\OHH 
 
 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT 
 FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY 
 
 HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE 
 
Cornell University Library 
 F 1044T6 S55 
 
 Two months on the Tobique New Brunswick 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 028 898 298 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028898298 
 
TWO MONTHS 
 
 ON THE TOBIQUE, 
 
 NEW BRUNSWICK. 
 
 An Emigrant's Jowrnal, 1851. 
 
 91. Z', J'L 
 
 j^i-^L^ 
 
 LONDON: ^'' 
 
 SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL. 
 1866. 
 
 M A i4 
 
[TAe right of Translation is reserved.'} 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 Pbeface V 
 
 I. Lettek I. — ^Voyage to New Beunswick 1 
 
 II. Letter II. — Feom Boston to St. John — Diaky — 
 
 Fkom St. John io Feedeeicton 32 
 
 in. DlART ON THE TOBIQUB — ThE INDIANS AND THE 
 
 Wigwam 61 
 
 IV. Solitude in the Foeest — Cutting down Tbees 90 
 
 V. Ceuisino theough the Foeest — The Snow Falls 117 
 
 VI. WiNTEE Advancing — Attempts to Escape 141 
 
 VII. The Foeest Abandoned — Retuen to Feedbeioton — 
 
 Homeward 173 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 A YOUNG emigrant who had passed seven years in the 
 Australian bush, again, after eleven weeks in England 
 spent with his family, crossed the ocean in search of 
 a home. That brief visit had made him unwilling 
 to put again so great a distance between himself 
 and his family as a return to Australia would 
 involve ; and his thoughts turned to emigration in 
 some nearer region. It was then suggested to him by 
 some who were interested in colonization, to break 
 ground in a yet unexplored part of New Brunswick, the 
 district on the banks of the Tobique river. The question 
 to be solved was whether the climate would not be too 
 severe for permanent occupation. He put this to the 
 
vi Preface. 
 
 strongest possible test, by establishing himself for two 
 months (beginning in the middle of October) in a wig- 
 wam amid the depths of the forest and on the banks of 
 the river, where he remained utterly cut off from human 
 intercourse, and unable even to leave his self-chosen 
 prison till half-way through December, when the 
 Tobique was so completely frozen over as to make for 
 him a road back to the settled part of the country. This 
 enterprise was so unusual, and considered so perilous, 
 that few, when he started, expected to see him again ; 
 and great was the wonder and curiosity, not only in the 
 rough settlements of New Brunswick, but in the salons 
 of Fredericton (of which latter the Journal says nothing) 
 on his return. 
 
 He came to the conclusion, as far as his own experi- 
 ence enabled him to judge, that the chances of suc- 
 cess were not in the emigrant's favour. But he 
 recorded his impressions of his voyage out there, of 
 his short sojourn in St. John and Fredericton, and of 
 his two months' solitude in a forest wigwam, in letters 
 and a diary full of interest to those for whom they were 
 designed — selections from which, though after the lapse 
 
Preface. vii 
 
 of fifteen years, may not be without attraction for the 
 general reader. 
 
 The writer of these records, which were not intended 
 for publication, is no more. The reader, it is hoped, 
 will be indulgent to the uncorrected style of one 
 whose career had been, from boyhood, one of physical 
 toil and active enterprise. Endowed with unusual 
 powers of endurance, possessed of ardour and energy 
 in executing any purpose he had chosen, a close and 
 unwearied observer of nature, and voluntarily trained in 
 boyhood to active labour and privation, he was a born 
 adventurer and explorer ; and had life been longer and 
 more propitious to him, he might, perhaps, have taken 
 his place amongst the successful pioneers of civilization 
 in the waste. This was not to be ; his few added years 
 of life were doomed to pass in struggles of a difierent 
 kind, and aU he has left are such slight and hasty 
 sketches of what he had seen, and partly achieved, as 
 these which we now present to the public. 
 
JOURNAL 
 
 OF 
 
 TWO MONTHS 01 WI TOEIQUE 
 
 IN 1851. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 Letter I.— VOYAGE TO NEW BEUNSWICK. 
 
 On board the Ship , July 2ith, 1851. 
 
 My dearest 
 
 Like that illustrious traveller Lord Bateman, 
 
 I shipped myself all aboard of a ship, 
 Some foreign country for to see, 
 
 and once more found myself a wanderer over the world, 
 
 though scarce three months had elapsed since my return 
 
 from a seven years' banishment from England. Last 
 
 July I believed myself tied for many a year to come to 
 
 the bush of Australia ; last February I was in the grasp 
 
 // 1 
 
2 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 of the storms of Cape Horn ; now I am entering on the 
 North Atlantic, bound for " Yankee town." " Sech is 
 life." 
 
 While sitting at my desk, in our snug little after- 
 cahin, I can hear the hoarse rustling of the water, as a 
 fine easterly breeze urges our ship through the slowly 
 heaving waves of St. George's Channel ; the land is 
 vanishing, and now we are fairly at sea. And, being so, 
 I may as well begin what I hope may be the means of 
 beguiling the tedium of many an uneventful hour in the 
 five or six weeks of ocean before us — that oft-told tale — 
 that oldest of stories — a journal at sea. But old as the 
 tale may be, it yet has the experience of ages to prove 
 that it is incumbent on all voyagers who can write to 
 inflict their sea mares'-nests on those who live at home 
 — like the Ancient Mariner who after all was but a 
 tremendous embodiment, a fearful impersonation, of 
 " Sea Stories." 
 
 Though the ocean is no novelty to me, I am revisit- 
 ing it under novel circumstances, in a Yankee ship, 
 with a Yankee crew and Yankee captain, built in a 
 fashion more prevalent, I believe, among American ships 
 than English, with a round-house instead of a poop, and 
 which fashion I think no improvement. She is the 
 
Voyage to New Brunsioich. 3 
 
 bound from Liverpool to Boston, at 850 tons — a 
 
 fine ship with very fair accommodation ; in fact, the 
 general appearance of things is satisfactory. I am the 
 only passenger, and the loneliness of a solitary passenger 
 at the beginning of a voyage is perhaps as complete as 
 if he were at the North Pole. Then how intensely real 
 becomes the parting from his friends, those friends some 
 of whom perhaps he may see no more ; all their last 
 words come floating to him, and he wonders that of his 
 own will he should have forsaken what now he holds 
 the greatest happiness that life can yield. 
 
 2&th. — It seems to me, dear, that I have contrived 
 to cram a good deal of life into my few years of existence, 
 almost too much I sometimes think, for at times the 
 load of recollection seems almost more than I can bear.. 
 And now by this sudden flight of mine across the 
 Atlantic, am I about greatly to swell the already unruly 
 river of memories. I had always rather a fancy for 
 putting myself into what seemed a queer position ; few, 
 however, have appeared to me more so than the one 
 I have now succeeded in getting into — suddenly 
 tearing myself from England and a thousand delights 
 which I have not known for seven years, and which I 
 have not tasted again for as much as three months, with 
 
 1—2 
 
4 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique. 
 
 the purpose, at least with the prospect, of going through 
 discomfort in a strange land 3,000 miles away. Where 
 are you all now, as I sit in my Yankee ship ? Whatever 
 supposition I make only presents to me a picture which 
 places my own position in anything but a favourable 
 light, sitting as I do all alone in the round-house cabin, 
 while through the open door comes the rustling sound 
 of the wind sweeping through the rigging, and the sigh 
 of the sea under the side, the ship dancing all the time 
 in a way which reminds me of the game " Neighbour, 
 neighbour, I come to torment you" — "What with?" 
 "With an up and a down." Whales mingled with 
 porpoises came down alongside in the evening, and 
 looked at us like fishes of the world. 
 
 Sunday, 27th. — The captain tells me that a passenger 
 he took to New Orleans kept a diary, for, having been in 
 a mercanieei house, he could not be easy unless he was 
 
 writing, "so that," says Captain W , with an 
 
 appearance of awe, " you could see all his thoughts — 
 that is," correcting himself, " his wife could, for I 
 guess it was shut to me and to every one else." He 
 had a splendid black barndoor cock which died the other 
 day, and which in his lamentations over it, he insisted 
 on calling (with the almost over-refinement of hia 
 
Voyage to New Brunswick. 5 
 
 country — he is a New Englander) "a splendid rooster." 
 As I could not muster up courage to call it so myself on 
 so short a notice, and was afraid of offending his delic.acy 
 if I called it as the Britishers are wont, I got out of the 
 difficulty hy speaking of him as the " bird." 
 
 He improves on acquaintance, like most Yankees 
 that I have met ; he is very reserved and even morose to 
 strangers, but now we are better acquainted, we get on 
 very well and comfortably. He tells yarns at meals and 
 in the after-cabin with grim sociability, guessing ener- 
 getically at things he knows perfectly well, and making 
 sepulchral jokes. The chief mate has also got over the 
 sour surliness which his countrymen seem to think 
 necessary towards strangers, and condescends to talk 
 with me during his watch. 
 
 It would be vain were I to attempt to give you an 
 idea of the kicking, jumping, and smashing during last 
 night's gale. Sleep was out of the question — now was 
 the ship standing on her head, now on her hind legs, 
 then seeming to disappear from us on one side, then 
 on the other, wbile every minute the heavy smash of a 
 sea, as it came tumbling against her bows, shook her to 
 her centre. It is still blowing hard Irom N. (which is a 
 fair wind), but being more abeam we feel the sea less. 
 
6 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique. 
 
 These northerly gales are very glorious, with their clear 
 sky and sparkling sea — the ocean with its intense blue 
 beneath an unclouded sun can only be compared to a 
 vast azure satin cloth covered thickly with silver 
 spangles, each and all of which gleam with a snowy 
 brightness. The sea during a stormy gale, beneath a 
 clear sky and a bright sun, is probably one of Nature's 
 most exquisite sights. 
 
 Yesterday morning, a man whom nobody knew (or 
 professed to know) made his appearance on deck, 
 emerging ghost-like from the forehold, where he had 
 been planted since we left Liverpool. " Must feed 
 him," says the skipper: "but I guess he'll have to 
 work some for it." I was talking to him (the captain) 
 about Liverpool ; he quite agrees with me in what I 
 say of the horrors of its populace, but says if I were to 
 represent to a Liverpool man the kind of people he 
 is living amongst, the filthiest sediment of that foul 
 mixture, a civilized community, he would laugh at me, 
 and utterly refuse to believe it — which is but natural 
 and proper. As for the smoke, he guesses what I 
 saw wasn't a circumstance to what it is in winter. 
 
 The black nigger of a steward is sitting in his 
 pantry opposite, and looking at me, not blushing like 
 
Voyage to New Brunswick. 7 
 
 , but grinning in a way that makes me feel ugly, I 
 
 tell you. I just made an attempt to draw him out, of 
 sheer spite, intending to paint him blacker than he is ; 
 but it involved too much gazing on his provoking, 
 grinning, ugly, monldfied caricature of a face. 
 
 9 P.M. — Some prospect of a better night than the 
 last ; the wind has moderated to a trifling breeze, but 
 the ship is stUl wallowing about in the swell a gale 
 leaves. It is immediately after a storm that you can best 
 appreciate the height of the ridges of water with their 
 tops unbroken travelling along in dogged sullen 
 grandeur. 
 
 Two things have an unpleasant aspect, and may make 
 the voyage very disagreeable » The first is a row with the 
 second mate's watch, who, being told to " turn to " this 
 afternoon, said they " didn't like " to. So the mate 
 told the captain, and the captain went on deck. He 
 sent the mate forward to order the refractory watch up 
 that he might lecture them, muttering at the same time 
 something about putting the spokesman in irons. So 
 he waited, and I with him, in full hope of hearing a 
 specimen of Yankee eloquence, which, in an excited 
 Yankee, is apt to be very rich. But the men would 
 not come to our vicious little chief, so he had to go 
 
8 Journal of Ttvo Months on the Tobique. 
 
 to them, and in a few minutes I was summoned forwards 
 by the mate to be witness of what passed. 
 
 "When I got to the scene of action, the captain told 
 me he wanted me to hear how he had asked the men 
 three times to go to work, and be witness that they had 
 refused, "which," he told them, in an explanatory tone, 
 " is mutiny ; d'ye hear ? mutiny on the high seas ; " 
 and then, that I might hear him ask them again, he 
 made his fourth request, which he did by clenching his 
 fist, shaking it at them, and shouting to them, " Why 
 the bad place don't you come and work?" wishing a 
 bad end to the affair universally, and stating " he'd be 
 shooting some of them presently." After a pause of a 
 few seconds, during which none of them stirred, he 
 turned to me and his mates with a benignant air, and 
 begged us to observe that he had asked them four times. 
 So we walked away. For this the men may get three 
 months or more in gaol. In the meantime, if it leads 
 to nothing worse on the voyage, I may be bothered by 
 being subpoenaed in Boston, especially if more violent 
 scenes ensue. 
 
 But the second and worse prospect is that the ship 
 has apparently sprung a leak — in fact, has — makes 
 nearly a foot of water in an hour, and requires constant 
 
Voyage to New Brunswick. 9 
 
 pumping. She is a new ship, but has, in dry dock at 
 Liverpool, been badly caulked and coppered so as to 
 require pumping every four hours at starting; but 
 during last night's gale and the violent pitching and 
 straining she went through, there can be but little 
 doubt she has started something. This is an unpleasant 
 look-out with 3,000 miles of a stormy ocean before 
 us. 
 
 While pacing the deck this evening, I have been 
 amusing myself by building romances on this founda- 
 tion with the long boat (big enough to hold us all 
 comfortably) before my eyes. I saw the whole thing 
 at a glance; another violent storm — carpenter sounds 
 the well; with a face white as a ghost, he announces 
 " six feet of water in the hold." We get out the boat 
 without loss of time, for four weeks are tossed about on 
 the wild and stormy ocean on half a biscuit a day, till 
 all our provisions are gone ; then in silence we cast 
 wolfish glances at each other, till the most desperate 
 speaks: — "My lads, one must die to save the rest." 
 The fatal lot is drawn by a fat, chubby little fellow 
 (on whom I mean to have my eye henceforth), when just 
 as with manly resignation he prepares to meet the death- 
 blow, the cry "a sail ! " is raised. At the joyful sound, 
 
10 Journal of Two Months on the Tobigue. 
 
 some, overpowered by their emotions, can only stare in 
 stupid silence ; others embrace with alternate tears and 
 frantic laughter ; while others, whose reason has given 
 way under the sudden shock, blend pious ejaculations 
 with fearful blasphemies. 
 
 The ship which takes us up is bound to the coast 
 of Africa ; and now the whole story is plain : of course 
 we are wrecked, and of course made prisoners by the 
 Arabs, who march us over burning sands till all my 
 companions one by one drop dead. I alone survive 
 the horrors of that journey. I am brought to a Moorish 
 town and offered for sale (being of course well spit 
 upon as a Nazarene by the women), when the sultan 
 or sheik, hearing of the Feringhee, who are all well 
 known to be clever doctors, I am ordered, on pain of 
 death, to heal his favourite daughter who is ill. Her 
 malady I soon find to be that she has fallen in love 
 with the interesting Christian captive. I write a 
 charm, the words being "the frog he would a- wooing 
 go," which satisfies the old gentleman, while I admi- 
 nister such good medicine to the gentle Zuleika's dis- 
 tracted mind, that the old cove, in an ecstasy of 
 gratitude, gives her to me as a wife if I'll only 
 renounce my religion, which, " as it's only a faith of 
 
Voyage to New Brunswick. 11 
 
 mine, I'm no ways partickler about,"* and do without 
 a moment's hesitation. 
 
 Scene changes to twelve years after. I have risen 
 to the highest honours, but a yearning for my native 
 land comes over me. I cut the old cove's throat, and 
 with Ayesha, my thii-teenth and favourite wife behind 
 me on my beloved mare, the "Maid of the Desert," I 
 am soon beyond pursuit. I gain the coast, steal a 
 boat, having first knocked the owner's brains out, put 
 to sea, and am taken by a French ship, whose captain, 
 conquered by Ayesha's beauty, becomes very annoying. 
 But I have not been a Moslem for nothing : I bid 
 Ayesha speak him fair, invite him to supper in our 
 cabin, where she promises him a little delicacy as a 
 specimen of the Moorish cuisine, and which I carefully 
 season with a Moorish poison. The captain astonishes 
 his crew by dying of nothing at all : but as they begin 
 to suspect, I take the liberty of serving them all in the 
 same way. But Ayesha not approving of all these 
 summary proceedings, upbraids me for a monster ; 
 whereupon " there is but one course left to me," and 
 
 * See Household Words for an account of a tipsy prosecutor, wlio, 
 having been robbed of his watch, says, " It wasn't my watch, it was a 
 frez of my ; I'm no ways partickler about it." 
 
12 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 wreathing my hand, &c., I stick her as you would 
 stick a pig, get ashore somehow, and become either a 
 misanthrope or a deyout Christian, I am not sure 
 which. 
 
 And all this is to come from my visit to C ! for 
 
 to that I believe may be attributed my finding myself 
 on board a leaky Yankee ship. Joking apart, I am 
 not quite easy, nor are the captain and mates. 
 
 Wednesday, BOth. — I have been looking forward 
 through the day to my quiet evening's yarn with you, 
 dearest, without which, in fact, I should hardly know 
 how to get through the weary hours of darkness before 
 I turn in. Truly, on a night like this, it would not 
 be hard to grow sad with thinking of the absent and 
 the past. If I look to my right, down in the dark 
 abyss of the lower cabin gleams a miserable lamp like 
 a star in a stormy sky, or a star at the bottom of a 
 well. Another horrid thing, by whose light I am 
 writing, shows me dimly the ugly bulkheads of the 
 state-room on each side of the cuddy, and through the 
 door I hear the hoarse murmuring rustling wind in the 
 rigging, and, to heighten the gloominess of the picture, 
 reflect that the ship has to be pumped out every hour, 
 and that it is blowing a steady double-reefed-topsail 
 
Voyage to New Brunswick. 13 
 
 gale right in our teeth, with a foggy, drizzling, un- 
 broken rain. It is near ten, the captain as usual lying 
 on his berth (he has not been m bed yet), not a sound 
 but the dismal moan of the winds, the creaking timber, 
 and the sudden smashing thumps of the sea. 
 
 I have been having a yarn with the mate this 
 evening about many things; amongst others — and 
 not for the first time — which boat would be the safest 
 for us if we have to take to them. And then he told 
 me how he had once been four days in a boat under the 
 same circumstances. This is not inspiriting work. 
 Moreover, he told me of those dire explosions (there 
 go the pumps again) of the Mississippi steamers which 
 occurred when he was at New Orleans, in which two 
 hundred people were destroyed. The force of the ex- 
 plosion was such, that one of the boilers was flung 
 nearly half a mile. You may understand then how, 
 not bodies, but rather fragments of bodies, were picked 
 up in the streets of the town, so crushed and ground 
 up by the steam as to be actually shovelled into the 
 carts; yet, hideous to relate, actually with life and 
 speech left. He seemed almost overpowered at the 
 mere recollection of what he had seen. 
 
 He has also been in three hurricanes, which seem 
 
14 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique. 
 
 also to have left a lasting impression on his memory. 
 He says, while they lasted, nothing could be seen even, 
 nor a thing done, nor a word heard, nor any sound 
 save that of one unending peal of thunder, — the noise 
 of the wind. In describing a railway capsize, he told 
 me how they climbed one of the weather-sides of the 
 cars. When a ship is thrown on her beam-ends, of 
 course you know the upper is the weather-side. 
 
 This chief mate improves on acquaintance; I like 
 him much. " I have two fine little boys at home ; I 
 have not seen them for two years; by being a sailor 
 and so long from home, I lose all their little winning 
 ways; a sailor had just as well not be married." I 
 pitied him when I heard him so complain. I like the 
 captain, too, very much ; besides, it is a teetotal ship, 
 to all intents and purposes, which is another good 
 point. 
 
 Slst. — The wind has at last dwindled away to 
 nearly a dead calm, but the heavy rolling sea is still 
 rocking the poor ship about in a helpless, clumsy way, 
 making the useless sails flap and bang miserably against 
 the mast; a grey dusky sky overhead, a gloomy grey 
 ocean around ; — such a combination of discomforts. 
 Mother will pity me when she hears that I have no 
 
Voyage to New Brunswick. 15 
 
 sheets, but that to me is neither new nor disagreeable, 
 as the blankets are clean. I do not like the incessant 
 shower of tobacco juice which rains on the deck in a 
 way which would not be permitted in an English ship. 
 As for the mutinous crew, the captain means to have 
 another trial of strength with them, being much dis- 
 satisfied with his own quietness on the first occasion. 
 This is a prospect I don't relish, as there will not 
 improbably be violence. 
 
 I have had a long yarn with my favourite the chief 
 mate, who, from one or two things he has said, I am 
 compelled to believe has been in a slaver; He speaks 
 of the trade with much disgust as being so dirty. Also, 
 he went some years ago to Smyrna at a time when the 
 Archipelago was full of pirates. Their OTvn ship was well 
 armed, having guns double-shotted and grape over that. 
 So a boat sailed after them, — suddenly showing herself 
 under the lee of an island, — sixty men or so on board ; 
 dodged them and followed close, and refused to answer 
 when hailed. So the captain pointed a quarter-gun at 
 them, fired, and, as the lanky, sepulchral mate said with 
 a grim chuckle, " sent the whole charge slap in among 
 them, — certainly killed half on 'em." They saw no 
 more of them. 
 
16 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 I am inclined to think more and more favourably of 
 New Brunswick from Johnstone's representation of it ; 
 and, though at present I am fully prepared to visit Lake 
 Superior, I suspect both judgment and inclination will 
 be in favour of the Tobique or the Eestigonche, of which 
 J. speaks highly, and which probably will be as much 
 benefited by the railway as the Tobique. But his 
 account of the enormous quantity of traffic between the 
 lake and westiern districts and the Atlantic ports, a 
 large proportion of which would inevitably be diverted 
 into the Saint Lawrence by the removal of a few dif- 
 ficulties and objections, is highly corroborative of what 
 
 Mr. N has told me. The perusal of Johnstone not 
 
 only gives me general information, or rather an enlarge- 
 ment of ideas, on agriculture, but is even raising in me 
 a little enthusiasm on the subject, and makes me eager 
 to try my hand on it for its own sake. 
 
 I am very dubious of being able to make anything 
 out of the intolerably stoopid details of a voyage. The 
 mate is a windfall — if I yarned with the men I might 
 get some amusement, but that I carefully avoid, as 
 every passenger ought. An occasional civil remark is 
 well and proper, but yarning don't do. Well, I believe 
 I have got to the end of what I have collected and pre- 
 
Voyage to New Brunswick. 17 
 
 pared for you, during the day — and a very poor stock of 
 fun it is ; and yet I feel loth to stop talking. 
 
 The sea affects my imagination at times strongly, 
 when I look round on the wild world of troubled waters, 
 and reflect that this is the deep, dark, mysterious, trea- 
 cherous home of a strange race of beings, called sailors, 
 who, deserting their natural element, spend their lives 
 on one whose dangers, if not really greater, are, at any 
 rate, more obvious than those of the land. It is a 
 strange thing that men should choose to desert the 
 land and live on the ever-sounding main. 
 
 August 1st. — A heavy sea rolling on us from the 
 north, great grey hills of water, down whose sides the 
 ship rolls and slides. It has gone down a little now, 
 but still the old lady is wallopping about in a most 
 unsatisfactory manner, while the heavy wet sails are 
 threshing and banging the masts like thunder. Dismal 
 rainy weather, juicy, slimy weather — and a night which 
 threatens storm. 
 
 With the second mate I have just had a long talk 
 about California, where he has spent some time, and he 
 corroborates all my preconceived ideas of the country. 
 I believe that with so large a population so scantily 
 supplied with agricultural produce in a country so 
 
 2 
 
18 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique. 
 
 admirably adapted for its production, the farmer, with 
 that degree of prudence and industry which is necessary 
 for success in every profession, could hardly fail of rapidly 
 realizing a fortune. In fact, people are finding that out 
 already, and farming in California is now attracting much 
 attention ; but, as yet, the field is open for thousands. 
 The only fear is the failure of the gold mines. My own 
 judgment and inclination would lead me there to-morrow, 
 as far as I depend on the information I at present possess. 
 And yet I have always said that the magnificent 
 edifice of Californian prosperity is built on a foundation, 
 and with materials the most unworthy to be trusted — 
 dependent entirely on a mining foundation, grubbing 
 for gold in burrows like rabbits, which at present they 
 find in bushels, but which may any day suddenly dis- 
 appear — and then the whole Californian community 
 disperses and vanishes like a soap-bubble. And such 
 a community ! — the materials of this shining edifice con- 
 sisting almost entirely of the most worthless, the most 
 morally hideous of the whole human race. Had I been 
 ignorant of this before, what I have this night heard 
 would have shown it to me. And does this large and 
 enormously wealthy and marvellously prospering and 
 increasing community contribute its share to the welfare 
 
Voyage to New Brunswick. 19 
 
 of the world generally ? Certainly it absorbs manu- 
 factures, but is it a refuge for the poor but indus- 
 trious classes of old countries, like the North American 
 colonies, or those in the Southern Ocean ? or is it a 
 nursery for a race of men which may be a great and 
 good nation worthy of its position on the earth ? Is it 
 possible that such a people can spring from such a 
 stock ? such a people as may hereafter be found on the 
 plains of Australia or in the forests of Canada ? And it 
 may be asked, can a Californian tiller of the soil take 
 as high a moral stand as the Australian squatter, or the 
 Canadian farmer, whose life, it is true, is spent in the 
 acquisition of the gold, but whose occupation finds 
 employment and reward for the industry of hundreds, 
 while the Californian farmer, not yielding like them his 
 humble contribution to the general welfare of his race, 
 lives but to feed a huge congregation of burrowing 
 scoundrels ? These questions might be asked ; I have 
 asked them of myself often enough, but I do not say 
 that they suggest the correct view of the case, or a just 
 
 pol-economical view, or that it is my own view 
 
 I think I could get more gold there than in New 
 Brunswick, although society in New Brunswick may 
 stand on a more secure basis. I think I see myself 
 
 2—2 
 
iiO Jdunud of TiiHt DIdiilliH on. I.kr 'I'ohUftir. 
 
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 my Hlioulddf, on my wiiy l.n tlm (ligf^illf^H. An Ugly old 
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 i'()ii(^di Hlu)l,<!h (»r (Jio Hii|)|M)Hci(l Hiidno.) 
 
 'I'oll my f'nl.lidr that tlui uoodld of my luinroid 
 YiliraLdH l.o and IVo vvilJi IJio molrion (d' iJio Hlii[), JnhL IIH 
 tlio mdrc.nry of tlio Imromdl.dr rindH a.nd f'allw Cnini thd 
 Hamo (iiiiiHC. I r'.iui liiM'diy concoivd how ho liLl.lo a 
 didoi-dnc.o in dlovaiion ciin ho gl'Ctttly iiJ)'d(d, an innlni- 
 mcsrit vvlioHd oHdillai/ionH amoiird,, wliiin Llio Hoa Ih si\r}i 
 lioavy, to ()'6. 
 
 JfdiiiHlond'H aciconnt of Uid Iroal.monl/ oC HU'an(_f<it'H, 
 liy tlio Now liiiuiHwiidiorH, and (d' tli<iir nol.ionH ol' 
 lioHpil/iiJity, iH dxcdodliif^iy diHf^iml.in;; to an AiiHi.nilian 
 iW!(iMHiomdd to tlid lioarty w<dc.ofri(i lio in Hiiro (d', at nino 
 HtatioiiH out (d' ton, and wiio woiild Uiink tlio \imi l»ay 
 at hand, if tho moHt www'dlmuj dntortainor dvor dcdarnod 
 of dxpoctifif,' payrndiit Cor tho Mi|_Wit'M lod(,dng ho (/avo. 
 'I'lioHo who aro not fond <A' guosts turn IJicfn away, hiit 
 novor (diar(.;o for aciiorrimodation. 
 
 Aiu/'imI, '■Ind. U'h of tio (iHO niincing Uio muttor; 
 thiH ia blackguard weather— niolid/ii/ig- worHor than 
 
Voyage to New Brunswick. 21 
 
 anythink. The same unvarying fog, or rather only 
 varied by occasional downpours of rain, and, to com- 
 plete the matter, all but a dead calm. A brig stole 
 quietly out of the dark mysterious depths of the fog, 
 and passed close by us — she said she was from Bay 
 Chaleur (in New Brunswick), bound to Lancaster. She 
 seemed not gradually rising from the horizon, but, 
 as it were, created by our side. This calm, inexor- 
 able fog is making us all lose our tempers. The 
 captain makes grim jokes and humbugs the steward 
 (a Portuguese nigger) ; the chief mate gives snappish 
 answers, and assumes a demoniac expression, while 
 the second sits in a corner sail-making, and grumbling 
 to himself in a low, continual growl as only a sailor 
 can grumble. 
 
 The meek chief mate has confided to me a touching 
 little incident in his mUd, amiable life. He has been 
 a great deal with Spaniards, sailing with them, &c. 
 " One day," quietly drawled he in his soliloquizing 
 manner, " one of them came near stabbing me — 
 tried to stab me in the heart, but the knife missed, 
 and struck a bone below the ribs," which he showed. 
 "What was that for?" said I. "Oh, we quarrelled." 
 " And what did you do ? drown him ? " " Knocked 
 
22 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 his brains out," still in the same quiet drawl, and 
 added, after a pause, " with a bit o' iron." So we 
 passed on from that trifle, like men of the world, to 
 other matters. 
 
 We have just had an introduction to the great 
 whales, which are often to be met with in these lati- 
 tudes, and of whom five or six showed themselves 
 yesterday close alongside, keeping up with us for 
 some time — great, solemn, helpless-looking monsters, 
 lumbering along with a lazy, undulating motion, and 
 now and then showing their ugly square faces from 
 the side of a wave, while they spirt a fountain of 
 spray into the air with a deep gasping sigh, absolutely 
 majestic in their extreme clumsiness. 
 
 August 6th. — I have let my log lie by for a few 
 days from a scarcity of events, and from finding it 
 had already gone ahead too much. Now events are 
 coming a little too quick, and of a kind to make me 
 wish myself out of the ship as soon as may be. In the 
 first place, we don't get on a bit. Since yesterday 
 a strong south breeze, with a ■wild electric sky and 
 constantly falling barometer, made us expect a gale, 
 and from royals we came dovm to single-reefed top- 
 sails, and then at 9 p.m. appearances were such that 
 
Voyage to New Brunstvick. 23 
 
 the captain furled everything but the three close- 
 reefed topsails and foretop staysails. Lightning flashed 
 incessantly, gusts of wind wandered over the sea as 
 though they knew not where to go. "We expected a 
 heavy gale, but have since had calms and squalls, 
 lying to still under a mere nothing of canvas, still 
 in the same wearying uncertainty of what is in store 
 for us. A still falling barometer and the stormiest 
 appearances, deter us from making sail ; the wind 
 keeps shifting about, the sky all day, and especially 
 at sunset, assuming appearances of wild and terrible 
 beauty. So the day has passed — every breeze as it 
 reached us supposed to be the van of the expected 
 gale — till night has come without a solution of the 
 problem. A huge rolling sea flings us helplessly 
 about and astonishes everybody. 
 
 Again, to add to our trouble, the men have begun 
 to stab each other, and there on the floor of the cabin 
 lies the black steward on his face, groaning with the 
 agony of a terrible wound in the back inflicted by 
 the cook, a mere lad and a mere savage. When I 
 came on deck this morning I heard high words in 
 the galley (or cooking place) ; presently out came 
 the steward, and in an instant followed the cook. 
 
24 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 who flung a large saucepan at him with sufficient 
 force to have killed him on the spot had it struck 
 him. Then the steward seized him in his arms, 
 and (being a very powerful man) flung him down like 
 a child. But the captain parted them then, and sent 
 the steward aft. However, he being out of sight, 
 they were soon at it again, and as I stood on the 
 poop, after some fierce dispute about a bucketful of 
 plates, I saw the cook thrust headforemost out of 
 the galley, with the steward over him, who forth- 
 with began to pound his head on the deck, A 
 crowd gathered, and an ill-looking scoundrel, who had 
 before been helping the cook to abuse the steward, 
 walked up quietly with his pale, wicked face, and began 
 kicking the negi'o in the face. He was right to part 
 them, but not so. 
 
 Then the negro knocked ofi' the cook, dashed at 
 the sailor, and a great scuffle ensued, during which 
 the cook was in the galley. The sailor got the negro 
 down, and while he held him, out rushed the cook, 
 and I saw him strike him as he lay (but I saw no 
 knife in his hand then). The second mate came up 
 and parted them ; I walked forward to help him, and 
 saw much blood about the negro, who to our expostu- 
 
Voyage to New Brunswick. 25 
 
 lations, replied that the cook had "knifed" him, — 
 " he kill me now, but I shall kill him before I die," 
 — and then, with h'is hideous, pale black skin, he 
 calmly went looking about for some weapon where- 
 with to revenge the death he expected on "that boy," 
 as he called him. The latter stood the whUe, bran- 
 dishing an ugly butcher's or " sheath " knife, yelling 
 and screaming like a madman. The contrast was 
 fearful between the frenzied rage of the one and the 
 cool concentrated hatred and murderous aspect of the 
 other, who kept repeating in a low voice, his intention 
 of killing " that boy before I die," while his eyes wan- 
 dered everywhere in search of a weapon. 
 
 We in the meanwhile tried to get him up, but could 
 not do anything with him except keep him from the 
 cook till a more powerful agent than us began to work, 
 — the deep stab in his back. For suddenly he turned 
 paler -than ever, and said in a voice of terror to the 
 second mate, " Oh, Sir, I die ! I die now ! " But it 
 was not death, but faintness — so great that all further ven- 
 geance he had to postpone. So we got him to the cabin, 
 and I went on the poop to the captain, who knew not 
 what was going on, but who instantly came down. Then 
 we sewed up his wound in ignorance of its depth, and 
 
26 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 laid him on his face, where he has lain ever since, his 
 only consolation being his determination, which he con- 
 tinually mutters in English and Portuguese, to murder 
 or " matar " " that boy," if he does not die himself, 
 which he occasionally belieTes he will. This belief 
 seems only to distress him as robbing him of his revenge. 
 
 While we were dressing his wounds, I observed the 
 cook pattering about and wiping up blood, which I then 
 saw was flowing from a gash in his foot, which he affirms 
 the steward gave him first. This I am not confident of. 
 Indeed, I think he got it accidentally, and that the story 
 the men tell, in which the negro is made the first to use 
 the knife, is got up to screen the white man. For there 
 is a feeling about Americans, natural enough, but which 
 had not occurred to me till the second mate explained it 
 to me, that a nigger should never be allowed to beat a 
 white. "Why, if I saw him whipping a white man, 
 I'd knock his brains out myself; the steward would 
 stand a bad chance in this ship," &c. Had the steward 
 stabbed the cook, he would probably have been killed by 
 the crew at once. The captain has none of these feelings ; 
 he is a humane, reasonable man, and one whom I like 
 very much. 
 
 In consequence of all this slaughtering work, the 
 
Voyage to New Brunswick. 27 
 
 deck is stained with splashes of blood, and the cabin floor 
 is slippery as glass with the same abomination, in spite 
 of all the washing. If the steward dies (as I expect), 
 the cook will be in a scrape. But you may imagine I 
 am not well pleased to find myself in such company. 
 One of the officers has been first mate in a slaver, t'other 
 has been with Spaniards and foreign ships so much, that 
 I suspect more than I would say about what he has 
 been ; the steward himself once belonged to a slaver. 
 I must say, however, that the officers and I think most 
 of the crew are shocked at this morning's work. The 
 whole business angers and disgusts me : the bad feeling 
 against the niggers, the sight of the poor wretch who 
 may be dying, and whose only solace in his sufferings is 
 the hope of murdering (and kill him he will if he re- 
 covers) — the whole piece of atrocity is, as a Port Phillip 
 neighbour of ours would say, "very annoying." 
 
 And what do you think was the beginning of this ? 
 Some ham the steward was cutting for our breakfast ! 
 The cook asked him why he cut it in that way ? The 
 other replied that it was no business of his. The cause 
 of the steward's obstinacy- in carrying on the quarrel was 
 probably to be found in a mug of whiskey we found in 
 his pantry, which he had stolen from a keg kept for 
 
28 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 medical uses. He did not seem at all intoxicated, but 
 probably the spirit gave additional violence to his temper. 
 The chief mate is used to this kind of thing in New 
 Orleans, besides having been knifed himself; still, he 
 disapproves of it. 
 
 August 11th. — The gale we were expecting when I 
 last wrote never came at all ; the barometer and the 
 minacious clouds were but crying "wolf." A stiff 
 breeze from N.W. set all right, and for the last few 
 days we have had nothing but light head winds, beau- 
 tiful summer weather, varied by a sharp squall now and 
 then, smooth water and ceaseless grumbling. The men 
 kept tumbling down and hurting themselves, or getting 
 ill or something, to the captain's infinite disgust. The 
 head winds have sent us too fast, — we are nearly in the 
 latitude of the Azores, and, I suppose, not 200 miles 
 from it. 
 
 I have just finished copying a manifest of the ship's 
 cargo, which I did willingly for the captain, both for 
 the sake of the occupation and because he is a very good 
 fellow. The steward is, I am glad to say, recovering ; 
 but a white man in his predicament would have been 
 food for fishes ere now. The refractory watch have 
 come back to their duty, — so that row is over. 
 
Voyage to New Brunswick. 29 
 
 Last night, in his usual low-voiced matter-of-fact 
 way of telling things, our dear chief mate told me stories 
 of tiger, bear, and wild-boar shootings, which he had had 
 in Cuba and elsewhere ; and of a wild young English 
 " lord " on board his ship, who used to put him in 
 mind of Lord Byron, who travelled all about America 
 in search of adventures, and whose chief ambition was 
 to fight a grizzly bear. Another rather exciting event 
 disturbed the even current of his young life at nineteen 
 or twenty — his career was within an ace of being closed 
 by — the gallows, for a murder he never committed. 
 
 We have seen some gulfweed, and so with that and 
 flying-fish, and the hot sun and the squalls, I fancy 
 myself in the tropics again. . But we are evidently in 
 for a long voyage. We still have to pump every hour, 
 but it is our old story now, and we have left off talking 
 of the boats. Au reste, I get on very comfortably — the 
 grub is good enough for the likes of me ; I have books 
 — the captain tells me funny stories, and there is 
 nothing to grumble at, except the weather, the bit of 
 murdering, growlings, &c. 
 
 August 12th. — This morning at 3 h. 15 m. I woke 
 with a notion that something unusual was going on ; a 
 very few seconds sufficed to explain that hoarse roar. 
 
30 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique. 
 
 mingled with shouting, and flappings, and rattlings, and 
 that little hole over-head, which proved to be the port- 
 hole, usually by my side. A furious storm had assailed 
 us, and a sudden rending crash for a moment made me 
 fear we had lost a topmast, when the loud cry of, " Let 
 go the topsail halyards!" relieved me from that anxiety. 
 To remain in bed any longer was not to be thought of ; 
 so I jumped into my clothes and looked out on deck, 
 and such a sight and such a sound you never saw or 
 heard. The storm was rushing and howling over us 
 like legions of insane lions, or rather it was as though 
 a Niagara of wind was dashing against us. The gusts 
 seemed too solid for air ; they came with the resistless 
 weight of a torrent of water, bearing the poor ship down 
 before its mighty onset, till she looked like a helpless 
 woman cowering beneath the rage of her drunken husband. 
 As long as she could be kept right before the wind 
 there was hot much to fear, but, with such a press of 
 canvas, maintopgallant sail over single-reefed topsails, 
 it was no easy matter to steer her steadily. At last a 
 sweep to windward — a sickening lurch as the blast 
 caught her abea,m, soon brought our captain out from 
 his lair, when, instead of adding to the already scarce 
 endurable strain on the spars, as he had before been 
 
Voyage to New Brunsivick. 31 
 
 promising himself to do, he had only time to get in his 
 topgallant sail, and two more reefs in his topsails, before 
 the gale seemed suddenly to wake up to its work with 
 a fury I had not before seen equalled, horrible in its 
 grandeur — a storm run mad — a delirious tempest — such 
 it seemed to me. I used to imagine I had had experi- 
 ence in the wrath of the wind, but this was an exhibi- 
 tion of its frenzy quite novel to me. I could not stand 
 without holding on by the rigging, before blasts which 
 came down on us with a vengeful violence — a crushing 
 weight as though they would grind the ship to powder. 
 The yelling of the gale through the blocks, the hoarse 
 roaring in the shrouds and rigging might be compared 
 to the war-whoop of a whole nation of Eed Indians 
 among their own stormtost forests. It was very dark,; 
 but through the darkness gleamed the snowy manes of 
 the huge waves, as they came toppling after us like 
 mountains torn up from their roots. 
 
 We could none of us quiet ourselves to the idea of 
 turning in till the early morning, and even then,. when, 
 I thought the gale had done its worst, it increased till,' 
 as I lay in my cot, I felt the poor ship fairly quiver in 
 the mighty grasp of the tempest. 
 
32 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Letter II.— FROM BOSTON TO ST. JOHN.— DIARY— FROM 
 ST. JOHN TO FKEDEEICTON. 
 
 St. John, \Oth September, 1851. 
 
 I MUST refer to my note-book for an account of my 
 proceedings. My notes state that on a day of heat 
 which the Bostonians bore with as little content as 
 myself, I left their roasting city per steamer Admiral, 
 bound for East Port in the state of Maine, where 
 another boat from St. John would meet us. I must 
 tell you though, to gain your good-will for -my friend 
 
 the lanky, sepulchral chief mate of the , of the 
 
 cordially friendly grasp of the hand and his " God 
 bless you," and wishes that I might have a pleasant 
 journey, showing me that by our long yarns in his 
 evening watches on deck I had gained a friend. 
 
 American steamers are not a bit like those you are 
 used to ; they are more like Noah's ark, only the 
 beasts you meet in them are much queerer than he 
 
From Boston to St, John. 83 
 
 ever saw. The " saloon " consists of a passage and 
 open space with chairs and sofa, and altogether an 
 American steamer is a labyrinth of passages and stairs. 
 During dinner, at which were assembled fifty mouths, 
 I talked with a New Brunswick episcopal clergyman, 
 whose account of the agricultural prospects of the 
 province were very discouraging. He spoke much of 
 the extreme rigour of the winter, and said it was an 
 acknowledged fact that wheat could not be produced in 
 any quantity now, though twenty years ago it was an 
 abundant crop, the falling off being apparently caused 
 by some influence at work in the climate which had so 
 altered it, that no application of agricultural science 
 could counteract its evil influence. When I suggested 
 that it might be owing to that exhaustion of the soil 
 that Johnstone speaks of, he said that it was disproved 
 by the occasional abundant harvests even now obtained. 
 He says that the mineral resources are apparently very 
 considerable, instancing a mountain not very far from 
 St. John, which is almost composed of the richest iron 
 ore, which has hitherto been left untouched through 
 that want of energy displayed by their Yankee neigh- 
 bours, which is so much against the progress of the 
 colony, the absence of all speculative daring, confining 
 
 3 
 
34 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 the investments of the capitalists to those recommended 
 by safety, and certainty alone. I shall try to get some 
 more definite information about the iron, and if possible 
 visit the spot ; for the railway, which is, you know, a 
 determined affair, and which it is believed will rapidly 
 be carried on towards, ay, and to the Pacific, will be 
 in itself a market for the metal besides the United 
 States, which alone would perhaps absorb all that 
 New Brunswick could produce, and so those who open a 
 mine there may find they have done a first-rate thing. 
 
 9th September. — Great as was the discomfort of 
 last night, still it was equalled by the amusement it 
 afforded. I had heard something about complaining of 
 the plight they found themselves ii>, in that boat, when 
 they turned in ; and accordingly determined to avoid 
 all risks, I resigned my berth, and, in American 
 fashion, possessed myself of a mattress, of which, in 
 these steamers, there are plenty of spare ones, placed 
 it on the deck in one of the passages, and wrapped in 
 my great coat, prepared to pass, as I hoped, a quiet 
 night, after a long talk with one of the pleasantest of 
 my new friends, though a genuine Yankee. It was 
 now past eleven, but ere twelve I found I was woefully 
 deceived in my idea that I had eluded the foe. After 
 
From Boston to St. John. 35 
 
 a cool argument with myself on the matter, I " guessed" 
 I might as well get up as lie there catching bugs. 
 According to another American fashion I must tell that 
 close to me, were a gentleman and his wife, who 
 occupied two other mattresses, and with whom I after- 
 wards set up an acquaintance. In these steamers the 
 passengers either go to the berth at night or scatter them- 
 selyes on mattresses where they like ; my two neigh- 
 bours certainly retained their clothes ; but I was highly 
 amused, though rather aghast, when I beheld an Irish 
 family (of well-dressed people too) consisting of the 
 parents and two fine young women, with solemn 
 deliberation begin systematically to " peel." I have 
 seen funny things in my travels, but few funnier than 
 this. Yet doubtless it was done in the simplicity of 
 their hearts, and I was in their eyes of no more con- 
 sequence than the pig who had at home been the 
 companion of their slumbers. In an American boat 
 you see one meets with very mixed society, a most 
 heterogeneous assemblage; were the Duke of Wel- 
 lington here he might find himself sitting beside Sam 
 Slick's father, or the lowest Irish savage of a peasant. 
 Well, as I walked away from the battle-field, I met an- 
 other victim in the person of a wealthy Boston merchant, 
 
 3—2 
 
36 Journal of Two Months on. the Tohique. 
 
 owner of 130,000 acres of land in Maine, whither he 
 was going with four or five friends to hunt and fish, 
 and from which he clears 8,000 dols., or ahout 1,600L 
 per annum by cutting lumber — another good specimen 
 of the Yankee. I began discussing our misfortune 
 with him, and as we walked and talked, one by one 
 from the depths of the cabin appeared fugitive after 
 fugitive, till the midnight, or now morning moon, shone 
 on a whole army of martyrs. Nothing was heard but 
 "bit me," "bug," "bug." Yet through all was 
 maintained a good temper, which it would be absurd to 
 expect in a boat-load of Englishmen under the circum- 
 stances. Instead of growls and curses, jokes and 
 laughter changed what would have been a sheer nui- 
 sance to a very good bit of fun, especially when an 
 "indignation meeting" was got up in the cabin to 
 express the opinion of the passengers about the state 
 of things. When the paper written for the purpose 
 had been read to the meeting, concluding with a motion 
 that it should be represented to the captain, a fat old 
 fellow voted that any one opposing that motion be 
 forthwith shown into the berth he had vacated, which 
 would soon bring him to a right way of thinking, 
 he guessed. As the morning advanced, however, one 
 
From Boston to St. John, 37 
 
 by one they yielded to imperious nature, and, hiding 
 away in chairs and corners, left me on the open deck 
 with my own neighbour, with whom I had a long talk, 
 in the course of which I made him out to be a Scotch 
 free kirk minister in St. John's : the lady, his wife, had 
 just arrived at New York from Liverpool ; he was now 
 bringing her to New Brunswick. I forgot to tell that 
 they very soon followed my example in retreating from 
 the fray. Him I found agreeable and conversable and • 
 gentlemanly, she was a nice simple Scotch lassie ; of 
 both I formed a good opinion. I talked chiefly with 
 
 Mr. , and by discussing theology, education, &c. 
 
 have got on favourable terms with him. 
 
 We ran close along the coast for two or three hours 
 before we reached East Port, at about 11 a.m. on the 
 9th, and I must say I was very much struck, even 
 delighted, by some parts of it. It is a kind of scenery 
 new to me — rocky promontories and little ragged isles 
 crested with pine-trees, like pictures of Norway. I took 
 a walk on shore with my divinity friend, and went up to 
 the Yankee barracks, where I saw some young lads 
 walking about dressed in badly made clothes, of coarse 
 blue cloth which looked like a gaol uniform, but which 
 was in fact the uniform of the U. S. army — and these 
 
38 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 mere boys were soldiers. Nine in ten are Irish, I am 
 assured — the Yankee being too good a judge to risk his 
 life for a trifle. Moreover the army in America is hated 
 with the whole heart, as being composed of the idlest 
 and most worthless rascals of the country. You have 
 probably seen some mention of the Cuba disturbances 
 in the papers — the massacre of the American volunteers 
 has created a good deal of excitement in the Southern 
 States, but elsewhere the general feeling is " served 'em 
 right." Their inducement was not even so respectable 
 as sympathy with the liberty-seeking insurgents, but 
 merely a hankering after the rich acres of the land — they 
 even held bonds from Lopez securing them portions of 
 land — which doubtless greatly increased the exaspera- 
 tion of the government party against the meddling 
 
 foreigners 
 
 And now we are off again for St. John's in the 
 Creole, swiftly paddling through intricate channels, 
 between rocky and beautiful islands — it is like sailing 
 over a lake, so smooth is the water, while land 
 surrounds us on all sides. While walking in East 
 Port I saw a female with a bearing and majesty of 
 figure sufficiently imposing for a Spanish donna, or a 
 bandit's bride at least. Her hair fell in rich masses, 
 
From Boston to St. John. 39 
 
 black and glossy, down her neck and shoulders, from 
 under a low-crowned and most becoming lady's black 
 hat — her costume was highly picturesque, but I can only 
 describe it by suggesting that she had put on two gowns, 
 and had then cut the upper one full two feet shorter than 
 the under, — altogether a more striking figure I never saw ; 
 she was an Indian squaw, and very ugly. These Indians 
 are quite civilized, clean and neat in their dress, the 
 men clothing themselves like whites, the squaws in a 
 variety of picturesque costumes, such as I have described. 
 
 I was much impressed by the great improvement in 
 the personal appearance of our female passengers, after 
 we had left some Yankees, and received a number of 
 Maine and New Brunswick people. In Boston I was as 
 much struck by the utter absence of personal attraction 
 in all the females I saw, as I was now with its 
 frequency and eminence of degree. Here .were the fine 
 figure, fresh complexion, and winning expression which 
 distinguishes the Anglo-Saxon race, and which is 
 entirely absent among the haggard, care-worn, pallid, 
 ugly faces of Massachusetts. 
 
 The ancient pine forests stretch down to the water's 
 edge, clothe the hills with an impenetrable scrub through 
 which in every direction fierce bush fires are spreading, 
 
40 Journal of Tioo Months on the Tobique. 
 
 filling the air, as in Australia, with a thick smoky haze 
 which renders the most distant country very indistinct. 
 
 I have just encountered and fled from a charming 
 flirtation with a charming lady whose appearance had 
 convinced me before that she at least was a lady in the 
 true sense of the word, and not as many of the occupants 
 of the cabin doubtless were — Irish servant-girls dressed 
 in the finery which is so loved in America. I had so 
 admired her looks, that I was very glad to see her 
 walk past with a stool in her hand, when of course I 
 sprang forward, begging permission to carry it for her. 
 The calm self-possession with which she received this 
 act of "devilish politeness" showing that such atten- 
 tions were a matter of course with her, confirmed my 
 opinion of her position in society, while the saucy-jolly 
 tone with which she said, " I'll trouble you to carry it a 
 little fui-ther, though," when, like a muff, I was putting 
 it down in an evidently unsuitable place, was decidedly 
 irresistible — and when she answered with her sweet 
 ringing voice to the objection I made to the place she 
 chose, that it was in the sun, " Oh, but I like that," I 
 could have fallen at her feet, and offered to devote my 
 existence to her. However, instead of doing so, I put 
 down the stool and walked away, fearful of nothing but 
 
From Boston to St. John. 41 
 
 that she should think me a forward fellow who had 
 shown her civility with the sole purpose of obtruding 
 myself upon her — whereas I had really only done so out 
 of a sheer spirit of politeness. So I lost an opportunity 
 I might have used to make the acquaintance of a 
 charming lady. 
 
 Well, as the sun declined, we approached St. John, 
 and the nearer we came, the more beautiful, the grander 
 became the coast scenery, till it reached the climax at 
 the harbours. High forest-clothed hills, and a lake-like 
 scenery — such is its kind. I admired it far more than 
 I expected. An old shrewd Arostock farmer, to whom I 
 observed that it was very pretty country, said it would be 
 much more so, if it was " more leveller." Well, here I 
 am in St. John's, a fine-is/i town, but I think not so far 
 advanced in excellence of building as Melbourne, which, 
 however, it strikingly resembles in some of its features. 
 When I beheld the British flag waving over me once 
 more, I experienced a feeling quite new to me, an 
 " amor patriae" I dreamed not of possessing, — an exul- 
 tation and a swelling of heart I had hitherto believed 
 all affectation when others talked of it. I thought it so 
 no more when I felt the thrill of delight that crimson 
 banner gave me. 
 
42 Jownal of Two Months on the Tohique. 
 
 If I was struck by the beauty of the Maine females 
 in one steamer, I was astounded in St. John's ; in 
 fact, it is notorious for the beauty of its women. There 
 is an exhibition of industry here, a little Crystal Palace, 
 got up in imitation of that in London, which I Tisited 
 yesterday, and which has drawn great crowds into St. 
 John. There was nothing yery remarkable in it ; there 
 were some pictures, however, by a native artist, a young 
 man of 20, which were very good indeed, and showed, 
 I have no doubt, great talent and high promise of 
 future excellence. There was besides an exquisite 
 coloured drawing by an English lady, Elizabeth Murray. 
 There was a large procession of various orders, but 
 chiefly of the firemen, a fine body of about 800 volun- 
 teers of all classes, divided into several corps. Besides 
 this, a fountain was set going, and Sir E. Head 
 delivered an address, which I could not hear. 
 
 Mr. I find a very useful friend. He knows 
 
 everybody, and has gained me many acquaintances — 
 indeed, there is no difficulty in forming as many 
 acquaintances as you please in St. John's, so free are 
 the New Brunswickers from the cold reserve which 
 strangers attribute to the English. Mr. intro- 
 duces me constantly to difierent people — some, men of 
 
From Boston to St. John. 43 
 
 property in the interior; others, leading men in St. 
 John's ; informing them of my desire to obtain infor- 
 mation about the colony, and never neglecting to inform 
 them of the fact of my having been some years in 
 Australia, which I observe always makes me an object 
 of greater interest. Forthwith they shake hands with 
 me — express the utmost willingness to forward my 
 views, as far as they can, and launch into conversation 
 with the fluent rapidity so remarkable amongst them — 
 especially the Blue Noses. I am about to visit a bar- 
 rister and a wealthy man of note here, a Mr. ; 
 
 also a Mr. , who knows more of the province than 
 
 any man in it, a naturalist, chief of the Indians, angler, 
 and an official in St. John's. I must acknowledge 
 that I am highly pleased with the good nature and the 
 cordial welcome I receive on all hands, which, as an 
 utter stranger, I could never have dreamed of meeting 
 vdth. The fact of my possessing letters to Sir E. Head 
 goes a good way, I suspect, in establishing my position, 
 or in removing suspicion of my respectability, while 
 
 Mr. 's friendly offices have been of great service to 
 
 me. I have already had invitations to the houses of 
 people in the interior, which will be of much ad- 
 vantage. 
 
44 Journal of'Tivo Months on the Tohique. 
 
 Last night I had a long talk with a Blue Nose (or 
 native) on the steps of the hotel, whom I had never 
 seen before, but who entered into conversation with all 
 the readiness of his race. He is an exception to the 
 general rule in rating Johnstone's work much higher 
 than others. He acknowledges the general opinion to 
 be entirely against it, but believes that future expe- 
 rience will show his representations of the country to 
 be far nearer the truth than is generally believed. 
 
 I have just received a letter from , promising 
 
 another, and reiterating his request that I should 
 closely inspect the Tobique ; remarking that it's success 
 would probably have a most serious influence on my 
 own prospects in the country. I am now preparing for 
 a systematic investigation of the best parts of the pro- 
 vince, starting to-morrow, and commencing with the 
 iron ore at Petersville, which I before mentioned. I 
 must finish now as my time is limited. Give my truest 
 love to all, not forgetting Nora ; and remember me 
 
 most kindly to the 's and 's. I may have 
 
 another chance of writing to you from Fredericton, 
 
 but cannot promise. Dearest , good-bye. I am 
 
 always your most truly loving brother, — 
 
 M. C. S. 
 
From St. John to Fredericton. 45 
 
 DIAEY. 
 
 September 11th. — For the last two or three hours we 
 have been swiftly steaming up the glorious St. John 
 Eiver to Fredericton — glorious indeed, if a mighty 
 stream flowing between noble rugged hills clothed with 
 deep forests of nature's planting, can be so. As we 
 ascend the river, the landscape loses much of its rude 
 magnificence, but assumes a richer character. Long 
 low islands, coyered with stacks of hay, or still shaded 
 by the graceful elm and butter-nut trees, divide the 
 stream; and the rich flats, colonially called "inter- 
 vales," are spread from the margin of the broad current 
 to the still forest-clad hills, which now recede further 
 into the wilderness ; numerous farms are scattered 
 among fertile fields ; cattle browse along the grassy 
 banks: the energies of man have turned the gloomy 
 forest to a smiling habitation. But my sympathies are 
 still more strongly enlisted with the forest : with what 
 impatience did I not long to plunge into the vast woods 
 that I saw around me. I can admire the rich and 
 fertile tracts; I take interest in agriculture; and can 
 
46 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique. 
 
 appreciate the great charm of a farmer's life ; but the 
 truth is I have spent so many years amongst wild lands, 
 boundless plains, or nocturnal forests, that my inclina- 
 tion leads me to the wilderness, rather than to the 
 abode of man — a yearning which none of the delights of 
 civilisation can ever, I believe, entirely subdue. 
 
 At 8 P.M. the steamer lay alongside the " makeshift " 
 wharf at Fredericton ; out poured the crowd of pas- 
 sengers, dispersing themselves through the scattered 
 village. I betook myself to a very fair hotel by the 
 water-side with a fellow traveller. The scenery imme- 
 diately about Fredericton is tame; there is a considerable 
 extent of cleared land between the river and the old 
 forest; but there is here none of either the boldness 
 or the richness of the lower parts of the river. A 
 strong N.W., cool and refreshing, has dispersed the 
 thick smoke fog, which had obscured the air since I 
 landed at St. John, tempering the warm sun, and 
 producing a day of weather which could hardly be 
 surpassed. Clouds of dust drive through the streets, 
 however, which make walking highly unpleasant. 
 
 lUh, Swnday. — The piercing nor'-wester, which has 
 been chilling us all day, is a kind of gentle hint of what 
 the winter is preparing for us ; still it is fine bracing 
 
From St. John to Fredericton. 47 
 
 weather, a clear and deep blue sky, with glorious sun. 
 I attended service at the church which at present 
 supplies the place of a cathedral. Dr. Field, Bishop 
 of Newfoundland, preached a sermon which left his 
 hearers in no doubt of his theological bias — which is 
 
 very high church. I accompanied Colonel to his 
 
 house, and was introduced to his daughters, natives of 
 Canada, with all the brilliancy of complexion which so 
 distinguishes the North Americans. . . . Yesterday 
 I presented myself at Government House. I dined, 
 there in the evening, and met the Bishop of N. F. L. 
 and N. S., Colonel Haynes, Colonel Lockyer, &c. A 
 very pleasant evening I spent there. 
 
 EXTRACTS PROM DIAEY, 
 
 Tobique, 16th September. — Colonel H , agent to 
 
 the Nova Scotia Land Company, drove me to Stanley 
 to-day. Stanley is one of the principal settlements of 
 this company, and was first commenced about fifteen 
 years ago. This was my first introduction to the 
 tangled forests of New Brunswick. Stanley, a large 
 island as it were, surrounded on every side by the wild 
 forest ocean, studded with white, cheerful cottages, 
 panelled with fields of grass or grain-crops, forming 
 
48 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 altogether a scene of humanity and civilization pleasing 
 to look on. 
 
 These settlements, hacked and hewed out of the 
 almost impenetrable forests, seem to me but little better 
 than a large prison after all, surrounded on all sides by 
 high and gloomy walls — wooden walls, indeed — a 
 " howling wilderness," the only exit a road I could 
 almost compare to a dark underground passage, over- 
 shadowed and confined as it is by the woods. The 
 little village, consisting of tavern, church, school-house, 
 blacksmith's shop, parsonage, doctor's house, and a few 
 other buildings, is placed in a somewhat ill-judged posi- 
 tion, inasmuch as it is at the bottom of a deep valley, so 
 that all egress from it must be by a long steep hill. 
 Through this valley flows the beautiful river Nashwaak 
 — at the time of my visit a shallow stream rustling over 
 a stony bed ; when the rains fall, however, and the 
 snows melt, it is a wide, rushing torrent, and down it, 
 in the spring, come great mountains of ice, which have 
 carried dams, bridges, and mill-houses on it rather than 
 before it, lifting the strong timber bridge, and bearing 
 it away as though it were a feather, sending the mill- 
 house from its foundations, and tearing away the dam as 
 though it felt it not. 
 
From St. John to Fredericton. 49 
 
 Across the new bridge the doctor drove me, in a 
 waggon, as they call the queer-looking trough set upon 
 wheels which are the usual vehicles in this country, and 
 went up the opposite hill by the Miramichi Road, thence 
 we obtained a fine view of the settlement, and of the 
 river winding beneath us under steep, forest-burthened 
 hills, cheerful, bright, and smiling in the warm sun and 
 clear atmosphere. . , . 
 
 September 20th. — I again left Fredericton with 
 
 Colonel H , to whose kindness I am much indebted, 
 
 on our way to another of the Nova Scotia Land Com- 
 pany's settlements called Springfield, about twenty-five 
 miles up the St. John, and five miles back from 
 the river. . . . This settlement is not nearly so far 
 advanced as Stanley, is still covered with a thick crop 
 of stumps, and did not strike me as very inviting. . . 
 
 Down in a steep little gully, across which the road 
 took us, we came on as pretty a bit of rurality as 
 ever pastoral poet fancied in his namby-pambiest mood 
 — a fair damsel, unmistakeably Irish, milking a cow 
 under the branches of an o'ershadowing maple. Startled 
 at our sudden apparition, she gazed at us with her bright 
 blue eyes, with a surprise which proved that a gig was 
 no usual sight in those backwood settlements . . . 
 
50 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 The house where we passed the night, was owned 
 by an old gentleman who came to the country before a 
 house was built in St. John, and gave us as the result 
 of some sixty years' experience, that there is no fault in 
 the country ; it is as fine farming land as any one could 
 desire ; that the fault is in the people — dense ignorance, 
 no energy, or energy only exerted in that fascinating,, 
 gambling business, the lumbering trade ; these are the 
 drags on the onward course of the colony. This is, in 
 fact, so well known and acknowledged that it is but 
 uttering a truism . . . The old lady desired her 
 husband to " show the men their beds," which proved 
 pretty good, but we had a little difficulty in making 
 it understood that we wanted water for any purpose 
 besides drinking. Every one in this country with a 
 good coat on his back is a " man," every ragged rascal 
 a "gentleman." 
 
 Next morning, having paid for our board and lodging 
 (for there is no gratis hospitality among the rural popu- 
 lation here), the colonel and I parted, he on his way 
 back, I on mine to Woodstock, a small town sixty miles 
 above Fredericton. At a neighbouring farm, I hired a 
 horse and waggon to take me on for 11., currency. 
 This is the usual way of travelhng where there is no 
 
From St. John to Fredericton. 51 
 
 stage. As a great favour, the owner of a horse drives 
 you as far as he thinks proper, and expects with your 
 thanks to receive a handsome remuneration. This you 
 put in his hand, shake the other, thank him for his 
 kindness in earning a pound or two, and so you go 
 through the province travelling at a rate of expense 
 which would take you through the states of America . . 
 
 22nd, Woodstock. — Mr. G , with that readiness 
 
 to assist which I have so constantly met with in New 
 Brunswick, called on me early, and showed me a plan of 
 a road from the Tobique to the grand Falls, the result of 
 his survey of that country, besides lending me a map of 
 the Tobique itself to take with me when I explore that 
 river. 
 
 During the forenoon I went out with Mr. J , 
 
 who, with the greatest kindness, did all he could to 
 help me, driving me to an Indian village, where he 
 introduced me to a friend of his called Joe, with 
 whom we made a bargain that he should take me up 
 to the Tobique, and thence as high as the stream 
 would let us go. These Indians were living in log- 
 huts not larger than an ordinary dog kennel, and 
 
 looked lazy and uncivilized. Mr. J told me a 
 
 fact which throws a Uttle light on a New Brunswick 
 
 4—2 
 
52 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 winter — that he had seen the mercury soHdified at 
 Fredericton ! — equivalent to 39 deg. 
 
 At Mr. J 's house, where I spent a pleasant 
 
 evening, I found the Indian whom I had hired waiting 
 to tell me that he had procured a canoe, for which 
 he wanted an advance of six dollars, besides one more 
 to buy flour for his family in his absence. We started 
 at 8 the next morning, with a supply of pork, bis- 
 cuit, tea, and sugar for a fortnight's cruise. . , . 
 Strong as was the current, Joe (for such was my 
 skipper's name,) made the canoe shoot along with his 
 pole at a rate which astonished me, not more, how- 
 eyer, than the places through which he unhesitatingly 
 guided her. The river was very low, and banks or 
 " bars " of gravel and large shingle frequently divided 
 it into one or more channels, which themselves were 
 often so shallow as barely to allow even the light 
 canoe to pass. On one occasion Joe had chosen one 
 which had he known he would certainly have avoided, 
 but, having entered it, he proceeded with a perseverance 
 amounting to foolish obstinacy. Gently and cautiously 
 he steered the little craft along a bank of shingle, 
 which closed the upper entrance of the channel, and 
 over which the stream was gurgling and tumbling in 
 
From Sti John to Fredericton. 53 
 
 a manner which made me rather nervous. "You 
 will have to go hack, Joe; you can never get over 
 that," said I, though at the same time I had an 
 unpleasant conviction that he was about to try, at 
 any rate. 
 
 " I guess I can," was his quiet reply, and at the 
 same instant, to my unbounded surprise, he shoved 
 the canoe right on to a place where the stronger and 
 more riotous rush of the current promised a little 
 greater depth of water, though to go up there seemed 
 about the same thing as going upstairs in a boat. 
 My surprise was not much less when, with the assist- 
 ance of a shove with his spear, which I had in my 
 hand, we found ourselves safe in the deep water above. 
 
 Close by the mouth of a deep rocky gully we 
 landed to dine on our pork and biscuit, having found 
 fuel in driftwood scattered over the stony beach. Joe 
 then proceeded to stop sundry leaks which had shown 
 themselves with mixed rosin and gi-ease, and then 
 once more we launched our frail craft on the swift 
 waters of the St. John. 
 
 Joe talked of finding quarters for the night in some 
 one of the numerous houses which stud the banks of 
 the river from St. John upwards. I don't much like 
 
54 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 asking the hospitality of strangers when supplied with 
 the means for camping out, unless the weather is 
 very bad indeed, and I felt this disinclination more 
 in New Brunswick than anywhere else. Under all 
 circumstances the stranger finds himself the cause 
 of inconvenience to his entertainers ; their daily 
 routine is interrupted, and they look uncomfortable, 
 while the guest is thoroughly so, mentally and physi- 
 cally. He loses the glorious freedom of his camp, and 
 both causes and suffers a constraint which is the death 
 
 of comfort. Joe's bias was in favour of a Mr. P 's 
 
 house, about a mile higher up. Of this Mr. P 
 
 I had never heard before; but I internally resolved 
 that no force of circumstances should make me go 
 there. But as I had no reason to back my decision, 
 instead of openly rebelling, I waited, trusting to find 
 some loophole whereby to escape. 
 
 The night began to fall, leaving little time to find 
 what I sought, when a tow-boat moored to the banks 
 with a vacant cabin or house astern caught my eye. 
 " Good place for a man to sleep in on a wet night, 
 Joe," I carelessly remarked, as we came up to it. 
 " Yes, sir, first-rate." Joe had committed himself, 
 and I hastened to secure my advantage. " Suppose 
 
From St. John to Fredericton. 55 
 
 we sleep there to-night, Joe ? " " Very well, sir, 
 as you please." On a steep bank above us was a 
 little farm-house, where I saw a man chopping fire- 
 wood. "We landed, and I inquired of him if the 
 boat was his, stating my wish to pass the night in 
 it. He said that " the boat was none of his, but that 
 if I liked I might cook my victuals in his house, lie 
 down by his fire, and welcome." The increasing 
 rain was a strong argument in favour of this pro- 
 posal, and as I could adopt it without inconsistency, 
 I at once agreed. 
 
 So the Indian and I forthwith carried up our 
 blankets, cooking-apparatus and food into a rough 
 but very substantially built little house, where a 
 roaring fire and well-heated stove contrasted with the 
 gloom and rain outside. Two comely, middle-aged 
 women (one of them the man's vrife), and an old 
 gentleman, his father, received us very graciously, 
 supplying us with forks to eat with, and cream for 
 our tea, treating Joe, too, with as much considera- 
 tion as if he were a white man, setting a chair for 
 him with all imaginable politeness. I had a long 
 talk with the old gentleman, who had come from 
 the States thirty years ago : and, like most of the 
 
56 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique. 
 
 many Yankees I have met, seemed a very intelligent, 
 well-informed man. On his hearing I had been in 
 Australia, I had, as usual, to answer a multitude of 
 questions, evincing great curiosity on the subject. 
 The women especially took interest in the wool, 
 wishing they had as much at their command, as 
 then they could make as fine shawls as any one ; 
 for all New Brunswick farm-wives are provided 
 with a spinning-wheel, and manufacture most of 
 the woollen articles of their dress. I was much 
 pleased by the straw hats so generally worn by 
 the fair Bluenoses, setting off their undeniably good 
 looks. 
 
 So bitterly cold was it next morning that on shaking 
 hands with my entertainers, and bidding them good 
 morning, I was resolved to walk part of the way, at 
 least, though my weight in the boat would have been 
 rather an advantage to Joe, as giving the strong head- 
 wind less power to retard the canoe. After a brisk 
 walk, I got on board, and endured the blast till I 
 hardly knew that " I was I." So I again rebelled, 
 and insisted on going on shore again. Here I con- 
 trived to entangle myself among elder thickets, and 
 clamber about steep banks till I fell far astern of 
 
From St. John to Fredericton, 57 
 
 the canoe, and was glad enough to embark once 
 more and remain there quietly, covering myself with 
 
 a piece of oiled canvas Mr. J had lent me for 
 
 a tent. We reached, at noon, a collection of houses 
 round a saw-mill, which had been built in one of 
 those steep gullies generally chosen for such a building 
 — mill privileges, as they call them. Here Joe found 
 a blacksmith to put a spike on his pole, and had 
 again to repair his canoe, which leaked annoyingly- 
 
 Cramped up in the bottom of the canoe, with scarcely 
 room to stir, benumbed with cold, and shrinking 
 from the bitter blast, I had now begun to appreciate 
 the advice I had received, and rejected, to take with 
 me a little spmts, as well for myself as the Indian, 
 who had, in fact, taken care of himself; and that 
 same small bottle of brandy which I had espied on 
 starting with suspicion, became now of no small 
 use. It is indeed an invariable rule to take a small 
 quantity of grog for the Indian on these excursions, 
 but it is not prudent to allow him free access to your 
 stock. My own Indian, I was assured, was an exception 
 to the rule, but they sometimes end in capsizing the 
 canoe if they can get as much as they like. 
 
 While Joe was patching up his canoe I sat under 
 
58 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 the lee of the steep rocky bank, clotlied with thick 
 alders, sketching him as he worked, bringing into the 
 picture a log canoe or pirogue, poled across the stream 
 by two men. I wish my pencil could do justice to the 
 picturesque scene, or my pen to the beauty I heard, 
 felt, and saw in that quiet half hour. The broad river 
 rolling beneath the high forest-clad hills before me, 
 glowing beneath a bright sun — the rushing of the 
 boughs over me mingling with the clink of little bells, 
 and the murmuring of the current against the stubborn 
 rocks that it could not roll away — all gave a romantic 
 dreaminess to the scene, which made me loth to rouse 
 myself from the reveries it induced — reveries of the 
 past and of other lands. But this dreaming won't help 
 us to the Tobique, the object of my present dreaming 
 fit. Come, Joe, we must be off. ■ 
 
 We reached a Temperance inn, a mile beneath the 
 mouth of the Tobique, at dusk. The wind had died 
 away, and the clear sky over which the pale flashes 
 of the northern lights streamed like waving locks of 
 shining yellow hair, promised us a smart frost, which 
 promise it fulfilled. There is a mysterious, almost an 
 awful, beauty in these northern lights, in their thin 
 delicate loveliness, as though the gates of heaven were 
 
From St. John to Fredericton. 59 
 
 suddenly opened, and the glory from within — the glory 
 of the Deity — beamed forth. As twilight deepens into 
 night a faint yellow bank of light is seen rising above 
 the northern horizon ; while gazing, we become aware 
 of the long streams of light, but we cannot tell the 
 moment when first they existed — swiftly they rise and 
 spread, but we cannot watch their progress — diverging 
 from the bank of light as though they were the outskirts 
 of some vast source of inexpressible splendour. 
 
 Next morning (the 25th) I started on foot for the 
 mouth of the Tobique, which I had understood was a 
 mile and a half from the inn. The walk in such 
 glorious weather was delightful, and when I came to a 
 cluster of houses on one side the river, and the junction 
 of a biggish stream on the other, with another cluster 
 in the angle of the junction, I could hardly believe I 
 had reached the Tobique. So I went on till I met a 
 waggon driven by a lad who looked hard at me, and 
 said, " I say, mister, are you the man as wants to go to 
 the Falls ?" In fact I had told the innkeeper I was 
 thinking of going on thither, as it would take a day or 
 two to put the ca-noe to rights. " 'Cos my uncle was 
 
 at H 's last night, and he told my father there was 
 
 a man as was going to the Falls, so I came down to 
 
60 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique. 
 
 see." " Whence do you come ? " " Koostock, I 
 guess." (The Aroostook is a river which joins the 
 St. John about three miles above the Falls.) " I 
 want to go there, but I don't want to go to the Falls, so 
 you may take me if you like." Thereupon the lad 
 becomes sceptical and guesses that I am not the man 
 after all ; I try to convince him, telling him that I had 
 changed my mind, that there was no one else at 
 
 H 's, and that if he went there he'd just go foi* 
 
 nothing ; clenching my argument by representing that 
 I •must be the man, as I could not be there and here 
 
 too ; if I were at H 's I could not be talking to 
 
 him there. This puzzled him for a minute, but he 
 extricated himself by recurring to his former doubts, 
 till the question began to be whether I was I or some- 
 body else. I settled it at last by turning away, saying 
 I didn't care whether he took me or no, so he let me 
 get in. My object at the Aroostook was to get some 
 grog, the supply at the Tobique inn being out. I pro- 
 cured some excellent brandy, which will, I hope, keep 
 a " fellow poling hard," as Joe says, in good spirits. 
 
( 61 ) 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 ' DIARY ON THE TOBIQUE— THE INDIANS AND THE 
 WIGWAM. 
 
 Next day, at 3 p.m., we started on our excursion into 
 the wilds of the Tobique, a river with but few inha- 
 bitants, as far as sixteen miles up, and those chiefly 
 unauthorized squatters. For about half a mile from 
 the mouth it runs through a wide bed, cleft by two or 
 three pretty islands, then a sudden turn brings us into 
 the Narrows, like entering the gates of death ; a deep 
 narrow chasm, cleft through the rocks. High over-head 
 on either side rise the rugged precipitous walls, crowned 
 by overhanging birch and spruce forests. 
 
 On our emerging from these Narrows, Joe espied 
 some wild ducks, one of which I hit at a long shot, 
 though without disabling it. I rose, however, several 
 pegs in Joe's estimation, who bestowed equal praises on 
 
62 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 the rifle and its owner. " That was a good shot, I 
 tell you ; where did you get that rifle ? She throws a 
 ball well, I tell you." 
 
 On a rock where we landed to fish, I espied a hare- 
 bell, the first I have seen for many years ; and with its 
 meekly hanging head it told me long and melancholy 
 tales of times gone by never to return ; not that old 
 scenes may not be reyisited, and the sunshine bright 
 as eyer, and the flowers blossom as then ; but it is he 
 who revisits them is past and gone — himself and not 
 himself ; the heart that saw them is dead, or worse, is 
 changed, for that change kills not the memory, the 
 long lingering gaze after the fading past. 
 
 On we go, shut out from the world by pile upon 
 pile of forests, heaped up in heavy masses on the hills, 
 whose feet the Tobique had washed for many years. 
 Now that the sun was sinking, we began to fish with 
 
 such tackle as we had. How my friend St. , that 
 
 scientific and enthusiastic fisherman, would have laughed 
 had he seen us trailing bits of salt pork over the water, 
 to persuade the trout, who we believed to lurk below, 
 that it was a fly ; he, the while, preparing his reel and 
 tapering bamboo, and elegant flies, and offering to give 
 me a shilling for all he doesn't catch, while I give him 
 
The Indians and the Wigwam. 63 
 
 half-a-crown for all he does. But how would his ridicule 
 be changed to wonder on seeing a splash and a bounce 
 and a trout, as fast as Joe could cast his pork over the 
 stream. I say Joe, for I must confess that the trout 
 with that unaccountable caprice that fish are subject 
 to, persisted in bestowing their custom on him only. 
 Tired at last of fishing — Joe of success, and I of failure — 
 we resolved to make a night of it with our prey on a 
 low gravelly island or bar just opposite. 
 
 Then, indeed, the past seemed come again — all the 
 old familiar preparations for " bushing it," which my 
 life in Australia had made second nature to me. The 
 kindling of a fire, the making up of a bed, — in this 
 instance done simply by throwing the larger stones from 
 the shingle on which we were to sleep, — the boihng of 
 the tea, — the meal so highly relished, — the supremely 
 gratifying pipe after that; then the spreading of blankets, 
 the lying down to sleep with ten thousand stars to watch 
 over us (unless there are ten thousand drops of rain 
 instead), the gazing deeply into infinite space ere sleep 
 closes the eyes, the deep hush of night only broken by 
 the plash plash of the river over the rock, and the 
 thronging memories which in those hours of still 
 solitude come rushing on — oh ! I could not think but 
 
64 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 that I was in glorious, sunny Australia, till I looked 
 round and saw the canoe, under the lee of which we lay, 
 or Joe's red Indian face glowing in the light of the blaze 
 as he heaped log upon log ; and then I remembered I 
 was the Port Phillip squatter camping in the woods of 
 New Brunswick. 
 
 I was roused in the beginning of my sleep by a shout 
 from Joe, which he accounted for, as he sat up looking 
 bewilderedly around, by saying he had dreamed that he 
 had hooked so large a trout that he capsized the canoe, 
 and was shouting to me for help. 
 
 September 27th. — The four or five of the trout 
 caught last evening remained after our supper : these, 
 with pork and biscuit, formed breakfast; after which 
 we resumed our cruise. We had proposed to add 
 salmon-spearing to the other sports, and having neglected 
 to bring salt to cure them, I climbed up a steep bank to 
 a little house to get some. I found a good old lady, — 
 a motherly sort of body, whose husband was out 
 " lumbering." My rifle excited much admiration in 
 her little son, who seized it at once vsith many excla- 
 mations of delight at the beauty of the stock ; little wild 
 animals these children of the woods are, where there are 
 no schools to teach them manners ; scampering about 
 
The Indians and the Wigwam 65 
 
 like little beasts; staring at the stranger with the 
 curiosity and surprise of the colt of the desert ; active 
 and untamed as squirrels. In reply to my inquiries 
 about bears, the good old woman assured me that they 
 had indeed " been very much afflicted with bears — they 
 had killed three sheep of hers — and her husband had 
 killed two in a trap and had shot one in the grain ; oh ! 
 the biggest bear that ever was seen ; six men couldn't 
 hold him." 
 
 I went down again to the river and . found Joe in a 
 rather excited state about some ducks he had seen on 
 an island, and of which, to his great delight, he had got 
 one by a very long shot. After a while we landed again, 
 and Joe discovered a partridge, as they call them here, 
 though they much more resemble the grouse in form, 
 though not in temper, for they will stand to be pelted 
 vdth sticks and stones, almost too stupid or lazy to get 
 out of their way. I shot this one, and thereby increased 
 still more Joe's admiration of my rifle. This was the 
 hard-wood or white-fleshed partridge. There is another 
 variety called the spruce or soft-wood partridge, with 
 dark flesh, and a more gamey flavour. 
 
 We landed to dine beneath a settler's hut, on the 
 opposite side of the river. I saw a tall, dark-haired 
 
 5 
 
66 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique. 
 
 lady of the woods, young and comely, carrying a large 
 spinning wheel, with which she stepped quickly and 
 nimbly over the rough rocks till she stood opposite the 
 hut, where her loud, clear tones rang through the air 
 like a note from an organ ; a signal to the house, whence 
 shortly issued a man, who crossed and brought her over 
 in a pirogue. 
 
 For fifteen or sixteen miles up the Tobiqne there 
 are a few scattered settlers. The Campbell settlement, 
 which has made some progress, terminates the perma- 
 ,jient habitations on the river. Then come the half- 
 savage lumberers and wanderers like ourselves ; and for 
 fifty or sixty miles the river knows no other human 
 guests. Our object now was to find some place where 
 we could get a good supply of trout for our evening 
 meal ; then to camp, spread our tents, and be miserable 
 at our ease ; but this we could not do, — find a fishing 
 place I mean — for in that pouring rain there was no 
 difficulty about the misery. On the extreme verge of 
 the settlement we pitched our oiled canvas tent, and 
 spite of rain, wet ground, and such disagreeables, spent 
 a night of sound sleep. I had, according to Colonel 
 
 H 's advice, provided myself with a pound or two 
 
 of composite candles — an item in their preparations 
 
The Indians and the Wigwam. 67 
 
 which I would advise no one to omit. In calm weather 
 and beneath a tent they burn well, and are a great com- 
 fort. By their light I read and wrote and passed pleasant 
 eveniugs, which otherwise might drag on rather slowly 
 with only the uncertain flicker of the camp-fire to show 
 you what you are about. 
 
 Joe watches me while I write with admiration and 
 envy ; he is learning to read — he has got a spelling- • 
 book and goes to school. I asked him if there were 
 any books printed in the Indian language; he said 
 there are a few, but was greatly shocked when I asked 
 him (not remembering that the Indians hereabouts are 
 all Catholics) if they had any Bibles, and replied in- 
 dignantly, " No ! not Bibles," as if he were repelling 
 a charge of crime. 
 
 28th. — ^Next day, under pouring rain, we passed the 
 junction of the Wapskebagan with the Tobique and the 
 "Plaster Kocks," old red sandstone cliffs, containing 
 gypsum, which, from its great fertilising properties, wUl 
 probably give that spot considerable value in the event 
 of a settlement being made on this part of the river. 
 About here I first tried what I could do with the pole. 
 The chief difficulty is simply to learn to stand in the 
 little "tottling" canoe without capsizing it or tumbling 
 
 5—2 
 
68 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique. 
 
 out. It is as in skating, swimming, or riding ; all the 
 tyro has to do is to overcome his fears and nervousness, 
 and as soon as he has done so the rest is easy. In a 
 short time I began to acquire confidence, could throw 
 my weight on the pole, and shove the canoe along at 
 euch a rate that Joe assured me I " did it almost 
 quite right." 
 
 The rain continued with such determination that I 
 got sulky, and told Joe I had not come all the way from 
 England to get wet on the Tobique, whereat he laughed 
 heartily. After dinner I undertook to " fix " the guns, 
 which wanted cleaning, but, not having so much as a 
 screw to our ramrods, still less proper cleaning rods, I 
 soon contrived to " fix " the ramrod of the gun in the 
 barrel in such a manner as to get it into "a regular 
 fix ; " but Joe having waxed it out, I set to work on the 
 rifle, and in two minutes got that into such a mess with 
 a lump of rag at the bottom that I was about to give up 
 that gun for the rest of the expedition. Joe, however, 
 having examined it, observed, "I guess I can get it 
 out," and then mth. a needle and a piece of thread and 
 the ramrod of his gun, rigged up a machine with which 
 I should as soon have thought of pulling up a stump, 
 but with which his ingenuity soon extracted the rag. 
 
The Indians and the Wigwam. 69 
 
 After we had " fixed " our dinner and arranged our 
 difiSculties, we again strolled away into the uninhabited 
 wilderness — uninhabited save by the " wild beasts " Joe 
 is now keenly looking out for (being encouraged by a 
 dream to expect to see a moose before night), or by 
 lumberers scarcely less wild than they. These lum- 
 berers, many of them farmers or their sons, others men 
 hired by dealers in lumber, go into the " wilderness " 
 in the fall of the year, taking with them supplies for 
 some months' abode in that savage land ; endure hard- 
 ships and severe toil, flies in unendurable numbers, 
 rains, cold winds, and then frost and snow-storms of 
 Arctic severity. When the ice breaks up and fierce 
 torrents rush down from the hills, they launch their 
 logs — stream-driving them, as it is termed — in the 
 water half the time, and risking their life when at some 
 narrow spot the crowding logs get heaped up into a 
 jam. When once in the wide river, they are joined into 
 a raft, and the lumberers start on their voyage down 
 the rapid stream ; their six months of toil completed, 
 their pockets filled with money (I speak of hired men, 
 not farmers, whose pockets are generally pretty well 
 emptied by the process), they give themselves up to the 
 Unrestrained enjoyment of their supreme luxury — an 
 
70 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 unlimited supply of the vilest whisky — till their money 
 is gone ; and they pass the summer as they can, till 
 their season of toil returns. There seems to be a 
 charm in this forest life, independent of the wages or 
 the hope of large gains, which makes it difficult for 
 those who have once entered on the pursuit to abandon 
 it. Already the margin of the stream is strewn with 
 spruce logs waiting for the first fresh ; boats loaded 
 with supplies are being towed up by horses ; and now 
 and then we pass a camp, and canoes, with two or three 
 rough-looking men in red shirts, pass up and down the 
 river. 
 
 Deep and wide and still and dark was the river, 
 stretching away in long reaches like beautiful lakes — in 
 many instances bringing before one the lovely scenes of 
 Cumberland. Joe was now anxiously looking out for 
 likely places to find the tracks of the moose where they 
 came to drink ; and with this view made the canoe 
 glide gently into a quiet nook we saw among the alder 
 groves — the entrance into a net-work of canals and 
 water passages, through a thick forest of alders and low 
 bushes. Into that death-like stillness we softly stole — 
 not a sound was heard, save the lightest whisper in the 
 water as Joe's paddle just touched it — the overhanging 
 
The Indians and the Wigwam. 71 
 
 trees slept silently in the twilight their leaf-laden 
 boughs produced. So almost awe-inspiring was that 
 unnatural quiet, that Joe and I instinctively abstained 
 from speaking (as though we dared not break the 
 silence) ; or if we spoke, it was scarce above a whisper. 
 And as we entered the gates of that stilly labyrinth, a 
 huge owl glided noiselessly by, like the presiding 
 genius of silence, swiftly vanishing into the gloom 
 beyond. With my rifle in my hand, and sight and 
 hearing at their utmost stretch, we explored these 
 secret ways till our progress was stopped by the shoal- 
 ing of the water ; and we returned without having seen 
 anything save the old owl and a big lonely trout, who 
 had probably chosen that quiet spot to meditate in — 
 nor heard any sound save what we made ourselves. 
 
 Eeturning to the open river, we saw so many trout 
 shooting about that we got out and began fishing. We 
 offered them our apologies for flies manufactured with 
 a couple of partridge feathers, tied to the hook with 
 some coarse thread ; and in two or three casts Joe had 
 landed as many of the speckled beauties. My wooing 
 was all in vain, and in my spleen I had a good mind to 
 try no more ; but Joe insisted, and laying down his 
 rod, " guessed he'd let me catch some now," taking his 
 
72 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 paddle and guiding the canoe over the capricious crowd 
 below. Perhaps it was the advancing evening which 
 made the fish more eager to feed, or, perhaps, that I 
 had begun to place my fly in a more tempting manner ; 
 at any rate, a trout was soon plunging at the end of the 
 line : the spell was broken, and now Joe resuming his 
 rod, we fished away, pulling up sometimes each a fish at 
 once, till I thought we had enough for several meals — 
 as I am not sportsman enough to enjoy killing for 
 killing's sake. 
 
 Joe had selected for our camp that night a brow 
 over the river, where the lumberers had cleared a small 
 spot to place their logs in, preparatory to rolling them 
 down to the river. It was like a chamber walled in on 
 three sides by the matted forest, roofed over with the 
 blackness of night ; before us and beneath us ran the 
 deep river and rose tall elms in the island it embraced 
 with its clinging folds— but we saw them not from the 
 edge of our little platform. It was like standing on 
 the brink of the world — infinity might have been 
 beneath us for all that we could see. At the foot of a 
 huge dead old pine-tree, on the damp and oozy ground, 
 we made our beds : the fire flashed on the grim trunks 
 and branphes and nodding boughs, which waUed us in. 
 
The Indians and the Wigwam. 73 
 
 and this was all that we could see. But here in good 
 humour with the world, I sat and watched Joe frying 
 the trout, which half an hour hefore had been dancing 
 merrily in the current. That is the way to eat fish 
 — to whisk them, as it were, out of the water into 
 the pan. 
 
 For the sake of those who object to fishing as 
 cruelty, I may state what seems to me proof of the 
 insensibility of the trout's mouth, as well as of its 
 voracity and boldness. I had hooked one of these 
 gentry, and just as I was lifting him from the water to 
 the land he wriggled ofi' the hook, and fell back just 
 at my feet ; and there I saw him plainly waiting for me 
 to give him another chance, looking up as though he 
 disputed the fairness of such doings ; and on my drop- 
 ping my fly over him, I wish I may never see another 
 trout if he did not instantly "jump at the chance," 
 and succeed in hooking himself so securely, that he 
 never saw the Tobique more. Now will any one tell 
 me that fish suffered tortures from the hook ? No ! it 
 would be too much for even Martin to believe. 
 
 Joe became rather chatty this evening, regretting his- 
 not having brought his spelling-book, and singing book, 
 giving me some account of his domestic affairs, telling 
 
74 Journal of Two Months on the Tolique. 
 
 me, amongst other things, that he is a Yankee coming 
 from the Penobseat; he discoursed on hunting and 
 fishing, moose, bears, and salmon, and appeared on the 
 whole to relish the fun of the thing. 
 
 The next day began with a damp, clinging, wreath- 
 ing fog ; very dismal looks a forest in a fog ; in fact, 
 nature is then in a fit of the vapours, and the very trees 
 look desponding, as though the damp " put their hair 
 out of curl." Joe's dreaming had now put him on the 
 qui vive for moose, which he was confident of finding 
 ere night, though my own expectations of such luck 
 were very slight. Wherever a shelving bank or muddy 
 spot on the margin of the river occurred, there he 
 shoved his canoe ; but especially he looked out for the 
 little lagoons where the moose came to drink and crop 
 the water weeds and the herbage which here and there 
 they find along the banks. We came on one of these, 
 a narrow shallow piece of water, between a little, low, 
 alder-clothed island and . the river banks ; at the lower 
 end, in a deep dark pool, we saw such numbers of trout 
 that I could not help seizing my rod to try a cast, when, 
 in a low, sharp whisper, I heard Joe exclaim, " There's 
 a moose ! " 
 
 Down went the rod, and all eagerness I caught hold 
 
The Indians and the Wigwam. 75 
 
 of my rifle ; crouching down I gazed through the fallen 
 timber which crossed the narrow channel, and at a 
 distance of perhaps a hundred and fifty yards, I saw 
 a dark reddish-brown animal in the water. The 
 eagerness which went near to prevent my taking aim 
 I managed to restrain for the few seconds, during which 
 I drew an imaginary line from my eye along the barrel 
 of my rifle to the glossy flank of my destined victim ; 
 the sharp crack roused the echoes, and in three minutes 
 the unfortunate creature, who scarce stirred six paces 
 from where he received the shot, lay dead in the water. 
 Then came hurry and excitement, and jumping ashore, 
 and looking for the flask, balls, and knife, none of 
 which in our haste could we find; while Joe, whose 
 impatience could no longer be restrained, disappeared 
 in the matted alder grove between us and our prey. 
 Having at last found our ammunition exactly where it 
 ought to be, I reloaded my piece and followed him ; 
 diving and ducking beneath the branches, and scram- 
 bling and> plunging through till I reached the spot. 
 
 The moose lay in the water where I had shot him ; 
 the bottom was so muddy that Joe could only reach 
 him by cutting down branches to step on, then making 
 a piece of rope fast round his neck, we contrived to drag 
 
76 Journal of Two Months on the ToUque. 
 
 him on to a few yards of clear turf, and there we cut 
 his throat. He proved to he a young one, probahly 
 about two years old, a bull, and very fat, weighing 
 perhaps about 200 lb., while a full-grown bull, standing 
 about sixteen hands, might weigh 2,000 lb. This first 
 moment of quiet showed me that we had got into the 
 very head-quarters of the most venomous little demons 
 of flies I ever was enraged by. My first cry was for a 
 fire, to keep them off a little by the smoke, my first act 
 to try and fill my pipe as a further defence ; I was then 
 obliged to walk incessantly about our narrow bit of turf, 
 and began to wish I had never seen the moose, or at 
 least had been lucky enough to miss him. Even Joe, 
 who had before asserted that the flies never troubled 
 him, could hardly endure their stings. Each of them 
 raised on me a lump which lasted for days, and caused 
 by their number a burning feverish heat. A mixture 
 of tar and oil rubbed over the exposed skin is, I am 
 told, a very good protection from these ministers of 
 evil ; but this I had not procured, being told that at 
 this season there was no fear of them. The calm, 
 warm, muggy weather must account for their numbers. 
 
 Well, we skinned the moose and cut him up, and 
 scolded at the flies, and put the joints in the canoe. 
 
The Indians and the Wigwam. 77 
 
 and drank some grog, and while I pushed back the 
 canoe out of the shallow channel, I began to reflect on 
 my position. Here I was with a moose to begin with, 
 which it would be a sin to throw away, but which could 
 only be saved by camping for a couple of days and 
 smoking him, that is, if I resolved to prosecute my 
 journey up the river. But the incessant rain or fog 
 almost defeating my chief object of traversing the woods 
 and exploring the country, damped my energies, and 
 finally, as I could only half do my errand at present, 
 I thought it better to wait for a more favourable time. 
 So away with the pole, Joe, take your paddle, or if 
 you like it better, drift down the strong stream, and eat 
 your raw pork if you are hungry, for here among the 
 flies will we not dine. 
 
 But now Joe began to take an inexplicable fancy 
 into his head. While we were skinning the moose, 
 there passed on the other side of the island, hidden 
 from us, a canoe full of lumberers loudly singing and 
 laughing ; he even then looked up with some apparent 
 uneasiness, and hoped " they would not be uncivil to 
 strangers, he guessed not." I asked him if they were 
 likely to be, and thought no more of it. But when, 
 while floating down, another canoe, with two men poling 
 
78 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique, 
 
 and one man paddling her along with great speed, 
 appeared coming after us, then he became, or seemed 
 to become, seriously alarmed, talked of a gentleman 
 having been robbed and murdered on the river by such 
 men as these ; took his paddle, and working hard, soon 
 left the imagined pursuers behind. All this put me 
 in a state of uncertainty. I had never heard of a word 
 of danger to be feared from lumberers, had indeed heard 
 only of their hospitality. But then Joe knew them 
 well, and I not at all. The lonely river was well suited 
 to deeds of violence; no doubt the greatest ruffians of 
 the country are occasionally to be found in the lum- 
 berers' camp ; and, after all, if these fellows should 
 fancy we had grog with us, they might insist on our 
 yielding it up to them. So, at any rate, I'll keep our 
 fire-arms in a state for service. Joe meanwhile can go 
 two miles to their one ; and, even if he be humbugging, 
 as I suspect, he is at all events hastening our homeward 
 progress. 
 
 When Joe perceived that he could run away with ease, 
 he relaxed his exertions, and so we -drifted away till night 
 fell on us, and between the piles of blackness, shapeless 
 and undefined, we slid away silent and serious till we 
 reached our second night's camp, where we resolved to 
 
The Indians and the Wigicam. 79 
 
 pass this drenching one too. But Joe's constant watch- 
 fulness and listening for noises produced the same 
 restlessness of ear and eye in myself which I used to feel 
 in the bush of Australia when camping out where the 
 assaults of the wild " black fellows " might be expected; 
 at last, after some false alarms, I went to sleep. Joe 
 declared next morning he had scarcely slept through the 
 night, nor held his hand off his gun. After breakfast 
 and waiting an hour or two to see if the rain would stop, 
 away we went down the river, stopping sometimes to 
 fish, on one of which occasions I caught a trout of over 
 two pounds' weight, which excited Joe's admiration and 
 jealousy. To-day for dinner we first tried our moose, a 
 steak of which I found to be perhaps even superior to 
 the best beef-steak I ever tasted. Such indeed is the 
 general opinion of this tender, sweet, and juicy meat. 
 
 I was more struck by the gloomy grandeur of the 
 Narrows even than when I first saw them, a narrow 
 chasm rent asunder in the rocks into which the broad 
 noble river was suddenly crowded and crushed up, its 
 placid smooth lake-like character changed to that of a 
 dark mud torrent. The entrance is at a sharp turn, 
 and on approaching it seems as though the water ended 
 under the steep cliff, but on reaching it the narrow gate- 
 
80 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 way is seen and the awful gulf opens before us; we look 
 up, half expecting to see written over us " lasciate ogni 
 speranza voi che entrate." Even Joe was impressed 
 by it, and remarked that "this was a cur'ous sort o' 
 place." 
 
 Joe invites me to lodge at the Indian village on 
 leaving the Tobique, telling me he could put me in a 
 clean and comfortable house, though he could not 
 promise me a bed. I agreed at once, as I am fond 
 of seeing "human nature in all its infinite varieties." 
 On landing, we were soon surrounded by a crowd of swar- 
 thy spectators, admiring the big trout held up to them by 
 the exulting Joe, and the rifle which killed the moose, 
 which I could see he was praising in no measured terms. 
 The moose too occasioned some excitement ; every one 
 that heard of it came to see it, the rumour spread among 
 whites and Indians, and I began to be pointed out as 
 " the man who shot the moose." 
 
 While writing all this I am sitting in a rude little 
 hut resembling very much the usual shepherd's hut in 
 Australia; before me sits a squaw (Joe's sister) busily 
 plaiting up a basket, which she never raised her eyes 
 from on my entrance; beside her stands a small 
 child crying bitterly because I looked at him, and now 
 
The Indians and the Wigwam. 81 
 
 and then an Indian comes in and looks over my shoulder 
 while I write, a process which I always find especially 
 excites a savage's surprise. Not that these Indians can 
 really be called savages ; still they have some of their 
 original nature left, unfortunately much mixed with 
 civilized vices. 
 
 After dining on part of our big trout, Joe intro- 
 duced me to a brother-in-law of his named Michelle, 
 to whose house I was escorted in the evening by 
 himself and a number of his friends and relations, 
 who, after a short chat with each other, wished me 
 politely a good night and left me to myself. And 
 here I am recounting the events of the day in a rude 
 little hut, &c. 
 
 Michelle's hut is neatly built and painted, and 
 consists of a room about fourteen feet square, with the 
 usual stove in the middle, where the family live, and 
 another smaller room which is given to me, neatly 
 floored and the windows furnished with glazed sashes. 
 The furniture consists of a chair and a table with a few 
 trunks and boxes ; I have spread my blankets in the 
 corner on the boards. Bound the walls are hung some 
 of the gowns and shawls of the squaw (I was going to 
 say lady) of the house, whom I hear conversing quietly 
 
82 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 with her husband in the next room, in their own soft- 
 sounding language, especially soft when spoken in the 
 gentle tones of the squaws. Indeed it must be a lan- 
 guage strangely deficient in melodious capabilities which 
 sounds not sweet and soft from a woman's lips when 
 she speaks quietly. 
 
 The village consists of two rows of houses, about 
 twenty in number; between them is the village green 
 where, in fine weather, before their doors family- 
 parties are cooking their meals at bright fires. There 
 is a chapel and burial-ground in which the graves are 
 simply marked with a cross, and there is also some little 
 land fenced in, and in a measure cultivated; but the 
 Indians have no great genius for agriculture. This 
 village is perched on a high bank in the angle formed 
 by the junction of the Tobique with the St. John, 
 commanding a very pretty view down the river and of 
 the high hills beyond. It has altogether surprised me, 
 as I had no idea of the extent to which the Indians are 
 actually civilized, being in many instances good trades- 
 men, with a correct (in fact a very keen) appreciation of 
 the value of money, talking English well and fluently, 
 and having hardly more, if so much, of the savage as 
 the peasantry in some of the remoter parts of England, 
 
The Indians and the Wigwam. 83 
 
 and still more Ireland, among the mountains of which 
 may be found perhaps as complete savages as any in 
 the world. 
 
 2nd October. — The first, a blowy, rainy day, I 
 passed at the village, as quiet and comfortable as I 
 could wish. This morning, at eight o'clock, we started 
 on our way down to Woodstock with the dried moose- 
 flesh wrapped in the skin, a small enough parcel. The 
 wind blowing right a-head, we had no time to go 
 ashore and cook our pork, a usual preliminary to a meal, 
 which on this occasion we dispensed with. As we 
 approached Woodstock, we entered a reach of the river 
 so beautifully closed in by fine mountains, and so 
 brightly shone upon by the moon, that Joe became 
 almost enthusiastic, and suggested that I might as well 
 " mark it down," i.e. sketch it. 
 
 We reached Woodstock by 8 p.m., so I paid Joe, 
 and there was my trip ended, in many respects a com- 
 plete failure, weather having defeated half my objects. 
 But I have not done with the Tobique ; an idea has 
 entered my head which sticks there ; a plan is forming 
 in my mind. I have not shaken hands with the wil- 
 derness, nor am I going to be satisfied with a moose 
 and a few trout. The desire of my soul has ever been for 
 
 6—2 
 
84 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 the wild lands of the world and the free life of the bush ; 
 and now I can satisfy it, how shall I refrain ? No ! 
 back will I go and build me a hut in those dark forests 
 ere the snow fall and the frosts enchain the river, and 
 there will I await the coming of the mighty armies of the 
 north. In plain English, I will pass the winter on the 
 Tobique, that will I, Joe, in spite of the terrible lum- 
 berers whom to fear, or to pretend to fear, as you did; 
 shows you in the one case a foolish, in the other a 
 knavish fellow, my dear Joe. But as thou art a willing 
 and a smart, and, as things go, a tolerably honest sort 
 of rogue, if thou wilt, come and build with me a camp 
 and show me where to seek the moose, and the cariboo, 
 and trap the sable, and slay the cruel wolf, and then 
 with more dollars in thy pocket than I believe thou 
 deservest, leave me to fight in solitude my battle with 
 the wilderness and the beasts thereof, and with fierce 
 winter and the terrors thereof. And Joe said he would, 
 and he said too he would take me to Fredericton in 
 his canoe ; but, as it happened, Joe did neither, inas- 
 much as Joe, as I learned afterwards, got drunk on 
 the "settlement" the night of our arrival and quar- 
 relled, and in his valour did so cruelly beat his oppo- 
 nent, that he judged it convenient to "clear ofi'" 
 
The Indians and the Wigwam. 85 
 
 without consulting me on the matter. So I saw Joe 
 no more. 
 
 I started on the 6th by stage for Fredericton, where 
 
 I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. G 1, to whose 
 
 kindness I am indebted for much valuable information. 
 Few know the Tobique river better than he does, and 
 good cause he has to remember it, for there indeed he 
 came near to end his days. He lost himself in the 
 forest, wandered for some days in the most inclement 
 weather, without fire and without food, and was found 
 only by means of a handkerchief which he had tied on 
 an alder when he lay down and would soon have died, 
 had he not soon after been found by a party of lum- 
 berers in that condition. An interesting account of 
 this adventure has been published in Chambers' Journal, 
 where I remember reading it, and being strongly im- 
 pressed by it some years ago. Little did I dream while 
 reading it in the Australian bush, that I should be led 
 in the course of my own wanderings into the scene of 
 an adventure which interested me so much. 
 
 A day was sufficient to arrange my afiairs in Frederic- 
 ton, and on the 8th I took my way back to Woodstock, 
 eager to complete the preparations for my retreat into 
 
86 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique. 
 
 the wilderness. Three days I passed there, collecting 
 suppHes, casting bullets for the benefit of the moose in 
 the blacksmith's shop, and discussing my project with 
 my friends. They seem much interested with the idea, 
 many laughing at it, many, on the contrary, thinking it 
 a very promising scheme, and wishing they had time 
 for the like. The chief doubt expressed is whether I 
 shall be able to endure the solitude ; my own doubt is 
 whether I shall find my patience in that respect much 
 tried, as lumberers are continually up and down the 
 river. 
 
 I have met with a queer character who made his 
 appearance at Ballack's hotel, where I was sitting with 
 
 J . A harsh voice, with the genuine Yankee twang, 
 
 sounded in the doorway of the room, asking if " a drop 
 of liquor could be had there?" Turning round, we 
 beheld a slim young fellow dressed in that style in- 
 tended to be the extreme of buckishness, which pro- 
 duces the extreme of blackguardism ; the most remark- 
 able feature of his costume being a cravat, the bows of 
 which stretched at least eighteen inches from end to 
 end, hanging down by their own weight in voluminous 
 folds, "I don't think you'll find much difficulty," 
 said I; "the best way is to step out there and call 
 
The Indians and the Wigwam. 87 
 
 'Jack.'" Loud shouts for "Jack" succeeded, and 
 being supplied with his brandy, he mixed in it, Ameri- 
 can fashion, a large quantity of sugar, and invited us 
 to drink with him, which honour we declined. But 
 our friend must needs have a companion in his 
 drinking, so looking about he espied an old fellow of a 
 labourer in his shirt-sleeves standing in the doorway. 
 " Ah, here," said he, " is an old 'coon '11 drink with this 
 nigger, I guess. I say, my old 'coon, take a glass o' 
 liquor?" The old 'coon, with a wink at us and a 
 delighted grin, accepted the invitation, so the two hob- 
 and-nobbed together, while my friend could not help 
 remarking to the outlandish animal, that he used a 
 pretty large quantity of sugar in his brandy. 
 
 " I guess so, I come from where the sugar grows," 
 and as he put down his glass he went on to the old 
 'coon, nodding aside at us, — " These here gentlemen 
 wouldn't drink with this nigger, 'cos they happen to 
 have a little better clothes than mine, but never mind, 
 I think a d — d sight more o' you than I do o' them, 
 old boy." At this manifestation of a wish to kick up 
 
 a row, J looked as if about to pitch him out of the 
 
 window, but the reflection that the tipsy beast was not 
 worth it prevailed, and he let him go on to remark. 
 
88 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 " I ain't a big 'un, a kick now would send me half way 
 
 into next week ; I'm leetel, but " here he stepped 
 
 forward and played some extraordinary antics with great 
 agility, and finished the performance by a series of 
 self-satisfied winks and nods. He then went on to say, 
 " Stop, I've got a lady here in the next room I'm going 
 to treat," and he poured out a glass of brandy. The 
 lady was a very respectable and very good-looking young 
 woman, waiting apparently for some one, and now on the 
 point of suffering the infliction of this Southern buck's 
 civiHties. The catastrophe I was not able to wait to see, 
 but I should think he was already half way into next week, 
 if he has not been helped to the end of it. 
 
 I had now completed my arrangements, and having 
 bid my friends farewell, with a deep sense of the kind- 
 ness and hospitality they had shown me on all occa- 
 sions, I started at 5 a.m. on the 12th of October, on my 
 flight to the wilderness. I went by the stage, and at 
 two o'clock reached the Tobique, which I had already 
 begun to fancy an old friend. I had already arranged 
 matters with two Indians, Michelle whom I have already 
 mentioned, and Moulton, another brother-in-law of 
 Joe's, whom I had observed to be an industrious and 
 ingenious fellow. Joe attributes to him enormous 
 
The Indians and the Wigwam. 89 
 
 strength, asserting that he can not only shoulder with 
 ease 100 lb. barrel of pork, but can even lift an ox from 
 the ground, feats which I should like to see him per- 
 form. This man and his brother (my landlord) are 
 together to make my camp, when the latter leaves me, 
 the other remaining for two or three weeks to teach me 
 the woodcraft of America. I have now to wait the 
 arrival of the boat which is to bring my supplies. 
 These consist of pork, biscuit, flour, tea and sugar for 
 about three months' consumption, ammunition, warm 
 clothing fit for the winter, cooking utensils, two axesy 
 a few tools, and a pair of snow-shoes, without which 
 there is no stirring on foot through the deep snows of 
 North America. 
 
90 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 CHAPTER rV. 
 SOLITUDE IN THE FOREST— CUTTING DOWN TREES. 
 
 Wednesday, 15th. — My supplies arrived safely yester- 
 day, and to-day I began my somewhat rash enterprise. 
 Once more I passed through the Narrows with Moulton 
 only, his brother having been detained by the prepara- 
 tions of a boy who was to go up with him to a part of 
 the river called Chaquastock, which means Big Jam, to 
 join his father, who was hunting on the Blue Moun- 
 tains. We dined at a stream called the Three Brooks, 
 reached the Red Rapids in the evening, and caniped on 
 the other side, bitterly cold too. 
 
 Thursday, 16th. — A few miles higher we came to the 
 noble cUff of red gypsiferous sandstone ; it looks as 
 though it had been built by those ancient stonemasons, 
 the Titans. It overhangs the river, a frowning mass, 
 and, as a friend of mine very justly observed, makes 
 one feel glad to get from under it. Now we began to 
 look out for the blazed tree which marks the spot 
 
Solitude and Cutting down Trees. 91 
 
 where the projected road from the Great Falls comes 
 out on the Tobique, and near which I propose to make 
 my camp. Bitterly cold was the evening, and very 
 tired was Moulton, with the severe labour of poling up 
 the strong river with our heavily-laden canoe, and 
 gladly did we jump ashore, on discovering the elm-tree 
 we sought. Forthwith I seized an axe, and began 
 striking furious blows at a log which I had mentally 
 devoted to the flames of our camp-fire, but I had soon 
 to drop my weapon and stand helplessly looking on, 
 for the cold handle had completed the work already 
 begun by the cold air, producing the pain known in 
 my childhood by the name of " hot-ache." 
 
 When this had partly abated, I looked round to see 
 what sort of place we had got into. It was a narrow bit 
 of " intervale," through which flowed a murmuring 
 brook, hidden by thick alders and matted brush ; over 
 the whole flat was a dense growth of elm, birch, and 
 spruce trees ; long grass, elder, raspberry-bushes, and 
 thick herbs, among which hung the network of the 
 clinging grape-vine. 
 
 Then we cooked one of the two or three partridges 
 I had slain during the day, and after that, while we 
 smoked our pipes, and Moulton prepared some of the 
 
92 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 willow-bark which the Indians mix with their tobacco, 
 and which has, when burning, a strong musky smell, 
 we discussed some of the provincial political questions ; 
 such as the boundary which Nicholas declares will soon 
 be the St. John itself. Then we talked of the hunter's 
 lore, of lucifees (or lynxes), sables, bears, and that king 
 of these forest-beasts, the moose. Moreover, he told 
 me some of his own hunting reminiscences, especially 
 
 of an expedition with an officer of the th regiment, 
 
 whose freaks and vagaries he recalled with infinite amuse- 
 ment ; and of another, who dropped behind in a chase 
 after a moose on snow-shoes, in the use of which he had 
 not had much practice, wandered about through the 
 night, was found by Moulton half-frozen to death, and 
 had to be dragged on a tarboggin (or small sledge) for 
 twenty or thirty miles. I told him of Joe's fright, 
 before mentioned, which he accounted for by his being 
 a stranger on this river, and afraid, too, perhaps of the 
 Mohawks, of whom these Indians believe that they 
 watch secretly all their movements, and know every one 
 of their proceedings. 
 
 nth. — This morning we were up breaking our 
 fast at daybreak, then we went up the gully, clam- 
 bered up a steep hill, and fixed on the spot for my 
 
Solitude and Cutting down Trees. 93 
 
 camp ; the chief r,equisites heing a place tolerably clear 
 from fallen trees, level, and with a sufficient supply of 
 hard wood for fuel. The trees of North America are 
 divided into hard wood and soft wood by the usage of the 
 country ; the former including maple, beech, birch, elm, 
 oak, &c., whose presence indicates a good soil ; the 
 latter class comprising all the varieties of pines, firs, and 
 cedars, a thick growth of which tells no flattering tale 
 to the agriculturist ; besides which they are unfit for 
 firewood in a house, from their trick of showering 
 miniature rockets in all directions, with reports like 
 firing pistols. 
 
 The spot we selected combined the required advan- 
 tages ; at the foot of the hill runs a noisy little brook 
 from which I could see myself painfully lugging buckets 
 of water up the steep bank. But this is a trifle weighed 
 against the advantages of such a site. While Moulton 
 remained to clear the place a little, and " bush out " a 
 track to it, I returned to the camp and busied myself 
 in little domestic employments, such as cleaning the 
 cooking utensils, &c., after which I took a walk and 
 knocked a partridge's head off with my rifle. 
 
 After dinner Moulton started ofi" again for the woods 
 to begin building my mansion, and soon I could hear 
 
94 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique. 
 
 his axe ringing through the forest. As my inexperience 
 in such a business would render my help of little use, and 
 as I did not much like leaving the camp to the mercy of 
 the passers-hy, I remained there cutting firewood and 
 doing odd jobs. We have been all day expecting 
 Nicholas, Moulton's brother, with the rest of my sup- 
 plies ; and now that evening has come without him, 
 and our tea and sugar all but gone, we begin to feel 
 uneasy; but the Eapids may have proved a greater 
 obstacle than we found them. An Indian never 
 dreams of the possibility of capsizing his canoe through 
 mismanagement, nor ever does when sober, which few 
 of them like to be if they can help it. But a man has 
 hardly fair play at these Eed Kapids from the slip- 
 periness of the rocks. 
 
 Before he started for the woods, Moulton began dis- 
 cussing the best way to make my hut, objecting to make 
 it all of logs, because, he said, there would be so many 
 holes between them, (the real reason being, that it 
 would be a longer and more toilsome way,) and proposing 
 to make it of cedar split into broad paling, as an Austra- 
 lian would call it. So we discussed that and the roof, 
 tiU my questions and objections convinced him that I 
 did not know what I was talking about ; whereupon he 
 
Solitude and Cutting down Trees. 95 
 
 jumped up and marched off, saying, " I guess I'll fix it 
 my own way," which I begged him by all means to do. 
 
 IQih. — Sharp frost last night, but, thanks to a large 
 rug, or rather piece of drugget, which I got in Frede- 
 ricton, I can defy any moderate degree of cold, and slept 
 
 as warm as if I had been in my own bed at E . 
 
 Moulton, by skill and strength prodigious, beyond any- 
 thing I have met with, has already half finished a very 
 substantial little hut. The enormous logs he has some- 
 how conveyed to their places at the foundation of the 
 building would have required, I believe, three ordinary 
 men to move from where they were cut to where they 
 now are. To test his strength I gave him a wedge 
 of lead which I had to bend, never believing that he or 
 any man could do it with the hands alone. He not 
 only bent it, but fairly bent it double. I would not 
 believe Joe's statement that he could lift an ox off the 
 ground; I would not doubt it now, if he told me he 
 could take up two, and walk away with them, one under 
 each arm. 
 
 Meanwhile his brother has not come yet, and I have 
 made up my mind, annoying as it will be, to start off 
 again down stream to find out what has happened. 
 
 l^ili. — Having hidden our stores, we, in an ill- 
 
96 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 humour, launched our canoe, and paddled down the 
 stream. But just as we passedr the Plaster Eocks we 
 descried the objects of our search preparing to start from 
 their encampment of the night before, and with faces 
 wherein the frowns were all banished by smiles, we 
 joined them and returned together to the camp. 
 Nicholas, we found, had been obliged to hire another 
 canoe, as the load was more than could be taken through 
 the Eapids by one, — which had caused the delay. 
 
 The two brothers have been hard at work aU day 
 at the " house on the hill," which is almost finished, 
 splitting cedar logs with wooden wedges into thin 
 palings 12 feet long, for the roof and sides. I went out 
 hunting, as we have nothing but pork to eat; shot a 
 partridge, and took a cruise through the woods till I 
 was tired. As I sit now by the crackling fire, the past 
 scenes of my wandering life arise before me. The 
 mountains of Madeira, the lakes of Cumberland, the 
 throngs of London, the plains and forests and burning 
 skies of Australia, and the stormy ocean, pass hurriedly 
 before me. 
 
 Two lumber-men, going up the river, paid my camp 
 a visit, drank a pot of tea, and told me of a lake only a 
 mile or so from my camp. They seemed quite puzzled 
 
Solitude and Cutting down Trees. 97 
 
 as to what I am doing, and wanted to know if I was 
 surveying the road or going to settle, I told them I 
 was doing neither of these things, hnt only wanted to 
 see the country. 
 
 Nicholas and Lolah (the boy) became quite uproarious 
 with their fun this evening. Very different are these 
 Indians from the Indians of romance, — none of the 
 taciturnity, laconic speech, and solemn apathy of Uneas 
 or Chingachkook. 
 
 21st. — The Northern Lights last night looked like a 
 fluttering canopy of pale fire or yellow curtains blowing 
 about. Nicholas and I started this morning on an ex- 
 cursion up the river, Lolah accompanying us with his 
 own canoe. Moulton, during our absence, which might 
 last three or four days, was to "fix" the camp com- 
 pletely, and make me a canoe and " tarboggin," or 
 light sledge, such as a man can draw over the snow 
 with a load of from 200 or 300 weight. A few miles 
 below the piece of backwater where I had shot the moose, 
 the two Indians went ashore, without stating their 
 object, but immediately began hunting among the 
 stones, as though they were looking for gold. I began 
 hunting too, without knowing for what, till Nicholas 
 showed me some queer pieces of sandy clay he had 
 
 7 
 
98 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique, 
 
 picked up, moulded apparently by the hand of man into 
 grotesque forms, which he seemed to prize highly, 
 assuring me they were made by the Indians a long 
 time ago, and, as far as I could make out from his 
 story, were intended to represent men; at least, he 
 called them " little Indians," though they had no 
 resemblance to anything particularly. I believe them 
 to be of natural formation, or at least the result of the 
 continued action of fire and water upon the peculiar soil 
 of the place. I went on hunting myself among the 
 shingles till I found what I wanted, viz., a good whet- 
 stone, which pleased me far better than all the " little 
 Indians " in the world. 
 
 We reached Cha-quaskook or Big Jam, where we 
 camped on the island for the night. By the lumberers 
 it is called Graball Island, fi-om an eddy which drives 
 all the lumber and drift-wood floating down the stream 
 into one general complication. 
 
 21st. — Rain came in bucketsfuU in the night ; 
 thunder and lightning this morning. Nicholas went 
 across to the Big Jam to fish, and brought back eleven 
 fine trout for breakfast. Then Lolah made preparations 
 for starting through the woods to his father's camp at 
 the Blue Mountains, full in sight, at the distance of 
 
^Solitude and Cutting down Trees. 99 
 
 eight or ten miles ; a noble hill about 2,000 feet high. 
 A great part of the country we passed through had been 
 devastated by a terrible fire many years ago ; and now 
 bare, leafless, almost branchless, skeletons of trees over 
 miles and miles of a brown and dreary landscape, stuck 
 over it Uke pins in a pin-(sishion ; the fleshless bones of 
 the forest giants, bleached bare, stuck up to dry and 
 decay. 
 
 When Lolah had hidden his things and vanished 
 into the wood, Nicholas and I started on our return, 
 being deterred from further exploration by bad weather. 
 We passed a spot on the very edge of the river, where the 
 shingle was blackened and caked firmly together by some 
 hard cement, which is probably some form of bitumen or 
 asphalte. The stones were crusted thinly over with it, 
 and when rubbed on the hand it left such a gloss as is 
 produced with rubbing them with plumbago. Among 
 them I discovered also some metallic particles resem- 
 bling lead. Nicholas was as much interested in it as I 
 was, and scooped away with his paddle till he found 
 there was a regular bed or vein of this curious substance 
 binding the stones so firmly together that a pickaxe or 
 crowbar would be necessary to dig them up in any 
 quantity, 
 
 7—2 
 
100 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 A tributary called the Aqualquac joins the Tobique, 
 up which we went for perhaps two miles, and found it 
 little else than a succession of rapids, a narrow swift 
 shallow little river running between strips of intervale 
 laden with the thickest jungle of alder, birch, poplar, 
 ash, willow and all sorts of trees and bushes, while the 
 uplands are darkened with an equally thick growth of 
 spruce. In one place we encountered cliffs of silurian 
 rock reappearing from under the red sandstone, rising 
 over the river about 150 feet, and forming a very grand, 
 wild, impressive scene ; altogether the Aqualquac struck 
 me as the gloomiest, most romantic, lonely little 
 river I have ever seen, and I felt almost relieved 
 on emerging from its dark recesses into the wide 
 Tobique. 
 
 I baited my hook with a bit of one of the trout 
 Nicholas had caught, and we soon had the boat half full 
 of them. Within a mile of our camp Nicholas suddenly 
 showed symptoms of intense excitement, stopping the 
 canoe , and ejaculating vehemently. It turned out that 
 he had espied a dead salmon at the bottom of the river ; 
 such a prize was not to be lightly abandoned, and after a 
 deal of trouble we contrived to get him on board. He 
 weighed about twelve pounds, and had been killed by a 
 
Solitude and Cutting down Trees. 101 
 
 spear, the wound in the back appearing plain enough, 
 and as he showed no signs of having been long dead, we 
 conveyed him home in triumph. I assured Nowell (the 
 other Indian) that I had shot him, to which he answered 
 by an energetic " pshaw." 
 
 And now I sit in my camp, warm and snug it is 
 indeed. Moulton, who has just finished making an axe- 
 handle, is smoking a pipe and watching me. Nicholas 
 is warming himself by the bright fire in the corner ; the 
 tarboggin is in another, snow-shoes in another, and all 
 the luggage scattered about. To-morrow they are to 
 make me a log canoe, and then abandon me to my own 
 resources. 
 
 Friday, 24:th. — Alone, utterly alone, at last I find 
 myself to-night. Last night Nicholas and Nowell were 
 singing French songs in duet, or Nowell was chatting 
 with me on hunting or gossip, or complaining of the 
 usage of the Indians in this province, or telling me of 
 the wars in olden time, or of the Mohawks, of whom they 
 have a sort of superstitious dread, believing that every 
 summer they despatch emissaries through the provinces, 
 who lurk in the woods watching their ancient foes 
 the Melicetes, to see what they are about. For 
 in former days they waged fierce and bloody wars 
 
102 Journal of Tioo Months on the Tohique. 
 
 with each other, and once the Melicetes launched 
 some fifty or so of the Mohawks down the Great Falls 
 into eternity. 
 
 But the chatting and the singing are heard no more 
 in my camp, and now begins the life I have chosen for 
 the ensuing winter, the life of a lonely trapper and 
 hunter, a wanderer through these gloomy wilds in search 
 of the sable, the moose, the cariboo — a life of toil and 
 hardship and utter freedom. 
 
 After a breakfast at sunrise, away went the two 
 brothers axe in hand, to fell and hew out a cedar into a 
 canoe for me to cross the river, and work up to the 
 fishing about a mile up the river. For the pedestrian 
 can rarely travel even a mile by the river-side without 
 toiling through scarce penetrable thickets, or wading 
 through the water itself. I had enough to do in baking 
 bread and putting the camp into order to occupy me till 
 their return about eleven o'clock, when they informed me 
 that they had made " some kind of a canoe," but a smile 
 on their lips and a twinkle in their eye as they looked at 
 each other, made me pretty sure that it was a queer kind 
 at any rate, for indeed three or four hours would scarcely 
 produce a very finished craft. 
 
 Then came the " settling," and the parting in- 
 
Solitude and Cutting down Trees. 103 
 
 structions of Nowell to "mind the fire," and not to cut 
 myself with the axe, and how to set the sable traps, and 
 where to look for otters, and how to skin them, which he 
 illustrated by skinning the weasel which I had shot and 
 which he had kept — opening it only at the hind legs, 
 stripping the skin off entire, and then drawing it over a 
 flat piece of wood to dry. Then we walked down to the 
 river in Indian file, while thickly showered on us the 
 first snow of the season, which had begun at eleven,'and 
 was now clothing the forest with a white garment such 
 as I had not seen for many a year. At the river-side 
 I saw my canoe, a hollow log it was, open at each end, 
 and low enough in the middle for a man to stand in it 
 without swamping it, provided he remains there. The 
 instant I saw it, I had no doubt of acquiring a practical 
 acquaintance with the Tobique in my very first voyage. 
 Nowell evidently expected the same, and strongly advised 
 me not to attempt an excursion in my "pirogue," in 
 cold weather. He himself, to show me its capabilities, 
 boldly shoved off in it, and drove it with his enormous 
 strength against the current with all possible ease. 
 
 And so away they went; we shake hands, Nowell bids 
 me take care of myself, down the stream they quickly 
 glide, and I, with my rifle in my hand and a steel otter- 
 
104 Journal of Two Months on the Tobiqiie. 
 
 trap slung over my shoulder, walked back to my nest 
 with a feeling of strange and wild exultation at finding 
 myself in the imperial despotism of solitude, which could 
 scarcely be restrained from venting itself in an excited 
 yell. 
 
 Well, in my camp I stood once more, snow falling 
 thickly without, a bright glowing fire within ; here was 
 my palace, around me the kingdom I was to dispute 
 with the wild beasts of the forest. So I dried and 
 cleaned up my rifle, turned everything over in my hut, 
 and reduced it to order, looked at my stock of firewood, 
 and satisfied myself that to-morrow I must devote to one 
 prolonged, determined chop-chop. Then I took a dozen 
 trout that I had left down to the brook, and cleaned 
 them, brought them back and salted them preparatory to 
 smoking them, cutting off the heads to serve as baits 
 for the sable traps. 
 
 Moulton, I should have told, as a security for him- 
 self in the event of " anything happening " — that is, of 
 my getting killed somehow — got from me a written 
 assurance of his having left me in good health and 
 preservation ; remarking, " if anything went wrong with 
 me, it might play the very devil with him," which laid 
 him open to suspicion that he had known such things 
 
Solitude and Cutting down Trees. 105 
 
 happen. I had confidence in him individually, or I 
 would have declined enabling him thus, with perfect 
 safety, to be himself the " anything which might 
 happen." 
 
 When I had salted my fish, it was time for my 
 evening meal — a trout and a bit of bread, with a pot of 
 tea, served for this — a pipe for a finish ; and now I 
 lie on my spruce-bough bed, my knee serving for a 
 desk — a candle beside me, stuck on a cedar splinter 
 fixed in the ground — and now let me describe the place 
 as I see it when I look up from my page. A building 
 ten feet square ; the walls formed in the first place of 
 three big logs laid on each other ; against these are 
 placed upright split cedar planks, three on one side, 
 straight up — on the others slanting inwards against the 
 roof, carried from the upright side to the upper log 
 on the opposite side. The chimney consists of an 
 opening between the roof and the upright side — be- 
 neath this opening and against the logs themselves the 
 fire is lighted. Why the place is not forthwith burnt 
 down is a problem I cannot yet solve, and probably 
 never shall, as the most experienced can only answer 
 that "they don't know, only it never does." As for 
 the door, it is a little hole left in the side — a blanket 
 
106 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 hung over it outside keeps the wind out more effectually 
 than would a door of solid materials. Opposite the 
 fire a spar divides off the " hedroom," which consists 
 of a layer of spruce boughs in the corner : on these are 
 spread my blankets ; in the other stand three barrels, 
 containing my supplies of pork, biscuits, flour, tea, 
 sugar, and sundries. Stuck round the walls are knives, 
 bags, articles of clothing, &c. ; buckets, pots, and pans 
 complete the furniture. The inhabitant of this little 
 den is clothed in a red flannel shirt and coarse home- 
 spun trowsers, mocassins on his feet, a broad belt 
 round his waist, in which is stuck a large sheath knife 
 and a pouch for bullets, &c. 
 
 25th. — I feel more civilized to-night. I made me a 
 table to-day, and sit and write now like anybody else, 
 instead of making a desk of my knee. It is true that 
 my table rests on a couple of barrels, while a third and 
 a smaller one, containing my salt pork, is my chair, 
 which, however, I must replace to-morrow with some 
 sort of stool. 
 
 As soon as I had got up this morning, and put 
 some wood on the fire, I began a job which I had 
 planned some time ago, and which lasted me till noon, 
 but of which I shall give no particular explanation, as 
 
Solitude and Cutting down Trees. 107 
 
 I never intended the result of my labours to be revealed 
 to the public. The job is, in fact, just to contrive a 
 secure hiding-place for such things as I did not wish 
 every chance caller to be overhauling in my absence. 
 I flatter myself that the height of inquisitiveness only 
 could ever " spring the plant," as they say in Australia. 
 I next began to think about dinner, and just learned 
 the difficulty of getting up a good blaze with green 
 wood covered with snow. So much time did it take 
 to-day to cook my dinner and bake a " damper " in the 
 ashes, that 2 p.m. arrived ere I had eaten my piece of 
 partridge. 
 
 I had then to choose out of many urgent needs 
 which was the most urgent. I then recollected that 
 Nicholas, just before he left, knocked down a huge 
 birch-tree, which I had thought too close a neighbour 
 in a gale of wind, and which had fallen right across 
 my road to the brook. Whoever has carried buckets of 
 water up-hill, and had half the contents spilled before 
 he could reach the top by tripping and stumbling and 
 knocking up against trees, will sympathize with my 
 feelings. So I went to war with the birch. With much 
 puffing and panting and the sweat of my brow, I made 
 a clean breach through his big carcase ; then cleared 
 
108 Joii/rnal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 the whole past completely ; then set to at cutting fire- 
 wood; and after that made my table and re-arranged 
 the furniture of my bed-room. And so the day passed 
 in toil, which leaves me this evening weary and cheer- 
 ful, rejoicing in my snug little den, rejoicing in the 
 glowing fire, in the bright candle-light ; in short, quite 
 content, except, indeed, with the state of my larder. 
 Half a partridge is all I find there, except the pork, 
 which I would rather avoid eating, and the salt trout, 
 which I want to dry and lay by for greater need. But 
 the truth is, I have not time yet to go out hunting. I 
 must lay in a stock of firewood before the winter sets 
 in. The weather has at present the charm of variety, 
 if it has no other ; ringing the changes from snow to 
 frost, from frost to rain, from rain to snow again, with 
 a delightful perseverance. It is no life of idleness. 
 Every minute of daylight must be made use of while 
 I am here, and here I must be, whatever be my wishes, 
 till at least the river is frozen or the snow is deep 
 enough to get about on snow-shoes. For the wilder- 
 ness of New Brunswick differs from a turnpike-road 
 in two particulars — one, that there are no vehicles to 
 be met with, and the other, that even on foot it can 
 hardly be traversed. 
 
Solitude and Cutting down Trees. 109 
 
 26^7;. — My life is merging into one immeasurable 
 chop. I have left off all to-day only for my meals and 
 a ramble to the river, occasioned by the call of a 
 moose twice repeated. This, with the finding the 
 tracks of a lucifee in the snow, put me quite into an 
 excitement ; but no moose or lucifee did I find. The 
 process of cutting firewood is simply this : — I march 
 with stern resolve up to a birch or maple tree, axe in 
 hand, first ascertain in which direction he will fall, 
 and then belabour him with a shower of blows, till 
 down he comes with a thundering crash, tearing a road 
 for himself among cedars, spruce, and bushes beneath, 
 as if they were but reeds. Then, like the Irishman, 
 I hit him again for falling — that is, I chop up his 
 trunk into logs about three feet long, which I after- 
 wards split into billets. If I had but a couple of iron 
 wedges and a mallet, I could then do this last in half 
 the time it takes me with the axe. In this work I 
 propose to pass the next week or so. It does not add 
 to the pleasure of the business that my hands, unused 
 to labour for some time past, have become soft, and 
 are Wis ering with the jar of the axe-handle, nor that 
 the melting snow is dripping and slopping all over me. 
 
 The only animals I often see in these silent wilds 
 
110 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique, 
 
 are the saucy little squirrel, the moose-bird, the barred 
 woodpecker, and occasionally a few sober -hued little 
 birds fluttering amongst the branches. The squirrel, 
 whose chirr-chirr is constantly heard, is a ridiculous 
 little fellow ; each one seems to have his own particular 
 haunt, and if you enter it, there is no end to the abuse 
 he will bestow upon you. I have seen him come and 
 sit on a log close by me, and scold and harangue till 
 he began in his indignation fairly to shake his little 
 fists at me, as though he would say, " how dare you 
 come here without the leave of me ? " Although my 
 mission here is to destroy, these comical little creatures 
 I have not the heart to injure ; their chattering enlivens 
 the gloom of the woods ; their pranks amuse me — 
 besides, they are of no use. Neither do I like to hurt 
 that most impudent thief, the moose-bird, the most 
 barefaced pilferer I ever saw. No sooner is a camp 
 formed than round come hovering two or three of them 
 — hangers-on of forest society ; no sooner is one's back 
 turned than down they pounce on the food, and will 
 hardly be driven from it either. The Indians delight 
 in snaring them or knocking them down with sticks or 
 stones ; and I delight in their impudence, and do not 
 grudge them the bit they eat. They are white be- 
 
Solitude and Cutting down Trees. Ill 
 
 neath and blue-gray on the backs, somewhat larger 
 than the English thrush, and I imagine of the family 
 of the butcher-bird or shrike. 
 
 27th. — The weather has given us to-day snow, 
 rain, and fog, all at once, with the addition of hail 
 — putting one in mind of mixed bitters. In the 
 evening it wound up with a genuine snow-storm ; 
 thick and fast fell the silent shower, so as we seldom 
 see it fall in England, while the wind groans through 
 the rending boughs in mournful gusts like deep sobs. 
 Now and then a crack like the blow of an axe startles 
 me, caused probably by the striking together of the 
 rocking branches, and just now the crash of a tree 
 blown down close by the camp made me expect in- 
 stant destruction, for I believed it to be a maple to 
 whose neighbourhood I have a thorough dislike, as 
 he leans over in such a manner that if he fall he 
 must crash through my roof, and finish my adventures 
 there and then. But it was not my suspicious friend, 
 whose acquaintance I think I shall to-morrow cut 
 once for all — with my axe. 
 
 This morning I splashed down through the rain 
 to the river to look at my " soi-t of a canoe," lest 
 the river, which must certainly be rising very high, 
 
112 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 should take it from me. The path down the gully 
 has become little better than a brook, which brook 
 itself has become quite a young torrent, overflowing 
 the tvro bridges by which we crossed to where it 
 crosses the track, and forcing me to splutter and 
 scramble about among cedars and alders, and every- 
 thing moist and unpleasant, in search of another. 
 
 28t/i.-^Chop — chop — chop. This chopping of fuel 
 has become to me like the money-gathering of the 
 miser; even as he is tormented by the constant fear 
 of want and starvation in the winter of his years, so 
 have I ever in my mind the dread of the winter before 
 me. So I grudge every bit of wood I put on the 
 fire, and only cease chopping when I can barely raise 
 my hand for the blow. 
 
 That stormy wind has torn away the thick veil of 
 vapour from the heavens, and gloriously shone the 
 morning sun on the glittering snow — now three or 
 four inches deep, and covering the trees with its 
 stainless mantle — they standing around me like tall, 
 graceful ladies dressed in white muslin — a material 
 rather unsuited to the weather. 
 
 The wild beasts seem to hold a regular conclave 
 round my camp. Last night, with as much excite- 
 
Solitude and Cutting down Trees. 113 
 
 ment almost as Eobinson Crusoe felt at sight of the 
 footprints on the sand, I found the tracks of the 
 moose at my very door, while all around I saw those 
 of the lucifee, the sable (or it might he a skunk), 
 and others which I could only attribute to a bear. 
 
 29th. — I wonder whether it always rains on the 
 Tobique, except when it snows. The rain is now 
 clattering on the cedar roof like the scampering of 
 a hundred mice. The snow, after all, has its uses 
 even for me. This morning I had to build up the 
 fireplace with stones and mud (for, after all, the log I 
 build my fire against does burn in a smouldering 
 sort of way), and, to make the mud, all I had to do 
 was to puddle snow and earth altogether. Then the salt 
 provisions that I have to live on now produce an exces- 
 sive thirst while I am at work ; to assuage this every 
 bough which hangs near me is laden with its cold, 
 crisp burthen, which is also convenient. Again, a cold 
 bath I consider a first-rate luxury. Now, when I 
 want it, all I have to do is to undress and roll in 
 the snow, which is comfortable. 
 
 Last night I saw the Aurora, and knew that the 
 fine weather would not last. In Scotland, where it 
 is frequently seen, it is considered a forerunner of 
 
 8 
 
114 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 rain and storm, and, as far as my experience goes, 
 it is so. This may be accounted for thus : — The 
 atmosphere is a bad conductor of electricity, but by 
 rarefaction its conducting powers are increased. Now, 
 the Aurora is proyed by a common electrical experi- 
 ment to be the passing of an electric current through 
 a highly rarefied medium. Before and during the 
 bad weather, the density of the air, as is shown by 
 the barometer, is considerably diminished, and its 
 conducting powers therefore increased. In such a 
 condition the phenomenon of the Aurora Borealis is 
 therefore more likely to occur, and so may be looked 
 upon as a magnificent aerial barometer. In the Arctic 
 latitudes, where it is seen almost every night, and 
 is so intensely brilliant, I suppose it is always in the 
 higher and thinner regions of the air, while in these 
 lower latitudes it occurs at a lower latitude; or it 
 may be that, owing to the intense dryness of the air 
 during a polar winter, so large a quantity is accumu- 
 lated that it is enabled to force its way through a 
 medium which would oppose the progress of a less 
 intense charge, as an overcharged Leyden phial dis- 
 charges itself through it over the glass. 
 
 dOth. — The river has risen very high — a strong 
 
Solitude and Cutting down Trees. 115 
 
 crumpling flood — and lias, moreover, carried away my 
 " sort of a canoe," for tlie edification of the inhabited 
 parts of the river. Perhaps I ought to be thankful 
 for the event, but it is a great disadvantage to be 
 without the means of crossing or travelHng on the 
 river, as the banks now are almost impassable, and 
 there is no fishing ground within reach of me. 
 
 31st. — Since yesterday afternoon till now, a space 
 of twenty-seven hours, the grey sky has been, not 
 raining, but pouring down cataracts of water upon 
 the steaming forests. I say steaming, for a damp, 
 blue vapour is all the while curling, like vireaths of 
 smoke, among the tree tops — dismal to see — and still 
 falls the torrent on the cedar roof — still the woods 
 shed floods of tears, showering from every leaf, and 
 splash, spit, splash, come the large drops into the 
 fire down the chimney, or rather the hole which the 
 smoke is supposed to go through, but which it does, 
 not always do. The smoke from a wood fire is in- 
 tolerably pungent from the presence of pyroligneous 
 acid gas, to which are ovnng its strong antiseptic 
 qualities, as well as the peculiar flavour it gives to 
 smoke-dried meat. 
 
 At present I must confess that, while moping in 
 
 8—2 
 
116 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 my smoky, lonely, leaky-roofed camp, I am disposed 
 to think rather despondingly of things in general, to 
 forget the many pleasant days I have really passed 
 in the province, when the enjoyment of delightful 
 weather has been enhanced by the society of the 
 kind friends I have met with, and to forget, too, 
 that the close of autumn is not famed, generally, 
 for serenity anywhere; and to overlook, besides, the 
 fact that the circumstances which in my case make 
 such weather so peculiarly depressing, are not those 
 of ordinary life, but are of my own creation, and 
 that, as sailors say, it is, after all, " what I shipped 
 for." 
 
( 117 ) 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 CRUISING THROUGH THE FOREST- THE SNOW FALLS. 
 
 November 1st. — A strong north wind has followed 
 the down-pour ; and just to show how thick these 
 forests are, the only evidences I have of a strong wind, 
 and its direction, are its mournful harsh sighing through 
 the tree-tops and the motion of the clouds, for scarcely 
 a breath reaches aught below. But a north wind 
 generally tells its own tale by a most unequivocal frost. 
 I laid a big bird's-eye maple low to-day with much 
 toil and trouble, as he chose to fall against a big brother 
 of his, and to tear him from his embrace cost me much 
 extra labour. And, to crown the matter, he was so 
 tough, that after the first three logs I had to abandon 
 him, as the fourth defied all my efforts to split it 
 with the axe, the handle of which, to complete a bad 
 morning's work, I smashed in the endeavour. Then I 
 had to burn out the part left in the eye, pouring water 
 continually on the steel part lest it lose its temper, all 
 
118 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique. 
 
 of which lost me much time, and so vexed me that, 
 after cutting up a smaller tree I decided to leave off, 
 and as to-morrow was Sunday, to rest from my labours 
 and take a walk to see what the country round me is like. 
 Nov. 2nd. — It has been a fine day. I have seen 
 the sun ^t least three times for a few minutes, and I 
 have had my walk, if walk that can be called which is 
 only a slow and toilsome scramble over and through 
 every sort of natural impediment. Starting in a north- 
 east direction, which I hoped would bring me to a lake 
 I have been told of, I came upon a noisy brook which I 
 knew must be one that runs into the Tobique. I fol- 
 lowed it up to its source on the summit of a high hill, 
 the top of a great range, called Lisson's Side. A little 
 below this I discovered a partridge, and the eagerness 
 with which I levelled my rifle at his neck, and pulled 
 the trigger, and the exultation with which I picked up 
 his corpse, can only be fully understood by such of my 
 readers as have lived as I have on salt pork. I soon 
 found in a deep romantic gorge a splashing, leaping 
 brook, hurrying away joyously to the sea, and down 
 along its banks I scrambled, hoping it would lead me 
 to the lake it sought. Instead of that it brought me 
 first to a deserted lumberer's camp, left many years ago. 
 
Cruising through the Forest. 119 
 
 Nothing but the skeleton of the camp, where once the 
 joyous song and laugh roused the forest-echoes, where 
 the "bright fire threw its ruddy glow on the rafters, and 
 where the axe rang loud and cheerily ; now lonely, 
 ruinous, known only to the bears, the lynx, and other 
 wild beasts of the forest. 
 
 And thence the merry stream, with its gentle 
 clamour, enticed me to a place which I soon wished I 
 had never seen; into a cedar swamp that I could 
 scarce extricate myself from, and then left me, ceased 
 its murmuring music, and vanished among the mysteries 
 of that gloomy grove. When I had got into the middle 
 of the swamp I became naturally very anxious to get 
 out again, so would the reader in the circumstances. I 
 almost despair of being able to describe a cedar swamp. 
 In the first place, in this country, a swamp does not neces- 
 sarily imply a wet marshy place, but rather an unusually 
 thick and crowded growth of timber, whether spruce or 
 cedar. The swamp I speak of would have been dry 
 enough but for late tremendous rains. The cedar has 
 a rough ribbed bark, and a leaf like that of the arbor- vitae, 
 or rather it is very like the tree known as the red cedar 
 in the gardens and shrubberies of England. It delights 
 in low situations, in springy ground, and to hang over 
 
120 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 brooks and rivers, and when it has found a spot to its 
 liking, such a number of them crowd there, that there 
 is literally no room for them. Besides, they rarely grow 
 upright, leaning towards and against each other at all 
 manner of angles, as though at the finish of a merry 
 evening ; moreover, they are always falling down, which 
 helps out the comparison. And among them, thick as 
 they grow, spring up young ones innumerable, and 
 every species of shrub and inconvenient bush, so that 
 the swamp presents just this picture, an almost imper- 
 vious mass of trfees in every possible position ; layers 
 upon layers of prostrate trunks (so that in the one I am 
 describing my foot scarce ever touched the ground), stick- 
 ing their unpleasant branches in one's face every instant ; 
 the whole overgrown with that remarkable feature of 
 American forest, an almost knee-deep growth of moss, 
 and all the interstices filled up with something else of 
 an annoying nature. 
 
 After struggling about for perhaps an hour in the 
 very heart of all their conglomeration of difficulties, I 
 began to think that the prospect of my ever getting out 
 was doubtful, when by one of those inexplicable accesses 
 of inspiration or instinct, I diverged from the south- 
 east course I was trying to make to one a little more 
 
Cruising through the Forest. 121 
 
 east, and in a few minutes found myself in a lumber 
 road, which some beings more or less than man had in 
 some fit of gigantic energy and perseverance cut right 
 into the swamp. Through tracks as intricate as the 
 maze in Hampton Court, I found myself at last on the 
 Tobique, the brook that had played me such a trick 
 being but a branch of the one I had traced up. 
 
 And the Tobique ! I had not seen it since the last 
 rain ; and where was the clear, shallow, comparatively 
 gentle brook I had thought to navigate ? Now beneath 
 me rolled fierce and swift a deep and turbid river ; it 
 had overtopped its banks, it had buried the islands 
 beneath its discoloured torrent ; and how do the Eapids 
 and Narrows look, I wonder ? Small chance of hearing 
 or seeing a soul from the Mouth for the next six weeks. 
 
 When I reached home I was far more fatigued with 
 the six or seven miles I had done than if I had been 
 chopping wood all day. It was not walking — it was 
 climbing, jumping, crawling — like perpetually going up 
 and down stairs. The most striking features of these 
 woods are their dampness, their thick mosses, and their 
 great untidiness — prostrate trees, broken limbs lying 
 heaped on each other everywhere, and a multitudinous 
 growth of suckers and saplings, which, as we walk, give 
 
122 Jowrnal of Two Months on the Tohique. 
 
 us every now and then a poke in tlie eye, wliich half 
 Hinds us, or sent across the face as from a horsewhip, 
 or a trip to the feet, which sends us sprawling on the 
 sharp stump of a fallen spruce-tree, or a rotten tree 
 with its look of solidity, trips us up, or, hurrying along, 
 we tread on the slimy, slippery trunk, where the hark 
 has fallen off, and the foot glides from under us, ere we 
 know what is the matter. The reader may now under- 
 stand that the forests of America are not like garden lawns. 
 I ought now to say something of the trees in 
 detail, as far as I know them ; those trees, which are 
 the source of much of the wealth, and nearly all the 
 poverty, of New Brunswick, which " make " the lumherer 
 and ruin the farmer, which cumber the land, and yet 
 are one great source of its fertility. Among the hard- 
 wood, the maple, I think, usually attains the greatest 
 size ; a tall rugged tree, with stubborn, crooked branches, 
 and a rough gnarled bark, grim and graceless when bare 
 of leaves, but in the summer clothed with a bright soft 
 foliage, in the autumn gorgeously clad in scarlet and 
 ermine. The elm is, I think, the most graceful of all 
 the forest trees, with its long waving sprays, light and 
 feathery ; it also grows to a large size, and delights in 
 rich moist intervales. 
 
Cruising through the Forest. 123 
 
 The birch resembles its namesake in Britain more 
 in bark and foliage than growth, being without that 
 lady-Kke elegance so conspicuous in its relation. There 
 are two varieties, the white and the black : the bark of 
 the latter is also much rougher. There are besides the 
 ash, the poplar, the butter-nut, resembling the walnut- 
 tree, but not half so handsome ; the oak, differing from 
 the British oak chiefly in its much larger leaves ; the 
 beech, very like ours ; the cherry, and some others not 
 remarkable for any peculiarity. But the monarch of 
 the forest is the white pine, or " pine " par excellence, 
 as timber the most valuable, in aspect the most mag- 
 nificent. I admire him greatly ; the lumberer admires 
 him too, but in a different way— had rather see him 
 floating in a raft down the river to a good market. I 
 prefer seeiag him waving his kingly head far above all 
 other trees, stretching his mighty arms like some 
 despot uttering his decrees. There is that about the 
 pine which is to me impressive and poetic ; there is a 
 savage wild grandeur in his towering form, branchless 
 for 100 feet ; in the luxuriance of tropical vegetation he 
 would look out of his sphere as much as would some 
 old Scandinavian hero of a Norse legend in a ball-room 
 — the Hercules of the forest — the Goliath of the woods 
 
124 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 — the lord of tlie wilderness ! And if he be the king 
 of trees, then surely is the noble hemlock his queen ; 
 more richly clothed, with a softer, more graceful mantle 
 of foliage, still is she a right majestic lady, and fit 
 consort of so mighty an emperor. A grove of huge old 
 hemlocks is a beautiful sight ; thick and dark, they 
 shade the spot where they grow with perpetual twilight ; 
 their leaves are small, but thick and close — and heavy 
 is the burthen of them which the hemlock bears. I saw 
 one to-day perhaps five or six feet through; but there 
 are no such trees here as oi) the other side of the world, 
 where ten and twelve feet is no unusual diameter. 
 
 Monday, 2rd November. — I started to-day on 
 another cruise through the forest-world all round me, 
 first cutting as much firewood as would last me two 
 days. I find the track of a moose by my door, and 
 others which could only belong to a bear, besides no 
 end of smaller footprints ; indeed, I suspect animals 
 visit my dwelling by night of whose neighbourhood I 
 dream not ; and many know my face whom I never 
 saw. In travelling through these woods, one is struck 
 with the death-like quiet which reigns there — not a 
 creature, save now and then a squirrel whisking round 
 the trees crosses our path ; yet who can tell what 
 
Cruising through the Forest — The Snow Falls. 125 
 
 gleaming eyes watched me from some dark hiding- 
 place, or what quick ears may have detected my 
 approach, and warned their owners to secrete them- 
 selves ere I was even in view ? 
 
 After I came home, I spent the time till dark in 
 stopping up the chinks, or " caulking the seams " 
 (in sea phrase), of the cedar planks with moss, a pre- 
 paration for the approaching winter which ought not 
 to be delayed. 
 
 Tuesday, Ath November. — Another long wandering 
 through the woods. I was near meeting with a fright- 
 ful disaster in the course of it. I had just with un- 
 utterable toil got out of a horrid bit of intervale, 
 completely choked with an exasperating undergi-owth, 
 and was looking out for some way of crossing a pro- 
 voking piece of water which lay across my path, when 
 to my dismay I found that the bushes had pulled out 
 the ramrod of my rifle. To attempt to recover it amid 
 the bushes I had just come through, seemed more 
 hopeless than to extricate a drop of rain from the 
 ocean ; and my sensations as I reflected on my loss 
 were such as words cannot convey. For a few minutes 
 I rejected the idea of searching for it as absurd ; then, 
 however, I recovered my ener^, and first looked at the 
 
126 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique. 
 
 tracks I had left to see whether they were such as I 
 could follow. I perceived that with patience and care 
 I might do so, tracking being, moreover, a business 
 with which previous colonial experience had made me 
 familiar. I looked at my watch, and found I had three 
 hours' daylight left, and so I proceeded to retrace my 
 steps through that atrocious thicket, which I had hoped 
 never more to enter. All that I had to guide me were 
 the slight disturbances my feet had made in the thick 
 layer of dead leaves, and here and there a bough bent 
 down ; but concentrating all my attention on them, I 
 found them sufficient. , Step by step I traced out the 
 way I had come, and not fifty yards from where I had 
 missed it I came upon the ramrod, and seized it with 
 a delight only equalled by my astonishment at such 
 almost impossible good luck. 
 
 Partridges are not, as I was told, abundant on the 
 Tobique, but very scarce, which is a great disappoint- 
 ment to me, as I had depended much on them for 
 fresh provision, there being no fishing-ground in my 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 Thursday, 6th. — Busy all this morning finishing 
 off my defences against the approaching winter. I 
 then took a stroll through the woods, prowling 
 
Cruising through the Forest — The Snoiv Falls. 127 
 
 stealthily along like a wild beast ia search of prey. 
 But nothing could I see save the everlasting squirrels, 
 woodpeckers, and tomtits, till, the day being far ad- 
 vanced, I began wandering homeward. At the foot of 
 the path leading up the steep bill to my camp, I had, 
 according to my custom, left an empty paU, to be taken 
 up full on my return. Up the bank I was toiling with 
 it, tired and dispirited — had just set it down to rest 
 half-way, and was looking at the topmost twig of a 
 spruce fir with some intention of knocking it off, partly 
 from sheer spite, partly to discharge my piece, which 
 had been loaded for two days, when almost at my very 
 door I descried a noble partridge sneaking about in the 
 branches of a fallen birch tree, and cunningly hiding 
 himself, but not enough so to prevent my cracking his 
 neck in two seconds. K the reader can't already sym- 
 pathise with my delight, my exultation, at such a ter- 
 mination of an unsuccessful day, there's no more to 
 be said. At any rate, if I eat pork to-morrow, I 
 deserve to be shot myself. The mere thought of it 
 gave me such energy that I took my axe forthwith, and, 
 late as it was, split up a birch log which had hitherto 
 defied my efforts. 
 
 In the meantime a glorious change has come. The 
 
128 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 clouds are vanished into thin air, the full moon shines 
 hard and clear, and a stinging frost comes like a sharp 
 knife throu h one or two little chinks I had overlooked 
 and which must be stopped up to-morrow. The worst 
 of this stopping-up system is, that the more air-tight 
 I make my camp, the more it smokes. 
 
 Friday, 7th. — Two more partridges bagged this 
 evening in a place I have passed sixty times without 
 seeing them. My ramble to-day took me into the 
 neighbourhood of the supposed lake, whose existence 
 I begin to doubt ; probably it is no more than a lagoon 
 of the middle of an atrocious cedar-swamp, which the 
 brook it is said to feed runs through. If so, I have 
 seen it once, and do not want ever to see it again. 
 
 I had an amusing interview with one of my friends 
 the squirrels to-day — a moose-bird completing the party. 
 Mr. Squirrel came whisking up in a devil of a hurry, 
 and squatting on a stump began nibbling and munching , 
 at something he had got hold of most energetically, 
 commenting thereon all the while with great volubility, 
 till the moose-bird, overhearing him, joined us to listen 
 to the jokes of the little humourist, who suddenly threw 
 away what he was eating, and vanished behind the 
 stump with a hearty fit of laughter, which he repeated 
 
Cruising through the Forest — The Snoiv Falls. 129 
 louder than ever on my walldng round and finding he 
 was only playing at hide-and-seek, and then holted 
 away altogether. 
 
 There is quite a little clearing now round my camp, 
 which adds somewhat of cheerfulness to so gloomy a 
 spot. I place beauty of scenery amongst the great 
 sources of pleasure in this world, but my dwelling 
 here cannot boast such a recommendation ; bm-ied in 
 the forest, on the side of a narrow valley choked -nith 
 cedar and spruce, the opposite bank nearly hidden by 
 the trees between, and also heavily laden with hemlock 
 and firs. At the back of my clearing is a fine hard-wood 
 forest, continued to the top of the long ridge whence all 
 the brooks in the neighbourhood come tumbling down. 
 Of these, one which I have named Mouse Brook, (by 
 reason of having held quiet converse with a mouse who 
 sat in his doorway and watched me as I ate my dinner 
 by the side of the stream,) runs dovmstairs in a very 
 pretty way, leaping from rock to rock over a series of steps 
 or ledges. Between this and my own brook (on which I 
 have bestowed no other name) runs one which I always call 
 the Bad Brook, from the unimaginable cedar-swamp which 
 it encourages on its course. The next might perhaps 
 be called the Worse Brook from the same pecuHarity. 
 
 9 
 
130 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 A new source of amusement is opened to me now 
 which suits my fancy very much, viz., the making of 
 sable traps, a line of which, several miles in length, I 
 propose to establish through the surrounding country. 
 In making them, my axe and knife are my only tools. 
 I was working away at one of these contrivances this 
 afternoon on a little hill about 100 yards from the river, 
 when my ears were suddenly invaded by a sound I have 
 not heard since the Indians left me — the human voice — 
 except indeed my own. Two or three log canoes, as I 
 supposed by the noise of the poles against them, were 
 toiling up the river — lumberers going to their camp. As 
 soon as I heard them, I put my tomahawk in my 
 belt, took my rifle, and watched them till they had passed, ' 
 only catching a glimpse now and then through the trees 
 of a red shirt. Then I walked home quietly, meditating 
 on the circumstance and began to chop firewood, finding 
 this, in my loneliness, an exciting event. It rather 
 amused me to think how little they dreamed that there 
 was a lonely human being in those thick woods watching 
 them from his lair — much I daresay as the weasels and 
 lynxes watch me when I pass unconsciously by their 
 hiding-places. 
 
 Monday 10th. — I made some more sable traps to-day 
 
Cruising through the Forest — The Snow Falls. 131 
 
 to the great amnsement of the squirrels who come and 
 examiae my rifle and cut capers all round me. But my 
 trapmaking ended with noon ; I spHt the handle of my 
 tomahawk and got my feet half-frozen with standing in 
 the snow, and thought how nice a pot of tea would be, 
 and finally came home quite out of conceit with the 
 business. In the afternoon a fall of more snow set in. 
 The flakes are of a very curious form, unlike any I have 
 seen before —just hke very small thistle-down or rather 
 like anemone seeds, lying like them in fuzzy heaps. A 
 deep snow which will bring snow-shoes into use will be a 
 comfort, and so will a real hearty frost if it were only to 
 freeze the puddles and keep the snow from soaking into 
 my boots, di-y feet being a pleasure I have hai-dly known 
 since I have been on the Tobique. 
 
 Wednesday, I'lth. — I reasoned yesterday that if I 
 want to see these shy creatures who eyery morning leave 
 tracks at my door, and if they go about in the dark, why 
 so must I too. So I took my tomahawk and went down 
 to the river side where the tracks are most frequent, . 
 and, under a fallen tree beside a thick heap of dead 
 branches, I made me a little den with spruce boughs, 
 producing by my arrangement of them, something very 
 like a large wren's nest. Then when night came, I put 
 
 9—2 
 
132 Journal of Tivo' Months on the Tobique. 
 
 on a double allowance of clothing, took my rifle and plod 
 ded down the valley to my hiding-place, crept in and 
 covered with a large cloak, lay there for some hours t 
 see what would happen next. I think such energy am 
 hardihood might have met with a better reward thai 
 the being entertained only by the squeaking of a fei 
 miserable mice. 
 
 I have seen some excellent country to-day ; the topo 
 graphy of this locality is just a high ridge, covered on tin 
 higher part with an open hard -wood forest, which extend 
 about one third down ; then come thick spruce and hem 
 lock forests, and those dire cedar-swamps, and as a matte 
 of course my opinion of the whole of New Brunswic' 
 falls below par. "If ever I let myself be caught,"— 
 here I tumble down headlong — " in this detestable countr 
 again when once I've got clear of it, I deserve to be "— 
 tumble down again. " Well, I'm in it at any rate "- 
 (plump into a hole with mud at the bottom) " and mus 
 get out of it some way. I wish the Tobique and Nei 
 Brunswick and all North America were at the bottom c 
 the Bed Sea, and I were in England, or Australia, or th 
 North Pole, or anywhere but in a cedar swamp." In such 
 frame of mind I reached my camp, tired, dispirited, d( 
 spending, — desperately put down a pot to boil, and, ( 
 
Cruising through the Forest — The Snoiv Falls. 133 
 
 Mocha ! blessings on thy berry. Glorious are these forests, 
 a noble country is New Brunswick and fairest of all 
 streams the Tobique. The pot of tea or coffee and the 
 pipe are all the luxuries, if, as I said, they are not actual 
 necessaries, which the bushman or backwoods-man 
 possesses, and with these there are few hardships or 
 discomforts he will fear to undergo. 
 
 My unsuccessful hunting is, I suppose, only what is 
 to be expected until the really deep snow shall so impede 
 the flight of the larger animals that I shall be able to 
 overtake them. I have almost made up my mind to 
 abstain from cruising through the forests altogether till 
 the river freezes, or till snow-shoes and tarboggin come 
 into use, when I shall be able to leave my camp for as 
 long as I like, taking my blankets and provisions, and 
 camping where I please. I have already gained one of 
 the objects of my hermitage on the Tobique — namely, the 
 ascertaining correctly, by personal observation, the nature 
 of what may prove an important locality on this river. 
 
 I am beginning to look very hard at the squirrels. 
 I should be sorry indeed to kill such charming little 
 fellows, but I suspect they are very tender. Besides, I 
 can get nothing else to vary my pork and biscuit, unless 
 the change which I am trying now, of biscuit without 
 
134 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 pork. When I get tired of that, I can try pork withoul 
 biscuit, but in the meantime those squirrels do looli 
 so fat and nice. 
 
 In this strong wind, now that the bark of the trees ii 
 frozen hard, the forest resounds with their loud sonorous 
 voices as they writhe in the fierce gust — groaning anc 
 snapping and crying aloud, as though with the agony o: 
 feeling their strong limbs and trunks wrenched thus 
 rudely by the stiU stronger blast. Every variety of voice 
 have they — now a long plaintive moan, then a harsh rend 
 ing scream, and again an explosion like the report of a gui 
 — all joining in the outcry of a storm-bewildered forest. 
 
 Saturday 15th. — I set out for a ramble througl 
 the woods, but warned by signs which announced th( 
 snows that Moulton assured me set in about the middL 
 of this month, I turned back again. Such of m; 
 readers as have not tried a "rough life" can scarcel; 
 appreciate the cheerful emotions which arise withii 
 me on my return to my little forest den from one o 
 these limb and heart wearying wanderings through th( 
 woods. Slipping and stumbling and plodding througl 
 clinging, clogging snow, cold, wet, miserable, disap 
 pointed and desponding that all this has been endurec 
 to no pui-pose, save that of unveiling the mysteries o 
 
Cruising through the Forest— The Snow Falls. 135 
 
 the cedar swamp, and " getting up " with painful 
 labour the dismal geography of desolation; thus I 
 reach the blazed sapling at the foot of the stair-like 
 path which leads up to my dwelling. A glance upwards 
 to assure myself, by the white roof gleaming through the 
 trees, that it has not been burned in my absence, — the 
 bucket, ever left there awaiting me, filled at the chat- 
 tering brook ; and already I feel my spirits rise as my 
 feet slowly and cautiously bear me up that steep and 
 slippery hill. Then, as I fling aside my blanket door, 
 and lay down my bucket, and my axe, and my rifle, and 
 see the glowing brands awaiting but a touch and a re- 
 placing to blaze up cheerily, and the pot of hot tea or 
 coffee, and the bread and pork, or partridge (if fortune 
 has favoured me), and the pipe after them, and the rest 
 on the bed of boughs, succeed in tm-n, — all cheer me 
 so, that my privations are forgotten, and my discontent 
 is changed to a state of luxurious satisfaction. I am 
 all alone, 'tis true, and often (never more so than in the 
 gloaming) I feel it a burthen not easy to bear ; but for 
 this the best remedy is occupation. When thought 
 becomes too busy, and memory musters her throng 
 from the ghost-land of the past, then I take my axe, 
 and thought changes her subject, and those throngs 
 
136 Journal of Tioo Months on the Tohique. 
 
 vanish at the first ringing stroke. Nor do the hours 
 of evening hang heavy on my hands, for with my pen 
 and my Bible, my only companion, and little jobs in 
 abundance, the time passes cheerfully till I roll myself 
 in my blanket before the replenished fire. I have said 
 nothing, however, of one frequent and intense annoy- 
 ance of my evenings, viz., a smoky chimney. Last 
 night, when the snow had fallen so as to cover all the 
 crevices between the cedar boards which form the roof, 
 the absence of any inlet for a sufficient current of fresh 
 air below, resulted in its coming down the chimney. 
 The camp was soon filled with such volumes of smoke 
 that I was almost in danger of suffocation, while my eyes 
 became so painfully inflamed that I felt it even Ie 
 my dreams. 
 
 This was temporarily remedied by throwing aside the 
 blanket-door, which I had to leave so all night, not s 
 very pleasant alternative. I have carefully examinee 
 the chimney, and think I see a way of doctoring it ; bui 
 should this fail, I know not what I shall do. Leave th< 
 woods for the abodes of man I cannot ; the river is ou 
 of the question, full of floating ice as it is ; the woodi 
 are impassable. A month may elapse ere I can escape 
 and in the meanwhile irreparable evil may result to m; 
 
Crwis'vng through the Forest — The Snow Falls. 137 
 
 eyes. Already they are so inflamed that out of the 
 house I can hardly keep them open, while closing 
 them increases the burning pain. No one who has not 
 experienced it can appreciate the eyil I complain of. 
 
 I hear no sound from morning till night save the 
 whirr of the squirrel, the chirrup of the tomtit, the 
 tap-tap of the woodpecker, and sometimes the strange 
 "drumming" of the partridge, — a sound very like 
 distant thunder, and mysterious in that no man can 
 tell whence it comes, nor from how far. These and 
 the murmur of the forest are nearly all the sounds 
 I hear from day to day. For upwards of three 
 weeks I have not heard the voice of man, save my 
 own, which at times almost startles me. I some- 
 times talk and shout even lest I should forget how. 
 And for perhaps six weeks longer the solitude may 
 last, till the freezing of the river enables travellers to 
 pass over the ice, or till snow-shoes come into play. 
 And it has begun to snow — such snow as I never 
 saw before ; minute, hke dust, like pins' points, close, 
 thick, a mist, a fog, a drizzling cloud of snow, — down it 
 comes as though all the atmosphere were charged with it. 
 
 I did that to-day which I am now ashamed to re- 
 member ; I had every excuse, but I can hardly forgive 
 
138 Journal of Two Months on the ToUque. 
 
 myself. I have shot a squirrel, one of my confiding 
 fearless, humorous little friends. But what could I do \ 
 — my soul wearies of pork, and I could find no eatabh 
 creature besides — if, at least, the squirrel be eatable,— 
 so I levelled my rifle, pulled the trigger, and dowi 
 tumbled Mr. Scug. I was ashamed to look in hii 
 large black eyes, so I took him by the hind leg, carried 
 him home, skinned him, cooked him, tasted him, ant 
 found him — decidedly nasty. Had his comrades knowi 
 of what deep importance to them, collectively and indi 
 viduaUy, would be the result of that experiment, the; 
 would have gathered round my camp, anxiously awaitinj 
 my final decision. But there was but the one whi 
 haunts this spot near me as I flung forth that remnan 
 of his fellow, and he knew not what it was. 
 
 Tuesday, l&th.' — A morning employed in cobblini 
 up the chimney, with, I think, some success, and ai 
 afternoon of chopping, knee-deep in snow, brough 
 yesterday to a satisfactory conclusion ; to-day, however 
 ended differently. I contrived clumsily to cut my kne 
 with the axe. I believed my leg to be half cut off fron 
 the way the blood ran down. It is bad enough to kee; 
 me at home for a day or two, but it will heal muc] 
 sooner and more effectually than the gash in my trousers 
 
Cruising through the Forest — The Snow Falls. 139 
 
 It was of no use to ti-y to lug a bucket up hill, so I had 
 to amuse myself with melting snow — rather a tedious 
 process, as it takes four or fiye quarts of snow to produce 
 one quart of water. I have ever had the dread of such 
 an accident before me, as a really severe wound would 
 be a fearful calamity in my lonely position, — in the 
 deadly cold we may soon expect, probably a fatal one. 
 
 I begin to long to hear the sound of some other voice 
 besides my own, replying in the imaginary conversations 
 I sometimes carry on with myself. I am getting, too, 
 into a habit of thinking aloud, and tell the silent trees 
 my reasons for doing this or that, or why it should not 
 be done, and comment on my progress to the squirrels, 
 who sit chattering their own opinion, or hold arguments 
 with myself on metaphysics and all the 'ologies, or 
 balance the discomforts against the pleasures of my 
 present state. For the wilderness has its lesson to 
 teach; hard may be the lesson, rough and harsh the 
 teacher, uttering words of truth with a piercing voice 
 and a frowning brow. Yet it is a lesson to be trea- 
 sured in the heart. The lesson is in the words of 
 Carlyle, — "There is a sacredness in work — in idleness 
 only is eternal despair ! " 
 
 A" ain, I please my imagination with fancying this 
 
140 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique. 
 
 desolation subdued by man ; these tall, grim foresti 
 laid low, and the silence which has reigned here to( 
 many years exchanged for the sound of many voicei 
 — the hum and murmur of the settlement, the clanj 
 of the axe, and the blacksmith's hammer, and the 
 thump of the flail, and the creak of the dray, anc 
 the rattle of the horses' hoofs and the shout of man 
 manfully toiling for his bread, and the bread of hii 
 wife and children ; and the sweet tinkling of the churcl 
 bell — fancy that ringing through the woods of th( 
 Tobique. And where these rugged maples and th( 
 black massive hemlocks have so long spread abroa( 
 their rude arms, there shall stand the neat home 
 stead, and where the wild raspberry and the moosi 
 wood and the tangled alders grow, there shall be thi 
 garden, glowing with the bright flowers of Old Eng 
 land. All this change may a few years bring on 
 and fain would I live to see it. The founders of t 
 settlement in a land by men neglected, but by natur( 
 so richly stored, may justly be called benefactors o 
 their race. For, let them remember, every tree tha 
 falls before their axe makes room for a human being 
 and, while it burns in the logging, from its ver 
 ashes springs sustenance for him. 
 
( 141 ) 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 WINTER ADVANCING— ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE. 
 
 Friday, list. — Four weeks of this strange life have 
 slipped away, I scarce know how. And yet it seems 
 as if ages had past since I first began this forest 
 life. But that memory is active (oh, how active !) 
 I could almost think I had passed my life here — had 
 never been elsewhere. Every tree round my camp 
 is familiar ; I know the ins and outs of the devious 
 lumber roads, the cedar swamps, and the high hills ; 
 the noisy brooks and the svdft, strong river are my 
 companions ; the squirrels even know me now, and 
 cease to scold me. But very monotonously, too, have 
 hours passed since the deep snow fell and stopped 
 my rambles. The axe, the saw, the needle, the knife 
 — with them I have found ways and means to make 
 them shorter. That unfortunate wound has occa- 
 sioned me irksome hours, though now it is rapidly 
 
142 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique. 
 
 healing. I was actually able to-day to crawl down, 
 under the influence of much excitement, to the river. 
 For to-day I heard sounds that made my heart throb 
 fast and my breath come quick, and my ears strain 
 with nervous expectation. While cutting fresh spruce- 
 boughs to lay under me at night, the shout of men 
 arrested me, yet I said, " What of that ? they are 
 but lumbermen passing on the river in their canoe ; 
 what have we to do with each other?" But, when 
 by-and-by I heard, as I eould not doubt, the measured 
 blows of an axe ringing repeatedly through the air, 
 and then, as I thought, the sound of answering voices, 
 it was more than I could bear. 
 
 " This must be looked after," I thought ; " I 
 must know who are these intruders." So I took my 
 rifle, equipped myself with my travelling gear, and 
 with painful toil plodded down to the river. Yel 
 had I my toil for my pains — there still ran the cold, 
 chilly river, rustling with its floating burden of snow 
 and ice, the deep snow unmarked with tracks, save 
 those which I had made. But while I stood 
 staring in bewilderment around me at our old camp, 
 a shout, loud, long and clear, in the direction ol 
 my house, brought me back with all the speed 
 
Winter advancing — Attempts to Escape. 143 
 
 my lameness permitted. Yet I knew it was but an 
 owl, or at least a close imitation of one, and this I 
 half suspected, for owls are not wont to hoot at 
 noon. So I reached home, and found it as I left it, 
 and it was with a somewhat saddened heart that I 
 crawled into my den, for I confess I should like once 
 more to see a fellow- creature. 
 
 I began to peel some willow wands, from the bark 
 of which the Indians have taught me to make their 
 substitute for tobacco, and which I like mightily to 
 mix in small quantities with the genuine weed. 
 Then I cooked my dinner, and when I had eaten 
 it, I began to cut firewood, and then, as I was 
 shouldering a log of birch to my camp, I was 
 startled into almost a tremor of mind and body by 
 hearing again a " wandering voice," which seemed 
 assuredly that of a man hailing me within a hun- 
 dred yards of where I stood, motionless, searching 
 the woods with eager glance. And then that shout 
 was heard again, yet, as it seemed, further away ; 
 then immediately again, but now, as it were, almost 
 by my side, and for the last time faintly and afar off. 
 But still I listened — ^listened, and could scarcely be 
 persuaded that it was only the same owl, who had 
 
144 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 mistaken this gloomy day for night. And I listene( 
 till the murmur of my brook began to my excitei 
 fancy to turn into sweet voices in low conversation 
 like that of children confiding their little mysterie 
 to each other in some quiet corner. And then I re 
 turned quietly to my work and my labour till th 
 evening. And now I sit writing the history of a day o 
 delusion, while outside the forest grumbles his old com 
 plaints at the rough usage of the easterly wind, whicl 
 arrived to-day, bearing in his arms a heavy burthe: 
 of snow to fling over the earth. And truly I wis! 
 the snow would fall more and more, and the true 
 downright winter come, and keep us no more in sua 
 pense, ever saying, " I come, I come," and yet delayini 
 — -only giving us little pats like a cat with a mouse. Le 
 him come and put us out of, or into our misery at once 
 Satii/rday, 22nd. — The first thing I became awar 
 of on creeping out of the hole in the side of my de: 
 (like the hole in a beehive) was that a dog wa 
 barking across the valley in the hemlock forest o 
 the opposite hills, the sound coming apparently fror 
 the same direction as the sound of the axe. Improl 
 able as it seems, I can only come to the conclusio: 
 that there are lumberers making a camp somewher 
 
Winter Advanc'mg — Attempts to Escape. 145 
 
 in my neighbourhood. I could hardly restrain myself 
 from starting forthwith in chase of these mysterious 
 sounds, but my wounded leg made it impossible. I 
 had, however, this afternoon the vast good luck to 
 discover two partridges high in the birch trees, pecking 
 at the buds, which form their chief food ; but my 
 rifle soon stopped their pecking, and gave me a prize 
 of value beyond gold ; for under this diet of pork and 
 biscuit my weight and strength are both diminishing, 
 and my health far from improving. 
 
 Tuesday, 25th. — I am forming a very favourable 
 opinion of the country round here as the site of a 
 settlement, if an excellent soil, forests which may be 
 cleared without much difficulty, a plentiful supply of 
 water, and the advantage of being traversed by the 
 proposed road to the Great Falls, suffice to recom- 
 mend it. I have been strolling about this glorious 
 sunny day with far more pleasure than I have hitherto 
 done, examining more minutely the immediate vicinity 
 of my camp. In one of my sable traps I found the head 
 of a wretched little squirrel, his body having afforded 
 a meal for some prowler of the woods — very likely 
 the very sable who ought to have been in it himself. 
 
 Wednesday, 26th. — As I expected from the misty 
 
 10 
 
146 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 films in the air last night, a day of ceaseless snow — 
 an atmosphere of snow. I stayed, perforce, at home, 
 and amused myself by baking bread, clearing a sort 
 of road for my tarboggin, which I suppose I shall 
 soon need to draw in my firewood, and cutting down 
 a few of the cedars that stand round my camp — the 
 fall of each one of them being to me as a moment 
 of gratified vengeance. Hour after hour, day after 
 day, week after week, pass and leave me in my forest 
 home, a prisoner in solitude unbroken. If my health 
 fails, none to help me ; if my spirits sink, none to 
 cheer me; if I wander away into the wilderness and 
 die, none will ever know my fate. Dependent only 
 on my own resources and on God, I yet can pass 
 away my time thus cheerfully. It is a wild, almost 
 dreamlike sort of existence. Shut out from the 
 human race, I know nothing of what passes — wars 
 and convulsions of society, desolation, and pestilence 
 may be abroad on the face of the earth, and not a 
 whisper would reach me here. But if the body here 
 be active, neither is the mind idle. The philosopheu 
 who exists but in meditation on abstract truths, should 
 retire into the depths of an American forest, where 
 the very wilderness around him would teach him truths 
 
Winter Advancing — Attempts to Escape. 147 
 
 he knew not of, would murmur mighty secrets in 
 his ear. To these truths, these secrets whispered in 
 the inexpressible voice which seems to belong to the 
 ancient forest, as do its restless heaving, its un- 
 ceasing roar to the ocean — have I been listening in 
 my seclusion till I almost look on the trees as living, 
 sentient beings, attributing a different character to 
 each. The sturdy maple, with his crooked limbs, 
 standing, as it were, with his arms akimbo, defying 
 the storm ; the huge, gloomy hemlock, rearing him- 
 self towards Heaven like a vast tower, and seeming 
 to shed a gloom over the forest beneath from his 
 dark, stern face ; the tall and graceful spruce, pointing 
 to the skies, with upraised finger, like a prophetess ; 
 the malignant, ungainly cedar, flinging itself about 
 in all sorts of uncouth attitudes, like an idle schools 
 boy, an unmitigated nuisance, a bore — all are my 
 acquaintances, my companions, my antagonists, my 
 servants, and my teachers. I will conclude the even- 
 ing entry in this Diary of a Solitary, — " the world " 
 not " forgetting," though, perchance, " by the world " 
 long ago " forgot " — by confessing that with eagerness, 
 yet with patience, I look forward to the time of my 
 release, my return to the friends and scenes of which 
 
 10—2 
 
148 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 memoiy is ever drawing bright pictures. And then, 
 like a dream of the night, will my sojourn in the wil- 
 derness vanish into the past. 
 
 •Thursday, 27th. — The breaking of an axe is a small 
 matter to him who has but to go to the next blacksmith's 
 shop to repair it, but the blacksmith builds no shop in 
 the wilderness ; and when to-day the axe on which I had 
 depended for very life in a New Brunswick winter, 
 divided into two halves in the hard carcase of a sturdy 
 maple, I could hardly comprehend my disaster. I 
 gazed on the broken tool, broken beyond remedy; I 
 cried, " Now, God, have mercy on me ! " But soon 
 I remembered that I had still my tomahawk left me, 
 all unfit as such a child's tool seemed to provide me 
 with fuel enough for such cold as was approaching — 
 30 degs. below zero, perhaps. But still I had it, and 
 with redoubled exertion, two hours for one, rigid economy 
 in fuel, and the energy which is the child of imperious 
 necessity, it might avail me. I returned to the camp to 
 seek it, and perceived how shamefully I had been taken 
 in by a tool which was a disgrace to the shop where 
 I had bought it. Of the welding where the steel meets 
 the iron, scarce an inch had united, the rest was utterly 
 disjoined ; the only wonder was that it had held so long. 
 
Winter Advancing — Attempts to Escape. 149 
 
 When I had abused such infamous workmanship suffi- 
 ciently, I began to look the whole thing fairly in the 
 face. I could not escape, firewood I must have even 
 if I had to burn soft wood ; yes, to be sure, I had for- 
 gotten the many cheering fires of fir, which had warmed 
 me in my camping out, and my little axe could cut that 
 well enough. So there was my great fear of being 
 frozen to death removed. And then, who knows but 
 this same little axe may be capable of more than 
 I have given it credit for; up and away, [and let 
 us try. 
 
 Already had I cut ofi" several logs from that stout 
 maple which has been the end of my big axe ; let us see 
 if this, my last hope, can split those logs — I know they 
 split fireely. Whack— crack — split ; open it is^hurrah ! 
 at any rate, so much of this morning's work is not 
 wasted. With more or less difficulty I split it up 
 into billets, and at sunset, somewhat sadder than I 
 had left it in the morning, I returned to my lonely 
 hearth. I drew together the glowing brands, made a 
 friendly blaze, lighted my pipe, and began to ponder 
 seriously on my position. What if my only axe left 
 me should break? ay, there's the rub. Then came 
 upon me the full conviction that I must remain no 
 
150 Jov/rnal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 longer in this helpless state ; hitherto, I had not 
 seriously desired to find a way of returning to society, 
 or of opening communication with mankind, but now 
 such a way must be found. Across the river about a 
 mile up the stream, and a mile and a half back in the 
 woods, is a lumberer's camp, belonging to a man named 
 Connor, and whom I have met. They were his men who 
 visited our camp ere the Indians left me, and they told 
 me where they lived, and that they would be glad to see 
 me. Well, surely there must be a way to cross the 
 river if I will. Then visions of " catamarans " or rafts 
 began to pass before my eye, and I almost regretted my 
 canoe. I have seen a raft and could doubtless make 
 one; but then I know nothing of their management, 
 and should surely be capsized at the very first essay ; 
 and a dip into the half-frozen river, in such weather as 
 this, is not desirable. I had better even wade it, and 
 that is only to be done under the most desperate 
 circumstances. Still my thoughts harped on a catama- 
 ran, and I sat down to my evening meal busily engaged 
 in fancy on my raft of refuge — put it together, launched 
 it, and always, as the result of the vision, took a cold 
 bath amid floating ice and snow. 
 
 But should I not dare that means of escape, is there 
 
Winter Advancing — Attempts to Escape. 151 
 
 not a track " blazed" and " buslied " out to tlie Falls. 
 past my door almost ? Twenty-two miles of wilderness 
 it is true, aqnivalent nnder any cii-cnmstances to forty of 
 turnpike road ; in this deep snow to how many more ? 
 I should have to camp out, to carry blankets and pro- 
 visions, and (I am supposing myself reduced to desperate 
 measures by the loss of my remaining axe) how to get 
 firewood '? The lumber camp is decidedly a better 
 dii-eetion to look to. To attempt to reach the settle- 
 ment ten miles below me would be rasher still — no 
 track eren but the densest forest only. So, as I turned it 
 oyer and over in my mind, a new idea suddenly appeared 
 like a ghost among the crowd before me ; so simple yet 
 so long in suggesting itself; one which in any other 
 mood would have appeared an impracticability, but which 
 now by degrees came to appear the complete solution of 
 my difficulties. "SVith an outcry of triumph, I began 
 fiercely to fill my pipe, bidding care defiance. But to- 
 morrow may change the prospect; so lest I but gain 
 the reader's laugh at the failure of a dream, I beg to 
 keep my project a secret till I have success to proclaim. 
 So with my head fuU of the work laid out for the 
 morrow, I lay down on my bed of boughs, eagerly 
 longing for the day. 
 
152 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique. 
 
 Friday, 28th. — The fifth week of my captivity is 
 ended : the trees are my jailors, and grimly they stand 
 round me watching me in their glistening white robes. 
 I lay down full of hope and enterprise and rose with 
 the same. And first, as the handle of my little axe was 
 split, I had to burn it out and fit in another ; and then 
 I put up some biscuit and pork and tea and sugar and 
 passed my belt through pot and pannilqn, for I meant 
 not to return till evening, and then I bethought me 
 of a huge old birch-tree close by with his bark all in 
 rags and tatters, his rough and wrinkled skin — there is 
 nothing better to kindle a fire with, so full of resinous 
 matter as it is, burning like pitch or tar, — so I pulled off 
 some of the fragments of his old garments, put them 
 in my bag too, and then, with my rifle and axe, sallied 
 forth. Evening came and but half of my work was 
 done, but with that half I was well-pleased ; yet the 
 proof remains to be applied, and so the day's doings 
 must for the present remain untold. Part of these, 
 however, was the making a fire between two walls of 
 snow, with a hearth of snow, and snow above too, for 
 it soon began to fall after I had set to work. But 
 that fire was a comfort, as I ate and drank and warmed 
 my chUled feet at its glowing smiles. I think the 
 
Winter Advancing — Attempts to Escape. 153 
 
 state of mind of one wlio is working with a will and 
 not grudgingly, especially if his work be of a kind not 
 disagreeable in itself, chopping, for instance, is as near 
 complete happiness, that is freedom from care, as can 
 well exist on this earth. 
 
 Tuesday, December 2nd. — The last two or three 
 days — days of storm, and bitter cold, and sprinkling of 
 snow — I have passed in various little domestic offices, 
 — washing clothes, baking bread, chopping firewood, 
 &c., above all, carrying on my notable mystery to a state 
 fit for publication. It has now reached that state. 
 Eeader, I have made a canoe ! Not such a one as my 
 worthy Indians left me dependent on, not a mere 
 curved plank, not a travestie of a pirogue, but such 
 a boat as I could without fear trust to take me down 
 to the nearest settlement at least ; nor would I much 
 hesitate to face, after a little practice, the three rapids 
 between me and the mouth. A simple discovery, in- 
 deed, will the practised woodsman say, but let him 
 consider I am but a novice in the art of canoe making. 
 I have had but four or five weeks' practice in a tool he 
 has been used to from his childhood. 
 
 I have made it, and it is now on the riverside ready 
 for launching. I only wait till I have conquered another 
 
154 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 difficulty, the making a paddle, as I dare not trust 
 myself with only a pole, which by the upright posture 
 it requires increases the danger of a capsize, and is, 
 besides, far more difficult to guide the boat with. A 
 paddle, too, is essential in descending a stream and 
 shooting a rapid. But I must describe the process of 
 making a canoe for the benefit of the unenlightened. 
 Ere I began the enterprise, I bethought me of a huge 
 old cedar by the riyerside which I knew of, and making 
 the preparation I described on the 28th, I plodded 
 down a full mile to where he stood, and decided he 
 should have a chance of being of some use in death after 
 an ill-spent life. At him I went with my tomahawk 
 and chopped and chipped away till I had cleared the 
 upper half of a log about seven or eight feet long. 
 Much of the centre was decayed, which lightened my 
 labour, but I saw clearly that one end (that nearest 
 the root) would in consequence be open when I came 
 to sever it;, while nearer the other end the knots and 
 diminished size would render it useless, so my bark 
 would have no stern, or rather would be like a boat 
 sawn in half. Still I went on hopefully, only lamenting 
 the want of an adze, a more suitable tool than an axe, 
 and thinking how to remedy this especial defect. I had 
 
Winter Advancing — Attempts to Escape. 155 
 
 no nails to nail on a board nor pitch to make it water- 
 tight. But an idea came : the half-melted snow becomes 
 hard as stone with the frost at night ; suppose I make 
 some dough or mortar or what you please of snow and 
 water and fill up the Tacancy therewith? will the 
 Tobique waters melt it ? I guess not. But stay, 
 better still, if I fit a piece of wood into the vacancy and 
 glue it on with my new-fashioned glue, for well I know 
 'twill be no light knock will force the stem of my craft 
 when so cemented with snow. 
 
 But here comes another doubt — this log looks mon- 
 strous heavy; what, if like Robinson Crusoe, I find 
 when I have completed it, that I can neither bring it 
 to the river nor the river to it. But this troubled me 
 but little, or only helped to wile away the time in the 
 planning of ways to get my canoe launched. And 
 to day I finished my anchor of hope, my Deliverance 
 (by this name will I call her). I found too that 1 could 
 carry her on my back, not being very much heavier 
 than a bark canoe; the dimensions about seven feet 
 six, the beam one sixth, depth ten inches. And when 
 I had got her down to the water-side and glued in her 
 stern, then indeed I longed for some one to join 
 me in my shout of laughter at the idea of stopping 
 
156 Journal of Two Ifonths en the Tobique. 
 
 leaks with snow. Before returning home I felled a fine 
 ash tree from which to make my paddle — a far more 
 difficult task, I apprehend, than the other, as I have no 
 wedges save such as I can make of wood. 
 
 I am not altogether alone; I have companions in 
 my den; friends I would fain make of them if they 
 will ; dependants they are not at any rate. For a long 
 time a tiny shrew-mouse has dwelt with me, hiding in 
 the crevices of the logs, and now and then creeping 
 forth to pick up the morsels of pork which I throw 
 forth to him. I like to see the tender little fragment 
 of life hurry forth from his hole, snatch up his dinner, 
 and back to eat it in quiet. He grows more fearless 
 every day, reminding me of the prisoner in the Bastille. 
 And but the other day, suddenly rushed in with great 
 impetuosity through the air-hole I have before men- 
 tioned, a beautiful white weasel, who made for the cask 
 of pork with such unhesitating directness of course as 
 showed that this was not his first visit. In he got, 
 and I must acknowledge that my first impulse was to 
 stop his visits for ever ; but when at the slight noise 
 I made in closing the before-mentioned aperture, he 
 looked at me over the edge of the cask with a calm, 
 meditating gaze in his large black eyes, my hostile 
 
Winter Advancing — Attempts to Escape, 157 
 
 intentions changed into admiration of his matchless 
 impudence. So instead of killing him, I watched him 
 eating my pork with benevolence, for well I knew that 
 nothing hut starvation could have made him so bold. 
 Once slightly startled he jumped out and moved off 
 through the door, but he returned in a moment, jumped 
 in again and began gnawing away voraciously. But , 
 with all my benevolence, I could not help seeing that 
 there are very strong objections to his presence among 
 my provisions, so if he wish for pork let him go shares 
 with the shrew, but not put his fingers in my dish. 
 
 Wednesday, 3rd. — I set off early to the river to 
 visit my barque and make my paddle. By way of 
 experiment of her seaworthiness, I cut a hole in the 
 ice, forming a dock, into which I launched her, and 
 went on board in a triumph, which, however, was but 
 short, for though I found I could stand in her with 
 ease and confidence, yet somehow, after all, the snow- 
 pitch did let in a little water ; a fact which at first 
 utterly disconcerted me, till I reflected that, in the first 
 place, it was almost a thaw, and that, besides, I had 
 not wetted the snow enough to make it thoroughly ice. 
 
 I came home to dinner, and not feeling disposed for 
 another tramp of a mile through the snow, I attempted 
 
158 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 a sketch of my den (which I have named Castle Lonely), 
 and then reflecting that I had no spare handles, got 
 stufi" to make a couple. In this, and in chopping down 
 a few more trees, I passed the afternoon and evening 
 till supper time, viz., between six and seven, according 
 to appetite. Near three weeks have passed since I have 
 been able to muster courage for a regular ramble 
 through the scarce passable woods, yet in these days 
 passed at home I have not for one instant wanted work 
 for my head or hands. Even the long evenings glide 
 almost like an hour away, with pen or pencil or 
 whittling out some contrivance of outlandish sort. 
 Often am I startled now-a-days by the loud trumpet- 
 like cry of the wild goose as he flies before the advanc- 
 ing armies of winter. 
 
 Saturday, 6th. — I had an unusual treat to-day in a 
 longish walk. I tried the ice, and walked quickly and 
 exultingly up the river, wondering at the quantities of 
 rabbit tracks and the foot-prints of a wolf, as I please 
 myself with calling a probable fox, and grumbling that 
 I could never see any of these, my fellow-foresters — 
 when crack ! my foot fell through, and back I turned, 
 with the conviction that I should have to wear a waist- 
 coat and neck-cloth, which I have not done since I 
 
Winter Advancing — Attempts to Escape. 159 
 
 first began my sojourn here. For to-day, the clouds, 
 gradually thinning and melting away into that bright, 
 light blue sliy, which, rather than the dark blue, 
 betokens the approach of fair weather; the cold, in- 
 stead of diminishing as the day advanced, grew hour 
 by hour keener and keener still. The breath of the 
 N.E. comes gently, but cold as death ; the sun, 
 brightly as he shines, seems powerless to warm as the 
 moon herself; if I touch the blade of my axe, my 
 fingers stick as though it were pitch. And now the 
 moon is full, and clear and cold ; she glistens through 
 the streaming lights of the Aurora, as though it were 
 her own long silvery hair floating over the sky. The 
 air is calm as in hottest summer's eve ; but not like 
 summer was the sensation when I looked just now 
 through the door — 'twas like putting my head into a 
 bucket of cold water. Cracks as of a pistol ring 
 through the forest, the bark, I suppose, being forced 
 from the trunks of dead trees by the freezing of the 
 moisture within ; my own camp, too, explodes at 
 times. 
 
 My enthusiasm about my Mgate has abated con- 
 siderably, partly because I have no immediate occasion 
 for it, but chiefly because, on examination of water- 
 
160 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 marks, I convinced myself to-day that the river is at 
 least fully as low as it was before the last freshet, and 
 consequently so shallow as to render my voyage down 
 to the mouth impossible, as I must either get aground 
 on some bank, and stick there helplessly, or be knocked 
 over by a rock in shooting the rapids. So that gate of 
 exit from my forest prison is closed for the present. 
 But I care the less for that, as there is no small 
 prospect of the freezing of the stream before the period 
 fixed by Moulton, viz., Christmas. 
 
 Sunday, 7th. — How can we speak of the " Hfeless " 
 forest, when its ever-varying voices proclaim all its 
 troubles and its fears ; in the gentle breeze it utters 
 in low-murmuring sighs its foreboding of the coming 
 storm ; and when the storm rages with harsh clangour, 
 in groanings and writhings of its mighty limbs it 
 upbraids the merciless blast as it rushes fiercely by ; 
 and again, in such a night as the last, even in its 
 helpless endurance of the overwhelming frost, it finds 
 a voice for its sufferings, tree answering to tree in 
 cracks and the snapping of their tough ribs, as though 
 a whole regiment of sharpshooters were skirmishing in 
 the woods. And this morning the frozen bread, the 
 pail full of ice, and most especially the piercing sen- 
 
Winter Advancing — Attempts to Escape. 161 
 
 sation of the temperature, gave abundant proof of last 
 night's frost. 
 
 The songs of the brook are neai-ly hushed ; its little 
 falls still murmur, through the curtains of ice around 
 them, their everlasting story ; but wherever the stream 
 is quieter, the frost has taken advantage of its idleness, 
 and bound it in chains that only the spring can unloose. 
 The pool -whence I draw my supply of water is covered 
 with ice, which I may jump on, yet not break ; I must 
 take my axe as well as my bucket when I need the 
 pure element. And the Tobique — a desperate struggle 
 for a little longer lease of freedom he has made ; where 
 the water is shallow and swift, he is still unchained ; 
 elsewhere, he must dive beneath a bridge of winter's 
 building ; and the islands of ice in all parts show that 
 but little more frost will open me as level and hard a 
 road as ever McAdam made. Yes, but the Northern 
 Lights, the ring round the moon last night, the 
 mackerel sky to-day, the dull vapour which hides the 
 moon to-night, the but moderate cold, all foretell a 
 snow-storm or a return of the desperate gloom formerly 
 prevailing. But truly to-day was a pleasant day ; the 
 air was cold, but it was exhilarating, joyous; though 
 the sun was powerless, he shone bright and gladly : far 
 
 11 
 
162 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique. 
 
 better is the mild sun of winter than the fierce tyi-ant 
 of summer. In the meantime, this state of things has 
 made my canoe no better than a dream of the night — 
 of him I shall have no need. Still I do not regret the 
 time spent in making it, nor the labour bestowed on 
 the paddle, in which I haTe succeeded far beyond my 
 most sanguine hopes. Indeed, I consider it my master- 
 piece of whittling, and do defy an Indian to make one 
 more practically useful. 
 
 Tuesday, 9th. — After a day spent in the various 
 occupations I have so frequently detailed, I retire to a 
 bed such as the reader would perchance think anything 
 else — the mattress of spruce boughs — the blankets and 
 cloak and rug thrown on them — my coat for a pillow : 
 hard bed, hard pillow, but with them sound refreshing 
 sleep and pleasant dreams, ever recurring, of the far- 
 away — of the light of other days — of the land where 
 all my loved companions dwell. The first thing I had 
 to do this morning was to shovel away the snow from 
 the entrance to my house, for my prognostics of snow 
 deceived me not — the haze thickened to clouds, and the 
 clouds dissolved in a perfect fog of snow. My im- 
 patience for a genuine north pole temperature is some- 
 what heightened by the biscuit being nearly all eaten up. 
 
Winter Advancing — Attempts to Escape. 163 
 
 my flour seriously diminished, and my tea and sugar 
 fast disappearing. If the worst come to the worst, I 
 can hut wade the river, and seek the lumherers' camps ; 
 there is not much left to walk through, though the 
 ice, &c., make all navigation impracticable. 
 
 Thursday, 11th. — Having melted the ink, I sit down 
 this piercing evening to record a day which has been 
 marked by unwonted novelty — a novelty to me, in my 
 monotony, of thrilling interest — for I have made my 
 d4but in snow-shoe travelling. A new idea of this kind 
 makes, in the absence of weightier interests, a great stir 
 in my mind, so I got up betimes full of eagerness to 
 make the essay. Nor had I much difficulty in awaking 
 early, the cold compelled me to turn out two or three 
 hours before daybreak to put on such clothes as I can do 
 without during the first part of the night. My flannel I 
 can never dispense with, and then in the morning when 
 I can no longer sleep for shivering, I rise, put on my 
 red shirt and trousers, make up the fire and get a little 
 comfortable sleep till daylight. In the morning and 
 evening the cold is so intense that breathing it is Kke 
 drawing files or rasps down one's throat. Well, after 
 breakfast off I set, having first put my feet in the racket- 
 like machines, and trotted a little about my " clearing," 
 
 11—2 
 
164 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 to see if the boot-straps were all right. I discovered to- 
 day that it is much pleasanter to walk through the dry 
 frozen snow in mocassins over three or four pair of socks 
 than with cold hard boots over one pair, which I had 
 hitherto done, the boots not being large enough to go 
 over more than one, and suffered all the miseries of 
 cold feet in consequence. Over these, then, socks and 
 mocassins, in a sheltered spot, I put on my battledores 
 and set off rifle in hand, eager yet not unmindful of the 
 probability of a fall suggested long ago by my friends. 
 But so unswervingly did I get on, so delightful was it to 
 tread on the snow instead of in it, that I thought I 
 would even try how I could run should I descry a moose 
 before me. Splutter — splutter — how cold the snow is ! 
 headforemost into it, by Jove — I was almost buried in 
 the snow. After this as I went more disposedly, but not 
 so high— like Queen Elizabeth dancing,— all it requires 
 is a long wide step and care to raise the toes, and thereby 
 the points of the battledores. 
 
 The inconvenience of cold feet I hope to have thus 
 removed; another grievous annoyance which I have 
 suffered since the cold weather set in, consists in 
 paroxysms of toothache, which always seizes me on 
 coming from the piercing outside into my warm camp, 
 
Winter Advancing — Attempts to Escape. 165 
 
 and which comes on even when I get warm in' bed. It 
 now freezes hard even close to the fire, and as for wind, 
 the Nor'westers are cold, cutting like a saw. 
 
 Friday, 12th. — This morning I started for a regular 
 ramble along the river side in the following foot gear — 
 1st, two pairs of fine lamb's-wool socks ; 2nd, one pair of 
 thick worsted ditto ; 3rd, mocassins ; and, lastly, another 
 pair of worsted socks over them, which gave me a degree 
 of comfort in my feet which I have hardly known for the 
 last month. Brightly shone the sun, calm and piercing 
 but invigorating was the air, and full of cheerful life I 
 came in view of the Tobique. Fierce had been the con- 
 test between the strong stream and the stronger frost — 
 but his strength is well-nigh gone, his life-current is 
 chilled, and save a narrow channel of a yard or two in 
 width, and 200 or 300 yards long, he is pent under a 
 rough and strong roof of ice. Yet can I not yet avail 
 myself of my future road into the world again, for his 
 surface is either too rough for a tarboggin or too 
 smooth to walk on. On the fresh ice formed along the 
 edge are scattered innumerable beautiful rosettes of frost- 
 work like those that ladies make for their knick- 
 knackeries — sprinkled by the grim tyrant of the North 
 over his captive river. Many such delicate displays of 
 
166 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 the strange powers of the frost I see all round me, the 
 ice over the pools of my brook is strewed with flakes and 
 crystals of frost which look like pins and needles and 
 penknife blades. As for him, poor fellow, his tinkling 
 voice, as it comes feebly and plaintively through his prison 
 bars, reminds me of the starling's " I can't get out." 
 
 The middle of the river is all rough, looking like a 
 gigantic horseshoe rasp ; this is owing to the sheet which 
 covers it being formed of those cakes of ice which have 
 been drifting down the current for so long, and which the 
 frost, like some stern bailiff, has tapped with his cold 
 finger even whilst trj-ing to escape. After all I did not 
 venture to cross the river — the perpetual groaning and 
 cracking of the ice deterred me. While I listened, I 
 thought of the boa and the tiger — how he quietly gathers 
 the fiercest beast of the earth in his horrid embrace, and 
 crushes him to a jelly — so the winter subdues the turbu- 
 lent struggling river till, like the dying tiger or buffalo, 
 he gives up his life in a loud uproar. 
 
 Monday, ISf/i.^Now, ye spirits of the North ! I 
 recognize you. I looked out last night at eleven : clear, 
 starry heavens and that keen icy feeling in th* air which 
 I have learned to understand now as the touch of the 
 North Pole. Then in the morning ere dawn I was as 
 
Winter Advancing — Attempts to Escape. 167 
 
 usual roused by the shivering chill which produces the 
 impression of having nothing on, and by-and-by came 
 day — a day of glorious sunshine, but penetratingly, 
 subtly cold was the air. I walked down to the river — I 
 walked on it — bolder and bolder as no crack or groan 
 gave hint of danger ; I stepped forth to the middle, and 
 walked fearlessly on till I felt that in truth my road was 
 open. So I went home and busied myself with collecting 
 such loose articles as I did not want, hiding some and 
 packing others up. And 'twas with a glad heart I saw 
 the sun siak unclouded in the "West, and every shiver and 
 shake as the cold grew sharper was to me only an as- 
 surance that my Uberator was at work. But oh ! what a 
 night was the last ! driven by cold from my bed long 
 ere davm to feel as if getting into a cold bath — the fire 
 nearly out and the frost in full possession of my camp. 
 But I soon got up a good blaze, boiled a pot of coffee, 
 ate my breakfast, and then looked out my extra wraps, 
 woollen cap, comforter and heavy pea-jacket, ere starting 
 in search of that lumberer's camp I have already men- 
 tioned. Then with my snow-shoes and rifle I sallied 
 forth, and so long as I was in the forest bore the cold 
 with great contentment. It is true that I had not gone 
 a quarter of a mile before my hair, whiskers, moustache 
 
168 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 and beard were thickly covered with hoar-frost, my 
 breath froze, and my eyelashes stuck together ; but all 
 these things I considered as trifles till I got out on the 
 open river, and began to walk briskly against the slightest 
 possible breath of air from the N.E., almost impercep- 
 tible when standing still, but, on opposing it by walking, 
 causing a sensation as though one's face were being lashed 
 by fine whips of thin wire — contracting the skin — seem- 
 ing to turn the very blood to ice — even the eyes seeming 
 as if they would yield to that quintessence of the Arctic 
 regions. I confess I was half frightened at the utterly 
 new position I was in — I had no experience to guide me, 
 and might be guilty of the most foolish rashness. 
 
 Still I went on for nearly two miles, discovering no 
 road to the camp I sought. A brow there was, but I 
 believed it to belong to a camp no longer occupied ; 
 however, finding no other indications, I climbed the 
 steep bank with much dif&culty, and, stepping into my 
 snow-shoes (without which I can now make but little 
 progress, and with them still less when the snow is not 
 thick enough to cover the fallen trees), I began exploring 
 the tracks that led into the main road — to the brow. 
 Diverging right and left like the twigs on a bough, one 
 and all they led me to nothing but the stumps of trees, 
 
Winter Advancing— Attem'pts to Escape. 169 
 
 whence the logs had been dragged. The snow-shoes, 
 too, began to fatigue me ; and, as there was little like- 
 lihood of my finding a dinner in Donald's camp, I 
 thought I had better go back for it to my own, and there 
 amuse myself with chopping firewood, as I hoped for the 
 last time. 
 
 I began chopping with my thick coat on, but in the 
 dead calm of the forest, though the frost gathered again 
 round my face, I was soon glad to take it off and chop 
 in my shirt-sleeves, without even my waistcoat, and was 
 at last very near complaining of the heat. The weather, 
 however, as usual, is going to try something else. This 
 morning at sunrise the long cobwebby vapour from east 
 to south showed but too plainly that the blue sky — the 
 purple sky, I should say — ^would soon resume its wonted 
 di'ess of sober grey. Finally, it snows to-night as hard 
 as it can. I had wished to see Connor first, and try to 
 get him to take my leavings, but if the weather means 
 to be for ever so utterly untrustworthy, I won't lose the 
 next chance, as my provisions are getting very low. 
 
 Very beautiful were the stars last night, — clear, 
 more sharply defined, as it were, than I have ever seen 
 them even in Australia, or the supremely clear atmosphere 
 of Madeira, yet not twinkling nor particularly brUliant ; 
 
170 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 they looked more like little holes punched in a black silk 
 handkerchief, with a Hght behind it; or, rather, they 
 looked as, when viewed through a telescope, stars which 
 in ordinary skies are single, are there perceived to be 
 double ; while the Pleiades I scarcely knew at first, so 
 utterly freed were they from that hazy smudge in which 
 the seven stars are usually blended together. And the 
 dark purple of the sky in the early morning was inex- 
 pressibly beautiful. 
 
 Wednesday, 18th. — This has been a day of severe 
 labour and severe disappointment. When I awoke in the 
 morning it felt delightfully cold, and eagerly I looked 
 out. The clouds had vanished, and cheerily shone the 
 sun; the cold was severe, and I decided to be off. I 
 had the night before made half my preparations, and it 
 did not take long to roll up my bedding, put up some 
 provisions, pack up the few things I did not like to 
 leave, and then lash them on the tarboggin, which 
 was to be my waggon. A tarboggin, I should say, is a 
 very light sledge, made of two thin strips of birchwood 
 about six feet six inches long, and one foot two inches 
 wide, with the front bent back in a hook shape, and with 
 two little rails along the side to pass the lashing under. 
 This the woodsman drags after him ; and over the crust 
 
Winter Advancing — Attempts to Escape. 171 
 
 of the snow (which has not formed yet) can pull, of 
 course according to his weight, as much as 200 lbs. 
 
 WeU, having stowed my cargo, I proceeded to get 
 under weigh, hut I had a much greater weight to pull 
 than I had calculated on — not more than 100 lbs. — but 
 then it was through soft snow, over bushes and trees ; 
 and, moreover, my frequent walks along the track had 
 made a deep rut through the snow, along which I could 
 scarcely lug my burden. I could have carried them to 
 the river in two or three trips, but having got them into 
 the tarhoggin I was too obstinate to take them off again, 
 and after two hours of exhausting labour I at last got 
 them to the river-side. Once on the river, I expected 
 to travel swimmingly ; but, in the first place, some inches 
 of loose snow lay over the surface, and I soon began to 
 doubt my ability of accomplishing in that fashion the 
 ten or twelve miles between me and the Castleton settle- 
 ment, which I proposed to make my first day's stage — 
 for it was now twelve o'clock, and the days are short. 
 Next I discovered that under this layer of snow there 
 was an oozing slushy mixture of snow and water in 
 some places ; this showed that the ice was in that state 
 called rotten. But I thought this was perhaps an ex^ 
 ception, so I started off to another part where I knew 
 
172 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique. 
 
 there was an old formation of ice, and had made some 
 twenty or thirty yards when a sharp ringing crack turned 
 me quickly back, and left me standing quite beaten. I 
 made up my mind to take back the things I had brought 
 down with such excessive toil, and wait till the next 
 outrageous frost. I brought back my load by instal- 
 ments, having learnt that on the next attempt I must 
 dimipish it considerably. 
 
 So here I am established again where this morning 
 I hoped not to pass another night. When I pulled 
 down the blanket-door and turned my back on the lonely 
 home where I have spent many a pleasant evening, I quite 
 forgot to take a sentimental leave of it. Nor on my 
 return thither did I feel romantic, but I congratulated 
 myself heartily on having by some mysterious pre- 
 sentiment refrained from having put the fire out, as I 
 had been about to do. For it would have been no small 
 trouble to light it again ; and I had but little time ere 
 night to cut firewood, as I dare not in this uncertainty 
 draw all my funds out of the bank. 
 
( 173 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE FOREST ABANDONED— RETURN TO 
 FEEDERICTON— HOMEWARD. 
 
 Saturdiu/, 21st. — My forest dream is finished ! I 
 have awaked to find myself in the Castleton settle- 
 ment. For having waited through Thursday, and 
 finding Friday ushered in with a gleaming sun and a 
 severe frost, I resolved on that day (which made the 
 eighth week of my solitude) to make another attempt, 
 which should either he successful or let the consequences 
 be what they might. So I packed up, carried down a 
 much diminished load, and stai-ted on my way. I had 
 not gone two hundred yards before I found slight tracks 
 that at once resolved all my doubts, and I pushed on 
 with a good heart. The Plaster Eock and the Wapshe 
 were passed ere I felt fatigue; a few mouthfuls of 
 frozen bread were highly relished, and I had no doubt of 
 reaching the settlement by sundown. But two or three 
 
174 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 miles more began to create misgivings, for the load 
 which at first seemed trifling, seemed now to increase 
 every step, till at last every step was like climbing a 
 ladder. Intolerable fatigue assailed me; the jerking 
 of the strap made my back ache, and the strain on my 
 knees made them totter under me. I had undertaken a 
 task the difficulties of which I did not discover till it 
 became a matter of almost life and death. Compelled 
 every ten minutes to sit down lest I should fall, it was 
 truly with delight that I found myself on the edge of a 
 clearing with a barn in the midst. 
 
 I got on to the bank and shouted, but no sign of 
 life was visible ; then I remembered where I was, and 
 that no one lived there. But I knew there was a 
 lumberer's camp on the river, two or three miles from 
 the Castleton settlement ; so I harnessed myself once 
 more to my load, which I had already begun to meditate 
 abandoning. I was staggering with fatigue, and knew 
 that if I fell I could not rise again ; at last came the 
 words, generally fatal to the traveller on foot, " I can 
 go no further." I sat down on my sledge, almost 
 despairing — to take that further was impossible ; but 
 making a last effort, I got on to my legs, crawled 
 on a mile, and heard an axe ring hard by, saw smoke, 
 
Return to Fredericton. 175 
 
 and knew I was close to the lumberer's camp. I 
 scrambled through the woods, and saw a man chopping 
 down a tree. With some anxiety as to the way I should 
 acquit myself in the unwonted feat of conversing, I 
 addressed him, told him my story, and was shown 
 the way to the lumberers' camp half a mile off. Then 
 I sat down, and with a pot of tea, buckwheat cakes, 
 and fresh pork instead of salt, soon forgot my sorrows. 
 One by one came in the lumberers — jolly fellows ; all 
 knew about me— made them roar with laughter with 
 telling them of my forest experiences, ate enormously, 
 then found myself able to go back for the sledge, and 
 brought it in, stumbling in the dark over rough ice. 
 
 An awful smoke — lie down — sleep all round — snow- 
 storm — shoot at a mark this morning — walk with Mrs. 
 
 C in snow-shoes — glorious day — no end of people 
 
 know all about me. Get a letter and some things — 
 find out about the noises I had heard — men at Three 
 Brooks, as I thought ; find out about stray tracks — 
 everybody laughs and wonders. At Castleton get vege- 
 tables ! ! several people there too ; nice clean house. 
 Excellent land at Three Brooks, on south side of the 
 river near Castleton settlement. While walking down 
 with Sam, we stopped to talk with some men working 
 
176 Journal of. Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 among their logs ; says one : " You don't look so fresh 
 as you did when you went up in the fall." I found 
 he had seen me. Not a man in the dozen I have 
 met but knew of me ; had I remained at the Mouth, 
 I should have had no end of visitors. Astonishment 
 at my little tour back. All sit round the fire talking 
 of lumbering, logs, bows, driving, &c. — ask much about 
 Australia; every one wonders "I did not find it very 
 lonesome."* 
 
 Sunday. — Piercing, scorching coldi; feel it much more 
 than in the woods. This is a specimen of life in the 
 back settlements ; very sociable — all very jolly merry 
 fellows. Across the river is the schoolmaster ; he being 
 Irish, this part is called Ireland. To go across is a 
 great lark; as I stopped here to-day, I proposed a 
 walk ; one of the boys started with me, and asked me 
 would I go to Ireland. So I went and found the lark 
 consisted in the bevy of fine-looking girls. I was stared 
 at with infinite curiosity and wonder as the Englishman 
 who had been all alone in the woods. Comfortable 
 little house. All the people seem to live on terms 
 
 * The last paragraph and most of the Diary which follows, consist 
 of rough notes jotted down in pencil. 
 
Return to Fredericton. Ill 
 
 of family intimacy — ^jokes and laughter never cease. 
 Sitting round the fire ; clump, clump, out of doors — 
 in comes some half-frozen mortal in mits, heavy coat, 
 fur cap, great woollen wraps round the throat, shakes the 
 snow off his feet, crowds in to the fire. Discussion of 
 the comparative merits of mocassins and boots — stores 
 of wood experience — rough, hardy, ^hearty sons of the 
 forest. Eat enormously — cold weather produces im- 
 mense appetite — got one of my toes frost-bitten. In 
 the evening, took a sleigh drive of a mile down the 
 settlement; by such conveyance, hope to go to the 
 Mouth to-morrow. Cold nearly intolerable. I find 
 myself a notorious character. I felt queer last night in 
 bed in sheets. After my active forest life, find sitting 
 indoors wretched, but hardly dare stir out from the 
 insufferable wind. 
 
 Tuesday, 23r<Z. — Even the hardy woodsmen express 
 surprise at the cold to-day. The sleigh whereby I 
 proposed going to the Mouth was to start from old 
 
 G 's house, he being the father of the very lumberers 
 
 whose camp was my salvation on Friday, two miles down 
 the river from the lower end of the settlement. So at 
 
 about half-past nine, Mr. S , who was to be a fellow 
 
 passenger, Mr. K and myself left Mrs. C 's 
 
 12 
 
178 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique. 
 
 comfortable house to walk there, I dragging my old 
 friend the tarboggin as the best way of taking my 
 luggage down. Suddenly all consciousness left my 
 nose. I raised my hand and touched it ; it might 
 have been anybody else's nose. In fact, I was frost- 
 bitten, and by my companions' directions I dubbed 
 snow in my face till the sensation of cold and the 
 returning redness of the skin (which frost-bite renders 
 white as paper) showed that, in colonial phrase, the 
 " frost was out." The sleigh was not to start till 
 after dinner, so we sat down to a very plentiful and 
 excellent meal of potatoes, buckwheat cake, beef, pork, 
 
 bread, and molasses. Old Mr. G was a specimen 
 
 of the intelligent old settlers of whom I have already 
 met several ; men without means of acquiring much 
 information, but who by conversing with strangers, by 
 asking questions, and by a retentive memory, have 
 amassed a really surprising quantity of knowledge, of 
 the world in general. He is, moreover, a great hunter, 
 and in fact a genuine backwoodsman. His sons go 
 cutting logs, he has a farm, his wife a loom — an excellent 
 house, fine family, and all buried in the remotest settle- 
 ment of the colony. There are but two or three, or 
 perhaps four settlers there, besides the schoolmaster. 
 
Retwrn to Fredericton. 179 
 
 whose fine family of young ladies adds much to the 
 liveliness of the place. I like the place, but the cold 
 is dreadful in the clearings, after leaving the shelter 
 of the woods. 
 
 Well, away we went. I walked, or rather ran, the 
 last three miles along the track past the Narrows, and 
 found myself at last safely housed in the world I had 
 left so long — on the high road from St. John's to 
 Quebec. The temperature varies from zero to 30 
 degs. below it ; contracts the skin of the face, draws 
 the mouth up, and produces a smarting feel like the 
 scorching of a hot fire. 
 
 I paid my Indian friends a visit this evening ; and 
 what a change in the appearance of the world since last 
 I was here ! It is like a new country altogether. No 
 more crossing in canoes ; we walk instead along a 
 rocky road, for the floating ice, as in the Tobique 
 is jammed and heaped up in large cakes, slanting 
 over each other, and beautifully crusted over with frost- 
 work, looking like shirt-ruffles covered with lace on a 
 large scale, and the wide clearing now is but a plain of 
 snow. They were rather surprised to see me alive, 
 having taken it for granted that I had been frozen 
 to death long ago. They are all at work preparing 
 
 12—2 
 
180 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique. 
 
 hides for mocassins, for which there is a large demand 
 in winter among the lumbermen. I ascertained that 
 yesterday week, the day on which I started to search 
 for Connor's camp, the thermometer at the Great Falls 
 had fallen to 20 degs, 
 
 I am beginning to wish myself back at my camp. I 
 prefer its rough independence and quiet to the compara- 
 tive bustle of the settlement ; nor did I find the solitude 
 half so great when not a soul was near me as I find it 
 this evening that I sit writing by myself in the tidy 
 
 parlour of B 's inn with the sound of voices all 
 
 round me. 
 
 Friday, 26th. — Many a time have I wished myself 
 back in my little forest castle, where I have left 
 much of comfort and contentment in exchange for 
 the miseries of winter travelling, and the rough, rude, 
 higgledy-piggledy of the backwoods. The diiference 
 of the temperature is such that men who have spent 
 much of the winter in the woods, find themselves 
 quite tender on emerging into the clearings. Nor 
 is it surprising that heavy colds and coughs should 
 be so prevalent, when we consider the way they live 
 — ^heating their houses with stoves and huge fires 
 till they have made the temperature oppressively high, 
 
Return to Fredericfon. 181 
 
 which in one step they exchange for one chilled to 
 perhaps 25 degs. below zero. In three days I got such 
 an influenza as threatens to detain me at the Tobique 
 some days against my will. 
 
 On Wednesday I started off up the Tobique again to 
 bring away the rest of my things from my camp. The 
 sleigh by which I went up was detained by various 
 causes tUl after dark, when, in the beginning of a thick 
 snow-storm, we began to cross the St. John ; and this 
 the reader must not fancy a very simple affair. The ice 
 was piled and jammed up in great heaps, in some places 
 to the height of four or five feet, the whole surface 
 presenting an appearance like that of shirt-ruffles on a 
 large scale. Sleighs had already crossed where we 
 wished to do so ; and, to follow the track in the dark- 
 ness, it was requisite that the driver, one of Mrs. C.'s 
 sons, should walk ahead while a fellow-passenger of 
 mine drove the horses by his directions. This was a 
 work of no small difSculty, the snow driving in his 
 face and drifting over the tracks, the darkness rendering 
 the rough mounds of ice mere confused lumps of 
 whiteness, over which he had many a headlong fall. 
 The man who held the reins, a true son of Erin, added 
 to his bewilderment by repeated entreaties to be allowed 
 
182 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 to drive on just a step, whicli he as repeatedly refused; 
 and so they shouted till they made such a bother and 
 confusion that I was quite pleased when we reached the 
 other side ; and after some more plunging about in deep 
 snow we found ourselves on the well-beaten road. This 
 road is cut midway between the top and bottom of the 
 high and almost precipitous banks of the river, which in 
 many places rise to about 100 feet above the stream ; 
 but in the darkness, as I sat at the bottom of the sleigh 
 and looked over and saw the edge of the almost perpen- 
 dicular descent glaring white and hard through the gloom, 
 so close that apparently the runners of the sledge were 
 on the brink, while far beneath gleamed dimly the white 
 plain of the frozen Tobique, I must say I thought a 
 great deal of a horse and sleigh which had actually in 
 former times gone over the precipice. It is, in fact, a 
 regular mountain pass, and in the night far from sooth- 
 ing to the nervous system. 
 
 In six miles we reached the log-cabin of a solitary 
 old Irishman, who gives accommodation to travellers. 
 Here we sat and warmed ourselves by a fire, and, while 
 so engaged, hints and inuendoes would every now and 
 then escape us about its being far more comfortable 
 within than in the heavy storm outside, till at last it 
 
Return to Fredericton. 183 
 
 was decided that we had better remain where we were 
 well off, and wait till daylight to follow the track on the 
 ice on which we should have to travel for the next four 
 miles. So we had a good meal on potatoes and pork, 
 and then lay down and slept sound tiU the next 
 morning. 
 
 Our Irish friend roused us fully an hour earlier than 
 necessary by mistaking the Northern Aurora for the 
 break of day. There set in a fresh edition of the storm 
 thicker than any I had ever seen, aggravated by a furious 
 gale from the N.W. The cold increased hourly, — and 
 when we came out of the woods the gale was intolerable 
 even by the hardiest. The Irishman, a great hardy- 
 looking fellow, who, though he could stand the North 
 Pole itself, got his nose frozen almost immediately ; as 
 for me, I shivered under my blankets — chilled to the 
 very bones, — suffering at once from the cold and the 
 influenza which was hanging over me, and miserable 
 enough to wish I had never heard of New Brunswick. 
 
 My original intention was to proceed to my camp 
 by the first chance. A good one offered next morning, 
 not only of going up, but of getting help to bring my 
 baggage down to the river; so, notwithstanding that I 
 was now beginning to be wretchedly iU, and that the 
 
184 Journal of Ttvo Months on the Tobique. 
 
 wind had died away in a calm and intense frost, I 
 made an attempt to put my plans in execution. But 
 after about four miles of great suffering, I saw clearly 
 that to go further into the woods would he mere folly ; 
 so I turned back while I was still able to. 
 
 On Saturday the 27th, the weather changed, and 
 became damp, muggy, and warm. On Monday I felt 
 myself well enough to try again, so I engaged a sleigh, 
 and started afresh by the river road, which was now very 
 sloppy, squashy, and unpleasant. So once more I found 
 myself in my deserted house, and here I soon found 
 that a party of Indians had been making themselves 
 comfortable, eating the pork, and burning, not only 
 the firewood I had left in it, but even the reserve I 
 had hardly liked to touch myself. It angered me to 
 think that I had been toiling and wearying myself 
 for a parcel of vagabond savages. However, they 
 had behaved with scrupulous honesty — the provisions 
 they had used of course I did not grudge them, and 
 of other things they had not taken the smallest article. 
 We managed between us to carry everything down, 
 started back again, and at last I found myself almost 
 clear of the Tobique. I had expected to dispose of 
 my baggage by private sale, but a large party being 
 
Return to Frederieton. 185 
 
 assembled at Mr. C 's, I thought I would hold 
 
 an auction, which resulted in great fun and laughter, 
 the purchasers being chiefly lumberers, who bid against 
 each other with much spirit. 
 
 Wednesday, 31st. — A couple of sleighs coming 
 
 past on their way to the Mouth, I wished Mrs. C 
 
 and her Mnd-hearted family good-by, and took my 
 last farewell of the Tobique. We reached "Jen- 
 ning's " before nightfall, and found another party also 
 spending the night there. King Frost has resumed 
 his awful sway. So glorious a day as this I have 
 rarely seen — cloudless, glittering. The trees are queer 
 objects now, sometimes inexpressibly beautiful. I have 
 got beaded mocassins and bags from Moulton. 
 
 7th Sunday. — Here I am at Mrs. Costigan's inn 
 at the Great Falls. The day after my arrival I went 
 
 under the guidance of Mr. M to view the great 
 
 roaring lion of the place, and a grim, savage-looking 
 monster he is, and a cold, gloomy, dismal scene — 
 the huge curtains and hanging sheets, and di-aperies 
 of green ice, fantastically and delicately covered, it is 
 true — beautiful, exquisitely beautiful in detail, like 
 the richest ornamental carving of Gothic architecture, 
 and, like it, too gloomy and grand in the aggregate 
 
186 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 of its vastness. The dull day robbed the scene of 
 all its lighter graces — the eyer-varying Iris, the gleam 
 and glitter of the surface. The river, after dashing 
 itself to pieces on the rocks and among the deep 
 chasms and mysteries of the weU of waters, gathers 
 itself together again in a wild, terrific gorge, far bigger 
 than the Tobique, narrow, deep, black, and too strong 
 for the frost. Two more falls of fourteen and fifteen 
 feet occur ere it spreads out in a magnificent, lake- 
 like pool, where calm and placid it rests itself awhile 
 ere it travels on to the Eapids below, and then on its 
 hasty journey to the ocean. 
 
 I was so fortunate as to arrive here in time for a 
 ball which was given at the hotel where I stayed, and to 
 which I was honoured with an invitation. Merriment 
 abounded ; the company came there to dance, and- 
 dance they did, with feet and hands, and shoulders and 
 arms, even to the tips of their fingers — danced, in fact, 
 aU over. Nor did they desist till the broad daylight of 
 a tardy midwinter's sun convinced them that they had 
 not wasted a moment of an opportunity for enjoyment 
 so rarely afforded them. 
 
 Wednesday evening I went with Mr. G to spend 
 
 an evening at Mr. M 's, staggering and blundering 
 
Return to Fredericton. 187 
 
 through snow-drifts. Next day I availed myself of a 
 " sled," returning to the neighbourhood of Woodstock, 
 and left this wild and beautiful settlement. Terrible 
 was the cold, and hard the journey through deep snow ; 
 the first day we achieved but nineteen miles ; the next 
 from house to house, where we stopped according as we 
 deemed ourselves freezing, we dragged and crawled on 
 till we reached a wretched tavern, about fifteen miles 
 from Woodstock, which was as near as my driver would 
 take me. And here I found the stove nuisance carried 
 to its utmost extreme. Though the cold had moderated 
 to its usual conclusion, a thaw, accompanied by the 
 customary snow, they had contrived to heat the sitting- 
 room with one of these vile machines to such a degree 
 as to make it quite uninhabitable. For the heat of a 
 stove is far more oppressive than the heat of a fire, pro- 
 ducing great sickness in many, and in me an unbear- 
 able oppression in the head. They too frequently 
 neglect the precaution of placing a pan of water on the 
 
 stove. 
 
 Woodstock, Saturday, 10th.— -1 left the blackguard 
 tavern in a sleigh, bound for Woodstock. With the 
 person who hired it, an intelligent young man in the 
 lumbering trade, I had a good deal of talk on the pre- 
 
188 Journal of Two Months on the ToUque. 
 
 sent condition and future prospects of the country ; its 
 politics, its agriculture, the influence, whether beneficial 
 or otherwise, of lumbering, on the progress of the pro- 
 vince. In such discussions I find few, if any, exceptions 
 to the general discontent with the government of the 
 colony, the unfitness of the legislators for their position, 
 and the paralysing effect of the whole system. There 
 may be some ground for this all-pervading grumbling ; 
 but I strongly suspect that much of that stagnation 
 which is attributed to bad administration of bad laws 
 may rather be attributed to deficient energy, deficient 
 education, a want of common sense in the people, to say 
 nothing of a great want of cash ; the latter want being 
 in fact the consequence of the former wants. Lumbering 
 is in truth the one great radical evil, the worm which ia 
 gnawing at the roots of the tree of New Brunswick 
 prosperity ; the life is not destroyed, but its growth is 
 checked. If this be killed, or even scotched, the tree 
 wiU flourish with a vigour commensurate with the 
 exceeding vigour of the soil. The plain truth as to the 
 lumbering question is this : the timber, the forests of 
 the country, are exchanged for provisions and clothing 
 for those who cut them down. So large a proportion of 
 the population is engaged in this gambling, reckless. 
 
Return to Fredericton. 189 
 
 exciting, and silly business, that not enough are left to 
 raise food for all ; consequently it must be imported, 
 and so uncertain is the trade, or rather so seldom does 
 it yield a profit, that it comes in the end to exchanging 
 the pine and spruce for flour and pork. And then 
 where is the money to come from ? rather, it goes out 
 of the country to make the balance when the value of 
 the export is less than that of the import. 
 
 Thursday. — I passed two or three days at Woodstock, 
 and this morning, a desperately cold one, started by the 
 sleigh stage for Fredericton. Queer figures do the 
 travellers in these climes present when fully equipped 
 for the road. Head and face covered all but the eyes in 
 fur caps, shawls, buffalo coats, and all sorts of myste- 
 rious appanages to the legs, over stockings of thick 
 woollen material, gutta percha shoes, mocassins, &c., 
 in inexhaustible variety : thus they sit smothered in 
 skins in their sleighs, like the Russians and Norwegians 
 whom we remember in the picture-books of our nursery. 
 Terrible indeed was to-day, the thermometer down to 
 18 degrees, and a strong scorching withering north 
 wind. 
 
 "We had a droll fellow-traveller. America is rich in 
 such extravagant freaks of humanity ; but this one was 
 
190 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 the most utter absurdity I have seen. He began by 
 telling us that he had " laid out " to go to Canada, but 
 his health had been " very much impeded," and he was 
 on his way back to St. John. This he told us every 
 mile or two, and then went on to say that probably he 
 was one of the strangest characters and queerest devils 
 we had ever seen ; and lest there should be a doubt of 
 this he went on repeating it all the way. " Well, as 
 old Eobby Burns says, ' as we journey through life let 
 us live by the way,' I must have my joke and my fun ; 
 without jokes there's no fun; my health's very much 
 impeded, or I'm one of the queerest devils ; me and 
 
 Captain , how we used to laugh together. I mind 
 
 when I was at M (for I'm an Hirishman myself), as 
 
 I was out shooting with Lord Hill on my father's 
 estate — ^I knew Lord Hill intimately well, but I was 
 going to tell you an hanecdote. I always think hanecdotes 
 shorten the way, and as my father used to teU me, 
 ' when you're travelling shorten the way,' and I always 
 like to have my joke and my bit o' fun. So you mustn't 
 mind me, I'm funny ; but there's no harm in me ; I'm 
 one of the strangest devils, &c. Ye've likely heard, sir," 
 
 (turning to me), ' of the Marquis of W ? ' ' Yes,' 
 
 said I. ' Well, sir, me and the Marquis of W was 
 
Return to Fredericton. 191 
 
 liintimately acquainted ; yes, sir, hintimately acquainted 
 both on shore and on the ocean. I knew hintimately 
 in St. John two noblemen — they was in reduced circum- 
 stances — ^I used to call them Tom and Jerry ; how they 
 
 would laugh, to be sure ; they were Lord W and 
 
 Lord N . I knew Lord N as well as I knew 
 
 any one in the province." And so, gaining courage, he 
 launched out into the very sublime of imagination ; he 
 had estates everywhere, and was an Irishman, yet 
 committed most ineffable cockneyisms at every in- 
 stant. 
 
 The change in the aspect of Fredericton, owing to 
 the rude legislation of winter, makes me fancy as I 
 hurry through the streets, that I must be in Tobolsk or 
 Spitzbergen, or anywhere but in a town where, a short 
 time ago, I suffered as much from heat. Talking of 
 legislation, it is the " season " too in this metropolis ; 
 and railroads, temperance, scrutiny into votes, and pro- 
 vincial politics in general, are the chief subjects of con- 
 versation. I was in the House yesterday, but found 
 nothing going on, save the reading of papers connected 
 with the Halifax and Quebec line. 
 
 Friday, 16th. — I had an interview with the Gover- 
 nor this morning, in which I explained to him in 
 
192 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 detail Mr. N 's colonization scheme. He assured 
 
 me of the certainty of such a scheme being favourably 
 viewed by the Provincial Government, who would un- 
 doubtedly give all assistance towards the carrying it out. 
 This evening I dined with Colonel Haynes ; as we sat 
 at dinner the thermometer was reported to be 11 degs. ; 
 it sinks in my bedroom to from 10 to 20 degs. below 
 freezing point. 
 
 Saturday. — Still blows the furious wind ; one "must 
 go out sometimes, but it is avoided when possible : called 
 on the Chief Justice to-day. One sees people in the street 
 in curious attitudes ; one grasps his nose, as though in- 
 flicting imaginary insults on his foe ; another holds his 
 hands to his ear, as though he would shut out some 
 discordant sound ; while another may be seen in the 
 still funnier occupation of rubbing snow on his face — 
 the fact is, he has been frost-bitten. A soldier on 
 Christmas night had his legs so severely frozen that he 
 died next day. 
 
 Monday. — When this N.E. wind blows, he must be 
 an enthusiast indeed in the matter of fresh air who 
 would unnecessarily expose himself to its severe scourg- 
 ings. Neither, in a snow-storm — such as we have to- 
 day — is it very tempting to stroll about the snow-paved 
 
Return to Fredericton. 193 
 
 streets of this frozen town, one which, scattered, un- 
 finished, and straggling before, has now in its winter 
 garb a still more draggled, crude, and bewildered look, 
 resembling a bushel or so of houses sown broadcast over 
 a field of snow, which have rolled over and got up again 
 whitened and half smothered from their fall. As I sit 
 
 at the table in the window in Mr. B 's comfortable 
 
 hotel, before me, through the hazy air, hazy with thick 
 showery snow of a whitish bufi'-coloured grey, dull, 
 smoky-looking — I see on one side the barracks, with 
 its court, surrounded by fine old elm-trees, green, 
 shady, pretty in summer, now full of small mountains 
 of shovelled snow, and the chosen playground of whirl- 
 ing gusts and the vapoury blinding drifts ; and on the 
 other side the wide frozen river, looking in the dim 
 light of the storm like a limitless field of snow, rows 
 of httle spruce-trees marking the track across it for the 
 benefit of sleighs travelling by night. The rustling of 
 the sleighs and their merrily jingling bells, a sound to 
 me inexpressibly cheering, are now and then heard in 
 the neighbouring street, between which and the river 
 stands the hotel. I cannot say that it is in the town 
 or that it is out of it, for so sprinkled about is this 
 
 13 
 
194 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique. 
 
 city, that it would be difficult for any house to swear 
 to its citizenship. 
 
 Tuesday, 20t/i.— There is an excellent library here, 
 founded and supported by the Government. To this, 
 
 through the kindness of Colonel H , I have the 
 
 entree, and here I spent two or three hours this after- 
 noon, looking at some excellent views of AustraHa and 
 turning over books. Save walking there I scarcely left 
 the house till evening, so dreary was the snow-storm ; 
 but then I had an engagement to keep, for which I 
 would have braved a fiercer storm than that. One of 
 the young ladies had had the temerity to sally forth 
 during the wild wintry day in snow-shoes, and had 
 performed in them a feat which our kind host did not 
 forget to inform us of. She had jumped over, or at 
 least down, a fence five feet high. I am justified, there- 
 fore, in asserting that it is usual for the young ladies of 
 New Brunswick to go out in snow-shoes and jump all the 
 fences in the way. It needed so pleasant a recollection 
 as I had of that evening to reconcile me to th^ walk 
 home. 
 
 Thursday, 22nd. — An evening at Government House, 
 Colonel H kindly called for me in his sleigh, and in 
 
Homeward. 195 
 
 ten minutes we formed a portion of a knot of shivering, 
 shaking, half-frozen mortals in the hall, crowding over 
 the stove, and pitying ourselves for the sufferings we 
 had each and aU gone through in making our way there. 
 Ladies are most adventurous in the winter season, snow- 
 shoeing and driving fearlessly. Last night I dined 
 
 and whisted at Mr. P 's, married to a daughter of 
 
 Colonel S 's, whose widow was there too. 
 
 February 4th. — At sea — ship Bournief. I must 
 try and ruh up my recollection of the last week or 
 two ere the events quite leave my memory. On Mon- 
 day, 26th January, I left Fredericton by stage — a covered 
 sleigh. We had to cross the Ground Bay on the ice — 
 a distance of three miles. Next I fell ill, was worse 
 the next day ; on Thursday kept my bed, and sent for 
 the doctor; but I forgot to mention that on Tuesday 
 night, in spite of all, I contrived to go and hear 
 Dr. Lewis lecture on phrenology and mesmerism. 
 Lecture-room in Mechanical Institute — crowded, dirty 
 room ; stink of tobacco and brandy ; a nasty feUow 
 asks me for a chew. Lecture full of gesticulation and 
 flowery language — buffoonery ; never came to the point 
 left everything unproved. A lad comes rushing in — 
 
196 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique. 
 
 afterwards makes some electrical experiments, all of 
 which are of a most unsatisfactory nature. On Thurs- 
 day crowd collected round St. John's Hotel to see man 
 come, and order breakfast ; did not, and why ? 
 
 St. John's in the winter — boys coasting — everybody 
 slides — pretty girls go delicately smiling and sliding — 
 
 boys skate — dangerous to go through the streets. 
 ***** 
 
 (The jov/rnal breaks off here abruptly.) 
 
 A, 
 
 London : Printed by Smith, Eld&b, and Co., 63, Comhill.