twenty miles inland, afford good scope for a settler of moderate
capital. This territory, though not uniformly fertile, contains a large
extent of excellent soil with a comparatively mild climate; and as the
rigorous season is shorter, winter wheat even of fine quality may be
produced. Toronto and Kingston, now considerable towns, present a ready
market, through the medium too of respectable merchants, who are known
to deal on liberal terms. The river Trent and the Rice Lake might
perhaps be viewed as enlarging the sphere of eligible settlement
somewhat beyond the limits now stated; but we could scarcely recommend
to a gentleman to go far beyond Peterborough. The vicinity of the city
first mentioned, and the goodness of the road called Gouge-street, may
indeed carry the range a little farther in that direction, though we
doubt whether it would be advisable to go to the remoter shores of Lake
Simcoe. Gore district, where it passes Burlington Bay, must, we suspect,
be considered as mere bush.
“Beyond Ontario, the shores of Lake Erie, even since the completion of
the Welland Canal, cannot be recommended without some hesitation. The
distance from Montreal becomes great, and as the goods could scarcely be
conveyed without transhipment, the tolls of three canals must be paid.
At all events, it is only the lands closely adjoining this great lake
that appear to afford a profitable site for the more opulent settlers;
for the interior of the London District, including even the banks of the
Thames, must still, we suspect, be classed with the bush-territory. Mr.
Shirreff found that wheat bore a very low price there, and that it was
moreover difficult to be procured. The shores of Lake Huron must also be
included under the same description.
[Illustration: _Lake Massawhippy._
(Eastern Townships.)]
“It ought, however, to be observed that these limits may be considerably
modified by the great works mentioned in the commercial chapter as being
contemplated for extending the communications of Upper Canada. These,
unfortunately, are now at a stand for want of means; but if the plans of
Lord Durham be carried into effect, we may hope to see them all
accomplished on an augmented scale.
“It will be proper to consider under this view the eastern townships of
Upper Canada. Their situation is peculiar, owing to the banks of the St.
Lawrence and of the Richelieu being occupied by the French seigniories,
having a tract of inferior ground in their rear. The townships are thus
thrown much inland, and their products can be brought to market only by
a land-carriage, varying from 60 to 120 miles. The roads too have
hitherto been bad; but the British American Land Company have been
employed in making a very good one from Port St. Francis to Sherbrooke,
and in improving the others. The evil also is much mitigated by the
circumstance that cattle, which form the main staple of this territory,
can convey themselves to market, and, even if killed, the salted meat
contains much more value in the same bulk than grain. Yet we should
hesitate in advising settlers of the more opulent class to proceed
further than Melbourne and Shipton, on the side of Port St. Francis, or
beyond Shefford, if proceeding from Montreal. Here they will find good
land, which, when the promised improvements are completed, will not be
much more than 50 miles from a port on the St. Lawrence.
“A young man, who desires to form a judgment how far such a mode of life
will suit him, must be warned not to carry out the ideas of rank and
dignity which are connected with the possession of land in Europe. Here,
according to feudal ideas, not wholly extinct, it was anciently combined
with power; and still, from the large rents paid for its use, it
generally confers wealth without labour—the enjoyment of splendor and
luxurious ease. But in America, this species of property has never
implied hereditary influence; and it yields income, in most instances,
only by hard personal labour, or an active superintendence. The few
wealthy men of which it can boast, have acquired their riches by acting
as merchants and storekeepers; and these are, on the whole, the persons
of greatest consequence in the country. But, though landed estate does
not ensure those factitious distinctions, there are important advantages
of which it can never be divested. It is attended with a degree of
independence seldom enjoyed by the middling classes in Britain; for
here, farmers, with a heavy burden of rent and taxes, which they must
make good amid many uncertainties, are always liable to come under the
power of their landlords. Salaried officers, too, may be exposed to
insult, and even the loss of their situations, through the caprice of
employers or superiors; whereas, a proprietor in the colonies, if he can
draw a subsistence from his lands, and keep clear of debt, is scarcely
liable to any vicissitude. He is removed, indeed, from the society of
his friends; but this, unless as to occasional visits, is usually the
lot of professional men even in our own country, who must accept
employment wherever they can find it. Again, he can never return to
reside in his native land—a privation which, to those who have spent
the best part of their lives abroad, is, in a great degree, imaginary;
and, aided by the improving means of communication, he is not debarred
from the possibility of seeing his relations at home. In regard to
society in Canada, if he has followed the advice of not going far into
the bush, he will find it as good as it is usually met with in the rural
parts of Britain, or even in provincial towns.
[Illustration: _A Lake farm on the Frontier._]
“The foregoing estimates have been made with the view of ascertaining
what income may be expected from a Canadian farm, after it is cleared
and placed under regular cultivation; but the momentous question—by
what means and resources the emigrant is to bring it into this
condition, still remains to be considered. It must not be concealed that
his task will be arduous; and if he is to perform it, as is here
supposed, by hired labourers, a certain capital will be requisite. 200
acres of land, of good quality, and in an eligible situation, cannot be
purchased for much less than 200_l._ He must erect some kind of
habitation, though at first a simple one, and have certain farm-offices,
implements, and labouring stock, which will require at least 100_l._ He
must also have the means of subsistence till he is able to draw it from
his farm; though this, it is presumed, during his noviciate, will be
managed with the strictest economy. But the hardest part of the task now
remains; for the dense forest which covers his ground must be cut down
before a single blade can grow upon it. This process, with the addition
of fencing and sowing, is averaged at 4_l._ an acre, which, with
reference to the requisite space of 150 acres, would amount to 600_l._;
the remaining 50 being advantageously allowed to remain in woodland. It
is true that this process may be gradual, and that the increasing
produce of the improved portions will afford means for clearing the
remainder; but as there is also to be paid out of it the subsistence of
the emigrant, the expenses of cultivation, and the additions necessary
to the stock of the enlarged farm, the improvements must be far advanced
before any surplus can be expected.”
[Illustration: _Lake beneath the Owls-head Mountain._
(Eastern Townships.)]
CHAP. V.
SPORTING IN CANADA.
* * * * *
The pursuit of most kinds of game in Canada does not differ sufficiently
from that of other countries to make a description worth our while. That
of the bear, however, is a sort of aboriginal sport, which sometimes
involves rough adventures. Mr. Talbot, in his Travels, gives the
following, which seems as perilous as any we can quote:—
“One of my father’s settlers, of the name of Howay, discovered the
tracks of three bears on the morning of the 11th December; and, after
following them for about three miles, came to the tree in which they had
taken up their quarters. Having his dog, his gun, and his axe with him,
he began to cut down the tree, the trunk of which was at least 16 feet
in circumference. Whilst engaged in this employment, he occasionally
directed his eyes upward, to see if his motions disturbed the bears in
the place of their retreat. He became at length weary of acting as
sentry to the prisoners, and had nearly forgotten this needful
precaution, when, in the midst of his hewing, a large piece of bark
struck him on the head. This aroused his attention, and, on looking
again, he discovered, to his great consternation, one of the bears
descending the tree in the usual manner, tail foremost. Apprehensive
that he might be attacked by his black friend, which he perceived was
coming down with every appearance of hostility, he laid down his axe,
and, taking up his gun, resolved to discharge its contents into the body
of bruin. Upon reflection, however, he desisted; for he was afraid, if
he only wounded the animal, his own life would be the forfeit of his
eager temerity. While he was thus deliberating, his dog perceived the
bear, then only a few yards from the ground, and, by his barking,
alarmed the brute so much that he ran up the tree with inconceivable
swiftness. On arriving at the opening into the trunk, he turned himself
about, and, looking down attentively, surveyed the dog and his master.
Howay now regretted that he had not called upon some of his neighbours
to assist him; but being afraid that if he should then go for any one
the party would in the mean time effect their escape, he rallied his
courage, and, resuming his gun, lodged a ball in the bear’s neck, which
fortunately brought him lifeless to the ground. Victory generally
inspires the conqueror with fresh courage, and is seldom the forerunner
of caution. The conduct of Howay, however, affords an exception to a
rule so generally acknowledged; for, instead of being elated by his
success, and stimulated to pursue his conquest, he reflected, that,
although he had been thus far fortunate, the favourable issue was to be
imputed more to casualty than to any particular exertion of his own
prowess, and concluded, that if he continued to fell the tree, he might
in his turn become the vanquished. He, therefore, very prudently
determined to go home and bring some of his neighbours to his aid.
Leaving the bear at the foot of the tree he departed, and in a short
time returned with two men, three dogs, and an additional axe. They soon
succeeded in cutting clown the tree, which, when falling, struck against
another, and broke off about the middle, at the identical spot where the
beasts lodged. Stunned and confused, the affrighted animals ran so close
to one of the men, that he actually put the muzzle of his gun close to
its shoulder and shot two balls through its body. The other escaped
unhurt; and the dogs pursued the wounded one till he compelled them to
return with their flesh badly lacerated.
[Illustration: _Orford Lake._]
“By this time the winter sun had ceased to shed his refulgent beams upon
that portion of the globe, and the men deemed it imprudent to follow the
tracks until the succeeding morning; when Howay, accompanied by a person
of the name of Nowlan, an American by birth, and of course well
acquainted with the woods, followed the tracks, having previously
provided themselves with a rifle, an axe, about six charges of powder
and shot, and bread and meat sufficient for their dinner. This was early
in the morning of Thursday, the 12th of December. About two o’clock in
the afternoon they were observed by some persons crossing the river
Thames, nearly seven miles from the place at which they set off. This
was the only intelligence we had of them for thirteen days. After they
had been absent for some time their friends concluded that they must
either have perished with hunger and cold, or have been destroyed by the
wounded bear. I was strongly of opinion that they had been frozen to
death, for the weather was excessively cold, and they were slightly
clothed, without a tinder-box and totally unprovided with any means of
shielding themselves from the inclemency of the weather. I therefore
assembled a large party of the settlers pertaining to the townships of
London and Nassouri, and proposed that we should stock ourselves with
provisions for a few days, and go in quest of the two unfortunate
hunters. To this proposal they unanimously agreed; and we set off on the
following morning, provided with pocket compasses and trumpets, a good
supply of ammunition, and the necessary apparatus for lighting fires,
taking with us some of the best dogs in the country. In the interval
between their departure and ours a partial thaw had taken place, which
left not the slightest layer of snow upon the ground, except in low and
swampy situations. We had, therefore, no tracks for our direction, nor
any idea of the course which Howay and Nowlan had taken, except what we
had obtained from the persons who saw them crossing the Thames on the
day of their departure. We had no very sanguine hopes of finding them;
but continued for two days to explore thousands of acres of interminable
forests and desolate swamps, apparently untrodden by human foot, yet
without the most distant prospect of success. We returned home, having
given up all expectation of seeing them again, either living or dead.
There was, however, one consideration which administered a portion of
comfort to our anxiety: the objects of our search were men without
families—they were strangers in America. They had no parents here to
mourn over their untimely fate; no wives to lament the hour when they
first met, or the moment when they last parted; and no children to
deplore their early orphanage, or to call in vain for their fathers’
return. In fact, they were mourned by none but unconnected neighbours.
“Thirteen days had now elapsed since the departure of the two
adventurous settlers, and all hope of their return had completely
vanished. On the morning of Christmas-day, as I was in the act of
sending messengers to some of Howay’s most intimate acquaintance, to
request them to take an inventory of his property, I was informed that
he and his companion had returned a few hours before, alive, but in a
most wretched condition. When I had recovered in some measure from my
surprise I went to see them, for I felt anxious to hear from themselves
an account of their extraordinary preservation. Never in my life did I
behold such spectacles of woe, poverty, and distress. Their emaciated
countenances, wild and sunken eyes, withered limbs, and tattered
garments, produced such an extraordinary effect upon my imagination,
that I approached them with a degree of timidity for which I was unable
to account. I sat down beside them, and for some time fancied I was
holding converse with the ghosts of departed spirits; nor could I
entirely banish this idea from my mind during a conversation of several
hours. Their preservation appeared to me as signal an interposition of
Providence as any of which I had before heard; and, since it may not
prove uninteresting to you, who are unacquainted with the woods and
wilds of America, I shall give you a particular account of it. I
consider it the more likely to interest you, because it is none of those
second-hand stories which usually, as they fly from cabin to cabin,
increase prodigiously, until they swell beyond the reasonable bounds of
probability, and fearfully invade those illimitable regions—
‘Where human thought, like human sight,
Fails to pursue their trackless flight.’
“On the day of their departure, they pursued the bear, which took a
north-western course for at least twenty miles, and at night stopped
upon his track. With great difficulty they lit a fire, having contrived
to produce a light by the application of a piece of dry linen to the pan
of their gun whilst flashing it. Thus, before a good fire, they spent
the first night, which was exceedingly cold, both supperless and
sleepless.
“In the morning they continued the chase, as soon as they had eaten a
small piece of bread, the crumbs or fragments of their dinner on the
preceding day. This was equally divided between themselves and their
dog. About noon, when they had travelled on the track, through all its
windings and doublings, for at least twenty miles, they were unable to
distinguish the north from the south, and of course considered
themselves lost in the boundless immensity of interminable forests. They
resolved to pursue the bear no longer, conscious that it would lead them
still further into the wilderness, from whence they apprehended they
could not without difficulty extricate themselves, for the snow was
disappearing fast, and the rain continuing to increase. They now
recollected, that, in the early part of the day, they had crossed over
the track of another bear, which they fancied would lead them to the
settlements. This they unwisely resolved to follow, consoling themselves
with the thought, that, if it should not conduct them to the abodes of
man, it might lead them to the bear’s retreat; and that if they should
succeed in killing him in a spot even remote from any settlement, his
flesh would afford them nourishment, and his skin a more comfortable
couch than the snow-covered deserts on which they had bivouacked the
preceding night. Hope, which—though it often bids desponding thoughts
depart, and sometimes cheers us in the darkest hour—is too frequently
the cause of our expecting where expectation is vain, and disappointment
ruinous, had, in the present instance, nearly precipitated its
unfortunate votaries into the vortex of irretrievable misery. They
followed on the track, until the snow completely disappeared, and the
sky became so dreadfully overcast, that they were compelled to
relinquish all ideas of hunting, and to think only of escaping from
solitude and starvation. They were by this time on the banks of a small
rivulet, the course of which they resolved to pursue, expecting that it
would eventually lead them to the Thames, into which they calculated, as
a matter of undoubted certainty, it emptied itself. On the banks of this
rivulet they passed the second night, but were not able to get any
sleep. It rained incessantly, and they suffered much from their exposed
situation, for they were only partially covered with a few strips of
barks. The wolves howled around them, and the tempest “fiercely blew.”
The trees bent their proud crests even with the ground; and many, torn
up by the roots through the violence of the wind, fell to rise no more,
near the very spot on which our travellers vainly sought repose.
[Illustration: _View over Lake Memphremagog._
(from the Sugar Loaf.)]
“On the third day they continued their journey down the brook, which,
growing wider and wider, inclined them to think it was the head of some
extensive river, and they hoped it would prove to be that of the Thames.
The violence of the storm began to subside about noon, but without any
abatement of the cold, or cessation of the rain, which continued to fall
during the whole of the day. A little before sunset they fired at a
partridge, but unfortunately missed it. Three charges of powder and shot
were now all that remained. Still hope, with its sustaining influence,
prevented their hearts from sinking within them, and still did they
expect a speedy termination of their toils and sufferings. But another
joyless night found them waking in all its watches, and another sunless
morning saluted them,—the victims of despair.
“On the fourth day, they felt excessively hungry and weak; their thirst
also was insatiable, being compelled every five or six minutes to drink.
In the afternoon, their hunger increased to such a degree, that they
could have eaten any thing except human flesh. Sixty hours had now
elapsed without their having tasted food of any kind, and the appalling
idea of suffering by starvation for the first time obtruded itself.
Before the close of the day, however, they succeeded in shooting a
partridge, one-half of which they imprudently ate as their supper, and
feasted on the remainder at breakfast the ensuing morning,—thus
fulfilling the scriptural injunction in a sense in which it was not
conveyed, “Take no thought for the morrow.” They declared their hunger
was no more appeased by eating this bird, than it would have been, at a
more fortunate period of their lives, by swallowing a cherry! Little
more than one charge of powder was now left; and this they resolved to
preserve for lighting fires, knowing, as the frost had again set in,
that if they were exposed for a single night to the weather, without the
protection of a fire, they must inevitably perish.
“The fifth night proved extremely cold, and Nowlan perceived, in the
morning, that his feet were badly frozen. Pitiable as their situation
was before this heart-rending event, it then became still more wretched.
This unfortunate man had now to endure a complication of unprecedented
sufferings. To the imperative hankerings of hunger, which he could not
satisfy, a continual thirst, which he could not appease, a violent
fever, which seemed not to abate, and the “pelting of the pitiless
storm,” from which he had no shelter, there was added a species of
torment the most excruciating that human nature is doomed to suffer.
Until this deplorable event, they had travelled at least fifty miles a
day, walking, or, as they expressed it, running from before sunrise
until after sunset. They were now unable to perform more than half their
accustomed journey, and even that with the utmost difficulty.
“On the afternoon of the sixth day, the sun appeared for a few moments,
and convinced them that they were not on the banks of the Thames. The
knowledge of this gave them much uneasiness, from a conviction which it
impressed on their minds, that they were on the banks of a river which
might lead them to the desolate and uninhabited shores of Lake Huron or
Lake St. Claire. Still they preferred following its course, hoping to
discover some Indian settlement, which they could have no expectation of
finding if they departed from its margin. Immediately after the sun had
disappeared they discovered a boat on the opposite side of the river,
and, a little further down, a canoe. The appearance of these vessels
induced them to think that a new settlement could not be far distant;
but, when they had travelled several miles further, and had not met with
any other traces of inhabitants, they concluded that the vessels had
been driven down the river by the ice during the late thaw, and had been
stopped at the point where they were first noticed. They were just about
to cut down some timber for the night, when they observed a stack of hay
a few perches before them, and on their side of the river. The hay
appeared to have been mowed on the flats, or shallows, where it grows
spontaneously beneath the gloomy shades of the overhanging forest. This
circumstance, when coupled with their recent discovery of the boat and
canoe, convinced them that they were in the immediate neighbourhood of
some settlement. The hay-stack afforded them a comfortable asylum for
the night, and appeared to them the most enviable bed on which they had
ever reclined.