American Notes for General Circulation

C >> Charles Dickens >> American Notes for General Circulation

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24

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
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-and-
easy 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 good-
natured 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
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
to wait patiently anywhere else, we set off by the train, the same
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
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, half-
blinded 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 bright-
green 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
leap, and roar and tumble, all day long; still are the rainbows
spanning them, a hundred feet below. Still, when the sun is on
them, do they shine and glow like molten gold. Still, when the day
is gloomy, do they fall like snow, or seem to crumble away like the
front of a great chalk cliff, or roll down the rock like dense
white smoke. But always does the mighty stream appear to die as it
comes down, and always from its unfathomable grave arises that
tremendous ghost of spray and mist which is never laid: which has
haunted this place with the same dread solemnity since Darkness
brooded on the deep, and that first flood before the Deluge - Light
- came rushing on Creation at the word of God.

CHAPTER XV - IN CANADA; TORONTO; KINGSTON; MONTREAL; QUEBEC; ST.
JOHN'S. IN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN; LEBANON; THE SHAKER VILLAGE;
WEST POINT

I wish to abstain from instituting any comparison, or drawing any
parallel whatever, between the social features of the United States
and those of the British Possessions in Canada. For this reason, I
shall confine myself to a very brief account of our journeyings in
the latter territory.

But before I leave Niagara, I must advert to one disgusting
circumstance which can hardly have escaped the observation of any
decent traveller who has visited the Falls.

On Table Rock, there is a cottage belonging to a Guide, where
little relics of the place are sold, and where visitors register
their names in a book kept for the purpose. On the wall of the
room in which a great many of these volumes are preserved, the
following request is posted: 'Visitors will please not copy nor
extract the remarks and poetical effusions from the registers and
albums kept here.'

But for this intimation, I should have let them lie upon the tables
on which they were strewn with careful negligence, like books in a
drawing-room: being quite satisfied with the stupendous silliness
of certain stanzas with an anti-climax at the end of each, which
were framed and hung up on the wall. Curious, however, after
reading this announcement, to see what kind of morsels were so
carefully preserved, I turned a few leaves, and found them scrawled
all over with the vilest and the filthiest ribaldry that ever human
hogs delighted in.

It is humiliating enough to know that there are among men brutes so
obscene and worthless, that they can delight in laying their
miserable profanations upon the very steps of Nature's greatest
altar. But that these should be hoarded up for the delight of
their fellow-swine, and kept in a public place where any eyes may
see them, is a disgrace to the English language in which they are
written (though I hope few of these entries have been made by
Englishmen), and a reproach to the English side, on which they are
preserved.

The quarters of our soldiers at Niagara, are finely and airily
situated. Some of them are large detached houses on the plain
above the Falls, which were originally designed for hotels; and in
the evening time, when the women and children were leaning over the
balconies watching the men as they played at ball and other games
upon the grass before the door, they often presented a little
picture of cheerfulness and animation which made it quite a
pleasure to pass that way.

At any garrisoned point where the line of demarcation between one
country and another is so very narrow as at Niagara, desertion from
the ranks can scarcely fail to be of frequent occurrence: and it
may be reasonably supposed that when the soldiers entertain the
wildest and maddest hopes of the fortune and independence that
await them on the other side, the impulse to play traitor, which
such a place suggests to dishonest minds, is not weakened. But it
very rarely happens that the men who do desert, are happy or
contented afterwards; and many instances have been known in which
they have confessed their grievous disappointment, and their
earnest desire to return to their old service if they could but be
assured of pardon, or lenient treatment. Many of their comrades,
notwithstanding, do the like, from time to time; and instances of
loss of life in the effort to cross the river with this object, are
far from being uncommon. Several men were drowned in the attempt
to swim across, not long ago; and one, who had the madness to trust
himself upon a table as a raft, was swept down to the whirlpool,
where his mangled body eddied round and round some days.

I am inclined to think that the noise of the Falls is very much
exaggerated; and this will appear the more probable when the depth
of the great basin in which the water is received, is taken into
account. At no time during our stay there, was the wind at all
high or boisterous, but we never heard them, three miles off, even
at the very quiet time of sunset, though we often tried.

Queenston, at which place the steamboats start for Toronto (or I
should rather say at which place they call, for their wharf is at
Lewiston, on the opposite shore), is situated in a delicious
valley, through which the Niagara river, in colour a very deep
green, pursues its course. It is approached by a road that takes
its winding way among the heights by which the town is sheltered;
and seen from this point is extremely beautiful and picturesque.
On the most conspicuous of these heights stood a monument erected
by the Provincial Legislature in memory of General Brock, who was
slain in a battle with the American forces, after having won the
victory. Some vagabond, supposed to be a fellow of the name of
Lett, who is now, or who lately was, in prison as a felon, blew up
this monument two years ago, and it is now a melancholy ruin, with
a long fragment of iron railing hanging dejectedly from its top,
and waving to and fro like a wild ivy branch or broken vine stem.
It is of much higher importance than it may seem, that this statue
should be repaired at the public cost, as it ought to have been
long ago. Firstly, because it is beneath the dignity of England to
allow a memorial raised in honour of one of her defenders, to
remain in this condition, on the very spot where he died.
Secondly, because the sight of it in its present state, and the
recollection of the unpunished outrage which brought it to this
pass, is not very likely to soothe down border feelings among
English subjects here, or compose their border quarrels and
dislikes.

I was standing on the wharf at this place, watching the passengers
embarking in a steamboat which preceded that whose coming we
awaited, and participating in the anxiety with which a sergeant's
wife was collecting her few goods together - keeping one distracted
eye hard upon the porters, who were hurrying them on board, and the
other on a hoopless washing-tub for which, as being the most
utterly worthless of all her movables, she seemed to entertain
particular affection - when three or four soldiers with a recruit
came up and went on board.

The recruit was a likely young fellow enough, strongly built and
well made, but by no means sober: indeed he had all the air of a
man who had been more or less drunk for some days. He carried a
small bundle over his shoulder, slung at the end of a walking-
stick, and had a short pipe in his mouth. He was as dusty and
dirty as recruits usually are, and his shoes betokened that he had
travelled on foot some distance, but he was in a very jocose state,
and shook hands with this soldier, and clapped that one on the
back, and talked and laughed continually, like a roaring idle dog
as he was.

The soldiers rather laughed at this blade than with him: seeming
to say, as they stood straightening their canes in their hands, and
looking coolly at him over their glazed stocks, 'Go on, my boy,
while you may! you'll know better by-and-by:' when suddenly the
novice, who had been backing towards the gangway in his noisy
merriment, fell overboard before their eyes, and splashed heavily
down into the river between the vessel and the dock.

I never saw such a good thing as the change that came over these
soldiers in an instant. Almost before the man was down, their
professional manner, their stiffness and constraint, were gone, and
they were filled with the most violent energy. In less time than
is required to tell it, they had him out again, feet first, with
the tails of his coat flapping over his eyes, everything about him
hanging the wrong way, and the water streaming off at every thread
in his threadbare dress. But the moment they set him upright and
found that he was none the worse, they were soldiers again, looking
over their glazed stocks more composedly than ever.

The half-sobered recruit glanced round for a moment, as if his
first impulse were to express some gratitude for his preservation,
but seeing them with this air of total unconcern, and having his
wet pipe presented to him with an oath by the soldier who had been
by far the most anxious of the party, he stuck it in his mouth,
thrust his hands into his moist pockets, and without even shaking
the water off his clothes, walked on board whistling; not to say as
if nothing had happened, but as if he had meant to do it, and it
had been a perfect success.

Our steamboat came up directly this had left the wharf, and soon
bore us to the mouth of the Niagara; where the stars and stripes of
America flutter on one side and the Union Jack of England on the
other: and so narrow is the space between them that the sentinels
in either fort can often hear the watchword of the other country
given. Thence we emerged on Lake Ontario, an inland sea; and by
half-past six o'clock were at Toronto.

The country round this town being very flat, is bare of scenic
interest; but the town itself is full of life and motion, bustle,
business, and improvement. The streets are well paved, and lighted
with gas; the houses are large and good; the shops excellent. Many
of them have a display of goods in their windows, such as may be
seen in thriving county towns in England; and there are some which
would do no discredit to the metropolis itself. There is a good
stone prison here; and there are, besides, a handsome church, a
court-house, public offices, many commodious private residences,
and a government observatory for noting and recording the magnetic
variations. In the College of Upper Canada, which is one of the
public establishments of the city, a sound education in every
department of polite learning can be had, at a very moderate
expense: the annual charge for the instruction of each pupil, not
exceeding nine pounds sterling. It has pretty good endowments in
the way of land, and is a valuable and useful institution.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24