June 8.
We have already exchanged "the bloom and ravishment of spring" for all
the glowing maturity of summer; we gasp with heat, we long for ices, and
are planning venetian blinds; and three weeks ago there was snow lying
beneath our garden fences, and not a leaf on the trees! In England, when
Nature wakes up from her long winter, it is like a sluggard in the
morning,--she opens one eye and then another, and shivers and draws her
snow coverlet over her face again, and turns round to slumber more than
once, before she emerges at last lazily and slowly, from her winter
chamber; but here, no sooner has the sun peeped through her curtains,
than up she springs, like a huntress for the chase, and dons her kirtle
of green, and walks abroad in full-blown life and beauty. I am basking
in her smile like an insect or a bird!--Apropos to birds, we have, alas!
no singing birds in Canada. There is, indeed, a little creature of the
ouzel kind, which haunts my garden, and has a low, sweet warble, to
which I listen with pleasure; but we have nothing like the rich,
continuous song of the nightingale or lark, or even the linnet. We have
no music in our groves but that of the frogs, which set up such a shrill
and perpetual chorus every evening, that we can scarce hear each other
speak. The regular manner in which the bass and treble voices respond to
each other is perfectly ludicrous, so that in the midst of my impatience
I have caught myself laughing. Then we have every possible variety of
note, from the piping squeak of the tree-frog, to the deep, guttural
croak, almost roar, of the bull-frog.
The other day, while walking near a piece of water, I was startled by a
very loud deep croak, as like the croak of an ordinary frog, as the
bellow of a bull is like the bleat of a calf; and looking round,
perceived one of those enormous bull-frogs of the country seated with
great dignity on the end of a plank, and staring at me. The monster was
at least a foot in length, with a pair of eyes like spectacles; on
shaking my parasol at him, he plunged to the bottom in a moment. They
are quite harmless, I believe, though slander accuses them of attacking
the young ducks and chickens.
There is considerable beauty around me--not that I am going to give you
descriptions of scenery, which are always, however eloquent, in some
respect failures. Words can no more give you a definite idea of the
combination of forms and colours in scenery, than so many musical notes:
music were, indeed, the better vehicle of the two. Felix Mendelssohn,
when a child, used to say, "I cannot tell you how such or such a thing
was--I cannot speak it--I will play it to you!"--and run to his piano:
sound was then to him a more perfect vehicle than words;--so, if I were
a musician, I would _play_ you Lake Ontario, rather than describe it.
Ontario means _the beautiful_, and the word is worthy of its
signification, and the lake is worthy of its beautiful name; yet I can
hardly tell you in what this fascination consists: there is no scenery
around it, no high lands, no bold shores, no picture to be taken in at
once by the eye; the swamp and the forest enclose it, and it is so wide
and so vast that it presents all the monotony without the majesty of the
ocean. Yet, like that great ocean, when I lived beside it, the expanse
of this lake has become to me like the face of a friend. I have all its
various _expressions_ by heart. I go down upon the green bank, or along
the King's Pier, which projects about two hundred yards into the bay. I
sit there with my book, reading sometimes, but oftener watching untired
the changeful colours as they flit over the bosom of the lake. Sometimes
a thunder-squall from the west sends the little sloops and schooners
sweeping and scudding into the harbour for shelter. Sometimes the sunset
converts its surface into a sea of molten gold, and sometimes the young
moon walks trembling in a path of silver; sometimes a purple haze floats
over its bosom like a veil; sometimes the wind blows strong, and the
wild turbid waves come rolling in like breakers, flinging themselves
over the pier in wrath and foam, or dancing like spirits in their glee.
Nor is the land without some charm. About four miles from Toronto the
river Humber comes down between high wood-covered banks, and rushes into
the lake: a more charming situation for villas and garden-houses could
hardly be desired than the vicinity of this beautiful little river, and
such no doubt we shall see in time.
The opposite shore of the bay of Toronto is formed by a long sand-bank,
called "the Island," though, in fact, no island, but a very narrow
promontory, about three miles in length, and forming a rampart against
the main waters of the lake. At the extremity is a light-house, and a
few stunted trees and underwood. This marsh, intersected by islets and
covered with reeds, is the haunt of thousands of wild-fowl, and of the
terrapin, or small turtle of the lake; and as evening comes on, we see
long rows of red lights from the fishing-boats gleaming along the
surface of the water, for thus they spear the lake salmon, the bass, and
the pickereen.
The only road on which it is possible to take a drive with comfort is
Yonge Street, which is macadamised for the first twelve miles. This road
leads from Toronto northwards to Lake Simcoe, through a well-settled and
fertile country. There are some commodious, and even elegant houses in
this neighbourhood. Dundas Street, leading west to the London district
and Lake Huron, is a very rough road for a carriage, but a most
delightful ride. On this side of Toronto you are immediately in the pine
forest, which extends with little interruption (except a new settlement
rising here and there) for about fifty miles to Hamilton, which is the
next important town. The wooded shores of the lake are very beautiful,
and abounding in game. In short, a reasonable person might make himself
very happy here, if it were not for some few things, among which, those
Egyptian plagues, the flies and frogs in summer, and the relentless iron
winter, are not the most intolerable; add, perhaps, the prevalence of
sickness at certain seasons. At present many families are flying off to
Niagara, for two or three days together, for change of air; and I am
meditating a flight myself, of such serious extent, that some of my
friends here laugh outright; others look kindly alarmed, and others
civilly incredulous. Bad roads, bad inns--or rather _no_ roads, no
inns;--wild Indians, and white men more savage far than they;--dangers
and difficulties of every kind are threatened and prognosticated, enough
to make one's hair stand on end. To undertake such a journey _alone_ is
rash perhaps--yet alone it must be achieved, I find, or not at all; I
shall have neither companion nor man-servant, nor _femme de chambre_,
nor even a "little foot-page" to give notice of my fate, should I be
swamped in a bog, or eaten up by a bear, or scalped, or disposed of in
some strange way; but shall I leave this fine country without seeing
anything of its great characteristic features?--and, above all, of its
aboriginal inhabitants? The French have a proverb which does honour to
their gallantry, and to which, from experience, I am inclined to give
full credence--"_Ce que femme veut, Dieu veut_." We shall see.
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