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 I UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. ^ 
 
OUR VACATIONS 
 
 WHERE TO aO, 
 
 HOW TO ao, 
 
 AND HOW TO ENJOY THEM, 
 By FRAN^ E^ CLARK. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 ESTES AND LAURIAT, 
 
 143 Washington Stree'^. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, 
 
 By ESTES and LAURIAT, 
 
 In the OflBce of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 - ^"' '%.. 
 
 Stereotyped at the Boston Stereotype Foundry, 
 19 Spring Lane. 
 
TO MY CLASSMATES, 
 
 T.E. C, S. W. A., AND L. H. R., 
 
 WITH WHOM I HAVE SPENT SOME OF THE PLEASANTEST 
 OF VACATION WEEKS, 
 
 Cljb ITitllc Volume is Instribeb 
 
 BY ONE OF THE "QUARTETTE." 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Preliminary . 9 
 
 II. To THE White Mountains for Fifteen 
 
 Dollars 14 
 
 III. To Canada. — Montreal. — Quebec. — 
 
 Ottawa. — River St. Lawrence. . . 57 
 
 IV. The Tent on the Beach 115 
 
 V. Down East. — St. John. — Prince Ed- 
 ward Island. — Cape Breton. — Hal- 
 ifax 149 
 
puR y 
 
 UR Vacations 
 
 HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 
 
OUR VACATIONS, 
 
 AND 
 
 HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 If the reader were entitled to know the whole 
 truth, we should confess to a few conscientious 
 qualms for not consigning this opening chapter 
 to that sepulchre for an author's good wishes, 
 trembling hopes, and unnecessary explanations, 
 called an introduction or preface. 
 
 For, indulgent reader (this phrase is introduced 
 on information, before commencing our book, 
 that this was the proper way to address you), in- 
 stead of getting a sniff of the sea in the very first 
 page, or diving into the heart of the Adirondacks 
 with the opening sentence, we are obliged to 
 
 9 
 
lo OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 place before you a very few introductory pages 
 of explanation, which are not labelled " introduc- 
 tion" for the very good reason that we wish to 
 have them read — a piece of good fortune which 
 is supposed to fall- to the lot of but few prefaces. 
 
 But if these first pages were not read, we 
 should have visions of many scornful noses turned 
 up at this little book, and, in imagination, hear 
 many sarcastic remarks, such as, " Walk to the 
 White Mountains indeed ! A pretty way of trav- 
 elling this man recommends ! To Canada for fifty 
 dollars ! Ridiculous ! He must mean one hun- 
 dred and fifty dollars." Yet we do not mean one 
 hundred and fifty dollars, for, leave off the first 
 three words, and with that sum in your pockets 
 you can start from Boston and see all the sights of 
 the Canadas in a two weeks' vacation trip. More- 
 over, we will tell you how the White Hills, the 
 Mecca of wearied, city-worn pilgrims, may be 
 reached, and a delightful vacation of three weeks 
 spent among them for fifteen dollars ; and for as 
 many dollars as it takes to spend a single day at 
 a first class sea-side hotel, we will tell you how 
 
HOIV TO ENJOY THEM. n 
 
 you can live a week at the sea-shore in a far more 
 enjoyable way. 
 
 So, friend of the plethoric purse, we would 
 advise you to read no farther, unless, indeed, 
 Newport, and Saratoga, and Long Branch have 
 become utterly wearisome, and you have a notion 
 of trying a poor man's vacation just as you would 
 take a glass of soda " plain" after having " made 
 a night of it." 
 
 But this little book is written for the great mid- 
 dle class, to which so many of us must necessarily 
 belong — for the city clerk who gets his ten, fif- 
 teen, or twenty dollars a week, who looks with 
 longing eyes from the hot, red bricks to the cool, 
 green country, but who yet always sees an in- 
 separable connection between the green fields and 
 forests and greenbacks ; for the country min- 
 ister who longs to get away from his little parish 
 into fresh scenes, where the croakings of brother 
 A and the complaints of widow B will fail to 
 reach him ; for the doctor who has had plenty 
 of patience, but very few patients ; for the brief- 
 less barrister ; in short, for any one in whose 
 
12 OUR VACATIONS, 
 
 slender salary the bills of the butcher, and baker, 
 and candlestick-maker leave such a narrow mar- 
 gin at the end of the year, that he finds the doors 
 of our fashionable watering-places barred against 
 him as really as though they were the very gates 
 to the garden of Eden. In other respects than 
 extreme exclusiveness, we imagine that the 
 modern hotel resembles the ancient Paradise 
 but little. The fig leaf has certainly been very 
 much expanded since the days of Mother Eve, 
 and Father Adam's cuisine differed considerably 
 from the table d'hote of a fashionable watering- 
 place hotel. Indeed, we flatter ourselves that in 
 visiting the mountains and sea-shore, as we are 
 about to relate, we come much nearer to the 
 customs of Paradise than do those who pay 
 five dollars per day for the privilege of exist- 
 ing at the Crawford House or Congress Hall. 
 However this may be, the reader may be as- 
 sured that these vacation trips have actually 
 been made by the writer in the way and for 
 the sum mentioned, and can be taken again 
 by a thousand others. 
 
HOIV TO ENJOY THEM, 13 
 
 Especial pains have been taken that the state- 
 ments of expenses, and the description of routes, 
 outfits, &c., should be accurate and trustworthy ; 
 and our hope is, that many work-worn souls, 
 who otherwise could not take a summer vaca- 
 tion, by following the example of Tom, Dick, 
 and Sam, may gain inspiration from a few 
 weeks spent among the hills or upon the sea- 
 shore, that will carry them more happily through 
 another twelvemonth of care and toil. 
 
14 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 TO THE WHITE MOUNTAINS FOR FIFTEEN 
 DOLLARS. 
 
 Now, don't mentally consign us to an insane 
 asylum, kind reader, when you glance at the 
 above caption, and score off on your fingers — 
 " Railroad fare twenty dollars, hotel bills forty 
 dollars, carriage hire fifteen dollars, sundries 
 twenty dollars ; " for on our trip to the moun- 
 tains we mean to have no railroad fares, or 
 hotel bills, or carriage hire to pay. 
 
 " How shall we go, then.? " do you inquire. 
 
 Why, by the turnpike, and on our own good 
 legs, to be sure ; for what other purpose, pray, 
 were legs and turnpikes made.? 
 
 One would think, from the antipathy which 
 some people show to using their locomotive 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 15 
 
 powers, that they were only meant for the tailor 
 to exercise his skill upon, and that highways 
 were intended solely for quadrupeds. 
 
 Well, having made sure that the means of get- 
 ting to the mountains are both inexpensive and 
 always at our command, the next thing we want 
 to secure is, a party of five or six good fellows, 
 just like ourselves — Tom, who is *' such a good 
 hand at a story ; " and Dick, who is so good na- 
 tured ; and Sam, who is one of the best hearted 
 fellows in the world ; and Hiram and Jack — 
 you know whom I mean ; ■ — but the grumbler 
 and fault-finder must certainly be left out of our 
 party. 
 
 Nothing would go right if he were with us. 
 The coffee would always be muddy, the roads 
 would be sure to be " confoundedly dusty," and 
 the villages " wretched little hamlets." Mount 
 Washington would surely be enveloped in a 
 cloud when he made the ascent, and the "Old 
 Man of the Mountain" would scowl more 
 fiercely than ever when he gazed at him. Yes, 
 our grumbling friend must be left at home, by 
 all means. 
 
i6 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 Should any of our lady friends read this book, 
 let them not feel excluded from our party if they 
 have a desire for the muscle and happiness of the 
 clifF-climber. 
 
 Let it be understood, too, that, wherever in 
 these pages the masculine pronoun occurs in 
 reference to the travellers, the feminine is in- 
 cluded, as in lavyr the v^rord man means vv^oman 
 also. For this vacation trip is quite as practi- 
 cable for a lady of reasonably strong constitution 
 as for the Tom, Dick, Sam, and Hiram before 
 alluded to. 
 
 Indeed, we have before us now an account 
 of such a trip to the mountains, taken by a 
 party of young ladies from Portland, at less ex- 
 pense than the jaunt we are about to describe ; 
 and a most delightful expedition it was, if we may 
 judge from their account of " How we did it/' 
 
 To be sure, a party which is partially made up 
 of ladies may not be able to make quite as long 
 daily marches as one in which the fair sex is 
 wholly wanting ; but this difficulty can easily be 
 remedied by spending more days upon the road, 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 17 
 
 which, perhaps, would be fully as agreeable to 
 all parties as a more hurried journey. 
 
 Now that the party is made up, the next thing 
 will be our outfit. 
 
 And first we must get a horse and wagon. 
 Our steed need not be a Bucephalus, by any 
 means. A strong, trustworthy animal, who 
 knows a piece of white paper from a ghost, and 
 can pick up his dinner from the road-side with- 
 out whinnying for oats or corn meal for des- 
 ert, is more serviceable to us among the New 
 Hampshire hills, than a Dexter or a Longfellow 
 would be. 
 
 Such a horse we can easily hire for a dollar a 
 day, while the wagon body he is to draw ought 
 not to cost us more than five dollars for the trip. 
 This wagon is to carry our tent, provisions, and 
 blankets ; and for this purpose an ordinary ex- 
 press wagon, covered with a canvas top, well 
 painted to keep out the rain, answers as well as 
 anything. 
 
 It is very amusing to see what mistakes this 
 nondescript vehicle of ours will give rise to when 
 2 
 
i8 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 we get into the backwoods settlements. From 
 one house a woman will rush in post-haste, and 
 cry out at the top of her lungs, that she wants 
 two pounds of beefsteak. We politely explain 
 that we do not run a meat cart, and drive on a 
 mile farther, to the next farm-house. From this 
 we see a small boy emerge, waving violently a 
 red flag. This is evidently meant to attract our 
 attention, but whether to give us notice of an 
 auction or a case of small-pox within, we are at 
 a loss to determine, until we discover that we are 
 mistaken for the baker, as the boy bawls out, 
 " Ma wants a brick loaf of bread." At the next 
 little collection of .houses, half a score of chil- 
 dren will gather around us, with eager inquiries 
 as to where the next show will be, evidently mis- 
 taking us for the advanced guard of some 
 " world-renowned circus." Thus on all the 
 roads among the mountains, which are a little 
 off the regular routes of pleasure travel, our 
 strange team will be almost as rare a sight as a 
 new comet, and will afford a fruitful topic of 
 conversation for days after we have passed. 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 
 
 But to return to our outfit. 
 
 The first thing to go into the wagon will be 
 an A tent, large enough to hold our party. 
 For this R. M. Yale, or any dealer in tents, will 
 probably charge us at least three dollars per 
 week ; but if we happen to know of some friend 
 or charitably disposed person who has an unused 
 tent on hand, we can get it, very likely, for a 
 third of that sum. Such an exorbitant rent is 
 asked for these canvas houses, that a few weeks 
 of camp life would cover their first cost, so that 
 it would be cheaper, in most cases, to buy the 
 tent outright, and sell it again at the end of the 
 trip. But there is generally* little need of pay- 
 ing this price. 
 
 The tree poles of the tent should ride on the 
 bottom of the wagon, with the canvas over them ; 
 and though they will stick out behind in a rather 
 awkward manner, they will be found convenient 
 to hang our lantern and tin pails upon, if the 
 wagon is very full. Then in the front part of the 
 wagon will come the barrel of hardtack — Pilot 
 A if our teeth are strong and our digestion good. 
 
20 'OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 though a softer and richer variety can be had at 
 a higher price, should we desire it. 
 
 We shall find that one barrel of pilot bread will 
 just about last a party of half a dozen for three 
 weeks. Next will come one keg of pickles, an 
 indispensable article if any of the gentler sex are 
 to accompany us, and in any case a great addi- 
 tion to the ham and hard tack, which often, when 
 encamped away from villages and farm.-houses, 
 we shall be obliged to make the staple of our 
 meals. 
 
 Beside the pickle keg will fit in nicely a box 
 of hams, cofiee, sugar, condensed milk, corn 
 meal, salt pork, cheese, salt, and pepper. These 
 are all the varieties of provisions that it is really 
 necessary to take on an expedition of any length ; 
 and if one or two of these articles, even, were 
 left behind, it would be no serious loss. Of 
 course it is expected that much of our food will 
 be bought on the way ; but of such staple articles 
 as coffee, sugar, and pilot bread, it is both 
 cheaper and more convenient to keep a supply 
 on hand. 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 21 
 
 Two medium-sized hams will be enough for 
 our party, we shall probably find, while we 
 shall need at least five pounds of cofiee, and 
 twenty pounds of sugar to sweeten it. 
 
 Nothing is more essential to camp life than 
 the coffee-pot. Its fragrance as it bubbles on the 
 stove, before supper, is enough to make the 
 crustiest nature genial, and its aromatic flavor 
 will encourage and strengthen us for a hard 
 day's tramp, or will soothe and dissipate the 
 aches and stiffness of a twenty mile walk, as 
 nothing else in our larder will do. Long may 
 the coffee-bag hold out, say we. 
 
 Of course we want the salt pork (five or six 
 pounds of it), to use in cooking the speckled 
 trout, which we have already caught in imagina- 
 tion, a hundred times over, from the mountain 
 streams. 
 
 The corn meal will be useful to roll our fish 
 in before frying them, as well as to make the 
 Johnnie cakes, which, as an alternate with our 
 hard tack, will seem so delicious to our hungry 
 souls. Borden's condensed milk makes a very 
 
22 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 good and convenient substitute for" milk in coffee, 
 though it is worth little for other purposes. 
 
 As for prepared meats, we had better not 
 take many cans of them, unless we have a notion 
 of treating the New Hampshire crows and hawks 
 to their contents. The picture of the sirloin roast 
 on the outside of the can looks very juicy, to be 
 sure, and the labels, *' Roast Beef," and " Chicken 
 Soup," sound extremely inviting. But, alas, we 
 can hardly make a meal of the name or picture, 
 and upon opening our can of " Roast Beef," we 
 shall find nothing but a square chunk of " Mys- 
 tery," and a very tasteless chunk it will be too ; 
 while the " Chicken Soup " (we are fortunately 
 told what it is in plain print, on the outside) will 
 hardly be appreciated, unless one has a decided 
 liking for hard little cubes of carrot and turnip. 
 
 If an apology is required for the minuteness 
 with which the contents of our provision-box 
 are catalogued, it is humbly submitted that re- 
 peated experience shows that the articles men- 
 tioned are, on the whole, the best for a jaunt 
 like ours. 
 
HO IV TO ENJOY THEM. 23 
 
 Next, we shall put into our wagon a box con- 
 taining our coffee-pot, spider, and small iron 
 kettle, besides the tin plate, cup, knife, fork, and 
 spoon for each one of the party. 
 
 On top of all these boxes we can pile our rolls 
 of blankets, one or two for each man, not forget- 
 ting a couple of rubber blankets to spread on the 
 floor of the tent ; and last of all will come our 
 stove, whichshould be small and light, weighing 
 not more than forty pounds (such a one as can 
 be bought at almost any old iron store for a dollar 
 and a half). The little stove will be found a 
 great convenience, for it is easily handled by one 
 man, and saves the great bother of always hav- 
 ing a fireplace to build when a cup of coffee or 
 a slice of fried bacon is wanted. 
 
 Now the wagon is all snugly packed, and, 
 having donned our very oldest and coarsest 
 clothes, we shall be ready to start at daybreak 
 to-morrow for the White Hills. A very good 
 uniform, by the way, for such a pedestrian tour, 
 is a blue flannel shirt, and stout gray trousers, 
 without coat or vest, though it would be well to 
 
24 
 
 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 put coats in the wagon, to provide for the con- 
 tingency that the nights among the mountains 
 may be cool. 
 
 Fifteen miles will be enough for the first day*s 
 march (we shall all agree on this point before 
 the day is over, I am sure), and if we start by 
 six o'clock, or as soon as we have surrounded a 
 good hot breakfast, we shall have made our fif- 
 teen miles before two o'clock in the afternoon. 
 And O, the delights of those long summer after- 
 noons in camp ! 
 
 Tom, and Hiram, and Jack, perhaps have 
 done their share of the afternoon's work in put- 
 ting up the tent, and arranging things inside ; 
 while it is for Dick and Sam to superintend the 
 dinner. 
 
 How fragrant that whiff of coffee was that just 
 now floated into the open tent ! How cheerily 
 the fire crackles in the stove, and the bacon siz- 
 zles in the spider ! 
 
 How those pains and aches, which the fifteen 
 miles of steady tramping put into our legs, ooze 
 out of them, as we stretch ourselves at full length, 
 
HO IV TO ENJOY THEM. 25 
 
 in Oriental fashion, upon the blankets ! In short, 
 what a jolly time we are having, and what a 
 grand thing tent life is after the day's work 
 is done ! 
 
 And now Dick is pounding on the kettle by 
 way of a gong, to let us know that dinner is 
 ready. Did any one ever taste such crisp ham 
 and fried potatoes? The pilot bread is a little 
 hard, to be sure, but then it is wonderfully 
 sweet— isn't it? Surely hens never laid such 
 fresh eggs in the region of Boston ! Indeed, how 
 could anything be changed for the better? 
 
 Even this barren, old New Hampshire pas- 
 ture, which stretches , in front of us, looks 
 almost glorified as we view it through the 
 delicious steam that arises from our coftee-cup. 
 By and by it begins to grow dark ; we have 
 thought best to '* turn in " early, and nothing 
 is now to be seen in the tent but six long mum- 
 mies rolled in blankets. 
 
 Soon the last story has been told, the last co- 
 nundrum " given up," the last joke cracked, the 
 soughing of the wind in the pine branches above 
 
26 OUR VACATIONS, 
 
 us grows more and more Indistinct — and — 
 Well, it is morning, and Tom is stirring about 
 the tent, trying to impress on four desperately 
 sleepy individuals that it is time to be getting 
 breakfast. 
 
 It is wonderful how completely the roseate 
 hue which surrounded everything yesterday 
 afternoon has departed. 
 
 The pasture in which the tent is pitched is 
 a wretched rocky field, after all. It seems as 
 though the damp wood never would burn, and 
 when it does, the spider full of ham, which is 
 to make our breakfast, will be sure to burn with 
 it. And then we all feel so stiff*, and sore, and 
 uncomfortable generally, that we are a good- 
 natured party, indeed, if we get through the 
 morning without any exhibitions of total de- 
 pravity. But a generous cup of coffee will 
 dispel many of these evil spirits of ill-nature ; 
 and a couple of miles of walking will limber 
 up our locomotive powers, and drive away the 
 rest of them, so that, long before the sun is two 
 hours high, you couldn't find a jollier set of fel- 
 lows than are we. 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 27 
 
 But here we are on the second day of our 
 trip, and we haven't yet told the reader that we 
 started with him from the beautiful little village 
 of Center Harbor, New Hampshire. If you 
 are Hubbites, in order to join us you must 
 trudge through North-eastern Massachusetts, and 
 South-eastern New Hampshire, along the eastern 
 shore of charming Winnepiseogee, until, at 
 about the end of the fourth day out, you will 
 find yourselves encamped at Center Harbor. 
 If it is not your good fortune to reside in the 
 Tri mountain city, you will doubtless take some 
 other route ; but, at any rate, you will be very 
 likely to pass through Center Harbor ; so we 
 will follow the ramblings of our mountaineers 
 from this point. 
 
 Some spot in the neighborhood of Tamworth 
 will be our camping-ground on the first night 
 out from Center Harbor, after a pleasant day's 
 walk of seventeen miles. And now we begin 
 to get into the midst of the grandest mountain 
 scenery. Beyond the village of Tamworth looms 
 up Chicorua (Coroway in the vernacular of the 
 
28 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 inhabitants), and a most remarkable mountain it 
 is. No other hills are in its immediate neighbor- 
 hood to lessen its effect, while its precipitous 
 sides form almost a perfect cone, whose apex 
 is so pointed, that only a few persons can stand 
 upon it at the same time. The Tamworthians 
 have a legend to the effect that the mountain 
 takes its name from an Indian chief, who, after 
 murdering a family of white men, unwisely 
 took refuge on this mountain. Here he was 
 pursued by' the avenging whites, and, on the 
 very top, surrounded by his enemies, with no 
 way to escape, was killed in a manner that 
 fully satisfies the demands of poetic justice, 
 and that affords a thrilling plot for the imagi- 
 nation of any dime novel writer in the country. 
 A day devoted to visiting " Coroway " and 
 the beautiful lake which lies at its base will be 
 well spent if we can afford the time ; but if not, 
 we must push on the next day to North Con- 
 way, twenty miles farther into the mountains 
 than our last camp. This we shall find a beau- 
 tiful place, full of boarding-houses, and a very 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 29 
 
 high place to live in, in every sense of the w^ord. 
 Hitherto we have been able to buy all the eggs 
 we wanted for fifteen or twenty cents a dozen, 
 but here they make a sudden leap to thirty 
 cents. The cows, too, will only give milk for 
 eight cents a quart at Conway, though in other 
 towns we have had to pay but half that price ; 
 so that, in order to live within our fifteen dollars, 
 we shall be obliged to draw largely on the hard 
 tack barrel. Indeed, we shall find that the price 
 of living will continue to rise as we ascend. 
 
 It is thought by some that the people of this 
 region charge a dollar for every foot they get 
 above the level of the sea ; thus at Conway 
 you could spend the season at a fashionable 
 hotel for two or three thousand dollars. At 
 the Crawford, farther up, the expenses would 
 probably not be more than four thousand ; 
 while at the Tip-top House, which is some- 
 thing more than six thousand feet high, you 
 could get along very comfortably for six thou- 
 sand dollars. We give no voucher for the ex- 
 act truth of this statement ; it is only approxi- 
 mate. 
 
30 
 
 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 At Conway we shall find a very good place 
 to pitch our tent, in a pine grove, a little east 
 of the village, and, as the next day s march 
 will take us out of the bounds of civilization, 
 it will be well for us to have Conway's excel- 
 lent artist take a picture of our party in camp, 
 should we desire a more permanent impres- 
 sion of the way we looked " the summer we 
 went to the mountains " than our memories 
 will be likely to retain. 
 
 Of course Conway, like all these mountain 
 towns, has innumerable cascades, and chasms, 
 and mountain views, to show the astonished 
 traveller ; but unless we have plenty of time 
 at our disposal, we shall be likely to push on, 
 the next day, in the direction of Bartlett. 
 
 It is often amusing to notice the different 
 answers we shall get to the frequent question, 
 " How far,'* to a place ten miles or more away. 
 " Good morning, my friend," we will say to 
 a farmer, who is busily hoemg his paternal 
 potato patch: "how far is it to Bartlett?" 
 " Wal, I reckon it's ni^h onto seventeen mile,'* 
 
HOIV TO ENJOY THEM, 31 
 
 he will answer ; and we pass on, congratulat- 
 ing ourselves that we have got an easy clay's 
 march before us. Soon we pass an Irishman 
 working on the road, and propound to him 
 the same question. " Sure an' it's twenty shar-rp 
 miles," he will be very likely to reply. A 
 tourist, perhaps, will be the next person we 
 meet. "How far to Bartlett? O, a deuce of 
 a ways ; twenty-five miles at least." By this 
 time we shall probably give up inquiring, and 
 come to the conclusion that Bartlett is a Jack- 
 o'lantern, which retreats as we advance, while 
 very likely we shall find at night, when we 
 have caught the fugitive, and pitched our tent 
 in the very midst of her, that none of our in- 
 formants came within a league of the correct 
 distance. 
 
 Not that Bartlett is anything like a score 
 of miles from our camp at North Conway ; if 
 we follow our usual custom of doing the prin- 
 cipal part of our walking early in the day, we 
 shall pass through this pretty little mountain 
 village about the time that the early worm is 
 
32 
 
 OUR VACATIONS, 
 
 popularly supposed to be devoured, and shall get 
 quite a distance into the ungranted lands of New 
 Hampshire before the afternoon sun tells us it is 
 time to pitch our tent. 
 
 And these ungranted lands, It may be taken for 
 granted, will never find anybody willing to take 
 a grant of them, for agricultural purposes at 
 least, so rough and rocky are they. Indeed, you 
 might as well try to cultivate the slate roof of a 
 meeting-house. A mansard roof, with a cover- 
 ing of asbestos, would be a far more desirable 
 location. 
 
 But the more ungrantable the country becomes, 
 the higher do the mountains tower on every side ; 
 and thus the law of compensation equalizes 
 things, making the scenery grander and more 
 picturesque as the country becomes more unciv- 
 ilized and the roads more impassable. 
 
 It is something above thirty miles from North 
 Conway to the place we shall make our 
 headquarters during our stay among the White 
 Hills, — rather a long day's march over the 
 rough mountain roads, — and we shall probably 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 33 
 
 be ready to encamp by the time we get to the 
 Crawford House, some eighteen or twenty miles 
 from our last camp. 
 
 All the land in this neighborhood, for eighteen 
 miles on either side of the road, is owned by an 
 eccentric old gentleman named Beamis, who has 
 built a very pretty cottage near the old Crawford 
 House. 
 
 It is whispered that Dr. Beamis is rather op- 
 posed to having parties encamp upon his ground ; 
 but we shall find plenty of room for our tent be- 
 side the public road, without trespassing upon 
 the doctor's eighteen miles of wilderness. 
 
 Three miles from this camp is the Willey 
 House, a place which the standard reading book 
 of thirty years ago impressed so strongly upon 
 the children of the last generation. And a toler- 
 ably correct picture the old reading book gives 
 of this historic house, even at the present day, 
 barring, of course, the family, whom, if memory 
 serves, the artist represents fleeing in dire dismay, 
 as well they might, some in one direction and 
 some in another, from the approaching avalanche, 
 3 
 
34 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 On a former visit to the mountains we saw a girl 
 standing in the doorway of this very house, who 
 certainly would have been safe had she belonged 
 to the original Willey family, for surely nothing 
 would have aroused her stupid, lethargic soul to 
 attempt a flight. As we approached the house, 
 we very naturally asked her, — 
 
 " Is this the old Willey House? " 
 
 " Dunno," was the laconic answer we re- 
 ceived. 
 
 " What, don't you know whether this was the 
 house that so wonderfully escaped destruction in 
 the avalanche of 1826, when all the family, who 
 attempted to escape, were killed ? " 
 
 " Dunno," she again replied. 
 
 And " Dunno," was all we could get from 
 this sapient damsel ; and we had to seek for our 
 desired information elsewhere. 
 
 It is curious to notice the different varieties of 
 character one meets on a trip like ours. In the 
 first place, we shall find quite a number like the 
 girl just alluded to. To this class belong the 
 crusty old farmers, who have lived half a cen- 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM, 35 
 
 tiny within sight of the grandest mountains of 
 New England, yet who have never seen the glo- 
 rious view from their top, because, forsooth, they 
 regard every day as wasted that is not spent grub- 
 bing in their corn-field or potato-patch. These 
 men would hardly know it, should the judgment 
 day begin upon earth, and would be very likely to 
 mistake Gabriel's trumpet for a fish-horn. 
 
 Then there is another species of the ^enus 
 Jiomo yclept Yankee, often met, who are just 
 the opposite of these. Such men are not only 
 ready to impart a vast amount of information 
 and advice, but are exceedingly anxious to add to 
 their own stock of knowledge. Some of their 
 first questions, in all probability, will be, — 
 
 " Stranger, what mought I call yer name?" 
 
 " I mought call it Smith, eh ? " 
 
 " Well, is trade pooty brisk down your way 
 this summer?" 
 
 " What, ye ain't a storekeeper ? " 
 
 " A doctor then, perhaps ? " 
 
 "No? Dutell!" 
 
 *' You've come a pooty considerable ways, I 
 reckon ? " 
 
36 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 " Morne a hundred miles, have yer?" 
 
 " Ye must live somev^'har near Boston, then, 
 I calkerlate." 
 
 " O, ye live in the city, du ye? " 
 
 " Know a fellow named Jack Styles? " 
 
 " He lives in Boston, I believe." 
 
 "Don't?" 
 
 " vShow ! " 
 
 And thus our genuine Yankee friend would 
 talk for hours, fully satisfied with our monosyl- 
 labic replies. 
 
 ' A near relative to this loquacious individual is 
 the person who always leaves his mark wherever 
 he goes, so that every smooth rock, or beech tree, 
 or guide-post, along the route, proclaims to the 
 wondering public that John Jones, who belongs, 
 perchance, to the I. O. of G. T., or the G. A. R., 
 or some other cabalistic society, has been that 
 way. 
 
 But most disagreeable of all is the snobbish 
 tourist, whom we shall occasionally, and, — thank 
 fortune, — only occasionally, meet. It is very 
 seldom that he will deign to notice, much less 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. ■ 37 
 
 speak to, such travel-stained, unpretentious pil- 
 grims as we are. But when he does condescend 
 to address us — Well, you know how he will 
 talk ; for the snob is the same combination of in- 
 sipidity, effeminacy, and conceit the world over. 
 
 But to return to our party and the Willey 
 House, where we left them meditating on the 
 mutability of human life in general, and the dan- 
 ger of avalanches in particular. 
 
 Behind the house stands the hill from which 
 the avalance rolled. Dame Nature, however, has 
 covered with a green mantle of trees and bushes 
 the gashes and chasms which, nearly fifty years 
 ago, were made in its side ; and now it looks as 
 peaceful and steadfast as any of the everlasting 
 hills which tower above it. A few rods behind 
 the house we can see the great rock, which so 
 miraculously divided the great, onrushing mass 
 of stones 'and dirt, and saved the house, while the 
 whole family, who rushed out to save them- 
 selves, were destroyed. 
 
 Three miles from the Willey House is the far- 
 famed Crawford Hotel ; but, our purses not being 
 
38 
 
 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 long, we shall not tarry here a great while, but 
 push on six miles farther, to the White Mountain 
 House, where is not only a good place to encamp, 
 but cheaper accommodation for man and beast 
 than at almost any other hotel in the mountains. 
 This is an important consideration, too, just now, 
 since there are no stores in this region for miles 
 and miles, and we must depend upon some pub- 
 lic house for supplies, should the provisions in 
 our wagon give out. 
 
 The route thus far travelled has given an 
 abundance of most various and picturesque 
 mountain scenery. There are the perpendicu- 
 lar hills that wall in the Notch, while for some 
 distance we have followed the course of a little 
 babbling, sparkling brook, which, one learns with 
 wonder, expands before long into the broad and 
 impetuous Saco. 
 
 Near the Crawford House we notice one guide- 
 board directing to the " Silver Cascade," and 
 another to the " Old Woman of the Mountain." 
 Perhaps the guide-books and boards give this 
 stony matron a more euphonious name than this ; 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 39 
 
 but it takes a stretch of imagination, of which 
 only a mountain hotel-keeper or a guide-book 
 author is capable to see the resemblance which 
 the name indicates, in the jagged piece of rock 
 that is pointed out as the " Old Woman." 
 
 But then the Franconia Notch has its " Old 
 Man of the Mountain," and of course the Craw- 
 ford Notch musn't be without a rival. 
 
 It will be very convenient to make the camp 
 at the White Mountain House headquarters for 
 three or four days, and from thence to take ex- 
 cursions to the various points of interest in the 
 neighborhood. 
 
 Of course Mount Willard must be climbed — 
 a trip which can easily be accomplished in one 
 day. The view from the summit is more con- 
 tracted than that from many of its big brothers, 
 to be sure ; but, then, it has the advantage of 
 being more distinct, and in the opinion of many 
 no sublimer outlook can be found in all the 
 mountains. 
 
 The top of Mount Washington can be easily 
 reached in either of two ways from a camp at 
 the White Mountain House. 
 
40 
 
 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 In the first place, the ascent can be made by 
 the bridle-path, near the Crawford House, a com- 
 paratively easy climb of nine miles ; or we can 
 follow the railroad track to the top, a route which 
 shortens the ascent to three miles, though it 
 makes it much more steep and difficult. 
 
 If there are any ladies in the party, the bridle- 
 path will be wisely chosen ; but no matter which 
 way is taken, the travellers will be tired enough 
 when they reach the top. Not wishing to pay 
 a dollar and a half for the privilege of spending 
 the night at one of the tip-top hotels, and it being 
 impossible to encamp on the summit with any 
 degree of comfort or safety, there is yet a way 
 to accomplish the desired result of being there at 
 sunrise. For a small consideration, and perhaps 
 free gratis, permission may be obtained to spread 
 our blankets on the floor of the depot, where we 
 shall doubtless sleep as soundly as though the 
 mercury was not down to the freezing-point, and 
 the wind blowing fifty miles an hour outside. 
 But let us hope that the sun may rise clear to- 
 morrow morning, for if it does not we shall carry 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 41 
 
 through life, whenever we think of Mount Wash- 
 ington, only the remembrance of a jagged pile 
 of rocks, surmounted by two or three stone bar- 
 racks, while in all, and through all, and over all, 
 is this cold, wet, drizzly fog, the very thought of 
 which will make one shiver on a dog day. But 
 if it be clear and bright, no words can describe 
 the wondrous scenes that will unfold, and no 
 past fatigue can be weighed in the balance 
 against the satisfaction of the hour. 
 
 A visit to Tuckerman's Ravine, and a side 
 excursion to one of the patches of snow, so that 
 we can boast to our friends at home of a game 
 of snow-balling in the middle of summer, will 
 consume a large part of the day, and v/e proba- 
 bly shall not reach our camp at the White 
 Mountain House before nightfall. 
 
 Great ' as is our wonder at the grandeur of 
 nature upon these mountain tops, it is not un- 
 mixed with feelings of admiration for the inge- 
 nuity of man in overcoming the difficulties of 
 ascent. 
 
 The railroad is a standing marvel. As is well 
 
42 
 
 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 known, it climbs the mountain in three miles, 
 which necessitates a rise on an average of one 
 foot in four, and sometimes as steep as one foot 
 in three. 
 
 The single passenger coach is pushed slowly 
 before the engine, while, so steep is the grade, 
 that the forward end of this little car (not half as 
 long as an ordinary passenger car) is more than 
 ten feet higher than the rear. 
 
 Travel on such a road would seem to be ac- 
 companied with unnumbered dangers ; but so 
 perfect is the system of cogs and brakes that not 
 an accident to life or limb has yet occurred. 
 
 The originator and builder of the road says 
 he does not wonder that people ridiculed his 
 idea when he first proposed to run a train of cars 
 to the top of Mount Washington; nor can we 
 wonder either, as we climb carefully down the 
 gaping trestle-work on which the tracks are laid, 
 or struggle over the roots and stones which ob- 
 struct the " Fabyan Path ; " poetically so called, 
 we presume, for it is without doubt the worst 
 little trail that ever led down a mountain side. 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 43 
 
 By devoting three days and a few dollars more 
 to the White Hills, we can go around the moun- 
 tain, and see the beauties of the glen, the emerald 
 pool, Glen Ellis Falls, &c. ; but if the three 
 weeks and fifteen dollars limits proposed at the 
 outset are adhered to, the tent must be struck on 
 the next morning after the visit to the monarch 
 of these hills, and the line of march for the Fran- 
 conias be taken up. 
 
 The first day's journey takes the party by the 
 Twin Mountain House, — one of the finest of the 
 mountain hotels, which during some seasons has 
 been able to offer the unusual attractions of 
 " Beecher every Sunday, and dances every even- 
 ing," — through the pretty little village of Bethle- 
 hem, and just at nightfall, after toiling up three 
 or four miles of a most leg-wearying hill, brings 
 the party into the very heart of the Franconia 
 Mountains, and more than two thousand feet 
 above the sea level. 
 
 These hills are so heavily wooded that it is 
 not easy to find a cleared place large enough to 
 pitch the tent, much less to pasture a horse ; con- 
 
44 
 
 OUR VACATIONS, 
 
 sequently the beast must be stabled at the Profile 
 House barns, which will cost a dollar a day ; and 
 if the little shanty, called the Summit House, 
 about a mile from the Profile Hotel, is empty, it 
 will be best to spread our blankets on the floor, 
 and after making a smudge of chips for the 
 benefit of the mosquitos, consign ourselves to 
 the charge of Morpheus. 
 
 Of course, one day must be spent in troyting ; 
 it wouldn't do to go to the mountains and not 
 have a fish story to carry home to one's friends. 
 So we shall undoubtedly start off for the brooks, 
 one of these bright mornings, with worms 
 enough to feed a trout pond, and line enough 
 dangling from our poles to supply a mackerel 
 schooner. What exultation we feel as we think 
 of the possibilities of sport and trout, which are 
 before us to-day ! There tumbles the little moun- 
 tain brook, with its deep holes and shady nooks, 
 each one containing a speckled beauty, that we 
 are sure was' foreordained to bite our tempting 
 bait this very morning ; for why should -^e not 
 have as good luck as the Mr. A. we read about 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 45 
 
 in the paper, last week, who in one half day 
 caught seventy-nine trout, all weighing over a 
 pound apiece? 
 
 Ah ! Won't Bill Harris open his eyes when 
 we tell him of that great string we caught, — shall 
 catch, we should say, for we have just dropped 
 our hook over the edge of that mossy log, where 
 it looks so black and deep ? 
 
 There, we have a bite so soon, but it is on the 
 back of the hand that holds the pole ; and as we 
 bring the other hand down upon it with a vin- 
 dictive slap, we jerk the pole, and the hook is 
 caught fast in the mossy log. 
 
 Ten minutes of vexatious work on the slippery 
 rocks and log unfasten the hook, and we drop 
 it in again, just where the water eddies round 
 that big stone. And now we have a bona Jide 
 trout bite, so quick and sharp (no nibbling and 
 fooling with the bait for a trout), and up we 
 pull in great excitement to see our line firmly 
 caught in a limb six feet over our head, and the 
 trout darting off to another rock to tell his friends 
 of his adventure. 
 
46 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 Already we are prepared to pronounce the 
 man who caught those seventy-nine trout a 
 fraud ; and by the time we have shinned up the 
 tree and disentangled the line, we can, with a 
 hearty good will, anathematize trout, and lines, 
 and trees, and everything else connected with 
 brook fishing. 
 
 We have learned two things, however : first, 
 that three or four feet of line are better than a 
 dozen, when fishing along these wooded streams, 
 and that a quick but quiet jerk is more likely to 
 bring up a fish than a furious one. 
 
 If we learn as much as this every time we lose 
 a fish, we shall, no doubt, go back to the summit 
 shanty at night, with the prospect of enjoying a 
 good trout supper, and with the proud conscious^ 
 ness of having a very respectable fish story to 
 relate to Bill Harris when we get home. 
 
 If the next morning is pleasant, there is a pros- 
 pect of one of the most delightful days yet spent 
 among the mountains, for the quiet beauties of 
 the Franconias are all to be seen, and most of 
 them can be easily seen in one day. 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 47 
 
 One of the most pleasant sensations about 
 these excursions, to one s'tarting off, lively and 
 spirited, in the cool of early morning, is that of 
 entire freedom from the care and worry of ordi- 
 nary life. 
 
 What does it matter whether gold is inf or 
 II I J? Cotton may be light and rising, but it 
 cannot be lighter than our spirits ; while sugar 
 may be depressed and gunny-bags dull without 
 having any corresponding effect upon our feel- 
 ings. 
 
 Old Granny Brown may have the pip, and 
 need a bread pill, but her complaints can't reach 
 our ears ; or, if we chance to belong to the cleri- 
 cal profession, we shall find that we left our He- 
 brew roots and knotty doctrines at home with 
 our black coats and ministerial neck-ties. 
 
 Echo Lake is the first point of interest reached 
 after leaving camp, and it is well worthy of the 
 hour devoted to it. A perfect sparkling gem it 
 is, set in the green and gray of the surrounding 
 mountains, which in some places rise perpendic- 
 ularly from the water's edge. But as the name 
 
48 
 
 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 indicates, the echo is the attraction of the little 
 lake,, for the mountains are placed at such 
 an angle that the report of a pistol or a blast 
 from the huge tin horn which the guide carries, 
 is caught and played at shuttlecock, by them, 
 thrown from one to the other, time after time, 
 until at length the poor little noise is entirely 
 worn out, and dies away in the distance. 
 
 Half a mile from Echo Lake is the Profile 
 House, and a few rods beyond (forty, we be- 
 lieve, is the exact number) is the best place to 
 view the " Old Man of the Mountains" for whom 
 the hotel was named. The old gentleman is of 
 a very modest, retiring nature, and as he can 
 not very well retreat from the vulgar gaze, he 
 often draws a cloudy veil over his features. 
 
 Should he be propitious, however, and show 
 himself, we could sit for hours on the rough 
 little seat which has been erected by the road- 
 side, and gaze on his rocky profile, as the 
 lights and shadows play over it, far up there 
 in cloudland, thinking of Whittier's graphic 
 lines, — 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 49 
 
 "Like a sun-rimmed cloud 
 The great Notch Mountains shone, 
 Watched over by that solemn browed 
 And awful face of stone," — 
 
 as well as of many other sublime and poetic 
 things ; and endeavoring to get all the glimpses 
 we can of the " Old Man's " face, as we continue 
 our walk towards the Flume. 
 
 The next object of interest reached is the 
 " Basin," which is hollowed out of the solid rock 
 as smoothly and regularly as though just from 
 the shop of a city plumber. Though it looks 
 scarcely six feet deep, and the whole bottom 
 can be distinctly seen, the natives (relying doubt- 
 less upon the well-known gullibility of tourists) 
 tdl wonderful stories in regard to its depth. 
 It is a very .moderate guide who falls short of 
 forty feet. 
 
 Four or five miles below the Profile House 
 stands the Flume House, and not far from here 
 we take a path which the guide-board tells us 
 leads to " The Fool ; " for we are determined to 
 investigate to-day all the natural curiosities that 
 lie in our way. 
 4 
 
50 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 The Pool is simply an enlarged basin, with 
 more turbid water, and of a less perfect shape. 
 The most curious thing connected with the 
 Pool is the grizzly old philosopher who spends 
 his summers beside it, dispensing maple sugar 
 and lemonade to all visitors. Besides com- 
 pounding for us a very good pitcher of lemon- 
 ade, this modern Aristotle (he can hardly be 
 called a peripatetic philosopher, however, for 
 he rows rather than walks about) will invite 
 us to take seats in his boat, and for the moderate 
 consideration of twenty-five cents, he will ex- 
 plain to us his theory of cosmography while 
 he rows us slowly about the Pool. 
 
 This cosmography of his is simply a rehash 
 of Captain Symmes's theory of concentric cir- 
 cles, and is based on the singular fancy that 
 the earth is hollow, and inhabited inside, where 
 continents correspond to seas upon the out- 
 side, and vice versa. Our interterrestrial cousins 
 are supplied with air and sunlight, according 
 to this philosopher, by means of big holes at 
 either pole ; and in his opinion they lead very 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 51 
 
 much the same kind of lives as we poor mortals 
 do upon the outside. Our philosophic boatman 
 supports his romantic notions with various 
 arguments (among which the Caspian Sea, 
 which has no outlet, and the tropical plants 
 which have been found far within the borders 
 of the arctic circle, figure largely), and illustrates 
 them with diagrams of the earth, as he v^ould 
 have it, painted upon a smooth rock, which 
 walls in one side of the Pool. 
 
 To those who wish to investigate the mys- 
 teries of cosmography still farther, our friend 
 will sell a small pamphlet, which he has written 
 upon this subject, to which he has appended 
 a string of recommendations from the late 
 sovereign of France, the emperor of China, 
 and other potentates, high and mighty, all of 
 which were doubtless sent in a batch by some 
 waggish rogue. 
 
 Not more than half a mile distant from the 
 Pool is the Flume, the goal of this day's walk, 
 and decidedly the most remarkable sight yet 
 found among the mountains. The straight, 
 
52 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 narrow passage, the lofty walls of rock which 
 tower on either side, as though built by some 
 Titanic mason, the rushing, boiling brook be- 
 neath our feet, the immense boulder caught be- 
 tween the walls of the Flume directly over 
 our heads, which it seems as though a breath 
 would send crashing down, — all conspire to 
 produce an impression which no other moun- 
 tain scene has produced. 
 
 But the garden of Eden had its serpent ; and 
 the Flume, as well as every other place in the 
 mountains, has its pest in the shape of a mos- 
 quito or midge. Our ancestors used to be- 
 lieve that the father of lies appeared to them 
 in various shapes, as a goat, or hare, or black 
 cat; had they lived among the White Moun- 
 tains, they would have embodied him in a mos- 
 quito, or midge, or black fly. 
 
 It is singular what a small affair will bring 
 you tumbling down from the sublime to the 
 ridiculous. You may be gazing awe-struck upon 
 the wonderful beauties of the Flume ; grand 
 and poetic thoughts are coursing through your 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 53 
 
 soul, when, suddenly, a mosquito settles upon 
 the end of your nose, or a midge insinuates 
 himself into the back of your neck ; instantly 
 the sublime and beautiful vanish, the bitten 
 member becomes the centre of sensation, and 
 fruitless assaults upon the offending insect take 
 the place of rapt meditation on the beauties of 
 Nature. 
 
 This is one of the ills of camp life which 
 can't be cured, and so must be endured with 
 the best grace possible. We kill a hundred of 
 our tormentors, and a thousand will come to 
 the funeral ; we smear our hands and faces with 
 kerosene oil, but, while it greatly offends our 
 own senses, the mosquitos seem to prefer 
 their blood-puddings flavored with petroleum. 
 We hear all sorts of herbs and unguents recom- 
 mended, and apply a liberal quantity to our 
 devoted features. The midges are attracted 
 all the more, and revel in the pennyroyal, or 
 catnip, or camphor, as though the odor and 
 flavor were as agreeable as possible. The 
 only thing which these ubiquitous insects seem 
 
54 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 to dislike is a thick smudge of black smoke ; 
 and as this can easily be raised, with the aid 
 of an old milk-pan and some damp chips, we 
 can be tolerably free from these mountain pests 
 at the expense of turning ourselves into well- 
 seasoned hams. 
 
 We have now seen the principal points of 
 interest about the Franconia Notch, and, if we 
 take one more day to ascend Mount Lafayette, 
 we can feel that we have " done " the moun- 
 tains quite thoroughly. 
 
 There are many more charming places to 
 visit, to be sure, and many more mountain 
 peaks to scale, among which we might spend 
 several delightful weeks ; but already we have 
 seen the points of most note, and a great deal 
 more than many of those who spend ten times 
 as much money on their summer vacation. 
 
 Then, if we are all agreed that it is time to 
 start for home, we will roll up our blankets, 
 stow away the small remnant of our provisions 
 in the hard tack barrel, and, with a cheer for 
 the Summit shanty which has so kindly sheltered 
 
HO IV TO ENJOY THEM. 55 
 
 us for the past few days, we will be off down 
 the mountain. 
 
 Should we wish to vary our homeward route, 
 we can turn to the south-west instead of the 
 south-east. In this case, the first camp should 
 be in Landaff, and the second in Haverhill, 
 where we strike the Connecticut River. 
 
 Of course, if any of the party are utterly dis- 
 gusted with " roughing it," they can here take 
 the cars, which, for a few^ dollars, will land 
 them near their homes. But if the vote is for 
 camp life still, as, no doubt, it will be, it will 
 be found that no part of the trip has been 
 pleasanter than this journey down the valley of 
 the lovely " v/illow-fringed Connecticut." 
 
 Now see what the trip has cost us, and never 
 again say that you cannot afford to go to the 
 mountains. 
 
 Horse at one dollar per day for three 
 
 weeks, . . . . $31.00 
 
 Wagon, ..... 5.00 
 
 Hard tack and other provisions, . 22.00 
 
;j6 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 Tent and stove hire, 
 
 4.00 
 
 Feed for horse on the way, 
 
 12.00 
 
 Provisions bought on the way, 
 
 15.00 
 
 Plates and cooking utensils. 
 
 3.00 
 
 Incidentals, . . . 
 
 8.00 
 
 Total, . . • . . . . $90.00 
 
 This sum, divided among six individuals, 
 makes each one's share of the expenses fifteen 
 dollars, for a three weeks' excursion to the 
 White Mountains. 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 57 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 TO CANADA. — MONTREAL. — QJJEBEC. — OTTA- 
 WA. — RIVER ST. LAWRENCE. 
 
 If you were ever a small boy, and if at that 
 time you studied common school geography, you 
 must often have gazed at the variegated sections 
 of pigment which are supposed to indicate to the 
 youthful mind the various countries of Europe, 
 and wished yourself in the very middle of those 
 countries. Do you remember how one yel- 
 low patch, standing for England, represented to 
 your juvenile imagination the great Tower of 
 London, and the British Museum, and the Tunnel 
 under the Thames? Do you remember how gay 
 Paris, with its Notre Dame, and Tuileries, and 
 all its other wonders, whose names you couldn't 
 pronounce, peeped out at you from the green 
 section which was bounded by the Alps and the 
 
58 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 Pyrenees? and how you always heard the great 
 bell of Moscow and the big guns of the Krem- 
 lin thunder out whenever you looked at that 
 large spot of blue paint called Russia? And do 
 you remember how you longed, with all your 
 heart and soul, to see these wonders in reality? 
 
 If any boy has not had these thoughts and 
 desires, let us pity his unimaginative little soul, 
 arnd predict for him that future which people so 
 expressively imply, when they say, '* He is a 
 \eYy g-ood man, but he will never set the river on 
 fire." To be sure, many men lose their desires 
 for travel when they get out of their teens, and 
 would not exchange their w^alk through State 
 Street for any Boulevards of Paris ; but there are 
 many more who are as eager to visit Europe in. 
 manhood as when they first dog-eared their ge- 
 ography in the school-room, but who are kept 
 at home by the thousand leagues of brine which 
 roll between the two continents, and by the in- 
 surmountable barrier to bridging over this gulf 
 which a lean pocket-book presents. 
 
 To all such Canada invitingly offers itself. 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 59 
 
 Here are France and England combined in a 
 small way. To be sure, you will not find the 
 Louvre or St. Paul's, and the patois will neither 
 be purely Parisian nor thoroughly Cockney ; but 
 in many respects you will see very good repre- 
 sentatives of the two great old world countries 
 in this new world province. For instance, when 
 you step off the cars at Montreal, you will notice 
 that the streets named St. Jean and St. Pierre, as 
 well as St. John and St. Peter, and that the Rue 
 Josephine and Notre Dame run side by side 
 with Dorchester and Main Streets. 
 
 At one store you step into, you will get per- 
 fectly distracted with the volley of French sen- 
 tences which the voluble Celt shoots out at you, 
 while in the next the stout John Bull, in gray 
 clothes and bushy side-whiskers, will inform 
 you, perchance, that the portrait you are looking 
 at is a " 'andsome picture of Prince Harthur, 
 done hin Hindia hink." 
 
 It is one of an author's privileges to take it for 
 granted that his readers agree with him in all 
 his assumptions, even if he hasn't attempted to 
 
6o OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 prove them very conclusively ; therefore it is 
 assumed, without arguing the point any farther, 
 that Canada is a most desirable place in w^hich 
 to spend a summer vacation, and it only remains 
 to tell how and for what expense the sights of 
 the New Dominion can be seen. 
 
 And first we shall want to purchase a round- 
 trip ticket by one of the great railroad lines 
 which connect Canada with the United States. 
 
 The price of these tickets varies slightly from 
 year to 3'ear, but as a general thing, an excursion 
 ticket can be bought from Boston to Montreal 
 and return for twenty dollars, and to Quebec and 
 return for twenty-two dollars. 
 
 Other things being equal, it is better to pur- 
 chase tickets by way of the Boston and Lowell 
 and the Central Vermont railroads ; as by this 
 route we shall be sure of obliging officials, 
 smooth road-beds, and easy-running cars, — ad- 
 vantages which all roads cannot boast, by any 
 means. But of course, in. the case of such pov- 
 erty-stricken persons as we are supposed now to 
 De, a few jolts and jounces more or less do not 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 6i 
 
 matter much if many dollars can be saved by 
 enduring them ; so we shall go by the line which 
 offers to take us to Montreal the cheapest. 
 
 And just here, before stepping aboard the 
 train, a few words in advance in regard to the 
 expense. An interesting letter from Montreal, 
 lately published, closed by saying that "with 
 due economy the trip might be taken for a hun- 
 dred dollars." Why, my dear sir, with due 
 economy the trip may be taken for half that 
 sum ! 
 
 But do you say, " Then must we be close, and 
 count every copper, and live in a mean sort of a 
 way generally?" By no means. To be sure, we 
 cannot indulge in a great many game suppers, 
 or eat sandwiches filled with bank bills, a la 
 Lord Timothy Dexter ; but the routes of travel 
 are just the same, the rivers just as broad, the 
 mountains just as grand, and the scenery just as 
 novel to tlie poor man as to the rich. The ho- 
 tels we shall stop at may not be nearly as expen- 
 sive, but they may be guaranteed equal in solid 
 comfort to those which our rich neighbors pat- 
 ronize. 
 
62 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 No doubt it would be pleasant to scatter the 
 greenbacks right and left ; to buy a black silk for 
 aunt Jane, and a set of jewelry for Mary Ann, 
 and a whole toy-shop for little Joe, — in short, to 
 have no care or anxiety on the financial score ; 
 and when " our ship comes in," or " our uncle 
 from India" arrives, we shall doubtless travel in 
 this way ; but until the hypothetical uncle or 
 ship actually comes, will it not be better to take 
 a cheap excursion than to have no summer 
 vacation at all ? 
 
 Again assuming that there is a unanimous vote 
 in agreement with these sentiments, we will step 
 aboard the w^aiting train in the magnificent new 
 Lowell Railroad station. The clock points to the 
 hour of starting, the conductor shouts, "All 
 aboard ! " and off we are. 
 
 By the spindle cities of Lowell, Nashua, and 
 Manchester we roll, beside the busy Merrimac, 
 picturesque and lovely still, though it is defiled 
 by so many mill-wheels, and regarded by so 
 many sordid eyes as only so much " water- 
 power." 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 63 
 
 Through New Hampshire's capital, on and 
 on, we are whirled, through the heart of the 
 Granite State, catching many ghmpses of far- 
 away mountains, green valleys, and white vil- 
 lages ; and a little after noon we cross the Con- 
 necticut, and make our first stop of any length 
 at White River Junction, Vermont. " Half an 
 hour for dinner," and then we again take our 
 seats in the cars for a ride through the green 
 hills of stanch Vermont. The scenery in the 
 neighborhood of Waterbury and Montpelier is 
 particularly striking, and we shall be tempted to 
 stop there instead of proceeding. 
 
 By supper time we shall reach St. Albans ; and 
 no one knows better how to supply our gastro- 
 nomic wants than Mr. Dunton, whose gong will 
 call us to his attractive dining-room in the station. 
 
 Montreal is less than three hours' ride farther 
 on, most of it over Canadian soil, — and a most 
 flat, uninteresting ride it is. The monotony 
 is broken, however, by the flourishing village of 
 St. John, with its big river and numerous vessels ; 
 and soon the green waters of the St. Lawrence 
 
64 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 heave in sight (as we should say, were this a 
 nautical novel), as well as that masterpiece of 
 bridge-building which spans it. 
 
 During the ten dark minutes which are occu- 
 pied in crossing the Victoria Bridge, there is 
 time to call to mind all the dark-tunnel stories, 
 tragic and comic, which a thorough acquaint- 
 ance with railroad literature will supply. We 
 are so near our destination, too, that it is time to 
 think of what hotel we shall make our head- 
 quarters while in the city ; for as the principal 
 choice, in Canadian cities, between first and sec- 
 ond class hotels, is in the number of dollars ^^z- 
 diem we shall be obliged to pay, it will be well 
 to know beforehand how much our bill will be. 
 
 St. Lawrence Hall is the highest priced house, 
 and next comes the Ottawa Hotel, pleasantly 
 situated on St. James Street. The price of 
 either of these houses would justify the name 
 " first class," though the accommodations would 
 hardly substantiate the claim ; at least, according 
 to "American" notions. 
 
 And here we must rise to explain, that Cana- 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 6^ 
 
 dians universally denominate their cousins of 
 the States " Americans," as distinguished from 
 natives of the Dominion ; as though they them- 
 selves lived in Malacca or Van Diemen's Land, 
 or anyw^hcre, indeed, but in America. But to 
 return to the subject of hotels. Almost equal 
 in other respects to those we have mentioned, 
 and w^ith charges about half as great, is another 
 class of public houses, such as the Albion, 
 Montreal, and Recollet ; the Albion is as good 
 as any, and guests of this house will probably 
 be dissatisfied neither with the accommodations 
 nor with the price. 
 
 Montreal, though a pleasant city, is not one 
 in which we shall care to linger a great while, 
 for the very reason that we shall here find little 
 that is novel and strange to our eyes, accustomed 
 to New England cities. Montreal is simply 
 an undersized Boston. The streets here, to 
 be sure, are not so well paved as in the " Hub," 
 neither are there as niany fine residences and 
 business houses, nor are the sidewalks as 
 crowded as in our " modern Athens ;" but the 
 5 . 
 
ee OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 same spirit of commerce and business enterprise, 
 which gives life to our own cities, has touched 
 this Canadian metropolis as well ; the quaint 
 French element is nearly swallowed up in the 
 bustling, busy Anglo-Saxon, and very creditably 
 might Montreal pass for a half-grown Boston, 
 and St. James Street or Notre Dame for a 
 juvenile Washington Street or Tremont Row. 
 There are just four sights, and only four, as far 
 as we have been able to learn, which are par- 
 ticularly worth visiting, namely : The French 
 Cathedral (Notre Dame), the Jesuit Church, 
 the Gray Nunnery, and Mount Royal, with 
 the ride around it. 
 
 The first of these attractions is certainly a 
 majestic building ; it is one, too, whose great- 
 ness grows upon you the more you look upon 
 its massive towers, and gaze down its long aisles. 
 Always open is this great church (like all the 
 Catholic churches), and always is there a 
 stream of humanity pouring through it, now 
 stopping here to touch the precious (dirty) 
 holy water, now there to bow before some cru- 
 
I/O IV TO ENJOY THEM, 6^ 
 
 cifix or image, and again to kneel at some sacred 
 shrine. 
 
 " The largest church in America, holding 
 ten thousand people," says our veracious guide- 
 book, speaking of this church, both cf which 
 statements we should be very much inclined to 
 doubt, were it allowable for a traveller to doubt 
 his guide-book. 
 
 But " No disputing the umpire," as the rule 
 is in base ball ; so " No doubting the guide- 
 book" must oftentimes be our rule in travel- 
 ling, since no higher authority presents itself by 
 way of verification. But it is not the long, dim 
 aisles, nor the burning candles and swinging 
 censers, nor yet the saints in blue and gold, 
 which make one or two hours spent in the 
 great cathedral so attractive ; but it is the liv- 
 ing stream before alluded to. 
 
 Here comes a day laborer in his blue blouse, 
 and brick-dust overalls ; close behind him fol- 
 lows a richly-dressed young lady, evidently 
 from the " upper ten" of French society. There 
 sits a pale, faded, weary-looking woman, such 
 
6S OUR .VACATIONS. 
 
 a one as we always imagine in a close, attic 
 room, with an interminable pile of plain sew- 
 ing beside her. Not far from her, perhaps, 
 sits a fat, jolly market woman, with fun and 
 laughter gleaming out of her dark French 
 eyes, though she is counting her beads so de- 
 voutly. Here and there a sleek, black-robed 
 priest is gliding silently about, waving his in- 
 cense, or praying with clasped hands for some 
 departed soul, who was so stout a sinner dur- 
 ing his lifetime that he needs an additional 
 paternoster now to free him from purgatory. 
 
 Yet all alike, priest and people, saint and 
 sinner, rich and poor, seem to worship with 
 reverence and humility ; all cross themselves 
 devoutly at the same spot, and all seem to have 
 come in from some other motive than curiosity, 
 or to see the fashions. On our way out we 
 shall be solicited to go up into one of the 
 great towers of the cathedral which mark its 
 resemblance to its namesake in Paris. The 
 magnificent view of the city which we obtain 
 from the top of the tower is well worth the 
 
BO IV TO ENJOY THEM. 69 
 
 twenty-five cents, which we are charged for an 
 entrance fee, to say nothing of a sight of the great 
 bell, which is said, and probably with truth, to 
 be the largest in the new world. This mon- 
 strous bell weighs thirty thousand pounds, and 
 to be once thrilled by its thunderous bass tones 
 is almost enough of itself to repay a visit to 
 Montreal. 
 
 The church of the Jesuits, though smaller and 
 far less imposing outside than Notre Dame, is 
 incomparably more beautiful within. 
 
 The walls and ceiling are covered with 
 frescoes representing events in the life of Christ 
 and his apostles ; and though we have heard 
 would-be artists complain, in a hypercritical 
 way, that these frescoes were mere daubs, 
 scarce worthy of a glance, yet for me and the 
 great majority of ordinary travellers whom 
 we represent, these " daubs " will appear true 
 works of art, and the church which contains 
 them, with its paintings and frescoes, and 
 brilliant windows, and numerous confessionals, 
 is a wonderful church indeed. 
 
7o OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 The Gray Nunnery is the next place we will 
 visit, and we must time it so as to reach the con- 
 vent about noon, for then the sisters will all be 
 assembled in the chapel, and we shall have a 
 better chance to peep into their meek faces, hid- 
 den away back in their stift' and spotless hoods, 
 and to see their forms of worship, than at any 
 other time. 
 
 Everything about the nunnery is immaculately 
 neat and nice, and in the uniforms of gray we 
 discover many sweet, spiritual faces, which 
 contrast favorably with the coarse features of the 
 priests, many of whom, evidently, do not consider 
 high living and good cheer incompatible with 
 their sacred office. Still, as we leave the convent, 
 a feeling of relief comes over us, as though we 
 had escaped from a chilling prison air ; and we 
 are more convinced than ever that one good 
 home fireside, with the love and happiness which 
 cluster around it, is worth more than the sanctity 
 of all the convents and nunneries in the world. 
 
 By " the mountain," in Montreal, is meant 
 Mount Royal, a sizable hill behind the city, 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 71 
 
 which, clothed with foliage to its very top, forms 
 a fine background for the city to which it gave a 
 name. 
 
 A ride around "the mountain" we shall 
 doubtless desire to take ; and then, when we have 
 spent half a day in walking about the streets, 
 admiring the few fine buildings of which Mont- 
 real is justly proud, gazing at the beautiful 
 bronze statue of the queen, and becoming ac- 
 quainted with the John Bull faces which we 
 meet, we shall be ready to step on board one of 
 the fine steamers of the Richelieu Company for 
 Qiiebec. For those who have not a round trip 
 ticket, the fare will be three dollars and fifty cents, 
 meals and berths seventy-five cents each, extra. 
 The boats run only in the night, and there will 
 naturally be a feeling of disappointment, at first, 
 at the thought of sailing through this one hundred 
 and eighty miles of St. Lawrence scenery under 
 cover of darkness ; but a glance at the monotony 
 of the low, wooded shores, which stretch all the 
 way between these two Canadian cities, will rec- 
 oncile us to the comfortable night which we shall 
 
72 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 pass in the state-rooms of the "Quebec" or 
 " Montreal." 
 
 Early the next morning the whistle will sound 
 our approach to the walled city of America ; and 
 going on deck, we find ourselves at the foot of a 
 precipice, on the top of which are perched houses, 
 and walls, and churches, and fortifications, all 
 huddled together, as though the heavens had 
 opened, some fine morning, and dropped a city 
 all ready made upon this barren rock. 
 
 As we step off the boat and into the street, 
 empty and silent as yet, it is so earl}^, we feel 
 almost awestruck, and half imagine that this is 
 an enchanted city, sleeping through its century, 
 until some Prince Perfect shall break the spell. 
 Our fancy is not so far from the truth either, for 
 the dull old city might as well be asleep, so little 
 does it improve or change from year to year. 
 
 Prince Perfect frequently arrives, however, in 
 the shape of a rich American ; and then the whole 
 city is roused from its lethargy, and sets system- 
 atically to work to fleece him. And a Col- 
 chian fleece they generally find he yields. 
 
I/O IV TO ENJOY THEM, 73 
 
 In fact, this gouging of Americans has been 
 reduced to a science in Qiiebec. We go into a 
 store for a pair of gloves. The polite clerk will 
 pocket our two dollars without remorse, while 
 for the very same article he would not think of 
 charging his Canuck customer more than half 
 that price. 
 
 The St. Louis Hotel, the only first-rate one in 
 the city, will coolly charge us three dollars and 
 fifty cents a day, and the Canadian who came on 
 the same boat with us it will charge one dollar 
 and fifty cents or two dollars. 
 
 For this reason we will not stop at the St. 
 Louis, but patronize Henchy's, a much less pre- 
 tentious house, which charges only one dollar 
 and fifty cents ^^r dietn. 
 
 A good breakfast will best prepare us for a 
 day of sight-seeing, and before w^e go out we 
 will ask our landlord what are the principal 
 sights of the city« 
 
 " The Citadel, Plains of Abraham, and the 
 Falls of Moritmorenci." he will undoubtedly 
 reply. 
 
74 
 
 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 Next we accost an Irishmen with the same 
 question. 
 
 " Can you tell us the most interesting places 
 to visit about the city?" 
 
 " Sure, an' I can. It's the Citidil, an' the Plains 
 of Abraham, and Montmorenci, that ye want to 
 say." 
 
 To a Frenchman, perhaps, we next address 
 the same interrogation. 
 
 " Monsieur would know ze chef places of in- 
 tereest. Tres bien. He moost visete ze Plains 
 of Abraham, and ze Ceetadel, — ah, ze Ceetadel 
 and ze Falls of Montmorenci." 
 
 So we conclude to visit the Citadel, the Heights 
 of Abraham, and Montmorenci Falls, and to ask 
 no more questions, since they seem to afford us 
 no additional scrap of information. 
 
 But, after all, these siglits, though necessarily 
 most written and spoken about, are not what 
 best repay us for visiting Qiiebec. 
 
 It is the indescribable air of quaintness, an- 
 tiquity, and foreignness which most attracts us — 
 the solemn stone houses, the steep roofs, and 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 75 
 
 precipitous streets, rising tier upon tier above 
 each other, in a line so nearly perpendicular, 
 that from one sidewalk you can look straight 
 down the chimneys of the houses on the street 
 below you. Then we are interested in the sur- 
 rounding wall of masonry, which every now and 
 then bounds our street, and which links this 
 only walled city of America to the mediaeval 
 towns of another continent ; and all these sights 
 conspire to remove us in spirit four thousand 
 miles to the east and four hundred years into 
 the past. 
 
 Here, too, the people are different from any 
 we have met before. Unlike Montreal and other 
 cities of the Dominion, the French element 
 largely predominates. 
 
 John Smith must here announce himself as 
 "Advocate" on one side of his office door, and 
 '" Avocat" on the other. 
 
 " Traverse de Chemin " stares at us from the 
 railroad crossings ; and we see many old friends 
 in new dresses j^osted on the fences and walls. 
 
76 OUR VACATIONS, 
 
 For instance, even if our French is rather rusty^ 
 we are not slow in recognizing "Pastilles Bron- 
 chales de Brown," or " Remedies Rapide de 
 Radway." 
 
 But while we are making all these observa- 
 tions, wise and otherwise, we may as well be on 
 our way to some point of special interest, which 
 in the first place will undoubtedly be " the 
 Citadel." 
 
 Numerous hackmen are certain to be in wait- 
 ing, as we emerge from the hotel, each urging 
 the claims of his particular vehicle upon our 
 notice, in a most persistent and obstreperous man- 
 ner ; but we shall resist their importunity if we 
 are wise, for the short walk which will take us 
 to all the historic points about the city, will be 
 pleasanter than a ride this bright morning, to say 
 nothing of the three dollars and fifty cents which 
 we shall save thereby. 
 
 Perhaps we should here say, that the hackmen 
 will try hard to make us believe that there are a 
 dozen places we want to visit in Qiiebec, and 
 will supply us with printed lists of these places. 
 
• I/O IV TO ENJOY THEM. 77 
 
 But several of these are Catholic churches, 
 which are simply imitations of Montreal cathe- 
 drals, on a much smaller and poorer scale. Still 
 there are one or two other battle-fields and 
 historic points, which .we shall like to visit before 
 leaving the city. 
 
 One card, which an importunate hackman is 
 perhaps still distributing to visitors, pathetically 
 referred to the spot " where Montgomery was 
 laid out." 
 
 Whether this designated the place where the 
 brave general was prepared for burial, or was a 
 slang expression to denote the defeat of the 
 Americans, under General Montgomery, in i776> 
 is a matter of conjecture ; yet the former expla- 
 nation is the more likely, since it is not easy to 
 believe that a joke ever found its way into or out 
 of the head of a Quebec hackman. 
 
 The Citadel is only about half a mile from our 
 hotel, in a south-westerly direction. Through a 
 long, winding way we walk, wailed in on both 
 sides by high, massive, granite fortifications, 
 while here and there we see tomb-like iron doors 
 
^8 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 opening into the bank, which are the entrances to 
 the bomb-proof magazines. 
 
 By and by we come to the arched gate-way of 
 the Citadel ; and here, if we ask permission to see 
 the fortress, the red-coated sentry will send an- 
 other red-coat to show us about the grounds. A 
 half hour spent in wandering over the Citadel 
 will give one a very good idea of " the terrible 
 enginery of war." Everything looks belligerent 
 — the massive walls, built to withstand a thousand 
 bombs, the pyramidal piles of balls and shells, 
 the glistening stacks of arms, and, above all, the 
 great guns. Just now, it is true, they are bask- 
 ing their huge black bodies in the morning sun, 
 peacefully enough ; but it is evident that at any 
 moment they are ready to belch out destruction 
 from a hundred grinning mouths upon any hos- 
 tile vessel which might attempt the passage of 
 the river. 
 
 The view from the parapet is superb. On the 
 right is Point Levis, with its fortifications, ready 
 to aid the Citadel in its deadly work. On the 
 left stretch the gently-rounded Beauport Hills ; 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 79 
 
 far away in the blue distance, and nearer at hand 
 as well, the St. Charles comes winding slowly 
 down to meet the St. Lawrence ; while directly 
 beneath our feet lies the sleepy old city, which, 
 encircled by its zigzag wall, looks as though it 
 might have remained unaltered since the day 
 when Charlevoix first landed on the banks of the 
 St. Charles, more than two and a half centuries 
 ago. 
 
 Our soldier-guide will point out, among the 
 other prison-like structures of the upper town, 
 the old Parliament Buildings and Laval Uni- 
 versity ; and we shall notice the piles of lum- 
 ber, and innumerable rafts, which give quite an 
 air of life and activity to the lower town. 
 
 In former years a very large garrison was sta- 
 tioned at Qiiebec ; but gradually the troops have 
 been withdrawn, until now only one hundred and 
 sixty red-eoats guard the Citadel. 
 
 A walk of a mile farther beyond the fortress 
 brings us to historic ground, for these level, 
 green cow-pastures, which surround us after we 
 
So OUR VACATIONS, 
 
 pass the toll-gate, are none other than the 
 far-famed " Plains of Abraham." 
 
 On the left hand side of the road is Wolfe's 
 monument, with this grandly simple inscription, 
 in memory of the hero who sleeps beneath : — 
 
 HERE DIED 
 WOLFE 
 
 VICTORIOUS 
 SEPT 13TH 1759 
 
 Very strongly does this battle-ground impress 
 us, since man has encroached but little upon 
 nature, and we look upon the same scenes that 
 saw the hostile armies of France and England 
 marshalled against each other a hundred years 
 ago and more. 
 
 Here are the same steep, slippery banks of 
 clay which the British army found it so difficult 
 to scale ; the same dark forest in the background, 
 stretching off indefinitely towards the west, and 
 the same green pastures that then drank the 
 blood of Celt and Saxon. 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 8i 
 
 Now is made clear the wisdom of not yield- 
 ing to the blandishments of the hackmen, who 
 wished to " show the sights." What pleasure 
 would there be in visiting these historic heights 
 in the company of a human parrot jabbering 
 away in broken English the story which all 
 learned in their school-days ? How could one 
 grow heroic in soul, thinking of the two great com- 
 manders who, just here, where we are standing, 
 fought so bravely and died so nobly, when all 
 the time an eternal French tongue is sounding 
 the well-learned story of their praise in one's 
 ears ! No ! No ! Let us have no guides or 
 hackmen about us at such a place. 
 
 In the heart of the city stands a granite shaft, 
 inscribed on one side with the name of Mont- 
 calm ; on the other with that of Wolfe. Thus 
 most appropriately has a single monument been 
 erected to the two hostile generals, whose equal 
 courage, patriotism, and skill deserve the same 
 memorial. The inscription on the monument 
 reads, — 
 
 6 
 
82 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 MORTEM. VIRTVS. COMMVNEM. 
 
 FAMAM. HISTORIA. 
 MONVMENTVM. POSTERITAS. 
 DEDIT.* 
 
 To vary our route back to the city, we can cut 
 across the fields to the St. Foy road, which runs 
 parallel with the St. Louis, by which we came 
 out. 
 
 About a mile from the city, on the St. Foy 
 road, is an iron pillar, surmounted by a bronze 
 statue, raised to commemorate the resting-place 
 of a number of French soldiers, whose bones, a 
 few years ago, were collected and placed beneath 
 this monument. 
 
 Now we have seen two of the lions of Que- 
 bec ; but the Falls of Montmorenci remain to be 
 visited, before we can conscientiously say, " Veni, 
 vidi." These famous falls are eight miles from 
 the city ; and the best way of getting there is by 
 chartering one of the strange-looking vehicles 
 
 * Their valor caused their death ; History gave them 
 equal renown; Posterity a monument. 
 
ffOIV TO ENJOY THEM. 83 
 
 called calashes. The driver will charge us a dol- 
 lar and a half for the ride to the falls, if we make 
 a bargain with him in advance, and the novel sen- 
 sation of a calash-ride will be fully worth the 
 money, to say nothing of the waterfall for which 
 we are bound. 
 
 To vary a well-known apothegm, " Show 
 me the carriages of a people, and I will tell you 
 of their civilization." The calasli, used no- 
 where in America except in Quebec, shows 
 plainly that the old city has dropped behind the 
 rest of the world a hundred years, and still 
 belongs to the eighteenth century. This anti- 
 quated vehicle has two wheels, which make up 
 in size for an}" lack in number, and two seats, 
 one narrow one for the driver in front, and 
 another one behind, broader, and very high, for 
 the passengers. 
 
 With a hop, skip, and jump we manage to 
 reach our elevated perch behind the driver. 
 The person who has never been in one before, at 
 first holds on to the sides for dear life, im.agining 
 that he is riding on a camel's hump, or up in a 
 
84 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 balloon, or anywhere, indeed, but in a sober, old- 
 fashioned carriage, much more antiquated than 
 the deacon's one-horse shay. But after being 
 bounced and jolted safely through a hundred 
 mud-holes, with which the wretched streets of 
 Quebec are filled, he begins to gain confidence, 
 and quite to enjoy his elevated position. The 
 raw-boned nag shows his best paces under a vig- 
 orous application of the driver's whip, and we 
 bounce out of the city, and over the substantial 
 bridge which spans the St. Charles, in quite a 
 lively manner. 
 
 The country all along the route seems very 
 fertile and well cultivated, while the scenery is 
 magnificent. On one side rise the lovely hills 
 of Beauport, on the other rolls the broad, irre- 
 sistible current of the great river. Occasionally 
 the French driver, if we are so unfortunate as to 
 have one, ventures an unintelligible remark of 
 explanation, and we return a grunt that is meant 
 to be appreciative ; but, on the whole, efforts at 
 conversation with him are failures, and we soon 
 relapse into complete silence. 
 
HO IV TO ENJOY THEM. 85 
 
 This is not wholly a misfortune, however ; for 
 there is plenty to interest and amuse by the road- 
 side — the queer little stone cottages, with steep 
 roofs turned up near the eaves ; the gaudy little 
 churches, evidently the objects of much respect 
 and veneration ; the crosses and crucifixes by the 
 roadside ; the women in the fields working out a 
 practical solution of the w^oman's rights question, 
 while their husbands, loafing quietly at home, sit 
 on their doorsteps, engaged in the arduous duty 
 of smoking dirty clay pipes. 
 
 Indeed, the women here seem to do all the 
 work, from tending the baby to ploughing the 
 cornfield ; and of the hundred field laborers 
 whom we shall see between Quebec and Mont- 
 morenci, probably nine tenths of them will be 
 brawny Amazons. 
 
 Another thing which will strike the stranger 
 as singular will be the great number of beggars 
 of all ages and descriptions. The aptitude of the 
 Latin races for begging is wonderful. With 
 them anything which will excite the sympathy 
 pf a stranger is invaluable. 
 
S6 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 A club foot or hunch back is a fortune in itself, 
 while a wooden leg or a blind eye is just so much 
 stock in trade. 
 
 From a dozen houses along the road, little girls 
 will emerge with a glass of water in one hand 
 and a worthless bouquet of dandelions and white- 
 weed in the other, hoping that we shall drink the 
 water, and then feel obliged to buy the bouquet 
 with a ninepence or a shilling. Little boys will 
 run before the calash for rods, holding out 
 chubby hands in a beseeching manner, while 
 stout men will sit in their doorways, and present 
 their hats, as we ride by, with the most perfect 
 " sick-wife-and-seven-fatherless-children " expres- 
 sion on their faces that was ever invented. 
 
 After about an hour's ride, our calash will 
 draw up in front of one of the French cottages, 
 and after registering our names within, a small 
 boy will be sent to show us the falls. 
 
 Not that a small boy is at all necessary ; on the 
 other hand, he is a decided nuisance, since he 
 speaks nothing but French, and our attempts to 
 find out the height of the falls, or the length of the 
 
HO IV TO ENJOY THEM. S'/ 
 
 river, or any other little item, is a most aggravat- 
 ing failure ; but, then, we are expected to give our 
 mite of a guide a silver bit when we leave him, 
 and this imposition is of a piece with a dozen 
 other extortions which will be practised. 
 
 For, say what you will about Yankee shrewd- 
 ness and greed of gain. Brother Jonathan is far 
 outdone, in this respect, by his cousin across the 
 line. 
 
 For instance, though we pay our driver a 
 good price for our ride, he obliges us to pay all 
 the tolls over the bridges and turnpikes ; then, 
 when we reach the falls, a quarter of a dollar is 
 demanded before we can enter the narrow gate 
 which is the only entrance to the cataract ; neither 
 is our Jehu satisfied yet with the fleece he has 
 plucked, but, when he has at length landed us 
 safely in Qiiebec, and we come to settle for our ca- 
 lash, he demands, with a piteous whine, that w^e 
 " remember the driver," which we assure him we 
 will do to our dying day, and never hire him again, 
 should we come to Qiiebec a thousand times. 
 
 However, when we actually catch a glimpse 
 
88 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 of the charming Montmorenci Fall, our annoy- 
 ances \yill disappear with the mist which rises 
 from the cataract's foot. 
 
 A leap of two hundred and fifty feet sheer 
 down does the Montmorenci take over the ledge 
 of friable stone, unbroken by a single projecting 
 rock, while at the base of the ledge the little 
 river is entirely broken up and lost in a seeth- 
 ing caldron of foam and spray, and rainbow 
 colored mist, part of which rises up again two 
 hundred and fifty feet, to the bank above, seek- 
 ing the spot from which it fell. 
 
 Soon, however, the river recovers from its fall, 
 collects its scattered forces, and flows on quietly 
 enough to the broad St. Lawrence, which waits 
 for it only a fe\y rods below. 
 
 Having seen the falls, we are ready to bid 
 good by to Qiiebec, unless we care to spend 
 another day in the cathedrals and convents, view- 
 ing the relics of departed saints, and the wor- 
 ship paid them by living sinners. 
 
 We shall be strongly tempted now, unless 
 our purse is already much exhausted, to turn our 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 89 
 
 faces northward and Saguenay-ward. A visit to 
 the Saguenay would add about fifteen dollars to 
 our expenses ; but the trip need not be described, 
 since much has recently been written upon it, 
 and since the present plan is to visit another 
 section of the Dominion. 
 
 And now, the excursion to Montreal and Que- 
 bec being finished, and as we do not mean to 
 '• go it blind " in regard to our financial con- 
 dition, let us reckon up what this vacation in 
 Canada has cost. Here are the items : — 
 
 Ticket to Montreal, Quebec, and return, $32.00 
 
 Hotel bill at Montreal, for four days, . . 8.00 
 
 " " Quebec, for three days, . . 4.50 
 
 Incidental expenses, including carriage 
 
 hire, meals, and berths on cars, and 
 
 boats, &c., &c., discount, &c., .... 15.00 
 
 Making our total expenses for a trip of 
 
 ten days, in Canada, $49-5<^ 
 
 For about the same expense can one spend 
 
go OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 another vacation in the new Dominion, turning 
 westward, instead of eastward, from Montreal. 
 Though this route has not yet become so pop- 
 ular with pleasure-seekers as the one just de- 
 scribed, perhaps it possesses even greater attrac- 
 tions for many, since it shows more of the 
 wonderful river scenery of Canada, and the 
 newer and more enterprising sections of the 
 Dominion. 
 
 This excursion, moreover, will introduce us to 
 the Canadian capital, and to the greatest lumber 
 region of the world, as well as to the exciting 
 sport of running the rapids of the St. Lawrence, 
 on our way back to Montreal. 
 
 Early in the morning, if we decide in favor of 
 the Ottawa trip, we shall take the cars at the 
 Grand Trunk station, on Bonaventure Street, 
 Montreal ; and seven miles from the city, the cars 
 will transfer their freight to the trim little 
 steamer, which is here waiting to take us half 
 v^ay to Ottawa. Soon we shall be ploughing 
 our way through the turbid waters of the Ottawa, 
 which look about the color of muddv cider. 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 91 
 
 If we were not in a country of great rivers, the 
 Ottawa itself would be a standing marvel, for 
 there are very few rivers in the world that out- 
 rank it in size. 
 
 Noted for its great volume and the impetuos- 
 ity of its course, it sweeps down for hundreds 
 and hundreds of miles from its undiscovered 
 source in the far north. For more than a thou- 
 sand miles from its union with the St. Lawrence 
 have explorers traced its course, and yet its head 
 waters have never been reached, and it is not 
 certainly known whether the Indian tradition 
 that it rises in a great lake, as large as Lake 
 Huron, is true or false. 
 
 No wonder that in the Indian tongue this 
 mighty stream is called the Kitchesippi, or great 
 river. 
 
 Soon after taking the steamer, we reach the old 
 French town of St. Anne's, with its big church 
 and little houses ; and, to avoid a rapid, we here 
 have to pass through a lock, during which rather 
 slow operation, we have a good chance to see 
 this old-fashioned village, and a large proportion 
 
92 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 of its inhabitants, who tnake an unfailing pil- 
 grimage to the wharf to see the great event of 
 the day — the arrival of the boat. 
 
 Here at St. Anne's it is said that the poet 
 Moore wrote his immortal Canadian Boat Song, 
 the chorus of which — 
 
 *' Row, brothers, row; the stream runs fast; 
 The rapids are near and the daylight's past" — 
 
 is so familiar to all. Surely the lovely scene of 
 river and rapids, green islands and fields, and 
 gently-sloping hills, which the poet looked out 
 itpon from St. Anne's, was enough to inspire a 
 more prosaic soul than Tom Moore's. 
 
 One of the most noticeable features of our ride 
 up the Ottawa is the immense amount of lum- 
 ber floating down the river, both in rafts of 
 rough logs and barges piled with boards. Per- 
 h'aps a short account of this greatest industry of 
 Northern Canada will not be uninteresting. 
 
 The first step of the lumberman is to secure 
 of the government, which owns most of the 
 timber-land of Canada, a berth, or limit of wood- 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM, 93 
 
 land, on the Upper Ottawa, or on one of its tribu- 
 taries. 
 
 These limits are sold by auction for a merely 
 nominal price, something like a dollar or a dol- 
 lar and a half per square mile. 
 
 A limit, which usually comprises about a hun- 
 dred square miles, having been secured, Indian 
 scouts are sent out to find and mark the position 
 of the best pine grove in the tract. 
 
 When the cold weather actually sets in, an 
 army of five or six hundred lumbermen is de- 
 spatched to this limit, and then from October to 
 April the woods are merry enough with th« 
 cheery ring of the axe, and the shout of the 
 many teamsters. 
 
 On first reaching the limit, a rough shanty of 
 logs is built, with a double row of berths around 
 the sides, a raised fireplace in the centre, and an 
 opening in the roof which serves as a chimney. 
 And this rough hover gives a name to everything 
 connected with lumbering. For instance, " shan- 
 tying," in common parlance, means lumbering ; 
 " going up to shanty " is going to the lumber 
 
• 
 
 94 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 camp. Lumbermen, in this "shanty dialect," 
 are " shanty men," and the horses they take with 
 them are " shanty horses."' 
 
 The domestic economy of the shanty is con- 
 ducted on very simple, and, withal, strictly tem- 
 perance principles. 
 
 The staple articles of diet are fat salt pork 
 and doughnuts, while tea is the universal bever- 
 age. But such tea ! — it does not even bear a 
 family resemblance to the delicious drink of a 
 well-ordered supper table. Such tea would be 
 no more appreciated by the rough palate of a 
 *' shanty man," than would a Parker House din- 
 ner by a Mississippi alligator. 
 
 Would you know the recipe for shanty tea.? 
 
 In a pot of cold water place two heaping 
 handfuls of tea, hang it on the crane over the fire, 
 and let it boil — not simmer, but actually boil — 
 for half an hour ; then sweeten with molasses, 
 and you have the favorite drink of the Canadian 
 lumbermen. 
 
 Some of the supplies which are required by a 
 gang of six hundred men throughout the winter 
 are as follows : — 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 95 
 
 825 barrels of pork, 
 900 barrels of flour, 
 7,500 pounds of tea, 
 3,650 gallons of sirup, 
 6,000 pounds of tobacco, 
 375 dogs, 
 
 225 sleds, &c., &c., 
 the whole, costing over fifty thousand dollars, at 
 a low estimate. 
 
 When spring comes, the logs are hauled to the 
 nearest stream, and then floated down, through 
 various tributaries, perhaps, until at length they 
 reach the broad Ottawa. 
 
 When the rafts reach the Chaudiere, near Ot- 
 tawa City, they are caught by a boom ; and in 
 the immense steam saw-mills which here line the 
 river, they are speedily converted into the build- 
 ing-material of the world. 
 
 Now that we know something of the history 
 of the rafts and lumber scows which dot the 
 river on every side, let us pay attention to the 
 scenery through which we are passing. Noth- 
 ing very striking or grand shall we see ; but still 
 
96 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 the quiet beauty of the scene, which is ever un- 
 folding to us, will make this day, spent on the 
 forward deck of the Ottawa steamer, a red-letter 
 day in our Canadian journey. 
 
 On the right are the green fields and log huts 
 of the Province of Quebec, and on the left the 
 log huts and green fields of the Province of On- 
 tario, with little of the wonderful difference 
 in the opposite banks observable which many 
 travellers imagine they see in favor of Protes- 
 tant Ontario, and to the disadvantage of Catholic 
 QLiebec. 
 
 A single glance at either shore, however, 
 would convince us that we were not passing 
 through any part of Yankee land, such an 
 air of shiftlessness and general debility is every- 
 where noticeable. 
 
 We have been told, too, that the superstitious 
 ignorance of dwellers in these backwood settle- 
 ments is perfectly marvellous, for this boasted 
 nineteenth century of enlightenment. Not long 
 ago an approaching comet and the predictions 
 of an ignorant priest threw most of the inhabit- 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM, 97 
 
 ants of a large Canadian village into consterna- 
 tion, and fully impressed the whole community 
 with the belief that the day of judgment was 
 appointed for exactly five minutes past ten of a 
 bright May morning. 
 
 It was less than two years ago that in another 
 priest-ridden village of the Province of Quebec, 
 a nun, of a prophetic turn of mind, announced 
 that there would soon be three days of total 
 darkness, when not only the sun and moon 
 would be darkened, and the stars would refuse 
 to give their light, but even lamps and fires 
 could not be prevailed upon to burn , and only 
 wax candles which had been blessed by the 
 priest would give light. 
 
 In consequence of this startling prophecy the 
 merchants of the place drove a flourishing trade 
 in wax candles, the priests filled their pockets 
 with consecration money, and all waited in 
 dread expectancy for the dark days. The ap- 
 pointed days came ; but the sun and moon, 
 lamps and fires, all shone as brightly as ever. 
 The reputation of the prophetic nun was fast 
 7 
 
98 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 sinking below par, when, by a fortunate chance, 
 a tremendous thunder shower arose one night. 
 
 Forthwith all good Catholics arose and lighted 
 their consecrated tapers ; and — inirabile dictu 
 — in the course of an hour or two the storm abat- 
 ed, and soon entirely ceased. 
 
 Moreover, one devout sister, more zealous than 
 the rest, besides lighting her candle, sprinkled 
 her furniture and carpets with a liberal supply 
 of what she supposed was holy water ; but im- 
 agine her horror, and the state of her furniture, 
 when she found the next morning, that she had 
 made a mistake, and in her trepidation of the 
 previous night, had used the bottle of hair oil 
 instead of the flask of holy water. 
 
 Nevertheless, the prophetic character of the 
 holy nun was established beyond a doubt, though 
 her prediction had not been quite carried out in 
 all its details ; and all pious Catholics blessed 
 their stars, and crossed themselves an extra time, 
 when they thought of the great deliverance 
 which their holy candles had wrought out for 
 them. 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 99 
 
 But we were steaming up the Ottawa River — ■ 
 were we not? About half way between Mont- 
 real and Ottawa the Long Sault Rapids will ob- 
 struct our further progress by steamer, and we 
 shall be obliged to take to the rails for a few 
 miles. Grenville and Carillon are the termini, 
 and only two stations of the road, and the single 
 car which this railroad boasts might, to all ap- 
 pearances, have served George Stevenson on his 
 first trial trip. An ancient conductor, in a bat- 
 tered beaver hat, of at least seventy summers, 
 (these figures, by the way, will apply, with great 
 truth, either to the conductor or his hat), punches 
 our tickets ; a venerable brakeman turns the 
 crank, while the engine puffs and wheezes as 
 though it, too, were afflicted with old age and de- 
 crepitude. But it bears us safely around the rap- 
 ids, and according to the principle of the old prov- 
 erb, we should not speak ill of such a train. It is 
 possible, too, that in its onward march improve- 
 ment has by this time reached even the Gren- 
 ville and Carillon Railroad. In justice it should 
 be said that, in spite of their unprofessional ap- 
 
lOO OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 pearance, the officials of this little road afford a 
 most pleasing contrast, in point of politeness and 
 kindness, to many of the conductors and brake- 
 men of larger roads that might be mentioned. 
 
 At Carillon another steamer is in waiting, new, 
 and finely furnished, and comparatively large ; 
 in short, worthy of her name, in every particu- 
 lar, is the " Peerless." 
 
 By more green fields and log huts we steam, 
 with the sombre pine forests stretching away 
 for hundreds of miles in the distance, until 
 at length, just twelve hours after leaving the 
 wharf at Montreal, we glide under the lee of 
 the high, rocky bluff on which the Canadian 
 capital is built. 
 
 As usual, the first inquiry upon I'eaching a 
 new city will be for a hotel. As usual too, in 
 Canadian cities the highest priced, which in 
 Ottawa happens to be the Russell House, is far 
 from first-class, and but little superior to the 
 more moderate houses. At either the Albion 
 or the Daniels the charges are not more than 
 two dollars per dayycr Americans. 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. loi 
 
 One of the strangest freaks of modern legis- 
 lators, in the opinion of many, was the establish- 
 ment of the cajDital of British America at " half- 
 barbarous Ottawa," as a recent writer calls this 
 bright little city. 
 
 But when we have taken a stroll over the city, 
 it will not seem such a very bad place for a 
 capital, after all ; and we shall be apt to think as 
 favorably of the judgment of those who selected 
 this site as of the man who has presumed to call 
 this pretty city " half-barbarous Ottawa." Hand- 
 some blocks of brick and brown stone line the 
 principals streets, and tasteful private residences 
 give anything but an uncivilized aspect to the 
 outskirts of the city. 
 
 Northern belles, with sparkling eyes and rosy 
 cheeks, promenade the streets, in company with 
 the nobbiest of young men who sport Malacca 
 canes and blonde side-whiskers in the most 
 approved Canuck style ; while many govern- 
 ment officials are galloping to and from the 
 Parliament buildings, with a condescending air 
 and rigidity of back-bone that no one but an 
 
I02 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 Englishman who is conscious of cutting a swell 
 can assume. 
 
 Even we shall probably be obliged to confess 
 to a feeling a little too near admiration to be in 
 strict accordance with our republican principles 
 and training, when we are informed by the awe- 
 stricken voice of a native, as we very likely shall 
 be, that his lordship, the governor general, is 
 passing on horseback. 
 
 A little story will illustrate the curious gyra- 
 tions which the wheel of fortune sometimes 
 makes, and at the same time explain why this 
 main street of Ottawa, up and down which we 
 have been pacing, is called Sparks Street. It 
 has been expanded into a very pretty tale in an 
 old number of one of our popular magazines, 
 but as it is hardly supposable that everybody has 
 complete files of Harper, we will give here an 
 outline of the story. 
 
 Some fourscore years ago an adventurous and 
 sharp-sighted Yankee, named Wright, wandered 
 up into this part of the world, which was then 
 an untrodden wilderness for near a hundred miles 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 103 
 
 on every side. When this keen, speculative son 
 of the Puritans saw the rich lands just across the 
 river from where Ottawa now stands, he saw at 
 the same time (in his mind's eye) a thriving vil- 
 lage on this very spot, of which a happy old man 
 by the name of Wright was the founder as well 
 as Grand Mogul. In short, here, on the banks 
 of the river, he decided to raise his Ebenezer, as 
 the hymn has it, or, in plain Canuck, to build a 
 shanty. And this shanty, with numerous other 
 shanties which soon grouped themselves about it, 
 he called Hull, after the dull little sea-coast 
 village, so familiar to Bostonians, from which he 
 had emigrated. 
 
 Now, Mr. Wright waxed great and increased 
 in goods, as he deserved to do, and had many 
 lusty Irishmen to work for him. Among others 
 was one who bore the suggestive patronymic 
 Sparks. Nevertheless, Mr. Sparks's character 
 was in no wise suggested by his name, whether 
 that name brings to mind the love-lorn Bene- 
 dict, or merely gives a general impression of 
 brightness and instability. On the other hand, Mr. 
 
I04 
 
 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 Sparks was a model of steadiness and good 
 sense, knowing when he had made a good 
 bargain, and very sure that he was on the losing 
 side, when, at the end of the year, Mr. Wright 
 told him that he couldn't pay him for his year's 
 work in money, but that he must take his pay 
 out in land across the river. 
 
 No, there was no help for it; money was 
 tighter in Hull or Wrightsville than it is on Wall 
 Street in a panic, and Mr. Wright was obliged to 
 suspend specie payment entirely, and friend Sparks 
 had his choice of taking any number of acres 
 across the river for his pay, or nothing at all. At 
 first he did flare up, to be sure, — as what spark 
 would not? — when blown upon by such a gale 
 of ill-luck, and he called St. Patrick to witness 
 that those acres across the river were not worth 
 a picayune, or a continental, or whatever hap- 
 pened to be the popular expression for worthless- 
 ness in the year i8— ; and moreover he went on 
 to remark that it was a crying sin to pay a man 
 in such valueless commodity as Canadian wilder- 
 ness, and that the more a man had of it, the 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 105 
 
 worse off he was, etc. But he was a good, sen- 
 sible man at bottom, and concluded, as Mr. 
 Wright showed no signs of " resuming," to take 
 a pair of oxen for his season's work, with about 
 two hundred acres across the river, thrown in as 
 a clincher. The years rolled on, and fortune's 
 whirligig revolved as well ; Wrightstown, how- 
 ever, followed the example of neither time nor 
 fortune, but came to a complete stand-still. On 
 the other hand, the rocky pastures on the other 
 side of the river began to show signs of life ; 
 first one shanty went up, then another ; then 
 some soldiers' barracks were reared, and a 
 frame house soon followed them. By and by 
 it began to be whispered that the government 
 had decided to establish there an important 
 military post, and that a great canal was to be 
 dug right through Sparks's worthless wilder- 
 ness. After all, Sparks began to think " that 
 wasn't such a bad year's work," and, as the 
 money flowed in upon him faster and faster 
 every year, he became more and more assured 
 of the truth of this conviction. 
 
io6 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 But you know, or can guess, the rest — how 
 Ottawa grew, and how friend Sparks grew with 
 it ; how he developed from Sparks the day- 
 laborer into the Hon. Mr. Sparks the million- 
 aire ; and you can doubtless imagine a rotund, 
 hearty old man pacing up and down the 
 handsome, busy street to which he had given 
 his name, and recalling that year, long ago, 
 when he worked for Mr. Wright and received 
 a pair of oxen and — well, a little matter of 
 land " across the river.'* 
 
 And how about Mr. Wright and his village? 
 
 Very little indeed, for there is Hull to this 
 day about as dead and dull as its namesake 
 of Massachusetts Bay. 
 
 But as to the modern city — Ottawa. It 
 might be emphatically called the Lumber City 
 of America. Indeed, the lumber trade is the 
 great and only distinguishing business of this 
 whole region. 
 
 From the high bluff on which the city is 
 built, you look down upon hundreds of acres 
 piled fifteen and twent}^ feet high with sawn 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 107 
 
 lumber, while the immense mills which here line 
 the river, busy night and day, are ever humming 
 their song of industry and wealth. 
 
 It is said that, almost without exception, these 
 great establishments are owned by " American" 
 capital and managed by Yankee skill. 
 
 When we visit the lower part of the city to 
 inspect the mills and lumber-yards, we shall 
 at the same time admire the wonderful falls of 
 the Chaudiere. 
 
 Very few rivals and scarce any superiors have 
 these falls in the country. 
 
 Though the descent is not great, the vast 
 volume of roaring, boiling water which tumbles 
 over the rough ledge makes the Chaudiere no 
 ordinary waterfall. 
 
 In the upper part of the city is situated the 
 great attraction of Ottawa — the Parliament 
 buildings. 
 
 These are really very fine, " the most magnifi- 
 cent on the face of the earth," any Canadian 
 within a radius of forty miles will tell you ; 
 and though we may be disposed to take his 
 
loS OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 statement cum gi'aiio salis^ we can readily ex- 
 cuse his pride in his capitol. 
 
 The buildings enclose three sides of a quad- 
 rangle, and are built principally of a rough 
 brown stone found in that region, and deeply 
 trimmed with Ohio sandstone. 
 
 The architecture is Gothic modified to suit the 
 cold Canadian climate, and the buildings have 
 all a wonderful air of taste and symmetry about 
 them, whether viewed near at hand or at a dis- 
 tance ; for the clear-cut outlines of the many 
 turrets and the glittering of the numberless gilded 
 spires can be seen miles away, in that pure at- 
 mosphere. 
 
 The inside, too, well corresponds with the fair 
 exterior, and anything finer than the halls and cor- 
 ridors, legislative apartments, and general offices 
 of the Canadian capitol is seldom to be seen. 
 The main central building contains the chambers 
 of the Senate and House of Commons. They 
 are tastefully and richly upholstered and fur- 
 nished ; the corridors are hung with paintings of 
 the past governor-generals and distinguished men 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 109 
 
 of the provinces ; while the sandstone pillars 
 which support the building are richly sculptured 
 With representations of the animal and vegetable 
 productions of the Dominion. 
 
 Of the buildings on the sides of the quadran- 
 gle, one is taken up with the general offices of 
 government, while the other is devoted in part 
 to the Patent Office, where we can pass two or 
 three very pleasant hours among the various 
 children of the inventors' brain ; some valuable, 
 others worthless, some accepted and patented, 
 others rejected. How much care, and toil, and 
 patience, how many trembling hopes and satisfied 
 desires, and ruined plans for wealth and honor, 
 are hidden away in the cases and on the tables 
 of a Patent Office ! 
 
 Now, what else is there to see? The guide- 
 book, hotel-keeper, and " we " your self-appoint- 
 ed mentor, all answer, " Nothing." On our 
 homeward journey, let us, witli your permission, 
 take the most delightful and exciting steamboat 
 ride which the country affords — the trip down 
 the river, through the rapids of the St. Law- 
 
no OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 rence ; that is, if we can pierce the Boeotian 
 intellects of the Ottawa Railway officials, suffi- 
 ciently to find when the train for Prescott leav-ea. 
 
 The fare to Prescott, the southern terminus of 
 the St. Lawrence and Ottawa Railroad, is two 
 dollars, and the fifty-four miles of this road run 
 through one of the most desolate, barren, stumpy, 
 swampy, in short (for an ordinary stock of adjec- 
 tives is exhausted in attempting to describe it), 
 utterly forsaken regions on the face of the globe. 
 The scenery is a continuous succession of 
 swampy lowlands and burnt forests, where the 
 dead trees rear their bare, gaunt limbs to heaven 
 in a ghostly, dreary way. The fact is, the coun- 
 try between Prescott and Ottawa, in the matter 
 of dead forest trunks, might easily " stump " the 
 world. 
 
 We shall not have a great while to wait at 
 Prescott, if the steamer is on time ; and not long 
 after swinging clear of the wharf, we reach the 
 Long Sault Rapids of the St. Lawrence, which 
 continue for nine miles. 
 
 But we mustn't be disappointed because this 
 
HOIV TO ENJOY THEM. m 
 
 little ripple and eddy which we see is the Long 
 Sault of which we have heard and dreamed so 
 much. We shall come to the rapids in good 
 earnest pretty soon. 
 
 There, do you see that seething, boiling, rush- 
 ing, white-capped mass of angry waves, just 
 ahead of us? That begins to meet your antici- 
 pations — does it not.-* 
 
 Now we are in the midst of the turbulent 
 waters. How the steamer rocks and careens ! 
 Now down, down, down in a watery valley, 
 now up on a billowy hill. How she shakes, and 
 shivers, and groans, as though hit by a cannon 
 ball, when she broaches to ever so little, and a 
 billow taps her broadside ever so gently ! 
 
 Don't let her broach to much more, pilot, or 
 one of these sledge-hammer waves will shiver 
 her to splinters in a twinkling. Though, in fact, 
 accidents rarely occur, this shooting the rapids 
 is not without real excitement and danger. 
 
 This we can read in the captain's anxious face 
 as he nervously paces the upper deck just under 
 the wheel-house. Then we must have four ex- 
 
112 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 perienced pilots at the wheel, and four more at 
 the tiller ; eight pairs of sharp eyes on the foam- 
 ing rapids, and the narrow channel through 
 them ; eight pairs of muscular arms directing 
 the rudders. These show the skill and force it 
 requires to run the St. Lawrence Rapids. And 
 here we are o^lidino: out into still water. Were 
 you afraid? O, no! You scorn the imputation. 
 But then you are rather glad the Long Sault is 
 safely passed. 
 
 The scenery on either bank is ver}^ pleasing ; 
 the shores are hard and well defined, not 
 swampy and reedy, as the banks of the Ottawa ; 
 the settlements, too, on both sides of us, look 
 more prosperous than those farther north. 
 
 Cornwall is a busy, thriving place, on the 
 Canadian shore ; and just below lies the old In- 
 dian village of St. Regis, with its old-fashioned 
 church and its historic bell. 
 
 Many a romantic tale could the tongue of this 
 old bell ring out if it were so disposed. In the 
 first place, it was made in France, and bought 
 by the St. Regis Indians, who were converts to 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 
 
 Christianity, for their new church. While on its 
 way to its new home, on the banks of the St. 
 Lawrence, it was captured by an American pri- 
 vateer, and taken to Salem. 
 
 Soon after, it was bought and hung in the old 
 Orthodox Church of Deerfield. What a different 
 call you rung out then, old bell, when you sum- 
 moned the good deacons and sturdy Puritans of 
 Deerfield to Sabbath worship, from what was 
 expected of you when you were cast in sunny 
 France ! 
 
 But this bell was never destined for an Ortho- 
 dox meeting-house ; for soon the Indians, hearing 
 of its Protestant occupation, formed an expedi- 
 tion for its recovery, which resulted in the 
 horrible Deerfield butchery, and the recapture of 
 the bell, which they bore back in triumph to St. 
 Regis. 
 
 Eleven more rapids (great and small) we shall 
 run before reaching Montreal. 
 
 But at length, near evening, we steam up to 
 the busy quays of the Mount Royal city. Our 
 8 
 
114 ^^^ VACATIONS. 
 
 circle of Canadian travel is completed, and our 
 forty-five dollars are nearly gone, as well. 
 
 Which do you prefer, gentlemen, Montreal 
 and Q^iebec, or Montreal, Ottawa, and the St. 
 Lawrence Rapids? 
 
 " You pays your money, and you takes your 
 choice." 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 115 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE TENT ON THE BEACH. 
 
 Now, reader^ since j^ou have climbed the 
 rocky steeps of the White Hills with us, and 
 wandered through the cities and up and down 
 the rivers of the New Dominion in our com- 
 pany, we begin to feel quite familiar with you ; 
 and so we make bold to say, " Come to the 
 sea-shore, and spend a week in our tent on the 
 beach." 
 
 We do not expect to tell anything that is new 
 about tent life to you, whose canvas has often 
 whitened Cape Cod's sands or Cape Ann's 
 rocks ; but this chapter is for the thousands 
 who yearly swelter through the dog days be- 
 tween the brick walls of a city, or in some 
 blistering inland village, utterly unconscious that 
 
11 6 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 the cool breezes of the sea and the delights 
 of camp life may be enjoyed for the same five- 
 dollar bill which perchance only half purchases 
 for them the privilege of existing at home, 
 where the mercury ranges among the nineties. 
 
 Even for those who think they have not brawn 
 enough to make mountaineers, or a sufficient 
 supply of the " needful " to take the journey 
 to Canada, this method of spending the vaca- 
 tion is perfectly feasible, and they will find it 
 fully as enjoyable as either of the others. 
 
 Then, ho for the sea-shore ! 
 
 Our outfit for the beach will be very similar 
 to the one we had in the mountains, barring 
 of course our horse and wagon. 
 
 The chief modifications are, that we shall not 
 need to take so large a supply of ham and hard 
 tack, since, if we are skilful anglers, our hooks 
 will furnish us plenty of fresh fish, and we can 
 doubtless rely on some passing baker's cart, or 
 upon the neighboring country store, to supply us 
 with the staff of life. 
 
 In other respects, as regards our tent, hard- 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. ny 
 
 ware and tinware, stove, and minor provisions, we 
 cannot do better, perhaps, than to follow our old 
 plan in the mountain campaign. 
 
 Now, where shall we go? is the next question. 
 
 Not that there is any lack of camping-grounds ; 
 on the other hand, the difficulty lies in choosing 
 between the many equally attractive spots with 
 which our New England coast abounds. 
 
 Thus Nantasket, Cohasset, and Chelsea offer 
 their quiet attractions to the lovers of hard, 
 sandy beaches and surf-bathing. Then Nahant, 
 with its long neck of sand, its cliffs and sterile, 
 rocky promontories, presents varied delights to 
 the pleasure-seeker. 
 
 If we desire to get farther out of the busy 
 harbor, and more into the arms of old Ocean 
 himself, we can find few pleasanter places 
 to spread our canvas than the region about 
 Gloucester ; and- the whole coast of Maine af- 
 fords excellent tenting-grounds if our place 
 of residence or our inclinations lead us to the 
 Pine Tree State. 
 
 The great drawback to the places first men- 
 
OUR VACATIONS, 
 
 tioned is, that they are fast becoming too com- 
 mon resorts for pleasure-seekers, so that nature 
 is almost lost in the crowd of fashionables who 
 yearly throng the sands of Nantasket and the 
 headlands of Nahant, and, what with gardens, 
 and fountains, and elegant residences, the places 
 begin to resemble artificial parks. On the 
 whole, then, let us vote for some spot in the 
 neighborhood of Gloucester as combining the 
 three requisites of camp life — good fishing, 
 good bathing, and good scener}^ 
 
 But, of course, wherever our party votes to go, 
 we will loyally follow, w^iether it is to Cape Cod 
 or Cape Ann, Massachusetts Bay or Passama- 
 quoddy. We simply mention Gloucester as a 
 definite place for the benefit of the anxious and 
 aimless who want a summer vacation, and yet 
 know not where to pitch their tent. 
 
 Now, if we have by this time reached our 
 camping-ground, up goes our tent in a trice, 
 with the opening to the sea, that we may get the 
 benefit of the afternoon breeze and the glorious 
 view of old Ocean. 
 
HOIV TO ENJOY THEM. 119 
 
 We should, if possible, too, choose an airy 
 spot, at some distance from a grove of trees, for 
 there we may hope to be free from that pest of 
 camp life, the mosquito. 
 
 While we are making everything tight and 
 tidy inside and out, a committee of two should 
 be detailed to dig a trench, eight or ten inches 
 deep, around the tent, to prevent our being 
 drowned out, should a rainy day or a sharp 
 thunder-shower visit us. 
 
 A sleeping-place for the night is now pro- 
 vided, and a certain aching void beneath our 
 belts asserts its right to be considered next ; so 
 we all seize our poles and rush for the rocks, 
 with a realizing sense of working for our sup- 
 pers that we have never before experienced. 
 
 Fishing-poles and lines we can doubtless se- 
 cure from any one of the many little public 
 houses along the shore at a moderate rental, and 
 at the same place we can get a basket of clams, 
 which will serve us for bait this afternoon. 
 
 When we have learned the way of cunners, 
 which in the sinful trick of taking the bait with- 
 
I20 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 out getting caught are past finding out, we shall 
 discard clams for bait, and use sea worms, which 
 we can find in great quantities by digging in the 
 sand at lov/ tide. 
 
 Now put a small piece of bait on your hook 
 (if you use half a clam, as you will be sure to do 
 if a greenhorn at cunner-fishing, you will never 
 catch a supper), and drop in just there, where 
 the water looks deep and dark, and now — 
 " the one who catches the first fish is the best 
 fellow." 
 
 Neither Izaak Walton nor any of his disciples 
 ever really explained the delight there is in the 
 '' gentle craft '* to the genuine angler, who is a 
 fisherman by nature. 
 
 It is not what he catches, or what he actually 
 knows that he will catch, that makes him sit so 
 patiently all day long on the hard side of the 
 rock, but it is the vast possibilities which are 
 before him. 
 
 He never yet caught a whale, to be sure ; but 
 who knows that the very next bite may not be 
 from some monster of the deep ! 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 121 
 
 Thus, as we now sit, waiting for our supper to 
 bite before we bite our supper, we may be quite 
 certain, theoretically, that nothing but cunners 
 and sculpins will visit our hooks, with an occa- 
 sional rock cod or tautog perhaps ; but there is 
 the great ocean before us, looking so deep and 
 mysterious, and filled with all manner of swim- 
 ming things ; and is it not possible that some 
 of the more uncommon will conclude to dine 
 oft' the cold clam which hangs from our hooks ? 
 
 In short, fishing is a harmless lottery to the man 
 with a large bump of hope and imagination, and 
 though he often draws blanks or insignificant 
 prizes, yet the opera-houses and railroad shares 
 are still in the sea, and perhaps the very next 
 cast of his line will bring one of them up. 
 
 Nipper-fishing is no mean sport, however 
 much it may be decried by professionals, for, 
 though nippers are very abundant along all our 
 New England coast, it requires little less skill to 
 catch them than it does their nobler speckled 
 relatives of the mountain streams ; and the old 
 salt by our side, who supplies the city market, 
 
132 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 and who knows just how to bait and when and 
 how to jerk up the fish, will catch ten nippers to 
 our one. 
 
 In the course of an hour, however, we shall 
 probably have caught enough little fish for a 
 moderate meal ; and the next question which pre- 
 sents itself will be how to prepare them for the 
 frying-pan. 
 
 Here is the modus operandi of skinning a 
 nipper, and a most important piece of informa- 
 tion we shall find it during our stay at the 
 beach. 
 
 Hold the fish firmly in your left hand, and 
 with a sharp knife cut off" the back fin from the 
 tail to the head, then do the same with the ventral 
 fins. Cut the skin around the head, pull it off 
 with your thumb and finger, break off the head 
 and — there you have it, as nice and white a 
 morsel of fish as ever delighted the soul of an 
 epicure. Soon, when practice has made us 
 more perfect, we can skin two perch a minute 
 with perfect ease. 
 
 Now roll the nippers in corn meal, and lay 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 123 
 
 them in the spider, in which a piece of salt 
 pork is ah'eady sizzling ; watch them carefully 
 to see that they do not burn, and in fifteen min- 
 utes our dish of cunners, delicate, crisp, and 
 brown, is ready to go with our hard tack and 
 coffee. 
 
 We shall doubtless find that there is some 
 natural cook in our party (for the necessity of 
 camp life is the mother of culinary invention), 
 who will often regale us with johnnie-cake and 
 corn-dodgers, and those glorious flapjacks which 
 cap the climax of these out-door meals of ours. 
 
 But the crowning glory of our camp life is 
 the evening, when the fried cunners have been 
 disposed of, the dishes washed up, and we ar- 
 range ourselves for a social talk before the blaz- 
 ing fire of drift-w^ood. 
 
 Here we are, all lying in a row just within 
 the tent door, with our feet toasting at the 
 crackling fire outside. 
 
 Here are Sam, and Tom, and Dick, and 
 Jack, and Hiram, whom you met at the moun- 
 tains ; and these names may stand for doctors 
 
124 
 
 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 of divinity, if you choose, for we have no 
 " Reverends," nor " Honorables," nor even 
 "Misters" out here during these two weeks. 
 
 It is getting quite dusk outside, and we can 
 almost see gray night coming down in great 
 sheets over the earth. 
 
 Lights of all sizes begin to twinkle about us, 
 from the little star of the twelfth magnitude 
 which glimmers in the cottage of the fisher- 
 man, to the bright constellation that shines 
 from the light-house tower. Away in the dis- 
 tance gleams a bright revolving light, which 
 every sixty seconds emerges out of darkness, 
 shines full in our faces for an instant with its 
 Polyphemus eye, then slowly recedes and dis- 
 appears into darkness again for another minute. 
 
 Hoarsely and savagely the waves beat against 
 the rocks, albeit they are singing a gentle lul- 
 laby compared with the noise they would make 
 should a storm arise. The tide is coming in 
 now, and a few rods from the shore, where, 
 an hour ago, a ledge of rocks rose high out of 
 the water, only the long backbone of the ledge 
 
HOPF TO ENJOY THEM. 125 
 
 appears, and it takes but little imagination to 
 call it some terrible sea-serpent, and ourselves 
 and companions trembling Laocoons awaiting 
 his approach. You will notice that the fresh 
 sea breeze has a remarkable vivifying effect 
 upon one's memories of Virgil. 
 
 " Pile on the drift-wood. Jack, and let us have 
 a rousing old fire to inspire the stories. Why, 
 each of these sticks and branches in our wood- 
 pile has a tale, if we could only unfold it. 
 Who knows from what far-away land that piece 
 of board drifted.? From Brazil, perhaps, or from 
 Norway or Australia. That withered palm- 
 branch and piece of bamboo have had quite a 
 journey surely." 
 
 If you could see into the darkness of the tent, 
 you would notice stretched out with the rest of 
 us one or two brown and brawny toilers of 
 the sea, who, attracted by our camp fire, have 
 come up " to hear the new^s," or to ask " the 
 good w^ord." 
 
 We are glad to see them, for capital Mun- 
 chausens are these fishermen, regular Schehere- 
 
126 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 zades, whose stock of wonderful tales would 
 save their lives more than a thousand and one 
 nights with any story-loving sultan of the Indies. 
 
 A few judicious questions asked in a non- 
 chalant way will set these sunburnt visitors of 
 ours to reeling off 3'arns which quite eclipse 
 the stories of Captain Marryat himself. Indeed, 
 on any piscatorial point, whether the discourse 
 touches upon the number of cunners he can 
 skin in a minute, or upon the size of the whale 
 he saw last year, our fisherman is ready with 
 facts and figures astounding enough to make 
 any veracious landsman shudder ; and very em- 
 phatically do we pronounce all his yarns ^j^- 
 stories. 
 
 Occasionally, too, one of us ventures a story, 
 not, to be sure, in any spirit of rivalry with the 
 marine Munchausen, but just by way of variety. 
 Sometimes a conundrum goes around the circle, 
 and is then, of course, given up ; and so the 
 time passes, imtil, before we know it, the evening 
 is gone ; the deep, regular breathing of one after 
 another of the party announces his departure for 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 127 
 
 dream-land, and the rest declare that it is time 
 to turn in for the night. 
 
 So we fasten the tent flap, dowse the glim by 
 turning the candle end for end in the black bottle 
 which serves as a candlestick, and then coil our- 
 selves cosily in our blankets. A verbatim report 
 of what is said and done during one of these glori- 
 ous evenings in camp, however enjoyably the time 
 is in reality spent, would be very flat and common- 
 place reading. The sailor's exploits would be 
 pronounced very poor extravaganza, the stories 
 tame, and the conundrums stupid ; and so they 
 would sound ; for, in order to appreciate them, 
 you must listen to them with the solemn roll of 
 the sea in your ears, and with the ruddy fire-light 
 dancing and flickering over a circle of brown 
 figures in blue shirts. You should be lying in a 
 tent, too, with a dim candle in the back part of it 
 barely giving light enough to make the dark 
 corners weird and ghostly, peopling them with 
 phantoms, and transforming the stove, and the 
 provision basket hung from the ridge-pole, into 
 gnomes and afrits, and the wraiths of departed 
 
128 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 suppers which they have cooked or held. You 
 may be sure that Sam, and Tom, and Dick, and 
 their stories, are entirely different affairs under 
 such circumstances from what they are when 
 seen by the aid of prosaic printer's ink alone. 
 
 The next morning we must be up, bright and 
 early, to catch our breakfast, for the nippers are 
 particularly eager to take our hooks at this time 
 of day, especially if the tide happens to be pretty 
 well in at the same time. 
 
 In their dory, a few rods from the rocks, are 
 our friends, who visited us the preceding evening, 
 busily engaged in examining their lobster-traps. 
 
 From some of the traps they pull out eight or 
 ten of the green, ungainly creatures, while some 
 yield only two or three, and others none at all. 
 Then, having emptied their traps, they rebait 
 them with sculpins or other fish offal, and sink 
 them again, to beguile more of their many-legged 
 victims. 
 
 But what does that hullabaloo from the point 
 of rocks where Tom is fishing, mean? 
 
 We all run to the spot, ready for any excite- 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 129 
 
 ment, and find that Tom's shouts of triumph 
 arise from his capture of a fine rock-cod, whose 
 blood-red scales glisten in the sun-light as he 
 holds it up to our view. A lucky catch, Tom ; 
 for there is a good meal in him alone, and no 
 one need sneeze at a fresh rock-cod for break- 
 fast. 
 
 The rock-cod (so called because generally 
 caught near rocky shores) resembles the ordi- 
 nary cod in shape, but is distinguished by his 
 brighter colors, being the most brilliant of 
 all the fish we shall capture. 
 
 The rock-cod, too, is generally smaller than 
 the deep-water variety, and its flesh is considered 
 more delicate. 
 
 Of the fish we catch from the rocks, the sea- 
 perch (called by the fishermen, indifferently, 
 *' cunners," or " nippers") are by far the most 
 numerous. Indeed, you can hardly drop a line 
 from the rocks at any point along the coast from 
 Labrador to the Gulf without getting a bite from 
 these gamy little fish. 
 
 They vary in size from three inches to a foot. 
 9 
 
130 
 
 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 in length, though they rarely weigh over a 
 pound, and they vary in color as well. For the 
 most-part they are dark above and light below, 
 with wide bands of bright color. 
 
 Sometimes, however, we haul up a fellow who 
 is nearly black throughout ; and again a bleached 
 specimen, of a decidedly light orange color, 
 comes to the surface. Whether, in the land of 
 the cunners, the blondes or brunettes are consid- 
 ered more beautiful, we have never discovered. 
 Perhaps tastes differ there as well as in other 
 circles. 
 
 Like their relatives, the perch of fresh-water 
 streams, they bite boldly, and are very voracious, 
 so that when our clams are exhausted we can 
 use for bait pieces of their dead brethren, which 
 we have before caught. 
 
 Wood, in his Natural History, relates an anec- 
 dote of a gentleman who hooked a perch, but 
 unfortunately tore out the eye of the poor crea- 
 ture without catching it. He adjusted the eye 
 on the hook, and replaced it in the water, where 
 it had hardly been a minute before the float 
 
HOIV TO ENJOY THEM. 131 
 
 was violently drawn under the surface. The 
 angler, of course, struck, and found he had cap- 
 tured a fine perch. This, when landed, was dis- 
 covered to be the same one which had just been 
 mutilated, and which had actually lost its life by 
 devouring its own eye. 
 
 Izaak Walton quaintly observes, in regard to 
 the perch (though he speaks of the fresh-water 
 variety), " If there be twenty or forty in a hole, 
 they may be all caught at one standing, one 
 after another ; they being, like the wicked of the 
 world, not afraid, though their friends and com- 
 panions perish in their sight." 
 
 When the water is clear, and not too deep, it 
 is a curious thing to watch a school of cunners 
 playing around your hook. 
 
 First a lot of small fry will rush out of the sea- 
 weed, and have a regular swimming match with 
 each other to see which will first reach your 
 bait. 
 
 There — a little fellow grabs it, and runs off 
 vigorously, three or four feet from his compan- 
 ions, like a greedy chicken. But he is too small 
 
132 OUR VACATIONS, 
 
 to swallow the hook, and only steals a little piece 
 of the bait. 
 
 But look now ! there comes a good half-pound- 
 er, slowly gliding out of his dark corner in the 
 cool sea-weed. How indifferent and careless he 
 looks ! scarcely deigning to glance at the bait, or 
 the crowd of youngsters about it, like a young 
 dandy to whom the world is as uninteresting as 
 a squeezed orange, and who considers it undig- 
 nified to express wonder or surprise at anything. 
 For a moment he keeps himself poised by the 
 gentlest possible motion of his fins, and then 
 turns back into his hole, and you think you have 
 seen the last of him. 
 
 But wait a moment longer ; he will think bet- 
 ter of it. There ! out of the sea-weed something 
 rushes like a flash ; the baby cunners scatter in 
 every direction ; your hook is seized with a de- 
 termined jerk, and a moment later you have him 
 on the rock beside you, all his dignit}^ and in- 
 difference gone ; now he is nothing but a poor, 
 gasping cunner, flapping, in a very ungraceful 
 sort of a way, in a basket full of his companions 
 
HO IV TO ENJOY THEM. 133 
 
 in tnisery — a sad contrast, my poor fellow, to 
 your lordly movements, a few moments ago, 
 among your small brethren in your own ele- 
 ment. 
 
 Perhaps there is a moral here for the young 
 swell, whose home is not in the sea-weed, to stick 
 to his own element, and not get out of his depth, 
 like the unfortunate cunner ; — but this book is 
 not a sermon to young swells. 
 
 Sometimes, instead of the quick, decided bite 
 of the cunner or nipper, from which way of bit- 
 ing the sea-perch derives his latter name, we 
 feel our line slowly and heavily drawn under, 
 and pulling it up with considerable difficulty, we 
 find dangling from the end one of the ugliest 
 specimens of the genus ^/^c^'i- that swims the sea. 
 With a head bigger than all the rest of him, 
 split entirely in two by a most unfashionable 
 sized mouth, with great, dull, stony eyes, with 
 blotches of livid colors scattered irregularly over 
 his body, and with ugly spines, nine on each 
 side of his head, like a base ball mustache (to 
 repeat an old joke), the sculpin is certainly a 
 frightful looking fish. 
 
134 ^^^ VACATIONS. 
 
 He prowls along the bottom, seeking what 
 crustaceae he may devour ; and if our hook hap- 
 pens to come in his way, he sucks it in without 
 hesitation, since all is grist that comes to his 
 mill. 
 
 The sculpin is universally detested by fisher- 
 men, since he is worthless for food, difficult to 
 handle, and moreover, drives away other fish from 
 the neighborhood, So we follow the fisherman's 
 usual custom of braining the poor fellow^ before 
 we throw him back into the water (which is the 
 only method yet discovered to prevent his biting 
 again), and then drop in our hooks once more. 
 Perhaps this time we feel a savage pull, and our 
 line is run out to its full length. We may be 
 pretty sure that this bite is from a pollock ; and if 
 we succeed in landing him, we shall find we have 
 caught a handsome fish, with a graceful, slender 
 form, and bright, silvery scales. 
 
 The pollock we catch near the shore generally 
 weigh from one to two pounds ; those caught 
 in deep Water have sometimes been known 
 to weigh thirty pounds. Formerly this fish was 
 
HOJV TO ENJOY THEM. 1^5 
 
 considered almost worthless for food, as the 
 flesh is quite soft ; but we shall find that they 
 make a very good fry, if eaten as soon as they 
 get through wriggling. 
 
 We shall probably, too, make the acquaint- 
 ance of the flounder in the course of our fishing 
 from the rocks ; and a curious figure he cuts as 
 we see him on the bottom, through the clear 
 water, floundering along in his party-colored cos- 
 tume, like a state prison convict, brown on one 
 side and white on the other, with his goggle eyes 
 both on the upper side of his head, peering 
 around for his grub. 
 
 The tautog is another fish which we shall 
 sometimes catch, and quite a prize we shall con- 
 sider him, for fried tautog is justly deemed a 
 delicacy. The tautog generally weighs two 
 pounds or over, and much resembles an enlarged 
 cunner, except that it is darker colored and 
 thicker. 
 
 But while we have been discussing the differ- 
 ent kinds of fish that visit our hook, others of the 
 party have not been idle ; and now, by seven 
 
136 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 o'clock, with our cunners and rock-cod, we sure- 
 ly have a fair prospect of a breakfast, and Sam 
 suggests that we try our hand at a chowder. 
 
 The motion being seconded, and unanimously 
 agreed to, we turn our attention to skinning the 
 cunners, slicing the potatoes, and getting the fire 
 well under way. In our deepest pan we place 
 first, a layer of fish, then a stratum of potatoes, 
 with some chips of salt pork, and a few sHces of 
 onion thrown in if we have them ; cover these 
 with hard tack ; then add other strata of fish, pota- 
 toes, and hard tack, until the dish is full. Season 
 each layer with salt and pepper, and add enough 
 water to keep the chowder from burning. 
 
 Let the whole stratified compound sizzle on 
 the stove, until the potatoes are soft, and the fish 
 peels off the bones ; and then, if aunt Susan 
 should rail at us because we have left out the 
 milk, and Monsieur Blot should look contemp- 
 tuously over the omission of the inevitable bread 
 crumbs, we can laugh in their faces, and tell 
 them we are very sure that a chowder never 
 tasted better. 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 137 
 
 Besides chowders and fries, our bill of fare 
 may be varied with fresh lobsters, which the 
 fishermen will be glad to sell us for five cents 
 apiece, with crabs and clams of our own cap- 
 turing, and to any greater extent, that our in- 
 clinations and the resources of the neighboring 
 country store will allow. 
 
 To the hearty lover of nature nothing can be 
 more enjoyable than these days spent at our sea- 
 shore camp, the whole coast so swarms with 
 animal life of the lower grades. Every rock we 
 sit on, which is ever touched by the sea waves, 
 is rough with little white cockle-shells, whose 
 owners we shall find snugly coiled up within, 
 if we ever burglariously break into the minute 
 abode. 
 
 Every wave that rolls at our feet brings to us 
 some form of ocean life. 
 
 Perhaps it is the sun-fish, or jelly-fish, which 
 moves through the water with a most graceful 
 undulating motion, contracting and expanding 
 exactly like an umbrella. Very delicate and 
 edible does the jelly-fish appear at first sight, 
 
138 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 like the clearest of gelatine ; but let him lie 
 on the hot rocks and evaporate in the sunshine 
 until the next high tide, and scarcely a trace 
 of him can be found, since he leaves no skel- 
 eton for future archaeological societies to w^ran- 
 gle over. 
 
 Or perhaps the w^ave presents to us a five-rayed 
 starfish, or brings along the deserted, bleached, 
 and curiously corrugated shell of a sea-wrchin, or 
 a sea-cucumber, which so much resembles his 
 namesake of the garden that we are inclined to 
 throw him at once into our pickle-keg. Per- 
 haps it is only a long, slim, slippery sea-weed 
 that the tide brings up, with some unfortu- 
 nate bivalve which has taken up his abode in 
 its roots ; or possibly, as the wave recedes, a 
 back-action crab will come out of his crevice 
 in the rock to see what is going on in the 
 world. Luckless shell-fish these that come with- 
 in our range of vision, for the crab robbed of 
 his sea-weed covering will soon be broken up 
 for bait, and Cancer himself will speedily go to 
 pot to be served up at our next meal. 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 139 
 
 It is not probable that fishing for nippers from 
 the rocks will satisfy the piscatorial desires of 
 such enthusiastic anglers as are we, and without 
 doubt we shall want to devote one day, and 
 perhaps several, to deep-sea fishing for cod, and 
 haddock, and mackerel. 
 
 Then we must charter a fishing-smack, and a 
 skipper to navigate the craft and furnish the 
 lines and bait. An hour's sail, with a fair 
 breeze, ought to bring us to the fishing-grounds, 
 which our old Palinurus knows ' as well as we 
 know our father's door-yard, for fishes are not, 
 as many suppose, scattered uniformly through- 
 out the ocean, but live together in communi- 
 ties, largely, and leave other parts of the sea 
 very thinly inhabited. 
 
 So it is the business of the experienced tar 
 who is with us to avoid the desert and to guide 
 us, if possible, to the very Pekin of fishdom. 
 Now, when we have cast anchor, we will bait 
 our stout hooks with a generous piece of clam 
 and sink them as many fathoms deep as our 
 skipper advises. Perhaps we shall have to wait 
 
140 
 
 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 long and patiently for the first bite, and per- 
 haps, on the other hand, the line will hardly 
 straighten itself out before a great jerk will an- 
 nounce that the bait has been favorably received 
 in the regions below. Cod and haddock are 
 both strong and sure biting fish, and one rarely 
 fails to draw them in. 
 
 Sometimes each member of a codding party 
 will catch great fish at the rate of one a min- 
 ute for hours, and a muscle-tiring kind of work 
 it then becomes. Most of the fish we shall 
 catch will probably not run over eight or ten 
 pounds in weight. They grow to a much larger 
 size, however, often weighing fifty or sixty and 
 sometimes a hundred pounds. A most impor- 
 tant industry, as we all know, is the cod fish- 
 ery, not only to our own sea-coast towns, but 
 to the French and Canadian fishermen who fre- 
 quent the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Newfound- 
 land's banks. 
 
 An inexhaustible aquarium, too, has the fish- 
 erman to draw from, and he need have no fears 
 that the supply will give out, when he remem- 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 141 
 
 bers that at every spawning, a single cod depos- 
 its over a million eggs. To be sure, very few 
 of these eggs hatch out infant codlings, but for 
 the most part they are destroyed by ravenous 
 fish before even a fin or scale appears. 
 
 And well is it that it is so, for it has been 
 estimated that, in a very limited number of 
 years, if every eg^ were allowed to develop into 
 a full-grown cod, the whole ocean would be so 
 thickly filled with them that navigation would 
 be entirely stopped. But we shall be likely to 
 find the actual state of affairs very different from 
 this sitting with arms resting over the taffrail, 
 waiting for the first unwary fish to bite, and 
 doubtless wishing that Providence had allowed 
 a few more eggs to come to maturity. 
 
 The haddock, which is caught quite as often 
 as his cousin the cod, is usually about the 
 same size, and resembles him much in gen- 
 eral appearance. Haddock abound all along 
 our coast, in summer far outnumbering the cod, 
 while in winter the order is reversed, and cod 
 are more numerous. The haddock may be dis- 
 
142 
 
 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 tiuguished by a black line which extends down 
 each side from the gills to the tail, as well as by 
 a dark spot, about the size of a three-cent piece, 
 on either side of the head. Among Roman 
 Catholic fishermen there is a legend that this is 
 the fish which brought up the tribute-money at 
 the command of our Lord, and that the dark 
 spots under the gills are the marks of Peter's 
 fingers. 
 
 Perhaps the monotony of cod and haddock will 
 be broken by the advent on deck of an ugly, 
 spiny-backed, long-tailed scate ; and possibly one 
 of the party will be fortunate enough to hook 
 a halibut. If this should happen, all will excit- 
 edly gather around the lucky man to witness the 
 struggle. 
 
 Even the skipper, to whom cod and haddock 
 fishing is a dull, old story, lays aside his black 
 T. D., and shows something like interest in the 
 matter. How the line rattles over the rail as the 
 great fish makes a dive for the bottom ! Now it 
 slackens as he returns, and it is necessary to pull 
 a little on the line, to see if he is exhausted. But 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 143 
 
 _^ . . 
 
 he is still too fresh to give up the fight, and off he 
 shoots at a tangent, nearly taking his captor with 
 him. Now to the right, now to the left, and 
 then straight down he rushes ; but even a halibut 
 cannot struggle forever, and by and by, complete- 
 ly worn out, the noble fellow is drawn on deck. 
 "A hundred pounder, if he weighs an ounce," 
 says the skipper, sententiously. 
 
 We must spend at least one half day, before we 
 break camp, in trolling for bluefish — the most 
 exciting of all kinds of sea-fishing. 
 
 As we stand here on the rocks, do you see that 
 commotion out in the water half a mile from the 
 shore? That is caused by a school of bluefish, 
 and some of those savage fellows, who are proba- 
 bly now foraging for their breakflist, and bringing 
 terror and destruction to smaller fish, we must 
 have in our frying-pan this noon. So we jump 
 into the dory and row out to the scene of 
 action. 
 
 The tackle for this kind of fishing is rather 
 peculiar ; since, instead of using any bait, we 
 simply have a piece of bright metal or jig, as it 
 
144 ^^^ VACATIONS. 
 
 is called, attached with a hook to a strong line. 
 Let one of the party row the dory alongside of 
 the school at a moderate rate, while the rest of 
 the party throw out jigs, which the motion of the 
 boat is sufficient to keep floating on the sur- 
 face of the water. But the eager bluefish will 
 not give time for so many words of explana- 
 tion, before, with a fierce splash, he seizes the 
 glittering metal, and is jerked into the boat. 
 
 The next moment the spoon (as the jig is 
 often called) is again floating on the wave, to 
 beguile a fresh victim. 
 
 We must be careful, how^ever, when pulling in, 
 to keep the line taut, since, if he has a chance, 
 the bluefish will eschew the spoon, not finding it 
 as digestible a morsel as he anticipated, and will 
 disengage himself from the hook. If there is 
 better sport than trolling for bluefish on a clear, 
 breezy summer's day, pray let the world know 
 what it is ! 
 
 From its resemblance to the common mack- 
 erel, the bluefish is often called the horse-mack- 
 erel, though improperly, for the horse-mackerel 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 145 
 
 is quite a different fish. It derives its name 
 " bluefish " from the color of the upper part 
 of its body ; and we shall find, at dinner time, 
 that it is just as capital a fish to eat as to 
 catch. 
 
 There is no need, at this late point of the 
 chapter, to say that there is no danger of the 
 long summer daylianging heavily on one's hands, 
 for the day's duties are by no means few or 
 quickly accomplished. To catch fish enough to 
 feed half a dozen sea-shore appetites three times 
 a day is, of itself, no light task, to say nothing 
 about cooking them. Then there is drift-wood to 
 collect, and bait to find, and new places about the 
 camp to explore, and at least two baths a day to 
 take ; so there is not so much time as might at 
 first be imagined for dignified leisure, or for 
 stretching ourselves, like Turkish sultans, on the 
 divans — otherwise called army blankets — of 
 our tent. 
 
 The daily bath is, of course, one of the great- 
 est institutions of our life on the beach ; and of 
 10 
 
146 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 all kinds of baths, we give the preference to 
 those taken from the rocks at high tide. 
 
 Talk about moral courage! We will trust 
 that man on any battle-field, who will sit quietly 
 on a rock, and let the first big wave dash over 
 him, on a coolish day, when the water, fresh 
 from the open sea, seems to be miraculously pre- 
 served from freezing at a temperature far below 
 32° Fahrenheit, and when every breath of spray 
 that blows against him feels like a blast from the 
 North Pole. It is amusing to watch men who 
 have only the ordinary supply of fortitude in such 
 a place. 
 
 After the process of disrobing has been accom- 
 plished, and the fantastic livery which Neptune 
 prescribes for his receptions has been donned, the 
 average man will dance about upon the rocks for 
 an unnecessarily long time, as though this were 
 a most important preliminary to a bath. Then 
 he will place one foot daintily in the water, and 
 quickly draw it back, with a sudden jerk, that 
 nothing but a severe bite from a gallinipper can 
 satisfactorily explain. 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 147 
 
 This operation will be repeated a dozen times, 
 more or less, until, apparently ashamed of him- 
 self, he takes his seat on a projecting ledge of 
 rock, which the incoming tide has reached, to 
 wait for the next wave, with a resolute look on 
 his face, which plainly says, " I won't budge this 
 time any way." Now he sees it coming, a quarter 
 of a mile off — the m.onster which is to swallow 
 him up if he keeps his seat. As the wave ap- 
 proaches, the courage oozes out at his fingers' 
 ends, and the resolute look begins slow^ly to fade 
 from his face, until, just at the critical moment 
 when the water is about to dash over him with 
 an angry swash, up he jumps, and is high and 
 dry on the bank above before the wave breaks 
 upon his rock. 
 
 However, after one has once been thoroughly 
 wet down, one's courage to embrace the next 
 wave is greatly increased, and each new bil- 
 low is received with much laughter and many 
 shivering, chattering shouts of welcome by the 
 bathers. 
 
 And now, what more need we say? You 
 
148 OUR VACATIONS, 
 
 know where to go, what to do, and how to do it ; 
 and when we add, that all this, at" a careful esti- 
 mate, may be enjoyed for five dollars per week, 
 we think it would be a clear waste of printer's 
 ink and your time to add another page to this 
 chapter. 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 149 
 
 CHAPTER V. * 
 
 DOWN EAST. ST. JOHN. PRINCE EDWARD 
 
 ISLAND. CAPE BRETON. HALIFAX. 
 
 In spite of the comfortable satisfiiction one 
 feels at having given good advice, it is hardly to 
 be supposed that our counsel has been so gener- 
 ally followed, that all readers, who are pondering 
 how they will pass their vacation, have either 
 ordered their mountain outfit, or picked out a 
 camping-ground at the sea-shore, or decided to 
 take the next train for the Dominion. To all 
 who are still undecided we assume the liberty 
 of putting a few catechetical questions. 
 
 Is there at least one month of the twelve when 
 
 * The substance of a part of this chapter appeared in 
 a series of letters written by the author, in the sum- 
 mer of 1872, to the Boston Daily Globe and to the 
 Congregationalist. 
 
ISO 
 
 OUR VACATIONS, 
 
 it is your chief end and aim to keep cool? Then, 
 " Young Man, go East," — go to the Maritime 
 Provinces. 
 
 Have you about a hundred dollars to spend 
 on your summer vacation? There is no place 
 where it will go farther, or do you more good, 
 than in these same sea-coast dominions of Her 
 Majesty. 
 
 Have you an eye for the beautiful in inanimate 
 nature, and for the simple and unassuming in 
 human nature? Nowhere can you find these 
 qualities in greater perfection than among the 
 fertile plains of Prince Edward Island, or the 
 rugged high lands of Cape Breton. 
 
 Nothing better in the way of a summer cli- 
 mate could any one want, than he will find 
 throughout this whole region. Here, for weeks 
 at a time, the thermometer never rises to a too 
 dizzy altitude ; the sun's heat is grateful at mid- 
 day, and no longer will you sigh for an abode 
 in an ice-house, or for a lodge in some vast 
 wilderness. 
 
 Is not this a delightful state of things, and 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM, 151 
 
 would not you enjoy them ? Yea, verily ; then 
 meet us one of these bright mornings at the end 
 of Commercial Wharf, in the good city of Boston, 
 and with a St. John ticket in our pocket, and the 
 smallest possible amount of baggage in our hand, 
 we will step aboard the "- New York " or '' City 
 of Portland," of the International Line. 
 
 As the clock strikes eight, the whistle shrieks, 
 the cables are loosed, demonstrative Bluenoses 
 give their departing friends a hasty embrace, the 
 gangways are hauled in ; the vessel quivers, 
 throbs, and heaves; the wheel revolves, and — 
 off we are, steaming through the shipping of the 
 harbor. 
 
 There is one commodity which travellers 
 " Down East," and, for that matter, the world 
 over, we suppose, are ve^ry apt to forget to in- 
 clude in their list of indispensables when about 
 to leave home. Yet this is more necessary to 
 one's own comfort than the tooth-brush or the 
 razor ; and if one of a company has forgotten to 
 take it with him, all the rest lose an appreci- 
 able proportion of their power of full enjoy- 
 
153 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 ment. The aforesaid article is a settled purpose 
 to be pleased with whatever 07te sees. 
 
 As the spires and chimneys of Boston fade 
 away in the distance, one should leave among 
 them the idea (though it may require the greatest 
 mental effort of which the traveller is capable) 
 that the Old Bay State and her sister common- 
 wealths are the only really desirable places on 
 the face of the globe. 
 
 He should not find fault with " this confounded 
 fog," or " that wretched rain," which is expected 
 to-morrow, or with the " dreary shores of that 
 barren province ; " but he should call the fog 
 " invigorating, if it is a little moist," the rocky 
 bluffs of the New Brunswick shore, surmounted 
 by stunted pine trees, "grand and imposing;" 
 the Dolly Varden light-houses, built of alternate 
 layers of red and white bricks, " picturesque ; " 
 and the occasional little beach of sand, with 
 the fishers' white houses near by, and the green 
 fields stretching far in beyond, " lovely and 
 charming." 
 
 But though fault-finding and complaint are 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 153 
 
 to be repressed, don't suppose that we are about 
 to waste any sickly sentimentality upon " the 
 sea, the sea, the deep blue sea," or " life on the 
 ocean wave," and all that sort of thing. 
 
 " Life on the ocean wave " may be a very nice 
 affair when enclosed by the sides of a music- 
 rack, and no sort of objection can be made to 
 " the deep blue sea," when you view it from 
 terra Jirma^ with one of the good, old, ever- 
 lasting rocks under your feet ; but a different 
 sort of a thing altogether is it when you view 
 those same blue waves from the steamer's deck, 
 caring not a copper whether you are above or 
 below them — afraid that you will die during 
 the first hovu', and equally afraid during the 
 second that you will not. 
 
 If you have a deadly enemy upon whom you 
 wish to be revenged, just prevail upon him to 
 go aboard of some ocean steamer ; and then, 
 during the first chopping sea, while he is leaning 
 over the quarter-rail, gazing intently upon those 
 " deep blue waves," or pretending that the lemon 
 he holds in his hand is the most delicious of 
 
154 ^^^ VACATIONS. 
 
 fruits, just ask him how he enjoys " Hfe on the 
 ocean wave." 
 
 All this by the way, however. 
 
 An eight hours' sail from Boston brings us to 
 Portland, and as the steamer lies here for an 
 hour or two, there is ample opportunity to get 
 a glimpse of the fine buildings, and broad, 
 tree-lined avenues, of this handsome " Forest 
 City." 
 
 Eastport, the next stopping-place, — a town, 
 situated near the entrance of Passamaquoddy 
 Bay, — is much frequented by summer visitors. 
 The waters of the adjacent bay afford fine op- 
 portunities for yachting and fishing. Directly 
 across the harbor, within the limits of the Do- 
 minion of Canada, lies the interesting Island 
 of Campobello, a favorite resort for sailing and 
 chowder parties. 
 
 The afternoon's sail will be delightful by the 
 red rocks of the New Brunswick coast, rising 
 sheer out of the water from fifty to two hundred 
 feet. 
 
 On the whole, however, the bold, rocky shores, 
 
HO^ TO ENJOY THEM. 155 
 
 worn smooth by the continual dashing of white 
 waves, and crowned with low pine trees, make 
 one's first impression of New Brunswick grand 
 and picturesque, rather than beautiful. 
 
 But St. John harbor, which is reached about 
 sunset, makes up for all the loveliness we have 
 lacked before ; for nothing can be more charming 
 than the islands and shores clad in emerald 
 green, with the city sitting regally on a bluff 
 that rises directly out of the water on one side, 
 and the smiling slopes of Carleton on the other, 
 while the multitude of fishing-boats and larger 
 craft give an air of life and animation to the 
 scene. 
 
 Even the model tourist, who is conscientiously 
 determined to be pleased with whatever he sees, 
 will be a little disappointed with the city of St. 
 John ; for, with cities as with men, the gods never 
 bestow all their blessings upon the same individ- 
 ual. And St. John, though unrivalled in sit- 
 uation, presents a half-baked, unfinished, shiftless 
 appearance, which is hardl}'^ pleasing to the 
 eyes of a Yankee visitor. 
 
156 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 The streets, though wide and regular, are not 
 well paved, and tire not paved at all for the most 
 part-; the houses, principally of wood, are of a 
 uniform sombre brown color, which gives a 
 dingy appearance to the whole place, and there 
 are no buildings of particular beauty. 
 
 To- this last statement, however, the Victoria 
 Hotel, and two or three private residences on the 
 west side of the city, form pleasing exceptions. 
 ■ Nevertheless the St. Johnnies are very proud 
 of their city, the fourth in size in the Domin- 
 ion, and justly so too ; for what constitutes a 
 pleasant city? Not showy buildings and well- 
 paved streets alone, by any means ; but a 
 pleasant and healthful climate, " first chop " 
 scenery, as Sam Slick would say, abundant 
 and cheap markets, and hospitable inhabitants ; 
 all which advantages St. John possesses in full 
 measure. 
 
 One is struck, on first walking up from the 
 wharf, by the great number of the smallest of 
 hotels that are to be seen, each burdened with 
 a ridiculously high-sounding name. Thus, here 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 157 
 
 is a shabby wooden building, with three or four 
 windows on each story, which a flaming sign 
 over the door informs us is the " Grand Inter- 
 national Hotel." That little martin-box on the 
 right is the " Revere," perchance, and the one 
 on the other side of the street is the " Royal 
 Castle House." 
 
 The interior of these hotels, however, belies 
 their sign-boards less than the exterior, and by 
 the time we sit down to the bountiful table which 
 the attentive landlord will spread for us, we 
 shall begin to think that the name was not so 
 ill chosen, after all. 
 
 But to be a little more explicit in regard to 
 our hotel : the choice lies between the Victoria 
 House (which is the only first-class house in the 
 city, according to Boston notions, and where the 
 charges are three dollars per day) and any one 
 of the numerous third, fourth, fifth, down to fif- 
 teenth-class houses with which the city abounds. 
 
 We can recommend the Grand Central Hotel, 
 the American House, or the Waverley House, as 
 furnishing very tolerable accommodations at a 
 
158 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 moderate price — one dollar and fifty cents fer 
 diem we believe. 
 
 With the exception of one or two streets, the 
 buildings are principally of wood, and a few 
 hours of a Chicago or Boston fire would lay the 
 whole cit}^ in ashes. A descendant of Ham, of 
 whom inquiry was made for a sightly place to 
 view the city, replied, with a royal flourish of 
 his ebony palms, "Jest go up onto this yar bluff, 
 and you will see de whole combustible." Our 
 sable friend, in his desire for a long word, used 
 one that applies to St. John better, prolDably, 
 than he was aware. 
 
 The people of St. John, as well as all whom 
 we shall see throughout the province, impress 
 one very favorably. A healthier, ruddier set of 
 men are not to be found on this footstool, and, 
 as Dr. Lewis would say, their digestion being 
 good, and their health perfect, we find them 
 always ready to answer the thousand questions 
 which a stranger is moved to ask. 
 
 No sweltering days and moist, sticky, unrest- 
 ful nights do we here experience ; but, as an 
 
HO IV TO ENJOY THEM. 159 
 
 intelligent knight of the hod assured us, " Ye 
 may walk the strates all day and not sweat a 
 drop, and at night, bedad, ye will feel the good 
 of the clothes ! " 
 
 The air, too, is remarkably invigorating — 
 just warm enough, just cool enough ; and a sea 
 breeze is blowing at all times of day, the city 
 being almost surrounded by the ocean. 
 
 To reach Shediac, which is something like 
 a hundred miles from St. John, we take the 
 European and North American Railway, and 
 are whirled through the very heart of New 
 Brunswick, along the coast of the Bay of Fundy. 
 Past snug farm-houses and rich farms the track 
 leads us ; past the silvery lake near Claremont, 
 where the great international rowing race took 
 place — a race which proved to be the last for 
 poor Renforth ; and our time-table says that we 
 are borne through villages bearing the eupho- 
 nious names of Quispanisis, Passekeag, Apoha- 
 qui, Plumweseep, and Anagance. But further 
 deponent saith not, except that all these much- 
 named towns present a singular though hardly 
 
i6o OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 pleasing uniformity, since they invariably con- 
 sist of a good station, a wretched grocery store 
 and groggery combined, and an extensive mud- 
 puddle. 
 
 Moncton, one of the largest towns on our 
 route, contains some fine railroad repair-shops, 
 and some unusually extensive mud-puddles, 
 which would seem to render gondolas indispen- 
 sable. Years ago Moncton was a town of con- 
 siderable importance, being at the head of the 
 main branch of the Bay of Fundy ; but for 
 many years past Father Time has done pretty 
 much as he pleased with the old town, rotting 
 a house here and another there, tumbling down 
 this wall and starting a growth of weeds and 
 grass in that street, until we could easily have 
 imagined it to be the veritable deserted village 
 of which the poet sung. Very recently, how- 
 ever, the iron road, that great energizer of the 
 modern world, has begun to put new life into 
 the grass-grown streets and moss-grown houses, 
 and the town is quite renewing her youth. 
 
 At Moncton we leave the valley of the Bay of 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. i6i 
 
 Fundy, and strike across the country towards 
 the Straits of Northumberland. This is, there- 
 fore, a favorable opportunity to refer briefly to 
 the wonderful tides in the bay. The flood tides 
 here sometimes take the very rare and terrible 
 form of the *' bore " — a great, perpendicular 
 wall of water rushing up the bay, passing diago- 
 nally from side to side, and overwhelming every- 
 thing in its path. 
 
 Imagine the stranger who might happen to be 
 walking in the dry bed of the bay just before the 
 coming of the " bore," roused from his reverie 
 upon mud, muscles, and clams, whose happiness 
 at high water is always such an appropriate and 
 convenient simile, by a mighty, rushing, gur- 
 gling roar in the far distance. 
 
 Instantly a graphic picture of his younger 
 days will come to his mind, representing a dis- 
 tressed looking Pharaoh, surrounded by a few 
 wretched followers, standing upon the topmost 
 point of a very sharp rock, in the midst of some 
 extraordinary looking waves, while a row of 
 jolly Israelites are grinning at them from the 
 II 
 
i62 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 safe bank of the other side ; and he will infiagine 
 that he hears a chorus of Jubilee Singers on the 
 bank above him, chanting, — 
 
 "To drown old Pharo's army, hallelujah, 
 To drown old Pharo's army, hallelu." 
 
 But he must dismiss both Pharaoh's army 
 and the Jubilee Singers from his thoughts, and 
 run for his life, for the roar which he hears in 
 the distance proceeds from the " bore," ten feet 
 high (if it happens to be at the time of spring 
 tide), coming towards him at the rate of twelve 
 miles an hour, and bringing sure destruction to 
 man, or beast, or boat, that may be in its way. 
 The tide rises thirty feet here, — not so high by 
 half as at some other parts of the bay, — and the 
 wave which leads the van is the only remark- 
 able one, the others being scarcely a tenth of 
 its size. 
 
 Shediac is reached soon after we start from 
 Moncton station, and here w^e leave the train. 
 The European and North American runs two 
 miles farther, and ends at the coast, at a little 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 163 
 
 place called Point du Chene. But may you not, 
 my reader, be obliged to tarry long at Shediac, 
 waiting for the Prince Edward Island boat, for 
 this is, without doubt, one of the most slipshod 
 places to be found on our little planet. 
 
 Do you wish for a minute description of this 
 lovely retreat? Take the most wretched New 
 England village, of about seventy-five houses, to 
 be found in either of our six Puritanic common- 
 wealths ; bring all the two-story houses to the 
 level of cottages ; tear off every blind in the 
 place ; paint all the houses a dingy color ; turn 
 every store and shop, where a scrap of reading 
 matter can be bought, into a grocery and grog- 
 gery ; dig cradle-holes in all the roads large 
 enough to bury the horse and buggy with which 
 you jolt over them ; level all the hills within 
 twenty miles ; cut down half of the forest trees, 
 and turn the rest into stunted spruces ; meta- 
 morphose all the fields and pastures into bogs and 
 swamps ; and run a muddy bay, with a muddier 
 shore, along one side of the town, and you have 
 a twin Shediac in Massachusetts, which it would 
 
164 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 be hard to distinguished from the New Bruns- 
 wick original. 
 
 But even Shediac has its redeeming qualities ; 
 for, as is the case with all these provincial sen- 
 coast towns, in the way of climate nothing bet- 
 ter could be desired. The air, always cool and 
 fresh, has a certain invigorating quality which 
 turns the blue of one's mental firmament into 
 the rosiest colors (if one lives here long enough, 
 the blue is all driven to the nose), and it is said 
 to be impossible for a hypochondriac to live 
 within a dozen miles of the place. 
 
 Besides its climate, Shediac can boast of a 
 large saw-mill, which turns out six million feet 
 of lumber during the three months of the year it 
 is in operation. 
 
 Here a log is taken in the rough, and by the 
 aid of a gang-saw to cut it into the right thick- 
 nesses, and a circular saw to trim off the edges, 
 in an incredibly short time the sturdy pine trunk 
 is transformed into planks or boards, ready to be 
 shipped to Europe. Four hundred logs a day 
 take the shape of building material in this one 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 165 
 
 mill, and many other mills along the coast turn 
 out an equal amount of lumber, all of which 
 is shipped directly to European ports. 
 
 The two churches of the place may also be 
 ranked among its redeeming features, for they 
 are neat, attractive buildings, which would be a 
 disgrace to no village in the land. 
 
 They have a novel method, however, of 
 calling people to the sanctuary in Shediac. 
 When the appointed time arrives, a small boy 
 with a huge dinner-bell mounts the .topmost 
 step, and by shaking his bell, proclaims to all 
 within hearing that divine service is about to 
 begin. Doubtless this method answers every 
 purpose, though the effect is hardly soul-inspir- 
 ing, since it is more likely to lead one to reflect 
 upon his gastronomic wants, than his spiritual 
 necessities. 
 
 The inhabitants of Shediac, like most people 
 in the province, are free and open-hearted, polite 
 to strangers, and proud of their native town and 
 country. 
 
 To them no land is equal to the fields and 
 
i66 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 meadows of Nev/^ Brunswick ; their row of 
 straggling houses is a " thriving village," and 
 the little stretch of mud and sand is a *' lovely 
 beach." For dwellers in such a place this bliss- 
 ful contentment is invaluable. May you ever, 
 dear New Brunswickans, continue to jolt over 
 your wretched highways with the same self- 
 satisfied faces that you now wear ! 
 
 But whatever day of the week we reach 
 Shediac, Tuesday or Friday morning will at 
 length cpme round, and bring with it one of the 
 Prince Edward Island steamers, to transport 
 us from the dreary wastes which surround 
 Shediac to that lovely isle which long ago re- 
 ceived the name of the old Duke of Kent — 
 Prince Edward. 
 
 A perfect gem is this island, — a beautiful 
 emerald, the largest and brightest of all the 
 jewels which adorn the bosom of the grSat 
 gulf. 
 
 Do not smile at this enthusiastic statement, 
 for it is strictly true, as every traveller will vote 
 when steaming up to the Summerside Wharf, and 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 167 
 
 seeing the long reaches of green fields on either 
 side, without a rock, or cliff, or withered pasture, 
 to mar the quiet loveliness of the scene. There 
 are sixt}'- miles of coast of the same character, 
 which the eye cannot reach, stretching away on 
 either side. 
 
 Neither does distance, by any means, lend all 
 the enchantment to the view, for when we land 
 from the steamer and take the coach, fields 
 of the same unrivalled green will meet our eye, 
 throughout the length and breadth of the island, 
 and we exclaim, " O for perpetual summer, to 
 make Prince Edward Island the paradise of the 
 globe!" 
 
 But, alas ! our wish is far from granted, for 
 throughout more than seven months of the year 
 the frost king holds undisputed sway, and our 
 charming isle is as dreary and prosaic as can 
 well be imagined. ^ 
 
 Even in summer the occasional evidences of 
 man's hand would remind one that he is still on 
 this mundane sphere, while at the same time, 
 from the style of architecture of severe simplicity. 
 
1 68 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 which the natives have adopted in building their 
 houses, one is led to think that, in their opinion, 
 at least, the island is beautiful enough already, 
 without any effort on their part to improve it. 
 
 Summerside, where we land, is a more forsaken 
 place even than Shediac ; and if we stay but a 
 short time, the only remembrance of the town 
 we shall carry away, will be of a row of extra- 
 ordinarily mean-looking houses, planted helter- 
 skelter in the midst of a great pasture of live 
 stock, composed of equal parts of scurvy dogs, 
 draggled geese, and dirty children. 
 
 Bagnall's coach for Charlottetown, however, 
 will take us out of the vicinity of Summerside at 
 an early hour. The ride will well repay us for 
 rising at the first call of the blue-bird, for though 
 Mr. Bagnall's coaches are hardly first class, we 
 shall find much to interest us in this fortj^ miles, 
 '^j^.he first thing that strikes the eye is the uniform 
 excellence of the hay-fields. No starveling 
 patches of clover do we see, and spindling crops 
 of grass, where each individual Timothy Grass 
 seems afraid of his next neighbor, and tries to 
 
HO IV TO ENJOY THEM. 169 
 
 keep at a respectful distance ; but broad acres of 
 the stoutest grass, red with clover blossoms, or 
 waving like a wheat-field, with the full heads of 
 timothy or herds-grass. The fields of potatoes, 
 too, white with blossoms, if it is late in the 
 summer, it would be hard to beat, even in that 
 land of murphies — the Emerald Isle. 
 
 Oats, also, do remarkably well in the light, 
 red loam which forms the inland soil ; and barley 
 and rye, as well as most of the hardier vegeta- 
 bles, are raised to a considerable extent. 
 
 The three months of warm weather which the 
 province enjoys hardly gives the corn time to 
 ripen ; and the only field of corn which we ever 
 saw on the island, had, when about a foot high, 
 made a sickly attempt to tassel out, but had sig- 
 nally failed. 
 
 There are scarcely any stones on the island ; 
 the few that are to be found are a soft, friable 
 sandstone, which seems in a hurry to crumble 
 back to sand again, and leave the soil wholly free 
 from any impediment to the farmer's plough. 
 The inhabitants here have a curious way, we 
 
170 
 
 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 shall notice, of economizing their few precious 
 stones in building roadside walls. First they lay 
 a course of pebbles, then a thick layer of sod, 
 then another course of pebbles, another layer of 
 sod, and so on, until they have made a stout and 
 quite durable wall, out of sods and small stones, 
 which our farmers would consider worthless for 
 such a purpose. 
 
 Other things which will strike one as curious 
 are the little barns with movable roofs, which are 
 to be seen on every side. Instead of having one 
 or two large barns, the islanders have several, per- 
 haps many small ones. These are walled up to 
 the height of ten feet or so, and above the walls 
 extend four uprights as much higher. Through 
 a hole in each corner of the roof these uprights 
 are placed, and upon them the roof slides up or 
 down, always resting on the hay underneath. 
 Thus, in the fall of the year, a stranger, by sim- 
 ply glancing at the barns on the road-side, could 
 tell whether it was a year of plenty or a season 
 of scarcity ; for if " the labor of the husband- 
 man had been blessed," as the Thanksgiving 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 171 
 
 proclamations say, the little i:oof will be raised 
 to the topmost notch, and the barns will be burst- 
 ing out with plenty ; but if Jack Frost comes too 
 early and nips the crop, the roofs of the barns 
 will proclaim it by resting flat upon the walls, 
 while the long posts stretch gaunt and bare above 
 them. 
 
 If we go out to ride, we shall find that, " turn 
 out to the left^ as the law directs," is the rule 
 here, and a most perplexing rule for a Yankee to 
 drive b}^ it is, too ; and we shall have many 
 narrow escapes from collision with the decidedly 
 antiquated and rickety teams of the people of 
 the land. 
 
 Our text-books on natural history are faulty 
 in one respect ; not one of them contains the 
 following passage : — 
 
 " What creatures besides antelopes are noted 
 for their wonderful curiosity?" 
 
 " Ans. The inhabitants of some of the smaller 
 Provincial towns." 
 
 When the stranger first enters one of these vil- 
 lages, he is surprised to see every doorway, and 
 
172 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 window, and street corner crowded with men, 
 women, and children, whose sole purpose in life 
 seems to be to gaze upon his form and features. 
 The emotions of this stranger will be various. 
 First, the thought flits through his mind that this 
 is a village of detectives, and that he is suspected 
 of some great crime, on which account each of 
 the inhabitants is mentally taking his photograph 
 and exact measurements. 
 
 But the idea is so preposterous that even the 
 infants in arms should belong to the detective 
 corps, that he soon abandons this notion, and 
 emotions of pleasure take its place. " Ah," says 
 he to himself, " I must have become very distin- 
 guished since I left home ; received the nomina- 
 tion for governor or congressman, perhaps, or at 
 least ' alderman of my native town.' Who 
 knows.? And though I have not heard of it my- 
 self, it has got to the ears of these good people, 
 and they take this method of showing their ap- 
 probation. But it is very singular," he thinks, 
 '* that they utter no word, neither give vent to 
 their feelings in a single cheer ; " and about this 
 
now TO ENJOY THEM. 173 
 
 time, his joy gives place to terror and dismay, as 
 he thinks, " What is the matter with my face or 
 figure ? Are my feet turning into hoofs, or my 
 ears into horns? Is my skin becoming bkick, or 
 is there a great rent in the back of my coat?" 
 
 And he rushes home, and to his looking-glass, 
 in great anxiety, to find his personal appearance 
 unchanged, and to anathematize the stupid curi- 
 osity of the natives. 
 
 But this trait, is not characteristic of all the 
 people of the provinces, by any means ; it ap- 
 pears only in a few less favored regions ; for 
 in general the people are as polite, genial, and 
 hospitable as any one could wish. Indeed, it is 
 said that on Prince Edward Island the belated 
 traveller will find at any farm-house, when 
 night overtakes him, food and bed of the best 
 quality, for which the good farmer feels insulted 
 to be ofiered pay. 
 
 But we were just starting out from Summer- 
 side, at five o'clock in the morning. Soon we 
 reach "• Hazel Grove," as Farmer Bagnall calls 
 his half-way house, between Summerside and 
 
174 
 
 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 Charlottetown ; and while we are waiting to have 
 our horses changed, we may as well step inside 
 and partake of a first-class breakfast of salmon or 
 mackerel, lobsters, mutton (the island is noted 
 for its fine mutton), and cold beef, with their 
 usual concomitants, for all of which the modest 
 sum of twenty-five cents is considered a full 
 equivalent. 
 
 Moreover, w^e must not fail to visit Mrs. Bag- 
 nail's fragrant dairy, and her fine kitchen garden, 
 which is quite a marvel for these cold northern 
 latitudes. 
 
 If it is as late as the middle of August, she 
 will point out, with evident pride, her rows of 
 " early green peas," just beginning to fill out. 
 
 Early green peas in the middle of August; 
 think of that, ye Massachusetts farmers, whose 
 dry pea-vines hang at that time, sear and yellow, 
 on rustling bushes ! 
 
 We would suggest to any devoted lover of 
 early fruits and vegetables, that he might greatly 
 prolong his enjoyment by following the seasons 
 along as it were, by travelling through various 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM,. I'j^ 
 
 2t 
 
 climes. For instance, starting in the tropics in 
 the month of March, he might enjoy his straw- 
 berries and cherries, green peas and asparagus, 
 during the very first days of spring. Then he 
 would slowly journey to more temperate climes, 
 keeping pace with the northward progress of 
 his favorite dishes, until at length, the first part 
 of autumn would find him eating strawberries 
 and green peas in Mrs. Bagnall's garden, at 
 Hazel Grove. 
 
 Twenty miles of stage-coach ride from Hazel 
 Grove brings us to Charlottetown, the capital 
 and largest city of the island ; and quite pleased 
 shall we be with the appearance of the place. 
 Ten thousand people, living for the most part in 
 low, brown, wooden houses, arranged on wide 
 and regular streets, compose the population of 
 this very quiet, orderly city. 
 
 The commerce of Charlottetown is already 
 considerable, and the excellent harbor will admit 
 of a great metropolis on this Island of Prince 
 Edward, should the great trade-winds ever blow 
 strongly in this direction. 
 
176 . OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 . . ■» 
 
 Though Charlottetown can boast of but few- 
 fine buildings, yet she possesses two or three 
 fine government houses. They are built of 
 brown sandstone, brought at great expense from 
 New Brunswick, and, standing in the principal 
 square, are a great ornament to the place. The 
 great want of the city is good hotel accommo- 
 dations. The public houses are all small, the 
 tables rather poor, and all are so much alike 
 that it will be of little use to mention the names 
 of any. 
 
 The school system of the island appears to be 
 in rather a primitive state, though the school- 
 houses along the road much resemble (in all 
 respects but their shingled sides and their lack 
 of paint) the corresponding nurseries for young 
 ideas in New Hampshire and Vermont. One 
 is in no danger of forgetting, how^ever, that he 
 is no longer in the land of Young America, 
 when, as he rides by, he sees the rows of school 
 boys and girls draw^n up on both sides of the 
 road, respectfully pulling their forelocks, and 
 dropping courtesies to the passing stranger. 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 177 
 
 We are told that the school-mistresses, who 
 instil ideas of politeness and of the alphabet 
 into the young islanders, receive forty pounds a 
 year for their services, and doubtless deem them- 
 selves " passing rich " at that. " Forty pounds, 
 or one hundred and thirty-two dollars," as one 
 of them informed us. 
 
 From recollections of early school-days, and 
 of the table of English money, we had always 
 supposed that forty pounds was more than one 
 hundred and thirty-two dollars, but surely, the 
 " school-marm " ought to know. 
 
 Provisions are wonderfully cheap on this isle 
 of plenty. To illustrate the low prices prevail- 
 ing in these favored domains of royalty, let us 
 suppose that we have gone to housekeeping 
 here, and are about to sit down to a "good 
 square meal," to fill up the vacancy which a 
 long ride over the billowy roads of the island 
 has left. 
 
 That plate of fresh salmon which first comes 
 on has cost five cents per pound, if it is in the 
 salmon season, while, if a fish of the species 
 12 
 
178 OUR VACATIONS, 
 
 chosen to grace the Massachusetts Hall of Rep- 
 resentatives, had been preferred, we might have 
 bought a fifteen pounder for half as many cop- 
 pers. Of course, since we are in the land of 
 John Bull, we must not discard the national dish ; 
 and for that choice roast which next makes its 
 appearance the price was ten cents per pound, 
 while the mutton chop by its side cost us just 
 half as much. 
 
 The chickens which flank the roast beef have 
 cost thirty-two cents per pair ; the eggs are 
 twelve cents per dozen ; the butter fifteen, and 
 the cheese five, cents per pound. 
 
 Of course this is very extravagant ; but, then, 
 one must eat something, you know, even if he 
 don't lay up a cent ; and he may as well grow 
 poor on such things as spend all his substance 
 for fresh mackerel at thirty cents a dozen, or lob- 
 sters at a cent and a half apiece. Indeed, such 
 privations in the line of fresh provisions do these 
 poor islanders endure, that it has been thought 
 best, in some quarters, to re-enact the old Con- 
 necticut law, that " no master mechanic shall 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM, 179 
 
 give his apprentices fresh salmon to eat more 
 than three times a week." 
 
 The small change witli which pay is given for 
 these necessaries of hfe is rather perplexing to eyes 
 accustomed to greenback currency ; for besides 
 the dimes, half dimes, and quarters, whose God- 
 dess of Liberty wears a strangely familiar ex- 
 pression, we are continually exercising our reck- 
 oning powers to ascertain the value of certain 
 twenty, twenty-four, forty-eight, and sixty cent 
 pieces, besides a liberal sprinkling of sixpences, 
 shillings, and florins, bearing the queen's image 
 and superscription ; and occasionally the grouty 
 visages of Georgius IV. or Gulielmus IV. find 
 their way into our pocket-book, carrying with 
 them far greater veneration than the memory of 
 those royal personages themselves is likely to do. 
 
 On the whole, the people of Prince Edward, 
 politically and socially, are very much like the 
 rest of the great world about them. The men 
 wrangle and grow furious over politics ; the 
 women gossip in the most approved fashion ; 
 and the young folks put on airs, and aftection- 
 
i8o OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 ately designate their " parients " as " paw," 
 and " maw," just as though three thousand miles 
 of ocean did not roll between them and London 
 aristocracy. 
 
 While New Brunswick and Nova Scotia be- 
 longed to the Dominion of Canada from the 
 beginning. Prince Edward Island long remained 
 independent, exceedingly jealous of everything 
 Canadian, and until very recently has been gov- 
 erned in all matters by Houses of Senators and 
 Commons of its own. 
 
 This little province, too, of scarce a hundred 
 thousand souls, has, according to its papers, a 
 complete Tammany of its own, and its handful 
 of legislators find it impossible to perform the 
 functions of their office without expending sev- 
 eral thousand dollars annually for pocket-knives, 
 brandy, lead pencils at two dollars apiece, &c., 
 if the opposition journals are to be believed. 
 Base imitators these of our ignoble example ! 
 
 A railroad (the first the province has ever 
 had) has recently been constructed from Sum- 
 merside to Charlottetown, and is now open for 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 
 
 passenger traffic, we believe, so that in the future 
 travellers will have a more speedy method of 
 reaching the capital, if they choose to go by rail. 
 Still, q^n a bright summer morning, for pure air, 
 lovely scenery, and a pleasant glimpse of coun- 
 try life in the province, commend us to a top 
 seat on one of Mr. Bagnall's coaches. 
 
 Rustico, a little village eighteen miles from 
 Charlottetown, is where the people of " the city" 
 rusticate, and it is almost the onl}^ watering-place 
 on the island. The ride to Rustico and back 
 will fill up one day of our stay at Charlottetown 
 very pleasantly, and, if in the season, we can 
 have rare sport with the flocks of snipe, ducks, 
 and other waterfowl w^hich here frequent the 
 coast. One day, too, must be devoted to fishing, 
 for famous are the trout brooks of Prince Ed- 
 ward's land. 
 
 For nearly half of the year communication 
 between the island and main land is kept up with 
 great difficulty and danger, for all the harbors 
 are frozen over five feet thick or more ; and very 
 frequently the whole gulf, from shore to shore, 
 
1 82 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 is covered with ice. At such times the mails are 
 transported on ice-boats, which are so construct- 
 ed that they can be drawn over the ice or pro- 
 pelled through the water with equal facility. In 
 summer, however, an excellent line of steamers 
 plies between Charlottetown and the coast of 
 New Brunswick and Nova Scotia ; and if we 
 have seen all that the time of our vacation allows 
 of this Qiieen of the St. Lawrence Gulf, we will 
 take the steamer St. Lawrence or the Princess 
 of Wales for Cape Breton. 
 
 Our first stopping-place will be Pictou, a 
 name connected, no doubt, in many of our 
 minds, chiefly with the grimy coal-barges which 
 frequent our harbors. Years ago, Pictou was a 
 place of considerable importance, as the seat of 
 an extensive lumber trade ; but gradually the 
 forests w^ere cut oft', lumber became scarce, and 
 Pictou's glory seemed waning. About this time, 
 however, rich deposits of coal were found in the 
 neighborhood ; and now the place is more flour- 
 ishing than at first, and the fossilized forests of 
 antediluvian days seem likely to be a more lasting 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 183 
 
 benefit to the region than were the pine groves 
 
 of the present century. 
 
 But we have hardly time to think of Pictou's 
 
 varied fortunes, and to notice the fine Catholic 
 If 
 
 church on the hill, — placed on the highest point 
 of land, it is said, that the sailor, as he nears 
 harbor, may first of all see its spire pointing 
 heavenwards, — before the lines are cast off, the 
 heavy walking-beam begins its regular march 
 again, and we are headed for Port Hawksbury, 
 in the Gut of Canso. 
 
 We should like to introduce our readers to 
 Port Hawksbury, as we saw it for the first time 
 one lovely August afternoon. The setting sun 
 was just throwing his last horizontal rays 
 straight through the gap which the Gut of Canso 
 makes between Cape Breton and the main land 
 of Nova Scotia. On the right towered the 
 bristling heights of Cape Porcupine, while on 
 the left stretched far away the bold and rugged 
 scenery of Cape Breton. 
 
 The steamer seemed to be ploughing through 
 liquid gold, instead of salt sea brine, and it required 
 
184 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 little imagination to lead to the idea that every 
 turn of the strait would bring us to the entrance 
 of some enchanted palace, or to some Sindbad's 
 cave in the mountain side. 
 
 Soon w^e draw up to the Port Hawksbury 
 wdiarf, and here we may as well dismiss all 
 poetic notions, for a scene awaits us which we 
 are sure has its match nowhere else on the 
 globe. 
 
 Instead of the hospitable descendants of the 
 English, whom we have seen heretofore, a crowd 
 of brawny sons of Caledonia greet us, all clad 
 in gray homespun, and chattering a most fearful 
 language, which sounds like the roll of distant 
 thunder, the crash of crockery, and the jabber 
 of a dozen Dutchmen, all rolled into one. 
 
 To get a clearer idea of the scene, imagine 
 half a hundred French Canadian teams (the most 
 ancient of vehicles, and most bony of horses, like 
 those which visit our New England villages 
 each summer) collected into a small space near 
 the wharf; then imagine each one of the Canuck 
 owners of these turnouts shouting, and yelling, 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 1S5 
 
 and pulling, and winking, and whispering to 
 your individual self, to induce you to employ 
 him to carry you to West Bay, thirteen miles 
 distant, and you have some notion of the scene 
 which greets the arrival of each steamer at the 
 port. 
 
 First, a big Scotchman seizes you by the arm, 
 as though he would carry you to West Bay 
 bodily. Him you shake off with difficulty, when 
 another son of Anak embraces you on the other 
 side. 
 
 Over there stands a stout Jehu, who beckons 
 and smiles in a most familiar way, after the 
 "long-lost-brother" fashion, and you almost 
 feel that it is a personal slight to neglect his 
 entreaties. 
 
 Just behind him stands another, who winks 
 at you in a confidential manner, as much as to 
 say, '' All these other chaps are impostors. I 
 am the only regular, first-class wagon." 
 
 We choose the least importunate of our newly- 
 made friends, and with many contortions of 
 body and groanings of spirit, we stow ourselves 
 
iS6 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 away on the back seats, while the big Cale- 
 donian mounts in fi'ont. 
 
 Would you know the most approved method 
 of riding over these mountain roads? Keep 
 your eyes riveted on the road, about ten rods 
 ahead of your Bucephalus ; then, when you see 
 that he is approaching a cradle-hole, large stone, 
 or rickety bridge, shut your eyes, hold your 
 breath, raise yourself about six inches from your 
 seat, and try to lose your consciousness, until 
 you get over the obstacle, and on the smooth 
 ground beyond. To be sure, if you adopt this 
 method, you will use your seats but very little; 
 but then the effect is exhilarating, or exciting, to 
 say the least, and on the whole these roads are 
 excellent preventives of indigestion. 
 
 Whether the horses have no great expecta- 
 tions of oats awaitingf them in the manner at 
 home, or perhaps for some other reason, they are 
 not very ambitious to get over the road, and it 
 takes all the driver's powers of persuasion to 
 keep them moving. 
 
 First, he encourages them by a long series of 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 187 
 
 clucks ; then he varies the monotony by re- 
 marking, " Git up, g'long," several hundred 
 times in no subdued tone ; then he pours forth 
 a large number of Gaelic expletives, and by this 
 time is ready to return to the original clucks. 
 
 Feeling in a communicative mood, yve attempt 
 to carry on a conversation with him. 
 
 " Well, driver, do you ever see any game in 
 these regions? " 
 
 *' Yes (Git up ; g'long ; hi, there ; gee. Buck ; 
 git up ; g'long, g'long) — sometimes." And 
 now follows half a page of horse talk, peculiar 
 to Breton drivers, which can't possibly be writ- 
 ten ; and then we venture to ask., — 
 
 "What do you find to shoot, driver?" 
 
 " Pa'tridges (Git up ; keep the road ; g'long, 
 there) — ducks " (now comes a prolonged hiss 
 at the nigh horse), " rabbits, and you sometimes 
 see — (Hi, there; what are you about, Charlie? 
 git up, git up; g'long)." During a long list of 
 Gaelic adjectives which follow, we rather lose 
 the connection of his discourse, and he shouts 
 out — " a bear " 
 
OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 "Where? where?" we excitedly cry, while the 
 ladies of the party are preparing to faint, and 
 things generally begin to look serious. But our 
 driver continues to cluck calmly to his nags, 
 and explains himself by remarking, " I only 
 said (G'long, Buck; don't be lazy, Charlie), 
 that I see a bear " — " Where is he? " we again 
 demand ; while the ladies entreat, '• Do, dear 
 Mr. Driver, please hurry on ! " But our big 
 Scotchman finishes his series of clucks before 
 he does his sentence — " now and then in the 
 woods." 
 
 We recognize the force of the old saying, 
 that no man can do two things well at the 
 same time, and conclude not to question our 
 driver to any great extent during the rest of the 
 ride. 
 
 At West Bay there is a little steamer ready 
 to carry us to Sydney, a hundred and twenty 
 miles distant ; and after paying Jehu a dollar 
 apiece, which he has fairly earned, we go on 
 board, and are soon threading our way through 
 the intricacies of the Bras d'Or. 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 189 
 
 And a wonderful inland sea is this Bras d'Or, 
 — the Mediterranean of North America, — one 
 hundred miles long, and from ten rods to ten 
 miles wide. It extends throughout the entire 
 length of Cape Breton, dividing the island into 
 two peninsulas. 
 
 High mountains enclose the lake on all sides, 
 sometimes rising abruptly from the water, — 
 then twice viewed, once in the clear air above, 
 and once in the blue depths beneath, — at other 
 times tinged with blue by the distance, while 
 between them and the water's bank are long 
 slopes of cultivated land, dotted here and there 
 with the white cottages of »the farmers or fish- 
 ermen. 
 
 The inhabitants of Cape Breton number about 
 twenty-five thousand, and for the mOst part they 
 are purely Scotch. In many places the people 
 speak nothing but their native tongue, and the 
 stranger finds it very difficult to understand or 
 to be understood, as Gaelic is one of the most 
 unspeakable languages in the world. Moreover, 
 these Bretoners are a very primitive race in ev- 
 
I90 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 ery sense of the word ; tall, broad-shouldered, 
 and muscular, they are clad almost universally 
 in gray homespun, and live in the smallest of 
 white-washed cottages. Their wants are sup- 
 plied without difficulty, for a few acres of cul- 
 tivated land give them plenty of oatmeal, and 
 the Bras d'Or is filled with all varieties of fine 
 fish, which may be very easily caught. 
 
 The Kirk of Scotland (Presbyterian) is the 
 only church which flourishes among these peo- 
 ple, and it is said that they still prefer sermons 
 of two hours' length to any other. 
 
 As we steam along through the unruffled 
 waters of the "Arm of Gold," far off there to 
 the eastward we can just discern the marble 
 mountain, whose white sides glisten afar in the 
 sunlight. The marble, which is very fair, though 
 not of the best quality, has not yet been quar^- 
 ried to any considerable extent. 
 
 Besides the marble mountain, the geologist 
 finds many other objects of interest. One of 
 these is the stratum of coal which underlies 
 much of this island, and which is supposed to 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM, ., 191 
 
 stretch in a continuous belt from Sydney to 
 Pictou, a distance of a hundred and fifty miles. 
 But especially will the geologist be interested in 
 the numerous fossils to be found on these shores. 
 Branches of trees he will find turned into the 
 solid rock ; stigmaria and sigillaria, with their 
 bark and all their depressions and roughnesses 
 as plainly visible as they were twenty thousand 
 years ago; delicate ferns, and the skeletons of 
 various leaves firmly embedded in the hard stone ; 
 and all these treasures, at which we usually gaze 
 under the glass cases of a cabinet, to be had for 
 nothing on the shores of Cape Breton. 
 
 The coal deposits of this region are really 
 wonderful. Dig a few feet dow^nwards in almost 
 anyplace, and you will strike a rich seam of these 
 black diamonds. In many spots along the 
 shore, the earth having been washed away by 
 the waves, the coal has fallen down upon the 
 pebbly beach in considerable quantities, and is 
 there collected by the inhabitants. 
 
 Many families, however, need not go even 
 so far as this for their fuel, but, just stepping 
 
192 ^ 067? VACATIONS. 
 
 iown cellar, they find a natural coal-bin, as 
 inexhaustible as the widow's barrel of meal, 
 all prepared for them. The coal is bituminous, 
 and not the best for family use, but excellent for 
 steam-producing purposes. 
 
 The entrance to the Bras d'Or from the Gulf 
 of St. Lawrence is one of the most remarkable 
 features of this inland sea. For nearly two 
 miles we steam through a narrow and tortuous 
 pass, along which only a steamer of very small 
 dimensions can make its way, and throughout 
 the whole distance w^e could almost jump from 
 our little craft to the shore of either peninsula 
 of Cape Breton. A beautiful sail is this through 
 the " narrows ; " the strait seems to open a 
 passage for the prow as we go on, until the 
 white breakers and dashing waves proclaim 
 that we are out once more in the great gulf. 
 
 On either side of the outer entrance of the 
 Bras d'Or tower rocky headlands, ^ which, at 
 a little distance, much resemble fortresses. Half 
 a dozen guns and a company of regulars would 
 make them so in good earnest. 
 
. HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 193 
 
 Thirteen miles by water from these natural 
 forts, is Sydney, the former capital, and at pres- 
 ent the largest city of Cape Breton. 
 
 The city is notable for nothing except a look 
 of quiet decay, and some very fine piers, from 
 which im.mense quantities of coal are annually 
 shipped. 
 
 The coal mines are some three or four miles 
 from the city, and their vast, sunless depths, 
 running out for two miles under the ocean's 
 waves ; their long, wide seams of coal ; their 
 human inhabitants, whose coal-begrimed faces 
 give them a very sinister expression ; and their 
 plump little horses, which have never seen a ray 
 of daylight, — make them well worth a visit from 
 any traveller in Cape Breton. 
 
 North Sydney is a place of more commercial 
 importance than old Sydney, and in its well- 
 situated harbor can be seen every sort of craft 
 from the ugliest of little coal barges to the 
 trimmest of British frigates. 
 
 Old Louisburg Fort, some twenty-four miles 
 from Sydney, on the south side of the island, 
 13 
 
194 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 should be visited if there is time, for this old 
 French capital was long the bloody battle-ground 
 of the French and English when they fought for 
 the possession of this region. Little but historic 
 memories is left to old Louisburg now, how- 
 ever, for, with the exception of a few fishermen's 
 huts, the place is well nigh deserted. 
 
 While stopping at Sydney, we must make Mrs. 
 Herns's our headquarters, if that good lady has a 
 spare room for us, for at most of the so-called 
 hotels of Sydney we should fare but poorly. 
 
 Now the northern limit of our vacation jour- 
 ney has been reached, and if we wish to make 
 the tour of the maritime provinces complete, we 
 shall doubtless retrace our steps as far as Pictou, 
 then strike across Nova Scotia by rail, and return 
 to our republican home by way of Halifax. 
 
 On the return journey, we reach Port Hawks- 
 bury at nightfall, and going to bed in the steamer 
 as she lies at the wharf, awake the next morning 
 within sight of Pictou. 
 
 .The steward hurries breakfast, the passengers 
 hurry down their salmon and beefsteak, and then 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 195 
 
 hurry ashore as the steamer grazes the Pictou 
 wharf. But here all haste ceases, for Pictou, like 
 eyer}^ other Acadian village, always preserves its 
 unruffled equanimity, and you might as well try 
 to hasten the growth of the forests primeval as 
 to hurry the Bluenose inhabitants of this region. 
 
 Before a great while, however, we are flying 
 over the Nova Scotia Railway, which takes the 
 traveller from Pictou to Halifax, through a coun- 
 try wonderful for its rocks and barrenness, and 
 for little else, apparently. To be sure, in the 
 neighborhood of Truro there are many fine 
 farms and stout fields of grass and grain, but 
 throughout most of the journey the eye rests 
 upon nothing but wide pastures, whose only 
 crops are huge boulders, swampy lowlands cov- 
 ered with stunted brushwood, and forests of pine 
 and spruce, through which numerous fires have 
 raged, leaving the trees leafless and dry. 
 
 But the very headquarters and capital of this 
 region, as far as barrenness goes, is in the neigh- 
 borhood of Windsor Junction, where the Annap- 
 olis valley road joins the Nova Scotia Railway. 
 
196 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 Here, for miles and miles, scarcely a foot of 
 soft earth can be found. Stones, rocks, boulders, 
 ledges, everywhere meet the eye. Every house 
 is literally founded upon a rock. 
 
 The man who finds sermons in stones ought 
 to spend all his Sundays here ; and should he be 
 of a religious turn of mind, and live to be as 
 old as Methuselah, he never need hear the same 
 discourse repeated. 
 
 Fancy the top of Mount Washington brought 
 down to the level of the sea, and suppose the 
 rocks, instead of being heaped together in a ro- 
 mantic sort of way, as rocks always should be, 
 spread out very thickly over several square miles 
 of territory, and you have a faint idea of the 
 appearance of Windsor Junction and the sur- 
 rounding country. 
 
 There is an ancient tradition in this region 
 accounting for this stony ground, which runs 
 something as follows : — 
 
 When Pyrrha and Deucalion passed this way, 
 they engaged in their customary occupation of 
 throwing boulders over their heads. But the 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 197 
 
 rocks, partaking of the universal sluggish and 
 tardy habits of the country, thought there 
 was no hurry about turning into flesh and 
 blood, and so waited until the second father and 
 mother of mankind had got out of sight, when it 
 was no longer possible for them to take the 
 human shape divine ; and ever since they have 
 remained weighty monuments to the evils of pro- 
 crastination. 
 
 By taking the Annapolis Railway, a few miles 
 of travel will bring us right to the home of 
 Evangeline. For here, — 
 
 " In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of 
 Minas, 
 
 Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pre 
 
 Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows sti-etched to 
 the eastward, 
 
 Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks with- 
 out number ; 
 
 There, in the midst of its farms, reposed the Acadian 
 village. 
 
 Strongly built were the houses, with frames of oak and 
 of chestnut. 
 
 Such as the peasants of Normandy built in the reign 
 of the Henries. 
 
198 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 Thatched were the roofs, with dormer windows; and 
 
 gables, projecting 
 Over the basement below, protected and shaded the 
 
 doorways." 
 
 But though the Basin of Minas is just as fruit- 
 ful as ever, not quite so secluded and still is the 
 Acadian village as when Benedict Bellefontaine 
 dwelt on his goodly acres. For modern life and 
 bustle have even reached the Basin of Minas ; the 
 iron horse snorts under the very dormer win- 
 dows and gables projecting, and the conductor 
 sticks his head into the car, and cries out, 
 " Grand Free," in the broadest of Saxon ac- 
 cents. Still in company with our pocket Long- 
 fellows, w^e can spend many enjoyable hours 
 in this Annapolis valley. 
 
 After leaving Windsor Junction, the Nova 
 Scotia road runs on the ram's horn principle 
 for thirteen miles, w^ien it finds its terminus in 
 the station at Halifax. 
 
 But we are still two miles and a half from 
 the business portion of the city, and must take 
 one of the little horse cars which are fur- 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 199 
 
 nished with only one door, and that one in front, 
 and ride to the " International," or '' Halifax," or 
 "'' Acadian," as fortune may direct. 
 
 The fickle goddess once took us to the first- 
 mentioned house ; and if we remember aright, 
 we found no occasion to wish for a change, 
 though we have no doubt that either of the 
 others is equally good. 
 
 Halifax impresses the stranger much more 
 favorably than any other city in this part of Her 
 Majesty's dominions, Mr. Warner to the contrary, 
 notwithstanding. It has neither the unfinished, 
 unsubstantial appearance of St. John, nor the 
 straggling look of most of the smaller towns of 
 the province. To be sure, a fresh coat of paint, 
 of some other color than dirty brown, would 
 greatly improve many of the houses even of 
 Halifax ; but for the most part, the principal 
 streets are lined with substantial blocks of brick 
 or brown stone. 
 
 From the Citadel there is a fine view of the 
 beautiful site of the city, its many church-spires 
 and fine school-houses, its spacious harbor white 
 
200 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 with the sails of many nations, and the broad 
 Atlantic, with its waves and breakers rolling 
 beyond. 
 
 The city is remarkably well protected, for, 
 besides the bristling Citadel, there is Fort George 
 in the harbor, flanked on either side by Fort Clar- 
 ence and the Eastern Battery, ready to belch out 
 fire and lead from a hundred mouths. 
 
 If possible, we must be in Halifax during one 
 of the market days. These come every Wednes- 
 day and Saturday, and then the market streets 
 of the city present a very striking appearance. 
 From early morn the little country carts begin to 
 pour into the city, loaded with a very small 
 portion of everything which the eye of man 
 ever rested upon. 
 
 The owners of these treasures arrange their 
 teams near the market, until every street and 
 alley within a radius of half a mile is lined with 
 them. Here is a little go-cart with a small 
 bunch of tansy, a few strips of slippery elm, and 
 a half dozen quarts of diminutive green cran- 
 berries, for its freight ; there stands another load- 
 
HO IV TO ENJOY THEM. 201 
 
 eel with a few clusters of bimchberries, as many 
 stalks of rhubarb, and a little watercress. 
 
 In this corner, a family of Micmac Indians are 
 fashioning rainbow-colored baskets, and at the 
 same time nursing several bronze-faced little 
 pappooses, which are curiously cradled between 
 two flat pieces of board. On that side, a num- 
 ber of shiny-faced colored sisters are dispensing 
 pop beer, greasy doughnuts, and gingerbread 
 men to numerous cannibal little boys and girls 
 who have come in with their parents from the 
 country. Here an auctioneer is cracking his 
 voice in the vain effort to sell some chairs and 
 tables that have outlived their usefulness, while 
 his stentorian tones are almost drowned by the 
 quacking of ducks and the squawking of chickens, 
 which are tied by their legs and thrown together 
 in a heap on one side, to await the coming of a 
 purchaser. 
 
 White men, black men, red men, Scotchmen, 
 Frenchmen, Yankees, and Bluenoses ; jabbering 
 English, Gaelic, Micmac, and darky lingo, ban- 
 tering and haggling in a way that is known only 
 in Halifax on a market day. 
 
202 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 Dalhousie College is one of the institutions of 
 Halifax. The exterior of the single college build- 
 ing, to be sure, does not speak very well for the 
 higher educational advantages of Nova Scotia ; 
 but it may be presumed that the faculty and cur- 
 riculum do not at all correspond to the building. 
 
 In one of the chairs of the college — vs^e think 
 of moral philosophy — sits Professor De Mille, of 
 novelistic fame. 
 
 It seems almost ridiculous to think of the 
 author of the rollicking " Dodge Club," the jolly 
 " Lady of the Ice," and the mysterious " Cryp- 
 togram " drilling Butler and metaphysics into a 
 parcel of college boys ; nevertheless it is said 
 that this man3--sided professor excels in morals 
 as well as in tragic love-scenes. 
 
 Dartmouth is the principal suburb of Halifax, 
 where a large skate factory and an immense 
 ropewalk are situated. But the place is of little 
 interest, and will hardly repay a visit. 
 
 To complete the circle of our provincial tour 
 we must take one of the steamers of the Boston, 
 Halifax and Prince Edward Island Steamship 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 203 
 
 Line, or, if we choose, the Falmouth, which 
 will land us at Portland. 
 
 Or, if the traveller wishes to see one of the 
 most interesting sections of Nova Scotia, he can 
 return by way of the Windsor and Annapolis 
 Railway and the Bay of Fundy steamer, return- 
 ing thence to the United vStates the way he came. 
 For a part of the distance to the junction, this is 
 retracing our steps ; but having reached the Basin 
 of Minas, the road runs along near the southern 
 shore of the Bay of Fundy. The broad* marshes 
 along the way are protected by dikes, built by 
 the old Acadian French settlers. The view on 
 the right reaches to the bay and the hills of 
 Parrsboro', on the opposite shore. The bold 
 promontory of Cape Blomidon is a prominent 
 object in the landscape. We pass Hantsport, a 
 busy ship-building village ; Wolfvills, where is 
 Acadia College ; and Kentsville, where the rail- 
 way offices are located, and reach Annapolis, 
 the terminus. This is the ancient Port Royal, 
 the first capital of the province, and one of the 
 oldest places on the continent. The remains 
 
204 OUR VACATIONS, 
 
 of old fortifications are still standing, arid from 
 the summit can be had fine views of the river 
 and the surrounding country. 
 
 On being transferred to the steamer Empress, 
 the traveller passes down the deep AnnajDolis 
 basin, vv^ith a range of high hills on either side, 
 to Digby, where a landing is made. This quiet, 
 shady town has a pleasant outlook from the 
 hill-side. The opening from the basin is between 
 high bluffs, and through this the steamer passes 
 into the Bay of Fundy, and after a run of three 
 or four hours makes a landing at the wharf in 
 St. John. 
 
 In this schedule we start from Boston and come 
 back to the Tri-Mountain Cjty. 
 
 From Boston to St. John via International Line 
 
 of steamers, ....... $5.50 
 
 Grand Central Hotel at St. John, two days, at 
 
 $1.50 per day, 3.00 
 
 From St. John to Shediac zna European and 
 
 North American Railroad, .... 2.50 
 Weldon House at Shediac, one day, at $1.00 per 
 
 day, 1. 00 
 
 From Shediac to Summerside, Prince Edward 
 
 Island steamers, 1.50 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 205 
 
 From Summerside to Charlottetown 7>ta Bag- 
 nail's stage, 1.50 
 
 Hotel bill at Charlottetown, four days, . . 6.00 
 From Charlottetown to Port Hawkesburj, Prince 
 
 Edward Island steamers, . . . . 4 00 
 
 From Port Hawkesbury to West Bay, by coach, . i.oo 
 
 From West Bay to Sydney, 3.00 
 
 At Mrs. Herns's, Sydney, three days, . . . 3.00 
 
 Fares back to Pictou, over same route, . . 6 00 
 
 From Pictou to Halifax, N. S., railroad, . . 3.25 
 
 At International Hotel, Halifax, four days, . 6.00 
 From Halifax to Boston via Boston, Halifax and 
 
 Prince Edward Island Steamship Line, . 9.00 
 Estimate for incidental expenses, including dis- 
 count on money, &c., &c., .... 4000 
 
 Total expense for round trip, . . .$96.25 
 
 For those wishing to get a glimpse of the 
 maritime provinces, a refreshing sea voyage, 
 and at the same time not wishing to spend 
 as much time or money as the trip we have 
 just described requires, we can recommend 
 nothing pleasanter than to take the round trip 
 with one of the steamers of the Boston, Halifax 
 and Prince Edward Island Steamship Line. 
 
 The steamships of this company, the Carroll 
 
2o6 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 and Alhambra, are safe, roomy, and fast vessels, 
 of some fourteen hundred tons burden, well fur- 
 nished and well officered in every particular. 
 
 The state-rooms are all double, and supplied 
 with life-preserving mattresses, capable of out- 
 riding any storm if it should be our bad luck to 
 take a compulsory voyage on one of them. 
 
 If we decide to follow the fortunes of the 
 steamers on one of their trips, some Saturday 
 noon will find us steaming away from Boston 
 fro*m the end of T Wharf, and, wind and weather 
 permitting, the next Monday morning will find us 
 safely anchored in the snug harbor of Halifax. 
 
 Our steamer only remains here a few hours, 
 but long enough to give a very fair idea of 
 this aristocratic little metropolis. Then we are 
 on our way again, skirting the Nova Scotia coast, 
 and getting our fill of the glorious views which 
 the Straits of Canso afford by the early daylight 
 of the next morning. 
 
 Port Hawkesbury, which we reached before 
 from the other end of the strait, is excited by the 
 arrival of the Boston steamer early this Tuesday 
 morning. 
 
HOW TO ENJOY THEM. 207 
 
 A great event is this arrival, you would think, 
 if you could see the commotion among the 
 owners of the nondescript trains we have before 
 alluded to, as they rush forward to try their 
 powers of persuasion upon our unsuspecting 
 fellow-pilgrims who are bound for Sydney or 
 Baddeck. 
 
 About four o'clock in the afternoon, we come 
 in sight of grimy Pictou, and the next morning 
 we wake up within sight of Charlottetown, the 
 terminus of our steamer's route. 
 
 On Prince Edward Island we remain two days, 
 and have plenty of time for a fishing trip among 
 the trout brooks, and for a sight of the life of the 
 islanders. 
 
 Then, if time or inclination forbids a longer 
 stay in the provinces, we can take our steamer 
 again Thursday night, and retrace our steps 
 as we came, reaching Boston the next Mon- 
 day morning. 
 
 The expenses of such a vacation are about as 
 follows : — 
 
2o8 OUR VACATIONS. 
 
 Fare to Charlottetown, including state-room, $12.00 
 " from " " " . . 12.00 
 
 Meals (breakfast and supper at 50 cts., dinner 
 
 at75cts.), ....... 15.75 
 
 Expenses in port, 10.25 
 
 Total, . . . . . . . $50.00 
 
 Thus we have a delightful excursion of nine 
 >, and a sea voyage of more than half the 
 distance to Europe. 
 
VA CA TION AD VER TISEMENTS. 
 
 WHITE MOUNTAIN HOUSE. 
 
 EOUNSEVEtL & COLBURN, Proprietors. 
 
 CABBOLL, N, H. 
 
 Board, $2, BO per Day. Reasonable Terms 
 by the "Week. 
 
 This well known resort for Summer Tourists has recently been enlarged and 
 refitted, and is now open to the travelling public. 
 
 Situated on the Ammonoosuc. Boston, Concord, and Montreal Railroad Sta- 
 tion in front of house. Our rooms are comfortable, and furnished with new beds 
 and bedding. Satisfaction guaranteed to our guests. We take pleasure in refer- 
 ring to our former patrons. We intend to make this house a Home for those 
 who visit the Mountains. 
 
 A Good Livery connected with the house. 
 
 We will take our patrons to all points of interest about the Mountains on rea- 
 sonable terms. 
 
 TABLE OF DISTANCES. 
 
 B. C. & M. Railroad Station At the Door. 
 
 WiLLEV House 8 Miies. 
 
 WaUMBEK HoU; E II " 
 
 Crawford Notch 5 '* 
 
 Mt. Washington Railroad Station 7 " 
 
 Ammonoosuc Falls 3 " 
 
 Fabvan House X " 
 
 The tables will be supplied with the luxuries of the season, prepared by expe- 
 rienced cooks, and served by attentive waiters. 
 
 A share of patronage solicited. 
 
 The facilities for reaching this house are much improved by the extension of the 
 Boston, Concord and Montreal Railroad to the door. From this house all points 
 are easy of access, being centrally located among the Mountains. 
 
ESTES AND LAURIAT'S PUBLICATIONS, 
 Warehouse 143 Washington St., Boston. 
 
 OVER 100,000 COPIES OF THIS WORK HAVE BEEN SOLD IN FRENCH. 
 
 Chiisot's Popular History of France. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY KOBEST BLACK. 
 
 This great Work is now offered to the American public, and the 
 Publishers, having spared no pains or expense in its reproduc- 
 tion, confidently believe that, as a specimen of book -making, it 
 is unexcelled by ant book made in America. By a special 
 arrangement with the European publishers, we have secured 
 Electrotypes of all of the original wood cuts, by the cele- 
 brated artist, A. de Neuville, thereby securing impressions of 
 the same fully equal to the originals. These Three Hundred 
 Illustrations are pronounced by some of the best Art judges in 
 the country to be the finest wood cuts ever printed in 
 America. Besides the above, we shall add to the work Forty 
 Magnificent Steel Line Engravings, by celebrated artists. 
 
 It will be issued in Semi-Monthly Parts, and the whole work 
 "Will be comprised in not more than Forty-eight, nor less than 
 Forty Parts. 
 
 Persons wanting a good and reliable History of France, 
 need have no hesitation in subscribing for this, as it is the only 
 one of a popular nature, and by a Standard Historian, to be 
 had in the English language. The Publishers offer it confi- 
 dently believing that it will supply a long-felt want. The world- 
 wide reputation of Guizot is a sufficient recommendation to the 
 work, and a guarantee of its being a thoroughly correct and an 
 intensely interesting history. 
 
 SOIiI> OlSriL'S' TO STJBSOMBEItS. 
 
 Fifty Cents per Part, 
 
 O^ Experienced Canvassers wanted for this magnificent work. Apply 
 to the Publishers. 
 
ESTES AND LAURIAT'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Warehouse 143 Washington Street, Boston. 
 
 Boston, Nov. 20, 1873. 
 Grentlemen : M. Guizot's History of France should be read by all who 
 are not indifferent to historical studies. To a most interesting' subject he 
 brings the experience of a statesman, the study of a professor, and the 
 charm of an accomplished writer. I am glad you are to place this recent 
 work within the reach of all American readers. 
 
 Faithfully yours, CHARLES SUMNEE. 
 
 Everything from the pen of Guizot is remarkable for thoroughness of 
 investigation and exact statement. WENDELL PHILLIPS. 
 
 The work supplies a want which has long been felt, and it ought to be 
 in the hands of all students of history. We cannot doubt that it will meet 
 with the same favorable reception in England which has already attended 
 its publication in France. LONDON TIMES. 
 
 The name of Guizot is a sufficient guarantee for the historical value of 
 whatever he writes. E. G. ROBINSON, Pres. Brown University. 
 
 I should be glad to see Guizot's History of France in every school. 
 
 JOHN D. PHILBRICK, Sup't Public Schools, Boston. 
 
 The Popular History of France will be interesting, instructive, and 
 worth to intelligent persons much more than it will cost. 
 
 W. A. STEARNS, Pres. Amherst College. 
 
 I have no hesitation in recommending this work. 
 
 JOHN W. BURGESS, Prof. History Amherst College. 
 
 There is no man more fit to write a History of Prance than M. Guizot. 
 JOSHUA L. CHAM BERLIN, President Bowdoin College. 
 
 "We have seen no other subscription book which, for literary, artistic, 
 and mechanical excellence, could be so unreservedly commended. 
 
 MICHIGAN TEACHER. 
 
ESTES AND LAURIAT'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 Warehouse 143 Washington Street, Boston. 
 
 KNIGHT'S 
 
 Popular History of England. 
 
 As an appropriate companion to Guizot's Populak History 
 OF France, we have issued, in Eight Octavo Volumes, this 
 truly magnificent work. It is an Illustrated History of Society 
 and Government, from the earliest period to the year 1867. By 
 Charles Knight. With more than 1400 Illustrations, includiog 
 200 fine Steel Portraits. 
 
 This is the only complete Standard 
 History of England, 
 
 The reader must go through Hume, SmoUet, Macaulay, 
 Froude, Martineau, and others, to go over the ground which is 
 well covered in this work. Not only does it give with accu- 
 racy and system the historical events from the Druidical times 
 down to the present decade, but it also depicts minutely the man- 
 ners and customs of each era. The author suggests that its title 
 should be a History of the English People, rather than a History 
 of England. Numerous plates illustrate the text, and present 
 vividly to the reader the actors and scenes of the narrative ; and 
 a copious Index facilitates reference to the contents of the work. 
 
 STYLES OF BINDING. 
 
 8 Vols. 8vo. Cloth, uncut, $25.00 
 
 '* " Cloth, beveled, gilt extra, trimmed edges, 25.00 
 
 ** ** Salf calf extra 45.00 
 
 ** ** Half Morocco extra, 45.00 
 
 ** ** Full tree calf, London hound, 60.00 
 
ESTES AND LAURIAT'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 Warehouse 143 Washington St., Boston. 
 
 KNIGHT'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 T E S T I IwdC O 3Sri -A. li S- 
 
 We very cordially recommend these volumes to the readers whom they 
 seek. We know of no History of England so free from prejudice ; so thor- 
 oughly honest and impartial ; so stored with facts, fancies, and illustra- 
 tions; and therefore none so well adapted for school or college as this. — 
 London Athenseum. 
 
 Its literary merits are of a very high order; indeed, nothing has ever 
 appeared superior, if anything has been published equal, to the account 
 of the state of commerce, government, and society at different periods.— 
 Lord Brougham. 
 
 In Charles Knight's admirably comprehensive History of England, no 
 topic that concerns the history of the English people has been omitted; 
 the book of Mr, Knight being, let us say here, by the way, the best 
 HISTORY extant, not only for, but also of, the people.— Charles Dickens. 
 
 Mr. Knight's book well deserves its name; it will be emphatically pop- 
 ular, and it will gain its popularity by genuine merit. It is as good a book 
 of the kind as ever was written. — Westminster Review. 
 
 The best history extant, not only for, but also of, the people. — All the 
 Tear Round. 
 
 A standard book on the shelves ^f all libraries. — London Spectator, 
 
 The last and greatest literary work of his life. This history will remain, 
 for many a long day, a standard work. — London Times. 
 
 This work is the very best History of England that we possess. — Lon- 
 don Standard, 
 
BSTES AND LAURIAT'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Warehouse 143 Washington Street, Boston. 
 
 JEtlena, 
 
 By L. N. CoMTN, Author of "Atherstone Priory," "Ellice," 
 &c. 1 vol. 12mo. $1.50. 
 
 An Italian story of great power and beauty; one that is sure to live. 
 — Leeds Mercury. 
 
 " Elena " is one of the most elegant and interesting fictions of the 
 season. — London Messenger. 
 
 A very pleasing and touching story. It is sure to be read. — London 
 Daily News. 
 
 Waiting -Moping. 
 
 A Novel, from the French of Andre Leo. By J. E. Gale. 
 12mo. Cloth. $1.50. 
 
 The American Naturalist, 
 
 An Illustrated Repertory of Natural History. Making a com- 
 pact library of popular papers on nearly every branch of this 
 interesting science. 6 vols. 8vo. Cloth. $5.00 per vol. 
 
 MogartJi^s Works. 
 
 Quarto. Cloth. With 62 full-page Plates, and descriptive 
 letter-press. " A marvel of cheapness." $3.50. 
 
 The Hhine. 
 
 A Tour from Paris to Mayence, by the Way of Aix-la-Cha- 
 pelle. With an Account of its Legends, Antiquities, and im- 
 portant Historical Events. By Victor Hugo. 12mo. Cloth. 
 
 #2.50. 
 
 Chimes for Childhood. 
 
 A Collection of Songs for Little Folks. With 20 Illustrations 
 by BiRKET Foster, Millais, and others. Tinted paper, 208 
 pages. Cloth, 75 cts. ; half bound, 60 cts. 
 
BSTES AND LAURIAT'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 Warehouse 143 Washington Street^ Boston. 
 
 Packard^s Guide to the Study of Insects. 
 
 Being a popular Introduction to the Study of Entomology, and 
 a Treatise on Injurious and Beneficial Insects ; with Descrip- 
 tions and Accounts of the Habits of Insects, their Transforma- 
 tions, Development, and Classification. 15 full-page Plates, 
 and 670 Cuts in the Text, embracing 1260 Figures of American 
 Insects. Sixth edition. 1 vol. 8vo. Price reduced to $5.00. 
 This book is now acknowledg-ed to be the standard, and is used in the 
 leading universities and institutioas of Europe and America. 
 
 Malf Hours witli Insects * 
 
 A popular Account of their Habits, Modes of Life, &c. To be 
 published in 12 parts, fully illustrated. Each part 25 cents. 
 By A. S. Packard, Jr., of the Peabody Academy of Science. 
 The subjects treated are — Insects of the Garden, of the 
 Plant House, of our Ponds and Brooks ; Population of an 
 Apple Tree ; Insects of the Forest, as Musicians and Mimics ; 
 as Architects ; Insects in Societies ; The Reasoning Powers 
 of Insects. 
 
 Say^s Entomology. 
 
 A Description of the Insects of North America. By Thomas 
 Say. With 54 full-page steel-plate Illustrations, engraved 
 and colored from nature. Edited by J. L. Le Conte. With 
 a Memoir by Geo. Ord. Two vols. 8vo. Cloth, $15.00; 
 half calf, $20 00. 
 
 This standard work is now out of print, the plates having been de- 
 stroyed. We offer the balance of the edition at the above prices. It 
 will soon become scarce, and command a very much higher price. 
 
 Our Common Insects, 
 
 A popular Account of the more common Insects of our Coun- 
 try, embracing chapters on Bees and their Parasites, Moths, 
 Flies, Mosquitos, Beetles, &c. ; while a Calendar will give a 
 general Account of the more common Injurious and Beneficial 
 Insects, and their Time of Appearance, Habits, &c. 200 pages. 
 Profusely Illustrated. ?rice ^2.50. 
 
VA CA TION AD VER TISEMENTS. 
 
 ARRANGEMENT FOR 1874. 
 
 INTERMTIOML STE4MSHIP COMPANY. 
 
 Line of Steamers between 
 
 BOSTON, 
 
 PORTLAND, 
 
 EASTPORT, and 
 
 ST. JOHN, N. B., 
 
 With Connections to 
 
 CALAIS, ME, HALIFAX, N. S, CHARLOTTETOM, P. E. L, &C. 
 
 The favorite, superior, sea-going steamers of this line, 
 
 NEW YORK, NEW BRUNSWICK, 
 
 AN© 
 
 CITY OF PORTLAND, 
 
 Leave end of Commercial VVhf., Boston, Bt 8 A. M., and Railroad Whf., 
 Portland, at 6 P. M., for Eastport and St. John, as follows: 
 
 In April, May, and to June 15, every Monday and Thursday. 
 
 From June 15 and through July, August, and September, every 
 
 Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. 
 
 In October, November, and December, every Monday and Thursday. 
 
 Passengers by the morning and noon trains of Eastern and Boston and Maine 
 Railroads from Boston, can take the steamer at Portland at 5 P. M. 
 
 Passengers forwarded by connecting steamers and railroad lines to Calais and 
 Houlton," Me. ; St Andrews, Woodstock, Fredericton, and Shediac, N. B. ; 
 Amherst, Truro. New G'asgow, Pictou, Digby, Annapolis, Kentvjlle, Windsor, 
 Liverpool, and Halifax, N. S. ; Summerside and Charlottetown, P. E. I. 
 
 Rates of fare from Boston to Eastport, $5.00; Calais, $5.50; St. John, $5.50; 
 Digby, $7.00; Annapolis, $7.50; Kentviile, ^8.50; Halifax, via Annapolis, 
 Windsor, &c., $9.50; Halifax, all rail, from St. John, $11.00; Shediac, $8.25; 
 Summerside, $9.50 ; Charlottetown, $10.50. 
 
 Je®=" Through Tickets and State Rooms secured at the Agents' Offices, or of 
 Clerks on board. 
 
 AGENTS : A. R. Stubbs, Portland ; George Haves, Eastport ; H. W 
 Chisholm, St. John. 
 
 W. H. KILBY, 
 
 End of Commercial Wharf. BOSTON, 
 
VA CA TION AD VER TiSEMENTS. 
 
 THE ISTE-W 
 
 IIOiI[|[&L iHD BOSTON mil lllt[ 
 
 NOW RUN 
 
 TWO FAST EXPRESS TRAINS, of new and elegant Cars, 
 provided with all the Modern Improvements, 
 
 FROM 
 
 BOSTON to n^Oi^TREAL, 
 
 Without Change. 
 
 No Route from Boston presents such magnificent scenery. Passengers by 
 this line travel through the 
 
 PARADISE OF THfS CONTINENT. 
 
 A most charming Panorama of River, Mountain, and Lake Scenery, including 
 the grand views of Lake Winnepesaukee, White Mountain Eange, and Chrystal 
 Lake, will entertain the traveller for a distance of 250 miles. 
 
 jfKg^WE OFFER TO THE PUBLIC A LIST OF TOURBST AND 
 
 EXCURSBON TDCKETS NEVER before shown. 
 
 LEVE & CLARK, Ticket Agents, 
 
 94: Washington Sti^eet, Boston, 
 
 K. P. LOVEEING, JE., Gen'l Ticket Ag't, | GUSTAVB LEVE, Pass'r Ag't for N. E., 
 LYNDONVILLE, VT. J 94 Washington Street. 
 
VA CA TION AD VER TISEMENTS. 
 
 inreekly Line 
 
 FOR 
 
 HALIFAX, PORT HAWKESBUHY, 
 . PICTOU, and 
 CHARLOTTETOWN, P. E. I. 
 
 Carrying the U. S. Mail. 
 
 THE STEAMSHIPS 
 
 Will leave for the above ports alternately 
 
 Every Saturday^ at 12 M. 
 
 No Freight received after lo A. M. on day of sailing. 
 
 Shippers must send with Receipts the value of Goods for Master's Manifest. 
 
 For Freight or Passage apply to 
 
 WM. H. RING, 18 T. Wharf, 
 or E. H. ADAMS, 82 Washington Street. 
 
 F. NiCKERSOK, & CO., Assents. 
 
VA CA TION AD VER TISEMENTS. 
 
 THE 
 
 CENTRAL VERMONT R. R. LINE 
 
 IS THE 
 
 Shortest^ Quickest^ and Best 
 
 ROUTE BETWEEN 
 
 New England and Canada. 
 
 Equipped with ^ulltU^U (S/UTHf ''^'' ^"^"^ ''"^ 
 
 MODERN IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 ^-Send for the "SUMMER EXOUESIOinST " (a new 
 ^^^ edition eacli year) before yon select yonr Vacation 
 ^^ Trip or Snmmer Jannt. -^^^ 
 
 It contains several thousand excursions, including all the popular resorts, and 
 arranged to meet the wants of the public as regards expense and time. 
 
 Tickets and full information obtained at 
 
 No. 65 Washington Street, Boston, 
 
 T. EDWARD BOND, Ticket Ag't. 
 
 L. MILLIS, Gen'l Supt. Traffic. 'S. W. CUMMINGS, Pass'r Agent. 
 
 ST. ALBANS, VT. 
 
VA CA TION AD VER TISEMENTS. 
 
 Sea-ShoB'e Route 
 
 TO 
 
 NORTH COKWAY « tie WHITE MOUNTAINS, 
 
 AND 
 
 Only All-Rail and Stage Route 
 
 RANGLEYS, MOOSEHEAD LAKE, and 
 MOUNT DESERT. 
 
 Also, the All-Rail Route to the Maritime Provinces is via the 
 
 EASTERN & M« CENTRAL R. R. 111. 
 
 Connections are also made at Portland with the Railroad and Steamboat 
 Lines to all parts of Canada, Coast of Maine, and Maritime Provinces. 
 
 For further information, Time Tables, also to secure your Tickets, Berths and 
 Chairs in the Pullman Cars, apply at the 
 
 GENERAL PASSENGER OFPICE: 
 
 BOSTOKT, IVEA-SS- 
 CHAS. F. HATCH, CEO. F. FIELD, 
 
 Gen'I Manager. Gen'I Pass'r Ag't. 
 
VA CA TION AD VER TISEMENTS. 
 
 SAIL-MAKER, 
 
 AND MANUFACTURER OF 
 
 ITALIAN AWNINGS, TENTS, 
 
 FLAGS, WAGON COVERINGS, 
 
 SACKINGS and STORE AWNINGS, 
 
 OF EVERY DESCRIPTION. 
 
 Cor. Commercial and South Market Streets, 
 
 (.ENTRANCE 2 SOUTH MARKET ST.) 
 
 BOSToasr. 
 
 R. M. Y. keeps constantly on hand a good assortment of Awning Stripes, of 
 various patterns, and all orders will be promptly attended to. Also, Tents of all 
 sizes, and Flags of all Nations^ to be let on reasonable terms. 
 
VA CA TION AD VER TISBMENTS. 
 
 BOSTON &MAIlaflaGRAlTRllR.R. 
 
 Boston and l^ontireal« 
 
 Passengers from Boston and the South and West will find that this neYr 
 route, as now open, combines comfort and convenience with cheap- 
 ness and despatcli. 
 
 ^utttuHtt palace ^Ue^inq ^uvh 
 
 ON ALL THROUGH TRAINS- 
 
 J9S* THROUGH TICKETS to MONTREAL, and all Iniermediale Polnis, 
 for sale at Stations on BOSTON & MAINE R, R. 
 4^ Baggage Checked Through FREE from REVENUE INSPECTION. 
 
 The BOSTON & MAINE RAILROAD also connects at Portland with tht 
 
 Maine Central Railroad for Bath, Hallowell, Augusta, Lewiston, Wa- 
 TERviLLE, Bangor, Eastport, and St. John ; with the New England and 
 Nova Scotia Steamship Co. for Halifax ; and with the Portland and Og- 
 dejishurg Railroad for IVorth. Conway and the 'Wliite Mountains. 
 The road to Alton Bay, Wolfboro', and Centre Habbor, and the 
 Steamer on Lake Winniiiseogee, are owned by the Boston and Maine Railroad, 
 and Traifis connect at Dover for these points with all trains on the main Hrte, 
 The only direct roide to Wells, Old Orchard, and Scarboro' Beaches, 
 points which are UNSURPASSED for good hotels, heauiifid drives, and^ne 
 sea bathing. 
 
 STATION IN BOSTON: 
 
 HAYMAEKET SQ., at the Head of Washington St. 
 
 J AS. T. FURBER, Gen'l Sup't. 
 
NEW AND IMPORTANT BOOKS 
 
 LATELY PUBLISnED BY 
 
 ESTES & LAURIAT, 
 
 IPublisJtrs, goolisellers, anli Importers, 
 
 143 WASHINGTON STREET, 
 
VA CA TION AD VER TISEMENTS. 
 
 W^M. RESAD i£ SOIffS^ 
 
 ■ 13 Faneuil Hall Square; Boston, 
 
 DEALERS IN 
 
 Both Breech and Muzzle-Loading, 
 
 Of all the best makers, "Scott," "Westley Richards," "Moore," 
 "Webley," "Greener," "Ellis," and others. 
 
 AGENTS for 
 
 '<W. & C. SCOTT & SON'S '^ 
 Celebrated Breech Loaders. 
 
 Scott's Illustrated Work on Breech-Loaders, 25 cents, by mail. 
 
 ALSO 
 
 FIHE TROUT AND SALMON RODS, 
 
 FLIES, REELS, LINES, 
 
 And everything in Fishing-Tackle Outfits. 
 TOURISTS' KNAPSACKS, &c., &c. 
 Ballard's, Maynard's, Wesson's, Stevens', and Winchester's 
 
 Of all Calibres. 
 
 ^^Send for Circulars. 
 
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