tion is put aside, and the efforts of the writer confined to discredit the immaterial statements of the author of the Review; whom he accuses" of inaccuracy, calumny, ignorance, unintelligible jargon, folly, impudence, falsehood, and malignity." To these courteous epithets, we do not mean to make the slightest reply; but taking it for granted, that this is the ordinary paraphernalia in which Ista Hadki conveys his meaning, we shall proceed to correct some material statements with which this gentle Infidel has favoured the readers of the Intelligencer. This directness of epithet is a peculiarity of the Georgian School of diplomacy; and we are glad that the defence of such a cause is clothed in such appropriate language. In confining ourselves, however, to the examination of such statements as materially affect the point in issue, we do not intend to assent to the correctness of even, the immaterial assertions of Hadki. They must depend upon the evidence and documents to which the public has been referred; and when the authorities of Hadki are compared with his statements, it will be matter of astonishment, that his assertions were so positive, or that being made, any reference was given to substantiate them. For instance, he accuses the author of the Review of "falsehood," in asserting that the treaty was sanctioned by the Senate on the 3d of March, and refers to the Proclamation of the President, "which says," according to Hadki," Whereas, the Senate, by resolution of the 2nd of March, advised." If reference should be had to that proclamation, which can be found in the National Intelligencer, of March 11th, and also at the end of the laws of the 2nd session, 18th Congress, it will there appear that the words are as follows: "in pursuance of the advice and consent of the Senate, as expressed by their resolution of the 3d inst."

Again; he asserts it to be false, "That the authorities of Georgia contend that the fee simple of the Indian land was vested in the state by the execution of the agreement of 1802." And yet Gov. Troup, in an official letter to the Secretary of War, of the date of February 28th, 1824,* says, that "from the day of the signature of the articles of agreement and cession, this word (viz. the power of refusal) ceased to be available to the Indians, for any permanent interest of their own." "On that day the fee simple passed from the rightful proprietors to Georgia."

He moreover insinuates, that the assertion, "that the treaty of 1814, was made with the whole Creek nation, including the hos

* Vide a message of the President, 30th of March, 1824, transmitting documents, &c. pp. 43.

tile party," was unfounded; when the 8th article of that treaty * declares, "that a permanent peace shall ensue from this date, between the Creek nation, and the United States." If this treaty had been made with the friendly Creeks alone, it could scarcely have been necessary to have inserted an article, declaring a peace between the parties for the future.

As little fairness is discovered in asserting that the title of Georgia to the Mississippi territory, has received the sanction of the Supreme Court of the United States. In the case of Fletcher vs. Peck, which is relied upon to prove that assertion, the title of Georgia came before the court upon a partial statement of facts, and as is generally suspected, upon a feigned issue, and the court merely decided that "from that special verdict, the lands appeared to lie within the state of Georgia." If all the facts connected with that title, had been inserted in the verdict, it is not to be doubted, that a different opinion would have been expressed by the court.

We have not room in the present number to enumerate the facts which were omitted in that verdict, nor to examine into the title of Georgia to that territory, to the assertion of which the greater part of the essay of Hadki is devoted. That task must be reserved for some future opportunity. Neither have we room nor inclination to follow our commentator through the different mazes in which he is wandering, to avoid a plain conclusion. Enough has been shown to prove the carelessness with which he makes his assertions, purporting to be in correction of our own, and the boldness with which he refers to authorities, that do not support him.

Errors like these, though excusable in none, are entirely inadmissible in a writer, whose powers are devoted to prove, that his antagonist does not know a Cherokee from a Creek, and that he has abused his mother tongue, in accusing Gov. Troup of using "rash and unjustifiable measures," when the Governor has in reality been only talking and writing, and also in calling a place within a day's journey of the capitol of the state "the western wilderness of Georgia." A person who rests the defence of his cause upon such captious exceptions, and extreme accuracy of detail, should evince his regard for his theory, by a little practical correctness; and should remember, that although some latitude may be allowed to the man of business, faultless orthography will always be exacted from the word-catching pedagogue.

*U. S. Laws, B. & D. Ed. 1st vol. p. 702. + Vide 6th Cranch, 142.

THE

ATHENEUM MAGAZINE.

OCTOBER, 1825.

DESCRIPTIVE JOURNAL OF A JAUNT UP THE GRAND CANAL; BEING A LETTER FROM A GENTLEMAN IN NEW-YORK, TO A LADY IN WASHINGTon, in august, 1825.

I HAVE just returned from a jaunt up the North river, and the Mohawk, as far as Utica. I had never been farther west than Schenectady, and had never seen any part of our Grand Canal. On my way up to Albany, I stopped at Catskill, and proceeded to Pine-Orchard on the mountain-top, where a large stylish house of entertainment has recently been built. This is 3000 feet above the level of the Hudson, and you can readily imagine what an extensive and magnificent prospect is here displayed. There are two higher mountains in the back ground, computed at 3700 feet above the river, but Pine-Orchard affords the most advantageous view of the cultivated country between the river and the base of the mountain. At first sight, these farms and fields appear to form an immense plain, but you soon discover ridges and summits of intervening mountains, over some of which you passed on your way to the foot of the towering one on which you stand. At sunrise, the whole of this almost boundless plain was covered with a mantle of fleecy clouds resembling snow-drifts, and I at first imagined that I saw below me an ocean, which had been suddenly frozen and shrouded with snow, before its curling and foaming waves had time to subside. But in a little while they were all in motion, and the breeze rolling one ridge or winnow on another, they soon assumed the form of solid clouds, and stretching their wings to the gale, sailed off in squadrons towards the mountains of Connecticut. Ah! then, thought I, this perhaps is one of nature's looms, where she weaves her clouds at night, and then at early dawn, sends her busy and obedient winds to roll them together, and pack them off to her lofty store-house in the sky. The bottom of this fancied ocean was now fully unveiled; but instead of sand, and mud, and slimy rocks, oh! VOL. I.

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what a gay landscape of green waving woods, and cultured fields, and farm houses surrounded with orchards, and pasture grounds, and clumps of trees:-we could see the smoky wreaths above the shining roofs, and hear some rural sounds— the crowing cock, or barking dog; but neither man nor animal could be discerned without a glass. Adjoining the table land on which the house is erected, is a peak a few hundred feet higher, and a path winds around it to the top, from which you look directly down upon the house, and are very near it. About four miles from this lofty seat, there is a small cascade which all go to see; not on account of the water, which in mid-summer is merely a rill, but the uncommon height of the leap or pitch, and the picturesque scenery of the rocks. How shall I describe it? The water first falls 175 feet into a broad rocky basin, over the brim of which it then streams perpendicularly 80 feet, and then flowing through another basin, rushes down a ravine filled almost with rocks, until it reaches the valley. But the most curious part is a vast dome, or more properly semi-dome, formed in the rock, directly behind, and under the cascade. It is like a huge roof, perfectly semi-circular, under the eaves of which, inside, you walk along a narrow stony ledge or shelf for about 300 feet, as if on the seat or bench of an amphitheatre, while this enormous and lofty ceiling projects like a canopy 75 feet, sloping upwards, and forming in front a vast arch nearly a hundred feet high, and directly behind the falling water. In order to enter this ponderous dome, you descend from the top of the rock, where the stream commences its career, along the steep side of the ravine 170 feet to the first basin, and arrive at one side or wing of the front arch. The first impression is overwhelmingyou hesitate for a moment, and are awe-struck: such a wide and towering vault of solid rock, as if built by art!—what supports it? may it not possibly fall, and crush and bury you forever under its massy ceiling, nearly one hundred feet thick? But your feelings become too sublime to be restrained by your timidity, and you rush forward with a dauntless and ambitious step, as if bent on an achievement that is to immortalize your name, especially if you should have the good luck to be crushed, and buried like king Cheops, under a pyramid of rocks.

From the mountain I returned to the Hudson, and proceeded on to Albany, where I had not been since the commencement of the Grand Canal. Never having witnessed the mode of ascending through the locks, and navigating a canal, and being informed that I should see a most curious and interesting section of it between Albany and Schenectady, I took passage

in a commodious and very nice packet-boat, about 70 feet in length, equipped in steam-boat style, and drawn by three horses. Gliding from the surface of the Hudson, and passing through a long succession of locks, each of which gave us a lift of about eight feet, we soon found ourselves approaching the high craggy banks of the Mohawk. I had been some years ago at the Cohoes Falls, but our approach to them now was delightfully novel. Since leaving the Hudson, we had gained an elevation of 150 feet, and now found ourselves close aside the cataract, and within a few yards of the shore. I had formerly rode along this high and rocky bank in a stage coach, and was now sailing, or rather floating, over the very same surface in a large and lofty barge, through fields, and directly in front of houses, and where trees and shrubbery had, till lately, been growing. This was indeed a curious spectacle, and seemed to me sometimes like fairy-work. Onward we went—sometimes through fertile meadows, and sometimes over rough and hilly grounds. Here, the canal being cut directly through, our lateral prospects were obstructed by the high banks on each side. On the south side of the Mohawk, the shore became so mountainous and craggy, that the canal makers found it expedient to shoot the canal directly across the surface of the river, and 25 feet above its bed. This was indeed a bold undertaking; but it was accomplished, and you are now surprised and astonished at finding your watery path take a sudden turn, and stretch itself to the length of eleven hundred feet directly across the stream, supported by 26 stone pillars rising from the rocky floor of the Mohawk. The path for the horses is formed inside of the parapet, and they trot the full freighted bark across in a minute, while the staring and amazed passenger, standing on the upper deck, imagines that the boat may roll over the side of the aqueduct, and precipitate all hands into the stream below. After coursing for two miles along the northern shore, where the flank of a high rocky precipice has been hewn down for about a mile, to give width to the canal, it again strikes across the river on another aqueduct bridge, 740 feet in length, and then pursues its course to Schenectady, after having passed through 27 locks of granite and marble, which have now lifted your boat two hundred and twenty-six feet above the level of the Hudson. Owing to the great number of boats on the canal, you are frequently delayed at the locks, and by this means we were ten hours in going 29 miles. They are beginning, however, to construct another range of locks near the junction of the northern canal, which will, in a great measure, obviate these delays.