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We reached Utica at twelve o'clock the following day, pretty
well fagged by the sun by day, and a crowded cabin by night;
lemon-juice and iced-water (without sugar) kept us alive. But
for this delightful recipe, feather fans, and eau de Cologne, I
think we should have failed altogether; the thermometer stood at
90 degrees.
At two, we set off in a very pleasant airy carriage for Trenton
Falls, a delightful drive of fourteen miles. These falls have
become within the last few years only second in fame to Niagara.
The West Canada Creek, which in the map shows but as a paltry
stream, has found its way through three miles of rock, which, at
many points, is 150 feet high. A forest of enormous cedars is on
their summit; and many of that beautiful species of white cedar
which droops its branches like the weeping-willow grow in the
clefts of the rock, and in some places almost dip their dark
foliage in the torrent. The rock is of a dark grey limestone,
and often presents a wall of unbroken surface. Near the hotel a
flight of very alarming steps leads down to the bed of the
stream, and on reaching it you find yourself enclosed in a deep
abyss of solid rock, with no visible opening but that above your
head. The torrent dashes by with inconceivable rapidity; its
colour is black as night, and the dark ledge of rock on which you
stand, is so treacherously level with it, that nothing warns you
of danger. Within the last three years two young people, though
surrounded by their friends, have stepped an inch too far, and
disappeared from among them, as if by magic, never to revisit
earth again.
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