Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 8).djvu/48

42 villages, such as Utica, Bloomfield, Canandaigua, Batavia, &c., came to Buffalo, at the foot of Lake Erie, where we met the gentleman waiting to receive his family, which he was going to put on board of a vessel and go up the lake. But preferring myself to go by land, I crossed the Niagara river into Canada; it being but three hundred miles to Detroit on that shore, while it is four hundred on the United States shore, and a much worse road. I went to a friend's house, formerly from Concord, who lived about nine miles from this place. This friend wishing to go on the journey with me, we began to make preparations; however, as I was a stranger in that country, he