Our journey now became wilder every step, the unbroken forest often skirted the road for miles, and the sight of a log-hut was an event.  Yet the road was, for the greater part of the day, good, running along a natural ridge, just wide enough for it.  This ridge is a very singular elevation, and, by all the enquiry I could make, the favourite theory concerning it is, that it was formerly the boundary of Lake Ontario, near which it passes.  When this ridge ceased, the road ceased too, and for the rest of the way to Lockport, we were most painfully jumbled and jolted over logs and through bogs, till every joint was nearly dislocated.

Lockport is beyond all comparison, the strangest looking place I ever beheld.  As fast as half a dozen trees were cut down, a factory was raised up; stumps still contest the ground with pillars, and porticos are seen to struggle with rocks.  It looks as if the demon of machinery, having invaded the peaceful realms of nature, had fixed on Lockport as the battle-ground on which they should strive for mastery.  The fiend insists that the streams should go one way, though the gentle mother had ever led their dancing steps another; nay, the very rocks must fall before him, and take what form he wills.  The battle is lost and won.  Nature is fairly routed and driven from the field, and the rattling, crackling, hissing, spitting demon has taken possession of Lockport for ever.

We slept there, dismally enough.  I never felt more out of humour at what the Americans call improvement; it is, in truth, as it now stands, a most hideous place, and gladly did I leave it behind me.

Our next stage was to Lewiston; for some miles before we reached it we were within sight of the British frontier; and we made our salaams.

The monument of the brave General Brock stands on an elevated point near Queenstown, and is visible at a great distance.

We breakfasted at Lewiston, but felt every cup of coffee as a sin, so impatient were we, as we approached the end of our long pilgrimage, to reach the shrine, which nature seems to have placed at such a distance from her worshippers on purpose to try the strength of their devotion.

A few miles more would bring us to the high altar, but first we had to cross the ferry, for we were determined upon taking our first view from British ground.  The Niagara river is very lovely here; the banks are bold, rugged, and richly coloured, both by rocks and woods; and the stream itself is bright, clear, and unspeakably green.

In crossing the ferry a fellow-passenger made many enquiries of the young boatman respecting the battle of Queenstown; he was but a lad, and could remember little about it, but he was a British lad, and his answers smacked strongly of his loyal British feeling.  Among other things, the questioner asked if many American citizens had not been thrown from the heights into the river.

“Why, yes, there was a good many of them; but it was right to show them there was water between us, and you know it might help to keep the rest of them from coming to trouble us on our own ground.”