yself; but, as I shall take care to
settle a good way from republican sympathizers for the sake of my poor
property, I shall always find my neighbours as proud of Queen Victoria
as I be myself."
Jonathan replied that he had no manner of doubt that Miss Victoria was a
real lady, for every female is a lady in the States; the word being
understood only as an equivalent for womankind, and that John might like
petticoat government, but, for his part, he calculated it was better to
be a king one's-self, which every citizen of the enlightened republic
was, and no mistake.
And kings they are, for all power resides there, in the body of which
he was a favourable specimen, but which does not always show its members
in so fair a light.
I do not know any coach ride in British America more pleasing than that
from Niagara to Queenston. You cross a broad green common, with the
expanse of Lake Ontario on one side, the forest and orchard on the
other; and, after passing through a little coppice, suddenly come upon
the St. Lawrence, rolling a tranquil flood towards the great lake below.
High above its waters, on the edge of the sharp precipitous bank,
covered with trees--oak, birch, beech, chestnut, and maple--runs the
sandy road, bordered by corn-fields, by orchards, and occasionally by
little patches of woodland, looking for all the world like Old England,
excepting that that unpicturesque snake fence spoils the illusion.
Now, bright and deep, rolls the giant flood onward; now it is hidden by
a turn of the bank; now, glittering, it again appears between the trees.
Thus you travel until within a couple of miles or so of Queenston, when,
the road leaving the bank, and the river forming a large bay-like bend,
a splendid view breaks out.
You catch a distant glimpse of that narrow pass, where a wall of rock,
two hundred feet high on each side, and somewhat higher on the American
shore, vomits forth the pent-up angry Niagara. Above this wall, to the
right and left, towers the mountain ridge, covered with forest to the
south, and with the greenest of grass to the north, where, stately and
sad, stands the pillar under whose base moulder the bones of the gallant
Brock, and of Mac Donell, his aide-de-camp.
Rent from summit to base, tottering to its fall, is Brock's monument,
and yet the villain who did the deed that destroyed it lives, and dares
to show his face on the neighbouring shore.
I cannot conceive in beautiful scenery a
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