Some among them
next began to question us as to how long we had been at the
Falls; whether there were much company; if we were not from the
old country, and the like. In return we learnt that they were
just arrived; yet not one of them (there were eight) ever turned
the head, even for a moment, to look at the most stupendous
spectacle that nature has to show.
The company at the hotel changed almost every day. Many parties
arrived in the morning, walked to the falls; returned to the
hotel to dinner, and departed by the coach immediately after it.
Many groups were indescribably whimsical, both in appearance and
manner. Now and then a first-rate dandy shot in among us, like a
falling star.
On one occasion, when we were in the beautiful gallery, at the
back of the hotel, which overlooks the horse-shoe fall, we saw
the booted leg of one of this graceful race protruded from the
window which commands the view, while his person was thrown back
in his chair, and his head enveloped in a cloud of tobacco smoke.
I have repeatedly remarked, when it has happened to me to meet
any ultra fine men among the wilder and more imposing scenes of
our own land, that they throw off, in a great degree, their
airs, and their "townliness," as some one cleverly calls these
_simagrees_, as if ashamed to "play their fantastic tricks"
before the god of nature, when so forcibly reminded of his
presence; and more than once on these occasions I have been
surprised to find how much intellect lurked behind the inane
mask of fashion.
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