124 TRIBUNE REPRESENTATIVES IN CHARLESTON. [1861. Mr. Brigham, knowing exactly what tone to adopt with the "Chivalry," replied: "Of course, sir, I would not act as a spy for you or anybody else. However, such things have a kind of publicity; are talked of in saloons and on street-corners. If I can learn in that way who The Tribune correspondent is, I shall deem it my duty to advise you." The lawyer listened with credulity to this whisper of hope, though a well-known Rebel detective, named Shoubac-a swarthy, greasy, uncomfortable fellow, with a Jewish countenance-did not. He remarked to the late prisoner: "You haven't fooled me, if you have Brown." But Mr. Brigham was allowed to depart in peace for New York. The Tribune afterward had in Charleston five or six different correspondents, usually keeping two there at a time for emergencies. Often they did not know each other personally; and there was no communication between them. When one was arrested, there was always another in reserve to continue the correspondence. Mr. Brigham, who remained in the home. editorial rooms, retouched the letters just enough to stamp them as the work of one hand, and the baffled authorities went hopelessly up and down to cast out the evil spirit which troubled their peace, and whose unsuspected name was legion. Cry Havoc and let slip the dogs of War.-JULIUS CESAR. SANCHO PANZA passed away too early. To-day, he would extend his benediction on the man who invented sleep, to the person who introduced sleeping-cars. The name of that philanthropist, by whose luxurious aid we may enjoy unbroken sleep at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour, should not be concealed from a grateful posterity. Thus I soliloquized one May evening, when, in pursuit of that "seat of war," as yet visible only to the prophetic eye, or in newspaper columns, I turned my face westward. It were more exact to say, "turned my heels." Inexorable conductors compel the drowsy passenger to ride feet foremost, on the hypothesis that he would rather break a leg than knock his brains out. I was detained for a day at Suspension Bridge; but life has more afflictive dispensations, even for the impatient traveler, than a Sunday at Niagara Falls. Vanity of vanities indeed must existence be to him who could not find a real Sabbath at the great cataract, laying his tired head upon the calm breast of Nature, and feeling the pulsations of her deep, loving heart! Eight years had intervened since my last visit. There 126 VIEW FROM THE SUSPENSION BRIDGE. [1861. was no second pang of the disappointment we feel in seeing for the first time any object of world-wide fame. In Nature, as in Art, the really great, however falling below the ideal at first glance, grows upon the beholder forever afterward. Though the visiting season had not begun, the harpies were waiting for their victims. Step out of your hotel, or turn a corner, and one instantly pounced upon you. But, though numerous, they were quiet, and decorous manners, even in leeches, are above all praise. Everybody at the Falls is eager to shield you from the extortion of everybody else. The driver, whom you pay two dollars per hour; the vender, who sells you Indian bead-work at a profit of one hundred per cent. ; the guide, who fleeces you for leading to places you would rather find without him-each warns you against the other, with touching zeal for your welfare. And the precocious boy, who offers a bit of slate from under the Cataract for two shillings, cautions you to beware of them all. As you cross the suspension bridge, the driver points out the spot, more than two hundred feet above the water, where Blondin, of tight-rope renown, crossed upon a single strand, with a man upon his shoulders, cooked his aerial omelet, hung by the heels, and played other fantastic tricks before high heaven. From the bridge you view three sections of the Cataract. First, is the lower end of the American Fall, whose deep green is intermingled with jets and streaks of white. Its smooth surface conveys the impression of the segment of a slowly revolving wheel rather than of tumbling water. Beyond the dense foliage appears another section, parted in the middle by the stone tower on Goat Island. Its water is of snowy whiteness, and looks 1861.] PALACE OF THE FROST KING. 127 like an immense frozen fountain. Still farther is the great Horse-shoe Fall, its deep green surface veiled at the base in clouds of pure white mist. Here, at the distance of two miles, the Falls soothe you with their quiet, surpassing beauty. But when you reach them on the Canada side, and go down, down, beneath Table Rock, under the sheet of water, you feel their sublimity. As you look out upon the sea of snowy foam below, or through the rainbow hues of the vast sweeping curtain above, the earth trembles with the unceasing thunder of the cataract. In winter the effect is grandest. Then, from the bank in front of the Clifton House, you look down on upright rocks, crowned with pinnacles of ice, till they rise half way to the summit, or catch glimpses of the boundless column of water as it strikes the torrent below, faintly seen through the misty, alabaster spray rising forever from its troubled bed. Hundreds of white-winged sea-gulls graze the rapids above, and circle down to plunge in the waters below. Attired in stiff, cold, water-proof clothing, which, culminating in a round oil-cloth cap, makes you look like an Esquimaux and feel like a mummy, you follow the guide far down dark, icy stairs and paths. Look up ninety feet, and see the great torrent pour over the brink. Look down seventy feet from your icy little shelf, and behold it plunge into the dense mist of the boiling gulf. Through its half-transparent sheet, filtered rays of the bright sunshine struggle toward your eyes. You are in the palace of the Frost King. Iceice everywhere, from your slippery foothold to the huge icicles, fifty feet long and three feet thick, which overhang you like the sword of Damocles. Admiration without comparison is vague and unsatis 128 CHICAGO RISING FROM THE EARTH. [1861. factory. Less glorious, because less vast, than the matchless panorama seen from the summit of Pike's Peak, this picture is nearly as impressive, because spread right beside you, and at your very feet. Less minutely beautiful than the exquisite chambers of the Mammoth Cave, its great range and sweep make it more grand and imposing. Along the Great Western Railway of Canada, the country closely resembles northern Ohio; but the people have uncompromising English faces. A welldressed farmer and his wife rode upon our train all day in a second-class car, without seeming in the least ashamed of it--a moral courage not often exhibited in the United States. At Detroit, an invalid, pale, wasted, unable to speak above a whisper, was lying on a bed hastily spread upon the floor of the railway station. Her husband, with their two little boys bending over her in tears, told us that they had been driven from New Orleans, and he was now taking his dying wife to their old home in Maine. There were few dry eyes among the lookers-on. A liberal sum of money was raised on the spot for the destitute family, whose broken pride, after some persuasion, accepted it. The next morning we reached Chicago. In that breezy city upon the lake shore, property was literally rising. Many of the largest brick and stone blocks were being elevated five or six feet, by a very nice system of screws under their walls, while people were constantly pouring in and out of them, and the transaction of business was not impeded. The stupendous enterprise was undertaken that the streets might be properly graded and drained. This summoning a great metropolis to rise from its vasty deep of mud, is one of the modern miracles |