NARRATIVE OF THE EXPEDITION. 41" 



The winter was still unbroken, and the weather had assumed 

 so unpropitious an aspect, since leaving New York, that there 

 was no probability of the navigation of the lakes being open so 

 as to embark at Buffalo before May. I proceeded seventeen miles 

 west to my father's residence, in the village of Yernon, to await 

 the development of milder weather. On the 10th of April, I re- 

 sumed my journey, taking the western stage, which had left Utica 

 at two o'clock in the morning. We lodged the first night at 

 Skeneateles, at the foot of the beautiful and sylvan lake of the 

 same name, and reached Geneva the next day, at one o'clock in 

 the afternoon. The roads were now dry and dusty ; indeed, the last 

 traces of snow had been seen in sheltered positions, in passing 

 through Oneida County, and every appearance in the Ontario 

 country indicated a season ten days more advanced than the valley 

 of the Mohawk. The field poplar put forth leaves on the 18th, 

 and apricots were in bloom on the 22d. 



At Geneva I remained until the 28th of April, when I again 

 took my seat in the mail-stage, passing, in the course of the 

 day, the lower margin of Canandaigua Lake, and through the 

 attractive and tastefully laid-out village of the same name, and, 

 after continuing the route through a most fertile country, with a 

 constantly expanding vegetation, reached Avon, on the banks of 

 the Genesee River. Here we slept. The next morning (the 29th), 

 we crossed this noble stream, and, after a long and fatiguing day's 

 staging, reached Buffalo in the evening. I was now at an estimated 

 distance of two hundred and ten miles west of Utica, and three 

 hundred and twenty -two from Albany. We had found the peach 

 and apple-tree in blossom, and the vegetation generally in an 

 advanced state, until reaching within eight or ten miles of Lake 

 Erie, where the force of the "winds, and the bodies of floating ice, 

 evidently had the effect to retard vegetation. No vessel had yet 

 ventured from the harbor, and although the steamer Walk-in-the- 

 Water was advertised for the 1st of May, it was determined to delay 

 her sailing until the 6th. This gave me time to visit Niagara* 



* This is an Iroquois word, said to signify the thunder of waters. The word, 

 as pronounced by the Senecas, is Oniagarah. For additional information on this 

 subject, see Notes on the Iroquois, p. 453. The etymology of the word has not, 

 however, been fully examined. It is clear the pronunciation of the word in Gold- 

 smith's day was Niagara. 



