made.

After dinner they drove on the Canada shore up past the Clifton House,
towards the Burning Spring, which is not the least wonder of Niagara.
As each bubble breaks upon the troubled surface, and yields its flash
of infernal flame and its whiff of sulphurous stench, it seems hardly
strange that the Neutral Nation should have revered the cataract as
a demon; and another subtle spell (not to be broken even by the
business-like composure of the man who shows off the hell-broth) is
added to those successive sorceries by which Niagara gradually changes
from a thing of beauty to a thing of terror. By all odds, too, the
most tremendous view of the Falls is afforded by the point on the drive
whence you look down upon the Horse-Shoe, and behold its three massive
walls of sea rounding and sweeping into the gulf together, the color
gone, and the smooth brink showing black and ridgy.

Would they not go to the battle-field of Lundy's Lane? asked the
driver at a certain point on their return; but Isabel did not care for
battle-fields, and Basil preferred to keep intact the reminiscence of
his former visit. "They have a sort of tower of observation built on the
battle-ground," he said, as they drove on down by the river, "and it was
in charge of an old Canadian militia-man, who had helped his countrymen
to be beaten in the fight. This hero gave me a simple and unintelligible
account of the battle, asking me first if I had ever heard of General
Scott, and adding without flinching that here he got his earliest
laurels. He seemed to go just so long to every listener, and nothing
could stop him short, so I fell into a revery until he came to an end.
It was hard to remember, that sweet summer morning, when the sun shone,
and the birds sang, and the music of a piano and a girl's voice rose
from a bowery cottage near, that all the pure air had once been tainted
with battle-smoke, that the peaceful fields had been planted with
cannon, instead of potatoes and corn, and that where the cows came
down the farmer's lane, with tinkling bells, the shock of armed men had
befallen. The blue and tranquil Ontario gleamed far away, and far away
rolled the beautiful land, with farm-houses, fields, and woods, and at
the foot of the tower lay the pretty village. The battle of the past
seemed only a vagary of mine; yet how could I doubt the warrior at my
elbow?--grieved though I was to find that a habit of strong drink
had the better of his utterance