traveller is warned to expect the approach of the wolf and the bear; and from these rugged cliffs, projecting to the water's edge, the boatman is taught to look for shipwreck and destruction. The property of this peninsula is in Columbia College. Whether the pecuniary profits of the Point will ever reach the College, I doubt; and it also appears doubtful, whether the literature of the College will ever reach the Point.

"The waters of Lake Champlain are supposed by the inhabitants to have been formerly much higher than at present. This opinion is probably just; and may, I suspect, be applied to every such piece of water, whose outlet does not flow over level ground, or is not confined by a mound of granite, or some other stone of similar hardness.......The shores of this lake are generally subject to the fever and ague, and to bilious remittents. In the northern division, the country is fine, the climate superior, the lake noble, and the scenery in a high degree magnificent."*

Lieutenant Hall, who travelled from Albany to Canada in the month of March, has given a description of the country under its wintry aspect. At Pittstown, nineteen miles from Albany, the road leaves the course of the Hudson, and running N.E., traverses the chains of hills which spring laterally from the great north-eastern chain of the West Point mountains. Salem, twenty-nine miles further, is beautifully embosomed amid these ramifications, which seem to divide the low country into a number of separate basins, each watered by its own sequestered stream. Masses of slaty rock are everywhere scattered through the country. On approaching Granville, situated in one of these mountain basins, a few miles from the

* Dwight, vol. ii. pp. 430-433.

foot of the Green and Bald Mountains, which form a continuation of the chain, the streams

are found no longer to flow towards the Hudson, but have a northerly course to Lake Champlain. Quitting the main north road at Granville, our Traveller proceeded to Whitehall (formerly called Skenesborough), to take the benefit of sleighs in crossing the lake. "The valley closes in as you approach Whitehall, until its lofty barriers barely leave space sufficient for the site of the village, and the course of a small river, called Wood-creek, which rushes into the lake with a small cascade its right bank rises perpendicularly several hundred feet. Strata of dark grey limestone, disposed at regular parallels, exhibit an appearance of masonry, so perfect as to require a second glance to convince you that a wall is not built up from the bed of the stream. The heights on the opposite side of the valley are equally bold, and marked with the same character; their summits are everywhere darkened with forests of oak, pine, and cedar. Large detached masses of granite are scattered generally through the valley, and among the houses of the village, which, like several others on our road, very much resembled a large timber-yard, from the quantity of wood cutting up and scattered about for purposes of building. Indeed, it is impossible to travel through the States, without taking part with the unfortunate trees, which, unable, like their persecuted fellows of the soil, the Indians, to make good a retreat, are exposed to every form and species of destruction which Yankey convenience or dexterity can invent felling, burning, rooting up, tearing down, lopping, and chopping, are all employed with most unrelenting severity.

"At Whitehall, we embarked in sleighs on Lake

Champlain. The afternoon was bright and mild, and well disposed us to enjoy the pleasing change from our snail-paced waggon to the smooth rapidity of a sleigh, gliding at the rate of nine miles an hour. The first object our driver was happy to point out to us, was several of our own flotilla anchored near the town, sad trophies of the fight.' The head of the lake, called the Narrows,' does not exceed the breadth of a small river; the sides rise in lofty cliffs, whose grey strata sometimes assume the regular direction of the mason's level, sometimes form an angle more or less acute with the horizon, and sometimes, particularly in projecting points, seem almost vertical to it. At Shoreham, nearly opposite to Crown Point, we found good accommodation for the night at Mr. Larenburg's tavern, and set off the next morning before breakfast; but we had soon cause to repent of thus committing ourselves fasting to the mercy of the elements. The lake now began to widen, and the shores to sink in proportion; the keen blasts of the north, sweeping over its frozen expanse, pierced us with needles, of ice. The thermometer was 22° below zero. Buffalo-hides, bear-skins, caps, shawls, and handkerchiefs were vainly employed against a degree of cold so much beyond our habits. Our guide alone, of the party, his chin and eye-lashes gemmed and powdered with the drifting snow, boldly set his face and horses in the teeth of the storm. Sometimes, a crack in the ice would compel us to wait, while he went forward to explore it with his axe, (without which the American sleigh-drivers seldom travel,) when, having ascertained its breadth and the foot-hold on either side, he would drive his horses at speed, and clear the fissure with its snow ridge, at a flying leap; a sensation we found agree

able enough, but not so agreeable as a good inn and dinner at Burlington.

“Burlington is a beautiful little town, rising from the edge of the lake; the principal buildings are dis posed in a neat square. On a hill above the town stands the college, a plain brick building, the greater part of which is unoccupied, and seemingly unfinished. We crossed the next morning to Plattsburg, curious to view the theatre of our misfortunes.* It is a flourishing little town, situated principally on the left bank of the Saranac, a little river which, falling into the lake, makes, with an adjacent island and Cumberland Point, a convenient bay, across which the American flotilla lay anchored, to receive our attack; the untoward issue of which decided the retreat of Sir George Prevost's army.

66

"I observed that the shores of the lake gradually sunk down to the level of the water, while the mountain ridges fell off to the right and left, leaving a broad and nearly level expanse of wood and ice. Traces of cultivation diminished as we approached the frontier. A few solitary houses, commonly the resort of smugglers, were scattered on the shore, embosomed in forests of a most uninviting aspect. Between Champlain and Isle-aux-Noix, travellers take leave of America, and enter on the Canadian territory."+

Having conducted the reader to the frontier in this direction, we must now return to Albany, whence the road leads off westward to the Great Lakes and the farfamed Falls of Niagara.

See page 182 of this volume. + Hall's Canada,' pp. 33—40.

FROM ALBANY TO NIAGARA.

THE first stage from Albany on the western road, is to Shenectady, sixteen miles. Captain Basil Hall took a circuitous route which doubled the distance, in order to see the junction of the Erie Canal with the branch which connects it with Lake Champlain. "Near the village called Juncta," he says, 66 we had an opportunity of examining a string of nine locks, by which the canal is raised to the level of the country to the westward of Albany. Crowds of boats laden with flour, grain, and other produce, were met by others as deeply laden with commodities from all parts of the world, ready to be distributed over the western countries. On the way to this place, our Traveller "looked in at one of the State arsenals at Watervliet," where he saw about 50,000 stand of arms in good order," a bristling mass of dormant strength ready to be called into action for the purposes of national defence."

Shenectady, which is situated on the Mohawk, still retains the antiquated appearance of a Dutch town. It is governed by a mayor and corporation. Its chief claim to notice arises from the proximity of Union College, which, under the able administration of President Nott, has attained high respectability. Here, Captain Basil Hall embarked in the canal packet, and proceeded a day's towing to Caughnawaga.* canal winds along the base of a low and prettily wooded bank on the southern side of the Mohawk. “Our perpendicular height above the stream," says this Traveller, "may have been thirty or forty feet,

The

The road crosses the Mohawk by a roofed wooden bridge, 1000 feet in length, and then skirts, for a considerable distance, the northern bank of the river.