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allowed freely enough to see there employ- than the one preceding, as its subject is also ed, but not at their meals. He then hurries much superior, in respect of the various inon to Baltimore, the appearance of which he teresting objects it presents. Boz does not dismisses in a few lines, but (as usual) soon particularly excel in descriptions of scenegets into the Penitentiary, and describes ry; but some of his sketches are very pretty, some of its inmates. Before quitting Balti- and a few beautiful. In noticing this part of more, he "sits for two evenings looking at his book, we may observe, that he falls here, the setting sun," which comes out for him and in many other places, into the error of on the occasion in quite a new character, attempting to describe events in the present viz. that of a "planet." (!) We are not de- tense and first person-abruptly passing into tained long at Harrisburgh. Boz makes it, moreover, from the ordinary style of the some just and very touching observations on narrative in the past tense. Successfully to the subject of the treaties entered into (some imitate the illustrious ancient original, in of which are here shown him) between the this mode of narrating past transactions, so poor unsophisticated Indian chiefs and the as to place the reader really in the midst of wealthy over-reaching white tradesmen. them, requires rare powers, and even these a very sparingly exercised. That great master, Sir Walter Scott, disdained all such artifices; yet see how you are bounding along, panting and breathless, with the excitement of the scene he lays before you! To return, however. Some humble and indigent settlers, quitting the boat and set ashore in the desolate regions to which they have betaken themselves, are described by Boz with great feeling and beauty. Poor souls! he makes our hearts ache for them. The following is one of the best passages in the book!

"I was very much interested in looking over number of treaties made from time to time with the poor Indians, signed by the different chiefs at the period of their ratification, and preserved in the of fice of the Secretary of the Commonwealth. These signatures, traced of course by their own hands, are rough drawings of the creatures or weapons they were called after. Thus, the Great Turtle makes a crooked pen-and-ink outline of a great turtle; the Buffalo sketches a buffalo; the War Hatchet sets a rough image of that weapon for his mark. So with the Arrow, the Fish, the Scalp, the Big Canoe, and all of them.

"I could not but think-as I looked at these fee. ble and tremulous productions of hands which could draw the longest arrow to the head in a stout elkhorn bow, or split a bead or feather with a rifle-ball -of Crabbe's musings over the Parish Register, and the irregular scratches made with a pen, by men who would plough a lengthy furrow straight from end to end. Nor could I help bestowing many sorrowful thoughts upon the simple warriors whose hands and hearts were set there, in all truth and honesty; and who only learned in course of time from white men how to break their faith, and quibble out of forms and bonds. I wondered, too, how many times the credulous Big Turtle, or trusting Little Hatchet, had put his mark to treaties which were falsely read to him; and had signed away, he knew not what, until it went and cast him loose upon the new possessors of the land, a savage."

Then we make a long and dreary passage in a canal-boat, whose domestic economy, passengers and passages, are described at great length. He uses here a favorite comparison in speaking of steam-boat beds which he mistakes for "long tiers of hanging book

shelves."

Fifteen pages are devoted to the details of this truly miserable passage. There is one capital sketch, however, to enliven the dreariness-the settler "from the brown forests of the Mississippi." From Pittsburgh, "the Birmingham of England," Boz hastens, after a three days' stay, to Cincinnati, in a "western steam-boat ;" this, again, being described at great length, but better

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Five men, as many women, and a little girl. All their worldly goods are a bag, a large chest, and an old chair: one old, high-backed, rush-bottomed chair: a solitary settler in itself. They are rowed ashore in the boat, while the vessel stands a little off awaiting its return, the water being shallow. They are landed at the foot of a high bank, on the summit of which are a few log cabins, attainable only by a long winding path. It is growing dusk; but the sun is very red, and shines in the water and on some of the tree-tops like fire.

The men get out of the boat first: help out the women; take out the bag, the chest, the chair; bid the rowers good-bye;' and shove the boat off for them. At the first plash of the oars in the water, the oldest woman of the party sits down in the old chair, close to the water's edge, without speaking a word. None of the others sit down, though the chest is large enough for many seats. They all stand where they landed, as if stricken into stone; and look after the boat. So they remain quite still and silent; the old woman and her old chair, in the centre; the bag and chest upon the shore, without any body heeding them: all eyes fixed upon the boat. It comes alongside, is made fast, the men jump on board, the engine is put in motion, and we go hoarsely on again. There they stand yet, withont the motion of a hand. I can see them, through my glass, when, in the distance and increasing darkness, they are mere specks to the eye lingering there still the old woman in the old chair, and all the rest about her: not stirring in the least degree. And thus I slowly lose them."

Cincinnati is soon dismissed. Boz witnesses a temperance procession here. We

catch a glimpse of a court of justice, trying | save for these differences, one might be travela nuisance cause:ling just now in Kent.

"There were not many spectators; and the witnesses, counsel, and jury formed a family circle, sufficiently jocose and snug."

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"We often stop to water at a road-side inn, which is always dull and silent. The coachman dismounts and fills his bucket, and holds it to the horses' heads. There is scarcely ever any one to help him; there are seldom any loungers standing round, and never any stablecompany with jokes to crack. Sometimes, when we have changed our team, there is a difficulty in starting again, arising out of the prevalent

Excellent! Pushing on, in another steamer, to Louisville, Boz has a god-send, in the shape of one Pitchlynn," a chief of the "Choctau tribe of Indians, who sent in his card to Boz"-and, being admitted, uncon-mode of breaking a young horse; which is to sciously sat for a full-length sketch. On his way to Portland, Boz has a capital sketch of a magistrate's office :

catch him, harness him against his will, and put him in a stage coach without further notice: but we get on somehow or other, after a great many kicks and a violent struggle; and jog on as before again.

"On our way to Portland, we passed a 'Magistrate's office, which amused me as looking far "Occasionally when we stop to change, some more like a dame school than any police estab-two or three half-drunken loafers will come loitlishment: for this awful institution was nothing ering out with their hands in their pockets, or but a little lazy, good-for-nothing front parlor, will be seen kicking their heels in rocking chairs, open to the street; wherein two or three figures, or lounging on the window sill, or sitting on a (I presume the magistrate and his myrmidons) rail within the colonnade: they have not often were basking in the sunshine, the very effigies any thing to say though, either to us or to each of languor and repose. It was a perfect picture other, but sit there idly staring at the coach and of Justice retired from business for want of cus-horses. The landlord of the inn is usually among tomers; her sword and scales sold off; napping comfortably with her legs upon the table."

Then follows an anecdote of two pigs; which, if seriously told as a fact, is one of the drollest realities we ever met with.

them, and seems, of all the party, to be the least connected with the business of the house. Indeed, he is with reference to the tavern, what the driver is in relation to the coach and passengers: whatever happens in his sphere of action, he is quite indifferent, and perfectly easy in his mind."

"First of all I heard him say: and the most

The "famous Mississippi" river ought (Boz et omnibus aliis testantibus) to be ra- While lying in bed, in the steam-boat, in ther called "the infamous Mississippi." passing from Sandusky to Buffalo, Boz unBoz is particularly furious against it; ex-avoidably overhears a fellow-traveller thus hausting upon it his vocabulary of execra- addressing his wife :tion. Mr. Hamilton, however, forms a dif ferent opinion of its merits at all events, ludicrous part of the business was, that he said of its scenery; of which he gives a most it in my very ear, and could not have communistriking and picturesque description. A cated more directly with me if he had leaned young mother, returning with eager pride upon my shoulder and whispered me: 'Boz is and fondness to her husband, accompanied on board still, my dear. After a considerable by her infant, which he has not yet seen, pause, he added complainingly, 'Boz keeps himgives Boz an opportunity of exhibiting both self very close:' which was true enough, for I his peculiar excellences and faults; the lat-book. I thought he had done with me after was not very well, and was lying down with a ter being (in this instance) an over-anxious straining after effect-a sort of business like determination to make the most of a luckily occurring incident. We refer the reader to it.-Boz undertakes an expedition to the Looking-glass Prairies. His account of them is not very interesting; but they "disappointed" Boz, who is therefore excused. Here is a specimen of an Amercan high-road!

"Our way lies though a beautiful country, richly cultivated, and luxuriant in its promise of an abundant harvest. Sometimes we pass a field where the strong bristling stalks of Indian corn look like a crop of walking-sticks, and sometimes an enclosure where the green wheat is springing up among a labyrinth of stumps; the primitive worm fence is universal, and an ugly thing it is; but the farms are neatly kept, and

this, but I was deceived; for a long interval having elapsed, during which I imagine him to have been turning restlessly from side to side, and trying to go to sleep; he broke out again with, I suppose that Boz will be writing a book bye and bye, and putting all our names in it!' at which imaginary consequence of being on board a boat with Boz, he groaned, and became silent."

This was on his way to view that grand object of attraction to travellers in America

the Falls of Niagara. Shall we own that we trembled at accompanying Boz to Niaagara? Not that we doubted his ability to appreciate that stupendous scene; but knowing how he must have been aware of having set every one on tiptoe to read his description of Niagara, and how naturally anxious he would be to fulfil expectation,

we feared that he would, as it were, flag, | of stupendous and irresistible power. There and work himself up to the proper pitch- seems nothing like it upon the earth, and would make desperate exertions to do jus- it requires first-rate powers to speak of tice to his subject, and show the public what surprising reflections Niagara can suggest to a man of genius. How many at least, of his predecessors, have done the same-have gone swelling like little frogs, and burst at the base of Niagara !

As for ourselves, we have read all that has been written on the subject, by those from whom (whether Americans, or English, or other visitors to America) we had a right to expect the best things; and we have also conversed with several such. We have besides, to our sorrow, read many "Descriptions" and "Sketches" of Niagara, which exhibited in truth only the spasms of weakness in their inflated writers. have ourselves an intense desire to visit the We Falls; but we much fear that-if we must needs write-we also should, in our turn, share the fate of the aforesaid frogs, and leave our little body to bleach amidst their spray! To be serious-we would not give a fig for our own impressions, or subsequent descriptions of Niagara, unless they were the natural and spontaneous results of our observation, and not the forced product of one who had gone with a pre-determination to publish an account of Fancy, indeed, a mere book-maker

them. inspecting Niagara!

it, after having witnessed it, without ex-
travagance and bombast. How finely does
Mr. Duncan prepare the mind for the great
scene, by quietly pointing out to you what
makes you gradually draw in your breath
and hold back-we mean the smooth silent
surface of confluent waters, flowing irresis-
tibly onwards to the dread verge!

considerably, that vessels cannot with safety
"The rapidity of the stream soon increases so
venture further.
soon obvious on the surface of the water. Nei-
The change becomes very
ther waves, however, nor any violent agitation
is visible for some time: you see only

"The torrent's smoothness ere it dash below.'

view of the rapid, nearly a mile in length, the
Great Fall."
immediate and most appropriate prelude to the

a little eddying whirl, run along near the shore, Dimples and indented lines, with here and there betokening at once the depth of the channel, the vast body of water, and the accelerated impetus with which it hurries along. Every straw, also, that floats past, though motionless upon the boripple, is the index of an irresistible influence som of the river, and undisturbed by a single which sweeps to one common issue all within its grasp. Goat Island, the lowest of all, now appears, inserted like a wedge in the centre of the stream. By it the river is divided into two currents, which issue into two great Falls: and the rocky declivity, over which an extensive rapid nearer channel shelves down into a deep and foams and rushes with prodigious fury. Before reaching the Island, the traveller remarks at a Of the many descriptions which we distance the agitated billows, then the whitehave seen of this magnificent and stupen-crested breakers, and at length he has a full dous object, which Mr. Stuart compares to "a great deep ocean thrown over a precipice 160 feet high," we think that the best, in point of minute and distinct information as to its physical characteristics, and of the images and reflections which it is calculated to suggest to a person of superior qualification, are those of Mr. Duncan, Mr. Howison, and Captain Basil Hall. The first, in his Travels through the United States; the second, in his Sketches of Upper Canada (Ed. 1822); the third, in his Travels in America (1829). Each of these is a disciplined observer, whom it is delightful to matter-of-fact comparison, by an American The following brief and accompany. Their descriptions are in the minister, we are assured by Mr. Stuart, highest degree graphic, vivid, distinct, and gives, nevertheless, "as simple and intellisober; no competent reader will fail to pe-gible a description as a mere verbal picture ruse them without profound and thrilling of the spectacle can be." "Imagine the interest. You do not see one single glimpse Frith of Forth rushing wrathfully down a in them of the writer, who completely oc- steep descent, then leaping foaming over a cupies your expanding imagination with the perpendicular rock 175 feet high, and then tremendous object which had overpowered flowing away in the semblance of milk from his own. By such men, Niagara is looked a vast basin of emerald!" at with worthy eyes. Their accounts all concur in filling the mind with images of awful grandeur, of a sort of terrible beauty, VOL. I. No. II.

25

Would that our space admitted of our giving the description which ensues, of the Falls. One little touch, however, we must not omit.-"The craggy end of Goat Island is more precipitous and grand. A bald eagle was perched upon its very edge, and close by the side of the Fall, and waved its pinions in safety over the profound abyss." Oh, fortunate incident, and how finely taken advantage of!

Mr. Howison gives the following striking account of the scenes which must be passed to reach the bottom of the Falls:

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"A high but sloping bank extends from its not possible to embody in words any adequate base to the edge of the river; and on the sum- description. The spectator at first feels as if mit of this, there is a narrow slippery path, cov-stricken with catalepsy. His blood ceases to ered with angular fragments of rock, which flow, or rather is sent back in overpowering presleads to the Great Fall. The impending cliffs, sure on the heart. He gasps, like a drowning hung with a profusion of trees and brushwood, man,' to catch a mouthful of breath. All eleoverarch this road, and seem to vibrate with the ments of soul and sense' are absorbed in the thunder of the cataract. In some places, they magnitude and glory of one single object. The rise abruptly to the height of a hundred feet, and past and future are obliterated, and he stands display upon their surfaces, fossil shells, and the mute and powerless, in the presence of that scene organic remains of a former world, thus sublime- of awful splendor on which his gaze is riveted. ly leading the mind to contemplate the convul- "In attempting to convey to those who have sions which nature has undergone since the never visited the Falls, any notion of the impresCreation. As the traveller advances, he is fright- sion which they produce, I believe it is impossifully stunned by the appalling noise; clouds of ble to escape the charge of exaggeration. The spray sometimes envelope him, and suddenly penalty is one which I am prepared to pay. But check his faltering steps; rattle-snakes start the objects presented by Niagara are undoubtedfrom the cavities of the rocks, and the scream of Iy among those which exercise a permanent ineagles, soaring among the whirlwinds of eddying fluence on the imagination of the spectator--the vapor which obscure the gulf of the cataract, at hour--the minute-when his eye first rested on intervals announce that the raging waters have the Great Horse-shoe Fall, is an epoch in the hurled some bewildered animal over the preci- life of any man. He gazes on a scene of splenpice. After scrambling in among piles of huge dor and sublimity far greater than the unaided rocks that obstruct his way, the traveller gains fancy of poet or painter ever pictured. He has the bottom of the Fall, where the soul can be received an impression which time cannot dimisusceptible only of one emotion-that of uucon- nish, and death only can efface. The results of trollable terror." that single moment will extend through a lifetime, enlarge the sphere of thought, and influence the whole tissue of his moral being."

Now, however, for Boz at Niagara.

"It was not until I came on Table-rock' and looked-Great Heaven! on what a fall of

bright green water!-that it came upon me in its full might and majesty.

"Then, when I felt how near to my Creator I was standing [!]-the first effect, and the enduring one-instant and lasting-of the tremendous spectacle, was PEACE. [] Peace of mind [!]— tranquillity [!]—calm recollections of the deadgreat thoughts of eternal rest and happiness-nothing of gloom or terror. Niagara was at once stamped on my heart an image of Beauty, to remain there, changeless and indelible, until its pulses cease to beat."

After lingering about Niagara for ten days, in a sort of trance or ecstasy, Boz takes leave of it in the following passage, containing a bold and striking image, but somewhat startling to our geological notions.

"But always does the mighty stream appear to die as it comes down, and always from its unfathomed grave arises that tremendous ghost of spray and mist which is never laid; which has haunted this place with the same dread solemnity since darkness brooded on the deep, and that first flood before the deluge--light-came rushing on Creation at the Word of God."

Boz is a man of unquestionable genius; but this (and there is more like it) is quite unworthy of him; it is wretched, in most Does Boz, then, really imagine this wa seriously questionable taste, and gives an terfall to have stood here since the Crea utterly improbable and inconceivable ac- tion-in "this place?" Does he make no count of the real state of his feelings at the allowance for wear and tear (!) during near. time-unless, indeed, his mind is very oddly ly six thousand years? Those who have constituted. Many observations occur to resided at the spot for thirty or forty years, us on the foregoing paragraph; but we real-tell us that the falls have receded forty or ly love Boz, and shall abstain from them. fifty yards during that time. Dr. Dwight Boz is greatly outdone in what he has written about Niagara, by the following elo. quent, albeit a little inflated, passage from Mr. Hamilton, which we give to enable the reader to compare the two men ; and because we suspect Boz had read it, and unconsciously adopted its tone.

"In a few minutes I found myself standing on the very brink of this tremendous, yet most beautiful cataract.

"The spot from which I first beheld it was the Table-rock, and of the effect produced by the overwhelming sublimity of the spectacle, it is

says they have receded a hundred yards in that time. Whoever, indeed, observes and considers the structure of the land between the two lakes, Erie and Ontario, between which the present site of the Falls is equidistant, will be satisfied of the great recession of the Falls. Lake Erie is 334 feet the descent, the land does not slope graduhigher than Lake Ontario; and, to make ally to the southward, but stretches in broad plains, and descends by precipices. The last and principal of these abrupt declivities, is at Lewiston, eight miles from

of the probable final consequences of the recession of the Falls.

are, to their religious services, on the ground of the insult and interruption they have experienced from visitors. Mr. Hamilton was, however, more fortunate in 1830, and gives an interesting account of them, and a specimen of what he witnessed in their proceedings.

the cataract; and at this place (not "this place" spoken of by Boz) must have been what we may take as the original site of Boz's account of Canada is not very inthe cataract; but how long ago the river be- teresting. At Toronto he takes the opporgan to cut this vast chasm, and how long it tunity of making an uncalled-for and irritawill take to extend it to Lake Erie, who can ting political allusion:-In speaking of an tell? Dr. Dwight considers that, taking the election, at which the successful candidates average at a hundred yards in thirty years, were fired at, and their coachman nearly the degree of recession would be more than killed, from a window where a certain flag sufficient to have proceeded the whole dis- was waving, Boz observes, "Of all the coltance from Queenston, since the Deluge, ors in the rainbow, there is but one which even should we compute according to the could be so employed: [viz., sheltering a commonly received chronology. The pro- murderer in the commission, and from the cess, he adds, would be, however, of course consequences, of his crime,] I need not say, far from uniform. In seasons marked by that flag was Orange." What, Boz! And great and sudden changes of temperature, has not THE TRICOLOR sheltered every spethe decomposition of the rock would be cies of crime that can be committed by man? more rapid and extensive. Physical cir- To proceed, however: Boz stayed there but cumstances may have at least co-operated a short time, and, after having been most in forming the channel; and the mass of hospitably entertained, returned to America; limestone to be worked through. may be on his way to New York going in quest of supposed to diminish in depth towards the the grotesque, to the Shaker Village. He termination of the ridge. Whether, how-is refused admission, as all strangers here ever (as justly observed by Mr. Conder), "the process has been suddenly, or more or less gradually effected, this at least may be considered to be ascertained-that the objections urged against the truth of the Mosaic account of the Creation, founded on the number of years which must have elapsed since the Falls commenced their retrocesThen comes chapter viii.-"The Passage sion, are utterly gratuitous, and not less Home," which is described with liveliness unphilosophical than irreligious." We do and spirit: Boz being installed president of not, of course, intend to enter into the calcu- a daily-tilting jovial "association" below lations and speculations of Mr. Lyell with the mast. Their passage is diversified by reference to Niagara and the confirmation no such stirring incidents as had attended which he considers it to afford his geologi- their passage out. His account of the huncal theory as to the age of the earth. His dred emigrants returning home in the same calculations (we speak from recollection) ship, disconsolate and utterly ruined, is founded on the geological examination of painfully interesting and instructive. Boz the locality in question, are to this ef- concludes his travels with the following fect-that at the rate of about forty yards cheerful notice of the journey by railroad, in fifty years (or fifty yards in forty years), from Liverpool to London :it would require a period of 10,000 years for the Falls to have receded from Lewiston to their present site-viz. a space of eight miles; and 30,000 years to reach Lake Erie-viz. twenty-five miles. Whether or not the premises from which these conclusions with their somewhat startling consequences are drawn be correct, it is no part of our present duty to inquire. We may add, that he shows from the present shallowness of Lake Erie, and the probable immense interval of time required for the recession of There are two supplementary chapters:the Falls to that Lake, that there is no The first is "On Slavery," and, though conground to apprehend the frightful and deso-taining one or two passages of justly indig lating effects which have been anticipated nant eloquence, is deficient in sobriety, and from such an event. We refer the reader communicates nothing new on the execrato Dr. Dwight's Travels in New England and ble vice of slavery. Into the other and last New York (vol. iv. p. 92), for an account chapter, "Concluding Remarks," are com

"The country by the railroad seemed, as we rattled through it, like a luxuriant garden. The beauty of the fields, (so small they looked!) the hedge-rows, and the trees; the pretty cottages, the beds of flowers, the old church-yards, the antique houses, and every well-known object: the exquisite delights of that one journey, crowding in the short compass of a summer's day the joy of that makes it dear: no tongue can tell, or pen of many years, and winding up with Home and all mine describe."

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