January 23.
At half-past eight my escort was at the door in a very pretty commodious
sleigh, in form like a barouche with the head up. I was absolutely
buried in furs; a blanket netted for me by the kindest hands, of the
finest lamb's wool, rich in colour, and as light and elastic as it was
deliciously warm, was folded round my limbs; buffalo and bear skins were
heaped over all, and every breath of the external air excluded by every
possible device. Mr. C. drove his own grey horses; and thus fortified
and accoutred, off we flew, literally "urged by storms along the
slippery way," for the weather was terrific.
I think that but for this journey I never could have imagined the
sublime desolation of a northern winter; and it has impressed me
strongly. In the first place, the whole atmosphere appeared as if
converted into snow, which fell in thick, tiny, starry flakes, till the
buffalo robes and furs about us appeared like swansdown, and the harness
on the horses of the same delicate material. The whole earth was a white
waste. The road, on which the sleigh-track was only just perceptible,
ran for miles in a straight line; on each side rose the dark, melancholy
pine-forest, slumbering drearily in the hazy air. Between us and the
edge of the forest were frequent spaces of cleared or half-cleared land,
spotted over with the black charred stumps and blasted trunks of once
magnificent trees, projecting from the snow-drift. These, which are
perpetually recurring objects in a Canadian landscape, have a most
melancholy appearance. Sometimes wide openings occurred to the left,
bringing us in sight of Lake Ontario, and even in some places down upon
the edge of it: in this part of the lake the enormous body of the water
and its incessant movement prevents it from freezing, and the dark waves
rolled in, heavily plunging on the icy shore with a sullen booming
sound. A few roods from the land, the cold grey waters, and the cold,
grey, snow-encumbered atmosphere, were mingled with each other, and each
seemed either. The only living thing I saw in a space of about twenty
miles was a magnificent bald-headed eagle, which, after sailing a few
turns in advance of us, alighted on the topmost bough of a blasted pine,
and slowly folding his great wide wings, looked down upon us as we
glided beneath him.
The first village we passed through was Springfield, on the river
Credit, a river of some importance in summer, but now converted into
ice, heaped up with snow, and undistinguishable. Twenty miles further,
we stopped at Oakville to refresh ourselves and the horses.
Oakville stands close upon the lake, at the mouth of a little river
called Sixteen-mile Creek; it owes its existence to a gentleman of the
name of Chisholm, and, from its situation and other local circumstances,
bids fair to become a place of importance. In the summer it is a
frequented harbour, and carries on a considerable trade in _lumber_, for
so they characteristically call timber in this country. From its
dock-yards I am told that a fine steam-boat and a dozen schooners have
been already launched.
In summer, the country round is rich and beautiful, with a number of
farms all in a high state of cultivation; but Canada in winter and in
summer must be like two different regions. At present the mouth of the
creek is frozen up; all trade, all ship-building suspended. Oakville
presents the appearance of a straggling hamlet, containing a few frame
and log-houses; one brick-house (the grocery store, or general shop,
which in a new Canadian village is always the best house in the place),
a little Methodist church, painted green and white, but as yet no
resident preacher; and an inn dignified by the name of the "Oakville
House Hotel." Where there is a store, a tavern, and a church,
habitations soon rise around them. Oakville contains at present more
than three hundred inhabitants, who are now subscribing among themselves
for a schoolmaster and a resident clergyman.
I stood conversing in the porch, and looking about me, till I found it
necessary to seek shelter in the house, before my nose was absolutely
taken off by the ice-blast. The little parlour was solitary, and heated
like an oven. Against the wall were stuck a few vile prints, taken out
of old American magazines; there was the Duchess de Berri in her
wedding-dress, and, as a pendant, the Modes de Paris--"Robe de tulle
garnie de fleurs--coiffure nouvelle, inventee par Mons. Plaisir." The
incongruity was but too laughable! I looked round for some amusement or
occupation, and at last spied a book open, and turned down upon its
face. I pounced upon it as a prize; and what do you think it was?
"Devinez, madame! je vous le donne en trois, je vous le donne en
quatre!" it was--Don Juan! And so, while looking from the window on a
scene which realised all you can imagine of the desolation of savage
life, mixed up with just so much of the common-place vulgarity of
civilised life as sufficed to spoil it, I amused myself reading of the
Lady Adeline Amundeville and her precious coterie, and there anent.
Society is smoothed to that excess,
That manners hardly differ more than dress.
Our ridicules are kept in the background,
Ridiculous enough, but also dull;
Professions, too, are no more to be found
Professional, and there is nought to cull
Of Folly's fruit; for tho' your fools abound,
They're barren, and not worth the pains to pull.
Society is now one polished horde,
Form'd of two mighty tribes--the _bores_ and _bored_.
A delineation, by the way, which might almost reconcile one to a more
savage locality than that around me.
While I was reading, the mail-coach between Hamilton and Toronto drove
up to the door; and because you shall understand what sort of a thing a
Canadian mail is, and thereupon sympathise in my irrepressible wonder
and amusement, I must sketch it for you. It was a heavy wooden edifice,
about the size and form of an old-fashioned lord mayor's coach, placed
on runners raised about a foot from the ground: the whole was painted of
a bright red, and long icicles hung from the roof. This monstrous
machine disgorged from its portal eight men-creatures, all enveloped in
bear-skins and shaggy dreadnoughts, and pea-jackets, and fur-caps down
upon their noses, looking like a procession of bears on their hind-legs,
tumbling out of a showman's caravan. They proved, however, when
undisguised, to be gentlemen, most of them going up to Toronto to attend
their duties in the House of Assembly. One of these, a personage of
remarkable height and size, and a peculiar cast of features, was
introduced to me as Mr. Kerr, the possessor of large estates in the
neighbourhood, partly acquired, and partly inherited from his
father-in-law Brandt, the famous chief of the Six Nations. Kerr himself
has Indian blood in his veins. His son, young Kerr, a fine boy about ten
years old, is the present acknowledged chief of the Six Nations, in his
mother's right, the hereditary chieftainship being always transmitted
_through_ the female, though passing _over_ her. Mrs. Kerr, the eldest
daughter of Brandt, is a squaw of unmixed Indian blood, and has been
described to me as a very superior creature. She has the good sense to
wear habitually her Indian costume, slightly modified, in which she
looks and moves a princess, graceful and unrestrained, while in a
fashionable European dress the effect would be exactly the reverse.
Much mischief has been done in this neighbourhood by beasts of prey, and
the deer, driven by hunger, and the wolves from their forest haunts,
have been killed, near the settlements, in unusual numbers. One of the
Indians whom I saw at Toronto, on returning by this road, shot with his
new rifle eight deer in one day, and sold them at Hamilton for three
dollars each--no bad day's hunting. The venison in Canada is good and
abundant, but very lean, very unlike English venison; the price is
generally four or six cents (twopence or threepence) a pound.
After taking some refreshment, we set forth again. The next village we
passed was called, oddly enough, Wellington Square; it has been recently
laid out, and contains about twenty wooden houses;--then came Port
Nelson, Mr. Kerr's place. Instead of going round the head of the lake by
Hamilton, we crossed that very remarkable tongue or slip of land which
divides Burlington Bay from Lake Ontario: these were, in fact, two
separate lakes till a channel was cut through the narrow isthmus.
Burlington Bay, containing about forty square miles, is now one sheet of
ice, and on the slip of land, which is near seven miles in length, and
about two hundred yards in width, we found the snow lying so deep, and
in such irregular drifts, that we proceeded with difficulty. At length
we reached Stony Creek, a village celebrated in these parts as the scene
of the bloodiest battle fought between the English and Americans during
the last war. We had intended to sleep here, but the inn was so
uncomfortable and unpromising, that, after a short rest, we determined
on proceeding ten miles further to Beamsville.
It was now dark, and the snow falling thick, it soon became impossible
to distinguish the sleigh-track. Mr. Campbell loosened the reins and
left the horses to their own instinct, assuring me it was the safest way
of proceeding. After this I remember no more distinctly, except that I
ceased to hear the ever-jingling sleigh-bells. I awoke, as if from the
influence of nightmare, to find the sleigh overturned, myself lying in
the bottom of it half-smothered, and my companions nowhere to be
seen;--they were floundering in the snow behind.
Luckily, when we had stretched ourselves and shaken off the snow, we
were found unhurt in life and limb. We had fallen down a bank into the
bed of a rivulet, or a mill-race, I believe, which, being filled up with
snow, was quite as soft, only a little colder, than a down-bed.
Frightened I was, bewildered rather, but "effective" in a moment. It was
impossible for the gentlemen to leave the horses, which were plunging
furiously up to the shoulders in the snow, and had already broken the
sleigh; so I set off to seek assistance, having received proper
directions. Fortunately we were not far from Beamsville. My beacon-light
was to be the chimney of a forge, from which the bright sparks were
streaming up into the dark wintry air, visible from a great distance.
After scrambling through many a snow-drift, up hill and down hill, I at
last reached the forge, where a man was hammering amain at a
ploughshare; such was the din, that I called for some time unheard; at
last, as I advanced into the red light of the fire, the man's eyes fell
upon me, and I shall never forget his look as he stood poising his
hammer, with the most comical expression of bewildered amazement. I
could not get an answer from him; he opened his mouth and repeated _aw!_
staring at me, but without speaking or moving. I turned away in despair,
yet half laughing, and after some more scrambling up and down, I found
myself in the village, and was directed to the inn. Assistance was
immediately sent off to my friends, and in a few minutes the
supper-table was spread, a pile of logs higher than myself blazing away
in the chimney; venison-steaks, and fried fish, coffee, hot cakes,
cheese, and whisky punch (the traveller's fare in Canada), were soon
smoking on the table: our landlady presided, and the evening passed
merrily away.
The old landlady of this inn amused me exceedingly; she had passed all
her life among her equals in station and education, and had no idea of
any distinction between guests and customers; and while caressing and
attending on me, like an old mother or an old nurse, gave me her
history, and that of all her kith and kin. Forty years before, her
husband had emigrated, and built a hovel, and made a little clearing on
the edge of the lake. At that time there was no other habitation within
many miles of them, and they passed several years in almost absolute
solitude. They have now three farms, some hundred acres of land, and
have brought up nine sons and daughters, most of whom are married, and
settled on lands of their own. She gave me a horrid picture of the
prevalence of drunkenness, the vice and the curse of this country.
I can give you no idea of the intense cold of this night. Next morning
we proceeded eighteen miles farther, to St. Catherine's, the situation
of which appeared very pretty even in winter, and must be beautiful in
summer. I am told it is a place of importance, owing to the vicinity of
the Welland Canal, which connects Lake Ontario with Lake Erie: it
contains more than seven hundred inhabitants. The school here is
reckoned the best in the district. We passed this morning several
streams, which in summer flow into the lake, now all frozen up and
undistinguishable, except by the wooden bridges which cross them, and
the mills, now still and useless, erected along their banks. The streams
have the names of Thirty Mile Creek, Forty Mile Creek, Twenty Mile
Creek, and so on; but wherefore I could not discover.
From St. Catherine's we proceeded twelve miles farther, to Niagara.
There I found some old English or rather Irish friends ready to welcome
me with joyous affection; and surely there is not a more blessed sight
than the face of an old friend in a new land!
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