Journey to Niagara—Hudson—West Point—Hyde Park—Albany—Yankees—Trenton
Falls—Rochester—Genesee Falls—Lockport
How quickly weeks glide away in such a city as New York, especially
when you reckon among your friends some of the most agreeable people in
either hemisphere. But we had still a long journey before us, and one
of the wonders of the world was to be seen.
On the 30th of May we set off for Niagara. I had heard so much of the
surpassing beauty of the North River, that I expected to be
disappointed, and to find reality flat after description. But it is not
in the power of man to paint with a strength exceeding that of nature,
in such scenes as the Hudson presents. Every mile shows some new and
startling effect of the combination of rocks, trees, and water; there
is no interval of flat or insipid scenery, from the moment you enter
upon the river at New York, to that of quitting it at Albany, a
distance of 180 miles.
For the first twenty miles the shore of New Jersey, on the left, offers
almost a continued wall of trap rock, which from its perpendicular
form, and lineal fissures, is called the Palisados. This wall sometimes
rises to the height of a hundred and fifty feet, and sometimes sinks
down to twenty. Here and there, a watercourse breaks its uniformity;
and every where the brightest foliage, in all the splendour of the
climate and the season, fringed and chequered the dark barrier. On the
opposite shore, Manhatten Island, with its leafy coronet gemmed with
villas, forms a lovely contrast to these rocky heights.
After passing Manhatten Island, the eastern shore gradually assumes a
wild and rocky character, but ever varying; woods, lawns, pastures, and
towering cliffs all meet the eye in quick succession, as the giant
steam-boat cleaves its swift passage up the stream.
For several miles the voyage is one of great interest independent of
its beauty, for it passes many points where important events of the
revolutionary war took place.
It was not without a pang that I looked on the spot where poor Andre
was taken, and another where he was executed.
Several forts, generally placed in most commanding situations, still
show by their battered ruins, where the struggle was strongest, and I
felt no lack of that moral interest so entirely wanting in the new
States, and without which no journey can, I think, continue long
without wearying the spirits.
About forty miles from New York you enter upon the Highlands, as a
series of mountains which then flank the river on both sides, are
called. The beauty of this scenery can only be conceived when it is
seen. One might fancy that these capricious masses, with all their
countless varieties of light and shade, were thrown together to show
how passing lovely rocks and woods, and water could be. Sometimes a
lofty peak shoots suddenly up into the heavens, showing in bold relief
against the sky; and then a deep ravine sinks in solemn shadow, and
draws the imagination into its leafy recesses. For several miles the
river appears to form a succession of lakes; you are often enclosed on
all sides by rocks rising directly from the very edge of the stream,
and then you turn a point, the river widens, and again woods, lawns,
and villages are reflected on its bosom.
The state prison of Sing Sing is upon the edge of the water, and has no
picturesque effect to atone for the painful images it suggests; the
“Sleepy Hollow” of Washington Irving, just above it, restores the
imagination to a better tone.
West Point, the military academy of the United States, is fifty miles
from New York. The scenery around it is magnificent, and though the
buildings of the establishment are constructed with the handsome and
unpicturesque regularity which marks the work of governments, they are
so nobly placed, and so embosomed in woods, that they look beautiful.
The lengthened notes of a French horn, which I presume was attending
some of their military manoeuvres, sounded with deep and solemn
sweetness as we passed.
About thirty miles further is Hyde Park, the magnificent seat of Dr.
Hosack; here the misty summit of the distant Kaatskill begins to form
the outline of the landscape; it is hardly possible to imagine anything
more beautiful than this place. We passed a day there with great
enjoyment; and the following morning set forward again in one of those
grand floating hotels called steamboats. Either on this day, or the one
before, we had two hundred cabin passengers on board, and they all sat
down together to a table spread abundantly, and with considerable
elegance. A continual succession of gentlemen’s seats, many of them
extremely handsome, borders the river to Albany. We arrived there late
in the evening, but had no difficulty in finding excellent
accommodation.
Albany is the state capital of New York, and has some very handsome
public buildings; there are also some curious relics of the old Dutch
inhabitants.
The first sixteen miles from Albany we travelled in a stage, to avoid a
multitude of locks at the entrance of the Erie canal; but at Scenectedy
we got on board one of the canal packet-boats for Utica.
With a very delightful party, of one’s own choosing, fine temperate
weather, and a strong breeze to chase the mosquitos, this mode of
travelling might be very agreeable, but I can hardly imagine any motive
of convenience powerful enough to induce me again to imprison myself in
a canal boat under ordinary circumstances. The accommodations being
greatly restricted, every body, from the moment of entering the boat,
acts upon a system of unshrinking egotism. The library of a dozen
books, the backgammon board, the tiny berths, the shady side of the
cabin, are all jostled for in a manner to make one greatly envy the
power of the snail; at the moment I would willingly have given up some
of my human dignity for the privilege of creeping into a shell of my
own. To any one who has been accustomed in travelling, to be addressed
with, “Do sit here, you will find it more comfortable,” the “You must
go there, I made for this place first,” sounds very unmusical.
There is a great quietness about the women of America (I speak of the
exterior manner of persons casually met), but somehow or other, I
should never call it gentleness. In such trying moments as that of
_fixing_ themselves on board a packet-boat, the men are prompt,
determined, and will compromise any body’s convenience, except their
own. The women are doggedly stedfast in their will, and till matters
are settled, look like hedgehogs, with every quill raised, and firmly
set, as if to forbid the approach of any one who might wish to rub them
down. In circumstances where an English woman would look proud, and a
French woman _nonchalante_, an American lady looks grim; even the
youngest and the prettiest can set their lips, and knit their brows,
and look as hard and unsocial as their grandmothers.
Though not in the Yankee or New England country, we were bordering upon
it sufficiently to meet in the stages and boats many delightful
specimens of this most peculiar race. I like them extremely well, but I
would not wish to have any business transactions with them, if I could
avoid it, lest, to use their own phrase, “they should be too smart for
me.”
It is by no means rare to meet elsewhere, in this working-day world of
our’s, people who push acuteness to the verge of honesty, and
sometimes, perhaps, a little bit beyond; but, I believe, the Yankee is
the only one who will be found to boast of doing so. It is by no means
easy to give a clear and just idea of a Yankee; if you hear his
character from a Virginian, you will believe him a devil: if you listen
to it from himself, you might fancy him a god—though a tricky one;
Mercury turned righteous and notable. Matthews did very well, as far as
“I expect,” “I calculate,” and “I guess;” but this is only the shell;
there is an immense deal within, both of sweet and bitter. In
acuteness, cautiousness, industry, and perseverance, he resembles the
Scotch; in habits of frugal neatness, he resembles the Dutch; in love
of lucre he doth greatly resemble the sons of Abraham; but in frank
admission, and superlative admiration of all his own peculiarities, he
is like nothing on earth but himself.
The Quakers have been celebrated for the pertinacity with which they
avoid giving a direct answer, but what Quaker could ever vie with a
Yankee in this sort of fencing? Nothing, in fact, can equal their skill
in evading a question, excepting that with which they set about asking
one. I am afraid that in repeating a conversation which I overheard on
board the Erie canal boat, I shall spoil it, by forgetting some of the
little delicate doublings which delighted me—yet I wrote it down
immediately. Both parties were Yankees, but strangers to each other;
one of them having, by gentle degrees, made himself pretty well
acquaninted with the point from which every one on board had started,
and that for which he was bound, at last attacked his brother Reynard
thus:-
“Well, now, which way may you be travelling?”
“I expect this canal runs pretty nearly west.”
“Are you going far with it?”
“Well, now, I don’t rightly know how many miles it may be.”
“I expect you’ll be from New York?”
“Sure enough I have been at New York, often and often.”
“I calculate, then, ’tis not there as you stop?”
“Business must be minded, in stopping and in stirring.”
“You may say that. Well, I look then you’ll be making for the Springs?”
“Folks say as all the world is making for the Springs, and I except a
good sight of them is.”
“Do you calculate upon stopping long when you get to your journey’s
end?”
“’Tis my business must settle that, I expect?”
“I guess that’s true, too; but you’ll be for making pleasure a business
for once, I calculate?”
“My business don’t often lie in that line.”
“Then, may be, it is not the Springs as takes you this line?”
“The Springs is a right elegant place, I reckon.”
“It is your health, I calculate, as makes you break your good rules?”
“My health don’t trouble me much, I guess.”
“No? Why that’s well. How is the markets, sir? Are bread stuffs up?”
“I a’nt just capable to say.”
“A deal of money’s made by just looking after the article at the
fountain’s head.”
“You may say that.”
“Do you look to be making great dealings in produce up the country?”
“Why that, I expect, is difficult to know.”
“I calculate you’ll find the markets changeable these times?”
“No markets ben’t very often without changing.”
“Why, that’s right down true. What may be your biggest article of
produce?”
“I calculate, generally, that’s the biggest, as I makes most by.”
“You may say that. But what do you chiefly call your most particular
branch?”
“Why, that’s what I can’t justly say.”
And so they went on, without advancing or giving an inch, ’till I was
weary of listening; but I left them still at it, when I stepped out to
resume my station on a trunk at the bow of the boat, where I scribbled
in my note-book this specimen of Yankee conversation.
The Erie canal has cut through much solid rock, and we often passed
between magnificent cliffs. The little falls of the Mohawk form a
lovely scene; the rocks over which the river runs are most fantastic in
form. The fall continues nearly a mile, and a beautiful village, called
the Little Falls, overhangs it. As many locks occur at this point, we
quitted the boat, that we might the better enjoy the scenery, which is
of the widest description. Several other passengers did so likewise,
and I was much amused by one of our Yankees, who very civilly
accompanied our party, pointing out to me the wild state of the
country, and apologizing for it, by saying, that the property all round
thereabouts had been owned by an Englishman; “and you’ll excuse me,
ma’am, but when the English gets a spot of wild ground like this here,
they have no notions about it like us; but the Englishman have sold it,
and if you was to see it five years hence, you would not know it again;
I’ll engage there will be by that, half a score elegant factories—’tis
a true shame to let such a privilege of water lie idle.”
We reached Utica at twelve o’clock the following day, pretty well
fagged by the sun by day, and a crowded cabin by night; lemon-juice and
iced-water (without sugar) kept us alive. But for this delightful
recipe, feather fans, and eau de Cologne, I think we should have failed
altogether; the thermometer stood at 90 degrees.
At two, we set off in a very pleasant airy carriage for Trenton Falls,
a delightful drive of fourteen miles. These falls have become within
the last few years only second in fame to Niagara. The West Canada
Creek, which in the map shows but as a paltry stream, has found its way
through three miles of rock, which, at many points, is 150 feet high. A
forest of enormous cedars is on their summit; and many of that
beautiful species of white cedar which droops its branches like the
weeping-willow grow in the clefts of the rock, and in some places
almost dip their dark foliage in the torrent. The rock is of a dark
grey limestone, and often presents a wall of unbroken surface. Near the
hotel a flight of very alarming steps leads down to the bed of the
stream, and on reaching it you find yourself enclosed in a deep abyss
of solid rock, with no visible opening but that above your head. The
torrent dashes by with inconceivable rapidity; its colour is black as
night, and the dark ledge of rock on which you stand, is so
treacherously level with it, that nothing warns you of danger. Within
the last three years two young people, though surrounded by their
friends, have stepped an inch too far, and disappeared from among them,
as if by magic, never to revisit earth again. This broad flat ledge
reached but a short distance, and then the perpendicular wall appears
to stop your farther progress; but there is a spirit of defiance in the
mind of man; he will not be stayed either by rocks or waves. By the aid
of gunpowder a sufficient quantity of the rock has been removed to
afford a fearful footing round a point, which, when doubled, discloses
a world of cataracts, all leaping forward together in most magnificent
confusion. I suffered considerably before I reached the spot where this
grand scene is visible; a chain firmly fastened to the rock serves to
hang by, as you creep along the giddy verge, and this enabled me to
proceed so far; but here the chain failed, and my courage with it,
though the rest of the party continued for some way farther, and
reported largely of still increasing sublimity. But my knees tottered,
and my head swam, so while the rest crept onward, I sat down to wait
their return on the floor of rock which had received us on quitting the
steps.
A hundred and fifty feet of bare black rock on one side, an equal
height covered with solemn cedars on the other, an unfathomed torrent
roaring between them, the fresh remembrance of the ghastly legend
belonging to the spot, and the idea of my children clinging to the
dizzy path I had left, was altogether sombre enough; but I had not sat
long before a tremendous burst of thunder shook the air; the deep chasm
answered from either side, again, again, and again; I thought the rock
I sat upon trembled: but the whole effect was so exceedingly grand,
that I had no longer leisure to think of fear; my children immediately
returned, and we enjoyed together the darkening shadows cast over the
abyss, the rival clamour of the torrent and the storm, and that
delightful exaltation of the spirits which sets danger at defiance. A
few heavy rain drops alarmed us more than all the terrors of the spot,
or rather, they recalled our senses, and we retreated by the fearful
steps, reaching our hotel unwetted and unharmed. The next morning we
were again early a foot; the last night’s storm had refreshed the air,
and renewed our strength. We now took a different route, and instead of
descending, as before, walked through the dark forest along the cliff,
sufficiently near its edge to catch fearful glimpses of the scene
below. After some time the patch began to descend, and at length
brought us to the Shantee, commemorated in Miss Sedgwick’s Clarence.
This is by far the finest point of the falls. There is a little balcony
in front of the Shantee, literally hanging over the tremendous
whirlpool; though frail, it makes one fancy oneself in safety, and
reminded me of the feeling with which I have stood on one side a high
gate, watching a roaring bull on the other. The walls of this Shantee
are literally covered with autographs, and I was inclined to join the
laugh against the egotistical trifling, when one of the party
discovered “Trollope, England,” amidst the innumerable scrawls. The
well known characters were hailed with such delight, that I think I
shall never again laugh at any one for leaving their name where it is
possible a friend may find it.
We returned to Utica to dinner, and found that we must either wait till
the next day for the Rochester coach, or again submit to the
packet-boat. Our impatience induced us to prefer the latter, not very
wisely, I think, for every annoyance seemed to increase upon us. The
Oneida and the Genesee country are both extremely beautiful, but had we
not returned by another route we should have known little about it.
From the canal nothing is seen to advantage, and very little is seen at
all. My chief amusement, I think, was derived from names. One town,
consisting of a whiskey store and a warehouse, is called Port Byron. At
Rome, the first name I saw over a store was Remus, doing infinite
honour, I thought, to the classic lore of his godfathers and
godmothers; but it would be endless to record all the drolleries of
this kind which we met with. We arrived at Rochester, a distance of a
hundred and forty miles, on the second morning after leaving Utica,
fully determined never to enter a canal boat again, at least, not in
America.
Rochester is one of the most famous of the cities built on the Jack and
Bean-stalk principle. There are many splendid edifices in wood; and
certainly more houses, warehouses, factories, and steam-engines than
ever were collected together in the same space of time; but I was told
by a fellow-traveller that the stumps of the forest are still to be
found firmly rooted in the cellars.
The fall of the Genesee is close to the town, and in the course of a
few months will, perhaps, be in the middle of it. It is a noble sheet
of water, of a hundred and sixty feet perpendicular fall; but I looked
at it through the window of a factory, and as I did not like that, I
was obligingly handed to the door-way of a sawing-mill; in short, “the
great water privilege” has been so ingeniously taken advantage of, that
no point can be found where its voice and its movement are not mixed
and confounded with those of the “admirable machinery of this
flourishing city.”
The Genesee fall is renowned as being the last and fatal leap of the
adventurous madman, Sam Patch; he had leaped it once before, and rose
to the surface of the river in perfect safety, but the last time he was
seen to falter as he took the leap, and was never heard of more. It
seems that he had some misgivings of his fate, for a pet bear, which he
had always taken with him on his former break-neck adventures, and
which had constantly leaped after him without injury, he on this
occasion left behind, in the care of a friend, to whom he bequeathed
him “in case of his not returning.” We saw the bear, which is kept at
the principal hotel; he is a noble creature, and more completely tame
than I ever saw any animal of the species.
Our journey now became wilder every step, the unbroken forest often
skirted the road for miles, and the sight of a log-hut was an event.
Yet the road was, for the greater part of the day, good, running along
a natural ridge, just wide enough for it. This ridge is a very singular
elevation, and, by all the enquiry I could make, the favourite theory
concerning it is, that it was formerly the boundary of Lake Ontario,
near which it passes. When this ridge ceased, the road ceased too, and
for the rest of the way to Lockport, we were most painfully jumbled and
jolted over logs and through bogs, till every joint was nearly
dislocated.
Lockport is beyond all comparison, the strangest looking place I ever
beheld. As fast as half a dozen trees were cut down, a _factory_ was
raised up; stumps still contest the ground with pillars, and porticos
are seen to struggle with rocks. It looks as if the demon of machinery,
having invaded the peaceful realms of nature, had fixed on Lockport as
the battle-ground on which they should strive for mastery. The fiend
insists that the streams should go one way, though the gentle mother
had ever led their dancing steps another; nay, the very rocks must fall
before him, and take what form he wills. The battle is lost and won.
Nature is fairly routed and driven from the field, and the rattling,
crackling, hissing, spitting demon has taken possession of Lockport for
ever.
We slept there, dismally enough. I never felt more out of humour at
what the Americans call improvement; it is, in truth, as it now stands,
a most hideous place, and gladly did I leave it behind me.
Our next stage was to Lewiston; for some miles before we reached it we
were within sight of the British frontier; and we made our salaams.
The monument of the brave General Brock stands on an elevated point
near Queenstown, and is visible at a great distance.
We breakfasted at Lewiston, but felt every cup of coffee as a sin, so
impatient were we, as we approached the end of our long pilgrimage, to
reach the shrine, which nature seems to have placed at such a distance
from her worshippers on purpose to try the strength of their devotion.
A few miles more would bring us to the high altar, but first we had to
cross the ferry, for we were determined upon taking our first view from
British ground. The Niagara river is very lovely here; the banks are
bold, rugged, and richly coloured, both by rocks and woods; and the
stream itself is bright, clear, and unspeakably green.
In crossing the ferry a fellow-passenger made many enquiries of the
young boatman respecting the battle of Queenstown; he was but a lad,
and could remember little about it, but he was a British lad, and his
answers smacked strongly of his loyal British feeling. Among other
things, the questioner asked if many American citizens had not been
thrown from the heights into the river.
“Why, yes, there was a good many of them; but it was right to show them
there was water between us, and you know it might help to keep the rest
of them from coming to trouble us on our own ground.”
This phrase, “our own ground,” gave interest to every mile, or I
believe I should have shut my eyes, and tried to sleep, that I might
annihilate what remained of time and space between me and Niagara.
But I was delighted to see British oaks, and British roofs, and British
boys and girls. These latter, as if to impress upon us that they were
not citizens, made bows and courtseys as we passed, and this little
touch of long unknown civility produced great effect. “See these dear
children, mamma! do they not look English? how I love them!” was the
exclamation it produced.