Our Cousins--Doing America--Two Lessons--St. Cloud--Sauk Rapids--"Steam
Pudding or Pumpkin Pie?"--Trotting him out--Away for the Red River.
ENGLISHMEN who visit America take away with them two widely different
sets of opinions. In most instances they have rushed through the land,
note-book in hand, recording impressions and eliciting information. The
visit is too frequently a first and a last one; the thirty-seven states
are run over in thirty-seven days; then out comes the book, and the great
question of America, socially and politically considered, is sealed for
evermore. Now, if these gentlemen would only recollect that impressions,
which are thus hastily collected must of necessity share the
imperfection of all things done in a hurry, they would not record these
hurriedly gleaned facts with such an appearance of infallibility, or,
rather, they might be induced to try a second rush across the Atlantic
before attempting that first rush into print. Let them remember that even
the genius of Dickens was not proof against such error, and that a
subsequent visit to the States caused no small amount of alteration in
his impressions of America. This second visit should be a rule with every
man who wishes to read aright, for his own benefit, or for that of
others, the great book which America holds open to the traveller. Above
all, the English traveller who enters the United States with a portfolio
filled with letters of introduction will generally prove the most
untrustworthy guide to those who follow him for information. He will
travel from city to city, finding everywhere lavish hospitality and
boundless kindness; at every hotel he will be introduced to several of
"our leading citizens;" newspapers will report his progress,
general-superintendents of railroads will pester him with free passes
over half the lines in the Union; and he will take his departure from New
York after a dinner at Delmonico's, the cartes of which will cost a
dollar each. The chances are extremely probable that his book will be
about as fair a representation of American social and political
institutions as his dinner at Delmonico's would justly represent the
ordinary cuisine throughout the Western States.
Having been fêted and free-passed through the Union, he of course comes
away delighted with everything. If he is what is called a Liberal in
politics, his political bias still further strengthens his favourable
impressions of democracy and Delmonico; if he is a rigid Conservative,
democracy loses half its terrors when it is seen across the
Atlantic--just as widow-burning or Juggernaut are institutions much better
suited to Bengal than they would be to Berkshire. Of course Canada and
things Canadian are utterly beneath the notice of our traveller. He may,
however, introduce them casually with reference to Niagara, which has a
Canadian shore, or Quebec, which possesses a fine view; for the rest,
America, past, present, and to come, is to be studied in New York,
Boston, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and half a dozen other big places, and,
with Niagara, Salt Lake City and San Francisco thrown in for scenic
effect, the whole thing is complete. Salt Lake City is peculiarly
valuable to the traveller, as it affords him much subject-matter for
questionable writing. It might be well to recollect, however, that there
really exists no necessity for crossing the Atlantic and travelling as
far west as Utah in order to compose questionable books upon
unquestionable subjects; similar materials in vast quantities exist much
nearer home, and Pimlico and St. John's Wood will be found quite as
prolific in "Spiritual Wives" and "Gothic" affinities as any creek or
lake in the Western wilderness. Neither is it to be wondered at that so
many travellers carry away with them a fixed idea that our cousins are
cousins in heart as well as in relationship-the friendship is of the
Delmonico type too. Those speeches made to the departing guest, those
Pledges of brotherhood over the champagne glass, this "old lang syne"
with hands held in Scotch fashion, all these are not worth much in the
markets of brotherhood. You will be told that the hostility of the
inhabitants of the United States towards England is confined to one
class, and that class, though numerically large, is politically
insignificant. Do not believe it for one instant: the hostility to
England is universal; it is more deep rooted than any other feeling; it
is an instinct and not a reason, and consequently possesses the dogged
strength of unreasoning antipathy. I tell you, Mr. Bull, that were you
pitted to-morrow against a race that had not one idea in kindred with
your own, were you fighting a deadly struggle against a despotism the
most galling on earth, were you engaged with an enemy whose grip was
around your neck and whose foot was on your chest, that English-speaking
cousin of yours over the Atlantic whose language is your language, whose
literature is your literature, whose civil code is begotten from your
digests of law would stir no hand, no foot, to save you, would gloat
over your agony, would keep the ring while you were, being knocked out of
all semblance of nation and power, and would not be very far distant when
the moment came to hold a feast of eagles over your vast disjointed
limbs. Make no mistake in this matter, and be not blinded by ties of
kindred or belief. You imagine that because he is your cousin-sometimes
even your very son-that he cannot hate you, and you nurse yourself in the
belief that in a moment of peril the stars and stripes would fly
alongside the old red cross. Listen one moment; we cannot go five miles
through any State in the American Union without coming upon a square
substantial building in which children are being taught one universal
lesson-the history of how, through long years of blood and strife, their
country came forth a nation from the bungling tyranny of Britain. Until
five short years ago that was the one bit of history that went home to
the heart of Young America, that Was the lesson your cousin learned, and
still learns, in spite of later conflicts. Let us see what was the lesson
your son had laid to heart. Well, your son learned his lesson, not from
books, for too often he could not read, but he learned it in a manner
which perhaps stamps it deeper into the mind than even letter-press or
schoolmaster. He left you because you would not keep him, because you
preferred grouse-moors and deer-forests in Scotland, or meadows and
sheep-walks in Ireland to him or his. He did not leave you as one or two
from a household--as one who would go away and establish a branch
connexion across the ocean; he went away by families, by clans, by kith
and kin, for ever and for aye and he went away with hate in his heart and
dark thoughts towards you who should have been his mother. It matters
little that he has bettered himself and grown rich in the new land; that
is his affair; so far as you were concerned, it was about even betting
whether he went to the bottom of the Atlantic or to the top of the
social tree-so, I say, to close this subject, that son and cousin owe you
and give you, scant and feeblest love. You will find themn the firm
friend of the Russian, because that Russian is likely to become your
enemy in Herat, in Cabool, in Kashgar, or in Constantinople; you will
find him the ally of the Prussian whenever Kaiser William, after the
fashion of his tribe, orders his legions to obliterate the line between
Holland and Germany, taking hold of that metaphorical pistol which you
spent so many millions-to turn from your throat in the days of the first
Napoleon. Nay, even should any woman-killing Sepoy put you to sore
strait by indiscriminate and ruthless slaughter, he will be your cousin's
friend, for the simple reason that he is your enemy.
But a study of American habits and opinions, however interesting in
itself, was not calculated to facilitate in any way the solving of the
problem which now beset me, namely, the further progress of my journey to
the Northwest. The accounts which I daily received were not encouraging.
Sometimes there came news that M. Riel had grown tired of his
pre-eminence and was anxious to lay down his authority; at other times I
heard of preparation made and making to oppose the Expedition by force,
and of strict watch being maintained along the Pembina frontier to arrest
and turn back all persons except such as were friendly to the Provisional
Government.
Nor was my own position in St. Paul at all a pleasant one. The inquiries
I had to make on subjects connected with the supply of the troops in Red
River had made so many persons acquainted with my identity, that it soon
became known that there was a British officer in the place--a knowledge
which did not tend in any manner to make the days pleasant in themselves
nor hopeful in the anticipation of a successful prosecution of my journey
in the time to come. About the first week in July I left St. Paul for
St. Cloud, seventy miles higher up on the Mississippi, having decided to
wait no longer'` for instructions, but to trust to chance for further
progress towards the North-west. "You will meet with no obstacle at this
side of the line," said an American gentleman who was acquainted with the
object of my journey, "but I won't answer for the other side;" and so,
not knowing exactly how I was to get through to join the Expedition, but'
determined to try it some way or other, I set out for Sauk Rapids and St.
Cloud. Sauk Rapids, on the Mississippi River, is a city which has neither
burst up nor gone on. It has thought fit to remain, without monument of
any kind, where it originally located itself-on the left bank of the
Mississippi, opposite the confluence of the Sauk River with the "Father
of Waters." It takes its name partly from the Sauk River and partly from
the rapids of the Mississippi which lie abreast of the town. Like many
other cities, it had nourished feelings of the most deadly enmity.
against its neighbours, and was to "kill creation" on every side; but
these ideas of animosity have decreased considerably in lapse of time: Of
course it possessed a newspaper--I believe it also possessed a church,
but I did not see that edifice; the paper, however, I did see, and was
much struck by the fact that the greater portion of the first page--the
paper had only two-was taken up with a pictorial delineation of what
Sauk Rapids would attain to in the future, when it had sufficiently
developed its immense water-power; In the mean time previous to the
development of said water-power-Sauk Rapids was not a bad sort of place:
a bath at an hotel in St. Paul was a more expensive luxury than a dinner;
but the Mississippi flowing by the door of the hotel at Sauk Rapids
permitted free bathing in its waters. Any traveller in the United States
will fully appreciate this condescension on the part of the great river.
If a man wishes to be clean, he has to pay highly for the luxury. The
baths which exist in the hotels are evidently meant for very rare and
important occasions.
"I would like," said an American gentleman to a friend of mine travelling
by railway, "I would like to show % you round our city, and I will call
for you at the hotel."
"Thank you," replied my friend; "I have only to take a bath, and will be
ready in half an hour."
"Take a bath!" answered the American; "why, you ain't sick, air you?"
There are not many commandments strictly adhered to in the United
States; but had there ever existed a "Thou shalt not tub," the implicit
obedience rendered to it would have been delightful, but perhaps, in that
case, every American would have been a Diogenes.
The Russell House at Sauk Rapids was presided over by Dr. Chase.
According to his card, Dr. Chase conferred more benefactions upon the
human race for the very smallest remuneration than any man living. His
hotel was situated in the loveliest portion of Minnesota, commanding the
magnificent rapids of the Mississippi; his board and lodging were of the
choicest description; horses and buggies were free, gratis, and medical
attendance was also uncharged for. Finally, the card intimated that, upon
turning over, still more astonishing revelations would meet the eye of
the reader. Prepared for some terrible instance of humane abnegation on
the part of Dr. Chase, I proceeded to do, as directed, and, turning over
the card, read, "Present of a $500 greenback"!!! The gift of the green
back was attended with some little drawback, inasmuch as it was
conditional upon paying to Dr. Chase the sum of $20,000 for the goodwill,
etc., of his hotel, farm, and appurtenances, or procuring a purchaser for
them at that figure, which was, as a matter of course, a ridiculously low
one. Two damsels who assisted Dr. Chase in ministering to the wants of
his guests at dinner had a very appalling manner of presenting to the
frightened feeder his choice of viands. The solemn silence which usually
pervades the dinner-table of an American hotel was nowhere more
observable than in this Doctor's establishment; whether it was from the
fact that each guest suffered under a painful knowledge of the superhuman
efforts which the Doctor was making for his or her benefit, I cannot say;
but I never witnessed the proverbially frightened appearance of the
American people at meals to such a degree as at the dinner-table of the
Sauk Hotel. When the damsels before alluded to commenced their
peregrinations round the table, giving in terribly terse language the
choice of meats, the solemnity of the proceeding could not have been
exceeded. "Pork or beef?" "Pork," would answer the trembling feeder;
"Beef or pork?" "Beef," would again reply the guest, grasping eagerly at
the first name which struck upon his ear. But when the second course came
round the damsels presented us with a choice of a very mysterious nature
indeed. I dimly heard two names being uttered into the ears of my
fellow-eaters, and I just had time to notice the paralyzing effect which
the communication appeared to have upon them, when presently over my own
shoulder I heard the mystic sound-I regret to say that at first these
sounds entirely failed to present to my mind any idea of food or
sustenance of known description, I therefore begged for a repetition of
the words; this time there was no mistake about it, "Steam-pudding or
pumpkin-pie?" echoed the maiden, giving me the terrible alternative in
her most cutting tones; "Both!" I ejaculated, with equal distinctness,
but, I believe, audacity unparalleled since the times of Twist. The
female Bumble seemed to reel beneath the shock, and I noticed that after
communicating her experience to her fellow waiting-woman, I was not
thought of much account for the remainder of the meal.
Upon the day of my arrival at Sauk Rapids I had let it be known pretty
widely that I was ready to become the purchaser of a saddle-horse, if any
person had such an animal to dispose of. In the three following days the
amount of saddle-horses produced in the neighbourhood was perfectly
astonishing; indeed the fact of placing a saddle upon the back of any
thing possessing four legs seemed to constitute the required animal; even
a German--a "Dutchman'" came along with a miserable thing in horseflesh,
sand-cracked and spavined, for which he only asked the trifling sum of
$100. Two livery stables in St. Cloud sent up their superannuated
stagers, and Dr. Chase had something to recommend of a very superior
description. The end of it all was, that, declining to purchase any of
the animals brought up for inspection, I found there was little chance of
being able to get over the 400 miles which lay between St. Cloud and Fort
Garry. It was now the 12th of July; I had reached the farthest limit of
railroad communication, and before me lay 200 miles of partly settled
country lying between the Mississippi and the Red River. It is true that
a four-horse stage ran from St. Cloud to Fort Abercrombie on Red River,
but that would only have conveyed me to about 300 miles distant from Fort
Garry, and over that last 300 miles I could see no prospect of
travelling. I had therefore determined upon procuring a horse and riding
the entire way, and it was with this object that I had entered into these
inspections of horseflesh already mentioned. Matters were in this
unsatisfactory state on the 12th of July, when I was informed that the
solitary steamboat which plied upon the waters of the Red River was about
to make a descent to Fort Garry, and that a week would elapse before she
would start from her moorings below Georgetown, a. station of the Hudson
Bay Company situated 250 miles from St. Cloud. This was indeed the best
of good news to me; I saw in it the long-looked-for chance of bridging
this great stretch of 400 miles and reaching at last the Red River
Settlement. I saw in it still more the prospect of joining at no very
distant time the expeditionary force itself, after I had run the gauntlet
of M. Riel and his associates, and although many obstacles yet remained
to be overcome, and distances vast and wild had to be covered before that
hope could be realized, still the prospect of immediate movement overcame
every perspective difficulty; and glad indeed I was when from the top of
a well-horsed stage I saw the wooden houses of St. Cloud disappear
beneath the prairie behind me, and I bade good-bye for many a day to the
valley of the Mississippi,