It is time, however, that I should introduce you to our party on board
the little steam-boat, which is now puffing, and snorting, and gliding
at no rapid rate over the blue tranquil waters of Lake St. Clair.[18]
First, then, there are the captain, and his mate or steersman, two young
men of good manners and appearance; one English--the other Irish; one a
military, the other a naval officer: both have land, and are near
neighbours up somewhere by Lake Simcoe; but both being wearied out by
three years' solitary life in the bush, they have taken the steam-boat
for this season on speculation, and it seems likely to answer. The boat
was built to navigate the ports of Lake Huron from Penetanguishine, to
Goderich and St. Joseph's Island, but there it utterly failed. It is a
wretched little boat, dirty and ill contrived. The upper deck, to which
I have fled from the close hot cabin, is an open platform, with no
defence or railing around it, and I have here my establishment--a chair,
a little table, with pencil and paper, and a great umbrella; a gust of
wind or a pitch of the vessel would inevitably send me sliding
overboard. The passengers consist of my acquaintance, the Moravian
missionary, with a family of women and children (his own wife and the
relatives of his assistant Vogler), who are about to emigrate with the
Indians beyond the Missouri. These people speak a dialect of German
among themselves, being descended from the early German Moravians. I
find them civil, but neither prepossessing nor intelligent; in short, I
can make nothing of them; I cannot extract an idea beyond eating,
drinking, dressing, and praying; nor can I make out with what feelings,
whether of regret, or hope, or indifference, they contemplate their
intended exile to the far, far west. Meantime the children squeal, and
the women chatter incessantly.
We took in at Chatham a large cargo of the usual articles of exportation
from Canada to the United States, viz. barrels of flour, sacks of grain,
and emigrants proceeding to Michigan and the Illinois. There are on
board, in the steerage, a great number of poor Scotch and Irish of the
lowest grade, and also one large family of American emigrants, who have
taken up their station on the deck, and whose operations amuse me
exceedingly. I wish I could place before you this very original menage,
even as it is before me now while I write. Such a group could be
encountered nowhere on earth, methinks, but here in the west, or among
the migratory Tartar hordes of the east.
They are from Vermont, and on their way to the Illinois, having been
already eleven weeks travelling through New York and Upper Canada. They
have two waggons covered in with canvass, a yoke of oxen, and a pair of
horses. The chief or patriarch of the set is an old Vermont farmer,
upwards of sixty at least, whose thin shrewd face has been burnt to a
deep brick-dust colour by the sun and travel, and wrinkled by age or
care into a texture like that of tanned sail-canvass--(the simile
nearest to me at this moment). The sinews of his neck and hands are like
knotted whipcord; his turned-up nose, with large nostrils, snuffs the
wind, and his small light blue eyes have a most keen, cunning
expression. He wears a smockfrock over a flannel shirt, blue woollen
stockings, and a broken pipe stuck in his straw hat, and all day long he
smokes or chews tobacco. He has with him fifteen children of different
ages by three wives. The present wife, a delicate, intelligent,
care-worn woman, seems about thirty years younger than her helpmate. She
sits on the shaft of one of the waggons I have mentioned, a baby in her
lap, and two of the three younger children crawling about her feet. Her
time and attention are completely taken up in dispensing to the whole
brood, young and old, rations of food, consisting of lard, bread of
Indian corn, and pieces of sassafras root. The appearance of all (except
the poor anxious mother) is equally robust and cheerful, half-civilised,
coarse, and by no means clean: all are barefooted except the two eldest
girls, who are uncommonly handsome, with fine dark eyes. The eldest son,
a very young man, has been recently married to a very young wife, and
these two recline together all day, hand in hand, under the shade of a
sail, neither noticing the rest nor conversing with each other, but, as
it seems to me, in silent contentment with their lot. I found these
people, most unlike others of their class I have met with before,
neither curious nor communicative, answering to all my questions and
advances with cautious monosyllables, and the old man with even laconic
rudeness. The contrast which the gentle anxious wife and her baby
presented to all the others, interested me; but she looked so
overpowered by fatigue, and so disinclined to converse, that I found no
opportunity to satisfy my curiosity without being impertinently
intrusive; so, after one or two ineffectual advances to the shy, wild
children, I withdrew, and contented myself with observing the group at a
distance.
The banks of the Thames are studded with a succession of farms,
cultivated by the descendants of the early French settlers--precisely
the same class of people as the _Habitans_ in Lower Canada. They go on
exactly as their ancestors did a century ago, raising on their rich
fertile lands just sufficient for a subsistence, wholly uneducated,
speaking only a French patois, without an idea of advance or improvement
of any kind; submissive to their priests, gay, contented, courteous, and
apparently retaining their ancestral tastes for dancing, singing, and
flowers.
In the midst of half-dilapidated, old-fashioned farm-houses, you could
always distinguish the priest's dwelling, with a flower-garden in front,
and the little chapel or church surmounted by a cross,--both being
generally neat, clean, fresh-painted, and forming a strange contrast
with the neglect and slovenliness around.
Ague prevails very much at certain seasons along the banks of the river,
and I could see by the manner in which the houses are built, that it
overflows its banks annually; it abounds in the small fresh-water turtle
(the Terrapin): every log floated on the water, or muddy islet, was
covered with them.
We stopped half-way down the river to take in wood. Opposite to the
landing-place stood an extensive farmhouse, in better condition than any
I had yet seen: and under the boughs of an enormous tree, which threw an
ample and grateful shade around, our boat was moored. Two Indian boys,
about seven or eight years old, were shooting with bow and arrows at a
mark stuck up against the huge trunk of the tree. They wore cotton
shirts, with a crimson belt round the waist ornamented with beads, such
as is commonly worn by the Canadian Indians; one had a gay handkerchief
knotted round his head, from beneath which his long black hair hung in
matted elf locks on his shoulders. The elegant forms, free movements,
and haughty indifference of these Indian boys, were contrasted with the
figures of some little dirty, ragged Canadians, who stood staring upon
us with their hands in their pockets, or importunately begging for
cents. An Indian hunter and his wife, the father and mother of the boys,
were standing by, and at the feet of the man a dead deer lay on the
grass. The steward of the boat was bargaining with the squaw for some
venison, while the hunter stood leaning on his rifle, haughty and
silent. At the window of the farmhouse sat a well-dressed female,
engaged in needlework. After looking up at me once or twice as I stood
upon the deck gazing on this picture--just such a one as Edwin Landseer
would have delighted to paint--the lady invited me into her house; an
invitation I most gladly accepted. Everything within it and around it
spoke riches and substantial plenty; she showed me her garden, abounding
in roses, and an extensive orchard, in which stood two Indian wigwams.
She told me that every year families of Chippewa hunters came down from
the shore of Lake Huron, and encamped in her orchard, and those of her
neighbours, without asking permission. They were perfectly inoffensive,
and had never been known to meddle with her poultry, or injure her
trees. "They are," said she, "an honest, excellent people; but I must
shut the gates of my orchard upon them to-night--for this bargain with
your steward will not conclude without whisky, and I shall have them all
_ivres mort_ before to-morrow morning."
[Footnote 18: Most of the small steam-boats on the American lakes have
high-pressure engines, which make a horrible and perpetual snorting like
the engine on a railroad.]
* * * * *