“When the young women are fit for marriage, they wear something upon their heads for an advertisement, but so as their faces are hardly to be seen but when they please. The age they marry at, if women, is about thirteen and fourteen; if men, seventeen and eighteen; they are rarely elder.
“Their houses are mats, or barks of trees, set on poles, in the fashion of an English barn, but out of the power of the winds, for they are hardly higher than a man: they lie on reeds, or grass. In travel, they lodge in the woods, about a great fire, with the mantle of duffils they wear by day wrapt about them, and a few boughs stuck round them.
“Their diet is maize, or Indian corn, divers ways prepared; sometimes roasted in the ashes; sometimes beaten and boiled with water, which they call _homine_; they also make cakes not unpleasant to eat. They have likewise several sorts of beans and peas that are good nourishment; and the woods and rivers are their larder.”
[Illustration] BROCK’S MONUMENT FROM THE AMERICAN SIDE.
Lewiston is seldom seen to advantage by the traveller, who, in his eagerness to reach Niagara, if going thither, or in the fulness of his recollections, if returning, pays it very little attention. The village itself is as dull and indifferent-looking a place as one would chance to see; but it stands at the outlet of Niagara river into Lake Ontario, and its neighbourhood on all sides is picturesque and beautiful.
Across the river, on the heights of Queenstown, stands the Monument of General Brock, who died fighting very gallantly on this spot. A slight _resumer_ of the hard-fought battle of Queenstown, which was creditable to the courage and spirit of both countries, will be in place accompanying this view.
The American forces on the Niagara river consisted of about five thousand eight hundred men, under the command of Colonel Van Rensselaer. Eighteen hundred of these were at Black Rock, twenty-eight miles distant, and the remainder at Fort Niagara, under the General’s personal command. Several skirmishes on the St. Lawrence had resulted in favour of the Americans, and the forces at Lewiston were very anxious to have an opportunity for action.
Directly opposite to the camp, on the other side of the river, lay Queenstown, strongly fortified, and garrisoned by a large force, waiting the orders of General Brock, then in Michigan. It was supposed that preparations were making for a general attack on the frontier. The possession of this place was considered very important to the Americans, as it was the port for all the merchandise of the country above, and a depôt of public stores for the line of English posts on Niagara and Detroit rivers. It has besides, an excellent harbour, and good anchorage.