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Chap. XI.
A METAMORPHOSIS.
231

gons, horses, soldiers, and drivers were then hurled over the precipice, and the little stream ran into the Niagara river a torrent purple with human gore. Only two escaped to tell the terrible tale. Some years ago, bones, arms, and broken wheels were found among the rocks, mementos of the barbarity which has given the little streamlet the terror-inspiring name of Bloody Run.

After depositing our purchases at the Clifton House, where the waiter warned us to put them under lock and key, I hoped that sight-seeing was over, and that at last I should be able to gaze upon what I had really come to visit—the Falls of Niagara. But no; I was to be victimised still further; I must "go behind the great sheet." Mr. and Mrs. Walrence would not go; they said their heads would not stand it, but that, as an Englishwoman, go I must. In America the capabilities of English ladies are very much overrated. It is supposed that they go out in all weathers, invariably walk ten miles a day, and leap five-barred fences on horseback. Yielding to "the inexorable law of a stern necessity," I went to the Rock House, and a very pleasing girl produced a suit of oiled calico. I took off my cloak, bonnet, and dress. " Oh," she said, "you must change everything, it's so very wet." As, to save time, I kept demurring to taking off various articles of apparel, I always received the same reply, and finally abandoned myself to a complete change of attire. I looked in the mirror, and beheld as complete a tatter-demallion as one could see begging upon an Irish highway, though there was nothing about the dress which the most lively imagination could have tortured into the