that there was no danger of his falling asleep, for every now and
then a wheel would strike against an unseen stump with such a jerk,
that he was fain to hold on pretty tight and pretty quick, to keep
himself upon the box. Nor was there any reason to dread the least
danger from furious driving, inasmuch as over that broken ground
the horses had enough to do to walk; as to shying, there was no
room for that; and a herd of wild elephants could not have run away
in such a wood, with such a coach at their heels. So we stumbled
along, quite satisfied.
These stumps of trees are a curious feature in American travelling.
The varying illusions they present to the unaccustomed eye as it
grows dark, are quite astonishing in their number and reality.
Now, there is a Grecian urn erected in the centre of a lonely
field; now there is a woman weeping at a tomb; now a very
commonplace old gentleman in a white waistcoat, with a thumb thrust
into each arm-hole of his coat; now a student poring on a book; now
a crouching negro; now, a horse, a dog, a cannon, an armed man; a
hunch-back throwing off his cloak and stepping forth into the
light. They were often as entertaining to me as so many glasses in
a magic lantern, and never took their shapes at my bidding, but
seemed to force themselves upon me, whether I would or no; and
strange to say, I sometimes recognised in them counterparts of
figures once familiar to me in pictures attached to childish books,
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forgotten long ago.
It soon became too dark, however, even for this amusement, and the
trees were so close together that their dry branches rattled
against the coach on either side, and obliged us all to keep our
heads within. It lightened too, for three whole hours; each flash
being very bright, and blue, and long; and as the vivid streaks
came darting in among the crowded branches, and the thunder rolled
gloomily above the tree tops, one could scarcely help thinking that
there were better neighbourhoods at such a time than thick woods
afforded.
At length, between ten and eleven o'clock at night, a few feeble
lights appeared in the distance, and Upper Sandusky, an Indian
village, where we were to stay till morning, lay before us.
They were gone to bed at the log Inn, which was the only house of
entertainment in the place, but soon answered to our knocking, and
got some tea for us in a sort of kitchen or common room, tapestried
with old newspapers, pasted against the wall. The bed-chamber to
which my wife and I were shown, was a large, low, ghostly room;
with a quantity of withered branches on the hearth, and two doors
without any fastening, opposite to each other, both opening on the
black night and wild country, and so contrived, that one of them
always blew the other open: a novelty in domestic architecture,
which I do not remember to have seen before, and which I was
somewhat disconcerted to have forced on my attention after getting
into bed, as I had a considerable sum in gold for our travelling
expenses, in my dressing-case. Some of the luggage, however, piled
against the panels, soon settled this difficulty, and my sleep
would not have been very much affected that night, I believe,
though it had failed to do so.
My Boston friend climbed up to bed, somewhere in the roof, where
another guest was already snoring hugely. But being bitten beyond
his power of endurance, he turned out again, and fled for shelter
to the coach, which was airing itself in front of the house. This
was not a very politic step, as it turned out; for the pigs
scenting him, and looking upon the coach as a kind of pie with some
manner of meat inside, grunted round it so hideously, that he was
afraid to come out again, and lay there shivering, till morning.
Nor was it possible to warm him, when he did come out, by means of
a glass of brandy: for in Indian villages, the legislature, with a
very good and wise intention, forbids the sale of spirits by tavern
keepers. The precaution, however, is quite inefficacious, for the
Indians never fail to procure liquor of a worse kind, at a dearer
price, from travelling pedlars.
It is a settlement of the Wyandot Indians who inhabit this place.
Among the company at breakfast was a mild old gentleman, who had
been for many years employed by the United States Government in
conducting negotiations with the Indians, and who had just
concluded a treaty with these people by which they bound
themselves, in consideration of a certain annual sum, to remove
next year to some land provided for them, west of the Mississippi,
and a little way beyond St. Louis. He gave me a moving account of
their strong attachment to the familiar scenes of their infancy,
and in particular to the burial-places of their kindred; and of
their great reluctance to leave them. He had witnessed many such
removals, and always with pain, though he knew that they departed
for their own good. The question whether this tribe should go or
stay, had been discussed among them a day or two before, in a hut
erected for the purpose, the logs of which still lay upon the
ground before the inn. When the speaking was done, the ayes and
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noes were ranged on opposite sides, and every male adult voted in
his turn. The moment the result was known, the minority (a large
one) cheerfully yielded to the rest, and withdrew all kind of
opposition.
We met some of these poor Indians afterwards, riding on shaggy
ponies. They were so like the meaner sort of gipsies, that if I
could have seen any of them in England, I should have concluded, as
a matter of course, that they belonged to that wandering and
restless people.
Leaving this town directly after breakfast, we pushed forward
again, over a rather worse road than yesterday, if possible, and
arrived about noon at Tiffin, where we parted with the extra. At
two o'clock we took the railroad; the travelling on which was very
slow, its construction being indifferent, and the ground wet and
marshy; and arrived at Sandusky in time to dine that evening. We
put up at a comfortable little hotel on the brink of Lake Erie, lay
there that night, and had no choice but to wait there next day,
until a steamboat bound for Buffalo appeared. The town, which was
sluggish and uninteresting enough, was something like the back of
an English watering-place, out of the season.
Our host, who was very attentive and anxious to make us
comfortable, was a handsome middle-aged man, who had come to this
town from New England, in which part of the country he was
'raised.' When I say that he constantly walked in and out of the
room with his hat on; and stopped to converse in the same free-andeasy
state; and lay down on our sofa, and pulled his newspaper out
of his pocket, and read it at his ease; I
merely mention these
traits as characteristic of the country: not at all as being
matter of complaint, or as having been disagreeable to me. I
should undoubtedly be offended by such proceedings at home, because
there they are not the custom, and where they are not, they would
be impertinencies; but in America, the only desire of a goodnatured
fellow of this kind, is to treat his guests hospitably and
well; and I had no more right, and I can truly say no more
disposition, to measure his conduct by our English rule and
standard, than I had to quarrel with him for not being of the exact
stature which would qualify him for admission into the Queen's
grenadier guards. As little inclination had I to find fault with a
funny old lady who was an upper domestic in this establishment, and
who, when she came to wait upon us at any meal, sat herself down
comfortably in the most convenient chair, and producing a large pin
to pick her teeth with, remained performing that ceremony, and
steadfastly regarding us meanwhile with much gravity and composure
(now and then pressing us to eat a little more), until it was time
to clear away. It was enough for us, that whatever we wished done
was done with great civility and readiness, and a desire to oblige,
not only here, but everywhere else; and that all our wants were, in
general, zealously anticipated.
We were taking an early dinner at this house, on the day after our
arrival, which was Sunday, when a steamboat came in sight, and
presently touched at the wharf. As she proved to be on her way to
Buffalo, we hurried on board with all speed, and soon left Sandusky
far behind us.
She was a large vessel of five hundred tons, and handsomely fitted
up, though with high-pressure engines; which always conveyed that
kind of feeling to me, which I should be likely to experience, I
think, if I had lodgings on the first-floor of a powder-mill. She
was laden with flour, some casks of which commodity were stored
upon the deck. The captain coming up to have a little
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conversation, and to introduce a friend, seated himself astride of
one of these barrels, like a Bacchus of private life; and pulling a
great clasp-knife out of his pocket, began to 'whittle' it as he
talked, by paring thin slices off the edges. And he whittled with
such industry and hearty good will, that but for his being called
away very soon, it must have disappeared bodily, and left nothing
in its place but grist and shavings.
After calling at one or two flat places, with low dams stretching
out into the lake, whereon were stumpy lighthouses, like windmills
without sails, the whole looking like a Dutch vignette, we came at
midnight to Cleveland, where we lay all night, and until nine
o'clock next morning.
I entertained quite a curiosity in reference to this place, from
having seen at Sandusky a specimen of its literature in the shape
of a newspaper, which was very strong indeed upon the subject of
Lord Ashburton's recent arrival at Washington, to adjust the points
in dispute between the United States Government and Great Britain:
informing its readers that as America had 'whipped' England in her
infancy, and whipped her again in her youth, so it was clearly
necessary that she must whip her once again in her maturity; and
pledging its credit to all True Americans, that if Mr. Webster did
his duty in the approaching negotiations, and sent the English Lord
home again in double quick time, they should, within two years,
sing 'Yankee Doodle in Hyde Park, and Hail Columbia in the scarlet
courts of Westminster!' I found it a pretty town, and had the
satisfaction of beholding the outside of the office of the journal
from which I have just quoted. I did not enjoy the delight of
seeing the wit who indited the paragraph in question, but I have no
doubt he is a prodigious man in his way, and held in high repute by
a select circle.
There was a gentleman on board, to whom, as I unintentionally
learned through the thin partition which divided our state-room
from the cabin in which he and his wife conversed together, I was
unwittingly the occasion of very great uneasiness. I don't know
why or wherefore, but I appeared to run in his mind perpetually,
and to dissatisfy him very much. First of all I heard him say:
and the most ludicrous part of the business was, that he said it in
my very ear, and could not have communicated more directly with me,
if he had leaned upon my shoulder, and whispered me: 'Boz is on
board still, my dear.' After a considerable pause, he added,
complainingly, 'Boz keeps himself very close;' which was true
enough, for I was not very well, and was lying down, with a book.
I thought he had done with me after this, but I was deceived; for a
long interval having elapsed, during which I imagine him to have
been turning restlessly from side to side, and trying to go to
sleep; he broke out again, with 'I suppose THAT Boz will be writing
a book by-and-by, and putting all our names in it!' at which
imaginary consequence of being on board a boat with Boz, he
groaned, and became silent.
We called at the town of Erie, at eight o'clock that night, and lay
there an hour. Between five and six next morning, we arrived at
Buffalo, where we breakfasted; and being too near the Great Falls
morning at nine o'clock, to Niagara.
It was a miserable day; chilly and raw; a damp mist falling; and
the trees in that northern region quite bare and wintry. Whenever
the train halted, I listened for the roar; and was constantly
straining my eyes in the direction where I knew the Falls must be,
from seeing the river rolling on towards them; every moment
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expecting to behold the spray. Within a few minutes of our
stopping, not before, I saw two great white clouds rising up slowly
and majestically from the depths of the earth. That was all. At
length we alighted: and then for the first time, I heard the
mighty rush of water, and felt the ground tremble underneath my
feet.
The bank is very steep, and was slippery with rain, and half-melted
ice. I hardly know how I got down, but I was soon at the bottom,
and climbing, with two English officers who were crossing and had
joined me, over some broken rocks, deafened by the noise, halfblinded
by the spray, and wet to the skin. We were at the foot of
the American Fall. I could see an immense torrent of water tearing
headlong down from some great height, but had no idea of shape, or
situation, or anything but vague immensity.
When we were seated in the little ferry-boat, and were crossing the
swollen river immediately before both cataracts, I began to feel
what it was: but I was in a manner stunned, and unable to
comprehend the vastness
of the scene. It was not until I came on
Table Rock, and looked - Great Heaven, on what a fall of brightgreen
water! - that it came upon me in its full might and majesty.
Then, when I felt how near to my Creator I was standing, the first
effect, and the enduring one - instant and lasting - of the
tremendous spectacle, was Peace. Peace of Mind, tranquillity, calm
recollections of the Dead, great thoughts of Eternal Rest and
Happiness: nothing of gloom or terror. Niagara was at once
stamped upon my heart, an Image of Beauty; to remain there,
changeless and indelible, until its pulses cease to beat, for ever.
Oh, how the strife and trouble of daily life receded from my view,
and lessened in the distance, during the ten memorable days we
passed on that Enchanted Ground! What voices spoke from out the
thundering water; what faces, faded from the earth, looked out upon
me from its gleaming depths; what Heavenly promise glistened in
those angels' tears, the drops of many hues, that showered around,
and twined themselves about the gorgeous arches which the changing
rainbows made!
I never stirred in all that time from the Canadian side, whither I
had gone at first. I never crossed the river again; for I knew
there were people on the other shore, and in such a place it is
natural to shun strange company. To wander to and fro all day, and
see the cataracts from all points of view; to stand upon the edge
of the great Horse-Shoe Fall, marking the hurried water gathering
strength as it approached the verge, yet seeming, too, to pause
before it shot into the gulf below; to gaze from the river's level
up at the torrent as it came streaming down; to climb the
neighbouring heights and watch it through the trees, and see the
wreathing water in the rapids hurrying on to take its fearful
plunge; to linger in the shadow of the solemn rocks three miles
below; watching the river as, stirred by no visible cause, it
heaved and eddied and awoke the echoes, being troubled yet, far
down beneath the surface, by its giant leap; to have Niagara before
me, lighted by the sun and by the moon, red in the day's decline,
and grey as evening slowly fell upon it; to look upon it every day,
and wake up in the night and hear its ceaseless voice: this was
enough.
I think in every quiet season now, still do those waters roll and