The battle is lost and won.
Nature is fairly routed and driven from the field, and the rattling, crackling, hissing, spitting demon has taken possession of Lockport for ever.
We slept there, dismally enough.

I never felt more out of humour at what the Americans call improvement; it is, in truth, as it now stands, a most hideous place, and gladly did I leave it behind me.
Our next stage was to Lewiston; for some miles before we reached it we were within sight of the British frontier; and we made our salaams.
The monument of the brave General Brock stands on an elevated point near Queenstown, and is visible at a great distance.
We breakfasted at Lewiston, but felt every cup of coffee as a sin, so impatient were we, as we approached the end of our long pilgrimage, to reach the shrine, which nature seems to have placed at such a distance from her worshippers on purpose to try the strength of their devotion.
A few miles more would bring us to the high altar, but first we had to cross the ferry, for we were determined upon taking our first view from British ground.

The Niagara river is very lovely here; the banks are bold, rugged, and richly coloured, both by rocks and woods; and the stream itself is bright, clear, and unspeakably green.
In crossing the ferry a fellow-passenger made many enquiries of the young boatman respecting the battle of Queenstown; he was but a lad, and could remember little about it, but he was a British lad, and his answers smacked strongly of his loyal British feeling.

Among other things, the questioner asked if many American citizens had not been thrown from the heights into the river.
"Why, yes, there was a good many of them; but it was right to show them there was water between us, and you know it might help to keep the rest of them from coming to trouble us on our own ground." This phrase, "our own ground," gave interest to every mile, or I believe I should have shut my eyes, and tried to sleep, that I might annihilate what remained of time and space between me and Niagara.
But I was delighted to see British oaks, and British roofs, and British boys and girls.

These latter, as if to impress upon us that they were not citizens, made bows and courtseys as we passed, and this little touch of long unknown civility produced great effect.