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ADYENTURESm CANADA-

OR,

LIFE LV THE WOODS.

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271608

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

PAU

Boy-dreams about travelling. — Our family determines to go to
Canada. — The first day on board. — Cure for sea-sickness. —
Our passenjjcrs. — Henry's adventure. — We encounter a
Btonn. — Height of the waves. — The bottom of the ocean.
— A fossil sliip. — The (ishing-grounds. — See whales and
icebergs. — I'orpoises. — Sea-birds. — Lights in the sea. —
The great Gulf of St. Lawrence. — Thick ice-fogs. — See land
at last. — Sailing up the river. — Land at Quebec

CHAPTER II.

ijuebec. — Wolfe. — Montcalm's skull. — Toronto. — We set off
for the bush. — Mud-roads. — A rough ride. — Our Log-
house. — IIow it was built. — Our barn. — We get oxen and
cows. — Elephant and Buckeye. — Unpacking our stores. —
What some of our neighbors brought when they came. — Hot
days. — Bush costumes. — Sun-strokes. — My sisters have to
turn salamanders. — Our part of the house-work .

CHAPTER III.

Clearing the land. — David's bragging, and the end of it. —
Burning the log-heaps. — Our logging bee. — What preju-
dice can do. — Our fences and crops nearly burned. — The
woods on fire. — Building a snake fence. — "Shingle" pigs
give us sore trouble. — " Breachy " horses and cattle .

(iii)

f»,^

Contodii,

CI I APT F.U IV.

We lio;;in our ]in'iiarafiriiis for sowii);;. — ria<lflio<». — Mosqui-
toes. — Hfirrowiiif; (•xpcrit'jicfs. — A huf^e fly. — SainKlies.

— I'lie poison of iiiMcts and serpents. — Winter wheat. —
'I'lie wonders of jilanl-lite. — Our lir>t " sport." — Wood-
peckers. — " Chifininiks." — Tlie blue jay. — The blue bird.

— The (li;:ht of birds

CIIAl'TKK V.

Some family elianjres. — Amusements. — ('ow-liuntinj;. — Our
".side-line." — llie Ixish. — Adventures with rattlestuikes.
— Garter-.snakes. — A frog's fliglU for life. — Black scpiirrels

CIIAPTFJl VI.

Spearinj; fish. — .\ncient British canoes. — Indian ones. — A
bar;^ain with an Indian. — Henry's cold bath. — Canadian
thnnderslornis. — Poor Yorick's death. — Our },'lorions au-
tumns. — Tlie clian^^e of the leaf. — Sunsets. — Indian .sum-
nior. — The fall rains and the roads, — The lirst snow. —
Canadian enld. — A winter landscape — "Ice-storms." —
Snow crystals. — Tlie niiiiiite perfection of CJod's wfjrks. —
Deer-shoolinj^'. — David's niisfortune. — Useless cruelty. —
Shedding of the stag's horns

CIIAPTEU VIT.

Wolves. — My adventure with a bear. — Courtenay's cow and
the wolves. — A fright in the woods by night. — The river
freezes. — Our winter tires. — Cold, cold, cold ! — A winter's
journey. — Sleighing. — Winter inufTlings. — Accidents
through intense cold

127

CIIAPTEU VIII.

The aurora borcalis. — " Jumpers." — Squaring timber. — Rafls.
— Camping out. — A public meeting. — Winter fashions. —
My toe frozen. — A long winter's walk. — Hospitality. —
Nearly lost in the woods 142

Contents.

CHAl'TKK IX.

Involuntary rarinp. — A Itackwoods' parsoiiapc. — (Inivos in
tlif wililcriii'ss. — Ndtiorm of fijiialify. — Arctic wiiilors.

— Kiirtcd jiiiinsc. — Indian fisliinj; in winter. — A niarriago.

— Our winter's pork

158

("HAl'TKU X.

Our ncifxlibors. — IriM-ct pla^'iics. — Military nnicfrs' families in

tlic l)ii^-li. — Anaukwani nii.>-take. — l>r. I) nearly sluit

for a liear. — Major .M . — Our eandles. — Fortunate

escape from a fatal accident 170

CHAI'TER XI.

'* Xow SprliiLT returns.'' — Sti;^ar-makinp. — Hi:stj psalmody. —
Hush j)reachinj;. — Worsiiip under dillicultics. — A clerical
Mrs. Partin^^toii. — Hiolo^y. — A ghost. — " It slips good."
— Squatters .

181

CHAPTER XII.

Btish magi.strates. — Indian forest guides. — Senses quickened
by necessity. — breaking up of the ice. — Dejith of the frost.
— A grave in winter. — A ball. — A holiday coat . . 196

CHAPTER XIII.

Wild leeks. — Spring birds. — Wilson's poem on the blue bird.
— Downy woodpeckers. — Passenger pigeons. — Their num-
bers. — Koosting places. — The frogs. — IJull frogs. — Tree
frogs. — Flying squirrels 207

CHAPTER XIV.

Our spring crops. — Indian corn. — Pumpkins.
Fruits. — Wild flowers

Melons.

220

fi Contaits,

CIIAPTKR XV. '

The Indian^. — Wigwams. — Dress. — Can tho Iiidiann be civi-
lized? — Their past doray a» a race. — Alleged innocence of
ravage lite. — Narrative of Katlier Jogiies, tiic Jesuit nii.s{<iun-
ary .*...... 227

CIlArTER XVI.

The niodicine-nian. — Painted faces. — Medals. — An Em-
bas.sy. — Uelij^ious notiniis. — Kcast of the di-ad. — Christ-
ian Indians. — Visit to tlie Indians on La)<e Huron. — Stolidi-
ty of the Indians. — Henry exorcises an Indian ritlo . . 260

CIIAPTEU XVII.

The hunimins-hird. — Story of a pet. — Canada a good country
for poor men. — A bush story of misfortune. — Statute labor.
— Tor(oi.«es. — The hay season. — Our wa^on-drivinj?. -
Henry and I arc nearly drowned. — Ilenr)' falls ill. — Back-
woods' doctors

279

CHAPTER XVIII.

American men and women. — Fireflies. — Profusion of insect
lite. — Grasshoppers. — Frederick and David leave Canada.
— Soap-making. — Home-made candles. — Recipe for wash-
ing quickly. — Writing letters. — The parson for driver . 298

CHAPTER XIX.

Americanisms. — Our poultrj'. — The wasps. — Their nests. —
" Hob's " skill in killing them. — Raccoons. — A hunt. —
Raccoon cake. — The town of Busaco. — Summer " sail-
ing." — Boy drowned. — French settlers

312

CHAPTER XX.

Apple-bees. — Orchards. — Gorgeous display of npple-blossom.
— A meeting in the woods. — The ague. — Wild parsnips. —
Man lost in the woods ...... 829

Contents,

vii

CHAPTER XXI.

4 tornado. — Hate. — Doserted lotfl. — American in(iui«itive-
noss. — An election agent ..... 339

ClIArTEU XXII.

A journey to Niagara. — Uiver St. Clair. — Detroit. — A slave's
eseape. — An American Steamer. — Descripfion of the Fulls
of Niagara. — Fearful catustrophe .... 849

CHAPTER X:\'!Il. x

The Buspension-bridge at Niagara. — The Whirlpool. — The
battle i»f Lundy's Lane. — IJri ' s mominien' —A soldier
nearly drowned ....... 867

CriAPTEU XXTV.

The Canadian lakes. — The exile's love of home. — Tim color*^'!
people in Canada. — Kice. — The Maid of tl»e Mist. — Home-
spun clotli. — A narrow road. — A grumi)ler. — New Eng-
land emigrants. — A potato pit. — The winter's wood . 875

CHAPTER XXV.

Thought.s for the future. — Changes. — Too hard study. —
Education in Canada. — Christmas markets. — Winter
amusements. — Ice-boats. — Very cold ice. — Oil-springs. —
Changes on the farm. — Growth of Canada. — The American
climate. — Old Eng and again ....

801

LIFE IN THE AVOOUS.

CHAPTER I.

Boy -dreams about travelling. — Our family dctennincs to go to
Canada. — The first ilay on board. — Cure lor sea-sickness. —
Our passengers. — Henry's adventure. — \Ve encounter a storm.
— IleiLrht of the waves. — The bottom of the ocean. — A fossil
ship. — The fishing-grounds. — See whales and icebergs. — Por-
poises. — Sea-birds. — Lights in the sea. — 'J'lie great Gulf of St.
Lawrence. — Thick ice-fogs. — See land at last. — Sailing up the
river. — Land at Quebec.

I WONDER if ever there were a boy who did
not wish to travel ? I know I did, and used to
spend many an liour tliinking of all the wonderful
things I should see, and of what I would bring home
when I returned. Books of travel I devoured
(Treedily — and very good reading for boys, as well
as for crown men, 1 have always thought them. I
began with " Robinson Crusoe," like most boys —
for who has not read his story ? Burckhardt, the
traveller, found a young Arab reading a translation
of it in the door of his father's tent in the desert.
But* I don't think I ever wished to be like him, or
to roam in a wald romantic way, or " go to sea,'*

I (1)

» 1

1 I

liil

i )

Boy-dreams about Travelling,

as it is called, like many other boys I have known,
which is a very difl'erent thino; from havino; harm-
less fancies, that one would like to see stranfje
races of men and strano;© countries. Some of mv
schoolmates, whom nothing would content but
being sailors, early cured me of any thought jf
being one, if ever 1 had it, by what I knew of their
story when they came back. One of them, James
Roper, I did not see for some years after he
w^ent off, but when I met him at last among the
ships, he was so worn and broken down I hardly
knew him affiiin, and he had got so many of the low
forecastle ways about him, that I could not bear his
company. Another, Robert Simpson, went one
voyage to Trebizond, but that cured him. He came
back perfectly contented to stay at home, as he had
found the romance of sailoring, which had lured him
away, a very different thing from the reality. He
had never counted on beino; turned out of his bed
every other nioht or so for somethino; or other, as he
was, or being clouted with a wet swab by some
sulky fellow, or having to fetch and carry for the
men, and do their bidding, or to climb wet rigging
in stormy weather, and get drenched every now
and then, without any chance of changing his
clothes ; not to speak of the difference between his
nice room at liome and the close, crowded, low-
roofed forecastle, wdiere he could hardly see for
tobacco smoke, and where he had to eat and sleep
with companions whom he would not have thought

The First Day on Board.

low
liis
liis

)\V-

f'or
?ep

of speaking to before lie sailed. He came back
quite sobered down, and after a time went to study
law, and is now a barrister in good practice.

Yet I was verv jilad when I learned that we were
ffoinn- to America. The great woods, and the s])ort
I would have with the deer and bears in them, and
the Indians, of whom I had read so often, and the
curious wildness there was in the thought of settling
where there were so few people, and living so dif-
ferentlv from any thing I had known at home,
(piite captivated me. I was glad when the day of
sailing came, and went on board our ship, the
Ocean King^ with as much delight as if I had been
going on a holiday trip. There were eight of us
altogether — five brothers and three sisters (my
father and mother were both dead), and I had
already one brother in America, wldle another
staid behind to push his way in England. The
anchor once heaved, we were soon on oin* way down
th(^ INIersey, and the night fell on us while we were
still exj)loring the wonders of the ship, and taking
an occasional peep over the side at the sliure.
When we had got into the channel, the wind having
come round to the south-east, the captain resolved
to go by the northern route, passing the upj)er end
of Ireland. All we saw of it, however, was very
little ; indeed, most of us did not see it at all, for
the first swell of the sea had sent a good many to
their berths, in all stages of sickness. One old
gentleman, a Scotchman, who had been boasting

Cure for Seasickness,

tliat lie had a preventive that would keep him clear
of it, made us all laugh by his groans and wretch-
edness ; for his specific had not only failed, but had
set him off amono;st the first. He had been told
that if he took enouo-h iiinn;erbread and whiskey,
he might face any sea, ainl he had followed the
advice faithfully ; but as tlie whiskey itself was fit
to make him sick, even on shore, you may judge
how much it and the gingerbread together helped
him when the ship was heaving and rolHng under-
his feet. We boys did not fail, of course, when we
heard him lamenting that either the one or the
other had crossed his lips, to come over their names
pretty often in his hearing, and advise each other
to try some, every mention of the words bringing
out an additional shudder of disfmst from the unfor-
tunate sufi'erer. ]\Iy eldest sister had sent me, just
before coming on board, for some laudanum and
mustard, which she was to mix and ap])ly some way
that was sure, she said, to keep her well ; but she
got sick so instantly on the ship beginning to move,
that she forgot them, and we had the mustard after-
wards at dinner in America, and the laudanum
was a lono; time in the house for medicine. For <%
few days every thing was unpleasant enough, but
gradually all got light again, and even the ladies
ventured to reappear on deck.

Of course, among a number of people gathered
in a ship, you were sure to meet strange characters.
A little light man in a wig was soon the butt of the

Our Passengers.

cabin, he would ask sucli silly questions, and say
such outrageous things. He was taking cheeses,
and tea, aiid I don't know vvhat else, to America
with him, for fear he would get nothing to eat there ;
and he was dreadfully alarmed, by one of the pas-
sen<Ters, who had been over before, tellino; him he
would find cockroach pie the chief dainty in Can-
ada. 1 believe the cheeses he had with him liad
come from America at first. He thought the best
thing to make money by in Canada, was to sow all
the country with mustard-seed, it yielded such a
great crop, he said ; and he seemed astonished at
all the- table laughing at the thought of what could
possibly be done with it. There was another per-
son in the cabin — astiflt', conceited man, with a very
strange head, the whole face and brow running
back from the chin, and gi'eat standing-out ears.
He was a distant relation of some admiral, I
believe ; but if he liad been the admiral himself, he
could not have carried his head higher than he did.
Nobody was good enough for him. It seemed a
condescension in him to talk with any one. But
he soon lost all his greatness, notwithstanding his
airs, by his asking one day, when we were speaking
about Italy, " What river it was that ran north and
south along the coast ? " in that country. We
were speaking of a road, and he thouglit it was
about a river. Then he asked, the same day,
where the Danube was, and if it were a large river ;
and when some one spoke about Sicily, and said

6 Ilenrifs Adventure.

that It had been hold hy the Carthaginians, he
wished to know if these people held it now. Boy
as I was, I could not help seeing what a dreadful
thing it was to be so ignorant ; and I determined

that I would never be like Mr. (I sha'n't tell

his name ), at any rate, but would learn as much
as ever I could.

I dare say we were troublesome enough to the cap-
tain sometimes, but, if so, he took his revenge on
one of us after a time. One day we were playing
with a rope and pulley which was hooked high up
in the rigging. There was a large loop at the one
end, and the other, after passing through the block,
hung down on the deck. Henry had just put this
loop over his shoulders, and fitted it nicely below
his arms, when the captain chanced to see him, and,
in an instant, before he knew what he was going
to do, he had hauled him up ever so high, with all the
passengers looking at him and laughing at the
ridiculous figure he cut. It was some time before
he would let him down, and as he was a pretty big
lad, and thought himself almost a man, he felt
terribly affronted. But he had nothing for it when
ne got down but to hide in his berth till his pride
got cooled and till the laugh stopped. We were
all careful enough to keep out of Captain Morrison's
way after that.

One way or other the days passed very pleasantly
to us boys, whatever they were to older people. It
was beautiful, wdien the weather was fine and the

We encounter a Storm.

cap-

•t

;:»

>?
..V
■ i:

^ '4'

wind right, to see how we glided through the
(Truen naileries of the sea, wliich rose, crested with
white, at each side. One day and night we had,
wliat we thought, a great storm. The sails were
nearly all stiaick, and I heard the mate say that the
two that were left did more hann than good, because
tliey only drove the ship deeper into the water.
When it grew nearly dark, I crept up the cabin-
stairs to look along the deck at the waves ahead.
I could see them risino; like great black mountains
seamed with snow, and coming with an awful mo-
tion towards us, making the ship climb a huge hill,
as it were, the one moment, and go down so steeply
the next, that you could not help being afraid that
it was sinking bodily into the depths of the sea.
The wind, meanwhile, roared through the ropes and
yards, and eveiy little while there was a hollow
thump of some wave against the bows, followed by
the rush of water over the bulwarks. I had read
the account of the storm in Virgil, and am sure he
must have seen something like what I saw that
night to have written it. There is an ode in Hor-
ace to him, when he was on the point of setting out
on a voyage. Perhaps he saw it then. The de-
scription in the Bible is, however, the grandest pic-
ture of a storm at sea : " The Lord commandeth,
and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the
waves of the deep. They mount up to heaven,
they go down again to the depths : their soul is
melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro

Ilrl<jh( of ///(• Waves.

and stairmT like :v drunken man, and arc at their
wit's end." '^ The Lord liatli liis way in the wliirl-
wind and in the storm, and the clouds are tlie thist
of his feet/' Yet 1 liave found since, tliat tl»ou;:li
the waves apjiear so very lii^h, they are nnich lower
tlian we suppose, our notions of them hein;:; taken
from lookin<j; up at them from tiie hollo\*' hetween
two. Dr. Scoreshy, a great authority, measured
those of the Atlantic in ditt'erent weathers, and
found that they seldom rise above fifteen feet, a
great storm only causing; them to rise to thirty-five,
or, at most, forty, which is very different from
" runnino; mountains hijih," as we often hear said.
I could not help i)ityinn; the men who had to go up
to the yards and rin-oinir in the terrible wind and
rain, with the ship heaving and rolling so dread-
fully, and work with the icy cold sheets and r()})es.
Poor fellows ! it seems a wonder how they ever can
hold on. Indeed, they too often lose their hold,
and then there is no hope for them ; down they go,
splash into the wild sea, with such a scream of
agony as no one can ever foi-get after having heard
it. Mv brother, on crossiuij; some years after, saw
a man thus lost — a fine, healthy Orkneyman,
whom some sudden lurch of the ship threw from
the outside of the yard. Thoujxh it was broad dav-
light, and though they would have done any thing
to help him as they saw him rising on the wave,
further and further behind them, swimming bravely,
they were perfectly unable even to make an effort,

)es.
can

of
'iircl
saw
lan,
'(»m
av-
intr

ve,
.rt,

The Bottom of the Ocean.

the soa rolling so wildly, and the ship tearing on
through the waves so swiftly. So they had, with
hearts like to break, to let him drown before their
very eyes.

As we o-ot further over we heard a <xreat deal
about the Banks of Newfoundland, and, naturally
enoui^h, tliought the shores of that island were what
was meant ; but we found, when we reached them,
tliat it was only the name mven to the shallower
part of the sea to the south of the coast. The
soundings of the electric telegra})h have since shown,
that from Ireland on the one side, and Newfound-
land on the other, a level table-land forms the floor
of the ocean, at no great depth, for some hundreds
of miles, the space between sinking suddenly on
both sides into unfathomable abysses. What the
depth of the Atlantic is at the deepest is not known,
but I remember seeing a notice of a surveying
ship, which had been able to sink a line in the
southern section of it to the wonderful depth
of seven miles, finding the bottom only with that
great length of rope. The banks are, no doubt,
formed in part from the material carried by the great
ocean current which flows up from the Gulf of
Mexico, washing the shores all the way ; and then,
passing Newfonndland, reaches across even to the
most northern parts of Europe and the Arctic circle.
If the quantity of mud, and gravel, and sand depos-
ited on the banks, be m'eat enouixh to bury some
of the many wrecks of all sizes which go to the bot-

A Fossil Ship.

If.

toiii tlicre, wliat a woiidoiful siglit some future ages
may Irave ! Tlie floor of the ocean lias often, else-
where, been gradually or suddenly raised into dry
land ; and if the lianks should be so, and the
wrecks be buried in them before thuy had rotted
away, geologists of those days will perhaps be lay-
ing bare, in some (piarry, now far down in the sea,
the outline of a fossil shij), with all the things it
had in it when it was lost !

We met a great many fishing-boats in this part,
some from Newfoundland, some fnmi Nova Scotia,
others, again, from the northern coasts of the United
States, with not a few all the way from France.
We were becalmed one day close to some from the
State of Maine, and one of them very soon sent off
a boat to us, wuth some as fine-looking men in it as
you could well see, to barter fish with the captain
for some pork. For a piece or two of the sailor's
mess pork, which I thought dreadful looking, it was
so yellow and fat, they threw on board quite a
number of cod-fish and some haddocks, giving us, I
thouglit, by far the best of the exchange. I am
told that a great many of tliese fishing-vessels are
lost every year by storms, and occasionally some
are run down and sunk in a moment by a ship
passing over them. They are so rash as to neglect
hanging out lights, in many cases, and the weather
is, moreover, often so very foggy, that, even when
they do, it is impossible to see them. The ships,
if going at all fast, sound fog-horns every now and

; r

I%e Fishing- grounds »

then on such days — that Is, they should do it —
but I fear they sometimes forget. There is far less
humanity in some people than one would like to
see, even the chance of causing death itself seeming
to give them no concern. I remember once going
in a steamer up the Bay of Fundy, over part of the
same ground, when we struck a fishing-schooner
in the dead of the night ; but the captain only
swore at it for being in his way, and never stopped
to see if it were much injured or not, though, for
any thing he or any one knew, it might be in a
sinking state. Whether it be thouo-htlessness or
passion at the time, or stony hard-heartedness, it is
an awful thing to be unkind. Uncle Toby, who put
the fly out of the window rather than kill it, makes
us love him for his tenderness, even in an instance
so slight.

One day we saw two whales at a short distance
from the ship, but their huge black backs, and th j
spout of water they made from their breathing-
holes when they were taking a fi*esh breath, was
all we saw of them. Some of the youngsters^ how-
ever, made some sport out of the sight, by telling a
poor simple woman, who had got into the cabin,
how they had read of a ship that once struck on a
great black island in the middle of the sea, and
went down, and how the sailors got off on the
rock, and landed their provisions, and were mak-
ing themselves comfortable, when one of them, un-
fortunately, thought he would kindle a fire to cook

See Whales and Icebergs.

sometliin^i; Init li.'ul luirdlv done it before tliev (lis-
covered tliat. tlu-y had p)t on the hack of a slec))-
in<^ wliaie, wliich no sooner i'elt the heat hurnni*; it
than it j»hni«j;ed (h)wn into tlu^ waves, witii ail on
it! It is a part of one of tlie hov's stories we liave
all read, but the poor creature believed it, listening-
to tlieni with her eves fixed on tlieir i'aces, and ex-
jnvssing her pity for the sailors who had made the
mistake.

We had two or three iceberixs in siixlit, when
near Newlbundland, and verv beautiful they were.
Only think of great mountains of ice shining in
the sun witli every color that light can give,
and cascades of snowy-white water leaping down
their sidivs into the sea. Those we saw were j)er-
haps from eiglity to a hundred feet high, but they
are sometimes even two hundred ; and as tliere are
eight feet of ice below the water for every one
above, tliis would make a two hundred feet iceberg
more than the third of a mile from the bottom to
the top. They are formed on the shores of the icy
seas in tlie north, by tlie alternate melting and
freezinor of the edae of those ice-rivers wliich we
calh glaciers, which get thrust out from the land till
tliey are undermined by the sea, and cracked by
summer tliaws, and then tumble into the waters,
to find tlieir way wherever the currents may carry
them. Dr. Kane and Captain M'Clintock both
saw them in the ditferent stages of their growth ;
and I don't know a more interesting narrative than

Icebergs,

tliat of the ascent to the top of tlie groat frozen
stream, on the shore of Washington's l^and, hy the
titrnier, and his looking away to the north, east,
and sontli, over the vast, broken, many-coh)red
continent of ice, wliich stretches in awl'nl (K'ptli
arul nnbroken continuity over Greenhmd. The
iceher<Ts often carry off from tlie shore a vast quan-
tity of stones and gravel, which gets frozen into
them. Dr. iScoreshy says he has seen one of them
currying, he should think, from fifty to a hundred
thousand tons of rocks on it. It has, no doubt,
been in this way that most of the great blocks and
boulders of stone, different from any in their neio;h-
bt)rhood, which lie scattered over many parts of
the world, have been taken to their })resent })laces.*
I must not forget the ])orpoises — great pig-like
fish, which once or twice mocked us by racing
alongside, darting a-head every now and then like
arrows, as if to show us how slow we were in com-
parison — nor the birds, which never left us the
whole way, and must sleep on the water when they
do sleep — nor the beautiful lights which shone in
the sea at nijxht. We used to sit at the stern look-
injT at them for long together. The ridtj-es of the
waves would sometimes seem all on fire, and streaks
and spofs of light would follow the ship with every

* What is known as the " boulder clay," however, seems rather
to bo the moraine of ancient glaciers — that is, the wreck of broken
rocks torn away by them in their passage through the valleys, Rnd
now left bare by their having melted away.

I ;

! M'

i. [

■A\

■ it-

Porpoises and Sea-birds.

moment's progress. Sometimes, as the water
ruslied round tlie stern and up from beneath, they
would ghtter hke a shower of stars or diamonds,
joining presently in a sheet of flame. Now they
would look like balls of glowing metal ; then,
presently, they would pass like ribbons of light.
There was no end to the combinations or cliano;es
of beauty ; the very water joined to heighten them
by its ceaseless mingling of colors, from the
wliitest foam, through every shade of green, to the
dark mass of the ocean around. These appearances
come from the presence of myriads of creatures of
all sizes, chiefly the different kinds of Sea-nettles,*
some of which are so small as to need a microscope
to show their parts, while others form large masses,
and shine like the suns of these watery constella-
tions. They tire luminous by a phosphoric light
they are able to secrete ; their brilliancy being
thus of the same kind as tlmt which smokes and
burns in the dark from the skin of fish, and makes
the lights in so many different insects. The phos-
phorus used in manufactures is obtained from
burned bones. I have often seen a similar light in
the back woods on the old half-rotten stumps of
trees which had been cut down. The glow-worm
of England and the fire-fly of Canada are familiar
examples of tho same wonderful power of self-
illumination. Indeed, few countries are without

* The jelly-fisli, or medusa, whioh we so often see on our
beaches, is a familiar example of the class.

'^i

Lights in the Sea.

Bome species of insect possessing this characteristic.
One cannot help thinking how universal life is when
they see it as it is shown in these sights at sea —
millions on millions of shining creatures in the path
of a single ship ; and the happiness which life gives
us in our youth makes us admire the kindness of
God, who, by making eveiy thing so full of it, has
crowded the air, and earth, and waters, with so
much enjoyment.

Our sabbaths .on board were not quite like those
at home ; but, as we had a clergyman with us,
who was going with his family to a chaplaincy in
the Far West, we had prayers and sermons in the
forenoon, when the weather permitted. But a
good many of the passengers were not very respect-
ful to the day, and some, who, I dare say, were
very orderly on Sundays at home, seemed to act
as if to be on a voyage made every day a week-
day.

We were now in the great Gulf of St. Lawrence,
r/hich was called so because Cabot, who discovered
it, chanced to do so on the day set apart to that
saint. But we were some time in it before we saw
land, and there was more care taken about tho
position of the ship than ever before, for fear we
should, like so many vessels, fall foul of the island
of Anticosti, or run on shore in a fog. We had
had thick weather occasionally from our approach-
ing Newfoundland, and it still prevailed now and
theji till we got near Quebec. The icebergs com-

■'I I

Thick Ice-fogs*

I ^^\

ing clown from the north, and the different tem-
jierature of the air coming over them and over the
great frozen regions, cause these thick mists, by
condensing the evaporation from the warmer sea,
and preventing its rising into the air. We could
sometimes hardly see the length of the bowsprit
before us, and as the sun would be shut out for
days together, so that we could not find out our
position, it made every one anxious and half afraid.
Many ships are lost by being muffled in these
thick clouds. They drive, at full speed, against
icebergs or on sunken rocks, or ashore on the wild
coast, when they think themselves safe in an open
clear sea. I often wondered, when crossing again,
some years after, in a great steamer, how we ever
escaped. On we would go in it, with the fog-bell
ringing and horns blowing, to be sure, but in per-
fect blind ignorance of what lay a few yards ahead.
Other sliips,^ icebergs, rocks, or the iron shore,
might be close at hand, yet on, on, up and down
went the great shafts, and beat, beat, went the
huge paddle-wheels — the ship trembling all over,
as if even it were half uneasy. It is a wonder,
not that so many, but that so few ships should be
lost, covering, the sea as they do at all seasons, like
great flocks of seafowl.

After a time the land became visible at last, first
on one side iuid then on the other, and the pilot
was taken on board — a curious lookino; man to
most of us, in his extraorclhiary mufflings, and with

Sailing up the River,

his broken French-English. As we sailed up the
river the views on the banks became very pleas-
ing. The white houses, with their high roofs, like
those we see in pictures of French chateaux, and
the churches roofed with tin, and as white under-
neath as the others, and the line of fields of every
shade, from the brown earth to the dark green
wheat, and the curious zio-zao; wooden fences, and
the solenm woods, every here and there coming
out at the back of the picture, like great grim
sentinels of the land, made it impossible to stay
away from the deck. Then there was the grand
sunsets, with the water like glass, and the shores
reflected in them far down into their depths, and
the curtains of gold and crimson, and violet, and
green, by turns, as the twilight faded into night.

3«

ler,
be

( ': i

Quebec,

CHAPTER II.

Quebec. — Wolfe. — Montcalm's 8kull. — Toronto. — We set off for
the bush. — Mud-roads. — A rough ride. — Our Log-house. —
How it was built. — Our barn. — We get oxen and cows. —
Elephant and Buckeye. — Unpacking our stores. — What some
of our neighbors brought when tlicy came. — Hot days. — Bush
costumes. — Sun-strokes. — My sisters have to turn salamanders.
— Our part of the house-work.

OUR landing at Quebec was only for a very
short time, till some freight was delivered, our
vessel having to go up to Montreal before we left
it. But we had stay enough to let us climb the
narrow streets of this, the oldest of Canadian cities,
and to see some of its sii»:li'ts. The view from
different points was unspeakably grand to us after
being so long pent up in a ship. Indeed, in itself
it is very fine. Cape Diamond and the fortifica-
tions hanging high in the air — the great basin
below, like a sheet of the purest silver, where a
hundred sail of ihe line might ride in safety — the
village spires, and the fields of every shape dotted
with countless white cottages, the silver thread of
the River St. Charles windinor hither and thither
among them, and, in the distance, shutting in this
varied loveliness, a range of lofty mountains,

W^:"

Montcalni's Skull.

p'lrple and blue by turns, standing out against the
sky in every form of picturesque beauty, made
altogether a glorious panorama.

Of course, the great sight of sights to a Briton is
the field of battle on the Plains of Abraham, where
Wolfe, on the loth September, 1759, won for us,
at the price of his own life, the magnificent colonies
of what is now British North America. Wolfe's
body was taken to England for burial, and now
lies in the vault below the parish church at Green-
wich. That of Montcalm, the French general,
who, also, was killed in the battle, was buried in
the Ursuline Convent, where they showed us a
ghastly relic of him — his fleshless, eyeless skull,
kept now in a little glass case, as if it were a thing
fit to be exhibited. It was to me a horrible sight
to look at the grinning death's head, and think
that it was once the seat of the gallant spirit who
died so nobly at his post. His virtues, which all
honor, are his fitting memorial in every mind,
and his appropriate monument is the tomb erected
by his victorious enemies — not this parading him
in the dishonor and humiliation of the grave. It
is the spirit of which we speak when we talk of a
hero, and there is nothing in common with it and
the poor mouldering skull that once contained it.

Quebec is, as I have said, a beautiful place in
summer, but it must be bad enough in winter.
The snow lies till well on in May, and it is so deep
that, in the country, every thing but houses and

Toronto,

■f 1

I 1! " ■

trees and other liigli olyects are covered. The
whole landscape is one unbroken sheet of white,
over which you may go in any direction without
meeting or seeing the smallest obstacle. But peo-
ple get used to any thing ; and even the terrible
cold is so met and resisted by double window-
sashes, and fur caps, and gloves, and coats, that the
inhabitants seem actually to enjoy it.

When we got to Toronto, we found that my
brother Robert, who was already in the country,
had been travellino; in different directions to look
out a place for us, and had at length bought a
farm in the township of Bidport, on the banks of
the River St. Clair. We therefore stayed no
longer in Toronto than possible, but it took us
some time to get every thing ])ut right after the
voyage, and we were further detained by a letter
from my brother, telling us that the house on the
farm could not be got ready for us for a week or
two longer. We had thus plenty of time to look
about us, and strange enough every thing seemed.
The town is very different now-a-days ; but, then,
it was a strafyolino; collection of wooden houses, of
all sizes and shapes, a large one next to a miserable
one-story shell, placed with its end to the street.
There were a few brick houses, but only a few.
The streets were like a newly-ploughed field in
rainy weather, for mud, the wagons often sinking
almost to the axles in it. There was no .gas, and
the pavements were both -few and bad. It has

Mud-roads.

3d. The

of white,

'■'.

without

But peo-

e terrible

window-

that the

tliat my

country.

s to look

■.y,.

ought a

janks of

lyed no

took us

fter the

'-^I^^K

a letter

i^^H

! on the

'fl

veek or

to look

seemed.

t, then.

uses, of

. ■.'.

iserable

street.

H^.

a few.

-'a

ield in

-.-

sinking

as, and
It has

come to be a fine place now, but to us it seemed
very wretched. While we were waiting, we laid
in whatever provision we thouglit we would need
for a good while, every thing being much cheaper
in Toronto than away in the bush. A month or
less saw us moving, my sisters going with Andrew
and Henry by water, while Frederic was left be-
hind in an office ; Robert, my Canadian brother,
and I going by land, to get some business done up
the country as we passed. The stage in which we
took our places was a huge affair, hung on leather
springs, with a broad shelf behind, supported by
straps from the upper corners, for the luggage.
There were three seats, the middle one movable,
which it needed to be, as it came exactly in the
centre of the door. The machine and its load were
drawn by four horses, rough enough, but of good
bottom, as they say. The first few miles were
very pleasant, for they had been macadamized,
but after that, what travelling ! The roads had
not yet dried up, after the spring rains and thaws,
and as they were only mud, and much travelled,
the most the horses could do was to pull us through
at a walk. When we came to a very deep hole,
we had to get out till the coach floundered throuf!;h
it. Every, here and there, where the water had
overflowed from the bush and washed the road
completely away in its passage across it, the ground
was strewn with rails which had been taken from
the nearest fences to hoist out some wheels that

i'l

h::'

III

A Rough Ride.

** \

had stuck fast. At some places there liad heen a
wholesale robbery of rails, which had been thrown
into a gap of this kind in the road, till it was prac-
ticable for travellers or wagons. After a time we
had to bid adieu to the comforts of a coaoh and be-
take ourselves to a great open M-agon — a mere
strong box, set on four wheels, with pieces of plank
hiid across the top for seats. In this affair — some
ten feet lono; and about four broad — we went
through some of the worst stages. But, beyond
Hamilton, we got back our coach again, and for a
time went on smoothlv enouo-h, till we reached a
swamp, which had to be crossed on a road made
of trees cut into lengths and laid side by side, their
ends resting on the trunks of others placed length-
wise. You may think how smooth it would be,
with each log a different size from the one next it
— a great patriarch of the woods rising high be-
tween " babes " half its thickness. The whole
fabric had, moreover, sunk pretty nearly to the
level of the watei*, and the alder bushes every here
and there overhung the edges. As we reached it
late at night, and there was neither moon nor stars,
and a yard too much either way would have sent
coach and all into the water, men had to be got
from the nearest house to go at the horses' heads
with lanterns, and the passengers were politely re-
quested to get out, and stumble on behind as they
could, except two ladies, who were allowed to stay
and be battered up and down inside, instead of

■^

"v..

A Rouyh Ride.

havino" to sprawl on in the dark with us. This
was my first experience of *' corduroy roads," but
we had several more stretches of them before we
got to our journey's end. I have long ago learned
all the varieties of badness of which roads are capa-
ble, and questions whether " corduroy" is entitled
to tlie first rank. Tliere is a kind made of thick
planks, laid side by side, which, wlien they get old
and broken, may bid fair for the palm. I have
seen a stout, elderly lady, when the coach was at
a good trot, bumped fairly against the roof by a
sudilen hole and the shock against the ])lank at the
other side. But, indeed, "corduroy" is dreadful.
When we came to it I tried every thing to save my
poor bones — sitting on my hands, or raising my
body on them — but it wa,s of little use ; on we
went, thump, thump, thumping against one log
after another, and this, in the last part of our jour-
ney, with the bare boards of an open wagon for
seats once more. It wiis bad enouo;h in the coach
with stuffed seats, but it was awful on the hard
wood. But w^e got through without an actual up-
set or breakdown, which is more than a friend of
mine could say, for the coacli in which he was
went into so deep a mud-hole at one part of the
road, that it fairly overturned, throwing the passen-
gers on the top of one another inside, and leaving
them no way of exit, when they came to themselves,
but to crawl out throuixh the window. It was fine
weather, however, and the leaves were making the

■">

■ i

Our Log-lwusc.

u ;

m f

woods ocautiful, and tlie birds had ben-un to flit
about, so tliat the cheerf'uhicss of nature kept us
fronri tliinkin^ mucli of our troubles. Jt took us
three days to go a hundred and fifty miles, and we
stopped on the way besides for my brother's busi-
ness, so that the rest of our party had reached our
new home, by their route, before us.

The look of the house which was to be our
dwelling was novel enough to me, with my old
ideas about houses still in my head. It was built a
little back from the river, far enough to give room
for a garden when we had time to make one ; and
the trees had been cut down from the water's edcje
to some distance behind the house, to make things a
little more cheery, and also to prevent the risk of
any of them falling on our establishment in a high
wind. The house itself had, in fact, been built of
the logs procured by felling these patriarchs of the
forest, every one of which had, as usual on Cana-
dian farms, been cut dow\i. My brother had left
special instructions to spaie some of the smaller
ones, but the " chopper " had understood him ex-
actly the wrong way, and had cut down those
pointed out with especial zeal as the objects of his
greatest dislike. Building the house must have
been very heavy work, for it was made of great
logs, the whole thickness of the trees, piled one on
another, a story and a half high. The neighbors
had made what they call a " bee " to help to " raise"
it — that is, they had come without expecting

k «k^,'

How it was Built.

I to flit
ko})t us
took us
and we
's busi-
lied our

be our

my old

s built a

ve room

le ; and

!r's edfre

tilings a

e risk of

1 a high

built of

s of the

n Cana-

had left

smaller

lim ex-

n those

s of his

st have

Df great

one on

iighbors

" raise"

:pecting

wa^-es, but witli tho understaiidini!;; that each would

^ot l>ack from us, wljcn he waiiti'*! it, as many

days' labor as he had ^iveii. They nianaixc a

dirticult business like that of *2;ettiu<x u|) the outside

of a lofT house, more easily than one would tliink.

First, the lon;s are cut into tlie })ro})er len<iths for

the sides and the ends ; then they are notched at

the end to make them keep tooether ; then an

equal number are \)\\t at the four sides to be ready,

and the first stage is over. The next step is to get

four laid in the proper positions on the gi-ound, and

then to get up the rest, layer by layer, on the top

of each other, till the whole are in their j)laces. It

is a terrible strain on the men, for there is nothing

but sheer strength to help tliem, except that they

put ]ioles from the top of the last log raised, to the

ground, and then, with handsjxjkes, force another

up tlie slope to its destined position. I have known

many men terribly wrenched by the handspoke of

some other one slipping and letting the whole

weight of one end come upon the person next him.

The logs at the front and back were all fully

twenty feet long, and some of them eighteen inches

thick, so tliat you may iudo;e their weio-ht. After

the square frame had been thus piled up, windows

and a door were cut with axes, a board at the sides

of each keeping the ends of the logs in their places.

You may wonder how this could be done, but

backwoodsmen are so skilful with the axe that it

was done veiy neatly. The sashes for the windows

Oar Log-honne,

i'l

j|;|

■I. H

and tlie pljinkin<j; for different parts of t)ie house
were got from a saw-mil i some distance off, across
tlie river, and my brother put in the glass. Of
course there were a great many chinks between the
logs, but these were filled up, as well as ])ossible,
with billets and ^liips of wood, the whole being
finally coated "^-l made air-tight with mortar.
Thus the logs looiieu n.s if built up with lime, the
great black trunks of the trees alternatino; with the
grey belts between. TIk^ frame of the roof was
made of round poles, flattened on the top, on which
boards were put, and these again were covered with
shingles — a kind of wooden slate made of s[)lit
pine, which answers very well. The angles at the
ends were filled up with logs fitted to the length,
and fixed in their places by wooden pins driven
through the roof-pole at each corner. On the
whole house there were no nails used at all, except
on tiie roof. Wooden pins, and an auger to make
holes, made every thing fast. Inside, it was an ex-
traordinary })lace. The floor was paved with pine
slabs, the outer planks cut from logs, with the
round side do>vn, and fixed by wooden pins to
sleepers made of thin young trees, cut the right
lengths. Overhead, a number of similar round
poles, about the tliickness of a man's leg, supported
the floor of the upper story, which was to be my
sisters' bedroom. They had planks, however, in-
stead of boards, in honor of their sex, perhaps.
They had to climb to this jjaradise by an extraor-

i ;.4 w^i

llow it wats Built.

fliiiarv ladder, inado with the never-l'ailinii; axe and
aiioiT, out ot'irrcc'M, round wood. I used always to
tliink of lvol)inson Crusoe m'ttin<T into his t'ortihca-
tion, wIu'U I saw them goin<:; uj).

Tlu' chininev was a wonderful atlair. It was
lar<j;e enoui:;h to let you walk up most of the May,
and could hold, I can't tell how many loijs, i'our or
five feet lonn;, for a fire. It was built of mud, and
when whitewashed looked very well — at least we
came to like it ; it was so clean and cheerful in tlio
winter time. But we had to pull it down some
years after, and get one built of brick, as it was
always getting out of repair. A ])artition was put
up 'across the middle and then divided again, and
this made two bedrooms for my brothers, and left
us our solitary room, which was to serve for kitchen,
dining-room, and drawing-room, the outer door
opening into it. As to paint, it was out of the
question, but we had lime for wliitewash, and what
with it and some newspapers my brothers pasted up
in their bedrooms, and a few })ictures we brought
from homo, we thought we were quite stylish.
There was no house any better, at any rate, in the
neighborhood, and I su})pose we judged by that.

To keep out the rain and the cold — for rats
were not known on the river for some years after
— the wliole of the bottom loo; outside had to bo
banked up after our arrival, the earth being dug up
all round and thrown aijainst it. The miserable
shanties in which some settlers mana<xe to live for

"""^

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Our Log-house.

fii!

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i''t P

■a time are half buried by this process, and the very
wretched ones built by laborers alongside public
works wliile making, look more like natural mounds
than human habitations. I have often thought it
was a curious thing to see how people, when in the
same or nearly the same circumstances, fall upon
similar { ans. Some of the Indians in America,
for instance, used to sink a pit for a house, and
build it round with stones, putting a roof on the
walls, which reached only a little above the ground ;
and antiquarians tell us that the early Scotch did
the very same. Then Xenophon, long ago, and
Curzon, in our day, tell us how tliey were often
like to fall through the roof of the houses in Anne-
nia into the middle of the family, huddled up, with
their oxen, beneath, their dwellintTs beino; burrowed
into the side of a slope, and showing no signs of
their presence from above. But our house was
not like this, I am happy to say ; it was qyi the
ground, not in it, and was very warm for Canada,
when the wind did not come against the door, which
was a very poor one of inch-thick wood. The
thickness of the logs kept out the cold wonderfully,
though that is a very ambiguous word for a Cana-
dian house, which would need to be made two logs
thick to be warm without tremendous fires — at least,
in the o})en unsheltered country. The houses made
of what they call '' clap-boards " — that is, of naiTow
boards three-quarters of an inch thick, and lathed
and plastered inside — are very much colder; in-

We get Oxen and Cows.

deed, they are, in my opinion, awful, in any part
of them where a fire is not kept up all winter.

One thing stinick me very much, that locks and
bolts seemed to be thought very useless things.
Most of the doors had only wooden latches, made
with an axe or a knife, and fastened at night by a
wooden ])in stuck in above the bar. We got water
from the river close at hand ; a plank run out into
the stream forming what they called "a wharf," to
let us 'get depth enough for our pitchers and pails.

Besides the house, my brother had go4 a barn
built not far from the house — of course a locj one
— on the piece clear of trees. It was about the
size of the house, but the chinks between the logs
were not so carefully filled up as in it. The squir-
rels, indeed, soon found this out, and were con-
stant]} running in and out when we had any grain
in it. The upper part was to hold our hay, and
half of the grouj ' floor was for our other crops, the
cows having !'o 3'emainder for their habitation.
We ^/Oijpjit a yoke of oxen — that is, two — a few
days dfto;- our arrival, and we began with two
cows, on 3 of them a pretty fair " 'ker, but the
other, w)iich had been bought at an extra price,
was chosen by Robert for its fine red skin, and
never had given much milk, and never did. The
oxen., great unwieldy brutes, vere pretty well
broken ; but they weve j.o diff^ r'^nt from any thing
we had ever seen for i>lov';i:hinor or drawin<r a wao;-
on, that we were ail n. 'ler i«'.raid of their horns at

!'(^;

Elephant and Buckeye.

il ■

^'?^

ill!' ' '^

first, and not very fond of having any thing to do
with them. We had bought a plough and harrows,
and I don't know what else, before coming up,
and had brought a great many things besides from
England, so that we had a pretty fair beginning in
farm implements. An ox-wagon was very soon
added to our purchases — a rough affair as could
be. It was nothing but two planks for the bottom
and one for each side, with short pieces at the ends,
like the wagon-stage, on the road from Toi' j ?<» —
a long 4)ox on four wheels, about the height o^ a
cart. The boards were quite loose, to let them rise
and fall in going over the roads when they were
bad. The oxen were fastened to this machine by
a yoke, which is a heavy piece of hard wood, with
a hollow at each end for the back of the necks of
the oxen, and an iron ring in the middle, on the
under side, to slip over a pin at the end of the wagon-
pole, the oxen being secured to it by two thiii collars of
a tough wood called hickory, which were just pieces
bent to fit their deep necks, tne ends being pushed
up through two holes in the yokes at each side, and
fastened by pins '- the top. There was no harness
of any kind, and no reins, a long wand serving to
guide them. I used at first to think it was a very
brave thing to put the yoke on or take it ott\

T?he names of our two were Elephant and Buck-
eye, the one, as his name showed, a great creature,
but as lazy as he was huge ; the other, a much
nicer beast, somewhat smaller, and a far better

Unpacking our Stores.

g to do
arrows,
ng up,
es from
ning in
y soon
could
bottom
le ends,

lit o-^' a
em rise
J were
ine by
1, with
!cks of
on the
vagon-
llars of
pieces
)iislied
[e, and
arness
iiig to
I veiy

Buck-
ature,
ma«?h
better

worker. They were both red and white, and so
patient and quiet, that I used to be ashamed of
myself when I got angry at them for their solemn
slowness and stupidity. Had we been judges of
cattle we might have got much better ones for the
money they cost us ; but my brother Andrew, who
bought them, had never had any more to do with
oxen till then than to help to eat them at dinner.
However, we never bought any thing more from the
man who sold us them.

Our first concern, when we had got fairly into tho
house, was to help to get the furniture and luggage
brouo-ht from the wharf, two miles off, for we had
to leave every thing except our bedding there on
landing. It was a great job to get all into the
wagon, and then to open it after reaching tho
house. The wharf was a long wooden structure,
built of lofis driven into the shallow bed of the river
for perhaps a hundred yards out to the deep water,
and planked over. There was a broad place at the
end to turn a Avagon, but so much of it was heaped
ftp with what they called "cordwood" — that is,
ft'ood for fuel, cut four feet long — that it took some
management to get this done. A man whom we
fiad hired as servant of all work, at two pounds and
his board and lodging a month, brought down the
wagon, and I shall never forget how we laughed
4t his shouting and roaring all the way to the oxen,
as he walked at their heads with a long beech wand
iu his hand. He never ceased bellowino- at them

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Unjjacldng our Stores.

in rough, angry names, except to vary them by or-
ders, such as Haw ! Gee ! Whoa ! Hup ! which
were very ridiculous wlien roared at their ears loud
enouixh to have let them know his wishes if they
had been on the other side of the river. Some-
how, every one who drives oxen in Canada seems
to have got into the same plan ; we ourselves, in-
dc !, fell into it mere than I would have thought,
aft , :ine. When we had bejiun to move the
luggag. , vhat boxes on boxes had to be lifted !
We all lent a hand, but it was hard work. There
was the piano, and the eight-day clock, in a box
like a coffin, and carpets, and a huge wardrobe,
packed full of I don't know what, large enough to
have done for a travelling show, and boxes of books,
and crockery, and tables, and a great carpenter's
chest, not to speak of barrels of oatmeal, and flour,
and salt, and one of split peas. I think the books
were the lieaviest, except that awful wardrobe and
chest of drawers, which were })acked full of some-
thing. But they paid over and over for all the
trouble and weight, proving the greatest possible
blessino;. If we had not brouixht them we would
have turned half savages, I suj)pose, for there were
none to buy nearer tli.m eiglity or ninety miles,
and besides, we would not have had money to buy
them. We had a whole set of Sir Walter Scott's
charming stories, which did us a world of good,
both by helping us to spend the winter evenings
pleasantly, by the great amount of instruction in

■"^

"It

WTiat some of our Neighbors brought. 33

history and antiquarian lore they contained, and by
showing my young sisters, especially, that all the
world were not like the rude people about us.
They got a taste for elegance and refinement from
them that kept them ladies in their feelings while
they had only the life of servants.

When we had got all the things into the house,
the next thing was to unpack them. A large pier-
glass, which would have been very useful, but
rather out of the way in such a house, was discov-
ered to be shivered to fragments ; and some crock-
ery had found the shaking on the journey too much
for its powers of resistance. That horrid wardrobe,
which had sprained our backs to get on tlie wagon,
would barely go in at the door, and we were very
much afraid at first, that, after bringing it more than
three thousand miles, w^e should have to roof it
over, cut holes in it, and make it a hen-house. It
was all but too large, like the picture in the " Vi-
car of Wakefield," which would not go in at any
door when it was brought home. There was not
room for nearly all our furniture, and one end of
my sister's loft was packed like a broker's store-
room with part of it. My brothers being in Amer-
ica before, had however saved us from bringing as
outrageous things as. some who afterwards settled
in the neighborhood. I remember one family who
brought e/er so many huge heavy grates, not know-
ing that there was no coal in Canada, and that
they were useless. They would, indeed, be able to

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"■"S-ay.

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84 What some of our Neighbors brought.

get Ohio coal now, in the larger towns ; but there
was none then anywhere. The only fuel burned
all through the country parts, in fireplaces, is, still,
great thick pieces of split logs, four feet long. One
settler from Ireland had heard that there were a
grejit many rattlesnakes in Canada ; and as he had
been a cavalry volunteer, and had the accoutre-
ments, he brought a brass helmet, a regulation
sabre, buckskin breeches, and jack-boots with him,
t]i '. he might march safely through the jungle
wiiich he suj)})Osed he should find on his route.
7'he J V ng clergyman who afterwards came out
had a different fear. He thouoht there 'miixht be
no houses for him to sleep in at nights, and brought
out a hammock to swing up under the trees.
What he thought the people to whom he was to
preach lived in, I don't know ; perhaps he fancied
we cooked our dinners under the trees, and lived
without houses, like the Indians. In some coun-
tries, hannnocks are used in travelling through
uninhabited places, on account of the poisonous
insects on the ground and the thickness of the vege-
tation ; but in Canada such a thing is never heard
of, houses being always within reach in the parts at
all settled ; and travellers sleep on the ground when
beyond the limits of civilization. But to sleep in
the open air at all makes one such a figure before
morning with mosquito-bites, that nobody would try
it a second time, if he could help it. I was once
on a journey up Lake Huron, of which I shall

'>^

Hot days.

it tliere
burned
is, still,
One
were a
he had
coutre-
uhition
h him,
jungle

route,
ne out
ght be
rouo-lit

trees,
was to
fancied
I lived

coun-
irouo-li
sonous
5 vege-
heard
arts at
. when
eep in
before
Id try

once

shaU

.«

speak by and by, where we had to sleep a night on
the ground, and, what with ants running over us,
and with the mosquitoes, we had a most ^vretched
time of it. A friend who was with me had his nose
so bitten that it was thicker above than below,
and looked exactly as if it had been turned upside *
down in the dark.

It took us some time to get every tiling fairly in
order, but it was all done after a while. We were
all in good health ; every thing before us was new ;
and the weather, though very warm, was often
delightful in the evening. Through the day it was
sometimes very oppressive, and we had hot nights
now and then that were still worse. A sheet
seemed as heavy as if it had been a pair of blankets,
and when we were sure the door was fast, we were
glad to throw even it aside. We always took a
long rest at noon till the sun got somewhat cooler,
but the heat was bad enough even in the shade. I
have known it pretty nearly, if not quite, 100°
some days in the house. I remember hearing some
old gentlemen once talking about it, and telhng
each other how they did to escape it: the one
declared that the coolest part of the house was
below the bed, and the other, a very stout clergy-
man, said he found the only spot for study was in

the cellar. Captain W used to assert that it

was often as hot in Canada as in the West Indies.

My sisters never went with so little clothing
before ; and, indeed, it was astonishing how their

Bmh Costumes.

ii-ii

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circumference collapsed under the influence of the
sun. As to us, we thought only of coolness.
Coarse straw hats, with broad brims, costing about
eightpence apiece, with a liandkerchief in the crown
to keep the heat off the head ; a shirt of blue cot-
ton, wide trovvsers of dark printed calico, or, indeed,
of any thing thin, and boots, composed our dress.
But this was elaborate, compared with that adopted
by a gentleman who was leading a batchelor life
back in the bush some distance from us. A friend
went to see him one day, and found him frying
some bacon on a fire below a tree before his door ;
— a potato-pot hanging by a chain over part of it,
from a bough — his only dress being a shirt, boots,
a hat, and a belt round his waist, with a knife in it.
He had not tliought of any one penetrating to his
wilderness habitation, and laughed as heartily at
being caught in such a plight as my friend did at
catching him. For my part, I tliought I should be
cooler still if I turned up my shirt-sleeves ; but my
arms got forthwith so tanned and freckled, that even
yet they are more useful than beautiful. One day
there chanced to be a torn place on my shoulder,
which I did not notice on going out. I thought,
after a time, that it was very hot, but took it for
granted it could not be helped. When I came in
at dinner, however, I was by no means agreeably
surprised when my sister Margaret called out to
jne, *' George, there's a great blister on your shoul-
der," which sure enougli there was. I took care
to have always a whole shirt after that.

5
f

'"^

Siinrstrokes.

care

We had hardly been a month on the river when
we heard that a man, fresh from Enghmd, who liad
been at work for a neighbor, came into the liouse
one afternoon, saying he had a headache, and died,
poor fellow, in less than an hour. He had a sun-
stroke. Sometimes those who are thus seized fall
down at once in a fit of apoplexy, as was the case
with Sir Charles Napier in Scinde. I knew a sin-
o-ular instance of Avhat the sun sometimes does, in
tiic case of a young man, a plumber b}"" trade, who
had been working on a roof in one of the towns on
a hot day. He was struck down in an instant, and
was only saved from death by a fellow-workman.
For a time he lost his reason, but that gradually
caine back. He lo.>t the power of every part of his
body, however, except his head, nothing remaining
alive, you may say, but that. He could move or
control his eyes, mouth, and neck, but that was all.
He had been a strong man, but he wasted away
till his legs and arms were not thicker than a
child's. Yet he got much better eventually, after
being bedridden for several years, and when I last
was at his house, could creep about on two crutches.

I used to pity my sisters, who had to work over
the fire, cooking for us. It was bad enough for
girls who had just left a fashionable . nool in Eng-
land, and were quite young yet, to do work which
hitherto they had always had done for them, but to
have to stoop over a fire in scorching hot weather

must have been very exhausting. They had to

(.'

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G-oing to Mill.

bake in a large iron pot, set upon embers, and cov-
ered with them over tlie lid ; and the dinner had to
be cooked on the logs in the kitchen fireplace, until
we thought of setting up a contrivance made by lay-
ing a stout stick on two upright forked ones, driven
into the ground at each end of a fire kindled out-
side, and hanging the pots from it. While I think
of it, what a source of annoyance the cooking on
the logs in the fireplace was before we got a crane \/-
I remember we once had a large brass panful of
rasnberry jam, nicely poised, as we thought, on the
burning logs, and just ready to be lifted off, when,
lo I some of the firewood below gave way and down
it went into the ashes ! Baking was a hard art to
learn. What bread we had to eat at first ! We
used to quote Hood's lines —

" Who has not heard of home-made bread —
That heavy compound of putty and lead 1 "

But practice, and a few lessons from a neighbor's
wife, made my sisters quite expert at it. We had
some trouble in getting flour, however, after our
first stock ran out. The mill was five miles off,
and, as we had only oxen, it was a tedious job get-
ting to it and back again. One of my brothers
used to set off at five in the morning, with his
breakfast over, and was not back again till nine or
ten at night — that is, after we had wheat of our
own. It had to be ground while he waited. But
it was not all lost time, for the shoemaker's was

■<-■;«

Our part of the houseivork.

crane W

near tlie mill, and we always made the same jour-
ney do for both. In winter we were sometimes
badly off when our flour ran short. On fjjetting to
the mill, we, at times, found the wheel frozen hard,
and that the miller had no flour of his own to sell.
I have known us for a fortnight having to use po-
tatoes instead of bread, when our neighbors hap-
pened to be as ill provided as we, and could not
lend us a " baking."

But bakincT was not all that had to be done in a
house like ours, with so many men in it. No ser-
vants could be had ; the girls round, even when
their fathers had been laborers in England, were
quite above going out to service, so that my sisters
had their hands full. We tried to help them as
much as we could, brinofinj; in the wood for tho
fire, and carrying all the^ water from the river.
Indeed, I used to think it almost a pleasure to fetch
the water, the river was so beautifullv clear.
Never was crystal more transparent. I was wont
to idle as well as work while thus employed, looking
at the beautiful stones and pebbles that lay at the
bottom, ftir beyond the end of the plank that served
for our " wharf."

4|B

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li
11

Clearing the Land

CHAPTER III.

Clearin;^ the land. — David's brafr;,nng, and the end of it. — Burning
the l()f,^-lu'aps. — Our lo^-^^inj^ bee. — What pri'jndico can do. —
Our fences an<l crops nearly burned. — The woods on lire. —
Building a snake fence. — "Shingle" pigs give ua sore trouble.
— "Breacliy " horses and cattle.

n^HE first tliino; that had to be done with the land
-^ was to make a farm of it, by cutting do' xnd
burning as many trees as we could by the n. . of
Aufijust, to have some room for sowino; wlieat in
tlie first or second week of September. It was now
well on in June, so that we had very little time.
However, by hiring two men to chop (we didn't
board or lodge them) and setting our other hired
man to hel[), and with the addition of what my
brothers Robert and David could do, we expected
to get a tolerably-sized field ready. Henry and I
were too young to be of much use ; Henry, the
elder, being only about fifteen. As to Andrew, he
could not bear such work, and paid one of the men
to work for him. Yet both he and we had all
quite enough to do, in the lighter parts of the busi-
ness. We had got axes in Toronto, and our man
fitted them into the crooked handles which they

■K

Clearing the Land.

use in Canada. A Britisli axe, with a lon^jj, tliin
blade, only set tlie men a lau<j;liinrr ; and, indeed,
it chanied to be a very poor att'air, for one day the
whole face of it flew off as Robert was making a
furious cut with it at a thistle. The Canadian jLxes
were sliaped like wedges, and it was wonderful to
see how the men made the chips fly out of a tree
with tliem. We got u]) in the morning with the
sun, and went out to work till breakfast, the men
wliacking away with all their might ; Nisbet, our
own man, as we called him, snorting at every stroke,
as if that helped him, and my two elder brothers
using their axes as well as they could. We, younger
hands, had, for our part, to lop ofl' the branches
when the trees were felled. i\Iy brothers soon got to
be very fair choppers, and could finish a pretty
thick tree sooner than you would suppose. But it
was hard work, for some of the trees were very
large. One in particular, an elm, which the two men
attacked at the same time, was so broad across the
stump, after it was cut down, that Nisbet, who was
a fair-sized man, when he lay down across it, with
his head at the edge on one side, did not reach with
his feet to the other. But, thicker or thinner, all
came down as we advanced. The plan was to make,
first, a slanting stroke, and then another, straight
in, to cut off the chip thus made ; thus gradually
reaching the middle, leaving a smooth, flat stum})
about three feet high underneath, and a slope in-
wards above. The one side done, they began the

Clearing the Land,

: 'I': I

,;;,.., .|

i '-it

same jirocess with the other, hacking away chip aftef
chip from the butt, till there was not enough left
to support the mass above. Then came the signal
of the approacliing fall by a loud crack of the thin
strip that was left uncut ; on hearing which, we
looked up to see which way the huge shaft was
■coming, and would take to our heels out of its
reach, if it threatened to fall in our direction. It
is wonderful, however, how exactly a skilful chop-
per can determine beforehand how a tree shall come
down. They sometimes manage, indeed, to aim
one so fairly at a smaller one, close at hand, as to
send it, also, to the ground with the blow. Acci-
dents rarely haj)pen, though, sometimes, a poor man
runs the wrong way and gets killed. What a noise
the great monarchs of the forest made as they thun-
dered down I It was like firing off a great cannon ;
and right glad we were when we had a good many
such artillery to fire ofi' in a day. But it was often
dreadfully hot work, and my brothers seemed as if
they should never drink enough. I used to bring
them a small pailful of water at a time, and put it
on the sliady side of a stump, covering it over with
some green thing besides, to keep it cool. The
cows and oxen seemed to take as much pleasure as
ourselves in our progress, for no sooner was a tree
down than they would be among its branches,
munching off the tender ends as if they were great
delicacies in their eyes. It was harder to keep them
out of harm's way than ourselves, and many a time

lip aftef
igh left
3 signal
;lie thin
icli, we
aft was
t of its
on. It
il chop-
ill come
to aim
id, as to
Acci-
Dor man
; a noise
?.j thun-
annon ;
d many
as often
ed as if
bring
d put it
rer with
The
asure as
is a tree
ianches,
re £rveat
v[) them
y a time

David's Bragging^ and the end of it. 45

T was half afraid a tree would be down on me be-
fore I cot them out of dano;er. Indeed, we had one
loss, though only a small one. AVe had been talk-
ing over night about cattle being killed, and David,
who was always a great brag, had told us that " he
tliought it all stupidity ; he didn't know how people
killed beasts ; he could chop for years and never
hurt any thing, if there were ever so many cattle
about.'' Next morning, however, before breakfast,
we were all hard at work, and the oxen and the
cows were busy with the twigs as usual, when a
fine little calf we had got with one of the cows,
wandered off in David's direction, just as a tree
he was at was about to fall ; and, presently, while
he was all excitement about its going the right way
for himself, it was down smash on the poor calf,
which was, of course, gone in a moment. We
were sorry for the unfortunate little creature, but
we could not help laughing amidst all at the face
David put on. "It was very singular — very.
He couldn't account for it ; how could he think a
calf would leave its mother ? " But he said no
more about the stupidity of people who killed oxen
or cows while chopping.

Working hard every day, it was surprising what
a piece we soon felled. When we had got as much
down as we thought we could clear off in time for
the wheat, we gave the rest a respite for awhile,
and set to getting rid of those we had already over-
tlu'own. The straichtest of them were selected for

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il '. i

Burning the Logs.

rails, with which to fence our intended field ; all
the others were to be remorselessly burned, stock
and branch. The first step toward this had been
taken already, by us lads having cut off the branches
from each tree as it was felled, and heaped them
together in different spots. The trunks of the trees
had next to be cut into pieces ab ten feet long,
those intended for rails being left somewhat longer.
I wonder how often the axes rose and fell durino;
these weeks. Even my brothers began to be able
to use them more skilfully, their stumps beginning
to look smooth and clean cut, instead of being hacked
in a thousand ridges, as at first. How an English
carpenter's heart would have grieved over the de-
struction of so much splendid wood ! The finest
black walnut, and oak, and maple, was slashed at
from morning to night, with no thought on our
parts but to get it out of the way as quickly as pos-
sible. !

Every thing was, at last, ready for the grand fin-
ishing act, but that required the help of some neigh-
bors, so that we had to call another " bee." The
logs had to be rolled together and piled up for burn-
ing, which would have taken us too long if left to
ourselves alone. We got a good woman from a farm
not far off" to come in to help lay sisters in their
pre])arations, for there is ahvays a great deal of
cookino; on these occasions. Salt beef and salt
pork were to form the centre dishes at the dinner,
but there was to be a great array of pies and tarts,

I
I

Our Logging Bee.

ield ; all
d, stock
lad been
aranches
ed them
the trees
jet long,
t longer.
I during
» be able
eginning
o; hacked
I English
r the de-
he finest
ashed at
b on our
y as pos-

rand fin-
lie neigh-
." The
or burn-
if left to
I)m a farm
in their
deal of
and salt
e dinner,
md tarts,

for which we bought part of the fruit across the river,
and, of the rest, there were pumpkins, which we
(T()t from settlers near at hand, and we had T)lunis
enough, very good though wild, from trees in our
own bush. Tea, with cream to every one's taste,
formed the principal beverage, though the most of
the men wanted to get whisky besides. But it
almost always leads to drunkenness and fighting, so
that we did without it. On the day appointed there
was a very good muster — perhaps twenty men
altogether. They came immediately after break-
fast, and we took care to be ready for them.

Our oxen were brought to the ground with their
yoke on, and a long chain fastened to the ring in it,
and two of the men brought each anotlier yoke, so
that we were noisy enough, and had plenty of ex-
citement. Two men got it as their task to drive,
others fixed the chains round the logs, and drew
them as near each other as possible, in lots of about
six or seven, and the rest had to lift each lot, one
log on another, into piles. Henry and I were set
to gather the loose brush that was left, and throw it
on tlie top of the heaps, and thrust the dry rotten
sticks lying about, into the holes between the logs,
to help them to burn. It was astonishing to see
how the oxen walked away with their loads. Stand-
ing as quiet as if they could not move, except when
their tails were sent to do duty on some trouble-
some flies, their faces as solemnly stupid as possible,
the first shout of the driver made them lean instantly

■:wr

What Prejudice ca7i do.

it 'I ;r

against their yoke in a steady pull, which moved
almost any log to which they miglit be chained.
Horses would have jumped and tugged, and the log
would have stuck where it was, but the solid strain
of the oxen, their two heads often together, and
their bodies far apart, was irresistible. Off they
walked with huge cuts of trees, ten feet long, as if
they had been trifles. It was a wonder how they
could stand dragging such heavy weights over the
rough ground, with nothing but the thin wooden
collar round their necks, against whicli to press. A
horse needs a padded collar, but an ox doesn't seem
to suffer for the want of it. In Nova Scotia, which
I afterwards visited, and also in Lower Canada,
oxen are harnessed by the horns, and you are only
laughed at if you say that it seems cruel. I believe
if they were yoked by the tail in any country, the
people who use them in that w^ay would stand up
for its superiority to any other. Prejudice is a
wonderful thino; for blindino; men. I have heard
of a gentleman in the East Indies, who felt for the
laborers having to carry the earth from some public
work they were digging, in baskets, on their shoul-
ders, and got a number of wheelbarrows made for
them, showing them himself how to use them, and
how much better they were than their own plan.
But, next morning, when he came to see how they
were liking the new system, what was his astonish-
ment to find that they had turned the barrows also
into baskets, carrying them on their shoulders, with
a man at each handle and one at the wheel !

moved
liained.
the log
1 straii\
ler, and
Iff they
jr. as if
Dw they
)ver the
wooden
ess. A
I't seem
a, which
Canada,
are only
; believe
rv, the
and up
ice is a
heard
for the
public
ir shoul-
liade for
em, and
ivn plan,
ow they
istonish-
ows also

?rs, with
t

Burning the Logs,

With a due rest for dinner and supper, an extra
time being taken in the middle of the day to escape
the heat, and with a wonderful consumption of eat-
ables, including beef and pork, pies, tarts, pickles,
puddings, cakes, tea, and other things, at each
meal, we got through the day to the satisfaction of
all, and had now only to get every thing burned
off.

The next day it was slightly windy, which was
i\\ our favor, and, still better, the wind was blow-
ing away from our house and barn. The burning
was as thorough as we could have desired, but it
was hot work. We brought some wood embers
from the house, and laid them on the top of one of
the logs, on the side next the wind. Then we
piled chips and splinters on them, which were soon
in flames, and from them there soon was a grand
blaze of the whole pile. Thus we went on, from
one to another, until they were all a-fire. But
the rolling the pieces together as they burned
away, and the stuffing odd ends into the hollows to
keep up the flame, was wild work. We ran about
all day, gathering up every bit of branch or dead
wood we could find, to get a clean sweep made of
every thing at once. What we were like when all
was over, with our black faces and hands, and
smudged shirts and trowsers, may be easily fancied.
But, after all, one day was not enough to get rid
of the whole. It was days before we got every
thing burned, the last pile being made up of the
fragments of all the rest that still remained.

mi im

,4;

48 Our Fences and Crojps nearly harned.

We were fortunate in not having any thing set
on fire which we wished to keep from being burned.
I have known of many cases where dried leaves
and pieces of dead wood, and the thick roots of the
grass, and the coat of vegetable matter always
found in the soil of the forest, kindled, in spite of
every effort to prevent it, the fire running along,
far and near, in the ground, and setting every
thing it reached in a blaze. I remember, some
years after our arrival, Henry was one day going
some distance, and thought it would be as well,
before he started, to fire some brush heaps that
were standing in a field that was being cleared,
quite a distance back, along the side road ; but he
had hardly done so and set off, than my sisters,
Margaret and Ehza, who were alone in the house,
noticed that the fire had caught the ground, and
was making for the strip at the side of the road,
in the direction of the wheat field. It was leaping
from one thing to another, as the wind carried it,
and had already put the long fence next it, run-
ning alon^ six or seven acres, in great danger. If
it had once kindled that, it might have swept on
toward the house and barn and burned up every
thing we had; but my sisters Avere too thorough
Canadians by this time to let it have its own way.
Off the two set to the burning bank, and began to
take down the fence rail by rail, and carry each
across the road, where the fire could not reach them.
Fortunately there was only stubble in the field,

Tf^e Woods on Fire.

ng set

irned.

leaves

of the

always

pite of

along,

every

t
1

, some

f going
Ls well,

ps that
cleared.

but he

sisters,

! house.

;,;.

nd, and

le road,

leaping
rried it.

■ \

it, run-

^'i

ner. If

.'■■&

vept on

■A

) every
lorough

vn way.

.•St

»egan to
ry each
3h them.

■■fg

le field,

and the black ploughed earth checked tlie hrc, but
it kept running along the road, breaking out afresh
after they had thought it was done, and kee])ing
them fighting with tlie rails the whole day, until
Henry came back at night. A man, who passed
in a wagon when they were in the worst of their
trouble, never offered them any help, poor girls,
but drove on, "guessing" they " had a pretty tight
job tha;'." Thanks to their activity there was no
mischief done except the taking down the fence ;
but it was a wonder it did not hurt my sisters, as
the rails are so heavy that men never lift more than
one at a time, or very seldom.

Another instance occurred about the same time,
but on a larger scale. One day on looking east
from the house, we noticed, about two miles off,
great clouds of smoke rising from the woods, and
of course we were instantly off to see what it was.
We found that ground-fire had got into a piece of
the forest which we call the " Windfall," a broad
belt of huge pine trees, which had been thrown
down by some terrible whirlwind, I don't know
how long before. Some of them had already
mouldered in parts ; others had been charred by
some former burning, and would have lasted for al-
most any length of time. They lay on each othel
in the wildest and thickest confusion, making a
barricade that would have kept back an army of
giants, and reaching for miles, their great branches
rising in thousands, black and naked, into the air.

h n

I7ie Woods on Fire.

\m{

The fire liad fairly caught them, and was leaping
and crackling from limb to limb, and sending up
volumes of the densest smoke. It was a terrible
sight to see, and no one could tell how far it wouhl
extend. We were afraid it would spread to the
forest at each side, and it did catch many of the
trees next it, fixing on them, sometimes at the
ground, sometimes up among the branches, while,
sometimes, the first indication of their being on fire
would be by the dead part at the very top, nearly
a hundred feet, I should think, in some cases, from
the earth, flaming out like a star. At night the
sight was grand in the extreme — the blazing mass
of prostrate trees in the Windfall, and at its edges,
tongues of flame, running up the huge trunks, or
breaking out here and there on their sides. At
one place a field came very near the path of the
conflagration, and it was feared that, though the
trees did not come close enough to set the fence on
fire by contact, it might be kindled by the burning
twigs and inflaiii'^able matter that covered the
ground. A plough was therefore brought, and
several broad furrows were run outside, that the
ground-fire might thus be stopped. The plan was
effectual, and the fence remained untouched ; but
the fire among the dead pines spread day after day,
till it had burned up every thing before it, to an
opening in the forest on the other side, where it at
last died out.

As soon as the log-piles had been faii'ly disposed

■^.

Building a Snake-fence.

leaping
ding up
, terrible
it would
d to the
ly of the
;s at the
3S, while,
\cr on fire
►p, nearly
ises, from
night the
zing mass
its edges,
trunks, or
;ides. At
Lth of the
lough the
e fence on
e burning
►vered the
lught, and
that the
e plan was

ched; but

after day,
re it, to an

where it at

ly disposed

of, we had, for our next job, to get the rails put up
round the field thus cleared. They were made,
from the logs that had been saved for the purpose,
by one of the choppers, whom we retained. First
of all, he sank his axe into one end of the lofj;, and

then h

the cleft

hen he put an n*on or wooden wedge nito the del
he had made, and drove it home with a mallet.
Then, into the crack made by the first wedge, he
put a second, and that made it split so far down
that only another was generally needed to send it
in two. The same process was gone through with
the halves, and then with the i)arts, until the whole
log lay split into pieces, varying in thickness from
that of a man's leg, as much again, as they were
wanted light or heavy. You must remember that
they were twelve feet long. To make them into
a fence, you laid a line of them down on the ground
in a zigzag, like a row of very broad V's, the end
of the second resting on that of the first, and so on,
round the corners, till you came to within the
length of a rail from where you started. The va-
cant space was to be the entrance to the field.
Then five or six more were laid, one on another,
all round, in the same way — or rather, were put
up in short, complete portions, till all were in their
places. The ends, at each side of the entrance,
were next lifted and laid on pins put between two
upright posts at each side. To make a gate, we
had a second set of posts, with pins, close to the
others, and on these pins rails were laid, wliich

'i'fT'i

Building a Snake-fencs.

«.:ffll I

11)

■h

could be taken out when wanted, and served very
well for a gate, but we boys almost always went
over the fence rather than go round to it. To
keep all the rails in their places, we had to put up
what they called "stakes" at each angle — that is,
we had to take shorter rails, shar])ened a little at
the end, and push one hard into the ground on
each side of the fence, at every overlapping of the
ends of the rails, leaning them firmly against the
top rail, so that they crossed each other above.
The last thing was to lay a light rail all round
into the crosses thus made, so as to " lock " them,
and to make the whole so hio-h that no beast could
get over it.

We used to laugh about what we were told of
the pigs and cattle and horses getting through and
over fences ; but we soon found out that it was no
laughing matter. The pigs were our first enemies,
for, though we had made the lowest four rails very
close, as we thought, to keep them out, we found
we had not quite succeeded. There were some of a
horrible breed, which they called the " shingle pig,"
as thin as a slate, with long snouts, long coarse
bristles, long legs, and a belly like a greyhound —
creatures about as different from an English pig as
can be imagined. They could run like a horse,
nothing would fatten them, and they could squeeze
themselves sideways through an opening where you
would have thought they could never have got in.
If any hollo vv' in the ground gave them the chance

** Shingle Piys " give us sore trouble. 63

very
went
To
ut up
rat is,
tie at
i\{.l on
of the
st the
above,
round
them,
t could

:old of
o-h and
was no
iiemies.
Is very

found
|me of a
le pig,"

coarse
und —

pig as

horse,
squeeze
ere you

got in.

chance

of fretting below the raik, they were sure to find it
out, and the first tiling you would see, perhaps,
would be a ixi'eat jraunt skeleton of a sow, with six
or eight little ones, rooting away in tlic heart of
your field. AV'ith old fences they made short work,
lor if there were a })iece low and rickety, they would
fairly j)usli it over with their horrid long noses, and
enter with a trium})hant grunt. Although they
miirht have spared our feelin<rs, and left our first
little field alone, they did not, but never rested
snuffing round the fence, till they found out a place
or two below it that had not been closely enough
staked, through which they squeezed themselves al-
most every day, until we found out where they
were and sto|)ped them u{). The brutes were so
cunning that they would never go in before you,
but would stand lookino; round the end of the fence
with their wicked eyes till you were gone. Rob-
ert thought at first he could take reveno;e on them,
and whip them out of such annoying habits, and
whenever the cry was given that " the pigs were
in," if he were within reach he would rush for the
whip, and over the fence, to give them the weight
of it. But thev were better at runnin"; than he
was, and, though he cut o^' the corners to try to
head them, I don't know, that in all the times he
ran himself out of breath, he ever did more than
make them wonder what his intention could be in
giving them such dreadful chases. We learned to

be wiser after a time, and by keeping down our ill-

-w^

m'"^

ii: m I

■ii"

64 '* Shiuf/le Pij8 " ^it'fi us sore trouble.

nature and driving them gently, found they would
make foi* the place where they got in, and, by going
out at it, discover it to us. I only once saw a i)ig
run down, and it wasn't a " shingle " one. Neither
Robert, nor any of us — fo ' we were all, by his
orders, tearing after it in different directions —
■'ould come near it ; but a man we had at the time
started ort' like an arrow in pursuit, and very soon
had it by the hind leg, lifting it by which, the same
instant, to poor l)iggy's great astonishment, he sent it
with a great heave over the fence, down on the grass
outside. It was a small one, of course, else he
could not have done it. A gentleman some miles
above us used to be terribly annoyed by all the pigs
of the neighborhood, as he declared, getting round
the end of his fence which ran into the river, and
thought he would cure matters by nmning it out a
rail further. But they were not to be beaten, and
w'ould come to the outside, and swim round his
fancied protection. He had to add a third length
of rail before he stopped them, and it succeeded
only by the speed of the current being too great for
til em to stem.

But pigs were not the only w' Horses

and cattle were sometimes a drea( trouble. v
*' breachy " horse, or ox, or cow— thn* is, one
given to leap fences or break them down — is sui e
to lead all the others in the neio-hborhood into all
kinds of mischief. The gentleman who was so
worried by the nautical powers of the pigs, used to be

** Breachy " llorae* and Cattle,

\'ould

croing

a pig
either
jy his
ons —
e time
y soon
c sarao
1 sent it
e crass
jlse he
e miles
he pigs
[ romid
er, and
it out a
en, and
md his
length
cceeded
reat for

Horses

)le. ^
is,

- is sui e
into all
was so

sed to be

hall' distracted by a black mare, which ran loose in
his neighborhood, and led the way into hit] fields to
a whole troop of horses, which, but for her, would
have been harmless enough. If a fence were weak
she would shove it over ; or if firm, unless it were
very high indeed, she would leap over it, generally
knocking otf rails enough in doing so to let the oth-
ers in. She took a fancy to a fine field of Indian
corn he had a little way from his house, and night
after night, when he had fairly got into bed, he
would hea'- her crashing over the fence into it, fol-
lowed by all *^ ; rest. Of course he had to get up
and dress himself, and then, after running about
half an hour, through dewy corn as high as his
head, to get them out again, he had to begin in the
middle of the night to rebuild his broken rampart.
Only think of this, repeated night after night. I
used to laugh at his nine or ten feet high fence,
which I had to climb every time I went along the
river side to see him, but he always put me ofi:' by
saying — "Ah, you haven't a black mare down
your way." And I am happy to say we had not.

The cattle were no less accomplished In all forms
of field-breaking villany than the pigs and horses.
We had one brute of a cow, sometime after we came,
that used deliberately to hook off the rails with her
horns, until they were low enough to let her get her
forelegs over, and then she leaned heavily on the
rest until they gave way before her, after which she
would boldly march in. She was an excellent

" B reach ij " Horses and Cattle.

milker, so tliat we did all we could to cure her —
stickino; a boai'd on lier horns, and hanii-ino: another
over her eyes — but she had a decided taste for
fence-breakino;, and we had at last to sentence iier
to death, and take our reveno;e by eatin<^ her up,
through the winter, after she had been fattened.

l;n''

»l

Harrowinq.

CHAPTER IV.

We bcpin our preparations for sowini^. — Gatlfiiofi. — Mopquitoes. —
Ilarnnviii;^ cxperieiu'es. — A hu^^ii liy. — Sandtlies. — The poison
of insects and serpents. — Winter wheat. — Tlie wonders of plant-
life. — Our first " sport." — Woodpeckers. — " Chitnuinks." —
The blue jay. — The blue bird. — The llight of birds.

WHEN we had got our piece of ground all
cleared, except the great ugly stumps, and
had got our fence up, our next job was to get every
thing ready for sowing. First of all the ashes had
to be scattered, a process that liberally dusted our
clothes and faces. Then we brought u}) the oxen,
and fastened them by their chain to the sharp end
of a three-cornered harrow, and with this we had to
scratch the soil, as if just to call its attention to what
Ave wished at its hand. It was the most solenndy
slow work I ever saw, to .(^et over the ixround with
our yoke — solemn to all but the diiver, but to him
tlie very reverse. The shoutino- and yellino; on his
part never stopped, as he had to get them round +his
stumj) and clear of that one. But, if you looked
only at the oxen, you fo^'got the noise, in watching
whether they moved at ail or not. Elephant would
litr his great leg into tlie air and keej) it motionless
for a time, as if he were thinking whether he should

'/:

An
J 11

) {

!Z3Se

i}adjtu8.

i ' ii

il!

ever set it down again, and, of course. Buckeye
could not get on faster tlian his mate. I tried the
liarrowing a little, but I confess I didn't like it.
We were persecuted by the gadflies, which lighted
on the poor oxen and kept them in constant excite-
ment, as, indeed, they well might. Wherever they
get a chance they pierce the skin on the back with
a sharp tube, which shuts up and draws out like a
telesco})e, at the end of their body, protruding an
Ciro; throuii;h it into the creature attacked, and this
egg, when hatched, produces a grub, wdiicli makes a
sore lump round it, and lives in- it till it has attained
its full size, when it comes out, lets itself fall to the
ground and burrows in it, rea})pearing after a time
as a winged gadfly, to torment other cattle. Then
there were the long tough roots running in every
direction round the stumjis, and catching the teeth
of the harrow every little while, giving the necks
of the poor oxen uncommon jerks, and needing the
harrow to be lifted over them each time. Tliert' was
another trouble also, in the shape of the mosquitoes,
which worried driver and oxen alike. They are
tiny creatures, but they are nevertheless a great
nuisance. In the woods in summer, or near them,
or, indeed, Avherever there is stagnant water, they
arr suic to sound their "airy trump." The won-
derful ipiickness of the vibration of their wings
makes a singing noise, which ])roclaims at once tlic
presence of even a single tormentor. They rise in
clouds iiom every pool, and even from the rain-

Mosquitoes.

ckcye
•d the
ike it.
iiilited
3xcite-
31' they
k with
, Uke a
ing an
id this
lakes a
ttaiiied
i to the
a time
Then
1 every
le teeth
J necks
ing the
,Q\\ was
quitoes,
ley are
a great
r til em,
er, thev
lie won-
r wings
nice the
V rise in
he rain-

water barrels kept near houses, where they may be
seen in myriads, in their first shape after leaving the
egg, as little black creatures with large heads, and
tails perpetually in motion, sculling themselves with
great speed hither and thither, but always tail fore-
most. A single night is sufficient to change them
from this state, and send them out as full-blown
mosquitoes, so that even if there be not one in youi
room on going to bed, you may have the pleasure
of hearing several before morning, if you are in the
habit of indulging in the luxury of washing in rain-
water, or, worse still, to find your nose, and cheeks,
or hands, ornamented with itchy lumps, which show
that the enemy has been at you, after all, while you
slept. In Canada they are not half an inch long,
and, until distended by blood, are so thin as to
be nearly invisible. Their instrument of torture is
a delicate sucker, sticking down from the head and
looking very like a glass thread, the end of it fur-
nished with sharp edges which cut the skin. I have
sometimes let one take its will of tlie back of my
liiind, just to watch it. Down it comes, almost too
light to be felt, then out goes the lancet, its sheath
serving for support by bending up on the surface
of the skin in proportion as the sucker sinks. A
sharp prick and the little vampire is drinking your
1)lood. A minute, and his thin, shrivelled body
begins to get fuller, until, very soon, he is three
times the mosquito he was when he began, and
IS quite red with his surfeit shining through his

m,(-

tm!i i famm

' f i

nil

!!« >'

i ,

ii'

Mosquitoes.

sides. But, tliougli he is done you are not, for
some jioisouous secretion is instilled into the })unc-
ture, which causes pain, inflannnation, and swelling,
lono; after he is <>one. We had a little smooth-
haired terrier which seemed to ])lease their taste
almost as much as we ourselves did. When it 2;ot
into the woods, they would settle on the ])oor brute,
in sj)ite of all its efforts, till it was almost black with
them. Horses and oxen m^t no rest from their at-
tacks, and between them and the horse-Hies 1 have
seen the sides of the j)oor thinos runm'no; with blood.
** Dey say ebery ting has some use," said a negro
to me one day ; " 1 wonder what de mosqueeter's
good for?" So do I. A clei-gyman who once
visited us declared that he thought they and all such
pests were part of what is meant in the Bible by
the power of the devil ; lut whether he was right
or not is beyond me to settle. Perhaps they keep
off fevers from ar.imals by bleeding them as they do.
But you know what Socrates said, tliat it was the
liiiihest attainment of wisdom to feel that we kno\v
nothing, so that, even if we can't tell why they are
there, we may be sure, that, it' we knew as much
as we mio;ht, we should find that thev served some
wise pur])ose. At the same time 1 have often been
right glad to think that the little nuisances must
surely have short commons in the unsettled dis-
tricts, where there are no p<^ople nor cattle to tor-
ment.

The liarrowing was also my first special intro-

A Huge Fli).

Mo;lit

y do.
s the

vllovV

V are
luu'h
some
been
must
I dis-
-) tor-
intro-

duction to the horse-flies — jT;reat liorrid creatures
tliat they are. They fastened on tlie oxen at every
])ai't, and stuck tlie five knives witli whicli their
])rol)()scis is armed, deep into the flesli. Tliey are
as lariie as honey-hees, so that you may jud^'e how
nuu'h thev torment tlieir victims, i have seen tliem
make a horse's flard^s red with the l)h)od from tlieir
bites. They were too numerous to be driven oft' by
the h)Mij; tails of eitlier oxen or horses, and, to tell
the truth, I was half afraid to come near them lest
they should take a fancy to myself. It is conuuon
in travc'lhuij; to ])ut leafy branches of maple or some
other tree over the horses' ears and head, to protect
tlu'in as far as possible.

The larfjest fly I ever saw, lio;hted on the fence,
close to me, about this time. \N''e had been frio;ht-
cned by stories of things as biji; as your thumb,
that soused down on you before you knew it, but
I never, before or since, saw such a jj;iant of a fly
as this fellow. It was just like the house-fly majj;-
iiitied a great many times, how many I should not
like to say. I took to mv heels in a moment, for
fear of instant death, and saw no more of it.
Whether it would have bitten me or not I cannot
tell, but I was not at all inclined to try the experi-
ment.

All this time we have left the oxen pullinij; away
at the harrow, but we must leave them a minute or
two lono-er, till we i';et done with all the Hies at once.
There is a little black speck called the sand-fly,

fll

ifi'

1 \W^

■aasaa

Sand-flies.

'AM i.

J tr

which many think even worse than the mosquito.
It comes in clouds, and is too small to ward off,
and its hite causes acute pain for hours after. But,
notwithstanding gadflies, mosquitoes, horse-flies,
and this last pest, the sand-fly, we were better off
than the South American Indians of whom Hum-
boldt speaks, who have to hide all night three or
four inches deep in the sand to keep themselves
from mosquitoes as large as bluebottles ; and our
cattle had nothing to contend with like such a fly
as the tzetse, which Dr. Livingstone tells us, is
fovmd in swarms on the South African rivers, a bite
of which is certain death to any horse or ox.

How curious it is, by the way, that any poison
should be so powerful that the quantity left by the
bite of a fly should be able to kill a great strong
horse or an ox ; and how very wonderful it is,
moreover, that the fly's body should secrete such a
frightful poison, and that it should carry it about in
it without itself suffering any harm ! Dr. Buckland,
of the Life Guards, was once poisoned by some of
the venom of a cobra di capello, a kind of serpent,
getting below his nail, into a scratch he had given
himself with a knife he had used in skinnino; a rat,
which the serpent had killed. And yet the serpent
itself could have whole glands full of it, without
getting any Imrt. But if the cobra were to bite its
own body it would die at once. The scorpion can
and does sting itself to death.

When we had got our field harrowed over twice

■0

Winter Wheat.

twice

or thrice, till every part of it had been well
scratched up, and the ashes well mixed with the
soil, our next step was to sow it, after which camo
another harrowing, and then we had only to wait
till the harvest next July, hoping we might be
favored with a good crop. That a blade so slight
as that of young wheat should be able to stand the
cold of the Canadian winter has always seemed to
me a great wonder. It grows up the first year just
like crass, and mi^ht be mistaken for it even in the
beginning of the following spring. The snow
which generally covers it during the long cold sea-
son is a great protection to it, but it survives even
when it has been bare for lono; intervals too;ether,
though never, I believe, so strong, after such hard-
ships suffered in its infancy. The show not only
protects, but, in its melting, nourishes, the young
plant, so that not to have a good depth of it is a
double evil. But, snow or not snow, the soil is
almost always frozen like a rock, and yet the tender
green blades live through it all, unless some thaw
during winter expose the roots, and a suljsecpient
frost seize them, in which case the plant dies.
Large patches in many fields are thus destroyed in
years when the snow is not deep enough. What
survives must have suspended its life while the
earth in which it grows is frozen. Yet, after being
thus asleep for months — indeed, more than asleep,
for every process of life must be stopped, the first
breath of spring brings back its vigor, and it wakes

'! 'I'T

}

TJie Wonders of Plant-life.

I •■

*■■

as If it had been growing all the time. How won-
derful are even the common facts of nature ! The
life of plants I have always thought very much so.
Our life perishes if it be stopped for a very sliort
time, but tlie beautiful robe of flowers and verdure
with which the world is adorned is well-nio;h inde-
structible. Most of you know the story of Pope's
weeping willow : the poet had received a present
of a basket of figs from the levant, and when open-
ing it, discovered that part of the twigs of which it
was made were already budding, from some mois-
ture that had reached thorn, and this led him to
plant one, which, when it had grown, became the
stock whence all the Babylonian willows in Eng-
land have come. Then we are told that seeds
gathered from beneath the ashes at Pompeii, after
being buried for eighteen hundred years, have
grown on being brought once more to the light,
and it has often been found, that others brought up
from the bottom of wells, when they were being
dug, or from beneath accumulations of sand, of
unknown age, have only to be sown near the sur-
face to commence instantly to grow. It is said
that wheat, found in the coffins of mummies in
Egypt, has sjirung up freely when sown, but the
proof of any having done so Is thought by others
insufficient. Yet there is nothing to make such a
thing impossible, and perhaps some future explorer
like Dr. Layard or Mr. Loftus, may come on grains
older still, In Babylon or Nineveh, and give us

\hi.\

Woodpeckers.

of
ur-
aid

in
the
ers

1 a
>rer

'^'

bread from tiie wlieat that Nebuchadnezzar or Sein-
iramis used to eat. Indeed, M. Michelet tells us,
that some seeds found in the inconceivably ancient
Diluvial drift readilv <ji;re\v on heinnj sown.

Duriuii the busy weeks in which we were cet-
tin<r our first field ready, we boys, tliouijh always
out of doors, were not always at work. Henry
used to briiiii; out liis ^w\\ with liim, to take a shot
at any tiling lie could see, and though there were
not very many creatures round us, yet there were
more when you looked for them than you would
otlierwise have thought. The woodj)eckers were
the strangest to us among them all. They would
come quite near us, running up and down the
trunks of the trees in every way, as Hies run over
a window-pane. There were three or four kinds :
one, the rarest, known by being partly yellow ;
another, by the feathers on its back havino; a
strange hairy-like look ; the third was a smaller
bird, about six inches long, but otherwise like its
luiiry relation ; the fourth, and commonest, was the
red-headed woodpecker. This one gets its name
t'roni the beautiful crimson of its head and neck,
and the contrast of this bright color with the black
and white of its body and wings, and with its black
tail, makes it look very pretty. They would light
on stumps of trees close to us, running round to the
other side till we passed, if we came very close,
and then reappearing the next instant. They kej)t
up a constant tap, tap, tai)ping w ith their heavy

-»

•i^

'If 'rir^=

Woodpeckers.

'ti

ifi*f^

6ills on tlie l)ark of any tree on wliicli tliey happen
to alight, running; up tlie trunk, and stopping every
minute wi^li tlieir tail resting on the bark to suj)-
port them, and hammering as if for the mere love
of the noise. Every grub or insect they thus dis-
covered, was, in a moment, caught on their tongue,
which was thrust out for the purpose. Henry shot
one of them, after missing pretty often, for we
were just beginning sluioting as well as every thing
else, and we brought it to the house to let my sis-
ters see it, and to have another look at it oui'selves.
Being a bit of an ornithologist, he pointed out to us
how the toes were four in number — two before
and two behind — and how they were spread out
to give the creature as firtn hold as })ossible of the
surface on which it was climbin<i;, and how its tail
was sha})ed hke a wedge, and the feathers very
strong, to proj) it up while at work. Then there
was the great heavy head and heavy bill, with the
long thin neck, putting me in mind of a stone-
breaker's hammer, with the thin handle and the
heavy top. But its tongue was, perhaps, the most
curious part of the whole. There were two long,
arched, tendon-like things, which reached from the
tongue round the skull, and passed quite over it
down to the root of the bill at the nostrils ; and, in-
side the wide circle thus made, a muscle, fixed at its
two ends, provided the means of thrusting out the
tongue with amazing swiftness and to a great
length, just as you may move forward the top of a

Chitmunks,

fishing-rod in an instant by pulling the line which
runs from the tip to the reel. jNly brother Robert,
who was of a religious disposition, could not hel[)
telling us, when we had seen all this, that he
thought it just another proof of the wonderful wis-
dom and goodness of God, to see how every thing
was adapted to its particular end.

One little creature used to give us a great deal
of amusement and i)leasure. It was what Nisbet
called a chitmunk, the ri^hf name of it beino; the
ground-squiiTcl. It was a squirrel in every respect,
except that, instead of the great bushy tail turned
up over the ba^k, it had a rounded hairy one,
which was short and straight, and was only twitched
up and down. The little things were to be seen
every now and then on any old log, that marked
where a tree had fallen long before. Tlio moment
we looked at them they would stare at us with their
great black eyes, and, if we moved, they were into
some hole in the log, or over the back of it, and
out of sight in an instant. We all felt kindly dis-
posed toward them, and never tried to shoot them.
I su})pose they were looking for nuts on the ground,
as they feed largely on them, and carry off a great
many, as well as stores of other food, in little cheek-
pouches which they have, that they may be pro-
vided for in winter. They do not make their
houses, like the other squirrels, in holes in the trees,
but dig burrows in the woods, under logs, or in
hillocks of earth, or at the roots of the trees, form-

'fns^=E

TJie Blue Jay,

1' ■ "'

■I \ iiiiia

iijMIr"'

1* m

i>i '1

i f ■*■

-m-t

ing a wiiidiii;!^ passage down to it, and then making
two or three })antries, as 1 may call them, at the
sides of their nest, or sitting and slevping-room,
for their cxtru HukI. They do not often go np the
trees, bnt if they be frigJitenetl, and cannot get to
their hole>, they rnn iijj the trunks, and get from
branch to branch with wonderful quick uess. Some-
times we tried to cat(di one when it would thus go
up some small, low tree, of which there were num-
bers on the edi::e of a »itream two Heids back on our
farm ; but it was always too (juick for us, and after
making sure 1 had it, and climbing the tree to get
hold of it, it would be otf in some magical way,
before our eyes, let us do our best. Then, at other
times, we would try to catch one in an old log, but
with no better success. Henry would get to the
one ercl and 1 to the other, and make sure it
could n' I get out. It always did get out, however,
and all we could do was to admire its beautiful
shape, with the squirrel head, and a soft brown
coat which was striped with black, lengthwise, and
its arch little tail, which was never still a moment.
Some of the birds were the greatest beauties you
could imagine. We would see one fly into the
woods, all crimson, or seemingly so, and perhaps,
soon after, another, which was like a living emerald.
They were small birds — not larger than a thrush
— and not very numerous ; but I cannot trust
myself to give their true names. The blue jay
was one of the prettiest of all the feathered folk

Hi r

The Blue Jay.

but
the
it
!ver,
it'ul
own
and
lent,
you
the
laps,
aid.
ush
trust

folk

tliat used to come and look at us. Wijat a briglit,
quick eye it lias ! wliat a beautiful bhie crest to
raise or let down, as its pride or curiosity moves it
or passes away ! iiow exquisitely its win<rs are
capped with blue, and barred witli black and white I
and its back — could any thin<i; be liner tlnui the
tint of bhie on it ? Its very tail would be orna-
ment enoujjjh for any one bird, with its elej^ant
tapering sluqje, and its feathers barred so charm-
in<^ly with black and white. But we got after-
wards to have a kind of ill-will at the little urchins,
when we came to have an orchard ; for greater
thieves than they are, when the fancy takes them, it
would be hard to imagine. When breeding, they
generally kept pretty close to the woods ; but in
September or October they would favor the gardens
with visits ; and then woe to any fruit within
reach ! But yet they ate so many caterpillars at
times that I su})pose we should not have grudged
them a cherry feast occasionally. I am sure they
must be great coxcombs, small though they be, for
they are not much laro-er than a thrush, thouoli
the leno;th of their tail makes them seem larger:
they carry their heads so pertly, like to oh.ow them-
selves off so well, and are so constantly raising and
lettino; down their beautiful crest, as if all the time
thinking how well they look. John James Audu-
bon, the ornithologist, got a number of them, of
both sexes, alive, and tried to carry them over to
Jingland, to make us a present of the race, if it

•m

tassffessm

BBR

^ae

TJie Blue Bird.

il !

ivere able to live in our climate ; but the poor things
all sickened and died on the way.

I must not forget the dear little blue bird, which
comes all the way from the Far South as early as
March, to stay the summer with us, not leaving till
the middle or end of November, when he seems to
bid a melancholy farewell to his friends, and re-
turns to his winter retreat. In the spring and
summer every place is enlivened with his cheerful
song ; but with the change of the leaf in October it
dies away into a single note, as if he too felt sony
that the beautiful weatlier was leaving.

The blue bird is to America very much, in sum-
mer, what the robin is to us in England in winter
— hopping as familiarly., as if it trusted every one,
about the orchards and the fences. Sometimes it
builds in a hole in an old apple-tree, for generation
after generation ; but very often it takes up its
abode in little houses built specially for it, and fixed
on a high pole, or on the toj) of some of the out-
houses. We were sometimes amused to see its
kindly ways while the hen was sitting on the nest.
The little husband would sit close by her, and
lighten her cares by singing his sweetest notes over
and over; and, when he chanced to have found
some morsel that he thouglit would please her —
some insect or other — he would fly with it to her,
spread his wing over her, and put it into her
mouth. We used to take it for granted that it w^as
the same pair that built, year after year, in the sarao

-<#

The FliyJit of Birds.

<pot, but I never heard of any tiling being clone to
prove it in any case. In that of other birds, how-
ever, this attachment to one spot has been very
clearly shown. I have read somewhere of copper
rinirs havino; been fastened round the legs of swal-
lows, which were observed the year after to have
returned, with this mj'rk on them, to their former
haunts. How is it tiv.tt these tiny creatures can
keep a note in their head of so long a journey as
they take each autumn, and cross country after
country, straight to a place tliousands of miles dis-
tant ? A man could not do it without all the helps
he could get. I lose myself every now and then
in the streets of any new city I may visit ; and as
to making my way across a whole kingdom without
asking, I fear I would make only a very zigziig
progress. Some courier pigeons, which one of the
Arctic voyagers took to the Far North, on being
iet loose, made straight for the place to which they
had bc^a accustomed, in Ayrshire, in an incredibly
short rime. Lithgow, the old traveller, tells us,
L. a one of these birds will carry a letter from
Bagdad to Aleppo, which is thirty day's journey at
the Eastern rate of travel, in forty-eight hours, so
that it could have had no hesitation, but must have
flown straight for its distant home. They say that
when on their long flights, they and other birds,
such as swallows, soar to a great height, and skim
round in circles for a time, as if surveying the
bearings of the land beneath them ; but what eyes

. ... ,»«L.

'!^[

A.
f

■••M-

i -1 ',

-! ,

' '.*'

C,'?'

,' i'"

f.i!

'>.i

--H

— r

r -ti

""'I'liiiftiin

The Fliyht of Birds.

they must lia^'o to see clearl}' over such a landscape
as must open at so great an elevation ! and how
little, after all, can that help them on a journey of
thousand of miles ! Moore's beautiful verse speaks
of the intentness with which the pigeon speeds to
ts goal, and how it keeps so high up in the air :

" The dove let loose in eastern skies,
Ketuniiiig fondly home,
Ne'er stoops to earth her wing, nor flies
Where idle warblers roam."

I have noticed that all birds, when on long flights,
seek the upper regions of the air : the ducks ar^d
swans, that used to pass over us in the spring, va
their way to their breeding-places in the Arctic re-
gions, were always so high that they looked like
strings of moving specks in the sky. They always
fly in certain order, the geese in single file, arranged
like a great V, the two sides of it stretching far
away from each other, but the birds which form the
figure never losing their respective places. Some
of the ducks, on the other hand, kept in wedge-
shaped phalanxes, like the order in which Hannibal
disposed his troops at the Battle of Cannae. Whether
they fly so high to see better, or because the air is
thinner and gives them less resistance, or to be out
of the reach of danger, or to keep from any temp-
tation to alight and loiter on their way, it would be
hard to tell, but with all the help which their height
can give them, is has always been a great wonder

liiiibal
lether

air is
je out
temp-
uld be
height

ondel

The Fliyht of Birds.

:^.

to me how they knew the road to take. There m\is\,
surely be --ome senses in sucli creatures of which wt
do not know, or those they have must be very mu('\»
more acute than ours. How does a bee find its
way home for miles ? And how does the little hum-
ming-bird — of which I shall speak more hereaftei
— thread its way, in its swift arrowy fli<i;ht, from
Canada to the far South, and back again, each
year ? I am afraid we must all confess that we
cannot tell. Our knowledge, of which we are
fioraetimes so proud, is a very poor affair after all.

.«

»•

msammmmm

*«

tSyme Family CJianges.

CHAPTER V.

l^i:

[

Some family changes. — .\mu?ements. — Cow-hunting. — Our " side*
line." — The bush. — Adventures with rattlesnakes. — Garter-
suakes. — A frog's flight for life. — Black squirrels.

I HAVE talked so long about the farm, and the
beasts, iirid birds, that I had almost forgotten
to speak of some changes which took place in our
family in the first summer of our settlement. My
eldest sister had, it seems, found time in Toronto to
get in love, in spite of having to be mistress of such
a household, and, of course, nothing could keep her
past the week fixed for her marriage, w^hich was to
take place about two months after her getting to
the River. She must needs, when the time drew
near, get back to her beloved, and had to look out
her share of the furniture, &c., to take with her, or
rather to send off before. My eldest brother, An-
drew, also, had cast many wry looks at the thick
logs, and at his blistered hands, and had groaned
through every very hot day, maintaining that there
would soon be nothing left of him bat the bones.
*' Melting moments, girls," he would say to my
sisters ; '* melting moments, as the sailor said under
the line. I can't stand this ; I shall go back to

ISome Family Changes.

out
•r, or

All-
thick

Eiiglancl." So he and my eklest sister niaac it up
tliat he should take her, and sueli of her chattels as
were not sent on before, to Toronto, and should
leave us under the charge of Robert. Wlieii the
day came, we all went down to the wharf with
them, and, after a rather sorrowful parting, heard
in due time of the marriage of the one, and, a good
while afterwards — for there were no steamers in
those davs across the Atlantic — of the safe return
of the other to England. This was the first break
up of our household in America ; and it left us for
a time lonely enough, though there were still so
many of us together. We didn't care much for
my sisters leaving, for she would still be within
reach, but it was quite likely we should never see An-
drew again. I liave always thought it w^as a very
touching thing that those who have grown up
together should be separated, after a few years, per-
haps never to meet again. ]\ly brother Robert
made a very tender allusion to this at worship that
night, and moved us all by praying that we might
all of us lead such Christian lives, throuixh God's
grace, that we might meet again in the Great Here-
after, if not in our earthly pilgrimage. He wound
up the service by repeating in his very striking way
— for he recited beautifully — Burns' touching
words :

" And when, at last, we reach that coast,
O'er life's rough ocean driven,
May we rejoice no wanderer lost ;
A family iu heuvcu.

'miKmm

Amusements.

After our wheat had been sown we had time to
take a Httle leisure, and what vvitli fishing at the
end of the long wharf by day, and in the canoe, by
torchlight, in the evenings, or strolhng through the
woods with our guns or rifles, or practising with
the latter at a rough target made by cuttin*^ a broad
slice off a tree, from which we dug out the bullets
again to save the lead, the autumn passed very
pleasantly. Of course it was not all play. There
was plenty more forest to be cleared, and we
kept at that pretty steadily, though a half-holiday
or a whole one did not seem out of the way to us.
I, as the youngest, had for my morning and even-
ing's task to cro to the woods and brino; home the
cows to be milked, and at times, the oxen, when
we wanted them for some kind of work. The lat-
ter were left in the woods for days together, when
we had nothing for them to do, and when we did
bring them in, we always gave them a little salt at
the barn-door to try to get them into the habit of
returning of their own accord. Cattle and horses
in Canada all need to be often indulijed with this lux-
ury ; the distance from the sea leaving hardly any
of it in the air, or in the gras^^ and other vegetation.
It was sometimes a pleasure to go cow-hunting, as
we called it, but sometimes quite the r-.-verse. I
vised to set out, with the dogs for e»>iinpany, straight
up the bbized line ai the *ide of our lot. I mean,
up a line aVung whkib. the trees had been notarked by
slices ( at out of their sides, to show the way to the

Cow-hmiting.

lots at the back of ours. It Avas all op^n for a little
way back, for the post road })assed up from the
bank of the river along the side of our farm, for five
or six acres, and then turned at a right angle par-
allel with the river again, and there was a piece of
the side line cleared for some distance bevond the
turn. After this })iece of civilization had been
])assed, however, nature had it all to herself. The
first twelve or fifteen acres lay tine and high, and
could almost always be got over easily, but the
ground dropped down at that distance to the edge
of a little stream, and rose on the other side, to
stretch away in a dead level, for I know not how
many miles. The streamlet, which was sometim.es
much swollen after thaws or rains, was crossed by
a rough sort of bridge formed of the cuts of young
trees, which rested on stouter supports of the same
kind, stretching from bank to bank. One of the
freshets, however, for a time destroyed this easy
communication, and left us no way of crossinix till
it was repaired, but either by fording, or by ventur-
ing over the trunk of a tree, which was felled so as
to reach across the gap and make an apology for a
bridge. It used at first to be a dreadful job to get
over this primitive pathway, but I got so expert
that I could run over it easily and safely enough.
The dogs, however, generally preferred the water,
unless when it was deep. Then there were pieces
of swampy land, further back, over which a string
of felled trees, one beyond the other, ofltered, again,

p^rp!s|

lAn

,!!';;(l

111;' :*'

•

Cow-hmiting.

the only passage. These were the worst to cross,
for the wet had generally taken ott' the bark, and
they often bent almost into the water with your
weight. One day, when I was making my best
attempt at getting over one of these safely, an old
settler on a lot two miles back made his appearance
at the further side.

" Bad roads, Mr. Brown," said I, accosting him,
for every one speaks to every one else in such a
place as that.

"Yes, Mr. Stanley — bad roads, indeed; but
it's nothing to have only to walk out and in.
What do you think it must have been when I had
to bring my furniture back on a sleigh in summer-
time ? We used wagons on the dry places, and
then got sleighs for the swamps ; and, Mr. Stan-
ley, do you know, I'm sure two or three times you
hardly saw more of the oxen for a minute tlian just
the horns. We had all to go through the water
ourselves to get them to pull, and even then they
stuck fast with our load, and we had to take it off
and carry it on our backs the best way we could.
You don't know any thing about it, Mr. Stanley.
I had to carry a chest of drawers on my shoulders
through all this water, and every bit that we ate
for a whole year, till we got a crop, had to be
brought from the front, the same way, over these
logs."

No doubt he spoke the truth, but, notwithstand-
ing his gloomy recollections, it used to be grand

Cow-hunting.

fun to go back, except when I could not find the
cows, or when they would not let themselves be
driven home. The dogs would be oft' after a squir-
rel every little while, though they never could
catch one, or they would splash into the water
with a thousand gambols to refresh themselves
from the heat, and get quit of the mosquitoes.
Then tliere can be nothing more beautiful than
the woods themselves, when the leaves are in all
their bravery, and the ground is varied by a thou-
sand forms of verdure, wherever an opening lets in
the sun. The trees are not broad and umbrageous
like those in the parks of England. Their being
crowded together makes them grow far higher
before the branches begin, so that you have great
high trunks on every side, like innumerable pillars
in some vast cathedral, and a high open roof of
green, far over head, the white and blue of the
sky filling up the openings in the fretwork of the
leaves. There is always more or less undergrowth
to heighten the beauty of the scene, but not
enough, except in swampy places, to obscure the
view, which is only closed in the distance by the
closer and closer gathering of the trees as tli y re-
cede. The thickness of some of these monarchs of
the forest, the fine shape of others, and the vast
height of nearly all ; the exhaustless charms of the
great canopy of mingled leaves and branches, and
sky and cloud above ; the picturesque vistas in the
openings here and there around ; the endless

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The Bush.

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variety of shade and form in the yonng trees
springing uj) at intervals ; the flowers in one spot,
the rough fretting of tiillen and mouldering trees,
bright with every tint of fungus, or red with decay,
or decked with mosses and lichens, in others, and
the graceful outline of hroad beds of fern, contrast-
ing with the many-colored carpet of leaves — made
it deliiihtful to stroll alt)no;. The silence that
reigns heightens the })leasure and adds a calm so-
lenniity. The stroke of an axe can be heard for
miles, and so may the sound of a cow-bell, as 1
have sometimes found to my sorrow. But it was
only when the cows or oxen could be easily got
that I was disposed to think of the poetry of the
journey. They always kept together, and 1 knew
the sound of our bell at anv distance ; but some-
times I could not, by any listening, catch it, the
wearer having perhaps lain down to chew the cud,
and then, what a holloairg and getting up on fallen
trees to look for them, and wandering; till I was
fairly tired. One of the oxen had for a time the
honor of bearing the bell, but I found, after a
while, that he added to my trouble in finding him
and his friends, bv his cunninfj;, and we trairsferred
it to one of the cows. The brute had a fixed dis-
like to going home, and had learned that the tinkle
of the bell was a sure })relude to his being led off,
to prevent which, he actually got shrewd enough
to hold his head, while resting, in so still a way
that he hardly made a sound. I have seen him,

■4

Adventures with Rattlesnakes.

Icrh

wlien I had at last hunted him up, lookiut]^ side-
wavs at me with his great eyes, afraid for his hfe
to stir his head lest the horrid claj>})er should pro-
claim his presence. When I did get them they
were not always willing to be driven, and would
set otf with their heads and tails up, the oxen ac-
companying them, the bell making a hideous cltui-
gor, careering away over every im})ediment,
straight into the woods, in, perhaps, the very oppo-
site direction to that in which I wished to lead
them. Then for a race to head tliem, round logs,
over logs, through brush and below it, the dogs
dashing on ahead, where they thought I was going,
and looking back every minute, as if to wonder
what 1 was about. It was sometimes the work of
hours to get them home, and sometimes for days
too-ether we could not find them at all.

There is little to fear from wild animals in the
bush in Canada. The deer were too frightened to
trouble us, and, though I have some stories to tell
about bears and wolves, they were so seldom seen
that they did not give us much alarm. But I was
always afraid of the rattlesnakes especially in the
long grass that grew in some wet places. I never
saw but one, however, and that was once, years
after, when I was riding up a narrow road that had
been cut through the woods. My horse was at a
walk, when, suddenly, it made a great spring to
one side, very nearly unseating me, and then stood
looking at a low bush aiid trembling in every limb.

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Adventures with Rattlesnakes.

The next moment I Iieard tlie liorrible rattle,
and my liorse commenced a set of leaps from one
side to the otlier, backhig all the while, and snort-
in*^ wildly. 1 could not ^et oil', and as little could
I (];et my horse turned away, so great was his fear.
Two men luckily came n}> just at this time, and at
once saw the cause of the j)oor brute's alarm, which
was soon ended by one of them making a dash at
the snake with a thick stick, and breakino; its neck
at a blow, liemy told us once that lie was chased
by one which he had disturbed, and 1 can easily
credit it, for I have seen smaller snakes get very
infuriated, and if one was alarmed, as in Henry's
case, it miii;ht readily iilide after him for some dis-
tance. However, it i'ared badly in the end, for a
stick ended its days abru})tly. I was told one
story that I believe is true, though ridiculous
enough. A good man, busy mowing in his field,
in the summer costume of hat, shirt, and boots,
found himself, to his horror, face to face with a
rattlesnake, which, on his instantly throwing down
his scythe and turning to Hee, sprang at his tails
and fixed its fano;s in them inextricablv. The
next s})ring — the cold body of the snake struck
against his legs, making him certain he had been
bitten. He was a full mile from his house, but
despair added strength and s])eed. Away he Hew
— over logs, fences, every tiling — the snake dash-
ing against him with every jump, till he reached
his home, into which he rushed, shouting, " The

j. V'

Adventures with Rattlesnakes.

snake, the snake ! I'm bitten, I'm bitten I " Of
course they were all alarmed enough, but when
they came to examine, the terror proved to be the
whole of the injuiy suifered, the snake's body hav-
ing been knocked to pieces on the way, the head,
only, remaining fixed in the spot at which it had
originally sprung. David and Henry were one
day at work in our field, where there were some
bu.shes close to a stump near the fence. The two
were near each other when the former saw a num-
ber of young rattlesnakes at Heniy's side, and, as
a good joke, for we laughed at the danger, it
seemed so slight, cried out — "Henry! Henry I
look at the rattlesnakes ! " at the same time
mounting the fence to the highest rail to enjoy
Henry's panic. But the young ones were not dis-
posed to trouble any one, so that he instantly saw
that he had nothing to fear ; whereas, on looking
toward David, there was quite enough to turn the
laugh the other way. *' Look at your feet, Da-
vid ! " followed in an instant, and you may easily
imagine how quickly the latter was down the outer
side of the fence, and away to a safe distance,
when, on doing as he was told, he saw the mother
of the brood poised below him for a spring, which,
but for Henry, she would have made the next mo-
ment.

Pigs have 8 wonderful power of killing snakes,
their hungry stomachs tempting them to the attack
for the sake of eating their bodies. I don't know

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Garter Snakes.

tliat tliey ever set on rattlesnakes, but a fiiend of
mine saw one with tiie body of a great black snake,
the thickness of his wrist, and tour or five feet long,
lying over its back. Monsieur Pig converting the
whole into pork as fast as he could, by vigorously
swallowing joint Jifter joint.

The garter snake is the only creature of lis kind
whicli is very common in Canada, and very beauti-
ful and harmless it is. But it is never seen with-
out getting killed, unless it beat a very speedy re-
treat into some log or j)ile of stones, or other shelter.
The influence of the story of the Fall in the Garden
of Eden is fatal to the whole tribe of snakes, against
every individual of which a merciless crusade is
■waejed the moment one is seen. The garter snake
feeds on frogs and other small creatures, as I
chanced to see one day when walking up the road.
In a broad bed of what they call tobacco-weed, a
chase for life or deatl. was beinij made between a
poor frog and one of these snakes. The frog evi-
dently knew it was in danger, for you never saw
such lea])s as it would take to get away from its
enemy, falling into the weeds, after each, so as to
be hidden for a time, if it had only been able to
keej) so. But the snnke would raise itself up on a
slight coil of its tail, and from that height search
every place with its bright wicked eyes for its l)rey,
, and presently glide oti' toward where the poor frog
lay j)anting. Tlien for another leap, and anoiier
poising, to scan tlie field. I don't know how it

Black Squirrels,

8ft

ended, for I liad watched tlicMii till they were a
|T()o{l way off. How tlie snake would ever swallow
it, it' it cau<i;ht it, is hard to imagine, for certainly
it was at least three times as thick as itself. But
we know that snakes can do wonderful thino-s in
that way. Why, the corbra-de-capello, at the Zoo-
lopcal Gardens, swallowed a great railway rug
some time ago, and managed to get it up again
when it found it could make nothino; of it. It is a
mercy our jaws do not distend in such a fashion,
tor we would look very horrible if we were in the
hahit of swallowinix two larj^e loaves at a time, or
of taking our soup with a spoon a foot broad, which
would, however, be no worse than a garter-snake
swallowinn; a frojT whole. It is amaziuLr how fierce
some of the small snakes are. I have seen one of
six or ei<iht inches in leno;th dart at a walkincj-stick
by which it had been disturbed, with a force so
great as to be felt in your hand at the further end.
Homer, in the Iliad, says that Menelaus was as
brave as a fly, which, though so small, darts once
and again in a man's face, and will not be driven
awav ; but he miiiht have had an additional com-
parison for his hero it' he had seen a snake no bigger
than a ])encil charging at a tl>ick stick held in a
man's hand.

We had very pleasant recreation now and then,
hunting black squirrels, which were cajtital eating.
Thev are much larwr than either the gray or the
red ones, and taste very much like j'abbitii, from

Black Squirrels.

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whicli, indeed, it would be liard to distino;nisli tlicm
when they are on tlie tal)le. IJotli they and tlie
gray squirrel are very rommon, and are sometimes
great ])csts to the farmer, making sad havoc with
In's Indian corn while green, and with the young
wheat. In Pennsylvania this at one time came to
such a [)itch that a law was passed, ollering three-
pence a-head for every one destroyed, which re-
sulted, in 1741>, in 8,000/. being paid in one year an
head-money for those killed. Their great nundjers
sometimes develop strange instincts, very dilferent
from those we might exj)ect. From scarcity of
food, or some other unknown cause, all the scpnrrels
in a larjie district will at times take it into their heads
to make a regular nnVration to some other region.
Scattered bodies are said to gather from distant
points, and mai'shal themselves into one great host,
which then sets out on its chosen march, [dlowing
nothing whatever — be it mountain or river — to
stop them. We ourselves had proof enough that
nothing in the shape of water, short of a lake, could
do it. Our neighbors agreed in telling us that, a
few years before we came, it had been a bad sum-
mer for nuts, and that the squirrels of all shades
had evidently seen the perils of the approaching
winter, and made up their minds to emigrate to
more favored lands. Whether they held meetings
on the subject, and discussed the policy to be pur-
sued, was not known ; but it is certain that squir-
reldom at large decided on a united course of action.

Black Sauirreh.

Havinjnr ronie to this (loterniination, tlicy gathered,
it ai)j)eiir.s, in iininense numbers, in the trees at the
water's e(l«j:e% where tlie river was at least a mile
hroad, and had a "urrent of ahont two miles an
hour, and, witiiout hesitation, lauiu'hed oft' in thou-
sands on the stream, straiglit for the other side.
Whether they all eould swim so far, no one, of
course, eould tell ; hut vast numhers reached the
southern shore, and made for the woods, to seek
there the winter supplii's which liad heen deficii'ut
in the district they had left. How stran«re lor little
creatures like them to contrive and carrv out an
organized movement, whicli looked as complete
and deliherate as the mifrration of as manv human
beinirs ! What led them to cro to the south rather
than to the north ? There were no woods in siiiht on
the southern side, though there were forests enough
in th(; interior. I think we can only come to the
conclusion, which cannot be easily confuted, that
the lower creatures hiive some faculties of which we
have no idea whatever.

The black S(juirrels are very luirdy. You may
sec them in the woods, even in the middle of win-
ter, when their red or gray brethren, and the little
ground scjuirrels, are not to be seen. On bright
days, however, even these more delicate creatures
venture out, to see what the world is like, after their
long seclusion in their holes in the trees. They
must gather a large amount of food in the summer
and autumn to be sufHcient to keep them through

!|:i

Black Squirrels.

the long montlis of cold and frost, and their diligence
in getting reaJy in time for the season when their
food is buried out of their reach, is a capi.tal exam-
ple to us. They carry things from great distances
to their nests, if food be rather vscarce, or if they
find any delicacy worth laying up for a treat in the
winter. When the wheat is ripe they come out in
great numbers to get a share of the ears, and run
off with as many as they can manage to steal.

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Spmring Fish,

CHAPTER VI.

Spearing fish. -■ AnciiMit RritisJi rnnoos. — Indian nnps. — A bargain
witli an Indian. — Henry's cold hath. — Canadian thundtTstonns.
— I'oor Voritk's death. — Our gh)ri()iis autumns. — Tho clianga
of tlie leaf. — Sun.H'ts. — Indian summer. — Tlie fall rain.s and
the roads. — The first snow. — Canadian cold. — A winter land-
scape — " Ice-st(»rms." — Snow crystals. — The minute perfcc-
tion of God's works. — Deer-shooting. — [)avid'8 ini&fortune.—
Useless cruelty. — Shedding of the stag's horns.

SPEARING fisli by moonli<j;ht was a great
ainiisenient with us in the beautiful autumn
evenin<j;s. We had boun;ht a canoe from an Indian
for eight doUars, I tliink — tliat is, about thirty-two
sliillings, and it formed our boat on these occasions.
Perhaps, however, before speaking of our adventures
on the waters, I had better describe tliis new pur-
chase, and the scene of its transference to our liands,
which was as curious as itself. It was made out of
a lonop cut of a black walnut-tree, which had been
biu'nedand hollowed to the required de])th, breadth,
and length, and had then been shaped, outside, by
an axe, to the model proposed. They are gener-
ally quite light, but ours was, to other canoes, what
a ship's boat is to a skiff. It must have taken a
lung time to finish, but time is of no value to an

Indian. Indeed, the longer any thing takes him

8»

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Indian Canoes,

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the bcttiT, as it «i;iv('s liirii at li-ast soniotliin^ to do,
wlu'ii, otliL'i'wiso, lie would likoly have ri'hipsod into
total idleness. There is no keel on eanoes, but on-
ly a round l)ottoni,and the ends are sharp and hoth
alike. Of course, such a vessel has a natural fsu-il-
ity at rollin<i;, and needs only the slightest aid on
your ])art to turn in the water like a lo*:^, so that
safety depends very nuieh vm your being steady,
and not leaning;, under any circunistanees, to either
side. In some parts ot" Canada they are made of
the toujih, liiiht bark of the birch tree, which is
sewed into a long sheet, and stretched over a light
but strong framework of the desired shaj)e. Before
using it, the bark is thoroughly soaked in oil to
make it waterproof. When iinished, such a ca-
noe is really elegant, rising high into a wide circu-
lar form at the ends, which are made very sharp to
cut the water easily. I have seen them beautifully
finished, with diHerently colored ])orcuj)ine quills
worked into the edges, and fanciful designs at the
ends. They arc so light that one which will hold
twenty men weighs only a few hundred-weight, and
can be easily carried by three or four men. Then,
they are so elastic, that they yield to blows which
would break a canoe of wood. When tliev do <ret
an injury, it is anuising to see how easily they are
mended. You can darn them like a stocking, or
patch them like a shoe, using wire, however, instead
of thread, and making all tight by a coating of the
resinous matter got from the red pine. The inge-

find

Uiiiji(

Ancient BritUh Canoes.

(ret
kr, or

;to;ul
1' tlie

Inge-

nuity tliat invontc'd sucli ;i ri'lincniont on the com-
iiion canoi', as ivS shown in tlie l)ir(h-l)ark one, is
enough to redeem the cliaraeter of the ln(Han from
tlic h)w estimate of liis mechanical poweiN sometimes
lieard. If we wonder at the contrast lu-tween such
vessels at their best and our beautiful boats and
ships, we must remember that (mr ancestoi*s could
boast of nothin<^ better than these Indians make to-
day. In both Scotland and En^dand, canoes have
been often found in diainino; a lake, or in excava-
tions near streams, or near the sea-shore, where
bo(!;s or other causes have covered the ancient sur-
face of the ground. One was discovered some years
since at the foot of the Ochill hills, many feet under
a bo<^, and not very far from it there was found the
skeleton of a small whale, with the head of a har-
poon stickin<; in its backbone. Others, found else-
where, are j)reserved in various public and })rivato
museums. It is striking to think, from such discov-
ei'ies as these, and from what we know of the boats
of savage nations generally over the world, how
nearly men of all ages, when j)laced in the same po-
sition, when they are at similar stages of civilization,
resemble each other in their thou<j[hts and contriv-
ances to meet the common wants of life. All over
the world hollow trees have been used for the first
steps of navigation, and the birch-bark canoe still
linds a representative in the coracle which the
Welsh fisherman carries liome on his back after
using it, as his ancestors have done for generation

!<ni

Indian Canoes*

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after frencration, wliile tlic GrctMilander f^ocs to sea
ill his li^xht kaiack of'soal-skin, as the pohshed inhal>-
itaiit of Hahyhm, .as Herodotus tells us, used to Hoat
liis <joodsdo\vu tlieCJreat River in round boats made
of skins stretclied on a frame of wicker-work.

Instead of oars, tlie eanoe is jjropelled hy j)addles,
wliich are short oars, with a broader bhide. They
are lield in both liands, so tiiat a single person has
only one to work instead of having one in each
liand, as with oars, when alone in a boat. An In-
dian in a canoe, if by himself, sits at the end,
ami strikes his paddle into the water at each side
alternately, every now and then j)uttinnr it out be-
liind as a rudder, to turn himself in any particular
direction. The one we bought was, as I have said,
far too heavy for comfortable use, and was sold to
us, I believe, for that reason. It was worse to pad-
dle it empty than to paddle a proper one full of
people — at least >ve came to think so; but we
knew no better at first than to like it for its mas-
siveness, never thinking of the weiglit we should
have to push through the water. The price, how-
ever, was not very great, though more than would
have got us a right one, had we known enough.
The Indian who sold it to us paddled up with it,
with his wife in it with him, one morning, his dress
being a dirty printed calico shirt, and a pair of cloth
leggings ; her's, the never-failing blanket, and leg-
gings, like those of her husband. They were both
rather elderly, and by no means attractive in ap-

atc

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tion,
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Bargain with an Indian.

poanince. Robert and tlic rest of us happened to
be near tlie fenee at tlie river side at tlie time ; and
as the In(Han cwinr up, he sahited him, .as is usual,
with tlie words, '* Ho' jour," a corruption of the
phrase, " Bon jour," indieatino; curiously the extent
of the old French dominion in America — every
Indian, in any part, understanding, or, at least,
acknowled;i;in<:r it. A f^ruut ''!i Hie ])art of our
visitor conveyed his return o; the courtesy, and
was presently followed b^ '* C"noo, ,11, irood —
you buy?" Robert, thus a Idicssed, willingly
enoun;h entered into temptation, havirif; deter-
mined, sometime before, to buy one. Like ev'.ry
one else in Canada, he seemed naturally to tliink
that bad English makes good Indian, and pursued
the dialogue somewhat as follows: — Robert —
"Good c'noo?" Indian, w'itl\ a grunt, " Good,"
making sundry signs with his hands, to show liow
it skimmed the water, and how easily it could be
steered, both qualities being most sadly deficient,
as he must have known. Robert — "What for
you ask?" Indian, holding up eight fingers, and
nodding toward tliem, " dollar," making, immedi-
ately after, an imitation of smoking, to stand for an
additional value in tobacco. Robert — " Why you
sell ? " Indian — No answer, but a grunt, which
might either hide a wish to decline a difficult ques-
tion, by pretending ignorance, or any thing else we
like to suppose. Then followed more dumb-show,
to let us know what a treasure he was parting

Spearing Fish.

ijiiti

with. IVIy brotlier found it hopeless to get any in-
formation from him, notliing but grunts and an old
word or two of Euiilisli following; a number ot
inquiries. After a time the bargain was struck,
and having received the money and the tobacco,
he and his spouse departed, laugliing in their
sleeves, I dare say, at their success in getting a
canoe well sold which needed two or three men to
propel it at a reasonable rate.

It was with this affair we used to go out on our
spearing expeditions. A cresset, like those used in
old times to hold watchmen's lights, and a spear
with three prongs and a long handle, were all the
apparatus required. The cresset was fixed in the
bows of the canoe, and a knot of pitch-pine kindled
in it, threw a briijht lioht over and throu";h the
water. Only very still nights would do, for if
there was any ripple the fish could not be seen.
When it was perfectly calm we filled our cresset,
and setting it a fire, one of us would take his place
near the light, spear in hand, standing ready to use
it ; and another seated himself at the stern with a
paddle, and, with the least possible noise, pushed
off alono; the shallow edsie of the river. The fish
could be seen a number of feet down, restino; on
the bottom ; but in very deep water the spear could
not get down quickly enough, while the position of
the fish itself was changed so much by the refrac-
tion of the light, that it was very hard to hit it
even if we were not too slow. The stillness of the

Spear in cj Fish.

night — the beauty of the sliiniiii:^ skies — the deh-
cious mihhicss of the autumnal evenings — tlie
slee})ing smoothness of the great river — the l)lay
of h<rht and sliade from our tire — tlie white sand
of the bottom, with the forms of the fish seen on it
as if tlirough colored crystal — and the excitement
(>{' darting at them every few yards, made the
whole delightful. At first we always missed, by
miscalculating the position of our intended booty ;
but, after going out a few times with John Courte-
nay, a neighbor, and noticing how much he allowed
for the difference between the real and the appar-
ent spot for which to aim, we got the secret of the
art, and gradually managed to become pretty good
marksmen. There was an island in the river, at
the upper end of which a long tongue of shallow
bottom reached up the stream, and on this we
found the best sport : black bass, pike, herrings,
white-fish, cat-fish, sun-fish, and I don't know what
else, used to fall victims on this our best preserve.
I liked almost as well to paddle as to stand in the
bows to spear the fish, for watching the spearsman
and looking down at the fish kept you in a flash of
pleasant excitement all the time. Not a word was
spoken in the canoe, but I used to think words
cnouo-h. " There's a ereat sun-fish at the rio;ht
hand, let me steer for it;" and silently the paddle
would move us toward it, my brother motioning
mo with his hand either to hold back or turn
more this way, or that, as seemed necessary. *' I

I *i

Ilenry^s Cold Bath.

wondor if lie'll get iiim ! " would rise in my mind,
as the spear was slowly poised. " Will lie dart
off?" "He moves a little — all! -there's a great
pike ; make a dart at him — whew, he's gone ! "
and, sure enough, only the bare ground was visi jle.
Perhaps the next was a white-fish, and in a mo-
ment a successful throw would transfix it, and then,
the next, it would be in the bottom of the canoe.
But it was not always plain sailing with us, for
Henry was so fierce in his thrusts at first, that, one
night, when he made sure of getting a fine bass he
saw, he overbalanced himself with a jerk, and went
in along with the spear, head over heels. The
water was not deep enough to do him any harm,
but you may be sure we did not fish any more that
night. Picking himself up, the unfortunate wight
vented his indignation on the poor fish, which, by
most extraodinary logic, he blamed for his calamity.
I couldn't for the world help laughing ; nor could
Henry himself, when he had got a little over liis
first feelings of astonishment and mortification.

The quantity offish that some can get in a night's
spearing is often wonderful. I have watched Cour-
tenay, on a night when fish were plenty, liftiiiii
them from the water almost every minute, thouoh
very few were larger than herrings, and he had
only their backs at which to aim. In some parts
of Canada there was higher game than in our
waters — the salmon-trout, which is often as largo
as our salmon, and the " maskeloiige," a corruption

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ii

Canadian Tlimider storms.

of tlie French words " masque " and " longue," a
kind of pike with a projecting snout, wlience its
name — offering a prize of which we could not
boast. It must be hard work to get such prey out
of the water, but the harder it is the more exciting
is the sport for those Avho are strong enough. The
Indians in some districts live to a great extent on
the fish they get in this way.

I had almost forgotten to speak of the thunder
and lightning which broke on the sultriness of our
hottest summer weather. Rain is much less fre-
quent in Canada than in Britain, but when it does
come, it often comes in earnest. It used to rebound
from the ground for inclies, and a very few minutes
were sufficient to make small torrents run down
every slope in the ground. When we afterwards
had a garden in front of the house, we found it was
almost impossible to keep the soil on it from the
violence of the rains. Indeed, we gave up the at-
tempt, on finding every thing we tried fail, and
sowed it all with grass, to the great delight of the
calves, to whom it was made over as a nursery.
There is music, no doubt, in the sound of rain,
both in the light patter of a summer shower, and
in the big drops that dance on the ground ; but
there are differences in this as in other kinds. I
have stood sometimes below the green branches in
the woods, when a thin cloud was dropping its
wealth on them, and have been charmed by the
mm'mur. But the heavy rain that came most

■;" I-

"il

III.

; if;

i; ^:

Canadian- TImnder storms.

frequently in the liot weather, falh'ng as if tlirouf^li
some vast cullender, was more solemn, and lilled
you with something like awe. It was often ac-
companied by thunder and lightning, such as those
who live in cooler climates seldom hear or see.
The amount of the electricity in the atmosphere of
any country depends very much on the lieat of the
weather. Captain Grayhame, who had command-
ed a frigate on the East India station, told me once,
when on a short visit, that, in the Straits of Ma-
lacca, he had to order the sails to be furled every
day at one o'clock, a thunderstorm coming on regu-
larly at that hour, accompanied with wind so terri-
ble, that the canvas of the ship would often have
been torn into ribbons, and knotted into hard lumps,
if he had not done so. Thunderstorms are not so
exact nor so frequent in Canada, but they came too
often in some years for my taste. I was startled
out of my sleep one night by a peal that must have
burst within a few yards of the house, the noise
exceeding any thing I ever heard before or since.
You don't know what thunder is till a cloud is fired
that way at your ear. Our poor dog Yorick,
which we liad brought from England with us, was
so terrified at the violence of the storms that broke
over us once and again, that he used to jump in
through any open window, if the door were shut,
and hide himself under the bed till all was quiet.
He lost his life at last, poor brute, through his ter-
ror at thunder, for one day when it had come on,

Canadian Thunder storms.

the windows and doors happening to bo closed, lie
nislu'il into tlie woods in his mortal i'ear, and com-
ing on the shanty of a settler, flew in and secreted
hiniselt' below his accustomed shelter, the bed.
The owner of the house, not knowing the facts of
the case, naturally enough took it for granted that
the dog was mad, and forthwith put an end to his
troubles by shooting him. It was a great grief to
us all to lose so kind and intelligent a creature, but
we could hardly blame his destroyer.

There is a wonderful sublimity sometimes in the
darkness and solemn hush of nature that jioes before
one of these storms. It seems as if the pulse of all
things were stopped. The leaves tremble, though
tlicre is not a breath of wind ; the birds either hide
in the forest, or fly low in terror ; the waters look
black, and are ruffled over all their surface. It
seems as if all things around knew of the impend-
ing terrors. I never was more awed in my life, I
think, than at the sight of the heavens and the
accoini)anying suspense of nature one afternoon, in
the first summer we were on the river. The
tempest had not burst, but it lay in the bosom of
portentous clouds, of a strange, unearthly look and
color, that came down to within a very short dis-
tance of the earth. Not a sound broke the awful
silence ; the wind, as well as all tilings else, was still,
and yet the storm-clouds moved steadily to the south,
apparently only a very few yards higher than the
trees. The darkness was like that of an eclipse,

■■■ t H

iOO

Canadian Thunderstorms.

• ih

and no one could have said at what instant the
j)rison of tlic H^htnings and thunders would rend
above him and envelope him in its liorrors. I
jould not, dared not stir, but stood wliere I was till
die great gray masses, through which it seemed Jis
if I could see the shinnner of the aerial fires, liad
mailed slowly over to the other side of tlie river,
and the light, in part, returned.

The liiihtnino; used to leave curious traces of its
visits in its effects on isolated trees all round.
There was a huge pine in a field at the back of the
house that had been its sport more than once. The
great top had b(*en torn off, and the tinink was split
into ribbons, which hunjx far down the sides.
Many others, which I have seen in different parts,
had been ploughed into deep furrows almost from
top to bottom. The telegraph-posts, since they
have been erected, have been an especial attraction.
I have seen fully a dozen of them in one long stretch
split uj>, and torn spirally, through their w^holc
length, by a flasli which had struck the wire and
run along it. That more people are not killed by
it seems wonderful ; yet there are many accidents
of this kind, after all. In the first or second year
of our settlement, a widow lady, living a few miles
up the river, was found dead in her bed, killed in a
storm, and we afterwards heard of sevei'al others
perishing in the same way.

Hail often accompanies thunder and lightning in
Canada, and the pieces are sometimes of a size that

Our Gloriouf Avtumns.

101

«V ?»^<'.''

lets one sympatliize witli tlie Egyptians when Mo-
ses sent down a similar visitation on tbem. I re-
member reading of a hailstorm on the llJnck Sea in
the midst of hot weatlier, the j^ieces in wlii.'h were,
some of them, a pound weiglit, threatening de.^th to
any one they might strike. I n'jver saw tliem such
a size in Canathi, hut used to think tliat it was bad
enough to have tliem an incli and a half long. They
must be formed by a cloud being whirled up, by
some current in the air, to such a height as freezes
its contents, even in the heat of summer.

The weather in the fall was dehVhtful — better,
I think, than in any other season of the y^ar. Get-
ting its name from the bemnnino; of the f.\ll of tb«
leaves, this season lasts on till winter pushes it asidcs
Day after day was bright and almost cloudlws, an^^
the heat had passed into a balmy mildness, whici
made the very feeling of being alive a plcasur*
Every thing combined to make the landscape bear
tiful. The great resplendent river, flowing so soft
ly it seemed scarce to move — its bosom a broac
sheet of molten silver, on which clouds, and sky,
and white sails, and even the further banks, with
die houses, and fields, and woods, far back from
the water, were painted as in a magic mirror — was
i^ beautiful sight, of which w^e never tired ; like the
swans in St. Mary's Loch, which, Wordsworth says,
" float double, swan and shadow," we had ships in
as well as on the waters ; and not a branch, nor
twig, nor leaf of the great trees, nor of the bushes,

ci^ it ,

to*

ill,

i f i-

I u

102

Our Glorious Autumns,

: \

nor a touch in the open landscape, was wanting,
as we jKitldlc'd alon<i the shores, or K)oked across.
And wliat shall 1 say of the sunsets? Milton

says —

" Now cnnic still evening on, and t\vili;;lit gra^
Had in her sober livery all tliinj^s dad."

but this would not do for some of those autumn days.
The yellow li<i;ht would fill earth, and ah*, and sky.
The trees, seen between you and the setting sun,
were shining amber, in trunk, and branch, and leaf;
and the windows of neio;hbors' houses were tlamino;
gold ; while liere and there branches on which the
sun shone at a difierent ano;le seemed li";ht itself;
and in the distance tlie smoke rose pur])le, till, while
you gazed, the whole vision faded, and faded, through
every shade of green and violet, into the dark-blue
of the stars.

By the beginning of September the first frosts had
touched the trees, and tlie change of color in the
leaves at once set in. It is only when this has taken
place that the forests put on their greatest beauty ;
though, indeed, a feelinn: of sadness was always asso-
ciated with these autumnal splendors, connected as
they are, like the last colors of the dolphin, with
thoughts of decay and death. With each day, after
the cliange had commenced, the beauty increased.
Each kind of tree — the oak, the elm, the beech, the
ash, the birch, the walnut, and, above all, the ma-
ple — had its own hue, and every hue was lovely.

The Clianyc of the Leaf.

loa

Tlioii tlitTo wore the solemn pines, an taniiiraeks,
and cedars, setting ott' the clianns of their *;ayer
l)rethren by tlieir sober green, whieli at a distance
looked almost black. The maple-leaf, the fii-st to
color, remained, thron«i;hout, the most beautiful, in
its iiolden yellow and crimson. No wontler it has
become to Canada what the shanu'ock is to Ireland,
or the rose and the thistle, to England and Scotland.
Uhe woods look finest, I think, when the tints are
just beginning, and green, yellow, and scarlet are
mingled in every shade of transition. But what
siieets of golden flame they became after a time !
Then every leaf had something of its own in which
it differed from all others. Yonder, the colors
blended together into pink of the brightest tint ; then
came a dash of lilac and blue, and, away by itself,
a clump rose, like an islet, of glowing red gold.
Lofty trees, and humble undergrowth, and climb-
ing creepers — all alike owned the magic influence,
and decked the landscape with every tint that can
be borrowed from the light, till the whole looked
like the scenery of some fsiiry tale.

The sunsets, as the year deeixined into winter,
grew, I thought, if possible, more and more glori-
ous. The light sank behind mountains of gold and
purple, and shot up its splendors, from beyond, on
every bar and fleck of cloud, to the zenith. Then
came the slow advance of night, with the day re-
treating; from before it to the glorious ixates of the
west, at first in a flush of crimson, then in a flood

104

Indian Summer,

•

I, i V

iis

: I

of amber, till at last, witli a Hn^'oritifr farewell, it
left us in paler and paler ^reen. I have seen
every tree turned into «:;<)ld as 1 l<M)ked across the
river, as the evening fell. Mihnan speaks, in one
of his poems, of the " ^idldcn air of heaven." Such
sijL^hts as these sunsets make the imao;c» a reality,
and almost involuntarily lead one, as he <:;azes on
the wide ^lory that rests on all thino;.s, to think
how beautiful the better world nuist be if this one
be so lovely.

The Indian summer came with the end of Octo-
ber and lasted about ten days, a n;ood deal of rain
havin<; fallen just before. While it lasted, it was
deliciously mild, like the finest April weather in
England. A soft mist hung over the whole pano-
rama round us, mellowing every thing to a peculiar
spiritual beauty. The sun rose, and travelled
through the day, and set, behind a veil of haze,
through which it showed like a great crate of glow-
ino; embers. As it rose, the liaze reddened hiiiher
and liigher up the sky, till, at noon, the heavens
were like the hollow of a vast half-transparent rose,
shutting out the blue. It was like the dreamy
days of Thomson's " Castle of Indolence," where
every thing invited to repose. You could look at
the sun at any hour, and yet the view around was
not destroyed, but rather made more lovely.
What the cause of this phenomenon may be I have
never been able to find out. One writer suggests
one thing, and another something else ; but it

!•' V'

Indian Suinmer,

105

seems us if nobody knew the true reason of it. If
I ini«;ht venture a fjuess, I would say that perliaps
it arises from the condensation of tlie vapors of the
eartli by tlie first frosts, while the sunnner and au-
tiunn lieats arc yet great enough in the soil to cause
them to rise in abundance.

IJoth before and after the Indian summer the
first unmistakable heralds of winter visited us, in
the shape of morning hoar-frost, whicli melted
nway as the day advanced. It was womlcrfully
beautiful to look at it, in its effects on tin infinitely-
varied colors of the leaves which still clung to the
trees. Its silver dust, powdered over the golden
yellow of some, and the bright-red, or dark-brown,
or green of others, the minutest outline of each
preserved, looked charming in the extreme. Then,
not only the leaves, but the trunks, and branches,
and lightest sprays, were crusted with the same
snowy film, till, as far as the eye could reach, it
seemed as if some magical transformation had hap-
pened in the night, and a mockery of nature had
been moulded in white. But what shall I say of
tlie scene when the sun came up in the east, to
have his look at it as well as we ? What rainbow
tints of every possible shade ! what diamond spark-
ling of millions of crystals at once ! It was like
tlie gardens of Aladdin, with the trees bending
under their wealth of rubies, and sapphires, and all
things precious. But the spectacle was as short
lived as it was lovely. By noon, the laiit trace was
gon«.

I m

if., ■■;

106

TAe Fall Mains and the Moads.

The antnmnal rains are of great value to tlie
farmers and the country generally, by filling the
wells and natural reservoirs, so as to secure a plen-
tiful supply of water for winter,, and thus they were
welcome enough on this ground to most, though
we, with tlie river at hand, could have very well
done without them. But, in their effects on the
roads, thev were a cause of m'ief to all alike. Ex-
cept near towns, the roads all through Canada
were, in those days, what most of them are, even
yet, only mud ; and hence you may judge their
state after long-continued tropical rains. All I
have said of our journey to the river in the early
summer, might be repeated of each returning fall.
Men came to the house every day or two to borrow
an axe or an auger, to extemporize some repair of
their broken-down wagons or vehicles. One pitchy
night I came upon two who were intensely busy,
by the light of a lantern, mending a wagon, with
the help of a saw, an auger, an axe, and a rope.
Of course, I stopped to offer assistance, but I had
come only in time to be too late, and was answered
that my help was not wanted. "All's right —
there's no use making a fuss — Jim, take back them
things where you got them, and let's go a-head."
As to thanks for my offer, it would have been ex-
travagant to expect them. They had cobbled their
vehicle, and, on Jim's return, were off into the
darkness as coolly as if nothing had happened.
The dangers of the roads "are a regular part of the

The FaU Rains and the Roads,

107

calculations of the back-country Canadians, to en-
counter which they carry an axe, a wrench, and a
piece of rope, which are generally enough for the
rude wheelwright surgery required. It is amusing
to hear with what perfect indifference they treat
misadventures which would totally disconcert an
old countryman. I remember a man whom I met
patching up his light wagon — which is the name
for a four-wheeled gig: — setting me laughing at his
account of his triumphs over all the accidents of
travel. " I never was stopped yet," he went on to
assure me. " Once I was in my buggy, and ther
tire of one of the wheels came off without my no-
ticing ; I ran back some miles to try if I could get
it, but I couldn't find it. But I guess I never say
die, so I took a rail and stuck it in below the lame
corner, and I tell you we made the dust fly ! "

A little brick church had been built about two
miles from us, some time before we came to the
river, but the mud was a sure hinderance to -such of
*]ie congregation as corld not come by water.
Any attempt at week-night meetings of any kind
was, of course, out of the question. We were pret-
ty nearly close prisoners till the frost should come
to relieve us.

As in many other cases, however, this first step
towards cure was almost worse than the disease.
The frost often came in bitter fierceness for some
time before any snow fell, and then, who shall sing
in sad enough strains the state of the roads?

108

The Fall liains and the Roads.

.[%

III

1;^

fflf

■

<,,

■ "X

!? ill'^*!

h.iii;

Imagine mile after mile of mud, first poached into
a long honeycomb by the oxen and horses, and cut
into longitudinal holes by the wheels, then frozen,
in this state, in a night, into stone. I once had to
ride nearly sixty miles over such a set of pitfalls.
My brother Frederic was with me, but he had
slipped in the stable and sprained his shoulder, so
that I had almost to lift him into the saddle. He
came with me to lead back my horse at the sixty
miles' end, where the roads permitted the stage to
run for my further journey. We were two days
on the way, and such days. The thermometer
was below zero, our breath froze on our eyelashes
every minute, and the horses had long icicles at
their noses, and yet we could only stumble on at a
slow walk, the horses picking theii* steps with the
greatest difficulty, and every now and then coming
down almost on their knees. Sometimes we got
so cold we had to get off and walk with the bridles
on our arms ; and then there was the getting
Frederic mounted a^iiin. I thouijjht we should
never get to the end of the first day's ride. It got
dark long before we reached it, and we were afraiil
to sit any longer on the horses, so that we finished
it by groping in the pitchy darkness, as well as we
could, for some miles.

The first snow fell in November, and lay, that
year, from that time until April. The climate
has become much milder since, from the great
extent of the clearings, I suppose, so that snow

rPf

The First Snow.

109

does not lie, now-a-days, as it did then, and does
not begin for nearly a month later. I have often
heard Canadians deploring the change in this re-
spect, as, indeed, they well may in the rougher
parts of the country, for the winter snow, by filling
up the holes in the roads and freezing the wet
places, as well as by its smooth surface, enables
tliein to bring heavy loads of all kinds to market,
from places which are wholly shut up at other
seasons, if they had the leisure to employ in that
way, at any other, which they have not. The
snow is, consequently, as welcome in Canada as the
summer is elsewhere, and a deficiency of it is a
heavy loss. When we first settled, the quantity
tliat fell was often very great, and as none melted,
except during the periodical thaw in January, the
accumulation became quite formidable by spring.
It was never so bad, however, by any means, as at
Quebec, where the houses have flights of steps up
to the door to let folks always get in and out
tlirough the wii ter, the doors being put at high
snow-mark, if I may so speak. I have sometimes
seen the stumps quite hidden and the fences dwarfed
to a very Lilliputain height ; but, of late years,
there have been some winters when there has h^j^dly
been enough to cover the m'ound, and the wheat
has in many parts been killed, to a large extent,
by the frost and thaws, which it cannot stand when
uncovered. People in Britain often make great
mistakes about the appearance of Canada in winter,

Canada in Winter.

thinking, as I remember we did, tliat we should
have ahnost to get down to our houses through the
snow for months together. The whole depth may
often, now-a-days, in the open country, be meas-
ured by inches, though it still keeps up its old
glory in the bush, and lies for months together,
instead of melting off in a few days, as it very fre-
quently does round the towns and cities. I re-
member an account of the Canadian climate given
by a very witty man, now dead. Dr. Dunlop, of
Lake Huron, as the report sent home respecting it
by an Englishman to his friends, whom he informed,
that for four months in the year you were up to
the neck in mud ; for four more, you were either
burned up by the heat or stung to death by mos-
quitoes, and, for the other four, if yo<i managed to
get your nose above the snow it was only to have
it bitten off by the frost. All the evils thus ar-
rayed are bad enough, but the writer's humor
joined with his imagination in making an outrage-
ous caricature when he spoke thus. A Frenchman,
writing about England, would perhaps say as much
against its climate, and perhaps with a nearer ap-
proach to truth. I remember travelling with one
in the railway from Wolverhampton to London, on
a very bad day in winter, whose opinion of the
English climate was, " cleemate, it's no cleemate —
it's only yellow fogue." Robert Southey, as true
an Englishman as ever lived, in the delio-htful letters
published in his life, constantly abuses it in a most

I 1

Climate in America.

Ill

extraordinary way, and I suppose there are otheiS
who abuse that of every otlier country in which
tliey chance to live. We can have notliing just as
we would like it, and must always set the bright
side over against the dark. For my part, I think
that, though Canada has its charms at some seasons,
and redeeming points in all, there is no place like
dear Old England, in spite of its fogs and drizzle,
and tlie colds they bring in their train.

The question often rises respecting the climate
in America, since it has grown so nuich milder in
comparatively few years, whether it will ever grow
any thing like our own in its range of cold and
heat. That many countries have changed greatly
within historical periods is certain. The climate
of England, in the days of the Norman conquest,
is thought by many to have been like that of
Canada now. Horace hints at ice and snow being
no strancrers at Rome in the time of Augustus,
Caesar led his army over the frozen Rhone ; and,
as to Germany, the description of its climate in
Tacitus is fit to make one shiver. But we have,
unfortunately, an opportunity afforded us by the
case of New England, of seeing that two hundred
years' occupation of an American province, though
it may lessen the quantity of snow, has no effect in
tempering the severity of the cold in winter, or
abating the heat in summer. Connecticut and
Massachusetts are as cold as Canada, if not colder,
and yet they are long-settled countries. The great

'ii;»

f ■ •!

^■f ij

'Hi
I'll

112

A Winter Landscape.

Icy continent to the north forbids the hope of Canada
ever being, in any strict sense of the term, temper-
ate. Even in the open prairies of Wisconsin and
Iowa, the blasts that sweep from the awful Arctic
deserts are keen beyond the conception of those
who never felt them. It is the fact of Britain being
an island that has made the change in its case, the
wind that blows over the sea being always much
cooler in summer and warmer in winter than that
which blows over land.

I have spoken of the beautiful eifect of the hoar-
frost on the forest ; that of the snow is equally
striking. It is wonderful how much manag-es to
get itself heaped up on the broad branches of pines
and cedars, and even on the bare limbs and twigs
of other trees, making the landscape look most
amazingly wintry. But I don't think any one in
Canada ever heard of such a quantity lodging on
them as to make such an occurrence as Mrs. Mary
Somerville quotes from some traveller in her " Phys-
ical Geography," where she tells us that the weight
of it on the broad fronds of the pine-trees is so great,
that, when tlie wind rises and sways them to and
fi'o, they often tumble against each other with such
force as to overthrow great numbers, over large tracts
of country. Such " ice-storms," as she calls them,
I never heard of, nor did I ever meet with any one
who did. Indeed, I rather think them impossible,
from the mere fact that, though the force with which
the first tree struck the second might be enough to

''^ Ice'Storms.^*

113

throw it down, that of the second would be much
weaker on a third, and thus tlie destruction would
cease almost at once, instead of spreading far and
wide. It must be some curious and incorrect ver-
sion of the terrible tornadoes of summer which she
lias quoted.

The snow itself used to give me constant pleas-
ure in looking at it minutely. The beautiful shapes
you see in the kaleidoscope are not more wonder-
ful than those of the crystals of which it was made
up. Stars, crosses, diamonds, and I know not
what other shapes, as large almost as a shilling,
shone round you in millions when the sun sent his
glittering light on them, except in very cold weath-
er, for then the snow was only a dry powder. What
a wonderful thing crystallization is ! If you think
of it for a moment you will be amazed and awed,
for it brintjs us as if face to face with God. How
is it that the particles of snow range themselves in
the most perfect forms, far more beautifully than
any jeweller could make the most costly ornament?
There is never an error — never any thing like a
tailure. Every atom of the dead cold snow has a
law impressed on it by God, by which it takes its
proper place in building up those fairy spangles and
jewels. Can any thing be more exquisite than the
crvstals we find in the rocks ? Yet they are built
up of atoms too small for even the microscope to de-
tect, and are always exactly the same shape in the
eame kind of crystal. Philosophers think that the

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114 The Minute Perfection of GoiVs Works.

particles of eacli kind of crystal have each the per-
fect shape wliich tlie wJiole crystal assumes ; but if
this be so, it makes the matter still more womlerful,
for what shall we think of atoms, which no magnify-
ing power can make visible, being carved and jjierced
and fretted into the most lovely shapes and pat-
terns ? The great power of God is, I think, shown
even more wonderfully in the smallest than in the
largest of His works. The miracles of his creative
skill are lavished almost more profusely on its least
than on its larger productions, in animate as well as
inanimate nature. The crystalline lens of a cod's
eye — that is, the central hard part of it, which is
very little larger than a pea, and is quite transparent

— was long thought to have no special wonder in its
structure ; but the microscope has shown latterly,
that what appeared a mere piece of hard jelly, is
made up of five millions of distinct fibres, which arc
locked into each other by sixty-two thousand mil-
lions of teeth ! The grasshopper has two hun-
dred and seventy horny teeth, set in rows in his

gizzard. A quarto volume has been written on
the anatomy of the earth-worm. At Bilin, in Hun-
gary, t^ere is a kind of stone which the great micro-
scopist — or histologist, as the phrase sometimes is

— Dr. Elirenberg, has found to consist, nearly
altogether, of creatures so small that three hundred
and thirty millions of them make a piece only about
twice the size of one of the dice used in backgam-
mon, and yet each of these creatures is covered with

TJie Minute Perfection of G-ocTs Works. 115

a coat of mail delicately carved all over. What
can be more lovely than the way in which the
little feathers are laid on a butterHy's wing, in such
charming spots and bars of different colors ? I was
looking some time since at a butterfly, which was
of the most perfect azure blue when you looked
down on it, but changed, when you saw it sideways,
from one shade to another, and asked an entomolo-
gist how it was it had so many different tints, tak-
ing nearly every color by turns. It is by the won-
derful arrangement of the feathers, it seems, all this
is done, the way in which they are laid on the wings
being such as to break the rays of light into all these
colors, according to the angle at which it is held to
the eye. How wonderful the Being whose very
smallest works are so perfect I

The snow in cold countries is very different in
appearance at different times, as I have already in-
timated. In comparatively mild weather it falls
and lies in large soft flakes ; but in very cold weather
it comes down almost in powder, and crackles below
the feet at each step. The first showers seldom lie,
the air being too warm as yet; indeed, warm, com-
fortable days sometimes continue quite late. I re-
member one November, when we were without fires,
even in the middle of it, for some days together ;
and in one extraordinary December, ploughs were
actually going on Christmas-day ; but this was as
<:ivat a wonder as a Canadian frost would be in
England. The first winter, enough fell in Novem-

116

Dcer-ahooting.

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bcr to cover all tlie stumps in our field, wlilcli we
did not see again for many weeks. The depth of
the snow must have been at least a yard. In the
woods, there was only a dead level of snow, instead
of the roujuh floorino; of fallen loo-s and broken
branches. At first we could not stir through it for
the depth, and had to make a path to the barn and
to the road ; but after a time a thaw came for a day
or so, and some rain fell, and then the surface of
the snow froze so firmly that even the oxen could
walk over it in any direction without breaking
through.

The falling of the snow was a great time for the
sportsmen of our household, for the deer were then
most easily killed, the snow, while soft, showing their
tracks, and also making them less timid, by forcing
them to seek far and near for their food. Our ri-
fles were, consequently, put in the best order as soon
as the ground was white ; and each of us saw, in
imagination, whole herds of stags which he had
brought down. Frederic, who had been left in To-
ronto, having suffered in health by the confinement
of his office, had given it up, and had joined us
some time before this, so that there were now five
of us, besides my two sisters. We had three rifles
and one gun, the rifle which David carried bein^
an especially good one. But he was the poorest
shot of us all, and Robert was too nervous to be sure
of his aim ; but Henry was as cool before a stag as
if it had been a rabbit. We were all in a state of

Deer-shootuii/.

117

great L\.jj;ernes.s to commence, and had already looked
out white clothes to put on over our ordinary suit,
that we might be more like the snow ; an extra suj)-
ply of bullets and powder had been put into our
pouches and flasks ; and we had pestered every one^,
for weeks before, with every possible question as
to what jve were to do when we set out. On
the eventful day, my brothers, Robert, Henry, and
David, got their rifles on their shoulders immedi-
ately after breakfast, and, having determined on
taking each a different road, struck into the woods
as each thought best. Shortly before dark we
heard David's voice in the clearing, and, soon after,
Robert and Henry made their appearance. We
were all out in a moment to see what they
had got, but found them by no means disposed
to be talkative about their adventures. We grad-
ually learned, however, that they had all had
a hard day's trudge through the rough, weari-
some woods, and that Robert had had one good
chance through the day, but was so flustered
when the deer sprang away through the tree,
that he could not raise his rifle in time, and had
fired rather at where it had been than at where it
was. David declared that he had walked forty
miles, he supposed, and had seen nothing, though,
if he had seen only as much as a buck's tail, he was
sure he would have brought it down. Henry said
that, do his best, he could not get near enough, what
with the wind and the crackling of something or

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118

Deer-shootinff.

other. Tlic fact was timt they were raw liaiids, and
needed some trainin*;^, and had liad to sutter the
usual penalty of over-confidence, in rea})ing only
disaj)pointmcnt. They felt this indeed so much,
that it was some time before they would venture
out alone ao;ain, preferring to accompany an old
hunter. who lived near us, until they lyid caught
the art from him. Henry went out with an Indian,
also, once, and thus gradually became able to man-
age by himself. He had the honor of killing the
first deer, and setting up the trophy of its horns.
He had walked for liours, thinking every little while
lie saw something through the trees, but had been
disappointed, until, towards midday, when, at last,
he came upon a couple browsing on the tender tips
of the brush, at a long distance from him. Then
came the hardest part of the day's work, to get
Avithin shot of them without Icttino; them hear or
smell him. He had to dodge from tree to tree, and
would look out every minute to see if they were
still there. Sove al times the buck pricked its ears,
and looked al' round it, as if about to run off, mak-
ing him almost hold his breath with anxiety lest it
should do so ; but, at last, he got near enough, and
taking a good aim at it from behind a tree, drew the
trigger. A spring forward, and a visible moment-
ary quiver, showed that he had hit it ; but it did not
immediately fall, but ran off with the other through
the woods. Instantly dasning out to the spot where
it had stood, Henry followed its track, aided by the

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Deer-shootinj.

119

blood wliich every liere and tlieie lay on the snow.
He thouulit at fii-st he would come up with it in a
few hundred yards, but it led him a lon^; weary
chase orn^'arly two mile>' before he <i;ot within sight
of it. It had ?ont;..M I to run until weakness from
the loss of blood liad ov -rpowered it, and it lay quite
dead when Henry reac.ied it. It was too <j;reat a
weio;ht for him to think of carrvinjj; home himself,
so that he determined to cut it up, and haijg the
pieces on the neighboring branches, till he could
come back next morning with some of us and fetch
tliem. Copying the example of the old hunter
whom he had made his model, he had taken a long
knife and a small axe with him ; and, after cutting
the throat to let off what blood still remained, the
creature being still wanii, he was not very long of
stripping it of its skin, and lianging up its dismem-
bered body, for preservation from the wolves
*tlirouo;h the nio;ht. This done, he made the best of
his way home to tell us his achievement.

Next day, we had a grand banquet on venison-
steaks, fried with ham, and potatoes in abundance ;
and a better dish I think I never tasted. Venison
pie, and soup, for days after, furnished quite a treat
in the house.

A few days after this, while the winter was
hardly as yet fairly begun, David and Henry had
gone out to their work on the edge of the woods,
when a deer, feeding close to them, lifted up its head,
And, looking back at them, tunied slowly away.

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120

Deer-shooting.

They were back to the house in a moment for their
rifles, and sallied forth after it, following its track
to the edge of the creek on our lot, where it had
evidently crossed on the ice. David reached the
bank first ; and, naturally enougii, thinking that
ce which bore up a large deer would bear him up,
stepped on it to continue the pursuit. But he had
forgotten that the deer had four legs, and thus
pressed comparatively little on any one part,
whereas his whole weight was on one spot, and he
had^only reached the middle when in he went, in a
moment, up to his middle in the freezing water.
The ducking was quite enough to cool his ardor
for that day, so that we had him back to change
his clothes as soon as he could get out of his bath
and reach the house. Henry got over the stream
on a log, and followed the track for some distance
further, but gave up the chase on finding it likely
to be unavailing.

When we first came to live on the river, the
deer were very numerous. One day in the first
winter Kobert saw a whole herd of them, of some
eight or ten, feeding close to the house, among our
cattle, on some browse which had been felled for
them. Bro>vse, I may say, is the Canadian word
for the tender twigs of trees, which are so much
liked by the oxen and cows, and even by the
horses, that we used to cut down a number of trees,
and leave them with the branches on them, for the
benefit of our four-footed retainers. On seeing so

Deer-shooting.

121

grand a chance of bagging two deer at a sliot, Rob-
ert ruslied in for his rifle at once, but before he
had got it loaded, although he flustered through
the process with incredible haste, and had us all
running to bring him powder, ball, and wadding,
the prey had scented danger, and were gone.

We had quite an excitement one day by the cry
that a staij was svvimmino; across the river. On
looking up the stream, there he was, sure enough,
with his noble horns and his head out of the water,
doing his best to reach the opposite shore. In a
few minutes we saw John Courtenay and his boys
paddling off in hot haste, in their canoe, in pursuit.
Every stroke flashed in the light, and the little
craft skimmed the calm water like an arrow.
They were soon very close to the great creature,
which flew faster than ever, and then a bullet from
Courtenay's rifle ended the chase in a moment.
The stag was inst' atly seized to prevent its sink-
ing, and drr^;^* : <~'ff to the shore by a rope tied
round its antlers.

Some pL'jpIe are cruel enough to kill deer in the
spring, whea their young are with tLc.^i, and even
to kill the young themselves, though they are
worth very little svhen got. One of the neighbors
one day wounded a fawn which v^as following its
mother, and as usual ran \\x> to secure and kill it.
But to his astonishment, the mateinal affection of
the doe had so overcome it timidity, that, instead
of fleeing the moment it -^ car'.^ the shot, it would

1 ' ?

122

Useless Cruelty,

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not leave its poor bleeding young one, but turned
on him, and made such vigorous rushes towards
him, again and again, that it was only by making
all kinds of noise he could frighten her far enough
back to let him get hold of the fawn at last. I
wish that instead of merely ninning at him, the lov-
ing-hearted creature had given him a good hard
butt with her head ; it would have served him right
for such cruelty. Taking away Hfe is only Jnstiiia-
ble, I think, when there is some other ".vl than
mere amusement in view. To find happin( ?s in
destroying that of other hving beings is a very un-
worthy enjoyment, when one comes to think of it.
To go out, as I have seen both men and boys do,
to shoot the sweet little singing birds in the hedges,
or the lark when he is fluttering down, after having
filled the air with music, or the slow-flying seagulls,
as they sail heavily near the shore, can only give u
pleasure so long as those who indulge in it do not
reflect on its cruelty. I remember, when a boy.
being often very much struck with this, but, more
especially, once, when a boy shot a male thrush, f>s
it was bringing home a little worm for its young
ones, which would very likely die when their father
was killed ; and, once, when a man shot a seagull,
which fell far out on the water, from which it
would often try in vain to rise, but where it woui ^
have to float, hejpless and in pain, till released bv
death.

Continued persecution, by 'dvery one, at all sea-

Useless Cruelty,

123

ills,
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sons, has nearly banished the deer from all the set-
tled parts of Canada, for years back. There are
game laws now, however, fixing a time, within
which, to destroy them is. punishable, and it is to
be hoped they may do some good. But the rifle is
of use only for amusement in all the older districts,
and if you want to get sport like that of old times,
you must go to the frontier townships, where every
thing is yet almost in a state of nature.

The Indians were harder on every kind of game,
and still are so, than even the white settlers.
They have long ago laid aside the bow and arrow
of their ancestors, in eveiy part of Canada, and
availed themselves of the more deadly power of
firearms. As they have nothing whatever to do,
most of their time, and as the flesh of deer is, at
once, food, and a means of getting other things, by
bartering it for them, and as it suits their natural
taste, they used to be, and still are, hunters by pro-
tession. One Indian and his son, who had built
their wigwam on our lot, in the first years of our
settlement, killed in one winter, in about three
weeks, no fewer than forty deer, but they spoiled
every thing for the rest of the season, as those that
escaped them became so terrified that they fled to
some other part.

The species of deer common in Canada is the
Virginian, and, though not so large as some others,
their long, open ears, and graceful tails — longer
than those of some other kinds, and inclining to be

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124

Shedding of the Stages Horns.

bushy — give them a very attractive appearance.
The most curious thing about them, as about other
deer, was tlie growth and casting of the stags' horns.
It is not till the spring of the second year that the
first ])air begin to make their appearance, the first
siiiii of their cominjj bein<i a swelling of the skin
the spots from which they are to rise. The

a)iti>ii- ire now budding ; fo:,.' on these spots are
the footo.ulks from which they are to spring, and
the arteries are beginning to deposit on them,
particle by particle, with great rapidity, the bony
matter of which the horns are composed. As the
antlers grow, the skin still stretches over them, and
continues to do so, till they have reached their full
size, and have become quite hard and solid, and
forms a beautiful velvet covering, which is, in reality,
underneath, nothing but a great tissue of blood-
vessels for supplying the necessary circulation.
The arteries which run up from the head, through
it, are, meanwliile, so large, that they make furrows
on the soft horns underneath ; and it is these that
leave the deeper marks on the horns when hard.
When the antlers are full-grown, they look very
curious while the velvet is still over them, and are
so tender that the deer can, as yet, make no use of
them. It must therefore be removed, but not too
suddenly, lest the quantity of blood flowing through
such an extent of skin should be turned to the
brain or some internal organ, and death be the
result. Danger is prevented, and the end at the

Shedding of the Stag's Horns.

125

;

same time accomplished, by a rougli ring of bone

being now deposited round the base of the horns

where they join the footstalk, notches being left in

it, through which the arteries still pass. Gradual

ly, however, these openings are contracted by fresh

bone being formed round their edges, till at length

the arteries are compressed as by a ligature, and

the circulation effectually stopped. The velvet

now dies, for want of the vital fluid, and peels off,

the deer helping to get it off by rubbing its horns

against the trees. It was by noticing this process

of stopping the arteries in the antlers of stags, that

John Hunter, the great anatomist, first conceived

the plan of reducing the great swellings of the

arteries in human beings which are called aneurisms,

by tying them up — a mode which, in certain cases,

is found quite effectual. The highest thoughts of

genius are thus frequently only new applications of

principles and modes of operation which God has

established in the humblest orders of nature, from

the beginning of the world. Indeed they are al

ways so, for we cannot create any absolutely new

conception, but must be contented to read and apply

wisely the teachings furnished by all things around

us. When the velvet is gone, the horns are, at

last, perfect, and the stag bears them proudly,

and uses them fiercely in his battles with his rivals.

But the cutting off the arteries makes them no

longer a part of the general system of the animal.

They are, thenceforth, only held on to the foot-

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Shedding of the Stages Horns.

stalks by their having grown from them, and,
hence, each spring, when a new pair begin to swell
up from beneath, the old ones are pushed off and
fall away, to make room for others. It is curious
to think that such great things as full-grown stags'
horns drop off and are renewed every year ; but so
it is. Bemnning with the single horn of the first
season, they grow so much larger each season till
th*^ seventh, when they reach their greatest size.
j3at, after all, is it any more wonderful that their
horns should grow once a year, than that our hair
should grow all the time? And is a horn any
thing more than hair stuck together ?

was comino

Wolves.

127

CHAPTER VII.

Wolves. — My adventure with a bear. — Courtenay's cow and the
wolves. — A fright in the woods by night. — The river freezes. —
Our winter fires. — Cold, cold, cold! — A winter's journey. —
Sleighing. — Winter inufflings. — Accidents through intense cold.

THE wolves used to favor us by howling at
nights, close at hand, till the sound made one
miserable. We had five sheep destroyed in the
barn-yard on one of these occasions, nothing being
done to them beyond tearing the throats open and
drinking the blood. Perhaps the wolves had been
disturbed at their feast. I never heard of any one
being killed by them, but they sometimes put be-
nighted travellers in danger. One night, Henry
was coming home from a neighbor's, in the bright
moonlight, and had almost reached our clearing,
when, to his horror, he heard the cry of some
wolves behind him, and, feehng sure they wished
to make their supper at his expense, he made off,
with the fastest heels he could, to a tree that stood
by itself, and was easily chmbed. Into this he got
just in time to save himself, for the wolves were
already at the foot of it, when he had made good
his seat across a bough. The night was fearfully
cold, and he must soon have frozen to death had

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128

Wolves.

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lit' not, pi'ovi(k'ntially, been so near the house.
As it was, liis loud wliistling for the clogs, and liis
shouts, were, fortunatt'ly, lieard, and some of us
sallyinu; out, lie was delivered from liis perilous
position. \\^)l\es are much scarcer now, however,
1 am tliMiikf'ul to say, owing in part, no doubt, to
a leward of two sovereigns wliich is offered by
(government for every head brought in. In the
regions north of C'anada they seem to abound, and
even on the shores of the Arctic Ocean they are
found in great numbers. Sir John Franklin, in
one of his earlier journeys, often came upon the
remains of deer which had been hemmed in by
them and di'iven over precipices. " Whilst the
deer are quietly grazing," says he " the wolves
assemble in great numbers, and, forming a deep
crescent, creep slowly towards the herd, so as not
to alarm them much at first ; but when they per-
ceive that they have fairly hemmed in the unsus-
pecting creatures, and cut off their retreat across the
plain, they move more quickly, and with hideous
yells terrify their prey, and urge them to flight by
the only open way, which is toward the precipice,
appearing to know that when the herd is at full
speed it is easily driven over the cliffs, the rear-
most urging on those that are before. The wolves
then descend at leisure and feed on the mangled
carcasses."

There were some bears in the woods, but they
did not trouble us. My sister Margaret and I were

-m

Courtenai/'s Cow and the Wolves. 129

'viie only two of our family who had an adventure
with one, and that ended in a fright. It was in tlie
summer time, and we had strolled out into the
woods to amuse ourselves with picking the wild
berries, and gathering flowers. I had climbed to
the top of the upturned root of a tree, the earth on
which was tliick with fruit, and my sister was at a
short distance behind. Having just got up, I
chanced to turn round and look down, when, lo !
there stood a bear, busy at the raspberries, which he
seemed to like as much as we did. You may be
certain that the first sight of it was enough. I
sprang down in an instant, and, shouting to my
sister that there was a bear behind the tree, we
both made oft' homewards with a speed which aston-
ished even ourselves. The poor brute never ofi^ered
to disturb us, though he might have made a meal
of either of us had he chosen, for I' don't think we
could have run had we seen him really after us.

I had forgotten a story about the wolves, which
happened a year or two after our first settling.
John Courtenay had a cow which fell sick, and was
lying in the field, after night, in the winter time,
very likely without any one missino- it, or, if they
missed it, without their knowing where to find it in
the dark. The wolves, however, did not overlook
it, for, next morning, poor Cowslip was found killed
by them, and its carcass having been left, the family
not liking to use it under the circumstances, they
held high carnival over it, night after night, till the

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130 -A Fright in the Woods by Night,

bones were picked clean. This happened quite
close to the house.

But if there were not many bears and wolves to
be seen, we were not the less afraid they would
pounce on us, when, by any chance, We should hap-
j)en to be coining through the woods after dark. I
remember a young friend and myself being half-
triglitened in this way one summer evening, when
there chanced to be no moon, and we had to walk
home, tln'ough the great gloomy forest, when it was
pitch dark. Before starting, we were furnished
witli a niunber of long slips of the bark of the hicko-
ry-tree, which is very inflammable, and, having*
each lighted one, we sallied out on our journey. I
sliall never forget the wild look of every thing in the
flickering light, the circle of darkness closing in
round us at a very short distance. But on we went,
along the winding path, hither and thither, among
the trees. Suddenly an unearthly sound broke
from one side, a sort of screech, which was repeated
again and again. We took it for granted some
bear and her young ones were at hand, but where,
it seemed impossible for us to discover. How could
we run, in such darkness, over such a path, with
lights to carry ? Both of us stood still to listen.
Again came the " hoo, hoo, hoo ; " and I assure
you it sounded very loud in the still forest. But,
though terrible to me, I noticed that, when distinctly
caught, it ceased to alarm my comrade. '* It's only
a great owl up in the the trees there — what's the

The River Freezes,

131

use of being frightened ? " he broke out ; yet he
had been as much so as myself, the moment before.
However, we now made up for our panic by a
hearty laugh, and went on in quietness to the house.
Toward the end of December the river froze.
This was, in great part, caused by large blocks of
ice floating down from Lake Superior, and getting
caught on the banks, as they went past, by the ice
already formed there. For one to touch another,
was to make them adhere for the rest of the winter,
and, thus, in a very short time after it had begun,
the whole surface was as solid as a stone. We had
now to cut a hole every morning, with the axe,
through the ice, to let the cattle drink, and to get
water for the house, and cold work it was. The
cattle came do\vn themselves, but when, a year or
two afterwards, we got horses, they had to be led
twice a day. It was very often my task to take
them. Riding was out of the question, from the
steepness of the bank, and the way in which their
feet balled with the snow, so I used to sally out for
them in a thick greatcoat, with the eai-s o^
carefully tied down, to prevent frostbit. ,
• Worsted cravat round my neck, and thick mitts on
my hands. The floor of the stable was, invariably,
a sheet of ice, and over this I had to get out the two
horses, letting the one out over the icy slope at the
door, and then holding the halter till the second one
had slid past me, when, having closed the door, with
hands like the snow, from having had to loosen the

my cap
a thick

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132

Our Winter Fires,

halters, I wcMit down with them. Wlion tlie wind
wjis from the north they were white in a *"n or
two, witii tlieir breath frozen on tlieir elit and
sides, the cold niakino; it hke smoke as it left their
nostrils. Of course the// were in no hurrvi inul
would put their tails to the wind and drink a
minute, and then lift uj) their heads and look round
them at their leisure, as if it were June. By the
time thev were done, their mouths and chins were
often coated with ice, lonjr icicles hanjxini!; from the
hair all round. Riiiht grh'd was I when at last I had
them fairly back a^ain, and had knocked cit the
balls of snow Irom their shoes, to let tht tand
firm.

The cold did not last all the time, else we could
never have endured it. There would be two or
three days of hard frost, and then it would come
milder for two or three more ; but the mildest, ex-
cept when it was a thaw, in January, were very
nmch colder than any that are common in Eni:-
land, and as to the coldest, what shall I say they
were like? The sky was as blight and clear as
can be imagined, the snow crackled under foot, and
the wind, when there was any, cut the skin like a
razor. Indoors, the fire in the kitchen was enouoh
to heat a large hall in a more temperate climate.
It was never allowed to go out, the last thing at
night being to roll a huge back-log, as they called
it, into the fireplace, with handspikes, two of us
sometimes having to help to get it into its place.

Cold^ cold, cold!

133

It was simply a cut of a tree, about four fuel I«;Mg,
and of various thicknesses. Tlie two doin-irous
liaving been diawn out, and the embers heaped
close to this giant, a nund)er of thinner logs, whole
and in parts, were then laid above them, and the
fire was *' gathered " for the night. By day, what
with another huge back-log to replace the one
burned up in the niirht, and a ijreat bank of other
smaller ""sticks" in front and over it, I tliink there
was often half a cart-load blazino; at a time. In
fact, the only measure of tlie quantity was the size
of the huge chimney, for the wood cost nothing ex-
cept the trouble of cutting and bringing it to the
house. It was ijrand t(.) sit at niij;lit before the roar-
ing mountain of fire and forget the cold outside ;
but it was a friiihtful tliinji to dress in the mornino;,
in the bitter cold of the bedrooms, with the win-
dows thick with frost, and the water frozen solid at
your side. If you touched a tumbler of water with
your toothbrush it would often freeze in a moment,
and the water in the basin sometimes froze round
tlie edo;es while we were washino;. The tears would
come out of our eyes, and freeze on our cheeks as
they rolled down. The towels were regularly
frozen like a board, if they had been at all damj).
Water, brought in over night in buckets, and put
as close to the fire as possible, had to be broken
with an axe in the mornincr. The bread, for lon<j
after we w^ent to the river, till we got a new house,
was like a stone for hardness, and sparkled with

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134

(7o?(^, cold, cold!

the ice in it. The milk froze on tne way from the
barn to the house, and even while they were milk-
ing. If you went out, your eyelashes froze
together every moment with your breath on them,
and my brothers' whiskers were always white with
frozen breath when they came in. Beef and
every thing of the kind were frozen solid for months
together, and, when a piece was wanted, it had to
be sawn off and put in cold water overnight to
thaw it, or hung up in the house. I have known
beef that had been on for hours taken out almost
raw, from not having been thawed beforehand.
One of the coldest nights I remember happened
once when I was from home. I was to sleep at
the house of a magistrate in the village, and had
gone with a minister who was travelling for tlie
British and Foreign Bible Society to attend a meet-
ing he had appointed. It was held in a wooden
school-house, with three windows on each side, and
a single story high. There was a stove at the end
nearest the door, which opened into the room ; the
pipe of it was carried up to near the roof, and then
led along the room to a chimney at the opposite
end. The audience consisted of seven or eight
men and boys, though the night was magnificent,
the stars hanging from the dark blue like sparkling
globes of light. The cold, in fact, was so intense
that nobody would venture out. When I got in, I
found the congregation huddled round the stove,
which one of them, seated in front of it, was assidu-

Cold^ cold, cold!

185

ously stuffing with vrood, as often as the smallest
chance offered of his being able to add to its contents.
The stove itself was as red as the fire inside of it,
and the pipe, for move than a yard up, was the
same; but our backs were wretchedly cold, not-
withstanding, though we sat within a few inches of
the glowing iron. As to the windows, the rime on
tliem never thought of melting, but lay thick and
hard as ever. How the unfortunate speaker bore
his place at the master's desk at the far end I know
not. He had only one arm, indeed, but the hand
of the other was kept deeply bedded in his pocket
all the time. We were both to sleep at the same
house, and therefore returned together, and after
supper were shown into a double-bedded room with
a painted floor, and a great stove in the middle.
A delightful roar up the pipe promised comfort for
the night, but alas ! in a few minutes it died away,
the fire having been made of chips instead of sub-
stantial billets. Next morning, on waking, looking
over to Mr. Thompson, I expressed a hope that he
had rested well through the night.

" Rested ! " said he ; " I thawed a piece my own
size last night when I first got in, and have lain in
it all night as if it had been my coffin. I daren't
put out my leg or my hand ; it was hke ice up to
my body."

One winter I had a dreadful journey of about
two hundred miles. We started in the stage,
which was an open rough wagon, at seven o'clock

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136

A Winter* s Journey.

at night, the roads not as yet permitting sleighs.
It was in the first week of January. I had on two
greatcoats, but.tliere were no buffalo robes to lay
over the knees, though the stage should have pro-
vided them. All that dreadful dr ^- night I had
to sit there, while the horses stumbiod on at a walk,
and the wagon bumped on the frozen clods most
dreadfully. The second day's ride was much better,
that part of the road being smoother ; but the next
day and night — what shall I say of them ? I be-
gan in a covered sleigh, some time in the forenoon,
the distance being seventy miles. There was an-
other person in it besides myself. Off we started
at a good pace, but such was the roughness of the
road, up one wave of frozen earth and snow, and
down another, that both of us were thoroughly sea-
sick in u short time. Each took possession of a
window, and getting the head in again was out of
the question till the sickness fairly spent itself. Mean-
while, there was a large high wooden box in the
sleigh between us, and we had to keep a hand
a-piece on it, lest it should take us at unawares, and
make a descent on our legs or backs. After a time,
the covered sleigh was exchanged for an open one
— a great heaw farmer's affair, a mere loner box
upon runners. To add to our troubles, they put a
great black horse, as one of the two to draw us,
which was so wild and fierce that I have always
thought it must have been mad. It was now dark
night, and there were again no buffalo robes, and

SleigJi'mg,

137

the thermometer far below zero. How we stood
it I know not. My feet were like ice, and inces-
sant motion of both them and my arms seemed all
tliat could keep me from freezing. But away the
black wretch tore, the driver pulling him back as
he could, but in vain. At last, at two or three in
the morning, bang went the sleigh against some
stump, or huge lump of frozen mud, and — broke
down. " You'll have to get out, gentlemen," said
the driver. " You had better walk on to the first
house, and I'll go before you and borrow a sleigh."
Here then we were, turned out to stumble over a
chaos of holes and hillocks for nearly two miles, in
darkness, and in such a night ! I don't know how
long we were, but we reached a wayside inn at last,
where the driver borrowed what he could get to
carry us and the mails to the journey's end, and
having gone back for the bags and his parcels, and
that horrid box, to where he had left the broken
vehicle at the roadside, he reappeared after a time,
and we finished our journey, tired and cold enough,
a little before daylight.

Tlie amount of suffering from the cold, seldom,
liowcver, reaches any painful extent ; indeed, you
will hear people say, on every hand, that they pos-
itively like it, except when it is stormy, or when
the wind blows very keenly. Nor does it hinder
work of any kind, where there is exercise enough.
You may see men chopping in the forest on tei-ri-

bly cold days, with their jackets off, the swinging

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138

TFi'/i^er Muffling s.

of the arms making them disagreeably hot in spite
of the weather. Sleighing is, moreover, the great
winter amusement of the Canadian, who seems
never so pleased as when driving fast in a " cutter,*'
with the jingling bells on the horse's neck making
music as it goes. But, for my part, I could never
bear sitting with my face to the wind, while I was
dragged through it at the rate of ten miles an hour,
with the thermometer below zero. All the muf-
flings you can put on won't protect the cheeks or
the eyes, and the hands get intohirably cold hold-
ing the reins. Indeed, the precautions taken by
those who have much travelling about in winter,
show that, to those less fully prepared, there must be
suffering as well as enjoyment. Our doctor's outfit
for his winter practice used to amuse me. He had,
first, a huge otter fur cap, with ears ; next, over his
greatcoat, the skin of a buffalo made into a coat,
with the hairy side out, and reaching to his feet ; his
'eet were cased in moccasins, which came over his
Doots and tied round the ankles j a pair of great
hose reached up his thighs ; his hands were multtod
in huge fur gauntlets reaching halfway to his elbow ;
and when he took his seat in the sleio-h with all his
wrapping, he sat down on a buflalo-skin spread over
the seat, and stretching down over the bottom, while
another was tucked in over him, his feet resting on
the lower edge of it to keep out every breath of air ;
and, in addition, he always had hot bricks put inside
on starting, and re-heated them every short while.

Accidents through Intense Cold, 139

led
hv;

liis
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l\ile
on
lilr ;

liile.

No wonder he used to say that he felt quite comfort-
able. He had clothes and furs enough on him for
Greenland. In spite of all this, however, I remem-
ber his driving back^ home, in great haste one day,
with his wife and child, and found that the face of the
infant had been partially frozen in a ride of four or
five miles. Cases of death from the excessive cold
are not infrequent. A drunken man, falling on the
road, is certain to die if not speedily found. A poor
Indian was frozen to death on the river in this way
a short time after we came. But even the most
sober people are sometimes destroyed by the awfiil
intensity of the cold. I knew a young widow who
had lost her husband in this way. He had gone to
town in his sleigh, one Christmas, on business, and
was returning, when he felt very cold, and turned
aside to heat himself at a farm-house. Poor fellow I
he was already so frozen that he died shortly after
coming to the fire. This last winter, a farmer and
his daughter were driving in from the country to
Toronto, and, naturally enough, said little to each
other, not caring to expose their faces ; but when
they had reached the city and should have alighted,
to her horror the daughter found that her father was
stone dead, frozen at her side by the way. At
Christmas there are a great many shooting-matches,
at which whoever kills most pigeons, let loose from
a trap, at a certain distance, wins a turkey. I was
one day riding past one of these, and noticed a group
of spectators standing round, but thought no more

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140 Accidents through Intense Cold,

of it, till, next morning, I learned that, when the
match was done and the people dispersed, a boy was
seen who continued to stand still on the vacant
ground, and, on going up to him, it was found that
he had been frozen stiff, and was stone dead. A
minister once told me that he had been benighted
on a lonely road in the depth of the winter and could
get no further, and, for a time, hardly knew what
to do. At last he resolved to take out his horse,
and, after tying its 'wo fore legs together, let it
seek what it could for itself till morning, ^while he
himself commenced walking round a great tree that
was near, and continued doing so, without resting,
till the next morning. Had he sat down, he would
have fallen asleep ; and if he had slept, he would
certainly have died. My brother Henry, who, after
a time, turned to the study of medicine, and has
risen to be a professor in one of the colleges, took
me, one day, to the hospital, with him, and, turn-
ing into one of the wards, walked up to the bed
of a young man. Lifting up the bottom of the
clothes, he told me to look ; and, — what a sight !
both the feet had been frozen off at the ankle, and
the red stumps were slowly healing. A poor nian
called, once, begging, whose fingers were all gone.
He had walked some miles without gloves, and had
known nothing about how to manage frozen limbs ;
nis fingers had frozen, had been neglected, and had
mortified, till at last such as did not drop off weii
pulled out, he told me, with pincers, being utterly

I' \

Accidents through Intense Cold.

141

rotten at the joints. I know a young man, a law
student, whose fino;ers are mere bone and skin : he
was snow-balHng, and paid the penalty in the virtual
destruction of his hands. A curious case happened
some years ago, resulting in tlie recovery of two
thousand pounds of damages from the mail company.
The stage from Montreal, westward, broke through
an airhole on the St. Lawrence, when driving over
the ice, and all the passengers were immersed in the
river, one of them getting both his hands so frozen
that he lost them entirely. They were both taken
off at the wrists. The money was a poor consola-
tion for such a calamity. I have known of a gen-
tleman losing both hands by taking off his fur
gloves to get better control over a runaway horse.
He got it stopped, but his hands were lost in the
doing it.

The ice of the river used to give us abundant
room for skating, where it was smooth enough.
Near the towns every one. skates, even the ladies,
of late years, doing their best at it. But the ice,
with us, was often too rough for this graceful and
healthy exercise, so that it was less practised than
it otherwise would have been.

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142

Tlie Aurora Borealis.

CHAPTER VIII

M ^'|1

The aurora borealis. — " Jumpers." — Squaring timber. — Rafts. —
Camping out. — A public meeting. — Winter fashions. — My toe
frozen. — A long winter's walk. — Hospitality. — Nearly lost in
the woods.

HE grandeur of the aurora borealis, in the cold
weather, particularly struck us. At times the
whole heavens would be irradiated by it — shafts
of light stretching from every side to the zenith, or
clouds of brightness, of the softest rose, shooting,
from every point of the horizon, high overhead.
It was like the Hindoo legend of Indra's palace,
which Southey d?scribes so beautifully :

" Even we on earth at intervals descry

Gleams of the glory, streaky of flowing light,
Openings of Heaven, and streams that flash at night,
In fitful splendor, through the northern sky."

Curse of Kehama, vii. 72.

The fondness of almost every one for sleigh-rid-
ing was ludicrously shown in the contrivances in-
vented in some cases to get the enjoyment of the
luxury. The richer settlers, of course, had very
comfortable vehicles, with nice light runners, and
abundance of skins of various kinds, to adorn them,

" Jkmj9er«."

143

and make them warm ; but every one was not so
fortunate, and yet all were determined that ride
they would. "Have you anything to go in?"
I have heard asked, once and again, with the an-
swer, " No, but I guess we can lig up a jumper
pretty soon." This "jumper," when it made its
appearance, if it were of the most primitive type,
consisted simply of two long. poles, with the bark
on them, the one end to drag on the ground, and
the other to serve for shafts for the horse ; a cross-
bar here and there behind, let into them through
auger-holes, serving to keep them together.' An
old box, fixed on roughly above, served for a body
to the carriage ; and, then, off they went, scraping
along the snow in a wonderful way. Instead of
buffalo-robes, if they had none, a colored bed-quilt,
wrapped round them, served to keep them warm.
An old wood-sleigh, with a box on it, was some-
thing more aristocratic ; but any thing that would
merely hold them was made to pass muster. With
plenty of trees at hand, and an axe and auger, a
backwoodsman never thinks himself unprovided
while the snow continues.

It is in the winter that the great work of cutting
and squaring timber, in the forests, for export to
Europe, is done. Millions of acres, covered with
the noblest trees, invite the industry of the wealthier
merchants by the promise of liberal profit, along
the whole edge of Canada, toward the. north, from
the Ottawa to Lake Huron. What the quantity of

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144

Squaring Timhcr.

timber this vast region contains must be, may be
estimated in some measure from the report of tlie
Crown Land Commissioner, a few years since,
whicii says, that in the (Jttawa district akme, there
is enough to answer every demand for the next six
hundred years, if tliey continue felhng it at tlie
present rate. There is no fear, assuredly, of wood
running short in Canada for many a day. The
rafts brouglit down from Lake Huron alone are
wonderful — thousands on thousands of immense
trees, squared so as to lie closely together, each
long enough, ap})arently, to be a mast for a large
vessel. I have looked over ther wilderness of the
forest from two points — the one, the limestone
ridije that runs from Niagara northward — the
other, from the top of the sand-hills on the edge of
Lake Huron — and no words can tell the solemn
grandeur of the prospect in either case. Far as
the eye could reach there was nothing to be seen
but woods — woods — woods — a great sea of ver-
dure, with a billowy roll, as the trees varied in
height, or the lights and shadows played on them.
It is said that the open desert impresses the travel-
ler with a sense of its sublimity that is almost over-
powering — the awful loneliness, the vast, naked,
and apparently boundless sweep of the horizon on
every side, relieved by no life or motion, or even
variety of outline, subduing all alike. But I ques-
tion if the sight of an American forest be not equally
sublime. The veil cast by the trees over the land

Sqtiarin^j Timber.

own unprofa„ed retreat^- t|.^^^ """"'^ '" '"-"•

year after year, for agef he ^ '' " "'"} ''"""^'
prompted b, such .> at .;„ , 'j?'"' °^ '"^-'-y
»''aJe;" the sense of vast « '' ""'""'-^'^y of

"'0"gl.t that the cirJe 7 • '"?''"™'''« '™"' 'he
overpowers you, sweepson r' T"""' "'"■^■'' ^°
boundless rc..io ,s l^H^' "' ^l?' S"""'^'"'-' o^er

«>'the«;nd^iLvv andT T"' '"'"-"• '^'""S'''^
The district i„ 2kh l^ r'^''

Upper Ottawa, wher^va. tic T""' "' "" ""
trees are leased from Onv 1"'" ^'"1 °'1'«

'■" Quebec, MontreJ f ?'^™™'="' ^7 merchant.

f o™,reg;on?rr;i:tTt:b '-'• *-«

from Kingston and oS , ^''"'^'"'"^ set out

-•'h them^ their IS?"' '"• " """*""' ""^'"S
*e.,- andbuildin"";,; l^r^ -"■ ?«*- Acur!

-•^-oughhuts,to°livf,^'tou:htrT'"-'''''^
-as soon as they reach 1" • " "« ''■"""•

«'-ere as the cold TL ^ '""'• ^'"^"^^ly
f-pingatnightswit'h'tfrtr-forit^

lougliing " it by dav n, J ll '" *"'"' ^""i

"f doing in EngLd "^thev \ ''"" """''' *"*
f-andthem1.sti-g:S,ti;;i'*%'-%'-t

■^''--'-- is on,; part oftv £.f^\,^^

) '

146

Rafts,

must also drag them, over the snow, to the river,
by oxen, ^and join them into rafts after getting them
to it. To form these, a hirge number of logs are
laid closely, side by side, and lashed togetlier by
long, thin, supple rods, tied round pins driven into
them, and further secured by transverse poles pin-
ned down on them ; and they are then floated as
rafts toward the St. Lawrence, which they grad-
ually reach, after passing, by means of contrivances
called *' slides," over the rough ])laces, where the
channel is broken into rapids. As they go down,
poling or sailing, or shooting the slides, their course
is enlivened by the songs and shouts of the crew,
and very exciting it is to see and hear them. Once
in the broad, smooth water, several smaller rafts
are often joined together, and every thing carefully
prepared for finally setting out for the lower ports.
Even from their starting, they are often rigged out
with short masts and sails, and houses are built on
them, in which the crew take up their abode dur-
ing the voyage. When they are larger, quite a
number of sails are raised, so that they form very
striking objects, when slowly gliding dow .1 the nv er,
a rude steering-apparatus behinc ang the ist

construction.*

It is wonderful how men stand the c Kposure of
the winter in the forests as they do. Indeed, a fine

* On the upper lakes, the crew often take their mves and
children, with their poultry, etc., on the rafts with them.

Caniting out. , ..

young toll,„v, a fricMuI of mine , .
•'-' 1- liked „,„|„„. bet ;,!, r'"^'"''' '"''' •"«

■•"'"■-'■^t tl,c. snows „,-,,/ I ',"'"' " ™'"P ""' "

"'••'"••^ "■"' "- g » h fd ; "'^''"' "■" ""-" «1"-"'^'
>"i.s.sion of the ;« -k of ?'" '"'•^"' '■"• i««'°

s"m,to travel some dis anoo ! ' '"^ "'■™-

»•"•'. '-yond tl.esettl d „., t of | ""'"""""^ «>«'
weresevo or e,Vd,t '^' '"'"""-' "'""try- Tl.ere

'-"^broods, wi, ^ tw :;:, t - ' "";'"<'-« t-

S"Wes, and nartl-^ to Z/ .<--"'l;l'>yed, partij as
t» wear snow-slioes tn 1- .. '''' '""■f>- '""I

;o*i.esoftsnow::;^;,- tiivr^'-"''^

•"'-'great depth; and th si f "'"">■ l''"<^'-'«.

'■"«ll,ands,isa oncev7 "f ' ^■■'■^•^'P' •» <-'xj>m-

"■»;< crossed with a it!" J; f ,w ?'"; °'' ''g'"
"'"' to«-l--eh it is stranncSr "'"'■'=''''

•'"- l-esented enabl i H J ''"'"" "'' ^"^"^^

^'•»'^- Sta tin. a ; ° ,''";"'■'';' '- -«"''' at once

;'''''<'^'^onas°;en:':;^^^^^^^^^^^

'^"^•'••.sofsomeofthem.etf,(, ' ' ""''''-'' '""'

f''-er,stepwirtfe:xr:ftr''''"''"'''^'"-

sl"«'s underneath It ,v *"' «'''''" «''ow-

l"'-'^ •''«■'■ stops in 'such a den;]," T" ""^■'"l'*"'ff to

I
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148

Camping out.

safe part of the ice at any moment. Meanwhile,
the sky got darker and more lowering, until, at last,
it broke into a snow-storm so heavy, that they
could hardly see one another at a few yards' dis-
tance. The wind, which was very strong, blew
directly in their faces, and howled wildly through
the trees on each side, whirling the drift in tl.uck
clouds in every direction. Still they held on as well
as they could, in moody silence, till, at last, it was
evident to all that they must give up the struggle,
and make as good an encampment as they could,
for the night, where they were. Turning aside,
therefore, into the forest, where a dark stretch of
pine-trees promised protection, they proceeded to get
ready their resting-place. With the help of their
axes, a maple was soon felled, and large pieces of
bark, from the fallen trees around, formed shovels,
by which a square spot of ground was cleared of
the snow. A fire was the next great subject of in-
terest, and this they obtained by rubbing "ome of
the fibrous bark of the white cedar to powder, and
laying over it first thin peelings of birch-bavk, and
then the bark itself, a match sufficing to set the pile
in a blaze, and the whole forest offering fuel. Pil-
ing log on log into a grand heap, the trees around
were soon lighted up with a glow that shone far aiitl
near. To protect themselves from the snow, which
was still falling, a qua itity of spruce-boughs were
next laid overhead on the rampart of snow which
had been banked up round them to the height cw'

A Public Meeting.

149

nearly five feet, the cold of the day being so great,
that the fierce fire, blazing close at hand, made no im-
pression on it whatever. Slices of salt pork, toasted
on a stick at the fire, having been got ready by some,
and broth, cooked in a saucepan, by others, they
now took their comfort, as best they could, in a
primitive supper, logs round the fire serving for seats.
After this came their tobacco-pipes and a long smoke,
and then each of the party lay down with his feet
to the fire, and slept, t^overed with snow, till day-
light next morning. This is the life led, week after
week, by those whose avocations call them to fre-
quent the forests during winter ; nor are the com-
forts of some of the poorer settlers in new districts,
while they live in " shanties," at their first coming,
much greater, nor their exposure much less.

A public meeting, held in the next township,
gave us an opportunity of seeing the population of
a wide district in all the variety of winter costume.
We went in a neighbor's sleigh, drawn by a couple
of rough horses, whose harness, tied here and there
with rope, and unprovided with any thing to keep
the traces from falling down, or the sleigh from
running on the horses' heels, looked a^ unsafe as
possible. But Canadian horses know how to act
under such circumstances, as if they had studied
them, and had contrived the best plan for avoiding
unpleasant results. They never ^\ alked down any
descent, but, on coming to any gully, dashed down
the icy slope at a hard gallop, and, flying across the

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150

A Public Meethig,

logs which formed a bridge at the bottom, tore up
the opposite ascent, till forced to abate their speed
by the weight of the vehicle. Then came the dri-
ver's part to urge them up the rest of the acclivity
by every form of threatening and persuasion in the
vocabulary of his craft ; and the obstacle once sur-
mounted, off we were again at a smart trot. It was
rather mild weather, however, for comfortable sleigh-
ing, the snow in deep places being little better
than slush, through whicli it was heavy and slow
work to drag us. At others, the ground was well-
nio-h bare, and then the iron-shod runners of the
sleigh gave us most unpleasant music as they grated
on the stones and gravel. As to shaking and jum-
bhng, there was enough of both, as often as we struck
on a lump of frozen snow, or some other obstruction ;
but, at last, we got to our journey's end. The vil-
lage was already thronged by numbers who had
come from all parts, for it was a political meeting,
and all Canadians are politicians. Such costumes
as some exhibited are surely to be seen nowhere
else. One man, I noticed, had a suit made of drug-
get carpeting, with a large flower on a bright-green
ground for pattern, one of the compartments of it
reaching from his collar far down his back. Blan-
ket coats of various colors, tied round the waist with
a red sash, buffalo coats, fur caps of all sizes and
shapes, moccasins, or coarse Wellington's, with the
trowser-legs tucked into them, mitts, gloves, and fur
gauntlets, added variety to the picture. Ahuost

A Public Meeting.

151

every one was smoking, at some time or other. The
sleighs were ranged, some under the shed of the
viHage tavern, others along the sides of the street,
the horses looking like nondescript' animals, from
the skins and coverlets thrown over them to protect
them from the cold. The " bar " of the tavern
was the great attraction to many, and its great blaz-
iig fire, on which a cartload of wood glowed with
exliilarating heat, to others. Every one on entering,
after desperate stamping and scraping, to get the
snow from the feet, and careful brushing of the legs
with a broom, to leave as little as possible for melt-
ing, made straight to it, holding up each foot by
turns to get it dried, as far as might be. There was
no pretence at showing deference to any one ; a la-
borer had no hesitation in taking the only vacant seat,
though his employer were left standing. " Treat-
and beinn; " treated " went on with fj-reat

mo;

spirit at the bar, mutual strangers asking each other
to drink as readily, as if they had been old friends.
Wine-glasses were not to be seen, but, instead,
tumblers were set out, and " a glass was left to mean
what any one chose to pour into them. One old
man I saw put his hand in a knowing way round
his tumbler, to hide his filling it to the brim ; but he
proved to be a confirmed and hopeless drunkard,
who had already ruined himself and his family, and
was able to get drunk only at the expense of others.
We stayed for a time to listen to the speeches,
which were dilivered from a small balcony before

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152

3fi/ Toe Frozen.

the window of the tavern, but were very uninter-
esting to me, at least, though the crowd stood pa-
tiently in the snow to hear them. I confess I was
glad when our party thought they had heard
enough, and turned their sleigh homewards once
more.

I had the misfortune to get one of my great toes
frozen in the second or third winter. We were
working at the edge of the woods, repairing a fence
which had been blown down. The snow was
pretty deep, and I had been among it some hours,
and did not feel colder than usual, my feet being
every day as cold as lead, whenever I was not
moving actively about. I had had my full meas-
ure of stamping and jumping to try to keep up the
circulation, and had no suspicion of anything extra,
till, on coming home, having taken off my stock-
ings to heat myself better, to my consternation, the
great toe of my left foot was as white as wax — the
sure sign that it was frozen. Heat beino; of all
things the most dangerous in such circumstances,
I had at once to get as far as j)ossible fi'om the fire,
while some one brought me a large basin of snow,
with which I kept rubbing the })oor stiff member
for at least an hour before it came to its rii^ht hue.
But what shall I say of the jiain of returning circu-
lation ? Freezino; is nothinii, hut thawincr is ao-o-
ny. It must be dreadful indeed where the injury
has been extensive. Even to this day, not wit li-
standing all my rubbing, there is still a tender spot

.*)!<'

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Hospitality,

153

in the corner of my boot on cold days. It was a
mercy I noticed it in time, for liad I put my feet
to the fire without first thawino; it, I mio;ht have
had serious trouble, and have lost it, after great
suffering. A gentleman I knew, who got his feet
frozen in 1813, in marchinor with his reo-iment from
Halifax, in Nova Scotia, to Niagara — a wonderful
achievement in the depth of winter, through an
uninhabited wilderness buried in snow — never
perfectly recovered the use of them, and walked
lame to the day of his death.

In our early days in Canada, the sacred duty of
hospitality was observed with a delightful readiness
and freeness. A person who had not the means of
paying might have travelled from one end of the
country to another, without requiring money, and
he would everywhere have found a cheerful wel-
come. The fact was that the sio-ht of a strange
face was a positive relief from the monotony of
everyday life, and the news brought by each visitor
was felt to be as pleasant to hear, as the entertain-
ment could be for him to receive. But selfish
thoughts did not, after all, dim the beautiful open-
handedness of backwoods hospitality. No thought
of any question or doubt rose in the matter — to
come to the door was to rest for the night, and
share the best of the house. I was once on my
way westward to the St. Clair, from London, Can-
ada West, just in the interval between the freezing
of the roads and the fall of the snow. The stage

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154

Hospitality,

^ could not run, nor was travelling by any kind of
vehicle practicable; indeed, none could have sur-
vived the battering it would have got, had it been
broufrht out. As I could not wait doino; nothin<2;
for an indefinite time, till snow made sleigliing pos-
sible, which I was told by the stage proprietor
" mi»i;ht be a week, mioht be a fortni";ht," I deter-
mined to walk the sixty miles as best I could.

But sucli roads ! As to walking, it was impossi-
ble ; I had ratlifer to leap from one hillock of frozen
mud to another, now in the middle, now at each
side, by turns. There was a little snow, which
only made my difficulties greater, clogging the feet,
and covering up holes. For yards together, the
road had been washed away by the rains, and its
whole surface was dotted with innumerable little
frozen lakes, where the Avater had lodged in the
huge cups and craters of mud which joined each
other in one lono; network the whole way. It was
a dreadful scramble, in which daylight was abso-
lutely necessary to save broken legs. No man
could have got over it in the dark. In the early
afternoon, I reached a tavern at the roadside and
had dinner, but as I was told that there was
another, seven miles ahead, I thought I could reach
it before night, and thus get so much nearer my
journey's end. But I had reckoned beyond my
powers, and darkness fell while I was as yet far
from mv c;oal. Luckily, a little loir-house at a dis-
tance, showed itself noiir the road by the light

Hospitality.

156

through its windows. Stumbling toward it as I
best could, I told them how I was benighted, and
asked if I could get shelter till morning.

" Come in, sir," said the honest proprietor, " an'
you're welcome.'* He proved to be a decent shoe-
maker ; a young man, with a tidy young woman
for his wife ; and as I entered, he beckoned me to
be seated, while he continued at his work on an old
shoe, by the help of a candle before him.

" Bad roads," said I.

" Oh, very," answered my host. *' I never puts
any man away from my door ; nobody could get to
tlie tavern over sich roads as them. Take your
coat off, and make yourself comfortable."

I did as I was told, and chatted with the couple
about all the ordinary topics of backwoods con-
versation — the price of land — the last crops —
how long he had been there, and so on, till tea, or,
as they called it, supper ; for Canadians generally
take only three meals a day. And a right hearty
meal I made, from a display of abundance of snowy
bread, excellent butter, ham in large slices, and as
much tea as there might be water in the kettle, for
tea is the weak point in bush fare. When bedtime
came, I found there was only one bed in the house,
and could not imagine how they were to do with
me ; but this was soon solved by their dragging the
feather bed off, and bringing it out where I was,
from the inner room, and spreading it on the floor
opposite the fire. Nothing would induce them to

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156

Nearly Lost in the Woods.

keep it for tlicmsclves and ^Ive me anything elsp ;
I was tlieir guest, and tliey would have ine enter-
tained as well as they could. Next morning, a fa-
mous breakfast was got ready, and I was again
made to sit down with them. But not a word
would the honest fellow hear about money. *' He
would never be the worse for giving a bed and a
meal to a traveller, and I was very welcome." So
I had to thank them very sincerely and bid them
good-day, with their consciousness of having done a
kindness as their only reward. On this second
day's journey, I had the most awkward mishap that
ever befell me in tlie woods. I was all but lost in
them, and that just as the sun was about to set.
The roads were so frightful that I could liardly get
on, and hence, when the landlord of one of the
wayside taverns told me I would save some miles
by cutting through the bush at a point he indi-
cated, I was very glad to follow his advice. But
trees are all very much alike, and by the time I
got to where he told me to leave the road, I must
have become confused ; for when I did leave it, not
a sign of any track showed itself, far or near. I
thought I could find it, however, and pushed on,
as I fancied, in the direction that had been pointed
out to me. But, still, no road made its appear-
ance, and, finally, in turning round to look for it, I
forgot which way to set myself, on again starting.
In fact I was lost, fairly lost. I had got into a
wide cedar-swamp, the water in which was only

Nearly Lost in the Woods.

f;7

157

sliglitly frozen, so that I liad to leap from tlie root
of one tree to that of another. Not a sound was to
be heard, i.or a Hving creature to be seen. Only
trees, trees, trees, black and unearthly in the les-
sening light. I hardly knew what to do. If
forced to stay there all night, I might — indeed, I
would likely — be frozen to death: but how to get
out? That I ultimately did, I know, but by no
wisdom of mine. There was absolutely nothing
to guide me. My deliverance was the merciful re-
sult of having by chance struck a slight track,
which I forthwith followed, emerging at last, not,
as I had hoped, some miles ahead, but a long way
behind where I had entered.

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Visitors,

CHAPTER IX.

6 '1

'^m

Involuntary racing. — A backwoods' parsonage. — Graves In the
wilclorness. — Notions of equality. — Arctic winters. — iiuflcd
grouse. — Indian lishing in winter. — A marriage. — C ur winter's
pork.

AMONG our occasional visitors, we liad, one
year, at one time, no fewer tlian three minis-
ters, who chanced to be on some Home Missionary
Society business in our quarter, and very nice com-
pany they were. Some of their stories of the ad-
ventures that befel them in their journeys amused
us greatly. One was a Stout, hearty Irishman, the
two others Englishmen ; and what with the excite-
ment of fresh scenes every day, and the healthy
open air, of which they,liad perhaps too much, they
were all in high spirits. At one part they had
crossed a tract of very rolling land, where the road
was all up one slope and down another, and this,
as every thing happened at the time to be one great
sheet of ice, was no pleasant variety to their enjoy-
ments. There was too little snow for sleighing, and
yet, to ride down these treacherous descents in a
wheeled conveyance, was impossible. At the top
of an extra long one they had therefore determined,

Involuntary liacing.

159

not only to get out, but to take tlie horses out, one
of tliem leading them clown, while the other two
brought down the vehicle. It was a large, double-
seated affair, with four wheels, and a pole for two
horses ; and it was thought that the best plan to
to get it down safely was for one of the two to go
to the tongue of the pole in front, while the other
held back behind. Every tiling thus arranged, at a
given signal the first movement over the edge of
the slope was made, and all went well enough for a
few steps. But the worthy man behind soon felt
that he had no power whatever, with such slippery
footing, to retard the quickening speed of the wheels,
while the stout Irishman, who chanced to be at the
front, felt, no less surely, that he could neither let
his pole go, nor keep it from driving him forward
at a rate to which he was wholly unaccustomed.
" Stop it. Brooks — I'll be killed ! — it'll be over
me ! " "I can't stop it," passed and repassed in a
moment, and, at last, poor Mr. Brook's feet having
gone from under him, the whole affair was consigned
to his Irish friend, whom the increasing momentum
of his charge was makino; fly down the hill at a
most unclerical rate. " I'll be killed ! I'm sure
it'll be over me ! " was heard to rise from him as he
dashed away into the hollow beneath. His two
friends not only could do nothing to help him, but
could not move for laughing, mixed with anxiety,
till at last the sufferer managed to find rehef when
he had been carried a considerable way up the next
slope.

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160

A Backivoods' Parsonage.

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W'}

One of the three wore a contrivance over his fur
cap in tnivellino;, which, so far as I liavo noticed,
was unique. It w^s made of hrown l^cilin wool,
niurli in tlie sli.ipe of one of tlie lu-Iincts of the
Kniglits Templars, in the Temple C'lmrcli.the only
openin<f i)ein^ for part of the face, while what you
miiiht call its tails huno; down over his shoulder.
He looked very nmch like one of the men in the
dress for iioiiic down in a divinij-hell, when it was
on him, his heatl standino; out like a hu<i;e ball froni
nis shoulders. Their entertainment was, it appeared,
sometimes strange enoujih. One wive an account
of a ni<j;ht he had spent in a backwoods' parsonage,
where the mice had run over his pillow all niii;ht,
the only furniture in his room, besides the bed,
"being souk pieces of bacon and a bit of cheese. He
had had the only spare room in the house, which,
in fact, in the absence of guests, served as a store-
room. Nor was this the worst ; though it was in
the depth of winter, he could see the stars through
chinks of the roof as he lav, and snow liavinj:: come
on in the night, he found it lying deep on his cover-
let when he awoke. What some clergymen suffer
in the poorer districts must, indeed, be terrible. A
touching thing about the one who could offer only
such poor accommodation to a friend, was his point-
ing to a little mound in the few feet of enclosure
before his door, and saying that his only son, an in-
fant, was buried there. The way in which graves
are scattered up and down Canada is, indeed, one

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notions of Equality.

161

of the most affecting sights, as one passes. Cliurch-
yards are, of course, only found where population
has gathered to some extent, and hence, all who
die in the first periods of settlement used to be bu-
ried on their own farms. Very often, in riding
through old parts of the country, a little paling in
tlie side of a field ulis the story of some lonely
£rrave. The Moslems, who feel themselves about to
die in the desert, pass away with a parting })rayer that
tlie Resurrection Angel may not forget their lonely
resting-places at the last day. I have often thought
tliat these patriarchs of the woods might have closed
their life with the same petition.

One of our visitors told us an amusing story of
the notions of equality that every win re prevailed.
He had been visiting an old Canadian township,
with his wife and a young lady, their fi-iend, and
found, when night came, that there was only one
bed v»n.)COupied, which was appropriated to himself
and his wife. Their friend was, therefore, led away
i ^ inuther room in which there were two beds —
one for the host and his wife, the other for the ser-
vant, and to this she was pointed, with the infor-
mation that if she lay close she could find room at
the mrl's back. Not altoo;ether relish incr this ar-
rimgement, she made some excuse for returning
to the " parlor," where she sat for a time, only
coming to hev sleeping-place when she could not
help it. But that she should ever have hesitated in
the matter, seemed to all, alike, unaccountable, and,

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162

Arctic Winders.

our visitor ass tied us, had so impressed their minds,
tliat, a good while after, he learned that they still
talked of it, and spoke of her pride as marking- un-
usual depravity.

In later years I was happy to make the acquaint-
ance, in one of the Canadian towns, of Captain
L , who had commanded one of the expedi-
tions in search of Sir John Franklin, and, in many
ct)nversations with him, learned })articu]ars of win-
ter life in the more northern part of the American
continent, which, in comparison, make that of Can-
ada even invitinii;. To think of undressinix, for ei^dit
months of the year, in these fearful regions, is ou
of the question. The dress, frozen stiff through the
day, is thawed into soaking wetness by the heat of
a snow-house at night, in which each sits as close
to his neighbor as is possible, with no light but that
of a miserable lamp, and impiisoned on every side
by the heaped-up blocks of snow. In Canada, we
can always get ourselves dried, wdiatever the weath-
er ; but there, all alike, when not on board ship,
are wet, montli after month, each night through the
winter. Happening one day to hear a boy whist-
ling the negro song, " Old Uncle Ned," the captain
stopped me with the question, " Where do you think
I first heard that song? " Of course I told him I
could not tell. " It was on a ten'ible nioht, in
Prince Regent's Inlet, when we were crossing it.
The snow was fallino; very heavilv, and the storm
i'oarin<]; throuiih the hunnnocks, and I had called a

iii

Ruffed Gfrouse,

163

halt befjina a gi'cat piece of ice which offered a
shelter. I thought we had better build a snow-
liouse behind it and take refuge for the niglit. The
men squatted down in this, I in their midst, all of
us huddled together as close as possible, and, to keep
up their spirits through the dismal hours, they began
singing one thing after another, and that among the
rest." This was worse than the encampments of
surveyors, bad though they be.

There was not a great deal of sport to be had, if
we exclude the deer, in our neighborhood. When
we went out with our guns, the snow was generally
marked by a good many squirrel tracks, and the
woodpeckers were still to be seen, but game, properly
so called, was not abundant. There was some how-
ever, and we managed to get our proportion now and
then for our table. One day, in passing a tree,
I heard a sound something like that of a grouse
rising, and, on turning, to my astonishment, found it
came from a bird like our partridges, which had
lighted on a bough close at hand. A moment, and
it was in a fair way for contributing to our dinner.
These birds are in Canada called partridges, but
their proper name is the niffed grouse. When
sprung, it flies with great vigor and with a loud
whirring noise, sweeping to a considerable distance
tlu-ouo;!! the woods L ibre it alights. The cock has a
singular power of making a drunnning noise with his
wings, which, when heard in the silence of the svoods,
lias a strange effect. Standing on an old fallen log,

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164

Ruffed Grouse.

and inflating its whole body as a turkey-cock does,
strutting and wheeling about with great stateliness,
he presently begins to strike with his stiftened wings
in short and quick strokes, which became more and
more rapid until they run into each other, making
the sound to which I allude. It is no doubt the way
in Avhich he pays his addresses to his mate, or calls
her from a distance. They always perch in trees,
delighting in the thick shade of the spruce or the
pine, and are perfect models of stupidity, letting you
get every advantage in your eiforts to shoot them. I
have known one sit, without attempting to stir, while
a dog was getting frantic in his appeals at the tree
foot that you should come and kill it. If your gun
snap you may take your time, and, if necessary, may
draw your charge and reload, without your victim
moving. He will stand and gape at you during the
whole process, even if your dog be barking and
tearino; a few vards below him. It is even said that
you may bag ;, whole covey of them if you shoot the
lowest first and go upwards. I myself have seen
my brother, on coming on some cff theni when with-
out his gun, run home perhaps half a mile for it,
and find them still sitting where they were, when
became back, as if waiting to be shot. They are
delicious eating, and so tender is their sUn, that you
must not think of carrying them by the head, which
would be sure to come ofi' with the weicrht of the
body.

One day, walking down the ice of the river, a

Indian Fisuing in Winter'.

165

curious appearance presented itself at some distance
before me, like a brown hoap, or laound, thrown up
on the white surface. Making my way toward it,
when about a hundred yards off, I thought I saw it
move a little, and, halting for a moment, perceived
that it really did so. I was half inclined to go
home for my gun to make myself safe, when sud*
denly the head and shoulders of an Indian, raised
from the edge of the buffalo skin, for such it was,
dissipated any alarm. Going up to him, I found
he was employed in fishing, and partly for protec-
tion, partly to keep the fish from being alarmed,
had completely covered himself with the hide which
had so attracted my attention. He had cut a hole
through the two-feet-thick ice about a foot square,
and sat with a bait hanging from one hand, while
in the other he held a short spear to transfix any
deluded victim which it might tempt to its destruc-
tion. The bait was an artificial fish of white wood,
with leaden eyes and tin fins, and about eight or
nine inches in length. He seemed rather annoyed
at my disturbing him ; but on my giving him a
small ball of twine I happened to have with me,
we became good enough friends, and after a few
minutes I left him.

There was a marriage on the river the first
winter we were there, which, in some respects,
amused us. The bride was an elegant girl, of gen-
teel manners ; and the bridegroom was a well-edu-
cated and very respectable young man ; but that

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166

A Marriage.

either of tliem sliould have thought of marrying in
such a state of poverty as was common to both, was
a thing to be thouglit of only in Canacki. Tlie
bridegroom's wealth was, I believe, limited to some
twenty pounds, and the bride brought for her ])or-
tion fifty acres of land and some stock, which a
relative gave her as a dowry. But money she
had none, and even the shoes in which she went to
be married, as I afterwards learned, had been bor-
rowed from a married sister. Their future home
was simply a dilapidated log-house, which stood
with its gable to the roadside, perhaps eight feet by
eighteen, forming two apartments, an addition,
which had once been intended to be made, so as to
join the end next the road at right angles, but re-
mained unfinished, being shut off by a door of thin
deal, which, alone, kept the wind out at that cor-
i!er. We crossed the ice to the American side to
have the ceremony performed, after which there
was a grand dinner, with true Canadian abundance,
in her patron's house, in which, up to that time,
she had had her home. Their own shanty not
being as yet habitable, the young cou})le remained
there till it was repaired, so as to let them move to
it. But no money could be spent on the mansion ;
whatover was to be done had to be «k>ne by the
kind aid of amateurs, if anv Canadians deserve that
name, what '^ t' - niny have to undertake.
The chimney had t" rebuilt of mud, the walls
caulked and filled up with mud, some panes of glass

Primitive Furniture.

167

put in the two little windows, a wooden latch to be
fitted to tiie thin deal that formed the outer door,
and the wliole had to be whitewashed, after which
all was pronounced ready. The furniture was as
primitive as the house. A few dishes on a rude
shelf, a pot or two, a few wooden chairs and a table,
set otf the one end ; while, in the other, an apology
for a carpet, and a few better things — the faint
traces of richer days in their father's houses —
made up their parlor ; a wooden bench on the one
side, ingeniously disguised as a sofa, reminding you
of the couplet in Goldsmith's description of the
village ale-house, where was seen

" The chest, contrived a double debt to pay —
A bed by uight, a chest of drawers by day."

The produce of the fifty acres, which were most-
ly cleared, but which, having been the farm of an
old French settler, were wellnigh worn out for a
time, and had wretched fences, was to be the sup-
port of the young housekeepers, though, less than a
year before, the husband had been a student in one
of the universities in Scotland. To have seen him
when fairly installed in his agricultural honors, in a
wretched straw hat, blue shirt, cotton trowsers, and
heavy coarse boots, with a long blue beech rod in
his hand, shouting to his oxen, it would hardly have
occurred to an old countrvman that he was any
thing but a laborer. I am thankful to say, ho \v-

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168

Our Winter's Pork.

ever, that he uhimately escaped from the misery in
which his imprudent marriage threatened to involve
him, by getting into a pretty good mercantile situa-
tion, in which, I hope, he is now comfortably
settled. I should have said, that, having no money
with which to hire labor, all the work on his farm
had to be done by his own hands, without any aid.
The trifle he had at first, melted like snow, the two
having set out with it to make a wedding-trip, in a
sleigh to a town seventy miles off, from which they
returned with little but the empty purse.

A little before Christmas a great time came on —
the high solemnity of the annual pig-killing for the
winter. It was bad enough for the poor swine, no
doubt, but the human details were, in some respects,
sufficiently ludicrous. The first year we got a
man to do the killing, and a woman to manage the
rest ; and, between them, with a razor-blade fixed
hito a piece of wood for a scraper, they won our
admiration by their skill. I mention it only for an
illustration it afforded of the misery to which the
poor Indians are often reduced in the winter. A
band of them made their appearance almost as soon
as we had begun, and hung round, for the sake of
the entrails and other offal, till all was over. Of
course we gave them good pieces, but they were
hungry enough to have needed the whole, could we
have spared it. As soon as any thing was thrown
aside, there was a scramble of both men and women
for it. Each, as soon as he had secured his share,

;.f ft

Snffemijs of the Indians.

169

twisted it round any piece of stick tliat lay near,
and, after thrusting it tor a minute into the fire,
where the water was heating for scalding the pigs,
devoured it greedily, filtiiy and hKithsonie as it was.
They must often be in great want in the cold
weather, when game is scarce. I was coming froni
the bush one morning, when I saw an Indian tug-
ging with all his might at something that lay in the
middle of the road. On nearer approach, it proved
to be one of our pigs, which had died of some disease
during the night. The poor fellow had put his
foot on its side, and was pulling with all his strength
at the hind-leg to try to tear off the ham, but a
pig's skin is very tough, and though he pulled at it
till he liad crossed and recrossed the road several
times, he had to give up the battle at last, and leave
it as he found it. A friend of mine who was lost
in the woods for several days, and, in the end, owed
his deliverance to his falling in with a few wigwams,
told me that the Indians informed him that they
were sometimes for three days together without
food.

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Our Neicjhhon,

CHAPTER X.

Oup neighbors. — Insect plagues. — Military officers' families in the

bush. — An awkward mistake. — Dr. D nearly shot for a

bear. — !Major M . — Our candles. — Fortunate escape from a

fatal accident.

WE used to liave dell«^litful evenings sometimes,
when nein-liborino; settlers came to our house,
or wlien we went to their houses. Scanty though
the popuhition was, we had liglited on a section of
the country which had attracted a number of edu-
cated and intelhgent men, who, with their fumihes,
made capital society. Down the river we had
Captain G , but he was little respected by rea-
son of his irregular habits, which, however, might
be partly accounted for by the effect on his brain
of a fierce slash on the head which he had got at
the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo. Then, above us,
we had, about three miles off, Mr. R , an Eng-
lish gentlenian-ftirmer, who had found his way to
the backwoods, after losing much money from one
cause or another. He was one of the church-
wardens, and leader of the choir in the Episcopal
chapel, as it was called, for there is no church es-
tablishment in Canada ; a man, moreover, of much
general information, a good shot, and, what was

Insect Pla(juc8.

171

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better, a fjood Clirlstian. He liad always plenty
of fresh London newspapers of the stiff Tory class,
hut acceptahle to all alike in such a place as St.
Clair. His house was at the foot of a stcej) bank,

and as there were only liimself and Mrs. R

to occu])y it, its size was not so strikino; as its neat-
ness. A broad verandah ran alono; the side of it
next the river, its green color contrasting veiy
ph.'asantly with the whiteness of the logs of the
house. There were three a])artments within ; one
a sitting-room, the other two bedrooms, one of
which was always at the disposal of a visitor. Over
the mantelpiece hung a gun and a rifle, and on it
stood, as its special ornament, a silver cup given by
one of the English Cabinet Ministers as the prize

in a shooting-match in B shire, and won by Mr.

R . There was only one drawback to a visit

to him, at least in summer, and that was the cer-
tainty of your getting more than you bargained for
in the insect way when you went into the barn to
put up your horse. Fleas are wondeifully plentiful
throughout Canada, but some parts are worse than
others. A sandy soil seemed to breed them, as the
mud of the Nile was once thought to breed worms,

and Mr. R 's barn stood on a spot which the

fleas themselves mig-ht have selected as a favorable
site for a colony. Under the shelter of his sheds
they multiplied to a wonderful extent. So incura-
ble was the evil that it had come to be thought only
a source of merriment.

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Insect Plagues.

" Ah, you've been at tlie barn, have you ? lia,
ha!" was all the pity you could get for any remark
on the plentifulness of insect life in these quarters.
"It isn't half so bad," he added one day, "as the
preacher over the river, who sat down at the door-
step of the chapel to look over his notes before ser-
vice, and had hardly got into the pulpit before he
found that a whole swarm of ants had got up his
trousers. You may think how his hands went
below the bookboard on each side of him, but it
wouldn't do. He had to tell the cono-reo-ation that
he felt suddenly indisposed, and would be back in
a few moments, which he took advantage of to turn
the infested garment inside out behind the chapel,
and after having freed them of his tormentors, went
up to his post again, and got through in peace."

" I don't think he was much worse off," struck in
a friend, " than the ladies are with the grasshoppers.
The horrid creatures, with their great hooky legs,
and their jumping six feet at a time, make dreadful
work when they take a notion of springing, just as
folks are passing over them. I've seen them myself,
through a thin muslin dress, making their way hither
and thither in service-time, and there they must
stay till all is over."

But I am foro;ettinor the list of our river friends.

There were, besides Mr. B , four or five miles

above us, Captain W , who had been flag-lieu-
tenant of a frigate off St. Helena, while Bonaparte
was a captive there, and had managed to preserve

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Officers^ Families in the Bush.

173

a lock of his soft, Ho;ht brown liair; and Mr. L ,

brother of one of our most eminent English judges,
and himseH' once a midsliijjman under Caj)tain
Marryatt ; and P()st-Caj)tain V and the clergy-
man — the furthest only ten miles off. There were,
of course, plenty of others, but they were of a very
dilferent class — French Canadians, ajiricultural
laborers turned fanners, and the like, with very little
to attract in their society.

The number of genteel families who had betaken
themselves to Canada, was, in those days, astonish-
ing. The fact of the Governors being then mostly
military men, who offered inducements to their old
companions in arms who had not risen so high in
rank as they, led to crowds of that class burying
themselves in the woods all over the province. I
dare say they did well enough in a few instances,
but in very many cases the experiment only brought
misery upon themselves and their families. Brought
up in ease, and unaccustomed to work with their
hands, it was not to be expected that they could
readily turn mere laborers, which, to be a farmer
in Canada, is absolutely necessary I was once
benighted about forty miles from home, and found
shelter for tho night in a log-house on the roadside,
where I shared a bed on the floor with two laborers,
the man of the house and his wife sleeping at the
other end of the room. After breakfast the next
morning, in grand style, with cakes, "apple sauce"
in platefuls, bread white as snow, meat, butter,

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174

Officers' Families in the Bash,

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cream, cheese, fritters, and colorless green tea of
the very worse description, I asked them if they
could get any conveyance to take me home, as the
roads were very heavy for travelling on foot, from
the depth of the snow, and its slipperinpss in the
beaten track. They themselves, however, had none,

but I was directed to Captain L 's, close at

hand, where I was told I might find one. The
house stood on a rising ground which was perfectly
bare, all the trees having been cut down for many
acres round. There was not even the pretence of
garden before the doors, nor any enclosure, but the
great shapeless old log-house stood, in all its naked

roughness, alone. Mrs. L , I found, was an

elderly lady of elegant manners, and had seen a
great deal of the world, having been abroad with
her husband's regiment in the Mediterranean and
elsewhere. She had met Sir Walter Scott at Malta,
and was full of gossip about him and society gen-
erally in England and elsewhere. H<?r dress struck
me on entering. It had once been i superb satin,
but that Was very many years before. There was
hardly any thing to be called ftirniture in the house,
a few old wooden chairs, supplemented by some
blocks of wood, mere cuts of trees, serving for seats,
a great deal table, and a "grand piano!" which,
Mrs. L told me, they bought at Vienna, form-
ing all that could be seen. The very dog-irons on
which their fire rested were broken. Overhead, I
heard feet pattering on the loose open boards which

Officers^ Families in the Bush,

175

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formed tlie floor of some apartments, and was pres-
ently informed tliat '* the dressinrj-room" of the

Misses L was above, and that they would soon

be down. Not an inch of carpet, nor any orna-
ment on the walls, nor any thing, in fact, to take
oti' the forlorn look of emptiness, was in the place ;
but the stateliness of language and manner on the
pan of the hostess was the same as if it had been a
l)alace. After a time, a lad, the youngest of the
household, made his appearance, and was informed
of my wish to get on to Bidport as quickly as possi-
ble. He was introduced as having been born in
Corfu, and as speaking Greek as fluently as English ;
but the poor fellow had a bad chance of ever mak-
ing much use of his linguisdc acquirements in such
a place. The horse having to be caught, and a
jumper to be *' fixed," I had a long rest before
setting out, and, in the mean time, the sound of the
axe, and of wooden pins being driven home, inti-
mated that the vehicle was being manufactured.

Captain L , it appeared, had come there in the

idea that the country would soon be filled up, and
that, in some magical way, the soil, covered though
it was with trees, would yield him a living at once
plentiful and easily procured. But years had passed
on, the money got for his commission was spent, and
the township round him was still almost a wilder-
ness. From one step to another the family sank

into the deepest want, until Mrs. L was at

last forced to try to get food, by making up the

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176

Officers^ Families in the Bush.

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wreck of her former finery into caps and sucli like
for tlie wives of the boors around, and liawkinrr
them about, till she could sell them for flour or
potatoes. It could not have been expected that the
captain could work like a laborer — he was totally
unfit for it, and would have died over his task, or,
at best, could have made no livino; ; and, except
the striplinfiT who was to drive me, the fainily con-
sisted onlv of dauo;hters. One of these, however,
shortly after my visit, actually mana<i:ed to make an
excellent marriaf];e, even in that horrible place ; but
there was a dash of the ludicrous even in the court-
ship, from the pinching and straits to which their
poverty subjected them. The suitor had not as yet
declared himself, and the fact of his being a gentle-
man by birth and education, made hisfrecpient visits
only so much the more embarrassing. One day he
had come in the forenoon, and stayed so long, that
it was clear iie had no intention of leavino; before
dinner, while there was literally nothing in the house
but a few potatoes, which they could not of course

offer him. What was to be done? Mrs. L

and the fair one, her eldest daughter, retired to a
corner of the room to consult, and, lest any thing
should be overheard, they spoke in It:dian, which
they never dreamed of the suitor understanding.
To his unspeakable amusement, the whole perplexity
of the case forthwith j^roceeded to unfold itself in
foreign syllables. " The nasty fellow, what in the
world wont he go away for ?" says the daughter ;

F! )

An Atvhvard Mistake.

177

** look at him tliero, sitting like a fool when people
are in such trouble. He oufjht to know that we have
notliing in the pantry but a few horrid potatoes."
And so forth. This was quite enough for the
visitor. He suddenly recollected that he had
another call to make, and their difficulty about
him was over in a minute. But the marriaiie
came off notwithstanding, and a* handsome couple
they made.

After a time the sleigh was ready, such as it
was — a rough box, on rough runners, close to the
ground, with a piece of plank for a seat, and a bed-
quilt for a wrapper ; and late that night I got home,
a halt-sovereign and his expenses making the poor
young fellow right glad I had chanced to come his
way.

One day I was much diverted by an incident
narrated to me by jMr. B

— . '^You know/'

said he, " Dr. D , from Toronto, was riding

along in a sleigh yesterday on some business or
other. You are aware he is very short and stout,
and he had on a buffalo coat, and a great fur cap.
Well, down goes his horse, its feet balled with the
snow, I suppose ; and there it lay, helpless, on its
side, under the shafts. It was pretty near old
John Thompson's, the Scotchman. Out gets the
doctor to li€lp his poor horse by unbuckling its
straps, and so on, and, being very short-sighted, he
had to get down his face almost on it. Just at
tliis time, Mrs. Thompson chanced to come to the

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178

Marriages in the Bath.

i;i \y

door, and tlierc was this apparition, in the distance,
in tlie niidille of tl«e road. She instantly made uj)
her mind what it was. * Eh, John, Jolm, hrin«^
voiir mui ; liere's a bear devoorin' a horse ! ' But
tliey didn't slioot tlie doctor after all, for the old man
found out in time who it was."

But 1 have to say a little more about some of tho
marriajj-es in our nei<j;hborhood, or not far from it.
You may easily sup})ose that it is not every one who

is so lucky as Miss L , of whom I have spoken.

Those of both sexes wlio made poor matches were
much more numerous in those early days. There

was Kate S , the daughter of a ca})tain in the

army, an elegant girl, who, for want, 1 suppose, of
any other suitor, married a great coarse clown,
whom her father, had lie been living then, would
hardly have taken to work for them. When he
died, she married another, his fellow, and ended,
on his dying, by taking, as her third husband, a
working tailor, with three or four children. There

was Major M , who had come to the country

about the same time as Captain L ; nothing

could be more wretched than the appearance of his
house on the road-side, with the great trees almost
close to it, himself an elderly man, and his only
children two daughters. I remember passing on
horseback one frightful morning, when the roads
were at the worst, and finding him on the top of a
prostrate log, trying to cut off enough for his fire.
His daughter finally married a small tradesman in

Scarcity of Candles,

179

a neighboring town ; and tlie major tliiLnkfully
went to close his days with liis son-in-law, in far
ffrcater comfort than he had known for a long time.
Young fellows married girls whom their mothers
would hardly have taken for servants in England ;
partly, I suj)pose, because there were not in some
parts many to choose from, and partly, no doubt,
because their position as farm-laborei's, which they
had really come to be, had lowered their tastes. I
remember seeing a young man come out of a village
tavern with a short black pipe in his mouth, a long
beech rod in his hand, and a blue blouse, surmounted
by a wretched straw hat, for his dress, his whole
appearance no better than that of any laborer round.
He was driving an ox-wagon, but, before starting,
a lady at my side in the stage, which had stopped
at the tavern, accosted him, and they entered freely
into conversation together. He turned out to be a

son of Colonel , who lived in a wretched log-hut

not far distant. He told his friend that he hoped
tc get a good birth that summer as purser on one of
tlie small lake steamers ; and I hope he succeeded.
Meanwhile, he was mixing with the herd of "bush-
whackei's," as Canadians say, at the tavern fire,
liimself almost one of them.

We had one drawback in the long winter nights
— there was often a great scarcity of candles.
One was lighted at supper, but it was put out im-
mediately after the meal ; and we had to sit at the
light of the fire, wliich we made as bright as possible

180

Air-holes in the Ice.

'' ♦

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by a supply of iTsinous i)iiio, from tiiiio to time.
We, sometimes, hiid en()U<:;li of ciiiuJles, imleed, but
I tliink we were more often without them. Some
lard in a saucer, with a jiieee of ra<^ for a wick,
was one of our plans in addition to the i)ine, wiien
we wished to see our way to our beds.

There was very nearly a iiital accident down the
river one day, occasioned by a slei<;h, and the folks
in it, with the horses as well, breaking throu<;h an
air-hole in the ice, that is, a sj)ot at which the air
imprisoned below the ice hjid found its escape, leav-
ing the surface only very slightly frozen. How
they got out I hardly know, but the ice round the
hole was quite strong ; and after one of the party
had clambered upon it, he managed to fish out the
rest, who had clung to the sleigh. Even the horses
were saved ; but the method taken with them seem-
ed to me as liazai'dous as it was strange : ropes
were jMisscd round their necks as quickly as possible,
and when by this means they were half choked,
they floated so high that they were got out with
comparative ease.

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Spring,

181

CHAPTER XI.

* Now Sprin;:^ ri-turns." — SuRur-makinf;. — Bush psalmody. —
Hush proachiti};. — Worsliip iukUt diHiculticfl. — A ck'rical Mrs.
rartington. — Uiology. — A gliost. — "It slips good." — SquaU
tcra.

11 Y the mifldlc of IMarcli the sun had hegim, in
^ the very open j)laces, to show some power,
especiiilly in tlie Httle spots sheUered from the cold
by the woods, where liis beams found an entrance
to the soil. Here and there, traces of the bare
earth be<:jan to reaj)j)ear, and the green points of tho
succulent ])lants were prejiarino; to burst out into
tlieir first leaves ; the buds, too, on some of the
trees, were distinctly visible, but tliere was a lon<:j
time still before us, between these first promi.ses of
sDrinrr and their actual realization. The last snow-
fall came in the middle of Ajiril, and, between that
time and tlie first of May, the weatlier could hardly
be said to be settled into sprinn;. l^nt already, to-
wards the third week of March, the birds had made
up their minds to come back to us, in exj)ectation
of the opening leaf. Flocks of blue jays, in tlieir
beautiful plumage, blue set off with white and

black, flitted from the top of one of the lower trotw

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182

Sugar-makiny.

to anotlior, cluitterintj; incessantly. Everything
liad !)C'L'n (lesolatc around us for lon^, and now to
see sucli si<;ns of returning warmth and verdure
was unspeakahly dehn;htful.

Witli the Hrst opening:!; of sj)rin<Xi •'^^id wliile yet tlie
snow lay thick in the fields and tlie woods, the sea-
son of rna])le sugar-making commenced. It seemed
extraordinary to me for a long time that sugar
should he got in quantities from a great forest tree,
the modest sugar-cane having been always in my
mind the oidy source of it — except, indeed, the
sugar-beet, by the growth of wliich Napoleon tried
to make France furnish her own sugar, instead of
having to buy English colonial sugar from any of
the European ])orts. But a great quantity is made,
in Canada and the United States, from the maple,
both for sale and home use, a vast amount being
eaten by the native-born Canadians as a sweetmeat,
just as we eat candy; and very little else is known
in many parts of the backwoods for household pur-
poses. The bests days for sugar-making are the
bright ones, after frosty nights, the sap running then
most freely. The first thing we had to do with
our " bush," which is the name given to the ma-
ples preserved for sugar-making, was to see that
each tree was provided with a trough, which we
made out of pine, or some other soft wood, by cut-
ting a log into lengths of perhaps two feet, then
splitting each in two, and hollowing the flat side so
that it would hold about a bucketful of sap. W©

Sugar-makinj.

183

next took narrow pieces of wood, about a foot lon<T,
and made spouts of tliem with a ^ou<;e, after wliidi
wc made a cut in eacli tree, with tlie axe, three or
four inclics long and an inch deep, in a shmting
direction, adcHng anotlier straiglit cut at tlie lower
end of it with the gouge, that there might be no
leaking, and sinking a liolc for a spout, where they
met ; the gouge tliat cut the spouts making the liole
into which they were tlirust. i:i ^ow these spouts
the troughs were set to collect the sap, which was
carried as often, as they were ' arly full, ♦ j another,
of enormous dimensions, close to *'ie fire. These
colossal tit)ughs aio simply huge trunks of trees
hollowed out for the ])urpose ; ours would have
held fifty barrels. The emptying into liils was
made every morning and evening until a large
quantity had been gathered, and tlien the boiling
began in large " kettles," as they are called, made
for the purpose, and suspended over the blazing fire
from a stout pole, resting on two forked branches
thrust into the earth at each side. The sap once in
the kettles has a hard time of it : the fires are kept
up in royal brightness for days together, not being
allowed to die out even during the night.

It was a very pleasant time with us, though it
was hard work, and what with the white snow, the
great solemn trees, the wild figures dancing hither
and thither, and our lead merriment, it was very
striking when the eveningrs had set in. One of the
kettles was ciiosen for " sugaring off," and had es-

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Sugar-making.

pecially assiduous watching. Not a moment's rest
could its unfortunate contents get from the incessant
boiHng we kept uj) ; fresh sap being added as often
as it seemed to be getting too dry. In its rage, the
sap would every now and then make desperate ef-
forts to boil over ; but we were on the watch for
this also, and as soon as it manifested any intention
of the kind, we rubbed round the inside of the ket-
tle with a piece of pork-fat, beyond the limits of
which it would no more pass than if it had been in-
side some magic circle. My sisters were as busy as
we at every part of the process, and their poor
dresses showed abundant and lasting memorials of
their labors, in the rents made in them by the
bushes. What we were all like, from head to foot,
after a time, may be more easily conceived than de-
scribed. Our smudged faces, and sugary, slopj)y
clothes, made us all laugh at one another.

As the sap grew thicker with the incessant boiling,
another element was added to our amusement, in tlie
stickiness of every thing we handled. If we leaned
ajjainst a loo; at hand we were fast bound ; and the
pots, pans, ladles, buckets, axe-handles, troughs —
every thing we touched, indeed, seemed to part from
us only with regret. We were fortunate in having
no young children amongst us, as they would, of
course, have been in the thick of the fray, and have
become half-crystallized before all was over. The
" clearing off" was managed by pouring in beaten
eggs when the sap was beginning to get thick. This

mv:

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Sugar-making.

185

served to bring all the impurities at once to the top,
so that we could readily skim them off. Several in-
genious ways had been told us of knowing when
the process was complete. One was by boring
small holes in a fiat })iece of wood, and blowing on
it after dipping it into the syru}) ; the sugar going
throuixh the holes in lonix bubbles, if it were boiled
enough. Another plan was to put a little on the
snow, when, if it got stiff, it was time to pour all
out. Every thino; that would hold it was then,
forthwith, put into requisition, after having been
well greased to keep the sugar from sticking, and,
presently, we had cakes, loaves, lum})S, blocks,
every shape, in fact, of rich brown-colored sugar
of our own making. Some, which we wanted to
ciystallize, was put into a barrel, and stiiued while
cooling, which effectually answered the purpose.
Small holes bored in the bottom made the sugar
thus obtained whiter than the rest, by allowing the
molasses mingled with it to drain off. We ke})t
some sap for vinegar, which we made by simply
boiling three or four pailfuls until reduced to one,
and corking this up in a keg for a time.

For the first and second years the poorer settlers
have a dreadful job of it in the sugar bush, from
not havino; had sufficient time to fence it in from
the cattle, which, from their intrusion, area constant
annoyance. They poke their great noses into every
thing, and one taste of the ssip is very much to them

what they say the taste of blood is to a tiger, in

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Sagar-making.

stimulating their thirst for more. In they come,
braving all risks lor a sip of their much-loved nec-
tar ; out go the spouts from the trees, over go the
buckets of sap, and, worse than all, if the brutes
succeed in drinking any quantity, they are very
often seriously, if not mortally injured, their indul-
gence acting on them very nuich as clover does,
blowing out their stomachs, and even bursting them.
Another annoyance, at first, is the not having had
time to cut out the "under brush," so as to make
it possible to take a sleigh, with barrels on it, from
tree to tree, to collect the sap, with the help of oxen,
and hence, having to carry bucket by bucket to
the " kettles," often from a considerable distance,
which is no trifling task, over wet snow, and rough
ground, thick with every obstruction. We were
fortunate in this respect, having been warned in
time, so that every thing was as light as such work
can be.

The sugaring-ofF day was rather a festivity with
us, as we followed the custom of a good many of
our neighbors, and invited some young folks to come
to a carnival on the warm sugar, which is very
nice, though I should not care to eat as much at a
time as some of our visitors did. The quantity of
sap which a single tree yields is astonishing. I
think some gave not less than fifty gallons, and the
loss of it seemed to do them ffood rather than harm.
The older and stronger the trees the better the sap,
and the more abundant — a peculiarity vhich it

Bush Psalmody,

187

would be well for each of us to be able to have said
of his own life as it advanced. The Indians must
have been acquainted with the property of the ma-
ple for ages ; stone sugar-making utensils, of their
manufacture, comprising stone troughs and long
stone spouts, hollowed out and pointed for sticking
into the trees, having often been found in some dis-
tricts. The few who still survive keep up the hab-
its of their ancestors in this, as in other respects,
numbers of them offering sugar which they have
made, for barter, each spring.

Happening to be back in the bush one Sunday, I
stopped to hear the Presbyterian minister preach ;
he being expected to come there that afternoon. A
log school-house was made to serve for a chapel — a
(lark, wretched affair, into which, gradually, about
seventy or eighty people managed to cram them-
selves. The singing was conducted by an old
German, whose notions of music were certainly far
behind those of his countrymen generall}'. The
number of grace notes he threw in was astound-
ing ; but the people joined as well as they could,
using their powerful lungs with so much vigor, and
in such bad time and tune, as to be irresistibly
ludicrous. As to keeping abreast of each other
tlirough a verse or a line, it seemed never to occur
to them. A great fellow would roar himself out of
breath, with his face up to the qeiling and his mouth
open, like a hen drinking, and then stop, make a
swallow to recover himself, or, perhaps, spit on the

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188

Worship under Difficulties.

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floor, .and begin again where lie left off, in total
disregard of tlie fact that the others were half a line
ahead. Who can chronicle the number of " re-
peats " of each line, or portion of one? And as
to the articulation of the words, who could have
miessed their meanino; from the uncouth sounds he
heard ? The windows were very small ; and, when
tilled with people, the place was too dark for print
to be legible, so that, notwithstanding the excessive
cold, the minister had to stand outside the door
throufih the whole service. About the middle of
the sermon a brief interruption took place, from a
freak on the part of the stove, which stood in the
middle of the room, and was of the common kind,
with the sides held together by a raised edge on the
top and bottom. As usual in all Canadian churches
and meetings, some one was stuffing this contrivance
full of wood while the sermon was going on, when,
in a moment, the top got a trifle too much lifted up,
and down came stove-pipe, stove, fire and wood,
in one grand rumble, to the ground. As the floor
chanced to be made only of roughly-smoothed
planks, with great gaps between each, and the car-
penters' shavings and other inflammable matter
were clearly visible below, the danger of the whole
structure catching fire was great ; but the congre-
gation were equal to the emergency. A number
of men were out in a moment, to return, the next,
with great armfuls of snow, which they heaped on
the burning mound in such profusion that every

Worship under Difficulties,

189

spark of fire was extinguished in a few minutes.
The bottom of the stove was tlien prepared again
for the reception of the sides, tlie top was once more
fitted on, the stove-pipes put in their place, the rul>
bish thrust into its proper abode inside, and, by the
lielp of a few wliitthngs made on tlie spot, a fresh
fire was roaring in a very short time, enabhng the
minister to conclude in peace and comfort.

I have seen stranjre iixndents in backwoods wor-
ship. One church happened to be built on rather
high posts, leaving an open space of from two to
to three feet below, between the floor and the ground.
Into this shady retreat a flock of sheep, headed by
the bell-wether, had n;ade its entrance one Sunday
morning while we were at worship overhead, and
presently tinkle, tinkle, tinkle went the bell, now
in single sounds, and then, when the wearer perhaps
shook some fly off its ears, in a rapid volley. No-
body stirred. The clergyman alone seemed incom-
moded ; but no one thought he was particularly so,
till, all at once, he stopped, came down from the
pulpit, went out and drove off the intruders, after
which he recommenced as if nothing had occurred.
At another place, at the communion, to my astonish-
ment, instead of the ordinary service, a black bottle
und two tumblers were brought out, with all due
solemnit}'-, as substitutes.

We had a sample of the strength of female intel-
lect, one winter, in an old woman, who visited the
next village to preach on the Prophecies, and drew

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190

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A Clerical Mrs. Partington.

the whole of the humbler population of the neighbor-
liood to hear her. Grammar, of course, was utter-
ly disregarded ; she knew the obscurer books of
Scripture by heart, and, having a tongue more than
usually vohible, and an assurance that nothing could
abash, she did her best to enlighten the crowd on
no mean topics. Using her left arm as a chrono-
logical measure, she started, with Daniel, at the
elbow, and reached the consummation of all things
at her finger-ends, which she figuratively called
"the jumping-off place." Some of her similes, as
reported through the township, amused me exceed-
ingly as samples of what was just suited to please
the majority of her hearers. " There's no moi-e
grace, sir, in your heart than there's blood in a tur-
nip," washer apostrophe to some imaginary sinner.
"Them sinners," she added — "them hardei.ed
sinners, needs to be done to, as you do to a old black
tobaky pipe — throw 'em into the fire, and burn 'em
— then they'll be vvite." Such wandering lumi-
naries are, for the most part, importations from the
States, where they abound almost beyond belief.
Another of these learned expositors visited us for
the purpose of giving lectures on " Biology," by
which he meant the effects produced on his patients
by looking at large wooden buttons which he carried
with him ; a continued stare at them for a time
making the parties become, as he averred, com-
pletely subject, even in their thoughts, to his will.
He would tell one he was a pig, and all manner of

Biology.

191

Bwinish sounds and actions followed. Another was
assured he could not rise from his seat, and forth-
with appeared glued to the spot, despite his most
violent efforts to get up. Whether there was any-
actual truth in the exhibition, through the power
of some subtle mesmeric laws of which we know
little, I cannot say. Some thought there was ;
others, that the whole was a joke of some young
fellows who wished to create fun at the expense of
the audiences. But the exhibitor himself was a
real curiosity, in his utter illiterateness and match-
less assurance. He had seen somebody else exhibit-
ing in this way, and, like a shrewd Yankee, thought
he might make a little money by doing the same.
I wished to gain some information from him on the
subject, if he had any to give, and waited, after the
crowd had separated, to ask him about it ; but all
I could get from him was the frank acknowledg-
ment that " this here profession was not the one he
follered ; he had jist been a-coming to Canedy
after some lumber — he dealt in lumber, he did —
and calc'lated that he might as well's no make his
expenses by a few licturs." I almost laughed out-
right at this candid avowal, and left him.

One day, Louis de Blanc, an old Canadian
voyager, who had left his arduous avocation and
settled near our place long before we came, anmsed
me by a story of an apparition he had seen the
night before in passing the graveyard at the little
Catholic chapel on the roadside, two miles above

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192

A Crhost.

us. It was a little plot of ground, neatly fenced
round with wooden pickets, with the wild flowers
growing rank and high among the few lonely graves,
— some tall black crosses here and there outtopj)inn
them. " You know Michel Cauchon died last
week ; well, he always had a spite at me ; and,
sure enough, last night about twelve o'clock, as 1
was passing tlie churchyard, didn't I see his ghost
running across the road in the shape of a rabbit.
Ah ! how I sweated as I ran home ! I never stopped
till I got over my fence and safe in bed." The
poor rabbit that had caused the panic would, no
doubt, have been astonished, could it have learned
the terror it had inspired.

It was most astonishing to see what kind of food
some of these old Canadians relished — at least, it
was so to me. One day, having gone over to Le
Blanc's on some errand, I found his son Louis, a
boy of twelve or fourteen, with the handle of a fry-
ing-pan in one hand and a spoon in the other,
drinking down mouthful after mouthful of the melted
fat left after frying pork, and, on my silently
looking at him, was met by a delighted smile and a
smack of his lips, accompanied by a rapturous
assurance of, " Ah ! it slips good." Fat, however,
is only another name for carbon, or, it may be said,
charcoal, and carbon is needed in large quantities
to maintain an adequate amount of animal heat in
the inhabitants of cold climates, and to this must be
attributed their craving for grossly fat food. Cap-

*' It slips yoody

193

tain Cochrane, in his '* Pedt'strian Tour to Beluing's
Straits," shows us tluit poor Louis Le Blanc was in
this respect tar outdone by tiie Siberian tribes living
near tlie Arctic (Jcean, who relished nothing more
than a tallow candle, and would prolong the enjoy-
ment of one by pulling the wick, once and again,
through their halinjlosed teeth, that no particle of
the grease might be lost. Indeed, my friend Captain

L told me, that in the Arctic regions, his men

had acquired a similar relish for '* moulds" and
" dips," and could eat a candle as if it had been
sugai-stick. The Esquimaux, as we all know, live
on the nauseous blubber of the whale, cutting it off
in long strips, which, Sydney Smith facetiously
avers, they hold over them by the one hand, and
guide down by the other, till full to the mouth,
when they cut it off at the lips. The quantity of
butcher's meat eaten by every one during winter
in Canada is astonishing. Even the bush people,
who, when living in England liardly ever saw it,
eat it voraciously three times a-day, with a liberal
allowance of grease each time. What oceans of
nmtton-oil I have seen floating round chops, in some
of their houses I How often have I declined the
offer of three or four tablespoon fuls of pork-oil, as
"gravy" or *' sauce" to the pork itself I Yet it
''slips good," apparently, with the country popu-
lation generally. The quantity of butter these* good
folks consume is no less liberal. On the table of a
poor log-house they never think of putting down a

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194

Squatters.

lump weigliing less tlian a pound, at wlii ;li every
one hacks as he hkcs with liis own knife. But tliey
need it all, and it is a mercy they have it, to helj)
them to withstand the effects of extreme cold and
hard work. The poorer classes in towns, who have
no hind on which to raise animal food, and little
money with which to buy it, must sutfer very
severely.

There were a few " squatters " along the river
here and there — that is, men who had settled on
spots of the wilderness without having bought them,
or having acquired any legal rights, but were con-
tent to use them while undisturbed in possession,
and to leave their clearings when owners came for-
ward. They are always, in such cases, allowed
the value of their improvements, and as, meanwhile,
they live entirely rent free, their position is far
from wholly disadvantageous. In the early days of
the colony, indeed, there was no other plan. The
few first comers could hardly be any thing but
squatters, as the country was all alike an uncleared
wilderness, and there is no inducement to pay mon-
ey for any one spot, had they possessed the means.
Some of the French families in our neighborhood
had been settled on the same farm for generations,
and had at last actually bought their homesteads at
the nominal price demanded by government ; but
the squatters were not yet extinct, though they
might at one time have had their choice of the
richest soil at something like fourpence an acre.

Squatters.

195

A friend of mine told me, that within a period of
ahout thirty years, lie liad seen land sold again and
a""ain at no hitrher price. On the same lot as that
which boasted the Catholic chapel, one — a lonely
survivor of the class — had taken up his abode,
many years before our time, building a log-house
for himself, on the smallest possible scale, a lew
vards from the river. How he could live in such a
])lace seemed strange. It was not more than some
ten or twelve feet in length, and the up})er part of
it was used as his barn. Here, all alone, poor
Papineau had lived — no one I ever met could tell
how hmo;. There was no house or buildino; in
sight ; no one ever seemed to go near him, nor
did he ever visit any neighbor. He was his own
cook, housekeeper, washerwoman, farm-laborer,
every thing. I often wish I had tried to find out
more about him. We used, when we passed along
the river edge, to see him mowing his ])atcli of hay
for his cow, or weeding his plot of tobacco, for he
grew what he required for his own use of this as of
other things ; and he was always the same silent,
harmless hermit of the woods. It was a strange
kind of life to lead. How different from that of a
Londoner, or the life of the inhabitant of any large
o.ommunity ! Yet he must surely have been con-
tented, otherwise he would have left it and gone
where he could have found some society

196

Buish 3Ia(/i8trate8.

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CHAPTER XII.

Bush magistrates. — Indian forest guides. — Senses quickemtd by
necessity. — liroukiiig up of the ice. — Depth of the frost. — A
grave in winter. — A bull. — A holiday coat.

IN those clays our local dignitaries were as pn'mi-
tive as the country it'^elf. On the river, indeed,
the magistrates were men of education, but in ihc
bush, the majority possessed no qualifications for
acting the part of justices. One of them had the
misfortune one winter to have a favorite dog killed
by some mischievous person, and feeling excessively
indignant at the loss, boldly announced that he was
prepared to pay a I'eward to any party who would
give such information respecting the offender as
should lead to his conviction. The wording and
spelling of this proclamation were alike remarkable.
It ran thus : " Whereas sum nutrishus vilain or
vilains has killed my dog Seesur, I ereby ofer a re-
ward of five dolars to any one that will mak none
the ofender or ofenders." He never got any bene-
fit from his efforts, but the document, in his own
handwriting, hung for a long time on the wall of
the next tavern, where all could see it, and not a
few laughed at its pecTiliarities.

Indian Forest Guides,

197

1 w.'is much struck by an iustaucc, wliich ix long
journey, about this time, tlirou;i;h tlu; woods, fravo,
of tho wonderful faculty ])Osscssc(l by the Indians
in ^oing straight from point to point across tho
thickest forest, where there is apparently nothinj^
to direct their course. Ilavini^ occasion to return
nearly twenty miles from a back township to which
the roads liad not yet been o})ened, and not likin;;
t t.ike tlie circuit necessary if 1 desired to find otli-
ers, I thought myself fortunate in meeting witli an
Indian, who, for a small reward, oflfered to take mo
liome by the nearest route. When I asked him how
he guided himself, he could say very httle,l)ut liintcd,
in his broken EngHsli, about one side of tlie trees
being rouglier than the other, though I could detect
httle or no difference on most of them. If it had
been in Nova Scotia, I could have understood liis
reasoning, for there the side of the trees toward tho
north is generally hung with a long gray beard of
moss, fi'om the constant moisture of the climate ; but
in Canada, it would take very sharp eyes to tell
which was the northern and which the other sides
from any outward sign. They must have some-
thing more to guide them, I think, though what it
is I cannot conceive. The senses become wonder-
fully acute when called into extraordinary service.
I have read of prisoners in dark dungeons, who
got at last to be able to see the spiders moving about
in their webs in the corners of their cells ; and blind

people often attain such a wonderful delicacy of

17 ♦

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198

Senses quickened hy necessity .

touch as to be able to detect things by differences*
so sliglit as to be imperceptible by others. The fa-
cility with which tliey read tlie books prepared for
them with raised letters, by simply j)assing their
fingers over the surfaces, is well known. The
sailor can discern the appearance of distant land, or
the Arab the approach of a camel over the desert,
when others would suspect neither. An Indian can
smell the fire of a " camp," as they call the place
where a party rests for the night, when a European
can detect nothing. There may, therefore, be some-
thing which can be noticed on the trees, by those
who pass their whole lives among them, which oth-
ers are unable to discover. The Indians derive a
great advantage fi'om the skill they possess in track-
ing the footsteps of men or animals over all soits of
ground, and among dry leaves. This faculty they
are enabled to acquire owing to the fact that the
forests in North America are generally open enough
underneath to offer easy passage ; and, moreover,
that the soil is little more on the surface than a car-
pet of rotten wood and decaying leaves, which easily
receives the impression of footsteps, and retains it
for a leno;tli of time. The moss on the fallen trees
is another great help in tracking the course of either
man or beast through the forest ; for neither the one
nor the other can well make their way over them
without iTibbing off portions here and there. Nor
is the mere fact of the passage in a particular direction
all that an Indian can detect from the traces on the

Breahing up of the Ice.

199

soil or vegetation. They reason acutely from things
which others would overlook, and sometimes surprise
one as much by the minute and yet correct conclu-
sions they draw respecting what they have not seen,
as the Arab did the Cadi of Bagdad, when he de-
scribed a camel and its load which had passed, and
whose track he had seen ; maintaining that the camel
was lame of a foot — because he had noticed a dif-
ference in the length of the steps ; that it wanted a
tooth, because the herbage it had cropped had a piece
left in the middle of each bite ; and, also, that the
load consisted of honey on one side and ghee on the
other, because he had noticed drops of each on the
path as he went along. My Indian made no hesi-
tation at any part of our journey, keeping as straight
as possible, and yet he was forced perpetually to
wind and turn round trees standing directly in our
path, and to vault over fallen logs,, which he did
with a skill that I in vain tried to imitate.

About the beginning of April the ice in the river
was getting very watery, the strength of the sun
melting the surface till it lay covered with pools in
every direction. Yet people persisted in crossing,
lono; after I should have thought it dangerous in the
('xtreme. It seemed as if it would hold together
for a long time yet, but the heat was silently doing
its work on it, and bringing the hour of its final
disappearance every moment nearer. It had be-
come a wearisome sight when looked at day after
dsy for months, and vv^e all longed for the open river

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200

Breaking up of the Ice.

once more. At last, about the sixteentli of the
montli, on rising in the morning, to our dehglit, the
wiiole surface of the ice was seen to be broken to
pieces. A strong wind whicli had been blowing
throuo;h tlie nio-ht \\vA c:aised such a motion in tlie
water as to spHt into fragments tlie now-weakened
sheet that bound it. It was a wonderfully beauti-
ful siglit to look at the bright blue water sparkling
once more in the lisht, as if in restless jrladness after
its long imprisonment, the richness of its color con-
trasting strikingly with the whiteness of the ice
which floated in snowy floes to the south. At flrst
there was only the broken covering of the river,
but, very soon, immense quantities of ice came sail-
ing down from the U})per Lakes, jammed together
one piece on another, in immense heaps, in every
variety of confusion, the upturned edges fringed
with prismatic colors. I found that the ])reparation
for this grand upbreaking had been much more
complete than I had susj)ected, from looking at it
from a distance ; the whole of what had appeared
quite solid having been so afl^'ected by the sun,
that, whichever way yon looked at it, long rows
of air-bubbles showed themselves throuixh it, sliow-
ing that there was little power left in it to resist
any outward force. The final ruj)ture, though ap-
parently so sudden, had been, in fact, steadily pro-
gressing, until, ai last, the night's storm had been
sufficient to sweep away in an hour what had pre-
viou5.dy stood the wildest rage of winter. 1 have

Depth of the Frost.

201

often, since, thought that it gave a very good illus-
tration of the gradually increasing influence of all
efforts for good, and of their certain ultimate triumph
— each day's faithful work doing so much toward
it, though the progress may for long be impercepti-
ble, until at last, when we hardly expect it, the
opposing forces give way, as it were, at cnce, and
forthwith leave only a scattered and retreating wreck
behind. Gradual preparation, and apparently sud-
den results, are the law in all things. The Refor-
mation, though accom})lished as if at a blow, had been
silently made possible through long previous gener-
ations ; and when the idolaters in Tahiti threw away
their hideous gods, the salutary change was only
effected by the long-continued labors of faithful
missionaries for many years before — labors, which,
to many, must, at the time, have seemed fruitless
and vain.

The depth to which the frost had penetrated the
ground was amazing. I had already seen proof of
its being pretty deep, on the occasion of a grave
having to be dug in a little spot of ground attached
to a chapel at some distance from us, for the burial
of a poor neighbor's wife who had died. The
ground was deeply covered with snow, which had
to be cleared away before they could begin to dig
the grave, and the soil was then found to be so hard
that it had to be broken up with pickaxes. Even
in that earlier part of the winter the frost was near-
ly two feet deep, and it was a touching thing to see

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202

A Grrave in Winter.

tlie frozen lumps of earth wliich had to be thrown
down on the coffin. Any thing Hke beating tlie
grave smooth, or shaping it into the humble mound
which is so familiar to us at home, as the token of
a form like our own lying beneath, was impossible;
there could only be a rough approach to it till spring
should come to loosen the iron-bound earth.
Strangely enough, there were two funerals from the
same household within the same month, and the two
graves were made side by side. The mother had
died just as she was about to start for the house of
her daughter-in-law who was ailing, a hundred and
twenty miles off, and the object of her beautiful
tenderness had herself died before the same month
had expired, leaving it as her last wish that she
should be laid beside her friend who had departed
so lately. It was now the depth of winter — the
Arctic cold made every thing like rock — the
sleigliing was at its best, and thus the journey was
made comparatively easy. Laying the coffin in a
long sleigh and covering it with straw, and taking
a woman with him to carry a young infant to his
friends to nurse, the husband set out with his ghast-
ly load. There was no fear of delaying the burial
too long, for the corpse was frozen stiff, and might
have been kept above ground for weeks without
the risk of its thawing. When I used to pass after-
wards in summer time, the two graves, which were
the first in the burial-ground, wore a more cheerful
aspect than they had done at first ; the long beauti-

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Depth of the Frost.

208

fill gi*ass waving softly over them, and wild flowers
borne thither by the winds or by birds, mingling
their rich colors with the shades of green around.

I think the soil must eventually have been frozen
at least a yard down, if we may judge by its effects.
Great gate-posts were heaved up by the expansion
of the earth, when the thaw turned the ice into
water ; for, though ice is lighter than water, it forms
a solid mass, whereas the swelling moisture pushes
the particles of earth apart. I have seen houses
and walls cracked from top to bottom, and fences
thrown down, from the same cause ; indeed, it is
one of the regularly recurring troubles of a Canadian
farmer's year. If any thing is to stand pennanently,
the foundations must be sunk below the reach of the
frost. It is very much better, however, in Canada
than in the icy wilderness to the north of it. Round
Hudson's Bay the soil never thaws completely, so
that if you thrust a pole into the earth in the warm
season, you may feel the frozen ground a few feet
beneath. It is wonderful that any vegetation can
grow under such circumstances, but the heat of the
sun is so great, that even over the everlasting ice-
bed, some crops can be raised in the short fiery
summer. Indeed, even on the edge of the great
Arctic Ocean, along the coasts of Siberia, and on
some spots of the American shore, the earth brought
down by rivers and strewn by their floods over tho
hills of ice, is bright with vegetation for a short part
of each year — in this respect not unlike stony and

204

A Ball,

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cold natures wlilcli have yet, over tlieir unmelting
hardness, an etHorescence of good — tlie skin of
virtue spread, as old Tliomas Fuller says, like a
mask over the face of vice.

During the winter a great ball was given across
the river, in a large barn, which had been cleared for
the purpose, the price of the tickets being fixed at
a dollar, which included an abundant supper. It
was intimated, however, that those who had no
money might pay in "dicker" — a Yankee word
for barter ; a biuulle of shingles, a certain number
of eijgs, or so much wei<i;ht of butter, being held
equivalent to the money, and securing a ticket. I
was not present myself, never having much approv-
ed of these mixed parties, but the young folks round
were in a state of great excitement about it, some
of them coming as far as fifteen miles to attend it.
They went past m sleigh loads, dashing over the
ice on the river as if it had been solid jxround.
The girls were, of course, in the height of fashion,
as they understood it; some of them exposing them-
selves in ridiculously lioht clothing for the terrible
season of the year, in the belief, no doubt, that it
made them look the nicer. Fashions in those days
did not travel fast, and what was in its full Horv
on the river, had been wellnigh forgotten where it
took its rise, like the famous Steenkirk stock, of
which Addison says, that it took eleven years to
travel from London to Newcastle. The taste
ehown was often very praiseworthy, but sometimes,

A Holiday Coat.

205

it must be admitted, a little out of tlie way. I have
seeu girls with checked or figured white muslin
dresses, weariug a black petticoat underneath to
show oti' tlie beauties of the pattern ; and I knew
of one case where a young woman, who was en-
grossed in the awful business of buying her wedding
dress, coukl get nothing to please her untd she
clianced to see, hanging up, a great white window
curtain, with birds and flowers all over it, which she
instantly pronounced to be the very thing she want-
ed, and took home in triumph ! There was one
gentleman's coat on the river which might have
formed a curiosity in a museum, as a relic of days
gone by. The collar stood up round the ears in such
a great roll that the shoulders and head seemed set
on each otlier, and, as to the tails, they crossed each
other like a martin's wings, somewhere about the
knees. But it was in a good state of preservation,
and, for aught I know, may be the holiday pride of
its owner to this hour.

It took a week or two for the last fragments of
ice to disappear from the river, fresh floes coming
down day after day from the lakes beyond, where
spring sets in later. As they floated past I often
used to think what a mercy it was, that while water
gets heavier as it grows cold, until it comes to the
freezing-point, it becomes lighter the moment it be-
gins to freeze, and thus rises to the surface, to form

ice there, instead of at the bottom. If it continued

f '

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206

Wliy Ice floats.

as heavy after, as it was immediately before, the
rivers and lakes would speedily become solid masses
of ice, which could by no possibility be melted.
The arrangement by which this is avoided, is a
remarkable illustration of the Divine wisdom, and a
striking proof of the contrivance and design which
is in all God's works.

) ?

.1 1

Wild Leeks.

20T

CHAPTER XIII.

Wild leeks. — Spring birds. — "Wilson's poem on the blue bird. —
Downy woodpeckers. — Passenger pigeons. — Their numbers. —
Roosting places. — 'I1ie frogs. — Bull frogs. — Tree frogs. — Fly-
ing squirrels.

BY the first of May the fields were beginning to
put on their spring beauty. But in Canada,
where vegetation, once fairly started, makes a won-
derfully rapid progress, it is not like that of England,
where spring comes down, as the poet tells us —

" Veiled in a shower of shadowing roses,"

and a long interval occurs between the first indica-
tions of returning warmth, and tlie fiiller proof of
it in the rejoicing green of the woods and earth.
The wild leeks in the bush seemed to awaken from
their winter's sleep earlier than most other things,
as we found to our cost, by the cows eating them
and spoiling their milk and butter, by the strong
disagreeable taste. In fact, both were abominable
for weeks together, until other attractions in vaccine
diet had superseded those of the leeks. It was de-
lightful to look at the runnels of crystal water

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MM^Um

208

Spring Birds.

wimpling down the furrows as the sun grew strong ;
the tender grass beneath, and at each side, showing
througli the quivering flow like a frame of emerald.
The iireat buds of the chestnuts and those of other
trees grew daily larger, and shone in the thick wa-
terproof-coatings with whi(;h they had been protected
througli the winter. Small green snakes, too, began
to glide about after their long torpidity ; the wild
fowl reappeared in long flights high overhead, on
their way to their breeding-places in the far north ;
the reed-sparrows in their rich black plumage, with
scarlet shoulders fading off to yellow ; the robin,
resembling his English namesake only m the name,
as lie belongs to the family of thrushes in Canada ;
the squirrels in their beautiful coats, with their
great bushy tails and large eyes, stirring in every
direction through the trees, and every little while
proclaiming their presence by a sound which I can
only comjiare to the whirr of a broken watch-spring ;
the frogs beginning to send up their thousand croaks
from every standing pool — all things, indeed, in
the animal and veijetable world showino; simis of
joy, heralded the flowery summer that was advanc-
ing toward us.

The darling little blue-bird, the herald of spring,
had already come to gladden us while the snow was
yet on the ground, flitting about the barn and the
fence-posts, and, after we had an orchard, about the
apple-trees, of which it chiefly consisted. About
the middle of March he and his mate might be seen

Wilson^s Poem on the Blue Bird.

209

visiting tlie box in tlio garden, ^vllere lie had kept
liouse the year before, or, in j)hices wlierc the or-
cliards were old, looking at the hole in the apple-
tree where his family had lived in preceding
summers. He had come to be ready for the first
apj)earance of the insects on which cliiefly he feeds,
and, by killing whole myriads of which, he proves
himself one of the best friends of the farmer.
There is a poem of Alexander Wilson, the Ameri-
can ornithologist, about the blue-bird, which tells
the whole story of a Canada spring so admirably,
and is so little known, that I cannot resist the pleas-
ure of quoting part of it.

" When winter's cold tempests and snows are no more,

Green meadows and brown furrowed fields reappearing,
The fishermen haulinrj their shad to the shore,

And cloud-i'leaving geese to the lakes are a-steering;
When first tlie lone butterfly flits on the wing,

When glow the red maples, so fresh and so pleasing,
Oh, then comes tlie blue-bird, the herald of spring,

And hails with his warblings the charms of the season.

" Then loud-piping frogs make the marshes to ring.

Then warm glows the sunsliine and fine is the weather ;
The blue woodland flowers just begiiming to spring,

And spice wood and sassafras budding together.
O then to your gardens, ye housewives repair,

Your walks border up, sow and plant at your leisure.
The blue-bird will chant from his box such an air,

That all your hard toils will seem truly a pleasure.

" He flits through the orchard, he visits each tree.

The red-flowering peach, and the apple's sweet blos-soms
18*

210 Doivny Woodpeckers.

He snaps up destroyers wherever they be,
And seizes the taitiH's timt huk in their hosornfl ;

He drags tlic vile gnih from the eorn he devours,

The worms from their heds, where they riot and welter;

His song and liis services freely are ours,
And all that he asks is, in summer, a shelter.

" The ploughman is pleased when he gleans in his tram,

Now seivrciiiiig the furrows, now mounting to cheer him ;
The gardener delights in his sweet, simjde strain.

And leans on his spade to survey and to hear him ;
The slow ling'ring schoolboys forget they'll be chid,

While gazing intent as he warbles before 'era
In mantle of sky-blue, and bosom so red.

That each little wanderer seems to adore him."

,.:l

;

The mention of the blue-bird's activity in destroy-
ing insects brings to my mind my old friends, the
woodpeckers, once more. In John Courtenay's
orchard, which was an old one, several of these
birds built every season, hovering about the place
the whole year, as they are among the very few
Canadian birds that do not migrate. He showed
me, one day, the oe?s. of one of the species called
" Downy," in an .>1 i apple-tree. A hole had been
cut in the body of the tree, as round as if it had
been marked out by a carpenter's compasses, about
six or eight inches deep in a slanting direction, and
then ten or twelve more perpendicularly, the top of
it only large enough to let the parents in and out,
but the bottom apparently quite roomy, for the
young family. As far as I could see, it was as
smootli as a man could have made it, and I was as-

Doivny Woodpeckers.

211

Bured that it was tlio same in every part. It ap
pears that these birds are as cunning as tliey are
clever at tliis art, tlie two old ones regularly carry
ing out all the chips as they are made, and strewing
them about aj a considerable distance from the nest,
so as to j)revent suspicion of its |)resence. Six pure
white eggs, laid on the smooth bottom of their curi-
ous abode, mark the number of each year's family,
the female bird sitting closely on them while they
are being hatched, her husband, meanwhile, busying
himself in supplying her with choice grubs, that she
may want for nothing in her voluntary imprison-
ment. The little woodpeckers make their first ap-
pearance about the middle of June, when one may
see them climbing the bark of the tree as well as
they can, as if practising before they finally set out
in life for themselves. I had often wondered at the
appearance of the bark in many of the apple and
pear-trees, which seemed as if some one had fired
charges of shot into them ; but it w as long before I
knew the real cause. It appears that it is the work
of the woodpeckers, and many farmers consequently
think the poor birds highly injurious to their or-
chards. But there are no real grounds for such an
opinion, for no mischief is done by these punctures,
numerous though they be. I have always remarked
that the trees which were perforated most seemed
most thriving, no doubt because the birds had de-
stroyed the insects which otherwise would have
injured them. The autumn and winter is the great

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212

Boicny Woodpeckers.

time for their <)})eriitions, aiul it is precisely the time
when the i)reservati()ii of the fruit, in the coming
sunnner, can he hest secured. Curious us it may
seem that siich a rithlling of the bark can be bene-
ficial to the tree, it evidently is sg. From the
ground to where the branches fork olf, there is often
hardly an inch of the bark which does not bear the
mark of some grub-hunt, and scmietimes eight or
ten of them might be covered by a penny. Farm-
ers, however, rarely philosophize, and no wonder
that in this case they regard as prejudicial what is
really a benefit. But, on the other hand, they are
correct enouo-h as to the habits of some of tlie wood-
peckers, for greater thieves than the red-headed
ones, at some seasons, can hardly be found. The
little rascals devour fruit of all kinds as it ri})ens,
completely stripping the trees, if ])ermitted. In
fact, they have a liking for all good things ; they
are sure to pick the finest strawberries from your
beds, and have no less relish for apples, peaches,
cherries, plums, and ])ears ; Indian corn, also, is a
favorite dish with them, while it is still milky. Nor
do these little plagues keep to vegetable diet exclu-
sively ; the eggs in the nests of small birds are never
passed by in their search lor delicacies. One can't
wonder, therefore, that, with such plundering pro-
pensities, they should lose their lives pretty often.

The flocks of pigeons that come in the early
spring are wonderful. They fly together in bodies
of many thousands, perching, as close as tliey can

Passenjcr Pitjcons.

213

settle, n t}t%. trees wlieu they alight^ or covering
the ground ( rer hirge spaces wlien i'eecling. The
first tidings ot tlieir approach is the signal for every
available gun to be brought into requisition, at once
to procure a supply of fresh food, and to })rotect the
crops on the Helds, winch the pigeons would utterly
destroy if they were allowed. It is singular how
little sense, or perhaps fear, such usually timid
birds have when collected together in numbers.
I have heard of one man who was out shooting
them, and had crept close to one flock, when theu'
leaders took a fancy to Hy directly over him, ahr.-^st
close tc the ground, to his no small terror. Thou-
sands brushed past him so close as to make him
alarme(^ for his eyes ; and the stream still kept pour-
inoj on after he had discharjxed his barrels, right and
left, into it, until nothing remained but to throw
himself on !:is ice till the whole had flown over
him. They do not, liowever, come to any Jiart of
Canad; \.'.'t]: which 1 am acquainted in such amaz-
ing mmibrrs i«s are said by Wilson • ' Audubon to
visit the western United States. The latter natu-
ralist left his house at Henderson, on the Ohio, in
the autumn of 1813, on his vvav to Louisville, and
on passing the Barrens, a few iuih^s beyond Hardens-
burgh, observed the pigeonj tly'/ig from north-east
to south-west in suc3i iiuir'iers, that he thought he
would try tocalculale li'^^y mj/»y there really were.
Dismounting, and seaij.io inmself on a knoll, he
began making a dot in his viote-book for every flock

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214

^/^6;iV Nwmhers.

that passed, but in a short time liad to give up the
attempt, as he had already put down a Imndre^^ and
sixty-three in twenty-one minutes, and they still
poured on in countless multitudes. The air was
literally filled with pigeons; the light of noon-day
was obscured as if by an eclipse, and the continued
buzz of wings produced an inclination to drow " aess.
When he reached Louisville, a distance of t icv-five
miles, the pigeons were still passing in unabated
numbers, and continued to do so for three days in
succession. He calculated that, if two pigeons
were allowed for each square yard, the number in
a single flock — and that not a large one, extending
one mile in breadth and a hundred and eighty in
length — could not be less than one billion, one
hundred and fifteen millions, one hundred and
thirty-six thousand ! The food required for such a
countless host passes our power to realize clearly,
for, at half a pint a day, which is hardly as much
as a pigeon consumes, they would eat, in a single
dav, eio-ht millions, seven hundred and twelve
thousand bushels. To get such supplies from cul-
tivated fields would, of course, be impossible, and it
is fortunate that they hardly ever attempt it, their
principal support being the vast quantities of beech-
mast which the unlimited expanse ot unbroken
forest supplies.

A curious fact respecting them is that they have
fixed roosting-places, from wh'ch lui disturbance
appears able to drive them, and to these they resort

'f^.
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Hoosting-places.

215

I '11

night by night, however far they may have to fly
to obtain food on the returning day. One of them,
in Kentucky, M'as repeatedly visited by Audubon,
who found that it was about forty miles in length
by three in breadth. A fortnight after the pigeons
had chosen it for the season, he found that a great
number of persons, with horses and wagons, guns
and ammunition, had already established themselves
on its borders. Herds of hogs had been driven up
to fatten on a portion of those which might be
killed. Some of the visitors were busy plucking
and salting what had been already procured, huge
piles of them lying on each side of their seats.
Manv trees two feet in diameter were broken off at
no great distance from the ground by the weight of
tlie multitudes that had lighted on them ; and huge
branches had given way, as if the forest had been
s.vept by a tornado. As the hour of their anival
approached, every preparation was made to receive
them : iron pots, containing sulphur, torches of
pine-knots, poles and guns, being got ready for use
the moment they came. Shortly after sunset the
cry arose that they were come at last. The noise
they made, though yet distant, was like that of a
hard gale at sea, when it passes through the rigging
of a closely-reefed vessel. Thousands were soon
knocked down by the polemen ; the birds continued
to pour in ; the fires were lighted ; and a magni-
ficent as well as wonderful and almost terrifying
sight presented itself. Th' pigeons, arriving by

nil

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: >

216

Moosting-plxces.

tliousands, alighterl everywhere, one above another,
until solid masses as large as hogslieads were formed
on the branches all round. Here and there tlie
perches gave way, and falling on the ground with
a crash, destroyed hundreds of the birds ben<'ath,
fov?ir)or down the dense groups with which every
spot us loaded. The pigeons were constantly
coming, and it was past midnight before he per-
ceived a decrease in their number. Before day-
light they had begun again to move off, and by
sunrise all were gone. This is Audubon's account.
I myself have killed thirteen at a shot, fired at a
venture into a flock ; and my sister Margaret killed
two one day by simply throwing up a stick she had
in her hand as they swept past at a point where
we had told her to stand, in order to frighten them
into the open ground, that we might have a better
chance of shooting them. I have seen bagfuls of
them that had been killed by no more formidable
weapons than poles swung right and left at them
as they flew close past. The rate at which they
fly is wonderful, and has been computed at about
a mile a minute, at which rate they keep on for
hours together, darting forward with rapid beats
of their wings very much as our ordinary pigeons
do.

The frogs were as great a source of amusement
to us as the pigeons were of excitement. Wher-
ever there was a spot of water, thence, by night and
day, came their chorus, the double bass of the bull-

Bull Frogs.

217

fro2S strikino; in every now and then amidst the in-
describable l)il)ing of the multitudes of their smaller
brethren. It is very difficult to catch a sij^ht of
these bassoon performers, as they s})ring into the
water at the slightest approach of danger ; yet you
may now and then come on them basking at the
side of a pond or streamlet, their great goggle eyes
and black skin making them look very grotesque.
They are great thieves in their own proper element,
many a duckling vanishing from its mother's side
by a sudden snap of some one of these solemn gen-
tlemen below. They are a hungry race, always
ready apparently for what they can g^t, and making
short work with small fishes, all kinds of small rep-
tiles, and even, I believe, the lesser kinds of snakes,
when they can get them. These fellows are the
giants of the frog tribes, and portly gentlemen
withal, some of them weighing very nearly a pound.
The shrill croak of the other fro<2s is like nothincr
else that I ever heard : it is a sort of trill of two or
three notes, as if coming through water, and it rises
from so many throats at once that it may be said '
never for a moment to cease. There is a kind of
frog which lives on the branches of trees, catching
the insects on the leaves — a beautiful little crea-
ture, of so nicely shaded a green that it is almost
impossible to detect it even when you are close to
it. Henry and I were one day at work in the early
summer near a young maple, in the back part of
the farm, and could hardly keep up conversation

% n

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218

Tree Frogs.

)

for the liissing trill of a number of tliem on it , but
though the tree was so near us, we could not, by all
our looking, discover any of the invisible minstrels.
At last the tliino; bt ame so ludicrous that we deter-
mined, if possible, to get a sight of one ; and as the
lower branches began at about our own height, one
of us went to the one side, and the other to the
vdier, to watch. Trill — trill — bubble — bubble
— bubble — rose all around us, but no other signs
• r the warblers. We looked and laughed, laughed
and looked again ; the sound was within a yai>d of
us, yet nothing could be seen. When almost giv-
ing up, however, I chanced to look exactly on the
spot where one was making his little . throat swell
to get out another set of notes, and the rise and fall
of its breast at once discovered its presence. Hen-
ry was at my side in a moment, and we could both
see it plainly enough, of course, when our eyes had
once fairly distinguished it from the gi'een around.
It continued to sit unmoved on its leaf, and we did
not disturb it.

One morning we came upon a beautiful little
creature which had been killed by some means, and
lay in the yard near the barn. It was evidently a
squirrel, but differed from the ordinary species in
one curious particular. Instead of having its legs
free like those of other squirrels, a long stretch of
fur extended from the front to the back legs so as
to form something like wings when spread out. It
Was a flying squirrel, a kind not so common as the

' V

Flying Squirrels.

219

others, and coming out mostly by niglit. These
extraordinary appendages at tlieir sides are used by
them to sustain them in enormous leaps which they
make from branch to branch, or from one tree to
another. Trusting to them they dart hither and
thither with wonderful swiftness ; indeed, it is hard
for the eye to follow their movements. What most
struck me in tliis unusual development was the evi-
dent approach it made towards the characteristic of
birds, being as it were a link between the form of
an ordinary quadruped and that of a bat, and stand-
ing in the same relation to the wing of the latter as
that does to the wing; of a bird. It is sinmilar how
one class of creatures merges into another in every
department of animal life. Indeed, it is puzzling
at times to distinguish between veo;etable and ani-
mal structures, where the confines of the two king-
doms join, as the word zoophyte, which really means
" a living plant," sufficiently shows. Then there
is a caterpillar in New Zealand out of whose back,
at a certain stage of its growth, springs a kind of fun-
gus, which gradually drinks up the whole juices of
the insect and destroys it ; but this is not so much an
approximation of two different orders as an acci-
dental union. There are, however, many cases of
interlinking in the different "families" into which
life is divided, the study of which is exceedingly
curious and interesting.

■ *.'■♦;■

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220

Our Spring Croys.

i.'t

'<i>

Our spring crops.

CHAPTER XIV.

Indian corn. — Pumpkins. — Melons. — Fi uits
— Wild flowers.

THE first thing we thought of, when the spring
had fairly set in, was to get spring wheat,
potatoes, Indian corn, pumpkins, oats, and other
crops into the ground. Our potatoes were man-
aged in a very primitive way, in a patch of newly-
cleared ground, the surface of which, with a good
deal more, we had to burn off before it could be
tilled. A heavy hoe was the only implement used,
a stroke or two with it sufficing to make a hole for
the potato cuttings, and two or three more to drag
the earth over them, so as to form a " hill.'" These
we made at about eighteen inches apart, putting
three or four pumpkin seeds in every third hill of
the alternate rows. The Indian corn was planted
m the same way, in hills more than a yard apart,
pumpkin seeds being put in with it also. It is my
favorite of all the beautiful plants of Canada. A
field of it, when at its finest, is, I think, as charm-
ing a sight as could well invite the eye. Rising
higher than the height of a man, its great jointed

Pumpkins .

221

stems are crested at the top by a long waving plume
of purple, wJiile from the upper end of each head
of the grain there waves a long tassel resembling
pale green silk. It is grown to a large extent in
Canada, but it is most cultivated in the Western
United States, many farmers on the prairies there
growing a great many acres of it. It is used in many
ways. When still unripe it is full of delicious milky
juice, which makes it a delicacy for the table when
boiled. The ripe corn makes excellent meal for
cakes, etc., and is the best food for pigs or poultry,
while the stalks make excellent fodder for cattle.
The poor Indians grow a little corn when they
grow nothing else. You may see the long strings
of ears plaited together by the tough wrappings
round each, and hung along poles round their wig-
wams to dry for winter use. They have been in
possession of it no one can tell how long. When
the M^yjllower anchored, with the Pilgrim Fa-
thers, at Plymouth Bay, in Massachusetts, in 1620,
they found hoards of it buried for safety in the
woods around, the Indians having taken this plan
to conceal it from them.

The size of the pumpkins is sometimes enormous.
I have known them so large that one would fill a
wheelbarrow, and used often to think of a piece of
rhyme I learned when a boy, in which it was pointed
out what a mercy it was that they grew on the

ground rather than aloft, acorns being quite heavy

19*

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222

Melons.

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enougli In windy weather.* They are used in great
quantities for " pumpkin pie," as the Canadians
call it — a preparation of sweetened pumpkin spread
over paste. They use them in this way, not only
while fresh, but cut a great many into thin slices and
dry them, that they may have this dessert in winter
as well as summer. They are excellent food for
pigs and cattle when broken into manageable pieces
for them. I don't think any thing grew with us
better than beets and carrots, the latter especially.
A farmer in our neighborhood, who was partial to
their growth for the sake of his horses and cattle,
beat us, however, in the quantity raised on a given
space, having actually gathered at the rate of thir-
teen hundred bushels per acre of carrots. We had
a carrot show some years after in the neighboring
township, at which this fact was state 1, and its
accuracy fairly established by the fact of others
having gathered at the rate of as many as eleven
hundred bushels per acre. I remember the meeting
chiefly from the assertion of an Irishman present,
who would not allow that any thing in Canada
could surpass its counterpart in his native island,
and maintained that these carrots were certainly
very good, but that they were nothing to one which
was grown near Cork, which was no less than eight
feet nine inches in length !

A variety of melons formed one of the novelties

* Le Gland et la Citroaille : Fables de La Fontaine, B. ix. 4.

Fruits.

223

we ixrew after tlie first season. We had nothing
to do but put them in the ground and keep them
free from weeds, when they began to " run " — as
tliey did, far and near, over the ground. It was an
easy way to get a luxury, for some of tliem are very
dehcious, and all are very refreshing in tlie sultry
heat of summer. They grow in every part of
Canada in great luxuriance, and without any thing
like a preparation of the soil. Indeed, I once saw
a great fellow of an Indian planting some, which
would doubtless grow well enough, with his toes —
pushing aside earth enough to receive the seeds, and
then, with another motion of his foot, covering them
up. Cucumbers grew in surprising numbers from
a very small quantity of seed, and we had a castor-
oil plant and some plants of red pepper before our
doors. We had not very much time at first to
attend to a vegetable garden, and therefore contented
ourselves with a limited range of that kind of com-
forts, but it was not the fault of the soil or climate,
for in no place of which I know d > tie various
bounties of the garden grow more freely than in
Canada. Cabbages, cauliflower, brocoli, peas,
French beans, spinach, onions, turnips, carrots,
l)arsnips, radishes, lettuces, beet, asparagus, celery,
rhubarb, tomatoes, cucinnbers, and I know not
V. liat else, need only be sown or planted to yield a
Ituuntiful return.

As to fruits, we had, for years, to buy all we
'ised, or to gather it in ihe woods, but it was very

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224

Fruits.

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I'lieap wlicn bouojlit, nnd easily procured wl) gath-
ered. Apples of a size and flavor almost peculiar
to America, pears, plums, cherries, raspberries, cur-
rants, and strawberries, <»;row everywhere in amaz-
ing abundance. Peaches of the sunniest beauty
and most delicate flavor are at times in some dis-
tricts almost as j)leutit'ul as potatoes ; but we never
managed to get any from our orchard, want of
knowledge on our ] art having sjioiled our first trees,
which we never afterwards cxcliauiied for others.
But on the Nia<!;ara Uiver 1 liave known t' \ sell
for a shilling a bushel, &.nd every laborer j met
"would be devouring them by the half-dozen. A
gentleman, within a few miles of us, took a fancy to
cultivate grapes as extensively as he could in the
open air, and succeeded so well that lie told me
before I left that he hafl sold a year's crop for about
a hundred pounds. If we had had as much shrewd-
ness as we ought to have had, we should liave
begun the culture of fiuit rather than of mere farm
produce, and I feel sure it would have paid us far
better. But people, coming fresh to a country, take
a long time to learn what is best for them to do,
and when tliey have learned, have too often no
sufficient means of turning to it, or, perhaps, no
leisure, while many, through disappointed hopes,
lose their spirit and energy.

The wild fruits we found to be as various as the
cultivated kinds, and some of them were very good.
The wild cherries were abundant in our bush, and

Wild Flowers.

225

did excellently for preserves. Goosebemes, small,
•with a rou<i;]» prickly skin and of a poor flavor, were
often brought by tlie Indians to barter for pork or
flour. Raspberries and strawberries covered the
oi)en places at the roadsides, and alontrthe banks of
*' creeks ; " and whortleberries and blueberries,
black and red currants, juniper berries, plums and
hazel nuts, were never far distant. We used to
gather large quantities ourselves, and the Indians
were constantly coming with pailfuls in the season.
It is one of the beneficent arrangements of Provi-
dence, that, in a climate so exceedingly hot in sum-
mer, there should be such a profusion of fruits and
vegetables within the reach of all, adding not only
to comfort, but diffusing enjoyment, and exerting,
also, a salutary influence upon health.

What shall I say of the wild flowers which burst
out as the year advanced? In open places, the
woods were well nigh carpeted with them, and
clearings that had, for whatever reason, been for a
time abandoned, soon showed like gardens with
their varied colors. The scarlet lobelia, the blue
lupin, gentian, columbine, violets in countless
variety, honeysuckles, flinging their fragant flowers
in long tresses from the trees, campanula, harebell,
balsams, asters, calceolarias, the snowy lily of the
valley, and clouds of wild roses, are only a few
from the list. Varieties of mint, with beautiful
flowers, adorned the sides of streams or the open
meadows, and, resting in a floating meadow of its

,i
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226

TJie " Bitter Sweet:'

own green leaves, on the still water of the river-
bencls, or of the creeks, whole stretches of the great
white water-lily rose and fell with every gentle
undulation.

There was a berry, also, the*' bitter sweet,"
which was, in the latter part of the year, as pretty
as any flower. At the end of each of the delicate
twigs on which it grew, it hung in clusters, which,
while unripe, were of the richest orange ; but after
a time, this covering opened into four golden points,
and showed, in the centre, a bright scarlet berry.

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I%e Indians,

227

CHAPTER XV.

The Indians. — Wigwams. — Dress. — Can the Indians be civilized?

— Their past decay as a race. — Alleged innocence of savage life.

— Narrativt of Father Jogues, the Jesuit missionary.

BEFORE coming to America we had read a
great deal about the Indians, and were most
anxious to see them. I remember asking a lady
from Canada if she was not afraid of them, and was
astonished when she smiled at the question. Our
minds had been filled in childhood with stories
about the Mohawks, and Hurons, and other savage
nations ; how they rushed on the houses of settlers
at the dead of night, and, after burning their houses,
killed and scalped the men, and drove the women
and children into captivity in the woods. Their
painted faces, wild feathered dresses, and terrible
war-cry had become quite familiar to our heated
fancies ; and we were by no means sure we should
not have to endure too close an acquaintance with
them when we became settlers in their country.
The terrible story on which Campbell's beautiful
poem, " Gertrude of Wyoming," is founded, was
regarded as a sample of what we had to fear in our

•228

Indian Wigwams.

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lay in Canada. Moreover, tlie romantic accounts
»f' Indian warriors in the novels of Cooper, and in ,
the "writings of travellers, helped *•' increase both
our curiosity and dread, and we n\ a^h all most anx-
ous to see the re])resentatives of the red men in
our own settlement, notwithstanding o\u' extrava-
gant tear of them. We were uot long left to think
what they were like, however ; for it so ha})[)ened
Uiat there was an Indian settlement on land reserved
Vor them along the river a few miles above us, and
i)dd families ever and anon pitched their wigwams
ji the bush close to us. The first time they did so,
ive all went out eager to see them at on« e, but
never were ridiculous hi<>;li-flown notions doomed
lo meet a more thorough disappointment. They
were encann)ed on the sloping bank of the creek,
for it was beautiful summer weather, two or throe
wigwams risinii under the shade of a fine oak which
stretched hii!;h overhead. The wiowams themselves
w^ere simply sheets of the bark of the birch and
bass-trees, laid against a slight framework of poles
inside, and sloping inwards like a cone, with a hole
at the top. An open space served for an entrance,
a loose sheet of bark, at the side, standing ready to
do duty as a door, if required. I have seen them
of different shapes, but they are generally round,
though a few show the fancy of their owners by
resembling the sloping roof of a house laid on the
ground, with the entiy at one end. Bark is the
common material i but in the woods on the St. Clair

Indian Wigwams,

2'2Si

river I once saw a family ensconced below some
yards of wnite cotton, stretched over two or three
rods ; and near Halifax, in Nova Scotia, in winter,
1 noticed some wio;wams made of loose broken out-
side slabs of logs, which the inmates had laboriously
got together. In this last miserable hovel, by the
way, in the midst of deep snow, with the wind
whistling through it in every direction, and the
thermometer below zero, lay a sick squaw and a
young infant, on some straw and old blankets, to
get well the best way she could. What she must
have suffered from the cold can hardly be conceived.
No wonder so many die of consumption.

In the grou]) at the wigwams, as we drew near,
we could see there w^ere both men, women, and
children — the men and women ornamented with
great flat silver earrings, and all, including the
children, bare-headed. Their hair was of jet black,
and quite straight, and the men had neither beards
nor whiskers. Both sexes wore their hair long,
some of them plaiting it up in various ways. Their
color was like that of a brown dried leaf, their cheek-
bones high and wide apart ; their mouths generally
large, and their eyes smaller than ours ; and we
noticed that they all had ^ood teeth. This is not,
however, an invariable characteristic, for sometimes
they suffer from their decay, like Europeans, and
the doctor once told me how an Indian had waited
for him at the side of the road, and, when he came
up, had made signs of pain from toothache, and of

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230

Indian Dress.

his wish tliat the tooth should be removed, which
was forthwith done, the sufferer departing in great
glee at the thought of his deliverance. " The next
day," the doctor added, " the poor fellow showed
his gratitude by waiting for me at the same place
with a fino stone pipe-head, which he had just cut,
and which he handed to me with a grunt of good-
will as I came up." The dress of the women con-
sisted of a cotton jacket, a short petticoat of cloth,
with leggings of cloth underneath, which fitted
tightly. Those who were doing nothing had a
blanket loosely thrown over them, though it was
then hot enough to do without almost any clothing.
The dress of the men varied, from the merest
mockery of clothing to the full suit of a cotton shirt
and a pair of long leather or cloth leggings. One
of them, a great strapping man, gave my sisters a
great fright, shortly after, by walking into the house
as noiselessly as a cat, and stalking up to the fire
for a light to his pipe, with nothing on him but a
cotton shirt. Pulling out a piece of burning wood
and kindling his pipe, he sat down on a chair beside
them to enjoy a smoke, without ever saying a word,
and went off, when he had finished, with equal
silence. The little children were naked either
altogether, or with the exception of a piece of cotton
round their loins ; and the babies, of which there
are always some in every Indian encampment,
peered out with their bright black beads of eyes
from papooses, either hung up on a forked pole or

Indian Babies.

231

resting against a tree. These "jiapooses" were
quite a novelty to us. They were simply a flat
board a little longer than the infant, with a bow of
hickory bent in an arch over the upper end, to
protect the head, and some strings at the sides to
tie the little creature safely. There it lay or stood,
with abundant wrappings round it, but with its legs
and arms in hopeless confinement, its little eyes
and thin trembling lips alone telling the story of its
tender age. To lift it was like taking hold of a
fiddle, only you could hardly hurt it so easily as you
might the instrument. Not a cry was to be heard,
for Indian babies seem always good, and nobody
was uselessly occupied in taking care of them, for,
where they were, no injury could come near them.
I should not myself like to be tied up in such a
way, but it seems to do famously with them. One
of the women had her child at her back, inside her
blanket, its little brown face and black eyes peering
over her shoulder. Another was putting some
sticks under a pot, hung from a pole, which rested
on the forks of two others ; and one or two were
enjoying a gossip on the grass. The men, of course,
were doing nothing, while the boys were amusing
themselves with their bows and arrows, in the use
of which they are very expert. We had been told
that they could hit almost any thing, and resolved
to try them with some coppers, which were certainly
very small objects to strike in the air ; but the little
fellows were wonderful archers. Each half-penny

232

Indian Habits.

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got its quietus the moment it left our fingers, and
they even liit a sixpence which Henry, in a fit of
generosity, threw jp. Birds must have a very
small chance of escape when they get within range
of tlieir arrows. It brought to my mind the little
Balearic islanders, who, in old times, could not get
their dinners till they had hit them from tlie top of
a high pole with their slings, and country boys I
had seen in England, whom long practice had taught
to throw stones so exactly that they could hit almost
any thing. Indeed, there seems to be nothing that
we may not learn if we only try long enough, s^nd
with sufficient earnestness.

It used to astonish me to see the Indians on the

((

Reserve " living in bark wigwams, close to com-
fortable log-houses erected for them by Govern-
ment, but which they would not take as a gift. I
used to think it a striking proof of the difficulty of
breakinof off the habits formed in uncivilized life.
and so indeed it is ; but, the poor Indians had more
sense in what seems madness than I at first sup-
posed. It appears they feel persuaded that living
one part of the year in the warmth and comfort of
a log-house makes them unable to bear the exposure
during the rest, when they are away in the woods
on their hunting expeditions. But why they should
not give up these wandering habits, which force
such hardships on them, and repay them so badly
after all, is wonderful, and must be attributed to
the inveterate force of habit. It seems to be very

Can the Indians he Civilized?

233

life.

hard to get wildness out of the blood when once
fairly in it. It takes generations in most cases to
make such men civilized. Lord Dartmouth once
founded a college for Indians in Massachusetts,
when it was a British province, and some of them
were collected and taun;ht Eno-lish and the classics,
with the other branches of a liberal education ; but
it was found, after they had finished their studies,
that they were still Indians, and that, as soon as
they had a chance, they threw away their books
and English clothes, to run off again to the woods
and wander about in clothes of skins, and live in
wio-wams. It is the same with the aborigines of
Australia. The missionaries and their wives have
tried to get them taught the simple rudiments of
English life — the boys to work and the girls to
sew — but it has been found that, after a time, they
always got like caged birds beating against their
prison, and that they could not be kept from dart-
iiio; off ao;ain to the wilderness. The New Zea-
lander stands, so far as I know, a solitary and
wonderful excei)ti(m to this rule, the sons of men
who were cannibals have already adopted civili-
zati(m to so great an extent as to be their own ship-
builders, sailors, captains, clerks, schoolmasters, and
farmers.

It seems almost the necessary result of civilized
and uncivilized people living together in the same
country that the latter, as the weaker, should fade
awiiy before their rivals, if they do not thoroughly

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234

TJieir jpaat Decay as a Bace*

adopt their luibits. The aboriginal inliabitants of
the Sandwich Islands are ra])idly ap[)roaehing ex
tinction in spite of all efforts to secure their perma-«
nence. The vices of civilization have corru})ted the
very blood of the race, till they seem hopelessly
fading away. The natives of New Holland are
vanishing" in the same way, though not, perhaps,
from the same immediate causes. The Caribs of
the West Indies, who were so fierce and powerful
in the days of Columbus and his successors, are
now extinct. It is much the same with the Red
Man of America. The whole continent was theirs
from north to south, and from east to west, but now
they are only to be found crowded into corners of
our different provinces, a poor and miserable rem-
nant, or as fugitives in remote prairies and forests,
for they have been nearly banished altogether from
the settled territories of the States. It is a curious
fact, also, that this is not the first time widely-spread
races of their color have been swept away from the
same vast surface. Remains of former populations,
which have perished before those who tliemselves
are now perishing, are to be found in many parts,
as in the huge burial mounds of Ohio, and the ruined
cities of Guatemala and Yucatan. Canada has now
settlements of Indians in various places, but they
are, altogether, few in number. One is on Mani-
toulin Island, near the northern shore of Lake
Huron, wdiere a clergyman of the Church of Eng-
land, Mr. Peter Jacobs, himself an Indian, minis-

Indian Decay as a Race.

236

lei's, as a zealous and efficient missionary ; another,
fit the head of River St. Clair, stretches down the
hank for four or five miles, the picture of neglect
;5ii;l aversion to work, in the midst of improvement
j'.r ciuh side ; one on Walpole Island, down the
liv'T, where the missionary is one of the most «nir-
II 'sr and laborious I have had the pleasure of know-
ii:o; ; one on the banks of the river Thames, under
the charge of the Moravian brethren — the wreck
of tribes who left the States in the war, last century
— forming, with another settlement on the Grand
River, near Bi'antford, the representatives of those
who, in Lord Chatham's day, brought down that
great orator's terrible denunciation of the " calling
into civilized alliance the wild and inhuman inhab-
itants of the woods, and delegating to the toma-
hawk and the scal})ing-knife of the merciless savage
the rights of disputed property." There are some
others to the north and east of Toronto, but their
numbers altogether are but the shadow of what
they were once. Old Courtenay, speaking to me
one day about those on the River St. Clair, where
he had lived from his childhood, shook his head as
a wandering, miserable family passed by on their
wretched ponies, and said, feelingly, " Poor things !
they'll soon follow the rest. I remember when
there were a hundred on the river for twenty there
are now. They all go at the lungs. Lying out
in the wet brings on the terrible cough, and they're
gone." The Indian Agent for the west of the

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236

Indian Decay as a Itace,

province told ine, however, when in Entrland, lately
tlijit they were kee])ino; u|) tlieir nunihers now ; but
I can hardly sec how it is possible, if they do not
take more care of themselves. The very moccasins
they wear for shoes are fit, in my o])ini()n, to kill
anyone — mere coverings of deer leather, whicli
soak uj) water like blotting-})aper, and keep them
as if perpetually standing in a pool. Then they get
spirits from the storekeepers, in spite of every effort
on the ])art of government to prevent it, and they
often suffer such ])rivations for want of food as must
tell fearfully on their health. I have often watched
them passing on ponies or a-foot ; if the former, the
squaws sitting cross-legged on the bare backs, like
men, with their children round them, and guiding
thei'' animals by a ro]:)e halter ; the men carrying
only a gun, if they were rich enough to have one ;
and I have thoujTht of the contrast between their
present state and the story of their numbers and
fierceness, as handed down in the old French narra-
tives of two hundred years ago ; how they kept the
French in perpetual fear, burning their houses and
even their towns ; how the woods swarmed, in differ-
ent parts, with their different indei)endent nations
— The Hurons, the Algonquins, the Iroquois, the
Ojibbeways — and how, in later years, they played
so terrible a part in the French and American wars
with Great Britain. They seem like snow in sum-
mer, when only a patch lies here and there, await-
ing speedy disappearance, of all that covered hill

AUefji'd Innocence of Savarje Life. 237

and valley in its season. Some tribes, indeed, have
passed away altoo;etlier since tlu> first landino- of
Europeans on the continent. Those at Nonantuni,
in Massachusetts, for \v'hom the fjreat missionary,
John Eliot, translated the Bihh'two hundred vears
alio, are all gone, so that the book which once
spoke to them of the world to come, and a copy of
which still survives in the museum at Boston, now
lies open without a livino; creature who can read it.
The Mandans, a great tribe in the western jirairies
— the only tribe, indeed, of whom I have heard,
among the Indians of the present day, as building
regular fortified and permanent villages and towns,
have been entirely swept off within the last thirty
years by the smallpox, which was brought among
them by some poor trader.

It is a striking contradiction to what we some-
times hear of the happy innocence of savage life,
that the Indians, when they had all the country to
themselves, were continually at war with one
another. The Mohawks, who lived in the north-
ern part of the United States, seem especially to
have been given to strife, often leaving theii- own
side of the great lakes to make desolating inroads
into Canada, until their name became such a word
of terror that the very mention of it spread alarm
in an encampment. Even at this day, I have been
assured that to raise the cry of " the Mohawks are
coming," would strike a delirium of panic through
a whole settlement. They seem to think they are

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I7ie Mohairks,

still somewhere not far off, and may reappear at
any moment, lint tli()u*j;li tlie Moliawks may liavo
left so blood-stained a memory of themselves, it may
be safely said that there was hardly one tribe better
than another. The pa<ii;es of the old ehronielers
are red with the continual record of their univer-
sal confliets. At the same time, it is curious,
as showing how widely-sj)read the terrors of
the Mohawk name came to be, that the dissolute
young men of Addison's day, who were wont to
find pleasure in acts of violence and terror in the
streets of London by night, called themselves
** Mohocks." The French appear to have them-
selves been in part to blame for their sufferings
from the Indians, from the wars they excited
between rival nations, and the readiness witli
which they furnished their allies with the means
of destruction. The passions thus kindled too often
recoiled u})on themselves. Their traders had no
scruples in supplying to any extent the three great
cravings of an Indian — rum, tobacco, and scalping-
knives — the first of which led, in innumerable
cases, to tl^e too ready use of the last. A scalping-
knife, by the way, is an ugly weapon, with n ' nrved
blade like an old-fashioned razor, '^ Jiarp at the
point, and was used to cut off skin fron the

top of a dead enemy's head, witl. iie hair on it, to
preserve as a proof of their warlike exj !oits. The
number of scalps any warrior possessed being hailed
as the measure of his renown in his tribe, the desire

A Narrow Escape.

239

»g-

for tlicm became as miicli a passion with an Indian
as the wish for the Victoria Cross with a British
sohHer, and raised an almost un<i;oveniabK! excite-
ment in tlieir i)reasts wlien an oj)|)ortnnity lor
^nitityinji; it offered itself. A story is told of a
Jiritish otHcer who was travelling many years ago
in America, witli an Indian for his gnide, waking
suddenly one morning and finding him standing
over him in a state of frenzy, his features working
in tlie conflict of overpowering passions like those
of one possessed, his knife in his hand, ready, if the
evil spirit triumphed, to destroy his master for the
sake of ► s scalp. The officer's waking, hai)j)ily
broke the spell, and the Indian flung liimself at the
feet of his intended victim, told him his temptation,
and rejoiced that he had escaped. He had seen
him playing with his long soft hair, he said, and
could not keep from thinking wdiat a nice scalp it
would furnish, till he had all but murdered him to
get it." *

That the very name of " Indian " should have
filled the heart of all who heard it in old times with
horror is not to be wondered at. However miser-
able they may be now, in great part through their
constant wars among themselves, they were fright-
fully cruel and bloodthirsty savages when their
nation's tribes were numerous. We have little idea,

* The ancient Scythians, also, sculped their eneraicB. (Hero-
dotus, Bk. iv. 64.) Tlie Indians are only Scythians or Tartars
who have fallen from the pastoral to the hunting life. •

B? W

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240

Narrative of Father Jogucs,

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from anytliing Canada now offers, as to their man*
ners and habits, or tlieir character, in the days of
their fierce power ; but it cannot be said that this
is owing to their beino; civiHzed, or to their liavin<T
become more Immane. They are still as wikl, to
a large extent, as the wild beasts of the woods, in
all their habits — still wanderers — still idle and
thriftless — still without any arts — and still with-
out any thing like national progress. It rises only
from their being a crushed and dispirited remnant,
who have lost the boldness of tlieir ancestors, and
are fairly cowed and broken by a sense of their
weakness. Out of the reach of civilization they
are still the same as ever ; and Mdiat that was in
the days when they were the lords of Canada, we
may judge from the accounts left by the French
missionaries, who then lived among them. The
following narrative, which I translate from its quaint
old French, has not, I believe, been printed before
in English, and takes us most vividly back to those
bvfirone times.* As a Protestant, I do not agree
with every thing that it contains, but you can
remember that it is the narrative of a Jesuit priest.
Father Jogues was of a good family of the town
of Orleans, in France, and was sent to Canada by
the general of his order in 1636. He went up to the
country of the Hurons the same year, and stayed

* "Relations des Jesuites dans la Nouvelle France."
hec, 1858.

Que*

Narrative of Father Jogues,

241

there till June, 1642, when he was sent to Quebec
on the iitfairs of the " great and laborious mission "
among that people. Father Lallemant, at that
time superior ol' the mission, sent for him, and pro-
posed the voyage, whieh was a terrible task, owing
to the difficulty of the roads, and very dauii^rous
from the risk of ambuscades of the Iroquois, who
massacred every year a number of the Indians allied
with the French. He proceeds to say, —

" The proposition being made to me, I embraced
it with all my heart. Behold us, then, on the way,
and in dangers of every kind. We had to disembark
forty times, and forty times to carry our canoes, and
all our baggage, past the currents and rapids which
Ave met in a voyage of about three hundred leagues ;
and although the savages who conducted us were
very expert, we could not avoid the frequent up-
setting of our canoes, accompanied with great danger
to our lives, and the loss of our little luggage. At
last, twenty-three days after our departure from
the Hurons, we arrived, very weary, at Three
Rivers, whence we descended to Quebec. Our
business being completed in a fortnight, we kept
the feast of St. Ignatius ; and the next day, the
1st of August. lt)42, left Three Rivevi; to retrace
our steps to the country whence we had come.
The first day v7as favorable to us; the second,
we fell into the hands of the Iroq[uois. We were

forty in number, divided among different canoes

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Narrative of Father Jogues.

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and that which carried the advance guard having
discovered, on the banks of the great river, some
tracks of men's feet newly impressed on the sand
and chiy, made it known. When we had landed,
some said they were traces of an enemy, others
were sure they were the footmarks of Algonquins,
our allies. In this contention of opinion Eustache
Ahatsistari, to whom all the others deferred on
account of his deeds of arms and his bravery, cried
out — ' Whether they are friends or enemies does
not matter ; I see by their tracks that they are not
more in number than ourselves ; let us advance,
and fear nothing.'

" We had hardly gone on a half league when the
enemy, hidden in the grass and brush rose, with a
loud cry, discharging on our canoes a perfect hail
of bullets. The noise of their arquebuses so terri-
fied a part of our Hurons, that they abandoned their
canoes, and their arms, and all their goods, to save
themselves by flight into die depths of the woods.
This volley did us little harm ; no one lost his life.
One Huron only had his hand pierced by a ball,
and our canoes were broken in several places.
There were four Frenchmen of us, one of whom
being in the rear-guard, saved himself with the
Hurons, who fled before approaching the enemy.
Eight or ten Christian catechumens joined us, and
having got them to offer a short prayer, they made
)iead courageously against the enemy, and though
t|iey wej0 thirty men against a dozen or fourteen,

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Narrative of Father Jogues.

243

our people sustained their attack valiantly. But
perceiving that another band of forty Iroquois, who
were in ambush on the other side of the river, were
crossing to fall on them, they lost heart, and, like
those who had been less engaged, they fled, abandon-
injx their comrades in the melee. One Frenchman
— Ren^ Goupil — since dead, being no longer
supported by those who followed him, was taken,
with some Hurons who had proved the most cou-
rageous. I saw this disaster from a place which
effectually concealed me from the enemy, the thickets
and reeds furnishing a perfect screen, but the thought
of thus turning it to account never entered my mind.
Could I, I said to myself, leave our French, and
these good neophytes, and these poor catechumens,
without giving them the helps with which the true
Church of God has intrusted me ? Flight seemed
to me horrible. It is necessary, said I to myself,
that my body should suffer the fire of this world to
deliver these poor souls from the flames of Hell —
it is necessary that it should die a momentary death
to procure them life eternal.

"My conclusion being thus taken without any
great struggle in my mind, I called one of the
Iroquois who was left behind to guard the prisoners.
He, seeing me, was at first afraid to approach, fear-
ing an ambush. ' Approach,' said I, ' fear nothing ;
conduct me to the French and Hurons you hold
captive.' He advances, and having seized me, adds
me to the number of those who, in a worldly point

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narrative of Father JogueB,

of view, wonlfl be regarded as utterly wretched.
Meanwliile, tho.;e who were chasing the fugitives
led back some of them, and I confessed and made
Christians of those who were not so. At last they
led back that brave chief, Eustache, who cried out
on seeino; me. that he had sworn to live and die
with me. Another Frenchman, named William
Couture, seeing the Hurons take to flight, saved
himself, like them, in the forest ; but remorse hav-
io": seized him at the thought of abandonino; his
friends, and the fear of being thought a coward
tormenting him, he turned to come back. Just
then five Iroquois came upon him, one of whom
aimed at him but without effect, his piece having
snapped, on which the Frenchman instantly shot
him dead. His musket was no sooner discharfjed
than the four were on him in a moment, and having
stripped him perfectly naked, wellnigh murdered
him with their clubs, pulled out his nails with their
teeth, pounding the bleeding tips to cause greater
agony ; and, finally, after stabbing him with a knife
in one hand, led him to us in a sad plight, bound
fast. On my seeing him, I ran from my guards and
fell on his neck, but the Iroquois, seeing us thus ten-
derly affected, though at first astonished, looked on
in silence, till, all at once, thinking, perhaps, I was
praising him for having killed one of their number,
they ran at me with blows of their fists, with clubs,
and with the stocks of their arquebuses, felling mo
to the ground half dead. When I began to breathe

Narrative of Father Jbgues.

245

again, those wlio, hitherto, had not injured me,
came up and tore out the nails of my fingers witli
their teeth, and than bit, one after another, tlio
ends of the two forefingers tlms stripped of their
nails, causing me great pain — grinding and crauncli-
ing them to pieces, indeed as if they had been
pounded between two stones, so that fragments of
tlie bones came out. They treated the good Rene
Goupil in the same way, but they did no harm tor
tlie time to Hurons, so enraged were they at the
French for not accepting peace on their terms the
year before.

" All being at last assembled, and their scouts
having returned from chasing the fugitives, the
barbarians divided their bootv among themselves,
rejoicing with loud cries. While they were thus
engaged I revisited all the captives, baptizing those
who had not been so before, and encouraging the
poor creatures, assuring them that their reward
would far surpass their tortures. I perceived after
making this round that we were twenty-two in
number, not counting three Hurons killed on the
spot.

" Behold us, then, being led into a country truly
strange to us. It is true that, during the thirteen
days we were on this journey, I suffered almost
insupportable bodily torments and mortal anguish
of spirit ; hunger, burning heat — besides the im-
precations and threats of these leopards in human
shape — and in addition to these miseries, the pain

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of our wounds, wliicli, for want of dressing, rotted
till they bred worms, caused us much distress ; but
all these things seemed light to me, in comparison
witli my internal suffering at the sight of our first
and most ardent Christians among the Hurons in
such circumstances. I had thought they would be
j)il]ars of the new-born Church, and I saw them
become victims of these bloodthirsty savages.

*' A week aftei our departure from the banks of
the St. Lawrence, we met two hundred Iroquois in
eager search for Frenchmen, or their Indian allies,
wherever they could meet them. Unhappily, it is
a belief among these barbarians, that those who are
going to war are prosperous in proportion as they
are cruel to their enemies ; and, I assure you, they
made us feel the effect of this unfortunate opinion.
Having perceived us they first thanked the sun for
having caused us to fall into their hands, and those
of their countrymen, and then fired a salute in honor
of their victory. This done, they went into the
woods, to seek for clubs or thorns, as their fancy
led them ; then, thus armed, they formed a lane, a
hundred on each side, and made us pass, naked,
down this bitter path of anguish, each one trying
who could strike oftenest and hardest. As I had
to pass last, I was the most exposed to their rage,
but I had hardly got half through, before I fell
under the weight of this hail of reiterated blows ;
nor did I try to rise ; partly, indeed, because I
wished to die on the spot. Seeing me down, they

Narrative of Father Jog-ues.

247

i' ' I :L

threw themselves on me, and God alone knows the
length of time I endured this, and the number of
blows which were inflicted on my body, but suffer-
ings borne for His glory are full of joy and honor I
The savages, seeing I had fallen, not by chance,
but that I wished to die, took a cruel compassion
on me, lifting me up, in the intention of keeping
me so that I should reach their country alive, and
then led me, all bleeding, to an open knoll. When
I had come to myself they made me descend, tor-
mented me in a thousand ways, made me the butt
of their taunts, and recommenced beating me, let-
ting off another hail of blows on my head, neck,
and body. They then bunied one finger, and
cranched another with their teeth, and pressed and
twisted those which were already mangled, with
the rage of demons. They tore my wounds open
with their nails, and when my strength failed they
put fire to my arms and thighs. My companions
were treated pretty nearly like myself. One of
the barbarians, advancing with a great knife, seized
my nose in his left hand to cut it off, but, though
he attempted this twice, he was hindered in some
way from completing his design. Had he done it,
they would at last have killed me, for they always
murder those who are much mutilated.

" Having so far satisfied their bloodthirstiness on
our poor frames, these savages departed to pursue
their route, while we continued ours.

" On the tenth day, we reached a place where it

248

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was necessary Lo quit the waterside and travel by
land. This journey, wliich was about lour days
long, was very painful, he who wa« apj)()intcd to
ouard nie not beino; able to carrv all his i)lunder,
and givinii; me a ])art to carry on my back, all flayed
as it was. We ate nothintjj for three days but a
little wild fruit, which we })ulled in ])assing. The
heat of the sun at the height of the sunnner, and
our wounds, weakened us nmch, so that we had to
walk behind the others, and they being much scat-
tered, I told Rend he should try to save himself;
but he would not leave me, though he could easily
have got off. I, myself, could not think of forsak-
ing my poor little flock. On the eve of the
Assumption, we reached a small stream, a quarter
of a league from the first town of the Iroquois,
where we found the banks lined on both sides with
a number of men armed with clubs, which they
used on us with their wonted ferocity. There
were only two of my nails remaining, and these
they wrenched ofl' with their teeth, tearing away
the flesh underneath, and bearing it to the very
bones with their nails, wliich they let grow very
long.

** After they had thus satisfied their cruelty, they
led us in triumph into this first village, all the
young people being ranged in rows outside the
gates, armed, some with sticks, others with iron
ramrods, which they get from the Dutch.* They

* Probably the Dutch settlers in what is now the western part
of New York State.

Narrative of Father Jogues.

249

tliey
the
the
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mado us march — a Frenchman at the head, another
in the middle, of the Hurons, and myself the last.
We were made to follow one another at equal dis-
tances, and, that our tormentors might be the better
able to beat us at their ease, some Iroquois threw
themselves into our line to keep us from running off,
or avoiding any blows. 1 was naked, with the excep-
tion of a shirt, like a criminal, and the others were
entirely naked, except poor Rend Goupil, to whom
they showed the same favor as to me. We were
hardly able to reach the stage prepared for us in
the middle of the village, so fearfully beaten were
we ; our bodies livid and our faces bloody. Nothing
white remained visible of Ren(^'s face but his eyes,
he was so disfigured. When mounted on the
stage we liad a short respite, except from their
violent words, which did not hurt us, but it was
soon over. A chief cried out that they must ' fon-
dle the Frenchman,' which was no sooner said than
done — a wretch, leaping on the scaffold and giving
each of us three great blows with a stick, but not
touching the Hurons. Meanwhile, the others
who were standing close to us, drawing their
knives, treated me as the chief — that is, used me
worst — the deference paid me by the Hurons hav-
ing procured me this s I honor. An old man took
my left hand, and ordered an Algonquin woman to
cut off one of my fingers, which she did, after some
reluctance, when she saw she would be forced to obey,
— cutting off my left thumb. They did tJiis to tho

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otluTs also. I picked ap my tlininb from the scaf-
fold, hut one of my French companions told me
tliat if tiiey saw me with it they would make me
eat it, and swallow it raw, and that I had better
throw it away, Avhich 1 did. They used an oyster
shell to cut the tluunbs of the others, to give them
more pain. The blood flowing so that we were like
to faint, an Iroquois tore ott' a piece of my shirt and
tied up the wounds, and this was all the bandage
or dressino; we o;ot. When evenino; came we wero
brouo-ht down to be led to the wi<2;wams to be made
sport for the children. They gave us a little boiled
Indian corn for food, and made us lie down on a
piece of bark, tying our arms and Ijgs to four
stakes fived in the ground, like a St. Andrew's
cross. The children, emulating the cruelty of
their parents, threw burning embers on our stom-
achs, taking pleasure in seeing our flesh scorch and
roast. What hideous nights ! To be fixed in one
painful position, unable to turn or move, incessantly
attacked bv swarms of vermin, with our bodies
smarting from recent wounds, and from the suffer-
ing caused by older ones in a state of putrefaction,
with the scantiest food to keep up what life was
left ; of a truth these torments were terrible, but
God is great ! At sunrise, for three following days,
they led us back to the scaffold, the nights being
passed as I have described."

Thus far we have given the father's own words,
and must condense what remains to be told : —

Narrative of Father Jogues,

251

After tliree days were over the victims were
'ed to two other vilhiges, and exjiosed naked, under
a burning sun, with tiieir wounds untended, to tho
same miseries as they had passed through in tlie
first. At the second, an IncUan, perceiving that
poor Couture liad not yet lost a finger, though his
hands were all torn to pieces, made him cut off his
own forefinger with a blunt knife, and when he
could not sever it entirely, the savage took and
twisted it, and pulled it away by main force, drag-
ging out a sinew a palm in length, the poor arm
swelling instantly with the agony. At the third
village, a new torture was added, by hanging poor
Jogues by his arms, so high that his feet did not
touch the ground ; his entreaty to be released only
making them tie him the tighter, till a strange In-
dian, apparently of his own accord, mercifully cut
him down. At last some temporary suspension of
his sufferings approached. Fresh prisoners arrived,
and a council determined that the French should
be spared, in order to secure advantages fi*om their
countrymen. Their hands being useless from mu-
tilation, they had to be fed like infants, but some
of the women, true to the kindly nature of their
:jex, took pity on their sufferings, and did what they
could to relieve them. Meanwhile, Couture was
sent to another village, and Piere Jogues and Ren^
remained together.

Unfortunately, however, of the three, only Cou-
ture could reckon upon the preservation of his life.

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JWmatice of Father Jogues.

It was tlie rnstoiii witli tlie savages, tliat when a
prisoiiiT was liaiuUd over to some particular Indian,
to sujij)!y a l)hmk in liis liousehold, caused hy tlio
di'arli of any of its mcuil^crs in battlo, lie was t'ortli-
witli adopted as oni' of tlio tribe, and was tiience-
fortli sale; but as lonf»; as be was not tbus bestowed,
lie ini;!;lit be ki'lvd, at tlie caprice of any one, witli-
out the least warning;. Of the three, oidy (Jouture
bad been thus iruaranteed security of 'ife; the two
otliei'Ji felt tliat their existence still hunn; bv a liair.
Kor was this lonn; witiunit luini!; put to a sad j)roof,
for Kene — full of zeal for what he thou<i;ht would
benetit the souls of the vouno; Indians — beinii; in
the habit of inakino; on them the sin;n of the cross,
liad taken a child's hand before makino- the simi on
its brow, when an old man, seeintj; him, turned to
its father, and tohl him he should kill that doo;, for
he was doinj>' to his boy what the Dutch had told
them would not only do no good, but would do
harm. The advice was speedily acted on ; two
blows ot in axe on his head, as the two were re-
turnino; from ])riiyer outside the villajxe, stretclied
the martyr lifeless, and poor Rene's body was
then draii^ed to the bed of a rivulet, from which a
heav^y storm washed it, throuii;]i the ni<iht, so that
his comi)ani()ns could never again find it. This
was in September, 1642, two months after their
leaving Three Rivers. The position of father
Jogues after this murder may easily be imagined.
His life, he tells us, was as uncertain as the stay of

Narrative of Father Jogues.

253

a bird on a brancli, from wlii(;li it may fly at any
moment. But tlie <xoo(l man liad devotion sulH-
c'ieiit to bear him np, amidst all evil and dann;er.
His mind, kej)t in constant excitement, found sup-
port in comfortinrr dreams that soothed his slum-
bers. In these visions he would see, at times, the
villajj;e in which he lived, and in which lie had suf-
fered so much, changed to a scene of surpassing
glory, with the words of Scripture, written over its
gates, " They shall praise Thy name ; " and at
other times his thoughts in sleep w(mld be bright-
ened by the belief that the ajxonies he had endured
were sent by his Father m heaven to Ht him for
eternal joy, so that, he tells us, he would often say
of them when he awoke, " Thy rod and thy staff
they comfort me."

At the beginning of winter he was, at last, given
to a family as their slave, to attend them in the
chase, to which they went off thirty leagues, stay-
in<i!; two mcmths at it. Cold though it then was, his
only clothing all this time was a shirt and a poor
j)air of drawers, with leggings, and ragged shoes of
soft leather. The thickets tore his skin, and his
feet were cut by the stones, clods, and sharp edges
of ice. Finding him useless in hunting, they set
him to woman's work, requiring him to gather and
bring in logs for the fire. Half naked, chapped and
hacked in every part by tiie cold, this wfis a change
he rejoiced in, as it gave him the great advantage
of privacy, which, he tells us, he employed for eight

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and ten hours togctlier in prayer, before a rude
cross wliicli he had set up. But his masters liaviug
found out how lie spent liis time, broke liis cross,
felled trees close to him to terrify him, and when he
returned to the wio;wam with his load, played him
a thousand cruel tricks, to <i;et him to desist. One
would level liis bow at him, as if aljout to shoot
liim ; another would swing his axe over his head,
and tell him he must quit his charms. They de-
clared that his sorceries spoiled their hunting ; and
at last conceived such a horror of him, that tliey
thought his toucii pollution, and would not let him
use any thing in the wigwams. Had he been willing
to join them in tlieir ways, it wouFd have fared dif-
ferently with him ; but, starving as he had been,
he refused to partake of the venison which they had
in abundance, because they offered to the spirit of
the chase all that they took. As soon as he knew
of this, he told them plainly he could not eat what
had been devoted to the djvil ; and fell back on his
boiled Indian corn.

Having learned that some old people were about
to return to the village, Jogues asked permission to
go thither with them. They sent him, therefore,
but without a tinder-box, and without shoes, though
the snow was now very deep on the ground, it
being in December. Moreover, they made him
carry a huge burden of smoked meat for the thirty
leagues of journey they had to take, weak and
wretched though he was. At one place, crossing a

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Narrative of Father Jogues.

256

ty AU

deep rivulet, over a felled tree, a squaw, who had an
infaut and a heavy load on her back, and was in
poor health, slipped off and fell into the stream ; on
which Jomies, seeino; tliat her burden was makinji
her sink, threw off his own, and plunged in, and
cutting away the thongs, carried her to the bank,
where the prompt kindling of a fire by the Indians,
alone, saved the three from being frozen to death.
The little child being very ill, he tells us " he bap-
tized it forthwith ; and in truth," he adds, " sent
it to Paradise, as it died two days after." How-
ever we may differ from him as to the efficacy of
his act, we cannot withhold our admiration of the
noble s])irit that made him cling to what he thought
a work of duty and hjve, even in his greatest trials.
He had hirdly reached the village when he was
sent back again with a sack of corn, so heavy, that
what with weakness and the slip})eriness of the
ground, he lost his way, and found himself back
agjiin in the camp before he knew where he was.
Thio misadventure was a new cause of sutrerino; for
Iiim. Every ill name that could be thought of was
^Ivcn him, and, what was much worse, he was put
into a wigwam with the same man who had torn
out his nails, and who was now lying in the utmost
filth and wretchedness, through the effects of some
putrid disease. For fifteen days he had to serve as
a slave amidst these horrors, until hi? owners, re-
turning from the chase, took him to their own
dwellino;.

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During tl:e winter, lie m<anngecl, at great risk, to
visit tlie ditt'erent villages of the Indians, to encour-
age the Huron captives. His patience, meanwhile,
was gaining him the respect even of such monsters
as these. The mother of his host seemed touched
by his bearing, and this was increased by liis kind-
ness to one who had been amono; his most terrihle
enemies, but who was now lying covered with
sores. Jogues visited him frequently, consoled him
in his illness, and often went to seek berries for him
to refresh him. About ]\Iarch he was taken by
his hosts to their fishing-ground — a deliverance
from the noise of the villaijje which was deliiihtful
to him, though he still had the same work of col-
lectinc; and b'-inmno- in wood for the fire. He \ -. -.
now treated comparatively kindly, but even liere
he was in danger. A war party had been gone for
six months, and not having been heard of, weix)
thouo;ht to have been destroved, and this was, bv
at least one, who had a relative with it, attributed
to the enchantments of the missionary. But, pro-
videntially, the day before he was to have been killed,
the warriors arrived, bringing twenty prisoners,
in torturino; whom Jogues was forfjotten. Thev
forthwith began public rejoicings ; scorching, roast-
ing, and, at last, eating these poor victims. " I
think," savs Jogues, " that the devils in hell must
do something the same, at the coming of souls con
demned to their flames."

At the end of April, a Sokokiois chief made his

JYaT-afive of Father Jogues.

257

aijpearnnce in the Iroquois country, cliargcfl with
presents- which lie came to otf'er for tlie ransom of
the missifmarv, wlio was known aniono; tlie tribes
by the name of Ondesson. The presents, he said,
came from tlie French, and he had a letter from
the governor for Ondesson. This embassy laiscd
the credit of Jogues, and got him, for the time,
some ])ity ; but they took the })resents, and kejtt
him still in captivity. At last, having been sent,
in 1G48, to a fishery, which was near a station of
the Dutch, he was rescued from the clutches of his
tormentors by their head man, who, however, hav-
ino; left shortly after, handed him to the care of a
subordinate, at whose hands he suffered extremely
from hunixer and thirst, and from the fear of fallinj;
again into the power of the Iroquois. After a time,
he was taken down tlie Hudson to what was then
the settlement of Manhattan, but is now the city
of New York, and from thence sailed to France, by
way of England. On the loth January, 1(344, he
returned to the colleo;e of his order, at Rennes. In
the spring of l()4o, he was ready, once more, to
return to Canada, and sailed from Rochelle to
Montreal ; and peace having been made in the
interval with the Iroquois, he was chosen as the
pioneer of a new mission among them. On the
IGth May, 1()40, in company with French officials,
he set out on a preliminary journey, to make the
necessary ))ivpa rations, and to rat'.y the peace,
returning to Three Rivers in the end of June.

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Narrative of Father Jogues.

Resolved to lose no time, now that the way was
clear, in organizing his mission, tliougli with a pre-
sentiment that it wonld end in his death, he pro-
ceeded, three weeks after, once more on his way to
the scene of his former sufferings, in company with
a young Frenchman, in a canoe, taking with him
some Hurons as guides. But he went only to
meet the death he had forboded. He had hardly
reached the Iroquois country when he and his
companion were attacked, plundered, stripped
naked, and subjected to the same menaces and
blows which he had experienced before. A letter
from the Dutch traders, some time after, related
how their captors, on the very day of their arrival,
told them they Avould be killed, adding, that they
might be of good cheer, for they would not burn
them, but would simply cut off their heads, and
stick them on the palisades of the village, to let
other Frenchmen, whom they expected to take, see
them on their cominir. The immediate cause of
their murder was, that the Indians insisted that
Jo^ues had left the devil amono; some luo;c;ao;e he
had given them to keep for him, and that their
crop of Indian corn had thus been spoiled. On
the 18th October, 1G46, the end of his sufferings
came at last. Havino; been called from his wig-
warn to the public lodge on that evening, to sup-
per, an Indian, standing behind the door, split his
skull, and that of his companion, with an axe ; and
on the morrow, the gate of the village was gar-

Narrative of Father Joijues.

2£9

nished with their disfigured heads. Only or.e
division of the nation, however — that with which
he hved, whose distinguishing sign or title was that
of the Bear — seems to have been privy to their
murder. The other two — the divisions of the
Wolf and the Tortoise — resented the massacre, as
if committed on two members of their own tribes.

And thus we take leave of the Jesuit martyr and
his remarkable story.

'51 J

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260

TJie Medicine-Man,

CHAPTER XVI.

The medicine-man. — Painled faces. — ]Medals. — An Embassy.—.
RcH^noiis notions. — l-'oast of the dead. — Cliristian Indians.—
Visit to tiie Indians on Lake Huron. — Stolidity of the Indians.—
Henry exorcises an Indian's rifle.

' if ti I

^PHE gi'cat man among all tribes of Indians that
-*- are not very greatly changed is the medicine-
man — a kind of sorcerer, who acts at once as priest
and physician. Arrayed in a strange dress of bear-
skins, or painted leather, with his head hidden in
the scalp of some animal, or decorated with an
extraordinary crest of feathers, this dignitary still
reigns with more power than the chiefs in the out-
lying portions of British America. Their modes
of treatment are strange enough. A poor infant,
in one of the settlements, lay ill of fever, and the
mother, not knowing what to do for it, summoned
the medicine-man to her aid. He came with his
assistant, in full costume, and, having entered the
wigwam where the poor httle creature lay, in a
bark cradle, fillerl with the dust of r<^ten wood,
beijan his doctoring by hollowing a nvFtic circle in
the ground round it, within which none but those
he penuitt'- i \\'\?re to enter. Tlu;n, taking a drum

¥m

Tlie Medicine-Man.

261

wliicli he had with liim, or ratlier, a double tam-
bourine, filled inside with little stones, he commenced
rattlino; it over the child, sinmno; meanwhile with
all his min;ht. The noise was enouo;h to have
^iven a fever to a person in health, and was fit to
have killed a sick baby outright ; but he kept
thumping away, first at its ears — the little crea-
ture crying with fright — then at its back and its
sides, till the sound was wellni<Th deafenino;. Next
came a mysterious course of deep breathing from
the bottom of his stomach, all round the child's
body, which completed his treatment. Strange to
say, the child got better, and of course the faith in
the conjurer greatly increased. " There was a
black thing in its inside," he said, " which needed
to be driven out, and he had done it by the noise
and singing." It must, indeed, have been in s})ite
of him, instead of by his help, that the poor child
was restored.

The dress of the Indians varies at different times,
and accordino; to the deo-ree of civilization they have
reached. Here and there you meet with one who
has adopted European clothing, but these are rarely
seen. They held a feast on a mound, by the road-
side, in the summer after we went to the river —
men, women, and children mustering to take part
in it, Their clothing, except that of one or two,
was about the same as usual — that is, a shirt and
leggings, or the shirt only ; but their faces showed
a most elaborate care in " the getting up." Paint

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Indian Dancing.

of different colors was lavishly expended on them.
One had his nose a bri<2;ht blue ; his eyes, eydids,
and cheeks, black ; and the rest of his face a lively
red. Others had streaks of red, black, and blue,
drawn from the ears to the mouth. Others were
all black, except the top of the f(jrehead, and the
parts round the ears, and the tip of the chin. Two
lads amused me by the pride they evidently took in
their faces ; that of the one being ornamented by a
stroke of vermilion, broad and bright, upward and
downward, from each corner of the mouth, in a
slanting direction ; while that of the other rejoiced
in a broad streak of red and blue, straight across
his cheeks, from each side of his nose. The
solemnities consisted of speechessfrom their orators,
which were fluent enough, and were accompanied
with a great deal of gesticulation, but were totally
incomprehensible to me. Then followed a dance,
in which all the men joined ; some women, sitting
in the middle, beating a rude drum with a bone,
while the men formed in a circle outside, and each
commenced moving slowly round, lifting his legs as
high as possible, at the risk, I thought, of throwing
the dancer before him off his balance, bv some
unhappy accident, which, however, they w^ere skil-
ful enough to avoid. Meanwhile, the orchestra
kept up a monotonous thumping, accompanied by
a continuous grunting noise, which passed for sing-
ing:. There could be nothinor more ludicrous than
to see them with all solemnity pacing round, each

Indian Loyalty.

263

with a leg in the air, as if they had been doing
something awfully important. Dancing ended,
the reward of their labors followed. A huge kettle,
hanging from a stout pole, over a fire close by,
proved to have for its contents the carcass of a
large dog — one of the many who prowl round all
wiiiwams — but it must have been fattened for
the occasion, as they are lean enough generally.
Hands and mouths were the only implements for
the repast, but they served the [lurpose. The })oor
dog made its way, with amazing ra|)idity, down the
crowd of hungry throats ; but the sight so disgusted
IRC that I hastily left them.

The Indians are very loyal in every part of
British America. A number of old men are still
alive who hold medals for their services in the war
of 1812-14 with the United States, and very proud
they are of them. I remember finding a deputation
from some tribe returnino; from a visit to the Gov-
ernor-General, on board one of the lake steamers,
and was struck with the great silver medal, almost
like a porter's badge, which the eldest wore on his
breast, with the well-known profile of King George
III. on it. By the way, one of the three or four
Indians of the party was the handsomest man of
the race I ever saw — tall, of full figure, w.tli ex-
quisite features, and soft curling hair. He must
surely have been partly white. The dress they wore
showed strikingly the meeting of the old wildnesa
and the new civilization. That of the old bearer

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of the medal consisted of ii very brijad-briinined,
liigli-erowned, and hroad-belted blaek hat — such
a liut as I never saw except anion^j; the Indians,
and which nnist liave been niade from a pattern
specially designed to please them by its extraoiili-
nary size ; a light brown shabby fi'ock-coat, with
very short tails and large brass buttons ; a great
white blanket thrown over it, and a pair of ordinary
trowsers, with moccasins on his feet, 'completing the
costume. There was a great slit in his ears for
ornaments ; a string of wamjmm hung round his
neck, and in one hand lay a long Indian pipe, while,
from the other, the skin of a fox, made into a
tobacco-pouch, hung at his side. One of the others
had leggino;s instead of trowsers, with broad bands
of beads at the knees to fasten them, and a bag
about the size of a lady's reticule, wuth a deej) fringe
of green threads nine or ten inches long, all round
it, hung from his arm. I have no doubt that even
the feeble remnant of the race that still survives
would at once otfer to fight for our Queen if their
services should ever unfortunately be needed.
" Their great motlier across the waters " is the object
of as much loyal pride to them as to any of her
countless subjects. Some years ago a United States
officer was removing some Indians from the settled
parts to the other side of the Mississippi, and had
encamped one day, when he saw a party approach-
ing. Taking out his glass, he found that they were
Indians, and forthwith sent off an Indian from liis

llelijioiCH Notions.

205

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own band to meet them, with the stars and stripes
on a Haii'. No sooner was tlu; republican bainuT
displayed, tlian, to the astonishment of the olticer,
the strange In<lian unrolled the Rkt) Cross of St.
George, and held It up as that under which he
ranscd. The American wanted him to exchanfje
Han;s, but he would not ; i\)\\ said he, " I live near
tlic Hudson Bay Company, and they gave me tliis
flao", and told me that it came from mv oreat mother
across the great waters, {\nd would protect me and
my wife and children, wherever we might go. I
have found it is true as the white man said, and 1
will 7U'ver part with it.''^

One of the most intelligent Indians I ever met
was a missionary anion n; his countrvmen in the Fjir
West, who happened to be on a steamer with me.
He gave me a great deal of information respecting
the religious notions of his people, one part of which
I thouo-ht very curious. He said that the Indians
believed that, at death, the spirits of men went to
the west, and came to a broad river, over which
there was no bridge but the trunks of trees laid end-
wise across. On the further side stretched prairies
abounding with all kinds of game, and every possible
attraction to the Indian, to reach which, every one,
as he came, ventured on the r)erilous path that
offered the means of fjettino; over. But the wicked
could not, by any means, keep their footing. The
logs rolled about under them till they slipped in^o
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266

Feast of the Dead,

good Indian, on the contrary, found every thing
easy. The logs lay perfectly still beneath his tread,
some kind influence kept him safely poised at each
treacherous step, and he landed safe and haj^py,
amidst loud welcomes, on the amber bank_ beyond.
The poor creatures seem to think that their friends
need many things after death to which they have
been used in life. Lonely graves may be often
seen in the woods, or, perhaps, they only seem
lonely from the others having sunk down, and in
them, as in those which are gathered together in
the common burial-places of the dilierent reserves,
beneath a little birch-bark roof raised over them,
the surviving friends put, j)eriodically, presents of
rice, tobacco, and other Indian delights. It used
to be the habit in all parts of Canada, as I have
been told it still is in the distant places of the Con-
tinent, to gather all the dead of a nation together,
fi'om time to time, and bury them in a common
grave. Twelve years were allowed to pass, and
then the old men and the notables of the different
divisions of the tribe assembled and decided when
they would hold " the feast," for so they called it,
so as to please each section and the allied tribes as
well. This fixed, as all the corpses had to bo
brought to the village where the common grave
had been dug, each family made arrangements
respecting its dead, with a care and affection which
were very touching. If they had parents dead in
any part of the country, they spared no pains to

Feast of the Dead.

2G7

bring their bodies ; tbey lifted tliem from their
graves, and boie tliem on their slioulders, covered
\\\{\\ tlieir best robes. On a fjiven day the people
of each villa<j;e went to their own cemetery, where
tlie persons who had charfje of it — for there wqyq
parties ajipointed to this office — raised the bodies
in presence of the survivors, who renewed the
(Trief they exhibited on the dav of their Hrst burial.
All the corpses were rano;cd side by side, and, being
uncovered, were exposed thus for a considerable
time, that all around might see what they would
themselves soirte day become. You may think what
a sight this must have been ; some of the bodies
mere skeletons, some like mummies, and others
mere shapeless corruption. Those which were not
reduced to skeletons were, after a little, strip})ed of
tlieir flesh and skin, which, with the robes in which
tliey had been buried, were burned. The bodies
which were still uncorrupted were merely wrapped
in skins, but the bones, when thoroughly cleaned,
were put in sacks or in robes, and laid on their
slioulders, and then covered with another skin out-
side. The perfect corpses were put on a kind of
bier, and, with all the rest, were taken each to its
own wigwam, where the several households held,
each, a feast to its dead.

They have a curious idea respecting the soul, as
the reason of this strange custom — at least those of
them who, not bomg as yet Christians, still practise
it. They think that the dead have two ?ouls, dis-

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268

Feast of the Dead.

tinct and material, but each endowed with reason.
Tlie one separates itself from the body at death,
and hovers over the burial-i)lace, till the Feast of
tlie Dead, after which it is turned into a turtle-
dove, or goes strain-lit to the Land of Spirits. The
other is, as it were, attached to the body, and still
remains in the common grave, after the feast is
over, never leaving it unless to enter the body of an
infant, which the likeness of many of the livinfj to
those who have died seems to them a proof that
they do.

When the feast is over, all the dftid of each vil-
lage are taken to a large wigwam, set apart for tlie
purpose, and fdled with poles and rods, from which
the perfect bodies and the bags of bones are hung,
along with countless gifts which the relatives pre-
sent, in the name of the dead, to some of their liv-
ing friends. This display of their riches accom-
plished, it remain, only to take the ghastly loads to
the common grave on the day appointed, which
they do with frequent cries, which they say lighten
the weiijht and secure the bearers from disease.
At the central rendezvous, the same hann-ino; of the
corpses on poles, and the same display of presents,
is again made, and, then amidst terrible cries and
confusion, the whole are put into the general burial-
pit, which is lined underneath with sable furs, to
make the spirits happy in their homes in the other
world. But they do not bury the presents with
them, nor the outer skins in which they were wrap-

Christian Indians.

269

ped ; these tlicy retain for themselves. In some
trihes, in former times, a f]rreat mound or barrow
lieaped over the spot marked the resting-place of
the multitude, in others the ground was simply
levelled, and then, after rejoicings in their own wild
way till they were tired, the living crowd dispersed,
each ])arty to its own village.*

A threat chanw has come over the customs and
feelings of many of the Indians, since missionaries
went amone; them, and thouo-h in old settlements
you often meet Pagans even yet, there are others
who give the best proofs that they are true Chris-
tians. It is delio-htfui to see them on the Sabbath,
wending their way, calm, and in a right mind, to
their lowly church, tlirougd the glades of the forest ;
and wild though the sound often is, I have listened
to their singing the glorious praises of God with an
interest which I hardly ever felt in any more civil-
ized gathering. One of the hymns which have been
made expressly for them, and of which they are
especially fond, has always struck me as particularly
touching, by its exact appreciation of an Indian's
feelings, and its remarkably skilful adaptation to
their broken Eno;lish. I feel sure it has never
appeared in print before, at least in Britain, as I
got it from a missionary in Nova Scotia, who knew
the author, himself a missionary, and told me it

* Nothing like this is done in Canada now, so far as I know,

but in the " Relations des Jesuites " it is spoken of as the general

custom.

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270

Indian Hymn.

existed only in manuscript, so far as he knew
Here it is :

"THE INDIAN'S PRAYEB.

" In (Ic (lark wood, no Liflian nigh,
Don nic look li(.'l)'ii, and send up cry,

Ui)on my knee so low ;
Dat (Jod on liigli, in shiny place,
See inc in nijrht wid teary faee,
INlv heart, him tell me so,

" Iliui send him angel, take me care,
Iliin come himself, and hcarum prayer,

If Indian heart do pray.
Him see mc now, him know mc here,
Him say, ' Poor Indian, never fear,

Ale wid you night and day.'

" So mc lub God wid inside heart.
He tight for me, he takum part,

He sahe em life before.
God luh poor Indian in de wood,
And mc lul) He, and dat be good.

Me pray Him two time more.

"When mc be old, mc head be gray,
Den Him no Icab me, so Him say,

' Me wid you till you die.'
Den take me up to shiny place,
See white man, red man, black man face
All happy 'like * on high."

One day, in the second summer we were on the

« t. e. I alike.

Lake Huron.

271

river, the clertiyinan asked me, in passing, if I
would like to go up Lake Huron with him, on a
missionary visit to a settlement of Indians, and of
course I told him I sliould. It was soon settled
when we sliould start, which we did in a little boat,
two men iioiiiii' with us to take charge of it. We
had oars with us, but the boat was too heavy for
their easy use, and we trusted to a sail, the cord
from which one of us held in his hand, to prevent
any sudden gust from upsetting us. We were
soon out on the glorious Lake Huron, which, like
all the gi'cat lakes, cannot be distinguished from
the sea by ordinary eyes ; but we did not attempt
to get out of sight of the coast, intending to run
into it if any sudden storm should rise. As dark-
ness set in, the sight overhead was beautiful beyond
any thing, I think, I ever saw. The stars came
out so large and bright, that it seemed as if you
could see behind them intc the depths beyond.
They seemed to hang down like globes of light
from the great canopy of the heavens. It was
deliciously calm, the soft wind from behind, as it
gently swelled the sail, serving to make the feeling
of repose the more perfect. After sailing a day
and a night, and the half of the next day, we at
last reached the point where we were to land — a
narrow tongue of sand, along which a stream, flow-
ing through an opening in the sand-hills that line
the coast, crept into the lake. It took us the rest
of the afternoon to row as far as we wished, and

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272

A Niijlit of Horrors.

to get our supper of beef aiul soiue liard ef;<i;s, with
a euj) of U'ii, witliout milk, wliicli we got ready at
a fire ou tlie l)eaeii. Tlie water we liad to usu
was our gieatest trouble. It was nearly the color
of* ink, fVoui tlie swamps through whieh it had
flowed, and made our tea the reverse of pleasant in
taste ; but there was no choice, so that we madi;
ourselves as contented as possible. Accommoda-
tion for the night was soon provided by stretching
the sail over the mast, wliich was laid on two
forked poles, a yard or so from the ground. Tiiis
gave room for two ; the other two were to sleej»
on the ground without this apology for a covering
A huge fire, kindled close to us, served to keep off'
the mosquitoes, or rather was intended to do so
Wrapping an old buffalo robe, or a quilt, round each
of us, we were soon stretched out to try to get
sleep : but its sweet delight kept far enougli from
us all. Oh ! the horrors of that night. The mos-
quitoes, came down like the wolves on a fold,
piercing through smoke and fire, and searching in
the dark but too successfully for our noses, cheeks,
and hands. The ants, too, were in myriads, and
made their way up our boots to any height they
thought proper. Once in, there was no getting
these })lagues out. We rose, went through every
form of tr()ul)le to rid ourselves of them, but some
still remained to torment us after each eflort.
Then the smoke itself was fit to make one
wretched. It swept in, fn clouds, as often as tlie

:;m ;.

Negotiation with an Indian.

273

fire was stirred. At last, liowever, morning came,
and, with its first dawn, we were up for the day ;
but what fi<i;iires we presented ! My worthy triend's
nose seenir'd to have been turned uj)side down
in tlie ni^lit, the nios(juito-bites liavini!; made it
nuicli tliicker near tlie eyes tlian at the bottom. It
was irresistibly lau«;hable to us all, except the
unfortunate bearer, who was really unwell, partly
through the mosquitoes, partly through the expos-
ure. Luckily for our breakfast, a Potowattomie
Indian — a short old man, in a shirt, leggings, and
moccasins, and crowned with a tremendous hat —
came in sight as we were busy preparing it with
some more of the villanous water. He was soon
amongst us, desiring to see wliat we were, and
vvhat we were doing, and, fortunately for us, the
contents of the kettle attracted his attention. With
unmistakable signs of disgust, he urged us to throw
it out forthw ith, and very kindly went to the side
of the river, and, by scooping out the sand at the
side, close to the stream, with his hands, obtained
at once a little well of water clear as crystal, which
we most gladly substituted for the liquid we had
been using. Meanwhile, an animated negotiation
was being carried on with our benefactor as to the
terms he wished to make for guiding us to the In-
dian settlement — grunts and dumb show having
to do the work of words. A few charges of j^ow-
der and shot, at last, secured his services, and ere
long, aJl being ready, we set out. Our route led

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274

An Indian tb'cUlement,

us directly inland, over the lin<i;(^ barrier of sand,
with which the ed^e of Lake Huron, at that part,
is <(uarded. From its top we looked, far and near,
over the forest, which, close at hand, was very mis-
erable and stunted, from the hinderance to any
chance of drainage offered by the hill on which we
stood. At a distance, however, it rose in all its
unbroken and boundless grandeur — the very imago
of vastness and solitude. Descendinji the inner
8loj)e, we were soon making the best of our way
across the brown water of successive swamps, with
thin trees felled, one beyond another, as the only
bridges. " Mind your feet there, George," cried
my friend, as I was making my way, Blondin fash-
ion, across one ; but he had more need to mind his
own, for the next minute he was up to the knees in
water of the color of coffee. An hour's walking
brought us to the settlement, which consisted of a
number of wigwamsi, raised among very small
clearings, a log-house at one part marking the inter-
preter's house — himself an Indian. A messenger
liaving been sent round, we had before long a con-
gregation in the chaj)el, which was a log-house,
without seats, but with a desk at the one end, the
other being appropriated, in great part, to the door,
which was larj^e enoucjjh to have served for the
door of a barn. The squaws, in blankets, and
blue cloth petticoats, and leggings, with large silver
brooches on their bosoms, and bare heads, scjuatted
down on the one side ; the men, in all varieties of

Stolidity of the Indians.

276

costume, from a shirt upwards, took possession of
the other ; the door standing open during 'the
whole service, so tliat we, at tlie upper end, looked
out into the tbrest, which was close at hand. The
dogs, of course, formed })art of the audience, some
of them lying in the open space of the middle, and
uthers at the door. One, which was more trouble-
some than the others during the service, walked
straight up the middle, and stood looking the cler-
gyman in the face, to his no small annoyance, but
was soon made to suffer for his want of respect.
One of the men rose, silently as a shadow, and
slipped up behind the four-legged hearer till he
came close to liis long tail ; on this his hands
closed in a moment, and then away went the poor
brute, with a great swing, over his head, in a suc-
cession of summersaults to the door, out of which,
when it reached the ground, it rushed with pro-
longed howls, and was seen no more while we were
there. Not a countenance moved while this
extraordinary ejectment was being effected, and the
Indian himself resumed his place as solemnly as if
he had been performing only an ordinary duty.
It was very slow work to speak through the inter-
preter, but the Indians sat it out with patient forti-
tude, trying as it must have been to these wild
creatures, so little prone to sedentary occupation,
to listen to such a tedious process. A walk back,
after all was over, brought us to our boat, which
we had left on the beach, and in due time, after a

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1376

tStoUilitij of the Indians.

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]»leasant sail, \vc swt'pt down tlie St. Clair once
more, <«;l;v(l cnou^iili to «^t't satMy home atxain.

The i)ert'ect stoliditv of the Indians nnder anv
amount ot" excitement is wonderl'nl — unless, in-
deed, under the intiuence ot" whisj^ey, or exeitcd
hy the pursuit of hunting- — for, usually, you mij^lit
as nell expect to move the features of an imaire as
theirs. When railroads were introduced into Can-
ada, they were a scan-ce of wonder to every one
■who had not seen them, the Indians alone exce|)ted.
Tliey did not even spare a <!;runt, hut marched into
the carria<;es with the same composure as if they
had been familiar with them from their chilrlhood.
In anv house they may enter, you c;ni detect no
sign of curiosity, still less of wonder, in any of their
movements. The same cast-iron physioixnomy is
kept from the first to the last, whatever objects of
interest you may have to show them.

It is very hard for us to realize how difficult it is
to get a new idea into such minds. A minister of
my acquaintance, who lived among the Indians,
told me what great trouble he had to teach them
the use of a mill. He had got them to grow some
wheat, and to cut it down, by doing a large part
of the work himself; and when the time came to turn
it into flour, he had to help to put it into sacks, to help
to get it into a canoe, to go witii them to the mill,
to show them how to give it to the miller, get back
the flour, get it put into the sacks again, and then
into the canoe, and paddle homo. Every thing

lyidian Superstition,

277

nr once

had to be acted before they would do it thcm-
.selves.

As nil<:;]it be exjx'cted, tliey are superstitious in
pn^jiortion to their i<:;noraiu'e. One (hiy, an Intiian
<anie to llenrv in threat (hstress, tellini; liini his
<:un was bewitched, and couM not shoot strai;:;lit,
Mild askino- liim it" he could njak'.' it ri^ht. Henry,
of course, knew that tlic : oor I'eMow was oidy
lahorin"^ unch'r a dehision, and at once told him he
wouhl make it all ri^dit. 'le, tlierefo'*- , asked Iwin
to let him iiave it for the ni(i;ht, liis wish bein<r t(|
have an (/ppertunity of cleaning it thoroughly.
Ilavinn; made it all ri^ihc, ou tlic Indian's return
.le handed it to him, with all j-olemnity. tellinf; him
it was perfectly cured now. '* Me shoot ten days
— get nothing," sjiid the unfortunate sportsman.
" It's all riglit, now, though," rejdied Henry, assur-
ing him, besides, that there were no more witches
about it. Some time after, we were sur})rised by
an Indian's coming to tlie house with the liind
legs of a deer, telling us they were from the Indian
for the *' man cured gnu." Henry was from home
at the time, and as he had said nothinif about his
unbewitching the weapon, the gift wiis a mystery
until his return. The gratitude shown for so small
a favor was very touching, and impressed us all in
the Indian's favor. He must have published
Henry's wonderful powers, as well as rewarded
them, for that same winter another Indian came

U) him in the woods, where he hap|)ened to be,

TSf

111 l-f

278

Indian Superstition.

\-i%

with the same story, tluit his rifle was bewitched,
and would not slioot. With a good deal of sly
humor, Henry determined to ])lay the conjurer
this time, as he had no chance of getting the weap-
on home. He therefore told the Indian to sit
down, and then drew a circle round him and the
infected rifle, and proceeded to walk mysteriously
round him, uttering all the while any amount of
gibberish he could think of, and making magic
passes in all directions. After re])eating this a
number of times, he took the rifle into his hands,
and proceeded to examine it carefully, and seeing
that it was in perfect order, lie announced the cere-
mony to be complete, and handed it back again,
with the assurance that he was not to be afraid of
it, that he had only to take a good aim, and that
there were no witches about it now. The Indian
gininted thanks, and made oft*: and Henry heard
no more of it till, some months after, wdien ho hap-
pened to be in a neighboring village, the subject
of his charms, to his surj)rise, came up to him, and
told him " he must be great doctor — Indian's gun
shoot right ever since he cured it." Henry
answered that it had needed no cure, and that he
had only done what he did because the Indian
would not have believed his rifle was right if he
had not done something. WHiat the eftect was on
the Indian's notions I know not, but we certainly
heard no more of bewitched rifles.

,»!

Tlie Hamming-hird,

279

CHAPTER XVII.

The humining-bird. — Story of a pet. — Canada u good country fol
pov^r men. — A bush story of misfortune. — Statute hibor. — Tor-
toises. — The hay season. — Our wagon-driving. — Henry and I
are nearly drowned. — Henry falls ill. — Backwoods doctors.

IT was in May of the second year I first noticed
the humming-bird. There are different species
in Canada in summer, but all seem equally beauti-
ful. When I first saw one, it was like a living
gem, darting hither and thither in the open round
the house, never resting but for a few moments,
while it poised itself on its lovely wings, which
seemed motionless from the very rapidity of their
vibration. No bird flies so fast, small though it be,
so that it is impossible to follow it as it darts from
spot to spot. Later in the season, a bunch of flow-
ers, at an open window, was pretty sure to bring
one quivering over them, preparatory to thrusting
its long thin bill into the cups, to drink the sweets
that lay at the bottom. Sometimes in the even-
ings, they might be seen, for half an hour at a
time, darting at the little clouds of flies which
dance in the air, under the branches of the trees,
or in the open, — retiring to a twig to rest when

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280

The Humming-hird,

tired. They seem, for a great part of tlieir time,
to feed on such insects, the stomach of several
humming-birds, I have heard, liaving been found
full of them when opened. There is a charming
account in a Philadelphia magazine of one vvhicli
showed greater familiarity with man than has ever
been known from any other of its species.* One
of the younoj ladies of a family was sitting at an
open window, when a humming-bird flew in, very
feebly, and dropped on the floor, apparently
exhausted. To pick it up was the work of a
moment ; and the thought that it might be tired
and hungry, after a long flight, forthwith set its
friend to try whether she could tempt it to eat
any thing. Mixing some cream and sugar, and
pouring a little of it into the cup of a bell-shaped
flower, the beautiful creature, to her great deliglit,
at once began to sip, and gathering strength as he
did so, by and by flow ofl" through the window
once more. Next day, and every day thenceforth,
throuorli the summer, the little thino; came back
about the same time, for another repast, fluttering
against the window, if it happened to be shut ; and
whenever he had not got enough, flying backwards
and forwards close at hand, in great restlessness till
a fresh supply had been manufactured. It did not
matter who w%as in the room, the sight of the
flower held out brought him in, when he was wait^

* Quoted in Gosse's " Canadian Naturalist."

Canada good for the Poor,

281

ing for his meal ; iiuleed, his natural timidity
seemed to have been entirely laid aside. Late in
the season, a day passed without his visit, and they
found that, in all probability, he had flown ofi' to
the south for the winter. Whether he came back
again the next s})ring has not been recorded.

Some of the settlers in the bush, back from the
river, were striking examples of the benefits a poor
man may get from coming to such a country as Can-
ada. I used often to go back on various errands,
and was always delighted with the rough plenty of
farmers who, not many years ago, had been labor-
ers at home, with only a few shillings a week for
wages. Now, by steady labor and sobriety, many
amongst them were proprietors of a hundred acres
of excellent land, and sat down at each meal to a
table which even well-to-do people in England
are not in the habit of enjoying. But there were
some cases of failure, which no less strongly
brought the peculiar circumstances of the country
before me. Ten miles away from us, and lying
back from the river, a person who had been a
baker in London, but had determined to turn
farmer, had settled some years before. He built a
log'-house, and cleared a patch, but it was slow
work, as he had to bring on his back all the flour
and potatoes, or what his household needed, the
whole way from the river, through the forest, over
swamps, and every other difficulty that lay in his
road. After a time he fell ill of fever and ague —

24*

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282

A Bush Story of 3Iufortune.

the great curse of new or low-lying districts in
Canada and the States. For eight months he
could do no work, and meanwhile his family were
driven to the greatest straits to keep themselves
alive. At last, he was able to get about once
more. Every thing was behind with him, but he
was still unbroken in spirit. But now came a new
trial : a great tree, winch had been left standing
near his house, fell down across it, breaking in the
roof, though foitunately without killing any one.
The axe and patience offered the means of escap-
ing from this misfortune also ; and, before long,
the tree was removed, and the shattered dwelling
restored. For awhile all went on well enough
after he had thus once more got on his feet. But
his troubles were not yet at an end. Coming
home one night with a heavy load, on his weary
ten miles' road from the front, in crossing a swamp
on a round log, his foot slipped, and a sharp stake
ran through his boot deep into the flesh, impaling
him, as it were, for a time. How he got home I
know not, but of course he left his load behind
him, and had to crawl to his house as best he
could. This last calamity fiiirly crushed his hopes
of success ; and, on recovering, he abandoned his
land, moved with his family to a town eighty miles
off, and took service at his old trade, in which,
after a time, he was able to recommence business
on his own account.

When the roads got pretty dry in the summei"

Statute Labor.

283

time, we were all summoned by the " patlimaster "
of our neighborhood — a dignitary who is elected
annually to superintend the repairs of the different
roads — to do our statute labor. As money to pay
a substitute was out of the question, we had, of
course, ourselves to shoulder shovels, and turn out
for the six days' work required of us. My three
elder brothers, and a number of neighbors, were on
the ground on the day appointed, but they were an
hour or two later than they would have required
any laborers they might have hired to have been,
and they forthwith commenced their task. It was
amusing to see how they managed to get through
the time, what with smoking, discussing what was
to be done, stopping to chat, sitting down to rest,
and all the manoeuvres of unwilling workers. A
tree had to be cut up at one part and hauled together
for burning off; a ditch dug from nowhere to no-
where, at some other point ; a bridge to be repaired,
at a third, by throwing a log or two across it, in the
places from which broken ones had been drawn out ;
a mud hole filled up, at a fourth ; and the corduroy
road, over a swamp, made more passable, at a fifth,
by throwing a large quantity of branches on it,
and covering them deeply with earth, so as to get a
smooth surface. " I guess I've done more for the
Queen, nor she's done for me," said John Courtenay,
as he sat down for the tenth time. " I'll take it
easy now, the boss is up the road," the " boss "
b^^ing the pathmaster, who had gone off to anothei

fell

284

Tortoises,

gang at some distance. You may be sure ouf
engineering was very poorly clone, but it was all
we had to look to to keep the roads passable at all
in the wet weather. The vacant lots, every here
and there, were the greatest hindei'ance to any im-
provements worthy the name, nobody caring to re-
pair the road through an absentee's land, though
all suffered from its beino; neo;lected.

There were a number of tortoises in the ponds,
in the woods, and by the roadside, and they used to
give us a good deal of amusement. They were of
all sizes, but generally not very large, and were
really beautiful in the markings of their shells,
when you had them close at hand. But to get
near enough for this was the difficulty. They
used to come out of the water, in the middle of the
day, to sun themselves, or to sleep, on the dry logs
which lay over it, and the great point was to try to
keep them from plumping off in an instant, rather
than making to the land. It w^as all but hopeless
to try it, but we would not give it up. Sometimes
we came upon them, away from the water a little,
and then we had it all our own way with them.
They move very awkwardly on the ground, and
seem too stupid to do even as much as they might,
but they must not be handled incautiously, for they
give terrible snaps with their horny mouths, which
are like the sides of a smith's vice for hardness and
strength of hold. A poor Scotchman who came
out one summer, found this out to his cost. He

Tortoises.

285

had been coming down the road, and saw a lar^xe
tortoise, or " mud-turtle," as tlie Canadians call
them, apparently sound asleep at the edge of the
creek. Of course, he thought he had come on a
treasure, and determined to catch it if possible.
Stealing, therefore, breathlessly, up to the spot, ho
made a grab at it before it suspected danger, and
in a minute had it swinmno; over his shoulder by its
foreleg. The leg was short, and the round sliield
that covered the creature was therefore close up to
his head. He thought he would take it home, and
show the good folks this wonder of the woods ;
perhaps he thought of taming it, or of making combs
for his wife out of its back shell. At any rate, on
he jogged quite proud of his acquisition. He would
soon get over the five miles more he had to walk,
and then what excitement there would be at the
sight of such a creature. But, by this time, the
turtle had recovered presence of mind enough to
look round him, and accordingly poked his head
out, and in doing so came invitingly close to his
captor's ear, on which his two jaws closed in a
moment. If ever a prisoner had his revenge he
had it. The Scotchman might have pulled his ear
off, in trying to get free, but notliing short of that
seemed of any use. He could not let go the leg,
for that would leave the whole weight of the turtle
hanging from his ear, and he could not keep his
arms up without getting cramps in them. ' But he
had to try. In misery, with his wretched ear bent

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Tortoises,

down close to the shell, and his liands inimovahly
raised to the same shoulder tlie whole way, he had
to plod on, the whole distance, to his house, wherv
his appearance created no small alarm as he came
near. Nothinji could even then be done to loosen
the creature's hold ; it was like a vice, — until at
last they maniitred to relieve him, by getting the
head far enough out to cut it otf", after which the
jaws were at last parted, and the sufferer allowed
to tell his luckless adventure.

One of our neio-hbors used to shock our notions of
propriety by eating the " turtles" he caught.
" There are fish, there are flesh, and there are
fowl on a turtle," he used to say in his bad English,
in describing their charms, but the worthy jNIanks-
man got no one to join him in his appreciation of
them. The Indians have a kind of relioious ven-
eration for them, and would not, on any account,
do them any harm. I knew one who acted as in-
terpreter at a missionary station, who used to say
that the hardest trial he had had, after he be-
came a Christian, was one day in summer, when,
having pounced upon a tortoise, he took it on his
back to carry it home, and was overtaken by a
dreadful storm of thunder and lightnincr. He said
that he could hardly get over the thought, that it
was because he had offended the sacred creature,
and this notion fairly made him perspire with terror ;
but he had the courage to resist his alarm, and
after the sky had cleared, he lifted it once more on

TJie Hay Season.

287

his shoulder, and went liome resolved never to
yield to fear of such a kind a<:!;ain.

The hay in the neighborhood was mown about
the end of June, and as our own su})|)ly was, as
yet, far short of our requirements, we had to buy a
quantity. To get it cheaper, we undertook to send
our wajTon to the field for it, and brino; it home
ourselves. Henry and I were detailed for this
service, and started one morning with the oxen and
the wagon, a frame of light j)oles having been laid
on the ordinary box to enable us to pile up a suffi-
cient load. I had to get inside, while Henry forked
up the hay from the cocks on the ground, my part
being to spread it about evenly. We got on famous-
ly till the load was well up in the frame, the oxen
moving on from one cock to another, through the
stumps, at Henry's commands, but without any
special guidance. All at once, while they were
going at the rate of about two miles an hour, the
wheels on one side e;raduallv rose, and before I
could help myself, over went the whole frame, hay
and all, on the top of Henry, who was walking at
the side. The oxen had pulled the load over a
hillock at the foot of a stump. I was sent clear of
the avalanche, but Henry was thrown on his back,
luckily with his head and shoulders free, but the
rest of his body embedded in the mass. Neither of
us was hurt, however, and we laughed heartily
enough, after we had recovered our self-possession,
the first act being to stop the oxen, who were

m'.\

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288

Henri/ and I nearly Droivned,

it' S:

marcliiiig off with tlie four wheels, as solemnly as
ever, and liad no idea of eoniino; to a halt without
orders. OF course we had to (dear the frame, o-et
it set up again on the wafjjon, and fork up all the
liay once more, but we took care of the oxen the
second time, and met no more accidents.

Henry and I were very nearly drowned, shortly
after this, in that great lumbering canoe of ours, by
a very ridiculou(fe act on our own parts, and an
unforeseen roughening of the water. Some bricks
were needed to rebuild the chinmey, and they
could not be had nearer than the opposite side of
the river. Henry and I, therefore, set off in the
forenoon to get them, and crossed easily enough.
We went straight over, intending to paddle down
the shore till we reached the place where the
bricks were to be had, about two miles below.
Having nothing to hurry us, and the day being
uncommonly bright and beautiful, we made no
attempt to be quick, but drew tlie canoe to the
land, and sallied up the bank to get some ears of
Indian corn which were growing close by, and
offered great attractions to our hungry stomachs.
At last, after loitering by the w^ay for an hour or
two, we reached our destination, bought the bricks,
and paddled our canoe some distance up a stream
to get near them, that we might the more easily get
them on board ; but ignorance is a bad teacher,
even in so simple a matter as loading a canoe with
bricks. We had no thought but how to pack

Henry and I nearly Drowned.

289

them all in at once, so tliat we shouM not liavp to
come over a<i;ain, and kept stowing tlieni in all the
way alono; the canoe, except at each end, where
we reserved a small space for onrselves. When
the whole had been shij)ped, we took onr ])laces —
Henry at the bows, on his knees ; I at the stern,
on a seat made of a bit of the lid of a Hour-barrel
— each of us with his paddle. Jt was dehghtful to
steer down the glassy creek, and when we turned
into the river, and skirted up close to the banks, it
seemed as if we were to get back as easily as we
came, though Henry just then bade me look over
the side, telling me that the canoe was only the
length of a forefinger out of the water, and, sure
enough, I found it was so ; but we never thought
it boded any danger. In smooth water one is not
apt to think of the rough that may follow. We
got along charmingly for a time, under the lee of
the land, which made a bend out, some distance
above our house, on the American side ; we deter-
mined to allow a good deal for the current, and go
to this point, before we turned to cross. Unfortu-
nately for us, in our ignorance of the proper man-
agement of a canoe under difficulties, a great
steamer, passing on to Chicago, swept up the
stream, close to us, just as we were about to strike
out for home, and the ' swell it raised made the
water run along the edge of the canoe, as if it were
looking over and wanted to get in. It lurched and
twisted, got its head wrong, and all but filled, even

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.M"^^'V'i

290

Henry and I nearly Droicned.

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with tills slight agitation. We had ^jot over tin's
trouble when we found, to our alarm, on m'ttiiKr
out from the shelter of the land, that the wind was
getting up, freshly enough to make the mid-stream
quite rough. If we had known the extent of our
dano-er we would have turned back and unloaded
some of our cargo, but no such notion occurred to
us. We therefore determined to make the best of
our way across ; but it was easier determined than
done. The wind and the short chopping waves
together very soon took the management of our
frail bark out of our hands, twisting the canoe
round and round, in spite of all our efforts. Every
little while we would get into the trough of the
stream, and the water would run along from the
bow to the stern, shining over the few inches on
which depended our hope and life ; then, some
would find its way in. The bricks got quite wet.
The empty space in which I sat was filled to my
ankles with water, and Henry shouted that it was
the same at his end. " Paddle hard, George, for
your life — paddle, paddle, and we may get over ; "
and paddle both of us did, at the very top of our
strength. We must have been making way swiftly,
but owing to the noise of the wind, and the confu-
sion of mind we were in, for neither of us could
swim a stroke, we could hot find out whether we
made any progress, and, to add to our bewilder-
ment, round went the head of the canoe the wrong
way, once and again, in spite of us. "Shall I

over this

II iii'ttniii
wind was
id-stream
lit of our
unloaded
c'urred to
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it of our
the canoe
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ill of the
from the
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len, some
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et over ; "
op of our
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he wrong
" ShaU I

Henry falls 111.

291

throw out the bricks, Henry?" I cried. "Yes,
if you can • " but it was next to impossible to do it.
I did, indeed, niana<xe to toss two or three over, but
I was helmsman, and my giving up my ])addle left
us helplessly whirling round. Henry had his back
to the bricks, and of course could do iiothin<r.
He, tlR'i'efore, kept paddling as liard as ever.
Seizing my ])a(l(lle, I joined my etibrts to his, ami,
after a time, found, to my great joy, that the water
was chantj-int:; color — a sure sijrn that we were
much nearer land than we had been a little while
before. A few minutes more, and wc saw the bot-
tom, and knew we were safe ; but not so the
bricks. The canoe sank b(!fore reaching the bank,
immersino; us to the middle, and thonoli we drairircd
it to the land, the bricks were in so bad a state,
that, fi'om our neglecting to take special ])ains with
them, a great many mouldered into red earth.

This was my only dangerous adventure with our
large coffin of a canoe, but many a hard pull I
have had with it. Poor Henrv s^ve me one touMi
day's work, much against his will. He had been
working in the field, and, being very warm, had
drunk a large quantity of water, which brought on
very painful cramps of the stomach. There were
none but our two selves and the girls at home, and
the nearest place to procure medical advice was at
the village where I had got the bricks, across the
river. There was no time to be lost ; Henry was
alarmingly ill, so away I went with the canoe, pad-

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292

Ameidcan Titles.

•A

<lling as liard as I could, and got to my destination
])retty quickly. But to get tlie " doctor " was tlie
difficulty. I found " Major " Thom})son, whom I
knew by sight, standing in his shirt-sleeves at the
door of the coffee-house he kept, and I asked him
if lie could tell me where I should find the medical
" Good morning, doctor," said the " Ma-

man.

jor," in answer — I was no more a doctor than he
a major, but the Americans are fond of assunung
and bestowing titles — " I don't know, p'raps he's
to home — jist ask Gin'ral Northroj), yonder, if
he's seen him come out this mornino' ? " The o;en-
tleman to whom I Avas thus directed proved to be
the leader of the choir in the village chapel, and
followed some trade, but what, I don't know. He
was dressed in a great broad straw hat, bkie shirt,
linen trowsers, and boots, and was very busy load-
ing a cart with furniture at a door up the street.
He was very courteous when I got up to him.
" I guess," said he, "you'll be all right ; I calculate
he's not about yet ; just go down the street, and
turn round that there fence corner, and you,'ll easy
find his place." Thither I went, and was fortu-
nate enough to find the old man, who, in spite of a
dissipated and miserable look, seemed to know his
profession. I could only suppose that he must have
been driven to such a place from pure necessity.
He gave me some stuff from a dispensarj'-, as
strange and uncouth as that of the apothecary in
" Romeo and Juliet : " —

'1 1

Backwood Doctors.

293

" About his shelves
A bejifrnrly account of empty boxes,
Green earthen ])()ts, bhulders and musty seeds,
Keninants of i)a(kthreiid . . .
Were thinly scattered."

Into this saiK'tuin I was taken by tlie back-door,
and found it, in reality, more a hnnber-room tliau
a shop, for tlie window made no sort of disj>lay,
and, everywhere, dirt reigned in undisturbed pos-
session. Having got the medicine, I quickly
regained the canoe, and paddled liome as raj)idly
as possible. But, instead of getting better, poor
Henry seemed rather to get worse, so tliat I liad
to set oif a second time, with a long account of the
symptoms, on paper, to hand to the doctor. This
time, tliank God, he hit on the right prescription,
and I had the unspeakable pleasure of seeing the
poor sufferer greatly relieved by an infusicn we got
inf».de for him when I returned. I verily believe
tliat if he had had no one to go over the river for
him he must have died.

"' The want of sufficient medical help, and too

often the inferior quality of what you can get, is

one of the m'eatest evils of living; in the backwoods.

Henry all but died a year or two after this, fi-om

the treatment he had to undero;o at the hands of a

self-stvled doctor, who came to the neio;hborhood

for a time, and left it when his incompetency was

found out. The illness was a very serious one —

brain fever — and the treatment resorted to was

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294

BacJcwood Doctors.

bleeding and depletion, till life nearly ebbed away
from slieer exhaustion. The poor fellow was made
to take medicine enough almost to kill a stronf^
man ; and was so evidently sinking, that the other
imnates of the house determined to send over for
old Dr. Chamberlain, who had before saved him,
when I went to him. " Killed with too much
medicine," was all he raid, when he had seen the
wasted form of the patient, and heard the stoiy ;
*' if he should get tliroiigli it, it will be in spite of
what has been done, not by its means." He did
get through, but it was a long, weary struggle. I
have known a person come twenty miles in search
of a medical man for his wife, and when he reached
his house, be bitterly disappointed to find the doc-
tor oft' ten miles in an opposite direction. Mr.
Spring, up the river, had good cause to remember
his being at the mercy of an uneducated practi-
tioner. He was going in the dark, one winter
night, to a friend's house, about two miles off',
when suddenly slipping on a piece of ice, he fell
violently on his knee. Trying to rise, he found he
had injured the cap, so that he could not walk.
He had, therefore, to crawl back home again, in the
keen cold of a Canadian night, along the road,
over the field, and down the steep bank, all cov-
ered thickly witli snow. The " doctor," who lived
five miles off", was, of course, sent for next morning
as early as possible. But it would, perhaps, have
been better if he had never been sent for at all, for

Backwood Doctors.

295

he bandaged the leg so tiglitly as ahnost to bring
on mortification ; and tliis he did, too, without
attempting to bring the broken parts together.
The result was a hopelessly stiff leg, after the suf-
ferer had endured many weeks of pain.

We had occasional visits of gentlemen, who join-
ed the medical profession with other pursuits.
They would cure a fever, or act as dentists, and
announced their arrival by calls from house to house.
A friend of mine, who had unfortunately lost a
front tooth, thought he had better take advantage
of such an opportunity, especially as he was going
in a short time up Lake Huron to a public dinner.
" But," said he, when relating the circumstance,
" the fellow was a humbug ; he put in a hickory
peg to hold the new tooth, and when I was in
the middle of my dinner it turned straight out,
and stuck before me, hke a tusk, till I got it tugged

out.

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There was a medical man of a very different
stamp who came among us some years after this,
when I hau left the river, and of whom I have
heard some curious stories. Dr. White — let that
be his name — had been in large practice in Ireland,
but had unfortunately fallen into dissipated habits,
which compelled him to emigrate. To raise the
means of reaching Canada, his wife had sold an
annuity she enjoyed on her own life, after his engag-
ing that he would give up his intemperate habits.
He first settled in one of the towns, but afterwards

296

Backwood Doctors.

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came to our part, and bon«:5lit a farm, iiitonding to
help his income by working it. His old habit,
however, to the regret of all, broke out again, and
destroyed his prospects, in spite of his being looked
up to, throughout the district, as the best "• doctor "
in it. People often came from a distance to consult
him, and were doomed to find him lielj)less ; and
this, of course, speedily ruined his practice. In-
stances of his skill, however, still linger in the minds
of many in the settlement, accompanied with great
regret, that a man at once so clever and comely
should liave been so great an enemy to himself.
He had a rough humor sometimes, when he was a
little under the mfluence of drink, which was very
diveitinii;. Hvnry was one nio;ht at his house in
the winter, when a rap came to the door. The
others being busy, Henry rose to o])en it, and found
two men, who had come through the frightful cold
to get the doctor's assistance. The one, it appeared,
could not speak, from some abscess or boil in his
throat, which he had come to get lanced or other-
wise treated. On being taken into the hall, which
had a stove in it, and was comfortable enough, the
doctor made his apj)earance, and walked uj) to the
sufferer with a candle in his hand. " What's the
matter with you ? " The patient sim])ly opened
his mouth wide, and pointed into it with his fingers.
*' Let me see," said White. '' Open your mouth,
sir " — taking the candle out of the candlestick,
and holding it close to the poor fellow's face. The

Backwood Doctors.

297

mouth was, of course, instantly opened as widely
as possible, and the blazing candle was as instantly
sent dash into it, as far as it would o-o, raisino; a
yell from the })atient that might have been heard
over the next farm, which was followed by a rush
outside the door to clear his mouth, as he seemed
half choked. " Bring a light here," cried White,
coming to the door quite coolly. " How do you
feel, sir ? " The blow with the soft candle, the
fright, and the yell, all together, had wrought a
miracle on the poor fellow. His trouble was clean
gone. " I'm better, sir — what's to pay ? " " Noth-
ing at all," replied White; "good night to you,"
and the scene was over. Henry laughed, as he
well might, at such an incident ; and after awhile
ventured to ask the doctor if there were no instru-
ments that would have done ? " Certainly there
are, but do you think I'd dirty my instruments on
a fellow like that? the candle would do well
enouo-h." Poor White died some time after, throuo;h
intemperance. His widow and family were enabled
to ^t back to Ireland by the sale of all the effects
he had ; and on their arrival, his friends took charge
of the children, and the widow went out as a gover-
ness to India.

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Hiding.

CHAPTER XVI il.

American inon and women. — Fireflies. — Profusion of insect life. —
Grasslioi)i)ers. — Frederick and David leave Canada. — Soap-
making. — Home-made candles. — Kecipe for washing quickly.
— Writing letters. — The parson for driver.

AS the delicious nights of summer drew on again,
it was a pleasure of which we never wearied
to ride over to some neighbor's to spend an hour or
two. The visit itself was always delio-htful, for we
could not have wished better society, but the un-
speakable loveliness of the road was no less so.
We very soon got a couple of horses, every one else
haA'ing them, for no one in Canada ever thinks of
walHng if he can help it. I have often wondered
at tins, for the same persons who would not stir a
step, if possible, in Canada, without a horse, or sfJne
conv'syance, would have been fond of walking if
they had remained in Britain. It cannot be because
they have horses in the one country and had none
in tlie other, for, in towns, there is no such liking
for walking, though there are few who either own
or '■an borrow a horse or vehicle, and those in the
country who have neither wmII send in all directions
to ask the loan of a neighbor's horse rather than

American Men and Women.

299

walk a few miles. Probably the great heat of sum-
mer renders the exertion of walkinji; irksome to most
people ; and, on the other hand, in winter, the
cold and the snow are such hinderances as to throw
them out of the habit of it. There seems no doubt
besides, that the effects of the climate on Europeans
is to enfeeble them gradually, though tliey may not
exhibit any symptoms of rapid decay, or suffer from
any acute disease. The red cheeks of the inliabit-
ants of Britain are very soon lost in Canada, and
you very seldom see the stout, hearty people so
common in England.

But I am forgetting my rides on the old mare,
Kate, in the summer evenings. I was walking her
slowly up the road one night, when I was struck by
innumerable flashes of light among the trees in the
forest at my side. I tried every theory I could
think of to account for it, some of them ridiculous
enough, but it was not till I came home tliat I hit
on the right one, which I might have been sure of
at first. The phenomenon in question was nothing
but an immense number of fireflies sporting among
the branches, and their motion made them seem as
if every leaf were a Leyden jar giving off a succes-
sion of electric sparks. I had often seen them be-
fore, but never in such amazing swarms. They
must have been holding some grand carnival, some
firefly's ball, with endless dancing and wonderful
illumination. The insects that make this brilliant
display are a kind of beetle, about three-quarters of

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300

Fireflies.

an incli in leno;tli. Tlicy opive out their liij-lit from
difFerent ])arts of tlioir bodies, ])iit cliiefly from the
lower luilf, and are often caiiglit and kept for a
time in bottles as a curiosity. In other countries
they are said to have been put to various uses, but
I never heard of their being so employed in Canada.
TheCaribs of St. Domingo, a race of Indians whose
memory is now passing away, were formerly
accustomed to use them as living lamps in their
evening household occupations, just as we use can-
dles. In travelling at night the}'' fastened them to
their feet, and in fishing or hunting in the dark
they made them serve as lights to guide them.
Moreover, as the fireflies destroy ants, they gave
them the freest entry to their wigwams to help to
rid them of these pests. Southey, in his poem of
*• Madoc," tells us, that it w'as by the light of this
insect Coatel rescued the British hero from the
hands of the Mexican priests :

!HN i

" She beckoned and descended, and drew out
From underneath her vest a catrc, or net
It rather might be called, so fine the twigs
That knit it — where, confined, two fireflies gave
Their lustre. By that liglit did Madoc first
Behold the features of his lovely guide."

I am afraid he would have remained ioniorant of
her loveliness, if the discovery had depended on the
lioht of Canadian fireflies, which are very beautifid,
indeed, in their momentary brightness, but are far

Profusion of Insect Life.

301

too dim for any thing more. I have often been
reminded, as I have seen one, here and there, kind-
ling liis httle spark for an instant, and saihng in
ligl)t, for a brief ghmpse, across the night, of the
fine figure in which Coleridge compares the illumi-
nation afforded by philosophy, in the ages before
Christ, to the radiance with which "the lanthorn-
fly of the tro|)ics " lights up, for a moment, the
natural darkness. It is equally beautiful and apt.

It is wonderful to see wdiat a profusi«)n of insect
hfe sometimes shows itself in the summer-time in
Canada. I was once sailino; down the Niagara
River to Chippewa, which is the last port above
the Falls, in the month of September, when, all at
once, the steamer entered a dense snowy cloud of
white gnats, so blinding, from the countless num-
bers, that all on deck had either to get below, or
turn their backs, or stand behind some protection.
You could see the land throuo;h them only as you
would have seen it through a snow-storm, and this
continued till wo reached our destination — a dis-
tance of several miles. How many millions of mil-
lions of these frail creatures must there have been ?
There is another fly that I have also seen in vast
numbers — the May-fly, which, however, makes its
appearance not in May generally, but in June.
But it is so disagreeable-looking, that my only
desire on beholdino; it has been to get out of its
way. Butterflies are sometimes met with in simi-
lar clouds. I have seen large numbers of them in

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Profusion of Insect Life.

the air, or resting on the earth ; but Sir James
Emerson Tennent tells us, that in Ceylon, they
sometimes fly past in flocks apparently miles in
breadth, and in an unbroken stream, for hours and
even days together.* What a vast amount of life
there must be over the "world, at any one time,
when such an amazing fulness of it is met at even
a single point ! Canada has, indeed, too much
cause to feel this, as regards the insect tribes, for,
of late years, it has been visited by such a suc-
cession of pests as often to injure its harvests to a
great extent. The " army-worm," as it is called,
the weevil, the wireworm, the midge, and the
locust, or, as the Canadians call it, the grasshopper,
have each invaded districts, whicli, on their appear-
ance, were rich with the promise of abundant crops,
but were left waste and ruined when they had
passed over it. The grasshopper is the most easily
noticed of these plagues, as its size and its curious
noise in flying, and the way it strikes against your
clothes, and instantly fastens on them, are sure to
draw attention. They seem to be a new arrival in
Canada, having apparently travelled thither gradu-
ally from the vast prairies of the Far West. At
the Red River they are met with in legions that
enable one to realize what a curse the locusts must
have been to the Egyptians of old. As soon as the
de'V is off the grass in the mornings they take short

* Sir J. E. Tennent'3 " Ceylon," i. 247.

rass/ioj^jH'rs

303

flights, as if to pro})jire for the day's work, and
ahout nine o'clock, rise in cloud after cloud and fly
off. Ahout noon the nunihers seem greatest. The
light is then palpably obscured — there is an
luiearthly ashen light over every thing — the air
is filled as if with flakes of snow, sometimes to
nearly a thousand feet in height, and changes from
blue to silver-gray, or to ash or lead color, as the
clouds grow deeper or diminish, a quivering motion
filling it, as the light strikes on the myriads of mov-
ing wings. A sound, indescribable, biit overpower-
ing, from the thought of its source, comes down
from the vast hosts, filling the mind with a sense
of awe and amazement. Such flights have hitherto
been seen and heard only outside the settled parts
of Canada, but, in every part of it there are nuilti-
tudes. I have seen them in countless thousands in
the fields and on the roads, and have often caught
them to look at the wonderful beauty of their
limbs, which are finished far more elaborately than
the finest ornament, and are suited to the habits
and wants of the creature in the most admirable
manner.

The summer of the second year saw a diminution
of our family circle, by the departure of Frederick
and David to the United States, to push their for-
tunes there. They did not like farming, and were
attracted by the population and wealth of the
States, as compared with Canada. It was a sad
time with us who remained, when they left us. In

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S04 Frederick and David leave Canada,

those days a groat many young men left tlic prov-
ince, from the ditHculty of finding suitable employ-
ment in it. Where nearly all were farmers, and
money was very scarce, and the towns mere vil-
lages, there was, of course, very little to do, and it
was not to be wondered at that vouni? men did not
relish the thouixht of spendinu' their lives as diiv-
laborers on a })iece of ground, with no better
reminieration for hard work than the food they ate
and the rough clothing they wore. Any thing
more was not, in those days, to be hoped for.
Since then, indeed, there has been a great change.
The first race of settlers have made their farms
valuable hv many years' hard work and careful
culture, and fine brick houses have taken the place
of the shanties and log-houses which vScrved at first.
Some years of high prices made them all think
their fortunes sure at once, and every one got his
gig and his piano, and the girls went to boarding-
schools, and the vounii: men idled and fiaunted
round in fine i lothes. If fewer leave Canada for
the States no%v, it is not because they are any
fonder than evor of hard work. Even where their
fiither's fanns would pay for hiring men to work
them, they like to be gentlemen, and flock in
crowds to turn doctors or lawyers in as easy a way
as possible. It is wonderful how many there are
of both these professions, and how many more
hurry on to enter them. But there were no such
openings in the early days of our settlement, and

Hard Strmjjh'.s.

3(Ui

my brothers must oithcr liuve plodded on, driving
oxen ;iiul luK'in«i;, idoniiliin;:;, harrowing, and ilie
hke, or have k>l"t tor tlie great country across tho
river. Tlieychd not lind life veiy sunny, liowever,
even in tlie States, and l)oth liad hard struggles at
lirst to ixet on. l*oor Fredrrick, indeed, never i^ot
very far \\\) in the world, a lever cutting him ott'
seme years after, wIk'H he was on a journey in the
South, lie died without a creature he knew ni'ar
him, and indeed we did not know that ho Avas
ij;ono till nearly a year after. l)a\id gradually
made his way, and has long been comfortal)ly set-
tled in a rising town in one of the Western States ;
hut his advancement rose from his luivino; had the
good fortune to buy some land where a town grew
up shortly after, which enabled him to make a
good deal of money. Our household, when they
liad left us, was very quiet compared with the ])ast
— only Robert, Henry, and I remaining, with my
two sisters as the mistresses of the mansion.

What a curious Robinson-Crusoe life we led in
many ways in those first years. A barrel raised
on a stand, the bottom full of holes, and covered
with a layer of straw, and a number of chaimels
iiouoed out in the board cm which it rested, formed
the primitive machine for our soajvmaking. All
the ashes from the fires were thrown into the bar
rel, and, when it was full, a quantity of water
poured into it made the alkaline lev that was
needed, a pail at the edge of the board below

26*

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Soap-makinij.

catching it as it drained off. In summer time it
was enouo;li merely to throw this ley into another
barrel, put in the fat left from our daily table, and
stir the mixture together now and then, and the
sun made soap of it, without any further trouble on
our j)art. In colder weather it had to be put on
the fire until the desired transmutation had been
effected. The ley looked so yery like strong tea,
that I was often afraid of some accident, where any
of it had been left in a cup or bowl. To drink it
would have been certain and awful death, as we
did not then know how to neutralize the effect if
we had taken it. Noah Nash, a young lad in the
neighborhood, was all but fatally poisoned by it one
day ; indeed, nothing sayed him but his presence
of mind, and the fact that he had an acid in the
house. Chancing to come in yery much heated,
and seeing a cupful of nice strong-looking tea in
the window, he swallowed nearly the whole of it
before he had time to think that, instead of tea, it
was the terrible alkali that had been drawn from
tho ashes. The serious consequences of his mis-
take flashed on him in an instant. Snatchino- a
tumbler, he ruslied to tlie cellar, where, })roy-
identially, there h!ii)])ened to be a barrel of vinegar,
and in a moment filled the glass, and drank down
successiye draughts of it, and was thus sayed, the
acid effectually neutralizinij; the alkali in the stom-
ach ; but, quick as he had been, his mouth and
throat were burned to such a degree by the potash,

Home-made Candles,

307

that the skin of the mouth peeled away, day after
day, m strips, and he had to be fed on the simplest
preparations long afterwards. Our candles were a
branch of home manufacture in which we rather
excelled after a time, though, to tell the tmth, the
ijuantity used was not very great. We had
l)()iio;ht candle-moulds of tin, and put aside any fat
suiuible for candles, till we had enovigh to make
what woidd fill them ; and then, what threading
the wicks into the moulds at one end, and tvinii;
them over little pieces of \>ood at the other — what
proud encomiums over one that kept ftiir in the
middle — what a lauMi at another which had in
some eccentric way run down one side of the tal-
low, leaving the whole round of the candle undis-
turbed by any intrusion of the cotton. But we
would not have made the fortune of any tallow-
chandler had we had to buy all we burned, for we
only lighted ne at tea, or for a minute or two on
going .0 .1, or to enable some one to read, when
a craving for literary food set in. Lumps of pine,
fuU of resin, were our more customary style of
illumi lation, its flaming brightiiess, leaping and
flarino- thouorh it was, sufficincc tor our ordinary
requirements. We used to sit for hours round the
fire, talking and dozino; ; to read was a huge efibrt,
after hard work all day, and it M-as too cold, while
tlie fire was kept up, to sit at any distance from it.
In some houses. .!. h' ve 'vuown candles kept as
sacredly for doing h rior (o a stranger as if they

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Mude Accommodation.

ii^

had been made of silver. A rag in some grease,
in a saucer, usually served for a lamp, and an inch
or two of candle was only brought out when a
guest was about to retire. Many a ti)'ie I have
known even visitors, in the rough bush, sent to bed
in the dark. We were, however, in some things,
wonderfully before the people settled back from the
river. Most of them were content to put up with
the very rudest accommodation and co • ^eniences ;
one room, containing several beds, jlteu holding
not only a whole household, but any passiiig stran-
ger. How to get out and in, unseen, was the
great difficulty. I have often been in trouble about
it myself, but it must surely have been worse for
the young women of the family. As to any basin
or ewer in the room, they were Capuan luxuries in
the wild bush. " I'll thank you for a basin, Mrs.
Smith," said I, one morning, anxious to make my-
self comfortable for the day, after having enjoyed h' i
husband's hos])itality overnight. It was gloriousi\
bright outside, though the sun had not yet shown
himself over the trees. " Come this way, Islr.
Stanley ; I'll give it you here," said Mrs. Smith.
Out she went, and lifted a small round tin pie-dish,
that would hold hardly a quart, poured some water
into it from the pail at the door, which held the
breakfast water as well, and set it on the top u? u
stump, close at hand, with the injunction to " niok •
haste, for there was a hole in the bottom, and if I
didn't be quick the water would all be gone."

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Writing Letters.

309

Luckily, I was all ready ; but there was no offer of
soap, and so I had to make my hands fly hither and
thither at a great rate, and finish as best I could by
a hard rubbing with a canvas towel.

To write a letter in those days was by no means
a light task. Ink was a rare commodity, and stood
a great deal of water before it -was doni?. When
we had none, a piece of Indian-ink served pretty
well ; and when that was lost, we Used to mix
gunpowder and vinegar together, and make a kind
of faintly-visible pigment out of the two. The only
paper we could get was dreadful. How cruelly the
pen used to dab through it ! How invincibly
shabby a letter looked on it ! The post-office was
in a store kept by a French Canadian, and was
limited enouo;h in its arranojements. I remembei
taking a letter one day a little later than was right,
as it appeared. " The m'ail's made up, Mr. Stanley,"
said the post-master, " and it's against the law to
open it when it's once sealed ; but I suppose I may
as well oblige a friend." So saying, he took down
a piece of brown paper from the shelf behind him,
cut round some seals which were on the back of it,
and exposed the " mail ; " which, forsooth, I found
consisted of a single letter ! Mine was presently
laid peaceftdly at the side of this earlier sharer of
postal honor, and I hope did not make the bundle
too heavy for the mail-boy's saddle-bags.

It used to amuse us to see how readily every one
round us took to new occupations, if any thing

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^ew Occupations.

m'A

hindered his continuing the one in whicli he had
previously been engaged. You would hear of a
tailor turning freshwater sailor, and buying a flat-
bottomed scow, to take goods from one part of the
river to another ; one shoemaker turned miller, and
another took to makino; and selling " lumber." A
young lad, the son of a minister, who wished to get
- j-^ood education, first iiired himself out to choj)
e. 1-wood, and when he had made enough to buy
books, and keep a reserve on hand, he engaged
with a minister over the river, who had an " acad-
emy," to give him tuition, in return for liaving his
horse cleaned, and the house-wood split. Working
thus, he gained Latin and Greek enough to go to
college ; but had to return to his axe, and work for
another winter, to get money to pay the expenses
of the first session. This obtained, off lie set, and
ended by taking the degree of M. A. at Yale College,
Connecticut. In the mean time, however, a change
had passed over liis mind as to becoming a clergy-
man ; and instead of seeking a church, he went in-
to partnership with his brother in the patent medi-
cine trade, in which calling, I suppose, he is now
engao-ed in one of the United States' cities.

I was once travelling on a winter night, in a
public stage, on the edge of Lake Ontario. The
vehicle was a high wagon, with a linen cover
stretched over around framework, lik« a gipsy tent.
I was the only passenger, and had taken my place
in the body of the machine. This did not suit the

The Parson for Driver,

311

driver, however, who seemed to feel lonely ; and,
after a time, turning round to me, said — "I guess
we'd be better to";ether this cold niMit. Come this
way — wont you? " Of course, I instantly com-
plied ; and then received, among much various
information on matters interesting to coach-drivers,
a narrative of his own life, a portion of which I
still remember :

** I'm a reg'lar preacher, you see," said he. *^ I
was on the circuit round Framley for one turn, and
they promised pretty fair, but I didn't get enough
to keep house on. Then I got changed to Dover
circuit, and that was worse. Says I to my wife —
' Wife,' says I, ' preachin' wont keep our pot bilin,'
anyhow — I must scare up somethin' else, somehow.*
So I heard that there was a new stage to be put on
at Brownsville ; and I Avent to Squire Brown, and
told him that, if he liked, I'd drive it ; and so,
here I am — for, you see, the mail-stage has to go,
even if a parson should have to drive it ;" and he
ended with a broad grin and a long laugh — ha —
ha — ha I

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Americanisms.

-jitf _

CHAPTER XIX.

Americanisms. — Our poultry. — The wasps. — Their nests. —
" IJob's " skill In killing them. — Raccoons. — A hunt. — Rac-
coon cake. — The town of Busaco. — Summer " sailing " — Boy
drowned. — French settlers.

WE were struck, as every new comer is, by the
new meanings put by Canadians on woids,
tlie new connections in which they used them, and
the extraordinary way in wliich some were pro-
nounced. Of course, we heard people " guessing "
at every turn, and whatever any one intended
doing, he spoke of as " fixing." You would hear
a man say, that his wagon, or his chimney, or his
gun, must be " fixed ; " a girl would be ready to
take a walk with you, as soon as she had " fixed
herself; " and the baby was always " fixed" in the
mornino;, when washed and dressed for the dav.
" Catherine," said a husband one day to his wife,
in my hearing, pronouncing the last syllable of her
name, so as to rhyme with line, " I calculate that
them apples '11 want regulatin'," referring to some
that were drying in the sun. *They " reckon " at
every third sentence. A well-informed man is said
to be " well posted up " in some particular subject.

Americanisms.

313

Instead of " wliat," they very commonly say
" hoNV," in asking questions. A Jiony was praised
to me as being *' as fat as mud." In place of our
exclamations of surj)rise at the communication of
any new fact, the hstener will exclaim, '' I want to
know." Any log, or trunk of a tree, or other
single piece of timber, is invariably a " stick," even
if it be long; enouo;li for a mast. All the stock of
a timber-yard is alike " lumber." An ewer is " a
])itcher ; " a tin-pail is " a kettle ; " a servant is " a
help ; " an employer is " a boss ; " a church pew is
" a slip ; " a platform at a meeting is " a stage ;''
children are "juveniles ; " and a baby is " a babe."
In pronouncing the word engine, or ride, or j)<)int,
or any other word with vowels prominent in it, if
you would imitate a Canadian, you would need to
open your mouth very w ide, and make as much of
each sound as you can. Of course, I speak only of
the country folks, native born ; the town })eople,
and the educated classes, generally speak as correctly
as the same classes in England. We cannot help
noticing, moreover, that all these corruptions are
trifling compared with those which we find in the
popular dialects of different parts of our own country.
You can travel all throuiyh Canada and understand
every thing you hear, except a word now and then ;
but at home, to pass from one shire to another is
often like passing to a different people, so far as
regards the language. The great amount of travel-
ling now-a-days compared with the fixed life of our

27 »

If.'

^■A

314

Our Poultry.

;■ (

forefathers, may serve to account for this. People
of every nation meet in Canada, and all come to
speak very nearly alike, because they move about
so much ; but the various races that settled in
]^]iigland or Scotland ages ago kept together closely,
and consequently each learned to speak in a wa\
of its own.

Our poultry increased very soon after our com-
mencing on the river, until it became quite a flock ;
but we had a good deal of trouble with them. TJie
weasels were very destructive to the chickens, and
so were the lien-hawks, and chicken-hawks, which
W'.'re always prowling round. But the hens man-
aged to beat off the last of these enemies, and a
terrible noise they made in doing so. The whole
barn-yard population used to give Robert great
annoyance, by Hying over the fence he had put up
round a piece of ground set apart as a garden ; but
lie succeeded in terrifying them at last, by rushinif
out with a long whip whenever they made their
a]:)})earance. The very sight of him was enough,
after a time, to send them oif with outstretched
wings and necks, and the most amazing screeches
and cackling ; it was laughable to see their conster-
nation and precipitate flight. Our turkeys were a
nuisance as well as a comfort to us : they were
much given to wandering, and so stupid withal,
that if they once got into the woods we rarely saw
them again. The only plan was to have their wings
cut close, and to keep them shut up in the barn-

Large Qaant'dles of Eggs.

316

yard. In compensation for this trouble, liowevi-r,
we took ample revenge both on tliem and the cocks
and hens, alike in person and in the harvest of eggs,
which formed a main element in most of our dishes.
We needed all we could get. As to eggs, it seemed
as if any quantity would have been consumed.
There was to be a " bee " one time, to raise a second
barn ; and my sisters were in great concern becaus
they could not find out wliere the hens were laying.
At last, they saw one go down a hole in the barn
floor, and instantly concluded they had discovered
the secret hoard. A plank was forthwith lifted,
and there, sure enough, were no less than twenty
dozen of eggs lying in one part or another. It was
hard work to get them out, but Henry and I helped,
and we brought them all to the house. In a week
or ten days there were not two-dozen left. The
men wdio had attended the " bee," and one or two
whom we kept on at wages, had devoured them all
in cakes and puddings, or in the ordinary way.
But what would these bush-fellows not get down ?
One day, we had a laborer with us, and Eliza, to
please him, set out a large glass dish of preserves,
holding, certainly, a pound \\ j;ht at the least.
She thought, of course, he would take a little to his
bread ; but his notions on the subject were very
different, for, drawing the dish to him, and taking
up a tablespoon, he sui)ped down the whole in a
succession of huge mouthfuls. I have known a
hired man eat a dozen of eggs at his breakfast !

lv;/

316

Wasps.

«:

The wasps were very numerous round the house
in sunnner. A nest of these creatures ens(;once(l
tliemselves m a hole between two loj^js, in tlie front
j)art of it, and, as they never trouble us, we did not
trouble them. But not so our little terrier, lioli.
The mouth of the nest was about a vard from the
oi'ound, and admitted only one at a time. liehnv
this. Bob would take his seat for hours tooethei-,
watchino; each arrival ; sometimes lettinn; them oi)
in peaceably, but every now and then jum])inii; up
at them, with his lips drawn back, and <2;iviiio; a
snap which seldom failed to kill them. The little
fellow seemed to have quite a passion for wasp-
hunting. The dead proofs of his success would
often lie thick over the ground by evening. How
the colony ever bore up against his attacks I cannot
imagine. One day we saw John Robinson, a la-
borer, whom wc had engaged, rushing down in hot
haste from the top of the field, flinging his arms
al)f>ut in every direction, and making the most
extraordinary bobbing and fighting, apj)arently at
nothing. But, as he got near, he roared out, " I've
tumbled a wasp's-nest, and they're after me," and
tliis was all we could cret out of him for some time.
Indeed they follow^ed him quite a distance. lie
fiad been lifting a log that was imbedded in the
ground, when, behold ! out rushed a whole townful,
sendino; him off at once in iiTjnominious flioht. I
used to think the nests of the wasps, whiclf we
Bometimes found hanging from branches in the

Ilaccoom.

817

woods, most wonderful specimens of insect manu
facture. They were oval in form, with the mouth
at the bottom, and looked often not unlike a clumsily
made boy's to]). But of what material do you
think they were consti;ju'ted ? Of paper — rral
true paper, of a greyish color, made by the wasps
gnawin*;' otf very small pieces of decayed wood,
which thev bruise and work up till it chanues its
character, and becomes as much paj)er as any we
can make ourselves. It is wonderful that men
should not have found out, from such a lesson, the
art of making this most precious production much
sooner than they did.

The raccoons, usually called 'coons, were a great
nuisance when the corn was getting ripe. They
came out of the woods at night, and did a great
deal of mischief in a very short time. We used to
luuit them by torchlight, the torches being stri])s
of hickory bark, or lumps of fat pine. We could
have done nothing, however, without the help of
our dogs, who tracked them to the trees in which
they had taken refuge, and then v •- lot them by
the help of the lights, amidst prodigious excitement
and commotion. It was very dangerous to catch
liokl of one of them if it fell wounded. They
could twist their heads so far round, and their skin
was so loose, that you were never sure you would
not get a bite in wliatever way you held them.
The Weirs, close to us, got skins enough one
autumn to make fine robes for their sleigh. I

27*

Si I

f|.;|lil:

' f 1

f- ^

' M

J518 A liaccoon Hunt.

never knew but one man who li;i(l eaten raccoon,
.and lie was no wiser tlian he needc'l to be. He
was a farm-laborer, wlio stannnered .ns speecli,
and lived all alone, and was deplorably i<i;norant.
Meetino; him one day after a hunt, in which he had
^ot !i large raccoon for his share, he stopped me to
speak of it thus — ' Gre-e-at rac-ocoon that —
tliere was a ])-i)Int of oil in him — it m-made a-a
m-most beautiful shortcake ! " I wished him joy
of his taste.

I rememb'cr one raccoon hunt which formed a
subiect of convers'ition for lonij: after. Mr. Weir's
field of Indian C(.>rn had been sadl} 'ured, and
our own was not much better, so we jtcsolved on
destroying some of the marauders if possible. All
the young fellows for miles up and down the river,
gathered in the afternoon, to get a long talk bel'ore-
liand, and to make every preparation. Some of
us saw to the torches — that there were plenty of
them, and that they were of the right kind of
wood ; others looked to the guns, to have them
properly cleaned, and the ammunition ready. " I
say, Ned Thompson," said one, "I hope you wont
be making such a noise as you did last time, fright-
ening the very dogs." But the speaker was only
told, in return, to keep out of the way of everybody
else, and not run the risk of being taken for a 'coon
himself as he went creeping along. In due time
all work was over for the night on our farm, the
dogs collected^ a hearty supper enjoyed, amidst the

A liaccoon Hunt.

;U9

1 raccoon,
l)c. Ho
IS speccli,
iViiorant.
eh lio had
\K'd me to
n that —
■made a-a
1 him joy

formed a
[r. Weir's
m*ed, and
'solved (111
ible. All
the river,
Ik before-
Some of
plenty of
kind of
ave them
ady. " I
you wont
le, frioht-
was only
verybody
[)r a 'coon
due time
farm, the
midst the

boasts of

1 th

)kes of othuis, :iud off wo

)asts ot some and tne joKes oi oiiieis, .vna
s( t. The moon was very youn«jj, but it luuig in
the clear heavens like a silver ))ow. A short walk
In-ought us to the forest, and here we spread our-
selves, so as to take a larger sweej), intending that
the two wIn<LS should irnulually draw round and

~ O I.'

make |)art of a circle. We could see the crescent
of the moon, eveiy now and then, through the
fretted ro()f of branches, but it would have been
very dark on the siu-face of the ground had not the
torches lent us their b' ightness. As it was, many
a stumble checked our steps. It was rough work
— over logs, into wet spots, round trees, through
brush, with countless stubs and j)ieces of wood to
keej) y( u in mind that you must lift your feet well,
like the Indians, if you did not wish to be tripped
up. The light gleaming through the great trees
on tlie wild })icture of men and dogs, now glaring
in the red flame of the torches, now hidden by the
smoke, was very exciting. The dogs had not, as
yet, scented any thing, but they gradually got
ahead of us. Presently we heard the first baying
and barking. We forthwith made for the spot,
creeping up as silently as possible, while the dogs
kept the distracted raccoon from making its escape.
IIow to get a glimpse of it was the trouble.
" There's nothing there that I can see," whispered
Brown to me ; but the dogs showed that they
thought differently, by the way they tore and
Bcratchcd at the bottom of the tree. What with

■111, i^ijij ,.>||!

'IkI Mi'

'> i

.:(>«

:ii

■ 1 <H 3*11

•rli

320

The Toivn of Busaco.

tlic leaves, the feebleness of the moonhght, and our
distance from tlie object, every eye was strained,
for a time, witliout seeing* a sign of any thing livinu;.
At last, IJenry motioned that he saw it, and sure
enough there it was, its shaj)e visible far up on a
branch. Another moment and tlie sharj) crack of
his rifle herahled its death and descent to tiie
iiround. We had <>()od success after this first hickv
shot, which had been only one of many fired at
what seemed to be the raccoon, but had been only a
knot in the tree, or, |)erha])s, a shadow. We did
not come home till late, when, with dogs almost as
tired as ourselves, the whole party re-assembk'd,
each bearing oft' his spoils with him if he had won
any.

1 was walking nj) the road one aftei'noon with
my brother, when we came to an opening on tlie
right liand, a])j)arently only leading into ])athless
woods. Stopj)ing me, however, Henry turned and
asked, " If I saw yon post stuck up in the Httle
o})en ? " It was some time before 1 could make it
out. At last I noticed what he alluded to — simply
a rough ])ost, six feet high, stuck into the ground,
in the middle of unbroken desolation. "• That's
the centre of the market-place in the town of lUi-
saco, that is to be," said he. ^' All this ground is
surveyed for a city, and is laid out in building lots,
— not in farms." 1 could not help lauirhinir.
There was not a sign of human habitation in sight,
and the post must have been there lor years.

The Town of Busaco,

321

When it will be a town it is very hard to conjec-
ture. It stand'i on the outside of a swam})y belt,
which must have deterred any one from settling in
it, and towns don't go before agricultural improve-
ment, but follow it, in such a country as Canada,
or, indeed, anywhere, except in a merely manu-
facturing district, or at some point on a busy line
of travel. Some time after, a poor man effected
one great step towards its settlement, by a very
unintentional improvement. He had a little
money, and thought that if he dug a deep, broad
ditch, from the swamp to the river, he could get
enough water to drive a mill, which he intended to
build close to the bank. But it turned out, after
the ditch was dug, and his money gone, that the
water, which he thought came into the swamp
from springs, was nothing but rain, that had
lodged in the low places, and had been kept there
by the roots of trees and the want of drainage.
For a time, the stream was beautiful, but, after a
little, the swamp got better, and the stream dimin
ished, until, in a few weeks, the channel was dry,
and the swamp became good land. I hope the poor
fellow had bouo-ht it before commencino; his ditch.
If so, he would make money after all, as his im-
provement raised its value immensely.

A number of the young men of the huml)ler
class along the river, used to go away each summer
"sailing" — that is, they hired as sailors on the
American vessels, which traded in whole fleets

?',, r

Summer ^'' Sailing.''^

IS ! ■

It. -4 I,

if,

between the eastern and western towns on the
great lakes. It was a very good thing for them
tliat they could earn money so easily, but the
employment was not always free from danger.
One lad, whom I knew very well — William

Forth, the son of a decent Scotch tailor — was lost

•

in it in the n,utumn of our jcond year. He had
sailed for Lake Superior, and did not return at the
time ex])ected. Then his friends began to be anx-
ious, especially when they heard the news of a
great storm in the north-west. He was never
heard of again, and no doubt perished with all the
crew, his vessel having foundered in the gale.
Years after, it was reported that a schooner, sailing
along the upper coast of Lake Huron, came upon
the wreck of a small ship, down in the clear
waters, and found means of hooking up enough to
show that it was the one in which our poor neigh-
bor's son had been engaged. Curiously and sadly
enough, a second son of the same parents met a
miserable death some years after. He was attend-
ing a threshing-mill, driven by horses, and had for
his part to thrust in the straw to " feed it ; " but
he, unfortunately, thrust it in too far, and was him-
self drawn in, and crushed between the innumera-
ble teeth by which the grain is pressed out. Be-
fore the machine could be stopped, poor James was
cut almost to pieces. Thus even the peaceful St.
Clair had its share in the trials that follow man
mider all skies.

A Boy Drowned.

323

Occasionally, accidents and calamities of this kind
would happen close to us, and I could not but be
struck at the depth of feeling to which they gave
rise amidst a thin population. The tenant on the
only let farm in the neighborhood, who lived a
mile from us, lost a beautiful boy in a most distress-
ing way. There was a wood wharf close to his
house, from the end of which the lad used to bathe
on fine summer evenings. A number of them
were amusing themselves thus, one afternoon,
when Mrs. Gilbert, the wife of the person of wliom
I speak, coming out from her work, chanced to
look at them, and saw one who was diving and
swimming, as she thought, very strangely. A lit-
tle after, they brought her the news that her boy
was drowned, and it turned out that it had been
his struggles at which she had been looking with
such unconcern. The poor woman took to her
bed for weeks directly she found it out, and seemed
broken-hearted ever after.

The number of French in our neighborhood, and
the names of the towns and places on the map, all
along the western lakes and rivers, often struck
me. Beginning with Nova Scotia, we trace them
the whole way — proofs of the sway France once
had in North America. The bays and headlands,
from the Atlantic to the Far West, bear French
names. For instance, Cape Breton, and its capi-
tal, Louisburg, and Maine, and Vermont, in the
States. All Lower Canada was French ; then we

if I

''fi:l

324

An Indian Device.

«»

have Detroit on Lake St. Clair ; Sault Ste. Marie
at Lake Superior ; besides a string of old French
names all down the Mississippi, at the mouth of
which was the whilom French province of Louisi-
ana, on the Gulf of Mexico. Tiiis shows signifi-
cantly the great vicissitudes that occur in the story
of a nation. But our own history has tauHit us
the same lesson. All the United States were once
British provinces.

I hpd come out early one morning, in spring, to
look at the glorious river which lay for miles like a
mirror before me, when my attention was attracted
to a canoe with a great green bush at one end of it,
floating, apparently empty, down the current. I
soon noticed a hand, close at the side, slowly scull-
ing it by a paddle, and keeping the bush down the
stream. As it glided past, I watched it narrowly.
A great flock of wild ducks were splashing and
diving at some distance below ; but so slowly and
silently did the canoe drift on, that they did not
seem to heed it. All at once, a pufF of smoke from
the bush, and the sound of a gun, with the fall of
a number of ducks, killed and wounded, on the
water, plainly showed what it meant. An Indian
instantly rose up in the canoe, and paddled with all
haste to the spot to pick up the game. It was a
capital plan to cheat the poor birds, and get near
enough to kill a good number. There were im-
mense flocks of waterfowl, after the ice broke up,
each yeai' ; but they were so shy that we were

e. Marie
French
louth of
F Loiiisi-
s si'o-nifi-
lie story
■iuo;lit us
ere once

prino;, to

les like a

attracted

3nd of it,

•rent. I

.'ly scull-

lown the

rrowly.

ing and

wly and

did not

\e from

full of

on the

Indian

with all

was a

;et near

ere im-

oke up,

e were

i ,

H:^l

!UI>'

r %'

Coote^s Paradise,

825

very little the hotter for them. It was very differ-
ent in earlier days, before population increased, and
incessant alarm and pursuit had made them wild,
for the whole province must once have been a
great sporting ground. There is a marsh on Lake
Ontario, not far from Hamilton, called Coote's
Paradise, from the delight which an officer of that
name found in the myriads of ducks, etc., which
thronged it thirty or forty years ago.

m 4

. h

'1
1 ''

Mi)

325

Apple-bees,

CHAPTER XX.

Apple-bees. — Orchards. — Gorgeous display of apple-blossom. — A
meeting in the woods. — The ague. — Wild parsnips. — Man lost
in the woodia.

E had a great deal of nin when our orchard
got up a little, and when we were able to
trade with our neighbors for fruit, in what they
used to call " apple-paring bees." The young folks
of both sexes were invited for a given evening in
the autumn, and came duly provided with apple-
parers, which are ingenious contrivances, by which
an apple, stuck on two prongs at one end, is pared
by a few turns of the handle at the other. It is
astonishing ic ?*^e how quickly it is done. Nor is
the paring all. The little machine makes a final
thrust through the heart of the apple, and takes out
the core, so as to leave nothing to do but to cut
what remains in pieces. The object of all this par-
ing is to get apples enough dried for tarts during
winter, the pieces when cut being threaded in long
strings, and hung up till they shrivel and get a
leather-like look. When wanted for use, a little
boiling makes them swell to their original size
again, and bring back their softness. You may

Orchards,

327

imagine how plentiful the fruit must be to make
such a liberal use of it possible, as that which you
see all through Canada. You can hardly go into
any house in the bush, however poor, without hav-
ing a large bowl of '* apple sass '* set before you —
that is, of apple boiled in maple sugar. The young
folks make a grand night of it when the " bee "
comes off. The laughing and frolic is unbounded ;
some are busy with their sweethearts ; some, of a
grosser mind, are no less busy with the apples,
devouring a large proportion of what they pare ;
and the whole proceedings, in many cases, wind up
with a dance on the barn-floor.

While speaking of orchards and fruit, I am re-
minded of the district along the River Thames,
near Lake St. Clair. To ride through it in June,
when the apple-blossom was out, was a sight as
beautiful as it was new to my old country eyes. A
great rolling sea of white and red flowers rose and
fell with the undulations of the landscape, the green
lost in the universal blossoming. So exhaustless,
indeed, did it seem, even to the farmers themselves,
that you could not enter one of their houses with-
out seeing quantities of it stuck into jugs and bowls
of all sorts, as huge bouquets, like ordinary flowers,
or as if, instead of the blossom of splendid apples, it
had been only hawthorn. Canadian apples are in-
deed excellent — that is, the good kinds. You see
thousand of bushels small and miserable enough,
but they are used only for pigs, or for throwing by

■s-'t'v f

( 'I i ■

'Ji5

328

A Meeting in the Woods.

the cartload into cider-presses. The eating and
cooJcing apples would make any one's mouth water
to look at them — so large, so round, so finely tint-
ed. As to flavor, there can surely be nothing
better. Families in towns buy them by the barrel ;
in the country, even a ploughman thinks no more
of eating them than if they were only transformed
potatoes. Sweet cider, in its season, is a very com-
mon drink in many parts. You meet it at the rail-
way-stations, and on little stands at the side of the
street, and are offered it in private houses. Canada
is indeed a great country for many kinds of fruit.
I have already spoken of the peaches and grapes :
the plums, damsons, melons, pears, and cherries,
are equally good, and equally plentiful. Poor
Hodge, who, in England, lived on a few shillings a
week, and only heard of the fine things in orchards,
feasts like a lord, when he emigrates, on all their
choicest productions.

They were wonderful people round us for their
open-air meetings — very zealous and very noisy.
I was on a visit at some distance in the summer-
time, and came on a gathering in the woods.
There were no ministers present, but some laymen
conducted the services. All round, were wagons
with the horses unyoked, and turned round to feed
from the vehicles themselves, as mano-ers. Some
of the intending hearers sat on the prostrate logs
that lay here and there, others stood, and some re-
mained in their conveyances. There was no prep-

lulinns a

Tlie Ague.

329

nration of benches, or convenience of any kind. It
so happened that [ came only at the close. The
proceedings were over, and there was nothing go-
ing on, for some time, but a little conversation
aniono; the leaders. In one wan;on I noticed a
whole litter of pigs, and found, on asking how they
came to be there, that they belonged to a good
woman wlio had no one with whom to leave them
at home, and had brought them with her, that she
might attend to their wants, and enjoy the meetitigs,
at the same time. There were often oj)en-air as-
semblies in the woods. Temperance societies, with
bands of music, drew great crowds. Rough boards
Avere provided for seats, and a rough platform did
for the speeches. All the country side, old and
young, went to them, for most of the pco})le in the
country districts are rigid teetotallers. There are
poor drunkards enough, after all, but it is a wonder
there are no more, when whiskey is only a shilling
or eighteenpence a gallon.

The great plague of the river was the ague, which
seized on a very large number. The poisonous vri-
pors that rise from the undrained soil, in which a
great depth of vegetable matter lies rotting, must be
the cause, for when a district gets settled, and opened
to the sun, so that the surface is dried, it disaj)})ears.
I never had it myself, I am happy to say, but all
my brothers suffered from its attacks, and poor Eliza
shivered with it for months together. It is really a
di'eadful disease. It begins with a burning fever,

28 *

830

Wild Pars7u'j>8.

]' i

'! V

! . ' •

M !

r ; -I

occasioning a thirst wliicli cannot be satisfied by
drinking any quantity of water, and when this passes
oti", every bone shakes, tlie teetli rattle, the whole
frame quivers, with the most agonizing cold. All
the bedclothes in the house are found to be insuifi-
cient to keep the sufferer warm. After a day's
misery like this, the attack ceases, and does not
return till the second day. Its weakening effects
are terrible. If severe, the patient can do nothing
even in the interval of the attacks, and they some-
times continue for seven and eitrht months to<ji;etlier.
The only real remedy known is quinine, and it is
taken in quantities that astonish a stranger. Of
late years there have been far less of the disease in
the older districts than formerly, and it is to be
hoped that, some day, it will disappear altogether,
but meanwhile it is a dreadful evil. It used to be a
conmion English disease, but it is now nearly un-
known in most parts of our country. Oliver Crom-
well died of it, and in Lincoln it was one of the
most prevalent maladies. I remember meeting an
old Englishwoman who firmly believed "> the old
recipe for its cure, of a spidor ♦ ped in a glass of
wine and swallowed with # I'hat wa? 'le way,
she said, it had been cured iii ii'T part, and nothing
could be better !

A terrible misfortune befel a worthy man residing
back from the river, one spring, through his son —
a growing boy — eating some wild parsnips in igno-
rance of their being poisonous. The poor litth

Children in the Woods.

331

fellow lingered for a time, and at last died in agony.
This must be reckoned amonij; tlic "isks families run
in the bush. I have known a numb(n' of cases of a
similar kind.

One day we were startled by a man crying to us
from the road that two children of a settler, a few
miles back, were lost in the woods, and that all tlw;
neighbors were out, searching for tliem. We ust
no time in hurrying to the place, and found that
the iiCvTs was only too true. The two little crea-
tures— a sister and brother — had wandered into
the woods to pull the early anemones, which come
out with the wild leeks, by the sides of creeks and
wet places, at the beginning of spring, and they had
gradually nin to one flower after another, till they
were fairly lost. The excitement was terrible.
Men and women alike left every thing, to search
for them. The forest was filled with the sound of
their names, which voice after voice called out, in
hopes of catching an answer. Night came, and all
the searchers returned unsuccessful, but there were
others who kindled lights, and spent the darkness
in their kind efforts. But it was of no use. Two

— three — four — five — six days passed, and the
lost ones were still in the great silent woods. At
last, on the seventh day, they came on them, but
almost too late. The two were lying on the ground

— the little girl dead, the boy far gone. Tender
nursing, however, brought him round, and he was
able to tell, after a while, that they had wandered

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fet.!^

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332

Xlos^ in the Woods.

hither and thither, as long as they could, eating the
wild leeks, bitter and burning as they are, until the
two could go no further. He did not know that
his sister was dead till they told him. It was touch-
ing to see his father and mother swayed by the
opposite feelings of grief for the dead, and joy for
the living.

Another time, in the winter, on a piercingly cold
night, we were roused from our seats round the
fire, by the cries of some one at a distance. Going
to the door, we found it was an unfortunate fellow
who had got bewildered by the snow covering the
wagon tracks in a path through the bush, and who
was trying to make himself heard, before the neigh-
bors went to bed. It was lucky for him we had
not done so, for our hours were very early indeed.
It was so cold that we could only stand a few min-
utes at the door by turns, but we answered his
cries, and had the satisfaction of finding that he
was getting nearer and nearer the open. At last,
after about half an hour, he reached the high road,
and was safe. But the fellow actually had not
politeness to come up next day, or any time after,
to say he was obliged by our saving his life.

A poor woman, not far from us, had lost her
husband in the forest, many years before, under
circumstances of peculiar trial. She was then
newly married, and a stranger in the country, and
he had gone out to chop wood at some distance
from their house, but had been unable to find his

Lost in the Woods,

338

"m»>> back. His wife and neighbors searched long
and earnestly for him, but their utmost efforts failed
to find him. Months passed on, and not a word
was heard of him, until, at last, after more than a
year, some persons came upon a human skeleton,
many miles from the place, lying in* the woods,
with an axe at its side, the clothes on which showed
that it was the long-lost man. He had wandered
further and further from his home, living on what-
ever he could get in the woods, till death, at last,
ended his sorrows.

I shall never forget the story of a man who had
been lost for many days, but had, at last, luckily
wandered near some human habitations, and had
escaped. ' He was a timber-squarer — that is, he
squared the great trees which were intended for
exportation, the squaring making them lie closely
together, and thus effecting a saving in freight, and
had been employed on the Georgian Bay, amongst
the huge pine forests from which so many of those
wonderful masts, so much prized, are brought.
His cabin was at a good distance from his work,
which lay now at one point, and now at another.
Fortunately it was fine mild autumn weather, else
he would have paid his life for his misadventure.
On the morning of the unfortunate day, he had set
out at a very early hour, leaving his wife and fam-
ily in the expectation that he would return at night,
or within a few days at most. For a great wonder,
a fog chanced to be lying on t]

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ground, hiding

334

Lost in the Woods.

! h**!

every thing at a few yard's distance, but he took it
for granted that he knew the road, and never
thought of any danger. On, therefore, he walked
for some time, expecting, every moment, to come
on some indication of his approach to his place of
work. At last, the fog rose, and, to his surprise,
showed that he had walked till nearly noon, and
was in a spot totally unknown to him. Every tree
around seemed the counterpart of its neighbor, the
flowers and fern were on all sides the same ; nothing
offered any distinguishing marks by which to help
him to decide where he was. The path along
which he had walked was a simple trail, the mere
beaten footsteps of wood men or Indians, passing
occasionally, and to add to his perplexity, every
here and there other trails crossed it, at different
angles, with nothing to distinguish the one from
the other.

It was not for some hours more, however, that
he began to feel alarmed. He took it foi- granted
he had gone too far, or had turned a little to one
side, and that he had only to go back, to come to
the place he wished to reach. Back, accordingly, he
forthwith turned, resting only to eat his dinner which
he had brought with him from home. But, to his
utter dismay, he saw the sun getting lower and
lower, without any sign of his nearing his " limit."
Gray shades began to stretch through the trees :
the silence around became more oppressive as they
increased ; the long white moss on the trees, as he

\\,h^

Lost in the Woods.

335

passed a swamp, looked the very image of desola-
tion ; and, at last, he felt convinced that he was
lost. As evening closed, every living thing around
him seemed happy but he. Like the castaway on
the ocean, who sees the sea-birds skimming the hol-
lows of the waves or toppling ever their crests, joy-
ful, as if they felt at home, he noticed the squirrels
disappearing in their holes ; the crows flying lazily
to their roosts ; all the creatures of the day betaking
themselves to their rest. There was no moon that
night, and if there had been, he was too tired to
walk further by its light. He could do no more
than remain where he was till the morninf; came
again. Sitting down, with his back against a great
tree, he thought of every thing by turns. Turning
round, he prayed on his bended knees, then sat
down again in his awful loneliness. Phosphoric
lights gleamed from the decayed trees on the
ground ; myriads of insects filled the air, and the
hooting of owls, and the sweep of night-hawks and
bats, served to fill his mind with gloomy fears, but
ever and anon, his mind reverted - to happier
thoughts, and to a growing feeling of confidence
that he should regain his way on the morrow.

With the first light he was on his feet once more,
after offering a prayer to his Maker, asking his help
in this terrible trial. He had ceased to conjecture
where he was, and had lost even the aid of a vague
track. Nevertheless, if he could only push on, he
thought he must surely make his escape before long.

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336

Xos^ m the Woods,

I I

The sun had a great sweep to make, and he was
young and strong. Faster and faster he pressed
forward as the hours passed, the agony of his mind
driving liim on the more hurriedly as his hopes
grew fainter. Fatigue, anxiety, and hunger were
meanwhile growing more and more unbearable.
His nerves seemed fairly unstrung, and as he threw
himself on the ground to spend a second night in
the wilderness, the shadow of death seemed to lower
over him. Frantic at his awful position, he tore
his hair, and beat his breast, and wept like a child.
He might, he knew, be near home, but he might,
on the other hand, be far distant from it. He had
walked fifty miles he was sure, and where in this
interminable wilderness had he reached ? His onl}^
food through the day had been some wild fruits
and berries, which were veiy scarce, and so acrid
that they pained his gums as he ate them. He had
passed no stream, but had found water in holes of
fallen trees. What he suffered that ni^ht no one
can realize who has not been in some similar
extremity. He had no weapon but his axe, and
hence, even if he came upon deer and other crea-
tures, he could not kill them — there seemed no
way to get out of the horrible labyrinth in which
he was now shut up. From the morning of the
third day his mind, he assured me, became so
bewildered that he could recollect very little of
what then took place. How he lived he could
hardly say — it must have been on frogs, and

;iii(

Lost in the Woods.

337

snakes, and grass, and weeds, as well as berries, for
there were too few of this last to keep hnii alive.
Once he was fortunate enouo;h to come on a tor-
toise, which he could not resist the temptation to
kill, though he knew that if he followed it quietly
it would guide him to some stream, and thus afford
him the means of escape. Its raw flesh gave him
two great meals. His clothes were iii tatters, his
face begrimed, his hair and beard matted, his eyes
hot and bloodshot, and his strength was failing fast.
On the tenth day he thought he could go no fur-
ther, but must lie down and die. But deliverance
was now at hand. As he lay, half unconscious,
from weakness of body and nervous exhaustion, he
fancied he heard the drip of oars. In an instant
every faculty was revived. His ear seemed to
gather unnatural quickness ; he could have heard
the faintest sound at a great distance. Mustering
all his strength, he rose, and with the utmost haste
made for the direction from which the cheerino;
sound proceeded. Down some slopes — up o])po-
site banks — and there at last the broad water lay
before him. He could not rest with the mere vis-
ion of hope, so on he rushed through the thick
brush, over the fretting of fallen timber and the
brown carpet of leaves, till he reached the river-
bank, which was sloping at the point where he
emerged, a tongue of land jutting out into the
water, clear of trees. To the end of this, with
anxiety indcjscribable, he rar<, and kneeled in th.e

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338

Lo»t in the Woods,

|.n;.

\'i

attitude of prayer at once to God for his merciful
deliverance, and to man, when the boat should
come, whose approach he now heard more clearly
from afar, — that he might be taken to some human
dwelling. The boat did come — his feeble cry
reached it, and in a moment, when they saw his
thin arms waving for help as he kneeled before
them, the bows were turned to the shore, and he
was taken on board — the lost was found! He
fainted as soon as he was rescued, and such was
his state of exhaustion, that at first it seemed almost
impossible to revive him. But by the care of his
wife, to whom he was restored as soon as possible,
he gradually gathered strength, and when I saw
him some years after was hearty and vigorous.
The place where he was found was full thirty miles
fi'om his own house, and he must have wandered
altogether at least a hundred and fifty miles —
probably in a series of circles round nearly the same
points.

I'M

''The Windfall:'

389

CHAPTER XXI.

A tornado. — Bats. — Deserted lots. — American inquisitirevess. —

An election agent.

I HAVE already spoken of the belt of trees nin-
ning back some miles from us, familiarly called
" The Windfall," from their havino- been thrown
down by a hurricane many years before. Some
years after, when living for a time in another part
of the province, I had a vivid illustration of what
these terrible storms really are. It was a fine day,
and I was jogging along quietly on my horse. It
was in the height of summer, and every thing
around was in all the glory of the season. The tall
mints, with their bright flowers, the lofty Aaron's-
rod, the beautiful Virginia creeper, the wild convol-
vulus, and wild roses, covered the roadsides, jind
ran, as far as the light permitted them, into the
openings of the forest. The country was a long
roll of gentle undulations, with clear streamlets
every here and there in the hollows. The woods
themselves presented a perpetual picture of beauty
as I rode along. High above, rose the great oaks,
and elms, and beeches, and maples, w ith their tall

iiiM

A Tornado,

:fv^

■ii

111

trunks free of brandies till they stretched far over-
head ; wliile round their feet, not too thiekly, hut
in such abundance as made the scene perfect,
^vaved younoj trees of all these kinds, intermixed
•with silver birclies and sumachs. My horse had
stopped of his own accord to drink at one of the
brooks that brawled under the rude brido;es across
the road, when, happening to look up, I noticed a
strange appearance in the sky, which I had not
observed before. A thick haze was descendino; on
the earth, like the darkness that precedes a storm.
Yet there was no other sign of any approaching
convulsion of nature. There was a profound hush
and gloom, but what it might forbode did not as yet
apj)ear. I was not, however, left long in igno-
rance. Scarcely had my horse taken its last
draught and forded across the brook, than a low
miu'murino; sound in the air, comino; from a dis-
tance, and unlike any thing I had ever heard
before, arrested my attention. A yellow spot in
the haze towards the south-west likewise attracted
my notice. The next moment the tops of the taller
trees began to swing in tlie wind, which presently
increased in force, and the light branches and
twigs began to break off. I was glad I happened
to be at an open spot, out of reach of immediate
danger, the edges of the brook being cleared for
some distance on both sides. Two minutes more,
and the storm burst on the forest in all its violence.
Huge trees swayed to and fro under its rude shock

■"f}ii

A Tornado.

341

jike tlie masts of ships on a tempestuous sea ; they
ruhbed and creaked like a sliip's timbers when slie
rolls, and the sky grew darker and darker, as it'
obscured by a total eclipse oF the sun. It was evi-
dent that the fury of the storm would not sweep
tlu'ourrh the open where I stood, but would sj)end
itself on the woods before me. jNleanwhile, as 1
looked, the Imge oaks and ma])les bent before the
tornado, the air was thick with their huije limbs,
twisted off in a moment, and the trees themselves
were fallino; in hundreds beneath the irresistible
power of the storm. I noticed that they always
fell with their heads in the direction of the hurri-
cane, as if they had been wrenched round and Hung
Lehind it as it passed. Some went down bodily,
others broke across, all yielded and sank in ruin
and confusion. The air cot blacker and blacker
— a cloud of branches and limbs of trees lilled the
whole breadth of the tempest, some of them flun<:5
by it, every now and then, high up in the air, or
dashed with amazino; violence to the o;i'ound. A
few minutes more, and it swept on to make similar
havoc in other parts. But it was long before the
air Avas clear of tlie wreck of the forest. The
smaller branchc- seemed to float in it as if upheld
by some current that was sucked on by the hui ri-
cane, though unfelt on the surface of the ground.
In a surprisingly short time a belt of the woods,
about an eighth of a mile in breadth, and rumiing I

cannot tell how far back, was one va^t chaos,

29*

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342

A Tornado,

througli wliicli no hiimiin efforts could find a way.
The same niglit, as we afterwards learned, the tor-
nado had struck points incredibly distant, taking a
■ ast sweep across Lake Ontario, ravaging^ a part
of New York, and finally rushing away to the
north in the neighborhood of Quebec.

The destruction it caused was not limited to its
ravages in the forest ; farmhouses, barns, orchards,
and fences, were swept away like chaff. I passed
one orchard in which every tree had been dragged
up and blown away ; the fences for miles, in the
jjath of the storm, were carried into the air like
straws, never to be found again ; tlie water in a
mill-])ond by the roadside was lifted fairly out of it,
and the bottom left bare. At one place a barn and
stables had been wrenched into fragmv^nts, the con-
tents scattered to the winds, and the very horses
lifted into the air, and carried some distance. Saw-
mills were stripped of their whole stock of " lum-
ber," every plank being swept up into the vortex,
and strewn no one knew whither. There were
incidents as curious as extraordinary in the events
of the day. A sheep was found on one farm, unin-
jured, beneath a huge iron kettle, which had been
carried off and capsized over the poor animal, as if
in sport. Wherever the storm passed through, the
forest was, from that moment, a tangled desolation,
left to itself, except by the beasts that might choose
a safe covert in its recesses. Thenceforth, the
briars and bushes would have it for their own, and

iff

Bats*

343

grow undisturbed. No human footstep would ever
turn towards it till all the standing forest around
had been cut down.

The bats were very plentiful in summer, and
used often to flv into the house, to the great terror
of my sister Margaret, who used to be as afraid of
a bat as Buftbn was of a squirrel. They were no
larojer than our EnMish bats, and undistinijuisha-
ble from them to an ordinary eye. Almost as
often as we went out on the fine wami evenings,
we were attracted by their flying hither and thither
below the branches of the trees, or out in the open
ground, beating the air with great rapidity with
their wonderful membranous wings. A bird pecu-
liar to America used to divide attention with them
in the twilight — the famous "whip-poor-will,"
one of the family of the goatsuckers ; of which, in
England, the night-jar is a well-known example.
It is amazing how distinctly the curious sounds,
from which it takes its name, are given ; they are
repeated incessantly, and create no little amuse-
ment when they come from a number of birds at
once. The flight of the whip-poor-will is very
rapid, and they double, and twist, and turn in a
surprising way. Their food is tlie large moths and
insects, any of which, I should think, they could
swallow, for it is true in their case at least, that
their "mouth is from ear to ear.'* The ga})e is
enormous, reaching even behind the eye ; and woe
betide any unfortunate moths or chaffers that may

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844

Deserted Lots.

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cross tlieir patli. It sees perft-'ctly by ni<i;lit, but is
])urbliiid by day, its hu;^e eyes .showing, the mo-
ment you see it, that, like that of tlie owls, it is for
service in i«u'tial darkness. Tlie Ht^iit completely
confuses it, so tliat, until sunset, it is never seen,
unless wlien one comes by accident upon its resting-
place, where it sits sleeping on some log or low
branch, from which it will only Hy a very short dis-
tance if disturbed, alighting again as soon as possi-
ble, and dozing ott' forthwith. They used to come
in June, and enliven the evenings till September,
Avhen they left us again for the south. Some peo-
ple used to think it fine sport to shoot birds so swift
of flight; but, somehow, I could never bring my-
self to touch creatures that spoke my own lan-
guage, however ini|)erfectly.

Immediately behind our lot was one which often
struck me as very desolate-lookino; when I had to
go to it to bring home the cows at night. A field
had been cleared, and a house built, but both field
and house were deserted : long swamp grass grew
thick in the hollows ; nettles, and roses, and bushes
of all kinds, climbed up, outside and in ; the roof
was gone, and only the four walls were left. I
never learned more than the name of the pc'son who
had expended so much labor on the place, and then
abandoned it. But there were other sjjots just like
it all over the bush ; spots where settlers had begun
with high hopes ; had worked hard for a time,
until they lost heart, or had been stopped by some

American Inqumtivencss.

345

Insurmonntablo obstacle, and Imd deserted tlio
home they liad once been so proud of. One case I
knew was caused by a touchint; incident of busli-
life. A yonncr, liearty man, ha(' f^one out in tlio
mornin<i; to cliop at liis clearing, but had not re-
turned at dinner, and was found by his wife, when
she went to look for him, lying on his back, dead,
with a tree he had felled resting on his breast. It
had slipped back, perhaps, off the stunij) in tiiliing,
and had crushed him beneath it. \Tiiat agony
such an accident in such circumstances nnist have
caused the sufferer I The poor fellow's wife could
io nothino; even towards extricatiuii; her husband's
i)ody, but had to leave it there till the neighbors
vame, and chopped the tree in two, so that it could
1)6 got away. No wonder she " sold out," and left
ihe scene of so great a calamity.

Every one has heard of the inquisitiveness of
Ibotli Sc>'>ichmen and Americans. I allude more
particularly to those of the humbler rank. I have
often laughed at the examples we met within our
intercourse, not only with these races, but with the
less polished of others, also, in Canada. I was
going do^Mi to Detroit on the little steamer Avhich
ased to luii l>v:tween the town and Lake Huron —
a steamer so Miiall that it was currently reported
among the boys. Chat one very stout lady in the
tosfriSL'o had m.'^u'e it lurch wdien she went on
boaid • and had ^-Ow on the u])pcr deck to look
round. The little* A.nei'ican village on the o})po-

r'Xf,

rf46

American Inquisitiveness.

k i •

■5 '

! '■ i

site side was " called at," and left, in a very few
minutes, and we were off again past the low shores
of the river. A little i)un;-nosed man, in a white
hat and white linen jacket, was the only one up
beside me ; and it was not in his nature, evidently,
tliat Ave should be lono; without talkino;. " Fine
captain-on this here boat ? " said he. I agreed
with him off hand ; that is, I took it for granted he
was so. " Yes, he's the likeliest captain I've seen
since 1 left Ohio. How plain you see whar the
boat run — look! AVell, we're leaving County-
seat right straight, I guess. Whar you born?"
"Where do you think?" I answered. "Either
Ireland or Scotland, anvhow." " No. You^re
Irish, at any rate, I su})pose ? " — I struck in.
''No, sir — no, sirree — I'm Yankee born, and
bred in Yankee town, and my parents afore me.
you travelling altogether ? " I asked him what
he meant, for I really didn't understand this ques-
tion. "Why, travelling for a living — what do
you sell ? " On my telling him he was wrong for
once, he seemed a little confounded ; but presently
recovered, and drew a bottle out of his breast-
pocket, adding, as he did so — " Will you take
some bitters ? " I thanked him, and said, I was
"temperance." "You don't drink none, then?
Well, I do ; " on which he suited the action to
the svord, putting the bottle back in its place
again, after duly wiping his lips on his .ufl*. But
liis questions w ere not done yet. " ^^' liar you

An Election Agent.

347

live ? " I told him. " Married man ? " I said I
had not the happiness of heing so. " How long
since you came from England ? " — I answered.
" You remember when you came ? " I said I
hoped I did, else my faculty must be failing. " I
guess you were pretty long on the waters ? " But
I was getting tir( d of his impudence, and so gave
him a laconic answer, and dived into the cabin out
of his way.

I was very much amused at a rencontre between
the " captain," who seemed a really respectable
man, and another of the passengers, who, it aj)])ear-
ed, had come on board without having money to pay
his fare. The offender was dressed in an unbleach-
ed linen blouse, with " dandy " trowsers, wide across
the body, and tapering to the feet, with worn straps
of the same material ; old boots of a fashionable make,
an open waistcoat, and an immensity of dirty-white
shirt-breast ; a straw hat, with a long green and
li^ac ribbon round it. A cigar in his mouth, a mock
ring on his finger, and a very bloodshot eye, com-
pleted the picture. It seemed he was a subordinate
electioneering agent, sent round to make stump
speeches for his party, and, generally, to influence
votes ; and the trouble with the captain evidently
rose from his wishino; to have his fare charixed to
the committee who sent him out, rather than
pay it himself. The captain certainly gave him
no quarter. " He's a low, drunken watchmaker,"
bald he, turning to me ; " I saw him last night

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348

An Election Ar/cnt.

Fpoiitinir away for Gunonil Cass on tlio steps of
tlie clmivli at Huron. The fellow wants to .>et
ott without payintr — 1 suppose we'll have to let
him." And he did. lie got through to tlieji

»>ui-

W'Y s enc

ill

A Journey to Niagara.

349

CHAPTER XXII.

A- j'Uirnoy to Niiipara. — 'River St. Clair. — Detroit. — A plavc's
o.scape. — An Aiiicricaii .SUamcr. — Ucscriplioii of the I'all.s of
Niagara. — l-'cartul catastrophe.

^piIR country on the St. Clair, tlioiirrli Leautiful
J from tlie jn'oscnce of tlie river, was, in itself,
flat and tame enouoli. AH Canada West, indeed,
is remaikal)lv level. The ridire of limestone hills
Avhieh runs aeross from the State of New York at
Niaii;ara, and stretches to the north, is the only
elevation greater than the round swells, which, in
some parts, make the landsca])e look like a succes-
sion of hi'oad hiack waves. The borders of the St.
Clair itself were hiixher than the land immediateiy
behind them, so that a belt of swamp ran ])arallel
with the stream, rich reaches of black soil risin<^
behind it throni»;li township after township. The
list of natural siohts in such a part was not great,
tliouij-h the charms of the few there were, were un-
fadino-. There was the river itself, and there was
the vast leafy ocean of ti'ee-tops, with the great
aisles with inniunerable j)illai"s stretching away un
derneath like some vast cathedral of nature ; but

these were conmion to all the country. The one

o60

Detroit.

I i

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wonder of the land was at a distance. It was Niagara.
How we longed to see it! But it was some years
before an^'' of us could, and there was no opportunity
of going together. 1 had to set out by myself. It
was in the month of September, just before the
leaves began to turn. The weather was glorious —
not too warm, and as briixht as in Italy. I started
in the little steamer for Detroit, ])assing the Indian
settlement at Walpole Island, the broad flats cov-
ered with coarse grass, toward the entrance of
Lake St. Clair, and at last, threading the lake itself,
through the channel marked out across its shallow
and muddy breadth, by long lines of poles, like
telegrajjhs on each side of a street. Detroit was
the London of al' the folks on the river. They
bought every thing they wanted there, it being easy
of access, and its size offerino; a larijer choice than
could be obtained elsewhere. It is a o;i't?at and
growing }dace ; though, in the lifetime of a person
still living — General Cass — it was only the little
French villat2;e which it had been for a hundred
years before. Taking the steamer to Buffalo,
W'hich started in an hour or two after I cot to
Detroit, I was once more on my way as the after-
noon was drawincT to a close. We were to call at
various British ports, so that I 1 ad a chance of
feeing different j)arts of the province that I had not
ret visited. The first step in our voyage was to
cross to Sandwich, the village on the Canadian
shore, opposite Detroit, from which it is less than a

A Slaveys Eacape.

851

agara.

years

tujiity

If. it

re the
ous —
started
Indian
:s cov-
nce of
c itself,
diallow
.^s, like
:)it was
They
lio; easy
than
t and
person
e little
indred
ufi'alo,
o-Qt to
after-
all at
Ince of
d not
,'as to
iiadian
han a

mile distant. I was glad to see a spot so sacred to
liberty — for Sandwich is the great point which the
fugitive slaves, from every part of the Union, eager-
ly attempt to reach. I felt proud of my country
at the thought that it was no vain boast, but a
glorious truth, that slaves could not breathe in
Enij-land. nor on British soil ; that the first touch
of it by th(i foot of the bondsman broke his fetters
and made him free forever. I was so full of the
thought, that when we were once more under
weigh it naturally became the subject of conversa-
tion with an intelligent fellow-traveller, who had
come on board at Sandwich. " 1 was standing at
my door," said he, " a week or two ago, when I
saw a skiff* with a man in it, rowing, in hot haste,
to our side. How the oars flashed — how his back
bent to them — how he pulled ! It w^as soon evi-
dent what was his object. As he came near, I saw
he was a negro. Though no one was pursuing, he
could not take it easy, and, at last, with a great
bend, he swept up to the bank, pulled up the skiif,
and ran up to the road, lea])ing, throwing up his hat
in the air, shouting, singing, laughing — in short,
fairly beside himself with excitement. ' I'm free !
I'm free ! — no more slave ! ' was the burden of his
loud rejoicing, and it was long before he calmed
down enouo;h for any one to ask him his stoiT. He
had come all the way up the Mississippi from
Arkansas, travelling by night, lying in the woods
by day, living on corn pulled from the fields, or on

t.<i

liiii

t
i

« If;

li:]li

ii|^;ifi

r *

?f2

-4. Slave's Escape.

poultry lie could catcli round fiirm-houses or negro
quurters ;,sometiines eating them raw, lest the smoke
of his fire should discover him. At last Le reached
Illinois, a free State, after long weeks of travel ; hut
here his worst troubles began. '^ oi being able to
give a very clear account of himself, they put him
in jail as a ' fugitive.' But he gave a wrong name
instead of his own, and a wrong State instead of
that from which he had come. He told them, in
fact, he had come from iMarvland, which was at the
very opposite side of the Union from Arkansas, and
was kept in jail for a whole year, while they were
advertising him, to try to get some owner to claim
him, and they let him off only when none appeared
in the whole twelvemonths. This ordeal passed, he
gradually made his way to Detroit, and now, after
runninn; such a terrible fjauntlet, he had risen from
a mere chattel to be a man ! " Seeing tlie interest
I took in the incident, he went on to tell me others
equally exciting. One which I remember, was the
rescue of a slave from some officers who had discov-
ered him in one of the frontier towns of the States,
and w^ere taking him, bound like a sheep, to Buffalo,
to car»'y him off to his master in the South. Indii:-
nant at such treatment of a fellow-mnn, a young
Englishman, who has since ]>een a ■naember of the
C-tnadian Parliament, and was then on the boat
with him, d«'terni;:ned, iif possible, to cheat the men-
steah-rs of iif^ir p^^^ Bn'aking his design to the
colore*i cook, and tiirouoh him netting the secret

An American Steamer.

353

aid of all tlie other colored men on the hoat, lie
waited till thev reached Buffalo, some of the con-
federates having previously told the poor slaves tlu;
schenae that was afoot. As the boat i^ot alonnside
the wi)arf, seizing a moment when his ouards had
left him, the gallant young fellow elfectnally severed
the rope that bound the slave, and, telling him to
follow him instantly, dashed over the gangway to
the wharf, and leaped into a skitf which was lying
at hand, with oars in it readv, the neirro following
at his heels in a moment ; then, pushing otf, he
struck out into the lake, and reached Canada safelv
with his livino; triumoh. The story made a thrill
run throuo;h me. It was a brave deed darinirlv
done. The risk was great, but the object was noble,
and he nuist have had a fine spirit who braved the
one to accomplish the other.

Tlie steamer itself was very different from those
with which I had been familiar in Eniiland. In-
stead of cabins entirely below the deck, the body
of the shi[) was reserved for a dining-room, sur-
rounded by berths, and one portion of it covered in
for cargo ; the ladies' cabin was raised on the back
part of the main deck, with a walk all round it ;
then came an open space with sofas, which was like
a hail or lobby for receiving ])assengers or letting
them out. Next to this, at the sides, was a long
set of offices, facing the engine-room in the centre,
and reaching beyond the paddle-boxes, l>oth the
side and central structures beino; continued for some

30*

l,'«i

.t#)

8,5-4

An American Steamer.

ill:

Ihi'

distance, to make places for tlio cook's galley, for
a bur for selling spirits and cigars, for a barber's
sliop, and for I know not what other conveniences.
Covering in all these, an npper deck stretched the
whole length of tlie ship, and on this rose the great
cabin, a long room, })rovided with sofas, mirrors,
carpets, a piano, and every detail of a huge draw-
ing-room, — innumerabh? doors at each side open-
ing into sleeping places for the gentlemen tnivellers.
It was a fine sight, with its profusion of gilding and
white paint on the walls and ceiling, its })aintings
on panels at regular intervals all round, its showy
furniture, and its company of both sexes. You
could get on the top even of this cabin, if you liked,
or, if you thought you were high enough, might go
out on the open space at each end, where seats in
abundance awaited occupants. The whole' struc-
ture, seen from the wharf when it stopped at any
place, was more like a floating house than a ship,
and seemed very strange to me at first, with its two
stories above the deck, and its innumerable doors
and windows, and its dazzling white color from stem
to stern. Such vessels may do well enouoh for
calm weather or for rivers, but they are far from
safe in a storm at any distance from land. The
wind catches them so fiercely on their m-eat hiiili
works that they are like to capsize, when a low-built
ship would be in no danger. Indeed, we had a
proof of this on coming out of Buffalo to cross to
Chippewa ; for as the wind had blown during the

An American Steamer,

355

ley, for
larber's
liences.
led the
e great
iiirrors,
3 draw-
e o[)en-
ivellers.
iiiii: and
iiiiitiiiiis
> sho^vy
;. You
•II liked,
iio;lit <n}
seats in
y struc-
at any
a ship,
its two
iG doors
m stem
o-li for
r from
Tlie

Iross to

night while we were ashore, we found, when we
started attain next mornino', that the shallow water
of that part of the lake was pretty rough, and our
way leading us almost into the trough of the
waves, the boat swayed so much to each side
alternately, that the captain got all the passengers
aathered in a bodv, and made them run from the
low to the high side by turns, to keep it from
swamping. The water was actually coming in on
the main deck at every roll. It was very disagree-
able to have such a tumbling about, but this ugly
state of thinjj-s did not last lono;. The smooth
water of the Niaoara was soon reached, and we
were o;lidino; down to within about three miles or
so of the Falls, as quietly and carelessly as if no
such awful gidf were so near. I could not help
thinking how terrible it would have been had any
accident injured our machinery in such a position.
There certainly were no sails on the boat, and I
greatly question if there was an anchor, the short
distance of her trips making one generally unnec-
essary. At last we got safely into Chippewa
Creek, and all chance of danger had passed away.

Long before reaching this haven of refuge, a
white mist, steadily rising, and disa])pearing high
in the air, had marked with uinnistakable certaintA''
our near approach to the grand spectacle I had
come to see. Never for a moment still, it had
risen and sunk, grown broader and lighter, melted
into one great cloud, or broken into waves of white

,F ■ \:\

^bQ

The Falls of Niagara.

|i \

vapor, from tlie time I had first seen it, and liatl
nmde me restless till I was safely on shore. 'J'Ik'
sensation was j)aintul — a kind of instinet of dan-
ger, and an uneasiness till it was past, llaviiiij:
nothing to detain me, I determined to lose no
time in getting to the Falls themselves ; and there-
fore, leaving my portmanteau to he sent on after
me, I set out for them on foot. There is a heauti-
ful hroad road to the spot, and it was in excellent
order, as the fall rains had not yet commenced, so
that I jogged on merrily, and was soon at my jour-
ney's end at Drummondville, the village near the
Falls, on the Canadian side, where I resolved to
stay for some days. One of the finest views of the
great wonder burst upon my sight during this walk.
On a sudden, at a turn of the road, an opening in
the trees showed me the Falls from behind, in the
very bend downwards to the gulf beneath. Tlie
awful fflidino; of the vast mass of waters into an
abyss which, from that position, only showed its
presence without revealing its depth, filled me with
indescribable awe. Over the edge, whither, I as
yet knew not, were descending, in unbroken vol-
ume, millions of tons of water. Above, rose the
ever-changing clouds of va])or, like the smoke from
a vast altar, and behind, looking up the river, were
the struggling waves of the rajiids, covering the
whole breadth of the stream with bars of restless
white. After seeing Niagara from every other point
of view, I think this is one of the finest. The leap

The Falls of Niaijara.

357

and Imd
i*e. Tlio
t of diiii-
Iliiviiiii;
lose no
nd tluTc-
on iit'tcr
ii l)C':uiti-
excellont
enced, so
my jour-
near \\w.
isolved to
iws of the
tliis walk.
)enin<j; in
id, in the
th. The
into an
owed its
me with
[ler, I as
)ken vol-
rose the
loke from
er, were
irino; the
restless
^ler point
'he leap

into the liidden de])ths has in it something awfu
beyond any power of description.

You may be snre I did full justice to the oppor-
tunities my visit afforded me, and ke])t afoot, day
after day, with praiseworthy dilio;enee. ^ly first
walk to the Falls, from the village, brouoht me,
through a break in a sandy bank, to a spot from
which nothino; could be seen at the bottom of a
ti;or(!;e but the white foam of the American Fall.
The trees filled each side of the descent, archino;
overhead, and made the vista even more beautiful
than the wild outline of the bank itself would have
been ; the water, like sparkling snow, drifting in
loni!" t()n<2;ues down the face of the liidden rocks,
filling up the whole view beyond. It depended on
the position of the sun whether tlie ])icture were
one of dazzlino; white or more or less dulled ; but
at all times the falling water, broken into sj)ray, and
l)artially blown back as it descended, by the force
of the air, was one of surpassing beauty. The
American Fall, though nine hundred feet wide, has
only a small part of the current passing over it, and
it is this shallowness that iiakes it break into foam
at the moment of its descent. Emerc-ino; on the
road at tlie edge of the river, the great Horse-shoe
was at once before me on my right hand. No
wonder the Indians called it " Ni-wa-gay-rah " —
the " Thunder of Waters." A mass of a hundred
millions of tons of water, falling a de])th of a hun-
dred and fifty feet in the course of a single hour,

:!il

irtf

11 -I

^>.

:^jj

IMAGE EVALUATION
TEST TARGET (MT-3)

1.0

I.I

1.25

• 40

1.4

IIIIM

|||2£
I—

1.6

'^1

c>^. .>

Photographic

Sciences
Corporation

23 WEST MAIN STREET

WEBSTER, NY. \4S80

(716) 872-4503

•^

358

The Falls of Niagara.

' ■ >l

\ '■ \

■ It.

while you stand by, may well give such a sound as
overwhelms the listener's sense of hearing. It is
no use attempting to picture the scene. It was
some time before I could go near the edge, but at
last, when my head was less dizzy, I went out on tliu
projecting point called the Table Rock, which has,
however, long since fallen into the abyss, and there,
on a mere ledge, from which all beneath had been
eaten away by the spray, I could let the spectacle
gradually fill my mind. You cannot see Ni.ig-
ara at once ; it takes day after day to realize its
vastness. I was astonished at the slow unbroken
fall of the water. So vast is the quantity hanging
in the air at any one moment, that it moves down
in a great green sheet, with a slow, awful descent.
The patches of white formed in spots here and
there showed how majestically it goes down to the
abyss. Think of such a launching of a great river,
two thousand feet in breadth, over a sudden preci-
pice — the smooth flow above — the green crest
— the massy solidity of the descent — and then the
impenetrable clouds of watery sj)ray that hide the
bottom. Yet at the edge it was so shallow that
one might have waded some steps into it without
apparent danger. Indeed, I noticed men one day
damming it back some feet, in a vain attempt to
get out the body of a poor man who had leaped
over. They hoped it would be found jammed
among the rocks at the bottom, within reach, if
this side water were forced back. But if it ever

Tlie Falls of Niagara.

359

liad been, it was since washed away, and no efforts
could recover it. Descending a spiral staircase
close to tlie Table Rock, I had another view from
below ; and what words can convey the impression
of the deej), trembling boom of the waters, as you
caught it thus confined in the abyss ? It was ter-
rible to look into the cauldron, smoking, heaving,
foaming, rushing, as far as the eye could see*
through the mist. A slope of fragments from
the side of the rock offered a sli|)pery path up to
the thick curtain of the Falls, and you could even
go behind it if you chose. But I had not nerve
enough to do so, though several parties ventured in,
after having put on oilskin clothes ; guides, who
live in part by the occu})ation, leading them on
their way. Overhead, Table Rock reached far out,
awaiting its fall, which I felt sure could not be lonjr
delayed. In crossing it I noticed a broad crack,
which each successive year would, of course, deepen.
On every ledge, up to the top of the precipice, grass
and flowers, nourished by the incessant spray,
relieved the bareness, and in the middle of the
river, dividing the Horse-shoe Fall from the Amer-
ican, the trees on Goat Island dimly showed them-
selves through the ascendin<j smoke. The vast
sweep of waters bending round the Horse-shoe for
more than the third of a mile, was hemmed in at
the further side by masses of rock, the lower end
of Goat Island projecting roughly from the torrents
at each side, so as to hide part of the more distant

■n

3G0

Tlic Falls of Niajura.

one from my siolit. A liill of fr:i<rnu'nts from it?
face lay heaped up in the centre, and more thinly
scattered at the further side. But I could pav
little attention to details, with the hu<xe cauldion
within a few yards of me, into which the preat
^recn walls of water were heinrr every moment pre-
cipitated, and which, broken into sheets of foam,
hissed, and lashed, and rafjed, and boiled, in wild
uproar, as far as my eye could reach. The con-
trast between thesolenni calmness of the o;reat sheet
of iireen ever iilidini; down in the centre, with the
curtain of snowy wreaths at its ed<i;es, where the
stream above, from its shallowness, broke into white
crystalline rain in the moment of its first descent,
and the tossinn;, smokinn; storm beneath, was over-
])owerino;, and — acc()m}>anied as it ever was with
the stunninir, deafenin<i; noise of three thousand six
hundred million^ of cubic ^Qiit of water faHin<i; in an
hour, I'rom so great a heioht — filled my mind
with a sense of the awful majesty and power of
God such as I scarcely remember to have felt else-
where.

Being anxious to cross to the American side, 1
walked down the side of the river, after having
ascended to the top of the bank, and, at last, about
a mile below, found a road runnino- down slowly to
the level of the water, the slope having brought me
back to within a comparatively short distance of the
Fall. It would have been imjiossible to have
reached this point by keeping along below, the

Tlie Falls of Nlajara.

361

broken licaps of rock niakinn; the way iiiipracticii-
Dle. The river at tlie place 1 liad now liaiiicd is,
however, so wondertiilly cahu, tliata f'eriy-hoat plies
between the Hritish and American shores, and by
tliis I crossed. Some ladies wlio were in it seelncd,
at Hrst, in some measure alarmed by tlie lieavinLr ol'
the water, but as the suriaeo was unbroken, and
reflection showed that it must be safe, they soon
resiii-ned themselves to the charms of the view
around. Forthwith, the boat was in the centre of
a vast semicircle of descendin<^ floods, more tliaii
three thousand feet in their sweep, and on the ed«:;e
of the foaming sheets of the unfathomable i;ull',
into which thev were thunderinii; down. The
o;rand cUffs on each side, the brown rocks ot' (ioat
Island in the mids<^, the fringe of huo;e trees in tlu;
distance on every hand, the clouds of spray which
rose in thick smoke from the tormented waters —
the whole ])ierced and lighted up by the rays of a
glorious sun, made a scene of surpassing beauty.
1 could not, however, take my eyes for more than
a moment from the overwhelming grandeur of the
main feature in the picture. Still, down, in their
awful, dense, stupenchjus floods, came the waters,
gathered from the inland seas of a continent, pour-
ing as if another deluge were about to overwhelm
all things. But, high over them, in the ever-ris-
ing clouds of va})or, stretched a great rainbow^, as
if to remind us of the solenm pledge given of old,
and the very edges of the mist glittered, as each

•r

362

TJic Falls '.]/' Niayara.

beat of the oar sent us on, with a succession of j)ris-
matic coh)rs, the broken fragments of others whicli
shone for a moment and then passed away.

The ascent at the American side was acconi-
phshed by a contrivance whicli I tliink must be
ahnost unique. A strong wooden raih'oad has been
laid, at a most perilous slope, from the bottom to
the top of the clitf, and a conveyance which is sim-
ply three huge wooden steps, on wheels, furnishL's
the means of ascent, a wheel at the top driven by
water, twisting it up, by a cable passed round a
windlass. I could not help shuddering at the con-
sequence of any accident that might occur, from so
j)recarious an arrangment. Goat Island is one of
the great attractions on this farther side, and is
reached by a bridge wliich makes one half forget
the wildness of the gulf across which it is stretched.
There is a house on the island in which I found
refreshments and Indian curiosities for sale, but as
I was more interested in the Falls for the moment
than in any thing else, I pushed on by a path which
turned to the rioht and led straiiiht to them. A
small island on the very edge of the precipice, and
connected by a frail bridge with Goat Island, lay
on my road. It was the scene of a very affecting
accident in 1849, A gentleman from Buffalo had
visited it along with his family, and a young man
of the name of Addington, and after looking over it,
the party were about to leave the spot, when Ad-
dington, in his thoughtless spirits, suddenly took up

Tlic Falls (if Xiajara.

36^

one of the little chiklreii, a girl, in Tiis arms, and
held her over the ed«j;e of the bank, tellinj' iiur tluit
he was goin^; to throw her in. The poor child, ter-
rified, unfortuiiately made a twist, and rolled out of
his hands into the stream. Poor Addington, in a
moment, with a loud cry of horror, sprang in to
save her, but both, almost before the others at their
side knew that any thing of so fearful a kind had
happened, were swept into the abyss beneatii.
Beyond Goat Island, a singularly daring structure
lijis enabled visitors to cross to some scattered
masses of rock on the very brink of the great fall.
A tower has beei^ erected on them, and a slight
bridge, which is always wet with the spray, has
been stretched across to it. From this j)oint the
whole extent of the falls is before you. It was an
awful siiiht to look down on the rushiny; terrors at
my feet. I felt confused, overwhelmed, and almost
stunned. Once after, on another visit, I clambered
out to it over the mounds of ice in winter, but I
hardly know that the impression was deeper then.

There are accidents every now and then at
Niagara, but it is only wonderful that, Jimidst such
dangers, there are no more. The truth is, that
here, as well as elsewhere, familiarity breeds con-
tempt. Thus, in 1854, a man ventured, with his
son, to cross the rapids above the falls, in a skiff', to
save some property which happened to be on a Hat-
bottomed " scow," which had broken from its moor-

I--

u,. i .'

>i • -

3Gi

The Falh of Nitfjara.

in.i!;s, find stuck fast at some distance above Gnat
l>land. Tlie two shot out into tlie broken water,
and were carried witli terril)le swiftness down
toward tlie " scow,*' into wliicli tlie son sprani;' as
tlu'V shot j)ast, fastening tlic skiff to it as lie did so.
llavini: taken olf the jxoods they wished to save,
the skill', with hoth on board, was once more
pushed off, and flew like an arrow on the foaming
water, toward the Three Sisters — the name (»r
some rocks above Goat Island. The fate of the
two men seemed to be sealed, for they were near-
ino- the centre Fall, and, to go over it, would be
instant death. But they nianao;ed, when on its
vei'y verj^e, to i)ush into an eddy, and reach tlie
second Sister. On this, they landed, and havino;
draiiiied ashore the skiff, carried it to the foot of the
island, a proof that the " property " they wished
to rescue could not have weighed very much.
There, they once more launched it, and making a
bold sweep down the ra[)ids, their oars going with
their utmost streniith, tliev succeeded in reaching'
the shore of Goat Island in safety, thouMi it seems
to me as if, after thus tempting their fate, they
baldly deserved to do so.

I was very much struck by the appearance of the
rapids above the Falls, on a visit I made to an
island some distance up the river, in the very mid-
dle of them. A fine broad bridixe, built by tho
owner of the island, and of the neighboring shore,

The Falls of Niai/ara.

365

enal)los vou to reach it witli oaso. It lies about
half-way In'tween Chipjxnva and the Falls, on tlio
British sido. The whole surf'aee of the <:;ivat
stream is hroken into a lon^ cascade, each leaj) of
which is made with more swit'tness than the one
beloie. It is a wild, tunudtuous scene, and forms
a Ht j)relnde to the spectacle to which it leads.
Accidents occasionally ha])])('n here also. Jnst
before I visited it, a little child had strayed fi'om a
j)arty with whom she was, and must have falKii
into the stream, as she was never seen aiiain after
beinii" missed.

Some years ago, a number of people in tho
neiii;hborliood formed the straniie wish to see a boat,
laden with a variety of animals, go down these
raj)ids and over the Falls. It was a cruel and idle
curiosity which could dictate such a thought, but
they managed to get money enough to purchase a
bear and some other animals, which were duly
launched, nnpiloted, from the shore near Chij)pewa.
From whatever instinctive sonse of dantrcr it would
be impossible to say, the creatures apj)eared very
soon to be alarmed. The bear jumped overboard
on seeing the mist of the Falls, as the people on the
spot say, and by great efforts, managed to swim
across so far that he was carried down to (ioat
Island. The other animals likewise tried to escape,
but in vain. The only living creatures that re-
mained in the boat were some geese, which could

81*

3G0

The Falls of Niayara.

not liave cscapecl if they liad wislied, tlieir wind's
liiivin<^ been eut sliort. They went over, and sev-
eral were killed at onee, though, curiously en()u<;h,
some nianao;od, by flutterin<i, to get beyond the
crushing bh)W of the descending water, and reached
the shore in safety.

Tlic Suspeimuv-Bridjc at Niajara. 3G7

CHAPTER XXIII.

The Busponsion-bridfjc at Ninpnra. — The whirlpool. — The battle
of Liindy's Lane. — Brock's monument. — A soldier nearly
drowned.

rpWO miles below the Falls an attraction |)re-
-*- Konts itself now, that was not in existence when I
first visited them, thoii<j;h I have seen it often
since : the Great Suspension Bri(l<:;e over the
chasm throuo-h which the river flows below. Mudo
entirely of iron wire, twisted into ropes and cables
of all sizes, the lar<Test measuring ten inches
through, and containing about four thousand miles
of wire, it stretches, in a road twenty-four feet in
breadth, in two stories, the under one for foot-pas-
sengers and carriages, the other, twenty-eight feet
above it, for a steady stream of railway trains, at the
height of two hundred and fifty feet over the deep
rushing Avaters, for eight hundred feet, from the
Canadian to the American shore. Two huire
towers, rising nearly ninety feet on the American
side, and nearly eighty on the British, bear up the
vast fabric, which is firmly anchored in solid ma-
sonry built into the ground beyond. It is hard to
believe, what is nevertheless the fact, that the airy

Wv-i

i!f

['■111

'I,

308

The Whirlpool.

arid I'lciraiit tlniiix tlius" li:mi;infr over the jjiilf, Is 1)V
no iiicaiis so lii^lit as it looks, hut weii^lis t'lillv' ('i;;lit
limuh't'd tons. W'licn you stej) on it and tei'l it
tremble beneath any passiui; wa<j;on, the tliou;j;ht of
trains iroinij: over it sei'uis like sendini; tlieni to cer-
tain destruction. Vet tliey do <i;o, hour after hour,
and have done so safely for yi'ars, the otdy j)recau-
tioii observed bein<i; to ereep alonix at the slowest
walk. It is open at the sides — that i>i, you ean see
uj) and down the river, and over into the awful
abyss, but my head is not steady enouo;h to stand
lookin<»; into such u depth. How Hlondin ecild
j)ass over on his I'ope has always been ineomprehen-
sible to me ; the bridge itself was not broad enouiih
for my nerves. Yet he i)erformed his wonderful
feat ajjiain and aoain, close l)y, and each time with
accumulated dilHculties, until, when the Prince of
Wales visited Niai^ara, he actually carried over a
man on his back from the Canadian to the Ameri-
can side, and came back on stilts a yard high, play
in<j; all kinds of antics on the wwy.

Every one has heard of the whirlj)ool at the Falls,
and most of the visitors ^o down the three miles to
it. To he like others, I also strolled down, hut 1
was oreatly disappointed. I had formed in my
mind a very hi^hly-wrou^xht picture of a terrible
roariHo; vortex, tlyinu; round in foam, at the rate of
a p'eat many miles an hour ; but instead, I found
a turn in the channel, which they told me was the
wliirlpool ; though, to my notion, it needed the

i'»i.! .'

The Whirlpool,

3G0

name to be written over it to enable one to know
what it was, like the hadly-paintrd si^u, on wiiich
the artist informed the passer-hy, in lar;j;e letters,
" 'i'his is a horse." I dare say it would have
wliirled (juite enou«i;h for my taste had 1 heiMi in it,
but from the brow of the ehasm it seems to take
thiniis very leisuri-b' indeed, as if it weri' treacK",
rather >han water, i here are stories ai)out the
strenn;th of the current, howevf-r, that shows it to
be greater tliaii i.. apparenl from a little distance.
A deserter, some yeavs n<xo. tried to net over bilow
the Falls to the Anjei lean side on no better con-
veyance than a hu<re |>lank. I>ut the stream was
stronger than he had supposed ; and in ^j)ite of all
his efforts, he was foiced down to this, eirclinir hor-
ror, which speedily sent him and his jdank round
and round in m-aduallv eontraetinir whirls, imtil,
after a time, they reached the centre. There was
no pushing out, and the ])oor wretch wis kept
revolving, with each end of his su})port sunk in the
vortex by turns, requiring him to crawl backwards
and forwards unceasingly for move tlian a da},
before means were found to brino; him to land.
Somebody said at the time that he would surely
become an expert circumnavigator after such n
training ; but his miraculous escape has most [)rol)a-
bly not induced many others to make the same
venturesome voyage.

ihe village of Drummondville, a little back from
the Falls, on the British side, is memorable as the

Iff

i: i '!;

i-^-ff

A Sad Mistake,

1 i

sciMie of the Battle of Lundy's Lane, in the war of
1812-1814. I was fortunate enou<^h to meet with
an intelligent man, who, when a boy, had seen the
battle from a distance ; and he went with me over
the ground. In passing through a garden, on which
a tine croj) of Indian corn was waving, he stopped
to tell me tliat on the evening after the battle, he
saw a number of soldiers come to this spot, which
was then an open field, and commence digging a
great pit. Curious to know all they were doing,
he went up and stood beside them, and found it
was a grave for a number of poor fellows who had
been shot by mistake in the darkness of the night
before. An aide-de-camp had been sent off in hot
haste down to Queenston from the battle, to order
up reinforcements as quickly as possible, and had
been obeyed so promptly that our forces on the
field could not believe they had come when they
heard them marching up the hill, but supposing
they must be Americans, fired a volley of both can-
non and musketry into their ranks. There they lie
now, without any memorial, in a private garden,
which is dug up every year, and replanted over
their bones, as if there were no such wreck of brave
hearts sleeping below. In the churchyard there
were a number of tablets of wood, instead of stone,
marking the graves of officers slain in the conflict.
I picked up more than one which had rotted off at
the ground, and were lying wherever the wind had
carried them. Peach-trees, laden with fruit, hang

The Seneca Indians,

371

over and amidst the graves, and sheep were nibbling
the grass. But what seemed the most vivid remi-
niscence of the strife was a wooden house, to wliich
my guide led me, the sides and ends of which were
perforated with a great number of holes made on
the day by musket-balls ; a larger hole here and
there, showing where a cannon had also sent its
missile through it. I was suqirised to see it inhab-
ited, with so many apertures unstopped outside ;
but perhaps it was plastered within.

Every part of the Niagara frontier has, indeed,
its own story of war and death. On the way to
Queenston I passed a gloomy chasm, into which
the waters of a small stream, called the Bloody Run,
fall, on their course to the river. It got its name
from an incident in the old French war, very
characteristic of the times and the country. A
detachment of British troops was marching up the
banks of the Niagara with a convoy of wagons, and
had reached this point, when a band of Seneca
Indians, in the service of the French, leaped out
from the woods immediately over the precipice, und
uttering from all sides their terrible war-whoop,
rushed down, pouring in a deadly volley as they
closed, and hurled them and all they had, soldiers,
wagons, horses, and drivers, over the cliifs into the
abyss below, where they were dashed to pieces on
the rocks. It was the work almost of a moment ;
they were gone before they could collect themselves
together, or realize their position. The little stream

o 1 1^

Brock's 3Iotiument.

I'i}

I (

was red witli their Llood, and out of the whole num-
ber only two es('aj)ed — the one a soldier, who, as
by miracle, <i;()t back, under cover of nin;ht, to Fort
JNiairara, at the edi^e of Lake Ontario: t le other a
(rentlenian, who sj)urred his horse through the horde
of savai^es on the first moment of the alarm, and
got off in safety. My attention was drawn, as 1
got further on, to the monument of General I^rock,
killed at the battle of Queenston, in 1812, which
stands near the village of that name, on a fine height
close to the ed<;e of the river. It is a beautiful
object when viewed from a distance, and no less so
on a near approach, and is, I think, as yet, the only
public monument in the western province. I had
often heard it sj)oken of with admiration before I
saw it, and could easily understand why it was so.
I could not but feel, that besides being a tribute to
the memory of the illustrious dead, it served also to
keep alive, through successive generations, an en-
thusiastic feeling of patriotism and of a resolute de-
votion to duty.

Taking the steamer at Queenston, which is a
small, lifeless place, I now struck out on the waters
of Ontario, to see Toronto once more. As we en-
tered the lake, I was amused by the remark of an
Irish lad, evidently fresh from his native island.
Leaning close by me over the side of the vessel, he
suddenly turned round from a deep muj^.ing, in
which he had been absorbed, and broke out —
" Och, sir ! what a dale o' fine land thim lakes

A Soldier nearly Drowned.

373

cover ! " Such a tliougjit, in a country where a
l)L)undless wilderness stretches so ck)sely in one un-
broken hne, seemed inex})ressibly kidicrous ; not to
speak of tlie uselessness of all the hmd that was " un-
rovered,*' if tliere had been no kikes to facihtate
passage from one point to another. As we k'ft
tke wli^rf at tlie town of Niaiiara, wkick stands at
tlie moutk of tke river, on the lake, a great stir
was caused for a short time by a soldier of tke
Hi lies kaving been tumbled into tke water, and
nearly drowned, tkrbugk tke stupidity of a poor
Connaugkman wko was in charge of the plank by
wliich those who were leaving the steamer, before
siie started, were to reach the shore. He was in
sucli a breathless hurry and wild excitement, that
he would hardly leave it in its place while the vis-
itors were crowdinji; out ; once and a<iain he had
made a snatch at it, only to have some one put
his foot on it, and run off. At last, the soldier
came, but just as he made a step on it, the fellow,
who had his face to the shore, and saw nothing
except the crowd, gave it a pull, and down went
the man into the water, cutting his chin badly in
falling. He evidently could not swim, and sank
almost at once, but he came up to find ropes thrown
out for him to clino; to. But somehow he could
not catch them, and he would, in another moment,
have o-one down a^ain. Luckilv, however, some
one had sense enouirh to thrust down a broad ladder,
which was standing near, and up this he nianaged

374

A ColoneVa Kindness.

to climb, we holding the top steady till he did so
Every attention was instantly paid him ; and I dare
say the mishap did him no harm beyond the ducking.
In a few minutes he was ashore again ; and I was
delighted to see 1 le colonel, who happened to be
present, give him his arm, and walk away with him,
talking kindly to him as they went.

'ra

The Canadian Lakes,

375

CHAPTER XXIV.

The Canadian lakes. — The exile's love of home. — The colored
people in Canada. — Rice. — The Maid of the Mist. — Home-spun
cloth. — A narrow road. — A grumbler. — New England emi-
grants. — A potato pit. — The winter's wood.

WHAT vast sheets of water the lakes of Can-
ada are ! Beo-innino; in the far north-west,
with Superior, nearly as large as all Scotland, we
have Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, in suc-
cession, each more like a sea than a lake. On
crossing them, you have no land in sight any more
than on the ocean ; and, like it, they have whole
fleets on them, all through the season of navigation.
They yield vast sums from their fisheries, and their
waves wash shores as extensive as those of many
kingdoms. It is striking how gigantic is the pro-
portion of every thing in nature in the New World.
Vast lakes and rivers, the wonderful Niagara, end-
less forests, and boundless prairies — all these form
a great contrast to the aspects of nature in Europe.
The chain of lakes, altogether, stretches over
more than a thousand miles, with very sliort inter-
vals between any of them, and none between some.
Even Ontario, which is the smallest, is nine times

;(,:

I i

\i{

mm' 1

376

Tlie Exile's Love of Home,

as long, and from twice to four times as broad, as
the sea between Dover and Calais. I could not
help thinking of the fact that there were men still
living who remembered when the Indians had ])os-
session of nearly all the shore of Lake Ontario, and
when only two or three of their wigwams st<jod on
the site of the town to which I was then sailing. I
found Toronto much increased since my first visit
to it — its streets macadamized in some places,
pavements of plank laid (\o\\ n on the sides of sev-
eral, the houses better, and the shops more attract-
ive. When we first came, it was as muddy a
place as could be imagined ; but a few years work
wonders in a new country like Canada. There
was now no fear of a lady losing her India-rubber
overshoes in crossing the street, as one of my sisters
had done on our first coming, nor were wagons to
be seen stuck hard and fast in the xqyj heart of the
town. I found my married sister comfortably
established, and spent a very pleasant time with her
and her husband. There is, however, not much to
see in Toronto even now, and still less at that time.
It lies very low, near the lake, though the ground
rises as it recedes from it. The neighborhood is
rather uninteresting, to my taste, from the tame-
ness of the scenery. It is an English town, how-
ever, in its feelings and outward life, and that made
it delio-htful. It is beautiful to see liow true-
hearted nearly every one becomes to his mothei-
country when he has left it. There has often

LoijalUj of the Canadians.

377

\M\

seemed to me to be more real love of Britain out
of it than in it, as if it needed to be contemplated
fit m a distance, in order thoroughly to aj)|)reciate
all its claims u|)on our love and respect. In Can-
ada almost every one is a busy local ])()Htician,
deeply immersed in party squabbles and manoju-
vres, and often separated by them I'rom his neigh-
bor. But let the magic name of" home " be men-
tioned, and the remembrance of the once-familiar
land causes every other tliouoht to be foi'iiotten.
In the time of the rebellion in 1837, before we
came out, it was found, that although multitudes
had talked wildly enough while things were all
([uiet, the moment it was proj)osed to rise against
England, the British born part of them, and many
native Canadians as well, at once went over to the
old flag, to defend it, if necessary, with their lives.
And when it seemed as if England needed help in
the time of the war with Russia, Canada came for-
ward in a moment, of her own accord, and raised
a reiximent to aid in fiiniitino; her battles, and serve
her in any part of the world. Later still, when the
Prince of Wales went over, they gave him such a
rece})tion as showed their loyalty most nobly.
Through the whole province it seemed as if the
population were smitten with an universal enthusi-
asm, and despaired of exhibiting it sufficiently.
And but yesterday, when rumors of war rose once
more, the whole people were kindled in a moment

with a loyal zeal.

32*

•

378

The Colored People,

I was very iniicli struck, on tliis trip, witli tlie
number of colored peoj)le wlio have found a refuge
in Canada. In all the hotels, most of the waiters,
and a large pro})()rtion of the cooks, seemed to be
colored. They take to these employments natur-
ally, and never appear to feel themselves in greater
glory than when fussing about the table at meals,
or wielding the basting-ladle in the kitchen. They
very seldom turn to trades, and even their children,
as they grow up, are not much more inclined to
them. I used to think it was, perha])S, because,
as slaves, they might not have learned trades, but
this would not apply to those bom in Canada, who
might learn them if they liked. They become,
instead, whitewashers, barbers, or waiters, and
cooks, like their fathers before them. I was told,
however, that they are a well-conducted set of j)eo-
ple, rarely committing any crimes, and very tem-
perate. They have places of worship of their own,
and I was amused by a friend telling us, one night,
how he had met their minister going home, carry-
ing a piece of raw beef at his side by a string, and
how, when he had one evening gone to their
chapel, the official, a colored man, had told him
that " the folks had tu'ned out raitlrer lean in the
mo'nin, and, 'sides, the -wood's sho't — so I guess
we sha'n't open to night." Poor, simple creatures,
it is, indeed, a grand thing that there is a home
open for them like Canada, where they can have
the full enjoyment of liberty. Long may the red

Hamilton,

379

cross of St. George wave an invitation to their per-
secuted race to come and find a reliigc under its
sliadow !

I went home again by way of Hamihon, to
which I crossed in a steamer. The white houses,
peeping tln'ougli tlie woods, were a pretty sight at
the phices where we stopped, the Lirger ones stand-
ing on all sides, detached, in the midst of pleasant
grass and trees ; the others, in the villages, built
with an easy variety of shape and size that could
hardly be seen in an older country. The tin spires
of churches rose, every here and there, brightly
through the trees, reminding one that the faitli of
his dear native land had not been forgotten, but
was cherished as fondly in the lonely wilderness as
it had been at home. Hamilton, the only town of
Canada West, with a hill near it, gave me a day's
pteasure in a visit to a friend, and a ramble over
*' the mountain," as they call the ridge behind it.
The sight of streets built of stone, instead of wood
or brick, was positively delightful, bringing one in
mind of the stability of an older country. " Havy
you ever seen any of this ? " said my friend, whew
we were back in his room, and he handed me a
grain different from any I had ever noticed before^
I said I had not. It was rice ; got from Rice Laki/
when he was down there lately. The lake hes a
little north of Cobourg, which is seventy miles or
so below Toronto. He was verv much

very

pi.

with his trip. The road to it lies, after leaving

380

Lake Rice.

Cobourg, tliroun;li a fine farinin<i; country for some
distance, and tlien you <;et on wliat tlie t'ollss call
• tlie ])lain.s ' — <(reat readies of sandy soil, covered
with low, scruljljy oak bushes, thick with iilberts.
As you get to the lake, the view is really beautiful,
while the leaves are out. The road stretclies on
through avenues of green, and, at last, when you
get nearer, there are charming pei'ps of the water
through a I'ringe of beautiful trees, and over and
through a workl of creepers, and vines, and bushes
of all sorts. The rice o-rows onlv in the shalk)w
borders of the lake, rising in beds along the shore,
from the deep mud, in which it takes root. It looks
curious to see grain in the middle of water. The
Indians have it left to them as a perquisite, and
they come when it gets ripe, and gather it in their
canoes, sailino; alouii and bendino; down the ears
over the edo;es of their frail vessels, and beatiniii; out
the rice as they do so. They get a good deal of
shooting as well as rice, for the ducks and wild fowl
are as fond of the ears as themselves, and flock in
great numbers to get a share of them. There are
great beds along the shores of the Georgian Bay,
on Lake Huron, as well as on Rice Lake, but there
also it is left for the Indians.

Of course I was full of my recent visit to the
Falls, and dosed my friend with all the details
which occurred to me. He had noticed, like me,
how the windows rattle unceasino-ly in the neijxh-
borhood, from the concussion of the air, and told

Tlie ''Maid of the Mist:'

381

me of a curious consequence of tlie dampness, from
the minute j)o\vdery s[)ray tliat floats far in every
direction ; — that they could not keep a ])iano from
warping and <i;ettin<:; out of tune, even as far as a
mile from the Falls, near the river's edn-e. The
o;lorious sunrise I had seen from Drununondvillo
came back again to my thoughts ; how, on rising
early one morninrr, the great cloud at the Falls, and
the long swathe of vapor that lay over the chasm
for miles below, had been chaniied into irold bv the
light, and shone like the gates of heaven ; and I
remembered how I had been struck with a great
pur])le vine near the river's edge, which, after
climbino- a loftv elm that had been stru(dv and with-
ered by lightning, flung its arms, waving far, into
the air. " Did you see the 3Liid of the Mist ? " he
asked. Of course I had, and we talked of it ; how
the little steamer plies, many times a day, from the
landing-places, close up to the Falls, going some-
times so near that you stand on the bank, far above,
in anxious excitement lest it should be sucked into
the cauldron and perish at once, I have stood
thus, wondering if the paddles would ever get her
out of the white foam into which she had pressed,
and it seemed as if, though they were doing their
utmost, it was a terrible time before they gained
their point. If any accident were to happen to the
machinery, woe to those on board ! As it is, they
get drenched, in spite of oil-skin dresses, and must
be heartily glad when they reach firm footing once

!■ I

882

Jlomespun Cloth.

I was sorry wlion I liad to leave and turn my
face once more toward liome. As the staii;e drove
on, tlie roads lu'ing still in their best condition, 1
liad leisure to notice every tliin<j;. The ([uantity ot'
homespun gray woollen cloth, worn hy the ranneis
and country people, was very nuich greater than I
liad seen it in previous years, and was in adniirai)le
keeping with the country around. The wives and
daughters in the farm-houses had a good deal to do
in its manufacture. The wool is taken to the mill
to get cleaned, a certain weight being kej)t back
from each lot in payment ; then the snowy-wliite
fleece is twisted into rolls, and in that condition it
is taken back by the owners to be spun into yarn
at home. I like the hum of the spinning-wheel
amazino-lv, and have often waited to look at
some titly girl, walking backwards and forwards at
her task, at each approach sending off another hum,
as she drives the wheel round once more. But the
cloth is not made at home. The mill gets the yarn
when finished, and weaves it into the homely use-
ful fabric I saw everywhere around. At one
place we had an awkward stoppage on a piece of
narrow corduroy road. There happened to be a
turn in it, so that the one end could not be seen
from the other, and we had got on some distance,
bumping dreadfidly from log to log, when a wagon
made its appearance coming toward us. It could
not pass and it could not turn, and there was water
at both sides. What was to be done ? It was a

A Gnunlliny Scotchman.

38a

great (question for tlie two drivers. Their tongues
went at a ^reat rate at each otlier for awhile, but,
after a time, they cooled down enough to discuss the
situation, as two statesmen ^vould the thrratem-il
collision of empires. They finally solved the ditH-
culty by unyokin<^ the horses from the waf^on, and
pushing it back over the logs with infinite trouble,
after taking out as much of the load as was neces-
sary. Of course the passengers lu'lj)ed with right
good-will, turning the wheels, and straining this
way and tluit, till the road was clear, when we
drove on once more. The bridge at Urantford,
when we reached it, was broken down, having
remained so since the last spring Hoods, when it
had been swept away by the ice and water together,
and the coach had to get through the stream as
well as it could. The horses behaved well, the
vehicle itself slipped and bumj)ed over and agju'nst
the stones at the bottom ; but it got a cleaning tliat
it very much needed, and neither it nor we took
any liarm. A great lumpish farmer, who travelled
with me, helped to ])ass the time by his curious
notions and wonderful power of grumbling. A
person beside him, who appeared to know liis
ways, dragged him into conversation, whether he
would or not. He maintained there was nothing
In Canada like what he had seen in Scotland ; his
wheat had been destroyed by the midge, year after
year, or by the rust ; his potatoes, he averred, had
never done well, and every thing else had been

til

'■>•'

iilll

38-4

An Irish Laborer.

'if

Mfii

alike miserable. At last he seemed to have cot
throiio-]i his lamentations, and his neio;hbor struck
in — " Well, at any rate, Mr. M'Craw, you can't
say but your turnips are first-rate this year ; why,
one of them will fill a bucket when you cut it up
for the cattle." But Mr. M'Craw was not to be
beaten, and had a ready answer. " They're fni
owre guid — I'll never be fit to use them — the
half o' them* 'ill rot in the grund, if they dinna
choke the pvJr kye wi the size o' them,"' The
whole of us laughed, but ]\Ir. M'Craw only shook
his head. As we w^ere trottino; alon<i we overtook
an Irishman — a laborino; man — and w-ere hailed
bv him as we passed. " Will ve take lis to Infi;er-
soil for a quarter (an English shilling) ? " The
driver pulled up — made some objections, but at
last consented, and Paddy instantly pulled out his
money, and reached it into the hand which was
stretched down to receive it. "Jump in, now —
quick." But, indeed, he needn't have said it, he
was only too anxious to do so. The coach window
was down, and the pane being large, a good-sized
opening was left. In a moment Pat was on the stej)
below ; the next, first one leg came through the
window-frame, amidst our unlimited laughter ; then
the body tried to follow, but this was no easy busi-
ness. " Wait a minit. I'll be thro' in a minit," he
shouted to us. " Get out, man, do ye no ken the
use o' a door ?" urged Mr. M'Craw. But in the
mean time Pat had crushed himself through, in some

A Crentleman and Ms Dog.

385

way, and had landed in an extraordinary Hishion,
as ixentiv as he coukl, across our knees. We soon
got him into his seat, but it was long before we
ceased lauiihino; at the adventure. He could never
have been in a coach in his lite before. I saw a
misfortune happen in an omnibus some years after,
on the way down to Toronto from the Nortii, which
was the only thing to be compared to it tor its efl'ect
on the risible powers of the spectators. A gentle-
man travelling with me then, had a favorite dog
with him, which he was very much afraid he miglit
lose, but w4iich the driver would not allow him to
take inside. At every stoppage the first thought
of both man and beast seemed the same, to see if
all was right with the other. The back of the
omnibus was low, and the dog was eager to get in,
but he and his master could only confer with each
other from opposite sides of the door. At last, as
we got near the town we came to a halt once more.
The gentlemrn was all anxiety about his dog.
For the fiftieth time he put his head to the window
to see if pvery thing was right. But it happened
that, just as he did so, the dog was in full flight for
the same opening, having summoned up all his
strength for a terrible jump through the only en-
trance, and reached it at the same moment as his
master's face, against which he came with a force
which sent himself back to the ground and sorely
disturbed his owner's composure. It was lucky the

animal was not very large, else it might have done

J ■

386

New England Emigiants.

1 -

[IT

^\-

serious damajje ; as it was, an astoundiiiii sliock wa.s
the only apj)arent result. It was a pity he was hurt
at all, but the thouii:lit ot'blockino; oti' the dtjo; with
his face, as you do a cricket ball with a bat,
and tliB sublime astonishment of both doo; and
man at the collision, were irresistibly ludicrous.
On our way from London to Lake Huron we
came on a curious sight at the side of the road — a
New England family, on their way from Vermont
to Michigan, travelling, and living, in a wagon,
like the Scythians of old. The wagon was of com-
paratively slight construction, and was arched over
with a white canvas roof, so as to serve for a con-
veyance by day, and a bedroom by night, though it
must have been hard work to o;et a man and his
wife, and some children, all duly stretched out at
full length, packed into it. Some of them, I !5U})pose,
took advantage of wayside inns for theii nightly
lodging. A thin pipe, })rojecting at the back,
showed that they had a small stove with them, to
cook their meals. Two cows were slowly walking
behind, the man himself driving them ; and a tin
pail, hanging on the front of the wagon, spoke of
part of their milk being in the process of churning
into butter by the shaking on the way. They were
very respectable looking people — as nearly all
New Englanders are — and had, no doubt, sold off
their property, whatever it might have been, in
their native State, to go in search of a new *' loca-
tion," as they call it — that is, a fresh settlement

Neio Enjland Emigrants.

387

ck wa.-i
IS hurt
Z with
a but,
)o: and
[icroiis.
roil we
ad — a
ermont
wao'oii,
of coin-
ed over
L' a con-
lough it
and his
out at
iijjpose,
nightly
back,
liem, to
Ivalking
Id a tin
^)oke of
iiirning
by were
Irly all
Isold off
jen, in
I" loca-
llement

in the Far West, with the praises of which, at that
time, the country was full. It must have taken
the>n a very long time to get so far at such a snail" s
pace ; but time would eventually take a snail round
the world, if it had enough of it, and they seemed
to lay no stress whatever on the rate of their pro-
gress. They had two horses, two cows, and the
wagon, to take with them, until they should reach
their new neighborhood ; and to accomplish that
was worth some delay. One of my fellow-travel-
lers told me that such waj^on-loads were then an
every-day sight on the road past Brantford ; and
indeed I can easily believe it. Michigan was then
a garden of Eden, according to popular report ;
but it was not long in losing its fame, which pat^sed
to Wisconsin, and from that has passed to other
States or territories since. The New Enfjland folks
are as much given to leaving their own country as
any people, and much more than most. Their own
State are too poor to keep them w^ell at home ; and
they have energy, shrewdness, and very often high
principle, which make them welcome in any place
where they may choose to settle in preference.
I know parts in some of the New England States
where there are hardly any young men or young
women ; they have left for the towns and cities
more or less remote, where they can best push
their fortunes. It is the same very much in
Nova Scotia, and, indeed, must be so with all poor
countries.

388

A Potato Pit,

I was very f]!;lacl, when I got home, to find all
my circle quite well, and had a busy time of" it for
a jjood while, tellinn' them all I had seen and heard.
They were busy with tlieir fall-work — o;c'ttin;Li; the
])otatoes and turnips put into pits, to keep them
from the frost when it should set in. and m'ttin*^
ready a great stock of firewood. Our ])it was u
curious affair, which I should have mentioned ear-
lier, since we made it in the second fall we were
on the river. We dug a great hole like a grave,
many feet deep, large enough to hold a Inuidred
bushels of potatoes, and I don't know what besides.
The bottom of this excavation was then strewed
with loose boards, and the sides were walled round
with logs, set up side by side, to keep the earth
from falling in. On the top, instead of a roof, we
laid a floor of similar logs, close together, and on
this we heaj)ed up earth to the thickness of about
three fi3et, to keep out the cold, however severe it
miiiht be. The entrance was at one end, down a
short ladtler, which brought you to a door, roughly
fitted in. The first year it was made, we })aid for
imperfect acquaintance with such things by bringing
a heavy loss on ourselves. We had put in eighty
bushels of ])otatoes, and, to keep out the least trac^
of frost, filled uj) the hole where the ladder was
with earth. But in the spring when we oi)ened
the pit to get out our seed, we found the whole
heap to be worthless. 1 i-emember the day very
well ; it was vQvy bright and beautiful, and we

The Winter's Wood.

339

were all in liigli spirits. The earth was removed
from the ladder end in a very short time, and young
Grahame, one of a neighbor's boys, asked leave to
go in first, and bring out the first basketful. Down
lie lea[)ed, pulled open the door, and crept in. We
waited a minute, but there was no sijxn of his com-
ing out again. We called to him, but got no an-
swer ; and at last I jumped down to find the poor
little fellow overpowered from the effects of the
carbonic acid gas, with which the pit was filled.
The earth at the ladder end had entirely prevented
the necessary ventilation, and the potatoes had
" heated," and had become perfectly rotten. We
managed better after this by putting straw instead
of earth into the opening ; but the right plan would
have been to sink a small hollow tube of wood —
a slender piece of some young tree,*vvith the middle
scooped out, through the top, to serve as a ventila-
tor. It was a great loss to us, as the potatoes
were then at the unusual price of a dollar a bushel,
and eighty dollars were to us, at that time, a small
fortune.

The laying in the winter's wood was a tedious
affair : it was cut in the fall, and part of it dragged
by the oxen to the house in the shape of long logs ;
but we left the greater part of the drawing till the
snow came. It was a nasty job to cut off each day
what would serve the kitchen, and keep the fires
brisk ; and I sometimes even yet feel a twinge of
conscience at the way I used to dole out a fixed

33*

ii'ii' '

ii.
■ 1,1

ill

i I

ii-V

11:

890

Chopping Firewood.

number of ])ieccs to my sisters, keeping it as small
as possible, and much smaller than it should have
been. I was willinji enouixli to work at most thinjis,
and can't blame myself for being lazy ; but to get
u)) from the warm fire on a cold morning to chop
fire-wood, was freezing work ; though this should
certainly not have kept me from cutting a few
more sticks, after all. I am afraid we are too apt
to be selfish in these trifles, even when we are the
very reverse in things of more moment. If I had
the chance, now I am older, I think 1 would atone
for my stinginess, cost me what freezing it might.

TJioughts for the Future,

391

CHAPTER XXV.

Thoughts for the future. - Changes. - Too hard study. - Education
in Canada. - Christmas markets. - Winter a.uusen.ents. - kc
boats. _ Very cohl ice. - Oil-springs. - Changes on the farni.-
(xrowth of Canada. -The American climate. -Old England
again.

VTTHEN we liad been five years on the form,

^ and Henry and I, and the girls, were now

getting to be men and women, the question of what

we slioidd do to get started in tlie world, became
more and more pressing. Robert wished to get
married ; Henry and I, and the two girls, all alike,
wanted to be off; and the farm was clearly unfit to
support more than one household. It took a long
time for us to come to any conclusion, but at laJt
we decided that Robert should have the land, that
the girls should be sent for a time to a school down
the country, and Henry and I should go to To-
ronto, he to study medicine, and I law. Of course,
all this could not be managed at once, but it was
greatly facilitated by remittances from my brothers
in England, who undertook by far the lai'ger pro-
portion of the cost. I confess I felt more sorrow at
leaving the old place than I had expected, tliough

Jii

<-ri

i I

I 111

Hi-'?' ■

i 'fl

392

Too hard Stady.

it was still for years to be my lioine whenever I got
free for a time ; and it was l(jng before I eould get
fairly into Blackstone, and Chitty, and Smith.
Had I known how my life would ultimately turn,
I don't think I should ever have troubled them, for
liere I am now, my law laid aside, snugly in Eng-
land again, a partner in the mercantile establish-
ment of my brothers, who had continued at home.
I did not like the law in its every-day details of
business, though all must recognize the majesty of
the great principles on which the whole fabric rests ;
and I got tired utterly of the country, at last, per-
haps from failing health, for I bent with too much
zeal to my studies when I once began. The
chance of leavino; Canada for my native land was
thus unspeakably pleasing ; and it rewarded the
gratitude with which I once more reached it, by
giving me back a good part of the strength I had
lost. When I look back on the years I spent over
my books, and remember liow I presumed on my
youth, and tasked myself night and day to continu-
ous work, it seems as if my folly had only been
matched by my guilt. To undermine our health is
to trifle with all our advantages at once. Honest,
earnest work is all well enough, and nobody can
ever be any thing without it, but if there be too
much of it, it defeats its own object, and leaves him
who has overtaxed himself behind tliose who have
made a more discreet use of their strength. I
would gladly give half of what I learned by all my

Too hard Study.

393

years ofclo.se study, for some of the health I lost in
acquiring it. Indeed, I question if I gained more,
after all my fagging on with a wearied body and
mind, than I would if I liad taken pro{)er relaxa-
tion and amusement, and returned fresh and vigor-
ous to my books. Tlie Genoese archers lost the
battle of Cressy by a shower falHng on their bow-
strings, wdiile those on our side gained it by having
their weapons safely in cases till the chjuds were
past. So, no doubt, it should be in our manage-
ment of those powers within, on which our success
in student life depends — let them be safely
shielded betimes, and they will be fresh for action
when others are relaxed and useless. How nnich
time is spent when the mind is wearied, without
our being able to retain any thing of what we read!
How often have I closed my book, at last, with the
feeling that really it might have been shut long
before. I read in the ofKce, and out of it, when-
ever I had a chance ; had some book or other on
the table at my meals ; kept rigidly from visiting
friejids, that I mioht economize every moment ;
poked my fire, and lighted a fresh candle at mid-
ni<>ht, and gained some knowlediic, indeed, but at
the cost of white, or rather yellow cheeks — a stoop
of the shoulders, and a hollow chest — cold feet, 1
fear, for life, and a stomach so weak that I am sel-
dom without a memento of my folly in the pi in it
gives me. An hour or two in the open air every
day would have saved me all these abatements, and

■i

I-

I r

iil:

t ....

■w

394

Education in Canada.

would lia/e quickened my powers of work so as
more tliiin to make up fur their being indulged in a
little l)lay.

Since my day, great facilities liave been afforded
in Canada for education. There are now gram-
mar schools, with very moderate fees, in every
])art of the country, and a lad or young man can
very easily get a scholarship which takes him free
through the University at Toronto.* Every
county has one or more to give away each year.
There is thus every chance for those who wish to
rise, and Canada will no doubt show some notable
results from the facility she has liberally provided
for the encouragement of native genius and talent.

My b(;ing for a length of time in a town showed
me new features of a colonial life which I should
in vain have looked for in the country. In many
respects I might easily have forgotten I was in
Canada at all, for you might as well speak of get-
ting a correct idea of England from living in a pro-
vincial town, as of Canada by living in the streets
of Toronto. The dress of the people is much the
same as in Britain. Hats and lio-ht overcoats are
not entirely laid aside even in winter, tUough fur
caps and gauntlets, after all, are much more com-
mon. The ladies sweep along with more show

* The university has been long cstablislied, but since I attended
its classes, it has been put on a more liberal basis — the number
of chairs enlarged, and facilities for obtaining its advantages
greatly increased.

Christinas Markets.

395

than in Encrland, as if tlicy dressed for out of door
display especially ; but they .are, no doubt, temj»ted
to tliis by the elearnees and dryness of the air,
which neither soils nor injures fine thin<::;s, as the
coal-dust and dampness does in English towns.
The most plainly-dressed ladies I used to see were
the wife and daujiliters of the o;overnor-ii;eneral.

The markets at Christmas were usually a <:!;reater
attraction to many ])eople than they used to be in
England. If the weather chanced to be cold, you
would see hur^e files of frozen pigs standing on their
four legs in front of the stalls, as if they had been
killed when at a gallop ; countless sheep hung
over-head, with here and there one of their heads
carefully gilded, to add splendor to the exhibition.
Some deer were almost always noticed at some of
the stalls, and it was not unusual to see the carcase
of a bear contributing its part to the general show.
As to the oxen, they were too fat for my taste,
though the butcher seemed to be proud of them in
proportion to their obesity. The market was not
confined to a special building, though there was one
for the purpose. Long ranges of farmers' wagons,
ranged at each side of it, showed similar treasures
of frozen i)ork and mutton, the animals standing
entire at the feet of their owners, who sat among
them waiting for purchasers. Frozen geese, ducks,
chickens, and turkeys abounded, and that house-
hold was very poor indeed which had not one or
other to grace the festival.

896

Winter Amusements.

■ n 1 ('

!•;:

n::

mi^

Winter Avas fi n;roat time for amusement to the
townspeople, from tlic nearness of the hroad bay
wlii(;li in summer forms tlieir liarbor, antl, after the
frost, tlieir ])lace of recreation. It was (i;eneraliy
turned into a great sheet of ice across its whole
breadth of two miles, some time about Christmas,
and continued like rock till the middle of April.
As long as there were no heavy falls of snow to
bury it, or after they had been blown oft' by the
wind, the skatino; was universal. Bovs and men
alike gave way to the passion for it. The ice was
covered with one restless throno; from mornino; to
night. School-boys made for it as soon as they got
free ; the clerks and shopmen were down the
instant the shutters were up and the door fastened ;
even ladies crowded to it, either to skate with the
assistance of some gentleman, or to see the crowd,
or to be pushed along in chairs mounted on run-
ners. The games of diff*erent kinds played between
large numbers were very exciting. Scotchmen
with theh" " curling," others with balls, battering
them liitliev' and thither, in desperate efforts to
carry them to a particular boundary. Then thei-e
were the ice-boats gliding along in every direction,
with their loads of well-dressed people reclining on
them, and their huge sail swellino; overhead.
These contrivances were new to me, though I had
been so long in Canada. They consist of a three-
cornered frame of wood, large enough to give room
for five or six people lying down or sitting on them,

The Icc'lntde of Toronto.

397

the upper sich^ boarded over, and the K)\ver shod on
each angle witli an iron runner. A mast and sail
near the sliarp point wliicli (^oes foremost furnish
the means ot propulsion. Tlie two lonijest runners
are HxcmI, but the short one at tlio l)aek is worked
by a lielni, the steersman havini; aetual control of
the machine by its aid, and kee))in;^^ within reach
the cleats of tlie sail, that he may loosen or tiifhten
it as he sees necessary. Many of the lads about
■were very skilful in manamni:; them, anil wcndd sail
as close to the wind, and veer and tack, as if they
were in an ordinary boat in the water, instead of an
oddly-shaped sleiii;h on ice. A very little wiiul suf-
ficed to drive them at a fjood speed if the ice was
good, and there was a good deal of excitement in
watchinii" the cracks and air-holes as you rushed
over them. I have seen them sometimes iioincr
with great rapidity. They say, indeed, that occa-
sionally they cross the harbor in less than four min-
utes — a rate of speed ei^ual to nearly thirty miles
an hour.

The ice-trade of Toronto is a considerable branch
of industry durino; the winter, and <j;ane;s of men
are emj^loyed for weeks together sawing out great
blocks about two feet square from the parts of the
bay where it is clearest and best for use. These
are lifted by poles furnished with iron hooks, into
carts, and taken to houses especially prepared for
keeping them through the hot weather of the fol-
lowing summer. An ordinary wooden frame

398

Spring Ice.

Luildlno; is lined inside with a wall all round, at
from two to three feet from the outer one, and the
space between is filled with waste tan bark rammed
close, to keep out the heat when it comes. In this
wintry shelter the cubes «'f ice are built up in solid
masses, and, when full, the whole is finally pro-
tected by double doors, with a large quantity of
straw between them. In the hot months you may
see light carts with cotton covering stretched
over them in every street, carrying round the con-
tents — now broken in more salable pieces — the
words " S})ring ice " on each side of the white roof
inviting the housekeepers to supply themselves.
In hotels, ])rivate dwellings, railway carriages,
steamers, and indeed everywhere, drinking-water
in summer is invariably cooled by lum])s of gelid
luxury, and not a few who take some of the one,
finish by sucking and swallowing some of the
other. I saw an advertisement lately in a New
Orleans paper, begging the visitors at hotels not to
eat the ice in the water-jugs this season, as, from
the war luu'ing cut ofi' the sup})ly from the North,
it was very scarce. At table, in most houses, the
butter is regularly surmounted by a piece of ice, and
it seems a regular practice with some persons at
hotels and on steamers to show their breedino; and
selfishness by knockino; aside this useful orna-
ment and taking a piece wh'.ch it co^'ered, as the
coolest and hardest, leaving the others to put it up
again if they like.

Canad'an Ice.

399

one,
the
New
not to
from
orth,
, the
e, and
)ns at
kcr and
orna-
■as the
it up

Boilino; water never gets hotter tlian two hun-
di'ud and twelve degrees, beeause, at that l.eat it
flies off in steam, but ice may be made a great deal
colder than it is when it first freezes. English ice
is pretty cold, but it never gets fiir below thirty-two
degrees, which is the freezing-point. Canadian
ice, on the other hand, is as nuich colder as the
air of Canada in which it is formed, is than tnat of
Eno-land. Thus there is as much more culu. in a
piece of ice, of a given size, from the one country,
than in a piece of a similar size from the otiier, and
where cold is wished to be produced, as it is in all
drinks in summer in hot climates, Canadian ice is,
of course, much more valuable than any warmer
kind would be. Tlie Americans have lono; an;o
thought of this, and have created a great trade in
their ice, which is about as cold as that of Canada,
taking it in ships, prepared very much as the ice-
houses are, to India, and many other countries,
whore it is sold often at a great profit. You read
jj iLv'^- ice crop as you would hear farmers s})eak of
their crop of wheat or potatoes. They have not
got so far as this tint T know of in Canada, but if
Boston ice can command a good j)rice in Calcutta or
Madras, that of the l/ower St. Lawrence sliould be
abio to drive it out of the market, for it is verv
much colde)'. A fen' inches of it are like a concen-
trate 1 portable wi^iter.

In tl\«i finp Tarms round Toronto a great many
fields are wxliort any stumps, sometimes from their

«■

400

Oil Springs.

\ I

ill

having been cleared so long that the stumps have
rotted out, and sometimes by their having been
})ulled out bodily as you would an old tooth, by a
stump machine. It is a sim})le enough con-
trivance. A great screw is raised o' .>r the stump
on a stroncr frame of wood which is made to enclose
it ; some iron grapnels are fastened into it on dif-
ferent sides, and a long pole put sticking out at one
side for a horse, and then — after some twists —
away it goes, with far more et'*-'^ t' n would be
tlumo-lit possible. The outlvino; roots have, of
course, to be cut away first, and a good deal of dig-
ging done, to let the screw, and the horse or horses,
have every chance, but it is a much more expedi-
tious plan than any other known in Canada, and
must be a i^reat comfort to the farmer by lettincr
him plough and harrow without going round a wil-
derness of stumps in each field.

A singular discovery has beei? made of late yeu-
about ten miles behind Robert's farm in Bidv ort.
of wells yielding a constant supply of petrokvpi rr
rock oil, instead of water. The quantity obtained
is enormous, and as the oil is of a very fine quality
and fit for most ordinary puqwses, it is of great
value. Strangely enough, not only in Canada but
also in the States, the same unlooked-for source has
been found at about the same time, supplying the
Siime kind of oil. The wells of Pennsylvanju are
amazingly productive. I hive been assured chat
there is a small river in on 3 of the townshipb of the

Oil Springs,

401

have
been
by a
con-
;tump
iclose
in (1 it-
it one
ists —
lid be
e, of
of dig-
iiorses,
ixpedi-

[a, and
etting
a wil-

yor'-L"
\(\\ ort.

^tained
luality
o;reat
lla but
Ice has
i£f the

li'

are

that
lof the

State, called Oil Creek, which is constantly covered
with a thick coat of oil, from the quantity that
oozes from each side of the banks. The whole soil
around is saturated with it, and this, with the
necessity of fording the w^ater, has destroyed a
great many valuable horses, which are found to get
inflamed and useless in the legs by the irritation
the oil causes. Wells are sunk in every part of
the neighborhood, each of which spouts up oil as an
artesian well does water, and that to such an amaz-
ing extent, that from some of them, hundreds of
barrels, it is affirmed, have been filled in a day.
Indeed, there is one well, which is known by the
well of " The Brawly," which, if we can believe
the accounts given, in sixty days spouted out thirty-
three thousand barrels of oil, and some others are
alleged to have yielded more than two thousand
barrels in twenty-four hours. Unfortunately, pre-
parations had not, in most cases, been made for
catching this extraordinary quartity, so that a great
proportion of it ran off and was lost. The depth
of the well varies. Some are close to the surface,
but those which yield most are from five to eight
hundred feet deep, and there, seemed to reach a
vast lake of oil which is to all ajipearance inex-
haustible. They manage to save the whole pro-
duce now by lining the wells, which are mere holes
about six inches in diameter, for some depth with
copper sheathing, and putting a small })ipe with
stop-cocks in at the top, which enables them to con-

402

Oil S2)rings.

iMi

li-iV

i !■

'■.i^

trol the flow as easily as tliey do that of water.
If we think of the vast quantities of coal stored up
in different parts, it will diminish our astonishment
at the discovery of these huge reservoirs of oil, for
both seem to have the same source, from the vast
beds of vegetation of the early eras of the globe ;
if, indeed, the oil does not often rise from decom-
position of coal itself, for it occurs chiefly in the
oal measures. We shall no doubt have full scien-
tific accounts of them, after a time, and as they
become familiar we shall lose the feel in 2: of wonder
which they raised at first. Except to the few who
are thouHitful, nothincr that is not new and stran<xe
seems worthy of notice ; but, if we consider aright,
wdiat is wonderful in itself is no less so because we
have become accustomed to it. It is one great dif-
ference between a rude and a cultivated mind, that
the one has only a gaping wonder at passing events
or discoveries, while the other seeks to find novelty
in what is already familiar. The one looks only
at a result before him, the other tries to find out
causes. The one only looks at things as a whole,
the other dwells on details and examines the minut-
est parts. The one finds food for his curiosity in
his first impressions, and when these fade, turns
aside without any further interest ; the other dis-
covers wonders in things the most common, insig-
nificant, or apparently w^orthless. Science got the
beautiful metal — aluminium — out of the clay
which ignorance trod under foot ; through Sit

Changes on the Farm.

403

we
dif-
tluit
lents
elty
inly
out
ole,
liut-
iii
rns
Idis-
sig-
the
[lay

\sit

Humphrey Davy it got loiline out of tlic scra])ings
of soap-kettles, which the soap-hoilers had always
thrown out, and it extracts the heautiful dyes we
call Magenta and Solferino, from coal-tar, which
used to be a worthless nuisance near every gas-
house.

My brother Robert's farm, when I last saw it,
was very different from my first recollection of it.
He has a nice little brick house built, and frame
barns have taken the place of the old log ones that
served us lonji; ago. After our leavino; he com-
menced a new orchard of the best trees he coidil
get — a nursery established sixty miles off down
the river, supjdying young trees of the best kinds
cheajily. They have flourished, and nuist by this
time be getting quite broad and venerable. He
has some good horses, a nice gig for sunnner, with
a leather cover to keep off the sun or the stoini,
and a sleigh for winter, with a very handsome set
of furs. Most of the land is cleared, and he is able
to keep a man all the time, so that he^ has not the
hard work he once had. His fences are new and
good, and the whole place looked very pleasant in
summer. All this progress, how^ever, has not been
made from the profits of the farm. A little money
left by a relative to each of us gave him some ca})i-
tal, and with it he opened a small store on his lot
in a little house built for the ]nirposc. There was
no pretence of keeping shop, but when a customer
came he called at the house, and any one who hap-

404

Qrowth of Canada.

■< i

pened to be at hand went with liim and unlocked
the door, opened the shutter, and supphed him,
hjcking all safely again when he was gone. In this
primitive way he has made enough to keep him
very comfortably with his family, the land provid-
ing most of what they eat. They have a school
within a mile of them, but it is rather an humble
one, and there is a clergyman for the church at the
wharf two miles down. Henry esta])lished himself
in a little village wlien he first got his degree, but
was thought so much of by his professors that ho
has been asked to take the chair of surgery, which
he now holds. My two sisters, Margaret and
Eliza, both married, but only the former is now
living, the other having been dead for some years.
Margaret is married to a worthy Presbyterian
minister, and, if not rich, is, at least, comfortable,
in the ])lain way familiar in Canada.

When we first went to Canada no more was
meant by that name than the strip of country along
the St. Lawrence, in the Lower Province, and, in
the Uj)per, the peninsula which is bounded by the
great lakes — Huron, Erie, and Ontario. Since
then, however, the discovery of gold in California
and Eraser's River has o;iven a wide rano;e to men's
thoughts, and awakened an ambition in the settled
districts to claim as their domain the vast reo;ion of
British America, stretching away west to the shores
of the Pacific, and north to the xVrctic Ocean. I
used to think all this vast tract only fit for the wild

The American Climate.

40b

animals to wliicli it was for the most part left, but
there is notliino; like a little knowledo-e for cliaiio;-
iiig mere prejudice. There is of course a part of it
which is irredeemably desolate, but there are
immense reaches whicii will, certainly, some dnv,
be more highly valued than they are now. The
nearly untouched line on the north of Lake Huron
lias been found to be rich in mines of copper. The
Red. River district produces magnificent wheat.
The River Saskatchewan, flowino; in two o;reat
branches from the west and north-west to Lake
Winnepeg, drains a country more than six times as
large as the whole of England and Wales, and every-
where showing the most glorious woods and prairies,
whicli are proofs of its wealth as an agricultural
region. The Mackenzie River drains another part
of the territory eight times as large as England and
Wales together, and the lower })arts of it, at least,
have a climate which promises comfort and plenty.
It is no less than two thousand five hundred miles
in length, and is navigable by steamboats for twelve
hundred miles from its mouth. It is a sino;ular
fact that the further west you go on the North
American continent, the milder the climate. Van-
couver's Island, Mdiich is more tlum tw^o hundred
miles further north than Toronto, has a climate Hke
that of England ; instead of the extremes of Can-
ada, as you go up the map, the difference between
the west and east sides of the continent becomes as
great as if we were to find in Newcastle the same

"III . 1, 'J

IP' ! <

\<. -t f,

■'

?3 ',

SI."

406

Tlie American Climate.

temperature in winter as French settlers enjoy in
Aliiiers. The musk oxen o;o more tlian four hun-
di'ed miles further north in summer, on the wes-
tern, than tliey do on tlie eastern side, and tlie elk
and moose-deer wander nearly six hundred miles
further north in the grass season, on the one than
on the other.

It is indeed more wonderful that tlie east side of
America should be so cohl than that the west
should be so much milder. Toronto is on a line
with the Pyrenees and Florence, and yet has the
climate of Russia instead of that of southern Franco
or Italy ; and Quebec, with its frightful winters
and roasting summers, would stand nearly in the
middle of France, if it were carried over in a
straight line to Europe. Yet we know what a
wonderful difference there is in England, which is,
thus, far to the north of it. It is to the dift'erent
disti'ibution of land and sea in the two hemispheres,
the mildness in the one case, and the coldness in
the other, must be attributed. The sea which
stretches round the British Islands, warmed by tlie
influence of the Gulf Stream, is the great source of
their comparative warmth, tempering, by its nearly
uniform heat, alike the fierce blasts of the north
and the scorchiiio; airs of the south. In Sir Charles
Ly ell's " Principles of Geology,'* you will find
maps of the land and sea on the earth, so arranged,
that in one, all the land would be comparatively
temperate, while in the other, it would all be com-

Old England again.

407

parativelj cold. In America it is likely that the
great mountains that run north and south in three
vast chains, beginning, in the west, with the Cas-
cade Mountains, followed, at wide distances, by the
Rocky Mountains, rising in their vast height and
length, as a second barrier, on the east of them,
and by the vast nameless chain which stretches, on
the east side of the continent, from the north shore
of Lake Superior to the south of King Wil Ham's
Land, on the Arctic Ocean — modify the climate
of the great North-west to some extent, but it is
very hard to speak with any confidence on a point
so littlci known.

I have already said that I am glad I am back
again in dear Old England, and I repeat it now
that I am near the end of my story. I have not
said any thing about my stay in Nova Scotia,
because it did not come within my plan to do so,
but I include it in my thoughts when I say, that,
after all I have seen these long years, I believe
" there's no place like home." If a boy really
wish to get on and work as he ought, he will find
an opening in life in his own glorious country,
without leavino; it for another. Were the same
amount of labor expended by any one here, as I
have seen men best'^^v on their wild farms in the
bush, they would get as nmch for it in solid com-
fort and enjoyment, and would have arcund them
through life the thousand delio;hts of their native
land. Some people can leave the scene of their

408

FeeUiKj toward Enyland.

) I

boyhood and the friends of tlieir youtli, and even
of their manhood, without seeming to leel it, but I
do not envy them tlieir indifference. I take no
shame in confessing that I feh toward England,
while away from it, what dear Oliver Goldsmith
says so touchingly of his brother :

" Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see,
My heart, untravell'd, fondly turns to tliee :
Still to my country turns, with ceaseless pain,
Aud drags at each remove a lengthening chain.'

THE END.

1 even
, but I
ike no
igland,
dsinith