22 - Niagara Falls, from Clifton House

Summary

The most comprehensive view of Niagara is, no doubt, that from the galleries of this hotel; but it is, at the same time, for a first view, one of the most unfavourable. Clifton House stands nearly opposite the centre of the irregular crescent formed by the Falls; but it is so far back from the line of the arc, that the height and grandeur of the two cataracts, to an eye unacquainted with the scene, are deceptively diminished. After once making the tour of the points of view, however, the distance and elevation of the hotel are allowed for by the eye, and the situation seems most advantageous. This is the only house at Niagara where a traveller, on his second visit, would be content to live.

Clifton House is kept in the best style of hotels in this country; but the usual routine of such places, going on in the very eye of Niagara, weaves in very whimsically with the eternal presence and power of the cataract. We must eat, drink, and sleep, it is true, at Niagara as elsewhere; and indeed, what with the exhaustion of mind and fatigue of body, we require at the Falls perhaps more than usual of these three “blessed inventions.”