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^'"^ IN (*ANADA,

THE

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lU,. >>

/<,.,

ADVENTURES IN CANADA,

BKixa

TWO MONTHS ON THE TOBIQUE,

NEW BRUNSWICK,

AN EMIGRANT'S JOURNAL

LONDON:
SMITH, ELDER 8c CO, Go, COKNIHLL.

233282

CONTENTS.

'BAP.

PAO«

1 ItEPACE

I. Letter L—Voyaoe to New Brunswick i

II. Letter IL— From Boston to St. John —Diary —

From St. John to Fredericton 32

III. Diary on the Tobique-The Indians and the

Wigwam _,

" ol

IV. Solitude in the Forest-Cutting down Trees 90

V. Cruising through the Forest— The Snow Falls 117

VI. Winter Advancing— Attempts to Escape 141

Vll. The Forest Abandoned— Return to Fredericton—

Homeward ^ , -„

I il

PREFACE.

-•o^

A YOUNG emigrant w'.o bad passed seven years in the
AustraJian bush, again, after eleven weeks in England
«pent witb bis family, crossed the ocean in search of
a home. That brief visit had made him unwilling
to put again so great a distance between himself
and his family as a return to AustraJia would
involve ; and his thoughts turned to emigration in
some nearer region. It was then suggested to bim by
some who were interested in coloniztt on, to break
gronnd in a yet unexplored part of New Brunswick, the
district on the banks of the Tobique river. The question
to be solved was whether the climate would not be too
severe for permanent occupation. He put this to the

Preface,

strongest possible test, by establishing himself for two
months (beginning in the middle of October) in a wig-
wam amid the depths of the forest and on the banks of
the river, where he remained utterly cut ofif from human
intercourse, and unable even to leave his self-chosen
prison till half-way through December, when the
Tobique was so completely frozen over as to make for
him a road back to the settled part of the country. This
enterprise was so unusual, and considered so perilous,
that few, when he started, expected to see him again ;
and great was the wonder and curiosity, not only in the
rough settlements of New Brunswick, but in the salons
of Fredericton (of which latter the Journal says nothing)
on his return.

He came to the conclusion, as far as his own experi-
ence enabled him to judge, that the chances of suc-
cess were not in the emigrant's favour. But he
recorded his impressions of his voyage out there, of
his short sojourn in St. John and Fredericton, and of
his two months' solitude in a forest wigwam, in letters
and a diary full of interest to those for whom they were
designed— selections from which, though after the lapse

Preface,

of fifteen years, may not be without attraction for the
general reader.

The writer of these records, which were not intended
for publication, is no more. The reader, it is hoped,
will be indulgent to the uncorrected style of one
whose career had been, from boyhood, one of physical
toil and active enterprise. Endowed with unusual
powers of endurance, possessed of ardour and energy
in executing any purpose he had chosen, a close and
unwearied observer of nature, and voluntarily trained in
boyhood to active labour and privation, he was a born
adventurer and explorer ; and had life been longer and
more propitious to him, he might, perhaps, have taken
his place amongst the successful pioneers of civilization
in the waste. This was not to be ; his few added years
of life were doomed to pass in struggles of a different
kind, and all he has left are such slight and hasty
sketches of what he had seen, and partly achieved, as
these which we now present to the public.

MSP

I •

JOURNAL

TWO lONTHS ON THE TOBIQUE

IN 1851.

CHAPTER I.

Letter I.-VOYAGE TO NEW BKUNSWICK.

My dearest — ""' ''''' ''' '''' ~' ^"^^ '''^' ^''^'
Like that illustrious traveller Lord Bateman,

I shipped myself all aboard of a ship,
Some foreign country for to see,

and once more found myself a wanderer over the world
though scarce three months had elapsed since my return'
from a seven years' banishment from England. Last
July I believed myself tied for many a year to come to
the bush of Australia ; last February I was in the grasp

2 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique.

of the storms of Cape Horn ; now I am entering on the
North Atlantic, hound for " Yankee town." " Sech is
life."

While sitting at my desk, in our snug little after-
cahin, I can hear the hoarse rustling of the water, as a
fine easterly hreeze urges our ship through the slowly
heaving waves of St. George's Channel ; the land is
vanishing, and now we are fairly at sea. And, heing so,
I may as well begin what I hope may be the means of
beguiling the tedium of many an uneventful hour in the
five or six weeks of ocean before us — that oft-told tale —
that oldest of stories — a journal at sea. But old as the
tale may be, it yet has the experience of ages to prove
that it is incumbent on all voyagers who can write to
inflict their sea mares' -nests on those who live at home
— like the Ancient Mariner who after all was but a
tremendous embodiment, a fearful impersonation, of
** Sea Stories."

Though the ocean is no novelty to me, I am revisit-
ing it under novel circumstances, in a Yankee ship,
with a Yankee crew and Yankee captain, built in a
fashion more prevalent, I believe, among American ships
than English, with a round-house instead of a poop, and
which fashion I think no improvement. She is the

Voyage to New Bmwviek. 3

bound from Liverpool to Boston, at 850 tons-a
fine ship with very fair accommodation ; in fact, the
general appearance of things is satisfactorv. I am the
only passenger, and the loneliness of . solitary passen-^er
at the beginning of a voyage is perhaps as complete!
.f he were at the North Pole. Then how intensely real
becomes the parting from his friends, those friends some
of whom perhaps he may see no more ; all their last
words come floating to him, and he wonders that of his
own will he should have forsaken what now he holds
the greatest happiness that life can yield.

26th.~lt seems to me, dear, that I have contrived
to cram a good deal of life into my few years of existence,
almost too much I sometimes think, for at times the
load of recollection seems almost more than I can bear
And now by this sudden flight of mine across the
Atlantic, am I about greatly to swell the already unruly
river of memories. I had always rather a fancy for
putting myself into what seemed a queer position ; few
however, have appeared to me more so than the one
I have now succeeded in getting into - suddenly
tearing myself from England and a thousand delights
which I have not known for seven years, and which I
have not tasted again for as much as three months, with

1—2

I — -1

4 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique.

the purpose, at least with the prospect, of going through
discomfort in a strange land 3,000 miles away. Where
are you all now, as I sit in my Yankee ship ? Whatever
supposition I make only presents to me a picture which
places my own position in anything but a favourable
light, sitting as I do all alone in the round-house cabin,
while through the open door comes the rustling bound
of the wind sweeping through the rigging, and the sigh
of the sea under the side, the ship dancing all the time
in a way which reminds me of the game "Neighbour,
neighbour, I come to torment you" — "What with?"
" With an up and a down." Whales mingled with
porpoises came down alongside in the evening, and
looked at us like fishes of the world.

Sunday, ^Ith. — The captain tells me that a passenger
he took to New Orleans kept a diary, for, having been in
a TCievcdiwtecl house, he could not be easy unless he was

writing, " so that," says Captain W , with an

appearance of awe, "you could see all his thoughts —
that is," correcting himself, " his wife could, for I
guess it was shut to me and to every one else." He
had a splendid black barndoor cock which died the other
day, and which in his lamentations over it, he insisted
on calling (with the almost over-refinement of his

yoyage to New Brinmcick. 5

country-he is a New Englander) "a splendid rooster "
As I could not muster up courage to call it so myself on
so short a notice, and was afraid of offending his delicacy
>f I called it as the Britishers are wont, I got out of the
difficulty by speaking of him as the "bird."

He improves on acquaintance, like most Yankees
that I have met ; he is very reserved and even morose to
strangers, but now we are better acquainted, we get on
very well and comfortably. He tells yarns at meals and
"" *e after-cabin with grim sociabihty, guessing ener-
getically at things he knows perfectly well, and makin.
sepulchral jokes. The chief mate has also got over thi
Bour surliness which his counfymen seem to think
necessary towards strangers, and condescends to talk
with me during his watch.

It would be vain were I attempt to give you an
Idea of the kicking, jumping, and smashing during last
night's gale. Sleep was out of the question-now was
the ship standing on her head, now on her hind le-^s
then seeming to disappear from us on one side, then'
on the other, while every minute the heavj- smash of a
sea, as it came tumbling against her bows, shook her to
her centre. It is still blowing hard irom N. (which is a
fair wind), but being more abeam we feel the sea less

6 Journal of Ttvo Months on the Tohique.

These northerly gales are very glorious, with their clear
sky and sparkling sea — the ocean with its intense hlue
beneath an unclouded sun can- only be compared to a
vast azure satin cloth covered thickly with silver
spangles, each and all of which gleam with a snowy
brightness. The sea during a stormy gale, beneath a
clear sky and a bright sun, is probably one of Nature's
most exquisite sights.

Yesterday morning, a man whom nobody knew (or
professed to know) made his appearance on deck,
emerging ghost-like from the forehold, where he had
been planted since we left Liverpool. ** Must feed
him," says the skipper : *' but I guess he'll have to
work some for it." I was talking to him (the ca;itain)
about Livei*pool ; he quite agrees with me in what I
say of the horrors of its populace, but says if I were to
represent to a Liverpool man the kind of people he
is living amongst, the filthiest sediment of that foiil
mixture, a civilized community, he would laugh at me,
and utterly refuse to believe it — which is but natural
and proper. As for the smoke, he guesses what I
saw wasn't a circumstance to what it is in winter.

The black nigger of a steward is sitting in his
pantry opposite, and looking at me, not blushing like

Voyaffe to New Brunswick. 7

, but grinning in a way that makes me feel ugly, I
tell you. I just made an attempt to draw him out, of
Bheer spite, intending to paint him blacker than he is •
but it involved too much gazing on his provoking!
grmning, ugly, monkified caricature of a face.

9 P.M.-Some prospect of a better night than the
last ; the wind has moderated to a trifling breeze, but
the ship is still wallowing about in the swell a gale
leaves. It is immediately after a storm that you can best
appreciate the height of the ridges of water with their
tops unbroken travelling along in dogged sullen
grandeur.

Two things have an unpleasant aspect, and may make
the voyage very disagreeable. The first is a row with the
second mate's watch, who, being told to " turn to " this
afternoon, said they " didn't like " to. So the mate
told the captain, and the captain went on deck. He
sent the mate forward to order the refractory watch up
that he might lecture them, muttering at the same time
Homething about putting the spokesman in irons. So
he waited, and I with him, in full hope of hearing a
specimen of Yankee eloquence, which, in an excited
Yankee, is apt to be very rich. But the men would
not come to our vicious little chief, so he had to «o

8 Journal of Two Months on the Tobiqur.

to them, and in a few minutes I was summoned forwards
by the mate to be witness of what passed.

When I got to the scene of action, the captain told
me he wanted me to hear how he had asked the men
three times to go to work, and be witness that they had
refused, '' which," he told them, in an explanatory tone,
"is mutiny; d'ye hear? mutiny on the high seas;"
and then, that I might hear him ask them again, he
made his fourth request, which he did by clenching his
fist, shaking it at them, and shouting to them, "Why
the bad place don't you come and work ? " wishing a
bad end to the affair universally, and stating " he'd be
shooting some of them presently." After a pause of a
few seconds, during which none of them stirred, he
turned to me and his mates with a benignant air, and
begged us to observe that he had asked them four times.
So we walked away. For this the men may get three
months or more in gaol. In the meantime, if it leads
to nothing worse on the voyage, I may be bothered by
being subpoenaed in Boston, especially if more violent
scenes ensue.

But the second and worse prospect is that the ship
has apparently sprung a leak — in fact, has — makes
nearly a foot of water in an hour, and requires constant

Voyage to New Brunswick,

pumping. She is a new ship, but has, in dry dock at
Liverpool, been badly caulked and coppered so as to
require pumping every four hours at starting; but
during last night's gale and the violent pitching and
straining she went through, there can be but little
doubt she has started something. This is an unpleasant
look-out with 3,000 miles of a stormy ocean before
us.

While pacing the deck this evening, I have been
amusing myself by building romances on this founda-
tion with the long boat (big enough to hold us all
comfortably) before my eyes. I saw the whole thing
at a glance; another violent storm— carpenter sounds
the well ; with a face white as a ghost, he announces
" six feet of water in the hold." We get out the boat
without loss of time, for four weeks are tossed about on
the wild and stormy ocean on half a biscuit a day, till
all our provisions are gone ; then in silence we cast
wolfish glances at each other, till the most desperate
speaks:— ''My lads, one must die to save the rest."
The fatal lot is drawn by a fat, chubby little fellow
(on whom I mean to have my eye henceforth), when just
as with manly resignation he prepares to meet the death-
blow, the cry '' a sail ! " is raised. At the joyful sound,

Journal of Two Months on the Tobiqiic,

some, overpowered by their emotions, can only stare in
stupid bilonce ; others embrace with alternate tears and
frantic laughter; while others, whose reason has given
way under the sudden shock, blend pious ejaculations
with fearful blasphemies.

The ship which takes us up is bound to the coast
of Africa ; and now the whole story is plain : of course
we are wrecked, and of course made prisoners by the
Arabs, who march us over burning sands till all my
companions one by one drop dead. I alone survive
the horrors of that journey. I am brought to a Moorish
town and offered for sale (being of course well spit
upon as a Nazarene by the women), when the sultan
or sheik, hearing of the Feringhee, who are all well
known to be clever doctors, I am ordered, on pain of
death, to heal his favourite daughter who is ill. Her
malady I soon find to be that she has fallen in love
with the interesting Christian captive. I write a
charm, the words being "the frog he would a- wooing
go," which satisfies the old gentleman, while I admi-
nister such good medicine to the gentle Zuleika's dis-
tracted mind, that the old cove, in an ecstasy of
gratitude, gives her to me as a wife if I'll only
renounce my religion, which, " as it's only a faith of

Voyage to New Bnmsicick, H

mine, I'm no ways particlder about,"* and do without
a moment's hesitation.

Scene changes to twelve years after. I have risen
to the highest honours, but a yearning for my native
land comes over me. I cut the old cove's throat, and
with Ayesha, my thirteenth and favourite wife behind
me on my beloved mare, the *'Maid of the Desert," I
am soon beyond pursuit. I gain the coast, steal a
boat, having first knocked the owner's brains out, put
to sea, and am taken by a French ship, whose captain,
conquered by Ayesha's beauty, becomes very annoying.
But I have not been a Moslem for nothing: I bid
Ayesha speak him fair, invite him to supper in our
cabin, where she promises him a little delicacy as a
specimen of the Moorish cuisine, and which I carefully
season with a Moorish poison. The captain astonishes
his crew by dying of nothing at all : but as they begin
to suspect, I take the liberty of serving them all in the
same way. But Ayesha not approving of all these
summary proceedings, upbraids me for a monster;
whereupon " there is but one course left to me," and

* See Household Words for an account of a tipsy prosecutor, who,
having been robbed of his watch, says, " It wasn't my watch, it was a
frez of my ; I'm no ways partickler about it."

I: !

12 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique.

wreathing my hand, &c., I stick her as you would
stick a pig, get ashore somehow, and become either a
misanthrope or a devout Christian, I am not sure
which.

And all this is to come from my visit to C ! for

to that I helieve may he attributed my finding myself
on board a Icak;^ Yankee ship. Joking cipart, I am
not quite easy, nor are the captain and mates.

Wednesday J SOth. — I have been looking forward
through the day to my quiet evening's yarn with you,
dearest, without which, in fact, I should hardly know
how to get through the weary hours of darkness before
I turn in. Truly, on a night like this, it would not
be hard to grow sad with thinking of the absent and
the past. If I look to my right, down in the dark
abyss of the lower cabin gleams a miserable lamp like
a star in a stormy sky, or a star at the bottom of a
well. Another horrid thing, by whose light I am
writing, shows me dimly the ugly bulkheads of the
state-room on each side of the cuddy, and through the
door I hear the hoarse murmuring rustling wind in the
rigging, and, to heighten the gloominess of the picture,
reflect that the ship has to be pumped out every hour,
and that it is blowing a steady double-reefed-topsail

Voyage to New Prumtwick.

Lil

pile rij^'lit in our teoth, with a fofifgy, drizzling, uu-
broiton ruin. It is nour ten, the captain as usual lying
on his berth (he has not been in bed yet), not a sound
l)ut the dismal moan of the winds, the creaking timber,
and the sudden smashing thumps of the sea.

I have been having a yarn with the mate this
evening about many things; amongst others — and
not for the first time — which boat would be the safest
for us if we have to take to them. And then he told
me how he had once been four days in a ])oat under the
same circumstances. This is not inspiriting work.
Moreover, he told me of those dire explosions (there
go the pumps again) of the Mississippi steamers which
, occurred when he was at New Orleans, in which two
hundred people were destroyed. The force of the ex-
plosion was such, that one of the boilers was flung
nearly half a mile. You may understand then how,
not bodies, but rather fragments of bodies, were picked
up in the streets of the town, so crushed and ground
up by the steam as to be actually shovellrd into the
carts ; yet, hideous to relate, actually with life and
speech left. He seemed almost overpowered at the
mere recollection of what he had seen.

He has also been in three hurricanes, which seem

14 Joarnal of Two Months on the Tohlque.

also to have left a lasting impression on his memor} .
He says, while they lasted, nothing could be seen even,
nor a thing done, nor a word heard, nor any sound
save that of one unending peal of thunder, — the noise
of the wind. In describing a railway capsize, he told
me how they climbed one of the weather-sides of the
cars. When a ship is thrown on her beam-ends, of
course you know the upper is the weather-side.

This chief mate improves on acquaintance ; I like
him much. " I have two fine little boys at home ; I
have not seen them for two years; by being a sailor
and so long from home, I lose all their little winning
ways ; a sailor had just as well not be married." I
pitied him when I heard him so complain. I like the
captain, too, very much ; besides, it is a teetotal ship,
to all intents and purposes, which is another good
point.

Slst. — The wind has at last dwindled away to
nearly a dead calm, but the heavy rolling sea is still
rocking the poor ship about in a helpless, clumsy way,
making the useless sails flap and bang miserably against
the mast; a grey dusky sky overhead, a gloomy grey
ocean around ; — such a combination of discomforts.
Mother will pity me when she hears that I have no

Voyage to New Brunsivick. 15

:;7' "i"'"'"'" -'-«"'- -„o. disagreeable.
- the blankets are Cean. I do ^oUike the incessant
shower tobacco juice wbicb rains on the deck in a
way w, h „.„„,, ^^^ ^^ ^^^^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^_ ^^ ^^

AS lor tbe mutinous cvpu- n>o „ i •

ous cie«, the captain means to have

anot er tnal of strength with them, being much dis-
satisfied ,vith his own quietness on the first occasion.
This IS a prospect I don't relish, as there will not
improbably be violence.

I have had a long yarn with my favourite the chief

»ate, who, from one or two thing, he has said, lam
eompele, to believe has been in a slaver. He speaks
of the trade with much disgust as being so dirty. Also
he went some years ago to Smyrna at a time when the'
Archipelago was ful, of pirates. Their own ship was well
anned having guns double-shotted and grape over that.

00 a boat sailed after tliPm c„ n ^ .

iiiem,— suddenly showing herself

-aer the lee of an island.-sixty men or so o^n bo:
^!' 'em and followed close, and refused to answe
when hailed. So the captain pointed a .uarter-gun at

them, fired, and, as the lanky, sepulchral mate sai^ with

a.nm chuckle, '-sent tliewhole charge slap in among
them, certainly killed half on 'em.- They saw no
more of them.

16 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique,

N '

I am inclined to think more and more favourably of
New Brunswick from Johnstone's representation of it ;
and, though at present I am fully prepared to visit Lake
Superior, I suspect both judgment and inclination will
be in favour of the Tobique or the Restigonche, of which
J. speaks highly, and which probably will be as much
benefited by the railway as the Tobique. But his
account of the enormous quantity of traffic between the
lake and western districts and the Atlantic ports, a
large proportion of which would inevitably be diverted
into the Saint Lawrence by the removal of a few dif-
ficulties and objections, is highly corroborative of what

Mr. N has told me. The perusal of Johnstone not

only gives me general information, or rather an enlarge-
ment of ideas, on agriculture, but is even raising in me
a little enthusiasm on the subject, and makes me eager
to try my hand on it for its own sake.

I am very dubious of being able to make anything
out of the intolerably stooimi details of a voyage. The
mate is a windfall — if I yarned with the men I might
get some amusement, but that I carefully avoid, as
every passenger ought. An occasional civil remark is
well and proper, but yarning don't do. AVell, I believe
I have got to the end of what I have collected and pre-

f'«W<; to New Brunswick. 17

pared for you, during the (]av_an,l »

■■»'«::r:;;::t:::,:;;'-r*

«!. . ^' "*^^' i^yster OILS trpn

""' "^7""»" "'- -*-' element, .pend their C
on one wliose dan-ers if „„f „

rate m.r. , • '' ^' ^'■''''^'•' "«' '»' any

>ate, n,ore obvious than those of the land It •

-™;«"e thin, that n.e„ .honh, ehoo. To ;J^^^
>andandhveontheever.so„ndin«n,ain. "

Anoust Ut.-A heavy ,ea rolhn. on ns fron. tl

T' r "^^^ '^"^ " -'-' "- ^•'- ^e: :

ship rolls and slides Ji hn .

-«ctory .anner. whiie th C j V-, "^'
"-'^''>. -d hanging the .a.s h,e t 1 ^ "I
;-">■ weather, J„iey, ,hn.y weather-and a Iht "-
threatens storm. "'^ '"'^'^^^^

With the second mate I have in.f i i ,

Journal of Two Months on the Tohique.

it 1

admirably adapted for its production, the farmer, with
that degree of prudence and industry which is necessary
for success in every profession, could hardly fail of rapidly
realizing a fortune. In fact, people are finding that out
already, and farming in California is now attracting much
attention ; but^ as yet, the field is open for thousands.
The only fear is the failure of the gold mines. My own
judgment and inclination would lead me there to-morrow,
as far as I depend on the information I at present possess.
And yet I have always said that the magnificent
edifice of Californian prosperity is built on a foundation,
and with materials the most unworthy to be trusted —
dependent entirely on a mining foundation, grubbing
for gold in buri'ows like rabbits, which at present they
find in bushels, but which may any day suddenly dis-
appear — and then the whole Californian community
disperses and vanishes like a soap-bubble. And such
a community !— the materials of this shining edifice con-
sisting almost entirely of the most worthless, the most
morally hideous of the whole human race. Had I been
ignorant of this before, what I have this night heard
would have shown it to me. And does this large and
enormously wealthy and marvellously prospering and
increasing community contribute its share to the welfare

Voyage to New Brunswick,

fare

of the world generally ? Certainly it absorbs manu-
factures, but is it a refuge for the poor but indus-
trious classes of old countries, like the North American
colonies, or those in the Southern Ocean ? or is it a
nursery for a race of men which may be a great and
good nation worthy ol its position on the earth ? Is it
possible that such a people can spring from such a
stock ? such a people as may hereafter be found on the
plains of Australia or in the forests of Canada ? And it
may be asked, can a Californian tiller of the soil take
as high a moral stand as the Australian squatter, or the
Canadian farmer, whose life, it is true, is spent in the
acquisition of the gold, but whose occupation finds
employment and reward for the industry of hundreds,
while the Californian farmer, not yielding like them his
humble contribution to the general welfaro of his race,
lives but to feed a huge congi-egation of burrowing
scoundrels ? These questions might be asked ; I have
asked them of myself often enough, but I do not say
that they suggest the correct view of the case, or a just

pol-economical view, or that it is my own view

I think I could get more gold there than in New
Brunswick, although society in New Brunswick may
stand on a more secure basis. I think I see myself

2-2

20 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique.

trudging across the plain of Texas, with a pickaxe on
my shoulder, on my way to the diggings. An ugly old
brute of an Indian is shooting at me from behind a
tree, I having a carpet bag in my hand which the Indian
wants to get at. [Here follows in the manuscript a
rough sketch of the supposed scene.]

Tell my father that the needle of my aneroid
vibrates to and fro with the motion of the ship, just as
the mercury of the barometer rises and falls from the
same cause. I can hardly conceive how so little a
difference in elevation can so greatly affect an instru-
ment whose oscillations amount, when the sea is very
heavy, to 0'5.

Johnstone's account of the treatment of strangers,
by the New Brunswickers, and of their notions of
hospitality, is exceedingly disgusting to an Australian
accustomed to the hearty welcome he is sure of, at nine
stations out of ten, and who would think the Last Day
at hand, if the most vmvilling entertainer ever dreamed
of expecting payment for the night's lodging he gave.
Those who are not fond of guests turn them away, but
never charge for accommodation.

August 2nd. — It's of no use mincing the matter;
this is blackguard weather — sickening — worser than

Voyage to Kew Bnmsivkk. 21

anytWnk. The same unvarying fog, or rather only
varied by occasional downpours of rain, and, to com-
Plete the matter, all but „ dead calm. A brig stole
Quietly out of the dark mysterious depths of the fog
and passed close by us-she said she was from Kay
Chaleur (in New Brunswick), bound to Lancaster. She
seemed not gradually rising from the horizon, but
as It were, created by our side. This calm, inexor-
aWe fog is making us all lose our tempers. The
captain makes grim jokes and humbugs the steward
(•' Portuguese nigger); the chief mate gives snappish
answers, and assumes a demoniac expression, while
tl- second sits in a corner sail-making, and grumblin.
to himself in a low, continual growl as only a sailor
can grumble.

The meek chief mate has confided to me a touching
little mcident in his mild, amiable life. He has been
a great deal with Spaniards, sailing with them, &c
" One day," quietly drawled he in his soliloquizing
manner, " one of them came near stabbing me-
tned to stab me in the heart, but the knife missed
and struck a bone below the ribs," which he showed'
" ^^"' "^ *'^'" ^» ? " «"« I. " Oh, we quarrelled."
And what did you do? drown him?" "Knocked

22 Journal of Two Months on the Tohlque.

his brains out," still in the same quiet drawl, and
added, after a pause, " with a bit o' iron." So we
passed on from that trifle, like men of the world, to
other matters,

• We have just had an introduction to the great
whales, which are often to be met with in these lati-
tudes, and of whom five or six showed themselves
yesterday close alongside, keeping up with us for
some time — gi-eat, solemn, helpless-looking monsters,
lumbering along with a lazy, undulating motion, and
now and then showing their ugly square faces from
the side of a wave, while they spirt a fountain of
spray into the air with a deep gasping sigh, absolutely
majestic in their extreme clumsiness.

August Qth. — I have let my log lie by for a few
days from a scarcity of events, and from finding it
had already gone ahead too much. Now events are
coming a little too quick, and of a kind to make me
wish myself out of the ship as soon as may be. In the
first place, we don't get on a bit. Since yesterday
a strong south breeze, with a wild electric sky and
constantly falling barometer, made us expect a gale,
and from royals we came down to single-reefed top-
sails, and then at 9 p.m. appearances were such that

Voyage to Xcw Bninsifick. 23

the captain furled everything but the three close-
reefed topsails and foretop staysails. Lightnin;. (lashed
incessantly, gusts of wind wandered over the sea as
though they knew not where to go. We expected a
heavy gale, but have since had calms and squalls,
lying to still under a mere nothing of canvas, still
in the same wearying uncertainty of what is in store
for us. A still falling barometer and the stormiest
appearances, deter us from making sail ; the wind
keeps shifting about, the sky all day, and especially
at sunset, assuming appearances of wild and terrible
beauty. So the day has passed-every breeze as it
reached us supposed to be the van of the expected
gale -till night has come without a solution of the
problem. A huge rolling sea flings us helplessly
about and astonishes everybody.

Again, to add to our trouble, the men have begun
to stab each other, and there on the floor of the cabin
lies the black steward on his face, groaning with the
agony of a terrible wound in the back inflicted by
the cook, a mere lad and a mete savage. Wlien I
came on deck this morning I heard high words in
the galley (or cooking place); presently out came
the steward, and in an instant foUowcd the cook,

24 Journal of Two Months on the Tohlqiw.

who flung a largo saucepan at Lim with sufficient
force to have killed him on the spot had it struck
him. Then the steward seized him in his arms,
and (being a very powerful man) flung him down like
a child. But the captain parted them then, and sent
the steward aft. However, he heing out of sight,
they were soon at it again, and as I stood on the
poop, after some fierce dispute about a bucketful of
plates, I saw the cook thrust headforemost out of
the galley, with ihe steward over him, who forth-
with began to pound his head on the deck. A
crowd gathered, and an ill-looking scoundrel, who had
hefore been helping the cook to abuse the steward,
walked up quietly with his pale, wicked face, and began
kicking the negro in the face. He was right to part
them, but not so.

Then the negro knocked off" the cook, dashed at
the sailor, and a great scuffle ensued, during which
the cook was in the galley. The sailor got the negro .
down, and while he held him, out rushed the cook,
and I saw him strike him as he lay (but I saw no
knife in his hand then). The second mate came up
and parted them ; I walked forward io help him, and
saw much blood about the negro, who to our expostu-

at
Ich
rro

Voyage to New BntnawicJc, 25

latious, replied that the cook had 'Mvuiled" him, —
" he kill me now, hut I shall kill him hefore I die,"
— and then, with his hideous, pale hlack skin, he
calmly went looking ahout for some weapon where-
with to revenge the death ho expected on "that hoy,"
as he called him. The latter stood the while, hran-
dishing an ugly hutcher's or " sheath " knife, yelling
and screaming like a madman. The contrast was
fearful hetween the frenzied rage of the one and the
cool concentrated hatred and murderous aspect of the
other, who kept repeating in a low voice, his intention
of killing ** that boy before I die," while his eyes wan-
dered everywhere in search of a weapon.

We in the meanwhile tried to get him up, but could
not do anything with him except keep him from the
cook till a more powerful agent than us began to work,
— the deep stab in his back. For suddenly he turned
paler than ever, and said in a voice of terror to the
second mate, ** Oh, Sir, I die ! I die now ! " But it
was not death, but faintness — so great that all further ven-
geance he had to postpone. So we got him to the cabin,
and I went on the poop to the captain, who knew not
what was going on, but who instantly came down. Then
we sewed up his wound in ignorance of its depth, and

26 Journal of Two Months on the Tohiquc.

•*

El :>

|ii 'iJ

Ijiid him on liis face, where ho hus lain ever since, his
only consolation heing his determination, which ho con-
tinually mutters in English and Portuguese, to murder
or **matar" ** that hoy," if he does not die himself,
which he occasionally believes he will. This belief
seems only to distress him as robbing him of his revenge.

While we were dressing his wounds, I observed the
cook pattering about and wiping up blood, which I then
saw was flowing from a gash in his foot, which he affirms
the steward gave him first. This I am not confident of.
Indeed, I think he got it accidentally, and that the story
the men tell, in which the negro is made the first to use
the knife, is got up to screen the white man. For there
is a feeling about Americans, natural enough, but which
had not occurred to me till the second mate explained it
to mc, that a nigger should never be allowed to beat a
white. ''Why, if I saw him whipping a white man,
I'd knock his brains out myself; the steward would
stand a bad chance in this ship," &c. Had the steward
stabbed the cook, he would probably have been killed by
the crew at once. The captain has none of these feelings ;
he is a humane, reasonable man, and one whom I like
very much.

In consequence of all this slaughtering work, the

Voyage to New Brinmi'ick, 27

deck is stained with splashes of bk)od, and the cal)in floor
is slii)j)ery as f^lass with the same abomination, in spite
of all the washiu*?. If the steward dies (as I expect),
the cook will he in a scrape. I^ut you may ima«,'ine I
am not well pleased to find myself in such company.
One of the officers has been first mate in a slaver, t'other
has been with Spaniards and foreign ships so much, that
I suspect more than I would say about what he has
been ; the steward himself once belonged to a slaver.
I must say, however, that the officers and I think "st
of the crew are shocked at this morning's work. he
whole business angers and disgusts me : the bad feeling
against the niggers, the sight of the poor wretch who
may be dying, and whose only solace in his sufferings is
the hope of murdering (and kill him he will if he re-
covers) — the whole piece of atrocity is, as a Port Phillip
neighbour of ours would say, "very annoying."

And what do you think was the beginning of this ?
Some ham the steward was cutting for our breakfast !
The cook asked him why he cut it in that way ? The
other replied that it was no business of his. The cause
of the steward's obstinacy in carrying on the quarrel was
probably to be found in a mug of whiskey we found in
his pantry, which he had stolen from a keg kept for

Journal of Two Months on the Tohiquc.

■

medical uses. He did not seem at all intoxicated, but
probably the spirit gave additional violence to his temper.
The chief mate is used to this kind of thing in New
Orleans, besides having been knifed himself; still, he
disapproves of it.

August 11th. — The gale we were expecting when I
last wrote never came at all ; the barometer and the
minacious clouds were but crying *'wolf." A stift'
breeze from N.W. set all right, and for the last few
days we have had nothing but light head winds, beau-
tiful summer weather, varied by a sharp squall now and
then, smooth water and ceaseless grumbling. The men
kept tumbling down and hurting themselves, or getting
ill or something, to the captain's infinite disgust. The
head winds have sent us too fast, — we are nearly in the
latitude of the Azores, and, I suppose, not 200 miles
from it.

I have just finished copying a manifest of the ship's
cargo, which I did willingly for the captain, both for
the sake of the occupation and because he is a very good
fellow. The steward is, I am glad to say, recovering ;
but a white man in his predicament would have been
food for fishes ere now. The refractory watch have
come back to their duty, — so that row is over.

Voyage to New Brunswick. 29

Last night, in his usual low-voiced matter-of-fact
way of telling things, our dear chief mate told me stories
of tiger, bear, and wild-boar shootings, which he had had
in Cuba and elsewhere ; and of a wild young English
" lord " on board his ship, who used to put him in
mind of Lord Byron, who travelled all about America
in search of adventures, and whose chief ambition was
to fight a grizzly bear. Another rather exciting event
disturbed the even current of his young life at nineteen
or twenty-his career was within an ace of being closed
by-the gallows, for a murder he never committed.

We have seen some gulfweed, and so with that and
flying-fish, and the hot sun and the squalls, I fancy
t»y^olf in the tropics again. But we are evidently in
for a long voyage. We still have to pump every hour,
but it is our old story now, and we have left off talkin-i
of the boats. Au, reste. I get on very comfortably-thi
grub is good enough for the likes of me; I have books
-the captain tells me funny stories, and there is
nothing to grumble at, except the weather,, the bit of
murdering, growlings, &e.

Aagusf 12^;,._This morning at 3 h. 15 m. I woke
with a notion that something unusual was going on • a
very few seconds sufficed to explain that hoarse ro'ar

Jonrnal of Two Months on the Tohiquc.

t i

r *(

'- K

mingled with shouting, and flappings, and rattlings, and
that little hole over-head, which proved to he the port-
hole, usually hy my side. A furious storm had assailed
us, and a sudden rending crash for a moment made me
fear we had lost a topmast, when the loud cry of, ** Let
go the topsail halyards!" relieved me from that anxiety.
To remain in hed any longer was not to be thought of ;
so I jumped into my clothes and looked out on deck,
and such a sight and such a sound you never saw or
heard. The storm was rushing and howling over us
like legions of insane lions, or rather it was as though
a Niagara of wind was dashing against us. The gusts
seemed too solid for air ; they came with the resistless
weight of a torrent of water, bearing the poor ship down
before its mighty onset, till she looked like a helpless
woman cowering beiieath the rage of her drunken husband.
As long as she could be kept right before the wind
there was not much to fear, but, with such a press of
canvas, maintopgallant sail over single-reefed topsails,
it was no easy matter to steer her steadily. At last a
sweep to windward — a sickening lurch as the blast
caught her abeam, soon brought our captain out from
his lair, when, instead of adding to the already scarce
endurable strain on the spars, as he had before been

Vo!/affe to New Brmmnck. sj

promising himself to do, he had only time to get in his
topgallant sail, and two more reefs in his topsails, before
the gale seemed suddenly to wake up to its work with
a fury I had not before seen equalled, horrible in its
grandeur-a storm run mad-a delirious tempest-such
.t seemed to me. I used to imagine I had had experi-
ence in the wrath of the wind, but this was an exhibi-
tion of ,ts frenzy quite novel to me. I could not stand
without holding on by the rigging, before blasts which
came down on us with a vengeful violence-a crushing
weight as though they would grind the ship to powder
The yelling of the gale through the blocks, the hoarse'
roaring in the shrouds and rigging might be con.pared
to the war-whoop of a whole nation of Red Indian.,
amo.g their ow. stormtost forests. It was very dark,
but through the darkness gleamed the snowy manes of
tl.e huge waves, as they came topphng after us hke
mountains torn up from their roots.

We could none of us quiet ourselves to the idea of
urnmg .n till the early morning, and even then, when
1 1 ought the gale had done its w-orst, it increased til,

as I lay in my cot, I felt the poor shin f.,;,.I„ • • '
. , I "' ^"'P ti'irly quiver in

the mighty grasp of the tempest.

32 Journal of Two Months on the Tohiqiie.

CHAPTER II.

Letter II.— FROM BOSTON TO ST. JOHN.— DIARY— FROM
ST. JOHN TO FREDERICTON.

St. John, \Oth September, 1851.

I MUST refer to my note-book for an account of my
proceedings. My notes state that on a day of heat
which the Bostonians borci with as little content as
myself, I left their roasting city per steamer Achnlral,
bound for East Port in the state of Maine, where
another boat from St. John would meet us. I must
tell you though, to gain your good- will for my friend

the lanky, sepulchral chief mate of the , of the

cordially friendly grasp of the hand and his '' God
bless you," and wishes that I might have a pleasant
journey, showing me that by our long yarns in his
evening watches on deck I had gained a friend.

American steamers are not a bit like those j'ou are
used to ; they are more like Noah's ark, only the
beasts you meet in them are much queerer than he

From Boston to St. John. gg

o mnei, „. «h,ch were assomllea fifty mouti,,

Y«'^- "ith a Xe. b™.„.,. e,i.opal e er! 1 '

»■'- account of the ...eaUural prospect. 72

rrovmcc wore very discouragin.. Ho sn„l, ,

tl^e extreme rigour of tl,e • T ^ ™™^'' •>'

"«om 01 the winter, and said it was an

7 ^--'y -w, tho,,,, twenty years a. it ^

' '*' ''^'" "° ''PPi'-tion of agricultural science
r ;""^™* its evil in«„.„,,. ,,,,^„ ^ ^ -

-'t .u,,.t be owin, to that exhaustion Of tls!;
a-ohnstoue spea.s of, he said that it was dispro

S^^ t rrr ""'"' '™^ ^^'^^ --'^''-''-

■^e sajs that the mineral rpc^nnv.

-^iderahle. instauein: .I r. "^ ^ ^"""^ ^^
St John . ■ , • """""tain not very far from

't "^"'''' '^ »'™-t composed of the richest iron
«>•«. which has hitherto been left nnf ,
that want of energy disnl , , *''™"^"'

^o--vhichiss"m::::^';r"'-^--^^^^

-'-- «'^ ^"-.ee Of all ^J^ r'''^ "' '"«

pccuuti^e daring, confining.

34 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique.

the investments of the capitalists to those recommended
hy safety, and certainty alone. I shall try to get some
more definite information ahout the iron, and if possible
visit the spot ; for the railway, which is, you know, a
determined affair, and which it is believed will rapidly
be carried on towards, ay, and to the Pacific, will be
in itself a market for the metal besides the United
States, which alone would perhaps absorb all that
New Brunswick could produce, and so those who open a
mine there may find they have done a first-rate thing.

dth SeiHemher. — Great as was the ..discomfort of
last night, still it was equalled by the amusement it
afforded. I had heard something about complaining of
the plight they found themselves ii>, in that boat, when
they turned in ; and accordingly determined to avoid
all risks, I resigned my berth, and, in American
fashion, possessed myself of a mattress, of which, in
these steamers, there are plenty of spare ones, placed
it on the deck in one of the passages, and wrapped in
my great coat, prepared to pass, as I hoped, a quiet
night, after a long talk with one of the pleasantest of
my new friends, though a genuine Yankee. It was
now past eleven, but ere twelve I found I was woefully
deceived in iny idea that I had eluded the foe. After

From Boston to St, John,

ncled
some
ssible
LOW, a
apidly
rill be
Jnited
I that
open a
ling,
fort of
ent it
ling of
, when
avoid
ericau
iich, in
I placed
)ed in
quiet
test of
[t was
)efully
After

a cool argument with myself on the matter, I " guessed"
I might as well get up as lie there catching bugs.
According to another American fashion I must tell that
close to me, were a gentleman and his wife, who
occupied two other mattresses, and with whom I after-
wards set up an acquaintance. In these steamers the
passengers either go to the berth at night or scatter them-
selves on mattresses where they like; my two neigh-
bours certainly retained their clothes ; but I was highly
amused, though rather aghast, when I beheld an Irish
family (of well-dressed people too) consisting of the
parents and two fine young women, with solemn
deliberation begin systematically to *' peel." I have
seen funny things in my travels, but few funnier than
this. Yet doubtless it was done in the simplicity of
their hearts, and I was in their eyes of no more con-
sequence than the pig who had at home been the
companion of their slumbers. In an American boat
you see one meets with very mixed society, a most
heterogeneous assemblage ; were the Duke of Wel-
lington here he might find himself sitting beside Sam
Slick's father, or the lowest Irish savage of a peasant.
Well, as I walked away from the battle-field, I met an-
other victim in the person of a wealthy Boston merchant,

3—2

86 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique.

owner of 130,000 acres of land in Maine, whither ho
was going with four or five friends to hunt and fish,
and from which he clears 8,000 dols., or about 1,G00/.
per annum by cutting lumber — another good specimen
of the Yankee. I began discussing our misfortune
with him, and as we walked and talked, one by one
from the depths of the cabin appeared fugitive after
fugitive, till the midnight, or now morning moon, shone
on a whole army of martyrs. Nothing was heard but
"bit me," ''bug," ''bug." Yet through all was
maintained a good temper, which it would be absurd to
expect in a boat-load of Englishmen under the circum-
stances. Instead of growls and curses, jokes and
laughter changed what would have been a sheer nui-
sance to a very good bit of fun, especially when an
"indignation meeting" was got up in the cabin to
express the opinion of the passengers about the state
of things. When the paper written for the purpose
had been read to the meeting, concluding with a motion
that it should be represented to the captain, a fat old
fellow voted that any one opposing that motion be
forthwith shown into the berth he had vacated, which
would soon bring him to a right way of thinldng,
he guessed. As the morning advanced, however, one

I-'rom Jloxlon to St. John.

•57

'•y one they yiCad to impenous nature, and. hi.lin.
-ay m cW ana eon.,., loft ,„e on the open deck
- -y own neighbou, with whom I had a long talk,

.n econ.eof.,,iehIn.deh™o„ttoheaScotch

fr ka.«.n.te..inSt..Tohn.:tho.ad,,hiswifo,had
usta„.,vedatNewYo..kf,.o.L,,,..,„„,^,,,^^^^^^

.•J", he- to New B..„n.swiek. I forgot to to., that

TT' "°" '"''"'"' -^- -»!'■« "> -treating from

«'e™y. H- I found agreeable and eonversahle and
Sentleman y, she w« o „• • ,

both T f , '""'''' ^''"''"^ '''«^'«.- of

r : """°' ''''^"'°"- ' '">"-' ehiefl, with

have got on favourable terms with him

We r.n elose along the coast for two or three hour.

r:Tr'"''"^'^°'-*'"'»^-"-onth

•^wi, ana 1 mimf eoir t

must say I was very much struck, even

2 o<Uy some parts Of it. It is a kind of slener

crested ,ahpme.trees, like pictures of Norway. I took

a walk on shore with mv div.-n;* <• • ,

the V > , ^ ^"''"^' ""'' ^™nt np to

the lankee barracks, where I „„v

alkmg about dressed in badly made clothes, of coarse
Mue cloth which looker! i;t. ,

" looked like a gaol uniform, but which
was m fact the uniform of the U 9

'"^ "■ S- aray-and these

-rn

88 Journal of Ttvo Months on the Tohique,

mere boys were soldiers. Nine iu ten are Irish, I am
assured — the Yankee being too good a judge to risk his
life for a trifle. Moreover the army in America is hated
with the whole heart, as being composed of the idlest
and most worthless rascals of the country. You have
probably seen some mention of the Cuba disturbances
in the papers — the massacre of the American volunteers
has created a good deal of excitement in the Southern
States, but elsewhere the general feeling is ** served 'em
right." Their inducement was not even so respectable
as sympathy with the liberty-seeking insurgents, but
merely a hankering after the rich acres of the land — they
even held bonds from Lopez securing them portions of
land — which doubtless greatly increased the exaspera-
tion of the government party against the meddling

foreigners

And now we are off again for St. John's in the
Creole, swiftly paddling through intricate channels,
between rocky and beautiful islands — it is like sailing
over a lake, so smooth is the water, while land
surrounds us on all sides. While walking m East
Port I saw a female with a bearing and majesty of
figure sufficiently imposing for a Spanish donna, or a
bandit's bride at least. Her hair fell in rich masses,

From Boston to St, John*

his

,ted

lest

lavc

Qces

.eers

hern

I 'em

;lahle

, but

-they

US of

ipera-

dling

black and glossy, down her neck and shoulders, from

under a low-crowned and most becoming lady's black

hat — her costume was highly picturesque, but I can only

describe it by suggesting that she had put on two gowns,

and had then cut the upper one full two feet shorter than

the under, — altogether a more striking figure I never saw ;

she was an Indian squaw, and very ugly. These Indians

are quite civilized, clean and neat in their dress, the

men clothing themselves like whites, the squaws in a

variety of picturesque costumes, such as I have described.

I was much impressed by the great improvement in

the personal appearance of our female passengers, after

we had left some Yankees, and received a number of

Maine and New Brunswick people. In Boston I was as

much struck by the utter absence of personal attraction

in all the females I saw, as I was now with its

frequency and eminence of degree. Here were the fine

figure, fresh complexion, and winning expression which

distinguishes the Anglo-Saxon race, and which is

entirely absent among the haggard, care-worn, pallid,

ugly faces of Massachusetts,

The ancient pine forests stretch down to the water's
edge, >oiothe the hills with an impenetrable scrub through
which in every direction fierce bush fires are spreading,

III

Ilii

40 Journal of Two MohUih on the Tohique,

fillii)<,' the air, as in Australia, with a thick smoky haze
which renders the most distant country very indistinct.

I liavc just encountered and ilod from a charming
flirtation with a charming lady whose appearance had
convinced me before tliat she at le ras a lady in the
true sense of the word, and not as many of the occupants
of the ca])in doubtless were — Irish servant-girls dressed
in the finery which is so loved in America. I had so
admired her looks, that I was very glad to see her
walk past with a stool in her hand, when of course I
sprang forward, begging permission to carry it for her.
The calm self-possession with whi'di she received this
act of "devilish politeness" sho that such atten-

tions were a matter of course with her, confirmed my
opinion of her position in society, while the saucy -jolly
tone with which she said, " I'll trouble you to carry it a
little further, though," when, like a muff, I was putting
it down in an evidently unsuitable place, was decidedly
irresistible — and when she answered with her sweet
ringing voice to the objection I made to the place she
chose, that it was in the sun, " Oh, but I like that," I
could have fallen at her feet, and ofiered to devote my
existence to her. However, instead of doing so, I put
down the stool and walked away, fearful of nothing but

From JiOHton to St. John.

liaze
ict.

iim^

had

Li the

pants

essecl

ad so

e her

u'se I

r her.

d this

atteii-

d my

ly.jolly
ry it a
uttin<^
idedly
sweet
Ice she
lat," I
te my
I put

tig hut

that she should think mo a fi)r\vard fellow who had
shown hor civility with the sole purpose of ohtrudinj^
myself upon her — whereas I had really only done so out
of a sheer spirit of politeness. So I lost an opportunity
I mi;,dit have used to make the acquaintance of a
charming lady.

Well, us the sun declined, we a})proached St. John,
and the nearer we came, the more heautiful, the grander
hecanie the coast scenerv, till it reached the climax at
the harhours. High forest-clothed hills, and a lake-like
scenery — such is its kind. I admired it far more than
I expected. An old shrewd iii-ostock farmer, to whom I
ohsorved that it was very pretty country, said it would he
mue more so, if it was "more leveller." Well, here I
am in St. John's, a ^WQ-iah town, but I think not so far
advanced in excellence of building as Melbourne, which,
however, it strikingly resembles in some of its features.
When I beheld the ]5ritish flag waving over me once
more, I experienced a fecliug quite new to me, an
" amor patriaj " I dreamed not of possessing, — an exul-
tation and a swelling of heart I had hitherto believed
all aftectation when others talked of it. I thought it so
no more when I felt the thrill of delight that crimson
banner gave me.

I\\

42 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique*

If I was struck by the beauty of the Maine females
in one steamer, I was astounded in St. John's; in
fact, it is notorious for the beauty of its women. There
is an exhibition of industry here, a little Crystal Palace,
got up in imitation of that in London, which I visited
yesterday, and which has drawn great crowds into St.
John. There was nothing very remarkable in it ; there
were some pictures, however, by a native artist, a young
man of 20, which were very good indeed, and showed,
I have no doubt, great talent and high promise of
future excellence. There was besides an exquisite
coloured drawing by an English lady, Elizabeth Murray.
There was a large procession of various orders, but
chiefly of the firemen, a fine body of about 800 volun-
teers of all classes, divided into several corps. Besifles
this, a fountain was set going, and Sir E. Head
delivered an address, which I could not hear.

Mr. I find a very useful friend. He knows

everybody, and has gained me many acquaintances —
indeed, there is no difficulty in fornting as many
acquaintances as you please in St. John's, so free are
the New Brunswickers from the cold reserve which
strangers attribute to the English. Mr. intro-
duces me constantly to different people — some, men of

From Boston to St, John.

property in the interior; others, leading men in St.
John's ; informing them of my desire to obtain infor-
mation about the colony, and never neglecting to inform
them of the fact of my having been some years in
Australia, which I observe always makes me an object
of greater interest. Forthwith they shake hands with
me — express the utmost willingness to forward my
views, as far as they can, and launch into conversation
with the fluent rapidity so remarkable amongst them —
especially the Blue Noses. I am about to visit a bar-
rister and a wealthy man of note here, a Mr. — ;

also a Mr. , who knows more of the province than

any man in it, a naturalist, chief of the Indians, angler,
and an official in St. John's. I must acknowledge
that I am highly pleased with the good nature and the
cordial welcome I receive on all hands, which, as an
utter stranger, I could never have dreamed of meeting
with. The fact of my possessing letters to Sir E. Head
goes a good way, I suspect, in establishing my position,
or in removing suspicion of my respectability, while

Mr. 's friendly offices have been of great service to

me. I have already had invitations to the houses of
people in the interior, which will be of much ad-
vantage.

MH<

44 Journal of Two Months on the Tohiqiie,

Last niglit I had a long talk with a Blue Nose (or
native) on the steps of the hotel, whom I had never
seen before, but who entered into conversation with all
the readiness of his race. He is an exception to the
general rule in rating Johnstone's work much higher
than others. He acknowledges the general opinion to
be entirely against it, but believes that future expe-
rience will show liis representations of the country to
be far nearer the truth than is generally believed.

I have just received a letter from , promising

another, and reiterating his request that I should
closely inspect the Tobique ; remarking that it's success
would probably have a most perious influence on my
own prospects in the country. I am now preparing for
a systematic investigation of the best parts of the pro-
vince, starting to-morrow, and commencing with the
iron ore at Petersville, which I before mentioned. I
must finish now as my time is limited. Give my truest
love to all, not forgetting Nora ; and remember me

most Idndly to the 's and 's. I may have

another chance of writing to you from Frederic*on,

but cannot promise. Dearest , good-bye. I am

always youi most truly loving brother, —

M. C. S.

From St, John to Fredcricton.

e (or
lever
h all
) the
iglier
on to
expe-
try to

nising
gliould
success
m my
ng for
le pro-
ill the
d. I
truest
ler me
have
•I'ic^on,
I am

Is.

DIARY.

Septei er Wth. — For the last two or three hours we
have been swiftly steaming up the glorious St. John
River to Fredericton — ^,')orious indeed, if a mighty
stream flowing between noble rugged hills clothed with
deep forests of nature's planting, can be so. As we
ascend the river, the landscape loses much of its rude
magnificence, but assumes a richer character. Long
low islands, covered with stacks of hay, or still shaded
by the graceful elm and butter-nut trees, divide the
stream; and the rich flats, colonially called "inter-
vales," are spread from the margin of the broad current
to the still forest-clad hills, which now recede further
into the wilderness ; numerous farms are scattered
among fertile fields ; cattle browse along the grassy
banks : the energies of man have turned the gloomy
forest to a smiling habitation. But my sympathies are
still more strongly enlisted with the forest : with what
impatience did I not long to plunge into the vast woods
that I saw around me. I can admire the rich and
fertile tracts ; I take interest in agriculture ; and can

46 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique,

appreciate the great charm of a farmer's life ; but the
truth is I have spent so many years amongst wild lands,
boundless plains, or nocturnal forests, that my inclina-
tion leads me to the wilderness, rather than to the
abode of man — a yearning which none of the delights of
civilisation can ever, I believe, entirely subdue.

At 8 P.M. the steamer lay alongside the " makeshift "
wharf at Fredericton ; out poured the crowd of pas-
sengers, dispersing themselves through the scattered
village. I betook myself to a very fair hotel by the
water-side with a fellow traveller. The scenery imme-
diately about Fredericton is tame; there is a considerable
extent of cleared land between the river and the old
forest; but there is here none of either the boldness
or the richness of the lower parts of the river. A
strong N.W., cool and refreshing, has dispersed the
thick smoke fog, which had obscured the air since I
landed at St. John, tempering the warm sun, and
producing a day of weather which could hardly be
surpassed. Clouds of dust drive through the streets,
however, which make walking highly unpleasant.

14:thf Sunday. — The piercing nor'-wester, which has
been chilling us all day, is a kind of gentle hint of what
the winter is preparing for us ; still it is fine bracing

the
mds,
ilina-
I the
its of

ihift"

' pas-

ttered

3y the

imme-

lerable
old
dness
A
d the
ince I
, and
Uy be
treets,

3h has

what

[racing

From St, John to Fredericton,

weather, a clear and deep blue sky, with glorious sun.
I attended service at the church which at present
supplies the place of a cathedral. Dr. Field, Bishop
of Newfoundland, preached a sermon which left his
hearers in no doubt of his theoloj^ical bias — which is

very high church. I accompanied Colonel to his

house, and was introduced to his daughters, natives of
Canada, with all the brilliancy of complexion which so
distinguishes the North Americans. . . . Yesterday
I presented myself at Government House. I dined
there in the evening, and met the Bishop of N. F. L.
and N. S., Colonel Haynes, Colonel Lockyer, &c. A
very pleasant evening I spent there.

EXTRACTS FROM DIARY.

Tohique, IQth September, — Colonel H , agent to

the Nova Scotia Land Company, drove me to Stanley
to-day. Stanley is one of the principal settlements of
this company, and was first commenced about fifteen
years ago. This was my first introduction to tlie
tangled forests of New Brunswick. Stanley, a large
island as it were, surrounded on every side by the wild
forest ocean, studded with white, cheerful cottages,
panelled with fields of grass or grain-crops, forming

48 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique.

altogether a scene of humanity and civilization pleasing
to look on.

These settlements, hacked and hewed out of the
almost impenetrable forests, seem to me but little better
than a large prison after all, surrounded on all sides by
high and gloomy walls — wooden walls, indeed — a
" howling wilderness," the only exit a road I could
almost compare to a dark underground passage, over-
shadowed a.id confined as it is by the woods. The
little village, consisting of tavern, church, school-house,
blacksmith's shop, parsonage, doctor's house, and a few
other buildings, is placed in a somewhat ill-judged posi-
tion, inasmuch as it is at the bottom of a deep valley, so
that all egress from it must be by a long steep hill.
Through this valley flows the beautiful river Nashwaak
— at the time of my visit a shallow stream rustling over
a stony bed ; when the rains fall, however, and the
snows melt, it is a wide, rushing torrent, and down it,
in the spring, come great mountains of ice, which have
carried dams, bridges, and mill-houses on it rather than
before it, lifting the strong timber bridge, and bearing
it away as though it were a feather, sending the mill-
house from its foundations, and tearing away the dam as
though it felt it not.

From St. John to Frcdcricton.

raak
over
the
1 it,
Ibave
Itban

m as

Across the new bridge the doctor drove me, in a
waggon, as they call the queer-looking trough set upon
wheels which are the usual vehicles in this country, and
went up the opposite hill by the Miramichi Road, thence
we obtained a fine view of the settlement, and of the
river winding beneath us under steep, forest-burthcned
hills, cheerful, bright, and smiling in the warm sun and
clear atmosphere. . . .

September 20th. — I again left Fredericton with

Colonel H , to whose kindness I am much indebted,

on our way to another of the Nova Scotia Land Com-
pany's settlements called Springfield, about twenty-five
miles up the St. John, and five miles back from
the river. . . . This settlement is not nearly so far
advanced as Stanley, is still covered wdth a thick crop
of stumps, and did not strike me as very inviting. . .

Down in a steep little gully, across which the road
took us, we came on as pretty a bit of rurality as
ever pastoral poet fancied in his namby-pambiest mood
— a fair damsel, unmistakeably Irish, milking a cow
under the branches of an o'ershadowing maple. Startled
at our sudden apparition, she gazed at us with her bright
blue eyes, with a surprise which proved that a gig was
no usual sight in those backwood settlements . . .

50 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique,

The house where wo passed the night, was owned
by an old gentleman who came to the country before a
house was built in St. John, and gave us as the result
of some sixty years' experience, that there is no fault in
the country ; it is as line farming land as any one could
desire ; that the fault is in the people — dense ignorance,
no energy, or energy only exerted in that fascinating,
gambling business, the lumbering trade ; these are the
drags on the onward course of the colony. This is, in
fact, so well known and acknowledged that it is but
uttering a truism . . . The old lady desired her
husband to " show the men their beds," which proved
pretty good, but we had a little difficulty in making
it understood that we wanted water for any purpose
besides drinking. Every one in this country with a
good coat on his back is a " man," every ragged rascal
a ''gentleman."

Next morning, having paid for our board and lodging
(for there is no gratis hospitality among the rural popu-
lation here), the colonel and I parted, he on his way
back, I on mine to Woodstock, a small town sixty miles
above Fredericton. At a neighbouring farm, I hired a
horse and waggon to take me on for 1^., currency.
This is the usual way of travelling where there is no

From St. John to Fredericton,

lid

ce,

tlie
\, in
but
her
'oved
Hng
fpose
til a
[•ascal

stage. As a great favour, the owner of a horse drives
you as far as ho thinks proper, and expects with your
thanks to receive a handsome remuneration. This you
put in his hand, shake the other, thank him for his
kindness in earning a pound or two, and so you go
through the province travelHng at a rate of expense
which would take you through the states of America . .

22)«r/, Woodstock. — Mr. G , with that readiness

to assist which I have so constantly met with in New
Brunswick, called on me early, and showed me a plan of
a road from the Tobique to the grand Falls, the result of
his survey of that country, besides lending me a map of
the Tobique itself to take with me when I explore that
river.

During the forenoon I went out with Mr. J ,

who, with the greatest kindness, did all he could to
help me, driving me to an Indian village, where he
introduced me to a friend of his called Joe, with
whom we made a bargain that he should take me up
to the Tobique, and thence as high as the stream
would let us go. These Indians were living in log-
huts not larger than an ordinary dog kennel, and
looked lazy and uncivilized. Mr. J— told me a
fact which throws a little light on a New Brunswick

4—2

iPPifMi

52 Journal of Two Alonths on the Tohiquc.

winter — that lie had seen the mercury solidified at
Fredericton ! — equivalent to 39 deg.

At Mr. J 's house, where I spent a pleasant

evening, I found the Indian whom I had hired waiting
to tell me that he had procured a canoe, for which
he wanted an advance of six dollars, besides one more
to buy flour for his family in his absence. We started
at 8 the next morning, with a supply of pork, bis-
cuit, tea, and sugar for a fortnight's cruise. . . .
Strong as was the current, Joe (for such was my
skipper's name,) made the canoe shoot along with his
pole at a rate which astonished me, not more, how-
ever, than the places through which he unhesitatingly
guided her. The river was very low, and banks or
" bars " of gravel and large shingle frequently divided
it into one or more channels, which themselves were
often so shallow as barely to allow even the light
canoe to pass. On one occasion Joe had chosen one
which had ho known he would certainly have avoided,
but, having entered it, he proceeded with a perseverance
amounting to foolish obstinacy. Gently and cautiously
he steered the little craft along a bank of shingle,
which closed the upper entrance of the channel, and
over which the stream was gurgling and tumbling in

From St. John to Frcdcridon.

Lght

lone
led,
ince
isly
Igle,
laud
in

a manner which made mo rather nervous. "You
will have to go hack, Joe; you can never get over
that," said I, though at the same time I had an
unpleasant conviction that he was ahout to try, at
any rate.

" I guess I can," was his quiet reply, and at the
same instant, to my unhounded surprise, he shoved
the canoe right on to a place where the stronger and
more riotous rush of the current promised a little
greater depth of water, though to go up there seemed
about the same thing as going upstairs in a boat.
My surprise was not much less when, with the assist-
ance of a shove with his spear, which I had in my
hand, we found ourselves safe in the deep water above.

Close by the mouth of a deep rocky gully we
landed to dine on our pork and biscuit, having found
fuel in driftwood scattered over the stony beach. Joe
then proceeded to stop sundry leaks which had shown
themselves with mixed rosin and gi*ease, and then
once more we launched our frail craft on the swift
waters of the St. John.

Joe talked of finding quarters for the night in some
one of the numerous houses which stud the banks of
the river from St. John upwards. I don't much like

54 Journal of Two Months on the Ivhiquc,

asking tlio hospitality of strangers Avlicn supplied with
tho means for camping out, unless the weather is
very had indeed, and I felt this disinclination more
in New Brunswick than anywhere else. Under all
circumstances the stranger finds himself tho cause
of inconvenience to his cntertainert-. ; their daily
routine is interrupted, and they look uncomfortahle,
while the guest is thoroughly so, mentally and physi-
cally. He loses tho glorious freedom of his camp, and
hoth causes and suffers a constraint which is the death

of comfort. Joe's hias was in favour of a Mr. P 's

house, ahout a mile higher up. Of this Mr. P

I had never heard hefore; hut I internally resolved
that no force of circumstances should make me go
there. But as I had no reason to hack my decision,
instead of openly rebelling, I waited, trusting to find
some loophole whereby to escape.

The night began to fall, leaving little time to find
what I sought, when a tow-boat moored to the banks
with a vacant cabin or house _. lUght my eye.
" Good place for a m' t^ m a a wet night,

Joe," I carelessly rem. .^ed, . we came up to it.
'* Yes, sir, first-rate." Joe i .id committed himself,
and I hastened to secure my advantage. " appose

From St. John to Frcder'icton.

ye.

lilt,
it.

)se

we sleep there to-night, Joe?" "Very well, sir,
as you, please." On a steep hank ahove us was a
little farm-house, where I saw a man choppinjj; fire-
wood. We landed, and I inquired of him if the
boat was his, stating my wisli to pass the night in
it. He said that " the boat was none of his, but that
if I liked I might cook my victuals in his house, lie
down by his fire, and welcome." The increasing
rain was a strong argument in favour of this pro-
posal, and as I could adopt it without inconsistency,
I at once agreed.

So the Indian and I forthwith carried up our
blankets, cooking-apparatus and food into a rough
but very substantially built little house, where a
roaring fire and well-heated stove contrasted with the
gloom and rain outside. Two comely, middle-aged
women (one of them the man's wife), and an old
gentleman, his father, received us very graciously,
supplying us with forks to eat with, and cream for
our tea, treating Joe, too, with as much considera-
tion as if he were a white man, setting a chair for
him with all imaginable politeness. I had a long
talk with the old gentleman, who had come from
the States thirty years ago : and, like most of the

5G Journal of Two Months on the Tohique,

many Yankees I have met, seemed a very intelligent,
well-informed man. On his hearing I had been in
Australia, I had, as usual, to answer a multitude of
questions, evincing great curiosity on the subject.
The women especially took interest in the wool,
wishing they had as much at their command, as
then they could make as fine shawls as any one ;
for all New Brunswick farm-wives are pro\ided
with a spinning-wheel, and manufacture most of
the woollen articles of their dress. I was much
pleased by the straw hats so generally worn by
the fair Bluenoses, setting off their undeniablv good
looks.

So bitterly cold was it next morning that on shaking
hands with my entertainers, and bidding them good
morning, I was resolved to walk part of the way, at
least, though my weight in the boat would have been
rather an advantage to Joe, as giving the strong head-
wind less power to retard the canoe. After a brisk
walk, I got on board, and endured the blast till I
hardly knew that " I was I." So I again rebelled,
and insisted on going on shore again. Here I con-
trived to entangle myself among elder thickets, and
clamber about steep banks till I fell far astern of

From St. John to Fredericton.

tiio canoe, and was glad enough to embark once
more and remain there quietly, covering myself with

a piece of oiled canvas Mr. J had lent me for

a tent. We reached, at noon, a collection of houses
round a saw-mill, which had beeii built in one of
those steep gullies generally chosen for such a building
— mill privileges, as they call them. Here Joe found
a blacksmith to put a spike on his pole, and had
again to repair his canoe, which leaked annoyingly.

Cramped up in the bottom of the canoe, with scarcely
room to stir, benumbed with cold, and shrinking
from the bitter blast, I had now begun to appreciate
the advice I had received, and rejected, to take with
me a little spirits, as well lor myself as the Indian,
who had, in fact, taken care of himself; and that
same small bottle of brandy which I had espied on
starting with suspicion, became now of no small
use. It is indeed an invariable rule to take a small
quantity of grog for the Indian on these excursions,
but it is not prudent to allow him free access to 3'our
stock. My own Indian, I was assured, was an exception
to the rule, but they sometimes end in capsizing the
canoe if they can get as much as they like.

While Joe was patching up his canoe I sat under

' I

68 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique,

the lee of the steep rocky bank, clothed with thick
alders, sketching him as he worked, bringing into the
picture a log canoe or pirogue, poled across the stream
by two men. I wish my pencil could do justice to the
picturesque scene, or my pen to the beauty I heard,
felt, and saw in that quiet half hour. The broad river
rolling beneath the high forest-clad hills before me,
glowing beneath a bright sun — the rushing of the
boughs over me mingling with the clink of little bells,
and the murmuring of the current against the stubborn
rocks that it could not roll away — all gave a romantic
dreaminess to the scene, which made me loth to rouse
myseli from the reveries it induced — reveries of the
past and of other lands. But this dreaming won't help
us to the Tohique, the object of my present dreaming
fit. Come, Joe, we must be off.

We reached a Temperance inn, a mile beneath the
mouth of the Tohique, at dusk. The wind had died
away, and the clear sky over which the pale flashes
of the northern lights streamed like waving locks of
shining yellow hair, promised us a smart frost, which
promise it fulfilled. There is a mysterious, almost an
awful, beauty in these northern lights, in their thin
delicate loveliness, as though the gates of heaven were

ies
of

Icli
an

liin
jre

From St. John to Fredcricton,

suddenly opened, and the glory from within — the glory
of the Deity — beamed forth. As twilight deepens into
night a faint yellow bank of light is seen rising above
the northern horizon ; while gazing, we become aware
of the long streams of light, but we cannot tell the
moment when first they existed — swiftly they rise and
spread, but we cannot watch their progress — diverging
from the bank of light as though they were the outskirts
of some vast source of inexpressible splendour.

Next morning (the 25th) I started on foot for the
mouth of the Tobique, which I had understood was a
mile and a half from the inn. The walk in such
glorious weather was delightful, and when I came to a
cluster of houses on one side the river, and the junction
of a biggish stream on the other, with another cluster
in the angle of the junction, I could hardly believe I
had reached the Tobique. So I went on till I met a
waggon driven by a lad who looked hard at me, and
said, ** I say, mister, are you the man as wants to go to
the Falls ? " In fact I had told the innkeeper I was
thinking of going on thither, as it would take a day or
two to put the canoe to rights. "^ 'Cos my uncle was

at H 's last night, and he told my father there was

a man as was going to the Falls, so I came down to

see.

»>

Journal of Two Months on the Tob'ique,

"Whence do you come?" " Koostock, I
guess." (The Aroostock is a river which joins the
St. John about three miles above the Falls.) '' I
want to go therCf but I don't want to go to the Fails, so
you may take me if you like." Thereupon the lad
becomes sceptical and guesses that I am not the man
after all ; I try to convince him, telling him that I had
changed my mind, that there was no one else at

H 's., and that if he went there he'd just go for

nothing ; clenching my argument by rej^resenting that
I must be the man, as I could not be there and here

too ; if I were at H 's I could not be talking to

him there. This puzzled him for a minute, but he
extricated himself by recurring to his former doubts,
till the question began to be whether I was I or some-
body else. I settled it at last by turning away, saying
I didn't care whether he took me or no, so he let me
get in. My object at the Aroostock was to get some
grog, the supply at the Tobique inn being out. I pro-
cured some excellent brandy, which will, I hope, keep
a " fell'^w poling hard," as Joe says, in good spirits.

( 61 )

CHAPTER III.

' DIARY ON THE TOBIQOT:_TnE INDUNS AND THE

WIGWAM.

Next day, at 3 p.m., we started on our excursion into
the wilds of the Tobique, a river with but few inha-
bitants, as far as sixteen miles up, and those chiefly
unauthorized squatters. For about half a mile from
the month it runs through a wide bed, cleft by two or
three pretty islands, then a sudden turn brings us into
the Narrows, like entering the gates of death; a deep
narrow chasm, cleft through the rocks. High over-head
on either side rise the rugged precipitous walls, crowned
by overhanging birch and spruce forests.

On our emerging from these Narrows, Joe espied
some wild ducks, one of which I hit at a long shot
though without disabling it. I rose, however, several'
pegs in Joe's estimation, who bestowed equal praises on

Journal of Two Months on the Tohique.

the rifle and its owner. " That was a good shot, I
tell you ; where did you get that rifle ? She throws a
ball well, I tell you."

On a rock where we landed to fish, I espied a hare-
bell, the first I have seen for many years ; and with its
meekly hanging head it told me long and melancholy
tales of times gone by never to return ; not that old
scenes may not be revisited, and the sunshine bright
as ever, and the flowers blossom as then ; but it is he
who revisits them is past and gone — himself and not
himself ; the heart that saw them is dead, or worse, is
changed, for that change kills not the memory, the
long lingering gaze after the fading past.

On we go, shut out from the world by pile upon
pile of forests, heaped up in heavy masses on the hills,
whose feet the Tobique had washed for many years.
Now that the sun was sinking, we began to fish with

such tackle as we had. How my friend St. , that

scientific and enthusiastic fisherman, would have laughed
had he seen us trailing bits of salt pork over the water,
to persuade the trout, who we believed to lurk below,
that it was a fly ; he, the while, preparing his reel and
tapering bamboo, and elegant flies, and offering to give
me a shilling for all he doesn't catch, while I g've him

The Indians and the Whja'am,

icd

er,

bw.

ive

lim

half-a-crown for all he does. But how would his ridicule
be changed to wonder on seeing a splash and a bounce
and a trout, as fast as Joe could cast his pork over the
stream. I say Joe, for I must confess that the trout
with that unaccountable caprice that fish are subject
to, persisted in bestowing their custom on him only.
Tired at last of fishing — Joe of success, and I of failure —
we resolved to make a night of it with our prey on a
low gravelly island or bar just opposite.

Then, indeed, the past seemed come again — all the
old familiar preparations for " bushing it," which my
life in Australia had made second nature to me. The
kindling of a fire, the making up of a bed, — in this
instance done simply by throwing the larger stones from
the shingle on which we were to sleep,— 'h ^ boiling of
the tea, — the meal so highly relished, — the supremely
gratifying pipe after that; then the spreading of blankets,
the lying down to sleep with ten thousand stars to watch
over us (unless there are ten thousand drops of rain
instead), the gazing deeply into infinite space ere sleep
closes the eyes, the deep hush of night only broken by
the plash plash of the river over the rock, and the
thronging memories which in those hours of still
solitude come rushing on — oh ! I could not think but

G4 Journal of Two Months on the Tohiqne.

that I was in glorious, sunny Australia, till I looked
round and saw the canoe, under the lee of which we lay,
or Joe's red Indian face glowing in the light of the blaze
as he heaped log upon log ; and then I remembered I
was the Port Phillip squatter camping in the woods of
New Brunswick.

I was roused in the beginning of my sleep by a shout
from Joe, which he accounted for, as he sat up looking
bewilderedly around, by saying he had dreamed that he
had hooked so large a trout that he capsized the canoe,
and was shouting to me for help.

September ^Ith. — The four or five of the trout
caught last evening remained after our supper : these,
with pork and biscuit, formed breakfast; after which
we resumed our cruise. We had proposed to add
salmon-spearing to the other sports, and having neglected
to bring salt to cure them, I climbed up a steep bank to
a little house to get some. I found a good old lady, —
a motherly sort of body, whose husband was out
** lumbering." My rifle excited much admiration in
her little son, who seized it at once with many excla-
mations of delight at the beauty of the stock ; little wild
animals these children of the woods are, wliere there are
no schools to teach them manners; scampering about

^he Indians and thn ir-

iite little beastR. o* • *^

"bout bears, the .ood ol^ ""^ '"l''''''''^^

^«d Mied three sheep rl;:' r'' "^^^^-''^^^
taw two in a tran « , T , "-^"^'^ ''^'- I'^^band had

-%«::rir.:!:::. '■''•-■••■-■

hold him." '"'" ' «« «en couldn't

1 went down again to the river and f . t
-t^« -cited .ate ahout .o.e dneri, 7 "'" "

an island, and of which to I, • '' '"=" ""

"-...^ .«...:■::.-:;-*:•'«'«

and Joe discovered a partrid.. !^ '' """'"■"'

t'^ongh not in temper, for they will standT\ '

-tl' sticks and stones, aln^ost too Ir^''^"^"
o»t Of their wa,. I ,,,, ,,. "f ^ '-)■ *« get

;'«'-e.oe.s admiration o;n::r:^~^^

^^ard-wood or white-fleshed partridge a J "^ ''^
variety called the spruce o , ft , '' '""'"'^'•

--esh,andaje::;::r----

'• ^ '"'v a tall, dark-haired"

• i

GG Journal of Two Months on the Toh'ique.

lady of tho woods, young and comely, carrying a large
spinning wheel, with which she stepped quickly and
nimbly over the rough rocks till she stood opposite the
hut, where her loud, clear tones rang through the air
like a note from an organ ; a signal to the house, whence
shortly issued a man, who crossed and brought her over
in a pirogue.

For fifteen or sixteen miles up the Tobique there
are a few scattered settlers. The Campbell settlement,
which has made some progress, terminates the perma-
nent habitations on the river. Then come the half-
savage lumberers and wanderers like ourselves ; and for
fifty or sixty miles the river knows no other human
guests. Our object now was to find some place where
we could get a good supply of trout for our evening
meal ; then to camp, spread our tents, and be miserable
at our ease ; but this we could not do, — find a fishing
place I mean — for in that pouring rain there was no
difficulty about the misery. On the extreme verge of
the settlement we pitched our oiled canvas tent, and
spite of rain, wet ground, and such disagreeables, spent
a night of sound sleep. I had, according to Colonel

H 's advice, provided myself with a pound or two

of composite candles — an item in their preparations

nc Indians and the Wij,eam. C7

"'Wch I would advise .0 one to omit r„ ,

-•t-^ onty the „.-„ LT: tt " ""^^ ""^'^
you what ,„u are about. ''"'"''■'^"'°=''-

Joe watches mo while 1 write wifl, „ 7 • •

-^'- ^« i-ea.iu, to .eadJLt 'r;.""''
"^oot «nd goes to school. I asted 1^ he "="•
any books printed in the In,r , ''''■'

thereareafewbutw '^"''""'''- ^'^-"'

tew, but was greatly shocked when T „., ,

h-n^ (not remembering that the Indian , ,

all Catholics) if ,r,J. , ^ '"' ''^'•*"'''«"'« "'o

o '^^j, iMo I not Bibles " n« ,v ^
a charge of crime. "^ '^ 1^« -ere repelling

28M.-Next day, under pouring rain w„

™cii8, old red sandstone cliff, ^„„, ■ •
gypsum, which, from its great fertili • ^"'"^

probably give that snof ^^ ^''°P'''"'^^' "■"

A^oueherex,rsttri:d:'trc;:rr'^'^^^-

Tl.e chief cliffieulty is simply to " "" '"''■'•

5-2

I* «

'! I

08 Journal of Tivo Months on the Tohique,

out. It is as iu skatiiij^, swimming, or riding ; all the
tyro has to do is to overcome his fears and nervousness,
and as soon as ho has dono so tho rest is easy. In a
short time I hegan to acquire confidence, could throw
my weight on tho pole, and shove the canoe along at
such a rate that Joe assured mc I " did it almost
quite right."

The rain continued with such determination that I
got sulky, and told Joe I had not come all the way from
England to get wet on the Tohique, whereat he laughed
heartily^ After dinner I undertook to ** fix " the guns,
which wanted cleaning, hut, not having so much as a
screw to our ramrods, still less proper cleaning rods, I
soon contrived to ** fix " the ramrod of the gun in the
harrel in such a manner as to get it into ''a regular
fix ; " hut Joe having waxed it out, I set to work on the
rifle, and in two minutes got that into such a mess with
a lump of rag at the hottom that I was ahout to give up
that gun for the rest of the expedition. Joe, however,
having examined it, observed, "I guess I can get it
out," and then with a needle and a piece of thread and
the ramrod of his gun, rigged up a machine with which
I should as soon have thought of pulling up a stump,
but with which his ingenuity soon extracted the rag.

The Indians and the Wigiram,

SB,

1 a
row
; at
lost

latl

from

gliccl

;uns,
as a

ids, 1

In the

tgular

In the
with

[ye up

rever,

ret it

and

Kvhich

Itump,

After wo had " fixed " our dinner and arranged our
difficulties, we again strolled away into the uninhabited
wilderness — uninhabited save by the ** wild beasts " Joe
is no>v keenly looking out for (being encouraged by a
dream to expect to see a moose before night), or by
lumberers scarcely less wild than they. These lum-
berers, many of them farmers or thuir sons, others men
hired by dealers in lumber, go into the " wilderness "
in the fall of the year, taking with them supplies for
some months' abode in that savage land ; endure hard-
ships and severe toil, flies in unendurable numbers,
rains, cold winds, and then frost and snow-storms of
Arctic severity. When the ice breaks up and fierce
torrents rush down from the hills, they launch their
logs — stream-driving them, as it is termed — in the
water half the time, and risking their life when at some
narrow spot the crowding logs get heaped up into a
jam. When once in the wide river, they are joined into
a raft, and the lumberers start on their voyage down
the rapid stream ; their six months of toil completed,
their pockets filled with money (I speak of hired men,
not farmers, whose pockets are generally pretty well
emptied by the process), they give themselves up to the
unrestrained enjoyment of their supreme luxury — an

70 Journal of Two Months on the Tohiqiie.

unlimited supply of the vilest whisky — till their money
is gone ; and they pass the summer as they can, till
their season of toil returns. There seems to be a
charm in this forest life, independent of the wages or
the hope of largo gains, which makes it difficult for
those who have once entered en the pursuit to abandon
it. Already the margin of the stream is strewn with
spruce logs waiting for the first fresh ; boats loaded
with supplies are being towed up by horses ; and now
and then we pass a camp, and canoes, with two or three
rough-looking men in red shirts, pass up and down the
river.

Deep and wide and still and dark was the river,
stretching away in long reaches like beautiful lakes — in
many instances bringing before one the lovely scenes of
Cumberland. Joe was now anxiously looking out for
like.^j places to find +lie tracks of the moose where they
came to drink ; and with this view made the canoe
glide gently rjto a quiet nook we saw among the alder
groves — the entrance into a net- work of canals and
water passages, through a thick forest of alders and low
br hes. Into that death-like stillness we softly stole —
not a sound was heard, save the lightest whisper in the
water as Joe's paddle just touched it — the overhanging

The Indians and the Wigwam,

■iver,
in
es of
for
they
auoe
Ider
and
low
le—
the

trees slept silently in the twilight their leaf-laden
boughs produced. So almost awe-inspiring was that
unnatural quiet, that Joe and I instinctively abstained
from speaking (as though we dared not break the
silence) ; or if we spoke, it was scarce above a whisper.
And as we entered the gates of that stilly labyrinth, a
huge owl glided noiselessly by, like the presiding
genius of silence, swiftly vanishing into the gloom
beyond. With my rifle in my hand, and sight and
hearing at their utmost stret',h, we explored these
secret ways till our progress was stopped by the shoal-
ing of the water ; and we returned without having seen
anything save the old owl and a big lonely trout, who
had probably chosen that quiet spot to meditate in —
nor heard any sound save what we made ourselves.

Returning to the open river, we saw so many trout
shooting about that we got out and began fishing. We
offered them our apologies for flies manufactured with
a couple of partridge feathers, tied to the hook with
some coarse thread ; and in two or three casts Joe hud
landed as many of the speckled beauties. Mi/ wooing
was all in vain, and in my spleen I had a good mind to
try no more ; but Joe insisted, and laying down his
rod, " guessed he'd let me catch some now," taking his

72 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique,

paddle and guiding the canoe over the capricious crowd
below. Perhaps it was the advancing evening which
made the fish more eager to feed, or, perhaps, that I
had begun to place my fly in a more tempting manner ;
at any rate, a trout was soon plunging at the end of the
line : the spell was broken, and now Joe resuming his
rod, we fished away, pulling up sometimes each a fish at
once, till I thought we had enough for several meals —
as I am not sportsman enough to enjoy killing for
killing's sake.

Joe had selected for our camp that night a brow
over the river, where the lumberers had cleared a small
spot to place their logs in, preparatory to r'^ lling them
down to the river. It was like a chamber walled in on
three sides by the matted forest, roofed over with the
blackness of night ; before us and beneath us ran the
deep river and rose tall elms in the island it embraced
with its clinging folds — but we saw them not from the
edge of our little platform. It was like standing on
the brink of the world — infinity might have been
beneath us for all that we could see. At the foot of a
huge dead old pine-tree, on the damp and oozy ground,
we made our beds : the fire flashed on the grim trunks
and branches and nodding bough.s, which walled us in,

The Indians and the Wigwam,

row

nail

lem
on
the
the
ced
the
on
leen
f a
|nd,
ks
I in,

and this was all that we could see. But here in good
humour with the world, I sat and watched Joe frying
the trout, which half an hour before had been dancing
merrily in the current. That is the way to eat fish
— to whisk them, as it were, out of the water into
the pan.

For the sake of those who object to fishing aa
cruelty, I may Sl 'e what seems to me proof of the
insensibility of the trout's mouth, as well as of its
voracity and boldness. I had hooked one of these
gentry, and just as I was lifting him from the water to
the land he wriggled off the hook, and fell back just
at my feet ; and there I saw him plainly waiting for me
to give him another chance, looking up as though he
disputed the fairness of such doings ; and on my drop-
ping my fly over him, I wish I may never see another
trout if he did not instantly "jump at the chance,"
and succeed in hooking himself so securely, that he
never saw the Tobiquc more. Now will any one tell
me that fish sufi'ered tortures from the hook ? No ! it
would be too much for even Martin to believe.

Joe became rather chatty this evenipg, regretting his
not having broug!it his spelling-book, and singing book,
giving me some account of his domestic afi'airSj telling

iir

74 Journal of Two Months on the Tohlque.

^ i

me, amongst other things, that he is a Yankee coming
from the Penobseat ; he discoursed on hunting and
fishing, moose, bears, and salmon, and appeared on the
whole to relish the fun of the thing.

The next day began with a damp, clinging, wreath-
ing fog ; very dismal looks a forest in a fog ; in fact,
nature is then in a fit of the vapours, and the very trees
look desponding, as though the damp " put their hair
out of curl." Joe's dreaming had now put him on the
qtd vive for moose, wb.cli :c was confident of finding
ere night, though my o .xi expectations of such luck
were very slight. Wherever a shelving bank or muddy
spot on the margin of the rivtv occurred, there he
sho red his canoe ; but especially he looked out for the
little lagoons where the moose came to drink and crop
the water weeds and the herbage which here and there
they find along the banks. We came on one of these,
a narrow shallow piece of water, between a little, low,
alder-clothed island and the river banks ; at the lower
end, in a deep dark pool, we saw such numbers of trout
that I could not help seizing my rod to try a cast, when,
in a low, sharp \^isper, I heard Joe exclaim, '* There's
a moose ! "

Down went the rod, and all eagerness I caught hold

The Indians and the Wigivam.

[r
t

of my rifle ; crouching down I gazed through the fallen
timber which crossed the narrow channel, and at a
distance of perhaps a hundred and fifty yards, I saw
a dark reddish-brown animal in the water. The
eagerness which went near to prevent ray taking aim
I managed to restrain fcr the few seconds, during which
I drew an imaginary line from my eye along the barrel
of my rifle to the glossy flank of my destined victim ;
the sharp crack roused the echoes, and in three minutes
the unfortunate creature, who scarce stirred six paces
from where he received the shot, lay dead in the water.
Then came hurry and excitement, and jumping ashore,
and looking for the flask, balls, and knife, none of
which in our haste could we find; while Joe, whose
impatience could no longer be restrained, disappeared
in the matted alder grove between us and our prey.
Having at last found our ammunition exactly where it
ought to be, I reloaded my piece and followed him ;
diving and ducking beneath the branches, and scram-
bling and plunging through till I reached the spot.

The moose lay in the water where I had shot him ;
the bottom was so muddy that Joe could only reach
him by cutting down branches to step on, then making
a piece of rope fast round his neck, we contrived to drag

:r il

:li

76 Journal of Two Months on the Tohiqne.

him on to a few yards of clear turf, and there we cut
his throat. He proved to be a young one, probably
about two years old, a bull, and very fat, weighing
perhaps about 200 lb., while a full-grown bull, standing
about sixteen hands, might weigh 2,000 lb. This first
moment of quiet showed me that we had got into the
very head-quarters of the most venomous little demons
of flies I ever was enraged by. My first cry was for a
fire, to keep them ofi" a little by the smoke, my first act
to try and fill my pipe as a further defence ; I was then
obliged to walk incessantly about our narrow bit of turf,
and began to wish I had never seen the moose, or at
least had been lucky enough to miss him. Even Joe,
who had before asserted that the flies never troubled
him, could hardly endure their stings. Each of them
raised on me a lump which lasted for days, and caused
by their number a burning feverish heat. A mixture
of tar and oil rubbed over the exposed skin is, I am
told, a very good protection from these ministers of
evil ; but this I had not procured, being told that at
this season there was no fear of them. The calm,
warm, muggy weather F<ust account for their numbers.

Well, we skinned the moose and cut him up, and
scolded at the flies, and put the joints in the canoe,

...

u
.-.

'•J

The Indians and the Wiqwaju.

and drank some gvo^, and while T pushed hack the
canoe out of the shallow channel, I hegan t ) reflect on
my position. Here I was with a moose to begin with,
which it would he a sin to throw away, but which could
only be saved by camping for a couple of days and
smokii.g him, that is, if I resolved to prosecute my
journey up the river. But the incessant rain or fog
almost defeating my chief object of traversing the woods
and exploring the country, damped my energies, and
finally, as I could only half do my errand at present,
I thought it better to wait for a more favourable time.
So away with the pole, Joe, take your paddle, or if
you like it better, drift down the strong stream, and eat
your raw pork if you are hungry, for here among the
flies will we not dine.

But now Joe began to take an inexplicable fancy
into his head. While we were skinning the moose,
there passed on the other side of the island, hidden
from us, a canoe full of lumberers loudly singing and
laughing ; he even then looked up with some apparent
uneasiness, and hoped *' they would not be uncivil to
strangers, he guessed not." I asked him if they were
likely to be, and thought no more of it. But when,
while floating down, another canoe, with two men poling

78 Journal of Two Months on the Tohiqne.

and one man paddling her along with great speed,
appeared coming after us, then he became, or seemed
to become, seriously alarmed, talked of a gentleman
having been robbed and murdered on the river by such
men as these ; took his paddle, and working hard, soon
left the imagined pursuers behind. All this put me
in a state of uncertainty. I had never heard of a word
of danger to be feared from lumberers, had indeed heard
only of their hospitality. But then Joe knew them
well, and I not at all. The lonely river was well suited
to deeds of violence ; no doubt the greatest ruffians of
the country are occasionally to be found in the lum-
berers' camp ; and, after all, if these fellows should
fancy we had grog with us, they might insist on our
yielding it up to them. So, at any rate, I'll keep our
fire-arms in a state for service. Joe meanwhile can go
two miles to their one ; and, even if he be humbugging,
as I suspect, he is at all events hastening our homeward
progress.

When Joe perceived that he could run away with ease,
he relaxed his exertions, and so we drifted away till night
fell on us, and between the piles of blackness, shapeless
and undefined, we slid away silent and serious till we
reached our second night's camp, where we resolved to

37i6' Indians and the Wigiciun.

pass this drenching one too. But Joe's constant watch-
fulness and listening for noises produced the same
restlessness of ear and eye in myself which I used to feel
in the bush of Australia when camping out where the
assaults of the wild '* black fellows " might be expected;
at last, after some false alarms, I went to sleep. Joe
declared next morning he had scarcely slept through the
night, nor held his hand off his gun. After breakfast
and waiting an hour or two to see if the rain would stop,
away we went down the river, stopping sometimes to
fish, on one of which occasions I caught a trout of over
two pounds' weight, which excited Joe's admiration and
jealousy. To-day for dinner we first tried our moose, a
steak of which I found to be perhaps even superior to
the best beef-steak I ever tasted. Such indeed is the
general opinion of this tender, sweet, and juicy meat.

I was more struck by the gloomy grandeur of the
Narrows even than when I first saw them, " narrow
chasm rent asunder in the rocks into which the broad
noble river was suddenly crowded and crushed up, its
placid smooth lake-like character changed to that of a
dark mud torrent. The entrance is at a sharp turn,
and on approaching it seems as though the water ended
under the steep cliff, but on reaching it the narrow gate-

80 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique,

way is seen and the awful f^ulf oi^cns before us ; we look
up, half expecting to see written over us ** lasciate ogni
speranza voi che entrate." Even Joe was impressed
by it, and remarked that "this was a cur'ous sort o'
place."

Joe invites me to lodge at the Indian village on
leaving the Tobique, telling me he could put me in a
clean and comfortable house, though he could not
promise me a bed. I agreed at once, as I am fond
of seeing *' human nature in all its infinite varieties.'*
On landing, we were soon surrounded by a crowd of swar-
thy spectators, admiring the big trout held up to them by
the exulting Joe, and the rifle which killed the moose,
which I could see he was praising in no measured terms.
The moose too occasioned some excitement ; every one
that heard of it came to see it, the rumour spread among
whites and Indians, and I began to be pointed out as
"the man who shot the moose."

While writing all this I am sitting in a rude little
hut resembling very much the usual shepherd's hut in
Australia; before me sits a squaw (Joe's sister) busily
plaiting up a basket, which she never raised her eyes
from on my entrance; beside her stands a small
child crying bitterly because I looked at him, and now

The Iiidlans and the JVlijwam.

unci then an Indian comes in and looks over my shoulder
while I write, a process which I always find especially
excites a savage's surprise. Not that these Indians can
really be called savages ; still they have some of their
original nature left, unfortunately much mixed with
civilized vices.

After dining on part of our hig trout, Joe intro-
duced me to a hrother-in-law of his named Michelle,
to whose house I was escorted in the eveninfr hv
himself and a number of his friends and relations,
who, after a short chat with each other, wished me
politely a good night and left me to myself. And
here I am recounting the events of the day in a rude
little hut, &c.

Michelle's hut is neatly built and painted, and
consists of a room about fourteen feet square, with the
usual stove in the middle, where the family live, and
another smaller room which is given to me, neatly
floored and the windows furnished with glazed sashes.
The furniture consists of a chair and a table with a few
trunks and boxes ; I have spread my blankets in the
corner on the boards. Round the walls are hung some
of the gowns and shawls of the squaw (I was going to
say lady) of the house, whom I hear conversing quietly

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82 Journal of Tico Months on the Tohique.

with her husband in the next room, in their own soft-
sounding language, especially soft when spoken in the
gentle tones of the squaws. Indeed it must be a lan-
guage strangely deficient in melodious capabilities which
sounds not sweet and soft from a woman's lips when
she speaks quietly.

The village consists of two rows of houses, about
twenty in number; between them is the village green
where, in fine weather, before their doors family-
parties are cooking their meals at bright fires. There
is a chapel and burial-ground in which the gi-aves are
simply marked with a cross, and there is also some little
land fenced in, and in a measure cultivated; but the
Indians have no great genius for agriculture. This
village is perched on a high bank in the angle formed
by the junction of the Tobique with the St. John,
commanding a very pretty view down the river and of
the high hills beyond. It has altogether surprised me,
as I had no idea of the extent to which the Indians are
actually civilized, being in many instances good trades-
men, with a correct (in fact a very keen) appreciation of
the value of money, talking English well and fluently,
and having hardly more, if so much, of the savage as
the peasantry in some of the remoter parts of England,

The Indians and the Wigwam. 88

and still more Ireland, among the mountains of -.hich
may be found perhaps as complete savages as any in
the world.

2nd Octoher.-The first, a blo^vy, rainy day, I
passed at the village, as quiet and comfortable as I
could wish. This morning, at eight o'clock, we started
on our way down to Woodstock with the dried moose-
flesh wrapped in the skin, a small enough parcel. The
wind blowing right a-head, we had no time to go
ashore and cook our pork, a usual preliminary to a meal,
which on this occasion we dispensed mth. As we
approached Woodstock, we entered a reach of the river
so beautifully closed in by fine mountains, and so
brightly shone upon by the moon, that Joe became
almost enthusiastic, and suggested that I might as well
" mark it down," i.e. sketch it.

We reached Woodstock by 8 p.m., so I paid Joe,
and there was my trip ended, in many respects a com'-
plete failure, weather having defeated half my objects.
But I have not done with the Tobique ; an idea has
entered my head which sticks tliere; a plan is forming
in my mind. I have not shaken hands with the wil-
derness, nor am I going to be satisfied with a moose

and a few trout. The desire of my soul has ever been

for

84 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique.

the wild lands of the world and the free life of the hush ;
and now I can satisfy it, how shall I refrain ? No !
back will I go and build me a hut in those dark forests
ere the snow fall and the frosts enchain the river, and
there will I await the coming of the mighty armies of the
north. In plain English, I will pass the winter on the
Tobique, that will I, Joe, in spite of the terrible lum-
berers whom to fear, or to pretend to fear, as you did,
shows you in the one case a foolish, in the other a
knavish fellow, my dear Joe. But as thou art a willing
and a smart, and, as things go, a tolerably honest sort
of rogae, if thou wilt, come and build with me a camp
and show me where to seek the moose, and the cariboo,
and trap the sr.ble, and slay the cruel wolf, and then
with more dollars in thy pocket than I believe thou
deserve st, leave me to fight in solitude my battle with
the wilderness and the beasts thereof, and with fierce
winter and the terrors thereof. And Joe said he would,
and he said too he would take me to Fredericton in
his canoe ; but, as it happened, Joe did neither, inas-
much as Joe, as I learned afterwards, got drunk on
the *' settlement " the night of our arrival and quar-
relled, and in his valour did so cruelly beat his oppo-
nent, that he judged it convenient to "clear off*"

The Indians and the Wigwam,

without consulting me on the matter. So I saw Joe-
no more.

I started on the 6th by stage for Fredericton, where

I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. G 1, to whose

kindness I am indebted for much valuable information.
Few know the Tobique river better than he does, and
good cause he has to remember it, for there indeed he
came near to end his days. He lost himself in the
forest, wandered for some days in the most inclement
weather, without fire and without food, and was found
only by means of a handkerchief which he had tied on
an alder when he lay down and would soon have died,
had he not soon after been found by a party of lum-
berers in that condition. An interesting ac-ount of
this adventure has been published in Chamhers' Journal,
where I remember reading it, and being strongly im-
pressed by it some years ago. Little did I dream while
reading it in the Australian bush, that I should be led
in the course of my own wanderings into the scene of
an adventure which interested me so much.

A day was sufficient to arrange my affairs in Frederic-
ton, and on the 8th I took my way back to Woodstock,
eager to complete the preparations for my retreat into

I I

86 Journal of Two Months on the Tohiqiie,

the wilderness. Three days I passed there, collecting
supplies, casting bullets for the benefit of the moose in
the blacksmith's shop, and discussing my project with
my friends. They seem much interested with the idea,
many laughing at it, many, on the contrary, thinking it
a very promising scheme, and wishing they had time
for the like. The chief doubt expressed is whether I
shall be able to endure the solitude ; my own doubt is
whether I shall find my patience in that respect much
tried, as lumberers are continually up and down the
river.

I have met with a queer character who made his
appearance at Ballack's hotel, where I was sitting v.ith

J . A harsh voice, with the genuine Yankee twang,

sounded in the doorway of the room, asking if " a drop
of liquor could be had there?" Turning round, we
beheld a slim young fellow dressed in that style in-
tended to be the extreme of buckishness, which pro-
duces the extreme of blackguardism ; the most remark-
able feature of his costume being a cravat, the bows of
which stretched at least eighteen inches from end to
end, hanging down by their own weight in voluminous
folds. "I don't think you'll find much difficulty,"
said I; "the best way is to step out there and call

The Indians and the Wigwam,

*Jack."' Loud shouts for "Jack" succeeded, and
being supplied with his brandy, he mixed in it, Ameri-
can fashion, a large quantity of sugar, and invited us
to drink with him, which honour we declined. But
our friend must needs have a companion in his
drinking, so looking about he espied an old fellow of a
labourer in his shirt-sleeves standing in the doorway.
" Ah, here," said he, " is an old 'coon '11 drink with this
nigger, I guess. I say, my old 'coon, take a glass o'
liquor?" The old 'coon, with a wink at us and a
delighted grin, accepted the invitation, so the two hob-
and-nobbed together, while my friend could not help
remarking to the outlandish animal, that he used a
pretty large quantity of sugar in his brandy.

*' I guess so, I come from where the sugar grows,"
and as he put down his glass he went on to the old
'coon, nodding aside at us,— '* These here gentlemen
wouldn't drink with this nigger, 'cos they happen to
have a little better clothes than mine, but never mind,
I think a d— d sight more o' you than I do o* them,
old boy." At this manifestation of a wish to kick up

a row, J looked as if about to pitch him out of the

window, but the reflection that the tipsy beast was not
worth it prevailed, and he let him go on to remark,

88 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique,

" I ain't a big 'un, a kick now would send me half way

into next week ; I'm leetel, but '* hero he stepped

forward and played some extraordinary antics with great
agility, and finished tho performance by a series of
self-satisfied winks and nods. He then went on to say,
" Stop, I've got a lady here in the next room I'm going
to treat," and he poured out a glass of brandy. The
lady was a very respectable and very good-looking young
woman, waiting apparently for some one, and now on the
point of suffering the infliction of this Southern buck's
civilities. The catastrophe I was not able to wait to see,
but I should think he was already half way into next week,
if he has not been helped to the end of it.

I had now completed my arrangements, and having
bid my friends farewell, with a deep sense of the Idnd-
ness and hospitality they had shown me on all occa-
sions, I started at 5 a.m. on the 12th of October, on my
flight to the wilderness. I went by the stage, and at
two o'clock reached the Tobique, which I had already
begun to fancy an old friend. I had already arranged
matters with two Indians, Michelle whom I have already
mentioned, and Moulton, another brother-in-law of
Joe's, whom I had observed to be an industrious and
ingenious fellow. Joe attributes to him enormous

44.

The Indians and the Wigwam. 89

strength, asserting that he can not only shoulder with
ease 100' lb. barrel of pork, but can oven lift an ox from
the ground, feats which I should like to see him per-
form. This man and his brother (my landlord) are
together to make my camp, when the latter leaves me,
the other remaining for two or three weeks to teach me
the woodcraft of America. I have now to wait the
arrival of the boat which is to bring my supplies.
These consist of pork, biscuit, flour, tea and sugar for
about three months' consumption, ammunition, warm
clothing fit for the winter, cooking utensils, two axes,
a few tools, and a pair of snow-shoes, without which
there is no stirring on foot through the deep snows of
North America.

Journal of Two Months on the Tohique.

CHAPTER IV.

SOLITUDE IN THE FOREST-CUTTING DOWN TREES.

Wednesday, 15th, — My supplies arrived safely yester-
day, and to-day I began my somewhat rash enterprise.
Once more I passed through the Narrows with Moulton
only, his brother having been detained by the prepara-
tions of a boy who was to go up with him to a part of
the river called Chaquastock, which means Big Jam, to
join his father, who was hunting on the Blue Moun-
tains. We dined at a stream called the Three Brooks,
reached the Red Rapids in the evening, and camped on
the other side, bitterly cold too.

TJiursday, IQth. — A few miles higher we came to the
noble cliff of red gypsiferous sandstone ; it looks as
though it had been built by those ancient stonemasons,
the Titans. It overhangs the river, a frowning mass,
and, as a friend of mine very justly observed, makes
one feel glad to get from under it. Now we began to
look out for the blazed tree which marks the spot

Solitude and Cutting down Trees, 91

where the projected road from the Great Falls comes
out on the Tobique, and near which I propose to make
my camp. Bitterly cold was the evening, and very
tired was Moulton, with the severe labour of poling up
the strong river with our heavily-laden canoe, and
gladly did we jump ashore, on discovering the elm-tree
we sought. Forthwith I seized an axe, and began
striking furious blows at a log which I had mentally
devoted to the flames of our camp-fire, but I had soon
to drop my weapon and stand helplessly looking on,
f'^r the cold handle had completed the work already
begun by the cold air, producing the pain known in
my childhood by the name of " hot-ache."

When this had partly abated, I looked round to see
what sort of place we had got into. It was a narrow bit
of ** intervale," through which flowed a murmuring
brook, hidden by thick alders and matted brush ; over
the whole flat was a dense growth of elm, birch, and
spruce trees ; long grass, elder, raspberry-bushes, and
thick herbs, amoiig v/lich hung the network of the
clinging grape-vine.

Then we cooked one of the two or three partridges
I had slain during the day, and after that, while we
smoked our pipes, and Moulton prepared some of the

92 Journal of Two Months on the ToUque,

willow-bark which tlio Indiana mix with their tobacco,
and which has, when burning, a strong musky smell,
we discussed some of the provincial political questions ;
such as the boundary which Nicholas declares will soon
bo the St. John itself. Then wo talked of the hunter's
lore, of lucifees (or lynxes), sables, bears, and that king
of these forest-beasts, the moose. Moreover, he told
me some of his own hunting reminiscences, especially

of an expedition with an officer of the th regiment,

whose freaks and vagaries he recalled with infinite amuse-
ment ; and of another, who dropped behind in a chase
after a moose on snow-shoes, in the use of which he had
not had much practice, wandered about through the
night, was found by Moulton half-frozen to death, and
had to be dragged on a tarboggin (or small sledge) for
twenty or thirty miles. I told him of Joe's fright,
before mentioned, which he accounted for by his being
a stranger on this river, and afraid, too, perhaps of the
Mohawks, of whom these Indians believe that they
watch secretly all their movements, and know every one
of their proceedings.

nth, — This morning we were up breaking our
fast at daybreak, then we went up the gully, clam-
bered up a steep hill, and fixed on the spot for my

Solitude and Cutting down Trees*

camp ; the chief requisites being a place tolerably clear
from fallen trees, level, and with a sufficient supply of
hard wood for fuel. The trees of North America arc
divided into hard wood and soft wood by the usaj^o of the
country ; the former including maple, beech, birch, elm,
oak, &c., whoso presence indicates a good soil ; the
latter class comprising all the varieties of pines, firs, and
cedars, a thick growth of which tells no flattering tale
to the agriculturist ; besides which they are unfit for
firewood in a house, from their trick of showering
miniature rockets in all directions, with reports like
firing pistols.

The spot we selected combined the required advan-
tages ; at the foot of the hill runs a noisy little brook
from which I could see myself painfully lugging buckets
of water up the steep bank. But this is a trifle weighed
against the advantages of such a site. While Moulton
remained to clear the place a little, and " bush out " a
track to it, I returned to the camp and busied myself
in little domestic employments, such as cleaning the
cooking utensils, &c., after which I took a walk and
knocked a partridge's head off with my rifle.

After dinner Moulton stai-ted off again for the woods
to begin building my mansion, and soon I could hear

III!!

94 Journal of Ttvo Months on the Tohique,

Lis axe ringing through the forest. As my inexperience
in such a business would render my help of little use, and
as I did not much like leaving the camp to the mercy of
the passers-by, I remained there cutting firewood and
doing odd jobs. We have been all day expecting
Nicholas, Moulton's brother, with the rest of my sup-
plies; and now that evening has come without him,
and our tea and sugar all but gone, we begin to feel
uneasy; but the Rapids may have proved a gi-eater
obstacle than we found them. An Indian never
dreams of the possibility of capsizing his canoe through
mismanagement, nor ever does when sober, which few
of them like to be if they can help it. But a man has
hardly fair play at these Red Rapids from the slip-
periness of the rocks.

Before he started for the woods, Moulton began dis-
cussing the best way to make my hut, objecting to make
it all of logs, because, he said, there would be so many
holes between them, (the real reason being, that it
would be a longer and more toilsome way,) and proposing
to make it of cedar split into broad paling, as an Austra-
lian would call it. So we discussed that and the roof,
till my questions and objections convinced him that I
did not know what I was talking about ; whereupon he

Solitude and Cutting dotcn Trees, 95

jumped up and marched off, saying, "I guess I'll fix it
my own way," which I begged him by all means to do.

IQth. — Sharp frost last night, but, thanks to a large
rug, or rather piece of drugget, which I got in Frede-
ricton, I can defy any moderate degree of cold, and slept

as warm as if I had been in my own bed at E .

Moulton, by skill and strength prodigious, beyond any-
thing I have met with, has already half finished a very
substantial little hut. The enormous logs he has some-
how conveyed to their places at the foundation of the
building would have required, I believe, three ordinary
men to move from where they were cut to where they
now are. To test his strength I gave him a wedge
of lead which I had to bend, never believing that he or
any man could do it with the hands alone. He not
only bent it, but fairly bent it double. I would not
believe Joe's statement that he could lift an ox off the
ground ; I would not doubt it now, if he told me he
could take up two, and walk away with them, one under
each arm.

Meanwhile his brother has not co^e yet, and I have
made up my mind, annoying as it will be, to start off
again down stream to find out what has happened.

19^/i. — Having hidden our stores, we, in an ill-

96 Journal of Two Months on the Tohiquc.

humour, launched our canoe, and paddled down the
stream. But just as we passed the Plaster Rocks we
descried the objects of our search preparing to start from
their encampment of the night before, and with faces
wherein the frowns were all banished by smiles, we
joined them and returned together to the camp.
Nicholas, we found, had been obliged to hire another
canoe, as the load was more than could be taken through
the Rapids by one, — which had caused the delay.

The two brothers have been hard at work all day
at the ** house on the hill," which is almost finished,
splitting cedar logs with wooden wedges into thin
palings 12 feet long, for the roof and sides. I went out
hunting, as we have nothing but pork to eat; shot a
partridge, and took a cruise through the woods till I
was tired. As I sit now by the crackling fire, the past
scenes of my wandering life arise before me. The
mountains of Madeira, the lakes of Cumberland, the
throngs of London, the plains and forests and burning
skies of Australia, and the stormy ocean, pass hurriedly
before me.

Two lumber-men, going up the river, paid my camp
a visit, drank a pot of tea, and told me of a lake only a
mile or so from my camp. They seemed quite puzzled

Solitude and Cutting down Trees. 07

as to what I am doiiifr, and wanted to know if I was
surveying the road or going to settle. I tokl them I
was doing neither of these things, but only wanted to
see the country.

Nicholas and Lolah (the boy) became quite uproarious
with their fun this evening. Very different are these
Indians from the Indians of romance, — none of the
taciturnity, laconic speech, and solemn apathy of Uneas
or Chingachkook.

2l6-f.~The Northern Lights last night looked like a
fluttering canopy of pale fire or yellow curtains blowing
about. Nicholas and I started this morning on an ex-
cursion up the river, Lolah accompanying us with his
own canoe. Moulton, during our absence, which might
last three or four days, was to "fix" the camp com-
pletely, end make me a canoe and " tarboggin," or
light sledge, such as a man can draw over the snow
with a load of from 200 or 300 weight. A few miles
below the piece of backwater where I had shot the moose,
the two Indians went ashore, without stating their
object, but immediately began hunting among the
stones, as though they were looking for gold. I began
bunting too, without knowing for what, till Nichoks
showed me some queer pieces of sandy clay he had

98 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique.

picked up, moulded apparently by the hand of man into
grotesque forms, which he seemed to prize highly,
assuring me they were made by the Indians a long
time ago, and, as far as I could make out from his
story, were intended to represent men ; at least, he
called them " little Indians," though they had no
resemblance to anything particularly. I believe them
to be of natural formation, or at least the result of the
continued action of fire and water upon the peculiar soil
of the place, i* went on hunting myself among the
shingles till I found what I wanted, viz., a good whet-
stone, which pleased me far better than all the '* little
Indians " in the world.

We reached Cha-quaskook or Big Jam, where we
camped on the island for the night. By the lumberers
it is called Graball Island, from an eddy which drives
all the lumber and drift-wood floating down the stream
into one general complication.

21st. — Rain came in bucketsfull in the night ;
thunder and lightning this morning. Nicholas went
across to the Big Jam to fish, and brought back eleven
fine trout for breakfast. Then Lolah made preparations
for starting through the woods to his father's camp at
the Blue Mountains, full in sight, at the distance of

]

Solitude and Cutting down Trees,

into

long
. bis
;, he
1 no
tbem
,f tlie
ir soil
gt the

whet-
' little

re we

3erers

drives

stream

night ;
i went

eleven
rations
"amp at

mce of

eight or ten miles ; a noble hill about 2,000 feet high.
A great part of the country we passed through had been
devastated by a terrible fire many years ago ; and now
bare, leafless, almost branchless, skeletons of trees over
miles and miles of a brown and dreary landscape, stuck
over it like pins in a pin-cushion ; the fleshless bones of
the forest giants, bleached bare, stuck up to dry and
decay.

When Lolah had hidden his things and vanished
into the wood, Nicholas and I started on our return,
being deterred from further exploration by bad weather.
We passed a spot on the very edge of the river, where the
shingle was blackened and caked firmly together by some
hard cement, which is probably some form of bitumen or
asphalte. The stones were crusted thinly over with it,
and when rubbed on the hand it left such a gloss as is
produced with rubbing them with plumbago. Among
them I discovered also some metallic particles resem-
bling lead. Nicholas was as much interested in it as I
was, and scooped away with his paddle till he found
there was a regular bed or vein of this curious substance
binding the stones so firmly together that a pickaxe or
crowbar would be necessary to dig them up in any
quantity.

7—2

100 Journal of Two Months on the Tohlque,

A tributary called the Aqualquac joins the Tobique,
up which we went for perhaps two miles, and found it
little else than a succession of rapids, a narrow swift
shallow little river running between strips of intervale
laden with the thickest jungle of alder, birch, poplar,
ash, willow and all sorts of trees and bushes, while the
uplands are darkened with an equally thick growth of
spruce. In one place we encountered cliffs of silurian
rock reappearing from under the red sandstone, rising
over the river about 150 feet, and forming a very grand,
wild, impressive scene ; altogether the Aqualquac struck
me as the gloomiest, most romantic, lonely little
river I have ever seen, and I felt almost relieved
on emerging from its dark recesses into the wide
Tobique.

I baited my hook with a bit of one of the trout
Nicholas had caught, and we soon had the boat half full
of them. Within a mile of our camp Nicholas suddenly
showed symptoms of intense excitement, stopping the
canoe and ejaculating vehemently. It turned out that
he had espied a dead salmon at the bottom of the river;
such a prize was not to be lightly abandoned, and after a
deal of trouble we contrived to get him on board. He
weighed about twelve pounds, and had been killed by a

Solitude and Cutting down Trees, 101

spear, the wound in the back appearing plain enough,
and as he showed no signs of having been long dead, we
conveyed him home in triumph. I assured Nowell (the
other Indian) that I had shot him, to which he answered
by an energetic ''pshaw."

And now I sit in my camp, warm and snug it is
indeed. Moulton, who has just finished making an axe-
handle, is smoking a pipe and watching me. Nicholas
is warming himself by the bright fire in the corner ; the
tarboggin is in another, snow-shoes in another, and all
the luggage scattered about. To-morrow they are to
make me a log canoe, and then abandon me to my own
resources.

Friday, Uth.—Mone, utterly alone, at last I find
myself to-night. Last night Nicholas and Nowell were
singing French songs m duet, or Nowell was chattin^
with me on hunting or gossip, or complaining of the
usage of the Indians in this province, or telling me of
the wars in olden time, or of the Mohawks, of whom they
have a sort of superstitious dread, believing that every
summer they despatch emissaries through the provinces,
who lurk in the woods watching their ancient foes
the Melicetes, to see what they are about. For
in former days they waged fierce and bloody wars

102 Journal of Ttco Months on the Tohiqne,

with each other, and once the Melicetes launched
some fifty or so of the Mohawks down the Great Falls
into eternity.

But the chatting and the singing are heard no more
in my camp, and now hegins the life I have chosen for
the ensuing winter, the life of a lonely trapper and
hunter, a wanderer through these gloomy wilds in search
of the sable, the moose, the cariboo — a life of toil and
hardship and utter freedom.

After a breakfast at sunrise, away went the two
brothers axe in hand, to fell and hew out a cedar into a
canoe for me to cross the river, and work up to the
fishing about a mile up the river. For the pedestrian
can rarely travel even a mile by the river-side without
toiling through scarce penetrable thickets, or wading
through the water itself. I had enough to do in baking
bread and putting the camp into order to occupy me till
their return about eleven o'clock, when they informed me
that they had made " some kind of a canoe," but a smile
on their lips and a twinkle in their eye as they looked at
each other, made me pretty sure that it was a queer kind
at any rate, for indeed three or four hours would scarcely
produce a very finished craft.

Then came the " setthng," and the parting in-

■-'

Solitude and Cutting down Trees, 103

structions of Nowell to "mind the fire," and not to cut
myself with the axe, and how to set the sable traps, and
where to look for otters, and how to skin them, which he
illustrated by skinning the weasel which I had shot and
which he had kept-opening it only at the hind legs,
stripping the skin off entire, and then drawing it over a
flat piece of wood to dry. Then we walked down to the
river in Indian file, while thickly showered on us the
first snow of the season, which had begun at eleven,^and
was now clothing the forest with a white garment such
as I had not seen for many a year. At the river-side
I saw my canoe, a hollow log it was, open at each end,
and low enough in the middle for a man to stand in it
without swamping it, provided he remains there. The
instant I saw it, I had no doubt of acquiring a practical
acquaintance with the Tobique in my very first voyage.
Nowell evidently expected the same, and strongly advised
me not to attempt an excursion in my "pirogue," in
cold weather. He himself, to show me its capabilities,
boldly shoved off in it, and drove it with his enormous
strength against the current with all possible ease.

And so away they went ; we shake hands, Nowell bids
me take care of myself, down the stream they quickly
glide, and I, with my rifle in my hand and a steel otter-

104 Journal of Two Months on the Tohiqni*,

trap Rlunp: over my shoulder, walked back to my nest
with a feeling of strange and wild exultation at finding
myself in the imperial despotism of solitude, which could
scarcely be restrained from venting itself in an excited

yell.

Well, in my camp I stood once more, snow falling
thickly without, a bright glowing fire within ; here was
my palace, around me the kingdom I was to dispute
with the wild beasts of the forest. So I dried and
cleaned up my rifle, turned everything over in my hut,
and reduced it to order, looked at my stock of firewood,
and satisfied myself that to-morrow I must devote to one
prolonged, determined chop-chop. Then I took a dozen
trout that I had left down to the brook, and cleaned
them, brought them back and salted them preparatory to
smoking them, cutting ofi" the heads to serve as baits
for the sable traps.

Moulton, I should have told, as a security for him-
self in the event of ** anything happening " — that is, of
my getting killed somehow — got from me a written
assurance of his having left me in good health and
preservation ; remarking, " if anything went wrong with
me, it might play the very devil with him," which laid
him open to suspicion that he had known such things

laid

Sulitude and Cutting down Trees, 105

happen. I had confidence in him individually, or I
would have declined enabling him thus, with perfect
safety, to be himself the ** anything which might
happen."

When I had salted my fish, it was time for my
evening meal — a trout and a bit of bread, with a pot of
tea, served for this — a pipe for a finish ; and now I
lie on my spruce-bough bed, my knee serving for a
desk — a candle beside me, stuck on a cedar splinter
fixed in the ground — and now let me describe the place
as I see it when I look up from my page. A building
ten feet square ; the walls formed in the first place of
three big logs laid on each other ; against these are
placed upright split cedar planks, three on one side,
straight up — on the others slanting inwards against the
roof, carried from the upright side to the upper log
on the opposite side. The chimney consists of an
opening between the roof and the upright side — be-
lieath this opening and against the logs themselves the
fire is lighted. Why the place is not forthwith burnt
down is a problem I cannot yet solve, and probably
never shall, as the most experienced can only answer
that "they don't know, only it never does." As for
the door, it is a little hole left in the side — a blanket

106 Journal of Two Months on the Tohtque,

hung over it outside keeps the wind out more effectually
than would a door of solid materials. Opposite the
fire a spar divides off the " bedroom," which consists
of a layer of spruce boughs in the corner : on these are
spread my blankets ; in the other stand three barrels,
containing my supplies of pork, biscuits, flour, tea,
sugA.,.', and sundries. Stuck round the walls are knives,
bags, articles of clothing, &c. ; buckets, pots, and pans
complete the furniture. The inhabitant of this little
den is clothed in a red flannel shirt and coarse home-
spun trowsers, mocassins on his feet, a broad belt
round his waist, in which is stuck a large sheath knife
and a pouch for bullets, &c.

25th. — I feel more civilized to-night. I made me a
table to-day, and sit and write now like anybody else,
instead of making a desk of my knee. It is true that
my table rests on a couple of barrels, while a third and
a smaller one, containing my salt pork, is my chair,
which, however, I must replace to-morrow with some
sort of stool.

As soon asi I had got up this morning, and put
some wood on the fire, I began a job which I had
planned some time ago, and which lasted me till noon,
but of which I shall give no particular explanation, as

Solitude and Cutting down Trees* 107

I never intended the result of my labours to bo revealed
to the public. The job is, in fact, just to contrive a
secure hiding-place for such things as I did not wish
every chance caller to bo overhauling in my absence.
I flatter myself that the height of inquisitiveness only
could ever ** spring the plant," as they say in Australia.
I next began to think about dinner, and just learned
the difficulty of getting up a good blaze with green
wood covered with snow. So much time did it take
to-day to cook my dinner and bake a " damper " in the
ashes, that 2 p.m. arrived ere I had eaten my piece of
partridge.

I had then to choose out of many urgent needs
which was the most urgent. I then recollected that
Nicholas, just before he left, knocked down a huge
birch-tree, which I had thought too close a neighbour
in a gale of wind, and which had fallen right across
my road to the brook. Whoever has carried buckets of
water up-hill, and had half the contents spilled before
he could reach the top by tripping and stumbling and
knocking up against trees, will sympathize with my
feelings. So I went to war with the birch. With much
puffing and panting and the sweat of my brow, I made
a clean breach through his big carcase ; then cleared

108 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique,

the whole past completely ; then set to at cutting fire-
wood ; and after that made my table and re-arranged
the furniture of my bed-room. And so the day passed
in toil, which leaves me this evening weary and cheer-
ful, rejoicing in my snug little den, rejoicing in the
glowing fire, in the bright candle-light ; in short, quite
content, except, indeed, with the state of my larder.
Half a partridge is all I find there, except the pork,
which I would rather avoid eating, and the salt trout,
which I want to dry and lay by for greater need. But
the truth is, I have not time yet to go out hunting. I
must lay in a stock of firewood before the winter sets
in. The weather has at present the charm of variety,
if it has no other ; ringing the changes from snow to
frost, from frost to rain, from rain to snow again, with
a delightful perseverance. It is no life of idleness.
Every minute of daylight must be made use of while
I am here, and here I must be, whatever be my wishes,
till at least the river is frozen or the snow is deep
enough to get about on snow-shoes. For the wilder-
ness of New Brunswick differs from a turnpike-road
in two particulars — one, that there are no vehicles to
be met with, and the other, that even on foot it can
hardly be traversed.

Solitude and Cutting down Trees,

109

fire-

26^//. — My life is merging into one immeasurable
chop. I have left off all to-day only for my meals and
a ramble to the river, occasioned by the call of a
moose twice repeated. This, with the finding the
tracks of a lucifee in the snow, put me quite into an
excitement ; but no moose or lucifee did I find. The
process of cutting firewood is simply this : — I march
with stern resolve up to a birch or maple tree, axe in
P hand, first ascertain in which direction he will fall,

and then belabour him with a shower of blows, till
down he comes with a thundering crash, tearing a road
for himself among cedars, spruce, and bushes beneath,
as if they were but reeds. Then, like the Irishman,
I hit him again for falling — that is, I chop up his
trunk into logs about three feet long, which I after-
wards split into billets. If I had but a couple of iron
wedges and a mallet, I could then do this last in half
, the time it takes me with the axe. In this work I
propose to pass the next week or so. It does not add
to the pleasure of the business that my hands, unused
to labour for some time past, have become soft, snd
are Wis ering with the jar of the axe-handle, nor that
the melting snow is dripping and slopping all over me.
The only animals I often see in these silent wilds

;.' fl

110 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique.

are the saucy little squirrel, the moose-bird, the barred
woodpecker, and occasionally a few sober-hued little
birds fluttering amongst the branches. The squirrel,
whose chirr-chirr is constantly heard, is a ridiculous
little fellow ; each one seems to have his own particular
haunt, and if you enter it, there is no end to the abuse
he will bestow upon you. I have seen him come and
sit on a log close by me, and scold and harangue till
he began in his indignation fairly to shake his little
fists at me, as though he would say, *' how dare you
come here without the leave of me ? " Although my
mission here is to destroy, these comical little creatures
I have not the heart to injure ; their chattering enlivens
the gloom of the woods ; their pranks amuse me^*—
besides, they are of no use. Neither do I like to hurt
that most impudent thief, the moose-bird, the most
barefaced pilferer I ever saw. No sooner is a camp
formed than round come hovering two or three of them
— hangers-on of forest society ; no sooner is one's back
turned than down they pounce on the food, and will
hardly be driven from it either. The Indians delight
in snaring them or knocking them down with sticks or
stones ; and I delight in their impudence, and do not
grudge them the bit they eat. They are white be-

Solitude and Cutting doivn Trees. Ill

neath and blue-gray on the backs, somewhat larger
than the Enghsh thrush, and I imagine of the family
of the butcher-bird or shrike.

27J/e.-The weather has given us to-day snow,
rain, and fog, all at once, mth the addition of hail
-putting one in mind of mixed bitters. In the
evening it wound up with a genuine snow-etorm ;
thick and fast fell the silent shower, so as we seldom
see it fall in England, while the wind gi^oans through
the rending boughs in mournful gusts like deep sobs.
Now and then a crack like the blow of an axe startles
me, caused probably by the striking together of the
rocking branches, and just now the crash of a tree
blown down close by the camp made me expect in-
stant destruction, for I believed it to be a maple to
whose neighbourhood I have a thorough dishke, as
he leans over in such a manner that if he faU he
must crash through my roof, and finish my adventures
there and then. But it was not my suspicious friend,
whose acquaintance I think I shall to-morrow cut
once for all — with my axe.

This morning I splashed down through the rain
to the river to look at my " sort of a canoe," lest
the river, which must certainly be rising very high.

■ i jlLUIJ^

112 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique.

should take it from me. The jmth down the gully
has become little better than a brook, which brook
itself has become quite a young torrent, overflowing
the two bridges by which we crossed to where it
crosses the track, and forcing me to splutter and
scramble about among cedars and alders, and every-
thing moist and unpleasant, in search of another.

2Sth, — Chop — chop — chop. This chopping of fuel
has become to me like the money-gathering of the
miser; even as he is tormented by the constant fear
of want and starvation in the winter of his years, so
have I ever in my mind the dread of the winter before
me. So I grudge every bit of wood I put on the
fire, and only cease chopping when I can barely raise
my hand for the blow.

That stormy wind has torn away the thick veil of
vapour from the heavens, and gloriously shone the
morning sun on the glittering snow — now three or
four inches deep, and covering the trees with its
stainless mantle — they standing around me like tail,
graceful ladies dressed in white muslin — a material
rather unsuited to the weather.

The wild beasts seem to hold a regular conclave
round my camp. Last night, with as much excite-

Solitude and Cutting doivn Trees.

113

)ok
ing
, it
and
ery-
r.

fuel
: the

fear
'S, so
jefore
the

raise

leil of
the
^ee or
its
tall,
iterial

iclave
jxcite-

ment almost as Robinsou Crusoe felt at sight of the
footprints on the sand, I found the tracks of the
moose at my very door, while all around I saw those
of the lucifee, the sable (or it might be a skunk),
and others which I could only attribute to a bear.

2dth. — I wonder whether it always rains on the
Tobique, except when it snows. The rain is now
clattering on the cedar roof like the scampering of
a hundred mice. The snow, after all, has its uses
even for me. This morning I had to build up the
fireplace with stones and mud (for, after all, the log I
build my fire against does burn in a smouldering
sort of way), and, to make the mud, all I had to do
was to puddle snow and earth altogether. Then the salt
provisions that I have to live on now produce an exces-
sive thirst while I am at work ; to assuage this every
bough which hangs near me is laden with its cold,
crisp burthen, which is also convenient. Again, a cold
bath I consider a first-rate luxury. Now, when I
want it, all I have to do is to undress and roll in
the snow, which is comfortable.

Last night I saw the Aurora, and knew that the
fine weather would not last. In Scotland, where it
is frequently seen, it is considered a forerunner of

Ii[

114 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique.

rain and Rtorra, and, as far as my experience goes,
it is so. This may be accounted for thus : — The
atmosphere is a bad conductor of electricity, but by
rarefaction its conducting powers are increased. Now,
the Aurora is proved by a common electrical experi-
ment to be the passing of an electric current through
a highly rarefied medium. Before and during the
bad weather, the density of the air, as is shown by
the barometer, is considerably diminished, and its
conducting powers therefore increased. In such a
condition the phenomenon of the Aurora Borealis is
therefore more likely to occur, and so may be looked
upon as a magnificent aerial barometer. In the Arctic
latitudes, where it is seen almost every night, and
is so intensely brilliant, I suppose it is always in the
higher and thinner regions of the air, while in these
lower latitudes it occurs at a lower latitude; or it
may be that, owing to the intense dryness of the air
during a polar winter, so large a quantity is accumu-
lated that it is enabled to force its way through a
medium which would oppose the progress of a less
intense charge, as an overcharged Leyden phial dis-
charges itself through it over the glass.

30th, — The river has risen very high — a strong

Solitude and Cutting down Trees,

115

oes,

The

b by

Slow,

:peri-

•ough

r the

m "by

id its

acli a

jalis is

looked
Arctic

it, and
in the
these
or it
Ithe air
ccumn-
|ough a
a less
lial dis-

strong

crumpling flood — and has, moreover, carried away my
*' sort of a canoe," for the edification of the inhabited
parts of the river. Perhaps I ought to bo thankful
for the event, but it is a great disadvantage to be
without the means of crossing or travelling on the
river, as the banks now are almost impassable, and
there is no fishing ground within reach of me.

Slsi. — Since yesterday afternoon till now, a space
of twenty-seven hours, the grey sky has been, not
raining, but pouring down cataracts of water upon
the steaming forests. I say steaming, for a damp,
blue vapour is all the while curling, like wreaths of
smoke, among the tree tops — dismal to see — and still
falls the torrent on the cedar roof — still the woods
shed floods of tears, showering from every leaf, and
splash, spit, splash, come the large drops into the
fire down the chimney, or rather the hole which the
smoke is supposed to go through, but which it does
not always do. The smoke from a wood fire is in-
tolerably pungent from the presence of pyroligneous
acid gas, to which are owing its strong antiseptic
qualities, as well as the peculiar flavour it gives to
smoke-dried meat.

At present I must confess that, while moping in

8—2

I i

116 Journal of Two Months on the Tohiqne,

my smoky, lonely, leaky-roofed camp, I am disposed
to think rather despondingly of things in general, to
forget the many pleasant days I have really passed
in the province, when the enjoyment of delightful
weather has been enhanced by the society of the
kind friends I have met with, and to forget, too,
that the close of autumn is not famed, generally,
for serenity anywhere ; and to overlook, besides, the
fact that the circumstances which in my case make
such weather so peculiarly depressing, are not those
of ordinary life, but are of my own creation, and
that, as sailors say, it is, after all, " what I shipped

for,

»•

{ 117 )

CHAPTEE V.
CUmSLVG THKOUGH THE FOUEST-TIIE SNOW FALLS.
^ove,nlcr Ist.-A strong north wind has followed
-^--PO-; and just to show how thick these
forests are, the only evidences I have of a strong wind
-d xts direction, are its mournfm harsh sighing through
the tree-tops and the motion of the clouds, for scared,
a breath reaches aught below. But a north wind
generally tells its own tale by a n>ost unequivocal frost.
I la.d a big bird's-eye n.aple low to-day with n>uch
to. and trouble, as he chose to fall against a big brother
of h:s, and to tear him from his embrace cost me much
ext« labour. And, to crown the matter, he was so
tough, that after the first throe logs I had to abandon
b.m as the fourth defied all my efforts to split it
with the axe. the handle of which, to complete a bad
morning's work, I smashed in the endeavour. Then I
had to bum out the part left in the eye, pouring water
continually on the steel part lest it lose its temper all

ii J i|

118 Journal of Two Months on the Tohiqiic,

of wliicli lost me much time, and so vexed me tliat,
after cutting up a smaller tree I decided to leave oflf,
and as to-morrow was Sunday, to rest from my labours
and take a walk to see what the country round me is like.
Nov. 2nd. — It has been a fine day. I have seen
the sun at least three times for a few minutes, and I
have had my walk, if walk that can be called which is
only a slow and toilsome scramble over and through
eveT7 sort of natural impediment. Starting in a north-
east direction, which I hoped would bring me to a lake
I have been told of, I came upon a noisy brook which I
knew must be one that runs into the Tobique. I fol-
lowed it up to its source on the summit of a high hill,
the top of a great range, called Lisson's Side. A little
below this I discovered a partridge, and the eagerness
with which I levelled my rifle at his neck, and pulled
the trigger, and the exultation with which I picked up
his coi-pse, can only be fully understood by such of my
readers as have lived as I have on salt pork. I soon
found in a deep romantic gorge a splashing, leaping
brook, hurrying away joyously to the sea, and down
along its banks I scrpmbled, hoping it would lead me
to the lake it sought. Instead of that it brought me
first to a deserted lumberer's camp, left many years ago.

Cruising through the Forest,

119

that,

B off,

ibours

J like.

I seen

and I

lich is

trough

nortli-

a lake

^liicli I
I fol-

h hill,

k little

lerness
pulled
ied up
of my
I soon
leaping
down
ead me
;ht me
TS ago.

Nothing but the skeleton of the camp, tvhcre once the
joyous song and laugh roused the forest-echoes, where
the bright fire threw its ruddy glow on the rafters, and
where the axe rang loud and cheerily ; now lonely,
ruinous, known only to the bears, the lynx, and other
wild beasts of the forest.

And thence the merry stream, with its gentle
clamour, enticed me to a place which I soon wished I
had never seen; into a cedar swamp that I could
scarce extricate myself from, and then left me, ceased
its murmuring music, and vanished among the mysteries
of that gloomy grove. When I had got into the middle
of the swamp I became naturally very anxious to get
out again, so would the reader in the circumstances. I
almost despair of being able to describe a cedar swamp.
In the first place, in this country, a swamp does not neces-
sarily imply a wet marshy place, but rather an unusually
thick and crowded growth of timber, whether spruce or
cedar. The swamp I speak of would have been dry
enough but for late tremendous rains. The cedar has
a rough ribbed bark, and a leaf like that of the arbor- vitae,
or rather it is very like the tree known as the red cedar
in the gardens and shrubberies of England. It delights
in low situations, in springy ground, and to hang over

120 Journal of Tiio MontJia on the Tuhique.

brooks and rivers, and when it has found a spot to its
liking, such a number of them crowd there, that there
is literally no room for them. Besides, they rarely grow
upright, leaning towards and against each other at all
manner of angles, as though at the finish of a merry
evening ; moreover, they are always falling down, which
helps out the comparison. And among them, thick as
they grow, spring up young ones innumerable, and
every si)ccios of shrub and inconvenient bush, so that
the swamp presents just this picture, an almost imper-
vious mass of trees in every possible position ; layers
upon layers of prostrate trunks (so that in the one I am
describing my foot scarce ever touched the ground), stick-
ing their unpleasant branches in one's face every instant ;
the whole overgrown with that remarkable feature of
American forest, an almost knee-deep growtli of moss,
and all the interstices filled up with something else of
an annoying nature.

After struggling about for perhaps an hour in the
very heart of all their conglomeration of difficulties, I
began to think that the prospect of my ever getting out
was doubtful, when by one of those inexplicable accesses
of inspiration or instinct, I diverged from the south-
east course I was trying to make to one a little more

Cruising through the Forest.

121

the
ies, I
|g out

tesses

louth-

east, and in a few minutes found myself in a lumber
road, which some beings more or less than man had in
Bome fit of gigantic energy and perseverance cut right
into the swamp. Through tracks as intricate as the
maze in Hampton Court, I found myself at last on the
Tobique, the brook that had played mo such a trick
being but a branch of the one I had traced up.

. And the Tobique ! I had not seen it since the last
rain ; and where was the clear, shallow, comparatively
gentle brook I had thought to navigate ^ Now beneath
me rolled fierce and swift a deep and bid river ; it
had overtopped its banks, it had buried the islands
beneath its discoloured torrent ; and how do the Rapids
and Narrows look, I wonder ? Small chance of hearing
or seeing a soul from the Mouth for the next six weeks.
When I reached home I was far more fatigued with
the six or seven miles I had done than if I had been
chopping wood all day. It was not walking — it was
climbing, jumping, crawling — like perpetually going up
and down stairs. The most striking features of these
woods are their dampness, their thick mosses, and their
great untidiness — prostrate trees, broken limbs lying
heaped on each other everywhere, and a multitudinous
growth of suckers and saplings, which, as we walk, give

■I ll

122 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique.

us every now and then a poke in the eye, which half
blinds us, or sjrt across the face as from a horsewhip,
or a trip to the feet, which sends us sprawling on the
sharp stump of a fallen spruce-tree, or a rotten tree
with its look of solidity, trips us up, or, hurrying along,
we tread on the slimy, slippery trunk, where the bark
has fallen off, and the foot glides from under us, ere we
know what is the matter. The reader may now under-
stand that the forests of America are not like garden lawns.
I ought now to say something of the trees in
detail, as far as I know them ; those trees, which are
the source of much of the wealth, and nearly all the
poverty, of New Brunswick, which " malce " the lumberer
and ruin the farmer, which cumber the land, and yet
are one great source of its fertility. Among the hard-
wood, the maple, I think, usually attains the greatest
size ; a tall rugged tree, with stubborn, crooked branches,
and a rough gnarled bark, grim and graceless when bare
of leaves, but in the summer clothed with a bright soft
foliage, in the autumn gorgeously clad in scarlet and
ermine. The elm is, I think, the most craceful of all
the forest trees, with its long waving sprays, light and
feathery ; it also grows to a large size, and delights in
rich moist intervales.

CruWmg through the Forest,

123

half
^hip,

I the
tree

long,
bark
re we
nder-
awns.
es in
5h are

II the
aberer
id yet

hard-
eatest
Qches,
a bare
it soft
t and
of all
it and
hts in

The birch resembles its namesake in Britain more
in bark and foliage than growth, being without that
lady-like elegance so conspicuous in its relation. There
are two varieties, the white and the black : the bark of
the latter is also much rougher. There are besides the
ash, the poplar, the butter-nut, resembling the walnut-
tree, but not half so handsome ; the oak, differing from
the British oak chiefly in its much larger leaves ; the
beech, very like ours ; the cherry, and some others not
remarkable for any peculiarity. But the monarch of
the forest is the white pine, or ** pine " par excellence,
as timber the most valuable, in aspect the most mag-
nificent. I admire him greatly ; the lumberer admires
him too, but in a different way — had rather see him
floating in a raft down the river to a good market. I
prefer seeing him waving his kingly head far above all
other trees, stretching his mighty arms like some
despot uttering his decrees. There is that about the
pine which is to me impressive and poetic ; there is a
savage wild grandeur in his towering form, branchless
for 100 feet ; in the luxuriance of tropical vegetation he
would look out of his sphere as much as would some
old Scandinavian hero of a Norse legend in a ball-room
— ^the Hercules of the forest — the Goliath of the woods

ir^i

k-W

i
I-

124 Journal of Two Months on the Toblque,

— the lord of the wilderness ! And if he be the king
of trees, then surely is the noble hemlock his queen ;
more richly clothed, with a softer, more graceful mantle
of foliage, still is she a right majestic lady, and fit
consort of so mighty an emperor. A grove of huge old
hemlocks is a beautiful sight ; thick and dark, they
shade the spot where they grow with perpetual twilight ;
their leaves are small, but thick and close — and heavy
is the burthen of them which the hemlock bears. I saw
one to-day perhaps five or six feet through ; but there
are no such trees hera as on the other side of the world,
where ten and twelve feet is no unusual diameter.

Monday, Srd November. — I started to-day on
another cruise through the forest-world all round me,
first cutting as much firewood as would last me two
days. I find the track of a moose by my door, and
others which could only belong to a bear, besides no
end of smaller footprints ; indeed, I suspect animals
visit my dwelling by night of whose neighbourhood I
dream not ; and many know my face whom I never
saw. In travelling through these woods, one is struck
with the death-like quiet which reigns there — not a
creature, save now and then a squirrel whisking round
the trees crosses our path ; yet who can tell what

Cruising through the Forest — The Snow Falls. 125

on
me,
two
and
no
als
d I
ver
uck
t a
und
liat

gleaming eyes watched me from some dark hiding-
place, or what quick ears may have detected my
approach, and warned their owners to secrete them-
selves ere I was even in view ?

After I came home, I spent the time till dark in
stopping up the chinks, or " caulking the seams '*
(in sea phrase), of the cedar planks with moss, a pre-
paration for the approaching winter which ought not
to be delayed.

Tuesday, Ath November. — Another long wandering
through the woods. I was near meeting with a fright-
ful disaster in the course of it. I had just with un-
utterable toil got out of a horrid bit of intervale,
completely choked with an exasperating undergrowth,
and was looking out for some way of crossing a pro-
voking pieee of water which lay across my path, when
to my dismay I found that the bushes had pulled out
the ramrod of my rifle. To attempt to recover it amid
the bushes I had just come through, seemed more
hopeless than to extricate a drop of rain from the
ocean ; and my sensations as I reflected on my loss
were such as words cannot convey. For a few minutes
I rejected the idea of searching for it as absin-d ; then,
however, I recovered my energy, and first looked at the

i '' i

126 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique.

tracks I had left to see whether they were such as I
could follow. I perceived that with patience and care
I might do so, tracking being, moreover, a business
with which previous colonial experience had made me
familiar. I looked at my watch, and found I had three
hours' daylight left, and so I proceeded to retrace my
steps through that atrocious thicket, which I had hoped
never more to enter. All that I had to guide me were
the slight disturbances my feet had made in the thick
layer of dead leaves, and here and there a bough bent
down ; but concentrating all my attention on them, I
found them sufficient. Step by step I traced out the
way I had come, and not fifty yards from where I had
missed it I came upon the ramrod, and seized it with
a delight only equalled by my astonishment at such
almost impossible good luck.

Partridges are not, as I was told, abundant on the
Tobique, but very scarce, which is a great disappoint-
ment to me, as I had depended much on them for
fresh provision, there being no fishing-ground in my
neighbourhood.

Thursday, 6th, — Busy all this morning finishing
off my defences against the approaching winter. I
then took a stroll through the woods, prowling

Cruising through the Forest — The Snow Falls. 127

tlie
oint-
for
my

rling

stealthily along like a wild beast in search of prey.
But nothing could I see save the everlasting squirrels,
woodpeckers, and tonctits. till, the day being far ad-
vanced, I began wandering homeward. At the foot of
the path leading up the steep hill to my camp, I had,
according to my custom, left an empty pail, to be taken
up full on my return. Up the bank I was toiling with
it, tired and dispirited — had just set it down to rest
half-way, and was looking at the topmost twig of a
spruce fir with some intention of knocking it off, partly
from sheer spite, partly to discharge my piece, which
had been loaded for two days, when almost at my very
door I descried a noble partridge sneaking about in the
branches of a fallen birch tree, and cunningly hiding
himself, but not enough so to prevent my cracking his
neck in two seconds. If the reader can't already sym-
pathise with my delight, my exultation, at such a ter-
mination of an unsuccessful day, there's no more to
be said. At any rate, if I eat pork to-morrow, I
deserve to be shot myself. The mere thought of it
gave me such energy that I took my axe forthwith, and,
late as it was, split up a birch log which had hitherto
defied my efforts.

In the meantime a glorious change has come. The

! i:

it
i t

I ii

128 Journal of Tivo Months on the Tohique.

clouds are vanished into tliin air, the full moon shines
hard and clear, and a stinging frost comes like a sharp
knife throu h one or two little chinks I had overlooked
and which must be stopped up to-morrow. The worst
of this stopping-up system is, that the more air-tight
I make my camp, the more it smokes.

Friday, 7th. — Two more partridges bagged this
evening in a place I have passed sixty times without
seeing them. My ramble to-day took me into the
neighbourhood of the supposed lake, whose existence
I begin to doubt ; probably it is no more than a lagoon
of the middle of an atrocious cedar-swamp, which the
brook it is said to feed runs through. If so, I have
seen it once, and do not want ever to see it again.

I had an amusing interview with one of my friends
the squirrels to-day — a moose-bird completing the party.
Mr. Squirrel came whisking up in a devil of a hurry,
and squatting on a stump began nibbling and munching
at something he had got hold of most energetically,
commenting thereon all the while with great volubility,
till the moose-bird, overhearing him, joined us to listen
to the jokes of the little humourist, who suddenly threw
away what he was eating, and vanished behind the
stump with a hearty fit of laughter, which he repeated

ines
larp
)ke(l
orst
igbt

this
tliout
) the
itence
agoon
h the

have

Cruising through the Forest — The Snow Falls. 129

louder than ever on my walking round and finding he
was only playing at hide-and-seek, and then bolted
away altogether.

There is quite a little clearing now round my camp,
which adds somewhat of chee* fulness to so gloomy a
spot. I place beauty of scenery amongst the great
sources of pleasure in this world, but my dwelling
here cannot boast such a recommendation ; buried in
the forest, on the side of a narrow valley choked with
cedar and spruce, the opposite bank nearly hidden by
the trees between, and also heavily laden with hemlock
and firs. At the back of my clearing is a fine hard-wood
forest, continued to the top of the long ridge v/hence all
the brooks in the neighbourhood come tumbling down.
Of these, one which I have named Mouse Brook, (by
reason of having held quiet converse with a mouse who
sat in his doorway and watched me as I ate my dinner
by the side of the stream,) runs downstairs in a very
pretty way, leaping from rock to rock over a series of steps
or ledges. Between this and my own brook (on which I
have bestowed no other name) runs one which I always call
the Bad Brook, from the unimaginable cedar-swamp which
it encourages on its course. The next might perhaps
be called the Worse Brook from the same peculiarity.

;< i

ii 4

130 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique.

A new source of amusement is opened to me now
which suits my fancy very much, viz., the making of
sable traps, a line of which, several miles in length, I
propose to establish through the surrounding country.
In making them, my axe and knife are my only tools.
I was working away at one of these contrivances this
afternoon on a little hill about 100 yards from the river,
when my ears were suddenly invaded by a sound I have
not heard since the Indians left me — the human voice —
except indeed my own. Two or three log canoes, as I
supposed by the noise of the poles against them, were
toiling up the river — lumberers going to their camp. As
soon as I heard them, I put my tomahawk in my
belt, took my rifle, and watched them till they had passed,
only catching a glimpse now and then through the trees
of a red shirt. Then I walked home quietly, meditating
on the circumstance and began to chop firewood, finding
this, in my loneliness, an exciting event. It rather
amused me to think how little they dreamed that there
was a lonely human being in those thick woods watching
them from his lair — much I daresay as the weasels and
lynxes watch me when I pass unconsciously by their
hiding-places.

Monday 10th. — I made some more sable traps to-day

now
:ig of
;tli, I
mtry.
tools.
;s this
) river,
I have
voice —
es, as I
m, were

mp-

in my
passed,
tlie trees
jditating
finding
[t ratlier
Lat there
Iwatching
isels and
by their

to-day

Cruising through the Forest — The Snoiv Falls. 131

to the great amusement of the squirrels who como and
examine my rifle and cut capers all round mo. But my
trapmaking ended with noon ; I split the handle of my
tomahawk and got my feet half-frozen with standing in
the snow, and thought how nice a pot of tea would be,
and finally came home quite out of conceit with the
business. In the afternoon a fall of more snow set in.
The flakes are of a very curious form, unlike any I have
seen before —just like very small thistle-down or rather
like anemone seeds, lying like them in fuzzy heaps. A
deep snow which will bring snow-shoes into use will be a
comfort, and so will a real hearty frost if it were only to
freeze the puddles and keep the snow from soaking into
my boots, dry feet being a pleasure I have hardly known
since I have been on the Tobique.

Wednesday, 12th. — I reasoned yesterday that if I
want to see these shy creatures who every morning leave
tracks at my door, and if they go about in the dark, why
so must I too. So I took my tomahawk and went down
to the river side wbere the tracks are most frequent,
and, under a fallen tree beside a thick heap of dead
branches, I made me a little den with spruce boughs,
producing by my arrangement of them something very
like a large wren's nest. Then when night came, I put

9—2

132 Journal of Two Months on the Tohlquc.

on a double allowance of clothing, took my rifle and plod-
ded down the valley to my hiding-place, crept in and,
covered with a large cloak, lay there for some hours to
see what would happen next. I think such energy and
hardihood might have met with a better reward than
the being entertained only by the squeaking of a few
miserable mice.

I have seen some excellent country to-day ; the topo-
graphy of this locality is just a high ridge, covered on the
higher part with an open hard-wood forest, which extends
about one third down ; then come thick spruce and hem-
lock forests, and those dire cedar-swamps, and as a matter
of course my opinion of the whole of New Brunswick
falls below par. " If ever I let myself be caught," —
here I tumble down headlong — " in this detestable country
again when once I've got clear of it, I deserve to be " —
tumble down again. " Well, I'm in it at any rate " —
(plump into a hole with mud at the bottom) ** and must
get out of it some way. I wish the Tobique and New
Brunswick and all North America were at the bottom of
the Red Sea, and I were in England, or Australia, or the
North Pole, or anywhere but in a cedar swamp." In such a
frame of mind I reached my camp, tired, dispirited, de-
sponding, — desperately put down a pot to boil, and,

Criimng through the Forest — The Snoiv Falls. 133

plod-
i and,
ars to
gy and
d tban
: a few

le topo-
1 on the
extends
nd hem-
a matter
mnswick

aght,"—
country

be "—
rate " —

md must
and New
ottom of
ia, or the
In such a
lirited, de-
1, and,

Mocha ! blcssinr^s on thy berry. Glorious are these forests,
a noble country is New Brunswick and fairest of all
streams the Tobique. The pot of tea or coffee and the
pipe are all the luxuries, if, as I said, they are not actual
necessaries, which the bushman or backwoods-man
possesses, and with these there are few hardships or
discomforts he will fear to undergo.

My unsuccessful hunting is, I suppose, only what is
to be expected until the really deep snow shall so impede
the flight of the larger animals that I shall be able to
overtake them. I have almost made up my mind to
abstain from cruising through the forests altogether till
the river freezes, or till snow-shoes and tarboggin come
into use, when I shall be able to leave my camp for as
long as I like, taking my blankets and provisions, and
camping where I please. I have already gained one of
the objects of my hermitage on the Tobique — namely, the
ascertaining correctly, by personal observation, the nature
of what may prove an important locality on this river.

I am beginning to look very hard at the squirrels.
I should be sorry indeed to kill such charming little
fellows, but I suspect they are very tender. Besides, I
can get nothing else to vary my pork and biscuit, unless
the change which I am trying now, of biscuit without

134 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique.

pork. When I get tired of that, I can tiy pork without
biscuit, but in the meantime those squirrels do look
so fat and nice.

In this strong wind, now that the bark of the trees is
frozen hard, the foret .iounds with their loud sonorous
voices as they writhe in the fierce gust — groaning and
snapping and crying aloud, as though with the agony of
feeling their strong limbs and trunks wrenched thus
rudely by the still stronger blast. Every variety of voice
have they — now a long plaintive moan, then a harsh rend-
ing scream, and again an explosion like the report of a gun
— all joining in the ( ""tcry of a storm-bewildered forest.

Saturday 15th set out for a ramble through

the woods, but warned by signs which announced the
snows that Moulton assured me set in about the middle
of this month, I turned back again. Such of my
readers as have not tried a ''rough life" can scarcely
appreciate the cheerful emotions which arise within
me on my return to my little forest den from one of
Ihese limb and heart wearying wanderings through the
woods. Slipping and stumbling and plodding through
clinging, clogging snow, cold, wet, miserable, disap-
pointed and desponding that all this has been endured
to no purpose, save that of unveiling the mysteries of

ritliout

look

trees is
morous
ng and
goiiy of
ed thus
of voice
sh rend-
of a guu

1 forest,
through
ced the

middle
|i of my
scarcely
within
one of
lugh the
through
|e, disap-
endured
iteries of

Crumny through the Forest — The Snow Fulls. 11^5
the cedar swamp, and "getting up" with painful

abour

thus I

le dismal geography of desolation
reach the blazed sapling at the foot of the stair-like
path which leads up to my dwelling. A glance upwards
to assure myself, by the white roof gleaming through the
trees, that it has not been burned in my absence, — the
bucket, ever left there awaiting me, filled at the chat-
tering brook ; and already I feel my spirits rise as my
feet slowly and cautiously bear me up that steep and
slippery hill. Then, as I fling aside my blanket door,
and lay down my bucket, and my axe, and my rifle, and
see the glowing brands awaiting but a touch and a re-
placing to blaze up cheerily, and the pot of hot tea or
coffee, and the bread and pork, or partridge (if fortune
has favoured me), and the pipe after them, and the rest
on the bed of boughs, succeed in turn, — all cheer me
so, that my privations are forgotten, and my discontent
is changed to a state of luxurious satisfaction. I am
all alone, 'tis true, and often (never more so than in the
gloaming) I feel it a burthen not easy to bear ; but for
this the best remedy is occupation. When thought
becomes too busy, and memory musters her throng
from the ghost-land of the past, then I take my axe,
and thought changes her subject, and those throngs

! HI

: 11

1 '.<,

■ r

IIHH

f '^

1 \

( *

I i

1i ■

'I I

13G Jovvnal of Two Months on the Tohlqne.

vanish at the first ringing stroke. Nor do the hours
of evening hang heavy on my hands, for with my pen
and my Bible, my only companion, and little jobs in
abundance, the time passes cheerfully till I roll myself
in my blanket b'^^'ore the replenished fire. I have said
nothing, howe-ver, of one frequent and intense annoy-
ance of my evenings, viz.^ a smoky chimney. Last
night, when the snow had fallen so as to cover all the
crevices between the cedar boards which form the roof,
the absence of any inlet for a sufficient cun-ent of fresh
air below, resulted in its coming down the chimney.
The camp was soon filled with such volumes of smoke
that I was almost in danger of suffocation, while my eyes
became so painfully inflamed that I felt it even in
my dreams.

This was tcmpoi-arily remedied by throwing aside the
blanket-door, which I had to leave so all night, not a
very pleasant alternative. I have carefully examined
the chimney, and think I see a way of doctoring it ; but
should this fail, I know not what I shall do. Leave the
woods for the abodes of man I cannot ; the river is out
of the question, full of floating ice as it is ; the woods
are impassable. A month may elapse ere I can escape,
"d in the meanwhile irreparable evil may result to my

Cruising through the Forest — TJie S)i<)W Falls. 137

hours
ay pen
jobs ill
myself
ve said
annoy-
Last

all the
lie roof,
3f fresh
liimney.
f smoke

my eyes
even in

iside the
t, not a

amined

it ; hut
eave the
|er is out

e woods
escape,

It to my

eyes. Already they are so inflamed that out of the
house I can hardly keep them open, while closing
them increases the burning pain. No one who has not
experienced it can appreciate the evil I complain of.

I hear no sound from morning till night save the
whirr of the squirrel, the chirrup of the tomtit, the
tap -tap of the woodpecker, and sometimes the strange
''drumming" of the partridge, — a sound very like
distant thunder, and mysterious in that no man can
tell whence it comes, nor from how far. These and
the murmur of the forest are nearly all the sounds
I hear from day to day. For upwards of three
weeks I have not heard the voice of man, save my
own, which at times almost startles me. I some-
times talk and shout even lest I should forget how.
And for perhaps six weeks longer the solitude may
last, till the freezing of the river enables travellers to
pass over the ice, or till snow-shoes come into play.
And it has begun to snow — such snow as I never
saw before ; minute, like dust, like pins' points, close,
thick, a mist, a fog, a drizzling cloud of snow, — down it
comes as though all the atmosphere were charged with it.

I did that to-day which I am now ashamed to re-
member ; I had every excuse, but I can hardly forgive

■V

' I

i f;

t ill

:,i^i^

-L:i

^antm

138 Jmmial of Tico Months on the Tohiqiie.

myself. I have shot a squirrel, one of my contiaing,
fearless, humorous little friends. But what could I do ?
— my soul wearies of pork, and I could find no eatable
creature besides — if, at least, the squirrel be eatable, —
so I levelled my rifle, pulled the trigger, and down
tumbled Mr. Scug. I was ashamed to look in his
large black eyes, so I took him by the hind leg, carried
him home, skinned him, cooked him, tasted him, and
found him — decidedly nasty. Had his comrades known
of what deep importance to them, collectively and indi-
vidually, would be the result of that experiment, they
would have gathered round my camp, anxiously awaiting
my final decision. But there was but the one who
haunts this spot near me as I flung forth that remnant
of his fellow, and he knew not what it was.

Tuesday J ISth. — A morning employed in cobbling
up the chimney, with, I think, some success, and an
afternoon of chopping, knee-deep in snow, brought
yesterday to a satisfactory conclusion ; to-day, however,
ended diff'erently. I contrived clumsily to cut my knee
with the axe. I believed my leg to be half cut off from
the way the blood ran down. It is bad enough to keep
me at home for a day or two, but it will heal much
sooner and more effectually than the gash in my trousers.

Crmsing through the Forest — The Snow Falls. 139

iaing,
I do?
salable
He-
down
in his
carried
ni, and
known
id indi-
it, they
.waiting
le who
emnant

obhlin

and an
wrought
owever,
ly knee
ff from
to keep
I much
•ousers.

It was of no use to try to hig a bucket up hill, so I had
to amuse myself with melting snow — rather a tedious
process, as it takes four or five quarts of suow to produce
one quart of water. I have ever had the dread of such
an accident before me, as a really severe wound would
be a fearful calamity in my lonely position, — in the
deadly cold we may soon expect, probably a fatal one.

I begin to long to hear the sound of some other voice
besides my own, repl}ing in the imaginary conversations
I sometimes carry on with myself, I am getting, too,
into a habit of thinking aloud, and tell the silent trees
my reasons for doing this or that, or why it should not
be done, and comment on my progress to the squirrels,
who sit chattering their own opinion, or hold arguments
with myself on metaphysics and all the 'ologies, or
balance the discomforts against the pleasures of my
present state. For the wilderness has its lesson to
teach; hard may be the lesson, rough and harsh the
teacher, uttering words of truth with a piercing voice
and a frowning brow. Yet it is a lesson to be trea-
sured in the heart. The lesson is in the words of
Carlyle, — " There is a sacredness in work — in idleness
only is eternal despair ! "

Again, I please my imagination with fancying this

• rii

A.I

140 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique.

desolation subdued by man ; these tall, grim forests
laid low, and the silence which has reigned here too
many years exchanged for the sound of many voices
— the hum and murmur of the settlement, the clang
of the axe, and the blacksmith's hammer, and the
thump of the flail, and the creak of the dray, and
the rattle of the horses' hoofs and the shout of man,
manfully toiling for his bread, and the bread of his
wife and children ; and the sweet tinkling of the church
bell — fancy that ringing through the woods of the
Tohique. And where these rugged maples and the
black massive hemlocks have so long spread abroad
their rude arms, there shall stand the neat home-
stead, and where the wild raspberry and the moose
wood and the tangled alders grow, there shall be the
garden, glowing with the bright flowers of Old Eng-
land. All this change may a few years bring on,
and fain would I hve to see it. The founders of a
settlement in a land by men neglected, but by nature
so richly stored, may justly be called benefactors of
their race. For, let them remember, every tree that
falls before their axe makes room for a human being,
and, while it burns in the logging, from its very
ashes springs sustenance for him.

( 141 )

! > I

I f il

; ''."ti

CHAPTER VI.

WINTER ADVANCING— ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE.

Friday, 21st. — Four weeks of this strange life have
slipped away, I scarce know how. And yet it seems
as if ages had past since I first began this forest
life. But that memory is active (oh, how active !)
I could almost think I had passed my life here — had
never been elsewhere. Every tree round my camp
is familiar ; I know the ins and outs of the devious
lumber roads, the cedar swamps, and the high hills ;
the noisy brooks and the swift, strong river are my
companions ; the squirrels even know me now, and
cease to scold me. But very monotonously, too, have
hours passed since the deep snow fell and stopped
my rambles. The axe, the saw, the needle, the knife
— with them I have found ways and means to make
them shorter. That unfortunate wound has occa-
sioned me irksome hours, though now it is rapidly

i '

142 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique,

healing. I was actually able to-day to crawl down,
under the influence of much excitement, to the river.
For to-day I heard sounds that made my heart throb
fast and my breath come quick, and my ears strain
with nervous expectation. While cutting fresh spruce-
boughs to lay under me at night, the shout of men
arrested me, yet I said, '' What of that ? they are
but lumbermen passing on the river in their canoe ;
what have we to do with each other?" But, when
by-and-by I heard, as I could not doubt, the measured
blows of an axe ringing repeatedly through the air,
and then, as I thought, the sound of answering voices,
it was more than I could bear.

•* This must be looked after," I thought ;

((

must know who are these intruders." So I took my
^•ifle, equipped myself with my travelling gear, and
with painful toil plodded down to the river. Yet
had I my toil for my pains — there still ran the cold,
chilly river, rustling with its floating burden of snow
and ice, the deep snow unmarked with tracks, save
those which I had made. But while I stood
staring in bewilderment around me at our old camp,
a shout, loud, long and clear, in the direction of
my house, brought me back with all the speed

Winter advancing — Attempts to. Escape. 143

my lameness permitted. Yet I knew it was but an
owl, or at least a close imitation of one, and this I
half suspected, for owls are not wont to hoot at
noon. So I reached home, and found it as I left it,
and it was with a somewhat saddened heart that I
crawled into my den, for I confess I should like once
more to see a fellow-creature.

I began to peel some willow wands, from the bark
of which the Indians have taught me to make their
substitute for tobacco, and which I like mightily to
mix in small quantities with the genuine weed.
Then I cooked my dinner, and when I had eaten
it, I began to cut firewood, and then, as I was
shouldering a log of birch to my camp; I was
startled into almost a tremor of mind and body by
hearing again a " wandering voice," which seemed
assuredly that of a man hailing me within a hun-
dred 3'ards of where I stood, motionless, searching
the woods with eager glance. And then that shout
was heard again, yet, as it seemed, further away ;
then immediately again, but now, as it were, almost
by my side, and for the last time faintly and afar ofi".
But still I listened — listened, and could scarcely be
persuaded that it was only the same owl, who had

;;(

144 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique.

mistaken this gloomy day for night. And I listened
till the murmur of my brook began to my excited
fancy to turn into sweet voices in low conversation,
like that of children confiding their little mysteries
to each other in some quiet corner. And then I re-
turned quietly to my work and my labour till the
evening. And now I sit waiting the history of a day of
delusion, while outside the forest grumbles his old com-
plaints at the rough usage of the easterly wind, which
arrived to-day, bearing in his arms a heavy burthen
of snow to fling over the earth. And truly I wish
the snow would fall more and more, and the true,
downright winter come, and keep us no more in sui:-
pense, ever saying, " I come, I come," and yet delaying
— only giving us little pats like a cat with a mouse. Let
him come and put us out of, or into our misery at once.
Saturday, 22nd. — The first thing I became aware
of on creeping out of the hole in the side of my den
(like the hole in a beehive) was that a dog was
barking across the valley in the hemlock forest or
the opposite hills, the sound coming apparently from
the same direction as the sound of the axe. Improb-
able as it seems, I can only come to the conclusion
that there are lumberers making a camp somewhere

Wuitei' Advancing — Attempts to Escape, 1-45

once,
laware

den

was
1st or

from
[prob-
lusion

^liere

in my neighbourhood. I could hardly restrain myself
from starting forthwith in chase of these mysterious
sounds, but my wounded leg made it impossible. I
had, however, this afternoon the vast good luck to
discover two partridges high in the birch trees, pecking
at the buds, which form their chief food ; but my
rifle soon stopped their pecking, and gave me a prize
of value beyond gold ; for under this diet of pork and
biscuit my weight and strength are both diminishing,
and my health far from improving.

Tuesday, l^th. — I am forming a very favourable
opinion of the country round here as the site of a
settlement, if an excellent soil, forests which may be
cleared without much difficulty, a plentiful supply of
water, and the advantage of being traversed by the
proposed road to the Great Falls, suffice to recom-
mend it. I have been strolling about this glorious
sunny day with far more pleasure than I have hitherto
done, examining more minutely the immediate vicinity
of my camp. In one of my sable traps I found the head
of a wretched little squirrel, his body having afforded
a meal for some prowler of the woods — very likely
the very sable who ought to have been in it himself.

Wednesday, 2Gf/i. — As I expected from the misty

5 hI

.,H

14G Journal of Two Months on the Tobique.

" |.|

filma in the air last night, a day of ceaseless snow —
an atmosphere of snow, I stayed, perforce, at home,
and amused myself by baking bread, clearing a sort
of road for my tarboggin, which I suppose I shall
soon need to draw in my firewood, and cutting down
a few of the cedars that stand round my camp — the
fall of each one of them being to me as a moment
of gratified vengeance. Hour after hour, day after
day, week after week, pass and leave me in my forest
home, a prisoner in solitude unbroken. If my health
fails, none to help mo ; if my spirits sink, none to
cheer me; if I wander away into the wilderness and
die, none will ever know my fate. Dependent only
on my own resources and on God, I yet can pass
away my time thus cheerfully. It is a wild, almost
dreamlike sort of existence. Shut out from the
human race, I know nothing of hat passes — wars
and convulsions of society, desolation, and pestilence
may be abroad on the face of the earth, and not a
whisper would reach me here. But if the body here
be active, neither is the mind idle. The philosopher
who exists but in meditation on abstract truths, should
retire into the depths of an American forest, where
the very wilderness around him would teach him truths

JVinter Advancing — Attempts to Escape, 147

ow —
lome,
, sort
sliall
down
) — tlio
omcnt
J after
J forest
health
lono to
ess and
Lit only
,n pass
almost
iin the
is — wars
sstilence
il not a
idy liere
Losopber
should
•wbere
truths

bo knew not of, would murmur mighty secrets in
his ear. To these truths, these secrets whispered in
the inexpressible voice which seems to belong to the
ancient forest, as do its restless heaving, its un-
ceasing roar to the ocean — have I been listening in
ray seclusion till I almost look on the trees as living,
sentient beings, attributing a diflferent character to
each. The sturdy maple, with his crooked limbs,
standing, as it were, with his arms akimbo, defying
the storm ; the huge, gloomy hemlock, rearing him-
self towards Heaven like a vast tower, and seeming
to shed a gloom over the forest beneath from his
dark, stern face ; the tall and graceful spruce, pointing
to the skies, with upraised finger, like a prophetess ;
the malignant, ungainly cedar, flinging itself about
in all sorts of uncouth attitudes, like an idle school-
boy, an unmitigated nuisance, a bore — all arc my
acquaintances, my companions, my antagonists, my
servants, and my teachers. I will conclude the even-
ing entry in this Diary of a Solitary, — **the world "
not " forgetting," though, perchance, " by the world "
long ago " forgot " — by confessing that with eagerness,
yet with patience, I look forward to the time of my
release, my return to the friends and scenes of which

10—2

'■'I

"1 'I:

148 Journal of Two Months on the Tohujuc,

memory is ever drawing Lriglit pictures. And tlien,
like a dream of tlio night, will my sojourn in the wil-
derness vanish into the past.

Thursday J 27 Ih. — The breaking of an axe is a small
matter to him who has hut to go to the next blacksmith's
shop to repair it, but the blacksmith builds no shop in
the wilderness ; and when to-day the axe on which I had
depended for very life in a New Brunswick winter,
divided into two halves in the hard carcase of a sturdy
maple, I could hardly comprehend my disaster. I
gazed on the broken tool, broken beyond remedy; I
cried, ** Nov/, God, have mercy on me ! " But soon
I remembeved that I had still my tomahawk left me,
all unfit as such a child's tool seemed to provide me
with fuel enough for such cold as was approaching —
30 dogs, below zero, perhaps. But still I had it, and
with redoubled exertion, two hours for one, rigid economy
in fuel, and the energy which is the child of imperious
necessity, it might avail me. I returned to the camp to
seek it, and ]v nd sv shamefully I had been taken
in by u ol >. h v > a disgrace to the shop where
I had bought i^ Of the welding where the steel meets
the iron, scarce an inch had urHed, the rest was utterly
disjoined ; the only wonder wn that it had held so long.

then,

3 w

il-

small
nith's
lop in
Iliad
A- inter,
sturdy
icr. I

eily; I
at soon
eft me,
ride me
cliing—
it, and
conomy
perious
camp to
en taken
p wliere
el meets
s utterly

long.

JVlnter Advancing — Attempts to Escape, 110

When I liftd abased such infamous workmanship sufH-
ciently, I began to look the whole thing fairly in the
face. I could not escape, firewood I must have oven
if I had to burn soft wood ; yes, to be sure, I had for-
gotten the many cheering fires of fir, which had warmed
me in my camping out, and my little axe could cut that
well enough. So there was my great fear of being
frozen to deiith removed. And then, who knows but
this same little axe may bo capable of more than
I have given it credit for; up and away, 'and let
us try.

Already had I cut off several logs from that stout
maple which has been the end of my big axe ; lot us see
if this, my last hope, can split those logs — I know they
split freely. Whack — crack — split ; open it is — hurrah !
at any rate, so much of this morning's work is not
wasted. With more or less difficulty I split it up
into billets, and at sunset, somewhat sadder than I
had left it in the morning, I returned to my lonely
hearth. I drew together the glowing brands, made a
friendly blaze, lighted my pipe, and began to ponder
seriously on my position. What if my only axe left
me should break? ay, there's the rub. Then came
upon me the full conviction that I must remain no

150 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique,

longer in this helpless state ; hitherto, I had not
seriously desired to find a way of returning to society,
or of opening communication with mankind, hut now
such a way must be found. Across the river about a
mile up the stream, and a mile and a half back in the
woods, is a lumberer's camp, belonging to a mar. named
Connor, and whom I have met. They were his men who
visited our camp ere the Indians left me, and they told
me where they lived, and that they would be glad to see
me. "Well, surely there must be a way to cross the
river if I will. Then visions of " catamarans " or rafts
began to pass before my eye, and I rJmost regretted my
canoe. I have seen a raft and could doubtless make
one ; but then I know nothing of their management,
and should surely be capsized at the very first essay ;
and a dip into the half-frozen river, in such wea+her as
this, is not desirable, I had better even wade it, and
that is only to be done under the most desperate
circumstances. Still my thoughts harped on a catama-
ran, and I sat down to my evening meal busily engaged
in fancy on my raft of refuge — put it together, launched
it, and always, as the result of the vision, took a cold
bath amid floating ice and snow.

But Rhould I not dare that means of escape, is there

not
ciety,
, now
out a
in the
lamed
Q wlio
sy told
to see
ss the
r rafts
bed my
make
ment,
essay ;
her as
it, and
;perate
itama-
igaged
inched
cold

there

Winter Advancing — Attempts to Escape, 151

not a track " blazed" and *' bushed " out to the Falls,
past my door almost ? Twenty-two miles of wilderness
it is true, equivalent under any circumstances to forty of
turnpike road ; in this deep snow to how many more ?
I should have to camp out, to carry blankets and pro-
visions, and (I am supposing myself reduced to desperate
measures by the loss of my remaining axe) how to get
firewood ? The lumber camp is decidedly a better
direction to look to. To attempt to reach the settle-
ment ten miles below me would be rasher still — no
track even but the densest forest only. So, as I turned it
over and over in my mind, a new idea suddenly appeared
like a ghost among the crowd before me ; so simple yet
so long in suggesting itself; one which in any other
mood would have appeared an impracticability, but which
now by degrees came to appear the complete solution of
my difficulties. "With an outcry of triumph, I began
fiercely to fill my pipe, bidding care defiance. But to-
morrow may change the prospect; so lest I but gain
the reader's laugh at the failure of a dream, I beg to
keep my project a secret till I have success to proclaim.
So with my head full of the work laid out for the
morrow, I lay down on my bed of boughs, eagerly

•^A

longing for the day,

152 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique,

Friday, 2Sth. — The fifth week of my captivity is
ended ; the trees are my jailors, and grimly they stand
round me watching me in their glistening white robes.
I lay down full of hope and enterprise and rose with
the same. And first, as the handle of my little axe was
split, I had to burn it out and fit in another ; and then
I put up some biscuit and pork and tea and sugar and
passed my belt through pot and pannikin, for I meant
not to return till evening, and then I bethought me
of a liugo old birch-tree close by with his bark all in
rags and tatters, his rough and wrinkled skin — there is
nothing better to kindle a fire with, so full of resinous
matter as it is, burning like pitch or tar, — so I pulled off
some of the fragments of his old garments, put them
in my bag too, and then, \Nith my rifle and axe, sallied
forth. Evening came and but half of my work was
done, but with that half I was well-pleased ; yet the
proof remains to be applied, and so the day's doings
must for the present remain untold. Part of these,
however, was the making a fire between two walls of
snow, with a hearth of snow, and snow above too, for
it soon began to fall after I had set to work. But
that fire was a comfort, as I ate and drank and warmed
my chilled feet at its glowing smiles. I think the

Winter Advancing — Attempts to Escape, 153

lese,
s of
, for
But
Imed
the

state of mind of one who is working with a will and
not grudgingly, especially if his work he of a kind not
disagreeahle in itself, chopping, for instance, is as near
complete happiness, that is freedom from care, as can
well exist on this earth.

Tuesdai/f December 2nd. — The last two or three
days — days of storm, and bitter cold, and sprinlding of
snow — I have passed in various little domestic offices,
— washing clothes, baking bread, chopping firewood,
&c., above all, carrying on my notable mysteiy to a state
fit for publication. It has now reached that state.
Reader, I have made a canoe ! Not such a one as my
worthy Indians left me dependent on, not a mere
curved plank, not a travestio of a pirogue, but such
a boat as I could without fear trust to take me down
to the nearest settlement at least ; nor would I much
hesitate to face, after a little practice, the three rapids
between me and the mouth. A simple discovery, in-
deed, will the practised woodsman say, but let him
consider I am but a novice in the art of canoe making.
I have had but four or five weeks' practice in a tool he
has been used to from his childhood.

I have made it, and it is now on the riverside ready
for launching. I only wait till I have conquered another

»t

iiit

154 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique,

difficulty, the making a paddle, as I dare not trust
myself with only a pole, which by the upright posture
it requires increases the danger of a capsize, and is,
besides, far more difficult to guide the boat with. A
paddle, too, is essential in descending a stream and
shooting a rapid. But I must describe the process of
making a canoe for the benefit of the unenlightened.
Ere I began the enterprise, I bethought me of a huge
old cedar by the riverside v, hich I knew of, and making
the preparation I described on the 28th, I plodded
down a full mile to where he stood, and decided he
should have a chance of being of some use in death after
an ill- spent life. At him I went with my tomahawk
and chopped and chipped away till I had cleared the
upper half of a log about seven or eight feet long.
Much of the centre was decayed, which lightened my
labour, but I saw clearly that one end (that nearest
the root) would in consequence be open when I came
to sever it, while nearer the other end the knots and
diminished size would render it useless, so my bark
would have no stern, or rather would be like a boat
sawn in half. Still I went on hopefully, only lamenting
the want of an adze, a more suitable tool than an axe,
and thinking how to remedy this especial defect. I had

long.

my
arest
came

and
bark

boat
nting

axe,
I had

Winter Advancing — Attempts to Escape* 155

no nails to nail on a board nor pitch to make it water-
tight. But an idea came : the half-melted snow becomes
hard as stone with the frost at night ; suppose I make
some dough or mortar or what you please of snow and
water and fill up the vacancy therewith ? will the
Tobique waters melt it ? I guess not. But stay,
better still, if I fit a piece of wood into the vacancy and
glue it on with my new-fashioned glue, for well I know
'twill be no light knock will force the stem of my craft
when so cemented with snow.

But here comes another doubt — this log looks mon-
strous heavy; what, if like Kobinson Crusoe, I find
when I have completed it, that I can neither bring it
to the river nor the river to it. But this troubled me
but little, or only helped to wile away the time in the
planning of ways to get my canoe launched. And
to day I finished my anchor of hope, my Deliverance
(by this name will I call her). I found too that I could
carry her on my back, not being very much heavier
than a bark canoe ; the dimensions about seven feet
six, the beam one sixth, depth ten inches. And when
I had got her down to the water-side and glued in her
stern, then indeed I longed for some one to join
me in my shout of laughter at the idea of stopping

111

•l! i '
' ' f 1

:i|:

i:f

156 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique,

leaks with snow. Before returning home I felled a fine
ash tree from which to make my paddle — a far more
difficult task, I apprehend, than the other, as I have no
wedges save such as I can make of wood.

I am not altogether alone ; I have companions in
my den ; friends I would fain make of them if they
will; dependants they ore not at any rate. For a long
time a tiny shrew-mouse has dwelt with me, hiding in
the crevices of the logs, and now and then creeping
forth to pick up the morsels of pork which I throw
forth to him. I like to see the tender little fragment
of life hurry forth from his hole, snatch up his dinner,
and back to eat it in quiet. He grows more fearless
every day, reminding me of the prisoner in the Bastille.
And but the other day, suddenly rushed in with great
impetuosity through the air-hole I have before men-
tioned, a beautiful white weasel, who made for the cask
of pork with such unhesitating directness of course as
showed that this was not his first visit. In he got,
and I must acknowledge that my first impulse was to
stop his visits for ever ; but when at the slight noise
I made in closing the before-mentioned aperture, he
looked at me over the edge of the cask with a calm,
meditating gaze in his large blrck eyes, my hostile

Winter Advancing — AttcmjHs to Escape, 157

intentions changed into admiration of his n>atchless
impudence. So instead of kiUing him, I watched him
eating my pork with henevolence, for well I knew that
nothing hut starvation could have made him so bold.
Once slightly startled he jumped out and moved off
through the door, hut he returned in a moment, jumped
in again and began gnawing away voraciously. But
vnth. all my benevolence, I could not help seeing that
there are very strong objections to his presence among
my provisions, so if he wish for pork let him go shares
with the shrew, but not put his fingers in my dish.

Wednesday, Srd. — I set off early to the river to
visit my barque and make my paddle. By way of
experiment of her seaworthiness, I cut a hole in the
ice, forming a dock, into v 'li.'i I launched her, and
went on board in a triumph, which, however, was but
short, for though I found I could stand in her with
ease and confidence, yet somehow, after all, the snow-
pitch did let in a little water ; a fact which at first
utterly disconcerted me, till I reflected that, in the first
place, it was almost a thaw, and that, besides, I had
not wetted the snow enough to make it thoroughly ice.

I came home to dinner, and not feeling disposed for
another tramp of a mile through the snow, I attempted

\i 1

-■;■ <

•H

158 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique,

a sketch of my den (which I have named Castle Lonely),
and then reflecting that I had no spare handles, got
stufi" to make a couple. In this, and in chopping down
a few more trees, I passed the afternoon and evening
till supper time, viz., between six and seven, according
to appetite. Near three weeks have passed since I have
been able to muster courage for a regular ramble
through the scarce passable woods, yet in these days
passed at home I have not for one instant wanted work
for my head or hands. Even the long evenings glide
almost like an hour away, with pen or pencil or
whittling out some contrivance of outlandish sort.
Often am I startled now-a-days by the loud trumpet-
like cry of the wild goose as he flies before the advanc-
ing armies of winter.

Saturday, Gth. — I had an unusual treat to-day in a
longish walk. I tried the ice, and walked quickly and
exultingly up the river, w^ondering at the quantities of
rabbit tracks and the foot-prints of a wolf, as I please
myself with calling a probable fox, and grumbling that
I could never see any of these, my fellow-foresters —
when crack ! my foot fell through, and back I turned,
with the conviction tha,t I should have to wear a waist-
coat and neck-cloth, which I have not done since I

Winter Advancing — Attcnq^ts to Escape, 159

m a

and

les of

l)lease

that

irs —

rned,

i^aist-

ice I

first began my sojourn here. For to-day, the clouds,
gradually thinning and melting away into that bright,
light blue sky, which, rather than the dark blue,
betokens the approach of fair weather ; the cold, in-
stead of diminishing as the day advanced, grew hour
by hour keener and keener still. The breath of the
N.E. comes gently, but cold as death ; the sun,
brightly as he shines, seems powerless to warm as the
moon herself; if I touch the blade of my axe, my
fingers stick as though it were pitch. And now the
moon is full, and clear and cold ; she glistens through
the streaming lights of the Aurora, as though it were
her own long silvery hair floating over the sky. The
air is calm as in hottest summer's eve ; but not like
summer was the sensation when I looked just now
through the door — 'twas like putting my head into a
bucket of cold water. Cracks as of a pistol ring
through the forest, the bark, I suppose, being forced
from the trunks of dead trees by the freezing of the
moisture within ; my own camp, too, explodes at
times.

My enthusiasm about my frigate has abated con-
siderably, partly because I have no immediate occasion
for it, but chiefly because, on examination of water-

'if

J'*

ICO Journal of 2\vo Months on the Tohique*

marks, I convinced myself to-day that the river is at
least fully as low as it was before the last freshet, and
consequently so shallow as to render my voyage down
to the mouth imi)ossible, as I must either get aground
on some bank, and stick there helplessly, or be knocked
over by a rock in shooting the rapids. So that gate of
exit from my forest prison is closed for the present.
But I care the less for that, as there is no small
prospect of the freezing of the stream before the period
fixed by Moulton, viz., Christmas.

Sunday, 7th. — How can we speak of the " lifeless "
forest, when its ever-varying voices proclaim all its
troubles and its fears ; in the gentle breeze it utters
in low-murmuring sighs its foreboding of the coming
storm ; and when the storm rages with harsh clangour,
in gi'oanings and writhings of its mighty limbs it
upbraids the merciless blast as it rushes fiercely by ;
and again, in such a night as the last, even in its
helpless endurance of the overwhelming frost, it finds
a voice for its sufferings, tree answering to tree in
cracks and the snapping of their tough ribs, as though
a whole regiment of sharpshooters were skirmishing in
the woods. And this morning the frozen bread, the
pail full of ice, and most especially the piercing sen-

»»

e in
)ugh

the
sen-

Wlnter Ailvanc'iuf) — Attempts to Escape, IGl

sation of the temperature, gave ubuutlant proof of hist
night's frost.

The songs of the Lrook are nearly hushed ; its Httio
falls still murmur, through the curtains of ice around
them, their everlasting story ; hut wherever the stream
is quieter, the frost has taken advantage of its idleness,
and hound it in chains that only the spring can unloose.
The pool whence I draw my supply of water is covered
with ice, which I may jump on, yet not break ; I must
take my axe as well as my bucket when I need the
pure element. And the Tobique — a desperate struggle
for a lit Je longer lease of freedom he has made ; where
the water is shallow and swift, he is still unchained ;
elsewhere, he must dive beneath a bridge of winter's
building ; and the islands of ice in all parts show that
but little more frost will open me as level and hard a
road as ever McAdam made. Yes, but the Northern
Lights, the ring round the moon last night, the
mackerel sky to-day, the dull vapour which hides the
moon to-night, the but moderate cold, all foretell a
snow-storm or a return of the desperate gloom formerly
prevailing. But truly to-day was a pleasant day ; the
air was cold, but it was exhilarating, joyous ; though
the sun was powerless, he shone bright and gladly r far

1C2 Journal of Two Months on the ToJ)}quc.

\i
h

better is the mild sun of winter than the fierce tyrant
of summer. In the meantime, thiH state of things has
made my cauoo no better than a dream of the night —
of him I shall have no need. Still I do not regret the
time spent in making it, nor the labour bestowed on
the paddle, in which I have succeeded far beyond my
most sanguine hopes. Indeed, I consider it my master-
piece of whittling, and do defy an Indian to make one
more practically useful.

Tuesday, dth. — After a day spent in the various
occupations I have so frequently detailed, I retire to a
bed such as the reader would perchance think anything
else — the mattress of spruce boughs — the blankets and
cloak and rug thrown on them — my coat for a pillow :
hard bed, hard pillow, but with them sound refreshing
sleep and pleasant dreams, ever recurring, of the far-
away — of the light of other days — of the land where
all my loved companions dwell. The first thing I had
to do this morning was to shovel away the snow from
the entrance to my house, for my prognostics of snow
deceived me not — the haze thickened to clouds, and the
clouds dissolved in a perfect fog of snow. My im-
patience for a genuine north pole temperature is some-
what heightened by the biscuit being nearly all eaten up,

yrant
i baH

;t tlie
Bi\ on

id my

lastcr-
ko one

various
ro to a

Winter Adcniiclng — Attempts to Escape, 1G3

my flour seriously (liminislicd, and my tea and sugar
fast disappearing. If tlio worst come to tlio worst, I
can but wade the river, and seek the lumberers' camps ;
there is not much left to walk through, though the
ice, &c., make all navigation impracticable.

Thursdaij, 11th. — Having melted the ink, I sit down
this piercing evening to record a day which has been
marked by unwonted novelty — a novelty to me, in my
monotony, of thrilling interest — for I have made my
deJ)ut in snow-shoe travelling. A new idea of this kind
makes, in the absence of weightier interests, a great stir
in my mind, so I got up betimes full of eagerness to
make the essay. Nor had I much difficulty in awaking
early, the cold compelled me to turn out two or three
hours before daybreak to put on such clothes as I can do
without during the first part of the night. My flannel I
can never dispense with, and then in the morning when
I can no longer sleep for shivering, I rise, put on my
red shirt and trousers, make up the fire and get a little
comfortable sleep till daylight. In the morning and
evening the cold is so intense that breathing it is like
drawing files or rasps down one's throat. Well, after
breakfast off I set, having first put my feet in the racket-
like machines, and trotted a little about my " clearing,"-

11-2

i:i

I * '

I-

164 Journal of 2\co Months on the Toh'iquc,

to see if the boot-straps were all right. I discovered to-
day that it is much pleasaiiter to walk through the dry
frozen snow in mocassins over three or four pair of socks
than with cold hard hoots over one pair, which I had
hitherto done, the boots not being large enough to go
over moro than one, and suffered all the miseries of
cold feet in consequence. Over these, then, socks ad
mocassins, in a sheltered spot, I put on my battledores
and set off rifle in hand, eager yet not unmindful of the
probability of a fall suggested long ago by my friends.
But so unswervingly did I get on, so delightful was it to
tread on the snow instead of in it, that I thought I
would even try how I could run should I descry a moose
before me. Splutter — splutter — how cold the snow is !
headforemost into it, by Jove — I was almost buried in
the snow. After this as I went more disposedly. but not
so high — like Queen Elizabeth dancing,— all it requires
is a long wide step and ^are to raise the toes, and thereby
Ihe points of the battledores.

The inconvenience of cold feet I hope to have thus
removed; another grievous annoyance which I have
suffered since the cold weather set in, consists in
paroxysms of toothache, which always seizes me on
coming from the piercing outside into my warm camp,

Bred to-

tlie dry

of socks

[1 I bad

5I1 to go

eries of

ocks ad

ittlcdores

:ul of tlie

ty friends.

1 was it to

tliougbt I

L-y a moose

snow is I

buried in

|ly. but not
it requires
,nd tbereby

bave tbus

L;b I liav^
lonsists in
les me on
larm camp,

Winter Advancing — Attempts to Escape. 1G5

»iiid wbicb comes on even wben I get warm in bed. It
now freezes bard even close to tbe fire, and as for wind,
tbe Nor'westers are cold, cutting like u, saw.

Frid'iy, IWi. — Tliis morning I started for a regular
ramble alon*.'; tbe river side in tbe following foot gear —
1st, two pairs of fine lamb's-wool socks ; 2nd, one pair of
tbick worsted ditto ; 3rd, mocassins ; and, lastly, anotbcr
pair of worsted socks over tbem, wbicb gave me ^ degree
of comfort in my feet wbicb I bave bardly known for tbe
last montb. Brigbtly sbone tbe sun, calm and piercing
but invigorating was tbe air, and full of cbeerful life I
came in view of tbe Tobique. Fierce bad been tbe con-
test between tbe strong stream and tbe stronger frost —
])ut bis strengtb is well-nigb gone, bis life-current is
cbilled, and save a narrow cbaunel of a yard or two in
widtb, and 200 or 300 yards long, be is pent under a
rougb and strong roof of ice. Yet can I not yet avail
myself of my future road into tbe world again, for bis
surface is eitber too rougb for a tarboggin or too
smootb to walk on. On tbe fresb ice formed along tbe
edge are scattered innumerable beautiful rosettes of frost-
work like tbose tbat ladies make for tbeir knick-
knackeries — sprinkled by tbe grim tyrant of tbe Nortb
over bis captive river. Many sucb delicate displays of

)^-l

IJW '^

ICG Journal of Two Months on the Tohiqiic.

tbe strange powers of tlie frost I see all round me, the
ice over tlie pools of my brook is strewed with flakes and
crystals of frost which look like pins and needles and
penknife blades. As for him, poor fellow, his tinkling
voice, as it comes feebly and plaintively through his prison
bars, reminds me of the starling's " I can't get out,"

The middle of the river is all rough, looking like a
gigantic horseshoe rasp ; this is owing to the sheet which
covers it being formed of those cakes of ice which have
been drifting down the current for so long, nnd which the
frost, like some stern bailiflf, has tapped with his cold
finger even whilst trying to escape. After all I did not
venture to cross the river — the perpetual groaning and
cracking of the ice deterred me. While I listened, I
thought of the boa and the tiger — how he quietly gathers
the fiercest beast of the earth in his horrid enJu-ace, and
crushes him to a jeliy — so the winter subdues the turbu-
lent struggling river till, like the dying tiger or bufi'alo,
he gives up his life in a loud uproar.

Monday, 15th. — Now, ye spirits of the North ! I
recognize you. I looked out last night at eleven ; clear,
starry heavens and that keen icy feeling in the air which
I have learned to understand now as the touch of the
North Pole. Then in the morning ere dav;n I was as

le, the
:es and
es and
inkling
prison
It,"

like a
t wliicli
h have
lich the
.is cold
did not
pg and
ened, I

atliers
3e, and

turhu-

uffalo,

rth! I
clear,
which
)f the

as as

Winter Advancing — Attempts to Escape, 107

usual roused by the shivering chill which produces the
impression of having nothing on, and by-and-hy came
day — a day of glorious sunshine, but penetratingly,
subtly cold was the air, I walked down to th( river — I
walked on it — bolder and bolder as no crack or groan
gave hint of danger ; I stepped forth to the middle, and
walked ^'^arlessly on till I felt that in truth my road was
open. So I went home and busied myself with collecting
such loose articles as I did not want, hiding some and
packing others up. And 'twas with a glad heart I saw
the sun sink unclouded in the West, and every shiver and
shake as the cold grew sharper was to me only an as-
surance that my liberator was at work. But oh ! what a
night was the last ! driven by cold from my bed long
ere dawn to feel as if getting into a cold bath — the fire
nearly out and the frost in full possession of my camp.
But I soon got up V. good blaze, boiled a pot of coffee,
ate my breakfast, and then looked out my extra wraps,
woollen cap, comforter and heavy pea-jacket, ere starting
in search of that luml)erer's camp I have already men-
tioned. Then with my snow-shoes and rifle I sallied
forth, and so long as I w as in the forest bore the cold
with great contentment. It is true that I had not gone
a quarter of a mile before my hair, whiskers, moustache

111

M
1 * ■

H i

I! »

1G8 Journal of Two Months on the Tohlqup.

and beard were thickly covered with hoar-frost, my
breath froze, and my eyelashes stuck together ; but all
these things I considered as trifles till I got out on the
open river, and began to walk brisldy against the slightest
possible breath of air from the N.E., almost impercep-
tible when standing s''ll, but, on opposing it by walking,
causing a sensatic l :j,s '. i )ugh one's face were being lashed
by fine whips of tliiu wire — contracting the skin — seem-
ing to turn the very 1)1 ood to ice — even the eyes seeming
as if they would yield to that quintessence of the Arctic
regions. I confess I was half frightened at the utterly
new position I was in-— I had no experience to guide me,
and might be guilty of the most foolish rashness.

Still I went on for nearly two miles, discovering no
road to the camp I sought. A brow there was, but I
believed it to belong to a camp no longer occupied ;
however, finding no other indications, I climbed the
steep bank with much difficulty, and, stepping into my
snow-shoes (without which I can now makd but little
progress, and with them still less when the snow is not
thick enough to cover the fallen trees), I began exploring
the tracks that led into the main road — to the brow.
Diverging right and left like the twigs on a bough, one
and all they led me to nothing but the stumps of trees,

■', my

»ut all

n the

ghtest

ercep-

Iking,

lashed

seem-

leming

Arctic

utterly

deme,

iig no
bat I
pied ;
1 the
o my
Utile
is not
loring
brow,
b, one
trees,

Winter Advancing — Attempts to Escape, 1G9

whence the logs had been dragged. The snow-shoes,
too, began to fatigue me ; and, as there was little like-
lihood of my finding a dinner in Donald's camp, I
thought I had better go back for it to my own, and there
amuse myself with chopping firewood, as I hoped for the
last time.

I began chopping with my thick coat on, but in the
dead calm of the forest, though the frost gathered again
round my face, I was soon glad to take it off and chop
in my shirt- sleeves, without even my waistcoat, and was
at last very near complaining of the heat. The weather,
however, as usual, is going to try something else. This
morning at sunrise the long cobwebby vapour from east
to south showed but too plainly that the blue sky — the
purple sky, I should say — would soon resume its wonted
dress of sober grey. Finally, it snows to-night as hard
as it can. I had wished to see Connor first, and try to
get him to take my leavings, but if the weather means
to be for ever so utterly untrustworthy, I won't lose the
next chance, as my provisions are getting very low.

Very beautiful were the stars last night, — clear,
more sharply defined, as it were, than i have ever seen
them even in Australia, or the supremely clear atmosphere
of Madeira, yet not twinkling nor particularly brilliant ;

170 Journal of Two Months on the Tohiqiic.

tbcy looked more like little liolos pnnchcd in a black silk
handkerchief, with a light behind it; or, rather, they
looked as, when viewed through a telescope, stars which
in ordinary skies are single, are there perceived to be
double ; while the Pleiades I scarcely knew at first, so
utterly freed were they from that hazy smudge in which
the seven stars are usually blended together. And the
dark puqile of the sky in the early morning was inex-
pressibly beautiful.

Wednesday, 18?/i.— This has been a day of severe
labour and severe disappointment. When I awoke in the
morning it felt delightfully cold, and eagerly I looked
out. The clouds had vanished, and cheerily shone the
sun ; the cold was severe, and I decided to be off. I
had the night before made half my preparations, and it
did not take long to roll up my bedding, put up some
provisions, pack up the few things I did not like to
leave, and then lash them on the tarboggin, which
was to be my waggon. A tarboggin, I should say, is a
very light sledge, made of two thin strips of birchwood
about six feet six inches long, and one foot two inches
wide, with the front bent back in a hook shape, and with
two little rails along the side to pass the lashing under.

This the woodsman drags after him ; and over the crust

Winter Advancing — Attempts to Escape, 171

of the snow (which has not formecl yet) can pull, of
course according to his weight, as much as 200 Ihs.

Well, having stowed my cargo, I proceeded to get
under weigh, hut I had a much greater weight to pull
than I had calculated on — not more than 100 Ihs. — hut
then it was through soft snow, over hushes and trees ;
and, moreover, my frequent walks along the track had
made a deep rut through the snow, along which I could
scarcely lug my hurden. I could have carried them to
the river in two or three trips, hut having got them into
the tarhoggin I was too ohstinate to take them oft' again,
and after two hours of exhausting lahour I at last got
them to the river-side. Once on the river, I expected
to travel swimmingly ; hut, in the first place, some inches
of loose snow lay over the surface, and I soon hegan to
douht my ahility of accomplishing in that fashion the
ten or twelve miles hetween me and the Custleton settle-
ment, which I proposed to make my first day's stage —
for it was now twelve o'clock, and the days are short.
Next I discovered that under this layer of snow there
was an oozing slushy mixture of snow and water in
some places ; this showed that the ice was in that state
called rotten. But I thought this was perhaps an ex-
ception, so I started oft' to another part where I knew

':Jt!

•i

i! m I

1 IS!

172 Journal of Two Months on the Tohlque.

there was an old formatiou of ice, and had made some
twenty or thirty yards when a sharp ringing crack turned
me quickly hack, and left me standing quite heaten. I
made up my mind to take hack the things I had brought
do^vn with such excessive toil, and wait till the next
outrageous frost. I hrought back my load by instal-
ments, having learnt that on the next attempt I must
diminish it considerably.

So here I am established again where this morning
I hoped not to pass another night. When I pulled
do^vn the blanket-door and turned my back on the lonely
home where I have spent many a pleasant evening, I quite
forgot to take a sentimental leave of it. Nor on my
return thither did I feel romantic, but I congratulated
myself heartily on having by some mysterious pre-
sentiment refrained from having put the fire out, as I
had been about to do. For it would have been no small
trouble to light it again ; and I had but little time ere
night to cut firewood, as I dare not in this uncertainty
draw all my funds out of the bank.

( 173 )

CHAPTER Vn.

THE FOREST AnANJ)ONED-IiETUIlN TO
FEEUERICTON-IIOJIEWAKD.

Saturday, 21st. - My forest dream is finished ! I
have awaked to find myself in the Castleton settle-
ment. For having waited through Thursday, and
finding Friday ushered in with a gleaming sun and a
severe frost, I resolved on that day (which made the
eighth week of my solitude) to make another attempt,
which should either be successful or let the oonsequences
be what they might. So I packed up, carried down a
much diminished load, and started on my way. I ha,l
not gone two hundred yards before I found slight tracks
that at once resolved all my doubts, and I pushed on
with a good heart. The Plaster Rock and the Wapshe
were passed ere I felt fatigue; a fow mouthfuls of
frozen bread were highly relished, and I had no doubt of
reaching the settlement by sundown. But two or three

H m

li ■ I

i 'ft
i 15!

17-1 Journal of Two Months on the Tohiqiic.

miles more l)cgan to create misj^ivingH, for the load
which at first seemed trifling, seemed now to increase
every step, till at last every step was like climhing a
ladder. IntoleraWe fatigue assailed me ; the jerking
of the strap made my hack ache, and the strain on my
knees made them totter under me. I had undertaken a
task the difficulties of which I did not discover till it
hecamo a matter of almost life and death. Compelled
every ten minutes to sit down lest I should fall, it was
truly with delight that I found myself on the edge of a
clearing with a harn in the midst.

I got on to the haiik and shouted, hut no sign of
life was visihle ; then I rememhered where I was, and
that no one lived there. But I knew there was a
lumherer's camp on the river, two or three miles from
the Castleton settlement ; so I harnessed myself once
more to my load, which I had already hegun to meditate
ahandoning. I was staggering with fatigue, and knew
that if I fell I could not rise again ; at last came the
words, generally fatal to the traveller on foot, " I can
go no further." I sat down on my sledge, almost
despairing — to take that further was impossible ; but
making a last effort, I got on to my legs, crawled
on a mile, and heard an axe ring hard by, saw smoke,

Ecturn to Fndericion.

175

and knew I was close to tlio lumLerer's camp. I
scrambled through the woods, and saw a niun chopping
down a tree. With some anxiety as to the way I should
acquit myself in the unwonted feat of conversing, I
addressed him, told him my story, and was shown
the way to the lumberers' camp half a mile olV. Then
I sat down, and with a pot of tea, buckwheat cakes,
and fresh pork instead of salt, soon forgot my sorrows.
One by one came in the lumljerers — ^jolly fellows ; all
knew about me — made them roar with laughter with
telling them of my forest experiences, ate enormously,
then found myself able to go back for the sledge, and
brought it in, stumbling in the dark over rough ice.

An awful smoke — lie down — sleep all round — snow-
storm — shoot at a mark this morning — walk with Mrs.

C in snow-shoes — glorious day — no end of people

know all about me. Get a letter and some things —
find out about the noises I had heard — men at Three
Brooks, as I thought ; find out about stray tracks —
everybody laughs and wonders. At Castleton get vege-
tables ! ! several people there too ; nice clean house.
Excellent land at Three Brooks, on south side of the
river near Castleton settlement. While walking down
with Sam, we stopped to talk with some men working

IMAGE EVALUATION
TEST TARGET (MT-3)

1.0

I.I

1.25

*- IIIIM IIIII2-5

IZ 1132

lltt

(14

1.4

2.2
M

1.6

Photographic

Sciences
Corporation

23 WEST MAIN STk^CET

WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580

(716) 872-4503

176 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique.

among tlieir logs ; says one : " You don't look so fresh
as you did when you went up in the fall." I found
he had seen me. Not a man in the dozen I have
met but knew of me; had I remained at the Mouth,
I should have had no end of visitors. Astonishment
at my little tour hack. All sit round the fire talking
of lumbering, logs, bows, driving, &c. — ask much about
Australia; every one wonders "I did not find it very
lonesome." *

Sunday. — Piercing, scorching cold; feel it much more
than in the woods. This is a specimen of life in the
back settlements ; very sociable — all very jolly merry
fellows. Across the river is the schoolmaster ; he being
Irish, this part is called Ireland. To go across is a
great lark ; as I stopped here to-day, I proposed a
walk ; one of the boys started vdth me, and asked me
would I go to Ireland. So I went and found the lark
consisted in the bevy cf fine-looking girls. I was stared
at with infinite curiosity and wonder as the Englishman
who had been all alone in the woods. Comfortable
little house. All the people seem to live on terms

♦ Tlic last parngrnph and most of the Diary which follows, consist
of rough notes jotted down in pencil.

Return to Fredcricton. j-^

of family intimacy-jote and l8...,bt.- „
Sitting round the fire • clamp T """•

Of wood e.pe.enee!:^^:;t7r"' '"""-^'"^^^
forest vl* ^'' ^'"*y ^o''^ of the

- -in, too;::;° :::;----•-

settlement; by such .n " ''°'™ "'«

Month to-Loi: c:rT' '°^^ '° ^° '° ^^^^

--fa^otoHonJeh:!!:"^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^ -^

.^-"-et. .,_yaeti:re:r:d1;""
«<^oors wretched, but hardly dare stir , '

insuiTerable wind. ""' ^™'" "^«

Tuesday, 23rd.~Eyen tlio ). j

ft ' 1 to start from n?,i

G- s house, he being the fathpr .<• ,)

wWcampwasmysai;tio„ X^tr"^^^^^^^^
tlie river from the lower end of ,h " '' '^°""

"•'out half-past nine, J s^' ''! ^^"'^'"-'- «« at

passenger, Mr E ' . ' *"' '" "* " ''''""w

it and myself left Mrs. C- •

178 Journal of Two Months on the Tobique.

comfortable house to walk there, I dragging my old
friend the tarboggin as the best way of taking my
luggage down. Suddenly all consciousness left my
nose. I raised my hand and touched it ; it might
have been anybody else's nose. In fact, I was frost-
bitten, and by my companions' directions I dubbed
snow in my face till the sensation of cold and the
returning redness of the skin (which frost-bite renders
white as paper) showed that, in colonial phrase, the
*' frost was out." The sleigh was not to start till
after dinner, so we sat down to a very plentiful and
excellent meal of potatoes, buckwheat cake, beef, pork,

bread, and molasses. Old Mr. G was a specimen

of the intelligent old settlers of whom I have already
met several ; men without means of acquiring much
information, but who by conversing with strangers, by
asking questions, and by a retentive memory, have
amassed a really surprising quantity of knowledge, of
the world in general. He is, moreover, a gi'eat hunter,
and in fact a genuine backwoodsman. His sons go
cutting logs, he has a farm, his wife a loom — an excellent
house, fine family, and all buried in the remotest settle-
ment of the colony. There are but two or three, or
perhaps four settlers there, besides the schoolmaster,

Return to Fredericton,

179

whose fine family of young ladies adds much to the
liveliness of the place. I like the place, but the cold
is dreadful in the clearings, after leaving the shelter
of the woods.

Well, away we went. I walked, or rather ran, the
last three miles along the track past the Narrows, and
found myself at last safely housed in the world I had
left so long — on the high road from St. John's to
Quebec. The temperature varies from zero to 30
degs. below it ; contracts the skin of the face, draws
the mouth up, and produces a smarting feel like the
scorching of a hot fire.

I paid my Indian friends a visit this evening ; and
what a change in the appearance of the world since last
I was here ! It is like a new country altogether. No
more crossing in canoes ; we walk instead along a
rocky road, for the floating ice, as in the Tobique
is jammed and heaped up in large cakes, slanting
over each other, and beautifully crusted over with frost-
work, looking like shirt-ruffles covered with lace on a
large scale, and the wide clearing now is but a plain of
snow. They were rather surprised to see me alive,
having taken it for granted that I had been frozen
to death long ago. They are all at work preparing

12—2

180 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique,

hides for mocassins, for which there is a large demand
in winter among the lumbermen. I ascertained that
yesterday week, the day on which I started to search
for Connor's camp, the thermometer at the Great Falls
had fallen to 20 degs.

I am beginning to wish myself back at my camp. I
prefer its rough independence and quiet to the compara-
tive bustle of the settlement ; nor did I find the solitude
half so great when not a soul was near me as I find it
this evening that I sit writing by myself in the tidy

parlour of B 's inn with the sound of voices all

round me.

Friday, 2Qth. — Many a time have I wished myself
back in my little forest castle, where I have left
much of comfort and contentment in exchange for
the miseries of winter travelling, and the rough, rude,
higgledy-piggledy of the backwoods. The difference
of the temperature is such that men who have spent
much of the winter in the woods, find themselves
quite tender on emerging into the dealings. Nor
is it surprising that heavy colds and coughs should
be so prevalent, when we consider the way they live
— ^heating their houses with stoves and huge fires
till they have made the temperature oppressively high.

Return to Fredericton.

181

which in one step they exchange for One chilled to
perhaps 25 degs. below zero. In three days I got such
an influenza as threatens to detain me at the Tohique
some days against my will.

On Wednesday I started oft' up the Tohique again to
bring away the rest of my things from my camp. The
sleigh by which I went up was detained by various
causes till after dark, when, in the beginning of a thick
snow-storm, we began to cross the St. John ; and this
the reader must not fancy a very simple affair. The ice
was piled and jammed up in great heaps, in some places
to the height of four or five feet, the whole surface
presenting an appearance like that of shirt-ruffles on a
large scale. Sleighs had already crossed where we
wished to do so ; and, to follow the track in the dark-
ness, it was requisite that the driver, one of Mrs. C.'s
sons, should walk ahead while a fellow-passenger of
mine drove the horses by his directions. This was a
work of no small difficulty, the snow driving in his
face and drifting over the tracks, the darkness rendering
the rough mounds of ice mere confused lumps of
whiteness, over which he had many a headlong fall.
The man who held the reins, a true son of Erin, added
to his bewilderment by repeated entreaties to be allowed

182 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique,

to drive on just a step, whicli lie as repeatedly refused ;
and so they shouted till they made such a bother and
confusion that I was quite pleased when we reached the
other side ; and after some more plunging about in deep
snow we found ourselves on the well-beaten road. This
road is cut midway between the top and bottom of the
high and almost precipitous banks of the river, which in
many places rise to about 100 feet above the stream ;
but in the darkness, as I sat at the bottom of the sleigh
and looked over and saw the edge of the almost perpen-
dicular descent glaring white and hard through the gloom,
so close that apparently the runners of the sledge were
on the brink, while far beneath gleamed dimly the white
plain of the frozen Tobique, I must say I thought a
great deal of a horse and sleigh which had actually in
former times gone over the precipice. It is, in fact, a
regular mountain pass, and in the night far from sooth-
ing to the nervous system.

In six miles we reached the log-cabin of a solitary
old Irishman, who gives accommodation to travellers.
Here we sat and warmed ourselves by a fire, and, while
so engaged, hints and inuendoes would every now and
then escape us about its being far more comfortable
within than in the heavy storm outside, till at last it

Return to Fredericton.

183

was decided that we had better remain where we were
well off, and wait till daylight to follow the track on the
ice on which we should have to travel for the next four
miles. So we had a good meal on potatoes and pork,
and then lay down and slept sound till the next

mornmg.

Our Irish friend roused us fully an hour earlier than
necessary by mistaking the Northern Aurora for the
break of day. There set in a fresh edition of the storm
thicker than any I had ever seen, aggravated by a furious
gale from the N.W. The cold increased hourly, — and
when we came out of the woods the gale was intolerable
even by the hardiest. The Irishman, a great hardy-
looking fellow, who, though he could stand the North
Pole itself, got his nose frozen almost immediately ; as
for me, I shivered under my blankets — chilled to the
very bones, — suffering at once from the cold and the
influenza which was hanging over me, and miserable
enough to wish I had never heard of New Brunswick.

My original intention was to proceed to my camp
by the first chance. A good one offered next morning,
not only of going up, but of getting help to bring my
baggage down to the river; so, notwithstanding that I
was now beginning to be wretchedly ill, and that the

184 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique,

wind had died away in a calm and intense frost, I
made an attempt to put my plans in execution. But
after about four miles of great suffering, I saw clearly
that to go further into the woods would be mere folly ;
so I turned back while I was still able to.

On Saturday the 27th, the weather changed, and
became damp, muggy, and warm. On Monday I felt
myself well enough to try again, so I engaged a sleigh,
and started afresh by the river road, which was now very
sloppy, squashy, and unpleasant. So once more I found
myself in my deserted house, and here I soon found
that a party of Indians had been making themselves
comfortable, eating the pork, and burning, not only
the firewood I had left in it, but even the reserve I
had hardly liked to touch myself. It angered me to
think that I had been toiling and wearying myself
for a parcel of vagabond savages. However, they
had behaved with scrupulous honesty — the provisions
they had used of course I did not grudge them, and
of other things they had not taken the smallest article.
We managed between us to carry everything down,
started back again, and at last I found myself almost
clear of the Tobique. I had expected to dispose of
my baggage by private sale, but a large party being

Return to Fredericton.

185

assembled at Mr. C 's, I thought I woukl hold

an auction, which resulted in great fun and laughter,
the purchasers being chiefly lumberers, who bid against
each other with much sj^irit.

Wednesdai/f Slst, — A couple of sleighs coming

past on their way to the Mouth, I wished Mrs. C

and her kind-hearted family good-by, and took my
last farewell of the Tobique. We reached " Jen-
ning's " before nightfall, and found another party also
spending the night there. King Frost has resumed
his awful sway. So glorious a day as this I have
r5>.rely seen — cloudless, glittering. The trees are queer
objects now, sometimes inexpressibly beautiful. I have
got beaded mocassins and bags from Moultou.

7th Sunday. — Here I am at Mrs. Costigan's inn
at the Great Falls. The day after my arrival I went

under the guidance of Mr. M to view the great

roaring lion of the place, and a grim, savage-looking
monster he is, and a cold, gloomy, dismal scene —
the huge curtains and hanging sheets, and draperies
of green ice, fantastically and delicately covered, it is
true — beautiful, exquisitely beautiful in detail, like
the richest ornamental carving of Gothic architecture,
and, like it, too gloomy and grand in the aggregate

186 Journal of Two Months on the Tohiqiie,

of its vastness. The dull day robbed the scene of
all its lighter graces — the ever-varying Iris, the gleam
and glitter of the surface. The river, after dashing
itself to pieces on the rocks and among the deep
chasms and mysteries of the well of waters, gathers
itself together again in a wild, terrific gorge, far bigger
than the Tobique, narrow, deep, black, and too strong
for the frost. Two more falls of fourteen and fifteen
feet occur ere it spreads out in a magnificent, lake-
like pool, where calm and placid it rests itself awhile
ere it travels on to the Eapids below, and then on its
ha^i^ty journey to the ocean.

I was so fortunate as to arrive here in time for a
ball which was given at the hotel where I stayed, and to
which I was honoured with an invitation. Merriment
abounded ; the company came there to dance, and
dance they did, with feet and hands, and shoulders and
arms, even to the tips of their fingers — danced, in fact,
all over. Nor did they desist till the broad daylight of
a tardy midwinter's sun convinced them that they had
not wasted a moment of an opportunity for enjoyment
80 rarely afi'orded them.

Wednesday evening I went with Mr. G to spend

an evening at Mr. M 's, staggering and blundering

Itcturn to Fredcricton.

187

through snow-drifts. Next day I availed myself of a
** sied," returning to the neighbourhood of Woodstock,
and left this wild and beautiful settlement. Terrible
was the cold, and hard the journey through deep snow ;
the first day we achieved but nineteen miles ; the next
from house to house, where wo stopped according as wo
deemed ourselves freezing, we dragged and crawled on
till we reached a wretched tavern, about fifteen miles
from Woodstock, which was as near as my driver would
take me. And here I found the stove nuisance carried
to its utmost extreme. Though the cold had moderated
to its usual conclusion, a thaw, accompanied by the
customary snow, they had contrived to heat the sitting-
room with one of these vile machines to such a degree
as to make it quite uninhabitable. For the heat of a
stove is far more oppressive than the heat of a fire, pro-
ducing great sickness in many, and in me an unbear-
able oppression in the head. They too frequently
neglect the precaution of placing a pan of water on the
stove.

Woodstock, Saturday, 10th. — I left the blackguard
tavern in a sleigh, bound for Woodstock. With the
person who hired it, an intelligent young man in the
lumbering trade, I had a good deal of talk on the pre-

188 Journal of Ttvo Months on the Tohique.

sent condition and future prospects of the country ; its
politics, its agriculture, the influence, whether heneficial
or otherwise, of lumbering, on the progress of the pro-
vince. In such discussions I find few, if any, exceptions
to the general discontent with the government of the
colony, the unfitness of the legislators for their position,
and the paralysing efi'ect of the whole system. There
may be some ground for this all-pervading grumbling ;
but I strongly suspect that much of that stagnation
which is attributed to bad administration of bad laws
may rather be attributed to deficient energy, deficient
education, a want of common sense in the people, to say
nothing of a great want of cash ; the latter want being
in fact the consequence of the former wants. Lumbering
is in truth the one great radical evil, the worm which is
gnawing at the roots of the tree of New Brunswick
prosperity ; the life is not destroyed, but its growth is
checked. If this be killed, or even scotched, the tree
will flourish, with a vigour commensurate with the
exceeding vigour of the soil. The plain truth as to the
lumbering question is this : the timber, the forests of
the country, are exchanged for provisions and clothing
for those who cut them down. So large a proportion of
the population is engaged in this gambling, reckless,

Return to Fredericton,

189

exciting, and silly business, that not enough are left to
raise food for all ; consequently it must be imported,
and so uncertain is the trade, or rather so seldom does
it yield a profit, that it comes in the end to exchanging
the pine and spruce for flour and pork. And then
where is the money to come from ? rather, it goes out
of the country to make the balance when the value of
the export is less than that of the import.

Thursday. — I passed two or three days at Woodstock,
and this morning, a desperately cold one, started by the
sleigh stage for Fredericton. Queer figures do the
travellers in these climes present when fully equipped
for the road. Head and face covered all but the eyes in
fur caps, shawls, buffalo coats, and all sorts of myste-
rious appanages to the legs, over stockings of thick
woollen material, gutta percha shoes, mocassins, &c.,
in inexhaustible variety : thus they sit smothered in
skins in their sleighs, like the Russians and Norwegians
whom we remember in the picture-books of our nursery.
Terrible indeed was to-day, the thermometer down to
18 degrees, and a strong scorching withering north
wind.

We had a droll fellow-traveller. America is rich in
such extravagant freaks of humanity ; but this one was

190 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique.

the most utter absurdity I have seen. He began by
telling us that he had ** laid out " to go to Canada, but
his health had been " very much impeded," and he was
on his way back to St. John. This he told us every
mile or two, and then went on to say that probably he
was one of the strangest characters and queerest devils
we had ever seen ; and lest there should be a doubt of
this he went on repeating it all the way. *' Well, as
old Kobby Burns says, * as we journey through life let
us live by the way,' I must have my joke and my fun ;
without jokes there's no fun; my health's very much
impeded, or I'm one of the queerest devils ; me and

Captain , how we used to laugh together. I mind

when I was at M (for I'm an Hirishman myself), as

I was out shooting with Lord Hill on my father's
estate — I knew Lord Hill intimately well, but I was
going to tell you an hanecdote. I always think hanecdotes
shorten tlie way, and as my father used to tell me,
* when you're travelling shorten the way,' and I always
like to have my joke and my bit o' fun. So you mustn't
mind me, I'm funny ; but there's no harm in me ; I'm
one of the strangest devils, &c. Ye've likely heard, sir,"

(turning to me), * of the Marquis of W ? ' ' Yes,'

said I. * Well, sir, me and the Marquis of W was

Eeturn to Fredericton.

191

me,

3tn't
I'm

:es,
I was

hintimately acquainted ; yes, sir, hintimately acquainted
both on shore and on the ocean. I knew hintimately
in St. John two noblemen — they was in reduced circum-
stances — I used to call them Tom and Jerry ; how they

would laugh, to be sure ; they were Lord W and

Lord N . I knew Lord N as well as I knew

any one in the province." And so, gaining courage, he
launched out into the very sublime of imagination ; he
had estates everywhere, and was an Irishman, yet
committed most ineffable cockneyisms at evei-y in-
stant.

The change in the aspect of Fredericton, owing to
the rude legislation of winter, makes me fancy as I
hurry through the streets, that I must be in Tobolsk or
Spitzbergen, or anywhere but in a town where, a short
time ago, I suffered as much from heat. Talking of
legislation, it is the ** season " too in this metropolis ;
and railroads, temperance, scrutiny into votes, and pro-
vincial politics in general, are the chief subjects of con-
versation. I was in the House yesterday, but found
nothing going on, save the reading of papers connected
with the Halifax and Quebec line.

Friday, IGth. — I had an interview with the Gover-
nor this morning, in which I explained to him in

192 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique,

detail Mr. N 's colonization scheme. He assured

me of the certainty of such a scheme being favourably
viewed by the Provincial Government, who would un-
doubtedly give all assistance towards the carrying it out.
This evening I dined with Colonel Haynes ; as we sat
at dinner the thermometer was reported to be 11 degs. ;
it sinks in my beuroom to from 10 to 20 degs. below
freezing point.

Saturday, — Still blows the furious wind ; one must
go out sometimes, but it is avoided when possible : called
on the Chief Justice to-day. One sees people in the street
in curious attitudes ; one grasps his nose, as though in-
flicting imaginary insults on his foe ; another holds his
hands to his ear, as though he would shut out some
discordant sound ; while another may be seen in the
still funnier occupation of rubbing snow on his face —
the fact is, he has been frost-bitten. A soldier on
Christmas night had his legs so severely frozen that he
died next day.

Monday. — Y/hen this N.E. wind blows, he must be
an enthusiast indeed in the matter of fresh air who
would unnecessarily expose himself to its severe scourg-
ings. Neither, in a snow-storm — such as we have to-
day — is it very tempting to stroll about the snow-paved

Return to Fredericton.

193

streets of this frozen town, one which, scattered, un-
finished, and straggling before, has now in its winter
garb a still more draggled, crude, and bewildered look,
resembling a bushel or so of houses sown broadcast over
a field of snow, which have rolled over and got up again
whitened and half smothered from their fall. As I sit

at the table in the window in Mr. B 's comfortable

hotel, before me, through the hazy air, hazy with thick
showery snow of a whitish buif-coloured grey, dull,
smoky-looking— I see on one side the barracks, with
its court, surrounded by fine old elm-trees, green,
shady, pretty in summer, now full of small mountains
of shovelled snow, and the chosen playground of whirl-
ing gusts and the vapoury blinding drifts ; and on the
other side the wide frozen river, looking in the dim
light of the storm like a limitless field of snow, rows
of little spruce-trees marking the track across it for the
benefit of sleighs travelling by night. The rustling of
the sleighs and their merrily jingling bells, a sound to
me inexpressibly cheering, are now and then heard in
the neighbouring street, between which and the river
stands the hotel. I cannot say that it is in the town
or that it is out of it, for so sprinkled about is this

194 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique,

city, that it would be difficult for any house to swear
to its citizenship.

Tuesday, ^Oth. — There is an excellent library here,
founded and supported by the Government. To this,

through the kindness of Colonel H , I have the

entree, and here I spent two or three hours this after-
noon, looking at some excellent views of AustraHa and
turning over books. Save walking there I scarcely left
the house till evening, so dreaiy was the snow-storm ;
but then I had an engagement to keep, for which I
would have braved a fiercer storm than that. One of
the young ladies had had the temerity to sally forth
during the wild winti*y day in &now-shoes, and had
performed in them a ^eai which our kind host did not
forget to inform us of. She had jumped over, or at
least down, a fence five feet high. I am justified, there-
fore, in asserting that it is usual for the young ladies of
New Brunswick to go out in snow-shoes and jump all the
fences in the way. It needed so pleasant a recollection
as I had of that evening to reconcile me to the walk
home.

Thursday, 22nd. — An evening at Government House.
Colonel H kindly called for me in his sleigh, and in

Homeward,

i9(;

Ise.
in

ten minutes we formed a i^ortion of a knot of shivering,
shaking, half-frozen mortals in the hall, crowding over
the stove, and pitying ourselves for the sufferings we
had each and all gone through in making our way there.
Ladies are most adventurous in the winter season, snow-
shoeing and driving fearlessly. Last night I dined

and whisted at Mr. P 's, married to a daughter of

Colonel S 's, whose widow was there too.

February ith, — At sea — shij) Bournicf. I must
try and ruh up my recollection of the last week or
two ere the events quite leave my memory. On Mon-
day, 2Gth January, I left Fredericton hy stage— a covered
sleigh. We had to cross the Ground Bay on the ice—
a distance of three miles. Next I /'ell ill, was worse
the next day ; on Thursday kept my hed, and sent for
the doctor ; but I forgot to mention that on Tuesday
night, in spite of all, I contrived to go and hear
Dr. Lewis lecture on phrenology and mesmerism.
Lecture-room in Mechanical Institute — crowded, dirty
room ; stink of tobacco and brandy ; a nasty fellow
asks me for a chew. Lecture full of gesticulation and
flowery language — buffoonery ; never came to the point
— ^left everything unproved, A lad comes rushing in —

196 Journal of Two Months on the Tohique.

afterwards makes some electrical experiments, all of
which are of a most unsatisfactory nature. On Thurs-
day crowd collected round St. John's Hotel to see man
come, and order breakfast ; did not, and why ?

St. John's in the winter — boys coasting — everybody
slides — pretty girls go delicately smiling and sliding —

boys skate — dangerous to go through the streets.

* • • « «

{The journal hreaJcs off here ahnqitly.)

London : Printsd by Suite, Eldir, and Co., 65, Cornhill.

ill of
'burs-
man

ing—