was sucking his hams, not paws; which I was informed they will continue doing for hours together when hungry.-Warm day.-Strong breeze on the Plains.-Sultry evening.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 22d.

5 A. M. Leave Wintermoth's. I was now on the banks of the Niagara River, and not more than seventeen miles from its celebrated Cataract.

Had I been suddenly set down in FairyLand I could not have been more alive to expectation. My mind, too, was agitated by that pleasing tumult which those experience who are on the point of realizing, for the first time, the favourite wish of their heart.

I pursued the course of the River by a very excellent road.

This River possesses features, which, though frequently seen in Tide-water Bays, Inlets and on the Sea-Coast, yet rarely characterizes a running stream. Instead of the banks partaking of a straight or easy flowing line, they are a continuation of long points of Land making into the River, and as the Road follows the same line, the present travelled distance between Fort Erie and Chippawa might be less.ened one half.

The Niagara is certainly a very noble Stream, but its banks are tame and void of all interest. The United States Shore was hid by La Grande Isle, covered with wood and unsettled.

On the Canada side, the whole distance to the Falls, with little exception, is settled; and that principally by emigrants from the United States since 1792. I only passed two boarded Houses, and those little larger than log-huts. I observed King-fishers, Pigeon-Hawks, Moths and Grasshoppers, but no Mosquitoes, and few Flies. During my approach to Chippawa, I had, for many miles, observed a heavy smoke arise on the Canada side of the Niagara, which I attributed to the burning of logs on a piece of Land then clearing; but when within two miles of Chippawa, I evidently perceived that what I considered as smoke, arose from the River, and it then occurred to me that it was the Spray of the Falls. I stopped my Horse and could distinguish, the roaring of the Waters, from its gradual introduction upon my ear, the noise of my Horse's feet, and the absorption, as it were, of all my other senses in that of vision.

8 A. M. Reached Macklam's Tavern, Chippawa, three hundred and eighty miles. Having breakfasted, I set out on foot for the Falls; the distance is three miles by the Road, but not

4

more than two by the line of the River. I followed the Banks of the River, having the spray in sight.

At first I found that I could keep pace with some drift Wood, but which, on reaching the first small breaker, or rapid, began to be carried on faster than a Horse could trot. As I approached the Falls, the Banks of the River became higher and higher, owing to the declivity of its bed, for the ground preserves the same level both above and below the falls. At the beginning of the great Rapids the Riverbank is at least one hundred feet high.

These Rapids are highly beautiful. There are those who admire them as much as the Falls themselves. They certainly would alone make a fine picture; they extend upwards from the edge of the Fall about eight hundred yards, and have a declivity in this distance of about seventy feet, which declivity is very perceptible to the eye. The bed of the river is here very shallow, and thickly strewed with rocks, but which do not appear above the surface, except those along the north-west edge of Goat Island. Those who have seen heavy and dangerous breakers on a rocky sea-coast, may form a good idea of these Rapids.

From the high bank on which I now stood, I beheld at my feet a plot of cultivated ground,