American Scenery, Vol. 1 (of 2): or, Land, lake, and river illustrations of transatlantic natureWillis, Nathaniel Parker
General
American Scenery, Vol. 1 (of 2): or, Land, lake, and river illustrations of transatlantic nature
Willis, Nathaniel Parker
United States -- Description and travel
“The jack-pudding presently came up to us, and an Indian boy came with
him and kindled our fire, that we might see his glittering eyes and
antic postures, as he hobbled round the fire. Sometimes he would turn
the buffalo’s hair on one side, that we might take a better view of his
ill-favoured phiz. When he had tired himself, (which was some time after
he had well tired us,) the boy that attended him struck two or three
smart blows on the floor, at which the hobgoblin seemed surprised; and,
on repeating them, he jumped fairly out of doors and disappeared.
“I suppose this was to divert us, and get some tobacco; for, as he
danced about, he would hold out his hand to receive this gratification,
for which, as often as he received it, he would return an awkward
compliment. After this farce, we endeavoured to compose ourselves to
sleep, but towards morning were again disturbed by a drunken squaw
coming into the cabin, frequently complimenting us and singing.”
We doubt if any traveller’s journal on the Mauch Chunk rail-road can
show as diverting a page. There are no incidents now-a-days short of a
boiler bursting.
[Illustration]
GENESSEE FALLS, ROCHESTER.
* * * * *
In the three thousand miles between the Atlantic and the Rocky
Mountains, there may be said to be three water-steps formed by the
different levels of Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, and Lake Superior. Niagara
and the Genessee river fall over the middle step, the edge of which is
formed by the brow of a bed of limestone, computed to be four hundred
and ten feet above the level of Lake Ontario. Saint Lawrence may thus be
said to take but three leaps from the Rocky Mountains to the ocean—an
agility which, one would suppose, might have saved the holy martyr from
his gridiron.
The ledge over which these two celebrated falls are precipitated, comes
out of Canada from an immense distance, and keeps its course along the
shore of Lake Ontario, in a direction nearly due east. At the Genessee
Falls, as at Niagara, the descent to the lake is between the walls of a
tremendous ravine, the grandeur of which seems to have had no terror for
the souls of manufacturers. The thriving village of Rochester stands
round the lip of the fall; and if you talk to the inhabitants of the
beauty of the cascade, they stop your mouth, and strike calculation
dumb, with the number of sledge-hammers, nail-cutters, mill-stones, and
cotton-jennies, it carries; the product _per diem_; the corresponding
increase of population, _et cetera et cetera_—the only instance in the
known world of a cataract turned, without the loss of a drop, through
the pockets of speculators.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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