Part 4 (2/2)
It is bad enough in England; but any one who wishes to enjoy it to perfection had better take a drive from Stirling, crossing the Forth, when, if he select his road happily, he may have the satisfaction of paying half-a-dozen tolls in nearly as many minutes, on the plea that this piece of ground, the size of a c.o.c.ked-hat-box,--and that piece, the size of a cabbage-garden,--and so on, belong to different counties; and his amus.e.m.e.nt may derive additional zest if he be fortunate enough to find the same tollman there whom I met some years ago. When pa.s.sing his toll in a driving snow-storm that penetrated even to the very marrow, I pulled up a few yards beyond the gate, upon which he came out very sulkily, took the half-crown I tendered him, and, walking deliberately back, placed the change on the post of the gate, and said,--”If ye want 'ut, ye may take 'ut; it's no my place to walk half a mile o' the road to gie folk their change;” after which courteous address he disappeared, banging his door to with a sound that fell on the ear very like ”Put that in your pipe and smoke it.” Precious work I had, with a heavy dog-cart, no servant, and a hack whose mouth was case-hardened. I would willingly have given it up; but I knew the brute (the man, not the horse) would very soon have got drunk upon it; so I persevered until I succeeded, and then went on my road full of thoughts which are, I fear, totally unfit to be committed to paper.
Reader, I must ask you to forgive my wanderings on the banks of the Forth. I hasten back to Geneseo, and pack up ready for to-morrow's start, for the days I had spent with my kind host and his merry family had slipped by so pleasantly I had quite lost count of them. There was but one cloud to our enjoyment--one sad blank in the family group: my sister-in-law, in whose charming society I had fondly hoped to make my first visit to the scenes of her early youth, had been recently summoned to a better world; and the void her absence made in that family circle, of which she was both the radiating and the centring point of affection, was too deeply felt for aught but time ever to eradicate.
CHAPTER VI.
_Stirring Scenes and Strange Sights_.
My host having kindly lent me his carriage and a pair of wiry nags, I started for Batavia to meet the railway. The distance was about thirty miles, and the road in many places execrable--in one part so bad that we had to go through a quarter of a mile of wood, as it was absolutely impa.s.sable;--yet, despite all these hindrances, and without pressing the horses in the least, we completed the distance in the three hours, including from five to ten minutes at a half-way house, where we gave them the usual American bait of a bucket of cold water; and when we arrived they were as fresh as four-year-olds, and quite ready to return if need had been. I saw nothing worth remarking during the drive. There was plenty of cultivated land; and plenty of waste, waiting to reward the labourer. All the little villages had their daguerreotype shops except one, and there the deficiency was supplied by a perambulating artist in a tented cart.
When a railway crosses the road, you are expected to see it,--the only warning being a large painted board, inscribed ”Look out for the Train.”
If it be dark, I suppose you are expected to guess it; but it must be remembered that this is the country of all countries where every person is required to look after himself. The train coming up soon after my arrival, I went on to Buffalo, amid a railway mixture of tag-rag-and-bobtail, squalling infancy and expectorating manhood. On arriving at the terminus, I engaged a cab, and, after waiting half an hour, I found that Jarvey was trying to pick up some other ”fare,” not thinking myself and my servant a sufficient cargo to pay well. I tried to find a railway official; but I might almost as well have looked for a flea in a flower-garden--no badges, no distinctive marks, the station full of all the riff-raff of the town;--it was hopeless. At last, by a lucky accident, I saw a man step into a small office, so I bolted after him, like a terrier after a badger, but I could not draw him; he knew nothing about the cabs--he was busy--nay, in short, he would not be bothered. Having experienced this beautiful specimen of Buffalo railway management, I returned to the open air and lit my cigar. After some time, Cabby, having found that no other ”fare” was to be had, condescended to tell me he was ready; so in I got, and drove to the hotel, on entering which I nearly broke my neck over a pyramid of boxes, all looking of one family. They turned out to be the property of Mr.
G.V. Brooke, the actor, who had just arrived ”to star it” at Buffalo.
Supper being ready, as it always is on the arrival of the evening train, I repaired thither, and found the usual wondrous medley which the American tables d'hote exhibit, the usual deafening clatter, the usual profusion of eatables, the usual rapidity of action, and the usual disagreeable odour which is consequent upon such a ma.s.s of humanity and food combined. Being tolerably tired, I very soon retired to roost.
What a wondrous place is this Buffalo!--what a type of American activity and enterprise! I had visited it in the year 1826, and then it had only three thousand inhabitants. The theatre, I remember, amused me immensely, the stage and accommodation for spectators barely occupying an area of twenty-five feet square. Mr. G.V. Brooke's boxes, at that time, would have filled the whole house; and here they are in 1852, drawing our metropolitan stars to their boards. Their population has increased twenty-fold, and now exceeds sixty thousand; a splendid harbour, a lighthouse, piers, breakwater, &c., have been constructed, and the place is daily increasing. Churches rear their spiry steeples in every direction. Banks and insurance offices are scattered broadcast.
Educational, literary, and benevolent establishments abound, and upwards of a dozen newspapers are published. Land which, during my visit in 1826, you might almost have had for the asking, is now selling at two hundred guineas the foot of frontage for building. Even during the last ten years, the duties collected at the port have increased from 1000 to nearly 14,000. In the year 1852 upwards of four thousand vessels, representing a million and a half of tonnage, cleared at the harbour, and goods to the value of nearly seven millions sterling arrived from the lakes, the greater portion of the cargoes being grain. The value of goods annually delivered by Erie Ca.n.a.l is eight millions. Never was a more energetic hive of humanity than these ”Buffalo lads;” and they are going ahead every day, racing pace.
Now, John Bull, come with me to the cliff outside the town, and overhanging the Niagara river. Look across the stream, to the Canada sh.o.r.e, and you will see a few houses and a few people. There they have been, for aught I know, since the creation. The town(!) is called Waterloo, and the couple of dozen inhabitants, despite the rich fruits of industry on which they may gaze daily, seem to regard industry as a frightful scourge to be studiously avoided. Their soil is as rich as, if not richer than, that on the opposite sh.o.r.e: the same lake is spread before them, and the same river runs by their doors. It does, indeed, look hopeless, where such an example, constantly under their eyes, fails to stir them up to action. But, perhaps, you will say, you think you see a movement among the ”dry bones.” True, my dear Bull, there is now a movement; but, if you inquire, you will find it is a Buffalo movement.
It is their energy, activity, and enterprise which, is making a railway to run across Canada to G.o.derich, by which means they will save, for traffic, the whole length of Lake Erie, and half that of Lake Huron, for all produce coming from the North of Michigan, Wisconsin, &c. So thoroughly is it American enterprise, that, although the terminus of the railway is at Waterloo, the name is ignored; and Buffalo enterprise having carried forward the work, it is styled the ”Buffalo, Brentford, and G.o.derich Line.” Truly, John Bull, your colony shows very badly by the side of this same Buffalo. Let us hope increasing intercourse may infuse a little vitality into them.
The train is starting for Niagara, and I am in it, endeavouring to recal the impressions of 1826, which, being but very dim, my antic.i.p.ations partake of the charm of novelty. While in the middle of a seventh heaven of picturative fancy, the screeching of the break announces the journey's end. As I emerge from the motley group of fellow-pa.s.sengers, a sound, as of very distant thunder heard through ears stuffed with cotton, is all that announces the neighbourhood of the giant cataract. A fly is speedily obtained, and off I start for the hotel on the Canadian side. Our drive took us along the eastern bank till we reached the suspension-bridge which spans the cliffs of the river. Across this gossamer causeway, vehicles are required to walk, under a heavy penalty for any breach of this rule. The vibration when walking is not very great; but, going at a quick pace, it would undoubtedly be considerable, and might eventually loosen those fastenings on which the aerial pathway depends. Arrived at the other side, I was quite taken aback on being stopped by an official. I found he was merely a _pro forma_ custom-house officer. Not having been schooled in the Old World, he showed none of the ferret, and in a few seconds I was again trotting southwards along the western bank to the Clifton House Hotel. The dull work of life is done, the cab is paid, my room is engaged, and there I am, on the balcony, alone, with the roaring of the cataract in my ears and the mighty cataract itself before my eyes.
What were my first impressions?--That is a difficult question.
Certainly, I did not share that feeling of disappointment which some people take pains to express. Such people, if they had dreamt that an unknown friend had left them 100,000l., would feel disappointed if he awoke and found a legacy of 90,000l. lying on their table; or, perhaps, they give expression to their feelings, by way of inducing the public to suppose that their fertile imaginations conceived something far grander than this most glorious work of Nature. If a man propose to go to Niagara for mere beauty, he had better stay at home and look at a lily through a microscope; if to hear a mighty noise, he had better go where the anchors are forged in Portsmouth dockyard; if to see a mighty struggle of waters, he had better take a cruise, on board a pilot-boat, in the Bay of Biscay, during an equinoctial gale; but, if he be content to see the most glorious cataract his Maker has placed upon our globe; if, in a stupendous work of Nature, he have a soul to recognise the Almighty Workman; and if, while gazing thereon, he can travel from Nature up to Nature's G.o.d; then, let him go to Niagara, in full a.s.surance of enjoying one of the grandest and most solemnizing scenes that this earth affords. It wants but one qualification to be perfect and complete; that, it had originally when fresh from the hands of its Divine Maker; and of that man has rifled it--I mean solitude.--Palace hotels are very convenient things; energy and enterprise are very valuable qualities, and natural features of American character which I admire; but, seeing how universally everything is sacrificed to the useful and dollar-making, I dread to contemplate the future: for visions rise before me of the woodman's axe levelling the forest timber on Goat Island, which at present shrouds the town; and fancy pictures a line of villas, shops, and mills, ending in a huge hotel, at the edge of the cataract. I trust my vision may never be realized. But my hopes are small; for I invariably observed that, in clearing ground, scarce any attention had been paid to aught else but the best method of getting the best return for the labour bestowed.
Now, reader, I have not told you as yet what my impressions were, as I stood on the balcony gazing at Niagara; and, I pray you take not offence, when I add that I have not the slightest intention of trying to record them. Writing frankly, as I feel, I have said enough for you to glean something of the turn they took, and to see that they were impressions which a pen is too feeble an agent adequately to express. I shall not tax your patience with Table Rock and Goat Island points of view, American and Canadian falls, the respective beauties of the Straight Line and the Horse-shoe; I do not purpose clothing you in Mackintosh, and dragging you with trembling steps along the slimy pathway between the Falls and the rock, to gaze on the sun through the roaring and rolling flood; nor will I draw upon your nerves by a detail of the hair-breadth escapes of Mr. b.u.mptious and Mrs. Positive, who, when they got half-way along the said path, were seized with panic, and only escaped a header into the boiling caldron by lying flat on their stomachs until the rest of the party had lionized the whole distance, when the guide returned and hauled them out by the heels, like drowned rats out of a sink-hole; nor will I ask you to walk five miles with me, to see the wooden hut, built over a sulphur spring within ten feet of the river, and which is lit by the sulphuretted hydrogen gas thereof, led through a simple tube.
All these, and the rapids above, and the whirlpool below, and the four-and-a-half million horse-power of the Falls, have been so often described by abler pens and more fertile imaginations, that the effort would be a failure and the result a bore.
I have in my possession a collection from the various alb.u.ms at Niagara; it opens with the following lines by Lord Morpeth, now Earl of Carlisle--
”There's nothing great or bright, thou glorious Fall!
Thou may'st not to the fancy's sense recal; The thunder-riven cloud, the lightning's leap, The stirring of the chambers of the deep, Earth's emerald green, and many-tinted dyes, The fleecy whiteness of the upper skies, The tread of armies thickening as they come, The boom of cannon and the beat of drum, The brow of beauty and the form of grace, The pa.s.sion and the prowess of our race, The song of Homer in its loftiest hour, The unresisted sweep of human power, Britannia's trident on the azure sea, America's young shout of liberty!
Oh! may the waves that madden in thy deep, There spend their rage, nor climb the encircling steep,-- And till the conflict of thy surges cease, The nations on thy banks repose in peace!”
There are other effusions equally creditable to their authors; but there is also a ma.s.s of rubbish, from which I will only inflict two specimens.
One, evidently from the pen of a c.o.c.kney; and the other, the poetical inspiration of a free and enlightened.
c.o.c.kney poet--
”Next to the bliss of seeing Sarah, Is that of seeing Niagara.”
Free and enlightened--
<script>