UNITED STATES CONTINUED.
Narrative of Lieutenant Hall's Journey from Niagara to Philadelphia.
Mr. Hall crossed the river from Fort Erie, and proceeded to Buffalo, one of the frontier villages which had been burnt during the great American war. Not a house had been left standing; yet, when Mr. Hall was there, it was not merely a flourishing village, but a considerable town, with good shops and hotels. The celerity with which Buffalo had risen from its ashes, indicates the juvenile spirit of life and increase, which so eminently distinguishes the American population.
As Mr. Hall proceeded on his journey, he found the country thickly settled, but dull and uniform in feature; being an entire flat. The autumn had been dry, and water was, in many places, extremely scarce. This is an evil not uncommon in newly-settled districts. Draining follows clearing; the creeks, no longer fed by the swamps, disencumbered also of fallen trunks of trees, and other substances, by which their waters were, in a great degree, stayed, easily run dry in summer, and soon fail altogether.
The principal inn at Batavia is large, and yet constructed upon an economical principle; for one roof covers hotel, prison, court-house, and assembly-room. The inhabitants were, at this time, building, by subscription, an episcopal church, the cost of which was to be twenty thousand dollars.
Caledonia is a small, but flourishing village, which has a handsome inn, with very comfortable accommodations; and, close to the road, is a large sheet of water, from which a clear and rapid stream descends, through a pleasing valley, into Allen's Creek, before the latter unites with the Genesee River. The banks of this creek are adorned with natural groves and copses, in which Mr. Hall observed the candleberry myrtle in great abundance: but a more interesting sight was afforded by numerous organic remains, with which the blocks of limestone, scattered through the low ground around it, are encrusted, as if with rude sculpture. These blocks are mixed with nodules of granite, and present innumerable forms, both of shells and aquatic plants. This district had been settled fifteen years; and, when Mr. Hall was here, cleared land was worth fifty dollars, and uncleared land about fifteen dollars per acre. At Avon Mr. Hall quitted the main road, and followed the right bank of the Genesee. The scenery, in the vicinity of this place, began to improve, but the roads were proportionally deteriorated. Wild even to savageness, mountain heights branched thickly across the country, with no seeming order or direction. The only level ground was in the narrow valleys, along the course of the streams.
The woods in the vicinity of the Genesee abound in large black squirrels, some of which are as big as a small cat. They are destructive to grain, and are, therefore, keenly pursued by sportsmen, who frequently make parties to kill them, and who destroy several thousands at one chase: their flesh is considered a great delicacy. These animals migrate, at different seasons; and have the credit of ingeniously ferrying themselves over rivers, by using a piece of bark for a raft, and their tails for sails.
Bath is embosomed in wild mountains. The principal houses are constructed round the three sides of a square, or green; and, as most of them were at this time new, white, and tastefully finished, they had a lively appearance, and were agreeably contrasted with the dark adjacent mountain scenery.
The road from Bath to Painted Post, though stony, is tolerably level. The adjacent mountains have a slaty appearance, with horizontal strata. Mr. Hall was disappointed at Painted Post, to find the post gone, broken down or rotted, within the last few years. It had been an Indian memorial, either of triumph or death, or of both.
When he was at Ancaster, this gentleman had been shown the grave of an Indian, among the woods, near the head of the stream: it was covered with boards, and a pole was erected at each end, on which a kind of dance was rudely painted with vermilion. The relatives of the deceased brought offerings to it daily, during their stay in the neighbourhood.