Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2Bonnycastle, Richard Henry, Sir
History
Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2
Bonnycastle, Richard Henry, Sir
Canada -- Description and travel; Ontario -- Description and travel
We started from Amherstburgh, where she called on her way from
Detroit, and left Bullock's inn for the steamer which was close at
hand, at nine o'clock p.m., and got under steam and travelled all
night at a most rapid rate, nor stopped until eight a.m., the next
morning, at Port Stanley, formerly called Kettle Creek, a small
village with a fine parallel pier harbour, which, unlike Amherstburgh,
has thriven amazingly during the past seven years, before which I
recollect it to have consisted of about three or four houses. It is
now a thriving village; and, as it has a planked road reaching far
into the interior, is every day going ahead. The plank road leads to
London, twenty-six miles distant. The piers of this artificial harbour
are much too narrow, consequently it is dangerous to approach in
stormy weather; and, as Lake Erie is a very turbulent little ocean,
they must be modified some day or other, whenever the Board of Works
is rich enough.
We took in several passengers here, mostly Americans touring, and the
vessel was now full, for we had a large proportion of the same class
from Detroit. They were chiefly people from the hotter regions of the
States, and resembled each other remarkably; sallow, sharp-angled,
acute-looking physiognomies: the men tall and loosely jointed; the
women prematurely old, and not very handsome. They were quiet and
respectable in their manners and demeanour; in fact, too quiet,
contrasting strongly in this respect with the real, genuine Yankee.
We reached Buffalo at seven in the evening, after encountering a
thunderstorm, which appeared to be very severe towards the shores of
the American side of Lake Erie.
Such a mob as poured on board the vessel, after she had with much
difficulty threaded the inconvenient, narrow, muddy creek on which
Buffalo is located, I never beheld before: blacks and whites, browns
and yellows, cabmen and carters, porters and tavern-scouts,
pickpockets and free and enlightened citizens.
How the passengers got their baggage conveyed to their hotels, or
dwellings, is beyond my art to imagine. Insolent and daring, if these
be a pattern mob, Heaven defend us Britishers from democracy! for
freedom reigns at Buffalo in a pattern of the newest, which the
seldomer copied the better. But one must not judge the money-getting
citizens of this fine town by the scenes in the Wapping part of it;
for, if one did, it would necessarily be said that they were not an
enviable race.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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