THE VILLAGE HOTEL
Well, stranger, here you are all safe and sound;
You're now on shore. Methinks you look aghast,--
As if you'd made some slight mistake, and found
A land you liked not. Think not of the past;
Your leading-strings are cut; the mystic chain
That bound you to your fair and smiling shore
Is sever'd now, indeed. 'Tis now in vain
To sigh for joys that can return no more.
Emigration, however necessary as the obvious means of providing
for the increasing population of early-settled and over-peopled
countries, is indeed a very serious matter to the individual
emigrant and his family. He is thrown adrift, as it were, on a
troubled ocean, the winds and currents of which are unknown to him.
His past experience, and his judgment founded on experience, will
be useless to him in this new sphere of action. In an old country,
where generation after generation inhabits the same spot, the mental
dispositions and prejudices of our ancestors become in a manner
hereditary, and descend to their children with their possessions.
In a new colony, on the contrary, the habits and associations of
the emigrant having been broken up for ever, he is suddenly thrown
on his own internal resources, and compelled to act and decide at
once; not unfrequently under pain of misery or starvation. He is
surrounded with dangers, often without the ordinary means which
common-sense and prudence suggest of avoiding them,--because the
_experience_ on which these common qualities are founded is wanting.
Separated for ever from those warm-hearted friends, who in his
native country would advise or assist him in his first efforts, and
surrounded by people who have an interest in misleading and imposing
upon him, every-day experience shows that no amount of natural
sagacity or prudence, founded on experience in other countries,
will be an effectual safeguard against deception and erroneous
conclusions.
It is a fact worthy of observation, that among emigrants possessing
the qualities of industry and perseverance so essential to success
in all countries, those who possess the smallest share of original
talent and imagination, and the least of a speculative turn of mind,
are usually the most successful. They follow the beaten track and
prosper. However humbling this reflection may be to human vanity,
it should operate as a salutary check on presumption and hasty
conclusions. After a residence of sixteen years in Canada, during
which my young and helpless family have been exposed to many
privations, while we toiled incessantly and continued to hope even
against hope, these reflections naturally occur to our minds, not
only as the common-sense view of the subject, but as the fruit of
long and daily-bought experience.
After all this long probation in the backwoods of Canada, I find
myself brought back in circumstances nearly to the point from
whence I started, and am compelled to admit that had I only
followed my own unassisted judgment, when I arrived with my wife
and child in Canada, and quietly settled down on the cleared farm
I had purchased, in a well-settled neighbourhood, and with the
aid of the means I then possessed, I should now in all probability
have been in easy if not in affluent circumstances.
Native Canadians, like Yankees, will make money where people from
the old country would almost starve. Their intimate knowledge of
the country, and of the circumstances of the inhabitants, enables
them to turn their money to great advantage; and I must add, that
few people from the old country, however avaricious, can bring
themselves to stoop to the unscrupulous means of acquiring property
which are too commonly resorted to in this country. These
reflections are a rather serious commencement of a sketch which was
intended to be of a more lively description; one of my chief objects
in writing this chapter being to afford a connecting link between
my wife's sketches, and to account for some circumstances connected
with our situation, which otherwise would be unintelligible to
the reader. Before emigrating to Canada, I had been settled as a
bachelor in South Africa for about twelve years. I use the word
settled, for want of a better term--for a bachelor can never,
properly, be said to be settled. He has no object in life--no aim.
He is like a knife without a blade, or a gun without a barrel. He
is always in the way, and nobody cares for him. If he work on a
farm, as I did, for I never could look on while others were
working without lending a hand, he works merely for the sake of
work. He benefits nobody by his exertions, not even himself; for
he is restless and anxious, has a hundred indescribable ailments,
which no one but himself can understand; and for want of the
legitimate cares and anxieties connected with a family, he is full
of cares and anxieties of his own creating. In short, he is in a
false position, as every man must be who presumes to live alone
when he can do better.
This was my case in South Africa. I had plenty of land, and of
all the common necessaries of life; but I lived for years without
companionship, for my nearest English neighbour was twenty-five
miles off. I hunted the wild animals of the country, and had plenty
of books to read; but, from talking broken Dutch for months
together, I almost forgot how to speak my own language correctly.
My very ideas (for I had not entirely lost the reflecting faculty)
became confused and limited, for want of intellectual companions to
strike out new lights, and form new combinations in the regions of
thought; clearly showing that man was not intended to live alone.
Getting, at length, tired of this solitary and unproductive life,
I started for England, with the resolution of placing my domestic
matters on a more comfortable footing. By a happy accident, at the
house of a literary friend in London, I became acquainted with one
to whose cultivated mind, devoted affections, and untiring energy of
character, I have been chiefly indebted for many happy hours, under
the most adverse circumstances, as well as for much of that hope
and firm reliance upon Providence which have enabled me to bear up
against overwhelming misfortunes. I need not here repeat what has
been already stated respecting the motives which induced us to
emigrate to Canada. I shall merely observe that when I left South
Africa it was with the intention of returning to that colony, where
I had a fine property, to which I was attached in no ordinary
degree, on account of the beauty of the scenery and delightful
climate. However, Mrs. Moodie, somehow or other, had imbibed an
invincible dislike to that colony, for some of the very reasons that
I liked it myself. The wild animals were her terror, and she fancied
that every wood and thicket was peopled with elephants, lions, and
tigers, and that it would be utterly impossible to take a walk
without treading on dangerous snakes in the grass. Unfortunately,
she had my own book on South Africa to quote triumphantly in
confirmation of her vague notions of danger; and, in my anxiety to
remove these exaggerated impressions, I would fain have retracted my
own statements of the hair-breadth escapes I had made, in conflicts
with wild animals, respecting which the slightest insinuation of
doubt from another party would have excited my utmost indignation.
In truth, before I became familiarised with such danger, I had
myself entertained similar notions, and my only wonder, in reading
such narratives before leaving my own country, was how the
inhabitants of the country managed to attend to their ordinary
business in the midst of such accumulated dangers and annoyances.
Fortunately, these hair-breadth escapes are of rare occurrence;
but travellers and book-makers, like cooks, have to collect
high-flavoured dishes, from far and near, the better to please
the palates of their patrons. So it was with my South African
adventures; I threw myself in the way of danger from the love of
strong excitement, and I collected all my adventures together, and
related them in pure simplicity, without very particularly informing
the reader over what space of time or place my narrative extended,
or telling him that I could easily have kept out of harm's way had I
felt so inclined. All these arguments, however, had little influence
on my good wife, for I could not deny that I had seen such animals
in abundance in South Africa; and she thought she should never be
safe among such neighbours. At last, between my wife's fear of the
wild animals of Africa, and a certain love of novelty, which formed
a part of my own character, I made up my mind, as they write on
stray letters in the post-office, to “try Canada.” So here we are,
just arrived in the village of C----, situated on the northern shore
of Lake Ontario.
Mrs. Moodie has already stated that we procured lodgings at a
certain hotel in the village of C---- kept by S----, a truly excellent
and obliging American. The British traveller is not a little struck,
and in many instances disgusted, with a certain air of indifference
in the manners of such persons in Canada, which is accompanied with
a tone of equality and familiarity exceedingly unlike the limber and
oily obsequiousness of tavern-keepers in England. I confess I felt
at the time not a little annoyed with Mr. S----'s free-and-easy
manner, and apparent coolness and indifference when he told us he
had no spare room in his house to accommodate our party. We
endeavoured to procure lodgings at another tavern, on the opposite
side of the street; but soon learned that, in consequence of the
arrival of an unusual number of immigrants, all the taverns in the
village were already filled to overflowing. We returned to Mr. S----,
and after some further conversation, he seemed to have taken a kind
of liking to us, and became more complaisant in his manner, until
our arrangement with Tom Wilson, as already related, relieved us
from further difficulty.
I _now_ perfectly understand the cause of this apparent indifference
on the part of our host. Of all people, Englishmen, when abroad, are
the most addicted to the practice of giving themselves arrogant airs
towards those persons whom they look upon in the light of dependents
on their bounty; and they forget that an American tavern-keeper
holds a very different position in society from one of the same
calling in England. The manners and circumstances of new countries
are utterly opposed to anything like pretension in any class of
society; and our worthy host, and his excellent wife--who had both
held a respectable position in the society of the United States--had
often been deeply wounded in their feelings by the disgusting and
vulgar arrogance of English _gentleman_ and _ladies_, as they are
called. Knowing from experience the truth of the saying that “what
cannot be cured must be endured,” we were particularly civil to Mr.
S----; and it was astonishing how quickly his manners thawed. We had
not been long in the house before we were witnesses of so many
examples of the purest benevolence, exhibited by Mr. S---- and his
amiable family, that it was impossible to regard them with any
feeling but that of warm regard and esteem. S---- was, in truth, a
noble-hearted fellow. Whatever he did seemed so much a matter of
habit, that the idea of selfish design or ostentation was utterly
excluded from the mind. I could relate several instances of the
disinterested benevolence of this kind-hearted tavern-keeper. I
shall just mention one, which came under my own observation while
I lived near C----.
I had frequently met a young Englishman, of the name of M----, at Mr.
S----'s tavern. His easy and elegant manners, and whole deportment,
showed that he had habitually lived in what is called the best
society. He had emigrated to Canada with 3,000 or 4,000 pounds, had
bought horses, run races, entertained many of the wealthy people of
Toronto, or York, as it was then called, and had done a number of
other exceedingly foolish things. Of course his money was soon
absorbed by the thirsty Canadians, and he became deeply involved in
debt. M---- had spent a great deal of money at S----'s tavern, and
owed him 70 or 80 pounds. At length he was arrested for debt by some
other party, was sent to the district gaol, which was nearly two
miles from C----, and was compelled at first to subsist on the gaol
allowance. What greatly aggravated the misfortunes of poor M----,
a man without suspicion or guile, was a bitter disappointment in
another quarter. He had an uncle in England, who was very rich, and
who intended to leave him all his property. Some kind friend, to
whom M---- had confided his expectations, wrote to England, informing
the old man of his nephew's extravagance and hopes. The uncle
there-upon cast him off, and left his property, when he died, to
another relative.
As soon as the kind-hearted tavern-keeper heard of the poor fellow's
imprisonment, he immediately went to see him, and, though he had not
the slightest hope of ever being paid one farthing of his claim, Mr.
S----, for many months that poor M---- lay in gaol, continued to send
him an excellent dinner every day from his tavern, to which he
always added a bottle of wine; for as Mr. S---- remarked, “Poor M----,
I guess, is accustomed to live well.”
As soon as Mr. S---- found that we did not belong to that class of
people who fancy they exalt themselves by insulting others, there
were no bounds to the obligingness of his disposition. As I had
informed him that I wished to buy a cleared farm near Lake Ontario,
he drove me out every day in all directions, and wherever he thought
farms were to be had cheap.
Before proceeding further in my account of the inhabitants, I shall
endeavour to give the reader some idea of the appearance of the
village and the surrounding country. Of course, from the existence
of a boundless forest, only partially cleared, there is a great
sameness and uniformity in Canadian scenery.
We had a stormy passage from Kingston to C----, and the wind being
directly ahead, the plunging of the steam-boat between the sharp
seas of Lake Ontario produced a “motion” which was decidedly
“unconstitutional;” and, for the first time since we left England,
we experienced a sensation which strongly reminded us of
sea-sickness. The general appearance of the coast from the lake was
somewhat uninviting. The land appeared to be covered everywhere with
the dense unbroken forest, and though there were some gently sloping
hills and slight elevations, showing the margin of extensive
clearings, there was a general want of a background of high hills or
mountains, which imparts so much interest to the scenery of every
country. On reaching C----, however, we found that we had been much
deceived as to the features of the country, when viewed at a less
distance.
Immediately on the shores of the great lake, the land is generally
flat for two or three miles inland; and as the farms are there
measured out in long, narrow strips, a mile and a quarter long, and
a quarter of a mile wide, the back parts of the lots, which are
reserved for firewood, are only visible at a distance. This narrow
belt of the primeval forest, which runs along the rear of all the
lots in the first line of settlements, or concession as it is here
called, necessarily conceals the houses and clearings of the next
concession, unless the land beyond rises into hills. This
arrangement, however convenient, tends greatly to mar the beauty
of Canadian scenery.
The unvarying monotony of rail-fences and quadrangular enclosures,
occasions a tiresome uniformity in the appearance of the country,
which is increased by the almost total absence of those little
graceful ornaments in detail, in the immediate neighbourhood of
the homesteads, which give such a charm to English rural scenery.
The day after our arrival, we had an opportunity to examine the
town, or rather village, of C----. It then consisted chiefly of one
long street, parallel with the shore of the lake, and the houses,
with very few exceptions, were built of wood; but they were all
finished, and painted with such a degree of neatness, that their
appearance was showy, and in some instances elegant, from the
symmetry of their proportions. Immediately beyond the bounds of the
village, we, for the first time, witnessed the operation of clearing
up a thick cedar-swamp. The soil looked black and rich, but the
water stood in pools, and the trunks and branches of the cedars were
leaning in all directions, and at all angles, with their thick
foliage and branches intermingled in wild confusion. The roots
spread along the uneven surface of the ground so thickly that they
seemed to form a vast net-work, and apparently covered the greater
part of the surface of the ground. The task of clearing such a
labyrinth seemed utterly hopeless. My heart almost sickened at the
prospect of clearing such land, and I was greatly confirmed in my
resolution of buying a farm cleared to my hand.
The clearing process, however, in this unpromising spot, was going
on vigorously. Several acres had been chopped down, and the fire had
run through the prostrate trees, consuming all the smaller branches
and foliage, and leaving the trunks and ground as black as charcoal
could make them. Among this vast mass of ruins, four or five men
were toiling with yoke of oxen. The trees were cut into manageable
lengths, and were then dragged by the oxen together, so that they
could be thrown up into large log-heaps to burn. The men looked,
with their bare arms, hands, and faces begrimed with charcoal, more
like negroes than white men; and were we, like some shallow people,
to compare their apparent condition with that of the negro slaves in
more favoured regions, we should be disposed to consider the latter
the happier race. But this disgusting work was the work of freemen,
high-spirited and energetic fellows, who feared neither man nor wild
beast, and trusted to their own strong arms to conquer all
difficulties, while they could discern the light of freedom and
independence glimmering through the dark woods before them.
A few years afterwards, I visited C----, and looked about for the
dreadful cedar-swamp which struck such a chill into my heart, and
destroyed the illusion which had possessed my mind of the beauty of
the Canadian woods. The trees were gone, the tangled roots were
gone, and the cedar-swamp was converted into a fair grassy meadow,
as smooth as a bowling-green. About sixteen years after my first
visit to this spot, I saw it again, and it was covered with stone
and brick houses; and one portion of it was occupied by a large
manufactory, five or six stories high, with steam-engines,
spinning-jennies, and all the machinery for working up the wool
of the country into every description of clothing. This is
civilisation! This is freedom!
The sites of towns and villages in Canada are never selected at
random. In England, a concurrence of circumstances has generally led
to the gradual formation of hamlets, villages, and towns. In many
instances, towns have grown up in barbarous ages around a place of
refuge during war; around a fortalice or castle, and more frequently
around the ford over a river, where the detention of travellers has
led to the establishment of a place of entertainment, a blacksmith's
or carpenter's shop. A village or town never grows to any size in
Canada without a saw or a grist mill, both which require a certain
amount of water-power to work the machinery. Whenever there is a
river or stream available for such purposes, and the surrounding
country is fertile, the village rapidly rises to be a considerable
town. Frame-houses are so quickly erected, and the materials are so
easily procured near a saw-mill, that, in the first instance, no
other description of houses is to be found in our incipient towns.
But as the town increases, brick and stone houses rapidly supplant
these less substantial edifices, which seldom remain good for more
than thirty or forty years.
Mr. S----'s tavern, or hotel, was an extensive frame-building of the
kind common in the country. All the lodgers frequent the same long
table at all their meals, at one end of which the landlord generally
presides. Mr. S----, however, usually preferred the company of his
family in another part of the house; and some one of the gentlemen
who boarded at the tavern, and who possessed a sufficiently large
organ of self-esteem, voted himself into the post of honour, without
waiting for an invitation from the rest of the company. This happy
individual is generally some little fellow, with a long, protruding
nose; some gentleman who can stretch his neck and backbone almost
to dislocation, and who has a prodigious deal of talk, all about
nothing.
The taverns in this country are frequented by all single men, and
by many married men without children, who wish to avoid the trouble
and greater expense of keeping house. Thus a large portion of the
population of the towns take all their meals at the hotels or
taverns, in order to save both expense and time. The extraordinary
despatch used at meals in the United States has often been mentioned
by travellers. The same observation equally applies to Canada, and
for the same reason. Wages are high, and time is, therefore,
valuable in both countries, and as one clerk is waiting in the shop
while another is bolting his dinner, it would of course be
exceedingly unkind to protract unnecessarily the sufferings of the
hungry expectant; no one possessing any bowels of compassion could
act so cruelly. For the same reason, every one is expected to take
care of himself, without minding his neighbours. At times a degree
of compassion is extended by some naturalised old countryman towards
some diffident, over-scrupulous new comer, by offering to help him
first; but such marks of consideration, except to ladies, to whom
all classes in Canada are attentive, are never continued a bit
longer than is thought sufficient for becoming acquainted with the
ways of the country.
Soon after our arrival at C----, I remember asking a person, who
was what the Canadians call “a hickory Quaker,” from the north of
Ireland, to help me to a bit of very nice salmon-trout, which was
vanishing alarmingly fast from the breakfast-table.
Obadiah very considerately lent a deaf ear to my repeated
entreaties, pretending to be intently occupied with his own plate of
fish; then, transferring the remains of the salmon-trout to his own
place, he turned round to me with the most innocent face imaginable,
saying very coolly, “I beg your pardon, friend, did you speak to me?
There is such a noise at the table, I cannot hear very well.”
Between meals there is “considerable of drinking,” among the idlers
about the tavern, of the various ingenious Yankee inventions
resorted to in this country to disturb the brain. In the evening the
plot thickens, and a number of young and middle-aged men drop in,
and are found in little knots in the different public rooms.
The practice of “treating” is almost universal in this country, and,
though friendly and sociable in its way, is the fruitful source of
much dissipation. It is almost impossible, in travelling, to steer
clear of this evil habit. Strangers are almost invariably drawn into
it in the course of business.
The town of C---- being the point where a large number of emigrants
landed on their way to the backwoods of this part of the colony,
it became for a time a place of great resort, and here a number of
land-jobbers were established, who made a profitable trade of buying
lands from private individuals, or at the government sales of wild
land, and selling them again to the settlers from the old country.
Though my wife had some near relatives settled in the backwoods,
about forty miles inland, to the north of C----, I had made up my
mind to buy a cleared farm near Lake Ontario, if I could get one to
my mind, and the price of which would come within my limited means.
A number of the recent settlers in the backwoods, among whom were
several speculators, resorted frequently to C----; and as soon as a
new batch of settlers arrived on the lake shore, there was a keen
contest between the land-jobbers of C---- and those of the backwoods
to draw the new comer into their nets. The demand created by the
continual influx of immigrants had caused a rapid increase in the
price of lands, particularly of wild lands, and the grossest
imposition was often practiced by these people, who made enormous
profits by taking advantage of the ignorance of the new settlers
and of their anxiety to settle themselves at once.
I was continually cautioned by these people against buying a farm
in any other locality than the particular one they themselves
represented as most eligible, and their rivals were always
represented as unprincipled land-jobbers. Finding these accusations
to be mutual, I naturally felt myself constrained to believe both
parties to be alike.
Sometimes I got hold of a quiet farmer, hoping to obtain something
like disinterested advice; but in nine cases out of ten, I am sorry
to say, I found that the rage for speculation and trading in land,
which was so prevalent in all the great thoroughfares, had already
poisoned their minds also, and I could rarely obtain an opinion or
advice which was utterly free from self-interest. They generally had
some lot of land to sell--or, probably, they would like to have a
new comer for a neighbour, in the hope of selling him a span of
horses or some cows at a higher price than they could obtain from
the older settlers. In mentioning this unamiable trait in the
character of the farmers near C----, I by no means intend to give
it as characteristic of the farmers in general. It is, properly
speaking, a _local_ vice, produced by the constant influx of strangers
unacquainted with the ways of the country, which tempts the farmers
to take advantage of their ignorance.
STANZAS
Where is religion found? In what bright sphere
Dwells holy love, in majesty serene
Shedding its beams, like planet o'er the scene;
The steady lustre through the varying year
Still glowing with the heavenly rays that flow
In copious streams to soften human woe?
It is not 'mid the busy scenes of life,
Where careworn mortals crowd along the way
That leads to gain--shunning the light of day;
In endless eddies whirl'd, where pain and strife
Distract the soul, and spread the shades of night,
Where love divine should dwell in purest light.
Short-sighted man!--go seek the mountain's brow,
And cast thy raptured eye o'er hill and dale;
The waving woods, the ever-blooming vale,
Shall spread a feast before thee, which till now
Ne'er met thy gaze--obscured by passion's sway;
And Nature's works shall teach thee how to pray.
Or wend thy course along the sounding shore,
Where giant waves resistless onward sweep
To join the awful chorus of the deep--
Curling their snowy manes with deaf'ning roar,
Flinging their foam high o'er the trembling sod,
And thunder forth their mighty song to God!
J.W.D.M.