When I traversed New-York State at a subsequent period with another party of friends, we saw many Indians before reaching Syracuse. It was at Oneida Castle, a village on the borders of the Oneida territory, which was once fortified after the Indian fashion, whence its formidable name. We saw in such close neighbourhood as to cause many strange reflections, the Episcopalian church built for the Indians of the vicinity, who are declared to be reclaimed from idolatry and their ancient Council Grove, where they met to think their own thoughts and say their own sayings. This grove is a fine clump of twenty-seven butternut-trees. We passed through the village on the day when the Indians had all come in to receive their annual government allowance of seven dollars a head. Two men were drunk; the rest looked sober enough. The squaws were neatly dressed in blue pantaloons edged with white, and had clean blankets over their shoulders. The babies looked fat and lively. One squaw had her infant lashed to a board at her back. When we stopped to water the horses we saw several boys with bows and arrows, and Dr. F. made them understand by signs that any one who could strike a quarter dollar which he would fix on a post should have it. He made a notch in the post of a shed, and placed his coin, and forthwith the arrows flew like hail. One struck deep into a post, and we saw how easily fatal this weapon might be. An old Indian or two watched the sport, and assumed the superintendence. The coin fell, and Dr. F. was going to deliver it to the claimant, when an old Indian came forward with "No, no." He showed by signs that the coin had fallen, not from its being struck, but from the post having been shaken. The quarter dollar was put up again, and soon after struck and bent in the middle by the arrow of a youth, who looked as happy with his prize as if he had regained a tract of his native wood. The party gave us some very bright looks as we drove away.
In a hotel on this road I found a Sabbath-school history of Lady Jane Grey, compiled obviously for the purpose of prejudicing the reader's mind against the Catholics. Among other wise things in it there was an explanation that the heroine was called "Lady" because she was related to the king; and people are sometimes called so in England. A clear idea to give the American youth of our English peerage!
We left Syracuse at dawn; and this was the morning when, finding ourselves too hungry to proceed to Skaneatles without food, we were treated to that abundant breakfast, so characteristically served, which I have described in my other book. [4] No one likes to breakfast twice over in description any more than in reality; and I therefore say nothing about Elbridge here. The greater part of this day, and some of the next, was spent at Auburn in viewing the prison, walking about the town, and driving down the shores of the pretty Owasco Lake.
The cultivation of the country now began to show the improvement which increases all the way to Buffalo. At the head of Cayuga Lake we travelled over the longest bridge I ever saw, even a mile and eight rods long. It is wooden, of course, laid upon piles, and more conspicuous for usefulness than beauty. The great ornament of this route is the village of Geneva, reared on a terrace which overhangs Seneca Lake. The Northern States abound in beautiful villages; but I know none more captivating than this. A long row of handsome white and red houses, each with its sloping garden, fronts the lake; and behind the dwellings the road is bordered with locust-trees, which seem to imbower the place. The gardens are more carefully cultivated than is at all common in America, and they well repay the trouble bestowed on them. There is a college standing on high ground above the lake, to which a natural lawn steeply descends from the open space in front of the building. Holstein, aiddecamp to Bolivar, was professor of modern languages in this college when I was first at Geneva. Before my second visit he had removed to Albany. To crown the temptations of Geneva as a place of residence, it has rather a choice society. It has been charged with not being healthy, but I believe this is not true. It seems to be well and speedily supplied with literature. I saw a placard outside a bookseller's store, "Two Old Men's Tales, price 80 cents," that is, four shillings. One of my last interests, before I left England, had been watching over the publication of this work; and now here it was selling at four shillings, in the back of the State of New-York! I remarked two things more about this village; that all the women I saw were pretty, and that a profusion of azalea grew wild in the neighbourhood.
The road to Canandaigua ascends for a considerable distance after leaving Geneva, and the last view of the place from above was exquisite, imbosomed as it lay in the autumn woods, and with its blue lake stretched behind it in the sunny atmosphere. One element in the exhilaration of such scenes in America is the universal presence of competence. The boys who gather about the stage do not come to beg, or even to sell, but to amuse themselves while eating their bread and meat, or on their way to the field. The young women all well dressed, the men all at work or amusement, the farms all held in fee-simple, the stores all inadequate to their custom; these things are indescribably cheering to behold, and a never-failing source of pleasure to the traveller from Europe. It may be a questionable comfort, but it is a comfort to think, "if these people are not happy, it is their own fault." Whether their minds are as easy as their fortunes, it may not be safe to affirm; but at least the sin and sorrow of social injustice in regard to the first necessities of life are absent.
The moon was gleaming over Canandaigua Lake when we came in sight of it, and a golden planet dropped beneath the horizon when we took the turn towards the village. We found that Blossom's hotel did not answer to the favourable description which had been given us of it. This had been a training day, and the house was so noisy with drunken soldiers, that, when we had attained the drawing-room, we locked ourselves in till the house should be cleared, which happened as early as nine o'clock; but we still found the inn less comfortable than most upon the road.
The pretty village of Canandaigua is noted for its good society. It would have given me pleasure to have been able to accept the kind invitation of some of its inhabitants to prolong my stay now, or to revisit it the next year; but we had promised Mr. O. to cause no delay in getting to Niagara; and we engaged, in return for his agreeing to stop this day, to travel all night; and I never was able to allot any future time to this place. We saw as much of it, however, as we could in one day.
There are many families of Scotch extraction at Canandaigua, and to this the village owes its superiority in gardens to almost any place in the country. We spent the greater part of the day with a gentleman who was born in Scotland, but had settled at Canandaigua thirty-four years before, when the place was almost a desert. He now sees himself surrounded by handsome dwellings, trim gardens, and a highly-cultivated society, able to command resources of books and other intellectual luxuries to almost any extent, from the directness and ease of communication with New-York. He had just taken possession of a splendid new dwelling, and had presented his old one to the Episcopalian church for a parsonage. He showed me from the top of the house, where his dwelling had stood, where it stood now, and how it had been moved entire in a day and a half. I think the distance could not have been much under a mile.
After our early breakfast we were engaged till church-time in receiving and making calls, as there was no time to be lost. We went to the Episcopalian church with our friends, and heard a sermon which could not please us, it was so full of dogmatism and bitterness. Our friends insisted on entertaining the whole of our large party, and invited some agreeable guests in addition, so that we spent a very profitable as well as pleasant afternoon. We walked over the grounds, enjoyed the view of the lake from the housetop, and picked up a good deal of information about the place and neighbourhood, which might seem to the inhabitants scarcely worthy of the name of knowledge, but which is inestimable to the stranger as opening new departments of inquiry, and explaining much which he did not understand before.
The stage was ordered for nine, and we returned to Blossom's for an hour's rest before setting out on our rough night's journey.
We reached Batavia to breakfast, and soon after found ourselves on the first piece of corduroy road