Letter XXX.Buffalo.—Cleveland.—Detroit.Steamer Oregon, Lake Huron, Off Thunder Bay,July24, 1846.As I approached the city of Buffalo the other morning, from the east, I found myself obliged to confess that much of the beauty of a country is owing to the season. For twenty or thirty miles before we reached Lake Erie, the fields of this fertile region looked more and more arid and sun-scorched, and I could not but contrast their appearance with that of the neighborhood of New York, where in a district comparatively sterile, an uncommonly showery season has kept the herbage fresh and deep, and made the trees heavy with leaves. Here, on the contrary, I saw meadows tinged by the drought with a reddish hue, pastures grazed to the roots of the grass, and trees spreading what seemed to me a meagre shade. Yet the harvests of wheat, and even of hay, in western New York, are said to be by no means scanty.Buffalo continues to extend on every side, but the late additions to the city do not much improve its beauty. Its nucleus of well-built streets does not seem to have grown much broader within the last five years, but the suburbs are rapidly spreading—small wooden houses, scattered or in clusters, built hastily for emigrants along unpaved and powdery streets. I saw, however, on a little excursion which I made into the surrounding country, that pleasant little neighborhoods are rising up at no great distance, with their neat houses, their young trees, and their new shrubbery. They have a fine building material at Buffalo—a sort of brown stone, easily wrought—but I was sorry to see that most of the houses built of it, both in the town and country, seemed to have stood for several years.We visited the new fort which the government is erecting on the lake, a little to the north of the town, commanding the entrance of Niagara river. It is small, but of wonderful apparent strength, with walls of prodigious thickness, and so sturdy in its defences that it seemed to me one might as well think of cannonading the cliffs of Weehawken. It is curious to see how, as we grow more ingenious in the means of attack, we devise more effectual means of defence. A castle of the middle ages, in which a grim warrior of that time would hold his enemies at bay for years, would now be battered down before breakfast. The finest old forts of the last century are now found to be unsafe against attack. That which we have at St. Augustine was an uncommonly good sample of its kind, but when I was in Florida, three or four years since, an engineer of the United States was engaged in reconstructing it. Do mankind gain any thing by these improvements, as they are called, in the art of war? Do not these more dreadful engines of attack on the one side, and these more perfect means of protection on the other, leave the balance just where it was before?On Tuesday evening, at seven o'clock, we took passage in the steamer Oregon, for Chicago, and soon lost sight of the roofs and spires of Buffalo. A lady of Buffalo on her way to Cleveland placed herself at the piano, and sang several songs with such uncommon sweetness and expression that I saw no occasion to be surprised at what I heard of the concert of Leopold de Meyer, at Buffalo, the night before. The concert room was crowded with people clinging to each other like bees when they swarm, and the whole affair seemed an outbreak of popular enthusiasm. A veteran teacher of music in Buffalo, famous for being hard to be pleased by any public musical entertainment, found himself unable to sit still during the first piece played by De Meyer, but rose, in the fullness of his delight, and continued standing. When the music ceased, he ran to him and shook both of his hands, again and again, with most uncomfortable energy. At the end of the next performance he sprang again on the platform and hugged the artist so rapturously that the room rang with laughter. De Meyer was to give another concert on Tuesday evening at Niagara Falls, and the people of Buffalo were preparing to follow him.The tastes of our people are certainly much changed within the last twenty years. A friend of ours used to relate, as a good joke, the conversation of two men, who came to the conclusion that Paganini was the greatest man in the world. They were only a little in advance of their age. If such are the honors reaped by De Meyer, we shall not be astonished if Sivori, when he comes over, passes for the greatest man of his time.The next morning found us with the southern shore of Lake Erie in sight—a long line of woods, with here and there a cluster of habitations on the shore. "That village where you see the light-house," said one of the passengers, who came from the hills of Maine, "is Grand River, and from that place to Cleveland, which is thirty miles distant, you have the most beautiful country under the sun—perfectly beautiful, sir; not a hill the whole way, and the finest farms that were ever seen; you can buy a good farm there for two thousand dollars." In two or three hours afterward we were at Cleveland, and I hastened on shore.It is situated beyond a steep bank of the lake, nearly as elevated as the shore at Brooklyn, which we call Brooklyn Heights. As I stood on the edge of this bank and looked over the broad lake below me, stretching beyond the sight and quivering in the summer wind, I was reminded of the lines of Southey:—"Along the bending line of shoreSuch hue is thrown as when the peacock's neckAssumes its proudest tint of amethyst,Embathed in emerald glory."But it was not only along the line of the shore that these hues prevailed; the whole lake glowed with soft amethystine and emerald tinges, in irregular masses, like the shades of watered silk. Cleveland stands in that beautiful country without a hill, of which my fellow-passenger spoke—a thriving village yet to grow into a proud city of the lake country. It is built upon broad dusty ways, in which not a pebble is seen in the fat dark earth of the lake shore, and which are shaded with locust-trees, the variety called seed-locust, with crowded twigs and clustered foliage—a tree chosen, doubtless, for its rapid growth, as the best means of getting up a shade at the shortest notice. Here and there were gardens filled with young fruit-trees; among the largest and hardiest in appearance was the peach-tree, which here spreads broad and sturdy branches, escapes the diseases that make it a short-lived tree in the Atlantic states, and produces fruit of great size and richness. One of my fellow-passengers could hardly find adequate expressions to signify his high sense of the deliciousness of the Cleveland peaches.I made my way to a street of shops: it had a busy appearance, more so than usual, I was told, for a company of circus-riders, whose tents I had seen from a distance on the lake, was in town, and this had attracted a throng of people from the country. I saw a fruit-stall tended by a man who had the coarsest red hair I think I ever saw, and of whom I bought two or three enormous "bough apples," as he called them. He apologized for the price he demanded. "The farmers," said he, "know that just now there is a call for their early fruit, while the circus people are in town, and they make me pay a 'igh price for it." I told him I perceived he was no Yankee. "I am a Londoner," he replied; "and I left London twelve years ago to slave and be a poor man in Ohio." He acknowledged, however, that he had two or three times got together some property, "but the Lord," he said, "laid his hand on it."On returning to the steamer, I found a party of country people, mostly young persons of both sexes, thin and lank figures, by no means equal, as productions of the country, to their bough apples. They passed through the fine spacious cabin on the upper deck, extending between the state-rooms the whole length of the steamer. At length they came to a large mirror, which stood at the stern, and seemed by its reflection to double the length of the cabin. They walked on, as if they would extend their promenade into the mirror, when suddenly observing the reflection of their own persons advancing, and thinking it another party, they politely made way to let it pass. The party in the mirror at the same moment turned to the same side, which first showed them the mistake they had made. The passengers had some mirth at their expense, but I must do our visitors the justice to say that they joined in the laugh with a very good grace.The same evening, at twelve o'clock, we were at Detroit. "You must lock your state-rooms in the night," said one of the persons employed about the vessel, "for Detroit is full of thieves." We followed the advice, slept soundly, and saw nothing of the thieves, nor of Detroit either, for the steamboat was again on her passage through Lake St. Clair at three this morning, and when I awoke we were moving over the flats, as they are called, at the upper end of the lake. The steamer was threading her way in a fog between large patches of sedge of a pea-green color. We had waited several hours at Detroit, because this passage is not safe at night, and steamers of a larger size are sometimes grounded here in the day-time.I had hoped, when I began, to bring down the narrative of my voyage to this moment, but my sheet is full, and I shall give you the remainder in another letter.
As I approached the city of Buffalo the other morning, from the east, I found myself obliged to confess that much of the beauty of a country is owing to the season. For twenty or thirty miles before we reached Lake Erie, the fields of this fertile region looked more and more arid and sun-scorched, and I could not but contrast their appearance with that of the neighborhood of New York, where in a district comparatively sterile, an uncommonly showery season has kept the herbage fresh and deep, and made the trees heavy with leaves. Here, on the contrary, I saw meadows tinged by the drought with a reddish hue, pastures grazed to the roots of the grass, and trees spreading what seemed to me a meagre shade. Yet the harvests of wheat, and even of hay, in western New York, are said to be by no means scanty.
Buffalo continues to extend on every side, but the late additions to the city do not much improve its beauty. Its nucleus of well-built streets does not seem to have grown much broader within the last five years, but the suburbs are rapidly spreading—small wooden houses, scattered or in clusters, built hastily for emigrants along unpaved and powdery streets. I saw, however, on a little excursion which I made into the surrounding country, that pleasant little neighborhoods are rising up at no great distance, with their neat houses, their young trees, and their new shrubbery. They have a fine building material at Buffalo—a sort of brown stone, easily wrought—but I was sorry to see that most of the houses built of it, both in the town and country, seemed to have stood for several years.
We visited the new fort which the government is erecting on the lake, a little to the north of the town, commanding the entrance of Niagara river. It is small, but of wonderful apparent strength, with walls of prodigious thickness, and so sturdy in its defences that it seemed to me one might as well think of cannonading the cliffs of Weehawken. It is curious to see how, as we grow more ingenious in the means of attack, we devise more effectual means of defence. A castle of the middle ages, in which a grim warrior of that time would hold his enemies at bay for years, would now be battered down before breakfast. The finest old forts of the last century are now found to be unsafe against attack. That which we have at St. Augustine was an uncommonly good sample of its kind, but when I was in Florida, three or four years since, an engineer of the United States was engaged in reconstructing it. Do mankind gain any thing by these improvements, as they are called, in the art of war? Do not these more dreadful engines of attack on the one side, and these more perfect means of protection on the other, leave the balance just where it was before?
On Tuesday evening, at seven o'clock, we took passage in the steamer Oregon, for Chicago, and soon lost sight of the roofs and spires of Buffalo. A lady of Buffalo on her way to Cleveland placed herself at the piano, and sang several songs with such uncommon sweetness and expression that I saw no occasion to be surprised at what I heard of the concert of Leopold de Meyer, at Buffalo, the night before. The concert room was crowded with people clinging to each other like bees when they swarm, and the whole affair seemed an outbreak of popular enthusiasm. A veteran teacher of music in Buffalo, famous for being hard to be pleased by any public musical entertainment, found himself unable to sit still during the first piece played by De Meyer, but rose, in the fullness of his delight, and continued standing. When the music ceased, he ran to him and shook both of his hands, again and again, with most uncomfortable energy. At the end of the next performance he sprang again on the platform and hugged the artist so rapturously that the room rang with laughter. De Meyer was to give another concert on Tuesday evening at Niagara Falls, and the people of Buffalo were preparing to follow him.
The tastes of our people are certainly much changed within the last twenty years. A friend of ours used to relate, as a good joke, the conversation of two men, who came to the conclusion that Paganini was the greatest man in the world. They were only a little in advance of their age. If such are the honors reaped by De Meyer, we shall not be astonished if Sivori, when he comes over, passes for the greatest man of his time.
The next morning found us with the southern shore of Lake Erie in sight—a long line of woods, with here and there a cluster of habitations on the shore. "That village where you see the light-house," said one of the passengers, who came from the hills of Maine, "is Grand River, and from that place to Cleveland, which is thirty miles distant, you have the most beautiful country under the sun—perfectly beautiful, sir; not a hill the whole way, and the finest farms that were ever seen; you can buy a good farm there for two thousand dollars." In two or three hours afterward we were at Cleveland, and I hastened on shore.
It is situated beyond a steep bank of the lake, nearly as elevated as the shore at Brooklyn, which we call Brooklyn Heights. As I stood on the edge of this bank and looked over the broad lake below me, stretching beyond the sight and quivering in the summer wind, I was reminded of the lines of Southey:
—"Along the bending line of shoreSuch hue is thrown as when the peacock's neckAssumes its proudest tint of amethyst,Embathed in emerald glory."
—"Along the bending line of shoreSuch hue is thrown as when the peacock's neckAssumes its proudest tint of amethyst,Embathed in emerald glory."
But it was not only along the line of the shore that these hues prevailed; the whole lake glowed with soft amethystine and emerald tinges, in irregular masses, like the shades of watered silk. Cleveland stands in that beautiful country without a hill, of which my fellow-passenger spoke—a thriving village yet to grow into a proud city of the lake country. It is built upon broad dusty ways, in which not a pebble is seen in the fat dark earth of the lake shore, and which are shaded with locust-trees, the variety called seed-locust, with crowded twigs and clustered foliage—a tree chosen, doubtless, for its rapid growth, as the best means of getting up a shade at the shortest notice. Here and there were gardens filled with young fruit-trees; among the largest and hardiest in appearance was the peach-tree, which here spreads broad and sturdy branches, escapes the diseases that make it a short-lived tree in the Atlantic states, and produces fruit of great size and richness. One of my fellow-passengers could hardly find adequate expressions to signify his high sense of the deliciousness of the Cleveland peaches.
I made my way to a street of shops: it had a busy appearance, more so than usual, I was told, for a company of circus-riders, whose tents I had seen from a distance on the lake, was in town, and this had attracted a throng of people from the country. I saw a fruit-stall tended by a man who had the coarsest red hair I think I ever saw, and of whom I bought two or three enormous "bough apples," as he called them. He apologized for the price he demanded. "The farmers," said he, "know that just now there is a call for their early fruit, while the circus people are in town, and they make me pay a 'igh price for it." I told him I perceived he was no Yankee. "I am a Londoner," he replied; "and I left London twelve years ago to slave and be a poor man in Ohio." He acknowledged, however, that he had two or three times got together some property, "but the Lord," he said, "laid his hand on it."
On returning to the steamer, I found a party of country people, mostly young persons of both sexes, thin and lank figures, by no means equal, as productions of the country, to their bough apples. They passed through the fine spacious cabin on the upper deck, extending between the state-rooms the whole length of the steamer. At length they came to a large mirror, which stood at the stern, and seemed by its reflection to double the length of the cabin. They walked on, as if they would extend their promenade into the mirror, when suddenly observing the reflection of their own persons advancing, and thinking it another party, they politely made way to let it pass. The party in the mirror at the same moment turned to the same side, which first showed them the mistake they had made. The passengers had some mirth at their expense, but I must do our visitors the justice to say that they joined in the laugh with a very good grace.
The same evening, at twelve o'clock, we were at Detroit. "You must lock your state-rooms in the night," said one of the persons employed about the vessel, "for Detroit is full of thieves." We followed the advice, slept soundly, and saw nothing of the thieves, nor of Detroit either, for the steamboat was again on her passage through Lake St. Clair at three this morning, and when I awoke we were moving over the flats, as they are called, at the upper end of the lake. The steamer was threading her way in a fog between large patches of sedge of a pea-green color. We had waited several hours at Detroit, because this passage is not safe at night, and steamers of a larger size are sometimes grounded here in the day-time.
I had hoped, when I began, to bring down the narrative of my voyage to this moment, but my sheet is full, and I shall give you the remainder in another letter.