I observed some birds of a species new to me; there was the lovely
blue-bird, with its brilliant violet plumage; and a most gorgeous
species of woodpecker, with a black head, white breast, and back and
wings of the brightest scarlet; hence it is called by some the
field-officer, and more generally the cock of the woods. I should have
called it the coxcomb of the woods, for it came flitting across our
road, clinging to the trees before us, and remaining pertinaciously in
sight, as if conscious of its own splendid array, and pleased to be
admired.
There was also the Canadian robin, a bird as large as a thrush, but in
plumage and shape resembling the sweet bird at home "that wears the
scarlet stomacher." There were great numbers of small birds of a bright
yellow, like canaries, and I believe of the same genus. Sometimes, when
I looked up from the depth of foliage to the blue firmament above, I saw
an eagle sailing through the air on apparently motionless wings. Nor let
me forget the splendour of the flowers which carpeted the woods on
either side. I might have exclaimed with Eichendorff,
"O Welt! Du schoene welt, Du!
Mann sieht Dich vor Bluemen kaum!"
for thus in some places did a rich embroidered pall of flowers literally
_hide_ the earth. There those beautiful plants, which we cultivate with
such care in our gardens, azalias, rhododendrons, all the gorgeous
family of the lobelia, were flourishing in wild luxuriance. Festoons of
creeping and parasitical plants hung from branch to branch. The purple
and scarlet iris, blue larkspur, and the elegant Canadian columbine with
its bright pink flowers; the scarlet lychnis, a species of orchis of the
most dazzling geranium-colour, and the white, and yellow, and purple
cyprepedium[8], bordered the path, and a thousand others of most
resplendent hues, for which I knew no names. I could not pass them with
forbearance, and my Yankee driver, alighting, gathered for me a superb
bouquet from the swampy margin of the forest. I contrived to fasten my
flowers in a wreath along the front of the wagon, that I might enjoy at
leisure their novelty and beauty. How lavish, how carelessly profuse, is
Nature in her handiwork! In the interior of the cyprepedium, which I
tore open, there was variety of configuration and colour, and gem-like
richness of ornament, enough to fashion twenty different flowers; and
for the little fly, in jewelled cuirass, which I found couched within
its recesses--what a palace! that of Aladdin could not have been more
splendid!
From Brandtford we came to Paris, a new settlement, beautifully
situated, and thence to Woodstock, a distance of eighteen miles. There
is no village, only isolated inns, far removed from each other. In one
of these, kept by a Frenchman, I dined on milk and eggs and excellent
bread. Here I found every appearance of prosperity and plenty. The
landlady, an American woman, told me they had come into this wilderness
twenty years ago, when there was not another farmhouse within fifty
miles. She had brought up and settled in comfort several sons and
daughters. An Irish farmer came in, who had refreshments spread for him
in the porch, and with whom I had some amusing conversation. He, too,
was prospering with a large farm and a large family--here a blessing and
a means of wealth, too often in the old country a curse and a burden.
The good-natured fellow was extremely scandalised by my homely and
temperate fare, which he besought me to mend by accepting a glass of
whisky out of his own travelling-store, genuine potheen, which he swore
deeply, and not unpoetically, "had never seen God's beautiful world, nor
the blessed light of day, since it had been bottled in ould Ireland." He
told me, boastingly, that at Hamilton he had made eight hundred dollars
by the present extraordinary rise in the price of wheat. In the early
part of the year wheat had been selling for three or four dollars a
bushel, and rose this summer to twelve and fourteen dollars a bushel,
owing to the immense quantities exported during the winter to the back
settlements of Michigan and the Illinois.
[Footnote 8: From its resemblance in form to a shoe, this splendid
flower bears every where the same name. The English call it
lady's-slipper; the Indians know it as the moccasin flower.]