FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28  
29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   >>   >|  
since 1837, as well as to employ the mind actively, to prevent the reaction which threatened to assail it from the occurrence of a severe dispensation. I heard a very curious fact in natural history, whilst at Niagara, in company with a medical friend, who took much interest in such matters. I had often remarked, when in the habit of shooting, the very great length of time that the loon, or northern diver, (_colymbus glacialis_,) remained under water after being fired at, and fancied he must be a living diving-bell, endued with some peculiar functions which enabled him to obtain a supply of air at great depth; but I was not prepared for the circumstance that the fishermen actually catch them on the hooks of their deepest lines in the Niagara river, when fishing at the bottom for salmon-trout, &c. Such is, however, the fact. An affecting incident at Queenston, whilst we were waiting for the Transit to take us to Toronto, must be related. I have mentioned that, in the spring of 1845, an ice-jam, as it is called here, occurred, which suddenly raised the level of the Niagara between thirty and forty feet above its ordinary floods, and overset or beat down, by the grinding of mountain masses of ice, all the wharfs and buildings on the adjacent banks. The barrack of the Royal Canadian Rifles at Queenston was thus assailed in the darkest hours of the night, and the soldiers had barely time to escape, before the strong stone building they inhabited was crushed. The next to it, but on higher ground, more than thirty feet above the natural level of the river, was a neat wooden cottage, inhabited by a very aged man and his helpless imbecile wife, equally aged with himself. This man, formerly a soldier, was a cabinet-maker, and amused his declining years by forming very ingenious articles in his line of business; his house was a model of curious nick-nackeries, and thus he picked up just barely enough in the retrograding village to keep the wolf from the door; whilst the soldiers helped him out, by sparing from their messes occasionally a little nourishing food. That night, the dreadful darkness, the elemental warnings, the soul-sickening rush of the river, the groaning and grinding of the ice, piling itself, layer after layer, upon the banks of the river, assailed the old man with horrors, to which all his ancient campaigns had afforded no parallel. He heard the irresistible enemy, slowly, deliberately, and determin
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28  
29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Niagara
 
whilst
 
Queenston
 
grinding
 

inhabited

 

assailed

 

thirty

 

natural

 

curious

 

barely


soldiers

 

equally

 

imbecile

 

adjacent

 

helpless

 

soldier

 

Rifles

 
wharfs
 
buildings
 

strong


building

 

ground

 
higher
 

darkest

 

Canadian

 

crushed

 
cottage
 

wooden

 

escape

 
barrack

sickening

 
groaning
 

piling

 

warnings

 
dreadful
 

darkness

 

elemental

 

irresistible

 

slowly

 

deliberately


determin

 
parallel
 
ancient
 

horrors

 

campaigns

 

afforded

 

nourishing

 

business

 

articles

 
ingenious