A journey to the Westward.
We must leave Roncesvalles and La Gloire awhile, and, instead of riding
a war horse, canter along upon the hobby, or a good serviceable Canadian
pony, the best of all hobbies for seeing the Canadian world, and on
which mettlesome charger we can much better instruct the emigrant than
by long prosings about political economy and systematic colonisation.
So, _en avant_! I am going to relate the incidents of a journey last
summer to the Westward, and to give all the substance of my observations
on men and things made therein.
I left Kingston on the 26th of June, in the Princess Royal mail steamer,
at 8 p.m., the usual hour of starting being seven, for Toronto; the
weather unusually cold.
This fine boat constitutes, with two others, the City of Toronto and the
Sovereign, the royal mail line between Kingston and Toronto. All are
built nearly alike, are first class seaboats, and low pressure; they
combine, with the Highlander, the Canada, and the Gildersleave, also
splendid vessels, to form a mail route to Montreal--the latter boats
taking the mail as far as Coteau du Lac, forty-five miles from Montreal,
on which route a smaller vessel, the Chieftain, plies, wherein you
sleep, at anchor, or rather moored, till daylight, if going down, or
going upwards, on board the mail boat.
Passengers go from Montreal to Kingston by the mail route in twenty-four
hours, a distance of 180 miles; a small portion, between the Cascades
Rapids and the Coteau being traversed in a coach, on a planked road as
smooth as a billiard-table.
From Kingston to Toronto, or nearly the whole length of Lake Ontario,
takes sixteen hours, the boat leaving at seven, and arriving about or
before noon next day; performing the passage at the rate of eleven miles
an hour, exclusively of stoppages.
The transit between Montreal and Kingston is at the rate, including
stoppage for daylight, the river being dangerous, of eight miles an
hour; thus, in forty hours, the passenger passes from the seat of
government to the largest city of Western Canada most comfortably, a
journey which twenty years ago it always took a fortnight, and often a
month, to accomplish, in the most precarious and uncomfortable
manner--on board small, roasting steamers, crowded like a cattle-pen--in
lumbering leathern conveniences, miscalled coaches, over roads which
enter not into the dreams of Britons--by canoes--by bateaux, (a sort of
coal barges,)--by schooners, where the cabin could never permit you to
display either your length, your breadth, or your thickness, and thus
reducing you to a point in creation, according to Euclid and his
commentators.
Your _compagnons de voyage_, on board a bateau or Durham boat, which was
a _monstre_ bateau, were French Canadian voyageurs, always drunk and
always gay, who poled you along up the rapids, or rushed down them with
what will be will be.
These happy people had a knack of examining your goods and chattels,
which they were conveying in the most admirable manner, and with the
utmost _sang-froid_; but still they were above stealing--they only
tapped the rum cask or the whiskey barrel, and appropriated any cordage
wherewith you bound your chests and packages. I never had a chest, box,
or bale sent up by bateau or Durham boat that escaped this rope mail.
By the by, the Durham boat, a long decked barge, square ahead, and
square astern, has vanished; Ericson's screw-propellers have crushed it.
It was neither invented by nor named after Lord Durham, but was as
ancient as Lambton House itself.
The way the conductors of these boats found out vinous liquors was, as
brother Jonathan so playfully observes, a _caution_.
I have known an instance of a cask of wine, which, for security from
climate, had an outer case or cask strongly secured over it, with an
interior space for neutralizing frost or heat, bored so carefully that
you could never discover how it had been effected, and a very
considerable quantum of beverage extracted.
I once had a small barrel, perhaps twenty gallons of commissariat West
India ration rum, the best of all rum for liqueurs, sucked dry. Of
course, it had leaked, but I never could discover the leak, and it held
any liquid very well afterwards.
I know the reader likes a story, and as this is not by any means an
historical or scientific work, excepting always the geological portion
thereof, I will tell him or her, as the case may be, a story about
ration rum.
There was a funny fellow, an Irish auctioneer at Kingston, some years
ago, called Paddy Moran, whom all the world, priest and parson, minister
and methodist, soldier and sailor, tinker and tailor, went to hear when
he mounted his rostrum.
He was selling the goods of a quarter-master-general who was leaving the
place. At last he came to the cellar and the rum. "Now, gintlemin," says
Moran, "I advise you to buy this rum, 7s. 6d. a gallon! going, going!
Gintlemin, I was once a sojer--don't laugh, you officers there, for I
was--and a sirjeant into the bargain. It wasn't in the Irish
militia--bad luck to you, liftenant, for laughing that way, it will
spoil the rum! I was the tip-top of the sirjeants of the regiment--long
life to it! Yes, I was quarter-master-sirjeant, and hadn't I the sarving
out of the rations; and didn't I know what good ration rum was; and
didn't I help meself to the prime of it! Well, then, gintlemin and
ladies--I mane, Lord save yees, ladies and gintlemin--if a
quarter-master-sirjeant in the army had good rum, what the devil do you
think a quarter-master-general gets?"
The rum rose to fifteen shillings per gallon at the next bid.
You can have every convenience on board a Lake Ontario mail-packet,
which is about as large as a small frigate, and has the usual sea
equipment of masts, sails, and iron rigging. The fare is five dollars in
the cabin, or about L1 sterling; and two dollars in the steerage. In the
former you have tea and breakfast, in the latter nothing but what is
bought at the bar. By paying a dollar extra you may have a state-room on
deck, or rather on the half-deck, where you find a good bed, a large
looking-glass, washing-stand and towels, and a night-lamp, if required.
The captains are generally part owners, and are kind, obliging, and
communicative, sitting at the head of their table, where places for
females and families are always reserved. The stewards and waiters are
coloured people, clean, neat, and active; and you may give
sevenpence-halfpenny or a quarter-dollar to the man who cleans your
boots, or an attentive waiter, if you like; if not, you can keep it, as
they are well paid.
The ladies' cabin has generally a large cheval glass and a piano, with a
white lady to wait, who is always decked out in flounces and furbelows,
and usually good-looking. All you have got to do on embarking or on
disembarking is to see personally to your luggage; for leaving it to a
servant unacquainted with the country will not do. At Kingston, matters
are pretty well arranged, and the carters are not so very impudent, and
so ready to push you over the wharf; but at Toronto they are very so so,
and want regulating by the police; and in the States, at Buffalo
particularly, the porters and carters are the most presuming and
insolent serviles I ever met with; they rush in a body on board the
boat, and respect neither persons nor things.
I knew an American family composed chiefly of females, travelling to the
Falls; and these ladies had their baggage taken to a train going inland,
whilst they were embarking on board the British boat which was to convey
them to Chippewa in Canada.
The comfort of some of these boats, as they call them, but which ought
to be called ships, is very great. There is a regular drawingroom on
board one called the Chief Justice where I saw, just after the
horticultural show at Toronto, pots of the most rare and beautiful
flowers, arranged very tastefully, with a piano, highly-coloured
nautical paintings and portraits, and a _tout ensemble_, which, when the
lamps were lit, and conversation going on between the ladies and
gentlemen then and there assembled, made one quite forget we were at sea
on Lake Ontario, the "Beautiful Lake," which, like other beautiful
creations, can be very angry if vexed.
The Americans have very fine steam vessels on their side of the lake,
but they are flimsily constructed, painted glaringly, white, and green,
and yellow, without comfort or good attendance, and with a
devil-may-care sort of captain, who seems really scarcely to know or to
care whether he has passengers or has not, a scrambling hurried meal,
and divers other unmentionables.
The American gentry always prefer the British boats, for two good
reasons; they see Queen Victoria's people, and they meet with the utmost
civility, attention, and comfort. They sit down to dinner, or
breakfast, or tea, like Christian men and women, where there is no
railway eating and drinking; where due time is spent in refreshing the
body and spirits; and where people help each other, or the waiters help
them, at table, without a scramble, like hogs, for the best and the
most--a custom which all travelled Americans detest and abominate as
much as the most fastidious Englishman.
It is not unusual at hotel dinners, or on board steamers, to see a man,
I cannot call him a gentleman, sitting next a female, totally neglect
her, and heap his plate with fish, with flesh, with pie, with pudding,
with potato, with cranberry jam, with pickles, with salad, with all and
every thing then within his reach, swallow in a trice all this jumble of
edibles, jump up and vanish.
Can such a being have a stomach, or a digestion, and must he not
necessarily, about thirty-five years of age, be yellow, spare, and
parchment-skinned, with angular projections, and a prodigious tendency
to tobacco?
An American gentleman--mind, I lay a stress upon the second word--never
bolts his victuals, never picks his teeth at table, never spits upon the
carpet, or guesses; he knows not gin-sling, and he eschews mint-julep;
but he does, I am ashamed to say, admire a sherry cobbler, particularly
if he does not get a second-hand piece of vermicelli to suck it through.
Reader, do you know what a sherry cobbler is? I will enlighten you. Let
the sun shine at about 80 deg. Fahrenheit. Then take a lump of ice; fix it
at the edge of a board; rasp it with a tool made like a drawing knife or
carpenter's plane, set face upwards. Collect the raspings, the fine
raspings, mind, in a capacious tumbler; pour thereon two glasses of good
sherry, and a good spoonful of powdered white sugar, with a few small
bits, not slices, but bits of lemon, about as big as a gooseberry. Stir
with a wooden macerator. Drink through a tube of macaroni or vermicelli.
_C'est l'eau benite_, as the English lord said to the _garcon_ at the
Milles Colonnes, when he first tasted real _parfait amour_.--_C'est
beaucoup mieux_, _Milor_, answered the waiter with a profound
reverence.
Gin-sling, cock-tail, mint-julep, are about as vulgar as blue ruin and
old tom at home; but sherry cobbler is an affair of consideration--only
never pound your ice, always rasp it.
It is a custom on board the Canadian steamers for gentlemen to call for
a pint of wine at dinner, or for a bottle, according to the strength of
the party; but it is a custom more honoured in the breach than the
observance; for sherry and port are the usual stock, both fiery as
brandy, and costing the moderate price of seven shillings and sixpence a
bottle, the steward having laid the same in at about one shilling and
eight pence, or at most two shillings. Why this imposition, the only one
you meet with in travelling in Canada at hotels or steamboats, is
perpetrated and perpetuated, I could never learn.
Many American gentlemen, however, encourage it, and have told me that
they do so because they get no good port in the States. Ale and porter
are charged two shillings and sixpence a bottle, which is double their
worth. Be careful also not to drink freely of the iced water, which is
always supplied _ad libitum_. Few Europeans escape the effects of
water-drinking when they land at Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, Toronto,
&c. There is something peculiar, which has never yet been satisfactorily
explained by medical men, in the sudden attack upon the system produced
by the waters of Canada: this is sometimes slight, but more often lasts
several days, and reduces the strength a good deal. Iced water is worse,
and produces country cholera. The Americans use ice profusely, and drink
such draughts of iced water, that I have been astonished at the impunity
with which they did so.
Perhaps the change from a moist sea atmosphere to the dry and
desiccating air of Canada, where iron does not rust, may be one cause of
the malady alluded to, and another, in addition to the water, the
difference of cookery; for here, at public tables and on board the boats
generally, where black cooks prevail, all is butter and grease.
But the change of climate is undoubtedly great. I had been long an
inhabitant of Upper Canada, and fancied myself seasoned; but, having
returned to England, and spending afterwards two or three years in the
excessively humid air of the sea-coast of Newfoundland at St. Johns,
where I became somewhat stout, on my return to Upper Canada, for want of
a little preparatory caution in medicine, although naturally of a spare
habit, I was seized with a violent bleeding at the nose, which baffled
all remedies for several months, until artificial mineral water and a
copious use of solutions of iron stopped it. No doubt this prevented the
fever of the lakes, and was owing to the dryness of the air. I mention
this to caution all new-comers, young and old, to take timely advice and
medicine.
There is another complaint in Upper Canada, which attacks the settler
very soon after his arrival, especially if young, and that is worms; a
disorder very prevalent at all times in Canada, particularly among the
poorer classes, and probably owing to food.
These, with ague and colic, or country cholera, are the chief evils of
the clime; few are, however, fatal, excepting the lake fever, and that
principally among children.
The sportsman should recollect, in so marshy and woody a country,
subject as it is to the most surprising alternations of temperature,
that instead of minding that celebrated rule, "Keep your powder dry," he
should read, "Keep your feet dry." Dry feet and the avoidance of sitting
in wet or damp clothes, or drinking iced water when hot, or of cooling
yourself in a delicious draught of air when in a perspiration, are the
best precautions against ague, fever, colic, or cholera--in a country
where the thermometer reaches 90 deg. in the shade, and sometimes 110 deg., as
it did last summer, and 27 deg. below zero in the winter, with rapid
alternations embracing such a range of the scale as is unknown
elsewhere.
In the country places, in travelling, you will invariably find that
windows are very little attended to, and that the head of your bed, or
the side of it, is placed against a loosely-fitting broken sash. The
night-fogs and damps are highly dangerous to new-comers; so act
accordingly.
Fleas and bugs, and "such small deer," you must expect in every inn you
stop at, even in the cities; for it appears--and indeed I did not know
the fact until this year--that bugs are indigenous, _native to the
soil_, and breed in the bark of old trees; so that if you build a new
house, you bring the enemy into your camp. Nothing but cleanliness and
frequent whitewash, colouring, paint, and soft soap, will get rid of
them. If it were not for the strong smell of red cedar and its extreme
brittleness, I would have my bedstead of that material; for even the
iron bedsteads, in the soldiers' barracks, become infested with them if
not painted often. Red cedar they happily eschew.
Travellers may talk as they please of mosquitoes being the scourge of
new countries; the bugs in Canada are worse, and the black fly and
sand-fly superlatively superior in annoyance. The black fly exists in
the neighbourhood of rivers or swamps, and attacks you behind the ear,
drawing a pretty copious supply of blood at each bite. The sand-fly, as
its name imports, exists in sandy soil, and is so small that it cannot
be seen without close inspection; its bite is sharp and fiery.
Then the farmer has the wheat-fly and the turnip-fly to contend against;
the former has actually devoured Lower Canada, and the latter has
obliged me in a garden to sow several successive crops. The melon-bug is
another nuisance; it is a small winged animal, of a bright yellow
colour, striped with black bars, and takes up its abode in the flower of
the melon and pumpkin, breeding fast, and destroying wherever it
settles, for young plants are literally eaten up by it.
The grub, living under ground in the daytime, and sallying forth at
night, is a ferocious enemy to cabbage-plants, lettuce, and most of the
young, tender vegetables; but, by taking a lantern and a pan after dark,
the gentlemen can be collected whilst on their tour, and poultry are
very fond of them. Last year, the potato crop failed throughout Canada.
What a singular dispensation!--for it alike suffered in Europe, and no
doubt the malady was atmospheric. The hay crop, too, suffered severely;
but still, by a merciful Providence, the wheat and corn harvest was
ample, and gathered in a month before the customary time.
By the word corn I mean oats, rye, and barley; but in the Canadas and in
the United States that word means maize or Indian-corn only, which in
Canada, last summer, was not, I should think, even an average crop. It
is extensively used here for food, as well as buckwheat, and for feeding
poultry.
But to our journey westward. I arrived at Toronto on the 27th of June,
and found the weather had changed to variable and fine.
On steaming up the harbour, I was greatly surprised and very much
pleased to see such an alteration as Toronto has undergone for the
better since 1837. Then, although a flourishing village, be-citied, to
be sure, it was not one third of its present size. Now it is a city in
earnest, with upwards of twenty thousand inhabitants--gas-lit, with good
plank side-walks and macadamized streets, and with vast sewers, and fine
houses, of brick or stone. The main street, King Street, is two miles
and more in length, and would not do shame to any town, and has a much
more English look than most Canadian places have.
Toronto is still the seat of the Courts of Law for Western Canada, of
the University of King's College, of the Bishopric of Toronto, and of
the Indian Office. Kingston has retained the militia head-quarter
office, and the Principal Emigrant Agency, with the Naval and Military
grand depots; so that the removal of the seat of Government to Montreal
has done no injury to Toronto, and will do very little to Kingston: in
fact, I believe firmly that, instead of being injurious, it will be very
beneficial. The presence of Government at Kingston gave an unnatural
stimulus to speculation among a population very far from wealthy; and
buildings of the most frail construction were run up in hundreds, for
the sake of the rent which they yielded temporarily.
The plan upon which these houses were erected was that of mortgage; thus
almost all are now in possession of one person who became suddenly
possessed of the requisite means by the sale of a large tract required
for military purposes. But this species of property seldom does the
owner good in his lifetime; and, if he does reclaim it, there is no
tenant to be had now; so that the building decays, and in a very short
time becomes an incumbrance. Mortgages only thrive where the demand is
superior and certain to the investment; and then, if all goes smoothly,
mortgager and mortgagee may benefit; but where a mechanic or a
storekeeper, with little or no capital, undertakes to run up an
extensive range of houses to meet an equivocal demand, the result is
obvious. If the houses he builds are of stone or brick, and well
finished, the man who loans the money is the gainer; if they are of
wood, indifferently constructed and of green materials, both must
suffer. So it is a speculation, and, like all speculations, a good deal
of repudiation mixes up with it.
There are two good houses of entertainment for the gentleman traveller
in Toronto; the Club House in Chewett's Buildings and Macdonald's Hotel.
In the former, a bachelor will find himself quite at home; in the
latter, a family man will have no reason to regret his stay.
But servants at Toronto--by which I mean _attendants_--are about on a
par with the same race all over Canada. The coloured people are the
best, but never make yourself dependent on either; for, if you are to
start by the stage or the steamer, depend on your watch, instead of upon
your boots being cleaned or your shaving-water being ready. In the
latter case, shave with cold water by the light of your candle, lit by
your own lucifer match. They are civil, however, and attentive, as far
as the very free and easy style of their acquirements will permit them;
for a cook will leave at a moment's notice, if she can better herself;
and any trivial occurrence will call off the waiter and the boots. The
only punctual people are the porters; and, as they wear glazed hats,
with the name of the hotel emblazoned thereon, frigate-fashion, you can
always find them.
An excellent arrangement is the omnibus attached to the hotels in Canada
West, which conveys you cost-free to and from the steamboat, and a very
comfortable wooden convenience it is, resembling very much the vans
which, in days of yore, plied near London.
My first start from Toronto was to Ultima Thule, Penetanguishene, a
locality scarcely to be found in the maps, and yet one of much
importance, situate and being north-north-west of the city some hundred
and eight miles, on Lake Huron.
The route is per coach to St. Alban's, thirty and three miles, along
Yonge Street, of which about one-third is macadamized from granite
boulders; the rest mud and etceteras, too numerous to mention. Yonge
Street is a continuous settlement, with an occasional sprinkling of the
original forest. The land on each side is fertile, and supplies Toronto
market.
It rises gradually by those singular steps, or ridges, formerly banks or
shores oL antediluvian oceans, till it reaches the vicinity of the
Holland river, a tortuous, sluggish, marshy, natural canal, flowing or
lazily creeping into Lake Simcoe, at an elevation of upwards of
seven-hundred and fifty feet above Lake Ontario, and emptying itself
into Lake Huron by a series of rapids, called the Matchedash or Severn
River.
The first quarter of the route to St. Alban's is a series of
country-houses, gentlemen's seats, half-pay officers' farms, prettily
fenced, and pleasant to the sight: the next third embraces Thornhill, a
nice village in a hollow; Richmond Hill, with a beautiful prospect and
detached settlements: the ultimate third is a rich, undulating country,
inhabited by well-to-do Quakers, with Newmarket on their right, and
looking for all the world very like "dear home," with orchards, and as
rich corn-fields and pastures as may be seen any where, backed,
however, by the eternal forest. It is peculiarly and particularly
beautiful.
A short distance before reaching St. Alban's, which is quite a new
village, the road descends rapidly, and the ground is broken into
hummocks.
But I must not forget Bond's Lake, a most singular feature of this part
of the road, which, perhaps, I shall treat of in returning from
Penetanguishene, as I am now in a hurry to get to St. Alban's.
Here, where all was scrub forest in 1837, are a little street, a house
of some pretension occupied by Mr. Laughton, the enterprising owner of
the Beaver steamboat, plying on Lake Simcoe, and two inns.
I stopped for the night, for Yonge Street is still a tiresome journey,
although only a stage of thirty three miles, at Winch's Tavern. This is
a very good road-side house, and the landlord and landlady are civil and
attentive. Before you go to roost, for stopping by the way-side is
pretty much like roosting, as you must be up with Chanticleer, you can
just look over Mr. Laughton's paling, and you will see as pretty a
florist's display as may be imagined. The owner is fond of flowers, and
he has lots of them, and, when you make his acquaintance afterwards in
the Beaver, you will find that he has lots of information also. But I
did not go in the Beaver, which ship "wharfs" some two or three miles
further ahead, at Holland River Landing, commonly called "the Landing,"
par excellence. Here flies, mosquitoes, ague, and other plagues, are so
rife, that all attempts at settlement are vanity and vexation of spirit.
So, being willing to see what had happened in Gwillimbury since 1837, I
took a waggon and the land road, and went off as day broke, or rather
before it broke, about four a.m., in a deep gray mist. The waggon should
be described, as it is the best _voiture_ in Western Canada.
Four wheels, of a narrow tire, are attached without any springs to a
long body, formed of straight boards, like a piano-case, only more
clumsy; in which, resting on inside rims or battens, are two seats, with
or without backs, generally without, on which, perhaps, a hay-cushion,
or a buffalo-skin, or both, are placed. Two horses, good, bad, or
indifferent, as the case may be, the positive and comparative degrees
being the commonest, drag you along with a clever driver, who can turn
his hand to chopping, carpentering, wheelwright's work, playing the
fiddle, drinking, or any other sort of thing, and is usually an Irishman
or an Irishman's son. For two dollars and a half a day he will drive you
to Melville Island, or Parry's Sound, if you will only stick by him; and
he jogs along, smoking his _dudeen_, over corduroy roads, through mud
holes that would astonish a cockney, and over sand and swamp, rocks and
rough places enough to dislocate every joint in your body, all his own
being anchylosed or used to it, which is the same thing, in the
dictionary.
He will keep you _au courant_, at the same time, tell the name of every
settler and settlement, and some good stories to boot. He is a capital
fellow, is "Paddy the driver," generally a small farmer, and always has
a contract with the commissariat.
The first place of any note we came to, as day broke out of the blue fog
which rose from the swampy forest, was Holland River Bridge, an
extraordinary structure, half bridge, half road, over a swamp created by
that river in times long gone by; a level tract of marsh and wild rice
as far as the eye can reach, full of ducks and deer, with the Holland
River in the midst, winding about like a serpentine canal, and looking
as if it had been fast asleep since its last shake of the ague.
Crossing this bridge-road, now in good order, but in 1837 requiring
great dexterity and agility to pass, you come to a slight elevation of
the land, and a little village in West Gwillimbury, which, I should
think, is a capital place to catch lake-fever in.
The road to it is good, but, after passing it and turning northwards,
is but little improved, being very primitive through the township of
Innisfil. However, we jogged along in mist and rain, on the 29th of
June, and saw the smoke, ay, and smelt it too, of numerous clearings or
forest burnings, indicating settlement, till we reached Wilson's Tavern,
where, every body having the ague, it was somewhat difficult to get
breakfast. This is thirteen miles from St. Alban's.
Having refreshed, however, with such as it was, we visited Mr. Wilson's
stable, and saw a splendid stud horse which he was rearing, and as
handsome a thorough-bred black as you could wish to see in the
backwoods.
Proceeding in rain, we drove, by what in England would be called an
execrable road, through the townships of Innisfil and Vespra to Barrie,
the capital hamlet of the district of Simcoe.
On emerging from the woods three or four miles from Barrie, Kempenfeldt
Bay suddenly appears before you, and if the road was better, a more
beautiful ride there is not in all broad Canada. Fancy, however, that,
without any Hibernicism, the best road is in the water of the lake. This
is owing to the swampy nature of the land, and to the circumstance that
a belt of hard sand lines the edge of the bay; so Paddy drove smack into
the water of Kempenfeldt, and, as he said, sure we were travelling by
water every way, for we had a deluge of rain above, and Lake Simcoe
under us.
But natheless we arrived at Barrie by mid-day, a very fair journey of
twenty-eight miles in eight hours, over roads, as the French say,
_inconcevable_; and alighted like river gods at the Queen's Arms, J.
Bingham, Barrie.
Barrie, named after the late commodore, Sir Robert Barrie, is no common
village, nor is the Queen's Arms a common hostel. It is a good,
substantial, stone edifice, fitted up and kept in a style which neither
Toronto nor Kingston, nay, nor Montreal can rival, as far as its extent
goes. I do assure you, it is a perfect paradise after the road from St.
Alban's; and, as the culinary department is unexceptionable, and the
beds free from bugs, and all neatness and no noise, I will award Mrs.
Bingham a place in these pages, which must of course immortalize her.
They are English people; and, when I last visited their house, in 1837,
had only a log-hut: now they are well to do, and have built themselves a
neat country-house.
When I first saw Barrie, or rather before Barrie was, as I passed over
its present site, in 1831, there was but one building and a little
clearance. In 1846, it is fast approaching to be a town, and will be a
city, as it is admirably placed at the bottom of an immense inlet of
Lake Simcoe, with every capability of opening a communication with the
new settlements of Owen Sound and St. Vincent, and the south shore of
Lake Huron.
It has been objected, to this opinion respecting Barrie, that the
Narrows of Lake Simcoe is the proper site for "The City of the North,"
as the communication by land, instead of being thirty-six miles to
Penetanguishene, the best harbour on Lake Huron, is only fourteen, or
at most nineteen miles, the former taking to Cold Water Creek, and the
latter to Sturgeon Bay; but then there is a long and somewhat dangerous
transit in the shallowest part of the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron to
Penetanguishene.
If a railroad was established between Barrie and the naval station, this
would be not only the shortest but the safest route to Lake Huron; for,
if Sturgeon Bay is chosen, in war-time the transit trade and the
despatch of stores for the government would be subjected to continual
hindrance and depredation from the multitude of islands and
hiding-places between Sturgeon Bay and Penetanguishene; whilst, on the
other hand, no sagacious enemy would penetrate the country from Sturgeon
Bay and leave such a stronghold as Penetanguishene in his rear, whereby
all his vessels and supplies might be suddenly cut off, and his return
rendered impracticable.
Barrie is, therefore, well chosen, both as a transit town and as the
site of naval operations on Lake Simcoe, whenever they may be
necessary.
For this reason, government commenced the military road between Barrie
and Penetanguishene, and settled it with pensioned soldiers, and also
settled naval and military retired or half-pay officers all round Lake
Simcoe. But, as we shall have to talk a good deal about this part of the
country, and I must return by the road, let us hasten on to our night's
lodging at the Ordnance Arms, kept by the ancient widow of J. Bruce, an
old artilleryman.
Since 1837, the road, then impassable for anything but horses or very
small light waggons, has been much improved, and Paddy drove us on,
after dinner at Bingham's, through the heavy rain _a merveille_!
When I passed this road before, what a road it was! or, in the words of
the eulogist of the great Highland road-maker, General Wade,
"Had you seen this road, before it was made,
You would have lift up your eyes and blessed"
General somebody.
It was necessary, as late as 1837, to take a horse; and, placing your
valise on another, mount the second with a guide. My guide was always a
French Canadian named Francois; and many an adventure in the
interminable forest have we experienced together; for if Francois had
lost his way, we should have perhaps reached the Copper-mine River, or
the Northern Frozen Ocean, and have solved the question of the passage
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, or else we should have had a certain
convocation of politic wolves or bears, busy in rendering us and our
horses invisible; for, after all, they have the true receipt of fern
seed, and you can walk about, after having suffered transmigration into
their substance, without its ever being suspected that you were either
an officer of engineers or a Franco-Canadian guide.
An old and respected officer, once travelling this bridle road with
Francois and myself, and mounted on a better horse than either of ours,
which was lent to him by the Assistant Commissary-General stationed at
Penetanguishene, got ahead of us considerably, and, by some accident,
wandered into the gloomy pine forest. Missing him for a quarter of an
hour, I rode as fast as my horse, which was not encumbered with baggage,
would go ahead, and, observing fresh tracks of a horse's shoes in the
mud, followed them until I heard in the depths of the endless and solemn
woods faint shouts, which, as I came nearer to them, resolved themselves
into the syllables of my name. I found my chief, and begged him never
again, as he had never been there before, to think of leaving us. Had he
gone out of sound, his fate would have been sealed, unless the horse,
used as it was to the path, had wandered into it again; but horses and
cattle are frequently lost in these solitudes, and, perhaps being
frightened by the smell of the wild beasts, or, as man always does when
lost, they wander in a circle, and thus frequently come near the place
from which they started, but not sufficiently so to hit the almost
invisible path.
But although the road, excepting in the middle of summer, is still
indifferent, it is perfectly safe, and a lady may now go to
Penetanguishene comparatively comfortably.
Bruce's tavern is a respectable log-house, twelve miles from Barrie; and
here you can get the usual fare of ham, eggs, and chickens, with
occasionally fresh meat from Barrie, and perhaps as good a bed as can be
had in Canada. We started from Barrie at half-past two, and arrived at
half-past five.
Whiskey, be it known, with very atrocious brandy, is the only beverage,
excepting water, along the country roads of Canada.
From Bruce's we drove to Dawson's, also kept by the widow of an old
soldier, where every thing is equally clean, respectable, and
comfortable. It is seven miles distant.
Beyond this is Nicoll's, near a corduroy swamp road; and three miles
further (which place eschew), seven years ago, I heard the landlady's
voice chiding a little girl, who had been sent a quarter of a mile for a
jug of water. I heard the same voice again in action, and for the same
cause, and a very dirty urchin again brought some very dirty water. In
fact, whiskey was too plentiful and water too scarce.
From Nicoll's to Jeff's Corner is ten long and weary miles, five or six
of which are through the forest. Jeff's is not a tavern, so that you
must go to bait the horses to Des Hommes, about two miles further, where
there is no inducement to stay, it being kept by an old French Canadian,
who has a large family of half-breeds. Therefore, on to the village of
Penetanguishene, which is twenty miles from Bruce's, or some say
twenty-four. We started from Bruce's at half-past three in the morning,
and reached "The Village," as it is always called, at half-past twelve,
on the 30th of June, and the rain still continuing ever since we left
Toronto. Thus, with great expedition, it took the best portion of three
days for a transit of only 108 miles. This has been done in twenty-four
hours by another route, as I shall explain on my return.
Penetanguishene is a small village, which has not progressed in the same
ratio as the military road to it has done. It is peopled by French
Canadians, Indians, and half-breeds, and is very prettily situated at
the bottom of the harbour. Lieutenant-Colonel Phillpotts, of the Royal
Engineers, selected this site after the peace of 1815, when Drummond's
Island on Lake Huron was resigned to the Americans, for an asylum for
such of the Canadian French settled there as would not transfer their
allegiance. They migrated in a body.
This is the nearest point of Western Canada at which the traveller from
Europe can observe the unmixed Indian, the real wild man of the woods,
with medals hanging in his ears, as large as the bottom of a silver
saucepan, rings in his nose, the single tuft of hair on the scalp,
eagle's plumes, a row of human scalps about his neck, and the other
amiable etceteras of a painted and greased _sauvage_.
Here also you first see the half-breed, the offspring of the white and
red, who has all the bad qualities of both with very few of the good of
either, except in rare instances.