I  had  to  visit  Niagara  fifteen  times  before  I  suc-
ceeded in  getting  my  imaginary  Palls  gaged  to  the
actuality  and  could  begin  to  sanely  and  wholesomely
wonder  at  them  for  what  they  were,  not  what  I  had
expected  them  to  be.  When  I  first  apptoadied
them  it  was  with  my  face  lifted  toward  the  sky,  for
I  thought  I  was  going  to  see  an  Atlantic  Ocean  pomv

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FOLLOWING    THE    EQUATOR

ing  down  thence,  over  doud-vexed  Himalayan
heights,  a  sea-green  wall  of  water  sixty  miles  front  and
six  miles  high,  and  so,  when  the  toy  reality  came
suddenly  into  view — ^that  beruffled  little  wet  apron
hanging  Out  to  dry — the  shock  was  too  much  for
me,  and  I  fell  with  a  dull  thud.
Yet  slowly,  surely,  steadily,  in  the  course  of  my
fifteen  visits,  the  proportions  adjusted  themselves  to
the  facts,  and  I  came  at  last  to  realize  that  a  water-
fall a  htmdred  and  sixty-five  feet  high  and  a  quarter
of  a  mile  wide  was  an  impressive  thing.  It  was  not
a  dipperftil  to  my  vanished  great  vision,  but  it  would
answer.
