Chapter 19

Syracuse we passed through in the middle of the storm and the darkness of night; and about six A.M. were safely landed under the ample portico of the hotel at Auburn, celebrated for its prison, regulated upon what is called the "silent system."

Whilst my companions were making toilet I set forth to visit this penal abode, the character of which is made sufficiently evident as you approach the lofty walls that encompass so much of misery and guilt. At regular distances upon these battlements I perceived sentry-boxes, with men keeping watch, musket in hand.

A small sum is here paid for admittance. On my arrival at the lodge, I was informed that the prisoners were at breakfast, during which time visitors were prohibited: I therefore had to wait some minutes in this place; and, except the occasional fall of a heavy bolt, did not hear a sound; the very turnkeys seemed infected by the system which it was their duty to enforce, and they moved in and out in silence, or spoke in monosyllables hardly above a whisper.

Following the gaoler, I was passed within the square at the very moment when the prisoners were moving out from their breakfast-hall on the way to renew their several labours; and the sight was to me one of sickening melancholy.

They were marched from the building in squads, using what is called the "lock-step," and were jammed together as close as they could possibly tread: they moved in quick-time, and fell out singly, or in pairs, as they arrived at the point nearest to the scene of their employment.

I observed that, notwithstanding the regularity of labour, and the unquestionably wholesome diet provided here, the faces of the individuals composing these ruffian squads were uniformly pale and haggard; yet, on saying so much to my guide, I was assured that disease is comparatively rare amongst them, and that many who enter here with broken constitutions recover their bodily vigour and are made whole men again.

The cleanliness of this prison-house, the convenient distribution of its various offices, and, indeed, the evident excellence of its general arrangement, must strike every stranger with admiration, and doubtless presented to the commissioners of inquiry recently appointed from England many hints worthy of adoption for home use. Of the merits of the system itself it does not become me to speak; it has been well considered by wise and worthy men, who continue to watch over its working with a philanthropic spirit; but I confess that the impressions I received from my visits to these prisons were anything but in its favour.

At eight A.M. we quitted Auburn, the weather clear and mild: we crossed the head-water of the Seneca Lake upon a well-built bridge, a mile and a quarter in length, and, with this exception, observed no point of interest until we approached the Lake of Geneva.

This is one of the lions of this route, and in no way disappointed our raised expectations. Gradually winding about the eastern bend of the lake, the road affords to the traveller a continuous view of the location of the little city; and certainly nothing was ever more happily chosen than the fine hill over whose side it is built, its streets rising gradually from the edge of the clear water in which they are reflected.

Entering the main street, I observed that the stores were large and substantially built; there was a great bustle, and an air of business too, about most of them, which it was pleasant to look upon. The hotel at which we drew up was a large, well-appointed house: the landlord, finding that we were strangers, civilly invited us to ascend to the gallery upon the roof; and certainly the view it afforded was one I should have been sorry to miss.

The environs appear to possess an unusual number of tasteful villas; on all sides these might be distinguished, giving and receiving adornment from the situation. The lake itself looked like a huge mirror; and from its polished surface was clearly reflected every turn of its shores, and each cloud that floated over it. Its characteristics are softness and repose; of a certainty it must have been a feminine spirit that presided at the creation of this spot, for its features are all of gentleness and beauty.

At Canandaigua we stopped to dine at a very large, and, I should imagine, good hotel: the landlord was exceedingly obliging. The regular dinner of the house was long past, but he managed to get us a very tolerable meal; and what was wanting in this he made up by giving us an excellent bottle of wine.

In the environs of this place, as at Geneva, I observed a number of well-built and neatly-appointed villas; indeed, this sort of country residence is better kept, and built in better taste, in this western country than I have elsewhere observed in the States.

About nine P.M. we arrived at Avon Springs; and here we called a halt for the night, not a little pleased with the prospect of a comfortable bed, which the appearance of the inn gave promise of.

This place is a good deal frequented of late years by invalids, its mineral waters being found of great service in dyspepsia,--the most crying complaint of the country next to the removal of the deposits, and certainly more universal.

I here found my excellent friend R----d, who, together with his young bride, had accompanied his father-in-law, who was desirous of testing the salubrity of these springs. He described the surrounding country as beautiful, and the little place itself as agreeable enough for a short sojourn.

The fourth of July, the anniversary of American Independence, was to be duly celebrated by a ball, for which my friend had received an invite printed upon the back of the nine of hearts; a medium now obsolete in England, but conserved here in its integrity.

A less amusing remembrancer of the glorious event began to parade the avenue at an early hour in the shape of a patriotic drummer, having an instrument, to judge by its sound, coeval with the first fight for that freedom it was beaten to celebrate. If anything could have kept me awake, this cracked drum would; and, in truth, I had my fears, when, on entering my room, I heard my hero ruffing it away immediately in front of the window; but they were groundless apprehensions, though his efforts were varied and unceasing, for I undressed to the tune of the "Grenadiers' March," stepped into bed to the "Reveille," and dropped fast asleep to the first part of "Yankee Doodle!"

At six A.M. of the 4th we were once more in motion; the vapours of night were yet hanging thick and low; but through the dense atmosphere, as we rolled down the avenue, I heard the indefatigable functionary, who composed the military band of Avon, determinately beating "Hail Columbia!"

At the village of Caledonia we found that a ball was afoot, and we pushed on eagerly for Buffalo, anticipating, from the importance of the place and the wealth of its citizens, something in the way of display worthy of their loyalty and of the occasion.

Between Le Roy, a town of remarkable neatness, and Batavia, I encountered my first sample of a corduroy-road, or, as it is sometimes facetiously termed, a Canadian railway.

Our driver, a merry fellow, called out that we must look out "not to get mixed up of a heap," and rattled at it. I did not require much experience to decide that travelling over a road of corduroy was by no means going on velvet; but the effect was not so bad as I had expected to prove it: by holding fast, one could keep one's seat tolerably well, without much fear of dislocation; but I would strongly recommend any man having loose teeth, to walk over this stage, unless he desires to have them shaken out of his head.

From Batavia the road is execrable, and the country without a feature to interest or amuse, uncultivated, wild, and dismal. It was about half an hour before sunset when we entered Buffalo, the City of the Lakes, the entrepôt for these inland oceans.

BUFFALO.

America is, perhaps, in our day, the only country wherein these infant capitals, these embryo cities, may be seen, and their growth noted, as they are gradually developed before living eyes.

A very few years back, this frontier, now so populous and thriving, was only known as "the Wilderness;" and upon the edge of this, washed by the waters of Lake Erie, has Buffalo sprung up. The great source of that gratification which is felt on a near view of this, and other places of similar origin, is to be found in the feeling that they derive their being from the prosperous industry of our fellow-men, and that in their increase we behold its happy continuance. They are the vouchers which America may fairly produce to show that the fruition of liberty has been with her productive of increased energy and spreading enterprise.

These places have not, like St. Petersburg, been raised up in obedience to the policy or the caprice of a despot; the work of bondsmen, founded amidst pestilence, and cemented with blood and tears. The unfinished palace of the half-savage prince already the tomb of hundreds of its miserable builders; a city of marble founded upon a marsh.

Here, it is true, was a wonder having no parallel, of which the living of the last century might have observed the progress,--one may add, the completion, as, should its lord so will, the present generation may look upon its abandonment and depopulation;--but the cause of the existence of St. Petersburg calls up no generous sympathy with its progress, because we know that the labour was constrained; and from its story, when fairly told, we rise, not with pride in the power of our kind, which had overcome so many obstacles, but with pity for the suffering and debasement of humanity constrained to such exertion. On the contrary, these yet humble cities of America, so humble as sometimes to draw from the far-travelled a sneer upon the application of the word, are surrounded by a healthful, moral atmosphere: their infancy is vigorous, giving promise of a long endurance and ultimate greatness, only to be limited by the will of the King of kings.

From the roof of the Eagle, a very large hotel, I took a general view of the wide-spread frame of Buffalo, whose many as yet barely definable streets are in the keeping of houses so thinly scattered, that they reminded me of lines of sentries placed to denote occupation. I traced the course of the great Erie canal from the Niagara river to the lake, whose busy harbour was filled with steamers, schooners, and other trading craft.

After sunset we descended from our lofty observatory, and followed the line of the main street, witnessing the rejoicings called forth by this anniversary of American Independence. The feeling of the community at large could only be guessed at, since it made no sign; but if the body politic of Buffalo might be considered fairly represented by some hundred or so of active urchins who were congregated in a square near the centre of the main street, nothing could be more ardent than this city's gratitude, for these delegates beat drums, blew fifes, fired crackers, and huzzaed until the welkin rang with their shrill small yells. We found, upon inquiry, that there was no ball, dinner, or other public demonstration; the reason was ascribed to the extreme violence of party politics, which at this period completely divided the community, and were carried out to an extent without precedent in their brief annals.

The street was chiefly occupied by a number of Indians of the Seneca tribe, dressed in a costume part native and part European: these holiday-keepers lounged lazily about in all the delight of utter intoxication, the men invariably in groups by themselves, and the ladies of the tribe trapesing after them at a long interval with stoical indifference.

Nothing can be more subversive of the poetry one's early recollections connect with this race, than a first rencontre with the outcasts by whom it is represented on these frontiers, who daily degenerate where all else seems to thrive, and who perish in the midst of an abundance, which, for all but them, increases with each year.

I am not sure whether it would not be more humane to deal upon the natives as summarily as with their forests; for the fall of the former before the advance of civilization is not, though slower, less certain.

They may at present be likened to girdled trees, about whose vigorous trunk the axe of the woodman is but lightly drawn, yet whose fall is assured past remedy; the springs of health and life are stopped, upon their fading leaves the sun rises and heaven's dews descend in vain; for a little while they continue to wave their naked crests in the gale, and hold forth their gaunt limbs as if life were in them, objects exciting at once commiseration and disgust; until, crumbled into decay, the unseemly skeletons lie prostrate athwart the roots of their once fellows, who were stricken down in their bloom, and so perished by a quicker and more merciful sentence.

NIAGARA.

I felt interested with Buffalo, and had promised myself much pleasure from a visit to the country occupied by a branch of the Seneca tribe in its neighbourhood; but Niagara was now within a few hours,--the great object of the journey was almost in sight. I was for ever fancying that I heard the sound of the "Thunder-water"[12] booming on the breeze; so, with a restlessness and anxiety not to be suppressed, I got into the coach on the day after my arrival at the capital of the lakes, and was in a short time set down on the bank of the swift river Niagara, at the ferry, which is some four miles from Buffalo.

We found the little rapids about the shore occupied by fishers of all ages, who required but a small share of the patience which is deemed so essential a qualification to the followers of this melancholy sport, for they were pulling the simple wretches out as fast as the lines could be baited and offered.

The shipment was quickly effected, and in a few minutes our faces were turned from the dominion of the States. The vessel was a large horse-boat; that is, a flat propelled by paddle-wheels similar to those of a steam-boat, only wrought by horse-power,--an animal tread-mill in fact. Whether the horses working this were here on good behaviour, or not, I could not rightly ascertain, but certainly they were scampish-looking steeds, their physiognomical expression was low and dogged, such as one might expect from the degrading nature of their unvarying task.

On the larboard gangway of our flat the American jack floated, and over the starboard side waved the Union flag of Old England; they fluttered proudly side by side, a worthy brotherhood, and so united may they long be found!

The ride along the Canada shore was very fine, the noble stream being constantly in sight: the country appeared thickly populated; but the land poor, the cultivation of it, I believe, is not found very profitable.

We halted to water the team at a public-house that stands upon the ground where was fought the battle of Chippewa, which, as the Yankees say, "eventuated just no how." This was the twentieth anniversary; and, on alighting from the box, I was exceedingly amused to find the host and a smart wayfaring young man, with mutual vehemence well worthy the cause, fighting the battle over again.

From this house the eternal mist caused by the great fall may be plainly seen curling like a vast body of light smoke, and shooting occasionally in spiral columns high above the tree-tops; but not a sound told of its neighbourhood, although we were not five miles distant from it, and the day was calm and clear. At about three miles from this, as the vehicle slowly ascended a rise, I heard for the first time the voice of the waters, and called the attention of my friends within the carriage to the sound.

Never let any impatient man set out for Niagara in one of these coaches; a railroad would hardly keep pace with one's eagerness, and here were we crawling at the rate of four miles per hour. I fancied that the last three miles never would be accomplished; and often wished internally, as I beat the devil's tattoo upon the footboard of the coach-box, that I had bought or borrowed or stolen a horse at Chippewa, and galloped to the wonder alone and silently.

At length the hotel came in view, and I knew that the rapid was close at hand.

"Now, sir, look out!" quietly said the driver.

I almost determined upon shutting my eyes or turning away my head; but I do not think it would have been within the compass of my will so to have governed them; for even at this distant moment, as I write, I find my pen move too slow to keep pace with the recollections of the impatience which I seek to record.

It was at the moment we struck the foot of the hill leading up to the hotel that the rapid and the great horse-shoe fall became visible over the sunken trees to our right, almost on a level with us. I have heard people talk of having felt disappointed on a first view of this stupendous scene: by what process they arrived at this conclusion I profess myself utterly incapable of divining, since, even now that two years have almost gone by, I find on this point my feelings are not yet to be analyzed; I dare not trust myself to their guidance, and only know that my wildest imaginings were forgotten in contemplating this awful reality.

A very few minutes after we were released from the confinement of the coach saw myself and companions upon the Table-rock; and soon after we were submitting to the equipment provided by a man resident upon the spot for persons who chose to penetrate beneath the great fall, and whose advertisement assured us that the gratification of curiosity was unattended with either inconvenience or danger, as water-proof dresses were kept in readiness, together with an experienced guide. The water-proof dress given to me I found still wet through; and, on the arrival of the experienced guide, I was not a little surprised to see the fellow, after a long stare in my face, exclaim,

"Och, blur an' 'oons! Mr. Power, sure it's not yer honour that's come all this way from home!"

An explanation took place; when I found that our guide, whom I had seen some two years before as a helper in the stable of my hospitable friend Smith Barry, at Foaty, was this summer promoted to the office of "Conductor," as he styled himself, under the waterfall.

And a most whimsical "conductor" he proved. His cautions, and "divil a fears!" and "not a hap'orth o' danger!" must have been mighty assuring to the timid or nervous, if any such ever make this experiment, which, although perfectly safe, is not a little startling.

His directions,--when we arrived at the point where the mist, pent in beneath the overhanging rock, makes it impossible to distinguish anything, and where the rush of air is so violent as to render respiration for a few seconds almost impracticable,--were inimitable.

"Now, yer honour!" he shouted in my ear--for we moved in Indian file,--"whisper the next gintleman to follow you smart; and, for the love o' God! shoulder the rock close, stoop yer heads, and shut fast yer eyes, or you won't be able to see an inch!"

I repeated my orders verbatim, though the cutting wind made it difficult to open one's mouth.

"Now thin, yer honour," he cried, cowering down as he spoke, "do as ye see me do; hould yer breath, and scurry after like divils!"

With the last word away he bolted, and was lost to view in an instant. I repeated his instructions however to the next in file, and, as directed, scurried after.

This rather difficult point passed, I came upon my countryman waiting for us within the edge of the curve described by this falling ocean; he grasped my wrist firmly as I emerged from the dense drift, and shouted in my ear,

"Luk up, sir, at the green sea that's rowlin' over uz! Murder! bud iv it only was to take a shlope in on uz!"

Here we could see and breathe with perfect ease; and even the ludicrous gestures and odd remarks of my poetical countryman could not wholly rob the scene of its striking grandeur.

I next passed beyond my guide as he stood on tiptoe against the rock upon a ledge of which we trod, and under his direction attained that limit beyond which the foot of man never pressed. I sat for one moment on the Termination Rock, and then followed my guide back to my companions, when together we once more "scurried" into day.

"Isn't it illegant, sir?" began the "Conductor," as soon as we were well clear of the mist.

"Isn't it a noble sight intirely? Caps the world for grandness any way, that's sartain!"

I need hardly say that in this opinion we all joined loudly; but Mr. Conductor was not yet done with us,--he had now to give us a taste of his "larnin."

"I wish ye'd take notice, sir," said he, pointing across the river with an air of authority and a look of infinite wisdom. "Only take a luk at the falls, an' you'll see that Shakspeare is out altogether about the discription."

"How's that, Pat?" inquired I, although not a little taken aback by the authority so gravely quoted by my critical friend.

"Why, sir, Shakspeare first of all says that there's two falls; now, ye may see wid yer own eyes that it's one river sure, and one fall, only for the shtrip o' rock that makes two af id."

This I admitted was evident; whilst Pat gravely went on:

"Thin agin, only luk here, sir; Shakspeare says, 'The cloud-cap tower;' why, if he'd ever taken the trouble to luk at it, he'd seen better than that; an' if he wasn't a fool,--which I'm sure he wasn't, bein' a grand poet,--he'd know that the clouds never can rise to cap the tower, by reason that it stands up above the fall, and that the current for ever sets down."

Again I agreed with him, excusing Shakspeare's discrepancies on the score of his never having had a proper guide to explain these matters.

"I don't know who at all showed him the place," gravely responded Pat; "but it's my belief he never was in id at all at all, though the gintleman that tould me a heap more about it swears for sartin that he was."

This last remark, and the important air with which the doubt was conveyed, proved too much for my risible faculties, already suffering some constraint, and I fairly roared out in concert with my companion, who had been for some time convulsed with laughter.

Whoever first instructed the "Conductor" on this point of critical history deserves well of the visitors so long as the present subject remains here to communicate the knowledge; indeed, I trust, before he is drowned in the Niagara, or burnt up with the whisky required, as he says, "to keep the could out of the shtomach," the present possessor of this curiosity in literature will bequeath it to his successor, so that it may be handed down in its integrity to all future visitors.

Next morning at an early hour I revisited the "Termination Rock," but excused myself from being accompanied by "the Conductor." I next wandered down the stream, and had a delightful bathe in it. Accompanied by a friend, I was pulled in a skiff as close to the fall as possible, and in short performed duly all the observances that have been suggested and practised by curiosity or idleness; but in all these I found no sensation equal to a long quiet contemplation of the mass entire, not as viewed from the balconies of the hotel, but from some rocky point or wooded shade, where house and fence and man and all his petty doings were shut out, and the eye left calmly to gaze upon the awful scene, and the rapt mind to raise its thoughts to Him who loosed this eternal flood and guides it harmless as the petty brook.

There never should have been a house permitted within sight of the fall at least. How I have envied those who first sought Niagara, through the scarce trod wilderness, with the Indian for a guide; and who slept upon its banks with the summer trees for their only shelter, with the sound of its waters for their only _réveille_.