My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

274 MY LIFEthough we were a little late to see them in perfection.Where we landed, I was delighted to see wild vinesclambering over the trees, as well as the Virginiacreeper, and there were also sumachs and othercharacteristic American plants. The situation of thegreat American Military College is splendid, on anelevated promontory in a bend of the Hudson, surroundedby rugged wooded hills, and with magnificentviews up and down the river.In March, 1887, on my way back from Toronto(where I had been to lecture) to Washington, Ispentfour days at Niagara, living at the old hotel on theCanadian side, in a room that looked out on the greatfall, and where its continuous musical roar soothedme to sleep. It was a hard frost, and the Americanfalls had great ice-mounds below them, and rangesof gigantic icicles near the margins. At night thesound was like that of a strong, steady wind at sea,but even more like the roar of the London streetsheard from the middle of Hyde Park. When in beda constant vibration was felt. I spent my whole timewandering about the falls, above and below, on theCanadian and the American sides, roaming over GoatIsland and the Three Sisters Islands far in the rapidsabove the Horse-shoe Fall, which are almost asimpressive as the fall itself. The small Luna Islanddividing the American falls was a lovely sight ; thearbor-vitae trees {Thuya Americana), with which it iscovered, young and old, some torn and jagged, butall to the smallest twigs coated with glistening icefrom the frozen spray, looked like groves of gigantictreecorals, forming the most magnificent and fairylikescene I have ever beheld. All the islands arerocky and picturesque, the trees draped with wildvines and Virginia creepers, and afford a sample ofJ