The district situated between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, as it has been longest settled, so also is it the best-cultivated part of Western Canada. The vicinity to the two Great Lakes renders the climate more agreeable, by diminishing the severity of the winters and tempering the summers' heats. Fruits of various kind arrive at great perfection, cargoes of which are exported to Montreal, Quebec, and other places situated in the less genial parts of the eastern province. Mrs. Jameson speaks of this district as "superlatively beautiful." The only place approaching a town in size and the number of inhabitants, from the Falls along the shores of Lake Erie for a great distance, beyond even Grand River, is Chippewa, situated on the river Welland, or Chippewa, which empties itself into Niagara Strait, just where the rapids commence and navigation terminates. One or more steamers run between Chippewa and Buffalo. Chippewa is still but a small village, but, as it lies directly on the great route from the Western States of the Union to the Falls of Niagara and the Eastern States, it will probably rise into importance. Its greatest celebrity at present arises from the fact of there having been a great battle fought near by between the British and Americans in the war of 1812.
The line of navigation by the St. Lawrence did not extend beyond Lake Ontario until the Welland Canal was constructed. This important work is thirty-two miles long, and admits ships of one hundred and twenty-five guns, which is about the average tonnage of the trading-vessels on the lakes. The Niagara Strait is nearly parallel to the Welland Canal, and more than one third of it is not navigable. The canal, by opening this communication between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, has conferred an immense benefit on all the districts west of Ontario. The great Erie Canal has been still more beneficial, by connecting the lakes with New York and the Atlantic by the Hudson River, which the canal joins after a course of three hundred and sixty miles. The effect of these two canals was quickly perceptible in the increased activity of commerce on Lake Erie, and the Erie Canal has rendered this lake the great line of transit from New York to the Western States.
Lake Erie is the most shallow of all the lakes, its average depth being only sixty or seventy feet. Owing to this shallowness the lake is readily disturbed by the wind; and for this reason, and for its paucity of good harbors, it has the reputation of being the most dangerous to navigate of any of the Great Lakes. Neither are its shores as picturesquely beautiful as those of Ontario, Huron, and Superior. Still it is a lovely and romantic body of water, and its historic memories are interesting and important. In this last respect all the Great Lakes are remarkable. Some of the most picturesque and interesting chapters of our colonial and military history have for their scenes the shores and the waters of these vast inland seas. A host of great names—Champlain, Frontenac, La Salle, Marquette, Perry, Tecumseh, and Harrison—has wreathed the lakes with glory. The scene of the stirring events in which Pontiac was the conspicuous figure is now marked on the map by such names as Detroit, Sandusky, Green Bay, and Mackinaw. The thunder of the battles of Lundy's Lane and the Thames was heard not far off, and the very waters of Lake Erie were once canopied with the sulphur smoke from the cannon of Perry's conquering fleet.
We spent two days in Buffalo, and they were days well spent. This city is the second in size of the five Great Lake ports, being outranked only by Chicago. Founded in 1801, it now boasts of a population of one hundred and sixty thousand souls. The site is a plain, which, from a point about two miles distant from the lake, slopes gently to the water's edge. The city has a water front of two and a half miles on the lake and of about the same extent on Niagara River. It has one of the finest harbors on the lake. The public buildings are costly and imposing edifices, and many of the private residences are elegant. The pride of the city is its public park of five hundred and thirty acres, laid out by Frederick Law Olmstead in 1870. It has the reputation of being the healthiest city of the United States.
Buffalo was the home of Millard Fillmore, the thirteenth President of the United States. Here the great man spent the larger part of his life. He went there a poor youth of twenty, with four dollars in his pocket. He died there more than fifty years afterward worth one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and after having filled the highest offices his country could bestow upon him. He owned a beautiful and elegant residence in the city, situated on one of the avenues, with a frontage toward the lake, of which a fine view is obtained. It is a modern mansion, three stories in height, with large stately rooms. It looks very little different externally from some of its neighbors, but the fact that it was for thirty years the home of one of our Presidents gives it importance and invests it with historic charm.
On board a steamer bound for Detroit we again plowed the waves. The day was a delightful one; the morning had been cloudy and some rain had fallen, but by ten o'clock the sky was clear, and the sunbeams went dancing over the laughing waters. Hugh was on his high-horse, and full of historic reminiscences.
"Do you know that this year is the two hundredth anniversary of a remarkable event for this lake?" he began. "Well, it is. It was in 1681, in the summer of the year, that the keel of the first vessel launched in Western waters was laid at a point six miles this side of the Niagara Falls. She was built by Count Frontenac who named her the Griffen. I should like to have sailed in it."
"Its speed could hardly equal that of the Detroit," observed Vincent, complacently.
"You hard, cold utilitarian!" exclaimed the Historian; "who cares anything about that? It is the romance of the thing that would charm me."
"And the romance consists in its being distant. We always talk of the good old times as though they were really any better than our own age! It is a beautiful delusion. Don't you know how in walking the shady places are always behind us?"