The Englishwoman in America

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

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Montreal is an extraordinary place. It is alive with business and
enterprising traders, with soldiers, carters, and equipages. Through the
kindness of the Bishop, I saw everything of any interest in the town. The
first thing which attracted my attention was the magnificent view from the
windows of the See-house, over the wide St. Lawrence and the green
mountains of Vermont; the next, an immense pair of elaborately-worked
bronze gates, at a villa opposite, large enough for a royal residence. The
side-walks in the outskirts of the town were still of the villanous wood,
but in the streets they were very substantial, and, like the massive stone
houses, look as if they had lasted for two hundred years, and might last
for a thousand more. We visited, among other things, some schools--one,
the Normal School, an extremely interesting one, where it is intended to
train teachers, on Church-of-England principles. I was very much surprised
and pleased with the amount of solid information and high attainments of
the children, as evidenced by their composition, and answers to the Bishop
of Montreal's very difficult questions. They looked sallow and emaciated,
and, contrary to what I have observed in England, the girls seemed the
most intelligent. The Bishop has also established a library, where, for
the small sum of four shillings a year, people can regale themselves upon
a variety of works, from the volumes of Alison, not more ponderous in
appearance than matter, to the newspaper literature of the day.

The furriers' shops are by no means to be overlooked. There were sleigh-
robes of buffalo, bear, fox, wolf, and racoon, varying in price from six
to thirty guineas; and coats, leggings, gloves, and caps, rendered
necessary by the severity of a winter in which the thermometer often
stands at thirty degrees below zero. People vie with each other in the
costliness of their furs and sleigh equipments; a complete set sometimes
costing as much as a hundred guineas.

I went into the Romish cathedral, which is the largest Gothic building in
the New World. It was intended to be very imposing--it has succeeded in
being very extravagant; and if the architects intended that their work
should live in the admiration of succeeding generations, like York
Minster, Cologne, or Rouen, they have signally failed. Internally, the
effect of its vast size is totally destroyed by pews and galleries which
accommodate ten thousand people. There are some very large and very
hideous paintings in it, in a very inferior style of sign-painting. The
ceiling is painted bright blue, and the high altar was one mass of gaudy
tinsel decoration. In one corner there was a picture of babies being
devoured by pigs, and trampled upon by horses, and underneath it was a box
for offerings, with "This is the fate of the children of China" upon it.
By it was a wooden box, hung with faded pink calico, containing small
wooden representations, in the Noah's-ark style, of dogs, horses, and
pigs, and a tall man holding up a little dog by its hind legs. This peep-
show (for I can call it nothing else) was at the same time so inexplicable
and so ludicrous, that, to avoid shocking the feelings of a devout-looking
woman who was praying near it by an "_eclat de rire_," we hurried from the
church.

I met with many sincere and devout Romanists among the upper classes in
Canada; I know that there are thousands among the simple _habitans_; and
though, in a thoughtless moment, the fooleries and puerilities of their
churches may excite a smile, it is a matter for the deepest regret that so
many of our fellow-subjects should be the dupes of a despotic priesthood,
and of a religion which cannot save.

Close to the cathedral is the convent of the Grey Sisters, who, with the
most untiring zeal and kindness, fulfil the vocations of the Sisters of
Charity. There are several other convents, some of them very strict; and
their high walls and grated windows give Montreal a very Continental
appearance. On a lady remarking to a sister in one of these, that the view
from the windows was very beautiful, she replied, with a suppressed sigh,
that she had never seen it. There are some very fine public buildings and
banks; but as I am not writing a guide-book, I will not dilate upon their
merits.

We walked round _Le Champ de Mars_, formerly the great resort of the
Montreal young ladies, and along the Rue Notre Dame, to the market-place,
which is said to be the second finest in the world, and, with its handsome
_facade_ and bright tin dome, forms one of the most prominent objects from
the water. As those disgusting disfigurements of our English streets,
butchers' shops, are not to be seen in the Canadian towns, nor, I believe
I may say, in those in the States, there is an enormous display of meat in
the Montreal market, of an appearance by no means tempting. The scene
outside was extremely picturesque; there were hundreds of carts with
shaggy, patient little horses in rows, with very miscellaneous tents--
cabbages and butter jostling pork and hides. You may see here hundreds of
_habitans_, who look as if they ought to have lived a century ago--shaggy
men in fur caps and loose blue frieze coats with hoods, and with bright
sashes of coloured wool round their waists; women also, with hard features
and bronzed complexions, in large straw hats, high white caps, and noisy
_sabots_. On all sides a jargon of Irish, English, and French is to be
heard, the latter generally the broadest patois.

We went into the Council Chamber, the richly cushioned seats of which
looked more fitted for sleep than deliberation; and I caught a glimpse of
the ex-mayor, whose timidity during a time of popular ferment occasioned a
great loss of human life. That popular Italian orator, "_Father Gavazzi_"
was engaged in denouncing the superstitions and impositions of Rome; and
on a mob evincing symptoms of turbulence, this mayor gave the order to
fire to the troops who were drawn up in the streets. Scarcely had the
words passed his lips, when by one volley seventeen peaceful citizens (if
I recollect rightly), coming out of the Unitarian chapel, were laid low.

Montreal is a turbulent place. It is not very many years since a mob
assembled and burned down the Parliament House, for which exercise of the
popular will the city is disqualified from being the seat of government. I
saw something of Montreal society, which seemed to me to be quite on a par
with that in our English provincial towns.

I left this ancient city at seven o'clock on a very dark, foggy evening
for Quebec, the boats between the two cities running by night, in order
that the merchants, by a happy combination of travelling with sleep, may
not lose that time which to them is money. This mode of proceeding is very
annoying to tourists, who thereby lose the far-famed beauties of the St.
Lawrence. It is very obnoxious likewise to timid travellers, of whom there
are a large number both male and female: for collisions and striking on
rocks or shoals are accidents of such frequent occurrence, that, out of
eight steamers which began the season, two only concluded it, two being
disabled during my visit to Quebec.

Scarcely had we left the wharf at Montreal when we came into collision
with a brig, and hooked her anchor into our woodwork, which event caused a
chorus of screams from some ladies whose voices were rather stronger than
their nerves, and its remedy a great deal of bad language in French,
German, and English, from the crews of both vessels. After this we ran
down to Quebec at the rate of seventeen miles an hour, and the
_contretemps_ did not prevent even those who had screamed the loudest from
partaking of a most substantial supper, which was served at eight o'clock
in the lowest story of the ship. The _John Munn_ was a very fine boat, not
at all the worse for having sunk in the river in the summer.

I considered Quebec quite the goal of my journey, for books, tongues, and
poetry alike celebrate its beauty. Indeed, there seems to be only one
opinion about it. From the lavish praise bestowed upon it by the eloquent
and gifted author of 'Hochelaga' down to the homely encomiums pronounced
by bluff sea captains, there seems a unanimity of admiration which is
rarely met with. Even commercial travellers, absorbed in intricate
calculations of dollars and cents, have been known to look up from their
books to give it an enthusiastic expression of approval. I expected to be
more pleased with it than with anything I had seen or was to see, and was
insensate enough to rise at five o'clock and proceed into the saloon, when
of course it was too dark for another hour to see anything. Daylight came,
and from my corner by the fire I asked the stewardess when we should be in
sight of Quebec? She replied that we were close to it. I went to the
window, expecting that a vision of beauty would burst upon my eyes. All
that I saw might be summed up in very few words--a few sticks placed
vertically, which might be masts, and some tin spires looming through a
very yellow, opaque medium. This was my _first_ view of Quebec; happily,
on my _last_ the elements did full justice to its beauty. Other objects
developed themselves as we steamed down to the wharf. There were huge
rafts, some three or four acres in extent, which, having survived the
perils which had beset them on their journey from the forests of the
Ottawa, were now moored along the base of the lofty cliffs which, under
the name of the Heights of Abraham, have a world-wide celebrity. There
were huge, square-sided, bluff-bowed, low-masted ships, lying at anchor in
interminable lines, and little, dirty, vicious-looking steam-tugs twirling
in and out among them; and there were grim-looking muzzles of guns
protruding through embrasures, and peripatetic fur caps and bayonets
behind parapets of very solid masonry.

Above all, shadowing all, and steeping all, was the thickest fog ever seen
beyond the sound of Bow-bells. It lay thick and heavy on Point Diamond,
dimming the lustre of the bayonets of the sentinels as they paced the
lofty bastions, and looked down into the abyss of fog below. It lay yet
heavier on the rapid St. Lawrence, and dripped from the spars and rigging
of ships. It hung over and enveloped the town, where, combined with smoke,
it formed a yellow canopy; and damp and chill it penetrated the flag of
England, weighing it down in heavy folds, as though ominous of impending
calamity.

Slowly winding our tortuous way among multitudinous ships, all vamped in
drizzling mist, we were warped to the wharf, which was covered with a
mixture of mud and coal-dust, permeated by the universal fog. Here
vehicles of a most extraordinary nature awaited us, and, to my great
surprise, they were all _open_. They were called _calashes_, and looked
something like very high gigs with hoods and C springs. Where the dash-
board was not, there was a little seat or perch for the driver, who with a
foot on each shaft looked in a very precarious position. These conveyances
have the most absurd appearance; there are, however, a few closed
vehicles, both at Montreal and Quebec, which I believe are not to be found
in the civilized world elsewhere, except in a few back streets of Lisbon.
These consist of a square box on two wheels. This box has a top, back, and
front, but where the sides ought to be there are curtains of deer-hide,
which are a very imperfect protection from wind and rain. The driver sits
on the roof, and the conveyance has a constant tendency backwards, which
is partially counteracted by a band under the horse's body, but _only_
partially, and the inexperienced denizen of the box fancies himself in a
state of constant jeopardy.

In an open calash I drove to Russell's Hotel, along streets steeper,
narrower, and dirtier than any I had ever seen. Arrived within two hundred
yards of the hotel, we were set down in the mud. On alighting, a gentleman
who had been my fellow-traveller politely offered to guide me, and soon
after addressed me by name. "Who can you possibly be?" I asked--so
completely had a beard metamorphosed an acquaintance of five years'
standing.

Once within the hotel, I had the greatest difficulty in finding my way
about. It is composed of three of the oldest houses in Quebec, and has no
end of long passages, dark winding staircases, and queer little rooms. It
is haunted to a fearful extent by rats; and direful stories, "horrible, if
true," were related in the parlour of personal mutilations sustained by
visitors. My room was by no means in the oldest part of the house, yet I
used to hear nightly sorties made in a very systematic manner by these
quadruped intruders. The waiters at Russell's are complained of for their
incivility, but we thought them most profuse both in their civility and
attentions. Nevertheless, with all its disagreeables, Russell's is the
best hotel in Quebec; and, as a number of the members of the Legislative
Assembly live there while Parliament meets in that city, it is very lively
and amusing.

When my English friends Mr. and Mrs. Alderson arrived, we saw a good deal
of the town; but it has been so often described, that I may as well pass
on to other subjects. The glowing descriptions given of it by the author
of '_Hochelaga_' must be familiar to many of my readers. They leave
nothing to be desired, except the genial glow of enthusiasm and kindliness
of heart which threw a _couleur de rose_ over everything he saw.

There are some notions which must be unlearned in Canada, or temporarily
laid aside. At the beginning of winter, which is the gay season in this
Paris of the New World, every unmarried gentleman, who chooses to do so,
selects a young lady to be his companion in the numerous amusements of the
time. It does not seem that anything more is needed than the consent of
the maiden, who, when she acquiesces in the arrangement, is called a
"_muffin_"--for the mammas were "muffins" themselves in their day, and
cannot refuse their daughters the same privilege. The gentleman is
privileged to take the young lady about in his sleigh, to ride with her,
to walk with her, to dance with her a whole evening without any remark, to
escort her to parties, and be her attendant on all occasions. When the
spring arrives, the arrangement is at an end, and I did not hear that an
engagement is frequently the result, or that the same couple enter into
this agreement for two successive winters. Probably the reason may be,
that they see too much of each other.

This practice is almost universal at Montreal and Quebec. On the fine,
frosty, moonlight nights, when the sleigh-bells ring merrily and the crisp
snow crackles under the horse's feet, the gentlemen call to take their
"muffins" to meetings of the sleighing-clubs, or to snow-shoe picnics, or
to champagne-suppers on the ice, from which they do not return till two in
the morning; yet, with all this apparent freedom of manner, the Canadian
ladies are perfectly modest, feminine, and ladylike; their simplicity of
manners is great, and probably there is no country in the world where
there is a larger amount of domestic felicity.

The beauty of the young ladies of Canada is celebrated, and, though on
going into a large party one may not see more than two or three who are
strikingly or regularly beautiful, the _tout ensemble_ is most attractive;
the eyes are invariably large and lustrous, dark and pensive, or blue and
sparkling with vivacity. Their manners and movements are unaffected and
elegant; they dress in exquisite taste; and with a grace peculiarly their
own, their manners have a fascination and witchery which is perfectly
irresistible. They generally receive their education at the convents, and
go into society at a very early age, very frequently before they have seen
sixteen summers, and after this time the whirl of amusement precludes them
from giving much time to literary employments. They are by no means deeply
read, and few of them play anything more than modern dance music. They
dance beautifully, and so great is their passion for this amusement,
probably derived from their French ancestors, that married ladies
frequently attend the same dancing classes with their children, in order
to keep themselves in constant practice.

At the time of my visit to Quebec there were large parties every night,
most of which were honoured with the presence of Lord Elgin and his suite.
One of his _aides-de-camp_ was Lord Bury, Lord Albemarle's son, who, on a
tour through North America, became enamoured of Quebec. Lord Elgin's
secretary was Mr. Oliphant, the talented author of the 'Russian Shores of
the Black Sea,' who had also yielded to the fascinations of this northern
capital. And no wonder! for there is not a friendlier place in the whole
world. I went armed with but two letters of introduction, and received
hospitality and kindness for which I can never be sufficiently grateful.

The cholera, which in America assumes nearly the fatality and rapidity of
the plague, had during the summer ravaged Quebec. It had entered and
desolated happy homes, and, not confining itself to the abodes of the poor
and miserable, had attacked the rich, the gifted, and the beautiful. For
long the Destroying Angel hovered over the devoted city--neither age nor
infancy was spared, and numbers were daily hurried from the vigour of
living manhood into the silence and oblivion of the grave. Vigorous
people, walking along the streets, were suddenly seized with shiverings
and cramp, and sank down on the pavement to rise no more, sometimes
actually expiring on the cold, hard stones. Pleasure was forgotten,
business was partially suspended; all who could, fled; the gloom upon the
souls of the inhabitants was heavier than the brown cloud which was
supposed to brood over the city; and the steamers which conveyed those who
fled from the terrible pestilence arrived at Toronto freighted with the
living and the _dead_. Among the terror-stricken, the dying, and the dead,
the ministers of religion pursued their holy calling, undaunted by the
terrible sights which met them everywhere--the clergy of the different
denominations vied with each other in their kindness and devotedness. The
priests of Rome then gained a double influence. Armed with what appeared
in the eyes of the people supernatural powers, they knew no rest either by
night or day; they held the cross before many a darkening eye, and spoke
to the bereaved, in the plenitude of their anguish, of a world where
sorrow and separation are alike unknown. The heavy clang of tolling bells
was hourly heard, as the pestilence-stricken were carried to their last
homes. Medical skill availed nothing; the "pestilence which walketh in
darkness" was only removed by Him in whose hand are the issues of life and
death.

Quebec had been free from disease for about six weeks before I visited it;
the victims of the pestilence were cold in their untimely graves; the sun
of prosperity smiled upon the fortress-city, and its light-hearted
inhabitants had just begun their nightly round of pleasure and gaiety. The
viceroyalty of Lord Elgin was drawing rapidly to a close, and two parties,
given every week at Government House, afforded an example which the good
people of Quebec were not slow to follow. There were musical parties,
_conversaziones_, and picnics to the Chaudiere and Lorette; and people who
were dancing till four or five o'clock in the morning were vigorous enough
after ten for a gallop to Montmorenci.

The absolute restlessness of the city astonished me very much. The morning
seemed to begin, with fashionable people, with a desultory breakfast at
nine o'clock, after which some received callers, others paid visits, or
walked into the town to make trifling purchases at the stores; while not a
few of the young ladies promenaded St. Louis Street or the ramparts, where
they were generally joined by the officers. Several officers said to me
that no quarters in the world were so delightful as those at Quebec. A
scarlet coat finds great favour with the fair sex at Quebec--civilians,
however great their mental qualifications, are decidedly in the
background; and I was amused to see young ensigns, with budding
moustaches, who had just joined their regiments, preferred before men of
high literary attainments. With balls, and moose-hunting, and sleigh-
driving, and "tarboggining," and, last but not least, "muffins," the time
passes rapidly by to them. A gentleman, who had just arrived from England,
declared that "Quebec was a horrid place, not fit to live in." A few days
after he met the same individual to whom he had made this uncomplimentary
observation, and confided to him that he thought Quebec "the most
delightful place in the whole world; for, do you know," he said, "I have
got a muffin."

With the afternoon numerous riding parties are formed, for you cannot go
three miles out of Quebec without coming to something beautiful; and calls
of a more formal nature are paid; a military band performs on Durham
Terrace or the Garden, which then assume the appearance of most
fashionable promenades. The evening is spent in the ball-room, or at small
social dancing parties, or during the winter, before ten at night, in the
galleries of the House of Assembly; and the morning is well advanced
before the world of Quebec is hushed in sleep.

Society is contained in very small limits at Quebec. Its _elite_ are
grouped round the ramparts and in the suburb of St. Louis. The city until
recently has occupied a very isolated position, and has depended upon
itself for society. It is therefore sociable, friendly, and hospitable;
and though there is gossip--for where is it not to be found?--I never knew
any in which there was so little of ill-nature. The little world in the
upper part of the city is probably the most brilliant to be found anywhere
in so small a compass. But there is a world below, another nation, seldom
mentioned in the aristocratic quarter of St. Louis, where vice, crime,
poverty, and misery jostle each other, as pleasure and politics do in the
upper town. This is the suburb of St. Roch, in whose tall dark houses and
fetid alleys those are to be found whose birthright is toil, who spend
life in supplying the necessities of to-day, while indulging in gloomy
apprehensions for to-morrow--who have not one comfort in the past to cling
to, or one hope for the future to cheer.

St. Roch is as crowded as the upper town, but with a very different
population--the poor, the degraded, and the vicious. Here fever destroys
its tens, and cholera its hundreds. Here people stab each other, and think
little of it. Here are narrow alleys, with high, black-looking, stone
houses, with broken windows pasted over with paper in the lower stories,
and stuffed with rags in the upper--gradations of wretchedness which I
have observed in the Cowgate and West Port at Edinburgh. Here are shoeless
women, who quiet their children with ardent spirits, and brutal men, who
would kill both wives and children if they dared. Here are dust-heaps in
which pigs with long snouts are ever routing--here are lean curs,
wrangling with each other for leaner bones--here are ditches and puddles,
and heaps of oyster-shells, and broken crockery, and cabbage-stalks, and
fragments of hats and shoes. Here are torn notices on the walls offering
rewards for the apprehension of thieves and murderers, painfully
suggestive of dark deeds. A little further are lumber-yards and wharfs,
and mud and sawdust, and dealers in old nails and rags and bones, and
rotten posts and rails, and attempts at grass. Here are old barrel-hoops,
and patches of old sails, and dead bushes and dead dogs, and old
saucepans, and little plots of ground where cabbages and pumpkins drag on
a pining existence. And then there is the river Charles, no longer clear
and bright, as when trees and hills and flowers were mirrored on its
surface, but foul, turbid, and polluted, with ship-yards and steam-engines
and cranes and windlasses on its margin; and here Quebec ends.

From the rich, the fashionable, and the pleasure-seeking suburb of St.
Louis few venture down into the quarter of St. Roch, save those who, at
the risk of drawing in pestilence with every breath, mindful of their duty
to God and man, enter those hideous dwellings, ministering to minds and
bodies alike diseased. My first visit to St. Roch was on a Sunday
afternoon. I had attended our own simple and beautiful service in the
morning, and had seen the celebration of vespers in the Romish cathedral
in the afternoon. Each church was thronged with well-dressed persons. It
was a glorious day. The fashionable promenades were all crowded; gay
uniforms and brilliant parasols thronged the ramparts; horsemen were
cantering along St. Louis Street; priestly processions passed to and from
the different churches; numbers of calashes containing pleasure-parties
were dashing about; picnic parties were returning from Montmorenci and
Lake Charles; groups of vivacious talkers, speaking in the language of
France, were at every street-corner; Quebec had all the appearance, so
painful to an English or Scottish eye, of a Continental sabbath.

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