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tails. It is a strange sight to see the immense lot of wood and trees lying on the banks, driven there by the rise of the water. Often logs are caught in the tops of trees, and if you did not know how high the flood could rise you would wonder how they ever got there.
We drifted down the stream for three days, and, as we thought we would reach the mouth on the fourth night, we lay down to sleep and let the canoe drift. When dawn came I woke, and noticed that we were drifting very fast by a log in the river. I woke Jim and when we could see where we were we noticed that we had passed the mouth and were out in the Mississippi where the current is very strong. Fortunately we did not hit a log, or the canoe would have turned over and I would have lost all my clothes and, likely, myself, too. We hurriedly paddled in toward shore, and it took us all day to get back to the Ohio.
We found no steamboat,	but	were afraid	to go into the woods to shoot
anything, lest one might come and go again. We were terribly hungry. Together we had only twelve cents, for which we bought a large melon which lasted us 'til next day. In the night the steamer "Jack Downing" came, and both of us were hired to go to Pittsburgh, which is situated at the beginning of the Ohio where the Allegheny and another river meet. On the way we visited Cincinnati and Louisville, which I later shall tell more about.
In Pittsburgh I took	hire	in a small	steamboat which sailed up the
Allegheny to where a canal goes into Lake Erie. Here I paid a dollar for my passage on a canal boat, which is pulled by horses, and if I remember correctly has to go through nine locks. It must be extremely expensive to dig such a canal, and still it was a private party who had it made.
Lake Erie looks like the ocean. It is two hundred miles broad, and the sea can get very rough. In Buffalo are many schooners and other vessels, but navigation is very dangerous on account of many reefs and sand bars. There is a large lighthouse in Buffalo. When I got ashore I again shouldered my gun and started out to walk to the famous Niagara Falls. Between Buffalo and Niagara it is well settled, so I could find nothing to shoot, but just had to buy what I ate. I did not have too much money, and to save I slept in the woods at night, which was very comfortable as it was the month of August.
The country is very beautiful, hilly with thick woods. Most plants belonging in Denmark are also growing here. When I camped at night the second day I	could already hear the	roar	of the waterfall, and it lulled me to sleep.
It was only about twelve miles to	the falls.	It can be heard in buffalo when
the wind is right - a distance of forty miles. I came to the waterfall in the evening and I have never seen, or expect to see, such a sight. I cannot describe my feelings - only I felt myself so utterly insignificant.
An immense mass of water comes tumbling down - all the superfluous water from the Great	Lakes, which	stretch about two	thousand	miles	to the northwest,
comes through	here. The	fall itself is	half a	mile	wide	and plunges
perpendicularly one hundred and seventy feet. Close above the fall it is divided by a small island in the middle of the river but the water gathers again before it falls over the brink and forms a bow by the immense force behind it. So	that one who	had courage enough	could go under	the	falls itself.
But that is very dangerous,	for the mist makes	it hard	to see	and	the rocks are
very uneven. Here is a little town, mostly inns, as there are so many tourists. Right under the falls the water gets perfectly quiet again, although it has to fall more than one hundred feet in two miles or so on a slant.
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Koch, Christian Diary-24
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