Old Trails on the Niagara Frontier Part 16

This is Jehovah's fullest organ strain!

I hear the liquid music rolling, breaking.

From the gigantic pipes the great refrain Bursts on my ravished ear, high thoughts awaking!

The low sub-ba.s.s, uprising from the deep, Swells the great paean as it rolls supernal-- Anon, I hear, at one majestic sweep The diapason of the keys eternal!

Standing beneath Niagara's angry flood-- The thundering cataract above me bounding-- I hear the echo: "Man, there is a G.o.d!"

From the great arches of the gorge resounding!

Behold, O man! nor shrink aghast in fear!

Survey the vortex boiling deep before thee!

The Hand that ope'd the liquid gateway here Hath set the beauteous bow of promise o'er thee!

Here, in the hollow of that Mighty Hand, Which holds the basin of the tidal ocean, Let not the jarring of the spray-washed strand Disturb the orisons of pure devotion.

Roll on, Niagara! great River King!

Beneath thy sceptre all earth's rulers, mortal, Bow reverently; and bards shall ever sing The matchless grandeur of thy peerless portal!

I hear, Niagara, in this grand strain, His voice, who speaks in flood, in flame and thunder-- Forever mayst thou, singing, roll and reign-- Earth's grand, sublime, supreme, supernal wonder.

Such lines as these--which might be many times multiplied--recall Eugene Thayer's ingenious and highly poetic paper on "The Music of Niagara."[89] Indeed, many of the prose writers, as well as the versifiers, have found their best tribute to Niagara inspired by the mere sound of falling waters.

That Niagara's supreme appeal to the emotions is not through the eye but through the ear, finds a striking ill.u.s.tration in "Thoughts on Niagara,"

a poem of about eighty lines written prior to 1854 by Michael McGuire, a blind man.[90] Here was one whose only impressions of the cataract came through senses other than that of sight. As is usual with the blind, he uses phrases that imply consciousness of light; yet to him, as to other poets whose devotional natures respond to this exhibition of natural laws, all the phenomena merge in "the voice of G.o.d":

I stood where swift Niagara pours its flood Into the darksome caverns where it falls, And heard its voice, as voice of G.o.d, proclaim The power of Him, who let it on its course Commence, with the green earth's first creation;

And I was where the atmosphere shed tears, As giving back the drops the waters wept, On reaching that great sepulchre of floods,-- Or bringing from above the bow of G.o.d, To plant its beauties in the pearly spray.

And as I stood and heard, _though seeing nought_, Sad thoughts took deep possession of my mind, And rude imagination venturing forth, Did toil to pencil, though in vain, that scene, Which, in its every feature, spoke of G.o.d.

The poem, which as a whole is far above commonplace, develops a pathetic prayer for sight; and employs much exalted imagery attuned to the central idea that here Omnipotence speaks without ceasing; here is

A temple, where Jehovah is felt most.

But for the most part, the world's strong singers have pa.s.sed Niagara by; nor has Niagara's newest aspect, that of a vast engine of energy to be used for the good of man, yet found worthy recognition by any poet of potentials.

This survey, though incomplete, is yet sufficiently comprehensive to warrant a few conclusions. More than half of all the verse on the subject which I have examined was written during the second quarter of this century. The first quarter, as has been shown, was the age of Niagara's literary discovery, and produced a few chronicles of curious interest. During the last half of the century--the time in which practically the whole brilliant and substantial fabric of American literature has been created--Niagara well-nigh has been ignored by the poets. In all our list, Goldsmith and Moore are the British writers of chief eminence who have touched the subject in verse, though many British poets, from Edwin Arnold to Oscar Wilde, have written poetic prose about Niagara. Of native Americans, I have found no names in the list of Niagara singers greater than those of Drake and Mrs. Sigourney.

Emerson nor Lowell, Whittier nor Longfellow, Holmes nor Stedman, has given our Niagara wonder the dowry of a single line. Whitman, indeed, alludes to Niagara in his poem "By Blue Ontario's Sh.o.r.e," but his poetic vision makes no pause at the falls; nor does that of Joseph O'Connor, who in his stirring and exalted Columbian poem, "The Philosophy of America," finds a touch of color for his continental cosmorama by letting his sweeping glance fall for a moment,

To where, 'twixt Erie and Ontario, Leaps green Niagara with a giant roar.

But in such a symphony as his, Niagara is a subservient element, not the dominating theme. Most of the Niagara poets have been of local repute, unknown to fame.

What, then, must we conclude? Shall we say with Martin Farquhar Tupper--who has contributed to the alleged poetry of the place--that there is nothing sublime about Niagara? The many poetic and impa.s.sioned pa.s.sages in prose descriptions are against such a view. If dimensions, volume, exhibition of power, are elements of sublimity, Niagara Falls are sublime. But it cannot be said that superlative exhibitions of nature, some essentially universal phenomena, like those of the sea and sky, excepted, have been made the specific subject of verse, with a high degree of success. The reason is not far to seek, and lies in the inherent nature of poetry. It is a chief essential of poetry that it express, in imaginative form, the insight of the human soul. The feeble poets who have addressed themselves to Niagara have stopped, for the most part, with purely objective utterance. In some few instances, as we have seen, a truly subjective regard has given us n.o.ble lines.

The poetic in nature is essentially independent of the detail of natural phenomena. A waterfall 150 feet high is not intrinsically any more poetic than one but half that height; or a thunder-peal than the tinkle of a rill. True poetry must be self-expression, as well as interpretive of truths which are manifested through physical phenomena. Hence it is in the nature of things that a nameless brook shall have its Tennyson, or a Niagara flow unsung.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Often spelled "Daillon" or "d'Allion," the latter form suggesting origin from the name of a place, as is common in the French. Charlevoix sometimes wrongly has it "de Dallion." I follow the spelling as given in the priest's own signature to a letter to a friend in Paris, dated at "Tonachain [Toanchain], Huron village, this 18th July, 1627," and signed "Joseph De La Roche Dallion." The student of seventeenth-century history need not be reminded that little uniformity in the spelling of proper names can be looked for, either in printed books or ma.n.u.scripts. In French, as in English, men spelled their names in different ways--Shakespeare, it is said, achieving thirty-nine variations. The matter bears on our present study because the diversity of spelling may involve the young student in perplexity. Thus, the name of the priests Lalemant (there were three of them) is given by Le Clercq as "Lallemant," by Charlevoix (a much later historian) as "Lallemant" or "Lalemant," but in the contemporary "Relations" of 1641-'42 as "Lallemant," "Lalemant" or "L'allemant." Many other names are equally variable, changes due to elision being sometimes, but not always, indicated by accents, as "Brusle," "Brule." Thus we have "Jolliet" or "Joliet," "De Gallinee" or "De Galinee," "Du Lu," "Du Luth," "Duluth,"

etc. When we turn to modern English, the confusion is much--and needlessly--increased. Dr. Shea, the learned translator and editor of Le Clercq, apparently aimed to put all the names into English, without accents. Parkman, or his publishers, have been guilty of many inconsistencies, now speaking of "Brebeuf," now of "Brebeuf," and changing "Le Clercq" to "Le Clerc." The "Historical Writings" of Buffalo's pre-eminent student in this field, Orsamus H. Marshall, share with many less valuable works--the present, no doubt, among them--these inconsistencies of style in the use of proper names.

[2] Mr. Consul W. b.u.t.terfield, whose "History of Brule's Discoveries and Explorations, 1610-1626," has appeared since the above was written, is of opinion that Brule did not visit the falls, nor gain any particular knowledge of Lake Erie, as that lake is not shown on Champlain's map of 1632; but that he and his Indian escort crossed the Niagara near Lake Ontario, "into what is now Western New York, in the present county of Niagara," and that "the journey was doubtless pursued through what are now the counties of Erie, Genesee, Wyoming, Livingston, Steuben and Chemung into Tioga," and thence down the Susquehanna. It is probable that Brule's party would follow existing trails, and one of the best defined trails, at a later period when the Senecas occupied the country as far west as the Niagara, followed this easterly course; but there were other trails, one of which lay along the east bank of the Niagara.

So long as we have no other original source of information except Champlain, Sagard and Le Caron, none of whom has left any explicit record of Brule's journeyings hereabouts, so long must his exact path in the Niagara region remain untraced.

[3] "Brehan de Gallinee," in Margry. Shea has it "Brehaut de Galinee."

[4] Why Joliet left the Lake Erie route on his way east, for one much more difficult, has been a matter of some discussion. According to the Abbe Galinee, he was induced to turn aside by an Iroquois Indian who had been a prisoner among the Ottawas. Joliet persuaded the Ottawas to let this prisoner return with him. As they drew near the Niagara the Iroquois became afraid lest he should fall into the hands of the ancient enemies of the Iroquois, the Andastes, although the habitat of that people is usually given as from about the site of Buffalo to the west and southwest. At any rate it was the representations of this Iroquois prisoner and guide which apparently turned Joliet into the Grand River and kept him away from the Niagara. The paragraph in de Galinee bearing on the matter is as follows:

"Ce fut cet Iroquois qui montra a M. Jolliet un nouveau chemin que les Francois n'avoient point sceu jusques alors pour revenir des Outaouacs dans le pays des Iroquois. Cependant la crainte que ce sauvage eut de retomber entre les mains des Antastoes luy fit dire a M. Jolliet qu'il falloit qu'il quittast son canot et marchast par terre pl.u.s.tost qu'il n'eust fallu, et mesme sans cette terreur du sauvage, M. Jolliet eust pu venir par eau jusques dans le lac Ontario, en faisant un portage de demi-lieue pour eviter le grand sault dont j'ay deja parle, mais entin il fut oblige par son guide de faire cinquante lieues par terre, et abandonner son canot sur lebord du lac Erie."

It is singular that so important a relation in the history of our region has never been published in English. De Galinee's original MS. Journal is preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale, in Paris. It was first printed in French by M. Pierre Margry in 1879; but five years prior to that date Mr. O. H. Marshall of Buffalo, having been granted access to M. Margry's MS. copy, made extracts, which were printed in English in 1874. These were only a small portion of the Abbe's valuable record. The Ontario Historical Society has for some time contemplated the translation and publication of the complete Journal--a work which students of the early history of the lake region will hope soon to see accomplished.

[5] Probably that now known as Patterson's Creek.

[6] A minot is an old French measure; about three bushels.

[7] Evidently at Four or Six Mile Creek.

[8] Probably what the English call scurvy-gra.s.s.

[9] Otherwise Fort Frontenac, now Kingston, Ont.

[10] Sullivan to Jay, Teaogo (Tioga), Sept. 30, 1779.

[11] I first struck the trail in London, among the Colonial Papers preserved in the Public Records Office. Subsequently, in the Archives Department at Ottawa, I found that trail broaden into a fair highway.

Something has been gleaned at Albany; more, no doubt, is to be looked for at Was.h.i.+ngton; but it is an amazing fact that our Government is far less liberal in granting access for students to its official records than is either England or Canada. But the Niagara region was British during the Revolution, and its history is chiefly to be sought in British archives. Especially in the Haldimand Papers, preserved in the British Museum, but of which verified copies are readily accessible in the Archives at Ottawa, is the Revolutionary history of the Niagara to be found. Besides the 232 great volumes in which these papers are gathered, there are thousands of other MSS. of value to an inquirer seeking the history of this region; especially the correspondence, during all that term of years, between the commandants at Fort Niagara and other upper lake posts, and the Commander in Chief of the British forces in America; between that general and the Ministry in London, and between the commandants at the posts and the Indian agents, fur traders and many cla.s.ses and conditions of men. For the incidents here recorded I have drawn, almost exclusively, on these unpublished sources.