The Canadian Brothers; Or, The Prophecy Fulfilled: A Tale of the Late American War — Volume 1Richardson, Major (John)
History
The Canadian Brothers; Or, The Prophecy Fulfilled: A Tale of the Late American War — Volume 1
Richardson, Major (John)
United States -- History -- War of 1812 -- Fiction; War stories
Let us, however, introduce the reader more immediately
to the scene. Close in his rear, as he stands on the
elevated bank of the magnificent river of Detroit, and
about a mile from its point of junction with Lake Erie,
is the fort of Amherstburg, its defences consisting
chiefly of stockade works, flanked, at its several angles,
by strong bastions, and covered by a demi lune of five
guns, so placed as to command every approach by water.
Distant about three hundred yards on his right is a large,
oblong square building, resembling in appearance the red
low roofed blockhouses peering above the outward defences
of the fort. Surrounding this, and extending to the skirt
of the thinned forest, the original boundary of which is
marked by an infinitude of dingy half blackened stumps,
are to be seen numerous huts or wigwams of the Indians,
from the fires before which arises a smoke that contributes,
with the slight haze of the atmosphere, to envelope the
tops of the tall trees in a veil of blue vapour, rendering
them almost invisible. Between these wigwams and the
extreme verge of the thickly wooded banks, which sweeping
in bold curvature for an extent of many miles, brings
into view the eastern extremity of Turkey Island, situated
midway between Amherstburg and Detroit, are to be seen,
containing the accumulated Indian dead of many years,
tumuli, rudely executed it is true, but picturesquely
decorated with such adornments as it is the custom of
these simple mannered people to bestow on the last
sanctuaries of their departed friends. Some three or four
miles, and across the water, (for here it is that the
river acquires her fullest majesty of expansion,) is to
be seen the American Island of Gros Isle, which, at the
period of which we write, bore few traces of cultivation
--scarcely a habitation being visible throughout its
extent--various necks of land, however, shoot out abruptly,
and independently of the channel running between it and
the American main shore, form small bays or harbours in
which boats may always find shelter and concealment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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