Niagara—Arrival at Forsythes—First sight of the Falls—Goat Island—The
Rapids—Buffalo—Lake Erie—Canandaigna—Stage-coach adventures
At length we reached Niagara. It was the brightest day that June could
give; and almost any day would have seemed bright that brought me to
the object, which for years, I had languished to look upon.
We did not hear the sound of the Falls till very near the hotel, which
overhangs them; as you enter the door you see behind the hall an open
space surrounded by galleries, one above another, and in an instant you
feel that from thence the wonder is visible.
I trembled like a fool, and my girls clung to me, trembling too, I
believe, but with faces beaming with delight. We encountered a waiter
who had a sympathy of some sort with us, for he would not let us run
through the hall to the first gallery, but ushered us up stairs, and
another instant placed us where, at one glance, I saw all I had wished
for, hoped for, dreamed of.
It is not for me to attempt a description of Niagara; I feel I have no
powers for it.
After one long, stedfast gaze, we quitted the gallery that we might
approach still nearer, and in leaving the house had the good fortune to
meet an English gentleman,[11] who had been introduced to us at New
York; he had preceded us by a few days, and knew exactly how and where
to lead us. If any man living can describe the scene we looked upon it
is himself, and I trust he will do it. As for myself, I can only say,
that wonder, terror, and delight completely overwhelmed me. I wept with
a strange mixture of pleasure and of pain, and certainly was, for some
time, too violently affected in the _physique_ to be capable of much
pleasure; but when this emotion of the senses subsided, and I had
recovered some degree of composure, my enjoyment was very great indeed.
[11] The accomplished author of “Cyril Thornton.”
To say that I was not disappointed is but a weak expression to convey
the surprise and astonishment which this long dreamed of scene
produced. It has to me something beyond its vastness; there is a
shadowy mystery hangs about it which neither the eye nor even the
imagination can penetrate; but I dare not dwell on this, it is a
dangerous subject, and any attempt to describe the sensations produced
must lead direct to nonsense.
Exactly at the Fall, it is the Fall and nothing else you have to look
upon; there are not, as at Trenton, mighty rocks and towering forests,
there is only the waterfall; but it is the fall of an ocean, and were
Pelion piled on Ossa on either side of it, we could not look at them.
The noise is greatly less than I expected; one can hear with perfect
distinctness everything said in an ordinary tone, when quite close to
the cataract. The cause of this, I imagine to be, that it does not fall
immediately among rocks, like the far noisier Potomac, but direct and
unbroken, save by its own rebound. The colour of the water, before this
rebound hides it in foam and mist, is of the brightest and most
delicate green; the violence of the impulse sends it far over the
precipice before it falls, and the effect of the ever varying light
through its transparency is, I think, the loveliest thing I ever looked
upon.
We descended to the edge of the gulf which received the torrent, and
thence looked at the horse-shoe fall in profile; it seems like awful
daring to stand close beside it, and raise one’s eyes to its immensity.
I think the point the most utterly inconceivable to those who have not
seen it, is the centre of the horse-shoe. The force of the torrent
converges there, and as the heavy mass pours in, twisted, wreathed, and
curled together, it gives an idea of irresistible power, such as no
other object ever conveyed to me.
The following anecdote, which I had from good authority, may give some
notion of this mighty power.
After the last American war, three of our ships stationed on Lake Erie
were declared unfit for service, and condemned. Some of their officers
obtained permission to send them over Niagara Falls. The first was torn
to shivers by the rapids, and went over in fragments; the second filled
with water before she reached the fall; but the third, which was in
better condition, took the leap gallantly, and retained her form till
it was hid in the cloud of mist below. A reward of ten dollars was
offered for the largest fragment of wood that should be found from
either wreck, five for the second, and so on. One morsel only was ever
seen, and that about a foot in length, was mashed as by a vice, and its
edges notched like the teeth of a saw. What had become of the immense
quantity of wood which had been precipitated? What unknown whirlpool
had engulphed it, so that, contrary to the very laws of nature, no
vestige of the floating material could find its way to the surface?
Beyond the horse-shoe is Goat Island, and beyond Goat Island the
American fall, bold, straight, and chafed to snowy whiteness by the
rocks which meet it; but it does not approach, in sublimity or awful
beauty, to the wondrous crescent on the other shore. There, the form of
the mighty cauldron, into which the deluge poors, the hundred silvery
torrents congregating round its verge, the smooth and solemn movement
with which it rolls its massive volume over the rock, the liquid
emerald of its long unbroken waters, the fantastic wreaths which spring
to meet it, and then, the shadowy mist that veils the horrors of its
crash below, constitute a scene almost too enormous in its features for
man to look upon. “Angels might tremble as they gazed;” and I should
deem the nerves obtuse, rather than strong, which did not quail at the
first sight of this stupendous cataract.
Minute local particulars can be of no interest to those who have not
felt their influence for pleasure or for pain. I will not tell of giddy
stairs which scale the very edge of the torrent, nor of beetling slabs
of table rock, broken and breaking, on which, shudder as you may, you
must take your stand or lose your reputation as a tourist. All these
feats were performed again and again even on the first day of our
arrival, and most earthly weary was I when the day was done, though I
would not lose the remembrance of it to purchase the addition of many
soft and silken ones to my existence.
By four o’clock the next morning I was again at the little shantee,
close to the horse-shoe fall, which seems reared in water rather than
in air, and took an early shower-bath of spray. Much is concealed at
this early hour by the heavy vapour, but there was a charm in the very
obscurity; and every moment, as the light increased, cloud after cloud
rolled off, till the vast wonder was again before me.
It is in the afternoon that the rainbow is visible from the British
side; and it is a lovely feature in the mighty landscape. The gay arch
springs from fall to fall, a fairy bridge.
After breakfast we crossed to the American side, and explored Goat
Island. The passage across the Niagara, directly in face of the falls,
is one of the most delightful little voyages imaginable; the boat
crosses marvellously near them, and within reach of a light shower of
spray. Real safety and apparent danger have each their share in the
pleasure felt. The river is here two hundred feet deep. The passage up
the rock brings you close upon the American cataract; it is a vast
sheet, and has all the sublimity that height and width, and uproar can
give; but it has none of the magic of its rival about it. Goat Island
has, at all points, a fine view of the rapids; the furious velocity
with which they rush onward to the abyss is terrific; and the throwing
a bridge across them was a work of noble daring.
Below the falls, the river runs between lofty rocks, crowned with
unbroken forests; this scene forms a striking contrast to the level
shores above the cataract. It appears as if the level of the river had
been broken up by some volcanic force. The Niagara flows out of Lake
Erie, a broad, deep river; but for several miles its course is
tranquil, and its shores perfectly level. By degrees its bed begins to
sink, and the glassy smoothness is disturbed by a slight ripple. The
inverted trees, that before lay so softly still upon its bosom, become
twisted and tortured till they lose their form, and seem madly to mix
in the tumult that destroys them. The current becomes more rapid at
every step, till rock after rock has chafed the stream to fury, making
the green one white. This lasts for a mile, and then down sink the
rocks at once, one hundred and fifty feet, and the enormous flood falls
after them. God said, let there be a cataract, and it was so. When the
river has reached its new level, the precipice on either side shows a
terrific chasm of solid rock; some beautiful plants are clinging to its
sides, and oak, ash, and cedar, in many places, clothe their terrors
with rich foliage.
This violent transition from level shores to a deep ravine, seems to
indicate some great convulsion as its cause, and when I heard of a
burning spring close by, I fancied the volcanic power still at work,
and that the wonders of the region might yet increase.
We passed four delightful days of excitement and fatigue; we drenched
ourselves in spray; we cut our feet on the rocks; we blistered our
faces in the sun; we looked up the cataract, and down the cataract; we
perched ourselves on every pinnacle we could find; we dipped our
fingers in the flood at a few yards’ distance from its thundering fall;
in short, we strove to fill as many niches of memory with Niagara as
possible; and I think the images will be within the power of recall for
ever.
We met many groups of tourists in our walks, chiefly American, but they
were, or we fancied they were, but little observant of the wonders
around them.
One day we were seated on a point of the cliff, near the ferry, which
commands a view of both the Falls. This, by the way, is considered as
the finest general view of the scene. One of our party was employed in
attempting to sketch, what, however, I believe it is impossible for any
pencil to convey an idea of to those who have not seen it. We had
borrowed two or three chairs from a neighbouring cottage, and amongst
us had gathered a quantity of boughs which, with the aid of shawls and
parasols, we had contrived to weave into a shelter from the midday sun,
so that altogether I have no doubt we looked very cool and comfortable.
A large party who had crossed from the American side, wound up the
steep ascent from the place where the boat had left them; in doing so
their backs were turned to the cataracts, and as they approached the
summit, our party was the principal object before them. They all stood
perfectly still to look at us. This first examination was performed at
the distance of about a dozen yard from the spot we occupied, and
lasted about five minutes, by which time they had recovered breath, and
acquired courage. They then advanced in a body, and one or two of them
began to examine (wrong side upwards) the work of the sketcher, in
doing which they stood precisely between him and his object; but of
this I think it is very probable they were not aware. Some among them
next began to question us as to how long we had been at the Falls;
whether there were much company; if we were not from the old country,
and the like. In return we learnt that they were just arrived; yet not
one of them (there were eight) ever turned the head, even for a moment,
to look at the most stupendous spectacle that nature has to show.
The company at the hotel changed almost every day. Many parties arrived
in the morning, walked to the falls; returned to the hotel to dinner,
and departed by the coach immediately after it. Many groups were
indescribably whimsical, both in appearance and manner. Now and then a
first-rate dandy shot in among us, like a falling star.
On one occasion, when we were in the beautiful gallery, at the back of
the hotel, which overlooks the horse-shoe fall, we saw the booted leg
of one of this graceful race protruded from the window which commands
the view, while his person was thrown back in his chair, and his head
enveloped in a cloud of tobacco smoke.
I have repeatedly remarked, when it has happened to me to meet any
ultra fine men among the wilder and more imposing scenes of our own
land, that they throw off, in a great degree, their airs, and their
“townliness,” as some one cleverly calls these _simagrées_, as if
ashamed to “play their fantastic tricks” before the god of nature, when
so forcibly reminded of his presence; and more than once on these
occasions I have been surprised to find how much intellect lurked
behind the inane mask of fashion. But in America the effect of fine
scenery upon this class of persons is different, for it is exactly when
amongst it, that the most strenuous efforts at elegant _nonchalance_
are perceptible among the young exquisites of the western world. It is
true that they have little leisure for the display of grace in the
daily routine of commercial activity in which their lives are passed,
and this certainly offers a satisfactory explanation of the fact above
stated.
Fortunately for our enjoyment, the solemn character of the scene was
but little broken in upon by these gentry. Every one who comes to
Forsythe’s Hotel (except Mrs. Bogle Corbet), walks to the shantee,
writes their name in a book which is kept there, and, for the most
part, descends by the spiral staircase which leads from the little
platform before it, to the rocks below. Here they find another shantee,
but a few yards from the entrance of that wondrous cavern which is
formed by the falling flood on one side, and by the mighty rock over
which it pours, on the other. To this frail shelter from the wild
uproar, and the blinding spray, nearly all the touring gentlemen, and
even many of the pretty ladies, find their way. But here I often saw
their noble daring fail, and have watched them dripping and draggled
turn again to the sheltering stairs, leaving us in full possession of
the awful scene we so dearly loved to gaze upon. How utterly futile
must every attempt be to describe the spot! How vain every effort to
convey an idea of the sensations it produces! Why is it so exquisite a
pleasure to stand for hours drenched in spray, stunned by the ceaseless
roar, trembling from the concussion that shakes the very rock you cling
to, and breathing painfully in the moist atmosphere that seems to have
less of air than water in it? Yet pleasure it is, and I almost think
the greatest I ever enjoyed. We more than once approached the entrance
to this appalling cavern, but I never fairly entered it, though two or
three of my party did. I lost my breath entirely; and the pain at my
chest was so severe, that not all my curiosity could enable me to
endure it.
What was that cavern of the winds, of which we heard of old, compared
to this? A mightier spirit than Aeolus reigns here.
Nor was this spot of dread and danger the only one in which we found
ourselves alone. The path taken by “the company” to the shantee, which
contained the “book of names” was always the same; this wound down the
steep bank from the gate of the hotel garden, and was rendered
tolerably easy by its repeated doublings; but it was by no means the
best calculated to manage to advantage the pleasure of the stranger in
his approach to the spot. All others, however, seemed left for us
alone.
During our stay we saw the commencement of another staircase, intended
to rival in attraction that at present in use; it is but a few yards
from it, and can in no way, I think, contribute to the convenience of
the descent. The erection of the central shaft of this spiral stair was
a most tremendous operation, and made me sick and giddy as I watched
it. After it had been made fast at the bottom, the carpenters swung
themselves off the rocks, by the means of ropes, to the beams which
traversed it; and as they sat across them, in the midst of the spray
and the uproar, I thought I had never seen life periled so wantonly.
But the work proceeded without accident, and was nearly finished before
we left the hotel.
It was a sort of pang to take what we knew must be our last look at
Niagara; but “we had to do it,” as the Americans say, and left it on
the 10th June, for Buffalo.
The drive along the river, above the Falls, is as beautiful as a clear
stream of a mile in width can make it; and the road continues close to
it till you reach the ferry at Black Rock.
We welcomed, almost with a shout, the British colours which we saw, for
the first time, on Commodore Barrie’s pretty sloop, the _Bull Dog_,
which we passed as it was towing up the river to Lake Erie, the
commodore being about to make a tour of the lakes.
At Black Rock we crossed again into the United States, and a few miles
of horrible jolting brought us to Buffalo.
Of all the thousand and one towns I saw in America, I think Buffalo is
the queerest looking; it is not quite so wild as Lockport, but all the
buildings have the appearance of having been run up in a hurry, though
every thing has an air of great pretension; there are porticos,
columns, domes, and colonnades, but all in wood. Every body tells you
there, as in all their other new-born towns, and every body believes,
that their improvement, and their progression, are more rapid, more
wonderful, than the earth ever before witnessed; while to me, the only
wonder is, how so many thousands, nay millions of persons, can be
found, in the nineteenth century, who can be content so to live. Surely
this country may be said to spread rather than to rise.
The Eagle Hotel, an immense wooden fabric, has all the pretension of a
splendid establishment, but its monstrous corridors, low ceilings, and
intricate chambers, gave me the feeling of a catacomb rather than a
house. We arrived after the _table d’hôte_ tea-drinking was over, and
supped comfortably enough with a gentleman, who accompanied us from the
Falls: but the next morning we breakfasted in a long, low, narrow room,
with a hundred persons, and any thing less like comfort can hardly be
imagined.
What can induce so many intellectual citizens to prefer these long,
silent tables, scantily covered with morsels of fried ham, salt fish
and liver, to a comfortable loaf of bread with their wives and children
at home? How greatly should I prefer eating my daily meals with my
family, in an Indian wig-wam, to boarding at a _table d’hôte_ in these
capacious hotels; the custom, however, seems universal through the
country, at least we have met it, without a shadow of variation as to
its general features, from New Orleans to Buffalo.
Lake Erie has no beauty to my eyes; it is not the sea, and it is not
the river, nor has it the beautiful scenery generally found round
smaller lakes. The only interest its unmeaning expanse gave me, arose
from remembering that its waters, there so tame and tranquil, were
destined to leap the gulf of Niagara. A dreadful road, through forests
only beginning to be felled, brought us to Avon; it is a straggling,
ugly little place, and not any of their “Romes, Carthages, Ithacas, or
Athens,” ever provoked me by their name so much. This Avon flows
sweetly with nothing but whiskey and tobacco juice.
The next day’s journey was much more interesting, for it showed us the
lake of Canandaigua. It is about eighteen miles long, but narrow enough
to bring the opposite shore, clothed with rich foliage, near to the
eye; the back-ground is a ridge of mountains. Perhaps the state of the
atmosphere lent an unusual charm to the scene; one of those sudden
thunderstorms, so rapid in approach, and so sombre in colouring, that
they change the whole aspect of things in a moment, rose over the
mountains and passed across the lake while we looked upon it. Another
feature in the scene gave a living, but most sad interest to it. A
glaring wooden hotel, as fine as paint and porticos can make it,
overhangs the lake; beside it stands a shed for cattle. To this shed,
and close by the white man’s mushroom palace, two Indians had crept to
seek a shelter from the storm. The one was an aged man, whose venerable
head in attitude and expression indicated the profoundest melancholy:
the other was a youth, and in his deep-set eye there was a quiet
sadness more touching still. There they stood, the native rightful
lords of the fair land, looking out upon the lovely lake which yet bore
the name their fathers had given it, watching the threatening storm
that brooded there; a more fearful one had already burst over them.
Though I have mentioned the lake first, the little town of Canandaigua
precedes it, in returning from the West. It is as pretty a village as
ever man contrived to build. Every house is surrounded by an ample
garden, and at that flowery season they were half buried in roses.
It is true these houses are of wood, but they are so neatly painted, in
such perfect repair, and show so well within their leafy setting, that
it is impossible not to admire them.
Forty-six miles farther is Geneva, beautifully situated on Seneca Lake.
This, too, is a lovely sheet of water, and I think the town may rival
its European namesake in beauty.
We slept at Auburn, celebrated for its prison, where the
highly-approved system of American discipline originated. In this part
of the country there is no want of churches; every little village has
its wooden temple, and many of them too; that the Methodists and
Presbyterians may not clash.
We passed through an Indian reserve, and the untouched forests again
hung close upon the road. Repeated groups of Indians passed us, and we
remarked that they were much cleaner and better dressed than those we
had met wandering far from their homes. The blankets which they use so
gracefully as mantles were as white as snow.
We took advantage of the loss of a horse’s shoe, to leave the coach,
and approach a large party of them, consisting of men, women, and
children, who were regaling themselves with I know not what, but milk
made a part of the repast. They could not talk to us, but they received
us with smiles, and seemed to understand when we asked if they had
mocassins to sell, for they shook their sable locks, and answered “no.”
A beautiful grove of butternut trees was pointed out to us, as the spot
where the chiefs of the six nations used to hold their senate; our
informer told me that he had been present at several of their meetings,
and though he knew but little of their language, the power of their
eloquence was evident from the great effect it produced among
themselves.
Towards the end of this day, we encountered an adventure which revived
our doubts whether the invading white men, in chasing the poor Indians
from their forests, have done much towards civilizing the land. For
myself, I almost prefer the indigenous manner to the exotic.
The coach stopped to take in “a lady” at Vernon; she entered, and
completely filled the last vacant inch of our vehicle; for “we were
eight” before.
But no sooner was she seated, than her _beau_ came forward with a most
enormous wooden best-bonnet box. He paused for a while to meditate the
possibilities—raised it, as if to place it on our laps—sunk it, as if
to put it beneath our feet. Both alike appeared impossible; when, in
true Yankee style he addressed one of our party with. If you’ll just
step out a minute, I guess I’ll find room for it.”
“Perhaps so. But how shall I find room for myself afterwards?”
This was uttered in European accents, and in an instant half a dozen
whiskey drinkers stepped from before the whiskey store, and took the
part of the _beau_.
“That’s because you’ll be English travellers I expect, but we have
travelled in better countries than Europe—we have travelled in
America—and the box will go, I calculate.”
We remonstrated on the evident injustice of the proceeding, and I
ventured to say, that as we had none of us any luggage in the carriage,
because the space was so very small, I thought a chance passenger could
have no right so greatly to incommode us.
“Right!—there they go—that’s just their way—that will do in Europe, may
be; it sounds just like English tyranny, now don’t it? but it won’t do
here.” And thereupon he began thrusting in the wooden box against our
legs, with all his strength.
“No law, sir, can permit such conduct as this.”
“Law!” exclaimed a gentleman very particularly drunk, “we makes our own
laws, and governs our own selves.”
“Law!” echoed another gentleman of Vernon, “this is a free country, _we
have no laws here_, and we don’t want no foreign power to tyrannize
over us.”
295
I give the words exactly. It is, however, but fair to state, that the
party had evidently been drinking more than an usual portion of
whiskey, but, perhaps, in whiskey, as in wine, truth may come to light.
At any rate the people of the Western Paradise follow the Gentiles in
this, that they are a law unto themselves.
During the contest, the coachman sat upon the box without saying a
word, but seemed greatly to enjoy the joke; the question of the box,
however, was finally decided in our favour by the nature of the human
material, which cannot be compressed beyond a certain degree.
For the great part of this day we had the good fortune to have a
gentleman and his daughter for our fellow-travellers, who were
extremely intelligent and agreeable; but I nearly got myself into a
scrape by venturing to remark upon a phrase used by the gentleman, and
which had met me at every corner from the time I first entered the
country. We had been talking of pictures, and I had endeavoured to
adhere to the rule I had laid down for myself, of saying very little,
where I could say nothing agreeable. At length he named an American
artist, with whose works I was very familiar, and after having declared
him equal to Lawrence (judging by his portrait of West, now at New
York), he added, “and what is more, madam, he is perfectly
_self-taught_.”
I prudently took a few moments before I answered; for the equalling our
immortal Lawrence to a most vile dauber stuck in my throat; I could not
say Amen; so for some time I said nothing; but, at last, I remarked on
the frequency with which I had heard this phrase of _self-taught_ used,
not as an apology, but as positive praise.
“Well, madam, can there be a higher praise?”
“Certainly not, if spoken of the individual merits of a person, without
the means of instruction, but I do not understand it when applied as
praise to his works.”
“Not understand it, madam? Is it not attributing genius to the author,
and what is teaching compared to that?”
296
I do not wish to repeat all my own _bons mots_ in praise of study, and
on the disadvantages of profound ignorance, but I would, willingly, if
I could, give an idea of the mixed indignation and contempt expressed
by our companion at the idea that study was necessary to the formation
of taste, and to the development of genius. At last, however, he closed
the discussion thus,—“There is no use in disputing a point that is
already settled, madam; the best judges declare that Mr. H—g’s
portraits are equal to that of Lawrence.”
“Who is it who has passed this judgement, sir?”
“The men of taste of America, madam.”
I then asked him, if he thought it was going to rain?
The stages do not appear to have any regular stations at which to stop
for breakfast, dinner, and supper. These necessary interludes,
therefore, being generally _impromptu_, were abominably bad. We were
amused by the patient manner in which our American fellow-travellers
ate whatever was set before them, without uttering a word of complaint,
or making any effort to improve it, but no sooner reseated in the
stage, than they began their complaints—“twas a shame”—“twas a
robbery”—“twas poisoning folks”—and the like. I, at last, asked the
reason of this, and why they did not remonstrate? “Because, madam, no
American gentleman or lady that keeps an inn won’t bear to be found
fault with.”
We reached Utica very late and very weary; but the delights of a good
hotel and perfect civility sent us in good humour to bed, and we arose
sufficiently refreshed to enjoy a day’s journey through some of the
loveliest scenery in the world.
Who is it that says America is not picturesque? I forget; but surely he
never travelled from Utica to Albany. I really cannot conceive that any
country can furnish a drive of ninety-six miles more beautiful, or more
varied in its beauty. The road follows the Mohawk River, which flows
through scenes changing from fields, waving with plenty, to rocks and
woods; gentle slopes, covered with cattle, are divided from each other
by precipices 500 feet high. Around the little falls there is a
character of beauty as singular as it is striking. Here, as I observed
of many other American rivers, the stream appears to run in a much
narrower channel than it once occupied, and the space which it seems
formerly to have filled, is now covered with bright green herbage, save
that, at intervals, large masses of rock rise abruptly from the level
turf; these are crowned with all such trees as love the scanty diet
which a rock affords. Dwarf oak, cedars, and the mountain ash, are
grouped in a hundred different ways among them; each clump you look
upon is lovelier than its neighbour; I never saw so sweetly wild a
spot.
I was surprised to hear a fellow-traveller say, as we passed a point of
peculiar beauty, “all this neighbourhood belongs, or did belong, to Mr.
Edward Ellice, an English Member of Parliament, but he has sold a deal
of it, and now, madam, you may see as it begins to improve;” and he
pointed to a great wooden edifice, where, on the white paint, “Cash for
Rags,” in letters three feet high, might be seen.
I then remembered that it was near this spot that my Yankee friend had
made his complaint against English indifference to “water privilege.”
He did not name Mr. Edward Ellice, but doubtless he was the “English,
as never thought of improvement.”
I have often confessed my conscious incapacity for description, but I
must repeat it here to apologize for my passing so dully through this
matchless valley of the Mohawk. I would that some British artist,
strong in youthful daring, would take my word for it, and pass over,
for a summer pilgrimage through the State of New York. In very earnest,
he would wisely, for I question if the world could furnish within the
same space, and with equal facility of access, so many subjects for his
pencil. Mountains, forests, rocks, lakes, rivers, cataracts, all in
perfection. But he must be bold as a lion in colouring, or he will make
nothing of it. There is a clearness of atmosphere, a strength of
_chiaro oscuro_, a massiveness in the foliage, and a brilliance of
contrast, that must make a colourist of any one who has an eye. He must
have courage to dip his pencil in shadows black as night, and light
that might blind an eagle. As I presume my young artist to be an
enthusiast, he must first go direct to Niagara, or even in the Mohawk
valley his pinioned wing may droop. If his fever run very high, he may
slake his thirst at Trenton, and while there, he will not dream of any
thing beyond it. Should my advice be taken, I will ask the young
adventurer on his return (when he shall have made a prodigious quantity
of money by my hint), to reward me by two sketches. One shall be the
lake of Canandaigua; the other the Indians’ Senate Grove of Butternuts.
During our journey, I forget on which day of it, a particular spot in
the forest, at some distance from the road, was pointed out to us as
the scene of a true, but very romantic story. During the great and the
terrible French revolution (1792), a young nobleman escaped from the
scene of horror, having with difficulty saved his head, and without the
possibility of saving any thing else. He arrived at New York nearly
destitute; and after passing his life, not only in splendour, but in
the splendour of the court of France, he found himself jostled by the
busy population of the New World, without a dollar between him and
starvation. In such a situation one might almost sigh for the
guillotine. The young noble strove to labour; but who would purchase
the trembling efforts of his white hands, while the sturdy strength of
many a black Hercules was in the market? He abandoned the vain attempt
to sustain himself by the aid of his fellow-men, and determined to seek
a refuge in the forest. A few shillings only remained to him; he
purchased an axe, and reached the Oneida territory. He felled a few of
the slenderest trees, and made himself a shelter that Robinson Crusoe
would have laughed at, for it did not keep out the rain. Want of food,
exposure to the weather, and unwonted toil, produced the natural
result; the unfortunate young man fell sick, and stretched upon the
reeking earth, stifled, rather than sheltered, by the withering boughs
which hung over him; he lay parched with thirst, and shivering in ague,
with the one last earthly hope, that each heavy moment would prove the
last.
Near to the spot which he had chosen for his miserable rest, but
totally concealed from it by the thick forest, was the last straggling
wigwam of an Indian village. It is not known how many days the unhappy
man had lain without food, but he was quite insensible when a young
squaw, whom chance had brought from this wigwam to his hut, entered,
and found him alive, but totally insensible. The heart of woman is, I
believe, pretty much the same every where; the young girl paused not to
think whether he were white or red, but her fleet feet rested not till
she had brought milk, rum, and blankets, and when the sufferer
recovered his senses, his head was supported on her lap, while, with
the gentle tenderness of a mother, she found means to make him swallow
the restoratives she had brought.
No black eyes in the world, be they of France, Italy, or even of Spain,
can speak more plainly of kindness, than the large deep-set orbs of a
squaw; this is a language that all nations can understand, and the poor
Frenchman read most clearly, in the anxious glance of his gentle nurse,
that he should not die forsaken.
So far the story is romantic enough, and what follows is hardly less
so. The squaw found means to introduce her white friend to her tribe;
he was adopted as their brother, speedily acquired their language, and
assumed their dress and manner of life. His gratitude to his preserver
soon ripened into love, and if the chronicle spoke true, the French
noble and the American savage were more than passing happy as man and
wife, and it was not till he saw himself the father of many thriving
children that the exile began to feel a wish of rising again from
savage to civilized existence.
My historian did not explain what his project was in visiting New York,
but he did so in the habit of an Indian, and learnt enough of the
restored tranquillity of his country to give him hope that some of the
broad lands he had left there might be restored to him.
I have made my story already too long, and must not linger upon it
farther than to say that his hopes were fulfilled, and that, of a large
and flourishing family, some are settled in France, and some remain in
America, (one of these, I understood, was a lawyer at New York), while
the hero and the heroine of the tale continue to inhabit the Oneida
country, not in a wigwam, however, but in a good house, in a beautiful
situation, with all the comforts of civilized life around them.
Such was the narrative we listened to, from a stage coach companion;
and it appears to me sufficiently interesting to repeat, though I have
no better authority to quote for its truth, than the assertion of this
unknown traveller.