The Englishwoman in America

I >> Isabella Lucy Bird >> The Englishwoman in America

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Many of the passengers now wished the captain to return, but he said that
he should incur greater danger in an attempt to make the harbour of
Toronto than by proceeding down the open lake. For some time nothing was
to be seen but a dense fog, a storm of sleet which quite darkened the air,
and raging waves, on which we mounted sometimes, while at others we were
buried between them. In another hour the gale had completely subsided,
and, after we had changed our drenched habiliments, no token remained of
the previous storm but the drowned and dismantled appearance of the
saloon, and the resolution on my own mind never to trust myself again on
one of these fearful lakes. I was amused to observe that those people who
had displayed the greatest symptoms of fear during the storm were the
first to protest that, "as for them, they never thought there was any
danger." The afternoon, though cold, was extremely beautiful, but, owing
to the storm in the early part of our voyage, we did not reach Hamilton
till nightfall, or three hours after our appointed time.

I do not like these inland lakes, or tideless fresh-water seas, as they
may more appropriately be termed. I know Lake Ontario well; I have crossed
it twice, and have been up and down it five times. I have sojourned upon
its shores, and have seen them under the hot light of an autumn sun, and
underneath a mantle of wintry snow; but there is to me something
peculiarly oppressive about this vast expanse of water. If the lake is
rough, there are no harbours of refuge in which to take shelter--if calm,
the waters, though blue, pure, and clear, look monotonous and dead. The
very ships look lonely things; their hulls and sails are white, and some
of them have been known in time of cholera to drift over the lake from day
to day, with none to guide the helm. The shores, too, are flat and
uninteresting; my eyes wearied of following that interminable boundary of
trees stretching away to the distant horizon.

Yet Lake Ontario affords great advantages to both Canada and the United
States. The former has the large towns of Hamilton, Toronto, and Kingston
on its shores, with the exporting places of Oakville, Credit, and Cobourg.
The important towns of Oswego and Rochester, with smaller ones too
numerous to name, are on the American side. This lake is five hundred
miles round, and, owing to its very great depth, never freezes, except
just along the shores. An immense trade is carried on upon it, both in
steamers and sailing vessels. A ship-canal connects Lake Ontario with Lake
Erie, thereby overcoming the obstacle to navigation produced by the Falls
of Niagara. This stupendous work is called the Welland Canal.

At Hamilton I received a most cordial welcome from the friends whom I went
to visit, and saw something of the surrounding country. It is, I think,
the most bustling place in Canada. It is a very juvenile city, yet already
has a population of twenty-five thousand people. The stores and hotels are
handsome, and the streets are brilliantly lighted with gas. Hamilton has a
peculiarly unfinished appearance. Indications of progress meet one on
every side--there are houses being built, and houses being pulled down to
make room for larger and more substantial ones--streets are being
extended, and new ones are being staked out, and every external feature
seems to be acquiring fresh and rapid development. People hurry about as
if their lives depended on their speed. "I guess" and "I calculate" are
frequently heard, together with "Well posted up," and "A long chalk;" and
locomotives and steamers whistle all day long. Hamilton is a very
Americanised place. I heard of "grievances, independence, and annexation,"
and, altogether, should have supposed it to be on the other side of the
boundary-line.

It is situated on a little lake, called Burlington Bay, separated from
Lake Ontario by a narrow strip of sandy shingle. This has been cut
through, and, as two steamers leave the pier at Hamilton at the same hour
every morning, there is a daily and very exciting race for the first
entrance into the narrow passage. This racing is sometimes productive of
very serious collisions.

The town is built upon very low and aguish ground, at the foot of a
peculiar and steep eminence, which the inhabitants dignify with the name
of the Mountain. I ascended this mountain, which might better be called a
molehill, by a flight of a hundred and thirty steps. The view from the top
was very magnificent, but, as an elevated building offered us one still
more extensive, we ascended to the roof by six flights of steps, to see a
_camera obscura_ which was ostentatiously advertised. A very good _camera
obscura_ might have been worth so long an ascent in a house redolent of
spirits and onions; but after we had reached the top, with a great
expenditure of toil and breath, a ragged, shoeless little boy very
pompously opened the door of a small wooden erection, and introduced us to
four panes of coloured glass, through which we viewed the town of
Hamilton, under the different aspects of spring, summer, autumn, and
winter!

Dundurn Castle, a handsome, castellated, baronial-looking building, the
residence of the present Premier, Sir Allan M'Nab, is near Hamilton, and
it has besides some very handsome stone villa residences. There I saw, for
the first and only time in the New World, beautifully kept grass lawns,
with flower-beds in the English style. One very fine morning, when the
maple-leaves were tinted with the first scarlet of the fall, my friends
took me to see Ancaster and Dundas; the former, an old place, very like
some of our grey, quiet Lancashire villages--the latter a good type of the
rapid development and enterprising spirit which are making Canada West to
rival the States in rapidity of progress. There were bridges in course of
construction--railway embankments swarming with labourers--macadamised
roads succeeding those of corduroy and plank--snake-fences giving place to
those of posts and rails, and stone walls--and saw and grist mills were
springing up wherever a "water privilege" could be found. Laden waggons
proceeded heavily along the roads, and the encouraging announcements of
"Cash for wheat," and "Cash for wool," were frequently to be seen. The
views were very fine as we skirted the Mountain, but Canadian scenery is
monotonous and rather gloomy; though the glorious tints of the American
fall give the leaves of some of the trees the appearance rather of
tropical flowers than of foliage.

Ancaster is an old place, outstripped by towns of ten years' existence, as
it has neither a port nor a river. There was an agricultural show, and
monster pumpkins and overgrown cabbages were displayed to admiring crowds,
under the shadow of a prodigious union jack.

Dundas, a near neighbour of Ancaster, has completely eclipsed it. This
appears to be one of the busiest little places in Canada West. It is a
collection of woollen-mills, grist-mills, and iron-foundries; and though,
in my preformed notions of political economy, I had supposed manufactures
suited exclusively to an old country, in which capital and labour are
alike redundant, the aspect of this place was most thriving. In one of the
flour-mills the machinery seemed as perfect as in the biscuit factory at
Portsmouth--by some ingenious mechanism the flour was cooled, barrelled,
and branded with great celerity. At an iron-foundry I was surprised to
find that steam-engines and flour-mill machinery could not be manufactured
fast enough to meet the demand. In this neighbourhood I heard rather an
interesting anecdote of what steady perseverance can do, in the history of
a Scot from the shores of the Forth.

This young man was a pauper boy, and was apprenticed to the master of an
iron-foundry in Scotland, but ran away before the expiration of his
apprenticeship, and, entering a ship at Glasgow, worked his passage across
to Quebec. Here he gained employment for some months as a porter, and,
having saved a little money, went up to the neighbourhood of Lake Simcoe,
where he became a day labourer. Here he fell in love with his master's
daughter, who returned his affection, but her father scornfully rejected
the humble Scotchman's suit. Love but added an incentive to ambition; and
obtaining work in a neighbouring township, he increased his income by
teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic in the evenings. He lived
penuriously, denied himself even necessaries, and carefully treasured his
hoarded savings. Late one evening, clothed almost in rags, he sought the
house of his lady-love, and told her that within two years he would come
to claim her hand of her father, with a waggon and pair of horses.

Still in his ragged clothing, for it does not appear that he had any
other, he trudged to Toronto, and sought employment, his accumulated
savings sewn up in the lining of his waistcoat. He went about from person
to person, but could not obtain employment, and his waggon and horses
receded further and further in the dim perspective. One day, while walking
along at the unfinished end of King Street West, he saw something
glittering in the mud, and, on taking it up, found it to be the steel snap
of a pocket-book. This pocket-book contained notes to the amount of one
hundred and fifty dollars; and the next day a reward of five-and-twenty
was offered to the finder of them. The Scotchman waited on the owner, who
was a tool manufacturer, and, declining the reward, asked only for work,
for "leave to toil," as Burns has expressed it. This was granted him; and
in less than four months he became a clerk in the establishment. His
salary was gradually raised--in the evenings he obtained employment in
writing for a lawyer, and his savings, judiciously managed, increased to
such an extent, that at the end of eighteen months he purchased a thriving
farm in the neighbourhood of London, and, as there was water-power upon
it, he built a grist-mill. His industry still continued successful, and
just before the two years expired he drove in a light waggon, with two
hardy Canadian horses, to the dwelling of his former master, to claim his
daughter's hand; though, be it remembered, he had never held any
communication with her since he parted from her in rags two years before.
At first they did not recognise the vagrant, ragged Scotch labourer, in
the well-dressed driver and possessor of the "knowing-looking" equipage.
His altered circumstances removed all difficulty on the father's part--the
maiden had been constant--and soon afterwards they were married. He still
continued to prosper, and add land to land; and three years after his
marriage sent twenty pounds to his former master in Scotland, as a
compensation for the loss of his services. Strange to say, the son of that
very master is now employed in the mill of the runaway apprentice. Such
instances as this, while they afford encouragement to honest industry,
show at the same time the great capabilities of Canada West.

At Hamilton, where the stores are excellent, I made several purchases, but
I was extremely puzzled with the Canadian currency. The States money is
very convenient. I soon understood dollars, cents, and dimes; but in the
colonies I never knew what my money was worth. In Prince Edward Island the
sovereign is worth thirty shillings; in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia
twenty-five; while in Canada, at the time of my visit, it was worth
twenty-four and four pence. There your shilling is fifteen pence, or a
quarter-dollar; while your quarter-dollar is a shilling. Your sixpence is
seven pence-half-penny, or a "York shilling;" while your penny is a
"copper" of indeterminate value apparently. Comparatively speaking, very
little metallic money is in circulation. You receive bills marked five
shillings, when, to your surprise, you can only change them for four
metallic shillings. Altogether in Canada I had to rely upon people's
honesty, or probably on their ignorance of my ignorance; for any attempts
at explanation only made "confusion worse confounded," and I seldom
comprehended anything of a higher grade than a "York shilling." From my
stupidity about the currency, and my frequent query, "How many dollars or
cents is it?" together with my offering dirty crumpled pieces of paper
bearing such names as Troy, Palmyra, and Geneva, which were in fact notes
of American banks which might have suspended payment, I was constantly
taken, not for an ignoramus from the "Old Country," but for a "genuine
Down-Easter." Canadian credit is excellent; but the banking system of the
States is on a very insecure footing; some bank or other "breaks" every
day, and lists of the defaulters are posted up in the steamboats and
hotels.

Within a few days after my resolution never again to trust myself on Lake
Ontario, I sailed down it, on a very beautiful morning, to Toronto. The
royal mail steamer _Arabian_ raced with us for the narrow entrance to the
canal which connects Burlington Bay with the main lake, and both captains
"piled on" to their utmost ability, but the _Arabian_ passed us in
triumph. The morning was so very fine, that I half forgot my dislike to
Lake Ontario. On the land side there was a succession of slightly elevated
promontories, covered with forests abounding in recent clearings, their
sombre colouring being relieved by the brilliant blue of the lake. I saw,
for the only time, that beautiful phenomenon called the "water-mirage," by
which trees, ships, and houses are placed in the most extraordinary and
sometimes inverted positions. Yet still these endless promontories
stretched away, till their distant outlines were lost in the soft blue
haze of the Indian summer. Yet there was an oppressiveness about the
tideless water and pestilential shore, and the white-hulled ships looked
like deserted punished things, whose doom for ages was to be ceaseless
sailing over these gloomy waters.

At Toronto my kind friend Mr. Forrest met me. He and his wife had invited
me some months before to visit them in their distant home in the Canadian
_bush_; therefore I was not a little surprised at the equipage which
awaited me at the hotel, as I had expected to jolt for twenty-two miles,
over corduroy roads, in a lumber-waggon. It was the most dashing vehicle
which I saw in Canada. It was a most _unbush-like_, sporting-looking,
high, mail phaeton, mounted by four steps; it had three seats, a hood in
front, and a rack for luggage behind. It would hold eight persons. The
body and wheels were painted bright scarlet and black; and it was drawn by
a pair of very showy-looking horses, about sixteen "hands" high, with
elegant and well-blacked harness. Mr. Forrest looked more like a sporting
English squire than an emigrant.

We drove out of Toronto by the Lake shore road, and I could scarcely
believe we were not by the sea, for a heavy surf was rolling and crashing
upon the beach, and no land was in sight on the opposite side. After some
time we came to a stream, with a most clumsy swing bridge, which was open
for the passage of two huge rafts laden with flour. This proceeding had
already occupied more than an hour, as we were informed by some
unfortunate _detenus_. We waited for half an hour while the raftmen
dawdled about it, but the rafts could not get through the surf, so they
were obliged to desist. I now reasonably supposed that they would have
shut the bridge as fast as possible, as about twenty vehicles, with
numerous foot-passengers, were waiting on either side; but no, they moved
it for a little distance, then smoked a bit, then moved it a few inches
and smoked again, and so on for another half-hour, while we were exposed
to a pitiless north-east wind. They evidently enjoyed our discomfiture,
and were trying how much of annoyance we would bear patiently. Fiery
tempers have to be curbed in Canada West, for the same spirit which at
home leads men not to "touch their hats" to those above them in station,
here would vent itself in open insolence and arrogance, if one requested
them to be a little quicker in their motions. The fabric would hardly come
together at all, and then only three joists appeared without anything to
cover them. This the men seemed to consider _un fait accompli_, and sat
down to smoke. At length, when it seemed impossible to bear a longer
detention with any semblance of patience, they covered these joists with
some planks, over which our horses, used to pick their way, passed in
safety, not, however, without overturning one of the boards, and leaving a
most dangerous gap. This was a favourable specimen of a Canadian bridge.

The manners of the emigrants who settle in Canada are far from
prepossessing. Wherever I heard torrents of slang and abuse of England;
wherever I noticed brutality of manner, unaccompanied by respect to
ladies, I always found upon inquiry that the delinquent had newly arrived
from the old country. Some time before I visited America, I saw a letter
from a young man who had emigrated, containing these words: "Here I
haven't to _bow and cringe_ to gentlemen of the aristocracy--that is, to a
man who has a better coat on than myself." I was not prepared to find this
feeling so very prevalent among the lower classes in our own possessions.
The children are an improvement on their parents, and develop loyal and
constitutional sentiments. The Irish are the noisiest of the enemies of
England, and carry with them to Canada the most inveterate enmity to
"Sassenach" rule. The term "_slang-whangers_" must have been invented for
these.

After some miles of very bad road, which once had been corduroy, we got
upon a plank-road, upon which the draught is nearly as light as upon a
railroad. When these roads are good, the driving upon them is very easy;
when they are out of repair it is just the reverse. We came to an Indian
village of clap-board houses, built some years ago by Government for some
families of the Six Nations who resided here with their chief; but they
disliked the advances of the white man, and their remnants have removed
farther to the west. We drove for many miles through woods of the American
oak, little more than brushwood, but gorgeous in all shades of colouring,
from the scarlet of the geranium to deep crimson and Tyrian purple. Oh!
our poor faded tints of autumn, about which we write sentimental poetry!
Turning sharply round a bank of moss, and descending a long hill, we
entered the bush. There all my dreams of Canadian scenery were more than
realised. Trees grew in every variety of the picturesque. The forest was
dark and oppressively still, and such a deadly chill came on, that I drew
my cloak closer around me. A fragrant but heavy smell arose, and Mr.
Forrest said that we were going down into a cedar swamp, where there was a
chill even in the hottest weather. It was very beautiful. Emerging from
this, we came upon a little whitewashed English church, standing upon a
steep knoll, with its little spire rising through the trees; and leaving
this behind, we turned off upon a road through very wild country. The
ground had once been cleared, but no use had been made of it, and it was
covered with charred stumps about two feet high. Beyond this appeared an
interminable bush. Mr. Forrest told me that his house was near, and, from
the appearance of the country, I expected to come upon a log cabin; but we
turned into a field, and drove under some very fine apple-trees to a house
the very perfection of elegance and comfort. It looked as if a pretty
villa from Norwood or Hampstead had been transported to this Canadian
clearing. The dwelling was a substantially built brick one-storied house,
with a deep green verandah surrounding it, as a protection from the snow
in winter and the heat in summer. Apple-trees, laden with richly-coloured
fruit, were planted round, and sumach-trees, in all the glorious colouring
of the fall, were opposite the front door. The very house seemed to smile
a welcome; and seldom have I met a more cordial one than I received from
Mrs. Forrest, the kindly and graceful hostess, who met me at the door, her
pretty simple dress of pink and white muslin contrasting strangely with
the charred stumps which were in sight, and the long lines of gloomy bush
which stood out dark and sharp against the evening sky.

"Will you go into the drawing-room?" asked Mrs. Forrest. I was surprised,
for I had not associated a _drawing-room_ with emigrant life in Canada;
but I followed her along a pretty entrance-lobby, floored with polished
oak, into a lofty room, furnished with all the elegances and luxuries of
the mansion of an affluent Englishman at home, a beautiful piano not being
wanting. It was in this house, containing every comfort, and welcomed with
the kindest hospitality, that I received my first impressions of "life in
the clearings." My hosts were only recovering from the fatigues of a
"thrashing-bee" of the day before, and, while we were playing at
bagatelle, one of the _gentlemen_ assistants came to the door, and asked
if the "_Boss_" were at home. A lady told me that, when she first came
out, a servant asked her "How the boss liked his shirts done?" As Mrs.
Moodie had not then enlightened the world on the subject of settlers'
slang, the lady did not understand her, and asked what she meant by the
"boss,"--to which she replied, "Why, lawk, missus, your hubby, to be
sure."

I spent some time with these kind and most agreeable friends, and returned
to them after a visit to the Falls of Niagara. My sojourn with them is
among my sunniest memories of Canada. Though my expectations were in one
sense entirely disappointed on awaking to the pleasant consciousness of
reposing on the softest of feathers, I did not feel romance enough to wish
myself on a buffalo robe on the floor of a log-cabin. Nearly every day I
saw some operation of Canadian farming, with its difficulties and
pleasures. Among the former is that of obtaining men to do the work. The
wages given are five shillings per diem, and in many cases "rations"
besides. While I was at Mr. Forrest's, two men were sinking a well, and
one coolly took up his tools and walked away because _only_ half a pound
of butter had been allowed for breakfast. Mr. Forrest possesses sixty
acres of land, fifteen of which are still in bush. The barns are very
large and substantial, more so than at home; for no produce can be left
out of doors in the winter. There were two hundred and fifty bushels of
wheat, the produce of a "thrashing bee," and various other edibles. Oxen,
huge and powerful, do all the draught-work on this farm, and their stable
looked the very perfection of comfort. Round the house "snake-fences" had
given place to those of post and rail; but a few hundred yards away was
the uncleared bush. The land thus railed round had been cleared for some
years; the grass is good, and the stumps few in number. Leaving this, we
came to the stubble of last year, where the stumps were more numerous, and
then to the land only cleared in the spring, covered thickly with charred
stumps, the soil rich and black, and wheat springing up in all directions.
Beyond this there was nothing but bush. A scramble through a bush, though
very interesting in its way, produces disagreeable consequences.

When the excitement of the novelty was over, and I returned to the house,
I contemplated with very woeful feelings the inroad which had been made
upon my wardrobe--the garments torn in all directions beyond any
possibility of repair, and the shoes reduced to the consistency of soaked
brown paper with wading through a bog. It was a serious consideration to
me, who at that time was travelling through the West with a very small and
very wayworn portmanteau, with Glasgow, Torquay, Boston, Rock Island, and
I know not what besides upon it. The bush, however, for the time being,
was very enjoyable, in spite of numerous bruises and scratches. Huge pines
raised their heads to heaven, others lay prostrate and rotting away,
probably thrown down in some tornado. In the distance numbers of trees
were lying on the ground, and men were cutting off their branches and
burning them in heaps, which slowly smouldered away, and sent up clouds of
curling blue smoke, which diffused itself as a thin blue veil over the
dark pines.

This bush is in dangerous proximity to Mr. Forrest's house. The fire ran
through it in the spring, and many of the trees, which are still standing,
are blackened by its effects. One night in April, after a prolonged
drought, just as the household were retiring to rest, Mr. Forrest looked
out of the window, and saw a light in the bush scarcely bigger or brighter
than a glow-worm. Presently it rushed up a tall pine, entwining its fiery
arms round the very highest branches. The fire burned on for a fortnight;
they knew it must burn till rain came, and Mr. Forrest and his man never
left it day or night, all their food being carried to the bush. One night,
during a breeze, it made a sudden rush towards the house. In a twinkling
they got out the oxen and plough, and, some of the neighbours coming to
their assistance, they ploughed up so much soil between the fire and the
stubble round the house, that it stopped; but not before Mr. Forrest's
straw hat was burnt, and the hair of the oxen singed. Mrs. Forrest
meanwhile, though trembling for her husband's safety, was occupied in
wetting blankets, and carrying them to the roof of the house, for the dry
shingles would have been ignited by a spark. On our return, it was
necessary to climb over some "snake" or zigzag fences about six feet high.
These are fences peculiar to new countries, and though very cheap,
requiring neither tools nor nails, have a peculiarly untidy appearance. It
is not thought wise to buy a farm which has not enough bush or growing
timber for both rails and firewood.

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