Turning South

Wednesday, October 1st, 1823 – I went across the river again four miles down from the Falls, where there is great diversity of soil. Opposite what is called the Whirlpool grew three species of Quercus on barren rocks. On my returning to the inn I found that Mr Briscoe was to leave in the afternoon. The weather being bad, and the seeming approach of winter, made me anxious to get to New York as soon as possible. We accordingly set out and passed Stamford, where Mr Briscoe informed me Captain Sabine lived. The face of the country is variable, with some beautiful rising eminences. At 4 o’clock we reached Queenston, where I parted from Mr Briscoe. I am under great obligations to this gentleman. Crossed the river at Queenston for Lewiston on my way to Lockport. I got a box, packed my plants and then went to bed. 

Douglas has unequivocally turned south now, en route for New York. The journey will not be uneventful.

Niagara

Tuesday, September 30th, 1823 – This morning before daylight I was up and at the Falls. I am, like most who have seen them, sensitively impressed with their grandeur. Out of the cliffs of the rock grow Red Cedar, Juglans and Quercus. I crossed below the Falls to the American side and then to the island called Goat Island. It is partly covered with woods of large dimensions; the soil is variable, part rich and part sand and gravel. 

So Douglas is finally at Niagara Falls, and is suitably impressed. He loses no time in botanising and describes how he visited Goat Island. I've always wondered how he actually did that, having been there myself and seen just how fast and powerful the current is in the Niagara River. I'd always thought that getting onto Goat Island would be easy enough, basically a matter of putting into the water sufficiently far upstream and colliding with Goat Island on the way downstream (although with only one chance to get it right). But getting off the island would be another story, in a fast current with rocks and the Falls themselves only just downstream. 

I never resolved how he did that, until now. Turns out there was a bridge! Built in 1817. Rebuilt in 1818. Doh!! 

To Niagara

Buffalo, Monday, September 29th, 1823 – In the morning I wrote to Jos. Sabine [Secretary of the Horticultural Society, and Douglas’s boss]. At 10 o’clock I set out in company with Mr Briscoe for Niagara. We went on the American side for two miles and crossed [the Niagara River] to the Canadian side. The weather was very cold and there was a snow shower which lasted for three-quarters of an hour.

We had a good deal of difficulty gaining the Canadian side; the wind blew from the west. Along the side of the River Niagara the soil in general is rich, of black and brown loam [Douglas rarely desists from assessing the fertility of a place in terms of its soil; his early training as a gardener shows through!]. We travelled slowly, stopping frequently...... [and] at 5 o’clock in the afternoon we reached the Falls.

Beginning the retreat

Thursday, September 25th, 1823 – I packed my gleanings of plants and seeds and specimens, and stood in readiness for the steamboat from Detroit, which came in the afternoon. In company with Mr Briscoe and family during the whole of the passage; we experienced a motion that could not be surpassed in an ocean. It blew a tempest the whole of the time. Towards Midnight on Sunday 28th we reached Buffalo, one of the wheels of the boat being swept away, and otherwise disabled.

Effectively, this marks the northern limit of Douglas's journeyings on this trip. He goes on to botanise around Niagara for a couple of days but in practice he has now given up on Canada and started to turn back towards New York. 

And what a journey back to Buffalo! He sets sail on, let's say, Thursday evening and reaches Buffalo just before midnight on Sunday. So he has spent three full days being tossed about in a tempest on Lake Erie, in a steamboat which is gravely disabled and must have been at some risk of foundering. I can't help thinking he has been lucky on this part of his journey and is perhaps secretly glad to be heading back to NYC.

Taking stock

Tuesday, September 23rd, 1823 – I made an excursion across the river [from Amherstburg, to which he has returned after the coat-theft incident] to the Michigan Territory [so he is back in the USA]. I have found in the neighbourhood a rose cultivated which I suspect to be of European origin. I am informed that it was taken by the French to Canada at the first settling of the country.

Mr Briscoe today received orders to remove to Kingston by the first steamboat, which news sealed my disappointments: first a long passage, the loss of my coat and money, bad weather – all these combined made me glad to relinquish the idea of Canada at such a late period of the season. It certainly is a fine field, and would afford an abundant harvest.

A spot of bother!

Saturday, September 20th, 1823 – [Douglas gets into a spot of bother in what is a more lawless 'frontier' region than he perhaps expecting]

Early in the morning I got a car and hired a man to conduct me up the country. I set out slowly, moving along the riverside, picking up anything which presented itself. After passing through a country of twelve miles from Sandwich, came then to a morass of two miles long, succeeded by a passage of sand along Lake St. Clair; rendered the horse so weak that I had to stop for a day [to rest the horse?].

I was glad to do so as there seemed to be a good field; accordingly towards midday I set off with the man I had taken with me.  Here I found……list of specimens he found….[but] during my day’s labour I had the misfortune to meet with a circumstance which I must record as it concerns not only my business but also my personal affairs.

I got up in [an] oak for the purpose of procuring seeds and specimens; the day being warm I was induced to take off my coat and in that state I ascended. I had not been above five minutes up when to my surprise the man whom I hired as guide and assistant took up my coat and made off with it as fast as he could run.

I descended almost headlong and followed, but before I could make near him he escaped in the wood. I had in my pockets my notes and some receipt of money, nineteen dollars in paper, a copy of Persoon’s ‘Synopsis Plantarum’, with my small vasculum. I was thus left five miles from where I had left the car, in a miserable condition, and as there was no remedy that could be taken to better myself, I tied my seeds in my neckcloth and made to my lodging.

I had to hire a man to take me back to Sandwich as I could not drive [this sounds a bit wimpish for Douglas; surely anyone living in that age would be able to make a stab at driving a carriage?]; and the horse only understanding the French language, and I could not talk to him in his tongue, placed me in an awkward situation. I had to borrow a coat as there was no tailor to make me one.

On my getting to Sandwich I remonstrated with the man who recommended my assistant to me, but he said that he never did so to his knowledge, and so on. However, I found my guide was a runaway Virginian.

This is interesting, and sheds some light on Douglas's state of mind. Normally robust and forthright in dealing with any difficulties he seems uncharacteristically feeble in his reaction to this incident. True, he hurtles down the tree and pursues the thief but after failing to catch him his actions seem implausibly weak. 

I'd be surprised if he weren't able to make some attempt at driving the car [a carriage or cart, I guess] and the notion that the horse only understood French is laughably implausible. I suspect the horse would understand a touch of the whip and a vigorous pull on the reins well enough. Come on Douglas, man up. 

And then he finds that his guide is a runaway Virginian, as if that explains all. Sandwich had indeed become an established black settlement, where thousands of freed and fugitive slaves took refuge from slavery in the United States via the Underground Railroad, but it seems a bit harsh of Douglas to attribute that cause to his own unfortunate circumstance. 

With hindsight, I suspect he has been more shaken and unsettled by this incident than he cares to admit, it being his first serious inter-personal challenge on this trip.