, falls perpendicularly. Its height is one hundred and sixty-four feet. But in order to have a good view of it it is necessary to stand facing it, on the Canadian side.

All day we wandered on the banks of the Niagara, irresistibly drawn back to the tower, where the roar of the water, the spray, the sunlight playing on the vapors, the excitement, and the briny odor of the cataract, holds you in a perpetual ecstasy. Then we went back to Goat Island to get the Fall from every point of view, without ever being wearied of looking at it. The Doctor would have taken me to see the "Grotto of Winds," hollowed out underneath the central Fall, but access to it was not allowed, on account of the frequent falling away of the rocks.

At five o'clock we went back to the hotel, and after a hasty dinner, served in the American fashion, we returned to Goat Island. The Doctor wished to go and see the "Three Sisters," charming little islets scattered at the head of the island; then, with the return of evening, he led me back to the tottering rock of Terrapin Tower.

The last rays of the setting sun had disappeared behind the gray hills, and the moon shed her soft clear light over the landscape. The shadow of the tower stretched across the abyss; farther down the stream the water glided silently along, crowned with a light mist. The Canadian shore, already plunged in darkness, contrasted vividly with the moon-lit banks of Goat Island, and the village of Niagara Falls. Below us, the gulf, magnified by the uncertain light, looked like a bottomless abyss, in which roared the formidable torrent. What an effect! What artist could ever depict such a scene, either with the pen or paint-brush? For some minutes a moving light appeared on the horizon; it was the signal light of a train crossing the Niagara bridge at a distance of two miles from us. Here we remained