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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Canada and the Canadians, by 
+Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Canada and the Canadians
+       Volume I
+
+Author: Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
+
+Release Date: December 4, 2006 [EBook #20014]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CANADA AND THE CANADIANS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Graeme Mackreth and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+(This file was produced from images generously made
+available by the Canadian Institute for Historical
+Microreproductions (www.canadiana.org))
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CANADA
+
+AND
+
+THE CANADIANS.
+
+BY
+
+SIR RICHARD HENRY BONNYCASTLE, KT.,
+
+LIEUTENANT-COLONEL ROYAL ENGINEERS AND MILITIA OF CANADA WEST.
+
+NEW EDITION.
+
+IN TWO VOLUMES.
+
+VOL. I.
+
+
+LONDON:
+HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,
+GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
+
+1849.
+
+
+F. Shoberl, Jnr. Printer to H.R.H Prince Albert, Rupert Street.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+OF
+
+THE FIRST VOLUME.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+Emigrants And Immigration                                            Page 1
+
+CHAPTER II.
+The Emigrant and his Prospects                                           46
+
+CHAPTER III.
+A Journey to the Westward                                                90
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+The French Canadian                                                     127
+
+CHAPTER V.
+Penetanguishene--The Nipissang Cannibals, and a
+Friendly Brother in the Wilderness                                      146
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+Barrie and Big Trees--A new Capital of a new District--Nature's
+Canal--The Devil's Elbow--Macadamization and Mud--Richmond Hill
+without the Lass--The Rebellion and the Radicals--Blue Hill and
+Bricks                                                                  172
+
+CHAPTER. VII.
+Toronto and the Transit--The Ice and its innovations--Siege
+and Storm of a Fortalice by the Ice-king--Newark, or Niagara--Flags,
+big and little--Views of American and of English Institutions--Blacklegs
+and Races--Colonial high life--Youth very young                         195
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+The old Canadian Coach--Jonathan and John Bull passengers--"That
+Gentleman"--Beautiful River, beautiful drive--Brock's
+Monument--Queenston--Bar and Pulpit--Trotting horse Railroad--Awful
+accident--The Falls once more--Speculation--Water
+Privilege--Barbarism--Museum--Loafers--Tulip-trees--Rattlesnakes--The
+Burning Spring--Setting fire to Niagara--A charitable Woman--The Nigger's
+Parrot--John Bull is a Yankee--Political Courtship--Lundy's Lane
+Heroine--Welland Canal                                                  217
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+The Great Fresh-water Seas of Canada                                    266
+
+
+
+
+CANADA
+
+AND
+
+THE CANADIANS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+  Emigrants and Immigration.
+
+
+Very surprising it seems to assert that the Mother Country knows very
+little about the finest colony which she possesses--and that an
+enlightened people emigrate from sober, speculative England, sedate and
+calculating Scotland, and trusting, unreflective Ireland, absolutely and
+wholly ignorant of the total change of life to which they must
+necessarily submit in their adopted home.
+
+I recollect an old story, that an old gunner, in an old-fashioned,
+three-cornered cocked hat, who was my favourite playfellow as a child,
+used to tell about the way in which recruits were obtained for the Royal
+Artillery.
+
+The recruiting sergeant was in those days dressed much finer than any
+field-marshal of this degenerate, railway era; in fact, the Horse Guards
+always turned out to the sergeant-major of the Royal Military Academy of
+Woolwich, when that functionary went periodically to the Golden Cross,
+Charing Cross, to receive and escort the young gentlemen cadets from
+Marlow College, who were abandoning the red coat and drill of the
+foot-soldier to become neophytes in the art and mystery of great gunnery
+and sapping.
+
+"The way they recruited was thus," said the bombadier. "The gallant
+sergeant, bedizened in copper lace from the crown of his head to the
+sole of his foot, and with a swagger which no modern drum-major has ever
+presumed to attempt, addressed a crowd of country bumpkins.
+
+"'Don't listen to those gentlemen in red; their sarvice is one which no
+man who has brains will ever think of--footing it over the univarsal
+world; they have usually been called by us the flatfoots. They uses the
+musquet only, and have hands like feet, and feet like fireshovels.
+
+"'Mind me, gentlemen, the royal regiment of the Royal Artillery is a
+sarvice which no gentleman need be ashamed of.
+
+"'We fights with real powder and ball, the flatfoots fights with
+bird-shot. We knows the perry-ferry of the circumference of a round
+shot. Did you ever see a mortar? Did you ever see a shell? I will answer
+for it you never did, except the poticary's mortar, and the shell that
+mortar so often renders necessary.
+
+"'Now, gentlemen, at the imperial city of Woolwich, in the Royal
+Arsenal, you may, if you join the Royal Artillery, you may see shells in
+earnest. Did you ever see a balloon? Yes! Then the shells there are
+bigger than balloons, and are the largest hollow shot ever made--the
+French has nothing like them.
+
+"'And the way we uses them! We fires them out of the mortars into the
+enemy's towns, and stuffs them full of red sogers. Well, they bursts,
+and out comes the flatfoots, opens the gates, and lets the Royal
+Artillery in; and then every man fills his sack with silver, and gold,
+and precious stones, after a leetle scrimmaging.
+
+"'Come along with me, my boys, and every one of you shall have a coat
+like mine, which was made out of the plunder; and you shall have a horse
+to ride, and a carriage behind it; and you shall see the glorious city
+of Woolwich, where the streets are paved with penny loaves, and drink is
+to be had for asking.'"
+
+So it is with nine-tenths of the emigrants to Canada in these
+enlightened days; so it is with the emigrants from old England, and from
+troubled Ireland, to the free and astonishing Union of the States of
+America and Texas, that conjoint luminary of the new go-ahead world of
+the West.
+
+Dissatisfied with home, with visionary ideas of El Dorados, or starving
+amidst plenty, the poorer classes obtain no correct information. Beset
+generally with agents of companies, with agents of private enterprise,
+with reckless adventurers, with ignorant priests, or missionaries of the
+lowest stamp, with political agitators, and with miserable traitors to
+the land of their birth and breeding, the poor emigrant starts from the
+interior, where his ideas have never expanded beyond the weaver's loom
+or factory labour, the plough or the spade, the hod, the plane, or the
+trowel, and hastens with his wife and children to the nearest sea-port.
+
+There he finds no friend to receive and guide him, but rapacious agents
+ready to take every advantage of his ignorance, with an eye to his
+scanty purse. A host of captains, mates, and sailors, eager to make up
+so many heads for the voyage, pack them aboard like sheep, and cross the
+Atlantic, either to New York or to Quebec, just as they have been able
+to entice a cargo to either port. Then come the horrors of a long voyage
+and short provisions, and high prices for stale salt junk and biscuit;
+and, at the end, if illness has been on board, the quarantine, that most
+dreadful visitation of all--for hope deferred maketh the heart sick.
+
+From the first discovery of America, there has been a tendency to
+exaggeration about the resources and capabilities of that country--a
+magniloquence on its natural productions, which can be best exemplified
+by referring the reader to the fac-simile of the one in Sir Walter
+Raleigh's work on Guiana,[1] now in the British Museum. Shakespeare had,
+no doubt, read Raleigh's fanciful description of "the men whose heads do
+grow beneath their shoulders," &c.; for he was thirty-four years of age
+when this print was published, only seventeen years before his death.
+
+[Footnote 1: Brevis et admiranda descriptio REGNI GVIANÆ, AVRI
+abundantissimi, in AMERICA, sev novo orbe, sub linea Æquinoctilia siti:
+quod nuper admodum, Annis nimirum 1594, 1595, et 1596 per generosum
+Dominum Dr. GVALTHERVM RALEGH Equitem Anglum detectum est: paulo post
+jussa ejus duobus libellis comprehensa. Ex quibus JODOCVS HONDIVS
+TABVLAM Geographicam adornavit, addita explicatione Belgico sermone
+scripta: Nunc vero in Latinum sermonem translata, et ex variis
+authoribus hinc inde declarata. Noribergæ. Impensis LEVINI HULSII.
+M.D.XCIX.]
+
+So expansive a mind as Raleigh's undoubtedly was, was not free from that
+universal credulity which still reigns in the breasts of all men
+respecting matters with which they are not personally acquainted; and
+the glowing descriptions of Columbus and his followers respecting the
+rich Cathay and the Spice Islands of the Indies have had so permanent a
+hold upon the imagination, that even the best educated amongst us have,
+in their youth, galloped over Pampas, in search of visionary
+_Uspallatas_. Nor is it yet quite clear that the golden city of El
+Dorado is wholly fabulous, the region in which it was said to exist not
+having yet been penetrated by Science; but it soon will be, for a
+steamboat is to ply up the Maranon, and Peru and Europe are to be
+brought in contact, although the voyage down that mighty flood has
+hitherto been a labour of several months.
+
+The poor emigrant, for we must return to him, lands at New York. Sharks
+beset him in every direction, boarding-houses and grogshops open their
+doors, and he is frequently obliged, from the loss of all his
+hard-earned money, to work out his existence either in that exclusively
+mercantile emporium, or to labour on any canal or railroad to which his
+kind new friends may think proper, or most advantageous to themselves,
+to send him. If he escapes all these snares for the unwary, the chances
+are that, fancying himself now as great a man as the Duke of Leinster,
+O'Connell, the Lord Mayor of London, or the Provost of Edinburgh, free
+and unshackled, gloriously free, he becomes entangled with a host of
+land-jobbers, and walks off to the weary West, there to encounter a life
+of unremitting toil in the solitary forests, with an occasional visit
+from the ague, or the milk-fever, which so debilitates his frame, that,
+during the remainder of his wretched existence, he can expect but little
+enjoyment of the manorial rights appendant to a hundred acres of wild
+land.
+
+Let no emigrant embark for the United States unless he has a kind friend
+to guide and receive him there, and to point out to him the good and the
+evil; for the native race look upon all foreigners with a jealous eye,
+and particularly upon the Irish.
+
+The Germans make the best settlers in that country, perhaps because, not
+speaking English, they cannot be so easily imposed upon by the crimps,
+and also because they seldom emigrate before they have arranged with
+their friends in America respecting the lands which they are to occupy.
+
+A society of British philanthropists has been established at New York to
+direct British emigrants in their ultimate views; but it may well be
+imagined that these gentlemen, who are chiefly engaged in trade, cannot
+descend to understand fully, or are constant witnesses of, the low
+tricks which are practised to seduce the unwary ones.
+
+The emigrant to Canada is somewhat differently situated.
+
+The Irish come out in shiploads every season, and generally very
+indifferently provided and without any definite object; nay, to such an
+extent is this carried, that hundreds of young females venture out every
+year by themselves, to better their condition, which betterment usually
+ends in their reaching as far inland as Toronto, where, or at other
+ports on the lakes, they engage themselves as domestics.
+
+When we consider that nearly 25,000 emigrants leave the Mother Country
+every year for Canada alone, how important is it that they should be
+informed of every particular likely to increase their comforts and to
+conduce to their well-being! This kind of service can be but partially
+rendered by the present publication, which, being intended for the
+general reader, cannot be given in a form likely to reach the class of
+emigrants who usually proceed to America otherwise than through the
+advice which the reader may, whenever it is in his power, kindly bestow
+upon them. But it will, I am persuaded, be extensively useful in that
+way, and also to the settler with a small capital who can afford to
+consult it.
+
+Learned dissertations upon colonization are useful only to the
+politician, and so much venality has prevailed among those who have
+thrust themselves forward in the cause of Canadian settlement, that the
+public become a little alarmed when they hear of a work expressly
+designed for the emigrant.
+
+The very best informed at home, and the _haute noblesse_, have been
+repeatedly taken in. Dinnerings and lionizing have been the order of the
+day for persons, who, in the colony, cut a very inferior figure. But
+this is natural, and in the end usually does no harm. It is natural that
+the colonist, who is a _rara avis_ in England, should be considered a
+very extraordinary personage among men who seek for novelty in any
+shape; because those who lavish favours upon him at one time and eschew
+his presence afterwards are usually ignorant of the very history of
+which he is the type. It is like the standing joke of sending out
+water-casks for the men-of-war built on the fresh-water seas of Canada,
+for there are plenty of rich folks at home who want only to be filled.
+
+The different sorts of people who emigrate from _home_ to the United
+States or Canada, may be classed under several heads, like the
+travellers of Sterne.
+
+First, the inquisitive and restless, who leave a goodly inheritance or
+occupation behind them, because they have heard that Tom Smith or Mister
+Mac Grogan, very ordinary folks anywhere, have made a rapid fortune,
+which is indeed sometimes the case in the United States, though rather
+rare there for old countrymen, and is still more rare and unlikely in
+Canada, where large fortunes may be said to be unknown quantities.
+
+Settlers of this class usually fall to the ground very soon--if they
+settle in Canada, they become Radicals; if they return from the States,
+they become Tories.
+
+The next class are your would-be aristocratic settlers, younger sons of
+younger sons, cousins of cousins, Union Barons, nephews' nephews of a
+Lord Mayor, or unprovided heirs in posse.
+
+These fancy they confer a sort of honour by selecting the colony as
+their final resting-place, and that a governor and his ministers have
+nothing in the world to think about but how they can provide for such
+important units. Hence they frequently end by placing themselves in
+direct opposition to the powers that be, or take very unwillingly to the
+labours of a farmer's life. Many of them, when they find that pretension
+is laughed at, particularly if no talents accompany it, which is rarely
+or ever the case, for talent is modest and retiring in its essential
+nature, turn out violent Republicans or Radicals of the most furious
+calibre; but the more modest portion work heartily at their farms, and
+frequently succeed.
+
+Another class is your private gentlemen's sons and decent young farmers
+from England, Ireland, or Scotland, who think before they leap, have
+connexions already established in Canada, and small capitals to
+commence with. These are the really valuable settlers: they go to
+Canada for land and living; and eschew the land and liberty system of
+the neighbouring nation. Wherever they settle, the country flourishes
+and becomes a second Britain in appearance, as may be observed in the
+London and western districts.
+
+It does not require a very lengthened acquaintance with Canada to form
+observations upon the characters of the _immigrants_, as the Webster
+style of Dr. Johnson will have the word to be.
+
+The English franklin and the English peasant who come here usually weigh
+their allegiance a little before they make up their minds; but, if they
+have been persuaded that Queen Victoria's reign is a "_baneful
+domination_," they either go to the United States at once, or to those
+portions of Canada where sympathy with the Stars and Stripes is the
+order of the day.[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: That is, to those portions of the London and western
+district where American settlers abound, who have so generously repaid
+the fostering care which Governor Simcoe originally extended to them.
+One of those rabid folks indebted to the British government, who kept an
+inn, padlocked his pumps lately when a regiment was marching through
+Woodstock in hot dusty weather, that the soldiers might not slake their
+thirst.]
+
+If they be Scotch Radicals, the most uncompromising and the most bitter
+of all politicians, they seek Canada only with the ultimate hope of
+revolutionizing it.
+
+But the latter are more than balanced by the respectable Scotch, who
+emigrate occasionally upon the same principles which actuate the
+respectable portion of the English emigrants, and by the hardy
+Highlanders already settled in various parts of the colony, whose
+proverbial loyalty is proof against the arts of the demagogue.
+
+The great mass of emigrants may however be said to come from Ireland,
+and to consist of mechanics of the most inferior class, and of
+labourers. These are all impressed with the most absurd notions of the
+riches of America, and on landing at Quebec often refuse high wages with
+contempt, to seek the Cathay of their excited imaginations westward.
+
+If they be Orangemen, they defy the Pope and the devil as heartily in
+Canada as in Londonderry, and are loyal to the backbone.
+
+If they are Repealers, they come here sure of immediate wealth, to kick
+up a deuce of a row, for two shillings and sixpence currency is paid for
+a day's labour, which two shillings and sixpence was a hopeless week's
+fortune in Ireland; and yet the Catholic Irish who have been long
+settled in the country are by no means the worst subjects in this
+Trans-Atlantic realm, as I can personally testify, having had the
+command of large bodies of them during the border troubles of 1837-8.
+They are all loyal and true.
+
+In the event of a war, the Catholic Irish, to a man--and what a
+formidable body it is in Canada and the United States!--will be on the
+side of England. O'Connell has prophesied rightly there, for it is not
+in human nature to forget the wrongs which the Catholics have suffered
+for the past ten years in a country professing universal freedom and
+toleration.
+
+The Americans of the better classes with whom I have conversed admit
+this, but their dislike of the Irish is rooted and general among all the
+native race; and they fear as well as mistrust them, because, in many of
+the largest cities, New York for one, the Irish predominate.
+
+The Americans say, and so do the Canadians, that, for some years back,
+since the repeal agitation at home, a few very ignorant and very
+turbulent priests, of the lowest grade, have found their way across the
+Atlantic. I have travelled all over Canada, and lived many years in the
+country, and have been thrown among all classes, from my having been
+connected with the militia. I never saw but one specimen of Irish
+hedge-priest, and therefore do not credit the assertion; this one came
+out last year, and a more furious bigot or a more republican ultra I
+never met with, at the same time that he was as ignorant as could be
+conceived.
+
+Such has not hitherto been the case with the Catholic priesthood of the
+Canadas. The French Canadian clergy are a body of pious, exemplary men,
+not perhaps shining in the galaxy of science, but unobtrusive,
+gentlemanly, and an honour to the _soutane_ and _chasuble_.
+
+The priests from Ireland are not numerous, for the Irish chapels were,
+till very lately, generally presided over by Scotch missionaries; and I
+can safely say that, whether Irish or Scotch, the Catholic priesthood of
+Western Canada will not yield the palm to their Franco-Canadian brethren
+of the cross, and that loyalty is deeply inculcated by them. I have long
+and personally known and admired the late Bishop Mac Donell; a worthier
+or a better man never existed. The highest and the lowest alike loved
+him.
+
+I saw him bending under the weight of years, passed in his ministry and
+in the defence of his adopted country, just before he left Canada, to
+lay his bones in his natal soil, preside over the ceremony of placing
+the first stone of the Catholic seminary, for which he had given the
+ground and funds to the utmost of his ability.
+
+He was a large, venerable-looking man, unwieldy from the infirmities of
+age and a life of toil and trouble; and the affecting and touching
+portion of the scene before us was to see him supported on his right and
+left by the arms of a Presbyterian colonel and a colonel of the Church
+of England.
+
+This is true Christianity, true charity--peace be to his soul!--
+
+His successor was a Canadian, equally free from pretension and bigotry;
+and he was succeeded by an Irishman, whose mission is to heal the wounds
+of party and strife. He is living and in office; I cannot, therefore,
+speak of him; but, differing as an Englishman so widely as I do in
+religious tenets from his, I can freely assert that, if clergymen of
+every denomination pursued the same course of brotherly love that he
+does, we should hear no more of the fierce and undying contention about
+subjects which should be covered with the veil of benevolence and
+humility.
+
+You cannot force a man to think as you do, to draw him into what you
+conceive to be the true path; mildness and conciliation are much more
+likely to effect your object than the Emperor of China's yellow stick.
+The days of the Inquisition, of Judge Jefferies, and of Claverhouse, are
+happily gone by; and the artillery of man's wrath now vents its harmless
+thunders much in the same way as the thunders of the Vatican, or the
+recent fulmination of the Archbishop of Paris against the author of the
+Wandering Jew; that is to say, with a great deal of noise, but without
+much damnifying any one, as the public soon formed a true judgment of M.
+Sue and of the tendency of his works.
+
+On the other hand, how horrible it is, and what a fearful view of frail
+human nature is opened for a searching mind to observe that a man, who
+professes to have abandoned the pleasures of existence, to have broken
+through the very first law of nature, to have separated himself from his
+kind, and to have assumed perfection and infallibility, the attributes
+of his Creator, devoting the altar at which he serves to the wicked
+purposes of arraying man against man, and of embruing the hands held up
+before him at prayer in the blood of his fellow-mortals!
+
+But such is the inevitable tendency of the system of "I am better than
+thou," whether it be practised by a Catholic priest of the hedge-school,
+by a fanatic bawler about new light, or by a fierce and uncompromising
+churchman. Faith, hope, and charity, are alike misinterpreted and
+misunderstood. Faith with these consists in blind or hypocritical
+devotion to their peculiar opinions and dogmas; hope is limited to the
+narrowest circle of ideas; and charity, Divine charity, exists not; for
+even the very relics, the mouldering bones of the defunct, are not
+allowed to rest side by side; and as to those differing in the slightest
+degree from them, to them charity extends not, however pious, however
+sincere, or however excellent they may be.
+
+The people of England are very little aware how widely Roman Catholicism
+extends in the United States and in Canada. From accurate returns, it
+has been ascertained that in the United States there were last year
+1,500,000, with 21 bishops, 675 churches, 592 mission stations, and 572
+priests otherwise employed in teaching and travelling; 22 colleges or
+ecclesiastical establishments, 23 literary institutions, 53 female
+schools or convents for instruction, 84 charitable hospitals and
+institutions, and 220 young students, preparing for the ministry; whilst
+we learn, from the Annals of the Propaganda, that 1,130,000 francs were
+appropriated, in May 1845, to the missions of America, or about £47,000
+annually, of which the share for the United States, including Texas, was
+771,164 francs, or about £32,000 in round numbers.
+
+Then again, the greater portion of the Indian tribes in the north-west
+and west, excepting near the Rocky Mountains or beyond them, are Roman
+Catholics; and their numbers are very great, and all in deep hatred,
+dislike, and enmity, to the Big Knives.
+
+More than half a million of the Lower Canadians are also of the same
+persuasion, and their church in Upper Canada is large and increasing by
+every shipload from Ireland. Even in Oregon, a Catholic bishop has just
+been appointed.
+
+It is more than probable, that in and around the United States three
+millions of Roman Catholic men are ever ready to advance the standard of
+their faith; whilst Mexico, weak as it is, offers another Catholic
+barrier to exclusive tenets of liberty, both of conscience and of
+person.
+
+It is surprising how very easily the emigrants are misled, and how
+simply they fancy that, once on the shores of the New World, Fortune
+must smile upon them.
+
+There is a British society, as I have already stated, for mutual
+protection, established at New York; and the government have agents of
+the first respectability at Quebec, at Montreal, and at Kingston. But
+the poorer classes, as well as those whose knowledge of life has been
+limited, are sadly defrauded and deluded.
+
+At a recent meeting of the Welsh Society at New York, facts were stated,
+showing the depravity and audacity of the crimps at Liverpool and New
+York. The President of the Society said that, owing to the nefarious
+practices against emigrants, the Germans first, then the Irish, after
+that the Welsh, and lastly the English residents of the city had taken
+the matter in hand by the formation of Protective Societies.
+
+The president of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick observed that in
+Liverpool the poor emigrants were fleeced without mercy; and he gave as
+one instance a fact that, by the representations of a packet agent, a
+large number of emigrants were induced to embark on board a packet
+without the necessary supply of provisions, being assured that for their
+passage-money they would be supplied by the captain--an arrangement of
+which the captain was wholly ignorant.
+
+The president of the Welsh Society exhibited sixty dollars of trash in
+bills of the Globe Bank, that had been palmed off upon an unsuspecting
+Welshman by some rascal in Liverpool, in exchange for his hoarded gold,
+and declared that this was only one of a series of like villanies
+constantly occurring.
+
+The ex-president of the St. George's Society, Mr. Fowler, mentioned a
+curious circumstance connected with the history of New York. He said
+that he remembered the city when it contained only fifty thousand
+inhabitants, and not one paved side walk, excepting in Dock Street. Now
+it had a population of nearly 400,000, and had so changed, that he could
+no longer identify the localities of his youthful days.
+
+Who, he asked, had done this? The emigrant! and it was protection they
+needed, not charity. He should have added, that the great mass of the
+emigrants who have made New York the mighty city it now is, were Irish,
+and that the native Americans have banded themselves in another form of
+protection against their increasing influence.
+
+The republican notions which the greater portion of the lower classes
+emigrating from the old country have been drilled into, lead them to
+believe that in the United States all men are equal, and that thus they
+have a splendid vault to make from poverty to wealth, an easy spring
+from a state of dependency to one of vast importance and consideration.
+The simple axiom of republicanism, that a ploughman is as good as a
+president, or a quarryman as an emperor, is taken firm hold of in any
+other sense than the right one. What sensible man ever doubted that we
+were all created in the same mould, and after the same image; but is
+there a well educated sane mind in America, believing that a perfect
+equality in all things, in goods and chattels, in agrarian rights and in
+education, is, or ever will be, practicable in this naughty world?
+
+Has nature formed all men with the same capacities, and can they be so
+exactly educated that all shall be equally fit to govern?
+
+The converse is true. Nature makes genius, and not genius nature. How
+rarely she yields a Shakespeare!--There has been but one Homer, one
+Virgil, since the creation. There was never a second Moses, nor have
+Solomon's wisdom and glory ever again been attainable.
+
+Look at the rulers of the earth, from the patriarchs to the present day,
+how few have been pre-eminent! Even in the earliest periods, when the
+age of man reached to ten times its present span, the wonderful sacred
+writ records Tubal-Cain, the first artificer, and Jubal, the lyrist, as
+most extraordinary men; and with what care are Aholiab and Bezabel,
+cunning in all sorts of craft, and Hiram, the artificer of Tyre,
+recorded! Hiram, the king, great as he undoubtedly was, was secondary in
+Solomon's eyes to the widow's son.
+
+These men, says the holy record, were gifted expressly for their
+peculiar mission; and so are all men, to whom the Inscrutable has been
+pleased to assign extraordinary talent.
+
+Cæsar, the conqueror, Napoleon, his imitator, and Nelson, and
+Wellington, are they on a par with the rabble of New York? Procul, O,
+procul este profani!
+
+Pure democracy is an utter and unattainable impossibility; nature has
+effectually barred against it. The only thing in the course of a life of
+more than half a century that has ever puzzled me about it is, that the
+Catholic clergy should, in so many parts of the world, have lent it a
+helping hand. The ministers of a creed essentially aristocratic,
+essentially the pillars of the divine right of kings, have they ever
+been in earnest about the matter? Perhaps not!
+
+If that giant of modern Ireland, the pacificator citizen king, succeeded
+in separating the island from Great Britain, would he, on attaining the
+throne, or the dictatorship, or the presidency, or whatever it might be,
+for the nonce, desire pure democracy? _Je crois que non_, because, if he
+did, he would reign about one clear week afterwards.
+
+Look at the United States, see how each successive president is bowed
+down before the Moloch altar; he must worship the democratic Baal, if he
+desires to be elected, or re-elected. It is not the intellect, or the
+wealth of the Union that rules. Already they seriously canvass in the
+Empire State perfect equality in worldly substance, and the division of
+the lands into small portions, sufficient to afford the means of
+respectable existence to every citizen. It is, perhaps, fortunate that
+very few of the office-holders have much substance to spare under these
+circumstances; but, if the President, Vice-President, and the
+Secretaries of State, are to live upon an acre or two of land for the
+rest of their lives, Spartan broth will be indeed a rich diet to theirs.
+
+When the sympathizers invaded Canada, in 1838-1839, the lands of the
+Canadians were thus parcelled out amongst them, as the reward of their
+extremely patriotic services, but in slices of one hundred, instead of
+one or two, acres.
+
+But, notwithstanding all this ultra-democracy, there is at present a
+sufficient counterbalance in the sense of the people, to prevent any
+very serious consequences; and the Irish, from having had their religion
+trampled upon, and themselves despised, would be very likely to run
+counter to native feeling.
+
+If any country in the whole civilized world exhibits the inequality of
+classes more forcibly than another, it is the country which has lately
+annexed Texas, and which aims at annexing all the New World.
+
+There is a more marked line drawn between wealth and pretension on the
+one hand, poverty and impertinent assumption on the other, than in the
+dominions of the Czar. Birth, place, power, are all duly honoured, and
+that sometimes to a degree which would astonish a British nobleman,
+accustomed all his life to high society. I remember once travelling in a
+canal boat, the most abominable of all conveyances, resembling Noah's
+ark in more particulars than its shape, that I was accosted, in the
+Northern States too, and near the borders, where equality and liberty
+reign paramount, by a long slab-sided fellow-passenger, who, I thought,
+was going to ask me to pay his passage, his appearance was so shabby,
+with the following questions:
+
+"Where are you from? are you a Livingstone?" I told him, for I like to
+converse with characters, that I was from Canada. "What's your name?" he
+asked. I satisfied him. He examined me from head to foot with attention,
+and, as he was an elderly man, I stood the gaze most valiantly. "Well,"
+he said, "I thought you were a Livingstone; you have got small ears, and
+small feet and hands, and that, all the world over, is the sign of
+gentle blood."
+
+He was afterwards very civil; and, upon inquiring of the skipper of the
+boat who he was, I found that my friend was a man of large fortune, who
+lived somewhere near Utica, on an estate of his own.
+
+This was before the sympathy troubles, and I can back it with another
+story or two to amuse the reader.
+
+Some years ago, when it was the fashion in Canada for British officers
+always to travel in uniform, I went to Buffalo, the great city of
+Buffalo on lake Erie, in the Thames steamer, commanded by my good
+friend, Captain Van Allen, and the first British Canadian steamboat
+that ever entered that harbour. We went in gallantly, with the flag
+flying that "has braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze." I
+think the majority of the population must have lined the wharfs to see
+us come in. They rent the welkin with welcomes, and, among other
+demonstrations, cast up their caps, and cried with might and main--"Long
+live George the Third!"--Our gracious monarch had for years before bid
+this world good night, but that was nothing; the good folks of Buffalo
+had not perhaps quite forgotten that they were once, long before their
+city was a city, subjects of King George.
+
+I and another officer in uniform were received with all honours, and
+escorted to the Eagle hotel, where we were treated sumptuously, and had
+to run the gauntlet of handshaking to great extent. A respectable
+gentleman, about forty, some seven years older than myself, stuck close
+to me all the while. I thought he admired the British undress uniform,
+but he only wanted to ask questions, and, after sundry answers, he
+inquired my name, which being courteously communicated, he said, "Well,
+I am glad, that's a fact, that I have seen you, for many is the whipping
+I have had for your book of Algebra." Now I never was capable of
+committing such an unheard-of enormity as being the cause of
+flagellation to any man by simple or quadratic equations; and it must
+have been the binomial theorem which had tickled his catastrophe, for it
+was my father's treatise which had penetrated into the new world of
+Buffalonian education.
+
+It is a pity, is it not, gentle reader, that such feelings do not now
+exist?
+
+Nevertheless, even now, the designation of a British officer is a
+passport in any part of the United States. The custom-house receives it
+with courtesy and good-will; society is gratified by attentions received
+from a British officer; and it is coupled with the feelings which the
+habits and conduct of a gentleman engender throughout Christendom.
+
+At New York, I visited every place worth seeing; and, although
+disliking gambling, races, and debating societies, _à outrance_, I was
+determined to judge for myself of New York, of life in New York.
+
+On one occasion, I was at a meeting of the turf in an hotel after the
+races, where violent discussions and heavy champagning were going on. I
+was then (it was in 1837) a major in the army, and was introduced to one
+or two prominent men in the room as a British officer who had been to
+see the racecourse; this caused a general stir, and the champagne flew
+about like----I am at a loss for a simile; and the health of Queen
+Victoria was drunk with three times three.
+
+On board a packet returning from England, we had several of the leading
+characters of the United States as passengers. A very silly and
+troublesome democrat, of the Loco-foco school, from Philadelphia, made
+himself conspicuous always after dinner, when we sat, according to
+English fashion, at a dessert, by his vituperations against monarchy and
+an exhibition of his excessive love for everything American. The
+gentlemen above alluded to, men who had travelled over Europe, whose
+education and manners made them that which a true gentleman is all over
+the world, were disgusted, and, to punish his impertinence, proposed
+that a weekly paper should be written by the cabin passengers, in which
+the occurrences of each day should be noted and commented upon, and that
+poetry, tales, and essays, should form part of its matter.
+
+They agreed to discuss the relative points and bearings of monarchy and
+democracy; they to depute one of their number to be the champion of
+monarchy; and we to chuse the champion of democracy from amongst the
+English passengers.
+
+Two drawings were fixed up at each end of the table after dinner; one,
+representing a crowned Plum-pudding; and the other, Liberty and
+Equality, by the well-known sign. The blustering animal was soon
+effectually silenced; a host of first-rate talent levelled a constant
+battery at his rude and uncultivated mind.
+
+I shall never forget this voyage, and I hope the talent-gifted Canadian
+lawyer who threw down the gauntlet of Republicanism, and who has since
+risen to the highest honours of his profession which the Queen can
+bestow, has preserved copies of the Saturday's Gazette of The Mediator
+American Packet-ship.
+
+The mention of this vessel puts me in mind of one more American
+anecdote, and I must tell it, for I have a good deal of dry work before
+me.
+
+Crossing the Atlantic once in an American vessel, we met another
+American ship, of the same size, and passed very close. Our captain
+displayed the stars and stripes in true ship-shape cordial greeting.
+Brother Jonathan took no notice of this sea civility, and passed on;
+upon which the skipper, after taking a long look at him with his
+spy-glass, broke out in a passion, "What!" said he, "you won't show your
+b--d bunting, your old stripy rag? Now, I guess, if he had been a
+Britisher, instead of a d--d Yankee, he would not have been ashamed of
+his flag; he would have acted like a gentleman. Phew!" and he whistled,
+and then chewed his cigar viciously, quite unconscious that I was
+enjoying the scene.
+
+But, if it be possible that one peculiar portion of the old countrymen
+are more disliked or despised than another in any country under the sun,
+connected by such ties as the United States are with Britain, there can
+be no doubt that the condition of the Jews under King John, as far as
+hatred and unexpressed contumelious feeling goes, was preferable to the
+feeling which native Americans, of the ultra Loco-foco or ultra-federal
+breed, entertain towards the labouring Catholic Irish, and would, if
+they could with safety, vent upon them in dreadful visitation. They
+would exterminate them, if they dared.
+
+To account for such a feeling, it must be observed that a large portion
+of these ignorant and misguided men have brought much of this animosity
+upon themselves; for, continuing in the New World that barbarous
+tendency to demolish all systems and all laws opposed to their limited
+notions of right and wrong, and, whilst their senseless feuds among
+themselves harass society, they eagerly seek occasions for that restless
+political excitement to which they are accustomed in their own unhappy
+and regretted country.
+
+A body of these hewers of wood and drawers of water, who, when not
+excited, are the most innocent and harmless people in the world--easily
+led, but never to be driven--get employed on a canal or great public
+work; and, no sooner do they settle down upon wages which must appear
+like a dream to them, than some old feud between Cork and Connaught,
+some ancient quarrel of the Capulets and Montagues of low life, is
+recollected, or a chant of the Boyne water is heard, and to it they go
+pell-mell, cracking one another's heads and disturbing a peaceful
+neighbourhood with their insane broils.
+
+Or, should a devil, in the shape of an adviser, appear among them, and
+persuade these excitable folks that they may obtain higher wages by
+forcing their own terms, bludgeons and bullets are resorted to, in order
+to compel compliance, and incendiarism and murder follow, until a
+military force is called out to quell the riots.
+
+The scenes of this kind in Canada, where vast sums are annually expended
+on the public works, have been frightful; and such has been the terror
+which these lawless hordes have inspired, that timid people have quitted
+their properties and fled out of the reach of the moral pestilence; nay,
+it has been carried so far, that a Scotch regiment has been marked on
+account of its having been accidentally on duty in putting down a canal
+riot; and, wherever its station has afterwards been cast, the vengeance
+of these people has followed it.
+
+At Montreal, the elections have been disgraced by bodies of these
+canallers having been employed to intimidate and overawe voters; and,
+were it not that a large military force is always at hand there, no
+election could be made of a member, whose seat would be the unbiassed
+and free choice of his constituents.
+
+It is, however, very fortunate for Canada that these canallers are not
+usually inclined to settle, but wander about from work to work, and
+generally, in the end, go to the United States. The Irish who settle are
+fortunately a different people; and, as they go chiefly into the
+backwoods, lead a peaceful and industrious life.
+
+But it is, nevertheless, very amusing, and affords much insight into the
+workings of frail human nature to observe the conduct of that portion of
+the Irish emigrants who find that they have neither the means of
+obtaining land, nor of quitting some large town at which they may
+arrive. Their first notion then is to go out to service, which they had
+left Ireland to avoid altogether. The father usually becomes a
+day-labourer, the sons farm-servants or household servants in the towns,
+the daughters cooks, nursery-maids, &c.
+
+When they come to the mistress of a family to hire, they generally sit
+down on the nearest chair to the door in the room, and assume a manner
+of perfect familiarity, assuring the lady of the house that they never
+expected to go out to service in America, but that some family
+misfortune has rendered such a step necessary. The lady then, of course,
+asks them what branch of household service they can undertake; to which
+the invariable reply is, anything--cook or housemaid, child's-maid or
+housekeeper, and that indeed they lived in better places at home than
+they expect to get in America, such as Lord So-and-so's, or Squire
+So-and-so's.
+
+The end of this is obvious; and a lady told me, the other day, she hired
+a professed cook, who was very shortly put to the test by a dinner-party
+occurring a day or two after she joined the household. Her mistress
+ordered dinner; and one joint, or _pièce de resistance_, was a fine
+fillet of veal. The professed cook, it appeared, laboured under a little
+_manque d'usage_ on two delicate points, for she very unexpectedly burst
+into her lady's boudoir just as she was dressing for dinner, and
+exclaimed, "Mistress, dear, what'll I do with the vail?"--"The veil?"
+said the dame, in horror; "what veil?"--"Why, the vail in the pot, marm;
+I biled it, and it swelled out so, the divil a get it out can I git it."
+
+So with the farm-servants, they can all do everything; and an Irish
+gentleman told me that he lately hired a young man, an emigrant, to
+plough for him; and, on asking him if he understood ploughing, the
+good-natured Paddy answered, offhand, "Ploughing, is it? I'm the boy for
+ploughing."--"Very well, I'm glad of it," said the gentleman, "for you
+are a fine, likely young fellow, so I shall hire you." He hired him
+accordingly at high wages--ten dollars a month and provisions and
+lodging found. The first day he was to work, my friend told him to go
+and yoke the oxen. Paddy stared with all his eyes, but said nothing, and
+went away. He staid some time, and then returned with a pair of oxen,
+which he was driving before him. "Here's the oxen, master!"--"Where are
+the yokes, Paddy?"--"The yokes! by the powers, is that what they call
+beef in Canady?" Poor Paddy had been a weaver all his live-long days.
+
+The Irish are almost exclusively the servants in most parts of the
+northern states and throughout Canada, excepting the French Canadians,
+and very attached, faithful servants they frequently are; but notions of
+liberty and equality get possession of their phrenological developments,
+and they are almost always on the move to better their condition, which
+rarely happens as they desire.
+
+Then another crying evil in Canada and in the States is the rage for
+dress. An Irish girl no sooner gets a modicum of wages than all her
+thoughts are to go to chapel or church as fine or finer than her
+mistress. Nearly every servant-girl in the large towns has a _ridicule_
+(that must be the proper way of spelling it), a bustle, a parasol, an
+expensive shawl, and a silk gown, and fine bonnet, gloves, and a white
+pocket-handkerchief. The men are not so aspiring, and usually don on
+Sundays a blue coat and brass buttons, white pantaloons, white gloves,
+and a good fur cap in winter, or a neat straw hat or brilliant beaver in
+summer. The waistcoat is nondescript, but the boots are irreproachable.
+A cigar has nearly replaced the pipe in the streets.
+
+I will defy a short-sighted person to distinguish her nursery-maid from
+her own sister at a little distance; and, being somewhat afflicted that
+way myself, I frequently nod to a well-dressed soubrette, thinking she
+is at least a leading member of the aristocracy of the town; and this is
+the more amusing, as in all colonial towns and in the _haute societé_ of
+the Republic very considerable magnificence is affected, and a rage for
+rank and pseudo-importance is not a little the order of the day.
+"Nothing," says a distinguished writer upon that most frivolous of all
+threadbare subjects, etiquette, "nothing is more decidedly the sign of a
+vulgar-born or a vulgar-bred person than to be ready to practise the
+art of cutting." I therefore bow to the well-dressed grisettes, upon the
+principle of avoiding to be thought vulgar in mixed society by cutting a
+lady of tremendous rank; as I would rather take a cook for a Countess,
+or a chambermaid for an Honourable, than be guilty of so much rudeness.
+
+You must not smile, gentle reader, and say cooks are often handsomer
+than Countesses, or chambermaids prettier than Honourables; I am like
+the old man of the Bubbles of Brunnen, insensible to anything but the
+beauties of nature. Neither must you think we have no Countesses nor
+Honourables in Canada. The former are in truth _raræ aves_, but the
+latter--why, every change of ministry creates a batch of them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+  The Emigrant and his Prospects.
+
+
+Those who really wish Canada well desire it to become a second Britain,
+and not a mere second Texas. Those who wish it evil, and these comprise
+the restless, unprovided race of politicians under whose incessant
+agitation Canada has so long groaned, desire its Texian annexation to
+the already overgrown States in its vicinity.
+
+That it may become a second Britain and hold the balance of power on the
+continent of America is my prayer, and the prayer too of one who
+entertains no enmity towards the people of the United States, but who
+admires their unceasing exertions in behalf of their country, who would
+admire their institutions, based as they are upon those of England, if
+the grand design of Washington had been carried out, and perfect freedom
+of thought and of action had been secured to the people, instead of a
+slavish awe of the mob, an absolute dread of the uneducated masses, a
+sovereign contempt of the opinion of the world in accomplishing any
+design for the aggrandizement of the Union, the most despotic and
+degrading oppression of all who presume to hold religious opinions at
+variance with those of the masses, and the chained bondsman in a land of
+liberty!
+
+To guard the respectable settler, who has a character at stake, and a
+family with some little capital to lay out to better advantage than he
+can at home, against the grievous and often fatal errors which have been
+propagated for sinister motives by needy adventurers who have written
+about Canada, or who are or have been agents for the sake only of the
+remuneration which it brings, caring but little for the misery they have
+entailed, I have undertaken to continue an account of this fine
+province, where nothing is provided by Nature except fertile soil and a
+healthy climate; the rest she leaves to unremitting labour and to the
+exercise of judgment by the settler.
+
+As I have already inferred, this work will contain nothing vituperative
+of the United States, of that people who are the grandchildren of
+Britannia, and whose well-being is so essential to the peace and
+security of Christendom.
+
+I shall endeavour to render it as plain and unpretending as possible,
+and shall not confine myself to studied rules or endeavours to make a
+book, taking up my subject as suits my own leisure, which is not very
+ample, and resuming or interrupting it at pleasure or convenience.
+
+It will be necessary to enter more at large than in my preceding volumes
+into the resources of Canada, and, for this end, Geology and other
+scientific subjects must be introduced; but, as I dislike exceedingly
+that heavy and gaudy veil of learning, that embroidered science, with
+which modern taste conceals those secrets of Nature which have been so
+partially unfolded, I shall not have frequent recourse to absurd Greek
+derivations, which are very commonly borrowed for the occasion from
+technical dictionaries, or lent by a classical friend; but, whenever
+they must occur, the dictionary shall explain them, for I really think
+it beneath the dignity of the lights of modern Geology to talk as they
+do about the Placoids and the Ganoids, as the first created fishlike
+beings, and of the Ctenoids and the Cycloids as the more recent finners.
+It always puts me in mind of Shakespeare's magniloquence concerning "the
+Anthropophagi and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders, of
+antres vast and deserts idle," when he exhibited his learning in
+language which no one, however, can imitate, and which he makes the lady
+seriously incline and listen to, simply because she did not understand a
+word that was said. So it is with the overdone and continual changing of
+terms that now constantly occurs; insomuch that the terms of plain
+science, instead of being simplified and brought within the reach of
+ordinary capacities, is made as uncouth and as unintelligible as
+possible, and totally beyond the reach of those who have no collegiate
+education to boast of, and no good technical dictionary at hand to refer
+to.
+
+The present age is most prone to this false estimate of learning and to
+public scientific display. If science, true science, yields to it,
+learning will very soon vanish from the face of the earth again, and
+nothing but monkish lore and the dark ages return.
+
+There is a vast field open for research in Canada: it is yet a virgin
+soil, both as respects its moral and its physical cultivation.
+Therefore, plain facts are the best, and those made as level to the eye
+as possible; for the amusing mistakes which a would-be learned man
+makes, after a cursory perusal of anything scientific, only subject him
+to silent derision.
+
+A very old casual acquaintance of mine, a sort of man holding a rather
+elevated rank, but originally from the great unwashed, who had risen by
+mere chance, aided by a little borough influence, was talking to me one
+day about some property of his in Western Canada, which he fancied had
+rich minerals upon it. Accordingly, he had taken a preliminary Treatise
+on Mineralogy in hand, and puzzled his brains in order to converse
+learnedly. "My land," quoth he, "is Silesia, and has a great bed of
+sulphuret of pyrites." The poor gentleman, who had a vast opinion of
+himself and always contradicted everybody about everything, meant that
+his soil contained a deal of silica, and that iron pyrites was abundant
+in it.
+
+The importance of the annual migration from Britain is best evidenced by
+the representation of the chief emigrant agent at Quebec, subjoined.
+
+In all the great sea-ports of England, Ireland, and Scotland, there are
+emigrant agents appointed by the government, to whom application should
+always be made for information, by every emigrant who has not the
+advantage of friends in Canada to receive and guide him; and these
+gentlemen prevent the trouble, expense, loss of time, and fraud, to
+which the poor settlers are subjected by the crimps and agents, with
+whom every sea-port abounds.
+
+On their arrival in Canada, if ignorant of their way, they should apply
+at Quebec to the government principal agent, who is stationed there for
+the lower or eastern part of Canada, and he will give them either advice
+or passage, according to the nature of the case.
+
+It is a pity that a rage exists for going as far west as possible at
+first, for this rage causes distress, and ends frequently by their being
+kidnapped into settling in the United States.
+
+If, however, they are determined to go on to Western Canada, their
+course is either to pay their own way, or to obtain assistance from the
+government to send them on to Kingston, where another government agent
+for Western Canada is stationed; and, as this gentleman has now acted in
+that capacity for many years, he possesses a perfect knowledge of the
+country and its resources, and of the wants and objects of the
+settlers.
+
+There is excellent land, and plenty of it to be obtained from the
+British American Land Company in Lower Canada, in that portion called
+"The Townships," which adjoin the states of Vermont and New York; and,
+excepting that the winters are longer, the climate more severe, it is as
+desirable as any other part of the province, and, in point of health,
+perhaps more so, as it is sufficiently far from the great river and
+lakes to make it less subject to ague; which, however, more or less, all
+new countries in the temperate zone, well forested and watered, are
+invariably the seat of, and which is increased in power and frequency in
+proportion to the neighbourhood of fresh water in large bodies, and the
+use of whiskey as a preventive.
+
+From a statement of the number of emigrants to this colony for the last
+sixteen years, compiled by A.C. Buchanan, Esq., chief emigrant agent, it
+appears that, in the five years subsequently to 1829, the emigration
+from the British Isles was 165,793. From other sources, in the three
+years, from 1829 to 1832, the emigration exceeded that of the previous
+ten years--the numbers being respectively, 125,063 and 121,170. In 1832,
+the emigrants arrived reached the high number of 51,746; but the cholera
+of that year was of so fatal a character on the St. Lawrence, that the
+numbers in 1833 fell 22,062. This epidemic, coupled with the rebellions
+of '37 and '38, materially checked the increased emigration commenced in
+1836. In 1838, the number was only 3,266, and in 1839, 7,500. But, since
+1840, emigration has again recovered, and, during the period of
+navigation of 1845, it amounted to 27,354, of whom 2,612 arrived _via_
+the United States.
+
+The United States, however, received by far the largest proportion of
+the emigration from Britain. At the port of New York alone, from 1st
+November, 1844, to 31st October, 1845, there arrived--
+
+From England and Scotland         10,653
+From Ireland                      38,300
+                                 -------
+Total at New York                 48,953
+
+The number of emigrants landed at the port of Quebec, in 1845, was
+25,375.
+
++----------------------------------------------------------------------+
+|             NUMBER OF EMIGRANTS SINCE 1829.                          |
+|----------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+---------|
+|                |'29 to '33|'34 to '38|'39 to '43|'44 to '45| Total.  |
+|                |          |          |          |          |         |
+|                |----------|----------|----------|----------|---------|
+|England.        |  43,386  | 28,624   |  30,318  | 16,531   | 119,354 |
+|Ireland.        | 102,264  | 54,898   |  74,981  | 24,201   | 256,344 |
+|Scotland.       |  20,143  | 10,998   |  16,289  |  4,408   |  51,838 |
+|British American|          |          |          |          |         |
+|  Prov. &c.     |   1,904  |  1,831   |   1,777  |    377   |   5,589 |
+|                |----------+----------+----------+----------+---------|
+|                | 167,697  | 96,351   | 123,860  | 45,517   | 433,425 |
++----------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+---------+
+
+Upper Canada would seem to have received the largest share of the influx
+of population. The increase in the number of its inhabitants, between
+1827 and 1843, is stated at 230,000.
+
+The local government has for some few years past encouraged, although
+rather scantily, as Mr. Logan can, I dare say, testify, an exploration
+of the natural resources of the Canadas, as far as geology and
+mineralogy are concerned. Its medical statistics, its botany and
+zoology, will follow; and agriculture, that primary and most noble of
+all applications of the mind to matter, is making rapid strides, by the
+formation of district and local societies, which will do infinitely more
+good than any system of government patronage for the advancement of the
+welfare of the people could devise.
+
+The public works have also, for the first time, been placed under the
+control of the executive and legislative bodies by the formation of a
+board, which is itself also subject to the supervision of the
+government.
+
+But much remains to be done on this important head. A melancholy error
+was committed in making the President, and consequently all the officers
+and _employés_, of the Board of Works, partizans of the ministry of the
+day; thus paralyzing the efforts of a zealous man, on the one hand, by
+the fear of dismissal upon any change of the popular will, and
+neutralizing his efforts whilst in office, by rendering his measures
+mere jobs.
+
+This has been amended under Lord Metcalfe's administration; and it is to
+be hoped that the office of President of the Board of Works will
+hereafter be one subjected to severe but not to vexatious scrutiny, and
+at the same time carefully guarded against political influence, and only
+rendered tenable with honour by the capacity of the person selected to
+fill it and of his subordinates. Canada is, as I have written two former
+volumes to prove, a magnificent country. I doubt very much if Nature has
+created a finer country on the whole earth.
+
+The soil is generally good, as that made by the decay of forests for
+thousands of years upon substrata, chiefly formed of alluvion or
+diluvion, the deposit from waters, must be. It is, moreover, from Quebec
+to the Falls of St. Mary, almost a flat surface, intersected and
+interlaced by numberless streams, and studded with small lakes, whilst
+its littorale is a river unparalleled in the world, expanding into
+enormous fresh water seas, abounding with fish.
+
+If the tropical luxuries are absent, if its winters are long and
+excessively severe, yet it yields all the European fruits abundantly,
+and even some of the tropical ones, owing to the richness of its soil
+and the great heat of the summer. Maize, or Indian corn, flourishes, and
+is more wholesome and better than that produced in the warm South. The
+crops of potato, that apple of the earth, as the French so justly term
+it, are equal, if not superior, to those of any other climate; whilst
+all the vegetables of the temperate regions of the old world grow with
+greater luxuriance than in their original fields. I have successively
+and successfully cultivated the tomato, the melon, and the capsicum, in
+the open air, for several seasons, at Kingston and Toronto, which are
+not the richest or the best parts of Western Canada, as far as
+vegetation is concerned. Tobacco grows well in the western district, and
+where is finer wheat harvested than in Western Canada?--whilst hay, and
+that beauty of a landscape, the rich green sod, the velvet carpet of the
+earth, are abundant and luxuriant.
+
+If the majesty of vegetation is called in question, and intertropical
+plants brought forward in contrast, even the woods and trackless
+forests of Guiana, where the rankest of luxuriance prevails, will not do
+more than compete with the glory of the primeval woods of Canada. I know
+of nothing in this world capable of exciting emotions of wonder and
+adoration more directly, than to travel alone through its forests.
+Pines, lifting their hoary tops beyond man's vision, unless he inclines
+his head so far backwards as to be painful to his organization, with
+trunks which require fathoms of line to span them; oaks, of the most
+gigantic form; the immense and graceful weeping elm; enormous poplars,
+whose magnitude must be seen to be conceived; lindens, equally vast;
+walnut trees of immense size; the beautiful birch, and the wild cherry,
+large enough to make tables and furniture of.
+
+Oh, the gloom and the glory of these forests, and the deep reflection
+that, since they were first created by the Divine fiat, civilized man
+has never desecrated them with his unsparing devastations; that a
+peculiar race, born for these solitudes, once dwelt amidst their
+shades, living as Nature's woodland children, until a more subtile being
+than the serpent of Eden crept amongst them, and, with his glittering
+novelties and dangerous beauty, caused their total annihilation! I see,
+in spirit, the red hunter, lofty, fearless, and stern, stalking in his
+painted nudity, and displaying a form which Apollo might have envied,
+amidst the everlasting and silent woods; I see, in spirit, the bearded
+stranger from the rising sun, with his deadly arms and his more deadly
+fire-water, conversing with his savage fellow, and displaying the envied
+wealth of gorgeous beads and of gaudy clothing.
+
+The scene changes, the proud Indian is at the feet of his ensnarer;
+disease has relaxed his iron sinews; drunkenness has debased his mind;
+and the myriad crimes and vices of civilized Europe have combined to
+sweep the aborigines of the soil from the face of the forest earth. The
+forest groans beneath the axe; but, after a few years, the scene again
+changes; fertile fields, orchards and gardens, delight the eye; the
+city, and the town, and the village spires rise, and where two solitary
+wigwams of the red hunter were once alone occasionally observed, twenty
+thousand white Canadians now worship the same Great Author of the
+existence of all mankind.
+
+And to increase these fields, these orchards, these gardens, these
+villages, these towns, and these cities, year after year, thirty
+thousand of the children of Britain cross the broad Atlantic: and what
+seeks this mass of human beings, braving the perils of the ocean and the
+perils of the land? Competence and wealth! The former, by prudence, is
+soon attainable; the acquisition of the latter uncertain and fickle.
+
+No free grants of land are now given, but the settler may obtain them
+upon easy terms from the government, or the Canada and British American
+companies.
+
+The settler with a small capital cannot do better than purchase out and
+out. Instalments are a bad mode of purchasing; for, if all should not
+turn out right, instalments are sometimes difficult to meet; and the
+very best land, in the best locations, as we shall hereafter see, is to
+be had from 7s. 6d., if in the deep Bush, as the forest is called; to
+10s., if nearer a market; or 15s. and 20s., if very eligibly situated.
+Thus for two hundred pounds a settler can buy two hundred acres of good
+land, can build an excellent house for two hundred and fifty more, and
+stock his farm with another fifty, as a beginning; or, in other words,
+he can commence Canadian life for five hundred pounds sterling, with
+every prospect before him, if he has a family, of leaving them
+prosperous and happy. But he and they must work, work, work. He and all
+his sons must avoid whiskey, that bane of the backwoods, as they would
+avoid the rattlesnake, which sometimes comes across their path. Whiskey
+and wet feet destroy more promising young men in Canada than ague and
+fever, that scourge of all well watered woody countries; for the ague
+and fever seldom kill but with the assistance of the dram and of
+exposure.
+
+Men nurtured in luxury or competence at home, as soon as the unfailing
+_ennui_ arising from want of society in the backwoods begins to succeed
+the excitement of settling, too frequently drink, and in many cases
+drink from their waking hour until they sink at night into sottish
+sleep. This is peculiarly the case where there is no village nor town
+within a day's journey; and thus many otherwise estimable young men
+become habitual drunkards, and sink from the caste of gentlemen
+gradually into the dregs of society, whilst their wives and families
+suffer proportionably.
+
+In Lower Canada, this vice does not prevail to the same extent as in the
+upper portion of the province. The French Canadians are not addicted to
+the vice of drinking ardent spirits as a people, although the lumberers
+and voyageurs shorten their lives very considerably by the use of
+whiskey. The _lumberers_, who are the cutters and conveyers of timber,
+pass a short and excited existence.
+
+In the winter, buried in the eternal forest, far, far away from the
+haunts of man, they chop and hew; in the summer, they form the timber,
+boards, staves, &c., into rafts, which are conveyed down the great lakes
+and the rivers St. Lawrence and Ottawa to Quebec--on these rafts they
+live and have their summer being. Hard fare in plenty, such as salt pork
+and dough cakes; fat and unleavened bread, with whiskey, is their diet.
+Tea and sugar form an occasional luxury. Up to their waists in snow in
+winter, and up to their waists in summer and autumn in water, with all
+the moving accidents by flood and field; the occasional breaking-up of
+the raft in a rapid, the difficulty of the winter and spring transport
+of the heavy logs of squared timber out of the deep and trackless woods,
+combine to form a portion of the hard and reckless life of a lumberer,
+whose _morale_ is not much better than his _physicale_.
+
+Picture to yourself, child of luxury, sitting on a cushioned sofa, in a
+room where the velvet carpet renders a footfall noiseless, where art is
+exhausted to afford comfort, and where even the hurricane cannot disturb
+your perusal of this work, a wood reaching without limit, excepting the
+oceans either of salt or fresh water which surround Canada, and where to
+lose the track is hopeless starvation and death; figure the giant pines
+towering to the clouds, gloomy and Titan-like, throwing their vast arms
+to the skyey influences, and making a twilight of mid-day, at whose
+enormous feet a thicket of bushes, almost as high as your head, prevents
+your progress without the pioneer axe; or a deep and black swamp for
+miles together renders it necessary to crawl from one fallen monarch of
+the wood onwards to the decaying and prostrate bole of another, with an
+occasional plunge into the mud and water, which they bridge; eternal
+silence reigning, disturbed only by your feeble efforts to advance; and
+you may form some idea of a red pine land, rocky and uneven, or a cedar
+swamp, black as night, dark, dismal, and dangerous.
+
+Here, after you have hewed or crept your toiling way, you see, some
+yards or some hundred yards, as the forest is close or open, before
+you, a light blue curling smoke amongst the dank and lugubrious scene;
+you hear a dull, distant, heavy, sudden blow, frequent and deadened,
+followed at long intervals by a tremendous rending, crashing,
+overwhelming rush; then all is silent, till the voice of the guardian of
+man is heard growling, snarling, or barking outright, as you advance
+towards the blue smoke, which has now, by an eddy of the wind, filled a
+large space between the trees.
+
+You stand before the fire, made under three or four sticks set up
+tenwise, to which a large cauldron is hung, bubbling and seething, with
+a very strong odour of fat pork; a boy, dirty and ill-favoured, with a
+sharp glittering axe, looks very suspiciously at you, but calls off his
+wolfish dog, who sneaks away.
+
+A moment shows you a long hut, formed of logs of wood, with a roof of
+branches, covered by birch-bark, and by its side, or near the fire,
+several nondescript sties or pens, apparently for keeping pigs in,
+formed of branches close to the ground, either like a boat turned
+upside down, or literally as a pigsty is formed, as to shape.
+
+In the large hut, which is occasionally more luxurious and made of slabs
+of wood or of rough boards, if a saw-mill is within reasonable distance,
+and there is a passable wood road, or creek, or rivulet, navigable by
+canoes, you see some barrel or two of pork, and of flour, or biscuit, or
+whiskey, some tools, and some old blankets or skins. Here you are in the
+lumberer's winter home--I cannot call him woodman, it would disgrace the
+ancient and ballad-sung craft; for the lumberer is not a gentle woodman,
+and you need not sing sweetly to him to "spare that tree."
+
+The larger dwelling is the hall, the common hall, and the pig-sties the
+sleeping-places. I presume that such a circumstance as pulling off
+habiliments or ablution seldom occurs; they roll themselves in a blanket
+or skin, if they have one, and, as to water, they are so frequently in
+it during the summer, that I suppose they wash half the year
+unintentionally. Fat pork, the fattest of the fat, is the lumberer's
+luxury; and, as he has the universal rifle or fowling-piece, he kills a
+partridge, a bear, or a deer, now and then.
+
+I was exploring last year some woods in a newly settled township, the
+township of Seymour West, in the Newcastle district of Upper Canada,
+with a view to see the nakedness of the land, which had been represented
+to me as flowing with milk and honey, as all new settlements of course
+are said to do. I wandered into the lonely but beautiful forest, with a
+companion who owned the soil, and who had told me that the lumberers
+were robbing him and every settler around of their best pine timber.
+After some toiling and tracing the sound of the axes, few and far
+between, felling in the distance, we came upon the unvarying boy at
+cookery, the axe, and the dog.
+
+My conductor at once saw the extent of the mischief going on, and,
+finding that the gang, although distant from the camp-fire, was
+numerous, advised that we should retrace our steps. We however
+interrogated the boy, who would scarcely answer, and pretended to know
+nothing. The dog began to be inquisitive too, and one of the dogs we had
+with us venturing a little too near a savoury piece of pork, the nature
+of the young half-bred ruffian suddenly blazed out, and the axe was
+uplifted to kill poor Dash. I happened to have a good stick, and
+interfered to prevent dog-murder, upon which the wood-demon ejaculated
+that he would as soon let out my guts as the dog's, and therefore my
+companion had to show his gun; for showing his teeth would have been of
+little avail with the young savage.
+
+The settlers are afraid of the lumberers; and thus all the finest land,
+near rivers, creeks, or transport of any kind, is swept of the timber to
+such an extent that you must go now far, far back from the Lakes, the
+St. Lawrence, or the Ottawa, before you can see the forest in its
+primeval grandeur.
+
+This robbery has been carried on in so barefaced and extensive a manner,
+that the chief adventurer, usually a merchant or trader, who supplies
+the axe and canoemen with pay in his shop goods, cent. per cent. above
+their value, becomes enriched.
+
+The lumberer's life is truly an unhappy one, for, when he reaches the
+end of the raft's voyage, whatever money he may have made goes to the
+fiddle, the female, or the fire-water; and he starts again as poor as at
+first, living perhaps by a rare chance to the advanced age, for a
+lumberer, of forty years.
+
+And a curious sight is a raft, joined together not with ropes but with
+the limbs and thews of the swamp or blue beech, which is the natural
+cordage of Canada and is used for scaffolding and packing.
+
+A raft a quarter of a mile long--I hope I do not exaggerate, for it may
+be half a mile, never having measured one but by the eye--with its
+little huts of boards, its apologies for flags and streamers, its
+numerous little masts and sails, its cooking caboose, and its
+contrivances for anchoring and catching the wind by slanting boards,
+with the men who appear on its surface as if they were walking on the
+lake, is curious enough; but to see it in _drams_, or detached portions,
+sent down foaming and darting along the timber slides of the Ottawa or
+the restless and rapid Trent, is still more so; and fearful it is to
+observe its _conducteur_, who looks in the rapid by no means so much at
+his ease as the functionary of that name to whom the Paris diligence is
+entrusted.
+
+Numberless accidents happen; the drams are torn to pieces by the
+violence of the stream; the rafts are broken by storm and tempest; the
+men get drunk and fall over; and altogether it appears extraordinary
+that a raft put together at the Trent village for its final voyage to
+Quebec should ever reach its destination, the transport being at least
+four hundred and fifty miles, and many go much farther, through an open
+and ever agitated fresh water sea, and amongst the intricate channels of
+The Thousand Islands, and down the tremendous rapids of the Longue
+Sault, the Gallope, the Cedars, the Cascades, &c.
+
+But a new trade, has lately commenced on Lake Ontario, which will break
+up some of the hardships of the rafting. Old steamboats of very large
+size, when no longer serviceable in their vocation, are now cut down,
+and perhaps lengthened, masted, and rigged as barques or ships, and
+treated in every respect like the Atlantic timber-vessels. Into these
+three-masters, these Leviathans of Lake Ontario, the timber, boards,
+staves, handspikes, &c., from the interior are now shipped, and the
+timber carried to the head of the St. Lawrence navigation.
+
+One step more, and they will, as soon as the canals are widened, proceed
+from Lake Superior to London without a raft being ever made.
+
+That this will soon occur is very evident; for a large vessel of this
+kind, as big as a frigate, and named the Goliath, is at the moment that
+I am writing preparing at Toronto, near the head of Lake Ontario, a
+thousand miles from the open sea, for a voyage direct to the West Indies
+and back again. Success to her! What with the railroad from Halifax to
+Lake Huron, from the Atlantic Ocean to the great fresh ocean of the
+West--what with the electric telegraph now in operation on the banks of
+the Niagara by the Americans--what with the lighting of villages on the
+shores of Lake Erie with natural gas, as Fredonia is lit, and as the
+city of the Falls of Niagara, if ever it is built, will also be, there
+is no telling what will happen: at all events, the poor lumberer must
+benefit in the next generation, for the worst portion of his toils will
+be done away with for ever.
+
+Settler, never become a lumberer, if you can avoid it.
+
+But, as we have in this favourite hobbyhorse style of ours, which causes
+description to start up as recollections occur, accompanied the lumberer
+on his voyage to that lumberer's Paradise, Quebec, whither he has
+conducted his charge to The Coves, for the culler to cull, the marker to
+mark, the skipper to ship, and the lumber-merchant to get the best
+market he can for it, so we shall return for a short time to Lower
+Canada, to talk a little about settlement there.
+
+As I hinted before, Lower Canada is too much decried as a country to
+re-commence the world in; but the Anglo-Saxon and Milesian populace are
+nevertheless beginning to discover its value, and are very rapidly
+increasing both in numbers and importance. The French Canadian yeoman,
+or small farmer, has an alacrity at standing still; it is only _le
+notaire_ and _le medécin_ that advance; so that, if emigration goes on
+at the rate it has done since the rebellion, the old country folks will,
+before fifty more years pass over, outnumber and outvote, by ten times,
+Jean Baptiste, which is a pity, for a better soul than that merry
+mixture of bonhomie and phlegm, the French Canadian is, the wide world's
+surface does not produce. Visionary notions of _la gloire de la nation
+Canadienne_, instilled into him by restless men, who panted for
+distinction and cared not for distraction, misled the _bonnet rouge_
+awhile: but he has superadded the thinking cap since; and, although he
+may not readily forget the sad lesson he received, yet he has no more
+idea of being annexed to the United States than I have of being Grand
+Lama. In fact, I really believe that the merciful policy which has been
+shown, and the wise measure of making Montreal the seat of government,
+and thus practically demonstrating the advantage of the institutions of
+England by daily lessons in the heart of their dear country, has done
+more to recall the Canadians to a sense of the real value of the
+connexion with Great Britain than all the protocols of diplomatists, or
+all the powder that ever saltpetre generated, could have achieved.
+
+Pursue a perfectly impartial course, as you ought and must do, towards
+the Canadians, and show them that they are as much British citizens as
+the people of Toronto are, and you may count upon their loyalty and
+devotion without fear. They know they never can be an independent
+nation; that folly has been dreamed out, and the fumes of the vision are
+evaporating.
+
+They now know and feel that annexation to the great Republic in their
+neighbourhood will swamp their nationality more effectively than the red
+or the blue coats of England can ever do, will desecrate their altars,
+will portion out their lands, will nullify their present importance, and
+render them an isolated race, forgotten and unsought for, as the
+Iroquois of the last century, who, from being the children and owners of
+the land, the true _enfans du sol_, are now--where? The soil, had it
+voice, could alone reply, for on its surface they are not.
+
+We must never in England form a false estimate of the French Canadian,
+because a few briefless lawyers or saddle-bag medical men urged them
+into rebellion. Their feelings and spirit are not of the same _genre_ as
+the feelings and spirit which animated the hideous soul of the
+_poissardes_ and _canaille_ of Paris in 1792. There is very little or no
+poverty in Lower Canada; every man who will work there, can work; and it
+is a nation rather of small farmers than of classes, with the ideas of
+independence which property, however small, invariably generates in the
+human breast; but with that other idea also which urges it to preserve
+ancient landmarks.
+
+It is chiefly in the large towns and in their neighbourhood that the
+desire for exclusive nationality still exists, fostered by a rabid
+appetite for distinction in some ardent and reckless adventurers from
+the British ranks, who care little what is undermost so long as they are
+uppermost.
+
+The hostility of the British settlers to the French is by no means so
+great as is so carefully and constantly described, and would altogether
+cease, if not kept continually alive by Upper Canadian demonstration,
+and that desire to rule exclusively which has so long been the bane of
+this fine colony.
+
+It reminds one always of the morbid hatred of France, which existed
+thirty years ago in England, when Napoleon was believed, by the lower
+classes--ay, and by some of the higher too--to be Apollyon in earnest.
+
+I remember an old lord of the old school, whose family honours were not
+of a hundred years, and whose ancestors had been respectable traders,
+saying to me, a short time before he died, that Republican notions had
+spread so much from our peace with infidel France, that he should yet
+live to see those who possessed talent or energy enough among the middle
+class, take those honours which he was so proud of, and with the titles
+also, the estates.
+
+Look, said he, at the absurd decoration showered on the _savans_ of
+France, Baron Cuvier, for instance; and he fell into a passion, and,
+being a French scholar, sang forth, in a paroxysm of gout, this
+_refrain_:--
+
+  "Travaillez, travaillez, bon tonnelier,
+  Racommodez, racommodez, ton Cuvier."
+
+And yet he was by no means an ignorant man--was at heart a true John
+Bull, and had travelled and seen the world. He was blinded by an
+unquenchable hatred of France, a hatred which has now ceased in England
+in consequence of the facility of intercourse, but which is revived in
+France against England by those who think _la gloire_ preferable to
+peace and honour.
+
+The miserable feudal system in Lower Canada has kept the French
+population in abeyance; that population is literally dormant, and the
+resources of the country unused; a Seigneur, now often anything but a
+Frenchman, holds an immense tract, parcelled out into little slips
+amongst a peasantry, whose ideas are as limited as their lands.
+Generation after generation has tilled these patches, until they are
+exhausted; and thus the few proprietors who have been able to emancipate
+themselves from the Seignoral thraldom sell as fast as they can obtain
+purchasers; and the Seignories lapse, by failure of descent or by
+cutting off the entail, as it may be termed, under the dominion of
+foreigners, to the people.
+
+It is surprising that British capitalists do not turn their attention
+more to Lower Canada, where land is thus to be bought very cheap, and
+which only requires manuring, a treatment that it rarely receives from
+a Canadian, to bring it into heart again, and where the vast extent of
+the British townships, held in free and common soccage, opens such a
+field for the agriculturist.
+
+These townships are rapidly opening up and improving, and the sales of
+the British American Land Company may in round numbers be said to
+average £20,000 a year, or more than 40,000 acres, averaging ten
+shillings an acre.
+
+The day's wages for a labourer on a farm in Lower Canada may be stated
+at two shillings currency, about one shilling and eightpence sterling,
+with food and lodging; but, excepting in the towns and in the eastern
+townships, the labourers are Canadians, elsewhere chiefly Irish. In the
+large towns also they are Irish, and two shillings and sixpence is the
+usual price of a day's work at Montreal.
+
+There is a great demand for English or Scotch labourers in the townships
+where provisions are reasonable, and the materials for building, either
+lime, stone, brick, or wood, also very moderate in price from their
+abundance.
+
+Cultivated, or rather cleared, farms may be purchased now near the
+settlements for about six pounds per acre, with very often dwelling and
+farms on them, and a clear title may be readily obtained, after inquiry
+at the registry office of the county, to see whether any mortgage or
+other encumbrance exist--a course always to be adopted, both in Upper
+and Lower Canada. A settler must take the precaution of tracing the
+original grant, and that the land, if he buys from an individual, is
+neither Crown nor Clergy reserve, nor set apart for school or any other
+public purposes. Never buy, moreover, of a squatter, or land on which a
+squatter is located, for the law is very favourable to these gentry.
+
+A squatter is a man who, axe in hand, with his gun, dog, and baggage,
+sets himself down in the deep forest, to clear and improve; and this he
+very frequently does, both upon public and private property; and the
+Government is lenient, so that, if he makes well of it, he generally
+has a right of pre-emption, or perhaps pays up only instalments, and
+then sells and goes deeper into the bush. Every way there is difficulty
+about squatted land, and very often the squatter will significantly
+enough hint that there is such a thing as a rifle in his log castle.
+Squatters are usually Americans, of the very lowest grade, or the most
+ignorant of the Irish, who really believe they have a right to the soil
+they occupy.
+
+I do not profess to give an account of the Eastern Townships; the
+prospectus of the British American Land Company will do that; and, as I
+have never been through them entirely, so I could only advance
+assertion; but I believe that they are admirably adapted for English and
+Scotch settlers, and that, bounded as they are by the French Canadians
+on one side, and by the United States on the other, with every facility
+for roads, canals, and railways, they must become one of the richest,
+most and important portions of Canada before half a century has passed
+over; but it will take that time, notwithstanding railways and
+locomotives, to make Jean Baptiste a useful agriculturist; and the fly
+must be eradicated from the wheat before Lower Canada can ever come
+within a great distance of competition in the flour market with the
+upper province.
+
+Take a steamboat voyage from Quebec to Montreal, and you pass through
+French Canada; for, although there are very extensive settlements of the
+race below Quebec till they are lost in the rugged mountains of
+Gaspesia, yet the main body of _habitants_ rest upon the low and
+tranquil shores of the St. Lawrence, for one hundred and eighty miles
+between the Castle of St. Lewis and the Cathedral of Montreal. The
+farm-houses, neat, and invariably whitewashed, line the river,
+particularly on the left bank, like a cantonment, and go back to the
+north for, at the utmost, ten or twelve miles into the then boundless
+wilderness.
+
+The cultivated ground is in narrow slips, fenced by the customary snake
+fence, which is nothing more than slabs of trees split coarsely into
+rails, and set up lengthways in a zig-zag form to give them stability,
+with struts, or riders, at the angles, to bind them. These farms are
+about nine hundred feet in width, and four or five miles in depth, being
+the concessions or allotments made originally by the _seigneurs_ to the
+_censitaires_, or tillers of the soil. Every here and there, a long road
+is left, with cross ones, to obtain access to the farms, much in the
+same way, but not near so conveniently, or well done, as the concession
+lines in Upper Canada, which embrace large spaces of a hundred acre or
+two hundred acre lots, including many of these lots, and giving a
+sixty-six feet or a forty foot road, as the case may be, and thus
+dividing the country into a series of large parallelograms, and making
+every farm accessible.
+
+Each Lower French Canadian farmer is an independent yeoman, excepting as
+bound to the soil, and to certain seignorial dues and privileges, which
+are, however, trifling, and far from burthensome. Taxes are unknown,
+and they cheerfully support their priesthood.
+
+It is not generally known in England that the feudal tenure--although
+very laughable and absurd at this time of day, and from which some
+seigneurs, but never those of unmixed French blood, are disposed to
+claim titles equivalent to the baronage of England, with incomes of
+about a thousand a year, or at most two, and manorial houses, resembling
+very much a substantial Buckinghamshire grazier's chateau--was
+originally established by the French monarchs for wise, highly useful,
+and benevolent purposes.
+
+These seigneuries were parcelled out in very large tracts of forest
+along the banks of the St. Lawrence, or the rivers and bays of Lower
+Canada, on the condition that they should be again parcelled out among
+those who would engage to cultivate them in the strips above-mentioned.
+Thus re-granted, the _seigneur_ could not eject the _habitant_, but was
+allowed to receive a nominal or feudal rent from the vassal, and the
+usual droits. These droits are, first, the barbarous "_lods et
+ventes_," or one thirteenth of the money upon every transfer which the
+_habitant_ makes by sale only; but the original rent can never be
+raised, whatever value the land may have attained. The rights of the
+mill, that old European appanage of the lord of the soil, were also
+reserved to the seigneur, who alone can build mills within his domain,
+or use the waters within his boundaries for mechanical purposes; but he
+must erect them at convenient distances, and must make and repair roads.
+The miller, therefore, takes toll of the grist, which is another source
+of seignorial revenue, although not a very great one, for the toll is,
+excepting the miller's thumb rights, not very large.
+
+The crown of England is the lord paramount or suzerain, and demands a
+tax of one fifth of the purchase-money of each seignory sold or
+transferred by the lord of the manor.
+
+By law, the lands cannot be subdivided, and if a seigneurie is sold it
+cannot be sold in parts, nor can any compromise with the habitants for
+rent, or any other claim or incumbrance, be made.
+
+An institution like this paralyzes the resident, paralyzes the settler,
+and destroys that aristocracy for whose benefit it was created; for it
+prevents the lord of the manor from ever becoming rich, or taking much
+interest in the improvement of his domain; and thus every thing
+continues as it was a hundred years ago. The British emigrant pauses ere
+he buys land thus enthralled; and almost all the old French families,
+who dated from Charlemagne, Clovis, or Pepin, from the Merovingian or
+Carlovingian monarchies, have disappeared and dwindled away, and their
+places have been supplied by the more enterprising, or the _nouveau
+riche_ men of the old world, or by restless, acute lawyers, and
+metaphysical body-curers.
+
+It was no wonder, therefore, that, upon the removal of the seat of
+government from Toronto, and the appointment of a governor-general
+untrammelled by the lieutenant governorship of Western Canada, over
+which he had had before no control, that it should be considered
+desirable by degrees to introduce the English land system throughout
+Canada, and that parliamentary inquiry should be made into the necessity
+of abolishing all feudal taxation. In Montreal this has been done, and,
+as the seignoral rights of succession lapse, it will soon be done every
+where, for the recent enactments have emancipated many already.
+
+But no sensible or feeling mind will desire to see the French Canadian
+driven to break up all at once habits formed by ages of contentment;
+and, as it does not press upon them beyond their ready endurance, why
+should we, to please a few rich capitalists or merchants, suddenly force
+a British population into the heart of French Canada?
+
+Jean Baptiste is too good a fellow to desire this. On our part, we
+should not forget his truly amiable character; we should not forget the
+services he rendered to us, when our children fought to drive us from
+our last hold on the North American continent; we should not forget his
+worthy and excellent priesthood; nor should we ever lose sight of the
+fact, that he is contented under the old system. Above all, we should
+never forget that he fought our battles when his Gallic sires joined our
+revolted children.
+
+I feel persuaded that, if an unhappy war must take place between the
+United States and England, the French Canadians will prove, as they did
+before on a similar occasion, loyal to a man.
+
+All animosity, all heart-burning, will be forgotten, and the old French
+glory will shine again, as it did under De Salaberry.
+
+Ma foi, nous ne sommes pas perdus, encore; and some hero of the war has
+only to rouse himself and cry, as Roland did,
+
+  Suivez, mon panage éclatant,
+  Français ainsi que ma bannière;
+  Qu'il soit point du ralliement,
+  Vous savez tous quel prix attend
+  Le brave, qui dans la carrière,
+  Marche sur le pas de Roland.
+  Mourons pour notre patrie
+  C'est le sort le plus beau et le plus digne d'envie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+  A journey to the Westward.
+
+
+We must leave Roncesvalles and La Gloire awhile, and, instead of riding
+a war horse, canter along upon the hobby, or a good serviceable Canadian
+pony, the best of all hobbies for seeing the Canadian world, and on
+which mettlesome charger we can much better instruct the emigrant than
+by long prosings about political economy and systematic colonisation.
+
+So, _en avant_! I am going to relate the incidents of a journey last
+summer to the Westward, and to give all the substance of my observations
+on men and things made therein.
+
+I left Kingston on the 26th of June, in the Princess Royal mail steamer,
+at 8 p.m., the usual hour of starting being seven, for Toronto; the
+weather unusually cold.
+
+This fine boat constitutes, with two others, the City of Toronto and the
+Sovereign, the royal mail line between Kingston and Toronto. All are
+built nearly alike, are first class seaboats, and low pressure; they
+combine, with the Highlander, the Canada, and the Gildersleave, also
+splendid vessels, to form a mail route to Montreal--the latter boats
+taking the mail as far as Coteau du Lac, forty-five miles from Montreal,
+on which route a smaller vessel, the Chieftain, plies, wherein you
+sleep, at anchor, or rather moored, till daylight, if going down, or
+going upwards, on board the mail boat.
+
+Passengers go from Montreal to Kingston by the mail route in twenty-four
+hours, a distance of 180 miles; a small portion, between the Cascades
+Rapids and the Coteau being traversed in a coach, on a planked road as
+smooth as a billiard-table.
+
+From Kingston to Toronto, or nearly the whole length of Lake Ontario,
+takes sixteen hours, the boat leaving at seven, and arriving about or
+before noon next day; performing the passage at the rate of eleven miles
+an hour, exclusively of stoppages.
+
+The transit between Montreal and Kingston is at the rate, including
+stoppage for daylight, the river being dangerous, of eight miles an
+hour; thus, in forty hours, the passenger passes from the seat of
+government to the largest city of Western Canada most comfortably, a
+journey which twenty years ago it always took a fortnight, and often a
+month, to accomplish, in the most precarious and uncomfortable
+manner--on board small, roasting steamers, crowded like a cattle-pen--in
+lumbering leathern conveniences, miscalled coaches, over roads which
+enter not into the dreams of Britons--by canoes--by bateaux, (a sort of
+coal barges,)--by schooners, where the cabin could never permit you to
+display either your length, your breadth, or your thickness, and thus
+reducing you to a point in creation, according to Euclid and his
+commentators.
+
+Your _compagnons de voyage_, on board a bateau or Durham boat, which was
+a _monstre_ bateau, were French Canadian voyageurs, always drunk and
+always gay, who poled you along up the rapids, or rushed down them with
+what will be will be.
+
+These happy people had a knack of examining your goods and chattels,
+which they were conveying in the most admirable manner, and with the
+utmost _sang-froid_; but still they were above stealing--they only
+tapped the rum cask or the whiskey barrel, and appropriated any cordage
+wherewith you bound your chests and packages. I never had a chest, box,
+or bale sent up by bateau or Durham boat that escaped this rope mail.
+
+By the by, the Durham boat, a long decked barge, square ahead, and
+square astern, has vanished; Ericson's screw-propellers have crushed it.
+It was neither invented by nor named after Lord Durham, but was as
+ancient as Lambton House itself.
+
+The way the conductors of these boats found out vinous liquors was, as
+brother Jonathan so playfully observes, a _caution_.
+
+I have known an instance of a cask of wine, which, for security from
+climate, had an outer case or cask strongly secured over it, with an
+interior space for neutralizing frost or heat, bored so carefully that
+you could never discover how it had been effected, and a very
+considerable quantum of beverage extracted.
+
+I once had a small barrel, perhaps twenty gallons of commissariat West
+India ration rum, the best of all rum for liqueurs, sucked dry. Of
+course, it had leaked, but I never could discover the leak, and it held
+any liquid very well afterwards.
+
+I know the reader likes a story, and as this is not by any means an
+historical or scientific work, excepting always the geological portion
+thereof, I will tell him or her, as the case may be, a story about
+ration rum.
+
+There was a funny fellow, an Irish auctioneer at Kingston, some years
+ago, called Paddy Moran, whom all the world, priest and parson, minister
+and methodist, soldier and sailor, tinker and tailor, went to hear when
+he mounted his rostrum.
+
+He was selling the goods of a quarter-master-general who was leaving the
+place. At last he came to the cellar and the rum. "Now, gintlemin," says
+Moran, "I advise you to buy this rum, 7s. 6d. a gallon! going, going!
+Gintlemin, I was once a sojer--don't laugh, you officers there, for I
+was--and a sirjeant into the bargain. It wasn't in the Irish
+militia--bad luck to you, liftenant, for laughing that way, it will
+spoil the rum! I was the tip-top of the sirjeants of the regiment--long
+life to it! Yes, I was quarter-master-sirjeant, and hadn't I the sarving
+out of the rations; and didn't I know what good ration rum was; and
+didn't I help meself to the prime of it! Well, then, gintlemin and
+ladies--I mane, Lord save yees, ladies and gintlemin--if a
+quarter-master-sirjeant in the army had good rum, what the devil do you
+think a quarter-master-general gets?"
+
+The rum rose to fifteen shillings per gallon at the next bid.
+
+You can have every convenience on board a Lake Ontario mail-packet,
+which is about as large as a small frigate, and has the usual sea
+equipment of masts, sails, and iron rigging. The fare is five dollars in
+the cabin, or about £1 sterling; and two dollars in the steerage. In the
+former you have tea and breakfast, in the latter nothing but what is
+bought at the bar. By paying a dollar extra you may have a state-room on
+deck, or rather on the half-deck, where you find a good bed, a large
+looking-glass, washing-stand and towels, and a night-lamp, if required.
+The captains are generally part owners, and are kind, obliging, and
+communicative, sitting at the head of their table, where places for
+females and families are always reserved. The stewards and waiters are
+coloured people, clean, neat, and active; and you may give
+sevenpence-halfpenny or a quarter-dollar to the man who cleans your
+boots, or an attentive waiter, if you like; if not, you can keep it, as
+they are well paid.
+
+The ladies' cabin has generally a large cheval glass and a piano, with a
+white lady to wait, who is always decked out in flounces and furbelows,
+and usually good-looking. All you have got to do on embarking or on
+disembarking is to see personally to your luggage; for leaving it to a
+servant unacquainted with the country will not do. At Kingston, matters
+are pretty well arranged, and the carters are not so very impudent, and
+so ready to push you over the wharf; but at Toronto they are very so so,
+and want regulating by the police; and in the States, at Buffalo
+particularly, the porters and carters are the most presuming and
+insolent serviles I ever met with; they rush in a body on board the
+boat, and respect neither persons nor things.
+
+I knew an American family composed chiefly of females, travelling to the
+Falls; and these ladies had their baggage taken to a train going inland,
+whilst they were embarking on board the British boat which was to convey
+them to Chippewa in Canada.
+
+The comfort of some of these boats, as they call them, but which ought
+to be called ships, is very great. There is a regular drawingroom on
+board one called the Chief Justice where I saw, just after the
+horticultural show at Toronto, pots of the most rare and beautiful
+flowers, arranged very tastefully, with a piano, highly-coloured
+nautical paintings and portraits, and a _tout ensemble_, which, when the
+lamps were lit, and conversation going on between the ladies and
+gentlemen then and there assembled, made one quite forget we were at sea
+on Lake Ontario, the "Beautiful Lake," which, like other beautiful
+creations, can be very angry if vexed.
+
+The Americans have very fine steam vessels on their side of the lake,
+but they are flimsily constructed, painted glaringly, white, and green,
+and yellow, without comfort or good attendance, and with a
+devil-may-care sort of captain, who seems really scarcely to know or to
+care whether he has passengers or has not, a scrambling hurried meal,
+and divers other unmentionables.
+
+The American gentry always prefer the British boats, for two good
+reasons; they see Queen Victoria's people, and they meet with the utmost
+civility, attention, and comfort. They sit down to dinner, or
+breakfast, or tea, like Christian men and women, where there is no
+railway eating and drinking; where due time is spent in refreshing the
+body and spirits; and where people help each other, or the waiters help
+them, at table, without a scramble, like hogs, for the best and the
+most--a custom which all travelled Americans detest and abominate as
+much as the most fastidious Englishman.
+
+It is not unusual at hotel dinners, or on board steamers, to see a man,
+I cannot call him a gentleman, sitting next a female, totally neglect
+her, and heap his plate with fish, with flesh, with pie, with pudding,
+with potato, with cranberry jam, with pickles, with salad, with all and
+every thing then within his reach, swallow in a trice all this jumble of
+edibles, jump up and vanish.
+
+Can such a being have a stomach, or a digestion, and must he not
+necessarily, about thirty-five years of age, be yellow, spare, and
+parchment-skinned, with angular projections, and a prodigious tendency
+to tobacco?
+
+An American gentleman--mind, I lay a stress upon the second word--never
+bolts his victuals, never picks his teeth at table, never spits upon the
+carpet, or guesses; he knows not gin-sling, and he eschews mint-julep;
+but he does, I am ashamed to say, admire a sherry cobbler, particularly
+if he does not get a second-hand piece of vermicelli to suck it through.
+Reader, do you know what a sherry cobbler is? I will enlighten you. Let
+the sun shine at about 80° Fahrenheit. Then take a lump of ice; fix it
+at the edge of a board; rasp it with a tool made like a drawing knife or
+carpenter's plane, set face upwards. Collect the raspings, the fine
+raspings, mind, in a capacious tumbler; pour thereon two glasses of good
+sherry, and a good spoonful of powdered white sugar, with a few small
+bits, not slices, but bits of lemon, about as big as a gooseberry. Stir
+with a wooden macerator. Drink through a tube of macaroni or vermicelli.
+_C'est l'eau benite_, as the English lord said to the _garçon_ at the
+Milles Colonnes, when he first tasted real _parfait amour_.--_C'est
+beaucoup mieux_, _Milor_, answered the waiter with a profound
+reverence.
+
+Gin-sling, cock-tail, mint-julep, are about as vulgar as blue ruin and
+old tom at home; but sherry cobbler is an affair of consideration--only
+never pound your ice, always rasp it.
+
+It is a custom on board the Canadian steamers for gentlemen to call for
+a pint of wine at dinner, or for a bottle, according to the strength of
+the party; but it is a custom more honoured in the breach than the
+observance; for sherry and port are the usual stock, both fiery as
+brandy, and costing the moderate price of seven shillings and sixpence a
+bottle, the steward having laid the same in at about one shilling and
+eight pence, or at most two shillings. Why this imposition, the only one
+you meet with in travelling in Canada at hotels or steamboats, is
+perpetrated and perpetuated, I could never learn.
+
+Many American gentlemen, however, encourage it, and have told me that
+they do so because they get no good port in the States. Ale and porter
+are charged two shillings and sixpence a bottle, which is double their
+worth. Be careful also not to drink freely of the iced water, which is
+always supplied _ad libitum_. Few Europeans escape the effects of
+water-drinking when they land at Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, Toronto,
+&c. There is something peculiar, which has never yet been satisfactorily
+explained by medical men, in the sudden attack upon the system produced
+by the waters of Canada: this is sometimes slight, but more often lasts
+several days, and reduces the strength a good deal. Iced water is worse,
+and produces country cholera. The Americans use ice profusely, and drink
+such draughts of iced water, that I have been astonished at the impunity
+with which they did so.
+
+Perhaps the change from a moist sea atmosphere to the dry and
+desiccating air of Canada, where iron does not rust, may be one cause of
+the malady alluded to, and another, in addition to the water, the
+difference of cookery; for here, at public tables and on board the boats
+generally, where black cooks prevail, all is butter and grease.
+
+But the change of climate is undoubtedly great. I had been long an
+inhabitant of Upper Canada, and fancied myself seasoned; but, having
+returned to England, and spending afterwards two or three years in the
+excessively humid air of the sea-coast of Newfoundland at St. Johns,
+where I became somewhat stout, on my return to Upper Canada, for want of
+a little preparatory caution in medicine, although naturally of a spare
+habit, I was seized with a violent bleeding at the nose, which baffled
+all remedies for several months, until artificial mineral water and a
+copious use of solutions of iron stopped it. No doubt this prevented the
+fever of the lakes, and was owing to the dryness of the air. I mention
+this to caution all new-comers, young and old, to take timely advice and
+medicine.
+
+There is another complaint in Upper Canada, which attacks the settler
+very soon after his arrival, especially if young, and that is worms; a
+disorder very prevalent at all times in Canada, particularly among the
+poorer classes, and probably owing to food.
+
+These, with ague and colic, or country cholera, are the chief evils of
+the clime; few are, however, fatal, excepting the lake fever, and that
+principally among children.
+
+The sportsman should recollect, in so marshy and woody a country,
+subject as it is to the most surprising alternations of temperature,
+that instead of minding that celebrated rule, "Keep your powder dry," he
+should read, "Keep your feet dry." Dry feet and the avoidance of sitting
+in wet or damp clothes, or drinking iced water when hot, or of cooling
+yourself in a delicious draught of air when in a perspiration, are the
+best precautions against ague, fever, colic, or cholera--in a country
+where the thermometer reaches 90° in the shade, and sometimes 110°, as
+it did last summer, and 27° below zero in the winter, with rapid
+alternations embracing such a range of the scale as is unknown
+elsewhere.
+
+In the country places, in travelling, you will invariably find that
+windows are very little attended to, and that the head of your bed, or
+the side of it, is placed against a loosely-fitting broken sash. The
+night-fogs and damps are highly dangerous to new-comers; so act
+accordingly.
+
+Fleas and bugs, and "such small deer," you must expect in every inn you
+stop at, even in the cities; for it appears--and indeed I did not know
+the fact until this year--that bugs are indigenous, _native to the
+soil_, and breed in the bark of old trees; so that if you build a new
+house, you bring the enemy into your camp. Nothing but cleanliness and
+frequent whitewash, colouring, paint, and soft soap, will get rid of
+them. If it were not for the strong smell of red cedar and its extreme
+brittleness, I would have my bedstead of that material; for even the
+iron bedsteads, in the soldiers' barracks, become infested with them if
+not painted often. Red cedar they happily eschew.
+
+Travellers may talk as they please of mosquitoes being the scourge of
+new countries; the bugs in Canada are worse, and the black fly and
+sand-fly superlatively superior in annoyance. The black fly exists in
+the neighbourhood of rivers or swamps, and attacks you behind the ear,
+drawing a pretty copious supply of blood at each bite. The sand-fly, as
+its name imports, exists in sandy soil, and is so small that it cannot
+be seen without close inspection; its bite is sharp and fiery.
+
+Then the farmer has the wheat-fly and the turnip-fly to contend against;
+the former has actually devoured Lower Canada, and the latter has
+obliged me in a garden to sow several successive crops. The melon-bug is
+another nuisance; it is a small winged animal, of a bright yellow
+colour, striped with black bars, and takes up its abode in the flower of
+the melon and pumpkin, breeding fast, and destroying wherever it
+settles, for young plants are literally eaten up by it.
+
+The grub, living under ground in the daytime, and sallying forth at
+night, is a ferocious enemy to cabbage-plants, lettuce, and most of the
+young, tender vegetables; but, by taking a lantern and a pan after dark,
+the gentlemen can be collected whilst on their tour, and poultry are
+very fond of them. Last year, the potato crop failed throughout Canada.
+What a singular dispensation!--for it alike suffered in Europe, and no
+doubt the malady was atmospheric. The hay crop, too, suffered severely;
+but still, by a merciful Providence, the wheat and corn harvest was
+ample, and gathered in a month before the customary time.
+
+By the word corn I mean oats, rye, and barley; but in the Canadas and in
+the United States that word means maize or Indian-corn only, which in
+Canada, last summer, was not, I should think, even an average crop. It
+is extensively used here for food, as well as buckwheat, and for feeding
+poultry.
+
+But to our journey westward. I arrived at Toronto on the 27th of June,
+and found the weather had changed to variable and fine.
+
+On steaming up the harbour, I was greatly surprised and very much
+pleased to see such an alteration as Toronto has undergone for the
+better since 1837. Then, although a flourishing village, be-citied, to
+be sure, it was not one third of its present size. Now it is a city in
+earnest, with upwards of twenty thousand inhabitants--gas-lit, with good
+plank side-walks and macadamized streets, and with vast sewers, and fine
+houses, of brick or stone. The main street, King Street, is two miles
+and more in length, and would not do shame to any town, and has a much
+more English look than most Canadian places have.
+
+Toronto is still the seat of the Courts of Law for Western Canada, of
+the University of King's College, of the Bishopric of Toronto, and of
+the Indian Office. Kingston has retained the militia head-quarter
+office, and the Principal Emigrant Agency, with the Naval and Military
+grand depôts; so that the removal of the seat of Government to Montreal
+has done no injury to Toronto, and will do very little to Kingston: in
+fact, I believe firmly that, instead of being injurious, it will be very
+beneficial. The presence of Government at Kingston gave an unnatural
+stimulus to speculation among a population very far from wealthy; and
+buildings of the most frail construction were run up in hundreds, for
+the sake of the rent which they yielded temporarily.
+
+The plan upon which these houses were erected was that of mortgage; thus
+almost all are now in possession of one person who became suddenly
+possessed of the requisite means by the sale of a large tract required
+for military purposes. But this species of property seldom does the
+owner good in his lifetime; and, if he does reclaim it, there is no
+tenant to be had now; so that the building decays, and in a very short
+time becomes an incumbrance. Mortgages only thrive where the demand is
+superior and certain to the investment; and then, if all goes smoothly,
+mortgager and mortgagee may benefit; but where a mechanic or a
+storekeeper, with little or no capital, undertakes to run up an
+extensive range of houses to meet an equivocal demand, the result is
+obvious. If the houses he builds are of stone or brick, and well
+finished, the man who loans the money is the gainer; if they are of
+wood, indifferently constructed and of green materials, both must
+suffer. So it is a speculation, and, like all speculations, a good deal
+of repudiation mixes up with it.
+
+There are two good houses of entertainment for the gentleman traveller
+in Toronto; the Club House in Chewett's Buildings and Macdonald's Hotel.
+In the former, a bachelor will find himself quite at home; in the
+latter, a family man will have no reason to regret his stay.
+
+But servants at Toronto--by which I mean _attendants_--are about on a
+par with the same race all over Canada. The coloured people are the
+best, but never make yourself dependent on either; for, if you are to
+start by the stage or the steamer, depend on your watch, instead of upon
+your boots being cleaned or your shaving-water being ready. In the
+latter case, shave with cold water by the light of your candle, lit by
+your own lucifer match. They are civil, however, and attentive, as far
+as the very free and easy style of their acquirements will permit them;
+for a cook will leave at a moment's notice, if she can better herself;
+and any trivial occurrence will call off the waiter and the boots. The
+only punctual people are the porters; and, as they wear glazed hats,
+with the name of the hotel emblazoned thereon, frigate-fashion, you can
+always find them.
+
+An excellent arrangement is the omnibus attached to the hotels in Canada
+West, which conveys you cost-free to and from the steamboat, and a very
+comfortable wooden convenience it is, resembling very much the vans
+which, in days of yore, plied near London.
+
+My first start from Toronto was to Ultima Thule, Penetanguishene, a
+locality scarcely to be found in the maps, and yet one of much
+importance, situate and being north-north-west of the city some hundred
+and eight miles, on Lake Huron.
+
+The route is per coach to St. Alban's, thirty and three miles, along
+Yonge Street, of which about one-third is macadamized from granite
+boulders; the rest mud and etceteras, too numerous to mention. Yonge
+Street is a continuous settlement, with an occasional sprinkling of the
+original forest. The land on each side is fertile, and supplies Toronto
+market.
+
+It rises gradually by those singular steps, or ridges, formerly banks or
+shores o£ antediluvian oceans, till it reaches the vicinity of the
+Holland river, a tortuous, sluggish, marshy, natural canal, flowing or
+lazily creeping into Lake Simcoe, at an elevation of upwards of
+seven-hundred and fifty feet above Lake Ontario, and emptying itself
+into Lake Huron by a series of rapids, called the Matchedash or Severn
+River.
+
+The first quarter of the route to St. Alban's is a series of
+country-houses, gentlemen's seats, half-pay officers' farms, prettily
+fenced, and pleasant to the sight: the next third embraces Thornhill, a
+nice village in a hollow; Richmond Hill, with a beautiful prospect and
+detached settlements: the ultimate third is a rich, undulating country,
+inhabited by well-to-do Quakers, with Newmarket on their right, and
+looking for all the world very like "dear home," with orchards, and as
+rich corn-fields and pastures as may be seen any where, backed,
+however, by the eternal forest. It is peculiarly and particularly
+beautiful.
+
+A short distance before reaching St. Alban's, which is quite a new
+village, the road descends rapidly, and the ground is broken into
+hummocks.
+
+But I must not forget Bond's Lake, a most singular feature of this part
+of the road, which, perhaps, I shall treat of in returning from
+Penetanguishene, as I am now in a hurry to get to St. Alban's.
+
+Here, where all was scrub forest in 1837, are a little street, a house
+of some pretension occupied by Mr. Laughton, the enterprising owner of
+the Beaver steamboat, plying on Lake Simcoe, and two inns.
+
+I stopped for the night, for Yonge Street is still a tiresome journey,
+although only a stage of thirty three miles, at Winch's Tavern. This is
+a very good road-side house, and the landlord and landlady are civil and
+attentive. Before you go to roost, for stopping by the way-side is
+pretty much like roosting, as you must be up with Chanticleer, you can
+just look over Mr. Laughton's paling, and you will see as pretty a
+florist's display as may be imagined. The owner is fond of flowers, and
+he has lots of them, and, when you make his acquaintance afterwards in
+the Beaver, you will find that he has lots of information also. But I
+did not go in the Beaver, which ship "wharfs" some two or three miles
+further ahead, at Holland River Landing, commonly called "the Landing,"
+par excellence. Here flies, mosquitoes, ague, and other plagues, are so
+rife, that all attempts at settlement are vanity and vexation of spirit.
+
+So, being willing to see what had happened in Gwillimbury since 1837, I
+took a waggon and the land road, and went off as day broke, or rather
+before it broke, about four a.m., in a deep gray mist. The waggon should
+be described, as it is the best _voiture_ in Western Canada.
+
+Four wheels, of a narrow tire, are attached without any springs to a
+long body, formed of straight boards, like a piano-case, only more
+clumsy; in which, resting on inside rims or battens, are two seats, with
+or without backs, generally without, on which, perhaps, a hay-cushion,
+or a buffalo-skin, or both, are placed. Two horses, good, bad, or
+indifferent, as the case may be, the positive and comparative degrees
+being the commonest, drag you along with a clever driver, who can turn
+his hand to chopping, carpentering, wheelwright's work, playing the
+fiddle, drinking, or any other sort of thing, and is usually an Irishman
+or an Irishman's son. For two dollars and a half a day he will drive you
+to Melville Island, or Parry's Sound, if you will only stick by him; and
+he jogs along, smoking his _dudeen_, over corduroy roads, through mud
+holes that would astonish a cockney, and over sand and swamp, rocks and
+rough places enough to dislocate every joint in your body, all his own
+being anchylosed or used to it, which is the same thing, in the
+dictionary.
+
+He will keep you _au courant_, at the same time, tell the name of every
+settler and settlement, and some good stories to boot. He is a capital
+fellow, is "Paddy the driver," generally a small farmer, and always has
+a contract with the commissariat.
+
+The first place of any note we came to, as day broke out of the blue fog
+which rose from the swampy forest, was Holland River Bridge, an
+extraordinary structure, half bridge, half road, over a swamp created by
+that river in times long gone by; a level tract of marsh and wild rice
+as far as the eye can reach, full of ducks and deer, with the Holland
+River in the midst, winding about like a serpentine canal, and looking
+as if it had been fast asleep since its last shake of the ague.
+
+Crossing this bridge-road, now in good order, but in 1837 requiring
+great dexterity and agility to pass, you come to a slight elevation of
+the land, and a little village in West Gwillimbury, which, I should
+think, is a capital place to catch lake-fever in.
+
+The road to it is good, but, after passing it and turning northwards,
+is but little improved, being very primitive through the township of
+Innisfil. However, we jogged along in mist and rain, on the 29th of
+June, and saw the smoke, ay, and smelt it too, of numerous clearings or
+forest burnings, indicating settlement, till we reached Wilson's Tavern,
+where, every body having the ague, it was somewhat difficult to get
+breakfast. This is thirteen miles from St. Alban's.
+
+Having refreshed, however, with such as it was, we visited Mr. Wilson's
+stable, and saw a splendid stud horse which he was rearing, and as
+handsome a thorough-bred black as you could wish to see in the
+backwoods.
+
+Proceeding in rain, we drove, by what in England would be called an
+execrable road, through the townships of Innisfil and Vespra to Barrie,
+the capital hamlet of the district of Simcoe.
+
+On emerging from the woods three or four miles from Barrie, Kempenfeldt
+Bay suddenly appears before you, and if the road was better, a more
+beautiful ride there is not in all broad Canada. Fancy, however, that,
+without any Hibernicism, the best road is in the water of the lake. This
+is owing to the swampy nature of the land, and to the circumstance that
+a belt of hard sand lines the edge of the bay; so Paddy drove smack into
+the water of Kempenfeldt, and, as he said, sure we were travelling by
+water every way, for we had a deluge of rain above, and Lake Simcoe
+under us.
+
+But natheless we arrived at Barrie by mid-day, a very fair journey of
+twenty-eight miles in eight hours, over roads, as the French say,
+_inconcevable_; and alighted like river gods at the Queen's Arms, J.
+Bingham, Barrie.
+
+Barrie, named after the late commodore, Sir Robert Barrie, is no common
+village, nor is the Queen's Arms a common hostel. It is a good,
+substantial, stone edifice, fitted up and kept in a style which neither
+Toronto nor Kingston, nay, nor Montreal can rival, as far as its extent
+goes. I do assure you, it is a perfect paradise after the road from St.
+Alban's; and, as the culinary department is unexceptionable, and the
+beds free from bugs, and all neatness and no noise, I will award Mrs.
+Bingham a place in these pages, which must of course immortalize her.
+They are English people; and, when I last visited their house, in 1837,
+had only a log-hut: now they are well to do, and have built themselves a
+neat country-house.
+
+When I first saw Barrie, or rather before Barrie was, as I passed over
+its present site, in 1831, there was but one building and a little
+clearance. In 1846, it is fast approaching to be a town, and will be a
+city, as it is admirably placed at the bottom of an immense inlet of
+Lake Simcoe, with every capability of opening a communication with the
+new settlements of Owen Sound and St. Vincent, and the south shore of
+Lake Huron.
+
+It has been objected, to this opinion respecting Barrie, that the
+Narrows of Lake Simcoe is the proper site for "The City of the North,"
+as the communication by land, instead of being thirty-six miles to
+Penetanguishene, the best harbour on Lake Huron, is only fourteen, or
+at most nineteen miles, the former taking to Cold Water Creek, and the
+latter to Sturgeon Bay; but then there is a long and somewhat dangerous
+transit in the shallowest part of the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron to
+Penetanguishene.
+
+If a railroad was established between Barrie and the naval station, this
+would be not only the shortest but the safest route to Lake Huron; for,
+if Sturgeon Bay is chosen, in war-time the transit trade and the
+despatch of stores for the government would be subjected to continual
+hindrance and depredation from the multitude of islands and
+hiding-places between Sturgeon Bay and Penetanguishene; whilst, on the
+other hand, no sagacious enemy would penetrate the country from Sturgeon
+Bay and leave such a stronghold as Penetanguishene in his rear, whereby
+all his vessels and supplies might be suddenly cut off, and his return
+rendered impracticable.
+
+Barrie is, therefore, well chosen, both as a transit town and as the
+site of naval operations on Lake Simcoe, whenever they may be
+necessary.
+
+For this reason, government commenced the military road between Barrie
+and Penetanguishene, and settled it with pensioned soldiers, and also
+settled naval and military retired or half-pay officers all round Lake
+Simcoe. But, as we shall have to talk a good deal about this part of the
+country, and I must return by the road, let us hasten on to our night's
+lodging at the Ordnance Arms, kept by the ancient widow of J. Bruce, an
+old artilleryman.
+
+Since 1837, the road, then impassable for anything but horses or very
+small light waggons, has been much improved, and Paddy drove us on,
+after dinner at Bingham's, through the heavy rain _à merveille_!
+
+When I passed this road before, what a road it was! or, in the words of
+the eulogist of the great Highland road-maker, General Wade,
+
+  "Had you seen this road, before it was made,
+  You would have lift up your eyes and blessed"
+       General somebody.
+
+It was necessary, as late as 1837, to take a horse; and, placing your
+valise on another, mount the second with a guide. My guide was always a
+French Canadian named François; and many an adventure in the
+interminable forest have we experienced together; for if François had
+lost his way, we should have perhaps reached the Copper-mine River, or
+the Northern Frozen Ocean, and have solved the question of the passage
+from the Atlantic to the Pacific, or else we should have had a certain
+convocation of politic wolves or bears, busy in rendering us and our
+horses invisible; for, after all, they have the true receipt of fern
+seed, and you can walk about, after having suffered transmigration into
+their substance, without its ever being suspected that you were either
+an officer of engineers or a Franco-Canadian guide.
+
+An old and respected officer, once travelling this bridle road with
+François and myself, and mounted on a better horse than either of ours,
+which was lent to him by the Assistant Commissary-General stationed at
+Penetanguishene, got ahead of us considerably, and, by some accident,
+wandered into the gloomy pine forest. Missing him for a quarter of an
+hour, I rode as fast as my horse, which was not encumbered with baggage,
+would go ahead, and, observing fresh tracks of a horse's shoes in the
+mud, followed them until I heard in the depths of the endless and solemn
+woods faint shouts, which, as I came nearer to them, resolved themselves
+into the syllables of my name. I found my chief, and begged him never
+again, as he had never been there before, to think of leaving us. Had he
+gone out of sound, his fate would have been sealed, unless the horse,
+used as it was to the path, had wandered into it again; but horses and
+cattle are frequently lost in these solitudes, and, perhaps being
+frightened by the smell of the wild beasts, or, as man always does when
+lost, they wander in a circle, and thus frequently come near the place
+from which they started, but not sufficiently so to hit the almost
+invisible path.
+
+But although the road, excepting in the middle of summer, is still
+indifferent, it is perfectly safe, and a lady may now go to
+Penetanguishene comparatively comfortably.
+
+Bruce's tavern is a respectable log-house, twelve miles from Barrie; and
+here you can get the usual fare of ham, eggs, and chickens, with
+occasionally fresh meat from Barrie, and perhaps as good a bed as can be
+had in Canada. We started from Barrie at half-past two, and arrived at
+half-past five.
+
+Whiskey, be it known, with very atrocious brandy, is the only beverage,
+excepting water, along the country roads of Canada.
+
+From Bruce's we drove to Dawson's, also kept by the widow of an old
+soldier, where every thing is equally clean, respectable, and
+comfortable. It is seven miles distant.
+
+Beyond this is Nicoll's, near a corduroy swamp road; and three miles
+further (which place eschew), seven years ago, I heard the landlady's
+voice chiding a little girl, who had been sent a quarter of a mile for a
+jug of water. I heard the same voice again in action, and for the same
+cause, and a very dirty urchin again brought some very dirty water. In
+fact, whiskey was too plentiful and water too scarce.
+
+From Nicoll's to Jeff's Corner is ten long and weary miles, five or six
+of which are through the forest. Jeff's is not a tavern, so that you
+must go to bait the horses to Des Hommes, about two miles further, where
+there is no inducement to stay, it being kept by an old French Canadian,
+who has a large family of half-breeds. Therefore, on to the village of
+Penetanguishene, which is twenty miles from Bruce's, or some say
+twenty-four. We started from Bruce's at half-past three in the morning,
+and reached "The Village," as it is always called, at half-past twelve,
+on the 30th of June, and the rain still continuing ever since we left
+Toronto. Thus, with great expedition, it took the best portion of three
+days for a transit of only 108 miles. This has been done in twenty-four
+hours by another route, as I shall explain on my return.
+
+Penetanguishene is a small village, which has not progressed in the same
+ratio as the military road to it has done. It is peopled by French
+Canadians, Indians, and half-breeds, and is very prettily situated at
+the bottom of the harbour. Lieutenant-Colonel Phillpotts, of the Royal
+Engineers, selected this site after the peace of 1815, when Drummond's
+Island on Lake Huron was resigned to the Americans, for an asylum for
+such of the Canadian French settled there as would not transfer their
+allegiance. They migrated in a body.
+
+This is the nearest point of Western Canada at which the traveller from
+Europe can observe the unmixed Indian, the real wild man of the woods,
+with medals hanging in his ears, as large as the bottom of a silver
+saucepan, rings in his nose, the single tuft of hair on the scalp,
+eagle's plumes, a row of human scalps about his neck, and the other
+amiable etceteras of a painted and greased _sauvage_.
+
+Here also you first see the half-breed, the offspring of the white and
+red, who has all the bad qualities of both with very few of the good of
+either, except in rare instances.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+  The French Canadian.
+
+
+At Penetanguishene you see the original pioneer of the West, that
+unmistakeable French Canadian, a good-natured, indolent man, who is
+never active but in his canoe singing, or _à la chasse_, a true
+_voyageur_, of which type of human society the marks are wearing out
+fast, and the imprint will ere long be illegible. It makes me serious,
+indeed, to contemplate the Canadian of the old dominant race, and I
+shall enter a little into his history.
+
+_Res ardua vetustis novitatem dare_; and never could an author impose
+upon himself a greater task than that of endeavouring succinctly to
+trace such a history, in this age of railroads and steam-vessels, or to
+bring before the mind's eye events which have long slumbered in
+oblivion, but which it behoves thinking minds not to lose sight of.
+
+Man is now a locomotive animal, both as regards the faculties of mind
+and of motion; unless in the schools, in the cabinet, or in amusing
+fictions founded on fact, he rarely finds leisure to think about a
+forgotten people.
+
+Canada and Canadian affairs have, however, succeeded in interesting the
+public of America and the public of Europe--the "go-ahead" English
+reader in the New World--because Canada would be a very desirable
+addition to the already overgrown Republic founded by the Pilgrim
+Fathers and Europeans; because French interest looks with a somewhat
+wistful eye to the race which at one time peopled and governed so large
+a portion of the Columbian continent. Regrets, mingling with desires,
+are powerful stimulants. An unconquerable and natural jealousy exists in
+France that England should have succeeded in laying the foundations of
+an empire, which bids fair to perpetuate the glories of the Anglo-Saxon
+race in its Transatlantic dominion; whilst the true Briton, on the other
+hand, regards Canada as the apple of his eye, and sees with pleasure and
+with pride that his beloved country, forewarned by the grand error
+committed at Boston, and so prophetically denounced by Chatham, has
+obtained a fairer and more fertile field for British legitimate
+ambition.
+
+Tocqueville, a sensible and somewhat impartial writer, is the only
+political foreign reasoner who has done justice to Canada; but it is
+_par parenthèse_ only; and even his powers of mind and of reasoning,
+nurtured as they have been in republicanism, fail to convince fearless
+hearts that democracy is a human necessity.
+
+That the American nation will endeavour to put a wet blanket over the
+nascent fires of Spanish ambition in the miserable new States of the
+Northern Continent, and to absorb them in the stars of Columbia, there
+can be no doubt. California, the most distant of the old American
+settlements of Spain, has felt already the bald eagle's claw; Texas is
+annexed; and unless European interests prevent it, which they must do,
+Mexico, Guatemala, Yucatan, and all the petty priest-ridden republics of
+the Isthmus, must follow, and that too very soon.
+
+But what do the people of the United States, (for the government is not
+a particeps, save by force,) pretend to effect by their enormous
+sovereignty? The control probably of the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards
+is the grand object, and, to effect this, Canada and Nova Scotia stand
+in the way, and Canada and Nova Scotia are therefore marked down as
+other Stars in the American galaxy.
+
+The Russian empire is cited, as a case in point, for immense extension
+being no obstacle to central coercion, or government, if the term be
+more pleasing.
+
+We forget that each individual State of the present Union repudiates
+centralization, and acts independently. Little Maine wanted to go to
+war with mighty England on its own bottom; and there was a rebellion in
+Lesser Rhode Island, which puzzled all the diplomatists very
+considerably. Now let us sketch a military picture, and bring out the
+lights and shades boldly.
+
+Suppose that the United States determines upon a war with Great Britain,
+let us look to the consequences. Firstly, an immense re-action has taken
+place in Canada, and a mass of growlers, who two years ago would perhaps
+have been neutral, would readily take arms now in favour of British
+institutions, simply because "impartiality" has been evinced in
+governing them.
+
+Next, the French Canadians have no idea of surrendering their homes,
+their laws, their language, their altars, to the restless and
+destructive people whose motto is "Liberty!" but whose mind is
+"Submission," without reservation of creed or colour.
+
+Then, on the boundless West, innumerable Indians, disgusted by the
+unceremonious manner in which the Big Knife has driven them out, are
+ready, at the call of another Tecumseh, to hoist the red-cross flag.
+
+In the South, the negro, already taught very carefully by the North a
+lesson of emancipation, only waits the hour to commence a servile and
+horrible war, worse than that exercised by the poor Cherokees and Creeks
+in Florida, which, miserable as were the numbers, scanty the resources,
+and indomitable the courage, defied the united means and skill of the
+American armies to quell.
+
+A person who ponders on these matters deplores the infatuation of the
+mob, or of the western backwoodsmen, who advocate war to the knife with
+England; for, should it unhappily occur and continue, war to the knife
+it must be.
+
+American orators have asserted that England, base as she is, dare not,
+in this enlightened age, let loose the blacks. I fear that, self-defence
+being the first law of Nature, rather than lose Canada, and rather than
+not gain it, both England and the United States will have recourse to
+every expedient likely to bring the matter to an issue, and will abide
+by that Machiavelian axiom--the end sanctifies the means.
+
+An abominable outcry was raised during the last war against the
+employment of the savage Indians with our armies; but the loudest in
+this vituperation forgot that the Americans did the same, as far as
+their scanty control over the Red Man permitted, and that, where it
+failed, the barbarous backwoodsman completed the tragedy.
+
+Making razor-strops of Tecumsehs' skin was not a very Christian
+employment, in retaliation for a scalp found wrapped up in paper in the
+writing-desk of a clerk, when the public offices were sacked at Little
+York. The poor man most likely thought it a very great curiosity; and I
+dare say there are some in the British Museum, as well as preserved
+heads of the South Sea islanders.
+
+A war between England and the United States is a calamity affecting the
+whole world, and, excepting for political interest, or that devouring
+fire burning in the breasts of so many for change, I am persuaded that
+the intelligence of the Union is opposed to it. America cannot sweep
+England from the seas, or blot out its escutcheon from The Temple of
+Fame. It is child's play even to dream of it. England is as vitally
+essential to the prosperity of America as America is to the prosperity
+of England; and, although American feelings are gaining ground in
+England, by which I do not mean that the President of the United States
+will ever govern our island, but independent notions and axioms similar
+to those practised in the Union; yet the time has not, nor ever will,
+arrive, that Britain will succumb to the United States, either from
+policy or fear, any more than that her grandchildren, on this side of
+the Atlantic, could pull down the Stars and Stripes, and run the meteor
+flag up to the mast-head again.
+
+The United States is a wonderful confederation, and Nature seems, in
+creating that people, to have given them constitutions resembling the
+summers of the northern portion of the New World, where she makes
+things grow ten times as fast as elsewhere. A grain of wheat takes a
+decent time to ripen in England, and requires the sweat of the brow and
+the labour of the hands to bring it to perfection; but in North America
+it becomes flour and food almost before it is in ear in the old country.
+Nature marches quick in America, but is soon exhausted; so her people
+there think and act ten times as fast as elsewhere, and die before they
+are aged. The women are old at thirty, and boys of fifteen are men; and
+so they ripe and ripe, and so they rot and rot.
+
+Everything in the States goes at a railroad pace; every carter or
+teamster is a Solon, in his own idea; and every citizen is a king _de
+facto_, for he rules the powers that be. They think in America too fast
+for genius to expand to purpose; and as their digestion is impaired by a
+Napoleonic style of eating, so very powerful and very highly cultivated
+minds are comparatively rare in the Union. There is no time for study,
+and they take a democratic road to learning.
+
+And yet, _ceteris paribus_, the Union produces great men and great
+minds; and if any thing but dollars was paid attention to, the
+literature of America would soon be upon a par with that of the Old
+World; as it is, it pays better to reprint French and English authors
+than to tax the brains of the natives.
+
+For this reason, the agricultural population of the States are more
+reasonable, more amiable, and more original than those engaged in
+incessant trade. I have seen an American farmer in my travels this year,
+who was the perfect image of the English franklin, before his daughters
+wore parasols and thrummed the piano. Oh, railways, ye have much to
+answer for! for, although the prosperity of the mass may be increased by
+you, the happiness and contentment of the million is deteriorating every
+day.
+
+I am not about to write a history of Canada at present, for that is
+already done, as far as its military annals are concerned, during the
+three years since I last addressed the public; but it shall yet slumber
+awhile in its box of pine wood, until the time is ripe for development:
+I merely intend here to put together some reminiscences which strike me
+as to the part the French Canadian has played, and to show that we
+should neither forget nor neglect him.
+
+Canada, as it is well known, was French, both by claim of discovery and
+by the more powerful right of possession.
+
+Stimulated by the fame of Cabot, and ambitious to be pilots of the Meta
+Incognita, that visionary channel which was to conduct European valour
+to the golden Cathay and to the rich Spice Islands of the East, French
+adventurers eagerly sought the coveted honours which such a voyage could
+not fail to yield them, and to combine overflowing wealth with chivalric
+renown. France, England, Spain, Portugal, and Italy, sent forth those
+daring spirits whose hopes were uniformly crushed, either by
+encountering the unbroken line of continental coast, or dashed to pieces
+amidst the terrors of that truly Cimmerian region, where ice and fog,
+cold and darkness, contend for empire.
+
+Of all those heroic navigators, who would have rivalled Columbus under
+happier circumstances, none were successful, even in a limited sense, in
+attempting to reach China by the northern Atlantic, excepting the French
+alone, who may fairly be allowed the merit of having traversed nearly
+one half of the broadest portion of the New World in the discovery of
+the St. Lawrence and its connecting streams, and in having afterwards
+reached Mexico by the Mississippi.
+
+Even in our own days, nearly four centuries after the Columbian era, the
+idea of reaching China by the North Pole has not been abandoned, and is
+actively pursuing by the most enlightened naval government in the world,
+and, very possibly, will be achieved; and, as coal exists on the
+northern frozen coasts, we shall have ports established, where the
+British ensign will fly, in the realms of eternal frost--nay, more, we
+shall yet place an iron belt from the Atlantic to the Pacific, a
+railroad from Halifax to Nootka Sound, and thus reach China in a
+pleasure voyage.
+
+I recollect that, about twelve years ago, a person of very strong mind,
+who edited the "Patriot," a newspaper published at Toronto, Mr. Thomas
+Dalton, was looked upon as a mere enthusiast, because one of his
+favourite ideas, frequently expressed, was, that much time would not
+elapse before the teas and silks of China would be transported direct
+from the shores of the Pacific to Toronto, by canal, by river, by
+railroad, and by steam.
+
+Twelve years have scarcely passed since he first broached such an
+apparently preposterous notion, as people of limited views universally
+esteemed it; and yet he nearly lived to see an uninterrupted steamboat
+communication from England to Lake Superior--a consummation which those
+who laughed at him then never even dreamt of--and now a railroad all the
+way to the Pacific is in progress of discussion.
+
+Mac Taggart, a lively Scotch civil engineer, who wrote, in 1829, an
+amusing work, entitled "Three Years in Canada," was even more sanguine
+on this subject; and, as he was a clerk of works on the Rideau Canal,
+naturally turned his attention to the practicability of opening a road
+by water, by the lakes and rivers, to Nootka Sound.
+
+Two thousand miles of water road by the Ottawa, the St. Lawrence, and
+the Welland, has been opened in 1845, and a future generation will see
+the white and bearded stranger toiling over the rocky barriers that
+alone remain to repel his advances between the great Superior and the
+Pacific. A New Simplon and a peaceful Napoleonic mind will accomplish
+this.
+
+The China trade will receive an impulse; and, as the arms of England
+have overcome those of the Celestial Empire, and we are colonizing the
+outer Barbarian, so shall we colonize the shores of the Pacific, south
+of Russian America, in order to retain the supremacy of British
+influence both in India and in China. The vast and splendid forests
+north of the Columbia River will, ere long, furnish the dockyards of
+the Pacific coast with the inexhaustible means of extending our
+commercial and our military marine.
+
+And who were the pioneers? who cleared the way for this enterprise?
+Frenchmen! The hardy, the enduring, the chivalrous Gaul, penetrated from
+the Atlantic, in frail vessels, as far as these frail barks could carry
+him; and where their service ceased, with ready courage adopted the
+still more fragile transport afforded by the canoe of the Indian, in
+which, singing merrily, he traversed the greater part of the northern
+continent, and actually discovered all that we now know, and much more,
+since lapsed into oblivion.
+
+But his genius was that of conquest, and not of permanent colonization;
+and, trammelled by feudal laws and observances, although he extended the
+national domain and the glory of France beyond his most ardent desire,
+yet he took no steps to insure its duration, and thus left the Saxon and
+the Anglo-Norman to consolidate the structure of which he had merely
+laid the extensive foundation.
+
+But, even now, amidst all the enlightenment of the Christian nations,
+the descendants of the French in Canada shake off the dust of feudality
+with painful difficulty; and, instead of quietly yielding to a better
+order of things, prefer to dwell, from sire to son, the willing slaves
+of customs derived from the obsolete decrees of a despotic monarchy.
+
+Whether they individually are gainers or losers by thus adhering to the
+rules which guided their ancestors, is another question, too difficult
+for discussion to grapple with here. As far as worldly happiness and
+simple contentment are concerned, I believe they would lose by the
+change, which, however, must take place. The restless and enterprising
+American is too close a neighbour to let them slumber long in contented
+ignorance.
+
+The Frenchman was, however, adapted, by his nature, to win his way,
+either by friendship or by force, among the warlike and untutored sons
+of the forest. Accommodating himself with ease to the nomadic life of
+the tribes; contrasting his gay and lively temperament with the solemn
+taciturnity and immoveable phlegm of the savage; dazzling him with the
+splendour of his religious ceremonies; abstemious in his diet, and
+coinciding in his recklessness of life; equally a warrior and equally a
+hunter; unmoved by the dangers of canoe navigation, for which he seemed
+as well adapted as the Red Man himself; the enterprising Gaul was
+everywhere feared and everywhere welcome.
+
+The Briton, on the contrary, cold as the Indian, but not so cunning;
+accustomed to comparative luxury and ease; despising the child of the
+woods as an inferior caste; accompanied in his wars or wanderings by no
+outward and visible sign of the religion he would fain implant;
+unaccustomed to yield even to his equals in opinion; unprepared for
+alternate seasons of severe fasting or riotous plenty; and wholly
+without that sanguine temper which causes mirth and song to break forth
+spontaneously amidst the most painful toil and privations; was not the
+best of pioneers in the wilderness, and was, therefore, not received
+with open arms by the American aboriginal nations, until experience had
+taught the sterling value of his character, or, rather, until it became
+thoroughly apparent.
+
+To this day, where, in the interminable wilderness, all trace of French
+influence is buried, the Indian reveres the recollections of his
+forefathers respecting that gallant race; and, wherever the canoe now
+penetrates, the solemn and silent shades of the vast West, the Bois
+Brulé, or mixed offspring of the Indian and the Frenchman, may be heard
+awakening the slumber of ages with carols derived from the olden France,
+as he paddles swiftly and merrily along.
+
+Such was the Frenchman, such the French Canadian; let us therefore give
+due honour to their descendants, and let not any feeling of distrust or
+dislike enter our minds against a race of men, who, from my long
+acquaintance with them, are, I am fully persuaded, the most innocent,
+the most contented, and the most happy yeomanry and peasantry of the
+whole civilized world.
+
+I have observed already, in a former work, that, as far as my experience
+of travelling in the wilds of Canada goes, and it is rather extensive, I
+should always in future journeys prefer to provide myself with the true
+French Canadian boatmen, or voyageurs, or, in default of them, with
+Indians. With either I should feel perfectly at ease; and, having
+crossed the mountain waves of Huron in a Canada trading birch canoe with
+both, should have the less hesitation in trusting myself in the
+trackless forest, under their sole guidance and protection.
+
+  Honneur à Jean Baptiste!
+  C'est un si bon enfant!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+  Penetanguishene--The Nipissang Cannibals, and a Friendly Brother in the
+  Wilderness.
+
+
+Penetanguishene, pronounced by the Indians Pen-et-awn-gu-shene, "the Bay
+of the White Rolling Sand," is a magnificent harbour, about three miles
+in length, narrow and land-locked completely by hills on each side. Here
+is always a steam-vessel of war, of a small class, with others in
+ordinary, stores and appliances, a small military force, hospital and
+commissariat, an Indian interpreter, and a surgeon.
+
+But the presents are no longer given out here, as in 1837 and
+previously, to the wild tribes; so that, to see the Indian in
+perfection, you must take the annual government trader, and sail to the
+Grand Manitoulin Island, about a hundred miles on the northern shore of
+Lake Huron, where, at Manitou-a-wanning, there is a large settlement of
+Indian people, removed thither by the government to keep them from being
+plundered of their presents by the Whites, who were in the habit of
+giving whiskey and tobacco for their blankets, rifles, clothing, axes,
+knives, and other useful articles, with which, by treaty, they are
+annually supplied.
+
+The Great Manitoulin, or Island of the Great Spirit, is an immense
+island, and, being good land, it is hoped that the benevolent intentions
+of the government will be successful. An Indian agent, or
+superintendent, resides with them; and a steamboat, called the Goderich,
+has made one or two trips to it, and up to the head of Lake Huron, last
+summer.
+
+I went to Penetanguishene with the intention of meeting this vessel and
+going with her, but fear that her enterprise will be a failure. She was
+chartered to run from Sturgeon Bay, about nineteen miles beyond the
+narrows of Lake Simcoe, in connection with the mail or stage from
+Toronto, and the Beaver steamboat, plying on Lake Simcoe.
+
+From Sturgeon Bay she went to Penetanguishene, and then to St. Vincent
+Settlement, and Owen's Sound, on Lake Huron, where a vast body of
+emigrants are locating. From Owen's Sound, she coasted and doubled
+Cabot's Head, and then ran down three hundred miles of the shore of Lake
+Huron to Goderich, Sarnia, Fort Gratiot, Windsor, and Detroit, with an
+occasional pleasure-trip to Manitoulin, St. Joseph's, and St. Mary's; so
+that all the north shore of Lake Huron could be seen, and the passengers
+might take a peep at Lake Superior, by going up the rapids of St. Mary
+to Gros Cap. But a variety of obstacles occurred in this immense voyage,
+although ultimately they will no doubt be overcome.
+
+By starting in the Toronto stage early in the morning, the traveller
+slept on board the Goderich at Sturgeon Bay, a good road having been
+formed from the Narrows, although, by some strange oversight, this road
+terminates in a marsh six hundred feet from the bank to the island, on
+which the wharf and storehouse built for the steamer are erected. This
+caused much inconvenience to the passengers.
+
+The stage went, or goes, once a week, on Monday, to Holland Landing,
+thirty six miles, meets the Beaver, which then crosses Lake Simcoe to
+the Narrows, a small village, thriving very fast since it is no longer a
+government Indian station, fifty miles, and there lands the travellers,
+who proceed by stage to Sturgeon Bay, nineteen more, and sleep on board
+the Goderich, arriving about eight p.m. The vessel gets under weigh, and
+reaches Penetanguishene by six in the morning: thus the whole route from
+Toronto, which takes three days by the land road, is performed in
+twenty-four hours.
+
+But there are drawbacks: the Georgian Bay, between Sturgeon Bay and
+Penetanguishene, is, as I have already observed, dangerous at night, or
+in a fog. At Owen's Sound, the population is not far enough advanced to
+build the extensive wharf requisite, or to lay in sufficient supplies of
+fuel, and thus great detention was experienced there. At
+Penetanguishene, the wharf is not taken far enough into deep water for
+the vessel to lie at, and thus she usually grounded in the mud, and
+detention again arose. Then again, after rounding Cabot's Head and
+getting into the open lake, the coast is very dangerous, having not one
+harbour, until we arrive at the artificial one of Goderich, which is a
+pier-harbour; for the Saugeen is a roadstead full of rocks, and cannot
+be approached by a large vessel.
+
+If, therefore, any thing happens to the machinery, and a steamer has to
+trust to her sails, the westerly winds which prevail on Lake Huron and
+blow tremendously, raising a sea that must be seen to be conceived of in
+a fresh-water lake, she has only to keep off the shore out into the main
+lake, and avoid Goderich altogether, by making for the St. Clair River.
+
+However, the vessel did perform the voyage successfully seven times;
+and in summer it may do, and, if it does do, will be of incalculable
+benefit to the Huron tract, and the new settlements of the far west of
+Canada.
+
+I am, however, afraid that the railroad schemes for opening the country
+to the south of this tract will for some time prevent a profitable
+steamboat speculation, although vast quantities of very superior fish
+are caught and cured now on the shores of Huron, such as salmon-trout
+and white fish, which, when properly salted or dried, are equal to any
+salt sea-fish whatever.
+
+The Canadian French, the half-breeds, and the Indians, are chiefly
+engaged in this trade, which promises to become one of great importance
+to the country, and is already much encroached upon by adventurers from
+the United States.
+
+The herring, as far as I can learn, ascends the St. Lawrence no higher
+than the Niagara River, but Ontario abounds with them and with salmon; a
+smaller species of white fish also has of late years spread itself over
+that lake, and is now sold plentifully in the Kingston market, where it
+was never seen only seven years ago. It is a beautiful fish, firm and
+well tasted, but rather too fat.
+
+A farmer on the Penetanguishene road has introduced English breeds of
+cattle and sheep of the best kind. He was, and perhaps still is,
+contractor for the troops, and his stock is well worth seeing; he lives
+a few miles from Barrie. Thus the garrison is constantly supplied with
+finer meat than any other station in Canada, although more out of the
+world and in the wilderness than any other; and, as fish is plentiful,
+the soldiers and sailors of Queen Victoria in the Bay of the White
+Rolling Sand live well.
+
+I was agreeably surprised to find at this remote post that only one
+soldier drank anything stronger than beer or water; and of course very
+little of the former, owing to the expense of transport, was to be had.
+The soldier that did drink spirits did not drink to excess.
+
+How did all this happen in a place where drunkenness had been
+proverbial? The soldiers, who were of the 82nd regiment, had been
+selected for the station as married men. Their young commanding officer
+patronized gardening, cricketing, boating, and every manly amusement,
+but permitted no gambling. He formed a school for the soldiers and their
+families, and, in short, he knew how to manage them, and to keep their
+minds engaged; for they worked and played, read and reasoned; and so
+whiskey, which is as cheap as dirt there, was not a temptation which
+they could not resist. In winter, he had sleighing, snowshoeing, and
+every exercise compatible with the severe weather and the very deep snow
+incident to the station.
+
+I feel persuaded that, now government has provided such handsome
+garrison libraries of choice and well selected books for the soldiers,
+if a ball alley, or racket court, and a cricket ground were attached to
+every large barrack, there would not only be less drinking in the army,
+but that vice would ultimately be scorned, as it has been within the
+last twenty years by the officers. A hard-drinking officer will scarcely
+be tolerated in a regiment now, simply because excessive drinking is a
+low, mean vice, being the indulgence of self for unworthy motives, and
+beneath the character of a gentleman. To be brought to a court-martial
+for drunkenness is now as disgraceful and injurious to the reputation of
+an officer as it was to be tried for cowardice, and therefore seldom
+occurs in the British army.
+
+The vice of Canada is, however, drink; and Temperance Societies will not
+mend it. Their good is very equivocal, unless combined with religion, as
+there is only one Father Matthew in the world, nor is it probable that
+there will be another.
+
+Penetanguishene is at present the _ultima Thule_ of the British military
+posts in North America. It borders on the great wilderness of the North,
+and on that backbone of primary rocks running from the Alleghanies,
+across the thousand islands of the St. Lawrence, to the unknown
+interior of the northern verge of Lake Superior.
+
+Penetanguishene will not, however, be long the _ultima Thule_ of British
+military posts in Western Canada, as a large and most important
+settlement is making at Owen's Sound, on Lake Huron, connected by a long
+road through the wilderness with Saugeen river, another settlement on
+the shores of that lake, to prevent the necessity of the difficult
+water-passage round Cabot's Head; and a steamboat has been put on the
+route by the Canada Company, to connect Saugeen with Goderich.
+
+The government, up to the 31st of December, 1845, had sold or granted
+54,056 acres of land at Owen's Sound, of which 1,168 acres had been
+chopped or cleared of the forest last year alone; and 1,787 acres of
+wheat and 1,414 acres of oats had been harvested in 1845. There were 483
+oxen, 596 cows, 433 young cattle, and 26 horses; and the population was
+1,950, of which 759 were males above sixteen, and 399 males under
+sixteen, with 395 females above, and 399 under, the same age.
+
+In this new colony there were 1,005 Presbyterians, 195 Roman Catholics,
+173 Methodists, 167 of the Church of England, 67 Baptists, 8 Quakers.
+The other sects or divisions were not enumerated with sufficient
+accuracy to detail; and Owen's Sound, being as yet buried in the Bush,
+cannot be visited by casual travellers, unless when an occasional
+steamer plies from Penetanguishene. There is yet no post-office; but
+1,500 newspapers and letters were received or sent in 1845; and two
+flour-mills and two saw-mills are erected and in use. Three schooners of
+a small class ply in summer to Penetanguishene. The village is at the
+head of Owen's Sound, fifteen miles from Cape Croker, and is named
+Sydenham, containing already thirty-six houses. Government gives 50
+acres free, on condition of actual settlement, and that one third is
+cleared and cropped in four years, when a deed is obtained: another
+fifty is granted by paying 8s. an acre within three years, 9s. within
+six years, 10s. an acre within nine years. The soil is good and climate
+healthy.
+
+North-north-west and north-east of Penetanguishene, all is wood, rock,
+lake, river, and desert, in which, towards the French river, the
+Nipissang Indian, the most degraded and helpless of the Red Men,
+wanders, and obtains scanty food, for game is rare, although fish is
+more plentiful.
+
+An exploring expedition into this country was sent by Sir John Colborne,
+in 1835, with a view of ascertaining its capabilities for settlement. An
+officer of engineers, Captain Baddely, was the astronomer and geologist;
+a naval officer the pilot; with surveyors and a hardy suite.
+
+They left Lake Simcoe in the township of Rama from the Severn river,
+and, going a short journey eastward, struck the division line of the
+Home and the Newcastle districts, which commences between the townships
+of Whitby and Darlington, on the shore of Lake Ontario, and runs a
+little to the westward of north in a straight course, until it strikes
+the south-east borders of Lake Nipissang, embracing more than two
+degrees of latitude, not one half of which has ever been fully explored.
+
+The plan adopted was to cut out this line, and diverge occasionally from
+it to the right and left, until a great extent of unknown land on the
+east, and the distance between it and Lake Huron, which contained a
+large portion of the Chippewa Indian hunting-grounds, was thoroughly
+surveyed.
+
+In performing so very arduous a task, much privation and many obstacles
+occurred--forests, swamps, rivers, lakes, rocky ridges--all had to be
+passed.
+
+To the eastward of the main line, and for some distance to the westward,
+good land appeared; and, as the agricultural probe was freely used,
+chance was not permitted to sway. The agricultural probe is an
+instrument which I first saw slung over my friend Baddely's shoulders,
+and of his invention. It is a sort of huge screw gimblet, or auger,
+which readily penetrates the ground by being worked with a long
+cross-handle, and brings up the subsoil in a groove to a considerable
+depth. Specimens of the soil and of rocks and minerals were collected,
+and a plan was adopted which is a useful lesson to future explorers. A
+small piece of linen or cotton, about four inches square, had two pieces
+of twine sewed on opposite corners, and the cloth was marked in
+printers' ink, from stamps, with figures from 1 to 500. A knapsack was
+provided, and the specimens were reduced to a size small enough to be
+carefully tied up in one of these numbered square cloths; and, as the
+specimens were collected, they were entered in the journal as to number
+and locality, strata, dip, and appearance. Thus a vast number of small
+specimens could be brought on a man's back, and examined at leisure.
+
+The toils, however, of such a journey in the vast and untrodden
+wilderness are very severe, and the privations greater. For, in this
+tract, on the side next to Lake Huron, there was an absence of game
+which scarcely ever occurs in the forest near the great lakes. With ice
+forming and snow commencing, and with every prospect of being frozen in,
+a portion of the explorers missed their supplies, and subsisted for
+three whole days and nights on almost nothing; a putrid deer's liver,
+hanging on a bush near a recent Indian trail, was all the animal food
+they had found; but this even hunger could scarcely tempt them to cook.
+I was exploring in a more civilized country near them; but even there
+our Indian guide was at fault, and, from want of proper precaution, our
+provision failed. A small fish amongst four or five persons was one
+day's luxury.
+
+The Nipissang Indians, a very degraded and wretched tribe, live in this
+desolate region, and, it is said, have sometimes been so reduced for
+want of game as to resort to cannibalism. We heard that they had
+recently been obliged to resort to this practice. I was directed, with
+my friends, to conciliate these people, and to assure them that the
+British government, so far from intending to injure them by an
+examination of their country, desired only to ameliorate their sad
+condition.[3]
+
+[Footnote 3: Some time afterwards, during the period in which Lord
+Glenelg held the Colonial Office, I was appointed to report upon the
+state and condition of the Indians of Canada, by his lordship, without
+my knowledge or solicitation; this was never communicated to me by the
+then Lieut.-Governor of Upper Canada, and I only knew of it last year,
+by accidentally reading a report on the subject made by order of the
+House of Assembly, after I left Canada. I do not know if his lordship
+will ever read this work, or the gentleman to whom I believe I was
+indebted for the intended kindness; and, if either should, I beg to
+tender my thanks thus publicly.]
+
+We had a council. The astronomer royal, who was also the geologist, was
+a fine, portly fellow, whose bodily proportions would make three such
+carcases as that which I rejoice in. The nation sat in council and the
+Talk was held. Grim old savages, filthy and forbidding, half-starved
+warriors, hideous to the eye, sat in large circle, with the two great
+Red Fathers, as they called my friend and myself, on account of our
+scarlet jackets. The pipe passed from hand to hand and from mouth to
+mouth, and many a solemn whiff ascended in curling clouds: all was
+solemn and sad.
+
+The speech was made and answered with an acuteness which we were not
+prepared for. But our explanation and mission were at length received,
+and the pledge of peace, the wampum-belts, were accepted and worn by the
+aged chiefs. My friend jogged my elbow once or twice, and thought they
+were eyeing him suspiciously, for he was to proceed into their country.
+He looked so fat and so healthy, that he thought their greasy mouths
+watered for a roasted slice of so fine a subject!
+
+But the wampum pledge is never broken, and we had smoked the calumet of
+friendship. Thus, although he luxuriated, after a total abstinence of
+three days, on the sight of a decayed deer's liver, which he could not
+be prevailed upon to partake of, yet the Nipissang, starving as he must
+also have been, never fried my friend, nor feasted on his fatness.
+
+This is not the only good story to be told of Penetanguishene; for the
+American press of the frontier, with its accustomed adherence to truth,
+discovered a mare's nest there lately, and stated that the British
+government kept enormous supplies of naval stores, several
+steam-vessels, a depôt of coal, and everything necessary for the
+equipment of a large war fleet on Lake Huron, at this little outpost of
+the West, and that a tremendous force of mounted cavaliers were always
+ready to embark on board of it at all times.
+
+There are now certainly a good many horses at the village, whereas, in
+1837, perhaps one might have found out a dozen by great research there:
+as for cavalry, unless Brother Jonathan can manufacture it as cheaply
+and as lucratively as he does wooden clocks or nutmegs, it would be
+somewhat difficult to _raise_ it at Penetanguishene.
+
+The village is a small, rambling place, with a little Roman Catholic
+church and a storehouse or general shop or two, about which, in summer,
+you always see idle Indians playing at some game or other, or else
+smoking with as idle villagers.
+
+The garrison is three miles from the village, and is always called "The
+Establishment;" and in the forest between the two places is a new
+church, built of wood, very small, but sufficient for the Established
+Church, as it is sometimes called, of that portion of Canada. A
+clergyman is constantly stationed here for the army, navy, and
+civilians, and near the church is a collection of log huts, which I
+placed there some years ago by order of Lord Seaton, with small plots of
+ground attached to each as a refuge for destitute soldiers who had
+commuted their pensions.
+
+This Chelsea in miniature flourished for a time, and drained the streets
+of the large towns of Canada of the miserable objects; but, such was the
+improvidence of most of these settlers and such their broken
+constitutions, that, on my present visit, I found but one old serjeant
+left, and he was on the point of moving.
+
+The commutation of pensions was an experiment of the most benevolent
+intention. It was thought that the married pensioner would purchase
+stock for a small farm, and set himself down to provide for his children
+with a sum of money in hand which he could never have obtained in any
+other way. Many did so, and are now independent; but the majority,
+helpless in their habits, and giving way to drink, soon got cheated of
+their dollars and became beggars; so that the government was actually
+obliged at length to restore a small portion of the pension to keep them
+from starvation. They died out, would not work at the Penetanguishene
+settlement, and have vanished from the things that be. Poor fellows!
+many a tale have they told me of flood and field, of being sabred by the
+cuirassiers at Waterloo, of being impaled on a Polish lance, and of
+their wanderings and sufferings.
+
+The military settlement, however, of the Penetanguishene road is a
+different affair. It was effected by pensioned non-commissioned officers
+and soldiers, who had grants of a hundred acres and sometimes more; and
+it will please the benevolent founder, should these pages meet his eye,
+to know that many of them are now prosperous, and almost all well to do
+in the world.
+
+But we must retrace our steps, and waggon back again by their doors to
+Barrie.
+
+I left the village at half-past six in the morning, raining still, with
+the wind in the south-east, and very cold. We arrived at the Widow
+Marlow's, nineteen miles, at mid-day; the weather having changed to fine
+and blowing hard--certainly not pleasant in the forest-road, on account
+of the danger of falling trees, to which this pass is so liable that a
+party of axemen have sometimes to go ahead to cut out a way for the
+horses.
+
+We passed through the twelve mile woods by a new road, which reduces the
+extent of actual forest to five, and avoids altogether the Trees of the
+Two Brothers, noted in Penetanguishene history for the fatal accident,
+narrated in a former volume, by which one soldier died, and his brother
+was, it is supposed, frightened to death, in the solemn depths of the
+primeval and then endless woods.
+
+Near the end of the five mile Bush, about a mile from the first
+clearance, Jeffrey, the landlord of the inn at the village, has built a
+small cottage for the refreshment of the traveller, and in it he intends
+to place his son. In the mean time, until quite completed, for money is
+scarce and things not to be done at railroad pace so near the North
+Pole, he has located here an old well known black gentleman, called Mr.
+Davenport, who was once better to do in the world, and kept a tavern
+himself.
+
+Having had the honour of his acquaintance for many years, I stopped to
+see how my old friend was getting on, particularly as I heard that he
+was now very old, and that his white consort had left him alone in the
+narrow world of the house in the woods. He received me with grinning
+delight, and told me that he had just left the new jail at Barrie for
+selling liquor without a license, which, I opine, is rather hard law
+against a poor old nigger, who had literally no other means of support,
+and was most usefully stationed, like the monks of St. Bernard, in a
+dangerous pass.
+
+But the wind is tempered to the shorn lamb, and the woolly head of old
+Davenport had matter of satisfaction in it from a source that he never
+dreamed of.
+
+Alone--far away from the whole human world, in the depth of a hideous
+forest, with a road nearly impassable one half of the year,--he found an
+unexpected friend.
+
+For fear of the visits of two-footed and four-footed brutes during the
+long nights of his Robinson Crusoe solitude, old Davenport always shut
+up his log castle early, and retired to rest as soon as daylight
+departed; for it did so very early in the evening there, as the solemn
+pines, with their gray trunks and far-spreading moss-grown arms and
+dismal evergreen foliage, if it can be called foliage, stood close to
+his dwelling--nay, brushed with the breath of the wind his very roof.
+
+Recollect, reader, that this lonely dweller in the Bush resided near the
+spot where the two soldier brothers perished; and you may imagine his
+thoughts, after his castle was closed at night by the lone warder. No
+one could come to his assistance, if he had the bugle that roused the
+echoes of Fontarabia.
+
+He had retired to rest early one night in the young spring-time, when he
+heard a singular noise on the outside of his house, like somebody
+moaning, and rubbing forcibly under his window, which was close to the
+head of his pallet-bed. Quivering with fear, he lay, with these sounds
+continuing at short intervals, through the whole night, and did not rise
+until the sun was well up. He then peeped cautiously about, but neither
+heard nor saw any thing; and, axe in hand and gun loaded, he went forth,
+but could not perceive aught more than that the ground had been slightly
+disturbed. This went on for some time, until at last, one fine moonlight
+night, the old man ventured to open a part of his narrow window; and
+there he saw rubbing himself, very composedly, a fine large he bear, who
+looked up very affectionately at him, and whined in a decent melancholy
+growl.
+
+Davenport had, it seems, thrown some useless article of food out of this
+window; and Bruin supposed, no doubt, that Blackey did it out of
+compassionate feeling for a fellow denizen of the forest, and repeated
+his visits to obtain something more substantial, rubbing himself, to get
+rid of the mosquitoes, as it was his custom of an afternoon, against the
+rough logs of the dwelling. He had, moreover, become a little impatient
+at not being noticed, and scratched like a dog to make the lord of the
+mansion aware of his presence. This usually occurred about nine o'clock.
+
+Davenport, at last, threw some salt pork to Bruin, which was most
+gratefully received; and every night after that, for the whole summer
+and autumn, at nine o'clock or thereabouts, the bear came to receive
+bread, meat, milk, or potatoes, or whatever could be spared from the
+larder, which was left on the ground under the window for him. In fact,
+they soon came to be upon very friendly terms, and spent many hours in
+each other's company, with a stout log-wall between Davenport and his
+brother, as he always calls the bear.
+
+When the snows of winter, the long, severe winter of these northern
+woods, at last came, Bruin ceased his nocturnal visitations, and has
+never been seen since, the old man thinking that he has been shot or
+trapped by the Indian hunters.
+
+I asked Davenport if he ever ventured out to look for his brother, but
+he shook his head and replied, "My brudder might have hugged me too
+hard, perhaps." The poor old fellow is very cheerful, and regrets his
+brother's absence daily. The bailiffs most likely would not have put him
+in jail for selling whiskey to a tired traveller, but would have avoided
+the castle in the woods, if they thought there was any chance of meeting
+Bruin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+  Barrie and Big Trees--A new Capital of a new District--Nature's
+  Canal--The Devil's Elbow--Macadamization and Mud--Richmond Hill
+  without the Lass--The Rebellion and the Radicals--Blue Hill and
+  Bricks.
+
+
+We reached Barrie safely that night, and slept at the Queen's Arms. Next
+morning, I had an excellent opportunity of seeing this thriving village.
+
+It is very well situated on the shore of Kempenfeldt Bay, on ground
+rising gradually to a considerable height, and is neatly laid out,
+containing already about five hundred people.
+
+On the high ground overlooking the place are a church, a court-house,
+and a jail, all standing at a small distance from each other, nearly on
+a line, and adding very much indeed to the appearance of the place. The
+deep woods now form a background, but are gradually disappearing. I went
+about a mile into them, and saw several new clearances, with some nice
+houses building or built; and particularly one by Bingham, our landlord,
+a very comfortable, English-looking, large cottage, with outhouses and
+an immense barn, round which the rascally ground squirrels were playing
+at hide-and-seek very fearlessly.
+
+The Court House contains the district school, which appears very
+respectable, and is conducted by a young Irishman; it also contains all
+the district offices, and is two stories high, massively and well built,
+the lower story being of stone and the upper of brick, both from
+materials on the spot.
+
+The church is of wood, plain and neat. The jail is worth a visit, and
+shows what may be done in the forest and in a brand-new district, as the
+district of Simcoe is, although I believe about half the money it cost
+would have been better employed on the roads; for it has never been
+used, except as a place of confinement for an unfortunate lunatic.
+
+It is formed in the castellated style, of a handsome octagonal tower, of
+very white, shelly limestone, with a square turreted stone enclosure, on
+the top of which is an iron _chevaux de frize_, and which enclosure is
+subdivided into separate day-yards for prisoners. The entrance is under
+a Gothic archway; and in the centre of the tower is an internal space,
+open from top to bottom, and preventing all access to the stairs from
+the cells, which are very neat, clean, and commodious, with a good
+supply of water, and excellent ventilation. It is, in short, as pretty a
+toy penitentiary as you could see anywhere, and looks more like an Isle
+of Wight gentleman's fortress, copied after the most approved Wyattville
+pattern of baronial mansion, with a little touch of the card-house. In
+short, it is as fine as you can conceive, and sets off the village
+wonderfully well.
+
+The red pine, near Barrie and through all the Penetanguishene country,
+grows to an enormous size. I measured one near Barrie no less than
+twenty-six feet in girth, and this was merely a chance one by the
+path-side. Its height, I think, must have been at least two hundred
+feet, and it was vigorously healthy. What was its age? It would have
+made a plank eight feet broad, after the bark was stripped off.
+
+But the woods generally disappoint travellers, as they never penetrate
+them; and the lumberers have cut down all available pines and oaks
+within reach of the settlements, excepting where they were not worth the
+expence of transport. The pines, moreover, take no deep root; and, as
+soon as the underbrush or thicket is cleared, they fall before the
+storm. Provident settlers, therefore, rarely leave large and lofty trees
+near their dwellings for fear of accident.
+
+The pine, in the Penetanguishene country, has a strange fancy to start
+out of the earth in three, five, or more trunks, all joined at the base,
+and each trunk an enormous tree. I have an idea that this has arisen
+from the stony, loose soil they grow in, which has caused this strange
+freak of Nature, by making it difficult for the young plant to rear its
+head out of the ground. Whatever is the reason, however, all the masts
+of some "great Amiral" might be truly provided out of a single
+pine-tree.
+
+But we must leave Barrie, after just mentioning Kempenfeldt, about a
+mile or so distant, which was the original village; and, although at the
+actual terminus of the land road, has never flourished, and still
+consists of some half dozen houses. The newer Admiral superseded the
+more ancient one; for Barrie did deeds of renown, which it suited the
+Canadians to commemorate much more than the unfortunate Kempenfeldt and
+his melancholy end.
+
+If ever there was an infamous road between two villages so close
+together, it is the road between these two places; I hope it will be
+mended, for it is both dark and dangerous.
+
+I always wondered not a little how it happened that Bingham of Barrie
+kept such a good table, where fresh meat was as plentiful as at Toronto.
+I looked for the market-place of the capital of Simcoe: there was none.
+But the mystery was solved the moment I put my foot on board the Beaver
+steamer to go back by the water road.
+
+What will the reader think of Leadenhall Market being condensed and
+floating? Such, however, was the case; there was a regular travelling
+butcher's-shop, for the supply of the settlers around Lake Simcoe; and
+meat, clean and enticing as at the finest stall in the market aforesaid,
+where upon regular hooks were regularly displayed the fine roasting and
+boiling joints of the season. And a very fair speculation no doubt it
+is, this pedlar butchery.
+
+On the 3rd of July, at half-past twelve, I left the capital of the
+Simcoe district, and am particular as to dates and seasons, because it
+tells the traveller for pleasure what are the times and the tides he
+should choose.
+
+We embarked on board the good ship Beaver, a large steam-vessel, for the
+Holland Landing, distant twenty-eight miles--twenty-one of them by the
+lake, and seven by the river. The vessel stops by the way at several
+settlements, where half-pay officers generally have pitched their tents;
+and twice a week she makes the grand tour of the whole lake, at an
+altitude of upwards of seven hundred and fifty feet above Lake Ontario,
+and not forty miles from it.
+
+This navigation of the Holland river is very well worth seeing, as it is
+a natural canal flowing through a vast marsh, and very narrow, with most
+serpentine convolutions, often doubling upon itself.--Conceive the
+difficulty of steering a large steamboat in such a course; yet it is
+done every day in summer and autumn, by means of long poles, slackening
+the steam, backing, &c., though very rarely without running a little way
+into the soft mud of the swamp. The motion of the paddles has, however,
+in the course of years, widened the channel and prevented the growth of
+flags and weeds.
+
+There is one place called the Devil's Elbow, a common name in Canada for
+a difficult river pass, where the sluggish water fairly makes a double,
+and great care is necessary. Here the enterprising owner and master of
+the vessel tried to cut a channel; but, after getting a straight course
+through the mud for two-thirds of the way, he found it too expensive to
+proceed, but declares that he will persevere. Why does not the Board of
+Works, which has literally the expenditure of more than a million, take
+the business in hand, and complete it? One or two hundred pounds would
+finish the affair. But perhaps it is too trifling, and, like the cut at
+the Long Point, Lake Erie, to which we shall come presently, is
+overlooked in the magnitude of greater things.
+
+Of all the unformed, unfinished public establishments in Canada, it has
+always appeared to me that the Crown Lands department, and the Board of
+Works, are pre-eminent. One costs more to manage the funds it raises
+than the funds amount to; and the other was for several years a mere
+political job. No very eminent civil engineer could have afforded to
+devote his time and talents to it, as he must have been constantly
+exposed to be turned out of office by caprice or cupidity. I do not
+know how it is now managed, but the political jobbing is, I believe, at
+an end, as the same person presides over the office who held it when it
+was in very bad odour. This gentleman must, however, be quite adequate
+to the office, as some of the public works are magnificent; but I cannot
+go so far as to say that one must approve of all. The St. Lawrence Canal
+has cost the best part of a million, is useless in time of war, and a
+mere foil at all times to the Rideau navigation, which the British
+government constructed free of any provincial funds. The timber slides
+on the Trent are so much money put into the timber-merchants' pockets,
+to the extreme detriment of the neighbouring settlers, whose lands have
+been swept of every available stick by the lawless hordes of woodcutters
+engaged to furnish this work; and who, living in the forest, were beyond
+the reach of justice or of reason, destroying more trees than they could
+carry away, and defying, gun and axe in hand, the peaceable
+proprietors.
+
+It was intended, before the rebellion broke out, to render the river
+Trent navigable by a splendid canal, which would have opened the finest
+lands in Canada for hundreds of miles, and eventually to have connected
+Lake Huron with Lake Ontario. A large sum of money was expended on it
+before the Board of Works was constituted, and an experienced clerk of
+works, fresh from the Rideau Canal, was chosen to superintend; but the
+troubles commenced, and the money was wanted elsewhere.
+
+When money became again plentiful, and the country so loudly demanded
+the Trent Canal, why was it not finished? I shall give by and by an
+account of a recent excursion to the Trent, and then we shall perhaps
+learn more about it, and why perishing timber slides were substituted
+for a magnificent canal.
+
+But the Devil's Elbow should be straightened by the Board of Works at
+all events, otherwise it may stick in the mud, and then nobody can help
+it; for the marsh is very extensive, and there would be no Jupiter to
+cry out to.
+
+Well, however, in spite of all obstacles, Captain Laughton piloted us
+safe to Ague and Fever Landing, where, depend upon it, we did not stay a
+moment longer than sufficed to jump into a coloured gentleman's waggon,
+which was in waiting, and in which we were driven off as a coloured
+gentleman always drives, that is to say, in a hand-gallop, to Winch's
+tavern, our old accustomed inn at St. Alban's, where we arrived in due
+time, and there hired another Jehu, who was an American Irishman (a sad
+compound), to take us as far towards Yonge Street as practicable. We
+reached Richmond Hill, seventeen miles from the Landing, at about eight
+o'clock, having made a better day's journey than is usually accomplished
+on a road which will be macadamized some fine day; for the Board of
+Works have a Polish engineer hard at work surveying it--of course no
+Canadian was to be found equal to this intricate piece of
+engineering--and I saw a variety of sticks stuck up, but what they meant
+I cannot guess at. I suppose they were going to _grade_ it, which is the
+favourite American term--a term, by the by, by no manner or method
+meaning gradus ad Parnassum, or even laying it out in steps and stairs,
+like the Scotch military road near Loch Ness; but which, as far as my
+limited information in Webster's Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon tongue
+goes, signifies levelling. I may, however, be mistaken; and this puts me
+in mind of another tale to beguile the way.
+
+A character set out from England to try his fortune in Canada. He was
+conversing about prospects in that country, on board the vessel, with a
+person who knew him, but whom he knew not. "I have not quite made up my
+mind," said the character, "as to what pursuit I shall follow in Canada;
+but that which brings most grist to the mill will answer best; and I
+hear a man may turn his hand to anything there, without the folly of an
+apprenticeship being necessary; for, if he has only brains, bread will
+come--now, what do you think would be the best business for my market?"
+
+"Why," said the gentleman, after pondering a little, "I should advise
+you to try civil engineering; for they are getting up a Board of Works
+there, and want that branch of industry very much, for they won't take
+natives; nothing but foreigners or strangers will go down."
+
+"What is a civil engineer?" said the character.
+
+"A man always measuring and calculating," responded his adviser, "and
+that will just suit you."
+
+"So it will," rejoined Character; and a civil engineer he became
+accordingly, and a very good one into the bargain; for he had brains,
+and had used a yard measure all his lifetime.
+
+I was told this story by a person of veracity, who heard the
+conversation, but it is by no means a wonderful one; for such is the
+versatility of talent which the climate of Northern America engenders,
+that I knew a leading member of parliament provincial, who was a
+preacher, a shopkeeper, a doctor, a lawyer, a banker, a militia colonel,
+and who undertook to build a suspension bridge across the cataracted
+river Niagara, to connect the United States with Canada for £8,000,
+lawful money of the colony; an undertaking which Rennie would perchance
+have valued at about £100,000; but _n'importe_, the bill was passed, and
+a banking shop set up instead of a bridge, which answered every purpose,
+for the notes passed freely on both sides until they were worn out.
+
+Behold us, however, at Richmond Hill, having safely passed the Slough of
+Despond, which the vaunted Yonge Street mud road presents, between the
+celebrated hamlet of St. Alban's and the aforesaid hill, one of the
+greatest curiosities of which road, near St. Alban's, is the vicinity of
+a sort of Mormon establishment, where a fellow of the name of David
+Wilson, commonly called David, has set up a Temple of the Davidites,
+with Virgins of the Sun, dressed in white, and all the tomfooleries of a
+long beard and exclusive sanctity. But America is a fine country for
+such knavery. Another curiosity is less pitiable and more natural. It
+is Bond Lake, a large narrow sheet of water, on the summit between Lake
+Simcoe and Lake Ontario, which has no visible outlet or inlet, and is
+therefore, like David Wilson, mysterious, although common sense soon
+lays the mystery in both cases bare; one is a freak of Nature concealing
+the source and exitus, the other a fraud of man.
+
+The oak ridges, and the stair-like descents of plateau after plateau to
+Ontario, are also remarkable enough, showing even to the most
+thoughtless that here ancient shores of ancient seas once bounded the
+forest, gradually becoming lower and lower as the water subsided. Lyell
+visited these with the late Mr. Roy, a person little appreciated and
+less understood by the great ones of the earth at Toronto, who made an
+excellent geological survey of this part of the province, and whose
+widow had infinite difficulty in obtaining a paltry recompense for his
+labours in developing the resources of the country. The honey which this
+industrious bee manufactured was sucked by drones, and no one has done
+him even a shadow of justice, but Mr. Lyell, who, having no colonial
+dependence, had no fears in so doing.
+
+But of Richmond Hill, why so called I never could discover, for it is
+neither very highly picturesque, nor very highly poetical, although
+Dolby's Tavern is a most comfortable resting-place for a wearied
+traveller, at which prose writer or poetaster may find a haven.
+Attention, good fare, and neatness prevail. It is English.
+
+I have observed two things in journeying through Upper Canada. If you
+find neatness at an hostel, it is kept by old-country people. If you
+meet with indifference and greasy meats, they are Americans. If you see
+the best parlour hung round with bad prints of presidents, looking like
+Mormon preachers, they are radicals of the worst leaven. If prints from
+the New York Albion, neatly framed and glazed, hang on each side of a
+wooden clock, over a sideboard in the centre of the room, opposite to
+the windows, the said prints representing Queen Victoria, Lord Nelson,
+Windsor Castle, or the New Houses of Parliament, be assured that loyalty
+and John Bullism reign there; and, although you meet with no servility,
+you will not be disgusted with vulgar assumption, such as cocking up
+dirty legs in dirty boots on a dirty stove, wearing the hat, and not
+deigning to answer a civil question.
+
+Personally, no man cares less for the mode of reception, when I take
+mine ease at mine inn, than I do, for old soldiers are not very
+fastidious, and old travellers still less so; but give me sturdy John
+Bull, with his blunt plainness and true independence, before the silly
+insolence of a fellow, who thinks he shows his equality, by lowering the
+character of a man to that of a brute, in coarse exhibitions of assumed
+importance, which his vocation of extracting money from his unwilling
+guests renders only more hateful.
+
+We departed from Richmond Hill at half-past five, and waggoned on to
+Finch's Inn, seven miles, where we breakfasted. This is another
+excellent resting-place, and the country between the two is thickly
+settled. I forgot to mention that we have now been travelling through
+scenes celebrated in the rebellion of Mackenzie. About five miles from
+Holland Landing is the Blacksmith's Shop, which was the head-quarters of
+Lount, the smith, who, like Jack Cade, set himself up to reform abuses,
+and suffered the penalty of the outraged laws.
+
+Lount was a misled person, who, imbued with strong republican feelings,
+and forgetting the favours of the government he lived under, which had
+made him what he was, took up arms at Mackenzie's instigation, and
+thought he had a call--a call to be a great general. He passed to his
+account, so '_requiescas in pace_,' Lount! for many a villain yet lives,
+to whose vile advices you owed your untimely end, and who ought to have
+met with your fate instead of you. Lount had the mind of an honest man
+in some things, for it is well known that his counsels curbed the bloody
+and incendiary spirit of Mackenzie in many instances. The government
+has not sequestered his property, although his sons were equally guilty
+with himself.
+
+We also pass, in going to Toronto, two other remarkable places. Finch's
+Tavern, where we breakfasted at seven o'clock, was formerly the Old
+Stand, as it was so called, of the notorious Montgomery, another
+general, a tavern general of Mackenzie's, who moved to a place about
+four miles from the city, where the rebels were attacked in 1837 by Sir
+Francis Head, and near which the battle of Gallows Hill was fought.
+
+Montgomery was taken prisoner, sent to Kingston, and escaped by
+connivance, with several others, from the fortress there on a dark
+night, fell into a ditch, broke his leg, and afterwards was hauled by
+his comrades over a high wall, and got across the St. Lawrence into the
+United States, where he was run over afterwards by a waggon and much
+injured. His tavern was burnt to the ground by the militia during the
+action, on account of the barbarous murder there of Colonel Moodie, a
+very old retired officer, who was killed by Mackenzie's orders in cold
+blood. It is now rebuilt on a very extensive scale; and he is again
+there, having been permitted to return, and his property, which was
+confiscated, has been restored to his creditors.
+
+Such were Mackenzie's intended government and the tools he was to govern
+by! Such is the British government! The Upper Canadians wisely preferred
+the latter.
+
+Next to Richmond Hill is Thornhill, all on the macadamized portion of
+the road to Toronto. Thornhill is a very pretty place, with a neat
+church and a dell, in which a river must formerly have meandered, but
+where now a streamlet runs to join Lake Ontario. Here are extensive
+mills, owned by Mr. Thorne, a wealthy merchant, who exports flour
+largely, the Yonge Street settlement being a grain country of vast
+extent, which not only supplies his mills, but the Red Mills, near
+Holland Landing, and many others.
+
+From Montgomery's Tavern to Toronto is almost a continued series for
+four miles of gentlemen's seats and cottages, and, being a straight
+road, you see the great lake for miles before its shores are reached.
+Large sums have been expended on this road, which is carried through a
+brick-clay soil, in which the Don has cut deep ravines, so that immense
+embankments and deep excavations for the level have been requisite.
+
+Near Toronto, at Blue Hill, large brick yards are in operation, and here
+white brick is now made, of which a handsome specimen of church
+architecture has been lately erected in the west end of the city. Tiles,
+elsewhere not seen in Canada, are also manufactured near Blue Hill; but
+they are not extensively used, the snow and high winds being
+unfavourable to their adoption, shingles or split wood being cheaper,
+and tinned iron plates more durable and less liable to accident.
+
+In most parts of Upper Canada, near the shores of the great lakes, you
+can build a house either of stone or brick, as it suits your fancy, for
+both these materials are plentiful, particularly clay; but at Toronto
+there is no suitable building-stone; plenty of clay, however, is found,
+for there you may build your house out of the very excavations for your
+cellars; and I confess that I prefer a brick house in Canada to one of
+limestone, for the latter material imbibes moisture; and if a brick
+house has a good projecting roof, it lasts very long, and is always
+warm.
+
+It is surprising to observe the effects of the climate on buildings in
+this country. A good stone house, not ten years old, carefully built,
+and pointed between the joints of the masonry with the best cement,
+requires a total repair after that period, and often before. The
+window-sills and lintels of limestone break and crack, and the chimneys
+soon become disjointed and unsafe. Although it may seem paradoxical, yet
+it is true that the woodwork of a house lasts good much longer than the
+stone, or rather the cement, which joins the stone; but wood decays
+also very rapidly. A bridge becomes rotten in ten years, and a shingled
+roof lasts only fifteen; but then wood is never seasoned in America; it
+would not pay.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+  Toronto and the Transit--The ice and its innovations--Siege and
+  storm of a Fortalice by the Ice-king--Newark, or Niagara--Flags,
+  big and little--Views of American and of English
+  institutions--Blacklegs and Races--Colonial high life--Youth very
+  young.
+
+Behold us again in Toronto at Macdonald's Hotel; and, as we shall have
+to visit this rising city frequently, we shall say very little more
+about it at present, but embark as speedily as possible on board the
+Transit, and steam over to Niagara.
+
+The Transit, a celebrated packet, now getting old, and commanded by a
+son of its well-known owner, Captain Richardson, starts always in summer
+at eight a.m. punctually, and makes her voyage by half-past eleven, at
+which hour, on the 5th day of July, we once more touched the shore of
+Newark, or Niagara Town, at the Dock Company's wharf, which we found had
+been greatly damaged in the spring of the year by a most extraordinary
+ice phenomenon.
+
+At the breaking-up of the frost, the ice in the river Niagara, which
+came down the river, packed near its mouth, and dammed it up so high at
+Queenston, seven miles above and close to the narrows, that the upper
+surface of the fields of ice was thirty feet above the level of the
+river, there a quarter of a mile broad or more. The consequence was,
+that every wharf and every building under this level was destroyed and
+crushed. Every edifice on the banks, and among others a strong stone
+barrack, full of soldiers, was stormed by the frost-king, during the
+darkness of an awful night, and the front wall fairly breached and borne
+down by the advancing masses of ice. The soldiers had barely time to
+escape from the crashing and rending walls; and their cooking-house, a
+detached building, some yards from the barrack and higher up the bank,
+was turned over, as if it had been a small boat.
+
+In the memory of man, such a scene had never occurred before, and
+probably never will again; and I have been told, by those who beheld it,
+that a more solemn display of natural power and irresistible might has
+seldom been witnessed than that of the gradual grinding, heaving passage
+of one great floe, or field, of thick-ribbed ice over the other, until
+that summit was gained which could not be exceeded.
+
+Then came the disruption, the roar, the rush, the fury, the foam, the
+groaning thunder, and the river flood; the plunge and the struggle
+between the solid and the liquid waters.
+
+Truly, the thundering water was well named by the Indian of old--NE AW
+GAR AW is very Greek sounding.
+
+Newark, or, as it is now called, Niagara, but, as it should be named,
+Simcoe, is still a pretty, well laid-out town; and, although it has
+scarcely had a new house built in it for many years past, is on the
+whole a very respectable place, and the capital of the district of
+Niagara, celebrated for its apple, peach, and cherry orchards.
+
+It has a good-looking church, and the living is a rectory. A Roman
+Catholic church stands close to the English, and a handsome Scots church
+is at the other end of the town. There is an ugly jail and Court-House
+about a mile in the country, and an excellent market, where every thing
+is cheap and good.
+
+Barracks for the Royal Canadian Rifle regiment stand on a large plain.
+Old Fort George, the scene of former battling, is in total ruin; and
+Fort Mississagua, with its square tower, looks frowningly at Fort
+Niagara, on the American side of the estuary of the Great River. I never
+see these rival batteries, for it is too magniloquent to style them
+fortresses, but they picture to my mind England and the United States.
+
+Mississagua looks careless and confident, with a little bit of a
+flag--the flag, however, of a thousand years, displayed, only on
+Sundays and holidays, on a staff which looks something like that which
+the king-making Warwick tied his heraldic bear to.
+
+The antiquity and warlike renown of England sit equally and visibly
+impressed on the crest of the miserable Mississagua as on that of
+Gibraltar.
+
+Fort Niagara, an old French Indian stockade, modernized by the American
+engineers from time to time, half-lighthouse, half-fortification,
+glaring with whitewashed walls, that may be seen almost at Toronto, with
+a flag-staff towering to the skies, and a flag which would cover the
+deck of a first-rate, displayed from morn to night, speaks of the new
+nation, whose pretensions must ever be put in plain view, and constantly
+tell the tale that America is a second edition of the best work of
+English industry and of British valour--a second edition interwoven,
+however, with foreign matter, with French _fierté_ without French
+_politesse_, with German mysticism without German learning, with the
+restless and rabid democracy of the whole world without the salutary
+check of venerable laws, and with that strange mixture of freedom and
+slavery, of tolerance and intolerance, which distinguishes America of
+the nineteenth century.
+
+But it is, nevertheless, a most extraordinary spectacle, to contemplate
+the rise and progress of the union in so short a period since the
+declaration of independence.
+
+An Irish gentleman, apparently a clergyman, last year favoured the
+public with the result of an extensive tour in Canada and the United
+States, in "Letters from America."
+
+He starts in his preface with these remarkable expressions, which must
+be well considered and analyzed, because they are the deliberate
+convictions of an observant and well-informed man, who had, moreover,
+singular opportunities of reflecting upon the people he had so long
+travelled amongst.
+
+He says that "In energy, perseverance, enterprise, sagacity, activity,
+and varied resources" the Americans infinitely surpass the British;
+that he never met with "a stupid American." That our "American children"
+surpass us not only in our good, but "in our evil peculiarities." This I
+cannot understand; for, surely, if we have _peculiarities_, which there
+is no denying, they must by all the rules of logic be limited to
+ourselves.
+
+But the writer observes, in a paragraph too long for quotation, that
+they exceed us in materialism and in utilitarianism; that we, a nation
+of shopkeepers, as Napoleon styled the English, were outdone in the
+worship of Mammon by them; that we have rejected too much the higher
+branches of art and science, and the cultivation of the æsthetic
+faculty--what an abominable word æsthetic is! it always puts me in mind
+of asthmatic, for it is broken-winded learning.
+
+"Is it not common," says he, "in modern England to reject authorities
+both in Church and State, to look with contempt on the humbler and more
+peculiarly christian virtues of contentment and submission, and to
+cultivate the intellectual at the expense of the moral part of our
+nature? If these and other dangerous tendencies of a similar nature are
+at work among ourselves, as they undoubtedly are, it is useful and
+interesting to observe them in fuller operation and more unchecked
+luxuriance in America."
+
+Now, it is very satisfactory, that the Americans, a race of yesterday,
+who have had no opportunity as yet of coping with the deep research and
+master-minds of Europe, should in half a century have leaped into such a
+position in the civilized world as to have exceeded the Englishman in
+all the most useful relations of life, as well as in all its darker and
+more dangerous features; very satisfactory indeed that the mixed race
+peopling the United States should be better and worse than that nation
+to which the world, by universal consent, has yielded the palm of
+superiority in all the arts and in all the sciences of modern
+acquirement.
+
+Wherein do the Americans exceed the sons of Britain? In history, in
+policy, in poetry, in mathematics, in music, in painting, or in any of
+the gifts of the Muses? Are they more renowned in the dreadful art of
+war? or in the mild virtues of peace? Is the fame of America a wonder
+and a terror to the four quarters of the globe?--We may fearlessly reply
+in the negative. The outer barbarian knows the American but as another
+kind of Englishman. It will yet take him some centuries to distinguish
+between the original and the offspring.
+
+It is, in short, as untenable as an axiom in policy or history, that the
+American exceeds the Briton in the development of mind, as it is that
+the American exceeds the Briton in the development of the baser
+qualities of our nature.
+
+When the insatiate thirst for dollars, dollars, dollars, has subsided,
+then the American may justly rear his head as an aspirant for historic
+fame. His land has never yet produced a Shakespeare, a Johnson, a
+Milton, a Spenser, a Newton, a Bacon, a Locke, a Coke, or a Rennie. The
+utmost America has yet achieved is a very faint imitation of the least
+renowned of our great writers, Walter Scott.
+
+In diplomacy I deny also the palm. For although India is a case in
+point, like as Texas, yet even there we have never first planted a
+population with the express purpose of ejecting the lawful government,
+but have conquered where conquest was not only hailed by the enslaved
+people but was a positive benefit, by the introduction of mild and
+equitable laws instead of brutal and bloody despotisms. We have not
+snatched from a weak republic, whose principles had been expressly
+formed on our own model, that which poverty alone obliged it to
+relinquish. If the writer, who appears to be an excellent man and a good
+christian, had lived for several years on the borders of the eagerly
+desired Canada, I very much doubt whether he would have seen such a
+_couleur de rose_ in the transactions of the mighty commonwealth, where
+the rulers are the ruled, and where education, intellect, integrity,
+innocence, and wealth must all alike bow before the Juggernaut of an
+unattainable perfection of equality.
+
+If Bill Johnson, the mail robber and smuggler, is as good as William
+Pitt or any other William of superior mind, why then the sooner the
+millennium of democracy arrives the better. It is unfortunate for the
+present generation--what it will be for the next no man can pretend to
+say--that this debasing principle is gaining ground not only in Canada
+but in England. A reflecting mind has no objection to the creed that all
+men were created equal; but history, sacred and profane, plainly shows
+that mind as well as matter is afterwards, for the wisest of purposes,
+very differently developed.
+
+Does the meanest white American, the sweeper of Broadway, if there be
+such a citizen, believe in this perfection of equality amongst men as a
+fundamental axiom of the rights of man? Place a black sweeper of
+crossings in juxtaposition, and the question will very soon solve
+itself. Why, the free and enlightened citizens will not even permit
+their black or coloured brethren to worship their common Creator in the
+same pew with themselves--it is horror, it is degradation! And yet
+there is a universal outcry about sacred liberty and equality all over
+the Union. The angels weep to witness the tricks of men placed in a
+little brief authority. Can such a state of things last as that, where
+the Irish labourer is treated as an inferior being in the scale of
+creation, and the Negro, or the offspring of the Negro and the white, is
+branded with the stigma of servile? It cannot--it will not. Either let
+democracy assume its true and legitimate features, or let it cease--for
+the re-action will be a fearful one, as dread and as horribly diabolical
+as that which the folly of the aristocracy of old France brought on that
+devoted land.
+
+I have said, and I repeat it, that a residence on the borders of Canada
+and the United States for some time will cure a reflecting mind of many
+long cherished notions concerning the relative merits of a limited
+monarchy and of a crude democracy.
+
+The man who views the border people of the United States with calm
+observation will soon come to the conclusion that a state of
+government, if it may be so called, where the commonest ruffian asserts
+privileges which the most educated and refined mind never dreams of, is
+not an enviable order of things.
+
+In the first fury of a war with England, who were the promoters? the mob
+on the borders. Who hoped for a new sympathy demonstration, in order to
+annex Canada? the people of the Western States, who, far removed from
+the possibility of invasion, valiantly resolve to carry fire and sword
+among their unoffending brethren.
+
+The intelligence and the wealth of the United States are passive; they
+are physically weak, and therefore succumb to the dictation of the rude
+masses. And what keeps up this singular action, but the
+constantly-recurring elections, the incessant balloting and voting, the
+necessity which every man feels hourly of saving his substance or his
+life from the devouring rapacity of those who think that all should be
+equal!
+
+If the government, acutely sensible that war is an evil which must
+cripple its resources, is unwilling to engage in it, both from principle
+and from patriotism, it must yield if the mob wills it, or forfeit the
+sweets of office and of power. Hence, few men enter upon the cares of
+public life in the States now-a-days who are of that frame of mind which
+considers personal expediency as worthy of deep reflection. What would
+Washington have said to such a system?
+
+The batteries or fortalices of Niagara and of Mississagua have led to a
+digression quite unintentional and unforeseen, which must terminate for
+the present with a different view from that of the author of the Letters
+above-mentioned: and let us hope fervently that the New World has not
+yet arrived at such a consummation as that of surpassing the vices and
+crimes of the Old, as we are certain it has not yet achieved such a
+moral victory as that of outrunning it in the race of scientific or
+mechanic fame. England is no more in her dotage than America is in her
+nonage. The former, without vanity or want of verity be it spoken, is
+as pre-eminent as the latter is honestly and creditably aspiring.
+
+The writer above quoted says their ships sail better, and are manned
+with fewer hands. We grant that no nation excels the United States in
+ship-building, and that they build vessels expressly for sailing; but
+for one English ship lost on the ocean, there are three of the venturous
+Americans; for one steam-vessel that explodes, and hurls its hundreds to
+destruction, in England or Canada, there are twenty Americans.
+
+In England, the cautious, the slow and the sure plan prevails; in
+America, the go-ahead, reckless, dollar-making principle prevails; and
+so it is through every other concern of life. A hundred ways of
+worshipping the Creator, after the christian form, exist in America,
+where half a dozen suffice in England.
+
+Time is money in America; the meals are hurried over, relaxations
+necessary to the enjoyment of existence forbidden--and what for? to
+make money. To what end? to spend it faster than it is made, and then to
+begin again. You have only a faint shadow of the immense wealth realized
+in England by that of the merchant or the shopkeeper in the States.
+Capital there is constantly in a rapid consumption; and as the people
+engaged in the feverish excitement of acquiring it are in the latter
+country, from their habits, shortlived, so the opposite fact exhibits
+itself in England. There are no Rothschilds, no railway kings in
+America. Time and the man will not admit of it. John Jacob Astor is an
+exception to this fact.
+
+On landing at Niagara, the difference of climate between it and Toronto
+is at once perceived. Here you are on sandy, there on clayey soil. Here
+all is heat, there moisture. I tried hard for several seasons to bring
+the peach to perfection at Toronto, only thirty-six miles from Niagara,
+without success; at Niagara it grows freely, and almost spontaneously,
+as well as the quince. The fields and the gardens of Niagara are a
+fortnight or more in advance of those of Toronto. Strange that the
+passage of the westerly winds across Ontario should make such a
+difference!
+
+Niagara is a grand racing-stand, where all the loafers of the
+neighbouring republic congregate in the autumn; I was unfortunately
+present at the last races, and never desire to repeat my visit at that
+season. Blacklegs and whitelegs prevail; and the next morning the course
+was strewed with the bodies of drunken vagabonds. It appears to me very
+strange that the gentry of the neighbourhood suffer a very small modicum
+of ephemeral newspaper notoriety to get the better of their good sense.
+The patronage of such a racecourse as that of Niagara, so far from being
+an honour, is the reverse. It is too near the frontier to be even
+decently respectable; nor is the course itself a good one, for the sand
+is too deep. Many a young gentleman of Toronto, who thinks that he
+copies the aristocracy of England by patronizing the turf, finds out to
+his own loss and sorrow that it would have been much better to have had
+his racing qualifications exhibited nearer his own door; and there
+cannot possibly be a greater colonial mistake committed than to fancy
+that grooms, stable-boys, and blacklegs, are now the advisers and
+companions of our juvenile nobility.--That day has passed!
+
+It is very unfortunate that very false ideas exist in some of the
+colonies of the manners and customs of high life in England. The
+grown-up people often fancy that cold reserve, and an assumption of
+great state, indicate high birth and breeding. The younger branches seem
+frequently to think that there is no such thing at home as the period of
+adolescence; consequently, you often see a pert young master deliver his
+unasked opinion and behave before his seniors and superiors as though he
+wanted to intimate that he was wiser in his generation than they.
+
+In crossing to Niagara, we had a specimen of the precocious colonist of
+1845. The table of the captain of the boat, like that of his respected
+father, was good and decorously conducted, and there were several ladies
+and some most respectable travelled Americans at dinner. A very young
+gentleman, who boasted how much he had lost at the races, how much they
+had gambled, and how much they drank of champagne the night
+before--champagne, by the by, is thought a very aristocratic drink among
+psuedo-great men, although it is common as ditch-water in the United
+States--engrossed the whole conversation of the dinner-table, picked his
+teeth, took up the room of two, called the waiter fifty times, and ended
+by ordering the cheese to be placed on the table before the pies and
+puddings were removed. The company present rose before the dessert
+appeared, thoroughly disgusted; and I afterwards saw this would-be man
+peeping into the windows of the ladies'-cabin, and performing a thousand
+other antic tricks, cigar in mouth, for which he would in England have
+met with his deserts.
+
+The precociousness of Transatlantic children is not confined to the
+United States--it is equally and unpleasantly visible in Canada.
+
+The Americans who travel, I can safely say, are not guilty of these
+monstrous absurdities. I have crossed the Atlantic more than once with
+boys of from seventeen to twenty, who have left college to make the
+grand tour, without ever observing any thing to find fault with. The
+American youth is observant, and soon discovers that attempting to do
+the character of men before his time in the society of English strangers
+invariably lowers instead of raising an interest.
+
+There is a good caricature of this in an American book, I forget its
+title, written some time ago, to show the simplicity, gullibility, and
+vindictivness of our Trollopean travellers. It is a boy of sixteen, or
+thereabouts, cigar in the corner of his mouth, hat cocked on three
+curls, and all the modern etceteras of a complete youth, saying to his
+father, "Here, take my boots, old fellow, and clean them." The father
+looks a little amazed, upon which the manikin ejaculates, "Why don't you
+take them? what's the use of having a father?"
+
+There will be a railway smash in this, as well as in the locomotive
+mania. Republicanism towards elders and parents is unnatural; the child
+and the man were not born equal.
+
+I remember reading in a voluminous account of the terrors of the French
+revolution a remarkable passage:--servants denounced masters, debtors
+denounced creditors, women denounced husbands, children denounced
+parents, youth denounced protecting age; gratitude was unknown; a favour
+conferred led to the guillotine: but never, never in that awful period,
+in that reign of the vilest passions of our nature over reason, was
+there one instance, one single instance, of a parent denouncing its
+child.
+
+It is not a good sign when extreme youth pretends to have discovered the
+true laws of the universe, when the son is wiser than the father, or
+when immature reason usurps the functions of the ripened faculties.
+
+I have put this together because I hear hourly parents deprecating the
+system of education in the greatest city of Western Canada; because I
+hear and see children of fourteen swaggering about the streets with all
+the consequence of unfledged men, smoking cigars, frequenting
+tavern-bars and billiard-rooms, and no doubt led by such unbridled
+license into deeper mysteries and excesses; because I hear clergymen
+lament that boys of that age lose their health by excesses too difficult
+of belief to fancy true. Surely a salutary check in time may be applied
+to such an evil.
+
+But liberty and equality, as I said before, are extending on both sides
+of the Atlantic: and in their train come these evils, simply because
+liberty and equality are as much misunderstood as real republicanism and
+limited monarchy are.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+  The old Canadian Coach--Jonathan and John Bull passengers--"That
+  Gentleman"--Beautiful River, beautiful drive--Brock's
+  Monument--Queenston--Bar and Pulpit--Trotting horse Railroad--Awful
+  accident--The Falls once more--Speculation--Water
+  privilege--Barbarism--Museum--Loafers--Tulip-trees--Rattlesnakes--The
+  Burning Spring--Setting fire to Niagara--A charitable Woman--The
+  Nigger's Parrot--John Bull is a Yankee--Political
+  Courtship--Lundy's Lane--Heroine--Welland Canal.
+
+I can make no stay at Niagara for the present; but, after resting awhile
+at Howard's Inn, which is the most respectable one in the town, proceed
+in his coach to Queenston.
+
+The old Canadian coach has not yet quite vanished before modern
+improvement. It is a mighty heavy, clumsy conveniency, hung on leather
+springs, and looking for all the world as if elephants alone could move
+it along; and, if it should upset, like Falstaff, it may ask for levers
+to lift it up again.
+
+We had on board the coach an American, of the species Yankee, a thorough
+bluff, rosy, herculean, Yorkshire-farmer, and several highly respectable
+females.
+
+I will not say Jonathan did not spit before them, for he is to the
+manner born; but, although of inferior grade, if there can be such a
+thing mentioned respecting a citizen of the United States, and
+particularly of "the Empire State," of which he was, to his credit be it
+said, he treated the females with that courtesy, rough as it is, which
+seems innate with all Americans.
+
+A stormy discussion arose on the part of John Bull, who hated slavery,
+disliked spitting, got angry about Brock's monument, and, in short,
+looked down with no small share of contempt upon the man of yesterday,
+whose ideas of right and wrong were so diametrically opposed to his own,
+and who very sententiously expressed them.
+
+John told him that the only thing he had never heard in his travels
+through the Northern and Western States--where he had been to look at
+the land with a view to purchase, either there or in Canada, as might be
+most advisable--the only thing he had never heard was that all the
+citizens of the United States were all "gentlemen."
+
+"I guess you didn't hear with both ears, then, for you always must have
+remarked that whenever one citizen spoke of another, he said 'that
+gentleman.'"
+
+John laughed outright. "No, friend, I never did hear your white
+gentlemen call a nigger 'that gentleman;' so, you see, all your folks
+ain't equal, and all ain't gentlemen. Here, in Canada, I have heard a
+blacky called 'that gentleman;' and, by George, if many more of your
+runaway slaves cross the border, they will soon be the only gentlemen in
+Canada, for they are getting very impudent and very numerous."
+
+This is, in a measure, true; such troops of escaped negroes are annually
+forwarded to Canada by the abolitionists that the Western frontier is
+overrun already, and the impudence of these newly free knows no bounds.
+But they cordially hate both the Southern slaveholders and the
+abolitionists.
+
+Talking of slavery, pray read an account of it from an American of the
+Northern States.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "New Orleans, January 26, 1846.
+
+"A man may be no abolitionist--I am not one; he may think but little on
+the subject of slavery--it has never troubled me one way or the other:
+but let him mark the records of the glorious battles of the Revolution;
+let him notice the Eagle of Liberty, and all the emblems of
+Independence, Freedom, and the rights of man; let him muse on the
+thoughts they awaken, and then behold the actualities of life around
+him. Suddenly the sharp rap of an auctioneer's hammer startles him, and
+the loud striking of the hour of twelve will divert his attention to the
+throng of men around him, and the appearance of three or four men on
+raised stands in different parts of the Rotunda, who are calling the
+attention of those around him, at the same time unrolling a hand-bill
+that the stranger has noticed in the most conspicuous places in the
+city, printed in French and English, announcing the sale of a lot of
+fine, likely slaves; at the same time, he observes maps of real estates
+spread out--everything in fact around him denoting a 'busy mart where
+men do congregate,' as it really is.
+
+"The auctioneer, making the most noise, attracts his attention first;
+joining the crowd in front of the stand, he observes twelve or fifteen
+negroes of all ages and both sexes standing in a line to the left of the
+auctioneer; they are comfortably, and some of them neatly dressed,
+particularly the women, with their yellow Madras handkerchiefs tied
+around their heads, and their bright, showy dresses; but they have a
+look that irresistibly causes him to think back for a comparison to the
+objects before him, and it seems strange that it should bring to mind
+some market or field where he has sometimes seen cattle offered for
+sale, whose saddened look seemed to forbode some evil to them; but the
+animal look is somewhat redeemed by the smiles and plays of the little
+_piccaninies_, who seem to wonder why they are there, with so many men
+looking at them.--Now for business.
+
+"'Maria, step up here. There, gentlemen, is a fine, likely wench, aged
+twenty-five; she is warranted healthy and sound, with the exception of a
+slight lameness in the left leg, which does not damage her at all. Step
+down, Maria, and walk.' The woman gets down, and steps off eight or ten
+paces, and returns with a slight limp, evidently with some pain, but
+doing her best to conceal her defect of gait. The auctioneer is a
+Frenchman, and announces everything alternately in French and English.
+'Now, gentlemen, what is bid? she is warranted, elle est gurantie, and
+sold by a very respectable citizen. 250 dollars, deux cent et cinquante
+dollars: why, gentlemen, what do you mean! Get down, Maria, and walk a
+little more. 275, deux cent soixante et quinze, 300, trois cents!--go
+on, gentlemen--325, trois cents et vingt cinq! once, twice, ah! 350,
+trois cents et cinquante: une fois! deux fois! going, gone, for 350
+dollars. A great bargain, gentlemen.'
+
+"My attention is called to the opposite side of the room: 'Here,
+gentlemen, is a likely little orphan yellow girl, six years old--what is
+bid? combien? thirty-five dollars, trente cinq, fifty dollars, cinquante
+dollars, thank you.' Finally, she is knocked down at seventy-five
+dollars.
+
+"Why, there is a whole family on that other stand; let us see them.
+'There, gentlemen, is a fine lot: Willy, aged thirty-five, an expert
+boy, a good carpenter, brickmaker, driver, in fact, can do anything, il
+sait faire tout. His wife, Betty, is thirty-three, can wash, cook, wait
+on the table, and make herself generally useful; also their boy George,
+five years old; you will observe, gentlemen, that Betty est enceinte.
+Now what is bid for this valuable family?' After a lively competition,
+they are bid off at 1,550 dollars, the whole family.
+
+"As I have before remarked, everything is done in French and English;
+even the negroes speak both languages. I saw one poor old negro, about
+sixty, put up, but withdrawn, as only 270 dollars were bid for him.
+While waiting to be sold, they are examined and questioned by the
+purchasers. One young girl, about sixteen or eighteen, was being
+inspected by an elderly, stern, sharp-eyed, horse-jockey looking man,
+who sported his gold chains, diamond pin, ruffles, and cane: 'How old
+are you?' 'I don't know, sir.' 'Do you know how to eat?' 'Everybody does
+that,' she said sullenly.
+
+"Passing up the Esplanade next morning, (Sunday) I saw some forty or
+fifty very fine-looking negroes and negresses, all neatly dressed,
+standing on a bench directly in front of a building, which I took to be
+a meeting or school house: walking by, a genteel-looking man stepped up
+and asked me if I wished to buy a likely boy or girl. Telling him I was
+a stranger, and asking for information, he told me it was one of the
+slave-markets; that they stood there for examination, and that he had
+sold 500,000 dollars worth and sent them off that morning.
+
+"The above facts are some of the singular features (to a Northerner) of
+this remarkable place, and I assure you that I 'nothing extenuate, or
+set down aught in malice;' but may the time come when even a black man
+may say, 'I am a man!'
+
+  "NORTHROP."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I once relieved a poor black wretch who was starving in the streets of
+Kingston, and told him where to go to get proper advice and protection:
+all the thanks I received were that he was sorry he ran away, for he had
+been a waiter somewhere in the South, and got a good many dollars by his
+situation; whereas, he said, Canada was a poor country, and he had no
+hope of thriving in it.
+
+The lower class of negroes in Canada, for there are several classes
+among even runaways, are very frequently dissolute, idle, impudent, and
+assuming--so difficult is it for poor uneducated human nature to bear a
+little freedom.
+
+The coloured people, if they get at all up in the world, assume vast
+airs, but there are very many well-conducted people among them. As yet
+neither coloured people nor negroes have made much advance in Canada.
+
+John Bull had visited almost every portion of the Northern and Western
+States, was a shrewd, observing character, and had come to the
+conclusion, which he very plainly expressed, that the state of society
+in the Union was not to his taste, that he could procure lands as cheap
+and as good for his gold in Canada, and that to Canada he would bring
+his old woman and his children.
+
+"For," said he, "in the London or Western districts of Upper Canada, the
+land is equal to any in the United States, the climate better, and by
+and by it will supply all Europe with grain. Settling there, an
+Englishman will not always be put in mind of the inferiority of the
+British to the Americans, will not always be told that kings and queens
+are childish humbugs, and will not have his work hindered and his mind
+poisoned by constant elections and everlasting grasping for office.
+
+"While," says John to Jonathan, "I am in Canada, just as free as you
+are; I pay no taxes, or only such as I control myself, and which are
+laid out in roads, or for my benefit. I can worship after the manner of
+my fathers, without being robbed or burnt out, and I meet no man who
+thinks himself a bit better than myself; but, as I shall take care to
+settle a good way from republican sympathizers for the sake of my poor
+property, I shall always find my neighbours as proud of Queen Victoria
+as I be myself."
+
+Jonathan replied that he had no manner of doubt that Miss Victoria was a
+real lady, for every female is a lady in the States; the word being
+understood only as an equivalent for womankind, and that John might like
+petticoat government, but, for his part, he calculated it was better to
+be a king one's-self, which every citizen of the enlightened republic
+was, and no mistake.
+
+And kings they are, for all power resides there, in the body of which
+he was a favourable specimen, but which does not always show its members
+in so fair a light.
+
+I do not know any coach ride in British America more pleasing than that
+from Niagara to Queenston. You cross a broad green common, with the
+expanse of Lake Ontario on one side, the forest and orchard on the
+other; and, after passing through a little coppice, suddenly come upon
+the St. Lawrence, rolling a tranquil flood towards the great lake below.
+
+High above its waters, on the edge of the sharp precipitous bank,
+covered with trees--oak, birch, beech, chestnut, and maple--runs the
+sandy road, bordered by corn-fields, by orchards, and occasionally by
+little patches of woodland, looking for all the world like Old England,
+excepting that that unpicturesque snake fence spoils the illusion.
+
+Now, bright and deep, rolls the giant flood onward; now it is hidden by
+a turn of the bank; now, glittering, it again appears between the trees.
+Thus you travel until within a couple of miles or so of Queenston, when,
+the road leaving the bank, and the river forming a large bay-like bend,
+a splendid view breaks out.
+
+You catch a distant glimpse of that narrow pass, where a wall of rock,
+two hundred feet high on each side, and somewhat higher on the American
+shore, vomits forth the pent-up angry Niagara. Above this wall, to the
+right and left, towers the mountain ridge, covered with forest to the
+south, and with the greenest of grass to the north, where, stately and
+sad, stands the pillar under whose base moulder the bones of the gallant
+Brock, and of Mac Donell, his aide-de-camp.
+
+Rent from summit to base, tottering to its fall, is Brock's monument,
+and yet the villain who did the deed that destroyed it lives, and dares
+to show his face on the neighbouring shore.
+
+I cannot conceive in beautiful scenery any thing more picturesque than
+the gorge of the Niagara river: it combines rapid water, a placid bay, a
+tremendous wall of rock, forest, glade, village, column, active and
+passive life.
+
+Queenston is a poor place; it has never gained an inch since the war of
+1812; but, as a railroad has been established, and a wharf is building
+in connection with it, it will go ahead. Opposite to it is Lewiston, in
+the United States, less ancient and time-worn, full of gaudily-painted
+wooden houses, and with much more pretension. Queenston looks like an
+old English hamlet in decay; melancholy and miserable; Lewiston is the
+type of newness, all white and green, all unfinished and all
+uncomfortable.
+
+The odious bar-room system of the Northern States is fast sweeping away
+all vestiges of English comfort. The practice of lounging, cigar in
+mouth, sipping juleps and alcoholic decoctions in common with smugglers
+and small folk, is fast unhinging society. The plan of social economy in
+the mercantile cities is rapidly spreading over the whole Union, and the
+fashion of ladies' drawing-rooms being absorbed into the parlour of an
+hotel or boarding-house has brought about a change which the next
+generation will lament.
+
+It is the restless rage for politics, the ever present desire for
+dollars, which has brought about this state of things; the young husband
+seeks the bar-room as a merchant does the Change; and thus, except in
+the wealthy class, or among the contemplative and retired, there is no
+such thing as private life in the northern cities and towns. Huge
+taverns, real wooden gin palaces, tower over the tops of all other
+buildings, in every border village, town, and city; and a good bar is a
+better business than any other. Thus in Lewiston, in Buffalo, in short,
+in every American border town, the best building is the tavern, and the
+next best the meeting-house; both are fashionable, and both are anything
+but what they should be; for he who keeps the best liquors, and he who
+preaches most pointedly to the prevailing taste, makes the most of his
+trade. The voluntary system is a capital speculation to the publican as
+well as to the parson; but, unfortunately, it is more general with the
+former than with the latter.
+
+The Niagara frontier is a rich and a fertile portion of Canada,
+surrounded almost by water, and intersected by rivers, and the Welland
+Canal, with an undulating surface in the interior. It grows wheat,
+Indian corn, and all the cereal gramina to perfection, whilst Pomona
+lavishes favours on it; nor are its woods less prolific and luxuriant.
+Here the chestnut, with its deep green foliage and its white flowers,
+forms a pleasing variety to the sylvan scenery of Canada.
+
+It would be, from its healthiness alone, the pleasantest part of Canada
+to live in, but it is too near the borders where sympathizers, more keen
+and infinitely more barbarous than those on the ancient Tweed, render
+property and life rather precarious; and, therefore, in war or in
+rebellion, the Niagara frontier is not an enviable abode for the
+peaceable farmer or the timid female.
+
+The ascent to the plateau above Queenston is grand, and the view from
+the summit very extensive and magnificent; embracing such a stretch of
+cultivated land, of forest, of the habitations of men, and of the
+apparently boundless Ontario, the Beautiful Lake, that it can scarcely
+be rivalled.
+
+The railroad has, however, spoiled a good deal of this; it runs from the
+summit of the mountain, along its side or flank, inland to Chippewa,
+beyond the Falls; and you are whirled along, not by steam, but by three
+trotting horses, at a rapid rate, through a wood road, until you reach
+the Falls, where you obtain just a glimpse and no more of the Cataract.
+
+On the top of the mountain, as a hill four or five hundred feet above
+the river is called, is a place which was the scene of an awful
+accident. The precipice wall of the gorge of the Niagara is very close
+to the road, but hidden from it by stunted firs and bushes. Colonel
+Nichols, an officer well known and distinguished in the last American
+war, was returning one winter's night, when the fresh snow rendered all
+tracks on the road imperceptible, in his sleigh with a gallant horse.
+Merrily on they went; the night was dark, and the road makes a sudden
+turn just at the brink, to descend by a circuitous sweep the face of
+the hill into Queenston. Either the driver or the horse mistook the
+path, and, instead of turning to the left, went on edging to the right.
+
+The next day search was made: the marks of struggling were observed on
+the snow; the horse had evidently observed his danger; he had floundered
+and dashed wildly about; but horse, sleigh, and driver, went down, down,
+down, at least two hundred feet into the abyss below; and sufficient
+only remained to bear witness to the terrific result.
+
+The railroad (three horse power) takes you to the Falls or to Chippewa.
+If you intend visiting the former, and desire to go to the Clifton
+House, the best hotel there, you are dropped at Mr. Lanty Mac Gilly's,
+where the four roads meet, one going to the Ferry, one to Drummondville,
+a village at Lundy's Lane, now cut off from the main road; the other you
+came by, and the continuation of which goes to Chippewa, where a
+steamer, called the Emerald, is ready to take you to the city of
+Buffalo in the United States. As I shall return by way of Buffalo from
+the extreme west of Canada, we will say not a word about any thing
+further on this route at present than the Falls, and perhaps the reader
+may think the less that is said about them the better.
+
+But, gentle reader, although it be a well-worn tale, I had not seen the
+Falls for five years, and I wish to tell you whether they are altered or
+improved; and most likely you will take some little interest in so old a
+friend as the Falls of Niagara; for you must have read about those
+before you read Robinson Crusoe, and have had them thrust under your
+notice by every tourist, from Trollope to Dickens. They say, _on dit_, I
+mean, which is not translatable into English, that this is the age of
+Materialism and Utilitarianism. By George, you would think so indeed, if
+you had the chance of seeing the Falls of Niagara twice in ten years.
+They are materially injured by the Utilitarian mania. The Yankees put an
+ugly shot tower on the brink of the Horseshoe at the beginning of that
+era, and they are about to consummate the barbarism, by throwing a wire
+bridge, if the British government is consenting, over the river, just
+below the American Fall. But Niagara is a splendid "Water Privilege,"
+and so thought the Company of the City of the Falls--a most enlightened
+body of British subjects, who first disfigured the Table Rock, by
+putting a water-mill on it, and now are adding the horror of
+gin-palaces, with sundry ornamental booths for the sale of juleps and
+sling, all along the venerable edge of the precipice, so that trees of
+unequalled beauty on the bank above, trees which grow no where else in
+Canada, are daily falling before the monster of gain.
+
+What they will do next in their freaks it is difficult to surmise; but
+it requires very little more to show that patriotism, taste, and
+self-esteem, are not the leading features in the character of the
+inhabitants of this part of the world.
+
+If the Colossus of Rhodes could be remodelled and brought to the Falls,
+one leg standing in Canada, and the other in the United States, there
+would be a company immediately formed for hydraulic purposes, to convey
+a waste pipe from the tips of the fingers as far as Buffalo; and another
+to light the paltry village of Manchester, all mills and mint-juleps,
+with the natural gas which would be made to feed the lamp. A grogshop
+would be set up in his head; telescopes would be poked out of his eyes,
+and philosophers would seat themselves on his toes, to calculate whether
+the waters of the British Fall could not be dammed out, so as to turn a
+few cotton mills more in Manchester, as it is called, which scheme some
+Canadian worthy would upset, by resorting to Mr. Lyell's proof that the
+whole river might once have flowed, and may again be made to flow, down
+to St. David's--thus, by expending a few millions, cutting off
+Jonathan's chance.
+
+But it is of no use to joke on this subject; Niagara is, both to the
+United States and to England, but especially to Canada, a public
+property. It is the greatest wonder of the visible world here below,
+and should be protected from the rapacity of private speculations, and
+not made a Greenwich fair of; where pedlars and thimble-riggers, niggers
+and barkers, the lowest trulls and the vilest scum of society,
+congregate to disgust and annoy the visitors from all parts of the
+world, plundering and pestering them without control.
+
+The only really pretty thing on the British side is the Museum, the
+result of the indefatigable labours of Mr. Barnett, a person who, by his
+own unassisted industry, has gathered together a most interesting
+collection of animals, shells, coins, &c., and has added a garden, in
+which all the choicest plants and flowers of North America and of
+Britain grow, watered by the incessant spray of the Great Fall. In this
+garden I saw, for the first time in Canada, the English holly, the box,
+the heath, and the ivy; and there is a willow from the St. Helena stock.
+
+It requires unremitting watchfulness, however, to keep all this
+together, for _loafers_ are rife in these parts. He had gathered a very
+choice collection of coins, which was placed in a glass case in the
+Museum. A loafer cast his eye upon them, visited the Museum frequently,
+until he fully comprehended the whereabouts, and then, by the help of a
+comrade or two, broke a window-pane, passed through a glazed division of
+stuffed snakes, &c., and bore off his prize in the dead of the night. By
+advertising in time, and by dint of much exertion, the greater part was
+recovered, but the proprietor has not dared publicly to exhibit them
+since.
+
+He is now forming a menagerie, and also has a collection of fossils and
+minerals from the neighbourhood, with a camera obscura. He is, in short,
+a specimen of what untiring industry can accomplish, even when
+unassisted.
+
+There are some tulip-trees near the Falls, but this plant does not grow
+to any size so far north; and, although native to the soil, it is,
+perhaps, the extreme limit of its range. The snake-wood, a sort of
+slender bush, is found here, with very many other rare Canadian plants,
+which are no doubt fostered by the continual humidity of the place; and,
+if you wish to sup full of horrors,[4] Mr. Barnett has plenty of live
+rattlesnakes.
+
+[Footnote 4: This puts me in mind of the vulgar received opinion that my
+godfather Fuseli supped on pork-steaks, to have horrid dreams.
+Originally said in joke, this absurd story has been repeated even by
+persons affecting respectability as writers. His Greek learning alone
+should have saved his memory from this.]
+
+To wind up all, the Americans are going to put up another immense
+gin-palace on the opposite shore; and, as a climax to the excellent
+taste of the vicinage, they are about to place a huge steamboat to cross
+the rapids at the foot of the Manchester Falls. The next speculation, as
+I hinted above, must be to turn the Niagara into the Erie, or into the
+Welland Canal, and make it carry flour, grind wheat, and do the duty
+which the political economists of this thriving place consider all
+rivers as alone created for.
+
+One traveller of the Utilitarian school has recorded, in the traveller's
+album at the Falls, the number of gallons of water running over to
+waste per minute; and another writes, "What an almighty splash!"
+
+I went once more to see the Burning Spring, and have no doubt whatever
+that the City of the Falls, that great pre-eminent humbug, if it had
+been built, might have easily been lit by natural gas, as it abounds
+every where in the neighbourhood, the rock under the superior Silurian
+limestone being a shale containing it, as may be evidenced by those
+visitors, who are persuaded to go under "the Sheet of Water," as the
+place is called where the Table Rock projects, and part of the cataract
+slides over it; for, on reaching the angle next to the spiral stair, a
+strong smell is plainly perceptible, something between rotten eggs and
+sulphur; and there you find a little trickling spring oozing out of the
+precipice tasting of those delectable compounds.
+
+A Yankee, with the soaring imagination of that imaginative race,
+proposes to set fire to the Horseshoe Fall, and thus get up a grand
+nocturnal exhibition, to which the Surrey Zoological pyrotechny would
+bear the same ratio as a sky-rocket to Vesuvius.
+
+There is no great impossibility in this fact, if it was "not a fact"
+that the rush of the Fall disturbs the superincumbent gases too much to
+permit it; for there can be but little doubt that there is plenty of
+_materiel_ at hand, and, some day or other, a lighthouse will be lit
+with it to guide sleepy loons and other negligent water-fowl over the
+Falls. I wonder they do not get up a Carburetted Hydrogen Gas Company
+there, with a suitable engineer and railway, so that visitors might
+cross over to Goat Island on an atmospheric line. There are plenty of
+railway stags on both shores, if you will only buy their stock to
+establish it; and, at all events, it would improve the City of the
+Falls, which now exhibits the deplorable aspect of three stuccoed
+cottages turned seedy, and a bare common, in place of a magnificent
+grove of chestnut trees, which formerly almost rivalled Greenwich Park.
+
+But the crowning glory of "the City" is the Reflecting Pagoda, a thing
+perched over Table Rock bank; very like a huge pile engine, with a
+ten-shilling mirror, where the monkey should be. Blessings on Time!
+though he is a very thoughtless rogue, he has touched this grand effort
+of human genius in the wooden line slightly, and it will soon follow the
+horrid water-mill which stood on that most singular and indescribable
+freak of Nature, the Table Rock. I would have forgiven Lett, the
+sympathizer, if, instead of assassination and the blowing-up of Brock's
+Monument, he had confined his attentions to a little serious Guy Fauxing
+at the Mill and the Reflecting Pagoda.
+
+Niagara--Ne-aw-gaw-rah, thou thundering water! thy glories are
+departing; the abominable Railway Times has driven along thy borders;
+and, if I should live to see thee again ten years hence, verily I should
+not be astounded to find thee locked-up, and a station-house staring me
+in the visage, from that emerald bower, in thy most mysterious recess,
+where the vapour is rose-coloured, and the bright rainbow alone now
+forms the bridge from the Iris Rock!
+
+I was so disgusted to see the spirit of pelf, that concentration of
+self, hovering over one of the last of the wonders of the world, that I
+rushed to the Three Horse Railway, and soon forgot all my misery in
+scrambling for a place; for there was no alternative. There were only
+three carriages and one open cart on the rail; the three aristocratic
+conveniences were full; and the coal-box--for it looked very like
+one--was full also, of loafers and luggage; so I despaired of quitting
+the Falls almost as much, by way of balance, as I rejoiced when they
+once again met my ken.
+
+But women are women all the world over; a black lady nursed Mungo Park,
+when he was abandoned by the world; and a charitable she-Samaritan
+crowded to make room for a disconsolate wayfarer.
+
+I felt very much as the nigger's parrot at New York did.
+
+Blacky was selling a parrot, and a gentleman asked him what the bird
+could do. Could he speak well? "No, massa; no peaky at all." "Can he
+sing?"--"No, massa; no peaky, no singy." "Why, what can he do, then,
+that you ask twenty dollars for him?" "Oh! massa, golly, he thinky
+dreadful much." So, when the daughter of Eve made way for me in the
+rail-car, why I thinky very much, that, wherever a stranger meets
+unexpected kindness, it is sure to be a woman that offers it.
+
+There were the usual host of American travellers in the cars; and as one
+generally gets a fund of anecdote and amusement on these occasions, from
+their habits of communicativeness, I shall put the English reader in
+possession of the meaning of words he often sees in the perusal of
+American newspapers and novels which I gathered.
+
+New York is the Empire State, and with the following comprises Yankee
+land, which word Yankee is most properly a corruption of Yengeese, the
+old Indian word for English; so that, by parity of reasoning, John Bull
+is, after all, a Yankee.
+
+  Massachusetts    The Bay State, Steady Habits.
+  Rhode Island     Plantation State.
+  Vermont          Banner State, or Green Mountain Boys.
+  New Hampshire    The Granite State.
+  Connecticut      Freestone State.
+  Maine            Lumber State.
+
+These are the Yankees, _par excellence_; and it is not polite or even
+civil for a traveller to consider or mention any of the other States as
+labouring under the idea that they ever could, by any possibility, be
+considered as Yankees; for, in the South, the word Yankee is almost
+equivalent to a tin pedlar, a sharp, Sam Slick.
+
+  Pennsylvania   is     The Keystone State.
+  New Jersey            The Jersey (pronounced Jar-say) Blues.
+  Delaware              Little Delaware.
+  Maryland              Monumental.
+  Virginia              The Old Dominion, and sometimes the Cavaliers.
+  North Carolina        Rip Van Winckle.
+  South Carolina        The Palmetto State.
+  Georgia               Pine State.
+  Ohio                  The Buckeyes.
+  Kentucky              The Corncrackers.
+  Alabama               Alabama.
+  Tennessee             The Lion's Den.
+  Missouri              The Pukes.
+  Illinois              The Suckers.
+  Indiana               The Hoosiers.
+  Michigan              The Wolverines.
+  Arkansas              The Toothpickers.
+  Louisiana             The Creole State.
+  Mississippi           The Border Beagles.
+
+I do not know what elegant names have been given to the Floridas, the
+Iowa, or any of the other territories, but no doubt they are equally
+significant. Texas, I suppose, will be called Annexation State.
+
+This information, although it appears frivolous, is very useful, as
+without it much of the perpetual war of politics in the States cannot be
+understood. Yankee in Europe is a sort of byword, denoting repudiation
+and all sorts of chicanery; but the Yankee States are more English, more
+intellectual, and more enterprising than all the rest put together; and
+Pennsylvania should be enrolled among them.
+
+In short, in the north-east you have the cool, calculating, confident,
+and persevering Yankee; in the south, the fiery, somewhat aristocratic,
+bold, and uncompromising American, full of talent, but with his energies
+a little slackened by his proximity to the equator and his habitual use
+of slave assistance.
+
+In the central States, all is progressive; a more agricultural
+population of mixed races, as energetic as the Yankee, but not
+possessing his advantages of a seaboard. The Western States are the
+pioneers of civilization, and have a dauntless, less educated, and more
+turbulent character, approaching, as you draw towards the setting sun,
+very much to the half-horse, half-alligator, and paving the way for the
+arts and sciences of Europe with the rifle and the axe.
+
+It is these Western States and the vast labouring population of the
+seaboard, who have only their manual labour to maintain them, without
+property or without possessions of any kind, that control the
+legislature, their numerical strength beating and bearing down mind,
+matter, and wealth.
+
+Doubtless it is the bane of the republican institution, as now settled
+in North America, that every man, woman, and child, in order to assert
+their equality, must meddle with matters far above the comprehension of
+a great majority; for, although the people of the United States can, as
+George the Third so piously wished for the people of England, read their
+bible, whenever they are inclined to do so, yet it is beyond
+possibility, as human nature is constituted, that all can be endowed
+with the same, or any thing like the same, faculties. Too much learning
+makes them mad; and hence the constant danger of disruption, from
+opposing interests, which the masses--for the word mob is not applicable
+here--must always enforce. The north and the south, the east and the
+west, are as dissimilar in habits, in thought, in action, and in
+interests, as Young Russia is from Old England, or as republican France
+was from the monarchy of Louis the Great.
+
+Hence is it that a Canadian, residing, as it were, on the Neutral
+Ground, can so much better appreciate the tone of feeling in America, as
+the United States' people love to call their country, than an
+Englishman, Scotchman, or Irishman can; for here are visible the very
+springs that regulate the machinery, which are covered and hidden by the
+vast space of the Atlantic. You can form no idea of the American
+character by the merchants, travelling gentry, or diplomatists, who
+visit London and the sea-ports. You must have lengthened and daily
+opportunities of observing the people of a new country, where a new
+principle is working, before you can venture safely to pronounce an
+attempt even at judgment.
+
+Monsieur Tocqueville, who is always lauded to the skies for his
+philosophic and truly extraordinary view of American policy and
+institutions, has perhaps been as impartial as most republican writers
+since the days of the enthusiast Volney, on the merits or demerits of
+the monarchical and democratic systems; yet his opinions are to be
+listened to very cautiously, for the leaven was well mixed in his own
+cake before it was matured for consumption by the public.
+
+Weak and prejudiced minds receive the doctrines of a philosopher like
+Tocqueville as dictations: he pronounced _ex cathedra_ his doctrines,
+and it is heresy to gainsay them. Yet, as an able writer in that
+universal book, "The Times," says, reason and history read a different
+sermon.
+
+That democracy is an essential principle, and must sooner or later
+prevail amongst all people, is very analogous to the prophecy of Miller,
+that the material world is to be rolled up as a garment, and shrivelled
+in the fire on the thirteenth day of some month next year, _or_ the year
+after.
+
+These fulminations are very semblable to those of the popes--harmless
+corruscations--a sort of aurora borealis, erratic and splendid, but very
+unreal and very unsearchable as to cause and effect.
+
+There can be, however, very little doubt in the mind of a person whose
+intellects have been carefully developed, and who has used them quietly
+to reason on apparent conclusions, that the form of government in the
+United States has answered a purpose hitherto, and that a wise one; for
+the impatience of control which every new-comer from the Old World
+naturally feels, when he discovers that he has only escaped the dominion
+of long-established custom to fall under the more despotic dominion of
+new opinions, prompts him, if he differs, and he always naturally does,
+where so many opinions are suddenly brought to light and forced on his
+acquiescence, to move out of their sphere. Hence emigration westward is
+the result; and hence, for the same reasons, the old seaboard States,
+where the force of the laws operates more strongly than in the central
+regions, annually pour out to the western forests their masses of
+discontented citizens.
+
+The feeling of old Daniel Boone and of Leather Stockings is a very
+natural one to a half-educated or a wholly uneducated man, and no doubt
+also many quiet and respectable people get harassed and tired of the
+caucusing and canvassing for political power, which is incessantly going
+on under the modern system of things in America, and take up their
+household gods to seek out the land flowing with milk and honey beyond
+the wilderness.
+
+No person can imagine the constant turmoil of politics in the Northern
+States. The writer already quoted says, that there is "one singular
+proof of the general energy and capacity for business, which early
+habits of self-dependence have produced;--almost every American
+understands politics, takes a lively interest in them (though many
+abstain under discouragement or disgust from taking a practical part),
+and is familiar, not only with the affairs of his own township or
+county, but with those of the State or of the Union; almost every man
+reads about a dozen newspapers every day, and will talk to you for
+hours, (_tant bien que mal_) if you will listen to him, about the tariff
+and the Ashburton treaty."
+
+And he continues by stating that this by no means interferes with his
+private affairs; on the contrary, he appears to have time for both, and
+can reconcile "the pursuits of a bustling politician and a steady man
+of business. Such a union is rarely found in England, and never on, the
+Continent."
+
+But what is the result of such a union of versatile talent? Politics and
+dollars absorb all the time which might be used to advantage for the
+mental aggrandizement of the nation; and every petty pelting quidnunc
+considers himself as able as the President and all his cabinet, and not
+only plainly tells them so every hour, but forces them to act as _he_
+wills, not as _wisdom_ wills. There is a Senate, it is true, where some
+of this popular fervour gets a little cooling occasionally: but,
+although there are doubtless many acute minds in power, and many great
+men in public situations, yet the majority of the people of intellect
+and of wealth in the United States keep aloof whilst this order of
+things remains: for, from the penny-postman and the city scavenger to
+the very President himself, the qualification for office is popular
+subserviency.
+
+Thus, when Mr. Polk thunders from the Capitol, it is most likely not
+Mr. Polk's heart that utters such warlike notes of preparation, but Mr.
+Polk would never be re-elected, if he did not do as his rulers bid him
+do.
+
+It may seem absurd enough, it is nevertheless true, that this political
+furor is carried into the most obscure walks of life, and the Americans
+themselves tell some good stories about it; while, at the same time,
+they constantly din your ears with "the destinies of the Great
+Republic," the absolute certainty of universal American dominion over
+the New World, and the rapid decay and downfall of the Old, which does
+not appear fitted to receive pure Democracy.[5]
+
+[Footnote 5: One of the speakers against time, in a late debate on the
+Oregon question, quoted those fine lines, about "The flag that braved a
+thousand years the battle and the breeze," and said its glory was
+departing before the Stars and Stripes, which were to occupy its place
+in the event of war, from this time forth and for ever.]
+
+They tell a good story of a political courtship in the "New York
+Mercury," as decidedly one of the best things introduced in a late
+political campaign:--
+
+"Inasmuch," says the editor, "as all the States hereabouts have
+concluded their labours in the presidential contest, we think we run no
+risk of upsetting the constitution, or treading upon the most fastidious
+toe in the universe, by affording our readers the same hearty laugh into
+which we were betrayed.
+
+"Jonathan walks in, takes a seat and looks at Sukey; Sukey rakes up the
+fire, blows out the candle, and don't look at Jonathan. Jonathan hitches
+and wriggles about in his chair, and Sukey sits perfectly still. At
+length he musters courage and speaks--
+
+"'Sewkey?'
+
+"'Wall, Jon-nathan?'
+
+"'I love you like pizan and sweetmeats?'
+
+"'Dew tell.'
+
+"'It's a fact and no mistake--wi--will--now--will you have me--Sew--ky?'
+
+"'Jon--nathan Hig--gins, what am your politics?'
+
+"'I'm for Polk, straight.'
+
+"'Wall, sir, yew can walk straight to hum, cos I won't have nobody that
+ain't for Clay! that's a fact.'
+
+"'Three cheers for the Mill Boy of the Slashes!' sung out Jonathan.
+
+"'That's your sort,' says Sukey. 'When shall we be married,
+Jon--nathan?'
+
+"'Soon's Clay's e--lect--ed.'
+
+"'Ahem, ahem!'
+
+"'What's the matter, Sukey?'
+
+"'Sposing he ain't e--lect--ed?'
+
+"We came away."
+
+Verily, Monsieur De Tocqueville, you are in the right--democracy is an
+inherent principle.
+
+But the train is progressing, and we are passing Lundy's Lane, or, as
+the Americans call it, "The Battle Ground," where a bloody fight between
+Democracy and Monarchy took place some thirty years ago, and where
+
+"The bones, unburied on the naked plain,"
+
+still are picked up by the grubbers after curiosities, and the very
+trees have the balls still sticking in them.
+
+Here woman, that ministering angel in the hour of woe, performed a part
+in the drama which is worth relating, as the source from which I had the
+history is from the person who owed so much to her, and whose gallantry
+was so conspicuous.
+
+Colonel Fitzgibbon, then in the 49th regiment, having inadvertently got
+into a position where his sword, peeping from under his great coat,
+immediately pointed him out as a British officer, was seized by two
+American soldiers, who had been drinking in the village public-house,
+and would either have been made prisoner or killed had not Mrs. Defield
+come to his rescue.
+
+Mr. Fitzgibbon was a tall, powerful, muscular person, and his captors
+were a rifleman and an infantry soldier, each armed with the rifle and
+musket peculiar to their service. By a sudden effort, he seized the
+rifle of one and the musket of the other, and turned their muzzles from
+him; and so firm was his grasp, that, although unable to wrest the
+weapon from either of them, they could not change the position.
+
+The rifleman, retaining his hold of his rifle with one hand, drew Mr.
+Fitzgibbon's sword with the other, and attempted to stab him in the
+side. Whilst watching his uplifted arm, with the intent, if possible, of
+receiving the thrust in his own arm, Mr. Fitzgibbon perceived the two
+hands of a woman suddenly clasp the rifleman's wrist, and carry it
+behind his back, when she and her sister wrenched the sword from him,
+and ran and hid it in the cellar.
+
+Mrs. Defield was the wife of the keeper of the tavern where this officer
+happened to have arrived; an old man, named Johnson, then came forward,
+and with his assistance Mr. Fitzgibbon took the two soldiers prisoners,
+and carried them to the nearest guard, although at that moment an
+American detachment of 150 men was within a hundred yards of the place,
+hidden however from view by a few young pine-trees.
+
+I am sure it will please the British reader to learn that the government
+granted 400 acres of the best land in the Talbot settlement to Edward
+Defield, for his wife's and sister-in-law's heroic conduct.
+
+Yet, such is the influence of example upon unreflecting minds dwelling
+on the frontiers of Upper Canada, that although in most instances the
+settlers are in possession of farms originally free gifts from the
+Crown, yet many of their sons were in arms against that Crown in 1837.
+Among these misguided youths was a son of Defield's, who surrendered,
+with the brigands commanded by Von Schultz, in the windmill, near
+Prescott, in the winter of 1838. He had crossed over from Ogdensburgh,
+and was condemned to a traitor's death.
+
+From Colonel Fitzgibbon's statement to the executive, this lad, in
+consideration of his mother's heroism, was pardoned. Mrs. Defield is
+still living.
+
+The three horses _en licorne_ trot us on, and we pass Lundy's Lane,
+Bloody Run, a little streamlet, whose waters were once dyed with gore,
+and so back to Niagara, where I shall take the liberty of saying a few
+words concerning the Welland Canal.
+
+The Welland Canal, the most important in a commercial point of view of
+any on the American continent--until that of Tchuantessegue, in Mexico,
+which I was once, in 1825, deputed to survey and cut, is formed, or that
+other projected through San Juan de Nicaragua--was originally a mere
+job, or, as it was called, a job at both ends and a failure in the
+middle, until it passed into the hands of the local government. If there
+has been any job since, it has not been made public, and it is now a
+most efficient and well conducted work, through which a very great
+portion of the western trade finds its way, in despite of that
+magnificent vision of De Witt Clinton's, the Erie Canal; and when the
+Welland is navigable for the schooners and steamers of the great lakes,
+it will absorb the transit trade, as its mouth in Lake Erie is free from
+ice several weeks sooner than the harbour of Buffalo.
+
+The old miserable wooden locks and bargeway have been converted into
+splendid stone walls and a ship navigation; and, to give some idea of
+the rising importance of the Welland Canal, I shall briefly state that
+the tolls in 1832 amounted to £2,432, in 1841 had risen to £20,210, and
+in 1843 to £25,573 3s. 10-1/4d.: and when the works are fairly finished,
+which they nearly are, this will be trebled in the first year; for it
+has been carefully calculated that the gross amount which would have
+passed of tonnage of large sailing craft only on the lakes, in 1844, was
+26,400 tons, out of which only 7,000 had before been able to use the
+locks.
+
+All the sailing vessels now, with the exception of three or four, can
+pass freely; and three large steam propellers were built in 1844, whose
+aggregate tonnage amounted to 1,900 tons; they have commenced their
+regular trips as freight-vessels, for which they were constructed, and
+have been followed by the almost incredible use of Ericson's propeller.
+
+To show the British reader the importance of this work, connecting, as
+it does, with the St. Lawrence and Rideau Canals, the Atlantic Ocean,
+and Lakes Superior and Michigan, I shall, although contrary to a
+determination made to give nothing in this work but the results of
+personal inspection or observation, use the scissors and paste for once,
+and thus place under view a table of all the articles which are carried
+through this main artery of Canada, by which both import and export
+trade may be viewed as in a mirror, and this too before the canal is
+fairly finished.
+
+WELLAND CANAL.
+
+AMOUNT OF PROPERTY PASSED THROUGH, AND TOLLS COLLECTED. 1844.
+
+  Beef and pork                  barrels,       41,976-1/4
+  Flour                            do.         305,208-1/2
+  Ashes                            do.           3,412
+  Beer and cider                   do.              50
+  Salt                             do.         213,212
+  Whiskey                          do.             931
+  Plaster                          do.           2,068-1/2
+  Fruit and nuts                   do.             470
+  Butter and lard                  do.           4,639-1/2
+  Seeds                            do.           1,429-1/2
+  Tallow                           do.           1,182
+  Water-lime                       do.           1,662
+  Pitch and tar                    do.              75
+  Fish                             do.           1,758-1/2
+  Oatmeal                          do.             132
+  Beeswax                          do.              36
+  Empty                            do.           3,044
+  Oil                            barrels,           96
+  Soap                             do.              13
+  Vinegar                          do.              24
+  Molasses                         do.               1
+  Caledonia water                  do.              10
+  Saw logs                         No.          10,411
+  Boards                         feet,       7,493,574
+  Square timber                  cubic feet,   490,525
+  Half flatted do.                 do.          13,922
+  Round do.                        do.          20,879
+  Staves, pipe                     do.         630,602
+    Do.   W. I.                    do.       1,197,916
+    Do.  flour barrel              do.         130,500
+  Shingles                         do.         330,400
+  Rails                            do.          12,318
+  Racked hoops                     do.          59,300
+  Wheat                          bushels,    2,122,592
+  Corn                             do.          73,328
+  Barley                           do.             930
+  Rye                              do.             142
+  Oats                             do.           5,653
+  Potatoes                         do.           7,311
+  Peas                             do.             138
+  Butter and lard                 kegs,          4,669
+  Merchandize                     tons,      11,318 16
+  Coal                             do.        1,689  7
+  Castings                         do.          211  6
+  Iron                             do.        1,748 10
+  Tobacco                          do.          140  7
+  Grindstones                      do.          151 14
+  Plaster                          do.        1,491 10
+  Hides                            do.          101 15
+  Bacon and Hams                   do.          307  0
+  Bran and shorts                 tons,        231  11
+  Water-lime                       do.         441   7
+  Rags                             do.           3   0
+  Hemp                             do.         500  11
+  Wool                             do.          15   9
+  Leather                          do.           9  17
+  Cheese                           do.           1   2
+  Marble                           do.           1  10
+  Stone                           cords,           738-1/2
+  Firewood                         do.           3,251
+  Tan bark                         do.             957
+  Cedar posts                      do.              69
+  Hoop timber                      do.              16
+  Knees                            do.             184
+  Small packages                   No.             459
+  Pumps                            do.             102
+  Passengers                       do.           3,261-1/2
+  Sleighs                          do.               2
+  Waggons                          do.             177
+  Pails                            do.             136
+  Horses                           do.               2
+  Ploughs                          do.              25
+  Thrashing-machines               do.              18
+  Cotton                         bales,             25
+  Fruit-trees                   bundles,           268
+  Sand                        cubic yards,      10,778
+  Schooners                        No.           2,121
+  Propellers                       do.             484
+  Scows                            do.           1,671
+  Boats                            do.               4
+  Rafts                            do.             118
+  Tonnage                                      327,570
+  Amount collected                 £25,573 3s. 10-1/4d.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+  The Great Fresh-water Seas of Canada.
+
+
+A sentimental journey in Canada is not like Sterne's, all about
+corking-pins and _remises_, monks and Marias, nor is it likely, in this
+utilitarian age, even if Sterne could be revived to write it, to be as
+immortal; nevertheless, let us ramble.
+
+The Welland Canal naturally leads one to reflect on the great sources of
+power spread before the Canadian nation; for, although it will never,
+never be _la nation Canadienne_, yet it will inevitably some day or
+other be the Canadian nation, and its limits the Atlantic and the
+Pacific Oceans.
+
+President Polk--they say his name is an abbreviation of Pollok--can no
+more dive into "the course of time" than that poet could do, and it is
+about as vain for him to predict that the American bald eagle shall claw
+all the fish on the continent of the New World, as it is to fancy that
+the time is never to come when the Canadian races, Norman-Saxon as they
+are, shall not assert some claim to the spoils.
+
+Canada is now happier under the dominion of Victoria than she could
+possibly be under that of the people of the States, and she knows and
+feels it. The natural resources of Canada are enormous, and developing
+themselves every day; and it needs neither Lyell, nor the yet unheard-of
+geologists of Canada to predict that the day is not far distant when her
+iron mines, her lead ores, her copper, and perhaps her silver, will come
+into the market.[6]
+
+[Footnote 6: Since I penned this, a company is forming to work valuable
+argentiferous copper-mines lately discovered on Lake Superior. The
+Americans are actually working rich mines of silver, copper, &c.]
+
+I see, in a paper lying before me, that Colonel Prince, a person who has
+already flourished before the public as an enterprising English farming
+gentleman, who combines the long robe with the red coat, has, with a
+worthy patriotism, obtained a very large grant of lands from the
+government to explore the shore of Lake Superior, in order to find
+whether the Yankees are to have all the copper to themselves; and that,
+in searching a little to the eastward of St. Mary's Rapids, a very
+valuable deposit has been discovered, which has stimulated other
+adventurers, who have found another mine nearer the outlet of the lake
+and still more valuable, the copper of which, lying near the surface,
+yields somewhere about seventy-five per cent.[7]
+
+[Footnote 7: A recent number of "The Scientific American," published in
+New York, contains the following:--Some of the British officers in
+Canada have lately made an important discovery of some of the richest
+copper-mines in the world. This discovery has created great excitement.
+Some of the officers, _en route_ to England, are now in the city, and
+will carry with them some specimens of the ore, and among them one piece
+weighing 2,200 lbs. The ore is very rich, yielding, as we learn,
+seventy-two per cent. of pure copper. Some of the copper was taken from
+the bed of a river, and some broken off from a cliff on the banks. The
+latter is six feet long, four broad, and six inches thick.]
+
+We know that rich iron mines exist, and are steadily worked in Lower
+Canada; we know that a vast deposit of iron, one of the finest in the
+world, has lately been discovered on the Ottawa, a river in the township
+of M'Nab; and we know that nothing prevents the Marmora and Madoc iron
+from being used but the finishing of the Trent navigation. Lead abounds
+on the Sananoqui river, and at Clinton, in the Niagara district; whilst
+plumbago, now so useful, is abundant throughout the line, where the
+primary and secondary rocks intersect each other. Mr. Logan, employed by
+the government, _ex cathedra_, says there is no coal in Canada; but
+still it appears that in the Ottawa country it is very possible it may
+be found, and that, if it is not, Cape Breton and the Gaspé lands will
+furnish it in abundance; and, as Canada may now fairly be said to be all
+the North American territory, embraced between the Pacific somewhere
+about the Columbia river, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, for a political
+union exists between all these provinces, if an acknowledged one does
+not, coal will yet be plentiful in Canada.
+
+Canada, thus limited, is now, _de facto_, ay, and _de jure_, British
+North America; and a fair field and a fertile one it is, peopled by a
+race neither to be frightened nor coaxed out of its birthright.
+
+The advantages of Canada are enormous, much greater, in fact, than they
+are usually thought to be at home.
+
+The ports of St. John's and of Halifax, without mentioning fifty others,
+are open all the year round to steamers and sea-going vessels; and when
+railroads can at all seasons bring their cargoes into Canada proper,
+then shall we live six months more than during the present torpidity of
+our long winters. John Bull, transported to interior Canada, is very
+like a Canadian black bear: he sleeps six months, and growls during the
+remaining six for his food.
+
+Then, in summer, there is the St. Lawrence covered with ships of all
+nations, the canals carrying their burthens to the far West and the
+great mediterraneans of fresh water, opening a country of unknown
+resources and extent.
+
+These great seas of Canada have often engaged my thoughts. Tideless,
+they flow ever onward, to keep up the level of the vast Atlantic, and in
+themselves are oceans. How is it that the moon, that enormous
+blister-plaster, does not raise them? Simply because there is some
+little error in the very accurate computations which give all the
+regulations of tidal waters to lunar influences.
+
+Barlow, one of the mathematical master-spirits of the age, was bold
+enough once to doubt this vast power of suction on the part of the ruler
+of the night; and there were certain wiseacres who, as in the case of
+Galileo, thought it very religiously dangerous indeed, to attempt to
+interfere with her privileges.
+
+But, in fact, the phenomenon of the tides is just as easy of explanation
+by the motion of the earth as it is by the moon's presumed drinking
+propensities, and, as she is a lady, let us hope she has been belied.
+The motion of the earth would not affect such narrow bodies of water as
+the Canadian lakes, but the moon's power of attraction would, if it
+existed to the extent supposed, be under the necessity of doing it,
+unless she prefers salt to fresh liquors.
+
+One may venture, now-a-days, to express such a doubt, particularly as
+Madam Moon is a Pagan deity.
+
+The great lakes are, however, very extraordinary in their way. Let us
+recollect what I have seen and thought of them.
+
+We will commence with Lake Superior, which is 400 miles in length, 100
+miles wide, and 900 feet deep, where it has been sounded. It contains
+32,000 square miles of water, and it is 628 feet above the level of the
+sea.
+
+Lake Michigan is 220 miles long, 60 miles wide, and 1,000 deep, as far
+as it has been sounded; contains 22,400 square miles, and is 584 feet
+above tide-water; but it is, in fact, only a large bay of Lake Huron,
+the grand lake, which is 240 miles long, without it averaging 86 miles
+in width, also averaging 1,000 feet deep, as far as soundings have been
+tried, contains 20,400 square miles, and is also about 584 feet above
+the tidal waters.
+
+Off Saginaw Bay, in this lake, leads have been sunk 1,800 feet, or 1,200
+feet below the level of the Atlantic, without finding bottom.
+
+Green Bay, an arm of Michigan, is in itself 106 miles long, 20 miles
+wide, and contains 2,000 square miles.
+
+Lake St. Clair, 6 feet above Lake Erie, follows Lake Huron; but it is a
+mere enlargement of the St. Lawrence, of immense size, however, and
+shallow: it is 20 miles long, 14 wide, 20 feet deep, and contains 360
+square miles.
+
+Then comes Lake Erie, the Stormy Lake, which is 240 miles long, 40 miles
+wide, 408 feet in its deepest part, and contains 9,600 square miles.
+Lake Erie is 565 feet above tide-water. Its average depth is 85 feet
+only.
+
+Lake Ontario, the Beautiful Lake, is 180 miles long, 45 miles wide, 500
+feet average depth, where sounded successfully, but said to be
+fathomless in some places, and contains 6,300 square miles. It is 232
+feet above the tide of the St. Lawrence.
+
+The Canadian lakes have been computed to contain 1,700 cubic miles of
+water, or more than half the fresh water on the globe, covering a space
+of about 93,000 square miles. They extend from west to east over nearly
+15 degrees and a half of longitude, with a difference of latitude of
+about eight and a half degrees, draining a country of not less surface
+than 400,000 square miles.
+
+The greatest difference is observable between the waters of all these
+lakes, arising from soil, depth, and shores. Ontario is pure and blue,
+Erie pure and green, the southern part of Michigan nothing particular.
+The northern part of Michigan and all Huron are clear, transparent, and
+full of carbonic gas, so that its water sparkles. But the extraordinary
+transparency of the waters of all these lakes is very surprising. Those
+of Huron transmit the rays of light to a great depth, and consequently,
+having no preponderating solid matters in suspension, an equalization of
+heat occurs. Dr. Drake ascertained that, at the surface in summer, and
+at two hundred feet below it, the temperature of the water was 56°.
+
+One of the most curious things on the shallow parts of Huron is to sail
+or row over the submarine or sublacune mountains, and to feel giddy from
+fancy, for it is like being in a balloon, so pure and tintless is the
+water. It is, like Dolland's best telescopes, achromatic.
+
+The lakes are subject in the latter portion of summer to a phenomenon,
+which long puzzled the settlers; their surface near the shores of bays
+and inlets are covered by a bright yellow dust, which passed until
+lately for sulphur, but is now known to be the farina of the pine
+forests. The atmosphere is so impregnated with it at these seasons,
+that water-barrels, and vessels holding water in the open air, are
+covered with a thick scum of bright yellow powder.
+
+A curious oily substance also pervades the waters in autumn, which
+agglutinates the sand blown over it by the winds, and floats it about in
+patches. I have never been able to discover the cause of this; perhaps,
+it is petroleum, or the sand is magnetic iron. Singular currents and
+differently coloured streams also appear, as on the ocean; but, as all
+the lakes have a fall, no weed gathers, except in the stagnant bays.
+
+The bottom of Ontario is unquestionably salt, and no wonder that it
+should be so, for all the Canadian lakes were once a sea, and the
+geological formation of the bed of Ontario is the saliferous rock.
+
+I have often enjoyed on Ontario's shores, where I have usually resided,
+the grand spectacle which takes place after intense frost. The early
+morning then exhibits columns of white vapour, like millions of Geysers
+spouting up to the sky, curling, twisting, shooting upwards, gracefully
+forming spirals and pyramids, amid the dark ground of the sombre
+heavens, and occasionally giving a peep of little lanes of the dark
+waters, all else being shrouded in dense mist.
+
+People at home are very apt to despise lakes, perhaps from the usual
+insipidity of lake poetry, and to imagine that they can exhibit nothing
+but very placid and tranquil scenery. Lake Erie, the shallowest of the
+great Canadian fresh-water seas, very soon convinces a traveller to the
+contrary; for it is the most turbulent and the most troublesome sea I
+ever embarked upon--a region of vexed waters, to which the Bermoothes of
+Shakespeare is a trifle; for that is bad enough, but not half so
+treacherous and so thunder-stormy as Erie.
+
+Huron is an ocean, when in its might; its waves and swells rival those
+of the Atlantic; and the beautiful Ontario, like many a lovely dame, is
+not always in a good temper. I once crossed this lake from Niagara to
+Toronto late in November, in the Great Britain, a steamer capable of
+holding a thousand men with ease, and during this voyage of thirty-six
+miles we often wished ourselves anywhere else: the engine, at least one
+of them, got deranged; the sea was running mountains high; the cargo on
+deck was washed overboard; gingerbread-work, as the sailors call the
+ornamental parts of a vessel, went to smash; and, if the remaining
+engine had failed in getting us under the shelter of the windward shore,
+it would have been pretty much with us as it was with the poor fellow
+who went down into one of the deepest shafts of a Swedish mine.
+
+A curious traveller, one of "the inquisitive class," must needs see how
+the miners descended into these awful depths. He was put into a large
+bucket, attached to the huge rope, with a guide, and gradually lowered
+down. When he had got some hundred fathoms or so, he began to feel
+queer, and look down, down, down. Nothing could he see but darkness
+visible. He questioned his guide as to how far they were from the
+bottom, cautiously and nervously. "Oh," said the Swede, "about a mile."
+"A mile!" replied the Cockney: "shall we ever get there?"--"I don't
+know," said the guide. "Why, does any accident ever happen?"--"Yes,
+often."--"How long ago was the last accident, and what was it?"--"Last
+week, one of our women went down, and when she had got just where we are
+now, the rope broke."--"Oh, Heaven!" ejaculated the inquisitive
+traveller, "what happened to her?" The Swede, who did not speak very
+good English, put the palm of his right hand over that of his left,
+lifted the upper hand, slapped them together with a clap, and said, most
+phlegmatically--"Flat as a pankakka."
+
+I once crossed Ontario, in the same direction as that just mentioned, in
+another steamer, when the beautiful Ontario was in a towering passion.
+We had a poor fellow in the cabin, who had been a Roman Catholic priest,
+but who had changed his form of faith. The whole vessel was in
+commotion; it was impossible for the best sea-legs to hold on; so two
+or three who were not subject to seasickness got into the cabin, or
+saloon, as it is called, and grasped any thing in the way. The long
+dinner-table, at which fifty people could sit down, gave a lee-lurch,
+and jammed our poor _religioner_, as Southey so affectedly calls
+ministers of the word, into a corner, where chairs innumerable were soon
+piled over him. He abandoned himself to despair; and long and loud were
+his confessions. On the first lull, we extricated him, and put him into
+a birth. Every now and then, he would call for the steward, the mate,
+the captain, the waiters, all in vain, all were busy. At last his cries
+brought down the good-natured captain. He asked if we were in danger.
+"Not entirely," was the reply. "What is it does it, captain?"--"Oh,"
+said the skipper, gruffly enough, "we are in the trough of the sea, and
+something has happened to the engine." "The trough of the _say_?"--my
+friend was an Irishman--"the trough of the say? is it that does it,
+captain?" But the captain was gone.
+
+During the whole storm and the remainder of the voyage, the poor
+ex-priest asked every body that passed his refuge if we were out of the
+trough of the say. "I know," said he, "it is the trough of the say does
+it." No cooking could be performed, and we should have gone dinnerless
+and supperless to bed, if we had not, by force of steam, got into the
+mouth of the Niagara river. All became then comparatively tranquil; she
+moored, and the old Niagara, for that was her name, became steady and at
+rest. Soon the cooks, stewards, and waiters, were at work, and dinner,
+tea, and supper, in one meal, gladdened our hearts. The greatest eater,
+the greatest drinker, and the most confident of us all, was our old
+friend and companion of the voyage, "the Trough of the Say," as he was
+ever after called.
+
+Such is tranquil Ontario. I remember a man-of-war, called the Bullfrog,
+being once very nearly lost in the voyage I have been describing; and
+never a November passes without several schooners being lost or wrecked
+upon Lakes Huron, Erie, and Ontario; whilst the largest American
+steamers on Erie sometimes suffer the same fate. Whenever Superior is
+much navigated, it will be worse, as the seasons are shorter and more
+severe there, and the shores iron-bound and mountainous.
+
+Through the Welland Canal there is now a continuous navigation of those
+lakes for 844 miles; and the St. Lawrence Canal being completed, and the
+La Chine Locks enlarged at Montreal, there will be a continuous line of
+shipping from London to the extremity of Lake Superior, embracing an
+inland voyage on fresh water of upwards of two thousand miles. Very
+little is required to accomplish an end so desirable.
+
+It has been estimated by the Topographical Board of Washington, that
+during 1843 the value of the capital of the United States afloat on the
+four lakes was sixty-five millions of dollars, or about sixteen
+millions, two hundred thousand pounds sterling; and this did not of
+course include the British Canadian capital, an idea of which may be
+formed from the confident assertion that the Lakes have a greater
+tonnage entering the Canadian ports than that of the whole commerce of
+Britain with her North American colonies. This is, however, _un peu
+fort_. It is now not at all uncommon to see three-masted vessels on Lake
+Ontario; and one alone, in November last, brought to Kingston a freight
+of flour which before would have required three of the ordinary
+schooners to carry, namely, 1500 barrels.
+
+A vessel is also now at Toronto, which is going to try the experiment of
+sailing from that port to the West Indies and back again; and, as she
+has been properly constructed to pass the canals, there is no doubt of
+her success.
+
+Some idea of the immense exertions made by the government to render the
+Welland Canal available may be formed by the size of the locks at Port
+Dalhousie, which is the entrance on Lake Ontario. Two of the largest
+class, in masonry, and of the best quality, have been constructed: they
+are 200 feet long by 45 wide; the lift of the upper lock is 11, and of
+the lower, 12, which varies with the level of Lake Ontario, the mitre
+sill being 12 feet below its ordinary surface. Steamers of the largest
+class can therefore go to the thriving village of St. Catherine's, in
+the midst of the granary of Canada.
+
+The La Chine Canal must be enlarged for ship navigation more effectually
+than it has been. I subjoin a list of colonial shipping for 1844 from
+Simmonds' "Colonial Magazine."
+
+NUMBER, TONNAGE, AND CREWS OF VESSELS, WHICH BELONGED
+TO THE SEVERAL BRITISH PLANTATIONS IN THE
+YEAR 1844:--
+
+  Countries.                     Vessels.      Tons.     Crews.
+
+  Europe--
+    Malta,                         85         15,326        893
+
+  Africa--
+    Bathurst,                      25          1,169        215
+    Sierra Leone,                  17          1,148        111
+    Cape of Good Hope,
+      Cape Town,                   27          3,090        265
+      Port Elizabeth,               2            201         10
+      Mauritius,                  124         12,079      1,413
+
+  Asia--
+    Bombay,                       113         50,767      3,393
+    Cochin,                        15          5,674        275
+    Tanjore,                       33          5,070        257
+    Madras,                        32          5,474        248
+    Malacca,                         2           288         13
+    Coringa,                        17         3,384        126
+    Singapore,                      13         1,543        289
+    Calcutta,                      186        5,1779      2,004
+    Ceylon,                        674        30,076      2,696
+    Prince of Wales Island,          7           996         51
+
+  New Holland--
+    Sydney,                         293        28,051      2,128
+    Melbourne,                       29         1,240        147
+    Adelaide,                        17           864         60
+    Hobart Town,                    103         7,153        724
+    Launceston,                      42         3,150        257
+
+  New Zealand--
+    Auckland,                        13           305         42
+    Wellington,                       2           262         32
+
+  America--
+    Canada, Quebec,                 509        45,361      2,590
+     "      Montreal,                60        10,097        556
+    Cape Breton, Sydney,            369        15,048      1,296
+         "   Arichat,                96         4,614        335
+    New Brunswick, Miramichi,        81        10,143        509
+    St. Andrews,                    193        18,391        918
+    St. John,                       398        63,676      2,480
+    Newfoundland, St. John,         847        53,944      4,567
+    Nova Scotia, Halifax,         1,657        82,890      5,292
+    Liverpool,                       31         2,641        163
+    Pictou,                          60         6,929        354
+    Yarmouth,                       146        11,724        637
+
+  Prince Edward's Island,          237        13,851        857
+
+  West Indies, Antigua,             85           833        220
+    Bahama,                        140         3,252        587
+    Barbadoes,                      37         1,640        305
+    Berbice,                        18           854         89
+    Bermuda,                        54         3,523        323
+    Demerara,                       54         2,353        250
+    Dominicia,                      14           502         85
+    Grenada,                        48           812        198
+
+  Jamaica, Port Antonio              5            95         22
+    Antonio Bay,                     2            70         13
+    Falmouth,                        5           107         29
+    Kingston,                       68         2,659        359
+    Montego Bay,                    18           849        105
+    Morant Bay,                      9           251         51
+    Port Maria,                      3            86         18
+    St. Ann's,                       1            20          5
+    Savannah la Mar,                 3           153         22
+    St. Lucca,                       2            64         10
+
+  Montserrat,                        4           100         19
+  Nevis,                            11           178         45
+  St. Kitts,                        35           546        114
+  S. Lucia,                         19           013[*]     132
+  St. Vincent,                      27         1,164        180
+  Tobago,                            7           182         46
+  Tortola,                          48           277        127
+  Trinidad,                         61         1,832        378
+
+                                  -----      -------       ------
+  Total,                         7,304       592,839     40,659
+
+[*Transcriber's note: This figure is not correct]
+
+It will be seen, from the foregoing statement, that the tonnage of the
+vessels belonging to our colonies is about equal to that of the whole of
+the French mercantile marine, which in 1841 consisted of 592,266
+tons--1842, 589,517--1843, 599,707.
+
+The tonnage of the three principal ports of Great Britain in 1844 was:--
+
+  London            598,552
+  Liverpool         307,852
+  Newcastle         259,571
+                  ---------
+  Total           1,165,975
+
+On Lake Erie, the Canadians have a splendid steamer, the London, Captain
+Van Allen, and another still larger is building at Chippewa, which is
+partly owned by government, and so constructed as to carry the mail and
+to become fitted speedily for warlike purposes.
+
+Lake Ontario swarms with splendid British steam-vessels; but on Lake
+Huron there is only at present one, called in the Waterloo, in the
+employment of the Canada Company, which runs from Goderich to the new
+settlements of Owen's Sound.
+
+Propellers now go all the way to St. Joseph's, at the western extremity
+of Lake Huron; and the trade on this lake and on Michigan is becoming
+absolutely astonishing. Last year, a return of American and foreign
+vessels at Chicago, from the commencement of navigation on the 1st of
+April to the 1st of November only, shows that there arrived 151
+steamers, 80 propellers, 10 brigs, and 142 schooners, making a total of
+1,078 lake-going vessels, and a like number of departures, not including
+numerous small craft, engaged in the carrying of wood, staves, ashes,
+&c., and yet, such was the glut of wheat, that at the latter date
+300,000 bushels remained unshipped.
+
+Upwards of a million of money will be expended by the Canadian
+Government in protecting and securing the transit trade of the lakes;
+and the Canadians have literally gone ahead of Brother Jonathan, for
+they have made a ship-canal round the Falls of Niagara, whilst "the most
+enterprising people on the face of the earth," who are so much in
+advance of us according to the ideas of some writers, have been,
+dreaming about it.--So much for the welfare of the earth being co-equal
+with democratic institutions, _à la mode Française_!
+
+The American government up to 1844 had spent only 2,100,000 dollars on
+the same objects, or about half a million sterling, according to the
+statement of Mr. Whittlesey of Ohio. But that government is actually
+stirring in another matter, which is of immense future importance,
+although it appears trivial at this moment, and that is the opening up
+of Lake Superior, where a new world offers itself.
+
+They have projected a ship-canal round, or rather by the side of the
+rapids of St. Marie. The length of this canal is said to be only, in
+actual cutting, three-quarters of a mile, and the whole expense
+necessary not more than 230,000 dollars, or about £55,000 sterling.
+
+The British government should look in time to this; it owns the other
+side of the Sault St. Marie, and the Superior country is so rich in
+timber and minerals that it is called the Denmark of America, whilst a
+direct access hereafter to the Oregon territory and the Pacific must be
+opened through the vast chain of lakes towards the Rocky Mountains by
+way of Selkirk Colony, on the Red River.
+
+The lakes of Canada have not engaged that attention at home which they
+ought to have had; and there is much interesting information about them
+which is a dead letter in England.
+
+Their rise and fall is a subject of great interest. The great sinking of
+the levels of late years, which has become so visible and so injurious
+to commerce, deserves the most attentive investigation. The American
+writers attribute it to various causes, and there are as many theories
+about it as there are upon all hidden mysteries. Evaporation and
+condensation, woods and glaciers, have all been brought into play.
+
+If the lakes are supplied by their own rivers, and by the drainage
+streams of the surrounding forests, and all this is again and again
+returned into them from the clouds, whence arises the sudden elevation
+or the sudden depression of such enormous bodies of water, which have
+no tides?
+
+The Pacific and the Atlantic cannot be the cause; we must seek it
+elsewhere. To the westward of Huron, on the borders of Superior, the
+land is rocky and elevated; but it attains only enormous altitudes at
+such a distance on the rocky Andean chain as to render it improbable
+that those mountains exert immediate influences on the lakes. The
+Atlantic also is too far distant, and very elevated land intervenes to
+intercept the rising vapours. On the north, high lands also exist; and
+the snows scarcely account for it, as the whole of North America near
+these inland seas is alike covered every year in winter.
+
+The north-east and the south-west winds are the prevalent ones, and a
+slight inspection of the maps will suffice to show that those compass
+bearings are the lines which the lakes and valleys of Northern America
+assume.
+
+In 1845, the lakes began suddenly to diminish, and to such a degree was
+this continued from June to December, when the hard frosts begin, that,
+at the commencement of the latter month, Lake Ontario, at Kingston, was
+three feet below its customary level, and consequently, in the country
+places, many wells and streams dried up, and there was during the autumn
+distress for water both for cattle and man, although the rains were
+frequent and very heavy.
+
+Whence, then, do the lakes receive that enormous supply which will
+restore them to their usual flow?--or are they permanently diminishing?
+I am inclined to believe that the latter is the case, as cultivation and
+the clearings of the forest proceed; for I have observed within fifteen
+years the total drying up of streamlets by the removal of the forest,
+and these streamlets had evidently once been rivulets and even rivers of
+some size, as their banks, cut through alluvial soils, plainly
+indicated.
+
+The lakes also exhibit on their borders, particularly Ontario, as Lyell
+describes from the information of the late Mr. Roy, who had carefully
+investigated the subject, very visible remains of many terraces which
+had consecutively been their boundaries.
+
+It is evident to observers who have recorded facts respecting the lakes,
+that but a small amount of vapour water is deposited by northeasterly
+winds from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the great estuary of that river, of
+which the lakes are only enlargements, as the wind from that region
+carries the cloud-masses from the lakes themselves direct to the valley
+of the Mississippi. For it meets with no obstacle from high lands on the
+western littorale, which is low. A north-east gale continues usually
+from three to six days, and generally without much rain; but all the
+other winds from south to westerly afford a plentiful supply of
+moisture. Thus a shift of wind from north-east to north and to
+north-west perhaps brings back the vapour of the great valley of the
+gulf, reduced in temperature by the chilly air of the north and west. If
+then an easterly gale continues for an unusual time, the basin of the
+Canadian lakes is robbed of much of its water, which passes to the
+rivers of the west, and is lost in the gulf of Mexico, or in the forest
+lakes of the wild West.
+
+Perhaps, therefore, whenever a cycle occurs in which north-east winds
+prevail during a year or a series of years, the lakes lose their level,
+for, their direction being north-east and south-west, such is the usual
+current of the air; and therefore either north-east or south-westerly
+winds are the usual ones which pass over their surface.
+
+The parts of the great inland navigation which suffer most in these
+periodical depressions are the St. Clair River and the shallow parts of
+those extensions of the St. Lawrence called Lakes St. Francis and St.
+Peter, which in the course of time will cause, and indeed in the latter
+already do cause, some trouble and some anxiety.
+
+The north winds, keen and cold, do not deposit much in the valley of the
+lakes, whose southern borders are usually too low also to prevent the
+passage of rain-bearing clouds.
+
+From that portion of the dividing ridge between the valleys of the St.
+Lawrence and Mississippi, only seven miles from Lake Erie, says an
+American writer, there is to Fort Wayne, at the head of the Maumee
+river, one hundred miles from the same lake, a gradual subsidence of the
+land from 700 to less than 200 feet.
+
+From Fort Wayne westward this dividing ridge rises only one hundred and
+fifty feet, and then gradually subsides to the neighbourhood of the
+south-west of Lake Michigan, where it is but some twenty feet above the
+level of that water.
+
+The basin of the Mississippi, including its great tributary streams,
+receives therefore a very great portion of the falling vapour, from all
+the winds blowing from north to north-east.
+
+The same reasoner agrees with the views which I have expressed
+respecting the probability of the supply to raise the level, which must
+be the great feeder derived from the south and south-westward invariably
+rainy winds, when of long continuance, in the basin of the St.
+Lawrence, and generated by the gulf stream in its gyration through the
+Mexican Bay, being heaped up from the trade wind which causes the
+oceanic current, and forces its heated atmosphere north and north-east,
+by the rebound which it takes from the vast Cordilleras of Anahuac and
+Panama; thus depositing its cooling showers on the chain of the fresh
+water seas of Canada, condensed as they are by the natural air-currents
+from the icy regions of the western Andes of Oregon, and the cold
+breezes from the still more gelid countries of the north-west.
+
+The American topographical engineers, as well as our own civil engineers
+and savans, have accurately measured the heights and levels of the
+lakes, which I have already given; but one very curious fact remains to
+be noticed, and will prove that it is by no means a visionary idea that,
+from the great island of Cuba, which must be an English outpost, if much
+further annexation occurs, voyages will be made to bring the produce of
+the West Indies and Spanish America into the heart of the United States
+and Canada by the Mississippi and the rivers flowing into it, and by the
+great lakes; so that a vessel, loading at Cuba, might perform a circuit
+inland for many thousand miles, and return to her port _via_ Quebec.
+
+From the Gulf of Mexico to the lowest summits of the ridge separating
+the basin of the Mississippi from that of the St. Lawrence or great
+lakes, the rise does not exceed six hundred feet, and the graduation of
+the land has an average of not more than six inches to a mile in an
+almost continuous inclined plane of six thousand miles. The Americans
+have not lost sight of this natural assistance to form a communication
+between the lakes and the Mississippi.
+
+My attention has been drawn to the subsidence of the waters of the lakes
+of Canada by the unusual lowness of Ontario, on the banks of which I
+lived last year, and by reading the statement of the American writer
+above quoted, as well as by the fact that in the Travels of Carver, one
+of the first English navigators on these mediterraneans, who states that
+a small ship of forty tons, in sailing from the head of Lake Michigan to
+Detroit, was unable to pass over the St. Clair flats for want of water,
+and that the usual way of passing them eighty years ago was in small
+boats. What a useful thing it would have been, if any scientific
+navigators or resident observers had registered the rise and fall of the
+lakes in the years since Upper Canada came into our possession! An old
+naval officer told me that it was really periodical; and it occurred
+usually, that the greatest depression and elevation had intervals of
+seven years. Lake Erie is evidently becoming more shallow constantly,
+but not to any great or alarming degree; and shoals form, even in the
+splendid roadstead of Kingston, within the memory of young inhabitants.
+An American revenue vessel, pierced for, I believe, twenty-four guns,
+and carrying an enormous Paixhan, grounded in the autumn of last year on
+a shoal in that harbour, which was not known to the oldest pilot.
+
+By the bye, talking of this vessel, which is a steamer built of iron,
+and fitted with masts and sails, the same as any other sea-going vessel,
+can it be requisite, in order to protect a commerce which she cannot
+control beyond the line drawn through the centre of the lakes, to have
+such a vessel for revenue purposes? or is she not a regular man-of-war,
+ready to throw her shells into Kingston, if ever it should be required?
+At least, such is the opinion which the good folks of that town
+entertained when they saw the beautiful craft enter their harbour.
+
+The worst, however, of these iron boats is that two can play at shelling
+and long shots; and gunnery-practice is now brought to such perfection,
+that an iron steamer might very possibly soon get the worst of it from a
+heavy battery on the level of the sea; for a single accident to the
+machinery, protected as it is in that vessel, would, if there was no
+wind, put her entirely at the mercy of the gunners. The old wooden
+walls, after all, are better adapted to attack a fortress, as they can
+stand a good deal of hammering from both shot and shells.
+
+But to revert to matters more germane to the lakes.
+
+Volney, the first expounder of the system of the warm wind of the south
+supplying the great lakes, has received ample corroboration of his data
+from observation. The fact that the deflection of the great trade-wind
+from the west to a northern direction by the Mexican Andes Popocatepetl,
+Istaccihuetl, Naucampatepetl, &c., whose snowy summits have a frigid
+atmosphere of their own, is proved by daily experience.
+
+Whenever southerly winds prevail--and, in the cycle of the gyration of
+atmospherical currents, this is certain, and will be reduced to
+calculation--the great lakes are filled to the edge; and whenever
+northern and northeasterly winds take their appointed course, then these
+mediterraneans sink, and the valley of the Mississippi is filled to
+overflowing.
+
+But the most curious facts are, that the different lakes exhibit
+different phenomena. The Board of Public Works of Ohio states that, in
+1837-38, the quantity of water descending from the atmosphere did not
+exceed one-third of that which was the minimum quantity of several
+preceding years.
+
+Ontario, from the reports of professional persons, has varied not less
+than eight feet, and Erie about five. Huron and Superior being
+comparatively unknown, no data are afforded to judge from; but what vast
+atmospheric agencies must be at work when such wonderful results in the
+smaller lakes have been made evident!
+
+People who live at the Niagara Falls, and I agree with them in
+observations extending over a period since 1826, believe that these
+Falls have receded considerably; and, although I do not enter into the
+mathematical analysis of modern geologists respecting them, as to their
+constant retrocession, believing that earthquake split open the present
+channel, yet I have no doubt that the level of Lake Erie is considerably
+affected by the diminution of the yielding shaly rocks of their
+foundation. Earthquake, and not retrocession, appears to me, who have
+had the singular advantage, as a European, of very long residence, to
+have been the cause of that great chasm which now forms the bed of the
+Niagara, from the Table Rock to Queenston, in short, a rending or
+separating of the rocks rather than a wearing; and this is corroborated
+by the many vestiges of great cataracts which now exist near the Short
+Hills, the highest summit of the Niagara frontier, between Lakes Erie
+and Ontario, as well as by the great natural ravine of St. David's. But
+this is a subject too deep for our present purpose, and so we shall
+continue to treat of the Great Lakes in another point of view.
+
+Chemically considered, these lakes possess peculiar properties,
+according to their boundaries. Superior is too little known to speak of
+with certainty--Huron not much better--but Erie, and particularly
+Ontario, have been well investigated. The waters of these are pure, and
+impregnated chiefly with aluminous and calcareous matter, giving to the
+St. Lawrence river a fresh and admirable element and aliment.
+
+The St. Lawrence is of a fine cerulean hue, but, like its parent waters
+of Erie and Ontario, rapidly deposits lime and alumine, so that the
+boilers of steam-vessels, and even teakettles, soon become furred and
+incrusted. The specific gravity of the St. Lawrence water above Montreal
+is about 1·00038, at the temperature of 66°, the air being then 82° of
+Fahrenheit. It contains the chlorides, sulphates, and carbonates, whose
+bases are lime and magnesia, particularly and largely those of lime,
+which accounts for the rapid depositions when the water is heated.
+
+A very accurate analysis gives, at Montreal, in July, atmospheric air in
+solution or admixture 446 per cent; for a quart of this water, 57 inches
+cubic measure, evaporated to dryness, left 2.87 solid residue.
+
+                           Grains.
+  Sulphate of magnesia       0·62
+  Chloride of calcium        0·38
+  Carbonate of magnesia      0·27
+  Carbonate of lime          1·29
+  Silica                     0·31
+                             ----
+                             2·87
+
+The waters of the Ottawa, flowing through an unexplored country, are of
+a brown or dark colour. Their specific gravity is only (compared to
+distilled water) as 1·0024 at 66°, the temperature of the air in July
+being 82°.
+
+The 57 cubic inches of this water gave
+
+  0·99 sulphate of magnesia.
+  0·60 chloride of lime.
+  1·07 carbonate of magnesia.
+  0·17 carbonate of lime.
+  0·31 silica.
+  ----
+  2·87
+
+The difference of the colours of these waters is so great, that a
+perfect line of distinction is drawn where they cross each other; and
+there can be no doubt that it is caused by the reflection of the rays of
+light from the impregnation of different saline quantities.
+
+Thus as, in the old world, the waters of the Shannon are brown, and
+Ireland, speaking generally, as Kohl says, is a "brown" country;[8] so,
+in Upper Canada, St. Lawrence and the lakes are blue and green; and in
+Lower Canada, St. Lawrence and the Ottawa are brown of various shades, a
+very slight alteration of the chemical components reflecting rays of
+colour as forcibly and perceptibly as, in like manner, a very slight
+change of component parts develops sugar and sawdust. Nature, in short,
+is very simple in all her operations.
+
+[Footnote 8: Canada is a blue country; for, a very short distance from
+the observer, the atmosphere tinges everything blue; and the waters are
+chiefly of that colour, the sky intensely so.]
+
+Before we proceed to the lower extremity of these wonderful sheets of
+water again, let us just for a moment glance at what is about to be
+achieved upon their surfaces, and place the Sault of St. Marie or St.
+Mary's Rapids, which separate Superior from Huron, before an
+Englishman's eyes. There at present nothing is talked of but copper
+mines and silver or argentiferous copper ores.
+
+The Falls of St. Mary are only rapids of no very formidable character,
+the exit of Lake Superior into Lake Huron. Fifteen miles from the end of
+the Great Lake, as Superior is called, are the American village of St.
+Mary and the British one of the same name, on the opposite bank of the
+River St. Mary.
+
+The Americans have so far strengthened their position, that there is a
+sort of fort, called Fort Brady, with two companies of regulars; and in
+and about the village are scattered a thousand people of every possible
+colour and origin, a great portion being, of course, half-breeds and
+Indians. The American Fur Company has also a post at this place, one of
+the very few remaining; for the fur trade in these regions is rapidly
+declining by the extirpation of the animals which sustained it.
+
+The American government have projected a ship canal to avoid these
+rapids; and, if that is completed, a vast trade will soon grow up.
+
+About a mile above the village is the landing-place from Lake Superior,
+at the head of the rapids; there the strait is broad and deep; but,
+until steamers are built, sailing vessels suffer the disadvantage of
+being moveable out of the harbour by an east wind only, and this wind
+does not blow there oftener than once a month. It is probable that a
+proper harbour will be constructed at the foot of the lake, fifteen
+miles above.
+
+These rapids have derived their French name _Sault_ from their rushing
+and leaping motion; but they are very insignificant when compared to the
+Longue Sault on the St. Lawrence, as the inhabitants cross them in
+canoes.
+
+I cannot describe them more minutely than Mrs. Jameson has done in her
+"Summer Rambles." She crossed them, and must have experienced some
+trepidation, for it requires a skilful voyageur to steer the canoe; and
+it is surprising with what dexterity the Indian will shoot down them as
+swiftly as the water can carry his fragile vessel. The Indians, however,
+consider such feats much in the same light as a person fond of boating
+would think of pulling a pair of oars, or sculling himself across the
+current of a rivulet. I was once subjected to a rather awkward
+exemplification of this fact. Being on a hurried journey, and expecting
+to be frozen in, as it is called, before I could terminate it; I hired
+an Indian and his little canoe, just big enough to hold us both, and
+pushed through by-ways in the forest streams and portages. We were
+paddling merrily along a pretty fair stream, which ran fast, but
+appeared to reach many miles ahead of us; when, all of a sudden, my
+guide said, "Sit fast." I perceived that the water was moving much more
+rapidly than it had hitherto done, and that the Indian had wedged
+himself in the stern, and was steering only with the paddle. We swept
+along merrily for a mile, till "The White Horses," as the breakers are
+called, began to bob their heads and manes. "Hold fast!" ejaculated the
+Red Man. I laid hold of both edges of the canoe, firm as a rock, and in
+a moment the horrid sound of bursting, bubbling, rushing waters was in
+mine ears; foam and spray shut out every thing; and away we went, down,
+down, down, on, on, on, as swift as thought, until, all of a sudden, the
+little buoyant piece of birch-bark floated like a swan upon the bosom of
+the tranquil waters, a mile beyond the Fall, for such indeed it might
+be called, the absolute difference of level having been twelve feet.
+
+When at ease again, I looked at the imperturbable savage and said, "What
+made you take the Fall? was not the _détour_ passable?"--"Yes, suppose
+it was! Fall better!"--"But is it very dangerous?"--"Yes, suppose,
+sometime!"--"Any canoes ever lost there?"--"Yes, sometime; one two, tree
+days ago, there!" pointing to a large rock in the middle of the
+narrowest part above our heads.--"Did you come down there?"--"Yes,
+suppose, did!"
+
+Then, thought I to myself, I shall not trust my body to your guidance in
+future without knowing something of the route beforehand; but I
+afterwards got accustomed to these taciturn sons of the forest.
+
+The Falls of St. Marie are celebrated as a fishing place; and the white
+fish caught there are reckoned superior to those taken in any other part
+of Lake Huron. The fishery is picturesque enough, and is carried on in
+canoes, manned usually by two Indians or half-breeds, who paddle up the
+rapids as far as practicable. The one in the bow has a scoop-net, which
+he dips, as soon as one of these glittering fish is observed, and lands
+him into the canoe. Incredible numbers of them are taken in this simple
+manner; but it requires the canoemanship and the eye of an Indian.
+
+The French still show their national characteristics in this remote
+place. They first settled here before the year 1721, as Charlevoix
+states; and, in 1762, Henry, a trader on Lake Huron, found them
+established in a stockaded fort, under an officer of the French army.
+The Jesuits visited Lake Superior as early as 1600; and in 1634 they had
+a rude chapel, the first log hut built so far from civilization, in this
+wilderness. At present, the population are French, Upper Canadians,
+English, Scotch, Yankees, Indians, half-breeds.
+
+The climate is healthy, very cold in winter, with a short but very warm
+summer, and always a pure air. Here the Aurora Borealis is seen in its
+utmost glory. In summer there is scarcely any night; for the twilight
+lasts until eleven o'clock, and the tokens of the returning sun are
+visible two hours afterwards.
+
+The extremes of civilized and savage life meet at St. Mary's; for here
+live the educated European or American, and the pure heathen Red Man;
+here steamboats and the birch canoe float side by side; and here
+all-powerful Commerce is already recommencing a deadly rivalry between
+the Briton and the American, not for furs and peltry, as in days gone
+by, but for copper and for metals; and here a new world is about to be
+opened, and that too very speedily.
+
+Here are Indian agents and missionaries, with schools, both the English
+and the United States' government considering the entrance to the Red
+Man's country, whose gates are so narrow and still closed up, to be of
+very great importance, both in a commercial and a political point of
+view; but it is notorious that, after the French Canadians, the Red Man
+prefers his Great Mother beyond the Great Lake and her subjects to the
+President and the people, who are rather too near neighbours to be
+pleasant, and who have somewhat unceremoniously considered the natives
+of the soil as so many obstacles to their aggrandizement.
+
+I shall end this sketch of the lakes, by a few observations upon the
+magnetic phenomena regarding them, and respecting the variation of the
+compass.
+
+Fort Erie, near the eastern termination of Lake Erie, and close to the
+Niagara river, presents the line of no variation; whilst at the town of
+Niagara, on the south-west end of Lake Ontario, not more than thirty-six
+miles from Fort Erie, the variation in 1832 was 1° 20' east.
+
+The line of no variation is marked distinctly on the best maps of
+Canada, by the division line between the townships of Stamford and
+Niagara, seven miles north of Niagara.
+
+At Toronto in 43° 39' north latitude, and 78° 4' west longitude,
+twenty-four miles north-east of Niagara, the variation in 1832 was more
+than 2° easterly.
+
+The shore of Lake Huron at Nottawassaga Bay, forty miles north-west of
+Toronto, is again the line of no variation.
+
+Thus a magnetic meridian lies between Fort Erie and Nottawassaga.
+
+A magnetic observatory is established by the Board of Ordnance at
+Toronto, near the University, and placed in charge of two young officers
+of artillery, which says a good deal for the scientific acquirements of
+that corps. I shall perhaps hereafter advert to this subject more at
+large, as the volcanic rocks have much to do with the needle in Canada
+West.
+
+
+END OF VOL. I.
+
+Frederick Shoberl, Junior, Printer to His Royal Highness Prince Albert.
+
+51, Rupert Street, Haymarket, London.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Canada and the Canadians, by 
+Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
+
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+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Canada and the Canadians, by Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle, Kt.
+    </title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Canada and the Canadians, by 
+Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Canada and the Canadians
+       Volume I
+
+Author: Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
+
+Release Date: December 4, 2006 [EBook #20014]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CANADA AND THE CANADIANS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Graeme Mackreth and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+(This file was produced from images generously made
+available by the Canadian Institute for Historical
+Microreproductions (www.canadiana.org))
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<h2>CANADA</h2>
+
+<h4>AND</h4>
+
+<h2>THE CANADIANS.</h2>
+
+<h5>BY</h5>
+
+<h3>SIR RICHARD HENRY BONNYCASTLE, <span class="smcap">Kt.</span>,</h3>
+
+<h5>LIEUTENANT-COLONEL ROYAL ENGINEERS AND MILITIA OF CANADA WEST.</h5>
+
+<h6><b>NEW EDITION.</b></h6>
+
+<h6>IN TWO VOLUMES.</h6>
+
+<h6>VOL. I.</h6>
+
+<p class="center"><small><b>
+LONDON:<br />
+HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,<br />
+GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.<br />
+<br />
+1849.</b></small>
+</p>
+
+<p style="margin-top: 5em;" class="center"><small>F. Shoberl, Jnr. Printer to H.R.H Prince Albert, Rupert Street.</small></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3>CONTENTS</h3>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<h5>OF</h5>
+
+<h3>THE FIRST VOLUME.</h3>
+
+
+
+<h4><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</a></h4>
+<p>Emigrants And Immigration          </p>
+
+<h4><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</a></h4>
+<p>The Emigrant and his Prospects        </p>
+
+<h4><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</a></h4>
+<p>A Journey to the Westward</p>
+
+<h4><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a></h4>
+<p>The French Canadian</p>
+
+<h4><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</a></h4>
+<p>Penetanguishene&mdash;The Nipissang Cannibals, and a
+Friendly Brother in the Wilderness</p>
+
+<h4><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</a></h4>
+<p>Barrie and Big Trees&mdash;A new Capital of a new District&mdash;Nature's
+Canal&mdash;The Devil's Elbow&mdash;Macadamization and<br />
+Mud&mdash;Richmond Hill without the Lass&mdash;The Rebellion
+and the Radicals&mdash;Blue Hill and Bricks</p>
+
+<h4><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER. VII.</a></h4>
+<p>Toronto and the Transit&mdash;The Ice and its innovations&mdash;Siege
+and Storm of a Fortalice by the Ice-king&mdash;Newark,<br />
+or Niagara&mdash;Flags, big and little&mdash;Views of American and
+of English Institutions&mdash;Blacklegs and Races&mdash;Colonial<br />
+high life&mdash;Youth very young</p>
+
+<h4><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a></h4>
+<p>The old Canadian Coach&mdash;Jonathan and John Bull passengers&mdash;"That
+Gentleman"&mdash;Beautiful River, beautiful<br />
+drive&mdash;Brock's Monument&mdash;Queenston&mdash;Bar and Pulpit&mdash;Trotting
+horse Railroad&mdash;Awful accident&mdash;The Falls once<br />
+more&mdash;Speculation&mdash;Water Privilege&mdash;Barbarism&mdash;Museum&mdash;Loafers
+&mdash;Tulip-trees&mdash;Rattlesnakes&mdash;The Burning Spring&mdash;Setting fire
+to Niagara&mdash;A charitable Woman&mdash;The Nigger's Parrot&mdash;John Bull
+is a Yankee&mdash;Political Courtship&mdash;Lundy's Lane Heroine&mdash;Welland Canal</p>
+
+<h4><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</a></h4>
+<p>The Great Fresh-water Seas of Canada</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CANADA</h2>
+
+<h4>AND</h4>
+
+<h2>THE CANADIANS.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h4><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p class="center">Emigrants and Immigration.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>Very surprising it seems to assert that the Mother Country knows very
+little about the finest colony which she possesses&mdash;and that an
+enlightened people emigrate from sober, speculative England, sedate and
+calculating Scotland, and trusting, unreflective Ireland, absolutely and
+wholly ignorant of the total change of life to which they must
+necessarily submit in their adopted home.</p>
+
+<p>I recollect an old story, that an old gunner, in an old-fashioned,
+three-cornered cocked hat, who was my favourite playfellow as a child,
+used to tell about the way in which recruits were obtained for the Royal
+Artillery.</p>
+
+<p>The recruiting sergeant was in those days dressed much finer than any
+field-marshal of this degenerate, railway era; in fact, the Horse Guards
+always turned out to the sergeant-major of the Royal Military Academy of
+Woolwich, when that functionary went periodically to the Golden Cross,
+Charing Cross, to receive and escort the young gentlemen cadets from
+Marlow College, who were abandoning the red coat and drill of the
+foot-soldier to become neophytes in the art and mystery of great gunnery
+and sapping.</p>
+
+<p>"The way they recruited was thus," said the bombadier. "The gallant
+sergeant, bedizened in copper lace from the crown of his head to the
+sole of his foot, and with a swagger which no modern drum-major has ever
+presumed to attempt, addressed a crowd of country bumpkins.</p>
+
+<p>"'Don't listen to those gentlemen in red; their sarvice is one which no
+man who has brains will ever think of&mdash;footing it over the univarsal
+world; they have usually been called by us the flatfoots. They uses the
+musquet only, and have hands like feet, and feet like fireshovels.</p>
+
+<p>"'Mind me, gentlemen, the royal regiment of the Royal Artillery is a
+sarvice which no gentleman need be ashamed of.</p>
+
+<p>"'We fights with real powder and ball, the flatfoots fights with
+bird-shot. We knows the perry-ferry of the circumference of a round
+shot. Did you ever see a mortar? Did you ever see a shell? I will answer
+for it you never did, except the poticary's mortar, and the shell that
+mortar so often renders necessary.</p>
+
+<p>"'Now, gentlemen, at the imperial city of Woolwich, in the Royal
+Arsenal, you may, if you join the Royal Artillery, you may see shells in
+earnest. Did you ever see a balloon? Yes! Then the shells there are
+bigger than balloons, and are the largest hollow shot ever made&mdash;the
+French has nothing like them.</p>
+
+<p>"'And the way we uses them! We fires them out of the mortars into the
+enemy's towns, and stuffs them full of red sogers. Well, they bursts,
+and out comes the flatfoots, opens the gates, and lets the Royal
+Artillery in; and then every man fills his sack with silver, and gold,
+and precious stones, after a leetle scrimmaging.</p>
+
+<p>"'Come along with me, my boys, and every one of you shall have a coat
+like mine, which was made out of the plunder; and you shall have a horse
+to ride, and a carriage behind it; and you shall see the glorious city
+of Woolwich, where the streets are paved with penny loaves, and drink is
+to be had for asking.'"</p>
+
+<p>So it is with nine-tenths of the emigrants to Canada in these
+enlightened days; so it is with the emigrants from old England, and from
+troubled Ireland, to the free and astonishing Union of the States of
+America and Texas, that conjoint luminary of the new go-ahead world of
+the West.</p>
+
+<p>Dissatisfied with home, with visionary ideas of El Dorados, or starving
+amidst plenty, the poorer classes obtain no correct information. Beset
+generally with agents of companies, with agents of private enterprise,
+with reckless adventurers, with ignorant priests, or missionaries of the
+lowest stamp, with political agitators, and with miserable traitors to
+the land of their birth and breeding, the poor emigrant starts from the
+interior, where his ideas have never expanded beyond the weaver's loom
+or factory labour, the plough or the spade, the hod, the plane, or the
+trowel, and hastens with his wife and children to the nearest sea-port.</p>
+
+<p>There he finds no friend to receive and guide him, but rapacious agents
+ready to take every advantage of his ignorance, with an eye to his
+scanty purse. A host of captains, mates, and sailors, eager to make up
+so many heads for the voyage, pack them aboard like sheep, and cross the
+Atlantic, either to New York or to Quebec, just as they have been able
+to entice a cargo to either port. Then come the horrors of a long voyage
+and short provisions, and high prices for stale salt junk and biscuit;
+and, at the end, if illness has been on board, the quarantine, that most
+dreadful visitation of all&mdash;for hope deferred maketh the heart sick.</p>
+
+<p>From the first discovery of America, there has been a tendency to
+exaggeration about the resources and capabilities of that country&mdash;a
+magniloquence on its natural productions, which can be best exemplified
+by referring the reader to the fac-simile of the one in Sir Walter
+Raleigh's work on Guiana,<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> now in the British Museum. Shakespeare had,
+no doubt, read Raleigh's fanciful description of "the men whose heads do
+grow beneath their shoulders," &amp;c.; for he was thirty-four years of age
+when this print was published, only seventeen years before his death.</p>
+
+<p>So expansive a mind as Raleigh's undoubtedly was, was not free from that
+universal credulity which still reigns in the breasts of all men
+respecting matters with which they are not personally acquainted; and
+the glowing descriptions of Columbus and his followers respecting the
+rich Cathay and the Spice Islands of the Indies have had so permanent a
+hold upon the imagination, that even the best educated amongst us have,
+in their youth, galloped over Pampas, in search of visionary
+<i>Uspallatas</i>. Nor is it yet quite clear that the golden city of El
+Dorado is wholly fabulous, the region in which it was said to exist not
+having yet been penetrated by Science; but it soon will be, for a
+steamboat is to ply up the Maranon, and Peru and Europe are to be
+brought in contact, although the voyage down that mighty flood has
+hitherto been a labour of several months.</p>
+
+<p>The poor emigrant, for we must return to him, lands at New York. Sharks
+beset him in every direction, boarding-houses and grogshops open their
+doors, and he is frequently obliged, from the loss of all his
+hard-earned money, to work out his existence either in that exclusively
+mercantile emporium, or to labour on any canal or railroad to which his
+kind new friends may think proper, or most advantageous to themselves,
+to send him. If he escapes all these snares for the unwary, the chances
+are that, fancying himself now as great a man as the Duke of Leinster,
+O'Connell, the Lord Mayor of London, or the Provost of Edinburgh, free
+and unshackled, gloriously free, he becomes entangled with a host of
+land-jobbers, and walks off to the weary West, there to encounter a life
+of unremitting toil in the solitary forests, with an occasional visit
+from the ague, or the milk-fever, which so debilitates his frame, that,
+during the remainder of his wretched existence, he can expect but little
+enjoyment of the manorial rights appendant to a hundred acres of wild
+land.</p>
+
+<p>Let no emigrant embark for the United States unless he has a kind friend
+to guide and receive him there, and to point out to him the good and the
+evil; for the native race look upon all foreigners with a jealous eye,
+and particularly upon the Irish.</p>
+
+<p>The Germans make the best settlers in that country, perhaps because, not
+speaking English, they cannot be so easily imposed upon by the crimps,
+and also because they seldom emigrate before they have arranged with
+their friends in America respecting the lands which they are to occupy.</p>
+
+<p>A society of British philanthropists has been established at New York to
+direct British emigrants in their ultimate views; but it may well be
+imagined that these gentlemen, who are chiefly engaged in trade, cannot
+descend to understand fully, or are constant witnesses of, the low
+tricks which are practised to seduce the unwary ones.</p>
+
+<p>The emigrant to Canada is somewhat differently situated.</p>
+
+<p>The Irish come out in shiploads every season, and generally very
+indifferently provided and without any definite object; nay, to such an
+extent is this carried, that hundreds of young females venture out every
+year by themselves, to better their condition, which betterment usually
+ends in their reaching as far inland as Toronto, where, or at other
+ports on the lakes, they engage themselves as domestics.</p>
+
+<p>When we consider that nearly 25,000 emigrants leave the Mother Country
+every year for Canada alone, how important is it that they should be
+informed of every particular likely to increase their comforts and to
+conduce to their well-being! This kind of service can be but partially
+rendered by the present publication, which, being intended for the
+general reader, cannot be given in a form likely to reach the class of
+emigrants who usually proceed to America otherwise than through the
+advice which the reader may, whenever it is in his power, kindly bestow
+upon them. But it will, I am persuaded, be extensively useful in that
+way, and also to the settler with a small capital who can afford to
+consult it.</p>
+
+<p>Learned dissertations upon colonization are useful only to the
+politician, and so much venality has prevailed among those who have
+thrust themselves forward in the cause of Canadian settlement, that the
+public become a little alarmed when they hear of a work expressly
+designed for the emigrant.</p>
+
+<p>The very best informed at home, and the <i>haute noblesse</i>, have been
+repeatedly taken in. Dinnerings and lionizing have been the order of the
+day for persons, who, in the colony, cut a very inferior figure. But
+this is natural, and in the end usually does no harm. It is natural that
+the colonist, who is a <i>rara avis</i> in England, should be considered a
+very extraordinary personage among men who seek for novelty in any
+shape; because those who lavish favours upon him at one time and eschew
+his presence afterwards are usually ignorant of the very history of
+which he is the type. It is like the standing joke of sending out
+water-casks for the men-of-war built on the fresh-water seas of Canada,
+for there are plenty of rich folks at home who want only to be filled.</p>
+
+<p>The different sorts of people who emigrate from <i>home</i> to the United
+States or Canada, may be classed under several heads, like the
+travellers of Sterne.</p>
+
+<p>First, the inquisitive and restless, who leave a goodly inheritance or
+occupation behind them, because they have heard that Tom Smith or Mister
+Mac Grogan, very ordinary folks anywhere, have made a rapid fortune,
+which is indeed sometimes the case in the United States, though rather
+rare there for old countrymen, and is still more rare and unlikely in
+Canada, where large fortunes may be said to be unknown quantities.</p>
+
+<p>Settlers of this class usually fall to the ground very soon&mdash;if they
+settle in Canada, they become Radicals; if they return from the States,
+they become Tories.</p>
+
+<p>The next class are your would-be aristocratic settlers, younger sons of
+younger sons, cousins of cousins, Union Barons, nephews' nephews of a
+Lord Mayor, or unprovided heirs in posse.</p>
+
+<p>These fancy they confer a sort of honour by selecting the colony as
+their final resting-place, and that a governor and his ministers have
+nothing in the world to think about but how they can provide for such
+important units. Hence they frequently end by placing themselves in
+direct opposition to the powers that be, or take very unwillingly to the
+labours of a farmer's life. Many of them, when they find that pretension
+is laughed at, particularly if no talents accompany it, which is rarely
+or ever the case, for talent is modest and retiring in its essential
+nature, turn out violent Republicans or Radicals of the most furious
+calibre; but the more modest portion work heartily at their farms, and
+frequently succeed.</p>
+
+<p>Another class is your private gentlemen's sons and decent young farmers
+from England, Ireland, or Scotland, who think before they leap, have
+connexions already established in Canada, and small capitals to
+commence with. These are the really valuable settlers: they go to
+Canada for land and living; and eschew the land and liberty system of
+the neighbouring nation. Wherever they settle, the country flourishes
+and becomes a second Britain in appearance, as may be observed in the
+London and western districts.</p>
+
+<p>It does not require a very lengthened acquaintance with Canada to form
+observations upon the characters of the <i>immigrants</i>, as the Webster
+style of Dr. Johnson will have the word to be.</p>
+
+<p>The English franklin and the English peasant who come here usually weigh
+their allegiance a little before they make up their minds; but, if they
+have been persuaded that Queen Victoria's reign is a "<i>baneful
+domination</i>," they either go to the United States at once, or to those
+portions of Canada where sympathy with the Stars and Stripes is the
+order of the day.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>
+
+<p>If they be Scotch Radicals, the most uncompromising and the most bitter
+of all politicians, they seek Canada only with the ultimate hope of
+revolutionizing it.</p>
+
+<p>But the latter are more than balanced by the respectable Scotch, who
+emigrate occasionally upon the same principles which actuate the
+respectable portion of the English emigrants, and by the hardy
+Highlanders already settled in various parts of the colony, whose
+proverbial loyalty is proof against the arts of the demagogue.</p>
+
+<p>The great mass of emigrants may however be said to come from Ireland,
+and to consist of mechanics of the most inferior class, and of
+labourers. These are all impressed with the most absurd notions of the
+riches of America, and on landing at Quebec often refuse high wages with
+contempt, to seek the Cathay of their excited imaginations westward.</p>
+
+<p>If they be Orangemen, they defy the Pope and the devil as heartily in
+Canada as in Londonderry, and are loyal to the backbone.</p>
+
+<p>If they are Repealers, they come here sure of immediate wealth, to kick
+up a deuce of a row, for two shillings and sixpence currency is paid for
+a day's labour, which two shillings and sixpence was a hopeless week's
+fortune in Ireland; and yet the Catholic Irish who have been long
+settled in the country are by no means the worst subjects in this
+Trans-Atlantic realm, as I can personally testify, having had the
+command of large bodies of them during the border troubles of 1837-8.
+They are all loyal and true.</p>
+
+<p>In the event of a war, the Catholic Irish, to a man&mdash;and what a
+formidable body it is in Canada and the United States!&mdash;will be on the
+side of England. O'Connell has prophesied rightly there, for it is not
+in human nature to forget the wrongs which the Catholics have suffered
+for the past ten years in a country professing universal freedom and
+toleration.</p>
+
+<p>The Americans of the better classes with whom I have conversed admit
+this, but their dislike of the Irish is rooted and general among all the
+native race; and they fear as well as mistrust them, because, in many of
+the largest cities, New York for one, the Irish predominate.</p>
+
+<p>The Americans say, and so do the Canadians, that, for some years back,
+since the repeal agitation at home, a few very ignorant and very
+turbulent priests, of the lowest grade, have found their way across the
+Atlantic. I have travelled all over Canada, and lived many years in the
+country, and have been thrown among all classes, from my having been
+connected with the militia. I never saw but one specimen of Irish
+hedge-priest, and therefore do not credit the assertion; this one came
+out last year, and a more furious bigot or a more republican ultra I
+never met with, at the same time that he was as ignorant as could be
+conceived.</p>
+
+<p>Such has not hitherto been the case with the Catholic priesthood of the
+Canadas. The French Canadian clergy are a body of pious, exemplary men,
+not perhaps shining in the galaxy of science, but unobtrusive,
+gentlemanly, and an honour to the <i>soutane</i> and <i>chasuble</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The priests from Ireland are not numerous, for the Irish chapels were,
+till very lately, generally presided over by Scotch missionaries; and I
+can safely say that, whether Irish or Scotch, the Catholic priesthood of
+Western Canada will not yield the palm to their Franco-Canadian brethren
+of the cross, and that loyalty is deeply inculcated by them. I have long
+and personally known and admired the late Bishop Mac Donell; a worthier
+or a better man never existed. The highest and the lowest alike loved
+him.</p>
+
+<p>I saw him bending under the weight of years, passed in his ministry and
+in the defence of his adopted country, just before he left Canada, to
+lay his bones in his natal soil, preside over the ceremony of placing
+the first stone of the Catholic seminary, for which he had given the
+ground and funds to the utmost of his ability.</p>
+
+<p>He was a large, venerable-looking man, unwieldy from the infirmities of
+age and a life of toil and trouble; and the affecting and touching
+portion of the scene before us was to see him supported on his right and
+left by the arms of a Presbyterian colonel and a colonel of the Church
+of England.</p>
+
+<p>This is true Christianity, true charity&mdash;peace be to his soul!&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>His successor was a Canadian, equally free from pretension and bigotry;
+and he was succeeded by an Irishman, whose mission is to heal the wounds
+of party and strife. He is living and in office; I cannot, therefore,
+speak of him; but, differing as an Englishman so widely as I do in
+religious tenets from his, I can freely assert that, if clergymen of
+every denomination pursued the same course of brotherly love that he
+does, we should hear no more of the fierce and undying contention about
+subjects which should be covered with the veil of benevolence and
+humility.</p>
+
+<p>You cannot force a man to think as you do, to draw him into what you
+conceive to be the true path; mildness and conciliation are much more
+likely to effect your object than the Emperor of China's yellow stick.
+The days of the Inquisition, of Judge Jefferies, and of Claverhouse, are
+happily gone by; and the artillery of man's wrath now vents its harmless
+thunders much in the same way as the thunders of the Vatican, or the
+recent fulmination of the Archbishop of Paris against the author of the
+Wandering Jew; that is to say, with a great deal of noise, but without
+much damnifying any one, as the public soon formed a true judgment of M.
+Sue and of the tendency of his works.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, how horrible it is, and what a fearful view of frail
+human nature is opened for a searching mind to observe that a man, who
+professes to have abandoned the pleasures of existence, to have broken
+through the very first law of nature, to have separated himself from his
+kind, and to have assumed perfection and infallibility, the attributes
+of his Creator, devoting the altar at which he serves to the wicked
+purposes of arraying man against man, and of embruing the hands held up
+before him at prayer in the blood of his fellow-mortals!</p>
+
+<p>But such is the inevitable tendency of the system of "I am better than
+thou," whether it be practised by a Catholic priest of the hedge-school,
+by a fanatic bawler about new light, or by a fierce and uncompromising
+churchman. Faith, hope, and charity, are alike misinterpreted and
+misunderstood. Faith with these consists in blind or hypocritical
+devotion to their peculiar opinions and dogmas; hope is limited to the
+narrowest circle of ideas; and charity, Divine charity, exists not; for
+even the very relics, the mouldering bones of the defunct, are not
+allowed to rest side by side; and as to those differing in the slightest
+degree from them, to them charity extends not, however pious, however
+sincere, or however excellent they may be.</p>
+
+<p>The people of England are very little aware how widely Roman Catholicism
+extends in the United States and in Canada. From accurate returns, it
+has been ascertained that in the United States there were last year
+1,500,000, with 21 bishops, 675 churches, 592 mission stations, and 572
+priests otherwise employed in teaching and travelling; 22 colleges or
+ecclesiastical establishments, 23 literary institutions, 53 female
+schools or convents for instruction, 84 charitable hospitals and
+institutions, and 220 young students, preparing for the ministry; whilst
+we learn, from the Annals of the Propaganda, that 1,130,000 francs were
+appropriated, in May 1845, to the missions of America, or about &pound;47,000
+annually, of which the share for the United States, including Texas, was
+771,164 francs, or about &pound;32,000 in round numbers.</p>
+
+<p>Then again, the greater portion of the Indian tribes in the north-west
+and west, excepting near the Rocky Mountains or beyond them, are Roman
+Catholics; and their numbers are very great, and all in deep hatred,
+dislike, and enmity, to the Big Knives.</p>
+
+<p>More than half a million of the Lower Canadians are also of the same
+persuasion, and their church in Upper Canada is large and increasing by
+every shipload from Ireland. Even in Oregon, a Catholic bishop has just
+been appointed.</p>
+
+<p>It is more than probable, that in and around the United States three
+millions of Roman Catholic men are ever ready to advance the standard of
+their faith; whilst Mexico, weak as it is, offers another Catholic
+barrier to exclusive tenets of liberty, both of conscience and of
+person.</p>
+
+<p>It is surprising how very easily the emigrants are misled, and how
+simply they fancy that, once on the shores of the New World, Fortune
+must smile upon them.</p>
+
+<p>There is a British society, as I have already stated, for mutual
+protection, established at New York; and the government have agents of
+the first respectability at Quebec, at Montreal, and at Kingston. But
+the poorer classes, as well as those whose knowledge of life has been
+limited, are sadly defrauded and deluded.</p>
+
+<p>At a recent meeting of the Welsh Society at New York, facts were stated,
+showing the depravity and audacity of the crimps at Liverpool and New
+York. The President of the Society said that, owing to the nefarious
+practices against emigrants, the Germans first, then the Irish, after
+that the Welsh, and lastly the English residents of the city had taken
+the matter in hand by the formation of Protective Societies.</p>
+
+<p>The president of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick observed that in
+Liverpool the poor emigrants were fleeced without mercy; and he gave as
+one instance a fact that, by the representations of a packet agent, a
+large number of emigrants were induced to embark on board a packet
+without the necessary supply of provisions, being assured that for their
+passage-money they would be supplied by the captain&mdash;an arrangement of
+which the captain was wholly ignorant.</p>
+
+<p>The president of the Welsh Society exhibited sixty dollars of trash in
+bills of the Globe Bank, that had been palmed off upon an unsuspecting
+Welshman by some rascal in Liverpool, in exchange for his hoarded gold,
+and declared that this was only one of a series of like villanies
+constantly occurring.</p>
+
+<p>The ex-president of the St. George's Society, Mr. Fowler, mentioned a
+curious circumstance connected with the history of New York. He said
+that he remembered the city when it contained only fifty thousand
+inhabitants, and not one paved side walk, excepting in Dock Street. Now
+it had a population of nearly 400,000, and had so changed, that he could
+no longer identify the localities of his youthful days.</p>
+
+<p>Who, he asked, had done this? The emigrant! and it was protection they
+needed, not charity. He should have added, that the great mass of the
+emigrants who have made New York the mighty city it now is, were Irish,
+and that the native Americans have banded themselves in another form of
+protection against their increasing influence.</p>
+
+<p>The republican notions which the greater portion of the lower classes
+emigrating from the old country have been drilled into, lead them to
+believe that in the United States all men are equal, and that thus they
+have a splendid vault to make from poverty to wealth, an easy spring
+from a state of dependency to one of vast importance and consideration.
+The simple axiom of republicanism, that a ploughman is as good as a
+president, or a quarryman as an emperor, is taken firm hold of in any
+other sense than the right one. What sensible man ever doubted that we
+were all created in the same mould, and after the same image; but is
+there a well educated sane mind in America, believing that a perfect
+equality in all things, in goods and chattels, in agrarian rights and in
+education, is, or ever will be, practicable in this naughty world?</p>
+
+<p>Has nature formed all men with the same capacities, and can they be so
+exactly educated that all shall be equally fit to govern?</p>
+
+<p>The converse is true. Nature makes genius, and not genius nature. How
+rarely she yields a Shakespeare!&mdash;There has been but one Homer, one
+Virgil, since the creation. There was never a second Moses, nor have
+Solomon's wisdom and glory ever again been attainable.</p>
+
+<p>Look at the rulers of the earth, from the patriarchs to the present day,
+how few have been pre-eminent! Even in the earliest periods, when the
+age of man reached to ten times its present span, the wonderful sacred
+writ records Tubal-Cain, the first artificer, and Jubal, the lyrist, as
+most extraordinary men; and with what care are Aholiab and Bezabel,
+cunning in all sorts of craft, and Hiram, the artificer of Tyre,
+recorded! Hiram, the king, great as he undoubtedly was, was secondary in
+Solomon's eyes to the widow's son.</p>
+
+<p>These men, says the holy record, were gifted expressly for their
+peculiar mission; and so are all men, to whom the Inscrutable has been
+pleased to assign extraordinary talent.</p>
+
+<p>C&aelig;sar, the conqueror, Napoleon, his imitator, and Nelson, and
+Wellington, are they on a par with the rabble of New York? Procul, O,
+procul este profani!</p>
+
+<p>Pure democracy is an utter and unattainable impossibility; nature has
+effectually barred against it. The only thing in the course of a life of
+more than half a century that has ever puzzled me about it is, that the
+Catholic clergy should, in so many parts of the world, have lent it a
+helping hand. The ministers of a creed essentially aristocratic,
+essentially the pillars of the divine right of kings, have they ever
+been in earnest about the matter? Perhaps not!</p>
+
+<p>If that giant of modern Ireland, the pacificator citizen king, succeeded
+in separating the island from Great Britain, would he, on attaining the
+throne, or the dictatorship, or the presidency, or whatever it might be,
+for the nonce, desire pure democracy? <i>Je crois que non</i>, because, if he
+did, he would reign about one clear week afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>Look at the United States, see how each successive president is bowed
+down before the Moloch altar; he must worship the democratic Baal, if he
+desires to be elected, or re-elected. It is not the intellect, or the
+wealth of the Union that rules. Already they seriously canvass in the
+Empire State perfect equality in worldly substance, and the division of
+the lands into small portions, sufficient to afford the means of
+respectable existence to every citizen. It is, perhaps, fortunate that
+very few of the office-holders have much substance to spare under these
+circumstances; but, if the President, Vice-President, and the
+Secretaries of State, are to live upon an acre or two of land for the
+rest of their lives, Spartan broth will be indeed a rich diet to theirs.</p>
+
+<p>When the sympathizers invaded Canada, in 1838-1839, the lands of the
+Canadians were thus parcelled out amongst them, as the reward of their
+extremely patriotic services, but in slices of one hundred, instead of
+one or two, acres.</p>
+
+<p>But, notwithstanding all this ultra-democracy, there is at present a
+sufficient counterbalance in the sense of the people, to prevent any
+very serious consequences; and the Irish, from having had their religion
+trampled upon, and themselves despised, would be very likely to run
+counter to native feeling.</p>
+
+<p>If any country in the whole civilized world exhibits the inequality of
+classes more forcibly than another, it is the country which has lately
+annexed Texas, and which aims at annexing all the New World.</p>
+
+<p>There is a more marked line drawn between wealth and pretension on the
+one hand, poverty and impertinent assumption on the other, than in the
+dominions of the Czar. Birth, place, power, are all duly honoured, and
+that sometimes to a degree which would astonish a British nobleman,
+accustomed all his life to high society. I remember once travelling in a
+canal boat, the most abominable of all conveyances, resembling Noah's
+ark in more particulars than its shape, that I was accosted, in the
+Northern States too, and near the borders, where equality and liberty
+reign paramount, by a long slab-sided fellow-passenger, who, I thought,
+was going to ask me to pay his passage, his appearance was so shabby,
+with the following questions:</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you from? are you a Livingstone?" I told him, for I like to
+converse with characters, that I was from Canada. "What's your name?" he
+asked. I satisfied him. He examined me from head to foot with attention,
+and, as he was an elderly man, I stood the gaze most valiantly. "Well,"
+he said, "I thought you were a Livingstone; you have got small ears, and
+small feet and hands, and that, all the world over, is the sign of
+gentle blood."</p>
+
+<p>He was afterwards very civil; and, upon inquiring of the skipper of the
+boat who he was, I found that my friend was a man of large fortune, who
+lived somewhere near Utica, on an estate of his own.</p>
+
+<p>This was before the sympathy troubles, and I can back it with another
+story or two to amuse the reader.</p>
+
+<p>Some years ago, when it was the fashion in Canada for British officers
+always to travel in uniform, I went to Buffalo, the great city of
+Buffalo on lake Erie, in the Thames steamer, commanded by my good
+friend, Captain Van Allen, and the first British Canadian steamboat
+that ever entered that harbour. We went in gallantly, with the flag
+flying that "has braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze." I
+think the majority of the population must have lined the wharfs to see
+us come in. They rent the welkin with welcomes, and, among other
+demonstrations, cast up their caps, and cried with might and main&mdash;"Long
+live George the Third!"&mdash;Our gracious monarch had for years before bid
+this world good night, but that was nothing; the good folks of Buffalo
+had not perhaps quite forgotten that they were once, long before their
+city was a city, subjects of King George.</p>
+
+<p>I and another officer in uniform were received with all honours, and
+escorted to the Eagle hotel, where we were treated sumptuously, and had
+to run the gauntlet of handshaking to great extent. A respectable
+gentleman, about forty, some seven years older than myself, stuck close
+to me all the while. I thought he admired the British undress uniform,
+but he only wanted to ask questions, and, after sundry answers, he
+inquired my name, which being courteously communicated, he said, "Well,
+I am glad, that's a fact, that I have seen you, for many is the whipping
+I have had for your book of Algebra." Now I never was capable of
+committing such an unheard-of enormity as being the cause of
+flagellation to any man by simple or quadratic equations; and it must
+have been the binomial theorem which had tickled his catastrophe, for it
+was my father's treatise which had penetrated into the new world of
+Buffalonian education.</p>
+
+<p>It is a pity, is it not, gentle reader, that such feelings do not now
+exist?</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, even now, the designation of a British officer is a
+passport in any part of the United States. The custom-house receives it
+with courtesy and good-will; society is gratified by attentions received
+from a British officer; and it is coupled with the feelings which the
+habits and conduct of a gentleman engender throughout Christendom.</p>
+
+<p>At New York, I visited every place worth seeing; and, although
+disliking gambling, races, and debating societies, <i>&agrave; outrance</i>, I was
+determined to judge for myself of New York, of life in New York.</p>
+
+<p>On one occasion, I was at a meeting of the turf in an hotel after the
+races, where violent discussions and heavy champagning were going on. I
+was then (it was in 1837) a major in the army, and was introduced to one
+or two prominent men in the room as a British officer who had been to
+see the racecourse; this caused a general stir, and the champagne flew
+about like&mdash;&mdash;I am at a loss for a simile; and the health of Queen
+Victoria was drunk with three times three.</p>
+
+<p>On board a packet returning from England, we had several of the leading
+characters of the United States as passengers. A very silly and
+troublesome democrat, of the Loco-foco school, from Philadelphia, made
+himself conspicuous always after dinner, when we sat, according to
+English fashion, at a dessert, by his vituperations against monarchy and
+an exhibition of his excessive love for everything American. The
+gentlemen above alluded to, men who had travelled over Europe, whose
+education and manners made them that which a true gentleman is all over
+the world, were disgusted, and, to punish his impertinence, proposed
+that a weekly paper should be written by the cabin passengers, in which
+the occurrences of each day should be noted and commented upon, and that
+poetry, tales, and essays, should form part of its matter.</p>
+
+<p>They agreed to discuss the relative points and bearings of monarchy and
+democracy; they to depute one of their number to be the champion of
+monarchy; and we to chuse the champion of democracy from amongst the
+English passengers.</p>
+
+<p>Two drawings were fixed up at each end of the table after dinner; one,
+representing a crowned Plum-pudding; and the other, Liberty and
+Equality, by the well-known sign. The blustering animal was soon
+effectually silenced; a host of first-rate talent levelled a constant
+battery at his rude and uncultivated mind.</p>
+
+<p>I shall never forget this voyage, and I hope the talent-gifted Canadian
+lawyer who threw down the gauntlet of Republicanism, and who has since
+risen to the highest honours of his profession which the Queen can
+bestow, has preserved copies of the Saturday's Gazette of The Mediator
+American Packet-ship.</p>
+
+<p>The mention of this vessel puts me in mind of one more American
+anecdote, and I must tell it, for I have a good deal of dry work before
+me.</p>
+
+<p>Crossing the Atlantic once in an American vessel, we met another
+American ship, of the same size, and passed very close. Our captain
+displayed the stars and stripes in true ship-shape cordial greeting.
+Brother Jonathan took no notice of this sea civility, and passed on;
+upon which the skipper, after taking a long look at him with his
+spy-glass, broke out in a passion, "What!" said he, "you won't show your
+b&mdash;d bunting, your old stripy rag? Now, I guess, if he had been a
+Britisher, instead of a d&mdash;d Yankee, he would not have been ashamed of
+his flag; he would have acted like a gentleman. Phew!" and he whistled,
+and then chewed his cigar viciously, quite unconscious that I was
+enjoying the scene.</p>
+
+<p>But, if it be possible that one peculiar portion of the old countrymen
+are more disliked or despised than another in any country under the sun,
+connected by such ties as the United States are with Britain, there can
+be no doubt that the condition of the Jews under King John, as far as
+hatred and unexpressed contumelious feeling goes, was preferable to the
+feeling which native Americans, of the ultra Loco-foco or ultra-federal
+breed, entertain towards the labouring Catholic Irish, and would, if
+they could with safety, vent upon them in dreadful visitation. They
+would exterminate them, if they dared.</p>
+
+<p>To account for such a feeling, it must be observed that a large portion
+of these ignorant and misguided men have brought much of this animosity
+upon themselves; for, continuing in the New World that barbarous
+tendency to demolish all systems and all laws opposed to their limited
+notions of right and wrong, and, whilst their senseless feuds among
+themselves harass society, they eagerly seek occasions for that restless
+political excitement to which they are accustomed in their own unhappy
+and regretted country.</p>
+
+<p>A body of these hewers of wood and drawers of water, who, when not
+excited, are the most innocent and harmless people in the world&mdash;easily
+led, but never to be driven&mdash;get employed on a canal or great public
+work; and, no sooner do they settle down upon wages which must appear
+like a dream to them, than some old feud between Cork and Connaught,
+some ancient quarrel of the Capulets and Montagues of low life, is
+recollected, or a chant of the Boyne water is heard, and to it they go
+pell-mell, cracking one another's heads and disturbing a peaceful
+neighbourhood with their insane broils.</p>
+
+<p>Or, should a devil, in the shape of an adviser, appear among them, and
+persuade these excitable folks that they may obtain higher wages by
+forcing their own terms, bludgeons and bullets are resorted to, in order
+to compel compliance, and incendiarism and murder follow, until a
+military force is called out to quell the riots.</p>
+
+<p>The scenes of this kind in Canada, where vast sums are annually expended
+on the public works, have been frightful; and such has been the terror
+which these lawless hordes have inspired, that timid people have quitted
+their properties and fled out of the reach of the moral pestilence; nay,
+it has been carried so far, that a Scotch regiment has been marked on
+account of its having been accidentally on duty in putting down a canal
+riot; and, wherever its station has afterwards been cast, the vengeance
+of these people has followed it.</p>
+
+<p>At Montreal, the elections have been disgraced by bodies of these
+canallers having been employed to intimidate and overawe voters; and,
+were it not that a large military force is always at hand there, no
+election could be made of a member, whose seat would be the unbiassed
+and free choice of his constituents.</p>
+
+<p>It is, however, very fortunate for Canada that these canallers are not
+usually inclined to settle, but wander about from work to work, and
+generally, in the end, go to the United States. The Irish who settle are
+fortunately a different people; and, as they go chiefly into the
+backwoods, lead a peaceful and industrious life.</p>
+
+<p>But it is, nevertheless, very amusing, and affords much insight into the
+workings of frail human nature to observe the conduct of that portion of
+the Irish emigrants who find that they have neither the means of
+obtaining land, nor of quitting some large town at which they may
+arrive. Their first notion then is to go out to service, which they had
+left Ireland to avoid altogether. The father usually becomes a
+day-labourer, the sons farm-servants or household servants in the towns,
+the daughters cooks, nursery-maids, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>When they come to the mistress of a family to hire, they generally sit
+down on the nearest chair to the door in the room, and assume a manner
+of perfect familiarity, assuring the lady of the house that they never
+expected to go out to service in America, but that some family
+misfortune has rendered such a step necessary. The lady then, of course,
+asks them what branch of household service they can undertake; to which
+the invariable reply is, anything&mdash;cook or housemaid, child's-maid or
+housekeeper, and that indeed they lived in better places at home than
+they expect to get in America, such as Lord So-and-so's, or Squire
+So-and-so's.</p>
+
+<p>The end of this is obvious; and a lady told me, the other day, she hired
+a professed cook, who was very shortly put to the test by a dinner-party
+occurring a day or two after she joined the household. Her mistress
+ordered dinner; and one joint, or <i>pi&egrave;ce de resistance</i>, was a fine
+fillet of veal. The professed cook, it appeared, laboured under a little
+<i>manque d'usage</i> on two delicate points, for she very unexpectedly burst
+into her lady's boudoir just as she was dressing for dinner, and
+exclaimed, "Mistress, dear, what'll I do with the vail?"&mdash;"The veil?"
+said the dame, in horror; "what veil?"&mdash;"Why, the vail in the pot, marm;
+I biled it, and it swelled out so, the divil a get it out can I git it."</p>
+
+<p>So with the farm-servants, they can all do everything; and an Irish
+gentleman told me that he lately hired a young man, an emigrant, to
+plough for him; and, on asking him if he understood ploughing, the
+good-natured Paddy answered, offhand, "Ploughing, is it? I'm the boy for
+ploughing."&mdash;"Very well, I'm glad of it," said the gentleman, "for you
+are a fine, likely young fellow, so I shall hire you." He hired him
+accordingly at high wages&mdash;ten dollars a month and provisions and
+lodging found. The first day he was to work, my friend told him to go
+and yoke the oxen. Paddy stared with all his eyes, but said nothing, and
+went away. He staid some time, and then returned with a pair of oxen,
+which he was driving before him. "Here's the oxen, master!"&mdash;"Where are
+the yokes, Paddy?"&mdash;"The yokes! by the powers, is that what they call
+beef in Canady?" Poor Paddy had been a weaver all his live-long days.</p>
+
+<p>The Irish are almost exclusively the servants in most parts of the
+northern states and throughout Canada, excepting the French Canadians,
+and very attached, faithful servants they frequently are; but notions of
+liberty and equality get possession of their phrenological developments,
+and they are almost always on the move to better their condition, which
+rarely happens as they desire.</p>
+
+<p>Then another crying evil in Canada and in the States is the rage for
+dress. An Irish girl no sooner gets a modicum of wages than all her
+thoughts are to go to chapel or church as fine or finer than her
+mistress. Nearly every servant-girl in the large towns has a <i>ridicule</i>
+(that must be the proper way of spelling it), a bustle, a parasol, an
+expensive shawl, and a silk gown, and fine bonnet, gloves, and a white
+pocket-handkerchief. The men are not so aspiring, and usually don on
+Sundays a blue coat and brass buttons, white pantaloons, white gloves,
+and a good fur cap in winter, or a neat straw hat or brilliant beaver in
+summer. The waistcoat is nondescript, but the boots are irreproachable.
+A cigar has nearly replaced the pipe in the streets.</p>
+
+<p>I will defy a short-sighted person to distinguish her nursery-maid from
+her own sister at a little distance; and, being somewhat afflicted that
+way myself, I frequently nod to a well-dressed soubrette, thinking she
+is at least a leading member of the aristocracy of the town; and this is
+the more amusing, as in all colonial towns and in the <i>haute societ&eacute;</i> of
+the Republic very considerable magnificence is affected, and a rage for
+rank and pseudo-importance is not a little the order of the day.
+"Nothing," says a distinguished writer upon that most frivolous of all
+threadbare subjects, etiquette, "nothing is more decidedly the sign of a
+vulgar-born or a vulgar-bred person than to be ready to practise the
+art of cutting." I therefore bow to the well-dressed grisettes, upon the
+principle of avoiding to be thought vulgar in mixed society by cutting a
+lady of tremendous rank; as I would rather take a cook for a Countess,
+or a chambermaid for an Honourable, than be guilty of so much rudeness.</p>
+
+<p>You must not smile, gentle reader, and say cooks are often handsomer
+than Countesses, or chambermaids prettier than Honourables; I am like
+the old man of the Bubbles of Brunnen, insensible to anything but the
+beauties of nature. Neither must you think we have no Countesses nor
+Honourables in Canada. The former are in truth <i>rar&aelig; aves</i>, but the
+latter&mdash;why, every change of ministry creates a batch of them.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h4><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p class="center">The Emigrant and his Prospects.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>Those who really wish Canada well desire it to become a second Britain,
+and not a mere second Texas. Those who wish it evil, and these comprise
+the restless, unprovided race of politicians under whose incessant
+agitation Canada has so long groaned, desire its Texian annexation to
+the already overgrown States in its vicinity.</p>
+
+<p>That it may become a second Britain and hold the balance of power on the
+continent of America is my prayer, and the prayer too of one who
+entertains no enmity towards the people of the United States, but who
+admires their unceasing exertions in behalf of their country, who would
+admire their institutions, based as they are upon those of England, if
+the grand design of Washington had been carried out, and perfect freedom
+of thought and of action had been secured to the people, instead of a
+slavish awe of the mob, an absolute dread of the uneducated masses, a
+sovereign contempt of the opinion of the world in accomplishing any
+design for the aggrandizement of the Union, the most despotic and
+degrading oppression of all who presume to hold religious opinions at
+variance with those of the masses, and the chained bondsman in a land of
+liberty!</p>
+
+<p>To guard the respectable settler, who has a character at stake, and a
+family with some little capital to lay out to better advantage than he
+can at home, against the grievous and often fatal errors which have been
+propagated for sinister motives by needy adventurers who have written
+about Canada, or who are or have been agents for the sake only of the
+remuneration which it brings, caring but little for the misery they have
+entailed, I have undertaken to continue an account of this fine
+province, where nothing is provided by Nature except fertile soil and a
+healthy climate; the rest she leaves to unremitting labour and to the
+exercise of judgment by the settler.</p>
+
+<p>As I have already inferred, this work will contain nothing vituperative
+of the United States, of that people who are the grandchildren of
+Britannia, and whose well-being is so essential to the peace and
+security of Christendom.</p>
+
+<p>I shall endeavour to render it as plain and unpretending as possible,
+and shall not confine myself to studied rules or endeavours to make a
+book, taking up my subject as suits my own leisure, which is not very
+ample, and resuming or interrupting it at pleasure or convenience.</p>
+
+<p>It will be necessary to enter more at large than in my preceding volumes
+into the resources of Canada, and, for this end, Geology and other
+scientific subjects must be introduced; but, as I dislike exceedingly
+that heavy and gaudy veil of learning, that embroidered science, with
+which modern taste conceals those secrets of Nature which have been so
+partially unfolded, I shall not have frequent recourse to absurd Greek
+derivations, which are very commonly borrowed for the occasion from
+technical dictionaries, or lent by a classical friend; but, whenever
+they must occur, the dictionary shall explain them, for I really think
+it beneath the dignity of the lights of modern Geology to talk as they
+do about the Placoids and the Ganoids, as the first created fishlike
+beings, and of the Ctenoids and the Cycloids as the more recent finners.
+It always puts me in mind of Shakespeare's magniloquence concerning "the
+Anthropophagi and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders, of
+antres vast and deserts idle," when he exhibited his learning in
+language which no one, however, can imitate, and which he makes the lady
+seriously incline and listen to, simply because she did not understand a
+word that was said. So it is with the overdone and continual changing of
+terms that now constantly occurs; insomuch that the terms of plain
+science, instead of being simplified and brought within the reach of
+ordinary capacities, is made as uncouth and as unintelligible as
+possible, and totally beyond the reach of those who have no collegiate
+education to boast of, and no good technical dictionary at hand to refer
+to.</p>
+
+<p>The present age is most prone to this false estimate of learning and to
+public scientific display. If science, true science, yields to it,
+learning will very soon vanish from the face of the earth again, and
+nothing but monkish lore and the dark ages return.</p>
+
+<p>There is a vast field open for research in Canada: it is yet a virgin
+soil, both as respects its moral and its physical cultivation.
+Therefore, plain facts are the best, and those made as level to the eye
+as possible; for the amusing mistakes which a would-be learned man
+makes, after a cursory perusal of anything scientific, only subject him
+to silent derision.</p>
+
+<p>A very old casual acquaintance of mine, a sort of man holding a rather
+elevated rank, but originally from the great unwashed, who had risen by
+mere chance, aided by a little borough influence, was talking to me one
+day about some property of his in Western Canada, which he fancied had
+rich minerals upon it. Accordingly, he had taken a preliminary Treatise
+on Mineralogy in hand, and puzzled his brains in order to converse
+learnedly. "My land," quoth he, "is Silesia, and has a great bed of
+sulphuret of pyrites." The poor gentleman, who had a vast opinion of
+himself and always contradicted everybody about everything, meant that
+his soil contained a deal of silica, and that iron pyrites was abundant
+in it.</p>
+
+<p>The importance of the annual migration from Britain is best evidenced by
+the representation of the chief emigrant agent at Quebec, subjoined.</p>
+
+<p>In all the great sea-ports of England, Ireland, and Scotland, there are
+emigrant agents appointed by the government, to whom application should
+always be made for information, by every emigrant who has not the
+advantage of friends in Canada to receive and guide him; and these
+gentlemen prevent the trouble, expense, loss of time, and fraud, to
+which the poor settlers are subjected by the crimps and agents, with
+whom every sea-port abounds.</p>
+
+<p>On their arrival in Canada, if ignorant of their way, they should apply
+at Quebec to the government principal agent, who is stationed there for
+the lower or eastern part of Canada, and he will give them either advice
+or passage, according to the nature of the case.</p>
+
+<p>It is a pity that a rage exists for going as far west as possible at
+first, for this rage causes distress, and ends frequently by their being
+kidnapped into settling in the United States.</p>
+
+<p>If, however, they are determined to go on to Western Canada, their
+course is either to pay their own way, or to obtain assistance from the
+government to send them on to Kingston, where another government agent
+for Western Canada is stationed; and, as this gentleman has now acted in
+that capacity for many years, he possesses a perfect knowledge of the
+country and its resources, and of the wants and objects of the
+settlers.</p>
+
+<p>There is excellent land, and plenty of it to be obtained from the
+British American Land Company in Lower Canada, in that portion called
+"The Townships," which adjoin the states of Vermont and New York; and,
+excepting that the winters are longer, the climate more severe, it is as
+desirable as any other part of the province, and, in point of health,
+perhaps more so, as it is sufficiently far from the great river and
+lakes to make it less subject to ague; which, however, more or less, all
+new countries in the temperate zone, well forested and watered, are
+invariably the seat of, and which is increased in power and frequency in
+proportion to the neighbourhood of fresh water in large bodies, and the
+use of whiskey as a preventive.</p>
+
+<p>From a statement of the number of emigrants to this colony for the last
+sixteen years, compiled by A.C. Buchanan, Esq., chief emigrant agent, it
+appears that, in the five years subsequently to 1829, the emigration
+from the British Isles was 165,793. From other sources, in the three
+years, from 1829 to 1832, the emigration exceeded that of the previous
+ten years&mdash;the numbers being respectively, 125,063 and 121,170. In 1832,
+the emigrants arrived reached the high number of 51,746; but the cholera
+of that year was of so fatal a character on the St. Lawrence, that the
+numbers in 1833 fell 22,062. This epidemic, coupled with the rebellions
+of '37 and '38, materially checked the increased emigration commenced in
+1836. In 1838, the number was only 3,266, and in 1839, 7,500. But, since
+1840, emigration has again recovered, and, during the period of
+navigation of 1845, it amounted to 27,354, of whom 2,612 arrived <i>via</i>
+the United States.</p>
+
+<p>The United States, however, received by far the largest proportion of
+the emigration from Britain. At the port of New York alone, from 1st
+November, 1844, to 31st October, 1845, there arrived&mdash;</p>
+
+<table width="600" summary="emigrants">
+<tr>
+<td>From England and Scotland </td>
+<td>10,653</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>From Ireland  </td>
+<td class="u">38,300</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="center">Total at New York </td>
+<td>48,953</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The number of emigrants landed at the port of Quebec, in 1845, was
+25,375.</p>
+<p class="center">NUMBER OF EMIGRANTS SINCE 1829.</p>
+<table width="700" summary="emigrants">
+
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td align="right">'29 to '33</td>
+<td align="right">'34 to '38</td>
+<td align="right">'39 to '43</td>
+<td align="right">'44 to '45</td>
+<td align="right">Total.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td align="right">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+<td align="right">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+<td align="right">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+<td align="right">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+<td align="right">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>England. </td><td align="right"> 43,386 </td><td align="right"> 28,624</td><td align="right">30,318 </td><td align="right">16,531 </td><td align="right">119,354 </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Ireland. </td><td align="right">102,264</td><td align="right">54,898</td><td align="right">74,981</td><td align="right"> 24,201</td><td align="right">256,344</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Scotland. </td><td align="right">20,143 </td><td align="right">10,998</td><td align="right">16,289 </td><td align="right">4,408 </td><td align="right"> 51,838</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>British American Prov. &amp;c.</td>
+<td align="right">1,904</td>
+<td align="right">1,831</td>
+<td align="right">1,777</td>
+<td align="right">377</td>
+<td align="right">5,589</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td align="right">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+<td align="right">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+<td align="right">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+<td align="right">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+<td align="right">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td align="right"> 167,697</td>
+<td align="right">96,351</td>
+<td align="right">123,860</td>
+<td align="right">45,517 </td>
+<td align="right">433,425 </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td align="right">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+<td align="right">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+<td align="right">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+<td align="right">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+<td align="right">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+
+<p>Upper Canada would seem to have received the largest share of the influx
+of population. The increase in the number of its inhabitants, between
+1827 and 1843, is stated at 230,000.</p>
+
+<p>The local government has for some few years past encouraged, although
+rather scantily, as Mr. Logan can, I dare say, testify, an exploration
+of the natural resources of the Canadas, as far as geology and
+mineralogy are concerned. Its medical statistics, its botany and
+zoology, will follow; and agriculture, that primary and most noble of
+all applications of the mind to matter, is making rapid strides, by the
+formation of district and local societies, which will do infinitely more
+good than any system of government patronage for the advancement of the
+welfare of the people could devise.</p>
+
+<p>The public works have also, for the first time, been placed under the
+control of the executive and legislative bodies by the formation of a
+board, which is itself also subject to the supervision of the
+government.</p>
+
+<p>But much remains to be done on this important head. A melancholy error
+was committed in making the President, and consequently all the officers
+and <i>employ&eacute;s</i>, of the Board of Works, partizans of the ministry of the
+day; thus paralyzing the efforts of a zealous man, on the one hand, by
+the fear of dismissal upon any change of the popular will, and
+neutralizing his efforts whilst in office, by rendering his measures
+mere jobs.</p>
+
+<p>This has been amended under Lord Metcalfe's administration; and it is to
+be hoped that the office of President of the Board of Works will
+hereafter be one subjected to severe but not to vexatious scrutiny, and
+at the same time carefully guarded against political influence, and only
+rendered tenable with honour by the capacity of the person selected to
+fill it and of his subordinates. Canada is, as I have written two former
+volumes to prove, a magnificent country. I doubt very much if Nature has
+created a finer country on the whole earth.</p>
+
+<p>The soil is generally good, as that made by the decay of forests for
+thousands of years upon substrata, chiefly formed of alluvion or
+diluvion, the deposit from waters, must be. It is, moreover, from Quebec
+to the Falls of St. Mary, almost a flat surface, intersected and
+interlaced by numberless streams, and studded with small lakes, whilst
+its littorale is a river unparalleled in the world, expanding into
+enormous fresh water seas, abounding with fish.</p>
+
+<p>If the tropical luxuries are absent, if its winters are long and
+excessively severe, yet it yields all the European fruits abundantly,
+and even some of the tropical ones, owing to the richness of its soil
+and the great heat of the summer. Maize, or Indian corn, flourishes, and
+is more wholesome and better than that produced in the warm South. The
+crops of potato, that apple of the earth, as the French so justly term
+it, are equal, if not superior, to those of any other climate; whilst
+all the vegetables of the temperate regions of the old world grow with
+greater luxuriance than in their original fields. I have successively
+and successfully cultivated the tomato, the melon, and the capsicum, in
+the open air, for several seasons, at Kingston and Toronto, which are
+not the richest or the best parts of Western Canada, as far as
+vegetation is concerned. Tobacco grows well in the western district, and
+where is finer wheat harvested than in Western Canada?&mdash;whilst hay, and
+that beauty of a landscape, the rich green sod, the velvet carpet of the
+earth, are abundant and luxuriant.</p>
+
+<p>If the majesty of vegetation is called in question, and intertropical
+plants brought forward in contrast, even the woods and trackless
+forests of Guiana, where the rankest of luxuriance prevails, will not do
+more than compete with the glory of the primeval woods of Canada. I know
+of nothing in this world capable of exciting emotions of wonder and
+adoration more directly, than to travel alone through its forests.
+Pines, lifting their hoary tops beyond man's vision, unless he inclines
+his head so far backwards as to be painful to his organization, with
+trunks which require fathoms of line to span them; oaks, of the most
+gigantic form; the immense and graceful weeping elm; enormous poplars,
+whose magnitude must be seen to be conceived; lindens, equally vast;
+walnut trees of immense size; the beautiful birch, and the wild cherry,
+large enough to make tables and furniture of.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, the gloom and the glory of these forests, and the deep reflection
+that, since they were first created by the Divine fiat, civilized man
+has never desecrated them with his unsparing devastations; that a
+peculiar race, born for these solitudes, once dwelt amidst their
+shades, living as Nature's woodland children, until a more subtile being
+than the serpent of Eden crept amongst them, and, with his glittering
+novelties and dangerous beauty, caused their total annihilation! I see,
+in spirit, the red hunter, lofty, fearless, and stern, stalking in his
+painted nudity, and displaying a form which Apollo might have envied,
+amidst the everlasting and silent woods; I see, in spirit, the bearded
+stranger from the rising sun, with his deadly arms and his more deadly
+fire-water, conversing with his savage fellow, and displaying the envied
+wealth of gorgeous beads and of gaudy clothing.</p>
+
+<p>The scene changes, the proud Indian is at the feet of his ensnarer;
+disease has relaxed his iron sinews; drunkenness has debased his mind;
+and the myriad crimes and vices of civilized Europe have combined to
+sweep the aborigines of the soil from the face of the forest earth. The
+forest groans beneath the axe; but, after a few years, the scene again
+changes; fertile fields, orchards and gardens, delight the eye; the
+city, and the town, and the village spires rise, and where two solitary
+wigwams of the red hunter were once alone occasionally observed, twenty
+thousand white Canadians now worship the same Great Author of the
+existence of all mankind.</p>
+
+<p>And to increase these fields, these orchards, these gardens, these
+villages, these towns, and these cities, year after year, thirty
+thousand of the children of Britain cross the broad Atlantic: and what
+seeks this mass of human beings, braving the perils of the ocean and the
+perils of the land? Competence and wealth! The former, by prudence, is
+soon attainable; the acquisition of the latter uncertain and fickle.</p>
+
+<p>No free grants of land are now given, but the settler may obtain them
+upon easy terms from the government, or the Canada and British American
+companies.</p>
+
+<p>The settler with a small capital cannot do better than purchase out and
+out. Instalments are a bad mode of purchasing; for, if all should not
+turn out right, instalments are sometimes difficult to meet; and the
+very best land, in the best locations, as we shall hereafter see, is to
+be had from 7s. 6d., if in the deep Bush, as the forest is called; to
+10s., if nearer a market; or 15s. and 20s., if very eligibly situated.
+Thus for two hundred pounds a settler can buy two hundred acres of good
+land, can build an excellent house for two hundred and fifty more, and
+stock his farm with another fifty, as a beginning; or, in other words,
+he can commence Canadian life for five hundred pounds sterling, with
+every prospect before him, if he has a family, of leaving them
+prosperous and happy. But he and they must work, work, work. He and all
+his sons must avoid whiskey, that bane of the backwoods, as they would
+avoid the rattlesnake, which sometimes comes across their path. Whiskey
+and wet feet destroy more promising young men in Canada than ague and
+fever, that scourge of all well watered woody countries; for the ague
+and fever seldom kill but with the assistance of the dram and of
+exposure.</p>
+
+<p>Men nurtured in luxury or competence at home, as soon as the unfailing
+<i>ennui</i> arising from want of society in the backwoods begins to succeed
+the excitement of settling, too frequently drink, and in many cases
+drink from their waking hour until they sink at night into sottish
+sleep. This is peculiarly the case where there is no village nor town
+within a day's journey; and thus many otherwise estimable young men
+become habitual drunkards, and sink from the caste of gentlemen
+gradually into the dregs of society, whilst their wives and families
+suffer proportionably.</p>
+
+<p>In Lower Canada, this vice does not prevail to the same extent as in the
+upper portion of the province. The French Canadians are not addicted to
+the vice of drinking ardent spirits as a people, although the lumberers
+and voyageurs shorten their lives very considerably by the use of
+whiskey. The <i>lumberers</i>, who are the cutters and conveyers of timber,
+pass a short and excited existence.</p>
+
+<p>In the winter, buried in the eternal forest, far, far away from the
+haunts of man, they chop and hew; in the summer, they form the timber,
+boards, staves, &amp;c., into rafts, which are conveyed down the great lakes
+and the rivers St. Lawrence and Ottawa to Quebec&mdash;on these rafts they
+live and have their summer being. Hard fare in plenty, such as salt pork
+and dough cakes; fat and unleavened bread, with whiskey, is their diet.
+Tea and sugar form an occasional luxury. Up to their waists in snow in
+winter, and up to their waists in summer and autumn in water, with all
+the moving accidents by flood and field; the occasional breaking-up of
+the raft in a rapid, the difficulty of the winter and spring transport
+of the heavy logs of squared timber out of the deep and trackless woods,
+combine to form a portion of the hard and reckless life of a lumberer,
+whose <i>morale</i> is not much better than his <i>physicale</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Picture to yourself, child of luxury, sitting on a cushioned sofa, in a
+room where the velvet carpet renders a footfall noiseless, where art is
+exhausted to afford comfort, and where even the hurricane cannot disturb
+your perusal of this work, a wood reaching without limit, excepting the
+oceans either of salt or fresh water which surround Canada, and where to
+lose the track is hopeless starvation and death; figure the giant pines
+towering to the clouds, gloomy and Titan-like, throwing their vast arms
+to the skyey influences, and making a twilight of mid-day, at whose
+enormous feet a thicket of bushes, almost as high as your head, prevents
+your progress without the pioneer axe; or a deep and black swamp for
+miles together renders it necessary to crawl from one fallen monarch of
+the wood onwards to the decaying and prostrate bole of another, with an
+occasional plunge into the mud and water, which they bridge; eternal
+silence reigning, disturbed only by your feeble efforts to advance; and
+you may form some idea of a red pine land, rocky and uneven, or a cedar
+swamp, black as night, dark, dismal, and dangerous.</p>
+
+<p>Here, after you have hewed or crept your toiling way, you see, some
+yards or some hundred yards, as the forest is close or open, before
+you, a light blue curling smoke amongst the dank and lugubrious scene;
+you hear a dull, distant, heavy, sudden blow, frequent and deadened,
+followed at long intervals by a tremendous rending, crashing,
+overwhelming rush; then all is silent, till the voice of the guardian of
+man is heard growling, snarling, or barking outright, as you advance
+towards the blue smoke, which has now, by an eddy of the wind, filled a
+large space between the trees.</p>
+
+<p>You stand before the fire, made under three or four sticks set up
+tenwise, to which a large cauldron is hung, bubbling and seething, with
+a very strong odour of fat pork; a boy, dirty and ill-favoured, with a
+sharp glittering axe, looks very suspiciously at you, but calls off his
+wolfish dog, who sneaks away.</p>
+
+<p>A moment shows you a long hut, formed of logs of wood, with a roof of
+branches, covered by birch-bark, and by its side, or near the fire,
+several nondescript sties or pens, apparently for keeping pigs in,
+formed of branches close to the ground, either like a boat turned
+upside down, or literally as a pigsty is formed, as to shape.</p>
+
+<p>In the large hut, which is occasionally more luxurious and made of slabs
+of wood or of rough boards, if a saw-mill is within reasonable distance,
+and there is a passable wood road, or creek, or rivulet, navigable by
+canoes, you see some barrel or two of pork, and of flour, or biscuit, or
+whiskey, some tools, and some old blankets or skins. Here you are in the
+lumberer's winter home&mdash;I cannot call him woodman, it would disgrace the
+ancient and ballad-sung craft; for the lumberer is not a gentle woodman,
+and you need not sing sweetly to him to "spare that tree."</p>
+
+<p>The larger dwelling is the hall, the common hall, and the pig-sties the
+sleeping-places. I presume that such a circumstance as pulling off
+habiliments or ablution seldom occurs; they roll themselves in a blanket
+or skin, if they have one, and, as to water, they are so frequently in
+it during the summer, that I suppose they wash half the year
+unintentionally. Fat pork, the fattest of the fat, is the lumberer's
+luxury; and, as he has the universal rifle or fowling-piece, he kills a
+partridge, a bear, or a deer, now and then.</p>
+
+<p>I was exploring last year some woods in a newly settled township, the
+township of Seymour West, in the Newcastle district of Upper Canada,
+with a view to see the nakedness of the land, which had been represented
+to me as flowing with milk and honey, as all new settlements of course
+are said to do. I wandered into the lonely but beautiful forest, with a
+companion who owned the soil, and who had told me that the lumberers
+were robbing him and every settler around of their best pine timber.
+After some toiling and tracing the sound of the axes, few and far
+between, felling in the distance, we came upon the unvarying boy at
+cookery, the axe, and the dog.</p>
+
+<p>My conductor at once saw the extent of the mischief going on, and,
+finding that the gang, although distant from the camp-fire, was
+numerous, advised that we should retrace our steps. We however
+interrogated the boy, who would scarcely answer, and pretended to know
+nothing. The dog began to be inquisitive too, and one of the dogs we had
+with us venturing a little too near a savoury piece of pork, the nature
+of the young half-bred ruffian suddenly blazed out, and the axe was
+uplifted to kill poor Dash. I happened to have a good stick, and
+interfered to prevent dog-murder, upon which the wood-demon ejaculated
+that he would as soon let out my guts as the dog's, and therefore my
+companion had to show his gun; for showing his teeth would have been of
+little avail with the young savage.</p>
+
+<p>The settlers are afraid of the lumberers; and thus all the finest land,
+near rivers, creeks, or transport of any kind, is swept of the timber to
+such an extent that you must go now far, far back from the Lakes, the
+St. Lawrence, or the Ottawa, before you can see the forest in its
+primeval grandeur.</p>
+
+<p>This robbery has been carried on in so barefaced and extensive a manner,
+that the chief adventurer, usually a merchant or trader, who supplies
+the axe and canoemen with pay in his shop goods, cent. per cent. above
+their value, becomes enriched.</p>
+
+<p>The lumberer's life is truly an unhappy one, for, when he reaches the
+end of the raft's voyage, whatever money he may have made goes to the
+fiddle, the female, or the fire-water; and he starts again as poor as at
+first, living perhaps by a rare chance to the advanced age, for a
+lumberer, of forty years.</p>
+
+<p>And a curious sight is a raft, joined together not with ropes but with
+the limbs and thews of the swamp or blue beech, which is the natural
+cordage of Canada and is used for scaffolding and packing.</p>
+
+<p>A raft a quarter of a mile long&mdash;I hope I do not exaggerate, for it may
+be half a mile, never having measured one but by the eye&mdash;with its
+little huts of boards, its apologies for flags and streamers, its
+numerous little masts and sails, its cooking caboose, and its
+contrivances for anchoring and catching the wind by slanting boards,
+with the men who appear on its surface as if they were walking on the
+lake, is curious enough; but to see it in <i>drams</i>, or detached portions,
+sent down foaming and darting along the timber slides of the Ottawa or
+the restless and rapid Trent, is still more so; and fearful it is to
+observe its <i>conducteur</i>, who looks in the rapid by no means so much at
+his ease as the functionary of that name to whom the Paris diligence is
+entrusted.</p>
+
+<p>Numberless accidents happen; the drams are torn to pieces by the
+violence of the stream; the rafts are broken by storm and tempest; the
+men get drunk and fall over; and altogether it appears extraordinary
+that a raft put together at the Trent village for its final voyage to
+Quebec should ever reach its destination, the transport being at least
+four hundred and fifty miles, and many go much farther, through an open
+and ever agitated fresh water sea, and amongst the intricate channels of
+The Thousand Islands, and down the tremendous rapids of the Longue
+Sault, the Gallope, the Cedars, the Cascades, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>But a new trade, has lately commenced on Lake Ontario, which will break
+up some of the hardships of the rafting. Old steamboats of very large
+size, when no longer serviceable in their vocation, are now cut down,
+and perhaps lengthened, masted, and rigged as barques or ships, and
+treated in every respect like the Atlantic timber-vessels. Into these
+three-masters, these Leviathans of Lake Ontario, the timber, boards,
+staves, handspikes, &amp;c., from the interior are now shipped, and the
+timber carried to the head of the St. Lawrence navigation.</p>
+
+<p>One step more, and they will, as soon as the canals are widened, proceed
+from Lake Superior to London without a raft being ever made.</p>
+
+<p>That this will soon occur is very evident; for a large vessel of this
+kind, as big as a frigate, and named the Goliath, is at the moment that
+I am writing preparing at Toronto, near the head of Lake Ontario, a
+thousand miles from the open sea, for a voyage direct to the West Indies
+and back again. Success to her! What with the railroad from Halifax to
+Lake Huron, from the Atlantic Ocean to the great fresh ocean of the
+West&mdash;what with the electric telegraph now in operation on the banks of
+the Niagara by the Americans&mdash;what with the lighting of villages on the
+shores of Lake Erie with natural gas, as Fredonia is lit, and as the
+city of the Falls of Niagara, if ever it is built, will also be, there
+is no telling what will happen: at all events, the poor lumberer must
+benefit in the next generation, for the worst portion of his toils will
+be done away with for ever.</p>
+
+<p>Settler, never become a lumberer, if you can avoid it.</p>
+
+<p>But, as we have in this favourite hobbyhorse style of ours, which causes
+description to start up as recollections occur, accompanied the lumberer
+on his voyage to that lumberer's Paradise, Quebec, whither he has
+conducted his charge to The Coves, for the culler to cull, the marker to
+mark, the skipper to ship, and the lumber-merchant to get the best
+market he can for it, so we shall return for a short time to Lower
+Canada, to talk a little about settlement there.</p>
+
+<p>As I hinted before, Lower Canada is too much decried as a country to
+re-commence the world in; but the Anglo-Saxon and Milesian populace are
+nevertheless beginning to discover its value, and are very rapidly
+increasing both in numbers and importance. The French Canadian yeoman,
+or small farmer, has an alacrity at standing still; it is only <i>le
+notaire</i> and <i>le med&eacute;cin</i> that advance; so that, if emigration goes on
+at the rate it has done since the rebellion, the old country folks will,
+before fifty more years pass over, outnumber and outvote, by ten times,
+Jean Baptiste, which is a pity, for a better soul than that merry
+mixture of bonhomie and phlegm, the French Canadian is, the wide world's
+surface does not produce. Visionary notions of <i>la gloire de la nation
+Canadienne</i>, instilled into him by restless men, who panted for
+distinction and cared not for distraction, misled the <i>bonnet rouge</i>
+awhile: but he has superadded the thinking cap since; and, although he
+may not readily forget the sad lesson he received, yet he has no more
+idea of being annexed to the United States than I have of being Grand
+Lama. In fact, I really believe that the merciful policy which has been
+shown, and the wise measure of making Montreal the seat of government,
+and thus practically demonstrating the advantage of the institutions of
+England by daily lessons in the heart of their dear country, has done
+more to recall the Canadians to a sense of the real value of the
+connexion with Great Britain than all the protocols of diplomatists, or
+all the powder that ever saltpetre generated, could have achieved.</p>
+
+<p>Pursue a perfectly impartial course, as you ought and must do, towards
+the Canadians, and show them that they are as much British citizens as
+the people of Toronto are, and you may count upon their loyalty and
+devotion without fear. They know they never can be an independent
+nation; that folly has been dreamed out, and the fumes of the vision are
+evaporating.</p>
+
+<p>They now know and feel that annexation to the great Republic in their
+neighbourhood will swamp their nationality more effectively than the red
+or the blue coats of England can ever do, will desecrate their altars,
+will portion out their lands, will nullify their present importance, and
+render them an isolated race, forgotten and unsought for, as the
+Iroquois of the last century, who, from being the children and owners of
+the land, the true <i>enfans du sol</i>, are now&mdash;where? The soil, had it
+voice, could alone reply, for on its surface they are not.</p>
+
+<p>We must never in England form a false estimate of the French Canadian,
+because a few briefless lawyers or saddle-bag medical men urged them
+into rebellion. Their feelings and spirit are not of the same <i>genre</i> as
+the feelings and spirit which animated the hideous soul of the
+<i>poissardes</i> and <i>canaille</i> of Paris in 1792. There is very little or no
+poverty in Lower Canada; every man who will work there, can work; and it
+is a nation rather of small farmers than of classes, with the ideas of
+independence which property, however small, invariably generates in the
+human breast; but with that other idea also which urges it to preserve
+ancient landmarks.</p>
+
+<p>It is chiefly in the large towns and in their neighbourhood that the
+desire for exclusive nationality still exists, fostered by a rabid
+appetite for distinction in some ardent and reckless adventurers from
+the British ranks, who care little what is undermost so long as they are
+uppermost.</p>
+
+<p>The hostility of the British settlers to the French is by no means so
+great as is so carefully and constantly described, and would altogether
+cease, if not kept continually alive by Upper Canadian demonstration,
+and that desire to rule exclusively which has so long been the bane of
+this fine colony.</p>
+
+<p>It reminds one always of the morbid hatred of France, which existed
+thirty years ago in England, when Napoleon was believed, by the lower
+classes&mdash;ay, and by some of the higher too&mdash;to be Apollyon in earnest.</p>
+
+<p>I remember an old lord of the old school, whose family honours were not
+of a hundred years, and whose ancestors had been respectable traders,
+saying to me, a short time before he died, that Republican notions had
+spread so much from our peace with infidel France, that he should yet
+live to see those who possessed talent or energy enough among the middle
+class, take those honours which he was so proud of, and with the titles
+also, the estates.</p>
+
+<p>Look, said he, at the absurd decoration showered on the <i>savans</i> of
+France, Baron Cuvier, for instance; and he fell into a passion, and,
+being a French scholar, sang forth, in a paroxysm of gout, this
+<i>refrain</i>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+"Travaillez, travaillez, bon tonnelier,<br />
+Racommodez, racommodez, ton Cuvier."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>And yet he was by no means an ignorant man&mdash;was at heart a true John
+Bull, and had travelled and seen the world. He was blinded by an
+unquenchable hatred of France, a hatred which has now ceased in England
+in consequence of the facility of intercourse, but which is revived in
+France against England by those who think <i>la gloire</i> preferable to
+peace and honour.</p>
+
+<p>The miserable feudal system in Lower Canada has kept the French
+population in abeyance; that population is literally dormant, and the
+resources of the country unused; a Seigneur, now often anything but a
+Frenchman, holds an immense tract, parcelled out into little slips
+amongst a peasantry, whose ideas are as limited as their lands.
+Generation after generation has tilled these patches, until they are
+exhausted; and thus the few proprietors who have been able to emancipate
+themselves from the Seignoral thraldom sell as fast as they can obtain
+purchasers; and the Seignories lapse, by failure of descent or by
+cutting off the entail, as it may be termed, under the dominion of
+foreigners, to the people.</p>
+
+<p>It is surprising that British capitalists do not turn their attention
+more to Lower Canada, where land is thus to be bought very cheap, and
+which only requires manuring, a treatment that it rarely receives from
+a Canadian, to bring it into heart again, and where the vast extent of
+the British townships, held in free and common soccage, opens such a
+field for the agriculturist.</p>
+
+<p>These townships are rapidly opening up and improving, and the sales of
+the British American Land Company may in round numbers be said to
+average &pound;20,000 a year, or more than 40,000 acres, averaging ten
+shillings an acre.</p>
+
+<p>The day's wages for a labourer on a farm in Lower Canada may be stated
+at two shillings currency, about one shilling and eightpence sterling,
+with food and lodging; but, excepting in the towns and in the eastern
+townships, the labourers are Canadians, elsewhere chiefly Irish. In the
+large towns also they are Irish, and two shillings and sixpence is the
+usual price of a day's work at Montreal.</p>
+
+<p>There is a great demand for English or Scotch labourers in the townships
+where provisions are reasonable, and the materials for building, either
+lime, stone, brick, or wood, also very moderate in price from their
+abundance.</p>
+
+<p>Cultivated, or rather cleared, farms may be purchased now near the
+settlements for about six pounds per acre, with very often dwelling and
+farms on them, and a clear title may be readily obtained, after inquiry
+at the registry office of the county, to see whether any mortgage or
+other encumbrance exist&mdash;a course always to be adopted, both in Upper
+and Lower Canada. A settler must take the precaution of tracing the
+original grant, and that the land, if he buys from an individual, is
+neither Crown nor Clergy reserve, nor set apart for school or any other
+public purposes. Never buy, moreover, of a squatter, or land on which a
+squatter is located, for the law is very favourable to these gentry.</p>
+
+<p>A squatter is a man who, axe in hand, with his gun, dog, and baggage,
+sets himself down in the deep forest, to clear and improve; and this he
+very frequently does, both upon public and private property; and the
+Government is lenient, so that, if he makes well of it, he generally
+has a right of pre-emption, or perhaps pays up only instalments, and
+then sells and goes deeper into the bush. Every way there is difficulty
+about squatted land, and very often the squatter will significantly
+enough hint that there is such a thing as a rifle in his log castle.
+Squatters are usually Americans, of the very lowest grade, or the most
+ignorant of the Irish, who really believe they have a right to the soil
+they occupy.</p>
+
+<p>I do not profess to give an account of the Eastern Townships; the
+prospectus of the British American Land Company will do that; and, as I
+have never been through them entirely, so I could only advance
+assertion; but I believe that they are admirably adapted for English and
+Scotch settlers, and that, bounded as they are by the French Canadians
+on one side, and by the United States on the other, with every facility
+for roads, canals, and railways, they must become one of the richest,
+most and important portions of Canada before half a century has passed
+over; but it will take that time, notwithstanding railways and
+locomotives, to make Jean Baptiste a useful agriculturist; and the fly
+must be eradicated from the wheat before Lower Canada can ever come
+within a great distance of competition in the flour market with the
+upper province.</p>
+
+<p>Take a steamboat voyage from Quebec to Montreal, and you pass through
+French Canada; for, although there are very extensive settlements of the
+race below Quebec till they are lost in the rugged mountains of
+Gaspesia, yet the main body of <i>habitants</i> rest upon the low and
+tranquil shores of the St. Lawrence, for one hundred and eighty miles
+between the Castle of St. Lewis and the Cathedral of Montreal. The
+farm-houses, neat, and invariably whitewashed, line the river,
+particularly on the left bank, like a cantonment, and go back to the
+north for, at the utmost, ten or twelve miles into the then boundless
+wilderness.</p>
+
+<p>The cultivated ground is in narrow slips, fenced by the customary snake
+fence, which is nothing more than slabs of trees split coarsely into
+rails, and set up lengthways in a zig-zag form to give them stability,
+with struts, or riders, at the angles, to bind them. These farms are
+about nine hundred feet in width, and four or five miles in depth, being
+the concessions or allotments made originally by the <i>seigneurs</i> to the
+<i>censitaires</i>, or tillers of the soil. Every here and there, a long road
+is left, with cross ones, to obtain access to the farms, much in the
+same way, but not near so conveniently, or well done, as the concession
+lines in Upper Canada, which embrace large spaces of a hundred acre or
+two hundred acre lots, including many of these lots, and giving a
+sixty-six feet or a forty foot road, as the case may be, and thus
+dividing the country into a series of large parallelograms, and making
+every farm accessible.</p>
+
+<p>Each Lower French Canadian farmer is an independent yeoman, excepting as
+bound to the soil, and to certain seignorial dues and privileges, which
+are, however, trifling, and far from burthensome. Taxes are unknown,
+and they cheerfully support their priesthood.</p>
+
+<p>It is not generally known in England that the feudal tenure&mdash;although
+very laughable and absurd at this time of day, and from which some
+seigneurs, but never those of unmixed French blood, are disposed to
+claim titles equivalent to the baronage of England, with incomes of
+about a thousand a year, or at most two, and manorial houses, resembling
+very much a substantial Buckinghamshire grazier's chateau&mdash;was
+originally established by the French monarchs for wise, highly useful,
+and benevolent purposes.</p>
+
+<p>These seigneuries were parcelled out in very large tracts of forest
+along the banks of the St. Lawrence, or the rivers and bays of Lower
+Canada, on the condition that they should be again parcelled out among
+those who would engage to cultivate them in the strips above-mentioned.
+Thus re-granted, the <i>seigneur</i> could not eject the <i>habitant</i>, but was
+allowed to receive a nominal or feudal rent from the vassal, and the
+usual droits. These droits are, first, the barbarous "<i>lods et
+ventes</i>," or one thirteenth of the money upon every transfer which the
+<i>habitant</i> makes by sale only; but the original rent can never be
+raised, whatever value the land may have attained. The rights of the
+mill, that old European appanage of the lord of the soil, were also
+reserved to the seigneur, who alone can build mills within his domain,
+or use the waters within his boundaries for mechanical purposes; but he
+must erect them at convenient distances, and must make and repair roads.
+The miller, therefore, takes toll of the grist, which is another source
+of seignorial revenue, although not a very great one, for the toll is,
+excepting the miller's thumb rights, not very large.</p>
+
+<p>The crown of England is the lord paramount or suzerain, and demands a
+tax of one fifth of the purchase-money of each seignory sold or
+transferred by the lord of the manor.</p>
+
+<p>By law, the lands cannot be subdivided, and if a seigneurie is sold it
+cannot be sold in parts, nor can any compromise with the habitants for
+rent, or any other claim or incumbrance, be made.</p>
+
+<p>An institution like this paralyzes the resident, paralyzes the settler,
+and destroys that aristocracy for whose benefit it was created; for it
+prevents the lord of the manor from ever becoming rich, or taking much
+interest in the improvement of his domain; and thus every thing
+continues as it was a hundred years ago. The British emigrant pauses ere
+he buys land thus enthralled; and almost all the old French families,
+who dated from Charlemagne, Clovis, or Pepin, from the Merovingian or
+Carlovingian monarchies, have disappeared and dwindled away, and their
+places have been supplied by the more enterprising, or the <i>nouveau
+riche</i> men of the old world, or by restless, acute lawyers, and
+metaphysical body-curers.</p>
+
+<p>It was no wonder, therefore, that, upon the removal of the seat of
+government from Toronto, and the appointment of a governor-general
+untrammelled by the lieutenant governorship of Western Canada, over
+which he had had before no control, that it should be considered
+desirable by degrees to introduce the English land system throughout
+Canada, and that parliamentary inquiry should be made into the necessity
+of abolishing all feudal taxation. In Montreal this has been done, and,
+as the seignoral rights of succession lapse, it will soon be done every
+where, for the recent enactments have emancipated many already.</p>
+
+<p>But no sensible or feeling mind will desire to see the French Canadian
+driven to break up all at once habits formed by ages of contentment;
+and, as it does not press upon them beyond their ready endurance, why
+should we, to please a few rich capitalists or merchants, suddenly force
+a British population into the heart of French Canada?</p>
+
+<p>Jean Baptiste is too good a fellow to desire this. On our part, we
+should not forget his truly amiable character; we should not forget the
+services he rendered to us, when our children fought to drive us from
+our last hold on the North American continent; we should not forget his
+worthy and excellent priesthood; nor should we ever lose sight of the
+fact, that he is contented under the old system. Above all, we should
+never forget that he fought our battles when his Gallic sires joined our
+revolted children.</p>
+
+<p>I feel persuaded that, if an unhappy war must take place between the
+United States and England, the French Canadians will prove, as they did
+before on a similar occasion, loyal to a man.</p>
+
+<p>All animosity, all heart-burning, will be forgotten, and the old French
+glory will shine again, as it did under De Salaberry.</p>
+
+<p>Ma foi, nous ne sommes pas perdus, encore; and some hero of the war has
+only to rouse himself and cry, as Roland did,</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 18em;">
+Suivez, mon panage &eacute;clatant,<br />
+Fran&ccedil;ais ainsi que ma banni&egrave;re;<br />
+Qu'il soit point du ralliement,<br />
+Vous savez tous quel prix attend<br />
+Le brave, qui dans la carri&egrave;re,<br />
+Marche sur le pas de Roland.<br />
+Mourons pour notre patrie<br />
+C'est le sort le plus beau et le plus digne d'envie.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h4><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p class="center">A journey to the Westward.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>We must leave Roncesvalles and La Gloire awhile, and, instead of riding
+a war horse, canter along upon the hobby, or a good serviceable Canadian
+pony, the best of all hobbies for seeing the Canadian world, and on
+which mettlesome charger we can much better instruct the emigrant than
+by long prosings about political economy and systematic colonisation.</p>
+
+<p>So, <i>en avant</i>! I am going to relate the incidents of a journey last
+summer to the Westward, and to give all the substance of my observations
+on men and things made therein.</p>
+
+<p>I left Kingston on the 26th of June, in the Princess Royal mail steamer,
+at 8 p.m., the usual hour of starting being seven, for Toronto; the
+weather unusually cold.</p>
+
+<p>This fine boat constitutes, with two others, the City of Toronto and the
+Sovereign, the royal mail line between Kingston and Toronto. All are
+built nearly alike, are first class seaboats, and low pressure; they
+combine, with the Highlander, the Canada, and the Gildersleave, also
+splendid vessels, to form a mail route to Montreal&mdash;the latter boats
+taking the mail as far as Coteau du Lac, forty-five miles from Montreal,
+on which route a smaller vessel, the Chieftain, plies, wherein you
+sleep, at anchor, or rather moored, till daylight, if going down, or
+going upwards, on board the mail boat.</p>
+
+<p>Passengers go from Montreal to Kingston by the mail route in twenty-four
+hours, a distance of 180 miles; a small portion, between the Cascades
+Rapids and the Coteau being traversed in a coach, on a planked road as
+smooth as a billiard-table.</p>
+
+<p>From Kingston to Toronto, or nearly the whole length of Lake Ontario,
+takes sixteen hours, the boat leaving at seven, and arriving about or
+before noon next day; performing the passage at the rate of eleven miles
+an hour, exclusively of stoppages.</p>
+
+<p>The transit between Montreal and Kingston is at the rate, including
+stoppage for daylight, the river being dangerous, of eight miles an
+hour; thus, in forty hours, the passenger passes from the seat of
+government to the largest city of Western Canada most comfortably, a
+journey which twenty years ago it always took a fortnight, and often a
+month, to accomplish, in the most precarious and uncomfortable
+manner&mdash;on board small, roasting steamers, crowded like a cattle-pen&mdash;in
+lumbering leathern conveniences, miscalled coaches, over roads which
+enter not into the dreams of Britons&mdash;by canoes&mdash;by bateaux, (a sort of
+coal barges,)&mdash;by schooners, where the cabin could never permit you to
+display either your length, your breadth, or your thickness, and thus
+reducing you to a point in creation, according to Euclid and his
+commentators.</p>
+
+<p>Your <i>compagnons de voyage</i>, on board a bateau or Durham boat, which was
+a <i>monstre</i> bateau, were French Canadian voyageurs, always drunk and
+always gay, who poled you along up the rapids, or rushed down them with
+what will be will be.</p>
+
+<p>These happy people had a knack of examining your goods and chattels,
+which they were conveying in the most admirable manner, and with the
+utmost <i>sang-froid</i>; but still they were above stealing&mdash;they only
+tapped the rum cask or the whiskey barrel, and appropriated any cordage
+wherewith you bound your chests and packages. I never had a chest, box,
+or bale sent up by bateau or Durham boat that escaped this rope mail.</p>
+
+<p>By the by, the Durham boat, a long decked barge, square ahead, and
+square astern, has vanished; Ericson's screw-propellers have crushed it.
+It was neither invented by nor named after Lord Durham, but was as
+ancient as Lambton House itself.</p>
+
+<p>The way the conductors of these boats found out vinous liquors was, as
+brother Jonathan so playfully observes, a <i>caution</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I have known an instance of a cask of wine, which, for security from
+climate, had an outer case or cask strongly secured over it, with an
+interior space for neutralizing frost or heat, bored so carefully that
+you could never discover how it had been effected, and a very
+considerable quantum of beverage extracted.</p>
+
+<p>I once had a small barrel, perhaps twenty gallons of commissariat West
+India ration rum, the best of all rum for liqueurs, sucked dry. Of
+course, it had leaked, but I never could discover the leak, and it held
+any liquid very well afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>I know the reader likes a story, and as this is not by any means an
+historical or scientific work, excepting always the geological portion
+thereof, I will tell him or her, as the case may be, a story about
+ration rum.</p>
+
+<p>There was a funny fellow, an Irish auctioneer at Kingston, some years
+ago, called Paddy Moran, whom all the world, priest and parson, minister
+and methodist, soldier and sailor, tinker and tailor, went to hear when
+he mounted his rostrum.</p>
+
+<p>He was selling the goods of a quarter-master-general who was leaving the
+place. At last he came to the cellar and the rum. "Now, gintlemin," says
+Moran, "I advise you to buy this rum, 7s. 6d. a gallon! going, going!
+Gintlemin, I was once a sojer&mdash;don't laugh, you officers there, for I
+was&mdash;and a sirjeant into the bargain. It wasn't in the Irish
+militia&mdash;bad luck to you, liftenant, for laughing that way, it will
+spoil the rum! I was the tip-top of the sirjeants of the regiment&mdash;long
+life to it! Yes, I was quarter-master-sirjeant, and hadn't I the sarving
+out of the rations; and didn't I know what good ration rum was; and
+didn't I help meself to the prime of it! Well, then, gintlemin and
+ladies&mdash;I mane, Lord save yees, ladies and gintlemin&mdash;if a
+quarter-master-sirjeant in the army had good rum, what the devil do you
+think a quarter-master-general gets?"</p>
+
+<p>The rum rose to fifteen shillings per gallon at the next bid.</p>
+
+<p>You can have every convenience on board a Lake Ontario mail-packet,
+which is about as large as a small frigate, and has the usual sea
+equipment of masts, sails, and iron rigging. The fare is five dollars in
+the cabin, or about &pound;1 sterling; and two dollars in the steerage. In the
+former you have tea and breakfast, in the latter nothing but what is
+bought at the bar. By paying a dollar extra you may have a state-room on
+deck, or rather on the half-deck, where you find a good bed, a large
+looking-glass, washing-stand and towels, and a night-lamp, if required.
+The captains are generally part owners, and are kind, obliging, and
+communicative, sitting at the head of their table, where places for
+females and families are always reserved. The stewards and waiters are
+coloured people, clean, neat, and active; and you may give
+sevenpence-halfpenny or a quarter-dollar to the man who cleans your
+boots, or an attentive waiter, if you like; if not, you can keep it, as
+they are well paid.</p>
+
+<p>The ladies' cabin has generally a large cheval glass and a piano, with a
+white lady to wait, who is always decked out in flounces and furbelows,
+and usually good-looking. All you have got to do on embarking or on
+disembarking is to see personally to your luggage; for leaving it to a
+servant unacquainted with the country will not do. At Kingston, matters
+are pretty well arranged, and the carters are not so very impudent, and
+so ready to push you over the wharf; but at Toronto they are very so so,
+and want regulating by the police; and in the States, at Buffalo
+particularly, the porters and carters are the most presuming and
+insolent serviles I ever met with; they rush in a body on board the
+boat, and respect neither persons nor things.</p>
+
+<p>I knew an American family composed chiefly of females, travelling to the
+Falls; and these ladies had their baggage taken to a train going inland,
+whilst they were embarking on board the British boat which was to convey
+them to Chippewa in Canada.</p>
+
+<p>The comfort of some of these boats, as they call them, but which ought
+to be called ships, is very great. There is a regular drawingroom on
+board one called the Chief Justice where I saw, just after the
+horticultural show at Toronto, pots of the most rare and beautiful
+flowers, arranged very tastefully, with a piano, highly-coloured
+nautical paintings and portraits, and a <i>tout ensemble</i>, which, when the
+lamps were lit, and conversation going on between the ladies and
+gentlemen then and there assembled, made one quite forget we were at sea
+on Lake Ontario, the "Beautiful Lake," which, like other beautiful
+creations, can be very angry if vexed.</p>
+
+<p>The Americans have very fine steam vessels on their side of the lake,
+but they are flimsily constructed, painted glaringly, white, and green,
+and yellow, without comfort or good attendance, and with a
+devil-may-care sort of captain, who seems really scarcely to know or to
+care whether he has passengers or has not, a scrambling hurried meal,
+and divers other unmentionables.</p>
+
+<p>The American gentry always prefer the British boats, for two good
+reasons; they see Queen Victoria's people, and they meet with the utmost
+civility, attention, and comfort. They sit down to dinner, or
+breakfast, or tea, like Christian men and women, where there is no
+railway eating and drinking; where due time is spent in refreshing the
+body and spirits; and where people help each other, or the waiters help
+them, at table, without a scramble, like hogs, for the best and the
+most&mdash;a custom which all travelled Americans detest and abominate as
+much as the most fastidious Englishman.</p>
+
+<p>It is not unusual at hotel dinners, or on board steamers, to see a man,
+I cannot call him a gentleman, sitting next a female, totally neglect
+her, and heap his plate with fish, with flesh, with pie, with pudding,
+with potato, with cranberry jam, with pickles, with salad, with all and
+every thing then within his reach, swallow in a trice all this jumble of
+edibles, jump up and vanish.</p>
+
+<p>Can such a being have a stomach, or a digestion, and must he not
+necessarily, about thirty-five years of age, be yellow, spare, and
+parchment-skinned, with angular projections, and a prodigious tendency
+to tobacco?</p>
+
+<p>An American gentleman&mdash;mind, I lay a stress upon the second word&mdash;never
+bolts his victuals, never picks his teeth at table, never spits upon the
+carpet, or guesses; he knows not gin-sling, and he eschews mint-julep;
+but he does, I am ashamed to say, admire a sherry cobbler, particularly
+if he does not get a second-hand piece of vermicelli to suck it through.
+Reader, do you know what a sherry cobbler is? I will enlighten you. Let
+the sun shine at about 80&deg; Fahrenheit. Then take a lump of ice; fix it
+at the edge of a board; rasp it with a tool made like a drawing knife or
+carpenter's plane, set face upwards. Collect the raspings, the fine
+raspings, mind, in a capacious tumbler; pour thereon two glasses of good
+sherry, and a good spoonful of powdered white sugar, with a few small
+bits, not slices, but bits of lemon, about as big as a gooseberry. Stir
+with a wooden macerator. Drink through a tube of macaroni or vermicelli.
+<i>C'est l'eau benite</i>, as the English lord said to the <i>gar&ccedil;on</i> at the
+Milles Colonnes, when he first tasted real <i>parfait amour</i>.&mdash;<i>C'est
+beaucoup mieux</i>, <i>Milor</i>, answered the waiter with a profound
+reverence.</p>
+
+<p>Gin-sling, cock-tail, mint-julep, are about as vulgar as blue ruin and
+old tom at home; but sherry cobbler is an affair of consideration&mdash;only
+never pound your ice, always rasp it.</p>
+
+<p>It is a custom on board the Canadian steamers for gentlemen to call for
+a pint of wine at dinner, or for a bottle, according to the strength of
+the party; but it is a custom more honoured in the breach than the
+observance; for sherry and port are the usual stock, both fiery as
+brandy, and costing the moderate price of seven shillings and sixpence a
+bottle, the steward having laid the same in at about one shilling and
+eight pence, or at most two shillings. Why this imposition, the only one
+you meet with in travelling in Canada at hotels or steamboats, is
+perpetrated and perpetuated, I could never learn.</p>
+
+<p>Many American gentlemen, however, encourage it, and have told me that
+they do so because they get no good port in the States. Ale and porter
+are charged two shillings and sixpence a bottle, which is double their
+worth. Be careful also not to drink freely of the iced water, which is
+always supplied <i>ad libitum</i>. Few Europeans escape the effects of
+water-drinking when they land at Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, Toronto,
+&amp;c. There is something peculiar, which has never yet been satisfactorily
+explained by medical men, in the sudden attack upon the system produced
+by the waters of Canada: this is sometimes slight, but more often lasts
+several days, and reduces the strength a good deal. Iced water is worse,
+and produces country cholera. The Americans use ice profusely, and drink
+such draughts of iced water, that I have been astonished at the impunity
+with which they did so.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the change from a moist sea atmosphere to the dry and
+desiccating air of Canada, where iron does not rust, may be one cause of
+the malady alluded to, and another, in addition to the water, the
+difference of cookery; for here, at public tables and on board the boats
+generally, where black cooks prevail, all is butter and grease.</p>
+
+<p>But the change of climate is undoubtedly great. I had been long an
+inhabitant of Upper Canada, and fancied myself seasoned; but, having
+returned to England, and spending afterwards two or three years in the
+excessively humid air of the sea-coast of Newfoundland at St. Johns,
+where I became somewhat stout, on my return to Upper Canada, for want of
+a little preparatory caution in medicine, although naturally of a spare
+habit, I was seized with a violent bleeding at the nose, which baffled
+all remedies for several months, until artificial mineral water and a
+copious use of solutions of iron stopped it. No doubt this prevented the
+fever of the lakes, and was owing to the dryness of the air. I mention
+this to caution all new-comers, young and old, to take timely advice and
+medicine.</p>
+
+<p>There is another complaint in Upper Canada, which attacks the settler
+very soon after his arrival, especially if young, and that is worms; a
+disorder very prevalent at all times in Canada, particularly among the
+poorer classes, and probably owing to food.</p>
+
+<p>These, with ague and colic, or country cholera, are the chief evils of
+the clime; few are, however, fatal, excepting the lake fever, and that
+principally among children.</p>
+
+<p>The sportsman should recollect, in so marshy and woody a country,
+subject as it is to the most surprising alternations of temperature,
+that instead of minding that celebrated rule, "Keep your powder dry," he
+should read, "Keep your feet dry." Dry feet and the avoidance of sitting
+in wet or damp clothes, or drinking iced water when hot, or of cooling
+yourself in a delicious draught of air when in a perspiration, are the
+best precautions against ague, fever, colic, or cholera&mdash;in a country
+where the thermometer reaches 90&deg; in the shade, and sometimes 110&deg;, as
+it did last summer, and 27&deg; below zero in the winter, with rapid
+alternations embracing such a range of the scale as is unknown
+elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>In the country places, in travelling, you will invariably find that
+windows are very little attended to, and that the head of your bed, or
+the side of it, is placed against a loosely-fitting broken sash. The
+night-fogs and damps are highly dangerous to new-comers; so act
+accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>Fleas and bugs, and "such small deer," you must expect in every inn you
+stop at, even in the cities; for it appears&mdash;and indeed I did not know
+the fact until this year&mdash;that bugs are indigenous, <i>native to the
+soil</i>, and breed in the bark of old trees; so that if you build a new
+house, you bring the enemy into your camp. Nothing but cleanliness and
+frequent whitewash, colouring, paint, and soft soap, will get rid of
+them. If it were not for the strong smell of red cedar and its extreme
+brittleness, I would have my bedstead of that material; for even the
+iron bedsteads, in the soldiers' barracks, become infested with them if
+not painted often. Red cedar they happily eschew.</p>
+
+<p>Travellers may talk as they please of mosquitoes being the scourge of
+new countries; the bugs in Canada are worse, and the black fly and
+sand-fly superlatively superior in annoyance. The black fly exists in
+the neighbourhood of rivers or swamps, and attacks you behind the ear,
+drawing a pretty copious supply of blood at each bite. The sand-fly, as
+its name imports, exists in sandy soil, and is so small that it cannot
+be seen without close inspection; its bite is sharp and fiery.</p>
+
+<p>Then the farmer has the wheat-fly and the turnip-fly to contend against;
+the former has actually devoured Lower Canada, and the latter has
+obliged me in a garden to sow several successive crops. The melon-bug is
+another nuisance; it is a small winged animal, of a bright yellow
+colour, striped with black bars, and takes up its abode in the flower of
+the melon and pumpkin, breeding fast, and destroying wherever it
+settles, for young plants are literally eaten up by it.</p>
+
+<p>The grub, living under ground in the daytime, and sallying forth at
+night, is a ferocious enemy to cabbage-plants, lettuce, and most of the
+young, tender vegetables; but, by taking a lantern and a pan after dark,
+the gentlemen can be collected whilst on their tour, and poultry are
+very fond of them. Last year, the potato crop failed throughout Canada.
+What a singular dispensation!&mdash;for it alike suffered in Europe, and no
+doubt the malady was atmospheric. The hay crop, too, suffered severely;
+but still, by a merciful Providence, the wheat and corn harvest was
+ample, and gathered in a month before the customary time.</p>
+
+<p>By the word corn I mean oats, rye, and barley; but in the Canadas and in
+the United States that word means maize or Indian-corn only, which in
+Canada, last summer, was not, I should think, even an average crop. It
+is extensively used here for food, as well as buckwheat, and for feeding
+poultry.</p>
+
+<p>But to our journey westward. I arrived at Toronto on the 27th of June,
+and found the weather had changed to variable and fine.</p>
+
+<p>On steaming up the harbour, I was greatly surprised and very much
+pleased to see such an alteration as Toronto has undergone for the
+better since 1837. Then, although a flourishing village, be-citied, to
+be sure, it was not one third of its present size. Now it is a city in
+earnest, with upwards of twenty thousand inhabitants&mdash;gas-lit, with good
+plank side-walks and macadamized streets, and with vast sewers, and fine
+houses, of brick or stone. The main street, King Street, is two miles
+and more in length, and would not do shame to any town, and has a much
+more English look than most Canadian places have.</p>
+
+<p>Toronto is still the seat of the Courts of Law for Western Canada, of
+the University of King's College, of the Bishopric of Toronto, and of
+the Indian Office. Kingston has retained the militia head-quarter
+office, and the Principal Emigrant Agency, with the Naval and Military
+grand dep&ocirc;ts; so that the removal of the seat of Government to Montreal
+has done no injury to Toronto, and will do very little to Kingston: in
+fact, I believe firmly that, instead of being injurious, it will be very
+beneficial. The presence of Government at Kingston gave an unnatural
+stimulus to speculation among a population very far from wealthy; and
+buildings of the most frail construction were run up in hundreds, for
+the sake of the rent which they yielded temporarily.</p>
+
+<p>The plan upon which these houses were erected was that of mortgage; thus
+almost all are now in possession of one person who became suddenly
+possessed of the requisite means by the sale of a large tract required
+for military purposes. But this species of property seldom does the
+owner good in his lifetime; and, if he does reclaim it, there is no
+tenant to be had now; so that the building decays, and in a very short
+time becomes an incumbrance. Mortgages only thrive where the demand is
+superior and certain to the investment; and then, if all goes smoothly,
+mortgager and mortgagee may benefit; but where a mechanic or a
+storekeeper, with little or no capital, undertakes to run up an
+extensive range of houses to meet an equivocal demand, the result is
+obvious. If the houses he builds are of stone or brick, and well
+finished, the man who loans the money is the gainer; if they are of
+wood, indifferently constructed and of green materials, both must
+suffer. So it is a speculation, and, like all speculations, a good deal
+of repudiation mixes up with it.</p>
+
+<p>There are two good houses of entertainment for the gentleman traveller
+in Toronto; the Club House in Chewett's Buildings and Macdonald's Hotel.
+In the former, a bachelor will find himself quite at home; in the
+latter, a family man will have no reason to regret his stay.</p>
+
+<p>But servants at Toronto&mdash;by which I mean <i>attendants</i>&mdash;are about on a
+par with the same race all over Canada. The coloured people are the
+best, but never make yourself dependent on either; for, if you are to
+start by the stage or the steamer, depend on your watch, instead of upon
+your boots being cleaned or your shaving-water being ready. In the
+latter case, shave with cold water by the light of your candle, lit by
+your own lucifer match. They are civil, however, and attentive, as far
+as the very free and easy style of their acquirements will permit them;
+for a cook will leave at a moment's notice, if she can better herself;
+and any trivial occurrence will call off the waiter and the boots. The
+only punctual people are the porters; and, as they wear glazed hats,
+with the name of the hotel emblazoned thereon, frigate-fashion, you can
+always find them.</p>
+
+<p>An excellent arrangement is the omnibus attached to the hotels in Canada
+West, which conveys you cost-free to and from the steamboat, and a very
+comfortable wooden convenience it is, resembling very much the vans
+which, in days of yore, plied near London.</p>
+
+<p>My first start from Toronto was to Ultima Thule, Penetanguishene, a
+locality scarcely to be found in the maps, and yet one of much
+importance, situate and being north-north-west of the city some hundred
+and eight miles, on Lake Huron.</p>
+
+<p>The route is per coach to St. Alban's, thirty and three miles, along
+Yonge Street, of which about one-third is macadamized from granite
+boulders; the rest mud and etceteras, too numerous to mention. Yonge
+Street is a continuous settlement, with an occasional sprinkling of the
+original forest. The land on each side is fertile, and supplies Toronto
+market.</p>
+
+<p>It rises gradually by those singular steps, or ridges, formerly banks or
+shores o&pound; antediluvian oceans, till it reaches the vicinity of the
+Holland river, a tortuous, sluggish, marshy, natural canal, flowing or
+lazily creeping into Lake Simcoe, at an elevation of upwards of
+seven-hundred and fifty feet above Lake Ontario, and emptying itself
+into Lake Huron by a series of rapids, called the Matchedash or Severn
+River.</p>
+
+<p>The first quarter of the route to St. Alban's is a series of
+country-houses, gentlemen's seats, half-pay officers' farms, prettily
+fenced, and pleasant to the sight: the next third embraces Thornhill, a
+nice village in a hollow; Richmond Hill, with a beautiful prospect and
+detached settlements: the ultimate third is a rich, undulating country,
+inhabited by well-to-do Quakers, with Newmarket on their right, and
+looking for all the world very like "dear home," with orchards, and as
+rich corn-fields and pastures as may be seen any where, backed,
+however, by the eternal forest. It is peculiarly and particularly
+beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>A short distance before reaching St. Alban's, which is quite a new
+village, the road descends rapidly, and the ground is broken into
+hummocks.</p>
+
+<p>But I must not forget Bond's Lake, a most singular feature of this part
+of the road, which, perhaps, I shall treat of in returning from
+Penetanguishene, as I am now in a hurry to get to St. Alban's.</p>
+
+<p>Here, where all was scrub forest in 1837, are a little street, a house
+of some pretension occupied by Mr. Laughton, the enterprising owner of
+the Beaver steamboat, plying on Lake Simcoe, and two inns.</p>
+
+<p>I stopped for the night, for Yonge Street is still a tiresome journey,
+although only a stage of thirty three miles, at Winch's Tavern. This is
+a very good road-side house, and the landlord and landlady are civil and
+attentive. Before you go to roost, for stopping by the way-side is
+pretty much like roosting, as you must be up with Chanticleer, you can
+just look over Mr. Laughton's paling, and you will see as pretty a
+florist's display as may be imagined. The owner is fond of flowers, and
+he has lots of them, and, when you make his acquaintance afterwards in
+the Beaver, you will find that he has lots of information also. But I
+did not go in the Beaver, which ship "wharfs" some two or three miles
+further ahead, at Holland River Landing, commonly called "the Landing,"
+par excellence. Here flies, mosquitoes, ague, and other plagues, are so
+rife, that all attempts at settlement are vanity and vexation of spirit.</p>
+
+<p>So, being willing to see what had happened in Gwillimbury since 1837, I
+took a waggon and the land road, and went off as day broke, or rather
+before it broke, about four a.m., in a deep gray mist. The waggon should
+be described, as it is the best <i>voiture</i> in Western Canada.</p>
+
+<p>Four wheels, of a narrow tire, are attached without any springs to a
+long body, formed of straight boards, like a piano-case, only more
+clumsy; in which, resting on inside rims or battens, are two seats, with
+or without backs, generally without, on which, perhaps, a hay-cushion,
+or a buffalo-skin, or both, are placed. Two horses, good, bad, or
+indifferent, as the case may be, the positive and comparative degrees
+being the commonest, drag you along with a clever driver, who can turn
+his hand to chopping, carpentering, wheelwright's work, playing the
+fiddle, drinking, or any other sort of thing, and is usually an Irishman
+or an Irishman's son. For two dollars and a half a day he will drive you
+to Melville Island, or Parry's Sound, if you will only stick by him; and
+he jogs along, smoking his <i>dudeen</i>, over corduroy roads, through mud
+holes that would astonish a cockney, and over sand and swamp, rocks and
+rough places enough to dislocate every joint in your body, all his own
+being anchylosed or used to it, which is the same thing, in the
+dictionary.</p>
+
+<p>He will keep you <i>au courant</i>, at the same time, tell the name of every
+settler and settlement, and some good stories to boot. He is a capital
+fellow, is "Paddy the driver," generally a small farmer, and always has
+a contract with the commissariat.</p>
+
+<p>The first place of any note we came to, as day broke out of the blue fog
+which rose from the swampy forest, was Holland River Bridge, an
+extraordinary structure, half bridge, half road, over a swamp created by
+that river in times long gone by; a level tract of marsh and wild rice
+as far as the eye can reach, full of ducks and deer, with the Holland
+River in the midst, winding about like a serpentine canal, and looking
+as if it had been fast asleep since its last shake of the ague.</p>
+
+<p>Crossing this bridge-road, now in good order, but in 1837 requiring
+great dexterity and agility to pass, you come to a slight elevation of
+the land, and a little village in West Gwillimbury, which, I should
+think, is a capital place to catch lake-fever in.</p>
+
+<p>The road to it is good, but, after passing it and turning northwards,
+is but little improved, being very primitive through the township of
+Innisfil. However, we jogged along in mist and rain, on the 29th of
+June, and saw the smoke, ay, and smelt it too, of numerous clearings or
+forest burnings, indicating settlement, till we reached Wilson's Tavern,
+where, every body having the ague, it was somewhat difficult to get
+breakfast. This is thirteen miles from St. Alban's.</p>
+
+<p>Having refreshed, however, with such as it was, we visited Mr. Wilson's
+stable, and saw a splendid stud horse which he was rearing, and as
+handsome a thorough-bred black as you could wish to see in the
+backwoods.</p>
+
+<p>Proceeding in rain, we drove, by what in England would be called an
+execrable road, through the townships of Innisfil and Vespra to Barrie,
+the capital hamlet of the district of Simcoe.</p>
+
+<p>On emerging from the woods three or four miles from Barrie, Kempenfeldt
+Bay suddenly appears before you, and if the road was better, a more
+beautiful ride there is not in all broad Canada. Fancy, however, that,
+without any Hibernicism, the best road is in the water of the lake. This
+is owing to the swampy nature of the land, and to the circumstance that
+a belt of hard sand lines the edge of the bay; so Paddy drove smack into
+the water of Kempenfeldt, and, as he said, sure we were travelling by
+water every way, for we had a deluge of rain above, and Lake Simcoe
+under us.</p>
+
+<p>But natheless we arrived at Barrie by mid-day, a very fair journey of
+twenty-eight miles in eight hours, over roads, as the French say,
+<i>inconcevable</i>; and alighted like river gods at the Queen's Arms, J.
+Bingham, Barrie.</p>
+
+<p>Barrie, named after the late commodore, Sir Robert Barrie, is no common
+village, nor is the Queen's Arms a common hostel. It is a good,
+substantial, stone edifice, fitted up and kept in a style which neither
+Toronto nor Kingston, nay, nor Montreal can rival, as far as its extent
+goes. I do assure you, it is a perfect paradise after the road from St.
+Alban's; and, as the culinary department is unexceptionable, and the
+beds free from bugs, and all neatness and no noise, I will award Mrs.
+Bingham a place in these pages, which must of course immortalize her.
+They are English people; and, when I last visited their house, in 1837,
+had only a log-hut: now they are well to do, and have built themselves a
+neat country-house.</p>
+
+<p>When I first saw Barrie, or rather before Barrie was, as I passed over
+its present site, in 1831, there was but one building and a little
+clearance. In 1846, it is fast approaching to be a town, and will be a
+city, as it is admirably placed at the bottom of an immense inlet of
+Lake Simcoe, with every capability of opening a communication with the
+new settlements of Owen Sound and St. Vincent, and the south shore of
+Lake Huron.</p>
+
+<p>It has been objected, to this opinion respecting Barrie, that the
+Narrows of Lake Simcoe is the proper site for "The City of the North,"
+as the communication by land, instead of being thirty-six miles to
+Penetanguishene, the best harbour on Lake Huron, is only fourteen, or
+at most nineteen miles, the former taking to Cold Water Creek, and the
+latter to Sturgeon Bay; but then there is a long and somewhat dangerous
+transit in the shallowest part of the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron to
+Penetanguishene.</p>
+
+<p>If a railroad was established between Barrie and the naval station, this
+would be not only the shortest but the safest route to Lake Huron; for,
+if Sturgeon Bay is chosen, in war-time the transit trade and the
+despatch of stores for the government would be subjected to continual
+hindrance and depredation from the multitude of islands and
+hiding-places between Sturgeon Bay and Penetanguishene; whilst, on the
+other hand, no sagacious enemy would penetrate the country from Sturgeon
+Bay and leave such a stronghold as Penetanguishene in his rear, whereby
+all his vessels and supplies might be suddenly cut off, and his return
+rendered impracticable.</p>
+
+<p>Barrie is, therefore, well chosen, both as a transit town and as the
+site of naval operations on Lake Simcoe, whenever they may be
+necessary.</p>
+
+<p>For this reason, government commenced the military road between Barrie
+and Penetanguishene, and settled it with pensioned soldiers, and also
+settled naval and military retired or half-pay officers all round Lake
+Simcoe. But, as we shall have to talk a good deal about this part of the
+country, and I must return by the road, let us hasten on to our night's
+lodging at the Ordnance Arms, kept by the ancient widow of J. Bruce, an
+old artilleryman.</p>
+
+<p>Since 1837, the road, then impassable for anything but horses or very
+small light waggons, has been much improved, and Paddy drove us on,
+after dinner at Bingham's, through the heavy rain <i>&agrave; merveille</i>!</p>
+
+<p>When I passed this road before, what a road it was! or, in the words of
+the eulogist of the great Highland road-maker, General Wade,</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 18em;">
+"Had you seen this road, before it was made,<br />
+You would have lift up your eyes and blessed"<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">General somebody.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>It was necessary, as late as 1837, to take a horse; and, placing your
+valise on another, mount the second with a guide. My guide was always a
+French Canadian named Fran&ccedil;ois; and many an adventure in the
+interminable forest have we experienced together; for if Fran&ccedil;ois had
+lost his way, we should have perhaps reached the Copper-mine River, or
+the Northern Frozen Ocean, and have solved the question of the passage
+from the Atlantic to the Pacific, or else we should have had a certain
+convocation of politic wolves or bears, busy in rendering us and our
+horses invisible; for, after all, they have the true receipt of fern
+seed, and you can walk about, after having suffered transmigration into
+their substance, without its ever being suspected that you were either
+an officer of engineers or a Franco-Canadian guide.</p>
+
+<p>An old and respected officer, once travelling this bridle road with
+Fran&ccedil;ois and myself, and mounted on a better horse than either of ours,
+which was lent to him by the Assistant Commissary-General stationed at
+Penetanguishene, got ahead of us considerably, and, by some accident,
+wandered into the gloomy pine forest. Missing him for a quarter of an
+hour, I rode as fast as my horse, which was not encumbered with baggage,
+would go ahead, and, observing fresh tracks of a horse's shoes in the
+mud, followed them until I heard in the depths of the endless and solemn
+woods faint shouts, which, as I came nearer to them, resolved themselves
+into the syllables of my name. I found my chief, and begged him never
+again, as he had never been there before, to think of leaving us. Had he
+gone out of sound, his fate would have been sealed, unless the horse,
+used as it was to the path, had wandered into it again; but horses and
+cattle are frequently lost in these solitudes, and, perhaps being
+frightened by the smell of the wild beasts, or, as man always does when
+lost, they wander in a circle, and thus frequently come near the place
+from which they started, but not sufficiently so to hit the almost
+invisible path.</p>
+
+<p>But although the road, excepting in the middle of summer, is still
+indifferent, it is perfectly safe, and a lady may now go to
+Penetanguishene comparatively comfortably.</p>
+
+<p>Bruce's tavern is a respectable log-house, twelve miles from Barrie; and
+here you can get the usual fare of ham, eggs, and chickens, with
+occasionally fresh meat from Barrie, and perhaps as good a bed as can be
+had in Canada. We started from Barrie at half-past two, and arrived at
+half-past five.</p>
+
+<p>Whiskey, be it known, with very atrocious brandy, is the only beverage,
+excepting water, along the country roads of Canada.</p>
+
+<p>From Bruce's we drove to Dawson's, also kept by the widow of an old
+soldier, where every thing is equally clean, respectable, and
+comfortable. It is seven miles distant.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond this is Nicoll's, near a corduroy swamp road; and three miles
+further (which place eschew), seven years ago, I heard the landlady's
+voice chiding a little girl, who had been sent a quarter of a mile for a
+jug of water. I heard the same voice again in action, and for the same
+cause, and a very dirty urchin again brought some very dirty water. In
+fact, whiskey was too plentiful and water too scarce.</p>
+
+<p>From Nicoll's to Jeff's Corner is ten long and weary miles, five or six
+of which are through the forest. Jeff's is not a tavern, so that you
+must go to bait the horses to Des Hommes, about two miles further, where
+there is no inducement to stay, it being kept by an old French Canadian,
+who has a large family of half-breeds. Therefore, on to the village of
+Penetanguishene, which is twenty miles from Bruce's, or some say
+twenty-four. We started from Bruce's at half-past three in the morning,
+and reached "The Village," as it is always called, at half-past twelve,
+on the 30th of June, and the rain still continuing ever since we left
+Toronto. Thus, with great expedition, it took the best portion of three
+days for a transit of only 108 miles. This has been done in twenty-four
+hours by another route, as I shall explain on my return.</p>
+
+<p>Penetanguishene is a small village, which has not progressed in the same
+ratio as the military road to it has done. It is peopled by French
+Canadians, Indians, and half-breeds, and is very prettily situated at
+the bottom of the harbour. Lieutenant-Colonel Phillpotts, of the Royal
+Engineers, selected this site after the peace of 1815, when Drummond's
+Island on Lake Huron was resigned to the Americans, for an asylum for
+such of the Canadian French settled there as would not transfer their
+allegiance. They migrated in a body.</p>
+
+<p>This is the nearest point of Western Canada at which the traveller from
+Europe can observe the unmixed Indian, the real wild man of the woods,
+with medals hanging in his ears, as large as the bottom of a silver
+saucepan, rings in his nose, the single tuft of hair on the scalp,
+eagle's plumes, a row of human scalps about his neck, and the other
+amiable etceteras of a painted and greased <i>sauvage</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Here also you first see the half-breed, the offspring of the white and
+red, who has all the bad qualities of both with very few of the good of
+either, except in rare instances.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h4><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p class="center">The French Canadian.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>At Penetanguishene you see the original pioneer of the West, that
+unmistakeable French Canadian, a good-natured, indolent man, who is
+never active but in his canoe singing, or <i>&agrave; la chasse</i>, a true
+<i>voyageur</i>, of which type of human society the marks are wearing out
+fast, and the imprint will ere long be illegible. It makes me serious,
+indeed, to contemplate the Canadian of the old dominant race, and I
+shall enter a little into his history.</p>
+
+<p><i>Res ardua vetustis novitatem dare</i>; and never could an author impose
+upon himself a greater task than that of endeavouring succinctly to
+trace such a history, in this age of railroads and steam-vessels, or to
+bring before the mind's eye events which have long slumbered in
+oblivion, but which it behoves thinking minds not to lose sight of.</p>
+
+<p>Man is now a locomotive animal, both as regards the faculties of mind
+and of motion; unless in the schools, in the cabinet, or in amusing
+fictions founded on fact, he rarely finds leisure to think about a
+forgotten people.</p>
+
+<p>Canada and Canadian affairs have, however, succeeded in interesting the
+public of America and the public of Europe&mdash;the "go-ahead" English
+reader in the New World&mdash;because Canada would be a very desirable
+addition to the already overgrown Republic founded by the Pilgrim
+Fathers and Europeans; because French interest looks with a somewhat
+wistful eye to the race which at one time peopled and governed so large
+a portion of the Columbian continent. Regrets, mingling with desires,
+are powerful stimulants. An unconquerable and natural jealousy exists in
+France that England should have succeeded in laying the foundations of
+an empire, which bids fair to perpetuate the glories of the Anglo-Saxon
+race in its Transatlantic dominion; whilst the true Briton, on the other
+hand, regards Canada as the apple of his eye, and sees with pleasure and
+with pride that his beloved country, forewarned by the grand error
+committed at Boston, and so prophetically denounced by Chatham, has
+obtained a fairer and more fertile field for British legitimate
+ambition.</p>
+
+<p>Tocqueville, a sensible and somewhat impartial writer, is the only
+political foreign reasoner who has done justice to Canada; but it is
+<i>par parenth&egrave;se</i> only; and even his powers of mind and of reasoning,
+nurtured as they have been in republicanism, fail to convince fearless
+hearts that democracy is a human necessity.</p>
+
+<p>That the American nation will endeavour to put a wet blanket over the
+nascent fires of Spanish ambition in the miserable new States of the
+Northern Continent, and to absorb them in the stars of Columbia, there
+can be no doubt. California, the most distant of the old American
+settlements of Spain, has felt already the bald eagle's claw; Texas is
+annexed; and unless European interests prevent it, which they must do,
+Mexico, Guatemala, Yucatan, and all the petty priest-ridden republics of
+the Isthmus, must follow, and that too very soon.</p>
+
+<p>But what do the people of the United States, (for the government is not
+a particeps, save by force,) pretend to effect by their enormous
+sovereignty? The control probably of the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards
+is the grand object, and, to effect this, Canada and Nova Scotia stand
+in the way, and Canada and Nova Scotia are therefore marked down as
+other Stars in the American galaxy.</p>
+
+<p>The Russian empire is cited, as a case in point, for immense extension
+being no obstacle to central coercion, or government, if the term be
+more pleasing.</p>
+
+<p>We forget that each individual State of the present Union repudiates
+centralization, and acts independently. Little Maine wanted to go to
+war with mighty England on its own bottom; and there was a rebellion in
+Lesser Rhode Island, which puzzled all the diplomatists very
+considerably. Now let us sketch a military picture, and bring out the
+lights and shades boldly.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose that the United States determines upon a war with Great Britain,
+let us look to the consequences. Firstly, an immense re-action has taken
+place in Canada, and a mass of growlers, who two years ago would perhaps
+have been neutral, would readily take arms now in favour of British
+institutions, simply because "impartiality" has been evinced in
+governing them.</p>
+
+<p>Next, the French Canadians have no idea of surrendering their homes,
+their laws, their language, their altars, to the restless and
+destructive people whose motto is "Liberty!" but whose mind is
+"Submission," without reservation of creed or colour.</p>
+
+<p>Then, on the boundless West, innumerable Indians, disgusted by the
+unceremonious manner in which the Big Knife has driven them out, are
+ready, at the call of another Tecumseh, to hoist the red-cross flag.</p>
+
+<p>In the South, the negro, already taught very carefully by the North a
+lesson of emancipation, only waits the hour to commence a servile and
+horrible war, worse than that exercised by the poor Cherokees and Creeks
+in Florida, which, miserable as were the numbers, scanty the resources,
+and indomitable the courage, defied the united means and skill of the
+American armies to quell.</p>
+
+<p>A person who ponders on these matters deplores the infatuation of the
+mob, or of the western backwoodsmen, who advocate war to the knife with
+England; for, should it unhappily occur and continue, war to the knife
+it must be.</p>
+
+<p>American orators have asserted that England, base as she is, dare not,
+in this enlightened age, let loose the blacks. I fear that, self-defence
+being the first law of Nature, rather than lose Canada, and rather than
+not gain it, both England and the United States will have recourse to
+every expedient likely to bring the matter to an issue, and will abide
+by that Machiavelian axiom&mdash;the end sanctifies the means.</p>
+
+<p>An abominable outcry was raised during the last war against the
+employment of the savage Indians with our armies; but the loudest in
+this vituperation forgot that the Americans did the same, as far as
+their scanty control over the Red Man permitted, and that, where it
+failed, the barbarous backwoodsman completed the tragedy.</p>
+
+<p>Making razor-strops of Tecumsehs' skin was not a very Christian
+employment, in retaliation for a scalp found wrapped up in paper in the
+writing-desk of a clerk, when the public offices were sacked at Little
+York. The poor man most likely thought it a very great curiosity; and I
+dare say there are some in the British Museum, as well as preserved
+heads of the South Sea islanders.</p>
+
+<p>A war between England and the United States is a calamity affecting the
+whole world, and, excepting for political interest, or that devouring
+fire burning in the breasts of so many for change, I am persuaded that
+the intelligence of the Union is opposed to it. America cannot sweep
+England from the seas, or blot out its escutcheon from The Temple of
+Fame. It is child's play even to dream of it. England is as vitally
+essential to the prosperity of America as America is to the prosperity
+of England; and, although American feelings are gaining ground in
+England, by which I do not mean that the President of the United States
+will ever govern our island, but independent notions and axioms similar
+to those practised in the Union; yet the time has not, nor ever will,
+arrive, that Britain will succumb to the United States, either from
+policy or fear, any more than that her grandchildren, on this side of
+the Atlantic, could pull down the Stars and Stripes, and run the meteor
+flag up to the mast-head again.</p>
+
+<p>The United States is a wonderful confederation, and Nature seems, in
+creating that people, to have given them constitutions resembling the
+summers of the northern portion of the New World, where she makes
+things grow ten times as fast as elsewhere. A grain of wheat takes a
+decent time to ripen in England, and requires the sweat of the brow and
+the labour of the hands to bring it to perfection; but in North America
+it becomes flour and food almost before it is in ear in the old country.
+Nature marches quick in America, but is soon exhausted; so her people
+there think and act ten times as fast as elsewhere, and die before they
+are aged. The women are old at thirty, and boys of fifteen are men; and
+so they ripe and ripe, and so they rot and rot.</p>
+
+<p>Everything in the States goes at a railroad pace; every carter or
+teamster is a Solon, in his own idea; and every citizen is a king <i>de
+facto</i>, for he rules the powers that be. They think in America too fast
+for genius to expand to purpose; and as their digestion is impaired by a
+Napoleonic style of eating, so very powerful and very highly cultivated
+minds are comparatively rare in the Union. There is no time for study,
+and they take a democratic road to learning.</p>
+
+<p>And yet, <i>ceteris paribus</i>, the Union produces great men and great
+minds; and if any thing but dollars was paid attention to, the
+literature of America would soon be upon a par with that of the Old
+World; as it is, it pays better to reprint French and English authors
+than to tax the brains of the natives.</p>
+
+<p>For this reason, the agricultural population of the States are more
+reasonable, more amiable, and more original than those engaged in
+incessant trade. I have seen an American farmer in my travels this year,
+who was the perfect image of the English franklin, before his daughters
+wore parasols and thrummed the piano. Oh, railways, ye have much to
+answer for! for, although the prosperity of the mass may be increased by
+you, the happiness and contentment of the million is deteriorating every
+day.</p>
+
+<p>I am not about to write a history of Canada at present, for that is
+already done, as far as its military annals are concerned, during the
+three years since I last addressed the public; but it shall yet slumber
+awhile in its box of pine wood, until the time is ripe for development:
+I merely intend here to put together some reminiscences which strike me
+as to the part the French Canadian has played, and to show that we
+should neither forget nor neglect him.</p>
+
+<p>Canada, as it is well known, was French, both by claim of discovery and
+by the more powerful right of possession.</p>
+
+<p>Stimulated by the fame of Cabot, and ambitious to be pilots of the Meta
+Incognita, that visionary channel which was to conduct European valour
+to the golden Cathay and to the rich Spice Islands of the East, French
+adventurers eagerly sought the coveted honours which such a voyage could
+not fail to yield them, and to combine overflowing wealth with chivalric
+renown. France, England, Spain, Portugal, and Italy, sent forth those
+daring spirits whose hopes were uniformly crushed, either by
+encountering the unbroken line of continental coast, or dashed to pieces
+amidst the terrors of that truly Cimmerian region, where ice and fog,
+cold and darkness, contend for empire.</p>
+
+<p>Of all those heroic navigators, who would have rivalled Columbus under
+happier circumstances, none were successful, even in a limited sense, in
+attempting to reach China by the northern Atlantic, excepting the French
+alone, who may fairly be allowed the merit of having traversed nearly
+one half of the broadest portion of the New World in the discovery of
+the St. Lawrence and its connecting streams, and in having afterwards
+reached Mexico by the Mississippi.</p>
+
+<p>Even in our own days, nearly four centuries after the Columbian era, the
+idea of reaching China by the North Pole has not been abandoned, and is
+actively pursuing by the most enlightened naval government in the world,
+and, very possibly, will be achieved; and, as coal exists on the
+northern frozen coasts, we shall have ports established, where the
+British ensign will fly, in the realms of eternal frost&mdash;nay, more, we
+shall yet place an iron belt from the Atlantic to the Pacific, a
+railroad from Halifax to Nootka Sound, and thus reach China in a
+pleasure voyage.</p>
+
+<p>I recollect that, about twelve years ago, a person of very strong mind,
+who edited the "Patriot," a newspaper published at Toronto, Mr. Thomas
+Dalton, was looked upon as a mere enthusiast, because one of his
+favourite ideas, frequently expressed, was, that much time would not
+elapse before the teas and silks of China would be transported direct
+from the shores of the Pacific to Toronto, by canal, by river, by
+railroad, and by steam.</p>
+
+<p>Twelve years have scarcely passed since he first broached such an
+apparently preposterous notion, as people of limited views universally
+esteemed it; and yet he nearly lived to see an uninterrupted steamboat
+communication from England to Lake Superior&mdash;a consummation which those
+who laughed at him then never even dreamt of&mdash;and now a railroad all the
+way to the Pacific is in progress of discussion.</p>
+
+<p>Mac Taggart, a lively Scotch civil engineer, who wrote, in 1829, an
+amusing work, entitled "Three Years in Canada," was even more sanguine
+on this subject; and, as he was a clerk of works on the Rideau Canal,
+naturally turned his attention to the practicability of opening a road
+by water, by the lakes and rivers, to Nootka Sound.</p>
+
+<p>Two thousand miles of water road by the Ottawa, the St. Lawrence, and
+the Welland, has been opened in 1845, and a future generation will see
+the white and bearded stranger toiling over the rocky barriers that
+alone remain to repel his advances between the great Superior and the
+Pacific. A New Simplon and a peaceful Napoleonic mind will accomplish
+this.</p>
+
+<p>The China trade will receive an impulse; and, as the arms of England
+have overcome those of the Celestial Empire, and we are colonizing the
+outer Barbarian, so shall we colonize the shores of the Pacific, south
+of Russian America, in order to retain the supremacy of British
+influence both in India and in China. The vast and splendid forests
+north of the Columbia River will, ere long, furnish the dockyards of
+the Pacific coast with the inexhaustible means of extending our
+commercial and our military marine.</p>
+
+<p>And who were the pioneers? who cleared the way for this enterprise?
+Frenchmen! The hardy, the enduring, the chivalrous Gaul, penetrated from
+the Atlantic, in frail vessels, as far as these frail barks could carry
+him; and where their service ceased, with ready courage adopted the
+still more fragile transport afforded by the canoe of the Indian, in
+which, singing merrily, he traversed the greater part of the northern
+continent, and actually discovered all that we now know, and much more,
+since lapsed into oblivion.</p>
+
+<p>But his genius was that of conquest, and not of permanent colonization;
+and, trammelled by feudal laws and observances, although he extended the
+national domain and the glory of France beyond his most ardent desire,
+yet he took no steps to insure its duration, and thus left the Saxon and
+the Anglo-Norman to consolidate the structure of which he had merely
+laid the extensive foundation.</p>
+
+<p>But, even now, amidst all the enlightenment of the Christian nations,
+the descendants of the French in Canada shake off the dust of feudality
+with painful difficulty; and, instead of quietly yielding to a better
+order of things, prefer to dwell, from sire to son, the willing slaves
+of customs derived from the obsolete decrees of a despotic monarchy.</p>
+
+<p>Whether they individually are gainers or losers by thus adhering to the
+rules which guided their ancestors, is another question, too difficult
+for discussion to grapple with here. As far as worldly happiness and
+simple contentment are concerned, I believe they would lose by the
+change, which, however, must take place. The restless and enterprising
+American is too close a neighbour to let them slumber long in contented
+ignorance.</p>
+
+<p>The Frenchman was, however, adapted, by his nature, to win his way,
+either by friendship or by force, among the warlike and untutored sons
+of the forest. Accommodating himself with ease to the nomadic life of
+the tribes; contrasting his gay and lively temperament with the solemn
+taciturnity and immoveable phlegm of the savage; dazzling him with the
+splendour of his religious ceremonies; abstemious in his diet, and
+coinciding in his recklessness of life; equally a warrior and equally a
+hunter; unmoved by the dangers of canoe navigation, for which he seemed
+as well adapted as the Red Man himself; the enterprising Gaul was
+everywhere feared and everywhere welcome.</p>
+
+<p>The Briton, on the contrary, cold as the Indian, but not so cunning;
+accustomed to comparative luxury and ease; despising the child of the
+woods as an inferior caste; accompanied in his wars or wanderings by no
+outward and visible sign of the religion he would fain implant;
+unaccustomed to yield even to his equals in opinion; unprepared for
+alternate seasons of severe fasting or riotous plenty; and wholly
+without that sanguine temper which causes mirth and song to break forth
+spontaneously amidst the most painful toil and privations; was not the
+best of pioneers in the wilderness, and was, therefore, not received
+with open arms by the American aboriginal nations, until experience had
+taught the sterling value of his character, or, rather, until it became
+thoroughly apparent.</p>
+
+<p>To this day, where, in the interminable wilderness, all trace of French
+influence is buried, the Indian reveres the recollections of his
+forefathers respecting that gallant race; and, wherever the canoe now
+penetrates, the solemn and silent shades of the vast West, the Bois
+Brul&eacute;, or mixed offspring of the Indian and the Frenchman, may be heard
+awakening the slumber of ages with carols derived from the olden France,
+as he paddles swiftly and merrily along.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the Frenchman, such the French Canadian; let us therefore give
+due honour to their descendants, and let not any feeling of distrust or
+dislike enter our minds against a race of men, who, from my long
+acquaintance with them, are, I am fully persuaded, the most innocent,
+the most contented, and the most happy yeomanry and peasantry of the
+whole civilized world.</p>
+
+<p>I have observed already, in a former work, that, as far as my experience
+of travelling in the wilds of Canada goes, and it is rather extensive, I
+should always in future journeys prefer to provide myself with the true
+French Canadian boatmen, or voyageurs, or, in default of them, with
+Indians. With either I should feel perfectly at ease; and, having
+crossed the mountain waves of Huron in a Canada trading birch canoe with
+both, should have the less hesitation in trusting myself in the
+trackless forest, under their sole guidance and protection.</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 18em;">
+Honneur &agrave; Jean Baptiste!<br />
+C'est un si bon enfant!<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h4><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p class="center">Penetanguishene&mdash;The Nipissang Cannibals, and a Friendly Brother in the
+Wilderness.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>Penetanguishene, pronounced by the Indians Pen-et-awn-gu-shene, "the Bay
+of the White Rolling Sand," is a magnificent harbour, about three miles
+in length, narrow and land-locked completely by hills on each side. Here
+is always a steam-vessel of war, of a small class, with others in
+ordinary, stores and appliances, a small military force, hospital and
+commissariat, an Indian interpreter, and a surgeon.</p>
+
+<p>But the presents are no longer given out here, as in 1837 and
+previously, to the wild tribes; so that, to see the Indian in
+perfection, you must take the annual government trader, and sail to the
+Grand Manitoulin Island, about a hundred miles on the northern shore of
+Lake Huron, where, at Manitou-a-wanning, there is a large settlement of
+Indian people, removed thither by the government to keep them from being
+plundered of their presents by the Whites, who were in the habit of
+giving whiskey and tobacco for their blankets, rifles, clothing, axes,
+knives, and other useful articles, with which, by treaty, they are
+annually supplied.</p>
+
+<p>The Great Manitoulin, or Island of the Great Spirit, is an immense
+island, and, being good land, it is hoped that the benevolent intentions
+of the government will be successful. An Indian agent, or
+superintendent, resides with them; and a steamboat, called the Goderich,
+has made one or two trips to it, and up to the head of Lake Huron, last
+summer.</p>
+
+<p>I went to Penetanguishene with the intention of meeting this vessel and
+going with her, but fear that her enterprise will be a failure. She was
+chartered to run from Sturgeon Bay, about nineteen miles beyond the
+narrows of Lake Simcoe, in connection with the mail or stage from
+Toronto, and the Beaver steamboat, plying on Lake Simcoe.</p>
+
+<p>From Sturgeon Bay she went to Penetanguishene, and then to St. Vincent
+Settlement, and Owen's Sound, on Lake Huron, where a vast body of
+emigrants are locating. From Owen's Sound, she coasted and doubled
+Cabot's Head, and then ran down three hundred miles of the shore of Lake
+Huron to Goderich, Sarnia, Fort Gratiot, Windsor, and Detroit, with an
+occasional pleasure-trip to Manitoulin, St. Joseph's, and St. Mary's; so
+that all the north shore of Lake Huron could be seen, and the passengers
+might take a peep at Lake Superior, by going up the rapids of St. Mary
+to Gros Cap. But a variety of obstacles occurred in this immense voyage,
+although ultimately they will no doubt be overcome.</p>
+
+<p>By starting in the Toronto stage early in the morning, the traveller
+slept on board the Goderich at Sturgeon Bay, a good road having been
+formed from the Narrows, although, by some strange oversight, this road
+terminates in a marsh six hundred feet from the bank to the island, on
+which the wharf and storehouse built for the steamer are erected. This
+caused much inconvenience to the passengers.</p>
+
+<p>The stage went, or goes, once a week, on Monday, to Holland Landing,
+thirty six miles, meets the Beaver, which then crosses Lake Simcoe to
+the Narrows, a small village, thriving very fast since it is no longer a
+government Indian station, fifty miles, and there lands the travellers,
+who proceed by stage to Sturgeon Bay, nineteen more, and sleep on board
+the Goderich, arriving about eight p.m. The vessel gets under weigh, and
+reaches Penetanguishene by six in the morning: thus the whole route from
+Toronto, which takes three days by the land road, is performed in
+twenty-four hours.</p>
+
+<p>But there are drawbacks: the Georgian Bay, between Sturgeon Bay and
+Penetanguishene, is, as I have already observed, dangerous at night, or
+in a fog. At Owen's Sound, the population is not far enough advanced to
+build the extensive wharf requisite, or to lay in sufficient supplies of
+fuel, and thus great detention was experienced there. At
+Penetanguishene, the wharf is not taken far enough into deep water for
+the vessel to lie at, and thus she usually grounded in the mud, and
+detention again arose. Then again, after rounding Cabot's Head and
+getting into the open lake, the coast is very dangerous, having not one
+harbour, until we arrive at the artificial one of Goderich, which is a
+pier-harbour; for the Saugeen is a roadstead full of rocks, and cannot
+be approached by a large vessel.</p>
+
+<p>If, therefore, any thing happens to the machinery, and a steamer has to
+trust to her sails, the westerly winds which prevail on Lake Huron and
+blow tremendously, raising a sea that must be seen to be conceived of in
+a fresh-water lake, she has only to keep off the shore out into the main
+lake, and avoid Goderich altogether, by making for the St. Clair River.</p>
+
+<p>However, the vessel did perform the voyage successfully seven times;
+and in summer it may do, and, if it does do, will be of incalculable
+benefit to the Huron tract, and the new settlements of the far west of
+Canada.</p>
+
+<p>I am, however, afraid that the railroad schemes for opening the country
+to the south of this tract will for some time prevent a profitable
+steamboat speculation, although vast quantities of very superior fish
+are caught and cured now on the shores of Huron, such as salmon-trout
+and white fish, which, when properly salted or dried, are equal to any
+salt sea-fish whatever.</p>
+
+<p>The Canadian French, the half-breeds, and the Indians, are chiefly
+engaged in this trade, which promises to become one of great importance
+to the country, and is already much encroached upon by adventurers from
+the United States.</p>
+
+<p>The herring, as far as I can learn, ascends the St. Lawrence no higher
+than the Niagara River, but Ontario abounds with them and with salmon; a
+smaller species of white fish also has of late years spread itself over
+that lake, and is now sold plentifully in the Kingston market, where it
+was never seen only seven years ago. It is a beautiful fish, firm and
+well tasted, but rather too fat.</p>
+
+<p>A farmer on the Penetanguishene road has introduced English breeds of
+cattle and sheep of the best kind. He was, and perhaps still is,
+contractor for the troops, and his stock is well worth seeing; he lives
+a few miles from Barrie. Thus the garrison is constantly supplied with
+finer meat than any other station in Canada, although more out of the
+world and in the wilderness than any other; and, as fish is plentiful,
+the soldiers and sailors of Queen Victoria in the Bay of the White
+Rolling Sand live well.</p>
+
+<p>I was agreeably surprised to find at this remote post that only one
+soldier drank anything stronger than beer or water; and of course very
+little of the former, owing to the expense of transport, was to be had.
+The soldier that did drink spirits did not drink to excess.</p>
+
+<p>How did all this happen in a place where drunkenness had been
+proverbial? The soldiers, who were of the 82nd regiment, had been
+selected for the station as married men. Their young commanding officer
+patronized gardening, cricketing, boating, and every manly amusement,
+but permitted no gambling. He formed a school for the soldiers and their
+families, and, in short, he knew how to manage them, and to keep their
+minds engaged; for they worked and played, read and reasoned; and so
+whiskey, which is as cheap as dirt there, was not a temptation which
+they could not resist. In winter, he had sleighing, snowshoeing, and
+every exercise compatible with the severe weather and the very deep snow
+incident to the station.</p>
+
+<p>I feel persuaded that, now government has provided such handsome
+garrison libraries of choice and well selected books for the soldiers,
+if a ball alley, or racket court, and a cricket ground were attached to
+every large barrack, there would not only be less drinking in the army,
+but that vice would ultimately be scorned, as it has been within the
+last twenty years by the officers. A hard-drinking officer will scarcely
+be tolerated in a regiment now, simply because excessive drinking is a
+low, mean vice, being the indulgence of self for unworthy motives, and
+beneath the character of a gentleman. To be brought to a court-martial
+for drunkenness is now as disgraceful and injurious to the reputation of
+an officer as it was to be tried for cowardice, and therefore seldom
+occurs in the British army.</p>
+
+<p>The vice of Canada is, however, drink; and Temperance Societies will not
+mend it. Their good is very equivocal, unless combined with religion, as
+there is only one Father Matthew in the world, nor is it probable that
+there will be another.</p>
+
+<p>Penetanguishene is at present the <i>ultima Thule</i> of the British military
+posts in North America. It borders on the great wilderness of the North,
+and on that backbone of primary rocks running from the Alleghanies,
+across the thousand islands of the St. Lawrence, to the unknown
+interior of the northern verge of Lake Superior.</p>
+
+<p>Penetanguishene will not, however, be long the <i>ultima Thule</i> of British
+military posts in Western Canada, as a large and most important
+settlement is making at Owen's Sound, on Lake Huron, connected by a long
+road through the wilderness with Saugeen river, another settlement on
+the shores of that lake, to prevent the necessity of the difficult
+water-passage round Cabot's Head; and a steamboat has been put on the
+route by the Canada Company, to connect Saugeen with Goderich.</p>
+
+<p>The government, up to the 31st of December, 1845, had sold or granted
+54,056 acres of land at Owen's Sound, of which 1,168 acres had been
+chopped or cleared of the forest last year alone; and 1,787 acres of
+wheat and 1,414 acres of oats had been harvested in 1845. There were 483
+oxen, 596 cows, 433 young cattle, and 26 horses; and the population was
+1,950, of which 759 were males above sixteen, and 399 males under
+sixteen, with 395 females above, and 399 under, the same age.</p>
+
+<p>In this new colony there were 1,005 Presbyterians, 195 Roman Catholics,
+173 Methodists, 167 of the Church of England, 67 Baptists, 8 Quakers.
+The other sects or divisions were not enumerated with sufficient
+accuracy to detail; and Owen's Sound, being as yet buried in the Bush,
+cannot be visited by casual travellers, unless when an occasional
+steamer plies from Penetanguishene. There is yet no post-office; but
+1,500 newspapers and letters were received or sent in 1845; and two
+flour-mills and two saw-mills are erected and in use. Three schooners of
+a small class ply in summer to Penetanguishene. The village is at the
+head of Owen's Sound, fifteen miles from Cape Croker, and is named
+Sydenham, containing already thirty-six houses. Government gives 50
+acres free, on condition of actual settlement, and that one third is
+cleared and cropped in four years, when a deed is obtained: another
+fifty is granted by paying 8s. an acre within three years, 9s. within
+six years, 10s. an acre within nine years. The soil is good and climate
+healthy.</p>
+
+<p>North-north-west and north-east of Penetanguishene, all is wood, rock,
+lake, river, and desert, in which, towards the French river, the
+Nipissang Indian, the most degraded and helpless of the Red Men,
+wanders, and obtains scanty food, for game is rare, although fish is
+more plentiful.</p>
+
+<p>An exploring expedition into this country was sent by Sir John Colborne,
+in 1835, with a view of ascertaining its capabilities for settlement. An
+officer of engineers, Captain Baddely, was the astronomer and geologist;
+a naval officer the pilot; with surveyors and a hardy suite.</p>
+
+<p>They left Lake Simcoe in the township of Rama from the Severn river,
+and, going a short journey eastward, struck the division line of the
+Home and the Newcastle districts, which commences between the townships
+of Whitby and Darlington, on the shore of Lake Ontario, and runs a
+little to the westward of north in a straight course, until it strikes
+the south-east borders of Lake Nipissang, embracing more than two
+degrees of latitude, not one half of which has ever been fully explored.</p>
+
+<p>The plan adopted was to cut out this line, and diverge occasionally from
+it to the right and left, until a great extent of unknown land on the
+east, and the distance between it and Lake Huron, which contained a
+large portion of the Chippewa Indian hunting-grounds, was thoroughly
+surveyed.</p>
+
+<p>In performing so very arduous a task, much privation and many obstacles
+occurred&mdash;forests, swamps, rivers, lakes, rocky ridges&mdash;all had to be
+passed.</p>
+
+<p>To the eastward of the main line, and for some distance to the westward,
+good land appeared; and, as the agricultural probe was freely used,
+chance was not permitted to sway. The agricultural probe is an
+instrument which I first saw slung over my friend Baddely's shoulders,
+and of his invention. It is a sort of huge screw gimblet, or auger,
+which readily penetrates the ground by being worked with a long
+cross-handle, and brings up the subsoil in a groove to a considerable
+depth. Specimens of the soil and of rocks and minerals were collected,
+and a plan was adopted which is a useful lesson to future explorers. A
+small piece of linen or cotton, about four inches square, had two pieces
+of twine sewed on opposite corners, and the cloth was marked in
+printers' ink, from stamps, with figures from 1 to 500. A knapsack was
+provided, and the specimens were reduced to a size small enough to be
+carefully tied up in one of these numbered square cloths; and, as the
+specimens were collected, they were entered in the journal as to number
+and locality, strata, dip, and appearance. Thus a vast number of small
+specimens could be brought on a man's back, and examined at leisure.</p>
+
+<p>The toils, however, of such a journey in the vast and untrodden
+wilderness are very severe, and the privations greater. For, in this
+tract, on the side next to Lake Huron, there was an absence of game
+which scarcely ever occurs in the forest near the great lakes. With ice
+forming and snow commencing, and with every prospect of being frozen in,
+a portion of the explorers missed their supplies, and subsisted for
+three whole days and nights on almost nothing; a putrid deer's liver,
+hanging on a bush near a recent Indian trail, was all the animal food
+they had found; but this even hunger could scarcely tempt them to cook.
+I was exploring in a more civilized country near them; but even there
+our Indian guide was at fault, and, from want of proper precaution, our
+provision failed. A small fish amongst four or five persons was one
+day's luxury.</p>
+
+<p>The Nipissang Indians, a very degraded and wretched tribe, live in this
+desolate region, and, it is said, have sometimes been so reduced for
+want of game as to resort to cannibalism. We heard that they had
+recently been obliged to resort to this practice. I was directed, with
+my friends, to conciliate these people, and to assure them that the
+British government, so far from intending to injure them by an
+examination of their country, desired only to ameliorate their sad
+condition.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p>
+
+<p>We had a council. The astronomer royal, who was also the geologist, was
+a fine, portly fellow, whose bodily proportions would make three such
+carcases as that which I rejoice in. The nation sat in council and the
+Talk was held. Grim old savages, filthy and forbidding, half-starved
+warriors, hideous to the eye, sat in large circle, with the two great
+Red Fathers, as they called my friend and myself, on account of our
+scarlet jackets. The pipe passed from hand to hand and from mouth to
+mouth, and many a solemn whiff ascended in curling clouds: all was
+solemn and sad.</p>
+
+<p>The speech was made and answered with an acuteness which we were not
+prepared for. But our explanation and mission were at length received,
+and the pledge of peace, the wampum-belts, were accepted and worn by the
+aged chiefs. My friend jogged my elbow once or twice, and thought they
+were eyeing him suspiciously, for he was to proceed into their country.
+He looked so fat and so healthy, that he thought their greasy mouths
+watered for a roasted slice of so fine a subject!</p>
+
+<p>But the wampum pledge is never broken, and we had smoked the calumet of
+friendship. Thus, although he luxuriated, after a total abstinence of
+three days, on the sight of a decayed deer's liver, which he could not
+be prevailed upon to partake of, yet the Nipissang, starving as he must
+also have been, never fried my friend, nor feasted on his fatness.</p>
+
+<p>This is not the only good story to be told of Penetanguishene; for the
+American press of the frontier, with its accustomed adherence to truth,
+discovered a mare's nest there lately, and stated that the British
+government kept enormous supplies of naval stores, several
+steam-vessels, a dep&ocirc;t of coal, and everything necessary for the
+equipment of a large war fleet on Lake Huron, at this little outpost of
+the West, and that a tremendous force of mounted cavaliers were always
+ready to embark on board of it at all times.</p>
+
+<p>There are now certainly a good many horses at the village, whereas, in
+1837, perhaps one might have found out a dozen by great research there:
+as for cavalry, unless Brother Jonathan can manufacture it as cheaply
+and as lucratively as he does wooden clocks or nutmegs, it would be
+somewhat difficult to <i>raise</i> it at Penetanguishene.</p>
+
+<p>The village is a small, rambling place, with a little Roman Catholic
+church and a storehouse or general shop or two, about which, in summer,
+you always see idle Indians playing at some game or other, or else
+smoking with as idle villagers.</p>
+
+<p>The garrison is three miles from the village, and is always called "The
+Establishment;" and in the forest between the two places is a new
+church, built of wood, very small, but sufficient for the Established
+Church, as it is sometimes called, of that portion of Canada. A
+clergyman is constantly stationed here for the army, navy, and
+civilians, and near the church is a collection of log huts, which I
+placed there some years ago by order of Lord Seaton, with small plots of
+ground attached to each as a refuge for destitute soldiers who had
+commuted their pensions.</p>
+
+<p>This Chelsea in miniature flourished for a time, and drained the streets
+of the large towns of Canada of the miserable objects; but, such was the
+improvidence of most of these settlers and such their broken
+constitutions, that, on my present visit, I found but one old serjeant
+left, and he was on the point of moving.</p>
+
+<p>The commutation of pensions was an experiment of the most benevolent
+intention. It was thought that the married pensioner would purchase
+stock for a small farm, and set himself down to provide for his children
+with a sum of money in hand which he could never have obtained in any
+other way. Many did so, and are now independent; but the majority,
+helpless in their habits, and giving way to drink, soon got cheated of
+their dollars and became beggars; so that the government was actually
+obliged at length to restore a small portion of the pension to keep them
+from starvation. They died out, would not work at the Penetanguishene
+settlement, and have vanished from the things that be. Poor fellows!
+many a tale have they told me of flood and field, of being sabred by the
+cuirassiers at Waterloo, of being impaled on a Polish lance, and of
+their wanderings and sufferings.</p>
+
+<p>The military settlement, however, of the Penetanguishene road is a
+different affair. It was effected by pensioned non-commissioned officers
+and soldiers, who had grants of a hundred acres and sometimes more; and
+it will please the benevolent founder, should these pages meet his eye,
+to know that many of them are now prosperous, and almost all well to do
+in the world.</p>
+
+<p>But we must retrace our steps, and waggon back again by their doors to
+Barrie.</p>
+
+<p>I left the village at half-past six in the morning, raining still, with
+the wind in the south-east, and very cold. We arrived at the Widow
+Marlow's, nineteen miles, at mid-day; the weather having changed to fine
+and blowing hard&mdash;certainly not pleasant in the forest-road, on account
+of the danger of falling trees, to which this pass is so liable that a
+party of axemen have sometimes to go ahead to cut out a way for the
+horses.</p>
+
+<p>We passed through the twelve mile woods by a new road, which reduces the
+extent of actual forest to five, and avoids altogether the Trees of the
+Two Brothers, noted in Penetanguishene history for the fatal accident,
+narrated in a former volume, by which one soldier died, and his brother
+was, it is supposed, frightened to death, in the solemn depths of the
+primeval and then endless woods.</p>
+
+<p>Near the end of the five mile Bush, about a mile from the first
+clearance, Jeffrey, the landlord of the inn at the village, has built a
+small cottage for the refreshment of the traveller, and in it he intends
+to place his son. In the mean time, until quite completed, for money is
+scarce and things not to be done at railroad pace so near the North
+Pole, he has located here an old well known black gentleman, called Mr.
+Davenport, who was once better to do in the world, and kept a tavern
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>Having had the honour of his acquaintance for many years, I stopped to
+see how my old friend was getting on, particularly as I heard that he
+was now very old, and that his white consort had left him alone in the
+narrow world of the house in the woods. He received me with grinning
+delight, and told me that he had just left the new jail at Barrie for
+selling liquor without a license, which, I opine, is rather hard law
+against a poor old nigger, who had literally no other means of support,
+and was most usefully stationed, like the monks of St. Bernard, in a
+dangerous pass.</p>
+
+<p>But the wind is tempered to the shorn lamb, and the woolly head of old
+Davenport had matter of satisfaction in it from a source that he never
+dreamed of.</p>
+
+<p>Alone&mdash;far away from the whole human world, in the depth of a hideous
+forest, with a road nearly impassable one half of the year,&mdash;he found an
+unexpected friend.</p>
+
+<p>For fear of the visits of two-footed and four-footed brutes during the
+long nights of his Robinson Crusoe solitude, old Davenport always shut
+up his log castle early, and retired to rest as soon as daylight
+departed; for it did so very early in the evening there, as the solemn
+pines, with their gray trunks and far-spreading moss-grown arms and
+dismal evergreen foliage, if it can be called foliage, stood close to
+his dwelling&mdash;nay, brushed with the breath of the wind his very roof.</p>
+
+<p>Recollect, reader, that this lonely dweller in the Bush resided near the
+spot where the two soldier brothers perished; and you may imagine his
+thoughts, after his castle was closed at night by the lone warder. No
+one could come to his assistance, if he had the bugle that roused the
+echoes of Fontarabia.</p>
+
+<p>He had retired to rest early one night in the young spring-time, when he
+heard a singular noise on the outside of his house, like somebody
+moaning, and rubbing forcibly under his window, which was close to the
+head of his pallet-bed. Quivering with fear, he lay, with these sounds
+continuing at short intervals, through the whole night, and did not rise
+until the sun was well up. He then peeped cautiously about, but neither
+heard nor saw any thing; and, axe in hand and gun loaded, he went forth,
+but could not perceive aught more than that the ground had been slightly
+disturbed. This went on for some time, until at last, one fine moonlight
+night, the old man ventured to open a part of his narrow window; and
+there he saw rubbing himself, very composedly, a fine large he bear, who
+looked up very affectionately at him, and whined in a decent melancholy
+growl.</p>
+
+<p>Davenport had, it seems, thrown some useless article of food out of this
+window; and Bruin supposed, no doubt, that Blackey did it out of
+compassionate feeling for a fellow denizen of the forest, and repeated
+his visits to obtain something more substantial, rubbing himself, to get
+rid of the mosquitoes, as it was his custom of an afternoon, against the
+rough logs of the dwelling. He had, moreover, become a little impatient
+at not being noticed, and scratched like a dog to make the lord of the
+mansion aware of his presence. This usually occurred about nine o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>Davenport, at last, threw some salt pork to Bruin, which was most
+gratefully received; and every night after that, for the whole summer
+and autumn, at nine o'clock or thereabouts, the bear came to receive
+bread, meat, milk, or potatoes, or whatever could be spared from the
+larder, which was left on the ground under the window for him. In fact,
+they soon came to be upon very friendly terms, and spent many hours in
+each other's company, with a stout log-wall between Davenport and his
+brother, as he always calls the bear.</p>
+
+<p>When the snows of winter, the long, severe winter of these northern
+woods, at last came, Bruin ceased his nocturnal visitations, and has
+never been seen since, the old man thinking that he has been shot or
+trapped by the Indian hunters.</p>
+
+<p>I asked Davenport if he ever ventured out to look for his brother, but
+he shook his head and replied, "My brudder might have hugged me too
+hard, perhaps." The poor old fellow is very cheerful, and regrets his
+brother's absence daily. The bailiffs most likely would not have put him
+in jail for selling whiskey to a tired traveller, but would have avoided
+the castle in the woods, if they thought there was any chance of meeting
+Bruin.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h4><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p class="center">Barrie and Big Trees&mdash;A new Capital of a new District&mdash;Nature's
+Canal&mdash;The Devil's Elbow&mdash;Macadamization and Mud&mdash;Richmond Hill without
+the Lass&mdash;The Rebellion and the Radicals&mdash;Blue Hill and Bricks.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>We reached Barrie safely that night, and slept at the Queen's Arms. Next
+morning, I had an excellent opportunity of seeing this thriving village.</p>
+
+<p>It is very well situated on the shore of Kempenfeldt Bay, on ground
+rising gradually to a considerable height, and is neatly laid out,
+containing already about five hundred people.</p>
+
+<p>On the high ground overlooking the place are a church, a court-house,
+and a jail, all standing at a small distance from each other, nearly on
+a line, and adding very much indeed to the appearance of the place. The
+deep woods now form a background, but are gradually disappearing. I went
+about a mile into them, and saw several new clearances, with some nice
+houses building or built; and particularly one by Bingham, our landlord,
+a very comfortable, English-looking, large cottage, with outhouses and
+an immense barn, round which the rascally ground squirrels were playing
+at hide-and-seek very fearlessly.</p>
+
+<p>The Court House contains the district school, which appears very
+respectable, and is conducted by a young Irishman; it also contains all
+the district offices, and is two stories high, massively and well built,
+the lower story being of stone and the upper of brick, both from
+materials on the spot.</p>
+
+<p>The church is of wood, plain and neat. The jail is worth a visit, and
+shows what may be done in the forest and in a brand-new district, as the
+district of Simcoe is, although I believe about half the money it cost
+would have been better employed on the roads; for it has never been
+used, except as a place of confinement for an unfortunate lunatic.</p>
+
+<p>It is formed in the castellated style, of a handsome octagonal tower, of
+very white, shelly limestone, with a square turreted stone enclosure, on
+the top of which is an iron <i>chevaux de frize</i>, and which enclosure is
+subdivided into separate day-yards for prisoners. The entrance is under
+a Gothic archway; and in the centre of the tower is an internal space,
+open from top to bottom, and preventing all access to the stairs from
+the cells, which are very neat, clean, and commodious, with a good
+supply of water, and excellent ventilation. It is, in short, as pretty a
+toy penitentiary as you could see anywhere, and looks more like an Isle
+of Wight gentleman's fortress, copied after the most approved Wyattville
+pattern of baronial mansion, with a little touch of the card-house. In
+short, it is as fine as you can conceive, and sets off the village
+wonderfully well.</p>
+
+<p>The red pine, near Barrie and through all the Penetanguishene country,
+grows to an enormous size. I measured one near Barrie no less than
+twenty-six feet in girth, and this was merely a chance one by the
+path-side. Its height, I think, must have been at least two hundred
+feet, and it was vigorously healthy. What was its age? It would have
+made a plank eight feet broad, after the bark was stripped off.</p>
+
+<p>But the woods generally disappoint travellers, as they never penetrate
+them; and the lumberers have cut down all available pines and oaks
+within reach of the settlements, excepting where they were not worth the
+expence of transport. The pines, moreover, take no deep root; and, as
+soon as the underbrush or thicket is cleared, they fall before the
+storm. Provident settlers, therefore, rarely leave large and lofty trees
+near their dwellings for fear of accident.</p>
+
+<p>The pine, in the Penetanguishene country, has a strange fancy to start
+out of the earth in three, five, or more trunks, all joined at the base,
+and each trunk an enormous tree. I have an idea that this has arisen
+from the stony, loose soil they grow in, which has caused this strange
+freak of Nature, by making it difficult for the young plant to rear its
+head out of the ground. Whatever is the reason, however, all the masts
+of some "great Amiral" might be truly provided out of a single
+pine-tree.</p>
+
+<p>But we must leave Barrie, after just mentioning Kempenfeldt, about a
+mile or so distant, which was the original village; and, although at the
+actual terminus of the land road, has never flourished, and still
+consists of some half dozen houses. The newer Admiral superseded the
+more ancient one; for Barrie did deeds of renown, which it suited the
+Canadians to commemorate much more than the unfortunate Kempenfeldt and
+his melancholy end.</p>
+
+<p>If ever there was an infamous road between two villages so close
+together, it is the road between these two places; I hope it will be
+mended, for it is both dark and dangerous.</p>
+
+<p>I always wondered not a little how it happened that Bingham of Barrie
+kept such a good table, where fresh meat was as plentiful as at Toronto.
+I looked for the market-place of the capital of Simcoe: there was none.
+But the mystery was solved the moment I put my foot on board the Beaver
+steamer to go back by the water road.</p>
+
+<p>What will the reader think of Leadenhall Market being condensed and
+floating? Such, however, was the case; there was a regular travelling
+butcher's-shop, for the supply of the settlers around Lake Simcoe; and
+meat, clean and enticing as at the finest stall in the market aforesaid,
+where upon regular hooks were regularly displayed the fine roasting and
+boiling joints of the season. And a very fair speculation no doubt it
+is, this pedlar butchery.</p>
+
+<p>On the 3rd of July, at half-past twelve, I left the capital of the
+Simcoe district, and am particular as to dates and seasons, because it
+tells the traveller for pleasure what are the times and the tides he
+should choose.</p>
+
+<p>We embarked on board the good ship Beaver, a large steam-vessel, for the
+Holland Landing, distant twenty-eight miles&mdash;twenty-one of them by the
+lake, and seven by the river. The vessel stops by the way at several
+settlements, where half-pay officers generally have pitched their tents;
+and twice a week she makes the grand tour of the whole lake, at an
+altitude of upwards of seven hundred and fifty feet above Lake Ontario,
+and not forty miles from it.</p>
+
+<p>This navigation of the Holland river is very well worth seeing, as it is
+a natural canal flowing through a vast marsh, and very narrow, with most
+serpentine convolutions, often doubling upon itself.&mdash;Conceive the
+difficulty of steering a large steamboat in such a course; yet it is
+done every day in summer and autumn, by means of long poles, slackening
+the steam, backing, &amp;c., though very rarely without running a little way
+into the soft mud of the swamp. The motion of the paddles has, however,
+in the course of years, widened the channel and prevented the growth of
+flags and weeds.</p>
+
+<p>There is one place called the Devil's Elbow, a common name in Canada for
+a difficult river pass, where the sluggish water fairly makes a double,
+and great care is necessary. Here the enterprising owner and master of
+the vessel tried to cut a channel; but, after getting a straight course
+through the mud for two-thirds of the way, he found it too expensive to
+proceed, but declares that he will persevere. Why does not the Board of
+Works, which has literally the expenditure of more than a million, take
+the business in hand, and complete it? One or two hundred pounds would
+finish the affair. But perhaps it is too trifling, and, like the cut at
+the Long Point, Lake Erie, to which we shall come presently, is
+overlooked in the magnitude of greater things.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the unformed, unfinished public establishments in Canada, it has
+always appeared to me that the Crown Lands department, and the Board of
+Works, are pre-eminent. One costs more to manage the funds it raises
+than the funds amount to; and the other was for several years a mere
+political job. No very eminent civil engineer could have afforded to
+devote his time and talents to it, as he must have been constantly
+exposed to be turned out of office by caprice or cupidity. I do not
+know how it is now managed, but the political jobbing is, I believe, at
+an end, as the same person presides over the office who held it when it
+was in very bad odour. This gentleman must, however, be quite adequate
+to the office, as some of the public works are magnificent; but I cannot
+go so far as to say that one must approve of all. The St. Lawrence Canal
+has cost the best part of a million, is useless in time of war, and a
+mere foil at all times to the Rideau navigation, which the British
+government constructed free of any provincial funds. The timber slides
+on the Trent are so much money put into the timber-merchants' pockets,
+to the extreme detriment of the neighbouring settlers, whose lands have
+been swept of every available stick by the lawless hordes of woodcutters
+engaged to furnish this work; and who, living in the forest, were beyond
+the reach of justice or of reason, destroying more trees than they could
+carry away, and defying, gun and axe in hand, the peaceable
+proprietors.</p>
+
+<p>It was intended, before the rebellion broke out, to render the river
+Trent navigable by a splendid canal, which would have opened the finest
+lands in Canada for hundreds of miles, and eventually to have connected
+Lake Huron with Lake Ontario. A large sum of money was expended on it
+before the Board of Works was constituted, and an experienced clerk of
+works, fresh from the Rideau Canal, was chosen to superintend; but the
+troubles commenced, and the money was wanted elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>When money became again plentiful, and the country so loudly demanded
+the Trent Canal, why was it not finished? I shall give by and by an
+account of a recent excursion to the Trent, and then we shall perhaps
+learn more about it, and why perishing timber slides were substituted
+for a magnificent canal.</p>
+
+<p>But the Devil's Elbow should be straightened by the Board of Works at
+all events, otherwise it may stick in the mud, and then nobody can help
+it; for the marsh is very extensive, and there would be no Jupiter to
+cry out to.</p>
+
+<p>Well, however, in spite of all obstacles, Captain Laughton piloted us
+safe to Ague and Fever Landing, where, depend upon it, we did not stay a
+moment longer than sufficed to jump into a coloured gentleman's waggon,
+which was in waiting, and in which we were driven off as a coloured
+gentleman always drives, that is to say, in a hand-gallop, to Winch's
+tavern, our old accustomed inn at St. Alban's, where we arrived in due
+time, and there hired another Jehu, who was an American Irishman (a sad
+compound), to take us as far towards Yonge Street as practicable. We
+reached Richmond Hill, seventeen miles from the Landing, at about eight
+o'clock, having made a better day's journey than is usually accomplished
+on a road which will be macadamized some fine day; for the Board of
+Works have a Polish engineer hard at work surveying it&mdash;of course no
+Canadian was to be found equal to this intricate piece of
+engineering&mdash;and I saw a variety of sticks stuck up, but what they meant
+I cannot guess at. I suppose they were going to <i>grade</i> it, which is the
+favourite American term&mdash;a term, by the by, by no manner or method
+meaning gradus ad Parnassum, or even laying it out in steps and stairs,
+like the Scotch military road near Loch Ness; but which, as far as my
+limited information in Webster's Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon tongue
+goes, signifies levelling. I may, however, be mistaken; and this puts me
+in mind of another tale to beguile the way.</p>
+
+<p>A character set out from England to try his fortune in Canada. He was
+conversing about prospects in that country, on board the vessel, with a
+person who knew him, but whom he knew not. "I have not quite made up my
+mind," said the character, "as to what pursuit I shall follow in Canada;
+but that which brings most grist to the mill will answer best; and I
+hear a man may turn his hand to anything there, without the folly of an
+apprenticeship being necessary; for, if he has only brains, bread will
+come&mdash;now, what do you think would be the best business for my market?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," said the gentleman, after pondering a little, "I should advise
+you to try civil engineering; for they are getting up a Board of Works
+there, and want that branch of industry very much, for they won't take
+natives; nothing but foreigners or strangers will go down."</p>
+
+<p>"What is a civil engineer?" said the character.</p>
+
+<p>"A man always measuring and calculating," responded his adviser, "and
+that will just suit you."</p>
+
+<p>"So it will," rejoined Character; and a civil engineer he became
+accordingly, and a very good one into the bargain; for he had brains,
+and had used a yard measure all his lifetime.</p>
+
+<p>I was told this story by a person of veracity, who heard the
+conversation, but it is by no means a wonderful one; for such is the
+versatility of talent which the climate of Northern America engenders,
+that I knew a leading member of parliament provincial, who was a
+preacher, a shopkeeper, a doctor, a lawyer, a banker, a militia colonel,
+and who undertook to build a suspension bridge across the cataracted
+river Niagara, to connect the United States with Canada for &pound;8,000,
+lawful money of the colony; an undertaking which Rennie would perchance
+have valued at about &pound;100,000; but <i>n'importe</i>, the bill was passed, and
+a banking shop set up instead of a bridge, which answered every purpose,
+for the notes passed freely on both sides until they were worn out.</p>
+
+<p>Behold us, however, at Richmond Hill, having safely passed the Slough of
+Despond, which the vaunted Yonge Street mud road presents, between the
+celebrated hamlet of St. Alban's and the aforesaid hill, one of the
+greatest curiosities of which road, near St. Alban's, is the vicinity of
+a sort of Mormon establishment, where a fellow of the name of David
+Wilson, commonly called David, has set up a Temple of the Davidites,
+with Virgins of the Sun, dressed in white, and all the tomfooleries of a
+long beard and exclusive sanctity. But America is a fine country for
+such knavery. Another curiosity is less pitiable and more natural. It
+is Bond Lake, a large narrow sheet of water, on the summit between Lake
+Simcoe and Lake Ontario, which has no visible outlet or inlet, and is
+therefore, like David Wilson, mysterious, although common sense soon
+lays the mystery in both cases bare; one is a freak of Nature concealing
+the source and exitus, the other a fraud of man.</p>
+
+<p>The oak ridges, and the stair-like descents of plateau after plateau to
+Ontario, are also remarkable enough, showing even to the most
+thoughtless that here ancient shores of ancient seas once bounded the
+forest, gradually becoming lower and lower as the water subsided. Lyell
+visited these with the late Mr. Roy, a person little appreciated and
+less understood by the great ones of the earth at Toronto, who made an
+excellent geological survey of this part of the province, and whose
+widow had infinite difficulty in obtaining a paltry recompense for his
+labours in developing the resources of the country. The honey which this
+industrious bee manufactured was sucked by drones, and no one has done
+him even a shadow of justice, but Mr. Lyell, who, having no colonial
+dependence, had no fears in so doing.</p>
+
+<p>But of Richmond Hill, why so called I never could discover, for it is
+neither very highly picturesque, nor very highly poetical, although
+Dolby's Tavern is a most comfortable resting-place for a wearied
+traveller, at which prose writer or poetaster may find a haven.
+Attention, good fare, and neatness prevail. It is English.</p>
+
+<p>I have observed two things in journeying through Upper Canada. If you
+find neatness at an hostel, it is kept by old-country people. If you
+meet with indifference and greasy meats, they are Americans. If you see
+the best parlour hung round with bad prints of presidents, looking like
+Mormon preachers, they are radicals of the worst leaven. If prints from
+the New York Albion, neatly framed and glazed, hang on each side of a
+wooden clock, over a sideboard in the centre of the room, opposite to
+the windows, the said prints representing Queen Victoria, Lord Nelson,
+Windsor Castle, or the New Houses of Parliament, be assured that loyalty
+and John Bullism reign there; and, although you meet with no servility,
+you will not be disgusted with vulgar assumption, such as cocking up
+dirty legs in dirty boots on a dirty stove, wearing the hat, and not
+deigning to answer a civil question.</p>
+
+<p>Personally, no man cares less for the mode of reception, when I take
+mine ease at mine inn, than I do, for old soldiers are not very
+fastidious, and old travellers still less so; but give me sturdy John
+Bull, with his blunt plainness and true independence, before the silly
+insolence of a fellow, who thinks he shows his equality, by lowering the
+character of a man to that of a brute, in coarse exhibitions of assumed
+importance, which his vocation of extracting money from his unwilling
+guests renders only more hateful.</p>
+
+<p>We departed from Richmond Hill at half-past five, and waggoned on to
+Finch's Inn, seven miles, where we breakfasted. This is another
+excellent resting-place, and the country between the two is thickly
+settled. I forgot to mention that we have now been travelling through
+scenes celebrated in the rebellion of Mackenzie. About five miles from
+Holland Landing is the Blacksmith's Shop, which was the head-quarters of
+Lount, the smith, who, like Jack Cade, set himself up to reform abuses,
+and suffered the penalty of the outraged laws.</p>
+
+<p>Lount was a misled person, who, imbued with strong republican feelings,
+and forgetting the favours of the government he lived under, which had
+made him what he was, took up arms at Mackenzie's instigation, and
+thought he had a call&mdash;a call to be a great general. He passed to his
+account, so '<i>requiescas in pace</i>,' Lount! for many a villain yet lives,
+to whose vile advices you owed your untimely end, and who ought to have
+met with your fate instead of you. Lount had the mind of an honest man
+in some things, for it is well known that his counsels curbed the bloody
+and incendiary spirit of Mackenzie in many instances. The government
+has not sequestered his property, although his sons were equally guilty
+with himself.</p>
+
+<p>We also pass, in going to Toronto, two other remarkable places. Finch's
+Tavern, where we breakfasted at seven o'clock, was formerly the Old
+Stand, as it was so called, of the notorious Montgomery, another
+general, a tavern general of Mackenzie's, who moved to a place about
+four miles from the city, where the rebels were attacked in 1837 by Sir
+Francis Head, and near which the battle of Gallows Hill was fought.</p>
+
+<p>Montgomery was taken prisoner, sent to Kingston, and escaped by
+connivance, with several others, from the fortress there on a dark
+night, fell into a ditch, broke his leg, and afterwards was hauled by
+his comrades over a high wall, and got across the St. Lawrence into the
+United States, where he was run over afterwards by a waggon and much
+injured. His tavern was burnt to the ground by the militia during the
+action, on account of the barbarous murder there of Colonel Moodie, a
+very old retired officer, who was killed by Mackenzie's orders in cold
+blood. It is now rebuilt on a very extensive scale; and he is again
+there, having been permitted to return, and his property, which was
+confiscated, has been restored to his creditors.</p>
+
+<p>Such were Mackenzie's intended government and the tools he was to govern
+by! Such is the British government! The Upper Canadians wisely preferred
+the latter.</p>
+
+<p>Next to Richmond Hill is Thornhill, all on the macadamized portion of
+the road to Toronto. Thornhill is a very pretty place, with a neat
+church and a dell, in which a river must formerly have meandered, but
+where now a streamlet runs to join Lake Ontario. Here are extensive
+mills, owned by Mr. Thorne, a wealthy merchant, who exports flour
+largely, the Yonge Street settlement being a grain country of vast
+extent, which not only supplies his mills, but the Red Mills, near
+Holland Landing, and many others.</p>
+
+<p>From Montgomery's Tavern to Toronto is almost a continued series for
+four miles of gentlemen's seats and cottages, and, being a straight
+road, you see the great lake for miles before its shores are reached.
+Large sums have been expended on this road, which is carried through a
+brick-clay soil, in which the Don has cut deep ravines, so that immense
+embankments and deep excavations for the level have been requisite.</p>
+
+<p>Near Toronto, at Blue Hill, large brick yards are in operation, and here
+white brick is now made, of which a handsome specimen of church
+architecture has been lately erected in the west end of the city. Tiles,
+elsewhere not seen in Canada, are also manufactured near Blue Hill; but
+they are not extensively used, the snow and high winds being
+unfavourable to their adoption, shingles or split wood being cheaper,
+and tinned iron plates more durable and less liable to accident.</p>
+
+<p>In most parts of Upper Canada, near the shores of the great lakes, you
+can build a house either of stone or brick, as it suits your fancy, for
+both these materials are plentiful, particularly clay; but at Toronto
+there is no suitable building-stone; plenty of clay, however, is found,
+for there you may build your house out of the very excavations for your
+cellars; and I confess that I prefer a brick house in Canada to one of
+limestone, for the latter material imbibes moisture; and if a brick
+house has a good projecting roof, it lasts very long, and is always
+warm.</p>
+
+<p>It is surprising to observe the effects of the climate on buildings in
+this country. A good stone house, not ten years old, carefully built,
+and pointed between the joints of the masonry with the best cement,
+requires a total repair after that period, and often before. The
+window-sills and lintels of limestone break and crack, and the chimneys
+soon become disjointed and unsafe. Although it may seem paradoxical, yet
+it is true that the woodwork of a house lasts good much longer than the
+stone, or rather the cement, which joins the stone; but wood decays
+also very rapidly. A bridge becomes rotten in ten years, and a shingled
+roof lasts only fifteen; but then wood is never seasoned in America; it
+would not pay.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h4><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p class="center">Toronto and the Transit&mdash;The ice and its innovations&mdash;Siege
+and storm of a Fortalice by the Ice-king&mdash;Newark, or Niagara&mdash;Flags, big
+and little&mdash;Views of American and of English institutions&mdash;Blacklegs and
+Races&mdash;Colonial high life&mdash;Youth very young.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>Behold us again in Toronto at Macdonald's Hotel; and, as we shall have
+to visit this rising city frequently, we shall say very little more
+about it at present, but embark as speedily as possible on board the
+Transit, and steam over to Niagara.</p>
+
+<p>The Transit, a celebrated packet, now getting old, and commanded by a
+son of its well-known owner, Captain Richardson, starts always in summer
+at eight a.m. punctually, and makes her voyage by half-past eleven, at
+which hour, on the 5th day of July, we once more touched the shore of
+Newark, or Niagara Town, at the Dock Company's wharf, which we found had
+been greatly damaged in the spring of the year by a most extraordinary
+ice phenomenon.</p>
+
+<p>At the breaking-up of the frost, the ice in the river Niagara, which
+came down the river, packed near its mouth, and dammed it up so high at
+Queenston, seven miles above and close to the narrows, that the upper
+surface of the fields of ice was thirty feet above the level of the
+river, there a quarter of a mile broad or more. The consequence was,
+that every wharf and every building under this level was destroyed and
+crushed. Every edifice on the banks, and among others a strong stone
+barrack, full of soldiers, was stormed by the frost-king, during the
+darkness of an awful night, and the front wall fairly breached and borne
+down by the advancing masses of ice. The soldiers had barely time to
+escape from the crashing and rending walls; and their cooking-house, a
+detached building, some yards from the barrack and higher up the bank,
+was turned over, as if it had been a small boat.</p>
+
+<p>In the memory of man, such a scene had never occurred before, and
+probably never will again; and I have been told, by those who beheld it,
+that a more solemn display of natural power and irresistible might has
+seldom been witnessed than that of the gradual grinding, heaving passage
+of one great floe, or field, of thick-ribbed ice over the other, until
+that summit was gained which could not be exceeded.</p>
+
+<p>Then came the disruption, the roar, the rush, the fury, the foam, the
+groaning thunder, and the river flood; the plunge and the struggle
+between the solid and the liquid waters.</p>
+
+<p>Truly, the thundering water was well named by the Indian of old&mdash;<span class="smcap">NE
+AW GAR AW</span> is very Greek sounding.</p>
+
+<p>Newark, or, as it is now called, Niagara, but, as it should be named,
+Simcoe, is still a pretty, well laid-out town; and, although it has
+scarcely had a new house built in it for many years past, is on the
+whole a very respectable place, and the capital of the district of
+Niagara, celebrated for its apple, peach, and cherry orchards.</p>
+
+<p>It has a good-looking church, and the living is a rectory. A Roman
+Catholic church stands close to the English, and a handsome Scots church
+is at the other end of the town. There is an ugly jail and Court-House
+about a mile in the country, and an excellent market, where every thing
+is cheap and good.</p>
+
+<p>Barracks for the Royal Canadian Rifle regiment stand on a large plain.
+Old Fort George, the scene of former battling, is in total ruin; and
+Fort Mississagua, with its square tower, looks frowningly at Fort
+Niagara, on the American side of the estuary of the Great River. I never
+see these rival batteries, for it is too magniloquent to style them
+fortresses, but they picture to my mind England and the United States.</p>
+
+<p>Mississagua looks careless and confident, with a little bit of a
+flag&mdash;the flag, however, of a thousand years, displayed, only on
+Sundays and holidays, on a staff which looks something like that which
+the king-making Warwick tied his heraldic bear to.</p>
+
+<p>The antiquity and warlike renown of England sit equally and visibly
+impressed on the crest of the miserable Mississagua as on that of
+Gibraltar.</p>
+
+<p>Fort Niagara, an old French Indian stockade, modernized by the American
+engineers from time to time, half-lighthouse, half-fortification,
+glaring with whitewashed walls, that may be seen almost at Toronto, with
+a flag-staff towering to the skies, and a flag which would cover the
+deck of a first-rate, displayed from morn to night, speaks of the new
+nation, whose pretensions must ever be put in plain view, and constantly
+tell the tale that America is a second edition of the best work of
+English industry and of British valour&mdash;a second edition interwoven,
+however, with foreign matter, with French <i>fiert&eacute;</i> without French
+<i>politesse</i>, with German mysticism without German learning, with the
+restless and rabid democracy of the whole world without the salutary
+check of venerable laws, and with that strange mixture of freedom and
+slavery, of tolerance and intolerance, which distinguishes America of
+the nineteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>But it is, nevertheless, a most extraordinary spectacle, to contemplate
+the rise and progress of the union in so short a period since the
+declaration of independence.</p>
+
+<p>An Irish gentleman, apparently a clergyman, last year favoured the
+public with the result of an extensive tour in Canada and the United
+States, in "Letters from America."</p>
+
+<p>He starts in his preface with these remarkable expressions, which must
+be well considered and analyzed, because they are the deliberate
+convictions of an observant and well-informed man, who had, moreover,
+singular opportunities of reflecting upon the people he had so long
+travelled amongst.</p>
+
+<p>He says that "In energy, perseverance, enterprise, sagacity, activity,
+and varied resources" the Americans infinitely surpass the British;
+that he never met with "a stupid American." That our "American children"
+surpass us not only in our good, but "in our evil peculiarities." This I
+cannot understand; for, surely, if we have <i>peculiarities</i>, which there
+is no denying, they must by all the rules of logic be limited to
+ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>But the writer observes, in a paragraph too long for quotation, that
+they exceed us in materialism and in utilitarianism; that we, a nation
+of shopkeepers, as Napoleon styled the English, were outdone in the
+worship of Mammon by them; that we have rejected too much the higher
+branches of art and science, and the cultivation of the &aelig;sthetic
+faculty&mdash;what an abominable word &aelig;sthetic is! it always puts me in mind
+of asthmatic, for it is broken-winded learning.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it not common," says he, "in modern England to reject authorities
+both in Church and State, to look with contempt on the humbler and more
+peculiarly christian virtues of contentment and submission, and to
+cultivate the intellectual at the expense of the moral part of our
+nature? If these and other dangerous tendencies of a similar nature are
+at work among ourselves, as they undoubtedly are, it is useful and
+interesting to observe them in fuller operation and more unchecked
+luxuriance in America."</p>
+
+<p>Now, it is very satisfactory, that the Americans, a race of yesterday,
+who have had no opportunity as yet of coping with the deep research and
+master-minds of Europe, should in half a century have leaped into such a
+position in the civilized world as to have exceeded the Englishman in
+all the most useful relations of life, as well as in all its darker and
+more dangerous features; very satisfactory indeed that the mixed race
+peopling the United States should be better and worse than that nation
+to which the world, by universal consent, has yielded the palm of
+superiority in all the arts and in all the sciences of modern
+acquirement.</p>
+
+<p>Wherein do the Americans exceed the sons of Britain? In history, in
+policy, in poetry, in mathematics, in music, in painting, or in any of
+the gifts of the Muses? Are they more renowned in the dreadful art of
+war? or in the mild virtues of peace? Is the fame of America a wonder
+and a terror to the four quarters of the globe?&mdash;We may fearlessly reply
+in the negative. The outer barbarian knows the American but as another
+kind of Englishman. It will yet take him some centuries to distinguish
+between the original and the offspring.</p>
+
+<p>It is, in short, as untenable as an axiom in policy or history, that the
+American exceeds the Briton in the development of mind, as it is that
+the American exceeds the Briton in the development of the baser
+qualities of our nature.</p>
+
+<p>When the insatiate thirst for dollars, dollars, dollars, has subsided,
+then the American may justly rear his head as an aspirant for historic
+fame. His land has never yet produced a Shakespeare, a Johnson, a
+Milton, a Spenser, a Newton, a Bacon, a Locke, a Coke, or a Rennie. The
+utmost America has yet achieved is a very faint imitation of the least
+renowned of our great writers, Walter Scott.</p>
+
+<p>In diplomacy I deny also the palm. For although India is a case in
+point, like as Texas, yet even there we have never first planted a
+population with the express purpose of ejecting the lawful government,
+but have conquered where conquest was not only hailed by the enslaved
+people but was a positive benefit, by the introduction of mild and
+equitable laws instead of brutal and bloody despotisms. We have not
+snatched from a weak republic, whose principles had been expressly
+formed on our own model, that which poverty alone obliged it to
+relinquish. If the writer, who appears to be an excellent man and a good
+christian, had lived for several years on the borders of the eagerly
+desired Canada, I very much doubt whether he would have seen such a
+<i>couleur de rose</i> in the transactions of the mighty commonwealth, where
+the rulers are the ruled, and where education, intellect, integrity,
+innocence, and wealth must all alike bow before the Juggernaut of an
+unattainable perfection of equality.</p>
+
+<p>If Bill Johnson, the mail robber and smuggler, is as good as William
+Pitt or any other William of superior mind, why then the sooner the
+millennium of democracy arrives the better. It is unfortunate for the
+present generation&mdash;what it will be for the next no man can pretend to
+say&mdash;that this debasing principle is gaining ground not only in Canada
+but in England. A reflecting mind has no objection to the creed that all
+men were created equal; but history, sacred and profane, plainly shows
+that mind as well as matter is afterwards, for the wisest of purposes,
+very differently developed.</p>
+
+<p>Does the meanest white American, the sweeper of Broadway, if there be
+such a citizen, believe in this perfection of equality amongst men as a
+fundamental axiom of the rights of man? Place a black sweeper of
+crossings in juxtaposition, and the question will very soon solve
+itself. Why, the free and enlightened citizens will not even permit
+their black or coloured brethren to worship their common Creator in the
+same pew with themselves&mdash;it is horror, it is degradation! And yet
+there is a universal outcry about sacred liberty and equality all over
+the Union. The angels weep to witness the tricks of men placed in a
+little brief authority. Can such a state of things last as that, where
+the Irish labourer is treated as an inferior being in the scale of
+creation, and the Negro, or the offspring of the Negro and the white, is
+branded with the stigma of servile? It cannot&mdash;it will not. Either let
+democracy assume its true and legitimate features, or let it cease&mdash;for
+the re-action will be a fearful one, as dread and as horribly diabolical
+as that which the folly of the aristocracy of old France brought on that
+devoted land.</p>
+
+<p>I have said, and I repeat it, that a residence on the borders of Canada
+and the United States for some time will cure a reflecting mind of many
+long cherished notions concerning the relative merits of a limited
+monarchy and of a crude democracy.</p>
+
+<p>The man who views the border people of the United States with calm
+observation will soon come to the conclusion that a state of
+government, if it may be so called, where the commonest ruffian asserts
+privileges which the most educated and refined mind never dreams of, is
+not an enviable order of things.</p>
+
+<p>In the first fury of a war with England, who were the promoters? the mob
+on the borders. Who hoped for a new sympathy demonstration, in order to
+annex Canada? the people of the Western States, who, far removed from
+the possibility of invasion, valiantly resolve to carry fire and sword
+among their unoffending brethren.</p>
+
+<p>The intelligence and the wealth of the United States are passive; they
+are physically weak, and therefore succumb to the dictation of the rude
+masses. And what keeps up this singular action, but the
+constantly-recurring elections, the incessant balloting and voting, the
+necessity which every man feels hourly of saving his substance or his
+life from the devouring rapacity of those who think that all should be
+equal!</p>
+
+<p>If the government, acutely sensible that war is an evil which must
+cripple its resources, is unwilling to engage in it, both from principle
+and from patriotism, it must yield if the mob wills it, or forfeit the
+sweets of office and of power. Hence, few men enter upon the cares of
+public life in the States now-a-days who are of that frame of mind which
+considers personal expediency as worthy of deep reflection. What would
+Washington have said to such a system?</p>
+
+<p>The batteries or fortalices of Niagara and of Mississagua have led to a
+digression quite unintentional and unforeseen, which must terminate for
+the present with a different view from that of the author of the Letters
+above-mentioned: and let us hope fervently that the New World has not
+yet arrived at such a consummation as that of surpassing the vices and
+crimes of the Old, as we are certain it has not yet achieved such a
+moral victory as that of outrunning it in the race of scientific or
+mechanic fame. England is no more in her dotage than America is in her
+nonage. The former, without vanity or want of verity be it spoken, is
+as pre-eminent as the latter is honestly and creditably aspiring.</p>
+
+<p>The writer above quoted says their ships sail better, and are manned
+with fewer hands. We grant that no nation excels the United States in
+ship-building, and that they build vessels expressly for sailing; but
+for one English ship lost on the ocean, there are three of the venturous
+Americans; for one steam-vessel that explodes, and hurls its hundreds to
+destruction, in England or Canada, there are twenty Americans.</p>
+
+<p>In England, the cautious, the slow and the sure plan prevails; in
+America, the go-ahead, reckless, dollar-making principle prevails; and
+so it is through every other concern of life. A hundred ways of
+worshipping the Creator, after the christian form, exist in America,
+where half a dozen suffice in England.</p>
+
+<p>Time is money in America; the meals are hurried over, relaxations
+necessary to the enjoyment of existence forbidden&mdash;and what for? to
+make money. To what end? to spend it faster than it is made, and then to
+begin again. You have only a faint shadow of the immense wealth realized
+in England by that of the merchant or the shopkeeper in the States.
+Capital there is constantly in a rapid consumption; and as the people
+engaged in the feverish excitement of acquiring it are in the latter
+country, from their habits, shortlived, so the opposite fact exhibits
+itself in England. There are no Rothschilds, no railway kings in
+America. Time and the man will not admit of it. John Jacob Astor is an
+exception to this fact.</p>
+
+<p>On landing at Niagara, the difference of climate between it and Toronto
+is at once perceived. Here you are on sandy, there on clayey soil. Here
+all is heat, there moisture. I tried hard for several seasons to bring
+the peach to perfection at Toronto, only thirty-six miles from Niagara,
+without success; at Niagara it grows freely, and almost spontaneously,
+as well as the quince. The fields and the gardens of Niagara are a
+fortnight or more in advance of those of Toronto. Strange that the
+passage of the westerly winds across Ontario should make such a
+difference!</p>
+
+<p>Niagara is a grand racing-stand, where all the loafers of the
+neighbouring republic congregate in the autumn; I was unfortunately
+present at the last races, and never desire to repeat my visit at that
+season. Blacklegs and whitelegs prevail; and the next morning the course
+was strewed with the bodies of drunken vagabonds. It appears to me very
+strange that the gentry of the neighbourhood suffer a very small modicum
+of ephemeral newspaper notoriety to get the better of their good sense.
+The patronage of such a racecourse as that of Niagara, so far from being
+an honour, is the reverse. It is too near the frontier to be even
+decently respectable; nor is the course itself a good one, for the sand
+is too deep. Many a young gentleman of Toronto, who thinks that he
+copies the aristocracy of England by patronizing the turf, finds out to
+his own loss and sorrow that it would have been much better to have had
+his racing qualifications exhibited nearer his own door; and there
+cannot possibly be a greater colonial mistake committed than to fancy
+that grooms, stable-boys, and blacklegs, are now the advisers and
+companions of our juvenile nobility.&mdash;That day has passed!</p>
+
+<p>It is very unfortunate that very false ideas exist in some of the
+colonies of the manners and customs of high life in England. The
+grown-up people often fancy that cold reserve, and an assumption of
+great state, indicate high birth and breeding. The younger branches seem
+frequently to think that there is no such thing at home as the period of
+adolescence; consequently, you often see a pert young master deliver his
+unasked opinion and behave before his seniors and superiors as though he
+wanted to intimate that he was wiser in his generation than they.</p>
+
+<p>In crossing to Niagara, we had a specimen of the precocious colonist of
+1845. The table of the captain of the boat, like that of his respected
+father, was good and decorously conducted, and there were several ladies
+and some most respectable travelled Americans at dinner. A very young
+gentleman, who boasted how much he had lost at the races, how much they
+had gambled, and how much they drank of champagne the night
+before&mdash;champagne, by the by, is thought a very aristocratic drink among
+psuedo-great men, although it is common as ditch-water in the United
+States&mdash;engrossed the whole conversation of the dinner-table, picked his
+teeth, took up the room of two, called the waiter fifty times, and ended
+by ordering the cheese to be placed on the table before the pies and
+puddings were removed. The company present rose before the dessert
+appeared, thoroughly disgusted; and I afterwards saw this would-be man
+peeping into the windows of the ladies'-cabin, and performing a thousand
+other antic tricks, cigar in mouth, for which he would in England have
+met with his deserts.</p>
+
+<p>The precociousness of Transatlantic children is not confined to the
+United States&mdash;it is equally and unpleasantly visible in Canada.</p>
+
+<p>The Americans who travel, I can safely say, are not guilty of these
+monstrous absurdities. I have crossed the Atlantic more than once with
+boys of from seventeen to twenty, who have left college to make the
+grand tour, without ever observing any thing to find fault with. The
+American youth is observant, and soon discovers that attempting to do
+the character of men before his time in the society of English strangers
+invariably lowers instead of raising an interest.</p>
+
+<p>There is a good caricature of this in an American book, I forget its
+title, written some time ago, to show the simplicity, gullibility, and
+vindictivness of our Trollopean travellers. It is a boy of sixteen, or
+thereabouts, cigar in the corner of his mouth, hat cocked on three
+curls, and all the modern etceteras of a complete youth, saying to his
+father, "Here, take my boots, old fellow, and clean them." The father
+looks a little amazed, upon which the manikin ejaculates, "Why don't you
+take them? what's the use of having a father?"</p>
+
+<p>There will be a railway smash in this, as well as in the locomotive
+mania. Republicanism towards elders and parents is unnatural; the child
+and the man were not born equal.</p>
+
+<p>I remember reading in a voluminous account of the terrors of the French
+revolution a remarkable passage:&mdash;servants denounced masters, debtors
+denounced creditors, women denounced husbands, children denounced
+parents, youth denounced protecting age; gratitude was unknown; a favour
+conferred led to the guillotine: but never, never in that awful period,
+in that reign of the vilest passions of our nature over reason, was
+there one instance, one single instance, of a parent denouncing its
+child.</p>
+
+<p>It is not a good sign when extreme youth pretends to have discovered the
+true laws of the universe, when the son is wiser than the father, or
+when immature reason usurps the functions of the ripened faculties.</p>
+
+<p>I have put this together because I hear hourly parents deprecating the
+system of education in the greatest city of Western Canada; because I
+hear and see children of fourteen swaggering about the streets with all
+the consequence of unfledged men, smoking cigars, frequenting
+tavern-bars and billiard-rooms, and no doubt led by such unbridled
+license into deeper mysteries and excesses; because I hear clergymen
+lament that boys of that age lose their health by excesses too difficult
+of belief to fancy true. Surely a salutary check in time may be applied
+to such an evil.</p>
+
+<p>But liberty and equality, as I said before, are extending on both sides
+of the Atlantic: and in their train come these evils, simply because
+liberty and equality are as much misunderstood as real republicanism and
+limited monarchy are.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h4><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p class="center">The old Canadian Coach&mdash;Jonathan and John Bull passengers&mdash;"That
+Gentleman"&mdash;Beautiful River, beautiful drive&mdash;Brock's
+Monument&mdash;Queenston&mdash;Bar and Pulpit&mdash;Trotting horse Railroad&mdash;Awful
+accident&mdash;The Falls once more&mdash;Speculation&mdash;Water
+privilege&mdash;Barbarism&mdash;Museum&mdash;Loafers&mdash;Tulip-trees&mdash;Rattlesnakes&mdash;The
+Burning Spring&mdash;Setting fire to Niagara&mdash;A charitable Woman&mdash;The
+Nigger's Parrot&mdash;John Bull is a Yankee&mdash;Political Courtship&mdash;Lundy's
+Lane&mdash;Heroine&mdash;Welland Canal.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>I can make no stay at Niagara for the present; but, after resting awhile
+at Howard's Inn, which is the most respectable one in the town, proceed
+in his coach to Queenston.</p>
+
+<p>The old Canadian coach has not yet quite vanished before modern
+improvement. It is a mighty heavy, clumsy conveniency, hung on leather
+springs, and looking for all the world as if elephants alone could move
+it along; and, if it should upset, like Falstaff, it may ask for levers
+to lift it up again.</p>
+
+<p>We had on board the coach an American, of the species Yankee, a thorough
+bluff, rosy, herculean, Yorkshire-farmer, and several highly respectable
+females.</p>
+
+<p>I will not say Jonathan did not spit before them, for he is to the
+manner born; but, although of inferior grade, if there can be such a
+thing mentioned respecting a citizen of the United States, and
+particularly of "the Empire State," of which he was, to his credit be it
+said, he treated the females with that courtesy, rough as it is, which
+seems innate with all Americans.</p>
+
+<p>A stormy discussion arose on the part of John Bull, who hated slavery,
+disliked spitting, got angry about Brock's monument, and, in short,
+looked down with no small share of contempt upon the man of yesterday,
+whose ideas of right and wrong were so diametrically opposed to his own,
+and who very sententiously expressed them.</p>
+
+<p>John told him that the only thing he had never heard in his travels
+through the Northern and Western States&mdash;where he had been to look at
+the land with a view to purchase, either there or in Canada, as might be
+most advisable&mdash;the only thing he had never heard was that all the
+citizens of the United States were all "gentlemen."</p>
+
+<p>"I guess you didn't hear with both ears, then, for you always must have
+remarked that whenever one citizen spoke of another, he said 'that
+gentleman.'"</p>
+
+<p>John laughed outright. "No, friend, I never did hear your white
+gentlemen call a nigger 'that gentleman;' so, you see, all your folks
+ain't equal, and all ain't gentlemen. Here, in Canada, I have heard a
+blacky called 'that gentleman;' and, by George, if many more of your
+runaway slaves cross the border, they will soon be the only gentlemen in
+Canada, for they are getting very impudent and very numerous."</p>
+
+<p>This is, in a measure, true; such troops of escaped negroes are annually
+forwarded to Canada by the abolitionists that the Western frontier is
+overrun already, and the impudence of these newly free knows no bounds.
+But they cordially hate both the Southern slaveholders and the
+abolitionists.</p>
+
+<p>Talking of slavery, pray read an account of it from an American of the
+Northern States.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p style="margin-left: 5em;">"New Orleans, January 26, 1846.</p>
+
+<p>"A man may be no abolitionist&mdash;I am not one; he may think but little on
+the subject of slavery&mdash;it has never troubled me one way or the other:
+but let him mark the records of the glorious battles of the Revolution;
+let him notice the Eagle of Liberty, and all the emblems of
+Independence, Freedom, and the rights of man; let him muse on the
+thoughts they awaken, and then behold the actualities of life around
+him. Suddenly the sharp rap of an auctioneer's hammer startles him, and
+the loud striking of the hour of twelve will divert his attention to the
+throng of men around him, and the appearance of three or four men on
+raised stands in different parts of the Rotunda, who are calling the
+attention of those around him, at the same time unrolling a hand-bill
+that the stranger has noticed in the most conspicuous places in the
+city, printed in French and English, announcing the sale of a lot of
+fine, likely slaves; at the same time, he observes maps of real estates
+spread out&mdash;everything in fact around him denoting a 'busy mart where
+men do congregate,' as it really is.</p>
+
+<p>"The auctioneer, making the most noise, attracts his attention first;
+joining the crowd in front of the stand, he observes twelve or fifteen
+negroes of all ages and both sexes standing in a line to the left of the
+auctioneer; they are comfortably, and some of them neatly dressed,
+particularly the women, with their yellow Madras handkerchiefs tied
+around their heads, and their bright, showy dresses; but they have a
+look that irresistibly causes him to think back for a comparison to the
+objects before him, and it seems strange that it should bring to mind
+some market or field where he has sometimes seen cattle offered for
+sale, whose saddened look seemed to forbode some evil to them; but the
+animal look is somewhat redeemed by the smiles and plays of the little
+<i>piccaninies</i>, who seem to wonder why they are there, with so many men
+looking at them.&mdash;Now for business.</p>
+
+<p>"'Maria, step up here. There, gentlemen, is a fine, likely wench, aged
+twenty-five; she is warranted healthy and sound, with the exception of a
+slight lameness in the left leg, which does not damage her at all. Step
+down, Maria, and walk.' The woman gets down, and steps off eight or ten
+paces, and returns with a slight limp, evidently with some pain, but
+doing her best to conceal her defect of gait. The auctioneer is a
+Frenchman, and announces everything alternately in French and English.
+'Now, gentlemen, what is bid? she is warranted, elle est gurantie, and
+sold by a very respectable citizen. 250 dollars, deux cent et cinquante
+dollars: why, gentlemen, what do you mean! Get down, Maria, and walk a
+little more. 275, deux cent soixante et quinze, 300, trois cents!&mdash;go
+on, gentlemen&mdash;325, trois cents et vingt cinq! once, twice, ah! 350,
+trois cents et cinquante: une fois! deux fois! going, gone, for 350
+dollars. A great bargain, gentlemen.'</p>
+
+<p>"My attention is called to the opposite side of the room: 'Here,
+gentlemen, is a likely little orphan yellow girl, six years old&mdash;what is
+bid? combien? thirty-five dollars, trente cinq, fifty dollars, cinquante
+dollars, thank you.' Finally, she is knocked down at seventy-five
+dollars.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, there is a whole family on that other stand; let us see them.
+'There, gentlemen, is a fine lot: Willy, aged thirty-five, an expert
+boy, a good carpenter, brickmaker, driver, in fact, can do anything, il
+sait faire tout. His wife, Betty, is thirty-three, can wash, cook, wait
+on the table, and make herself generally useful; also their boy George,
+five years old; you will observe, gentlemen, that Betty est enceinte.
+Now what is bid for this valuable family?' After a lively competition,
+they are bid off at 1,550 dollars, the whole family.</p>
+
+<p>"As I have before remarked, everything is done in French and English;
+even the negroes speak both languages. I saw one poor old negro, about
+sixty, put up, but withdrawn, as only 270 dollars were bid for him.
+While waiting to be sold, they are examined and questioned by the
+purchasers. One young girl, about sixteen or eighteen, was being
+inspected by an elderly, stern, sharp-eyed, horse-jockey looking man,
+who sported his gold chains, diamond pin, ruffles, and cane: 'How old
+are you?' 'I don't know, sir.' 'Do you know how to eat?' 'Everybody does
+that,' she said sullenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Passing up the Esplanade next morning, (Sunday) I saw some forty or
+fifty very fine-looking negroes and negresses, all neatly dressed,
+standing on a bench directly in front of a building, which I took to be
+a meeting or school house: walking by, a genteel-looking man stepped up
+and asked me if I wished to buy a likely boy or girl. Telling him I was
+a stranger, and asking for information, he told me it was one of the
+slave-markets; that they stood there for examination, and that he had
+sold 500,000 dollars worth and sent them off that morning.</p>
+
+<p>"The above facts are some of the singular features (to a Northerner) of
+this remarkable place, and I assure you that I 'nothing extenuate, or
+set down aught in malice;' but may the time come when even a black man
+may say, 'I am a man!'</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 25em;">"<span class="smcap">Northrop.</span>"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>I once relieved a poor black wretch who was starving in the streets of
+Kingston, and told him where to go to get proper advice and protection:
+all the thanks I received were that he was sorry he ran away, for he had
+been a waiter somewhere in the South, and got a good many dollars by his
+situation; whereas, he said, Canada was a poor country, and he had no
+hope of thriving in it.</p>
+
+<p>The lower class of negroes in Canada, for there are several classes
+among even runaways, are very frequently dissolute, idle, impudent, and
+assuming&mdash;so difficult is it for poor uneducated human nature to bear a
+little freedom.</p>
+
+<p>The coloured people, if they get at all up in the world, assume vast
+airs, but there are very many well-conducted people among them. As yet
+neither coloured people nor negroes have made much advance in Canada.</p>
+
+<p>John Bull had visited almost every portion of the Northern and Western
+States, was a shrewd, observing character, and had come to the
+conclusion, which he very plainly expressed, that the state of society
+in the Union was not to his taste, that he could procure lands as cheap
+and as good for his gold in Canada, and that to Canada he would bring
+his old woman and his children.</p>
+
+<p>"For," said he, "in the London or Western districts of Upper Canada, the
+land is equal to any in the United States, the climate better, and by
+and by it will supply all Europe with grain. Settling there, an
+Englishman will not always be put in mind of the inferiority of the
+British to the Americans, will not always be told that kings and queens
+are childish humbugs, and will not have his work hindered and his mind
+poisoned by constant elections and everlasting grasping for office.</p>
+
+<p>"While," says John to Jonathan, "I am in Canada, just as free as you
+are; I pay no taxes, or only such as I control myself, and which are
+laid out in roads, or for my benefit. I can worship after the manner of
+my fathers, without being robbed or burnt out, and I meet no man who
+thinks himself a bit better than myself; but, as I shall take care to
+settle a good way from republican sympathizers for the sake of my poor
+property, I shall always find my neighbours as proud of Queen Victoria
+as I be myself."</p>
+
+<p>Jonathan replied that he had no manner of doubt that Miss Victoria was a
+real lady, for every female is a lady in the States; the word being
+understood only as an equivalent for womankind, and that John might like
+petticoat government, but, for his part, he calculated it was better to
+be a king one's-self, which every citizen of the enlightened republic
+was, and no mistake.</p>
+
+<p>And kings they are, for all power resides there, in the body of which
+he was a favourable specimen, but which does not always show its members
+in so fair a light.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know any coach ride in British America more pleasing than that
+from Niagara to Queenston. You cross a broad green common, with the
+expanse of Lake Ontario on one side, the forest and orchard on the
+other; and, after passing through a little coppice, suddenly come upon
+the St. Lawrence, rolling a tranquil flood towards the great lake below.</p>
+
+<p>High above its waters, on the edge of the sharp precipitous bank,
+covered with trees&mdash;oak, birch, beech, chestnut, and maple&mdash;runs the
+sandy road, bordered by corn-fields, by orchards, and occasionally by
+little patches of woodland, looking for all the world like Old England,
+excepting that that unpicturesque snake fence spoils the illusion.</p>
+
+<p>Now, bright and deep, rolls the giant flood onward; now it is hidden by
+a turn of the bank; now, glittering, it again appears between the trees.
+Thus you travel until within a couple of miles or so of Queenston, when,
+the road leaving the bank, and the river forming a large bay-like bend,
+a splendid view breaks out.</p>
+
+<p>You catch a distant glimpse of that narrow pass, where a wall of rock,
+two hundred feet high on each side, and somewhat higher on the American
+shore, vomits forth the pent-up angry Niagara. Above this wall, to the
+right and left, towers the mountain ridge, covered with forest to the
+south, and with the greenest of grass to the north, where, stately and
+sad, stands the pillar under whose base moulder the bones of the gallant
+Brock, and of Mac Donell, his aide-de-camp.</p>
+
+<p>Rent from summit to base, tottering to its fall, is Brock's monument,
+and yet the villain who did the deed that destroyed it lives, and dares
+to show his face on the neighbouring shore.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot conceive in beautiful scenery any thing more picturesque than
+the gorge of the Niagara river: it combines rapid water, a placid bay, a
+tremendous wall of rock, forest, glade, village, column, active and
+passive life.</p>
+
+<p>Queenston is a poor place; it has never gained an inch since the war of
+1812; but, as a railroad has been established, and a wharf is building
+in connection with it, it will go ahead. Opposite to it is Lewiston, in
+the United States, less ancient and time-worn, full of gaudily-painted
+wooden houses, and with much more pretension. Queenston looks like an
+old English hamlet in decay; melancholy and miserable; Lewiston is the
+type of newness, all white and green, all unfinished and all
+uncomfortable.</p>
+
+<p>The odious bar-room system of the Northern States is fast sweeping away
+all vestiges of English comfort. The practice of lounging, cigar in
+mouth, sipping juleps and alcoholic decoctions in common with smugglers
+and small folk, is fast unhinging society. The plan of social economy in
+the mercantile cities is rapidly spreading over the whole Union, and the
+fashion of ladies' drawing-rooms being absorbed into the parlour of an
+hotel or boarding-house has brought about a change which the next
+generation will lament.</p>
+
+<p>It is the restless rage for politics, the ever present desire for
+dollars, which has brought about this state of things; the young husband
+seeks the bar-room as a merchant does the Change; and thus, except in
+the wealthy class, or among the contemplative and retired, there is no
+such thing as private life in the northern cities and towns. Huge
+taverns, real wooden gin palaces, tower over the tops of all other
+buildings, in every border village, town, and city; and a good bar is a
+better business than any other. Thus in Lewiston, in Buffalo, in short,
+in every American border town, the best building is the tavern, and the
+next best the meeting-house; both are fashionable, and both are anything
+but what they should be; for he who keeps the best liquors, and he who
+preaches most pointedly to the prevailing taste, makes the most of his
+trade. The voluntary system is a capital speculation to the publican as
+well as to the parson; but, unfortunately, it is more general with the
+former than with the latter.</p>
+
+<p>The Niagara frontier is a rich and a fertile portion of Canada,
+surrounded almost by water, and intersected by rivers, and the Welland
+Canal, with an undulating surface in the interior. It grows wheat,
+Indian corn, and all the cereal gramina to perfection, whilst Pomona
+lavishes favours on it; nor are its woods less prolific and luxuriant.
+Here the chestnut, with its deep green foliage and its white flowers,
+forms a pleasing variety to the sylvan scenery of Canada.</p>
+
+<p>It would be, from its healthiness alone, the pleasantest part of Canada
+to live in, but it is too near the borders where sympathizers, more keen
+and infinitely more barbarous than those on the ancient Tweed, render
+property and life rather precarious; and, therefore, in war or in
+rebellion, the Niagara frontier is not an enviable abode for the
+peaceable farmer or the timid female.</p>
+
+<p>The ascent to the plateau above Queenston is grand, and the view from
+the summit very extensive and magnificent; embracing such a stretch of
+cultivated land, of forest, of the habitations of men, and of the
+apparently boundless Ontario, the Beautiful Lake, that it can scarcely
+be rivalled.</p>
+
+<p>The railroad has, however, spoiled a good deal of this; it runs from the
+summit of the mountain, along its side or flank, inland to Chippewa,
+beyond the Falls; and you are whirled along, not by steam, but by three
+trotting horses, at a rapid rate, through a wood road, until you reach
+the Falls, where you obtain just a glimpse and no more of the Cataract.</p>
+
+<p>On the top of the mountain, as a hill four or five hundred feet above
+the river is called, is a place which was the scene of an awful
+accident. The precipice wall of the gorge of the Niagara is very close
+to the road, but hidden from it by stunted firs and bushes. Colonel
+Nichols, an officer well known and distinguished in the last American
+war, was returning one winter's night, when the fresh snow rendered all
+tracks on the road imperceptible, in his sleigh with a gallant horse.
+Merrily on they went; the night was dark, and the road makes a sudden
+turn just at the brink, to descend by a circuitous sweep the face of
+the hill into Queenston. Either the driver or the horse mistook the
+path, and, instead of turning to the left, went on edging to the right.</p>
+
+<p>The next day search was made: the marks of struggling were observed on
+the snow; the horse had evidently observed his danger; he had floundered
+and dashed wildly about; but horse, sleigh, and driver, went down, down,
+down, at least two hundred feet into the abyss below; and sufficient
+only remained to bear witness to the terrific result.</p>
+
+<p>The railroad (three horse power) takes you to the Falls or to Chippewa.
+If you intend visiting the former, and desire to go to the Clifton
+House, the best hotel there, you are dropped at Mr. Lanty Mac Gilly's,
+where the four roads meet, one going to the Ferry, one to Drummondville,
+a village at Lundy's Lane, now cut off from the main road; the other you
+came by, and the continuation of which goes to Chippewa, where a
+steamer, called the Emerald, is ready to take you to the city of
+Buffalo in the United States. As I shall return by way of Buffalo from
+the extreme west of Canada, we will say not a word about any thing
+further on this route at present than the Falls, and perhaps the reader
+may think the less that is said about them the better.</p>
+
+<p>But, gentle reader, although it be a well-worn tale, I had not seen the
+Falls for five years, and I wish to tell you whether they are altered or
+improved; and most likely you will take some little interest in so old a
+friend as the Falls of Niagara; for you must have read about those
+before you read Robinson Crusoe, and have had them thrust under your
+notice by every tourist, from Trollope to Dickens. They say, <i>on dit</i>, I
+mean, which is not translatable into English, that this is the age of
+Materialism and Utilitarianism. By George, you would think so indeed, if
+you had the chance of seeing the Falls of Niagara twice in ten years.
+They are materially injured by the Utilitarian mania. The Yankees put an
+ugly shot tower on the brink of the Horseshoe at the beginning of that
+era, and they are about to consummate the barbarism, by throwing a wire
+bridge, if the British government is consenting, over the river, just
+below the American Fall. But Niagara is a splendid "Water Privilege,"
+and so thought the Company of the City of the Falls&mdash;a most enlightened
+body of British subjects, who first disfigured the Table Rock, by
+putting a water-mill on it, and now are adding the horror of
+gin-palaces, with sundry ornamental booths for the sale of juleps and
+sling, all along the venerable edge of the precipice, so that trees of
+unequalled beauty on the bank above, trees which grow no where else in
+Canada, are daily falling before the monster of gain.</p>
+
+<p>What they will do next in their freaks it is difficult to surmise; but
+it requires very little more to show that patriotism, taste, and
+self-esteem, are not the leading features in the character of the
+inhabitants of this part of the world.</p>
+
+<p>If the Colossus of Rhodes could be remodelled and brought to the Falls,
+one leg standing in Canada, and the other in the United States, there
+would be a company immediately formed for hydraulic purposes, to convey
+a waste pipe from the tips of the fingers as far as Buffalo; and another
+to light the paltry village of Manchester, all mills and mint-juleps,
+with the natural gas which would be made to feed the lamp. A grogshop
+would be set up in his head; telescopes would be poked out of his eyes,
+and philosophers would seat themselves on his toes, to calculate whether
+the waters of the British Fall could not be dammed out, so as to turn a
+few cotton mills more in Manchester, as it is called, which scheme some
+Canadian worthy would upset, by resorting to Mr. Lyell's proof that the
+whole river might once have flowed, and may again be made to flow, down
+to St. David's&mdash;thus, by expending a few millions, cutting off
+Jonathan's chance.</p>
+
+<p>But it is of no use to joke on this subject; Niagara is, both to the
+United States and to England, but especially to Canada, a public
+property. It is the greatest wonder of the visible world here below,
+and should be protected from the rapacity of private speculations, and
+not made a Greenwich fair of; where pedlars and thimble-riggers, niggers
+and barkers, the lowest trulls and the vilest scum of society,
+congregate to disgust and annoy the visitors from all parts of the
+world, plundering and pestering them without control.</p>
+
+<p>The only really pretty thing on the British side is the Museum, the
+result of the indefatigable labours of Mr. Barnett, a person who, by his
+own unassisted industry, has gathered together a most interesting
+collection of animals, shells, coins, &amp;c., and has added a garden, in
+which all the choicest plants and flowers of North America and of
+Britain grow, watered by the incessant spray of the Great Fall. In this
+garden I saw, for the first time in Canada, the English holly, the box,
+the heath, and the ivy; and there is a willow from the St. Helena stock.</p>
+
+<p>It requires unremitting watchfulness, however, to keep all this
+together, for <i>loafers</i> are rife in these parts. He had gathered a very
+choice collection of coins, which was placed in a glass case in the
+Museum. A loafer cast his eye upon them, visited the Museum frequently,
+until he fully comprehended the whereabouts, and then, by the help of a
+comrade or two, broke a window-pane, passed through a glazed division of
+stuffed snakes, &amp;c., and bore off his prize in the dead of the night. By
+advertising in time, and by dint of much exertion, the greater part was
+recovered, but the proprietor has not dared publicly to exhibit them
+since.</p>
+
+<p>He is now forming a menagerie, and also has a collection of fossils and
+minerals from the neighbourhood, with a camera obscura. He is, in short,
+a specimen of what untiring industry can accomplish, even when
+unassisted.</p>
+
+<p>There are some tulip-trees near the Falls, but this plant does not grow
+to any size so far north; and, although native to the soil, it is,
+perhaps, the extreme limit of its range. The snake-wood, a sort of
+slender bush, is found here, with very many other rare Canadian plants,
+which are no doubt fostered by the continual humidity of the place; and,
+if you wish to sup full of horrors,<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> Mr. Barnett has plenty of live
+rattlesnakes.</p>
+
+<p>To wind up all, the Americans are going to put up another immense
+gin-palace on the opposite shore; and, as a climax to the excellent
+taste of the vicinage, they are about to place a huge steamboat to cross
+the rapids at the foot of the Manchester Falls. The next speculation, as
+I hinted above, must be to turn the Niagara into the Erie, or into the
+Welland Canal, and make it carry flour, grind wheat, and do the duty
+which the political economists of this thriving place consider all
+rivers as alone created for.</p>
+
+<p>One traveller of the Utilitarian school has recorded, in the traveller's
+album at the Falls, the number of gallons of water running over to
+waste per minute; and another writes, "What an almighty splash!"</p>
+
+<p>I went once more to see the Burning Spring, and have no doubt whatever
+that the City of the Falls, that great pre-eminent humbug, if it had
+been built, might have easily been lit by natural gas, as it abounds
+every where in the neighbourhood, the rock under the superior Silurian
+limestone being a shale containing it, as may be evidenced by those
+visitors, who are persuaded to go under "the Sheet of Water," as the
+place is called where the Table Rock projects, and part of the cataract
+slides over it; for, on reaching the angle next to the spiral stair, a
+strong smell is plainly perceptible, something between rotten eggs and
+sulphur; and there you find a little trickling spring oozing out of the
+precipice tasting of those delectable compounds.</p>
+
+<p>A Yankee, with the soaring imagination of that imaginative race,
+proposes to set fire to the Horseshoe Fall, and thus get up a grand
+nocturnal exhibition, to which the Surrey Zoological pyrotechny would
+bear the same ratio as a sky-rocket to Vesuvius.</p>
+
+<p>There is no great impossibility in this fact, if it was "not a fact"
+that the rush of the Fall disturbs the superincumbent gases too much to
+permit it; for there can be but little doubt that there is plenty of
+<i>materiel</i> at hand, and, some day or other, a lighthouse will be lit
+with it to guide sleepy loons and other negligent water-fowl over the
+Falls. I wonder they do not get up a Carburetted Hydrogen Gas Company
+there, with a suitable engineer and railway, so that visitors might
+cross over to Goat Island on an atmospheric line. There are plenty of
+railway stags on both shores, if you will only buy their stock to
+establish it; and, at all events, it would improve the City of the
+Falls, which now exhibits the deplorable aspect of three stuccoed
+cottages turned seedy, and a bare common, in place of a magnificent
+grove of chestnut trees, which formerly almost rivalled Greenwich Park.</p>
+
+<p>But the crowning glory of "the City" is the Reflecting Pagoda, a thing
+perched over Table Rock bank; very like a huge pile engine, with a
+ten-shilling mirror, where the monkey should be. Blessings on Time!
+though he is a very thoughtless rogue, he has touched this grand effort
+of human genius in the wooden line slightly, and it will soon follow the
+horrid water-mill which stood on that most singular and indescribable
+freak of Nature, the Table Rock. I would have forgiven Lett, the
+sympathizer, if, instead of assassination and the blowing-up of Brock's
+Monument, he had confined his attentions to a little serious Guy Fauxing
+at the Mill and the Reflecting Pagoda.</p>
+
+<p>Niagara&mdash;Ne-aw-gaw-rah, thou thundering water! thy glories are
+departing; the abominable Railway Times has driven along thy borders;
+and, if I should live to see thee again ten years hence, verily I should
+not be astounded to find thee locked-up, and a station-house staring me
+in the visage, from that emerald bower, in thy most mysterious recess,
+where the vapour is rose-coloured, and the bright rainbow alone now
+forms the bridge from the Iris Rock!</p>
+
+<p>I was so disgusted to see the spirit of pelf, that concentration of
+self, hovering over one of the last of the wonders of the world, that I
+rushed to the Three Horse Railway, and soon forgot all my misery in
+scrambling for a place; for there was no alternative. There were only
+three carriages and one open cart on the rail; the three aristocratic
+conveniences were full; and the coal-box&mdash;for it looked very like
+one&mdash;was full also, of loafers and luggage; so I despaired of quitting
+the Falls almost as much, by way of balance, as I rejoiced when they
+once again met my ken.</p>
+
+<p>But women are women all the world over; a black lady nursed Mungo Park,
+when he was abandoned by the world; and a charitable she-Samaritan
+crowded to make room for a disconsolate wayfarer.</p>
+
+<p>I felt very much as the nigger's parrot at New York did.</p>
+
+<p>Blacky was selling a parrot, and a gentleman asked him what the bird
+could do. Could he speak well? "No, massa; no peaky at all." "Can he
+sing?"&mdash;"No, massa; no peaky, no singy." "Why, what can he do, then,
+that you ask twenty dollars for him?" "Oh! massa, golly, he thinky
+dreadful much." So, when the daughter of Eve made way for me in the
+rail-car, why I thinky very much, that, wherever a stranger meets
+unexpected kindness, it is sure to be a woman that offers it.</p>
+
+<p>There were the usual host of American travellers in the cars; and as one
+generally gets a fund of anecdote and amusement on these occasions, from
+their habits of communicativeness, I shall put the English reader in
+possession of the meaning of words he often sees in the perusal of
+American newspapers and novels which I gathered.</p>
+
+<p>New York is the Empire State, and with the following comprises Yankee
+land, which word Yankee is most properly a corruption of Yengeese, the
+old Indian word for English; so that, by parity of reasoning, John Bull
+is, after all, a Yankee.</p>
+
+<table summary="states" width="500">
+<tr>
+<td>Massachusetts</td><td>The Bay State, Steady Habits.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Rhode Island</td><td>Plantation State.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Vermont</td><td>Banner State, or Green Mountain Boys.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>New Hampshire</td><td>The Granite State.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Connecticut</td><td>Freestone State.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Maine</td><td>Lumber State.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>These are the Yankees, <i>par excellence</i>; and it is not polite or even
+civil for a traveller to consider or mention any of the other States as
+labouring under the idea that they ever could, by any possibility, be
+considered as Yankees; for, in the South, the word Yankee is almost
+equivalent to a tin pedlar, a sharp, Sam Slick.</p>
+
+<table summary="states" width="500">
+<tr>
+<td>Pennsylvania&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;	&nbsp;	&nbsp;	is</td>
+<td> The Keystone State.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>New Jersey</td>
+<td>The Jersey (pronounced Jar-say) Blues.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Delaware</td>
+<td> Little Delaware.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Maryland </td>
+<td>Monumental.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Virginia </td>
+<td>The Old Dominion, and sometimes the Cavaliers.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>North Carolina </td>
+<td>Rip Van Winckle.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>South Carolina </td>
+<td>The Palmetto State.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Georgia</td>
+<td> Pine State.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Ohio  </td>
+<td>The Buckeyes.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Kentucky</td>
+<td>The Corncrackers.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Alabama</td>
+<td>Alabama.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Tennessee</td>
+<td>The Lion's Den.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Missouri </td>
+<td>The Pukes.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Illinois</td>
+<td>The Suckers.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Indiana </td>
+<td>The Hoosiers.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Michigan  </td>
+<td>The Wolverines.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Arkansas</td>
+<td>The Toothpickers.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Louisiana </td>
+<td>The Creole State.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Mississippi</td>
+<td> The Border Beagles.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<p>I do not know what elegant names have been given to the Floridas, the
+Iowa, or any of the other territories, but no doubt they are equally
+significant. Texas, I suppose, will be called Annexation State.</p>
+
+<p>This information, although it appears frivolous, is very useful, as
+without it much of the perpetual war of politics in the States cannot be
+understood. Yankee in Europe is a sort of byword, denoting repudiation
+and all sorts of chicanery; but the Yankee States are more English, more
+intellectual, and more enterprising than all the rest put together; and
+Pennsylvania should be enrolled among them.</p>
+
+<p>In short, in the north-east you have the cool, calculating, confident,
+and persevering Yankee; in the south, the fiery, somewhat aristocratic,
+bold, and uncompromising American, full of talent, but with his energies
+a little slackened by his proximity to the equator and his habitual use
+of slave assistance.</p>
+
+<p>In the central States, all is progressive; a more agricultural
+population of mixed races, as energetic as the Yankee, but not
+possessing his advantages of a seaboard. The Western States are the
+pioneers of civilization, and have a dauntless, less educated, and more
+turbulent character, approaching, as you draw towards the setting sun,
+very much to the half-horse, half-alligator, and paving the way for the
+arts and sciences of Europe with the rifle and the axe.</p>
+
+<p>It is these Western States and the vast labouring population of the
+seaboard, who have only their manual labour to maintain them, without
+property or without possessions of any kind, that control the
+legislature, their numerical strength beating and bearing down mind,
+matter, and wealth.</p>
+
+<p>Doubtless it is the bane of the republican institution, as now settled
+in North America, that every man, woman, and child, in order to assert
+their equality, must meddle with matters far above the comprehension of
+a great majority; for, although the people of the United States can, as
+George the Third so piously wished for the people of England, read their
+bible, whenever they are inclined to do so, yet it is beyond
+possibility, as human nature is constituted, that all can be endowed
+with the same, or any thing like the same, faculties. Too much learning
+makes them mad; and hence the constant danger of disruption, from
+opposing interests, which the masses&mdash;for the word mob is not applicable
+here&mdash;must always enforce. The north and the south, the east and the
+west, are as dissimilar in habits, in thought, in action, and in
+interests, as Young Russia is from Old England, or as republican France
+was from the monarchy of Louis the Great.</p>
+
+<p>Hence is it that a Canadian, residing, as it were, on the Neutral
+Ground, can so much better appreciate the tone of feeling in America, as
+the United States' people love to call their country, than an
+Englishman, Scotchman, or Irishman can; for here are visible the very
+springs that regulate the machinery, which are covered and hidden by the
+vast space of the Atlantic. You can form no idea of the American
+character by the merchants, travelling gentry, or diplomatists, who
+visit London and the sea-ports. You must have lengthened and daily
+opportunities of observing the people of a new country, where a new
+principle is working, before you can venture safely to pronounce an
+attempt even at judgment.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Tocqueville, who is always lauded to the skies for his
+philosophic and truly extraordinary view of American policy and
+institutions, has perhaps been as impartial as most republican writers
+since the days of the enthusiast Volney, on the merits or demerits of
+the monarchical and democratic systems; yet his opinions are to be
+listened to very cautiously, for the leaven was well mixed in his own
+cake before it was matured for consumption by the public.</p>
+
+<p>Weak and prejudiced minds receive the doctrines of a philosopher like
+Tocqueville as dictations: he pronounced <i>ex cathedra</i> his doctrines,
+and it is heresy to gainsay them. Yet, as an able writer in that
+universal book, "The Times," says, reason and history read a different
+sermon.</p>
+
+<p>That democracy is an essential principle, and must sooner or later
+prevail amongst all people, is very analogous to the prophecy of Miller,
+that the material world is to be rolled up as a garment, and shrivelled
+in the fire on the thirteenth day of some month next year, <i>or</i> the year
+after.</p>
+
+<p>These fulminations are very semblable to those of the popes&mdash;harmless
+corruscations&mdash;a sort of aurora borealis, erratic and splendid, but very
+unreal and very unsearchable as to cause and effect.</p>
+
+<p>There can be, however, very little doubt in the mind of a person whose
+intellects have been carefully developed, and who has used them quietly
+to reason on apparent conclusions, that the form of government in the
+United States has answered a purpose hitherto, and that a wise one; for
+the impatience of control which every new-comer from the Old World
+naturally feels, when he discovers that he has only escaped the dominion
+of long-established custom to fall under the more despotic dominion of
+new opinions, prompts him, if he differs, and he always naturally does,
+where so many opinions are suddenly brought to light and forced on his
+acquiescence, to move out of their sphere. Hence emigration westward is
+the result; and hence, for the same reasons, the old seaboard States,
+where the force of the laws operates more strongly than in the central
+regions, annually pour out to the western forests their masses of
+discontented citizens.</p>
+
+<p>The feeling of old Daniel Boone and of Leather Stockings is a very
+natural one to a half-educated or a wholly uneducated man, and no doubt
+also many quiet and respectable people get harassed and tired of the
+caucusing and canvassing for political power, which is incessantly going
+on under the modern system of things in America, and take up their
+household gods to seek out the land flowing with milk and honey beyond
+the wilderness.</p>
+
+<p>No person can imagine the constant turmoil of politics in the Northern
+States. The writer already quoted says, that there is "one singular
+proof of the general energy and capacity for business, which early
+habits of self-dependence have produced;&mdash;almost every American
+understands politics, takes a lively interest in them (though many
+abstain under discouragement or disgust from taking a practical part),
+and is familiar, not only with the affairs of his own township or
+county, but with those of the State or of the Union; almost every man
+reads about a dozen newspapers every day, and will talk to you for
+hours, (<i>tant bien que mal</i>) if you will listen to him, about the tariff
+and the Ashburton treaty."</p>
+
+<p>And he continues by stating that this by no means interferes with his
+private affairs; on the contrary, he appears to have time for both, and
+can reconcile "the pursuits of a bustling politician and a steady man
+of business. Such a union is rarely found in England, and never on, the
+Continent."</p>
+
+<p>But what is the result of such a union of versatile talent? Politics and
+dollars absorb all the time which might be used to advantage for the
+mental aggrandizement of the nation; and every petty pelting quidnunc
+considers himself as able as the President and all his cabinet, and not
+only plainly tells them so every hour, but forces them to act as <i>he</i>
+wills, not as <i>wisdom</i> wills. There is a Senate, it is true, where some
+of this popular fervour gets a little cooling occasionally: but,
+although there are doubtless many acute minds in power, and many great
+men in public situations, yet the majority of the people of intellect
+and of wealth in the United States keep aloof whilst this order of
+things remains: for, from the penny-postman and the city scavenger to
+the very President himself, the qualification for office is popular
+subserviency.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, when Mr. Polk thunders from the Capitol, it is most likely not
+Mr. Polk's heart that utters such warlike notes of preparation, but Mr.
+Polk would never be re-elected, if he did not do as his rulers bid him
+do.</p>
+
+<p>It may seem absurd enough, it is nevertheless true, that this political
+furor is carried into the most obscure walks of life, and the Americans
+themselves tell some good stories about it; while, at the same time,
+they constantly din your ears with "the destinies of the Great
+Republic," the absolute certainty of universal American dominion over
+the New World, and the rapid decay and downfall of the Old, which does
+not appear fitted to receive pure Democracy.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p>
+
+<p>They tell a good story of a political courtship in the "New York
+Mercury," as decidedly one of the best things introduced in a late
+political campaign:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Inasmuch," says the editor, "as all the States hereabouts have
+concluded their labours in the presidential contest, we think we run no
+risk of upsetting the constitution, or treading upon the most fastidious
+toe in the universe, by affording our readers the same hearty laugh into
+which we were betrayed.</p>
+
+<p>"Jonathan walks in, takes a seat and looks at Sukey; Sukey rakes up the
+fire, blows out the candle, and don't look at Jonathan. Jonathan hitches
+and wriggles about in his chair, and Sukey sits perfectly still. At
+length he musters courage and speaks&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Sewkey?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Wall, Jon-nathan?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I love you like pizan and sweetmeats?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Dew tell.'</p>
+
+<p>"'It's a fact and no mistake&mdash;wi&mdash;will&mdash;now&mdash;will you have me&mdash;Sew&mdash;ky?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Jon&mdash;nathan Hig&mdash;gins, what am your politics?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I'm for Polk, straight.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Wall, sir, yew can walk straight to hum, cos I won't have nobody that
+ain't for Clay! that's a fact.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Three cheers for the Mill Boy of the Slashes!' sung out Jonathan.</p>
+
+<p>"'That's your sort,' says Sukey. 'When shall we be married,
+Jon&mdash;nathan?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Soon's Clay's e&mdash;lect&mdash;ed.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Ahem, ahem!'</p>
+
+<p>"'What's the matter, Sukey?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Sposing he ain't e&mdash;lect&mdash;ed?'</p>
+
+<p>"We came away."</p>
+
+<p>Verily, Monsieur De Tocqueville, you are in the right&mdash;democracy is an
+inherent principle.</p>
+
+<p>But the train is progressing, and we are passing Lundy's Lane, or, as
+the Americans call it, "The Battle Ground," where a bloody fight between
+Democracy and Monarchy took place some thirty years ago, and where</p>
+
+<p>
+"The bones, unburied on the naked plain,"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>still are picked up by the grubbers after curiosities, and the very
+trees have the balls still sticking in them.</p>
+
+<p>Here woman, that ministering angel in the hour of woe, performed a part
+in the drama which is worth relating, as the source from which I had the
+history is from the person who owed so much to her, and whose gallantry
+was so conspicuous.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Fitzgibbon, then in the 49th regiment, having inadvertently got
+into a position where his sword, peeping from under his great coat,
+immediately pointed him out as a British officer, was seized by two
+American soldiers, who had been drinking in the village public-house,
+and would either have been made prisoner or killed had not Mrs. Defield
+come to his rescue.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fitzgibbon was a tall, powerful, muscular person, and his captors
+were a rifleman and an infantry soldier, each armed with the rifle and
+musket peculiar to their service. By a sudden effort, he seized the
+rifle of one and the musket of the other, and turned their muzzles from
+him; and so firm was his grasp, that, although unable to wrest the
+weapon from either of them, they could not change the position.</p>
+
+<p>The rifleman, retaining his hold of his rifle with one hand, drew Mr.
+Fitzgibbon's sword with the other, and attempted to stab him in the
+side. Whilst watching his uplifted arm, with the intent, if possible, of
+receiving the thrust in his own arm, Mr. Fitzgibbon perceived the two
+hands of a woman suddenly clasp the rifleman's wrist, and carry it
+behind his back, when she and her sister wrenched the sword from him,
+and ran and hid it in the cellar.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Defield was the wife of the keeper of the tavern where this officer
+happened to have arrived; an old man, named Johnson, then came forward,
+and with his assistance Mr. Fitzgibbon took the two soldiers prisoners,
+and carried them to the nearest guard, although at that moment an
+American detachment of 150 men was within a hundred yards of the place,
+hidden however from view by a few young pine-trees.</p>
+
+<p>I am sure it will please the British reader to learn that the government
+granted 400 acres of the best land in the Talbot settlement to Edward
+Defield, for his wife's and sister-in-law's heroic conduct.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, such is the influence of example upon unreflecting minds dwelling
+on the frontiers of Upper Canada, that although in most instances the
+settlers are in possession of farms originally free gifts from the
+Crown, yet many of their sons were in arms against that Crown in 1837.
+Among these misguided youths was a son of Defield's, who surrendered,
+with the brigands commanded by Von Schultz, in the windmill, near
+Prescott, in the winter of 1838. He had crossed over from Ogdensburgh,
+and was condemned to a traitor's death.</p>
+
+<p>From Colonel Fitzgibbon's statement to the executive, this lad, in
+consideration of his mother's heroism, was pardoned. Mrs. Defield is
+still living.</p>
+
+<p>The three horses <i>en licorne</i> trot us on, and we pass Lundy's Lane,
+Bloody Run, a little streamlet, whose waters were once dyed with gore,
+and so back to Niagara, where I shall take the liberty of saying a few
+words concerning the Welland Canal.</p>
+
+<p>The Welland Canal, the most important in a commercial point of view of
+any on the American continent&mdash;until that of Tchuantessegue, in Mexico,
+which I was once, in 1825, deputed to survey and cut, is formed, or that
+other projected through San Juan de Nicaragua&mdash;was originally a mere
+job, or, as it was called, a job at both ends and a failure in the
+middle, until it passed into the hands of the local government. If there
+has been any job since, it has not been made public, and it is now a
+most efficient and well conducted work, through which a very great
+portion of the western trade finds its way, in despite of that
+magnificent vision of De Witt Clinton's, the Erie Canal; and when the
+Welland is navigable for the schooners and steamers of the great lakes,
+it will absorb the transit trade, as its mouth in Lake Erie is free from
+ice several weeks sooner than the harbour of Buffalo.</p>
+
+<p>The old miserable wooden locks and bargeway have been converted into
+splendid stone walls and a ship navigation; and, to give some idea of
+the rising importance of the Welland Canal, I shall briefly state that
+the tolls in 1832 amounted to &pound;2,432, in 1841 had risen to &pound;20,210, and
+in 1843 to &pound;25,573 3s. 1O-1/4d.: and when the works are fairly finished,
+which they nearly are, this will be trebled in the first year; for it
+has been carefully calculated that the gross amount which would have
+passed of tonnage of large sailing craft only on the lakes, in 1844, was
+26,400 tons, out of which only 7,000 had before been able to use the
+locks.</p>
+
+<p>All the sailing vessels now, with the exception of three or four, can
+pass freely; and three large steam propellers were built in 1844, whose
+aggregate tonnage amounted to 1,900 tons; they have commenced their
+regular trips as freight-vessels, for which they were constructed, and
+have been followed by the almost incredible use of Ericson's propeller.</p>
+
+<p>To show the British reader the importance of this work, connecting, as
+it does, with the St. Lawrence and Rideau Canals, the Atlantic Ocean,
+and Lakes Superior and Michigan, I shall, although contrary to a
+determination made to give nothing in this work but the results of
+personal inspection or observation, use the scissors and paste for once,
+and thus place under view a table of all the articles which are carried
+through this main artery of Canada, by which both import and export
+trade may be viewed as in a mirror, and this too before the canal is
+fairly finished.</p>
+
+
+
+<p class="center"><b>WELLAND CANAL.</b></p>
+
+<p class="center"><b>AMOUNT OF PROPERTY PASSED THROUGH, AND TOLLS COLLECTED. 1844.</b></p>
+<table summary="canal" width="600">
+<tr>
+<td>Beef and pork </td>
+<td>barrels, </td>
+<td align="right">41,976-1/4</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Flour </td>
+<td>do. </td>
+<td align="right">305,208-1/2</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Ashes </td>
+<td> do.</td>
+<td align="right"> 3,412</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Beer and cider</td>
+<td> do. </td>
+<td align="right"> 50</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Salt </td>
+<td> do.  </td>
+<td align="right">213,212</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Whiskey </td>
+<td> do.</td>
+<td align="right"> 931</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Plaster </td>
+<td> do.</td>
+<td align="right">2,068-1/2</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Fruit and nuts  </td>
+<td> do.</td>
+<td align="right"> 470</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Butter and lard  </td>
+<td> do.</td>
+<td align="right">4,639-1/2</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Seeds</td>
+ <td>do.</td>
+<td align="right">1,429-1/2</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Tallow</td>
+<td> do.</td>
+<td align="right"> 1,182</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Water-lime</td>
+ <td> do. </td>
+<td align="right"> 1,662</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Pitch and tar </td>
+<td> do. </td>
+<td align="right"> 75</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Fish</td>
+<td>do. </td>
+<td align="right">1,758-1/2</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Oatmeal</td>
+ <td> do.</td>
+<td align="right"> 132</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Beeswax </td>
+<td>do. </td>
+<td align="right">36</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Empty </td>
+<td> do.</td>
+<td align="right">3,044</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Oil </td>
+<td>barrels,</td>
+<td align="right"> 96</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Soap </td>
+<td>do.</td>
+<td align="right"> 13</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Vinegar </td>
+ <td>do. </td>
+<td align="right"> 24</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Molasses</td>
+<td> do.</td>
+<td align="right"> 1</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Caledonia water</td>
+<td>do.</td>
+<td align="right">10</td>
+</tr>
+
+
+<tr>
+<td>Saw logs </td>
+<td>No.</td>
+<td align="right"> 10,411</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Boards  </td>
+<td> feet, </td>
+<td align="right">7,493,574</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<p class="center"><b>WELLAND CANAL.</b></p>
+
+<p class="center"><b>AMOUNT OF PROPERTY PASSED THROUGH, AND TOLLS COLLECTED. 1844.</b></p>
+<table summary="canal" width="600">
+<tr>
+<td>Square timber  </td>
+<td>cubic feet,</td>
+<td align="right">490,525</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Half flatted do. </td>
+<td> do.  </td>
+<td align="right"> 13,922</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Round do. </td>
+ <td>do. </td>
+<td align="right">20,879</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Staves, pipe</td>
+<td>do.</td>
+ <td align="right">630,602</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Do.   W. I.</td>
+<td>do.</td>
+<td align="right"> 1,197,916 </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Do.  flour barrel </td>
+<td>do.  </td>
+<td align="right">130,500</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Shingles </td>
+<td> do.</td>
+<td align="right"> 330,400</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Rails  </td>
+<td> do.</td>
+<td align="right"> 12,318</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Racked hoops </td>
+<td> do. </td>
+<td align="right"> 59,300</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Wheat</td>
+<td>bushels,</td>
+<td align="right"> 2,122,592</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Corn </td>
+ <td> do.</td>
+<td align="right"> 73,328</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Barley  </td>
+<td>do. </td>
+<td align="right"> 930</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Rye </td>
+<td> do. </td>
+<td align="right"> 142</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Oats</td>
+ <td>do. </td>
+<td align="right">5,653</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Potatoes</td>
+<td> do.  </td>
+ <td align="right"> 7,311</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Peas  </td>
+<td> do.</td>
+<td align="right"> 138</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Butter and lard</td>
+<td>kegs, </td>
+<td align="right"> 4,669</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Merchandize </td>
+ <td> tons,</td>
+<td align="right"> 11,318 16</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Coal</td>
+<td>do.</td>
+<td align="right">1,689  7</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Castings</td>
+ <td>do.</td>
+<td align="right"> 211  6</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Iron </td>
+<td>do.</td>
+<td align="right"> 1,748 10</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Tobacco</td>
+<td> do.</td>
+<td align="right"> 140  7</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Grindstones</td>
+<td> do.</td>
+<td align="right">151 14</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Plaster </td>
+<td> do. </td>
+<td align="right"> 1,491 10</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Hides</td>
+<td> do. </td>
+<td align="right"> 101 15</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Bacon and Hams </td>
+ <td>  do. </td>
+<td align="right">307  0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Bran and shorts </td>
+ <td> tons,</td>
+<td align="right"> 231  11</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Water-lime</td>
+<td> do.</td>
+<td align="right">441   7</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Rags </td>
+<td> do.</td>
+<td align="right"> 3   0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Hemp </td>
+<td> do.</td>
+<td align="right"> 500  11</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Wool</td>
+ <td>do.</td>
+<td align="right"> 15   9</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Leather </td>
+<td>do.</td>
+<td align="right">9  17</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Cheese </td>
+ <td>do.</td>
+<td align="right">1   2</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Marble</td>
+<td> do.</td>
+<td align="right">1  10</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<p class="center"><b>WELLAND CANAL.</b></p>
+
+<p class="center"><b>AMOUNT OF PROPERTY PASSED THROUGH, AND TOLLS COLLECTED. 1844.</b></p>
+<table summary="canal" width="600">
+
+<tr>
+<td>Stone</td>
+<td>cords,</td>
+<td align="right">738-1/2</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Firewood</td>
+<td>do.</td>
+<td align="right">3,251</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td> Tan bark</td>
+<td>  do.</td>
+<td align="right"> 957</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td> Cedar posts</td>
+<td> do. </td>
+<td align="right"> 69</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td> Hoop timber </td>
+<td>  do.</td>
+ <td align="right"> 16</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td> Knees  </td>
+<td> do.</td>
+<td align="right">  184</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td> Small packages</td>
+<td>  No. </td>
+<td align="right"> 459</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td> Pumps </td>
+ <td>  do. </td>
+<td align="right"> 102</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td> Passengers</td>
+ <td>  do.</td>
+<td align="right">  3,261-1/2</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td> Sleighs </td>
+<td> do. </td>
+<td align="right">  2</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td> Waggons </td>
+<td>  do.</td>
+<td align="right"> 177</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td> Pails </td>
+ <td> do.</td>
+<td align="right"> 136</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td> Horses </td>
+ <td> do. </td>
+<td align="right"> 2</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td> Ploughs </td>
+<td>  do. </td>
+ <td align="right"> 25</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td> Thrashing-machines</td>
+<td> do.</td>
+ <td align="right"> 18</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td> Cotton </td>
+ <td> bales,</td>
+<td align="right"> 25</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td> Fruit-trees </td>
+ <td> bundles,</td>
+<td align="right"> 268</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td> Sand</td>
+<td> cubic yards,</td>
+<td align="right"> 10,778</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td> Schooners  </td>
+ <td>  No. </td>
+<td align="right">  2,121</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td> Propellers </td>
+<td> do. </td>
+<td align="right"> 484</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td> Scows  </td>
+<td>  do.</td>
+ <td align="right"> 1,671</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td> Boats </td>
+<td>  do.</td>
+<td align="right">  4</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td> Rafts </td>
+<td>  do. </td>
+ <td align="right">  118</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Tonnage</td>
+ <td></td>
+ <td align="right"> 327,570</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Amount collected </td>
+<td></td>
+<td align="right">&pound;25,573 3s. 10-1/4d.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h4><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p class="center">The Great Fresh-water Seas of Canada.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>A sentimental journey in Canada is not like Sterne's, all about
+corking-pins and <i>remises</i>, monks and Marias, nor is it likely, in this
+utilitarian age, even if Sterne could be revived to write it, to be as
+immortal; nevertheless, let us ramble.</p>
+
+<p>The Welland Canal naturally leads one to reflect on the great sources of
+power spread before the Canadian nation; for, although it will never,
+never be <i>la nation Canadienne</i>, yet it will inevitably some day or
+other be the Canadian nation, and its limits the Atlantic and the
+Pacific Oceans.</p>
+
+<p>President Polk&mdash;they say his name is an abbreviation of Pollok&mdash;can no
+more dive into "the course of time" than that poet could do, and it is
+about as vain for him to predict that the American bald eagle shall claw
+all the fish on the continent of the New World, as it is to fancy that
+the time is never to come when the Canadian races, Norman-Saxon as they
+are, shall not assert some claim to the spoils.</p>
+
+<p>Canada is now happier under the dominion of Victoria than she could
+possibly be under that of the people of the States, and she knows and
+feels it. The natural resources of Canada are enormous, and developing
+themselves every day; and it needs neither Lyell, nor the yet unheard-of
+geologists of Canada to predict that the day is not far distant when her
+iron mines, her lead ores, her copper, and perhaps her silver, will come
+into the market.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p>
+
+<p>I see, in a paper lying before me, that Colonel Prince, a person who has
+already flourished before the public as an enterprising English farming
+gentleman, who combines the long robe with the red coat, has, with a
+worthy patriotism, obtained a very large grant of lands from the
+government to explore the shore of Lake Superior, in order to find
+whether the Yankees are to have all the copper to themselves; and that,
+in searching a little to the eastward of St. Mary's Rapids, a very
+valuable deposit has been discovered, which has stimulated other
+adventurers, who have found another mine nearer the outlet of the lake
+and still more valuable, the copper of which, lying near the surface,
+yields somewhere about seventy-five per cent.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p>
+
+<p>We know that rich iron mines exist, and are steadily worked in Lower
+Canada; we know that a vast deposit of iron, one of the finest in the
+world, has lately been discovered on the Ottawa, a river in the township
+of M'Nab; and we know that nothing prevents the Marmora and Madoc iron
+from being used but the finishing of the Trent navigation. Lead abounds
+on the Sananoqui river, and at Clinton, in the Niagara district; whilst
+plumbago, now so useful, is abundant throughout the line, where the
+primary and secondary rocks intersect each other. Mr. Logan, employed by
+the government, <i>ex cathedra</i>, says there is no coal in Canada; but
+still it appears that in the Ottawa country it is very possible it may
+be found, and that, if it is not, Cape Breton and the Gasp&eacute; lands will
+furnish it in abundance; and, as Canada may now fairly be said to be all
+the North American territory, embraced between the Pacific somewhere
+about the Columbia river, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, for a political
+union exists between all these provinces, if an acknowledged one does
+not, coal will yet be plentiful in Canada.</p>
+
+<p>Canada, thus limited, is now, <i>de facto</i>, ay, and <i>de jure</i>, British
+North America; and a fair field and a fertile one it is, peopled by a
+race neither to be frightened nor coaxed out of its birthright.</p>
+
+<p>The advantages of Canada are enormous, much greater, in fact, than they
+are usually thought to be at home.</p>
+
+<p>The ports of St. John's and of Halifax, without mentioning fifty others,
+are open all the year round to steamers and sea-going vessels; and when
+railroads can at all seasons bring their cargoes into Canada proper,
+then shall we live six months more than during the present torpidity of
+our long winters. John Bull, transported to interior Canada, is very
+like a Canadian black bear: he sleeps six months, and growls during the
+remaining six for his food.</p>
+
+<p>Then, in summer, there is the St. Lawrence covered with ships of all
+nations, the canals carrying their burthens to the far West and the
+great mediterraneans of fresh water, opening a country of unknown
+resources and extent.</p>
+
+<p>These great seas of Canada have often engaged my thoughts. Tideless,
+they flow ever onward, to keep up the level of the vast Atlantic, and in
+themselves are oceans. How is it that the moon, that enormous
+blister-plaster, does not raise them? Simply because there is some
+little error in the very accurate computations which give all the
+regulations of tidal waters to lunar influences.</p>
+
+<p>Barlow, one of the mathematical master-spirits of the age, was bold
+enough once to doubt this vast power of suction on the part of the ruler
+of the night; and there were certain wiseacres who, as in the case of
+Galileo, thought it very religiously dangerous indeed, to attempt to
+interfere with her privileges.</p>
+
+<p>But, in fact, the phenomenon of the tides is just as easy of explanation
+by the motion of the earth as it is by the moon's presumed drinking
+propensities, and, as she is a lady, let us hope she has been belied.
+The motion of the earth would not affect such narrow bodies of water as
+the Canadian lakes, but the moon's power of attraction would, if it
+existed to the extent supposed, be under the necessity of doing it,
+unless she prefers salt to fresh liquors.</p>
+
+<p>One may venture, now-a-days, to express such a doubt, particularly as
+Madam Moon is a Pagan deity.</p>
+
+<p>The great lakes are, however, very extraordinary in their way. Let us
+recollect what I have seen and thought of them.</p>
+
+<p>We will commence with Lake Superior, which is 400 miles in length, 100
+miles wide, and 900 feet deep, where it has been sounded. It contains
+32,000 square miles of water, and it is 628 feet above the level of the
+sea.</p>
+
+<p>Lake Michigan is 220 miles long, 60 miles wide, and 1,000 deep, as far
+as it has been sounded; contains 22,400 square miles, and is 584 feet
+above tide-water; but it is, in fact, only a large bay of Lake Huron,
+the grand lake, which is 240 miles long, without it averaging 86 miles
+in width, also averaging 1,000 feet deep, as far as soundings have been
+tried, contains 20,400 square miles, and is also about 584 feet above
+the tidal waters.</p>
+
+<p>Off Saginaw Bay, in this lake, leads have been sunk 1,800 feet, or 1,200
+feet below the level of the Atlantic, without finding bottom.</p>
+
+<p>Green Bay, an arm of Michigan, is in itself 106 miles long, 20 miles
+wide, and contains 2,000 square miles.</p>
+
+<p>Lake St. Clair, 6 feet above Lake Erie, follows Lake Huron; but it is a
+mere enlargement of the St. Lawrence, of immense size, however, and
+shallow: it is 20 miles long, 14 wide, 20 feet deep, and contains 360
+square miles.</p>
+
+<p>Then comes Lake Erie, the Stormy Lake, which is 240 miles long, 40 miles
+wide, 408 feet in its deepest part, and contains 9,600 square miles.
+Lake Erie is 565 feet above tide-water. Its average depth is 85 feet
+only.</p>
+
+<p>Lake Ontario, the Beautiful Lake, is 180 miles long, 45 miles wide, 500
+feet average depth, where sounded successfully, but said to be
+fathomless in some places, and contains 6,300 square miles. It is 232
+feet above the tide of the St. Lawrence.</p>
+
+<p>The Canadian lakes have been computed to contain 1,700 cubic miles of
+water, or more than half the fresh water on the globe, covering a space
+of about 93,000 square miles. They extend from west to east over nearly
+15 degrees and a half of longitude, with a difference of latitude of
+about eight and a half degrees, draining a country of not less surface
+than 400,000 square miles.</p>
+
+<p>The greatest difference is observable between the waters of all these
+lakes, arising from soil, depth, and shores. Ontario is pure and blue,
+Erie pure and green, the southern part of Michigan nothing particular.
+The northern part of Michigan and all Huron are clear, transparent, and
+full of carbonic gas, so that its water sparkles. But the extraordinary
+transparency of the waters of all these lakes is very surprising. Those
+of Huron transmit the rays of light to a great depth, and consequently,
+having no preponderating solid matters in suspension, an equalization of
+heat occurs. Dr. Drake ascertained that, at the surface in summer, and
+at two hundred feet below it, the temperature of the water was 56&deg;.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most curious things on the shallow parts of Huron is to sail
+or row over the submarine or sublacune mountains, and to feel giddy from
+fancy, for it is like being in a balloon, so pure and tintless is the
+water. It is, like Dolland's best telescopes, achromatic.</p>
+
+<p>The lakes are subject in the latter portion of summer to a phenomenon,
+which long puzzled the settlers; their surface near the shores of bays
+and inlets are covered by a bright yellow dust, which passed until
+lately for sulphur, but is now known to be the farina of the pine
+forests. The atmosphere is so impregnated with it at these seasons,
+that water-barrels, and vessels holding water in the open air, are
+covered with a thick scum of bright yellow powder.</p>
+
+<p>A curious oily substance also pervades the waters in autumn, which
+agglutinates the sand blown over it by the winds, and floats it about in
+patches. I have never been able to discover the cause of this; perhaps,
+it is petroleum, or the sand is magnetic iron. Singular currents and
+differently coloured streams also appear, as on the ocean; but, as all
+the lakes have a fall, no weed gathers, except in the stagnant bays.</p>
+
+<p>The bottom of Ontario is unquestionably salt, and no wonder that it
+should be so, for all the Canadian lakes were once a sea, and the
+geological formation of the bed of Ontario is the saliferous rock.</p>
+
+<p>I have often enjoyed on Ontario's shores, where I have usually resided,
+the grand spectacle which takes place after intense frost. The early
+morning then exhibits columns of white vapour, like millions of Geysers
+spouting up to the sky, curling, twisting, shooting upwards, gracefully
+forming spirals and pyramids, amid the dark ground of the sombre
+heavens, and occasionally giving a peep of little lanes of the dark
+waters, all else being shrouded in dense mist.</p>
+
+<p>People at home are very apt to despise lakes, perhaps from the usual
+insipidity of lake poetry, and to imagine that they can exhibit nothing
+but very placid and tranquil scenery. Lake Erie, the shallowest of the
+great Canadian fresh-water seas, very soon convinces a traveller to the
+contrary; for it is the most turbulent and the most troublesome sea I
+ever embarked upon&mdash;a region of vexed waters, to which the Bermoothes of
+Shakespeare is a trifle; for that is bad enough, but not half so
+treacherous and so thunder-stormy as Erie.</p>
+
+<p>Huron is an ocean, when in its might; its waves and swells rival those
+of the Atlantic; and the beautiful Ontario, like many a lovely dame, is
+not always in a good temper. I once crossed this lake from Niagara to
+Toronto late in November, in the Great Britain, a steamer capable of
+holding a thousand men with ease, and during this voyage of thirty-six
+miles we often wished ourselves anywhere else: the engine, at least one
+of them, got deranged; the sea was running mountains high; the cargo on
+deck was washed overboard; gingerbread-work, as the sailors call the
+ornamental parts of a vessel, went to smash; and, if the remaining
+engine had failed in getting us under the shelter of the windward shore,
+it would have been pretty much with us as it was with the poor fellow
+who went down into one of the deepest shafts of a Swedish mine.</p>
+
+<p>A curious traveller, one of "the inquisitive class," must needs see how
+the miners descended into these awful depths. He was put into a large
+bucket, attached to the huge rope, with a guide, and gradually lowered
+down. When he had got some hundred fathoms or so, he began to feel
+queer, and look down, down, down. Nothing could he see but darkness
+visible. He questioned his guide as to how far they were from the
+bottom, cautiously and nervously. "Oh," said the Swede, "about a mile."
+"A mile!" replied the Cockney: "shall we ever get there?"&mdash;"I don't
+know," said the guide. "Why, does any accident ever happen?"&mdash;"Yes,
+often."&mdash;"How long ago was the last accident, and what was it?"&mdash;"Last
+week, one of our women went down, and when she had got just where we are
+now, the rope broke."&mdash;"Oh, Heaven!" ejaculated the inquisitive
+traveller, "what happened to her?" The Swede, who did not speak very
+good English, put the palm of his right hand over that of his left,
+lifted the upper hand, slapped them together with a clap, and said, most
+phlegmatically&mdash;"Flat as a pankakka."</p>
+
+<p>I once crossed Ontario, in the same direction as that just mentioned, in
+another steamer, when the beautiful Ontario was in a towering passion.
+We had a poor fellow in the cabin, who had been a Roman Catholic priest,
+but who had changed his form of faith. The whole vessel was in
+commotion; it was impossible for the best sea-legs to hold on; so two
+or three who were not subject to seasickness got into the cabin, or
+saloon, as it is called, and grasped any thing in the way. The long
+dinner-table, at which fifty people could sit down, gave a lee-lurch,
+and jammed our poor <i>religioner</i>, as Southey so affectedly calls
+ministers of the word, into a corner, where chairs innumerable were soon
+piled over him. He abandoned himself to despair; and long and loud were
+his confessions. On the first lull, we extricated him, and put him into
+a birth. Every now and then, he would call for the steward, the mate,
+the captain, the waiters, all in vain, all were busy. At last his cries
+brought down the good-natured captain. He asked if we were in danger.
+"Not entirely," was the reply. "What is it does it, captain?"&mdash;"Oh,"
+said the skipper, gruffly enough, "we are in the trough of the sea, and
+something has happened to the engine." "The trough of the <i>say</i>?"&mdash;my
+friend was an Irishman&mdash;"the trough of the say? is it that does it,
+captain?" But the captain was gone.</p>
+
+<p>During the whole storm and the remainder of the voyage, the poor
+ex-priest asked every body that passed his refuge if we were out of the
+trough of the say. "I know," said he, "it is the trough of the say does
+it." No cooking could be performed, and we should have gone dinnerless
+and supperless to bed, if we had not, by force of steam, got into the
+mouth of the Niagara river. All became then comparatively tranquil; she
+moored, and the old Niagara, for that was her name, became steady and at
+rest. Soon the cooks, stewards, and waiters, were at work, and dinner,
+tea, and supper, in one meal, gladdened our hearts. The greatest eater,
+the greatest drinker, and the most confident of us all, was our old
+friend and companion of the voyage, "the Trough of the Say," as he was
+ever after called.</p>
+
+<p>Such is tranquil Ontario. I remember a man-of-war, called the Bullfrog,
+being once very nearly lost in the voyage I have been describing; and
+never a November passes without several schooners being lost or wrecked
+upon Lakes Huron, Erie, and Ontario; whilst the largest American
+steamers on Erie sometimes suffer the same fate. Whenever Superior is
+much navigated, it will be worse, as the seasons are shorter and more
+severe there, and the shores iron-bound and mountainous.</p>
+
+<p>Through the Welland Canal there is now a continuous navigation of those
+lakes for 844 miles; and the St. Lawrence Canal being completed, and the
+La Chine Locks enlarged at Montreal, there will be a continuous line of
+shipping from London to the extremity of Lake Superior, embracing an
+inland voyage on fresh water of upwards of two thousand miles. Very
+little is required to accomplish an end so desirable.</p>
+
+<p>It has been estimated by the Topographical Board of Washington, that
+during 1843 the value of the capital of the United States afloat on the
+four lakes was sixty-five millions of dollars, or about sixteen
+millions, two hundred thousand pounds sterling; and this did not of
+course include the British Canadian capital, an idea of which may be
+formed from the confident assertion that the Lakes have a greater
+tonnage entering the Canadian ports than that of the whole commerce of
+Britain with her North American colonies. This is, however, <i>un peu
+fort</i>. It is now not at all uncommon to see three-masted vessels on Lake
+Ontario; and one alone, in November last, brought to Kingston a freight
+of flour which before would have required three of the ordinary
+schooners to carry, namely, 1500 barrels.</p>
+
+<p>A vessel is also now at Toronto, which is going to try the experiment of
+sailing from that port to the West Indies and back again; and, as she
+has been properly constructed to pass the canals, there is no doubt of
+her success.</p>
+
+<p>Some idea of the immense exertions made by the government to render the
+Welland Canal available may be formed by the size of the locks at Port
+Dalhousie, which is the entrance on Lake Ontario. Two of the largest
+class, in masonry, and of the best quality, have been constructed: they
+are 200 feet long by 45 wide; the lift of the upper lock is 11, and of
+the lower, 12, which varies with the level of Lake Ontario, the mitre
+sill being 12 feet below its ordinary surface. Steamers of the largest
+class can therefore go to the thriving village of St. Catherine's, in
+the midst of the granary of Canada.</p>
+
+<p>The La Chine Canal must be enlarged for ship navigation more effectually
+than it has been. I subjoin a list of colonial shipping for 1844 from
+Simmonds' "Colonial Magazine."</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+NUMBER, TONNAGE, AND CREWS OF VESSELS, WHICH BELONGED
+TO THE SEVERAL BRITISH PLANTATIONS IN THE
+YEAR 1844:&mdash;</p>
+<table summary="British ships" width="600">
+<tr>
+<td><b>Countries.</b></td>
+<td align="right"><b>Vessels.</b> </td>
+<td align="right"><b>Tons.</b></td>
+<td align="right"><b>Crews.</b></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Europe&mdash;</td>
+<td></td><td></td>
+<td></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Malta,</span></td>
+<td align="right"> 85</td>
+<td align="right"> 15,326</td>
+<td align="right">893</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Africa&mdash;</td>
+<td></td><td>
+</td><td>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bathurst,</span></td>
+<td align="right">25</td>
+<td align="right">1,169</td>
+<td align="right">215</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sierra Leone,</span></td>
+<td align="right">17</td>
+<td align="right">1,148</td>
+<td align="right">111</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cape of Good Hope,</span></td>
+<td align="right"></td>
+<td align="right"></td>
+<td align="right"></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cape Town,</span></td>
+<td align="right">27</td>
+<td align="right"> 3,090</td>
+<td align="right">265</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Port Elizabeth,</span></td>
+<td align="right">2</td>
+<td align="right">201</td>
+<td align="right">10</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Mauritius,</span></td>
+<td align="right">124</td>
+<td align="right">12,079</td>
+<td align="right">1,413</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Asia&mdash;</td>
+<td align="right"></td>
+<td align="right"></td>
+<td align="right"></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bombay,</span></td>
+<td align="right">113</td>
+<td align="right"> 50,767</td>
+<td align="right">3,393</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cochin,</span></td>
+<td align="right">15</td>
+<td align="right">5,674</td>
+<td align="right">275</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tanjore,</span></td>
+<td align="right">33</td>
+<td align="right">5,070</td>
+<td align="right">257</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Madras,</span></td>
+<td align="right">32</td>
+<td align="right">5,474</td>
+<td align="right">248</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Malacca,</span></td>
+<td align="right">2</td>
+<td align="right">288</td>
+<td align="right">13</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Coringa,</span></td>
+<td align="right">17</td>
+<td align="right">3,384</td>
+<td align="right">126</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Singapore,</span></td>
+<td align="right">13</td>
+<td align="right">1,543</td>
+<td align="right">289</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Calcutta,</span></td>
+<td align="right">186</td>
+<td align="right">51,779</td>
+<td align="right">2,004</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ceylon,</span></td>
+<td align="right">674</td>
+<td align="right">30,076</td>
+<td align="right">2,696</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Prince of Wales Island,</span></td>
+<td align="right">7</td>
+<td align="right">996</td>
+<td align="right">51</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>New Holland&mdash;</td>
+<td align="right"></td>
+<td align="right"></td>
+<td align="right"></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sydney,</span> </td>
+<td align="right"> 293 </td>
+<td align="right">28,051</td>
+<td align="right">2,128</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Melbourne,</span></td>
+<td align="right">29 </td>
+<td align="right">1,240 </td>
+<td align="right">147</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Adelaide,</span> </td>
+<td align="right">17</td>
+<td align="right">864</td>
+<td align="right">60</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hobart Town,</span> </td>
+<td align="right">103</td>
+<td align="right"> 7,153</td>
+<td align="right">724</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Launceston,</span></td>
+<td align="right">42</td>
+<td align="right">3,150 </td>
+<td align="right">257</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>New Zealand&mdash;</td>
+<td align="right"></td>
+<td align="right"></td>
+<td align="right"></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Auckland,</span></td>
+<td align="right">13</td>
+<td align="right">305</td>
+<td align="right">42</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wellington,</span></td>
+<td align="right">2</td>
+<td align="right">262 </td>
+<td align="right">32</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><b>Countries.</b></td>
+<td align="right"><b>Vessels.</b> </td>
+<td align="right"><b>Tons.</b></td>
+<td align="right"><b>Crews.</b></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>America&mdash;</td>
+<td align="right"></td>
+<td align="right"></td>
+<td align="right"></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Canada, Quebec,</span> </td>
+<td align="right">509</td>
+<td align="right">45,361</td>
+<td align="right"> 2,590</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">&nbsp;&nbsp; "&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Montreal,</span></td>
+<td align="right">60</td>
+<td align="right">10,097</td>
+<td align="right">556</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cape Breton, Sydney,</span> </td>
+<td align="right">369</td>
+<td align="right">15,048</td>
+<td align="right">1,296</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Arichat,</span></td>
+<td align="right">96</td>
+<td align="right"> 4,614</td>
+<td align="right">335</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">New Brunswick, Miramichi,</span></td>
+<td align="right"> 81</td>
+<td align="right">10,143</td>
+<td align="right"> 509</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">St. Andrews,</span></td>
+<td align="right"> 193  </td>
+<td align="right">18,391</td>
+<td align="right"> 918</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">St. John,</span></td>
+<td align="right">398</td>
+<td align="right">63,676</td>
+<td align="right">2,480</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Newfoundland, St. John,</span></td>
+<td align="right">847</td>
+<td align="right">53,944 </td>
+<td align="right">4,567</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nova Scotia, Halifax,</span></td>
+<td align="right">1,657</td>
+<td align="right">82,890 </td>
+<td align="right">5,292</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Liverpool,</span></td>
+<td align="right">31</td>
+<td align="right">2,641</td>
+<td align="right">163</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pictou,</span></td>
+<td align="right">60 </td>
+<td align="right">6,929 </td>
+<td align="right">354</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yarmouth,</span></td>
+<td align="right"> 146</td>
+<td align="right">11,724 </td>
+<td align="right">637</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Prince Edward's Island,</span></td>
+<td align="right">237</td>
+<td align="right">13,851</td>
+<td align="right">857</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>West Indies, Antigua,</td>
+<td align="right">85</td>
+<td align="right">833</td>
+<td align="right">220</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bahama,</span></td>
+<td align="right">140 </td>
+<td align="right">3,252</td>
+<td align="right">587</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Barbadoes,</span> </td>
+<td align="right">37</td>
+<td align="right">1,640</td>
+<td align="right">305</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Berbice,</span></td>
+<td align="right">18</td>
+<td align="right">854 </td>
+<td align="right">89</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bermuda,</span></td>
+<td align="right">54</td>
+<td align="right">3,523</td>
+<td align="right">323</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Demerara,</span></td>
+<td align="right">54</td>
+<td align="right"> 2,353</td>
+<td align="right">250</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dominicia,</span> </td>
+<td align="right"> 14 </td>
+<td align="right">502</td>
+<td align="right"> 85</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Grenada,</span></td>
+<td align="right">48</td>
+<td align="right">812</td>
+<td align="right">198</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><b>Countries.</b></td>
+<td align="right"><b>Vessels.</b> </td>
+<td align="right"><b>Tons.</b></td>
+<td align="right"><b>Crews.</b></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Jamaica, Port Antonio</td>
+<td align="right">5</td>
+<td align="right"> 95</td>
+<td align="right">22</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Antonio Bay,</span></td>
+<td align="right">2 </td>
+<td align="right">70 </td>
+<td align="right">13</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Falmouth,,</span></td>
+<td align="right">5</td>
+<td align="right">107</td>
+<td align="right">29</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kingston,</span></td>
+<td align="right">68</td>
+<td align="right">2,659</td>
+<td align="right">359</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Montego Bay,</span></td>
+<td align="right">18</td>
+<td align="right">849</td>
+<td align="right">105</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Morant Bay,</span> </td>
+<td align="right">9</td>
+<td align="right">251</td>
+<td align="right">51</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Port Maria,</span></td>
+<td align="right">3</td>
+<td align="right">86</td>
+<td align="right">18</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">St. Ann's,</span></td>
+<td align="right">1</td>
+<td align="right">20</td>
+<td align="right">5</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Savannah la Mar,</span></td>
+<td align="right">3 </td>
+<td align="right">153</td>
+<td align="right">22</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">St. Lucca,</span></td>
+<td align="right">2</td>
+<td align="right">64</td>
+<td align="right"> 10</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Montserrat,</td>
+<td align="right">4</td>
+<td align="right">100</td>
+<td align="right">19</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Nevis,</td>
+<td align="right">11</td>
+<td align="right">178</td>
+<td align="right">45</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>St. Kitts,</td>
+<td align="right">35</td>
+<td align="right"> 546</td>
+<td align="right">114</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>S. Lucia,</td>
+<td align="right">19</td>
+<td align="right"> *013 </td>
+<td align="right">132</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>St. Vincent,</td>
+<td align="right">27</td>
+<td align="right"> 1,164 </td>
+<td align="right">180</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Tobago,</td>
+<td align="right"> 7</td>
+<td align="right">182</td>
+<td align="right">46</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Tortola,</td>
+<td align="right">48</td>
+<td align="right">277</td>
+<td align="right">127</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Trinidad,</td>
+<td align="right">61</td>
+<td align="right"> 1,832 </td>
+<td align="right">378</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td align="right">&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+<td align="right">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+<td align="right">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Total,</td>
+<td align="right">7,304</td>
+<td align="right"> 592,839</td>
+<td align="right">40,659</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<p>[* Transribers note: This figure is not correct]</p>
+
+<p>It will be seen, from the foregoing statement, that the tonnage of the
+vessels belonging to our colonies is about equal to that of the whole of
+the French mercantile marine, which in 1841 consisted of 592,266
+tons&mdash;1842, 589,517&mdash;1843, 599,707.</p>
+
+<p>The tonnage of the three principal ports of Great Britain in 1844 was:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table summary="British ports" width="600">
+<tr>
+<td>London</td>
+<td align="right"> 598,552</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Liverpool</td>
+<td align="right">307,852</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Newcastle</td>
+<td align="right"> 259,571</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td align="right">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Total</td>
+<td align="right"> 1,165,975</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>On Lake Erie, the Canadians have a splendid steamer, the London, Captain
+Van Allen, and another still larger is building at Chippewa, which is
+partly owned by government, and so constructed as to carry the mail and
+to become fitted speedily for warlike purposes.</p>
+
+<p>Lake Ontario swarms with splendid British steam-vessels; but on Lake
+Huron there is only at present one, called the Waterloo, in the
+employment of the Canada Company, which runs from Goderich to the new
+settlements of Owen's Sound.</p>
+
+<p>Propellers now go all the way to St. Joseph's, at the western extremity
+of Lake Huron; and the trade on this lake and on Michigan is becoming
+absolutely astonishing. Last year, a return of American and foreign
+vessels at Chicago, from the commencement of navigation on the 1st of
+April to the 1st of November only, shows that there arrived 151
+steamers, 80 propellers, 10 brigs, and 142 schooners, making a total of
+1,078 lake-going vessels, and a like number of departures, not including
+numerous small craft, engaged in the carrying of wood, staves, ashes,
+&amp;c., and yet, such was the glut of wheat, that at the latter date
+300,000 bushels remained unshipped.</p>
+
+<p>Upwards of a million of money will be expended by the Canadian
+Government in protecting and securing the transit trade of the lakes;
+and the Canadians have literally gone ahead of Brother Jonathan, for
+they have made a ship-canal round the Falls of Niagara, whilst "the most
+enterprising people on the face of the earth," who are so much in
+advance of us according to the ideas of some writers, have been,
+dreaming about it.&mdash;So much for the welfare of the earth being co-equal
+with democratic institutions, <i>&agrave; la mode Fran&ccedil;aise</i>!</p>
+
+<p>The American government up to 1844 had spent only 2,100,000 dollars on
+the same objects, or about half a million sterling, according to the
+statement of Mr. Whittlesey of Ohio. But that government is actually
+stirring in another matter, which is of immense future importance,
+although it appears trivial at this moment, and that is the opening up
+of Lake Superior, where a new world offers itself.</p>
+
+<p>They have projected a ship-canal round, or rather by the side of the
+rapids of St. Marie. The length of this canal is said to be only, in
+actual cutting, three-quarters of a mile, and the whole expense
+necessary not more than 230,000 dollars, or about &pound;55,000 sterling.</p>
+
+<p>The British government should look in time to this; it owns the other
+side of the Sault St. Marie, and the Superior country is so rich in
+timber and minerals that it is called the Denmark of America, whilst a
+direct access hereafter to the Oregon territory and the Pacific must be
+opened through the vast chain of lakes towards the Rocky Mountains by
+way of Selkirk Colony, on the Red River.</p>
+
+<p>The lakes of Canada have not engaged that attention at home which they
+ought to have had; and there is much interesting information about them
+which is a dead letter in England.</p>
+
+<p>Their rise and fall is a subject of great interest. The great sinking of
+the levels of late years, which has become so visible and so injurious
+to commerce, deserves the most attentive investigation. The American
+writers attribute it to various causes, and there are as many theories
+about it as there are upon all hidden mysteries. Evaporation and
+condensation, woods and glaciers, have all been brought into play.</p>
+
+<p>If the lakes are supplied by their own rivers, and by the drainage
+streams of the surrounding forests, and all this is again and again
+returned into them from the clouds, whence arises the sudden elevation
+or the sudden depression of such enormous bodies of water, which have
+no tides?</p>
+
+<p>The Pacific and the Atlantic cannot be the cause; we must seek it
+elsewhere. To the westward of Huron, on the borders of Superior, the
+land is rocky and elevated; but it attains only enormous altitudes at
+such a distance on the rocky Andean chain as to render it improbable
+that those mountains exert immediate influences on the lakes. The
+Atlantic also is too far distant, and very elevated land intervenes to
+intercept the rising vapours. On the north, high lands also exist; and
+the snows scarcely account for it, as the whole of North America near
+these inland seas is alike covered every year in winter.</p>
+
+<p>The north-east and the south-west winds are the prevalent ones, and a
+slight inspection of the maps will suffice to show that those compass
+bearings are the lines which the lakes and valleys of Northern America
+assume.</p>
+
+<p>In 1845, the lakes began suddenly to diminish, and to such a degree was
+this continued from June to December, when the hard frosts begin, that,
+at the commencement of the latter month, Lake Ontario, at Kingston, was
+three feet below its customary level, and consequently, in the country
+places, many wells and streams dried up, and there was during the autumn
+distress for water both for cattle and man, although the rains were
+frequent and very heavy.</p>
+
+<p>Whence, then, do the lakes receive that enormous supply which will
+restore them to their usual flow?&mdash;or are they permanently diminishing?
+I am inclined to believe that the latter is the case, as cultivation and
+the clearings of the forest proceed; for I have observed within fifteen
+years the total drying up of streamlets by the removal of the forest,
+and these streamlets had evidently once been rivulets and even rivers of
+some size, as their banks, cut through alluvial soils, plainly
+indicated.</p>
+
+<p>The lakes also exhibit on their borders, particularly Ontario, as Lyell
+describes from the information of the late Mr. Roy, who had carefully
+investigated the subject, very visible remains of many terraces which
+had consecutively been their boundaries.</p>
+
+<p>It is evident to observers who have recorded facts respecting the lakes,
+that but a small amount of vapour water is deposited by northeasterly
+winds from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the great estuary of that river, of
+which the lakes are only enlargements, as the wind from that region
+carries the cloud-masses from the lakes themselves direct to the valley
+of the Mississippi. For it meets with no obstacle from high lands on the
+western littorale, which is low. A north-east gale continues usually
+from three to six days, and generally without much rain; but all the
+other winds from south to westerly afford a plentiful supply of
+moisture. Thus a shift of wind from north-east to north and to
+north-west perhaps brings back the vapour of the great valley of the
+gulf, reduced in temperature by the chilly air of the north and west. If
+then an easterly gale continues for an unusual time, the basin of the
+Canadian lakes is robbed of much of its water, which passes to the
+rivers of the west, and is lost in the gulf of Mexico, or in the forest
+lakes of the wild West.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps, therefore, whenever a cycle occurs in which north-east winds
+prevail during a year or a series of years, the lakes lose their level,
+for, their direction being north-east and south-west, such is the usual
+current of the air; and therefore either north-east or south-westerly
+winds are the usual ones which pass over their surface.</p>
+
+<p>The parts of the great inland navigation which suffer most in these
+periodical depressions are the St. Clair River and the shallow parts of
+those extensions of the St. Lawrence called Lakes St. Francis and St.
+Peter, which in the course of time will cause, and indeed in the latter
+already do cause, some trouble and some anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>The north winds, keen and cold, do not deposit much in the valley of the
+lakes, whose southern borders are usually too low also to prevent the
+passage of rain-bearing clouds.</p>
+
+<p>From that portion of the dividing ridge between the valleys of the St.
+Lawrence and Mississippi, only seven miles from Lake Erie, says an
+American writer, there is to Fort Wayne, at the head of the Maumee
+river, one hundred miles from the same lake, a gradual subsidence of the
+land from 700 to less than 200 feet.</p>
+
+<p>From Fort Wayne westward this dividing ridge rises only one hundred and
+fifty feet, and then gradually subsides to the neighbourhood of the
+south-west of Lake Michigan, where it is but some twenty feet above the
+level of that water.</p>
+
+<p>The basin of the Mississippi, including its great tributary streams,
+receives therefore a very great portion of the falling vapour, from all
+the winds blowing from north to north-east.</p>
+
+<p>The same reasoner agrees with the views which I have expressed
+respecting the probability of the supply to raise the level, which must
+be the great feeder derived from the south and south-westward invariably
+rainy winds, when of long continuance, in the basin of the St.
+Lawrence, and generated by the gulf stream in its gyration through the
+Mexican Bay, being heaped up from the trade wind which causes the
+oceanic current, and forces its heated atmosphere north and north-east,
+by the rebound which it takes from the vast Cordilleras of Anahuac and
+Panama; thus depositing its cooling showers on the chain of the fresh
+water seas of Canada, condensed as they are by the natural air-currents
+from the icy regions of the western Andes of Oregon, and the cold
+breezes from the still more gelid countries of the north-west.</p>
+
+<p>The American topographical engineers, as well as our own civil engineers
+and savans, have accurately measured the heights and levels of the
+lakes, which I have already given; but one very curious fact remains to
+be noticed, and will prove that it is by no means a visionary idea that,
+from the great island of Cuba, which must be an English outpost, if much
+further annexation occurs, voyages will be made to bring the produce of
+the West Indies and Spanish America into the heart of the United States
+and Canada by the Mississippi and the rivers flowing into it, and by the
+great lakes; so that a vessel, loading at Cuba, might perform a circuit
+inland for many thousand miles, and return to her port <i>via</i> Quebec.</p>
+
+<p>From the Gulf of Mexico to the lowest summits of the ridge separating
+the basin of the Mississippi from that of the St. Lawrence or great
+lakes, the rise does not exceed six hundred feet, and the graduation of
+the land has an average of not more than six inches to a mile in an
+almost continuous inclined plane of six thousand miles. The Americans
+have not lost sight of this natural assistance to form a communication
+between the lakes and the Mississippi.</p>
+
+<p>My attention has been drawn to the subsidence of the waters of the lakes
+of Canada by the unusual lowness of Ontario, on the banks of which I
+lived last year, and by reading the statement of the American writer
+above quoted, as well as by the fact that in the Travels of Carver, one
+of the first English navigators on these mediterraneans, who states that
+a small ship of forty tons, in sailing from the head of Lake Michigan to
+Detroit, was unable to pass over the St. Clair flats for want of water,
+and that the usual way of passing them eighty years ago was in small
+boats. What a useful thing it would have been, if any scientific
+navigators or resident observers had registered the rise and fall of the
+lakes in the years since Upper Canada came into our possession! An old
+naval officer told me that it was really periodical; and it occurred
+usually, that the greatest depression and elevation had intervals of
+seven years. Lake Erie is evidently becoming more shallow constantly,
+but not to any great or alarming degree; and shoals form, even in the
+splendid roadstead of Kingston, within the memory of young inhabitants.
+An American revenue vessel, pierced for, I believe, twenty-four guns,
+and carrying an enormous Paixhan, grounded in the autumn of last year on
+a shoal in that harbour, which was not known to the oldest pilot.</p>
+
+<p>By the bye, talking of this vessel, which is a steamer built of iron,
+and fitted with masts and sails, the same as any other sea-going vessel,
+can it be requisite, in order to protect a commerce which she cannot
+control beyond the line drawn through the centre of the lakes, to have
+such a vessel for revenue purposes? or is she not a regular man-of-war,
+ready to throw her shells into Kingston, if ever it should be required?
+At least, such is the opinion which the good folks of that town
+entertained when they saw the beautiful craft enter their harbour.</p>
+
+<p>The worst, however, of these iron boats is that two can play at shelling
+and long shots; and gunnery-practice is now brought to such perfection,
+that an iron steamer might very possibly soon get the worst of it from a
+heavy battery on the level of the sea; for a single accident to the
+machinery, protected as it is in that vessel, would, if there was no
+wind, put her entirely at the mercy of the gunners. The old wooden
+walls, after all, are better adapted to attack a fortress, as they can
+stand a good deal of hammering from both shot and shells.</p>
+
+<p>But to revert to matters more germane to the lakes.</p>
+
+<p>Volney, the first expounder of the system of the warm wind of the south
+supplying the great lakes, has received ample corroboration of his data
+from observation. The fact that the deflection of the great trade-wind
+from the west to a northern direction by the Mexican Andes Popocatepetl,
+Istaccihuetl, Naucampatepetl, &amp;c., whose snowy summits have a frigid
+atmosphere of their own, is proved by daily experience.</p>
+
+<p>Whenever southerly winds prevail&mdash;and, in the cycle of the gyration of
+atmospherical currents, this is certain, and will be reduced to
+calculation&mdash;the great lakes are filled to the edge; and whenever
+northern and northeasterly winds take their appointed course, then these
+mediterraneans sink, and the valley of the Mississippi is filled to
+overflowing.</p>
+
+<p>But the most curious facts are, that the different lakes exhibit
+different phenomena. The Board of Public Works of Ohio states that, in
+1837-38, the quantity of water descending from the atmosphere did not
+exceed one-third of that which was the minimum quantity of several
+preceding years.</p>
+
+<p>Ontario, from the reports of professional persons, has varied not less
+than eight feet, and Erie about five. Huron and Superior being
+comparatively unknown, no data are afforded to judge from; but what vast
+atmospheric agencies must be at work when such wonderful results in the
+smaller lakes have been made evident!</p>
+
+<p>People who live at the Niagara Falls, and I agree with them in
+observations extending over a period since 1826, believe that these
+Falls have receded considerably; and, although I do not enter into the
+mathematical analysis of modern geologists respecting them, as to their
+constant retrocession, believing that earthquake split open the present
+channel, yet I have no doubt that the level of Lake Erie is considerably
+affected by the diminution of the yielding shaly rocks of their
+foundation. Earthquake, and not retrocession, appears to me, who have
+had the singular advantage, as a European, of very long residence, to
+have been the cause of that great chasm which now forms the bed of the
+Niagara, from the Table Rock to Queenston, in short, a rending or
+separating of the rocks rather than a wearing; and this is corroborated
+by the many vestiges of great cataracts which now exist near the Short
+Hills, the highest summit of the Niagara frontier, between Lakes Erie
+and Ontario, as well as by the great natural ravine of St. David's. But
+this is a subject too deep for our present purpose, and so we shall
+continue to treat of the Great Lakes in another point of view.</p>
+
+<p>Chemically considered, these lakes possess peculiar properties,
+according to their boundaries. Superior is too little known to speak of
+with certainty&mdash;Huron not much better&mdash;but Erie, and particularly
+Ontario, have been well investigated. The waters of these are pure, and
+impregnated chiefly with aluminous and calcareous matter, giving to the
+St. Lawrence river a fresh and admirable element and aliment.</p>
+
+<p>The St. Lawrence is of a fine cerulean hue, but, like its parent waters
+of Erie and Ontario, rapidly deposits lime and alumine, so that the
+boilers of steam-vessels, and even teakettles, soon become furred and
+incrusted. The specific gravity of the St. Lawrence water above Montreal
+is about 1&middot;00038, at the temperature of 66&deg;, the air being then 82&deg; of
+Fahrenheit. It contains the chlorides, sulphates, and carbonates, whose
+bases are lime and magnesia, particularly and largely those of lime,
+which accounts for the rapid depositions when the water is heated.</p>
+
+<p>A very accurate analysis gives, at Montreal, in July, atmospheric air in
+solution or admixture 446 per cent; for a quart of this water, 57 inches
+cubic measure, evaporated to dryness, left 2.87 solid residue.</p>
+
+<table summary="lake contents" width="500">
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td>Grains.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Sulphate of magnesia </td>
+<td>0&middot;62</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Chloride of calcium</td>
+<td>0&middot;38</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Carbonate of magnesia</td>
+<td>0&middot;27</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Carbonate of lime</td>
+<td>1&middot;29</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Silica </td>
+<td>0&middot;31</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td>&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td>
+<td>2&middot;87</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<p>The waters of the Ottawa, flowing through an unexplored country, are of
+a brown or dark colour. Their specific gravity is only (compared to
+distilled water) as 1&middot;0024 at 66&deg;, the temperature of the air in July
+being 82&deg;.</p>
+
+<p>The 57 cubic inches of this water gave</p>
+
+<table summary="lake contents" width="500">
+<tr>
+<td>0&middot;99 </td>
+<td>sulphate of magnesia.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>0&middot;60</td>
+<td>chloride of lime.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>1&middot;07</td>
+<td>carbonate of magnesia.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>0&middot;17</td>
+<td>carbonate of lime.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>0&middot;31</td>
+<td>silica.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+<td></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>2&middot;87</td>
+<td></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<p>The difference of the colours of these waters is so great, that a
+perfect line of distinction is drawn where they cross each other; and
+there can be no doubt that it is caused by the reflection of the rays of
+light from the impregnation of different saline quantities.</p>
+
+<p>Thus as, in the old world, the waters of the Shannon are brown, and
+Ireland, speaking generally, as Kohl says, is a "brown" country;<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> so,
+in Upper Canada, St. Lawrence and the lakes are blue and green; and in
+Lower Canada, St. Lawrence and the Ottawa are brown of various shades, a
+very slight alteration of the chemical components reflecting rays of
+colour as forcibly and perceptibly as, in like manner, a very slight
+change of component parts develops sugar and sawdust. Nature, in short,
+is very simple in all her operations.</p>
+
+<p>Before we proceed to the lower extremity of these wonderful sheets of
+water again, let us just for a moment glance at what is about to be
+achieved upon their surfaces, and place the Sault of St. Marie or St.
+Mary's Rapids, which separate Superior from Huron, before an
+Englishman's eyes. There at present nothing is talked of but copper
+mines and silver or argentiferous copper ores.</p>
+
+<p>The Falls of St. Mary are only rapids of no very formidable character,
+the exit of Lake Superior into Lake Huron. Fifteen miles from the end of
+the Great Lake, as Superior is called, are the American village of St.
+Mary and the British one of the same name, on the opposite bank of the
+River St. Mary.</p>
+
+<p>The Americans have so far strengthened their position, that there is a
+sort of fort, called Fort Brady, with two companies of regulars; and in
+and about the village are scattered a thousand people of every possible
+colour and origin, a great portion being, of course, half-breeds and
+Indians. The American Fur Company has also a post at this place, one of
+the very few remaining; for the fur trade in these regions is rapidly
+declining by the extirpation of the animals which sustained it.</p>
+
+<p>The American government have projected a ship canal to avoid these
+rapids; and, if that is completed, a vast trade will soon grow up.</p>
+
+<p>About a mile above the village is the landing-place from Lake Superior,
+at the head of the rapids; there the strait is broad and deep; but,
+until steamers are built, sailing vessels suffer the disadvantage of
+being moveable out of the harbour by an east wind only, and this wind
+does not blow there oftener than once a month. It is probable that a
+proper harbour will be constructed at the foot of the lake, fifteen
+miles above.</p>
+
+<p>These rapids have derived their French name <i>Sault</i> from their rushing
+and leaping motion; but they are very insignificant when compared to the
+Longue Sault on the St. Lawrence, as the inhabitants cross them in
+canoes.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot describe them more minutely than Mrs. Jameson has done in her
+"Summer Rambles." She crossed them, and must have experienced some
+trepidation, for it requires a skilful voyageur to steer the canoe; and
+it is surprising with what dexterity the Indian will shoot down them as
+swiftly as the water can carry his fragile vessel. The Indians, however,
+consider such feats much in the same light as a person fond of boating
+would think of pulling a pair of oars, or sculling himself across the
+current of a rivulet. I was once subjected to a rather awkward
+exemplification of this fact. Being on a hurried journey, and expecting
+to be frozen in, as it is called, before I could terminate it; I hired
+an Indian and his little canoe, just big enough to hold us both, and
+pushed through by-ways in the forest streams and portages. We were
+paddling merrily along a pretty fair stream, which ran fast, but
+appeared to reach many miles ahead of us; when, all of a sudden, my
+guide said, "Sit fast." I perceived that the water was moving much more
+rapidly than it had hitherto done, and that the Indian had wedged
+himself in the stern, and was steering only with the paddle. We swept
+along merrily for a mile, till "The White Horses," as the breakers are
+called, began to bob their heads and manes. "Hold fast!" ejaculated the
+Red Man. I laid hold of both edges of the canoe, firm as a rock, and in
+a moment the horrid sound of bursting, bubbling, rushing waters was in
+mine ears; foam and spray shut out every thing; and away we went, down,
+down, down, on, on, on, as swift as thought, until, all of a sudden, the
+little buoyant piece of birch-bark floated like a swan upon the bosom of
+the tranquil waters, a mile beyond the Fall, for such indeed it might
+be called, the absolute difference of level having been twelve feet.</p>
+
+<p>When at ease again, I looked at the imperturbable savage and said, "What
+made you take the Fall? was not the <i>d&eacute;tour</i> passable?"&mdash;"Yes, suppose
+it was! Fall better!"&mdash;"But is it very dangerous?"&mdash;"Yes, suppose,
+sometime!"&mdash;"Any canoes ever lost there?"&mdash;"Yes, sometime; one two, tree
+days ago, there!" pointing to a large rock in the middle of the
+narrowest part above our heads.&mdash;"Did you come down there?"&mdash;"Yes,
+suppose, did!"</p>
+
+<p>Then, thought I to myself, I shall not trust my body to your guidance in
+future without knowing something of the route beforehand; but I
+afterwards got accustomed to these taciturn sons of the forest.</p>
+
+<p>The Falls of St. Marie are celebrated as a fishing place; and the white
+fish caught there are reckoned superior to those taken in any other part
+of Lake Huron. The fishery is picturesque enough, and is carried on in
+canoes, manned usually by two Indians or half-breeds, who paddle up the
+rapids as far as practicable. The one in the bow has a scoop-net, which
+he dips, as soon as one of these glittering fish is observed, and lands
+him into the canoe. Incredible numbers of them are taken in this simple
+manner; but it requires the canoemanship and the eye of an Indian.</p>
+
+<p>The French still show their national characteristics in this remote
+place. They first settled here before the year 1721, as Charlevoix
+states; and, in 1762, Henry, a trader on Lake Huron, found them
+established in a stockaded fort, under an officer of the French army.
+The Jesuits visited Lake Superior as early as 1600; and in 1634 they had
+a rude chapel, the first log hut built so far from civilization, in this
+wilderness. At present, the population are French, Upper Canadians,
+English, Scotch, Yankees, Indians, half-breeds.</p>
+
+<p>The climate is healthy, very cold in winter, with a short but very warm
+summer, and always a pure air. Here the Aurora Borealis is seen in its
+utmost glory. In summer there is scarcely any night; for the twilight
+lasts until eleven o'clock, and the tokens of the returning sun are
+visible two hours afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>The extremes of civilized and savage life meet at St. Mary's; for here
+live the educated European or American, and the pure heathen Red Man;
+here steamboats and the birch canoe float side by side; and here
+all-powerful Commerce is already recommencing a deadly rivalry between
+the Briton and the American, not for furs and peltry, as in days gone
+by, but for copper and for metals; and here a new world is about to be
+opened, and that too very speedily.</p>
+
+<p>Here are Indian agents and missionaries, with schools, both the English
+and the United States' government considering the entrance to the Red
+Man's country, whose gates are so narrow and still closed up, to be of
+very great importance, both in a commercial and a political point of
+view; but it is notorious that, after the French Canadians, the Red Man
+prefers his Great Mother beyond the Great Lake and her subjects to the
+President and the people, who are rather too near neighbours to be
+pleasant, and who have somewhat unceremoniously considered the natives
+of the soil as so many obstacles to their aggrandizement.</p>
+
+<p>I shall end this sketch of the lakes, by a few observations upon the
+magnetic phenomena regarding them, and respecting the variation of the
+compass.</p>
+
+<p>Fort Erie, near the eastern termination of Lake Erie, and close to the
+Niagara river, presents the line of no variation; whilst at the town of
+Niagara, on the south-west end of Lake Ontario, not more than thirty-six
+miles from Fort Erie, the variation in 1832 was 1&deg; 20' east.</p>
+
+<p>The line of no variation is marked distinctly on the best maps of
+Canada, by the division line between the townships of Stamford and
+Niagara, seven miles north of Niagara.</p>
+
+<p>At Toronto in 43&deg; 39' north latitude, and 78&deg; 4' west longitude,
+twenty-four miles north-east of Niagara, the variation in 1832 was more
+than 2&deg; easterly.</p>
+
+<p>The shore of Lake Huron at Nottawassaga Bay, forty miles north-west of
+Toronto, is again the line of no variation.</p>
+
+<p>Thus a magnetic meridian lies between Fort Erie and Nottawassaga.</p>
+
+<p>A magnetic observatory is established by the Board of Ordnance at
+Toronto, near the University, and placed in charge of two young officers
+of artillery, which says a good deal for the scientific acquirements of
+that corps. I shall perhaps hereafter advert to this subject more at
+large, as the volcanic rocks have much to do with the needle in Canada
+West.</p>
+
+<div class='footnotes'>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Brevis et admiranda descriptio REGNI GVIAN&AElig;, AVRI
+abundantissimi, in AMERICA, sev novo orbe, sub linea &AElig;quinoctilia siti:
+quod nuper admodum, Annis nimirum 1594, 1595, et 1596 per generosum
+Dominum Dr. GVALTHERVM RALEGH Equitem Anglum detectum est: paulo post
+jussa ejus duobus libellis comprehensa. Ex quibus JODOCVS HONDIVS
+TABVLAM Geographicam adornavit, addita explicatione Belgico sermone
+scripta: Nunc vero in Latinum sermonem translata, et ex variis
+authoribus hinc inde declarata. Noriberg&aelig;. Impensis LEVINI HULSII.
+M.D.XCIX.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> That is, to those portions of the London and western
+district where American settlers abound, who have so generously repaid
+the fostering care which Governor Simcoe originally extended to them.
+One of those rabid folks indebted to the British government, who kept an
+inn, padlocked his pumps lately when a regiment was marching through
+Woodstock in hot dusty weather, that the soldiers might not slake their
+thirst.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Some time afterwards, during the period in which Lord
+Glenelg held the Colonial Office, I was appointed to report upon the
+state and condition of the Indians of Canada, by his lordship, without
+my knowledge or solicitation; this was never communicated to me by the
+then Lieut.-Governor of Upper Canada, and I only knew of it last year,
+by accidentally reading a report on the subject made by order of the
+House of Assembly, after I left Canada. I do not know if his lordship
+will ever read this work, or the gentleman to whom I believe I was
+indebted for the intended kindness; and, if either should, I beg to
+tender my thanks thus publicly.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> This puts me in mind of the vulgar received opinion that my
+godfather Fuseli supped on pork-steaks, to have horrid dreams.
+Originally said in joke, this absurd story has been repeated even by
+persons affecting respectability as writers. His Greek learning alone
+should have saved his memory from this.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> One of the speakers against time, in a late debate on the
+Oregon question, quoted those fine lines, about "The flag that braved a
+thousand years the battle and the breeze," and said its glory was
+departing before the Stars and Stripes, which were to occupy its place
+in the event of war, from this time forth and for ever.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Since I penned this, a company is forming to work valuable
+argentiferous copper-mines lately discovered on Lake Superior. The
+Americans are actually working rich mines of silver, copper, &amp;c.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> A recent number of "The Scientific American," published in
+New York, contains the following:&mdash;Some of the British officers in
+Canada have lately made an important discovery of some of the richest
+copper-mines in the world. This discovery has created great excitement.
+Some of the officers, <i>en route</i> to England, are now in the city, and
+will carry with them some specimens of the ore, and among them one piece
+weighing 2,200 lbs. The ore is very rich, yielding, as we learn,
+seventy-two per cent. of pure copper. Some of the copper was taken from
+the bed of a river, and some broken off from a cliff on the banks. The
+latter is six feet long, four broad, and six inches thick.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Canada is a blue country; for, a very short distance from
+the observer, the atmosphere tinges everything blue; and the waters are
+chiefly of that colour, the sky intensely so.</p></div></div>
+
+<p class="center">END OF VOL. I.</p>
+
+<p class="center" style="margin-top: 5em;"><small>Frederick Shoberl, Junior, Printer to His Royal Highness Prince Albert.<br />
+
+51, Rupert Street, Haymarket, London.</small></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Canada and the Canadians, by 
+Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
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diff --git a/20014.txt b/20014.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4200f35
--- /dev/null
+++ b/20014.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,6185 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Canada and the Canadians, by
+Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Canada and the Canadians
+       Volume I
+
+Author: Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
+
+Release Date: December 4, 2006 [EBook #20014]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CANADA AND THE CANADIANS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Graeme Mackreth and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+(This file was produced from images generously made
+available by the Canadian Institute for Historical
+Microreproductions (www.canadiana.org))
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CANADA
+
+AND
+
+THE CANADIANS.
+
+BY
+
+SIR RICHARD HENRY BONNYCASTLE, KT.,
+
+LIEUTENANT-COLONEL ROYAL ENGINEERS AND MILITIA OF CANADA WEST.
+
+NEW EDITION.
+
+IN TWO VOLUMES.
+
+VOL. I.
+
+
+LONDON:
+HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,
+GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
+
+1849.
+
+
+F. Shoberl, Jnr. Printer to H.R.H Prince Albert, Rupert Street.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+OF
+
+THE FIRST VOLUME.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+Emigrants And Immigration                                            Page 1
+
+CHAPTER II.
+The Emigrant and his Prospects                                           46
+
+CHAPTER III.
+A Journey to the Westward                                                90
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+The French Canadian                                                     127
+
+CHAPTER V.
+Penetanguishene--The Nipissang Cannibals, and a
+Friendly Brother in the Wilderness                                      146
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+Barrie and Big Trees--A new Capital of a new District--Nature's
+Canal--The Devil's Elbow--Macadamization and Mud--Richmond Hill
+without the Lass--The Rebellion and the Radicals--Blue Hill and
+Bricks                                                                  172
+
+CHAPTER. VII.
+Toronto and the Transit--The Ice and its innovations--Siege
+and Storm of a Fortalice by the Ice-king--Newark, or Niagara--Flags,
+big and little--Views of American and of English Institutions--Blacklegs
+and Races--Colonial high life--Youth very young                         195
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+The old Canadian Coach--Jonathan and John Bull passengers--"That
+Gentleman"--Beautiful River, beautiful drive--Brock's
+Monument--Queenston--Bar and Pulpit--Trotting horse Railroad--Awful
+accident--The Falls once more--Speculation--Water
+Privilege--Barbarism--Museum--Loafers--Tulip-trees--Rattlesnakes--The
+Burning Spring--Setting fire to Niagara--A charitable Woman--The Nigger's
+Parrot--John Bull is a Yankee--Political Courtship--Lundy's Lane
+Heroine--Welland Canal                                                  217
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+The Great Fresh-water Seas of Canada                                    266
+
+
+
+
+CANADA
+
+AND
+
+THE CANADIANS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+  Emigrants and Immigration.
+
+
+Very surprising it seems to assert that the Mother Country knows very
+little about the finest colony which she possesses--and that an
+enlightened people emigrate from sober, speculative England, sedate and
+calculating Scotland, and trusting, unreflective Ireland, absolutely and
+wholly ignorant of the total change of life to which they must
+necessarily submit in their adopted home.
+
+I recollect an old story, that an old gunner, in an old-fashioned,
+three-cornered cocked hat, who was my favourite playfellow as a child,
+used to tell about the way in which recruits were obtained for the Royal
+Artillery.
+
+The recruiting sergeant was in those days dressed much finer than any
+field-marshal of this degenerate, railway era; in fact, the Horse Guards
+always turned out to the sergeant-major of the Royal Military Academy of
+Woolwich, when that functionary went periodically to the Golden Cross,
+Charing Cross, to receive and escort the young gentlemen cadets from
+Marlow College, who were abandoning the red coat and drill of the
+foot-soldier to become neophytes in the art and mystery of great gunnery
+and sapping.
+
+"The way they recruited was thus," said the bombadier. "The gallant
+sergeant, bedizened in copper lace from the crown of his head to the
+sole of his foot, and with a swagger which no modern drum-major has ever
+presumed to attempt, addressed a crowd of country bumpkins.
+
+"'Don't listen to those gentlemen in red; their sarvice is one which no
+man who has brains will ever think of--footing it over the univarsal
+world; they have usually been called by us the flatfoots. They uses the
+musquet only, and have hands like feet, and feet like fireshovels.
+
+"'Mind me, gentlemen, the royal regiment of the Royal Artillery is a
+sarvice which no gentleman need be ashamed of.
+
+"'We fights with real powder and ball, the flatfoots fights with
+bird-shot. We knows the perry-ferry of the circumference of a round
+shot. Did you ever see a mortar? Did you ever see a shell? I will answer
+for it you never did, except the poticary's mortar, and the shell that
+mortar so often renders necessary.
+
+"'Now, gentlemen, at the imperial city of Woolwich, in the Royal
+Arsenal, you may, if you join the Royal Artillery, you may see shells in
+earnest. Did you ever see a balloon? Yes! Then the shells there are
+bigger than balloons, and are the largest hollow shot ever made--the
+French has nothing like them.
+
+"'And the way we uses them! We fires them out of the mortars into the
+enemy's towns, and stuffs them full of red sogers. Well, they bursts,
+and out comes the flatfoots, opens the gates, and lets the Royal
+Artillery in; and then every man fills his sack with silver, and gold,
+and precious stones, after a leetle scrimmaging.
+
+"'Come along with me, my boys, and every one of you shall have a coat
+like mine, which was made out of the plunder; and you shall have a horse
+to ride, and a carriage behind it; and you shall see the glorious city
+of Woolwich, where the streets are paved with penny loaves, and drink is
+to be had for asking.'"
+
+So it is with nine-tenths of the emigrants to Canada in these
+enlightened days; so it is with the emigrants from old England, and from
+troubled Ireland, to the free and astonishing Union of the States of
+America and Texas, that conjoint luminary of the new go-ahead world of
+the West.
+
+Dissatisfied with home, with visionary ideas of El Dorados, or starving
+amidst plenty, the poorer classes obtain no correct information. Beset
+generally with agents of companies, with agents of private enterprise,
+with reckless adventurers, with ignorant priests, or missionaries of the
+lowest stamp, with political agitators, and with miserable traitors to
+the land of their birth and breeding, the poor emigrant starts from the
+interior, where his ideas have never expanded beyond the weaver's loom
+or factory labour, the plough or the spade, the hod, the plane, or the
+trowel, and hastens with his wife and children to the nearest sea-port.
+
+There he finds no friend to receive and guide him, but rapacious agents
+ready to take every advantage of his ignorance, with an eye to his
+scanty purse. A host of captains, mates, and sailors, eager to make up
+so many heads for the voyage, pack them aboard like sheep, and cross the
+Atlantic, either to New York or to Quebec, just as they have been able
+to entice a cargo to either port. Then come the horrors of a long voyage
+and short provisions, and high prices for stale salt junk and biscuit;
+and, at the end, if illness has been on board, the quarantine, that most
+dreadful visitation of all--for hope deferred maketh the heart sick.
+
+From the first discovery of America, there has been a tendency to
+exaggeration about the resources and capabilities of that country--a
+magniloquence on its natural productions, which can be best exemplified
+by referring the reader to the fac-simile of the one in Sir Walter
+Raleigh's work on Guiana,[1] now in the British Museum. Shakespeare had,
+no doubt, read Raleigh's fanciful description of "the men whose heads do
+grow beneath their shoulders," &c.; for he was thirty-four years of age
+when this print was published, only seventeen years before his death.
+
+[Footnote 1: Brevis et admiranda descriptio REGNI GVIANAE, AVRI
+abundantissimi, in AMERICA, sev novo orbe, sub linea AEquinoctilia siti:
+quod nuper admodum, Annis nimirum 1594, 1595, et 1596 per generosum
+Dominum Dr. GVALTHERVM RALEGH Equitem Anglum detectum est: paulo post
+jussa ejus duobus libellis comprehensa. Ex quibus JODOCVS HONDIVS
+TABVLAM Geographicam adornavit, addita explicatione Belgico sermone
+scripta: Nunc vero in Latinum sermonem translata, et ex variis
+authoribus hinc inde declarata. Noribergae. Impensis LEVINI HULSII.
+M.D.XCIX.]
+
+So expansive a mind as Raleigh's undoubtedly was, was not free from that
+universal credulity which still reigns in the breasts of all men
+respecting matters with which they are not personally acquainted; and
+the glowing descriptions of Columbus and his followers respecting the
+rich Cathay and the Spice Islands of the Indies have had so permanent a
+hold upon the imagination, that even the best educated amongst us have,
+in their youth, galloped over Pampas, in search of visionary
+_Uspallatas_. Nor is it yet quite clear that the golden city of El
+Dorado is wholly fabulous, the region in which it was said to exist not
+having yet been penetrated by Science; but it soon will be, for a
+steamboat is to ply up the Maranon, and Peru and Europe are to be
+brought in contact, although the voyage down that mighty flood has
+hitherto been a labour of several months.
+
+The poor emigrant, for we must return to him, lands at New York. Sharks
+beset him in every direction, boarding-houses and grogshops open their
+doors, and he is frequently obliged, from the loss of all his
+hard-earned money, to work out his existence either in that exclusively
+mercantile emporium, or to labour on any canal or railroad to which his
+kind new friends may think proper, or most advantageous to themselves,
+to send him. If he escapes all these snares for the unwary, the chances
+are that, fancying himself now as great a man as the Duke of Leinster,
+O'Connell, the Lord Mayor of London, or the Provost of Edinburgh, free
+and unshackled, gloriously free, he becomes entangled with a host of
+land-jobbers, and walks off to the weary West, there to encounter a life
+of unremitting toil in the solitary forests, with an occasional visit
+from the ague, or the milk-fever, which so debilitates his frame, that,
+during the remainder of his wretched existence, he can expect but little
+enjoyment of the manorial rights appendant to a hundred acres of wild
+land.
+
+Let no emigrant embark for the United States unless he has a kind friend
+to guide and receive him there, and to point out to him the good and the
+evil; for the native race look upon all foreigners with a jealous eye,
+and particularly upon the Irish.
+
+The Germans make the best settlers in that country, perhaps because, not
+speaking English, they cannot be so easily imposed upon by the crimps,
+and also because they seldom emigrate before they have arranged with
+their friends in America respecting the lands which they are to occupy.
+
+A society of British philanthropists has been established at New York to
+direct British emigrants in their ultimate views; but it may well be
+imagined that these gentlemen, who are chiefly engaged in trade, cannot
+descend to understand fully, or are constant witnesses of, the low
+tricks which are practised to seduce the unwary ones.
+
+The emigrant to Canada is somewhat differently situated.
+
+The Irish come out in shiploads every season, and generally very
+indifferently provided and without any definite object; nay, to such an
+extent is this carried, that hundreds of young females venture out every
+year by themselves, to better their condition, which betterment usually
+ends in their reaching as far inland as Toronto, where, or at other
+ports on the lakes, they engage themselves as domestics.
+
+When we consider that nearly 25,000 emigrants leave the Mother Country
+every year for Canada alone, how important is it that they should be
+informed of every particular likely to increase their comforts and to
+conduce to their well-being! This kind of service can be but partially
+rendered by the present publication, which, being intended for the
+general reader, cannot be given in a form likely to reach the class of
+emigrants who usually proceed to America otherwise than through the
+advice which the reader may, whenever it is in his power, kindly bestow
+upon them. But it will, I am persuaded, be extensively useful in that
+way, and also to the settler with a small capital who can afford to
+consult it.
+
+Learned dissertations upon colonization are useful only to the
+politician, and so much venality has prevailed among those who have
+thrust themselves forward in the cause of Canadian settlement, that the
+public become a little alarmed when they hear of a work expressly
+designed for the emigrant.
+
+The very best informed at home, and the _haute noblesse_, have been
+repeatedly taken in. Dinnerings and lionizing have been the order of the
+day for persons, who, in the colony, cut a very inferior figure. But
+this is natural, and in the end usually does no harm. It is natural that
+the colonist, who is a _rara avis_ in England, should be considered a
+very extraordinary personage among men who seek for novelty in any
+shape; because those who lavish favours upon him at one time and eschew
+his presence afterwards are usually ignorant of the very history of
+which he is the type. It is like the standing joke of sending out
+water-casks for the men-of-war built on the fresh-water seas of Canada,
+for there are plenty of rich folks at home who want only to be filled.
+
+The different sorts of people who emigrate from _home_ to the United
+States or Canada, may be classed under several heads, like the
+travellers of Sterne.
+
+First, the inquisitive and restless, who leave a goodly inheritance or
+occupation behind them, because they have heard that Tom Smith or Mister
+Mac Grogan, very ordinary folks anywhere, have made a rapid fortune,
+which is indeed sometimes the case in the United States, though rather
+rare there for old countrymen, and is still more rare and unlikely in
+Canada, where large fortunes may be said to be unknown quantities.
+
+Settlers of this class usually fall to the ground very soon--if they
+settle in Canada, they become Radicals; if they return from the States,
+they become Tories.
+
+The next class are your would-be aristocratic settlers, younger sons of
+younger sons, cousins of cousins, Union Barons, nephews' nephews of a
+Lord Mayor, or unprovided heirs in posse.
+
+These fancy they confer a sort of honour by selecting the colony as
+their final resting-place, and that a governor and his ministers have
+nothing in the world to think about but how they can provide for such
+important units. Hence they frequently end by placing themselves in
+direct opposition to the powers that be, or take very unwillingly to the
+labours of a farmer's life. Many of them, when they find that pretension
+is laughed at, particularly if no talents accompany it, which is rarely
+or ever the case, for talent is modest and retiring in its essential
+nature, turn out violent Republicans or Radicals of the most furious
+calibre; but the more modest portion work heartily at their farms, and
+frequently succeed.
+
+Another class is your private gentlemen's sons and decent young farmers
+from England, Ireland, or Scotland, who think before they leap, have
+connexions already established in Canada, and small capitals to
+commence with. These are the really valuable settlers: they go to
+Canada for land and living; and eschew the land and liberty system of
+the neighbouring nation. Wherever they settle, the country flourishes
+and becomes a second Britain in appearance, as may be observed in the
+London and western districts.
+
+It does not require a very lengthened acquaintance with Canada to form
+observations upon the characters of the _immigrants_, as the Webster
+style of Dr. Johnson will have the word to be.
+
+The English franklin and the English peasant who come here usually weigh
+their allegiance a little before they make up their minds; but, if they
+have been persuaded that Queen Victoria's reign is a "_baneful
+domination_," they either go to the United States at once, or to those
+portions of Canada where sympathy with the Stars and Stripes is the
+order of the day.[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: That is, to those portions of the London and western
+district where American settlers abound, who have so generously repaid
+the fostering care which Governor Simcoe originally extended to them.
+One of those rabid folks indebted to the British government, who kept an
+inn, padlocked his pumps lately when a regiment was marching through
+Woodstock in hot dusty weather, that the soldiers might not slake their
+thirst.]
+
+If they be Scotch Radicals, the most uncompromising and the most bitter
+of all politicians, they seek Canada only with the ultimate hope of
+revolutionizing it.
+
+But the latter are more than balanced by the respectable Scotch, who
+emigrate occasionally upon the same principles which actuate the
+respectable portion of the English emigrants, and by the hardy
+Highlanders already settled in various parts of the colony, whose
+proverbial loyalty is proof against the arts of the demagogue.
+
+The great mass of emigrants may however be said to come from Ireland,
+and to consist of mechanics of the most inferior class, and of
+labourers. These are all impressed with the most absurd notions of the
+riches of America, and on landing at Quebec often refuse high wages with
+contempt, to seek the Cathay of their excited imaginations westward.
+
+If they be Orangemen, they defy the Pope and the devil as heartily in
+Canada as in Londonderry, and are loyal to the backbone.
+
+If they are Repealers, they come here sure of immediate wealth, to kick
+up a deuce of a row, for two shillings and sixpence currency is paid for
+a day's labour, which two shillings and sixpence was a hopeless week's
+fortune in Ireland; and yet the Catholic Irish who have been long
+settled in the country are by no means the worst subjects in this
+Trans-Atlantic realm, as I can personally testify, having had the
+command of large bodies of them during the border troubles of 1837-8.
+They are all loyal and true.
+
+In the event of a war, the Catholic Irish, to a man--and what a
+formidable body it is in Canada and the United States!--will be on the
+side of England. O'Connell has prophesied rightly there, for it is not
+in human nature to forget the wrongs which the Catholics have suffered
+for the past ten years in a country professing universal freedom and
+toleration.
+
+The Americans of the better classes with whom I have conversed admit
+this, but their dislike of the Irish is rooted and general among all the
+native race; and they fear as well as mistrust them, because, in many of
+the largest cities, New York for one, the Irish predominate.
+
+The Americans say, and so do the Canadians, that, for some years back,
+since the repeal agitation at home, a few very ignorant and very
+turbulent priests, of the lowest grade, have found their way across the
+Atlantic. I have travelled all over Canada, and lived many years in the
+country, and have been thrown among all classes, from my having been
+connected with the militia. I never saw but one specimen of Irish
+hedge-priest, and therefore do not credit the assertion; this one came
+out last year, and a more furious bigot or a more republican ultra I
+never met with, at the same time that he was as ignorant as could be
+conceived.
+
+Such has not hitherto been the case with the Catholic priesthood of the
+Canadas. The French Canadian clergy are a body of pious, exemplary men,
+not perhaps shining in the galaxy of science, but unobtrusive,
+gentlemanly, and an honour to the _soutane_ and _chasuble_.
+
+The priests from Ireland are not numerous, for the Irish chapels were,
+till very lately, generally presided over by Scotch missionaries; and I
+can safely say that, whether Irish or Scotch, the Catholic priesthood of
+Western Canada will not yield the palm to their Franco-Canadian brethren
+of the cross, and that loyalty is deeply inculcated by them. I have long
+and personally known and admired the late Bishop Mac Donell; a worthier
+or a better man never existed. The highest and the lowest alike loved
+him.
+
+I saw him bending under the weight of years, passed in his ministry and
+in the defence of his adopted country, just before he left Canada, to
+lay his bones in his natal soil, preside over the ceremony of placing
+the first stone of the Catholic seminary, for which he had given the
+ground and funds to the utmost of his ability.
+
+He was a large, venerable-looking man, unwieldy from the infirmities of
+age and a life of toil and trouble; and the affecting and touching
+portion of the scene before us was to see him supported on his right and
+left by the arms of a Presbyterian colonel and a colonel of the Church
+of England.
+
+This is true Christianity, true charity--peace be to his soul!--
+
+His successor was a Canadian, equally free from pretension and bigotry;
+and he was succeeded by an Irishman, whose mission is to heal the wounds
+of party and strife. He is living and in office; I cannot, therefore,
+speak of him; but, differing as an Englishman so widely as I do in
+religious tenets from his, I can freely assert that, if clergymen of
+every denomination pursued the same course of brotherly love that he
+does, we should hear no more of the fierce and undying contention about
+subjects which should be covered with the veil of benevolence and
+humility.
+
+You cannot force a man to think as you do, to draw him into what you
+conceive to be the true path; mildness and conciliation are much more
+likely to effect your object than the Emperor of China's yellow stick.
+The days of the Inquisition, of Judge Jefferies, and of Claverhouse, are
+happily gone by; and the artillery of man's wrath now vents its harmless
+thunders much in the same way as the thunders of the Vatican, or the
+recent fulmination of the Archbishop of Paris against the author of the
+Wandering Jew; that is to say, with a great deal of noise, but without
+much damnifying any one, as the public soon formed a true judgment of M.
+Sue and of the tendency of his works.
+
+On the other hand, how horrible it is, and what a fearful view of frail
+human nature is opened for a searching mind to observe that a man, who
+professes to have abandoned the pleasures of existence, to have broken
+through the very first law of nature, to have separated himself from his
+kind, and to have assumed perfection and infallibility, the attributes
+of his Creator, devoting the altar at which he serves to the wicked
+purposes of arraying man against man, and of embruing the hands held up
+before him at prayer in the blood of his fellow-mortals!
+
+But such is the inevitable tendency of the system of "I am better than
+thou," whether it be practised by a Catholic priest of the hedge-school,
+by a fanatic bawler about new light, or by a fierce and uncompromising
+churchman. Faith, hope, and charity, are alike misinterpreted and
+misunderstood. Faith with these consists in blind or hypocritical
+devotion to their peculiar opinions and dogmas; hope is limited to the
+narrowest circle of ideas; and charity, Divine charity, exists not; for
+even the very relics, the mouldering bones of the defunct, are not
+allowed to rest side by side; and as to those differing in the slightest
+degree from them, to them charity extends not, however pious, however
+sincere, or however excellent they may be.
+
+The people of England are very little aware how widely Roman Catholicism
+extends in the United States and in Canada. From accurate returns, it
+has been ascertained that in the United States there were last year
+1,500,000, with 21 bishops, 675 churches, 592 mission stations, and 572
+priests otherwise employed in teaching and travelling; 22 colleges or
+ecclesiastical establishments, 23 literary institutions, 53 female
+schools or convents for instruction, 84 charitable hospitals and
+institutions, and 220 young students, preparing for the ministry; whilst
+we learn, from the Annals of the Propaganda, that 1,130,000 francs were
+appropriated, in May 1845, to the missions of America, or about L47,000
+annually, of which the share for the United States, including Texas, was
+771,164 francs, or about L32,000 in round numbers.
+
+Then again, the greater portion of the Indian tribes in the north-west
+and west, excepting near the Rocky Mountains or beyond them, are Roman
+Catholics; and their numbers are very great, and all in deep hatred,
+dislike, and enmity, to the Big Knives.
+
+More than half a million of the Lower Canadians are also of the same
+persuasion, and their church in Upper Canada is large and increasing by
+every shipload from Ireland. Even in Oregon, a Catholic bishop has just
+been appointed.
+
+It is more than probable, that in and around the United States three
+millions of Roman Catholic men are ever ready to advance the standard of
+their faith; whilst Mexico, weak as it is, offers another Catholic
+barrier to exclusive tenets of liberty, both of conscience and of
+person.
+
+It is surprising how very easily the emigrants are misled, and how
+simply they fancy that, once on the shores of the New World, Fortune
+must smile upon them.
+
+There is a British society, as I have already stated, for mutual
+protection, established at New York; and the government have agents of
+the first respectability at Quebec, at Montreal, and at Kingston. But
+the poorer classes, as well as those whose knowledge of life has been
+limited, are sadly defrauded and deluded.
+
+At a recent meeting of the Welsh Society at New York, facts were stated,
+showing the depravity and audacity of the crimps at Liverpool and New
+York. The President of the Society said that, owing to the nefarious
+practices against emigrants, the Germans first, then the Irish, after
+that the Welsh, and lastly the English residents of the city had taken
+the matter in hand by the formation of Protective Societies.
+
+The president of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick observed that in
+Liverpool the poor emigrants were fleeced without mercy; and he gave as
+one instance a fact that, by the representations of a packet agent, a
+large number of emigrants were induced to embark on board a packet
+without the necessary supply of provisions, being assured that for their
+passage-money they would be supplied by the captain--an arrangement of
+which the captain was wholly ignorant.
+
+The president of the Welsh Society exhibited sixty dollars of trash in
+bills of the Globe Bank, that had been palmed off upon an unsuspecting
+Welshman by some rascal in Liverpool, in exchange for his hoarded gold,
+and declared that this was only one of a series of like villanies
+constantly occurring.
+
+The ex-president of the St. George's Society, Mr. Fowler, mentioned a
+curious circumstance connected with the history of New York. He said
+that he remembered the city when it contained only fifty thousand
+inhabitants, and not one paved side walk, excepting in Dock Street. Now
+it had a population of nearly 400,000, and had so changed, that he could
+no longer identify the localities of his youthful days.
+
+Who, he asked, had done this? The emigrant! and it was protection they
+needed, not charity. He should have added, that the great mass of the
+emigrants who have made New York the mighty city it now is, were Irish,
+and that the native Americans have banded themselves in another form of
+protection against their increasing influence.
+
+The republican notions which the greater portion of the lower classes
+emigrating from the old country have been drilled into, lead them to
+believe that in the United States all men are equal, and that thus they
+have a splendid vault to make from poverty to wealth, an easy spring
+from a state of dependency to one of vast importance and consideration.
+The simple axiom of republicanism, that a ploughman is as good as a
+president, or a quarryman as an emperor, is taken firm hold of in any
+other sense than the right one. What sensible man ever doubted that we
+were all created in the same mould, and after the same image; but is
+there a well educated sane mind in America, believing that a perfect
+equality in all things, in goods and chattels, in agrarian rights and in
+education, is, or ever will be, practicable in this naughty world?
+
+Has nature formed all men with the same capacities, and can they be so
+exactly educated that all shall be equally fit to govern?
+
+The converse is true. Nature makes genius, and not genius nature. How
+rarely she yields a Shakespeare!--There has been but one Homer, one
+Virgil, since the creation. There was never a second Moses, nor have
+Solomon's wisdom and glory ever again been attainable.
+
+Look at the rulers of the earth, from the patriarchs to the present day,
+how few have been pre-eminent! Even in the earliest periods, when the
+age of man reached to ten times its present span, the wonderful sacred
+writ records Tubal-Cain, the first artificer, and Jubal, the lyrist, as
+most extraordinary men; and with what care are Aholiab and Bezabel,
+cunning in all sorts of craft, and Hiram, the artificer of Tyre,
+recorded! Hiram, the king, great as he undoubtedly was, was secondary in
+Solomon's eyes to the widow's son.
+
+These men, says the holy record, were gifted expressly for their
+peculiar mission; and so are all men, to whom the Inscrutable has been
+pleased to assign extraordinary talent.
+
+Caesar, the conqueror, Napoleon, his imitator, and Nelson, and
+Wellington, are they on a par with the rabble of New York? Procul, O,
+procul este profani!
+
+Pure democracy is an utter and unattainable impossibility; nature has
+effectually barred against it. The only thing in the course of a life of
+more than half a century that has ever puzzled me about it is, that the
+Catholic clergy should, in so many parts of the world, have lent it a
+helping hand. The ministers of a creed essentially aristocratic,
+essentially the pillars of the divine right of kings, have they ever
+been in earnest about the matter? Perhaps not!
+
+If that giant of modern Ireland, the pacificator citizen king, succeeded
+in separating the island from Great Britain, would he, on attaining the
+throne, or the dictatorship, or the presidency, or whatever it might be,
+for the nonce, desire pure democracy? _Je crois que non_, because, if he
+did, he would reign about one clear week afterwards.
+
+Look at the United States, see how each successive president is bowed
+down before the Moloch altar; he must worship the democratic Baal, if he
+desires to be elected, or re-elected. It is not the intellect, or the
+wealth of the Union that rules. Already they seriously canvass in the
+Empire State perfect equality in worldly substance, and the division of
+the lands into small portions, sufficient to afford the means of
+respectable existence to every citizen. It is, perhaps, fortunate that
+very few of the office-holders have much substance to spare under these
+circumstances; but, if the President, Vice-President, and the
+Secretaries of State, are to live upon an acre or two of land for the
+rest of their lives, Spartan broth will be indeed a rich diet to theirs.
+
+When the sympathizers invaded Canada, in 1838-1839, the lands of the
+Canadians were thus parcelled out amongst them, as the reward of their
+extremely patriotic services, but in slices of one hundred, instead of
+one or two, acres.
+
+But, notwithstanding all this ultra-democracy, there is at present a
+sufficient counterbalance in the sense of the people, to prevent any
+very serious consequences; and the Irish, from having had their religion
+trampled upon, and themselves despised, would be very likely to run
+counter to native feeling.
+
+If any country in the whole civilized world exhibits the inequality of
+classes more forcibly than another, it is the country which has lately
+annexed Texas, and which aims at annexing all the New World.
+
+There is a more marked line drawn between wealth and pretension on the
+one hand, poverty and impertinent assumption on the other, than in the
+dominions of the Czar. Birth, place, power, are all duly honoured, and
+that sometimes to a degree which would astonish a British nobleman,
+accustomed all his life to high society. I remember once travelling in a
+canal boat, the most abominable of all conveyances, resembling Noah's
+ark in more particulars than its shape, that I was accosted, in the
+Northern States too, and near the borders, where equality and liberty
+reign paramount, by a long slab-sided fellow-passenger, who, I thought,
+was going to ask me to pay his passage, his appearance was so shabby,
+with the following questions:
+
+"Where are you from? are you a Livingstone?" I told him, for I like to
+converse with characters, that I was from Canada. "What's your name?" he
+asked. I satisfied him. He examined me from head to foot with attention,
+and, as he was an elderly man, I stood the gaze most valiantly. "Well,"
+he said, "I thought you were a Livingstone; you have got small ears, and
+small feet and hands, and that, all the world over, is the sign of
+gentle blood."
+
+He was afterwards very civil; and, upon inquiring of the skipper of the
+boat who he was, I found that my friend was a man of large fortune, who
+lived somewhere near Utica, on an estate of his own.
+
+This was before the sympathy troubles, and I can back it with another
+story or two to amuse the reader.
+
+Some years ago, when it was the fashion in Canada for British officers
+always to travel in uniform, I went to Buffalo, the great city of
+Buffalo on lake Erie, in the Thames steamer, commanded by my good
+friend, Captain Van Allen, and the first British Canadian steamboat
+that ever entered that harbour. We went in gallantly, with the flag
+flying that "has braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze." I
+think the majority of the population must have lined the wharfs to see
+us come in. They rent the welkin with welcomes, and, among other
+demonstrations, cast up their caps, and cried with might and main--"Long
+live George the Third!"--Our gracious monarch had for years before bid
+this world good night, but that was nothing; the good folks of Buffalo
+had not perhaps quite forgotten that they were once, long before their
+city was a city, subjects of King George.
+
+I and another officer in uniform were received with all honours, and
+escorted to the Eagle hotel, where we were treated sumptuously, and had
+to run the gauntlet of handshaking to great extent. A respectable
+gentleman, about forty, some seven years older than myself, stuck close
+to me all the while. I thought he admired the British undress uniform,
+but he only wanted to ask questions, and, after sundry answers, he
+inquired my name, which being courteously communicated, he said, "Well,
+I am glad, that's a fact, that I have seen you, for many is the whipping
+I have had for your book of Algebra." Now I never was capable of
+committing such an unheard-of enormity as being the cause of
+flagellation to any man by simple or quadratic equations; and it must
+have been the binomial theorem which had tickled his catastrophe, for it
+was my father's treatise which had penetrated into the new world of
+Buffalonian education.
+
+It is a pity, is it not, gentle reader, that such feelings do not now
+exist?
+
+Nevertheless, even now, the designation of a British officer is a
+passport in any part of the United States. The custom-house receives it
+with courtesy and good-will; society is gratified by attentions received
+from a British officer; and it is coupled with the feelings which the
+habits and conduct of a gentleman engender throughout Christendom.
+
+At New York, I visited every place worth seeing; and, although
+disliking gambling, races, and debating societies, _a outrance_, I was
+determined to judge for myself of New York, of life in New York.
+
+On one occasion, I was at a meeting of the turf in an hotel after the
+races, where violent discussions and heavy champagning were going on. I
+was then (it was in 1837) a major in the army, and was introduced to one
+or two prominent men in the room as a British officer who had been to
+see the racecourse; this caused a general stir, and the champagne flew
+about like----I am at a loss for a simile; and the health of Queen
+Victoria was drunk with three times three.
+
+On board a packet returning from England, we had several of the leading
+characters of the United States as passengers. A very silly and
+troublesome democrat, of the Loco-foco school, from Philadelphia, made
+himself conspicuous always after dinner, when we sat, according to
+English fashion, at a dessert, by his vituperations against monarchy and
+an exhibition of his excessive love for everything American. The
+gentlemen above alluded to, men who had travelled over Europe, whose
+education and manners made them that which a true gentleman is all over
+the world, were disgusted, and, to punish his impertinence, proposed
+that a weekly paper should be written by the cabin passengers, in which
+the occurrences of each day should be noted and commented upon, and that
+poetry, tales, and essays, should form part of its matter.
+
+They agreed to discuss the relative points and bearings of monarchy and
+democracy; they to depute one of their number to be the champion of
+monarchy; and we to chuse the champion of democracy from amongst the
+English passengers.
+
+Two drawings were fixed up at each end of the table after dinner; one,
+representing a crowned Plum-pudding; and the other, Liberty and
+Equality, by the well-known sign. The blustering animal was soon
+effectually silenced; a host of first-rate talent levelled a constant
+battery at his rude and uncultivated mind.
+
+I shall never forget this voyage, and I hope the talent-gifted Canadian
+lawyer who threw down the gauntlet of Republicanism, and who has since
+risen to the highest honours of his profession which the Queen can
+bestow, has preserved copies of the Saturday's Gazette of The Mediator
+American Packet-ship.
+
+The mention of this vessel puts me in mind of one more American
+anecdote, and I must tell it, for I have a good deal of dry work before
+me.
+
+Crossing the Atlantic once in an American vessel, we met another
+American ship, of the same size, and passed very close. Our captain
+displayed the stars and stripes in true ship-shape cordial greeting.
+Brother Jonathan took no notice of this sea civility, and passed on;
+upon which the skipper, after taking a long look at him with his
+spy-glass, broke out in a passion, "What!" said he, "you won't show your
+b--d bunting, your old stripy rag? Now, I guess, if he had been a
+Britisher, instead of a d--d Yankee, he would not have been ashamed of
+his flag; he would have acted like a gentleman. Phew!" and he whistled,
+and then chewed his cigar viciously, quite unconscious that I was
+enjoying the scene.
+
+But, if it be possible that one peculiar portion of the old countrymen
+are more disliked or despised than another in any country under the sun,
+connected by such ties as the United States are with Britain, there can
+be no doubt that the condition of the Jews under King John, as far as
+hatred and unexpressed contumelious feeling goes, was preferable to the
+feeling which native Americans, of the ultra Loco-foco or ultra-federal
+breed, entertain towards the labouring Catholic Irish, and would, if
+they could with safety, vent upon them in dreadful visitation. They
+would exterminate them, if they dared.
+
+To account for such a feeling, it must be observed that a large portion
+of these ignorant and misguided men have brought much of this animosity
+upon themselves; for, continuing in the New World that barbarous
+tendency to demolish all systems and all laws opposed to their limited
+notions of right and wrong, and, whilst their senseless feuds among
+themselves harass society, they eagerly seek occasions for that restless
+political excitement to which they are accustomed in their own unhappy
+and regretted country.
+
+A body of these hewers of wood and drawers of water, who, when not
+excited, are the most innocent and harmless people in the world--easily
+led, but never to be driven--get employed on a canal or great public
+work; and, no sooner do they settle down upon wages which must appear
+like a dream to them, than some old feud between Cork and Connaught,
+some ancient quarrel of the Capulets and Montagues of low life, is
+recollected, or a chant of the Boyne water is heard, and to it they go
+pell-mell, cracking one another's heads and disturbing a peaceful
+neighbourhood with their insane broils.
+
+Or, should a devil, in the shape of an adviser, appear among them, and
+persuade these excitable folks that they may obtain higher wages by
+forcing their own terms, bludgeons and bullets are resorted to, in order
+to compel compliance, and incendiarism and murder follow, until a
+military force is called out to quell the riots.
+
+The scenes of this kind in Canada, where vast sums are annually expended
+on the public works, have been frightful; and such has been the terror
+which these lawless hordes have inspired, that timid people have quitted
+their properties and fled out of the reach of the moral pestilence; nay,
+it has been carried so far, that a Scotch regiment has been marked on
+account of its having been accidentally on duty in putting down a canal
+riot; and, wherever its station has afterwards been cast, the vengeance
+of these people has followed it.
+
+At Montreal, the elections have been disgraced by bodies of these
+canallers having been employed to intimidate and overawe voters; and,
+were it not that a large military force is always at hand there, no
+election could be made of a member, whose seat would be the unbiassed
+and free choice of his constituents.
+
+It is, however, very fortunate for Canada that these canallers are not
+usually inclined to settle, but wander about from work to work, and
+generally, in the end, go to the United States. The Irish who settle are
+fortunately a different people; and, as they go chiefly into the
+backwoods, lead a peaceful and industrious life.
+
+But it is, nevertheless, very amusing, and affords much insight into the
+workings of frail human nature to observe the conduct of that portion of
+the Irish emigrants who find that they have neither the means of
+obtaining land, nor of quitting some large town at which they may
+arrive. Their first notion then is to go out to service, which they had
+left Ireland to avoid altogether. The father usually becomes a
+day-labourer, the sons farm-servants or household servants in the towns,
+the daughters cooks, nursery-maids, &c.
+
+When they come to the mistress of a family to hire, they generally sit
+down on the nearest chair to the door in the room, and assume a manner
+of perfect familiarity, assuring the lady of the house that they never
+expected to go out to service in America, but that some family
+misfortune has rendered such a step necessary. The lady then, of course,
+asks them what branch of household service they can undertake; to which
+the invariable reply is, anything--cook or housemaid, child's-maid or
+housekeeper, and that indeed they lived in better places at home than
+they expect to get in America, such as Lord So-and-so's, or Squire
+So-and-so's.
+
+The end of this is obvious; and a lady told me, the other day, she hired
+a professed cook, who was very shortly put to the test by a dinner-party
+occurring a day or two after she joined the household. Her mistress
+ordered dinner; and one joint, or _piece de resistance_, was a fine
+fillet of veal. The professed cook, it appeared, laboured under a little
+_manque d'usage_ on two delicate points, for she very unexpectedly burst
+into her lady's boudoir just as she was dressing for dinner, and
+exclaimed, "Mistress, dear, what'll I do with the vail?"--"The veil?"
+said the dame, in horror; "what veil?"--"Why, the vail in the pot, marm;
+I biled it, and it swelled out so, the divil a get it out can I git it."
+
+So with the farm-servants, they can all do everything; and an Irish
+gentleman told me that he lately hired a young man, an emigrant, to
+plough for him; and, on asking him if he understood ploughing, the
+good-natured Paddy answered, offhand, "Ploughing, is it? I'm the boy for
+ploughing."--"Very well, I'm glad of it," said the gentleman, "for you
+are a fine, likely young fellow, so I shall hire you." He hired him
+accordingly at high wages--ten dollars a month and provisions and
+lodging found. The first day he was to work, my friend told him to go
+and yoke the oxen. Paddy stared with all his eyes, but said nothing, and
+went away. He staid some time, and then returned with a pair of oxen,
+which he was driving before him. "Here's the oxen, master!"--"Where are
+the yokes, Paddy?"--"The yokes! by the powers, is that what they call
+beef in Canady?" Poor Paddy had been a weaver all his live-long days.
+
+The Irish are almost exclusively the servants in most parts of the
+northern states and throughout Canada, excepting the French Canadians,
+and very attached, faithful servants they frequently are; but notions of
+liberty and equality get possession of their phrenological developments,
+and they are almost always on the move to better their condition, which
+rarely happens as they desire.
+
+Then another crying evil in Canada and in the States is the rage for
+dress. An Irish girl no sooner gets a modicum of wages than all her
+thoughts are to go to chapel or church as fine or finer than her
+mistress. Nearly every servant-girl in the large towns has a _ridicule_
+(that must be the proper way of spelling it), a bustle, a parasol, an
+expensive shawl, and a silk gown, and fine bonnet, gloves, and a white
+pocket-handkerchief. The men are not so aspiring, and usually don on
+Sundays a blue coat and brass buttons, white pantaloons, white gloves,
+and a good fur cap in winter, or a neat straw hat or brilliant beaver in
+summer. The waistcoat is nondescript, but the boots are irreproachable.
+A cigar has nearly replaced the pipe in the streets.
+
+I will defy a short-sighted person to distinguish her nursery-maid from
+her own sister at a little distance; and, being somewhat afflicted that
+way myself, I frequently nod to a well-dressed soubrette, thinking she
+is at least a leading member of the aristocracy of the town; and this is
+the more amusing, as in all colonial towns and in the _haute societe_ of
+the Republic very considerable magnificence is affected, and a rage for
+rank and pseudo-importance is not a little the order of the day.
+"Nothing," says a distinguished writer upon that most frivolous of all
+threadbare subjects, etiquette, "nothing is more decidedly the sign of a
+vulgar-born or a vulgar-bred person than to be ready to practise the
+art of cutting." I therefore bow to the well-dressed grisettes, upon the
+principle of avoiding to be thought vulgar in mixed society by cutting a
+lady of tremendous rank; as I would rather take a cook for a Countess,
+or a chambermaid for an Honourable, than be guilty of so much rudeness.
+
+You must not smile, gentle reader, and say cooks are often handsomer
+than Countesses, or chambermaids prettier than Honourables; I am like
+the old man of the Bubbles of Brunnen, insensible to anything but the
+beauties of nature. Neither must you think we have no Countesses nor
+Honourables in Canada. The former are in truth _rarae aves_, but the
+latter--why, every change of ministry creates a batch of them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+  The Emigrant and his Prospects.
+
+
+Those who really wish Canada well desire it to become a second Britain,
+and not a mere second Texas. Those who wish it evil, and these comprise
+the restless, unprovided race of politicians under whose incessant
+agitation Canada has so long groaned, desire its Texian annexation to
+the already overgrown States in its vicinity.
+
+That it may become a second Britain and hold the balance of power on the
+continent of America is my prayer, and the prayer too of one who
+entertains no enmity towards the people of the United States, but who
+admires their unceasing exertions in behalf of their country, who would
+admire their institutions, based as they are upon those of England, if
+the grand design of Washington had been carried out, and perfect freedom
+of thought and of action had been secured to the people, instead of a
+slavish awe of the mob, an absolute dread of the uneducated masses, a
+sovereign contempt of the opinion of the world in accomplishing any
+design for the aggrandizement of the Union, the most despotic and
+degrading oppression of all who presume to hold religious opinions at
+variance with those of the masses, and the chained bondsman in a land of
+liberty!
+
+To guard the respectable settler, who has a character at stake, and a
+family with some little capital to lay out to better advantage than he
+can at home, against the grievous and often fatal errors which have been
+propagated for sinister motives by needy adventurers who have written
+about Canada, or who are or have been agents for the sake only of the
+remuneration which it brings, caring but little for the misery they have
+entailed, I have undertaken to continue an account of this fine
+province, where nothing is provided by Nature except fertile soil and a
+healthy climate; the rest she leaves to unremitting labour and to the
+exercise of judgment by the settler.
+
+As I have already inferred, this work will contain nothing vituperative
+of the United States, of that people who are the grandchildren of
+Britannia, and whose well-being is so essential to the peace and
+security of Christendom.
+
+I shall endeavour to render it as plain and unpretending as possible,
+and shall not confine myself to studied rules or endeavours to make a
+book, taking up my subject as suits my own leisure, which is not very
+ample, and resuming or interrupting it at pleasure or convenience.
+
+It will be necessary to enter more at large than in my preceding volumes
+into the resources of Canada, and, for this end, Geology and other
+scientific subjects must be introduced; but, as I dislike exceedingly
+that heavy and gaudy veil of learning, that embroidered science, with
+which modern taste conceals those secrets of Nature which have been so
+partially unfolded, I shall not have frequent recourse to absurd Greek
+derivations, which are very commonly borrowed for the occasion from
+technical dictionaries, or lent by a classical friend; but, whenever
+they must occur, the dictionary shall explain them, for I really think
+it beneath the dignity of the lights of modern Geology to talk as they
+do about the Placoids and the Ganoids, as the first created fishlike
+beings, and of the Ctenoids and the Cycloids as the more recent finners.
+It always puts me in mind of Shakespeare's magniloquence concerning "the
+Anthropophagi and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders, of
+antres vast and deserts idle," when he exhibited his learning in
+language which no one, however, can imitate, and which he makes the lady
+seriously incline and listen to, simply because she did not understand a
+word that was said. So it is with the overdone and continual changing of
+terms that now constantly occurs; insomuch that the terms of plain
+science, instead of being simplified and brought within the reach of
+ordinary capacities, is made as uncouth and as unintelligible as
+possible, and totally beyond the reach of those who have no collegiate
+education to boast of, and no good technical dictionary at hand to refer
+to.
+
+The present age is most prone to this false estimate of learning and to
+public scientific display. If science, true science, yields to it,
+learning will very soon vanish from the face of the earth again, and
+nothing but monkish lore and the dark ages return.
+
+There is a vast field open for research in Canada: it is yet a virgin
+soil, both as respects its moral and its physical cultivation.
+Therefore, plain facts are the best, and those made as level to the eye
+as possible; for the amusing mistakes which a would-be learned man
+makes, after a cursory perusal of anything scientific, only subject him
+to silent derision.
+
+A very old casual acquaintance of mine, a sort of man holding a rather
+elevated rank, but originally from the great unwashed, who had risen by
+mere chance, aided by a little borough influence, was talking to me one
+day about some property of his in Western Canada, which he fancied had
+rich minerals upon it. Accordingly, he had taken a preliminary Treatise
+on Mineralogy in hand, and puzzled his brains in order to converse
+learnedly. "My land," quoth he, "is Silesia, and has a great bed of
+sulphuret of pyrites." The poor gentleman, who had a vast opinion of
+himself and always contradicted everybody about everything, meant that
+his soil contained a deal of silica, and that iron pyrites was abundant
+in it.
+
+The importance of the annual migration from Britain is best evidenced by
+the representation of the chief emigrant agent at Quebec, subjoined.
+
+In all the great sea-ports of England, Ireland, and Scotland, there are
+emigrant agents appointed by the government, to whom application should
+always be made for information, by every emigrant who has not the
+advantage of friends in Canada to receive and guide him; and these
+gentlemen prevent the trouble, expense, loss of time, and fraud, to
+which the poor settlers are subjected by the crimps and agents, with
+whom every sea-port abounds.
+
+On their arrival in Canada, if ignorant of their way, they should apply
+at Quebec to the government principal agent, who is stationed there for
+the lower or eastern part of Canada, and he will give them either advice
+or passage, according to the nature of the case.
+
+It is a pity that a rage exists for going as far west as possible at
+first, for this rage causes distress, and ends frequently by their being
+kidnapped into settling in the United States.
+
+If, however, they are determined to go on to Western Canada, their
+course is either to pay their own way, or to obtain assistance from the
+government to send them on to Kingston, where another government agent
+for Western Canada is stationed; and, as this gentleman has now acted in
+that capacity for many years, he possesses a perfect knowledge of the
+country and its resources, and of the wants and objects of the
+settlers.
+
+There is excellent land, and plenty of it to be obtained from the
+British American Land Company in Lower Canada, in that portion called
+"The Townships," which adjoin the states of Vermont and New York; and,
+excepting that the winters are longer, the climate more severe, it is as
+desirable as any other part of the province, and, in point of health,
+perhaps more so, as it is sufficiently far from the great river and
+lakes to make it less subject to ague; which, however, more or less, all
+new countries in the temperate zone, well forested and watered, are
+invariably the seat of, and which is increased in power and frequency in
+proportion to the neighbourhood of fresh water in large bodies, and the
+use of whiskey as a preventive.
+
+From a statement of the number of emigrants to this colony for the last
+sixteen years, compiled by A.C. Buchanan, Esq., chief emigrant agent, it
+appears that, in the five years subsequently to 1829, the emigration
+from the British Isles was 165,793. From other sources, in the three
+years, from 1829 to 1832, the emigration exceeded that of the previous
+ten years--the numbers being respectively, 125,063 and 121,170. In 1832,
+the emigrants arrived reached the high number of 51,746; but the cholera
+of that year was of so fatal a character on the St. Lawrence, that the
+numbers in 1833 fell 22,062. This epidemic, coupled with the rebellions
+of '37 and '38, materially checked the increased emigration commenced in
+1836. In 1838, the number was only 3,266, and in 1839, 7,500. But, since
+1840, emigration has again recovered, and, during the period of
+navigation of 1845, it amounted to 27,354, of whom 2,612 arrived _via_
+the United States.
+
+The United States, however, received by far the largest proportion of
+the emigration from Britain. At the port of New York alone, from 1st
+November, 1844, to 31st October, 1845, there arrived--
+
+From England and Scotland         10,653
+From Ireland                      38,300
+                                 -------
+Total at New York                 48,953
+
+The number of emigrants landed at the port of Quebec, in 1845, was
+25,375.
+
++----------------------------------------------------------------------+
+|             NUMBER OF EMIGRANTS SINCE 1829.                          |
+|----------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+---------|
+|                |'29 to '33|'34 to '38|'39 to '43|'44 to '45| Total.  |
+|                |          |          |          |          |         |
+|                |----------|----------|----------|----------|---------|
+|England.        |  43,386  | 28,624   |  30,318  | 16,531   | 119,354 |
+|Ireland.        | 102,264  | 54,898   |  74,981  | 24,201   | 256,344 |
+|Scotland.       |  20,143  | 10,998   |  16,289  |  4,408   |  51,838 |
+|British American|          |          |          |          |         |
+|  Prov. &c.     |   1,904  |  1,831   |   1,777  |    377   |   5,589 |
+|                |----------+----------+----------+----------+---------|
+|                | 167,697  | 96,351   | 123,860  | 45,517   | 433,425 |
++----------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+---------+
+
+Upper Canada would seem to have received the largest share of the influx
+of population. The increase in the number of its inhabitants, between
+1827 and 1843, is stated at 230,000.
+
+The local government has for some few years past encouraged, although
+rather scantily, as Mr. Logan can, I dare say, testify, an exploration
+of the natural resources of the Canadas, as far as geology and
+mineralogy are concerned. Its medical statistics, its botany and
+zoology, will follow; and agriculture, that primary and most noble of
+all applications of the mind to matter, is making rapid strides, by the
+formation of district and local societies, which will do infinitely more
+good than any system of government patronage for the advancement of the
+welfare of the people could devise.
+
+The public works have also, for the first time, been placed under the
+control of the executive and legislative bodies by the formation of a
+board, which is itself also subject to the supervision of the
+government.
+
+But much remains to be done on this important head. A melancholy error
+was committed in making the President, and consequently all the officers
+and _employes_, of the Board of Works, partizans of the ministry of the
+day; thus paralyzing the efforts of a zealous man, on the one hand, by
+the fear of dismissal upon any change of the popular will, and
+neutralizing his efforts whilst in office, by rendering his measures
+mere jobs.
+
+This has been amended under Lord Metcalfe's administration; and it is to
+be hoped that the office of President of the Board of Works will
+hereafter be one subjected to severe but not to vexatious scrutiny, and
+at the same time carefully guarded against political influence, and only
+rendered tenable with honour by the capacity of the person selected to
+fill it and of his subordinates. Canada is, as I have written two former
+volumes to prove, a magnificent country. I doubt very much if Nature has
+created a finer country on the whole earth.
+
+The soil is generally good, as that made by the decay of forests for
+thousands of years upon substrata, chiefly formed of alluvion or
+diluvion, the deposit from waters, must be. It is, moreover, from Quebec
+to the Falls of St. Mary, almost a flat surface, intersected and
+interlaced by numberless streams, and studded with small lakes, whilst
+its littorale is a river unparalleled in the world, expanding into
+enormous fresh water seas, abounding with fish.
+
+If the tropical luxuries are absent, if its winters are long and
+excessively severe, yet it yields all the European fruits abundantly,
+and even some of the tropical ones, owing to the richness of its soil
+and the great heat of the summer. Maize, or Indian corn, flourishes, and
+is more wholesome and better than that produced in the warm South. The
+crops of potato, that apple of the earth, as the French so justly term
+it, are equal, if not superior, to those of any other climate; whilst
+all the vegetables of the temperate regions of the old world grow with
+greater luxuriance than in their original fields. I have successively
+and successfully cultivated the tomato, the melon, and the capsicum, in
+the open air, for several seasons, at Kingston and Toronto, which are
+not the richest or the best parts of Western Canada, as far as
+vegetation is concerned. Tobacco grows well in the western district, and
+where is finer wheat harvested than in Western Canada?--whilst hay, and
+that beauty of a landscape, the rich green sod, the velvet carpet of the
+earth, are abundant and luxuriant.
+
+If the majesty of vegetation is called in question, and intertropical
+plants brought forward in contrast, even the woods and trackless
+forests of Guiana, where the rankest of luxuriance prevails, will not do
+more than compete with the glory of the primeval woods of Canada. I know
+of nothing in this world capable of exciting emotions of wonder and
+adoration more directly, than to travel alone through its forests.
+Pines, lifting their hoary tops beyond man's vision, unless he inclines
+his head so far backwards as to be painful to his organization, with
+trunks which require fathoms of line to span them; oaks, of the most
+gigantic form; the immense and graceful weeping elm; enormous poplars,
+whose magnitude must be seen to be conceived; lindens, equally vast;
+walnut trees of immense size; the beautiful birch, and the wild cherry,
+large enough to make tables and furniture of.
+
+Oh, the gloom and the glory of these forests, and the deep reflection
+that, since they were first created by the Divine fiat, civilized man
+has never desecrated them with his unsparing devastations; that a
+peculiar race, born for these solitudes, once dwelt amidst their
+shades, living as Nature's woodland children, until a more subtile being
+than the serpent of Eden crept amongst them, and, with his glittering
+novelties and dangerous beauty, caused their total annihilation! I see,
+in spirit, the red hunter, lofty, fearless, and stern, stalking in his
+painted nudity, and displaying a form which Apollo might have envied,
+amidst the everlasting and silent woods; I see, in spirit, the bearded
+stranger from the rising sun, with his deadly arms and his more deadly
+fire-water, conversing with his savage fellow, and displaying the envied
+wealth of gorgeous beads and of gaudy clothing.
+
+The scene changes, the proud Indian is at the feet of his ensnarer;
+disease has relaxed his iron sinews; drunkenness has debased his mind;
+and the myriad crimes and vices of civilized Europe have combined to
+sweep the aborigines of the soil from the face of the forest earth. The
+forest groans beneath the axe; but, after a few years, the scene again
+changes; fertile fields, orchards and gardens, delight the eye; the
+city, and the town, and the village spires rise, and where two solitary
+wigwams of the red hunter were once alone occasionally observed, twenty
+thousand white Canadians now worship the same Great Author of the
+existence of all mankind.
+
+And to increase these fields, these orchards, these gardens, these
+villages, these towns, and these cities, year after year, thirty
+thousand of the children of Britain cross the broad Atlantic: and what
+seeks this mass of human beings, braving the perils of the ocean and the
+perils of the land? Competence and wealth! The former, by prudence, is
+soon attainable; the acquisition of the latter uncertain and fickle.
+
+No free grants of land are now given, but the settler may obtain them
+upon easy terms from the government, or the Canada and British American
+companies.
+
+The settler with a small capital cannot do better than purchase out and
+out. Instalments are a bad mode of purchasing; for, if all should not
+turn out right, instalments are sometimes difficult to meet; and the
+very best land, in the best locations, as we shall hereafter see, is to
+be had from 7s. 6d., if in the deep Bush, as the forest is called; to
+10s., if nearer a market; or 15s. and 20s., if very eligibly situated.
+Thus for two hundred pounds a settler can buy two hundred acres of good
+land, can build an excellent house for two hundred and fifty more, and
+stock his farm with another fifty, as a beginning; or, in other words,
+he can commence Canadian life for five hundred pounds sterling, with
+every prospect before him, if he has a family, of leaving them
+prosperous and happy. But he and they must work, work, work. He and all
+his sons must avoid whiskey, that bane of the backwoods, as they would
+avoid the rattlesnake, which sometimes comes across their path. Whiskey
+and wet feet destroy more promising young men in Canada than ague and
+fever, that scourge of all well watered woody countries; for the ague
+and fever seldom kill but with the assistance of the dram and of
+exposure.
+
+Men nurtured in luxury or competence at home, as soon as the unfailing
+_ennui_ arising from want of society in the backwoods begins to succeed
+the excitement of settling, too frequently drink, and in many cases
+drink from their waking hour until they sink at night into sottish
+sleep. This is peculiarly the case where there is no village nor town
+within a day's journey; and thus many otherwise estimable young men
+become habitual drunkards, and sink from the caste of gentlemen
+gradually into the dregs of society, whilst their wives and families
+suffer proportionably.
+
+In Lower Canada, this vice does not prevail to the same extent as in the
+upper portion of the province. The French Canadians are not addicted to
+the vice of drinking ardent spirits as a people, although the lumberers
+and voyageurs shorten their lives very considerably by the use of
+whiskey. The _lumberers_, who are the cutters and conveyers of timber,
+pass a short and excited existence.
+
+In the winter, buried in the eternal forest, far, far away from the
+haunts of man, they chop and hew; in the summer, they form the timber,
+boards, staves, &c., into rafts, which are conveyed down the great lakes
+and the rivers St. Lawrence and Ottawa to Quebec--on these rafts they
+live and have their summer being. Hard fare in plenty, such as salt pork
+and dough cakes; fat and unleavened bread, with whiskey, is their diet.
+Tea and sugar form an occasional luxury. Up to their waists in snow in
+winter, and up to their waists in summer and autumn in water, with all
+the moving accidents by flood and field; the occasional breaking-up of
+the raft in a rapid, the difficulty of the winter and spring transport
+of the heavy logs of squared timber out of the deep and trackless woods,
+combine to form a portion of the hard and reckless life of a lumberer,
+whose _morale_ is not much better than his _physicale_.
+
+Picture to yourself, child of luxury, sitting on a cushioned sofa, in a
+room where the velvet carpet renders a footfall noiseless, where art is
+exhausted to afford comfort, and where even the hurricane cannot disturb
+your perusal of this work, a wood reaching without limit, excepting the
+oceans either of salt or fresh water which surround Canada, and where to
+lose the track is hopeless starvation and death; figure the giant pines
+towering to the clouds, gloomy and Titan-like, throwing their vast arms
+to the skyey influences, and making a twilight of mid-day, at whose
+enormous feet a thicket of bushes, almost as high as your head, prevents
+your progress without the pioneer axe; or a deep and black swamp for
+miles together renders it necessary to crawl from one fallen monarch of
+the wood onwards to the decaying and prostrate bole of another, with an
+occasional plunge into the mud and water, which they bridge; eternal
+silence reigning, disturbed only by your feeble efforts to advance; and
+you may form some idea of a red pine land, rocky and uneven, or a cedar
+swamp, black as night, dark, dismal, and dangerous.
+
+Here, after you have hewed or crept your toiling way, you see, some
+yards or some hundred yards, as the forest is close or open, before
+you, a light blue curling smoke amongst the dank and lugubrious scene;
+you hear a dull, distant, heavy, sudden blow, frequent and deadened,
+followed at long intervals by a tremendous rending, crashing,
+overwhelming rush; then all is silent, till the voice of the guardian of
+man is heard growling, snarling, or barking outright, as you advance
+towards the blue smoke, which has now, by an eddy of the wind, filled a
+large space between the trees.
+
+You stand before the fire, made under three or four sticks set up
+tenwise, to which a large cauldron is hung, bubbling and seething, with
+a very strong odour of fat pork; a boy, dirty and ill-favoured, with a
+sharp glittering axe, looks very suspiciously at you, but calls off his
+wolfish dog, who sneaks away.
+
+A moment shows you a long hut, formed of logs of wood, with a roof of
+branches, covered by birch-bark, and by its side, or near the fire,
+several nondescript sties or pens, apparently for keeping pigs in,
+formed of branches close to the ground, either like a boat turned
+upside down, or literally as a pigsty is formed, as to shape.
+
+In the large hut, which is occasionally more luxurious and made of slabs
+of wood or of rough boards, if a saw-mill is within reasonable distance,
+and there is a passable wood road, or creek, or rivulet, navigable by
+canoes, you see some barrel or two of pork, and of flour, or biscuit, or
+whiskey, some tools, and some old blankets or skins. Here you are in the
+lumberer's winter home--I cannot call him woodman, it would disgrace the
+ancient and ballad-sung craft; for the lumberer is not a gentle woodman,
+and you need not sing sweetly to him to "spare that tree."
+
+The larger dwelling is the hall, the common hall, and the pig-sties the
+sleeping-places. I presume that such a circumstance as pulling off
+habiliments or ablution seldom occurs; they roll themselves in a blanket
+or skin, if they have one, and, as to water, they are so frequently in
+it during the summer, that I suppose they wash half the year
+unintentionally. Fat pork, the fattest of the fat, is the lumberer's
+luxury; and, as he has the universal rifle or fowling-piece, he kills a
+partridge, a bear, or a deer, now and then.
+
+I was exploring last year some woods in a newly settled township, the
+township of Seymour West, in the Newcastle district of Upper Canada,
+with a view to see the nakedness of the land, which had been represented
+to me as flowing with milk and honey, as all new settlements of course
+are said to do. I wandered into the lonely but beautiful forest, with a
+companion who owned the soil, and who had told me that the lumberers
+were robbing him and every settler around of their best pine timber.
+After some toiling and tracing the sound of the axes, few and far
+between, felling in the distance, we came upon the unvarying boy at
+cookery, the axe, and the dog.
+
+My conductor at once saw the extent of the mischief going on, and,
+finding that the gang, although distant from the camp-fire, was
+numerous, advised that we should retrace our steps. We however
+interrogated the boy, who would scarcely answer, and pretended to know
+nothing. The dog began to be inquisitive too, and one of the dogs we had
+with us venturing a little too near a savoury piece of pork, the nature
+of the young half-bred ruffian suddenly blazed out, and the axe was
+uplifted to kill poor Dash. I happened to have a good stick, and
+interfered to prevent dog-murder, upon which the wood-demon ejaculated
+that he would as soon let out my guts as the dog's, and therefore my
+companion had to show his gun; for showing his teeth would have been of
+little avail with the young savage.
+
+The settlers are afraid of the lumberers; and thus all the finest land,
+near rivers, creeks, or transport of any kind, is swept of the timber to
+such an extent that you must go now far, far back from the Lakes, the
+St. Lawrence, or the Ottawa, before you can see the forest in its
+primeval grandeur.
+
+This robbery has been carried on in so barefaced and extensive a manner,
+that the chief adventurer, usually a merchant or trader, who supplies
+the axe and canoemen with pay in his shop goods, cent. per cent. above
+their value, becomes enriched.
+
+The lumberer's life is truly an unhappy one, for, when he reaches the
+end of the raft's voyage, whatever money he may have made goes to the
+fiddle, the female, or the fire-water; and he starts again as poor as at
+first, living perhaps by a rare chance to the advanced age, for a
+lumberer, of forty years.
+
+And a curious sight is a raft, joined together not with ropes but with
+the limbs and thews of the swamp or blue beech, which is the natural
+cordage of Canada and is used for scaffolding and packing.
+
+A raft a quarter of a mile long--I hope I do not exaggerate, for it may
+be half a mile, never having measured one but by the eye--with its
+little huts of boards, its apologies for flags and streamers, its
+numerous little masts and sails, its cooking caboose, and its
+contrivances for anchoring and catching the wind by slanting boards,
+with the men who appear on its surface as if they were walking on the
+lake, is curious enough; but to see it in _drams_, or detached portions,
+sent down foaming and darting along the timber slides of the Ottawa or
+the restless and rapid Trent, is still more so; and fearful it is to
+observe its _conducteur_, who looks in the rapid by no means so much at
+his ease as the functionary of that name to whom the Paris diligence is
+entrusted.
+
+Numberless accidents happen; the drams are torn to pieces by the
+violence of the stream; the rafts are broken by storm and tempest; the
+men get drunk and fall over; and altogether it appears extraordinary
+that a raft put together at the Trent village for its final voyage to
+Quebec should ever reach its destination, the transport being at least
+four hundred and fifty miles, and many go much farther, through an open
+and ever agitated fresh water sea, and amongst the intricate channels of
+The Thousand Islands, and down the tremendous rapids of the Longue
+Sault, the Gallope, the Cedars, the Cascades, &c.
+
+But a new trade, has lately commenced on Lake Ontario, which will break
+up some of the hardships of the rafting. Old steamboats of very large
+size, when no longer serviceable in their vocation, are now cut down,
+and perhaps lengthened, masted, and rigged as barques or ships, and
+treated in every respect like the Atlantic timber-vessels. Into these
+three-masters, these Leviathans of Lake Ontario, the timber, boards,
+staves, handspikes, &c., from the interior are now shipped, and the
+timber carried to the head of the St. Lawrence navigation.
+
+One step more, and they will, as soon as the canals are widened, proceed
+from Lake Superior to London without a raft being ever made.
+
+That this will soon occur is very evident; for a large vessel of this
+kind, as big as a frigate, and named the Goliath, is at the moment that
+I am writing preparing at Toronto, near the head of Lake Ontario, a
+thousand miles from the open sea, for a voyage direct to the West Indies
+and back again. Success to her! What with the railroad from Halifax to
+Lake Huron, from the Atlantic Ocean to the great fresh ocean of the
+West--what with the electric telegraph now in operation on the banks of
+the Niagara by the Americans--what with the lighting of villages on the
+shores of Lake Erie with natural gas, as Fredonia is lit, and as the
+city of the Falls of Niagara, if ever it is built, will also be, there
+is no telling what will happen: at all events, the poor lumberer must
+benefit in the next generation, for the worst portion of his toils will
+be done away with for ever.
+
+Settler, never become a lumberer, if you can avoid it.
+
+But, as we have in this favourite hobbyhorse style of ours, which causes
+description to start up as recollections occur, accompanied the lumberer
+on his voyage to that lumberer's Paradise, Quebec, whither he has
+conducted his charge to The Coves, for the culler to cull, the marker to
+mark, the skipper to ship, and the lumber-merchant to get the best
+market he can for it, so we shall return for a short time to Lower
+Canada, to talk a little about settlement there.
+
+As I hinted before, Lower Canada is too much decried as a country to
+re-commence the world in; but the Anglo-Saxon and Milesian populace are
+nevertheless beginning to discover its value, and are very rapidly
+increasing both in numbers and importance. The French Canadian yeoman,
+or small farmer, has an alacrity at standing still; it is only _le
+notaire_ and _le medecin_ that advance; so that, if emigration goes on
+at the rate it has done since the rebellion, the old country folks will,
+before fifty more years pass over, outnumber and outvote, by ten times,
+Jean Baptiste, which is a pity, for a better soul than that merry
+mixture of bonhomie and phlegm, the French Canadian is, the wide world's
+surface does not produce. Visionary notions of _la gloire de la nation
+Canadienne_, instilled into him by restless men, who panted for
+distinction and cared not for distraction, misled the _bonnet rouge_
+awhile: but he has superadded the thinking cap since; and, although he
+may not readily forget the sad lesson he received, yet he has no more
+idea of being annexed to the United States than I have of being Grand
+Lama. In fact, I really believe that the merciful policy which has been
+shown, and the wise measure of making Montreal the seat of government,
+and thus practically demonstrating the advantage of the institutions of
+England by daily lessons in the heart of their dear country, has done
+more to recall the Canadians to a sense of the real value of the
+connexion with Great Britain than all the protocols of diplomatists, or
+all the powder that ever saltpetre generated, could have achieved.
+
+Pursue a perfectly impartial course, as you ought and must do, towards
+the Canadians, and show them that they are as much British citizens as
+the people of Toronto are, and you may count upon their loyalty and
+devotion without fear. They know they never can be an independent
+nation; that folly has been dreamed out, and the fumes of the vision are
+evaporating.
+
+They now know and feel that annexation to the great Republic in their
+neighbourhood will swamp their nationality more effectively than the red
+or the blue coats of England can ever do, will desecrate their altars,
+will portion out their lands, will nullify their present importance, and
+render them an isolated race, forgotten and unsought for, as the
+Iroquois of the last century, who, from being the children and owners of
+the land, the true _enfans du sol_, are now--where? The soil, had it
+voice, could alone reply, for on its surface they are not.
+
+We must never in England form a false estimate of the French Canadian,
+because a few briefless lawyers or saddle-bag medical men urged them
+into rebellion. Their feelings and spirit are not of the same _genre_ as
+the feelings and spirit which animated the hideous soul of the
+_poissardes_ and _canaille_ of Paris in 1792. There is very little or no
+poverty in Lower Canada; every man who will work there, can work; and it
+is a nation rather of small farmers than of classes, with the ideas of
+independence which property, however small, invariably generates in the
+human breast; but with that other idea also which urges it to preserve
+ancient landmarks.
+
+It is chiefly in the large towns and in their neighbourhood that the
+desire for exclusive nationality still exists, fostered by a rabid
+appetite for distinction in some ardent and reckless adventurers from
+the British ranks, who care little what is undermost so long as they are
+uppermost.
+
+The hostility of the British settlers to the French is by no means so
+great as is so carefully and constantly described, and would altogether
+cease, if not kept continually alive by Upper Canadian demonstration,
+and that desire to rule exclusively which has so long been the bane of
+this fine colony.
+
+It reminds one always of the morbid hatred of France, which existed
+thirty years ago in England, when Napoleon was believed, by the lower
+classes--ay, and by some of the higher too--to be Apollyon in earnest.
+
+I remember an old lord of the old school, whose family honours were not
+of a hundred years, and whose ancestors had been respectable traders,
+saying to me, a short time before he died, that Republican notions had
+spread so much from our peace with infidel France, that he should yet
+live to see those who possessed talent or energy enough among the middle
+class, take those honours which he was so proud of, and with the titles
+also, the estates.
+
+Look, said he, at the absurd decoration showered on the _savans_ of
+France, Baron Cuvier, for instance; and he fell into a passion, and,
+being a French scholar, sang forth, in a paroxysm of gout, this
+_refrain_:--
+
+  "Travaillez, travaillez, bon tonnelier,
+  Racommodez, racommodez, ton Cuvier."
+
+And yet he was by no means an ignorant man--was at heart a true John
+Bull, and had travelled and seen the world. He was blinded by an
+unquenchable hatred of France, a hatred which has now ceased in England
+in consequence of the facility of intercourse, but which is revived in
+France against England by those who think _la gloire_ preferable to
+peace and honour.
+
+The miserable feudal system in Lower Canada has kept the French
+population in abeyance; that population is literally dormant, and the
+resources of the country unused; a Seigneur, now often anything but a
+Frenchman, holds an immense tract, parcelled out into little slips
+amongst a peasantry, whose ideas are as limited as their lands.
+Generation after generation has tilled these patches, until they are
+exhausted; and thus the few proprietors who have been able to emancipate
+themselves from the Seignoral thraldom sell as fast as they can obtain
+purchasers; and the Seignories lapse, by failure of descent or by
+cutting off the entail, as it may be termed, under the dominion of
+foreigners, to the people.
+
+It is surprising that British capitalists do not turn their attention
+more to Lower Canada, where land is thus to be bought very cheap, and
+which only requires manuring, a treatment that it rarely receives from
+a Canadian, to bring it into heart again, and where the vast extent of
+the British townships, held in free and common soccage, opens such a
+field for the agriculturist.
+
+These townships are rapidly opening up and improving, and the sales of
+the British American Land Company may in round numbers be said to
+average L20,000 a year, or more than 40,000 acres, averaging ten
+shillings an acre.
+
+The day's wages for a labourer on a farm in Lower Canada may be stated
+at two shillings currency, about one shilling and eightpence sterling,
+with food and lodging; but, excepting in the towns and in the eastern
+townships, the labourers are Canadians, elsewhere chiefly Irish. In the
+large towns also they are Irish, and two shillings and sixpence is the
+usual price of a day's work at Montreal.
+
+There is a great demand for English or Scotch labourers in the townships
+where provisions are reasonable, and the materials for building, either
+lime, stone, brick, or wood, also very moderate in price from their
+abundance.
+
+Cultivated, or rather cleared, farms may be purchased now near the
+settlements for about six pounds per acre, with very often dwelling and
+farms on them, and a clear title may be readily obtained, after inquiry
+at the registry office of the county, to see whether any mortgage or
+other encumbrance exist--a course always to be adopted, both in Upper
+and Lower Canada. A settler must take the precaution of tracing the
+original grant, and that the land, if he buys from an individual, is
+neither Crown nor Clergy reserve, nor set apart for school or any other
+public purposes. Never buy, moreover, of a squatter, or land on which a
+squatter is located, for the law is very favourable to these gentry.
+
+A squatter is a man who, axe in hand, with his gun, dog, and baggage,
+sets himself down in the deep forest, to clear and improve; and this he
+very frequently does, both upon public and private property; and the
+Government is lenient, so that, if he makes well of it, he generally
+has a right of pre-emption, or perhaps pays up only instalments, and
+then sells and goes deeper into the bush. Every way there is difficulty
+about squatted land, and very often the squatter will significantly
+enough hint that there is such a thing as a rifle in his log castle.
+Squatters are usually Americans, of the very lowest grade, or the most
+ignorant of the Irish, who really believe they have a right to the soil
+they occupy.
+
+I do not profess to give an account of the Eastern Townships; the
+prospectus of the British American Land Company will do that; and, as I
+have never been through them entirely, so I could only advance
+assertion; but I believe that they are admirably adapted for English and
+Scotch settlers, and that, bounded as they are by the French Canadians
+on one side, and by the United States on the other, with every facility
+for roads, canals, and railways, they must become one of the richest,
+most and important portions of Canada before half a century has passed
+over; but it will take that time, notwithstanding railways and
+locomotives, to make Jean Baptiste a useful agriculturist; and the fly
+must be eradicated from the wheat before Lower Canada can ever come
+within a great distance of competition in the flour market with the
+upper province.
+
+Take a steamboat voyage from Quebec to Montreal, and you pass through
+French Canada; for, although there are very extensive settlements of the
+race below Quebec till they are lost in the rugged mountains of
+Gaspesia, yet the main body of _habitants_ rest upon the low and
+tranquil shores of the St. Lawrence, for one hundred and eighty miles
+between the Castle of St. Lewis and the Cathedral of Montreal. The
+farm-houses, neat, and invariably whitewashed, line the river,
+particularly on the left bank, like a cantonment, and go back to the
+north for, at the utmost, ten or twelve miles into the then boundless
+wilderness.
+
+The cultivated ground is in narrow slips, fenced by the customary snake
+fence, which is nothing more than slabs of trees split coarsely into
+rails, and set up lengthways in a zig-zag form to give them stability,
+with struts, or riders, at the angles, to bind them. These farms are
+about nine hundred feet in width, and four or five miles in depth, being
+the concessions or allotments made originally by the _seigneurs_ to the
+_censitaires_, or tillers of the soil. Every here and there, a long road
+is left, with cross ones, to obtain access to the farms, much in the
+same way, but not near so conveniently, or well done, as the concession
+lines in Upper Canada, which embrace large spaces of a hundred acre or
+two hundred acre lots, including many of these lots, and giving a
+sixty-six feet or a forty foot road, as the case may be, and thus
+dividing the country into a series of large parallelograms, and making
+every farm accessible.
+
+Each Lower French Canadian farmer is an independent yeoman, excepting as
+bound to the soil, and to certain seignorial dues and privileges, which
+are, however, trifling, and far from burthensome. Taxes are unknown,
+and they cheerfully support their priesthood.
+
+It is not generally known in England that the feudal tenure--although
+very laughable and absurd at this time of day, and from which some
+seigneurs, but never those of unmixed French blood, are disposed to
+claim titles equivalent to the baronage of England, with incomes of
+about a thousand a year, or at most two, and manorial houses, resembling
+very much a substantial Buckinghamshire grazier's chateau--was
+originally established by the French monarchs for wise, highly useful,
+and benevolent purposes.
+
+These seigneuries were parcelled out in very large tracts of forest
+along the banks of the St. Lawrence, or the rivers and bays of Lower
+Canada, on the condition that they should be again parcelled out among
+those who would engage to cultivate them in the strips above-mentioned.
+Thus re-granted, the _seigneur_ could not eject the _habitant_, but was
+allowed to receive a nominal or feudal rent from the vassal, and the
+usual droits. These droits are, first, the barbarous "_lods et
+ventes_," or one thirteenth of the money upon every transfer which the
+_habitant_ makes by sale only; but the original rent can never be
+raised, whatever value the land may have attained. The rights of the
+mill, that old European appanage of the lord of the soil, were also
+reserved to the seigneur, who alone can build mills within his domain,
+or use the waters within his boundaries for mechanical purposes; but he
+must erect them at convenient distances, and must make and repair roads.
+The miller, therefore, takes toll of the grist, which is another source
+of seignorial revenue, although not a very great one, for the toll is,
+excepting the miller's thumb rights, not very large.
+
+The crown of England is the lord paramount or suzerain, and demands a
+tax of one fifth of the purchase-money of each seignory sold or
+transferred by the lord of the manor.
+
+By law, the lands cannot be subdivided, and if a seigneurie is sold it
+cannot be sold in parts, nor can any compromise with the habitants for
+rent, or any other claim or incumbrance, be made.
+
+An institution like this paralyzes the resident, paralyzes the settler,
+and destroys that aristocracy for whose benefit it was created; for it
+prevents the lord of the manor from ever becoming rich, or taking much
+interest in the improvement of his domain; and thus every thing
+continues as it was a hundred years ago. The British emigrant pauses ere
+he buys land thus enthralled; and almost all the old French families,
+who dated from Charlemagne, Clovis, or Pepin, from the Merovingian or
+Carlovingian monarchies, have disappeared and dwindled away, and their
+places have been supplied by the more enterprising, or the _nouveau
+riche_ men of the old world, or by restless, acute lawyers, and
+metaphysical body-curers.
+
+It was no wonder, therefore, that, upon the removal of the seat of
+government from Toronto, and the appointment of a governor-general
+untrammelled by the lieutenant governorship of Western Canada, over
+which he had had before no control, that it should be considered
+desirable by degrees to introduce the English land system throughout
+Canada, and that parliamentary inquiry should be made into the necessity
+of abolishing all feudal taxation. In Montreal this has been done, and,
+as the seignoral rights of succession lapse, it will soon be done every
+where, for the recent enactments have emancipated many already.
+
+But no sensible or feeling mind will desire to see the French Canadian
+driven to break up all at once habits formed by ages of contentment;
+and, as it does not press upon them beyond their ready endurance, why
+should we, to please a few rich capitalists or merchants, suddenly force
+a British population into the heart of French Canada?
+
+Jean Baptiste is too good a fellow to desire this. On our part, we
+should not forget his truly amiable character; we should not forget the
+services he rendered to us, when our children fought to drive us from
+our last hold on the North American continent; we should not forget his
+worthy and excellent priesthood; nor should we ever lose sight of the
+fact, that he is contented under the old system. Above all, we should
+never forget that he fought our battles when his Gallic sires joined our
+revolted children.
+
+I feel persuaded that, if an unhappy war must take place between the
+United States and England, the French Canadians will prove, as they did
+before on a similar occasion, loyal to a man.
+
+All animosity, all heart-burning, will be forgotten, and the old French
+glory will shine again, as it did under De Salaberry.
+
+Ma foi, nous ne sommes pas perdus, encore; and some hero of the war has
+only to rouse himself and cry, as Roland did,
+
+  Suivez, mon panage eclatant,
+  Francais ainsi que ma banniere;
+  Qu'il soit point du ralliement,
+  Vous savez tous quel prix attend
+  Le brave, qui dans la carriere,
+  Marche sur le pas de Roland.
+  Mourons pour notre patrie
+  C'est le sort le plus beau et le plus digne d'envie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+  A journey to the Westward.
+
+
+We must leave Roncesvalles and La Gloire awhile, and, instead of riding
+a war horse, canter along upon the hobby, or a good serviceable Canadian
+pony, the best of all hobbies for seeing the Canadian world, and on
+which mettlesome charger we can much better instruct the emigrant than
+by long prosings about political economy and systematic colonisation.
+
+So, _en avant_! I am going to relate the incidents of a journey last
+summer to the Westward, and to give all the substance of my observations
+on men and things made therein.
+
+I left Kingston on the 26th of June, in the Princess Royal mail steamer,
+at 8 p.m., the usual hour of starting being seven, for Toronto; the
+weather unusually cold.
+
+This fine boat constitutes, with two others, the City of Toronto and the
+Sovereign, the royal mail line between Kingston and Toronto. All are
+built nearly alike, are first class seaboats, and low pressure; they
+combine, with the Highlander, the Canada, and the Gildersleave, also
+splendid vessels, to form a mail route to Montreal--the latter boats
+taking the mail as far as Coteau du Lac, forty-five miles from Montreal,
+on which route a smaller vessel, the Chieftain, plies, wherein you
+sleep, at anchor, or rather moored, till daylight, if going down, or
+going upwards, on board the mail boat.
+
+Passengers go from Montreal to Kingston by the mail route in twenty-four
+hours, a distance of 180 miles; a small portion, between the Cascades
+Rapids and the Coteau being traversed in a coach, on a planked road as
+smooth as a billiard-table.
+
+From Kingston to Toronto, or nearly the whole length of Lake Ontario,
+takes sixteen hours, the boat leaving at seven, and arriving about or
+before noon next day; performing the passage at the rate of eleven miles
+an hour, exclusively of stoppages.
+
+The transit between Montreal and Kingston is at the rate, including
+stoppage for daylight, the river being dangerous, of eight miles an
+hour; thus, in forty hours, the passenger passes from the seat of
+government to the largest city of Western Canada most comfortably, a
+journey which twenty years ago it always took a fortnight, and often a
+month, to accomplish, in the most precarious and uncomfortable
+manner--on board small, roasting steamers, crowded like a cattle-pen--in
+lumbering leathern conveniences, miscalled coaches, over roads which
+enter not into the dreams of Britons--by canoes--by bateaux, (a sort of
+coal barges,)--by schooners, where the cabin could never permit you to
+display either your length, your breadth, or your thickness, and thus
+reducing you to a point in creation, according to Euclid and his
+commentators.
+
+Your _compagnons de voyage_, on board a bateau or Durham boat, which was
+a _monstre_ bateau, were French Canadian voyageurs, always drunk and
+always gay, who poled you along up the rapids, or rushed down them with
+what will be will be.
+
+These happy people had a knack of examining your goods and chattels,
+which they were conveying in the most admirable manner, and with the
+utmost _sang-froid_; but still they were above stealing--they only
+tapped the rum cask or the whiskey barrel, and appropriated any cordage
+wherewith you bound your chests and packages. I never had a chest, box,
+or bale sent up by bateau or Durham boat that escaped this rope mail.
+
+By the by, the Durham boat, a long decked barge, square ahead, and
+square astern, has vanished; Ericson's screw-propellers have crushed it.
+It was neither invented by nor named after Lord Durham, but was as
+ancient as Lambton House itself.
+
+The way the conductors of these boats found out vinous liquors was, as
+brother Jonathan so playfully observes, a _caution_.
+
+I have known an instance of a cask of wine, which, for security from
+climate, had an outer case or cask strongly secured over it, with an
+interior space for neutralizing frost or heat, bored so carefully that
+you could never discover how it had been effected, and a very
+considerable quantum of beverage extracted.
+
+I once had a small barrel, perhaps twenty gallons of commissariat West
+India ration rum, the best of all rum for liqueurs, sucked dry. Of
+course, it had leaked, but I never could discover the leak, and it held
+any liquid very well afterwards.
+
+I know the reader likes a story, and as this is not by any means an
+historical or scientific work, excepting always the geological portion
+thereof, I will tell him or her, as the case may be, a story about
+ration rum.
+
+There was a funny fellow, an Irish auctioneer at Kingston, some years
+ago, called Paddy Moran, whom all the world, priest and parson, minister
+and methodist, soldier and sailor, tinker and tailor, went to hear when
+he mounted his rostrum.
+
+He was selling the goods of a quarter-master-general who was leaving the
+place. At last he came to the cellar and the rum. "Now, gintlemin," says
+Moran, "I advise you to buy this rum, 7s. 6d. a gallon! going, going!
+Gintlemin, I was once a sojer--don't laugh, you officers there, for I
+was--and a sirjeant into the bargain. It wasn't in the Irish
+militia--bad luck to you, liftenant, for laughing that way, it will
+spoil the rum! I was the tip-top of the sirjeants of the regiment--long
+life to it! Yes, I was quarter-master-sirjeant, and hadn't I the sarving
+out of the rations; and didn't I know what good ration rum was; and
+didn't I help meself to the prime of it! Well, then, gintlemin and
+ladies--I mane, Lord save yees, ladies and gintlemin--if a
+quarter-master-sirjeant in the army had good rum, what the devil do you
+think a quarter-master-general gets?"
+
+The rum rose to fifteen shillings per gallon at the next bid.
+
+You can have every convenience on board a Lake Ontario mail-packet,
+which is about as large as a small frigate, and has the usual sea
+equipment of masts, sails, and iron rigging. The fare is five dollars in
+the cabin, or about L1 sterling; and two dollars in the steerage. In the
+former you have tea and breakfast, in the latter nothing but what is
+bought at the bar. By paying a dollar extra you may have a state-room on
+deck, or rather on the half-deck, where you find a good bed, a large
+looking-glass, washing-stand and towels, and a night-lamp, if required.
+The captains are generally part owners, and are kind, obliging, and
+communicative, sitting at the head of their table, where places for
+females and families are always reserved. The stewards and waiters are
+coloured people, clean, neat, and active; and you may give
+sevenpence-halfpenny or a quarter-dollar to the man who cleans your
+boots, or an attentive waiter, if you like; if not, you can keep it, as
+they are well paid.
+
+The ladies' cabin has generally a large cheval glass and a piano, with a
+white lady to wait, who is always decked out in flounces and furbelows,
+and usually good-looking. All you have got to do on embarking or on
+disembarking is to see personally to your luggage; for leaving it to a
+servant unacquainted with the country will not do. At Kingston, matters
+are pretty well arranged, and the carters are not so very impudent, and
+so ready to push you over the wharf; but at Toronto they are very so so,
+and want regulating by the police; and in the States, at Buffalo
+particularly, the porters and carters are the most presuming and
+insolent serviles I ever met with; they rush in a body on board the
+boat, and respect neither persons nor things.
+
+I knew an American family composed chiefly of females, travelling to the
+Falls; and these ladies had their baggage taken to a train going inland,
+whilst they were embarking on board the British boat which was to convey
+them to Chippewa in Canada.
+
+The comfort of some of these boats, as they call them, but which ought
+to be called ships, is very great. There is a regular drawingroom on
+board one called the Chief Justice where I saw, just after the
+horticultural show at Toronto, pots of the most rare and beautiful
+flowers, arranged very tastefully, with a piano, highly-coloured
+nautical paintings and portraits, and a _tout ensemble_, which, when the
+lamps were lit, and conversation going on between the ladies and
+gentlemen then and there assembled, made one quite forget we were at sea
+on Lake Ontario, the "Beautiful Lake," which, like other beautiful
+creations, can be very angry if vexed.
+
+The Americans have very fine steam vessels on their side of the lake,
+but they are flimsily constructed, painted glaringly, white, and green,
+and yellow, without comfort or good attendance, and with a
+devil-may-care sort of captain, who seems really scarcely to know or to
+care whether he has passengers or has not, a scrambling hurried meal,
+and divers other unmentionables.
+
+The American gentry always prefer the British boats, for two good
+reasons; they see Queen Victoria's people, and they meet with the utmost
+civility, attention, and comfort. They sit down to dinner, or
+breakfast, or tea, like Christian men and women, where there is no
+railway eating and drinking; where due time is spent in refreshing the
+body and spirits; and where people help each other, or the waiters help
+them, at table, without a scramble, like hogs, for the best and the
+most--a custom which all travelled Americans detest and abominate as
+much as the most fastidious Englishman.
+
+It is not unusual at hotel dinners, or on board steamers, to see a man,
+I cannot call him a gentleman, sitting next a female, totally neglect
+her, and heap his plate with fish, with flesh, with pie, with pudding,
+with potato, with cranberry jam, with pickles, with salad, with all and
+every thing then within his reach, swallow in a trice all this jumble of
+edibles, jump up and vanish.
+
+Can such a being have a stomach, or a digestion, and must he not
+necessarily, about thirty-five years of age, be yellow, spare, and
+parchment-skinned, with angular projections, and a prodigious tendency
+to tobacco?
+
+An American gentleman--mind, I lay a stress upon the second word--never
+bolts his victuals, never picks his teeth at table, never spits upon the
+carpet, or guesses; he knows not gin-sling, and he eschews mint-julep;
+but he does, I am ashamed to say, admire a sherry cobbler, particularly
+if he does not get a second-hand piece of vermicelli to suck it through.
+Reader, do you know what a sherry cobbler is? I will enlighten you. Let
+the sun shine at about 80 deg. Fahrenheit. Then take a lump of ice; fix it
+at the edge of a board; rasp it with a tool made like a drawing knife or
+carpenter's plane, set face upwards. Collect the raspings, the fine
+raspings, mind, in a capacious tumbler; pour thereon two glasses of good
+sherry, and a good spoonful of powdered white sugar, with a few small
+bits, not slices, but bits of lemon, about as big as a gooseberry. Stir
+with a wooden macerator. Drink through a tube of macaroni or vermicelli.
+_C'est l'eau benite_, as the English lord said to the _garcon_ at the
+Milles Colonnes, when he first tasted real _parfait amour_.--_C'est
+beaucoup mieux_, _Milor_, answered the waiter with a profound
+reverence.
+
+Gin-sling, cock-tail, mint-julep, are about as vulgar as blue ruin and
+old tom at home; but sherry cobbler is an affair of consideration--only
+never pound your ice, always rasp it.
+
+It is a custom on board the Canadian steamers for gentlemen to call for
+a pint of wine at dinner, or for a bottle, according to the strength of
+the party; but it is a custom more honoured in the breach than the
+observance; for sherry and port are the usual stock, both fiery as
+brandy, and costing the moderate price of seven shillings and sixpence a
+bottle, the steward having laid the same in at about one shilling and
+eight pence, or at most two shillings. Why this imposition, the only one
+you meet with in travelling in Canada at hotels or steamboats, is
+perpetrated and perpetuated, I could never learn.
+
+Many American gentlemen, however, encourage it, and have told me that
+they do so because they get no good port in the States. Ale and porter
+are charged two shillings and sixpence a bottle, which is double their
+worth. Be careful also not to drink freely of the iced water, which is
+always supplied _ad libitum_. Few Europeans escape the effects of
+water-drinking when they land at Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, Toronto,
+&c. There is something peculiar, which has never yet been satisfactorily
+explained by medical men, in the sudden attack upon the system produced
+by the waters of Canada: this is sometimes slight, but more often lasts
+several days, and reduces the strength a good deal. Iced water is worse,
+and produces country cholera. The Americans use ice profusely, and drink
+such draughts of iced water, that I have been astonished at the impunity
+with which they did so.
+
+Perhaps the change from a moist sea atmosphere to the dry and
+desiccating air of Canada, where iron does not rust, may be one cause of
+the malady alluded to, and another, in addition to the water, the
+difference of cookery; for here, at public tables and on board the boats
+generally, where black cooks prevail, all is butter and grease.
+
+But the change of climate is undoubtedly great. I had been long an
+inhabitant of Upper Canada, and fancied myself seasoned; but, having
+returned to England, and spending afterwards two or three years in the
+excessively humid air of the sea-coast of Newfoundland at St. Johns,
+where I became somewhat stout, on my return to Upper Canada, for want of
+a little preparatory caution in medicine, although naturally of a spare
+habit, I was seized with a violent bleeding at the nose, which baffled
+all remedies for several months, until artificial mineral water and a
+copious use of solutions of iron stopped it. No doubt this prevented the
+fever of the lakes, and was owing to the dryness of the air. I mention
+this to caution all new-comers, young and old, to take timely advice and
+medicine.
+
+There is another complaint in Upper Canada, which attacks the settler
+very soon after his arrival, especially if young, and that is worms; a
+disorder very prevalent at all times in Canada, particularly among the
+poorer classes, and probably owing to food.
+
+These, with ague and colic, or country cholera, are the chief evils of
+the clime; few are, however, fatal, excepting the lake fever, and that
+principally among children.
+
+The sportsman should recollect, in so marshy and woody a country,
+subject as it is to the most surprising alternations of temperature,
+that instead of minding that celebrated rule, "Keep your powder dry," he
+should read, "Keep your feet dry." Dry feet and the avoidance of sitting
+in wet or damp clothes, or drinking iced water when hot, or of cooling
+yourself in a delicious draught of air when in a perspiration, are the
+best precautions against ague, fever, colic, or cholera--in a country
+where the thermometer reaches 90 deg. in the shade, and sometimes 110 deg., as
+it did last summer, and 27 deg. below zero in the winter, with rapid
+alternations embracing such a range of the scale as is unknown
+elsewhere.
+
+In the country places, in travelling, you will invariably find that
+windows are very little attended to, and that the head of your bed, or
+the side of it, is placed against a loosely-fitting broken sash. The
+night-fogs and damps are highly dangerous to new-comers; so act
+accordingly.
+
+Fleas and bugs, and "such small deer," you must expect in every inn you
+stop at, even in the cities; for it appears--and indeed I did not know
+the fact until this year--that bugs are indigenous, _native to the
+soil_, and breed in the bark of old trees; so that if you build a new
+house, you bring the enemy into your camp. Nothing but cleanliness and
+frequent whitewash, colouring, paint, and soft soap, will get rid of
+them. If it were not for the strong smell of red cedar and its extreme
+brittleness, I would have my bedstead of that material; for even the
+iron bedsteads, in the soldiers' barracks, become infested with them if
+not painted often. Red cedar they happily eschew.
+
+Travellers may talk as they please of mosquitoes being the scourge of
+new countries; the bugs in Canada are worse, and the black fly and
+sand-fly superlatively superior in annoyance. The black fly exists in
+the neighbourhood of rivers or swamps, and attacks you behind the ear,
+drawing a pretty copious supply of blood at each bite. The sand-fly, as
+its name imports, exists in sandy soil, and is so small that it cannot
+be seen without close inspection; its bite is sharp and fiery.
+
+Then the farmer has the wheat-fly and the turnip-fly to contend against;
+the former has actually devoured Lower Canada, and the latter has
+obliged me in a garden to sow several successive crops. The melon-bug is
+another nuisance; it is a small winged animal, of a bright yellow
+colour, striped with black bars, and takes up its abode in the flower of
+the melon and pumpkin, breeding fast, and destroying wherever it
+settles, for young plants are literally eaten up by it.
+
+The grub, living under ground in the daytime, and sallying forth at
+night, is a ferocious enemy to cabbage-plants, lettuce, and most of the
+young, tender vegetables; but, by taking a lantern and a pan after dark,
+the gentlemen can be collected whilst on their tour, and poultry are
+very fond of them. Last year, the potato crop failed throughout Canada.
+What a singular dispensation!--for it alike suffered in Europe, and no
+doubt the malady was atmospheric. The hay crop, too, suffered severely;
+but still, by a merciful Providence, the wheat and corn harvest was
+ample, and gathered in a month before the customary time.
+
+By the word corn I mean oats, rye, and barley; but in the Canadas and in
+the United States that word means maize or Indian-corn only, which in
+Canada, last summer, was not, I should think, even an average crop. It
+is extensively used here for food, as well as buckwheat, and for feeding
+poultry.
+
+But to our journey westward. I arrived at Toronto on the 27th of June,
+and found the weather had changed to variable and fine.
+
+On steaming up the harbour, I was greatly surprised and very much
+pleased to see such an alteration as Toronto has undergone for the
+better since 1837. Then, although a flourishing village, be-citied, to
+be sure, it was not one third of its present size. Now it is a city in
+earnest, with upwards of twenty thousand inhabitants--gas-lit, with good
+plank side-walks and macadamized streets, and with vast sewers, and fine
+houses, of brick or stone. The main street, King Street, is two miles
+and more in length, and would not do shame to any town, and has a much
+more English look than most Canadian places have.
+
+Toronto is still the seat of the Courts of Law for Western Canada, of
+the University of King's College, of the Bishopric of Toronto, and of
+the Indian Office. Kingston has retained the militia head-quarter
+office, and the Principal Emigrant Agency, with the Naval and Military
+grand depots; so that the removal of the seat of Government to Montreal
+has done no injury to Toronto, and will do very little to Kingston: in
+fact, I believe firmly that, instead of being injurious, it will be very
+beneficial. The presence of Government at Kingston gave an unnatural
+stimulus to speculation among a population very far from wealthy; and
+buildings of the most frail construction were run up in hundreds, for
+the sake of the rent which they yielded temporarily.
+
+The plan upon which these houses were erected was that of mortgage; thus
+almost all are now in possession of one person who became suddenly
+possessed of the requisite means by the sale of a large tract required
+for military purposes. But this species of property seldom does the
+owner good in his lifetime; and, if he does reclaim it, there is no
+tenant to be had now; so that the building decays, and in a very short
+time becomes an incumbrance. Mortgages only thrive where the demand is
+superior and certain to the investment; and then, if all goes smoothly,
+mortgager and mortgagee may benefit; but where a mechanic or a
+storekeeper, with little or no capital, undertakes to run up an
+extensive range of houses to meet an equivocal demand, the result is
+obvious. If the houses he builds are of stone or brick, and well
+finished, the man who loans the money is the gainer; if they are of
+wood, indifferently constructed and of green materials, both must
+suffer. So it is a speculation, and, like all speculations, a good deal
+of repudiation mixes up with it.
+
+There are two good houses of entertainment for the gentleman traveller
+in Toronto; the Club House in Chewett's Buildings and Macdonald's Hotel.
+In the former, a bachelor will find himself quite at home; in the
+latter, a family man will have no reason to regret his stay.
+
+But servants at Toronto--by which I mean _attendants_--are about on a
+par with the same race all over Canada. The coloured people are the
+best, but never make yourself dependent on either; for, if you are to
+start by the stage or the steamer, depend on your watch, instead of upon
+your boots being cleaned or your shaving-water being ready. In the
+latter case, shave with cold water by the light of your candle, lit by
+your own lucifer match. They are civil, however, and attentive, as far
+as the very free and easy style of their acquirements will permit them;
+for a cook will leave at a moment's notice, if she can better herself;
+and any trivial occurrence will call off the waiter and the boots. The
+only punctual people are the porters; and, as they wear glazed hats,
+with the name of the hotel emblazoned thereon, frigate-fashion, you can
+always find them.
+
+An excellent arrangement is the omnibus attached to the hotels in Canada
+West, which conveys you cost-free to and from the steamboat, and a very
+comfortable wooden convenience it is, resembling very much the vans
+which, in days of yore, plied near London.
+
+My first start from Toronto was to Ultima Thule, Penetanguishene, a
+locality scarcely to be found in the maps, and yet one of much
+importance, situate and being north-north-west of the city some hundred
+and eight miles, on Lake Huron.
+
+The route is per coach to St. Alban's, thirty and three miles, along
+Yonge Street, of which about one-third is macadamized from granite
+boulders; the rest mud and etceteras, too numerous to mention. Yonge
+Street is a continuous settlement, with an occasional sprinkling of the
+original forest. The land on each side is fertile, and supplies Toronto
+market.
+
+It rises gradually by those singular steps, or ridges, formerly banks or
+shores oL antediluvian oceans, till it reaches the vicinity of the
+Holland river, a tortuous, sluggish, marshy, natural canal, flowing or
+lazily creeping into Lake Simcoe, at an elevation of upwards of
+seven-hundred and fifty feet above Lake Ontario, and emptying itself
+into Lake Huron by a series of rapids, called the Matchedash or Severn
+River.
+
+The first quarter of the route to St. Alban's is a series of
+country-houses, gentlemen's seats, half-pay officers' farms, prettily
+fenced, and pleasant to the sight: the next third embraces Thornhill, a
+nice village in a hollow; Richmond Hill, with a beautiful prospect and
+detached settlements: the ultimate third is a rich, undulating country,
+inhabited by well-to-do Quakers, with Newmarket on their right, and
+looking for all the world very like "dear home," with orchards, and as
+rich corn-fields and pastures as may be seen any where, backed,
+however, by the eternal forest. It is peculiarly and particularly
+beautiful.
+
+A short distance before reaching St. Alban's, which is quite a new
+village, the road descends rapidly, and the ground is broken into
+hummocks.
+
+But I must not forget Bond's Lake, a most singular feature of this part
+of the road, which, perhaps, I shall treat of in returning from
+Penetanguishene, as I am now in a hurry to get to St. Alban's.
+
+Here, where all was scrub forest in 1837, are a little street, a house
+of some pretension occupied by Mr. Laughton, the enterprising owner of
+the Beaver steamboat, plying on Lake Simcoe, and two inns.
+
+I stopped for the night, for Yonge Street is still a tiresome journey,
+although only a stage of thirty three miles, at Winch's Tavern. This is
+a very good road-side house, and the landlord and landlady are civil and
+attentive. Before you go to roost, for stopping by the way-side is
+pretty much like roosting, as you must be up with Chanticleer, you can
+just look over Mr. Laughton's paling, and you will see as pretty a
+florist's display as may be imagined. The owner is fond of flowers, and
+he has lots of them, and, when you make his acquaintance afterwards in
+the Beaver, you will find that he has lots of information also. But I
+did not go in the Beaver, which ship "wharfs" some two or three miles
+further ahead, at Holland River Landing, commonly called "the Landing,"
+par excellence. Here flies, mosquitoes, ague, and other plagues, are so
+rife, that all attempts at settlement are vanity and vexation of spirit.
+
+So, being willing to see what had happened in Gwillimbury since 1837, I
+took a waggon and the land road, and went off as day broke, or rather
+before it broke, about four a.m., in a deep gray mist. The waggon should
+be described, as it is the best _voiture_ in Western Canada.
+
+Four wheels, of a narrow tire, are attached without any springs to a
+long body, formed of straight boards, like a piano-case, only more
+clumsy; in which, resting on inside rims or battens, are two seats, with
+or without backs, generally without, on which, perhaps, a hay-cushion,
+or a buffalo-skin, or both, are placed. Two horses, good, bad, or
+indifferent, as the case may be, the positive and comparative degrees
+being the commonest, drag you along with a clever driver, who can turn
+his hand to chopping, carpentering, wheelwright's work, playing the
+fiddle, drinking, or any other sort of thing, and is usually an Irishman
+or an Irishman's son. For two dollars and a half a day he will drive you
+to Melville Island, or Parry's Sound, if you will only stick by him; and
+he jogs along, smoking his _dudeen_, over corduroy roads, through mud
+holes that would astonish a cockney, and over sand and swamp, rocks and
+rough places enough to dislocate every joint in your body, all his own
+being anchylosed or used to it, which is the same thing, in the
+dictionary.
+
+He will keep you _au courant_, at the same time, tell the name of every
+settler and settlement, and some good stories to boot. He is a capital
+fellow, is "Paddy the driver," generally a small farmer, and always has
+a contract with the commissariat.
+
+The first place of any note we came to, as day broke out of the blue fog
+which rose from the swampy forest, was Holland River Bridge, an
+extraordinary structure, half bridge, half road, over a swamp created by
+that river in times long gone by; a level tract of marsh and wild rice
+as far as the eye can reach, full of ducks and deer, with the Holland
+River in the midst, winding about like a serpentine canal, and looking
+as if it had been fast asleep since its last shake of the ague.
+
+Crossing this bridge-road, now in good order, but in 1837 requiring
+great dexterity and agility to pass, you come to a slight elevation of
+the land, and a little village in West Gwillimbury, which, I should
+think, is a capital place to catch lake-fever in.
+
+The road to it is good, but, after passing it and turning northwards,
+is but little improved, being very primitive through the township of
+Innisfil. However, we jogged along in mist and rain, on the 29th of
+June, and saw the smoke, ay, and smelt it too, of numerous clearings or
+forest burnings, indicating settlement, till we reached Wilson's Tavern,
+where, every body having the ague, it was somewhat difficult to get
+breakfast. This is thirteen miles from St. Alban's.
+
+Having refreshed, however, with such as it was, we visited Mr. Wilson's
+stable, and saw a splendid stud horse which he was rearing, and as
+handsome a thorough-bred black as you could wish to see in the
+backwoods.
+
+Proceeding in rain, we drove, by what in England would be called an
+execrable road, through the townships of Innisfil and Vespra to Barrie,
+the capital hamlet of the district of Simcoe.
+
+On emerging from the woods three or four miles from Barrie, Kempenfeldt
+Bay suddenly appears before you, and if the road was better, a more
+beautiful ride there is not in all broad Canada. Fancy, however, that,
+without any Hibernicism, the best road is in the water of the lake. This
+is owing to the swampy nature of the land, and to the circumstance that
+a belt of hard sand lines the edge of the bay; so Paddy drove smack into
+the water of Kempenfeldt, and, as he said, sure we were travelling by
+water every way, for we had a deluge of rain above, and Lake Simcoe
+under us.
+
+But natheless we arrived at Barrie by mid-day, a very fair journey of
+twenty-eight miles in eight hours, over roads, as the French say,
+_inconcevable_; and alighted like river gods at the Queen's Arms, J.
+Bingham, Barrie.
+
+Barrie, named after the late commodore, Sir Robert Barrie, is no common
+village, nor is the Queen's Arms a common hostel. It is a good,
+substantial, stone edifice, fitted up and kept in a style which neither
+Toronto nor Kingston, nay, nor Montreal can rival, as far as its extent
+goes. I do assure you, it is a perfect paradise after the road from St.
+Alban's; and, as the culinary department is unexceptionable, and the
+beds free from bugs, and all neatness and no noise, I will award Mrs.
+Bingham a place in these pages, which must of course immortalize her.
+They are English people; and, when I last visited their house, in 1837,
+had only a log-hut: now they are well to do, and have built themselves a
+neat country-house.
+
+When I first saw Barrie, or rather before Barrie was, as I passed over
+its present site, in 1831, there was but one building and a little
+clearance. In 1846, it is fast approaching to be a town, and will be a
+city, as it is admirably placed at the bottom of an immense inlet of
+Lake Simcoe, with every capability of opening a communication with the
+new settlements of Owen Sound and St. Vincent, and the south shore of
+Lake Huron.
+
+It has been objected, to this opinion respecting Barrie, that the
+Narrows of Lake Simcoe is the proper site for "The City of the North,"
+as the communication by land, instead of being thirty-six miles to
+Penetanguishene, the best harbour on Lake Huron, is only fourteen, or
+at most nineteen miles, the former taking to Cold Water Creek, and the
+latter to Sturgeon Bay; but then there is a long and somewhat dangerous
+transit in the shallowest part of the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron to
+Penetanguishene.
+
+If a railroad was established between Barrie and the naval station, this
+would be not only the shortest but the safest route to Lake Huron; for,
+if Sturgeon Bay is chosen, in war-time the transit trade and the
+despatch of stores for the government would be subjected to continual
+hindrance and depredation from the multitude of islands and
+hiding-places between Sturgeon Bay and Penetanguishene; whilst, on the
+other hand, no sagacious enemy would penetrate the country from Sturgeon
+Bay and leave such a stronghold as Penetanguishene in his rear, whereby
+all his vessels and supplies might be suddenly cut off, and his return
+rendered impracticable.
+
+Barrie is, therefore, well chosen, both as a transit town and as the
+site of naval operations on Lake Simcoe, whenever they may be
+necessary.
+
+For this reason, government commenced the military road between Barrie
+and Penetanguishene, and settled it with pensioned soldiers, and also
+settled naval and military retired or half-pay officers all round Lake
+Simcoe. But, as we shall have to talk a good deal about this part of the
+country, and I must return by the road, let us hasten on to our night's
+lodging at the Ordnance Arms, kept by the ancient widow of J. Bruce, an
+old artilleryman.
+
+Since 1837, the road, then impassable for anything but horses or very
+small light waggons, has been much improved, and Paddy drove us on,
+after dinner at Bingham's, through the heavy rain _a merveille_!
+
+When I passed this road before, what a road it was! or, in the words of
+the eulogist of the great Highland road-maker, General Wade,
+
+  "Had you seen this road, before it was made,
+  You would have lift up your eyes and blessed"
+       General somebody.
+
+It was necessary, as late as 1837, to take a horse; and, placing your
+valise on another, mount the second with a guide. My guide was always a
+French Canadian named Francois; and many an adventure in the
+interminable forest have we experienced together; for if Francois had
+lost his way, we should have perhaps reached the Copper-mine River, or
+the Northern Frozen Ocean, and have solved the question of the passage
+from the Atlantic to the Pacific, or else we should have had a certain
+convocation of politic wolves or bears, busy in rendering us and our
+horses invisible; for, after all, they have the true receipt of fern
+seed, and you can walk about, after having suffered transmigration into
+their substance, without its ever being suspected that you were either
+an officer of engineers or a Franco-Canadian guide.
+
+An old and respected officer, once travelling this bridle road with
+Francois and myself, and mounted on a better horse than either of ours,
+which was lent to him by the Assistant Commissary-General stationed at
+Penetanguishene, got ahead of us considerably, and, by some accident,
+wandered into the gloomy pine forest. Missing him for a quarter of an
+hour, I rode as fast as my horse, which was not encumbered with baggage,
+would go ahead, and, observing fresh tracks of a horse's shoes in the
+mud, followed them until I heard in the depths of the endless and solemn
+woods faint shouts, which, as I came nearer to them, resolved themselves
+into the syllables of my name. I found my chief, and begged him never
+again, as he had never been there before, to think of leaving us. Had he
+gone out of sound, his fate would have been sealed, unless the horse,
+used as it was to the path, had wandered into it again; but horses and
+cattle are frequently lost in these solitudes, and, perhaps being
+frightened by the smell of the wild beasts, or, as man always does when
+lost, they wander in a circle, and thus frequently come near the place
+from which they started, but not sufficiently so to hit the almost
+invisible path.
+
+But although the road, excepting in the middle of summer, is still
+indifferent, it is perfectly safe, and a lady may now go to
+Penetanguishene comparatively comfortably.
+
+Bruce's tavern is a respectable log-house, twelve miles from Barrie; and
+here you can get the usual fare of ham, eggs, and chickens, with
+occasionally fresh meat from Barrie, and perhaps as good a bed as can be
+had in Canada. We started from Barrie at half-past two, and arrived at
+half-past five.
+
+Whiskey, be it known, with very atrocious brandy, is the only beverage,
+excepting water, along the country roads of Canada.
+
+From Bruce's we drove to Dawson's, also kept by the widow of an old
+soldier, where every thing is equally clean, respectable, and
+comfortable. It is seven miles distant.
+
+Beyond this is Nicoll's, near a corduroy swamp road; and three miles
+further (which place eschew), seven years ago, I heard the landlady's
+voice chiding a little girl, who had been sent a quarter of a mile for a
+jug of water. I heard the same voice again in action, and for the same
+cause, and a very dirty urchin again brought some very dirty water. In
+fact, whiskey was too plentiful and water too scarce.
+
+From Nicoll's to Jeff's Corner is ten long and weary miles, five or six
+of which are through the forest. Jeff's is not a tavern, so that you
+must go to bait the horses to Des Hommes, about two miles further, where
+there is no inducement to stay, it being kept by an old French Canadian,
+who has a large family of half-breeds. Therefore, on to the village of
+Penetanguishene, which is twenty miles from Bruce's, or some say
+twenty-four. We started from Bruce's at half-past three in the morning,
+and reached "The Village," as it is always called, at half-past twelve,
+on the 30th of June, and the rain still continuing ever since we left
+Toronto. Thus, with great expedition, it took the best portion of three
+days for a transit of only 108 miles. This has been done in twenty-four
+hours by another route, as I shall explain on my return.
+
+Penetanguishene is a small village, which has not progressed in the same
+ratio as the military road to it has done. It is peopled by French
+Canadians, Indians, and half-breeds, and is very prettily situated at
+the bottom of the harbour. Lieutenant-Colonel Phillpotts, of the Royal
+Engineers, selected this site after the peace of 1815, when Drummond's
+Island on Lake Huron was resigned to the Americans, for an asylum for
+such of the Canadian French settled there as would not transfer their
+allegiance. They migrated in a body.
+
+This is the nearest point of Western Canada at which the traveller from
+Europe can observe the unmixed Indian, the real wild man of the woods,
+with medals hanging in his ears, as large as the bottom of a silver
+saucepan, rings in his nose, the single tuft of hair on the scalp,
+eagle's plumes, a row of human scalps about his neck, and the other
+amiable etceteras of a painted and greased _sauvage_.
+
+Here also you first see the half-breed, the offspring of the white and
+red, who has all the bad qualities of both with very few of the good of
+either, except in rare instances.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+  The French Canadian.
+
+
+At Penetanguishene you see the original pioneer of the West, that
+unmistakeable French Canadian, a good-natured, indolent man, who is
+never active but in his canoe singing, or _a la chasse_, a true
+_voyageur_, of which type of human society the marks are wearing out
+fast, and the imprint will ere long be illegible. It makes me serious,
+indeed, to contemplate the Canadian of the old dominant race, and I
+shall enter a little into his history.
+
+_Res ardua vetustis novitatem dare_; and never could an author impose
+upon himself a greater task than that of endeavouring succinctly to
+trace such a history, in this age of railroads and steam-vessels, or to
+bring before the mind's eye events which have long slumbered in
+oblivion, but which it behoves thinking minds not to lose sight of.
+
+Man is now a locomotive animal, both as regards the faculties of mind
+and of motion; unless in the schools, in the cabinet, or in amusing
+fictions founded on fact, he rarely finds leisure to think about a
+forgotten people.
+
+Canada and Canadian affairs have, however, succeeded in interesting the
+public of America and the public of Europe--the "go-ahead" English
+reader in the New World--because Canada would be a very desirable
+addition to the already overgrown Republic founded by the Pilgrim
+Fathers and Europeans; because French interest looks with a somewhat
+wistful eye to the race which at one time peopled and governed so large
+a portion of the Columbian continent. Regrets, mingling with desires,
+are powerful stimulants. An unconquerable and natural jealousy exists in
+France that England should have succeeded in laying the foundations of
+an empire, which bids fair to perpetuate the glories of the Anglo-Saxon
+race in its Transatlantic dominion; whilst the true Briton, on the other
+hand, regards Canada as the apple of his eye, and sees with pleasure and
+with pride that his beloved country, forewarned by the grand error
+committed at Boston, and so prophetically denounced by Chatham, has
+obtained a fairer and more fertile field for British legitimate
+ambition.
+
+Tocqueville, a sensible and somewhat impartial writer, is the only
+political foreign reasoner who has done justice to Canada; but it is
+_par parenthese_ only; and even his powers of mind and of reasoning,
+nurtured as they have been in republicanism, fail to convince fearless
+hearts that democracy is a human necessity.
+
+That the American nation will endeavour to put a wet blanket over the
+nascent fires of Spanish ambition in the miserable new States of the
+Northern Continent, and to absorb them in the stars of Columbia, there
+can be no doubt. California, the most distant of the old American
+settlements of Spain, has felt already the bald eagle's claw; Texas is
+annexed; and unless European interests prevent it, which they must do,
+Mexico, Guatemala, Yucatan, and all the petty priest-ridden republics of
+the Isthmus, must follow, and that too very soon.
+
+But what do the people of the United States, (for the government is not
+a particeps, save by force,) pretend to effect by their enormous
+sovereignty? The control probably of the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards
+is the grand object, and, to effect this, Canada and Nova Scotia stand
+in the way, and Canada and Nova Scotia are therefore marked down as
+other Stars in the American galaxy.
+
+The Russian empire is cited, as a case in point, for immense extension
+being no obstacle to central coercion, or government, if the term be
+more pleasing.
+
+We forget that each individual State of the present Union repudiates
+centralization, and acts independently. Little Maine wanted to go to
+war with mighty England on its own bottom; and there was a rebellion in
+Lesser Rhode Island, which puzzled all the diplomatists very
+considerably. Now let us sketch a military picture, and bring out the
+lights and shades boldly.
+
+Suppose that the United States determines upon a war with Great Britain,
+let us look to the consequences. Firstly, an immense re-action has taken
+place in Canada, and a mass of growlers, who two years ago would perhaps
+have been neutral, would readily take arms now in favour of British
+institutions, simply because "impartiality" has been evinced in
+governing them.
+
+Next, the French Canadians have no idea of surrendering their homes,
+their laws, their language, their altars, to the restless and
+destructive people whose motto is "Liberty!" but whose mind is
+"Submission," without reservation of creed or colour.
+
+Then, on the boundless West, innumerable Indians, disgusted by the
+unceremonious manner in which the Big Knife has driven them out, are
+ready, at the call of another Tecumseh, to hoist the red-cross flag.
+
+In the South, the negro, already taught very carefully by the North a
+lesson of emancipation, only waits the hour to commence a servile and
+horrible war, worse than that exercised by the poor Cherokees and Creeks
+in Florida, which, miserable as were the numbers, scanty the resources,
+and indomitable the courage, defied the united means and skill of the
+American armies to quell.
+
+A person who ponders on these matters deplores the infatuation of the
+mob, or of the western backwoodsmen, who advocate war to the knife with
+England; for, should it unhappily occur and continue, war to the knife
+it must be.
+
+American orators have asserted that England, base as she is, dare not,
+in this enlightened age, let loose the blacks. I fear that, self-defence
+being the first law of Nature, rather than lose Canada, and rather than
+not gain it, both England and the United States will have recourse to
+every expedient likely to bring the matter to an issue, and will abide
+by that Machiavelian axiom--the end sanctifies the means.
+
+An abominable outcry was raised during the last war against the
+employment of the savage Indians with our armies; but the loudest in
+this vituperation forgot that the Americans did the same, as far as
+their scanty control over the Red Man permitted, and that, where it
+failed, the barbarous backwoodsman completed the tragedy.
+
+Making razor-strops of Tecumsehs' skin was not a very Christian
+employment, in retaliation for a scalp found wrapped up in paper in the
+writing-desk of a clerk, when the public offices were sacked at Little
+York. The poor man most likely thought it a very great curiosity; and I
+dare say there are some in the British Museum, as well as preserved
+heads of the South Sea islanders.
+
+A war between England and the United States is a calamity affecting the
+whole world, and, excepting for political interest, or that devouring
+fire burning in the breasts of so many for change, I am persuaded that
+the intelligence of the Union is opposed to it. America cannot sweep
+England from the seas, or blot out its escutcheon from The Temple of
+Fame. It is child's play even to dream of it. England is as vitally
+essential to the prosperity of America as America is to the prosperity
+of England; and, although American feelings are gaining ground in
+England, by which I do not mean that the President of the United States
+will ever govern our island, but independent notions and axioms similar
+to those practised in the Union; yet the time has not, nor ever will,
+arrive, that Britain will succumb to the United States, either from
+policy or fear, any more than that her grandchildren, on this side of
+the Atlantic, could pull down the Stars and Stripes, and run the meteor
+flag up to the mast-head again.
+
+The United States is a wonderful confederation, and Nature seems, in
+creating that people, to have given them constitutions resembling the
+summers of the northern portion of the New World, where she makes
+things grow ten times as fast as elsewhere. A grain of wheat takes a
+decent time to ripen in England, and requires the sweat of the brow and
+the labour of the hands to bring it to perfection; but in North America
+it becomes flour and food almost before it is in ear in the old country.
+Nature marches quick in America, but is soon exhausted; so her people
+there think and act ten times as fast as elsewhere, and die before they
+are aged. The women are old at thirty, and boys of fifteen are men; and
+so they ripe and ripe, and so they rot and rot.
+
+Everything in the States goes at a railroad pace; every carter or
+teamster is a Solon, in his own idea; and every citizen is a king _de
+facto_, for he rules the powers that be. They think in America too fast
+for genius to expand to purpose; and as their digestion is impaired by a
+Napoleonic style of eating, so very powerful and very highly cultivated
+minds are comparatively rare in the Union. There is no time for study,
+and they take a democratic road to learning.
+
+And yet, _ceteris paribus_, the Union produces great men and great
+minds; and if any thing but dollars was paid attention to, the
+literature of America would soon be upon a par with that of the Old
+World; as it is, it pays better to reprint French and English authors
+than to tax the brains of the natives.
+
+For this reason, the agricultural population of the States are more
+reasonable, more amiable, and more original than those engaged in
+incessant trade. I have seen an American farmer in my travels this year,
+who was the perfect image of the English franklin, before his daughters
+wore parasols and thrummed the piano. Oh, railways, ye have much to
+answer for! for, although the prosperity of the mass may be increased by
+you, the happiness and contentment of the million is deteriorating every
+day.
+
+I am not about to write a history of Canada at present, for that is
+already done, as far as its military annals are concerned, during the
+three years since I last addressed the public; but it shall yet slumber
+awhile in its box of pine wood, until the time is ripe for development:
+I merely intend here to put together some reminiscences which strike me
+as to the part the French Canadian has played, and to show that we
+should neither forget nor neglect him.
+
+Canada, as it is well known, was French, both by claim of discovery and
+by the more powerful right of possession.
+
+Stimulated by the fame of Cabot, and ambitious to be pilots of the Meta
+Incognita, that visionary channel which was to conduct European valour
+to the golden Cathay and to the rich Spice Islands of the East, French
+adventurers eagerly sought the coveted honours which such a voyage could
+not fail to yield them, and to combine overflowing wealth with chivalric
+renown. France, England, Spain, Portugal, and Italy, sent forth those
+daring spirits whose hopes were uniformly crushed, either by
+encountering the unbroken line of continental coast, or dashed to pieces
+amidst the terrors of that truly Cimmerian region, where ice and fog,
+cold and darkness, contend for empire.
+
+Of all those heroic navigators, who would have rivalled Columbus under
+happier circumstances, none were successful, even in a limited sense, in
+attempting to reach China by the northern Atlantic, excepting the French
+alone, who may fairly be allowed the merit of having traversed nearly
+one half of the broadest portion of the New World in the discovery of
+the St. Lawrence and its connecting streams, and in having afterwards
+reached Mexico by the Mississippi.
+
+Even in our own days, nearly four centuries after the Columbian era, the
+idea of reaching China by the North Pole has not been abandoned, and is
+actively pursuing by the most enlightened naval government in the world,
+and, very possibly, will be achieved; and, as coal exists on the
+northern frozen coasts, we shall have ports established, where the
+British ensign will fly, in the realms of eternal frost--nay, more, we
+shall yet place an iron belt from the Atlantic to the Pacific, a
+railroad from Halifax to Nootka Sound, and thus reach China in a
+pleasure voyage.
+
+I recollect that, about twelve years ago, a person of very strong mind,
+who edited the "Patriot," a newspaper published at Toronto, Mr. Thomas
+Dalton, was looked upon as a mere enthusiast, because one of his
+favourite ideas, frequently expressed, was, that much time would not
+elapse before the teas and silks of China would be transported direct
+from the shores of the Pacific to Toronto, by canal, by river, by
+railroad, and by steam.
+
+Twelve years have scarcely passed since he first broached such an
+apparently preposterous notion, as people of limited views universally
+esteemed it; and yet he nearly lived to see an uninterrupted steamboat
+communication from England to Lake Superior--a consummation which those
+who laughed at him then never even dreamt of--and now a railroad all the
+way to the Pacific is in progress of discussion.
+
+Mac Taggart, a lively Scotch civil engineer, who wrote, in 1829, an
+amusing work, entitled "Three Years in Canada," was even more sanguine
+on this subject; and, as he was a clerk of works on the Rideau Canal,
+naturally turned his attention to the practicability of opening a road
+by water, by the lakes and rivers, to Nootka Sound.
+
+Two thousand miles of water road by the Ottawa, the St. Lawrence, and
+the Welland, has been opened in 1845, and a future generation will see
+the white and bearded stranger toiling over the rocky barriers that
+alone remain to repel his advances between the great Superior and the
+Pacific. A New Simplon and a peaceful Napoleonic mind will accomplish
+this.
+
+The China trade will receive an impulse; and, as the arms of England
+have overcome those of the Celestial Empire, and we are colonizing the
+outer Barbarian, so shall we colonize the shores of the Pacific, south
+of Russian America, in order to retain the supremacy of British
+influence both in India and in China. The vast and splendid forests
+north of the Columbia River will, ere long, furnish the dockyards of
+the Pacific coast with the inexhaustible means of extending our
+commercial and our military marine.
+
+And who were the pioneers? who cleared the way for this enterprise?
+Frenchmen! The hardy, the enduring, the chivalrous Gaul, penetrated from
+the Atlantic, in frail vessels, as far as these frail barks could carry
+him; and where their service ceased, with ready courage adopted the
+still more fragile transport afforded by the canoe of the Indian, in
+which, singing merrily, he traversed the greater part of the northern
+continent, and actually discovered all that we now know, and much more,
+since lapsed into oblivion.
+
+But his genius was that of conquest, and not of permanent colonization;
+and, trammelled by feudal laws and observances, although he extended the
+national domain and the glory of France beyond his most ardent desire,
+yet he took no steps to insure its duration, and thus left the Saxon and
+the Anglo-Norman to consolidate the structure of which he had merely
+laid the extensive foundation.
+
+But, even now, amidst all the enlightenment of the Christian nations,
+the descendants of the French in Canada shake off the dust of feudality
+with painful difficulty; and, instead of quietly yielding to a better
+order of things, prefer to dwell, from sire to son, the willing slaves
+of customs derived from the obsolete decrees of a despotic monarchy.
+
+Whether they individually are gainers or losers by thus adhering to the
+rules which guided their ancestors, is another question, too difficult
+for discussion to grapple with here. As far as worldly happiness and
+simple contentment are concerned, I believe they would lose by the
+change, which, however, must take place. The restless and enterprising
+American is too close a neighbour to let them slumber long in contented
+ignorance.
+
+The Frenchman was, however, adapted, by his nature, to win his way,
+either by friendship or by force, among the warlike and untutored sons
+of the forest. Accommodating himself with ease to the nomadic life of
+the tribes; contrasting his gay and lively temperament with the solemn
+taciturnity and immoveable phlegm of the savage; dazzling him with the
+splendour of his religious ceremonies; abstemious in his diet, and
+coinciding in his recklessness of life; equally a warrior and equally a
+hunter; unmoved by the dangers of canoe navigation, for which he seemed
+as well adapted as the Red Man himself; the enterprising Gaul was
+everywhere feared and everywhere welcome.
+
+The Briton, on the contrary, cold as the Indian, but not so cunning;
+accustomed to comparative luxury and ease; despising the child of the
+woods as an inferior caste; accompanied in his wars or wanderings by no
+outward and visible sign of the religion he would fain implant;
+unaccustomed to yield even to his equals in opinion; unprepared for
+alternate seasons of severe fasting or riotous plenty; and wholly
+without that sanguine temper which causes mirth and song to break forth
+spontaneously amidst the most painful toil and privations; was not the
+best of pioneers in the wilderness, and was, therefore, not received
+with open arms by the American aboriginal nations, until experience had
+taught the sterling value of his character, or, rather, until it became
+thoroughly apparent.
+
+To this day, where, in the interminable wilderness, all trace of French
+influence is buried, the Indian reveres the recollections of his
+forefathers respecting that gallant race; and, wherever the canoe now
+penetrates, the solemn and silent shades of the vast West, the Bois
+Brule, or mixed offspring of the Indian and the Frenchman, may be heard
+awakening the slumber of ages with carols derived from the olden France,
+as he paddles swiftly and merrily along.
+
+Such was the Frenchman, such the French Canadian; let us therefore give
+due honour to their descendants, and let not any feeling of distrust or
+dislike enter our minds against a race of men, who, from my long
+acquaintance with them, are, I am fully persuaded, the most innocent,
+the most contented, and the most happy yeomanry and peasantry of the
+whole civilized world.
+
+I have observed already, in a former work, that, as far as my experience
+of travelling in the wilds of Canada goes, and it is rather extensive, I
+should always in future journeys prefer to provide myself with the true
+French Canadian boatmen, or voyageurs, or, in default of them, with
+Indians. With either I should feel perfectly at ease; and, having
+crossed the mountain waves of Huron in a Canada trading birch canoe with
+both, should have the less hesitation in trusting myself in the
+trackless forest, under their sole guidance and protection.
+
+  Honneur a Jean Baptiste!
+  C'est un si bon enfant!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+  Penetanguishene--The Nipissang Cannibals, and a Friendly Brother in the
+  Wilderness.
+
+
+Penetanguishene, pronounced by the Indians Pen-et-awn-gu-shene, "the Bay
+of the White Rolling Sand," is a magnificent harbour, about three miles
+in length, narrow and land-locked completely by hills on each side. Here
+is always a steam-vessel of war, of a small class, with others in
+ordinary, stores and appliances, a small military force, hospital and
+commissariat, an Indian interpreter, and a surgeon.
+
+But the presents are no longer given out here, as in 1837 and
+previously, to the wild tribes; so that, to see the Indian in
+perfection, you must take the annual government trader, and sail to the
+Grand Manitoulin Island, about a hundred miles on the northern shore of
+Lake Huron, where, at Manitou-a-wanning, there is a large settlement of
+Indian people, removed thither by the government to keep them from being
+plundered of their presents by the Whites, who were in the habit of
+giving whiskey and tobacco for their blankets, rifles, clothing, axes,
+knives, and other useful articles, with which, by treaty, they are
+annually supplied.
+
+The Great Manitoulin, or Island of the Great Spirit, is an immense
+island, and, being good land, it is hoped that the benevolent intentions
+of the government will be successful. An Indian agent, or
+superintendent, resides with them; and a steamboat, called the Goderich,
+has made one or two trips to it, and up to the head of Lake Huron, last
+summer.
+
+I went to Penetanguishene with the intention of meeting this vessel and
+going with her, but fear that her enterprise will be a failure. She was
+chartered to run from Sturgeon Bay, about nineteen miles beyond the
+narrows of Lake Simcoe, in connection with the mail or stage from
+Toronto, and the Beaver steamboat, plying on Lake Simcoe.
+
+From Sturgeon Bay she went to Penetanguishene, and then to St. Vincent
+Settlement, and Owen's Sound, on Lake Huron, where a vast body of
+emigrants are locating. From Owen's Sound, she coasted and doubled
+Cabot's Head, and then ran down three hundred miles of the shore of Lake
+Huron to Goderich, Sarnia, Fort Gratiot, Windsor, and Detroit, with an
+occasional pleasure-trip to Manitoulin, St. Joseph's, and St. Mary's; so
+that all the north shore of Lake Huron could be seen, and the passengers
+might take a peep at Lake Superior, by going up the rapids of St. Mary
+to Gros Cap. But a variety of obstacles occurred in this immense voyage,
+although ultimately they will no doubt be overcome.
+
+By starting in the Toronto stage early in the morning, the traveller
+slept on board the Goderich at Sturgeon Bay, a good road having been
+formed from the Narrows, although, by some strange oversight, this road
+terminates in a marsh six hundred feet from the bank to the island, on
+which the wharf and storehouse built for the steamer are erected. This
+caused much inconvenience to the passengers.
+
+The stage went, or goes, once a week, on Monday, to Holland Landing,
+thirty six miles, meets the Beaver, which then crosses Lake Simcoe to
+the Narrows, a small village, thriving very fast since it is no longer a
+government Indian station, fifty miles, and there lands the travellers,
+who proceed by stage to Sturgeon Bay, nineteen more, and sleep on board
+the Goderich, arriving about eight p.m. The vessel gets under weigh, and
+reaches Penetanguishene by six in the morning: thus the whole route from
+Toronto, which takes three days by the land road, is performed in
+twenty-four hours.
+
+But there are drawbacks: the Georgian Bay, between Sturgeon Bay and
+Penetanguishene, is, as I have already observed, dangerous at night, or
+in a fog. At Owen's Sound, the population is not far enough advanced to
+build the extensive wharf requisite, or to lay in sufficient supplies of
+fuel, and thus great detention was experienced there. At
+Penetanguishene, the wharf is not taken far enough into deep water for
+the vessel to lie at, and thus she usually grounded in the mud, and
+detention again arose. Then again, after rounding Cabot's Head and
+getting into the open lake, the coast is very dangerous, having not one
+harbour, until we arrive at the artificial one of Goderich, which is a
+pier-harbour; for the Saugeen is a roadstead full of rocks, and cannot
+be approached by a large vessel.
+
+If, therefore, any thing happens to the machinery, and a steamer has to
+trust to her sails, the westerly winds which prevail on Lake Huron and
+blow tremendously, raising a sea that must be seen to be conceived of in
+a fresh-water lake, she has only to keep off the shore out into the main
+lake, and avoid Goderich altogether, by making for the St. Clair River.
+
+However, the vessel did perform the voyage successfully seven times;
+and in summer it may do, and, if it does do, will be of incalculable
+benefit to the Huron tract, and the new settlements of the far west of
+Canada.
+
+I am, however, afraid that the railroad schemes for opening the country
+to the south of this tract will for some time prevent a profitable
+steamboat speculation, although vast quantities of very superior fish
+are caught and cured now on the shores of Huron, such as salmon-trout
+and white fish, which, when properly salted or dried, are equal to any
+salt sea-fish whatever.
+
+The Canadian French, the half-breeds, and the Indians, are chiefly
+engaged in this trade, which promises to become one of great importance
+to the country, and is already much encroached upon by adventurers from
+the United States.
+
+The herring, as far as I can learn, ascends the St. Lawrence no higher
+than the Niagara River, but Ontario abounds with them and with salmon; a
+smaller species of white fish also has of late years spread itself over
+that lake, and is now sold plentifully in the Kingston market, where it
+was never seen only seven years ago. It is a beautiful fish, firm and
+well tasted, but rather too fat.
+
+A farmer on the Penetanguishene road has introduced English breeds of
+cattle and sheep of the best kind. He was, and perhaps still is,
+contractor for the troops, and his stock is well worth seeing; he lives
+a few miles from Barrie. Thus the garrison is constantly supplied with
+finer meat than any other station in Canada, although more out of the
+world and in the wilderness than any other; and, as fish is plentiful,
+the soldiers and sailors of Queen Victoria in the Bay of the White
+Rolling Sand live well.
+
+I was agreeably surprised to find at this remote post that only one
+soldier drank anything stronger than beer or water; and of course very
+little of the former, owing to the expense of transport, was to be had.
+The soldier that did drink spirits did not drink to excess.
+
+How did all this happen in a place where drunkenness had been
+proverbial? The soldiers, who were of the 82nd regiment, had been
+selected for the station as married men. Their young commanding officer
+patronized gardening, cricketing, boating, and every manly amusement,
+but permitted no gambling. He formed a school for the soldiers and their
+families, and, in short, he knew how to manage them, and to keep their
+minds engaged; for they worked and played, read and reasoned; and so
+whiskey, which is as cheap as dirt there, was not a temptation which
+they could not resist. In winter, he had sleighing, snowshoeing, and
+every exercise compatible with the severe weather and the very deep snow
+incident to the station.
+
+I feel persuaded that, now government has provided such handsome
+garrison libraries of choice and well selected books for the soldiers,
+if a ball alley, or racket court, and a cricket ground were attached to
+every large barrack, there would not only be less drinking in the army,
+but that vice would ultimately be scorned, as it has been within the
+last twenty years by the officers. A hard-drinking officer will scarcely
+be tolerated in a regiment now, simply because excessive drinking is a
+low, mean vice, being the indulgence of self for unworthy motives, and
+beneath the character of a gentleman. To be brought to a court-martial
+for drunkenness is now as disgraceful and injurious to the reputation of
+an officer as it was to be tried for cowardice, and therefore seldom
+occurs in the British army.
+
+The vice of Canada is, however, drink; and Temperance Societies will not
+mend it. Their good is very equivocal, unless combined with religion, as
+there is only one Father Matthew in the world, nor is it probable that
+there will be another.
+
+Penetanguishene is at present the _ultima Thule_ of the British military
+posts in North America. It borders on the great wilderness of the North,
+and on that backbone of primary rocks running from the Alleghanies,
+across the thousand islands of the St. Lawrence, to the unknown
+interior of the northern verge of Lake Superior.
+
+Penetanguishene will not, however, be long the _ultima Thule_ of British
+military posts in Western Canada, as a large and most important
+settlement is making at Owen's Sound, on Lake Huron, connected by a long
+road through the wilderness with Saugeen river, another settlement on
+the shores of that lake, to prevent the necessity of the difficult
+water-passage round Cabot's Head; and a steamboat has been put on the
+route by the Canada Company, to connect Saugeen with Goderich.
+
+The government, up to the 31st of December, 1845, had sold or granted
+54,056 acres of land at Owen's Sound, of which 1,168 acres had been
+chopped or cleared of the forest last year alone; and 1,787 acres of
+wheat and 1,414 acres of oats had been harvested in 1845. There were 483
+oxen, 596 cows, 433 young cattle, and 26 horses; and the population was
+1,950, of which 759 were males above sixteen, and 399 males under
+sixteen, with 395 females above, and 399 under, the same age.
+
+In this new colony there were 1,005 Presbyterians, 195 Roman Catholics,
+173 Methodists, 167 of the Church of England, 67 Baptists, 8 Quakers.
+The other sects or divisions were not enumerated with sufficient
+accuracy to detail; and Owen's Sound, being as yet buried in the Bush,
+cannot be visited by casual travellers, unless when an occasional
+steamer plies from Penetanguishene. There is yet no post-office; but
+1,500 newspapers and letters were received or sent in 1845; and two
+flour-mills and two saw-mills are erected and in use. Three schooners of
+a small class ply in summer to Penetanguishene. The village is at the
+head of Owen's Sound, fifteen miles from Cape Croker, and is named
+Sydenham, containing already thirty-six houses. Government gives 50
+acres free, on condition of actual settlement, and that one third is
+cleared and cropped in four years, when a deed is obtained: another
+fifty is granted by paying 8s. an acre within three years, 9s. within
+six years, 10s. an acre within nine years. The soil is good and climate
+healthy.
+
+North-north-west and north-east of Penetanguishene, all is wood, rock,
+lake, river, and desert, in which, towards the French river, the
+Nipissang Indian, the most degraded and helpless of the Red Men,
+wanders, and obtains scanty food, for game is rare, although fish is
+more plentiful.
+
+An exploring expedition into this country was sent by Sir John Colborne,
+in 1835, with a view of ascertaining its capabilities for settlement. An
+officer of engineers, Captain Baddely, was the astronomer and geologist;
+a naval officer the pilot; with surveyors and a hardy suite.
+
+They left Lake Simcoe in the township of Rama from the Severn river,
+and, going a short journey eastward, struck the division line of the
+Home and the Newcastle districts, which commences between the townships
+of Whitby and Darlington, on the shore of Lake Ontario, and runs a
+little to the westward of north in a straight course, until it strikes
+the south-east borders of Lake Nipissang, embracing more than two
+degrees of latitude, not one half of which has ever been fully explored.
+
+The plan adopted was to cut out this line, and diverge occasionally from
+it to the right and left, until a great extent of unknown land on the
+east, and the distance between it and Lake Huron, which contained a
+large portion of the Chippewa Indian hunting-grounds, was thoroughly
+surveyed.
+
+In performing so very arduous a task, much privation and many obstacles
+occurred--forests, swamps, rivers, lakes, rocky ridges--all had to be
+passed.
+
+To the eastward of the main line, and for some distance to the westward,
+good land appeared; and, as the agricultural probe was freely used,
+chance was not permitted to sway. The agricultural probe is an
+instrument which I first saw slung over my friend Baddely's shoulders,
+and of his invention. It is a sort of huge screw gimblet, or auger,
+which readily penetrates the ground by being worked with a long
+cross-handle, and brings up the subsoil in a groove to a considerable
+depth. Specimens of the soil and of rocks and minerals were collected,
+and a plan was adopted which is a useful lesson to future explorers. A
+small piece of linen or cotton, about four inches square, had two pieces
+of twine sewed on opposite corners, and the cloth was marked in
+printers' ink, from stamps, with figures from 1 to 500. A knapsack was
+provided, and the specimens were reduced to a size small enough to be
+carefully tied up in one of these numbered square cloths; and, as the
+specimens were collected, they were entered in the journal as to number
+and locality, strata, dip, and appearance. Thus a vast number of small
+specimens could be brought on a man's back, and examined at leisure.
+
+The toils, however, of such a journey in the vast and untrodden
+wilderness are very severe, and the privations greater. For, in this
+tract, on the side next to Lake Huron, there was an absence of game
+which scarcely ever occurs in the forest near the great lakes. With ice
+forming and snow commencing, and with every prospect of being frozen in,
+a portion of the explorers missed their supplies, and subsisted for
+three whole days and nights on almost nothing; a putrid deer's liver,
+hanging on a bush near a recent Indian trail, was all the animal food
+they had found; but this even hunger could scarcely tempt them to cook.
+I was exploring in a more civilized country near them; but even there
+our Indian guide was at fault, and, from want of proper precaution, our
+provision failed. A small fish amongst four or five persons was one
+day's luxury.
+
+The Nipissang Indians, a very degraded and wretched tribe, live in this
+desolate region, and, it is said, have sometimes been so reduced for
+want of game as to resort to cannibalism. We heard that they had
+recently been obliged to resort to this practice. I was directed, with
+my friends, to conciliate these people, and to assure them that the
+British government, so far from intending to injure them by an
+examination of their country, desired only to ameliorate their sad
+condition.[3]
+
+[Footnote 3: Some time afterwards, during the period in which Lord
+Glenelg held the Colonial Office, I was appointed to report upon the
+state and condition of the Indians of Canada, by his lordship, without
+my knowledge or solicitation; this was never communicated to me by the
+then Lieut.-Governor of Upper Canada, and I only knew of it last year,
+by accidentally reading a report on the subject made by order of the
+House of Assembly, after I left Canada. I do not know if his lordship
+will ever read this work, or the gentleman to whom I believe I was
+indebted for the intended kindness; and, if either should, I beg to
+tender my thanks thus publicly.]
+
+We had a council. The astronomer royal, who was also the geologist, was
+a fine, portly fellow, whose bodily proportions would make three such
+carcases as that which I rejoice in. The nation sat in council and the
+Talk was held. Grim old savages, filthy and forbidding, half-starved
+warriors, hideous to the eye, sat in large circle, with the two great
+Red Fathers, as they called my friend and myself, on account of our
+scarlet jackets. The pipe passed from hand to hand and from mouth to
+mouth, and many a solemn whiff ascended in curling clouds: all was
+solemn and sad.
+
+The speech was made and answered with an acuteness which we were not
+prepared for. But our explanation and mission were at length received,
+and the pledge of peace, the wampum-belts, were accepted and worn by the
+aged chiefs. My friend jogged my elbow once or twice, and thought they
+were eyeing him suspiciously, for he was to proceed into their country.
+He looked so fat and so healthy, that he thought their greasy mouths
+watered for a roasted slice of so fine a subject!
+
+But the wampum pledge is never broken, and we had smoked the calumet of
+friendship. Thus, although he luxuriated, after a total abstinence of
+three days, on the sight of a decayed deer's liver, which he could not
+be prevailed upon to partake of, yet the Nipissang, starving as he must
+also have been, never fried my friend, nor feasted on his fatness.
+
+This is not the only good story to be told of Penetanguishene; for the
+American press of the frontier, with its accustomed adherence to truth,
+discovered a mare's nest there lately, and stated that the British
+government kept enormous supplies of naval stores, several
+steam-vessels, a depot of coal, and everything necessary for the
+equipment of a large war fleet on Lake Huron, at this little outpost of
+the West, and that a tremendous force of mounted cavaliers were always
+ready to embark on board of it at all times.
+
+There are now certainly a good many horses at the village, whereas, in
+1837, perhaps one might have found out a dozen by great research there:
+as for cavalry, unless Brother Jonathan can manufacture it as cheaply
+and as lucratively as he does wooden clocks or nutmegs, it would be
+somewhat difficult to _raise_ it at Penetanguishene.
+
+The village is a small, rambling place, with a little Roman Catholic
+church and a storehouse or general shop or two, about which, in summer,
+you always see idle Indians playing at some game or other, or else
+smoking with as idle villagers.
+
+The garrison is three miles from the village, and is always called "The
+Establishment;" and in the forest between the two places is a new
+church, built of wood, very small, but sufficient for the Established
+Church, as it is sometimes called, of that portion of Canada. A
+clergyman is constantly stationed here for the army, navy, and
+civilians, and near the church is a collection of log huts, which I
+placed there some years ago by order of Lord Seaton, with small plots of
+ground attached to each as a refuge for destitute soldiers who had
+commuted their pensions.
+
+This Chelsea in miniature flourished for a time, and drained the streets
+of the large towns of Canada of the miserable objects; but, such was the
+improvidence of most of these settlers and such their broken
+constitutions, that, on my present visit, I found but one old serjeant
+left, and he was on the point of moving.
+
+The commutation of pensions was an experiment of the most benevolent
+intention. It was thought that the married pensioner would purchase
+stock for a small farm, and set himself down to provide for his children
+with a sum of money in hand which he could never have obtained in any
+other way. Many did so, and are now independent; but the majority,
+helpless in their habits, and giving way to drink, soon got cheated of
+their dollars and became beggars; so that the government was actually
+obliged at length to restore a small portion of the pension to keep them
+from starvation. They died out, would not work at the Penetanguishene
+settlement, and have vanished from the things that be. Poor fellows!
+many a tale have they told me of flood and field, of being sabred by the
+cuirassiers at Waterloo, of being impaled on a Polish lance, and of
+their wanderings and sufferings.
+
+The military settlement, however, of the Penetanguishene road is a
+different affair. It was effected by pensioned non-commissioned officers
+and soldiers, who had grants of a hundred acres and sometimes more; and
+it will please the benevolent founder, should these pages meet his eye,
+to know that many of them are now prosperous, and almost all well to do
+in the world.
+
+But we must retrace our steps, and waggon back again by their doors to
+Barrie.
+
+I left the village at half-past six in the morning, raining still, with
+the wind in the south-east, and very cold. We arrived at the Widow
+Marlow's, nineteen miles, at mid-day; the weather having changed to fine
+and blowing hard--certainly not pleasant in the forest-road, on account
+of the danger of falling trees, to which this pass is so liable that a
+party of axemen have sometimes to go ahead to cut out a way for the
+horses.
+
+We passed through the twelve mile woods by a new road, which reduces the
+extent of actual forest to five, and avoids altogether the Trees of the
+Two Brothers, noted in Penetanguishene history for the fatal accident,
+narrated in a former volume, by which one soldier died, and his brother
+was, it is supposed, frightened to death, in the solemn depths of the
+primeval and then endless woods.
+
+Near the end of the five mile Bush, about a mile from the first
+clearance, Jeffrey, the landlord of the inn at the village, has built a
+small cottage for the refreshment of the traveller, and in it he intends
+to place his son. In the mean time, until quite completed, for money is
+scarce and things not to be done at railroad pace so near the North
+Pole, he has located here an old well known black gentleman, called Mr.
+Davenport, who was once better to do in the world, and kept a tavern
+himself.
+
+Having had the honour of his acquaintance for many years, I stopped to
+see how my old friend was getting on, particularly as I heard that he
+was now very old, and that his white consort had left him alone in the
+narrow world of the house in the woods. He received me with grinning
+delight, and told me that he had just left the new jail at Barrie for
+selling liquor without a license, which, I opine, is rather hard law
+against a poor old nigger, who had literally no other means of support,
+and was most usefully stationed, like the monks of St. Bernard, in a
+dangerous pass.
+
+But the wind is tempered to the shorn lamb, and the woolly head of old
+Davenport had matter of satisfaction in it from a source that he never
+dreamed of.
+
+Alone--far away from the whole human world, in the depth of a hideous
+forest, with a road nearly impassable one half of the year,--he found an
+unexpected friend.
+
+For fear of the visits of two-footed and four-footed brutes during the
+long nights of his Robinson Crusoe solitude, old Davenport always shut
+up his log castle early, and retired to rest as soon as daylight
+departed; for it did so very early in the evening there, as the solemn
+pines, with their gray trunks and far-spreading moss-grown arms and
+dismal evergreen foliage, if it can be called foliage, stood close to
+his dwelling--nay, brushed with the breath of the wind his very roof.
+
+Recollect, reader, that this lonely dweller in the Bush resided near the
+spot where the two soldier brothers perished; and you may imagine his
+thoughts, after his castle was closed at night by the lone warder. No
+one could come to his assistance, if he had the bugle that roused the
+echoes of Fontarabia.
+
+He had retired to rest early one night in the young spring-time, when he
+heard a singular noise on the outside of his house, like somebody
+moaning, and rubbing forcibly under his window, which was close to the
+head of his pallet-bed. Quivering with fear, he lay, with these sounds
+continuing at short intervals, through the whole night, and did not rise
+until the sun was well up. He then peeped cautiously about, but neither
+heard nor saw any thing; and, axe in hand and gun loaded, he went forth,
+but could not perceive aught more than that the ground had been slightly
+disturbed. This went on for some time, until at last, one fine moonlight
+night, the old man ventured to open a part of his narrow window; and
+there he saw rubbing himself, very composedly, a fine large he bear, who
+looked up very affectionately at him, and whined in a decent melancholy
+growl.
+
+Davenport had, it seems, thrown some useless article of food out of this
+window; and Bruin supposed, no doubt, that Blackey did it out of
+compassionate feeling for a fellow denizen of the forest, and repeated
+his visits to obtain something more substantial, rubbing himself, to get
+rid of the mosquitoes, as it was his custom of an afternoon, against the
+rough logs of the dwelling. He had, moreover, become a little impatient
+at not being noticed, and scratched like a dog to make the lord of the
+mansion aware of his presence. This usually occurred about nine o'clock.
+
+Davenport, at last, threw some salt pork to Bruin, which was most
+gratefully received; and every night after that, for the whole summer
+and autumn, at nine o'clock or thereabouts, the bear came to receive
+bread, meat, milk, or potatoes, or whatever could be spared from the
+larder, which was left on the ground under the window for him. In fact,
+they soon came to be upon very friendly terms, and spent many hours in
+each other's company, with a stout log-wall between Davenport and his
+brother, as he always calls the bear.
+
+When the snows of winter, the long, severe winter of these northern
+woods, at last came, Bruin ceased his nocturnal visitations, and has
+never been seen since, the old man thinking that he has been shot or
+trapped by the Indian hunters.
+
+I asked Davenport if he ever ventured out to look for his brother, but
+he shook his head and replied, "My brudder might have hugged me too
+hard, perhaps." The poor old fellow is very cheerful, and regrets his
+brother's absence daily. The bailiffs most likely would not have put him
+in jail for selling whiskey to a tired traveller, but would have avoided
+the castle in the woods, if they thought there was any chance of meeting
+Bruin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+  Barrie and Big Trees--A new Capital of a new District--Nature's
+  Canal--The Devil's Elbow--Macadamization and Mud--Richmond Hill
+  without the Lass--The Rebellion and the Radicals--Blue Hill and
+  Bricks.
+
+
+We reached Barrie safely that night, and slept at the Queen's Arms. Next
+morning, I had an excellent opportunity of seeing this thriving village.
+
+It is very well situated on the shore of Kempenfeldt Bay, on ground
+rising gradually to a considerable height, and is neatly laid out,
+containing already about five hundred people.
+
+On the high ground overlooking the place are a church, a court-house,
+and a jail, all standing at a small distance from each other, nearly on
+a line, and adding very much indeed to the appearance of the place. The
+deep woods now form a background, but are gradually disappearing. I went
+about a mile into them, and saw several new clearances, with some nice
+houses building or built; and particularly one by Bingham, our landlord,
+a very comfortable, English-looking, large cottage, with outhouses and
+an immense barn, round which the rascally ground squirrels were playing
+at hide-and-seek very fearlessly.
+
+The Court House contains the district school, which appears very
+respectable, and is conducted by a young Irishman; it also contains all
+the district offices, and is two stories high, massively and well built,
+the lower story being of stone and the upper of brick, both from
+materials on the spot.
+
+The church is of wood, plain and neat. The jail is worth a visit, and
+shows what may be done in the forest and in a brand-new district, as the
+district of Simcoe is, although I believe about half the money it cost
+would have been better employed on the roads; for it has never been
+used, except as a place of confinement for an unfortunate lunatic.
+
+It is formed in the castellated style, of a handsome octagonal tower, of
+very white, shelly limestone, with a square turreted stone enclosure, on
+the top of which is an iron _chevaux de frize_, and which enclosure is
+subdivided into separate day-yards for prisoners. The entrance is under
+a Gothic archway; and in the centre of the tower is an internal space,
+open from top to bottom, and preventing all access to the stairs from
+the cells, which are very neat, clean, and commodious, with a good
+supply of water, and excellent ventilation. It is, in short, as pretty a
+toy penitentiary as you could see anywhere, and looks more like an Isle
+of Wight gentleman's fortress, copied after the most approved Wyattville
+pattern of baronial mansion, with a little touch of the card-house. In
+short, it is as fine as you can conceive, and sets off the village
+wonderfully well.
+
+The red pine, near Barrie and through all the Penetanguishene country,
+grows to an enormous size. I measured one near Barrie no less than
+twenty-six feet in girth, and this was merely a chance one by the
+path-side. Its height, I think, must have been at least two hundred
+feet, and it was vigorously healthy. What was its age? It would have
+made a plank eight feet broad, after the bark was stripped off.
+
+But the woods generally disappoint travellers, as they never penetrate
+them; and the lumberers have cut down all available pines and oaks
+within reach of the settlements, excepting where they were not worth the
+expence of transport. The pines, moreover, take no deep root; and, as
+soon as the underbrush or thicket is cleared, they fall before the
+storm. Provident settlers, therefore, rarely leave large and lofty trees
+near their dwellings for fear of accident.
+
+The pine, in the Penetanguishene country, has a strange fancy to start
+out of the earth in three, five, or more trunks, all joined at the base,
+and each trunk an enormous tree. I have an idea that this has arisen
+from the stony, loose soil they grow in, which has caused this strange
+freak of Nature, by making it difficult for the young plant to rear its
+head out of the ground. Whatever is the reason, however, all the masts
+of some "great Amiral" might be truly provided out of a single
+pine-tree.
+
+But we must leave Barrie, after just mentioning Kempenfeldt, about a
+mile or so distant, which was the original village; and, although at the
+actual terminus of the land road, has never flourished, and still
+consists of some half dozen houses. The newer Admiral superseded the
+more ancient one; for Barrie did deeds of renown, which it suited the
+Canadians to commemorate much more than the unfortunate Kempenfeldt and
+his melancholy end.
+
+If ever there was an infamous road between two villages so close
+together, it is the road between these two places; I hope it will be
+mended, for it is both dark and dangerous.
+
+I always wondered not a little how it happened that Bingham of Barrie
+kept such a good table, where fresh meat was as plentiful as at Toronto.
+I looked for the market-place of the capital of Simcoe: there was none.
+But the mystery was solved the moment I put my foot on board the Beaver
+steamer to go back by the water road.
+
+What will the reader think of Leadenhall Market being condensed and
+floating? Such, however, was the case; there was a regular travelling
+butcher's-shop, for the supply of the settlers around Lake Simcoe; and
+meat, clean and enticing as at the finest stall in the market aforesaid,
+where upon regular hooks were regularly displayed the fine roasting and
+boiling joints of the season. And a very fair speculation no doubt it
+is, this pedlar butchery.
+
+On the 3rd of July, at half-past twelve, I left the capital of the
+Simcoe district, and am particular as to dates and seasons, because it
+tells the traveller for pleasure what are the times and the tides he
+should choose.
+
+We embarked on board the good ship Beaver, a large steam-vessel, for the
+Holland Landing, distant twenty-eight miles--twenty-one of them by the
+lake, and seven by the river. The vessel stops by the way at several
+settlements, where half-pay officers generally have pitched their tents;
+and twice a week she makes the grand tour of the whole lake, at an
+altitude of upwards of seven hundred and fifty feet above Lake Ontario,
+and not forty miles from it.
+
+This navigation of the Holland river is very well worth seeing, as it is
+a natural canal flowing through a vast marsh, and very narrow, with most
+serpentine convolutions, often doubling upon itself.--Conceive the
+difficulty of steering a large steamboat in such a course; yet it is
+done every day in summer and autumn, by means of long poles, slackening
+the steam, backing, &c., though very rarely without running a little way
+into the soft mud of the swamp. The motion of the paddles has, however,
+in the course of years, widened the channel and prevented the growth of
+flags and weeds.
+
+There is one place called the Devil's Elbow, a common name in Canada for
+a difficult river pass, where the sluggish water fairly makes a double,
+and great care is necessary. Here the enterprising owner and master of
+the vessel tried to cut a channel; but, after getting a straight course
+through the mud for two-thirds of the way, he found it too expensive to
+proceed, but declares that he will persevere. Why does not the Board of
+Works, which has literally the expenditure of more than a million, take
+the business in hand, and complete it? One or two hundred pounds would
+finish the affair. But perhaps it is too trifling, and, like the cut at
+the Long Point, Lake Erie, to which we shall come presently, is
+overlooked in the magnitude of greater things.
+
+Of all the unformed, unfinished public establishments in Canada, it has
+always appeared to me that the Crown Lands department, and the Board of
+Works, are pre-eminent. One costs more to manage the funds it raises
+than the funds amount to; and the other was for several years a mere
+political job. No very eminent civil engineer could have afforded to
+devote his time and talents to it, as he must have been constantly
+exposed to be turned out of office by caprice or cupidity. I do not
+know how it is now managed, but the political jobbing is, I believe, at
+an end, as the same person presides over the office who held it when it
+was in very bad odour. This gentleman must, however, be quite adequate
+to the office, as some of the public works are magnificent; but I cannot
+go so far as to say that one must approve of all. The St. Lawrence Canal
+has cost the best part of a million, is useless in time of war, and a
+mere foil at all times to the Rideau navigation, which the British
+government constructed free of any provincial funds. The timber slides
+on the Trent are so much money put into the timber-merchants' pockets,
+to the extreme detriment of the neighbouring settlers, whose lands have
+been swept of every available stick by the lawless hordes of woodcutters
+engaged to furnish this work; and who, living in the forest, were beyond
+the reach of justice or of reason, destroying more trees than they could
+carry away, and defying, gun and axe in hand, the peaceable
+proprietors.
+
+It was intended, before the rebellion broke out, to render the river
+Trent navigable by a splendid canal, which would have opened the finest
+lands in Canada for hundreds of miles, and eventually to have connected
+Lake Huron with Lake Ontario. A large sum of money was expended on it
+before the Board of Works was constituted, and an experienced clerk of
+works, fresh from the Rideau Canal, was chosen to superintend; but the
+troubles commenced, and the money was wanted elsewhere.
+
+When money became again plentiful, and the country so loudly demanded
+the Trent Canal, why was it not finished? I shall give by and by an
+account of a recent excursion to the Trent, and then we shall perhaps
+learn more about it, and why perishing timber slides were substituted
+for a magnificent canal.
+
+But the Devil's Elbow should be straightened by the Board of Works at
+all events, otherwise it may stick in the mud, and then nobody can help
+it; for the marsh is very extensive, and there would be no Jupiter to
+cry out to.
+
+Well, however, in spite of all obstacles, Captain Laughton piloted us
+safe to Ague and Fever Landing, where, depend upon it, we did not stay a
+moment longer than sufficed to jump into a coloured gentleman's waggon,
+which was in waiting, and in which we were driven off as a coloured
+gentleman always drives, that is to say, in a hand-gallop, to Winch's
+tavern, our old accustomed inn at St. Alban's, where we arrived in due
+time, and there hired another Jehu, who was an American Irishman (a sad
+compound), to take us as far towards Yonge Street as practicable. We
+reached Richmond Hill, seventeen miles from the Landing, at about eight
+o'clock, having made a better day's journey than is usually accomplished
+on a road which will be macadamized some fine day; for the Board of
+Works have a Polish engineer hard at work surveying it--of course no
+Canadian was to be found equal to this intricate piece of
+engineering--and I saw a variety of sticks stuck up, but what they meant
+I cannot guess at. I suppose they were going to _grade_ it, which is the
+favourite American term--a term, by the by, by no manner or method
+meaning gradus ad Parnassum, or even laying it out in steps and stairs,
+like the Scotch military road near Loch Ness; but which, as far as my
+limited information in Webster's Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon tongue
+goes, signifies levelling. I may, however, be mistaken; and this puts me
+in mind of another tale to beguile the way.
+
+A character set out from England to try his fortune in Canada. He was
+conversing about prospects in that country, on board the vessel, with a
+person who knew him, but whom he knew not. "I have not quite made up my
+mind," said the character, "as to what pursuit I shall follow in Canada;
+but that which brings most grist to the mill will answer best; and I
+hear a man may turn his hand to anything there, without the folly of an
+apprenticeship being necessary; for, if he has only brains, bread will
+come--now, what do you think would be the best business for my market?"
+
+"Why," said the gentleman, after pondering a little, "I should advise
+you to try civil engineering; for they are getting up a Board of Works
+there, and want that branch of industry very much, for they won't take
+natives; nothing but foreigners or strangers will go down."
+
+"What is a civil engineer?" said the character.
+
+"A man always measuring and calculating," responded his adviser, "and
+that will just suit you."
+
+"So it will," rejoined Character; and a civil engineer he became
+accordingly, and a very good one into the bargain; for he had brains,
+and had used a yard measure all his lifetime.
+
+I was told this story by a person of veracity, who heard the
+conversation, but it is by no means a wonderful one; for such is the
+versatility of talent which the climate of Northern America engenders,
+that I knew a leading member of parliament provincial, who was a
+preacher, a shopkeeper, a doctor, a lawyer, a banker, a militia colonel,
+and who undertook to build a suspension bridge across the cataracted
+river Niagara, to connect the United States with Canada for L8,000,
+lawful money of the colony; an undertaking which Rennie would perchance
+have valued at about L100,000; but _n'importe_, the bill was passed, and
+a banking shop set up instead of a bridge, which answered every purpose,
+for the notes passed freely on both sides until they were worn out.
+
+Behold us, however, at Richmond Hill, having safely passed the Slough of
+Despond, which the vaunted Yonge Street mud road presents, between the
+celebrated hamlet of St. Alban's and the aforesaid hill, one of the
+greatest curiosities of which road, near St. Alban's, is the vicinity of
+a sort of Mormon establishment, where a fellow of the name of David
+Wilson, commonly called David, has set up a Temple of the Davidites,
+with Virgins of the Sun, dressed in white, and all the tomfooleries of a
+long beard and exclusive sanctity. But America is a fine country for
+such knavery. Another curiosity is less pitiable and more natural. It
+is Bond Lake, a large narrow sheet of water, on the summit between Lake
+Simcoe and Lake Ontario, which has no visible outlet or inlet, and is
+therefore, like David Wilson, mysterious, although common sense soon
+lays the mystery in both cases bare; one is a freak of Nature concealing
+the source and exitus, the other a fraud of man.
+
+The oak ridges, and the stair-like descents of plateau after plateau to
+Ontario, are also remarkable enough, showing even to the most
+thoughtless that here ancient shores of ancient seas once bounded the
+forest, gradually becoming lower and lower as the water subsided. Lyell
+visited these with the late Mr. Roy, a person little appreciated and
+less understood by the great ones of the earth at Toronto, who made an
+excellent geological survey of this part of the province, and whose
+widow had infinite difficulty in obtaining a paltry recompense for his
+labours in developing the resources of the country. The honey which this
+industrious bee manufactured was sucked by drones, and no one has done
+him even a shadow of justice, but Mr. Lyell, who, having no colonial
+dependence, had no fears in so doing.
+
+But of Richmond Hill, why so called I never could discover, for it is
+neither very highly picturesque, nor very highly poetical, although
+Dolby's Tavern is a most comfortable resting-place for a wearied
+traveller, at which prose writer or poetaster may find a haven.
+Attention, good fare, and neatness prevail. It is English.
+
+I have observed two things in journeying through Upper Canada. If you
+find neatness at an hostel, it is kept by old-country people. If you
+meet with indifference and greasy meats, they are Americans. If you see
+the best parlour hung round with bad prints of presidents, looking like
+Mormon preachers, they are radicals of the worst leaven. If prints from
+the New York Albion, neatly framed and glazed, hang on each side of a
+wooden clock, over a sideboard in the centre of the room, opposite to
+the windows, the said prints representing Queen Victoria, Lord Nelson,
+Windsor Castle, or the New Houses of Parliament, be assured that loyalty
+and John Bullism reign there; and, although you meet with no servility,
+you will not be disgusted with vulgar assumption, such as cocking up
+dirty legs in dirty boots on a dirty stove, wearing the hat, and not
+deigning to answer a civil question.
+
+Personally, no man cares less for the mode of reception, when I take
+mine ease at mine inn, than I do, for old soldiers are not very
+fastidious, and old travellers still less so; but give me sturdy John
+Bull, with his blunt plainness and true independence, before the silly
+insolence of a fellow, who thinks he shows his equality, by lowering the
+character of a man to that of a brute, in coarse exhibitions of assumed
+importance, which his vocation of extracting money from his unwilling
+guests renders only more hateful.
+
+We departed from Richmond Hill at half-past five, and waggoned on to
+Finch's Inn, seven miles, where we breakfasted. This is another
+excellent resting-place, and the country between the two is thickly
+settled. I forgot to mention that we have now been travelling through
+scenes celebrated in the rebellion of Mackenzie. About five miles from
+Holland Landing is the Blacksmith's Shop, which was the head-quarters of
+Lount, the smith, who, like Jack Cade, set himself up to reform abuses,
+and suffered the penalty of the outraged laws.
+
+Lount was a misled person, who, imbued with strong republican feelings,
+and forgetting the favours of the government he lived under, which had
+made him what he was, took up arms at Mackenzie's instigation, and
+thought he had a call--a call to be a great general. He passed to his
+account, so '_requiescas in pace_,' Lount! for many a villain yet lives,
+to whose vile advices you owed your untimely end, and who ought to have
+met with your fate instead of you. Lount had the mind of an honest man
+in some things, for it is well known that his counsels curbed the bloody
+and incendiary spirit of Mackenzie in many instances. The government
+has not sequestered his property, although his sons were equally guilty
+with himself.
+
+We also pass, in going to Toronto, two other remarkable places. Finch's
+Tavern, where we breakfasted at seven o'clock, was formerly the Old
+Stand, as it was so called, of the notorious Montgomery, another
+general, a tavern general of Mackenzie's, who moved to a place about
+four miles from the city, where the rebels were attacked in 1837 by Sir
+Francis Head, and near which the battle of Gallows Hill was fought.
+
+Montgomery was taken prisoner, sent to Kingston, and escaped by
+connivance, with several others, from the fortress there on a dark
+night, fell into a ditch, broke his leg, and afterwards was hauled by
+his comrades over a high wall, and got across the St. Lawrence into the
+United States, where he was run over afterwards by a waggon and much
+injured. His tavern was burnt to the ground by the militia during the
+action, on account of the barbarous murder there of Colonel Moodie, a
+very old retired officer, who was killed by Mackenzie's orders in cold
+blood. It is now rebuilt on a very extensive scale; and he is again
+there, having been permitted to return, and his property, which was
+confiscated, has been restored to his creditors.
+
+Such were Mackenzie's intended government and the tools he was to govern
+by! Such is the British government! The Upper Canadians wisely preferred
+the latter.
+
+Next to Richmond Hill is Thornhill, all on the macadamized portion of
+the road to Toronto. Thornhill is a very pretty place, with a neat
+church and a dell, in which a river must formerly have meandered, but
+where now a streamlet runs to join Lake Ontario. Here are extensive
+mills, owned by Mr. Thorne, a wealthy merchant, who exports flour
+largely, the Yonge Street settlement being a grain country of vast
+extent, which not only supplies his mills, but the Red Mills, near
+Holland Landing, and many others.
+
+From Montgomery's Tavern to Toronto is almost a continued series for
+four miles of gentlemen's seats and cottages, and, being a straight
+road, you see the great lake for miles before its shores are reached.
+Large sums have been expended on this road, which is carried through a
+brick-clay soil, in which the Don has cut deep ravines, so that immense
+embankments and deep excavations for the level have been requisite.
+
+Near Toronto, at Blue Hill, large brick yards are in operation, and here
+white brick is now made, of which a handsome specimen of church
+architecture has been lately erected in the west end of the city. Tiles,
+elsewhere not seen in Canada, are also manufactured near Blue Hill; but
+they are not extensively used, the snow and high winds being
+unfavourable to their adoption, shingles or split wood being cheaper,
+and tinned iron plates more durable and less liable to accident.
+
+In most parts of Upper Canada, near the shores of the great lakes, you
+can build a house either of stone or brick, as it suits your fancy, for
+both these materials are plentiful, particularly clay; but at Toronto
+there is no suitable building-stone; plenty of clay, however, is found,
+for there you may build your house out of the very excavations for your
+cellars; and I confess that I prefer a brick house in Canada to one of
+limestone, for the latter material imbibes moisture; and if a brick
+house has a good projecting roof, it lasts very long, and is always
+warm.
+
+It is surprising to observe the effects of the climate on buildings in
+this country. A good stone house, not ten years old, carefully built,
+and pointed between the joints of the masonry with the best cement,
+requires a total repair after that period, and often before. The
+window-sills and lintels of limestone break and crack, and the chimneys
+soon become disjointed and unsafe. Although it may seem paradoxical, yet
+it is true that the woodwork of a house lasts good much longer than the
+stone, or rather the cement, which joins the stone; but wood decays
+also very rapidly. A bridge becomes rotten in ten years, and a shingled
+roof lasts only fifteen; but then wood is never seasoned in America; it
+would not pay.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+  Toronto and the Transit--The ice and its innovations--Siege and
+  storm of a Fortalice by the Ice-king--Newark, or Niagara--Flags,
+  big and little--Views of American and of English
+  institutions--Blacklegs and Races--Colonial high life--Youth very
+  young.
+
+Behold us again in Toronto at Macdonald's Hotel; and, as we shall have
+to visit this rising city frequently, we shall say very little more
+about it at present, but embark as speedily as possible on board the
+Transit, and steam over to Niagara.
+
+The Transit, a celebrated packet, now getting old, and commanded by a
+son of its well-known owner, Captain Richardson, starts always in summer
+at eight a.m. punctually, and makes her voyage by half-past eleven, at
+which hour, on the 5th day of July, we once more touched the shore of
+Newark, or Niagara Town, at the Dock Company's wharf, which we found had
+been greatly damaged in the spring of the year by a most extraordinary
+ice phenomenon.
+
+At the breaking-up of the frost, the ice in the river Niagara, which
+came down the river, packed near its mouth, and dammed it up so high at
+Queenston, seven miles above and close to the narrows, that the upper
+surface of the fields of ice was thirty feet above the level of the
+river, there a quarter of a mile broad or more. The consequence was,
+that every wharf and every building under this level was destroyed and
+crushed. Every edifice on the banks, and among others a strong stone
+barrack, full of soldiers, was stormed by the frost-king, during the
+darkness of an awful night, and the front wall fairly breached and borne
+down by the advancing masses of ice. The soldiers had barely time to
+escape from the crashing and rending walls; and their cooking-house, a
+detached building, some yards from the barrack and higher up the bank,
+was turned over, as if it had been a small boat.
+
+In the memory of man, such a scene had never occurred before, and
+probably never will again; and I have been told, by those who beheld it,
+that a more solemn display of natural power and irresistible might has
+seldom been witnessed than that of the gradual grinding, heaving passage
+of one great floe, or field, of thick-ribbed ice over the other, until
+that summit was gained which could not be exceeded.
+
+Then came the disruption, the roar, the rush, the fury, the foam, the
+groaning thunder, and the river flood; the plunge and the struggle
+between the solid and the liquid waters.
+
+Truly, the thundering water was well named by the Indian of old--NE AW
+GAR AW is very Greek sounding.
+
+Newark, or, as it is now called, Niagara, but, as it should be named,
+Simcoe, is still a pretty, well laid-out town; and, although it has
+scarcely had a new house built in it for many years past, is on the
+whole a very respectable place, and the capital of the district of
+Niagara, celebrated for its apple, peach, and cherry orchards.
+
+It has a good-looking church, and the living is a rectory. A Roman
+Catholic church stands close to the English, and a handsome Scots church
+is at the other end of the town. There is an ugly jail and Court-House
+about a mile in the country, and an excellent market, where every thing
+is cheap and good.
+
+Barracks for the Royal Canadian Rifle regiment stand on a large plain.
+Old Fort George, the scene of former battling, is in total ruin; and
+Fort Mississagua, with its square tower, looks frowningly at Fort
+Niagara, on the American side of the estuary of the Great River. I never
+see these rival batteries, for it is too magniloquent to style them
+fortresses, but they picture to my mind England and the United States.
+
+Mississagua looks careless and confident, with a little bit of a
+flag--the flag, however, of a thousand years, displayed, only on
+Sundays and holidays, on a staff which looks something like that which
+the king-making Warwick tied his heraldic bear to.
+
+The antiquity and warlike renown of England sit equally and visibly
+impressed on the crest of the miserable Mississagua as on that of
+Gibraltar.
+
+Fort Niagara, an old French Indian stockade, modernized by the American
+engineers from time to time, half-lighthouse, half-fortification,
+glaring with whitewashed walls, that may be seen almost at Toronto, with
+a flag-staff towering to the skies, and a flag which would cover the
+deck of a first-rate, displayed from morn to night, speaks of the new
+nation, whose pretensions must ever be put in plain view, and constantly
+tell the tale that America is a second edition of the best work of
+English industry and of British valour--a second edition interwoven,
+however, with foreign matter, with French _fierte_ without French
+_politesse_, with German mysticism without German learning, with the
+restless and rabid democracy of the whole world without the salutary
+check of venerable laws, and with that strange mixture of freedom and
+slavery, of tolerance and intolerance, which distinguishes America of
+the nineteenth century.
+
+But it is, nevertheless, a most extraordinary spectacle, to contemplate
+the rise and progress of the union in so short a period since the
+declaration of independence.
+
+An Irish gentleman, apparently a clergyman, last year favoured the
+public with the result of an extensive tour in Canada and the United
+States, in "Letters from America."
+
+He starts in his preface with these remarkable expressions, which must
+be well considered and analyzed, because they are the deliberate
+convictions of an observant and well-informed man, who had, moreover,
+singular opportunities of reflecting upon the people he had so long
+travelled amongst.
+
+He says that "In energy, perseverance, enterprise, sagacity, activity,
+and varied resources" the Americans infinitely surpass the British;
+that he never met with "a stupid American." That our "American children"
+surpass us not only in our good, but "in our evil peculiarities." This I
+cannot understand; for, surely, if we have _peculiarities_, which there
+is no denying, they must by all the rules of logic be limited to
+ourselves.
+
+But the writer observes, in a paragraph too long for quotation, that
+they exceed us in materialism and in utilitarianism; that we, a nation
+of shopkeepers, as Napoleon styled the English, were outdone in the
+worship of Mammon by them; that we have rejected too much the higher
+branches of art and science, and the cultivation of the aesthetic
+faculty--what an abominable word aesthetic is! it always puts me in mind
+of asthmatic, for it is broken-winded learning.
+
+"Is it not common," says he, "in modern England to reject authorities
+both in Church and State, to look with contempt on the humbler and more
+peculiarly christian virtues of contentment and submission, and to
+cultivate the intellectual at the expense of the moral part of our
+nature? If these and other dangerous tendencies of a similar nature are
+at work among ourselves, as they undoubtedly are, it is useful and
+interesting to observe them in fuller operation and more unchecked
+luxuriance in America."
+
+Now, it is very satisfactory, that the Americans, a race of yesterday,
+who have had no opportunity as yet of coping with the deep research and
+master-minds of Europe, should in half a century have leaped into such a
+position in the civilized world as to have exceeded the Englishman in
+all the most useful relations of life, as well as in all its darker and
+more dangerous features; very satisfactory indeed that the mixed race
+peopling the United States should be better and worse than that nation
+to which the world, by universal consent, has yielded the palm of
+superiority in all the arts and in all the sciences of modern
+acquirement.
+
+Wherein do the Americans exceed the sons of Britain? In history, in
+policy, in poetry, in mathematics, in music, in painting, or in any of
+the gifts of the Muses? Are they more renowned in the dreadful art of
+war? or in the mild virtues of peace? Is the fame of America a wonder
+and a terror to the four quarters of the globe?--We may fearlessly reply
+in the negative. The outer barbarian knows the American but as another
+kind of Englishman. It will yet take him some centuries to distinguish
+between the original and the offspring.
+
+It is, in short, as untenable as an axiom in policy or history, that the
+American exceeds the Briton in the development of mind, as it is that
+the American exceeds the Briton in the development of the baser
+qualities of our nature.
+
+When the insatiate thirst for dollars, dollars, dollars, has subsided,
+then the American may justly rear his head as an aspirant for historic
+fame. His land has never yet produced a Shakespeare, a Johnson, a
+Milton, a Spenser, a Newton, a Bacon, a Locke, a Coke, or a Rennie. The
+utmost America has yet achieved is a very faint imitation of the least
+renowned of our great writers, Walter Scott.
+
+In diplomacy I deny also the palm. For although India is a case in
+point, like as Texas, yet even there we have never first planted a
+population with the express purpose of ejecting the lawful government,
+but have conquered where conquest was not only hailed by the enslaved
+people but was a positive benefit, by the introduction of mild and
+equitable laws instead of brutal and bloody despotisms. We have not
+snatched from a weak republic, whose principles had been expressly
+formed on our own model, that which poverty alone obliged it to
+relinquish. If the writer, who appears to be an excellent man and a good
+christian, had lived for several years on the borders of the eagerly
+desired Canada, I very much doubt whether he would have seen such a
+_couleur de rose_ in the transactions of the mighty commonwealth, where
+the rulers are the ruled, and where education, intellect, integrity,
+innocence, and wealth must all alike bow before the Juggernaut of an
+unattainable perfection of equality.
+
+If Bill Johnson, the mail robber and smuggler, is as good as William
+Pitt or any other William of superior mind, why then the sooner the
+millennium of democracy arrives the better. It is unfortunate for the
+present generation--what it will be for the next no man can pretend to
+say--that this debasing principle is gaining ground not only in Canada
+but in England. A reflecting mind has no objection to the creed that all
+men were created equal; but history, sacred and profane, plainly shows
+that mind as well as matter is afterwards, for the wisest of purposes,
+very differently developed.
+
+Does the meanest white American, the sweeper of Broadway, if there be
+such a citizen, believe in this perfection of equality amongst men as a
+fundamental axiom of the rights of man? Place a black sweeper of
+crossings in juxtaposition, and the question will very soon solve
+itself. Why, the free and enlightened citizens will not even permit
+their black or coloured brethren to worship their common Creator in the
+same pew with themselves--it is horror, it is degradation! And yet
+there is a universal outcry about sacred liberty and equality all over
+the Union. The angels weep to witness the tricks of men placed in a
+little brief authority. Can such a state of things last as that, where
+the Irish labourer is treated as an inferior being in the scale of
+creation, and the Negro, or the offspring of the Negro and the white, is
+branded with the stigma of servile? It cannot--it will not. Either let
+democracy assume its true and legitimate features, or let it cease--for
+the re-action will be a fearful one, as dread and as horribly diabolical
+as that which the folly of the aristocracy of old France brought on that
+devoted land.
+
+I have said, and I repeat it, that a residence on the borders of Canada
+and the United States for some time will cure a reflecting mind of many
+long cherished notions concerning the relative merits of a limited
+monarchy and of a crude democracy.
+
+The man who views the border people of the United States with calm
+observation will soon come to the conclusion that a state of
+government, if it may be so called, where the commonest ruffian asserts
+privileges which the most educated and refined mind never dreams of, is
+not an enviable order of things.
+
+In the first fury of a war with England, who were the promoters? the mob
+on the borders. Who hoped for a new sympathy demonstration, in order to
+annex Canada? the people of the Western States, who, far removed from
+the possibility of invasion, valiantly resolve to carry fire and sword
+among their unoffending brethren.
+
+The intelligence and the wealth of the United States are passive; they
+are physically weak, and therefore succumb to the dictation of the rude
+masses. And what keeps up this singular action, but the
+constantly-recurring elections, the incessant balloting and voting, the
+necessity which every man feels hourly of saving his substance or his
+life from the devouring rapacity of those who think that all should be
+equal!
+
+If the government, acutely sensible that war is an evil which must
+cripple its resources, is unwilling to engage in it, both from principle
+and from patriotism, it must yield if the mob wills it, or forfeit the
+sweets of office and of power. Hence, few men enter upon the cares of
+public life in the States now-a-days who are of that frame of mind which
+considers personal expediency as worthy of deep reflection. What would
+Washington have said to such a system?
+
+The batteries or fortalices of Niagara and of Mississagua have led to a
+digression quite unintentional and unforeseen, which must terminate for
+the present with a different view from that of the author of the Letters
+above-mentioned: and let us hope fervently that the New World has not
+yet arrived at such a consummation as that of surpassing the vices and
+crimes of the Old, as we are certain it has not yet achieved such a
+moral victory as that of outrunning it in the race of scientific or
+mechanic fame. England is no more in her dotage than America is in her
+nonage. The former, without vanity or want of verity be it spoken, is
+as pre-eminent as the latter is honestly and creditably aspiring.
+
+The writer above quoted says their ships sail better, and are manned
+with fewer hands. We grant that no nation excels the United States in
+ship-building, and that they build vessels expressly for sailing; but
+for one English ship lost on the ocean, there are three of the venturous
+Americans; for one steam-vessel that explodes, and hurls its hundreds to
+destruction, in England or Canada, there are twenty Americans.
+
+In England, the cautious, the slow and the sure plan prevails; in
+America, the go-ahead, reckless, dollar-making principle prevails; and
+so it is through every other concern of life. A hundred ways of
+worshipping the Creator, after the christian form, exist in America,
+where half a dozen suffice in England.
+
+Time is money in America; the meals are hurried over, relaxations
+necessary to the enjoyment of existence forbidden--and what for? to
+make money. To what end? to spend it faster than it is made, and then to
+begin again. You have only a faint shadow of the immense wealth realized
+in England by that of the merchant or the shopkeeper in the States.
+Capital there is constantly in a rapid consumption; and as the people
+engaged in the feverish excitement of acquiring it are in the latter
+country, from their habits, shortlived, so the opposite fact exhibits
+itself in England. There are no Rothschilds, no railway kings in
+America. Time and the man will not admit of it. John Jacob Astor is an
+exception to this fact.
+
+On landing at Niagara, the difference of climate between it and Toronto
+is at once perceived. Here you are on sandy, there on clayey soil. Here
+all is heat, there moisture. I tried hard for several seasons to bring
+the peach to perfection at Toronto, only thirty-six miles from Niagara,
+without success; at Niagara it grows freely, and almost spontaneously,
+as well as the quince. The fields and the gardens of Niagara are a
+fortnight or more in advance of those of Toronto. Strange that the
+passage of the westerly winds across Ontario should make such a
+difference!
+
+Niagara is a grand racing-stand, where all the loafers of the
+neighbouring republic congregate in the autumn; I was unfortunately
+present at the last races, and never desire to repeat my visit at that
+season. Blacklegs and whitelegs prevail; and the next morning the course
+was strewed with the bodies of drunken vagabonds. It appears to me very
+strange that the gentry of the neighbourhood suffer a very small modicum
+of ephemeral newspaper notoriety to get the better of their good sense.
+The patronage of such a racecourse as that of Niagara, so far from being
+an honour, is the reverse. It is too near the frontier to be even
+decently respectable; nor is the course itself a good one, for the sand
+is too deep. Many a young gentleman of Toronto, who thinks that he
+copies the aristocracy of England by patronizing the turf, finds out to
+his own loss and sorrow that it would have been much better to have had
+his racing qualifications exhibited nearer his own door; and there
+cannot possibly be a greater colonial mistake committed than to fancy
+that grooms, stable-boys, and blacklegs, are now the advisers and
+companions of our juvenile nobility.--That day has passed!
+
+It is very unfortunate that very false ideas exist in some of the
+colonies of the manners and customs of high life in England. The
+grown-up people often fancy that cold reserve, and an assumption of
+great state, indicate high birth and breeding. The younger branches seem
+frequently to think that there is no such thing at home as the period of
+adolescence; consequently, you often see a pert young master deliver his
+unasked opinion and behave before his seniors and superiors as though he
+wanted to intimate that he was wiser in his generation than they.
+
+In crossing to Niagara, we had a specimen of the precocious colonist of
+1845. The table of the captain of the boat, like that of his respected
+father, was good and decorously conducted, and there were several ladies
+and some most respectable travelled Americans at dinner. A very young
+gentleman, who boasted how much he had lost at the races, how much they
+had gambled, and how much they drank of champagne the night
+before--champagne, by the by, is thought a very aristocratic drink among
+psuedo-great men, although it is common as ditch-water in the United
+States--engrossed the whole conversation of the dinner-table, picked his
+teeth, took up the room of two, called the waiter fifty times, and ended
+by ordering the cheese to be placed on the table before the pies and
+puddings were removed. The company present rose before the dessert
+appeared, thoroughly disgusted; and I afterwards saw this would-be man
+peeping into the windows of the ladies'-cabin, and performing a thousand
+other antic tricks, cigar in mouth, for which he would in England have
+met with his deserts.
+
+The precociousness of Transatlantic children is not confined to the
+United States--it is equally and unpleasantly visible in Canada.
+
+The Americans who travel, I can safely say, are not guilty of these
+monstrous absurdities. I have crossed the Atlantic more than once with
+boys of from seventeen to twenty, who have left college to make the
+grand tour, without ever observing any thing to find fault with. The
+American youth is observant, and soon discovers that attempting to do
+the character of men before his time in the society of English strangers
+invariably lowers instead of raising an interest.
+
+There is a good caricature of this in an American book, I forget its
+title, written some time ago, to show the simplicity, gullibility, and
+vindictivness of our Trollopean travellers. It is a boy of sixteen, or
+thereabouts, cigar in the corner of his mouth, hat cocked on three
+curls, and all the modern etceteras of a complete youth, saying to his
+father, "Here, take my boots, old fellow, and clean them." The father
+looks a little amazed, upon which the manikin ejaculates, "Why don't you
+take them? what's the use of having a father?"
+
+There will be a railway smash in this, as well as in the locomotive
+mania. Republicanism towards elders and parents is unnatural; the child
+and the man were not born equal.
+
+I remember reading in a voluminous account of the terrors of the French
+revolution a remarkable passage:--servants denounced masters, debtors
+denounced creditors, women denounced husbands, children denounced
+parents, youth denounced protecting age; gratitude was unknown; a favour
+conferred led to the guillotine: but never, never in that awful period,
+in that reign of the vilest passions of our nature over reason, was
+there one instance, one single instance, of a parent denouncing its
+child.
+
+It is not a good sign when extreme youth pretends to have discovered the
+true laws of the universe, when the son is wiser than the father, or
+when immature reason usurps the functions of the ripened faculties.
+
+I have put this together because I hear hourly parents deprecating the
+system of education in the greatest city of Western Canada; because I
+hear and see children of fourteen swaggering about the streets with all
+the consequence of unfledged men, smoking cigars, frequenting
+tavern-bars and billiard-rooms, and no doubt led by such unbridled
+license into deeper mysteries and excesses; because I hear clergymen
+lament that boys of that age lose their health by excesses too difficult
+of belief to fancy true. Surely a salutary check in time may be applied
+to such an evil.
+
+But liberty and equality, as I said before, are extending on both sides
+of the Atlantic: and in their train come these evils, simply because
+liberty and equality are as much misunderstood as real republicanism and
+limited monarchy are.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+  The old Canadian Coach--Jonathan and John Bull passengers--"That
+  Gentleman"--Beautiful River, beautiful drive--Brock's
+  Monument--Queenston--Bar and Pulpit--Trotting horse Railroad--Awful
+  accident--The Falls once more--Speculation--Water
+  privilege--Barbarism--Museum--Loafers--Tulip-trees--Rattlesnakes--The
+  Burning Spring--Setting fire to Niagara--A charitable Woman--The
+  Nigger's Parrot--John Bull is a Yankee--Political
+  Courtship--Lundy's Lane--Heroine--Welland Canal.
+
+I can make no stay at Niagara for the present; but, after resting awhile
+at Howard's Inn, which is the most respectable one in the town, proceed
+in his coach to Queenston.
+
+The old Canadian coach has not yet quite vanished before modern
+improvement. It is a mighty heavy, clumsy conveniency, hung on leather
+springs, and looking for all the world as if elephants alone could move
+it along; and, if it should upset, like Falstaff, it may ask for levers
+to lift it up again.
+
+We had on board the coach an American, of the species Yankee, a thorough
+bluff, rosy, herculean, Yorkshire-farmer, and several highly respectable
+females.
+
+I will not say Jonathan did not spit before them, for he is to the
+manner born; but, although of inferior grade, if there can be such a
+thing mentioned respecting a citizen of the United States, and
+particularly of "the Empire State," of which he was, to his credit be it
+said, he treated the females with that courtesy, rough as it is, which
+seems innate with all Americans.
+
+A stormy discussion arose on the part of John Bull, who hated slavery,
+disliked spitting, got angry about Brock's monument, and, in short,
+looked down with no small share of contempt upon the man of yesterday,
+whose ideas of right and wrong were so diametrically opposed to his own,
+and who very sententiously expressed them.
+
+John told him that the only thing he had never heard in his travels
+through the Northern and Western States--where he had been to look at
+the land with a view to purchase, either there or in Canada, as might be
+most advisable--the only thing he had never heard was that all the
+citizens of the United States were all "gentlemen."
+
+"I guess you didn't hear with both ears, then, for you always must have
+remarked that whenever one citizen spoke of another, he said 'that
+gentleman.'"
+
+John laughed outright. "No, friend, I never did hear your white
+gentlemen call a nigger 'that gentleman;' so, you see, all your folks
+ain't equal, and all ain't gentlemen. Here, in Canada, I have heard a
+blacky called 'that gentleman;' and, by George, if many more of your
+runaway slaves cross the border, they will soon be the only gentlemen in
+Canada, for they are getting very impudent and very numerous."
+
+This is, in a measure, true; such troops of escaped negroes are annually
+forwarded to Canada by the abolitionists that the Western frontier is
+overrun already, and the impudence of these newly free knows no bounds.
+But they cordially hate both the Southern slaveholders and the
+abolitionists.
+
+Talking of slavery, pray read an account of it from an American of the
+Northern States.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "New Orleans, January 26, 1846.
+
+"A man may be no abolitionist--I am not one; he may think but little on
+the subject of slavery--it has never troubled me one way or the other:
+but let him mark the records of the glorious battles of the Revolution;
+let him notice the Eagle of Liberty, and all the emblems of
+Independence, Freedom, and the rights of man; let him muse on the
+thoughts they awaken, and then behold the actualities of life around
+him. Suddenly the sharp rap of an auctioneer's hammer startles him, and
+the loud striking of the hour of twelve will divert his attention to the
+throng of men around him, and the appearance of three or four men on
+raised stands in different parts of the Rotunda, who are calling the
+attention of those around him, at the same time unrolling a hand-bill
+that the stranger has noticed in the most conspicuous places in the
+city, printed in French and English, announcing the sale of a lot of
+fine, likely slaves; at the same time, he observes maps of real estates
+spread out--everything in fact around him denoting a 'busy mart where
+men do congregate,' as it really is.
+
+"The auctioneer, making the most noise, attracts his attention first;
+joining the crowd in front of the stand, he observes twelve or fifteen
+negroes of all ages and both sexes standing in a line to the left of the
+auctioneer; they are comfortably, and some of them neatly dressed,
+particularly the women, with their yellow Madras handkerchiefs tied
+around their heads, and their bright, showy dresses; but they have a
+look that irresistibly causes him to think back for a comparison to the
+objects before him, and it seems strange that it should bring to mind
+some market or field where he has sometimes seen cattle offered for
+sale, whose saddened look seemed to forbode some evil to them; but the
+animal look is somewhat redeemed by the smiles and plays of the little
+_piccaninies_, who seem to wonder why they are there, with so many men
+looking at them.--Now for business.
+
+"'Maria, step up here. There, gentlemen, is a fine, likely wench, aged
+twenty-five; she is warranted healthy and sound, with the exception of a
+slight lameness in the left leg, which does not damage her at all. Step
+down, Maria, and walk.' The woman gets down, and steps off eight or ten
+paces, and returns with a slight limp, evidently with some pain, but
+doing her best to conceal her defect of gait. The auctioneer is a
+Frenchman, and announces everything alternately in French and English.
+'Now, gentlemen, what is bid? she is warranted, elle est gurantie, and
+sold by a very respectable citizen. 250 dollars, deux cent et cinquante
+dollars: why, gentlemen, what do you mean! Get down, Maria, and walk a
+little more. 275, deux cent soixante et quinze, 300, trois cents!--go
+on, gentlemen--325, trois cents et vingt cinq! once, twice, ah! 350,
+trois cents et cinquante: une fois! deux fois! going, gone, for 350
+dollars. A great bargain, gentlemen.'
+
+"My attention is called to the opposite side of the room: 'Here,
+gentlemen, is a likely little orphan yellow girl, six years old--what is
+bid? combien? thirty-five dollars, trente cinq, fifty dollars, cinquante
+dollars, thank you.' Finally, she is knocked down at seventy-five
+dollars.
+
+"Why, there is a whole family on that other stand; let us see them.
+'There, gentlemen, is a fine lot: Willy, aged thirty-five, an expert
+boy, a good carpenter, brickmaker, driver, in fact, can do anything, il
+sait faire tout. His wife, Betty, is thirty-three, can wash, cook, wait
+on the table, and make herself generally useful; also their boy George,
+five years old; you will observe, gentlemen, that Betty est enceinte.
+Now what is bid for this valuable family?' After a lively competition,
+they are bid off at 1,550 dollars, the whole family.
+
+"As I have before remarked, everything is done in French and English;
+even the negroes speak both languages. I saw one poor old negro, about
+sixty, put up, but withdrawn, as only 270 dollars were bid for him.
+While waiting to be sold, they are examined and questioned by the
+purchasers. One young girl, about sixteen or eighteen, was being
+inspected by an elderly, stern, sharp-eyed, horse-jockey looking man,
+who sported his gold chains, diamond pin, ruffles, and cane: 'How old
+are you?' 'I don't know, sir.' 'Do you know how to eat?' 'Everybody does
+that,' she said sullenly.
+
+"Passing up the Esplanade next morning, (Sunday) I saw some forty or
+fifty very fine-looking negroes and negresses, all neatly dressed,
+standing on a bench directly in front of a building, which I took to be
+a meeting or school house: walking by, a genteel-looking man stepped up
+and asked me if I wished to buy a likely boy or girl. Telling him I was
+a stranger, and asking for information, he told me it was one of the
+slave-markets; that they stood there for examination, and that he had
+sold 500,000 dollars worth and sent them off that morning.
+
+"The above facts are some of the singular features (to a Northerner) of
+this remarkable place, and I assure you that I 'nothing extenuate, or
+set down aught in malice;' but may the time come when even a black man
+may say, 'I am a man!'
+
+  "NORTHROP."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I once relieved a poor black wretch who was starving in the streets of
+Kingston, and told him where to go to get proper advice and protection:
+all the thanks I received were that he was sorry he ran away, for he had
+been a waiter somewhere in the South, and got a good many dollars by his
+situation; whereas, he said, Canada was a poor country, and he had no
+hope of thriving in it.
+
+The lower class of negroes in Canada, for there are several classes
+among even runaways, are very frequently dissolute, idle, impudent, and
+assuming--so difficult is it for poor uneducated human nature to bear a
+little freedom.
+
+The coloured people, if they get at all up in the world, assume vast
+airs, but there are very many well-conducted people among them. As yet
+neither coloured people nor negroes have made much advance in Canada.
+
+John Bull had visited almost every portion of the Northern and Western
+States, was a shrewd, observing character, and had come to the
+conclusion, which he very plainly expressed, that the state of society
+in the Union was not to his taste, that he could procure lands as cheap
+and as good for his gold in Canada, and that to Canada he would bring
+his old woman and his children.
+
+"For," said he, "in the London or Western districts of Upper Canada, the
+land is equal to any in the United States, the climate better, and by
+and by it will supply all Europe with grain. Settling there, an
+Englishman will not always be put in mind of the inferiority of the
+British to the Americans, will not always be told that kings and queens
+are childish humbugs, and will not have his work hindered and his mind
+poisoned by constant elections and everlasting grasping for office.
+
+"While," says John to Jonathan, "I am in Canada, just as free as you
+are; I pay no taxes, or only such as I control myself, and which are
+laid out in roads, or for my benefit. I can worship after the manner of
+my fathers, without being robbed or burnt out, and I meet no man who
+thinks himself a bit better than myself; but, as I shall take care to
+settle a good way from republican sympathizers for the sake of my poor
+property, I shall always find my neighbours as proud of Queen Victoria
+as I be myself."
+
+Jonathan replied that he had no manner of doubt that Miss Victoria was a
+real lady, for every female is a lady in the States; the word being
+understood only as an equivalent for womankind, and that John might like
+petticoat government, but, for his part, he calculated it was better to
+be a king one's-self, which every citizen of the enlightened republic
+was, and no mistake.
+
+And kings they are, for all power resides there, in the body of which
+he was a favourable specimen, but which does not always show its members
+in so fair a light.
+
+I do not know any coach ride in British America more pleasing than that
+from Niagara to Queenston. You cross a broad green common, with the
+expanse of Lake Ontario on one side, the forest and orchard on the
+other; and, after passing through a little coppice, suddenly come upon
+the St. Lawrence, rolling a tranquil flood towards the great lake below.
+
+High above its waters, on the edge of the sharp precipitous bank,
+covered with trees--oak, birch, beech, chestnut, and maple--runs the
+sandy road, bordered by corn-fields, by orchards, and occasionally by
+little patches of woodland, looking for all the world like Old England,
+excepting that that unpicturesque snake fence spoils the illusion.
+
+Now, bright and deep, rolls the giant flood onward; now it is hidden by
+a turn of the bank; now, glittering, it again appears between the trees.
+Thus you travel until within a couple of miles or so of Queenston, when,
+the road leaving the bank, and the river forming a large bay-like bend,
+a splendid view breaks out.
+
+You catch a distant glimpse of that narrow pass, where a wall of rock,
+two hundred feet high on each side, and somewhat higher on the American
+shore, vomits forth the pent-up angry Niagara. Above this wall, to the
+right and left, towers the mountain ridge, covered with forest to the
+south, and with the greenest of grass to the north, where, stately and
+sad, stands the pillar under whose base moulder the bones of the gallant
+Brock, and of Mac Donell, his aide-de-camp.
+
+Rent from summit to base, tottering to its fall, is Brock's monument,
+and yet the villain who did the deed that destroyed it lives, and dares
+to show his face on the neighbouring shore.
+
+I cannot conceive in beautiful scenery any thing more picturesque than
+the gorge of the Niagara river: it combines rapid water, a placid bay, a
+tremendous wall of rock, forest, glade, village, column, active and
+passive life.
+
+Queenston is a poor place; it has never gained an inch since the war of
+1812; but, as a railroad has been established, and a wharf is building
+in connection with it, it will go ahead. Opposite to it is Lewiston, in
+the United States, less ancient and time-worn, full of gaudily-painted
+wooden houses, and with much more pretension. Queenston looks like an
+old English hamlet in decay; melancholy and miserable; Lewiston is the
+type of newness, all white and green, all unfinished and all
+uncomfortable.
+
+The odious bar-room system of the Northern States is fast sweeping away
+all vestiges of English comfort. The practice of lounging, cigar in
+mouth, sipping juleps and alcoholic decoctions in common with smugglers
+and small folk, is fast unhinging society. The plan of social economy in
+the mercantile cities is rapidly spreading over the whole Union, and the
+fashion of ladies' drawing-rooms being absorbed into the parlour of an
+hotel or boarding-house has brought about a change which the next
+generation will lament.
+
+It is the restless rage for politics, the ever present desire for
+dollars, which has brought about this state of things; the young husband
+seeks the bar-room as a merchant does the Change; and thus, except in
+the wealthy class, or among the contemplative and retired, there is no
+such thing as private life in the northern cities and towns. Huge
+taverns, real wooden gin palaces, tower over the tops of all other
+buildings, in every border village, town, and city; and a good bar is a
+better business than any other. Thus in Lewiston, in Buffalo, in short,
+in every American border town, the best building is the tavern, and the
+next best the meeting-house; both are fashionable, and both are anything
+but what they should be; for he who keeps the best liquors, and he who
+preaches most pointedly to the prevailing taste, makes the most of his
+trade. The voluntary system is a capital speculation to the publican as
+well as to the parson; but, unfortunately, it is more general with the
+former than with the latter.
+
+The Niagara frontier is a rich and a fertile portion of Canada,
+surrounded almost by water, and intersected by rivers, and the Welland
+Canal, with an undulating surface in the interior. It grows wheat,
+Indian corn, and all the cereal gramina to perfection, whilst Pomona
+lavishes favours on it; nor are its woods less prolific and luxuriant.
+Here the chestnut, with its deep green foliage and its white flowers,
+forms a pleasing variety to the sylvan scenery of Canada.
+
+It would be, from its healthiness alone, the pleasantest part of Canada
+to live in, but it is too near the borders where sympathizers, more keen
+and infinitely more barbarous than those on the ancient Tweed, render
+property and life rather precarious; and, therefore, in war or in
+rebellion, the Niagara frontier is not an enviable abode for the
+peaceable farmer or the timid female.
+
+The ascent to the plateau above Queenston is grand, and the view from
+the summit very extensive and magnificent; embracing such a stretch of
+cultivated land, of forest, of the habitations of men, and of the
+apparently boundless Ontario, the Beautiful Lake, that it can scarcely
+be rivalled.
+
+The railroad has, however, spoiled a good deal of this; it runs from the
+summit of the mountain, along its side or flank, inland to Chippewa,
+beyond the Falls; and you are whirled along, not by steam, but by three
+trotting horses, at a rapid rate, through a wood road, until you reach
+the Falls, where you obtain just a glimpse and no more of the Cataract.
+
+On the top of the mountain, as a hill four or five hundred feet above
+the river is called, is a place which was the scene of an awful
+accident. The precipice wall of the gorge of the Niagara is very close
+to the road, but hidden from it by stunted firs and bushes. Colonel
+Nichols, an officer well known and distinguished in the last American
+war, was returning one winter's night, when the fresh snow rendered all
+tracks on the road imperceptible, in his sleigh with a gallant horse.
+Merrily on they went; the night was dark, and the road makes a sudden
+turn just at the brink, to descend by a circuitous sweep the face of
+the hill into Queenston. Either the driver or the horse mistook the
+path, and, instead of turning to the left, went on edging to the right.
+
+The next day search was made: the marks of struggling were observed on
+the snow; the horse had evidently observed his danger; he had floundered
+and dashed wildly about; but horse, sleigh, and driver, went down, down,
+down, at least two hundred feet into the abyss below; and sufficient
+only remained to bear witness to the terrific result.
+
+The railroad (three horse power) takes you to the Falls or to Chippewa.
+If you intend visiting the former, and desire to go to the Clifton
+House, the best hotel there, you are dropped at Mr. Lanty Mac Gilly's,
+where the four roads meet, one going to the Ferry, one to Drummondville,
+a village at Lundy's Lane, now cut off from the main road; the other you
+came by, and the continuation of which goes to Chippewa, where a
+steamer, called the Emerald, is ready to take you to the city of
+Buffalo in the United States. As I shall return by way of Buffalo from
+the extreme west of Canada, we will say not a word about any thing
+further on this route at present than the Falls, and perhaps the reader
+may think the less that is said about them the better.
+
+But, gentle reader, although it be a well-worn tale, I had not seen the
+Falls for five years, and I wish to tell you whether they are altered or
+improved; and most likely you will take some little interest in so old a
+friend as the Falls of Niagara; for you must have read about those
+before you read Robinson Crusoe, and have had them thrust under your
+notice by every tourist, from Trollope to Dickens. They say, _on dit_, I
+mean, which is not translatable into English, that this is the age of
+Materialism and Utilitarianism. By George, you would think so indeed, if
+you had the chance of seeing the Falls of Niagara twice in ten years.
+They are materially injured by the Utilitarian mania. The Yankees put an
+ugly shot tower on the brink of the Horseshoe at the beginning of that
+era, and they are about to consummate the barbarism, by throwing a wire
+bridge, if the British government is consenting, over the river, just
+below the American Fall. But Niagara is a splendid "Water Privilege,"
+and so thought the Company of the City of the Falls--a most enlightened
+body of British subjects, who first disfigured the Table Rock, by
+putting a water-mill on it, and now are adding the horror of
+gin-palaces, with sundry ornamental booths for the sale of juleps and
+sling, all along the venerable edge of the precipice, so that trees of
+unequalled beauty on the bank above, trees which grow no where else in
+Canada, are daily falling before the monster of gain.
+
+What they will do next in their freaks it is difficult to surmise; but
+it requires very little more to show that patriotism, taste, and
+self-esteem, are not the leading features in the character of the
+inhabitants of this part of the world.
+
+If the Colossus of Rhodes could be remodelled and brought to the Falls,
+one leg standing in Canada, and the other in the United States, there
+would be a company immediately formed for hydraulic purposes, to convey
+a waste pipe from the tips of the fingers as far as Buffalo; and another
+to light the paltry village of Manchester, all mills and mint-juleps,
+with the natural gas which would be made to feed the lamp. A grogshop
+would be set up in his head; telescopes would be poked out of his eyes,
+and philosophers would seat themselves on his toes, to calculate whether
+the waters of the British Fall could not be dammed out, so as to turn a
+few cotton mills more in Manchester, as it is called, which scheme some
+Canadian worthy would upset, by resorting to Mr. Lyell's proof that the
+whole river might once have flowed, and may again be made to flow, down
+to St. David's--thus, by expending a few millions, cutting off
+Jonathan's chance.
+
+But it is of no use to joke on this subject; Niagara is, both to the
+United States and to England, but especially to Canada, a public
+property. It is the greatest wonder of the visible world here below,
+and should be protected from the rapacity of private speculations, and
+not made a Greenwich fair of; where pedlars and thimble-riggers, niggers
+and barkers, the lowest trulls and the vilest scum of society,
+congregate to disgust and annoy the visitors from all parts of the
+world, plundering and pestering them without control.
+
+The only really pretty thing on the British side is the Museum, the
+result of the indefatigable labours of Mr. Barnett, a person who, by his
+own unassisted industry, has gathered together a most interesting
+collection of animals, shells, coins, &c., and has added a garden, in
+which all the choicest plants and flowers of North America and of
+Britain grow, watered by the incessant spray of the Great Fall. In this
+garden I saw, for the first time in Canada, the English holly, the box,
+the heath, and the ivy; and there is a willow from the St. Helena stock.
+
+It requires unremitting watchfulness, however, to keep all this
+together, for _loafers_ are rife in these parts. He had gathered a very
+choice collection of coins, which was placed in a glass case in the
+Museum. A loafer cast his eye upon them, visited the Museum frequently,
+until he fully comprehended the whereabouts, and then, by the help of a
+comrade or two, broke a window-pane, passed through a glazed division of
+stuffed snakes, &c., and bore off his prize in the dead of the night. By
+advertising in time, and by dint of much exertion, the greater part was
+recovered, but the proprietor has not dared publicly to exhibit them
+since.
+
+He is now forming a menagerie, and also has a collection of fossils and
+minerals from the neighbourhood, with a camera obscura. He is, in short,
+a specimen of what untiring industry can accomplish, even when
+unassisted.
+
+There are some tulip-trees near the Falls, but this plant does not grow
+to any size so far north; and, although native to the soil, it is,
+perhaps, the extreme limit of its range. The snake-wood, a sort of
+slender bush, is found here, with very many other rare Canadian plants,
+which are no doubt fostered by the continual humidity of the place; and,
+if you wish to sup full of horrors,[4] Mr. Barnett has plenty of live
+rattlesnakes.
+
+[Footnote 4: This puts me in mind of the vulgar received opinion that my
+godfather Fuseli supped on pork-steaks, to have horrid dreams.
+Originally said in joke, this absurd story has been repeated even by
+persons affecting respectability as writers. His Greek learning alone
+should have saved his memory from this.]
+
+To wind up all, the Americans are going to put up another immense
+gin-palace on the opposite shore; and, as a climax to the excellent
+taste of the vicinage, they are about to place a huge steamboat to cross
+the rapids at the foot of the Manchester Falls. The next speculation, as
+I hinted above, must be to turn the Niagara into the Erie, or into the
+Welland Canal, and make it carry flour, grind wheat, and do the duty
+which the political economists of this thriving place consider all
+rivers as alone created for.
+
+One traveller of the Utilitarian school has recorded, in the traveller's
+album at the Falls, the number of gallons of water running over to
+waste per minute; and another writes, "What an almighty splash!"
+
+I went once more to see the Burning Spring, and have no doubt whatever
+that the City of the Falls, that great pre-eminent humbug, if it had
+been built, might have easily been lit by natural gas, as it abounds
+every where in the neighbourhood, the rock under the superior Silurian
+limestone being a shale containing it, as may be evidenced by those
+visitors, who are persuaded to go under "the Sheet of Water," as the
+place is called where the Table Rock projects, and part of the cataract
+slides over it; for, on reaching the angle next to the spiral stair, a
+strong smell is plainly perceptible, something between rotten eggs and
+sulphur; and there you find a little trickling spring oozing out of the
+precipice tasting of those delectable compounds.
+
+A Yankee, with the soaring imagination of that imaginative race,
+proposes to set fire to the Horseshoe Fall, and thus get up a grand
+nocturnal exhibition, to which the Surrey Zoological pyrotechny would
+bear the same ratio as a sky-rocket to Vesuvius.
+
+There is no great impossibility in this fact, if it was "not a fact"
+that the rush of the Fall disturbs the superincumbent gases too much to
+permit it; for there can be but little doubt that there is plenty of
+_materiel_ at hand, and, some day or other, a lighthouse will be lit
+with it to guide sleepy loons and other negligent water-fowl over the
+Falls. I wonder they do not get up a Carburetted Hydrogen Gas Company
+there, with a suitable engineer and railway, so that visitors might
+cross over to Goat Island on an atmospheric line. There are plenty of
+railway stags on both shores, if you will only buy their stock to
+establish it; and, at all events, it would improve the City of the
+Falls, which now exhibits the deplorable aspect of three stuccoed
+cottages turned seedy, and a bare common, in place of a magnificent
+grove of chestnut trees, which formerly almost rivalled Greenwich Park.
+
+But the crowning glory of "the City" is the Reflecting Pagoda, a thing
+perched over Table Rock bank; very like a huge pile engine, with a
+ten-shilling mirror, where the monkey should be. Blessings on Time!
+though he is a very thoughtless rogue, he has touched this grand effort
+of human genius in the wooden line slightly, and it will soon follow the
+horrid water-mill which stood on that most singular and indescribable
+freak of Nature, the Table Rock. I would have forgiven Lett, the
+sympathizer, if, instead of assassination and the blowing-up of Brock's
+Monument, he had confined his attentions to a little serious Guy Fauxing
+at the Mill and the Reflecting Pagoda.
+
+Niagara--Ne-aw-gaw-rah, thou thundering water! thy glories are
+departing; the abominable Railway Times has driven along thy borders;
+and, if I should live to see thee again ten years hence, verily I should
+not be astounded to find thee locked-up, and a station-house staring me
+in the visage, from that emerald bower, in thy most mysterious recess,
+where the vapour is rose-coloured, and the bright rainbow alone now
+forms the bridge from the Iris Rock!
+
+I was so disgusted to see the spirit of pelf, that concentration of
+self, hovering over one of the last of the wonders of the world, that I
+rushed to the Three Horse Railway, and soon forgot all my misery in
+scrambling for a place; for there was no alternative. There were only
+three carriages and one open cart on the rail; the three aristocratic
+conveniences were full; and the coal-box--for it looked very like
+one--was full also, of loafers and luggage; so I despaired of quitting
+the Falls almost as much, by way of balance, as I rejoiced when they
+once again met my ken.
+
+But women are women all the world over; a black lady nursed Mungo Park,
+when he was abandoned by the world; and a charitable she-Samaritan
+crowded to make room for a disconsolate wayfarer.
+
+I felt very much as the nigger's parrot at New York did.
+
+Blacky was selling a parrot, and a gentleman asked him what the bird
+could do. Could he speak well? "No, massa; no peaky at all." "Can he
+sing?"--"No, massa; no peaky, no singy." "Why, what can he do, then,
+that you ask twenty dollars for him?" "Oh! massa, golly, he thinky
+dreadful much." So, when the daughter of Eve made way for me in the
+rail-car, why I thinky very much, that, wherever a stranger meets
+unexpected kindness, it is sure to be a woman that offers it.
+
+There were the usual host of American travellers in the cars; and as one
+generally gets a fund of anecdote and amusement on these occasions, from
+their habits of communicativeness, I shall put the English reader in
+possession of the meaning of words he often sees in the perusal of
+American newspapers and novels which I gathered.
+
+New York is the Empire State, and with the following comprises Yankee
+land, which word Yankee is most properly a corruption of Yengeese, the
+old Indian word for English; so that, by parity of reasoning, John Bull
+is, after all, a Yankee.
+
+  Massachusetts    The Bay State, Steady Habits.
+  Rhode Island     Plantation State.
+  Vermont          Banner State, or Green Mountain Boys.
+  New Hampshire    The Granite State.
+  Connecticut      Freestone State.
+  Maine            Lumber State.
+
+These are the Yankees, _par excellence_; and it is not polite or even
+civil for a traveller to consider or mention any of the other States as
+labouring under the idea that they ever could, by any possibility, be
+considered as Yankees; for, in the South, the word Yankee is almost
+equivalent to a tin pedlar, a sharp, Sam Slick.
+
+  Pennsylvania   is     The Keystone State.
+  New Jersey            The Jersey (pronounced Jar-say) Blues.
+  Delaware              Little Delaware.
+  Maryland              Monumental.
+  Virginia              The Old Dominion, and sometimes the Cavaliers.
+  North Carolina        Rip Van Winckle.
+  South Carolina        The Palmetto State.
+  Georgia               Pine State.
+  Ohio                  The Buckeyes.
+  Kentucky              The Corncrackers.
+  Alabama               Alabama.
+  Tennessee             The Lion's Den.
+  Missouri              The Pukes.
+  Illinois              The Suckers.
+  Indiana               The Hoosiers.
+  Michigan              The Wolverines.
+  Arkansas              The Toothpickers.
+  Louisiana             The Creole State.
+  Mississippi           The Border Beagles.
+
+I do not know what elegant names have been given to the Floridas, the
+Iowa, or any of the other territories, but no doubt they are equally
+significant. Texas, I suppose, will be called Annexation State.
+
+This information, although it appears frivolous, is very useful, as
+without it much of the perpetual war of politics in the States cannot be
+understood. Yankee in Europe is a sort of byword, denoting repudiation
+and all sorts of chicanery; but the Yankee States are more English, more
+intellectual, and more enterprising than all the rest put together; and
+Pennsylvania should be enrolled among them.
+
+In short, in the north-east you have the cool, calculating, confident,
+and persevering Yankee; in the south, the fiery, somewhat aristocratic,
+bold, and uncompromising American, full of talent, but with his energies
+a little slackened by his proximity to the equator and his habitual use
+of slave assistance.
+
+In the central States, all is progressive; a more agricultural
+population of mixed races, as energetic as the Yankee, but not
+possessing his advantages of a seaboard. The Western States are the
+pioneers of civilization, and have a dauntless, less educated, and more
+turbulent character, approaching, as you draw towards the setting sun,
+very much to the half-horse, half-alligator, and paving the way for the
+arts and sciences of Europe with the rifle and the axe.
+
+It is these Western States and the vast labouring population of the
+seaboard, who have only their manual labour to maintain them, without
+property or without possessions of any kind, that control the
+legislature, their numerical strength beating and bearing down mind,
+matter, and wealth.
+
+Doubtless it is the bane of the republican institution, as now settled
+in North America, that every man, woman, and child, in order to assert
+their equality, must meddle with matters far above the comprehension of
+a great majority; for, although the people of the United States can, as
+George the Third so piously wished for the people of England, read their
+bible, whenever they are inclined to do so, yet it is beyond
+possibility, as human nature is constituted, that all can be endowed
+with the same, or any thing like the same, faculties. Too much learning
+makes them mad; and hence the constant danger of disruption, from
+opposing interests, which the masses--for the word mob is not applicable
+here--must always enforce. The north and the south, the east and the
+west, are as dissimilar in habits, in thought, in action, and in
+interests, as Young Russia is from Old England, or as republican France
+was from the monarchy of Louis the Great.
+
+Hence is it that a Canadian, residing, as it were, on the Neutral
+Ground, can so much better appreciate the tone of feeling in America, as
+the United States' people love to call their country, than an
+Englishman, Scotchman, or Irishman can; for here are visible the very
+springs that regulate the machinery, which are covered and hidden by the
+vast space of the Atlantic. You can form no idea of the American
+character by the merchants, travelling gentry, or diplomatists, who
+visit London and the sea-ports. You must have lengthened and daily
+opportunities of observing the people of a new country, where a new
+principle is working, before you can venture safely to pronounce an
+attempt even at judgment.
+
+Monsieur Tocqueville, who is always lauded to the skies for his
+philosophic and truly extraordinary view of American policy and
+institutions, has perhaps been as impartial as most republican writers
+since the days of the enthusiast Volney, on the merits or demerits of
+the monarchical and democratic systems; yet his opinions are to be
+listened to very cautiously, for the leaven was well mixed in his own
+cake before it was matured for consumption by the public.
+
+Weak and prejudiced minds receive the doctrines of a philosopher like
+Tocqueville as dictations: he pronounced _ex cathedra_ his doctrines,
+and it is heresy to gainsay them. Yet, as an able writer in that
+universal book, "The Times," says, reason and history read a different
+sermon.
+
+That democracy is an essential principle, and must sooner or later
+prevail amongst all people, is very analogous to the prophecy of Miller,
+that the material world is to be rolled up as a garment, and shrivelled
+in the fire on the thirteenth day of some month next year, _or_ the year
+after.
+
+These fulminations are very semblable to those of the popes--harmless
+corruscations--a sort of aurora borealis, erratic and splendid, but very
+unreal and very unsearchable as to cause and effect.
+
+There can be, however, very little doubt in the mind of a person whose
+intellects have been carefully developed, and who has used them quietly
+to reason on apparent conclusions, that the form of government in the
+United States has answered a purpose hitherto, and that a wise one; for
+the impatience of control which every new-comer from the Old World
+naturally feels, when he discovers that he has only escaped the dominion
+of long-established custom to fall under the more despotic dominion of
+new opinions, prompts him, if he differs, and he always naturally does,
+where so many opinions are suddenly brought to light and forced on his
+acquiescence, to move out of their sphere. Hence emigration westward is
+the result; and hence, for the same reasons, the old seaboard States,
+where the force of the laws operates more strongly than in the central
+regions, annually pour out to the western forests their masses of
+discontented citizens.
+
+The feeling of old Daniel Boone and of Leather Stockings is a very
+natural one to a half-educated or a wholly uneducated man, and no doubt
+also many quiet and respectable people get harassed and tired of the
+caucusing and canvassing for political power, which is incessantly going
+on under the modern system of things in America, and take up their
+household gods to seek out the land flowing with milk and honey beyond
+the wilderness.
+
+No person can imagine the constant turmoil of politics in the Northern
+States. The writer already quoted says, that there is "one singular
+proof of the general energy and capacity for business, which early
+habits of self-dependence have produced;--almost every American
+understands politics, takes a lively interest in them (though many
+abstain under discouragement or disgust from taking a practical part),
+and is familiar, not only with the affairs of his own township or
+county, but with those of the State or of the Union; almost every man
+reads about a dozen newspapers every day, and will talk to you for
+hours, (_tant bien que mal_) if you will listen to him, about the tariff
+and the Ashburton treaty."
+
+And he continues by stating that this by no means interferes with his
+private affairs; on the contrary, he appears to have time for both, and
+can reconcile "the pursuits of a bustling politician and a steady man
+of business. Such a union is rarely found in England, and never on, the
+Continent."
+
+But what is the result of such a union of versatile talent? Politics and
+dollars absorb all the time which might be used to advantage for the
+mental aggrandizement of the nation; and every petty pelting quidnunc
+considers himself as able as the President and all his cabinet, and not
+only plainly tells them so every hour, but forces them to act as _he_
+wills, not as _wisdom_ wills. There is a Senate, it is true, where some
+of this popular fervour gets a little cooling occasionally: but,
+although there are doubtless many acute minds in power, and many great
+men in public situations, yet the majority of the people of intellect
+and of wealth in the United States keep aloof whilst this order of
+things remains: for, from the penny-postman and the city scavenger to
+the very President himself, the qualification for office is popular
+subserviency.
+
+Thus, when Mr. Polk thunders from the Capitol, it is most likely not
+Mr. Polk's heart that utters such warlike notes of preparation, but Mr.
+Polk would never be re-elected, if he did not do as his rulers bid him
+do.
+
+It may seem absurd enough, it is nevertheless true, that this political
+furor is carried into the most obscure walks of life, and the Americans
+themselves tell some good stories about it; while, at the same time,
+they constantly din your ears with "the destinies of the Great
+Republic," the absolute certainty of universal American dominion over
+the New World, and the rapid decay and downfall of the Old, which does
+not appear fitted to receive pure Democracy.[5]
+
+[Footnote 5: One of the speakers against time, in a late debate on the
+Oregon question, quoted those fine lines, about "The flag that braved a
+thousand years the battle and the breeze," and said its glory was
+departing before the Stars and Stripes, which were to occupy its place
+in the event of war, from this time forth and for ever.]
+
+They tell a good story of a political courtship in the "New York
+Mercury," as decidedly one of the best things introduced in a late
+political campaign:--
+
+"Inasmuch," says the editor, "as all the States hereabouts have
+concluded their labours in the presidential contest, we think we run no
+risk of upsetting the constitution, or treading upon the most fastidious
+toe in the universe, by affording our readers the same hearty laugh into
+which we were betrayed.
+
+"Jonathan walks in, takes a seat and looks at Sukey; Sukey rakes up the
+fire, blows out the candle, and don't look at Jonathan. Jonathan hitches
+and wriggles about in his chair, and Sukey sits perfectly still. At
+length he musters courage and speaks--
+
+"'Sewkey?'
+
+"'Wall, Jon-nathan?'
+
+"'I love you like pizan and sweetmeats?'
+
+"'Dew tell.'
+
+"'It's a fact and no mistake--wi--will--now--will you have me--Sew--ky?'
+
+"'Jon--nathan Hig--gins, what am your politics?'
+
+"'I'm for Polk, straight.'
+
+"'Wall, sir, yew can walk straight to hum, cos I won't have nobody that
+ain't for Clay! that's a fact.'
+
+"'Three cheers for the Mill Boy of the Slashes!' sung out Jonathan.
+
+"'That's your sort,' says Sukey. 'When shall we be married,
+Jon--nathan?'
+
+"'Soon's Clay's e--lect--ed.'
+
+"'Ahem, ahem!'
+
+"'What's the matter, Sukey?'
+
+"'Sposing he ain't e--lect--ed?'
+
+"We came away."
+
+Verily, Monsieur De Tocqueville, you are in the right--democracy is an
+inherent principle.
+
+But the train is progressing, and we are passing Lundy's Lane, or, as
+the Americans call it, "The Battle Ground," where a bloody fight between
+Democracy and Monarchy took place some thirty years ago, and where
+
+"The bones, unburied on the naked plain,"
+
+still are picked up by the grubbers after curiosities, and the very
+trees have the balls still sticking in them.
+
+Here woman, that ministering angel in the hour of woe, performed a part
+in the drama which is worth relating, as the source from which I had the
+history is from the person who owed so much to her, and whose gallantry
+was so conspicuous.
+
+Colonel Fitzgibbon, then in the 49th regiment, having inadvertently got
+into a position where his sword, peeping from under his great coat,
+immediately pointed him out as a British officer, was seized by two
+American soldiers, who had been drinking in the village public-house,
+and would either have been made prisoner or killed had not Mrs. Defield
+come to his rescue.
+
+Mr. Fitzgibbon was a tall, powerful, muscular person, and his captors
+were a rifleman and an infantry soldier, each armed with the rifle and
+musket peculiar to their service. By a sudden effort, he seized the
+rifle of one and the musket of the other, and turned their muzzles from
+him; and so firm was his grasp, that, although unable to wrest the
+weapon from either of them, they could not change the position.
+
+The rifleman, retaining his hold of his rifle with one hand, drew Mr.
+Fitzgibbon's sword with the other, and attempted to stab him in the
+side. Whilst watching his uplifted arm, with the intent, if possible, of
+receiving the thrust in his own arm, Mr. Fitzgibbon perceived the two
+hands of a woman suddenly clasp the rifleman's wrist, and carry it
+behind his back, when she and her sister wrenched the sword from him,
+and ran and hid it in the cellar.
+
+Mrs. Defield was the wife of the keeper of the tavern where this officer
+happened to have arrived; an old man, named Johnson, then came forward,
+and with his assistance Mr. Fitzgibbon took the two soldiers prisoners,
+and carried them to the nearest guard, although at that moment an
+American detachment of 150 men was within a hundred yards of the place,
+hidden however from view by a few young pine-trees.
+
+I am sure it will please the British reader to learn that the government
+granted 400 acres of the best land in the Talbot settlement to Edward
+Defield, for his wife's and sister-in-law's heroic conduct.
+
+Yet, such is the influence of example upon unreflecting minds dwelling
+on the frontiers of Upper Canada, that although in most instances the
+settlers are in possession of farms originally free gifts from the
+Crown, yet many of their sons were in arms against that Crown in 1837.
+Among these misguided youths was a son of Defield's, who surrendered,
+with the brigands commanded by Von Schultz, in the windmill, near
+Prescott, in the winter of 1838. He had crossed over from Ogdensburgh,
+and was condemned to a traitor's death.
+
+From Colonel Fitzgibbon's statement to the executive, this lad, in
+consideration of his mother's heroism, was pardoned. Mrs. Defield is
+still living.
+
+The three horses _en licorne_ trot us on, and we pass Lundy's Lane,
+Bloody Run, a little streamlet, whose waters were once dyed with gore,
+and so back to Niagara, where I shall take the liberty of saying a few
+words concerning the Welland Canal.
+
+The Welland Canal, the most important in a commercial point of view of
+any on the American continent--until that of Tchuantessegue, in Mexico,
+which I was once, in 1825, deputed to survey and cut, is formed, or that
+other projected through San Juan de Nicaragua--was originally a mere
+job, or, as it was called, a job at both ends and a failure in the
+middle, until it passed into the hands of the local government. If there
+has been any job since, it has not been made public, and it is now a
+most efficient and well conducted work, through which a very great
+portion of the western trade finds its way, in despite of that
+magnificent vision of De Witt Clinton's, the Erie Canal; and when the
+Welland is navigable for the schooners and steamers of the great lakes,
+it will absorb the transit trade, as its mouth in Lake Erie is free from
+ice several weeks sooner than the harbour of Buffalo.
+
+The old miserable wooden locks and bargeway have been converted into
+splendid stone walls and a ship navigation; and, to give some idea of
+the rising importance of the Welland Canal, I shall briefly state that
+the tolls in 1832 amounted to L2,432, in 1841 had risen to L20,210, and
+in 1843 to L25,573 3s. 10-1/4d.: and when the works are fairly finished,
+which they nearly are, this will be trebled in the first year; for it
+has been carefully calculated that the gross amount which would have
+passed of tonnage of large sailing craft only on the lakes, in 1844, was
+26,400 tons, out of which only 7,000 had before been able to use the
+locks.
+
+All the sailing vessels now, with the exception of three or four, can
+pass freely; and three large steam propellers were built in 1844, whose
+aggregate tonnage amounted to 1,900 tons; they have commenced their
+regular trips as freight-vessels, for which they were constructed, and
+have been followed by the almost incredible use of Ericson's propeller.
+
+To show the British reader the importance of this work, connecting, as
+it does, with the St. Lawrence and Rideau Canals, the Atlantic Ocean,
+and Lakes Superior and Michigan, I shall, although contrary to a
+determination made to give nothing in this work but the results of
+personal inspection or observation, use the scissors and paste for once,
+and thus place under view a table of all the articles which are carried
+through this main artery of Canada, by which both import and export
+trade may be viewed as in a mirror, and this too before the canal is
+fairly finished.
+
+WELLAND CANAL.
+
+AMOUNT OF PROPERTY PASSED THROUGH, AND TOLLS COLLECTED. 1844.
+
+  Beef and pork                  barrels,       41,976-1/4
+  Flour                            do.         305,208-1/2
+  Ashes                            do.           3,412
+  Beer and cider                   do.              50
+  Salt                             do.         213,212
+  Whiskey                          do.             931
+  Plaster                          do.           2,068-1/2
+  Fruit and nuts                   do.             470
+  Butter and lard                  do.           4,639-1/2
+  Seeds                            do.           1,429-1/2
+  Tallow                           do.           1,182
+  Water-lime                       do.           1,662
+  Pitch and tar                    do.              75
+  Fish                             do.           1,758-1/2
+  Oatmeal                          do.             132
+  Beeswax                          do.              36
+  Empty                            do.           3,044
+  Oil                            barrels,           96
+  Soap                             do.              13
+  Vinegar                          do.              24
+  Molasses                         do.               1
+  Caledonia water                  do.              10
+  Saw logs                         No.          10,411
+  Boards                         feet,       7,493,574
+  Square timber                  cubic feet,   490,525
+  Half flatted do.                 do.          13,922
+  Round do.                        do.          20,879
+  Staves, pipe                     do.         630,602
+    Do.   W. I.                    do.       1,197,916
+    Do.  flour barrel              do.         130,500
+  Shingles                         do.         330,400
+  Rails                            do.          12,318
+  Racked hoops                     do.          59,300
+  Wheat                          bushels,    2,122,592
+  Corn                             do.          73,328
+  Barley                           do.             930
+  Rye                              do.             142
+  Oats                             do.           5,653
+  Potatoes                         do.           7,311
+  Peas                             do.             138
+  Butter and lard                 kegs,          4,669
+  Merchandize                     tons,      11,318 16
+  Coal                             do.        1,689  7
+  Castings                         do.          211  6
+  Iron                             do.        1,748 10
+  Tobacco                          do.          140  7
+  Grindstones                      do.          151 14
+  Plaster                          do.        1,491 10
+  Hides                            do.          101 15
+  Bacon and Hams                   do.          307  0
+  Bran and shorts                 tons,        231  11
+  Water-lime                       do.         441   7
+  Rags                             do.           3   0
+  Hemp                             do.         500  11
+  Wool                             do.          15   9
+  Leather                          do.           9  17
+  Cheese                           do.           1   2
+  Marble                           do.           1  10
+  Stone                           cords,           738-1/2
+  Firewood                         do.           3,251
+  Tan bark                         do.             957
+  Cedar posts                      do.              69
+  Hoop timber                      do.              16
+  Knees                            do.             184
+  Small packages                   No.             459
+  Pumps                            do.             102
+  Passengers                       do.           3,261-1/2
+  Sleighs                          do.               2
+  Waggons                          do.             177
+  Pails                            do.             136
+  Horses                           do.               2
+  Ploughs                          do.              25
+  Thrashing-machines               do.              18
+  Cotton                         bales,             25
+  Fruit-trees                   bundles,           268
+  Sand                        cubic yards,      10,778
+  Schooners                        No.           2,121
+  Propellers                       do.             484
+  Scows                            do.           1,671
+  Boats                            do.               4
+  Rafts                            do.             118
+  Tonnage                                      327,570
+  Amount collected                 L25,573 3s. 10-1/4d.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+  The Great Fresh-water Seas of Canada.
+
+
+A sentimental journey in Canada is not like Sterne's, all about
+corking-pins and _remises_, monks and Marias, nor is it likely, in this
+utilitarian age, even if Sterne could be revived to write it, to be as
+immortal; nevertheless, let us ramble.
+
+The Welland Canal naturally leads one to reflect on the great sources of
+power spread before the Canadian nation; for, although it will never,
+never be _la nation Canadienne_, yet it will inevitably some day or
+other be the Canadian nation, and its limits the Atlantic and the
+Pacific Oceans.
+
+President Polk--they say his name is an abbreviation of Pollok--can no
+more dive into "the course of time" than that poet could do, and it is
+about as vain for him to predict that the American bald eagle shall claw
+all the fish on the continent of the New World, as it is to fancy that
+the time is never to come when the Canadian races, Norman-Saxon as they
+are, shall not assert some claim to the spoils.
+
+Canada is now happier under the dominion of Victoria than she could
+possibly be under that of the people of the States, and she knows and
+feels it. The natural resources of Canada are enormous, and developing
+themselves every day; and it needs neither Lyell, nor the yet unheard-of
+geologists of Canada to predict that the day is not far distant when her
+iron mines, her lead ores, her copper, and perhaps her silver, will come
+into the market.[6]
+
+[Footnote 6: Since I penned this, a company is forming to work valuable
+argentiferous copper-mines lately discovered on Lake Superior. The
+Americans are actually working rich mines of silver, copper, &c.]
+
+I see, in a paper lying before me, that Colonel Prince, a person who has
+already flourished before the public as an enterprising English farming
+gentleman, who combines the long robe with the red coat, has, with a
+worthy patriotism, obtained a very large grant of lands from the
+government to explore the shore of Lake Superior, in order to find
+whether the Yankees are to have all the copper to themselves; and that,
+in searching a little to the eastward of St. Mary's Rapids, a very
+valuable deposit has been discovered, which has stimulated other
+adventurers, who have found another mine nearer the outlet of the lake
+and still more valuable, the copper of which, lying near the surface,
+yields somewhere about seventy-five per cent.[7]
+
+[Footnote 7: A recent number of "The Scientific American," published in
+New York, contains the following:--Some of the British officers in
+Canada have lately made an important discovery of some of the richest
+copper-mines in the world. This discovery has created great excitement.
+Some of the officers, _en route_ to England, are now in the city, and
+will carry with them some specimens of the ore, and among them one piece
+weighing 2,200 lbs. The ore is very rich, yielding, as we learn,
+seventy-two per cent. of pure copper. Some of the copper was taken from
+the bed of a river, and some broken off from a cliff on the banks. The
+latter is six feet long, four broad, and six inches thick.]
+
+We know that rich iron mines exist, and are steadily worked in Lower
+Canada; we know that a vast deposit of iron, one of the finest in the
+world, has lately been discovered on the Ottawa, a river in the township
+of M'Nab; and we know that nothing prevents the Marmora and Madoc iron
+from being used but the finishing of the Trent navigation. Lead abounds
+on the Sananoqui river, and at Clinton, in the Niagara district; whilst
+plumbago, now so useful, is abundant throughout the line, where the
+primary and secondary rocks intersect each other. Mr. Logan, employed by
+the government, _ex cathedra_, says there is no coal in Canada; but
+still it appears that in the Ottawa country it is very possible it may
+be found, and that, if it is not, Cape Breton and the Gaspe lands will
+furnish it in abundance; and, as Canada may now fairly be said to be all
+the North American territory, embraced between the Pacific somewhere
+about the Columbia river, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, for a political
+union exists between all these provinces, if an acknowledged one does
+not, coal will yet be plentiful in Canada.
+
+Canada, thus limited, is now, _de facto_, ay, and _de jure_, British
+North America; and a fair field and a fertile one it is, peopled by a
+race neither to be frightened nor coaxed out of its birthright.
+
+The advantages of Canada are enormous, much greater, in fact, than they
+are usually thought to be at home.
+
+The ports of St. John's and of Halifax, without mentioning fifty others,
+are open all the year round to steamers and sea-going vessels; and when
+railroads can at all seasons bring their cargoes into Canada proper,
+then shall we live six months more than during the present torpidity of
+our long winters. John Bull, transported to interior Canada, is very
+like a Canadian black bear: he sleeps six months, and growls during the
+remaining six for his food.
+
+Then, in summer, there is the St. Lawrence covered with ships of all
+nations, the canals carrying their burthens to the far West and the
+great mediterraneans of fresh water, opening a country of unknown
+resources and extent.
+
+These great seas of Canada have often engaged my thoughts. Tideless,
+they flow ever onward, to keep up the level of the vast Atlantic, and in
+themselves are oceans. How is it that the moon, that enormous
+blister-plaster, does not raise them? Simply because there is some
+little error in the very accurate computations which give all the
+regulations of tidal waters to lunar influences.
+
+Barlow, one of the mathematical master-spirits of the age, was bold
+enough once to doubt this vast power of suction on the part of the ruler
+of the night; and there were certain wiseacres who, as in the case of
+Galileo, thought it very religiously dangerous indeed, to attempt to
+interfere with her privileges.
+
+But, in fact, the phenomenon of the tides is just as easy of explanation
+by the motion of the earth as it is by the moon's presumed drinking
+propensities, and, as she is a lady, let us hope she has been belied.
+The motion of the earth would not affect such narrow bodies of water as
+the Canadian lakes, but the moon's power of attraction would, if it
+existed to the extent supposed, be under the necessity of doing it,
+unless she prefers salt to fresh liquors.
+
+One may venture, now-a-days, to express such a doubt, particularly as
+Madam Moon is a Pagan deity.
+
+The great lakes are, however, very extraordinary in their way. Let us
+recollect what I have seen and thought of them.
+
+We will commence with Lake Superior, which is 400 miles in length, 100
+miles wide, and 900 feet deep, where it has been sounded. It contains
+32,000 square miles of water, and it is 628 feet above the level of the
+sea.
+
+Lake Michigan is 220 miles long, 60 miles wide, and 1,000 deep, as far
+as it has been sounded; contains 22,400 square miles, and is 584 feet
+above tide-water; but it is, in fact, only a large bay of Lake Huron,
+the grand lake, which is 240 miles long, without it averaging 86 miles
+in width, also averaging 1,000 feet deep, as far as soundings have been
+tried, contains 20,400 square miles, and is also about 584 feet above
+the tidal waters.
+
+Off Saginaw Bay, in this lake, leads have been sunk 1,800 feet, or 1,200
+feet below the level of the Atlantic, without finding bottom.
+
+Green Bay, an arm of Michigan, is in itself 106 miles long, 20 miles
+wide, and contains 2,000 square miles.
+
+Lake St. Clair, 6 feet above Lake Erie, follows Lake Huron; but it is a
+mere enlargement of the St. Lawrence, of immense size, however, and
+shallow: it is 20 miles long, 14 wide, 20 feet deep, and contains 360
+square miles.
+
+Then comes Lake Erie, the Stormy Lake, which is 240 miles long, 40 miles
+wide, 408 feet in its deepest part, and contains 9,600 square miles.
+Lake Erie is 565 feet above tide-water. Its average depth is 85 feet
+only.
+
+Lake Ontario, the Beautiful Lake, is 180 miles long, 45 miles wide, 500
+feet average depth, where sounded successfully, but said to be
+fathomless in some places, and contains 6,300 square miles. It is 232
+feet above the tide of the St. Lawrence.
+
+The Canadian lakes have been computed to contain 1,700 cubic miles of
+water, or more than half the fresh water on the globe, covering a space
+of about 93,000 square miles. They extend from west to east over nearly
+15 degrees and a half of longitude, with a difference of latitude of
+about eight and a half degrees, draining a country of not less surface
+than 400,000 square miles.
+
+The greatest difference is observable between the waters of all these
+lakes, arising from soil, depth, and shores. Ontario is pure and blue,
+Erie pure and green, the southern part of Michigan nothing particular.
+The northern part of Michigan and all Huron are clear, transparent, and
+full of carbonic gas, so that its water sparkles. But the extraordinary
+transparency of the waters of all these lakes is very surprising. Those
+of Huron transmit the rays of light to a great depth, and consequently,
+having no preponderating solid matters in suspension, an equalization of
+heat occurs. Dr. Drake ascertained that, at the surface in summer, and
+at two hundred feet below it, the temperature of the water was 56 deg..
+
+One of the most curious things on the shallow parts of Huron is to sail
+or row over the submarine or sublacune mountains, and to feel giddy from
+fancy, for it is like being in a balloon, so pure and tintless is the
+water. It is, like Dolland's best telescopes, achromatic.
+
+The lakes are subject in the latter portion of summer to a phenomenon,
+which long puzzled the settlers; their surface near the shores of bays
+and inlets are covered by a bright yellow dust, which passed until
+lately for sulphur, but is now known to be the farina of the pine
+forests. The atmosphere is so impregnated with it at these seasons,
+that water-barrels, and vessels holding water in the open air, are
+covered with a thick scum of bright yellow powder.
+
+A curious oily substance also pervades the waters in autumn, which
+agglutinates the sand blown over it by the winds, and floats it about in
+patches. I have never been able to discover the cause of this; perhaps,
+it is petroleum, or the sand is magnetic iron. Singular currents and
+differently coloured streams also appear, as on the ocean; but, as all
+the lakes have a fall, no weed gathers, except in the stagnant bays.
+
+The bottom of Ontario is unquestionably salt, and no wonder that it
+should be so, for all the Canadian lakes were once a sea, and the
+geological formation of the bed of Ontario is the saliferous rock.
+
+I have often enjoyed on Ontario's shores, where I have usually resided,
+the grand spectacle which takes place after intense frost. The early
+morning then exhibits columns of white vapour, like millions of Geysers
+spouting up to the sky, curling, twisting, shooting upwards, gracefully
+forming spirals and pyramids, amid the dark ground of the sombre
+heavens, and occasionally giving a peep of little lanes of the dark
+waters, all else being shrouded in dense mist.
+
+People at home are very apt to despise lakes, perhaps from the usual
+insipidity of lake poetry, and to imagine that they can exhibit nothing
+but very placid and tranquil scenery. Lake Erie, the shallowest of the
+great Canadian fresh-water seas, very soon convinces a traveller to the
+contrary; for it is the most turbulent and the most troublesome sea I
+ever embarked upon--a region of vexed waters, to which the Bermoothes of
+Shakespeare is a trifle; for that is bad enough, but not half so
+treacherous and so thunder-stormy as Erie.
+
+Huron is an ocean, when in its might; its waves and swells rival those
+of the Atlantic; and the beautiful Ontario, like many a lovely dame, is
+not always in a good temper. I once crossed this lake from Niagara to
+Toronto late in November, in the Great Britain, a steamer capable of
+holding a thousand men with ease, and during this voyage of thirty-six
+miles we often wished ourselves anywhere else: the engine, at least one
+of them, got deranged; the sea was running mountains high; the cargo on
+deck was washed overboard; gingerbread-work, as the sailors call the
+ornamental parts of a vessel, went to smash; and, if the remaining
+engine had failed in getting us under the shelter of the windward shore,
+it would have been pretty much with us as it was with the poor fellow
+who went down into one of the deepest shafts of a Swedish mine.
+
+A curious traveller, one of "the inquisitive class," must needs see how
+the miners descended into these awful depths. He was put into a large
+bucket, attached to the huge rope, with a guide, and gradually lowered
+down. When he had got some hundred fathoms or so, he began to feel
+queer, and look down, down, down. Nothing could he see but darkness
+visible. He questioned his guide as to how far they were from the
+bottom, cautiously and nervously. "Oh," said the Swede, "about a mile."
+"A mile!" replied the Cockney: "shall we ever get there?"--"I don't
+know," said the guide. "Why, does any accident ever happen?"--"Yes,
+often."--"How long ago was the last accident, and what was it?"--"Last
+week, one of our women went down, and when she had got just where we are
+now, the rope broke."--"Oh, Heaven!" ejaculated the inquisitive
+traveller, "what happened to her?" The Swede, who did not speak very
+good English, put the palm of his right hand over that of his left,
+lifted the upper hand, slapped them together with a clap, and said, most
+phlegmatically--"Flat as a pankakka."
+
+I once crossed Ontario, in the same direction as that just mentioned, in
+another steamer, when the beautiful Ontario was in a towering passion.
+We had a poor fellow in the cabin, who had been a Roman Catholic priest,
+but who had changed his form of faith. The whole vessel was in
+commotion; it was impossible for the best sea-legs to hold on; so two
+or three who were not subject to seasickness got into the cabin, or
+saloon, as it is called, and grasped any thing in the way. The long
+dinner-table, at which fifty people could sit down, gave a lee-lurch,
+and jammed our poor _religioner_, as Southey so affectedly calls
+ministers of the word, into a corner, where chairs innumerable were soon
+piled over him. He abandoned himself to despair; and long and loud were
+his confessions. On the first lull, we extricated him, and put him into
+a birth. Every now and then, he would call for the steward, the mate,
+the captain, the waiters, all in vain, all were busy. At last his cries
+brought down the good-natured captain. He asked if we were in danger.
+"Not entirely," was the reply. "What is it does it, captain?"--"Oh,"
+said the skipper, gruffly enough, "we are in the trough of the sea, and
+something has happened to the engine." "The trough of the _say_?"--my
+friend was an Irishman--"the trough of the say? is it that does it,
+captain?" But the captain was gone.
+
+During the whole storm and the remainder of the voyage, the poor
+ex-priest asked every body that passed his refuge if we were out of the
+trough of the say. "I know," said he, "it is the trough of the say does
+it." No cooking could be performed, and we should have gone dinnerless
+and supperless to bed, if we had not, by force of steam, got into the
+mouth of the Niagara river. All became then comparatively tranquil; she
+moored, and the old Niagara, for that was her name, became steady and at
+rest. Soon the cooks, stewards, and waiters, were at work, and dinner,
+tea, and supper, in one meal, gladdened our hearts. The greatest eater,
+the greatest drinker, and the most confident of us all, was our old
+friend and companion of the voyage, "the Trough of the Say," as he was
+ever after called.
+
+Such is tranquil Ontario. I remember a man-of-war, called the Bullfrog,
+being once very nearly lost in the voyage I have been describing; and
+never a November passes without several schooners being lost or wrecked
+upon Lakes Huron, Erie, and Ontario; whilst the largest American
+steamers on Erie sometimes suffer the same fate. Whenever Superior is
+much navigated, it will be worse, as the seasons are shorter and more
+severe there, and the shores iron-bound and mountainous.
+
+Through the Welland Canal there is now a continuous navigation of those
+lakes for 844 miles; and the St. Lawrence Canal being completed, and the
+La Chine Locks enlarged at Montreal, there will be a continuous line of
+shipping from London to the extremity of Lake Superior, embracing an
+inland voyage on fresh water of upwards of two thousand miles. Very
+little is required to accomplish an end so desirable.
+
+It has been estimated by the Topographical Board of Washington, that
+during 1843 the value of the capital of the United States afloat on the
+four lakes was sixty-five millions of dollars, or about sixteen
+millions, two hundred thousand pounds sterling; and this did not of
+course include the British Canadian capital, an idea of which may be
+formed from the confident assertion that the Lakes have a greater
+tonnage entering the Canadian ports than that of the whole commerce of
+Britain with her North American colonies. This is, however, _un peu
+fort_. It is now not at all uncommon to see three-masted vessels on Lake
+Ontario; and one alone, in November last, brought to Kingston a freight
+of flour which before would have required three of the ordinary
+schooners to carry, namely, 1500 barrels.
+
+A vessel is also now at Toronto, which is going to try the experiment of
+sailing from that port to the West Indies and back again; and, as she
+has been properly constructed to pass the canals, there is no doubt of
+her success.
+
+Some idea of the immense exertions made by the government to render the
+Welland Canal available may be formed by the size of the locks at Port
+Dalhousie, which is the entrance on Lake Ontario. Two of the largest
+class, in masonry, and of the best quality, have been constructed: they
+are 200 feet long by 45 wide; the lift of the upper lock is 11, and of
+the lower, 12, which varies with the level of Lake Ontario, the mitre
+sill being 12 feet below its ordinary surface. Steamers of the largest
+class can therefore go to the thriving village of St. Catherine's, in
+the midst of the granary of Canada.
+
+The La Chine Canal must be enlarged for ship navigation more effectually
+than it has been. I subjoin a list of colonial shipping for 1844 from
+Simmonds' "Colonial Magazine."
+
+NUMBER, TONNAGE, AND CREWS OF VESSELS, WHICH BELONGED
+TO THE SEVERAL BRITISH PLANTATIONS IN THE
+YEAR 1844:--
+
+  Countries.                     Vessels.      Tons.     Crews.
+
+  Europe--
+    Malta,                         85         15,326        893
+
+  Africa--
+    Bathurst,                      25          1,169        215
+    Sierra Leone,                  17          1,148        111
+    Cape of Good Hope,
+      Cape Town,                   27          3,090        265
+      Port Elizabeth,               2            201         10
+      Mauritius,                  124         12,079      1,413
+
+  Asia--
+    Bombay,                       113         50,767      3,393
+    Cochin,                        15          5,674        275
+    Tanjore,                       33          5,070        257
+    Madras,                        32          5,474        248
+    Malacca,                         2           288         13
+    Coringa,                        17         3,384        126
+    Singapore,                      13         1,543        289
+    Calcutta,                      186        5,1779      2,004
+    Ceylon,                        674        30,076      2,696
+    Prince of Wales Island,          7           996         51
+
+  New Holland--
+    Sydney,                         293        28,051      2,128
+    Melbourne,                       29         1,240        147
+    Adelaide,                        17           864         60
+    Hobart Town,                    103         7,153        724
+    Launceston,                      42         3,150        257
+
+  New Zealand--
+    Auckland,                        13           305         42
+    Wellington,                       2           262         32
+
+  America--
+    Canada, Quebec,                 509        45,361      2,590
+     "      Montreal,                60        10,097        556
+    Cape Breton, Sydney,            369        15,048      1,296
+         "   Arichat,                96         4,614        335
+    New Brunswick, Miramichi,        81        10,143        509
+    St. Andrews,                    193        18,391        918
+    St. John,                       398        63,676      2,480
+    Newfoundland, St. John,         847        53,944      4,567
+    Nova Scotia, Halifax,         1,657        82,890      5,292
+    Liverpool,                       31         2,641        163
+    Pictou,                          60         6,929        354
+    Yarmouth,                       146        11,724        637
+
+  Prince Edward's Island,          237        13,851        857
+
+  West Indies, Antigua,             85           833        220
+    Bahama,                        140         3,252        587
+    Barbadoes,                      37         1,640        305
+    Berbice,                        18           854         89
+    Bermuda,                        54         3,523        323
+    Demerara,                       54         2,353        250
+    Dominicia,                      14           502         85
+    Grenada,                        48           812        198
+
+  Jamaica, Port Antonio              5            95         22
+    Antonio Bay,                     2            70         13
+    Falmouth,                        5           107         29
+    Kingston,                       68         2,659        359
+    Montego Bay,                    18           849        105
+    Morant Bay,                      9           251         51
+    Port Maria,                      3            86         18
+    St. Ann's,                       1            20          5
+    Savannah la Mar,                 3           153         22
+    St. Lucca,                       2            64         10
+
+  Montserrat,                        4           100         19
+  Nevis,                            11           178         45
+  St. Kitts,                        35           546        114
+  S. Lucia,                         19           013[*]     132
+  St. Vincent,                      27         1,164        180
+  Tobago,                            7           182         46
+  Tortola,                          48           277        127
+  Trinidad,                         61         1,832        378
+
+                                  -----      -------       ------
+  Total,                         7,304       592,839     40,659
+
+[*Transcriber's note: This figure is not correct]
+
+It will be seen, from the foregoing statement, that the tonnage of the
+vessels belonging to our colonies is about equal to that of the whole of
+the French mercantile marine, which in 1841 consisted of 592,266
+tons--1842, 589,517--1843, 599,707.
+
+The tonnage of the three principal ports of Great Britain in 1844 was:--
+
+  London            598,552
+  Liverpool         307,852
+  Newcastle         259,571
+                  ---------
+  Total           1,165,975
+
+On Lake Erie, the Canadians have a splendid steamer, the London, Captain
+Van Allen, and another still larger is building at Chippewa, which is
+partly owned by government, and so constructed as to carry the mail and
+to become fitted speedily for warlike purposes.
+
+Lake Ontario swarms with splendid British steam-vessels; but on Lake
+Huron there is only at present one, called in the Waterloo, in the
+employment of the Canada Company, which runs from Goderich to the new
+settlements of Owen's Sound.
+
+Propellers now go all the way to St. Joseph's, at the western extremity
+of Lake Huron; and the trade on this lake and on Michigan is becoming
+absolutely astonishing. Last year, a return of American and foreign
+vessels at Chicago, from the commencement of navigation on the 1st of
+April to the 1st of November only, shows that there arrived 151
+steamers, 80 propellers, 10 brigs, and 142 schooners, making a total of
+1,078 lake-going vessels, and a like number of departures, not including
+numerous small craft, engaged in the carrying of wood, staves, ashes,
+&c., and yet, such was the glut of wheat, that at the latter date
+300,000 bushels remained unshipped.
+
+Upwards of a million of money will be expended by the Canadian
+Government in protecting and securing the transit trade of the lakes;
+and the Canadians have literally gone ahead of Brother Jonathan, for
+they have made a ship-canal round the Falls of Niagara, whilst "the most
+enterprising people on the face of the earth," who are so much in
+advance of us according to the ideas of some writers, have been,
+dreaming about it.--So much for the welfare of the earth being co-equal
+with democratic institutions, _a la mode Francaise_!
+
+The American government up to 1844 had spent only 2,100,000 dollars on
+the same objects, or about half a million sterling, according to the
+statement of Mr. Whittlesey of Ohio. But that government is actually
+stirring in another matter, which is of immense future importance,
+although it appears trivial at this moment, and that is the opening up
+of Lake Superior, where a new world offers itself.
+
+They have projected a ship-canal round, or rather by the side of the
+rapids of St. Marie. The length of this canal is said to be only, in
+actual cutting, three-quarters of a mile, and the whole expense
+necessary not more than 230,000 dollars, or about L55,000 sterling.
+
+The British government should look in time to this; it owns the other
+side of the Sault St. Marie, and the Superior country is so rich in
+timber and minerals that it is called the Denmark of America, whilst a
+direct access hereafter to the Oregon territory and the Pacific must be
+opened through the vast chain of lakes towards the Rocky Mountains by
+way of Selkirk Colony, on the Red River.
+
+The lakes of Canada have not engaged that attention at home which they
+ought to have had; and there is much interesting information about them
+which is a dead letter in England.
+
+Their rise and fall is a subject of great interest. The great sinking of
+the levels of late years, which has become so visible and so injurious
+to commerce, deserves the most attentive investigation. The American
+writers attribute it to various causes, and there are as many theories
+about it as there are upon all hidden mysteries. Evaporation and
+condensation, woods and glaciers, have all been brought into play.
+
+If the lakes are supplied by their own rivers, and by the drainage
+streams of the surrounding forests, and all this is again and again
+returned into them from the clouds, whence arises the sudden elevation
+or the sudden depression of such enormous bodies of water, which have
+no tides?
+
+The Pacific and the Atlantic cannot be the cause; we must seek it
+elsewhere. To the westward of Huron, on the borders of Superior, the
+land is rocky and elevated; but it attains only enormous altitudes at
+such a distance on the rocky Andean chain as to render it improbable
+that those mountains exert immediate influences on the lakes. The
+Atlantic also is too far distant, and very elevated land intervenes to
+intercept the rising vapours. On the north, high lands also exist; and
+the snows scarcely account for it, as the whole of North America near
+these inland seas is alike covered every year in winter.
+
+The north-east and the south-west winds are the prevalent ones, and a
+slight inspection of the maps will suffice to show that those compass
+bearings are the lines which the lakes and valleys of Northern America
+assume.
+
+In 1845, the lakes began suddenly to diminish, and to such a degree was
+this continued from June to December, when the hard frosts begin, that,
+at the commencement of the latter month, Lake Ontario, at Kingston, was
+three feet below its customary level, and consequently, in the country
+places, many wells and streams dried up, and there was during the autumn
+distress for water both for cattle and man, although the rains were
+frequent and very heavy.
+
+Whence, then, do the lakes receive that enormous supply which will
+restore them to their usual flow?--or are they permanently diminishing?
+I am inclined to believe that the latter is the case, as cultivation and
+the clearings of the forest proceed; for I have observed within fifteen
+years the total drying up of streamlets by the removal of the forest,
+and these streamlets had evidently once been rivulets and even rivers of
+some size, as their banks, cut through alluvial soils, plainly
+indicated.
+
+The lakes also exhibit on their borders, particularly Ontario, as Lyell
+describes from the information of the late Mr. Roy, who had carefully
+investigated the subject, very visible remains of many terraces which
+had consecutively been their boundaries.
+
+It is evident to observers who have recorded facts respecting the lakes,
+that but a small amount of vapour water is deposited by northeasterly
+winds from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the great estuary of that river, of
+which the lakes are only enlargements, as the wind from that region
+carries the cloud-masses from the lakes themselves direct to the valley
+of the Mississippi. For it meets with no obstacle from high lands on the
+western littorale, which is low. A north-east gale continues usually
+from three to six days, and generally without much rain; but all the
+other winds from south to westerly afford a plentiful supply of
+moisture. Thus a shift of wind from north-east to north and to
+north-west perhaps brings back the vapour of the great valley of the
+gulf, reduced in temperature by the chilly air of the north and west. If
+then an easterly gale continues for an unusual time, the basin of the
+Canadian lakes is robbed of much of its water, which passes to the
+rivers of the west, and is lost in the gulf of Mexico, or in the forest
+lakes of the wild West.
+
+Perhaps, therefore, whenever a cycle occurs in which north-east winds
+prevail during a year or a series of years, the lakes lose their level,
+for, their direction being north-east and south-west, such is the usual
+current of the air; and therefore either north-east or south-westerly
+winds are the usual ones which pass over their surface.
+
+The parts of the great inland navigation which suffer most in these
+periodical depressions are the St. Clair River and the shallow parts of
+those extensions of the St. Lawrence called Lakes St. Francis and St.
+Peter, which in the course of time will cause, and indeed in the latter
+already do cause, some trouble and some anxiety.
+
+The north winds, keen and cold, do not deposit much in the valley of the
+lakes, whose southern borders are usually too low also to prevent the
+passage of rain-bearing clouds.
+
+From that portion of the dividing ridge between the valleys of the St.
+Lawrence and Mississippi, only seven miles from Lake Erie, says an
+American writer, there is to Fort Wayne, at the head of the Maumee
+river, one hundred miles from the same lake, a gradual subsidence of the
+land from 700 to less than 200 feet.
+
+From Fort Wayne westward this dividing ridge rises only one hundred and
+fifty feet, and then gradually subsides to the neighbourhood of the
+south-west of Lake Michigan, where it is but some twenty feet above the
+level of that water.
+
+The basin of the Mississippi, including its great tributary streams,
+receives therefore a very great portion of the falling vapour, from all
+the winds blowing from north to north-east.
+
+The same reasoner agrees with the views which I have expressed
+respecting the probability of the supply to raise the level, which must
+be the great feeder derived from the south and south-westward invariably
+rainy winds, when of long continuance, in the basin of the St.
+Lawrence, and generated by the gulf stream in its gyration through the
+Mexican Bay, being heaped up from the trade wind which causes the
+oceanic current, and forces its heated atmosphere north and north-east,
+by the rebound which it takes from the vast Cordilleras of Anahuac and
+Panama; thus depositing its cooling showers on the chain of the fresh
+water seas of Canada, condensed as they are by the natural air-currents
+from the icy regions of the western Andes of Oregon, and the cold
+breezes from the still more gelid countries of the north-west.
+
+The American topographical engineers, as well as our own civil engineers
+and savans, have accurately measured the heights and levels of the
+lakes, which I have already given; but one very curious fact remains to
+be noticed, and will prove that it is by no means a visionary idea that,
+from the great island of Cuba, which must be an English outpost, if much
+further annexation occurs, voyages will be made to bring the produce of
+the West Indies and Spanish America into the heart of the United States
+and Canada by the Mississippi and the rivers flowing into it, and by the
+great lakes; so that a vessel, loading at Cuba, might perform a circuit
+inland for many thousand miles, and return to her port _via_ Quebec.
+
+From the Gulf of Mexico to the lowest summits of the ridge separating
+the basin of the Mississippi from that of the St. Lawrence or great
+lakes, the rise does not exceed six hundred feet, and the graduation of
+the land has an average of not more than six inches to a mile in an
+almost continuous inclined plane of six thousand miles. The Americans
+have not lost sight of this natural assistance to form a communication
+between the lakes and the Mississippi.
+
+My attention has been drawn to the subsidence of the waters of the lakes
+of Canada by the unusual lowness of Ontario, on the banks of which I
+lived last year, and by reading the statement of the American writer
+above quoted, as well as by the fact that in the Travels of Carver, one
+of the first English navigators on these mediterraneans, who states that
+a small ship of forty tons, in sailing from the head of Lake Michigan to
+Detroit, was unable to pass over the St. Clair flats for want of water,
+and that the usual way of passing them eighty years ago was in small
+boats. What a useful thing it would have been, if any scientific
+navigators or resident observers had registered the rise and fall of the
+lakes in the years since Upper Canada came into our possession! An old
+naval officer told me that it was really periodical; and it occurred
+usually, that the greatest depression and elevation had intervals of
+seven years. Lake Erie is evidently becoming more shallow constantly,
+but not to any great or alarming degree; and shoals form, even in the
+splendid roadstead of Kingston, within the memory of young inhabitants.
+An American revenue vessel, pierced for, I believe, twenty-four guns,
+and carrying an enormous Paixhan, grounded in the autumn of last year on
+a shoal in that harbour, which was not known to the oldest pilot.
+
+By the bye, talking of this vessel, which is a steamer built of iron,
+and fitted with masts and sails, the same as any other sea-going vessel,
+can it be requisite, in order to protect a commerce which she cannot
+control beyond the line drawn through the centre of the lakes, to have
+such a vessel for revenue purposes? or is she not a regular man-of-war,
+ready to throw her shells into Kingston, if ever it should be required?
+At least, such is the opinion which the good folks of that town
+entertained when they saw the beautiful craft enter their harbour.
+
+The worst, however, of these iron boats is that two can play at shelling
+and long shots; and gunnery-practice is now brought to such perfection,
+that an iron steamer might very possibly soon get the worst of it from a
+heavy battery on the level of the sea; for a single accident to the
+machinery, protected as it is in that vessel, would, if there was no
+wind, put her entirely at the mercy of the gunners. The old wooden
+walls, after all, are better adapted to attack a fortress, as they can
+stand a good deal of hammering from both shot and shells.
+
+But to revert to matters more germane to the lakes.
+
+Volney, the first expounder of the system of the warm wind of the south
+supplying the great lakes, has received ample corroboration of his data
+from observation. The fact that the deflection of the great trade-wind
+from the west to a northern direction by the Mexican Andes Popocatepetl,
+Istaccihuetl, Naucampatepetl, &c., whose snowy summits have a frigid
+atmosphere of their own, is proved by daily experience.
+
+Whenever southerly winds prevail--and, in the cycle of the gyration of
+atmospherical currents, this is certain, and will be reduced to
+calculation--the great lakes are filled to the edge; and whenever
+northern and northeasterly winds take their appointed course, then these
+mediterraneans sink, and the valley of the Mississippi is filled to
+overflowing.
+
+But the most curious facts are, that the different lakes exhibit
+different phenomena. The Board of Public Works of Ohio states that, in
+1837-38, the quantity of water descending from the atmosphere did not
+exceed one-third of that which was the minimum quantity of several
+preceding years.
+
+Ontario, from the reports of professional persons, has varied not less
+than eight feet, and Erie about five. Huron and Superior being
+comparatively unknown, no data are afforded to judge from; but what vast
+atmospheric agencies must be at work when such wonderful results in the
+smaller lakes have been made evident!
+
+People who live at the Niagara Falls, and I agree with them in
+observations extending over a period since 1826, believe that these
+Falls have receded considerably; and, although I do not enter into the
+mathematical analysis of modern geologists respecting them, as to their
+constant retrocession, believing that earthquake split open the present
+channel, yet I have no doubt that the level of Lake Erie is considerably
+affected by the diminution of the yielding shaly rocks of their
+foundation. Earthquake, and not retrocession, appears to me, who have
+had the singular advantage, as a European, of very long residence, to
+have been the cause of that great chasm which now forms the bed of the
+Niagara, from the Table Rock to Queenston, in short, a rending or
+separating of the rocks rather than a wearing; and this is corroborated
+by the many vestiges of great cataracts which now exist near the Short
+Hills, the highest summit of the Niagara frontier, between Lakes Erie
+and Ontario, as well as by the great natural ravine of St. David's. But
+this is a subject too deep for our present purpose, and so we shall
+continue to treat of the Great Lakes in another point of view.
+
+Chemically considered, these lakes possess peculiar properties,
+according to their boundaries. Superior is too little known to speak of
+with certainty--Huron not much better--but Erie, and particularly
+Ontario, have been well investigated. The waters of these are pure, and
+impregnated chiefly with aluminous and calcareous matter, giving to the
+St. Lawrence river a fresh and admirable element and aliment.
+
+The St. Lawrence is of a fine cerulean hue, but, like its parent waters
+of Erie and Ontario, rapidly deposits lime and alumine, so that the
+boilers of steam-vessels, and even teakettles, soon become furred and
+incrusted. The specific gravity of the St. Lawrence water above Montreal
+is about 1.00038, at the temperature of 66 deg., the air being then 82 deg. of
+Fahrenheit. It contains the chlorides, sulphates, and carbonates, whose
+bases are lime and magnesia, particularly and largely those of lime,
+which accounts for the rapid depositions when the water is heated.
+
+A very accurate analysis gives, at Montreal, in July, atmospheric air in
+solution or admixture 446 per cent; for a quart of this water, 57 inches
+cubic measure, evaporated to dryness, left 2.87 solid residue.
+
+                           Grains.
+  Sulphate of magnesia       0.62
+  Chloride of calcium        0.38
+  Carbonate of magnesia      0.27
+  Carbonate of lime          1.29
+  Silica                     0.31
+                             ----
+                             2.87
+
+The waters of the Ottawa, flowing through an unexplored country, are of
+a brown or dark colour. Their specific gravity is only (compared to
+distilled water) as 1.0024 at 66 deg., the temperature of the air in July
+being 82 deg..
+
+The 57 cubic inches of this water gave
+
+  0.99 sulphate of magnesia.
+  0.60 chloride of lime.
+  1.07 carbonate of magnesia.
+  0.17 carbonate of lime.
+  0.31 silica.
+  ----
+  2.87
+
+The difference of the colours of these waters is so great, that a
+perfect line of distinction is drawn where they cross each other; and
+there can be no doubt that it is caused by the reflection of the rays of
+light from the impregnation of different saline quantities.
+
+Thus as, in the old world, the waters of the Shannon are brown, and
+Ireland, speaking generally, as Kohl says, is a "brown" country;[8] so,
+in Upper Canada, St. Lawrence and the lakes are blue and green; and in
+Lower Canada, St. Lawrence and the Ottawa are brown of various shades, a
+very slight alteration of the chemical components reflecting rays of
+colour as forcibly and perceptibly as, in like manner, a very slight
+change of component parts develops sugar and sawdust. Nature, in short,
+is very simple in all her operations.
+
+[Footnote 8: Canada is a blue country; for, a very short distance from
+the observer, the atmosphere tinges everything blue; and the waters are
+chiefly of that colour, the sky intensely so.]
+
+Before we proceed to the lower extremity of these wonderful sheets of
+water again, let us just for a moment glance at what is about to be
+achieved upon their surfaces, and place the Sault of St. Marie or St.
+Mary's Rapids, which separate Superior from Huron, before an
+Englishman's eyes. There at present nothing is talked of but copper
+mines and silver or argentiferous copper ores.
+
+The Falls of St. Mary are only rapids of no very formidable character,
+the exit of Lake Superior into Lake Huron. Fifteen miles from the end of
+the Great Lake, as Superior is called, are the American village of St.
+Mary and the British one of the same name, on the opposite bank of the
+River St. Mary.
+
+The Americans have so far strengthened their position, that there is a
+sort of fort, called Fort Brady, with two companies of regulars; and in
+and about the village are scattered a thousand people of every possible
+colour and origin, a great portion being, of course, half-breeds and
+Indians. The American Fur Company has also a post at this place, one of
+the very few remaining; for the fur trade in these regions is rapidly
+declining by the extirpation of the animals which sustained it.
+
+The American government have projected a ship canal to avoid these
+rapids; and, if that is completed, a vast trade will soon grow up.
+
+About a mile above the village is the landing-place from Lake Superior,
+at the head of the rapids; there the strait is broad and deep; but,
+until steamers are built, sailing vessels suffer the disadvantage of
+being moveable out of the harbour by an east wind only, and this wind
+does not blow there oftener than once a month. It is probable that a
+proper harbour will be constructed at the foot of the lake, fifteen
+miles above.
+
+These rapids have derived their French name _Sault_ from their rushing
+and leaping motion; but they are very insignificant when compared to the
+Longue Sault on the St. Lawrence, as the inhabitants cross them in
+canoes.
+
+I cannot describe them more minutely than Mrs. Jameson has done in her
+"Summer Rambles." She crossed them, and must have experienced some
+trepidation, for it requires a skilful voyageur to steer the canoe; and
+it is surprising with what dexterity the Indian will shoot down them as
+swiftly as the water can carry his fragile vessel. The Indians, however,
+consider such feats much in the same light as a person fond of boating
+would think of pulling a pair of oars, or sculling himself across the
+current of a rivulet. I was once subjected to a rather awkward
+exemplification of this fact. Being on a hurried journey, and expecting
+to be frozen in, as it is called, before I could terminate it; I hired
+an Indian and his little canoe, just big enough to hold us both, and
+pushed through by-ways in the forest streams and portages. We were
+paddling merrily along a pretty fair stream, which ran fast, but
+appeared to reach many miles ahead of us; when, all of a sudden, my
+guide said, "Sit fast." I perceived that the water was moving much more
+rapidly than it had hitherto done, and that the Indian had wedged
+himself in the stern, and was steering only with the paddle. We swept
+along merrily for a mile, till "The White Horses," as the breakers are
+called, began to bob their heads and manes. "Hold fast!" ejaculated the
+Red Man. I laid hold of both edges of the canoe, firm as a rock, and in
+a moment the horrid sound of bursting, bubbling, rushing waters was in
+mine ears; foam and spray shut out every thing; and away we went, down,
+down, down, on, on, on, as swift as thought, until, all of a sudden, the
+little buoyant piece of birch-bark floated like a swan upon the bosom of
+the tranquil waters, a mile beyond the Fall, for such indeed it might
+be called, the absolute difference of level having been twelve feet.
+
+When at ease again, I looked at the imperturbable savage and said, "What
+made you take the Fall? was not the _detour_ passable?"--"Yes, suppose
+it was! Fall better!"--"But is it very dangerous?"--"Yes, suppose,
+sometime!"--"Any canoes ever lost there?"--"Yes, sometime; one two, tree
+days ago, there!" pointing to a large rock in the middle of the
+narrowest part above our heads.--"Did you come down there?"--"Yes,
+suppose, did!"
+
+Then, thought I to myself, I shall not trust my body to your guidance in
+future without knowing something of the route beforehand; but I
+afterwards got accustomed to these taciturn sons of the forest.
+
+The Falls of St. Marie are celebrated as a fishing place; and the white
+fish caught there are reckoned superior to those taken in any other part
+of Lake Huron. The fishery is picturesque enough, and is carried on in
+canoes, manned usually by two Indians or half-breeds, who paddle up the
+rapids as far as practicable. The one in the bow has a scoop-net, which
+he dips, as soon as one of these glittering fish is observed, and lands
+him into the canoe. Incredible numbers of them are taken in this simple
+manner; but it requires the canoemanship and the eye of an Indian.
+
+The French still show their national characteristics in this remote
+place. They first settled here before the year 1721, as Charlevoix
+states; and, in 1762, Henry, a trader on Lake Huron, found them
+established in a stockaded fort, under an officer of the French army.
+The Jesuits visited Lake Superior as early as 1600; and in 1634 they had
+a rude chapel, the first log hut built so far from civilization, in this
+wilderness. At present, the population are French, Upper Canadians,
+English, Scotch, Yankees, Indians, half-breeds.
+
+The climate is healthy, very cold in winter, with a short but very warm
+summer, and always a pure air. Here the Aurora Borealis is seen in its
+utmost glory. In summer there is scarcely any night; for the twilight
+lasts until eleven o'clock, and the tokens of the returning sun are
+visible two hours afterwards.
+
+The extremes of civilized and savage life meet at St. Mary's; for here
+live the educated European or American, and the pure heathen Red Man;
+here steamboats and the birch canoe float side by side; and here
+all-powerful Commerce is already recommencing a deadly rivalry between
+the Briton and the American, not for furs and peltry, as in days gone
+by, but for copper and for metals; and here a new world is about to be
+opened, and that too very speedily.
+
+Here are Indian agents and missionaries, with schools, both the English
+and the United States' government considering the entrance to the Red
+Man's country, whose gates are so narrow and still closed up, to be of
+very great importance, both in a commercial and a political point of
+view; but it is notorious that, after the French Canadians, the Red Man
+prefers his Great Mother beyond the Great Lake and her subjects to the
+President and the people, who are rather too near neighbours to be
+pleasant, and who have somewhat unceremoniously considered the natives
+of the soil as so many obstacles to their aggrandizement.
+
+I shall end this sketch of the lakes, by a few observations upon the
+magnetic phenomena regarding them, and respecting the variation of the
+compass.
+
+Fort Erie, near the eastern termination of Lake Erie, and close to the
+Niagara river, presents the line of no variation; whilst at the town of
+Niagara, on the south-west end of Lake Ontario, not more than thirty-six
+miles from Fort Erie, the variation in 1832 was 1 deg. 20' east.
+
+The line of no variation is marked distinctly on the best maps of
+Canada, by the division line between the townships of Stamford and
+Niagara, seven miles north of Niagara.
+
+At Toronto in 43 deg. 39' north latitude, and 78 deg. 4' west longitude,
+twenty-four miles north-east of Niagara, the variation in 1832 was more
+than 2 deg. easterly.
+
+The shore of Lake Huron at Nottawassaga Bay, forty miles north-west of
+Toronto, is again the line of no variation.
+
+Thus a magnetic meridian lies between Fort Erie and Nottawassaga.
+
+A magnetic observatory is established by the Board of Ordnance at
+Toronto, near the University, and placed in charge of two young officers
+of artillery, which says a good deal for the scientific acquirements of
+that corps. I shall perhaps hereafter advert to this subject more at
+large, as the volcanic rocks have much to do with the needle in Canada
+West.
+
+
+END OF VOL. I.
+
+Frederick Shoberl, Junior, Printer to His Royal Highness Prince Albert.
+
+51, Rupert Street, Haymarket, London.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Canada and the Canadians, by
+Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
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