YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

TEE SHOE AND CANOE
OR
PICTUEES OF TEAYEL
IN
THE CANADAS*
XLLUSTRATiVE 6F
y
THEIR SCENERY AND OF COLONIAL LIFE;
WITH FACTS AND OPINIONS ON EMIGRATION,
STATE POLICY, AND OTHER POINTS OF PUBLIC INTEREST.
SKEW) ^Numerous ptatcs antt Jfflajis.
By JOHN J. BIGSBY, M.D.
HON. MEM. AMERICAN GEOLOGICAL SOC, LATE SECRETARY TO THE BOUNDARY
COMMISSION UNDER ART. VI. AND VII. TREATY OF GHENT.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
Vol. I.

LONDON:
PUBLISHED BY CHAPMAN AND HALL.

"There He setteth the poor on high from affliction; and
maketh him families like a flock. The righteous shall see it
and rejoice." — Ps. cvii.
" Make my grave on the banks of the St. Lawrence." —
Lord Sydenham, late Governor-Gen. of British North America.
EacL. iU^

PREFACE.

Having in comparative leisure, for a
period of six happy years, wandered, pencil
and pen in hand, over the greater portion of
the Canadas, I purpose, in the following
pages, to present to the reader a group of
popular pictures of their scenery and social
condition. Through the medium of a series of excur
sions, it is intended to pourtray the objects
which fill the traveller's eye, the life he
leads, and the company he meets with, in
this romantic and fertile part of North
America. A ready opportunity will thus be afforded

VI PREFACE.

of noticing many important topics : such as
emigration, colonial policy, Christian mis
sions, the late Boundary Commission, the
Hudson's Bay Company, and of placing on
record some new topographical details.
My humble but earnest wish is (and most
disinterestedly) to show my fellow-country
men that Western Canada in particular is
a pleasant land ; that it presents a variety
of enjoyments — sport to the sportsman, in
spiration to the poet, excitement to the
brave, and health to the delicate ; while, at
the same time, it offers unfailing abundance
to the destitute, and a haven to the home
less. Many who go thither for a year choose to
stay all their lives ; and not a few, having
left it, are sad and ill at ease until they
once more stand upon the breezy shores of
Lake Ontario.
Like all who possess personal information
on the subject, from the late Lord Metcalf

PREFACE. Vll
downwards, I beg to recommend and urge a
large planned emigration, under the auspices,
though not altogether at the expense, of
Government. With the most complete and gratifying
success of previous efforts at colonisation,
with the full consciousness of wide-prevailing
distress at home, and well aware of the mil
lions of rich acres in our American depend
encies ready for occupation, the continued
apathy of the British people and their rulers
seems to call for the expression of no com
mon indignation.
Let us then leave for a brief space the
miseries we do not solace, the tears and
crimes of our towns and villages, for the
great lakes of Canada, reservoirs of crystal
waters and wholesome airs, for the broad
forest streams which pour into them, whose
banks are peopled and peopling with our
own energetic race.
Let us contemplate the diligent stirs and

V111 PREFACE.
exhaustless plenty of the new world. We
shall find much to interest us in the august
and singular features of the country, in its
natural history, and in its population ; among
whom, besides the solemn Indian, the stereo
typed French Canadian, and the enterprising
New Englander, we shall meet with many
originals from Europe ; some hiding in
woody nooks, others standing openly in the
sight of a community too busy to bestow
upon them more than a passing glance.
As my pages are meant to chronicle with
fidelity actual incidents, feelings, and facts,
they will tell of few extraordinary adven
tures, and of neither miracles nor monsters.
I deal not with the perishing things of
the hour — with statistics, which (good in
their place) are, in Canada, a kind of " dis
solving view," so fugitive, — that truth to-day
is falsehood almost on the morrow. Who
can cope with the statistics of a great
country like Canada West, whose popula-

PREFACE. ix
tion and capital sometimes double in eight
years ? *
My object is, I repeat, to delineate, not
the evanescent, but some of the fixed aspects
of this noble colony — in its waters and forests,
in its red and white inhabitants, their man
ners and prospects; and this from notes
carefully made on the spot, with frequent
corrections up to the present day.
Both my duty and my pleasure took me out
of the common track, — into Lakes Simcoe
Huron, Superior, &c. ; into a portion of South
Hudson's Bay, and up the River Ottawa,
into Lake Nipissing, as well as to the rarely-
visited Highlands of the St. Lawrence below
Quebec. Mine is a personal narrative. The reader's
indulgence is, therefore, requested for the
egotism which is unavoidable. The imper
sonal is unreadable : it is the current
incident of the day which gives transpa-
* As in 1822-28, according to Sir F. Head and others.

X PREFACE.
rency and life. Some may say, that I
gossip a little. This possibly may be so.
It has happened to the wisest of men when
beguiled by an agreeable theme. The cheer
ful get-along style which I desire to adopt
is now acknowledged to be the true descrip
tive ; and the stately and sonorous circum
locution of our forefathers is happily out of
fashion. But I must not abuse the great modern
privilege of paper and ink in abundance,
with the best of pens. A preface should be
a title-page developed — a short letter of in
troduction, prophetic of the coming story,
and no more.
Cicero, too, it is well to remember, some
where lays it down that an auctioneer is to
be allowed one puffer ; but he does not say
the same of an author.
P.S — The public may be congratulated
on the possession, at a moderate cost, of the

PREFACE. XI
two charming volumes of " Canadian
Scenery," by Mr. Bartlett. His views are
equally beautiful and true : mine represent
places which that gentleman did not visit,
and were selected less for the extremely pic
turesque than for the characteristic.
London, May 1850.

CONTENTS

THE FIRST VOLUME.

The Preface ....... v
The Voyage to Quebec . . . . .1
A CHAPTER ON QUEBEC.
Walk round Quebec — Winter — The Irish Poor — Society — Its
materials — Anecdotes — Charivari — Public Institutions — The
Vicinity ...... Page 9
EXCURSION THE FIRST.
TO HAWKSBURY ON TH__; RIVER OTTAWA.
Typhus Fever at Hawksbury Settlement — The Seigniory of
St. Anne de la Perade— Steam Voyage to Montreal — The Com
pany on Board — Montreal — Baggage Lost — Irish Emigrants at
Point Fortune — Local Politics — Hamilton Mills — Settlers in
Comfort — Colonial Department — Emigration— Walk to Mont
real — Insane Lady . . . . .46

XIV CONTENTS.
EXCURSION THE SECOND.
MONTREAL, THE OTTAWA, ETC.
Montreal— Island, City, and Society— North-west Stories— Peter
Pond— Boat Song— Dancing Pheasants, &c— North-west Fur
Traders  Lake St. Louis— Ottawa River — Light Canoe — M. de
Rocheblave— Munitions de Bouche— Voyageurs— Indian Vil
lage—Flooded River — Gaelic Maid — American Farm — Hull-
Philemon Wright— Lakes Chaudiere and Chat — Falls of La
Montague and Grand Calumet— Riviere Creuse— Tesouac — The
Western Branch— Miss Ermatinger — Lake Nipissing — French
River  Page 105
EXCURSION THE THIRD.
THE ST. LAWRENCE BELOW Q.UEBEC
Calash Journey by Montmorenci and Chateau Riche to St. Anne
Ferry-house — Cottage Life — Falls of St. Anne — Indian Family
in the Woods — St. Feriole : double Sunset — Cap Tourment —
Walk round its Base to La Petite Riviere — Grand Scenery —
Dangerous Precipices — Slippery Rocks — Mud up to the
Knees — Dinner at a Cascade — An almost impassable Buttress
— Mosquitoes — Disconsolate Arrival at La Petite Riviere —
Boat Voyage to St. Paul's — Kindness of M. Rousseau and
Family — The Peasantry — Earthquakes — A Tea-Party —
Discussion with an M.P.P. — Cross the St. Lawrence to
L'Islet — Sleep in a Hay Chamber — Walk along South Shore
to Quebec. . . . . . .172
EXCURSION THE FOURTH.
KAMOURASKA AND MALBAY.
Steam Voyage to Kamouraska — Company on board  Anecdotes 
Migration of Spiders — Kamouraska — Cross in a Boat to Mal-
bay— Mad. Brassard and her Mother — Malbay — Curious

CONTENTS. XV
Mounds — Valley of St. Etienne a deserted Lake — Singular Fog
— Earthquakes — the Musician — Anecdotes — The Peasantry —
Aimee's Toilet — Salmon River — Lake St. John — Homeward on
foot by North Shore to Eboulements — Hospitality Page 217
EXCURSION THE FIFTH.
Part I.
LAKE ERIE AND THE RIVER DETROIT.
The Boundary Commission, its officers, objects, and labours, &c. —
Lake Erie — Mr. Beaumont — Rev. Mr. Morse — Amberstburgh
— Captain Stewart and his Negroes — Chevalier and Madame de
Brosse — Rattlesnake hunt — Indian Cure — The Prophet and
Kickapoo Indians — Detroit — My Inn and its Guests — The Pro
fessor, the Judge, and the Barber — Moy — The Mennonites 242
EXCURSION THE FIFTH.
Part II.
THE WATERS OF THE ST. CLAIR, ETC.
H.M. Schooner Confiance — Lake St. Clair — Sickness — Sailor shot
—River St. Clair— Belle Riviere Island— The Sick Traveller—
The Banished Lord— The Black River— Fort St. Clair— Thun
derstorms — Missionaries — Missions— Lake Erie — Boat Voyage
— The Settlement — The Governor-General — Methodist Mis
sionary — His Sermon and Conversation — Religious Statistics
and Observations — Schools — The Lake Storm — The Roman
Catholic  .295

DIRECTIONS TO THE BINDER.

MAPS.
Map of the Vicinity of Quebec To face p. 9
The General Map illustrating these Excursions 352

PLATES.
The Village of St. Paul Frontispiece.
The Eboulement Mountains, from the Foot of Cap Tourment 185
The Bay of St. Paul, from the St. Lawrence 187
A View in the Parish of L' Islet on the St. Lawrence 213
Malbay and the Breach of St. Etienne 226
The Valley of St. Etienne : its terraces 228
Plan of ditto 228
Capes Maillard and Tourment, from the Eboulements 239

THE

VOYAGE TO QUEBEC.

Voyages across the Atlantic are such every
day events that I shall say but little of mine.
They seldom have pleasant reminiscences; and
the exploits of young gentlemen in shooting gulls
and petrels, or in catching to their cost the
stinging medusae, have ceased to interest.
Steamboats have now converted such passages
into mere courses of good eating in good com
pany for prescribed periods, except for ambassa
dors, governors of colonies, and such-like, who
must still submit to the honours and head-winds
of the Queen's frigates.
I embarked as the medical officer to a large
detachment of a German Rifle Regiment in the
English service, amounting, together with a few
emigrant families, to the number of three hun
dred and forty souls.
I think it was inconsiderate in our worthy
VOL. I. B

2 THE VOYAGE TO QUEBEC.
sea-captain to direct his course so near the plea
sant coasts of Hampshire, Dorset, and Devon,
that, as we left our native isle, we could see the
slow wain and the gay chariot journeying on
the high-roads — the country-seats and farmsteads
surrounded by luxuriant crops, in large chequers
of yellow, green, and white. Lovely did they
look, and hard to leave. A wistful, regretful
expression, was strong in every face on board ;
and when the night closed in, dark, raw, and
showery, a young emigrant leaped into the sea,
and was lost.
It may seem culinary and mean ; but so it
was ; — much of our comfort came from the cook
ing talents of a worthy Major, who regulated our
mess. He is now a Major-general, and knighted
for his services. I shall never forget the felicity
with which he daily added to our soup two
powders, pinch by pinch; the one a bright
orange, and the other of a chocolate colour.
Their nature I know not ; but their effects on the
soup were very gratifying.*
Except a few frights among the ladies, which
ended in nothing serious, we had no mishaps
* A very elegant poet and accomplished man, who had spent
a day for the first time at Newstead Abbey, was asked, when he
returned to the house where he was staving, what he had enjoyed
most. His answer was, " I think, my dinner." This, of course
was half a joke ; but only half.

THE VOYAGE TO QUEBEC. 3
worth relating but one. It forms what may be
called " the doctor's story."
We had had four or five days' dirty weather,
contrary winds and high, with rain, — the seas
sweeping over the deck so freely and often that
the main-hatchway was usually closed, to the
great detriment of the air between decks.
The sky being still dark and squally, I pro
ceeded to fumigate this place, the fetid abode of
at least two hundred persons, with sulphuric
acid and the nitrate of potass.
The sentinel stood, as usual, over the hatch
way, with drawn cutlass, to transmit messages
below and to maintain order. He was a fair-
haired young German, with the mild, simple
look so frequent among his countrymen. I gave
him my bottle of strong acid to hold while I
descended by the unsteady ladder, so that he
had both hands full. At that moment a heavy
sea struck the ship, threw the poor German upon
the deck, and scattered over him nearly the
whole two ounces of burning liquid. Down
came his cutlass upon me. He fell bellowing
and rolling on the slushy deck like a mad
man. I thought he would have pushed through
the loose flap of the bulwark into the sea. His
shrieks and contortions were dreadful.

4 THE VOYAGE TO QUEBEC.
I took off the upper parts of his dress, and saw
that the vitriol had burnt off large strips of skin
and flesh from the face, all down the back and
breast. I dashed magnesia water over him, and,
laying myself down by the poor fellow (as the
only means of making him drink), I contrived
to pour down his throat, in spite of his convulsive-
throes, an hundred drops of laudanum.
This produced a lull. I repeated the dose
twice at small intervals, until he was pretty well
stupified. As the hot, stifling berth in the hold
would do harm, I allowed him to lie in the rain
on the wet deck for three or four hours, and only
padded his sores with fine cotton — giving from
time to time a little more laudanum.
As he was then becoming cold, we plaeed him
in a berth below ; and he was very grateful for
some warm tea.
On stripping him further, we found his legs#
too, were peeled. For three days he was in
great torment; and a month elapsed before he
was convalescent.
I remember but few cases where my feelings
were so painfully drawn upon as in this of the
amiable and patient German, The rolling, greasy
deck, the sheets of drenching spray, the falling
rain, and the crowding of affrighted spectators—

THE VOYAGE TO QUEBEC. £
together with the agony of the young soldier
(caused by myself), made out a scene of gloom
and misery which quite overwhelmed me.
During his medical treatment, the doctor and
patient became great friends. Many were the
tit-bits begged from the officers' mess ; and books
were supplied, to give pleasure and profit to the
weary hour.
As we lay becalmed on the banks of New
foundland, fishing for cod was a great treat to all
ranks on board; both in the catching with
hook and line, and in the eating.
The fog was so penetrating as to soak with
moisture the blankets in our state-cabins: and
yet no one caught cold; and so dense was it,
that sometimes we could not see the length of
our small vessel.
Not being certain of our position, a boat, into
which I jumped, was sent out to sound. The
sailors soon learnt where they were from the
nature of the bottom.
During our absence, kettles, bells, and bugles,
were kept sounding terrifically on board the good
ehip, or we never should have found it again ;
for at twenty yards' distance we lost sight of her.
I shall never forget the vast magnifying effect of
the mist on the ship, her spread sails, shrouds,
and cordage. She loomed into sight an im-

6 THE VOYAGE TO QUEBEC.
mense white mass, filling half the heavens.
Young travellers should, on principle, be always
placing themselves within reach of new im
pressions. Our German soldiers were remarkably docile
and good-humoured. Every tolerable evening, a
party of them sat in the forecastle, upon the beam
which carries the ship's bell, and sang in parts
the beautiful airs of their fatherland.
We sailed close past the Isle of St. Paul in
the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and thence onwards,
very favourably. One fine morning, looking
through the porthole of my little cabin, with joy
and surprise I saw a pretty shore about half a
mile off — a crescent beach of bright yellow sand,
with low rocks and woods behind. It was a
bight on the coast of Labrador, where we had
anchored during the night in a fog.
We soon set sail again, and in due time
anchored off Apple Island, sixty or seventy miles
below Quebec.
While waiting for a favourable tide we went
on shore, and found the island loaded with ripe
bilberries (Vaccinium Canadense), and in its
centre a spring of pure fresh water, bubbling up
from beneath a smooth brown rock. The sugar-
loaf mountains of New Brunswick were on the
south-east in the remote distance, and a low,

THE VOYAGE TO QUEBEC. 7
rugged wilderness on our north, with a few
fishermen's huts on the margin of the water.
. Only those who have been pent up among the
evil scents and dissonant noises of a ship can
estimate the pleasure of a wash, a fragrant stroll,
and a banquet upon the juicy fruit of America
for the first time.
Awaking early next morning, we found the
anchor raised and our ship driving rapidly up a
magnificent but slowly narrowing gulf, twenty to
thirty miles broad. On our north were moun
tainous forests, dimpled and cut through by
populous valleys (Eboulements. St. Paul); while
on the south shore we saw gentle uplands, for
the most part cultivated, with the white dwell
ings of the peasantry picturesquely beading the
edge of the river St. Lawrence.
By this time we had a first-rate river-hurricane.
Two sails were blown to rags. Tide assisting, we
drove on under bare poles, at the rate of seven
teen to eighteen miles an hour. The winds tore
off the sharp white crests of the waves, and
dashed them in our faces. Two or three of those
sportive fish called " thrashers," a kind of whale,
of a shining white colour, were not far off, rush
ing about in uproarious pastime, and occasionally
flinging themselves out of the sea bodily. It was
a most animating scene.

8 THE VOYAGE TO QUEBEC.
We soon came abreast of the large island of
Orleans, and pursued a narrow channel between
it and the south shore for ten or twelve miles,
when a most splendid panorama burst upon our
sight, as we began to cross a basin in front of
Quebec, more than a league broad.
To the left we had the pine-clad rocks, scat
tered white houses, and trim chm-ches of Point
Levi ; to the right, the lengthy village of Beau-
port, and the graceful cascade of Montmorenci,
screened by purple mountains. Before us, in
front, was the fine city of Quebec, crowning a
lofty promontory, and alternately in gloom and
gleam with the scud of the tempest ; while the
battlements of Cape Diamond, overlooking the
city, were seen to extend out of sight up the
now contracted river. Some vessels of war, with
crowds of merchant-ships and steamers, fringed
the shore.* Imagination had no difficulty in
placing this noble and varied picture in its ap
propriate frame, " the amplitudes of savage and
solitary nature" all around, and reaching to the
Arctic circle.
* Among other vessels was one which left Portsmouth on the
same day that we did, and arrived three hours before us, without
our having once seen each other on the voyage.

QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS.
SCENERY AND SOCIETY.
Walk round Quebec — Winter — The Irish Poor — Society, its
Materials — Anecdotes — Charivari — Public Institutions — The
Vicinity, &c.
We soon cast anchor. I landed on one of the
quays of the lower town, and found myself amid
a jumble of dingy, heavy-built houses and ware
houses, overhung by very high, perpendicular
rocks in smooth sheets, and bearing on their
brow, so far as I could see from hence, princi
pally, the broad facade of the Chateau St. Louis,
the residence of the Governor-general.
A little way from the water's edge, Mountain
Street begins to wind up a cleft in the precipice
laboriously steep.
One-third of the way up I looked down Break
neck Stairs,* a long flight of steps leading down
to the narrow and picturesque Champlain Street.
* So called from an officer having ridden down them without
breaking his neck.

10 QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS.
Continuing my upward course, I at length
thankfully found level ground on the terrace of
the House of Assembly, from whence, sitting on
a shotted cannon, my sailor friends and the whole
river scene could be espied.
A few stone steps and the turning of a corner
or two soon brought me to the Albion Hotel,
in the Place d'Armes, the open space near the
English church, where I found my military fellow
voyagers refreshing themselves right merrily.
This having been done to our complete satisfac
tion we determined upon a ramble, and thought
it best to make for the highest point first ; from
thence to master the principal bearings and fea
tures of our new home, for such to most of us
was Quebec to be.
We soon stand upon one of the summits of
Cape Diamond, 347 feet above the river.
Of the fortress itself we may only prudently
say that it is, externally, an assemblage of low,
thick, stone walls, pierced with portholes, running
here and there according to the form of the ground
and the rules of art. Walled ditches are without,
and low barracks, storehouses, and magazines
within; and everywhere officers, soldiers, and
artificers, are moving [about in their different
vocations. From this commanding elevation the eye de-

QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS. 11
lights itself in a scene unrivalled in the western
world for grandeur, variety, and picturesque
beauty. There is nothing comparable, either at
New York, Boston, or Philadelphia.
South-westwards (up the river) we have, rising
in woody steeps, about 300 feet above the St. Law
rence, the battle-plain of Abraham, now a stony
pasture and race-course, but for ever memorable
as the spot where died Wolfe and Montcalm,
— men of views, and aims, and qualities far in
advance of their age. The plain is shut in by
pine-woods, which hide several pretty villas and
all the country beyond.
Behind me, as I now stand, and far below, the
tide runs roughly and swiftly up the river.* Im
mediately at our feet lies the dusky and dense
city of Quebec, with its houses, churches, con
vents, barracks, and other public edifices, all
gloomy and heavy roofed, stretching away into
the gradually vanishing suburbs of St. John and
St. Roque.
* The river channel was not worn down and formed by itself,
but left after some great convulsion, which raised the promontory
of Quebec to its present height. Its rocks have been upheaved
and torn violently from the adjacent and continuous horizontal
strata of limestone. The black limestone of Quebec is perpen
dicular, or at a very high angle, while its kindred rock all over
Canada and the state of New York is horizontal, lying now as it
was deposited.

12 QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS.
We observe that the city is completely girt
with military defences, with occasionally a mas
sive gate, and empty spaces within the walls,
either for promenades or markets.
We hear a regimental band playing on the
esplanade, near the St. Louis gate, before a crowd
of soldiers and spectators.
Passing the eye northwards over the city, it
crosses seven miles or more of a rough, partially-
cultivated country, dotted with houses, to rest
upon a range of steep wooded mountains, which
strike the St. Lawrence at Cape Tourment; a
black headland, remote, but still high and im
posing. Looking now easterly, we have below us the
ample basin of Quebec, alive with ships ; and the
placid island of Orleans on the far side, twenty
miles long, and almost filling up the river.
The immediate south shore, we perceive, is
rugged and high, occupied with dwellings, and
farms near at hand, while the more distant re
gion, the valley of the Chaudiere chiefly, is a sea of
undulating forests, extending within sight, I verily
believe, of the frontiers of the United States.*
* In winter this whole scene is most splendid, but in a different
way. With the exception of the high-pitched roofs of the houses
in the town beneath, whose smooth metallic coverings will not
allow the snow to rest, the hues of summer are gone. The whole
region — the city, suburbs, environs, the plains and slopes, with

QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS. 13
Let us now descend into the town. It is a
strange place to the mere English. In its archi
tecture it is French, or perhaps it resembles yet
more the semi-palatial massiveness of Augsburg.
Standing aloft in the air, swept in winter by
Siberian blasts, thick walls and double windows
are indispensable at Quebec.
the farm fences — lie asleep, as it were, under a vast envelope
of snow, crystalline and dazzling white, while the steeper parts of
the sugar-loaf mountains are of a glowing purple.
The St. Lawrence looks dull and leaden, full of ice-fields, with
here and there an up-torn tree, the sport of the incessant tides,
forming a singular contrast by its drear aspect with the glittering
snow and sapphire sky.
Every morning during winter, while at breakfast, I had before
me the animating sight of hundreds of the peasantry crossing with
laden canoes the boisterous strait between Point Levi and Quebec,
at one time pushing their canoes across the floes, and at another
paddling through clear water. About every third winter these
wandering sheets of ice become fixed, jammed up by a strong
wind, and cemented together by two or three sharp nights. This
ia an event of public interest, and very useful.
A couple of hundred soldiers are sent to mark out the road, by
planting young pines at short distances, and winding among high
mounds of upheaved sheets and blocks of ice.
A very picturesque scene it is. We are in a deep trough or
chasm : on the one side are the Lauzon Precipices (Point Levi
continued), fringed with pines ; and on the other the city, with its
roofs and spires sparkling under a cloudless sun. Indeed the skies
are here perfectly Italian, except during the snow-storms, which,
by the way, for violence must be seen to be appreciated.
I have repeatedly observed, in severe frosts, the singular fact, —
that when the snow has been hard packed it rings on being struck,
or clinks, like basalt or greenstone. „

14 QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS.
This elevation, however, has its advantages
also, particularly in the heats of summer; and
there is scarcely a turn or opening in any of the
streets which does not present to the surprised
and charmed sight an exquisite picture of bright
waters and mountains, framed in the time-stained
rampart or mouldering convent wall. My friend,
Mr. Adams, C. E., made a beautiful series of
coloured sketches of these peeps, which I greatly
coveted. As I am not writing topography, I shall simply
say that we soon found ourselves in a grotesque
old market-place, admirably delineated by Bart
lett, with a blackened Jesuits' college, now a bar
rack, on one side, and a large unsightly Roman
Catholic church opposite ; the two other sides
being filled up with antique dwellings, their roofs
pierced with windows.
From the market-place there diverge a number
of streets with stiff, beetle-browed houses, and
some sleepy retail shops, leading either into the
country by some sentinelled gateway, or down to
the Lower Town.
East of the market-place is St. Louis Street,
long, broad, and handsome, the residence of many
officials. It has the esplanade, already alluded
to, at its south-west end; the English church,
the Place d'Armes, and, until lately, the Chateau

QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS. 15
St. Louis, at its north-east end. The chateau
was burnt down not long ago, and its site con
verted into a promenade of extreme beauty.
There is at the head of Mountain Street a
convenient House of Assembly, overlooking the
St. Lawrence Basin, and an extensive pile of
buildings used as a Catholic seminary.
Having mentioned the respectable Court of
Justice and the Albion Hotel, now converted into
public offices, I do not leave unnoticed any very
prominent structure.
The suburbs of St. Louis, St. John, and St.
Roque, although large, are mere rectangular
streets, of wooden houses, for the most part un-
paved, and only with an edging on the side
walks, of squared logs, to keep the pedestrian
out of the deep quagmire which six months out
of the twelve reigns triumphant in the carriage
way. Near St. Roque is a spacious and hand
some hospital, built under the French regime. It
is in full employ.
Near St. Roque, also, the River St. Charles
passes from the mountains to join the St. Law
rence. Around its slimy embouchure are various
breweries and ship-building establishments, which
with the timber trade form the staple occupations
of Quebec.
We were never allowed to forget that we were

16 QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS.
in a military stronghold, especially when we ap
proached the outskirts, bristling and defiant with
its covered ways, walls, and bastions, its cannon
and pyramids of iron balls guarded by jealous
sentries innumerable. We meet not only the
French shopkeeper, the active and somewhat as
suming English merchant, the sea-captain and his
ruddy, whiskered sailors, but everywhere and con
tinually, military of all arms, palpably forming
an important portion of the general population.
The French physiognomy and manners every
where prevail. The young have usually slight
figures, short faces, and dark, quick eyes ; the old
are very wrinkled, but the step is firm, the fire of
the bright eye unquenched, and many a mouth is
made happy by a short pipe.
I was surprised to find pigtails lingering
among the old men, among other relics of the
days of Louis XV., and therefore did not wonder
in 1837 on being told that a grenadier of Auster-
litz and Friedland finds himself at home as beadle
of the large church of St. Mark on the banks of
the Richelieu.
All the native Canadians of the working class
are dressed in a coarse grey cloth of their own
manufacture, with the warm hooded capote in
winter, of the same colour, bound close to the
body by a worsted sash of many gay hues.

QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS. 17
The women of the lower orders, dressed in
purple and red, as in Normandy, are noisy and
brisk. They have the easy, elastic walk, and the
amiable look, of their sisters in France, the same
neatly-clad feet, the same ready ability and self-
confidence. You may see some few charming
faces and figures among the very young ; but the
climate, the stoves, the hard work, and especially
the early loss of teeth, destroy all this before the
attainment of their thirtieth year.
We do not go far into the streets without meet
ing an Indian or two, squalid and abject, not
revelling in vermillion and feathered finery, like
their brethren of the far interior. In the course
of the ensuing winter I soon found out, that if we
hear the multitudinous barking of curs in the
street, it is caused by their besetting and snapping
at Indians, who have come from the woods, or
from their village of Lorette, to beg, or to sell
game and baskets.
The extreme antipathy of town-bred dogs to
Indians partly arises from their peculiar odour,
which is perceptible at some distance, but to me
is not disagreeable.* The Indians take little more
* A short time ago the Indians of the Red River settlement
memorialised the Church Missionary Society to send them a
missionary — not a new one, but the Rev. Mr. Cockran, who, said
they, " was accustomed to their stink.''
VOL. I. C

18 QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS.
notice of this annoyance than an occasional lunge
with a stick at any dog who come9 too forward.
The troops of large wolfish dogs which rush upon
the traveller, riding or on foot, as he enters any
Canadian village, is a great nuisance. They
accompany him, as he traverses the place, with
open mouth and loud cries, beyond the very last
house. It is high time to put an end to this our first
and very gratifying walk round Quebec. On our
return to the hotel, our affable landlady surprised
us at supper with some prime beaver-tail, which
gave rise to much talk and many opinions as to
its merits ; and the next day, dining at a regi
mental mess, I partook of a sparerib of bear, and
found it excellent.
In common with several of my ship companions
I wintered in this city, and collected the desultory
observations which now follow.
I scarcely know of anything more interesting to
a man of an active and inquiring spirit than a
winter residence at Quebec.
If it be pleasant to dwell among an intelligent
and proverbially social community ; if, taking
higher ground, it be pleasant to be a sympathising
observer amid a people educating for great desti
nies, busily working out their material prosperity

QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS. 19
by means of their great river, and its mediter
raneans of fresh water (gifts inestimable), planting
and fostering the institutions of science, charity,
and religion ; then Quebec is an eminently desir
able abode and watch-tower.
At Quebec we have all the singularities and
novelties of Tobolsk, without a Russian governor,
his fiery beard, and fetters.
The town stands so high that all the atmospheric
changes of a Siberian climate, so gloomy and so
brilliant by turns, are in full display. Many of
the houses look directly upon the wilderness, its
mountains and floods, so that from your double-
windowed drawing-room you can witness in their
birth and explosion either the black-grey, blinding,
choking snow-storm of the cold season, or the
almost unequalled electric tempests of the warm.
To gaze upon the aurora borealis of this region is
worth a long voyage.
In the streets we walk, with spikes in our shoes,
upon ice three and six feet thick, in heavy fur
caps and wrappers. We meet with milk for sale,
carried about in cabbage-nets ; frozen fisb, which
come to life again ; we see stout little horses
pinned, or all but pinned, to the ground by icicles
hangingfrom their noses, sometimes three feet long.
Twice within five minutes I have informed
persons that their nose or ear was frost-bitten.

20 QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS.
Sunshine and the heavens are usually as bright
as in Italy.
It is then that you daily hear in the streets a
concert of musical horsebells, giving notice that
one or other of the numerous cavalcades of elegant
sledges are in motion, filled with beauty and
fashion, lying warm in a profusion of furs. They
are on their way, in long lines, to some well-known
place of resort, as Lake Charles or Montmorenci,
or are merely parading the town, as the wont is ;
and it is a charming sight.
The sportsman has free scope for his skill and
endurance in the neighbourhood of Quebec. Elks,
bears, and deer, may be found in their native
woods at no great distance, but fifty or sixty miles
off they are always to be encountered, with the
assistance of the Lorette Indians. Snipe, wild
duck, &c. &c. are abundant much nearer.*
It is true that Quebec, in north latitude 47°,
has the winter of St. Petersburgh in north lati-
* To see a sportsman, as you may here occasionally do, drifting
slowly down » wintry river in a white boat, disguised by an ice
like pile of white calico, towards, and finally info, a flock of wild
ducks peacefully feeding, is a painfully interesting sight. The
discharge takes place. Up rise the affrighted birds ; ten or twenty-
are struggling, wounded, in the water ; and the exulting fowler
collects his prey.
On this subject I know no book so life-like and entertaining as
Tolfrey's " Sportsman in Canada." To this inexpensive work I
refer the reader altogether for information on this head.

QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS. 21
tude 60°, and, at the same time, a summer more
oppressively hot than Paris.
Its mean annual temperature is 37° 5' Fahr.,
that of London being 49°. There is perhaps no
part of the world where the annual range of the
thermometer is greater than at Quebec ; it is
here 128°. In the course of a day I have seen a
descent of from 37° Fahr. to 28° below zero.
Three principal reasons have been adduced by
Dr. Rolph of Toronto to explain the fact of North
America being much colder than Europe in the
higher corresponding latitudes.
They are, first, the greater jiroximity of the
vast body of ice and snow stretching southwards
from the Arctic regions ; secondly, the multitudes
of frozen lakes in Hudson's Bay ; and thirdly,
the absence of a mountain barrier to screen the
Canadas from the cold winds of the north-west
and west.
These, I may add, are the prevailing winds,
and bring to the Atlantic coasts not only the
Arctic temperature, but the extreme cold of the
Rocky Mountains, and the bare and lofty plains
on their east.
Lower Canada is, in fact, placed in the zone of
transition between the polar and temperate cli
mates, and would have been probably far colder
than it is, were it not for the admirable provision

22 QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS.
of nature, that water, in freezing, liberates a
large amount of heat which had been latent, and
so raises the general temperature.
It is remarkable that the longer the European
remains in Lower Canada the more susceptible he
becomes of cold. For the first two or three
winters he scarcely feels it; but afterwards his
wrappings gradually increase, till at last he is
buried in furs and woollens. So it is with the
heats of India.
Dr. Kelly, in an excellent paper published in
the third volume of the " Literary and Historical
Society of Quebec," mentions that the average
mortality of Canadian towns is nearly double that
of the country. He accounts for this by stating,
that at Quebec, &c. (I know it too well) there is
no regular system of cleaning the streets ; that
the public sewers are in such a state that some of
the houses in one of the principal streets are
scarcely habitable at times from stench. He
adds, that the sewers open into the lower town
most offensively. The suburbs, with few excep
tions, have neither paving nor sewers. After the
melting of the snow, in April and May, the
streets of the flat suburb of St. Roche become
ponds or sloughs of ice, melting and mixing
with the accumulated putridities of the whole
winter.

QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS. 23
I hope there are few towns in Christendom
where such an amount of disease and desti
tution exists as in Quebec. There are still
fewer, I am sure, where it is met by a charity
so untiring by the various Christian denomina
tions. I shall not record the names of those
who were most conspicuous in this holy labour ;
they have no wish to be known beyond the
sphere they adorn and bless. This misery does
not touch the native poor, but the fever-stricken,
naked, and friendless Irish • — a people truly
" scattered and peeled" — who year after year are
thrown in shoals upon the wharfs of Quebec
from ships which ought to be called "itinerant
pest-houses." These unwelcome outcasts are crowded, without
proper provision, into vessels fitted up almost
slave-ship fashion, by the agents of impoverished
and unprincipled landlords, who rely on the pub
lic and private commiseration of the western
world ; and it has been taxed beyond endurance.
Much of the guilt, certainly, lies upon the Irish
Government, who do little or nothing to prevent
so frightful a state of things. Thus matters con
tinue to the present hour, I believe ; worse rather
than better.
These poor creatures, on landing, creep into
any hovel they can, with all their foul things

24 QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS.
about them. When they are" so numerous as to
figure in the streets, they are put, I believe by
the Colonial Government, into dilapidated houses,
with something like rations, of which latter the
worthier portion of the emigrants are apt to see
but little : they are clutched by the clamorous.
The filthy and crowded state of the houses, the
disgusting scenes going on in them, can only be
guessed by a very bold imagination. I have trod
the floor of one of such houses, almost over shoes
in churned and sodden garbage, animal and
vegetable. It required dissecting-room nerves to
bear it.
After starving about Quebec for months, the
helpless Irishman and his family begin to creep
up the country on charity or government aid,
and thus strew the colony with beggary and
disease. A Quebec winter does not allow of
lazzaronism. Some perish, some are absorbed
into the general population, and many more go
into the United States.
For six winter months I was medical officer to
the emigrants at Quebec, whether in hospital or
in forlorn lodgings ; until, in fact, I nearly lost my
life by typhus and dysentery. While so em
ployed, I have often been deeply interested in the
history of individual families, in their misfortunes
from villany, inexperience, sickness, and the like.

QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS. 25
The resignation manifested by young and old has
been marvellous ; and more than once have I had
the pleasure of seeing my poor friends led on,
in the course of time, even to prosperity.
Many of the beds in the low lodging-houses of
Quebec are in recesses made in the walls. Not
unfrequently, when I have entered on duty a
dark and crowded apartment, containing several
of these impure holes, I have seen a large black
mass of clothes half thrust into one of them. It
was the present excellent Bishop of Montreal
(Dr. Mountain), in his bulky winter dress, admi
nistering religious instruction to the sick, utterly
regardless of the poison he was breathing, and
anxious only to console and succour.
His lordship reads the service of Common
Prayer in a very singular manner, no doubt uncon
sciously. On my first hearing him, and not being
acquainted with his apostolic character, I could
not help smiling; but when 1 found out whose
faithful disciple and servant he was, I smiled no
more. The remedies for the miseries I have been
briefly describing lie in a well-paid and well-
organised system at home for the licensing and
inspection of emigrant ships; and another in the
colonies for the reception and distribution of the

26 QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS.
new comers, especially during the present tran
sition state of Ireland.
Society at Quebec, in the usual accepted mean
ing of the word, as formed of people of talent,
acquirements, good income, and good temper, is
of a very superior and varied kind ; not, however,
in summer, because then every one is either
absent or extremely busy.
The materials for this good society are furnished
by the vice-regal court, the ministers of religion,
the numerous members of the Colonial Legis
latures, the courts of law, the French gentry
coming in from their seigniories, the professions,
the large garrison. I am sorry to place (acci
dentally) last in this list the truly respectable
and hospitable class of resident merchants and
their families, who, although overworked in
summer, are permitted in winter to indulge in a
well-earned repose. During this season the Ca
nadian capital exhibits a perpetual flow of dinners,
balls, concerts, governor's receptions, pic-nic
parties, &c. &c, for men of good income. For
the poor soldier, and the labouring class gene
rally, the only recreation is, or was, that of the
dram-shop and canteen.
I served under two governors-general, the
late Duke of Richmond and the late Earl of

QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS. 27
Dalhousie, — two men, though both Scotchmen I
think, as dissimilar as could well be found.
The Duke was Irish all over, frank, benevo
lent, sanguine, expensive, a lover of sporting men,
and of an occasional gentlemanly carouse.
In the exercise of his public functions he was
most probably bound hand and foot to the narrow
policy of the Castlereagh ministry.
The Duke of Richmond died of hydrophobia
very distressingly in the backwoods of the River
Ottawa. A Plantagenet dying thus in a hovel in
a Canadian wild might be made a very searching
text. He was popular and much lamented.
Lord Dalhousie was a very favourable specimen
of the Scottish mind. He was a quiet, studious,
domestic man, faithful to his word, and kind,
but rather dry. He spoke and acted by measure,
as if he were in an enemy's land ; and so, in
truth, he was, because, in the face of the most
powerful and determined opposition, he was
honestly carrying out, as well as he could, the
instructions of ill-informed men residing three
thousand miles away.
Both these noblemen exercised a generous
hospitality. Lady Dalhousie was a pattern of every virtue
to the whole colony, an accomplished and h%hly
educated person. She received her company

28 QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS.
with a quiet, self-possessed grace, which, while it
encouraged the timid, repelled the undue fami
liarity of her promiscuous visitors. She had the
precious art of making the right people talk, and
to some agreeable or useful purpose. She herself
excelled in miniature-painting and botany.
I have little to say respecting the Quebec
clergy. They were personally amiable. They
worked the outward machinery of the Church
of England with professional accuracy, but I fear
they did little more than visit and relieve the
sick when called upon. The archdeacon, Dr.
Mountain, however, of whom mention has already
been made, was a priest after another and a better
order. How beautiful it is to watch the effects upon
a congregation of an earnest ministry — to see
how the little, secret lamps of love and service
light up, one after another — how they brighten,
enlarge, and multiply under the teaching, until
suddenly they burst into one great and beneficent
illumination, which cannot be hid, and which
manifests itself in painstaking labours for the
souls and bodies of men.
A congregation thus becomes one compact spi
ritual host, prepared to work for their Master's
glory*in a thousand ways, — as a refuge for the
sinful and miserable, a training-school for the

QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS. 29
young, a support to the feeble and aged, and a
buckler to the oppressed.
But what is a congregation now, too fre
quently ? Its members know nothing of each
other; and often sit as coldly and unconcernedly
in a church as in a railway waiting-room.
Quebec always had a well-conducted garrison,
men and officers in a high state of efficiency and
discipline. I recollect well that we had the dashing and
dressy ensign, the more prudent lieutenant, the
sententious field-officer, and the thoughtful and
reserved general in command, with his high-bred
aides-du-camp, — the latter, frivolous as they may
occasionally seem at his excellency's table, when
the pinch comes usually shew that they are gal
lant and capable men.
There were here in the army a few fast men —
some of them full of misapplied talent — fountains
of fun and laughter which never failed. I think
it hardly possible to excel the mime and panto
mime of two gentlemen in particular ; whom to
describe more nearly would not be fair, as they
are yet among the living, and not noted for
gravity. I shall never forget the life-like description,
pronounced and acted by one of these merry

30 QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS.
sprites, of an old original Dugald Dalgetty (a Ger
man colonel), being canted out of a sledge into a
snow-wreath — the torrent of abuse in bad English
— the grimacings, the flight of passions across
his face, the groom's explanations, and the final
settling of the storm into the good colonel's usual
stiff and silent complacency.
Of course the fast men were often in difficulties.
There was in the garrison a very handsome lieu
tenant (now dead). He was an universal favourite
for his various social qualities ; but he had little
or no private fortune, and good society requires
a full purse. He therefore got into arrears with
his tailor and others.
At this time there resided at Quebec a man of
immense wealth and much generosity. The lieu
tenant one morning boldly laid his case before
this Croesus, as many other respectable persons
had done theirs, and successfully. He instantly
received a cheque for the required amount. Six
months afterwards the young officer returned
with a similar tale. The rich man looked very
blue upon him, and saying, " Sir, I am sorry to
perceive that your indebtedness is not an accident,
but a habit," he retired into his bedroom. After
waiting for his return in vain for a quarter of an
hour, Lieutenant W. retired.

QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS. 31
Mr. N. was a plain, quiet man, of about fifty
years of age, and occupied a parlour and bedroom
at a hair-dresser's in Mountain Street. His charities
were very large, and at the same time judicious.
He had been very poor at Quebec a year or two
previous to succeeding to a fortune of from 15,000Z.
to 20,000Z. per annum, about the year 1822, and
was then glad to accept an occasional dinner
from a little schoolmaster in the Lower Town.
Upon him Mr. N. settled an annuity of 200Z.
The whole history of this gentleman is a ro
mance — his agreement with the schoolfellow
who left him his fortune that the survivor should
take all ; their separation for life ; the shipwreck
and other misfortunes of Mr. N. ; his cultivating
a little barren patch in Labrador when advertised
for as the owner of a princely property ; his sub
sequently living on one of the lonely but beauti
ful Hero Islands in Lake Champlain, made cele
brated in Cooper's " Last of the Mohicans;" and
his final removal to one of the less frequented
cantons of Switzerland, where he became natu
ralised, and not long after died.
Among the great variety of capacities and dis
positions afforded by the other portions of general
society there was ample room for selection, from
grave to gay, from the scientific to the elegant

32 QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS.
and accomplished. In the days I speak of, a
man fond of discussion, full of wit, anecdote, and
startling notions — not always the soundest — the
highly-gifted son of the most popular of our law-
writers (Judge Blackstone), was always happy to
descant over a moderate wine-cup with a kindred
spirit until sunrise.
Another son of the law, a district judge, was
quite as remarkable a personage. He was a large
pale-faced man, odd, absent, unequal, ingenious
far beyond ordinary men, learned and eloquent,
abounding in all knowledge save that which might
profit himself. He was as artless as a child, ever
in perplexity, but ever ready to serve others
(Judge Fletcher). He fancied he had been bitten
by a mad dog, and sat all day long (for a time)
on his door-steps in colonial simplicity, calling
out to the passer-by that the poison was ripening,
and that he should explode soon in hydrophobic
rage. He was mistaken, and lived several years
after to lose his office by some blunder or other.
He died in the Eastern townships. He possessed
a very large and excellent library.
Any one fond of politics might interest himself,
but not mingle, in the fierce and unceasing
struggle going on between the Governor-general
with his officials and the House of Assembly ;

QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS. 33
both parties ardent and able, the foremost on
each side trained by an European and legal edu
cation, as well as thoroughly well informed in
everything relating to the personages and trans
actions of the mother-country.
In Lower Canada there is a very considerable
number of ancient French families, worthily bear
ing the high-sounding names of Old France, such
as Du Plessis, De Salaberry, and Montizambert.
Some possess a good deal of landed property ;
others hold secondary official situations. From
one reason or another — the late dinner-hour or
the stiff manners of the English — they seldom
appear out of their own national coteries, save
from time to time at the Chateau St. Louis. This
is to be lamented.
The French families are very sociable among
themselves, and together with the French figure
and general appearance display in their gestures
and tones the same vivacity and eager interest in
trifles we see in them at Paris. They are attentive
to their religious duties, and keep up many old ob
servances which elsewhere are dying away. The
Continental custom of visiting all acquaintances
on New- Year's day, so useful and laudable, is
practised at Quebec with great spirit, and not
only by the French gentry, but by the English
of all classes. I believe that many a rising
VOL. 1. D

34 QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS.
enmity has been dissipated by the kind words
and small presents which on this day are ex
changed. The French children are very interesting little
creatures. When arrived at their teens they have
an exceedingly pretty dance, called " La Ronde,"
which, from great ignorance of the saltatory art
perhaps, I never saw before. It is accompanied
by an air and words of its own, both lively and
musical. The French Canadian has brought from his
dear France one remarkable custom, — the chari
vari, and has improved upon it. It is intended
to reach delinquents not amenable to the common
process of law — offenders against propriety and
the public sense of honour. Ill-assorted mar
riages are its especial objects. I need not say
that a charivari is an unpleasant incident in an
honeymoon — itself perhaps none of the sweetest.
It is a procession on a large scale by torchlight
in the evening. In many cases the attack is met
courteously, with lighted halls and a cold collation
to the principal actors, when the din and hubbub
cease, and the thing ends. But it is not always
so ; — not in the charivari I witnessed.
I fear that these celebrations are sometimes
unjust. It perhaps was unfairly applied in the
instance which I am about to sketch.

QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS. 35
Here a stout, high-spirited young adjutant of a
marching regiment, thought well to marry the
widow — still handsome and but little past her
prime — of an opulent brewer. She was of a good
French family, and resembled the famous widow of
Kent in having a most agreeable annual income.
For aught I know she may have thrown off her
weeds too soon, or was thought to have made a
mesalliance. Be these things as they may, there
was a charivari.
I was at home, in one of the principal streets,
when my ears were assailed with loud, dissonant,
and altogether incomprehensible noises, gradu
ally drawing nearer and nearer. A broad red
light soon began to glare upon the houses and
fill the street. The throng slowly arrived and
slowly passed my door. I will try to describe
some parts of the show.
First came a strange figure, masked, with a
cocked hat and sword — he was very like the
grotesque beadle we see in French churches ;
then came strutting a little hump-backed crea
ture in brown, red, and yellow, with beak and
tail, to represent the Gallic cock. Fifteen or
sixteen people followed in the garb of Indians,
some wearing cows'-horns on their heads. Then
came two men in white sheets, bearing a paper
coffin of great size, lighted from within, and

30 QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS.
having skulls, cross-bones, and initials painted in.
black on its sides. This was surrounded by men
blowing horns, beating pot-lids, poker and tongs,
whirling watchmen's rattles, whistling, and so on.
To these succeeded a number of Chinese lanterns,
borne aloft on high poles and mixed with blazing
torches— small flags, black and white — more
rough music. Close after came more torches,
clatter, and fantastic disguises — the whole sur
rounded and accompanied by a large rabble rout,
who kept up an irregular fire of yells, which now
and then massed and swelled into a body of sound
audible over all the neighbourhood.
The whole city was perambulated before pro
ceeding to the fated mansion of the widow-bride ;
but at last they arrived at her door and drew up
before it. The large, handsome house, was silent
and dark — the window-shutters were closed ;
there was evidently to be no friendly feast — per
haps some music, but no harmony.
The charivari was puzzled, but shewed pluck.
It brayed, and blew, and roared, and shook torch
and lantern, and might have done so all the
bitter night through, as it appeared to me, stand
ing at a cowardly distance, when on a sudden
the large front door opened, and out rushed the
manly figure of the adjutant, with ten or twelve
assistants in plain clothes, (brother officers, I

QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS. 37
fear), and armed with cudgels. To work they
went upon the defenceless crowd, and especially
among the masquers, where the torches gave
useful light. The whole attack and flight was
an affair of a few moments — the fun-loving crowd,
actors and spectators, fled amain — and gone in
an incredibly short space of time were torches,
lanterns, coffin, kettles, buffaloes' heads, &c.
One unhappy little hunch-back, in the disguise
of a Gallic cock, the bridegroom seized and began
to belabour, but he most piteously confessed him
self to be the well-known editor of a local paper,
and was dismissed with a shake, and told that
in future cripples crowing in charivaris would
always be treated as able-bodied men. I cannot
but think, with the insulted lady, that the mum
mers were well served.
The philanthropic institutions, supported by pri
vate or public funds, are very numerous. Among
the principal may be mentioned several hospitals,
a lunatic asylum, dispensary, emigrants' friend
society, savings' bank. The same Bible and
Missionary associations which are to be found
throughout the British dominions also flourish
here, and are the fairest ornaments of our times
and nation.
There is an exceedingly good library, for the
use principally of the military ; another as good

38 QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS.
belonging to the House of Assembly ; and several
private collections of great value. Booksellers'
shops in my day were few and poorly provided.
Monsieur Rousseau, a dealer in French books,
shewed me many copies of a " History of Ca
nada," in 2 vols, octavo, written with great
talent and research by the Hon. R. Smith, late
Chief Justice of Canada, the author of a " His
tory of the late Province of New York." This
work, as far as I am aware, has never been put
into circulation, on account of some strictures
it contains on the conduct of a late Governor-
general. (It has been published since.) The
" History of Canada" I do not intermeddle with ;
but I know of no war-story so interesting, so
full of vicissitudes, gallantry, and heroism in
suffering, although it extends over but a brief
space of time. This has arisen out of the remark
able qualities of the three races, the English, the
French, and the Indian, who have contended for
the mastery in a country abounding in hazards
from climate, from woods and waters. I cite
the spirited history of the " Conquest of Canada,"
by Captain Warburton, R.A., in proof of this
assertion. There are few cities in any quarter of the globe
so rich as Quebec in attractive spots for summer
excursions ; its whole environs are very lovely —

QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS. 39
there is nothing plain or ordinary about them ;
and each has its own new charm — from the sweet
dingle of Sillery to the Natural Steps and Cascade
of Montmorency.
They have been so often described that I shall
pass rapidly over them. The principal are Lakes
St. Charles and Beauport, and the Falls of the
Chaudiere, Etchemin, and Montmorency, the
woods and cliffs of Carouge, and the Bridge of
Jacques Cartier, Lorette and Point Levi. (Vide
diagram.) It will take a whole summer's day to visit the
Indian Village and Lake St. Charles. They lie
on the same road. In the first we see, in his
neglected dwelling and ill-cultivated field, how
unequal at present the Indian is to continuous
labour. In his own face, at once a history and a
prophecy, we read much that is Pagan, notwith
standing the large silver cross slung across his
wife's back, and the Roman Catholic church on the
village green. At the same time I am persuaded
that the ministers of that church are largely the
poor Indian's benefactors.
But descend into yonder chasm — deep, dark,
and fringed with elegant foliage. It contains the
River St. Charles. The painter will rejoice in its
torn, uplifted rocks, and fierce billows, while the
geologist will be rewarded by some rare fossils.

40 QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS.
Lake Charles is a small but picturesque body
of water, divided into two unequal parts by a
long headland ; it is twelve miles from Quebec,
among the nearer mountains, and is well worth a
visit. The Bridge of Jacques Cartier, thirty-three
miles from Quebec, is well sketched both by
Dr. Beattie and Mr. Tolfrey. The Jacques Car-
tier is an impetuous and rocky stream in a pine
forest, abundant in fine fish.
Few visitors will fail to spend a day at the
Falls of Montmorency, nine miles from Quebec ;
it is the first cascade with which the traveller from
Europe by the St. Lawrence makes acquaintance.
It has been described and sketched times innu
merable, and is well worthy of its reputation.
Its dress and appearance are very novel in winter ;
the surrounding pines loaded with masses of snow,
and the rocks hung with rows of large icicles ;
but the cove below is the most remarkable winter
feature. " When the St. Lawrence is frozen
below the falls the level ice becomes a support,
on which the freezing spray descends as a sleet ;
it there remains, and gradually enlarges its base
and its height, assuming an irregular conical
form : its dimensions, thus continually increasing,
become, towards the close of winter, stupendous.
Its height varies each season ; it has not been

QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS. 4]
observed higher than one hundred and twenty-six
feet (1829) : the whole of the preceding season
had been unusually humid. The face of the cone
next the falls presents a stalactitic structure not
seen elsewhere ; sometimes it is tinged with a
slight earthy hue." — (Mr. Green, Quebec His
torical Society Transactions, vol. ii. 218.)
The so-called "Natural Steps" are rather more
than half a-mile above the Falls of Montmorenci.
I do not think Dr. Beattie has succeeded in his
delineation so well as usual — the wildness is well
given, but not so the artificial look of the rock.
Their ascent, in many parts, from the water is by
regular ledges, or steps of horizontal rock. It is
a singular spot. The river has been wandering-
over gently undulating meadows for a few miles,
when on a sudden it enters and rushes through
a trough, twenty to thirty feet broad and eight
hundred to one thousand yards long, cut through
a barrier of rock, and thus makes its way to the
St. Lawrence.
The Fall of La Puce is also very graceful,
and should be seen, — it is seven miles beyond the
Fall of Montmorenci. I should be ungrateful
did I not add, that there is a clean and comfort
able inn near the latter fall, where the guest
will meet also with that cheerful civility and the

42 QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS.
moderate charges we so often experience at the
inns of French Canada.
The falls of the rivers Etchemin and Chaudiere,
respectively, about seven and nine miles from
Quebec, must not be forgotten. They, too, with
a little diligence, may be seen on the same day,
being southern affluents of the St. Lawrence.
Both are very effective combinations of pine-
woods, falling waters, and rocky heights ; that
of the Chaudiere especially, which has no need to
retire in shamefacedness before any of the cata
racts of Canada — a very few excepted.
They have been so often described, that I shall
pass on to relate a few circumstances which oc
curred at one of my visits to these rivers, as illus
trative of a Canadian holiday.
I had two officers for my companions, equipped
in the stiff, hot military dress, cocked hat and
feathers, enjoined in almost every climate by
general orders. Our nags were brought out into
a parade-ground full of soldiery. Being of vary
ing qualities, external and internal, we cast lots
for choice. A very sorry beast fell to my share ; •
but I mounted, and was suffered there to remain.
My friend of the Royal Engineers, while in the
act of alighting in the saddle, was pitched by a
sudden elevation from behind some feet over, and

QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS. 43
before the horse's nose, on the soft sand — hat and
whip also. Some brother-officers came up, and
gave them to him with a sort of quizzical so
lemnity. .
Off we set at length, rode through the town
with great decorum, and crossed the river by
the horseferry to Point Levi. Scarcely, however,
had we set foot on the south shore of the St. Law
rence, when the horse of my second companion
rushed up the steep road close by at a gallop. We
followed pretty fast ; but, on gaining the summit,
we saw our commissariat friend, an old Spanish
campaigner, far away on the road, flying at full
speed. Every now and then we caught a glimpse
of him, pushing on in the same involuntary haste.
He rode well ; so that we were only amused, not
alarmed, and quietly jogged after him. We came
upon him suddenly, after a ride of four miles,
sitting upon a low fence, in front of a decent house,
with a stable in the rear. His features were dis
composed, and not very clean. He looked shaken,
too, and one side of his dress was plastered with
the mud of an adjacent ditch. In fact, he told
us that the horse, in spite of all he could do, con
tinued at high-pressure speed until he came to
this place, where dwelt an old master of his, and
where, turning suddenly and unexpectedly to the
left, he landed our friend in the ditch, and him-

44 QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS.
self at the stable-door — and not for the first time,
as his former owner told us. Being an indifferent
horseman, I was glad my animal was of a mild
disposition. We* were pleased with both the
Etchemin and the Chaudiere ; and towards even
ing we all, three abreast, slowly returned to
Quebec and our duties.*
The scenery along the road is worth all the
journey. It passes by a line of farms on the high
grounds skirting the St. Lawrence. The dwell
ings of the peasantry, in some parts, formed quite
a street ; in others, we rode through fields and
copses. At the mouth of the Etchemin, where
the road descends to the tide-level, we found my
riads of logs from the Ottawa, stranded at low
water ; and many rafts lying out in the St. Law
rence, waiting to be received into harbour at New
Liverpool, as some houses and a timber establish
ment here are called.
We all agreed that the most solemn and capti
vating view of Quebec anywhere to be met with
is obtained from the high grounds we were then
riding over, near the Etchemin River. The spec
tator here stands on a lofty cliff, and is master of
a large horizon ; in the centre of which, with
* Gold in dust and grains has been found on the River Famine,
a tributary to the Chaudiere. Sir James Alexander, in his pleasant
" L'Acadie," says he has seen some.

QUEBEC AND ITS ENVIRONS. 45
many a domestic bower unseen, in those thick
woods on the west, stands the great escarped rock
on which is enthroned the first-class fortress of
Cape Diamond, its vast buttresses, bastions, and
batteries encircling, in prolonged curves, tbe
nearly hidden city, with its steeples and spires ;
overhanging, too, the restless St. Lawrence, and
the battle-plain of Abraham, while from this point
of vantage we take in fully the glorious framework
of grey mountains and dark green woods in which
it is set.
The evening had toned down all discordant
tints. None of the disenchanting details of or
dinary life met the eye. We irresistibly felt our
selves in the presence of the Ehrenbreitstein of
the West, or rather of a great war palace of Odin,
guarding the Scandinavia of America.
It is to be regretted that Mr. Bartlett did not
transmit this view to Europe. His other views
of this neighbourhood are admirably selected.

EXCURSION THE FIRST.
TO HAWKSBURY, ON THE RIVER OTTAWA.
Typhus Fever at the Hawksbury Settlement — The Seigniory of St.
Anne de la Perade — Steam Voyage to Montreal — The company
on Board — Montreal — Baggage Lost — Irish Emigrants at Point
Fortune — Local Politics — Hamilton Mills — Settlers in comfort
— Colonial Department — Emigration — Walk to Montreal — In
sane lady.
In the month of August, after a hot summer,
typhus fever appeared, both extensively and fa
tally, in a portion of the township of Hawksbury,
on the River Ottawa, 260 miles from Quebec, and
recently settled by a large party of Irish. As it
continued with undiminished severity throughout
September, Government determined to send a
military medical officer to take charge of the sick,
and to report on the causes and nature of the
pestilence.

EXCURSION TO HAWKSBURY. 47
I was selected for this errand of mercy, and
now present to the reader a non-professional
sketch of the excursion.
Although I did not embark at Quebec, it will
be well to premise that the River St. Lawrence,
for thirty or forty miles above that city, is emi
nently picturesque, being for the most part
bounded on both sides by woody steeps, or dusky
red cliffs, of which the most prominent are Ca
rouge, Point des Trembles, and Cape Sante. It
is then ascended for 140 miles through a level
country, with little change of feature, save at Lake
St. Peter.
Above Cape Sante the visible population be
gins to thicken ; and from this point, the north
shore especially, seldom exceeding ten or twenty
feet in height, is embellished with a pleasing line
of white houses and churches, extending, with few
interruptions, for 800 miles westward. The high
road runs close to the river. The traveller, on
horseback or in a calash, is within view of us for
miles, not seldom beset by a train of clamorous
dogs. The strong rapids of the Richelieu occur forty-
five miles above Quebec, and are caused by a
contraction of the river's breadth to half a mile,
and its obstruction by reefs and rolled blocks.
Having a couple of days to spare, on account

48 EXCURSION TO HAWKSBURY.
of certain official credentials not yet ready, and
the fitting up of a medicine chest, I made my way
by calash to the Seigniory of St. Anne de la
Perade, sixty miles above Quebec, and six miles
below the large River Batiscan, a northern
affluent of the St. Lawrence, and once famous
for its bog ore and ironfoundry.
The excellent Seignior, the Honourable Co
lonel Hale,* had invited me to pay him a visit
at St. Anne. I gladly embraced the opportunity
thus afforded of observing the position of a pro
prietor in Lower Canada, which, with a little
tact, firmness, and moderation, is far from being
an uncomfortable one. Kindness goes far with
the Canadian kabitans, as the rural population
are called.
My friend had a roomy, lightsome house, built
mansion-like, one hundred yards from a trout-
stream, the St. Anne de la Perade, on the upper
edge of a large park-like meadow, which runs
down to the St. Lawrence. From the house we
saw the river, a woody islet or two, close in shore,
and had between them a momentary glimpse of
the passing steamers.
The Seignior had at this time 300 acres in his
• The modest but sufficient prosperity which has attended me
through life began in the disinterested kindness of this eminent
person. I am glad of this opportunity of acknowledging it.

EXCURSION TO HAWKSBURY. 49
own hands, partly for profit, and partly as a
model farm for his tenants. The remainder of
the cleared portion was held under peculiar
French tenures, and divided into about 500 hold
ings. But still the greater part of the seigniory
was in a state of nature, and was altogether about
70,000 acres.
For the most part, the tenants had clustered
round the church in the form of a very rural-
looking village, with a comfortable little inn.
As the proprietor spoke French excellently, was
affable and obliging, and was extending and im
proving the roads in the back settlements, a walk
through the village with him was a very agree
able thing. It was a promenade of unconstrained
greetings and pleasant looks. Red worsted caps
and uncouth hats were doffed at every turn.
The revenues of a Canadian seigniory are de
rived from several sources. There is a rent of a
dollar a-year from every tenement having a fire
place ; a considerable fine upon every transfer
of the numerous small tenancies, or rather pro
perties ; and the profits of the seigniorial flour-
mill — the law compelling all the habitans to
grind their corn there. There are other clues of
less importance. A satisfactory interest is derived
from the usual amount of purchase-money laid
out upon an estate of this kind.
VOL. I. E

50 EXCURSION TO HAWKSBURY.
We embarked at St. Anne's for Batiscan in a
canoe, and, after a pleasant row of six miles,
mounted the deck of one of the great steamers
going to Montreal, which makes Batiscan a stop
ping-place. '
Glancing at the scene in the steamer, we were
a good deal dismayed. The whole of the fore
deck was crowded by horses, cows, pigs, car
riages, and furniture, as well as by dirty and des
titute Irish emigrants, one of whom was fighting
drunk. Having been, and continuing to be, ex
tremely troublesome, he was forcibly set on shore,
ignorant both of the people and the language.
As we paddled off, I saw him, shillelah in hand,
— for it had been thrown to him, — vapouring
away alone on the beach, by the side of his little
bundle. We counted thirty- two cabin passengers of
various qualities ; some of them were of great
eminence, and would have become so in any
country. A chance gathering like this is quite
different from the company on board of an Euro
pean pleasure-steamer. There were no coronetted
families and their liveried domestics — not a single
English snob, or bearded French flaneur, in his
white-jane boots. Most of the passengers were
on business.
We did not make acquaintances at first. The

EXCURSION TO HAWKSBURY. 51
heat was extreme ; so that most of us remained
on deck to catch the slender but refreshing breeze.
For myself, I went below to finish a letter.
Sitting down, I espy the eyes of a little fat
steward lazily twinkling on me from a square
compartment full of spirit-bottles, called the bar.
Close to me on my right sits, reading with a con
sequential air, a young American, dressed in the
Burgershaft style — his broad shirt-collar descend
ing over his coat-collar, and tied by a black
riband ; while his luxuriant hair falls over his
shoulders in long tresses. Before me are par
ties playing at picquet, and refreshing them
selves with London porter. Several are dozing
as comfortably as. Prince Aldebaronti himself.
After a time I mount the companion-ladder, and
find that we are in the middle of the majestic St.
Lawrence, making good way, with the two hand
some spires of Varennes Church some distance
a-head of us, among trees; over which, in the
south-west, I see the storm approaching, of which
the sultry heats had given us notice. There is not
much to attract the eye beyond a few moments.
We see, however, that we are on an American
river of the first order, fed by innumerable streams,
whose sources are often a thousand miles and
more apart.
We meet a tall steamer coming from Montreal,

52 EXCURSION TO HAWKSBURY.
or a fleet of rafts, the same in form, but larger
than those of the Rhine. A wind-bound vessel
from Europe is overtaken, or a steam-tug labour
ing up the current, with a reluctant merchant-
ship on each side, and another at its stern. Few
words suffice to describe either the Orinoco or the
St. Lawrence for a hundred miles together.
In an hour we were in the midst of the storm,
in all the usual forms of lightning, thunder, hail,
and rain — sweeping the decks of all who could
crowd below, fore and aft. The cabin was so
full during its continuance that we began to get
familiar, and converse.
I soon found by my side a young man of coarse,
heavy look and build, not well clad, and indif
ferently schooled. He was the son of a Scotch
peer, sent into the woods of Canada under the
charge of an agent, for having married a stout
dairymaid, to his lady -mother's great disgust.
The poor lad certainly had not his full share of
brains. The young wife looked far more respect
able and intelligent than himself. A farm had
been purchased for them in Glengarry, Upper
Canada. And yet the Honourable Mr. C 
had his cogitations. In the course of the voyage
a clerical acquaintance of mine observed to me,
directing my attention to Mr. C  : " That
fat, dense Scotchman has been puzzling himself,

EXCURSION TO HAWKSBURY. 53
Presbyterian-like, upon an odd subject. Perhaps
he thinks he is Adam going to Eden. Noticing
my ecclesiastical dress, he entered just now into
talk with me ; and among other things, he put
this question to me : ' Sir,' said he, ¦ after Eve
had eaten the apple, she offered another to Adam.
Now, I wish to know what would have become
of Eve if Adam had refused to eat ; and what
would have been the upshot of the whole matter V
I told him his question was unprofitable, and not
worth an answer."
When the grey darkness of the storm had
passed away, leaving a clear sky and cool air,
much of the cabin company dispersed. Then
there came out of a small state-room a foreign
lady, of elegant and commanding presence. She
was accompanied by her younger brother, a Ge-
nevese, like herself. He was an officer of one of
.our Rifle corps, slight in figure, precise in his
dress, with a coat by Stultz, close-fitting panta
loons, strapped to the foreign-made boot. His
features were small and gentlemanly, but mo
tionless and resigned, as I have often seen in
those who live with clever women.
But I do not wish to forget the lady, Madame
de M  . She took an arm-chair near the
doorway of the magnificent caoin, with the officer
by her side. A circle soon formed round her;

54 EXCURSION TO HAWKSBURY.
for she was well known, and was returning to
Montreal from a visit to her native land.
When I first saw her, I thought of Madame
de Stael and the charms of Coppet, and stuck
myself in a corner near her, on an uneasy camp-
stool. I had time to examine her while waiting
to hear what a lady so gifted and gallant might
say. I had before me a tall lady, of graceful carriage,
a trifle too stout, and not now to be called young,
— no fault of hers. Her fine features had become
somewhat too marked, but were instinct with that
superior intelligence which successful culture of
a rich soil alone can give. Let me remember.
She had an oval pale face, darkened a little by
the stoves of her youth ; a high nose, exactly
chiselled ; smooth, round, full forehead, and a
kindling dark eye.
After the usual congratulations and mutual in
quiries, there was silence for a few moments,
when she broke out in the true rhythmical tones
of a high-class Genevese reunion, with a full,
ringing, musical voice, and all the gentle fear
lessness of practice in good society — enforcing
her words with such pretty cadences, and such
an eloquent, but scarcely perceptible, play of fea
ture, eye, and neck, as I never expected to see in
western Christendom.

EXCURSION TO HAWKSBURY. 55
She did not speak of regret at leaving Switzer
land, — the social circles of Geneva (hard to re
linquish), for the inferior civilisation of a colony ;
but she said :
" I have been in Canada again for a week,
and am anew delighted with my adopted coun
try., I have infinitely enjoyed its natural gran
deurs — its splendid suns, wide waters — amid
the fragrance of its fine forests I have wandered
already. I find an exceeding beauty here — not
Swiss, not French, nor Scottish, but Canadian,
perfectly distinct, and unspeakably charming."
" Yes," says my friend Col. H  , " you may
well be happy here ; because, as soon as the
steamer draws alongside the quay of Montreal,
you will see leaning over the long balcony of a
many -windowed mansion overhanging the St.
Lawrence, a delighted, expecting group of bright
young faces, waving their little kerchiefs, with
their bonnes and their aunts, while the father is
on the pier awaiting you."
" Yes," she replied, " a large measure of good
has been bestowed on me. May I be sufficiently
thankful !
" I have been rambling over my old Swiss moun
tains. I had not quite my usual interest in
them. I was surprised to see how rapturously

56 EXCURSION TO HAWKSBURY.
those alpine pictures were enjoyed by my com
panion, old Professor Pictet, for the hundredth
time. And I do feel that there is no compari
son between the scientific apprehension of the
works of creation and that which is within the
reach of the common observer like myself. In
the same way, I can conceive somewhat of the
prophetic triumph with which the enlightened
statesman can look upon the broad and fertile
lands among which we are now moving, and re?
joice in their splendid and populous, and I trusty
happy future."
Madame de M  had been playing, Sta'el-
like, with a little well-worn magazine, such as
are seen everywhere in America, and said, —
" By the bye, I have met in my cabin with a
little monthly miscellany, which contains some
beautiful ideas. How greatly indebted, under
Providence, is the new world to the old ! Not
only has Europe formed and arranged her daily
comforts, filled her libraries with undying wis
dom, paid in blood and anguish the price of her
present political blessings — having driven the
ploughshare of truth through the clods of des
potic ignorance — but she goes on to fill the Ame
rican mind with just and lofty thoughts.
" These little magazines exist chiefly upon the

EXCURSION TO HAWKSBURY. 57
genius of England. Permit me to read the pass
age which has given rise to these remarks. It is
from Coleridge : —
" ' In the middle ages, there was in Europe a
continued succession of individual intellects — the
golden chain was never wholly broken. A dark
cloud, like another sky, covered the entire cope
of heaven ; but in this place it thinned away, and
white stains of light shewed a half-eclipsed star
behind it : in that place it was rent asunder, and
a star passed across the opening in all its bright
ness, and then vanished. Such stars exhibited
themselves only ; surrounding objects did not
partake of their light. There were deep wells of
knowledge, but no fertilising rills.'
" Is not this an astronomical metaphor of ex
treme magnificence 1 How else bring into the
light of day the vast darkness of the middle ages?
From this, modern North America has been spared.
In its dispersion, my own townsmen of Geneva
have performed a noble part, both now, and at
the time when Erasmus read by moonlight, be
cause he could not afford a torch, and begged a
penny, not for the love of charity, but for the love
of learning."
And thus she went on, with many a friendly
questioning from her circle of admirers, giving
utterance to her full heart as freely and melo-

58 EXCURSION TO HAWKSBURY.
diously as ever musician scattered sweet sounds
from flute or harp.
She was about to tell us of the delight with
which she had witnessed in London the operations
of an infant-school, then unknown in Canada,*
and not many years ago commenced by Wilder-
spin, a singular person, who might almost be
said never to have attained to actual manhood,
but was arrested in a state of perpetual babyhood
— an aged and wise baby; and the very individual
for his important mission.
She was about to say that she must have an
infant-school near her place, when a young phy
sician came and told me that a poor female
emigrant had been frightened into premature
labour by the storm, and had given birth to a
girl, but that she had nothing prepared, and no
money. We immediately collected, among the
cabin passengers, nearly four pounds, to the no
small surprise and gratitude of the sufferer when
it was given her in a little bag.
The eloquent Genevese contributed liberally,
and greatly encouraged the subscription.
How valuable are such persons in a colony,
with their love of order and cleanliness, their
finished education and enlarged views !
After leaving the steamboat I never heard
* There are now several in Montreal.

EXCURSION TO HAWKSBURY. 59
more of this accomplished lady. I suppose she
is the light of her quiet home, not far from Mount
Belceil, and a winter resident at Montreal.
We passed Three Rivers, the third or fourth
town in the lower province during the storm.
Here the influence of the tides of the ocean ceases.
I shall say little about this place, as I was only
five minutes in it once ; but it is little better than
a large village. It is near the three mouths of
the St. Maurice, an important river, with tbe
iron works of the Messrs. Bell on it, and
abounding in fine scenery and good land. A
very large tract of fertile country ranges from
the middle and upper parts of the St. Maurice
north-eastwards towards Quebec, and embraces
the valleys of the St. Maurice, Batiscan, St. Anne,
and Jacques Cartier, more than sixty miles across.
But who will face its Siberian climate ?
From this time to our arrival at Montreal,
most of the passengers were on deck enjoying the
tempered breezes, and that homogeneity of at
mosphere which brings distant objects so wonder
fully near, and gives to the whole landscape a
delicious purity, softness, and precision of outline.
I was leaning over the bulwark of the steamer,
examining a fragment of rock, with an oblong
note-book peeping out of a side-pocket, when M.
Papineau, the Speaker (at the time) of the House

60 EXCURSION TO HAWKSBURY.
of Assembly, came blandly up and entered into
conversation with me.
He was then the most distinguished and po
pular person in Canada ; and he has since be
come still more noted for his share in the late
insurrection. M. Papineau was a well-dressed, handsome
man, standing erect, and a little above the middle
size, with the black hair and eyes of France,his fea
tures regular, rather long, fine, but not ingenuous.
He appeared to me subtle, persuasive, confident,
and eager for information. He questioned me on
the subject of my rock specimen, and on geology.
I told him I was only a learner. " True : that
may be," said he, " but un borgne is king among
the blind."
In a short time I had given him the titles and
merits of all the best books on the subject, and
the way to procure from London labelled cabi
nets of mineralogical and rock specimens.
He left me high and dry. I had nothing more
to tell. I wished to talk political economy with
him, and perhaps a little politics ; but no, there
was to be nothing given in exchange. I was left
courteously, but before I had received my reward,
which was unpleasant.
Some are surprised that M. Papineau did not
fight in the insurrection, but without reason. I

EXCURSION TO HAWKSBURY. 61
am sure that he values life and limb at no higher
rate than other people ; but it is not fair to ex
pect the same man to be the slashing hussar and
the astute parliamentary tactician.*
He has taken advantage of the amnesty so
wisely proclaimed by the British Government,
and is again a leader in the House of Assembly.
The rebellion which M. Papineau at all events
stimulated, was sanctioned in heart by the great
majority of the Lower Canadians; but it was
mainly defeated by the Roman Catholic clergy,
who are salaried by the British Government, and
have little faith in the mercies of the cabinet of
Washington. If it had been successful, M. Papi
neau would probably have been the first president
of a new people, and an historical character.
As far as Lake St. Peter, a few miles above
Three Rivers, we were passing up broad waters,
with distant shores, and here and there a tribu
tary stream, the banks of the St. Lawrence occa
sionally running out into points, marked by a
church, a windmill, or a line of tall poplars. Once
or twice, soon after tbe storm, all these objects,
* Since writing the above I have had reason to believe that M.
Papineau was not for trying it out in arms, and took no share in the
late insurrection. As long as he confined himself to constitutional
measures, M. Papineau was a freeman contending against des-
potism. Nearly all that was sought has since been conceded.

62 EXCURSION TO HAWKSBURY.
while distant, were raised picturesquely high
above the river by a thin haze, and later in the
evening steeped in the ruby glow of the setting
sun. We found Lake St. Peter to be a shallow ex
pansion of the St. Lawrence, nine or ten miles
broad and twenty-five miles long, with many
islands at its upper end, used as pasturage by the
farmers on the densely-peopled mainland.
Being a zealous geologist, I longed to jump
ashore on one of these islands to examine their
stony beaches, which we were successively graz
ing, — a propensity which had nigh cost me dear at
Sorel, a village-town on the south shore, forty-five
miles below Montreal, at the mouth of the large
river Richelieu, the outlet of Lake Champlain,
and remarkable for being much smaller at its
mouth than at its head.
The steamboat having stopped here to take in
wood, I stepped on shore (contrary to rule) to
gather a specimen of a rock I saw in the river
bank. While thus employed the steamer started.
Seeing this, I jumped into a canoe with a little
boy in it, and paddled after, urging and screaming
to the top of my powers, when the owner and
captain, worthy Mr. Molson, kindly backed ship
and took me in.
When I had cooled after my exertions suffi-

EXCURSION TO HAWKSBURY. 63
ciently to cast a glance around, I observed a
group deeply interested in the explanations of
an athletic American in the garb of a master-
mechanic. He was exhibiting the model of
a bridge invented by himself, of wood, cheap,
strong, and durable. It was formed by a simple
but very ingenious interlacement of bars of wood,
the longitudinal being about eight feet long, and
the cross-bars about five. Besides having the qua
lities just stated, it had the important one of an
equally diffused strain under burthens. It was
particularly adapted to rapid rivers and such as
are liable to floods. He had built one in Canada
and several in the United States. The bars hav
ing been put together, one end of the framework
thus formed was fixed to the side of a river, then
directed across, and the other end pressed down
to the opposite bank by heavy weights, and there
retained. While standing upon the raised end of
a bridge which he was placing in the United
States, the weight slipped off, and he was hurled
to an immense distance and taken up dead, while
the bridge floated away in fragments.
From hence to Montreal is a continuation of
the same scenery as below St. Peter's — a wide
stream with occasional islets, low cleared shores
with an endless street of houses, their very roofs
whitewashed. Here and there is the mouth of a

64 EXCURSI.ON TO HAWKSBURY.
river hid in reeds and trees. One of these I think
I am correct in naming the Recollet, a river
coming from the Ottawa, and with another branch
forming the northern boundaries of the islands of
Jesus and Montreal. Few pass by the mouth of
this stream as it flows into the St. Lawrence with
out admiring its antique church, two or three old-
fashioned high-roofed houses, the cleanly little
inn, and its elm-trees.
To reach Montreal, the steamer has to breast
for the last mile the powerful Rapid of St. Mary,
such as only a strong wind can enable a sailing
vessel to surmount. It is occasioned by shallows
and the small island of St. Helen's, a locality of
much military importance, and occupied by forti
fications and store-houses, at present half hid in
woods.* In due season the steamer discharged her
varied burthen, and we separated, each on his
own business.
It was my duty to pass through Montreal as
rapidly as possible, but as I had to receive from
the military depot some additional medicines, I
went thither, leaving my portmanteau within the
doorway of Pomeroy's Hotel. I had scarcely left
the house, when a stage-coach for Albany in the
* A whale was killed near Montreal in Sept. 1823, 220 miles
above salt water. -Seals are not very uncommon there.

EXCURSION TO HAWKSBURY. 65
State of New York, 300 miles off, drove up to the
door. Seeing my portmanteau close by, directed
" Albany Barracks," an old English direction
unerased, the driver placed it upon the coach and
drove off, leaving me with such clothes as I stood
in, and nearly moneyless, in a strange place. I
received my property again someweeks afterwards ;
meanwhile I borrowed a very scanty outfit from a
brother-officer.* One of the calashes of the country soon trans
ported me to La Chine, a village nine miles from
Montreal, at the foot of Lake St. Louis; a splendid
body of still water, with fine islands here and
there, and elevated lands in the north. It is, of
course, a part of the St. Lawrence.
I then embarked in a large heavy boat manned
by three Canadians, and successively passed vil
lage after village to the pretty ruins of the French
fort, Chateau-brillant, in the midst of charming
lake and hill scenery.
We had left Lake St. Louis behind us. In
our front was the broad and tumultuous meeting
* This gentleman I had seen labouring under severe spitting of
blood in the Isle of Wight. For this he was ordered to the West
Indies ; but in the confusion of a dark night and of a crowd of
transports he got on board of a ship for Canada by mistake, and
thus, I am convinced, saved his life. His is not the only case
¦of hsemoptysis in which I have known the dry Canadian climate
beneficial. VOL. I. F

66 EXCURSION TO HAWKSBURY.
of the two giant streams, the St. Lawrence and
the Ottawa — waters of equal magnitude, but not
mixing for many miles downwards, as we see
from the chocolate colour of the latter. In our
rear were the fine wooded heights of " The Two
Mountains," with a pilgrim's oratory at mid-
height.* We now sped up the succeeding tranquil por
tion of the Ottawa, and arrived late at Point
Fortune. We only landed once, a couple of
miles below the Point, to rest, and look at a
party of two hundred Irish emigrants, staying
for the night in a wood, under a few loose boards
and bushes, pushed carelessly together.
They consisted of the very aged, those in
middle life, and the babe at the breast. Their
faces wore an anxious but resigned look. The
country was strange to them. Good-natured
friends had painted freely the privations of the
coming winter in their allotment, seventy-eight
miles above Point Fortune. Some oatmeal and
potatoes, with a limited stock of clothes (like
my own), was all they possessed. I did not
despise, but encouraged them, as I sat by the
women washing their clouts in the stream. I
remembered that a little man's all is great in
the sight of God.
• All given with great truth and spirit by Mr. Bartlett.

EXCURSION TO HAWKSBURY. 67
Although extremely poor, and, to their honour,
laden with their grandsires, I afterwards heard
that they prospered, and are now comfortable.
Point Fortune is a cluster of houses, inns, and
stores, on the west bank of the Ottawa, at the
foot of the Long Sault Rapid, which is nine miles
long, very violent, full of narrow passes, rocky
bars, and tall fir-clad islets, delightful to the
painter. Their whole descent is fifty-six feet —
commencing at Hamilton Mills, the place of my
destination. I found an uneasy bed and a suffocating room
at the principal tavern — boarded off from a club-
room, full of tobacco-smoke, whisky-fumes, and
a crowd of the chief inhabitants of the west
bank of the river. They had met to assess them
selves for the formation of a road along the river
side, in opposition to one on the east bank. I
heard and suffered all during the tedious orgies
of a hot night. It was a fine exhibition of
drunken shrewdness. Personal dislikes and ill-
will gave way after a few skirmishes. They
resolved that, without the road, their lands would
be worthless — that trade and transport would fix
on the opposite bank — and that they would be
ruined. The matter was plentifully spoken, and I be
lieve it was afterwards well done ; for they soon

68 HAMILTON MILLS.
had a road — a good road ; and not such an one
as the next morning I passed over, mostly through
woods, in a cart — first descending at a leap
ledges a yard high, then wading in a slough
up to the horse's belly, and often foot-fast in a
net-work of tree-roots far below.
Hamilton Mills is a large establishment for
sawing up the timber which the lumberer rafts
down from the higher parts of the Ottawa; —
the adjacent rapids furnishing the motive power.
I was afterwards astonished at the quantity of
logs I saw floating in a back water — at the easy
manner in which each was presented and held to
the saw — and the number and vast force of the
saws. The immediate vicinity of the mills was all
but in a state of nature. The mill, that is,
the building containing the saws, was merely a
large oblong wooden shed : — the proprietor's
dwelling-house (barely comfortable) was sur
rounded by offices, forges, workmen's dwellings,
and stables. A kitchen-garden there certainly
was, with little patches of wheat here and there ;
but the eye saw little else than the charred
stumps of trees, clumps of young beech and
alder on a rugged surface, covered with rocks,
stones, and sand, and hemmed in by the
virgin forest. Around the mills for half a mile

HAMILTON MILLS. 69
the accumulation of foreign loose rocks is so
enormous and so various that almost every
known rock formation has its representative.
Many of the blocks of granite are from twenty to
thirty feet long. They have been left here by an
ancient still-water at the point of obstruction,
created by a sudden narrowing of the river, when
at a higher level.
I felt not a little awkward in presenting myself
to Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton of the mills, at whose
house, as the principal person in the settlement,
it was arranged that I should reside — not only
from the extreme slenderness of my personal
effects, but for want of my introductory letter
and public credentials, then somewhere on the
banks of the river Hudson.
I explained my situation in a few words,
shewed my stock of galenicals, and observed that
few evil and designing persons would travel as I
had done, sixty miles into a wilderness to catch
the typhus fever gratuitously. They had been
surprised, but were easily satisfied.
I passed a pleasant and busy month at their
hospitable dwelling, and hope never to forget
their united kindness.
A very few years after this visit, their four
children requiring education, Mr. and Mrs.

70 HAWKSBURY.
Hamilton embarked in a stout boat for Montreal,
as is done every day.
While descending the Long Sault Rapids,
which are close to the mills, the boat upset, and
every soul perished, boatmen included, except
the father and one child. He lived only a year
or two after, a broken man.
The Hawksbury settlement, now called Hawks
bury West, is an oblong block of heavily-timbered
land, of variable fertility. Its exact dimensions
I do not know. There are many swamps and
sand-hills ; but in places I noticed many excellent
crops of wheat growing among the tree-stumps.
It now contains about two thousand inhabitants,
and on the whole is healthy.
Mr. Hamilton furnished me with a horse, and
was so good as to accompany me to my scattered
patients on the first day : otherwise most cer
tainly I should not have found my way, along
primitive bye-paths, over crazy bridges, through
morasses and woods, whose pines were of a
size and height I never saw equalled else
where. As very often happens, the fever had nearly
spent itself before the greatly-needed aid arrived.
During my stay the sick became rapidly conva
lescent, and no new cases occurred ; but it was

HAWKSBURY. 71
thought best to detain me a week or two longer
than absolutely necessary.
My duties lay among a young colony of Irish
planted apart in the woods, and were pleasant,
because the people were truly grateful. I was
much pleased by the universal cheerfulness
(except in the houses of the sick), the friendly
feeling, the great readiness to assist each other
which prevailed. Several times did I meet
hearty, smiling young Irishwomen on horseback,
laden with dainties for distant sick acquaintances.
I had a young single man under my care,
exceedingly reduced, living alone in a one-
roomed hut. He had a fine crop of wheat on a
patch of ground close to his house ; but he was
totally unable to reap it. This his neighbours
did for him ; doubtless expecting that on some
emergency he would do the like for them. I
have the merry scene, only lasting a few hours,
before my eyes now. Such a working party is
called a " Bee," and extends to every in-door or
out-door operation requiring numbers.
Hawksbury is not in the far-off wilds : there
are settlements all around ; too much severed by
bad roads, except where the Ottawa offers easy
transport, and especially to the good market at
Montreal. These emigrants, therefore, were not
beyond human help, like the solitary squatting

72 HAWKSBURY.
families. These people had placed their rude
but warm log-huts either in the form of a
straggling street, or else each on his own land,
according to temper or circumstances.
The advantages of public worship and of schools
were within their reach. The comfort and secu
rity which they either had, or saw that with the
blessing of Providence they should attain, had a
striking effect on the expression of their coun
tenances, which was happy, friendly, open, and
intelligent. I was much pleased with an Irishman's place
who had been three or four years on the spot,
with a large family of sons and daughters — he
himself still in the full force of manhood. He
lived in the social street, his farm of twenty or
thirty acres cleared, being in the bush. He had built
a log-house, thirty-five feet long by twenty, in the
clear. The ground-floor still remained a single
apartment, save that a thick green curtain
screened the female sleeping-place, while the
young men found their lair in the roof by a
ladder. The walls were lined with bags of flour,
Indian corn, pumpkins, onions, mutton or pork
hams, flitches of bacon, and agricultural tools.
The sick daughter on whom I attended sat
often in the fresh air before the door, much inter
ested in the visit of the Government doctor sent

EMIGRATION. 73
from Quebec "to her and her likes." I have
little fear but that by this time the green baize
curtain is replaced by a strong partition of boards
— or rather, I feel pretty sure that the house is
a stable, and the family are occupying a new
one, with sash windows and green shutters.
The good looks of every member of this Irish
family, their activity, the interest they took in
their little world, bespoke satisfaction and rough
plenty. Two or three days before my first visit, one of
the lads, about thirteen years of age, was chopping
fire-wood in the bush, with a much younger boy,
when a large bear came out of the wood and
put a fierce foot on the very log he was working
at. The boy faced the animal with uplifted axe,
and drove him away.
I have very strong convictions on the subject
of emigration from Great Britain and Ireland, and
shall here place nearly all I have to say upon
the subject.
Deriving all I know from personal investigation
on the spot, I desire to be literally " vox clamantis
£ deserto." I declare in all sincerity that one of the most
distressing thoughts of my whole life has been
called forth by seeing millions and millions of
acres of fertile land, in a healthy climate, lying
waste, while my countrymen, in multitudes at

74 EMIGRATION.
home, are left in profound misery, and under the
strongest temptations to crime.
There is a field in Canada alone open to capital
and to labour which it will take a busy century
to occupy, opening new lands and giving addi
tional value to those already in use; while the
systematic developement of the resources of
British North America, so far from being a drain
on the mother-country, will be of immediate and
signal advantage to her.
Not to press forwards emigration is to partake
of the guilt and sin brought on by the crowded
state and the social inequalities of Great Britain.*
* The following painfully instructive statement leads us to be
lieve that misery has been the lot of the bulk of our fellow-coun
trymen from early times. The condition of the poor has sensibly
improved, but not so much as that of the easier classes : —
" By a survey of Sheffield, made Jan. 2, 1615, by twenty-four
of its most sufficient inhabitants, it appeareth that there are in
the town of Sheffield 2207 people, of which there are,
725 who are not able to live without the charity of their neigh
bours. These are all begging poor.
100 householders who relieve others. These (though the best
sort) are but poor artificers : amongst them there is not
one who can keep a team on his own land, and not above
ten who have grounds of their own that will keep a cow.
160 householders not able to relieve others. These are such
(though they beg not) as are not able to abide the storm
of fourteen days' sickness, but would be drawn thereby to
beggary.
1222 children and servants of the said householders, the greater
part of which are such as live of small wages, and are con-
 Btrained to work sore to provide themselves necessaries."
2207 Hunter's Hallamshire, p. 118.

COIONIAL DEPARTMENT. 75
But it must ever be remembered that emigra
tion is only one of many remedies. The mere
removal of surplus population does but little,
happy as the change may be for the individuals.
The gap is filled up almost immediately.
The British people must do their own work,
stirringly and earnestly.
I have little hope in any ministry in the pre
sent inefficient state of the Colonial Office. Until
a costly and bloody revolt takes place, carrying
desolation to the hearths of hundreds, or thou
sands perhaps (as in Ceylon, Canada, Ireland,
South Wales), Government will allow almost any
grievance to pursue its melancholy course. The
wretchedness, which the official eye seeth not, goes
for nothing ; and this, not from any inhumanity
inherent in the man, but from the immense amount
and distracting variety of his labours.
Emigration is too expensive, it is said ; but let
there be a whisper only of war, and millions are
at once squandered on every imaginable engine
of devastation. The arsenals of the Tower, of
Woolwich, and Portsmouth, shake with the pre
parations. All our ministries are alike. The air of office is
soporific. I really think that the higher officers
of the Colonial department may be fairly likened
to certain curious shell-fish in the British seas.

76 COLONIAL DEPARTMENT.
During the first half of their existence (out of
office) they swim freely about, and have eyes,
ears, and feelers, which they use as freely ; but
as soon as their great instinctive want is supplied
— that of finding a berth, a mooring-place, on a
rock or on a fish, these important organs, one by
one, successively drop off, and they perform but
one act — that of feeding. They descend into a
lower rank of animal life, and become what are
called barnacles. So it seems to be in the Colo
nial Office. It appears to be comparatively deaf
and sightless.
I am immeasurably astonished that men of
undoubted conscientiousness and talent, of high
birth and ample fortune, like Earl Grey, will
undertake impossible duties, and thus consent to
injure their fellow-subjects, through unavoidable
oversights, misinformation, and crude views. And
yet, seeing all this, they are the last to call out for
a remedy, when in the sight of all thinking per
sons they are themselves equally sufferers.
The fact is, that through the lapse of time the
Colonial Office requires to be reconstituted. The
whole responsibility of governing forty-three most
dissimilar colonies should not be thrown, as it
truly is, upon one man, whose tenure of office is
but, upon an average, two years.
As Mr. Scott stated in Parliament, in the spring

COLONIAL DEPARTMENT. 77
of 1849, "the duties of the Colonial Secretary
are of the most varied and embarrassing nature.
They are legal, judicial, political, naval, and mi
litary. They are connected with the ordnance,
the church, the state, with convicts, with old and
new colonies, to preserve ancient possessions, and
establish fresh settlements."
Earl Grey, then Lord Howick, in 1845, stated
himself that it was not possible for any man,
be his powers what they may, adequately to
administer the complicated affairs of the British
colonies. The work of the Colonial Office ought to be
immediately distributed into three or more de
partments, separate, or conjoint in the form of a
Board. Let one principal Secretary, with an
adequate staff, preside over (and be responsible
in Parliament for) our North American colonies ;
another for those in the West Indies, Africa, and
South America ; and a third for our Australian
and other dependencies in the South Seas. Our
possessions in the Mediterranean may be other
wise attended to. If we confide to this board, or
to these three secretaries, the superintendence of
emigration, in addition to the ordinary business
of the colonies, there will be plenty to do.
When Sir George Murray was Secretary of the
Colonies, with Mr. Wilmot Horton as one of the

78 EMIGRATION.
Under-secretaries, it was proposed to form a
Colonial Board ; but the project unfortunately fell
through, like many other good things in which
neither party nor personal interests were con
cerned. Diligent and enlightened men to undertake
these important departments abound ; their sala
ries would be repaid to the country a thousand
fold. The work of emigration is eminently govern
ment work, says Mill, the political economist.
It is called upon to remove, or rather re-distribute
supernumeraries (not as a cure, but as a relief),
by its being the great colonial landowner, by its
capital and credit, by its possession of various
public depots (buildings, &c.) both at home and
abroad, and likewise of experienced agents.
It might feel itself urged to assist emigration
by a decent sense of the duty it owes to its dis
tressed constituents, by the facility and certain
success of the task (would there were a working
will!), and by the sure gratitude of a delivered
people. There is no occasion at this time of day to
argue about the advantages of emigration, both*
to the mo ther- country and to the new colonist.
These have long been known to be great, but espe
cially to the latter. Mill and Malthus, common

EMIGRATION. 79
sense and ample experience, all speak the same
language upon this subject.
As long as a man can obtain a fair day's wages
for a fair day's work there is no occasion for him
to leave his birth-place on the score of subsist
ence ; but when he cannot, and has no reasonable
prospect of doing so, like the labourers of Wilts
and Dorset at all times, and like the artisans of
Yorkshire, &c. but too often, it is high time to emi
grate to some more generous land. The labour-
market at home is permanently overstocked.
For myself, if I belonged to either of these
classes — if I found my country profitless and hard
— if I had here to linger a portionless man — if
I were daily growing more wan under privation
— with no other prospect than that of a work
house at last — then I certainly should look around
for a soil less ungrateful — 'for a future more cheer
ing — and towards some corner of the earth where
my spade and axe would yield me a manna less
scanty. There are hundreds of thousands in Bri
tain thus circumstanced, and they know it bitterly.
The true remedy for this state of things lies
deep in the moral nature of man, and will be
mainly found there ; all others are only secondary.
We need the diffusion among our people of such
an industrial and religious training as shall direct
aright their abundant energies, enable them to

80 EMIGRATION.
maintain themselves without excessive anxiety,
create a desire for, and a hope of, the comforts
of life, teach them to appreciate the pleasures of
the mind, to postpone present gratifications for a
greater future good, and finally to bring them
under the easy yoke of Christianity. Then, and
not till then, shall we make much impression on
the accumulated dissatisfaction and sorrow which
prey upon one-half of our fellow-countrymen.
But this is a slow process, and must have the aid
of emigration and other agencies of like tendency.
I shall now, once for all, put together a few
practical observations, as derived from my wan
derings among the settlers ; but it must be re
membered that I am not writing an emigrant's
guide. Emigration by single individuals or solitary
families is often unwise, always full of anxiety,
and not seldom disastrous ;* but the case is altered
if the party go out to friends, or to an already
selected spot, or be skilled in some much needed
handicraft. Emigration should be prosecuted systemati
cally — such should be the rule. People should
* It may be said that the poor emigrant may apply to the
agent at Liverpool, London, Quebec, or elsewhere ; but having
no pleasing recollections of officials, he is shy of approaching
them abroad.

EMIGRATION. 81
leave these shores in such organised bodies, so
selected and so led, from the first step to the last,
that as little as possible should be left to chance.
This is the great desideratum. Having pro
vided a district of country — with due regard
to health, markets, fertility, and a few other
points — thither direct should be taken, in the
month of May, one, two, or three ship-loads of
emigrants, assorted according to age and sex,
as well as to trades and occupations, adapted to
supply the wants of the whole emigrating com
munity. How excellent is the German plan of
emigration — that of the whole village (or its
greater part) going, and taking with them their
clergyman. One or more superintendents (me
dical men,* if possible), with assistants accus
tomed to the colony, should remain on the
settlement for some time to keep the people toge
ther, encourage them, direct their exertions, per
suade them to assist each other in hut-building
and other heavy operations, and even for a
period to work for the common good. Associated
labour in the commencement is of especial im-
* A class of medical men, experienced in the superintendence
of large emigrant parties, and constantly employed, should be
created and encouraged by fair remuneration. The profession con
tains a large number of men of administrative ability, medical
skill, and philanthropic views, who would gladly embrace this
mode of life for twenty years or so.
VOL. I. G

82 EMIGRATION.
portance, and is almost sure to lead to permanent
prosperity. This is the true system. It may be accom
plished in many ways. The working classes may
do it for themselves, but they seldom can procure
trustworthy and prudent agents. The agent of
the operative class is apt to find the handling of
large sums of money too much for his honesty ;
and the whole body is extremely gullible, or they
would not think of settling with the Potters'
Association in Wisconsin, in a Siberian climate,
more than a thousand miles into the iuterior,
when Canada West is nearer, and under every
aspect infinitely preferable.
Associated parishes might in this manner send
out to some prepared locality their Tedundant
hands, under the guidance of a discreet bailiff. In
this case the prospect is not so good, from the in
ferior capacities of the emigrants ; but eventually,
in one way or another, good would be done.
Capitalists who can wait for returns would find
this kind of planned emigration a safe and suffi
ciently lucrative investment. I believe the two
great companies now at work in this manner in
the Canadas are satisfied with their prospects.
There are few communities so prosperous as those
of Guelph, Gait, and some other townships cre
ated under the auspices of the Canada Company.

EMIGRATION. 83
The British Government can do all this with
greatly increased facilities ; but the precise man
ner, although sufficiently obvious, it does not
enter into my plan to develope. I have said
that they are bound to make a speedy com
mencement. Allow me to make a comparison. If I give
the form of an axe-head to a suitable piece of
iron, sharpen the proper edge, and attach to it
a stout handle, I am sure that with my new tool
I can fell a tall oak, and perhaps a thousand.
Now I am just as assured that if a skilled agent
take twenty, or two hundred families, healthy,
industrious, with some workers in wood and
iron among them, and plant them in some select
spot in fertile Canada West, they will in a few
years be a prosperous community, not only above
want for ever, but able to repay the expenses of
migration. The comparative cheapness of sending families
to Canada must give it a permanent preference
over Australia and the Cape.
The English man and woman leave their native
village, hedge-rows, and old familiar faces, with
reluctance. In the midland counties there is not
so strong a temptation to go as in Wiltshire and
Dorsetshire, where the labourers are in extreme
poverty. An influential and active clergyman in

84 EMIGRATION.
Wiltshire confessed to me, that how his poor got
on at all on their wretched wages was to him the
problem of problems, and far more difficult of solu
tion than anything he had met with at Cambridge.
The well-informed and ambitious Scotchman is
quite ready to embark for a colony. Half Ireland
would go at a word ; and they are right. I once
saw four thousand Irish at Lockport, in the state
of New York, making a canal. They were
delvers only, under American inspectors. Such
specimens of bone and muscle ; such activity and
fun ; good eating and hard drinking, alas ! I
never beheld. Some of the money thus earned
would buy a share of the neighbouring forest.
Ten or fifteen years from that time would find
some of these people independent and rich ; the
others still poor, because wasteful.
For their own benefit, and that of others, dis
tressed labouring men should emigrate with their
families, if healthy, hopeful, and willing. Cha
racter must be touched on tenderly. If possible,
they should go out young : it is then that they
possess the ductility required in a new world.
Farmers, tradesmen, and artisans with some
capital, may reasonably expect to do well. Wa^es
are high, considering the price of necessaries. It
is in the upper or western country that these men
are needed, not in the sea-board towns.

SETTLERS. 85
Thirty different artisans, who arrived atGuelph,
in Canada West, in 1833, 1834, and 1835, were
without money, furniture, and nearly without
clothing. Six years afterwards, they would not
take from 200Z. to 500/. each for their property !
Some who had a few pounds would not take
double these sums for their gains, while there are
a few tradesmen who, to judge by their buildings
and farms, must have acquired large capitals.
The prices of British manufactures are moderate
in the Canadas, from the low rate of custom-house
duties, competition, and improved roads ; but the
poorer settler should, as much as possible, make
his articles of consumption at home — spin, weave,
dye, make soap, candles, &c. He can often sing —
" I grow my own lamb,
My own butter and ham j
I shear my own sheep, and I wear it."
Gossip must not be thought necessary to a young
emigrant's happiness. A life of retirement — save
a holiday now and then — self-dependence, and the
pleasurable feeling of advancement, must suffice
for a time. He must beware of new friends. The
highways and byways of America are full of active
and plausible villains. The very woods have some
caves of Adullam. He must beware of early be
coming a politician — for politics are apt to lead

86 THE EMIGRANTS.
into a whisky-shop — and perhaps his opinions are
not worth propagating. Try to be content with
the homely fashions of your neighbours. Depend
upon it there is a fitness in them.
The agricultural inhabitants of the remoter dis
tricts are especially ready to assist one another,
both on great and small occasions. The nature
of their position leads to this, and each, in his
turn, finds his account in it. Their solitariness,
constant occupation, and palpably growing pro
sperity, have produced among the country people
an unsuspecting friendly habit of mind, great
openness with strangers, and, consequently, a
large hospitality ; so that manners and ways,
which in England would be imprudencies, and
even improprieties, cease to be so here.
To shew my meaning by an apparently trivial
circumstance. I was one day refreshing, at a sort
of half inn in the woods, on one of the branches of
the beautiful river Trent, thirty or forty miles north
of Lake Ontario, when the eldest daughter, a fine
girl of sixteen, came and sat by my side on the
bench before the house, which commanded a wide
wilderness view. She readily, and with o-enuine
modesty, told me the whole history of her family,
of her own doings, and those of all her young
acquaintance, ending by singing a song, sweetly
and natu.-a^y.

THE EMIGRANTS. 87
She came from the Black River, in the state of
New York, and had been in Rawdon four years.
All this would have been impossible in England ;
but here it is an ordinary event ; and this partly
because, in this abundant country, hasty marriages
are not fatalities, although probably unwise.
The settler should determine to make his new
abode his resting-place for life, and he will be the
happier. He must think little about England,
except when a countryman asks his hospitality
and his advice.
The emigrant should have solid reasons for
leaving Britain:' — for instance, because he and
his cannot live in comfort, and because in Canada
he can. He must not leave in a fit of ill-temper
or idleness, but to labour for a high remuneration ;
for that is the great and real advantage of emi
gration. His new residence will have its disagreeables in
the odd, but, in the main, suitable ways of the new
people — the vile roads — the distance from mar
kets, shops, church, acquaintance — and, in the
summer, the plague of mosquitoes. But what
are these, in comparison with the ruinous disap
pointments and maddening struggles for existence,
but too frequent in Europe ?
As a rule, but not without exceptions, bulky
articles should not be taken from England (not

88 THE EMIGRANTS.
purchased there, at least), — such as agricultural
implements, furniture, crockery, &c. They can
be had cheap and good on the spot.
The best month to arrive in Canada is May ; a
productive summer is before the stranger.
All the principal towns have energetic public
institutions, for the benefit of the sick and des
titute ; and public works are almost always going
on, which afford regular and good pay.
Any money taken out will turn to most profit
in good bills.
Hitherto, I have been speaking to the working
man : now a few words to the capitalist.
There is not a more advantageous position on
the face of the globe in point of climate, comforts,
society, security, and general prospects, than a
farm near one of the numerous centres of business
in Canada West, for the family (once, perhaps,
sorely pinched in England) of a half-pay officer,
small annuitant, or somewhat reduced gentleman.
Very few of the privileges of the old country are
here sacrificed ; for good society clusters round
these places — such as Hamilton, Toronto, the
Ottawa River, &c. All the members of the family
meet, with their appropriate occupations and plea
sures, out-door and in-door. Good markets are
nigh at hand. London news is only a fortnight
old, and local intelligence spreads rapidly ; while

THE EMIGRANTS. 89
the farm, with or without half-pay, should sup
port all in light-hearted abundance. The half-pay
is chiefly useful in maintaining gentility.
Canada ought to be the paradise of this large
and worthy class ; and is so, comparatively, to
thousands. Such farnis, with their necessary buildings, are
still to be had, at very moderate prices.
A raw country and their population will seldom
suit the great capitalist. The delicate habits in
which he has been educated will be subject to an
endless succession of shocks and jars — intolerable,
unless neutralised by the natural or morbid stimu
lus of a darling project. Here is one great defect
in Wakefield's beautiful scheme of colonising with
capital and labour combined. As a rule, capital
refuses to go where the owner must accompany
it — the scheme halts, and is, in fact, defeated. It
is very unsafe to send out capital to take care of
itself. "I will not go ; for I can find in England
tolerable employment for my capital, and can,
at the same time, enjoy the thousand nameless
agremens and conveniencies of an old country."
As a specimen of the daily small annoyances
that are here met with. A large capitalist invested
in iron mines and forges in Canada West. He
built and furnished a house in the English style.
He had occasion to advertise for tenders to clear

90 THE EMIGRANTS.
some land. A master woodcutter, an off-handed
Yankee, thinking of nothing but timber and dol
lars, came with his offer. He was introduced into
the parlour, bright with its newly-papered walls,
and figured carpet. The American, as he strug
gled for his price, balancing his chair against the
wall, rubbed his wet greasy hair against the
paper, when Mr. Charles Hayes begged him to
keep his head off the wall, which he instantly did ;
but soon afterwards, very unconsciously, rolled
his quid, and spat on the new carpet. Mr. C.
remonstrated, when the woodman waxed warm,
and said, " Neighbour, I see we are not likely to
do business. You are a hard man, and make
bothers. You know I'll do cheap ; and yet we
don't progress." " Yes," said the Englishman,
" we shall progress, if you will step out with me
into the garden ; " where, in fact, terms were
agreed upon in a __few minutes.
Some persons blindly rush beyond the limits of
civilisation, and are surprised to find themselves
neither happy nor useful. Many a town-bred
lady has found herself thus.
For the sake of the female part of his family,
no man should venture into the Canadian woods
unless he can very materially better his condition.
The ladies must milk their own cows, cook
their own mutton, scald and cut up their pork,

SOCIETY. 91
and so forth. But there are hundreds of cleared
farms in the upper province, to be had on
easy terms, where none_of these things need be
done. No purely professional man, excepting, per
haps, the minister of religion, can expect an
income in Canada. Law and physic are over
stocked. The importing merchant treads on slip
pery ground ; but the shopkeeper does better.
For a person in easy circumstances to retire to
Canada might not be unwise ; but for such a per
son to fix himself in the United States, would
argue great ignorance or perversity. In fact, it
is rarely or never done. If an Englishman present
himself as a resident at Philadelphia, or New York,
without an ostensible calling — being neither a
merchant, diplomatist, soldier, nor naturalist, the
people of the place patiently wait until the ugly
secret of his being there explodes, which sooner
or later takes place with great certainty, when he
is cut by everybody worth knowing. The tone of
society in the United States is disagreeably different
from that of England — it is more angular and
obtrusive. This remark extends to Canada West,
but in a much less degree.
Society in the United States is constantly fluc
tuating : all is change and dizzy agitation. Local
attachment scarcely exists. A man will, at a

92 THE EMIGRANTS.
moment's notice, sell the farm on which he was
born, and move westward a thousand miles. His
neighbours justify him.*
I think life is shorter there. Perhaps the uni
versal fever of accumulation tends to premature
decay. As Mr. Sidney says, in one of his able
little books, " The defects of the climate of the
United States are notorious. The thin, sallow,
wrinkled appearance of the men, and still more
of the women, proves the fact at one glance."
" In the Western States," a respectable Ame
rican merchant observed to us the other day, " we
take calomel and quinine by the pound, and ex
pect fever and ague, as your lords do the gout,
annually." A good set of teeth is a rarity in
America past thirty years of age.
A rough animal happiness is diffused all over
North America ; and 1 rejoice to know it. But
grumblers are everywhere — you cannot escape
them ; — some on speculation, others because they
are injudicious, idle, intemperate, or sick.
* The philosopher justifies him thus : — " The American uses
things without allowing himself to be taken captive by them. We
behold everywhere the freewill of man overmastering nature, which
has lost the power of stamping him with a local character, of sepa
rating the nation into distinct peoples. Local country, which had
great sway in the Old World, no longer exists. The great social
country wins all interest, and all affection : it over-matches entirely
geographical country." — Arnolu Guyot, Earth and Man. Lec
tures, p. 301.

THE EMIGRANTS. 93
There is not much of the picturesque near the
usual home of the working emigrant. A clear
ance iti the woods is very offensive to the eye, be
ing a dismal scene of uncouth log-huts, blackened
stumps, leafless scorched trees and awkward
zig-zag fences.
It is in Canada as in every other part of the
globe. A producing country lies low, and is un
attractive : fine scenery is usually sterile. The
Indians, lingering among the whites, are not
picturesque. Cotton Mather, the old Puritan of
Massachussets, quaintly and truly calls them
" doleful creatures, the ruins of man." The place
where they become so is seldom an advisable re
sidence for the emigrant.
I was sorry to observe, in the more retired parts
of Canada, that when the difficulties are sur
mounted, and all is secure and comfortable, the
settler is apt to fall into a dull and moping state.
There is now little to interest ; the farm and the
boys work well by themselves ; neighbours are
distant. There is no stimulus at hand preservative
of the domestic proprieties. All are necessarily
careless of dress in summer ; while in winter a
whole wardrobe of old clothes is called for at
once. In summer, while on travel in an open
boat, I have not seen my coat for a month together.
The females, I am bound to say, bear a wood-

94 A CLEARANCE.
land life far better than the men ; are cheerful,
active, and tidy in their persons. I have been
often very pleased with their healthy, satisfied,
and smart appearance while mounting their Dear
born spring waggon on Sundays to go to church,
driven by a brother.
I have repeatedly witnessed the whole progress
of a new settlement from birth to maturity — from
the first blow of the axe to the erection of churches,
hotels, and mansions of cut stone.
While encamped on a woody island for three
weeks in the River St. Clair (Michigan), I one
evening saw a boat bring to, on the east or
British shore, not far from me, and then a forest.
I paddled over in my canoe to see what the
arrival was.
It was a large boat laden almost to sinking
with a hearty family of five persons (the parents
and three children), with all sorts of lumbering
chests and rude furnishings, a long gun, tools,
axes, hoes, spades, a dog or two, a few poultry,
and a barrel or two of flour and pork. This was
the true pioneer family.
While I loitered about them, not unwelcome,
for a couple of hours, they landed and arranged
their goods, and went to sleep on inattino-, snu°-
under the fragrant shelter of pine branches.
Two days afterwards I found my friends com-

A CLEARANCE. 95
fortably housed in an oblong log- hut well caulked
with clay. For such expeditious building they
must have had help from others.
I shall not ask you to accompany this settler
through his cheerful winter work of felling and
girdling trees, of burning and clearing away the
underwood of his intended farm, and now and
then bringing home a deer or wild turkey.
Many such scenes I have witnessed. I have
returned to the spot two or three years afterwards,
and found the family, if strong-handed, or if they
have had a little capital, in possession of a com
fortable log-house, out-buildings, oxen, a cow, and
pigs and poultry innumerable. From five to thirty
acres have been cleared and planted, while per
haps a hundred more remain, and as yet only
yield pasture and fuel. In from six to ten years,
additional comforts spring up with an enlarged
clearance. The original hut may be a stable, and
a two-storied frame-house may have been built,
shining all over with white paint and bright green
doors and window-shutters.
By this time neighbours have approached, roads
have been struck into the more recent settlements,
and the Englishman, at least, is pleased to find
the human tide flowing towards him, bringing
consumers for his produce and enhanced value to
his land.

96 THE NEW TOWN.
These people are plainly, but warmly clad ;
on Sunday with great propriety, even if thirty
miles from a church ; which seldom need be the
case. All this has been repeatedly accomplished by
an Irish desperado, whose life at home was
divided between the drunken party-fights and
hopeless starvation.
I once spent four days in a town in the state of
New York, with three fine churches, many inns,
a public library, museum, and eight thousand in
habitants, standing upon ground which, five years
before, was a beech forest, unconscious of stir or
sound, save of the adjacent cascades. Some stub
born tree-stumps were still in the back streets
(Rochester). To use the graphic language of
Birkbeck, " If you look at such a place as this
after the lapse of thirty years, or less (Sandusky,
Cleaveland, &c), what a mighty change has been
effected ! The village is a city, and contains
its congregated tens of thousands, its streets,
squares, halls, fanes, hospitals, and all the civic
machinery of an Hanse town. There may be in
the neighbourhood a black stump ; but the raw
desolation is gone : the rich corn-field waves in
the breeze, and fruits and flowers surround the
dwellings. The wild stream is tamed, and la
bours like a servant in the factory ; the woods

SETTLEM ENT. 97
retreat, leaving a few trees for friendly shade ;
and the wolf and bear steal away from a place
which is no longer for them."
By way of conclusion to these little jottings on
a most important subject, I will repeat, that in
Canada the labourer and artisan have two great
advantages, — far better wages and better invest
ments than in England. To the capitalist I may
make the encouraging remark, that the more
you invest prudently the greater your gains.
Your first year or two, however, should be spent
in observation, in learning rather than in acting.
With good sense and industry the ordinary emi
grant may, after a few years, rest assured, with
the blessing of God, of ease and competence. In
stead of want and hopelessness, he will see a
yearly increase in the value of his possessions,
partly from his own exertions, and partly from
the generally increased value of land. His child
ren's prospects are still higher. They may look
forward to opulence. Many of the sons of poor
settlers, Irish or British, are members of the co
lonial legislatures.
I advise for settlement, at the present time,
the vicinity of the River Ottawa, the north and
west shores of Lake Ontario, the shores of Lake
Siincoe, the vast peninsula between the three
Lakes Ontario, Erie, and Huron, and, finally,
VOL. I. H

98 CLIMATE.
the eastern townships of Lower Canada which
border on the states of Vermont and Maine.
I greatly prefer the Canadas, as an emigration-
field, to the United States, and am deeply con
cerned to see so many of my fellow-countrymen
burying themselves in the unhealthy and other
wise undesirable regions of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana,
and Iowa. I wish they would remember, that
even in the wilder parts of Canada life and pro
perty are safe, laws are respected, and religion held
in its due reverence, which is not always the case
in the above-mentioned parts of the United States.
In Canada the climate is healthy, in Upper
Canada particularly so, except in the extreme
south-west. The air is remarkable for its clear
ness, dryness, and exhilarating effects. It is quite
common for an invalid from England to lose his
complaints, gather great strength, and live to a
good old age. The average number of rainy
days at Toronto, for the nine years ending 1845,
was only 87. It was 178 in London. The
temperature of Upper Canada is much milder
than is generally supposed. The vast bodies of
water occupying the valley of the St. Lawrence
must mitigate both the heat and the cold.
The markets are good and near, the population
friendly and comfortable, ready to teach new
comers the best methods of labour.

WALK TO MONTREAL. 99 '*
Land of the first quality is plentiful on mode
rate terms, either wild or cleared. European
goods are much cheaper than in the United
States. Taxation is almost uuknown. Internal
communication is easy and rapid, by canals,
lakes, rivers, and highways. All Christian de
nominations receive public support. There are
more ministers of religion, in proportion, than in
England. The acts of Government are usually,
and their intentions always, truly paternal. The
United Province, de facto, governs itself. News
papers abound, filled with British intelligence.
I could be well content to pass the remainder
of my days within the sound of the Falls of the
Chat, on the Ottawa River.

The fever at the Hawksbury settlement having
been apparently extinct for ten days, I bade an
unwilling adieu to my kind but unfortunate hosts
at Hamilton Mills, on my return to Quebec.
I determined to walk the whole way to Mont
real, sixty miles, and left, not overpressed with
baggage, early in a dewy morning, " just as the
sound of a going was heard in the sycamore
trees." The dense, dripping woods through which my
path for the nine first miles lay, with now and

100 THE INN.
then a bog-hole, soon soaked my smart boots
through and through. My wet stockings so
chafed my feet that I was fain to walk in boots
only. In much pain I made twenty-five miles
that day, through alternate clearances and forest ;
but towards night, when the stars broke forth
above the tree-tops, I wished for a resting-place.
Walking on, however, through the woods until
it was quite dark, and every bush was a bear, I
thought good to get a thick stick instead of the
slender one with which I slung my bundle over
my shoulder. Scarcely had I done so when I
heard the barking of dogs, and a turn in the
dusky path shewed me the glimmer of a cottage
window. The dogs were soon upon me; but my stick
kept them at bay until I got within shouting-
distance, when, at my cries, the large door of the
house opened, and poured out such a rejoicing
flood of light as only an American wood-fire can
produce. It was a humble house of entertainment
(Schneider's), to me most welcome. Excellent
bread, milk, honey, and a little bacon, was all it
could offer, and all I required ; but the genuine
kindness, the foot-bath, the snowy bed-sheets of
that night, are still most pleasantly remembered.
The next morning I went on my way. While

INSANE LADY. 101
creeping round the great bay at the mouth of the
Ottawa (west shore), a miller, out of spontaneous
compassion at my foot-sore state, took me into
his cart for two miles. The same evening I
arrived at La Chine, within nine miles of Mont
real. The next morning, lame and weary, I set forth
as a humble pedestrian for Montreal.
I had been heavily dragging foot after foot for
about five miles, but not without being pleased
with the activity of the motley population of
French, Irish, and Scotch on the road, and with
the richly-verdured heights on the north, in all
the gaudy tints of autumn, when, while skirting
the ancient sea-banks of St. Henry, I saw a
girlish figure creep from under the dry arch of
a bridge which crossed the road, and begin to
dance. She was soon surrounded by a group of child
ren from three or four cottages close by; but
she kept up her dancing, and threw off, first,
her bonnet, then her shawl, and then her un-
der-neckerchief, singing and jumping wildly
about, with her long hair all loose about her
shoulders. Not being very lively at the moment, I was
paying little attention to this scene, although now
very near, when on a sudden the poor woman

102 INSANE LADY.
rushed on me, and flinging her arms wildly
round my neck, and so violently that I could hardly
stand, exclaimed, —
" Doctor, I am Polly White ! Polly ! that
came in the same ship with you ! Save me, Doc
tor : I am dancing to keep these people from
murdering me, as they did my William. I have
given them all my clothes, and they are not satis
fied," &c. &c. in an endless flow of piercing tones
and sobbings, never heard but from maniacal
lips. Looking narrowly, and not a little frightened,
at the flushed, demented face, I saw truly that it
was Mrs. White, a fellow cabin-passenger from
England, the young mother of three children,
and going out to Canada with them to join her
husband, who held some small government em
ploy at Montreal.
Her gentle manners, obliging disposition, and
well-behaved children, had made her quite a
favourite among us.
How or why she was here, and in this poor
plight, and what a weary stranger like me, acci
dentally all but penniless, was to do with her,
was past my comprehension. 1 knew of no
provision for such a calamity as this in Mont
real or in Canada, for I had only been two
hours in the former and two months in the latter.

INSANE LADY. 103
However, I tried to soothe her, and gradually
drew her into the nearest hut.
After listening for some time to her shrill
torrent of incoherence, as she sat and stood by
turns, I tried to put a few questions to her ; but
getting no answer, I sat ruminating what to do.
The door being open, and looking aslant up
the road from Montreal, I saw a stout, elderly
gentleman slowly approaching on a bay mare.
Several neighbours had come in — poor people,
but women, and much distressed for this poor
waif of their own sex ; so, making a sign to them
to take care of Mrs. White, 1 advanced to the
gentleman, and told him what must be called our
case. He proved to be a magistrate, and kindly dis
mounted. After having looked at the poor lady,
he requested the tenant of the cottage (to whom he
was well known) to take care of her for an hour
or two, by which time he would send a district
officer to take her to Montreal.
I afterwards heard, that on her arrival at
Montreal from England she found her husband
dead, and herself and children all but friendless.
This sudden and heavy blow bereft her of reason.
When I met her, she had escaped from some
place of confinement.
As I mournfully left this poor thing, like a

104 EXCURSION TO HAWKSBURY.
crushed flower, I remembered, with Archbishop
Sumner, that this world is initiatory, not final —
that our peace here is not to flow as a river,
and that " every sorrow cuts a string and teaches
us to rise."
In a couple of days I left Montreal for Quebec
per steamer.

EXCURSION THE SECOND.
MONTREAL, THE OTTAWA, &C.
Montreal ; Island, City, and Society — North-west Stores — Peter
Pond — Boat Song — Dancing Pheasants, &c. — North-west Fur
Traders — Lake St. Louis — Ottawa River — Light Canoe — M. de
Rocheblave — Munitions de Bouche — Voyageurs — Indian Village
— Flooded River — Gaelic Maid — American Farm — Hull — Phile
mon Wright — Lakes Chaudiere, Chat — Falls of La Montagne
and Grand Calumet — Riviere Creuse ; Western Branch, Tesonac
— Miss Ermatinger — Lake Nipissing — French River.
In the spring of the year following my mission
to the sick settlers at Hawksbury, the Colonial
Government was pleased to send me through
Upper Canada to make a general report upon
its geology, of which at that time nothing was
known. Since then the province has appointed
an official geologist.
I was very glad of the task, although the pecu
niary aid with which I was to prosecute this
journey of nearly 2000 miles was absurdly small,*
* Twenty-six pounds. I mention this in perfect good humour ;
but travelling in barbarous or semi-barbarous countries is very

106 MONTREAL.
something like Sir Francis Head's outfit for his
vice-royalty. Had it not been for the kindness of the North
west Company of Fur-traders, and my own
limited resources, the objects in view would have
been very imperfectly fulfilled.
This Company very handsomely granted me a
free passage in a light canoe to the Falls of St.
Mary, at the outlet of Lake Superior, by which
means a large and interesting region, rarely visited
by scientific persons, was laid open to cursory
inspection. As I shall, in the sequel, have better opportu
nities of sketching Lake Huron and the other
parts of Upper Canada, I shall limit this excursion
to the Rivers Ottawa and Des Francois, with Lake
Nipissing, premising some remarks on Montreal
and the fur-traders.
I arrived at Montreal early in May to join the
light canoe ; but as it did not set out for a few
days, I wandered about the environs, and partook
of the hospitalities of the town. The picturesque
expensive. On the north-east shore of Lake Erie I paid 31. 10s.
for being taken in a cart sixteen miles in five or six hours. In
1845 a bill was passed by the Canadian House of Assembly to
appropriate 2000J. annually for five years, to make an accurate and
complete geological survey of the Canadas. An experienced and
energetic geologist, Mr. Logan, was appointed for this duty, with
assistants. His services have already proved very valuable.

MONTREAL. 107
and fertile island of Montreal, upon the south
side of which the metropolis of British North
America is situated, is thirty-two miles long by
ten in its greatest breadth, and with a somewhat
triangular shape.
With the exception of Montreal Hill and its
dependent alluvial ridge, the island is tolerably
level, and it is watered by several rivulets.
Montreal Hill is almost wholly of basalt. This
rock has risen obtrusively above the surrounding
layers of limestone, without disturbing their hori
zontally, and has solidified in its present form.
Not only so, but, as is very curious, it sends forth
arms, rays, or dykes, from one to fourteen feet
thick, which run at right angles with the mountain
a mile or more into the plains around. Masses
of shell limestone, and single shells, are seen im
bedded, and unchanged, in the basalt, which is
both of the hornblende and augite species.* I
am not aware of anything similar elsewhere.
Montreal Hill almost immediately overlooks
the city. It is three miles long, and comparatively
narrow ; its height is 650 feet, as measured by
Lieutenant -colonel Robe, lately Governor of
South Australia. It dips, on the east and south-

* Vide " Transactions of the Lyceum of Natural History, New
York."

108 MONTREAL.
east, precipitously from a rounded summit of
scantily wooded rock, and is elsewhere in hum
mocks, or steep declivities, clothed with beech,
maple, and fir. The sides and base are occu
pied by orchards, farms, and gentlemen's seats.
The view from the top is extensive and varied.
To the south it is much the same as from Mr.
M'Gillvray's drawing-room window ; to the north
it exhibits an undulating country, well cultivated
but woody, with glimpses of the St. Lawrence
and the Ottawa ; the whole bounded by high lands
trending north-east. This " Mountain," as it is
here called, is a striking object from its massive
solitariness. Montreal is a stirring and opulent town, with a
population exceeding 50,000, and therefore larger
than Quebec. Its inhabitants have always, as the
Americans say, been on the commercial " stam-
pado." * They are enterprising and active,
pushing their merchandise into the most remote
wildernesses where there is the chance of a
market. Montreal does not wear the heavy, sleepy air
of Quebec. The social, easy-going Canadian, is
suffering from a great invasion of Americans and
* A phrase taken from the stampado of the bison in the plains.
Vast herds meet on certain occasions, and shake the earth for miles
round by their incessant and fierce stamping.

MONTREAL. 109
British, who, it is to be confessed, have possessed
themselves of the bulk of the upper-country
trade ; but the French labouring class is still very
numerous. Its situation and its environs are very beautiful.
Few places have so advanced in all the luxuries
and comforts of high civilisation as Montreal, or
is so well supplied with religious, philanthropic,
and scientific institutions in full activity, including
both a hospital and a college for Protestants,
besides the rich educational establishment of St.
Sulpice for the Roman Catholics.
This town, since I was first there, has been
renovated — nay, newly-built and greatly extended.
Some of the show-shops rival those of London in
their plate-glass windows, and its inns are as
remarkable for their palatial exterior as they are
for their excellent accommodation within. Its
magnificent quays of wrought stone which line
the St. Lawrence are the admiration of strangers.
The main cause of this prosperity is the rapid
peopling of the country westward and southward
for 600 miles and more.
In 1842-43 the population of Upper Canada,
the trading-ground of Montreal, was 401,000 souls;
in 1848 it was nearly 700,000. To this we must
add a large public expenditure, and, doubtless, a

110 MONTREAL.
very extensive illicit trade with the United States
along the frontiers.
It does not enter into my plan to describe the
splendid Roman Catholic cathedral of this city,
the more modest and yet large Episcopal church,
the Nelson monument, and other public buildings.
They have been well represented by Mr. Bartlett
in his " Canadian Scenery."
I humbly confess my error. I found, but did
not expect to find, at Montreal a pleasing tran
script of the best form of London life — even in
the circle beneath the very first class of official
families. But I may be pardoned; for I had
seen in the capital of another great colony con
siderable primitiveness of manners, not to mention
the economical and satisfactory device of the lump
of sugar candy tied to a string and swung from
mouth to mouth at a tea-party in Cape Town, not
very long fallen into disuse (1817).
At an evening party at Mr. R  's the ap
pointments and service were admirable ; the dress,
manners, and conversation of the guests, in excel
lent taste. Most of the persons there, though
country-born, had been educated in England, and
everything savoured of Kensington. There was
much good music. I remember to this day the
touching effect of a slow air on four notes, sung

A DINNER. Ill
by a sweet voice, and supposed to be a hymn sung
before a wayside oratory in Tuscany.
I had the pleasure of dining with the then
great Amphytrion of Montreal at his seat, on a
high terrace under the mountain, looking south
wards, and laid out in pleasure-grounds in the
English style.
The view from the drawing-room windows of
this large and beautiful mansion is extremely fine,
too rich and fair, I foolishly thought, to be out of
my native England.
Close beneath you are scattered elegant country
retreats embowered in plantations, succeeded by a
crowd of orchards of delicious apples, spreading
far to the right and left, and hedging in the
glittering churches, hotels, and house-roofs of
Montreal, whose principal streets run alongside
the St. Lawrence.
To the left of the town nothing particular pre
sents itself; but to the right, or south-west, you
have the pretty village of St. Henry close under
the steep ridge of St. Pierre, and then the railroad
and canal leading to La Chine, passing through
copses and farms, and from time to time betrayed
by a glancing locomotive or the broad sail of a
barge. The wide, tumultuous river, and the island of

112 A DINNER.
St. Helen, come next into view beyond Montreal,
with the opposite shore studded with white dwell
ings, among which the large village of La Prairie
is conspicuous, with its shining church. Directing-
the eye still farther south, it ranges over a level
and populous district of great breadth, till arrested
in one direction by the fine hill of Belceil, and in
another by the still more remote and lofty moun
tains of Vermont and New York.
Mr. M'Gillvray was accustomed to entertain
the successive governors in their progresses, and
was well entitled to such honour, not only from
his princely fortune, but from his popularity,
honesty of purpose, and intimate acquaintance
with the true interests of the colony.
I hope to betray no family secrets in the follow
ing little sketch of the doings at the dinner-party.
My host was then a widower, with two agreeable
and well-educated daughters. The company was
various, and consisted of a judge or two, some
members of the legislative council, and three or
four retired partners of the North-west Company
of Fur-traders. Our dinner and wines were
perfect. The conversation was fluent and sensi
ble, far above my sphere at first, about large
estates, twenty to thirty miles long, and how to
improve them by draining, damming, road-

ANECDOTES. 113
making, and so forth — operations only in the
power of great capitalists who can wait for
returns. For myself, a young man, I listened meekly as
" de profundis;" but at length the talk turned to a
subject more attractive — the Indian fur countries,
on whose frontiers I was about to wander.
I was well placed at table, between one of the
Miss M  's and a singular-looking person of
about fifty. He was plainly dressed, quiet, and
observant. His figure was short and compact,
and his black hair was worn long all round, and
cut square, as if by one stroke of the shears, just
above the eyebrows. His complexion was of the
gardener's ruddy brown, while the expression of
his deeply-furrowed features was friendly and
intelligent, but his cut-short nose gave him an
odd look. His speech betrayed the Welshman,
although he left his native hills when very young.
I might have been spared this description of
Mr. David Thompson by saying he greatly resem
bled Curran the Irish orator.
He was astronomer, first, to the Hudson's Bay
Company, and then to the Boundary Commission.
I afterwards travelled much with him, and have
now only to speak of him with great respect, or,
I ought to say, with admiration.
No living person possesses a tithe of his inform-
VOL. I. I

114 ANECDOTES.
ation respecting the Hudson's Bay countries, which
from 1793 to 1820 he was constantly traversing.
Never mind his Bunyan-like face and cropped
hair ; he has a very powerful mind, and a sin
gular faculty of picture-making. He can create
a wilderness and people it with warring savages,
or climb the Rocky Mountains with you in a
snow-storm, so clearly and palpably, that only
shut your eyes and you hear the crack of the
rifle, or feel the snow-flakes melt on your cheeks
as he talks.
The two other north-westers were elderly, busi
ness-like Scotchmen, strong-featured and resolute.
One of them (of great frame and stature) was lite
rally driven from the Indian territories.* These
* He was a leading partner of the North-west Company of Fur-
traders, stationed near the head waters of the1 Saskatchawine.
Unwittingly he offered what was considered a great insult to the
child of a powerful Indian chief, who was expected home that
night. A people which has its meat chewed beforehand by old
women may have extraordinary notions of honour. Mr. M 
was advised to take fleet horses, as soon as it was dark, and flee
for his life ; and so he did, although one of the bravest of men.
He struck into the rocky wilderness towards the Arctic circle, and
there hid himself for six months, living perhaps upon his horses.
He let his beard grow, and finally crossed the American continent
as a Canadian boatman, in white capote, green tasselled belt, and
ostrich feathers in his hat. When the chief heard his child's story
he pursued with all his tribe, but in wrong directions — towards
Canada, the Rocky Mountains, and into the southern plains.
Mr. M  never returned into the fur countries. A few years
ago he was deputy-lieutenant in a Highland county of Scotland.

ANECDOTES. 115
countries are sometimes called Rupert's Land;
their geography and productions, the romantic
incidents of a fur-trader's life in hunting and
in battle, being then quite pet subjects at
Montreal. The rest of the evening was passed,
to my great content, in listening to the
tales about them by one or other of the com
pany. Mr. Thompson told us that in his.youth he had
served under Sir Alexander Mackenzie, one of
the first to cross the American continent in these
latitudes (now done every week in the year) ; and
he spoke very highly of his endurance, skill, and
bravery. He said that Mr. Roderic M'Kenzie,
then a clerk in the North-west Company, an
industrious, methodical man, wrote the history of
the fur-trade in Mackenzie's volume of travels ;
and that he himself (Mr. T.) furnished the geo
graphical sketch of the north-west territories,
with alterations by Sir Alexander ; some of which
are inaccurate, as, for instance, the introduction
into the map of imaginary hills between the
Beaver and Saskatchawine Rivers.
Mr. Thompson gave some curious historic
anecdotes, shewing how Dr. Franklin obtained
the local information which enabled him to ob
tain so favourable a boundary line between the

116 PETER POND.
Canadas and the United States from Mr. Oswald,
the British commissioner.*
Dr. Franklin was indebted for this to Peter
Pond, a native of Boston, United States, an
observing, enterprising, unprincipled Indian
trader in the regions beyond the great lakes.
This person obtained great influence over his
voyageurs by mingling in their carousals, by his
ability and courage. With the quiet foresight of
a New Englander, he noted down the topography
of the countries he visited, and with the help of
Mr. Cuthbert Grant, then a young clerk in the
trade, made a tolerable map of them. But such
was his violent and rapacious disposition, that he
was taken out of the fur countries for at least one
murder. The sufferer in the first case was a half-
pay German officer named Wadanne, much liked
by the Indians, and therefore in Pond's way. He
was trading with a small outfit from Government
and a permit, as was" then the practice.
At a portage called Isle a, la Crosse, Pond and
a confederate agreed to get rid of him. It was
effected thus. They invited Wadanne to sup
* The natural point of departure from Lake Superior for the
boundary line is the River St. Louis at its upper end. This would
have been advantageous to Great Britain, in securing to her the
Upper Missouri, &c. &c.

PETER POND. 117
with them alone in their tent. Over their cups
the conspirators engaged in a fierce mock quar
rel : both seized their guns. Wadanne tried to
mediate, and was accidentally shot in the scuffle.
His thigh-bone was broken, and he died a few
days after. Mrs. Wadanne was close by ; but
the mischief was done before she could inter
fere. I saw her daughter afterwards at Fort La
Pluie (J. J. B.).* Pond was brought down and
lodged in Montreal gaol, but was acquitted for
want of evidence.
The Montreal merchants furnished him with an
outfit, and he returned to the north-west coun
tries, wintering in Athabasca, near a fort belonging
to a Mr. Ross. Peter pursued his usual roystering,
plundering career. He persuaded his men to rob
Mr. Ross of a load of furs in open day. In the
eourse of the altercation Mr. Ross was shot, really
by accident, from a gun in the hand of a voyageur
named Peche. Pond was blamed, and again
brought to Montreal.
While the lawyers were disputing for some
months whether the Crown had jurisdiction in
the Hudson's Bay territories, Pond broke out of
* It is to be confessed, that until the Hudson's Bay Company
had uncontrolled sway over the Indian countries, rapine, drunken
ness, and murder, greatly prevailed therein., Indians and Europeans
suffered alike. It is not so now.

118 PETER POND.
his wooden gaol, and escaped into the United
States. There Franklin picked him up. It is
understood that Pond was poorly rewarded.
Franklin tried to employ him, but in vain ; he
was untrustworthy and intractable.
Mr. Oswald signed, it is said, the Boundary
Treaty without the necessary information. A few
hours afterwards some Montreal gentlemen ar
rived to supply his deficiencies. During his
interview with them Mr. Oswald shed tears.
A couple of years after this an Indian trader of
Montreal, arriving from England at Boston, acci
dentally heard of Pond being there. Calling at
his lodgings, he found Pond at dinner, with two
or three other people. As soon as Pond saw him,
up he jumped, seized a carving-knife, and swore
he would stab the first man that touched him.
" Oh !" said the trader, " I do not come to arrest
you, but only to have a little fur gossip." " I do
not believe you," cried Peter ; " the sooner you
leave the room the better for you." The gentle
man took the hint. Pond also left the town, and
was next heard of at Philadelphia. He died in
poverty. His son was lately a blacksmith in
Lower Canada.*
* After this was copied from my notes, I found part in Mac
kenzie's " History of the Fur Trade ;" but my information is
derived as above, and is much fuller.

DANCING PHEASANTS. 119
The guests at the wine table now joined the
ladies for coffee, when one of the Miss M'Gill-
vray called to Mr. M  , and insisted upon his
singing a wild voyageur song, " Le premier jour
de Mai," playing the spirited tune on the piano at
the same time with one hand.
Thus commanded, Mr. M  sang it as only
the true voyageur can do, imitating the action of
the paddle, and in their high, resounding, and yet
musical tones. His practised voice enabled him
to give us the various swells and falls of sounds
upon the waters, driven about by the winds, dis
persed and softened in the wide expanses, or
brought close again to the ear by neighbouring
rocks. He finished, as is usual, with the piercing
Indian shriek.*
When this was over, and the lady had obeyed a
call to the piano frankly and well, a gentleman
asked Mr. M'Gillvray what truth there was in the
accounts of the dancing pheasants in the north
west, adding, that although he was at first incre
dulous, he could scarcely remain so after Mr.
Gould's statements respecting the pastimes of the
bower-bird of Australia.
Here our friend Mr. Thompson said he had
repeatedly stumbled upon what might be called a
"pheasant's ball," among the glades on the east-
* The words are in the Appendix.

120 DANCING PHEASANTS.
ern flanks of the Rocky Mountains. In those
grassy countries the almost noiseless tread of the
horses' feet (unshod) sometimes is not noticed by
the busy birds ; but the intruder must not be seen.
" The pheasants choose a beech," said Mr. T.
" for the dance, a tree with boughs, several on
the same level, and only full leafed at their ends.
The feathered spectators group around. Six or
seven pheasants step on the trembling stage, and
begin to stamp, and prance, and twinkle their
little feet like so many Bayaderes, skipping with
' balancez et chassez ' from bough to bough ; or they
sit with curtsey and flutter, arching their glowing
necks, and opening and closing their wings in
concert ; but, in truth, the dance is indescribable,
most singular, and laughable. When it has lasted
ten minutes, a new set of performers step forward,
and the exhibition may last a couple of hours."*
* The following extract confirms in a remarkable manner this
account of the pheasant dance. It is taken from Schomburgh's
" Third Expedition into the Interior of Guiana," recently pub
lished in the "Journal of the Royal Geographical Society" (x. 235).
" Not far," says Sir Robert, "from a high peak, called Arapami,
near the River Kundanama, while traversing some mountains we
saw a number of that most beautiful bird, the cock of the rock or
rock manakin {Rupicola elegans), and I had an opportunity of wit
nessing some of its very singular antics, of which, though I had
heard stories from the Indians, I had hitherto disbelieved them.
"Hearing the twittering noise so peculiar to the rupicola, I
cautiously stole near, with two of my guides, towards a spot
secluded from the path, from four to five feet in diameter, and

ARCTIC ICE-ROAD. 121
I confess to have been at the time greatly
staggered by this story ; but we see it has been
verified, as well as another as incredible, from the
same gentleman. He told us that in the far north
west, near the Arctic circle, the ice forms over
a river, and the water sometimes deserts its bed.
There is a dry channel, with a high arch of rough
ice overhead, tinted white, green, and earth-
coloured, if the banks are lofty. He said he had
travelled for the best part of a mile in such a
tunnel, simply because it was the best road.*
which appeared to have been cleared of every blade of grass, and
smoothed as by human hands.
" There we saw a cock of the rock capering to the apparent
delight of several others ; now spreading its wings, throwing up its
head, or opening its tail like a fan ; now strutting about, and
scratching the ground, all accompanied by a hopping gait until
tired, when it gabbled some kind of note, and another relieved him.
Thus three of them successively took the field, and then with self-
approbation withdrew to rest on one of the low branches near the
scene of action.
' ' We had counted ten cocks and two hens of the party, when
the crackling of some wood on which I had unfortunately placed
my foot alarmed and dispersed this dancing company.' '
My notes from Mr. Thompson were written some years before
I met with Sir R. Schomburgh's narrative.
* " Journal of Royal Geographical Society of London," ix. 119.
Baron Wrangel, while riding to the north of Yakutsk, in latitude
65°, over a large river ; the ice suddenly giving way, he was thrown
forwards and escaped, but his horse went under. He was lamenting
the loss o£ his steed, when the Yakutskis, laughing, told him the
horse was not only safe but dry ; and eventually, when the ice was
broken away, it was discovered that there was no water beneath,

122 NORTH-WEST COMPANY.
It is hardly necessary to say that I passed
a very agreeable evening. Our host was a
large, handsome man, with the pleasant, suc
cessful look of the men of his habits and mode
of life. I hope that what entertained me will
entertain others.
The North-west Company of Fur-traders origin
ated in the year 1783, from the united stimulus of
gain and adventure. It was scarcely possible to
abstain from endeavouring to share in the appa
rently enormous profits of the Hudson's Bay
Company. Furs from the north-west were daily
sold in Montreal, at a profit of from 1000 to 2000
per cent upon the prime cost among the Indians.
It was eagerly believed that the Hudson's Bay
charter did not include the vast extent of
country then and now claimed by that Company,
which, for all the grantors knew, might in truth
have been salt water — a portion of the Pacific
Ocean. A number of young men, chiefly of good Scotch
families, able, daring, and somewhat reckless per
haps, formed themselves into a company in order to
traffic in the forbidden land in spite of the char-
and that the animal was standing upon the perfectly dry bed of the
river. Similar streams, some rather large, others fed only by superficial
springs, are now not unknown to the Hudson's Bay Company ; and
one has been mentioned by Sir John Richardson.

NORTH-WEST COMPANY. 123
ter. They neither wanted the necessary capital
nor the requisite knowledge.
Among these were M'Kenzie, Mactavish, Fro-
bisher, M'Leod, Rocheblave, and others — men
who have become celebrated for their painful
wanderings and perils extreme in search of furs.
Their most prominent member, Mr. M'Kenzie,
was knighted^an honour which seemed to legalise
their proceedings.
They went boldly to work. Close to each
Hudson's Bay Company's fort they planted one
of their own, to undersell and beard the old
people. When disputes arose, as was sure to do,
the partner of the new concern was always
prompt to appeal to the pistol, making it a per
sonal affair. In fact, the quiet, inky-fingered
clerk of the old Company, expecting only his
poor salary, was no match for the fiery youth
who worked on shares.
Not only did the North-west Company dispute
successfully the known hunting-grounds, but they
pushed strong parties far beyond, down the
Fraser, Peace, Thompson, Columbia, and other
rivers, even to tbe Arctic circle and the Russian
dominions in America.
The adventure was successful. Every year
brought with it enlarged operations and acces
sion of capital. The early part of this century

124 NORTH-WEST COMPANY.
found the North-west Company almost irre
sistible in Canada — an extensive purchaser in
her markets, employing thousands of her popu
lation, and enriching all connected with them.
During the last war with the United States
they sent into the field three regiments of hardy
voyageurs, of eight hundred or one thousand
men each ; and this at a time when the British
Government required such countenance and
succour. Every device was used to stimulate their agents
in the Indian countries to unusual exertions. A
scale of ranks and emoluments was introduced,
— occasional furloughs granted to enable the
successful to enjoy themselves. The celebrated
Beaver Club of Montreal was established as a
point of recreation and of union, and where, I
have been told, on certain great occasions the
last plate put on the table before each member
held a cheque for a sum of money.
I noticed that the members of the North-west
Company were often relatives. This arose, I
doubt not, from the enticing descriptions which
were sent into the Scottish Highlands, from time
to time, of the adventurous life of the wilderness,
of hunting and war, of alternate indolence and
desperate toil, and lastly and particularly, of the
acquisition of splendid fortunes.

INDIAN TRADER. 125
A first-rate Indian trader is no ordinary man.
He is a soldier-merchant, and unites the gal
lantry of the one with the shrewdness of the
other. Montreal was then the best place for seeing
this class of persons, as St. Louis at the mouth of
the Missouri is at present. What sailors are at
seaports they are at these places. They spend
fast, play all the freaks, pranks, and street-
fooleries, and originate all the current whimsi
calities : but this is their brief holiday : when
they turn their faces westward, up stream, their
manners change.
The Indian trader is a bold, square-chested,
gaunt man, sun-burnt, with extraordinary long
hair as a defence against mosquitoes. He is
equally at home on horseback or in the canoe —
indefatigable when needful, careless of heat and
cold, and brave as steel, as though he bore a
charmed life, in countries where the Queen's
writ scarcely runs, where the law only of per
sonal authority takes effect. Often he has not
only to contend with the Indians, and to right
himself on the spot with other traders, but he
has to fight his own men hand to hand. Kind
ness, vigour, and sagacity, usually render but one
such affair necessary.
It had become evident in 1816, and before,

126 DEPARTURE.
that the competition of the two companies was
injurious to all concerned, that their strife was
devastating the fur countries, and that their
mutual attacks (on one occasion sixteen Scotch
men and Englishmen were massacred) would be
tolerated no longer. They cannot have desired
the continuation of such a state of things. An
amalgamation therefore took place in 1821 ; and
all has been peace since that period, greatly to
the benefit of all parties, and most so to the
Indians; — although it is true that these last are
only the hunting-slaves of a company of whites
in Leadenhall Street.
At length the day of departure, the 20th of
May, arrived. Together with a pleasant young
clerk of the North-west Company I left Montreal
in a long-eared calash,* drawn by two stout
black horses, for the mouth of the river Ottawa,
at the upper end of the island of Montreal — there
to embark in the light canoe.
The main business of the canoe in which I was
granted a seat was to convey Mr. Rocheblave, a
* It is like an English gig, but much stouter, the horse farther
from the body of the carriage ; and this allows of room for the
driver, whose seat rests on the footboard. Instead of doors, like
our phaeton, it has high sides, for warmth and other reasons.
The driver's seat andthe board which supports it fall by means of
hinges when the passengers get in, and the board and seat are
then hooked np again to their place when the driver mounts.

CALASH JOURNEY. 127
partner in the North-west Company, and his
clerk, to Fort William, in Lake Superior; and
M. Tabeau, a Roman Catholic priest, and my
self, to the Straits of St. Mary, the outlet of
the above lake, and my furthest point on this
occasion. We were soon at La Chine, and were trotting
along the good road which skirts the shores of
Lake St. Louis, when, to my great gratification,
we had not gone far before we found the shore
lined with flat-bottomed boats filled with six
companies of the 68th Light Infantry, on their
way to Kingston in Canada West.
Most of the officers were walking leisurely on
the road, some of the juniors, however, standing
erect on the stern-thwarts, pole in hand, making-
respectable proof of their river-craft.
The officers' wives were in boats with awnings
— sitting cool and happy, while the soldiers,
their baggage and womankind, crowded the other
barges. Inexperience in a strong opposing current is as
bad as in taking a cross-country ride. So our
friends found it, — especially in rounding a point,
when too often, in spite of clamorous warnings
innumerable, the boat's head would be caught by
the stream ; and away she would dart Quebec-

128 ROMAN CATHOLIC PROCESSION.
wards, to the great amusement of all but the
principals concerned.
Passing along an endless string of white cot
tages, with dome-shaped ovens, and primitive
wells by their sides, we arrived at the pretty
village of St. Clair, when another spectacle
awaited us. For some miles previously we had
noticed that all the houses were shut up. This
was now explained.
A sudden turn in the road shewed us on a long
low point, advancing into the lake, with a grove
and a church at the end, drawn up before a large
wooden cross, a large procession in honour of
Ascension Thursday. Foremost stood a body of
stoled priests, with their acolytes dressed in
white, with blue sashes, and behind them a pro
longed file, four deep, of neatly-dressed females,
having among them a tall red banner; while
their male friends stood behind in less orderly
array, and looking wistfully at sky and water, as
if their minds were elsewhere — perhaps in the
young wheat-fields. I was surprised to find
among these good men the same rustic style of
dress as in Normandy — the same short- waisted
blue coat and brass buttons, the immense flapping
shirt collars, and the same high and heavy
broad-brimmed hat.

THE CHATEAU-BRILLANT. 129
The scene was beautiful, and called out many
thoughts, both as a Christian and a lover of the
picturesque. It would have just suited Peter de
Wint — full of quiet heavy masses of foliage,
black in the outstretching shadows of a declining
sun, but cheered by the pilgrim group, their
banner, the church, and the wide waters spark
ling from afar.
We jogged on nine more miles, past St. Anne's,
celebrated by the poet, to Chateau-brillant, a
small fort, venerable in ruins, overlooking from a
mound the Narrows at the mouth of the Ottawa.
It is overgrown with ivy and young trees, and
was once meant to overawe the neighbouring
Indians. The only quickset-hedge I ever saw in Canada
occurs on the little farm close to this ruin.
Our voyageurs were to have awaited us at
Chateau-brillant ; but, save for our own shouts, all
was still among its shadows. Returning a couple
of miles, we found them at Forbes' Tavern ; and
they said, forsooth, that as good Catholics they
could not but stay to assist in the holy procession
at St. Clair.
I was now introduced to our leader, M. Roche
blave, a senior partner of the North-west Com
pany, a tall dark Frenchman, with a stoop, born
at New Orleans. I found him well informed,
VOL. I. K

130 RIVER OTTAWA.
obliging, and companionable. He would have
been more so during the first few days of our
voyage, but he had been only very recently
married. Let me not forget M. Tabeau, the cure of
Boucherville, a stout, rosy, happy-looking priest
of middle age, of unaffected and even polished
manners, fond of music, and reasonably so of good
living. He was (and I hope still lives) a good
man, and had nothing of the livid complexion
and gloomy pugnacity of many of the Roman
Catholic clergy in England.
I have already mentioned Mr. Robinson, the
clerk. At once I felt that I was fortunate in my
companions, and took my seat in the canoe at
Forbes' Tavern, not a little excited by my new
position, and by the romance (to me at least) of
ascending almost to the source of the lovely and
beautiful Ottawa.
It may be well here to premise that the Ottawa
is throughout, and in many points of view, an
interesting river. It is always very broad —
from half a mile to two miles — and five hundred
or more miles long; for Lake Tematscaming is
not its source, but only an expansion. It is not
so much a river in the English sense of the
word, as a chain of lakes, or long sheets of quiet
water, twenty, thirty, and sixty miles in length

THE LIGHT CANOE. 131
each, connected by narrows and rapids, by which
the river forces its way through high and rocky
lands in a series of cascades and foaming cur
rents. The countries adjacent will soon be the seat of
a thriving population, for they seem for the most
part fertile — fit for either pasturage or arable.
Clearances on the Ottawa are now found two
hundred miles above Montreal, and they are
multiplying. Mr. Sheriff reports that the region
between Lake Nipissing and the upper part of
the Ottawa is a well-timbered high table-land,
inviting the labours of the poor but diligent
settler. The Ottawa has long been the chief
resort of the lumberer, who supplies England
with great quantities of pine. Nowhere have I
seen such lofty and large firs as on the Ottawa.
Our canoe was thirty-six feet long, sharp at
each end, six feet wide in the middle, and made
of birch bark, in sheets sewn together with vege
table fibre, and the seams gummed up close.
The sides are strengthened and steadied by four
or six cross-bars lashed to the rim of the canoe,
and the inside is protected by slender ribs of a
light wood, but the bottom only by a few loose
poles. It is called a light canoe, or " canot
lache," because intended to go swiftly, and to
carry only provisions and personal baggage. Its

132 THE VOYAGEURS.
usual complement is nineteen — that is, fifteen
paddlemen and four gentlemen passengers ; the
latter sitting each on his rolled-up bed in the
middle compartment.
The North-west Company provided munitions
de bouche on the most liberal scale — port, ma
deira, shrub, brandy, rum, sausages, eggs, a huge
pie of veal and pheasants, cold roast beef, salt
beef, hams, tongues, loaves, tea, sugar, and, to
crown all, some exquisite beaver tail. The men
were provided well in a plainer way, and had
their glass of rum in cold and rainy weather.
I was disappointed and not a little surprised
at the appearance of the voyageurs. On Sun
days, as they stand round the door of the village
churches, they are proud dressy fellows in their
parti-coloured sashes and ostrich-feathers ; but
here they were a motley set to the eye : but the
truth was that all of them were picked men, with
extra wages as serving in a light canoe.
Some were well made, but all looked weak in
the legs, and were of light weight. A Falstaff
would have put his foot through the canoe to the
" yellow sands" beneath. The collection of faces
among them chanced to be extraordinary, as
they squatted, paddle in hand, in two rows, each
on his slender bag of necessaries. By the bye, all
their finery (and they love it) was left at home.

THE VOYAGEURS. 133
One man's face, with a large Jewish nose, seemed
to have been squeezed in a vice, or to have passed
through a flattening machine. It was like a
cheese-cutter — all edge. Another had one nostril
bitten off. He proved the buffoon of the party.
He had the extraordinary faculty of untying the
strings of his face, as it were, at pleasure, when
his features fell into confusion — into a crazed
chaos almost frightful ; his eye, too, lost its usual
significance : but no man's countenance (barring
the bite) was fuller of fun and fancies than his,
when he liked. A third man had his features
wrenched to thr -;ght — exceedingly little, it is
true ; but the effect was remarkable. He had
been slapped on the face by a grisly bear.
Another was a short, paunchy old man, with vast
features, but no forehead — the last man I should
have selected ; but he was a hard-working crea
ture, usually called " Passe-partout," because he
had been everywhere, and was famous for the
weight of fish he could devour at a meal. He
knew the flavour of the fish of each great lake,
just as the man who had been ordered by Boer-
haave to live on broth made of grass came to
know the field from whence it was taken.
Except the younger men, their faces were short,
thin, quick in their expression, and mapped out
in furrows, like those of the sunday-less Parisians.

134 INVOCATION.
Nothing could exceed their respectful and oblig
ing behaviour. The same must be said of all of
this class with whom I had anything to do.
Their occupation is now gone — gone for them
the hot chase of the buffalo, the fishing-spear,
and echoing cliffs of Lake Huron. I look upon
them with the same mysterious awe and regret
as I should do on the last Dodo or Dinornis, the
ultimate vestiges of a lost race. Our worthy
priest, M. Tabeau, while on shore, shook every
voyageur by the hand kindly, and had a pleasant
word for each. We then embarked at thirty
minutes past three p. m.
As soon as we were well settled down in our
places, and the canoe began to feel the paddles,
Mr. Tabeau, by way of asking a blessing on the
voyage, pulled off his hat, and sounded forth a
Latin invocation to the Deity, and to a long train
of male and female saints, in a loud and full voice,
while all the men, at the end of each versicle,
made response, " Qu'il me benisse."
This done, he called for a song; and many
were gleefully carolled — each verse in solo, and
then repeated in chorus, north-west fashion. Of
such use is singing, in enabling the men to work
eighteen and nineteen hours a-day (at a pinch),
through forests and across great bays, that a good
singer has additional pay. The songs are sung

NIPISSING VILLAGE. 135
with might and main, at the top of the voice,
timed to the paddle, which makes about fifty
strokes in a minute. While nearing habitations,
crossing sheets of water, and during rain, the song
is loud and long. The airs I suppose to be an
cient French. They are often very beautiful.
Now and then the words are evidently Cana
dian, like the one which commemorates the
death of a voyageur at the Falls of La Montagne
(where we shall soon be), or that in which
the lover entreats the lady to fly with him and
hide among the wild and verdant isles of the
Ottawa. The current, as we ascended the Ottawa (open,
or spotted with islets, by turns), from Forbes' Ta
vern, was strong against us ; but in an hour and
a half we arrived at the pretty Indian village of
the Lake of the Two Mountains, which straggles
over and about a sort of green, with mounts of sand
behind, overhung with woody hills. The Nipis
sing, or Witch Indians, inhabit the left half of the
village, in neat, painted houses (so they looked
at a distance) ; but the other half, belonging to
the Iroquois, seemed desolate and neglected. I
suppose they were still at their winter hunting-
grounds. As we skirted close past the church,
which is near the water-side and in the centre of
the village, we saw sitting on a gravestone, under

136 NIPISSING VILLAGE.
a lofty elm, the old priest Humbert,* with his
large serious features, in cassock and sombrero.
Singular to say, Mr. Bartlett, in his " Canadian
Scenery," has given us the self-same picture, taken
some years after my visit.
At the further end of the village we delivered
a bag of silver money to a trader of the place.
There gathered near us a group of dark, hand
some, gipsy-like men, wrapped in blankets with
scarlet borders ; filthy, ugly women ; and frolic
some children, all peaceable, and pleased fo gaze
upon us. The strange, uncouth spot, the bandit
faces and dresses, made me think I was at the
world's end.
Half a mile above this village, we encamped
for the night in a wood of tall beeches and elms.
The gentlemen occupied one small square tent
of thin canvass, pitched by their own hands, as the
custom is. We soon had a roaring fire, took
tea, and lay down to sleep,
" Lulled by the sound of far-off torrents,
Charming the still night."
My bed, a blanket folded four times, was near
the entrance of the tent. As I lay, I could see
the gleam of the rippling waters hard by ; and
* His brother, General Humbert, commanded the French in
their invasion of Ireland, in 1798.

LAKE OF THE TWO MOUNTAINS. 137
the stars of a lovely summer's night were among
the tree-tops. The voyageurs were asleep in their
blankets around the fire ; one alone was up and
about, on watch, and cooking their next day's
soup. Baggage lay strewn in all directions.
We heard at a little after two in the morning,
while yet dark, the loud and startling shout of
" Alerte !" and in a few minutes we were afloat
on the broad bosom of the river, here called the
Lake of the Two Mountains, twenty miles long,
and reaching to Point Fortune, at the foot of the
Long Sault Rapids, of which we spoke in our last
Excursion. We breakfasted some distance higher than
Point Fortune. While thus comfortably engaged,
some men in great haste came and inquired if we
had seen some timber rafts driving down the
stream. Truly had we — in the boiling rapids,
both above and below us, dashing along at a pro
digious rate, and sure to be broken to pieces on
the rocks. They had escaped from their fasten
ings, while the men were at a tavern three miles
higher up.
Our canoe now crossed to the east side of the
river and landed her gentlemen, in order the
better " to force" the rapids, which are long and
strong, and particularly violent at a bend where
six Iroquois had been drowned a few days before,

138 HIGHLAND GIRL.
by the breaking of their tow-rope. The river
being this season eight feet above its usual level,
the rapids were unusually vehement, and, in
places, the woods around were flooded.
We walked the nine miles to the head of the
Long Sault Rapids, through swamps and woods.
To avoid wading, Mr. Robinson and myself struck
deep into the forest, lost ourselves, and wandered
about uneasily, until we came upon a decent log-
house in a small clearance (township of Grenville).
After some rapping, the door was opened by a
very handsome tall young woman, with auburn
hair, tidily dressed. I inquired our way. She
shook her head without a smile. In great sur
prise — for she looked British all over — I addressed
her in French ; but I only got another shake of
the head, when her brother appeared, and told
us that they were Highlanders, and that bis sister
could only speak Gaelic. He put us in the right
way for the head of the rapids. These people
were dissatisfied, and longed for the hills of Blair
Athol — almost the only instance I ever met with.
We regained the river Ottawa opposite the
Hamilton Mills, and found our friends at Major
M'Millan's, a considerable landowner, waiting
for the canoe.* One of the Major's children had
* A summer or two after this I spent a fortnight at a charming
encampment, a few hundred yards below Major M'Millan's, of two

THE STAFF CORPS. 139
swallowed a halfpenny : I sent down after it some
rhubarb and dry bread, but I could not wait the
effect. We soon afterwards embarked, and made
a quick and merry dinner on the grass, half a
mile above the Major's, and paddled up the splen
did sheet of water, sixty miles long, which leads
to the falls of the Rideau and Chaudiere, to the
village of Hull, and now to the far more impor
tant place, Bytown.
Since I made this canoe voyage, the country
has been much settled, and one or two steamboats
companies of the Staff Corps, then constructing the Grenville Canal,
to avoid the Long Sault Rapids. I passed the day in geologising,
and the evening in listening to the guitars of two accomplished sis
ters, Sicilians, who had married officers of this corps.
I was the happy guest of Col. Robe, then a studious and zealous
lieutenant in this useful regiment. I wish I had time to describe
the primitive kraal-like huts of the officers, and other droll make
shifts of the wilderness.
Col. Robe was so enthusiastic a geologist, that in mid-winter he
went from Montreal to Lanark on the Ottawa (100 to 120 miles),
on my information, to secure some bones found there in a hmestone
cave in the woods. But they proved to belong to an unfortunate
deer who had slipped in by accident ; and we lost a Canadian gay-
lenreuth. The Staff Corps was here, I think, two summers. One day
Major Rochfort Scott (author of " Travels in Candia and Spain"),
then a gallant young sub, made a dash into the melancholy woods,
which began at the back of his tent and extended to the Arctic
circle. Taking with him a soldier, he went almost due north for
eighty miles, across rivers, morasses, woods, rocks, and hills, and
skirting the lakes. He was many days out, and returned when his
provisions failed. He found a large deposit of plumbago.

140 LA PETITE NATION.
navigate this lake, as we may call it, daily ; but
at the time I. am speaking of, it was chiefly in a
state of nature. The gentle acclivities on all sides
were covered with forests of hard wood — thus
indicating a fertile soil ; but the signs of man
were rare. They were, a little pirogue, with a
man and a girl in it, creeping close in shore ; or
the hut of a family arrived last autumn. A punt
stands before the door, a plank is pushed a little
way into the river, and there fastened, to draw
water from ; and perhaps you may see a thin,
scantily-clad female, dipping a vessel into the
stream. Pig, ox, or cow, they have not yet ac
quired. They subsist on the potatoes, pumpkins,
and maize, which have been planted among the
stumps, with a little salt pork. About twenty-
five miles from Hamilton Mills, at nine p. m., we
arrived at La Petite Nation, a seigniory of eight
hundred and twenty-six settlers in 1842, belong
ing to Mr. Speaker Papineau, the celebrated
agitator. We found his brother there, in a goodly
house, on an island surrounded by a wide-spread
inundation. Here we pitched our tent for the
night, and invited Mr. C. Papineau to sup with
us. He was a dark quick-eyed man, with a small
hooked nose. As he was not ignorant of the
good purveying of a light canoe, our society,
perhaps, was not his only inducement to join us.

AMERICAN SETTLER. 141
The next day we were off by three a.m. (May
22), and in the course of the day passed over
thirty miles of broad waters buried in dense fo
rests. Just before we landed to dine, near the
house of an American farmer, we overtook five
loaded canoes of the North-west Company, with
sixty men. As soon as they were in sight we
began to sing, and when abreast there was a
lively exchange of travellers' wit between the
parties. While we were at dinner our friends
passed us, and sang most sweetly, with a full
chorus of all the crews — distance softening down
any occasional harsh note from a novice.
The American had been at this large clearance
some years. He had cows and horses, and no
small substance. I saw five or six stout fellows
about the premises, and some hearty girls —
" Madges of the milking- pail." The mother
chattered fast to us during our meal, and wished
to buy our broken victuals, although they seemed
in good case. Mr. Rocheblave gave them some.
I was sorry to see an idiot boy, fifteen years
old, going about with literally nothing on him
but a very dirty calico shirt.
The land around had been slowly rising from
our dining-place ; and at six or eight miles from
thence we came to a bend of the river to the right

142 RIDEAU FALL.
(east). This, of course, we followed, and soon
beheld an uncommon landscape.
We were at the lower end of a reach two miles
long. At the western angle of its upper end the
Rideau Fall leaps into the Ottawa in two massy
sheets of water, from a height of sixty feet, and
about a hundred yards apart. They are of un
equal size : the larger perhaps three hundred feet
broad, the smaller one hundred feet — the larger
also being guarded by a high precipice crowned
with pines. An island divides them. The en
virons in almost every direction are covered with
great pines, stripped, blackened with fire, and
pointing, needle-like, far into the sky. The ex
treme distance behind the Falls, and to the north,
visible to us on the river, rose into uplands and
hills, also covered with fired pines.
Such was this scene in 1821, when man had
only begun his changes. Bytown has been built
since near these falls ; gigantic locks and a very
large canal are close to it. A great part of the
traffic between Montreal and the upper country
was expected to pass through these works ; but
this route has been neglected since the St. Law
rence Canal has been finished ; the latter being
the shorter and more economical line of trans
port. The Rideau Canal will be of little use,

KETTLE FALL. 143
except during war. This interesting landscape
now wears another kind of beauty, which has
been exquisitely well transferred to paper by Mr.
Bartlett. Continuing our course up the reach, delighted
with the high and often rocky scenery, a strong
back-water eddy drove us up a narrow pass among
cliffs, bare but for young firs in the clefts. Three
openings now presented themselves ; the most
distant one, to our left, displayed a broad half-
rapid, half-cascade, sweeping down among islets
of pines. The middle passage seemed very narrow,
mural, and conveyed away in a state of creamy
foam the waters of the Kettle Fall (the Chau
diere proper), while the near or right passage, in
which our canoe was dancing, led by a winding
route to a rocky cove, where we landed for the
portage, usually two hundred yards long.
While on these turbulent waters, we were sur
prised to find ourselves amid a complete armada
of large canoes (twenty-two), belonging to the
North-west Company ; and ten or twelve la
bouring in the billows belonging to the Iroquois
of the Village of the Two Mountains, on their
return from the winter hunt, with their families,
furs, dogs, &c. Being very fond of finery, most
of them were gaudily dressed in scarlet coats,
broad silver hatbands, and fringed leggings. The

144 HULL.
greater number were tipsy, especially one, who
rolled rather than walked down a steep footpath,
very drunk, loaded with furs, and nearly threw
me into the river. The clamour, jargonings, and
confusion, rising up on all sides in this mixed and
impetuous multitude, cannot be described.
When we had mounted the landing-place, we
stood on a platform of naked rock. On our right,
on slightly rising ground, and backed by woods,
was the village of Hull — half-a-dozen good houses
and stores, a handsome Episcopal church,* and
many inferior buildings. Before us was the
river, nearly a mile broad, and sweeping through
the forests in strong rapids towards the Falls. One
hundred yards on our left was the Kettle Fall,
with the disappointing look of a mill-dam, and a
fall of thirty feet. A long and severe thunder-
* From the church-tower I looked over the whole region around ;
then to the west and north-west, a waste of waters and woods.
Northwards and eastwards Mr. Wright's farms are close about us,
and then the forests. Mr. Willis (Bartlett's " Canadian Scenery")
says the hills behind Hull are 900 feet high. I doubt this. In
the direction of Bytown there are extensive clearances, from the
great population assembled there for commercial purposes.
Lieut. -col. Robe made a charming sketch from this tower daring
a visit I afterwards made with him to the deposit of iron ore in
this neighbourhood. The sketch I gave to the present excellent
British Consul of New York. This iron deposit is five miles north
of Hull. It was brought into view by the falling down of a part
of the mound on which it occurs. We were guided to it by a blaze
in the woods.

A PORTAGE. 145
storm prevented me from examining it properly.
I saw the forked lightning strike a pine-stump
fifty yards off. So greatly increased was the flood
on the river since the day before, that we were
delayed here three or four hours, and had to make
two portages.
One description of the voyageurs method of
passing a portage will suffice. The whole cargo
is distributed into loads of 951bs. weight each.
No single article is allowed to weigh more. Of
these each voyageur takes one, two, or three at
once to the further end of the portage, if it be not
too long, and at a slow trot, with the knees much
bent, stopping for a few minutes every half hour,
this rest being technically called a pipe. The
load is made to rest upon the head and shoulders
by means of a broad strap, which passes over the
forehead. The canoe is carried most tenderly on
the naked shoulders of six men, and is pushed,
cushioned on beds, up ledges and precipices. The
gentlemen carry their own small articles, and any
others which may come to hand, such as poles,
paddles, or kettle, &c. One of us lost the lid
of our kettle, whereby we suffered more incon
venience than can be readily conceived. The
road is usually as bad as possible, over fallen
trees, slippery rocks and rivulets, through
marshes and dense woods.
VOL. I. l

1 46 MR. PHILEMON WRIGHT.
At seven p. m. we made our final start from
Hull,* and were towed up some temporary rapids
for a couple of hours, so close to the bank as to
be brushed by the foliage, when we encamped for
the night in a little glade.
Here we found waiting for the morn seven
* Mr. Philemon Wright came here in 1806. He is a Loyalist
from the United States, and brought with him capital, talent, and
many hard-working settlers. He is (or was) a plain little man, in
constant motion, teaching and being taught — a true pioneer, em en
thusiast in reclaiming and cultivating wild land. He has personally
brought over from England the finest rams, bulls, oxen, cows, and
horses money could procure. He has three or four extensive farms
in his own hands in the rear on the river Gatineau, and has a rather
numerous and I believe thriving tenantry. He has built the greater
part of Hull. He was so good as to shew me the tree under which
he slept on the night of his arrival. I felt that the tree was memo
rable, in a manner sacred, and that I was in the presence of a con
siderable mind ; not perhaps able to figure in a ball-room, but able
to gather and nourish a happy population. The schoolmaster of
the place was his factotum, a. quiet shrewd person, of like eager
agricultural impulses with Mr. Wright. They passed one winter
at Quebec in a small lodging, probably to obtain some facility or
other from Government. Both master and man lived in a world
of their own — not in the present, but in a great future. Many a
time at midnight have I passed their little window (without a blind)
and saw them with one poor candle, compass and pencil at hand,
poring abstractedly over a MS. map, elbows on table, and their
heads firmly clasped in their palms ; the fire extinct in the stove,
most probably, in that intensely cold climate.
Mr. Wright has an excellent house at Hull, where he and his
large household live plainly and plentifully. There I drank tea
with him. We had also beefsteaks and cold boiled peas : but I
have partaken of things as incongruous in one of the best Quaker
families of Philadelphia.

THE VOYAGEUR TOILET. 147
loaded canoes and eighty voyageurs belonging to
the Hudson's Bay Company. Our leader warned
his men against quarrelling with their neighbours.
It was an uncouth scene. There was a semi
circle of canoes turned over on the grass to sleep
under, with blazing fires near them, surrounded
by sinister-looking, long-haired men, in blanket
coats, and ostrich feathers in their hats, smoking
and cooking, and feeding the fires. I parti
cularly noticed one large square man, squat on
the wet ground, with a bit of looking-glass in his
hand, intently watching his wife, as she carefully
combed out his long jetty hair, undisturbed by a
sharp rain, which the powerful fire did not permit
to penetrate.
May 23d. The weather has changed : it 13
very cold, and will snow.
We set off in the dark at three a.m. I had the
agreeable addition, to the usual comforts of these
expeditions, of stepping nearly knee-deep into
the water (iced in the north), a stone from which
I was stepping into the canoe having unkindly
rolled over. My hat was also soon afterwards
knocked overboard by a paddle, and restored to
me full of water.
Daylight found us on the Chaudiere Lake,
thirty miles long, and varying in breadth from
one to two miles, turning westwards at its upper

148 CHAUDIERE LAKE.
end, and filling with population. The banks,
richly wooded, were often high, and faced with
little beaches of yellow sand. A mile from the
north shore a range of hills presented them
selves. At nine a.m. we breakfasted among the rank
grass of a deserted clearance. It being Sunday,
Mr. Tabeau had the tent set up ; and he dressed
an altar within it with crucifix and candles, little
pictures, and clean linen cloth. With his singing-
boy and bell he performed a religious service, all
the voyageurs kneeling round the tent door with
great seriousness. I was glad to see this. Roman
Catholic light is infinitely better than unbelieving
darkness. One thing struck me at the time -r
that while the common run of Protestants seem
ashamed of the simple but sublime and comfort
able truths found in the Bible only, the various
superstitions are openly and proudly confessed,
beginning with Mariology, and ending with
African Fetishism.
Leaving this, and paddling along on the south
side of the lake, we not long afterwards arrived
within'two miles of the splendid Falls of the Chat.
Saving always the Falls of Niagara, we had be
fore us, in the exaggerated state of the river, the
finest burst of waters I have seen in America.
We were at the apex of a triangular sheet of

CHAUDIERE FALLS. 149
water. Before us, a couple of miles off, was a
base-line half a league long, and for the most part
occupied by a massy, voluminous cataract, forty
and sixty feet high in portions, rushing down
into a lower country through the intervals of piny
islets ; the remainder of this base-line on the east
being a barrier of rocks and trees, with two small
impetuous falls at the very end, forcing a devious
passage through thick foliage.
Mr. Bartlett has not done justice to the main
cataract; but I doubt not the spring-floods added
greatly at this time to the magnificence of the
spectacle. The River Ottawa, like all streams
from the north, is liable to freshets from the rapid
melting of snow.
The billowy tumult of the widened stream con
tinues for some distance below the principal
cataract ; but our skilful steersman conducted us
(dangerous as it appeared) delightfully across it,
his men answering his signals of hand aud eye as
prompt as thought. We soon landed at the por
tage, at the foot of the smaller falls, so well deli
neated by Bartlett.
Here, screened by huge masses of rock and by
coppice, we found an Indian hut filled with men,
squaws, and children, all astonishingly dirty, — and
with such long, filthy finger-nails ! It was a scene
of noise and confusion seldom equalled ; cascades

150 THE INUNDATION.
thundering, voyageurs toiling, children screaming,
ladies (!) begging, and dogs barking.
We soon clambered up the rugged height before
us, the men pushing up the canoe, stage by stage,
supported on our beds.
But now began some very nervous work for
two hours. The river was so swollen and furious,
overleaping its banks into the adjacent woods,
that previous experience was at fault. We placed
the loaded canoe in the water some yards above
one of the two narrow falls, and had pushed off,
when, to our dismay, in spite of every effort, we
found that we were being sucked into the cataract.
I shall never forget the fright, nor the eagerness
with which we soon clutched at some willow
boughs, and were saved. Two Indians had been
drowned that week near the same spot.
We could not venture on the river itself, full of
islets there; its current was above our strength.
We therefore crept with exceeding slowness
through the woods by temporary channels, and
crossing basins when favoured by eddies. Great
was the skill and coolness of our men, ill-favoured
little folk as some of them Avere. In a moment
we shot across one very dangerous pass, all hands
clinging to the trees for safety.
At length we reached something like Stillwater,
to the great content of all ; not excepting our

LAKE CHAT. 151
worthy priest, who had been perpetually catching
at trees, and vociferating, " Hauw ! hauw ! " an
Indian equivalent to our own energetic " Go it !
go it ! "
Reaching an inundated island, composed of fine
white marble, we dined. The men dried them
selves, had their glass of rum, myself one of port,
and all was cheery again. At this place we found
two Hudson's Bay canoes repairing damages.
This is chiefly done by patching with birch bark,
and caulking with gum from a certain kind of fir
found throughout North America, which softens
under heat, hardens in contact with water, and
adheres with great force to birch bark.
The Hudson's Bay people went off first ; but
we soon overtook them, singing as we drew near,
when a race began, which after a short contest we
won, as we were light. M. Rocheblave, waking
up out of an after-dinner dream at the shout of
victory, was not pleased.
We had now entered Lake Chat, sixteen miles
long by one or two broad (Mr. Sheriff), and
coasted its southern shore crowded with trees.
We saw some scanty openings in the woods. Not
long after, the Chief Macnab with some of his
clan established themselves here.
Here and there, especially on the north side of
the lake, small fertile islands are scattered.

152 THE HARDY VOYAGEUR.
My information respecting this lake and that
of the Chaudiere is but scanty.* It rained inces
santly ; our heads were under a large tarpaulin.
To prevent being stifled every now and then, I
peeped out and scanned the neighbourhood. The
youngest man of the crew, a handsome, gallant
fellow, sat behind and next to me. I was sur
prised to find him naked, save a pair of linen
trousers, in the cold rain. I told him I wondered
at his rashness ; but, shaking the wet out of his
long locks, he laughed and said he was warm,
and that he should have his clothes dry to wear
at night. Looking about, I saw others had done
the same.
Towards evening we began to encounter the
rapids of the Richelieu (or " the Cheneaux"), four
miles long. They are caused by the river becom
ing at times narrow, shallow, and full of islands.
At their foot there is a great boom thrown far
into the water, to stop the stray logs of timber
which the lumberers send down marked.
We avoided the greatest violence of these
rapids by creeping close to the sedgy bank, among
fallen pines, overhanging oaks, and beeches.
Sometimes, however, we were obliged to use the
tow-rope. * The map of the St. Lawrence valley attached to this work
gives a fair general idea of the upper parts of the Ottawa River.

FOREST SCENERY. 153
Our course, however, was not always so harass
ing, for sometimes the flood overspread low lands,
and the current moderated. It was very new to
me to float in the twilight of thick woods, among
their gnarled and huge trunks, their foliage
drooping and drenched, with these half-naked
men of shaggy locks, carolling with boundless
gaiety. It is not often that we see in Canada
such large bowls and grotesquely twisted boughs
as- are found here.
I could not but admire the great diversity in
colour and form of the trees of these romantic
spots. There were cedar, oak, birch, and beech,
with pines on the higher grounds ; — the last often
blasted by lightning in single trees, or fired by
Indians in large tracts : more usually, however,
the pine stood erect, flinging its rough limbs deep
into the sombre forest. The birch and trembling
poplar commonly adorned the foot of a precipice,
with pale grey or light green leaves, of a delicacy
of tint contrasting finely with the dark masses
around. The interior of the country seemed to consist
of short hills almost bare, from 400 to 500 feet
high, standing in morasses, meadows, or lakes.
White marble and sienite are the prevailing rocks
for miles.
Five miles above these rude scenes brought us

154 FALLS OF LA MONTAGNE.
to the Falls of La Montagne. A hilly ridge had
followed the course of the river a little way off for
a few miles, but it now (near the Falls) forms the
immediate shore for some distance, and crosses
the river to form the barrier forced by the cata
ract. All this neighbourhood is most picturesque,
and promises peculiar geological interest, but
heavy rain and snow prevented my either sketch
ing or taking notes at the moment.
A curious disposition of strata is seen where the
hill first strikes the river, which would make a
good drawing.
The high, smooth, mural precipice of white
marble, which forms the north-east side of the
river, is traversed vertically by several (or many)
broad black stripes of an hornblende rock (?), and
looks like a vast hanging sheet of striped calico.
As it nears the Falls the precipice becoms a slope
clothed with pines.
The Falls are not more than fifteen feet high, but
the water being pent up by high cliffs, they are
loud and tumultuous.
We reached the foot of the carrying-place by
dashing athwart some dangerous-looking rapids,
and again found ourselves among numerous
friends; — a brigade of loaded canoes being then
engaged in passing over the rough little hill
forming the portage, and 385 paces across.

BOAT-SONG. 155
Although at that moment the rain had changed
into a heavy snow (May 23), and the whole land
scape was fast turning white, there stood watch
ing his men on a jutting rock a handsome young-
Scotchman, evidently fresh from the Highlands,
his face glowing with the animation, novelty, and
wildness of the scene. He was quite a picture,
as he leaned on his fowling-piece, in a strong
shooting-dress and Caledonian " maud," his broad
bonnet hanging jauntily over his left ear.
This is the scene of one of the most beautiful
of the Canadian boat-songs. I have heard it
repeatedly, but did not take it down. It is sup
posed to have been found inscribed on the bark
of a birch-tree a little above the Falls. This is its
argument, as the poets would say. A canoe
laden with furs is -waylaid by hostile Indians, who
are discovered crowding both banks of the river,
at a bend where both falls and portage come in
sight together. In their consternation the voya^
geurs appeal to the mild Mary, the Virgin Mother,
who immediately appears to them in a rainbow
amid the spray of the cataract, and beckons them
onwards — to leap the fall. They obey, rush into
the gulf, and are saved from torture and death.
One unhappy man had just left the canoe : he
saw the whole, but dared not shew himself.

156 GRAND CALUMET.
Sometime afterwards he was found dead at the
foot of the inscription.
The interval of eighteen miles between this port
age and the next, the Grand Calumet, is very
intricate. It is full of islands and rapids, thread
ing an assemblage of hills. All the rock I saw is
white marble, and so is the hilly portage of the
Grand Calumet, one mile and a quarter across.
There is a formidable rapid at the foot of this car
rying place, and one or more booms to catch
stray timber.
The cold rain and snow were so heavy that I
took but little notice of anything from hence to
Fort Coulanges. Hills and ruined precipices
accompanied us for a few miles above the Grand
Calumet, when the country suddenly lowered and
became flat. The river has spread out, the banks
are woody, marshy, or faced with sand-beaches
and slight traces of fossil limestone.
Such without change, for twenty miles or more
up the river, is the neighbourhood of Fort Cou
langes, a small station belonging to the North
west Company, and used as a depot or refuge
in case of accident. The clerks in charge have
cleared to profit about seventy acres of land.
We now forced the Allumettes Rapids, partly
formed by a very large island, now partly culti-

DEEP RIVER. 157
vated, and adorned with a pretty church. They
are the outlet of that portion of the Ottawa which
is called the Lake des Allumettes. These rapids
are distributed into a number of rocky narrows,
one of which we ascended, taking us to a fall over
a low shelf of gneis, where the canoe was carried
a few yards and then pushed up another passage
like a sewer or tunnel.
Lake des Allumettes (sometimes considered
as two) now opens to us, twenty-one miles
long (including the island) by the usual breadth
of one or two miles. The current is just percep
tible. It contains some low islands, and has
flat banks, either sandy or wooded to the water's
edge. The landscape undergoes a sudden and ex
tremely picturesque change as we enter upon the
next portion of the Ottawa, " the Deep River," or
Riviere Creuse, of the French. The stream is at
once narrowed by steep hills, which are either
totally barren or are merely dotted with dark
patches of fir.
A few miles from the lower entrance brings us
to Cape Bapteme, when for a great distance the
Ottawa washes the base of very high brown cliffs
of gneis, either in great solid sheets, or split, torn,
and dismantled, the surfaces often covered with
the edible but indigestible tripe des roches, and

158 DEEP RIVER.
the fissures harbouring solitary pines and nume
rous pendant scarlet flowers, bell-shaped. From
one of these cliffs two contiguous streams leap
boldly in slender jets, which dissolve in spray in
mid-air. Mr. Sheriff (to whom as an old acquaintance
my kind regards) says "that from a hill at the
foot of Deep River, from 500 to 600 feet high,
there is a prospect which I have not seen surpassed.
The portion of the Ottawa within view is perhaps
the most remarkable and beautiful of its whole
course. To the right is the Deep River, extend
ing twenty miles along the base of the heights,
perfectly straight, and yet lined with an uneven
succession of rugged points (headlands). To the
left is the whole of the spacious winding of the
upper Lake des Allumettes, with its numerous
islands ; and a part also of the lower lake is visible
beyond the great island. Several smaller lakes
are seen on both sides of the river, and amonsr
the rest are two, singularly situated half-way up
the hill from which the prospect is obtained. The
land about here, except a rough ridge about the
Ottawa, appears ta be fertile." *
One of our voyageurs was once in the Deep
River, when he and his mates espied a bear
swimming across. As bear's meat is juicy and
* Transact. Lit. Hist. Soe. of Quebec, vol. ii.

LES DEUX JOACHIMS. 159
good, the canoe gave chase and soon came up with
the swimmer. A blow was made at him which
missed, when the bear placed one paw on the
edge of the canoe and fixed the other in the
worsted belt of the man who struck at him. He
was only prevented from swamping the canoe by
a better aimed blow from the axe of a comrade,
when the bear fell away, and was finally killed
with long poles. These people had a narrow
escape. This defile of steep hills and precipices alternat
ing for thirty-six miles is equal to the best part of
the Rhine, apart from its ruins ; a thousand
pounds spent in erecting on a few commanding
points some fragmentary castles would produce a
splendid scene. It ends at the troublesome rapids
of the Les Deux Joachims, when the country
becomes depressed, but is still rocky and uneven.
They are said to .be three-fourths of a mile long,
and are grand, being rather low cascades than
rapids. Nine miles further up, along a steady current,
brings us to the River du Moine, near whose
mouth the father of our priest, Mr. Tabeau, was
drowned. Here the Ottawa drives for two miles
violently down both sides of a steep island loaded
with boulders, and having no vegetation but a
few berries.

160 LE ROCHE CAPITAINE.
The River du Moine enters the Ottawa on its
north-east side, and is of considerable size and
length. One mile above this again we have the rapid
Du Roche Capitaine, where, singular enough, Mr.
Rocheblave lost his father. It is also caused by
an island four miles long. The pass being very
narrow, the water rushes with great vehemence
into a large circular basin below. We had to
leave the canoe and scramble along shore as we
could. The crossing here of a small river on a
slippery chance-fallen tree I did not much like.
In our course up the Ottawa we passed many
rivers, such as the Mississippi, Missisauga, Mada-
waska, River du Nord, without seeing them, as
their mouths are so hid in trees, or otherwise
concealed, that they are commonly undistinguish-
able at the distance of a few hundred yards.
From hence to the western branch of the Ottawa,
often called the Little Ottawa, about twenty-five
miles, there is little obstruction. The north shore
is high and the river wide. The quantity of debris
in square masses is very great everywhere.
At the distance of 330 miles from the St. Law
rence, according to my rough calculations, the
canoe route to the Falls of St. Mary leaves the
main river for the western branch, which takes its
rise north of, and near to, Lake Nipissing.

THE RIVER TESOUAC. 161
Where I reluctantly left the noble Ottawa, it
was seen for a great distance, a mile broad and
shallow, streaming down with great rapidity
through a level woody country.
The entrance into the western branch,* called
the River Tesouac by the Indians, is as broad as
the Thames at Windsor; it creeps sluggishly
through swampy grounds for awhile, but soon
widens, and the vicinity rises into well-wooded
uplands. A few miles, however, brings us to the
narrows, which are even more contracted than at
the mouth ; and the river becomes deep sunk in
mural precipices crested with half-burnt pines.
On the side of a lofty scarped rock, fifteen
miles up the stream, is a triangular cave, called
Hell Gate. It is shallow, and used as a land-mark.
We were nearly lost here. The current at this
spot was extremely swift and rough. Rounding
a little point we were caught by a cross eddy
and flung violently on a pine-tree which had
fallen into and across the river. Providentially
it still had all its leaves on, and so did not thrust
us through and sink us. There would have been
no escape ; landing-place there was none for a
mile or more.
The ravine or chasm in which the river here
* 578 feet above the level of the sea, according to the officers of
the Magnetic Survey. — Geogr. Soe. Journal, vol. xvi. p. 263.
VOL. I . M

162 THE TESOUAC.
runs is so narrow and deep that the sun rises
very high before it shines on the water, and
hardly at all in winter. The gloom, therefore, is
great, reminding one of the mouth of the classical
Avernus ; and it is heightened by the black colour
of the rocks and the restless agitation of the
waters. The woods around, when they are visible,
through a momentary depression of the banks,
are rather peculiar. Large tracts consist of fine
healthy fir ; then comes a district of fired trees,
blackening all within the horizon, mingled with
patches of the lively green of the wild cherry and
young poplar, and here and there a single huge
pine. The current seldom maintains an equable
and moderate rate for a mile together : some
descent or obstruction is continually occurring.
Two beautiful waterfalls are met with about
thirty-five miles from the great Ottawa. One is
at the Portage Paresseux, and resembles that of
La Puce, near Quebec, in escaping from a dark
channel of rocks and woods into a narrow dell.
Its height is forty or fifty feet. The other fall,
that of La Talon,* is remarkable for its naked
ness and the fantastic shapes of the surrounding
gneis rock. Marble appears here again. The
* The Portage Talon, according to the officers of the Magnetic
Survey, is 689 feet above the sea.— Geographical Society Journal,
vol. xvi. p. 263.

AN APPARITION. 163
numerous portages on this sullen river are much
alike, flat, swampy, or woody.
I had a great surprise at the Portage Talon.
Picking my steps carefully as I passed over the
rugged ground, laden with things personal and
culinary, I suddenly stumbled upon a pleasing
young lady, sitting alone under a bush, in a green
riding habit, and white beaver bonnet. Trans
fixed with a sight so out of place in the land of
the eagle and the cataract, I seriously thought it
was a vision of—
" One of those fairy shepherds and shepherdesses
Who hereabouts live on simplicity and watercresses."
But having paid my respects, with some confu
sion (very much amused she seemed), I learnt
from her that she was the daughter of an es
teemed Indian trader, Mr. Ermatinger, on her
way to the falls of St. Mary with her father, and
who was then, with his people, at the other end
of the portage ; and so it turned out. A fortnight
afterwards I partook of the cordialities of her
Indian home, and bear willing witness to the
excellence of her tea and the pleasantness of the
evening. Forty-five miles from the great Ottawa we left
this branch, now rounding towards the north of
Lake Nipissing, to cross three small but interest
ing lakes. These lakes are charming bits of

164 THE VAZ PORTAGES.
scenery, oval in shape, three or four miles long
each, and sprinkled with islets. Bluffs and cliffs
form their lofty and irregular shores, moderately
clothed with that mingling of flourishing and
fallen trees so suited to a landscape so wild.
I shall only say of the intervening carrying
places, that they are rocky and swampy by turns,
especially the last, an abominable marsh, which
we traversed in the dark, knee-deep in mud and
tree-roots. We only found a sleeping-place at
its west end by first laying poles down on some
very tall grass (growing in six or eight inches of
water), and then spreading out over them a large
tarpaulin.* The men did the same, and con
trived a fire-place. These ditches or swamps are
the sources of the Vaz River, which is here ninety
feet broad, and makes a leap of twenty feet into a
lower region. The portages are well named the
Vaz, or Mud Portages.
We embarked on the Vaz River, circulating
slowly among rushes, reeds, cedars, and hem
locks. After a six miles' pull we entered Lake
Nipissing at La Ronde, a post of the North-west
Company,f a decent, ordinary-looking house,
* I only mark our eating or sleeping places when they present
lomething worthy of remark.
f Now removed to an island on the north shore, half-way be
tween the Vaz River and the River des Francois. It is considered
to be eight or ten miles out of the canoe route to St. Mary's from
Montreal.

LAKE NIPISSING. 165
not stockaded, with a potato-ground close to it,
among marshes and gneis mounds.
The old name of this fine lake is Bis-serenis.
Its waves ran high, and the wind was fresh and
chill, after the smothering air and dreary twilight
of the thickets we had just quitted. There are a
few islets on its ample bosom. I saw neither island
nor main on the north shore, although the day was
clear. Certain flitting islands, however, geogra
phers put in and out of their maps there at plea
sure ; which reminds me of a quaint and pictu
resque passage in old Hackluyt — "The like has
been of those islands now known by the report
of the inhabitants, which were not found of long
time one after another, and therefore it should
seem he is not yet born to whom God hath ap
pointed the finding of them." — P. 502.
The first part of the south shore is a bay twelve
miles across. Its banks are low, but the land
behind them rises moderately in shelves, and
from the canoe appears to be bare, bleached
rock, with patches of dwarf pine. The south
shore is forty-six miles long. We coasted it.
Everywhere it wears the same aspect, except in
the unfrequent occurrence of islets far out in the
lake. Twenty miles from La Ronde, and half a mile
from the south shore, there is a large jumbled

166 LAKE NIPISSING.
heap of slabs of rock, with edges as sharp, and
surfaces as clean, as if they had been quarried for
gravestones, and then flung down here yesterday
as a breakwater. I do not understand this heap
of rocks. There is no island near them.
The size and shape of Lake Nipissing, as ex
pressed on maps, is only a rough guess. It seems
to have two deep bays on its north side. The
officers of the Magnetic Survey found it to be
695 feet above the sea.
When Mr. Sheriff (" Quebec Historical Society's
Transactions," vol. ii. 286), says that the south
shore of this lake is a level tract, with a rich,
heavy soil, and extending many miles southwards,
with little rise, he cannot mean the country within
sight from the water. Good land in Canada is
frequently at some distance from large rivers.
He goes on to state that about the sources of
the Madawaska, near lat. 45° 15', the interior of
the country forms a great table-land, growing
hard wood, and gradually sloping towards Lake
Nipissing. Along the south-west route of the
rivers Neswarbic and Muskoka this kind of
country extends from within thirty miles of the
Ottawa to the immediate vicinity of Lake Huron,
140 miles.
On the whole, Mr. Sheriff says (vol. ii. p. 239),
" from personal inspection, that in this unnoticed

THE CHAUDIERE PORTAGE. 167
part of Canada a fine habitable country will be
found, millions of acres in extent. I hope it will,
ere long, be rendered accessible to population." In
the face of the prolonged and severe winter here
prevailing, I fear that until the rich soils of Lakes
Ontario, Erie, and St. Clair, are taken in posses
sion, there is little chance for these wildernesses.
They may be worked for marble, iron, or copper.
We leave Lake Nipissing by the Portage Chau
diere des Francois. It is near the falls of the
same name, and leads over low ridges of naked
gneis, and here and there a cliff, to a backwater
of the interesting River des Francois, by which
this lake discharges into Lake Huron.
The falls are principally to be noticed for se
veral smooth, funnel-shaped holes in the solid
rock, near the lake, but twenty feet above its
present level. One is from three to four feet deep,
and as many across at the top, but only eighteen
inches at the bottom.
They are supposed to be caused by the friction
of stones whirled round by an eddy, as they have
actually been seen where eddies have been known
to exist. The other holes (or kettles) are smaller,
as far as I recollect.
These appearances are common in Canada. I
have even seen one on the Long Sault Rapid of
the Ottawa on a large loose stone. In the granite

168 FRENCH RIVER.
of Cape Tourment, forty miles below Quebec,
there is the commencement, the rudiments as it
were, of a kettle — concentric excavated rings,
each an inch in diameter, and the whole about
nine inches across.
I shall not dwell long on the River des Fran
cois, which we descended fast and gaily, lest I
become tedious, although it is a very peculiar
river. It less resembles a single stream than a
bundle of watercourses flowing, with frequent
inosculations, among lengthened ridges of rocks.
The utterly barren and naked shores seldom
present continuous lines bounding a compact
body of water, but are commonly excavated into
deepened narrow bays, obscured by high walls of
rock and stunted pines. It is seventy-five miles
long. Its breadth is exceedingly various, some
times swelling into a broad lake for miles, and
crowded with islands.
Few prospects exceed, in the grand and sin
gular, those which are often here created by the
groups of long and lofty islets, extending from a
circle, in giant rays, far into some dark gulf-like
bay ; their rugged outlines and wild foliage re
flected in the clear waters, and solemnised by the
profound silence of these solitudes. In certain
parts of the river, where the rocks are more
distinctly stratified than usual, the freezing of

FRENCH RIVER. 169
crevice water has made great devastations, load
ing the land with shale, as in Lower Canada,
and sometimes splitting off, and piling masses
of vast size and weight upon one another.
At one place, not far from half-way down (I
think), the passage is nearly closed by a large
heap of bare cyclopean blocks. Noah, as he
stepped from the ark, must have cast his eye
over a scene like this — not a pound of soil in fifty
square miles — a region bruised, crushed, half-
drowned, deserted by all living.
It was near this spot that a memorable mas
sacre of missionary monks took place, but I have
unfortunately lost the details.
Beside the Chaudiere Cascade there is another
called Des Recollets, twenty miles down the
river. It is from fifteen to twenty feet high, but
narrow, and divided into three portions by two
fragments of rock. It is very beautiful in its
white waters and dark walls, bristling with dead
and living pine, almost naked heights being close
at hand.
I was much interested by the ruins of an Indian
fort, or look-out, which still remains on a point
of land commanding a good view downwards,
and, I think, upwards. It was a circular build
ing, about five feet in diameter. When I saw it
it was only four and a half feet high. It was

170 BRISSON RAPIDS.
carefully constructed of the stones at hand, and
would contain a couple of Indian watchers in the
days when war seldom ceased.* Cooper's splen
did powers of description and amplification would
have ennobled this spot with thrilling adventure.
Indian drawings occur on the smooth face of a
gneis mound not far from hence. They are rude
sketches of animals and men in various attitudes.
Many rapids occur, but the most serious is that
of Brisson. It is very swift and turbulent. As
our canoe turned round and round in it, in spite
of all our men could do, the sight of thirteen
wooden crosses lining the shore, in memory of as
many watery deaths, conveyed no more comfort
to my mind than do the impaled bodies on the
highways of Turkey to the feelings of their surviv
ing robber-friends. The current is always strong,
so that we swept down the river in one day.
In descending there is but one portage, that
of the Recollet, and it is said, though I cannot
believe it, tbat Indians have dashed over that
fall. In ascending there are many portages.
At the upper part of the River des Frangois the
neighbouring country attains a moderate height,
either in great piles of dislocated rocks or in
stair-like ridges. Nearer Lake Huron its envi-
* There is one in La Cloche, Lake Huron, and several on the
old route to the Lake of the Woods from Lake Superior.

LA DALLE. 17
rons are lower ; and as far as is visible from the
canoe, they are destitute of vegetation.
This river discharges itself into Lake Huron in
narrow channels formed by parallel, smooth,
naked mounds of gneis, a few yards broad, a few
feet high, and broken into lengths of twenty to
two hundred yards. La Dalle, from three to five
miles from Lake Huron, a rapid of uncommon
swiftness, is a gut of this kind. It is not more
than ten or twelve feet wide, and an hundred
yards long. Our canoe flashed through it almost
in a moment. Either of its sides I could have
touched 'with a walking-stick.
We now enter Lake Huron (a stormy water,
a thousand miles round), among shallows, reefs,
and tortoise-backed mounds. Its shores here are
low and barren, but the back-ground rises higher.
The blue line in the south, resembling a long
low cloud, is the Great Manitouline Island.
But it will be better here to leave my kind
friends of the North-west Company and their
untiring canoemen, as I shall be enabled to
describe Lake Huron more fully and better in a
future excursion.
I afterwards learnt that my companions re
turned in the autumn to Montreal in health and
safety. My best wishes and grateful acknow
ledgments abide with them.

EXCURSION THE THIRD.

THE ST. LAWRENCE.
Calash Journey by Montmorenci and Chateau Riche to St. Anne,
Ferry -house — Cottage life — Falls of St. Anne— Indian Family
in the Woods — Feriole : Double Sunset — Cape Tourment —
Walk round its Base to La Petite Riviere — Grand Scenery —
Dangerous Precipices — Slippery Rocks — Mud up to the
Knees — Dinner at a Cascade — Almost impassable Buttress
— Mosquitoes — La Petite Riviere : Arrived disconsolate —
Boat Voyage to St. Paul's Bay — Kindness of M. Rousseau
and Family — The Peasantry — Earthquakes — A Tea-Party
— Discussion with an M.P.P. — Cross the St. Lawrence to
L'Islet — Sleep in a Hay Chamber — Walk along south Shore to
Quebec.
The few of my acquaintances who had visited
the St. Lawrence for any distance below Quebec
were loud in their praises of its scenery and in
habitants. I was therefore determined to em
brace the first opportunity of judging for myself.
Early in the month of September, on my
return from the geological tour round Upper
Canada, the head of the medical department for

QUEBEC. 173
Canada, Dr. Wright, invited me to accompany
him and a young friend* to the Bay of St. Paul
by land, a distance of sixty miles. If our excel
lent old friend had been better informed, I think
he would not have made the attempt ; the main
and most novel part of the affair being to walk
round the foot of the Tourment mountain, where
it is for many miles bathed by the St. Lawrence.
We hired over night two of the high, creaking,
shaking calashes of Lower Canada, invented in
the sixteenth century, to take us — not forgetting
a good store of provisions — to St. Anne the
Great, a parish and river, twenty-eight miles
below Quebec, and close to the great bluff just
mentioned, called Cape Tourment.
In the mists of early morning we issued from
the sombre Temple gate of the city into a dirty
suburb, among river craft, timber-yards, docks,
and the narrow Norman carts of the " marche-
doncs," as their drivers are nicknamed, from
their perpetual use of that "cry" to their cattle.
We were soon at the stout wooden bridge over
the St. Charles, and on the highroad to (and
through) Beauport, with its handsome church
and long line of houses.
We successively trotted past the comfortable
* A promising young medical officer, who soon afterwards was
sent to Cape-Coast Castle. Of course he died there.

174 THE ST. LAWRENCE.
inn at Montmorenci (nine miles), the pretty
terraces, church, and presbytery of Ange Gardien
(eleven or twelve miles), and then dipped at
once into the marshes, famous for snipe, which
border the St. Lawrence.
Although the herbs and foliage were no longer
gushing and throbbing, and swelling with the
hasty impulses of the early Canadian spring,
still all was fresh and verdant. An almost tro
pical sun was glowing in the clear sky, and the
cicada* was ringing its trilling note, loud,
metallic, and ceaseless, from every bush.
We reascended these terraces at Chateau Riche
(sixteen miles), at certain seasons a favourite
resort for sportsmen. The old castle is there
yet — four bare walls — scarcely worth a visit. fi§
After having refreshed ourselves here, and
taken a glimpse of the Falls of La Puce, not far
from hence, we rode along a similar river-side
for twelve more miles, when we gladly rested at
St. Anne's, and took up our abode at a peasant's
cottage, near a ferry, on the picturesque river
St. Anne, not many hundred yards from the St.
Lawrence. Our harbour for the night was a Canadian
* A curious dumpy insect (the cicindela), rather less than one's
thumb-end, and like it in shape, common in warm climates. The
noise is made by rubbing the thighs against its sides.

PEASANT FAMILY. 175
house of the ordinary sort, accustomed to take
in occasional guests like ourselves. It contained
one large, low, common room or kitchen, with
two ample windows in it, a cast-iron stove in the
middle, and a large fire-place at one side. Then
came, also on the ground-floor, a bed-chamber
for the family, and another for visitors, with a
cock-loft above all, entered by a ladder, for the
grown-up boys to sleep in, among all sorts of
provender and farming-tools.
The walls of all the rooms were adorned with
rude religious pictures, and in each was an
earthenware crucifix, with a receptacle for holy
water attached.
I need scarcely say that the house was full of
hardy boys and girls — the father more stupid-
looking than usual; a kind of good-humoured
bear. The mother was the ruling spirit, short,
black-eyed, bustling, and flushed.
She received us gaily, and bade us go play at
ducks and drakes with the flat pebbles* in the
river, until she had prepared a good supper of
fowl, potatoes, and soup.
She kept her word; and we husbanded our
own providings for worse times. After supper,
* We did not play long with the pebbles, for we found the
river loaded with erratic blocks, among which we met with coccolite,
satin-spar, garnet, graphic granite, &c. &c.

176 PEASANT FAMILY.
some excellent rum-toddy disposed us for bed ;
and thither we went.
During the evening we had an opportunity of
observing the domestic life of the Canadian pea
sant. Neither parents nor children made the
slightest account of our presence. Gentle cuffs
and " orders perempt" went on as usual. The
whole family took supper together out of one
large bowl of thin bouilli, into which were
thrown large pieces of brown bread, cabbage,*
and some herbs unknown to me, with a few
small masses of fat. Each took care of himself
in an orderly manner, with a short-handled broad
wooden spoon.
Soon after supper, the whole family knelt
round the largest of the windows for several
minutes, the bright stars of evening shining in
upon them, uttering in low tones their well-
meant prayers.
The French Canadians are a devout people.
Four out of five houses have domestic prayer
regularly. Their worship, such as it is, carries
with it an observable blessing in family unity
and affection. Would it were better applied,
and that their King and Redeemer had his full
rights !
* Hence another Canadian by-name, "coup-choux," or chop-
cabbage, applied to the peasantry.

THE FALLS OF ST. ANNE. 177
This scene made me draw comparisons, and
gave me a disagreeable twinge. Family prayer,
morning and evening, does not exist in one
Protestant house in ten, I fear, in Britain and
elsewhere. The next day we resolved to go up the river
St. Anne a few miles, as far as the nearest falls.
If we had taken with us one of the brave boys
of the cottage, we should have fared better ;
but having a thread-like track of trodden leaves
in the woods pointed out to us as the unmis-
takeable path, forwards we set alone ; but in
about a mile (and it seemed two), near a sudden
rise of land, our single trace separated into
several. Taking the likeliest, the river being
out of sight and hearing, we trudged on for a
mile or so, and were stopped by impenetrable
underwood. Retracing our steps, we tried a
second and a third foot-way with like result.
But during the third attempt, as we were think
ing of returning home wearied and disconsolate,
we alighted upon an Indian family at a bark
wigwam, weaving dyed baskets for sale in the
neighbourhood. They were a well-favoured
group, in decent attire, only Indian in part, —
just such as a half-crazy person in an English
village, fond of finery, and at the same time poor,
VOL. I. N

178 ST. FERIOLE.
might put on. I thought their life not so bad for
summer-time. Our new friends soon put us in
the way to the falls. They spoke French, and
were Roman Catholics.
The falls are well worth a visit. I regret not
to have a sketch of them ; but there are very
many as fine in Canada, which, like Sweden, is
par excellence the land of cataracts.
The waters, embowered in fine trees, leap
spiritedly into a deep chasm of primitive rocks,
down whose sides a treacherous path takes us to
the bottom of the falls, if we are very venturous
and determined.
We were glad to find ourselves once more at
the ferry-house of St. Anne.
The next day we set out in a calash for the
romantic parish of St. Feriole, among the moun
tains, from five to ten miles back from the St.
Lawrence. At first we ascended a sandy terrace (whilome
the river shore), across a stripe of cultivation
among low clumsy houses without gardens ; and
then soon afterwards another — a broad one —
also ranging parallel to the St. Lawrence for
many miles up-stream. The soil of this upper
flat being sandy, we drove through fragrant
groves of pine over a road as good as in an Eng-

SUNSET AT ST. FERIOLE. 179
lish park, until we neared the rude and strag
gling village, when the occurrence of granite
rocks made the ascent rough and sharp. ¦
After having quietly surveyed the stern and
singular scenery about the village, we struck a
few hundred yards northwards upon the " Rose,"
a mountain torrent, ten yards across, always a
violent rapid, and sometimes dropping suddenly
into wooded abysses. Near one of these cascades
a tall pine-tree had fallen across the stream.
Nothing could prevent our younger comrade
from tottering across it. Twenty fatal possi
bilities might have happened to him, but he went
and returned in safety, and greatly self-exalted,
I suppose. The mountain village of St. Feriole is chiefly
remarkable for a leaning sugar-loaf hill to the
west, which gives rise to a phenomenon often
spoken of in Canada — a double sunset. The
sun sets to the inhabitants of the village as it
passes behind this hill, reappears for a short
time, and sets again behind the succeeding
height. At certain seasons the effect is striking.
The late Colonel Forrest, an admirable artist,
took several views in this vicinity, induced by me
to visit it. The prevailing tint in the hill-forests
of Canada, rifle green, is well seen here.
We now drove merrily back to our pleasant

180 THE TOURMENT MOUNTAINS.
ferry-house, and prepared for the greater feat of
the following day — the walk round the base of
Cape Tourment.
There are few objects in Lower Canada better
known, and perhaps more carefully avoided,
than the great headland of Cape Tourment, nine
teen hundred feet high. It is the advanced
portion of a great group of mountains, occupying
a lofty inner country, untravelled, save by a few
Indians. Near to, and behind it, is a massy
summit somewhat higher than itself.
Government has cut a narrow road over this
hill country, side by side with the St. Lawrence,
to connect Quebec with St. Paul's Bay by land,
and in the boggy parts has laid down a little
corduroy. When I passed over it (not in this excursion)
there was not a habitation throughout the twenty-
seven miles of woods: now, there is a log-hut and
a little clearance every league.
The road is usually in steep ascents and de
scents, with swift brooks flowing in the bottoms,
among large fragments of rock. Seven miles
from St. Anne is the River Nombrette, or La
Grande Riviere, which traverses a rich but neg
lected country in three branches, all crossed by
the road near a wood of remarkably tall pines.
The traveller is so buried in trees, that rarely

THE TOURMENT MOUNTAINS. 181
along this dreary route is the fatigue of an ascent
repaid to him by a prospect ; but now and then
scenes of grandeur and savage beauty never to
be forgotten reveal themselves. The eye ranges
over undulating surfaces, where only the tree-
tops are seen, blending in patches all imagi
nable hues of green, from the fairest to the
darkest. Sometimes we see a forest-valley encircling a
lake or morass, and swelling on all sides into
hills ; at others the landscape rises higher, be
comes more abrupt, and presents a number of
black, broad, steep, almost alpine mountain
flanks, intersecting each other, as we see in the
Swiss canton of Uri, with rapid streams winding
througli their narrow and rocky intervals.
From the near or west end of this gloomy and
high track, just before descending into the low
grounds of St. Anne, looking over the tops of
the lower trees, we suddenly behold the wide
St. Lawrence, the corn-fields and dwellings of
St. Joachim and St. Anne in the bright vale
below, with the Isle of Orleans farther off, and a
dim vision of Quebec shining aloft.
The view from the other end of this woodland
road, peeping down into St. Paul's Bay, is equally
but differently beautiful.

182 CAPE TOURMENT.
Such is the immediate vicinity of Cape Tour
ment. The day after the trip to St. Feriole, having
breakfasted, we started with a guide secured at
no ordinary wage. He carried our provisions
and a coil of rope.
We purposed walking to the hamlet of La
Petite Riviere, eighteen miles distant, without a
habitation in the interval, and almost wholly
an iron-bound coast, at the foot of Cape Tour
ment, and two-thirds washed directly by the
waves of the St. Lawrence, save occasional
beaches of mud or shingle.
Crossing the shallow and noisy St. Anne, and
some fields beyond, we came to the foot of the
huge bluff — Cape Tourment — up above, a pile
of toppling crags — down below, a cliff with little
ledges. Up this cliff the waves swept, ever and anon,
dashing sheets of water many feet higher than
the usual common sea-level.
I was dismayed. My companions behaved
better than I did. As we faced a precipice thirty
or forty feet high, to be clambered up by us,
" This cannot be the way," shouted I ; "do you
take us for Barbary apes?"
The good guide spake not, but shewed us one

CAPE TOURMENT. 183
or two footings, and then a broader ledge on which
to take breath and fresh courage. Getting up
himself first, he gave a hand to each in turn ; and
at length, with trembling knees and anxious eyes,
we were planted on the summit, no little pleased
with our success.
After walking safely enough over high masses
of fractured rocks, we now followed our guide's
example, and pulled off our shoes and stockings
to pass over a series of slippery granite-mounds
sloping into deep water, as smooth and shining as
if they had been coated with French polish. We
meet with precisely the same on the Hasli side of
the Grimsel Pass. I was surprised how securely
the naked foot clung to the glass-like rock.
This having continued about half a mile, a good
deal of rough but safe walking succeeded, in the
midst of which we came upon a splendid fissure,
or cleft, in the mountain — another " Breche de
Roland," deep and narrow, and reaching far up the
acclivity, composed of grand rock masses piled
high in the air, with a few scattered pines here
and there. It may be a water-course in winter,
but there is none in September. It was beyond
my pencil, and laughed audibly at my drawing-
paper, eight inches by five.
Now the fall of the tide permitted our access to
the beach, where for four or five heavy miles did

CAPE TOURMENT. 185
many a stop and wistful look, declaring they could
neither go on nor return. I'did not like the
thick tongues of water the tide every now and
then spit upwards near the ledge.
I cried out energetically, and truly, that my
dizzy head would not even allow of my trying to
pass. So I hopelessly mounted the entangled
steep several hundred feet above the buttress, and
at last found a jumble of huge blocks, forming a
kind of bore, tunnel, or passage. As it seemed
to slope downwards and crosswise promisingly,
I crawled into it, and, with sundry abrasions,
scratches, and rendings of skin and clothes, on
arriving at the other end, I saw myself on the
wished-for side of the awkward " pas," my friends
standing a good way below me, and gazing about
uncomfortably. The love of geology had enticed us into these
perils. I bethought me of the old sarcasm ut
tered against all such crazy folk as we — " /,
demens, et curre per A Ipes."
Vast dimensions, like those we see in Switzer
land and the Himalayas, are not required to pro
duce feelings of pleasurable awe. A walk under
the heights of Dover will prove this. So we were
well justified in being delighted with the scenery
of Cape Tourment.
The mountain was steep — here in perpendicular

186 SEIGNIORY OF PETITE RIVIERE.
sheets of naked rock, there in heaped- up Cyclo
pean ruins, overspread in parts with delicate
foliage. Lofty headlands along shore shewed us
labour to come ; and a brisk wind which had
sprung up, while it cooled the hot air, was whiten
ing the waves with little breakers over the broad
surface of the St. Lawrence.
Toward the latter third of our day's work the
coast lowered. We fell in, fortunately, with a
level beach of yellow sand for five weary miles
towards La Petite Riviere. The finely-shaped
hills of the Eboulements and Malbay seigniories
now came into view. The last six miles I led my
poor friend R., for he was stone blind. Of him
it might be said, " He saw no man, but they led
him by the hand." Our chief was also disabled.
The insects and the mud-wading had greatly
swollen his legs, and made them look like raw
beef. Right glad were we to find ourselves, at
about nine in the evening, in the first poor hut
we met with — that of an aged couple, who kindly
gave us shelter. The little collection of dwellings
near the St. Lawrence offered nothing better. We
supped upon our own provisions ; after which, a
blanket or two being spread on the floor, we were
all speedily at rest.
Next morning my friends were not much better,
and all were tired and suffering ; but myself the

THE BAY OF ST. PAUL. 187
least. Walking any further was out of the
question. . - • r • ; i . ; • . • *•'¦* ,
I should. here mention that! tine seigniory of La
Petite Riviere is a' group e-f -small farms in a
break in the. mountains, through which runs a
gentle stream. . The scene, overhung by Cape
Maillard;, 2200 feet high, is rural and more than
pretty. The levelgrpund consisted principally of
hay-fields, and the people were busy gathering in
their crop. White houses are dotted about ; and
far up the valley Iespied a church-steeple. An
Englishman is as seldom seen at this place almost
as in Timbuctoo (in my time).
In; the afternoon wediired a stout fishing-boat,
and started with four civil Canadians for the Bay
of St. Paul, twelve miles lower down the St. Law
rence, and on the same (the north) side.
We coasted the flats of La Riviere, animated by
an active pbpalation ;¦¦ then by the side of a dark
mountain curving round a deep bay, and bathed
by the tide. We soon turned Cape de la Baie,
the west angle of St. Paul's Bay, and came in
sight of the seigniory and church of that name,
placed at the base Of a deep semicircle of undu
lating mountains, most of the houses hidden by a
line of firs crossing part of the valley.
As we were approaching the mouth 'of the
Gouffre, the river which drains the valley, we

188 M. ROUSSEAU.
inquired of our boatmen for accommodation during
our short stay. As in all the more remote seig
niories, there is no inn, for the same reason that
there is no doctor — the trade will not pay, our
friends recommended us to try M. Rousseau, a
very respectable farmer residing close by.
The wind drove us up the Gouffre rapidly for
about a mile, when we brought to opposite a low,
roomy, clap-boarded house a few yards from the
river, with true signs of the comfortable about it
— a good garden, outhouses, and several chimneys.
An old soldier in a campaign always billets him
self, if possible, upon a house with two chimneys
at the least — never where there is only one ; and
for very obvious reasons.
We announced ourselves. M. Rousseau was at
home, and, although perfect strangers, without
introductions, received us with the greatest kind
ness — a kindness manifested with equal earnest
ness by his wife and family. A room was given
to us containing two snow-white beds, and re
freshments were soon on table.
Nature had been at best but niggardly to us in
personal attractions ; and we were then even less
so than usual, being purblind, lame, and " used
up," as well as roughly clad for a rough service.
Poor Ritchie's face was as marred and speckled
as if he had had the smallpox. Nevertheless,

VALLEY OF ST. PAUL. 189
during our three days' stay, the attentions of this
good family were unremitting. The invalids were
carefully and successfully nursed. We fared well ;
the port was good, though but little drunk, and the
beds were soft. When we left, in spite of our
sincere endeavours, we were not allowed to make
any remuneration for the trouble we had given.
After refreshment, leaving my friends in-doors,
I stepped forth to examine our whereabouts. I
stood in the middle of a semi-oval valley, four
miles deep by two broad, screened all around
by a high country of mountains and their peaks,
save towards the St. Lawrence. These mountains
again, are flanked in the valley at irregular dis
tances by alluvial terraces, in descending series
towards the River Gouffre, two or three in number,
and not always perfect.* These terraces and knolls
are studded with dwellings by twos and threes,
and by clumps of beeches. Through this sweet
scenery the River Gouffre pursues a winding and
often destructive course from the interior, and has
one or more noble belts of firs near its marshy
embouchure. The whole has a very Swiss look — a sea of
mountains in the rear — the hamlets sprinkled
* On the east side of the outer valley of which I am now speak
ing is a great talus of large and small boulders and earth massed
high up the hill-sides.

190 ITS INHABITANTS.
on the steeps — the corn in little patches among
precipices — tiny cascades, the pretty church, and
the roomy old houses half hidden by pine-groves.
As well as this outer valley, there is another
within, which seemed little more than an um
brageous dell continued into the interior for se
veral miles among primitive mountains abound
ing in iron ore, and giving passage to the Gouffre.
I shall not sketch in further detail this colony
of Normans, as two illustrations of it are given.
We had several pleasant rambles. The people
were as comfortable and contented as well as may
be in a world of trial. We seldom or never see
in Lower Canada any of those slow, thick-skinned,
unimpressionable rustics — barn-door savages, as I
have heard them unfeelingly called — that fill our
villages in England. In St. Paul's Bay they are
rather a good-looking race — spare, active, with a
quick eye, both men and women. The French
Canadian has lively affections, great excitability ;
his feelings play freely, and are almost explosive.
He is fond of money, shrewd in its acquirement,
and retentive when he has it.
Although it is true that Lower Canada is a hard
country — hard in its sky, hard in the earth and
in wrinkle-begetting labour — yet, on the whole,
the condition of its agricultural population is far
preferable to that of the English labourer. The

ITS INHABITANTS. 191
chief drawback is the great expense of keeping
cattle through the long winter, and the forced
idleness of so extended a period of time.
The Lower Canadian acquires land easily ; and
there is plenty of room for his children after him.
The frugal and industrious man, who lives within
ten or fifteen miles of a town, is rich in coin also,
as a rule. His market is remunerative. He has
numerous religious holidays, which usually lead
to gossip and merry-making. His spiritual di
rector is commonly his adviser-general, and is
taken from his own rank of life.
St. Paul's Bay is so healthy as not to require a
medical man. There is nothing for him to do,
although there are more than 3000 inhabitants in
the vicinity. Several have been starved out.
Something either political or connected with
the climate has of late disturbed the serenity of
the Lower Canadians. Although they have an
extreme distaste for the manners and habits of
the Americans, they have been emigrating in con
siderable numbers to the State of Illinois within
the last two years ; a thousand in 1848 to Chicago.
Out-door work in so severe a climate injures
the appearance and gait of females. We saw at
a little dance, however, in a barn belonging to
our hosts, some pleasing faces. I have observed
that the hardships undergone by European as well

192 EARTHQUAKES, ETC.
as American mothers do not deprive their infants
and young people of the round, blooming, hopeful
features, the grace and general loveliness, we
expect at their time of life. The almost super
natural ugliness and atrocious aspect of a full-
blood Indian grandmother is beyond conception ;
the revolting idea has yet to be transmitted to
Europe. From time to time earthquakes and other sin
gular appearances take place in this and the
neighbouring seigniories. As far as I am aware,
the last well-authenticated instance at St. Paul's
took place in 1792. This has been described by
Mr. Gagnon, in a letter to Capt. Baddeley, R.E.,
and by him quoted in "Transactions of the His
torical Society of Quebec," vol. i. p. 145. As it
is worth reading, I have made some extracts from
it in a note.*
I believe that Lieut. Hall's sketch of this part
of Lower Canada, made in 1814, is the last public
notice of it.
* " At 7h 15™, Oct. 6, 1792, commenced at St. Paul's, a series of
earthquakes for six weeks, from two to five daily, but much more
frequent during the first night, though small. One shock had an
eastern direction. Weather thick.
" On the evening of the 26th instant (Therm. Fahr. 57°), and
on the 27th, (6U 30™, Therm. 79°), in the interval between two
mountains, which afforded a long range to the eye, I saw a con
tinual eruption of thick smoke, mixed with flame, sometimes shoot
ing high in the air, and at others ascending in large round volumes,

INVITATION. 193
Strangers being rarely seen here, our little
rambles had not been unnoticed.* On our third
morning, therefore, the member for the Bay and
its vicinity in the Provincial Parliament, a little
quick-witted, elderly person, called upon us, and
with great politeness invited us to tea for the same
evening. Our being without visiting costume was
not held to be an obstacle ; so we willingly sur
rendered, partly to shew a friendly feeling, and
partly from a fancy to see the menage of the
leading individual (the priest excepted) of the
locality. Of the outside of Mr. Pothier's house I shall
not say a word, because it is faithfully delineated
from behind, in Irish fashion, in the accompany-

twisting and whirling about. During the whole night the spec
tacle was admirable. The sky was all on fire and agitated. There
was a feeling of heat on the face, but no wind."
No one has seen the spot. In 1828, when Capt. Baddeley re
ceived Mr. Gagnon's letter, he thought it useless to try to find it,
as every trace of the eruption would be obliterated by a luxuriant '
vegetation. Besides, Capt. Baddeley had not the necessary time
at his command.
* My companions having been disabled by the walk round Cape
Tourment, our geological and botanical excursions were very li
mited. We found some curious inter-stratifications of gneis and
marble, with a small vein of sulphuret of lead and fluor spar, at a
cascade on the west side of the valley ; and I made a hasty rush
into the picturesque upper vaEey for two or three miles, but I saw
nothing worth noting, for want of time. I am persuaded that this
vicinity would well reward the visit of a geologist.
VOL. I. O

194 MEMBERS OF THE PROVINCIAL PARLIAMENT.
ing drawing. This drawing gives us a pleasing
idea of the secluded valley, its pretty church, ve
nerable presbytery, full-foliaged trees, and warm
dwellings scattered along the river-side. In the
corner of the picture is a high pole ; this marks
the residence of a militia officer, where his men
rendezvous when required.
We found that our new friend, besides being a
proprietor and occupier of land, kept a store, to
the great convenience of the public, at which might
be purchased every nameable article suited to the
place — rice and ribbons, tape and tobacco, bon
nets and butter, &c. &c.
I was somewhat displeased that he did not ask
our host and his amiable family — a neglect, I
suppose, arising from some local mystery.
We found nothing new or shocking in our en
tertainment : it was English, — only better, in the
opinion of those who are fond of liqueurs and
confectionary. Unfortunately for my wish to
meet a pure native, both Madame and her only
daughter had more than once accompanied the
M.P.P. to Quebec, where they would of necessity
see much good society, and assist at the Governor-
General's annual ball. For party reasons, as
well as for better, the members of the Provincial
Parliament were much courted at that time.
The ladies were quiet and simple in their man-

EVENING VISIT. 195
ners, neat in their dress — some three years, per
haps, behind Bond Street ; but that was no great
matter. Our chief suggested to me, by a little by-play,
that I ought to be attentive to the young lady, as
she was evidently an heiress ; but I at once begged
off, although she was both pleasing and intelligent.
Taking my friend to a window, I explained to
him that I was of too tender years to take upon
me as yet the responsibilities of " un homme fait."
Neither was I inclined to spend the rest of my
days in the hollow of a tree, and as such should
I have felt even the sweet vale of St. Paul.
None are so home-sick as the damsels of the
free and easy Canadas ; very few of them bear
transplanting, as hundreds of English officers
know right well.
Our kind entertainer had designed that evening
to fructify; for the tea-things having been re
moved, and the ladies settled to their tambours,
he proceeded to play the member of assembly —
that is, to indoctrinate our elder companion at
much length into the griefs, as he called them, of
his country. The French Canadians of the better
class, who have been more or less educated, are
often thoughtful, and fond of political discussion.
Although they have few books, and those of a
very old school, they have nimble minds, and

196 CANADIAN POLITICS.
spend much of the winter together — the young
in frolic, and the older in grave debate.
It was only natural that we conversed on public
topics. Mr. Pothier spoke on what deeply in
terested himself, and upon what he thought he
understood. He really made quite a speech at
one effort, and several smaller ones.
I shall write down this conversation fully, and,
in its substance, with tolerable accuracy, as repre
senting faithfully the state of French feelings at
the time, and as shewing how deeply and uni
versally the Canadians had at heart the great
privilege of self-government.* Most, if not all
the great public grievances then existing, have
since been removed. They have self-government
enough. " Gentlemen," said he, the play of his features
shewing a marked wish not to offend his guests,
and yet a settled determination to open his mind
to a party of officials, however humble and power
less in reality, — "I hope I do not presume too
" far upon your forbearance, in laying before you
" a few of my provincial notions this evening;
" and before I say another word" (whereupon
our good chief, who had been looking at his still
swollen legs, pricked up his ears a little alarmed),
* It has been transcribed a year ; and therefore before the pre
sent agitation.

CANADIAN POLITICS. 197
' permit me to declare to you that the inhabit-
' ants of my country are not insensible to the
' many blessings they enjoy under the mild sway
' of Britain.
" I am about to set things in a light new to
' you — perhaps unpleasantly new, but still in
' the true light. Public opinion in England is
' strongly against our wishes ; but this is simply
' for want of consideration. On some subjects,
' light reaches us all at one time, only through
' a crevice, as it were, and is little better than
' darkness ; but after a while the crevice becomes
' a window, and the window a bright oriel. May
' it be so now ! I hope to obtain our demands
' by amicable means — a bloody struggle would
' be too costly, as well as uncertain. It may
' come to this ; but I will not share in it.
" We ask not to intermeddle in the imperial
' questions of peace and war, or of treaty-making;
' but for an executive government, responsible
' for all their acts to the people of the Canadas,
' as represented in their Senate and House of
' Assembly. We ask for the precious faculty of
' self-management — for the power of transacting
' all our business purely local and Canadian,
' without reference to Downing Street. We wish
' for the control of all monies levied in the
* colony ; the appointment and dismissal of all

198 CANADIAN POLITICS.
" executive and judicial officials, who must be,
" as far as possible, Canadian-born. In granting
" this, it does appear to me that humanity would
" receive a magnanimous lesson, and that all
" parties would be great gainers.
" I am free to confess to you that my country-
" men hourly sigh for their political rights" (I
am translating from the French). " We feel it
"to be quite as indispensable to communities to
" manage their own affairs, and be responsible
" for their own happiness, as it is to individuals ;
" and that no abundance of meat and clothing,
" no security of person, can compensate for the
" want of that moral schooling which is .involved
" in self-guidance, or for the loss of the whole-
" some and joyous sense which fills the breast of
" the citizen of a self-ruling state.
" It would be well to give the Canadians a re-
" sponsible government. Who is so interested in
" their welfare? who so minutely and accurately
" informed about them? We are a colony num-
" bering 1,500,000 souls, fifty- seven years in the
" possession of a representative government — im-
" perfect, to be sure. We feel equal to the task,
" and see, with the blessing of Almighty God, a
" great and prosperous future before us. Neither
" are we left without the human instruments to
" carry out the local administration of our affairs.

CANADIAN POLITICS. 199
" We have men of ability sufficient and to spare,
" in all the public walks of life, to conduct with
" credit and ability the various departments of go-
" vernment, from the highest office to the lowest."
" Permit me to interrupt you, my dear sir, for
" a moment," hastily interrupted Dr. W., who
by this time had brought his scattered thoughts
to bear upon this sudden political onslaught ; being
now compelled to forget the flowers and fountains
of St. Paul's Bay, in which he came to delight.
" I think that, like certain ladies, you are speak-
" ing of one thing and meaning another. I fear
" that, while you talk of responsible government,
" you mean independence ; and that is a very in-
" discreet topic with a servant of the English
" crown. I am aware that it is a widely prevail-
" ing opinion, that a total severance between the
" mother country and her Canadian provinces is
" not very remote ; but this is only the mistake
" of a few short-sighted and dissatisfied men. No
" prime minister, however powerful, dares to ask
" the sovereign and his people to set you free,
" and part with one of the brightest and most
" glorious jewels of the British crown. Are you
" able to contend with the parent state? Are you
" capable of prosperous self-existence ? I greatly
" doubt both. It was only through a remarkable
" concurrence of favourable circumstances, by the

200 CANADIAN POLITICS.
'¦ uprising of many Americans of supreme talent
' in the various departments of public service,
' aided by a powerful European nation, and still
' more by the justice of their cause, that the
' United States were enabled to win their freedom.
' A short and true story comes into my mind on
' this subject. Some Loyalists waited upon Lord
' North, the minister of the day, to explain to
' him the various agencies at work in the Ame-
' rican Revolution, its causes and motives. Their
' story was long — seemingly endless, and not a
' little confused. But Lord North interrupted
' them, and said, ' Ah ! I see how it is ; the child
' has burst his breeches.' You think you are
' old enough and strong enough to do the same ;
' but you will find your pantaloons made of
' tougher materials. You are not ripe yet for
' self-government ; when you are, I trust Eng-
' land will understand her duty, and part with
' you in an amicable spirit."
"No," said M. de Rouville Pothier; "you
' never did emancipate a colony, and I fear never
' mean to do so. Look at the millions you are
' expending on Fort Diamond, which commands
* the gate of the St. Lawrence, and can lay
* Quebec in ashes in two hours. Look at your
' vast defences and naval yard at Montreal and
' Kingston ; your ship-canals, &c. &c. These

CANADIAN POLITICS. 20]
" seem intended to overawe the people of Canada
" for their own good, and to perpetuate the con-
'• nexion, — a connexion, let it be distinctly un-
" derstood, I am as far as you, dear sir, from
" wishing destroyed, and of whose benefits to us
" I am fully convinced."
" I am glad to find I have mistaken you,"
replied the Doctor, who now warmed in the dis
pute, and hastened to say, " You must see that it
" is a connexion not only of mere interest, but
" also of the higher feelings of duty, gratitude,
" and honour, the breaking up of which, except
" upon extraordinary grounds, would be a calamity
" to both parties. In case of separation, or if you
" remain independent, but weak, and in constant
" fear of your powerful neighbours, you must be
" immediately and heavily taxed. Instead of the
" present low custom-house duties, you must pay
" forty per cent to meet your new expenses of
" administration, of defence, and the local bur-
" thens." (At present, 1849, they are twenty per
cent below those of the United States.)
" If you annex to the United States, the entire
" customs and land revenues would be placed at
" the disposal of the Federal Government for
" general purposes, while the Canadian people
" would be taxed directly for all local objects.
" The control of your own revenue would be gone.
" The Roman Catholic bishops and clergy would

202 CANADIAN POLITICS.
" immediately lose the public salaries which for
" fifty years they have received from the British
" Government. Neither have I the least doubt
" but that the proprietors of land under the French
" tenures would eventually be beggared by a con-
" fiscation, in spite of any proviso to the contrary.
" In the councils of Washington it is well known
" that the sacred cry of justice and of right is
" stifled in the presence of personal or national
" interest, just as much as in those of St. Peters-
" burgh. — (The Seminoles, Mexico, Sfc.)
" If you were to separate to-morrow, a few
" lawyers would be the chief gainers. They, with
" their connexions, would fill all the public offices.
" The great body, I think I have shewn, would
" suffer, and would not be slow in telling you so ;
" for few love money with the intense affection
" of a Canadian peasant." — (Spoken plainly, I
thought.) " I made use of the word ' gratitude ' just now.
" How beautifully was the kindness of the home
" Government shewn a few years ago in this re-
" mote spot ! Your crops barely suffice for your
" population ; you have scarcely any other re-
' ' sources. At the time to which I allude, a deficient
" harvest brought you to the brink of a famine."
" Your sovereign supplied all your wants, and
" asked for no return. Perhaps your own hand
" drew up the petition for this aid. I doubt

CANADIAN POLITICS. 203
" whether the Canadas in a state of independence
" would have done so much, for the western people
" are not overfond of their French compatriots.
" The authorities of Washington, 900 miles from
" you, would not have sent you a dollar."
" But to descend now to a more possible and
" less violent political change, your having re-
" sponsible government, the management of your
" own affairs all but uncontrolled by the Colonial
" Office, I am sorry to say that I have misgivings,
" sound and deep, about that measure. When I
" think of the few permanent residents in this
" country, adapted by education, abilities, and
" habits of labour, for the conscientiously dis-
" charged burdens of office, — when I think of the
" number of office-seekers, their poverty, love of
" display and official distinction, I cannot but
" foresee avast increase of what I already observe
" too much — of heartburnings, animosities, cabal,
" and the sacrifice of public to private interests:
" I am not prepared to grant even this smaller
" measure of emancipation. And I am sure you
" will allow that the intentions of the Imperial
" Government are kind and paternal. It has no
" other object than your well-being, knowing
" that it operates directly upon that of Britain.
" And see how you have prospered ! "
"Well, my dear sir," retorted the eager but
still friendly Pothier, whose flushed countenance

204 CANADIAN POLITICS.
had also tinted with carmine the sympathising
cheeks of his wife and daughter. " But, pardon
" me, I do insist, but with perfect respect, that
" we have in Canada the requisite materials for
" self-government, and that there is a sufficiency
" among us of stability, honesty, common sense,
" and knowledge. You are too hard upon us; I
" can point out the men."
" I concede that the Colonial Office means well,
" but its good intentions are marred by ignorance.
" Your office people know nothing about us, and
" mismanage us, as they do all the other colonies.
" They seem to have neither sunlight nor star-
" light to guide them. We have had a hundred
" incontestable proofs of this. What good can
" an over-tasked man, 3000 miles off, in a back
" attic in London, do my country? What does
" he know of its wants, modified by climate, cus-
" toms, and prejudices, as well as by a thousand
" points in statistics and topography — distracted
" as he is with the cries of forty-two other colonies ?
" These things are only known to him in the
" rough. He can direct and advise on general
" grounds alone, and, therefore, too often erro-
" neously. Besides, he is like one of your church-
" wardens, only a temporary officer. He fears to
" meddle, and leaves the grief to grow. If we
" have a sensible, useful colonial minister to-day,
" he is lost to-morrow ; and we have in his place

CANADIAN POLITICS. 205
" an idle and ill-informed, or a speculative, hair-
" splitting, specious man to deal with — never
" feeling safe, and sometimes driven half-mad by
" his fatal crotchets."
Here Dr. Wright looked very uneasy, but held
his peace.
"The blunders committed at home pervade all
" departments. The Lords of the Admiralty send
" water- tanks for ships sailing on a lake of the
" purest water in the world. The Ordnance
" Office (or some such place) send cannon to be
" transported from Quebec into the upper country
" in winter; one gun costing 1700Z. to take it to
" Kingston, where, by the bye, it never arrived,
" for it lies to this day in the woods, ten miles
" short of its destination."
"A man becomes a public defaulter to the
" amount of 100,000Z. and he is rewarded with a
" baronetcy. A seigniory worth 1500?. per an-
" num, belonging to him, is not attached, it being
" supposed to have been given to the son ; but
" twenty years afterwards, a new governor, of a
" bolder temper, seized it at once on behalf of
" the public.
" Administrative difficulties at present weigh
" upon us for six months, to which a week or a
" day here would put a period, or which never
" would have been a difficulty at all."

206 CANADIAN POLITICS.
" My wonder, too, is," he continued, " how our
" excellent governor in his castle of St. Louis gets
" to know anything about us. The officials at
" home are in a worse case still. I pity the per-
" plexed governor walking amid the corruption
" of clever and interested persons, who colour
" everything to suit their own views. I have
" heard it said that there is a gentleman at Quebec
" who has a petition ready to be laid at his Ex-
" cellency's feet for every and each well-paid
" office as it falls vacant."
" There is a grievance which we feel most
" acutely, that I may be allowed to state : it is,
" that the greatest number, and the most lucra-
" tive, of our public offices are given to strangers.
" Every vacant place almost is filled up by the
" second cousin of a member of the Imperial
" Parliament, or by some one who has been useful
" to the ministry in some obscure county election.
" Our peasantry have a notion that soldiers are
" stored up in barrels at Chatham, fully accoutred
" for use in Canada, so soon and surely are they
" sent out when wanted. And verily, I believe
" there is something of the kind among the men
" of the law, the custom-house, and other branches
" of the civil service. At present, therefore, our
" own young ambitions are in despair. I can
" shew you a hundred young men of family, with

CANADIAN POLITICS. 207
" cultivated and honourable minds, absolutely
" running to seed for want of occupation, and
" exasperated at finding themselves neglected.
" These, under a better order of things, will find
" new duties, new subsistence, and be made de-
" voted servants of a just government.
" It is only prudent to do what is right by the
" Canadians, for their country is in the grasp of
" the United States at any moment ; contingents
" from the four nearest states would take it irre-
" vocably in one campaign. You will remember
" that it has become a fashion among American
" Presidents to signalise their four years' reign by
" some distinguished acquisition. Neither prin-
" ciple nor their true interests will stop an excit-
" able people like the Americans, with an ambitious
" politician at their head." *
Here our worthy chief's face began to gather
blackness. He was tired of the discussion, and
walked to the window to gaze upon the placid
scene close to his eye — the well-kept church, the
presbytery, nearly smothered under one huge
tree ; the burial-ground, full of black wooden
crosses, bung with wreaths of amaranth and the
tinsel gauds of humble affection.
* General Winfield Scott, an able and very popular officer, has
recently bid for the Presidency of the United States by making
proposals tantamount to the annexation of the Canadas (1849).

208 CANADIAN POLITICS.
After a little time he returned to his seat with
recovered features, and said, " I think we have
" talked enough to-night. Although no revolu-
" tion is meant, still it is well to remark, that
" great political changes are too often fruitless ca-
" lamities, devouring their own children. Might
" we persuade Mademoiselle to favour us with a
" little music? — I see a new piano."
The rest of the evening passed off well. We
had some old French airs, sung not amiss ; some
delicate preserved fruits and cream, with Martin
ique liqueurs ; and parted.
In the passage near the door, while M. Pothier
was finding Dr. Wright's hat and stout stick, he
could not help quoting the old Frenchman who
said, that " He who lives in the mist of the valley
" is too apt to laugh at the cries of the sentinel
" on the clear hill-top."
" Excuse me, my good sir," replied the Doctor,
" if I say, very seriously, that Papineau and his
" fellows are using your honesty and your in-
" fluence to prepare for the Canadas ' the day of
" slaughter when the towers fall.' "
This conversation actually took place many
years ago, but not so methodically as reported.
M. de Rouville Pothier is one of the moderate
opposition. While walking home, Dr. Wright, a mettlesome

REFLECTIONS. 209
old man, shewed many signs of disturbance. He
declared he was not prepared for such an attack
from a man never heard of in the House of
Assembly. " It shews that there is not only discontent,
but power, out of sight. The worst of it is, that
there is much truth in what he says. Do you
think they will ever try an open insurrection ?"
" Yes, sir," I said ; " the men who are planning
" it are known even now. Politicians and sol-
" diers spring up in a new country before philo-
" sophers and poets. They have seventy thousand
" tainted militiamen, and a hardy peasantry.
" There will be no want of generals. Permit me,
" dear sir, to say that you manifested great tact
" and prowess in this very unexpected skirmish."
If I am to be allowed to express my own
humble opinion, I should say that at the present
hour the Canadians have obtained in responsible
government all that a sensible people can require
for their real good ; but that as soon as they are
able to stand comfortably alone, and can shew
that three-fourths of the population desire it, we
should amicably set them free, with certain pay
ments for fortifications, and not without a treaty
of alliance.
This should be done because it is right, in
defiance of an apparent expediency. Nations are
VOL. I. p

210 THE DUTIES OF ENGLAND.
as much bound to act on the Christian principle
of doing to others as they would be done by, as
individuals. Plausible reasons against such a policy are not
wanting, such as that it would be a national
dishonour, that Canada is an outlet for our surplus
people and our manufactures, a nursery for our
sailors, &c; but, of necessity, so it would remain.
We should be no losers. What have we lost by
the emancipation of the United States ? They
are our outlet, market, and naval nursery twenty-
fold. Two shillings a-month of additional pay
would fill our navy with the finest seamen in the
world ; and the Canadians are far too shrewd not
to buy in the cheapest market and sell in the
dearest. As to the dishonour, I see none, having
for some time a strong feeling upon the sin of
dominating over more tribes and wider regions
than can be superintended beneficially. For this, I
fear, more empires than one will on a certain day
be awfully rebuked.
I am much inclined to agree with Sir Henry
Parnell when he says, that " the possession of
colonies affords no advantages which could not be
obtained by commercial intercourse with inde
pendent states."
Mr. William Gladstone, speaking in the House
of Commons (April 1849) of a wise system of

THE DUTIES OF ENGLAND. 211
colonisation, says, " Then the connexion between
" the dependency and the mother country will
" subsist as long as it is good for either ; and
" when it ceases, I hope the time will come when
" the separation shall take place, not violently,
" but by the natural operation and vigour of its
" energies, to suit it for a state of self-government
" and of independence ; and then there may still
" subsist that similarity of laws, feelings, and
" institutions, which are infinitely more valuable
" than any political connexion whatever. (Hear,
"hear!)" Foreigners (Castelnau, " Vues et Souvenirs
de l'Amerique du Nord ") already perceive that
the separation we are speaking of is certain, and
a mere matter of time.
If a general and well-planned attempt to shake
off the allegiance to Great Britain were to occur,
I have great fear for the issue.
The population of the Canadas is numerous,
rich, intelligent, and warlike. Then, again,
nothing could prevent the idle young men of the
United States (full of meat and of pothouse glory,
shabby and false, acquired among the Indian
levies and distractions of Mexico) from helping,
and eventually dragging the great Confederacy
itself into the contest, to the sincere grief of all
considerate persons. I regret to say that the

212 CROSS THE ST. LAWRENCE.
peaceful and high-minded blacksmith, Elihu
Burritt, is but a sorry representative of the
American public (1849).
Early in the evening of the next day we left
this sweet valley, of which the best drawings give
a very inadequate notion.
We again and again thanked our kind hosts,
the Rousseaus, who, I repeat, would hear of no
remuneration. The only return ever made to
them was in the form of a champagne dinner
to the eldest son during one of his rare visits to
Quebec. An excellent boat, with civil boatmen, con
veyed us swiftly across the St. Lawrence to its
opposite or southern shore, a traverse (12-16
miles) of rough waters, as they proved to us,.
studded with pilot and fishing-boats, with now
and then a large European vessel, under whose
bows we shot, while their passengers leaned
curiously over the bulwarks, and up amon°- the
rigging, to examine us.
After having got a-ground, near the shore, in
the mud, and there remained in the dark for an
hour and a half, we landed in the parish of
St. Anne, and found shelter in a cottage hard
by. It afforded us only one small, sweltering
bed-room; we (the two young folk), therefore,
after a supper of black bread, bacon, and a

WALK TO ST. THOMAS. 213
decoction of burnt ibeans (called coffee), retired
to a barn i full of fragrant hay, where we slept
very comfortably in our clothes. But the next
morning, we were much grieved to find that our
chief. had' suffered a small • martyrdom under the
combined assaults of insects, heavy bed-clothes,
and bad diet. So disconcerted was he that,
having procured with some difficulty a calash,
he started forthwith for Quebec, taking with him
my friend Ritchie..
He did well. ' . It is only for the young to go
on tramp in a country without inns. Water from
a dirty ;lake. is neither wholesome nor palateable
after iced; champagne every .day. I was now
alone, with a few necessaries in a little bag,
trudging" on: foot towards the small town of
St. Thomas^ . distant twenty-one miles.
I foundithis part of the: south shore of the St.
Lawrence' .broken up into low, rocky ridges (of in
clined clay-slate . and conglomerate), with smiling
corn-fields . in the intervals, the crops: of wheat
astonishingly fine. Here and there along the
road, and near the houses, the dropping wyche-
elms were large, and almost artistically planted.
— Plate represents a scene in the parish of
LTslet. After three hours' brisk walking I was.cheered by
being told I was within six miles of St. Thomas,

214 TO BEAUMONT.
and as much mortified when, after an hour's
further march, I found I had yet eight miles
to go.
In due season I arrived, and at the entrance of
the town crossed two bridges over the River du
Sud, evidently a large body of water in winter
from the breadth of its bed.
I had scarcely heard of this little place. It
has a thousand inhabitants, among whom I saw
many cheerful faces in its four or five short
streets. The houses were in the roomy, heavy
French style, in good repair, and white-washed.
The environs are woody. It is the market-town
for a considerable interior, and has mills.
The next day I plodded on to Beaumont. It
was a Roman Catholic fete-day. I must have met
the entire population of the neighbourhood on their
way to church, some on foot, some in calashes, all
looking happy and well-attired. I wish that we
Protestants would mix a more social spirit with
the practical part of our religion. We might, on
the anniversaries of missionary and benevolent
institutions, for instance.
The whole country, from St. Thomas to Beau
mont, perhaps eighteen miles, is very pleasing,
and is spread out in grass and corn-fields, with
young woods of pine and birch on terraces, just
high enough to shelter the cultivated land. The

BEAUMONT. 215
road usually skirts the St. Lawrence, and is a
series of long ascents and descents.
The seigniory of St. Michael is soon attained,
and looks beautifully as we approach from the
east. Stretching far into the interior we see a
broad valley, alive with an industrious popula
tion, through which, during summer, a scanty
river wanders, but which, in spring, is an abound
ing torrent.
On the west side of the village of St. Michael
the road rises, and we see in front of us the
strongholds of Quebec, faint and blue in the dis
tance. Southerly (to the left) we have the dark
pine-ridges of Lauzon, skirted by fine meadows.
On the north-west is the large isle of Orleans,
and the broad St. Lawrence, with a solitary ship,
perhaps, labouring on its bosom.
I happily arrived at Beaumont just as a very
severe and protracted thunder-storm broke over
our heads.
Near this village, on a woody cliff, over
hanging the St. Lawrence, is an incomparable
little inn, something like the best on the lakes of
Cumberland, redolent of roses and honeysuckles,
picturesque, wholesome — neatness itself — larder
excellent. I recommend it, and its pleasant walks,
to those who wish to spend a convalescence, or
a still more pleasing period, in the country. It

216 QUEBEC.
is (or was) kept by a worthy Scotch family of the
name of Fraser.
I took a carriage from Beaumont to Quebec,
fourteen miles, the last half-dozen of which are
varied, rocky, and high, or running into dells.
Habitations, farms, and gardens, covered the
country, which was full of the agreeable cries of
pigs and poultry, and cattle of all sorts, growing
up for the market of Quebec nigh at hand.
I have passed Point Levi, with its pretty Ro
man Catholic church in a nook, have left the
uplands, and am at the Quebec Ferry, at the foot
of a crumbling precipice, crowned with pines
and a Protestant church with a handsome tower.
The river is crossed and Quebec is entered.
I need not say that, travel-stained and rather
weary, the city, with its tumultuous summer
commerce, was very welcome, and so was the easy
chair in mine inn ; and no less so the cordial
greetings of the presiding lady, Mrs. Wilson,
whose good deeds in my behalf may I never
forget !

EXCURSION THE FOURTH.
KAMOURASKA AND MALBAY.
Steam Voyage to Kamouraska — Company on board — Anecdotes —
Migrating Spiders — Kamouraska — Cross to Malbay in an open
Boat — The Brassard Family — Malbay — Curious Mounds —
Valley of St. Etienne, a deserted Lake — Singular Fog — Earth
quakes — the Musician — Anecdotes — Peasantry — Aimee's Toilet
— Salmon River — Lake St. John — Homeward on foot by North
Shore of St. Lawrence — Eboulements — Hospitality.
After due refreshment, a fortnight after the last
excursion, I started in a steamer for Kamouraska
and Malbay, situated on the St. Lawrence, oppo
site to each other, thirty miles below St. Paul's
Bay, and therefore ninety miles below Quebec,
Kamouraska being a little sea-bathing place,
while Malbay is a secluded seigniory of great
interest, occupying a valley among the hills of
the north shore.
My intention was to go first to the bathing-
place, then cross over to the opposite shore, and
work my way on foot to Quebec among the moun
tains and partially-cultivated districts bordering
the river.

218 THE STEAM-BOAT.
European steam-boats are unclean tubs in
comparison with those we meet with in America.
It was early in October that I stepped on board
a splendid vessel, bound to Kamouraska on a
pleasure excursion, with a gentlemanly captain
and an obliging steward.
The morning mist promised a warm day : the
air was fresh and elastic, such as can only be felt
in a region where man cannot infect — where he
is to surrounding nature as the bee to the wide
heath. A steam-boat is everywhere a Noah's ark, to
which the neighbourhood sends representatives
of each of its classes, with a few stragglers from
afar. So we had a few officers of the garrison of
Quebec, with their wives; Mrs. Thomas Scott,
of the 70th regiment, and her fine family ; she
was sister-in-law to Sir Walter Scott, the poet
and novelist. There were some merchant families
with well-stored baskets, the English from Mont
real, the French from Quebec. We had likewise
some stray American tourists, who, I am glad to
say, every summer flock in great numbers to the
Canadas. The American, while young, stands out here in
strong relief. He is instantly recognised by his
abrupt address, wiry, nasal tones, his long, pale

THE COMPANY. 219
face, straight hair, loose gait, and unbrushed
hat.* The French Canadians of the middle or
upper classes have short lively faces, with dark
complexions, and they are apt to be rather negli
gent of their attire. The British officers on
board, in their belted blue surtouts and foraging
caps, were, as all the world over, gentlemen ; a
thought too reserved perhaps, being usually too
* This crusty exterior very often conceals a well-trained intellect,
a gallant and susceptible heart. Many such have I met with,
especially at Philadelphia.
Some parts of the United States have a bad character.
I went one spring to Yale College, Newhaven, to read there for
a few weeks. In searching for lodgings, I found a quiet street
behind the College.
Entering by an open door one of the houses, which had ' ' Lodg
ings to let," in the windows, I was immediately met by an active,
middle-aged woman.
" Have the goodness, madam," I said, " to shew me the rooms
which are to be let."
" I won't," she replied, with a face on fire : " I know who you
are!" " I think you do not," was my answer, and was about to
explain further, when she rushed in upon me with, —
"I do know you. You are an impudent Virginian, with
your tobacco, your brandy, and dirty nigger servants. If I were
to let you my rooms, you and your fellows would give us Satan's
delights every hour of the twenty-four."
I had opened my mouth to tell her I was an Englishman, &c,
but she shouted, " Get out of this !" so vehemently that I was glad
to run away.
This good woman must have had very bad luck in her inmates,
for which all Virginia is not to be blamed. When far from home,
with a well-lined purse, bachelors' revelries are apt to be inex
cusably " funny and free."

220 . AN INCIDENT.
sublime to begin a conversation with a stranger.
We except the happy and thoughtless subs.
Among our American companions were two
charming sisters from Boston, United States,
who shone out like stars from among the general
company. " So shews a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o'er her fellows."
They were truly lady-like and beautiful, each in
her own way : the elder was calm and queenly,
while the younger, scarcely seventeen, of a more
slender form, was all movement and grace. Their
father accompanied them. I had the pleasure
of their previous acquaintance in descending the
rapids of the St. Lawrence with them.
We stopped at the lower end of the island of
Orleans to allow us to wander amongJ;he pretty
thickets of nut-trees and beech, for which the
place is noted. In an hour the signal-gun called
in the wanderers, and all came but one couple —
the younger American fair and a handsome young
officer — and they made their appearance in a few
minutes, flushed with running. The flush was
not a little heightened when the excellent band
on board struck up a then popular air, " Will
you come to the Bower I've shaded for you?" in
allusion to the gentleman's name.
We were soon off. With a tide of six miles an

A PORTRAIT. 221
hour in our favour we swiftly passed the succes
sive islets below that of Orleans, amid the mixed
scenery of rock, water, and shipping, which had
so much delighted me on my first entrance into
Canada. So numerous a company must be expected to
contain some very volatile young men. One of
these pointed out to me a female figure in the
deepest widow's weeds, sitting with her back to
us near the stern. " Take an opportunity," said
he, "of looking into that lady's face. You will
be repaid." I did so; but instead of a bowed
lily, all beauty and resignation, I was shocked
to see under the pretty mourning-gear a square
sallow face, pock-marked, with a slight hare
lip, and a red, sullen eye, like that of a baffled
tiger-cat. " A widow, you see," said the lieu
tenant. " What could the poor man do but die?
It was the only move." I turned away from him,
thinking his wit vastly out of place. But it was
a fearful physiognomy.
When half-way on our voyage we were much
surprised by seeing, high in the air, streaming
across the St. Lawrence, a number of grey, fleecy,
island-like masses, each an acre or more in ex
tent, in oblong sheets, torn as it were, and too
thin and filmy for clouds. As portions now and
then dropped on our deck, we found that it was

222 THE TRAVELLING SPIDERS.
a migrating party of small black spiders, every
one upon his own long grey string or web. In a
quarter of an hour they passed out of sight. I
had seen the same before, but .not in such
numbers.* Where was this army going ? Was it pursued
or pursuing ? By what imperious instinct were
its members impelled to start on a given day ?
Who are their leaders? Are they elders who
have made the journey before ?
They seemed bound to the great lake of St.
John in the north, perhaps to make war upon the
little black fly, whose sting is red-hot torture,
and which loves the warm sands of a lake shore ;
or were they only going to burrow and breed
there in peace ? He that prepared a path for this
mighty river, and gave wings to His angels, had
prepared theirs.
The land crab of Jamaica has a curious provi
sion for his journey to and from the sea to his
mountains. His branchiae (which serve as lungs)
are of use only in water. They therefore float in
water-bags provided for that occasion only, and
so operate the necessary change upon the blood.
To within a minute of the appointed time we
* Probably Aranea Obtextrix of Beckstein and Strack, referred
to in Kirby and Spence's Introduction to Entomology, sixth edi
tion, vol. ii. p. 277.

KAMOURASKA BOARDING-HOUSE. 223
came to anchor at Kamouraska, before a row of
fifty neat-looking houses on a bank a mile long.
This little port is formed by a shallow bay, de
fended from without by several rocky islets.
Our party rapidly dispersed, some to cross to
the opposite shore, some merely to run about
until the steamer returned, and others, with my
self among the number, to obtain shelter in some
boarding-house. I was fortunate in my selection. I found some
agreeable French society with whom to pass the
evenings. The first thing I caught sight of in
the " Salon" was a good guitar, which was often
and agreeably played by a lady from Montreal,
or it might have been from the Faubourg St.
Honore, so well did she preserve the traditionary
manner and costume of France.
I have little to say of Kamouraska. It answers
its purpose to the Canadian gentry. The waters
of the St. Lawrence are salt ; but dipping, as the
bank does at each end, in extensive cranberry
marshes, with here and there groups of bare, low
rocks, I should fear malaria. In the back country
are ranges of high, naked hills.
The view from our windows was very cheerful.
The St. Lawrence, eighteen miles broad, is always,
in summer, alive with shipping and pilot-boats.
The opposite shore is very steep and high, and

224 CROSS TO MALBAY.
casts a deep shadow far into the waters. It is a
sort of cloud-land, and seldom wears the same
face for a couple of hours together.
I left Kamouraska, with its grand Indian name,
on the third day for Malbay. Some peasant fish
ermen engaged to take me there in an open boat.
We left at noon, with a gentle and favouring
breeze, which in an hour veered round in our
teeth. We now made long tacks for several hours,
and at the wrong end of a long stretch we lost
the little wind we had. All that autumn night
we toiled at the oar, not perhaps with the vigour
of a post-captain's boat's crew, but we toiled, and
fetched bay and river at three next morning.
I was left in the dark of a raw foggy morning,
with my small baggage, on the muddy beach,
cramped, cold, and hungry. I was told truly,
that save at Kamouraska there was no inn within
sixty miles ; but that about six o'clock I would be
kindly received at Antoine Brassard's, a peasant,
whose one-chimneyed house, on the bank above
me, was just discernible as a dim black mass.
While waiting, like a forgotten ghost, shivering
on that bleak shore, I cannot say that I took
much delight in the concert around me of low-
ings, and bleatings, and barkings, by which ani
mals express their wish for the sun, and which
poets say are so delicious in early morn.

A DOMESTIC SCENE. 225
While sitting on my bag, chin on breast, I had
one or two ugly frights from the swoop of a sea
bird, who at that indistinct hour fancied I might
be eatable. But day-light and six o'clock came
punctually, and I was readily and politely received
by Monsieur and Madame Brassard. They were
obliging people : great was the stir they made for
me. I was allowed to warm myself for a few
minutes, and then requested to go to bed while
breakfast was preparing.
Following my stout hostess and one or two
stumpy laughing daughters, I ascended into the
cock-loft, where was my bed for that nonce.
" Get out of that, Granny," cried my con
ductress. "What's to get out?" said I; " and
from where?" "From Granny's bed, sir, and
she's in it." I intreated that she should not be
disturbed, and the more vehemently as the dim
light showed that the chocolate-coloured sheets
had never been washed since the days of Mont
calm ; and that Granny, on rising promptly to
the call, was a- most mummified creature, whose
parchment skin reminded me of Ziska's when it
headed a drum. Yet I afterwards found that this
extremely aged and decrepit woman, weary of
life perhaps, had no small share of feeling and
intelligence ; and as is usual, vastly to the credit
of all semi-civilized or barbarous people, was
vol. i. Q

226 MALBAY.
kindly and respectfully treated. So I descended
to breakfast} and then wialked out.
I found Malbay, or Murray-bay, as the Seignior
likes to have it called,: a round indenture in the
north shore of the St. Lawrence, about two miles
in outer .diaiheter; overhung by steep, pine-clad
hills, at whose feeti (in the bay) are grassy diluvial
terraces, ion which ;sta/nd some houses and a neat
chureh. . i, ; < . • <., ',: , .
Near a principal house on the west side of the
May is a remafckable assemblage of detached bar
row-lake mounds, from ten to twenty feet, high,
covered1 with shrubbery. They are on a level
with tide-water, arid seem to have been deposited
at the neutral points of conflicting cur-rents in
another state' of things.*
A considerable breach about the centre of the
rampart of. hills permits the noisy River Malbay
to join the St. Lawrence, and discloses in the rear
a low country called the Valley of St. Etienne,
sheltered on; all sides by mountains.
' This .Valley- is riot only picturesque, but highly
interesting to the geologist. It has, in fact, been
the;bed-bf a lake which has undergone more than
* It is wprtlj ijoticjngj "that a little, hpypnd the east corner of
the bay there is .a primitive rock so full of garnet crystals, of the
unusual size of an infant's head, that the original rock is almost
obliterated. Fine specimens could only be obtained by blasting.

HI "X
em -ll ^

*4 if^;u.

THE TERRACES OF ST. ETIENNE. 227
one depression in level, possibly by successive
lowerings in its side or rim at the present outlet.
The vestiges of this are yet very evident.
Having given a sketch of this valley, I hardly
need be more particular than to say that it runs
north and south for six miles, with a breadth
exceeding a mile (at a guess), and is a straight,
uneven, strip of land, with the shifting bed of the
Malbay in the centre, and certain horizontal ter
races on the flanks around.
These terraces may be described thus. On the
eastern uplands, about 500 feet above the river,
a flat and uniform embankment, like a regularly-
made carriage-road, a few yards broad, runs along
the whole length of the valley, cut through at
intervals by winter torrents. At a given and uni
form distance below this comes another terrace
and bank correspondingly breached, and descend
ing swiftly down to the broken ground and tumuli
of gravel and clay near the river. These ancient
shores pass all round the valley, but perhaps not
quite so perfect and striking on its west side.*
• These beaches must have been deposited slowly, tranquilly,
¦under water, and when the district was at a different level faom the
present ; for water at the level of this day would drown four-fifths
of America.
The lofty beaches of St. Etienne I could not examine with care,
but the materials composing those of the river Notawasaga in Lake
Huron are laid down horizontally, and often in thin strata, the

228 ST. ETIENNE VALLEY,
At the. upper and north-east end of the valley
there is a very large breach in these terraces (with
perpendicular sides), which is lost sight of in the
woods of the interior. It is evidently the bed of a
.great stream (the ancient river, probably) feeding
the lost lake. (Vide Plan in Append, vol. ii.)
. I cannot but think that its powerful current
has scooped out a noticeable feature in the valley
yet to be mentioned. It is the great bowl-shaped
hollow, evidently a deserted bay, which we find
at the5 north-west corner of the valley, opposite
the bed of- the ancient river just referred to. It
is half a league in diameter, with very steep sides,
terraced like the rest of the valley.
I never read of (except the Coquimbo and
Glenroy Roads), or saw, any spot exhibiting so
beautiful and compact a record of those times when
not only this, little valley, but all North America,
was comparatively a drowned land, tenanted chiefly
by aquatic and amphibious animals. Whether this
shells being identical with those now existing in the lake in perfect
preservation, the bivalves being either empty or filled with smaller
shells and sand.
The large terraces of the north shore of Lake Superior, are com
posed of small fragments of the rocks of the vicinity, in the state
of rough grit (or bowlders) sometimes confused, at others in hori
zontal sheets. The number of terraces varies in the space of a mile,
sometimes from one to six : why, I could not discover. I suppose
that slow elevation and the desiccation consequent on the loss of
feeders have produced the present levels of the great lakes, &c.

LAW RENCE

CHOCOLATE-COLOURED FOG. 229
continent has been drained by breaching, or by a
general change of level, we must not here discuss.
I cannot help thinking how delighted the amiable
and gifted Dean Buckland would be to look over
this clear page of nature, followed by his galloping
squadron of eager pupils.
The river of the present day enters the valley
by a waterfall at its upper end, at some distance
from the ancient river bed, and at the head of a
woody ravine, whither I followed up the river at
the expense of many a fall and many a rent.
About a couple of miles beyond Etienne, and
separated from it by high grounds partly culti
vated, is a small lake, one of many hereabouts,
full of delicate trout. This lake is bounded on
one side by precipices, and elsewhere by woods
and clearances, backed by sugar-loaf mountains.
The materials for these sketches and descrip
tions I obtained in the course of five days, and
chiefly on foot. I was prevented from doing any
thing on the second day by an extraordinary fog
of a deep coffee colour, lasting the whole day,
and requiring in-doors strong artificial light. On
walking out I could not see objects three yards
off. I descended to the beach and saw nothing. I
only heard the ripple and lazy plash of the wave. I
have not seen any London fog at all equal to this
in density. It left no deposit, and had no smell.

230 DAKK DAYS.
The celebrated dark days of Canada, in 1785
and 1814, were almost certainly caused by the
eruptions of distant volcanoes, coinciding in time
with local thunderstorms.*
* " On the Dark Days of Canada." By the Hon. Chief-Justice
Sewell, President Literary Historical Society of Quebec, vol. ii.
p. 231.
" On the 16th of October, 1785 (Sunday), after a foggy morning,
but which had dispersed by ten a.m., black clouds rapidly advanced
on Quebec from the north-east, and by 10° 30' it was so dark that
ordinary print could not be read. This lasted for upwards of ten
minutes, and was succeeded by a violent gust of wind, with rain,
thunder, and lightning ; after which the weather became brighter,
until twelve o'clock, when a second period of so much obscurity
took place that lights were used in all the churches. Other pe
riods of obscurity came on at two, three, and half-past four p.m.,
during which times the darkness was perfect — that of midnight.
" During all these hours vast masses of clouds, of a yellow
colour, drove from north-east to south-west, with much thunder,
lightning, and rain. The periods of total darkness were ten mi
nutes, the intervals affording but little light. — (Barometer 29° 5',
thermometer 52° 50'. — Dr. Sparke.)
" The rain-water was very black, and upon its surface a yellow
powder, sulphur, was found.
" These appearances occurred also at Montreal, but did not
begin till two p.m. They extended from Fredericton, North Bri
tain, to Montreal.
" The dark day of July 3, 1814, was much the same as that of
1785. There was darkness, continuous, with fall of sand and ashes.
Chief- Justice Sewell was eye-witness to this off the banks of New
foundland. " Charlevoix says that it rained cinders for six hours, in 1663,
at Tadoussac, on the River Saguenay, thirty miles below Malbay.
" Upon the 23d of November, 1819, a very remarkable black
rain fell at Montreal, accompanied by appalling thunder. It was
preceded by dark and gloomy weather, experienced all over the

DARK DAYS. 231
Malbay is often overcast in this manner ;
why I cannot say. It is also remarkable for fre
quent earthquakes according to numerous testi
monies, of which that of Captain Baddeley, R.E.
(at second-hand), is the most recent.
While at Malbay, on a tour made by order of
Government, he was informed by Mr. and Mrs.
United States. At times the aspect of the sky was grand and
terrific. " In Montreal the darkness was very great, particularly on a
Sunday morning. The whole atmosphere appeared as if covered
with a thick haze of a dingy orange colour, during which rain fell of
a thick and dark inky appearance, and apparently impregnated
with some black substance resembling soot.
" At this period many conjectures were afloat, among which that
of a volcano having broken out in some distant quarter. The
weather after this became pleasant until the Tuesday following,
when, at twelve o'clock, a heavy damp vapour enveloped the whole
city ; it then became necessary to .light candles in all the houses
and butchers' stalls.
" The appearance was awful and grand in the extreme. A little
before three o'clock a slight shock of an earthquake was felt, ac
companied by a noise resembling the distant discharge of artillery.
It was now that the increasing gloom engrossed universal atten
tion. " At 3° 20', when the darkness seemed to have reached its
greatest depth, the whole city was instantaneously illuminated by
the most vivid flash of lightning ever witnessed in Montreal,
immediately followed by a peal of thunder so loud and near as to
shake the strongest buildings to their foundations, which was fol
lowed by other peals, and accompanied by a heavy shower of rain
of the colour above described.
" After four p.m. the heavens began to assume a brighter ap
pearance, and fear gradually subsided." — Thompson's Meteor
ology.

232 THE MUSICIAN.
M'Nicol, who reside there, that shocks are most
frequent in January and February, and occur
nine or ten times a-year, most generally in the
night, being accompanied by changeable weather.
Their direction seems north-west, the shock last
ing one minute.
Notice is generally given by a noise like that
of a chimney on fire, followed by two distinct
blows.* During the day of coffee-coloured fog, of which
I have been speaking, and which was local, I
was reading in a little bed-closet, more like a
bulge in a crazy-wall than a room, when I
suddenly heard, within the house, two or three
short, delicious strokes of a fiddle-bow, succeeded
immediately by a masterly execution, on one of
Amati's best violins, of " Nel Silenzio," that
mysterious and mournful air in " II Crociato,"
which again instantly ran off into one of the gay
galloping melodies of Rossini.
Such music in a hut! — such wild capriccios,,
and passionate complainings, in the murky air of
an American wilderness, astounded me. Rushinc
to see whence it came, I found in the living-
room (kitchen, &c.) of the house, playing to the
family and some gossips, a slender, pale young
* Transactions of Historical and Literary Society of Quebec,,
vol. i. p. 142.

THE MUSICIAN. 233
man, in corduroy and fustian. I need not say
that the violin did not cease ; but that the musi
cian received a reward, humble indeed, but in
proportion to the means of his Mecsenas.
He was a thoughtless, and possibly a dissipated,
London artist, named Nokes, on a free ramble
through the Western world, and subsisting on
his violin.
He had been to Kamouraska, which, having
proved neither Brighton nor Ramsgate, he was
working back to Quebec, not knowing whether
the next stage would bring him to a city or a
desert. I afterwards formed a part of a delighted
audience at Quebec, at a concert given by him
and a M. Barraud, who, on a similar occasion,
soon afterwards, at New York, acted as money-
taker at the door, and left the city abruptly with
all the proceeds.*
* Most musical people seem bit with the gad-fly. They embark
for distant lands at an hour's notice. Huerta, the splendid
guitarist, of St. Sebastian, met at Havre some Americans who
were to embark the very same day for New York. They asked
him to accompany them. He agreed, bought a few shirts, and
the next day found him sea-sick in a packet-ship, his guitar
hanging on a peg.
I was present at the crowded concert he gave on his arrival at
New York. He made the large hall ring and echo with his Riego's
March and Spanish Boleros.
In the fifth row from the front there sat a very young Italian

234 THE HABITANS.
I go on to say that the soil of Malbay is indif
ferent, frequently all sand or all clay, and seldom
level. All kinds of grain ripen late. Indian
corn is hardly worth sowing, and tobacco often
small and stunted.
The inhabitants are wholly without school-
education. There is no medical man, lawyer, or
tavern-keeper, but two or three shoemakers, and
five shopkeepers (1823).
The priest has the love and respect of his flock,
although he does not permit dancing.
The peasantry live hard, but are active, cheer
ful, and obliging. Marriages are early and pro
lific. There were but two childless couples out
of 450, at my visit, and they were wondered at.
It is not uncommon for aged people to give up
their little property to their children, reserving a
rent. I saw an example of this near the village-
bridge. The house was the neatest in the place,
small, but conspicuous in red, black, and white
paint, with a garden of roses and balsams on one
girl, the daughter of a miniature painter, joyous, fair, and musical.
She was delighted with Huerta and his guitar. Three days after
wards she was a married dame, and the guitar had to carry double
— all very imprudent and naughty; but I sometimes think that
tipsy sailors and young couples have a kind Providence of their
own. We frequently meet with great musical talent in the most
unlikely places.

THE HABITANS. 235
side, and a considerable patch of ground planted
with onions and cabbages on the other. My
guide did not approve of this custom.
I saw a good deal of itch in the place ; and
now and then the sivvens, a very disgusting
disease, makes its appearance. They are a dirty
race. Milk, black or brown bread, and soups, form
tbe staple diet of the people all the year round ;
but in the months of August and September they
live much upon bilberries, raspberries, and thin
milk — and so did I while among them — a very
cooling diet ; and not likely to give any one " the
burning palm, the head which beats at night
upon its pillow with dreams adventurous," as
Wordsworth speaks.
With the exception of a few near the church,
the houses in the valley of St. Etienne were the
best ; but to my English eye many appeared
small and neglected, with little or no garden.
I visited a small farmer's establishment, five
miles up the valley, relations of my host, and
was pleased with its tidiness and family harmony.
They had collected from the rocky wilds around
immense pans full of bilberries for food.
The young people, men and women, showed
no shyness, although their threshold cannot be
crossed by a stranger once in twenty years ; and

236 RIVIERE DES TROIS SAUMONS.
they entered into conversation with me agreeably
and sensibly.
Upon the whole, and saving the dirt, I liked
the Malbay peasantry. Nothing could be more
obliging than the Brassard family from first to
last. Of the two or three upper-class families
I saw nothing, my business lying with hills and
valleys more than with my fellow-men.
The charges of Madame Brassard for lodging
and board — poor, simple woman! — were very
moderate. I might have staid longer, but at six
o'clock in the morning of my sixth day, I saw
Mademoiselle Aim6e at her ablutions before the
house-door. She might have half-a-pint of water
in a little bowl. With this she washed her
hands, filled her mouth with the same, and, spirt
ing it into her hands, most economically washed
also her face. I shuddered as I thought of her
milk and cookery, and resolved on instant flight
to a land where water was less precious.
I ought here to say, that on my fourth day in
these districts I went in a boat nine miles further
down the St. Lawrence, to the River " des Trois
Saumons," along an iron-bound coast.
This is a savage river, abounding in salmon,
and escapes from the rugged interior through a
deep ravine. The scene was quite melo-dramatic.
On a naked rock in the troubled waters was a

LAKE OF ST, JOHN. 237
hut, hung round with dusky nets. At the door
stood an unshaven, bronzed fisherman. Close
upon us were white marble rocks, high and inter
leaved with more common primitive strata, with
a screen of woods over all.
I spent a long hot night here for the benefit
of hosts of mosquitoes, and began to feel geology
a rude trade, saying, with St. Bernard, " Je me
vois un petit oiseau, sans plumes, presque toujours
hors de son nid, expose aux orages."
I am sorry I have no sketch of this wild spot ;
and at the time greatly desired, in spite of
mosquitoes and rude waters, to have gone some
thirty miles further down, to the magnificent
River Saguenay, but it was impossible.
West and south-west from the Lake of St. John,
sixty leagues up the Saguenay from the St. Law
rence, there are several millions of acres of
valuable land, fit for immediate settlement, with
a remarkably healthy climate, resembling that of
Montreal, according to Government-surveyors.
At the . old Jesuit establishment on this lake,
three hundred acres have formerly been in culti
vation ; but at present it is running wild. (Captain
Baddeley, R.E.) In attempting a mission in a
scarcely-inhabited country, dreary, distant, and
Siberian in climate (whatever may be said to
the contrary), the inexorable fathers must have

238 THE EBOULEMENTS.
had strongly on their minds the axiom of their
founder, " He who desires to do great things
for God must not be too prudent" (nor self-
sparing). So I departed from Malbay, and not
without regret.
I took my way on foot up the north shore of
the St. Lawrence towards Quebec, and after many
a painful step for eighteen miles I reached towards
evening the little village of the Eboulements, so
called from the prevalence there of earthquakes.
The road from Malbay, such as it is, leads chiefly
over mountain slopes and into deep gullies ; but
sometimes likewise along the river beach. Five
miles from Malbay there is a sawmill in a pic
turesque gully, whose stream is choked with large
erratic blocks. The slopes are more or less under
cultivation. The white dwellings seemed numer
ous, being 250 at the time of my visit, but not going
far back into the interior. These heights afford
magnificent and ever-changing landscapes. On
my right the inland country rose into mountain
peaks, naked or scantily covered, except on their
flanks and in the ravines, where the trees are fine
and plentiful. On my left the St. Lawrence
rolled at my feet. On its surface a ship was a
speck. Its near or north shore is always bluff or
precipitous, while the south shore is low and
populous, swelling slowly into faintly-discerned

THE EBOULEMENTS. 239
hills. If the spectator be near the village of
the Eboulements, the eyei is conducted for forty
miles 'up.the -river .along the successive proinon*
tories of Cape Corbeau, de la Baie, Petite Riviere,
and Tourme'at, which last; dips at once froin a
height 6& 19.00 feet intotthe water, to where the
rich island of. Orleans and its attendant , islets
terminate ihe, view. ' (See Plate.)
The highland districts, in which I now am, are
remarkable for one feature which must not be left
unnoticed. They are everywhere more or less
buried in fragments of the underlying, rock, with
very few travelled rocks aniong1' them. There is
good reason to' believe that it is- the freezing of
the crevice-water whidc htfs.thus deeply split up
this rather slaty q'uartzrosp'.ro'ck.
In many places this dSbris covers' not only rock,
but soil several feet deep. With immense labour,
therefore, the peasant collects the stones into
mounds of almost incredible number and size
before he .can have a blade of corn or of grass.
I saw on my road two narrow gullies, 300 feet
deep,' entirely faced with them, and the rivulets
buried out of sight. These splinters of rock are
not so numerous in other parts of Canada, but are
conspicuous in the narrows of Pelletau in Lake
Huron. The effect of extreme cold in shivering rocks is

240 THE EBOULEMENTS.
very well seen in Hudson's Bay, where the act is
frequently accompanied by considerable noise. A
conflagration in the woods always comminutes
the rocks to a considerable extent.
The grass fields of the Hawksbury Settle
ment on the Ottawa are often strewn with loose
rocks, not rarely from ten to twenty feet long
by five to ten feet broad. They are broken up
into large flakes like palm-leaves by keeping
a wood fire in full play upon them for twenty-
four hours, and then suddenly drenching them
with water.
I soon obtained most comfortable quarters at a
private house, ' among kind people, who thought
themselves well paid by the latest French Cana
dian news from Quebec ; a mode of remuneration
very onerous to a weary man. On leaving this
hospitable house I confess having put a dollar
under a candlestick.
The village of the Eboulements is on the flank
of a cultivated mountain, which slopes swiftly
on the left into the St. Lawrence, and in front
into a broad marshy meadow, through which
wanders a little stream hid in alders.
From this meadow, perhaps seven miles from
the valley of St. Paul, the road winds about the
rough hilly region called La Misere, from the
poverty and wetness of the land, to the summit of

M. ROUSSEAU. 241
the lofty barrier overlooking St. Paul's, into
which we descend almost perpendicularly.
Like many mountainous countries, such as the
Sardinian Alps, the Scottish Highlands, &c, the
seigniory of Les Eboulements and its vicinity is
liable to frequent but slight earthquakes.
There is no reason to believe that there is any
volcano north of 45° north latitude in America.
Mr. Thompson, of whom I have already spoken,
one of our greatest travellers among the Rocky
Mountains and the Indian territories bordering
the Arctic Seas, never saw or heard of one.
Having gratefully visited the excellent Rousseau
family of St. Paul's, I left direct for Quebec on
foot over the summits of Cape Tourment and its
neighbouring heights ; but as I have nothing par
ticular to tell I shall now close this excursion.

VOL. I.

EXCURSION THE FIFTH.
PART I.
LAKE ERIE AND THE RIVER DETROIT.
The Boundary Commission, its officers, objects, labours, &c. —
Lake Erie — Mr. Beaumont — Rev. Mr. Morse — Amherstburgh
— Captain Stewart and his negroes — Chevalier and Madame de
Brosse — Rattle-snake hunt — Indian cure — The Prophet — The
Kickapoo Indians — Detroit — My Inn and its guests — The Pro
fessor, the Judge, and the Barber — Moy — The Mennonites.
I believe that the report of my geological tour
(the northern part of which up the Ottawa River,
&c, forms the second Excursion), gave satisfac
tion. True it is that my masters did not know
much about the matter, scarcely "quartz from
pints," as a witty Irish lady once said of herself,
but they had the wisdom to. see how little could
be expected from a solitary individual flung help
less into a tangled forest, or on the rugged shore
of an oceanlike lake.
My tour of nearly two thousand miles showed,

GEOLOGY. 243
as far as could be discerned from shores, and
banks, and broken hill-sides open to examination,
that some of the rock formations had not found a
place in geological classification,* and that all
were too old to contain bituminous coal. Canada
West was found to be abundant in iron ore, lime
stone, fine marble, serpentine, gneis, and granite.
I sailed within a mile of the copper mines of Lake
Huron, but saw no traces of that ore, because I
did not land. In the discovery of new fossils I was
fortunate. During the following winter I received the
appointment of British secretary and medical
officer to the Boundary Commission, under the
sixth and seventh articles of the Treaty of Ghent.
This Commission consisted of two portions,
British and American ; each with a commissioner,
an agent,f secretary,;]; astronomer, two or more
surveyors, steward, and a number of voyageurs
and boatmen, varying according to circumstances
from ten to fifteen.
* I had neither the practical experience, the science, nor the
ability of Sir Roderic Murchison. He saw the same order of rocks
in other parts of the world, and had the honour of working out and
proclaiming a grand discovery, the Silurian system.
T The agent was an assessor and adviser to the Commissioner.
He corresponded directly with his own Government, addressed state
papers to the Commission, and managed the accounts.
X I succeeded Mr. Stephen Sewell, brother to the Chief-Justice
of Lower Canada, who resigned, and soon after died.

244 THE COMMISSION.
During two summers the Commission had the
assistance of two schooners, the Confiance and
the Red Jacket, on Lakes Erie and Huron; one
belonging to each Government.
Of the Red Jacket I know nothing, having
never seen her. The Confiance had a crew of
twelve seamen, and was commanded by Lieutenant
John Grant, R.N., an excellent officer and truly
amiable man.
The Commission had been in existence three or
four years when I joined it, and had worked from
the starting-point up to the head of Lake Erie,
550 miles, through districts in parts exceedingly
intricate. It was the duty of the Commission to examine,
designate, and trace upon correct charts of their
own construction, a boundary line between Upper
or Western Canada and the United States, along
the middle of certain water communications, com
mencing at the Indian village of St. Regis on Lake
St. Francis, where tlie 45th degree of north lati
tude strikes the St. Lawrence, and passing up this
river, through tbe middle of Lake Ontario, of the
river Niagara, of Lake Erie, of the river Detroit,
the Lake and river St. Clair, of Lake Huron, the
Straits of St. Mary, and of Lake Superior, as far
as the Grand Portage.
They were to decide to which of the two con-

ITS OBJECT. 245
tracting parties the several islands, more or less
struck or approached by the boundary line, re
spectively belong, in conformity with the Treaty
of 1783.
From the Grand Portage on Lake Superior the
Treaty of Ghent directed the boundary to pass up
Pigeon River and along the water-communica
tions, a chain of lakes, rivers, and swamps, which
lead to the north-west corner of the Lake of the
Woods; from which point or corner a line was
to be struck due south to north latitude 49°, and
from thence along that parallel across the Ameri
can continent to the Rocky Mountains.
The country to be examined and apportioned
was, for convenience sake, designated in ttvo
articles, the sixth and seventh, of the Treaty of
Ghent ; the former ending at the Straits of St.
Mary, and the latter continuing the line to the
Lake of the Woods.
An accurately-described co-terminous line be
tween countries so extensively and closely contigu
ous as the Canadas (with Prince Rupert's Land)
and the United States is of the first importance,
both in a civil and military respect ; chiefly, how
ever, in the former.
Positions of military offence and defence on
the Canadian frontier are innumerable on both
sides, so that the national interests are on that

246 DETAILS.
point but little affected as far as the 6th and 7th
articles of the Treaty of Ghent are concerned.
But a clear and acknowledged boundary is in
dispensable in questions of allegiance, of fiscal
and legal jurisdiction, of general and local taxa
tion, and among other particulars, in the pursuit
of criminals, debtors, and deserters from military
service. It also apportions territory, often of great
value, and is advantageous in other ways which
need not now be enumerated.
The details of the work evolved from time to
time many difficulties, arising from a variety of
circumstances, of which I can here mention only
a few. The want of any established precedents in inter
national law was a good deal felt. They would
have greatly facilitated discussion. The words
used by the treaty-makers, whose topographical
knowledge was limited, were sometimes vague.
For example, it was uncertain whether the term
" water communication," employed in the treaty,
had a commercial or geographical signification.
The Commissioners decided on the latter, as
being the most useful.
The " north-west corner " of a lake was another
debateable expression, which occasioned great
difficulties. Commercial routes were sometimes double.

METHOD OF PROCEEDING. 247
They might be used or disused (who was to say?).
Portions lay between main and island, both occu
pied by the same nation, and so necessarily fall
ing to that nation, to the great discontent of the
neighbouring inhabitants, who forgot that their
right of passage and other uses would be secured
afterwards by treaty.
The distribution of the very numerous and
often fertile islands caused great labour in sound
ings, measurements, and valuations. The islands
which were unequally divided by the boundary-
line were usually given to that party which be
came entitled to the largest share, compensation
being made in some other part of the frontier, as
contiguous as possible. The inconvenience of
two nationalities on one small island was not to
be endured.
Good-feeling, caution, ingenuity, knowledge of
various kinds, were required from time to time
in both parts of the Commission, to avoid appa
rently insurmountable obstructions — dead-locks,
as they are called — and to decide wisely in
doubtful cases.
The Commissioners acted very much upon a
set of principles tacitly or openly laid down from
the first as general rules.
I feel assured that the work was faithfully and
well performed, both from my own near observa-

248 LAND DISTRIBUTED.
tion,* and from the telling fact that the award was
neither a take-in nor a triumph to either nation.
The quantity of fertile and commodious land
which was set at liberty for public sale and safe
enjoyment on both sides of the boundary was very
large, being equal on the British side to a country
ninety-five miles long by four broad ; for until
this designation had taken place no titles could
be given. By far the greater portion of the land
is of excellent quality, with a tolerably dense
population either surrounding it or creeping fast
towards it, and worth all the expense incurred
twenty-fold and more. The British came into
secure possession of Wolfe, or Grand Island
(31,283 acres), close to Kingston on Lake On
tario, of Wells, Howe, and other valuable islands
in this vicinity. The island of St. Mary, in Lake
St. Clair, and the rich and beautiful St. Joseph,
in Lake Huron, seventeen miles by twelve, also
fell to the share of Upper Canada.
Although I speak without having the accounts
before me, I believe that the whole expense of
the Commission during nine years, the term of
its existence, was under £110,000. It was paid
in equal shares by the two Governments con
cerned. As an elaborate topographic and diplo-
* I was five years in the Commission, and left it on account of
my health.

SEVERE SERVICE. 249
matic labour, undertaken by two great nations,
and carried on for a series of years, the expense
incurred cannot be considered great. The space
under survey and decision was about 1700 miles
long by a variable breadth, for the most part
wilderness, very distant, often most intricate, and
only accessible in the summer.*
All this stretch of country had to be mapped
accurately, as a standing official document in
evidence — a work which includes minute sur
veys by astronomical observation, and by tri-
angulation, various measurements, &c, and the
construction of numerous maps on a large scale
in quadruplicate, — a copy for each Government
and each Commissioner.
I need not say that the field service of this
Commission was rendered arduous by the heats,
severe labour, by the provisions being salt, by an
noying insects, heavy rains, and by the unhealthi-
ness of some of the districts under examination.
Several of the surveyors, although in high
spirits at first with their good salaries and new
mode of life, soon left us, subdued by toil and
exposure. I have in my eye now one gentleman of con-
* The topographical survey of Great Britain has already cost
l,500,000i., although its officers and men are mostly taken from
the military service, and therefore work very cheaply.

250 SICKNESS AND DEATH.
siderable energy, sitting by the half hour on a bare
rock in the sun, wiping his perspiring face, and
in angry contention with a cloud of mosquitoes.
He soon went away. Another resigned because
work was begun at four o'clock in the morning,
or, as he called it, in the middle of the night.
It was, however, at the upper end of Lake
Erie that sickness effectually disabled the united
Commission. Scarcely a man escaped either ague
or bilious remittent fever under severe forms.
The whole American party, General Porter
(the Commissioner), included, caught one or other
of these diseases among the marshes of the Miami
River, or at Point Pele in Lake Erie. Not one
of them died ; but many had narrow escapes,
and few recovered until the succeeding spring.
Mr. Ogilvy, the British Commissioner, was
taken ill on the 12th of September, 1819, on
Boisblanc Island, in the river Detroit, and ten
days after died in the contiguous village of
Amherstburgh. He did not complain much, and
suffered chiefly from utter prostration. For seve
ral days he lay in a lethargic state; — in fact,
until a few hours before death.
Mr. Ogilvy died at the age of fifty, much re
gretted. He was on the whole fitted for his task,
being familiar with the country with which he
had to deal, both in Canada and in the Indian

SICKNESS. 251
territories, and he understood the views and
interests of the respective nations. There was
about him, I am informed, an unusual amount of
public spirit and talent ; but he was variable, apt
to be obstinate in trifles, and immediately after
wards too pliant in matters of more importance.
He was in good circumstances, and during the
last American war lent Government three or four
thousand pounds ; for which seasonable aid he
was offered (but declined) a lucrative public
appointment. During the last five or six years of his life he
spent seven or eight thousand pounds in improv
ing his estate of Airlie, near Montreal, and in
land speculations which his unexpected death
prevented from ripening.
Mr. David Thompson, the British astronomer
(already introduced to the reader), fell sick early
in the same September, at first with extreme
weakness, and then with high fever and delirium.
He was ill twenty-one days, and as soon as he
was able, left for his own home on the St. Law
rence, near the Glengarry settlement. There he
remained, feeble and out of health, all the winter.
Two of the British boatmen died of remittent
fever; one at Amherstburgh, and the other at
Montreal. The whole country about Lake Erie (always

252 COMMISSIONER BARCLAY.
unhealthy in the warm months) was visited that
year (1819) with unusual sickness. I was then
on my geological tour ; and in due course arrived
in Sandusky Bay, at the south-west end of Lake
Erie, usually a gay and interesting scene, but
then most pestilential, and therefore deserted.
The greater part of the inhabitants of San
dusky city had fled, while the adjacent small
town of Venice was left by all its population
(1500), excepting one man aged seventy years.
It was most melancholy to walk among the un
trodden streets, the empty houses, wharfs, and
warehouses. Venice stands in a swamp, the water
of which is more than milk-warm in summer.
As the Commission had again to work in Lake
Erie, and in the sickly regions on the way to
Lake Huron, it was resolved to place a medical
man in the office of secretary, then vacant by the
resignation of Mr. Stephen Sewell ; and I was
appointed. Lord Castlereagh, then holding the foreign
portfolio, conferred the vacant commissionership
on Anthony Barclay, Esq., of the London bar,
brother to Col. Delancey Barclay, of the Guards,
aid-de-camp to the late Duke of York, and son of
the late Col. Barclay, who for many years held
various important employments in the United
States, on behalf of the British Government.

THE COMMISSION CONTINUED. 253
Mr. Barclay was selected with peculiar felicity,
if. fitness for office be determined by personal
character, by great diligence, ability, and firm
ness of purpose, and by a large acquaintance with
its duties, acquired as secretary to a similar
Commission under the 4th and 5th Articles of
the Treaty of Ghent ; while he of all men was
enabled, by previous education and quiet amenity
of manner, to cope with the eager and exacting
temper of American diplomatists, and to make
good the right thing.
I am at the same time far from saying or hint
ing a single word to the moral prejudice of the
United States' portion of our Commission. They
were men of strict honour, and frank and friendly
to all — to myself personally most kind. But it
is well known that American civil servants are
under strong pressure, and ever anxious to estab
lish new claims upon the gratitude of the repub
lic. The length of their state-papers, notes,
replies, rejoinders, &c. &c, was wonderful to me,
unacquainted as I was with the style and method
of official correspondence.
It had been arranged in the winter of 1820-21
that the United Boundary Commission should meet
at Amherstburgh, as early in the ensuing spring
as it was possible for the surveys to be prosecuted.
On the 7th of May, 1821, therefore, the

254 LAKE ERIE.
British Commission, including my humble self,
arrived at Waterloo, a sleepy little cluster of
houses at the head of the river Niagara, and on
the Canadian side of Lake Erie.
It was impossible to proceed further. Lake Erie
was blocked up by a fixed mass of rough ice, forty
miles long. From a neighbouring height, we were
glad to think we saw a narrow lead-coloured line,
the open lake, beyond the great white expanse.
We were told that, by the help of a strong
south-west wind, all that immense body of ice
would crack and rend, and come tumbling down
the river Niagara in ragged fragments. And so
it fell out; but we waited in a wretched pot
house for six days.
The passage of the ice down the Black-Rock
rapids was an interesting sight. We often
watched the jammed masses, blocks and sheets
of all shapes and sizes, hurrying down the river,
at peace, however, among themselves, except
near the banks, where there was an abundance
of quarrel and mutual damage. But with a
cautious start from either bank, crossing seemed
quite safe. The boat and the ice were quite
passive as regards each other, because driven by
the same current.
We crossed several times. Of course it is a
tedious affair, as the boat is taken the best part

COMMISSIONER PORTER'S HOUSE SACKED. 255
of a mile too far down. On one occasion we
went to a pleasant dinner at Black-Rock, at the
large and commodious house of the American
Commissioner (General Porter), the very house
which was sacked a few years before by the 41st
British Infantry. The soldiers fell principally on
the larder and cellar, and were not disappointed,
as an eye-witness informed me. Although a
grievous act of barbarity, the affluent American
general could speak on the subject with the
greatest good-humour. The whole frontier was
ravaged by the British by way of reprisal.
On the 13th instant the ice had almost all
disappeared;* and we embarked in the Buffalo
steamer for Amherstburgh, a distance of 224
miles, where we arrived on the 16th instant.
There are now (1848) the surprising number of
one hundred steamers on this lake alone.
We rarely saw the Canadian shore, as we kept
close to the American the whole way, calling at
Dunkirk, Erie, Cleveland, and other places, to
land and receive passengers and cargo.
This shore is a remarkably straight and mono-
* Does not this show that forty miles of water left the lake in
less than six days, — i. e. from the moment the ice broke, — each
mass descending with the water it floated in? Mr. Allen has
calculated that 701,250 tons of water flow out of Lake Erie at
Black-Rock every minute.  " American Journal of Science,"
vol. xliv. p. 71.

256 MR. BEAUMONT.
tonous line of rich sloping woods, with a clear
ance here and there. There are no materials for
description of scenery.
We were favoured by no incidents, except that
the servant of the British agent was robbed
of a shoe, taken from off his foot while asleep
on the deck at night. His great lamentation
was the uselessness of the parted shoes to any
body. If, during our three days' voyage, we escaped
dulness, the merit lies with the passengers. I
was much pleased with the agreeable manners
and extensive information of Mr. Beaumont, a
surgeon in the American army, on his way to
Michilimackinac. He there had soon afterwards
the good fortune to meet with Martin the Ca
nadian, whose process of digestion could be seen
through an aperture in the abdomen; and the
world had the good fortune to have so important
a phenomenon fall in the way of an observer as
able as Mr. Beaumont.
It will be recollected that Mr. Beaumont wit
nessed in this man's "stomach (laid partly open by
a gun-shot wound) all the successive steps in di
gestion — the accumulation of blood in the sto
mach, the effusion of the pale gastric juice, the
curious muscular movements of the organ, and
finally, the disappearance of the changed food.

MR. HUNTER. 257
He made also very curious observations on the
comparative digestibility of most of our ordinary
articles of diet.
I was very much attracted towards a young
cabin-passenger, named Hunter, from Maryland,
a most prepossessing fellow, full of ability and
spirit. He said he was a descendant of Poco-
hontas, the Virginian princess, who saved the
life of Captain Smith, and afterwards married him.
He had still very evidently the clear bronze of
the Indian, and his never-to-be-forgotten eye.
He was on one of those exploratory tours so fre
quently made by American youth, and bound for
Lake Michigan ; from thence to make his way
by Greenbay and the Fox River to the Mississippi,
and so round home. I longed to be his com
panion. The ivory haft of a dagger occasionally
peeped from within his waistcoat. I asked him
the use of it. He answered, that he hoped it
would be of no use, but that it was best to be
prepared for the lawless borderers of the west.
The young men of the Atlantic shores of the
United States may often feel competition at home
too strong for them, or may wish to know per
sonally the capabilities of other regions, in fer
tility, water power, or commercial openings.
Again, we had an American clergyman on
board, the Rev. Mr. Morse, very distinguished
vol. i. s

258 THE REV. MR. MORSE.
at that time for his exertions in the cause of mis
sions. He was dressed with a preciseness very
unusual in the United States — wholly in black,
with small-clothes and silk stockings. His coat
was single-breasted, descending to his heels, and
was adorned with large cloth buttons. A white
neckcloth and broad-brimmed hat I must men
tion, and then go on to say, that his physiognomy
was mild, pleasingly devout ; his nose aquiline,
giving his face the convex profile we see on the
coins of Louis XVI. of France. He was fit for
his work, and while not without the wisdom which
is from above, possessed the activity, frankness,
and tact of the man of the world, — and the de
cision, let me add, of which his dress was the
symbol. He was always amiable and accessible,
but always the minister. He did not act upon
the Jesuit maxim of entering a man's heart by
his door and coming out at your own. The use
of his pen was incessant ; his note-book was
flooded with remarks, but upon what, was past
my comprehension.
I have said that Mr. Morse was a good man ;
and therefore could not help sighing when I saw
the triumphant eagerness, the large flashing eye,
with which he mounted a high railing, to mark
and talk over, in the presence of Englishmen, the
exact locality where, a very few years before, the

AMHERSTBURGH. 259
British and American squadrons had met in
battle, — an open sheet of water, as smooth as
glass when Mr. Morse was gazing upon it, with
the Put-in Bay group of islets close at hand, other
islands farther off on the north, and the low,
woody, south main almost disappearing in the
distance. I perceived that in the mistaken pa
triot we had lost, for the moment, the Christian.
Did he not know that his country was fighting the
battles of Napoleon the oppressor, and against her
agonising parent? and that a war against Great
Britain at that juncture was base, matricidal, and
a political mistake ? Hundreds of thousands of
American citizens held up holy hands against that
war. We can now rejoice that public opinion is
vastly purified, and that thoughtful men seldom
find pleasure even in victory.
The American papers soon afterwards told us
that the Rev. Mr. Morse did not go beyond Green
Bay, in Lake Michigan. He was laid up there
by sickness.
The Boundary Commission left the steamer at
Amherstburgh, at that time a village of about
five hundred inhabitants ; but now having, with
double that number of people, a new court-house,
market-place, five churches and chapels, and other
remarkable improvements. In 1821 there were
two companies of infantry at Amherstburgh, under

260 THE BOUNDARY COMMISSION.
a lieutenant-colonel, a man of talent and refine
ment, an excellent officer, but an invalid in an
unhealthy station, and obliged by his duty to live
here in a crazy cottage, with little or no society.
Such is life in the army.
We met with every civility from the slender
garrison. I here first tasted the grey squirrel.
Although I am not fond of new flavours at the
dinner- table, I thought this an excellent dish.
Our business here was confined to the settle
ment of accounts, and to framing directions to
the surveying parties as to the summer's work.
They were ordered to make a map of River and
Lake St. Clair, with the upper part of the River
Detroit, and the head of Lake Erie — a very
unhealthy district.
The two commissioners, the English agent and
the American secretary, returned home; the Ame
rican agent and myself remained, to accompany
the working parties.
As the British schooner Confiance, on board
which we were frequently to reside, and which
was to convey us to the seat of work, did not
arrive for a week afterwards, I passed this time
very pleasantly at Amherstburgh and at the Ame
rican town of Detroit, eighteen miles above Lake
Erie. The river and lake of St. Clair, with the River

THE RIVERS DETROIT AND ST. CLAIR. 261
Detroit, form the water communication between
Lakes Huron and Erie, taking from the former to
feed the latter. They are noble bodies of pure,
transparent water (except certain parts of Lake
St. Clair), flowing through an immense plain,
through millions of acres of forest, full of smaller
rivers, sometimes consisting of dry, useful land,
at others sinking into swamps or even extensive
lakes. The hand of man is only felt on the prin
cipal streams ; all else is in a state of nature. It
is now, however, fast replenishing with an indus
trious population.
The Rivers Detroit and St. Clair have a lively
fringe of comfortable and even pretty dwellings,
embowered in pear, apple, and peach orchards,
with here and there a church-tower or a clump
of wych-elms shadowing an advanced bank of
the river. Productive farms stretch out of sight
into the woods behind. When first I saw this
region of plenty and beauty, I was enchanted
with it ; but nearer acquaintance moderated my
admiration. Even at and about Amherstburgh there was
much to interest, — not the moist, flat, half-culti
vated environs, nor its couple of streets, humble
and narrow, but some of the temporary residents.
The climate, aguish and worse, and the great
heats of summer, may account for the drooping,

262 AMHERSTBURGH.
aimless look of the people of this village, as well
as its stagnant appearance generally.
The shopkeepers and small exporters com
plained of the times ; but their stores were well
filled ; they were bartering freely with the back
settlements in tobacco, wheat, Indian corn, &c. ;
Steamers and sloops were constantly bringing and
taking away. The shopkeeper* had a news-room
and library — a sure indication of life and spirit.
So I concluded that, upon the whole, things were
not very bad.
The farmers complained to me that the shop
keepers ruled them with a rod of iron, because
they were mostly their debtors, and had to sell
to them, their creditors, produce at a very low
rate, or receive a visit from the sheriff's officer.
This says very little for the prudence or energy
of the farmer.
I remarked that, except when the climate had
touched them, the general appearance of the
country people was tolerably good, and indicated
easy circumstances. I never saw in England
better crops of wheat; and their tobacco brings
a high price.
Strong drink is the bane of Canada West, es
pecially on outlying farms, and still more espe
cially, I fear, among half-pay officers. All goes
on soberly and pleasantly while the buildings and

CAPTAIN STEWART. 263
land are getting up and into order ; but as soon as
this is done time hangs heavily, annoyances arise,
vain regrets are felt, infirm health is apt to fol
low ; when the only resource seems to be the
whisky-bottle. The man begins to remember
only the pleasant part of English and military
life, and laments his chair and plate at the regi
mental mess. He is very glad of an invitation to
dine with the little garrison twenty miles off ; and
in the end sinks into the sot, and drags his sons,
if he have any, down with him.
The gentleman settler is unfit for tbe gloom of
the woods, and should select a ready-made farm,
not more than ten miles from a town. This can
be done any day on reasonable terms.
There were in 1821 some remarkable persons
in and near Amherstburgh, to whom I had the
good fortune to be introduced. I am sure I shall
be satisfying my own feelings, and doing honour
to a man of high merit, in giving a brief account
of Captain Stewart, late of the Honourable East
India service.
Although Captain Stewart resided at Amherst
burgh, and was still not thirty-five years of age,
he had passed many years in India, and had had
some concern with the mutiny at Vellore; but
his part in the affair must have been small ; for
his jealous masters dismissed him with full pay

264 NEGRO COLONY.
for life. He was handsome, frank, and energetic.
His iron frame was indifferent to luxuries or even
coiu forts ; any hut was a home, and any food was
nourism;;ent, provided he could be doing good
to others ; for he was, and is, a working Chris
tian. At this time he was waging successful war with
the negro slavery of the United States. As a
branch of this holy enterprise within the grasp of
an individual of small means, and totally unaided,.
he devoted himself to providing a home for run
aways from the slave states.*
Being at least twenty years before his genera
tion, and having views as much above those of the
careful traffickers of Amherstburgh, as the heaven
is above the earth, the excellent captain was totallv
misunderstood, and well abused, for bringing them
customers, forsooth.
His design was to establish in the neighbour
hood a negro colony. For this purpose he bought
a small tract of land in the rear of the village.
As the poor fugitives came in, friendless and
breathless, though exulting, Captain Stewart
offered them protection and subsistence ; the
first being still necessary against the stratagems,.
* In 1847 I had the pleasure of meeting Capt. S. at Bristol. I
knew him instantly; there was the same carelessness about the
outer man, and the same restless zeal for the old object.

NEGRO RUNAWAYS. 265
and even violence, of their pursuers ; the latter
his land supplied.
The greater portion of these negro refugees
became his tenants, and to this day form an
orderly body of British subjects, numbering 174
in 1842. So well known, throughout the United
States is the fact that there is such an asylum for
the wretched slaves, that from 1820 to the present
day, at least 15,000 persons of colour have come
and settled in Canada West. That number is
supposed to be there now, with churches and
schools in different parts of the province. During
the late rebellion, when the American sympathisers
invaded the British possessions, the blacks eagerly
offered their services to Government, well knowing
their fate if Canada should glitter as an additional
star in the spangled banner of the American Con
federation. Their offer was accepted. There is
(or was) a coloured company of soldiers at Stone
Bridge, Lake Erie.
I spent a very pleasant evening at the cottage
of Captain Stewart, a plain but comfortable abode
on the edge of his purchase, in which he lived
with his widowed sister, and her numerous and
fine family.
The negro village and the clearances were then
but just begun. As it was a very rainy season,
the land seemed to be a swamp, and the huts very

266 CHEVALIER AND MADAME DE BROSSE.
indifferent affairs, but were thought to be palaces
by the freemen who inhabited them. Subsequently
heavy crops were obtained from their farms.
Captain Stewart had the goodness to walk over
some of them with me ; and I am glad that I had
the discernment to cheer him on in his difficult
undertaking. Happy is the man who, with wis
dom, selects and pursues some great, unselfish
object. Its influence upon himself is most bene
ficial, as well as upon others, and will not cease
with this life.
" A good man seen, though silent, counsel gives."
If this had been Captain Stewart's only work it
would have been a noble benefaction to his fellow-
men — well worth a life.
There was near Amherstburgh, at this time, a
family in which all must have been greatly inter
ested, a lingering relic, in the distant western
world, of the old court of France.
Medical men have a very general entree into
the domestic circle. Sooner or later their services
are indispensable, and they often become almost
integral parts of the family. So it was here. The
medical officer of the garrison was on these
intimate terms with Chevalier and Madame de
Brosse. Dr. N. thought fit to take me with him to
spend an evening with his French friends.

a visit. 267
They resided a couple of miles from Amherst
burgh, at the extreme point of the river, just
where the fine woodland expanse of Lake Erie
comes into view. In walking there we passed
much pretty scenery, cottages with verandahs,
clumps of drooping willows, park-like openings,
and sand-banks overrun with sweet-briar, vines,
and briony.
The cottage of the Chevalier stands between
the lake and the highroad, and is a convenient
jumble of added parts, each under its own little
roof. The apartment with which I was best
acquainted (the family sitting-room) looked with
a wide bay-window upon the water. The large
garden and the offices were on the opposite side
of the road, upon rising ground, and sheltered
the cottage from the cold north winds. They had
a handy black galloway, and a Dearborn waggon
on easy springs, to carry them about to the Cana
dian French families in the vicinity.
The moment I entered this sitting-room I felt
myself in France. I was among the fanciful
articles of virtit, the bijouterie, and feminine knick-
knackery with which Madame de Genlis has made
the untravelled English familiar. There was no
carpet, but little rugs instead, in favourite spots,
before two short hair- seated sofas covered with
yellow plush, with four arm-chairs to match close

268 a visit.
by (a la Louis XIV.), and none of the newest.
The tables were of the native walnut, and very
beautiful. They were more or less covered with
books and culled flowers, and the one in the
middle of the room had a large Limousin plate,
painted over with blue and white saints, and
holding fans, seals, and medallions. For dear
Versailles' sake, well remembered through a vista
of chequered years, .Madame had preserved, or
somewhere picked up, a somewhat shattered cabi
net of marqueterie.
Portraits adorned the walls of the room ; an
excellent likeness of Marie Antoinette, in the
gloomy mezzotint of fifty years ago; a dashing
powdered likeness of Madame de Brosse when
very young ; and another, much more humble
and more modern, of her only daughter, a pretty
little brunette, recently married to a worthy
Frenchman, living on his property, twelve or
fifteen miles off.
I must not forget two Watteaus, pictures of
shepherds and shepherdesses, risking good looks
and gay clothes on wet grass, with open mouths
and music-books.
If there were a transcript of the ample and
genial face of the Chevalier, I did not see it. I
hope there was, for there are few so worthy of the
painter's pains.

a visit. *269
A tolerable piano was not wanting, and two or
three capital guitars stood in corners upon piles of
music. I had been long familiar with Grimm, Mar-
montel, and other describers of French life in
1770-1790. It was, therefore, most agreeable, as
well as unexpected, to find before me a very
pleasing representation of the vieille cour en action
in the heart of North America — not for a moment
wishing the vieille cour back again.
I was received at the door by the Chevalier, with
the warm but refined welcome which high-breed
ing alone can give. He was a magnificent person,
six feet five inches high, under sixty years of age,
with an open, gentlemanly physiognomy, and a
free, springy carriage even now. There had been
a time when he was finely proportioned, but an
indolent life of twenty years had added more to
his bulk than to his beauty.
He led us very pleasantly into the sitting-room.
There, ensconced in an easy chair, close to the bay-
window, and its quiet scenery of cypress, and
willow, and shining lake, we found Madame de
Brosse, a portly old lady, once fair, and cer
tainly handsome, now lively and gracious, with a
certain high manner blending in, but anything
rather than offensive. She received us most
cordially.

270* music.
The new-married daughter, in a simple dress,
sat by her side, evidently ready to contribute to a
pleasant evening. How she came to be a brunette
I do not know.
In a few minutes their only son, a lieutenant
on the half-pay of a Canadian regiment, walked
in. He strongly resembled his father in every
thing but his hilarious features, for those of the
son, with a woodland negligence of dress, were
decidedly pensive, and that perhaps from vain
regrets for the lost distinctions and pleasures of
his ancestors.
We had of conversation great plenty. The
Chevalier and his lady were full of anecdote about
courts, and camps, and lengthened wanderings.
They found in me, at least, a new and respectful
listener. After coffee Madame called upon her daughter
for a romance to the guitar, which she gave at
once, very unaffectedly and well. Then M. de
Brosse himself thundered out a " Chanson a la
chasse." It was too loud to be musical. I feared
for the windows. In the duet tbat followed be
tween himself and Madame de Brosse he san°-
the old French air upon which it was based as
gently and sweetly as he had been boisterous
before. Madame's organ might be thin, but her
singing was correct and tasteful. Throughout the

CHEVALIER DE BROSSE. 271
evening the amiability of this family, and their
determination to look brightly on the present,
and confidingly on the future, was delightful.
Having been a very humble cultivator of the
gay science, I tuned up my small pipe in two or
three French airs which had not as yet been
wafted so far west. Having the great advantage
of being " a new man," I was approved, and more
than once repeated my visit. Gateaux, creams,
and fruits, I ought to add, ended the evening
very agreeably. This interesting family were then
in their best spirits on account of the marriage of
their daughter.
The Chevalier had fallen in love with his lady
at the court of Versailles, where they held some
(perhaps) subordinate situations about the person
of Marie Antoinette in the beginning of the first
French revolution. That great political tempest
drove the aristocracy of France, and these two
young people with them, to the four winds.
After a variety of painful adventures M. de
Brosse found himself an officer in the De Watte-
ville regiment, in the pay of Great Britain, and
having always corresponded with his Leoline, soon
afterwards married her. They were in Spain,
Sicily, England, and latterly in the Canadas,
where he took leave of active service upon the
half-pay of a major. He purchased a farm, and
settled on the Detroit, where the comforts of life

272 rattlesnake hunt.
are readily procured, and where there are several
French families of property and consequence.
Do they regret the elegant frivolities of the
Trianon, and do they esteem themselves driven
from Paradise? — Yes! certainly. Youth and dis
tance have given lustre to the gay, and softness to
the darker parts of their early life. The bright
ness of the scene immediately around them, and
the amiability of their master and mistress, had
shut their eyes to the miseries of universal France,
which it was the design of Providence, by the
revolution, to lessen.
My medical friend one day made a party to
hunt rattlesnakes in the marshy islands, a little
below Amherstburgh, as I had never seen one.
We put on strong boots, reaching nearly to the
knees, and thick pantaloons. We therefore did
not fear a bite. As to our weapon of offence, we
had a long elastic switch.
We landed on a field of long grass, twenty or
thirty acres in extent, and found mowers at work,
defended by pieces of blanket tied round their
legs. They said they had seen several rattle
snakes in the course of the morning, and we
were not long in finding six— three among the
long grass, and three among some fallen timber.
We had the pleasure (such as it was) of several
runs, and of hearing the dread rattle in full force.
We killed two, each more than a yard long.

rattlesnake root. 273
Amherstburgh is famous for rattlesnakes. Dr.
N. told me that a few months before, one of the
children (aged six years) of an officer was bitten.
The usual symptoms set in with severity. He
used all the known remedies assiduously, external
and internal, but the child only grew worse. As
its life was now despaired of, the parents sent for
an old Indian woman with the medical man's full
concurrence. After having looked upon the child
she hastened into the woods, and returned with
some rattlesnake root (Goodyera pubescens). Of
part of the leaves she made an infusion, of which
she caused the child to swallow doses at certain
intervals, and of part she made a poultice, wbich
she applied to the wound. The child soon began
to improve ; one by one the symptoms disap
peared, and in forty-eight hours the little sufferer
was out of danger. This is a well-authenticated
case, and very remarkable.
The only other circumstance worthy of note,
which occurred during my stay, was the gathering
of the Indians of Wisconsin, Iowa, and other parts
of the United States, for the purpose of receiving
their annual presents from the British Govern
ment. Some of them were brawny, well-fed, but
sullen men, of middle-age, with little covering
but a blanket, blue middle-cloth, and necklace of
large bear's claws. Among them I saw the most
vol. i. T

274

THE PROPHET.

interesting Indian of these regions, as much on
account of his own great capacity and influence
as because he was the brother of the renowned
Chief Tecumseh,* killed in the last American war
I am speaking of the Prophet, most faithfully
delineated in Catlin's series of Indian Portraits.
I could not help shaking hands with him, and
addressing to him a few friendly words by an
interpreter. He was evidently a conservative of
the true water — a sombre, reflective savage of the
old times, large, gaunt, square-featured — the able
coadjutor of his brother in his scheme of leaguing
together all the Indians of North America, to
sweep the white men out of the land altogether.
In the war of 1813 he assisted the British very
effectively, but it is supposed only with the view
of weakening his future foes. The Prophet was
some time afterwards killed in a fray with those
Ishmaelites the backwoodsmen.
It seems unfortunate that the Indians of the
* Tecumseh, the Indian hero, will never be forgotten on the
Great Lakes. In 1811, at a council held with the Americans at
Vincennes, Tecumseh, having finished his address, showed some
displeasure that no seat was kept for him. General Harrison
hastened to order one to be brought. ' ' Warrior, ' ' said a bystander
to him, " your father, the General, presents to you an arm-chair."
" He, my father !" cried the chief, fiercely. " The sun is my
father, and the earth is my mother. She nourishes me. I sleep
upon her bosom." And then the haughty savage sat on the ground,
cross-legged.

THE MOUNTED INDIANS. 275
central parts of North America come in contact
generally with outlaws and desperate men, who
are not to be called Christians, even for a mo
ment, in courtesy.
Another large body of Indians then present
was quite distinct from these. They came from
the western prairies on horses, and were slender
young men, dressed from head to foot in purple
calico ; the seams of their little coatees, its cape,
and their leggings, edged prettily with a short
white fringe.
Close to Amherstburgh there is a grassy com
mon a hundred acres in extent. On this, these
young braves were perpetually galloping, and
wheeling, and checking in full career their slight
horses, in a most absurd and reckless manner, as
it seemed to me. One evening the Buffalo-dance
was performed by thirty or forty stamping sa
vages, disguised with the horns and portions of
the skin of this animal. We were favoured with
innumerable frantic bellowings, grimacings, and
shufflings here and there.
Three or four days before the expected arrival
of our schooner, the Confiance, I went to Detroit,
sixteen, miles up the river, the capital of the then
territory of Michigan. I wished to see for myself
the physiognomy and manners of a small frontier
town. I embarked in the periodical steamer. The

276 DETROIT.
river scenery has been noticed before. The stream
is a mile or more broad, and flows, all alive
with sloops, canvass, and scows, through a settled
country, placid and productive, save on the British
side for a few miles above Amherstburgh, where
the Huron reserve remains a wilderness.
Detroit now contains (1847) more*than 10,000
inhabitants. The territory has become an im
portant state (repudiating). In 1821 it had 1400
inhabitants, scattered over a long straggling street
parallel to the river, with a few lanes behind. In
the middle of the town was a very singular staring
Roman Catholic church, of great size. In the
rear was a large common, on which troops of
horses were grazing and frolicking.
About nine o'clock on a Saturday morning I
landed opposite to a decent inn with two signs —
" General Washington," with white tie and black
coat with stand-up collar, fronting the river — and
an angry eagle, of gilt wood, behind, to face the
street. Although this double-facedness did not
suit my English notions, I carried my light port
manteau up the bank of twenty to thirty feet,
and into the door-way of the inn, where I met
with the crummy landlady. On asking her if I
could have a bed, — " Oh! yes to be sure." — "And
bed-room to myself?" — " Oh! no; but you can
have a room with only three beds in it." My eye

DETROIT. 277
eatching at the moment the sign-board of another
large wooden inn, I declined the lady's invitation
to walk in, and passed over to the rival house of
entertainment under the patronage of "General
Winfield Scott," even now a famous and very tall
American general, judging from a blue painting
of him on the wall.
Presenting myself here meekly, for I had not
-breakfasted, I was informed that five beds in a
room was the smallest allowance they could offer.
So humbled was I, and so disinclined to face the
¦" Golden Eagle," that I took my traps up-stairs,
and came down to an excellent breakfast.
I shall not carry the reader with me all adown
the sweltering, dusty streets of Detroit, empty of
every living thing but pigs and poultry. So I left
the string of shabby wooden houses, rubbishy
stores, full of coarse dry goods, and the loaded
gutters, loudly calling for the feathered scaven
gers of Georgia and Florida. I betook myself
home and read the " Detroit Gazette," an out-and-
outer, writing boldly and well up to the times.
One o'clock brought dinner, a rough, sub
stantial meal, with at least twenty commensals, in
«very variety of costume. They were clerks, shop
keepers, lawyers, land-agents, and doctors. Most
of these lived in the house ; others roosted among
their goods. The dinner was soon despatched,

278 THE professor :
and the clatter of plates among the things of the
past. The bulk of the diners dispersed, leaving
a meditative batch of three or four.
Among these was the editor of the " Gazette,"
Mr. Sinkler (Sinclair, St. Clair), and Mr. Crittle,
the land-agent, shrewd in his own business, but
friendly and mild, and very curious about Eng
land. To these I must add a very strange per
sonage, who turned out to be a professor of He
brew, wrapped up in a sort of ample dressing-
gown of purple serge or flannel, with trousers of
the same. In these places you may dress as you
like, provided you are dressed at all. The land-
agent wore corduroy cossacks and jacket, as being
suitable for his sylvan rambles. The editor and
land-agent became great gossips of mine at once.
But I must first speak of the professor, as being
the greatest original of the three.
As I walked up to the door of the " Winfield
Scott," my attention was arrested by the flowing
purple of the professor, as he was lounging on
the broad bench which ran along the houseside.
He was a powerfully made dwarf, high-backed,
legs short, and very stout. His head was great
and protuberant, and he had large red features,
eyes blue, quick, and expressive ; his red hair
hung over his shoulders in clubs twisted like
cables.

HIS HISTORY. 279
This singular being was really a professor of*
Hebrew, wandering in search of pupils wherever
he was least likely to find them. Many such
persons there are in the byways of the West. He
was swinging his squat person about, and ha
ranguing a small knot of loiterers. For lack of
other listeners, he would have lectured to the
black cook, as she was splitting a fowl.
The professor was more odd within than with
out. He was a Scotchman of respectable origin,
and a truly learned man ; but every word and
look of his was so spiced with the extravagant and
ludicrous, that there was no listening to his sono
rous sounds without a riot of laughter, to the poor
man's great loss, grief, and astonishment.
The professors of the university at which he was
educated, respecting his attainments, procured for
him a private class ; but it had only one sitting.
After listening to his odd and egotistical discourse
for ten minutes, first one foolish student filliped a
paper pellet at him, and then another, until the
shower was universal ; and there was a great row,
in which some of the pupils were in danger of
being thrown out of the window by the enraged
doctor, who although short was extraordinarily
strong in the arms.
I sat next to him at breakfast one morning,
when he obliged me by some magnifical dis-

280 HIS DISCOURSE.
course, of which the following is a faded spe
cimen : —
" So, sir ! you are from the good old country,
like myself. Why did you leave it ? Answer me
that ! But three-fourths of us professors here are
either British, or of the British. Look at Ren-
wick, of Columbia College, Highland Mary's
grandson ; at Dunglisson ; at Pattinson of Glas-
glow ; at myself, a near kinsman of the Gentle
Shepherd. One good native teacher I know and
honour, Sam Mitchell, of New York. I listened
with delight the other day for two good hours
while he gave us (quite new to me) the natural
history and uses of that admirable esculent the
turnip, directing our attention to his diagrams
with an African assagai (a dart). Sir, this is an
inquiring and an acquiring country. They will
know and will have. I shall soon have plenty of
pupils. I shall soon be off to the new self-govern
ing and self-supporting college in Ohio, where a
man of my calibre is grievously wanted. I have
letters to those people, and have sent them my
little treatise on the Canaanitish Mysteries. Do
you know Professor Parker, of Northland Col
lege ? Although he is a pupil of mine, I am bound
to declare that he has no more brains than a sol
dier carries in his knapsack. A planet-load of
such fellows is not worth a rush. To be sure he

HIS DISCOURSE. 281
would not walk into a well ; but as to Hebrew ! —
Pshaw ! I first called on him in the month
Chisleu. Certainly he was not sacrificing to Nis-
roch, his eagle-faced god ; but he was with many
other fools in his drawing-room, so bewitched with
a silly singing- woman, that he told a professor of
the Hebrew tongue to call again. But that pro
fessor of Andover, with the long name, is of an
other sort. Yes! with the long name — Long
fellow! — 'long, long ago,' as somebody used to
sing. He is a man of very fair American abilities.
When I was at his college, giving a course of
Egyptian antiquities, I might have been the noble
Asnapper himself, such was his courtesy to the
man who is now addressing you. He is good, too,
in verse. But, speaking of these poets of the west,
I know them all, from Florio of Poughkeepsie,
through Percival, ' all purple and gold,' up to
Bryant, who chaunts the wild ducks  " &c. &c.
till midnight, had I not respectfully called the
professor's attention to the cold tea and now solid
buttered toast.
I afterwards saw this individual at Quebec, try
ing to lecture. His money, however, had run
out, and he kept his bed three days in despair.
Kind words and a subscription revived him. He
was grateful. His " subsequents," as the Ame
ricans would say, I do not know.

282 MY COMPANIONS.
The land-agent, Mr. S. Crittle, and myself, with
five others, inhabited at night the same bed
chamber. Mr. Crittle and two friends of his used
to keep me awake until twelve at night, by sitting
on my bed and asking questions about George
the Fourth and George Robins the auctioneer —
equally great men in their opinion, as filling up
much space in "The Times" newspaper — and
about London, Windsor, and Liverpool, &c. In
return, I received no little information on the
difficult subject of land-sales, private, public, or
on military-service tickets. Crittle owned that a
smart man might do a good stroke of business at
Detroit ; that there was a demand for his article ;
the land, climate, and market, all good ; and that
the townships were filling up not amiss. He
shewed me about the town, saying he could look
after trade quite as well in the street as in his
little office. I was shewn the Museum, which
was very creditable as far as it went; and the
library of 1400 well-selected volumes, being one
for each inhabitant. Novels I observed were
about one-third of the whole collection.*
My little editor was a lively, sharp New Eng
lander, chatty and well-informed. During the
extreme heats of the day I twice spent an hour in
* Few towns have made such progress as Detroit since 1821.
Its population has increased seven-fold. Among its public build-

THE EDITOR. 283
his dirt-encrusted printing-office. We talked as
he worked off the paper. His leading articles,
short and strong, were put into type at once
without copy. The paper was of small size, the
main part of its contents taken from the latest
English arrivals ; but the stay and support of the
concern were the advertisements, which being
duty free were cheap and numerous, and conde
scended to the smallest imaginable transaction.
He did the whole work of the paper, excepting its
delivery to the subscribers. In fact, I saw that
the Detroiters fared well and worked hard ; they
were therefore making profit. Many grumbled,
but few left.
" Sir," said I to the editor one day, "you told
me you were a bookseller. I see some reams of
brown and white paper, and a few pieces of paper-
hangings. Where is your literature?"
" Oh !" he replied, " I blocked up my windows
with books for two years, but they were noticed
only by the flies. I did not sell three copies.
People have not read through the town library
yet. A box in the garret without a lid contains

ings are a state-house, city-hall, state-penitentiary, gaol, eight
churches, three markets, a theatre, library, and museum. Country
seats stud the environs. Two railroads into the interior are being
made. The central railroad is finished to Marshall, one hundred
miles ; and so is the Erie and the Kalamazoo, thirty-three miles.

284 THE IMPRISONED INDIAN.
my stock of books." So going up-stairs and
overhauling the box, I found several American
reprints much to my taste.
Men must speak as they find. I have resided
for months in various parts of the United States,
and have always met with obliging people.
On the Sunday of my stay here I went to the
Episcopal church, and was glad to see an attentive
and well-dressed congregation. General Macomb,
the governor, and his family, were in a neat pew,
not differing from those of other people, the ge
neral in plain clothes ; but his two aide-de-camps
in uniform, escorting his lady-like daughters
dressed in white. The sermon was good, and the
church comfortable.
The following day I visited the prison. It con
tained a single prisoner, a young Indian, accused
of murder. I entered his small round cell. He
was squatted on the mud floor, unwashed, un
kempt, with an old blanket over his shoulders,
and half off. He gave us no glance, but seemed
fixed — in an iron dream. Here, indeed, was a soul
shut up !. I could say nothing. This was one of
the most painful sights I had seen in America.
I will change the subject for the following
homely but characteristic incident : —
AUhough I seldom submit to professional shav
ing, it was indispensable so to do soon after seeing

THE BLACK BARBER. 285
the captive Indian. The operator was a black
man, very dressy, self-sufficient, and talkative.
During the process I was foolish enough to stiffen
my upper lip, to give the razor a firmer surface
to work on. He had already cut me twice.
" Now, please, sir," he exclaimed, " do not so —
be natural ; it will be best for us both. I love
nature ; with her I know where I am."
Soon afterwards he again drew blood. I held
my face then rather low ; but he chucked me
gently under the chin, crying, " Up, man ! up
with it." I tell these little things to shew the
droll impertinence of free coloured men in the
United States. This artist sat down to dinner, I
doubt not, without the most distant idea that he
had done anything out of the way. In different
parts of the world I have come across puppies in
dress, but never one, either in Paris or Baden-
Baden, at all to be compared to the black man
servant of the celebrated orator Randolph. It was
a great treat to see this personage peacocking
(paonisant) in his flame-coloured waistcoat, frills,
Sec, before our hotel door at Washington.
I was one evening sitting at tea alone, near the
window in the eating-room overlooking the river,
after a hard day's work mineral-hunting in some
quarries four miles below Detroit. My being
served with tea out of the usual course was a great

286 THE AMERICAN JUDGE.
favour. The kindness of the landlady had added
the luxuries of preserves, honey, and buck-wheat
cakes to the refreshing meal. All the boarders
were gone to a rifle-match. I had taken one cup,
and was deep in a new-bought book, when I was
suddenly awoke by a singular command uttered
close to my ear.
" Put down that book, sir ! You and I are to
pass the evening in this room ; and it is not to be
spent in reading ! "
I looked up at the stranger, and my vexation
was at once quieted. I beheld a remarkably good-
looking, white-haired old gentleman, smiling
kindly upon me out of open, candid eyes, from
under a broad-brimmed hat. He was dressed
much like a Quaker ; and yet he did not belong
to that sect of prim faces and noble hearts. He
had on a brown single-breasted coat, and panta
loons to match, white neckcloth and white stock
ings, and — rare to see hereabouts — his shoes were
well blacked. As somehow I did not speak, after
standing some moments, he said —
" Pray, sir, who are you ?"
"Oh! sir," I replied, beginning to be not well
pleased at the interruption, "I am a poor, unfor
tunate, stray Englishman."
I was about to say more, when he broke in upon
me, exclaiming, " I am surprised to hear you speak

THE AMERICAN JUDGE. 287
so lightly and untruly. The poverty is not great
where there is butter and honey (glancing at the
table) ; and let me tell you that it is an estate to
be an Englishman. Never jest with your lofty
birthright. You are the countryman of Alfred,
Shakspeare, Newton, and Wilberforce. To Eng
land and her lineage is committed by the God
above us the schooling of the nations. I shall
take tea with you." With that he called for a
cup and saucer, and a fresh infusion of hyson.
Having sat down, he at once asked me from
what part of England I came. Having told him
from Nottinghamshire :
"What!" he cried out, "from the county of
Byron and Kirk White, of Cranmer and Hart
ley, of the Savilles, the Willoughbys, and the
Parkyns?" Here I interrupted him in my turn : " Under
the circumstances, I am entitled, sir, to ask
respectfully to whom I have the honour of ad
dressing myself."
" I am," he answered, " Judge Perkins, by
descent a Parkyns of Nottinghamshire, one of
the blood of blunt Sir Thomas the wrestler ; my
grandfather being the first to leave English soil.
To-morrow I hold a district court at this place
for the despatch of legal business. I reside at
Greenfields, about eight miles down the river,

288 THE AMERICAN JUDGE.
where I shall be happy to see you, and shew you
my numerous family and pretty place."
I thanked him cordially, but expressed a fear
that the shortness of my stay would deprive me
of the great pleasure of accepting his friendly
invitation. I had previously heard of Judge Perkins as
being popular and much respected in this neigh
bourhood, and that it was quite impossible for
him to intrude at Detroit.
I think he occupied full two hours in questions
about his dear old county, its present condition
in agriculture and manufactures, its nobles and
gentry, Merry Sherwood, Thoresby, and the
square old tower of Bunny Hall, the seat of the
Parkyns. He even knew the quaint motto over
the door of tbe old-world village school-house, —
" Disce vel discede." England was still to him
the home of ancient days, and in her fortunes he
took a deep interest, like most other involuntary
exiles. He then spoke long and well of Europe and
America, of their blots and beauties — said that
he was satisfied with his adopted country * but
not insensible to its imperfections. He thought
that in America both virtue and vice were gio-an-
* Neither the Mexican war nor the repudiation of just debts by
many of the states had then occurred.

THE UNITED STATES. 289
tic — that here, bad men were exceedingly bad,
and the good exceedingly good.
He remarked upon the flattering welcome
with which Americans are received by all Euro
pean nations, excepting, perhaps, the British,
between whom and the Americans there is a sort
of family soreness — the prosperous young nation
being too noisy and presuming, and the elder
branch too austere.
" But," said he, " it is hardly fair to pass any
judgment upon us as yet ; we are immature,
unripe, formed from a multitude of different
races, and hardly coherent — necessarily too busy
with the coarser wants of life to attend to the
elegancies and refinements of a higher civilization.
It is true that the moral sense is low among us —
lower than in England. Even there, are you all
you ought to be? What says your finest poet? —
'  Earth is sick,
And Heaven is weary of the hollow words
Which states and kingdoms utter when they talk
Of truth and justice. Turn to private life
And social neighbourhood ; look we to ourselves !
A light of duty shines upon every day
For all ; and yet how few are warned or cheered ! ' "
Excurs. p. 204.
Being joined at meals by strangers is common
at inns in the country parts of the United States.
Besides, in a person of Judge Perkins's age
vol. i. u

290 ANECDOTES.
and station, it was an act of condescension
to join my tea-table. Far greater liberties are
taken in the middle and back districts.
I remember, when the Boundary Commission
sat at Utica, in the state of New York, a party of
our surveyors were quartered at the second inn of
the place (10,000 inhabitants). One of our
gentlemen — for such he was by education and
by conduct, although a half-caste Indian — was
awoke in the middle of the night by the glare of
a candle, and the noise of the landlord showing a
newly-arrived stranger into bed to him. The
stranger had far better have ventured into the
lair of a wild cat and her young. My friend lay
quiet, and with closed eyes, until the man began
to get into bed, when he put his foot to his body
with such force and good-will, as to drive him
headlong against the door, right across the
apartment. Thankful was he to be allowed to
pick up his clothes and disappear.
On the evening of my last day at Detroit I
crossed the river to a little hedge-inn on the
British side, close to Moy, at that time the resi
dence of Mr. Mackintosh, a wealthy and re
spected merchant. Moy is close to Windsor, a
flourishing little village famous for its fine pear-
trees. I had not been long sat, when in stepped a

THE PEDLAR. 291
bold pedlar, with pack and box. He was a
broad-chested, short man, with a profusion of
sandy whisker. "Well, mistress," said he, " I've
had a long tramp this blazing day. I am both
dry and hungry. Let us have something com
fortable. But of course you know we must
trade!" "No, indeed," the landlady replied,
" I cannot ; I do not want anything in your
line." " But, mistress, it is the universal rule of
the road." " Except here," says she; " my friend
Sugarbutt deals with me, and I with him; and
he knows to a day when my thread, soap, and
tea are out." " Well, then, mistress," rejoined the
pedlar, " at your greatest need may you have a
cloudy new moon, your thread break, and your
needle want an eye ! We don't trade." He
shouldered his bundle and departed.
In the meanwhile I was sitting at a little
window of one pane, looking up the road. Soon
after the pedlar had gone, I descried approaching
at an easy pace two strange bearded figures, on
large, rough horses, with saddle-bags behind
them, and stout over-coats before.
They alighted at the door, in beards to be
coveted, — in broad, slouching hats, — long, free-
flowing coats, waistcoats, and trowsers of snuff-
colour, with strings everywhere instead of but
tons.

292 THE MENNONITES.
They were middle-aged men, bulky, erectr
deliberate, with large, mild, satisfied faces —
elders of the, Mennonite persuasion on a tour of
inspection among their people, scattered over the
upper or western province.
Taking their place among us in the kitchenr
they talked unreservedly with every one as they
made their simple meal.
I joined them ; and after some general con
versation, I asked them why they dressed so
differently from Christian people in general. The
person to whom I addressed myself smiled, and
said that dress was not a principal matter, and
merely concerned the feelings, &c. For them
selves, they bore a love to the Saviour so per
sonal, that they wished to imitate him in outward
things as in inward. As He wore a beard and
loose garments, so did they. And further, they
found this external badge or testimony a great
safeguard against the seductions of the world, and
any slowly progressive conformity with prevailing
practices which might otherwise creep in among
them. " Moreover," he added, " I am not sure
that bearded Christians are so greatly in the
minority throughout the earth as you have taken
for granted."
I questioned them as to the great doctrines of
revelation, and received correct and sober an-

THE MENNONITES. 293
swers. They certainly differ from us widely in
church government, but in little else of import
ance. As they lead the quiet, godly lives of
believers, I could not but indulge them in their
harmless peculiarities ; and I felt in my heart to
love them.
Their people, the elder went on to inform me,
at my request, were to be found in many of the
western districts, but are most numerous in Gore
and Niagara. Many of them are Germans, or of
German extraction. German families of Men-
nonite sentiments are now continually settling
in Canada West from Pennsylvania, preferring
the stillness and security of the British colony to
the racket, worldliness, and most probably the
petty persecutions (local), of the United States.
I once met in the woods a, migratory family of
this kind, reposing on their journey. They had
with them two waggon-loads of substantial fur
niture, drawn by sleek, stout horses. The people
¦themselves were pictures of health and common
sense. During the last war with the United States,
when the Canadas were invaded, the British Go
vernment wisely permitted the Mennonites to
remain at home peaceably, on commuting by
money for military service. This was no hard
ship, because the war had produced high prices,

294 THE MENNONITES.
of which the ordinary militia could not avail
themselves, as their farms were necessarily neg
lected. I afterwards passed through a district of Men-
nonites, between Fort Erie and Grand River, a
swampy country, but with fertile and elevated
spots here and there.
Though not a healthy neighbourhood, the
Mennonites did not complain. I went into one
or two of their houses, which were low, plain, but
comfortable. Extreme neatness prevailed every
where. Their brass vessels were as bright as
gold, and their pewter looked like silver. Large
pails of milk and cream stood pure and cool in
their little dairies ; the fatted calf and the home-
reared lamb were playing about the homestead
and orchard. The owners were a large, fair,
calm race, evidently cheerful with Christian hope.
I felt glad that there was upon earth such un
ruffled peace, enduring from childhood to old
age — so complete a separation from the tempta
tions and corrosions of ordinary life.

EXCURSION THE FIFTH.
PART II.
THE ST. CLAIR AND LAKE ERIE.
H. M. schooner Confiance — Lake St. Clair — Sickness —
Sailor shot — River St. Clair — Belle Riviere Island— The
sick Traveller — The banished Lord — The Black River — Fort
St. Clair — Thunderstorms — Missionaries — Lake Erie — Boat
Voyage — The Settlement — The Governor-General — The Me
thodist Missionary — Religious Statistics and Observations —
Schools — The Storm — The Roman Catholic.
On returning to Detroit from my visit to Moy,
as just related in the first part of this excursion,
I found that H. M. schooner the Confiance
had arrived at Amherstburgh from Penetangui-
shene, and would next day again mount stream
for Lake St. Clair. I therefore early next morn
ing, after a hurried leave-taking, hired a little
skiff and two rowers for Amherstburgh, where I
had several trifling matters to settle. I had,
however, to take another opportunity ; for about

296 M. POMAINVILLE.
half-way down we met the Confiance painfully
winning her way against the current.
The first thing I saw on deck was the round
bald pate of Monsieur Pomainville, our purveyor,
and his fine French features, as he was emerging
from the hold, where he had been in search of a
ham for dinner.
He was full of chat about good looks and a
pleasant summer to come, but said no more.
Four or five days afterwards, awaking from a
siesta on the hot deck, he cried out, " Ah ! M. le
Docteur, I tell you while I remember, there are
two letters from England for you in my cassette."
"Then," said I, "had you better fetch them?"
which he still seemed slow to do. They were letters
from my family, of whom I had not heard for
eleven months, through the post-office irregulari
ties of that day. None but such as have been
in my place can fully sympathise in my vexation
at this tardy delivery of letters.
We were made as comfortable as possible in
the gallant little Confiance. Many a happy day
did I spend in her. She was commanded by
Lieutenant Grant, R.N., the son of a banker of
that name at Portsmouth.
Our first surveying operations lay among the
many mouths of the River St. Clair. They form
a number of large, marshy islands, of course

LAKE ST. CLAIR. 297
partly in Lake St. Clair. Neither of these, nor
of the lake, shall I say much topographically, as
they present no striking features.
We were three or four days in working our
way from Amherstburgh to a convenient berth
in Anchor Bay, near the north-west shore of
Lake St. Clair.
When we arrived we found the scenery here
very pretty, the borders of the lake, for miles
inland, being a savannah of long, bright green
grass, with woods in the rear disposed in capes,
islands, and devious avenues. I was delighted,
and landed for a run ; but to my surprise, I stepped
into water ankle-deep, and forthwith returned.
But a more serious evil was the bad quality of the
water, as we were to be here for several days, and
the weather sultry and close. It was tainted and
discoloured by the dead bodies of a minute pink
insect, and was only drinkable after straining and
boiling. Our people spent most of the daylight in the
insular channels, and Lieutenant Grant in sound
ing the lake. The natural result of all this was
sickness ; but while in the lake the only person
seriously ill was my friend the lieutenant. He
was attacked by the dangerous fever of the coun
try, with great general excitement, delirium, &c.
&c, but bleeding and other appropriate remedies

298 THE SAILOR SHOT.
brought him round, first, by conversion of the
continued fever into the remittent, and then into
common ague, which was driven off by quinine.
Other members of the working party were
attacked more slightly a few days afterwards in
the River St. Clair, but in such numbers that the
survey was discontinued for a fortnight.
From this pestilential spot we removed, in the
prosecution of our work, to one of the channels
in the island of St. Mary near Baldoon, amid
aguish meadows of coarse grass, now (1845) cul
tivated after a fashion by various remnants of
Indian tribes.
As the place looked very likely for game, and
the sailors had little to do, permission was given
to four or five of them to beat up with fowling-
pieces an open marsh of many hundred acres
close to us, with clumps of wood on the higher
ground. Towards evening one of the sporting sailors
came running to the schooner, to say that a com
rade had shot himself; but he was so breathless
and frightened, that he could only point in the
direction of the body about a mile off. Three or
four of us ran off, and, after a little search, we
found the unfortunate man quite dead, lying
across his discharged gun, on his face, which
was in a pool of blood. The cast-off skin of a

LAKE ST. CLAIR. 299
snake, beautifully perfect, lay near him. As
there was nothing to point to foul play, we sup
posed that he had struck at the seeming snake
with the butt-end of his gun, and that the gun
had gone off and lodged its contents in the neck,
where we found a small round hole close to the
jugular vessels.
The seamen — all of us, indeed — were very much
affected by this deplorable accident, far more so
than I could have anticipated.
His companions carefully prepared for his
grave a strong wooden slab, on which they en
graved an epitaph of their own composition.
The burial-service was read over the remains,
and listened to with unaffected grief, which did
not wholly disappear from our countenances
until we moved to Belle Riviere Island in the
River St. Clair.
There is little to describe in Lake St. Clair.
It is a round pond exaggerated into a circum
ference of ninety miles, extremely shallow, and
surrounded by marshes and low woods, with
occasionally an unhappy clearance. The ship-
channel to Lake Huron is very narrow, and so
changeable, that it requires fresh buoying every
spring. Its shallowest part bas only a depth of
6| feet.
Its principal rivers are the Thames, the Huron,

300 BELLE RIVIERE ISLAND.
and the Bear Creeks. I shall only speak a few
words on the first, one of the most important
and picturesque of the second-class streams in
Canada West.
It is navigable for sloops and steamers to
Louisville, thirty miles from its mouth, with an
average depth of 16 feet, and a breadth of 200-
300 feet. This river passes through some of the
finest parts of Canada West, among farming-
land of the first quality. Many of the farms here
have been under cultivation for fifty years, and
have fine orchards.
The flourishing town of London (eighty-five
miles from Hamilton in Lake Ontario), with 4000
inhabitants, is situated upon it, as well as
Chatham, with a population of nearly 2000,
sixty-six miles below London.
We now made our way into the River St. Clair,
and cast anchor at the head of Belle Riviere
Island, five or six miles from the lake. This
river runs a tolerably straight course of thirty
miles long, and from three-quarters to a mile
and a half broad. Its banks of earth and clay
are high along the upper and middle portions,
but lower down they gradually sink into marshes.
As before mentioned, the banks of this river
are, upon the whole, well settled.
Belle Riviere Island is so called from the con-

RIVER ST. CLAIR. 301
siderable creek of that name which enters oppo
site to it on the south. This island may measure
about a hundred acres. It is many feet above
the river, and is, for the most part, covered with
fine wood.
We soon cleared sufficient space for three or
four tents on the bluff at the upper end, com
manding a fine reach, with a line of farms on the
American side, and on the other a wilderness :
the whole settlement on the British shore having,
in 1813-14, been clean swept away, burnt, and
devastated, in the winter, by the American sol
diery, destroying, in its brutality, the means of
existence of non-combatants.
A weaker growth of trees, or small, grassy
openings, with the gables of ruined houses, still
mark the spots.
A beginning was made, in 1821, to re-people
this fertile district. Now (1847) the whole north
front of the river is occupied ; and there are the
two cheerful villages of Sutherland and Talfourd,
each with its neat Episcopal church smiling upon
the wilderness.
We were a week at Belle Riviere. Several
little characteristic incidents occurred while we
were there.
Not always having a boat at my command, I
remained for the most part on the island. On

302 the fugitive's hut.
the third day of our stay, scrambling along the
tangled margin of the island with the intention of
going round it, I saw, some hundred yards from
our camp, that the long grass and coppice were
beat down and broken into a barely discernible
pathway. I mounted by it into the thicket, and
fifty yards from the water, hid from all the world,
I fell in with a squatter's bark hut, in a clearing
of a hundred square feet, on which were planted
some potatoes and a few hillocks of Indian corn.
The door was open, and on the threshold a
couple of neatly-dressed white women were sit
ting at needle-work, mother and daughter, the
younger being the wife of a shoemaker. Their
little place was clean and tidy. They showed no
alarm : neither did their stout dog attack me.
They said that the husband was mending shoes
in the vicinity.
I have no doubt but they were in hiding for
some unpleasant reason. We had been three
days within 400 yards of them without their
stirring or approaching us ; but now we gave the
man a good deal of employment, and the women
washed for us.
It was from our present encampment that I
watched the first labours of a settler in the
woods, as related in the excursion to the Ottawa
River,

THE SICK AMERICAN. 303
One very hot day, the sun in mid-heavens,
without a friendly cloud to screen us from his
fierceness, I observed a canoe, with two men in
it, leave the American shore and make for our
tents. Their errand was to ask me to visit a
young man at their house hard by, ill of the
country fever. Of course I went with them.
He was a respectable young American from
Oswego, on the south shore of Lake Ontario, on
a tour of commercial inquiry, and detained here
by this sudden attack.
I found him lying on a hard, uncurtained bed,
in a large, low room, with the open window
looking into an orchard of apple and peach-trees,
then teeming with young fruit.
My patient was passing from the morbid
strength of the hot period of a severe remittent
fever into the languor of the perspiring stage,
and presented a spectacle which few but medical
men and clergymen ever see. To use the beau
tiful expression of an old French writer, he
looked like " le roi dechu des existences de ce
monde " (the discrowned king of nature).
As yet, the pink and white features glowed with
most expressive brightness ; the liquid eye, ver
milion-tinted, was full of painful meaning*
* In the latter stages of consumption, and in other disturbances
of the circulation, when the connexion of soul and body is loosen-

304 THE SICK AMERICAN.
His voice was a whisper, but earnest, and almost
spasmodic. The face and heaving chest were
beaded by a thousand drops of moisture ; and
although his feeble arm, when let go, dropped
like lead, he was restless, and fought feebly with
the flies and mosquitoes which always infest the
sick. I spoke to him encouragingly, told him he
should be well attended to, said that I had been
at Oswego, and should soon pass through it
again. He eagerly interrupted me to beg I
would call on his mother and sister, and threw
his eyes on his portmanteau, which was near on
a chair ; but I begged him not to think of busi
ness for a day or two ; and for some moments he
was quiet.
ing, an extraordinary and singularly delicate impress of the new
and angelic life is occasionally stamped on the features at certain
periods of the day : so, in the hot stage of a severe remittent, the
general contour becomes full, and the complexion fervidly bril
liant, the most ordinary face is rendered beautiful by some new
arrangement of its parts. Arterial blood is evidently accumulated
on the surface, and is also stimulating the brain to vivid sensation
and thought ; so that every part of the frame — every expression,
tone, and movement — becomes instinct with unwonted eloquence
and force. I have seen this among the humbler classes repeatedly,
in persons and places least expected, and in the young of both
sexes especially. But when the individual has mixed with pious
persons of superior education, the change is still more striking
and more lofty. There is then a heavenward tendency, an exalted
purity and serene joy, most affecting to contemplate.

THE SCENERV AND PEOPLE. 305*
He was with kind but ignorant people. The
case was similar to that from which our com
mander was recovering, but the prostration was
greater. I had some trouble with him, but he
eventually recovered.
As we float over the smooth waters of the
St. Clair, having perhaps just escaped from the
turbulence of Lake Huron, it is delightful to
gaze upon the succession of dwellings, low and
roomy, which its western bank presents, em
bowered in orchards, the children playing under
the far-spreading elms, and the cattle grazing
in rich meadows ; but if you land, the effect
is greatly damaged. You are shoeked at the
meagre, sickly appearance of the inhabitants.
They have the thin white face, the feeble, stoop
ing walk of the over-wrought, in-door artizan
of an European city. Their minds, you find, are
almost as unready and infirm as their bodies.
Neither, at the time of my several visits, were
they blest with the consolations of religion, except
at distant and irregular periods.
The vast tracts of marsh lands around are the
eause of all this, bringing upon the settlers the
constantly-recurring plague of ague and remit
tent fever, to be remedied by drainage sooner or
later. vol. i. x

306 UNHEALTHINESS OF THE UNITED STATES.
It is common for the borders of American
rivers to be dry for a mile or so back, and
then the land sinks into swampy and rolling
country. The American climate is, at best, changeable,
first exciting and afterwards exhausting. Its
heat and cold are in extremes, very often most
agreeable, exhilarating, from its remarkable dry
ness, both in winter and summer.
Great portions of the unsettled lands in the
United States are extremely unhealthy : such as
the south sides of Lakes Ontario and Erie, the
states of Illinois, Indiana, and Mississippi ; while
Canada, except in -the extreme south-west, is all
but perfectly healthy. I would not wish to live
in a more salubrious climate than that of the
Bay of Quinte, the River Ottawa, the eastern
shores of Lake Huron, and many other places ;
and I am immeasurably astonished at parties from
England preferring unwholesome, distant, and
often lawless parts of the United States, to regions
of plenty and health in this colony, under laws and
customs with which they are familiar.
I have reason to believe that the excessive
quantity of animal food, which the Americans
hurry down, injures them seriously ; perhaps
bringing on in early life what our Irish recruits
call the meat fever, and giving rise to a weak-

INSECT ANNOYANCES. 307
ened and too excitable state of the alimentary
canal for the rest of their existence. Then come
the deleterious agencies of tobacco, ardent spirits,
and ill-regulated labour.
Compare the meagre, ill-set frame of the Ame
rican farmer, and his haggard, uneasy features,
with the robust, compact figure of the English
yeoman, his open, ruddy, smooth face ; and say
which of the two is the stronger and happier
animal. In the extensive and fertile districts about Lake
Erie, and to the south of Lakes Huron and Mich
igan, both man and beasts suffer grievously from
insects. During the months- of June, July, and
August, mosquitoes torture thick-skinned animals
even more than man. Fires of wet leaves and
grass, which give out great volumes of smoke,
are made for them to run into ; and so anxiously
do they thus take shelter there, that many of
them are severely burnt. Animals are much
troubled here with a fly which I do not see else
where. It is of the same shape as the large fly
of the butchers' shops, but is black, an inch long
and more, and is armed with a long sheathed lance,
which enters deep, and brings out the blood in
streams. They often attack men, as I have per
sonally experienced. Their incision is not poison
ous, like that of the sand or black fly and mos-

308 THE BANISHED LORD.
quitoe. We only know that we have been bitten
by an effusion of blood, as if a small vein had been
opened. Along the Rivers Detroit and St. Clair you may
see in a meadow a number of cattle trying to feed,
with their tails in constant motion, when all at
once perpendicular up goes the tail, and the whole
troop is cantering round the field, in the vain hope
of getting rid of the flies. After a time, if pos
sible, they rush into the water, and there remain
with nothing but the nostrils and eyes visible.
Many a time have I observed the patient eyes of
the poor beast watching the progress of my canoe,
and the momentary bobbing into the water of
their heads to shake off some impudent mosquitoe.
I was sitting about mid-day in the shade near
my tent on Belle Isle, the sky on fire, as is usual
at that hour, and the gossamer air trembling over
the shiny river. Having been immersed in one of
Coleridge's rhymed dreams, I happened to raise
my eyes, and saw coming down the stream in a
canoe a strange-looking person standing upright,
with a double-barrelled fowling-piece in his hand,
while a boy in the stern was paddling direct for
our camp. They landed close to me, and climbed
the little bluff on which I was posted. A more
singular Robinson Crusoe-like figure I never be
held than the elder stranger.

THE BANISHED LORD. 309
Iii the sequel everything was explained. Al
though seldom seen on the St. Clair, this gentle
man was not unknown, and was called by the
squatters " the Banished Lord." They knew no
other name. His speech and bearing at once re
vealed that he was an Englishman of distinction.
How he came there was another thing. Perhaps
he had been mal-adroit at Boodle's ; or crossed in
some darling wish ; or else was simply eccentric
• — who knows? I did not then.
He was a middle-sized, well-made man, slender
and sinewy, as erect as at twenty-five, although
evidently much on the wrong side of fifty. He
had a small, oval, wrinkled face, with the ruddy
bloom of out-door life still lingering on it. There
had been a time when he was handsome and very
fair. His eyes were grey, bold, and uneasy ; the
nose rather high and well-formed, as well as his
lips ; and he could not stand steady, on account
of a little nervous twitch which was always at
work somewhere. He had on a rusty, napless,
but well-shaped hat, with some turns of cord
round it. His coat was green, single-breasted,
built in the year one, and patched with drabs and
greens of- all hues and shapes, evidently with his
own hands, with white thread, most unskilfully.
Two or three coils of leather thongs hung in
his coat button-holes, as if- to carry home game

310 THE BANISHED LORD.
with. The first time I saw him he had no
waistcoat; but a coarse clean shirt covered his
chest, crossed with a silver watch-guard ; but in
cooler weather he wore a deer-skin vest up to
his throat. His pantaloons were of faded blue
calico, fitting loosely, and tightened below the
knee with leather straps. His foot-wear was
the strong mocassin, the best of all for woods
and rocks.
His young scamp of a boy was in corduroy and
cap, and was soon lying on the grass looking at
the sun through his fingers.
" Sir," said my visitor, when he had made good
his footing beside me, " it is very seldom that an
Englishman is met with in these waters ; we see
him pass — that is all. I heard, at my place on
the Bear Creek, of your surveyors planting their
little red and white flags up and down the St.
Clair, so I thought I would take a peep at you,
and knock over a turkey on the way ; but I have
had no sport as yet Seeing that you are at ease
and idle on this bright working-day, what office
do you hold in the camp ? "
" I have the honour to be, sir," I said, in reply,
" medico to the Boundary Commission, and British
secretary. I may surely say that we are honoured
by your visit. I am sorry my friends are out on
duty, and that the Commissioners themselves are

THE BANISHED LORD. 311
not with us." He then asked a variety of parti
culars about our proceedings.
The secluded life of the banished lord seemed
to have blunted no faculty. He was not a hollow-
eyed misanthrope ; but, with a dash of the eccen
tric, was full of right thoughts ; and fitting expres
sions for them were found at will.
As I was on the wing, and not likely to intrude
into his den on the Bear Creek, he was pleased to
talk freely with me. He took a gloomy view of
the domestic state of Great Britain, and expressed
his satisfaction at having escaped from an im
pending storm, from the great conflict he saw
about to arise between the popular will and
George the Fourth's camarilla.
" There are," said he, " vast questions, reli
gious, political, and commercial, to be settled,
by many destructive oscillations between ex
tremes, and hundreds of thousands will pay in
purse or person. Then, sir, I see a very bad sign
in great force. Property of all kinds is centring
in vast masses, while the millions are in the deep
est poverty. In England, destitution will not sit
tamely down by the side of repletion. The king
cares not to see this ; and the great party now at
the helm of state will not. The people are si
lently educating for the struggle ; and it will
take place in my day. Therefore I fled, as have

312 THE BANISHED LORD.
<lone many others ; but most of them into the
United States.* As I have had in my day a good
£11 of London life, and am passionately fond of
field sports, I rushed into the most solitary wild I
could find. I was led by mere chance to Bear
Creek, in Sombra. It abounds in game of all
kinds — the deer, moose, wolf, bear, water-fowl,
turkey, and so forth. My patch of land lies high,
in a dry section, and we live in health and plenty.
It is true, and I confess it, I have been too im
petuous. The change was too violent and sudden
for my poor wife, who, although she had to suffer
much from my relatives, and gladly escaped
from them, yet she drooped and wearied in our
lone place, and was every day missing some little
comfort or other. I could have had all I enjoy here,
within fifty miles of Montreal, with easy access
to gossip and female fal-lals. She died about four
years ago. And now a new and pressing concern
bas grown up — what to do with two boys and a
girl ; and, truth to tell, I get stiffer in the joints ;
so that 1 am now pondering on a return to civil
ized life for the education of my children."
The exile had all the talk to himself. He par-
* At this period two or three gentlemen gave me these reasons
in nearly the same words for withdrawing themselves and their pro
perty from England. They were nervous persons, and liable to
act on sudden impulses.

THE BANISHED LORD. 313
took of some refreshment, and took a courteous
leave. His home was six or seven miles into the
woods, along a blaze, a little distance lower down
the river. I saw him again at Fort St. Clair, our
next station on this stream, at the mouth of the
Black River, a large affluent from the south.
I had in the meantime obtained some informa
tion about him ; but his name I did not learn.
His reserve and lofty manner, together with some
command of money, had procured for him his
bye-name.* He had been a good husband. His
small farm was in tolerable order. His singular
dress must have been a whim. He made no
companions, save one or two good shots, who
lived ten miles from him ; and now and then he
had a hurricane tobacco-smoke with a renowned
Indian hunter.
At Fort St. Clair he brought me his daughter,
ten years old — a handsome, freckled, sunburnt
lass, and somewhat delicate in appearance ; but
full of spirits, as she did not know the object of
her visit ; which was to have a surplus tooth ex
tracted : this, of course, was done — but re-
* While not very young he had made a mesalliance with a beau
tiful and gentle girl, who joyfully vowed in an English drawing-
room to follow the man of her heart anywhere — across the ocean,
and into the wilderness ; but she sank under the rudeness, the
gloom, and strangeness of her new abode.

314 THE OLD CLERGYMAN.
luctantly. I do not like pulling at ladies' teeth.
They never forgive you ; but you are to them an
executioner for all time.
I suggested to the father the propriety of send
ing this forest-maid to England, or at least to a
good school at Toronto or Kingston ; and he took
my words in good part.
In the Canadas remarkable persons are con
tinually turning up. The Chevalier and Madame
de Brosse are not the only members of the old
court of France in the western country. I have
repeatedly passed the house (then shut up, and
going to ruin) of the Count and Countess of K.,
persons of high consideration in France before
1790, now long since dead. They had no child
ren, and literally shut themselves up in a Swiss
cottage, which they built on the Niagara frontier.
It had a heavy roof, and two wooden galleries
running round it.
I was extremely pleased (as well as surprised)
one Sunday in the woods by a sermon preached
by a meek old clergyman, passionless quite, ex
ternally, in a little church hid in a wood, and
hardly holding thirty persons. I asked an old
farmer how it came that such piety and such elo
quence were so buried in that out-of-the-world
nook ? " Mr. Addison," replied he, " is beloved
far and wide ; but he won't quit his first haven

FORT ST. CLAIR. 315
of rest. Thirty years ago he came here from
England a broken-hearted widower, with two
little daughters. They are married and gone ;
but he will not go till soul and body part."
I could easily increase this list, if necessary.
The survey having been completed from lake
St. Clair up to and beyond Belle Isle, the camp
was moved to the mouth of the Black River, ten
miles higher up, the British bank being then a
forest, and the American occupied by good farms,
the brisk and sparkling river running between.
We took possession of a deserted orchard, thirty
feet above the St. Clair, and close to the site of an
old French fort, on the left bank of the Black
River. The astronomer and all his party left me here
for the head of the St. Clair, intending to survey
homewards. The bulk of the stores remained
with me.
I only saw my friends once in the three weeks
of my stay there : company I had none but my
servant. There was a large house about three
hundred yards off ; but it only contained two wo
men and some small shy children. My sight was
now and then gladdened by a schooner dropping
lazily down the stream, or by the quicker flight of
a canoe. The weather (June 10) was for a week truly

316 STORMS.
dreadful. For a moment I thought of de
serting my charge. Every evening brought its
severe thunderstorm and torrents of rain. The
lightning every ten minutes during the tempest
plunged into the surrounding woods in compara
tively thick columns. Trees and cattle were
struck; and a woman was so excited by the
proximity of one flash, that I bled her with be
nefit. One dark and stormy night, although my
tent was sheltered by trees, the wind blew it down
while I was asleep. I thought the wet canvas
would have suffocated me ; and I was only re
leased after much exertion.
The clouds never left our sky ; the mornings
were gloomy ; but it was in the evening that the
tempests occurred. The Black River rose, and
brought down an abundance of mud and trees.
One night, a little before dusk, as I stood by
its margin, watching the large tree-roots and the
entangled masses of turf and stones as they swept
down the boiling stream, three men on horseback,
with large-caped great-coats, came to the oppo
site bank, travellers evidently. They shouted for
the ferryman ; but there was no such official ; and
my servant had been taken for the survey in place
of a boatman laid up with fever. There lay
close to me a large pirogue (a hollowed tree-
trunk), with a good deal of water in it. But who

THE MISSIONARIES. 317
was to navigate such a ticklish water-machine ?
— none but myself, utterly inexperienced in that
sort of navigation.
I did not like either the vessel or the troubled
stream ; but, after a little more shouting, I caught
the word "Mission!" when the thought struck
me — partly jocosely, I fear — that if I was to be
drowned it could not be in a better cause. So I
fetched a bowl, and baled the rain-water out of
the pirogue ; and, seizing a broad, heavy paddle,
loosed my bark, with no little trepidation, and
drove her to the opposite shore. At three trips
we then took the men and horses across. By this
time it was becoming dusk.
I ran over to the large house, and asked shelter
for the dripping horses, and for a little butter ;
for the party consisted of my friend, Captain
Stewart, and two American clergymen, on their
way to establish a mission among the Saguina
Indians, on the fertile banks of a river of that
name in Lake Huron.
I was delighted with my guests, and forthwith
covered the two short planks which formed my
table with biscuit, chocolate, and some savoury
salt pork. Then having placed the large kettle
full of water on the fire, I had done my best.
" Captain Stewart," said I, " all the articles
that are on tbe table belong to the King of Eng-

318 THE RELIGIOUS SERVICE.
land. Do you think it right to refresh your re
publican friends with them ? "
" Yes," he answered, " for they are the servants
of the King of kings. But," he went on to say,
" we have not travelled far to-day ; could not Mr.
Hudson address a little congregation after sup
per 1 The few settlers here are far from church or
chapel ; it would be a pity to let such an oppor
tunity slip."
As the night was creeping on, I ran again to the
house (which I had never approached till that day),
and prevailed upon the females to give us the use
of their largest room, and to light it up with four
home-made candles firmly stuck into the plas
tered walls. Not only that, but they started off a
girl, bareheaded, into the bog for some Irish fami
lies, while I ran half-a-mile up the river-side, to
tell the people of four huts there that a prayer-
meeting would be held at Mrs. Palmer's in twenty
minutes. At half-past nine o'clock we entered the lighted-
up room, and were agreeably surprised to find
thirty persons assembled — straight-haired, long-
faced Yankees, with their wives and children ;
some shock-headed Irish, all shining with haste,
and taking the affair partly as a show, and partly
for instruction.
The service was conducted in the Presbyterian

MISSIONS. 319
method, almost wholly by the Rev. Mr. Hudson ;
his brother missionary and Captain Stewart only
adding a few sentences ; the latter in his usual
brief, direct, and soldier-like style.
An easy tune to well-known words enabled most
of the assembly to join in the hymn. The sermon
was very suitable. The attention was great, and
much thankfulness afterwards expressed.'
The Irish were such freckled, red-headed, tho
rough Celts, with the characteristic massy jaws,
that I have no doubt but they were Roman Ca
tholics ; if so, their presence in that assembly was
creditable to them.
Our three friends slept on the floor of the room
which they had consecrated, and early next morn
ing they were on their journey.
This seems not an unfitting place for a few de
sultory remarks on missions to the Indians, sug
gested by the visit which has been just described.
Are we to be contented with the puny efforts at
present in operation towards making this finely-
organised and impressible race of red men ac
quainted with the blessings of the Christian reli
gion ? Is it enough to be idly repeating " the
wordless mourning of the dove ? " Should we not
be doing?
In 1848 there were 14,000 Indians in the Ca
nadas, and very many more in the Hudson's Bay

320 MISSIONS.
territories, while the missionaries were extremely
few. I am persuaded that there is not an inhabited
place on the earth's surface where a Christian,
with God's blessing, may not convert souls, and
raise a church and churches. Nothing can with
stand the excellence and loveliness of Gospel prin
ciples arrayed in the brightness of a Gospel life.
Success is not doubtful. It is simply an affair of
time, patience, and prayer.
The following Indian stations should be occu
pied immediately : — The Rice Lake, on Lake
Ontario ; the Sheriff Valley, on the Ottawa ; the
River St. Clair ; Penetanguishene ; the Falls of
St. Mary ; the Rainy Lake and River ; the Sas
katchawine, and its many branches ; the Peace
River ; and many points on the sides of the
Rocky Mountains.
These may suffice for the present ; for faith is
weak, and love is cold. Englishmen have pitched
so high the standard of personal comforts and
family display, that there is but a small surplus
left with which to scatter blessings. Evangelisa
tion is expensive, and requires support from with
out. The rich will not go ; at least none that I
know of, since good Dean Berkley went to Ber
muda a hundred years ago. It is even difficult to
find a suitable paid missionary. It is sad to think

MISSIONARY SCHEME. 321
that the maintenance of the missionary interest at
home and the collection of the necessary funds
are only accomplished by the super-human ex
ertions of a few, who leave no decent means un
tried, no argument unpressed, and no corner of
England unvisited, in behalf of this best of causes-
I desire chiefly and emphatically to insist upon
this great point — that, if possible, missionaries
should go out in numbers together, and act upon
fixed principles, under the guidance of a respon
sible local head, to whom you may give any name
you please. Missions should not be, as hitherto,
established piecemeal and fortuitously, but accord
ing to some well-digested plan, taking in the pre
sent and future wants of a considerable region.
Hitherto, in our schemes, we have not looked
into the bright future, but have been confined to
the limited prospects of to-day.
It has too frequently been forgotten that con
version from heathenism includes civilization ;
that therefore conversion brings new wants, new
sensations, and new decencies ; for all which
there should be provision.
In the Indian countries of North America, the
missionary should be enabled to show in a striking
manner that the practice of Christianity is great
gain in this life. He should therefore be accom
panied from our shores by a considerable staff of
VOL. I. Y

322 MODEL VILLAGE.
assistants, ready to operate upon the heathen mind
in a variety of ways simultaneously — as through
the schoolmaster, the medical man, the cultivator,
and the various artisans, as well as by his own
ministrations, which should fertilize and sanctify
the whole.
The permission of the authorities (such as they
are) of the district to be operated upon having
been obtained, a model village should be esta
blished as a palpable object, showing forth all the
privileges, comforts, and security of the Christian
economy. The Indian should be invited to reside
in the village ; the young men and women should
be taken into the missionary-house as helpers, and
as near witnesses to the amenities and graces of
a Christian household. They will be the first
converts. Schools, the chief means of conversion for the
first twenty years, should be gradually established.
The necessity for continuous labour must be cau
tiously insinuated, because the savage is extremely
averse from it. The many simpler arts of agri
culture or manufacture should be taught ; and,
above most things, the weak, aged, and sick
should be fed, cured, and cared for.
If these points be kept in view in any tolerable
manner, and the Gospel at the same time plainly
and affectionately preached, by the blessing of

MISSIONARY CENTRE. 323
God, in due season, the result wished for — conver
sions not only numerous but permanent, will fol
low ; chiefly, however, among the young and very
young, rarely among the middle-aged and old, who
will have to die off, as a rule, with occasional gra
tifying exceptions. Their minds are so bricked
up with heathen habits and prejudices, that the
good news can scarce enter. Meeting with no
response in their hearts, it is an unknown sound,
and has no significance.
Thus, the grand system of converting the In
dians is to provide as many large regions as pos
sible with some such centre of Christian civiliza
tion as that just adverted to, with ramifications
here and there, as circumstances point out, the
branches superintended if possible by natives.
This plan economises labour, and greatly hastens
the appearing and ripening of fruit. It is espe
cially adapted to the rude populations of North
America, Africa, and the South Seas.
The relief thus brought to the clerical mission
ary by the division of labour and by the sustain
ing proximity of friends is enormous ; it quad
ruples his forces.
I speak the more earnestly, inasmuch as I have
looked upon the dejected face of the solitary
labourer among the heathen, bowed to the earth
by weakness and anxiety within ; and without, by

324 ST. BERNARD.
the perversity and fickleness of his converts, and
the active rage of his enemies.
These missionary communities were one great
means of propagating the Christianity of the mid
dle ages. St. Bernard planted his Clair vaux among
marshes and woods, far away from ordinary society.
These deserts he and his companions drained and
cultivated ; by their kindness and wisdom attract
ing, in the course of time, a large and prosperous
population, untouched by the desolating wars of
those dreadful times. There were then many
such social and religious asylums in Europe, or
man must have been extirpated ; and each had its
off-sets, sanctuaries of knowledge and help, to
which the regions around gratefully resorted.
Something like this has been practised by Brit
ish missionary societies in modern times, but not
fully and systematically. I plead for this as the
best and most effectual method.
The Christians of the United States, in their
missions to the Osage, Sioux, and other Indians,
have long made use of associate groups of labour
ers, and their success has been proportionate.
One of the most comely spectacles in the world
is exhibited in the United States, when one of
these missionary bodies is travelling from some
city on the shores of the Atlantic westward to the
Indian countries. They journey all together.

ACQUISITION OF LAND. 325
The time of their arrival being previously known
at the towns and principal villages on the route,
they are met at convenient distances, and, after a
short interval of cordial greetings and prayer, are
escorted with singing into the town, where they
are entertained by the chief inhabitants. The
evangelists depart in the same way, and are often
laden with such gifts as are likely to be of use in
the wilderness.
This apostolic tribute of respect and sympathy
frequently occurs. I wish it were constant.
I have reason to believe that the American
Board of Missions will not suffer their agents to
accept of or purchase land from the natives under
any pretence. This is a point upon which all
barbarous people are peculiarly sensitive and
jealous. Missionaries are not to pay themselves
in this way. Their motives must be beyond sus
picion. No policy can be more injurious to the
eause of missions than that of grasping or even
accepting land. A great English missionary
society, otherwise admirably conducted, has
made the unhappy mistake of permitting its
missionaries to acquire land from the natives;
with great reluctance, doubtless* An associa
tion of Quakers at Philadelphia, some years
ago, sent a mixed body of preachers and artisans
* Vide Report for 1849.

326 PAWNEE MISSION.
to the Pawnees (or Osages). The Indians granted
them permission to occupy from three hundred
to four hundred acres of land. They became
greatly attached to the wise and patient strangers,
fond of their society, and received from them daily
benefits in the shape of clothing, medicine, repa
ration of tools, education, counsel, and especially,
what was fast beginning to appear of the most
importance, the message of heavenly peace. All
was prospering, when enemies to the Gospel from
a distance interposed their opinions. " This is
the way of the pale faces," said they; " they are
enslaving you. Your land they have, and strong-
houses upon it. They will soon have your hunt
ing-grounds and yourselves. Go into the white
country. Have they charmed their own people
to be such fools as you are ? " The Indians de
serted the mission. The Friends immediately
perceived the change and the cause of it. They
were ordered by their employers at Philadelphia
to break up and come home directly. The Paw
nees did not hinder them ; but in a little time
they discovered the loss they had sustained.
Some few, from the first, were inconsolable from
honest affection; more regretted the lost helps
and comforts ; the birds ate up their ill-sown and
neglected corn ; the guns, hoes, and spade were
useless. They had begun to delight in the Bible,

THE HEATHEN YOUTH, 327
but there was no interpreter. They were at their
wits' end, until they resolved to send a deputation
a thousand miles to Philadelphia to bring back
their benefactors at any price. The Quakers
returned. (Weyland on Population.)
If there seem so much ground to be occupied,
and the means so scanty as not to permit the
planting of large missionary societies, a mar
ried missionary, with or without a schoolmaster,
is the next best method of conducting this excel
lent work. Their strength should be principally
spent among the young, and in the formation of
schools for both sexes. From hence comes the
main harvest. Itinerancy, for the purpose of
preaching and the distribution of tracts, need not
be neglected, but it should be quite a secondary
object at a new station. While little impression
is thus made upon the older people, a great injury
is done to the health of the missionary by the un
avoidable exposure to the sun. A room or chapel
must be set apart at or near the missionary pre
mises for the regular celebration of Divine service,
to which the natives should be kindly and urgently
invited. If missionary societies were to establish a
system of periodic inspection by persons of piety,
influence, and practical wisdom, the benefit
would be great. Mr. Backhouse and his friend were

328 MISSIONARY EDUCATION.
of very considerable service in visiting at their
own charges the numerous missionary stations in
South Africa, the Mauritius, and elsewhere.
The publication of the report of such tours
would pay the greater part of the expense ; and,
now that steam pervades all lands, the labour and
loss of time would not be great. Such publica
tion would stimulate and comfort the distant mis
sionary, and vindicate him when unjustly accused,
for evil tales are not wanting in the South Seas, &c.
It would rectify mistakes, and stop rising abuses.
It is my conviction that our missionaries in the
mass are doing their work well, and are thoroughly
worthy of our esteem and support.
Missionaries should be adapted to their spheres
of action. Send the scholar and the controver
sialist to the Mahometans, the Chinese, and Hin
doos, men of disciplined minds and literary tastes,
Send the plain man of God, of a simple character
and [patient, familiar with the common arts of
domestic life, to the uncivilised tribes of North
America, &c.
Too much time, I fear, has hitherto been
allotted to Latin and Greek in our missionary
institutions ; — not that they are to be altogether
thrown aside, but I am clear that they have
greatly usurped the place of more practical things,
such as some acquaintance with medicine and

EMINENT MISSIONARIES. 329
surgery (the great recommendation in heathen
lands), the management of schools, the use of
tools, the reclaiming of wild land. Every mis
sionary should spend a little time at an agricul
tural college. A great part of the value of a mis
sionary, it should never be forgotten, lies in his
being a good administrator, the skilful director of
a group of minds not so gifted as his own.
These things will teach the servant of God,
among other things, how to provide occupation
(so indispensable to the best of us) for his convert,
and how to enable that convert to earn his own
independent bread, — a power so elevating to the
individual, and so carefully insisted on in the
Scriptures. The change from the heathen to the
Christian often involves a total change in the mode
of subsistence, and is one of the greatest obstacles
met with in hunting and pastoral countries.
Who have been the most successful missionaries?
Not the men of high collegiate attainments. They
are invaluable as translators ; but the great pion
eers, the most eminent cross-bearers, those who
have sweetly drawn multitudes into the Gospel net,
are Brainerd,Swartz, Moffat, Freeman, Cochran,*
* A schoolmaster in 1825 in a secluded village in Nottingham
shire, and afterwards eminently successful as an ordained minister
of the Church of England at the Red River Settlement, Hudson's
Bay.

330 EMINENT MISSIONARIES.
John Williams, who fell at Rarotonga, and the
two brothers Williams of New Zealand.* These
are a few among many, all full of Bible principles,
* The two Williams' are from the same county as Cochran.
Their usefulness has been so great, and their preparation for the
work so appropriate, as to be unmistakeably providential.
Their mother was a pious and talented lady. She devoted her
self exclusively to the education of her numerous family ; first and
foremost, doubtless, imbuing them with her own personal interest
in the Saviour and his grand designs.
In secular matters her method was that of Pestalozzi, before
his day. She familiarized her children with the origin, nature,
and uses of every object that met their eye. In a large work
room given up to them, they were taught to delight in the use
of tools and how to construct boxes, tables, ships, globes,
philosophical instruments, &c. &c. Every child too had his own
garden. Reverses in fortune soon afterwards followed, in which she and
hers were blameless victims.
Henry, the elder brother, entered the navy, obtained a lieu
tenancy, and long bore the buffetings of the sea. Being placed
on half-pay, he married wisely, and in no long time sailed as a
missionary in the service of the Church Missionary Society, in
1822, to New Zealand, then in the undisturbed possession of the
cannibals. His younger brother William was (and is) of a remarkably mild
disposition. He for some years studied medicine at Southwell, &c,
but in the end was received into holy orders, and followed his
brother Henry. These brothers were from the first unconsciously
fitting for hardships and perils under the eye of a Christian mother,
who, it is pleasant to record, saw the fruit long waited for.
Hence in New Zealand they were prepared to face the savages,
to build houses, a missionary ship, make furniture, and thus, as
sisted by their Wesleyan missionary brethren, they became the
honoured instruments of causing the desolations of heathenism
to disappear before the felicities of the Christian religion.

EMINENT MISSIONARIES. 331
of great practical skill in governing and educating
barbarians. These men have been mostly taken from a rank
of life somewhat below that from which the Epis
copal clergy are taken. They have not been too
delicately brought up, and are ready to meet
cheerfully great personal privations.
The class of men especially fitted for this work
are farmers' sons of piety, good constitution, and
skilled in country labours. A large acquaintance
with the Bible, and some knowledge of languages,
are also necessary. Such have hitherto been the
best Wesleyan missionaries.
.1 think I see a long line of efficient and pious
labourers in this field, about to spring from the
new order of schoolmasters and mistresses prepar
ing, by the help of government grants, from
among city missionaries, and from the colonies
themselves. The colonies now contain a large and stirring
population. I have seen in the Canadas several
young men well adapted to American missionary
work, but there is great reason to expect difficulties
and opposition to any great and liberal effort from
the known ultra high-church principles of some
of our colonial bishops.
Lest I write a pamphlet, I must now return to
the St. Clair and Lake Erie.

332 RETURN TO ST. CLAIR.
Having finished our survey of these waters, we
left Fort Sf, Clair on the 1st or 2d of July ; very
gladly on my part, for although pretty confident
in the powers of my constitution, I did not like
the kind of country. Clearances having greatly
extended since 1821 , it may be more healthy now.
We sailed in the Confiance to Amherstburgh,
where for a fortnight or so we took leave of that
pleasant vessel.
After a day spent in refitting and revictualling,
we left in our own roomy barge for a spot on the
shore of Lake Erie, near " The Settlement," in
the township of Colchester.
We embarked after an early dinner on a still
and sultry day. Gliding gently past the pic
turesque and not unenvied cottages which stud
the Detroit river-side, the last being that of my
friends the Chevalier and Madame de Brosse, we
entered the broad expanse of Lake Erie ; — no
land in sight, southerly, except a few specks,
called the Sister Isles, and the low mainland, no
where visible. for any distance.
We hugged the north or British shore for
twelve miles, with just enough water to float in.
For much of the way it was not easy to point
out the actual margin of the lake. There was a
curious intermingling of forest, grassy savannahs,
and clear water. On narrow ridges of land were

LAKE ERIE. 333
growing most august plane-trees in prolonged
rows, with a magnificent profusion of leafage.
Other trees in drier situations, such as the oak,
chestnut, black walnut, were remarkably fine, such
as the Huron and other northerly districts cannot
boast of.
Upon the long and tortuous roots of trees which
jut into the lake, terrapins (fresh-water turtles)
were in hundreds, with their little twinkling eyes,
sitting as quiet as mice, but plunging by dozens
into the water as we approached. They are from
six to ten inches long, and prettily marked.
Entangled among these tree-roots, rocked by
the waves, we saw a poor dead deer, which, from
the freshness of its dapple skin, must have been
alive that day.
After a few miles of this low umbrageous
country, " a world of leaves, and dews, and sum
mer airs," rises a line of earthy cliffs, from thirty
to one hundred and fifty feet high, which con
tinues for many leagues, nay, throughout the
principal part of the north shore of Lake Erie.
We pitched our tents about five miles from the
north end of these cliffs, on their flat summit, one
hundred and fifty feet above the lake, and com
manding a very striking range of view.
Standing with my back to the lake, and looking
northward from my tent-door, the eye swept over

334 SCENERY.
a vast surface — many miles — of low lands and
marsh, beginning almost at our feet ; an undulat
ing and all but impassable jungle, full of ponds,
reeds, alders, vines, willows, and such-like in the
hollows, and of the harder woods in the little
land that is dry, all of unusual luxuriance, and
teeming with animal life, from the panther, the
bear, the eagle, and the rattlesnake, down to the
smallest insect that plies the wing. This pestifer
ous morass discharges its surplus waters by the
Canard Creek into the River Detroit.
Close to us runs the rarely-trodden Talbot
Road, skirting the whole of this side of Lake Erie,
more or less practicable, and here overgrown with
young trees, among which the graceful foliage of
the sumach preponderates, — a sure indication of
mosquitoes innumerable.
Turning round and looking south from our tents,
we had before us the wide expanse of Lake Erie
(for we had cut away the intervening shrubbery to
let in the breeze). There was the opposite coast of
Ohio, grey in the distance, and the intermediate
waters, ornamented with groups of woody isles,
from the leafy depths of some of which (the British)
the smoke of a free negro hut arose, — an incense
grateful to the Almighty Father of all, who hateth
oppression. The whole day after our arrival it had rained

ILLUSTRIOUS TRAVELLERS. 335
in torrents, but in the evening the weather cleared
up, and I ventured out for a walk eastward down
the lake.
I had scarcely gone a mile when I met an
illustrious group of travellers in most undignified
pickle, just where the road was a mere track
overgrown with coppice. It was no less than
the Governor-General of British North America
and suite, part on horseback and part in a country
cart, all looking as jaded, and downcast, and
saturated with moisture, as if they had been
dragged through and through a mill-pond for
their misdeeds.
I did not fail to show due reverence, and to
offer the poor comforts of my tent ; but, after
receiving directions as to his route, the Earl of
of Dalhousie wisely determined to continue his
journey through the bush, sixteen miles more, to
Amherstburgh, while there was light ; for little
had been done to the road further than to fell
the trees and border it with a ditch. I do not
forget that I was served with more than one
ejectment into the raspberry bushes in travelling
slowly and doubtingly along this same highway.
I also found my way one day westwards for a
couple of miles. There I met with what is
called " The Settlement," twelve or fourteen de
cent cottages, standing apart in a line, each with

336 PREACHING AT " THE SETTLEMENT."
its cleared land behind. There may be many
more, but I did not see them. The inhabitants
were evidently decent, industrious people.
Close to the lake, in front of the Settlement,
was an Episcopal church, with a tower of white
limestone, nearly finished.
There is now a Baptist chapel also.
When I was there the religious wants of the
people were differently supplied, and in the man
ner shown in the following little narrative : —
Towards dusk, on Saturday evening, I was
sitting before my tent, thankful for the cool air
from the waters, and examining some bright red
sand I had found at the foot of the cliff, which
proved to be small garnets, when a boy, while he
tapped my shoulder, suddenly whispered into my
ear, " There will be preaching at Widow Little's
of the Settlement, at nine to-morrow morning."
Before I could thank him the boy was gone ;
and I ought to have mentioned, that a couple of
hours before I had been roused by the heavv,
measured fall of a horse's foot, an unusual sound;
and soon there passed by me, on a well-fed bay
mare, a man of about thirty-two years of age, of
staid and intelligent features, rather good-looking,
dressed in a good coat and waistcoat of dark-grey
jane, with drab pantaloons, clean and tidy. He
saluted me and rode on. This was the preacher.

THE MISSIONARY SERVICE. 337
At nine o'clock the next morning I was at
Widow Little's. She was a respectable cottager>
and, besides the willing heart, she had a room
rather larger than her neighbours.
I found the place full of people, in their Sun
day-clothes, sitting on a few high-backed chairs,
and upon very low forms only intended for
children. All was earnest and solemn : every face showed
a wish to learn. The missionary stood with his
back close to the fire-place, and clearly and un
affectedly he read out entirely the beautiful
hymn, which begins
" Yes, we trust the day is breaking !
Joyful times are near at hand !
God, the mighty God, is speaking,
By his word, in every land !"
And then, clasping with both hands the back of
a chair, he led the spirited psalmody, in which
the little company of about thirty, chiefly women
and children, joined loudly and well.
A prayer followed, which I thought too long,
but otherwise good ; then another hymn, and
after that a sermon from the text, " Arise, shine,
for thy light is come," (Isa. lx. 1) ; on the neces
sity of salvation to all ; that it is our first concern
vol. i. z

338 THE SERMON.
to seek for it ourselves, and then to endeavour
to communicate it to others.*
The sermon was very striking, but not violent :
indeed, except now and then, his tones were low
and his manner unusually subdued.
He made many good remarks, and one or two
which were called for by the occurrences of the
day. " I was sad and sorry," he said, " to find bro-
" ther Simmons lying on a bed of sickness, and
" some of his children were weakly.
" John has a heart for the work. When well,
" blessed be God, he could and did work both
" for his Redeemer and his neighbour.
" I pray that he may be soon restored to us ;
" but now he can do nothing for anybody. He
" has lost that strength and harmony of feelings
" which we call health, and which is absolutely
" necessary either for thinking or doing.
* Although camp-meetings occasionally take place in Canada
West, yet for six years I never was within reach of one. They
cannot, therefore, be common.
The crazy and wicked scenes said to occur at them I take to be
exceptional or exaggerated; though, doubtless, there is often a
good deal of religious extravagance and absurdity. This is to be
accounted for by the secluded lives of those who attend, the
rareness to them of religious addresses, and the effect of sombre
woods on the imagination. Simply being in a crowd is sufficient
to intoxicate the inhabitant of a back-settlement.

THE SERMON. 339
" His fellow-creatures, nay, his dearest friends,
" may be on the brink of destruction, but they
" can have no help from John Simmons.
" For the present, disease has made him utterly
" powerless. He is not to be reckoned upon —
" scarcely for a prayer.
" This is very bad, if properly considered; but
" let me tell you that there is a far deeper and
" blacker pit than this. I mean where a man's
" soul is diseased. A man with a diseased soul —
" an unconverted man, if I am to speak out —
" seeks the chief good, the spiritual good of
" none. It is possible that he may desire the
" carnal benefit of a few in the things which
" perish in the using. Such a soul is dead and
" insensible to the mercies of God in heaven and
" earth. He is so blinded and infatuated as not
" to feel his own misery by nature, and there-
" fore seeks for no deliverance. How can such
" a man deliver others? He has neither the
" wish nor the power. He is the slave of Satan,
" and Satan is as strong and cruel as ever ; none of
" his weapons of war have perished If there be
" any answering this description before me now, let
" us pray for him or her, until he become one of
" the saved ; until he call out in triumph, ' I was
" ' dead, and now am alive.'

340 RELIGION IN CANADA WEST.
" And it rejoices me to tell you that the sol-
" diers of the cross are every day becoming
" bolder and more numerous. The baptism of
" love is spreading, the kingdom of Christ is fast
" enlarging, while that of the devil is dimi-
" nishing. Yes, my friends ! the kingdom of
" Satan is already rim-cracked and centre-
" shaken" (in allusion to their household vessels
of wood), " and shall be swept away as an un-
" clean thing." After a pause he added, " If I
" had as many lives as there are stars in the
" heavens, I would spend them in the service of
" my gracious Redeemer."
After the service I thanked the preacher for
his excellent discourse.
We spoke of the state of religion in the parts
of Canada West, with which he was ac
quainted. He said he was a travelling missionary preacher
of the Canadian Wesleyans, and was constantly
perambulating a large circuit, embracing a num
ber of half-peopled localities, destitute of religious
instruction. A horse was found him, and he
received an annual money-payment of 21 Z. He
always found a welcome at the various'stations in
the houses of friends. The number of this class of
ministers varies ; in 1847 it was seventeen. The

CHURCHES. 341
Church of England has (1847) six itinerating
missionaries in Canada West.*
He said, that the number of ministers and
places of worship was very insufficient ; but at
the present day (1847) it is ten times greater
than in London. He found that while many were
indifferent, the bulk of the people heard him
gladly, and came from great distances. The
new neighbourhoods soon felt the want of a
place of worship, and sooner than might have
been expected supplied that want. Of whatever
denomination the majority happened to be, the
minority worshipped with them until they could
provide a minister of their own, when all used
the same edifice, until each could afford to have
its own, which was felt to be a great advan
tage. The following is the number of the churches
and chapels in Canada West in the year 1847, as
far as can be compiled from Smith's " Gazetteer,"
* The Rev. Thomas Green, Episcopal travelling missionary in
Canada West, in a letter to the present excellent Bishop of Mont
real, describes his duties as very severe. He writes, that since his
arrival in his district he has preached nearly a sermon a-day, and
has ridden fifteen miles a-day, nearly equal to thirty in England,
in every variety of temperature, undergoing constant privations,
and frequently resting at night in log-houses, whose unstopped
chinks admit the cold air and damps of midnight.

342

MINISTERS OF RELIGION.

but some, planted in obscure and thin neighbour
hoods, must have been omitted : —

1 §•a
'p. H

1 s

g o
2

9
•a o
•s Fk

in

.2'o1

§ 03

cm O
_£ -
II °8
CB*1tl

•1"2

*o3 o<_!_> -
fe

o g

'So
!

1
1 o

oc
"31=

* (1)
s

c
1 C
P

"3 •s

107

22

114

90

5

48

3

9

5

8

4

l

1

2

1

1

421

The exact amount of the population of Canada
West is not known, although a near estimate
may be made. It is supposed to be 650,000. In
this total is included an undoubted increase since
the very imperfect census was taken in 1842.
The officers superintending the operation so
frightened and confused the enumerators by
dividing the information Tequired into 1 20 heads,
that from many of the districts no returns what
ever were made.
If, in like manner, we add one-fifth to the
number of churches, we shall have one for every
1287 of the population ; a result which would be
very favourable if the churches were always ac
cessible, which they are not.
No account is taken of the Mennonites, but
they are a considerable body.
* Names given to themselves by separatists.

EPISCOPAL CLERGY.

343

The number of ministers serving these churches
is shown in the subjoined table, also compiled
from Smith's " Gazetteer" for 1847. The Roman
Catholic clergy being omitted, the proportion of
ministers to population cannot be given : —

O

¦a •

¦a &o
.3 p.
H
§CD
o
OG
-S .
O oo
Jjoo
is
0 ?
m
9
I
3 o
Eh
111
153
40
31
29
38
l
403
The number of the inhabitants of Canada West
who are totally or nearly destitute of public wor
ship is not so great as is supposed ; but there are,
unhappily, too many so situated.
Poverty has driven them into distant wilder
nesses, where land can be had for little or no
thing. They are to be pitied and relieved. Is
their conduct to be compared with that of the
80,000 miserable persons in Glasgow who daily
hear the church-bell, but systematically for years
never obey its holy call? Besides, these lonely
settlers know that a few months or years will
bring a church or chapel to them.
It seems to me that the Episcopal clergy are
taken from too high a class for colonial service.
They are usually so dissimilar from their flocks
in tastes, habits, and prejudices, that they might
344 COLONIAL BISHOPS.
almost come from another planet. Their early
nurture has been too nice, and their education
too academic, to admit of that familiarity, com
bined with true respect on the part of their
people, which gives such well-earned influence to
the Roman Catholic clergy in certain parts of
Europe, and to the Wesleyan in Great Britain, —
an influence which pervades both civil and spi
ritual life.
English bishops (I speak deferentially) are too
well paid, are set up too high above their fellow-
clergy, have too much direct patronage, and are
placed apart in some distant park or castle, so that
they are apt to see only with the eyes of a busy,
expectant chaplain or two, and therefore but
indifferently. These and many other crying evils in the
Church of England, brought on by the lapse of
time and the cupidity of men, are in the course of
extinction. The very next generation, it is con
fidently hoped, will only wonder that such things
could have ever been. A thousand influences,
open and secret, are at the sure work of their
early suppression. As a conscientiously-attached
member of the Church of England, I see the
necessity for " nova post lucem lux."
The colonial bishops are more active. Many
of them are laborious and useful men, but others

DISSENT. 345
again are deeply tainted with Puseyism (so wor
shipful of bishops), and are doing no little harm
by frowning down evangelical religion — oppress
ing it, I ought to say — and encouraging formalism,
which is sure to end in Popery.
Greatly as I prefer the constitution and for
mularies of the Church of England, I am not
sorry to see , a considerable share of evangelical
dissent in Canada West. It shows, that thought
is active in the woods upon subjects of extreme
importance, and also that many of the settlers are
from the independent and meditative classes.
Some say, " Oh, that dissent were altogether
swept away from England and her colonies, and
that the Established Church held universal and
undisputed sway ! " But, no ; a greater calamity
could not befall English Christianity. Despot
ism in its direst form, the despotism of eccle
siastics, would follow. Freedom of opinion and
individual responsibility would be gone. There
would soon grow up a small dissentient mi
nority, which would be called heretical, malig
nant, and then be hunted to the death by an
inexorable and all-powerful confederacy. Able
and ready instruments for any form of tyranny
or cruelty in so sacred and profitable a cause are
easily found. I could name them while I write,
prompt either to direct or execute.

346 schools.
Differences of opinion among the real children
of God on minor points will always prevail.
They seem to be part of our intellectual consti
tution, and are beautifully adapted to our welfare.
Among other advantages, they afford a field for
the exercise of humility, mutual forbearance, and
patient love.
It is delightful to think, that in Canada the
State supports equally all the denominations into
which true Christians have classed themselves.
It has been there conceded that kings and queens
are not to be nursing fathers and mothers to a
part of the Church of Christ only, but to the
whole. It is well to remember, that " the strength and
" glory of a Church consists, not so much in its
" temporalities, as in the presence of the Saviour,
" the power of the Holy Ghost, the vital godliness
" of her ministers and members, and the faith-
" fulness, boldness, and evangelical tone of her
" ministrations."All this is undeniably true; but truth, like
light, offends the feeble eye, and at first repels :
but although, for a time, it may be hid, and hin
dered in its solemn manifestation, nothing can
extinguish its brightness, nor prevent its final
triumph upon earth.
There is an elaborate system of schools in

schoolmasters. 347
Canada West. I do not undertake to explain it.
A book which treats upon all subjects becomes
unreadable. I have reason to think that it works well. The
returns, however, are as yet very imperfect ; but it
can be gathered from Smith's "Gazetteer, "that, in
Canada West, 353,317 of the population have 1508
schools, called common schools ; which is in the
proportion of 234 persons to one school. This is
independent of many private boarding and day-
schools for both sexes. In the thinly peopled
districts, 20,000/. per annum is paid to the public
schools, in addition to small local rates and the
weekly payments of the children themselves.
The school-houses are built by the districts.
A good system of superintendence has been
devised, and tolerably well carried out. Of the
details I know nothing.
Besides these means of education, it is the
practice of the settlers to form circles of a dozen
families each, and engage a young man to teach
their children in some centrical situation. He
is usually from New England, hired by the
year at a moderate salary, and boarding with the
parents in turn, for a month at a time. There
are serious evils attached to this system. I shall
only mention one — the republican principles un-

348 SCHOOLMASTERS.
consciously taught and recommended in school
histories, &c. &c.
I had personal intercourse with only one of
these young schoolmasters, a very interesting
person, with whom I resided for three weeks in
the same house, on the River Detroit. He was
an able and painstaking man, of sound religious
principles. He told me a good deal about the
plans for self-advancement of young people in the
rural parts of New England.
It was the universal custom of the poorer of
these to act as schoolmasters in the western set
tlements of their own country, and of Canada, for
a time, in the hope of collecting a little capital
for ulterior purposes.
My friend was one of these, a gentle, slight-
made, fair-haired young man. He had been four
or five years among us, and was on the eve of
marriage, and of being settled on a farm in the
state of Ohio.
Much might be said on the religious and secu
lar colleges of Kingston, Toronto, and Coburgh —
much in commendation, something in reproba
tion ; but, as the passing glance which I can
bestow would carry no weight, I prefer being
altogether silent.

VOYAGE DOWN LAKE ERIE. 349
Our surveyors having only had to complete
some triangulations, which sickness had before
compelled them to leave unfinished, after a week's
stay we left our lofty encampment on the cliffs
of Lake Erie, where, by the bye, we had the plea
surable exercise of carrying every drop of the
water* we required 150 feet up the steep.
A few hours took us back to Amherstburgh.
There we found the Confiance ready to convey us
down Lake Erie to the mouth of the River
Niagara. Lieutenant Grant and myself, while walking
along the river side the same evening, met a
couple of Indians trotting to Amherstburgh, in
their usual way when loaded. One had a fine
deer across his shoulders, and the other carried
four wild turkeys. The latter we bought for a
shilling a-piece, and half the deer for four shil
lings, to be paid for on board our good schooner,
where soon afterwards our messmates gave the
game a cordial welcome.
The next morning (Aug. 1), we sailed cheerily
down the Detroit, and with a favourable but light
breeze. So we proceeded at an easy rate, all in
high spirits at returning home, down the lake,
passing the Sisters, the St. Georges, the three
* One evening the water was at 92° Fahren. in the open lake
near the shore. It boiled for our tea all the sooner.

350 THE STORM.
Bass Islands, and lastly, the Island of Pele, — all
looking lovely.
Towards dusk, however, when these isles were
dimly seen behind us, tbe sky became overcast,
the wind arose, and by two o'clock a.m. the next
morning had become a raging hurricane.
Just before daylight we came far too near the
perpendicular rocks of Cleaveland, on the Ame
rican shore, looming lofty and black in the dark
ness. These, after great anxiety, we succeeded in
avoiding; but I must refrain from a lengthened
description of this, the most violent storm on
Lake Erie for many years ; and it is infamous for
them. We were three nights and two days exposed to
its fury, driving from side to side of this narrow
lake, but with a general easterly course.
We should have perished, I verily believe, but
with God's help for our stout commander and
his brave crew. The waves swept away boats,
binnacle, deer, turkeys, &c. &c, and strewed the
sand of the lake bottom in great quantities upon
the deck, and the table-cloth of a sail which we
ventured to hoist.
Nobody thought of cooking, and few of eating.
I confess to a couple of biscuits. I remained
much in my berth, on account of the violent
motion of the vessel, with simply a shirt on,

THE STORM. 35 J
white jane trowsers, and light shoes, ready for
a jump and a swim. I certainly thought (with
the others) that our safety was very problem
atical. Of course, I felt for myself; but I also
regretted the loss of all our surveys, and of our
very valuable instruments. The shipwreck would
have cost the public very many thousand pounds.
Once only was I nearly on deck to survey the
scene ; but I had hardly got high enough to see
— standing on the companion-ladder — when a
large wave, opaque with mud, soused me on the
face, and drove me down again, accompanied by
not a little water.
Our Canadian voyageurs were vastly disturbed.
One old fellow with a sharp vinegar face jammed
himself into a corner of the hold, and broke his
usual silence by giving public notice that, if
permitted to land alive, he would burn a candle
one pound in weight in the nearest church, in
honour of the Virgin — "the mild Mother" — the
" Star of the sea."
He had scarcely uttered the vow, when the
vessel quivered under a tremendous blow, and
was buried for a moment beneath a great wave.
Grenier shouted out, that he would pay for six
masses. Another shock. The poor man, in an
agony, doubled the weight of the candle, set his
teeth spasmodically, and never spake more, until

352 SAFE ARRIVAL.
the storm had ceased ; for he saw all his summer
wages a-melting. I have no right to found an
argument upon this poor man's ignorance and
fright. Early on the third morning we saw the North
Foreland (Long Point) on our north-west. The
scud moved quick, and the waves were still high
and full of sand, but the force of the storm was
broken. The land on either shore looked most charming.
I envied the very cattle which were browsing in
the pastures, in gentle contention with the mos
quitoes. In due season, to my undisguisable joy;
we anchored inside a reef near the Village of
Waterloo, our destined haven ; and we landed,
thankful to our divine Preserver for a new and
signal mercy.
One sloop foundered ; its crew and passengers
all lost. There happened to be but few vessels
on the lake. These were much damaged.
We are within about twenty miles of the Falls
of Niagara : thither we shall next repair.
END OF VOL. I.

LONDON :
Printed by G. Basciay, Castle St. Leicester Sq.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 03229 0877

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