HOCHELAGA; OR, ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. CHAPTER I. : : BUFFALO.-SARATOGA. BUFFALO causes a total re-action in the mind after Niagara bran new, bustling, changing every day-going ahead with high pressure force. It is one of the very best samples of Young Western America full of foreigners-Irish, French, Germans; principally the latter, but all Americanized, all galvanized with the same frantic energy. The population rush about on their different occupations, railway engines scream, and steam-boats puff every side; waggons rattle about in all on VOL. II. B directions, men swear, bargain, or invite you to their hotels, in the accents of half-a-dozen countries. The situation of the town is very good at the head of the Niagara River is the outlet of Lake Erie; at the end of the great chain of the Western Lakes the commerce of twelve hundred miles of these broad waters is centered in this point, and condensed in the narrow passage of the Erie canal and Hudson River, till, at New York, it pours out its wealth into the Atlantic. The site has a gentle dip to the south, towards the lake; across it, lying nearly east and west, is the harbour, separated by a peninsula from the waters of the lake. This affords secure and ample shelter for the shipping, numerous though they be, which crowd in day and night. The town was born in the first year of the nineteenth century. The English totally destroyed it in 1814, in retaliation for the burning of Little York, or Toronto, by the Americans. The motley population number now twenty-five thousand souls; they possess sixty steam-boats, and more than three hundred sailing vessels. There are many large public buildings, erected by a very enterprising man-among the rest is jail, where he at present resides: he forged for large sums of money, bought land, ran up streets and market-places, indulged in various speculations, prospered for a long time, arrived at great respectability, till at length he committed the heinous, unpardonable crime of being found out; he was immediately cast into prison, by a virtuously indignant, but highly benefited people. This speculative and unfortunate individual's name is Rathbun. In Lake Erie is but shallow; the length is two hundred and forty, the breadth varies from forty to sixty miles, but there are many shoals and rocks, the causes of constant and dreadful losses. stormy weather, the seas are short and dangerous. The harbours are few and distant, and, during the winter, the navigation is much impeded by ice. The level is three hundred and thirty-four feet above Lake Ontario. Lake Huron is larger and deeper, Michigan still larger and deeper, Superior largest and deepest of all. In these waters, the Americans have a far greater quantity of shipping than the English. In the last war, on the 10th of September, 1813, this lake was the scene of one of their greatest triumphs; Commodore Perry destroyed or took the whole of the British squadron under Captain Barclay. After that engagement, the command of the navigation was retained by them. The gallant Barclay was frightfully wounded on this occasion, losing an arm and a leg. When he returned to England in this mutilated state, he did not venture to meet a young lady to whom he was engaged and tenderly attached, and sent a friend to inform her that she was free from her engagement. "Tell him," said the English maiden, that, had he only enough body left to hold his soul, I'll marry none but him." The first vessel that ever sailed on these Western seas was of sixty tons burthen, built in the Niagara River, in January, 1679: she was dragged up into Lake Erie, and started on her bold adventure, under the guidance of La Salle. In August they entered Lake Huron, through the St. Clair River, and here a violent storm assailed them. The stout hearts of La Salle and his sailors gave way to the terrors of these unknown waters: they knelt to pray, and prepared for death, except the pilot, who, as our old friend Father Hennepin says, "did nothing all that time but curse and swear against La Salle for having brought him thither to make him perish in a nasty lake, and lose the glory he had acquired by his long and happy navigation of the ocean." They, however, escaped this danger, |