While I remained in Buffalo, I took several excursions to the towns that skirt this beautiful inland sea.  On one of these occasions, the steamer was driven by stress of weather to take shelter in the small harbour of Huron, some distance up the lake; this we reached with much difficulty, the violence of the sea threatening every moment the total destruction of the vessel.  As we entered the harbour, the air rang with a shout of welcome from the inhabitants of the place, who had been watching our perilous progress in great anxiety, and were assembled at the end of the little pier.  Here we remained for two days and nights, the wind blowing all that time with the fury of a hurricane; the lake, during the storm, presenting the appearance of the sea in a stiff north-wester, the white-crested waves rising in violent commotion to a fearful height.

Huron is but a small and uninteresting place, situate in a most unwholesome locality, lying opposite to a murky swamp, whose poisonous vapours spread disease and death around.  It is the highway to Sandusky city, an inland border town, rendered famous for the obstinacy with which the inhabitants and a body of U.S.  Infantry defended a fort there against the attacks of the British troops in 1812.  Having ascertained the captain’s intention not to sail until the day following, and it being described as a very attractive spot, I hired a horse, and, after a seven miles’ ride through a country dotted with farm houses, which had a desolate look, and the lands appertaining to which were subdivided by zigzag log fences (hedges being unknown in the back settlements), I reached the so-called city, which is built in nearly the form of a parallelogram, the area of greensward having a pretty effect.  Here are some good hotels, and a seminary or college for young ladies, which is much patronized by the better classes of the northern and eastern states, especially New York.  I looked in vain for the Fort, which has, since the war, been demolished; but the landlord of the hotel at which I afterwards dined, took me to its site, and related several incidents that occurred in connection with the fortress, and the struggle between the belligerent parties at the time.  As, however, I considered these somewhat apocryphal, from several of his relations failing to hang together, and his decided bias against the Britishers, as he called the English, I shall not trouble the reader with the details.  After viewing the place and its suburbs to my satisfaction, and after an excellent dinner of green maize and venison, I rode back to the steamer.