[183] Mrs. Trollope, page [203], considers that the reason why the noise of the falls is not very great, is because they are not confined between high rocks, and I agree with her. Though the colossal Falls of Niagara may, doubtless, be called some of the greatest in the known world, yet Captain Back, in his "Journey to the Frozen Ocean," page 451, affirms, that the cataract, called by him "Parry's Fall," surpasses the former, and all others, in "splendour of effect."—Maximilian.
[184] See p. [169], for plan of Niagara Falls.—Ed.
[185] Goat Island was purchased (1816) from the state by Augustus Porter (for whom see Evans's Tour, in our volume viii, p. 178, note 35), who pastured a flock of goats thereon. About 1816 the first bridge was built, which was carried away during the succeeding winter. That built in 1818 endured until 1856, when it was replaced by an iron structure.—Ed.
[186] For Catlin, see our volume xxii, p. 32, note 9.—Ed.
[187] See our volume xxii, p. 39, note 15, for Charles Bonaparte, prince of Musignano and Canino.—Ed.
[188] See Plate 72, in the accompanying atlas, our volume xxv.—Ed.
[189] For the fall of this interesting eminence, see Bullock's Sketch, in our volume xix, p. 145, and note 13.—Ed.
[190] The Devil's Hole is a small ravine about two miles below Suspension Bridge, on the American side of Niagara River. The defeat here mentioned did not occur during the Revolution, as Maximilian intimates, but at the time of Pontiac's Conspiracy (1763). A company of traders, crossing by the Lewiston-Fort Schlosser portage, was ambushed by a band of Seneca, and driven over the precipice. Reinforcements of troops from Fort Niagara met with a similar fate, and fell into an ambush, when all but eight were slain. The relics of this massacre were long in evidence in the vicinity.—Ed.
[191] Lake Ontario is twice as deep as Lake Erie, and Volney considered it to be the crater of a volcano.—Maximilian.
[192] After their migration from North Carolina, the Tuscarora lived upon Oneida lands until the period of the American Revolution. When General John Sullivan raided the Iroquois territory (1779) he was ordered to spare the neutral Tuscarora; the British sympathizers among them fled to the English Fort Niagara, and after the war the majority of the tribe settled upon a tract a mile square, given them by the Seneca, two miles east of the fort. Later the Holland Land Company ceded to this tribe two square miles of contiguous territory, and still later the Tuscarora purchased 4,329 acres with the proceeds of a sale of their North Carolina lands. Here the majority of the tribe lives to this day. In 1813, their houses and church were burned by a raid of British Indians, whereupon the Tuscarora retreated to Oneida Castle, to return to their reservation at the close of the war. From 1838-46 there was agitation about removal, first to Wisconsin, later to Indian Territory. Of one band who went out (about 1846), a third died in a year, and many returned to their old homes. The Tuscarora are the most progressive Indians of the state of New York, having good farms and fine orchards; many desire to become citizens, and to have their lands allotted in severalty. See Bullock's Sketch, in our volume xix, p. 150, note 20.—Ed.