Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 1

by Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle

Queenston is a poor place; it has never gained an inch since the war of 1812; but, as a railroad has been established, and a wharf is building in connection with it, it will go ahead. Opposite to it is Lewiston, in the United States, less ancient and time-worn, full of gaudily-painted wooden houses, and with much more pretension. Queenston looks like an old English hamlet in decay; melancholy and miserable; Lewiston is the type of newness, all white and green, all unfinished and all uncomfortable.

The odious bar-room system of the Northern States is fast sweeping away all vestiges of English comfort. The practice of lounging, cigar in mouth, sipping juleps and alcoholic decoctions in common with smugglers and small folk, is fast unhinging society. The plan of social economy in the mercantile cities is rapidly spreading over the whole Union, and the fashion of ladies' drawing-rooms being absorbed into the parlour of an hotel or boarding-house has brought about a change which the next generation will lament.

It is the restless rage for politics, the ever present desire for dollars, which has brought about this state of things; the young husband seeks the bar-room as a merchant does the Change; and thus, except in the wealthy class, or among the contemplative and retired, there is no such thing as private life in the northern cities and towns. Huge taverns, real wooden gin palaces, tower over the tops of all other buildings, in every border village, town, and city; and a good bar is a better business than any other. Thus in Lewiston, in Buffalo, in short, in every American border town, the best building is the tavern, and the next best the meeting-house; both are fashionable, and both are anything but what they should be; for he who keeps the best liquors, and he who preaches most pointedly to the prevailing taste, makes the most of his trade. The voluntary system is a capital speculation to the publican as well as to the parson; but, unfortunately, it is more general with the former than with the latter.

The Niagara frontier is a rich and a fertile portion of Canada, surrounded almost by water, and intersected by rivers, and the Welland Canal, with an undulating surface in the interior. It grows wheat, Indian corn, and all the cereal gramina to perfection, whilst Pomona lavishes favours on it; nor are its woods less prolific and luxuriant. Here the chestnut, with its deep green foliage and its white flowers, forms a pleasing variety to the sylvan scenery of Canada.

It would be, from its healthiness alone, the pleasantest part of Canada to live in, but it is too near the borders where sympathizers, more keen and infinitely more barbarous than those on the ancient Tweed, render property and life rather precarious; and, therefore, in war or in rebellion, the Niagara frontier is not an enviable abode for the peaceable farmer or the timid female.

The ascent to the plateau above Queenston is grand, and the view from the summit very extensive and magnificent; embracing such a stretch of cultivated land, of forest, of the habitations of men, and of the apparently boundless Ontario, the Beautiful Lake, that it can scarcely be rivalled.

The railroad has, however, spoiled a good deal of this; it runs from the summit of the mountain, along its side or flank, inland to Chippewa, beyond the Falls; and you are whirled along, not by steam, but by three trotting horses, at a rapid rate, through a wood road, until you reach the Falls, where you obtain just a glimpse and no more of the Cataract.

On the top of the mountain, as a hill four or five hundred feet above the river is called, is a place which was the scene of an awful accident. The precipice wall of the gorge of the Niagara is very close to the road, but hidden from it by stunted firs and bushes. Colonel Nichols, an officer well known and distinguished in the last American war, was returning one winter's night, when the fresh snow rendered all tracks on the road imperceptible, in his sleigh with a gallant horse. Merrily on they went; the night was dark, and the road makes a sudden turn just at the brink, to descend by a circuitous sweep the face of the hill into Queenston. Either the driver or the horse mistook the path, and, instead of turning to the left, went on edging to the right.

The next day search was made: the marks of struggling were observed on the snow; the horse had evidently observed his danger; he had floundered and dashed wildly about; but horse, sleigh, and driver, went down, down, down, at least two hundred feet into the abyss below; and sufficient only remained to bear witness to the terrific result.

The railroad (three horse power) takes you to the Falls or to Chippewa. If you intend visiting the former, and desire to go to the Clifton House, the best hotel there, you are dropped at Mr. Lanty Mac Gilly's, where the four roads meet, one going to the Ferry, one to Drummondville, a village at Lundy's Lane, now cut off from the main road; the other you came by, and the continuation of which goes to Chippewa, where a steamer, called the Emerald, is ready to take you to the city of Buffalo in the United States. As I shall return by way of Buffalo from the extreme west of Canada, we will say not a word about any thing further on this route at present than the Falls, and perhaps the reader may think the less that is said about them the better.