^7V^O Sketches FRcyvi A/vlerica PART L- CANADA PAET II. -A PIC-NIC TO THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS PAKT III. -THE IRISH IN AMERICA BY JOHN WHITE FELLOW OF QUEEN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD LONDON SAMPSON LOW, SON, AND MARSTON GROWN BUILDINGS, 188 FLEET STKEET 1870 LONDON: PBINTED BY SPOTTI8WOODE AND CO., NEW-STBEET SQTJABB AND PABLIAMBNI STBBBT F/ois Wss PBEFACE. This book is founded upon a tour that was under- taken without any design of collecting materials for a book. The rewriting of notes made during that tour, and the : gradual supplementing of these, from memory, from private correspondence with Americans, and from many publications on American subjects, have led to the collection of materials that now seem sufficient for a book. These materials, however, would not have been published, in the face of the increasing supply of books upon America, had it not seemed to the writer that the demand is fairly keep- ing pace with the supply ; and, also, that the subject is large enough to give to each of the writers, how- ever numerous, sufficient room for keeping generally clear of the particular tracks gone over by the others. London, 1870. 357 CONTENTS PART I. CANADA. English ideas about Canada . Canadians and Americans Imitation of England Canadian ideas about England Manner toward strangers Transatlantic manners Canadian patriotism . Canadian politics Eough legislators ' Colonial, not democratic ' theory Canadian elections 4 Men, not measures,' in Canada Contrast of the Union Canadian and American statesmen Party organisation in Canada Canadian newspapers The Irish in Canada: Orangeism Church disendowment quarrel Present position of the Canadian clergy Canadian Church and Irish . Eeligious intolerance in Canada Irish Eoman Catholics in Canada The French-Canadians 'Morcellement' The seigneuries Lower Canadian feudalism The seignorial land-tenure Lower Canadian land-reforms Lower Canadian and Irish land-questi Prussian and Indian land-questions French-Canadian towns The early French settlers French- Canadian character . 5 7 8 12 14 15 16 18 21 23 24 26 27 29 30 32 35 40 42 44 45 49 50 52 55 58 61 62 63 65 66 67 CONTENTS. Origin of the French-Canadians Conflicting statements about the French-Canadians French-Canadian civilisation Eapid increase of the French-Canadians French-Canadian politics Present loyalty of the French-Canadians Loyalty throughout Canada . The office of Governor-General The connection with England Confederation and the maritime provinces Origin of the confederation scheme Dangers to the Dominion Annexation arguments English imperialism . French- Canadian society The Upper Canadians Canadian and American lives Canadian and American physique American physique and character Canadian physique and character The English physique abroad Upper Canadian farmers Cheap farms for settlers Canadian farm-labourers Canadian amusements , Canadian watering-places American scenery Canadian scenery The Lower St. Lawrence American names of places The Saguenay Montmorency, Lorette, Thousand Isles Timber-shoots Lake Memphramagog . Reciprocity . Niagara . , . PAGE 71 72 73 75 77 83 85 87 88 91 93 97 100 110 113 116 118 120 125 132 135 138 142 144 146 151 157 165 168 170 171 174 177 181 184 187 PAET II. A PIC-NIC TO THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. A Western excursion-party . . 203 Chicago .... . 207 DLlinois .... . 208 The Mississippi . 210 A Western excursion-train . . 212 Western excursionists , . 216 CONTENTS V] PAGE Iowa ........ . 223 Western railroads . . 224 Council Bluffs .... . 225 Omaha ..... . 227 A Western banquet .... . 232 Stump oratory .... . 234 A Western ball .... . 236 The prairie ..... . 237 Prairie fires ..... . 241 Columbus ..... . 242 Prairie game ..... . 244 Indians .... . 247 A palaver and dance . . 249 The track of the pilgrims . 255 Julesberg ..... . 256 Bull-whackers .... . 259 Julesberg life . . . . . 260 Western homicide . 262 Laying the track . 265 A split in the party . . 267 Night on the prairie . . . 268 Prairie-dogs .... . 271 Stories of the war . 273 Cheyenne .... . 275 A Western fort . 277 Cheyenne festivities . . 283 Along the Bocky Mountains . . 292 Prairie coffee . 295 Indian raids .... . 297 La Porte .... . 299 The mountains . 301 Indian policy of the West . 303 Moonlit prairie . 305 An English host . 307 Lager on the prairie . . 309 Denver .... . 310 Denver and ' New America ' . . 312 Denver entertainments . 314 Path-finders .... . 318 A grizzly bear . 320 The mountain road . . 321 Golden City, Central City, Georgetown . 324 Exploration .... . 327 A miner's hut . 329 An evening party .331 Mountaineering . 333 Western mines . 335 Down the mountains . . 336 vm CONTENTS. Virginia Dale A full ranch . A lonely walk A prairie snowstorm PAGE 339 341 342 344 PART III. THE IBISH IN AMERICA Mr. Maguire's ' Irish in America ' Social position of the Irish- Americans Irish in Canada and in the States Irish-American faults and virtues • Scotch-Irish ' Fenianism in America Fenian knowledge of politics Fenian land-reforms Fenian sentimentality- Irish views of America Denationalisation Irish- American newspapers . 351 353 355 356 359 362 363 366 368 370 371 372 Part I. CANADA CANADA. Most Englishmen, whose first landing in America is made within the frontier of Canada, will find themselves at once called to account for too hastily formed generalisations. The circumstances of both the English peoples of North America have in so many points been so much alike, that it is no wonder if we should look forward to finding the closest resulting likeness between the two peoples. And when we assign common characteristics to both, it is sure to be chiefly from the more prominent people that we draw our idea of those characteristics. So Canada drops almost out of sight, hardly getting credit for an individuality at all. To most of us, rightly or wrongly, she is simply a smaller, half-developed ' America,' and less interesting as being less fully developed. But the Canadians take quite other views of themselves. They see a great gulf between them and their neighbours. They warmly resent such a theory as that the two differ rather in degree than in kind. They much enjoy preparing an Englishman for all the strange sights he will see directly he crosses their border ; and, perhaps, they take some little pride in marking their own utter distinctness by assuring him that they, on their side, have absolutely nothing to show him — nothing further, at least, when they have shown him their one institution, Niagara. That he should be in a flutter of curiosity as to how he will be impressed by the B 2 4, SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. States, seems to them the most natural thing in the world : but that he should have any similar feeling as he lands at Quebec, is not comprehensible at all. On their side of the frontier-line, he ought to consider himself at home. Whether he ought or ought not, as a matter of fact he does not. If he glance up and down the quays of Quebec for his typical American faces and figures, he may not be likely to find them ; but that he has got into a quite new social atmosphere, will be shown him very plainly forthwith : so finely independent is everybody about him ; so com- pletely is he left to take care of himself. The more super- ficial of the national traits will strike the new-comer in any country the first ; and nobody newly come among Canadians will wonder, that Mr. Trollope should have thought the Transatlantic bluntness of manner reached its culminating point among them, and not among their neighbours of the States. The fact is, that, in the States, the stranger from England is much more easily recognisable as such; and his re- cognition has certainly an effect on his treatment. In Canada, he is neither so easily recognised, nor, perhaps, if he were, would he be so certain of profiting by such recognition. And this leads us at once to note some of the more striking differ- ences between the Canadians and their neighbours — differ- ences in look and in manner ; differences, also, in character. The popular English idea of the Canadians pictures them — so far as it pictures them at all — as being pretty thoroughly Americanised. Of the richer classes in Canada, this idea is hardly a true one. Coming direct from England amongst them, you may be struck by their unlikeness to their fellow- subjects at home; but, returning into Canada after any stay in the, States, you are so forcibly struck by the re- semblance of the Canadians to our own people, that you almost feel as if you had got home again. In look, and in many points of manner and address, in accent and in costume, CANADIANS AND AMERICANS. 5 the men now seem to you nearly English. All our writers upon Canada have noticed the fresh, ruddy English com- plexions, the fair, round English proportions of body, as distinguishing marks of the British parts of the continent ; and a recent French writer has said about Canada, ' II y a ici dans les figures une bonne humeur que vous chercheriez en vain sur la face osseuse et maussade des Yankees. 1 The people of the States, also, claim, that they can tell a Canadian at a glance from one of themselves; and it is certainly not rare for an Englishman travelling among them, who has been found out at once to be a stranger, but has not as yet been thoroughly investigated, to be asked, in the first place, whether he is English or Canadian ; as if this were one of the points about him not to be made out with certainty by simple inspection. In the ladies, perhaps, a greater divergence from the English type strikes the eye, than in the men. Among the former, the free naturalness in manner, as well as the graceful luxury in dress, of their neighbours in the States, tend not strangely, and perhaps not unfortunately, to make more and more way. But the ladies of Canada would be much more shocked, even than the men, at being thought s un-English.' It has hitherto been a matter of study among all Canadians — except, it may be, the very poorest class — to save their English nationality intact. With respect to this, a change is said to be now taking place. In a conversation recently held with an Upper Canadian, about the probable future annexation of British America to the States, when it was remarked to him, that, whatever might be the advantages, there certainly was a drawback in the dissimilar character of the Canadian people — ( You are a separate nationality, and more like Englishmen than like Americans.' 'Like Englishmen ! ' he answered ; c why we are Englishmen. We have hardly any Yankee blood in us. But we are *b3 6 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. getting to be less English. I remember very well when any departure from what was English was scouted and resented by all of us, however trifling the matter in which it had shown itself. I remember when, if a Canadian was seen with anything noticeably American in his dress, or borrowed American phrases in his talk, his friends would reproach him with it at once. But we have changed all that now. We don't so much care about being like the Englishman, and we have no such great horror of being like the Yankee.' Whatever changes may be at work, the tourist is still a hundred times a day reminded of the tie between England and the Canadas. Indeed, the very use of the terms 'America' and ( the Americans,' that is habitual among Canadians, may seem to him an instance of a political fidelity strong enough to override geographical accuracy ; for Canadians, when they speak of ( Americans,' invariably mean only the people of the States, and there is certainly among the causes of their refusal of a name, which would naturally belong to them, a sort of identification of themselves with the English. One is scarcely willing yet to concede, that e America ' and ( the United States ' are terms of the same denotation ; but the use of the word ( American ' for ( belonging to the States ' is so temptingly convenient, where Canada is being compared with the Union, that the word will be so used here without further apology. There is another expression in Canada, which, also, shows something of affection, something of a familiar tenderness, for the Imperial State. England, and England only, is * the old country ' there. No doubt, the Americans talk of ' the old country,' too ; but, with them, the name means something different. It is often used to include the whole of Europe, and, sometimes, the whole eastern hemisphere. For the Republicans are a match for us in sweeping generalisations, and you are frequently IMITATION OF ENGLISH MANNERS IN CANADA. 7 shocked by their telling you, that they have spent this or that number of months in 'your country,' and going on straightway to show, that they include under that beloved name France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and any number of other mere foreigners. Not only in Canada, but throughout the whole continent, the strength of the desire to imitate the manners of English society is such as may easily take an Englishman by surprise. Starting with common English ideas about the people of America, he may have rather expected to find a tone of feeling not only self-asserting and independent, but, in these times, through the greater part of the continent, full of downright distaste for all that is English. It soon becomes clear to him, that his forecast was wrong, so far, at all events, as it regarded the wealthier classes. To them, London is still the world's centre, setting the standard of manners to all of our race ; it is still the fountain of fashion, and to have moved in its society is a badge of distinction to the American or Canadian who aims at being fashionable. Indeed, so dangerous is the superiority attributed to English society, that Americans and Canadians, who have moved in it much, are apt to be viewed with suspicion on their return to their homes. It is feared, that they will have had their heads somewhat turned, and will be now too grand for their former circles of friends. And it must be admitted that there is ground for the fear ; as everybody knows, who has had the entertainment of observing from what a height Americans and Canadians, who have lately come back from living in Europe, will sometimes look down on the poor people at home, who have never been at a Court — never seen an aristocrat, even in the distance. The difference in this matter between Americans and Canadians lies in the fact, that, among some of the former, Paris is a powerful rival of London, which it certainly is 8 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. not with any English-speaking Canadians. When an American is summing up the points of unlikeness, which separate the worlds of Boston and New York, he is sure to mention among them, that Bostonian fashion aspires to be English, and New York fashion aspires to be French; though, indeed, even the New Yorker has a greater respect for the English pattern than he willingly admits to himself, and, therefore, very much greater than he is at all likely to admit to you ; you see it lurking under many a sneer, and giving its animation to many a criticism. It ought not, per- haps, to be a matter of surprise that, even in the haughty Republic, fashion should look for its models outside. It seems natural enough, that, when people in a democratic community come to claim that they form among themselves a set more or less exclusive, admission to which is a privilege for the few, and which calls itself i the upper classes,' or ( best society,' or whatever it may, they should feel that this claim is a sort of plagiarism from aristocratic communities elsewhere. Thither, accordingly, they will turn their eyes, and a mutual repulsion will grow up between them and the democratic community in which they live. This may be the explanation of much of the regard for England among Americans of refinement and wealth — a regard which has in it not much of affection. To return to Canada in particular, the respect for England and studious imitation of what is English are certainly at once stronger, and more easily accounted for, there. In the Canadian feeling, the element of affection plays a more leading part. To say that anything Canadian reminds you of England, is to pay a compliment that goes to the heart of Canadians. The arrangements of houses, of grounds, of entertainments, all aim alike at being English. The highest praise to a landscape is, that it re- calls some scene in the old country, and it has been known to be put forward among the claims to consideration of the CANADIAN IDEAS ABOUT ENGLAND. 9 present Conservative premier of the Dominion, that he bore a strong personal resemblance to the mother country's Con- servative premier, Mr. Disraeli. Surely filial affection can- not go further than that. If asked by a Canadian whether there is anything un-English in his tone of voice, be careful, as you hope for forgiveness, not to hint that there is ; not that this, indeed, is a point of difference between him and the American; for to mistake even the latter for an Englishman is certainly often accepted as a subtle and delicate flattery. A Confederate officer, in talking of the Canadians, once said to me, with a touch of that national humour which mainly consists in a boldness of exaggeration, that they were chiefly distinguishable from the British ( by being a great deal the Britisher of the two.' ' Lord ! ' he added, as if in illustration of his opinion, ( how they did hate the Yankees in our war! ' clearly considering the strength of this feeling the true test and measure of Britishness. And it cannot be doubted, that the sympathy of Canadians for the South was indeed a proof of their tendency to be swayed by the mother country's supposed predilections. Canada, whose boast over her neighbours had been ever, that she alone offered safety to the runaway slave, and for whom to have felt, upon her own account, any emulous jealousy of the greatness of the Union would have been rather too absurd an exaggeration of the story of the Frog and the Bull — Canada, further, who had few of those aristocratic sympathies, which might have led to a fellow-feeling with the Southern land-owners — in so far as she was anti-Northern, was drawn from her natural orbit by the attraction exercised over her by England. With regard to this admiration of Canadians for England, it is to be feared that it not seldom arises from their having idealised that country a little too boldly. The Canadian settler, who has come out from England, is apt to take airs upon the strength of having done so, and to con- 10 SKETCHES FBOM AMERICA. found his fellow-colonists with glowing descriptions of the glories and delights of the land of his birth. There is some- thing rather melancholy in the way in which, when you meet the Canadian farmer or shopkeeper returning from his first trip to England, you will sometimes find him disen- chanted of his dream about a land where all things were perfect, and acknowledging his ideal overthrown. Out of several such converts met, one, in particular, may be quoted, as having been more than usually outspoken — a rough Western farmer, who, after telling me with what highly wrought expectation he had landed in England, wound up his account of his experiences there with the rather strong remark, very bitterly made, e I tell you, sir, it's the cursedest, meanest country i've seen yit, any way.' Neither the manners, nor the way of living, nor the prices, had been at all to his taste. Such a man, a very respectable and well- to-do farmer, would go to the first-class hotel in any Canadian town. He had naturally thought to do likewise in England; and it was easy to imagine with what withering scorn and scant measure of attention those finest of gentlemen, the supercilious waiters at expensive English hotels, would have welcomed the guest with his red flannel shirt and his large gloveless hands, well browned in the woods. But among less travelled men of his class, the idealisation of the mother- country goes on. It was strange, no doubt, even in Canada, but it would have been absolutely impossible in the States, to meet such a case as was once met by me in Upper Canada — the case of a young man brought up in a back settlement, who had serious thoughts of emigrating to England, as a place where a man's life was made easy. ' You are from England ; ain't you ? ' said the youth. ' Yes.' ' Fine country, England ; ain't it ? ' ' Not a bad sort of place — for an old, played-out country.' CANADIAN IDEAS ABOUT ENGLAND. 11 ' Awful rich, the English ; ain't they ? ' * Some of them.' c Well now, would you advise a young man like me to go there to push his fortune ? I'm not making much of it here, that's certain ; and I've a mind to go to England — they tell me it's so awful rich.' Aghast at this threatened back-water of migration, I tried to point out, how England was somewhat populous already ; most of the snuggest berths were filled up, and some of them had people waiting outside, anxious to occupy a vacancy. The youth was evidently disappointed ; but, being a youth of open and unprejudiced mind, he seemed not disinclined to follow the advice given, and to try the Western States, as rather a clearer field for adventure. This is a specimen, though doubtless a rare one, of the vague glory which invests the name of England in the minds of less educated Canadians. To pass back to the higher classes of society, the homage paid to the British officer in Canada is partly a result of this reverence for the country which he there re- presents. Nowhere, certainly, is the most penniless ensign so important a person ; nowhere is he so eagerly desired, so courageously sought for, in matrimony ; and it cannot be doubted, that this eagerness and courage of his admirers are themselves, in part, a result of their admiration for England. Without underrating the fascinations of the military manner (and, indeed, in a society, in which most of the civilians have been from their boyhood wholly devoted to business, those who have plenty of leisure for practising the art of pleasing may easily be the most attractive), it is certain, that a wish to possess herself of an English home and to move in English society whets the eagerness of the Canadian young lady — an impetuous eagerness, in which, it is whispered among Cana- dians, the important difference between elder and younger sons is terribly often overlooked. Even when the right son 12 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. is secured without slip or mistake, it is also whispered, that there will often come back doleful tales across the Atlantic to former rivals and friends, warning them against the belief that England is the elysium of which they have dreamed. These whispers, to be sure, may be but the forgeries of jealousy ; but it seems not unlikely, that, after the free gaiety of colonial life, the atmosphere of the old country may be found rather sombre and chilling, having owed the greater part of its glory to the fact of its being so far. It has been said to be doubtful whether the tourist, on being found out to be a stranger, meets with such courtesy, upon that account, in Canada as in the States. No imputa- tion is meant upon the kindness or friendliness of Canadians. Other elements, beside these, enter into the composition of the courtesy here in question. The average American of the middle class — that great and typical class, which takes in nearly the whole of the native community — is intensely and notoriously proud of America, and of himself as being an American. The wish, that all strangers should be favour- ably impressed with his country, touches him down to the quick. To an European, the strength of this American feeling is something new and astonishing. With us, and in the old nations generally, each man talks as if his own share in his commonwealth was almost too small to be of any account. Our poor and unlettered people look (or have hitherto looked) on the management of the country as something for which they are in no way responsible ; * our * On her way home from America, our ship was boarded off the Irish coast by a coastguardsman, a discharged man-of-war sailor, who had to inspect her in the interest of the revenue. This man, engaging in conversation with some of us, Americans, Canadians, and English, enlarged upon late changes in the British navy, which he thought to be all for the worse. • They will spoil their navy, if they don't look out,' was the warning with which he concluded. Several of his American hearers commented to me on the strange sound to them of this warning ; and it is really hard to exaggerate the strangeness of the sound of those words, ' they ' and ' their,' as spoken by an Englishman about the English Government and the English navy, to ears that have become familiarised to the MANNER TOWARD STRANGERS. 13 men of culture have taken, of late, to speaking of everything English as being all wrong, and their language is imitated by others, without being always understood. So these, and other causes, join in bringing it about, that the Englishman is less careful of his national reputation than is the American. Indeed, every American of that great middle class is as eager that the stranger should admire his country, as an Englishman would be that you should admire some handi- work of his own. And of all strangers, the admiration of the English stranger is well known to be dearest to the American heart. Thus, that kind of courtesy which you meet with from Americans as soon as you are found out to be a sight-seer from England, is partly a result of their pride, and patriotism, and self-assertion. Even as it is, many a traveller complains that he has found the American people anything but courteous. He may be quite sure that, if it were not for their sensitive pride in their country, for their vindication for each one of themselves of a share in its greatness, for their wish that the stranger should think of it as they do, they would not be half as civil as they are ; but, by dint of these traits, they come so to curb their partly Anglo-Saxon, partly democratic, brusquerie of manner, and so to put aside their American principle — that every man should be quite able to shift for himself, independent of smiles or frowns from his neighbours — as to be very civil, in general, to an Englishman, whom they have discovered to be such. The Canadian has all the English and democratic brusquerie of manner ; he also has no fault to find with the American principle, that a man should be too self- sufficing, and too much bent upon business of his own, to care very much for the courtesies of his fellows. These traits are in talk of Americans. Everything in the States is 'ours' and not ' theirs" 1 to an American ; and, if indeed the party in power is sufficiently opposed to him to be stigmatised as ' they', he is at least full of haughty confidence, whatever may be ' their ' misdeeds, that ' we will set all that square at the next elections.' 14 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. the Canadian manner, though an Englishman may see less of them there, than another would; for in his case they may be, to some extent, met and opposed by that already described kindly regard of Canadians for the ' old home,' and whatever belongs to it. But in those other feelings, which make the American studious to send his country's visitor away well pleased, the Canadian is cer- tainly wanting. To him it is of small concern what you may think of his country. He has little of patriotic pride in it himself. When an American knows you to be an Englishman, his first question is, ' Well, what do you think of the States ? ' and to put everything American in a good light before you becomes henceforth his evident aim. Cross the frontier into Canada, and you no longer find anything of the sort. The causes of the difference are easy to trace, and of interest. But, before leaving the subject of Transatlantic manners, a word may be added. English writers, when treating on this topic, are generally rather severe. Mr. Trollope hints, as quoted already, that Transatlantic independence of manner amounts terribly often to insolence. But the American at home is really least disposed of all men to conscious and deliberate insolence. Here, in Europe, he gets a bad name among us ; but the fact is, that, here, his wonderful sensitiveness is kept morbidly active by slights, real or fancied, put upon him in the course of frequent contact with Englishmen. In America, he has no such provocation to assert his equality rudely; for he has no idea of anybody's doubting it. It is clear that deliberate insolence is of more natural growth in aristocratic than democratic communities, inas- much as it betrays the existence in him who shows it of some sense of his own superiority, or of his own inferiority — for both alike may produce the same effect — to him towards TRANSATLANTIC MANNERS. 15 whom it is shown. In a country of professed equality- there must be less opportunity for it, than where society is ranged in a hierarchy of classes. And of the rudeness which comes from quickness of temper, rather than from deliberation, the Americans, being about the best-teinpered people in the world, are less capable than are most others. The roughness of manner of an American has no kinship to either of these varieties. Again, we can hardly be too often reminded how much of that civility of manner of our own poorer classes, which makes English travellers hard to please in America, is simply attendant on poverty and depen- dence. An American gentleman, in comparing our two nations in respect of manners, once said to me, with a fine satire, such as is rather to the taste of his countrymen, ' Ah ! yours is the country to travel in ! Everybody is civil there — or, at least, you can make him so for a shilling.' To go back to Canadian patriotism, not only would it be next to impossible for the people of any dependency to have a pride in their country, like the citizens of a mighty inde- pendent Republic ; but, of all dependencies, Canada is the least likely to develop such a feeling. Whatever may be alleged to the contrary, the belief in the possibility of a separate future for Canada is steadily lessening among Canadians. Some of them openly avow this to you ; more of them, who have none the less got the same idea fixed in their minds, not altogether relishing it, keep it to themselves, or will even controvert its expression by another ; but now and then, even among these, it will break out, and show itself in spite of them. Whatever pride of country a Canadian feels, has, for the most part, its object outside of Canada, and is, indeed, merely the same feeling as that respect and affection for England which have been already discussed. A very competent judge of Canadian opinion, being a writer in one of the leading Canadian newspapers, and having therefore to 16 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. study it professionally, thus wrote lately to me about the feelings of his countrymen. ' Of national feeling, as citizens of the Dominion, there is as yet almost none among us ; though the attachment to the name of "Briton" is strong and general.' He goes on to say that, though there may be no ' national ' patriotism towards the Dominion, there is a ' provincial ' patriotism towards Canada. ' The former must be the growth of future years.' Being an extreme hater of the Annexation idea, this writer is naturally loth to depict his countrymen as without any sort of patriotic feeling to keep them out of that dreaded catastrophe. The anti-annexationist in Canada, like most strong politicians in most countries, will never admit the prevalence of views opposed to his own ; but if a mere visitor to British America may set up an opinion against that of a native well quali- fied to judge, there is not now much in the ordinary Cana- dian even of a i provincial ' patriotism. He may, of course, take a pleasure in recounting to you the great material resources, or the grand scenic features, of his land ; but this is not quite the same thing. The state of politics in Canada neither manifests nor encourages an active and healthy public spirit ; and it is just the want of such a spirit, that makes the weak point in Canada's political condition, as contrasted with that of the Union. That in many and most important respects the condition of Canada is the sounder of the two; that her officials are neither so open to corruption in their acts, nor so devoted to clap-trap in their talk, as officials to be found rather plentifully in the States, is not denied by patriotic Americans settled within the British frontier. Such men will often say to an enquirer, • They have first-rate laws here— better, in many ways, than ours — but they don't work 'em as we do ! ' alluding, as they will go on to explain, not to any corrupt or consciously unfair administration, but CANADIAN POLITICS. 17 to this very want of an active public spirit in the community — a genius for organising itself to the best advantage, a quickness in seeing and seeking its interests. As to the maladministration of justice, you certainly hear nothing like the complaints, in Canada, that you do, here and there, through the States. In this respect, the city of New York has, of course, passed into a byword. It is said, on the other hand, that foreigners fall into error by taking its plague-spot as a specimen of the Union ; and no doubt there is force in the objection. But, for my own part, the severest criticism that I ever heard on American justice referred, not to New York, but to a Southern State. A very credible witness, an Englishman settled in Tennessee, in comparing English with American justice, once said to me, * In England, there is one law for the rich and the poor : here, there is nothing of the sort.' This was rather up- setting to common ideas about the relative merits of aristo- cratic and democratic communities ; but my informant went on to explain himself, thus : ( What I mean, is this : I take my gun here, and I go down to that town, and shoot the first man I meet. Well, in England I should be hung, to a certainty. Here, if I have 1,000 dollars in my pocket, I know I'm all right.' * Whom would you hope to bribe ? the police ? the judge ? the jury ? the gaoler ? ' ' If it was necessary, the whole lot of 'em,' he replied, with a lofty confidence. In Canada, chiefly among the French of the Lower Province, there are some terrible cases on record of juries having given wrong verdicts where a partisan spirit was at work ; but these are old stories now ; and you may go where you like without ever hearing such tales of cor- ruption in the courts as you hear very often in the States. C n- 18 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. Granting Canada a superiority over the Union, or over a great part of the Union, in this matter, we come to other matters in which she has none. The withdrawal of the more cultivated and socially prominent of the citizens from political struggles, which has long made itself felt in the States, is at least equally remarkable in Canada. Indeed, the withdrawal in Canada is, in some respects, the more complete of the two. In many of the States, you meet persons of good social standing, who would avoid an active and prominent participation in the politics of their States, or even of the Union, as they would avoid a disgrace ; but nowhere throughout the Republic are you likely to meet any man of intelligence, who openly tells you that he knows and cares nothing about the politics of his country. How- ever unwilling to act, the American gentleman cannot help taking an interest; the grand scale upon which the political drama moves before his eyes secures his attention. But, in Canada, you may meet plenty of people, who think the game of Canadian politics so wholly unworthy of them, that they do not even care to watch it and note how it is played by the others. Again, in the States, it may not be altogether a matter for regret that politics have of late fallen more than ever to rough men of the people : the more polished politician may easily be the less safe, and the new men thrown forward by the swamping of the Southern land- owners may, if less ornamental, be also less dangerous than their aristocratic forerunners. But in Canada it seems almost an unmitigated evil, that so many of the best edu- cated people should slip aside altogether from political life. Canada could not be exposed to any such danger as resulted to America from the entrusting of power to her most aristocratically inclined ; since that danger arose from the special fact, not elsewhere reproduced, that America's aristocratic politicians came almost wholly from one section BOUGH LEGISLATORS. 19 of her territory, and governed in the interests of that single section. Of course there is always just this much of advan- tage in entrusting the work of government to people who do not" belong to an aristocracy — that it saves the profession of politics from becoming a fashionable lounge. It drives away the idlers and triflers. Canada gets served by hard- working men, and no aspirant for social distinction in her, who has seen many of his people's representatives, will ex- press languid longings to get into the House at Ottawa, as being f about the best club in the country.' This, at all events, is one good result of sending some rough specimens to the Legislature ; but of the two chief dangers attendant — the danger, namely, lest with the lower social rank come in a less delicate sense of honour ; and the danger, lest there be such a loss in the dignity of manner and polish of expres- sion in the conduct of affairs closely watched by the people, as may lower the standard of taste out-of-doors and affect the civilisation of that people at large — scenes sometimes occur in high places in Canada, showing that the latter, at least, is real and serious.* * Here is a scene, witnessed in the Canadian Parliament a few years ago, as described by the Toronto Leader : — • At four o'clock in the morning the Govern- ment was compelled to give way and consent to an adjournment. During the night various scenes of a disorderly character were enacted. At one time many members assembled in the main hall fronting the door of the Chamber, and sang a number of choruses, rendering it impossible for any one to be heard inside the House. Soon afterwards several of them entered the room and con- tinued singing immediately under the Speaker's nose, to the disgust of some and the amusement of many. The Speaker was unable to preserve order, and, indeed, was forced to join in the laugh caused by the merry boisterousness of the musical legislators. Scenes of a like uproarious nature were frequent during the night, such as do no credit to our Parliament.' Another festive scene during this same year (1863), was thus described in the papers: — 'On the evening before the recent prorogation of Parliament the Legislative Assembly was waiting to receive messages from the Legislative Council. The leisure interval was spent in vocal performances of various kinds. At the conclusion of one of the songs Mr. Eymal (an M.P.) advanced to the front, and, making his best bow, said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I thank you on behalf of the management for your attendance during the Session. This is our last even- ing ; but, in bidding you farewell, I can assure you that we shall ever retain a grateful remembrance of your kind patronage and support. ('Hear, hear,' *c2 20 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. What appears most to threaten very liberal institutions among men of our race, though perhaps not so formidable in British America as elsewhere among England's dependencies, is formidable enough even there — the danger, namely, lest superior culture and dignity of bearing should go for nothing among recommendations for conspicuous and important posts. Though the social position of Canada's politicians and high officials is said to have been becoming lower and lower since the overthrow of that Upper Canadian oligarchy, the * Family Compact,' and as the gradual dying out of the old French-Canadian aristocracy has gone on, yet it was re- marked, even in the time of Lord Durham (1839), how careless the Canadians were about holding out adequate in- ducements to draw their leading men into the offices of trust. * The surplus revenue of the province,' wrote Lord Durham, ' is swelled to as large an amount as possible by cutting down the payment of public services to as low a scale as possible. " When we want a bridge, we take a judge to build it," was the quaint and forcible way in which a member of a provincial legislature described the tendency to retrench, in the most necessary departments of the public service.' Another authority upon British North America tells how, in a debate in the New Brunswick House upon a and much applause.) "We shall return in the month of January or February, with a change of programme, and probably with a change in the company." (Laughter.)' On April 22, 1870, in the Canadian House of Commons, says the Toronto Globe, ' Sir G-. E. Cartier repeated his objections in French. The Hon. Sandfield Macdonald immediately rose, and, to the astonishment of the House, proceeded, amid roars of merriment, to speak in the Gaelic language. Sir George E. Cartier again, essaying to speak in Latin, managed, with the help of Sir John A. Macdonald, to make himself understood to the extent of saying that he had risen to call to order that most illustrious and most learned man the member for Simcoe. He then said he would speak in Greek. He then, amid a multitude of noises and much laughter, proceeded to jumble together a dozen of Greek words having no connection with each other, and finishing with a scrap from Homer. Mr. Levesconte, in Spanish, said it was time the discus- sion should cease. Sir John A. Macdonald was of the opinion of the last speaker. The Hon. Mr. Abbott objected to a discussion on serious matters being carried on in that House in the Choctaw language. The hour for private Bills having elapsed the discussion was postponed.' 'COLONIAL, NOT DEMOCRATIC' THEORY. 21 question of official salaries, ' one of the shrewdest and most influential farmers in the province declared, from his place in the House of Assembly, that with the utmost stretch of his imagination he could not comprehend how any man could possibly spend more than 300/. a year ; ' and, as a recent observation upon the increasing tendency to throw important public duties upon unfit and untrained men in Canada, may be mentioned Mr. Fraser's remarks upon the withdrawal of Canadians of good social standing from the supervision of popular education. ( I heard it said that the character and social position of these trustees ' (educational trustees in cities and towns, officers whose e powers are very great and their responsibilities proportionable ') ' had of late years some- what deteriorated, that men of influence and education ceased any longer to take an interest in the working of the system ; ' and it would appear, from other observations in Mr. Fraser's report, that ratepayers sometimes choose educa- tional trustees who can neither read nor write. That such a contempt for the claims of superior cultiva- tion only threatens English democracies, while young and unsettled, is, of course, a view taken by high authorities. Thus, Mr. Goldwin Smith calls the evil l colonial,' and will not admit it to be ( democratic ' at all,* attributing it wholly to the rough scrambling life of recently formed and scarcely settled communities. But, if so, it ought surely to lessen as young English societies settle down and mature ; whereas, on the contrary, it seems to grow worse. That no * 'Lincoln was not made President because, to use the language of our aristocratic press, he was a " brutal boor ; " but because in Illinois there were only " brutal boors " to be had. It is the same with our colonies, though they enjoy the advantage of a connection with the British crown. The general want of taste and refinement in politics, as in other spheres, is, in a word, not democratic, but colonial.' — Mr. Groldwin Smith's essay in Essays on Reform, (Macmillan, 1867). It may be mentioned, with regard to this passage, that Mr. Smith is writing a panegyric upon America ; which might not be immediately perceptible from his observations upon Illinois. 22 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. political crisis in America now throws forward statesmen of the grand old American type, is the commonplace of criti- cism applied to the Kepublic, and the degeneracy of her politicians of to-day is the unfailing joke of her humorists.* About the youngest of England's offshoots, Australia, we hear such conflicting reports, that it is not easy to judge ; but, according to some strong evidence, the deterioration even there has become plainly marked. An Australian correspondent of a Liberal English paper (the ( Spectator ') not long ago told us, after giving some terrible instances of the preference of ignorance and brutality to cultivation and refinement in Australian constituencies, and after explaining the ' wind- mill magistrates ' of New South Wales (that is to say, magistrates who, ' not being able to sign their names, were in the habit of affixing their mark — a cross — the supposed resem- blance of which mark to a windmill suggested the term '), that 'men of by no means conservative or retrograde in- stincts tell you sadly that it was not so sixteen or seventeen years ago.' f The theory, that this putting of low men in high places is * ' Old George Washington's Fort was not to hev eny public man of the present day resemble him to eny alarmin extent.' — Artemus Ward, on ' Forts.' f But there are, it must be admitted, other and very different views of Australian democracy. For instance, Mr. Pearson, while not denying that old Australians say ' there is a steady process of deterioration in the character of the men elected to the several Parliaments,' explains the opinion thus : — ' The times they ' (the old Australians) ' really regret are those when the colonies were administered by little official cliques presided over by the Governors.' He thinks, in fact, that the vast new accretions to the Australian populations resent the government of the colonies by the older colonial families, just as the newer Canadian settlers resented the government of Canada by that knot of old Upper- Canadian families known as • The Family Compact,' and that the resentment of these new-comers is repaid by their opponents with a very full measure of hardly deserved contempt. But foremost among the defenders of Australian democracy from all such charges as the above is Sir Charles Dilke. 'That men of ability and character are proscribed has been one of the charges brought against colonial democracy. For my part, I found gathered in Melbourne, at the University, at the Observatory, at the Botanical Gardens, and at the Govern- ment offices, men of the highest scientific attainments, drawn from all parts of THE CANADIAN ELECTIONS OF 1867. £3 * colonial ' and not ' democratic,' draws, of course, its strongest support from the kind of democracy towards which we of the Old Country seem now to incline. Its main- tainers can easily point out, in what eminent men our most democratic classes now put special trust ; and the other side can but answer by starting the unproven theory, that this may be a mere temporary result of our being in an ex- ceptional and transitional state. In the summer of 1867, Canadian politics were in an unusually excited state. People were full of hope and doubt about the issue of the new confederation, and elections to the Legislature were going on in every part. Yet the excitement was of a very different kind from that which any political crisis would call forth at home. Half the well-to-do people whom you asked about the chances of the struggle told you, that they knew nothing about it, that they never read the papers, that they saw nothing to choose between the merits of the rival candidates, and that they left the elections to the noisy crowds and scheming politicians whose pleasure or profit lay therein. During this time of politi- cal disquiet, the Premier and leader of the Conservatives, Sir John A. Macdonald, made a series of speeches through the Upper Province, at Toronto and other places. It was very noticeable, how little interest seemed to be taken by the aristocracy of these places in the addresses of so prominent and able a speaker ; for Sir John Macdonald is a particu- larly pleasing speaker, and to his well-known personal resemblance to Mr. Disraeli joins no small share of the acknowledged tact and address of the English politician. Again, at Montreal, the tourist saw much during this critical the world, and tempted to Australia by large salaries voted by the democracy. The statesmen of all the colonies are well worthy of the posts they hold.' If this be the true view of the Australian phase of English democracy, it is cer- tainly a more hopeful phase than is to be seen anywhere in America, except, perhaps, the New England states. 24 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. period which threw light upon the political condition of the country. An election was there being fiercely fought between the late Mr. D'Arcy Magee and a Mr. Devlin. Yet the same apathy prevailed among the leading merchants and the richer classes generally. On the very day of the contest people were to be found at home, as usual, in their places of business, neither knowing, nor caring to know, what was the latest news from the polls. Yet from the liveliness of the streets, thronged with groups of eager talkers, and from the crowds gathered round all the voting- places, it was clear that, in the eyes of the populace, the fight was of the highest importance. Another noticeable feature of Canadian politics is, that, even among those who talk of the situation and weigh the chances keenly and warmly, it is rare to hear measures made the subjects of debate. Whether it is always so, it would need a long stay in Canada to enable one to tell from personal ob- servation ; but, certainly, in the autumn of 1867, it was hard to get anybody to say what were the differences of policy between the Conservative and Liberal sides. Our home politics, as they have sometimes appeared of late years, may have made this to seem nothing strange ; but in Canada it was far more conspicuous than we have ever had it, even of late years, in England. And if we glance back over the recent history of Canada, -we find that in no country in the world have the distinctive names of political parties been more thoroughly meaningless. The most radical changes that have been introduced in the last fifteen years have been, perhaps, these (of which a further account will hereafter be given): — 1. The secularisation of the Church property in Upper Canada. 2. The abolition of the Feudal Tenures in Lower Canada. 3. The making of the Legislative Council elective by the people, instead of its being filled up with Government nominees. 4. The abandonment of the * Double 'MEN, NOT MEASURES' IN CANADA. 25 Majority principle ' for holding the balance between the two provinces. And, 5, the resulting scheme of Confederation. All these changes w T ere made by ' Conservative ' Govern- ments, under the leadership of ' Conservative ' champions, such as Sir Alan McNab, Sir John A. Macdonald, Sir E. P. Tache. It seems to have been rather the rule than the exception for a Conservative Government to allow itself to be forced into bold innovations ; and, if Canada has had any Tories of Lord Salisbury's type, they may well have unceasingly made Lord Salisbury's complaint, that ' there was no use in offering to fight ; for the troops would never stand fire.' The present ' Dominion of Canada ' itself is an idea of the Reformers, long ridiculed and abused by the Conservatives, and finally carried out by a Conservative Premier. Since this is the way in which parties have done the work that lay before them, whether it accorded with the programme indicated by their distinctive designation or not, it is no wonder that Canadians say, ' What we want is good working men, and the measures will take care of themselves. A Conservative Government and a Reform Government will have exactly the same questions to face. The politicians who will deal with these most efficiently, are what we have got to seek out ; the acts of those whom we put into power, will not differ in kind, but only in quality.' And, indeed, it is plain, that to keep up deep and lasting lines of demar- cation between parties in a State needs, at least, some one lasting question at issue ; which Canada now has not got. In the Union, there are the great questions of the govern- ment of the South, and the position of the negro, and the dealing with the debt, to hold Republicans and Democrats apart. With us, there is the gradual abolition of privilege to be fought over, step by step, between the two parties. But Canada has neither emancipated slaves, nor conquered territory, nor threatened repudiation, nor privileges of the 26 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. few, to raise questions difficult to settle ; so it is not surprising that Canadian ' Reformers ? and « Conservatives • find it hard to explain wherein they differ. That there may be advantages in this system of choosing rather between men than between measures, the Canadian sees exemplified at his doors. Contrasting Canada and America in this respect, we cannot fail to observe how com- pletely and confessedly, in the latter, the men have become machines, without will of their own and freedom to originate, or, to use the old similitude, mere flagstaff's to hang party colours on. A well-informed recent writer upon America puts the case thus : ( It is almost impossible for a man of independent opinions to obtain a seat in Congress. He must be " en- dorsed " by a party, and slavishly adopt all the views of that party, or it is useless for him to contest an election. Should any accepted member exhibit an opinion of his own in opposition to the party, he is practically driven out of its ranks ; he is assailed on all sides with a virulence unknown elsewhere ; he inevitably fails to receive a future nomina- tion, and thus he loses the next election. . . . The member of Congress surrenders all his opinions to his consti- tuents. . . Few men of eminent ability will accept a seat in Congress on such terms, and hence the lament is general that the tone of Congress is constantly declining.'* Nor is there less strong American testimony to the same evil. The ablest and most respectable papers in the Republic spoke not long ago of the extreme politicians as exercising ' a system of terrorism which has broken down the inde- pendent judgment of very many, and makes some of the ablest men in the Legislature so anxious to avoid the pro- scription, that they are silent or acquiescent in measures * From Republican Government in the United States, by Louis J. Jennings (Murray, 1867). CANADIAN AND AMERICAN STATESMEN. 27 which their judgment condemns/ and in treating of * the jugglery called management,' by which conventions select candidates, say that ( the voters never know what species of animals they are expected to swallow until a week or two before the election, and after the announcement of the ticket no qualms or hesitation are allowed.' Canadian politics are so widely removed from this state of things, that our own politics would fall into the intermediate space ; for — in spite of the facts, that secession from a party, or at all events from one party, has of late years been treated among us simply as treason ; and that some, who have acted, independently, have been made to seek absolution from the high priests of their party, and only been taken back into communion as humbled and chidden penitents ; in spite, also, of some recent political inventions among us, which tend to the drilling of constituencies into a system of voting, not according to their real preferences for particular persons, but in blind obedience to 'the jugglery which is called management ' — we may still claim to be as far removed from the American system, as from that mere regard for the com- batants, apart from the cause, which was lately to be observed in Canada. One practical consequence of this wide difference between America and Canada will be seen by a comparison of American and Canadian statesmen of recent years. He who institutes such a comparison, must certainly make some allowance for the vast diiference in greatness and grandeur between the two Governments. For if it be true that few names of men distinguished in Canada are generally known among us, it should be remembered, that this is a necessary result of their playing their parts on a very small stage. A man who is prominent in American politics, gets his name widely known through the world, however small may be his individual force, simply by dint of his being at the top of 28 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. what an American might call 'a real big thing.' Nay, there is likely to be a sort of fictitious importance attached to his name abroad, which surprises and amuses his country- men at home, who know the man himself and do not at all share the European respect for high office. A man who is prominent in Canada, however substantial a power he may be in his country, has little chance of winning more than a merely colonial fame. But it is certain that the politics of Canada have been as remarkable for having been influenced by individual men, as the politics of America for having lately produced no leaders and directors at all. Canada has always been bringing men of mark to the front, men who could lead and make their force felt, men of a strange diversity of in- tellectual gifts and of a bold originality (and, not seldom, eccentricity) of character ; while the recent political annals of the States hardly show any names made eminent by masterly qualities, or by widely extended and powerful authority. Ask a Canadian, ' Who are your distinguished politicians ? ' and he will not be at a loss for some names ; but when you put the same question to an American, he is rather apt to answer, with a smile, after trying to remember a name or two, that he ' guesses they haven't any.' No doubt the constitution which Canada has taken from England allowing Ministers to sit in the Legislature, making them responsible to it, and giving them a chance of ruling it by their suasion and tact, is more developing to the powers of statesmen, and more apt to bring the men themselves into prominence, than the American system of keeping the executive in isolation and in a nominal independence, which has become, and will continue to become, more and more of a sham. Indeed, the American statesman of the day cheer- fully accepts a position of the most complete self-abnegation, the most utter suppression of his own personal will, if PARTY ORGANISATION IN CANADA. 29 General Grant may be taken as a type of the class. In almost all his few utterances, he has expressed the same view of the duties of the executive — namely, that it should be merely subservient to the wishes, for the time being, of the party, for the time being, in a majority. Thus, in his answer to the Chicago Convention (May 29, 1868), General Grant excused himself for laying down no programme of policy, on the ground, that 'new political issues are con- stantly arising, the views of the public on old ones are constantly changing, and a purely administrative office should always be left free to execute the will of the people. I always have respected that will, and always shall.' Such a rule, be it good or bad, must at all events tend to make commanding ability and powers of original thought something like a superfluity, if not, indeed, a downright defect, in the Ministers of the country in which it obtains. But the greater freedom of Canadian politicians must be mainly attributed to the absence of that strong and pervading party~organisation which prevails in America, involving her politicians, as it were, in a stream of necessity. In Canada the questions are smaller, the interests affected not so wide nor so weighty, and the pressure brought to bear upon the men may be proportionately less ; and, further, the already mentioned fact of the Canadian not feeling so strongly the pride of citizenship, nor looking so constantly upon each subject of political debate as something which comes home to himself, leaves the people more free to regard politics as an arena where their pet champions may show off their prowess, each in his own way. However this may be, it is certain, that in the Canadian elections of 1867, you heard of nothing but the men — who of them was most to be trusted, and who was the most dishonest ; who led the most disreputable life, and who had been the fewest times mixed up in 30 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. ugly affairs. If you asked a Conservative, why he was such, he would tell you, ' Well, you see, I think so-and-so is about played out,' naming some Liberal leader. Asking another why he was a Liberal, you were answered, ' These Tories are so corrupt ; everything goes for money with them ; ' or, ( You see so-and-so is hardly ever sober ' — ■ naming some Tory chieftain ; ( he was drunk all through our Fenian troubles.' And indeed insobriety does seem to be a weak point in Canadian politicians. The ' New York Herald,' never averse to personalities, described a recent contest between two candidates for the Ottawa Parliament as being in reality a warm dispute, whether Mr. , one of the two, was ( always drunk, or occasionally sober.' The thrust struck home with the strength of truth, hitting both a common failing of British- American politicians, and the merely personal nature of British- American contests. In- deed, in this very election, thus commented upon abroad, the candidates were hardly less freely handled for their personal character and antecedents, at home. Both of them alike were often charged with want of principle and want of sobriety ; and the one was openly declared by the other to be, in addition to the rest of his many weak points, an active and prominent Fenian. As accounts were otherwise not unevenly balanced, this last charge told heavily ; and to it may, perhaps, be attributed chiefly the subsequent defeat of the person accused. Among the less healthy symptoms of Canadian politics — • indeed, of Canadian civilisation — the style and tone of many of the public journals cannot be omitted. No doubt there are some papers in Canada very well worthy of high praise — the ' Toronto Globe ' and the ' Montreal Gazette,' for instance, which are the leaders of their respective sides. But the traveller who, at the hotels and reading-rooms of Canadian towns, picks up papers at random, and lets his CANADIAN NEWSPAPERS. 31 eye run through a great number, will be little pleased with the press of the country. Our own newspapers may perhaps make the Englishman rather hypercritical about papers elsewhere; but, even after he has gone through a long course of newspaper literature in the States — a course which should make him easy to please thenceforward for ever — he will find it hard to deny, that the Canadian press is discreditable to its country. On the whole, it may be said to outdo the American both in buffoonery and in scurrility. Here are a few examples, gathered as they met the eye, and without any search. The following was the beginning of an article in the ' Napanee Standard,' criticising some state- ment which had appeared in a contemporary : — ( In the last issue of that contemptible and scurrilous rag called the " Express." ' In a second Canadian newspaper a recent criticism of a contemporary was headed * Another Lie Nailed.' And here is a third extract, taken from a journal entitled the ( Monitor,' also a criticism of a contemporary, which, though not of equal violence, is still rather beyond the limit of dignified censure: — 'For the past two weeks the " Canadian," with his usual disregard of veracity, has been manipulating a cock-and-a-bull story about . . . .' As an- other example jointly exemplifying the licence of the pen made use of by the Canadian press, and the licence of the tongue indulged in, even in the most public utterances of Canadian politicians, a second comment upon this same ' Cana- dian/ may be quoted — an extract from the speech of a Mr. Fraser, candidate for Parliament, as reported in the Brock- ville 'Recorder': — ' He had always been a Roman Catholic, a fact taken advantage of by the organ of his opponent, the " wicked old man of the Canadian," as the " Monitor " called him, whose only religion consisted in running round the saloons taking all the free drinks he could get.' It would be easy to multiply instances of similarly vulgar 32 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. personalities. It may be said that colonial journals, having few great subjects to write about, are almost driven of ne- cessity down to a low level. But there are not wanting, as has been already remarked, other journals in Canada which steer clear of such faults ; and a high authority upon Australia tells us that he knows of ( no newspapers in the world more honourably free from invective, or personal attacks, or low scandal, than the Australian.'* As for America, the active public life of her citizens, and the greatness of the questions which come up for settlement within her, may make it easy to cater for even the American outcry for newspapers; but surely in Canada, also, there need be no lack of great subjects, well fitted for dignified treatment, where, besides merely local affairs, the politics of three separate Governments — their own, the English, and the American — should come thoroughly home to the readers. In glancing at the nationalities other than British in Canada — the French of the Lower Province, and the Irish scattered throughout — with regard to the last named, there is no need to say much, as the Irish Americans have a chapter to themselves. In so far, however, as the Irish in Canada differ, or are thought to differ, from their countrymen else- where in America, they may perhaps be most fitly dealt with at once. Irishmen in Canada are generally believed in England to be distinguished from Irishmen in the States, partly by their, for the most part, becoming attached to the English crown, partly by their frequently attaining high places in -the State, and partly by the active and open maintenance, on the part of some of their number, of the institution of Orangeism. To deal with these characteristics in inverse order, it may be well to remark about Canadian Orangeism — for it may not be always borne in mind — that it * From Mr. Pearson's essay in Essays on Reform' (Macniillan, 1867). THE IRISH IN CANADA. 33 has many points of difference from the similarly named institution in Ireland. In looking back over the history of Canadian Orangeism, we find that, so long ago as 1824, an attempt was made to suppress by legal enactment the Orange processions which were then beginning to be common. Up to that time, ' these processions,' says a Canadian historian, ( being conducted with order and decorum, gave little room for complaint.' The Earl of Durham, whose account of Canada in 1838 is still, perhaps, the highest authority published on Canadian matters, clearly saw and described some peculiar features of Canadian Orangeism which had already grown to be a powerful organisation in his time. ' Its members profess ' — wrote Lord Durham, about the supporters of ' the rather anomalous Orangeism of Upper Canada ' — 6 to desire to uphold the Protestant religion, but to be free from those intolerant feelings towards their Catholic coun- trymen, which are the distinctive marks of the Irish Orange- men. They assert that their main object is to maintain the connection with Great Britain. They have sworn, it is said, many ignorant Catholics into their body, and at their public dinners, after drinking w the pious, glorious, and immortal memory " with all the usual formality of abuse of the Catholics, they toast the health of the Catholic bishop, MacDonnell ' — which certainly illustrates his Lordship's remark, that it is a l rather anomalous Orangeism.' Then comes the more interesting part of the account. ( It would seem that their great purpose has been to introduce the machinery rather than the tenets of Orangeism. In fact, the Catholics scarcely appear to view the institution with more jealousy than the Reformers of the Province. It is an Irish Tory institution, having not so much a religious as a political bearing.' Lord Durham writes rather as a political opponent than an equal judge of the organisation ; yet Canadians generally D 34: SKETCHES FBOM AMERICA. agree with him in this, that Orangeism among them has not been directed towards the single aim of backing the cause, or supposed cause, of the Protestant religion in the same way as it has in Ireland ; but has been rather a political league for various and ever changing political purposes. On the other hand, the later history of the institution has shown its Protestanism to be a not less essential element than its Toryism. Thus, in the Canadian elections of 1857, we find the Orange body acting so forcibly against the side of Toryism, as to give an immense accession of strength to the ' Reform party, and Mr. George Brown, the Reform leader. This change of front on the part of the Orangemen was mainly due to the strength of their Protestanism, for Mr. Brown was regarded as the Protestant champion, and opposed as such by the Lower-Canadian Roman Catholic clergy. But Canadian politics were in such a state (and, indeed, are always in such a state) as to prevent the rival religions from confronting each other in compact bodies. As Fenianism among the Roman Catholic laity of Ireland has been jointly opposed by the Roman Catholic clergy, and the mass of the Protestant population thus thrown together in a new alliance ; so, in Canada, Radicalism, under a Protestant champion, drew to its ranks both a section of the Roman Catholic laity, the Rouge party of Lower Canada, who liked it because it was violent, and also the Orangemen of Upper Canada, who liked it because it was Protestant. The result of such alliances must be always the same, namely, the soft- ening down of religious differences, and the habituation of men of diverse religions to working together for common ends. And, in Canada, such alliances are got up with a fre- quency and an easy versatility which completely shut out the idea of a doggedly intolerant religious exclusiveness. Thus, in other elections, a few years later (those of 1861), the same Mr, Brown was beaten in Toronto by a combination of the CHURCH DISHNDOWMENT IN CANADA. 35 Orangemen and Irish Roman Catholics. The fact is, that Canada is much less inclined than are the adjacent States of the Union to hostility against Roman Catholicism. Fairly free from the virulence of Puritanism, when she has shown (and it has been more seldom than they have been shown by the States) anti-Irish antipathies, it has not been on grounds of religion ; and whatever of religious enmity has found place within her, has been for the most part a mere temporary outgrowth from the quarrels about Church disendowment. These quarrels, now ended, but of such moment to Canada in their day, and so often referred to of late in our own political contests, as to seem worth being recalled paren- thetically, arose at the outset rather from economical, or from secular-political, causes, than from any religious disa- greements ; but in their long course, stretching from 1817 to 1854, no doubt they changed, and became embittered by more and more taking the shape of a war between creeds. At first, the reservation of lands for ' the Protestant clergy,' out of all grants from the Crown, which reservation had been ordered by that Act of 1791, known as the Canadian • Constitutional Act,' met with opposition as being a hin- drance to the settlement of the country. This was the ground on which the Upper Canadian Assembly of 1817 attacked the reservation, alleging that the large tracts of Crown and Clergy reserved lands throughout the province prevented the formation of continuous settlements, and stood in the way of the opening and repairing of roads. The Crown lands, the reserves for the clergy, and the wild un- cleared lands held by speculators, were all, at this time, classed together as similar abuses. In 1828, a committee of the House of Commons reported, that ' these Clergy Reserves, as they are at present distributed over the country, retard more than anything else the improvement *»2 36 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. of the colony, lying as they do in detached portions of each township, and intervening between the holdings of actual settlers, who have no means of cutting roads through the woods and morasses which thus separate them from their neighbours.' Indeed, the interspersement of the lots reserved for the clergy and the Crown among all the lots of land that were granted to settlers, grew to be such an evil, that a system was adopted, soon after the report just quoted, of what was called ( blocking the reserves,' that is to say, of putting all the Crown lots to be reserved in a township together in one piece, and, in like manner, all the clergy lots together in another, instead of having them both scattered in numerous patches all over the country. Thus, the economical difficulty was lessened. But bad blood had now been made about the endowments, and it was not to be got rid of so easily.* The gradual identification of the supporters of the Clergy Reserves with the Tory and oligarchical party, and es- pecially the violent political partizansbip of Doctor Strachan, the Bishop of Toronto, made the Clergy Reserves question wax hotter and more bitter than it could have done as a mere economical controversy. There was war in those days, in Upper Canada, between the Representative House of Assembly and the Council of Government nominees ; and when the former body had declared against the Clergy Reserves, wanting to sell them and devote the proceeds to s general education,' and the latter body had thrown out the measure, it was seen that this question of the Reserves would be a fine field in * Sir Francis Hineks, who claims, reasonably enough, to be as good an authority upon the Canadian Church Endowment Question as any man in the world, is clear about that question's having arisen originally from an economical difficulty. ' Long before a grievance was felt on religious grounds,' he says, ' there was a general dissatisfaction at the obstruction to settlement presented by the reservations.' — Pamphlet on Religious Endowment in Canada, by Sir F. Hineks. London, X869. HISTORY OF THE ■ CLERGY RESERVES ' QUESTION. 37 which to go on waging the war, till one or other party- should be forced to acknowledge the superior force of its rival. And so, almost every year, from '27 to '36, a measure for selling the Reserves, and applying the proceeds for the general good, was passed in the Assembly, and as often rejected by the Council. Then came the Canadian Rebel- lion ; after which, the measure for the first time passed both Assembly and Council, but even then failed to become law, being refused the assent of the Crown upon a formal and legal objection. Meantime the question of the Reserves grew yearly more embittered. New issues were raised in connection with it. The monopoly of endowment by the Church of England was assailed : at first, by the Scotch Presbyterians ; then, by other denominations of Protestants ; and, between those who claimed to share in the privileges of endowment, and those who demanded their total abolition, the Clergy Reserves were attacked from all sides. The Tory and High Churchmen fought boldly against all the attacks, and Sir John Colborne, in 1835, by • setting apart fifty-seven rectories from the Clergy Reserves, and putting these in the possession of ministers, with a view of giving them a personal interest in the lands, and thus preventing them from being ousted by legal enactment,' * stole a march on the enemy, and whetted the rage of the strife, f This * History of Canada, by John M'Mullen (London, 1868), chap, xviii. Sir F. Hincks expressly states, on the authority of a letter from the late Bishop of Toronto, that only forty-four of the fifty-seven patents establishing Rectories were actually signed and completed by Sir John Colborne, and seems to say that the other thirteen patents never took effect at all. The Bishop and the ex-Premier are likely to know ; but yet the Rectories are invariably spoken of as fifty-seven in number. f The establishment of the Rectories offended the opponents of the Church, not only as being an unwarrantable appropriation of public property, but also as involving an assumption of undue powers and privileges. ' Before it,' says Lord Durham, ' the Church of England clergy had a far larger share of the public money than the clergy of any other denomination; but they had no exclusive privileges and no authority.' ' The establishment of the Rectories 38 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. appropriation for Rectories professed to be made in accord- ance with the Canadian Constitutional Act of 1791, but there were such grave doubts of its legality, that it gave rise for a long time to a sort of question within a question — to a dispute, whether this particular appropriation of Clergy Reserve Lands was valid, inside of, and independent of, but tending still further to envenom, the larger dispute, whether the Clergy Reserves ought to be kept up at all. Nor is it surprising that those unskilled in the law should have been puzzled about the validity of the Rectories. On three several occasions, the law officers of the Home Government were consulted on the point. In '37, their opinion was, that ( the erection and endowment of the fifty- seven Rectories, by Sir John Colborne, are not valid acts.' In '38, the same authorities, on a re-statement of the case, held that 'the erection and endowment of the fifty-seven Rectories are valid acts.' Again, in '52, the then law officers held, that ( the acts done by Sir John Colborne for the endowment of the Rectories, are inoperative and void,' and, after all these disagreements, the validity of the Rectories measure was finally affirmed by a judgment of the Court of Chancery. Meantime, the larger question was slowly and painfully solving itself. A vain attempt at its settlement, by the giving of shares of the endowments to the Scotch Church, under Lord Sydenham's Government, only added to its difficulties, when it broke out afresh, some four or five years later. The Free Church movement among the Presbyterians of Scotland, extending itself to Canada, ren- dered many of the Canadian Presbyterians incapable of has completely changed the aspect of the question. It is understood that every rector possesses all the spiritual and other privileges enjoyed by an English rector, and though he may have no right to levy tithes (for even this has been made a question), he is in all other respects in precisely the same position as a clergyman of the Established Church in England.' Hence, other ministers felt themselves suddenly degraded to a position of legal ' inferiority.' HISTORY OF THE 'CLERGY RESERVES' QUESTION. 39 being bought over to acquiesce in endowments."* The cry- grew more strong for complete secularisation. A little delay of the final settlement was caused by the Tory party's having obtained a short spell of power in England, — an instance of the way in which our colonies sometimes suffer by their dependence. But, in 1853, on the fall of the Derby Cabinet, the Imperial Government committed the Clergy Reserves to the Colonial Legislature to be dealt with at its will and pleasure, and we find the staunchest supporter of the Canadian endowments, the late Bishop of Toronto, submitting himself to destiny in a letter to the Duke of Newcastle; certain passages of which may be read with a curious interest at the present day. ' I feel bitterly on this subject. Till I had heard of your Grace's despatch, I had fondly trusted in Mr. Gladstone and his friends, of whom you are one, notwithstanding the present doubtful administration, and I still argued in my heart, though not * A Canadian statistical return of 1851 thus estimates the relative strengths of the following denominations in Canada West : — Church of England . 223,190 Church of Scotland .... 57,542 Other Presbyterians .... 146,606 It is not easy to make out how far other denominations of Protestants, beside the Churches of England and Scotland, profited by the measure adopted under Lord Sydenham's Government, the Imperial Act of 1840. A despatch from Lord Elgin, dated July 19, 1850, says that this proposed settlement of the question admitted all Protestant denominations to share in the proceeds of the Clergy Reserves, but gave advantages to the Churches of England and Scotland, which made them objects of envy. But a petition from the House of Assembly of Canada, enclosed along with this despatch, asserts that, in 1848, the popu- lation of Upper Canada was 723,332, of which just 239,651 were returned as in connection with the Churches of England and Scotland, ' the only churches receiving any benefit from the Clergy Reserves endowment.' It is plain that the other denominations would not admit that they really profited at all by the .Act of 1840. The provisions of that Act, which are somewhat complicated, do not make it clear how far those other denominations would profit. It enacted, in substance, that a certain amount of the funds arising from the Reserves was to be given to the Church of England ; a certain smaller amount to the Church of Scotland ; and the residue, if any, was to be applied to the ' purposes of Public Worship and Religious Instruction in Canada ' generally. 40 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. without misgivings, that the Church was safe.' In the next year, 1854, came the solution, by the secularisation of the Church property (exclusive of the Rectories), except only so much of it as was needed for continuing their incomes to those actually in possession of benefices at the time. As the clergy waived their claims to this provision for their several life interests, in order that the funds thereto al- lotted might go to found a small permanent endowment for the Church, such an endowment was accordingly formed ; and it now represents all that was saved to the Church out of the secularisation of 1854. Since all that concerns the state of a disendowed Church has a peculiar interest just at present, it may not be amiss to lengthen still further this long paren- thesis and set out here a statement of the present position of the Canadian clergy, supplied to me by the authority of one who is himself an Upper Canadian clergyman of long standing and experience. ( The sources from which clergy- men of this province derive their incomes are — f 1. The voluntary system, pure and simple. ' 2. A bonus from the Mission Board of the Church Society, supplementing the voluntary contributions in the parishes. ( 3. The commutation fund of the clergy reserves. f 4. The Rectorial lands held by fifty-seven parishes in the province.' My informant, after pronouncing strongly against the voluntary system as it works in Canada, and quoting figures to show how impossible it is for clergymen to put trust in it, inasmuch as the promises of their flocks are apt to be vastly in excess of the performances (in one section of a parish, when the people had engaged to contribute 80 dollars — about 16Z. 10*. per annum — their actual contributions in three years averaged only 13 dollars — about 21. 10s. per annum) continues thus : ' The Church Society, at one PRESENT POSITION OF TEE CANADIAN CLERGY. 41 time offered a bonus of 200 dollars (417.) to country parishes, that gave securities for the payment of 400 dollars per annum to their clergymen ; but from the smallness of the contributions to the society, it was compelled in some cases to reduce the bonus by one-half, and to withdraw the offer for the future, until more funds were placed in its hands. This is a serious loss to the clergy ; for in a great many instances, the bonus as being a certain amount, is the main dependence of the clergyman, who receives in driblets the very uncertain contributions of his people.' .... ' The sum originally received by the clergy in lieu of their commuted life-interests was about 900,000 dollars (a little more than 185,000/.), to be apportioned among the several dioceses. The amount from this source, now possessed by this diocese is 575,600 dollars (about 118,500/.); from the interest of which about seventy clergymen receive severally, on an average from 400 dollars to 500 dollars — that is to say from 82/. to 103/. per annum. In 1835, Lord Seaton established fifty-seven rectories and endowed them with Crown lands to the extent of about 300 acres for each ; the whole quantity of land thus given being 17,368 acres. In cities and towns, this endowment is valuable, but in country parishes the rental will not much exceed 200 dollars or 300 dollars (41/. or 61/.) per annum : indeed, in some Eectories very little is derived from the rectorial lands. By an Act of the Provincial Parliament, power is given to the Church to sell the lands thus made over to her, and already some rectors have availed themselves of the permission, supposing that the dividends received from the price of the lands, when invested in Government securities, will produce, if not so large, at least a more certain and secure income. In some parishes, lands were purchased as local endowments, when the price was low, and in others, liberal men belonging to the Church devised lands as partial endowments for their 42 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. respective parishes ; so the incomes of a few clergymen are increased by the rental of lands thus obtained. In two or three instances in the diocese, aid is derived from societies at home for the support of clergymen whose duties are of a purely missionary character.' * As to the analogies which have been sometimes sought between this Canadian dispute and that about the Establish- ment in Ireland, their weak points are these : -f* that the * Of course there are many persons, entitled to speak with not less authority, who are much better satisfied with the state of the Canadian Church than the writer here quoted. For instance, the late Bishop of Toronto himself came to regard the change as, on the whole, a change for the better. In a recent debate in the House of Lords, the Bishop of Oxford, after describing how this Prelate had once sent his Archdeacon over here to denounce the measure in the strongest terms, added, ' Some six years afterwards, he sent the same man to tell me " You were right, I was wrong," — that was, in the disestablishment, — " it gave us an immediate use of the property, that was ours, at a small sacrifice, which we could not otherwise have got."' Again, Lord Monck, late Governor General of Canada, said, in the debate of June 15, 1869, ' The voluntary system came into operation in Canada in 1854. Without troubling your Lordships with the details of the numbers in each diocese, I may state that the aggregate number of the clergymen in the whole of them was, in 1850, 203 ; in 1860, 318 ; and in 1868, 419 ; so that, in the space of eighteen years, the number of clergymen in the dioceses of Canada has more than doubled.' His Lordship also read letters from the Bishops of Montreal, Toronto, and Ontario, speaking hopefully of the Canadian church. One of these Bishops, the Bishop of Ontario, was reported in the Ottawa Citizen to have spoken at a meeting in that city on January 19, 1869, as follows: 'I candidly confess that I would not exchange the present condition of the Canadian Church for her condition as an endowed establish- ment. "Better a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith." It is true that we have now no State aid ; but we are free from State restrictions upon our development.' Speaking of the Church in Ireland, the Bishop continued : ' She will receive a rude shock ; she did so in Canada ; she staggered under the blow, but only for a short time ; with incomparably less resources than those of Irish Churchmen she has held her ground, and, if I were able to say that Canadian Churchmen owned thirteen-fourteenths of the whole land of this country, as Irish Churchmen do of their country, I think that no sane man can doubt that the Canadian Church would present an appearance of complete prosperity. ... I do not suppose that if a traveller in Canada fifteen years ago were to revisit us, he would see any change in the outward aspect of the Church, except for the better. He would see the same services maintained but in increased numbers, our Churches still open, but more of them, and more correctly built.' t ' My Lords, could any two cases bear more striking resemblance than the cases of Canada and Ireland in respect to the motion to disestablish the Church CANADIAN CHURCH COMPARED WITH THE IRISH. 43 Canadian endowments only dated from an Act of 1791, and never enjoyed, even for a generation, an unthreatened existence ; that at least half of the contention about them sprang from their injurious effect upon the settlement of the country, and much of the rest from the vagueness of their original grant, giving the lands to 'the Protestant clergy,' without explanation of the term ; and perhaps the most wonderful thing about the Canadian Church endow- ments is this ; that, having arisen completely out of time and out of place ; being so constituted as to check most banefully the material advancement of the country ; being founded on a temptingly ill-drawn enactment, and an enactment that clearly showed, on the face of it, how it was looked upon only as a tentative and provisional measure ; for it contained an express declaration that its Church Endowments scheme for the Canadas should be ' subject to be varied or repealed by the Legislative Council and Assembly of the said pro- vinces,' under certain restrictions ; and, further, being mainly supported by a Government whose whole oligarchical system of their minorities?' Lord Granville, in the House of Lords, June 25, 1868. A writer in the Westminster Bevieiv of April, 1868, discarding Lord Granville's safe, interrogative way of suggesting the parallel, makes it the staple of his article. He gives his readers to understand, that it was chiefly to the French-Canadians — a Roman Catholic people, alien in blood to the Canadian minority upholding the Church of England — a people, further, that had been treated ' sometimes with injustice, and almost always with coldness and suspicion ' by the folly of Canadian Governments ; which had persistently backed ' the English Protestant element against the French Roman Catholic,' dubbing the former 'the loyal element, the mainstay of the connection with England,' till the latter 'became more and more irritated and difficult to manage ' — that the Canadian Church was an offence. Hence he easily establishes a parallelism with Ireland. But, as a matter of fact, the opposition to the Church endowments in Canada began, continued, and ended, in the main, among the Upper Canadians, without the French-Canadians ever having much to say to it. Sir Roundell Palmer, it will be remembered, has said, that the only Church endowments in Canada at all analogous to the property of the Irish Church were, not the Reserves at large — which were taken away at the disestablishment — but the specially appropriated Rectories, which the Canadian people thought it unjust to take away. — (See Speech of Sir R. Palmer in House of Commons, on Monday, March 22, 1869.) 44 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. and constitution were hateful to the people and behind the age ; they yet fought for their life for full sixty years. This, indeed, was to be a most unconscionably long time in dying. Whatever views may be held as to the advantages and disadvantages, on the whole, of the secularisation of Church property in Canada, that measure certainly preceded, in point of time, the mitigation of a religious enmity that had pre- viously grown fiercely inflamed. Sir F. Hincks, in his recent pamphlet on the Clergy Reserves Contest, significantly re- marks that ( during the same session, in which the Rectory Question was finally settled, the Party Processions Act was repealed with but slight opposition.' Similarly, the Under Secretary for the Colonies remarked recently in the House of Commons (on May 31, 1869) upon the freedom from religious intolerance, that at present distinguishes the Canadas. The common talk of Canadians now, with regard to Orangeism, speaks of the institution as dying out. Questions may arise, from time to time, galvanizing it into a fresh show of vitality ; but Canada is no exception to the general rule, that differences of creed are not to be prominent in organising future political parties. Mr. Eraser adds his testimony, that hostility between Irish Catho- lics and Irish Protestants is now ( said to be much miti- gated ' throughout the Canadas. The spread of education and the spread of the strong American spirit of industrialism must tend alike to check such bickerings ; for while the one teaches toleration for the opinions of others, the other must leave less time from the pursuit of temporal objects for in- dulging in religious feuds. The Protestant immigrants from Northern Ireland soon settle down into being too busy and too successful a portion of the Canadian population to have either the leisure or the inclination for useless quarrel- ing ; and their case exemplifies the truth, that there is nothing IRISH ROMAN CATHOLICS IN CANADA. 45 which takes the pugnacity out of men so much, as their be- coming fully occupied and comfortably well-to-do. As to the Roman Catholic Irish in Canada, about whose newly-born allegiance to the British crown a great deal has lately been said over here, it may be feared that the pictures of their sudden conversion have been somewhat overdrawn. It could not naturally be expected, that Irish Roman Catholics should at once lose their deep and hereditary hatred of England on removal to an English colony, however free that colony might be from having any institutions offensive to them ; nor do the facts bear out such a theory. Yet this theory, being useful, is often put forward by most prominent speakers and let pass by the hearers unchallenged, and this, too, not only with regard to Canada, but with regard, ^lso, to other English colonies. Thus, for instance, in the great debate on the state of Ireland in March, 1868, it was asserted from both sides of the House of Commons, over and over again, that the Irish Roman Catholics in Canada and Australia were loyal to England, and, as if this assertion might be taken for granted, various inferences were straightway drawn from it.* The most striking commen- tary upon those assertions appeared in the fact, that a leading Canadian statesman was murdered by Canadian Fenianism in the following month, and an English Prince was being nearly murdered by Australian Fenianism during the progress of this very debate. To those who had seen much of North American Fenianism, the former * On March 10, 1868, Lord Mayo said of the Irish in Australia, ' The Irish- men who have settled there do not exhibit any of those hostile feelings which unhappily are found in America.' . . . ' The same thing may be said with regard to Canada.' Mr. Mill, accepting this statement, explained its meaning to the House. ' But why ? Because the Irish found there (in the colonies), under the English flag, everything for which they asked vainly at home. They had the land : and they had no Established Church.' — (Mr. Mill's Speech, of March 12, 1868, the day on which the Duke of Edinburgh was shot by a Fenian in Australia.) 46 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. outrage could cause little surprise. The Fenians in the States used freely to talk of Mr. M'Gee, as one who was very likely to pay for his loyalty with his life ; and it was currently reported in Canada many months before his mur- der that he regarded himself as in imminent danger. In- deed it is well known that the Canadas, and especially the large towns of Lower Canada, contain many Fenians. An Irishman, of course, will not proclaim himself a member of this organisation to you in Canada as he will in the United States ; but the impression left upon your mind, by as much free talk with Irish Roman Catholics in Canada as a traveller from England is likely to get, will certainly be 5 that, as a class, they feel no affection for the English tie, and are anxious for annexation to the States. Those who have used statements about Irish- Canadian loyalty for the purposes of home poli- tics, have usually given a point to their remarks by citing a case of a loyal Irish-Canadian. Mr. D'Arcy M'Gee has been the favourite example. Of this gentleman, however variously judged during his life, it is impossible now not to speak with respect ; so much honour has been shed over his whole career by the martyrdom which closed it. But it is well to remember, not only how great must always be the risk in generalising from a single instance, but also what a poverty of instances the reiterated citation of any one particular case would seem to disclose ; and besides, with regard to this case itself, it, may be added, that Mr. M'Gee was a person of so marked an individuality as to be a most unhappy choice for those who based general propositions upon him. That which we have mentioned among the com- mon views about the Irish in Canada held on this side of the Atlantic, how Roman Catholic Irishmen have had a good share of high political positions in the British American government, a very much better share than has fallen to their countrymen and co-religionists within the United IRISH ROMAN CATHOLICS IN CANADA. 47 States, was not only exemplified by Mr. M f Gee in person, but frequently and forcibly pointed out by him in his powerful speeches. The most cursory glance over the lists of former Canadian cabinets, and the slightest acquaintance with the leading Canadian politicians of to-day, suffice to show that Scotland, as is usual in British colonies, can claim the lion's share of the politically eminent. Mr. M'Gee's authority, however, is not to be disputed, when he says that Ireland has had a fair allowance of Government offices ; and the fact that she has had such, is another sign how religious animosities have been softened in Canada of late, since Canadians saw their way out of the long troubles about Church Endowment; for, in 1839, when the Church dispute was very hot, Lord Durham was told by a trust- worthy authority, an Irish member of the Provincial Parlia- ment, that f in Upper Canada there never was an Irish Roman Catholic an executive or legislative councillor ; nor has one been ever appointed to any public situation of emolument and profit.' As to the States, it is notorious that, notwithstanding their often shown anxiety to turn their Irish population to political account, all parties among the Americans have agreed in keeping Irish Roman Catholics shut out from high places. It may be in a measure owing to this, that, though it is absurd to deny the existence of Fenianism in Canada, the Roman Catholic Irish there settled both make better citizens, and are less actively hostile to England, than those settled within the Union. Canadians seldom speak with that contempt of the Irish which is almost universal among Americans. Mr. Maguire's book on the ' Irish in America ' has lately given us many examples, showing how prosperous Irish Roman Catholics have become in Canadian farms. In Canadian towns, how- ever, it is still very noticeable, that the Irish quarter is at once the poorest and least orderly ; and it is in these denser 48 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. communities that one gets the least favourable view of the Celtic population. Mention has been already made of an election contested at Montreal, in the autumn of '67, by Mr. M'Gee with another Irishman, Mr. Devlin. The Irish naturally took a particularly keen interest in the contest, and one had in it a good field in which to compare the bearing of the town Irish Canadian with that of his fellow-countrymen at home. Mr. Devlin's attachment to the British connection was by no means of a marked or demonstrative character ; which was generally thought to account for the fact, that he was the darling of the Montreal Irish. That city, like most of the towns over the whole of the continent, has an Irish quarter. The poorest suburb, called Griffintown, is given up almost wholly to this one nationality. It was well known that in this quarter lay Mr. Devlin's chief strength ; and it must be allowed, that the way in which this strength made itself felt upon the last day of the contest would have been well worthy of Tipperary, and not out of place even at Waterford. No sooner had Mr. M' Gee's return to Parlia- ment been given out, than down came the Griffintown boys in their might, with whooping and yelling, and whirling of big sticks, and all other such strong political arguments. There was a fine opportunity for noting the differences between the Irish of Canada and the Irish at home. The craving for a fight, and the very manner of fighting, were quite in the old style. There were the same headlong rushes forward, the same panic-stricken flights where no man pursued, the same cries, and the same volleys of stones. The only innovation seemed to be the introduction of pistol- shooting. It was indeed not easy to make out wherein the Celt, no longer insulted by Church or by landlord, had as yet changed from the old type at home, save that he had acquired a new and American taste for the revolver. The THE FRENCH OF LOWER CANADA. 49 riot was put down very gently by the people of Montreal. The only voices to be heard raised in favour of dealing more sternly with the breakers of the peace were raised by those who are generally believed in England to be the warmest friends and defenders of the Irish — the Americans ; of whom there are always many, during the summer, paying a visit to Montreal. ( Your people don't know how to deal with those fellows,' said one of these Americans; 'we know better : we learnt the trick in our New York Irish riots of '63.' One may get much information about the Irish from the American tourist in Canada. They will speak freely to him ; and it is certainly the common belief of Americans who know the British provinces, that the strongest Annex- ationists within them are the Irish. As to the French of Lower Canada, now ( the Province of Quebec,' they are so wholly distinct, and jealously guard so many peculiarities of their own, that he who has merely made a traveller's short stay in their Province need not try to touch upon more than the most striking and salient of its points of interest. First and most notable of these is the fact, that the French parts of Canada are the poorest and the least progressive. The winters, being longer and more severe there than in the Western province, may have some influence in retarding the advancement of the country ; but the character and manner of life of the people would in themselves sufficiently account for the fact. Throughout the agricultural districts, the farms are generally small and the houses often mere one-storied cottages; where larger, they are sometimes surrounded with galleries like Swiss chalets ; and, in all cases, both lands and houses are neatly and carefully kept. The farms run back from the roads in long narrow strips, with a very small frontage allotted to each. Thus the houses belonging to the several farms and built upon the roadside stand only a very short way from E 50 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. each other, and the French l habitans ' — the name by which the poorer classes of the French agriculturists are always called — can live as sociably together as is to the taste of their nation. Indeed, so great was the tendency of the French farmers to huddle together and subdivide their lands, that in 1745 the French Government passed a law ' forbidding the farmers or censitaires building on land less than one and a half arpents front by thirty or forty deep ' (1J arpent is about equal to one acre), f under a cer- tain penalty, in order to compel emigration and bring the seigneurs' estates all under cultivation.' In spite of legis- lation, this strong tendency to live close together and as near as possible to some main road has marked the country of the French-Canadians with some of its most prominent characteristics. Even a generation ago, those who passed along the chief roads of the Lower Province were greatly struck by the apparent populousness of the country to be seen along their way. Lord Durham writes of the French e having established a series of continuous villages, which give the country of the seigneuries the appearance of a never- ending street.' An American, who saw Lower Canada about twenty years ago, found the road along the north bank of the St. Lawrence, following the stream downward from Quebec, already in the state in which one sees it to-day, * a continuous village for thirty miles, with a parish church about every six miles.' The French-Canadian has a horror of loneliness, and never willingly foregoes to be 6Ba> s7Tt oifcia vaiwv. The depth of the fringe of settled country on either side of a main road varies, of course, with the situation. Some- times there will be only a single row of farms on each side : sometimes, behind the front row which abuts upon the road and is known as the * first concession,' there will be second and third concessions, with lanes and by-roads so placed ' moeoellement: 51 between the rows as to give access to each of the farms. Whether deeper or thinner, the fringe of neat and trim farms has ever the same sombre background of unbroken forest. The general look of the good farming districts of Lower Canada has much more likeness to Belgium and parts of France than to England or Upper Canada. The pretty, tidy, freshly painted, plank-built farm-houses look a little too like children's toy-houses, and the neat oblong farms, cultivated into minute patches of different crops, look a little too like mere garden-plots. You miss the rough and bounteous substantiality of the Upper Canadian farmstead and its wide surrounding lands. Excessive subdivision of the holdings is, as has been said, and as was shown by the French Royal edict of 1745, the hindrance to agricultural progress in Lower Canada. The grants of the seigneurs to the occupiers were originally quite large enough, being generally of ninety arpents in area ; but in most cases each such grant became in a few generations split up among several occupiers; and though this process of subdivision was checked by the French edict of 1745, we, at our con- quest of Canada, annulled that edict and let the morcelle- ment go on as briskly as ever. ' When a peasant dies in possession of a farm of ninety arpents in area,' wrote Maseres, a distinguished Quebec lawyer, in 1773, ( and leaves half-a-dozen children, each of these builds a house, establishing himself on his little portion of ground, fifteen arpents in area, and manages just to get a bare living off it, instead of taking from the seigneur another concession as big as the first, which he would willingly grant.' And the mode of subdivision was always the same. Each son took a long narrow strip, with, say, thirty arpents of depth to half an arpent of frontage on the road, just space enough for him to set up his house on a line with his neighbours'. Maseres thought the English had done much harm to the E 2 52 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. Province by annulling the French prohibition of very small farms, and suggested, as a partial remedy, the introduction of a system of primogeniture. In this he was warmly opposed ; but even his opponents admitted the reality of the evils that had arisen from excessive subdivision. It has been already mentioned, that one of the most in- teresting and important of the recent legislative changes in Canada was the abolition of the old French feudal tenures. It took a long series of Acts to effect this change. So long ago as 1822 we find an Act passed for the purpose ; and, to omit some enactments in the meanwhile, there were recently, between the years 1853 and 1861, Acts passed almost every session in Canada for the further carrying out of the scheme ; but a speech of the Governor-General, Sir Edmund Head, delivered in 1855, in which speech he congratulated Canada upon being ( the only country in the world where the feudal system had expired without violence or revo- lution,' may be taken as roughly marking the date of the change. Feudalism certainly died hard in Canada. At the original founding of ' La Nouvelle France,' the French Government tried to transport across the ocean as thoroughly aristocratic a system as then existed at home. Large tracts of land in Canada were offered to noblemen, to tempt them away from the fascinations of Paris ; a common form of fief to be granted, we are told, was a tract of two or three French leagues squared ; and so many of the aristocracy were thus induced to settle in Canada, that Charlevoix, writing thence in 1720, says, 'there are more of the noblesse in La Nouvelle France than in all our other colonies put together.' This plan, of making a seigneur jointly interested along with the needy immigrants in the settlement of the new lands, has been pronounced by Lord Durham's high au- thority to have been ' singularly calculated to promote the THE SEIGNEURIES IN LOWER CANADA. 53 French settler's immediate comfort, and to check his desire to better his condition. He was placed at once in a life of constant and unvarying labour, of great material comfort, and of feudal dependence : ' and, though it may not be very easy to see how a poor immigrant could be any the better off for holding his land from an idle and usually impoverished fine-gentleman, instead of directly from the king, the Canadian writer Bouchette agrees with his lord- ship, saying, that the settlement of New France in seig- neuries aided the settlers ( by throwing them together, and thus leading them to assist one another; giving them the countenance and aid of a seigneur; interesting him in pro- curing them roads, and compelling him to build them a mill * — which mill, by the way, he was not by any means com- pelled to set up, unless he saw in it a good investment for himself.* Yet, however doubtful its benefits may be thought, it is certain that the seignorial system had a strong hold on the Canadians.f Even so late as 1830, though by that time * One of the clauses in a lease given by Bouchette as a model of the ordinary ' Bail a cens' in the Seignories runs as follows : ' Que le dit preneur (ses hoirs et ains cause) portera ses grains moudre au moulin bannal, lorsqic'il y en aura un d'etably, et des censitaires suffisans pour entretenir le dit moulin sans perte au dit seigneur.' t An English traveller, who should be a competent judge, has thus written of the Seignorial Tenure: 'In the first instance, the seignorial tenure is an advantage to the farmer, and affords facilities for settling in life to the young man who is without capital. He goes to the Lord, obtains permission to occupy a portion of wild land, which is measured off, on condition of paying a small annual rent ; builds himself a hut with the help of his friends, and begins to clear and sow. With a little provision, and a few tools, he can thus begin the world with scarcely a penny in his pocket. So far the seignorial tenure is favourable to the poor Canadian, though it is unsuited to the wants and wishes of the emigrant who, coming with a small capital, wishes to buy the fee-simple of a farm he can thenceforth call his own.' (Notes on North America, by J. Johnston, Reader in Chemistry and Mineralogy to the University of Durham.) Of course it is an obvious advantage to the poor immigrant to be able to begin labouring a farm without having to pay a sum of money down before entering upon it ; but this advantage is given by arrangements in aid of settlers existing in both the United States and Canada ; and, as compared with such arrange- ments by which the settler deals directly with the Government and not with 54 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. a very large party had grown up among the censitaires, or tenants of the seigneurs, in favour of land reforms, Bouchette, Surveyor- General of the Province, believed that nothing would induce the Lower Canadian wholly to aban- don his old tenure and all the old usages associated with it.* And the regard for the seignorial customs was much stronger still, and more stubborn, among seigneurs than among cen- sitaires. Yet even the former do not seem to have made very large gains by the system. Thus, in 1685, we find Louis XIV. allowing ( all nobles and gentlemen settled in Canada to engage in commerce, without being called to account, or reputed to have done anything derogatory ; ' which looks as if the nobles and gentlemen there settled were at that time a little out-of-pocket; and in 1768 we find Cugnet, Secretary to the Governor of Quebec, and Maseres, Attorney-General for the Province, estimating the average value of each complete seigneurie in the then existing con- dition of the land at not more than some 70/. yearly, and pronouncing it not likely to be more than from 200/. to 30C/. a year, even when the land had been all cleared and brought under tillage. It is true, to be sure, that many seigneurs had more than one seigneurie a-piece ; but it is also true any private landlord, the seignorial tenure seems to have no benefit, and many drawbacks, for immigrants. In one point, however, the seigneur's position was a species of landlordism that could not be exercised so as to check progress. He was absolutely obliged to concede his lands, and could not put more than the small customary rent on them. II was not allowed to keep them waste, in the face of applicants for their use. Again, the censitaire could not take a con- cession, simply to hold it as a speculation in the hope of a rise in its value and not for the purpose of cultivating it — a mode of proceeding which the Govern- ments both of the United States and Canada have much trouble in checking. The censitaire was bound by his seignorial lease to take possession and begin cultivating at once. • Sont tenus tous les censitaires de defricher, mettre en culture, et tenir feu et lieu sur les terres a eux concedees par les seigneurs dans l'an et jour dates de leurs titres.' * ; The habitant of the country would not willingly forego his present modified vassalage, if indeed the independent condition of the Canadian censitaire can be so called, for the most absolute freehold.' LOWER CANADIAN FEUDALISM. 55 that the profits from many single seigneuries had to be divided among several seigneurs. But, whatever may have been their financial position, the seigneurs always resisted a change of their tenure. After our conquest of Canada in 1760, we showed wonderful vacillation with regard to the French laws. In 1763, the Home Government made a violent effort to abolish the French civil law altogether — a system of law founded mainly on the Coutume de Paris, but copiously supplemented by the Coutume de Normandie — and to anglicise the Province at a stroke. This caused such confusion and raised such a storm, that, in the very next year, the Governor in Council enacted that ' in actions relative to the tenure of land the French laws and usages should be observed as the rule of decision ' — an enactment which the Home Government, by the advice of their law officers, shortly after confirmed; and, in 1770, a code of law for Canada was fixed by our Government, embodying almost all the French rules relating to land (except the territorial jurisdiction of the seigneurs, which was never revived after the conquest), though various innovations were introduced as to other matters — among them being a definitive estab- lishment of the English criminal law ; which, having gene- rally taken the place of the French criminal law since the date of our conquest, was declared by the Imperial Act of 1774 to have recommended itself to the French population on account of its certainty and lenity ; whence it may be assumed that the system it succeeded was somewhat severe; and among them, also, being a definitive establishment of trial by jury as an integral part of our legal system ; which did not similarly recommend itself to the French aristocracy, who, it is said, ' did not by any means like that labourers and mechanics should sit in judgment upon gentlemen, and wondered that the British should be so fond of trial by jury.' England's policy, at this time, was not only to retain all the 56 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. incidents of the French feudal tenure, but even to extend their sphere of action. In 1775, instructions were sent out from England that all grants of land, even to Englishmen and Americans, throughout the whole then existing ' Pro- vince of Quebec,' were to be made 'en fief et seigneurie? So thoroughly was the Home Government frightened by the turn things were taking among the English in America, that it gave up the idea of anglicising Canada, and wanted rather to keep it, as far as possible, French. Indeed, in this year '75, Sir Guy Carleton, the Governor of Canada, tried to turn the French tenures to useful account in the war with the rebel English of the States. Declaring that by the French feudal law the seigneurs and their tenants owed military service to the king and would forfeit their lands by not rendering it, he tried to procure the enrolment of the militia. Many seigneurs acquiesced and summoned their tenants ; but these, in their turn, took a different view of the law, and denied that their tenure required more from them than the payment of their quit-rent and other seignorial dues in money and kind. Notwithstanding this adoption of feudalism by the Government, it appears that only two or three new seigneuries were ever created under the English rule. All other lands allotted for settlement in Canada since its conquest by England have been formed into townships,* not seigneuries, and have been free from, or only very partially subject to, the French laws affecting real property.! Indeed the Government patronage of the * The township is a tract of land of ten miles squared, when inland ; of nine miles of frontage, with twelve miles of depth, when its frontage lies upon a navigable river. f It was long left in a strange uncertainty how far the townships of Lower Canada were subject to the old French laws and customs. Boucbette writes thus on the point : ' The text-book or Common Law of the Province is the Coutume de Paris as modified by the customs of the country, and this law was co-extensive with the whole Province until the passing of the Canada Tenures Bill in 1825, which restricted the application of the French law to the feudal ^ LOWER CANADIAN FEUDALISM. 57 French tenures did not last long.* With the British immi- grant these could never find favour, and his ideas on the subject spread by degrees even among the French popu- lation. One of the results of such tenures was to put diffi- culties in the way of the alienation of land, and such a result was necessarily distasteful to the immigrant. Many of the French seignorial families, too, were bought out and replaced by Englishmen of capital, who, not entering into the old feelings of sympathy between seigneur and cen- sitaire, were apt to exercise their rights in a way offensive section of the colony and introduced bodily the English laws into the remainder.' The eighth section of the Act here referred to (6 George IV. cap. 59), after stating that there have been doubts whether lands granted in Lower Canada in free or common socage are subject to the rules of descent and alienation in force in England, or to the ancient French laws, enacts, that all lands granted or to be granted in Lower Canada in free and common socage may be disposed of and shall pass by descent according to the law of England, and are subject to the same law with regard to dower. The occasion of this enactment was that neither the Imperial Act of 1774 nor that of 1791, the two great Acts regulating the affairs of Canada, had made it quite clear how far socage lands were to be affected by the feudal usages. But, even after the enactment above quoted, the uncertainty and inconveniences arising from the conflict of different systems of law did not altogether cease. A few years later, a Colonial Act (9 Ceo. IV. cap. 77) was passed to quiet the lawful proprietors of socage lands, which had been dealt with as not being subject to the English law; to confirm to such proprietors the possession of their lands ; and to enact that all con- veyances of socage lands, however bad they might have been according to English law, if in accordance at the time of their making with ' any law or usage then in force in this Province,' should be held good and valid ; and that all conveyances of socage land henceforth made either according to the English law or to the laws and usages of Lower Canada should be equally valid. There has been yet another Colonial Act on the same troublesome subject, passed in 1857, repeating and confirming the last quoted Act, and adding clauses to settle, among other things, the disposition of the socage lands of intestates ; the general drift of which clauses is to make the free and common socage established in Canada to be subject to the rules governing the old Canadian tenure of ' franc alien roturier? * Instructions were sent from England to Lord Dorchester in 1786 to the effect that the loyalists from America and the disbanded English troops were to get grants of land in Canada ' en seigneurie,' with a reservation of a quit-rent of three half-pence per arpent ; but a very few years later, in the Canadian Constitutional Act, the grantee of Canadian lands was given the option whether he would take them • en seigneurie ' or in ' free and common socage.' 58 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. to the French. So little by little there grew up, both among French and English, an opposition to the old feudal tenure, which was warmly supported by the seigneurs alone. Their influence, however, was so strong in the House of Assembly that any legislative change was made difficult. It was the old fight between a landed aristocracy and a people over again, with the old result of the former being driven slowly to the wall, after trying in vain to stave off the pressure by granting half-measures of relief. Thus, in 18*22 and 1825, legislation on the subject began with permissive Acts of the Imperial Parliament, allowing the seigneur to commute his own tenure, so as to hold no longer ' en fief et seigneurie ' but by ( franc alleu roturier ' — ' being that tenure known to the old laws which is most analogous to the ordinary English tenure of free and com- mon socage,' on condition of his allowing his censitaires, if required to do so, similarly to commute their tenure under him on payment to him of a compensation to be assessed by experts. But seigneurs would not avail themselves of this permission. It would take long to go through the list of successive Acts leading up to the abolition of the seignorial tenure. As usual, the first successful attack appears to have been made, not upon the property of individuals, but upon that of a corporation ; for, by a colonial ordinance of 1840 (3 and 4 Victoria, cap. 30), we find the ' ecclesiastics of the Seminary of St. Sulpice ' obliged to grant ' a release and extinguishment of all feudal and seignorial burdens whatso- ever, for a certain price and indemnity,' over valuable seigneuries belonging to them, which were thenceforth to be holden ' en franc alleu roturier.' But, as the list of succes- sive Seignorial Acts is long, it may be better worth while to describe the nature, than the history, of the change effected. The dues of the censitaires to the seigneurs were THE SEIGNORIAL LAND-TENURE. 59 of two kinds, fixed and casual. Of these, the former, or the * cens et rentes? were a light quit-rent of not much more, upon an average, than three half-pence per arpent, usually- assessed upon the farm in proportion to its frontage. Thus, a farm of the shape most common for original grants from seigneurs, before such grants were subdivided, with three arpents of frontage on the road and thirty arpents of depth, would pay about four shillings for each of these three arpents of front, or twelve shillings altogether. As the area of such a farm would be ninety arpents, this gives a rent of very little more than three half-pence per arpent ; to which rent was generally added some small payment in produce, a pair of fowls, a goose, or a bushel of wheat, or the like. This was certainly no heavy burden on the land. The casual dues were less free from objection. The chief of these were : firstly, lods et ventes, or fines upon aliena- tion by sale. On every sale by a censitaire of any seignorial land occupied by him, the purchaser had, beside the amount of his purchase-money, to pay one-twelfth of that amount to the seigneur, from whom the seller had held the land sold. Secondly, droit de retrait conventional, or right of the seigneur to take any land sold by censitaires within his seigneurie into his own possession, out of the possession of the buyers, on payment by him to such buyers of the full price at which the sale to them had been effected, within forty days of such sale ; which right, being merely intended to secure to the seigneur his fine upon sales, was seldom used, and was not deemed a lucrative right at all by the Acts which abolished the casual rights and compensated seigneurs for their abolition. Thirdly, droit de banalite ; or the right of the seigneur to insist upon the censitaires grinding their corn at his l moulin banal? where one-fourteenth of such corn was appropriated by him as ( mouture? And fourthly, beside his exclusive right to grind corn, the seigneur had an 60 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. exclusive right to the use of the water-powers throughout his domains for any mechanical operation whatsoever. Further, the seigneur had a right of corvee, entitling him, in some few cases, to a day's labour from his censitaire or to a pay- ment in lieu of labour ; and seigneurs could also claim tithes of all the fish taken within the bounds of their seigneuries. This, of course, is very far from a full account of the inci- dents and obligations of the tenure ; which, with its fiefs and arriere fiefs, its seigneurs dominant and servant, might fill a long treatise with details. Thus, with regard to the most important and unpopular of all its incidents, the fines upon alienation by sale, just as he who purchased a farm, a terre censive, had to pay his lods et ventes, beside his purchase-money, so he who purchased a fief had to pay his quint, a sum equal to one-fifth of his purchase-money, beside that purchase-money, to the Crown, or, if the fief purchased by him were an arriere fief, to the seigneur dominant. With such obligations as its most onerous, the seignorial tenure, viewed from the standpoint of English relations between landlord and tenant, may not seem at all oppressive. But the French censitaires did not by any means regard themselves as tenants admitted by a landlord upon lands that are his, and not theirs, and of which they have only a temporary use in consideration of the payment of rents ; but rightly considered themselves a peasant pro- prietary, not liable to being ousted at the will of the seig- neur, and merely bound to render certain feudal services to him just as he, in turn, was bound to render certain others to his own feudal superior. For, to quote from a French- Canadian lawyer (the Attorney-General Maseres, before mentioned), just as the king granted fiefs to seigneurs, ( a, eux, levrs hoirs et ay ant cause, a, perpetuite, a, condition qtCiU les cultiveroient ou feroient cultiver? so these seigneurs conceded, ' a d , autre s per sonne s, des parties de leurs seigneuries, pour etre LOWER CANADIAN LAND-REFORMS. 61 tenues par ces personnes, leurs hoirs et ayant cause, cTeux les seigneurs, leurs hoirs et ayant cause, a perpetuite, par un cens et rente tres-modique, avec une obligation. . . .' Taking this view of the assuredness of their position, and looking to the evident intention of the French Government in estab- lishing the old tenure, namely, c faire cultiver les terres,' the censitaires, as soon as ever they saw their feudal dues were retarding, not aiding, settlement and cultivation, clamoured for their remission. The fines upon sales, the restrictions upon milling, and the monopoly by single individuals of the water- powers over great tracts, were paraded as the most crying evils. The seigneurs, on the other hand, defended these casual dues as supplying the only means by which a seig- neur could at all profit by that steady increase in the value of his occupied lands caused by the steady increase of population and by other circumstances constantly occurring. For his ' cens et rentes,' being fixed in amount, tended, as the value of money changed, to fall and not to rise in value. But these are the days in which seigneurs, landlords, aris- tocratic and privileged persons of all kinds, find it somewhat hard to stay the tide with arguments. The Legislature yielded to the censitaire, and gave him relief as follows. A commission was appointed to value all the rights, both fixed and casual, of the seigneur in every seigneurie. When the average annual value of the casual rights in a seigneurie had been estimated and reduced to a rente con- stitute, or fixed yearly payment, this rente constitute was diminished by the annual amount of certain dues, which the seigneur had previously to pay, but which henceforth were not to be required of him, and also by the estimated annual value of certain benefits, which were to accrue to the seig- neur from the alteration of tenure. The payment to him of the remainder of the rente constitute, representing the casual rights after these deductions from it, was not to fall on the 62 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. censitaires, but was assumed by the Province ; which under- took, at the option of the seigneur, either to pay it annually to him, or to give him a lump sum in commutation of it ; which lump sum was to amount to three-fourths of that capital sum, whatever it might be, the interest of which at the rate of six per cent, per annum would be equivalent to the rente constituee so commuted. Thus, if after the above- mentioned deductions had been made, there still remained a rente constituee of 60/. a year, representing casual rights, this might be commuted for 750/., to be paid down to the seig- neur once for all by the Province. Thus, so far as the censitaire was concerned, the burden of casual dues ceased altogether. As to the fixed dues, or ' cens et rentes? where- ever these exceeded three half-pence per arpent, the excess over that small amount was to be assumed by the Province, to be commuted for a lump sum, and to be paid down in that form to the seigneur. The remainder, the three half-pence per arpent, was, at the option of the censitaire, to be regu- larly paid as before by him to the seigneur, or to be com- muted for a lump sum (namely, the capital, the interest of which, at the rate of six per cent, per annum, would yearly be of like amount), and paid down by the censitaire once for all to the seigneur ; in which latter case the censitaire would thenceforward hold his land free from all seignorial dues whatsoever. That every obligation of an annual pay- ment affecting lands should always be redeemable, was a point especially insisted upon by the Seignorial Acts, which made fierce war on every description of rente constituee irrachetable. This account, imperfect as it is, may perhaps suffice to show how utterly the analogy, which some have tried to make out, between the Lower Canadian land question and the Irish, fails to establish itself. Irish discontent on. the subject of the land is of two different kinds — the one possibly reme- LOWER CANADIAN AND IRISH LAND-QUESTIONS. 63 dlable by legislation, the other seemingly irremediable except by long lapse of time and the more complete fusion of races. The former discontent arises from the fact that, since Irish landlords spend little money in general on the* im- provement of their estates, whatever improvements are made, are made in general by the tenants, who have no security in general, that they will profit by such improvements. The other discontent arises from the fact, that by far the greater part of the land is owned by the conquering and more ener- getic race, while the conquered and less acquisitive race, being very prolific, forms by far the greater part of the popu- lation. Neither grievance had any counterpart in Canada. The censitaire's tenure was perfectly secure ; and his seigneur was usually of the same race and religion as him- self. The Stein-Hardenberg land-reforms of Prussia, which are also often mentioned in connection with the Irish land- question (though, as Lord Russell says in a recent pamphlet, { the comparison entirely fails,' for the tenures most resem- bling those lately abolished in Prussia ' were abolished in England 200 years ago (12 Car. II. c. 24),' and in this respect the Irish is similar to the English land-system), bear some slight resemblance to the Canadian reforms. The grievances in Prussia, as in Canada, seem to have been, not want of fixity, but liability to harassing and insatiable feudal dues, l embracing all agricultural operations and products; affecting nearly every human relation and event from the cradle to the grave.' The remedy was an enabling of the occupier to buy freedom from these dues, either by surrendering a part of his land to the lord, or by paying him a fixed money rent in place of the dues, or by paying him a sum of money down, a capitalisation of such fixed money rent. As in Canada, so also in Prussia, the State did all it could to promote such redemptions of dues and rents, and to 64 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. create an independent and unburdened proprietary. The last act in the series of Stein-Hardenberg reforms was the establishment, in 1850, of ' the provincial land-credit insti- tutions called Rent-Banks,' for the purpose of facilitating such redemptions.* The Indian land reforms, again, which also are sometimes brought into juxtaposition with the Canadian by being searched, like them, for precedents applicable to Ireland, were exceedingly unlike either the Canadian or Prussian. In Canada and in Prussia, as in Ireland, the laws relating to land-tenure, however unpopular, were perfectly definite and well understood. In India, by the ( Permanent Settle- ment,' attempted in utter ignorance of native usages and customs by Lord Cornwallis in 1793, the old native rules relating to land had been broken in upon, and no complete system established instead. It had been attempted to set up a sort of landlordism, by making the Zemindars, the collectors of revenue, into landlords; the Talookdars and Ryots, the cultivators of the soil, into tenants. But the terms of the tenure created were vague and uncertain and different in different places. So the Bengal rent laws of 1859 divided the whole body of these cultivators or tenants into certain different classes, giving to one class a fixity of tenure at a fixed rent, to another class a fixity of tenure at a rent to be only chargeable on certain fixed principles, to a * See a pamphlet entitled Prussia and Ireland, by Henry Dix Hutton (Ridgway, 1868). Also, for a clearer, though not so Ml nor perhaps so accurate, account of the Prussian reforms, as bearing on the Irish question, see Mr. Matthew Arnold's letter in the Pall Mall Gazette of November 8, 1866. Mr. Maguire, M.P., at the end of the seventh chapter of his book on The Irish in America, thus suggests a comparison of the Irish and Canadian Land Ques- tions : ' From the example of the Canadian Legislature, even the Parliament of the mother country may derive a valuable suggestion as to the abolition of those "seignorial rights, duties, dues," &c. and the redemption, or at least adjustment, of those charges " which interfere most injuriously with the inde- pendent industry and enterprise " of the censitaire of Ireland.' But he does not say who there is in Ireland answering to the censitaire of Canada. FBENGH-OANADIAN TOWNS. 65 third class no fixity at all. Thus order was produced out of a chaos of old rules and usages, made more confused by ignorant attempts of the Government to supplant them, and each cultivator could, henceforth, know how he stood. In Canada, there was no chaos at all, but a perfectly well-defined system, though one that had outlived its age. Of French-Canadian towns, Quebec must be taken as the type. Though, even in it, there is a large British and Irish population, it is certainly the most French of the greater Canadian towns. In Montreal, the Scotch and English elements have gained a complete mastery over the French ; but Quebec, which has a very striking individuality among Canadian cities, may be reasonably supposed to owe no small part of its distinctive character to the fact of its being the French metropolis. Of all towns in Canada, of all towns indeed, upon the North American continent, it has by far the most of an Old World look. Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton have all of them more or less of the fresh, brisk liveliness, of American towns. Ottawa is growing rapidly, though with a less honest growth, chiefly owed to the forcing influence of having become the political centre. Kingston has an air of dullness, like a place which has come to a stand- still. But Quebec looks in its old age and decadence. No wonder that it has a charm for tourists from the States. To see anything else like it, so worn and quaint and venerable, they would have to cross the ocean. It was not surprising to hear from an American friend, as we walked down one of the steep winding streets, between dingy and dilapidated houses, 1 What a pity it would be if our people got a hold of this dear, break-neck, tumble-down old rookery ! They would spoil it right off. These Frenchmen little know what our people would be like. Yankees would just ride over them rough shod,' and more to the like effect. And, indeed, the French-Canadian character seems to be now in every way F 66 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. the opposite of the American, being not restless, nor venture- some, nor gain-seeking, but home-loving, contented with a small share of the external goods, full of light gaiety, deeply- superstitious in religion, and, though fond of a kind of petty political agitation, without the force in it for sustained political action. This is what it appears now ; but how strangely it seems to have changed since the early days of the French settlement ! Then no project was too bold for Frenchmen to conceive, no enterprise too hazardous for Frenchmen to carry out. The story of French exploration is one long and marvellous epic, the most thrilling of all the episodes in the Heroic Age of American history. What a prospect burst on Jacques Cartier's sight, when he first climbed the hill of Montreal, and saw the St. Lawrence s grand, large et spacieux,' still spreading away to the un- known west; how Champlain set out with his two com- panions to sail the lake now called by his name, with a war- party of the wild Algonquins, and fought in their front against the Iroquois, among the mountains around Lake George ; what dangers and hardships he faced in those fifteen voyages across the Atlantic ; how stoutly he forced his long way up the stream of the Ottawa, northward and northward, gazed at by curious nations that thronged to the bank to see the strange faces, led on by the hope that he would yet reach the great bay which Hudson had found, and might yet be the first to discover the new road to Cathay and the Indies ; how Marquette, and after him, La Salle, entrusted themselves to the stream of the Missis- sippi, knowing nothing as to whither it would lead them, and how La Salle let it carry him down through all its hundreds of leagues of length till it brought him out upon the tropical seas. Even De Soto, that ( stern man and of few words,' the emulous friend of Pizarro, breaking his way with his Spaniards through the southern swamps and forests, FRENCH-CANADIAN CHARACTER. 67 from the Mexican Gulf to the Atlantic, and from the Atlantic across to the Mississippi, then first seen by Euro- pean eyes, and still pressing onward to the west, and then to the north, now southward and now back to the east, through three long years of wanderings, in the search for that fancied land, glittering with gold and jewels, that lured him on in his day dream, till death broke in upon his dreamings, and they buried him silently at midnight in the deeps of the Mississippi, that the savages might not perceive how even their enslaver was mortal, — he himself has not left a tale more heart-stirring than those first French emi- grants to Canada.* And there were these differences be- tween the French and Spanish; that the latter seem to have been wholly prompted by a love of gold and of plunder, while the French were incited and supported by a genuine love of adventure, and, in not a few instances, by a heroic devotion to the cause of their religion. It is well known how many of their boldest explorers were Jesuit Fathers and missionaries. Again, while the Spaniards were abominably cruel to the natives, the French gained an influence over them, and won a goodwill from them, such as no other European people has ever been able to boast. It may be, indeed, that the former boldness of the French in exploration, and the more lately developed dislike of the French-Canadian to leave the farm of his forefathers, are to be viewed rather as different results of the same character- istics, than as showing the introduction of new characteristics. The want of that dogged strength of will, that steady * The dates of these explorations were, respectively : Cartier's first voyage to America 1534 De Soto's wanderings in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mis- sissippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana . . . 1539-1542 Champlain's first voyage to America .... 1603 Pere Marquette's exploration of the Mississippi . . 1673 La Salle's 1682 r 2 68 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. Teutonic obstinacy, which makes a man settle down to clear the wilderness with a firm confidence that he can turn it into a garden, may have been what drove the French to become hunters and trappers in the old times— the boldest of •rovers over the whole of the Continent; and it may be the same weakness of will and want of reliance upon themselves, that made the French of a later day cling to a patch of the paternal farm, rather than push out in search of new lands. To make a home and a livelihood out of the virgin forest needed a more determined steadiness of purpose than to become f coureurs de bois,' as the early Canadians were called in reproach ; though, when any settlements had once been made, it needed no enterprise to continue living upon them, and what would have shown the true genius for colonisation would have been the readiness to abandon them for others. It has been before mentioned how, in 1745, the French Government issued an edict against the excessive subdivision of Canadian farms. The French had already become too stationary. Nearly a hundred years earlier, an edict had been issued enjoining the settlement of Canada in compact and continuous communities, to prevent the people from dispersing over the country and exposing themselves to attack from the Iroquois. The French were then not stationary enough. Of the French of those days, Lord Durham says, that 'whatever energy existed among the population was employed in the fur trade and the occupa- tion of hunting; which they and their descendants have carried beyond the Rocky Mountains, and still (1837), in great measure, monopolise in the whole valley of the Mississippi.' The French communities of the West are now broken up into such small fragments that you may travel through and through the country without becoming aware of them. The same recent French traveller, who has been before quoted, Monsieur de Hauranne, tells us more FRENCH-CANADIAN CHARACTER. 69 about these, as he would think, the solitary oases in the desert, than would be likely to be noticed by Englishmen. 6 In the West, and all along the Mississippi,' says he, s there are settlements wholly French, which have survived the abandonment of our colonies and retained all their national characteristics. At Detroit, whose name shows its origin, French is still spoken in a few families. Monsieur D'Elpeux (French consul at Chicago) has been at villages in Illinois which have never become Americanised, and where nothing is yet spoken but the rough dialects of Normandy and Picardy. The Americans are so much hated there, that they cannot maintain their ground, and that in one of these villages, though containing several hundred inhabitants, the only person who talked good English was a Yankee pedlar, who used to come there for traffic annually, and had ended by settling himself there altogether. In one of the book- shops of Chicago, they show you an old map marked all over with French names, that have mostly disappeared since, in which map the whole North American continent is made out to be subject to France. This mute witness and a few poor hamlets are the sole remaining traces, amid the overwhelming floods of Americanism, of an age that seems to us antediluvian. But there is something that touches the heart in the strange fixity of our national character; while the Germans, to take one example, become wholly metamorphosed in a few years ( f font peau neuve en quelques annees '), we, wherever we may go, remain always ourselves, and rather submit to being slowly crushed out under the conquering race, than let it impose upon us its language and manners.' It needs but a glance at the map to show how French names of places, rivers, and mountains still spread over the whole north-west, till they encounter the traces of Spanish exploration at the foot of, and among, the Rocky Mountains. So completely was the West, so far as 70 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. inhabited at all, inhabited by French, and not English, in 1774, that an Imperial Act of that year, marking out the bounds of Canada by the Ohio and Mississippi, and in- cluding in it the site of the five present States of Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, put the whole under French, and not English, law. The still remaining extent of French names of places contrasts strangely in the America of to-day with the small remnants of French communities; and there are some strange contrasts, also, between the two large French- speaking districts themselves, the only two which one now meets in traversing the whole of the Continent. The French of the far South have become denationalised ten times more than their countrymen in Lower Canada. It cannot be said that the Americans have tried any violent means for doing away with the nationality of Louisiana ; but the influence of absorption into the great Republic has done the work of itself. French-Canada has been less fortunate in having to cope with a less enormously disproportionate power. She has been able to keep alive a spirit of nation- ality, which in Louisiana has almost died out, and she has been tortured by ineffectual jealousies, which there would be simply ridiculous. In New Orleans you are hardly in any way reminded of the French of Europe, except by the language that is spoken around you ; but, though it is common to describe the Lower Canadian as a sort of fossil specimen of pre-revolutionary France, and as something wholly alien to the France of to-day, he is in reality an exact copy in every particular of look and manner of the Frenchman that we all know. Travellers have sometimes characterised the Lower Canadian language as a jargon not to be made out by a knowledge of Parisian French ; but, though there have, no doubt, sprung up various patois in so immense an extent of country, the Canadian speech is ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH-CANADIANS. 71 rather remarkable for its purity than for its corruption. French-Canadians, who have visited France, will assure you that they passed muster there without being betrayed by their speech ; but in this they may easily have been de- ceived by the politeness of the Parisians, and possibly may not have made sufficient allowance for the patient in- difference with which English and American tourists have taught the Frenchman to listen to his language being foully murdered in his hearing. Descriptions of Lower Canada by Frenchmen do not always so highly praise the French there spoken. The same French traveller quoted before, puts the matter thus : f A Montreal, je suis en pays francais. Autant il est deplaisant de rencontrer des indi- genes qui, par politesse ou ostentation de science, veulent me baragouiner ma langue ; autant resonne harmonieuse- ment a, mon oreille ce jargon normand qui a garde tout Paecent du terroir.' Charlevoix, on the other hand, in his letters to the Duchess of Lesdiguieres written from Canada in 1720, asserted that the French language was nowhere spoken with greater purity, and that there was then no accent perceptible ; and Potherie remarks of the Lower Canadians, that ( they had no provincialism of dialect, which, indeed, is generally lost in a colony.' All authorities, how- ever, agree in representing the mass of the French settlers as emigrants from Normandy and Brittany ; who might fairly be expected to have brought with them a language considerably different from that of the Court. Jacques Cartier himself was a Breton ; his followers were mostly Norman. Pontgrave, the companion of Champlain, came from St. Malo ; La Salle, the explorer of the Mississippi, from Rouen ; the ports from which most of the early French emigrants sailed for Canada, and at which they recruited their expeditions, were St. Malo and Honfleur ; in the Civil Code of Lower Canada, the ' coutume de Paris' 72 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. is more freely supplemented from the f coutume de Nor- mandie,' than from any of the other provincial systems of law ; the old songs current among the French-Canadians — such as that one beginning A Saint-Malo, beau port de mer, — often show a Norman or Breton origin ; and it seems to have been to these two only half-Frenchified nationalities that France owed the greater part of her Trans- Atlantic voyagers. The difference of opinion as to the purity of Lower Canadian French may, perhaps, be in some measure caused by the peculiar structure of Lower Canadian society. Many similarly contradictory statements about the French colonists of Canada are to be heard, and to be found in books. For example, Lord Durham in one place calls the French-Canadians l an utterly uneducated and singularly inert population : ' while in another, where he is comparing them with their neighbours in the English province, he says, ' from all the information that I could collect, I incline to think that the greater amount of refinement, of specula- tive thought, and of the knowledge that books can give, is, with some brilliant exceptions, to be found among the French.' The fact is, that the French are still an exception to the equality of conditions and attainments which is generally characteristic of America. There are still remains of an aristocracy among them, forming about the most polite society to be met upon the Continent; and not only in social standing, but also in point of education, there is a very wide divergence between the highest and lowest among their people. Lord Durham denies that this social aristocracy and this small body of highly educated persons are at all contermi- nous divisions. Of the latter persons, he remarks, • nearly all of these are members of the family of some habitant, whom FRENCH-CANADIAN CIVILISATION. 73 the possession of greater quickness than his brothers has induced his father or the curate of the parish to select and send to the seminary.' However this may be, it is certain that there is, and always has been, higher culture to be found in Lower Canada than its backwardness in material pros- perity would lead a traveller to expect. Kalm, the Swedish traveller, observes that, in his time (1749), there was a far greater taste for science and literature in Canada than there was in the English colonies ; where it was everybody's sole employment to scrape a fortune together. Charlevoix, in his account of Quebec in 1720, says that, in its population of 7,000, ( you find a small number of the best company, and nothing is wanting to form an agreeable society.' The context, giving us an insight into the elements which a Frenchman of that day thought indispensable for f an agree- able society,' is interesting to quote. ' There is in it a governor- general, with an etat-major, a noblesse, officers and troops, an intendant' — and other functionaries, 'besides a grand master of the woods and forests, whose jurisdiction is certainly the most extensive in the world.' i Nobody,' con- tinues Charlevoix, ( thinks of laying up wealth. Dress and polish of manner are all-important. The case is very dif- ferent with regard to our English neighbours, and to judge of the two colonies by the way of life, behaviour, and speech of the inhabitants, nobody would hesitate to say that ours was the more flourishing.' In New England and the other British provinces f there prevails an opulence which they are utterly at a loss to use, and in New France a poverty hid by an air of being in easy circumstances which does not seem at all studied.' These last remarks will apply nearly as well to our times as to 1720. The French-Canadian still kicks against the bondage of American industrialism. He cannot see that the world is not a gigantic place of amusement, nor can he feel amused by the single pursuit of 74 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. wealth. Singing and dancing and flirting, the flowery paths of literature and the charms of refined social intercourse, some or all of these, are more to him than many dollars ; and even in his firm conviction, that every young woman whom he sees is necessarily smitten with love of him, he is simply the young Parisian over again. In passing through Lower Canada and seeing crowds of Lower Canadians, you would never guess from their gay and happy exterior and pleasing polish of manner, that the poverty and ignorance of the masses was what statistics show it to be. The educational reports of the province fully bear out the views above given of the culture attained by the few being wholly wanting in the many. Until about thirty years ago, there was hardly anything of a system of primary and popular education. A commission in 1824 reported that not above one-fourth of the population could read. Almost all that had been done for education had been done by the Roman Catholic Church, and the schools established by it were mainly for a higher instruction than was suited to the popular demand. Education is better organised now ; but the highest English authority on the subject, Mr. Fraser's recent report, observes, that ( the general impression which a perusal of the Inspectors' reports leaves upon the mind is, that the state of elementary education in Lower Canada is not satisfactory.' Though certificates of their qualifications are required of the public-school teachers, there is a remark- able exception to this rule, which shows what a power the Roman Catholic Church still exercises here over education. 'Every priest, minister, ecclesiastic, or person forming a part of a religious community instituted for educational purposes, and every person of the female sex being a member of any religious community, shall be in every case exempt from undergoing an examination for certificate.' Not very far from one-half of the male and female teachers RAPID INCREASE OF FRENCH-CANADIANS. 75 employed are excused from having certificates on the strength of this exception. The French habitant is an object of deep contempt to the British and Irish emigrants, who have settled themselves in his neighbourhood. 6 They're poor creatures, the French ! ' is the often repeated criticism ; and a haughty, though ragged, Irish car-driver, who drove me through some French villages around Quebec, assured me that the inhabitants could not even plant a potato till taught the art by the Irish. All they were fit for, in his opinion, was dressing themselves and making love. That they do not need to be taught the latter business, is suffi- ciently proved by their rapid increase ; for this increase, being unaided by immigration and of late years somewhat interfered with by emigration, unmistakeably proves the fecundity of the race. Lord Durham says, roundly, that * no population has increased by mere births so rapidly as that of the French-Canadians ; ' and a traveller, who visited Lower Canadain 1850, after giving some statistical returns of its population, thus sums up their results. . . . ( By natural increase, therefore, there are added to the French- Canadian populationfour persons for everyone that is added to the popu- lation of England.' This same traveller further remarks, in describing his tour through Lower Canada, e My driver was one of fourteen children, was himself the father of fourteen, and assured me that from eight to sixteen was the usual number, of the farmers' families. He even named one or two women who had presented their husbands with five-and- twenty, and threatened " le vingt-sixieme, pour le pretre." ' (It may be here parenthetically remarked, with an intelli- gible bull, that the tithes in Lower Canada are twenty- sixths). My own communicative Irish driver attributed the early marriages and rapidity of increase among the Lower Canadians entirely to the length and severity of the winters ; which were only made tolerable, he thought, by a free and 76 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. hearty indulgence in the delights of female society. About Quebec, the weather will not permit of the sowing of crops before the month of May. At the time of our conquest of them (1760), the French of Lower Canada were estimated at 60,000. In 1826 a Government report stated, that since 1784 the population had quadrupled; while the number of cattle had only doubled, and the quantity of land in cultivation had only increased by one- third. The last census, taken in 1861, showed the native population of Lower Canada to have reached 1,017,925, while that of Upper Canada was only 911,963; yet the latter province contained so many more immigrants, that its total population exceeded the Lower Canadian by some 290,000. Not only in being so prolific, but in many other respects, the French-Canadians seem to stand to the British Canadians somewhat as the Irish at home to the English. That Ireland is peopling the earth, while the French Canadian hates leaving his home, shows no real dissimilarity of character ; since it is grim necessity, and not inclination, that has scattered the Irish all over the world. Probably the French-Canadians already feel some- thing of this iron pressure ; it is certain, that more and more of them are passing outwards over their border. The House of Assembly in Quebec appointed a committee in January 1868 to consider ' the deplorable emigration that is taking place of the inhabitants of this province to the United States, and to enquire into the best means to arrest the evil, before it acquires larger proportions.' Those, who gave evidence before this committee, spoke of this emigration as an unmitigated evil. One witness, a cure described those who returned from trying their fortune in the States as returning with ( many vices and little money.' Lower Canadians hate everything which tends to check the increase of their population, beeause they feel that it is FRENCH-CANADIAN POLITICS. 77 making their province more and more the political inferior of the Upper. Some of the proposed remedies for this loss of strength remind one forcibly, by their absurdity, of remedies that have been proposed for the Irish exodus. And the main causes assigned for the emigration also forcibly recall Ireland ; for they were no other than the old and familiar e total absence of manufactures, and exclusive reliance of the people on the land.' In the New England cotton manufactories, the only place where I fell in with emigrants from French-Canada, they seemed to be gladly received, and you are told by their employers that the French neatness and dexterity of hand make them far better mill-operatives than their most numerous com- petitors, the Irish. As to French-Canadian political ideas, there is no doubt that the dislike of the English connection is steadily lessening in Lower Canada. The province has grown hopeless of being left to herself, and, seeing but two courses open to her, absorption into the American Union or main- tenance of the English tie, looks upon the latter as the lesser evil. The history of Canadian disaffection is not without its interest. In our desire to educate the French in the ways of self-government and freedom, we taught them how to rebel against us. ( Ce n'est pas toujours en allant de mal en pis,' as De Tocqueville has remarked, e que Ton tombe en revolution.' The time, when a nation is most apt to kick and plunge, is when it first feels the harness upon it being loosened. For many years after their conquest, the French had no fault to find with our rule. A governor, usually military, assisted by a civilian council, exercised a sort of paternal despotism, not unlike in form to the old French government but much more beneficent in practice. Whatever discontent troubled this political period, emanated solely from the English inhabitants. They, as was natural, asked for a 78 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. representative system ; for which the French, as was natural, having no experience nor knowledge of it, felt but little desire. When, in compliance with the demand of the English- Canadians, a representative system was granted by the same Act of 1791, which first separated Canada into two provinces, the Parliament of Lower Canada showed itself thoroughly loyal. Lord Dorchester, at the close of its first session, told both Houses, the mainly English Legislative Council and the mainly French House of Assembly, that i the una- nimity, loyalty and disinterestedness manifested by the first provincial parliament of Lower Canada had never been surpassed in any of His Majesty's colonies.' Any signs, that there may now have been of discontent, did not yet arise among the French, but came still from the English, Lower Canadians; for though these had got their desired representation, they had got it coupled with a separation of the provinces, which cut them off from their fellow-coun- trymen in the west, and left them isolated amid a French majority. This, however, was just what the Home Govern- ment wished, being anxious to build up a pure French community, which might serve as a check upon the spread- ing Republicanism that the War of Independence had generated among the English in America. But the oppo- sition to the Lower Canadian government was not long to arise from its English subjects. From the time that the French got confidence in the use of their newly acquired system of representation, they steadily became less amen- able to authority ; and, as soon as ever they showed an intractable spirit, the effect was to drive into unanimity against them all the English forces in the province, — the governor, his Legislative Council, and the whole body of British inhabitants. Lord Durham says of the French House of Assembly, that directly it spoke its mind, ( its freedom of speech brought it into collision with the governor, FRENGH-CANADIAN POLITICS. 79 and the practical working of the Assembly commenced by- its principal leaders being thrown into prison.' It is amusing to trace the gradual plucking up of a spirit among the French, sufficient to beard the array of resistance. Many remonstrances and lists of grievances were drawn up for presentation to the governor, but occasionally these fell to the ground at once, for want of a member of the House courageous enough to present them. The governors were, in general, old military men, unpleasant people to differ from in opinion ; and though the treatment of the Assembly by the irresponsible Executive was often irritating and high- handed, the questions that arose between the two were, for the most part, too petty and personal to rouse the people to resolute action. And so, notwithstanding a good deal of bickering, we find Papineau, a name afterwards famous for its championship of f la nation canadienne,' drawing com- parisons in 1820 between the old French and the present English governments, altogether in favour of the latter. ( Then,' said he, { trade was monopolised by privileged com- panies, public and private property often pillaged, personal liberty daily violated, and the inhabitants dragged year after year from their homes and families to shed their blood over the continent. Now, religious toleration, trial by jury, the Act of Habeas Corpus, afford legal and equal security to all ; and we need submit to no other laws but those of our own making. All these advantages have become our birth- right, and will, I hope, be the lasting inheritance of our posterity. To secure them, let us only act as British sub- jects and free men.' But, whatever was the nature of the vexed questions, all disputes between the Assembly and Executive were gradually forming a breach between the two nationalities. This was what gave them their venom, and made the French more and more prone to quarrel with the whole system of the English government. And, about 80 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. the year 1821, a fiercer question than had yet sprung up began to divide the Assembly and Council — a question as to the appropriation of the Revenue — which went on growing in bitterness for a long time. Every observer of politics must have remarked, how often this or that movement, for which in itself the people cares little, gets a factitious importance, and is backed by a weight of popular will, simply because the people is in a state of general political ferment, unsatisfied with things as they are, though without distinct aims as to how to improve them. ' Le peuple,' as has been well said, 'sent bien plus qu'il ne raisonne.' And thus, in Lower Canada, it mattered little of w T hat question the Assembly got hold ; one did as well as another to call out their cravings for wide reforms, and to exercise their powers of fighting ; for the feeling was growing stronger and more universal among the French, that, though professedly free, and given self-government, they were really domineered over by the British party. Meanwhile, Papi- neau's comparison of present with past, lost its force with the new generation, among whom the memory of the old regime w T as dying away, and who were frightened by the intrusion of English immigrants, and the success of English industry around them ; and so strongly did Papineau himself catch the growing spirit of nationality, and rebellion against English domination, that, fifteen years after his above quoted speech, he said, from his place in the Assembly, ' The time has gone by when Europe could give monarchies to Ame- rica ; on the contrary, an epoch is now approaching when America will give Republics to Europe.' Two years later, Lower Canada was in revolt, and the separation between French and English widened to a bitter hatred which can- not be exaggerated. It is true that there was contempo- raneously a sort of rebellion among the English of Upper Canada, but the aims of the two movements were so different FRENCH CANADIAN POLITICS. 81 that it would be an error to suppose French and English were pulling together in sympathy. The Lower Canadians were striking for freedom from the English; the malcontents of Upper Canada, for responsible government and the ex- tinction of oligarchical privilege: the Lower Canadians sought a revolution, the Upper Canadians certain definite reforms. The contest in Lower Canada showed the French habitants that their strength was not formidable to England, that the American Government did not care much about them, and that their own clergy hated republicanism and stood loyal to the English crown. This killed the rebellious spirit among the French. And the putting down of the revolt was immediately followed by changes in the system of government, that enabled political agitation to find vent for the future without necessarily arousing national prejudices or leading to a danger of unconstitutional measures. The rebellious spirit had grown up out of quarrels between a French Representative House, and a body of irremoveable English officials. By the new constitution of 1840, there was to be but one House for the two provinces, so that the French element might have to work along with an English ; and the Executive was made responsible, so that there could be no more standing quarrels between it and the represen- tatives. Accordingly, we find thenceforth, that while the French politicians threw themselves vigorously into the party- struggles of the colony, they hardly ever acted unitedly, as a separate and hostile nationality, but split into various sections which allied themselves, according to their several affinities, to corresponding sections among the English. The leading men of these French parties have been neces- sarily courted by their English allies, and paid for their support by the rewards of office. Thus, Lafontaine, having immense influence in Lower Canada, was needful to the G 82 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. Baldwin-Hincks ministry and the moderate English Reform party ; Dorion, the Rouge leader, to Mr. Brown and his ad- vanced reformers, or ( clear-grits ; ' Cartier to Sir John H. Macdonald and the Conservative party, while other French- men, such as Sicotte and Sir E. P. Tache, have so followed the windings of Canadian political combinations as to be able to make good their positions in Cabinets of various complexions.* Indeed so completely have not only the political leaders of the French, but the whole body of their more educated people, been drawn into the spirit of consti- tutional party warfare, and out of secret revolutionary plottings, that among them far more than among the Eng- lish, at every place where men meet, you hear political dis- cussions of the questions of the day being briskly carried on. Whatever talk you may happen to overhear among English- Canadians on political matters, is likely to be, as has been before said, about the worth of some particular man, or possibly the usefulness of some particular public work ; but the Frenchmen wax warm over questions more abstract, such as equal electoral districts, limitations of the franchise, the constitution of legislatures ; f though, as to the personal * Sir F. Hincks dates the extinction of the ' British Party ' of Lower Canada to the McNab Liberal-Conservative Government, with which that party took part, and got liberalised, having previously always been in concert with the Upper Canadian high Conservatives. f The contrast between French and English in Canada, as to the subjects' of their political discussions, very pointedly exemplifies the saying, that 'the industrial character is eminently practical ; the habit of mind that distinguishes it leads men to care very little about principles, and to care very much about results.' The not very progressive French community is perpetually discussing the most advanced ideas ; the much more pushing English community seems to have no taste for bold theorising at all. It is content to satisfy its political needs by a sort of easy-going, hand-to-mouth ministration to them — dealing • with each of them just as it arises, and not looking for any panacea to cure all at once. The difference, which was remarked between the English and Con- tinental delegates at the late conference of workmen at .Basle, must have struck anybody, who has listened to French and English Canadians talking politics in their respective ways — how vague and far-reaching were the aspirations on the one side ; how narrow and well-defined were those on the other. PBU8ENT LOYALTY OF FBENCE-CANADIANS. 83 element in politics, the strong devotion of the French to their leaders is one of the points of likeness between them and the Irish. While putting forward thus prominently the closeness of the tie being formed between French and English in Canada, a closeness which would assuredly astonish Lord Durham if he could witness it now, it would be absurd to deny that we have still a powerful national prejudice against us to fight with. Ours is too pushing and overwhelming a race to be a pleasant neighbour for people so tenacious of their individuality as the Lower Canadians ; but, apart from the fact that the strength of the French is yearly becoming less able to cope with their fast growing rivals, we have got a hold over Lower Canada in this, that she is taking a warm interest in her government as at present carried on ; that she sees the impossibility of her complete independence ; and that she sees also, how all the qualities that frighten her in the English-Canadian are a vast deal more fully developed in the American. A well-informed correspondent, writing from Canada lately, gives this view of French- Canadian discontent : e The violent opposition to the Confederation scheme, which formerly existed in Lower Canada, has been extinguished, or rather, has died out. There are among the French in Quebec a few who wish for annexation to the States; but their number is very limited, and their influence is practically niV Even of these few we may be sure, that their feelings spring rather from jealousy of the English than from love of the States. As the people of Hindostan are sometimes said to be eager to fall into the hands of the Russians, not from any hope of being bettered by them, but from a wish to see us dispossessed ; so a few Lower Canadians may still cherish enough of spite against the English to make them willing to fall to a power which they must know very well would, as soon as it swal- lowed them, digest and assimilate them with wonderful G 2 84 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. speed. Wherever so perfectly distinct a nationality as the French-Canadian is subject to another, its most sentimental and poetic spirits will be pretty sure never to get over their dislike of the idea of its ultimate fusion or absorption into that other. And so we find the poets of Quebec crying out against those of their fellow-countrymen, who do not set their faces against being anglicised. For example, here are some lines, published there a few years ago, not, perhaps, very beautiful of form, but that may be interesting in their matter : — Trafiquant pour de Tor les souvenirs de France, Des hommes ont ose, dans leur lache demence, Oubliant en un jour l'histoire de cent ans, Nous dire, a nous Francois : ' De frivoles chimeres Vous font rever encore la gloire de vos peres. Abandonnez plutot tous ces hoehets d'enfants ' Que vous nommez vos lois, vos antiques usages, Votre langue immortelle. En politiques sages Eeniez le passe ; puis suivez hardiment La route du progres, obeissant aux maitres Qui savent bien payer les laches ot les traitres ; Car avec moins d'honneur on gagne plus d' argent.' Que leur nom soit maudit ! After which cursing of all Anglo-maniacs, the poet sus- piciously fraternizes with Irish aspirations for a free fight, an expulsion of the tyrants, and the Fenian programme generally. Monsieur de Hauranne, who may be cited as a more sober, if less inspired, authority with regard to the feelings of his countrymen in Canada, and who is likely to get more insight into them than any English observer could, writes thus of his meeting with one of those countrymen : — ' I asked him, " Are you a Frenchman or an English- man ? " "I am a Canadian." The answer is character- istic, and shows how absurd are our ideas about a nationality struggling against tyranny among our compatriots in Canada. The fact is, that the two races are more and more LOYALTY THROUGHOUT CANADA. 85 becoming one; that they take their stand together under one national name ; and that the rivalry is now no longer between the two languages, but between the conflicting interest of the two provinces. The old French party, the party which dreams of independence, and, if it must come to that, of union with the United States — the "Rouge party," as they call it here, though, indeed, it is still imbu de Ugitimisme, and opposed to the freedom of the press — feels itself powerless and chafes at its impotency.' Then, after mentioning how certain elections of Englishmen in preference to Frenchmen by French constituencies proved Anglo- phobia to have died out, this writer continues : — ' And yet, by a sort of inconsistency, at the very time that they are showing a faithful devotion to England, some Canadians still cherish for their mother-country an inex- tinguishable, innocent love (un amour platonique et per- se verant). Thus, at a ball at Quebec, a young man in English uniform came up to me and said, (< Vous etes Francais, monsieur ? " (( Oui, monsieur." " Eh bien ! mon- sieur (et il me prit la main avec chaleur), souvenez-vous qu'il y a ici, sous l'uniforme anglais, des coeurs qui battent pour la France." ' Whatever national jealousies or political restlessness there may be in Canada, it is no longer easy for any part or party to find ground for a quarrel with the Imperial supremacy. The present dispute between the Maritime Provinces and the rest of the Confederation may offer such ground ; but, in general, there are few remaining chances of collision between the metropolis and the colony. These chances for the most part disappeared along with the old system of non-responsible government at the Revolution of 1840. When a Canadian now wishes to find a political butt for his spleen, he finds it in individual statesmen of the colony, or, perhaps, in bringing wide charges against the colonial Government in general, 86 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. covering both political parties alike — as, for instance, the old and reiterated charge, that enough is not done for the encouragement of immigration, a charge which lately drove the Ontario Legislature to the passing of a ( Homestead Law,' in the hope of reducing the grievance. Discontent on the subject, however, was not extinguished by the law ; which was declared to hamper the gift of Government lands with so many restrictions, that more had yet to be done before Canada could compete with the States in the offering of inducements to settlers.* If you hear any faults found with England, they are oftener found with the nation than the Government. ( Your people,' a Canadian will say, { take no interest in this country and the development of its splendid resources ; ' and it is astonishing to anybody who knows anything of the history of English investments in the railways of Canada, to hear it remarked so often as he may hear it among Canadians, that Englishmen would put much more of their money into Canada if they were only aware what a rich and safe field for their ventures she offered. But against the English Government there is nothing to be said. Thefeeling of personal reverence for our Sovereign in Canada, and even in the States, is such as may well surprise the most loyal of Englishmen. In Canada, royalty is not only in- vested with all that unapproachable, vague, and ill-defined splendour, which will naturally invest it in the eyes of democratic societies, whose sight is not gently led up to it through a series of gradations of rank ; not only, also, does it escape being made so common and cheap to the multitude as it must be where constantly visible and present among them ; but royalty, further, gets something more of a sym- bolical influence on the mind, as representative of the country in which it resides, than it can possibly have for those who, * The Ontario Government has lately made more liberal concessions to settlers. TEE OFFICE OF GOVERNOR-GENERAL. 87 placed in actual contact with all those several elements that together make up the idea of * country,' less need the inter- vention of a symbol to enable them to keep that idea present before them. The Queen's birthday has heretofore been the national fete of Canadians, the day for the grandest display of fireworks and patriotism, their 'Fourth of July.' ' Dominion Day,' established in honour of British American Confederation, is meant to take the first place for the future among British- American anniversaries ; though, in the Maritime Provinces, it must be admitted that this new feast of patriotism has been celebrated of late in a some- what irregular manner, being chiefly given up to abuse of the Dominion and threats of annexation to the States.* The part of the representatives of royalty in Canada has now nearly ceased to be a hard one to play. Terribly diffi- cult before the nominal concession of responsible Govern- ment in 1840, when the country was torn by fierce factions, and while Government at home still believed that Downing Street knew more of the dependencies than the dependencies knew of themselves, it seems to have been by no means made easy at once thereupon. Partly because the Governors- General did not at once recognise the altered scope of their duties, partly because they were wrongly accused of this error by people grown used to governors, who had never concealed their strong partisanship, it is certain that, during the first twenty years of responsible government, several governors failed to get credit for a royally impartial admi- nistration. Mr. Adderley has pointed out, in his recent work * When Lord Monck's proclamation, issued before July 1, 1868, called upon 1 all Her Majesty's loving subjects throughout Canada to join in the due and proper celebration of the Anniversary of the Dominion of Canada,' a New Brunswick paper, not of Annexation views, commented thus on the proclama- tion : ' Were the day ordered to be observed as one of humiliation and prayer ; humiliation in view of grave mistakes made, and prayer for wisdom to guide the Dominion Government in future in the avoidance of still greater mistakes, the order would be much more generally responded to.' 88 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. on • Colonial Policy,' how, following our usual practice of clinging unconsciously to old traditions in the face of later professions, England and England's Governors-General were slow to admit a really responsible government in Canada. And hence Canadian discontent continued, sometimes vent- ing its rage in violence, sometimes satisfied with bitter invec- tive. Lord Metcalfe drew down* upon himself, by his sup- posed partiality for Sir Allan McNab, the bitterest wrath of the Reformers ; Lord Elgin was stoned and nearly killed by the Conservative mob for sanctioning a Bill which they hated; and Sir Edmund Head, for refusing to allow the dissolution of a Parliament at the request of a cabinet of "Reformers, got nothing but abuse from that party during the remainder of his tenure of office. The duties of a Governor- General are now better understood upon both sides, and he is less likely to be drawn into the strife between parties. The criticisms, which may still be heard directed against this or that occupant of the office, are of no graver kind than those to which the socially pre-eminent cannot help being exposed, such, for instance, as that he had asked the wrong people to his entertainments, and sent them in to dinner in a revolu- tionary or calmly contemptuous order ; or that the playing of the part of king, or of queen, had been a little over-done in his house. Yet, though the Imperial Government may seem thus to run small risk of offending the Canadians, this does not really measure the chances of a rupture between the two countries. No question is likely to be more often in the mind of the English traveller than the problem, how long will these provinces remain joined to Great Britain? What may make him assign the shortest term to the connec- tion will not be so much any threatenings of disagreement between the two countries, as the general want of steadiness and a settled fixity in British-American politics. Thus, THE CONNECTION WITE ENGLAND. 89 about the time of that already mentioned political crisis, the elections of 1867, the easy rapidity with which men's minds turned from one point to another of the compass was strik- ingly observable. Before the general election, people throughout the Canadas seemed full of hope for the success of the Dominion. The feeling, perhaps, was rather a sort of sanguine curiosity than a conviction reposing on a careful survey of the situation ; but, at all events, you seldom met any who seemed to have made up their minds that Confede- ration would fail, or who did not appear willing that it should have a fair trial. And the elections in Canada made this feeling the stronger. A large majority was returned for Sir John A. Macdonald and the upholders of the scheme of Confederation. Between free trade with the Maritime Provinces and the railway to Halifax, the Canadians were to make money much quicker than ever. Being thus in good heart with things as they stood, people thought very little of that great, always possible, change — annexation to the States. Many Upper Canadians told me at this time, e We are as loyal to the British connection as ever just now ; things are looking up. When business is dull and the lumber trade slack, that's the time when we look to the States.' For, as surely as heavy potato blights and unseasonable weather bring out the latent disaffection in Ireland, so surely do hard times in Canada bring out the latent belief, that, sooner or later, she must play the great card that is always reserved in her hand, and try what an union with her neighbour would do. At such periods, poli- tical change may be of the greatest material advantage, and, at any rate, brings with it the least danger of loss. Leaving the Canadians thus minded, I was for some months in the States, where one generally hears as little of Canadian politics as in England. Americans have enough to do in looking after concerns of their own. But after a time, short 90 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. paragraphs came out in the American papers, saying, in that bantering tone in which the Americans delight to speak of those poor little f one horse ' communities, the Britishers outside of their borders, that the Dominion was about to fall to pieces, and that Nova Scotia was its South Carolina. When next I came into contact with many British- Americans, the change in the tone of feeliug since the autumn before was unmistakeably marked. The new Dominion, instead of inspiring general hope, had come to be more clearly regarded by the people of the Maritime Provinces as a failure, and even by Canadians as a very doubtful success. The idea of annexation to the States, instead of being kept far off in the dimness of a distant possibility, was brought very much nearer to the minds of all alike. The Nova Scotians were especially loud in their complaints, as they have since appeared openly before the public of England. It has been said, on this side of the Atlantic, that a few disappointed politicians had got up the whole agitation against the Dominion. It is certain that, whoever got it up, the move- ment spread through the whole of Nova Scotia, combining her people with remarkable unanimity. The grievances most dwelt upon in the Nova Scotian petition were all, or nearly all, mentioned to me by many Nova Scotians, of different positions in life, and different political opinions on most other subjects, some months before that petition was published. Of all these grievances, they laid most stress on the way in which they had been brought into the Con- federation, not only, as they alleged, without their consent, but actually in spite of them. The New Brunswickers, on the other hand, while allowing that they had not so much to find fault with in the way in which their province had been won over, for they had been caught with their eyes open by the bait of an inter-colonial railroad (a bait which lost half its attractiveness as soon as the northern route, or, as it is CONFEDERATION AND MARITIME PROVINCES. 91 called, the ' Robinson' route, going past the Baie de Chaleurs, seemed likely to be chosen for the line, in obedience to the wishes of Cartier and the French supporters of the Government*), declared, that they felt all the other griev- ances of which Nova Scotia complained, and now, seeing their mistake, were equally bent on undoing it. Above all things, they were not going to disjoin their political fortunes from Nova Scotia. If she left the Dominion, they would leave it. As to the amount of truth in Nova Scotia's alle- gation, that she was unfairly entrapped, nearly all that can be said has been said in our Parliament and press. How- ever, as in the speeches and newspapers one side or other has always been warmly espoused and advocated with a mis- leading partisanship, it may not be amiss here to put to- gether the main facts and give the two cases with as little of colouring as possible. Nova Scotia admits, that many times before the Dominion was formed she tried to get some sort of Confederation, but she denies that she ever showed a willingness to assent to any scheme which should not include the whole of the . Maritime Provinces. Such a Confederation as was even- tually formed, excluding Newfoundland and Prince Ed- ward's Isle, her malcontents say she never gave any sign of approving. The Nova Scotian Assembly, which sanctioned the present scheme and thereby destroyed Nova Scotia's independence, was elected in 1863 for wholly different purposes. At that election, Confederation was not in any * Unless there has been a change of plan very lately, this Bay of Chaleur route may be considered to be settled upon. Its opponents say that it is the longest of all the competing routes, goes through the poorest country, is most exposed to snow, and can only be chosen in deference to Lower Canadian jobbing. Its adherents say, that it is the favourite with the Imperial Govern- ment, as being the farthest from the American frontier, and being the most likely to prove useful as a military road. This route would pass by Eiviere du Loup and Eimouski in Lower Canada, by Dalhousie and Bathurst in New Bruns- wick, and by Truro and Amherst in Nova Scotia. 92 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. shape brought before the people as one of the issues to be voted upon. Yet in 1864 the new Nova Scotia House undertook to send delegates to discuss schemes of Con- federation, first at Charlotte Town, and afterwards at Quebec ; and these delegates were led by Canadian in- fluence to assent to an union — an union, which was ab- solutely necessary for Canada, in order to extricate her from a political dead-lock. This assent was given during the vacation of the Nova Scotian House. When that House re-assembled in 1865, 183 petitions were laid before it, praying that no union should be ratified without an appeal to the people, and only one petition for immediate union. At this time, New Brunswick was believed to be against Confederation; but, in the course of the year ('65) a general election took place there, at which Confederation was one of the questions pronounced upon. The result of the test was favourable to Confederation; and, having thus got the obstacle of New Brunswick's supposed opposition out of the way, Dr. Tupper, the Nova Scotian premier in 1866, though no mention of Confederation had been made in the Governor's opening speech, suddenly had a resolution hurried through the House for the appointment of delegates to arrange the details of Confederation on the general plan most approved at Quebec in '64. These delegates suc- ceeded in arranging the details. They were supposed in this country to be empowered to speak for the people of Nova Scotia; and in spite of a warning from Mr. John Bright, who alone raised a Cassandra-like voice, the Act of Confederation was finally passed, and Nova Scotian inde- pendence suppressed. The other side says, that, of all the provinces, Nova Scotia had long been the most clamorous for Confedera- tion. So far back as '54, both her political parties had joined in its advocacy, and both of them about that time ORIGIN OF THE CONFEDERATION SCHEME. 93 (one in '54, the other in '57) had pressed its considera- tion on the Imperial Government. In '61, Mr. Howe, then Premier, proposed, and Dr. Tupper, leader of the Opposition, seconded, a resolution, which passed the House without any dissent, in favour of Confederation. In '62, again, Mr. Howe sent a circular to all the Provincial Governments, asking their co-operation in forming an union. Canada was then the least willing to accede. This Mr. Howe is the same man who lately, being out of place, and having seen Confederation carried out by his rival, stirred up the opposition against it; and his cry was, that Nova Scotia was dragged into Confederation by Canada solely for the advantage of Canadians, and against the will and the interests of Nova Scotians. It is true that at the elections of '63 Confederation was not one of the questions before the people of Nova Scotia ; but why ? because they had all made up their minds upon it. These, with sundry other mere e argumenta ad homines ' against the opponents of Con- federation, are the facts and the views, on which both sides rely for establishing the equity of their respective cases. As it has no doubt been almost forgotten in England, if, indeed, it was ever known to more than a few, what that political ' dead-lock ' in Canada was, which made some sort of confederation seem needful for her, and as we cannot better show cause why Canadian politics should be charged with an utter want of fixity and steadiness than by shortly going through tKe events which led up to that dead-lock, it may be worth while to attempt such a retrospect. The last hundred years have seen three complete revolutions in the political condition of Canada. In 1791, as has been before mentioned, Mr. Pitt divided the then ' Province of Quebec ' into Upper and Lower Canada, ' in order to pre- vent any dissensions between the French- Canadians and the settlers of British origin.' Mr. Fox opposed the measure, •94 SKETCHES FROM AMEBIC A. "7 not only in its details but in its principle, declaring that 'it would be wiser to unite still more closely than to separate the British and French settlers.' However, the measure became law as the ( Constitutional Act of Canada ; ' and just before the English Government attempted to make the Irish more loyal by binding them in legislative union with Great Britain, it tried to prevent disaffection among the French-Canadians by giving them a Legislature of their own apart from the British. In Canada, the policy adopted utterly failed. By 1822 the struggle between French and British had reached such a height, that a Bill was brought into the Imperial Parliament for a union of Upper and Lower Canada as a possible remedy. The French, how- ever, were able to get the plan for union left out, and the Bill passed without it as the ' Canada Trade Act.' But troubles thickened in both the separate provinces. In Upper Canada, Mackenzie led so fierce an agitation that in 1831 he was expelled from the Assembly, after having been described by the Attorney-General in the course of debate as f a reptile.' A few years later, Lower Canada was in rebellion, and, even in Upper, there were outbreaks of violence. Then Lord Durham made that tour through the Canadas, the report of which is the most valuable work ever published on British America. He says in it, ' I should recommend the immediate adoption of a general legislative union of all the British provinces in North America. . . . But the state of the Lower Provinces (by which term he means the Maritime Provinces) would not, I think, render it gracious or even just on the part of Parliament to carry it into effect without referring it for the ample deliberation and consent of the people of those co- lonies.' After further urging the necessity of such an union for the Canadas, he adds : ( The Bill should contain provisions by which any or all of the other North American ORIGIN OF THE CONFEDERATION SCHEME. 95 colonies may, on the application of the Legislature, be, with the consent of the two Canadas or their united Legis- lature, admitted into the Union on such terms as may be agreed between them.' The only immediately resulting union, however, was that of the Canadas, consolidated under a single Legislature as the c Province of Canada ' in 1840. Quiet was not thereby restored. Not only did particular measures cause outbursts of violence, riots, which were almost revolts, filling Toronto with mobs, burning the Parliament House in Montreal, forcing the Governor- General to fly for his life ; but it was soon found that in the political constitution of the province were insurmount- able hindrances to stable government. The Act of '40 had given an equal representation to each of the provinces in the single Legislature ; and in order still further to keep down the anarchic jealousies between the French and En- glish, a principle, called the ' Double Majority Principle,' became the usage of the Canadian Government. By this it was settled that every ministry should have ' a majority in their favour from both Upper and Lower Canada separately as well as collectively.' One would think it must have been foreseen how hard it would be to govern the country with- out infringing upon such a rule; and, indeed, it is very plain that the whole arrangement of 1840 was adopted, not from any conviction of its intrinsic fitness, but simply as a desperate expedient, because everybody saw that ( some- thing must be done.' Thus, one of the resolutions of the Upper Canadian Legislative Council, which heralded in this arrangement, declared : ( The present derangement of the finances of Upper Canada ; the total suspension of her public improvement; the paralysed condition of private enterprise ; the cessation of immigration, and the apparent impossibility of the removal of these evils without the united efforts of both the Canadian provinces — make the adoption 96 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. of some great measure necessary, which will restore pros- perity to the Canadas, and renew confidence at home and abroad in the stability of their political institutions.' Equal representation of two provinces rapidly becoming markedly unequal, and the principle of ( double majority,' were only adopted as straws are grasped by a drowning man. Yet the ( double majority ' rule for some time held its ground. An attempt to set it at nought by the Draper administra- tion, under Lord Metcalfe's government, hastened the downfall of that administration ; and in obedience to the same rule, the Hincks ministry resigned, though supported by a majority of the whole House, because a majority of the Upper Canadian members were in opposition. Not till 1857 did a minister (Sir John A. Macdonald, present Premier of the Dominion) resolutely attempt to carry on an administration, though in a minority so far as one of the provinces, and that the stronger (Upper Canada), was concerned. As soon as ever the attempt was made, a cry of ' French domination ' was raised, and Upper Canada, feeling the rapid growth of her strength, began to agitate for representation on a new basis, no longer to be so fixed as to keep the two pro- vinces artificially balanced, but to be according to population. This was now the hotly contested question. Dissolutions, changes of ministry, and sudden alterations of policy by the same minister, only embittered it; and when, in 1864, there were two changes of cabinet within three months, it was seen that there was indeed a most complete f dead-lock.' Upper Canada, shown by the census of '61 to have greatly grown in population, was determined not to be hampered in the management of her own affairs by any balance of power between her and her rival ; Lower Canada was equally resolved not to be swamped in the pursuit of her own interests by an Upper Canadian majority. So the sole ORIGIN OF THE CONFEDERATION SCHEME. 97 way out of the deadlock was to give to each province the power of settling its own concerns at its own will, while both should only be joined in a central supervision over things affecting them in common. It was clear that the substitution of such a federation of the provinces for their political amalgamation would have much more prestige, if the federation embraced not the -Canadas only but the Maritime Provinces as well; and that the ministry who could carry the thing out on this grander scale, at last realising the idea of Lord Durham, would have a fine cry for the popular ear. They could talk about having formed a new \ nation,' ( having built up a counterpoise to the Great Republic,' ' having secured a fine seaboard for the Canadas,' 6 having got them the benefits of free trade with the provinces,' with much more in the same strain. And so the present confederation came about, and the ' Dominion of Canada ' succeeded the ' Province of Canada ' just as it had succeeded the ' two Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada,' and as they, in turn, had succeeded the ' Province of Quebec' Nor is the instability, the want of settled and coherent compactness in Canada's political condition much more plainly shown by her wonderful series of ' aliases ' than by her wonderful series of capitals. Kingston, Montreal, Toronto, Quebec, and Ottawa have all served as seats of the legisla- ture, one after the other, since 1840 ; and, though an im- mense pile of Government buildings has been raised in the last-named town at enormous expense, Canadians are still far from sure that they have got a permanent political centre. Montreal is sanguine about again having the legislators, though she burnt down their House over their heads when they tried her before, and assures them with a delicate satire, that their present palace at Ottawa could easily be used for a lunatic-asylum without very much alteration. How long will a country in such a political condition resist ii 98 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. the attraction of the enormous mass that is close to her? All the shiftkigs of Canada's politics shake the belief of Canadians in their own institutions. Men who place it among the foremost requirements of a government, that it should be quiet and steady, are vexed and disheartened. They can make their own quietus whenever they like. The antago- nism of Nova Scotia, and the resolve of New Brunswick to follow her wherever she may lead, threaten the Dominion with being no more permanent than the constitutions which have been tried in succession before it ; and it is readily admitted by able and responsible statesmen in Canada, that, should the Dominion fail, annexation is certain. On April 6, 1868, the Hon. Mr. Gait spoke thus in the Ottawa House : ( There was nothing more certain than that the moment this Dominion was found to be a failure — the moment it became dismembered — that moment the last hope of a separate national existence for Canada was at an end, and they must look forward to gravitating into the neigh- bouring republic.'* The maritime provinces already gravi- tate strongly by the attraction of trade towards a union with America. Their ship-builders and lumber merchants and fish dealers would find there the readiest market, and thence have been drawn the chief imports for the use of the provinces. To be swamped in an alliance with the more populous Canadas excites the jealousy of these smaller provinces; but the Great Republic is too wholly over- shadowing to be regarded in a spirit of rivalry. It may well be asked, how a free and independent community, like the Nova Scotians, allowed itself to be beguiled by any manoeuvring into the Dominion, and how the New Bruns- * Mr. Gralt, however, was at one time openly and professedly in favour of Annexation ; and, though he has lately been uttering some strong anti -American sentiments, there may be something, perhaps, of the older bias still left. He was Minister of Finance for some time in the present Cabinet, but resigned in November, '67- DANGERS TO THE DOMINION. 99 wickers can have so little known their own minds as to accept an arrangement to which, from the moment of its acceptance, they rapidly became ill-disposed. It is plain that, whatever subtlety of management may have been brought to bear on them, the provinces have themselves to blame for the result. The Imperial Government might, no doubt, as Mr. Bright suggested at the time, have taken more pains to find out whether the proposal for confedera- tion was really in accordance with the wishes of all the several communities concerned ; but it cannot be denied, that if Nova Scotia and New Brunswick had realised their situation with promptness and made their voices heard here as plainly as Nova Scotia has since made hers heard, the Imperial Government would never have done what it did. When I asked a New Brunswicker, how he accounted for the lateness of the repentance of his people, he said, ' Our people somehow never seem to wake up to the gravity of any political question till some measure has been settled upon, and they feel that measure affecting their pockets.' 'Per- haps,' he added, ' we are all too busy making money.' It may be that here again we see an instance of that unfortunate characteristic of British American politics, the merely per- sonal nature of their contests. The Provincial, engrossed with his daily business, if he looks to politics at all, looks to them as an amusing game, not affecting him much, but entertaining to watch ; in which certain leaders— Mr. Howe and Mr. Tupper for instance, — with whose histories, in his small community, he is intimately acquainted, are tugging and straining for the mastery. He thinks one or other the better man of the two, falls into the party of the man of his choice, and, after backing the policy of that side very bravely, suddenly finds, perhaps, that it has brought about things for which he was hardly prepared. If the theory most recently put forward by the Canadian press about the Nova Scotian H 2 100 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. annexationists be true — namely, that Mr. Howe's secession has broken their party up, and killed its strength — it is another proof how wonderfully political parties in British America attach themselves to persons, not to policies, and .depend for their very existence on individual leaders. What a startling contrast to the politics of the neighbouring Union ! It has been said that the material interests of the Pro- vinces draw them towards the States of the Union. The same is said very often by Canadians of their own coun- try. ' ' If we were annexed,' they say, * American capital would flow in upon us ; our trade and manufactures would get an immense stimulus ; all the inconveniences of the frontier line would be done away with, and those who have suffered by the repeal of reciprocity would suffer no longer. So long as we are politically separate, Americans will not invest their money among us.' And then, in addi- tion to these material advantages, there is no doubt but that the sentimental repugnance to annexation is wearing away. All that our wise men have been saying and writing about the uselessness or positive harmfulness of our dependencies in general, and of British North America in particular, has been sinking into the hearts of Canadians. Many times you will hear Canadians say, ( We know well enough now, that England does not want us. We have been told so over and over again by her Parliament and Press. We do not blame her for not wishing to keep what is evidently the weakest point in her empire, being well aware that self-love must be the strongest of political motives ; but at the same time we don't, and we can't, feel towards her as we used. So lately as at the time of the " Trent " affair, it was other- wise. We had never heard then, that England wanted to get rid of us — nay, the want was then hardly felt by her; for it has grown with the growth of her great bug- bear, the ANNEXATION ARGUMENTS, 101 power of the American Union — and accordingly, though the quarrel was one in which we were wholly unconcerned for ourselves, and were sure to be the worst sufferers by its pro- secution, our people proved, by enrolment of volunteers and energetic preparations, that it would sacrifice much to keep up the old tie. Now, all that is changed. If any such threat of war were to rise again, you may doubt very much whether Canada would be ready to do or suffer as she was then.' Still stronger are the expressions of feeling in the maritime provinces. They cannot, perhaps, be better described than by giving extracts from a political pamphlet published in the year 1868 in New Brunswick. The following are passages taken from it, a good deal cut down, but sufficiently showing its drift. Of the formation of the Dominion, it says, { In this act, Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick have shown great wisdom in radically changing their constitutions without bloodshed. These colonies have been guided through an eventful step — eventful as a precursory step to an union with the United States of America.' ( The present con- federate union considerably diminishes the difficulty in securing a separation of the colonies from the mother coun- try and their union with the Republic : they will have more influence in confederation than they would have by single provinces, and will be in a position to obtain better terms.' Of the geographical obstacles to the separate independence of British America, the writer says, ' Its boundaries are not rightly adjusted for a separate national existence. Its chief rivers, lakes, and mountains are so interwoven with those of the conterminous States, that it is almost impossible to develop the resources of the provinces except by permission of the adjoining Republic. The natural outlet for the ten millions of inhabitants, who already occupy the Western 102 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. States, is by the St. Lawrence. This is the way ships of a thousand tons might, by enlarging the canals, be brought from Chicago, the grain market of the West, to the Ocean, in place of by the long route of the Erie Canal. Unite the two nations, and the St. Lawrence would at once become the highway of nations to the centre of North America. And by a divergence from the St. Lawrence route to Lake Champlain, the Eastern States could also be supplied with Western produce much cheaper than at present.' ' The most extensive tract of fertile land in British North America is said to stretch along the banks of the Red and North Saskatchewan rivers. The only outlet from "this remote country ,* as the Secretary of State for the Colonies terms it, is by the Red River and by roads to Pembina, Crow-wing, St. Paul, and other settlements within the American States. Numerous explorations have been made of the country lying between the settled districts of Upper Canada, and Red River — a thousand miles through a cold, rocky waste, unfit for settlement — with a view of obtaining a line of road-communication. Captain Palliser, who explored a large part of the country in 1857 and three following years, under the authority of the Imperial Government, in reply to the question, " What means of access exist for British emigrants to reach this settlement ? " asked by the under- secretary for the Colonies, says " the manner, in which natural obstacles have isolated the country from all other British possessions in the East, is a matter of considerable weight : it is the obstacle of the country, and one, I fear, almost beyond the remedies of art. The egress and ingress to the settlements from the East is obviously by the Red River valley and through the States." ' * * A letter from Canada in the Times of October 28, 1868, in discussing this want of communication between Canada and the North Western regions, and the chances of the opening-up of these regions falling entirely to the States, remarked : ' The State of Minnesota has been pushing its interests in the Eed ANNEXATION ARGUMENTS. 103 After quoting from the report of 1862, issued by the Commissioner of Crown Lands for Canada, that ' it is a fact, that the best lands of the crown in both sections of Canada have already been sold,' and after declaring that in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick the case is pretty much the same, the pamphlet continues : ' There are, however, in all the provinces, except Newfoundland, large tracts of a class of soils that we have been in the habit of designating 'good lands' for settlement —lands far superior to much of New England — far superior to much of Scotland. It is principally the settlers on this class of soils — or those who will not settle upon them in consequence of their present insufficient productiveness — that are annually leaving the provinces by hundreds for the West, California, New Zealand, Australia, and other countries. Only the best lands of the provinces, comparatively limited in extent, at present produce remunerative returns for labour. * "* The Eiver country and has absorbed a trade which might have been turned in the direction of Canada, were there proper facilities for transport. In making these efforts, the people and legislature of Minnesota have two objects in view : to secure the rich and promising trade of the north-west, and to bring about a peaceable annexation of that country.' The writer, however (unlike the pam- phleteer above quoted), believes in the possibility of good and easy communi- cation being opened through British territory between Fort William, at the head of Lake Superior, and Fort G-arry in the Red River Settlement. At the same time he makes this admission : ' It is clear that Canada will have a hard fight with the United States for the trade of the north-west.' The revolt in this Red River country against the Canadian Government, which broke out late in the autumn of 1869, though it does not directly favour annexation, shows, at least, the difficulty of incorporating British America under a single government capable of defending and maintaining itself, * The exodus from the maritime provinces is admitted, but referred to other causes, by the upholders of the Dominion. The Toronto Globe makes it into an argument for speedily settling the north-western territory. ' The same thing occurs, and has occurred for many years, in the New England States. The young men of the older settlements on this continent, whether these settlements are British or American, have many temptations to leave their homes and seek their fortunes in the newer country of the West. The lesson which this emigration from the maritime provinces should teach us is the importance of providing as speedily as possible a "Great West " within the dominion.' — Weekly Globe, June 5, 18G8. 104 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. half-productive lands of these provinces — which are very extensive — will not be settled until manufactures spring up in the provinces. * * Their agricultural capabilities will not be developed until the country becomes the seat of manu- facturing industry, of which it is highly capable ; and this cannot be done without union with the United States.'' While the West supplies increased stores of agricultural wealth, feeding millions beside its own population, the mines of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick contain exhaustless supplies of coal — the only coal-fields in this part of the continent that lie immediately upon tide-water. The nearest coal-fields to them are those of Pennsylvania, which lie one hundred-and-twenty miles from tide-water : the coal has to be conveyed thence by railway and canal boat to the factories in Massachusetts and elsewhere in the States. In the Provinces, ships can be brought almost to the mouths of the coal-pits. * * These great coal-fields are only partially opened. They form reserves waiting the time when the maritime provinces will become the centre of manufacturing industry for half the American continent. . . During the reciprocity treaty, these mines supplied a large part of the States with coal : at its expiration, the chief part of this trade ceased.' * * ( The centre of Nova Scotia is 1,200 miles from the centre of the Upper Canadian population ; consequently, the trade between the two must be limited. We may be told that Western Canada can supply flour, and the maritime provinces have to purchase annually about five or six million dollars' worth, which may be partly paid for in fish by the provinces. But Canada has large fisheries of her own in the great lakes and the river and £ulf of St. Lawrence.' * * ' The commerce of the lower provinces with the States rose in the ten years of the reciprocity treaty from seventeen millions to eighty-two millions of dollars. Without a return of that trade, the ANNEXATION ARGUMENTS. 105 provinces will not progress: confederation will do but comparatively little to advance their trade.'* . . . The fisheries of the American States are limited, while those of the maritime colonies are unequalled in extent and variety. The States send from six to eight hundred vessels annually into provincial waters to fish. On these vessels they now pay two dollars a ton to the Dominion ; the most of which is wasted by the Dominion in forcing American vessels to pay the dues and observe the regulations. This great fishery could be prosecuted by the maritime provinces to greater extent and advantage than by any other community on the continent: only give these colonies free market in the States for their fish. . . . Ship-building, another important branch of our industry, would revive, if the provinces had the States for a market for their vessels. At present, and for many years past, ship-building has been unprofitable to our builders in consequence of the low price of vessels in Great Britain which is the chief market for our colonial vessels. The demand in Great Britain is chiefly for iron and composite vessels ; which can be built cheaper in Europe than here. The British islands afford good markets to buy in, but poor ones in which to dispose of the products of our industry.' On the defencelessness of British America, this manifesto is naturally urgent. It quotes a declaration of the Canadian Government, made in 1862, to the effect that ' no portion of the Empire is exposed to sufferings and sacrifices equal to those which would inevitably fall on this province in case of a war with the United States — all of * An opposite view was supported by Mr. Halibnrton, son of ' Sam Slick,' in a pamphlet recently published by him, and in lectures delivered in Canada. He thinks that the various sections of the Dominion may so play into each other's hands, by an arrangement of duties, as to develop each others trade most successfully ; that Nova Scotian coal might be delivered in Upper Canada, by a cunning arrangement of customs, cheaper than Pennsylvanian coal ; and that Nova Scotian ports might be made the great emporia for the export of Western Canadian produce. But the pamphlet quoted above makes out its case more clearly and cogently. 106 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. them the results of events for the production of which Canada would be in no wise accountable.' All the utter- ances of our authorities at home on the impossibility of defending Canada are paraded in their full strength. The speeches of Canadian statesmen are also quoted ; how Mr. M'Gee said, during the American civil war, i England warned us by acts, according to her custom, rather than by verbiage, that the colonies had entered upon a new career of existence. She has given us this warning in several different shapes — when she gave us " Responsible Govern- ment " — when she adopted Free Trade — when she repealed the navigation laws, and when, three or four years ago, she commenced that series of official despatches in relation to militia and defence always bearing the same solemn burthen — prepare ! prepare ! prepare ! These warnings gave us notice, that the old order of things between the colonies and the mother country had ceased.' ... ' Then, sir, in the second place, there came what I may call the other warning, from without, the American warning. Republican America gave us her notices in times past, through her press and her demagogues and her statesmen ; but of late days she has given us much more intelligible notices— such as the notice to abrogate the reciprocity treaty, and yet another, the most striking of all, if we will only understand it, by the enormous expansion of her army and navy.' Shorter and more pithy, as becomes a Scotchman, are the quotations from the Liberal leader, Mr. Brown, than those from the eloquent Irishman. ( Our country is coming to be regarded as undefended and indefensible. The capitalist is alarmed, and the immigrant is afraid to come among us.' As in all other cries for annexation, so in this pamphlet, the expense of governing the present Dominion is one of the gravest causes of offence. It is contrasted most unfavourably with the cheapness of government in the far richer and more populous States. Why ANNEXATION ARGUMENTS. 107 their Governor-General should have 10,000Z. a-year, while the American President has only 25,000 dollars a-year, is a great mystery to many Canadians ; and if you remind them what superior refinement of manner they get along with their aristocratic chief-magistrate, they do not scruple to pro- nounce the commodity dear at the price. The grandeur of the Parliament House at Ottawa is another stumbling-block to the simple colonist, almost as bad as the useless multiplicity and high salaries of the government officials. 6 Those buildings,' says the pamphlet already referred to, after describing their extent and sumptuousness, ' are situate only about fifty miles from the American frontier, while they are fifteen hundred from the capital of Newfoundland, a thousand miles from Halifax, a thousand from Red River, more than two thousand from Vancouver's Island ; and the only practicable way from some of the local centres to the Dominion Parliament is either through the United States or over extensive waters.' * As to the intercolonial railway, which was to be one of the benefits attendant on confederation, it is now generally felt in Canada that little benefit can accrue from its com- pletion. The case of its advocates set forth, that this line would give direct communication both in summer and winter between all the British provinces and a British port through territory wholly British. But the fact is, that in summer * Here are some of Sir Charles Dilke's views upon a confederation of other British colonies, which may be apposite and interesting in this place. ' There are many difficulties in the way of confederation. The leading merchants and squatters of Victoria are in favour of it ; but not so those of the poorer or less populous colonies, where there is much fear of being swamped. The costliness of the federal government of New Zealand is a warning against over-hasty confederation. . . . The choice of capital will here, as in Canada, be a matter of peculiar difficulty. It is to be hoped by all lovers of freedom that some hitherto unknown village will be selected. There is in all great cities a tendency to Imperialism — a danger avoided, however, or greatly lessened, by the seat of the Legislature being placed, as in Canada and the United States, far away from the great cities.' — Greater Britain, vol. ii. 108 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. the railway will not be much needed; for then the St. Lawrence, the natural outlet of the Canadas, is open for navigation ; and in winter the railway will not be much used ; for then that route is preferable, which is least exposed to the deep snows, and communication from almost any part of Canada with the ocean, or even with the maritine provinces, can be effected most easily by striking south- ward over some of the lines which pass through American territory. The Toronto Globe put the case thus: — * The intercolonial railroad,' it says, ' will leave us just where we are now. In the summer, when navigation is open, we can send produce abroad by the river and gulf and to some extent compete with the Americans. But in winter, to suppose we can send flour and wheat over this long route cheaper than the Americans can send them from the Eastern ports is an absurdity which no man acquainted with the trade will commit.' Of this hopeful railroad, which was to be the back-bone of the British empire in America, the Globe goes on to say, that it { cannot, under any possible cir- cumstances, bring any profit or returns, directly or indi- rectly.' The already quoted pamphlet gives this descrip- tion of the route : — { The intercolonial railway will run for a great part of its distance through unbroken forest. It will traverse the French settlements of the St. Lawrence as far north as 48^- degrees latitude, which is the coldest part of the settled section of the province of Quebec. For nearly 500 miles of this northern railway route, the snow falls to a depth varying from four to six feet.' Even on the short line along the St. Lawrence, connecting Point Levi and Riviere du Loup, the trains are often ( delayed for days at a time ' by snow drifts. Those who are aware how much snow is to be met with in winter between Montreal and the coast at Portland, lying nearly south-east, may fancy what the comfort and speed of a winter railway journey from Montreal ANNEXATION ARGUMENTS. 109 would be, that struck out to the north-east for the ocean at Halifax and traversed the wildest and snowiest parts of Lower Canada. Besides, even if the difficulties of the route be overlooked, a glance at the map shows that, in point of distance, Montreal and Quebec, and Western Canada still more, have their natural winter outlet on the ocean some- where within the American frontier. The distances from Montreal and Quebec to Portland, in the State of Maine, by the present line of rail are respectively 297 and 317 miles. From the chief British port always open to naviga- tion, namely Halifax, the distances to Quebec and Montreal by the intercolonial route would be respectively about 685 and 858 miles. Will love of the British Empire, and desire to keep within its bounds, make Montreal send her passengers and goods thrice the necessary distance to a place of ship- ment? These are days in which sentiment is weak and material interests are strong. A Canadian whom I once heard making a political speech to an American audience, said to it, ' If you want us, just show us that you will make things pleasanter for us among you than we find them out- side. Don't keep threatening us and trying to bully us into the Union. We are of English blood like yourselves, and won't stand being bullied. Don't set loose your wild Irish- men on Canada. Of them she can dispose, and will. But just say, " Here is a snug place awaiting you, if at any time the weather grows cold out-of-doors." The weather is changeable with us ; and if we know there is a snug place and a welcome at hand ; if we see that we should be better off there than where we now are ; it may not be very long till you hear us knocking at the door.' * * Some of the circumstances of the Dominion, ahove mentioned, have, quite recently, somewhat altered. Thus, a Newfoundland ministry showed a dispo- sition to join the confederation; but it was beaten in the House by a majority of 21 to 8, in February 1870. In the same month, the Lieutenant-Governor of New Brunswick was able to congratulate that province upon its more than 110 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. If the foregoing be at all a true picture of some features of the political and material position of Canada, the question would seem to be rather, how long will she remain British, than will she ever become American? Enough has been said of the instability which her present condition manifests within, of the temptations to change which lie just outside. What other more universal signs there may be in the air, telling us not only as to Canada, but as to our empire at large, that the ties by which it was held are being loosened, it would here be out of place more than merely to glance at. The political doctrines of our age either expressly or tacitly strike at the root of imperialism. In pulling down aristo- cratic government at home, it is ceaselessly urged, that each body of men with peculiar interests of its own is best judge of those interests and should claim to see for itself that they are sacrificed to none nor are disposed of by less compe- ordinary prosperity. The Dominion has made considerable financial conces- sions to the provinces. The hopeful view was thus expressed by Sir John Young, when proroguing the Ottawa Parliament on June 22, 1869. 'Memor- able steps have been taken towards the accomplishment of the great scheme of uniting the whole of British North America in a single confederation. . . . You have sanctioned the arrangement entered into in London by the Imperial Government in reference to the north-west territory. Terms, to which the delegates from Newfoundland have assented, and which it may be expected will prove acceptable to the people of that island, have met with your concurrence. The basis has been laid for negotiations with the government of Prince Edward's Island. You have adopted precautions of timely and well considered liberality in order to satisfy reasonable demands and conciliate attachment in Nova Scotia.' In the same newspaper sheet, which thus reported the Governor- General's speech, is to be found this commentary upon it, in the form of an extract from one of the ablest of American papers. • The New York Nation, referring to the annexation movement in Nova Scotia, says there is undoubtedly a vigorous and, no doubt, a growing party in the colony, in favour of that move- ment, and that several of the ablest journals are its advocates. "Entire dis- satisfaction with the Canadians, whose yoke in the way of taxes," it adds, " is heavy and is growing heavier — for the Dominion annually falls behindhand — united with the prostration of all business consequent upon the repeal of the Reciprocity Treaty — which they bitterly attribute to Canadian sympathy with our rebels — has overcome the scruples born of traditional loyalty, and the Nova Scotians have decided to talk, at any rate, in a loud and business-like manner about cutting the English connection."' ENGLISH IMPERIALISM. Ill tent judges. Whatever of restlessness there may be through our empire, asks whether this rule does not apply quite as much to communities that are locally separate, as to classes among other classes in a complex society. That question often put of late years, * Are our dependencies of any good to us ? ' and only answered in the affirmative by those people whose time has gone by, the sentimentalists of politics, is a sign. So also is that other question, not dealing with material advantages but with moral obligations, which is more and more put, ' What right have we to impose our will upon other communities, even supposing they may be of some good to us, unless they feel themselves made happier by such interference ? ' It may be said, that such questions affect British America less than other dependencies ; that though it is granted in her case most easily of all, that we get no material advantage from the connection, this does not entitle us to cast her off; and that, as to a forcible imposing of our will, in her case of all others, we would not and dare not attempt such a course. But the fact is, that the venti- lation of such questions does affect British America ; for the main tie which keeps her from breaking away is an old, hardly reasoned out sentiment, knitting together the domi- nant race through our empire by a common pride in its dominancy, an old and perhaps unreasonable prestige attached to our country as seat and centre of a giant im- perialism, both of which relics of the past look feeble and shadowy when dragged into the light, as they are dragged into a very full light, by the questions that characterise our time. The Canadians are not so blind as not to see, that the advantage of being under the Imperial protection which some of us consider the sole material advantage accruing to cither side from the tie, is now far more than outweighed by the risk of their being drawn into danger by the Imperial con- nection. The Canadians are not so deaf as not to hear how 112 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. our empire, like an ice-floe in spring, begins to heave and to rock and to utter strange sounds, the like of which were not heard until now. When they observe how the work of dis- integration has already begun by the casting off some of the most valueless parts ; when they know it to be discussed, whether this or that other part, however stirring the very sound of its name for our race, should be let slip away, they cannot fail to perceive that their patriot sentiment for the Empire of England is centred on a perishable object. The old confidence in the supremacy of our power dies away, and the very gains of our morality are taken for so many losses in our consciousness of strength. Recent incidents of our imperialism — how, a short while ago, the Viceroy of India, as if the ideas of the time had suddenly dawned even there, had enquiry made throughout all his provinces, whether the natives felt themselves happier under our rule than they would be without it — how another governor of a dependency, who in striving to strike terror into a seditious people, had used severities harsher and more pro- longed and more regardless of legal form than the occasion seemed to justify, was lately stigmatized by half our people as the vilest of murderers — all these things, however much commended by our kinsmen in America, make them smile a half-satirical smile at the new character — incongruous, as they think, with our imperialism — which we are trying to assume. England, once the most insolently tyrannical of the Powers, turning into A moral child, without the craft to rule, is a sight that will set the looker-on smiling. Nor can we our- selves doubt that this wider morality, this sensitive horror of wronging any, however noble it may be, would have barred us, had it sooner arisen, from becoming dominant over one-fifth of mankind, and will bar us from remaining such now for any ENGLISH IMPERIALISM. 113 long future. Whether our empire has been a good or an evil to men, it is certain that, both for its acquisition and maintenance, there was need of a ' heroic morality,' of a race of men caring little for a moral philosophy ' based on interdependent, subordinate, and coherent principles,' but who thought rather that The fence of rules is for the purblind crowd ; They walk by averaged precepts ; sovereign men, Seeing by God's light, see the general By seeing all the special — own no rule JBut their full vision of the moment's worth — men, whose light, it must be admitted, might sometimes not be God's, but quite the opposite ; and whose independence was somewhat open to abuse. After this much of State policy and the fate of Empires, it may be well to pass on to lighter matters, the home lives * of Canadians, their national character as shown in matters other than political, their enjoyments, their favourite kinds and places of amusement. Of the small scale on which the habitans live, and of the gay lives which they lead notwith- standing, something has already been said, in touching upon the different nationalities in Canada. Indeed, a content- ment with their own state of life — that eminent Christian virtue, which is the one unpardonable sin from a Political Economist point of view — is the distinguishing mark of the French in North America, and is what keeps them (or has kept them until very lately, for they are now becoming more migratory) from seeking for ampler fortunes out of sight of the old parish church. That church is to them the centre of their gay little worlds. 'Many of his plea- sures,' writes a Lower Canadian of the habitant, • are closely connected with his religion. Sunday is his day of enjoyment : the parish church is the meeting-place of friends ; where the young and old, men and women, clad in I 114 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. their best clothes, riding their best horses, or driving in their gayest caleches, meet for the joint purposes of religion, business, love, and pleasure.' Of the superstitiousness of his religion which is charged upon the habitant, this same writer justly remarks, that one can hardly afford to call superstition a vice, ' unless it lead people to be cruel to eacli other.' ( We,' — the French of Lower Canada — ' have had no duckings of poor old women, no burnings of suspected witches. Superstition, among us, merely multiplies the prayers of the fearful peasant, and occasions a somewhat lavish use of candles and holy water.' There are certainly no people more disposed to be tolerant in religious matters than the habitans of Lower Canada. Of the richer classes of the French, the ease and gaiety with which they can amuse themselves, are noticed by all the English who have made trial of Quebec society. One authority has especially noticed, how, at Lord Elgin's sociable parties, the guests seemed to enjoy games of blind-man's buff with all the enthusiasm of children, and how some Americans, seeing this amusement to have such a charm for Quebec, tried to introduce it in less un- sophisticated New York and met with a natural failure. That the sprightliness of a French society should be strik- ing to an English observer, is what might well be expected ; but even our French observer, Monsieur de Hauranne, grows a little satirical over the simple pleasures of his countrymen in Canada. The lofty height, from which a Parisian looks down upon a simplicity that is something more than provincial, is worth being exhibited in his own words. After touching upon English society in Que- bec, which he describes as 'froid, decent, formaliste, et raide,' in fact, thoroughly English, he goes on: ( J'aime mieux la bonhomie de la vieille societe franco-canadienne : celle-ci ressemble a nos bourgeoisies de province dans nos FRENCH CANADIAN SOCIETY. 115 villes les plus retirees et les plus patriarchates, peu occupees de choses serieuses et ne songeant guere qu'a se divertir, mais a la fa9on du bon vieux temps. Ainsi dans les bals du monde catholique les fast dances (nom effrayant pour les danses tournantes) sont rigoureusement interdites : on ne danse que des quadrilles de neuf heures du soir a deux heures du matin, mais avec un entrain, un acharnement, un air de bonheur indicible. Vieux et jeunes, tout le monde s'en mele : les grand'meres dansent avec leurs filles, les cheveux blancs et les perruques n'ont pas honte de s'amuser comme des enfants. On mange des pommes, on boit de la biere, preferes souvent a des soupers somptueux; on cause du bal d'hier, du bal de demain, de l'influence de la comete et de la lune sur les pluies, et Ton proclame bien haut que le bal est delicieux.' Except for the meteoro- logical part of it — which reminds one a little of the favourite songs at Dido's evening-party in honour of iEneas — perhaps there is no marked difference in range and depth between this ball-room conversation and what might be heard in Mayfair. Monsieur de Hauranne sums up his description thus : i Quand ils me disent que, si je restais longtemps a Quebec, je serais ravi de cette societe, la plus charmante, la plus distinguee, la plus spirituelle qu'il y ait au monde, ne croiriez-vous pas entendre l'echo de l'une de ces cimetieres vivants enfouis au fond de nos provinces, ou un petit monde vieillot secoue encore les derniers grains de poudre de sa perruque et les derniers grelots de ses habits de cour ? Comment pourrait-il en etre autrement ? C'est le rat qui vit heureux dans son fromage, et qui ne voit rien de mieux au dehors.' That the simple gaiety of the French Canadian ladies is an old characteristic of theirs, distinguishing them as a special peculiarity even in the eyes of the most ex- perienced travellers, the account of them written in 1749 by Professor Kalm, the Swedish traveller, may convince I 2 116 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. us. He is generally quite complimentary to them ; but it is no wonder, as will appear from the following extract from the quaint translation of his works, that the Professor was occasionally somewhat frightened by the dangerous beauties whom he encountered. ' Their behaviour seemed to me somewhat too free in Quebec. One of the first questions they propose to a stranger is — whether he is married ? the next — how he likes the ladies in this country? and whether he thinks them handsomer than those of his own country ? And the third — whether he will take one home with him ? ■ He would not take the hint, thinking, perhaps, that such a companion would be too expensive a luxury and too frivolous a mate for so plain and so learned a man. At least this other passage from his account of French Canada will suggest some theory of the kind. * The civility of the inhabitants here is more refined than that of the Dutch and English in the settlements of Great Britain ; but the latter, on the other hand, do not idle their time away in dressing as the French do here. The ladies especially dress and powder their hair every day, and put their locks in papers every night.' Without disclosing to us how he found them out in this last habit, he proceeds straightway to denounce it as c an idle custom, not intro- duced in the English settlements.' To leave the French and pass to the English Canadians, and, therefore, mainly to Upper Canada, all travellers who cross into it from the States remark, in the first place, that they have come from a richer into a poorer land. One of the circumstances under which the comparison is usually made, bears a little hardly on Canada. The main road, by which she is entered, the ' New York Central Railway,' running from Albany to Niagara, past a number of towns with a strange medley of names — Utica, Rome, Syracuse, and Rochester— takes you through districts which, THE UPPER CANADIANS. 117 up to the frontier of Canada, are among the very richest on the continent. So he, who enters the British provinces by this line, enters them in a hard mood to please. There is another point, also, to be taken into account in making the comparison, which point Mr. Trollope, in making it, suggests : * I do not know that we are richer,' an ima- ginary Canadian of his says to him, ' but on the whole we are doing better and are happier than our neighbours.' Mr. Trollope, to be sure, does not think there is much in the point, holding, in spite of Christian tracts and maxims from Horace, that, f though men and women may learn to be happier when they learn to disregard riches, such a doctrine is absolutely false as regards a nation.' Indeed, he goes the length of asserting that national wealth pro- duces ' all that is good.' His imaginary Canadian, how- ever, being unphilosophic— or being, perhaps, of the Posi- tive School — simply states the fact he has observed, f we are happier,' and does not go into questions of causation at all. Mr. Trollope, without contradicting him, starts the altogether different proposition. ( According to my theories of national well-being you have no right to be at once a poorer and a happier people.' Whatever may be their right, the Canadians do appear at once a poorer and a happier people. Of course, all those evils, which one may sometimes see classed under the name of f pre- ventible misery,' will be lessened by great national wealth, or, at least, by such wealth well distributed ; but to be happy is something more than to be free from such misery, which is, indeed, but its necessary antecedent. Mr. Trollope would almost seem to have confounded the two. Among: the truest observations ever made on the American people was this : that in no other nation were there so few very miserable lives, in no other so few very happy. The former half of the statement, nobody, knowing the 118 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. universal possession of the material comforts of life, and the inextinguishably hopeful activity of the nation, will doubt ; and in defence of the latter, plenty of witnesses may be called from the nation itself. Thus, a recent American writer has said, 'We talk in America of our great, our enlightened, our free, above all our happy country. I never thought America was a happy country, only that it ought to be; in no country are the faces of the people furrowed with harder lines of care ; in none is there so little of recreation and enjoyment of life ; ' and one of the greatest Americans, Mr. Emerson, in contrasting his nation with ours, has said, { As compared with them,' (the Ame- ricans) ■ I think the English are cheerful and contented.' That the American's life, beyond other lives, is a restless, nervous struggle, in which is no calm or contentment, is agreed, both in and out of America ; and though the fact will of course be least marked in the luxurious society of the American cities, even there not a little of this change which has come over our race may be traced ; for even there a sort of nervous uneasiness of manner is noticeable, strongly in contrast with that calm self-possession, which is usually attributed to us, and which, under the name of ' repose of manner,' gets a place among the virtues in our estimation. Of the middle-class American, the representative man of the nation, those caricature descriptions which have been current among us have made everywhere known, and have hardly been able to exaggerate, the points here in question, both physical and mental — the thin, worn face, the pre- mature look of age, all that stamps him the most excitable of men, a man always fidgetting and always in a hurry, eating so fast, that you would think the roof w T as on fire overhead, whittling a stick while he talks to you (for this is a true national habit, and not one of the jokes), fiddling with all the things on the table as he sits in a room with THE AMERICAN LIFE. 119 you, until he has broken them one after another, and so preoccupied too that he is quite unaware what mischief he is doing, — in short, a very poor representation of a man who is enjoying his life.* Is he as happy as the more solid, more stolid Canadian, with an almost English glow of health in his face, with an almost English steadiness of nerve shown by an almost English immobility of expression, and with all that burly vigour of body, which begets, or is begotten by, a mind not easily perturbed ? Compare the two simply as animals ; there will really be no doubt who finds the world the more comfortable place. Neither of them may have very high pleasures, or many moments of divine exaltation. Both alike may be wanting in culture, and may lead such illiberal lives as would vex Mr. Arnold to the heart. They may in common be the most limited of men, incarnations of the spirit of industrialism, regarding * It would seem that Americans of to-day, while admitting that the above described physical type was once their national type, deny that it is so now. Here is an extract from the ablest, perhaps, of .American newspapers, describing an American crowd, the crowd assembled at the Boston Peace Jubilee of 1869. ' Perhaps the most noticeable feature about the crowd, next to its size, was the marked absence of the "American type" — of that long-haired, cunning-eyed creature, with high cheek-bones, eagle eyes, and fatal mouth, who has for so many years been the model for caricaturists on both sides of the Atlantic. If you look at Punch, you will see Brother Jonathan represented just as he was forty years ago. But the character has ceased to exist, if it ever existed, and with the character has gone the face. It would have been as difficult to find the type of which we are speaking in the Coliseum on Tuesday, as it would be, we fancy, to discover among the English generation the type of the " John Bull" of other days. There was the "modern face" in abundance, with its thin lips, hungry eyes, hollow cheeks, and altogether pre-Raphaelite caste. There were foreigners of all kinds : there were New Yorkers : but " Brother Jonathan," having disappeared from off the face of the earth, was not there.' (The Nation, June 24, 1869.) This is indeed to hurry us on by a very long step toward that dreadful, dull uniformity, which seems to threaten humanity — this merging of all the individualities of face and feature that severally marked ' John Bull' and 'Brother Jonathan,' and even ' foreigners of all kinds,' in that wonderful and, we trust, premature generalization, ' the modern face,' with its ' altogether pre-Raphaelite caste.' But, after all, the description given of the ' modern face,' as seen at the Boston Jubilee, reminds one much of the old familiar ' Brother Jonathan ' type. 120 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. the making of money as the end of existence, and content that the whole of their activities should be spent upon getting up some narrow ladder of life, that shows dollars enough at its top. In how many ways this mode of life, characteristic of modern democracy, and thus especially conspicuous across the Atlantic, may be unfit for raising men to a very high happiness, it would be out of place here to discuss — how by its narrowness it acts against the even development of the powers of a man — how, by its fierce racing and competition for his own personal success, it is apt to blind him to its really noblest, because its least self-regarding, attribute, namely, that it is the playing of a strong and harmonious part in the universal concert of human labour, whose music is material well-being, in- crease of comfort, and growth in civilisation for the whcle of mankind. But, in touching upon these common cha- racteristics of the trans-Atlantic peoples, it is not out of place to point out, that, with respect to these, just as in almost every other respect, the Canadian is a sort of middle term between the Englishman and American. He is not so absorbed and so eager in his industrialism as the American. If his aspirations are limited to getting up some straight and narrow ladder of life, at least he climbs it more quietly, more patiently, and with a less intense agony of struggling. What is it which makes this marked difference between the genuine American and that semi-English American who lives a little farther to the North? Why is the one so much the more slow and placid, the other so much the quicker and more impatient? Of course the causes may be further traced out, but the proximate cause is surely no other than this, the difference between them in bodily constitution. The bulky massiveness of the English phy- sique, that which caused Mr. Hawthorne to apply to our countrymen the disagreeable epithet ' bulbous,' has been so AMERICAN AND CANADIAN PHYSIQUE. 121 refined away in America, that there does not seem to be now enough of it left to act as passive resistance to the nervous forces within. The hull of the ship is not substantial enough now for her engines. The results are manifold, some more and some less remote, not only affecting their capability of happiness, but affecting the character of Americans through- out. The subject is not often treated, at all events by writers on our side of the Atlantic, who, in discussing the poli- tical, social, intellectual, moral, or assthetic phenomena of America, usually explain these without so much reference to American physique as might be expected in an age that is usually branded as materialist. This may be perhaps, sufficient apology for here following the point out rather further than merely as regards the Canadian. Though our writers say little upon it, American books are full of remarks on the way in which the physique of the English stock in America has been changed by its new station and manner of life, and on mental differences which have ensued thereupon. Mr. Emerson, who, admitting the change, attributes it chiefly to the new modes of life, and therefore regards it as capable of easy rectification, writes thus on an English University : ' The diet and rough exercise secure a certain amount of old Norse power. In seeing these youths, I believed I saw already an advantage in vigour, and colour, and general habit over their contem- poraries in the American colleges. No doubt much of the power and brilliancy of the reading men is simply constitu- tional and hygienic. With a hardier habit and resolute gym- nastics .... the American would arrive at as robust exegesis and cheery, hilarious tone. I should readily con- cede these advantages, which it would be easy to acquire, if I did not find also that they read better than we, and write better ; ' a passage which may be recommended to all the many wise and excellent Englishmen, who have been lately 122 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. deploring our national taste for sport and athletics as a national calamity.* Again, the same American adds, of the same University : ' These men have bottom, endurance, wind. When born with good constitutions, they make those eupeptic studying-mills, those cast-iron men, the dura ilia, whose powers of performance compare with ours as the steam-hammer with the musical box — Cokes, Mansfields, Seldens, Bentleys — and when it happens that a superior brain puts a rider on this admirable horse, we obtain those masters of the world, who combine the highest energy in affairs with a supreme culture.' Other American writers are full of similar remarks on a loss of physical, and hence of mental, vigour in their nation. Here is a passage in the exquisite language of Hawthorne, who, also admitting the change, attributes it to climatic causes not to be altered by man : ' Morally as well as materially, there was a coarser fibre in those wives and maidens of old English birth and breeding, than in their fair descendants separated from them by a series of six or seven generations, for throughout that chain of ancestry, every successive mother has transmitted to her child a fainter bloom, a more delicate and briefer beauty and a slighter physical frame, if not a character of less force and solidity than her own .... The bright morning sun shone on broad shoulders and well- developed busts, and on round and ruddy cheeks that had ripened in the far off island, and had hardly yet grown * Simultaneously with the increase in the love of athletic sports, observed of late among us, a similar phenomenon has been remarked in America. But there it has been rather the growth of a new characteristic, than the further development of an old one. ' The taste for athletic sports in America is not more than fifteen years old. It is only within the last ten or twelve years that it can be said to have found a firm foothold in the Colleges. Even now, the schools do little to encourage it.' — The Nation, September 2, 1869. Some American papers have lately (since the Anglo-American boat-race) been pro- posing annual Pan-Anglican games, on the model of the Pan-Hellenic games of antiquity. AMERICAN PHYSIQUE. 123 paler and thinner in the atmosphere of New England.' The same author, in another work, describes the same physical change, but, like the finely imaginative poet that he was, a poet in all save the singing faculty, he sees it in a poetic and glorified aspect. ' Then the Judge's face had lost the ruddy English hue that showed its warmth through all the duskiness of the Colonel's weather-beaten cheek, and had taken a sallow shade, the established complexion of his countrymen. If we mistake not, moreover, a certain quality of nervousness had become more or less manifest even in so solid a specimen of Puritan descent ... As one of its effects, it bestowed on his countenance a quicker mobility than the old Englishman's had possessed and keener vivacity, but at the expense of a sturdier something on which those acute endowments seemed to work like dis- solving acids. This process, for aught we know, may belong to the great system of human progress, which with every ascending footstep, as it diminishes the necessity for animal force, may be destined gradually to spiritualize us by refining away our grosser attributes of body.' Indeed, it was one of Mr. Hawthorne's most favourite theories, that his coun- trymen, and still more his countrywomen, were becoming highly spiritualized, exquisitely etherialised, in proportion as they were becoming thinner and paler, and more delicate and nervous, a theory which might be plentifully illustrated from his books. This is the poet's view. Mr. Hawthorne, living in extraordinary seclusion, projected an American national character out of his own consciousness, and then made it harmonize with the facts of American physique ; but, except for the eye of the poet, small muscular strength and an imperfect liver seem hardly to be in necessary con- nection with highly developed aesthetic perceptions, and a delicate subtlety of the thinking powers. Yet, that there is a truth even in this poet's view ; that there has been in 124 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. America a sort of mental sublimation, going on side by side with that physical sublimation ; that the American mind has hence become not only quickened into a new vivacity, but purged also from some old grossness; it will not be here denied. Mr. Hawthorne himself is an example of such sublimation ; and seldom has it been better described than in an article lately written in England, reviewing an American novel somewhat in Mr. Hawthorne's style. In this novel, the reviewer notes f the subtler and more sifted humour of fantastic conception, elaborated by a playful fancy.' ' Like so many of the finer studies of the New Eng- land authors,' he adds, ' this little story conveys the notion of a more perfectly refined, and cultivated, and thinner intellectual atmosphere, than even the most refined of our English authors breathe. What the explanation of this phenomenon may be, we do not know, but that " Malbone " is a new illustration of this finely and somewhat over-deli- cately wrought texture of the New England literature, there is no question.' ( The Spectator: September 25, 1869.) The existence of the phenomenon is not questioned here ; nor is Mr. Hawthorne's connection of it with the physical change. It is merely suggested that Mr. Emerson's view, that the change in physique is on the whole a loss rather than a gain to the Americans, is at once more prosaic and reasonable. So well aware of the loss are Americans, that their books dwell on the advantage to the mind of sturdy vigour of body much more often than ours. Here is Dr. Holmes on the subject, no mean authority upon it. ( The scholar who comes by Nature's special grace from an unworn stock of broad-chested sires and deep-bosomed mothers must always overmatch an equal intelligence with a compromised and lowered vitality. A man's breathing and digestive apparatus, one is tempted to add " muscular," are just as important to him on the floor of the senate, as AMERICAN PHYSIQUE. 125 his thinking organs.' Again, Dr. Holmes says of his country : ( It has long been noticed that there is something in the influences, climatic or other, here prevailing, which predisposes to religious excitement,' and of course religious excitement is not an isolated, nervous phenomenon. But more of native testimony is hardly wanted to a point which would be generally conceded. What, then, are some of the various effects of this altered physique? Some points of American character, perhaps, which we are in the habit of accounting for otherwise. We talk of the restlessness of a young nation, the delicate sensitiveness of a young nation, the intemperate boastfulness of a young nation, the peevish- ness of their impatience of criticism, with much more of the same kind. We do not talk, as perhaps we might, of the restlessness, sensitiveness, effusiveness, peevishness, and impulsiveness, of a set of people who are running altogether to nerves. We compare our own magnificent calmness, the strong, slow steadiness of John Bull, ' the reserve of power in the English temperament,' to take an expression, not indeed from an Englishman, but from a somewhat Anglo- maniac American, and, when we have talked enough about these, we say, e What a grand thing it is to be an old settled nation, with an assured position of our own in the world ! ' But we never say how grand a thing it is to have a very fresh and healthy climate, plenty of bracing sea- breezes, thoroughly good digestions, and a tendency to grow comfortably fat. Among the results of those American characteristics, which are being dealt with now, it may be noticed that there is no branch of the English race which, physically and morally, has so little of youthfulness as the American ; in- tellectually, there is none which has so much. It seems forced on in life, by a sort of impatient precocity, and to reach its full stature much sooner than we. To the earli- 126 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. ness of its physical maturity, witnesses have already been called. Of the accompanying early determination of moral character, no observer of Americans will entertain a doubt. Emerson is astonished f at that uncorrupt youth in the face of manhood which is daily seen in the streets of London,' and it is certain that even young children in America will no less astonish an Englishman by the formed character inscribed on their features, the concentration in the expres- sion of their faces. We, to be sure, are a people of rather an exceptional slowness of development. Compared with such assemblages elsewhere, everybody must remark at assemblages of young people in England, how common is that ■ blank face of youth,' which tells nothing of the character, except that it has hardly yet tasted of the dan- gerous tree, and is to be formed by the conditions of its future. With us, it is common among males up to man- hood ; it is still more common among females, even beyond the age of womanhood ; and among them, by its guileless ingenuousness, forms no inconsiderable constituent of Eng- lish female beauty. Hence, in some part, it is, that our race, as it appears in these islands, and especially in our women, is noted among the more precocious peoples for want of facial expression. ( Ces grandes poupees d'Angle- terre,' is all that George Sand will call our insular beauties, and Madame de Stael can only commend them for ' la plus belle fraicheur, les couleurs les plus vives, et la plus parfaite immobility.' But it is quite otherwise in America. There it must strike an Englishman how much of settled character there is in the faces of even very young girls ; and how the term ' boy,' however widely used, has hardly anything at all to answer to it, in its English acceptation. The young American passes from childhood almost directly into man- hood. At Harvard, the students are certainly younger, on an average, in years, than at either of our universities ; but, AMERICAN PHYSIQUE AND CHARACTER. 127 looking at their faces, you would say they were older.* English boyhood, that specimen of the boisterous vigour of English animal life and of the concomitant slowness in maturing. itself of English character, is not to be paralleled in America, any more than it is in France. As to the lasting intellectual youthfulness of the American mind, it is almost too great a subject to touch upon here. Wherever the national mind displays its activity, illustra- tions of this characteristic might thence be drawn in abun- dance. Highly instructed Americans tell you often, that, though they fail to see why the youthfulness of a nation should extend to its individual members, in comparing English books, newspapers, speeches, and the conversation of Englishmen with the like in their own land, nothing strikes them so much as that the English mind is slower, surer, more thorough-going; in fact, is older than the American; that the American is keener, more quickly apprehensive, and more superficial ; in fact, is younger than the English. The obvious remark upon this matter is, that in America the higher culture is neglected ; that, satisfied with teaching everybody to read, write, and do sums, and thereby enabling him to start fair in the money-making race and in the discharge of his duties at the ballot-box, the Americans may lose sight of the fact, that their education is not less shallow than wide. But why is it so ? However large a place must be left for political, social, industrial * An American correspondent of an American paper, writing from England an account of the University boat-race of 1868, at a time when the Harvard and Oxford race of 1869 was already contemplated, thus described the age and physique of the English University crews : ' As to the appearance of the two crews, let me say frankly to our ambitious Harvard friends, that I never saw a University crew in America that could compare in physique with either of them. As good single men can be produced : as good crews, on the average, caunot. Age, for one thing, is in favour of the Englishmen ; and again, in favour of Oxford as against Cambridge, and a powerful reason for the succes- sive defeats of the latter. And even the Cambridge men are at least a year older than the Harvard.' 128 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. causes, not least among the causes is one that is physical. The average American is not fitted by bodily constitution for patience and steadiness in thought and research. That excitability of temperament, which gives him the liveliest use of his wits in the world, is not only not akin, but is abso- lutely opposed, to the temperament which, less quickly developed, grows to the greatest height of mature and sober thoug-htfulness. Just as Americans in England are struck by the steady thoroughness of all that we do — the slow, unimpassioned march of our progress — the solidity and per- manence of the works of our hands — so are they also struck with the cool, mature sobriety of mind, the intellectual oldness of our people ; and this not merely of the few — not merely of those who have profited directly by the higher culture current among us — but of those who, not being far removed from the American masses in point of education, would seem to owe whatever mental differences they may evince to some natural and inborn propensity. To quote from Emerson again, he thinks f it was strange to hear the pretty pastoral of the betrothal of Rebecca and Isaac in the morning of the world read with circumstantiality in York Minster on January 13, 1848, to the decorous Eng- lish audience just fresh from the Times newspaper and their wine.' Why strange? He knows that the same stories are as gravely read, and listened to with not less gravity of attention, in American churches. But he thought it strange in England, because the listeners in England seemed older, more mature of mind, more remote from the fresh, simple spirit of that ( morning of the world.' Again, what can- better illustrate the intellectual youthfulness of the American people than all those strange communities, whether held together by some peculiar religious tenet or experimenting in common upon some new social organisation with a new morality of its own, of which communities we AMERICAN PHYSIQUE AND CHARACTER. 129 have lately had no lack of striking accounts ? Mormons, Shakers, Tunkers, Perfectionists, Rappites ; the disciples of Robert Owen at ' New Harmony ' trying ' communism based on equality; ' the disciples of Josiah Warren at ' Modern Times ' trying ( the absolute sovereignty of the individual ; ' the select company at Brook Farm trying a version of Fourierism ; the Come-outers trying a system in which pretty nearly every rule of modern civilisation was exactly reversed — a country in which men give their lives to following out so many and such wild and wayward im- pulses can hardly less abound in fresh and young enthusiasm than Europe did when she sent out the Children's Crusade. Of all the traits with which English ideas endow the American, there is none more marked than a shrewd and practical common sense. He is pictured here as one whose wary caution never sleeps ; who takes good care of himself beyond all other men ; who, in the pride of his most un- bounded self-reliance, cuts at all he cannot understand with sharp, contemptuous, sceptical strokes of dry and caustic humour. And, among the conditions under which he is trained and lives, there are, no doubt, those which tend to form him upon just such a type. But that excitable, nervous, restless element in his organisation, which Holmes and Haw- thorne and others have seen so clearly, tends to make him just the reverse — impulsive and credulous as an English child. And so we have those phenomena of American character which upset our ideal of it not a little — John Brown starting alone to work a revolution — a colony of de- votees going forth to plant themselves in the Holy Land — half the nation believing firmly in all the follies of spiritualism. There is, indeed, hardly a limit to some of the kinds of American credulity. Even in the least enlightened parts of these islands, a religious revival is rare. In America, camp meetings, at which grown men and women, not otherwise K 130 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. wanting in intelligence or self-respect, willingly give them- selves up to, or even eagerly court, hysterical attacks as violent and unseemly as any known to our revivals, are an old and widely spread institution.* What the American ( common school ' has done for their people is the unceasing boast of Americans ; but there are more childish supersti- tions entertained in America, and openly paraded there, than would easily be matched even in the darkest parts of these islands. Here, for example, is an advertisement taken from an American paper, the 6 Chicago Tribune ' of November 9, 1867, not at all more absurd than others that might have been copied, but still, perhaps, not often equalled here : — 1 WANTED. — The address of a clairvoyant, who, in the normal state, is a water- witch ; or, in other words, one in whose hands the common hazel-rod will turn to indicate water under the surface of the ground. — Address, J. V. H. Smith, Peru. 111.' f * A kind of credulity in religious belief, or, at all events, of a very fresh simplicity (for credulity may be too ugly a word for so pretty a feeling), to be met with occasionally in America, is illustrated by the following story, told me by an American of education and position, about a certain monetary speculation of his own. It is given as nearly as possible in his own words. ' Did you follow our war ? Do you remember when Hooker out-flanked B. E. Lee before Fredericksburg? Hooker telegraphed, you know, that he had Lee in a mighty tight place, and that the Confederacy was played out. Well, stocks rose wonderfully. I went on 'Change, and sold every dollar out of them. "When I came home, my wife said to me, " What in the world made you do that ? Everybody says stocks will be going right up." Well, I believed the right time hadn't then come for Lee to be beaten ; that, if Lee was whipped then, slavery would go on as before. So I just said to my wife, " I believe in the justice and goodness of God, and I've bet on them, rather heavy. That's why I sold out." I made 10,000 dollars by my bet.' f That there are some similar superstitions to be found in England is, of course, not denied ; all that is suggested is, that they would not be likely to be openly paraded in the columns of leading journals, published at the greatest centres of civilisation. There is exactly a similar kind of ' rhabdomancy,' as he has called it, said by De Quincey both to be freely used, and to be extremely useful, in the ill-watered parts of Somersetshire ; and Mr. Herman Merivale describes a use of the divining-rod in Cornwall for finding veins of metal, a process known as ' dowsing,' which, also, is not dissimilar. Strangely enough, both these writers refuse to call these English practices superstitious. De Quincey declares that there is sufficient experience of the efficacy of the willow- AMERICAN PHYSIQUE AND CHARACTER. 131 To leave the credulity of the American mind, and revert again to its impulsiveness, it clearly needs some great and general cause affecting our race in its new station to account for the mighty change in respect of this quality there shown to have come over the English character. Our own people have a kindly regard for enthusiasm, no doubt, but one that, in some way or other, has got a cynical admixture of sarcasm and ridicule in it, ridicule that with us is indeed ' a quiet, irresistible master of the ceremonies, who noiselessly removes all unsuitable guests.' Americans let their feelings gush in a way that English adults would rather be put on the rack than do, or at least be caught in doing. Could any conceivable event make England present that wonderful scene which America presented on the morning after the murder of Lincoln — a whole nation gone wild with a pas- sionate agony of grief; men crying like children in the streets — the houses as full of wailing as at the last plague of Egypt — the few who had not utterly lost self-possession afraid to be seen by the rest for fear of the terrible out- burst of wrath their calmness might, and not infrequently did, draw down on their heads ? We know very well that the loss of no single statesman, however honest, patriotic, and amiable, and invested with however unexampled a halo of glory in the eyes of the nation by unexampled events that had marked his career, could give rise, even amid the ex- citement of a national crisis, to so wonderful an outpouring of feeling in England. And perhaps we are not without a pride in our stronger and graver self-control, this mastery over the emotions within us. Yet it will be admitted, that there is rod for finding water in Somersetshire to make a perfectly good Baconian in- duction in favour of the use of the rod ; and Mr. Merivale says of ' dowsing,' that ' a stranger may hardly venture to catalogue it among superstitious prac- tices, lest some scientific readers should tax him with presumptuous disbelief. This, indeed, is to carry very far that ' looking with great favour on the con- dition of a suspended judgment,' which is said to mark the true inductive reasoner. k 2 132 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. something not only interesting and admirable, but practically useful too, as a moral and social and political force, in that sanguine and enthusiast freshness of the American tempera- ment, of which some few illustrations have been given, and which has itself been classed here as an example of what has been called American ( youthfulness of mind.' It is among the safeguards of the nation against the stagnation of absorbing industrialism. c Quand une fois on a tourne l'enthousiasme en ridicule, on a tout defait, excepte l'argent et le pouvoir,' is one of the wise sayings of Madame de Stael. If things were to flow on among us in the course of which some have had fears — if the higher culture were to fall more and more into contempt, and work for the bettering of the material condition of men were to become more and more exclusively honoured, and, as cultivation of mind and refine- ment of taste grew less prized and appreciated, if wealth were to come more and more to the front as the sole source of social distinction — it may be that we should be a more stagnant people than the Americans, in proportion to our greater solidity, steadiness, sobriety of mind, slowness in embracing new ideas, caution in trying them practically ; in fact — to fall back on the expression already in use — in proportion to our * intellectual oldness.' That the typical Canadian is, physically and mentally, an Englishman in process of transition into an American, has already been said. In travelling through Canada, you see the physical process of transition in all its several stages. By a rough generalisation it may be said, that you find the European types least changed near the ocean, and more Americanised the farther you go to the West. Thus, to the Canadian long settled in extreme Western Canada, the remark, that there is an outwardly evident difference in physique between the British subjects and the Republicans on the continent, will hardly apply. It would indeed be CANADIAN PHYSIQUE AND CHARACTER. 133 pushing our theory rather far to claim that in Canada, side by side with the Americanization of English physical qualities, the Americanization in mental qualities also goes on with such an even progress, that ' concomitant variations ' between the two are to be easily traced ; but it is perfectly certain that, just as, on the whole, the average Canadian looks to the eye about half English and half American, so is the general character of the Canadian people a sort of mean between the widely different characters of the two other kindred peoples. A brighter and more quickwitted man, more venturesome and of bolder enterprise, than the Eng- lishman seen at home, the Canadian is a butt for American scorn on account of his slowness and caution, his easy, sleepy, dull contentment. ■ Those poor Cannots,' Americans call the people of Canada. But along with this English, heavy, solid slowness has gone not a little of those mental gifts which are our set-off for our dreadful dulness — a safe, sound thoughtfulness, a * crassa Minerva.' There is very striking testimony to this in Mr. Fraser's report on transatlantic education, all the more striking because he starts no theory on the matter, does not enlarge on it at all, but simply notes the facts he observed. ' To set off against their quickness, I heard many random answers in American schools ; while, per contra, to the slowness of the Canadian scholar I seldom got a reply very wide of the mark. The whole teaching was homely, but it was sound.' The Assistant-Commissioner further compares the ' life, the motion, the vivacity, the precision, in a word, the brilliancy ' of the American education with the ' plain, unpretending power,' the ' thoroughness and solid results,' of the Canadian — mentioning how each harmonises with the character of its own people — and again, in the easy, free, discursive style of this remarkable report, how the Canadian system reminds him of the Vicar of 134 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. Wakefield's wife, and the vicar's wife's gown, both chosen by their possessors ■ not for a fine glossy surface, but for such qualities as will wear well.' * If it be asked why it is that the Canadian is half English, half American, three hypotheses at once suggest themselves for us to choose between, or to mix to our taste — one cli- matic, one political, and one which, for shortness, may be called racial. The first of these would need a wide scientific * The Pall Mall Gazette, of August 26, 1865, had the following observations on American and Canadian modifications of European character. Of the ' English and German sections of the Teutonic race in America,' it says, ' they become more eager, more restless, more nervous; their .physique is rapidly modified : the fair, solid, cumbersome, European frame is exchanged for a thin, wiry, dark type, and an outline of countenance more akin to that of the southern races of Europe. The hair is less in quantity and different in colour, and men show signs of approximation to the beardlessness of the Red Indian. In Canada the case is different. The heats of summer are counterbalanced by long and severe winters, whose severity. is r at the same time, so agreeable, that there is also more of out-of-door life and amusement in the winter than the summer. In most of the States, on the contrary, the constitution has nothing to brace it, and it is notorious that neither the Yankees nor the Southerners retain the deep-seated enjoyment of out-of-door pleasures which still flourishes in England. The Canadian national character promises, therefore, to remain unchanged ; and, thus remaining unchanged, it promises Canada a long exist- ence as a nation, if only it can be saved from the grasp of its overpowering and ambitious neighbour till its own population is sufficiently increased and its vast resources more thoroughly laid open, and it has learnt, in a word, to stand alone.' The 'therefore,' italicized above, seems to draw a rather rapid and sudden conclusion. "Whether the climate of Canada is really less likely to change an Englishman's characteristics than climates to be found in the States, by reason of the fact that, in addition to roasting him in summer, it also freezes him long and hard in winter, would seem to admit of argument ; and when the writer, attributing such great effects to cold, asserts, that ' in the States, the constitution has nothing to brace it,' one wonders whether he has ever felt a cold day in New York, or even as far south as North Carolina. With regard to the approximation to the Eed-Indian type observable in Americans, according to this writer and others, it may be doubted whether it has much reality. Physically, it may seem that Americans are nearer than Englishmen to the Indian type ; but in character I believe they are further. The distinguishing characteristic of the Indian is the dullness of his nervous sensibility, his deadness to bodily pleasures and pains. Though hardly re- cognizing chastity as a virtue, he seldom yields to the impulses of passion, which with him has singularly little power. But the American is all nerves, wholly wanting in the cold self-command of the red man, nor, perhaps, very like him in that freedom from sensual impulse. THE ENGLISH PHYSIQUE ABROAD. 135 treatment to do it any justice. The unscientific tourist cau only venture to remark, that it may be seen by anybody in passing through the American continent, how the European types change much more quickly in some parts of it than they do in others ; and that, as there are not always causes other than climatic readily suggesting themselves as possibly accounting for these different influences of different places, one is apt to be constantly falling back on the climatic theory, and to be led into giving to it great weight. A few facts, which would seem to have been observed about dif- ferent local influences of this kind, have been already men- tioned here ; as, for instance, that the French of Lower Canada, so far as an Englishman can judge (which is, perhaps, not very far), are still exactly like the French of Europe in outward appearance ; that the English of Canada East, living close to the French Canadians, are far more like the home type than the English of Canada West ; and it may be added, that, with regard to Lower Canada, the old French writers assert that the French physique not only did not degenerate there, but gained new size, and strength, and healthfulness ; that the English of the maritime pro- vinces, living also in the north-east of the continent, keep up their English appearance with tenacity ; and also that the north-east of the States — Boston, for instance — shows much more resemblance to the old English types than more south-westerly communities do, such as New York, Phil- adelphia, and Baltimore. But, getting far away from the Eastern seaboard, you come again, among the Rocky Mountains, upon a population that has a very English look, and, judging from specimens seen* in these regions, one would be led to suppose that the people living beyond the mountains, and on the western slopes down to the Pacific, are also English in appearance — strong, burly, and ruddy of complexion, without the gaunt, 136 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. bloodless, and sallow look of the commonest American type.* To get at ideas of any useful accuracy as to the effects of different climates upon our race would obviously require not only such a minute acquaintance with the several scattered portions of that race, but such a scientific know- ledge of the phenomena of climates as cannot be laid claim to here. It will be a very interesting book, whenever it is written, which, bringing the necessary minute acquaintance with the proper characteristics of many scattered English communities, and the necessary scientific study of their several climates, to bear upon the subject, helps us to know how, and how far, the f coelum non animum ' theory can be shown untenable with regard to our English stock. Sir Charles Dilke, in his delightful book, just touching on the respective effects of the Australian and New Zealand climates upon Englishmen, tells us, ' the fitness of the term tf corn-stalks " applied to the Australian-born boys was made evident by a glance at their height and slender build; they have plenty of activity and health, but are wanting in power and weight. The girls, too, are slight and thin ; delicate, without being sickly. Grown men, who have emigrated as lads and lived ten or fifteen years in New Zealand, eating much meat, spending their days in the open air, constantly in the saddle, are burly, bearded, strapping fellows, physically the perfection of the English race, but wanting in refinement and grace of mind, and this, apparently, by constitution, not through the accident of occupation or position. In Australia, there is promise of a * A recent book upon California (The New West, or California in 1868, by Charles Brace : New York, 1869) has these remarks: 'The effect of all these causes on the physical type of California is, that it is especially the land of handsome men. One sees great numbers of fine, manly profiles, with full, ruddy cheeks, and tall, vigorous forms. The spare, dry, nervous type of the Eastern American is not common in the interior. ... I am constantly meeting young, ruddy, round-faced men, whom I mistake for Englishmen, but who are Yankee-born.' THE ENGLISH PHYSIQUE ABROAD. 137 more intellectual nation : the young Australians ride as well, shoot as well, swim as well, as the New Zealanders ; are as little given to book-learning; but there is more shrewd intelligence, more wit and quickness, in the sons of the larger continent. The Australians boast that they possess the Grecian climate, and every young face in the Sydney crowd showed me that their sky is not more like that of Attica than they are like the old Athenians. The eager burning democracy that is springing up in the Australian great towus is as widely different from the republicanism of the older States of the American Union, as it is from the good-natured conservatism of New Zealand ; and their high capacity for personal enjoyment would of itself suffice to distinguish the Australians from both Americans and British.' And again the same writer, when describing the people of Adelaide, says c there has been no mingling of races, and the whole divergence from the British types is traceable to climatic influences, and, especially, dry heat. The men born here are thin and fine-featured, somewhat like the Pitcairn Islanders, while the women are all alike, small, pretty, and bright, but with a burnt-up look. . . . The inhabitants of all hot, dry countries speak from the head and not the chest, and the English in Australia are ac- quiring this habit : you seldom find a u corn-stalk " who speaks well from the chest.' But to return to North America, there is really no neces- sity to lay a stress upon climatic causes, nor yet upon political causes (though these last must play some part), in accounting for the Canadians having more English cha- racteristics than their American neighbours. What has been called the e racial '• cause will explain all. A saying has been already quoted, heard from an enthusiastic Ca- nadian : ( We are Englishmen : we have hardly any Yankee blood in us' — a saying which, though overbold, has some 138 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. ground to base itself upon in the statistics. Thus, according to the census of '61, there were in Upper Canada in round numbers 912,000 persons who had been born in the province, and 405,500 who had been born in the British Isles ; so the natives of the country were very little more than twice as numerous as the British immigrants ; and, of the natives, probably much more than half were the children of British immigrants. No wonder that in such a popula- tion there should be little departure from the British type. Though the Upper Canadians must be admitted to be poorer than the people of the adjacent northern and western States, it would be a great mistake to suppose lives of such discomfort, or such precarious subsistence, as would seriously lower the average of national happiness, to be common among them. The following is a description of them, written by one of themselves, which, though it may aim at giving only the brighter side of the picture, will yet not be contradicted by the observations of the traveller. ' The agricultural community, as a rule, own the soil in fee simple, which is only liable to a small annual tax for municipal purposes, averaging about seven shillings per annum for every hundred pounds of actual real property owned, while in towns and cities taxes rate at from twice to four times that amount. The people are essentially self- governed. The county magistrate is usually an intelligent farmer or a village shopkeeper. The municipal or township councillors, who impose the taxes and control county matters, are drawn from the same classes, which likewise constitute the bulk of the grand jurors at the semi-annual courts of assize. . . . Abundance of employment and well-paid labour raise even the ordinary working-man, if he is at all industrious, above the accidents of want, and impart to him a feeling of genuine independence. . . . Serious crime is very rare in the rural districts, and a few rustic constables UPPER CANADIAN FARMERS. 139 suffice to preserve order. . . . Canada has neither poor- laws nor poor* houses. . . The majority of the agricultural population of Ontario may be regarded as a body of small gentlemen-farmers, who possess comfortable homes, and eat and drink the fat of the land ; but who, at the same time, owing to the high value of labour, are obliged to aid in working their own estates. The progress of this class during the last twenty years has been very great. Agri- cultural labour-saving machines have materially lightened their toil,' * and so on. This description gives an idea of a class living in quite as great comfort as the richer among the farmers of England. Many Englishmen settled in Canada will deny this equality ; but, when the dependence of the English farmer's position is contrasted with the independence of the Canadian, even these men will acknowledge that the account does not stand unfavourably to the latter. Among those most unacquainted with farming in newly-settled countries, or acquainted with it only in those countries which abound in pasture, the average size of settlers' holdings is generally supposed to be very large. In Canada it is not very large. A hundred and fifty acres is the most you will hear it put at, and much smaller estimates are made by good judges. The average of productive land in a farm is often a quantity constantly changing. It is common for men to keep on clearing and bringing under tillage fresh ground every year ; so that, when a son comes to be of an age to start upon his own account in life, he may have a farm for himself of 100 acres or so. Not one in fifty farms is rented. Indeed, almost the only case in which a man turns ( landlord ' in our sense of the word — that is to say, participates in the produce of the land without participating in the labour of working it — is when he has grown too old * History of Canada. By J. McMullen. Sampson Low, 1868. 140 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. to farm for himself, and has no son or successor ready to step into his place and manage the land. In such a case, the farmer will sometimes retire, and let the farm for a rent. The evils that have arisen in Lower Canada from the sub- division of farms have not affected the more enterprising and less home-loving population of the Upper Province ; though there, also, the rule of primogeniture in cases of intestacy does not now exist. It was done away with by an important change of the law, which took effect from January 1, 1852 — a change important as showing the direction in which Canadian social movements advance, unimportant as to the producing of any great immediate and practical results. A Canadian correspondent makes these remarks on the present rules of succession in Canada : 6 In default of a will, the owner's real estate in Upper Canada descends to all his children, sons and daughters, share and share alike. The chief inconvenience and greatest objection to this law is the difficulty of making out a title to the property in case any one or more of the children shall not be 21 years of age. Nothing can be done with it by way of sale or mortgage until the youngest child is of age, unless with the aid of Chancery, which is expensive — often, indeed, more costly than the property will bear.' Where the intestate has left a widow she takes half of the real estate. All the informants, who have told me about suc- cession in Upper Canada, agree that subdivision upon the death of an occupier is very rare. This, indeed, is one of the remarkable points of difference between the Upper Province and French Canada, where, as has been said, the people seem willing to undertake the farming of any little plot of ground, however barely it may suffice for the support of life. The sons of the Upper Canadian farmers show no clinging attachment to the homestead : as soon as they are able to work for themselves, they generally acquire a farm UPPER CANADIAN FAUMEBS. 141 of their own, being usually assisted thereto by the father, and, if he dies intestate, the homestead is either sold to a stranger or purchased from the rest of the family by one of its members. Americanised Englishmen are nowhere a stay-at-home people. In Illinois, one is told that the diffi- culty is to get any of the sons to take the farm as his portion ; thus eager are all to go out into the world, and push their way wherever fortune may lead. 'With us,' say the Western men, 'it's the fool of the family that stops at home to step into the old man's shoes ; ' so that Dr. Johnson's saying, about the amount of wits which falls to the lot of the father's successor along with an estate in England, is verified even in America, under very different rules of succession. Nor is the Upper Canadian much less ready to leave his native soil if it can be left with good hope of advantage. From one of the rich farming districts a correspondent writes : ' Almost all our occupiers of farms about here came out without capital. They started in Canadian life by getting allotments of land in the b«sh from the Government on a time-bargain at the price of about one dollar per acre, to be paid by instalments until the farms were fully purchased and became the holders' fee-simple property. In many cases, having cleared their original farms, and made them from mere wild bush into good arable land, they have resold them at a very considerable profit, and gone again into uncleared lots got from the Government at the former rate of purchase. This system of time- bargains gives great facilities to industrious settlers to realize property without capital.' As to the present system for the acquisition of land by new settlers, the recent * Free Grant and Homestead Act' of the Legislature of Ontario, enabling settlers more easily to acquire, has been already mentioned. This enactment does not apply to the Govern- ment lands generally, as does the Homestead Law of the 142 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. United States; but only to certain lands selected for its application. Here is an account of the Act taken from the ' Toronto Globe' of April 22, 1868, which may be worth quoting, not as treating of a measure of any great importance in itself (for measures of this kind succeed each other with such rapidity, as Canada makes more and more efforts to attract immigration, that no single one of them can be viewed as the settled and permanent rule), but as showing the sort of spirit which has lately been guiding such legis- lation. f The Commissioner of Crown lands has issued lists showing the lots open for location in each of the townships within the Free Grant district. There are in most of the townships a large number of broken lots. In some cases the lots contain only two or three dozen acres each. The law forbids the allotment of more than 100 acres to any settler, though the Commissioner permits a man who has taken up a Free Grant lot to buy another lot of 100 acres at 50 cents per acre — subject to the same reservations and conditions as the Free Grant lands, except that the actual residence and the building of the house will not be required. The locatee of a Free Grant lot must be 18 years of age or upwards, and must make an affidavit setting forth that he or she is of the required age ; has not any other Free Grant land ; believes that the land applied for is fit for settlement and cultivation, and not chiefly valuable for mines, minerals, and fine timber; desires the location for actual settlement and not for the use or benefit directly or indirectly of any other person. . . . Having sworn to all that, the locatee must perform settlement duties for five years. He must reside upon the place for that time, clear and put under cultivation two acres every year, and fifteen acres during the five years. During that time he must build a house twenty feet by sixteen. The locatee is CHEAP FARMS FOB SETTLERS. 143 allowed a month to get upon his lot after it is located, and may be absent six months in any year without forfeiting his residence. If he fails in the performance of the settlement, all claim to the lot ceases. The pine trees and all the mines and minerals upon the lots are reserved to the Government, except that the locatee may cut trees for fencing, building, and fuel, and may also cut and sell all pine trees that require to be removed in the process of clearing — though in the latter case tjie trees shall be subject to the timber dues payable by lumbermen. After the patent issues, all the trees become the property of the patentee. . . . Such is the Free Grant law. Our view that it should have been made more liberal is well known.' A few months later, the same paper wrote, * We are glad to learn that the plan of Free Grants in this province, though far less liberal than it ought to have been, is likely to have considerable success. It is mentioned ' (in some Canadian Government Returns pub- lished in the summer of 1868), f that the Assistant-Com- missioner of Crown Lands for Ontario has sometimes had as many as 300 applications in a single day.' A private correspondent — writing from Upper Canada — thus comments upon this and another recent Act : ( Our Government has not in former years offered such induce- ments to immigrants as the interests of the country de- manded. The Act of the Ontario Legislature, though con- ceived in a narrow spirit, will be an improvement on the old system. There are reservations of minerals and timber which disfigure the Free Grant system, but they will scarcely be permanent ; nor will they be practically opera- tive now in the majority of cases. In most cases the settler will do from choice a great deal more to the land than he is required to do by Government. But the law scarcely deserves its name of a " Homestead Law," being limited to the settlers on certain free grants. Our Provincial Cabinet 144 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. is composed of men of narrow views, and the legislation, though generally in the right direction, has been on narrow principles, the so-called Homestead Act being a fair sample of it. The " Mining Act " of the Ontario Legislature is the worst specimen of folly perpetrated, being simply equivalent to warning off capital from our mining regions. But as yet it has not been put in force, and probably will not be — next session of the Provincial Parliament will witness its repeal or modification. ' The* gold-fields of Upper Canada have been making a great stir in the country of late. To pass from farmers to farm-labourers the position of the latter in Upper Canada, as in the new countries generally, differs most from the position of the same class in England in these two particulars; first, that there is much less hired labour used in the colonial farming; and, secondly, that the few labourers who are hired are better paid, better fed, and far more likely to rise in the world, than is the corresponding class among us. The farmers who get on best in Upper Canada are those who have families growing up, with whose help they can work the land ; and the number who keep labourers on hire for any considerable term is small. Those few who thus hire, not for any particular job, but for a prolonged engagement, usually pay from twelve to sixteen dollars {i.e. if the dollar be taken at 45. 2d., from 21. 10s. to 3/. 10s.) a month, and supply board and lodging besides, giving their men three sub- stantial meals a day. But it would be a very rare case in which a farmer kept more than one man thus re- gularly employed, and the engagement, even then, would be probably for not more than eight months. In the dead of a Canadian winter, so little can be done out of doors that there is small need of help for the farmer. In time of haymaking or harvest, farmers generally look out for one or CANADIAN FAEM-LAB0U11EBS. 145 two labourers, who would then, when their services are most in demand, get as much as seventy-five cents, a dollar, or even a dollar and a half, a day, beside their board. The system of holding ' bees ' to help each other enables the Canadian farmer to get on with less hired labour than would be otherwise necessary. If, for instance, he has a house or barn to build, wood to chop, or stumps to get out of the ground, he calls together his neighbours to a ( bee,' gets them to work for him, and gives them a feast in return ; and they will in like manner call upon him in their own day of need. On the whole, the life of a Canadian agriculturist is such as may claim to be ranked among the happiest — a life of hard, healthful, hopeful, and useful toil — a life, unless the man have altogether hidden himself among the far backwoods, cheered by the friendly help and encouragement of neighbours, who, not being widely separated from him by impassable social barriers, freely admit him to be one of themselves, and who have no cause to dread his competi- tion, but rather have reason to rejoice at seeing him and all their fellow-workers round about succeed in making the wilderness fruitful, pleasanter to live in for themselves, more attractive to settlers from elsewhere, and of increasing marketable value from day to day. Of the richer classes of Canada, it is well known that a set of people more capable of enjoying themselves does not exist. Yet few mere tourists have a chance of seeing tbem at their gayest. When the cold is most keen and the wind cuts like a knife ; when the great Canadian river is turned into a mass of joined icebergs, and is no longer an easy highway from the lakes to the ocean ; when the Grand Trunk Railway, that other highway of Canada, is blocked with snow, and its trains are breaking down with even more than their average regularity ; when to try to reach Canada means to be stuck half way, to be run into a snowdrift, to be bumped about, L 146 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. to be frozen and starved — if not, to be collided with, to have rails breaking under you, to be rolled down an embankment, and roasted alive at its foot — still to be, in divers ways, horribly tortured ; when, in fact, nobody with the least self- respect will try to pass over to them, then Canadians make merry ; then American freedom from social restraints, joined to English bodily hardihood and vigour, see what they can both do together to beguile the situation. In every large town the temple of jollity is the Skating-rink. In summer, this building looks merely an immense wooden shed, very dreary and uninviting. But in winter, when it is floored with smooth ice, and its walls are hung with flags and otherwise cunningly decorated ; when it is brilliantly lit up at night and filled with bright faces and gay dresses, the shed is transformed and becomes a fairy palace. However deep the snow may have fallen or drifted outside, there is good skating at all times within ; and in the evenings the Kink is the scene of the most picturesque Canadian festivities. Montreal people tell you, that, when you have seen a fancy ball in their Rink, you may at any moment die in content- ment. In Canada, skating is more than a mere pastime ; it is a serious business, one of the trials of life, one of the tests of personal merit, and offers one of the most conspicuous fields for the winning of honour and renown. Thus Cana- dians will say of some belle, whose claims to distinction they wish to uphold, ' She may not be as pretty as A , nor as pleasing in manner as B , but her skating is perfect!' Or of some beau : ( He isn't handsome, and he isn't agree- able ; but you should just see him valse upon skates ! ' Besides skating and an extraordinary amount of dancing, the sleigh and i toboggin ' play a great part in the amuse- ments of a Canadian winter. Boston is called the head- quarters of sleighing for the whole of the continent; but, though the equipages may not be in such throngs, or so grand, CANADIAN AMUSEMENTS. 147 anywhere in Canada, as on the famed ( Brighton Road ' of Bostonians on a keen and clear winter afternoon, still sleighing in Canada is not only the chief means of locomotion for half of the year, but the foremost among occasions for sociability, the most successful of match-makers, the most characteristic amusement of the country. Nothing in a Canadian winter can roll upon wheels ; everything glides upon runners to the music of tinkling bells. And then is the time of i muffins.' The nature of a muffin may be pre- sumed to be known in the mother country, whose gallant sons are continually profiting by this colonial institution ; so perhaps it need hardly be explained, that when a man, availing himself of the custom of the country, has secured a young lady for the season, to share with him his sleigh- driving and other of the national amusements, in Canadian phrase she is called his ' muffin.' Her status is a sort of temporary wifehood, limited, of course, by many obvious re- strictions, but resembling wifehood in this, that, though a close and continuous relationship, it has nothing in it which shocks, and much in it which allures, the Canadian mind. Among the British commodities exported to our colonies, ( la pruderie Anglaise ' does not find a place. The origin of the term { muffin ' seems to be wrapped in obscurity : Cana- dians will not address themselves in earnest to its investiga- tion, and no more serious suggestion can be got from them, than that the things may have been so called, ( because fellows are always burning their fingers with them.' Of the sport of e toboggining ' one of the most curious points is the greatness of its celebrity in Canada contrasted with the almost absolute ignorance of its name beyond the frontier. i A toboggin,' says a late work upon Canada by a Canadian, ' is a light Indian sleigh made of very thin wood, curled over in front and used chiefly by pleasure parties in sliding down hill-sides covered with crusted but lightly packed L 2 148 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. able in Russia ; but in the Union, toboggining is not recog- nised among the amusements of adults, except in parts of the north-eastern States (as, for instance, New Hampshire), quite close to the boundary of Canada. An amusement somewhat similar, however, is much cultivated on all steeply-inclined streets in the towns of the northern States by little boys — — that prone on trucks with head up-propped, Lazy and curious, stare irreverent at you, as they shoot past, nearly knocking you down, and rapidly sliding away on their small sleighs over the snow. To these youths the sport is known by the name of ' coast- ing ; ' and as their little trucks in general hold only one boy apiece, it may be presumed that swiftness of motion, and not sociability, is the charm of the pastime. In Canada a toboggin is made to hold at least two persons, and as in the practice of the sport these two persons are usually of dif- ferent sexes, some light is thus thrown upon the great esteem in which it is held by Canadians. The sitter in the back seat of the toboggin steers with his hand. Any want of care or skill on his part is pretty sure to lead to an upset. However, as the sleigh is light, and the selected snow-bank probably not very hard, such upsets are only occasions for the more merriment, and sometimes do good service by calling forth the talent of some clever caricaturist. The cones of ice and snow which, fed by the constant spray- showers, grow up at the foot of the Falls of Montmorenci, make a famous toboggin ground for Quebec. The 'larger of these cones sometimes becomes nearly a hundred feet high; but there is a smaller, which all, except the most venturesome, prefer for toboggining. After they have toiled up to the top, they entrust themselves to their minia- ture sleigh and slide down at full speed, gaining a velocity TOBOGGINING. 140 which sometimes carries them, it is said, half a mile or more over the level ice surrounding the cone. Of the social effects of such a national pastime, it is almost needless to speak. What could be more likely to break through form- ality, to make the acquaintance between two persons ripen into the most genial sympathy, than their facing in common the toils and the dangers of the toboggin — the headlong rush downward, with its giddy excitement, the frequent upset and precipitation of both voyagers together down into the snow ? When brought under this treatment, it is said, that the shyest and most intractable young men have been known to turn matrimonial within a week ; so bracing a tonic to the nerves is this sport, and so stimulant to the healthful action of the heart. This may redeem the amusement from utter puerility ; but it must still be a question for the philoso- pher, why it should flourish among the best society of Canada, while it is rejected by all, except the very little street boys, in the States. Is there, then, indeed, something in the petty politics of a dependency which panders to a fri- volity in amusements quite opposed to the genius of an inde- pendent and mighty republic ? This theory of the connec- tion between frivolous amusements and small politics can at all events claim the support of very eloquent authorities. * Give us a Parliament capable of being the organ of national aspiration and effort,' writes Mr. Goldwin Smith of our English Derby Day — i let great questions be once more handled in earnest by great men ; let our political chiefs once more display the qualities which touch a nation's heart ; and the soul of England will soon cease to be absorbed by a horse race.' And thus, just as all we want, it would seem, is, that our politics should be established on a sound radical basis, in order that, absorbed in great questions, we should have no time for the levities of horse racing, similarly Canada, if she would but turn republican, might perhaps no longer see 150 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. adult young men and marriageable young women toiling up a snow-mountain solely for the purpose of rolling down it again. Of the pleasures which Canada has for the sportsman — the deer shooting, duck shooting, snipe shooting, salmon fishing and the like — fuller accounts than could be given here are elsewhere to be found. The Canadian population is much more deeply imbued with sporting tastes than the American, in this, as in all other respects, being a sort of cross between the English and American peoples. Whatever sport needs severe bodily exertion or a steady endurance of hardships, is little to the taste of Americans ; but in Canada even the ladies often join the sporting expeditions into the woods, trust themselves boldly to Indian canoes upon the rivers and lakes, and enjoy all the wild roughness of a ( camping out • life. The f black fly,' the pest of Canadian woods in the summer, is the worst enemy met with in such expeditions. Direful stories are told by adventurous ladies, how, after one night of exposure to his attacks, they have risen scarcely recognisable to each other. Such a life of hardship would be poor sport for the more fragile and delicate American ladies ; but the Canadians can bear a good deal, when there is a chance of novel and lively adventures in pleasant society. There is said to have been a great falling off in the stock of game within the last ten or twelve years in the more acces- sible parts of British America. In New Brunswick, for instance, though a few years ago there was plenty of moose and of salmon, now the complaint is that they are almost extinct. The laws for their preservation, very good in themselves, are allowed to remain a dead letter. It is said, on good authority, that Newfoundland is now the best place for deer and grouse, the rivers of Labrador for salmon, the great lakes for ducks and also (though these are not plenty) for snipe and for cocks. Prairie fowl are being driven CANADIAN SPORT. 151 steadily westward, and you have to go very far to get many. The Island of Anticosti, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which, a few years ago, being nearly uninhabited, was a heaven for sportsmen, has been made into a fishing station and spoiled. The summer excursions most in fashion among those Canadians who have no taste for the wilds or for sport, are trips down the St. Lawrence to the watering-places that lie on its banks, far below the narrows of Quebec. The steamer which plies between Quebec and the Saguenay (of which river more will hereafter be said) calls at all of these places. First comes Murray Bay, on the north side of the St. Law- rence, about eighty miles down stream from Quebec ; then Riviere du Loup and Cacouna on the south side, about 114 and 120 miles respectively from Quebec ; and lastly, nearly opposite to Cacouna, is Tadousac, just beyond the mouth of the Saguenay, where it empties its dark waters into the St. Lawrence. The trip to these places, without taking into account the Saguenay exploration, which is generally tacked on at its end, is worthy of having a few days given to it. Indeed, if the tourist has had no other opportunity of seeing the Lower St. Lawrence, this trip is de rigueur ; for he must not lose the only chance which even North America can give of sailing for hours and hours on a river from ten to twenty miles broad. As Canadian scenery had better be dealt with by itself, it may be well here to say a few words on other points connected with the trip. It is possible to make it in one day. A steamer sails early from Quebec so as to get to Tadousac before dark. On board, if it be fine summer weather, is a great gathering of Canadian and American tourists, one of the most mixed assemblages into which you are likely to fall anywhere on the continent. If you have not all the materials under your eye for comparing Americans and Canadians, French and English Canadians, English-Canadians and English, you are unlucky. The 152 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. mixture certainly makes a livelier company than is often to be found met together on the Rhine, or the Elbe, or on the Swiss lakes. There is more talk among the fellow-ex- cursionists, and especially more of those two widely separated kinds of discourse, flirtations and political controversies. But the great common features of excursions on lake cr on river are as easily traceable as anywhere. Nobody seems ever to look at the scenery (which, indeed, does not deserve a great deal of notice), and everybody shows that impatient and combative eagerness about eating and drinking, which can only be seen among excursionists by water, and, still further to limit the sphere of the phenomenon, among ex- cursionists by very smooth w r ater. As to the flirting, what- ever you may think of this mode of passing the time on the part of the ladies, you cannot be hard on the men ; for, in such a mixed gathering as this in America, the tourist's only perplexity about the display of female beauty is, to which race should the palm be awarded — so keen is the competition among all. The style of beauty which the conditions of life in North America, climatic or other, have produced, is too widely known to need any description. Whatever may be thought of the action of those conditions on the physique of men, they will generally be allowed to have as yet dealt not unmercifully with the ladies, giving a gain in beauty as a set-off against a loss in bodily strength. So far as the refining process has yet gone in America, it has simply showm how much the English and German types of woman- hood, on which it has acted, needed it to bring them nearer perfection. But, though this refining process may have done winders in giving grace and delicacy to the American figure and caste of features, and even have made some subtle, effective changes in the eye, giving it a new clearness or brightness, or something new in its shape 01 its pencilling, the praises which most travellers shower upon American CANADIAN WATERING-PLACES. 153 beauty, as seen throughout all ranks and conditions of American life, are perhaps considered to be due too exclu- sively to such merely physical refinements. The look of assured and confident self-respect, which everybody has in a country of social equality ; the pride of sex, which every woman has in a country where more than elsewhere her sex is treated with honour ; these assist the refining process in keeping American womanhood free from all that is vulgar and coarse in personal appearance, and in causing the American woman of any social position to have the air and the bearing that mark the well-born of other lands. Nor can the wealth of the people, together with the freedom with which it is spent on their immediate gratification by all, and especially by females, resulting as it does in making the women of America the most richly and carefully dressed in the world, fail to aid likewise in causing the native-born American woman to look to be rightfully called what she always is called, whatever her position, a ' lady.' With regard to these points of beauty, the Canadian woman, as might be expected, is the Englishwoman in process of trans- formation into an American. There are fewer female faces and figures in Canada than among us that are not grace- ful nor pretty ; but, in this matter of looks, the nationalities which have been named may perhaps be thus classed in order of merit — Americans, English-Canadians, French- Canadians, and English. It is a close contest, no doubt, between the two races of Canada. The charms of the French have won a celebrity, and the old song that says — Nous aimons la Canadienne, Pour ses beaux yeux doux, expresses a very natural feeling on the part of the poet ; but, whether from prejudice of race or fair judgment, the above classification, it may be asserted, is such as is generally made by Englishmen called upon to pronounce an opinion. 154 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. As to the talking of politics on board the steamer, in this the French have it all their own way. Rouge and Bleu fight it out against each other with all the action, and warmth, and freedom from self-consciousness of European Frenchmen. The American tourists are the quietest; in Canada they are apt to be taken up with surveying the nakedness of the land in a half-cynical, half-patronizing way, not unlike that in which the Englishman is sometimes said to survey the lands of the foreigner. Occasionally speculations may be heard among them as to how much better an arrangement it would have been, if Providence had put the St. Lawrence in the middle of the States. If New York only stood in its glory, where Quebec now cumbers the ground ! Then the world would have one day seen that grandest of sights, its mightiest stream white with the sails of its most magnifi- cent trade. As it is, a real big thing of a river has been woefully, wickedly wasted. As to the eating and drinking on board, these, indeed, seem to have an equal interest for all sexes and races alike. The early hour at which the boat starts from Quebec makes almost every passenger breakfast on board. This meal has some curious incidents, that may not be unworthy of record. Very soon after embarkation, there is an ominous concentration of passengers on the break- fasting saloon. He who falls into the stream setting thither will find that, though as yet preparations for a meal may be only very faintly hinted at, on nearly all of the chairs, ranged in two long lines against the saloon panellings, passengers have already taken their seats. There is on their faces a stern resolve to hold their ground against all comers ; there is a fixedness in their gaze upon the repast being set out on the table between them, that stamp the scene upon the memory. There sat the two long lines against the walls Intentique ora tenebant, silent and motionless in their array. At length the pre- CANADIAN WATERING-PLAGES. 155 parations became complete. Then a low, quick cry of ' They're off!' arose from some more experienced neighbours, to warn the unsuspecting tourist, and instantly, in the twink- ling of an eye, he was sitting alone against the wall. An official had signalled that breakfast was ready. With one grand simultaneous rush, the two long lines in unbroken array — the whole present company, in fact, chairs and all — had dashed in upon the table. A more brilliantly executed movement is not to be seen anywhere in the world. And so the thing has become famous. English officers, of long sport- ing experiences, and who know Canada well, will tell you that the very best starts at Epsom are the merest straggling failures compared with the wild instantaneous dash of hungry Canadians, in a Saguenay steamer, upon the meal which is spread out before them. Life at the watering places which the steamer visits ap- pears to be a dull form of recreation. In the evenings, Canadians are always ready to pass their time gaily in danc- ing ; but the days must hang heavy on hand. If you ask the men what they do at these places, they tell you that they play billiards ; and if, pushing your enquiries further, you ask what they do after that, they tell you that they play more billiards. The country around the little settlements is not very inviting for drives or rides. At the back of Riviere du Loup there is a pretty waterfall— about the only attractive pic-nic ground at any of these resorts of which one hears mention. Murray Bay is a sweet, quiet little spot surrounded by wooded hills, but not quite the place for a long sojourn. Tadousac has a small strand that looks excellently fitted for bathing ; and both it and Murray Bay have an advantage in being on the north side of the river, so that the south winds are cooled for them by having crossed the great breadth of water. To Tadousac, also, belongs a historic interest of its own. Here was a French settlement 156 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. placed, with the St. Lawrence guarding its front and the Saguenay on its right, before Montreal and Quebec had been occupied ; and ' it is asserted,' says a Canadian guide- book, i that upon this spot stood the first stone-and-mortar building ever erected on the continent of North America — the home of Father Marquette, who subsequently explored the waters of the Mississippi.' The same authority says of these watering places, ( Are you inclined for French gaiety and killing toilettes ? Steer for Cacouna. Do you prefer the grand monde, the fashionable place par excellence ? Then try Tadousac.' At the latter place the grand monde hides itself wonderfully well. A heavy, sandy road takes you up from a snug little haven, through hills of bare rock, to a settlement of small detached cottages and a larger house, an hotel, all of them plank-built and white-painted, after the manner of the country. But any search for the grand monde will be fruitless, nor need he who visits Tadou- sac much fear being disturbed by the giddy whirl of fashionable life. With regard to the * killing toilettes ' of Cacouna, tourists have a chance of experiencing their deadly effects without even troubling themselves to land from the steamer. On its arrival at the wharf, it is met by the popu- lation of the place. There they stand, alongside, fixing melancholy eyes on the passers-by, deeply interested in the movements of the steamboat, the great instrument of escape from this fascinating abode of ' French gaiety.' As the paddles turn again, and you leave them with no living object to look at, save the great white porpoises that are rolling and tumbling in the river, your heart must be stony indeed, if you do not pity their plight. So far down as this point, ( river' seems hardly a fit name for the St. Lawrence. It is twenty miles broad ; its water is quite salt, and its tide rises at the springs some fifteen or eighteen feet. Indeed, the tide affects the St. Lawrence as far as half-way between Quebec CANADIAN WATEBJNG-PLACES. 157 and Montreal. At Three Rivers, 432 miles above the place where the river is generally considered to end and the gulf to begin, the tide is easily perceptible ; and at this point, where the mouth is conventionally fixed, the stream has a width nearly five times as great as at Cacouna, being some ninety-six miles from shore to shore. Before trying to sketch a few particular scenes in Canada, it will not perhaps be a wholly unpardonable wandering from the subject of this chapter to make some general remarks on the scenery of North America. The American writer who should preface short sketches of the Falls of Clyde and the prospect from Richmond Hill by endeavouring to give a bird's-eye view of the characteristics of European scenery, would indeed seem to us to have gone out of his way — if not, out of his wits. But the case is very far from being parallel. The homogeneity of its people does not more distinguish North America from our continent, than does the homogeneity of its scenery. In running through pretty nearly the whole of the at all settled parts of North America, it may be doubted whether you pass through so much variety of scenery as you could find in Great Britain alone. Everything is on so gigantic a scale, that even America has not room for many such things. The next chapter will tell of a western journey six hundred miles long over prairie of almost absolute sameness. It is nothing strange in the south to run through two or three hundred miles of forest as nearly as possible unbroken, and as nearly as possible uniform in character. The monotony of the scenery on the Mississippi becomes almost maddening. Going down from St. Louis to Vicksburgh, over and over again, when the steamer is stopping, and the current of the stream is hardly perceptible, one may hear natives of the adjoining States disputing together which bank they are touching. 158 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. ' The Arkansas shore, isn't it ? ' ' No, it's Mississippi : we're on the left bank.' ' I tell you, it's Arkansas. The river is running this way.* ' I tell you, it's Mississippi. The river is running that way.' Downward and downward, for hundreds of miles, the same drear, muddy river, the same drear, muddy banks, topped with the same fringe of drear, sombre woods. The landing-places are hardly distinguishable one from another, and the very negroes that lounge upon them look all uniformly and monotonously hideous. So strong is the spell of this sameness, that follows you onward and onward, with no escape opening from it to right or to left, that it over- powers with a sort of fascination. You seem lulled to sleep out of the world of wakefulness and change — to be doomed, for your sins, to dream on for ever of floating down a dead, ghostly river, moving silent and slow, and dismal in hue, between unbroken ranges of dead, ghostly woods. Nor is this want of variety confined wholly to the prairie and forest and forest-fringed river. Even the cultivated lands of America, as compared with those of the old countries, have a sort of uniformity of their own. The small farms on the thin and hilly soil of New England may seem sufficiently to differ from the large and level farms on the rich deep plain of Illinois, and both of these, in turn, to differ from the wide plantations that have been cleared among the woods of Alabama. But, to an eye used to the country scenes of England, all these three have a sort of likeness to each other. They have all the look of having been made — newly made — made by much skill and labour, and not of having grown up, as it were, without effort and of themselves, through long centuries of gradual development. They are all some- what hard and unlovely. That saying of Varro, f Divine Providence made the country ; but human art the town ' AMERICAN SCENERY. 159 loses half its force in America, for there the country, where it is not utterly gloomy and savage, looks almost as artificial as the town. In the most flourishing regions of America you must keep your mind active; you must think how much of human good, of noble and successful labour, there is represented in the scene, if the landscape is to please. Become a mere passive recipient of impressions, and the sights around will have an influence to hurt and depress, rather than to cheer and soothe. Of soft, rural beauty, with a sleepy air of quiet and comfort about it, America has got nothing. No new country can have it. The tender and gentle kindliness into which nature has been subdued by whole ages of ministry to her, patient and sympathetic ministry, with which she becomes a fellow- worker for beauty — the long succession of generations that have toiled at softening and domesticating her hardness and wildness — these have given us of the old lands a scenery that is impossible in the new. Here nature and men have been children together ; both have been broken in together by an equally gradual education to the state of artificiality that is now reached. It would seem as if we had hence caught more of sympathy with each other, and grown into working together in kindlier fellowship to more beautiful results. But, in America, man and nature do not seem thus in harmony one with another. Look at those scientifically squared farms, those houses planned on the latest rules dictated by economy and convenience, those trim rows of poplars and exactly ordered orchards, in some Western State on the edge of untouched prairie or forest — could anybody compare them for beauty with the variously shaped fields, the quaintly built farm-houses, and the great spreading trees of some English rural scene, which seem to have shaped and placed themselves rather 160 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. by chance than by design — to have grown up, as they are, according to some inner law of beauty of their own, and not at the cold compulsion of man? In the one case, man trained to a highly artificial state has been suddenly let loose ao-ainst nature in all its wildness; and the first visible results have been incongruous and unbeautiful. In the other, man and nature have been brought up in close communion, and seem to have both toiled on, hand in hand, upon one common labour of love. Of course it is the weakest sentimentalism, but it is true, that there is something almost shocking to old-world ideas in seeing the prairie sod turned, for the very first time since things began, by the ruthless violence of steam. What would the i Northern farmer ' have said to this — this rape of the virgin prairie, that should have been gently wooed and won — he, who could not bear to think how his own fields, however long broken-in to the service of man, might one day be torn and tortured by the pitiless ' kittle o' steam ? ' Then, in the comparison of American scenery with English, too much stress can hardly be laid on one point, which has indeed been pretty often urged in our favour — how much we owe to our climate, with its good store of ivies and mosses and lichens — a climate that knows how to tone down the vulgar obtrusiveness of staring, inharmonious colours, and can mellow red-brick walls and red- tiled roofsinto dim, rich, quiet warmth. In America, the bright white painting of the plank-built farm-house does violence to a country scene, and the building itself, looking smart and new and temporary, has none of those calmly soothing influences that flow from what is old, and solid, and permanent. Again, it is no new saying, that few Americans have a true love of inanimate nature, and that, hence, there is less care taken to call forth and foster its beauties among them, and whatever care may be taken is more misapplied, than among Europeans generally. Thus, there is nothing AMERICAN SCENERY. 161 which the American remarks with more wonder among our people, and especially in our poorer classes, than their genuine love of flowers. ( How prettily they garden their little plots of ground ! how tastefully they train creeping-plants over their cottages ! how gay they make their windows with boxes of flowers ! ' many an American will say about our working- classes, as if glad to have hit upon this one oasis in what he would consider the desert of their degradation. And cer- tainly you may go from Labrador to Texas without seeing anywhere so careful and tasteful a tendance of flowers as is to be seen around many a row of labourers' cottages in many a county of England. Again, when Americans do take pains to aid Nature in showing off her beauties, their efforts would seem to our English ideas to be often directed to ill-chosen ends. There is one beautiful park in America, a new one, lately made at Baltimore, to which perhaps about the next in beauty is the famous old Common of Boston. But American taste, despising both of these, wearies you to death with its praises of Central Park at New York ; which, whatever it may be in half a century or so, has as yet hardly anything of beauty at all. It looks simply an enormous likeness of the new pleasure-grounds round some suburban villa, all ponds and rockeries and urns and terraces, with cascades and bridges and balustrades thrown in wher- ever they are most out of place — and with poor Nature so pitch-forked out of it, that even she cannot steal back according to her wont. The very things, which Americans praise this park for, show the radical difference of their ideas from ours : they tell you, what a wonderful number of miles you can drive in it, without ever passing over the same ground twice : what an extraordinary number of bridges it has, so that no two roads cross on the same level — with various other facts, or fictions, meant to prove the park to be what it certainly is, a most unquestionable M 102 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. ' miracle of design ' : then they ask, most cruelly, how many miles of drive there are in Hyde Park, and how many bridges in Kensington Gardens. This want of feeling for the beauties of inanimate nature, often charged upon Americans, is generally illustrated from the few American writings well known to our people. It is shown how dead are even the American poets to such a feeling, at least when they are treating of American subjects — how Longfellow, when he is choosing scenes for descrip- tion, flies off to the old European towns and the Rhine- land — how Bryant, when he looks round him on prairie and forest, is filled only with gloom, with thoughts of death, and of races of men passed away — how Whittier, almost alone, has infused a true genial sympathy with them into pictures of American scenes. Among the reasons that have been given to explain the deficiency, hardly enough of weight has been assigned to the particular phases of inanimate nature which offer themselves to the sight of Americans. In America, where Nature has been tamed and bent to the uses of man, she lacks the rich delicious softness, to which we are used here : where she has been left untouched, she is wild and inhuman, rather repulsive than romantic. To such wide and general remarks as these, there must of course be many exceptions. For example, there are scenes in America which almost beat us in our own proper styles — as, for richness and the look of old and quiet comfort, some parts of Kentucky ; for tasteful aid lent to nature, and for landscape made the most of, certain spots among the suburbs of Boston ; for the blending of waters and woods and moun- tains, with a kind of subtle sympathy for each other, into a scene that is most exquisitely romantic, Lake George, in the State of New York. But the general character of American landscape is what has been sketched. This is what Emerson says of it : * My friends asked many questions about AMERICAN SCENERY. 163 American landscape, forests, houses. It is not easy to answer these queries well. There, I thought, in America, lies nature sleeping, over-growing, almost conscious, too much by half for man in the picture, and so giving a certain tristesse, like the rank vegetation of swamps and forests seen at night, steeped in dews and rains, which it loves ; and on it man seems not able to make much impression. There, in that great sloven continent, in high Alleghany pastures, in the sea-wide sky-skirted prairie, still sleeps and murmurs and hides the great mother, long since driven away from the trim hedgerows and over-cultivated garden of England.' Not ( driven away ' — but reclaimed from her shyness, and domesticated ; and, for the matter of ' trim hedgerows ' and ( over-cultivation,' those squared fields, squared houses, and regularly-ordered trees of Illinois, have ten times more of the constrained look of artificiality than anything wherewith we sin against nature's freedom. Mr. Emerson does not indeed pronounce at all in his happiest vein on questions that concern the beauties of nature, as his judgment upon Scott : * What did Walter Scott write without stint ? a rhymed traveller's guide to Scotland' sufficiently shows. But about the < tristessej and in that wonderfully happy epithet 1 sloven ' applied to the genius of American scenery, Mr. Emerson writes with his characteristic power. To consider the moral influences of such a scenery would lead this digression beyond all bounds ; but a few re- marks on the subject may perhaps be allowable. The cruel Puritanism of New England may well have been fostered by the scenes among which it existed* All the superstitions, which rooted themselves most strongly upon that soil, were gloomy, ungenial, morbid superstitions. The belief in witchcraft was, as is well known, strangely rife, notwithstanding the New Englanders' boast of their care for education from their very outset, and it was nothing M 2 164 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. uncommon for people to meet the Evil One himself in the dark woods. The lighter and more sportive beliefs in the supernatural, that could grow up and flourish among English country-folk, never took much hold upon the Yankee mind, ' our superstitions/ says Whittier, ( being mostly of a sterner and less poetical kind.' f The Irish Presbyterians who settled in New Hampshire about the year 1720,' he continues, ' brought with them, among other strange matters, potatoes and fairies.' That pretty playful childishness of a belief in little people dancing by moonlight on the green, had to be brought from abroad into this stern land, and, even then, could not be kept alive there. The potatoes lived, the poor fairies died out, * after lingering a few years in a very melancholy and disconsolate way, looking regret- fully to their green turf dances, moonlight revels, and cheer- ful nestling around the shealing fires of Ireland.' Indeed, this was not the land for them ; it had not the rich parklike scenes, the smooth and tender sward, canopied here and there by some great spreading oak, for them to dance under of summer nights ; but only the thick dismal forest, most uncongenial for such joyous elves. They were not killed by any rationalism, such as would have struck at the root of superstitions in general, for New England was a hotbed of superstitions, but by the peculiar gloomy character given to those superstitions by the peculiar conditions under which they had grown up. ' As among the Alps,' says Mr. Lecky, using a metaphor of extraordinary beauty, 'the same shower falls as rain in the sunny valleys, and as snow among the lofty peaks, so the same intellectual conceptions which in one moral latitude take the form of nymphs or fairies, or sportive legends, appear in another as demons or appalling apparitions.' And may not the influence of scenery have been not least among the conditions that gave its individuality to American superstition ? AMERICAN SCENERY. 165 Again — it may be fanciful to lay much stress upon it — but is there not something significant in the fact, that the spots in which, more than elsewhere, Americans seem to have so sympathised with the forces of nature in their country, as to have called up scenes of beauty, are the cemeteries ? Is not this a token that there is in the American heart a consciousness that the genius of the scenery of their land is most in harmony with sadness, that the voice of nature is there most powerfully impressive when it is attuned to solemn and mournful strains ? There is no spot of more wonderful and touching beauty in the whole continent than the cemetery at Savannah. At Charleston, at Wilmington, at Boston, the sweetest scenes that the stranger visits are given up to the dead ; and at many other American towns the dead have likewise had the ground allotted to them more carefully and successfully adorned than have any of the living. The greater part of what has been said about the sameness and the joylessness of the American scenery will apply also to the Canadian. Yet Canada is, beyond all doubt, among the parts of the continent that have most of variety and of pleasure for the eye. In a cursory glance at its cities, notice has been taken of the marked individuality of each ; and remark has also been made upon the striking differences between the country districts held by French settlers and those held by English. But, even in Canada, and what would be called the more settled parts of Canada, you pass through an intolerable amount of scenery that is mere dreariness — woods, woods, woods, — dark, dismal woods, woods not beautiful at any time, most wearisome in their long continuance. In Canada the trees, of which these end- less forests are made up, seem more uniformly of what is called the ' fastigiated ' kind, than in the Northern or Central States, — tall, straight, dark-foliaged trees,; — pines, firs, hem- 166 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. locks, and the like. It must often happen to the traveller, who travels only the more frequented routes, when he sees great rafts made out of huge blocks of timber floating down the Canadian rivers, to wonder what part of the country- produces trees so much larger than any to be seen along his way. Near the thoroughfares of Canadian travel, hardly any trees of great bulk remain. And so travellers are often disappointed, having come out from England with expecta- tions of a scenery in this and other respects altogether dif- ferent from what they find. * Your people in England always say to ours,' a Canadian will tell you, ( that our great lakes must be so beautiful ! that our forest-trees must be so grand ! Now our great lakes have in general no beauty at all ; and we never see any forest-trees here half as imposing as your English oaks and elms.' The fact is, that, for the very large timber, the lumber- men have now to go deep into the country, and far out of the common way. Along the travelled routes, you see woods out of which all the finest trees have been long ago cut. And even where you do see trees of large girth in Canada, they have seldom had such room to spread, and such free air round about them, as would have enabled them to develop into objects magnificent in themselves. On the Ottawa, for instance, you may often observe how some one tree in the thick forest, having somehow been endowed with a more hardy vitality than its puny and half-smothered fellows, has forced its way right through their competing branches, got its head well into the clear open daylight, and so vigorously prospered as to have grown to immense stout- ness of trunk ; but even it is pretty sure to bear marks of the hard struggle undergone, and to have had its branches and offshoots on some side or other, at least checked and hindered in their development, if not crushed and blackened into utter deadness. Whatever charm Canadian woods may CANADIAN SCENEBY. 167 have, Canada is not the place to see the beauty of fine single trees. To go in amongst, Canadian woods are poor in comparison with the New Forest ; but, when the eye ranges over a great tract of them, often they are indeed most beautiful ; as, for example, where they rise and fall over hill-sides of undulating ground, are interspersed with grey boulders and sharp points of jutting rock, and are set off by contrast with waters brightly glimmering at their foot. Such are the woods along much of the Ottawa's course, picturesque and lovely at any time, magnificent when kindled with the colouring of an American autumn. Scenery like this will not easily pall upon the eye ; but to travel miles after miles with your view narrowly closed upon either side by flat, unrelieved, unbroken woods of ungainly and half-developed trees, is a thing far more wearying to the sight than even a journey over the bare wilderness of the prairie. Then, whenever the continuousness of thick woods is broken, it is apt to give place to something not more cheerful. Here you come into the clearing made by some recent fire, where the crowd of living and struggling trees has been burned into a few bare blackened poles, standing in their gaunt unsightliness, the ghosts of their former selves, with other blackened logs and branches lying strewn over the scorched ground. Again, you plunge into the forest, and see it as it makes itself, without the ordering hand of man — now dense and now thin — trees of different kinds not generally blended together in intermixture, but standing apart, as nature has sorted them, and as, in the great struggle for existence, each kind, ousted from elsewhere, has been forced into the station best fitted for its support — trees of all ages fighting together for bare life — some vigorous and freshly green and feathered down to the very ground — some weakly and faded, and only flinging out here and there ragged and ill-balanced branches— some, that are mere dead 168 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. corpses, and have fallen aslant out of their places, bruising and breaking the living — some that, with their lower limbs all torn and maimed, have yet stretched up out of the throng, and seem as if straining all the life within them to peer over the heads of their fellows and catch eager glimpses how the fire, their deadliest enemy, is spreading havoc nearer and nearer.* Again, you are once more in open ground, lately cleared by some settler, who has ploughed and sown among the tree stumps, those broken columns of the forest ruin, fenced in his clearing with the rude zigzag wall of logs, the universal ' snake -fence ' of the country, built up his log-hut in the midst, and set himself to that task, which takes half the lifetime of a man to carry out, the turning of forest- land into a farm. After many hours of such a journey, and after many days of similar journeyings, the traveller will not find himself thinking less fondly of the more smiling landscape at home. In Lower Canada, chief among the famed scenes, to which the stranger is told to go, is the River Saguenay. The way thither from Quebec leads down the St. Lawrence past those watering-places which have been mentioned. Up to the mouth of the Saguenay, the trip shows nothing very striking save the grand breadth and volume of the St. Lawrence itself. The shores are generally low, especially upon the south side of the river, and covered with not very well-grown nor imposing forests. Sometimes a row of neat and bright * The extent to which conflagrations rage in the Canadian woods in a dry hot summer, is sometimes terrible. The prairie-fires of the West are nothing like so destructive. Besides the waste of timber, whole settlements are des- troyed and communication made most difficult. In the summer of '68, the air was so darkened by the smoke of burning forests, that the navigation of the St. Lawrence was rendered dangerous ; and the darkness was said to spread even to the adjacent New England States. A newspaper account of this smoke- plague said : ' It is proposed to prevent future calamities of the kind by pro- hibiting the use of fire in clearing settlements in the forest.' But that would be simply impossible to carry into effect. THE LOWER ST. LAWRENCE. 169 little French cottages marks the site of some concession between the woods and the waters, with a wharf of its own upon the bank, if the place be at all populous. Here and there one or other of the banks may roll and swell into low hills, which, clad with their dense woods, might be pretty if enclosing a smaller stream ; but this gigantic river, holding its shores apart in dim and dwarfing distance, like a strait of the sea, by the very grandeur of its size is fatal to all the mere prettinesses. The steamer, stopping about twilight at Tadousac, the point where the two rivers join, goes on up the Saguenay through the night, for sixty or seventy miles. At sunrise, you find her moored in Haha Bay — written f Ha ! Ha ! Bay ' usually in Canadian newspapers and ad- vertisements, in which form the name is certainly attractive to the eye. * The name M Ha ! Ha ! " is said to be derived, says a Canadian guide-book, c from the surprise which the French experienced when they first entered the bay, sup- posing it to be still the river, until their shallop grounded on the north-western shore ' — a derivation which, in point of absurdity, is only equalled by that assigned to the name of a well-known place near Montreal, ' Lachine,' so called, as the story tells, because the French, when they first got up to it, exclaimed that they had got to China. Indeed, to the ex- clamations of the excitable Frenchmen is attributed no small part of Canadian nomenclature. That Quebec was so called after the wondering utterance ' Quel bee ! ' spoken by the French, when they first saw its boldly prominent heights, is devoutly believed by many of its townspeople ; * and, as to the connection of Canada and China existing in the ideas of the Norman explorers, it must be admitted that we find written by one of them, in 1542, about this stream, the * Charlevoix gives what is probably the right derivation, ' quebeio,' a word of the Algonquin Indians, signifying a ' strait ' or • narrowing,' and therefore well descriptive of the river at Quebec. 170 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. Saguenay, ' I think that the river comes from the Sea of Cathay ; for in this place there issues a strong current, and there runs a terrible tide.' Another recent authority, how- ever, on Canadian topography, gives us a substitute for the exclamatory theory in the matter of the naming of this bay of the Saguenay. ( Haha Bay,' it says, ' is Smiling or Laughing Bay in the Indian tongue ; ' which seems more likely to the uninitiated., especially when we compare the familiar ' Minnehaha.' The Indians knew well how to paint a picture in a word or two, and there is a great deal of the poetry of these lost peoples fossilised in American names. Can anything, for instance, be finer than their calling one of the loveliest lakes of the Northern States, c The Smile of the Great Spirit ' ? or can anything, again, be more quaint than their name for a wonderfully conspicuous waterfall, that makes a leap of 240 feet down into the Lake of St. John, the headwater of the Saguenay, ' Oueat Chouan ' — ( Do you see a fall there?' There is now a happy reaction in favour of Indian names. The old system of naming places after old-world places familiar to the namers is naturally dying away — that system, in accordance with which, it is said, one Canadian surveyor showed his love for the north of England, and marked his track through Canada, by leaving behind him the names of Newcastle, Alnwick, Percy, Darlington, Whitby, Pickering, Scarborough, and York. The last- named town, however, soon revolted back to its Indian name, c Toronto ' — if indeed the name may be classed as Indian ; for it, also, is claimed by elaborate French in- genuity ; which says that, 'just as "Yankee" is an Indian corruption of " Anglais," so " Toronto " is an Indian corrup- tion of au tour de la ronde oVeau? Another, and rival system of naming, by which the names of founders and distinguished AMERICAN NAMES OF PLAGES. 171 inhabitants were given to places, though hard to reject in the naming of streets, from sheer want of enough of other things to call them all after (some American towns are driven to using all the trees of the forest, and one or two bring in the nine Muses), is being supplanted, as to towns and waters and mountains, by the use of the Indian names. If Colonel Bye, Palinurus-like, took any comfort among the Shades from his name being left to a rising city, his vested interest was cruelly treated by the march of taste ; since ' Bye-town ' changed into * Ottawa,' before becoming the capital of Canada. However, there is this drawback to Indian names — and especially names of waters — that they are often only pro- nounceable after long and arduous practice. It takes a Maine man bred and born to talk much and easily about those terrible lakes that abound throughout his State. To go back to the Bay, where we lie moored, its form is quite as strange as its name. If the Saguenay had been flowing in the opposite direction to that in which it does flow, you would say the stream had lost its way, gone to Haha by mistake, and been forced to turn back thence for a mile or two, in order to slip round a sharp corner to the left and resume its former course. To one going up stream, the bay looks to be the direct continuation of his course. No wonder the French steered straight on into it, till they found themselves caught in a cul de sac. Perhaps — but geological theories are here touched upon in fear and trembling — the line of the river has been changed by some convulsion, and this bay was in truth a part of the original main channel. The whole scenery of the Saguenay is suggestive of violent rendings, of yawning chasms having been riven open in the rocky wilderness through which the river flows. ( It is,' says a traveller, ' as if the mountain range had been cleft asunder, leaving a horrid gulf of 60 172 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. miles in length and 4,000 feet in depth, through the grey mica schist.' Indeed, Charlevoix mentions that a tremendous earthquake shook all the country near the Saguenay in 1663, making the navigation of some narrows in the St. Lawrence much easier than before, ' plucking up a mountain by the roots and whirling it upon the Isle aux Coudres, which it increased in size more than one-half,' f forming the peninsula of Chicoutimi on the Saguenay,' ' increasing the rapidity of the stream,' and doing various other wonderful things. Apart from the peculiarities of its formation, the Bay has not much claim to be famous on its own account : whatever beauties have been found in it, owe their discovery rather to the gloominess of the rest of the river than to any great, charms in the Bay itself, though a traveller, before quoted, has indeed called it * a beautiful spot, where you have sloping banks and a pebbly shore,' going on to enume- rate as its other attractions, ' boats and wherries, a village and church, French Canadians and Scotch Highlanders.' The scattered wooden houses of the village, and the bare dreary hills of rock or stunted woods all around, do not make up a pleasing landscape, except by comparison with the dismal sublimities of the river. But there is no long stoppage here. The steamer, when she has been supplied with firewood, and, if it be the right season, freighted with piles and piles of boxes full of the blueberries which here abound — our English bilberries, the Scotch blaeberries, or something very like them — moves away down to the stream. That stream, like the Thousand Isles and other Canadian celebrities, has suffered so much from indiscreet praises that it is now almost sure to disappoint. The narrow bounds within which the views are confined, and the deadly sameness of those views, are obviously hurtful to the effect. From Haha right down to the St. Lawrence, you see nothing but the cold, black, gloomy Saguenay rolling THE SAGUENAY. 173 between two straight lines of rocky hills that rise steeply from the water's edge. These hills, though steep, are generally roughly rounded in shape, and not abrupt nor faced with precipices. This makes the scenery differ from that, with which it has been often compared, the boldest of the Fiords of Norway. Over the rugged hills of the Saguenay, there is generally enough of earth here and there lodged, to let the grey rock be dotted over with a dark-green sprinkling of pine-trees. Perhaps there is hardly a spot on the Saguenay, which, taken by itself, would not impress any lover of wild nature by its grandeur, and even sublimity; but, after sailing for seventy miles downwards, passing rocky hill after rocky hill, rising one beyond the other in monotonously straight lines alongside of you ; after seeing how neither bank much varies in character during the whole of the seventy miles, and how either bank is a mere likeness and slavish copy of its fellow ; after vainly longing for some break in these twin imprisoning walls, which might allow the eye the relief of wandering over an expanse of country ; you will begin to compare the Saguenay in no kindly spirit with the Rhine — now rushing between the steeps of Lurlei, now sweeping past sloping vineyards, with soft glimpses of field and forest lying far and dim beyond, now breaking a bold ridge of mountains, and showing their forms and colour under aspects that are ever new, as the point of view for ever shifts. The masterpiece of the Saguenay is the majesty of its two grandest bulwarks — Cape Trinity and Cape Eternity — enormous masses of rock, 1,500 feet high, rising sheer out of the deep black water and jutting forward into it so as to shelter a little bay of the river between their gloomy portals. In the sublimity of their height and steepness, and in the beautiful effect against the rock of the pine-trees which here and there gain a dizzy foothold, nestling trustfully into every hollow on the face of the tremendous precipice, these capes 174 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. can hardly be surpassed by any river-scene in the world. The water just under them is of unfathomable depth — so that steamers can lie almost touching the cliff; and as the passengers strain their eyes and necks in looking up at the overshadowing heights, much enthusiasm is always lavished on the view. It may, however, be doubted whether anybody is ever sorry to get out of the Saguenay. It is a cold, savage, inhuman river, fit to take rank with Styx and Acheron ; and, into the bargain, it is dull. For the whole seventy miles, you will not be likely to see any living thing on it or near it, outside of your own steamer, not a house, nor a field, nor a sign of any sort, that living things have ever been there. The books of travel all tell you that its gloomy shore Skylark never warbled o'er ; which, to the prosaic mind, is the less astonishing, on account of there being no skylarks in North America ; but man and beast and bird do indeed all seem to shun this stream, as something malignant and repulsive, the true villain among American rivers. Other scenes in Lower Canada, famous for their beauty and considered absolutely necessary for all tourists to visit, are the Falls of Montmorency, the Indian village of Lorette, and the Falls of Chaudiere, all within a few miles of Quebec. Montmorency is approached by a very pretty road com- manding views of the St. Lawrence, with the fertile Isle of Orleans full in view, and passing through a well-cultivated country thickly peopled with French. The Falls are about 90 feet higher than those of Niagara (they have been res- pectively put at 250 feet and 160), and are the last leap of a small river, or rivulet, down the steep bank which here confines the St. Lawrence. On both sides of the rivulet are green banks, and groves of pines, ashes, alders, and other MONTMORENCY. 175 trees. Everything seems complete to make an exquisite picture— the height of the Falls, the woods and green slopes on each side, the great river in the front: but, somehow, the general effect seems to fall far short of what might be expected from such a combination. There are saw-mills buzzing and whirring within a few yards, as you stand by the cascade — saw-mills, for the use of which about half the water has been stolen that should have joined in the leap. Perhaps the vicious and waspish sound of the cruel saws, or the unromantic look of the mill-buildings and the heaps of cut-up planks, or indignation at the diversion of the waters, may do something towards marring the effect ; or it may be simply that there is a hardness and want of grace — a stiff, business-like, American air — about the stream itself and the way in which it gets through its unavoidable duty of jumping straight down into the St. Lawrence, with- out indulging in any fine agony, or struggling, hero-like, with destiny. For those who go from Montmorency to Quebec, the time to be on the road is about sunset. The city, climbing up from the great river to the heights, on which stands the castle, looks especially beautiful in the warm light that then falls full upon it, and the level rays, striking on the quaint old metal-sheathed roofs and on all the westward-facing windows, light up the town with a diamond-like sparkling of wonderful brilliancy. The Indian village of Lorette, also approached by a pretty road leading through neat French farms, but without views of the St. Lawrence, seems chiefly remarkable for containing no Indians. There were some once, you are told ; but so much French blood got mixed with them that the villagers have no longer any claim to be accounted wild men. Near the village are the Falls of Lorette, a very picturesque scene — a river leaping and tumbling and foaming down a steep rocky channel strewn with black boulders, and over- 17G SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. hung with high banks that are richly and variously wooded — ■ a gem of deep, hidden glen, flecked with the tremulous shadows of woods, and alive with the dancing of waters — but such a gem as no Briton need go beyond his own island to see in equal perfection. Passing suddenly up the St. Lawrence to another pet spot of Canadian tourists, the Thousand Islands, we come to a place which has been very differently spoken of by its many describers. It used to be a scene to go into rapture over, but Trollope broke in upon the established custom and spoke slightingly of the Thousand Isles. As in most of such cases, a middle course seems the truest. There is certainly nothing of grandeur here, and nothing even very wild or romantic. But on a bright sunny day, as the steamer threads its way through the labyrinth of rocky islets, covered with a low dense growth of forest, each of them somewhat resembling the islands that we have seen in Scotch or Irish lakes, Ellen's Isle, or the islands of Killarney, the scene is exceedingly pretty. There are no mountains in sight, no bold cliffs, no handsome trees; everything is on a small scale, and merely pretty — the narrow winding channels of the Archipelago — the rocks that stand up from the water's edge, and jut out in happy contrast among the thick greenery of the isles — the trees that spring from among those rocks, close to where the ripples are flashing on them, or that droop down over them from above, and nearly touch the blue water. There is a sweet air of soft beauty over the whole, and perhaps its charms are somewhat enhanced by the fact, that you have not to go at all out of your way to get at it ; for it lies upon the highway into Upper Canada, and is passed through from end to end by the river-steamers that ply from Montreal up to Kingston. Between these two points on the river lie the famous Rapids, which the steamers shoot upon their downward THE THOUSAND ISLES. 177 passage, and which have been described in all accounts of Canada. Of these nothing can here be recorded from per- sonal experience ; but, to make a hasty flight to Ottawa, there are some other Rapids there, with which the following paragraph in a guide-book tempts many travellers to make an acquaintance. ( To go down the Rapids of the St. Lawrence is nothing ; but to go down the Rapids of a timber-shoot, to keep pace with the flying waters and to see them hissing and rushing up over the raft beneath your feet, is the most exhilarating adventure in all American travel. It is something which partakes of flying and swim- ming ; the immense speed of the whole mass ; the rush of water; the succession of shoots stretching out before you like sloping steps of stairs ; the delight of flying over these with the easy skim of a bird; the rough long straights in which the raft seems to dive and flounder, letting the water up beneath and over it behind till it is again urged forward ; then conies another incline of water which you whirl madly down as if you were in a swing ' — a paragraph, which the guide-book has taken from an English newspaper, that thus described the shooting of the Ottawa ' slide,' after it had been < shot ' by the Prince of Wales in 1860. This account is fairly truthful, though highly coloured, after the manner of guide-books. The * timber-shoot ' of Ottawa is a sort of artificial and graduated water-fall. It is on a canal made to pass round, and avoid, the Chaudiere Falls, and to facilitate the passage from the river above them to the river below, by floating the rafts over several different inclined planes, and thus dividing the descent. To the entrance of this ' shoot ' or ( slide,' as it is variously called, come rafts of enormous size from the upper river. Here they have to be broken up into squares of smaller size, not too big for getting through the canal and being swept down its • slides.' It is easy to have yourself taken N 178 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. on board of one of these small rafts, near the beginning of the slide. Each of them is in general navigated by two French lumbermen — tall, gaunt, backwoodsmen, worn down and sun-dried into a close likeness to the Red Indians ; to whom, indeed, they may easily have good reason for re- semblance, as the French and Indian races intermix pretty freely. These men, who follow the lumbering trade, have a very good reputation in British America; they are said to be simple, honest, and faithful, above the ordinary standard of working-men on the continent, and their lives are certainly well suited for developing what are called the primitive virtues. All through the winter they are felling trees far away in the woods, and all through the summer floating the great timber-rafts down to Quebec. Whether in their rude shanties in the depth of the forest, or on their rafts floating down the rivers, the lumbermen are tried by a constant exposure to a climate that runs into both extremes, intensity of heat and intensity of cold ; and the way in which the men stand the trial, though kept, so far as ever is in the power of their employers, without spirituous liquors, and left to battle with winter's frosts and with spring's rains in the far backwoods, supported by no stronger stimulant than tea, was thought worthy of special description and comment by Lord Elgin, in a despatch sent home by him in '53. And as the physical endurance of the voyageurs may supply an apt sermon to the Teetotaller, so the picturesqueness of their lives is constantly inspiring the poet. Here are some lines of a voyageur song, lately written by a Lower-Canadian singer, of whose fiercer and more defiant strains a specimen has been already given. A nous les bois et leurs mysteres, Qui pour nous n'ont pas de secrets, A nous le fleuve aux ondes claires Ou se reflete la foret, A nous 1' existence sauvage Pleine d'attraits et de douleurs, TIMBEU-SIIOOTS. 179 A nous les sapins dont l'ombrage Nous rafraichit dans nos labeurs. Dans la foret et sur la cage Nous sommes trente voyageurs. Quand la nuit de ses voiles sombres Couvre nos cabanes de bois, Nous regardons passer les ombres Des Algonquins, des Iroquois, lis viennent ces rois d'un autre age Conter leurs antiques grandeurs A ces rieux chenes que l'orage N'a pu briser dans ses fureurs. Dans la foret et sur la cage Nous sommes trente voyageurs. To return to c the slide ' — upon each of the small rafts prepared for shooting it are four or five huge squared trunks of trees, longitudinally placed, and stretching from one end to the other of the deck. To get astride on one of these beams, and in this fashion to take the jumps of the ' shoot ' with a sort of rider-like seat, would be the height of a novice's ambition ; but the French voyageurs set their faces against such humility on the part of him whom they engage to initiate. They would have their passenger act gloriously, whether he is to be drowned or not; and the noble attitude is, they explain, to stand upright on one of the great longitudinal blocks, steadying yourself, if you like, by holding one end of a long pliant withe, tied by its other end to the beam on which you are standing ; and thus, erect, defiant, and facing your perils, to look a little like a circus-rider standing upright on horseback, holding the reins aloft as he rides up to his jumps. Down slides the raft quicker and quicker, as getting nearer and nearer the leaps. The first of these is not very trying to one's steadiness. In my own case, we swept over it smoothly, without crashing; against the sides of the canal. It is not easy to imagine a more curiously exhilarating sensation. But when the raft has dipped down over the Fall, then N 2 180 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. begins a short uneasy pitching and rocking, which shakes you pretty roughly. The water comes surging and bubbling up through the deck of the raft, till the great beams stretched from end to end give the only dry footing. The lumber- men now use their poles, to keep from being bumped and knocked about against the sides of the canal. My men certainly brought our craft up to the next jump — the biggest — in the most unsportsmanlike style. The canal is very narrow, and, here, deeply sunk below the level of the ground, with high, boarded sides ; so that there is no chance of the raft's running aground, or in any way shying off or refusing the jump. Over it must go ; but it will not go smoothly over, unless it has been brought square up to its jump, in due, direct form. However, down we rushed some- how, with a great dip, that made one feel light in the head. Then came a crash against the side, that sent the raft reeling off; then a washing of waves over and through the deck ; till, between the sharp shocks and the dash of the water, the beam under my feet took some jumps on its own account quite across the raft, while the whole structure throbbed and pitched and plunged most portentously. This was too much altogether. No man, who has not been brought up to it, can be expected to keep his stand in undisturbed equilibrium on a log, while it makes several big jumps, in different directions, and in the quickest succession. First he reels over to the right, and then, with a grand convulsive eifort, succeeds in throwing himself a great deal more hope- lessly over to the left. Drowning seems likely ; ducking seems certain; but, just at this crisis, which they have awaited with a slowly increasing breadth of grin, one or other of the voyageurs will come to the rescue, laying a steadying hand on the shoulder of the passenger menaced with overthrow. These men, who stick their long barge- poles between the timbers of the raft and then lean upon LAKE MEMPHBAMAGOO. 181 them — somewhat as Swiss guides use the alpenstock — can stand any shock and are not to be upset. The third and last leap is smaller ; which is well, as, before it is reached, both the raft and any amateur on it are pretty sure to be wholly demoralised. There is one other favourite resort of Canadians which may be worth mentioning before these few sketches end with Niagara. This is Lake Memphramagog, lying about south- east from Montreal, and forming a part of the American frontier. In going from Montreal to the lake, the first sixty or seventy miles may be travelled by rail, the rest of the way — sixteen miles or so — must be gone in the stage over a very rough road, or rather, over a road that will appear very rough to anybody not used to American staging; but he who has travelled over some American roads, con- sidered safe for heavy stage-coaches, and especially some in the wilds of the West, will look back on this bye-way of Canada with lenient regard, as having only very mercifully tested the firmness of his bodily cohesion. The country through which the stage drives is wild and hilly, and poorly cultivated in patches scattered sparsely among great spaces of uncleared forest. The population, a mixture of French and English, lives very humbly, and is slow to progress. Yet there is wonderfully good land round about, as a pas- senger on the stage — a tourist from Cleveland, Ohio, but Canadian by birth, or, as he put it himself, who ' had been raised in this section ' — kept telling us often, in the course of expressing his American wonder at a population t who didn't seem to know how to go ahead in the least.' f There are spots about here,' he said, ' where an acre will grow some 300 bushels of potatoes, and our farmers in Ohio get rich upon land that will only grow seventy-five to the acre. What, in the name of thunder, makes men differ so ? ' And he gave up the problem as insoluble. The stage stops 182 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. beside a little wharf near the north-west end of the lake, there handing over its passengers to a small steamer. Mem- phramagog may, perhaps, be best ranked as a good specimen of the second class of lake scenery — bright and pleasant, rather than grand and imposing, better than its neighbour Lake Champlain, which suffers from being too large, about equal to Lake Winnipisaukee, but greatly inferior to Lake George. It is a sweetly pretty sheet of water, not of too great extent for good effects ; with a luxuriant growth of wood on its islands and shores ; with gracefully varied outline, now trending into snug little bays, now jutting into promon- tories ; and with enough of careful culture bestowed here and there on its banks by rich people from Montreal, who have summer residences here, to humanise it and give it a finish of cheerfulness. The lake is very good in its own style, but the style is modest and unambitious. No emi- nence really worthy of the name of ( mountain ' rises on its banks, though the only hill, which they boast, has been honoured with that appellation. Being very prominent, and quite without rival in the district — unless, indeed, Orford Mountain, a higher hill, not far from the lake's northern end, be allowed to compete — this one bold feature of the banks need not be grudged its honorary title. Its full name is the ' Owl's Head Mountain,' and with the first part of it, at all events, no fault can be found ; for, viewed from some points on the lake, the form of the hill is strikingly like an owl's head, with the two little pointed ears jutting out at the sides of the smooth, gently-rounded crown. Mr. Trollope's readers will remember the hill, as the place where Mrs. Trollope and he lost their way, and had rather a perilous time of it. At the hill's foot, and close to the lake's edge, a small hotel, the 6 Mountain House,' nestles snugly among the uncleared woods and its own very fruitful orchards. This hotel, the right stopping-place for those who may wish to go up the LAKE MEMPHBAMAGOG. 183 mountain, is kept by a sturdy old Vermonter, a professed annexationist and contemner of the British institutions under which he now lives, a most interesting person, who may be trusted in everything except in his selection of a guide for the hill. When consulted as to the chances of getting a guide, ' I'll send Joe with you in the morning,' he says to all comers ; ' Joe's the best guide in these parts;' and when again consulted, next day, as to whether Joseph is at leisure to start, mine host guesses, ' Joe's a'most always at leisure,' and whistles for the guide so described to approach. One must have been in America to understand, with what wonder this Joseph — this treasure of a servant, so very un-transatlantic in his readiness to oblige, and his humble acquiescence in being whistled for — is awaited by those to whom his services are promised. But all that comes up in answer to the whistle is a big St. Bernard-like dog, which, upon further enquiry, turns out to be the marvellous Joe, a dog of great fame in his district. Whether Mr. Trollope was put under the same guidance, he has not told the world ; but if he was, his wanderings are explained. Joe is as tricky and selfish as a man. While his master can see, he takes the best care of his charge, walking sedately in front, as becomes a responsible dog with a mission to fulfil. But let him once get out of sight of the house, and well into the thick of the woods, off he scampers about his own business, tries to run up the trees after squirrels, wakes the forest with unseemly barkings, and behaves in a generally disrespectful way. However, the path is not hard to find ; and when you get out of the blinding wood, and up to the bare rocks at the top, even Joe himself, in spite of his frivolity, grows calmly contemplative, and looks deeply impressed by the view. To the eastward, the lake with all its islands and bays lies just below, stretching long and 184 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. narrow and river-like across the view. Beyond it, an undulating country, covered with alternate masses of dark wood and cleared farms, but with much more of the former than the latter, sinks away into the dimness, somewhere in the State of Maine. Near the northern end of the lake rises a mountain already mentioned, of fine bulk but not strikingly bold in its shapes. Letting the eye sweep round to the westward, you have a grand chain of mountains enclosing the view, the eastern boundary of the upper part of Lake Champlain and highest ground in the State of Vermont, belonging to that range of ( Green Mountains ' whence the State got its name. Between the Owl's Head and these mountains,much the larger part of the intervening space is dense, untouched forest. To the southward, in the far distance, you may see the White Mountains of New Hamp- shire ; and in the near foreground lies Newport, a town very lately established at the Vermont end of the lake — a strange contrast in its quick growth, its bustling activity, and its monster hotel, to anything to be seen on the lake's Canadian banks. Indeed, a wilder or less progressive coun- try than that immediately around the Owl's Head, it would be hard to imagine. The withdrawal of reciprocity was a great blow to this part of the country lying close to the American frontier. When the captain of the lake steamer was asked by me, whether he could point out exactly where the frontier-line crossed the lake, this innocent question nearly threw the good man off his balance, and was answered with an animation that touched upon violence. ' Know the line ? it ! Do I know it ? me if I don't ! You'd know it, too, I guess, if it cost you as many thousand dollars, that line ! as it has cost me ! ' Then he went on to tell, how the bisection of the lake by the frontier was most pre- judicial to trade ; how, every time he himself started from Newport for a run up the lake in his tiny craft, he had to RECIPROCITY. ■ 185 pay a high duty^ as being bound for a foreign port; how the exorbitant and vexatious imposts laid upon merchandise had almost destroyed his freights ; and how not only he, but all the Canadian farmers near the frontier, were half ruined, or utterly ruined, by the loss of reciprocity ; for their market naturally lay within the States, and cattle and every article of produce sent thither for sale were now subjected to taxes very high and very hard to escape. Farther up the country, the effects ascribed to the abolition of reciprocity were quite differently stated. At Montreal, for instance, or in the rich Western farming districts — as, for example, about London — one commonly heard that the Americans had hurt themselves, rather than the Canadians, by the repeal of the treaty ; that the result upon the Canadas had been either actually to develop their trade and make them self-sufficing, or, in the case of some commodities, not to affect the Canadian pro- ducer at all, but merely to enhance the price for the American consumer. It will be remembered that the abrogation of the reciprocity treaty in March '66, at the instance of the American Government, caused great anxiety in Canada. There was no doubt but that, under that treaty, Canada had been doing an immense business with the States since the outbreak of the civil war. Whatever good accrues to trade from great wars, Canada enjoyed in liberal measure ; whatever evils lessen that good, fell exclusively upon the belligerent States. In America, labour was interrupted and disorganised ; taxation grew apace ; the currency was thrown into confusion ; wide and rich tracts were ravaged and depopulated. In Canada, labour went on as before, or was even stimulated by the immigration from America of men escaping from the draft and taxation. The currency and the taxes and the peace of the country remained un- changed. All through the war-time, Canada swarmed with American dealers, buying up horses, oxen, sheep, and all 186 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. sorts of farm-produce ; but never was there so active an export into the States as during the few months immediately preceding the end of the treaty. i The various international ferries,' says a Canadian writer, ( were choked up continually with vast droves of cattle, sheep, and horses, as though a hostile army had harried all Canada ; while the conveying capacity of the railways was taxed to its utmost limits to meet the needs of produce-buyers.' Thus Canada started, after the end of this treaty, almost denuded of articles of export : no sudden panic was caused to her ; and her merchants and producers had time to look about for new channels of com- merce. It was certain that the abrogation of the treaty had been chiefly brought about by the natural irritation of Americans against Canada, for the warm sympathy, or even illegal aid, which she had given to the Southern cause. The withdrawal of reciprocity seemed at once justified as a punishment, and politic as an inducement to annexation. But the people of the North-eastern States, losing the cheap supplies from Canada, were themselves the greatest sufferers, and became the first agitators for a renewal. A report laid before Congress in 1868 admitted that, as to some articles, e Canadian produce comes into the States as usual, the American consumer paying the duty.' As to others, for which the demand lay in Europe, the repeal of the treaty merely drove the Canadians into exporting directly for them- selves, instead of employing, and thereby benefiting, Ameri- can canals, railroads, and merchants. In the lumber-trade, for instance, the Canadians exported as much as ever; the duty was simply a burden on the Americans. And the lumbering is only second to the farming among Canadian industries. Thus, in the year ending with June 1866, Canada exported farm-produce to the value of about 29J million dollars, and jDroduce of the forest to the value of 14 millions, as is shown by a list of exports on which the third item does not reach 2 J millions : RECIPROCITY. 187 from New Brunswick, lumber is the most valuable export : from Nova Scotia, lumber comes third on the list, after fish and coal. To follow Canadian trade further, Canada ex- ported in this same year, the last of reciprocity, 13 millions' worth of goods to Great Britain, 35 millions' worth to the States, her two largest customers by a great deal ; and im- ported 29 millions' worth from Great Britain, 20J millions' worth from the States, from which it appears, that she exported to the States goods of not very far from double the value of those which she imported thence ; and imported from us of Great Britain goods of more than double the value of those she exported to us.* Returning from this digression, an appalling subject awaits us ; one which no sketcher of Canadian scenes will venture to leave out altogether, but with which he needs nearly equal boldness to grapple — that spectacle, which dis- appoints nearly everybody when first he sees it, but which is described in his loftiest style by nearly everybody as soon as he leaves it — Niagara. Of descriptions and views of the Falls most people are fairly weary, and are ready to recoil at the very sight of the familiar names c Terrapin Tower,' and * Goat Island,' { Horseshoe Falls,' and • Table Rock.' This sketch will try to avoid enlarging upon well-known points of topography, and to dwell rather on the personal impres- sions of a visitor ; which can, perhaps, hardly help having some individuality of their own. Everybody knows, that at the point where it now takes its leap (or, rather, its leaps) the river is divided by an island into two separate channels ; of which the broader and more voluminous bounds the western or Canadian * The following statistics for the year ending June 1868 show the trade of the Dominion since reciprocity was abolished. In that year, Canada Exported to Great Britain . . . • 2l£ millions' worth. United States . . 27£ , Imported from Great Britain . 36 £ , United States . . 26 1 188 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. shore, descending in the Horseshoe Falls ; the smaller flows on the eastern side, and descends in the American Falls. Such is the position of the cataracts now; but, as Sir Charles Lyell has made pretty widely known, the Falls seem once to have been placed much farther down the river, namely, at Queenston, seven miles nearer to Lake Ontario : thence they have gradually worn their way backward up to their present site — a process which, according to the observed rate of retrograde movement of the Falls by the eating away of the rock, has been calculated to have required not much less than forty thousand years. Whether the men — if men were there in those days — who saw the river rush thundering in one single flood down one single Fall — wild men of the world's Stone- Age, perhaps, with rather too much of the ancestral baboon still hanging about them to be delicately sensitive of the sublime — had an advantage, or not, over us, who see a divided stream and two separate Falls, may be open to doubt; but it is certain, that when the highly-developed Caucasian of to-day — some smart Yankee, for instance, of the Greenback Age — steps from the omnibus at the Clifton-House hotel, and looks from one to other of the two Falls, there both confronting him full in the face, ' Is that all ? ' is his usual remark. Britons, a soberer and more silent race, usually say nothing at all, but look half-puzzled and half-contemptuous. Perhaps there is no happier way of getting one's first idea of the Falls, than that which can be spoken to here from personal experience of it — namely, to see them first from the Canadian bank, through the dimness of an almost moonless summer's night; when the American Fall, right opposite, looms vague and large through the feeble light, a huge square curtain of white foam hanging on the face of the black precipitous cliff; and up the greater stream, to the right, the Canadian Fall shows yet more dimly, as being a NIAGARA. 189 little farther off, the paler glimmerings of its foam and the ghostly spray-cloud hovering over it ; and either Fall sends forth a roar, that then sounds most tremendous, alone break- ing in upon the quiet of night. For him who takes his first impression at such a time, the night hides from the view all that may be unpleasing or unsatisfying in the details, and, by half-blinding the eyes, lets the imagination go free. Then again — (to notice a little incidental advantage of arriving upon the scene at night) — there are few things that give a more startling impression of the greatness and power of the Falls than a walk through the passages of the Clifton-House at night, when all its daily bustle has sub- sided, and it has sunk into such nightly stillness as is to be had within half-a-mile of Niagara. Nightly stillness, indeed ! Every door and every window shivers and vibrates and rattles in its frame, as the solid earth quakes underneath, shaken by the crash of the waters. A feeling common among new-comers to the place — you may hear of it, and may read of it, and are sure to feel something of it yourself — is, that the thing cannot possibly last; the pace is too furious for that ; at this rate, all the floods of Erie, and of those yet vaster lakes in the West, must assuredly have run off before morning; you must get up very early if you would be in time for another sight. It certainly needs some reflection to convince you, that there has not been some extra water turned on for your own special behoof, and as a merely temporary arrangement. That, throughout some four hundred centuries, this same thunder has been filling the woods, this same trembling has shaken the earth, the same volumes of water have kept plunging downward, day and night, and winter and summer, is no mere Tupperian reflection at this place, but the most staggering reflection of all. The mere age of other grand objects — of mountains, and oceans, and deserts — has nothing in it so oppressive ; 190 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. for they have lain at rest, or, at least, have known what rest is ; but that this wild cataract, the world's most terrible activity, should have gone struggling on in its sleepless agony for such a very eternity of ages, is the most over- powering idea that Niagara can call up before you. But, by the morning, you have got pretty well used to the roar and to the trembling of the ground. Then, too, with the daylight comes minute inspection — comes the destruction of the ideal with a knowledge of the real — comes the death of poetry and the birth of criticism — comes, in short, to be more matter-of-fact, the conviction that the thing is hardly quite up to the mark. What nonsense people had written about its height ! It hardly looked its own 164 feet. The American Fall was formal — too square, and a little priggish. There was a want of grace in its forms, of wildness and abandonment in its movements. Then, the surroundings — those saw- mills — those photograph-shops — those great, staring hotels ! Nature had spoiled a good thing, and man had helped her. Other Falls, to be seen in Europe, were a hundred times more picturesque, more beautiful. Was that American so very far out, who described this Fall as a sad waste of water-power? It certainly had something of the look of a very much exaggerated mill-stream. A minute later, and you are ashamed of such judgments : for there can be no sight in the world which exercises its power over the feelings more intermittently, or with more variation in form and intensity, than this Niagara. The influence of the place seems to roll over you in waves, now bearing down in full flood, controlling you utterly and holding you breathless, now receding and leaving you free to breathe, or even to let loose the flippancies of criticism upon it — then again breaking in suddenly, and arousing you (to have done with metaphor) to a thousand beauties which before, neither in the one state nor 4^e other, had you been able to perceive. NIAGARA. JR. IH Thus, in the case of the American Fall, at which most of the foregoing remarks have been aimed, if the point of view be but shifted from the Clifton-House side of the river to the opposite bank, or, better still, to that corner of the dividing island which abuts upon the American Fall, the whole scene is transformed. No longer standing opposite the Fall, but beside it, instead of seeming to see before you a great square, flat sheet of falling water, bounded by hard straight lines, you note how all the stiffness has vanished and infinite variety come in its stead ; how the long ledge, whence the river springs downward — that ledge which had looked before like an exactly ruled line — is, here, worn back and hollowed out by strong and heavy volumes of water, is, there, left jutting out into promontories and projecting slabs, over which thinner and weaker jets fling themselves far off into the air, dying away gradually into spray or gracefully curling down in wavy lines till lost in the abysses below. Then, in order to bring a fresh eye to the Horseshoe Fall by looking at something of a somewhat different kind before going on thither, it is well to stand a moment on the bridge that joins the island and mainland, just above the American Fall, and looking thence up the stream to see the grandest view of the Rapids — how the wild waters, rushing down a steep declivity towards you, and only bounded by the sky beyond it — so steep is the dip of their channel — chafe and fret and roar and lash themselves into madness among the three green islets that have withstood their onslaught. By moving on through the island to the edge of the Horseshoe Fall, the best point for observing it is soon reached, the little Tower, before named, standing out like a beacon on a ledge of jutting rocks. Thence the cascade stretches in a rude crescent form across to the Canadian side — about one- third of a mile. Whatever criticism may be provoked by the American Fall, this one is fairly unassailable. As 192 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. descriptions are likely to get some vividness from being written in sight of the thing described, it may not be amiss to set out a few notes, written in full view of this Fall, just as they were jotted down in a note-book. If they are somewhat inflated in style, or indulge in somewhat ancient conceits, it must be remembered that the brink of Niagara is not quite the place one would choose for chastening composition into classical severity. ' The finest views of the Rapids are above the Horseshoe Fall ' (this judgment was afterwards recanted — the visitor to Niagara spends most of his time in recanting his judg- ments — when the view from the bridge, before mentioned, of the Rapids above the American Fall, seemed more justly entitled to the first place; the river's bed is there more steeply inclined and more bestrewn with rough rocks ; so that the Rapids are at once more headlong and more broken ; besides, the little green islets are there another feature of beauty). * Here ' — that is, above the Horseshoe — ( the river spreads to a great width, and is, in parts, torn into white water the whole way across. Where the stream is deepest, it flows with the most unbroken current, and the least reluc- tation; where it is more shallow, the waters seethe and foam into angry waves which seem to wrestle with the mighty onward flow, as if — to quote the old conceit — they fumed and fretted and fought wildly against their destiny, the great leap set before them. But where they are deeper and flow in stronger volume, they meet their fate with more dignity. Looking to the centre of the Horseshoe, you see the huge green masses, translucent, and with rounded un- ruffled surfaces, glide smoothly, heavily, and, as it seems, slowly, over the precipice. On each side of them, the lesser waters, white as snow, torn and tortured by rocks, and struggling desperately to the very last, rush finally down the steep in a frantic leckless tumult, one sheet of shrieking NIAGARA. 193 foam, wreathing itself into wavy lines of fantastic and ever-varying grace. In the centre, the waters are heroic — the type of strength controlled by will — full of a grand and masculine dignity, going to its doom deliberately, con- quered, but not subdued. But on either side you have the wild piteous beauty of a weaker nature, that has struggled in vain — that has cried out against its lot, and yields, over- mastered, at last, and flings itself away into ruin in all the thrilling, passionate ecstacy of utter and reckless aban- donment. As if to hide the last death-struggle of both, there rises a soft and delicate veil of mist from the very depths of the abyss. Tenderly and lovingly, it rolls and winds its gentle eddies round the last wild plunge, the crash and wreck of all. You do not see the waters shivered and dashed to pieces. Only, beyond the curling mist, you see a whole white river of their foam-blood drifting slowly from the scene. A fresh look after a moment's intermission, or a change of position by one step, and the whole meaning of the view is changed. It seems no longer as if the waters were driven reluctantly, roaring deep protest or shrieking in agony, to meet their doom : but as if they were bounding in exul- tation and pride at their own beauty, and crying out, loudly j ubilant, " Look at us ! In the whole world we are peerless. " ' He who tries to sketch, or even to jot down a few notes, at Niagara, will soon find that the Falls, which are usually thought to be the attraction of the place, are nowhere in point of interest for the tourists hovering round, in com- parison with himself. Many are the efforts to peep over his shoulder and see what in the world he can be doing. Only one of the persons of this enquiring turn of mind went the length of accosting me ; and, as his remarks were characteristic, they shall be repeated. ' 'Guess you're British ? ' < Yes.' o 194 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. 6 Thought so, by the look of you. Wal, England and America have equal right to be proud of these Falls. They both own 'em alike.' Looking as much pleased as was in one's power at the evidently intended civility, I could not help saying, it was well we had both many other things to be proud of; for we really could hardly claim credit for having made the Falls of Niagara. ( Wal, o' course we didn't make 'em,' replied my friend, speaking in the voice of hurt feelings, and went on his way forthwith — clearly regarding the remark, to which he had replied, as proving its author to be a fool, and a disagreeable one. It is strange how every great natural feature of the con- tinent is regarded by Americans as redounding to the credit of their nation. If an American wants to glorify the Union — as he occasionally will — * What other country,' he asks, ' has such boundless expanses of prairie; such a cataract as Niagara; such a river as the Mississippi : such vast untrodden swamps and forests as the South ; such inland seas as the Lakes?' It cannot be said of all these, that they are mentioned with pride because of their utility or even their beauty. Their singularity and unique size are the points that are relied upon ; and the depth of the reliance upon such points, as enhancements of their national greatness, is certainly charac- teristic of Americans. Few nations have advanced stranger claims to the consideration of the world than the Irish; but it may be doubted whether even Mr. Maguire, the O'Donoghue, or the late Mayor of Cork, has ever founded a claim to that consideration on the size of the Bog of Allan. And yet it is quite a remarkably large bog, fully as beautiful as a good deal of the prairie, and of far greater utility to man. There are two others to be confidently recommended of the little expeditions which may be made about Niagara for the sake of new views. One of these leads to the top of NIAGARA. 195 the hill which rises on the Canadian side just over the Horse- shoe Fall. Go along the road to that Fall, and then, turning off to the right near the spot from which Table Rock lately- fell, climb up the high bank. You will get to a position whence you may look right down into the seething cauldron at the bottom of the abyss in the central hollow of the Horseshoe, and see the spray-cloud mounting thence still higher than the high ground where you stand. You catch also, most exquisitely, the wonderful green colour of the masses of water as they ponderously roll over the edge, at the middle of the Fall, a clear transparent delicious green, more like the green of the ice to be sometimes seen in a crevasse among the glaciers than anything elsewhere — a green which apparently results where a depth of blue un- broken water is smoothly gliding over an under-current that is torn and lashed into gleaming whiteness by rocks and the jagged edges of the precipice. Another expedition which is worth being taken by those who have time to spare, whose nerves are trustworthy, and who do not easily catch cold, is the descent from Goat Island into the ( Cave of the Winds.' There are two caves of this name, at opposite sides of the river ; but so far as one can judge from having gone into the one, and heard plenty of descriptions of the other from those who had seen both, this cave on Goat Island is the better worth visiting. At the head of a long staircase you find the guardians of the cave ; who, for a not very small sum of money, show you into a little plank-built dressing-room, about the size of a bathing- machine. Here you are provided with loose pantaloons of blue canvas, a rough grey worsted shirt, a yellow oil-skin jacket with hood of the same material attached, and slippers made of something like a coarse flannel. When we had donned this quaint attire — a Swiss gentleman was with me — we went down the stairs, and at the bottom met a similarly o 2 196 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. attired guide, a young man of moody aspect and few words, who, as has been told me since, is a poet of no mean inspi- re ation. He takes you in charge from this point. The cave is a hollow in the steep and rocky cliff forming the shore of the island; over which hollow there leaps out into the air from the top of the cliff a wayward offshoot of the American Fall, an isolated stream of water, which, if it were the only cascade in the neighbourhood, might justly be made into a lion on its own account. Behind this cascade — that is to say, between it and the rocky cave — you make your way down a wooden staircase, very steep, very slippery, rather shaky, and which would not be made any easier for the nervous by the terrific roaring of the waterfall, as it rushes past you through the air, and its sharp shattering crash on the rough rocks underneath, or by the eddying winds and driving clouds of spray, which assail and blind you on your way. These windy currents of air and the spray-storm which they carry with them sufficiently account for the name of the cave through which you are passing. The rush of the waters through the air is enough to agitate it violently, and to cause a sort of whirlwind to keep sweeping round and round the hollow cave ; but the force of the gale which you here encounter depends also in part upon the force and direction of the wind which may be blowing outside ; on some days of rough weather it would be very hard, or even impossible, to make one's way down these stairs. Getting to the bottom of them, you pass forward over dripping rocks till beyond both cave and cascade. Here you are placed on a rocky ledge stretching into the river which flows from the Horseshoe Fall, with the American Fall pouring down its tremendous contribution to that river right in front of you. Turning to the left and again to the left, over more of the wet and slip- pery rocks, and through more torrents of spray, you get at last upon a very rickety wooden-bridge, just in front of that NIAGARA. 197 wayward cascade, behind which you have already passed, and so near to it that the storm of spray is more drenching and more pelting and more blinding than ever. But if you can at all manage to look up to where the waters come curving over the cliff almost straight above your head, and if through the thick and violent spray-rain you can catch a glimpse of the sun sparkling in those curving waters far, far up there in the sky, at the very beginning of their leap, you will see the strangest and, if it may be so styled, the most unearthly, the most dream-like, the most magical, of all Niagara's sights. But all this time the spray is driving against you and beating upon you without mercy. You retreat from the pitiless storm, and in your retreat, by passing over some more rocks and getting again to the foot of the same steep wooden stairs, you complete your circuit round the cascade. The expedition is a popular one ; but it is not surprising to hear that it has been the cause of bad accidents. A little change of the direction of the falling water might sweep one off the steep stairs — such a change as a strong and sudden gust of wind might effect in a moment. Then the wet rocks are un- pleasantly treacherous footing, even for slippered feet ; and though my Swiss friend bounded from one to another with the trained agility of his race (looking in his quaint costume like pictures of his great countryman, William Tell, with Alps and waterfalls in the back-ground), it certainly speaks well for the mettle of transatlantic ladies that some of them make the round almost daily throughout the season. As to the noise of the water, nowhere about Niagara — perhaps no- where else in the world — is such a tremendous uproar to be heard as upon those stairs by the rocky cave. One stands there almost paralysed by it, and wondering what it ought to be called, and to what it may be likened ; whether it is most of a shriek, or a screech, or a crash, or a roar, or a clatter, for it seems as if all the various sounds that can be 198 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. described by all these various terms entered alike into the composition of that stupendous uproar. He, who has rushed at full speed in an express through an iron tubular bridge and can imagine the noise a hundred times multi- plied, may perhaps form an idea of the loudness and the com- posite nature of the sounds that try the nerves at the Cave of the Winds. However, we had proof to convince us how even that ethereal being, the American young woman, can brave the trials of the place ; for, on our way up the second flight of stairs, at the head of which are the dressing-rooms, we met a young lady and a gentleman bound for the cave. It was impossible to help staring a little at a very pretty girl dressed in so strange a garb as a pair of loose blue pantaloons, a yellow oilskin coat, and coarse flannel slippers; and the lady, in her turn, seemed to think the two dripping men just come out of their spray-bath to be also not unworthy of some observation. So the two parties stood and surveyed each other with transatlantic freedom, and some laughing on both sides ; till, fearful for the fate of so attractive a person, we ventured to warn the young lady, that, between steep wet stairs, slippery rocks, and blinding spray, the tour was no joke. However, glancing down at her pantaloons, she * guessed that having got into those things, she'd just go through with it, anyhow.' After having dressed, we saw the same couple return. Neither ( Sabrina fair,' just risen from Under the glassy cool translucent wave, nor Idalian Aphrodite beautiful, Fresh as the dews, new bathed in Paphian wells, nor any other of the young persons, at once damp and lovely, of whom poets have sung, could have looked more prettily fresh, bright, and rosy-cheeked, than the dripping little New Englander in the blue pantaloons. She seemed to NIAGARA. 199 have enjoyed herself thoroughly, and in answer to enquiries, whether she found the trip at all formidable, merely guessed that it was ( real nice.' And here we may make an end of Niagara, and pass from British- America altogether. Part II. A PICNIC TO THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. A PICNIC TO THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS It will not be easy in this chapter to avoid what it would always be pleasant to avoid, the recounting of mere per- sonal experiences and a very free use of the first personal pronoun. If travels recounted in this way are to be toler- able to a reader in these days, it seems almost necessary that they should take him to the centre of Africa or Asia, or into the immediate neighbourhood of one or other Pole, as those are the places still rather hard to be got at by the ordinary long-vacation tourist. The tour here to be dealt with can only take its reader over the Prairie and among the Rocky Mountains ; it cannot even threaten him with any considerable danger to his scalp ; and still less can it let him in behind the scenes with regard to Free Love or Polygamy. But it can promise him, as company over the most of his way, some hundred and fifty editors of Western newspapers, all bound on a sort of pic-nic a thousand miles long, and it can tell him about the growth of that great Pacific railroad, over which everybody will some day be making his long-vacation tour ; so it may, perhaps, be not quite without a strangeness and an interest of its own. On Tuesday, October 2, 1867, I was preparing to start 204 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. from New York on the following morning for a tour among the Western States, or, as Americans delight to call it, 6 The Great West.' My route was very vague and ill- defined. Chicago, which all Englishmen are said to make for at once, was not to be left out, and the Upper Mississippi and St. Paul, famous through the Union for their scenery, would probably be also taken in. The Hudson, West-point, and the Falls of Trenton, seemed well placed for being seen on the way. But on the evening of this Tuesday I called on a friend in New York, who gave a new turn to my plans. He told me he had something novel and highly sensational to propose : that I must be off to Chicago forth- with, and that there, armed with introductions with which he would equip me, I must get myself enrolled upon an excursion party of all the newspaper writers of the West, which was to start upon the following Monday for the farthest point of the Union Pacific Railway. The oppor- tunity seemed a good one for seeing new phases of American life and strange features of American scenery. There was time enough left for getting glimpses of West-point— the gem of the Hudson and one of the loveliest spots in America — as well as of Trenton Falls, a very beautiful bit of wild and romantic river scenery ; and a forced journey from the latter place, past Buffalo, along the shores of Lake Erie, brought me to Chicago on Saturday night. A gentleman, to whom I there delivered letters of introduction on the following day, a person of influence on one of the railroads to be used by the excursion, kindly promised that he would try to get me made one of the party. He was to tell me next morning how his efforts had succeeded. Accordingly I called on him next morning, and heard, to my dismay, how it was a rule of the excursion that none except newspaper writers were to be taken. This he stated with all the grim and imperturbable gravity of the American who is making a A WESTERN EXCURSION-PARTY. 205 joke, and especially of the American who is making a joke at the expense of the Britisher. Having sufficiently enjoyed the long face of his victim, he added with not less of gravity, that he was perfectly certain I was writing for some English paper ; in fact, he only waited to hear what the name of the paper might be, before making formal application for my enrolment upon the excursion. The temptation was terrible. Pushed on from behind by the memory of such a horrible night of clatter and jolting and dust as can only be had on the ' cars,' undergone solely for the sake of getting to Chicago in time ; drawn on from before by vast prospects of prairie and mountains beyond, by vague wonders as to what a party of Western writers would be like, I yielded, and, casting about for some paper, on the staff of which to vote myself a place, remembered one, the instructor of my youth, a most respectable journal of Ulster, which we may call for present purposes (for it merits the name), ( The Orange War-cry.' Whether one's political opinions were still in accord with this excellent journal, was a question, that one could not debate under the excitement of a sudden emergency ; and indeed it is, per- haps, always thus, as wise men have thought, that at the crises of life the mind is most enthralled by its early associa- tions. Yery good : I was to go as Special Correspondent to the Rocky Mountains of the i War-cry ; ' but where was this journal published ? I gave the name of the town, which may here pass as the town of e Kilpapist.' Then, provided with a formal and written application, I went off to the head-quarters of the expedition at the Sherman House Hotel, the largest and best in Chicago. Here was a great muster of the editorial band. Their appearance, and the extraordinary amount of noise they were making, were a little trying to the nerves of a prospective fellow-traveller. 206 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. It was clearly the duty of one who was about to join them as a philosophic observer, to look on in all seriousness, blind to anything of the ludicrous in their aspect. But, somehow or other, Mr. Dickens and ' Martin Chuzzlewit ' would keep running in one's head, in spite of oneself; so strong was the flavour of Hannibal Chollop about my chosen companions. It would have been hard to imagine what their answer would have been to the ' Tyrant ' or the ' Despot,' in case of such a person having addressed himself to them — except that it would have been something very noisy indeed, and, probably, rather profane ; but there was no mistaking that they were the ' Children of Nature ' and ' the Sons of Freedom ' ; and though wholly unacquainted with the North American bear, I believe lam safe in asserting that no variety of that animal, known to Mr. Pogram, could look very much rougher. Again, there was strong need of calling up visions of Prairie and Mountain, and of reflecting how one had well-nigh burnt his ships behind him by taking to oneself the name of a most eminent journal, in order not to back out of the whole thing even yet. But the visions and the reflections came to one's relief; and I advanced to the table where names were being put down. The Special Correspondent of the e War-cry ' was received with all the honours due to a Reporter, who had come so very far. * Kilpapist, England — was it ? ' After abandoning truth in matters more material, it seemed a small thing to discard geographical accuracy ; so I answered, acquiescent, ' Yes ; Kilpapist, England,' and was enrolled forthwith. An hour later, we were on our way from the hotel to the station in a sort of rude procession, headed by a powerful, if not very musical, brass band. A more motley crew can hardly be conceived. Most of the writers were big, bearded, and bony, and not very carefully washed. As usual in Western crowds, the German element was present in force. Nearly CHICAGO. 207' all were armed to the teeth. Rifles, revolvers, and bowie- knives, in all the innumerable American varieties of shapes and of sizes, were carried on the arm or hung ready at the side. Asking for what service these weapons were meant, in time of profound peace, I was told they were for protection against Indians, and slaughter of buffaloes on the plains. At about a quarter past two in the afternoon, after very little trouble or delay at the station (for the Western traveller scorns the incumbrance of luggage, and can live happy for days without seeing even his small carpet-bag), we rushed out of Chicago in a wonderfully handsome excursion-train, and went flying through Illinois at a speed very much quicker than the ordinary rate of the American express. To take leave of Chicago in this way, without having said anything whatsoever about it, seems a rather strong measure, when one remembers how great a figure it cuts in nearly all our accounts of America. That it is the most startling ex- ample, even there, of a great city arising * like an exhalation from the ground ; ' that it exports breadstuff's prodigiously ; that a part of it was hoisted-up several feet the other day by American engineering, without its inhabitants experiencing any of the more disagreeable symptoms of earthquake ; all this has been told us so often, with the dates, and the census, and the exact number of bushels and of feet, that we know all about it ; or, at least, might if we liked. The stock thing to say about American big towns is, of course, that the one is just like the other ; but, after the manner of stock sayings, it is not very true. Each, at all events, is differentiated by some few peculiarities — Boston, by its age and its literature, and its immeasurable self-esteem ; New York, by its wealth, its fashion, and its rowdyism ; Washington, by its politics, its grand scale of plan, its dreary incompleteness of execution ; Baltimore, by its gaiety, its pretty women, its oysters, its canvas-back ducks, and its terrapins — by being a heaven, 208 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. in short, for the most refined sensualist; New Orleans, by its air of French cheerfulness, and very southern, almost tropical, look ; Cincinnati, by the dexterous rapidity with which it kills and cures pigs ; Philadelphia, by being easily the most uninteresting place of its size in the universe. And so Chicago, not to be out-done, has put its trust in bread- stuffs, quick growth, and wonderful engineering achieve- ments ; for its recent rise of a few feet is not its only success in that line. The way in which it is supplied with water from Lake Michigan by a tunnel two miles in length, reaching out into the lake, so as to get the water in its purity, is another great marvel of engineering, but one which, in its scientific details, it cannot be attempted here to ex- plain. A story is told how some Englishman, wanting to know by what machinery the water was raised, and believing that American young ladies knew everything, happened to enquire of one of them on the point ; and how she answered that she guessed it was by a thing that they called a s Hy- drostatic Paradox ' ; but she wasn't quite sure. Though not throwing much light on the engineering, the story exempli- fies what is certainly true, that the education of the American young woman tends to supply her with hard words, rather more than it does with their meanings. Though there may not be literal truth, at least there is point, in the story told somewhere of an American young lady, who, when the con- versation around her turned upon botany, remarked, being a modest and self-depreciatory girl, that she never could remember the horrid hard botanical names of the flowers — indeed, only knew tAvo of them, the ( Aurora Borealis,' and the e Delirium Tremens.' After our start from Chicago, the country through which Ave passed was the rich flat cultivated prairie that cha- racterises the c Garden State.' Of " course, as we flew farther and farther from Chicago, the trim white wooden ILLINOIS. 209 houses became more thinly scattered over the landscape, and the rich and highly finished neatness of a suburban district melted gradually into the larger and freer forms of cultivation, the broader waves, as it were, spreading out- ward from a centre of civilisation. But never, upon that day, were we in anything that could be called a wild country. Up to the point where the Chicago and North Western Railway crosses the Mississippi you are never out of sight of farms or houses, or of that which the famous bareness of prairie-lands less leads you to expect, some natural growth of wood or plantation of trees. Yet there are places even here, so far within the bounds of civilisation, and at the very side of the railway, where you can still see tracts of prairie in all its wildness — prairie, untouched as though the white man had never drawn round it his fatal and nar- rowing circle of outposts — prairie, that looks friendless and desolate and doomed, as it heavily sways to the wind its long, rank, withered grasses. Such spots you see here and there, and as the train goes roaring through them, here and there rise coveys of prairie-fowl out of the grass, flying as like as possible to the old-country grouse ; or, now and then, you are hurrying past a wild reedy lake in some rough spot, and see a string of wild ducks mount thence in startled flight close beside the train, from where they had been quietly feeding, as if they had not yet realised the fact that Illinois was no longer the unsophisticated place their parents had known it to be. The elements of the scene are few and simple — great flat farms of great square fields, with very little of fencing between them ; fields of stubble after wheat- harvest, or fields with the tall and leafy Indian corn standing thick upon them, with every plant of it taller than a man, and with all these plants now sere and yellow in their autumn tints ; white plank-built farmhouses in the middle of the farms ; here, a copse of stunted wood, growing, in general, p 210 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. where the ground is less evenly level than usual, or where there is water at hand; here, a straight row of poplars, marking the bounds of some farmer's lands, and meant to shelter them from the winds that sweep over the prairie as terribly unbroken as over the sea; here, an orchard laid down in regular rows ; no such thing as a fine spreading tree to be anywhere seen ; and, interspersed among all these painfully trim and flat and formal marks of civilisation, such wild patches of faded prairie-grasses and such rough reedy pools as have been described. These may be all the elements ; but of few scenes is it true, as it is of this, that the whole may be greatly different from the sum of the parts. Its very vast- ness impresses you — that immense, unconfined plain, bounded for the eye by the horizon alone, and stretching for the mind's eye on and on below the verge, repaying with equal wealth and comfort its myriads of happy and independent toilers, gathered to it out of poverty and dependence in other lands. Seeing it, as it was our fortune to see it, under a cloudless sky, and with the setting sun of a still and warm afternoon bathing and steeping the autumn fields in one great golden sea of glory — such 'happy autumn fields,' as prophesy rather of a brighter future for men than sadly re- mind of days no more — however it may be wanting in single features of beauty, none would deny that there is over it all some little share of * the exaltation and the poet's dream.' At seven in the evening, about five hours after our start from Chicago, we were rolling and creaking over the bridge across the Mississippi. The night was lit by clear and bright moonlight — bright with that keen, hard, piercing brilliance which is very noticeable in America to one who is used to the softer and more gentle radiance of English moonlit nights. A long wooden bridge carries the railroad over the river, which here spreads over much ground, run- ning in several channels, and embracing within its streams TUB MISSISSIPPI. 211 islands [and mud-banks and marshes. In the spring, no doubt, the water rises over the mud and the lower islands, making the Mississippi a grander sight ; but on the night of the seventh of October, after a long season of drought, the great river of the continent was certainly not looking worthy of its fame. To one who has seen the St. Lawrence in its glory, the Mississippi — unless, perhaps, very high in its course among the fine scenery near to St. Paul — is a dis- appointing stream. At none of the points, where I have seen it, can it bear comparison with the St. Lawrence at Quebec, or with the Hudson at West Point. Our train, which ran past the station of Fenton on the Chicago side of the river, made a rather long halt at Clinton, the station upon the western bank. We had time to go down upon the bridge and survey the low muddy waters, curling and ed- dying in silent flow toward the far-distant goal of their course. The quiet moonlight on the hushed waters below, that looked as if wearied already by a sense of the weari- some way set before them — a thousand miles, through changing woods, and under varying skies, to the edge of the tropics — the drear mud-banks, and the wild and careless growth of dense dank copse-wood on the islands, all these made a picture of utter desolation. Meantime, the brass band of the excursion — a band composed almost wholly of soldiers that had fought in the war — discoursed the loudest of music to the wondering people of Clinton. For half an hour it continued with unflagging zeal, and so long the ex- cursionists, mingling among the people who came down to see what all the noise was about, glorified themselves, and their papers, and the adventurous journey on which they were all setting out. Then we sped on again, through the State of Iowa ; and the editors resolved themselves into card-parties, or set themselves to writing their first day's doings for their journals at home, till a weariness fell upon all, and a chorus p 2 212 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. of snoring from the sleeping-cars was the only perceptible sign of life. It has been said that our train was magnificent. One of the party, an orator, with sublime powers of exaggeration, whose fervid eloquence is better known than liked in the British Isles, and of whom much more must be said before long, in a speech upon our trip and our equipage, described this train somewhat in the following style : — ( Gentlemen, — Not the Queen of England, when she goes in all her royal state to her Castle of Balmoral ; not Napoleon, when he travels in imperial splendour to the baths of Biarritz ; not the Emperor of all the Russias, when he journeys from the shoresof the Balticto his ancient metropolis of Moscow; none, gentlemen, of these personages, however exalted, however lapped in the luxuries and pampered with the pageantry of monarchical Europe, can boast of being conveyed in such a train as carries you, the editors of the West.' Tremendous cheers hailed the words, showing how the editors of the West appreciated the superiority of their way of travelling to anything enjoyed by the monarchs of the East. And, indeed, they had cause for pride in the perfection of the conveyances on their Western lines. Our train was much more than a mere vehicle. It was also an hotel for days and for nights. Four or five sleeping-cars, of the kind known to Americans as c Pullman's Palace Cars ; ' a couple of dining-room cars, one of them containing the indispensable bar for the supply of gin cock-tails ; a sort of morning-room car, for all the party to sit in, and for the band to sleep in ; a kitchen car, where our eatables were stored and were cooked, and in which, I presume, our army of negro waiters had billets ; and a baggage-car in the front, were the con- stituent parts of the train. Of these, the sleeping-cars were much the most attractive to the eye. Probably most English people have now got an idea of an ordinary Ame- A WESTERN EXCURSION-TRAIN. 213 rican railroad-car — such a car as may be seen in Switzerland ; how it is not divided into compartments, but is all, as it were, one chamber, with a passage down its centre, and a door at either end of the passage, letting you step out on a little platform, whence you step on to the adjoining platform of the next car, get in at the door of that car, walk along its central passage and out at the far door, and so, if you like, pass from one end to the other of the train ; and how, in every car, seats extend out from both sides to the central passage — short seats, such as may leave room for a free passage down the car, and of which each is only capable of accommodating two sitters, sitting abreast of each other. Perhaps, in more ways than are often noted, the great open American car and our own English railway-carriage are typical of their respective nations. That ours aims at an exclusiveness which the American disregards, is suffi- ciently obvious ; but, in its history as well as its character, our railway-carriage is symbolical. John Bull, like Nature herself, ( nihil agit per sal turn.' When he found his old coaches were too small for his new modes of travelling, the only thing that occurred to him was to stick three or four of them together. That out of this process the railway-carriage was developed, it needs no Darwin to tell us. But to ' follow Nature,' like ancient sages, seems slow work to Jonathan. When he got quite new ways of travelling, he got quite new vehicles too. He contemned all tradition; and, whereas our ( carriage ' is respectably connected, being the lineal descendant of the old coach, the ' car ' jumped straight into being, with no traceable ancestry at all. Pullman's ' Palace Cars,' in the daytime, look like those that have been thus described, except in so far as distin- guished above their more ordinary fellows by handsomer and more luxurious fittings. In them you have dressing- rooms, mirrors, seats covered with velvet, and little mahogany 214 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. tables before them, gorgeously painted panellings, and gilded borders. But at night all the seats and the tables disappear by some ingenious contrivance, and in their stead come two tiers of berths, one above the other, standing out from the sides of the car, and, of course, still leaving room for the passage up the centre. The berths are broader than on board ship, and, consequently, a good deal more comfortable. Each is enclosed by curtains, and, if the line of railway is tolerably smooth and well-laid (which is not very common on the newer American lines), the occupant has little to disturb his slumbers. One other peculiarity of the ( Pullman Cars ' may be noted, which is, that each of them has its own proper name inscribed on its exterior. Western towns seem the most approved givers of names ; for on our single train we had the ' Denver,' the c Omaha,' the ' Central City,' and, I believe, some other town's namesake forgotten by me. The car which has been called the ( morning-room,' for want of a more significant name, was not provided with berths, but was arranged pretty much like the ordinary cars already described. The e dining-rooms ' were fitted with a number of little tables, ranged in two long rows between the central passage and the sides of the car, every table accommodating four persons at meals, and having two chairs on each side of it for these diners to sit upon. Since one whole car and the half of another, thus provided with tables and chairs, were found to be sufficient to give all the excursionists access to the not very inviting repasts, the other half of this second dining-car was, as has been said, made into a bar-room — that great American institution, as characteristic of the nation as is the cafe of the French. This half-car was much the most popular part of the train. In it, all morn- ing, all day, and all evening, there was continuous clinking of glasses, consumption of ' drinks,' and clatter of tongues. Indeed, this spot was the centre of social life for the party, A WESTERN EXCURSION-TRAIN. 215 and , as such, may require some description. In it, Mr. Andrew Johnson had some pretty hard things said of him ; for the greater number of the party, as was likely in the Western States, were enthusiastic Republicans. Strange stories, also, were here told of the war, for nearly all our wielders of the pen had wielded swords or rifles in their day — strange stories, which grew all the stranger the more the old Bourbon whisky was drawn upon, till one could not help thinking, that some of them must have bodily arisen out of that magical bottle which stood, unpretentiously, on the counter. And not a few, of lighter heart than to care much for politics or feats of arms, here regaled themselves with rapid interchange of tales not unworthy, in some re- spects, of Boccaccio's knights, or won loud applause for songs Of Moll, and Meg, and strange experiences, Unmeet for ladies — with all that gross enjoyment of mere utter coarseness, which occasionally makes one look on the Western man as a sort of compound of the very worst types of British school- boy, and elderly Frenchman, and Plantation negro. Here, too, on the first evening of our journey, one of the black waiters, who attended on the party, showed himself deserving of Carlyle's only compliment for the African race, by giving us nigger melodies to a banjo accompaniment in excellent style. The melodies sung were the growth of the war, and the negro, who sang them, told me how he owed all his brilliant execution of them to much practice round camp-fires with the army. One was an admonition to John Bull, of which each stanza closed with a refrain like this : So now, John Bull, you mind your eye ! We don't want your attention. 'Guess Uncle Sam can settle dis job widout any intervention, — advice given by the negro with great unction, display of teeth, and a formidable roll of the eye, and which caused 216 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. some little merriment among the audience at the expense of Mr. Bull's only present representative, the special corre- spondent from Kilpapist. After so much about the means of conveyance and the popular pastimes, it remains to say something about the composition of the party. Having had the advantage of a personal introduction at Chicago to Colonel S , the originator and head of the excursion, I was brought through the train by this gentleman's kindness soon after our start, and introduced to everybody right and left, in true American style. Of Colonel S himself it is sufficient to say, that he was a colonel of the kind now abounding in America, not the mere titular colonel, who used to astonish Europeans, but a soldier, who had good reason to know how gunpowder smelt. A doctor, I believe, by profession, at the outbreak of the war, and, since its end, an Illinois editor, to him the command of a regiment had been merely an interlude in his life. No small part of the interest of American travel is due to the strangely change- ful and eventful lives of the individual men with whom it makes you acquainted. ' A romance on the plan of Gil Bias,' says Mr. Hawthorne, l adapted to American society and manners, would cease to be a romance. The experiences of many individuals among us, who think them hardly worth repeating, would equal the vicissitudes of the Spaniard's life.' As to this particular specimen of versatility, our semi-civilian colonel, there was certainly nothing martial in his look, nothing military in his manner; but, that he was a man of heroic courage and energy and fortitude, seemed sufficiently proved by the fact, that he had been the first to conceive the idea of mustering the wild editors of the West, and the foremost to marshal and organise his recruits into one united expeditionary corps. With this gallant guide I made the tour of the train. The first WESTERN EXCURSIONISTS. 217 person, to whom he introduced me, was that orator of fervid eloquence, whose eulogy of our railway-cars has been before quoted. Perhaps the style of that speech will have already betrayed the name of the speaker as being George Francis Train. This distinguished person had, as I afterwards heard, come to join the party without any invitation, and brought a friend from New York, also quite uninvited, along with him. In vain was it explained to him, with all possible clearness and point, that the excursion was only for writers. He is a man who rises superior to hints, and who, whether he wants to provide himself with amusement by getting into a party, or to make political capital by getting into a gaol, generally does what he wants. How- ever, having once joined it, he was certainly the soul of the editorial excursion. On an average, he made about fourteen speeches a day ; and, when not addressing a set audience in some formal harangue, he was sure to be, at all events, talking most vigorously to a crowd of attentive listeners. There were those, to be sure, who, on coming within the sound of his unwearying voice, muttered something about an ' irrepressible cuss ; ' and I recollect a quieter member of the party once saying to me of this same Mr. Train, ' Don't take that fellow for the type of any class among us : he's a man by himself: the only excuse for him is, that he's mad.' But when was true greatness without its detractors ? The fact is, that no country in the world, save America, could have produced Mr. Train ; but that even America has produced only one Mr. Train. In another country, his vigorous eccentricities would have taken some other turn : it was his American birth and associations that drove him into the line of flashy and violent stump-oratory, the wildest political rhodomontade and the emptiest economical theoris- ings. The direction taken by his oddities is as truly American as the direction of the mental aberrations of a 218 'SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. person much less able to do harm — a poor old lunatic, whom I once saw at the bar of a Saratoga hotel — a man, who had plans and calculations elaborately drawn out for the building of a bridge across the Atlantic, and came into the bar-room to ask us all to aid him in raising the considerable amount of capital that would be required. He knew exactly how much timber his bridge would consume, and where the timber could be got in the one State of New York ; and how the bridge was to be constructed as a sort of combined viaduct and aqueduct, with both a railway and a canal. ' A canal across the ocean ! ' said somebody. ' I should have thought there was nearly water communication enough there already ! ' * No, sir,' said the projector, with the most perfect gravity ; * I expect great things from direct intercourse, without the need of transhipment, between the inland waters of America and Europe.' He was the wild American speculator, run mad altogether ; as Train is the wild American demagogue, run into something not far from madness. To pass on to the other excursionists, it was strange how far some had come to join in the expedition. Thus we had a Colonel M' A from Troy, in the State of New York, another of those plentiful colonels, than whom it is said that, since the war, the generals are almost a yet more numerous body. Of this latter body, we had only one specimen, General L , a German, of Illinois, a Republican of the strongest type, who had proved his devout Republicanism by taking command of a negro force in the war — an honour not generally coveted, except by those who, upon principle, and in order to practise what they preached, took this means of showing how true liberality could rise superior to anti-negro prejudice. It was soothing to my conscience to find, that I was by no means singular in having professed myself connected with a paper in rather an unwarrantable manner. On confessing my false position to some of the party, I received con- WESTERN EXCURSIONISTS. 219 fessions in return from not a few, who, it appeared, were in exactly a similar position. Thus, a man of English birth from one^of the Western States was passing for the corre- spondent of the Times, though utterly unknown at Printing- House Square, and though, without wishing to be hard upon him, I should doubt whether our leading journal would have appreciated the compliment of his spontaneous accession to its staff. There was a genuine representative present from the Canadian press, a very interesting and agreeable person ; and there was one foreigner in the company, who had come from a place even farther oifthan Kilpapist — Mons. S , a Belgian consul, making a report for the s Independance Beige.' This gentleman won the esteem of the correspondent from Ulster at an early period of the trip ; for, in answer to one of Mr. Train's fiery speeches, on the question of Pro- tection or Free Trade, in which the speaker had pronounced the issue for Americans to be simply a choice between supporting England and supporting America, Mons. S , in his advocacy of Free Trade, utterly repudiated this issue, saying that jealousy of England and her manufactures was .quite unworthy of great America. The Belgian was un- questionably a ready speaker, and his speeches in English were rendered all the more bold and venturesome flights of eloquence by the fact, that he only knew a very few words of our language. However, the sympathy of the audience was with him, and anything of his- .address, that was in- telligible, showed itself to be penetrated with great and philanthropic ideas. ' England is one great country ; America is one great country ; what for, then, you not be two great countries both together ? ' — which, indeed, contains the sjist of all arguments against an internecine struggle © O O DO between the peoples, and is the sum and substance of all the friendly diplomacy which can be exchanged across the ocean. Another fellow-traveller, of whom something may 220 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. be said, another of our bearers of military titles, was the good-natured and unwieldly Major E , by far the biggest American I ever saw, who looked as if the shock of his onset must have been most overwhelming to the Southern chivalry, and as if he might also have served his cause well by stopping any ordinary cannon-ball. Poor Major E ! He, too, won the esteem of the * Warcry's ' representative, though not by defending England from Mr. Train's as- persions. The benefit rendered by him was of a more purely personal nature. It consisted in the free gift of a new hat, instead of one that had been swept across the prairie by a gust of wind, as its wearer crossed from one car into another in the course of our railroad journey far out on the plains. As the place was rather an awkward one for being thus rudely uncovered in, being probably about 250 miles from the nearest hatter, Major E was a friend in need ; and it will not be surprising that I afterwards read with much regret of grave misfortunes subsequently befal- ling him. Taking up a paper, one day, in a Western town, I caught sight of the name of my benefactor, and read an account, which, as it illustrates some curious details of American life, it may not be amiss to give here. The passage ran somehow thus : — s All who shared in the late editorial ex- cursion will remember the gallant and genial Major E , whose song and story and laugh were the life and soul of that party. We regret to have to announce a misfortune which has happened to him. Shortly before joining the excursion he had led to the altar the lovely Miss .' (It may be mentioned that the newspaper gave all the names in full.) ' On his return from the Rocky Mountains the bridegroom sought his fair bride ; but she was no longer to be found. A note left by her informed him, that, having met an old friend, a Captain , she had renewed her WESTERN EXCURSIONISTS. 221 acquaintance with him, and had discovered, that, upon the whole, after a fair trial of both, she preferred the Captain to his senior officer. It would be quite useless to pursue her. She had no idea at all of being caught. However, the Major did pursue, and did come up with the guilty couple in the town of C . Arriving there early in the morning, he discovered their room, and broke into it at once.' The calm terseness of the next sentences was worthy of attention. 'Both gentlemen fired simultaneously. The Major dropped to the Captain's bullet, rather hard hit in the shoulder. The lovers escaped in the confusion.' Yet another of our men of war was Captain W , a retired naval officer, a most charming and amiable member of our society. Men, who can tell you about services on land, are so plenty now in America, that you soon get tired of military recitals ; but it is much more rare to meet those who can tell you of the naval aspect of the war. My friend Captain W was one of these, and many were the stories of the blockade which we got out of him from time to time, though he was certainly of no egotistical turn. One specimen may be repeated, as nearly in his own words as it can be remembered — a little picture of the blockader's life. Asked by me once, what his richest capture had been, he told me, ( Well, she was a steamer belonging to the Clyde, which we took laden with cotton as heavily as she could be. I was lying outside Charleston at the time ; and as the night of this capture was as black as a coal, we did what we always did on dark nights, when the forts had no chance of hitting us — we crept in as close as possible to the mouth of the harbour. We were all alive that night ; for it was just the night for the blockade-runners — too dark for you to see them, and windy enough for it not to be very easy to hear them. There had been a growling of thunder going on through the evening. Suddenly, out of the black clouds, 222 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. came a great flash of lightning, and I saw quite plain, by the light of it, a steamer running out as hard as she could go, close to my ship. We were always ready for a start in those days ; so I gave the word, and away we went, right into the black night. Well, there are not very many courses which a ship can steer just there. Besides, we knew the runs of the blockade-runners as a hunter knows the runs of the deer ; and away we steamed on the likeliest track. No more kind flashes of lightning came, and I de- clare I thought she had given us the slip, when, as I stood on the bridge, I got a whiff of the smoke of your English bituminous coal. That was the scent we wanted, and no mistake. " Keep on, boys ! " I shouted. " We're fair on her track ! " And we just tore right on, rather reckless, till, after a bit, the men at our bows sang out on a sudden to put the helm hard-a-port and stop the ship's way. We were driving right into our friend, and had some trouble to prevent running her down. Her steampipe was choked, and she had had to stop. I never saw a poor fellow so down in the mouth as her old Scotch skipper. He told me he had gone in for different adventures in the blockade-running line, had made money at first, and had been losing it since ; that he had vowed this was to be his very last run ; that his wife had warned him, before he left the Clyde, he was sure to be captured this time — she had dreamt it so often. He was a good old fellow enough : I pitied him, and,' added my friend, with a touch of the dry American humour, ( he had an uncommonly nice chronometer, which, as he had no further use for it after we took his ship, I just kept for myself. I've often told how my biggest prize (my share of her was 35,000 dollars, for cotton was at an awful price in those days) was first viewed by a flash of lightning, and was run down by the scent of her coal ; and I dare say I was hardly believed, though the facts were exactly as I have IOWA. 223 told them.' I can vouch for my witness as evidently credible ; and also, I think, for the accuracy of this report of his story. Asked whether the blockader's life had not been very pleasant, with plenty of excitement, hardly any- thing of danger, and good chances of profit, he said it was a very wearing life for officers in responsible positions : they had to keep so constantly on the look-out, night after night, and got so roundly abused, whenever any blockade- runners slipped through their net. * Besides, your people did the business, bad business as it was, in uncommon fine style. Nothing was too hard or too risky for those British skippers ! ' Of all our alleged evil doings during the war, nothing is looked upon so leniently by Americans as this blockade-running traffic. At the bottom of their hearts they admired it exceedingly. Captain W seemed always to kindle with something like pride in our common race as he told us the feats of British blockade-runners — how, for instance, he had seen one dash through eleven blockaders, all firing away at her as hard as they could. But, meantime, the night is passing away, and the train rushing fast from the low ground about the Mississippi to the high central plateau of Iowa. It is impossible for me to give much account of this part of the line ; for both in going and coming I passed it by night. Occasionally, on this first night of our journey, escaping from the chorus of snoring in the somewhat close cars, I stood on the platform outside of them, and saw as much of the country as could be thence seen by the light of the moon. It appeared to be very much less flat than Illinois — to be, in fact, what is called in the West a country of ' rolling prairie ; ' that is to say, where the undulations of the ground recall the round swell and deep dips and hollows of the roll of the sea. I believe it is also an improved and improving country, with settlers and farms on it ; but to one who is standing on the 224 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. platform of an A merican car, while the train is clanging and swinging along at full speed over a very rough road, and is raising great clouds of dry dust in its course, observations by moonlight necessarily give but very scant information."* About seven in the morning we got to the top of the incline, and halted for breakfast at the town of Boonesboro'. From this point the country is wild and bare for a consider- able distance. Here was our first view of great spaces of prairie, now flat and now rolling, without a tree or a shrub or a habitation within sight — spaces sometimes clothed with long grass, sometimes bare, barren, and brown. The snow in this high country is a serious obstacle in winter ; and often, where the train dives into a cutting sunk between banks, you see on the top of the bank to your right a hoarding of planks, meant to shelter the line from snows drifted before a wintry north wind. The roughness of the railway is something startling to an European. As you look from the platform at the rear of the hindmost car, the long lines of rails over which you have passed seem so unevenly laid, so rugged with ups and downs, as far as the sight can reach back, that you wonder how the cars kept on the metals at all. It is well known that all American lines, and especially the lines of the West, are much more rapidly and less permanently constructed than European railways. But on lines still newer than this Chicago and North Western— the Union Pacific, for instance — there is not nearly so much roughness. It is at that particular stage of a line's development, when it has been subjected to some wear and tear, and has felt the rains and the frosts, but has not yet been compactly filled up with ballast * The ' working-man ' correspondent of the Spectator (Mr. Coningsby) pro- nounced this east side of Iowa the best part of America for farmers to settle in, mentioning a colony of Englishmen from Lincolnshire, settled near Clinton, as remarkably successful. — Spectator, September 4, 1869. COUNCIL BLUFFS. 225 nor solidified into steadiness by time, that the uneven- ness is at its worst. During a fearful jolting on a Western line, I once ventured to remark to a Western man, that the railroads of his country seemed to me rather rough. ( Wal, yes,' said he, e guess they air : trains do jump about, some. Its a'most enough for us if they keep anywheres between the two fences. 'Guess that wouldn't suit in Eng- land.' When I told him that we did, indeed, look for some- thing more than a mere avoidance of trespass on neighbouring fields, and liked, so far as was possible, to adhere to the metals ; ( Ah ! yes,' he said, l that's so — in an old country, and a darned small one. But we an't partikler out here. No, sir. 'Twouldn't pay us, I guess — ,' and jolted on in contentment. When we got, on our downward course, within sixty or seventy miles of the Missouri, the country became less bare. Patches of wood, farms, and houses now appeared with more frequency. But as the landscape grew tamer, the sky grew more lowering and dark ; and before we got to the high bluffs on one side, and the dense stunted growth of woods that mark the course of the Missouri on the other, the rain came down in a torrent. About three in the after- noon, we stopped at the town of Council Bluffs, which stands on the east side of the Missouri, right opposite the more prosperous Omaha. The town of Council Bluffs is built at the foot of some bold and steep banks, which have evidently been at some time the boundary of the river ; but now the Missouri, being a wayward and wandering stream, has moved off to see what the Omaha side of the valley is like, and has left Council Bluffs high and dry. An election had been fought there that day, and the Democrat party, having beaten their foes, were marching past in triumphant proces- sion, just as our train came to a halt in the station. A band of musicians went with them, and at their head was displayed Q 226 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. the proud stars and stripes. As they passed us quite close, this display of the flag of the Union provoked a good deal of banter from our Republican writers. Many enquiries were put to the Democrats, asking « what they had done to earn the use of that flag ? ' ' whether they had liked it as well a year or two before, when it had to be fought for ? ' ' hadn't they disowned it when it cost a good deal, and sneaked in, after all, to get it half-price ? ' till, at last, one Republican editor hit on a more subtle torture for the wretched pro- cession by calling out all our black waiters, inciting them with a cry of e Boys, look at those Copperhead slavery men, with the free flag of the Union before them ! ' and so rousing the scorn of the negroes, that the Democrats were routed at once, fairly grinned off the ground by white rows of teeth and inextinguishable African laughter. The crossing of the Missouri was a most tedious business. The rain poured down heavily ; the low flat banks were deeply covered with mud; and the dull muddy stream, spreading broadly before us, looked cheerless and repulsive as a river could look. But there, in full view, was the town of Omaha, rising up the opposite bank ; and, after thirty hours of the cars, and meals taken in a train bowling along at full speed, the sight of a town and the idea of a hotel were strong sustainers of the spirits. What delayed us, I know not ; for the steam ferry-boat lay at hand, apparently ready. There was the important business, to be sure — and a most important business it is in America — of receiving a deputation from the town of Council Bluffs; but as the young gentleman who acted as spokesman merely regretted that the election prevented his town from entertaining our party — offering us, instead, its best compliments and a small keg of its whisky — the delay need not have been long. Mr. Train, however, seized on this small ceremonial, and turned it to account by making a very long speech, and OMAHA. 227 going through a considerable amount of buffoonery. 'So passed an hour on board the ferry. Then we got across, and were turned out upon mud-banks of a more solemn dreariness, and more deeply tenacious, than any hitherto met. Both Council Bluffs and Omaha are considerable towns: the latter claims (or then claimed) from twelve to fifteen thousand inhabitants, but neither has any wharfage at all. The steamers and vessels of all kinds simply run against the mud. There would be great difficulty, it is said, in making permanent quays — the Missouri is so fond of undermining or circumventing its banks, and thus changing its course. At the time of our visit, the people of both towns were keenly interested in a scheme for building a bridge, which was all that was wanted to enable passengers to go right through from Chicago to the uttermost West without changing cars. When we emerged from the mud, and gained the streets and hotels, it became very plain that the turning loose of so large a party upon it severely taxed the accommodation of Omaha. Thus far out in the new West, towns change with such amazing rapidity, that it is almost useless to write a guide- book description of them : by the time it is written, it will be no guide at all, and this year's tourist will hardly believe that last year's tourist's account can ever have been true. Whatever hotels may have sprung up in Omaha since, down to the winter of '67-'68, there was only one large and first-class house in the town, that kept by Cozzens — a name known to all American tourists, for the same pro- prietor's beautiful hotel at West Point, one of the most fashionable resorts of New Yorkists, and much frequented by all who have friends at the Military School. However, there were other and smaller houses, at which the outcasts from the big house gradually got themselves taken in and provided for ; and so, scattered through the town of Omaha, Q 2 228 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. we spent the second night of our trip. What is chiefly noticeable about American hotels of the West is, that the farther westward they are, the more independent and haughty is their staff of officials. In the hotels of the East, those terrible young men, who stand behind counters in the entrance-halls, to receive and make provision for guests, frequently show you a sort of distant and patronis- ing civility. In a town like Omaha, on the contrary, you will sometimes find it hard to attract their notice at all ; or, should you light upon more genial and hearty youths, you may perhaps find yourself treated at once with all that easy, flowing, gay familiarity which you have been used to expect only from your oldest and most intimate friends. Then, as to the servants, it is a pitiless practical joke at the expense of the guest to apply the name of f servants ' at all to those witty, jovial, and spirited Irishmen, those fierce, resolute, and haughty Irishwomen. There are, indeed, few things which a Western tourist does not learn how to do for himself; but cleaning the muddiest of shooting-boots may fairly be pronounced to be one of them. Yet it was only by declaring himself a good Irish patriot, by dis- coursing for some time on the woes and the aspirations of Ireland, and by trying a little bribery besides, that the correspondent of the ( Warcry ' got this service performed for him by his great fellow-countryman, a gentleman lately from Connaught, now Boots at an Omaha hotel. On the following morning, Omaha was all astir with preparations to' do the excursionists honour. At a very early hour, the correspondent of the * Warcry ' was thrown into a paroxysm of terror by getting a note from the editor of an Omaha paper, a note breathing the very spirit of fraternal affection, in which the writer told how he was a native of Kilpapist himself, and had been well acquainted with the writers of the ' Warcry.' He went on to say how he was OMAHA. 229 looking forward with eagerness to befriending his newly arrived fellow-townsman, and would certainly seek him out as early as possible. There was no avoiding the encounter. The Western man is not to be baffled. Yet the danger of exposure and public denunciation seemed imminent over the head of the pretended correspondent. However, the wind was tempered to the lamb. The Kilpapist man came, not merely a harmless, but an exceedingly sociable person, and one who had luckily been so long away from Kilpapist, that he was wholly unable to put searching questions about it or its papers. The entertainments provided by the townsfolk in honour of the excursion were of three kinds : first, a general driving of any of us, who desired to be driven, on a tour of exploration all round the town ; second, a feasting of the whole party at dinner ; and lastly, a ball. Before a legion of ' buggies ' carried off my fellow-travellers on their rounds, I had done what no American would do, except under compulsion, namely, explored the town upon foot. It straggles over a great space of ground that gradually rises from the Missouri to some hills and a high plateau, enclosing the view. The streets are wide, and a considerable number of the houses along them solid, brick-built structures, giving a more substantial and permanent air to the place than the plank-built ' frame-houses ' that abound in new Western towns. Outside of the two or three streets, at present the busiest thoroughfares (it is impossible to say how soon busier thoroughfares may spring up elsewhere), buildings of brick are more scarce, and you see more of the frame-houses widely scattered about, looking as if they had been tossed out on the ground quite at random, like wooden toy- houses strewn by a child all over the floor. But, on passing amongst them, you see that their arrangement is not thus without plan. Great wide roads are marked out, the roaring 230 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. streets of the future, and at the sides of these the houses are dropped down here and there in the choicest of the sites. That at the time of our visit some of these streets of the future had not become painfully metropolitan, was brought to my notice by the fact, that I started a prairie-chicken out of some weeds in the middle of one of them, and marked it down again into the middle of another. One end, and that the prettiest end, of the town is known as { Trainville,' and is said to be the property of Mr. George Francis Train. If it be so, it becomes harder than ever to excuse Mr. Train for putting us to expense in our endeavour to get him to pay his just debts, for so much property in a choice situation in a very rising town must represent a good deal of wealth; which, indeed, common rumour in America — in general most care- fully informed on such matters — has long been declaring Mr. Train to possess. The lions of a town like Omaha are won- derfully quickly gone through ; and after a walk round the place, the irresistible politeness with which the towns- people forced one to get into a vehicle and be driven round it again, was but cruel kindness. It is indeed rather interesting to observe to what straits the inhabitants of such American towns, being firmly resolved to show their visitor something, are reduced for want of anything to show. Along with three other excursionists, I was driven, in the first place, to a frightfully ugly and staring white house, standing on the edge of the plateau that overlooks Omaha, and was called upon to admire the home once prepared for the Legislature of Nebraska. The Legislature of Nebraska, however, was not in possession ; for some wretched little town, called Lincoln (I think), had been taken as capital, in preference to Omaha, to the grief and indignation of all Omaha men. Like true Americans, all Omaha men were perfectly resolved not to let the thing rest till Omaha had vindicated her right to be capital ; and, indeed, if our Irish driver's account of A SCALPED MAN. 231 the rival city was not utterly wild with exaggeration, that city can hardly be thought a satisfactory capital. When asked how many inhabitants it had, he replied, after the usual Western preface of very hard swearing, that it never had ' ere a wan,' only an odd visitor now and again, come to see what the end of the world looked like. The next lion shown us was the ground on which the Omaha youths play the American national game of Base Ball — a very wild and un- kempt bit of prairie, but looking, like most bits of prairie, as if Nature had meant it to be made into cricket-ground. There might be difficulty, perhaps, in growing the springy and velvet-like turf that the cricketer loves ; but, in the matter of space and of flatness, the prairies look the true ( Happy Cricketing-grounds ' for the shades of good cric- keters bowled out of their innings of life. From the Base Ball ground we passed on, under the auspices of one of our party, Mr. Pullman, the owner of the magnificent cars, to in- spect the Union Pacific Railway's manufactures, and to see cars being built that were to roll from one ocean to the other. A battered and demoralised engine, undergoing repairs, was shown me by the head of the works, with the remark, ' That's the locomotive the Bed-skins threw off the track the other day, on the line you're going to travel to-morrow. Have you seen our scalped man yet ? ' I had heard of the Indian attack on the train, but not of the scalped man of Omaha ; so innocently enquired, whether his body was really still kept on show. ' Body ? No. Man's lively enough, I guess,' said our guide; 'take him some 'baccy or something, and get him to show you his scalp.' And then for the first time I heard, how — when the Indians threw the train off the line (a goods train, luckily, with very few men upon it) and, rushing in with their tomahawks, knocked on the head and scalped all the men on the engine and at the breaks, except one, who escaped by running back along the line to a passenger train 232 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. coming up — this Omaha man (an Englishman by birth) was tomahawked and scalped, like his fellows, and left for dead on the line. The approach of the passenger train rather hurried the Red-skins, who, thinking they had killed all they could, made a speedy retreat. Presently this Omaha man re- covered from the stunning blow of the tomahawk. He got up, and managed to walk back along the railway to the nearest of the stations (for the passenger train had, I believe, backed away, and left the scene of the massacre). It was naturally not very long before he missed his scalp; but, in leaving the wreck of the train, he recognised this missing part of his person, where it lay upon the ground, dropped by some precipitate Indian. It was clear that, however unsatisfactory its recovery might be with this complete solution of con- tinuity between it and the rest of his skin, to say the least, he had still a better right to it than anybody else. So, putting into his pocket the recovered top of his head, he made his way to the abodes of white men. In the autumn and winter of '67 he was living at Omaha, after a happy recovery. His crown, to be sure, was a little ghastly to look upon, as a friend, who saw him, has told me ; but he was otherwise well, kept his scalp in a little box, showed it to visitors with pride, and rather enjoyed being probably the only person in the world who could entertain his visitors with a description of the feelings produced by suddenly recognising the top of your head on the ground at your feet. By the time we got back to the principal hotel, the great dinner-party to be given in honour of the excursion was about to commence. It did not much differ from other large public dinners and complimentary banquets, at which one has been. There was the usual full bill-of-fare, the usual difficulty in getting anything to eat. There was the usual brisk consumption of liquids, and perhaps even more than the usual wonder in one's mind, on tasting the liquids in A WESTERN BANQUET. 233 question, how in the world their consumers could expect to live through the night. A great display of the wines of California was set out on the table. Though the grapes of California are said to be wonderfully fine, and though it can hardly be doubted that it will some day be a first-rate wine- growing country, it is perfectly certain that, up to the autumn of '67, Californian wine would hardly have induced any man in the world to abandon sobriety. Perhaps the mistake of the wine-makers may be, that they are not original enough. They strive to imitate European wines ; and very sorry imitations are the result. Each wine is not called by the name of its native place ; but you have ( Cali- fornian Port,' ( Californian Hock,' and so on ; and, indeed, the makers of the wine, if they want its drinker to be aware in each case what particular wine they have tried to imitate, are perfectly right to mark the name of that wine on the bottle. Perhaps (beside the Western wines) the only peculiarity of the banquet characteristic of Western America was the tremendous uproar made by the guests. Nobody who has not been among Americans, and especially Americans out in the West, can imagine how often an Englishman, set down among them, feels as if he had got among schoolboys madly enjoying a holiday — how vividly he realises what a dull, sad, sober people we English are. They say we used not to be such; that England was ' Merrie England ' once ; that, in Shakspeare's time we could laugh at the poorest jokes ; but now, in our days of old age, we are ten times harder to amuse than our kins- men across the Atlantic. Alas! what middle-aged portly Englishman, in these degenerate times, could have made the noise, and gone through all the antics, that was made, and were gone through, during that festive scene at Omaha, by the inimitable Mr. Train ? Never was he in better heart. He detailed his creditable English experiences to a table of 234 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. delighted hearers. He described how he had been im- prisoned in London ; and how he had done nothing in prison but abuse the British Government, for the instruction of other prisoners ; and how, when the governor of the gaol requested him to go out, he had positively refused to move ; and then he mimicked the governor's mincing manner, and set the table in a roar, for, as a low comedian, he really has no equal anywhere ; and took off the governor's great surprise at a phenomenon never seen before, during a whole long life of governorship — namely, a man who positively refused to leave a gaol. The recital was very amusing, but the accuracy of all its details has since had some horrid suspicions thrown on it for me. Some months later, when Mr. Train was in Ireland, I happened to see that he had been performing a comic representation of a governor of one of her Majesty's gaols before an audience in the Rotunda of Dublin. A glance over the newspaper-account of this performance showed it to be exactly the same as that which had been rehearsed in the previous autumn at Omaha. All the laughable absurdities attributed to the governor of the gaol were quite the same ; there was just one little dif- ference ; in Omaha, before Mr. Train's late confinement in Irish prisons, they were attributed to a governor of a gaol in London — in Dublin, they were attributed to a governor of a gaol in Cork. After the dinner, as is usual upon such occasions every- where, fervid eloquence came on the scene. There was this difference, however, between the Omaha practice and the practice in use at similar scenes in England, that the Omaha eloquence was vastly the more fervid of the two. He, who has heard one Western speech, might almost be said to have heard all Western speeches. Farther out on the plains, he will hear more allusions to the Indians than on the banks of Missouri. Otherwise, the substance of STUMP ORATORY. 235 Western harangues is pretty nearly always the same. It is one tremendous glorification of the ( Great West,' ' the Vast West,' from beginning to end. How you do hear of ( the illimitable expanse of prairie ! ' ' the magnificent future of the Western cities ! ' How you do hear this, that, and the other, small town — wherever, in fact, the speech is being delivered — pronounced without hesitation to be the ( New Chicago,' and, occasionally, put forward as ' the natural metropolis of this mighty Republic!' The quietest men from the East seem to catch the infection, and, when they speak of the future of the West to a Western audience, they shout, scream, and gesticulate, like violent and dangerous lunatics. Among the speakers called out after our dinner, were Senator Thayer of Nebraska, and other persons of some note. All were fluent, loud, and rhetorical — none said any- thing worth hearing. After a time, the company had to move from the large dining-room, to let preparations be there made for a ball. The speakers adjourned to a bal- cony, and the audience to the street below. And now a dreadful rumour began to spread. It was whispered that all the representatives of the foreign press were to be forced upon the stump in turn. The Belgian, Canadian, and English representatives yielded to the demand with graceful ease. The Kilpapist delegate fought hard and long. ( My dear sir,' said to him Colonel S , our chief organiser and master of the ceremonies, l you must, you really must, go forward. How can we ignore the foreign press altogether ? And how, if we have out the gentlemen from Canada, Bel- gium, and England, can we pass over Ireland's representative without notice ? ' I replied that, prone though my country- men undoubtedly were to find grievances in most things, I would still venture to assert boldly, that the omission of her name from this celebration would be received with a calm and dignified forbearance by Ireland. It was no use. One 236 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. had to succumb to that fate which every tourist should go to America prepared for, and to try one's powers of stump- oratory. However, American audiences have heard too much nonsense talked to them to be, in general, at all hard to please. Speak loud enough, and praise them effusively enough, and you are sure to be voted a model of eloquence. In the foregoing chapter, something has been said about the * lasting youthfulness of the American mind.' No finer example of it could be adduced than this strange desire that Americans feel, like boys in a boys' debating club, to hear their own voices haranguing, though the harangues delivered be wholly without the power, or even the inten- tion, to influence anybody or anything. To make speeches simply for the sake of making them is a grave and serious business in America. When an Englishman is victimised by this custom, he is sure to be somewhat sustained by ap- preciating its ludicrous aspect. Even his terror at mounting the stump will not be altogether unmingled with e secret laughter tickling all his soul.' The ball, that closed the evening, was hardly as curious a sight as might have been hoped. The number that at- tended was small. Among them was a party of British officers from Canada, passing through Omaha on their return from a buffalo-hunt on the plains. Though quite unacquainted with the peculiar dances of the West, these young gentle- men plunged into all with the utmost courage ; and, in spite of the popular American maxim that ( the pen is mightier than the sword,' it was clear that the English soldiers were fully as strong with the Omaha ladies as their rougher rivals of the press. Perhaps the funniest novelty for one who had not yet seen much of the social gatherings of the West or South, was the tremendous shouting of each next movement in the quadrille figures by either the leader of the band or some other directing official. This seems to THE LINCOLN CAB. 237 be the regular thing at dances got up in hotels, on board Mississippi steamers, and at others of the less choice assem- blies of the South and West — a custom exceedingly trying for the ears, where the prompter is (as he generally is) some stentorian negro, but one almost indispensable, where the quadrilles in use are (as they generally are at such Southern and Western parties) very many in number and mazy in figure. After a day of this hard duty, the excursionists agreed, that our westward start should not be before a reasonably late hour on the following day. It is hard to wring such a con- cession from Americans making a journey. The national hours are early enough to appal the English mind; and, whenever you are going any considerable distance, you are likely to find the best train of the day setting off in the grey of morning. However, noon was fixed for us ; and, at a little later, on Thursday, October the 10th, we rolled away to the West. Our train was a little altered from what it had been as far as the Missouri. Bringing cars across that river in the ferry is no easy job, and is, indeed, nearly impossible if the wind be high. So we had left behind on the Iowa bank one or two of the largest and heaviest cars, replacing them by others from the Union Pacific station at Omaha. Among these substitutes was one, a handsome car, with a story of interest connected with it. It was built as a gift for President Lincoln, but arrived at Washington too late ever to carry the living man. He had just been shot by Booth. The car, however, was devoted to the only service which it could yet perform for him for whom it had been intended. It carried his body from Washington to his native Springfield, in Illinois, there to be buried. This car, now the property of the Union Pacific Company, and still known as the ' Lincoln car,' was henceforth a part of our train. 238 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. Just at first, after leaving Omaha, you are in a country rolling into ups and downs, with groves of wood here and there upon them, and with spaces of tillage pretty fre- quently seen. Then you glide out upon the open prairie, and henceforward all descriptions of the scenery must be sketched in the broadest manner. For five hundred miles the landscape hardly changes. You are now fairly launched on that great sea of prairie known till the other day as 'The Great American Desert,' spreading in one vast un- broken waste from the Missouri's bank to the Rocky Moun- tains. It is true that the last ten years have swept this name away, and that the desert is now a land of hope; but in the autumn of '67 it was still a land of hope alone. The secret is out, that the plains can yield wealth to man ; but even American man in pursuit of wealth cannot all at once make an impression on a desert five hundred miles broad. It is now admitted, that the soil almost everywhere throughout the plains is rich and easily laboured, and that the only check to universal productiveness (but a most serious check it certainly is) is the scarcity of water. Hardly any rain falls upon this vast region. But along the Platte River, at all events, and whatever other streams intersect the prairie, it is certain that agriculture can be pushed on with advantage. Of the rest of the expanse, it is also certain that the grass which naturally grows over the whole is excellent fodder for cattle. Grazing, to be sure, is impossible without access to water ; but how far this want can be supplied by the sinking of wells in places remote from streams, is a question which you hear debated all day on the plains, and of which the solution will require more numerous and more widely scattered experiments. It is not, however, merely close to streams that cultivation can certainly spread ; for the system of irrigation now utilised with wonderful effect by the Mormons, as well as by the THE PRAIRIE. 239 farmers at Denver and elsewhere along the foot of the mountains, will spread the beneficent influence of streams much farther than the mere contiguous lands. Whether, as irrigation and culture thus spread farther and farther, and the old hard crust of soil is thus broken up, the climate may not change into being more moist and rainy, is a question about which Western men are sanguine. Probably their hopes are greater than their meteorological science; but that Americans will, somehow, so utilise the forces of nature as to turn their great prairie to account, nobody who knows it, and them, will doubt. Imagine an immense plain, covered with long grass, which is here of a dusty, faded green, there completely dried and withered into a pale and sapless yellow — turned, in fact, into a standing crop of stiff rank hay upon the ground ; for this is one of the properties of prairie grass. It never dies off till the spring, but turns in autumn into hay, the best of fodder, just as it stands, and continues thus all through the winter. There are, indeed, two different kinds of grass growing together on the prairie : by what names these are scientifically classed, cannot be here told ; but the unscientific Western men point you out the difference be- tween a tall and rather stiff grass, not growing by any means thick, which is what makes the hay in winter, and a short, curly, wiry herbage, growing very thick all over the ground, which is known to the unlearned as ' Buffalo grass.' To get back at once from this dangerous botanical ground — imagine this vast, grassy plain, with its sombre, sun-dried colouring, all round you as far the eye can see ; a great blue vault of sky, with an unclouded sun, overhead ; no tree or shrub, and no sign of the works of man within sight ; and then you have imagined the whole essential character of the prairie prospects as we saw them for five hundred miles. All the little variations upon this seemed, as it were, 240 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. only temporary and accidental : this was the great ground- plan. Such temporary breaks in the uniformity were, that sometimes we had a long low line of bluffs shortening the view on one side or other — here, steep and rock-faced, a flat- topped ridge against the sky — there, not of rock, but seem- ing to be sandhills, with channelled, wrinkled fronts turned towards us, as if torrents of water had at one time coursed down and eaten into their now bare and arid sides. Then, again, sometimes we had the broad shallow Platte beside us, f the meanest river upon earth,' as Western men delight to call it, with its shifting, treacherous sands, and scanty, fish- less waters. Where it appeared, along its banks sometimes appeared thick groves of stunted copsewood. Or sometimes the train would pass other and nearer bluffs, not a mere distant ridge bounding the view across an expanse of prairie, but hills close over us, or within a mile or two of the rail- way's course — barren and stony hills, with single trees of dark- green foliage, pines or cedars, thinly scattered up and down over their sides and hollows. Such copsewood by the Platte, or lonely storm-tossed trees among the bluffs, most dismal outcasts, were the only wood we saw. When asking where the makers of the railway got timber for their bridges and ( ties ' (sleepers, thickly laid across the track, for the rails to rest upon), one always heard that, beyond whatever bluffs were then in sight, there was good timber to be got ; but no doubt there was something of Western optimism in the statement, and only very little of the timber used could be got along the line. That a tree is indeed a rare sight and one not to be missed, may be inferred from the fact, that, late in our first evening upon the plains, when the train stopped at e Lone Tree Station,' a great crowd at once swarmed out from the cars, eager to see the tree. We soon returned, sadly, and with blighted hopes ; for we heard that the lone tree had been cut down some time ago for fire- PRAIRIE FIRES. 241 wood. Another feature of desolation is the great broad tract of burnt-up, blackened ground, that you are sometimes passing at this autumn season, marking the track of some prairie fire. At night, these fires are striking and even beautiful sights. Few things have had more bombast written about them — how they enclose and burn up man and beast in their terrible circle, or drive forth both, in panic-stricken flight, from a doom that comes rolling and roaring in pursuit. It is true that, where there are farms with prairie spread around them, as in Iowa, Missouri, and elsewhere, you hear of great losses to the farmers from buildings and stackyards burnt up by prairie fires. But, for my own part, after having seen some hundreds of lines of fire licking up the prairie grass, I have yet to see one which it would be hard to jump across. The biggest seen by me were in Iowa, where the grass grows longer than in these wild plains bor- dering the Pacific Railroad. On the latter, it is rare to see the highest tongues of flame leap a yard from the ground ; and, as the dry grass burns at once to ashes, the fire looks a mere long, wavering line across the prairie, of hardly any breadth at all. Along the railway's track, whenever the grass is withered and inflammable, it of course runs greater risk than ever of being set on fire: the sparks from the engine will be a constant danger to it ; but the railway does something, also, to check the spread of fires. They cannot readily cross it ; and in many places, where a vast tract on one side of the line has been burned to blackness, the grass on the other stands untouched. At night, you may often see how several distinct fires are sweeping over the prairie around you. Spreading out from the very side of the railroad, such a long wavy line of thin flame is consuming the grass as has been described ; and, here and there, far off, a dull glare in the sky above the horizon, like the glare over some distant city, is explained to you as mean- it 242 SKETCHES FROM AMEUICA. ing that other prairie-fires are burning yonder below the verge. When all this is being said about the gloomy aspect of the prairies, it must also be said, that we saw them at their very gloomiest. In spring, when they are full of flowers, they are not without their own beauty ; just as the Campagna of Rome (to which they are much more like than to any other sight I have seen) has then, also, a beauty of its own, though at other times almost matching the plains in cold and unlovely dreariness. And, even in autumn, if any clouds are crossing the usually cloudless sky, the play of light and shade over these vast expanses is very beautiful to watch ; or in the colouring of rocky bluffs there may sometimes be a gleam of beauty, when, in the clear evening, the ( low sun makes the colour ' and gilds or reddens or em- purples them. But it is not to the feeling for beauty that the plains make their appeal ; rather, to the feeling for sublimity. If, as has been said, the flat farmed lands of Illinois impress by their mere spaciousness, how much more will this wide wilderness ? There is nothing in all their country, by which Americans require so exactingly that you should confess yourself quite overpowered, as the vastness of its spaces. Elsewhere in the continent, it is a little hard to be overpowered enough for them ; but on the plains, even though whirled through them by steam, an European does indeed get a new idea of space, and begins to feel the smallness of certain small countries, almost as keenly as Americans can desire. To return to our excursion — the first station at which we made any long stop was e Columbus.' Previously to our arrival at it, Mr. Train had whetted our curiosity by dis- tributing prospectuses among us of a Credit Foncier Com- pany with which he was connected, and which had for object the retailing of lands bought up around this settlement of COLUMBUS. 243 Columbus. The account of Columbus therein given was, indeed, glowing and attractive. Among other things, we read how this town stood nearer than any other to the geographical centre of the continent, and how it would therefore have great claims to be the future metropolis of the Republic. Though we were somewhat startled by this claim of centrality, when we were imagining ourselves well into the uttermost West, the map seems to support it ; but when we stopped at the miserable prairie-settlement, not all the eloquence of Mr. Train could raise much enthusiasm for his town, though destined to so great a future. c But where is the town ? ' asked the wags, looking at one white-washed house and a few wretched little shanties with an air of the greatest perplexity ; but, as the prairie in its wide desolate- ness lay open to the eye all around, it may be asserted that there was no other town hidden anywhere from their ob- servation. Mr. Train, however, kept haranguing us on the visions he saw of a future Columbus, drawing to itself wealth, industry, and fashion from the four corners of a united continent, and on the advantage that would accrue to that continent if the newspaper-writers of the West would only take to writing up its destined metropolis. Our Belgian consul here interposed, declaring that he, for one, would let Europe know of Columbus, and doubted not that the rest of the writers would similarly interest themselves in the pro- gress of that city, if Mr. Train would only give each of them a ' corner-lot ' in it, as a proof of his sincere devotion to its welfare. When Mr. Train had replied in one of his cleverest broadly comic performances, the train again rushed on to- wards the then setting sun. It was agreed that it would be pleasant to halt for the night. Nobody wished to miss so much of the prairie as would be passed in the dark if we continued in motion ; and everybody hailed the bettered chances of sleep, if our sleeping cars were to stand still for R 2 244 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. the night on a siding. Our halting-place was a station near Fort Kearney, as dreary a spot as most of the stations along the line. There were, in October '67, only three places along the whole five hundred miles which deserved to be called by the name even of villages — namely, Columbus, North Platte, and Julesberg. At the other stations you saw only a wretched house or two, generally built of sods cut from the prairie, smeared over in some cases with mud • — houses, which, with their thick earthen walls and little loopholes of windows, looked more like small forts than peaceful habitations, and which were, no doubt, intended by the builder to be as hard as possible for the Indians to storm or burn down. Early in the morning, our train started again, slipping along over the newly made line so smoothly as not, for some time, to break in upon slumbers. My first half- awakened observations were, that there was a regular fusil- lade of shots being fired from the train, and that our pace was strangely uneven, now quicker, now slower. There was the sharp ringing sound which told of bullets and rifles, not of shot and small game. Are we having a running fight with the Red-skins ? If so, the odds must be heavy on the editors; else, surely our driver would put on all steam, and keep steadily at his best pace. Stepping out on the platform of the car, the best point for observation, I saw three poor little antelopes running a race with the train, about two or three hundred yards off. They were evidently trying to cross our track ahead of us, as is the habit of all the game on the prairies, unused, as yet, to vehicles too swift to be headed. But this time, agile as they were, the animals were unequally matched, and our engine-driver was playing with their efforts. When they made a bold rush forward, he quickened our pace ; when they fell to the rear, he slackened. Meantime, from all the platforms and windows PRAIRIE GAME. 245 of the cars, rifle-barrels were thrust out, firing away in quick succession at the antelopes. It is not very easy for anybody to shoot running game from a train in quick motion, and our editors were not sporting shots. Some of the bullets cut into the ground amazingly wide of the mark, but every now and then a bullet would rip up the turf very close to an antelope, and make the creature bound into the air in wild terror. For full fifteen or twenty minutes the fusillade continued, and the running targets kept at about the same distance. Then at last, they seemed to give up all hope of outstripping the steam-cars as they had outstripped stage- coaches and ox-teams in the past, and, turning away from the train, they made off to the bluffs, escaping, to the great delight of some of us (who, being unarmed, were not imper- vious to mercy), without wound or scratch. Afterwards, in travelling by the Pacific Railway, both westward and on the return journey, we saw many dozens of antelopes. They do not seem yet to have learned to shun the neigh- bourhood of the line. Sometimes they were in herds of fifteen or twenty ; and in no case was there only one by itself. The small prairie-wolf, or cuyote, was also not seldom to be seen. He was always by himself, and slunk away at a stealthy canter from the train, looking thoroughly ashamed to be seen, as if conscious of being the most ignoble of the beasts of the prairie. In size he is not equal to the largest breeds of the dog, and, however badly disposed, is not at all formidable. In general he is the shyest of brutes. When walking alone over the prairie, I have seen a cuyote steal up within fifteen or twenty yards, to have a look at me ; but probably he was only emboldened by surprise at falling in with a solitary walker, having generalised his notions of the whole human race from the gregariousness and strong dislike of pedestrianism, that mark his most inti- mate human acquaintances, the men of the West. At the 246 SKETCHES FEOM AMERICA. time of our westward journey, the buffalo, which are con- stantly migrating from one part to another of the prairie, according to the state of the pasture and the weather, ought to have been pretty plenty in the parts that we crossed. The officers from Canada, whom we had met at Omaha, had been seeing great herds near Fort Kearney ; and, on the return of the main body of our party, several buffalo were shot by them near that fort. But, when going west, we saw none at all. About fifty times a day, to be sure, some- body was to be observed pointing out buffalo in the distance to a comrade ; and thereupon always arose sharp debate. 6 There they are ! I knew we'd see 'em here. Look ! Right under that bluff — five of 'em, by Thunder ! ' * Those a'nt buffalo. Them's stones.' 'They're buffalo, I 'tell you: I've been on the plains before : I went right through to the mountains in '59: guess I know buffalo. There ! look! The right-hand one moved.' ' Guess that buffalo won't move much, not afore the judgment day, anyhow.' And so on, with an invariable victory for the anti-buffalo side. About noon, on this our second day of the plains, we got to North Platte. It has already been called a village ; but a point has thereby been strained in its favour. When we reached it, it consisted of a station, a tolerable inn, an encampment of United States troops, and the wigwams of some Sioux Indians. Though the place was once, when the line was just reaching it, supposed to be a place with a future, described in bold Western language as 'the New Chicago,' and pronounced ( a grand field for speculators,' ( one of the most rising of young cities,' there is now much more of the field than of the city about it. The railway pushed on, and, as usual, with the rails advanced the tide of speculation. North Platte was forgotten, and i INDIANS. 247 Julesberg became the rage ; till Julesberg also yielded to destiny, and Cheyenne reigned in its stead. The strangest thing about these mushroom towns is, that not only their hopes pass away from them, but also their houses. The buildings with which the infant city starts in the world, are mere shanties and sheds, frame-houses, quickly put up. When fashion goes hence and fortune frowns, the inmates of these are not the men to lag behind. He who sits help- less in his old family mansion in some square to the north of Oxford Street, seeing the flood of fashion roll down the hill to Belgravia, may well envy these men of the West. For they simply take down their houses some morning, pack the planks upon a waggon, and follow fashion to the still newer Chicago. Thus North Platte moved bodily to Julesberg, and Julesberg moved bodily to Cheyenne. At what places the tide of migration will stagnate into a permanent lodge- - ment, is the great question for the Western mind. He who can divine the answer aright, has his fortune in his hand. In the strong phraseology of the country, ( he can make his pile pretty slick off.' Notwithstanding the dreariness of the place, we had settled on a rather long halt here. Mr. Train, who was always receiving a running fire of telegrams from all parts of the line, had been promised, that at this station we were to have an interview with some Indians. So we had all subscribed to get a boxful of presents with which to make the Red-skins amiable. Though the presents got were the most useless rubbish — (beads, looking-glasses, spangles, and mere trinkets for show — not knives, hatchets, and the like, which are what the Indians most desire, except only guns and ammunition, which are considered unsafe presents to give them) — we were not disappointed in seeing a very fair sample of an Indian reception. A party of the Ogallalla branch of the Sioux tribe, detached under the chieftainship of ( Big Mouth,' was 248 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. living in dependence at the military station at North Platte. They had ' come in,' to use the term of the West, and were being supported upon rations supplied them by the soldiers, in return for the amity towards white men supposed to be shown by their ' coming in.' There was, however, a very suspicious scarcity of young c braves ' among the in-comers, and rather an excessive supply of squaws and small babies ; which looked as if only the more un warlike members of the tribe were put upon Uncle Sam for support, while the rest were pursuing their pet pastimes of horse-stealing and murdering whites. Most of their wigwams were very small, like the common ' bell-shaped ' tents, but of the roughest construction, and not very neatly put up. Some were of skins, others of canvas. A few were much larger, supported on several upright poles ; and as the day was rather hot, these seemed to be in favour as the sitting-rooms and dress- ing-rooms of the encampment. Men, women, and children were there to be seen sitting together in listless silence. They took little notice of us, and those who were doing anything did not allow our observation at all to disturb their employ- ments. Though they were not in the wildest of Indian costumes — a dress completely of skins, but wore cloth and brightly-polished metal ornaments, yet their tunics, leaving bare the thin sinewy legs from a little above the knee, and their leather belts, shining with flat pieces of burnished brass and tin, formed a sufficiently strange attire. Their occupa- tions were various. Here was a lady painting the parting down the middle of a gentleman's black shining hair, and making it of the very brightest vermilion. Here was another, colouring her own cheeks red, just as a lady might do at home, only that the pigments in fashion at North Platte were rather brighter in hue and more thickly applied. Some of the ladies, again, were engaged in nursing ; and while a few of us were looking at a less ugly young woman INDIANS. 249 than most of her fellows, who was thus engaged with a baby much whiter than herself, an old squaw, observing that the difference of complexion between mother and child was ex- citing remark, touched the fair ' papoose ' with her finger, and remarked with a pointed brevity — ' Soger ! ' Even these wild people, it appeared, could enjoy taking away each other's characters. The little chubby Indian children, squatting on the ground and looking with round, wondering eyes at the crowd of white men, were much the funniest and prettiest objects to be seen. Some of them, after attentively considering us in stilled amazement, burst out crying at the sight. Their tears were prophetic. A trainful of whites, turned out to gaze at their infancy in its own native haunts, meant that not many of the infants would be let quietly grow to maturity. On the whole, the Indians were exceedingly ugly. Their rich, glossy, black hair, which seemed to be shining with oil, was the sole thing about them that could have been commended for beauty. It was not very easy, in their curious cos- tume, to tell the women from the men: the features of both were equally hard and bony and sun-dried ; and as the men have no growth of hair on their faces, there was not any marked difference to distinguish the sexes. Only one word of salutation could pass between us and them, the 'expressive Indian ( hugh ! ' meaning /I'm friendly if you are.' Meantime, while we explored the wigwams, a regular ( palaver ' was being organised. ( Big Mouth ' and some of his friends were brought out ; a half-caste interpreter was found ; a circle was formed upon the grass ; and Colonel S., our president, addressed a long speech to the chief. The speech was what might be expected — an assurance of most kindly feeling towards the Indian race, perorating with 250 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. an invocation to the Great Spirit to be specially gracious to the Ogallalla tribe. The interpreter turned this into Indian, and Big Mouth listened to it with grave attention, some- times slowly nodding his head in approval of this or that sentiment. The chief certainly looked every inch A man, and a ruler of men. He was not among the tallest of the tribe, but was the broadest, stoutest, and most, powerfully built. His face was full of strong intelligence, and the marked prominence of the mouth and jaw accounted at once for his name, and for his having made himself to be obeyed among his fellows. He began to reply as soon as the interpreter ceased, speaking in his own Indian tongue. It would be hard to exaggerate the calm dignity, the strong self-reliance of his manner. He spoke slowly, and without any action, but never hesitating a moment for a word. His bearing was the bearing not only of a gentleman, but of a very haughty one, who liked to be respected and was used to it. An admiring editor, standing behind me in the circle, exclaimed in unrepressed soliloquy, 1 My God ! what a politician he'd have made, if he'd been born a little whiter and further east ! ' The interpreter turned the speech into English for us. It was simply a declaration of amity — how Big Mouth had ever been on the side of peace, and loved the white man as a brother — (it may not be inapposite to mention here, that many think he was the leader of the attack on the train, which cost our Omaha friend his scalp, as before related) — how he thanked us for our compliments and presents, and how he commended us, also, to the Great Spirit. Then our jester, Mr. Train, who had been unusually quiet for some time, advanced into the middle of the circle. ( Gentlemen,' said he, ( I don't think very much of the speech just made by our good friend in the red skin. AN INDIAN DANCE. 251 I flatter myself I can make you an infinitely more startling address, and in the very same language ; ' and immediately he commenced a speech in the loudest and most impetuous gib- berish, with the wildest and most extravagant gestures, jump- ing, flinging his arms abroad, tearing his hair, and rolling his eyes in a manner peculiar to himself. Probably it would have been impossible to go through any buffoonery more keenly insulting to the feelings of Indians. None of them at all relaxed the gravity of their expressions, and Big Mouth himself said to the interpreter, as that functionary afterwards repeated to one of us, c I know that is no real language.' Though the Indians often cannot speak a word of English, those of them who have been much among whites, can natu- rally recognise its sound. When Mr. Train had run down, an Indian dance was called for. A war-dance was what we desired ; but the chief objected, saying it was contrary to the usages of his tribe to dance their war-dance, unless somebody had been killed and scalped. Of course Mr. Train immedi- ately proposed that somebody should be killed and scalped on the spot ; but the general voice was raised in favour of the best performance attainable, without having recourse to human sacrifice. Two young Red-skins stepped out for the dance ; a third sat down before the big drum belonging to our band, and strummed on it earnestly with his fingers. At first the dancers merely swayed themselves to and fro, uttering a low murmuring noise; the taps on the drum came slowly ; then the sounds grew quicker and louder, the dancers began to spring off the ground and to redouble their cries ; more of the Indians chimed in, uttering low, short screams of encouragement. The noise and excitement in- creased. And now the dancers were yelping like terriers hot in pursuit of *a rabbit, with short, sharp, quick cries ; the drummer was beating loudly, without the slightest ap- proach to a tune, but with the rapidest pulsation of his 252 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. sinewy hands ; almost all of the Indians were joining in the cries, the squaws yelping most vigorously and rocking them- selves backwards and forwards with eyes strained and intent on the dance, and the dance itself became a succession of jumps into the air, strongly resembling a certain performance known among civilised European dances as ' The Cure.' This was absolutely the whole. There was no change of ground, no variety of step, no sort of figure in the dance. It was simply a bobbing up and down, with an accompaniment of a sharp and discordant barking, and the most utterly inharmonious thumping on the drum. Big Mouth himself looked on calm and stolid ; all the rest of his band either swayed themselves backward and forward, or yelped and barked in encouragement and imitation of the dancers. It did not seem the kind of performance likely to excite the hard apathy of the Indian, but it did most powerfully excite. All the Red- skins looked as if they had quite forgotten that it was a mere exhibition got up to order, and that they and it were surrounded by observers ; as you looked at their excited faces and movements, growing more and more eager and wild with animation — as you listened to the cries, growing quicker and sharper and louder, it was hard not to imagine that the dance had some real significance for them, and was the expression of a feeling that mastered them the more, the more it got utterance — so rapt and so enkin- dled and so utterly relieved from self-consciousness did the whole wild assemblage appear. After the grave perform- ance, came the burlesque ; after the savage, civilised man took the stage. Mr. Train was again to have his turn. Advancing again into the centre, he assured us that he thought as little of Indian dancing as of Indian speaking ; as he had competed with the latter in eloquence, so he would compete with the former in elegance. Whereupon he took off his coat, bent his tall body nearly double, and in that INDIANS. 253 posture commenced capering round and round the circle, flinging his legs out in the most grotesque manner, and uttering yelps, barks, and howls, in comparison with which the Indian cries were notes at once most quiet and melodious. Probably, with the single exception of the gibberish speech in imitation of Big Mouth's address, this performance was quite the most offensive to Indians that human ingenuity could have devised ; but that it was much more ludicrous than any comic dancing to be seen upon any stage, must be readily and freely conceded. The editors, however much shocked, fairly shouted and screamed with laughing. I recollect telling the story to a gentleman in Boston, eminent in literature, and believed to know more of the Indians than almost any other man in the world, and when I told him how even the grave Indians had laughed at Mr. Train's evolu- tions, he seemed to think I must be exaggerating ; but this was literally the fact. Big Mouth, indeed, and the older men, looked on with that unmoved composure which might almost have led you to suppose that they saw nothing odd in the performance. But the younger men and the women could not keep their countenances at all ; and I particularly observed one elderly and portly squaw, who, after vainly struggling with her emotions, broke down and shook all over with merriment. When Mr. Train, by prolonged caperings, had exhausted even his wonderful bodily powers (for he is a man of fine figure and of very remarkable strength), we moved off towards the train, musing much by the way on the superiority of white men to red. In the course of our stroll to the train, one of our party asked an officer of the troops quartered at North Platte, whether there was really any danger from hostile Indians in that neighbourhood. The answer, if a little brusque, was, at all events, quite to the point. * Wal, if you think there ain't danger, you jist go a couple of miles or so 254 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. beyond them thar bluffs, and if you git back with your hair on, why, you come and tell me.' The gentleman was clearly of opinion (for his remark, being in good Western, may need some interpretation) that a walk in the direction indicated would lead to the loss of one's scalp. His inter- rogator promised him at once, that when he took the walk recommended, he would certainly report the result upon his hair. In a short time we flew westward again. The scenery was such as has been already described. The general ten- dency of the great flat valley of the Platte, as you trace it further and further to the west, is to grow less wide. The bluffs close in upon you. The river itself is not often seen from the line, though never farther off than a very few miles. The ground spreading out from both banks is usually so level and flat, and hence the railway needs so seldom to be at all raised above this dead level of the ground, that even the low banks of the river are sufficient to screen it from view, and you rarely are given a chance of looking down on the wide-spread shallows of the stream. A little to the eastward of North Platte, a long wooden bridge takes the railroad over the river. It must have been no easy matter to get a hard bottom in its quicksands for those red cedar piles, on which rests the long bridge — a structure without any parapet, and of suspiciously frail appearance, crossed by the trains at a very cautious pace, to the sound of an ominously querulous creaking of timbers. Most travellers seem to be struck by a gradually increasing sterility in the prairie, as they get higher up that immense inclined plane, which stretches from the Rocky Mountains down to the Missouri. At the season at which our excur- sion was made, this increasing sterility was hardly ap- parent. Everything in the form of vegetation had been so thoroughly parched by summer and autumn, that the THE TRACK OF THE PILGRIMS. 255 colouring of the prairie was no longer a delicate criterion of its fertility. Everywhere the grasses were about equally burnt and sun-dried into a sombre brown or yellow. Yery often we were passing within sight of the worn and dusty track of ante-railroad Western migration. ( Track,' and not f road,' is the appropriate word; for there really was nothing of a 'road.' All the prairie was equally easy to drive over, and, except that they had kept on the same general course, the emigrant waggons had not at all slavishly followed in each other's traces. Beside the ruts of wheels heavily laden, there was another mark of the track of migration. At frequent intervals along it, lay the bleached bones of animals that had died, or been slaughtered, by the way. The loneliness of that silent track, with its garniture of whitening skeletons, makes it no enlivening sight ; and it is not made more cheerful, when one thinks what misery has been endured along it. This was a road of the pilgrims toiling on toward the City of the Saints. Not rough men alone, fitted for adventure and hardship, but poor women and children, just come from European homes, unused to the life, unused to the climate, have seen the dreary days roll into weeks, and the weeks roll into months, along that desolate, pitiless highway. Some travellers who have driven across the prairie, before rail- ways got so far, have mentioned the sight of human graves, lying here and there along the track — how impressive it is in that scene ! A pleasant place to be dying in, for some poor exile from soft English scenes ! But even the grave, they say, is no sanctuary here. The wolves come and tear up the body, and leave its bones to bleach among the bones of oxen and buffalo. The Indian of former days, to save his dead kindred from like profanation, used, I believe, to wrap the corpse in a blanket, and hang it high in the air, suspended upon long poles. But the worn-out emigrant 256 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. could not even hope for the quiet grave desired in that grand old English dirge, Call unto his funeral dole The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole, To rear him hillocks that shall keep him warm, And (when gay tombs are robbed) sustain no harm ; But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men, For with his nails he'll dig them up again. In our quick transit by steam we of course saw nothing of the graves. Late in the afternoon, we halted at a place of great no- toriety in the West, usually called by Western men, f the roughest on this side of Hell,' and thoroughly deserving its reputation. This was Julesberg, one of the towns that sprang up on the approach of the railroad, and faded as the line made further progress. When we reached it, Julesberg had, probably, from 1,000 to 1,500 inhabitants. Though without any particular advantages of site, Julesberg can boast of an antiquity among the cities of the plains. Before the time of the railway, it was known as a halting-place on the way to the mountains. However, in those ancient days (for all days are old, that are cut off from the present by a few months of Western progress), Julesberg consisted almost entirely of a fort and a sort of inn. It was the point of divergence of two main prairie-routes ; whence one struck southward to Denver, and to the mines of Colorado; the other kept further north, and nearer to the course taken now by the railway. The present town grew up close to the railway-station, about two miles from the fort ; which stands on rising ground at the other side of the Platte. All around is the prairie, without any sign of cultivation. When we stopped at this place, we were received with a deputation and speeches. A Colonel Lewis, on behalf of the town, delivered us an address which concluded as follows : ( You'll find us still rather rough, gentlemen. We've got some boys JULESBERG. 257 here much too partial to shooting, and no particular law to keep them in order. Last night we had three men shot dead. You'll have a chance of seeing some more to-night. Just go through our dancing-houses and gambling-saloons, if you want to see Julesberg life ; and take my advice before you go : put off your good coats, and put on your revolvers.' After this, and a few other speeches, General Potter of Fort Sedgwick, the military post across the river, proposed to drive some of us to visit his barracks. In the course of the drive the Platte had to be forded. Though the waters did not at this season take the horses much above the knee, the ford- ing is by no means easy. The river's sands are so treach- erous, that, if a vehicle sticks in them, it at once begins to sink. After a few minutes, it is inextricably buried ; and after a few hours, it has probably disappeared altogether. So shifting are the sands, that the fording has constantly to be done at different places. Poles are set up by the military upon the river's banks to mark the spot, for the time being, the safest to cross at. Soldiers are also often at work removing the wrecks of emigrant-waggons that have been caught in the quicksands-; which wrecks, if left there, might not sink alto- gether, but stick in the way of the current, causing the for- mation of new banks, and a complete change in the river. Port Sedgwick, like most forts of the West, is merely a set of barracks, without any claim, or indeed any occasion, to be regarded as a fortification. The Indians are the only foe ; and a garrison of a thousand men is not very likely to be assaulted by them, however rudely housed in buildings of 'adobe' (which seems to be Western for 'mud') or of round logs, or of planks — the several materials made use of in the building of most Western forts. After the General had proved his friendliness in American style, by making us drink his whisky, and had shown us a parade of his men, he told us much about Julesberg ; how they shot each other s 258 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. there every night ; how there was no enforcement of law; partly, because the town was on ground claimed by both Nebraska and Colorado, and therefore had not been brought under the jurisdiction of either; partly, because, at the election of magistrates, the keepers of * rough ' houses, and the rowdy interest generally, had been in a strong majority, and had accordingly elected gentlemen with whom they could cordially sympathize. When we enquired of the General why he didn't take charge of the place and keep order in it by force, he replied, that 'he guessed it might soon come to that, if they went on killing his men ; they had shot two or three lately ; if they didn't soon learn a respect for the uniform, he would go down some day and clear them right out. While they merely killed each other, he didn't so much mind. He rather guessed they were doing good. The place drew to itself the ruffians from all the country round about. Leave them to themselves, and they just preyed on each other. Scatter them, and Denver, Cheyenne, and other places, would be certain to suffer.' After supper in our hotel, that is to say, ' on the cars ' (in all the country parts of America, dinner at two or three in the afternoon, and a tea or coffee meal at six or seven in the evening, known as supper, are the fashion), most of us took Colonel Lewis's advice, and went to see Julesberg life. Here indeed was to be seen just such a state of society as Mr. Hepworth Dixon thinks he saw when he visited Denver ; but which Denver protests it did not then show its visitors. Who- ever may be right as to Denver, there is really no chance of falling into exaggeration about Julesberg in '67. It was Mr. Dixon's Denver, without the heroic form of Retributive Justice, in the shape of Mr. Dixon's Bob Wilson. It was Mr. Dixon's Denver, not merely drawing its diversion from loose lives and quick deaths, but existing, as it seemed, for no other end at all, save the pursuance of BULL-WHACKERS. 259 these two objects. The main street, fronting the railway, was almost wholly composed of houses for dancing and gambling — f frame houses ' — with a large room on the ground-floor, in which was space enough for a dance, a gambling-table, and a bar for liquors. All the houses were well filled. The only females were the young women who took part in the dances. About four or five of these en- livened each house, dressed in such brilliant colours as made them not easy to be overlooked. The men were of the wildest Western type, either miners from the mountains or ' bull-whackers ' from the plains. The profession of 4 bull- whacking ' has, in ante-railway days, been one of the fore- most in the West. The bull-whacker is a teamster, who uses his waggon and team of oxen for bringing supplies westward from the Missouri, and otherwise carrying on the trade of the country. The number of prominent men in the Far West, who started in trans-Missourian life as bull- whackers, is said to be very great, and the gains of the profession, hitherto, to have been very large. The good bull-whacker must be fearless of Indians, and the cleaner he shoots his men, the better; he must be able to stand any hardship ; he is generally of fine physique, with a vigorous rollicking, devil-me-care look about him, which makes him a handsome specimen of manhood. He contemns shaving altogether, showing a magnificent beard and moustache, and in summer contemns the wearing of coats to supplement his rough flannel shirt ; in winter, he is partial to a long blue great-coat, which, with a broadly brimmed slouch-hat, half- hiding his weatherbeaten face in its shadow, makes a very picturesque brigand of him ; and, whether it be summer or winter, his dress would always be incomplete without the ready six-shooter slung at his side. He is capital company, when not shooting, if you can put up with some hard swearing. If you cannot, he is much to be avoided. An s 2 260 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. evening party, where the gentlemen are of this sort, can be recommended as an excellent change from London. Big Mouth and his band are much less novel. We can see aborigines exhibited in Europe ; but the bull-whacker will not bear carriage. He must be seen on the prairie, or nowhere. There, he seems somehow to suit the scenery, just as negroes suit the scenery of the tropics. The first thing one noticed among these men was the way in which they avoided staring at strangers. There is an element of the gentleman in the wild Westerns, and this is one little manifestation of it. Among no rough crowd of Englishmen would a party totally different in look, dress, every respect, have been received with so few curious stares, with so few remarks made about them. Nor was the civility merely passive. The Julesbergers treated us like guests, falling back so as to leave the view clear, whenever they thought we might want to look on at either the gambling or dancing. Some of the gamblers played cards ; others stood over a sort of small billiard table, playing a game called by them ' roundo ' — a game of mere chance, played by rolling a number of balls together up the table, and won, or lost, according as an odd or even number of them dropped them- selves into a pocket. In looking on at this, it was very noticeable, and was afterwards everywhere noticed by me among Western gamblers, that, among them, a man's dress and look were no criterion at all as to his wealth or poverty. Men in the wildest costume, and of the most generally dis- reputable appearance, would throw down their greenbacks as carelessly as if money was no object to them at all. Nobody seemed to mind winning or losing. Everything was done with that cool, off-hand, recklessness that is specially characteristic of the West. The dancing, also, was fairly orderly. As I watched it, a peaceable-looking Julesberger came up to have a talk with me : ' Guess you haven't seen JTTLESBERG. 261 much as rough as this afore.' I told him, on the contrary, I was rather wondering at its smoothness. Compared with scenes to be witnessed nightly in any big town of Europe, it would certainly in many respects come out favourably enough. ' Yes ! How could any place be worse ? ' ( Well, the people haven't got the degraded look. Your Western man may sometimes look a desperado, but he doesn't seem ever to look a debauchee. He hasn't the hang- dog air that the European would have, who sought his diversion at such places as this. He looks proud, inde- pendent, not a bit ashamed of himself, as if he had just dropped in here for a spree, and thought he had earned a right to it by good work done.' My friend was surprised at this view of his countrymen, and enquired whether anything similar could be said for his country-women — telling me a few facts about the girls present, good-looking girls enough, of whom one went by the familiar name of ( The Prairie Flower,' and was said to have made her gentle power very widely felt over the Far West. The same defence, so far as it was a defence, applied to the women full as much as to the men. The fact is, that an American woman, let her do what she likes, cannot lose all her self-respect. And her pride of sex, great everywhere, is especially great in the new West, where women are few, and therefore each of them, simply by right of being a woman, holds herself to be a person of consequence. The American man gets the idea of his equality so deeply ingrained and implanted in him, that, whatever he may do, he cannot quite eradicate it. The American woman, being a great deal prouder, may lead a life that would abjectly degrade any Englishwoman, and look round her all the time as if she was quite as good as anybody else. Morally, this may be a doubtful gain ; for it may be well that the evildoers should 262 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. look ashamed of themselves ; but, aesthetically, it is a real gain. It saves the Julesberg young lady from sinking into that open recklessness of decency, which would certainly be entailed by a life such as hers upon any woman who led it in England. My friend, however, was determined that he would not abate the claim of his town to be 'the very roughest place out.' So, admitting that the present com- pany looked less despicable than people to be found else- where, he took refuge in their being more dangerous. ( You say there are worse places than this in Paris and London. Well, do they shoot much in such places there? ' c No ; perhaps they're hardly as handy with the six-shooter.' ( Well : they're almighty handy with it here. Anyone of those fellows at the bar, when he gets a little liquor into him, may begin to shoot at any minute. There's " Missouri Bill " yonder — you have heard of Bill already, I reckon ? ' ' No ; I don't know the gentleman at all.' 1 Well, there he is — the big man, over by the bar : it was he shot the three last night: likely he'll be for shooting again to-night ; it's rather early yet, though ; come in later, and you'll see fun.' I looked at the man pointed out, a great stalwart, wild- looking fellow, with no malice at all in his face, who, any- one could see, must commit his murders just as the Irishman breaks his heads, from sheer irrepressible gaiety of heart. What his fists are to the Englishman ; what his big stick is to the Irishman ; what fiery denunciation is to the French- man ; all this, and very much more too, is his six-shooter to the man of the West. He never strikes with fist or stick and though he swears hard and continuously, his swearing is, in general, merely for ornament, and not used as a weapon at all. So, on all occasions of angry excitement, his sole appeal is to the revolver. A little farther south than Colorado, shooting is diversified with stabbing. Thus ther< WESTERN HOMICIDE. 203 is a suggestive pet-name for a bowie-knife, which throws much light on the manners of the South- West, the name of an c Arkansas tooth- pick.' America, it is well known, values human life much less than England ; and trans- Missourian America values it much less than the old settle- ments to the east. This, of course, would be an inevitable result of the wilder and more perilous lives led in the new country ; and this result, in the case of Colorado, has been still further promoted by that most trying of ordeals to a country, the discovery of gold and silver within it. Nay, this discovery itself dealt peculiarly hardly with Colorado ; for it was made just at a time when California was settling down into order, and becoming rapidly uncongenial for the wild spirits she had drawn to herself. A great number of these took themselves off to Colorado, which seemed to offer new mineral wealth, and where they might hope for a new spell of lawlessness. And so Colorado developed an uncommonly strong love of shooting. When an Englishman feels himself horrified at the want of regard for human life in the West, it is perhaps well that he should remember that the Western man would be hardly less horrified at the want of regard for human misery in England. For there are no kinder or more charitable and generous hearts; none gentler with women and children, and the helpless; none more ready to aid and guide the stranger, than those of these rough Western man-slayers. Though they may look on with practised indifference while lives are taken in the streets of Julesberg, they could hardly look on at the lives that are led in many a court and by-street of London, with half the practised indifference of Englishmen. When we denounce the Western's murderousness, he might per- haps taunt some of us, in turn, with keeping the command- ment against murder a little too much as Clough puts it — Thou shalt not kill : but wherefore strive Officiously to keep alive ? 264 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. To return to the Missourian and my Julesberg friend. When I asked how so notable a murderer was left at large ; was there no Vigilance Committee ? I was told, that the Julesberg Committee had turned out a decided failure; many of the worst roughs managed to get on it ; and it was soon observed to have an awkward tendency to hang only the honestest men. Other Julesbergers afterwards told me, that no committee had regularly started, and all that seems certain is this, that there never had been any protection for life. Mr. Dixon's account of the Denver committee has favourably impressed us all with such institutions ; but it needs little experience of the West to show how terribly they are open to abuse. With regard to Western homicide, it is worth noting, that it is compatible with an utter con- tempt for thieving. Your life may be unsafe in Julesberg, but your pockets and watch are quite safe. Even if they have no higher motive for honesty, most of the men would be too well off to care for the petty profits of such small thieving. To make an end of Julesberg forthwith, nobody was shot there on the night of our stay. We heard two or three shots fired in the gambling-houses, but the men who fired were too drunk to be deadly, and were good-humoured enough to withdraw, upon remonstrance, without indulging in more pistol-practice. When the main body of our ex- cursionists revisited the place, two or three days later, they had a curious taste of its quality. One of them, of a dan- gerously enquiring turn, wishing to study a character such as ' Missouri Bill's,' brought that hero and a friend of his into the bar-room of the train. There, both worthies drank freely, and Bill's friend, much liking the editors (or their liquor), proposed to stay and dine in their company. As they did not accede to the proposal very warmly, he got angry, and fired at them twice. The editors, at last, had got a real LAYING TEE TRACK. 265 sensation, and drew their revolvers upon him like men. But ' Bill ' himself was good at need. Having kept almost sober, he had the presence of mind to knock down his drunk friend immediately, and drag him out of the train by the heels. The two bullets had not hit anybody. They might have had a political influence afar off; for two English M.P.'s stood within range of them. Westward from this place, we passed the same dull prairie-scenery. Wherever telegrams could be received, Mr. Train had been reading us messages, ever since our original start, from the railway-makers at the end of the line. The burden of these despatches was always precisely the same. They called upon us to be quick in coming up, and told of the wonderful quickness with which the works were progressing. ( Laid four miles of track to-day ; hurry up, or you won't catch us ; ' ■ Laid a mile before breakfast ; look sharp, or we shall be at the Pacific ; • are two fair specimen telegrams. Accordingly we looked sharp ; and about noon of the day upon which Julesberg was left, we found our way blocked by great trains of materials, to be used in laying the track, and of f house- cars,' for the labourers to live in. Previously, we had passed little groups of workmen ballasting the line, but had never seen any large number of railroad-makers to- gether. Each such little group had its pile of loaded rifles stacked near it, ready for use. Beside the general Indian, desire for scalps, it was supposed that their employment of railway-laying would make these small knots of men tempt- ing objects for Indian attack. The red man knows very well, that the railroad is death to him. When we reached ' this long array of f freight-waggons ' and ' caboose-cars,' all turned out of our train. A few steps brought us to the place, where a goodly army of navvies was engaged in laying the track. The road had been ' graded ' already for some 266 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. distance beyond this point, that is to say, the soil of the prairie had been shovelled up to make a soft and even bed for the 6 ties ' and the rails to lie on — a roadway, raised a few feet above the level of the plain, but apparently not solid enough to be lasting in any country, except where there were no heavy rains. Such grading is so easy, that it can progress at a marvellous rate. It had progressed, when we reached the end of the rails, almost the whole way to Cheyenne, about forty miles further on. Between the point reached by us and that town, some parts of the prairie are lumpy and uneven, rolling into big mounds and banks. Thus a rather deep cutting had to be made not far from Cheyenne — the most serious engineering difficulty since the building of the bridge across the Platte. But this cutting was a long way out of sight from the point at which we had arrived, and, to one looking thence, the grading of the road seemed to be the simplest imaginable process. The rate at which the rail-laying was going on was some- thing positively astounding. You had to walk at a fair pace to keep up with it. Probably the navvies were put upon their mettle by having a train-load of spectators, who could give them celebrity through America ; but even so, the performance was surprising. All the navvies were Irish- men. ' Dthrive that spike hoom for me, Pat ; ' ' Where are you after lavin' them ties, Mike ? ' were the sort of remarks that fell familiarly on the ear of a British on-looker ; but indeed, unlike the same race at home, the men were working too hard to talk much, and were too thoroughly drilled into precision to have much to say of their work. Foremost went the carts, tumbling out wooden ties upon the roadway. Then came a gang of men, carrying long poles with iron hooks at their ends. By sticking these hooks into the ties, the men could push them or pull them into any position required, after they were tumbled out on the roadway. A SPLIT IN THE PARTY. 267 Then a gang followed, throwing clown rails on the ties. Then came other gangs to arrange the rails in their places, and set the two lines of them just at the right gauge apart ; and lastly, a gang to drive in the iron bolts and fix the rails firmly on the ties. As we stood and watched, the finished railway kept rapidly growing between the workers and the ' construction-trains ' behind ; till presently these latter had to move up with their store of materials, and keep in pursuit of the quick pioneers, who were paving a road for them to the Pacific. When the editors were sated with watching, what to do next was the question. We had got to the end of the line, and had just two courses open to us — either to leave the cars and try to get on by waggon ; or, keeping to the com- forts of the railway, to turn back along it towards Chicago. Each course had its supporters, who almost went the length of blows in its defence. The main body of the party were for sticking closely to the train, and drawing entirely upon their imaginations for the Rocky Mountain scenery beyond. The anxiety shown by this tyrannous majority to prevent the few others of the party, who hankered after Denver and the mountains, from accomplishing their desire, was some- thing truly surprising. Every attempt was made to dis- suade from the mountain expedition, and no help at all was given it. The editors, who were not themselves to see the mountains, were by no means desirous that they should be seen by any of their fellows. Meantime, we returned to our train, and it fell back a dozen miles or so, to f Pine Bluff's ' station. There a photographer, who had come from Chicago with us, was brought into requisition, taking two or three views of the party picturesquely scattered over the Pine Bluffs — bare hills of sand and rock, with a few rather miserable pine trees here and there relieving their bareness. Then, after the photography, the fight was 268 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. renewed over our plans. Like all American fights, it gave rise to a vast amount of stump-oratory ; and there was something rather national, too, in the way in which our small party of Denver-goers immediately set about organ- ising itself, electing a certain Colonel McA., before named, to be its leader and chief of its spokesmen. Colonel McA.'s oratory was a little of too fiery a kind. Beginning most persuasively on the folly of coming almost within sight of the mountains, and going back thence without having seen them, he invariably lost his temper thereupon, and broke off' into violent abuse of everybody who took the other side. Evening was drawing on, when we, Denver-goers, were forced into action by getting an ultimatum from the chief engineer of our train, saying, that we had just twenty minutes to clear out of it, if we were going ; after which he would start back to Julesberg. We got out our valises forthwith, banded together on the prairie, and then the train carried out its threat, starting off for the East with that deep, hoarse shriek, which is the American substitute for a whistle, and which Mr. Trollope, with an appalling metaphor, compares to ' the groaning of a white she-bear in the pangs of labour upon an iceberg.' The condition of our party, thus abandoned at night-fall, with no house anywhere near, was now undoubtedly solemn. First we took our census, and found that we numbered just nineteen. The only attempt at a dwelling-place at this station was a tent roughly pitched on the prairie, and the only people at the place were some teamsters with their waggons and mules. These men had us quite at their mercy ; but the Western man is not mean enough to sell his aid much the dearer, the more sorely it may happen to be needed. A little bargaining sufficed for the en- gagement of a couple of mule-waggons, to transport us over about fifty miles of prairie, to Cheyenne. Our first NIGHT ON THE PRAIRIE. 269 idea was to drive not more than about a dozen miles or so, that night, and to put up at an encampment of United States troops, under the command of an officer known to some of our party. But the night was so fine, with glorious stars, and the clear dry air of the prairie, that we soon agreed not to seek shelter, but to push on direct for Cheyenne, merely stopping for a few hours somewhere, to let the mules have a feed. So we drove on and on under the starlight, through the lonely dim prairie, leaving the railroad out of sight, and following a slightly and recently marked track. There was little to be seen round about ; though often, through the shadows of night, quick eyes thought they could make out the moving figures of Indians or of beasts. The talk in the waggon soon fell on that subject, which will long be the subject to bring Americans most interestedly into conversation with each other — namely, their great Civil War. This peaceful editor showed us where he was carrying an un extracted bullet about with him, and described to us the manner of its lodgement. Some other was reminded by our approaching ( camp-out,' of the way in which he used to camp out in Virginia ; how piercingly cold the nights had been there ; how quick the farmers' fences used to wither up, upon such nights, before the soldiers foraging for firewood ; what a moist and oozy pillow the dead leaves of the Georgian forest had spread for Sherman's invaders. Near midnight we got to our halting-place, close to a small ' ranch ' or prairie public-house, and not far from a ' creek ' or prairie stream. Here we managed to gather together materials for a small fire, round which we lay for two or three hours, while the mules were allowed to stray off for pasture. Our old campaigners slept grandly, as became them, on their bed of the prairie grass, while others of us, less inured to bivouacs, sat solemnly smoking around the fire, gazing into the still gloom of the prairie, and 270 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. listening with envy to the snorers around. Our drivers rose superior to sleep. They sat smoking with us — two worthy specimens of the handsome, rough-bearded men of the West — whispering stories of Western life to each other, in good Western language, that is to say, with five words of impre- cation to every one of narration, or describing to us the unequalled delight of getting a good fair shot in the open at a well-grown buck Red Indian. Between two and three in the morning, long before daylight, we wakeful ones passed a resolution that the sleepers had slept quite enough, kicked them all up forthwith, and declared for an immediate start. But meantime the mules had wandered away, and it took nearly an hour to find them and get them again into harness. Then we set off once more, over a rolling prairie, and held on our course, till the east softened gradually from its murkiness into the delicate dawn, and then gradually brightened up into the fresh radiancy of a prairie sunrise. I remember no incident of this drive, except the shooting of one of the large prairie rabbits, called 'jack rabbits ' in the Western tongue. The driver of our waggon, long before there was light enough for any of us to see anything clearly, stopped the mules, and asked for a loaded gun, saying he saw something move in the grass. He was handed a rifle, which would not go off. Then somebody offered a revolver, which the driver declared would do just as well, and firing at an object hardly discernible by us, about fifteen yards off him, killed a big rabbit with a dex- terity which must make him exceedingly formidable, as vis- a-vis in a Julesberg quadrille. After sunrise we continued on our way, seeing herds of antelopes now and again, but not able to get shots at any of them. About seven or eight in the morning we halted at a village of wooden and mud shanties, inhabited exclu- sively by Irish labourers on the railway, the line of which PRAIRIE-DOGS. 271 we had again approached. One of these labourers talked much to us about the condition of himself and his fellow- workers. Navvies were receiving, on an average, about from 7 s. 6d. to 10s. a-day. Some of them supplied carts 'and mules of their own, and thereby earned much larger wages. He had himself furnished a mule team, but the Indians had lately stolen his mules, and his wages had thereupon fallen. There were certainly no signs of comfort about the settlement: even in Connaught, the men could not have lived in much more miserable shanties. But their residence here would, of course, be merely temporary; they had always to keep moving on, and following the advancing railway. At the point we had now reached, we were only six or seven miles from Cheyenne. The road thither had become a well-beaten track, along which one of our party started to walk with me towards the town, ahead of our teams. We went on in full view of the railroad, or rather, of the road in the state of being graded into readiness for the reception of rails. As it was Sunday morning, there was no work going on ; but we could see that there was need of no small labour at this part of the line, both in cutting and embanking, to pass over the swells and hollows of the prairie. In this walk we made our first acquaintance with ' prairie-dogs,' the funniest little creatures imaginable, living in populous prairie settlements of their own, as rabbits herd together in rabbit-warrens. The prairie-dog is much smaller than a rabbit, being hardly much bigger than a big rat. In shape, he looks like a bull-terrier pup, so far as one can judge without ever having seen him dead, or even very closely approachable. The holes have smaller entrances than rabbit-holes, and go down into the ground much more steeply and directly. In front of each is a little mound, formed of the earth thrown out of the 272 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. hole, and, standing erect on this eminence, with his tail smartly cocked up in the air, the prairie-dog barks at all comers defiantly, till, when you get within twenty yards or so, his courage fails him on a sudden, and he bolts down the hole, quick as lightning. Sometimes he just pops his head out for an instant afterwards, for one last angry bark at you. The barking is of the feeblest kind, though of great animation and liveliness. For power and volume of sound, the wheeziest of old lady's lap-dogs would scorn to have his note compared with it. It reminds one, in tone, of children's toy-dogs — little grey dogs on hollow stands, so contrived that when the stand is pressed together, a thin and ghostly barking seems to proceed from the effigy of a dog thereon seated. And indeed these very effigies, as they appear in the toy-shop windows, look something like the little * Comedians of the Prairie,' as somebody has called the prairie-dogs. I have seen probably as many as forty or fifty shots fired from time to time by good pistol- shooters at this small game of the prairies, but never saw a death yet ; and men versed in prairie lore tell you, that, of all marks, these prairie-dogs are much the hardest and most trying to the temper. However it is managed, they must be sometimes killed ; for Westerns say they are ex- cellent eating, being something like squirrel in taste, a favourite delicacy in parts of America. The strange story about the • happy family,' living together in each of the holes, was told to us, as it is to all travellers — how a prairie-dog, a prairie-owl, and a rattlesnake, live on friendly terms in every hole. I had no means of verifying or dis- proving the statement, but have looked up the point in books of prairie travel. Bayard Taylor says of his Western journeyings, * The prairie-dogs sat upright at the doors of their underground habitations, and barked at us with comical petulance. Towards evening, their partners, the owls, STORIES OF THE WAR. 273 also came out to take the air. The rattlesnakes were still, I presume, in-doors, as we saw but two or three during the whole journey.' Bowles says of the prairie-dogs, 6 Only a pair occupy each hole ; but we hear the same story, that earlier travellers record, that a snake and an owl share their homes with them. The snakes we did not see ; but the owl, a species no larger than a robin,* solemn, stiff, and straight, stood guard at many of the holes.' For my own part, I never saw either owl or rattlesnake in the Far West, though, if lonely walks over the prairie in the dusk of evening ought to give a chance of seeing the former, I was perhaps better entitled to see one than any previous Western traveller who has written. My companion and I got more than halfway to Cheyenne before we were overtaken by the waggons. He had many interesting experiences of the war with which to beguile the way. He had had his full share of battle and march and hospital. To Sherman's great raid through Georgia, he looked back as the pleasantest time of his life ; and he alto- gether denied the stories, that are rife and most bitterly told through the conquered States, of the ill-treatment of the Southern people by Sherman. That Sherman himself dis- couraged such ill-treatment, the Southerns themselves admit, while asserting that he had not the power to repress it. 'War is no teacher of the amenities,' was his usual answer, they say, to those who complained of his men to him ; though they allow that he was ever ready to punish any crime actually brought home to a soldier. My friend's experience of the military hospital was great, as he had been laid up in one for six or seven months with dysentery. He had formed the common idea of soldiers about disease ; namely, that in * It must be remembered that the American ' robin ' is a bird two or three times as large as ours. T 274 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. general it only killed those men who let their hearts sink within them. For his own part, when doctors and parsons told him he was going to die, he had always replied, that he 1 would be d — d if he did: ' from which assertion the parsons, at all events, after hearing it so expressed, could hardly have ventured to dissent; and, as for the doctors, he set small value on them, declaring that he had been ultimately saved by a diet prescribed to him by an utterly unscientific old woman, and consisting of blackberry jelly and hard biscuits. He had joined the army as a private, and eventually left it a captain. Of the two ranks, he liked the former the best; and even as an officer had generally, from choice, gone on living as much as he could with 'the boys.' Meantime, a little compact village of new plank-built houses appeared a few miles before us. Where was Cheyenne? Was it much farther on? It could not be behind the far hills. It must be somewhere away to one side, hidden from view in some hollow. But the road seemed to make straight on. Presently I saw (my com- panion had now dropped behind, having the American aver- sion to much walking) a Western £ boy ' riding up across the prairie, at the Western pace, a hand-gallop. As he ap- proached, he drew his revolver; and while I was searching my memory for some instance from Mr. Hep worth Dixon of a stranger being shot in utter cold blood to furnish sport for a volatile Western, he relieved me by aiming to one side, and firing two shots in a safe direction. Then he jumped from his horse, and fired three more barrels right into a hole in the ground. When I got up to him, he was en- gaged in pulling by its tail out of its lair a huge badger which he had wounded. Where was Cheyenne ? He pointed at the wooden village, and laconically answered c Yon.' Though the history of Cheyenne had been told us often — how it was hardly six weeks old, and stood upon ground CHEYENNE. 275 which two months before was bare prairie — yet we had also been told such splendid lies about its already attained prosperity, and its full five thousand inhabitants, that I had been vainly imagining to myself a nice little civilised town, with a cosy inn, in which, by walking on quickly ahead, one might take the very cosiest room. But here was nothing of the kind, only a set of the rudest shanties, half-finished wooden boxes, dropped down on the prairie in a way that looked so uncomfortable and temporary, as even to make one regret the older wooden boxes at Julesberg, with all their small disadvantages. Seeing the haven awaiting us, one suddenly grew unselfish, and resolved to stay till the wag- gons came up, and to enter it along with the rest of the party. At the time of our entry, the town looked as if it might have, at the outside, two thousand inhabitants. There is so free an exaggeration among Westerns about the population of their mushroom ( cities,' that a traveller must form inde- pendent estimates. The history of the city of Cheyenne was this: in the early autumn, it was given out by the railway authorities, that there was to be a large station here, and a good deal of expenditure on railway buildings, engine-houses, and the like. The land belonged to the company, whose grant from Congress not only gave large sums of money, but also s donated right out' large tracts of land along the line. The only reason why Cheyenne was to be an important railway depot, seemed to be, that from this point the ascent of the mountains began in earnest, and it might be necessary to keep locomotives here in readiness to assist the trains up the inclines. Whatever were the reasons for the choice of site, the news of its choice spread far and wide. From Denver City, from the mines far up in the mountains, from Julesberg, from every quarter, in fact, came waggon-loads of speculators, to buy up lots and build ranches and stores upon them, for the supply of T 2 276 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. necessaries to other comers. Day by day the price of lots rose; the influx of speculators increased; and nowhere was the American fact, of which every traveller is hourly in- formed, more strongly exemplified, that, whereas in old countries the density of population determines how railways are to run, in new countries, how the railroads run determines where population is to be dense. Cheyenne made a most respectable start. A mayor and town-council were chosen, very honest and vigorous men, such as would secure for the place a government different from the Julesberg type. An efficient police was organised. A law was made, that any man carrying fire-arms half-an-hour after his arrival in the town, should pay a fine for the luxury. The only check to building was the high cost of timber (' 100 dollars a thousand' was the price I was told, not being made much the wiser thereby). But, in spite of this check, building went on, morn- ing, noon, and night. The result was, that when we got to Cheyenne it was a well laid-out little town, with good wide streets, and showing great promise of future improvement by having all its newer houses begun on a more costly scale than the older. Up to that time, no materials, except wood and iron, had been used in the architecture; but before I left America, the newspapers in the Eastern States reported, that freight trains full of bricks had been going out from the East to Cheyenne, and that the place was beginning to put on a much more substantial appearance. When we were there, no farming had yet been commenced in the neighbourhood; and as the only supply of water is from a very small 'creek,' it was feared that the district, being of too dry a soil and too rainless a climate to dispense with artificial irrigation, would never do much in agriculture. Such was the town into which we drove at noon on Sunday, October 13. Our driver, speaking in the grand style of the West, had told us of several ' hotels ' in CHEYENNE. 277 Cheyenne, singling out the ' Dodge House ' as the best of them all : so to the Dodge House we drove up. A Western hotel of this kind may perhaps need some description. You went first into a small room, with a stove in its centre and a counter at one side — a room which served the triple purpose of hall, and office, and bar-room. Beyond this hall was a dining-room ; upstairs was the hotel's one bed- room, with three rows of beds arranged in close order all down its length. These three rooms were all that there were. When, in the rawest inexperience of the West, I besought the landlord for a dressing-room, he smiled a sar- donic smile, and guessed he hadn't very many dressing- rooms, but that, if I would just go right up, I should easily find the hotel bed-room, where a change of raiment might be effected. There was indeed no fear of losing one's way in myriad-roomed £ And many-corridored complexities, or of any awkward mistake like that of the ' sweet Sir Sagramore.' The bed-room was more easily found than attractive. There hung about it a strong odour of Western men ; and it of course did not contain any facilities whatever for washing. The custom of small Western ' hotels ' is to banish all such appliances to the hall, where they are to be found on a table in the corner, and consist of a pitcher of water, a small tin bowl, and a lump of soap, that looks sadly in need of some cleansing for itself. A towel hangs near, on a roller ; and it is not unjust toward the Dodge House towel to say, that it probably had not been washed since the founding of the city of Cheyenne. The place is the most public in the house ; and, apart from the long services of a Western towel, the appliances are certainly scanty. The prospect of passing one or more nights in an hotel so equipped was somewhat alarming ; but luckily, we were to be rescued. One of our party — General L , a German from Illinois, 278 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. before mentioned — found that the fort near Cheyenne was commanded by an old friend and fellow-campaigner of his, a General S . Hearing of this, we suggested to General L the propriety of his calling at once upon his friend, and of his mentioning to him, pathetically, how forlorn was our plight. The result did much honour to Western hospi- tality. General S sent down ambulances for us and our baggage, had us brought up to his camp, ordered tents to be pitched for us, and he and his officers made us at home at their mess. The camp of Cheyenne, known in the West as ' Fort David Russell,' stands on a very high plateau to the south- west of the town, about two or three miles distant from it. The site gives a prospect magnificently wide — upon one side, of the ocean of prairie, with the mere little dot of a town in its foreground ; upon the other, of the long, low, serrated range of that part of the Rocky Mountains which is called the ( Black Hills.' These hills, viewed from here, are by no means imposing. Their real elevation above the level of the sea is concealed by their rising from a very high plateau ; while in shape and in colouring they are certainly disappoint- ing to any new comer, whom Bierstadt and the writers have sent hither eager for Rocky Mountain scenery. The camp is distant from the hills about thirty or forty miles. It is on just such ground as the Romans would have chosen ; and if Uncle Sam set it on high here on its wind-swept downs, with a view to bracing his soldiers to Roman endurance, his end should be attained. On this day of our arrival, the temperature had suddenly fallen, in the way in which it is rather in the habit of falling in this part of the prairie. At such an elevation, on so cold a night as was coming, hastily- pitched tents on the prairie were only made accceptable by being compared with their only alternative, the big room at Cheyenne. Whatever else they might be, they were airy A WESTERN FORT. 279 and fresh — so much so, indeed, that of the two which were pitched for us, all the others of our party chose the warmer and more weather-tight, leaving the smaller and more windy altogether to myself. Perhaps their choice was discreet, for the night was bitterly cold; and though Uncle Sam's blankets do him credit in quality, and were freely supplied, one could only keep from freezing in my little tent, by the execution of a pas de seul round and round it several times through the night. Exercises so vigorous and untimely were very dis- turbing to the Irish ( boy in blue,' on guard over the tents ; who at last thrust his head in, being anxious to know whether the gentleman inside was gone 'clean mad entirely.' The officers in the camp were most excellent hosts. No doubt the American officer is very different from ours ; but, , though he may be rougher in exterior, and of less polished manner, than that beautiful creature, whom Poole and Hoby and Truefitt turn out, by joint efforts, to be the pride of Pall Mall, he too has his points. He takes an interest in his profession and can tell you all about it. He has learnt the various merits of the different weapons and systems of drill. He makes himself acquainted with the condition of his men. He knows something of their life, and he tells you with en- thusiasm, how many pounds of beef, and of bread, and of coffee they daily consume. In fact, military life in America is, as might be expected, much more of a profession, and less of a lounge, than it is yet among us. As a profession, and measured by the standard by which all professions are measured in America — namely, the dollars to be made in . them — the military life does not rank high. In no country, perhaps, of the world has it a less prominent social position. A young American, given a, good start in life by his abilities and parentage, will naturally prefer some commercial, manu- facturing, or forensic pursuit to one which has less chance of wealth, and has, therefore, less of prestige, where wealth 280 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. is almost the sole source of distinction. Not even for matri- mony does the American officer stand well, and, in spite of his uniform, he cannot compete with a rival, who does a brisk trade in the sale of ' dry goods.' Now that the war- mania is over, even notable heroism in the field will fail to produce much effect on the more thoroughly wide-awake beauties. * 'Guess empty sleeves are too plenty to fetch much,' was the short way in which a Southern young lady accounted to me for her not admiring a Confederate officer who had lost his right arm in battle. ' Maimed men are so common now-a-days ! It would just wear us out to fall in love with them all.' How the officers get through time at Fort Russell seems a hard problem. Most of them were evidently not eager sportsmen ; and sport appeared the sole occupation — at least, for those who were not given to study. One heard nothing of games or exercises. There could be no billiard table nearer than Denver, 120 miles off. The nearest towns of larger dimensions and more extended society, than Denver could boast, would be Omaha on one side, and Salt Lake City on the other ; neither of which would be nearer than 500 miles. That men so placed, and most of them seemingly of no literary turn, should spend a good deal of time at the canteen, was not to be wondered at ; and it was certainly the fact that malt liquor helped many of them to combat the influences of the place. The greatest wonder for one who reflected how prospects of Aldershot sadden, how the Cur- ragh nearly maddens, our own troops at home, was the con- tentment of most of the officers on this bare prairie plateau. Some even took to it with a downright enjoyment. * You see,' they would say, ' pretty near our whole army is divided between the South and the West, taking care of Rebs or of Indians. Well, the South hates the very sight of us, and keeps us out of whatever society it still has to offer to anybody. A WESTERN FORT. 281 So life is dull enough for the fellows down there. Besides, they have yellow fever and cholera, and terrible heats in the summer. We here have a good climate ; and though the people around us are few and rather rough, at least they have no reason to hate and avoid us.' All the officers were, of course, of strong Union sympathies, but there were one or two from the border States, who spoke rather sadly than triumphantly of the war. One, a Kentuckian, used to talk of it to me as an utterly irreparable calamity. In vain — bor- rowing a phrase from the great master of phrases, Mr Disraeli — I reminded him how his countrymen were ' a recu- perative people.' He refused to be comforted ; and when- ever he began telling me what to go and see in the South, used to repeat the same refrain, * How I wish you had seen our country before it was ruined by this cursed war ! ' With regard to the private soldiers, what struck one most was the immense number of them who were Irish by birth, and the comfort, both as to fare and to quarters, in which they were living in this wild place. None of them were under canvas. They were all in huts, made of logs and ' adobe ■ (sun-dried mud), very warm and compact buildings, and not at all over-crowded. Their general appearance, it must be admitted, was not very much in their favour. They neither looked smart nor clean ; and a study of their countenances did not render less credible a statement I heard from one of their own officers, that, of all scoundrels on the earth, there were none to compare with the American soldiers of the line. Native Americans of a good type would not stoop to such a life — a life of absolute submission to constantly-exercised authority, and of small pecuniary gains. Whatever difficul- ties in recruiting may be met with by us, America, if she were not fed by immigration, would encounter, in time of peace, to so vastly more grave an extent as to make them almost, or en- tirely, insuperable. One of my friends among the officers 282 SKETCHES FBOM AMERICA. happened to be ( officer of the day ' while I was with him. As such, he had to visit the Guard Room, and offered to show me the prisoners there, most of them, I believe, for robberies and other very serious offences. On our entering the room, many of the inmates continued lolling about or lying on the floor, and a sort of murmur and grin of insolent defiance ran through them all very perceptibly. My friend, though a mere boy in years, who had quite lately come to Fort Russell, was not to be played with, and brought them all up to * attention ' pretty smartly. At night, I happened to be in his quarters again, when he was preparing for another round. Seeing him getting his revolver all ready, I enquired of him what foe he was to meet. His reply was, * Well, if you go along with me, just stand back behind me when I go into that Guard Room. I won't be grinned at and hooted by those scalawags ; ' (which is classical American for ' black- guards '). ' Don't you be surprised if I shoot.' How far this was merely ' tall talk,' is not easy to tell; but certainly other officers present showed no signs of seeing anything odd in it. However, we got through our rounds without killing anybody. The prisoners, who had now taken the measure of their man, sprang up to ( attention ' at once — looking, I must say for them, about the most desperate ruffians I have ever beheld brought together. This same young officer had gained very marked distinction in the war, and, after the manner of a good many soldiers in the North, was a little too fond of recounting his exploits. It would hardly be fair to give a recognisable account of the share which he claimed for himself in a certain battle, though indeed he was so evidently averse to concealing his light under a bushel, that I am not quite sure he would object much to anything in the way of publicity. Suffice it, how- ever, that though in this particular case there was the excuse of youthful enthusiasm and of really gallant service, other CHEYENNE FESTIVITIES. 283 cases are met with by the tourist, both in North and in South, which put him more in mind of the renowned Major Gahagan than of any other officer of note with whom we are acquainted in England. To return from military matters to civil. On the day following our arrival in camp, the Mayor and Town Council of Cheyenne invited our party to receive an address in their town-hall. Accordingly, we assembled there early in the afternoon. The meeting was held in a large upper room. A free supply of liquors stood ready on a table, all sorts of spirits, and an array of champagne bottles. Perhaps it is safer to say ( champagne bottles ' than ' champagne ; ■ for though the town of Cheyenne undoubtedly gave of its best, it is certain that the liquid contained in the bottles, however creditable to a six-weeks-old town, would have astounded any wine merchant of Rheims, if offered to him as his much defamed vintage. When guests and entertainers were as- sembled, the Mayor made a short, very sensible, speech- bidding the editors welcome, and hoping they would use their pens freely for reporting and aiding the success of Cheyenne. The Mayor was a man of celebrity in the West. He had been a ranch-keeper on the prairie for years, had often been attacked by the Indians, and had always succeeded in making them rue the attack. A better specimen of a Western man could not be— with quiet strength and resolution in every line of his face and every word that he spoke. One could understand, when one looked at him, why Cheyenne was, as yet, so much less ' rough,' than Julesberg. After him, another speaker was called up, by the name of General C , and made a speech against rivalry be- tween Cheyenne and his own town, Denver. Of all the strangely unmilitary figures, whom I had ever heard called by military titles in America, this General C was the 284 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. strangest. Thinking there must be something peculiar in his case, I asked a Cheyenne man about him — who was he ? ought one to remember his name in the war ? * Well, no,' said the man, ' he hasn't done any fighting, that I know of. You see, he isn't exactly a military general. He's just a kind o' lawyer. He's Attorney-general for Colorado, and we call him " general " for short.' After the subject of this quaint system of nomenclature, we had a real general put forward, General S , Commandant of Fort Russell. His speech was very interesting. He gave us an account of all the resources of the country round about, and of all the advantages which the town would have from its position. There was any amount of iron and coal in the Black Hills. It was highly probable there was gold to be found there also ; and there was reason to suspect, according to the sanguine speaker, the presence of diamonds and other precious stones. Timid people feared that, when the rails got beyond Cheyenne, some other new town would spring up farther on, and Cheyenne would be cut out. But the railway depots to be built at Cheyenne, and the situation of the place at the beginning of the steep grades, would ensure its always being an important station,. Besides, it would be a junction ; for hence must surely branch off the line to be made to Denver. Thus placed at a centre of steam communication, Cheyenne would become the great em- porium of the plains. From all other parts of them, armies of bull-whackers and ox-teams would be always converging upon it. Besides, it had got the Fort ; and he could assure the audience that the Government intended to keep up and enlarge Fort Russell. Could there fail to be money going in a place, that was sure to be always frequented by bull- whackers, miners, and soldiers? Of all men in the world, these were the classes least able to keep money in their pockets. For the soldiers, above all, he could answer. CHEYENNE FESTIVITIES. 285 Why, he himself, after the war, when he had been drawing a general's pay for ever so long, having to return to his home from a distance, had been so wholly unable to keep any cash in his pocket, that he had to borrow twenty dollars to pay his travelling expenses. (Loud cheers and general approbation). When commanding officers were thus im- provident, what would private soldiers be ? Let the men of business only stick to Cheyenne, and they would make their fortunes right off. The eager eloquence of the General was remarkable: I thought I had never heard of a com- mandant who took so kindly an interest in his garrison- town. Speaking of this to a Cheyenne man, I was told, 1 He's a smart man, the General ; yes, sir ; an uncommon smart man. He's speculating in town-lots considerable. They say he has made 35,000 dollars already ' — that is to say, 5,000/. or 6,000/., got together within six weeks. The secret of his eloquence was explained. After the General, the meeting insisted on hearing many other speeches, not letting the only representative of the Old World press escape ; for the Belgian consul and the Times correspondent had gone back with the train to Chicago, and the sole representation of the Eastern Hemisphere had now devolved upon me. A Cheyenne audience was easy to address ; for one could flatter it with- out exaggeration, describing, as one truly might, how hard it would be to get credence in England, when one told how a town, with thousands of inhabitants, had sprung up in six weeks from the prairie. As some of us afterwards were being entertained at dinner, in a wonderfully good Cheyenne restaurant (wherever the Western man may sleep, he always has hankerings after good honest fare), one of our entertainers told me, that what I had said about the hardness of getting the facts of the New World believed by the Old had put him in mind of an Hiberno- American 286 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. story ; which, as it may not be everywhere known, may here, perhaps, be recounted. An Irish- American labourer was getting his employer to write a letter for him to the people at his old home in Ireland. In the course of describing the grand style of living, in which he now revelled in America, Paddy dictated a sentence to the effect that, in his present employment, he got meat at his dinner twice in every week of his life. ' Why, you rascal,' said his American scribe, 6 you know very well I give you plenty of meat at all your three meals, every day.' ' Ah, whisht, man ! ' said Pat, c just write what I axe ye — • shure it's as much as the craturs 'ill belave.' Similarly, my Cheyenne friend suggested, I should modify the truth with regard to Cheyenne, in order to avoid too severely taxing the credence of good people at home. The entertainments of the day did not close with dinner. We were again feasted at supper by the town's-people, and again summoned to speeches and champagne. It was a trying time for the sole representative of the Old World and the European press. His health was proposed, and led to an effusion of international enthusiasm and generous liquors. Having nothing else to talk to his audience about, he went into politics in his speech of acknowledg- ment; and though the fine old commonplaces uttered by him were otherwise of no interest at all, it was of some interest to observe which of them seemed most to catch the ear of the hearers. Perhaps these were some remarks to the effect that the very manifestations of English feeling during the war, which got us into trouble with both sides — but especially with the North — were in reality proofs of the close sympathy and intimate connection between our two nations. Russia, Prussia, or even France, might be in civil war, without our feeling that the struggle affected our own politics, or regarding it otherwise than as something CHEYENNE FESTIVITIES. 287 external to us. But whatever political convulsions took place in America, they hit us at home, involving great con- sequences sure to ensue among ourselves. Northern men were agreed that, viewed in one aspect, their war was a war between a democratic and an aristocratic society. Some of them explained our hot partisanship in this war, by supposing it simply a result of jealousy of America, and of a desire on our part that America should be divided. But no such supposition was necessary. All Englishmen were aware — though some might be hardly conscious how deeply they were aware — that the issue of the American struggle would powerfully affect our own politics. Hence, those of us who believed that a rapid democratising of our insti- tutions would bring us into great danger, were forced, by their very patriotism, to wish success to the South. Those of us, on the other hand, who disliked an aristocratically constituted .society, were sure to sympathise with the North, and, as a matter of fact, had sympathised steadily with the North. That both parties among us were right in believing, that the American War was deciding their own destinies, had been shown pretty clearly by our subsequent politics. To the result of that war, more than to any other one cause, was to be attributed, in the opinion of many, our immense recent progress toward democracy. With an American audience, this explanation of our conduct is, perhaps, the most likely to please. There is, indeed, nothing in the world that so pleasingly tickles the patriotism of Americans, as to be told that their country is watched with a sort of nervous anxiety abroad, and that the course of its politics widely influences the course of politics else- where. If, for the view of some Americans, that England hates America and likes to see her in trouble, you can sub- stitute the view, that the English Conservative cannot help being alarmed at the success of democracy in America, 288 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. fearing the force of its splendid example on our closely kindred people, you put an American in good humour. He guesses ' that's very human ' — as a Cheyenne man guessed to me — and departs, feeling rather flattered. After politics, our meeting next listened to a wordy war- fare of great interest for a stranger. Its subject was the subject which is far the most exciting of all to Westerns — the Indians. Some fiery spirit in the assembly, filling a glass with the champagne ' du pays,' proposed as a toast, ' The success of Cheyenne, and the extermination of the tribe whence the town took its name.' This was drunk with unbounded enthusiasm. Then General S , the Com- mandant, was called upon to say something about the policy of the Government to be pursued toward the Indians of Colorado. He made an excellent speech, very firm — saying, that the Indians, wherever they committed an outrage on the whites, should be * well whipped into submission,' and not humoured, nor let off with a leniency which they were certain to misunderstand, and which would lead to greater severities in the end— but, while thus firm, not at all ferocious — for he protested against the desultory warfare carried on by whites against Red-skins, saying, that the right policy would be to put the Indians entirely under the charge of the military, to withdraw the management of Indian affairs from all civilian Indian agents, and to entrust to the officers of the regular troops both the repression of attacks by unauthorised persons on Indians, and by un- provoked Indians upon whites. If only regular troops were employed in Indian warfare, there would be no more heard of such horrors as the * Sand Creek Massacre,' where an Indian encampment had been stormed by night, though the Indians had surrendered and shown a flag of truce, and every Red-skin, man, woman, and child, had been ruthlessly slaughtered on the spot. WESTERNS AND INDIANS. 289 This Sand Creek affair may need some description. Perhaps there are hardly a dozen people in England who ever heard the name of it at all : in Colorado, it has caused much more of discussion than any other battle that ever was fought. With all this discussion, one might think that the facts would not be hard to ascertain. On the contrary, they are less ascertainable than the facts of the battle of Marathon. At the very first mention of the name of * Sand Creek,' the true Coloradian flies into a rage, and remains a completely untrustworthy witness, till diverted to some other theme. The undeniable facts amount to this : that a certain Mr. Chivington, generally known as Colonel Chivington, but sometimes as the Reverend Mr. Chiving- ton (for he is both a fighter and a minister of the gospel, though said to have far finer natural gifts for the former, than for the latter, vocation), at the head of an armed party of Colorado volunteers, a few years ago, made an attack upon a body of Indians by night, stormed their encampment, and massacred every man, woman, and child. Some say, that the party of Indians had formally put themselves under Government protection, having gone to a neighbouring fort for the purpose, and there made declara- tions of friendship. Others add, that at the very time of the attack the Indians, in token of their peaceful submission, had the stars-and-stripes prominently displayed, having got an assurance that the display of the flag would guarantee them undisturbed security. All agree, that, when the Reverend Colonel Chivington showed his purpose to be simply war, the Indians, both sexes alike, fought desperately hard to the end. This is all I can tell about the affair, after talking with at least half-a-dozen ' Sand Creekers ; ' except that it was generally applauded throughout the Far West, and generally execrated in the East. Our Commandant finished his speech, and his strictures 290 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. upon this Sand Creek affair, amid silence and sulky looks. Then a young Western man, with an angry flush in his face, suddenly strode to the table at which the General was presiding, and, looking him full in the face, delivered a very fiery and eloquent speech. To attempt to write down that speech as it was spoken — very rapidly spoken, and with great animation — would be to attempt too much; but by enlarging some notes of it, written within a few hours of its delivery, it may be attempted to give its general tone ; and there is plenty of classical authority for reporting speeches in this fashion : — * I will not stand by and hear Colonel Chivington defamed by you, or by any man living.' (A burst of cheers from the audience.) ' Nor will I stand by and hear the battle of Sand Creek called a massacre. I fought at Sand Creek. I helped to kill the Red-skins, squaws and children and all ; and I am proud of the act.' (Loud cheers again.) ' That the Indians were at peace, is a lie. That the Indians showed the American flag, is another lie, I know the facts, and I will not be put down — though I may be only a poor rough Western man — no, not even by the General of the Regular Army, who holds command at Fort Russell. It is very fine for people who know nothing of Western life, to come here and talk of the " poor Indians." If you had had your property destroyed by Indians ; your friends murdered and mutilated by Indians ; if you had known women to be raped and tortured by them ; children to be stolen away and enslaved by them — why, then, I suppose, you would be talking to us of the wrongs of the ill-used Indian. You may say what you like, and do what you like : we will exterminate the red devils in spite of you. It is very fine to talk about a massacre of helpless and half-armed creatures. I tell you I know what Indians are, and that man to man is the only way to fight them. Helpless creatures, are they ? It is no such sport CHEYENNE SPEECHES. 291 to fight with Indians, as you — you gentlemen of the Regular Army — want to teach us, Western men, who have fought with Indians all our lives. I tell you, too, that the she- devils are as ill to fight as the men. The squaws fought us, at Sand Creek battle, the wickedest by far of the two. Colonel Chivington is as brave a man as ever lived, whom nobody would dare to defame before his face ; and while I am here nobody shall dare to defame the man, even behind his back.' Then the speaker sat down again, with a last defiant look at the General, amid a perfect storm of cheers. General S was wise enough to let the matter drop, without saying another word. ' Who's in the right there ? ' I whispered to the Cheyenne man sitting next me, my late entertainer at dinner. e Well, you see, I am not exactly the man to ask ' — he whispered back, with a gentle smile — 'for I am a Sand Creek murderer too.' After all this, we were in want of a comic incident, and immediately got what we wanted. A certain high official of a Western territory — over his name and office we may draw a veil — to whom the champagne of Cheyenne had proved irresistibly tempting, got up to deliver a speech about the only European correspondent. Whether the speech was a speech of genuine eulogy, or of the most bitter and withering sarcasm, the condition of the speaker made uncertain. Though this question was often and freely de- bated afterwards among us, agreement could never be reached upon it. For myself, I have always feared, that, so far as the speaker was capable of any intention at all, he intended to mock and deride the poor Old World, through the person, of its siugle representative ; who, it now ap- peared, represented not only its press, but its monarchy, aristocracy, culture, civilisation, everything, in fact, which the state of the speaker would permit of his remembering u 2 292 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. as being characteristic of Europe, and more or less distin- guishing it from America. For a long time the audience listened with the good-humoured patience of Americans. At last, a stir and murmur began, driving the speaker fairly wild. ' Why won't you listen to me ? ' he shouted ; ' you listened to the representative of British monarchy ' — and of all the other things just enumerated — ' you must and shall listen also to me ; ' and he glared around in so threatening a manner, that one rejoiced at the municipal law of Cheyenne, which had made him leave his six-shooter at home. At the first opportunity — when his physical energy was recruiting itself with yet more champagne — the mayor intervened with an ancient joke, often used for putting an end to awkward situations. He said he would now make the proposal to the meeting, which was made by the Governor of South Carolina to the Governor of North Carolina, when they met together for the despatch of business. As the nature of this proposal — namely, that they should at once take a drink — is universally known in America, it was carried with much acclamation ; and after this timely interruption the meeting broke up, near midnight. Our plan for the morrow (Tuesday, October 15) was to start pretty early in the morning, on our way to Denver City. General S had offered to send us thither in military waggons, drawn by teams of mules — a slower but not more uncomfortable conveyance than the Cheyenne and Denver coaches, which went over the ground two or three times a week. The waggons had the advantage, that, by them, our party could go all together, whereas no one stage- coach could have carried us thus in a body. With the mule-teams — six mules to each waggon — we hoped to make La Porte (forty-five miles distant) on the first night; and, possibly, Denver (seventy miles from La Porte), on the second. But we overrated our speed. We could not effect ALONG TEE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 293 a start nearly so early as had been agreed ; and it must have been ten o'clock — a very late hour for an American start — before our long mule-teams went slowly forth from the camp and town of Cheyenne. Very soon it became clear that the time-table of our journey was altogether astray. The mules preferred a walk to any less sober gait, and their drivers easily acquiesced. The track was, in general, fairly level ; and as the ground was hard and dry, there was no great strain on the teams ; yet it was only now and again, on easy downward slopes, that they could be, by any suasion, beguiled into the semblance of a trot. The road was of a similar sort to that which had led us to Cheyenne — a mere track over the prairie, only marked by the ruts of wheels and by the grass being nearly worn off it # After every dozen miles or so, we passed a stage-station, a plank-built hut, with stabling attached to it, where the coaches stopped to change horses. These were the only habitations we saw. The scenery was not very striking. To our left, the prairie stretched out, interminable in its dull uniformity. On our right, the mountain-range kept along with us, at a distance ever lessening, from about thirty or forty, to about twenty miles. There were no grand mountain-views yet, only the low sierra of the Black Hills at first, and afterwards, the lower and nearer ridge of the ' Hog's Back ' — a sort of outer reef, which stretches along in front of the higher and bolder mountains, and first breaks the undulating ocean of the plains. This * Hog's Back ' looks like a mere ridge of prairie, pushed up by the forces that threw out the great mountains within, and left standing now, along the edge of their operation, presenting toward the plains, on the outside, a smooth grassy slope of upheaved and unbroken prairie, an abrupt and precipitous face toward the mountainous country within. Whatever may be its geological meaning, in point of 294 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. scenic effect its upheaval was a blunder. So long as it runs alongside, you cannot get any fair view of the wild mountain shapes that lie sheltered behind it. Our road often dipped into hollows, which showed, by their bare and gravelly beds, that they sometimes were the courses of torrents from the hills; but at this late autumn season nearly all were dried up. A line of new telegraph posts strode over the prairie, now on this side, now on that, of our route — a line then just approaching completion, connecting Cheyenne with La Porte, where a junction was to be effected with the lines to Salt Lake and San Francisco, on the western side, Denver City and the Missouri on the other. Our drive was a tedious enough process. Military waggons are not the most comfortable vehicles ; and the pace was simply funereal. Some of us, however, soon found, that it was perfectly safe for us to get out and walk ; for the mule-teams were wholly incapable of leaving any- body far behind. Our German General from Illinois set us the example of wide explorations upon foot Shouldering his rifle determinedly, he declared he would go off and get us an { envelope ; ' which seemed the oddest proposal imagin- able, for we were not in a position to want stationery at all. He was interpreted, however, by those skilled in the German o- American language, to be bent on procuring an 'antelope.' Fortune did not smile on his quest. After manfully scouring the prairie to right and to left, seeing nothing of antelopes, he had at last to betake himself to very small game, and shot away most of his bullets, and more of his temper, at the invulnerable armies of prairie-dogs. Men catch at any little amusement on the prairie, as eagerly as on the ocean, its only competitor in dreariness. When, in the course of the afternoon, we were passing one or two strangely -shaped little hills, rising steeply from the prairie, and almost of conical form, except that their extreme tops PRAIRIE COFFEE. 295 had been smoothly shaved off, we examined them, and climbed them, and wondered at them, as people examine and wonder at the most commonplace ship, the first met for some time in a voyage. Near these hills was a stage-station, called from them ( The Round Buttes ' — an instance of the way in which French words have lingered about this Far West. We had not passed it long, when, with a descent much more sudden than nightfall in England, the night fell upon us. The track became hard to make out. A council was called, and it was decided that the next ranch on the road, a ranch placed by a stream known as ' Box Elder Creek,' should be the goal of our journey for the day. In an hour or two we reached it — a miserable little hut on the prairie. In preparing for our long drive to Denver, our party had been organising itself in American fashion. Not only was a certain gallant colonel commanding, as aforesaid, but a commissariat had been formed, and a number of officials duly chosen. There was the purveyor of bread and ham, the purveyor of coffee, the general superintendent of cookery — a whole ministry, in fact, so provided with assistants and deputies and subordinates, that I was almost alone in my exclusion from place. Beside claiming immunity as an alien, I had pleaded personal unfitness for the responsibilities of office. Our party, like a perfected organism, directly we came to a halt, proceeded to the discharge of its several functions by the cooperation of its several parts. The deputy-assistant fire-lighter got together wood, and, aided by superiors in his department, lit a respectable watch-fire on the prairie. Then, the purveyor of coffee got out his stores, recently purchased in Cheyenne ; and a thrill of horror ran through the assembly, on finding that the coffee was in the bean. Then the representative of Europe was forced into office, as ' coffee-grinder general,' But 296 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. how was one to grind? The nearest coffee-mill was undoubtedly at Cheyenne. The next nearest, in all pro- bability, at Denver, not less than a hundred miles off. Luckily one of our party, a missionary from India, lately turned editor of a religious paper in the West, a man taught by his sacred profession to feel for all human distress, came to comfort and relieve me. He had seen coffee ground in the Himalayas by being tied up in a handkerchief and pounded with a stone. We tried the plan eagerly, and we declared it a success. Emptying the coffee thus ground into a coffee-pot, we stood by the watch-fire awaiting the result. Tired editors thronged around, almost equally anxious. We had to plead hard, that the decoction should be allowed its fair time for boiling, so sanguine and keen were the bystanders. Then, a tin mug was got from the ranch, and the colonel in command was bidden to taste. ' Well, did it boil, do you think ? Is it good ? ' asked many voices at once. He answered, without enthusiasm, ' Yes : I guess it boiled : it's hot enough, any way. But ' — address- ing us in particular — ( are you quite sure you put the coffee in at all ? ' Of course we had put the coffee in ; and we looked in an appealing way to the next taster, to vindicate us. He stopped drinking suddenly, pressed his hand on his throat, whence a strange gurgling sound was proceeding, and said, with impeded utterance, ' Yes : there's coffee in it, surely. I've just swallowed a coffee-bean. I rather guesh it'll choke me yet.' Then the coffee-grinder general was scowled at all round ; and as, in those days, there was no good English precedent for a minister clinging to office against a hostile majority, he at once threw up his place, not again to abandon the ease of private life. Our evening meal was, indeed, no great treat. Though a member of our party boasted much of his cunning in the frying of ham, one may assert, without yielding to prejudice, that the coffee INDIAN RAIDS. 297 was every bit as inviting as the eatables. No food could be procured at the ranch, except (strange exception, it seems) preserved peaches ; on which, judging from the supplies in the shops, one would think the population of the West must chiefly and generally subsist. There was, however, in the ranch, fine provision for the thirsty, in the form of a liquor that purported to be spirituous, and was called, by the grim humour of the ranch-man, by the maligned name of 6 whisky.' Most of us, like Mr. Pickwick's frugal comrade in the Fleet, satisfied the cravings of hunger, in the main, with cigars ; and then came the question, where was one to sleep. The spirit of organisation was again terribly active. It was resolved to arrange a system of sentries, to guard the waggons through the night against incursions of Indians. For this purpose, the night was divided into watches of two hours' duration apiece, and one unhappy excursionist was told off for each watch. Whether from the respect due to him as a stranger, or from the want of confidence in him produced by his coffee-grinding, the European representative escaped getting a watch. Being anxious, however, to ascertain how far there was really a danger of attack, and how far the posting of sentries was merely a happy thought of our military leader for refreshing his knowledge of soldiering, this lucky excursionist asked of the ranchman, what the Indians had lately been doing about Box Elder Creek. The answer was, that on May 8, a party of Indians had stolen five horses, and got off unobserved : on June 17, Indians again appeared in force in the middle of the day, cut to pieces or shot nine head of cattle, and carried off one steer. Such a raid, in broad daylight, is a novelty in the warfare of Indians ; for its attacks are nearly always by night, just before the first glimmer of dawn. On the follow- ing day, June 18, the same party returned and drove off twenty-two head of cattle. On August 2, eight Indians 298 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. attacked a party of men who were making bay near the ranch, and shot one of them dead. On August 1 5, Governor Hunt, the Governor of Colorado, had held an amicable council of Indians, and had supplied them with food. This is what drives the true Western man mad — this desire of the authorities to humour the Indians. You are always told of such humouring in a bitter, cynical way — the way in which Irish landlords of the South and the West talk of Government's humouring the Fenians ; and it is indeed a little hard on the Western farmer, who has had all his stock driven off, to hear of the Government, for which he pays and to which he looks for protection, having supplied his assailants with fresh stores of food before they can have quite finished his own stolen beef. It is not likely this record of outrages is in any way exaggerated against the Red Indians : for the ranchman, its narrator, was a half-caste himself, lived in happy agreement with a Red Indian squaw, and had thereby become father of some unmistakably Indian-like papooses. Thus, owing his domestic bliss to the Red Indian race, he is, probably, not among their more bitter foes. After the watches were arranged, and some of the party had retired to rest in the waggons, others under the waggons, the remainder of us lay down for the night upon the floor of the ranch. The ranch of the prairie has one enormous advantage over the chalet of Switzerland, and the ' soetr ' of Norway, as a resting-place by night. It is not full of fleas. Even in caves over the glaciers in the Alps, or in huts far above the fixed snow-line, there is no escape from the lively Swiss flea ; as everybody who has passed a night in the Eiger-hohle, or the cave of the Faulberg, or the Grands Mulets chalet, can testify. But though the Western ranch can hold its own for uncleanliness with any human habita- tion, and is far from being without its own forms of insect LA PORTE. 299 life, the flea is not there. Having said this, one has, I believe, paid the Western ranch its only possible compli- ment. There were those of us, to be sure, who, on this par- ticular night, filled the small space of our one-roomed hotel with the most undisturbed snores; but the rest quietly smoked away the night, with small hope of slumber and much longing for day. In the morning we, were off by about six, after another pic-nic meal as rough as its predecessor. From Box Elder the distance to La Porte is about fifteen miles. The scenery steadily improves as you advance to the southward. But until La Porte is passed there is no unbroken view of the great mountains lying south of it ; for, a little to the south of that village, a sort of headland or promontory (the whole scenery here is so like coast-scenery, with the mountains for coast and the prairie for ocean, that ' head- land ' and ' promontory ' seem the aptest of terms) juts out from the hills into the prairie, concealing the further stretches of the range. About five miles from Box Elder, at a station known as e Maxwell's,' the road from Salt Lake to Denver is reached, where it emerges into the plains from the mountains. From thence on to Denver, you follow a well- beaten road, with a line of telegraph, long ago finished and used, running along it. Ten miles more bring you into La Porte, on the l Cache la Poudre ' river. The name of the village is evidently owing to the gap in the mountain-range, through which issues the stream ; and the name of the stream is said to have been given by old French explorers, who here buried their magazine of gunpowder, while they went up through the gap, to survey the mountains within. La Porte is a pretty village, or, at all events, looks pretty to ,one surfeited with the desolate prairie. Past it runs a clear trout stream, the greatest flow of water that the travel- ler has seen since he left the Platte River at Julesberg. 300 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. Beside the stream, and about the village, which only consists of one little street, and has probably not more than a hundred or a hundred and fifty inhabitants, grow some trees — novel and delicious sight ! and a thin fringe of them stretches away down the Cache la Poudre into the prairie. Backing this settlement, with its stream and its trees, the mountains are here close upon you — not yet rising into grandeur, but a very beautiful amphitheatre, nevertheless, of dark rocks and green banks. Such a place as La Porte would not strike the attention in Wales or in Scotland ; but to him who has come across the plains from the Missouri, it is simply a gem. There is a good deal of cultivation and of labour around it. Farms stretch down along the Cache la Poudre for miles ; and higher up the stream, where it comes out into the plains through a rather fine gorge, there are saw-mills for cutting the timber that is brought down from the mountains — mills, which had lately been kept pretty busy by the mania for building at Cheyenne. Altogether, there is a look of settlement about the place, which is charming after the desolate plains, and a quiet about it which pleasingly contrasts Avith the feverish stir among the speculators, and the perpetual din of the builders, at Cheyenne. What was more to our purpose, La Porte has an inn, which, being kept by a very hospitable host, and being a feeding-place for passengers to or from Denver, Cheyenne, and Salt Lake City, is always well stored with provisions. Here our party were tempted to halt a full hour. Then we drove on eight miles, to the next stage-station, ' Spring Canon,' pro- nounced by the initiated, Canyon. From this point, as the day was lovely, and the scenery rapidly becoming magnifi- cent, I started to walk on in front of the waggons. By walking, one could shorten the way, cutting off the angles made by the beaten wheel- track, and keeping more nearly to the much straighter line of the telegraph-posts. Twelve TEE MOUNTAINS. 301 miles brought one into the next station, ' Big Thomson,' on another little river, and with farms extending along the course of the water. The sun was near its setting as I came to this station, and the Rocky Mountains stretched out before me, in a prospect as magnificent as any that Europe can show. The envious ( Hog's Back ' had disap- peared. Sheer and steep from the plains, rose up mountains high as the highest of the Alps. It was more like than ever to a grand coast-line — giant headlands and proud peaks stretching out before one in an interminable line, fronting and defying an interminable ocean. Straight before me, and towering into the sunshine, Bright with a light, and eminent in amber, stood out ( Long's Peak,' flinging up, Parnassus-like, its twin sharp summits to the skies. On either side of it, and beyond it, reaching away to the far South, its fellow giants reposed grandly, in the lazy grandeur of their bulk, beside the now darkening plain : or threw out spires and pinnacles into the clear air, seeming to strain themselves into tortured shapes, that they might still hold the rays of sunset upon some far-off virgin summit. Here and there, deep valleys ran upward, valleys clothed with dense pine-forests, now drawing over them their nightly veil, the soft blue mist that was enwrapping them. Higher up, on the steep sides, lay expanses of forest, still safe from the axe, and above them, the wild bare rocks stood out sharply against the clear sky. When I thus saw the great mountains first, there was hardly any snow visible upon them — only a patch of brilliant whiteness here and there, gleam- ing out among the rocks. It is very rare to see so little snow; but the time of my view (October 15), was just the time of the year at which least snow is in general to be seen ; and the summer and autumn preceding had been even unusually dry and hot. As I walked onward from 302 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. Big Thomson, the spectacle did not lessen in grandeur — only changed gradually in character — now showing a new peak in the distance, now a new valley opening up from the plains, which the two steep sides that enclosed it had pre- viously hidden from view — now altering the shape of this mountain, or that — now letting the warm light fade from this or that summit, but ever catching the eye with fresh beauties, and varying, not losing, its grandeur. Not far from the last-mentioned station, a companion joined me, a rider, who turned out to be a blacksmith from Brockville, in Canada, now employed by Wells, Fargo & Co., the great stage-proprietors of the West, and kept in constant occupation by them, shoeing their horses at one station or another. As being himself, also, a subject of Her Majesty, he showed every disposition to fraternise, and freely de- scribed to me the manner of his life — how often he had been chased by Indians, in his journeyings over the mountains and plains ; how hard and dangerous were his services ; and how large the wages which he earned. Never, before or since, did I meet with so patriotic a Canadian. Perhaps there is nothing to make a man fond of his country, like putting him some two thousand miles away from it. In this case, at all events, such conditions had made a patriot. The farrier waxed enthusiastic about Upper Canadian cha- racter and institutions. Where else was there a race of men so stout of heart and so strong of limb ? Where else were there women so virtuous and frugal and comely ? The Western character was, also, not amiss in my friend's estima- tion. He had lived most of his life in the Union ; and, of the various parts of it which he had tried, none was so thoroughly liberal to all men as this Far West. In the East he had sometimes — not often, but still sometimes — found that his Canadian birth was a hindrance to him. In the West, nobody cared, and few asked, whence he came. INDIAN POLICY OF THE WEST. 303 It was, indeed, the land of equal chances — a land of unpitied failure, it might be — but also of unobstructed success. It was dark before we reached our goal for the night, the station of ' Little Thomson.' The only approach to an incident, which I can remember, of the latter part of our way, was our meeting (to meet anything is in itself an inci- dent on the prairie) with a long train of ox-teams, laden with timber for Cheyenne, which had just started from their encampment for a night-journey through the prairie, to avoid the heats of the daytime, and to lessen the plague of the dust, which is raised in suffocating clouds by such long, slow, heavily-jolting convoys. Little Thomson is a more commodious station than Box Elder. You can get other eatables there, beside the in- variable ( canned peaches ; ' and there is actually a room, with a table in it, where you can sit down and partake of the fare. Nay, more, there is a bedroom for travellers, small, to be sure, but able to hold three beds, each of which is warranted to contain two men with great ease, and at least three or four upon crowded nights. Having much outstripped our waggons, I flattered myself I should be able to secure very fine accommodation. A respectable supper was procurable at once, at which a young woman, probably the daughter of the host, ministered with the haughty and patronising air that marks the thoroughbred Western lady. We fell to talking on the Western topic — the Indians. Was she much afraid of them ? ' Well, no ; they didn't come much to Little Thomson.' f What were the rights and wrongs of the whole Indian business ? Had the Red-skins much to complain of ? ' ' Well, they hadn't a good time of it, certainly. Things went rough enough with them.' She seemed to speak with all the sweetness of the woman and the Christian. But now entered on the scene a small boy, 304 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. with a great shock head of hair — the young lady's brother — come also to have a look at the stranger. He at once joined the conversation, and led it forthwith. For his own part, he declared (he looked about fifteen years of age) he would shoot a buck Indian on sight. If ever I got a chance, I was to take his advice, and do so. Red-skin was pisen, and must just be improved off, and pretty damned quick too. Meantime, the lady smiled approval, and even expressed her gentle assent, guessing that there wasn't much good, after all, in talking of anything but extermination. There really is hardly such a thing as a Western — man, woman, or child — who has anything to recommend but exter- mination. That is the sole Indian policy of the West. If he admits that there can be an ( Indian Question ' at all, that is the Western's sole answer to it. And indeed, things have come to such a pass now, that no longer is any other answer possible. Passing from questions of public policy to more private and personal matters, I asked the young lady about the chances of abed. Well, that was easy enough settled. Turn in early : and there you were, with your place secured pretty safe. This word ( place ' did not sound satisfactory. Would simple occupation, then, be a good enough title to hold a bed against all comers ? Not quite that, she guessed : any man, who came into the room during the night, might turn in alongside. Already the ranch was pretty full. Beside the Canadian and myself, two gold-diggers from California had just arrived from across the mountains, to * go prospectin' for gold in Colorado — very fine, handsome fellows, who were driving a dashing team of their own through the country, but who, however agreeable, had that independent look, which told plainly that they might challenge one's title to a bed. However, when the bed question was broached to them, they declared that for their part they would just lie for the night PBAIRIE NIGHTS. 305 on the floor. Presently my eighteen companions arrived. The energetic colonel, commanding us, began at once there- upon to arrange his sentries. On this occasion there was no escape. I found myself put down for mounting guard be- tween the pleasant hours of one and three in the morning. Vain was it to plead, that we were now out of danger from Indians. The colonel thought otherwise, and had the strong argument besides, that none of his other sentries had grum- bled. So there was nothing for it but to wrap oneself in a great-coat, as a shield against chance bed-fellows, and to lie down at once upon one of the three beds. When the sentry, whom I had to relieve, woke me up at one in the morning, I found that the young lady had been right in her forecast. A Western gentleman of rough aspect had veritably 'turned in alongside,' and was snoring calmly beside me — the sight of whom was now of use, as making one less averse to turn out on the prairie. Indeed, the two hours of sentry -duty were not altogether a misfortune. It was a lovely quiet night, with a clear moon overhead. All around, the prairie lay entranced in a dead silence that was wonderful. For in such nights, on the prairie, the very silence holds one breathless, as if one were held by a strain of music. No- where else have I so seen the stars Beat to the noiseless music of the night ; nowhere else have I so felt what was meant by un silence harmonieux. From end to end, along the western sky, stretched the dim blue shapes of the mountains, in that shadowy and unsubstantial softness which can only be given by moonlight. All the terrors of them — the sharpness of their rocks, the gloom of forests, the chill horror of gorges — all now were melted and merged in the dreamy light that suf- fused them. Those vigorous giants of the daylight, that had stood up, with such menace and majesty, to front and defy x 306 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. the prairie-ocean, were now shapes and colours so tender and delicate, that they looked more spectral than real. Indeed, there was no lack of fascination in the scene ; and perhaps there was some excuse for the sentry, engrossed in it, for, only toward the close of his watch, remembering that he was quite unarmed. Most stringent orders had been issued, that each sentry was to make himself terrible with loaded six-shooter and rifle ; but here, pacing the prairie, was a sentry so defenceless, that if ' Red Cloud ' and his braves had dashed in upon him, he could only have hurled his cigar at them, and taken to his heels immediately. However, that dire chieftain stayed at home, the sentry gazed at the scene unmolested, till the morning grew sharp and cold, and it was with a spiteful joy, that at three a.m., most punctually, he went to waken and call out his reliever, no less a person than the Attorney-General for Colorado. In the morning all were astir early. Everybody wanted to pass the next night in Denver ; and as that town was still forty-three miles off, and some of our mules looked like striking work, everybody had agreed to an early start. With mules now lame as well as lazy, the day's drive promised to be most tedious. Accordingly a good pedestrian in our party, a Mr. Baur (German, of course : no native American will walk), proposed to me to walk on to Denver. Our tardy waggons soon fell behind us, and we never saw them, nor wanted to see them, again. The walk was on a well-beaten track, that rose and fell over a rolling prairie, with the mountain-range parallel to it on the right, and al- ways about fifteen miles off. Onward from Little Thomson the views are less fine. There is no other single mountain so magnificent as Long's Peak; and, after passing Little Thomson, you find yourself leaving that magnificent object behind. The next stage-station was the village of Burling- ton, ten miles from our night's resting-place. Burlington is AN ENGLISH HOST. 307 a village of one street ; or, rather, of one half-street, for its few houses are all on one side of the road, though good and substantial houses in their way. There is some farmed and irrigated land around, but not a tree to be seen ; so that the place is of desolate aspect. Unless, however, it has lately changed, it is a place for the Briton to halt in ; for at its inn, the ' Ni Wot House,' there is special good cheer for him. The host is an immigrant from Cheshire, and the hostess from the county Armagh ; both of whom, like all English immigrants and nearly all Northern Irish, feel a loyal re- gard in the new home for all that pertains to the old. The name of their house will strike every Briton as being neither from Chester nor Armagh. « Ni Wot,' we were told, means * Left-handed,' and was the name of a famous Indian chief; who ought to be cheered, in his happy hunting grounds, by being Hero Eponymous of such a house. At this hospitable house, my German companion was so much impressed by the quality and quantity of the hot cakes and coffee, which a talk about Cheshire with the host, about Ulster with the hostess, soon set before us, that he offered himself, at once, as partner of my whole future travels ; the terms were to be, that, if I would so win all Britons, he would undertake the Germans, by similarly plying them with the speech, and the sentiments, of their fatherland. Both often afterwards profited by the partner- ship so begun. The landlord told us he met a good many Englishmen. The greater number of these were Cornish, whom the slackness of mining in Cornwall had driven into trying Colorado ; but there were many other English, also, in Denver. In fact, he never went anywhere in the West, without encountering an Englishman, either mining or farming, or otherwise pushing his fortune. 1 Quse regio in terris nostri non plena laboris ? ' might have expressed his view of his countrymen, with a x 2 308 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. little warping of its original meaning. For an ascent of Long's Peak, which I was mentally planning, this Burling- ton inn seemed the starting-place. If the Alpine Club ever order an assault, their attacking-party cannot do better than make the ' Ni Wot House ' their base of operations. It is within a dozen miles of the foot of the mountain ; and the landlord would not, like an American landlord, regard a mountaineering expedition as irrefragable evidence of lunacy. The whole way from Burlington to Denver the road is without striking features. Habitations become pretty fre- quent ; I doubt whether you are ever out of sight of a house. The road passes over waves of the prairie — low ridges, running out at right angles from the mountains, each ridge about six or seven miles from the top of the next in succession. Between these, you dip into broad shallow valleys, generally with a stream running through them. Where houses are to be seen, they stand, generally, beside such streams, and close to the road ; and sometimes you may trace the course of such a stream, till it vanishes far off in the prairie, by the fringe of low brush-wood following it. This is all that can be said of the road. Nor were our personal adventures startling or sensational. Here we came up to a stage-station, in sore need of something to drink; for, cold as the nights were, the days were still hot, and the dry prairie-track was terribly dusty. Water is drawn for us out of a well, very much of the colour of a glacier-stream. The station-keeper, however, bids us drink without fear, declaring his well to be a restorer of health, and that his station would, one day, become the well-house of a new Saratoga. At present, the men of the West had not got to that stage of decrepitude which needs the renova- tion of watering-places ; but invalid coach-horses took a new lease of life, when sent to this station, and watered from this well. Again, at another stage-station, we suddenly LAGER ON THE PRAIRIE. 309 met with our German General, whose impetuous hunt after ' envelopes ' has kept him, till now, in our front. He looks very worn and dejected, so much so, that we feel it would be cruel to ask him what sport he has had. Evidently, not even a prairie-dog. We induce him to walk with us to the next station ; he consents ; and, reaching the top of a ridge, we see that next station ahead. How far ? The General guesses the miles. We name about twice as many: for distances on the prairie are deceptive as on the sea, and we feel that, having had some practice in guessing them, we are not without a right to pronounce. The General yields not a whit, and mocks us for disputing such a point with an artilleryman, versed in war. Thereupon follow bets, that our guess is the nearer of the two. Arrived at the station, we ask its distance from the top of this ridge, whence we saw it ; and we hear that it is very much longer, even than it was computed by us ; whereat the discomfited General leaves us and waits for the waggons. Next, we come to a good-looking station, ' Church's ' by name, which, by its size and appearance, arouses some hopes of a repast. But a repast is not to be had, and a plague of flies fills the house. Tea, the sole luxury offered, in- stantly blackens before us with drowning and parboiled flies. We resolve on a very short halt, and on forcing the running to Denver, in order to have plenty of time there, for securing the best accommodation. But my companion slips out of my sight ; and when I discover him again, he is sitting, regardless of Denver, in rapt conversation with a compatriot, who has met him, and whispered in his ear, ( there is Lager-Bier in the house.' There they sit, clink- ing their glasses, talking of Bund and Bismarck and Kaiser, but, whatever their varying theme, drinking lager without intermission. Noting the vast weight of liquor consumed, I look on our walking-companionship as a thing 310 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. that is now of the past. But for Germans, long parted from lager, to taste it again is for Antaeus to touch mother-earth. Suddenly, my friend springs up (he had arrived rather tired at the station), and declares himself willing to walk on to Mexico, should I desire it. So we start, with the second German in company. About half way to Denver, that is to say, about five or six miles from that town, a whole army of ' Buggies,' most common of American vehicles, approaches. ' Are we members of the editorial excursion ? ' ' Yes.' ' Then jump into a buggy and be driven to Denver.' These are Denver's citizens, come out to welcome and conduct to their quarters the men of the press. We prefer to finish our walk. The army of buggies goes on, to rescue our comrades from the waggons. They drive at a terrible pace, on their mission of welcome and courtesy ; and we fear we may be, even yet, the last to arrive in the town. So our walking grows fast and furious. Our new German comrade, the revealer of lager, pants, reddens, and looks apoplectic, and, finally, falls to the rear. We push on alone, through the dusk of the evening ; and arrive in the town well in front of our party. To the pilgrim just fresh from the plains, Denver is simply a city of palaces. Indeed, in the estimation of any one, it would stand being compared with most towns of its size, that is to say, of some eight or nine thousand inhabit- ants. The streets are wide, well laid out, and lively. All the newer buildings are of brick ; for, since the town was almost wholly burnt down, in a great conflagration some years ago, a rule has been made by the authorities against the building of more wooden houses. We entered by a long bridge over the Platte ; and asking our way through two or three streets, and across a smaller bridge, over * Clear Creek,' found ourselves at the ' Tremont House ' hotel. This had been recommended as the best ; and was, indeed, DENVER. 311 very comfortable ; though we were wrong in establishing ourselves in it, for rooms had been taken for the whole of our party by the hospitable townsmen at another and larger hotel, the ' Planter's House : ' whither we afterwards moved. The delight of getting into good quarters, after even a short spell of rough life, is something, which, however often described, is only to be known by experience. He, who has not known it thus, cannot fancy how mere eating, drinking, sleeping and washing can become the most vivid enjoyments. Once, in talking with a hero of the American War, a young officer of most celebrated services, I asked him (for I saw he was sentimental, and I thought that his answer would be noble and interesting) to tell me of his feelings during those terrible days, when every day was a battle more fierce than the last. ' O you think,' said he, laughing, ( one must have felt in the grand style then. Not a bit of it. We were too hard worked, and too meanly fed. For my part, I used to lie awake at night, thinking how often I had let the most exquisite dishes — entrees, sweetmeats, all sorts — go past me, untouched, in Boston ; and what wouldn't I give for them now ! ' And, without undergoing the hardships of war, it is certain that a few days of privation will bring out in a man all there is of the animal, and make him absolutely revel in creature comforts. Not his father's grief, nor his mother's loneliness, but the good fare in their servants' hall, kept running in the Prodigal's head, as he sat down to his dinner of acorns. And so, apart from the strange wild life, the prairie scenery, the magnificent mountains, a pilgrimage over the plains is almost repaid by a supper and bedroom at Denver. Next morning, the Denver people crowded to the hotel to pay their respects to their visitors. We had hard work to drink and talk with them all; but their civility de- 312 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. served recognition. Of the many new acquaintances made, that morning, in the hall of the Planter's House, nearly all opened their conversation with some remarks to me about that most interesting book, which has made Denver famous in England. The following is a discussion about it, repeated as accurately as I can repeat it. There is certainly nothing introduced that was not said to me in Denver, but it may be that I am attributing to one speaker remarks which were made to me by others. c Do you know Mr. Hepworth Dixon, sir, who has written a book about our town, that has astonished us here a good deal?' ' I know the book : what has astonished you so much in it?' 6 Well, sir, he says we shoot each other here in the houses every night, and then throw each other out of the windows ; and that if we a'n't shooting indoors, we are hang- ing each other on the cotton-tree by the creek. It must be very surprising to you, sir, that there are so many of us left ; and I'm sure it's quite surprising to us that you should have ventured to come here at all.' ' But do you mean that Mr. Dixon was quite mistaken ? ' ' I mean that Denver never at any time was half as bad as he describes it; and that, while he was here, and for years before, Denver was a perfectly quiet and orderly town. You must remember, Denver only dates from '59; and all beginnings are a little rough. We claim for Denver that it ceased to be rough sooner than almost any other town in the West.' ' But hadn't you to have a Vigilance Committee here, and a good deal of Lynch Law ? ' ' We had to string fellows up pretty smart at one time ; and that's how we got the town into order so soon. But as to hangings every night, murders every night, bodies DENVER AND < NEW AMERICA.' 313 seen in the streets every morning, it's all stuff, sir. Denver at its worst wasn't as roustfi as Julesbergr is this minute.' 'Well, how do you think Mr. Dixon heard of such things ? ' ' He got among some funny fellows, sir. Bob Wilson is a funny fellow — a regular wag is Bob. He was asked by our mayor to entertain the Englishman ; and, by the Lord ! sir, he did entertain him.' ' Mr. Wilson is a hero, with us, now. Pie must be an uncommon fine fellow, isn't he ? ' ' He's an uncommon smart auctioneer, sir, and, it seems, uncommon smart at entertaining Englishmen. But whether he ever frightened anybody much, I have my doubts ; and, as to the story of his going out after the horse-thieves, I was on the Vigilance Committee myself, and so ought to know, and I don't believe Bob ever went out after a thief in his life. I never heard of the thing, anyhow.' ( Certainly Denver seems a quiet enough place now.' c That's it, sir. You can judge for yourself what Denver is like : and, I can tell you, Denver has been what it is for the last three years.' ( At all events,' I said, laughing, 'you must admit my good countryman has written a very entertaining book about you ; and I don't suppose it matters much to Denver, if we do think you rougher than you are.' ' O, very entertaining, no doubt : and we don't much mind you're being entertained in England. But half the people of America have read the book, and I do believe it has scared men from coming here. That's what hits us — only that.' Denver is now as orderly and well-regulated as any town I was ever in. It is, to be sure, full of f fast life.' The inhabitants are not the most moral in the world. Rough young miners from the mountains, with their pockets full of 314 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. gold, brimming over with vigorous life, and made keener for enjoyment by hardships, are not likely, when they come to town, to be models of the domestic virtues. The town abounds in gambling-houses ; but the gaming seemed quietly conducted. The most adventurous and avaricious women flock thither from the cities of the East ; but, being American women, and proud, they behave with decorum in public. As to security, life and property are at least as secure in Denver as they are in the East End of London. I have passed through the streets of Denver alone, at all hours of the night, and always found them not only safe, but remarkably quiet. I have been brought through many of the gambling-houses at night, and never heard an angry word uttered in one of them. The players — those young { Norse gods,' to use Mr. Dixon's expression — were wild of aspect, no doubt, and kept their six-shooters significantly close to them ; but, whenever I saw them, they were ordering themselves no less properly and respectably than the moie polished ladies and gentlemen who frequent the fashionable tables of Germany. On this first day at Denver, our programme of entertain- ments was to be as follows. The Germans of the town were having a gala-day, as it was the anniversary of the Battle of Leipsic. We were bidden to share their festivities; and, afterwards, a banquet was to be given us at the Planter's House, under the patronage of the Governor of Colorado, the Mayor of Denver, and other notabilities. The German entertaintment was simply a drive to the mountains. In the afternoon, a cavalcade of buggies carried Germans, editors, and much Rhine-wine, from Denver to the foot of the mountains. For twelve miles or so, we drove over prairie ; then a winding ascent amongst hills, partly green, partly rocky, thinly clad, here and there, with pine-trees, brought us as far as we cared to go. The range is not here, DENVER ENTERTAINMENTS. 315 as at Little Thomson, a sheer steep ascent from the plains. It rises thence, step by step ; and so far as we penetrated this day, we were rather among hills than mountains, hills full of curiously-shaped rocks, picturesque glens and nooks, but nowhere attaining to grandeur. Whither the road leads that we followed, I do not exactly know. Entering the hills beside a stream, called by the name of ' Bear Creek,' it seems, gradually, to vanish altogether. One hardly missed it; for it had grown so rough, that to be turned out upon the trackless hills made no difference in the motion of the vehicles. How Americans, used to their roads, can think driving easier than walking, is most astonishing to the Briton. No amount of jolting seems to disturb them; and, if you venture a criticism on their road-making, they turn the tables upon you immediately, guessing, { they can't make good carriage-springs in Europe, so they just have to cut down all their hills.' It was dark night before we got back to the town ; and the company soon began to assemble for our banquet. While we were assembling, introductions went on among us, with all the free friendliness of the Far West. Two gentlemen, whom I had already met, thus gave me the acquaintance of a most notable person. Dragging up a reluctant stranger between them, they explained to me who he was, with much laughter. ' Here's the man you've come from England to see — the man " with the head of an Apollo" — the terrible sheriff — the shooter of horse-thieves — Bob Wilson!' Great as is the obligation of the world to Mr. Hepworth Dixon, it may be doubted whether his hero feels under obligation to him at all. Since ' New America ' reached Denver, Mr. Wilson has been led the life of a dog. Cer- tainly, if he drew his long bow at our eminent writer, he has expiated the offence ten times over. That Bob is 316 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. handsome and agreeable, nobody can deny ; but, after hearing all the 'chaff' to which he is subjected, it becomes hard to enroll him among the heroes. He is said to be the least dangerous man in the world; yet, if Mr. Dixon were again to visit Denver, even Bob might indulge in a quiet shot at him : so bitterly must he rue his celebrity. Some sixty or seventy people sat down at the banquet. The Mayor of Denver took the head, the Governor of Colorado the foot, of the table. The meats and drinks showed the resources of Denver ; and there was no lack of ready speakers. The chief subject of the speeches, as at Cheyenne and Omaha, was one long glorification of the e vast West.' The only speciality at Denver was, that you there heard less of the Indians than at Cheyenne, and more abuse of the Government than anywhere. Almost every speaker had a fling at Washington. One doubted, whether the people there knew, where Colorado was ; another be- lieved they looked on the Westerns as savages ; all spoke angrily of the Government, and almost threateningly, like possible secessionists of the future. The European corre- spondent was not forgotten, and was required to make a speech about things in general. Being in great straits for something to speak about, he fastened, in a dastardly manner, upon Bob Wilson, telling the audience, to their immense amusement, how great a name was Bob's in England. The only really eloquent speech of the evening — and a most striking performance it was, indeed — was made by a wild Western farmer, who sat at table in a rough flannel shirt. This man, as I afterwards found, on becoming acquainted with him, was a celebrated character in the West, formerly a Methodist preacher, now a farmer, a leader of the Spiritualists, and, generally, an enthusiast. A more profuse and brilliant flow of language I never heard from any man in my life. Such spirited eloquence in DENVER ENTEBTAINMENTS. 317 America, from speakers of not much education, is generally more remarkable for its splendid confusion of metaphors than for anything else ; and though this speaker at Denver hardly equalled a sentence, which I once saw reported in an American paper, as having been uttered by a distinguished female lecturer — a sentence to the effect that l The entering wedge has been driven into the vista of prosperity that now dawns upon the nation ' — even he, in his sublimer passages, mixed his metaphors with an appalling freedom. After the banquet, several of the company gave me introductions and information for use among the mines. To go and visit these mines was pronounced indispensable. Indeed, no true Western doubts, that the tourist's real object, however much he may conceal it, is to f go pro- spectin" for some rich ( lode,' or to pick up information in the mining districts, which he may turn into dollars in the New York Share Market. A tour, that is not to pay for itself, it does not enter into the Western heart to conceive. Accordingly, next day, most of our party started to see the great mines. A friend in Denver induced me to stay behind and visit some races, got up for our amusement. There is an excellent race-course near the town — not a hard thing to make on the prairie. The sport consisted entirely of trotting-matches ; in one of which a little chestnut mare, the l Belle of Denver,' was backed to trot five miles in fifteen minutes, and won.* No great number of spectators assembled ; but those who did, had the true sporting look, and one or two carriages, full of unprotected young ladies, bore witness to Denver being already ' faster ' than its number of inhabitants would warrant. * The estimation in which fast-trotting horses are held in America some- times shows itself rather quaintly. On the reappearance of the famous horse 1 Dexter,' in New York, after a successful race, a New York newspaper stated, ' As soon as the horse made his appearance in front of the Club House, all the gentlemen present took off their hats.' — New York Evening Post, September 20, 1867. 318 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. Next day, Sunday, was the beginning of winter. One of those sudden changes to which this climate is subject, had come on with intense severity ; a sky, hard enough and grey enough to breed Kingsleys, made the plains look most dismal, and a wind, most direfully keen, swept sleet-showers through the streets of Denver. Hoping for yet another change, such as might make mountaineering possible, I set to work learning the history of Long's Peak. At first, it seemed as if half Denver had been up it. However, upon further investigation, the number of ascenders fell down to three ; but, of these three — Mr. Byers, editor of the Rocky Mountain News, Mr. M'Clure, clergyman, and Jack Jones, surnamed the * Pioneer,' a very old and famous explorer of Colorado — there was said to be no doubt whatsoever, but that each and all had got quite to the summit. Mr. Byers was away at the mines; so no information could be got from him. Mr. M'Clure, being waylaid and questioned, stated, that he had not been to the true summit at all, and did not believe anybody had ever been there. Jack Jones, un- questionably, had not. However, I was anxious to hear what the ( Pioneer ' had to say for himself, and sought many interviews with him for the sake of obtaining infor- mation. On all these occasions, he was so uniformly and thoroughly drunk, that his evidence could not be taken. On this Sunday evening, by some lucky chance, I met him in a state approaching sobriety, and fancied I was about to draw out very interesting tales of adventures among the Rocky Mountains. On being brought into conversation in the hall of the Planter's House, the Pioneer kept throwing such longing looks toward the hotel bar, and indeed it seemed so very natural that his powers of narration should need some little aid from his wonted stimulants, that, after the manner of his country, I offered him ( a drink ' forthwith. He accepted the oiFer cheerfully. At American bars it is PATIIFINDEBS. 319 the custom to put two tumblers, one of them empty, the other half-full of water, along with a bottle of the selected spirit, before the intending drinker ; who helps himself according to his taste and capacity. Mr. Jones, to my consternation, did not trouble the water at all ; but, filling the second tumbler quite full of undisguised whiskey, drank it off at a breath, and immediately became at least as drunk as usual. Again was he utterly useless as an instructor ; though the tales of Western life he continued to pour forth, in a voice of drunken melancholy, were not altogether un- interesting, as showing what manner of men, in reality, are Cooper's idealised ' Pathfinders ; ' tales of the peaks and passes he had scaled ; the handsome squaws he had loved ; of the braves he had slain and scalped ; of the deaths of all his old comrades, one by one, at the Indians' hands ; of his own deadly quarrel with ' Red Cloud,' and his dark fore- boding of a day, that was soon to come, when ' old Jack Jones would go up, too.' More utter savages than some of these Western f Pioneers,' who have lived a good deal with the Indians, it would be impossible to conceive. They fall into the Indian ways completely, and scalp their man as cleanly, and with the same delight, as any Sioux or Cheyenne. However drunk, in making himself out an utter savage the Pioneer spoke the sober truth ; though, as to the details of his exploits, it was hard to separate fact from fiction. If i in vino Veritas ' be a generally truthful maxim, the smallest experience of America will prove, that c vinum ' cannot be Latin for i Bourbon ' whiskey. At a place like Denver, however, you hear startling enough adventures from trustworthy men : indeed it is among its chief in- terests, that nearly every man you meet has been oftener in ' tight places ' — to use the American phrase — than anybody you ever meet at home. The very first man, to whom I was introduced in the Planter's House, a certain Judge 320 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. S (what sort of duties his title indicated, I have not the faintest idea), after telling me, with American freedom, how he had lost all his money in the East, and had there- upon struck out for the West, as a country- where a man needn't care what sort of coat he wore on his back, nor, for the matter of that, whether he wore a coat at all — got, some- how, on the subject of grizzly bears. ' Had he ever seen one, in his experience of the Mountains ? ' i Yes,' he answered, in the slow, cool, "Western way, 'he had seen one,' and then, leisurely stroking his leg, continued, ' 'guess one of them pretty nearly chawed up this limb of mine once.' ' How was that?' 'Well, I was out with another man, prospectin' for gold in the woods. Somehow, we got apart from each other. As I went along, I heard a quick step after me, and looked round, thinking it might be my mate coming up. It was a grizzly, running right at me, with his tongue out, and a kind of wicked look in his eye that I don't forget. I drew my six-shooter, and fired, by a sort of instinct, hardly knowing what I was about. We found out, afterwards, that I had hit him; but he didn't seem much to care at the time. On he came, quickly as ever, and I took to my heels through the woods. As I ran, I could hear the brute panting "behind me, nearer and nearer. I thought I was fairly " gone up ; " but the love of life made me run on ; and it might have taken him some time to catch me, only I tripped over a log and fell flat on my face. In a second the bear had me fast by the leg. It was well I was on my face ; or he'd just have scratched me open with his paw ; for that's the way they like to begin. I declare to you, as he shook me and gnawed me, I remember swearing at the brute, just as if he was a man and understood. The pistol was still in my hand, and I put another bullet into him. He went on chawing at my leg. So I put a third bullet into him. He just chawed on. Then I remember thinking — ■ A GRIZZLY BEAR. 321 though the thinking didn't take long, you may be sure — where I should have my last shot, before I fairly caved in. I chose a spot behind the ear, and gave him a fourth barrel. The brute fell over, stone dead ; and I was able to get up. Presently, up came my friend, calling out, " Was that you firing ? " " Yes," I said, " that was me firing." " What at ? " " Why, a grizzly has had me down, and I've shot him." My friend, seeing my leg bleeding, wanted to carry me off at once to the waggon ; but I told him I wouldn't stir till I had that brute's skin ; and — would you believe it ? — we just sat down, took our knives out, and skinned the bear, before ever we moved from the spot. Then he helped me off to the waggon, and he had hardly got me into a house before I was in a raging fever. I remember, when we were in the waggon, a party of Indians met us. Seeing me bleeding, they asked what had happened. My friend told them, how the grizzly had held me down by the leg, till, with my fourth barrel, I shot him. " No ! no ! " said they ; " white man not kill bear so." He just showed the skin ; and, from that day to this, there's no man in my country that has as much power with the Indians as I. They believe I'm just the Devil himself.' Afterwards, being in the Judge's country, I heard confirmation of this claim of his, to be ac- counted a first-rate medicine-man. The Indians had given him a title of honour, having no reference to his judicial functions, but much more high-sounding than any title to be won by mere administration of law. It meant, if I rightly remember, ' The chief who slew the bear upon the ground.' Next day, Monday, October 21, dawned with as wintry a sleet and as leaden a sky as ever proclaimed the day for not going to the mountains. But the plains were getting wearisome; and even a start at daylight to the mining-region seemed preferable to remaining longer in them. Truism y 322 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. as it is, that most of the things one does and suffers, on any tour for pleasure, are undeniably torturing at the time, there is no doubt, but that few such tortures can compete with a drive from Denver, in the crowded stage-coach, upon a bitter cold morning, up that very Western ( road ' to Georgetown. The stage is warranted to carry any number of passengers, that can pay the fare, and hold on through the jolting. The front and back seats, inside, might perhaps be not of an unlimited capacity ; but there is a movable middle seat between the windows (which win- dows, by the way, are loose leather curtains), and this middle seat is practically unlimited. On this particular morning, we had a full coach. The only other member of the Edi- torial Excursion, was a certain missionary, before mentioned, recently returned to America from preaching in India. Beside him, there was a mine-owner, going to see after his ' lodes ' among the mountains ; two mine-labourers, come from Lake Superior, to see whether Colorado was richer than Canada; and various other people, variously, but without an exception, intent upon mining. The beauties of the road must be left for the return trip ; for, on our upward journey, we saw nothing at all. The tyranny of the majority, that bane of free Constitutions, compelled us, inside passengers, to keep the curtains drawn ; and indeed, even if we could have loooked out, the air was too thick for much to have been seen. So the conversation of the one man present, who was not brooding upon mines, and mines only — the missionary from India — was the only re- source. Perhaps nobody can be a better authority upon India, than an American of just such qualifications. On the whole, he complimented our rule highly. The natives were much better off than they would be under native rulers ; for ' your people govern by a system — I don't say a good system, but still, a system — whereas native TEE MOUNTAIN BOAT). 323 rule would be arbitrary and capricious. A native knows what he has to expect from your Government — what he has to pay to it, and what will be done for him by it; but, under his own countrymen, he would never know what tyranny or exactions "he might be made to undergo.* All this one had heard, from Englishmen ; though it was interesting to hear it again, from an American; but my friend's impression of the personal qualities displayed by the English in India, was more novel, and, therefore, more interesting. Here his admiration was almost boundless. ' Those grand young fellows,' he kept saying, * that England sends out to govern India ; officers, civilians, all alike I No country but an old and aristocratic country, with a wonder- ful history behind her — no country, in fact, but England- could send out such fellows. To an American they are a perpetual marvel. They come out, straight from your schools, seeming to know nothing but cricket and a little Latin grammar, and they set themselves to governing districts, as if each of them had been obeyed from his cradle — as if each of them Was born to command. Young Americans might know ten times as much, and be ten times as smart as they ; but they could no more rule, like them, than they could fly. It is your aristocratic Constitution that does it ; that's what has given you the men, that can hold millions subject to them in a way that seems to others miraculous.' I asked him, as he had quite lately returned, whether he had observed a recent change in the Anglo-Indians, telling him of all we had been saying about Competition, and how we had been fearing, that the men now sent out — knowing rather more grammar, and a good deal less cricket, and not being much used to commanding anybody at home — would be hardly quite such strong pillars of Imperialism as their less learned, more highly bred, predecessors. He had not, however, observed any change. When I ven- Y 2 324 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. tured to ask him, rather boldly— inasmuch as he was himself a manufacturer of the article- — whether he really believed in the Native Christian, whom the Anglo-Indian generally distrusted, he came down on the Anglo-Indian in force. ' Christianity,' he said ' is doing well in India, and making excellent converts, but it has one terrible obstacle before it, namely, the lives led by your countrymen and countrywomen. The people know from us the moral rules of Christianity ; and they see those rules as flagrantly broken by the English, as they have ever been by Christians anywhere.' Meantime, we passed over the twelve miles of prairie that separate Denver from the mountains, and commenced the portentously sleep, rough ascent. The first stopping- place goes by the beautiful name of ' Golden City,' but has nothing else about it to suggest a New Jerusalem. In '67 it was the capital of Colorado, but has since yielded in favour of Denver. It stands on a small grassy plain, nearly surrounded by the lower and outer ranges of the mountains — on a place, in fact, which, if the prairie be likened to a sea and the mountains to a shore, would be a kind of bay, almost landlocked by headlands. A more dreary village no man ever saw. There are half-a-dozen of pretty good brick houses, a dozen or two of frame-houses, scattered about sparsely, with a brick church in the middle of them, and great wide streets laid out in the American rectangular style. Nowhere is the sanguine nature of the American so grandly displayed as in the laying out of a c city.' If he drops down a couple of shanties on the prairie, he leaves the breadth of all Regent Street between them, lest any narrower thoroughfare in the future should be choked by the excess of its traffic. And, certainly, Golden City, however dreary, has some of the qualifications for success. It is at the foot of the descent from the mines, and might fairly claim to become CENTRAL CITY. 325 the great railway station for the highlands. Denver is too far off. Denver has the Platte River, to be sure ; but, other- wise, its site seems the most inexplicable in the West. Early in the afternoon, we came to a second town, called s Central City,' though what it is in the centre of, does not appear evident. It is a strange sort of town to meet so far up in the mountains, in so wild a place ; for instead of having the new Western look, it has an air of bygone prosperity and decadence. Like London, it has absorbed into itself two or three once separate towns ; though the whole population of the resulting compound cannot yet be more than about 6,000. The deep, narrow ravine in which it stands, once held the three towns of Black Hawk, Central City, and Nevada ; but, as the three towns grew together and joined, the first and last names became merged in the second. Between the decaying state in which it was when we saw it, and the irregularity of formation forced upon it by its position (for it straggles up the ravine, in a long crooked line, with no room to become rectangular and American), Central City looked almost European. But, however straggling or tumble-down of aspect, the place has plenty of movement and life in it, and the din of hammers, that are pounding and crushing ore, resounds through its streets continuously. Making no long halt in Central City, the stage faced the mountains again, changing horses at the village of Idaho, and thence continuing toward Georgetown. This part of the road I afterwards found beautiful; but, between sleet showers and the clouds of evening, on this occasion, I could admire nothing except the bear-skins and buffalo- robes of my companions. They were indeed admirable and enviable — so completely enwrapping all of my fellow-tra- vellers, that, only for an occasional human snore coming out of them, one might have fancied oneself alone among wild 326 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. beasts. About twenty-five miles from Central City, the stage reached its goal, Georgetown. It was too dark to see much of the village, but the inn, which had been recom- mended as good, proved not unworthy of its fame. One could get a sort of hole for oneself, called, by courtesy, a bed-room, and the only serious hindrance to rest was the hammering of builders and carpenters around. The proprietor, a Bostonian, meant his house to become the grand hotel of the mountains, and it gave an idea of New- England enterprise to hear him forecast, to his two or three guests, how, one day, he would be entertaining the fashion of America. ' I shall go on enlarging this house, gentle- men, till there isn't a finer hotel in the Union. Everybody, who now goes to Europe for scenery, will come here to see our Rocky Mountains. Every young couple, that marries in the East, will come right out here to the West, honey- mooning. I mean to have the greatest hotel in the world.' It needed some faith to make one realise his vision, so vastly did it outdo the reality — the draughty, unfinished frame-house, with its miserable holes of rooms; but the other Rocky Mountain inns, at Golden City, Central City, and Idaho, were all distinctly inferior, and, indeed, as to the inns at Central City, the only noteworthy point is said to be, how so many bugs can be got into the space. However, the New Englander's vision quite dismayed Western men. They hated his innovations as a reproach on themselves. s There's a deal too much Boston style here,' said one of them. ' There's a very nice piano and a very nice billiard table, and all them Yankee notions; but I'll be darned if I see anything to eat. Give me the Western hotel for Western men ! ' In the morning, one saw that the position of Georgetown should indeed make it famous. There are not many more beautifully placed villages in Switzerland. The almost flat EXPLORATION. 327 piece of ground, where the town is growing up and is clear- ing away the pines to make room for itself, seems as if it must once have been a mountain-lake. Two steep valleys, or ( canons,' thence run upward into the mountains ; each has its sides clothed with pine forests, and down each tumbles a stream, making for the confluence on the flat at Georgetown. From this flat the waters escape through a single gorge downward — a narrow pass between moun- tains, through which, alongside of the river, runs the road to Central City. Except where the wall is broken by the two canons, running upward, and the one, running down- ward, the valley of Georgetown is encompassed with steep, pine-clad mountains. Having designs on some peak whence a view could be got, I sought information about the mountains. Every- body knew where the mines were, and how much silver each yielded, and at what price were its shares ; but, beyond this, and the bare fact, that, if I went up the canon for fifteen miles or so, I should come to the ' divide ' (or watershed), there was nothing to be heard. So I chose a canon and went up it — choosing, I believe, the worse of the two, but guided in my choice by finding, that my canon had a good road. It leads to a great silver mine, the Baker Lode ; which produces so much silver, that a good road to it became necessary. The views in ascending the canon, and especially when one had got far enough to have a sight of snowy mountains beyond it, were wonderfully fine — not inferior, perhaps, to any valley-views in the Alps. The road goes through thick forest, sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other, of the rapid stream that flows below it. About eight miles from Georgetown is a turn of the road to the left, up a smaller lateral valley, and at this point there seems a fair promise of a new town springing up. Some large houses are being 328 SKETCHES FBOM AMEBIC A. built, for the working of silver ore, and the settlement has already chosen its name, ' Bakerville.' A few miles up this lateral valley, the woods begin to get stunted, then dwindle into mere brushwood, and then cease altogether. You find yourself in a bare, rocky, steep-sided amphitheatre of moun- tains, with the valley in front of you blocked up by a moun- tain-side, stretching right across it. That barrier is the * divide.' The river has dwindled down to a rivulet, and the valley does not look more than a mile broad. Halfway up the right-hand side of it, is the shaft of the Baker Lode, with a tramway running down from it, to convey the silver ore to the road, which here comes to an abrupt end ; and, near the end of the road, stand a few miners' huts. Seeing myself close to the watershed, and at the very foot of the peaks, I thought these houses would be a good starting-point for an attempt upon a mountain. Accord- ingly I entered the largest house, and found myself in presence of a very Western company. A party of miners, in long, blue great-coats, and heavy slouch-hats, were sitting round a table, playing cards for a very considerable stake, that lay heaped up before them. Though probably not much used to visitors, they showed no surprise at my entry, and when I asked, whether one could get fed and lodged there, so as to start fresh for an assault upon a moun- tain, one of the men answered with Western hospitality. He had plenty of meat and drink for all comers, he said, but as to beds — inasmuch as he had none — all comers would have to sleep on the floor. Accepting his offer, I at once returned down the valley, as the sun was now sinking behind the mountains and the evening promised to be dark and wild. The light had almost gone, before Georgetown was reached, and soft snow- flakes were stealing down among the pines ; so that, even when amongst the houses, I could not see where the hotel A MINER'S BUT. 329 lay. In asking my way to it, I saw a specimen of the alert wariness still necessary for self-protection in the new settle- ments of the West. A man was crossing the great wide street of thinly-scattered huts in front of me. I stepped up behind him to ask the way, and on the soft, lately fallen snow, my footsteps fell noiseless. At the sudden sound of a voice close to him, the man sprang round as if struck, and, by the time he was facing me, he had his revolver ready. Seeing a smile of surprise on my face, as I looked at this quick preparation, he smiled too, very graciously, and led me all the way to the hotel with the most peaceful politeness. That night, the hotel was crowded. If it did not already realise the hope of its projector, by being filled with fashion and beauty, at least it had gathered a crowd. Beside many mine-speculators, we had a strong party of our excursionists, and two interesting scientific travellers — Professor Simonin and Colonel Heine, come to report upon Colorado. The latter has been attached to the American Legation in Paris; whence many of his reports upon the West have found their way into English papers. In the morning, Mr. Baur (before mentioned, as a member of the Editorial Excursion, a German, and a good walker) started with me to climb a peak. We went up to the miner's hut, discovered on the day before, and as the host was not at home, a friend of his did the honours for us. The luncheon, that he had to offer, consisted of coffee, hot cakes, and, of course, preserved peaches — all very good of their kinds — and he was ready to do anything for us, except to take payment. * That's not in our line ! ' he said, laugh- ing ; ' we, who live up here with the grizzly bears, are glad to see any stranger who will come to us, and to give him of our best. We hope you'll come again, and send us your friends; that's the only return you can make us.' 330 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. The day was now too far gone for an ascent; so we joined Colonel Heine, who had followed us from Georgetown, in paying a visit to the Baker Lode. The shaft had been sunk only a very few yards, but already plenty of a sub- stance, which looked like coal cinders, but which Colonel Heine pronounced to be nearly pure silver, was being carried out of the hole. As the mountain-side was steep and rough, I thought of turning the tramway to account, and of being whisked down into the valley on one of the ore-laden trucks. The miners readily gave me leave, being easy, good-natured fellows ; but just as I was going to start, I heard one of them say to another: 'How many dollars would you take, Bill, and do that?' getting the reply, 'Bedad, I wouldn't do it for money ; ' which led to further enquiry. They then told me, but not till then — the easy, good-natured fellows — that the trucks often upset on the incline, hurling all their freight down the mountain in a way that would reduce any passenger to a pancake. After that, we all walked down. Meantime, our attempts to get information as to the highest peak in the neighbourhood, and how that peak was accessible, only tended to bring out the difference between Rocky Mountain and Swiss mountaineering. Not that any- body acknowledged ignorance. Everyone knew a highest peak, but no two agreed as to its name. We were espe- cially in pursuit of one mountain, which had been called ( Graham's Peak ' to us at Denver, but which we now seemed to recognise, under the name of * Grey's Peak.' Some of the miners maintained, that this was the highest of the range; but Long's Peak, Pike's Peak, and Lincoln's Peak, and some others, had their several backers also ; each of whom, in general, declared that he must be in the right ; for he had been with the surveyors himself, and had seen the measurements made. An authority which I have since AN EVENING PARTY. 331 consulted, and which seems not unlikely to be correct, makes the heights of the mountains less than the miners did. According to this authority, Grey's Peak is 14,251 feet; Pike's, 14,216 ; and Long's, 14,056. Another point, about which we were curious, was the elevation of the miner's house. The cold at night in it was intense, and the accounts, given us by our host, of the severity of his winters were formidable ; sometimes, he said, he had hard work in shovelling away the snow to keep his house from being buried ; but, as to his height in feet above the sea, he had not troubled himself about that. Being a practical man, he was considerably more troubled at the difficulty of boiling potatoes in his house ; though here, again, his information was vague. Having some idea that if he could tell us at what temperature water boiled, cunning people might be found who could thence infer the height, we questioned him upon the point ; but he merely guessed, in answer, ' that it boiled a darned sight too soon.' As the house was little above the timber-line, and as the timber-line here is generally put at 11,000 feet, it needs no great cunning to draw an inference thence about the elevation of the house. However unsatisfactory on mountaineering, the miners were capital hosts. Colonel Heine had returned to George- town, but Mr. Baur and I profited by their hospitality. The owner of the house was the superintendent of the mine ; and, whether convened in our honour, or wont to give him their company, a large party of miners was assembled under his roof. At least half were Irish ; and, though our discussions were varied, the Fenians were certainly the subject of the evening. Several of the Irish- men belonged to the Brotherhood, and all seemed to ap- prove of it. The native Americans were evidently delighted at getting these gentlemen a British opponent ; but if some patriot, waxing too warm, seemed drawing to the verge of 332 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. rudeness, some of these Americans would neatly intervene, and throw oil on the troubled waters. Perhaps, indeed, to these good neutrals the credit is due of having saved loyalty from being overpowered in an uprising of the Brotherhood. As it was, we were excellent friends, and not a revolver was drawn the whole evening:. Almost as exciting a political subject — only that one of the sides had nobody to do battle for it — was the question between East and West. Fierce as had been the wrath at Denver, when it denounced the treatment of the West by Washington, it was as nothing to the wrath at the Baker Lode. The miners' view was simply this ; that the Western men had fought the whole war (and a bad job they seemed to think it, for they spoke far more kindly of South than East), and that, having fought the whole war, they were ./ now called upon to pay the whole debt. ( We pay three ■ prices here,' they said, ' for every manufactured article we get. To benefit whom ? Why, the Eastern manufacturer, the rich holder of our untaxed bonds, who is fattening upon the interest we pay him : the man who doesn't care how much the Indians shoot us, but won't let us shoot the Indians at all ; the man who, not knocking against any lower race himself, is all for backing Niggers and Red-skins against others.' The fact is, that the Union Pacific got out to Colorado just in time. It will now bind the country together ; but, if it had been only a few years delayed, the remote Western, cut off by an immense journey across a wilderness from the Eastern States, would have developed such a sectional spirit as might have made him a very likely secessionist. California — if one, who has not been there, may judge from having talked with many Californians — was in an even more dangerous state than Colorado. What wages these miners get I know not, but they have all great wealth in expectancy. Each, when he takes you MOUNTAINEERING. 333 aside, tells you, excitedly, how he knows of a gold mine, and is only waiting for capital to work it. This treasure- trove he describes as his * claim,' and, if you could only assist him in getting up a company, he would make your, and his own, fortune right off. Every spare day of a Coloradian's life is given up to ' prospectin' ' — that is to say, searching for gold and silver — and he, who finds, is in the fair way to be ruined as a worker for ever. He ( registers his claim,' to make good his title, and whether he has a sixpence in pocket or not, henceforth he feels himself a millionaire. After discoursing far into the night, we were made up as comfortably for repose as the means of our host would permit. The rarefied mountain air is a bad soporific, and the mattress on the floor was rather hard ; so that it was beyond his power to give us sleep ; but all that he could give he gave. At the first daylight, we turned out, into an intensely clear, cold air, and guided by a most warm-hearted Fenian, who had been great in debate on the previous evening, struck out for Grey's, alias Graham's, Peak. Though, in point of height, at the lowest computation, this peak would be a most respectable Alp, it is wholly unworthy of the Alpine Club. Not the most reckless and footless member would have the slightest chance of breaking his neck upon it. A bridle- path over ' the divide ' takes you within a few hundred feet of the summit, and, when you turn off to the left from this path, the walk, over broken stones and boulders, is rough, but involves no danger. There are two summits, nearly of the same height, marked by two stone cairns. From the farther, which is, perhaps, a trifle the highest, we admired the view while the cold would let us. Certainly the air seemed a great deal harder to breathe than on any summit known to me in Switzerland. At the top of Mont Blanc it is quite possible, if you forget the account you read in your 4 Murray ' at Chamounix, to feel no inconvenience at all; 334 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. but upon Grey's Peak we were decidedly uncomfortable, and either of us could have filled a list of symptoms — sore- throat, headache, and so on — that would have done honour to a quack-medicine advertisement. Some describers of the Rocky Mountains say, that the air, even at Central City, is already very difficult to breathe ; and our host, of the Baker Lode hut, assured us, that when horses and mules were first brought up there, very little work could be got out of them. Fine as the view was, it was no match for any of the finer panoramic views in Switzerland. Though we could trace the course of rivers on each side, some bound for the Atlantic and some for the Pacific, we had no great body of water in sight. Everywhere were bare, dry, stony peaks, and, lower down, masses of dark pine-forest. A great glacier, or the deep, solid whiteness of some great bed of eternal snow, would have relieved the view immensely. As it was, the thin white covering, spread over the mountains by recent snow-falls, rather took away from, than added to, their dignity. Our Irish guide was most diligent in giving us a lesson on the geography of the country. Yonder was Pike's Peak, nearly south-east; yonder, Long's, to the north of north-east ; there were the ' Parks,' great flat spaces, embosomed in mountains, and dense with pine forest; there were the mining settlements of ' Breckenridge,' and that astoundingly-named city ' Buckskin Joe.'* There was a ' canon ' teeming with silver, and there was a ' gulch ' (seemingly, a smaller canon) absolutely paved with nuggets of gold, but waiting for capital from the East to develop it. * Occasionally the Westerns display their sense of humour in the naming of their 'cities.' Farther West than Colorado, there is a town called 'You Bet ! ' — a Western colloquial expression, which will be hereafter explained — a bit of the large stock of slang which never crosses the Mississippi. Examples of this slang are * prairie-schooner,' meaning waggon, and ' pilgrim' meaning emigrant — a slang which, together with foreign words, such as ' ranch,' 'corral,' ' adobe,' and a vast number of new oaths, makes the language of the West sufficiently peculiar and distinct. WESTERN MINES. 335 If the durability of the impression left by a view be at all a fair criterion of its merits, the view from this peak ranks low. The view of Long's Peak from the plains, and views on the road between Georgetown and Golden City, have left a far more vivid impression. The former of these is, probably, the only thing of its kind in the world; and, as to the latter, to one who has entered the mountains, their narrow and winding canons are certainly the most striking of their features. After our ascent, we made a longer descent, returning down the valley to Georgetown. We spent all the next day in the village, hearing and seeing a great deal of metal- lurgy, and especially noting, that the self-confident Westerns admitted themselves deficient in this art. l We waste less and less every year,' they said ; ' but the creek still washes enough gold and silver down with it — the discarded " tailings " of our metal -mills — to make the fortune of any number of men. Why don't your smart people from Corn- wall and Swansea come out ? They would be worth any money to us and to themselves.' Already there are many Cornishmen in Colorado, but they seem in general to be mere underground workers, and not to possess a knowledge of the more scientific processes. Beside visiting the ' mills,' we also explored the second canon, which leads upward from Georgetown toward the Divide. So far as we went, it was very fine, and, farther up, is said to be still finer. But Western judgments upon scenery are strange, and it is well to enquire closely into their grounds. To the Western mind, in general, the prin- ciple of beauty offers no difficulty whatever. The standard applied is strictly utilitarian, and ' handsome is that hand- some does ' is the maxim. I have heard a Western man describe a valley as the most beautiful in the whole terri- tory, and, on pushing him hard, have got him to furnish me 336 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. particulars, making him admit that what he meant was, that it was a beautiful place for silver and lead, and, he believed, a pretty place for copper, too. Next morning, we started early to walk down the valley to Central City. The beauty of the walk, as far as Idaho, could not easily be exaggerated. At many places the valley is so narrowed, that there is only just room for the road and the stream. At some points, where it is broader, rise tall peaks of rock from beside it — bold sentinels, in front of the mountains, looking up and down the valley, solitarily. The finest views are to be got by turning back and looking towards Georgetown; beyond which you can sometimes see snowy tops of the highest Sierra afar, with the grand gorge, down which you have passed, as a fore- ground to the long vista of mountains. Perhaps there is no better point of view than where a road branches off up a side-valley, leading to another mining village, of small size, but with the great name, ' Empire City.' A second very beautiful spot, and one which surely has a great future before it, is the village, before mentioned, of Idaho. It is not so much closed in as Georgetown, but lies in a longer and more picturesque valley, and the mountains surrounding it are bolder, and of more varied outline and colouring. Idaho has three strings to its bow in the battle for fame. It has its scenery ; it has its mines ; and it has a curiosity — of which there are two or three examples in this range of Rocky Mountains— hot springs bubbling up from the earth. Whether the water has any salutary effects, I know not; the unscientific simply tell you, that it is heavily charged with soda; and, pending its utilisation by the scientific, the practical Idaho men have turned it into a swimming-bath. To all English travellers whom it may concern, an hour in the Idaho swimming-bath can be recommended. After their vain longing for ablutions DOWN THE MOUNTAINS. 337 in Western ' hotels,' they will find such a bathe a true luxury ; and will go away from it with new ideas as to the uses to which soda-water may be turned. From Idaho to Central the road is less striking. There is only one remarkable view to be got from it. Between two of the mountains, still separating you from them, you get a glimpse of the great ocean of the plains. At this late autumn season the colour of the prairie, in the sunlight, was a brownish yellow ( ( tawny ' perhaps would be the right word), and perfectly uniform over the whole of the expanse. The dry clear air over the prairie gives none of that bluish, misty look to the distance, to which the eye becomes used elsewhere. The effect is a strange illustration of Bishop Berkeley's theory of vision. No idea is given of distance at all : instead of a great plain, stretching out horizontally, far as the eye can survey it, you seem to see a tawny-coloured wall, rising perpendicularly opposite to you, with all its parts nearly equidistant. Next morning, October 27th, we drove from Central City to Denver. The distance may be about forty miles, and the whole road as far as Golden City is beautiful, now winding down canons, now climbing mountain sides, now high upon windy ridges, now sinking low to cross lateral valleys. There is one eminently fine view on the way, when the stage reaches the top of a ridge, not far from Central City. Looking back, you see a wilderness of mountains, rising, as they recede, one above the other, and backed by the Sierra of snow-sprinkled summits. As on the previous day, the effect was striking, when views of the plains were from time to time got. Sometimes Denver might be seen, white and glistening, a mere spot in the vast yellow surface. For a lesson in the art of driving six horses down a mountain, this drive is probably unsurpassed in the world. z 338 SKETCHES FROM AM SHIGA. The outside passenger must be strongly reminded of Mr. Doyle's picture, representing the three Englishmen, as they descended by diligence into Italy. But, in reality, Rocky- Mountain coaching has got far ahead of the Swiss and Italian. As you dash down the mountains, full gallop, over a road of a roughness that must be seen to be believed, you must hold on, might and main, and even then you expect your teeth to be shaken out. When I asked our driver, during a temporary lull, whether he did not find his pursuit rather an exciting one, and enquired further whether he had often turned over, * No,' said he, ' I never turned 'em over yet; but, my God! in the winter-time, when the road's a sheet of ice, and the drag's just a skate, I've many a time prayed hard to be at the bottom, as I shot 'em down this darned great hill.' However, we got safe to Denver, and, after a day like an English June, saw another of those sudden changes of temperature for which this season on the prairies is noted. The sky grew cloudy again, and the wind intensely cold ; so that we feared to accept a very kind offer made us by one of the stage-companies of Denver. It offered to send us by what is known as the Smoky Hill Route,* free of charge, to the Southern Pacific Railroad. From all accounts, this route seems to show a much finer prairie than the line to Omaha ; but three or four consecutive days and nights in a coach, under a gloomy sky and frequent snow-storms, formed a prospect we could not face. At daybreak, on October 29, we started for Cheyenne in an Arctic temperature, intending to drive the whole way in twenty-four consecutive hours ; but by the time the stage reached La Porte, (about eight P.M.) both my com- panion and I were sufficiently frozen to make the idea of * ' Smoke ' is always used for • mist,' and ' smoky ' for ' misty,' in the popular language of America. VIRGINIA DALE. 330 ffoin^ farther intolerable. La Porte accommodation is on the type of Cheyenne — a feeding-room for all comers, down- stairs, and a sleeping-room for all comers, upstairs. The former was liberally patronised in '67 by both the Salt-Lake and the Cheyenne stage-coaches ; but, as these only halted for a meal, the bed-room was less in requisition. Accord- ingly, one could get that great luxury, a soft thing to lie on (for he would be a bold man, indeed, who would make other use of a Western bed, than to lie down, great-coated, on the top of it), without risk of proximity to bull-whackers. Next morning we started to explore Virginia Dale, a place said to be the prettiest on the Salt Lake road. Two ways were available thither — the one a mere path, running between the Hog's Back and the higher hills inside, by which the distance was about thirty miles ; the other, the line of the stage-coaches, by which the distance was thirty- two miles. We walked by the shorter way — first, following the Cache la Poudre stream ; then, striking through a long grassy valley to the north ; then, emerging on broad, grassy plains, flanked by strangely-shaped, vermilion-hued hills (some of those, I believe, which gave the country its name of Colorado) ; and, finally, after losing our way completely, espying the telegraph-posts of the great Mormon highroad in our front, making across to that road, and, led by it, reaching our goal long after night had closed in upon us. A more lonely walk could not be. From the Cache la Poudre stream to the Virginia Dale ranch — almost the whole thirty miles — no habitation is in sight. Close to the Dale, we met the Salt Lake City coach ; and one horse- man was met by us among the mountains ; this was all that we saw of human life. Of other life we saw more. Several times on the grassy plains herds of deer and of antelopes bounded away from before us, confirming the z 2 340 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. report of the country, that Virginia Dale is good ground for the sportsman. Another report about the Dale was found hardly equally trustworthy. Its ranch has great fame as an inn, and the fact that it has, certainly illustrates how Westerns prefer board to lodging. The house is a miserable, one-storied hut, with no pretence to any sleeping accommodation at all ; but whatever may be the deficiencies of the rest of it, its larder is simply unexceptionable. Elk, antelope, deer, wild-duck, and trout, all die to furnish Virginia Dale feasts. The only bed was devoted, with becoming gallantry, to the only woman within thirty miles ; who, I believe, was the hostess. This favoured person was sitting in the 6 coffee-room ' as we entered it — a young woman, comely, like most of her countrywomen, and smartly dressed, like them all. It may be presumed that she is the person whom some Americans, in describing Virginia Dale, have described in terms almost rapturous, astonished at having found so much grace of mind and of body in so unlikely a situation. We had not then heard her fame ; but she soon engaged in a conversation before us, which attracted our attention. A Western man, of unusually civilised aspect, began talking to her about the Indians. ' My brother,' said he — ' he's a doctor, you know — has a little plan of his own for the Red- skins. He would get a lot of blankets, well infected with small-pox, out of some of the hospitals ; have them rolled up in something, so as to be safe to carry, and taken to where there are Red-skins. There he would leave them out, care- lessly, about the encampment. The Indians would be sure to steal them, you know, and would all get small-poxed right away. Now they don't know a thing of medical treatment, and so, directly they got feverish, they would plunge into water — do everything they shouldn't do. The disease would spread like a murrain, and a whole tribe might be A FULL RANCH. 341 wiped out at once.' After hearing this ' little plan ' thus ex- plained to her with bland suavity, one could not help looking to see how the woman would take it. She evidently ob- jected, and, without having read her American eulogizers, one felt convinced that her reply would be a specimen of the humanising influence of womanhood upon man. But her objection took an unexpected shape, f 'Guess I shouldn't much like to have the carrying of those blankets!' Our host was more humane than his lady. He got us sleeping-space on his very cleanest floor, bringing us to a sort of closet, into which, he engaged, only a limited number of bull- whackers should be admitted. The two bigger rooms of the house were very full of these gentry ; and, after having been admitted to much sociable conversation with them, I can pronounce the Virginia Dale bull-whackers about the very roughest of their species. When a stranger, of more civilised appearance, first comes into the presence of these worthies, they at once set him down as a Yankee, a specu- lator from the Eastern states. Against such, the "West- erns wage war, and, though they may not attack their one adversary directly, they will attack him indirectly from all sides. They imagine that he will play the fine gentleman with them, and will look on them as desperadoes and savages ; so they resolve to act the part to perfection. They try whether he will wince under the most Western stories, expressed in the most Western language, and owing their whole point to the fact of their describing some unusually startling atrocity. By smoking your cigar with sufficient composure under this assailing fire, you visibly rise in their estimation ; and if, in speaking to them, you can reveal by your accent that you are no Yankee, but a tra- veller from afar, you rise with one bound into the position of honoured guest. Next morning, my companion, who was suffering severely 342 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. from a pair of New York boots (can any nation, beside the British, make boots that can be walked in ?), was unable to take the road, and had to wait for the Mormon coach ; which, not leaving Virginia Dale till about eight in the evening, was due at La Porte in the small hours. As our track of the previous day was rather too lonely for a solitary walk, I took the longer route, by the Salt Lake coach-road. At first, till one emerged from the Dale, the scenery was pleasing. There is no grand object in view. To the south and south-west, in the distance, rose mountains well covered with snow ; but, whether from their great distance, or from the ground from whence they were seen being itself very high, their altitude did not make them imposing. Imme- diately around you spreads the Dale, a pretty grassy valley, with no house, except the ranch, and no cultivation at all, but, still, with some claim to be the oasis of its district. A trout stream flows through it ; small copses and thickets here and there dot its surface, and grey walls of rock, broken, crumbling, and often fantastic in shape, shut it in from the barren wilderness outside. Indeed, this is the general character of this part of the Rocky Mountains, both within the park-like Dale and without, that the shapes and the colouring are strange and fantastic rather than beau- tiful ; and the beauty attributed to the Dale is simply a result of its being surrounded by a colder and sterner unloveliness. Between Virginia Dale and the prairie the road has just one house upon it, the stage-station at Stonewall, about ten miles from either. The station-keeper (a Northern Irishman, but so completely Americanised as to be unrecog- nisable; which the Irish- born Celt never seems to become) entertained me for some time with tales of the Indians. They had been stealing his horses in the summer, and he had actually once seen them, within easy rifle-shot, but they A LONELY WALK. 343 had dressed themselves up so like Christians, that he never guessed the redness of their skin. If he had — the expres- sions he here used proved conclusively how Western he had become. There were no Indians about now : they cleared out of that section in the Fall. A month before, if I had taken such a walk, alone, and unarmed, he wouldn't have valued my hair at a cent. As to the country, he thought little of Cheyenne and of Denver, and the places in the plains. The real wealth was in the mines, and the farming would never amount to much. The soil was rich, to be sure ; but the absence of water, and the presence of whole armies of locusts, would keep farming down. Golden City, with its coal and its iron, and its proximity to the mines of precious metals, would be the great place. As soon as, by a series of tremendously steep descents, unsurpassable by any coach-road in America, one had got down from the mountains to the prairie, and had gained the road between Denver and Cheyenne, it seemed like a return into the world. Every two or three miles, trains of waggons, or riders, were met, and one began to feel more like a Christian taking a walk, and less like the Wandering Jew, than in the grim, lonely hills. Soon the evening began to close in, and to get cold, with a coldness which is every now and then broken in this part of the prairie by a breath of warmer air, like the intermittent hot-winds of Southern Europe. Soon, lights began to twinkle out along the fringe of inhabited land that borders the Cache la Poudre ; and, soon afterwards, La Porte was reached. The next day, we both (for my companion rejoined me during the night) gave up to rest, in the hope that, on the following day, we should be able to walk to Cheyenne. The coach thither ran at most horrible hours, leaving La Porte about 10 p.m., and getting to Cheyenne about 5 a.m., the distance being about 44 miles. 344 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. However, on the following morning, Mr. Baur was still footsore, and had, reluctantly, to wait for the coach. Our host at La Porte strongly advised me to do the same, saying there might be Indians about, and, on finding me obstinate, tried at all events to equip me with a six-shooter. The idea of the Indians, which he expressed, when pressing the pistol upon me, was interesting. ' Likely enough you English don't know how to handle these things,' he said ; f but for all that, they're a safeguard. When Indians — even a lot of them — see a man with a pistol in his hand, they're apt to make tracks. They don't count chances like us. Each of 'em says to himself, " Look here ! somebody's got to be shot, that's sartin. It may as well be me as another," and so they all just make off.' About eight in the morning, I commenced my walk over the road to Cheyenne, which has been already described. My personal adventures were not very various. The first striking event of the walk illustrated the carelessness of the Westerns about their mail service. I found a full mail-bag, lying on the prairie, labelled s San Francisco, Salt Lake City, and Denver ' and evidently fallen, the night before, out of the Mormon coach. The prairie track was more than usually lonely. Some new stations and ranches — some of them mere tents — had sprung up since I had passed the country before; but the wayfarers were exceedingly few, and I never saw the prairie more quiet. The prairie-dogs, whose courage soon fails them at the rumble of waggons, sat up barking defiantly at a single pedestrian, and even the shy and guilty cuyotes came stealing up through the grass, to have an unusually safe look at a man. The day w r as fine as a summer's day in England, with bright sunshine and a breeze from the north ; but, before night, came a change so dangerously sudden, as to seem worth being described in detail. I had timed myself to A PRAIRIE SNOWSTORM. 345 arrive in Cheyenne between eight and nine in the evening. Up to sunset, the weather was as has been described. Soon after, heavy clouds began to roll up from the northward, and the wind suddenly freshened and grew colder. There was a sleet shower just commencing, as I got to a small ranch, the last on the way to Cheyenne, distant thence about eight and a half miles. The weather was now not inviting ; but the moon still held her own among the clouds, and this ranch did not look a tempting stopping-place ; so I pushed on fast. The snow-storm rapidly increased. Presently I met a train of waggons from Cheyenne, whose teamsters told me, speaking good Western, 'it was going to be a pretty rough night, and I had better take care how I faced it.' By this time, however, the ranch was a good mile behind ; the track was still plainly discernible ; and I thought it best not to give in. Quickening the pace, I left my friendly advisers. The storm quickened its pace, too ; and in a little while I was in the midst of a snow-storm by far the worst I have ever experienced. The wind changed suddenly into a tempest, blowing straight in my face. The clouds became dense and black, entirely hiding the moon ; the snow, driven along with blinding force by the w r ind, began rapidly covering up the track. It is hard in an English climate to conceive so bitterly cold or so steadily violent a tempest, and impossible to conceive one so sudden. In a few minutes, one was covered from head to foot with a coating of frozen snow ; hair, eyebrows, and even eyelashes, became stiffened with ice. To walk quickly was absolutely necessary as a safeguard against being frozen ; but it seemed almost equally desperate, in the darkness, and with the track speedily disappearing under the snow, to walk onward toward Cheyenne, or backward in search of the ranch. To keep on straight ahead was instinctive, and reason backed instinct by suggesting, that Cheyenne was a 346 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. larger mark to aim at, than the little hut now far behind. It was clear that either must merely be aimed at ; for there was little hope of keeping exactly to the track. The wind had been blowing all day from the north, as shown by a pocket-compass I had consulted, and, as Cheyenne lies due north, I had hopes, that, by facing the storm, I might hit it. The very violence of the wind was of use : while it blew the snow off the bare track, or only let it rest in the wheel-ruts, it could not so well blow it off from the rough grassy prairie on either side. The result was, that, where the track mounted ridges, it was traceable by being swept nearly clean — while the prairie on both sides was whitened — or by long white lines marking its wheel-ruts. But, where the track dipped into hollows, it was covered. The mules and horses and oxen, used for draught in this country, can always, it is said, keep the track in any snow-fall that here occurs. Whether anything of this instinct is given to men, I know not ; but, in some way, after losing it in the hollow, I always found, on mounting a ridge, that unconsciously I had followed the track without error. Time goes slow in a struggle of this sort; and it was too dark to see a watch. When I thought I ought to be close to Cheyenne, I came suddenly on an ox-team coming from it. ' A rough night ! ' • ' You bet ! ' answered the teamster, using an expression which means, in the West, ( you may bet upon the accuracy of the remark you have made.' f How far is Cheyenne?' ( About three and a half miles.' c I doubt I can't make it through this : I will turn, and take my chance with you.' He put out his hand in the darkness, and felt the light attire in which I was walking, now thickly coated over with frozen snow. He himself was wrapped in the long blue great-coat of the country. ( No, by the Lord, you won't,' he said ; ( you'd be frozen stiff in no time : it will go hard even with me. Hold on straight. You'll get to Cheyenne.' A PRAIRIE SNOWSTORM. 347 So encouraged, I tried again. The storm seemed to grow worse and worse. Over the prairie, the wind does not bluster in fitful blasts and gusts, but blows, as over the sea, with steady, unbroken roar. Fighting on and on against it, at last I thought I had reached a habitation. There was something bright, glowing close to the road. Going up to it, I found it the dying embers of a camp-fire, near which further investigation discovered a train of waggons f corralled,' that is, drawn up in a circle, for the night. A shout brought no answer ; but I made out, through the darkness and the snow-storm, what seemed to be a house. No response followed a knock at the door, but there were sounds of life within ; which, on entering, I found to be made by a number of mules, here stalled in a roofless, dilapidated ranch. It was plain that a party of teamsters had been camping here, but on the breaking out of the storm, had fled to better quarters. A roofless stable was not the ideal hostelry for the night ; but it seemed far from certain whether even this refuge, under the circum- stances, could be prudently left behind. However, on the whole, it seemed better to fight on, and I again took the road. It is needless to go through the number of times that it was lost and refound, or to tell at length, how, when the telegraph posts once approached near the track, I tried whether their line could not be followed with more safety, and found that the posts, placed too far apart for one to see from each to the next, and running in straight lines over all sorts of ground, were impracticable guides. Suffice it, that after all sorts of trials, I successively recognised the landmarks of the unfinished railroad, which, I knew, had to be crossed, and of the Cheyenne creek, which one had to wade through, and, at last, saw the lights of the village. Even here, and notwithstanding a full acquaintance with the town, I had to enquire the way at house after house, 348 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. so blinding was the storm, before I could make out the hotel. Arriving there, a little before ten, I was recognised by the landlord in a way creditable to his smartness. A figure, encrusted in ice from head to foot, and with hair all whitened with icicles, must have looked more like pictures of Lot's wife, in old Bibles, than like its owner under his ordinary circumstances. The inn was full of storm-bound teamsters, who asked eagerly for particulars about my walk, pronouncing the night one of the wildest in their experience. People told of being nearly lost in crossing the village ; and, next day, at the camp, the general said, that his sentinels, usually on guard for two hours, had, that night, though relieved every half-hour, nearly perished, in some cases, from the exposure. The Cheyenne inn was a pretty refuge from the storm ! To get a bed was out of the question. There were three gentlemen already, said the host, with places engaged in each of his beds. A mattress upon the floor, and a chair by the stove, were equally unattainable luxuries. One must spend the night in the close, crowded sleeping- room, already occupied by at least a score of men. The idea of sleep in such a place was absurd. The only chance of sur- viving its atmosphere was to smoke steadily till one could escape in the morning. That night, and the following, on which the inn was not less a pandemonium, were my last in the West, and made me quit it without regret on the morning of Monday, November 4. Paet III. THE IEISH IN AMEEICA. THE IRISH IN AMERICA. While the writer of these Sketches was in the States, Mr. Maguire's book on ' The Irish in America ' was pub- lished. It excited much comment in the States, and, for the tourist, the comments upon it were an opportunity as well as an incentive to make himself acquainted with its subject. People in America were able to criticise the book ; but, to the Roman Catholics of Ireland, it was too pleasing not to be received with implicit faith. No doubt many of its Irish readers have emigrated since to America, and it is to be feared that they may have found themselves there rudely cured of erroneous impressions. If Mr. Maguire's book be so far mistaken as the following pages would show it, it has been no boon to his countrymen. It tends to bring disappointment upon the emigrant, and ridicule upon the Irish- American. A great part of that book's subject-matter need not here be considered at all. No attempt will be made to discuss the part which treats of the saintliness of priests and of sisterhoods, the persecution and triumphs of Catholicism. Nobody, acquainted with the Roman Catholics of Ireland, unless he be blinded by prejudice, will question their devo- tional character, or the zealous watchfulness of their clergy. There is one point, however, on which the writer insists, which would certainly be questioned by Americans. He denies, that Roman Catholicism has suffered either from 352 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. ( perversion ' or < indifferentism ' in America. If under the latter term be included a lessening deference for the priestly authority, and an increasing habit of judging all questions, religious and other, for themselves, you hear another account in America about the Irish Roman Catholics and 'indif- ferentism.' Mr. Maguire himself mentions, and, as it would seem, exaggerates, the facility with which the Irishman is Ame- ricanised in his ideas : he tells how the very sons of Irish Catholics joined the American National Party, and turned against their countrymen and co-religionists, at the time of the Know-nothing movement. He dwells upon, and he cannot exaggerate, the bold, self-reliant tone of mind which is an essentially American trait. And surely, in the face of all this, independently of more direct evidence, there must be an a priori difficulty in believing, that the authority of the church could be acknowledged with as unhesitating a submission by Irishmen, who have been long under American influences, as by those only entering on the ordeal. That American Catholics, even those who might be expected to be the strictest churchmen, can bring an American independence of thought into questions concerning their religion, has been shown by the Council at Rome. And, beside the American free thought, there is also another reason, why the hold of the priest over his flock should be loosened across the Atlantic. The firmness of that hold, in Ireland, has partly resulted from the priest being a ready- made political champion — the official representative of a religion, supposed, until now, to be oppressed — the natural leader and spokesman of a race, which is marked and kept distinct by that religion. In America, the occupation of the priest, as a political champion, is gone. Mr. Maguire dwells much, to be sure, upon the persecution of his church even there : but he admits that it has for some time ceased, or SOCIAL POSITION OF IRISH-AMERICANS. 353 has, at all events, done little harm. Catholicism certainly does not mark any political party in America. It is true that the Irish Roman Catholics draw together with sufficient compactness ; but they do this, not as Roman Catholics, but as a class of peculiar social position, and, therefore, with peculiar views of its own on questions of labour, taxation, equality of races, liquor laws, and other matters of debate — not at all such questions as would throw them under the leadership of clerical champions. To pass from the priests to the people, Mr. Maguire represents the Celtic Irish as eminently successful in Ame- rica, and treated there with high consideration. This is an astonishing view for anybody, who knows America, to take. In no part of the world are the virtues of the Irish so little appreciated ; and, though it is impossible for him to fall, in such a country, into the poverty of Connaught or Munster, in no part is the name of Irishman a greater obstacle to a man's success. In England there are Irish Roman Catholics distributed through all the social ranks, and engaged in every occupation. They neither form a servile class, nor are there special servile tasks allotted them. In America, the Irish, at present, have settled into a sort of caste, claiming exclusive possession of the poorest and least honourable occupations, and resenting intrusion thereupon as an invasion of their natural rights. This is what sets Americans against them. An American will tell you, ( We, Americans, shove off our rough work on ethers. We rise into the positions of masters over Chinamen, Ne- groes, Irishmen. But the Irishman neither raises himself, nor will he permit us to raise him. Put a nigger or a China- man to his drudgery ; and he breaks the head of the new- comer at once, as a trespasser on his proper domain.' If you plead, in the Irishman's defence, that he lands in America penniless and, not seldom, utterly uneducated, you A A 354 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. hear, that, as to his poverty, it is the exception for any immigrant to have capital ; and, as to his ignorance, it can- not be so much greater than that of the other emigrant races as to account for his being so far left behind. e At least, he knows our language,' say the Americans, ( and plenty of the others do not.' The fine qualities, which, in England, are attributed to the Irish race, are either wholly unobserved by Americans, or are such as they lightly esteem. That bright geniaHty, that natural polish of manner, that kindliness and grateful- ness of heart, which win admiration on this side, are not the sort of forcible qualities that most win admiration in America ; and, as to Irish humour and eloquence, no American seems aware of their existence. • What you're pleased to call humour in your Irishman,' says an American, ' is a result of his brains being topsy-turvy. He thinks backwards, that's all.' And indeed there seems an utter antagonism between what is called by Americans humour, in its brevity and dryness and partial dependence for its point on a hard-set unsmiling face, and the genial gush of fun, which we claim, on this side of the Atlantic, to be Irish. You will often hear the Irish called ' stupid ' in America ; which is, probably, the very last epithet that would ever be applied to them by an Englishman. As to their reputation for ' gratefulness,' they suffer, no doubt, in America, by their constant juxtaposition and comparison with their constant competitors, the negroes. Of all people in the world, the negro seems at once the least resentful of an injury and the most gratefully mindful of a kindness ; and you will fre- quently find employers in America preferring him, on this account, as a servant, to the only alternative, the Irishman. Beside this scanty recognition of Irish merits, there is that want of appreciation of the recognised. No doubt, either a nation or a man may be warm-hearted, genial, and IRISH IN CANADA AND IN THE UNION. 355 courteous, and yet be weak in the struggle for existence. Nay, for nations and individuals alike, these qualities may be actual hindrances for the fighting and pushing of life. And, since the 1 Americans, more than any others, measure men by their powers in that struggle, so are they most likely to attend only to the virtues by which its successes are achieved — concentration, and steadiness, and the absence of those quickly excited, easily led feelings, which make such concentration the harder, and are as harmful, in this struggle for existence, as a sensitive skin in a prize-fight. My own most striking experience, about the estimate of the Irish in America, was gathered from the Irish themselves. In Canada, I never saw that they disliked being recognised, and being talked to, as Irishmen. They may not have shown the pride in their nationality, that is shown, in- variably, by the English and Scotch ; but they would talk about it without change of manner, and with ease and freedom and good humour. The fact is, that the people of Canada have the English kindly feeling for the Irishman, and have caught little of the American contempt for him. With them, the Irish are the poor, but this is the worst that they are ; they are not a despised nationality ; they are not classed along with the negroes. But, when you cross into the States, it is different. There, if you ask a man, whose 0lz " speech has betrayed him, whether he is not an Irishman, *^*^+\ you can see that he winces under the question. His civility is apt to forsake him, and a defiant self-assertion to replace it. ( Yes — and I'm none the worse for that ! ' was an answer I got to this question, put as inoffensively as any- body could put it. As, in that case, it happened to be in the power of the questioner to at once claim the same nationality, a reconciliation was speedily effected. But even for a moment to call up that half-guilty, half-resentful expression, on a kindly, good-humoured face, was so ex- A A 2 356 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. tremely disagreeable a blunder, that the putting of such questions had to be dropped, or only very warily indulged in. In England — that land of the oppressor ! — one might venture to charge a man with being Irish, without any very serious danger of making him your enemy for life. Whenever Irish- Americans will discuss with you the evil repute of their people, it is to drinking they generally attribute it. Whether they really drink more than the Americans, they express some doubt, and with reason ; but they say they have the name of doing so. And it is to this vice that Mr. Maguire attributes the frequency of crime among them — a frequency which is the more startling, when one considers how the same race in Ireland (except as to a special class of crimes, which is quite without counterpart in America) is remarkable for its freedom from crime. The Irish settled in Great Britain, though they, too, have deteriorated by migration, are not quite a parallel case. In Great Britain, the Irish are unruly, and merit the attention of the police by acts of violence ; but they are not dis- tinguished for dishonesty, as the Irish- Americans are. A visit to the great New York prison, the prison upon Black well's Island, where on the door of each cell are written its inmate's name, native place, and offence, shows h at the thieving profession in New York is almost monopo- lised by Irishmen. The other prisoners are English, Scotch, and German. There is hardly a native American among them. Taking a row of the cells at random, I found that out of twenty female prisoners, no less than seventeen were Irish. A warder, to whom I pointed this out — (discovering immediately from his accent, that he was Irish himself) — threw some doubt upon the accuracy of the returns. He said that prisoners often made false statements with regard to their names and nationalities. But those of them whom I heard speak, had certainly given their country correctly. IRISH-AMERICAN FAULTS AND VIRTUES. 357 The crimes laid to their charge were, mostly, thefts. The clever burglaries, in the American cities, are said, by the magistrates and police, to be, in general, by Englishmen or Scotchmen. Perhaps it would rather increase than lessen the regard of Americans for the Irish, if they succeeded in this higher line. A Boston police officer once said to me, i Your Irishman has no head for the long planning, and does not possess the amount of capital, which are necessary to make the good burglar.' He evidently considered this incompetence discreditable. It certainly needs some consideration why expatriation should make a people, very honest at home, so deteriorate. Perhaps emigration is especially adverse to morality, when it has Celtic excitability to work upon. Sudden removal beyond the influence and observation of friends, from num- berless old associations, that keep fresh the early lessons and examples of morality — the sudden excitement of waking up in a new world — may well throw a character off its balance, unless its stability be great. Mr. Hawthorne, drawing from life, has described the change that may be thus brought about, in one of his most striking passages.* Almost the only virtue which the American agrees with Mr. Maguire, and with everybody else, in attributing to the Irish, till denationalised, is the eminent chastity of their women. To this virtue, more than to any other, one might have thought emigration would be dangerous. Beside the trials to it in the emigrant ship, the shock of the new life and new scenes would seem to threaten it most of all — assailing some natures through a sense of utter helplessness, assailing others with a recklessness, and a sense of being freed and let loose. But, it is remarked in every city of America, how the Irish- women overcome such dangers, and how superior they are, as to this virtue, to the English, Scotch, Germans, and * See ' Our Old Home,' chap. i. ' Consular Experiences.' 358 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. Americans. That the superiority lasts into a second or third generation, Americans generally deny ; and, if this be so, those who attribute it to the watchful guardianship of their flocks by the Roman Catholic clergy, must admit that its decline in America would seem to show a decline of clerical influence. The one other virtue, which Americans concede to the Irish, is their bravery in battle. ^ Thus far they fully agree with Mr. Maguire, taught by experience in their own civil war ; but they do not similarly see how it was creditable that Irishmen should have fought equally well on both sides.* Instead of moving him to admiration, this pheno- menon much amuses the American. f North of the Poto- mac,' he will tell you, ' Paddy shouted that the Union must be preserved, and Secession put down at all cost. South of the Potomac, Paddy declared himself the upholder of State Rights and free whipping of the Nigger. In both cases he was equally ignorant ; he knew nothing whatever about the Constitution, and he was wholly unaware what State Rights meant. The nearest thing he had to a reasonable motive was his tolerably"hmiform hatred of the nigge^> but that didn't prevent him from, on the whole, backing the North rather more than the South. The contrast of the German was wonderful ; of him, the Southern could make nothing ; he was always, and in all places, an Unionist and a hater of slavery.' This resolve of the Irish, wherever they lived, and whatever the cause that was there to be fought for, not, at all events, to be left out of the fight, was uaturally amusing to Americans ; but, for Irish bravery they formed a respect. Every race and nationality in America — every section, every district, every State — claims * Mr. Maguire says, of the Irish in the war, ' They did not stop to argue or split hairs as to the constitutional rights alleged to be involved,' and eulogises them for that, . ' north or south, they were equally devoted, equally faithful,' pp. 546-8. < scotch-irish: 359 for itself that it showed the most bravery in the Avar ; but, if it came to the vote, so many would award the second palm to the Irish that, as in the Greek story, they might get the highest marks on the whole. The soldierlike qua- lities of the Irish seemed especially appreciated in the South. ' They did what you told them to do,' a Confederate officer once said to me, ( the other boys did what they liked.' But, perhaps, this special commendation of the Irish soldier's discipline, like Mr. Maguire's commendation of his cleanli- ness, suggests new ideas about the non- Celtic, rather than the Celtic, combatants. There is one class of the Irish-Americans to whom Mr. Maguire is extraordinarily unfair. These are the Protestants from Northern Ireland, whom he calls by their American name of ' Scotch -Irish.' Of these people, he says, that, ' detested by every true Irishman, they are also despised by every genuine American.' Further, he quotes from a Roman Catholic Priest, who calls them ( a reprobated class of infamous Scotch-Irish, superior in all kinds of wickedness, only in a superlative degree, to the most vile convicts.' Now it may be fairly claimed for these people, that they are the most successful who go to America. They are few, no doubt, and cannot cope in numerical strength with the other races that are peopling the continent ; but this only makes more remarkable the number of eminent men they have produced. A very well-informed reviewer of Mr. Maguire has pointed out that this Scotch-Irish race has given four Presidents and a Vice-President to the Union ; and, of many examples of the success of the same race in private life, the most widely known instance is the richest merchant in America, or perhaps in the world, Mr. A. T. Stewart.* Indeed, the only charge against these * ' It is to the Scotch-Irish immigration, that the Kepublic owes some of its most distinguished celebrities in Church and State. Four Presidents and one 360 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. people that is in any way specified by Mr. Maguire, and is other than the vaguest abuse, is founded upon their name of * Scotch-Irish.' They are declared to have assumed it, intolerantly, to distinguish themselves from the Irish Roman Catholics. But the name is an invention of the Americans. Who ever heard of it in the British Islands ? The fact is, that the Americans, perceiving differences of character between two sets of immigrants from Ireland, invented this name for distinguishing one of them from the other. As has been before said, the American has made a rough gene- ralisation about the Irish Roman Catholics, which is un- favourable to them, and would seem, on this side of the Atlantic, to be unjust. To him, the typical Irish Catholic is a mere doer of rough work, not only uneducated and penniless, but thriftless, and incapable of raising himself ; 6 the tail-end of a wheelbarrow,' as some American politician lately called him, alluding to his being mainly employed at the roughest description of navvies' work. Perhaps, when we consider the condition in which these people have been landed in America, it is no wonder that the idea of them should be such ; and, that it is so, may be seen very clearly without making the passage of the Atlantic. Anybody who Vice-President are of Ulster extraction. General Andrew Jackson was th^ son of a poor Ulster emigrant who settled in North Carolina, and was born ' some- where between Carrickfergus and the shores of the United States.' James Monroe, James Knox Polk, John C. Calhoun, and James Buchanan were all of Ulster Protestant extraction. . . . There are no doubt many Irishmen in America in possession of great establishments, or occupying posts of respect- ability and influence, but they are, generally, the Scotch-Irish of Ulster, and jQot the ill-educated Celts of the other provinces. For example, the owner of the Marble Palace, said to be the largest emporium of trade in the world, is A- T. Stewart, a native of Lisburn, Co. Antrim. The other Stuarts, of New York and Philadelphia, are natives of the Co. Down. The Brownes, of the same cities, belonged to Ballymena, Co. Antrim. These are all Ulster Presby- terians ; but there are no recorded instances of Celtic Irishmen of the first generation — at least Mr. Maguire, who is always very anxious to exalt his co- religionists, records none — attaining a high place in the commercial annals of America.' — Edinburgh Review, April, 1868. ' SCOTCH-IRISH: 361 has met American tourists in Ireland, must have been struck by the surprise which they evince at seeing so many of the people so well off. Scattered instances of terrible poverty do not cause them half so much astonishment ; for they have come with a preconceived idea that three provinces of Ireland are nearly peopled with such ill-clad and barefooted starvelings as they have seen turned out on their quays. But, while the greater part of their immigrants from Ireland were such, it could not long escape American observation that those from the North were less degraded, and were by no means content to remain drudges. Forming the theory, perhaps, that the superiority of these Northerns was attribu- table to race rather than to other causes affecting them, they gave to them the name of ' Scotch-Irish.' It is really something very remarkable, how generally Americans draw a distinction between these Scotch-Irish and the rest. England, its hereditary bugbear, is not half so hard upon Munster: England, its hereditary hope, is not half so appreciative of Ulster. Whatever superi- ority of condition may be found in the latter Province by Englishmen, is attributed to the accidental circumstances, rather than the innate qualities, of its people. A curious custom of land-tenure ; a soil happily suited for growing flax ; these are dignified as causes, in England ; but, in America, where it is noted that the superior success con- tinues though these ' causes ' have been left far behind, the character itself of the f Scotch-Irish ' is thought to be what makes them so differ from their Koman Catholic countrymen. I have over and over again heard it said by Americans, who had been deploring the influx of Irish, « but this doesn't apply to the Protestants from the North. They're about the best stock that we get here.' Perhaps there is not so much antagonism between the Scotch-Irish character and the American, as between the 362 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. latter and the Southern-Irish. An American once said to me, that the most Yankee people he knew in the world (and he used the term * Yankee ' strictly, for i of or belonging to New England,' and, therefore, as being equivalent to ' ex- traordinarily shrewd and " canny " ') were the people of the town of Belfast — the Belfast in Ulster, and not the Belfast in Maine. When I told him our English saying, about the shrewdest thing anywhere producible ( f a Jew attorney, brought up in Scotland '), he admitted, that this should be ( smart,' but continued to back against it, and against the world, in a sort of competition in smartness, the Yankee and the Scotch and Irish cross. To pass to the Fenian Irish — they are a terribly con- terminous division with the Roman Catholic Irish of America. * ^Whenever you meet one of these, who has got L up pretty high in the world, you may find him also ex- y ceptional in this, that he sees the ludicrous side of the Brotherhood, or, possibly, condemns it altogether? I myself only met one such case in which it was strongly condemned. y But, of the masses of the Roman Catholic Irish, the millions of workers and wage-earners, I never met any who con- demned it, and seldom any who did not sympathise warmly. The utter failures in action are not caused by the numbers being scanty : and the spirit which actuates the Brother- hood, is certainly not what its deriders make out. *^There is a passionate heat and a bigotry, impatient of reasoning or discussion, in the ordinary Fenian enthusiast, which show you that a calculation of profits is not among his leading motives. He may deserve incarceration as a lunatic ; but he is not to be classed with filibusters. So far, Mr. Maguire would agree : but the most striking feature of Fenianism, as it appears across the Atlantic, has apparently escaped his observation. This is its marvellous ignorance. It is not merely that the Fenians undervalue the power of England. FENIANISM IN AMERICA. 363 Everything, in these days, changes so rapidly, and the relative strengths of the nations among the rest, that it may be allowed to be in some degree doubtful, whether any nation, on a sudden emergency, could come up to her anciently acquired fame. But the rank and file of the Fenians know nothing, of any sort, about England. They know no more of the British laws and Constitution, than they know of the interior of Africa. Nay, they know less ; for, of Africa, they would acknowledge their ignorance; but, about England, they form facts for themselves, for the truth of which, they are willing to die. In one of Mr. Dickens's imaginative flights, an American gives his ideas a priori about the position of the palaces in London. f The Tower of London is naturally your Royal Residence,' says General Choke, overbearing contradiction ; and the absurdity may seem overdone. But, after much talk with many of them, this seems to me the ordinary method by which Fenians inform themselves on Great Britain. Of the strange things revealed to them by this method, and kindly communicated to me, perhaps the following are average specimens : that the whole revenue of the United Kingdom was raised by taxes upon Ireland alone ; that, to aid this oppressive policy, the Irish Landlords had a com- mission from Government to grind down the people, and keep them helpless : that the so-called representatives of Ireland had nothing to say to the taxation ; which was levied wholly and solely by the Crown : that Ireland was full of valuable mines, which the Government would not allow to be worked, for fear the people should get rich and strong: that the Government frequently had men hanged without any in- tervention of Judge and Jury, and, especially, of course, Irishmen : that, when a move of this kind was contemplated, the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended ; this was managed by the Queen alone ; and, then, she could do whatever she 364 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. liked : that the Government had blown up the Clerkenwell prison, to get an excuse for hanging a few Irishmen (this theory was advanced, at the time, by one or two newspapers of influence in the States) : that the Irish landlord never let his rent be in arrear for a single day ; he distrained at once upon the tenant — partly to break the spirit of the people, partly to get them out of his land in order to replace them by sheep : that the loyalty of the Irish Constabulary was only secured by enormous bribes ; but they were poor creatures, anyhow : that the Irish in the army were Fenians to a man: that all triumphs of the British arms had been won by the Irish alone ; for the Englishman was naturally timid and unwarlike; not only Wellington, but all the British heroes, had been Irish ; as, also, were most of the Generals of the French, the Austrians, and the Spanish. Of course, it would occur to anybody reading these absur- dities, that they must have been uttered by exceptionally stupid people. But it was not so. Many of my informants seemed to be bright and quick-witted men. On any other subject, at all within their range, they would talk, not merely sanely, but sensibly. It was only on the relations between England and Ireland, that the wonderful Irish monomania blazed out. Touch on that topic ; and they began literally to rave. The Irishman in America, as else- where, is distinguished by a fine natural courtesy ; but on this one subject, he loses it. The hereditary rancour over- powers him, and he breaks out into a wild tirade — perhaps afterwards apologising for his violence, as if it was a sort of access of disease, which he regretted, but could not help. One of the first professed Fenians met by me was editor of a Democratic newspaper, published in a Western town. Though very high up in the Brotherhood — Centre for his district, I think — he was in many ways an exceptional brother, FENIAN KNOWLEDGE OF POLITICS. 365 and not at all of the type above sketched. Among other strange points in his Fenianism, he was, I believe, Scotch- Irish. Nobody could seem more open to conviction. So readily, indeed, did he give in to my most anti-Fenian sentiments, that I was beginning to pride myself much upon having made a most promising convert. But he utterly made an end of my pride, by sudden revelations about him- self. * You see, between ourselves,' said he, ' I think you're about right : but, Lord bless you ! no paper on that platform would bring in a cent in this town. I wasn't always a Democrat and a Fenian. I ran a Republican paper at once ; but the boys wouldn't stand it at all. They threw me into the river, at once, and they said they'd tar and feather me afterwards ; and they'd have done it, as soon as have looked at me ; for they're the Divil's own boys, them at . So I just had to face right about, and go off into this new line.' The reconversion of this gentleman now seemed to me a doubtful distinction: but, just at that moment, we were joined by another Fenian, introduced to me as being great in the Brotherhood, and sub-editor of another public journal. He, at least, was a genuine article. He showed the true Fenian fire in debate, and, for the sub-editor of a well-known paper, his knowledge of politics was most Fenian. In the course of experimenting upon him, I asked him how he would himself like to live in the independent Ireland of the future ; whether he thought, if she was left to herself, she was likely to be quiet and peaceable. ' We don't mean to leave her to herself,' he said, * she is to come in as one of the States.' ' Isn't the ocean rather in the way of that ? ' 6 Not a bit : we're going to annex Crete ' (he was speaking during the Cretan Insurrection, in which America was warmly interested), 'and she's further off than Ireland.' Of course this seemed like a joke ; but it was not, it was thoroughly in earnest. He had read in some wild Western 366 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. paper that Uncle Sam was to aid the Cretan Christians by taking to himself their whole island ; and, being a politician of the Fenian type, he had believed what he read, and republished it, with all Fenian comments, in his paper. ( That was the way things would go. Uncle Sam could now whip the world, and would never let a nation be bullied. Crete, first ; Ireland, next ; they would all come in, as new States.' It would take long to give many such instances of con- versations with individual Irishmen. Whether the griev- i ances, or the plans for redress, showed the more utter J° ignorance, was doubtful ; and both might be unworthy of ^ attention, were it not too true of the Irishman, that he can a y J^be as reckless in act as in word. The rank and file of the (f s American Fenians never found out that the Church was a jT grievance. That secret was only known to a few, who could boast rather a better education, and had, perhaps, learnt it from the English journals. Of the land grievance, one heard a great deal ; but it took a plainer and more uncom- promising form than it generally has assumed in Ireland. If you asked for particulars, you were told, ( sure they pay rent there ' roundly and decisively. As to ( insecurity of tenure,' and other such refinements, they were merged in this larger question ; or were alluded to only by implication, in stories of cruel Irish evictions. Such stories are rife among the Fenians, and lose none of their horror in being retailed. It would be useless to call them wild exaggerations ; for they, and not you, would be believed ; nor would it be of use to tell the Fenian, what a percentage of these Irish evictions had been justified by non-payment of rent. As he considers such non-payment meritorious, he must on prin- ciple deny the justification. One Irishman's conversation, jotted down by me, will illustrate Fenian ideas on the land-question. The speaker FENIAN LAND-BEFORMS. 3G7 has one claim to distinction: Alone, of all the Irishmen met by me, he was cowardly enough to deny his nationality. This man, after many enquiries about the state of the Old Country from me (which he made in a rich Dublin brogue), remarked, that the people would be free there, too, before long. e Aren't they pretty free now ? ' ■ To be sure they're not ! ' ' What can't they do that you can do here ? ' f They can't get land.' ( Well that's hardly not being free, is it ? Of course it isn't so easy to get land, in two thickly peopled little islands, not the size of Colorado, taken together, as in a great con- tinent like this.' e Some people manage to get a sight too much of it there, anyhow.' ( Suppose you took it all away from them, and threw it into a common stock ; rather a strong measure, to begin with, wouldn't it be ? ' ' Not a hair too strong ! ' ( Well, even it wouldn't do what you want. There wouldn't be land for everybody, even then, as there is here now. The stock wouldn't go far among the people.' ' I'd just try how far it would go, any way,' he replied, with a revolutionary grin. With such a scheme of redistribution, to corroborate the rich Dublin brogue, it was useless for him to continue to profess himself, as he persisted in doing, to be an English- man. The universal plan for freeing Ireland was what the recent Fenian raids have exhibited — namely, to proceed to the goal by way of Canada. ' Let us once get Canada,' said a Fenian to me, e and then we'll have ships and ports, and a flag, that the States will recognise.' For getting Canada, he 368 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. relied upon active assistance within it. I tried him with my stock enquiry, whether Ireland would be a pleasant place, when won ; would not the rival religions within it make it rather too warm for comfort. His answer was somewhat remarkable. 'O no! we've got over all that. One religion's about as good as another. We've learnt not to care for those things, and we'd teach them the same over there.' However politically sound, this was terribly like ' indifferentism. ' To make an end of Irish- American politics, there has been allusion already made to the case of an Irish- American Roman Catholic — the only case of the kind that I met with — who was strong in his condemnation of Fenianism. This person was a very old gentleman, much respected in one of the Southern cities, who had come out in his boyhood to America. The Irish Rebellion of '98 had caused his father's, and his, expatriation; but, though he had been brought up a revolutionist, he had become the strongest possible Tory upon questions of Irish politics, in which he continued to take a keen interest. He expressed some doubts about the Church (which was then just going to be disestablished), admitting it a good cry for an agitator ; but, in no other matter whatsoever, did he see even a ' paper ' grievance. His American experience, he said, had shown how the revolutionary spirit is more often stimulated, than checked, by concessions thrown to it as a sop. If there are other Irish- Americans of the kind, they are, probably, like him, in the South. Whatever the war found the Southerns, it has left them the most intense admirers of what they call, by a euphemism, ' strong government ' — the bitterest oppo- nents of the system, by which the few concede everything to the many. Though the Irish- Americans, in general, are materially much better off than they were before they crossed the FENIAN SENTIMENTALITY. 369 Atlantic, a more home-sick people cannot be. Theirs is too sentimental a character for them to escape this penalty upon migration. The Englishman, the Scotchman, and even the sentimental German, will more easily strike root in new soil ; and, as to the American, he seems incapable of local attachments altogether. A hard fate has singled out for an expatriation the most wholesale in modern history the people most attached to old places, and that suffers most sorely in exile. The regard of English and Scotch settlers for the old home is totally different. They compare the peoples, the institutions, the ways of life, in the old land and in the new, telling you, in how many respects the change has been to them for the worse : but the Irishman, unable to regret the miserable conditions of his old-world life, breaks out into a gush of mere sentiment about the hills, streams, and valleys of his childhood. ' It is this sentimental home-sickness that is the well-spring of Fenianism in America. The Fenian is not that reasoning creature which his critics in England have called him, a swindler, a plunderer, a filibuster. He is that much more unreasonable animal, a dreamer, an enthusiast, a poet. Instead of making himself a career in the new country, he dreams of what he can be doing for the old. Few, I believe, ever return to it ; for, as they tell you, ( it's no place for a poor man ; ' and, by the time the fortunate are in a position to return, they have formed so many ties in America, that a return seems no longer what it seemed. ' l But a return is looked forward to by the poor. < If I make money, it won't be here that I'll spend it,' is a common expression of their hopes. In many ways, perhaps, the change of life is greater for the Irish in America, than for the other immigrant peoples. They hate the climate most cordially; and, indeed, the moist mildness of Ireland is as bad a preparation as can be. They hate the hard work, as cordially. One very home-sick B B 370 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. specimen, whom I tried to comfort by reminding him, that he got * three times the Irish wages ' replied, refusing to be comforted, that he did ( six times the Irish work.' The cost of living seems frightful to people who have lived on so little at home. A waiter at a monster hotel, where all the waiters were Irishmen, told me what wages they were getting, naming a very high figure. When I congratulated him upon their wealth, he looked round the room and whispered, ( I doubt whether half the Irishmen in this room could pay their way back to Ireland to-morrow. Everything is so dear here. You cannot think what it costs a man to keep himself and his family.' e But you all live well here, anyhow.' ( Yes, we do that,' he said, laughing, f the Irishman gets something more here than his praties and butter-milk — but we need it all, I can tell you, to do the work.' They thrive on it, at all events. The finest men, physically, in America, are the Irishmen. The climate has not had time enough yet to dry them up into American spareness ; but the good feeding has told on them already. Sometimes the regret for the old country will take an amusingly aristocratic form. An Irish waiter at a Boston hotel, who had formerly been a servant in Ireland, gave me a very poor account of his career, winding it up with the exclamation, ( Ah ! I was a fool to come out.' ' Why, you're the first Irishman who has said that to me.' ' Maybe so, indeed,' he replied ; e but most of them hadn't the chance at home that I had. Sure I always lived with the first of the quality ; ' and then, dropping his voice very low, and glancing round upon the guests of the hotel, an exceedingly respectable assemblage, he added, in a con- temptuous tone, f There's none of that sort here at all, at all ! ' As a set-off against this insult may be quoted a descrip- tion of America by another Irishman, a policeman in New York city. When I told him, to draw out his opinions, how DENATIONALISATION. 371 some of his countrymen seemed not too well pleased with the lot- they had found in the new country, he answered, with some indignation, ' And why wouldn't they be pleased, I wonder ? Isn't it a country where there's equal laws for all, and a man may get a good living for good work ? ' — not a bad definition, off-hand, of the characteristics of a truly great country. With regard to the Americanisation of the Irishmen, Americans say that it takes three generations. Some points of Americanism, they admit, he picks up rather quicker than they like. Though he consents to do their most menial work, he soon catches enough of equality to do it haughtily and with a fierce independence. It is terror of the Irish servant, at least as much as anything else, that drives Americans into living in hotels ; and stories are told with- out end of the formidable revenges taken, where Irish servants have felt themselves slighted.* The great bar to quick denationalisation is, of course, the huddling together of the Irish. Not only do the adults work in gangs, that monopolise, any employment they under- take ; not only do they congregate in the cities, sole occu- pants of the ' Irish quarters '; but, as a necessary result of this congregating, the children in many of the cities are brought up in schools exclusively Irish. Bowdon and Bowditch schools, in Boston, are examples. These stand in Irish parts of the town, and the few native Americans of the neighbourhood, it is said, send their children long distances in preference to educating them along with the Irish. In * One of them, more ludicrous than refined, tells how a lady, lately come out from England, in calling on a friend in New York, enquired of an Irish servant whether ' his mistress was at home.' Of course, no American dares speak of the ' master ' or ' mistress ! of a household : such terms were abolished with slavery. No wonder the Irishman was indignant; but he speedily saw his way to revenge. 'No, ma'am;' he replied, very courteously, 'the fact is, I don't keep one at present' 372 SKETCHES FROM AMERICA. the particular schools above named the Irish children seemed well instructed, and were well spoken of by their American teachers ; but it cannot be doubted that this seclusion of them unfortunately retards their assimilation. It is not in the matter of teaching that an elementary school in America contrasts most favourably with such a school among us, for the methods of instruction would seem often below the mark of our Government- aided schools. It is in the manner and bearing of the pupils, their look of being cared-for at home, of having come from civilised, well-to-do houses. In these respects the Irish schools necessarily, from the poverty and social position of the parents, cannot bear a comparison with the American ; and hence the loss to Irish children by their exclusion from what would be civilising influences. Another obstacle to Irish- American improvement is the low character of some of the journals which are the chosen instructors of the race. It has been remarked by many writers upon America, that there is an Irishman on the staff of nearly every paper in America, and that hence arises, in great measure, the bitterness of the press against England. My own experience would lead me to suppose that this was a very bold exaggeration ; but there are, at all events, quite a sufficient number of rabidly Fenian journals to do much harm to the Irish population, which buys them and reads them with avidity ; and even in other journals, not intended so exclusively for Irish consumption, there often appear, no doubt, evident traces of an Irishman's hand. These are not confined to articles. The most curious specimen seen by me purported to be a telegram. It will be remembered that in the winter of '67 certain Fenians were hanged for a murder committed by them in Man- chester, and that thereupon certain processions took place through the country in honour of them. Happening at the time to take up a newspaper at Savannah, a local journal of IRISH-AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS. 373 consideration, I was much astonished to see, under the heading * latest telegrams/ 'In the House of Lords, last night, the Earl of Mayo deplored the Fenian executions as sanctimonious murder.' This was indeed startling. As Lord Mayo was a member of the Government by which the men had been hanged, such news of him could only mean that he had left his party and turned Fenian. In my bewilderment I took up a second paper, and sought in it for the telegram. Here it appeared somewhat differently. ' In the House of Lords, last night, the Earl of Mayo de- plored the Fenian processions as sanctioning murder.' Surely an Irish hand was traceable in that other version ! tONDOff: tBiNflifl Btf BtOIXISWOODB AND CO., NEW-STBEM BQtUKfl" AND PABLIAMENI STKlilil a Ht0t of TBoofeg PUBLISHING BY SAMPSON LOW, SON, and MAR ST ON, Crown Buildings, 188, Fleet Street. [September, 1870. 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A story of adventure of the most telling local colour and detail, the most exciting danger, and ending ivith the most natural and effective escape. There is an air of veracity and reality about the tale which Capt. Hayes could scarcely help giving to an Arctic adventure of any kind. There is great vivacity and picturesqueness in the style, the illustrations are admirable, and there is a novelty in the * denouement ' which greatly enhances the pleasure with which we lay the book down. This story of the two Arctic Crusoes will long remain one of the most poiverful of children's stories, as it assuredly deserves to be one of the most popular." — Spectator. The Autobiography of a Small Boy. By the Author of " School Days at Saxonhurst." Fcap. 8vo. cloth, 5s. Also now ready. Alwyn Morton, his School and his Schoolfellows. 5s. Stanton Grange ; or, Life at a Tutor's. By the Rev. C. J. Atkinson. 5s. List of Publications. 13 The Story of a Bad Boy — not a very Bad Boy. By Thomas Bailey Aldrich. With 30 Illustrations. Small post 8vo. cloth, price 5s. Lost; or, What Came of a Slip from Honour Bright. By Rev. J. C. Atkinson. Small post 8vo. with Illustrations, cloth extra, price 5s. The Silver Skates-, a Story of Holland Life. By Mrs. M. A. Dodge. Edited by W. H. G. Kingston. Illustrated, cloth extra, 3s. M. Life amongst the North and South American Indians. By George Catlin. And Last Rambles amongst the Indians beyond the Rocky Mountains and the Andes. With numerous Illustrations by the Author. 2 vols, small post 8vo. 5s. each, cloth extra. " An admirable book, full of useful information, wrapt up in stories peculiarly adapted to rouse the imagination and stimulate the curiosity of boys and girls. To compare a book with ' Bobinson Crusoe,' and to say that it sustains such comparison, is to give it high praise indeed."— Athenaeum. The Voyage of the Constance; a tale of the Polar Seas. By Mary Gillies. With 8 Illustrations by Charles Keene. Fcap. 3s. Qd. Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors ; a Story of that Good Old Time— Our School Days at the Cape. Edited by W H. G. Kingston. With Illustrations, price 3s. 6d. " One of the best books of the kind that the season has given us. This little book is to be commended warmly." — Illustrated Times. The Boy's Own Book of Boats. A Description of every Craft that sails upon the waters ; and how to Make, Rig, and Sail Model Boats, by W. H. G. Kingston, with numerous Illustrations by E. Weedon . Second edition, enlarged. Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d. " This well-written, well-wrought book." — Athenaeum. Also by the same Author, Ernest Bracebridge ; or, Boy's Own Book of Sports. 3s. 6d. The Fire Ships. A Story of the Days of Lord Cochrane. 5s. The Cruise of the Frolic. 5s. Jack Buntline : the Life of a Sailor Boy. 2s. What are the Stars ? a Treatise on Astronomy for the Young. By M. E. Storey Lyle. Fcap. 8vo. with numerous Illustrations, Cloth, extra, gilt edges, 3s. 6d. Phenomena and Laws of Heat : a Volume of Marvels of Science. By Achille Cazin. Translated and Edited by Elihu Rich. With numerous Illustrations. Fcap. 8vo. price 5s. Also, uniform, same price. Marvels of Optics. By F. Marion. Edited and Translated by C. W. Quin. With 70 Illustrations. 5s. Marvels of Thunder and Lightning. By De Fonvielle. Edited by Dr. Phipson. Full of Illustrations. 5s. Stories of the Great Prairie. From the Novels of J. F. Cooper. Illustrated. Price 5s. Also, uniform, same price. Stories of the Woods, from the Adventures of Leather-Stocking. Stories of the Sea, from Cooper's Naval Novels. The Voyage of the Constance. By Mary Gillies. 3s. M. The Swiss Family Robinson, and Sequel. In 1 vol. 3s. 6d. The Story Without an End. Translated by Sarah Austin. 2s. 6rf. 14 Sampson Low and Oo.'s Adventures on the Great Hunting-Grounds of the World. From the Frence of Victor Meunier. With additional matter, including the Duke of Edinburgh's Elephant Hunt, &c. With 22 Engravings, price 5s. " The book for all boys in ichom the love of travel and adventure is strong. They will find here plenty to amuse them and much to insti-uct them besides." — Times. Also, lately published, Golden Hair; a Tale of the Pilgrim Fathers. By Sir Lascelles Wraxall. 3s. 6d. Black Panther : a Boy's Adventures amongst the Red Skins. By the same Author. 3s. 6d. Jacob and Joseph, and the Lesson of their Lives for the Young. By Elihu Burritt, Author of " Old Burchell's Pockets, &c." Numerous Illustrations, price 3s. 6d. Also beautifully Illustrated: — Little Bird Red and Little Bird Blue. Coloured, 5s. Snow- Flakes, and what they told the Children. Coloured, 5s. Child's Book of the Sagacity of Animals. 5s. ; or coloured, 7s. 6d. Child's Picture Fable Book. 5s. ; or coloured, 7s. M. Child's Treasury of Story Books. 5s. ; or coloured, 7s. 6d. The Nursery Playmate. 200 Pictures. 5s. ; or coloured, 9s. Anecdotes of the Queen and Royal Family of England Collected, arranged, and edited, for the more especial use of Colonial Readers, by J. George Hodgins, LL.B , F.R.G.S., Deputy- Superintendent of Educa- tion for the Province of Ontario. With Illustrations. Price 5s. Geography for my Children. By Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Author of " Uncle Tom's Cabin," &c. Arranged and Edited by an Eng- lish Lady, under the Direction of the Authoress. With upwards of Fifty Illustrations. Cloth extra, 4s. 6d. Child's Play. Illustrated with Sixteen Coloured Drawings by E. V. B., printed in fac-simile by W. Dickes' process, and ornamented with Initial Letters. New edition, with India paper tints, royal 8vo. cloth extra, bevelled cloth, 7s. 6d. The Original Edition of this work was published at One Guinea. Great Fun and More Fun for our Little Friends. By Harriet Myrtle. With Edward Wehnert's Pictures. 2 vols, each 5s. BELLES LETTRES, FICTION, &c. LD Town Folks. By the Author of " Uncle Tom's Cabin." New and Cheaper Edition. With Frontispiece by Sidney P. Hall. Small post 8vo. cloth. 6s. " This story must make its way, as it is easy to predict it will, by its in- trinsic merits." — Times. "A novel of great power and beauty, and some- thing more than a mere novel— we mean that it is worth thoughtful people's reading. . . It is a finished literary work, and will icell repay the reading." — Literary Churchman. Daisy Nichol. By Lady Hardy. 3 vols. [Shortly. Hitherto: a Story of Yesterday. By the Author of "The Gay- worthys," &c. Second edition, 1 vol. reap. [Shortly. List of Publications. 15 Lorna Doone. A Romance of Exraoor. By R. D. Blackmore. New edition, one volume, with frontispiece, price 6s. [Just ready. " Continually reminds us of the best of Scott's novels.— Spectator. David Gray ; and other Essays, chiefly on Poetry. By Robert Buchanan. In one vol. fcap. 8vo. price 6s. The Book of the Sonnet; being Selections, with an Essay on Sonnets and Sonneteers. By the late Leigh Hunt. Edited, from the original MS. with Additions, by S. Adams Lee. 2 vols, price 18s. Lyra Sacra Americana: Gems of American Poetry, selected with Notes and Biographical Sketches by C. D. Cleveland, D.D., Author of the " Milton Concordance." 18mo., cloth, gilt edges. Price 4s. 6d. Poems of the Inner Life. Selected chiefly from modern Authors, by permission. Small post 8vo. 6s. ; gilt edges, 6s. 6d. The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. By Oliver Wendell Holmes, LL.D. Popular Edition, Is. Illustrated Edition, choicely printed, cloth extra, 6s. The Professor at the Breakfast Table. By Oliver Wendell Holmes, Author of "The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table." Cheap Edition, fcap. 3s. 6d. Bee-keeping. By " The Times " Bee-master. Small post 8vo. numerous illustrations, cloth, 5s. The Blackbird of Baden, and Other Stories. By Robert Black, M.A. Price 6s. Camp and Fireside Stories, and Hospital Sketches. By L. M. Alcott. Feap. 8vo. cloth, price 3s. 6d. Struggles and Triumphs, or Forty Years Recollection of P. T. Barnum, written by himself, with numerous Characteristic Illustra- tions. Price 2s. 6d. Queer Little People. By the Author of " Uncle Tom's Cabin." Fcap. Is. Also by the same Author. The Little Foxes that Spoil the Grapes, Is. House and Home Papers, Is. The Pearl of Orr's Island, Illustrated by Gilbert, 5s. The Minister's Wooing. Illustrated by Phiz, 5s. New and Cheaper Edition of " A Mere Story." By the Author of " Lady Grace," " Twice Lost," &c. Third Edition, fcap. 8a'o. with Frontispiece by Sidney Hall. 6s. "A story that we strongly recommend our readers to -procure. . . . Alto- gether it is a very pleasant little book, sparkling and original, ivhich no one will read without a good deal of enjoyments — Guardian. Silken Cords and Iron Fetters. By Maud Jeanne Franc. Small post 8vo., 5s. Also, by the same Author. Marian ; or, the Light of Some One's Home. Emily's Choice : an Australian Tale. 5s. Vermont Vale : or, Home Pictures in Australia. 5s. Minnie's Mission, a Temperance Story. 4s. Low's Minion Series of Popular Books. Is. each : — The Gates Ajar. (The original English Edition.) Who is He? The Little Preacher. The Boy Missionary. 16 Sampson Low and Go/s List of Publications. The Story of Four Little Women : Meg, Joe, Beth, and Amy. By Louisa M. Alcott. Both Series complete in 1 volume. 16mo, cloth, gilt edges. 3s. (id. " A bright, cheerful, healthy story — with a tinge of thoughtful gravity about it which reminds one of John JBunyan. Meg going to Vanity Fair is a chapter written with great cleverness and a pleasant humour." — Guardian. Also, Entertaining Stories for Young Ladies, 3s. 6d. each, cloth, gilt edges. An Old-fashioned Girl. By L. M. Alcott. Helen Felton's Question : a Book for Girls. By Agnes Wylde. Faith Gartney's Girlhood. By Mrs. D. T. Whitney. Seventh thousand. The Gayworthys. By the same Author. Third Edition. A Summer in Leslie- Goldthwaite's Life. By the same Author. The Masque at Ludlow. By the Author of " Mary Powell." Miss Biddy Frobisher : a Salt Water Story. By the same Author. Selvaggio; a Story of Italy. By the same Author. New Edition. The Journal of a Waiting Gentlewoman. By a new Author. New Edition . The Shady Side and the Sunny Side. Two Tales of New England. Tauchnitz's English Editions of German Authors. Each volume cloth flexible, 2s. ; or sewed, Is. 6d. The following are now ready :— 1. On the Heights. By B. Auerbach. 3 vols. 2. In the Year '13. By Fritz Reuter. 1 vol. 3. Faust. By Goethe. 1 vol. 4. Undine, and other Tales. By Fouque. 1 vol. 5 L'Arrabiata. By Paul Heyse. 1 vol. 6. The Princess, and other Tales. By Heinrich Zschokke. 1 vol. 7. Lessing's Nathan the Wise. 8. Hacklander's Behind the Counter, translated by Mary Howitt. 9. Three Tales. By W. Hauff. 10. Joachim v. Kamern ; Diary of a Poor Young Lady. By M.Nathusius. 11. Poems by Ferdinand Freiligrath. Edited by his daughter. 12. Gabriel. From the German of Paul Heyse. By Arthur Milman. 13. The Dead Lake, and other Tales. By P. Heyse. 14. Through Night to Light, by Gutzkow. Low's Copyright Cheap Editions of American Authors, com- prising Popular Works, reprinted by arrangement with their Authors : — 1. Haunted Hearts. By the Author of " The Lamplighter." 2. The Guardian Angel. By " The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table." 3. The Minister's Wooing. By the Author of " Uncle Tom's Cabin." 4. Views Afoot. By Bayard Taylor. 5. Kathrina, Her Life and Mine. By J. G. Holland. 6. Hans Brinker ; or, Life in Holland. By Mrs. Dodge. 7. Men, Women, and Ghosts. By Miss Phelps. 8. Society and Solitude. By Ralph Walde Emerson. 9. Hedged In. By Elizabeth Phelps. 10. An Old-fashioned Girl. By Louisa M. Alcott. Each volume complete in itself, price Is. 6d. enamelled flexible cover, or 2s. cloth. LONDON : SAMPSON LOW, SON, AND MARSTON CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET. English, and Foreign, American, and Colonial Booksellers. 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