Page:Scenes in my Native Land.pdf/134

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130
LOCKPORT.

of supplication. Surely some incipient Chantry must ennoble this region, if not,

"Some village Hampden, who with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood."

Yet all this effort and waste of genius, was only to oppose the gastronomic propensities of the crows. But the worst of it was, those black-gowned people seemed to fly hither and thither to their heart's content, to sit on the very heads of these same redoubtable effigies, and perhaps to make themselves merry with what was intended to give them so much alarm.

At Lockport, the embankments, excavations, double ranges of locks, and magnificent mason-work, cannot be examined without wonder at the intellect that devised, and the force that executed them. While there, we were induced to embark in a large packet-boat, and make trial for a hundred miles of the nature of canal-travelling. After the heat, dust, and rapidity of the rail-cars, the unique effect of gliding deliberately through cool, shady villages and cultivated farms was quite agreeable. We were constantly passing other boats, many of which were laden with emigrants, seeking new homes in the stranger-west.

We often recognised the German countenance, the patient mother industriously plying her knitting-needles, surrounded by her little ones. The pleasure derived from a view of these objects, to which the genuflections and prostrations at the frequent bridges, gave