--and equally long descents, from Seneca Lake to Cayuga. Here, after a
night's rest, under a pioneer's roof:
Our boat now ready and our baggage stored,
Provisions, mast and oars and sails aboard,
With three loud cheers that echoed from the steep,
We launched our skiff "Niagara" to the deep.
Down to old Cayuga bridge they sailed and through the outlet, passed the
salt marshes and so on to Fort Oswego. That post had been abandoned on
the 28th of October, about a week before Wilson arrived there. A
desolate, woebegone place he found it:
Those struggling huts that on the left appear,
Where fence, or field, or cultured garden green,
Or blessed plough, or spade were never seen,
Is old Oswego; once renowned in trade,
Where numerous tribes their annual visits paid.
From distant wilds, the beaver's rich retreat,
For one whole moon they trudged with weary feet;
Piled their rich furs within the crowded store,
Replaced their packs and plodded back for more.
But time and war have banished all their trains
And naught but potash, salt and rum remains.
The boisterous boatman, drunk but twice a day,
Begs of the landlord; but forgets to pay;
Pledges his salt, a cask for every quart,
Pleased thus for poison with his pay to part.
From morn to night here noise and riot reign;
From night to morn 'tis noise and roar again.
Not a flattering picture, truly, and yet no doubt a trustworthy one, of
this period in Oswego's history.
But we must hurry along with the poet to his destination, although the
temptation to linger with him in this part of the journey is great.
Indeed, "The Foresters" is a historic chronicle of no slight value.
There is no doubting the fidelity of its pictures of the state of nature
and of man along this storied route as seen by its author at the
beginning of the century; while his poetic philosophizing is now shrewd,
now absurd, but always ardently American in tone.
Our foresters undertook to coast along the Ontario shore in their frail
"Niagara"; narrowly escaped swamping, and were picked up by
A friendly sloop for Queenstown Harbor bound,
where they arrived safely, after being gloriously seasick. It was the
season of autumn gales. A few days before a British packet called the
Speedy, with some twenty or thirty persons on board, including a judge
advocate, other judges, witnesses and an Indian prisoner, had foundered
and every soul perished. No part of the Speedy was afterwards found but
the pump, which Wilson says his captain picked up and carried to
Queenston.
Wilson had moralized, philosophized and rhapsodized all the way from the
Schuylkill. His verse, as he approaches the Mecca of his wanderings,
fairly palpitates with expectation and excitement. He was not a bard to
sing in a majestic strain, but his description of the falls and their
environment is vivid and of historic value. As they tramped through the
forest,--
Heavy and slow, increasing on the ear,
Deep through the woods a rising storm we hear.
Th' approaching gust still loud and louder grows,
As when the strong northeast resistless blows,
Or black tornado, rushing through the wood,
Alarms th' affrighted swains with uproar rude.
Yet the blue heavens displayed their clearest sky,
And dead below the silent forests lie;
And not a breath the lightest leaf assailed;
But all around tranquillity prevailed.
"What noise is that?" we ask with anxious mien,
A dull salt-driver passing with his team.
"Noise? noise?--why, nothing that I hear or see
But Nagra Falls--Pray, whereabouts live ye?"
This touch of realism ushers in a long and over-wrought description of
the whole scene. The "crashing roar," he says,
---- bade us kneel and Time's great God adore.
Whatever may have been his emotions, his adjectives are sadly
inadequate, and his verse devoid of true poetic fervor. More than one of
his descriptive passages, however, give us those glimpses of conditions
past and gone, which the historian values. For instance, this:
High o'er the wat'ry uproar, silent seen,
Sailing sedate, in majesty serene,
Now midst the pillared spray sublimely lost,
Swept the gray eagles, gazing calm and slow,
On all the horrors of the gulf below;
Intent, alone, to sate themselves with blood,
From the torn victims of the raging flood.
Wilson was not the man to mistake a bird; and many other early travelers
have testified to the former presence of eagles in considerable numbers,
haunting the gorge below the falls in quest of the remains of animals
that had been carried down stream.