HOCHELAGA; OR, ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD. CHAPTER I. Buffalo-Saratoga. BUFFALO causes a total reaction in the mind after Niagara : brave men busily changing every day—going ahead with high pressure force. It is one of the very best samples of Young Western America: full of foreigners-Irish, French, Germans; principally the latter, but all Americanized, all galvanized with the same frantic energy. The population rush about on their different occupations, railway engines scream, and steam-boats puff on every side; wagons rattle about in all directions, men swear, bargain, or invite you to their hotel, in the accents of half-adozen countries. The situation of the town is very good at the head of the Niagara River is the outlet of Lake Erie; at the end of the great chain of the Western Lakes-the commerce of twelve hundred miles of these broad waters is centred in this point, and condensed in the narrow passage of the Erie canal and Hudson River, till, at New York, it pours out its wealth into the Atlantic. The site has a gentle dip to the south, towards the lake; across |