Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 April 1889 — BILL NYE SEES NIAGARA [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BILL NYE SEES NIAGARA

HE IS NOT DISA •TO INTI®, BUT SPEAKS WELL OF THE FAUS. The Humorhl’< 'Description o r the Gr-at Cataract cure a KeguL-r Yearly Supply of Belies —Nemesis on the Trail.

Eating a hasty meal, our party, arrayed in alpen*4-—* stocks and conscious rectitude, bes gan the ascent from Buffalo by a tk// circuitous route. BCy We reachedNiagJ’v ara Falls Station, whence we proceeded by drosky

to our chalet. Here we alighted. The chalet is kept by a native American, and after our long journey from Buffalo it was good to once more hear the music of our own language. Hastily eating a light lunch we put on our top coats, and in charge of a John Darm we proceeded by diligence toward the Falls via the American side. The storm now burst upon us in all its fury, and the rain descended in the wildest profusion, saturating the Falls and rendering them well-nigh impassable. Our muleteer covered himself with his pontoon, wrapped his tarpaulin around his ears, and while our slender diligence swayed in the blast he drove us across to Goat Island. The thunder of the immense volume of water was now swallowed up by the mighty roar of the bursting tempest, and then as it died away like the wail of a perishing soul one would again hear the sullen thunder of the Falls. We now began the descent on the side of Goat Island looking toward the Great Horseshoe Fall. The rain fell in torrents, and as our umbrellas had been turned wrong side out by the blast we were soon wet to the skin. There we stood in the presence of the greatest spectacle America can produce, perhaps, outside of Congress. Like an egotistical author Niagara for centuries has been pouring over her own works. It is really, however, beyond criticism. I went there thinking that if the Falls really deserved scathing I would scathe them through the press and inquire their business, but I must say that, like Mr. Booth, they .deserve their great success, and I do not blame them for respecting themselves, and having their pictures taken every little while, and getting their names in the papers. They deserve all the glory they have got, and far be it from me to put a straw in the way of the progress of Niagara Falls. We next went down to the Whirlpool, and on the way a detachment of John Darms escorted us with an air of suspicion. Our drosky driver evidently watched us every moment like a cat. At the Whirlpool we alighted again, being narrowly watched by the driver and a John Barm from Cohoes. Here, as we reached the. brink of the cliff, the blizzard struck us amidship; the great Niagara, which has

assisted so many temperance lecturers in scaring to death the moderate drinker, seemed to become silent in the presence of Mr. Blizzard from the wild and unkempt West. Just then my- high silk hat, which I wear in ascending the Alps and doing the tourist act generally, went up into a large blue hole in the sky; and while I was watching it the square red remarks, “Keep off the grass,” with an iron rod on one side, swatted me across the stomach.

The storm was now at its height, the roof of the hotel gently lifted with the breeze, and through the fast falling rain we could see a surprised gentleman in his room just emerging through the neckband of a bright new shirt. With a look of wonder and horror he tried to pull down the roof again and conceal himself, but he could not do so. The storm now took off its coat and shrieked while the Whirlpool Ayas lashed to its greatest fury and at the Whirlpool Bazaar genuine Indian moccasins made in Connecticut went down to $2 a pair. I made a movement toward the brink of the precipice, intending to peer down over it into the boiling waters, when I felt the grasp of a John Darm on my shoulder and I jerked back with an oath which would have sworn in a whole precinct of nonresidents at a Presidential election. “Monsieur fool heemself,” said the John Darm, in pure Buffalo French, with a slight patois of the Hue de Main street. Then grinding his teeth, he managed to make me understand that I had stated in Buffalo that “I was going over the Falls and through the Whirlpool” but that a nemesis was on my trail. It is disagreeable to have your trail stepped on by a nemesis, and so I explained that I meant to be figurative, and so when the John Darm had opened my overcoat and found that I was not dressed in tights with double-leaded bridge jumping shoes he allowed me to pass. It was here at the bazaar that I met

my old friend Poeomoco of the Piute tribe of Indians. “And what are you ' doing here, so far away from home, ■ Poeomoco?” I asked in the light runnin g domestic accents of the Piute tongue. “I am here,” he replied in the same language, ‘“to procure our regular supply of Indian relics for the coming year. We cannot compete any longer with Connecticut in the manufacture of genuine Indian relics. So we come to Niagara Falls for them. We also get most of our ornamental beadwork done in England, and our ornamental massacre business is done there, too. The white man has facilities which we do not have, and so the red man’s goose is practically cooked. We can buy cheaper than we can make them, and why should we toil over a home-made arrow-head all day when we can steal a horse in ten minutes that will bring nice new relics enough to last us a year? We have in our tribe favored free trade, and so we, with our infant industries, are thrown into direct competition with the relicmakers of the Bowery. You can buy a good scalp at Chatham Square for sixty-nine cents to-day, and so the warpath is practically overgrown with grass. In a year or two men with sample cases will no doubt visit the Indian tribes and sell their year’s supply of everything in that line. We are utterly discouraged. There has not been a war-like attitude among the Piutes since the Buckwheat Pancake Outbreak of ’55.”

’TWAS WELL LOOKED AFTER.