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“I LAY upon the rock exhausted and fainting,
and, for a time, almost inscnsible. But,
by and by, I recovered strength and looked
around me. How horrible was the prospect!
Night was closing around me; and there I
crouched upon my rock—so small as scarce
to permit me to lie at length—on one side of
it the abyss, on all the others the roaring
waters. My hair bristled, as I peeped down
the chasm; my heart withered, when I looked
upon the expanse of torrent hemming me
in, the tumbling billows that menaced me as
they approached, and mocked me as they
rushed by and leaped down the precipice.

“It was almost night, but objects were still
faintly discernible on the shore. I saw

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human figures moving on Table Rock. Were
they the men who had seen me in the rapids,
hailed me, waked me from my fatal sleep,
and followed after me, running along the
banks, to—no, not to help me! Man could
not do that—but to witness my fate? I rose
upon my feet, and shouted at the wildest
stretch of my voice. It was breath wasted—
the twittering of a sparrow in a tempest,
the cry of a drowning mariner in the midst
of an ocean: the sound was scarcely audible
to myself. They heard me not; they saw
me not: the night was darkening upon them,
and they stole away from the falls. What
difference made it to me, whom, had they
seen me, they could have only pitied? Yet
I wept, when I saw them no more. There
was something of support, something of comfort,
even in the sight of a human being,
though afar off, and incapable of rendering
me any assistance.

“By and by, it was wholly night; but a full
moon was stealing up the sky, throwing, first,
a yellow, ghastly lustre, and then, as she
mounted higher, a silver glory, over the
scene. A party of visiters came down upon
the Table Rock to view the falls by moonlight:
I could see the fluttering of white scarfs

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and dresses—there were women among them—
women, the soft-hearted, the humane, the
pitying. I rose again; I waved my arms; I
shouted. They look!—It is upon the waters,
among which I am—nothing, a straw, a mote,
a speck, invisible and unregarded. They
looked, and they departed; and I was again
in solitude—as lonely, as friendless, as hopeless,
as if the sole dweller of the sphere.

“Presently, as the night lapsed on, clouds
gathered over the sky, and the moon was
occasionally hidden, now and then to dart
down a snowy beam through the driving
rack, giving a wild and spectral character to
the scene, which was before sufficiently awful.
There were even indications of a storm:
pale sheets of lightning ever and anon whitened
along the sky, and perhaps the thunder
rolled; but that I heard not—the thunders of
the cataract swallowed up the detonations of
heaven. A breeze—there was ever a breeze
there, the gusts from the vexed gulf below;
but this was a wind that prevailed over the
gusts of the fall—came down from the lake,
and grew momently in strength. I almost
expected the hour, when, growing into fury,
it should whirl me from my miserable rock,
and plunge me down the falls. My next

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thought was full as terrible: this breeze blowing
from the lake—must it not increase the
volume of waters flowing down the river?
Ay, and by and by, of all these rocks, now
breasting and repelling the flood, there will
not be one that is not covered a foot deep,
a mighty billow foaming over it! What
then becomes of me, denied secure possession
even of my wretched rock?

“As I thought these things, deeming my
misery greater than I could bear, greater
than that wherewith heaven had afflicted any
other mortal, a shriek echoed in my ear; and
looking round, I beheld a boat in the rapids
not fifty yards off, and within but as many
feet of the fall, and in it a man, who seemed
like myself to have been asleep, and was but
now awaked to a consciousness of his situation.
He shrieked, started up, uttered one
more cry, and then vanished over the fall.

“This dreary spectacle appeased my clamours;
it left me stupified, yet clinging with
convulsive grasp to the rock on which, I felt,
I had yet a brief term of existence.

“The moon continued to rise, the clouds to
darken, the lightnings to grow brighter; and,
after a time, the storm I had apprehended,
burst over me; the artillery of heaven was,

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at last, heard pealing and crashing, and adding
its elemental music to the boom of the
waters. But before the storm burst, how
many new incidents were added to that midnight
adventure! Other things of life—things
to which life was as dear as to me, yet all
more wretched than I—passed over the falls
within my sight. An eagle, blown by the
tempest from his perch—or, perhaps, maimed
by a gunner, and thus precipitated into the
river—was whirled over, almost within reach
of my hand, fluttering in vain the sinewy
wings that had once borne him among the
stars. Then came an ox, and a bear;—a
horse, whose scream was to the heart as
sickening as death; and a dog, who, as he
passed, yelped—yes, even from the brink of
the fall, yelped to me for succour. To me!—
to me who was myself so helpless and lost!
I laughed a bitter laugh of derision and
despair.

“By and by, a log was whirled down the
rapid, and among the rocks. It lodged
against the rock nearest my own—that which
I would have given worlds but to reach—
and the free end, swinging in the current,
struck against my little island, and ground
its way by. Was not this a bridge offered

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me by Heaven, which had, at last, heard my
supplications? Frantic with excitement, with
mingled hope and fear, I snatched at the log,
to drag it athwart my rock, hoping the very
violence of the current would keep it securely
lodged betwixt the two. I might as well
have attempted to arrest a thunderbolt in its
flight. I seized it, indeed, but its momentum
was irresistible; and with a tremendous jerk,
it both freed itself from my grasp and dashed
me from my rock over the fall. Yes, over
the fall; but! God be praised, my hands were
able to clutch upon the rock, from which I
hung suspended betwixt the heaven above
and the hell beneath, swinging in the gusts
and in the waters, which, on either side,
washed my feet, falling upon them as with
the weight of mountains.

“What was all I had suffered before, compared
with the agonies of that moment, thus
hanging, and every moment about to fall?
I endeavoured to plant my feet on the broken
face of the rock, and, in this way, clamber
again to its top: there were crannies and
ridges enough, but rotted by the water and
frosts, and they broke under my feet. My
efforts only served the purpose of digging
away the foundations of the rock, and thus

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expediting the moment of my fall. I threw
all my strength into my arms, and, with a
prodigious effort, succeeded—yes, succeeded
in again placing myself upon the rock, where
I lay down upon my face and laughed with
joy.

“Then came the tempest, the rushing wind,
the roaring thunder, the blinding lightning.
What horrible loveliness now sat upon the
scene! Was not this more than sublime?
more than terrific? Now the descending
waters were veiled in impenetrable darkness,
in a blackness as of death and chaos; and
anon the red bolt, the levin-rocket bursting
from the cloud, glared into the darkest nooks
of the abyss, revealing and adorning them
with a ghastly splendour. Add to this the
thunder rattling in rivalry with the roaring
flood; and you have Niagara, seen at midnight,
by the torches of Heaven—fit lights
for a spectacle so grand and stupendous.

“It was a spectacle too magnificent to be
lost by the visiters of Niagara, who came
trooping down to the Table Rock; where, at
every blaze of the lightning, I could see them
clustered, expressing by their gestures their
admiration and delight. I saw them so distinctly
at times, that I thought it not

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impossible they also might see me; and accordingly
I rose again to my feet, forgetting, or defying,
the winds, and doing every thing in my
power to attract their attention.

“I succeeded; some one at last beheld me:
I knew it by the agitation immediately visible
among the crowd, all eyes being now
turned in one direction—to the rock on which
I stood—I, the lost and the wretched! The
tears rushed to my eyes: I did not expect
them to help me—I knew they could not; but
they pitied me; I should have, at least, some
sympathizing fellow creature to see me die.

“The agitation increased; lights were
brought, and flashed to and fro; I saw torches
upon the path leading down to the ferry—
torches even upon the water. What! they
were crossing the river? The people of my
own side would then know of my fate; and
they—yes, they might assist me! They could
reach Goat Island—they could come out
upon the rocks—they could throw bridges
over those rocks that were otherwise inaccessible!
My heart leaped in my bosom: I
should yet be saved!

“I looked to Goat Island; yet looked long in
vain. Was I deceived? Alas! that agitation,
those lights descending the rocks and

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crossing the river; were there not a hundred
causes to explain them, without reference to
me? My hopes sunk, and I with them to
my rock—Heaven and earth! the water was
already rising upon it! Yes, the river was
swelling, swelling fast, and my treacherous
rock was vanishing under my feet!”

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