The Englishwoman in America

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

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30

At dusk, after steaming during the whole day along the low green coast of
Nova Scotia, we were just outside the heads of Halifax harbour, and the
setting sun was bathing the low, pine-clad hills of America in floods of
purple light. A pilot came off to offer his services, but was rejected,
and to my delight he hailed in a pure English accent, which sounded like a
friendly welcome. The captain took his place on the paddle-box, and our
speed was slackened. Two guns were fired, and their echoes rolled for many
a mile among the low, purple hills, from which a soft, fragrant scent of
pines was borne to us on the evening breeze, reminding me of the far-
distant mountains of Scotland. The tiny waves rippled towards us like
diamonds, the moon and stars shone brilliantly from a summer sky, and the
white smoke from our guns floated away in silver clouds.

People were tumbling over each other in their haste, and making impossible
demands, each one being anxious to have his luggage produced first, though
the said luggage might be at the bottom of the hold; babies, as babies
always do, persisted in crying just at the wrong time; articles essential
to the toilet were missing, and sixpences or half-sovereigns had found
their way into impossible crevices. Invitations were given, cards
exchanged, elderly ladies unthinkingly promised to make errant expeditions
to visit agreeable acquaintances in California, and by the time the last
words had been spoken we were safely moored at Cunard's wharf.

The evening gun boomed from the citadel. I heard the well-known British
bugle; I saw the familiar scarlet of our troops; the voices which
vociferated were English; the physiognomies had the Anglo-Saxon cast and
complexion; and on the shores of the western hemisphere I felt myself at
home. Yet, as I sprang from the boat, and set my foot for the first time
on American soil, I was vexed that these familiar sights and sounds should
deprive me of the pleasurable feeling of excitement which I had expected
to experience under such novel circumstances.

CHAPTER II

An inhospitable reception--Halifax and the Blue Noses--The heat--
Disappointed expectations--The great departed--What the Blue Noses might
be--What the coach was not--Nova Scotia and its capabilities--The roads
and their annoyances--A tea dinner--A night journey and a Highland cabin--
A nautical catastrophe--A joyful reunion.

The Cunard steamers are powerful, punctual, and safe, their _cuisine_
excellent, their arrangements admirable, till they reach Halifax, which is
usually the destination of many of the passengers. I will suppose that the
voyage has been propitious, and our guns have thundered forth the
announcement that the news of the Old World has reached the New; that the
stewards have been _fee'd_ and the captain complimented; and that we have
parted on the best possible terms with the Company, the ship, and our
fellow-passengers. The steamer generally remains for two or three hours at
Halifax to coal, and unship a portion of her cargo, and there is a very
natural desire on the part of the passengers to leave what to many is at
best a floating prison, and set foot on firm ground, even for an hour.
Those who, like ourselves, land at Halifax for the interior, are anxious
to obtain rooms at the hotel, and all who have nothing else to do hurry to
the ice-shop, where the luxury of a tumbler of raspberry-cream ice can be
obtained for threepence. Besides the hurried rush of those who with these
varied objects in view leave the steamer, there are crowds of incomers in
the shape of porters, visitors, and coalheavers, and passengers for the
States, who prefer the comfort and known punctuality of the Royal Mail
steamers to the delay, danger, and uncertainty of the intercolonial route,
though the expense of the former is nearly double. There are the friends
of the passengers, and numbers of persons who seem particularly well
acquainted with the purser, who bring fruits, vegetables, meat, poultry,
and lobsters.

From this description it may be imagined that there is a motley and
considerable crowd; but it will scarcely be imagined that there is only
one regulation, which is, that no persons may enter or depart till the
mail-bags have been landed. The wharf is small and at night unlighted, and
the scene which ensued on our landing about eight o'clock in the evening
reminded me, not by contrast, but resemblance, of descriptions which
travellers give of the disembarkation at Alexandria. Directly that the
board was laid from the _Canada_ to the wharf a rush both in and out took
place, in which I was separated from my relations, and should have fallen
had not a friend, used to the scene of disorder, come to my assistance.

The wharf was dirty, unlighted, and under repair, covered with heaps and
full of holes. My friend was carrying three parcels, when three or four
men made a rush at us, seized them from him, and were only compelled to
relinquish them by some sharp physical arguments. A large gateway, lighted
by one feeble oil-lamp at the head of the wharf, was then opened, and the
crowd pent up behind it came pouring down the sloping road. There was a
simultaneous rush of trucks, hand-carts, waggons, and cars, their horses
at full trot or canter, two of them rushing against the gravel-heap on
which I was standing, where they were upset. Struggling, shouting,
beating, and scuffling, the drivers all forced their way upon the wharf,
regardless of cries from the ladies and threats from the gentlemen, for
all the passengers had landed and were fighting their way to an ice-shop.
Porters were scuffling with each other for the possession of portmanteaus,
wheels were locked, and drivers were vehemently expostulating in the rich
brogue of Erin; people were jostling each other in their haste, or diving
into the dimly-lighted custom-house, and it must have been fully half an
hour before we had extricated ourselves from this chaos of mismanagement
and disorder, by scrambling over gravel-heaps and piles of timber, into
the dirty, unlighted streets of Halifax.

Dirty they were then, though the weather was very dry, for oyster-shells,
fish heads and bones, potato-skins, and cabbage-stalks littered the roads;
but dirty was a word which does not give the faintest description of the
almost impassable state in which I found them, when I waded through them
ankle-deep in mud some months afterwards.

We took apartments for two days at the Waverley House, a most comfortless
place, yet the best inn at Halifax. Three hours after we landed, the
_Canada_ fired her guns, and steamed off to Boston; and as I saw her
coloured lights disappear round the heads of the harbour, I did not feel
the slightest regret at having taken leave of her for ever. We remained
for two days at Halifax, and saw the little which was worth seeing in the
Nova-Scotian capital. I was disappointed to find the description of the
lassitude and want of enterprise of the Nova-Scotians, given by Judge
Halliburton, so painfully correct. Halifax possesses one of the deepest
and most commodious harbours in the world, and is so safe that ships need
no other guide into it than their charts. There are several small
fortified islands at its mouth, which assist in its defence without
impeding the navigation. These formidable forts protect the entrance, and
defend the largest naval depot which we possess in North America. The town
itself, which contains about 25,000 people, is on a small peninsula, and
stands on a slope rising from the water's edge to the citadel, which is
heavily armed, and amply sufficient for every purpose of defence. There
are very great natural advantages in the neighbourhood, lime, coal, slate,
and minerals being abundant, added to which Halifax is the nearest port to
Europe.

Yet it must be confessed that the Nova-Scotians are far behind, not only
their neighbours in the States, but their fellow-subjects in Canada and
New Brunswick. There are capacious wharfs and roomy warehouses, yet one
laments over the absence of everything like trade and business. With the
finest harbour in North America, with a country abounding in minerals, and
coasts swarming with fish, the Nova-Scotians appear to have expunged the
word _progress_ from their dictionary--still live in shingle houses, in
streets without side walks, rear long-legged ponies, and talk largely
about railroads, which they seem as if they would never complete, because
they trust more to the House of Assembly than to their own energies.
Consequently their astute and enterprising neighbours the Yankees, the
acute speculators of Massachusetts and Connecticut, have seized upon the
traffic which they have allowed to escape them, and have diverted it to
the thriving town of Portland in Maine. The day after we landed was one of
intense heat, the thermometer stood at 93 in the shade. The rays of a
summer sun scorched the shingle roof of our hotel, and, penetrating the
thin plank walls, made the interior of the house perfectly unbearable.
There were neither sunshades nor Venetian blinds, and not a tree to shade
the square white wooden house from an almost tropical heat. When I came
into the parlour I found Colonel H---- stretched on the sofa, almost
expiring with heat, my cousin standing panting before the window in his
shirtsleeves, and his little boy lying moaning on the hearthrug, with his
shoes off, and his complexion like that of a Red Indian. One of our party
had been promenading the broiling streets of Halifax without his coat! A
gentleman from one of the Channel Islands, of unsophisticated manners and
excellent disposition, who had landed with us _en route_ to a town on the
Gulf of St. Lawrence, had fancied our North American colonies for ever
"locked in regions of thick-ribbed ice," and consequently was abundantly
provided with warm clothing of every description. With this he was
prepared to face a thermometer at twenty degrees below zero.

But when he found a torrid sun, and the thermometer at 93 in the shade,
his courage failed him, and, with all his preconceived ideas overthrown by
the burning experience of one day, despair seized on him, and his
expressions of horror and astonishment were coupled with lamentations over
the green fertility of Jersey. The colonel was obliged to report himself
at head-quarters in his full uniform, which was evidently tight and hot;
and after changing his apparel three times in the day, apparently without
being a gainer, he went out to make certain meteorological inquiries,
among others if 93 were a common temperature.

The conclusion he arrived at was, that the "climate alternates between the
heat of India and the cold of Lapland."

We braved the heat at noonday in a stroll through the town, for, from the
perfect dryness of the atmosphere, it is not of an oppressive nature. I
saw few whites in the streets at this hour. There were a great many
Indians lying by the door-steps, having disposed of their baskets, besoms,
and raspberries, by the sale of which they make a scanty livelihood. The
men, with their jet-black hair, rich complexions, and dark liquid brown
eyes, were almost invariably handsome; and the women, whose beauty departs
before they are twenty, were something in the "_Meg Merrilies_" style.

When the French first colonised this country, they called it "_Acadie_."
The tribes of the Mic-Mac Indians peopled its forests, and, among the dark
woods which then surrounded Halifax, they worshipped the Great Spirit, and
hunted the moose-deer. Their birch-bark wigwams peeped from among the
trees, their squaws urged their light canoes over the broad deep harbour,
and their wise men spoke to them of the "happy hunting grounds." The
French destroyed them not, and gave them a corrupted form of Christianity,
inciting their passions against the English by telling them that they were
the people who had crucified the Saviour. Better had it been for them if
battle or pestilence had swept them at once away.

The Mic-Macs were a fierce and warlike people, too proud to mingle with an
alien race--too restless and active to conform to the settled habits of
civilization. Too proud to avail themselves of its advantages, they
learned its vices, and, as the snow-wreaths in spring, they melted away
before the poisonous "fire-water," and the deadly curse of the white man's
wars. They had welcomed the "pale faces" to the "land of the setting sun,"
and withered up before them, smitten by their crimes.

Almost destitute of tradition, their history involved in obscurity, their
broad lands filled with their unknown and nameless graves, these mighty
races have passed away; they could not pass into slavery, therefore they
must die.

At some future day a mighty voice may ask of those who have thus wronged
the Indian, "Where is now thy brother?" It is true that frequently we
arrived too late to save them as a race from degradation and dispersion;
but as they heavily tottered along to their last home, under the burden of
the woes which contact with civilization ever entails upon the aborigines,
we might have spoken to them the tidings of "peace on earth and good will
to men"--of a Saviour "who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and
immortality to light through his gospel." Far away amid the thunders of
Niagara, surrounded by a perpetual rainbow, Iris Island contains almost
the only known burying-place of the race of red men. Probably the simple
Indians who buried their dead in a place of such difficult access, and
sacred to the Great Spirit, did so from a wish that none might ever
disturb their ashes. None can tell how long those interred there have
slept their last long sleep, but the ruthless hands of the white men have
profaned the last resting-place of the departed race.

There were also numerous blacks in the streets, and, if I might judge from
the brilliant colours and good quality of their clothing, they must gain a
pretty good living by their industry. A large number of these blacks and
their parents were carried away from the States by one of our admirals in
the war of 1812, and landed at Halifax.

The capital of Nova Scotia looks like a town of cards, nearly all the
buildings being of wood. There are wooden houses, wooden churches, wooden
wharfs, wooden slates, and, if there are side walks, they are of wood
also. I was pleased at a distance with the appearance of two churches, one
of them a Gothic edifice, but on nearer inspection I found them to be of
wood, and took refuge in the substantial masonry of the really handsome
Province Building and Government House. We went up to the citadel, which
crowns the hill, and is composed of an agglomeration of granite walls,
fosses, and casemates, mounds, ditches, barracks, and water-tanks.

If I was pleased with the familiar uniforms of the artillerymen who
lounged about the barracks, I was far more so with the view from the
citadel. It was a soft summer evening, and, seen through the transparent
atmosphere, everything looked unnaturally near. The large town of Halifax
sloped down to a lake-like harbour, about two miles wide, dotted with
islands; and ranges of picturesque country spangled with white cottages
lay on the other side. The lake or firth reminded me of the Gareloch, and
boats were sailing about in all directions before the evening breeze. From
tangled coppices of birch and fir proceeded the tinkle of the bells of
numerous cows, and, mingled with the hum of the city, the strains of a
military band rose from the streets to our ears.

With so many natural advantages, and such capabilities for improvement, I
cannot but regret the unhappy quarrels and maladministration which
threaten to leave the noble colony of Nova Scotia an incubus and
excrescence on her flourishing and progressive neighbours, Canada and New
Brunswick. From the _talk_ about railways, steamers, and the House of
Assembly, it is pleasant to turn to the one thing which has been really
done, namely, the establishment of an electric telegraph line to St. John,
and thence to the States. By means of this system of wires, which is rough
and inexpensive to a degree which in England we should scarcely believe,
the news brought by the English mail steamer is known at Boston, New York,
New Orleans, Cincinnati, and all the great American cities, before it has
had time to reach the environs of Halifax itself.

The telegraph costs about 20_l._ per mile, and the wires are generally
supported on the undressed stems of pines, but are often carried from tree
to tree along miserable roads, or through the deep recesses of the
forests.

The stores in Halifax are pretty good, all manufactured articles being
sold at an advance on English prices. Books alone are cheap and abundant,
being the American editions of pirated English works.

On the morning when we left Halifax I was awakened by the roll of the
British drum and the stirring strains of the Highland bagpipe. Ready
equipped for the tedious journey before us, from Halifax to Pictou in the
north of the colony, I was at the inn-door at six, watching the fruitless
attempts of the men to pile our mountain of luggage on the coach.

Do not let the word _coach_ conjure up a vision of "_the good old times_,"
a dashing mail with a well-groomed team of active bays, harness all "spick
and span," a gentlemanly-looking coachman, and a guard in military
scarlet, the whole affair rattling along the road at a pace of ten miles
an hour.

The vehicle in which we performed a journey of 120 miles in 20 hours
deserves a description. It consisted of a huge coach-body, slung upon two
thick leather straps; the sides were open, and the places where windows
ought to have been were screened by heavy curtains of tarnished moose-deer
hide. Inside were four cross-seats, intended to accommodate twelve
persons, who were very imperfectly sheltered from the weather. Behind was
a large rack for luggage, and at the back of the driving-seat was a bench
which held three persons. The stage was painted scarlet, but looked as if
it had not been washed for a year. The team of six strong white horses was
driven by a Yankee, remarkable only for his silence. About a ton of
luggage was packed on and behind the stage, and two open portmanteaus were
left behind without the slightest risk to their contents.

Twelve people and a baby were with some difficulty stowed in the stage,
and the few interstices were filled up with baskets, bundles, and
packages. The coachman whipped his horses, and we rattled down the uneven
streets of Halifax to a steam ferry-boat, which conveyed the stage across
to Dartmouth, and was so well arranged that the six horses had not to
alter their positions.

Our road lay for many miles over a barren, rocky, undulating country,
covered with var and spruce trees, with an undergrowth of raspberry, wild
rhododendron, and alder. We passed a chain of lakes extending for sixteen
miles, their length varying from one to three miles, and their shores
covered with forests of gloomy pine. People are very apt to say that Nova
Scotia is sterile and barren, because they have not penetrated into the
interior. It is certainly rather difficult of access, but I was by no
means sorry that my route lay through it. The coast of Nova Scotia is
barren, and bears a very distinct resemblance to the east of Scotland. The
climate, though severe in winter and very foggy, is favourable both to
health and vegetation. The peach and grape ripen in the open air, and the
cultivation of corn and potatoes amply repays the cultivator. A great part
of the country is still covered with wood, evidently a second growth, for,
wherever the trees of the fir tribe are cut down or destroyed by fire,
hard-wood trees spring up.

So among the maple, the American elm, and the purple-blossomed sumach, the
huge scorched and leafless stems of pines would throw up their giant arms
as if to tell of some former conflagration. In clearings among these
woods, slopes of ground are to be seen covered with crops of oats and
maize, varied with potatoes and pumpkins. Wherever the ground is unusually
poor on the surface, mineral treasures abound. There are beds of coal of
vast thickness; iron in various forms is in profusion, and the supply of
gypsum is inexhaustible. Many parts of the country are very suitable for
cattle-rearing, and there are "water privileges" without end in the shape
of numerous rivers. I have seldom seen finer country in the colonies than
the large tract of cleared undulating land about Truro, and I am told that
it is far exceeded by that in the neighbourhood of Windsor. Wherever
apple-trees were planted they seemed to flourish, and the size and flavour
of their fruit evidences a short, hot summer. While the interior of the
country is so fertile, and is susceptible of a high degree of improvement,
it is scarcely fair in the Nova-Scotians to account for their backwardness
by pointing strangers to their sterile and iron-bound coast. But they are
a moral, hardy, and loyal people; none of our colonial fellow-subjects are
more attached to the British crown, or more ready to take up arms in its
defence.

I was greatly pleased with much that I heard, and with the little I saw of
the Nova-Scotians. They seemed temperate, sturdy, and independent, and the
specimens we had of them in the stage were civil, agreeable, and
intelligent.

After passing the pretty little village of Dartmouth, we came upon some
wigwams of birch-bark among the trees. Some squaws, with papooses strapped
upon their backs, stared vacantly at us as we passed, and one little
barefooted Indian, with a lack of apparel which showed his finely moulded
form to the best advantage, ran by the side of the coach for two or three
miles, bribed by coppers which were occasionally thrown to him.

A dreary stage of eighteen miles brought us to Shultze's, a road-side inn
by a very pretty lake, where we were told the "_coach breakfasted_."
Whether Transatlantic coaches can perform this, to us, unknown feat, I
cannot pretend to say, but we breakfasted. A very coarse repast was
prepared for us, consisting of stewed salt veal, country cheese, rancid
salt butter, fried eggs, and barley bread; but we were too hungry to find
fault either with it, or with the charge made for it, which equalled that
at a London hotel. Our Yankee coachman, a man of monosyllables, sat next
to me, and I was pleased to see that he regaled himself on tea instead of
spirits.

We packed ourselves into the stage again with great difficulty, and how
the forty-eight limbs fared was shown by the painful sensations
experienced for several succeeding days. All the passengers, however, were
in perfectly good humour, and amused each other during the eleven hours
spent in this painful way. At an average speed of six miles an hour we
travelled over roads of various descriptions, plank, corduroy, and sand;
up long heavy hills, and through swamps swarming with mosquitoes.

Every one has heard of corduroy roads, but how few have experienced their
miseries! They are generally used for traversing swampy ground, and are
formed of small pine-trees deprived of their branches, which are laid
across the track alongside each other. The wear and tear of travelling
soon separates these, leaving gaps between; and when, added to this, one
trunk rots away, and another sinks down into the swamp, and another tilts
up, you may imagine such a jolting as only leather springs could bear. On
the very worst roads, filled with deep holes, or covered with small
granite boulders, the stage only swings on the straps. Ordinary springs,
besides dislocating the joints of the passengers, would be wrenched and
broken after a few miles travelling.

Even as we were, faces sometimes came into rather close proximity to each
other and to the side railings, and heads sustained very unpleasant
collisions. The amiable man who was so disappointed with the American
climate suffered very much from the journey. He said he had thought a
French diligence the climax of discomfort, but a "stage was misery, oh
torture!" Each time that we had rather a worse jolt than usual the poor
man groaned, which always drew forth a chorus of laughter, to which he
submitted most good-humouredly. Occasionally he would ask the time, when
some one would point maliciously to his watch, remarking, "Twelve hours
more," or "Fifteen hours more," when he would look up with an expression
of despair. The bridges wore a very un-English feature. Over the small
streams or brooks they consisted of three pines covered with planks,
without any parapet--with sometimes a plank out, and sometimes a hole in
the middle. Over large streams they were wooden erections of a most
peculiar kind, with high parapets; their insecurity being evidenced by the
notice, "Walk your horses, according to law,"--a notice generally
disregarded by our coachman, as he trotted his horses over the shaking and
rattling fabric.

We passed several small streams, and one of a large size, the
Shubenacadie, a wide, slow, muddy river, flowing through willows and
hedges, like the rivers in the fen districts of England. At the mouth of
the Shubenacadie the tides rise and fall forty feet.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30