1899
Robert Barr
Literature in Canada

from "Literature in Canada: Part Two," Canadian Magazine, December 1899

As a boy I worked my way from Detroit on a schooner to the Welland Canal. The schooner was the Olive Branch, and I believe her bones now lie exposed to the winds on the shore near Toronto. My objective point was the Niagara Falls, and as soon as I got off the schooner I tramped from the canal to the cataract, one hot, dusty summer's day. I sat and looked at the Falls, but was bitterly disappointed with them. No reality can ever equal the expectation of a boy's lurid fancy. However, I consoled myself by saying, "Never mind, some day I shall have money enough to go to England and see the Falls of Ladore." In the third, or fourth, or the fifth book, which was then used in all schools throughout Canada, Southey's poem, the "Falls of Ladore," was given:

Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling, And steaming, and beaming, and gleaming, and streaming, And dashing, and flashing, and splashing. and clashing. All at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar, And this way the water comes down at Ladore!

Naturally I thought such a cataract must be the greatest downpour in the world; and sure enough, neither money nor opportunity being lacking, I had a chance of viewing the wonder of nature which inspired Southey's muse. I landed one summer evening at a lakeside town two miles from Ladore. My impatience would not admit of my waiting till daylight, so I started on foot along the beautiful well-made road which skirts the lake, then almost as light as day under a full harvest moon. After I had tramped about two miles I began to fear I had lost my way, for pausing every now and then, I could hear no sound of water, so I sat down on the rocks by the wayside until some belated passerby should happen along and give me more definite direction. At last a countryman came slowly down the road and I hailed him.

"Can you tell me where the Falls of Ladore are?" I asked. The man paused in astonishment.

"Why sir," he said finally, "you're a-sittin' in 'em.

The fact was the falls had gone temporarily out of commission because of the dryness of the summer. Now, however picturesque the surroundings of a cataract may be, I maintain that a little water is necessary as well, and yet, thanks to our Canadian school books, I had waved Niagara contemptuously aside for this heap of dusty stones.

Canada always underestimates her own..