ewn out of the solid rock by the living
waters of all the Upper Lakes, crushed and cramped, carving a turbulent
way through this narrow canyon. Midway in the river's course the blue
waters begin to race. The race becomes a dizzy madness of blurred,
whirling, raging waters. Then there is the leap, the plunge, the
shattering anger of inland seas hurling their strength over the sheer
precipice in resistless force. Then the foaming whirlpool below, and
the shadowy gorge, and the undercurrent eddying away in the
swift-flowing waters of the river coming out on Lake Ontario. On one
side are the Canadian forts, on the other the American, slab-walled all
of them, with scarcely a stone foundation except in bastions used as
powder magazines. Fort Erie on the Canadian side faces Buffalo and
Black Rock on the American side. Where the old French voyageurs used
to portage past the Falls, about halfway on the Canadian side south of
the precipice, is the village of Chippewa. Here Brock has stationed
{342} a garrison with cannon. Then halfway between the Falls and Lake
Ontario are high cliffs known as Queenston Heights, in plain view of
the American town of Lewiston on the other side. Cannon line the river
cliffs on both sides here. All about Lewiston the fields are literally
white with the tents of General Van Rensselaer's army, now grown from
twenty-five hundred to almost eight thousand. On the Canadian side
cannon had been mounted on the cliffs known as Queenston Heights.
Possibly because the two hundred men would make poor showing in
tents, Brock has his soldiers here take quarters in the farmhouses.
For the rest it is such a rural scene as one may witness any
midsummer,--rolling yellow wheat fields surrounded by the zigzag rail
fences, with square farmhouses of stone and the fields invariably
backed by the uncleared bush land. Six miles farther down the river,
where the waters join Lake Ontario, is the English post, Fort George,
near the old capital, Newark, and just opposite the American fort of
Niagara. With the exception of the Grand Island region on the river,
it may be said that both armies are in full view of each other.
Sometimes, when to the tramp--tramp--tramp of the sentry's {343} tread
a loud "All's well" echoes across the river from Lewiston to the
Canadian side, some wag at Queenston will take up the cry through the
dark and bawl back, "All's well here too"; and all night long the two
sentries bawl back and