NIAGARA MONTREAL

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, 1 September 1905, Page 2

NIAGARA MONTREAL

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ALLS' View. Five minutes to see the Falls." Thus the conductor of the Michigan Central Express as the train stops, and the passengers hasten out and stretch their weary limbs, for even a first-class pullman is not as comfortable a sleeping chamber as

might be imagined. It was just after sunrise, and the mists had 'barely cleared from the surface of the river, which in consequence looked remarkably wide, the opposite bank being hazy and indistinct. The foreground of pale green waters of the rapids above the Canadian Fall alone was distinctly and sharply defined, but the sullen roar told of a mighty force behind, amongst the enshrouding mists, a sound of many waters where " The wondrous world All its store of inland waters burled In one vast volume down Niagara's steep." '"Board!" Back scramble the passengers, and another five minutes

brings us to Niagara Falls, Ontario. As this is to be our headquarters at the Falls we leave the train, and having seen our baggage conveyed to the hotel, start out to walk across the river to Niagara Falls, New York. There are three bridges below the Falls, the first being a gigantic single arch of steel spanning the river just below the American Fall, at the point where stood the celebrated suspension bridge. The other two; are about two miles lower down, one a suspenpension and the other a cantilever railway bridge. The owners of these bridges collect a toll of ten cents from every passenger crossing from Canada to the States and vice versa. Passing unconsciously along without particularly noticing the sentry-box at the gate it came as a shock to be hailed with : "Hi! Toll, please/ and "What have you got there?" "This?" holding * up my kodak. "Only a camera." "Oh, all right, pass on." Customs again; we seemed to be continually crossing a border. A twenty minutes' walk brings us

to Prospect Point, just at the edge of the- American Pall, and commanding a magnificent view. Before us thunders the American Fall, and beyond it, half a mile or so away, separated by the picturesque bluffs of Goat Island, is the Horseshoe or Canadian Fall, the whole comprising a beautiful semi-circle of rushing waters almost a full mile in width; while to the right, beneath the Falls, stretches a broad, calm expanse of

smooth water, almost oily in appearance, and streaked as it were with twisted ropes of white, curdled froth, through which steamed hither and thither the "Maid of the Mist/ ever and anon enshrouded in spray as she ventured close in under the falling waters. It was a fascinating spectacle, and as beautiful as one could wish to see. Behind Prospect Point is the town of Niagara Falls, New York, and if you want to get rid of your money you can do so here without any diffi-

culty whatever. The place is simply a den of souvenir merchants, and one cannot turn around without having the particular charms of some trumpery bauble thrust upon him, "and only a dollar." "Yes, and dear at ten cents/ is your involuntary thought. A glance of enquiry or interest at one of these vendors or his wares would get you besieged at once, so that the only way out of the difficulty is to appear utterly

callous to their touting, and quite oblivious of their presence. About three hundred yards above the American Fall is a fine stone bridge crossing 1 the rapids to Goat Island, and after breakfast we make our way across and around to the other side of the Fall, a beautiful vantage-ground on Luna Island, from which one can note the graceful sweep of the water as it shoots over the precipice right out from the face of the rock. Beneath our feet is the Cave of the Winds, that wierd

chamber of tempest and pandemonium, its roof formed by the narrow stream between us and Goat Island. Here we are, as it were, perched on the edge of the Fall, and its roar seems to fill the air, so that comfortable conversation is impossible. Thoughts crowd upon us as we gaze upon the smooth, curving emerald of the brink, passing to feathery whiteness below, and ever and anon changing in tint with the vagaries of the sunshine— now in the full blaze of noon the waters seem to glow like some precious jewel— a passing cloud obscures the sun, and the vivacious sparkle is replaced by a dull, swift, relentless fury. Across Goat Island is the Canadian, or Horse-shoe Fall, and of this there are many and excellent points of view, perhaps the best being right out on a ledge of rock, separated from Coat Tsland l-.y tho shallow edges of the river, which are bridged from rock to rock by light foot bridges. But even here one can only get a hazy, indistinct impression of the centre of the curve, the medium filae aquae of the river. Just as the water curves to take the leap it Sflistens a vivid green and rolls over in one broad sweep, smooth as glass, and apparently as solid. The rest is ensHrouded in a 'beautiful, soft, white, cloudy mist, glistening and rainbow-decked in tho sunshine, rising from the 2"orae far above the lips of the Fall, and ever floating in fllmy, fleecy clouds, like thin, white smoke. Down the 2'orge below the Falls the Niagara River glides lazily along for upwards of a mile, apparently exhausted of force, but beyond this its waters are again dashed and churned into fierce rapids, culminating in the great whirlpool, where the river turns at right angles some three miles below the Falls.

As Niagara is beautiful, so is its setting. Goat Island and its attendant islets are covered with beautiful natural forest, interspersed with grassy glades and threaded with shady walks, while on either side of the Falls the banks of the river have been reserved and beautified as public parks.

Such is Niagara — beautiful beyond comparison— at every glimpse a, new delight, a fresh impression, and over all a sense of majesty, of grandeur, of matchless 'beauty — a perfect combination of natural scenery. Reluctant feet carried us once more to the depot, where we entrained for Hamilton and Toronto. Hamilton, two hours' journey from Niagara, prettily situated on Burlington Bay, an inlet of Lake Ontario, is an extremely English town, so markedly different from the cities of the United States, and we appreciated the change. Here people had time to talk; there was not the desire to "hustle." Every citizen with whom one conversed did not drift into figures and immensities and make his audience wish him in Kingdom Come. A stranger in Chicago is bored to death with American brag, and a stay in Hamilton alter just leaving- the pork city was like stepping out of Hades into Paradise. Yet Hamilton is a most progressive town, having large manufacturing works of great commercial importance. Its principal beauty spot is "the Mountain," a bluff behind the town, where pretty drives wind in and out amone the rocks, fringed with native forest orowth, and where the local millionaires have their princely habitations.

Time did not permit us to stay loner at Hamilton, and we were hurried on to Toronto, stopping for a few days at Oakville, a village on the Lake, about midway between the two cities. Here Aye tasted Canadian rural life on a farm, indulging in haymaking, cherry picking (perhaps I should say cherry eating), etc., to say nothing of drives around the countryside and other mild amusements. The weather was perfect and the time passed pleasantly, and consequently only too qw'cM^. Certainly it was not from choice that we moved on. However, half-an-hour's railway journey fopnd us in Toronto, a city of 280,000 inhabitants. This city, although not the largest in Canada, is perhaps the most progressive. Its 'PTeat department stores vie with Siegel-Cooper's and

Marshall-Field's, of New York and "Chicago, while in educational advantages it is the Philadelphia of Canada, and its manufactures are known all over the world. The great fire of 1904 had occurred only some few months before our visit, and the "burnt area was a scene of chaos and ruin awful to look upon. Gaunt, blackened walls standing- rakish against the sky, gaping hole and mountains of burnt and broken bricks and stones cast up from the ruins for removal, made one almost imagine he stood on the site of Pompeii or Herculaneum. But turn aside %pm the ruins and the illusion vanished at once before the rush and bustle of the living city. Toronto has fine public buildings and educational institutions. Its Town Hall is the finest building of the kind in Canada. Being heartily sick of railway travelling 1 we decided to take the ■steamer from Montreal and booked passages by the Hichlieu and Ontario Company's fine steamer "Kingston," a four-decker paddle boat, magnificently fitted. The lake was as smooth as glass, not a ripple marred the surface, save that caused by the padd!e wheels, and a jovial crowd of passengers made the iime fly till we reached Charlotte, across the lake in New York State, about 10 p.m. Here we stayed two hours, but there was no moon; it was impossible to see much, and after strolling 1 about the town for an hour we returned to the boat and turned in. Sunrise found us berthed at Kingston, the gateway of the St. Lawrence, a quaint old fortified place bearing traces of warlike times. To the right, on a pretty noint adjacent to the city, i& the Boval Canadian Military College, Canada' Si nrincipal training school. Kingston was a sleet), however, and did not awake till after we had left «,t 6 a.m. Just after leaving: Kingston, the steamer Dassed Cedar Island, witli its "strange round tower of other days" conspicuous on its shore. This Martello tower is also a relic of

the days of the French occupation and the border troubles of a later date. Passing between the large islands, Wolfe on the right and Howe on the left, the steamer enters the beautiful Thousand Islands' region. The current here is very gentle, and an everchanging panoramic vista unfolds as the boat glides smoothly down the stream. Green islets, beautifully wooded, indented with fairy coves and enchanting bays, appear in never-ending succession and infinite variety of form and size. Here the beauty of Nature alone would satisfy most mortals, but man has assisted Nature, and added a charm of life and colour to the scenery. Beautiful summer residences of picturesque architecture peep from amid ihe sylvan glades. All the world seems gay. Pleasure yachts, gay with bunting and crowded with pleasureseekers, flit about among the islands. Little steam launches salute with their cheeky " Too-too-too," while here and there in little grassy glades at the water's edge are crowds of gay picnickers who hail every passing boat through huge megaphones. The family is out for an airing and lets you know it. So interesting is tKe scenery that we seem to have left Kingston but a few minutes before the steamer stops at Clayton, and here is a holiday crowd — youtH and beauty dressed with picturesque abandon in light, summer toggery, and fairly overflowing with merriment, "off on a trip through fairyland." Here we seem to have reached the distributing centre of this lovely summer resiort, and as we go on down the river we pass the beautiful summer homes of many of the wealthiest men of the United States and Canada. Our next stops are Frontenac, Thousand Islands' Park, and Alexandra Bay, whose magnificent hotels speak volumes. Opposite Alexandra Bay is Heart Island, and. Castle Rest on Pullman Island; but as we leave these and proceed eastward the islands become few and far between, the channel wider, and tne

current more marked until we reach Prescott, where we leave the lake steamer for a smaller one to run the rapids. And now the fun commences. Almost immediately we are among the Galops, and then the Rapids dv Plat. These are not very formidable, but come just by way of a foretaste of what is to follow, and when some ten miles lower down the steamer plunges through the surging waters of the Long Sault with steam shut off, the pitching' and tossing is not unlH c that of a ship at sea. These rnrritfs are nine miles long, and have a fall of 48 feet. We stop for breathing, space at Cornwall, just where the boundary between the United States and Canada leaves the centre of the river and runs directly eastward. Another thirty miles and we are once again tossed in the swift current of the Coteau Rapids, and ao-ain, lower down, in the Cedars, short, but very turbulent. Then comes the Split "Rock, so called from the broken boulders at the entrance, making the passage extremely hazardous. The Cascades follow on almost immediately, these last four ranids makin." 1 in eleven miles a drop of 84 feet. The Cascade Rapids are very fine, their white crests arraearino- very marked in contrast with the dark under-colour. Below the Cascades the river widens into Lake St. Louis, and we have time to admire a distant view of Mount Royal before passing under the fine Canadian Pacific railway bridge at Caughnawaga, and dashing into the famous T achine, the last, but certainly not the least, of the rapids of the St. Lawrence. Here the waves dash and plunge in the narrow passage 'between tlie rocks, and it seems as though the boat will "be dashed to rieces. You hold your breath as she approaches "dead on" to a rocky ledge, round which the swift current fairly whirls, when, suddenly, answering to the helm, she swings round and settles down in the trough between the rocks, and you breathe again. The sensation in this ranid parti culprlv, and in a lesser degree in the Cedars and Cas-

cades, is remarkable. The steamershoots forward, then suddenly sinks, and, if a bad sailor, you catch your breath, expecting it to* rise again as does a boat at sea, but it does not rise a^ain, and continues to sink. It seems as though the boat were really sinking altogether, and the feeling is a very queer one at first. However, she does sink forty-five feet in the passage of this rapid, 'but carries us safely through, and presently we passi under the famous Victoria Bridge, with the City of Montreal spread out before us, and in half-an-hour are treading the streets jof the foremost city of Canada. Located on an island in the St. Lawrence River, just below its confluence with the Ottawa, and having for its background the magnificent slopes of Mount Royal, Montreal, taken generally, is the fairest of the fair. Viewed from the river, it presents a solid water front lined with shipping for some five miles, hacked with substantially-built warehouses, over which tower the glittering spires of its many and magnificent churches. Internally, though some of the streets are narrow and somewhat badly paved, the buildings are superb, and parks and gardens dotted about here and there in reckless ronfusion add a feature of beauty and relieve any impression of overcrowding. But par excellence the view of Montreal and its environ^ is from the summit of the mountain, and a ride up the steeo incline in a cable car, or a delightful drive, through one of the finest natural parks in the world, winding; round the mountain and gradually up the steep slopes, in and out among the Dines and maoles, brino'S us to the Look-out. Here, 740 feet above the river, one sees a fflorious panorama of the city, with its domes, and spires, and beautiful gardens, the broad river stretching away into the distance on either hand, and spanned by the magnificent Victoria Bridge, while far away to the south are dimly outlined the Green Mountains of Vermont anil the famed adirondacks.

Montreal still bears traces of its •early French origin. It was not until the Treaty of Paris, in 1763, that the city passed into British hands. Since then the French and English have rubbed shoulders for the good of the country, while each keeping his own language and religion. Some of the older buildings are of great historical interest. The Chateau de Ramesay. a quaint old structure in Notre Ppito P-trret, as the ta'Mets en its walls testify, was "built about 1705 by Claude de Ramesay, Governor of Montreal, 1703. Headquarters of La Compaignie des Tndes, 1745. Official residence of the British Governors after the cession. Headquarters of the American Army 1775, of the Special Council 1837. In 1775 this Chateau was the headquarters of the American Brigadier-General Wooster, and here in 1776, under General Benedict Arnold, the Commissioners of Congress— Bem'amin Franklin, Samuel Chase, md Charles Carroll, of Carrolton— held council/ Not far irom the Crmteau de Ramesay, but <iown on the water front, is the old church of IsTotre-Dame-de-Bonstfcyurs, the foundations of which were laid in or about 1657, and which was built to commemorate the deliverance of the colony from the Triquois Indians. Montreal has been called the City of Churches, and the name is not inappropriate. One finds churches everywhere throughout the city, and magnificent sDecirnens of architecture some of them are. The "Roman Catholic Cathedral of Notre Dame is a massive structure facing Place d'Armes Square, and has seaiing accommodation for 15,000 people. Its big" bell, "Le gros Rourdoni" weighs over eleven tons. The St. James* Cathedral, also Roman Catholic, situated on Dominion Square, is fatult on the model, and one-third the size of St. Peters, at Rome. Its dome can be seen from all parts of the city. Architecturally, perhaps, the finest church building in Montreal is Christ Church Anglican Cathedral, in St. Catherine Street. McGill University is an interesting

subject to New Zealanders at present, in view of the fact that one of its ablest lecturers, Professor .Rutherford, hails from Maoriland. Fovnded in 1828, by the Honorable James McGill, this institution has oecome one of the world's finest seats of learning. The Grounds are at the foot of Mount Eoyal, in the upper part of the city, and the buildings are ranged aronr-d a broad campus containing various recreation fields, through the centre oi which is a wide avenue, lined with a double row of trees, leading from Sherbrooke Street. Here is particularly noticeable the munificence of Sir William McDonald and Lord Strathcona, by whom quite a number of the buildinns were built and endowed. Perhans the most interesting 'of the city's sights is the Bonsecoura Market on market day. On Tuesdays and Fridays this place is a ricture. The French inhabitants from the country do the selling, and very quaint they look in their wooden shoes and homespun clothing. It is like a bit of mediaeval France planted in modern America, and a walk through the market in the early morning gives one an excellent idea of the French provincial life and character. Here is an old woman selling- poultry, maple sugar, vegetables: you speak to her in Enplish: she cannot understand, and, shaking her head, points to her wares, enumerating prices and muttering in her patois. Tt is like buying fruit from a "new-chum Chinaman" — one has to £'o back to the ways of primitive man and deal by signs and gesture. Amongst themselves these habitants keep up a constant chatter of what to you is unintelligible jargon. Your school French counts for nought. But the wonder is that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of these people can live in one of the most up-to-date cities of the English-speaking world and yet remain, in their dress and customs, a hundred years "behind the times. Staving in the picturesque village of Longueuil (pronounced Long-ale), just across the river from Montreal, we had many

opportunities of further studying the French Canadian's character. He is a plodder, without ambition, without enterprise, yet a Frenchman to the core, and in a matter of repartee as brisk and fiery a little fig-liter as one could imagine. In politics he fairly worships his Laurier, and no doubt that able statesman's influence over his countrymen has had much to do with the present amicable state of affairs in Canada. While at Longueuil we were often the guests of the Longueuil Boating Club, and, on one occasion, on a yachting trip, passed the village of St. Anne, where the Ottawa empties

into the St. Lawrence, and where the Irish poet, Tom Moore, resided in 1805, and wrote his Canadian Boating Song, and the spirit of the surrounding's seemed to echo in the words — " Faintly as tolls the evening chime, Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time, Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time. Soon as the woods on shore look dim, We'll sing at St. Anne's our parting hymn, Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast, The rapids are near and the daylight's past, The rapids are near and the daylight's past."