There is no actual harm in making Niagara a background whereon to
display one's marvellous insignificance in a good strong light, but it
requires a sort of superhuman self-complacency to enable one to do it.
When you have examined the stupendous Horseshoe Fall till you are
satisfied you cannot improve on it, you return to America by the new
Suspension Bridge, and follow up the bank to where they exhibit the Cave
of the Winds.
Here I followed instructions, and divested myself of all my clothing and
put on a waterproof jacket and overalls. This costume is picturesque,
but not beautiful. A guide, similarly dressed, led the way down a flight
of winding stairs, which wound and wound and still kept on winding long
after the thing ceased to be a novelty, and then terminated long before
it had begun to be a pleasure. We were then well down under the
precipice, but still considerably above the level of the river.
We now began to creep along flimsy bridges of a single plank, our
persons shielded from perdition by a crazy wooden railing, to which I
clung with both hands--not because I was afraid, but because I wanted
to. Presently the descent became steeper, and the bridge flimsier, and
sprays from the American Fall began to rain down on us in
fast-increasing sheets that soon became blinding, and after that our
progress was mostly in the nature of groping.
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