Page:The Englishwoman in America (IA englishwomaninam00birdrich).pdf/205

 overcoming the obstacle to navigation produced by the Falls of Niagara. This stupendous work is called the Welland Canal.

At Hamilton I received a most cordial welcome from the friends whom I went to visit, and saw something of the surrounding country. It is, I think, the most bustling place in Canada. It is a very juvenile city, yet already has a population of twenty-five thousand people. The stores and hotels are handsome, and the streets are brilliantly lighted with gas. Hamilton has a peculiarly unfinished appearance. Indications of progress meet one on every side—there are houses being built, and houses being pulled down to make room for larger and more substantial ones—streets are being extended, and new ones are being staked out, and every external feature seems to be acquiring fresh and rapid development. People hurry about as if their lives depended on their speed. "I guess" and "I calculate " are frequently heard, together with "Well posted up," and "A long chalk" and locomotives and steamers whistle all day long. Hamilton is a very Americanised place. I heard of "grievances, independence, and annexation," and, altogether, should have supposed it to be on the other side of the boundary-line.

It is situated on a little lake, called Burlington Bay, separated from Lake Ontario by a narrow strip of sandy shingle. This has been cut through, and, as two steamers leave the pier at Hamilton at the same hour every morning, there is a daily and very exciting race for the first entrance into the narrow passage. This racing is sometimes productive of very serious collisions.