W. D. Howells - "The Lady of the Aroostook"

Various - "Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864"

Robert Mac Micking - "Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines"

Various - "Notes and Queries, Number 186, May 21, 1853"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Englishwoman in America

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




In clearing, of which I saw all the processes, the first is to cut down
the trees, in which difficult operation axes of British manufacture are
rendered useless after a few hours' work. The trees are cut about two feet
above the root, and often bring others down with them in their fall.
Sometimes these trees are split up at the time into rails or firewood;
sometimes dragged to the saw-mills to be made into lumber; but are often
piled into heaps and burnt--a necessary but prodigal waste of wood, to
which I never became reconciled. When the wood has been cleared off, wheat
is sown among the stumps, and then grass, which appears only to last about
four years. Fire is put on the tops of these unsightly stumps to burn them
down as much as possible, and when it is supposed, after two or three
years, that the roots have rotted in the ground, several oxen are attached
by a chain to each, and pull it out. Generally this is done by means of a
"logging bee." I must explain this term, as it refers neither to the
industrious insect nor the imperial bee of Napoleon. The very name reminds
me of early rising, healthy activity, merriment, and a well-spread board.

A "bee" is a necessity arising from the great scarcity of labour in the
New World. When a person wishes to thrash his corn, he gives notice to
eight or ten of his neighbours, and a day is appointed on which they are
to meet at his house. For two or three days before, grand culinary
preparations are made by the hostess, and on the preceding evening a table
is loaded with provisions. The morning comes, and eight or ten stalwart
Saxons make their appearance, and work hard till noon, while the lady of
the house is engaged in hotter work before the fire, in the preparation of
hot meat, puddings, and pies; for well she knows that the good humour of
her guests depends on the quantity and quality of her viands. They come in
to dinner, black (from the dust of a peculiar Canadian weed), hot, tired,
hungry, and thirsty. They eat as no other people eat, and set all our
notions of the separability of different viands at defiance. At the end of
the day they have a very substantial supper, with plenty of whisky, and,
if everything has been satisfactory, the convivial proceedings are
prolonged till past midnight. The giver of a "bee" is bound to attend the
"bees" of all his neighbours. A "thrashing bee" is considered a very "slow
affair" by the younger portion of the community. There are "quilting
bees," where the thick quilts, so necessary in Canada, are fabricated;
"apple bees," where this fruit is sliced and strung for the winter;
"shelling bees," where peas in bushels are shelled and barrelled; and
"logging bees," where the decayed stumps in the clearings are rooted up by
oxen. At the quilting, apple, and shelling bees there are numbers of the
fair sex, and games, dancing, and merrymaking are invariably kept up till
the morning.

In the winter, as in the eastern colonies, all outdoor employments are
stopped, and dancing and evening parties of different kinds are
continually given. The whole country is like one vast road, and the fine,
cold, aurora-lighted nights are cheery with the lively sound of the
sleigh-bells, as merry parties, enveloped in furs, drive briskly over the
crisp surface of the snow. The way of life at Mr. Forrest's was peculiarly
agreeable. The breakfast-hour was nominally seven, and afterwards Mr.
Forrest went out to his farm. The one Irish servant, who never seemed
happy with her shoes on, was capable of little else than boiling potatoes,
so all the preparations for dinner devolved upon Mrs. Forrest, who till
she came to Canada had never attempted anything in the culinary line. I
used to accompany her into the kitchen, and learned how to solve the
problem which puzzled an English king, viz. "How apples get into a
dumpling." We dined at the mediaeval hour of twelve, and everything was of
home raising. Fresh meat is a rarity; but a calf had been killed, and
furnished dinners for seven days, and the most marvellous thing was, that
each day it was dressed in a different manner, Mrs. Forrest's skill in
this respect rivalling that of _Alexis Soyer_. A home-fed pig, one of
eleven slaughtered on one fell day, produced the excellent ham; the squash
and potatoes were from the garden; and the bread and beer were from home-
grown wheat and hops. After dinner Mr. Forrest and I used to take lengthy
rides, along wild roads, on horses of extraordinary capabilities, and in
the evening we used to have bagatelle and reading aloud. Such was life in
the clearings. On one or two evenings some very agreeable neighbours came
in; and in addition to bagatelle we had puzzles, conundrums, and conjuring
tricks. One of these "neighbours" was a young married lady, the prettiest
person I had seen in America. She was a French Canadian, and added to the
graces of person and manner for which they are famed a cleverness and
sprightliness peculiarly her own. I was very much pleased with the
friendly, agreeable society of the neighbourhood. There are a great many
gentlemen residing there, with fixed incomes, who have adopted Canada as
their home because of the comforts which they can enjoy in an untaxed
country, and one in which it is not necessary to keep up appearances. For
instance, a gentleman does not lose caste by grooming his own horse, or
driving his own produce to market in a lumber-waggon; and a lady is not
less a lady, though she may wear a dress and bonnet of a fashion three
years old.

I was surprised one morning by the phenomenon of some morning-callers--
yes, morning-callers in a Canadian clearing. I sighed to think that such a
pest and accompaniment of civilisation should have crossed the Atlantic.
The "callers" of that morning, the Haldimands, amused me very much. They
give themselves great airs--Canada with them is a "wretched hole;" the
society is composed of "boors." In a few minutes they had asked me who I
was--where I came from--what I was doing there--how I got to know my
friends--and if I had come to live with them. Mr. Haldimands, finding I
came from England, asked me if I knew a certain beautiful young lady, and
recounted his flirtations with her. Dukes, earls, and viscounts flowed
from his nimble tongue--"When I was hunting with Lord this," or "When I
was waltzing with Lady that." His regrets were after the Opera and
Almack's, and his height of felicity seemed to be driving a four-in-hand
drag. After expatiating to me in the most vociferous manner on the
delights of titled society, he turned to Mrs. Forrest and said, "After the
society in which we used to move, you may imagine how distasteful all this
is to us"--barely a civil speech, I thought. This eccentric individual was
taking a lady, whom he considered a person of consequence, for a drive in
a carriage, when a man driving a lumber-waggon kept crossing the road in
front of him, hindering his progress. Mr. Haldimands gradually got into a
towering passion, which resulted in his springing out, throwing the reins
to the lady, and rushing furiously at the teamster with his fists squared,
shouting in a perfect scream, "Flesh and blood can't bear this. One of us
must die!" The man whipped up his horses and made off, and Mr. Haldimands
tried in vain to hush up a story which made him appear so superlatively
ridiculous.

We actually paid some morning visits, and I thought the society very
agreeable and free from gossip. One of our visits was paid to the family
of one of the oldest settlers in Canada. His place was the very perfection
of beauty; it was built in a park formed out of a civilised wood, the
grounds extending to the verge of a precipice, looking from which I saw
the river, sometimes glittering in the sunshine, sometimes foaming along
in a wood--just realising Mrs. Moodie's charming description of the
Otonabee. Far below, the water glittered like diamond sparks among the
dark woods; pines had fallen into and across it, in the way in which trees
only fall in America, and no two trees were of the same tint; the wild
vine hung over the precipice, and smothered the trees with its clusters
and tendrils; and hurriedly in some places, gently in others, the cold
rivulet flowed down to the lake,--no bold speculator having as yet dared
to turn the water privilege to account.

My first ride was an amusing one, for various reasons. My riding-habit was
left at Toronto, but this seemed not to be a difficulty. Mrs. Forrest's
fashionable habit and white gauntlet-gloves fitted me beautifully; and the
difficulty about a hat was at once overcome by sending to an obliging
neighbour, who politely sent a very stylish-looking plumed riding-hat.
There was a side-saddle and a most elegant bridle; indeed, the whole
equipment would not have disgraced _Rotten Row_. But, the horse! My
courage had to be "screwed to the sticking point" before I could mount
him. He was a very fine animal--a magnificent coal-black charger sixteen
hands high, with a most determined will of his own, not broken for the
saddle. Mr. Forrest rode a splendid bay, which seldom went over six
consecutive yards of ground without performing some erratic movement. My
horse's paces were, a tremendous trot, breaking sometimes into a furious
gallop, in both which he acted in a perfectly independent manner, any
attempts of mine to control him with my whole strength and weight being
alike useless. We came to the top of a precipice overlooking the river,
where his gyrations were so fearful that I turned him into the bush. It
appeared to me a ride of imminent dangers and hair-breadth escapes. By
this beauteous river we came to a place where rain and flood had worn the
precipice into a steep declivity, shelving towards another precipice, and
my horse, accustomed to it, took me down where an English donkey would
scarcely have ventured. Beauty might be written upon everything in this
dell. I never saw a fairer compound of rock, wood, and water. Above was
flat and comparatively uninteresting country; then these precipices, with
trees growing out wherever they could find a footing, arrayed in all the
gorgeous colouring of the American fall. At the foot of these was a
narrow, bright-green savannah, with fine trees growing upon it, as though
planted by some one anxious to produce a park-like effect. Above this, the
dell contracted to the width of Dovedale, and through it all, the river,
sometimes a foaming, brawling stream, at others fringed with flowers, and
quiescent in deep, clear pools, pours down to the lake. After galloping
upon this savannah we plunged into the river, and, after our horses had
broken through a plank-bridge at the great risk of their legs, we rode for
many miles through bush and clearing, down sandy tracks and scratching
thickets, to the pebbly beach of Lake Ontario.

The contrast between the horses and their equipments, and the country we
rode through, was somewhat singular. The former were suitable for Hyde
Park; the latter was mere bush-riding--climbing down precipices, fording
rapid rivers, scrambling through fences and over timber, floundering in
mud, going through the bush with hands before us to push the branches from
our faces, and, finally, watering our horses in the blue, deep waters of
Lake Ontario--yet I never enjoyed a ride along the green lanes of England
so much as this one in the wild scenery of Canada.

The Sundays that I spent at Mr. Forrest's were very enjoyable, though the
heat of the first was nearly insupportable, and the cold of the last like
that of an English Christmas in bygone years. There are multitudes of
Presbyterians in Western Canada, who worship in their pure and simple
faith with as much fervency and sincerity as did their covenanting
forefathers in the days of the persecuting Dundee; and the quaint old
Psalms, to which they are so much attached, sung to the strange old tunes,
sound to them as sweet among the backwoods of Canada as in the peaceful
villages of the Lowlands, or in the remote Highland glens, where I have
often listened to their slow and plaintive strains borne upon the mountain
breezes. "Are ye frae the braes of Gleneffar?" said an old Scotchwoman to
me; "were ye at our kirk o' Sabbath last, ye would na' ken the
difference."

The Irishman declaims against the land he has forsaken--the Englishman too
often suffers the remembrance of his poverty to sever the tie which binds
him to the land of his birth--but where shall we find the Scotchman in
whose breast love of his country is not a prominent feeling? Whether it be
the light-haired Saxon from the South, or the dark-haired, sallow-visaged
Celt from the Highlands, driven forth by the gaunt hand of famine, all
look back to Scotland as to "_their country_"--the mention of its name
kindles animation in the dim eye of age, and causes the bounding heart of
youth to leap with enthusiasm. It may be that the Scotch emigrant's only
remembrance is of the cold hut on the lone hill-side, where years wore
away in poverty and hunger, but to him it is the dearest spot of earth. It
may be that he has attained a competence in Canada, and that its fertile
soil produces crops which the heathery braes of Scotland would never
yield--no matter, it is yet his _home!_--it is the land where his fathers
sleep--it is the land of his birth; his dreams are of the "mountain and
the flood"--of lonely lochs and mountain-girded firths; and when the
purple light on a summer evening streams over the forest, he fancies that
the same beams are falling on Morven and the Cuchullins, and that the soft
sound pervading the air is the echo of the shepherd's pipe. To the latest
hour of his life he cherishes the idea of returning to some homestead by a
tumbling burnie. He never can bring himself to utter to his mountain land,
from the depths of his heart, the melancholy words, "_Che til na tuille._"
[Footnote: "We return no more."]

The Episcopal church was only two miles from us, but we were most
mercilessly jolted over a plank-road, where many of the planks had made a
descent into a sea of mud, on the depth of which I did not attempt to
speculate. Even in beautiful England I never saw a prettier sight than the
assembling of the congregation. The church is built upon a very steep
little knoll, the base of which is nearly encircled by a river. Close to
it is a long shed, in which the horses are tethered during service, and
little belligerent sounds, such as screaming and kicking, occasionally
find their way into church. The building is light and pretty inside, very
simple, but in excellent taste; and though there is no organ, the singing
and chanting, conducted by the younger portion of the congregation, is on
a par with some of the best in our town churches at home. There were no
persons poorly clad, and all looked happy, sturdy, and independent. The
bright scarlet leaves of the oak and maple pressed against the windows,
giving them in the sunlight something of the appearance of stained glass;
the rippling of the river was heard below, and round us, far, far away,
stretched the forest. Here, where the great Manitou was once worshipped, a
purer faith now reigns, and the allegiance of the people is more firmly
established by "the sound of the church-going bells" than by the bayonets
of our troops. These heaven-pointing spires are links between Canada and
England; they remind the emigrant of the ivy-mantled church in which he
was first taught to bend his knees to his Creator, and of the hallowed
dust around its walls, where the sacred ashes of his fathers sleep.

There is great attachment to England among those who are protected by her
laws, and live under the shadow of her standard of freedom. In many
instances, no remembrances of wrongs received, of injuries sustained, of
hopeless poverty and ill-requited toil, can sever that holiest, most
sacred of ties, which binds, until his latest breath, the heart of the
exile to his native land.

The great annoyance of which people complain in this pleasant land is the
difficulty of obtaining domestic servants, and the extraordinary specimens
of humanity who go out in this capacity. It is difficult to obtain any,
and those that are procured are solely Irish Roman Catholics, who think it
a great hardship to wear shoes, and speak of their master as the "_boss_."
At one house where I visited, the servant or "help," after condescending
to bring in the dinner, took a book from the _chiffonier_, and sat down on
the sofa to read it. On being remonstrated with for her conduct, she
replied that she "would not remain an hour in a house where those she
helped had an objection to a young lady's improving her mind!" At an hotel
at Toronto, one chambermaid, pointing to another, said, "That _young lady_
will show you your room." I left Mr. Forrest's even for three days with
great regret, and after a nine miles drive on a very wet morning, and a
water transit of two hours, found myself at Toronto, where as usual on the
wharf I was greeted by the clamorous demand for "wharfage." I found the
Walrences and other agreeable acquaintances at Russell's hotel, but was
surprised with what I thought rather a want of discrimination on the part
of all; I was showing a valuable collection of autographs, beginning with
Cromwell, and containing, in addition to those of several deceased and
living royal personages, valuable letters of Scott, Byron, Wellington,
Russell, Palmerston, Wilberforce, Dickens, &c. The shades of kings,
statesmen, and poets, might almost have been incited to appear, when the
signature of Richard Cobden was preferred before all.




CHAPTER XI.

"I've seen nothing"--A disappointment--Incongruities--Hotel gaieties and
"doing Niagara"--Irish drosky-drivers--"The Hell of Waters"--Beauties of
Niagara--The picnic party--The White Canoe--A cold shower-bath--"The
Thunder of Waters"--A magic word--"The Whirlpool"--Story of "Bloody Run"--
Yankee opinions of English ladies--A metamorphosis--The nigger guide--A
terrible situation--Termination Rock--Impressions of Niagara--Juvenile
precocity--A midnight journey--Street adventures in Hamilton.


"Have you seen the Falls?"--"No." "Then you've seen nothing of America." I
might have seen Trenton Falls, Gennessee Falls, the Falls of Montmorenci
and Lorette; but I had seen nothing if I had not seen the Falls (_par
excellence_) of Niagara. There were divers reasons why my friends in the
States were anxious that I should see Niagara. One was, as I was
frequently told, that all I had seen, even to the "_Prayer Eyes_," would
go for nothing on my return; for in England, America was supposed to be a
vast tract of country containing _one_ town--New York; and one astonishing
natural phenomenon, called Niagara. "See New York, Quebec, and Niagara,"
was the direction I received when I started upon my travels. I never could
make out how, but somehow or other, from my earliest infancy, I had been
familiar with the name of Niagara, and, from the numerous pictures I had
seen of it, I could, I suppose, have sketched a very accurate likeness of
the Horse-shoe Fall. Since I landed at Portland, I had continually met
with people who went into ecstatic raptures with Niagara; and after
passing within sight of its spray, and within hearing of its roar--after
seeing it the great centre of attraction to all persons of every class--my
desire to see it for myself became absorbing. Numerous difficulties had
arisen, and at one time I had reluctantly given up all hope of seeing it,
when Mr. and Mrs. Walrence kindly said, that, if I would go with them,
they would return to the east by way of Niagara.

Between the anticipation of this event, and the din of the rejoicings for
the "capture of Sebastopol," I slept very little on the night before
leaving Toronto, and was by no means sorry when the cold grey of dawn
quenched the light of tar-barrels and gas-lamps. I crossed Lake Ontario in
the iron steamer Peerless; the lake was rough as usual, and, after a
promenade of two hours on the spray-drenched deck, I retired to the cabin,
and spent some time in dreamily wondering whether Niagara itself would
compensate for the discomforts of the journey thither. Captain D----
gravely informed me that there were "a good many cases" below, and I never
saw people so deplorably sea-sick as in this steamer. An Indian officer
who had crossed the Line seventeen times was sea-sick for the first time
on Lake Ontario. The short, cross, chopping seas affect most people. The
only persons in the saloon who were not discomposed by them were two tall
school-girls, who seemed to have innumerable whispered confidences and
secrets to confide to each other.

We touched the wharf at Niagara, a town on the British side of the Niagara
river--"cars for Buffalo, all aboard,"--and just crossing a platform, we
entered the Canada cars, and on the top of some frightful precipices, and
round some terrific curves, we were whirled to the Clifton House at
Niagara. I left the cars, and walked down the slope to the verge of the
cliff; I forgot my friends, who had called me to the hotel to lunch--I
forgot everything--for I was looking at the Falls of Niagara.

"No more than this!--what seem'd it now
By that far flood to stand?
A thousand streams of lovelier flow
Bathe my own mountain land,
And thence o'er waste and ocean track
Their wild sweet voices call'd me back.

They call'd me back to many a glade,
My childhood's haunt of play,
Where brightly 'mid the birchen shade
Their waters glanced away:
They call'd me with their thousand waves
Back to my fathers' hills and graves."

The feelings which Mrs. Hemans had attributed to Bruce at the source of
the Nile, were mine as I took my first view of Niagara. The Horse-shoe
Fall at some distance to my right was partially hidden, but directly in
front of me were the American and Crescent Falls. The former is perfectly
straight, and looked like a gigantic mill-weir. This resemblance is
further heightened by an enormous wooden many-windowed fabric, said to be
the largest paper-mill in the United States. A whole collection of mills
disfigures this romantic spot, which has received the name of Manchester,
and bids fair to become a thriving manufacturing town! Even on the British
side, where one would have hoped for a better state of things, there is a
great fungus growth of museums, curiosity-shops, taverns, and pagodas with
shining tin cupolas. Not far from where I stood, the members of a picnic
party were flirting and laughing hilariously, throwing chicken-bones and
peach-stones over the cliff, drinking champagne and soda-water. Just as I
had succeeded in attaining the proper degree of mental abstraction with
which it is necessary to contemplate Niagara, a ragged drosky-driver came
up, "Yer honour, may be ye're in want of a carriage? I'll take ye the
whole round--Goat Island, Whirlpool, and Deil's Hole--for the matter of
four dollars." Niagara made a matter of "a round," dollars, and cents, was
too much for my equanimity; and in the hope of losing my feelings of
disappointment, I went into the Clifton House, enduring a whole volley of
requests from the half-tipsy drosky-drivers who thronged the doorway.

This celebrated hotel, which is kept on the American plan, is a huge white
block of building, with three green verandahs round it, and can
accommodate about four hundred people. In the summer season it is the
abode of almost unparalleled gaiety. Here congregate tourists, merchants,
lawyers, officers, senators, wealthy southerners, and sallow down-easters,
all flying alike from business and heat. Here meet all ranks, those of the
highest character, and those who have no character to lose; those who by
some fortunate accident have become possessed of a few dollars, and those
whose mine of wealth lies in the gambling-house--all for the time being on
terms of perfect equality. Balls, in doors and out of doors, nightly
succeed to parties and picnics; the most novel of which are those in the
beautiful garden in front of the hotel. This garden has spacious lawns
lighted by lamps; and here, as in the 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' the
visitors dance on summer evenings to the strains of invisible music. But
at the time of my second visit to the Falls all the gaiety was over; the
men of business had returned to the cities, the southerners had fled to
their sunny homes--part of the house was shut up, and in the great dining-
room, with tables for three hundred, we sat down to lunch with about
twenty-five persons, most of them Americans and Germans of the most
repulsive description. After this meal, eaten in the "five minutes all
aboard" style, we started on a sight-seeing expedition. Instead of being
allowed to sit quietly on Table Rock, gazing upon the cataract, the
visitor, yielding to the demands of a supposed necessity, is dragged a
weary round--he must see the Falls from the front, from above, and from
below; he must go behind them, and be drenched by them; he must descend
spiral staircases at the risk of his limbs, and cross ferries at that of
his life; he must visit Bloody Run, the Burning Springs, and Indian
curiosity-shops, which have nothing to do with them at all; and when the
poor wretch is thoroughly bewildered and wearied by "doing Niagara," he is
allowed to steal quietly off to what he really came to see--the mighty
Horse-shoe Fall, with all its accompaniments of majesty, sublimity, and
terror.

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