Hochelaga [By G. D. Warburton.] Edited by Eliot Warburton ... Third edition, revised

Chapter I. Buffalo

SARATOGA. Buffalo causes a total re-action in the mind after Niagara : bran new, bustling, changing every day — going ahead with high pressure force. It is one of the very best samples of Young Western America : full of foreigners — Irish, French, Ger mans ; principally the latter, but all Americanized, all galvanized with the same frantic energy. The population rush about on their different occupa tions, railway engines scream, and steam-boats puff on every side; waggons rattle about in all VOL. II. B directions, men swear, bargain, or invite you to their hotels, in the accents of half-a-dozen countries. The situation of the town is very good : at the head of the Niagara River is the outlet of Lake Erie ; at the end of the great chain of the Western Lakes — the commerce of twelve hundred miles of these broad waters is centered in this point, and condensed in the narrow passage of the Erie canal and Hudson River, till, at New York, it pours out its wealth into the Atlantic.

The site has a gentle dip to the south, towards the lake ; across it, lying nearly east and west, is the harbour, separated by a peninsula from the waters of the lake. This affords secure and ample shelter for the shipping, numerous though they be, which crowd in day and night. The town was born in the first year of the nineteenth century. The English totally destroyed it in 1814, in reta liation for the burning of Little York, or Toronto, by the Americans. The motley population number now twenty-five thousand souls ; they possess sixty steam-boats, and more than three hundred sailing vessels. There are many large public buildings, erected by a very enterprising man — among the rest is a jail, where he at present resides : he forged for large sums of money, bought land, ran up streets and market-places, indulged in various specula tions, prospered for a long time, arrived at great respectability, till at length he committed the heinous, unpardonable crime of being found out ; he was immediately cast into prison, by a virtu ously indignant, but highly benefited people.

This speculative and unfortunate individual's name is Rathbun. Lake Eric is but shallow ; the length is two hun dred and forty, the breadth varies from forty to sixty miles, but there are many shoals and rocks, the causes of constant and dreadful losses. In stormy weather, the seas are short and dangerous. The harbours are few and distant, and, during the winter, the navigation is much impeded by ice. The level is three hundred and thirty-four feet above Lake Ontario. Lake Huron is larger and deeper, Michigan still larger and deeper, Superior largest and deepest of all. In these, waters, the Americans have a far greater quantity of shipping than the English. In the last war, on the 10th of September, 1813, this lake was the scene of one of their greatest triumphs ; Commodore Perry destroyed or took the whole of the British squadron under Captain Barclay.

After that engagement, the command of the navigation B HOCHELAGA ; OR, was retained by them. The gallant Barclay was friditfullv wounded on this occasion, losing an arm O ** and a leg. When he returned to England in this mutilated state, he did not venture to meet a young lady to whom he was engaged and tenderly attached, and sent a friend to inform her that she was free from her engagement. " Tell him," said the English maiden, " that, had he only enough body left to hold his soul, I'll marry none but him." The first vessel that ever sailed on these Western seas was of sixty tons burthen, built in the Niagara River, in January, 1679: she was dragged up into Lake Erie, and started on her bold adventure, under the guidance of La Salle. In August they entered Lake Huron, through the St. Clair River, and here a violent storm assailed them.

The stout hearts of La Salle and his sailors gave way to the terrors of these unknown waters : they knelt to pray, and prepared for death, except the pilot, who, as our old friend Father Hennepin says, " did nothing all that time but curse and swear against La Salle for having brought him thither to make him perish in a nasty lake, and lose the glory he had acquired by his long and happy navigation of the ocean." They, however, escaped this danger, and passed into Lake Michigan, where, after saUing forty leagues, they landed on an island at the mouth of Green Bay, whence La Salle sent back the ship to Niagara, laden with rich and valuable furs, procured by trade with the Indians of the coasts where they had touched in the voyage. The pilot and five men embarked in her, but they never reached the shore; it is supposed that she foun dered in Lake Huron.

Such was the first and last voyage of the first ship that ever ploughed the waters of the West. To protect Buffalo, the Americans are building a strong fort at Blackrock, on the shores of the lake, near the entrance to the Niagara River. On the Canada side is Fort Erie, now in ruins. It was taken from the English, held for some time, abandoned and destroyed in 1 8 1 4 ; as it does not cover any points of essential importance, it has never been restored. Near this place, on the river, is the village of Waterloo ; the name and situation worthy of a more flourishing settlement. Returning, we travel by steam-boat to Chippewa and, going down the Niagara River, pass, to the left, Grand Island, belonging to our Republican neighbours ; a fine tract of land, bearing, in proof of its fertility, a splendid white oak : no timber on the whole continent is more valuable for the Atlantic HOCHELAGA ; OR, dockyards.

Next to this is Navy Island, in the English territory, of " sympathizing" infamy, far inferior in size and richness of soil to its American sister. A Canadian farmer was settled there, and lived for many years in happy prosperity ; he and his family had but little communication with the shore across the dangerous waters, except on one day in the week, when the sound of the distant bell warned them to loose their little canoe, and hasten to the house of prayer. It is not known what has become of them since the blood-stained sym pathizers swarmed into their quiet retreat, but the buildings are burnt down, and the improvements gone to waste. The poor farmer's crime was not to be forgiven by these blasphemers of the name of liberty : in his youth he had been taught — and he strove to teach his children the same — " To fear God, and honour the King."

Our primitive railway carried us again to Queenstown : we pass over the ferry to Lewiston, and are soon on board an American steamer bound for Oswego, in the United States, on the south shore of Lake Ontario. There were a great number of people in the steamer, all Americans, travelling for health or amusement. I talked to every one I could get to listen to me, and found them cour teous, intelligent, and communicative, well read, over a very broad surface, particularly of newspapers, but only a surface ; very favourably disposed to the English as individuals, but I fear not so as a nation, being rather given to generalize on our affairs j on the state of the poor, from the Andover workhouse ; on the nobility, from the late Lord Hertford ; on morality, from Doctor Lardner. These are the sort of data on such matters, kept for ever before their eyes by their press, echoed and re-echoed through the remotest parts of the Union, till even the best informed and most liberal minded among them are, more or less, acted upon by their influence.

Towards night there was some wind, and a heavy swell came on ; this put an end to my investigations in national character, for all my samples were soon too ill for further examination. Among the pas sengers were a lady and gentleman from Georgia, very pleasing people, whose acquaintance I had made at the falls. I found that their route, as well as mine, lay to Saratoga. Knowing that I had never before been in the United States, they made me promise that I would faithfully and without reserve, remark to them as we travelled everything which appeared to me strange, in lan guage, people, or customs : particularly with regard HOCHELAGA ; OR, to themselves. I gratified them as far as was in my power, and we found it a source of infinite amusement. Criticism was borne with perfect good humour : one only subject I instantly found to be unsafe : its slightest mention made the fire kindle in the southern's dark eye.

It is the black spot on the brightness of his country's Future, to which foes point with hope, friends with despair ; the cancer eating into the giant frame, deforming its beauty, withering its strength— the awful curse of slavery, which they say they would give all but life to cut out and cast away. Between an Englishman and any American, or between American citizens of Free and Slave States, the subject cannot be quietly argued or rea soned upon — the very word rouses the angry passions like an insult. In one, the generous blood flushes from cheek to brow as he denounces the unholy law — in the other, where many a high and noble feeling may also dwell, the heart is stung at the probing of the loathsome wound which his trite and flimsy sophistry strives in vain to hide. Nevertheless, I felt and feel it to be a duty, as it is an impulse, to give to this great crime the voice of condemnation — utterly, unconditionally, be it in public or in private, among friends or foes ; if the subject be touched upon, an Englishman should not hold his peace.

Luckily for me, while carrying out these principles my Georgian friend became exceedingly sea-sick, and seemed to find the remainder of my arguments quite unanswerable. Highly excited by my success in silencing my opponent, I walked proudly on the deck for some time, but several long voyages having deprived me of all sympathy with the principal feeling of my fellow-passengers, I soon became tired of isolation, and went to sleep. Very early in the morning we landed at Oswego, then, after a short stay, embarked in a canal-boat for Syracuse. The names in this country are very amusing. Mrs. Malaprop could not have furnished a funnier or more unconnected string than those of the towns east from Rochester; for instance — Pittsford, Canandaiga, Shortsmills, Vienna, Palmyra, Clyde, Lyons, Geneva, Waterloo, Seneca, Elmira, Oswego, Ithaca.

The town of Oswego is situated partly on each side of the river from which it takes its name ; a large portion of it is built of wood, and it has that temporary look so general in American country towns; it seems, however, to answer very well as b HOCHELAGA ; OR, shelter for five thousand active, industrious people. There are places of worship here for no fewer than six different persuasions. The United States government have built two large stone piers and a lighthouse ; that the object of this liberality may be understood, it should be observed that Fort Ontario, protecting the entrance of the harbour on the eastern side, has been lately repaired and strengthened. They are quite right, for this is one of the most important naval and military points on their northern frontier. This being an American town, it is unnecessary to add that steamers, stage coaches, and canal boats are perpetually issuing forth and entering in on all sides.

Our route was south, the conveyance was much the same sort of thing as in Ireland, the country on the banks cleared, but raw-looking and poorly cultivated; the houses and people had, however, the appearance of prosperity. I could not admire the scenery as much as my wish to please my Georgian friends rendered desirable ; for my un manageable thoughts kept flying away to the canals which lie among the rich, verdant coombe of Somerset. In this free country, there are plank bridges across the water wherever any free citizen chooses to place them : to these small types of liberality the traveller must meekly bow his head, or indeed his whole body, when he passes under them; this gives rise to a curious series of gymnastics as you glide along ; particularly among the portly and not very active, but highly respectable class, of which I am a member.

I met here, and elsewhere in my travels, with a great number of old acquaintances ; at least, people who were quite familiar to me from the description of their persons and habits given by different writers. Probably they are government officers, paid by the State to live perpetually in public con veyances, for the purpose of blinding foreigners as to the real manners of the people, lest we Europeans, finding it too charming a country, should flock over in inconvenient crowds. These officers, how ever, unlike all others, are evidently not removed with each new President, and may therefore become dangerous in time, as forming the nucleus of a conservative body ; but I do not think the in creasing strength of democracy is likely to lessen their numbers. To say truth, they do blind and thoroughly deceive you, if they be taken as speci mens of the manners of the people, at least of those HOCHELAGA ; OR, of the Northern States.

There is no doubt there are a few habits exceedingly disagreeable to those who are unaccustomed to them : these are of unpleasantly general practice, and sometimes ex hibit rather too strong a regard for their personal convenience and comfort : nevertheless, kindness, readiness to assist, and a wish to give information, are almost universal. I am convinced that a lady, no matter what her age and attractions might be, could journey through the whole extent of the Union, not only without experiencing a single annoyance, but aided in every possible way with unobtrusive civility. Indeed, great numbers of Sophonisbas and Almiras do travel about, protected only by the chivalry of their countrymen and their own undoubted propriety. To them, the best seats, the best of everything, is always allotted.

A friend of mine told me of a little affair at a New York theatre, the other night, illustrative of my assertion. A stiff-necked English man had engaged a front place, and of course, the best corner ; when the curtain rose, he was duly seated, opera-glass in hand, to enjoy the perform ance. A lady and gentleman came into the box shortly afterwards ; the cavalier in escort, seeing that the place where our friend sat was the best, called his attention, saying " The lady, Sir," and motioned that the corner should be vacated. The possessor, partly because he disliked the imperative mood, and partly because it bored him to be disturbed, refused. Some words ensued, which at tracted the attention of the Sovereign People in the pit, who magisterially inquired what was the matter. The American came to the front of the box and said, " There is an Englishman here, who will not give up his place to a lady."

Immediately their majesties swarmed up by dozens over the barriers, seized the offender, very gently though, and carried him to the entrance ; he kicked, cursed, and fought — all in vain ; he excited neither the pity nor the anger of his stern executioners ; they placed him carefully on his feet again at the steps, one man handing him his hat, another his opera-glass, and a third the price he had paid for his ticket of ad mission ; then, they quietly shut the door upon him and returned to then places. The shade of the departed judge Lynch must have rejoiced at such an angelic administration of his law ! The course of the canal lies through the country of Salina, close to Canandaiga Lake, where immense quantities of salt are made : four or five villages, each with six or seven hundred inhabitants, have grown up from this cause.

Some of these salt springs are reserved by the State, but by far the greater portion are in the hands of individuals, who pay, instead of rent, a small duty, by the bushel, to the government. The fine salt is made by the evaporation of the brine by artificial heat ; the coarse, or solar salt, by the gradual effect of the sun, and is a very pure muriate of soda : no less than three thousand millions of bushels of all kinds are made in the year. Long before the visits of the white men, the Indians had discovered these valua ble springs, and used them as far as their narrow means allowed. The reedy, ugly Lake of Canan daiga, though in the middle of this district, is untouched by briny flavour. Seven hours of this not very agreeable journey carried us to Syracuse, thirty-eight miles from Lake Ontario ; but there, a modern tyrant, the conductor of an omnibus, forced us off without breathing time, to the cars of the Utica railroad.

In this town, several lines of roads, railways, and canals meet : even our hurried drive through it showed that the usual high-pressure progress was at work here also. Every one knows American railway cars by description ; they are certainly far from comfortable. This is a single line of track, the rate of travelling about sixteen miles an hour. A great part of the way lay through the forest, very grim and desolate ; poor trees crowded up together, choking each other's growth; every here and there, where they had been burned, the tall, black, charred skeletons were dismal to behold. At each seven or eight miles of distance are thriving villages, built with the solidity and rapidity of the city of the pack of cards, and all named by Mrs. Malaprop : — Rome is situated in a valley, and looks as if it had been built in a day.

There are also one or two battle fields, where kindred blood was shed during the revolutionary war. Utica is a large and flourishing town, or city, as they love to call it. Through all these districts the stranger is astonished at the appearance of prosperity in every place and person; he sees no bad or even small houses, no poor or idle people ; every place of business, transit, or amusement, is always full ; lecture rooms, railway cars, theatres, hotels, banks, markets, crowded to bursting. There is something infectious in this fever of activity, and I soon found myself rushing in and out of railway depots and dining-rooms just as fast as any one else. The New York State Lunatic Asylum is here; it looks large and commodious, but there my praise of the building ends. I do not think it was at all a mistake to visit Trenton Falls, even so soon after having seen Nia gara.

The body of water, and the scenery around, are so different, that no ideas of comparison inter fere with the enjoyment of their beauty ; a tedious journey of sixteen miles thither from Utica and back again, on a sultry summer's day, spoiled the effect much more. They are very beautiful, indeed more beautiful than any thing I ever saw in the States ; the immediate neighbourhood is almost untouched by the cultivation of man ; the deep gorge of the stream lies hidden in the woods, till you are upon its brink. For nearly two miles, the river leaps and races, races and leaps again, till it comes to rest in the plains below ; in one place there are three divisions of the stream, tumbling into a deep chasm in a direct fall of nearly a hundred feet in height; lofty, bare cliffs of lime stone close it in.

To get a proper view of this scene, you must nerve your heart for a far more perilous undertaking than the visit to Termination Rock. The only path is very narrow and shelving, close to the giddy waters, and overhung with gloomy rocks. There is an iron chain to hold on by, fastened into the cliff side ; few travellers can dispense with its assistance. In the neighbourhood of Utica, and on to the south-east, the country is fertile and well cultivated. The line of the Erie Canal, passing directly through this district, gives vitality to all the towns and villages on its banks, lying in the rich valley of the Mohawk. The great line of railroad is also of much benefit to them : by it, we turned our course to Schenectady, passing through some fine farm lands and settlements ; here and there factories for cloth, paper, anything — and everything.

In a thinly-peopled tract like this, where man's labour is so costly, it seems madness to turn to manufactures ; but they do it, succeed, and become rich : nothing fails in this extraordinary country, except the strangers' old fashioned notions of political economy ; these are not worth a straw here : wherever there is a " water privilege," some sort of machinery is sure to be erected, and people come from the clouds to purchase the productions. But a few miles to the north of this busy district, lies a wilderness of great extent, called the county of Hamilton : some of it is as little known or explored as were the islands of the South HOCHELAGA ; OR, Seas a hundred years ago ; it is one of the great lines of travel ; its land and timber are not supposed to be of much value. The parts which are known abound with lakes and streams, richly stored with trout and other choice fish ; while numbers of deer dwell undisturbed among its shades.

The people of the neighbourhood can spend their time much more gainfully than with gun or angle, and the pleasure of the sport is unknown to them. There are sulphur springs at two places south of the line of railway — Sharon and Cooperstown ; both are described as very picturesque ; the waters are said to cure all bodily ailments. At Schenectady we stopped for the night ; it is Syracuse and Utica over again. In 1690, on one of those nights of horror in the Indian wars, the Mohawks swept it with a sudden ruin — leaving nothing for the morning light but ashes and the dead. In 1845, we found a very good hotel there, and slept comfortably without any dreams of the Indians. I found in the morn ing, that I had indulged too much to be in time for the regular breakfast, but there was a side-table laid in the corner, where one or two stragglers from the town, and I, seated ourselves : one of the waiters having put on the table what was necessary for his and our use during the meal, sat down himself also, and entered into conver sation with us.

He spoke quite freely, but at the same time respectfully — his manner was quite proper. I talked to him a good deal ; on many points he seemed wonderfully well informed for a man in his situation ; some of his notions of England were rather amusing. He under stood that it was quite an usual thing for an English lord, when in a bad humour, to horse whip his servants all round, particularly on a day when his gun had failed to kill a sufficient number of foxes. Perhaps you may think the ideas of the waiter at a country inn not worth being printed ; I think they are, in a land where his share of the government is as great as that of a doctor of laws, or a millionnaire. My Georgian friends expressed much surprise when they heard the waiter had been my com panion at breakfast ; but I have seen similar cases in several instances : the horsewhipping notion did not astonish them in the least.

Our ideas of their perfect equality are just as much exaggerated as are theirs of our tyranny of class; servants generally are called servants, and address their superiors as Sir and Ma'am; porters, cab-drivers and all those classes of functionaries, the same. I think there is very little difference between their manners and those to which we are accustomed, and they are quite as civil and obliging. There is one character perfectly abominable in America; you not unfrequently meet with an emigrant from the old country, who hates the land which gave him birth : usually hunted out of it for crime, he detests the laws he has out raged ; from his former fears of their just pu nishment, he reviles them and his countrymen : if ever you meet with unprovoked rudeness or insult, if ever you observe a more than ordinary length of hair, nasal twang, and offensive speech and manner, the chances are ten to one that you have met with an outcast Englishman.

About mid-day, we arrived at an immense hotel at Saratoga ; my Georgian friend introduced me to the proprietor, who shook hands with me and hoped I might enjoy my visit; in short, his reception was such as if he had invited me to pass some time with him, and he was in reality as kind and attentive as if I had been an invited guest. There were, I think, four hundred people staying in the hotel; all the rooms were full, butour host procured me a very nice lodging in a house close by, and I lived at the hotel table. My bed-room had folding doors, opening into the sitting-room of the family. Unfortunately for me, there was within, a piano, and the young lady of the house was learning the " Battle of Prague." The next morning, returning sooner than was expected after breakfast, I disturbed her in sweep ing my bed-chamber; not to lose time, she laid aside her brush, and ran over a few of the most difficult passages, till I left the room clear for her to resume her more homely occupation.

I do not give this little sketch with a sneer — far from it : I tell it with pleasure and admiration. Would to Heaven that some of our poor household drudges had such innocent pleasures ! I would rather hear one of them play the " Battle of Prague" than listen to Liszt for a week. I was very much amused and interested at Saratoga ; there cannot be a better opportunity for acquiring a general idea of the national character in a short time, than a stay there in the autumn offers. I was introduced to hun dreds of people ; and, though the weather was so very hot, all shook hands, as part of the cere mony ; there were Southerners and Northerners, Downeasters and Westerns, New-Yorkers and Bostonians, all different from each other in detail, and very different from Europeans. Though many of the young gentlemen adopted the newest Parisian style of dress and wearing the hair, I could have sworn to them anywhere ; there was something Transatlantic about them, which could not be mistaken.

Some few of the older men, who had travelled and seen the world, were, in their appearance and conversation, free from any peculiarity. I could readily have supposed them fellow-countrymen ; it is never an unwelcome thing to an American to be mistaken for an Englishman, no matter how much he may dis approve of our country and our institutions. There were several families of the higher classes of society, people who would be admired and sought after anywhere ; but there was of course a very large alloy of the ill-bred and obscure, who, perhaps, by some lucky turn of trade, had got together a sufficient number of dollars for their summer amusement, without ever before having had the leisure or the means to play gentility. Opposite to me, at dinner, on the first day, sat a party of this latter class, whose conversation I enjoyed even as much as the very good fare on the table.

A gentleman addressed the lady next him — " Ma'am, are you going to Bosting (Boston) right off?" She answered, " No, Sir, I reckon I'll make considerable of a circumlocution first," and in this style they continued. In the evening there was a " hop" as they called it, graced by many very pretty faces. A young English officer, waltzing away at a great pace with the possessor of one of the prettiest of them, was tripped up by a nail in the floor, and fell— his partner sharing his misfortune. The young lady's mother, highly indignant, rushed forward to pick her up, saying to the unhappy delinquent, " I tell you, Sir, I'll have none of your British tricks with my daughter." I suppose the old lady's wrath was as easily soothed as roused, for I saw the young couple spinning away again in a few minutes, as if nothing had happened.

The higher class of visitors did not mix much in these general amusements, seldom appearing but at meals, and sometimes not even then. Riding, driving, playing at bowls, and drinking the very nasty, but, I believe, very valuable waters, were the pastimes of the day. Dinner was at half past three, in an enormous room, or rather two rooms at right angles to each other, thrown into one ; upwards of five hundred people sat down each day, some of the ladies dressed splendidly for the occasion, as if for a ball ; they looked rather oddly I thought, afterwards, walking about in these gay costumes under the verandahs, or in the large and well kept gardens ; but there were much beauty and grace to carry it off; the shape of the head and neck is universally very good, eyes brilliant, features regular ; the failing is in the complexion and in the outline of the figure : many of them dressed again for tea, and, twice a week, on the nights of a ball, they dressed again for that.