) I TRAVELS IN CANADA, AND THE UNITED STATES, IN 18X6 AND 1817. X By Lieut. FRANCIS HALL, 14th light dragoons, h. p. LONDON; FRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, & BROWN, PATERNOSTER-ROW, 1818. Priuted by A. Siralun, New-Sircet-Square, London. TO WILLIAM BATTIE WRIGHTSON, WILLIAM EMPSON, AND ROBERT MONSEY ROLFE, BROTHER WYKEHAMISTS, THESE TRAVELS are dedicated, BY THEIR OLD SCHOOL-FELLOW AND AFFECTIONATE FRIEND, FRANCIS HALL. , <* - TRAVELS IN CANADA, &C. &C. CHAPTER I. VOYAGE. Januaiy, 1816 . I sailed from Liverpool on the 20th of January, after having been detained se¬ veral weeks by a continuance of west winds, which usually prevail through the greater part of the winter. Indeed, they have become so prevalent of late years, as to approach very nearly to the nature r a trade wind. They forced us to lie to 've, out of the forty-four days we spent on our passage. Our vessel was an Ame¬ rican, excellently built and commanded. The American Captains are supposed, with B 2 VOYAGE. some reason, to make quicker voyages than the English, with whom celerity was, during the war, a less essential object. They pride themselves on the speed of their ships, as sportsmen do on that oi their horses. Our Minerva was one of the first class of these “ Horses of the Main.” They prefer standing across the Atlantic in the direct line of their port, to the easier but more tedious route of the trades. This sporting spirit commonly costs their passengers a few qualms of the stomach, but saves time; no trifling consideration, when time is so miserably spent. Landsmen, who shrink from the seemingly endless breadth of the whole Atlantic, com¬ monly divide it into three distances, viz. : the Azores, the Banks, and Soundings. Nothing occurred to make the latitude of the Azores cognizable by terrestrial eyes; but the discolouring of the water, and a heavy incumbent fog sufficiently evinced our approach to the Banks ; these symp¬ toms were accompanied by the usual de¬ gree of cold, which indicates the proxi¬ mity of land, whether above the water or below it. We made the following obser- VOYAGE. 3 vations on the temperature in this neigh- bourhood : Time. Air. Water. Feb. 14. 6 P. M. 66° 59° 15. 9 A. M. 53° 48° 10 A. M. O O 43° 11 A.M. 48° 38° 1 P. M. 46° 33° 6 P. M. O CO CO 32° 16. 10 A. M. 37° 33° 17. 10 A. M. Soundings 38° 35 feet. 57° 2 P. M. 40° 57° 18. 9 A. M. 52° 64° 19. 12 A. M. 60° 61° * We had eagerly anticipated a regale of cod fish on the Banks ; lines were thrown out, and the silver mail of one victim soon glistened, as he ascended through the green wave ; but, alas ! he proved no harbinger of fortune, and it seemed as if he had been made the cat’s paw of his mute society, who, by no means satisfied with the result of their * Some of these variations seem to indicate the Temperature of the Gulf stream, into which we were sometimes forced by the prevalence of N. W. winds, without knowing it; the American Captains very com¬ monly use the Thermometer to ascertain this circum¬ stance. B 2 4 VOYAGE. first experiment, refused unanimously to re¬ peat it. Luckily we were not imitating the heroes of the “ Almanack des Gourmands , who, in old and modern days, have made the grand tour of gluttony for the express pur¬ pose of surfeiting themselves at every clas¬ sic spot with the delicacy which had won its renown. On the 27th, we touched on the Gulf Stream, where it flows round the Bank, and made the following observations : — Air. Water. Lotg. Lat. April 27. 11 A. M. 52° 64° 64° w. 39° 34' N. 28. 9 A. V. 53 ° 53 ° 29. * 0 A. M. 60° 54° 63° w. 39° 22'n. March 1. 12 a. M. 52° 48° o o *3 • 39° 30' k. 2. 10 A. M. 49° 45° It is to this difference of temperature betwixt the Gulf Stream and the adjacent waters, that M. Volney attributes the Bank fogs. He observes, (Tome 1, Page 238,) “ II en doit resulter le double effet d'une eva- 4< poration plus abondante , provoquee par la “ tiedeur de ces eaux cxotiques , et d'une con- “ densation plus et endue, d raison de la froi- “ dear dcs eaux indigenes et de leur atmos- VOYAGE. 5 “ phere , qui precisement se trouve dans la di- “ rection des vents du nord-est” * There is some difficulty in this part of the voyage, to escape the action of the stream to the south, which soon begins to be sensible, and at the same time to avoid the dangerous shoals of Nantucket to the north. I felt little concern about Nantucket, at this time, except to keep at a respectful distance from it; but I have since met with some interesting particulars relative to this inglorious little island. Its inhabitans are reckoned at 5000, some of whom are worth 20,0001. each. It contains 23,000 acres of land, and was originally possessed by the Nantucks, an Indian tribe, some of whom still remain on it, having peaceably incor¬ porated with the Europeans, and joined in their occupations. The soil was originally * Vide Humboldt’s Observations on the Variations of Temperature in the Gulf Stream, and on the Bank. — “Personal Narrative” vol. 1, page .50. He observes a difference of only 13° between them. This was in June. Vide , also, M. Volney’s Table of Experiments, page 235, in which the greatest difference is 23° Ours was 31°. B 3 6 VOYAGE. a barren sand, but the industry of the in¬ habitants has made it capable of pasturing large flocks of sheep, which constituted, in the infancy of the settlement, a common stock, but their chief employment is whale- ing, at which they are equally diligent and daring; doubling Cape Horn in pursuit of their game. The profits of this trade afford them both the necessaries and comforts of life. The luxuries are forbidden both by their character and religion, which is un¬ mixed Presbyterianism. The only recre¬ ation they used to allow themselves, was driving in parties to a little spot, which they had rescued from barrenness, and converted into a kind of public garden. The traveller, from whom I borrow this account, gives a lively picture of their hospitality, and of the simplicity of their manners*, which supersedes the necessity of those inventions and restraints so inefficient in more polish¬ ed societies. The whole community affords an admirable instance of what human in- * * He mentions a great outcry raised in the common ¬ wealth, by the luxury of a spring waggon. VOYAGE. 7 dustry will effect, when left to the un¬ shackled direction of its own exertions. They have, particularly the women, an odd habit of taking a small quantity of opium every morning. It is difficult to divine whence they have imported this unwhole¬ some luxury.* The only books this tra¬ veller found in the island, except the bible, were Hudibras and Josephus ; many of the inhabitants could repeat lines of the for¬ mer, without having much notion to what they referred. Martha’s vineyard is a set¬ tlement of much the same kind as Nan¬ tucket. It derives its name from that part of it which was originally the portion of the first settler’s daughter. They formerly constituted part of the State of New York, but now of Massachusets. The last few days of our passage were blest with such favouring gales, and an atmosphere so warm and bright that the sea gods seemed resolved we should part good friends. — Unluckily this gleam of good fortune was extinguished in a cold * I have since heard it remarked, that this practice is very general in America. B 4 8 VOYAGE. heavy fog, when we approached the Ame¬ rican coast, by which we were deprived of the lovely prospect which opens upon the entrance of the harbour of New York. We anchored close to the quays, and eagerly began to escape from the place of our durance, which Dr. Johnson flatters, when he styles it a prison, with a chance of be¬ ing drowned. The chance of being drowned forms the least of its miseries. In most cases it is a complete annihilation of all faculties, both of mind and body : perhaps I should except that of mastication, which went on, generally with great vigour, during the whole of the voyage. — I owe honourable mention to our “ Ccmpagnons de Voyage ,” who, though of many trades and nations, united in the maintenance of harmony, and in support of the general weal. We were about eighteen in number; among whom were several Americans, who contributed their full share of good humour and socia¬ bility. We disputed for the honour of our countries, but our disputes invariably ended, as, it were to be wished, all national disputes should end, in a hearty laugh; and when I saw, during these forty-four days, how easily VOYAGE. 9 the jarring elements of our body corporate blended for the general convenience, I was induced to think the Rulers of the Earth take too much both pains and credit unto themselves, for holding together the patch- work of society. t 10 ] r CHAPTER II. NEW YORK. March §th. New York is built on the tongue of land, at the point of which the Hudson and East Rivers effect their junction. The princi¬ pal street (Broadway) runs along the ridge, and terminates in a small parade, planted with trees, designed originally for a battery; a destiny it fulfilled during the war ; but since “ the piping time of peace,” it has again reverted to the occupancy of fashionable pedestrians, and moon-light lovers. — From this point the eye commands, towards the left, the coast of Long Island, with the wooded heights of Brooklyn ; on the right, Sandy-Hook, with the mountain shores of Jersey ; while the mouth of the Bay lies be¬ fore it, studded with bastioned islands, and gay with the white canvas of the American NEW YORK. 11 river craft, glancing like graceful sea-birds, through their native element. From Broad- way, streets diverge irregularly to either river, and terminate in extensive ware¬ houses, and quays, constantly crowded. The houses are generally good, frequently elegant, but it requires American eyes to discover that Broadway competes with the finest streets of London or Paris. New York is reckoned to contain at present about 100,000 inhabitants, and is spreading ra¬ pidly northward. I was told that 2000 houses were contracted for, to be built in the ensuing year. There are fifty churches, or chapels, of different sects ; a proof that a national church is not indispensable, for the maintenance of religion. The Town Hall is an elegant building of white marble, standing at right angles to Broadway. The plot of ground in front of it is railed round and planted. The inte¬ rior is well arranged for the purposes of business. The state rooms of the Mayor and Corporation are ornamented with the portraits of several of the Governors of New York, and whole lengths of the offi¬ cers most distinguished during the late 12 NEW YORK. war. Some of these seemed well executed ; but if the State should always reward upon as large a scale, their future heroes must consent to occupy the garrets of the build¬ ing. There is a good portrait of the first Dutch Governor of the State. That of Columbus was repairing. It is a considerable defect in this building, that the basement story is of a red granite, which, at a dis¬ tance, has the appearance of brick. The staircase is circular, lighted by a cupola, and, in the style of its construction, not unlike that of Drurv-lane theatre. The state rooms, and courts of justice are on the first floor. The sessions court was sitting during my visit, and I went in. My first impression arose from the truly republican plainness of justice, stripped of all “pomp and circumstance,” flowing wigs, ermine, and silk gowns. Both the Judges and Counsellors were in the dress of private gentlemen, the latter hardly to be distin¬ guished from the spectators, who, without much ceremony, crowded round the tribu¬ nal. A female was tried for stealing seve¬ ral hundred dollars ; she was found guilty, and sentenced to imprisonment. The pu- NEW YORK. 13 nishment of death is abolished in the state of New York in all cases, except murder and arson : other crimes are punished by confinement and labour. To America be¬ longs the glory of having first made the experiment of the least waste of life with which society can be preserved. The ge¬ neral Hospital and Lunatic Asylum are contiguous buildings. I had an opportu¬ nity of visiting them with one of the Physi¬ cians, and was pleased to observe the feel¬ ing kindness of his manner towards the unfortunate victims of insanity, who seemed to greet him as a friend. One patient was pointed out to us, whose delusion consisted in imagining himself black. I spent an evening at the theatre. It is a shabby building without, and poorly lighted and decorated within. The play was Columbus , a wretched hash of different plays and stories, miserably acted. The audience, like that of a Portsmouth theatre, consisted almost entirely of men. — I saw nothing resembling a Lady in the house, and but few females. The Americans are generally considered to have little taste for the drama ; or for music, beyond what is 14 NEW YORK. necessary for a dance ; dancing being in New York, as in most parts of the world, the favourite amusement of the ladies ; they dance cotillions, because they fancy they ex¬ cel in French dances, and despise country dances for the same reason. The young men have the character of being dissipated, living much apart from their families in boarding houses. Good dinners are in high esteem in the upper commercial circles, and I had occasion to bear wit¬ ness both to the skill of their cooks, and the hospitality of the entertainers.* I was naturally curious to visit the famous Steam frigate, or Floating Battery, built for the defence of the harbour; this favour I * Two curious instances of disease were related at one of these dinner parties by General North. One, of the tarantula infection, in which the sufferer, a fe¬ male, was vehemently affected by music, and the appli¬ cation of particular odours, in discovering which she evinced an acuteness of smell, infinitely beyond what is found in the healthful state.- The other was the ease of a female, who was attacked by lethargy, at the end of which her memory had wholly forsaken her, so that she was obliged to begin again the rudiments of education; but upon a recurrence of the fit, a consi¬ derable time afterwards, she awoke perfectly restored to a recollection of all she had known previous to the first attack of the disease. NEW YORK. 15 obtained through Dr. Mitchell, the great philosopher of New York, of whom it is lit to mention, that he has been lately en¬ gaged in the Icthyology of his country, and has discovered, or, to use his own expression, “ can lift up his hand and de¬ clare,” that the smelt of the Trans-atlantic epicure is neither more nor less than the smelt so honoured by European gourmands. He is besides a man of considerable mecha¬ nical science, and mentioned several of his plans for the improvement of the Steam Frigate, in constructing which I believe he bore a principal part. One plan was to obviate the intolerable heat in the neigh¬ bourhood of the engines, by introducing fresh air through tubes near the surface of the water, bent upwards to prevent its en¬ tering. Another was to discharge from the engine a force of water sufficient to over¬ whelm any boarding boat, or drench the gun deck of any ship alongside. — The length of the frigate is 150 feet; breadth of beam 50; and thickness of sides four feet. She works either way, and is said to be sufficiently manageable, and well cal¬ culated for harbour defence. 16 NEW YORK. Considerable apprehensions were enter¬ tained during the war, of a domiciliary visit to New York by a British squadron. This alarm gave birth to the various forts and batteries which now grin defiance on the different islets at the mouth of the river, and project from several points along the quays of the town. Fortifications were also thrown up on the opposite heights of Brooklyn, on Long Island, where they command the city. I made a tour of them one morning, and found five forts or re¬ doubts connected by bastioned lines. The three on the right were covered by an inundation, the remainder sufficiently ap¬ proachable. The whole are now abandoned, and hastening to decay. The soil of the island is sand, mixed with scattered blocks of talkous granite *, used for paving the city. There is a small museum in New York, the best part of which is a collection of birds, well preserved ; and the worst, a set of wax work figures, among whom are Saul in a Frenchman’s embroidered coat, the Witch of Endor in the costume of a * Besides Granite, I picked up Quartz with Chlorite, and Lydian stone. NEW YORK. 17 House-maid, and Samuel in a robe de chambre and cotton night-cap. The es¬ tablishment is not in very learned hands, to judge by the labels on the different Ar¬ ticles : I read on one, “ a peace of Seder,” vice “ a piece of Cedar.” I had little means of ascertaining the state of literature in New York. Books were extremely dear: cheap editions are indeed struck off of all our modern Poets, but they are more ex¬ pensive than books of the same size in England, and are miserably incorrect. The Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews are re¬ printed as soon as they arrive, and are in great request; but I could hear of no American Review or Magazine which even American Booksellers would recommend. I met however with a few good works of native growth : Wilson’s Ornithology is not only interesting for its descriptions, but the plates are executed and coloured in a very superior style. I found a calculation in it relative to the flocks of wild pigeons, which move annually northward, from the back of the central and southern states, enough to startle an European reader, but which has in a great measure been confirmed to c 18 NEW YORE. me by eye witnesses. He says, “ he ob- “ served a flock passing betwixt Francfort “ and the Indiana territory, one mile at “ least in breadth ; it took up four hours in “ passing, which, at the rate of one mile “ per minute, gives a length of 240 miles, “ and supposing three pigeons to each “ square yard, gives 2,230,272,000 pigeons.” Their breeding places he describes as many miles in extent. Birds of prey glut them¬ selves above, hogs and other animals are fattened with the squabs which tumble down, and cover the ground on every high wind. This prodigious increase seems to resemble nothing so much as the herring shoals. * Indeed both the aerial and aquatic communities seem to stand in need of Mr. * “ The Turtle Doves are so numerous in Canada, that the Bishop has been forced to excommunicate them oftener than once, upon account of the damage they do to the produce of the earth. We embarked and made to¬ wards a meadow in the neighbourhood of which the trees were covered with that sort of fowls more than with leaves. For just then it was the season in which they retire from the north countries and repair to the southern climates, and one would have thought that all the Turtle Doves upon earth had chosen to pass through this place.”—Lahontan. 1 . Letter xi. 1687. NEW YORK. 19 Malthus’s checks to superabundant popu¬ lation. * It would be ingratitude to quit New York without mention of its erudite and right pleasant Historian, Diedrich Knickerbocker "j", whose history of the first Dutch governors of the settlement deserves a favored niche by the side of the revered Cid Hamet Benangeli, and the facetious Biographer of my Uncle Toby. * To preserve the skins of birds. Mr. Wil»on re¬ commends a strong solution of arsenic to be rubbed within side, and a little powdered arsenic to be sprin¬ kled outwardly, with camphor in the box. f Washington Irvine, Esq. f 20 ] CHAPTER III. STEAM-BOAT. I embarked on the 9th of March, in the Paragon steam packet, from New York to Albany. The winter had been less severe than usual, which induced the captain to attempt making his way up the Hudson earlier than is customary. These steam boats are capable of accommodating from 2 to 300 passengers ; they are about 120 feet in length, and as elegant in their construction as the aw ? kward-looking machinery in the centre will permit. There are two cabins, one for the ladies, into w^hich no gentle¬ man is admitted without the concurrence of the whole company. The interior ar¬ rangements on the whole, resemble those of our best packets. I w^as not without ap¬ prehension, that a dinner in such a situa¬ tion, for above 150 persons, w r ould very STEAM BOAT. 21 much resemble the scramble of a mob ; I was however agreably surprised by a din¬ ner handsomely served, very good atten¬ dance, and a general attention to quiet and decorum : “ Truly, thought I, these repub¬ licans are not so very barbarous.” Indeed when the cabin was lighted up for tea and sandwiches in the evening, it more resem¬ bled a ball-room supper, than, as might have been expected, a stage-coach meal. The charge, including board, from New York to Albany, 160 miles, is seven dollars. We started under the auspices of a bright frosty morning: The first few minutes were naturally spent by me in examining the ma¬ chinery , by meansofwhichourhugeleviathan, with such evident ease, won her way against the opposing current: but more interesting objects are breaking fast on the view; on our right are the sloping sides of New York Island, studded with villas, over a soil from which the hand of cultivation has long since rooted its woodland glories, substituting the more varied decorations of park and shrub¬ bery, intersected with brown stubbles and meadows; while on our left, the bold fea- c 3 22 STEAM BOAT. tures of nature rise, as in days of yore, un¬ impaired, unchangeable; grey cliffs, like aged battlements, tower perpendicularly from the water’s edge to the height of se¬ veral hundred feet. * Hickory, dwarf oak, and stunted cedars, twist fantastically with¬ in their crevices, and deepen the shadows of each glen into which they occasionally recede ; huge masses of disjointed rocks are scattered at intervals below ; here the sand has collected sufficiently to afford space for the woodman’s hut, but the nar¬ row waterfall, which in summer turns his saw-mill, is now a mighty icicle glittering to the morning sun; here and there a scarce¬ ly perceptible track conducts to the rude wharf, from wffiich the weather-worn lugger receives her load of timber for the consump¬ tion of the city. A low white monument near one of these narrow strands marks the spot on which the good and gallant Hamil¬ ton offered the sacrifice of his life to those prejudices, which noble minds have so sel¬ dom dared to despise. He crossed from the State of New York to evade the laws of The whole of this ridge closely resembles UnderclifT in the Isle of Wight. STEAM BOAT. 23 his country, and bow to those of false shame and mistaken honour. His less fortunate adversary still survives in New York, as ob¬ scure and unnoticed as he was once conspi¬ cuous. Evening began to close in as we ap¬ proached the highlands: The banks on either side towered up more boldly, and a wild tract of mountain scenery rose beyond them : The river, which had been gradually widening, now expanded into a capacious lake, to which the eye could distinguish no outlet; flights of wild fowl were skim¬ ming over its smooth surface to their even¬ ing shelter, and the last light of day rested faintly on a few white farm houses, glim¬ mering at intervals from the darkening thickets: Ver-Planks Point shuts the northern extremity of this first basin : The River continues its course within a cliff-bound channel, until, after a few miles, it again opens out amid the frowning precipices of West Point: Here are the same features of scenery as at Ver-Planks Point, but loftier mountains skirt the lake; and cliffs of more gigantic stature almost impend above c 4 24 STEAM BOAT. the gliding sail. * The moon was riding in a cloudless sky, and as her silver colouring fell on the grey cliffs of the left banks, the mountains on the other side projected their deepened shadows, with encreased solemni¬ ty, on the unruffled waters. This was the land of romance to the early settlers: Indian tradition had named the highlands the prison within which Ma- netho confined the spirits rebellious to his power, until the mighty Hudson, rolling through the stupendous defiles of West Point, burst asunder their prison house ; but they long lingered near the place of their captivity, and as the blasts howled through the valleys, echo repeated their groans to the startled ear of the solitary hunter, who watched by hispine-treefire for the approach of morning. The lights, which occasionally twinkled from the sequestered bay, or wood¬ ed promontory, sufficiently told that these fancies, like the Indians, who had invented or transmitted them, must by this time have given way to the unpoetic realities of civi¬ lised life. * The average of these heights is probably about SCO feet; the highest is reckoned at 1100. STEAM BOAT. 25 Masses of floating ice, which had, at in¬ tervals through the evening, split upon the bow of our ark, became so frequent im¬ mediately on our passing West Point as to oblige us to come to anchor for the night; a pretty sure prognostic that there was nearly an end to our feather-bed travel¬ ling. The next morning we found ourselves lying close to the flourishing little settle¬ ment of Newburgh, on the right bank of the river: Our captain having conclud¬ ed to terminate his voyage here, moved over to Fishkill, on the opposite shore, to give us means of accommodating ourselves with conveyances, in the best way we could. t [ s» ] f CHAPTER IV. NEW YORK TO ALBANY. March 10th. Ver-Planks-Point, - 44 mile-. West-Point, - 14 Newburgh, 7 e Fishkill, S 11th. Poughkeepsie, - - 14 Rhinbeck, 20 12th. Clermont, Kinderhook, - 40 Schodach, Van Valtenburgs, 8 13th. Albany, - - 12 • * 160 Mile*. W E were conveyed to Poughkeepsie in a kind of covered cart: The West-Point hills lay in a long ridge behind us, stretching east and west. The country through which we passed, though comparatively low, un¬ dulated in the same direction. About three miles from Fishkill a wild torrent rushed over its bed of broken rocks, across NEW YORK TO ALBANV. 27 the road : The romantic bridge flung over its brawling course, the mill on its craggy banks, and the deep wooded glen, down which it hastens to the Hudson, deserve a place in every traveller’s journal. Poughkeepsie was the first country town,or rather village, I had seen; and as the features of all are much alike, it shall be described for a specimen, blouses of wood, roofed with shingles, neat¬ ly painted, with generally from four to six sash windows on each floor, two stories high, and a broad viranda, resting on neat wooden pillars, along the whole of the front: Such is the common style of house-build¬ ing through the whole State : It unites to cleanly neatness a degree of elegance, con¬ fined in England to the cottage wnee; but here common to all houses ; very few sink to a meaner fashion : this seems strange to the eye accustomed to a hundred wretched hovels for one habitation of grace¬ ful comfort; but poverty has not yet wan¬ dered beyond the limits of great towns in America; in the country every man is a land owner, and has competence within his grasp ; “ 0 J'ovtunutos niviium suo, si bona norint .” The whole of this beautiful 28 NEW YORK TO ALBANY. passage may be well applied to American farmers : To them the earth is “ most just,” for they are industrious and enterprising, and they have not yet discovered the neces¬ sity of yielding 19 parts of their earnings to their Government, to take care of the re¬ maining 20th. At Poughkeepsie, as in al¬ most all American towns, are two or three large inns, in which dinner is provided at a certain hour, for all travellers en masse; nor is it an easy matter any where to procure a separate meal; indeed privacy, either in eating, sleeping, conversation, or government, seems quite unknown, and un¬ knowable to the Americans, to whom it ap¬ pears, whether political or domestic, a most unnatural as well as unreasonable desire, which only Englishmen are plagued with. There is no want of churches, either here or in any other village of this state, but they are all built of the same perisha¬ ble materials : Mr. Jefferson in his “ Notes on Virginia,” objects to this method of building, which adds nothing to the riches of the state ; but as long as wood continues plentiful and labour dear, houses will be built in the readiest and cheapest manner. NEW YORK TO ALBANY. 29 The same fashion was once general in our own country : Knickerbocker, in his humor¬ ous way, thus describes this passion of the Yankee settler for building large wooden houses. 44 Improvement is his darling 44 passion, and having thus improved his 44 lands, the next care is to provide a * 4 mansion worthy the residence of a 44 landholder. A huge palace of pine- 44 boards immediately springs up in the 44 midst of the wilderness, large enough for 44 a parish church, and furnished with win- 44 dows of all dimensions, but so rickety and 44 flimsy withal, that every blast gives it a 44 fit of the ague. By the time the outside 44 of this mighty air castle is completed, 44 either the funds or the zeal of our adven- 44 turer are exhausted, so that he barely ma- 44 nages to half finish one room within, 44 where the whole family burrow together, 44 while the rest of the house is devoted to 44 the curing of pumpkins, or storing of 44 carrots and potatoes, and is decorated 44 with fanciful festoons of wilted peaches and 44 dried apples. The outside, remaining 44 unpainted, grows venerably black with 44 time : The familv wardrobe is laid under 30 NEW YORK TO ALBANY. “ contribution for old hats, petticoats, and “ breeches, to stuff into the broken win- “ dows. The humble log hut, which whil- “ ome nestled this improving family snug- ] CHAPTER VII. THE FALLS OF THE MOHAWK. Whatever a country affords worth seeing take the first opportunity to see it. This sim¬ ple rule would prevent many such posthu¬ mous lamentations, and lame “ buts,” as, “ I am very sorry I omitted going, but I thought I should have returned by the same road.” “ I fully intended seeing it, but the weather was so unfavourable, that I deferred it ’til”—when? “ Some period, no where to be found “ In all the hoary register of time.” As nothing sounds so ill to one’s self or others, I determined to visit the falls of the Mohawk, the same day I arrived at Al¬ bany ; though I was told we should pass within a few yards of them on the morrow, which did not turn out to be the case. The d 4 40 THE FALLS OF THE MOHAWK. Cohoz*, or falls of the Mohawk, are little more than half a mile from the junction ot the two rivers: their extreme breadth is about three hundred toises, which is much more than the mean breadth of the stream, both above and below them, being in¬ creased by the manner in which the ledge of rock forms an obtuse angle, in the direction of the current, j* Their freight does not, perhaps, exceed .50 feet.jl The banks above them are nearly on a level with the water, but are increased below* by the depth of the falls. In summer, the overflow is said to be scanty, and even at this season * Le nom de Cohoz me paroit un mot imitatif con¬ serve des Sauvages, et par un cas singulier, je l’ai re- trouve dans le pays de Liege, applique a une petite cas¬ cade, a trois lieucs de Spa.”—Volney, p. 125. f “ The bed of the falls is of serpentine stone.”—Vol¬ ney, Tableau, 1. i. 51. He observes, that the bed of the Mohawk seems to separate the region of freestone from that of granite. t Volney says, “ some reckon it at 65 feet, others only 50.” The Marquis de Chastellux makes it 75. He also visited it in winter, and observes, “ The picture was “ rendered still more terrible by the snow which covered “ the firs, the brilliancy of which gave a black colour to “ the water, gliding gently along, and a yellow tinge to “ that which was washing over the cataract.” THE FALLS OF THE MOIIAWK. 41 a cap of snow rested oil the most promi¬ nent cliff of the angle, from beneath which the stream filtered in silver veins. The whole effect of these falls, the broadest, I believe, in the States, excepting Niagara, is diminished for want of the relief of a bold, darkly-shadowed back ground. The air of wintry desolation, varied only bv the sombre foliage of the pine and cedar, stretching their dark masses over beds of snow, took little from the rude force of a scene, the character of which is rather simply grand, than lovely or romantic. There is a very good point of view from a long covered bridge, which crosses the Mohawk near its mouth, and leads to the village of Waterford. The distance from Albany is about ten miles. [ 42 ] CHAPTER VIII. ALBANY TO THE FRONTIER OF CANADA. March 14th. Troy, 6 miles. Lansingburg, - 3 Schatecoke, - 3 Pittstown, 7 Cambridge, - 13 Porter’s Inn, - 2 Robert’s Inn, - 6 15th. Salem, 8 Hebron, S Hopkin’s Inn, - 4 Granville, 5 16th. Whitehall, or "> Skeenborough, y Shoreham, Larenburg’s Inn, 17th. Chimney Point, Basin Harbour, M‘Niel’s Inn, Burlington, Plattsburg, Chazy, Inn, Isle aux Noix, 14 Stage Waggon 25 14 12 9 12 21 20 7 12 Sleighs. 211 Miles. ALBANY TO THE, &C. 43 Troy is little short of a mile in length, and o bears every mark of growing opulence. There is a large barrow-formed mount, at the end of the town, on the road side, which, though evidently a natural rock, might re¬ present the tomb of Ilus to this new Ilium, were Yankey imaginations disposed to run classically riot. The road runs pleasantly on the banks of the Hudson, which here form a long stripe of flat ground, evidently an alluvion, about a mile in breadth, beyond which the hills again rise, intersecting the country in a N. W. direction. Betwixt Pittstown and Cambridge we crossed the Hoosick river, and continued our way through a wild and mountainous country, whose remoter heights were now fading in evening mists. From Pittstown we had quitted the course of the Hudson, and mov¬ ing in a N. E. direction, were falling in with the various chains of hills which spring la¬ terally from the great N. E. chain of the West Point mountains. Salem is beautiful¬ ly embosomed amid these ramifications, which seem to divide the low country into a number of separate basins, each watered 44 ALBANY TO THE by its own sequestered stream. Masses ol slaty rock are every where scattered through the country. Land, we were informed, was worth about 20/. per acre ; a considerable sum, where it is so plentiful. The Ameri¬ cans, who are never deficient when improve¬ ment is in view, have introduced the use of gypsum, as the most transportable, as well as the most profitable, manure. A farmer here, with whom, as is usual in the States, we fell into conversation, informed us that the average quantity employed was three pecks per acre, united with the seed : that it was of great service to clover ; and well employed on all sandy or gravelly soils, adding a curious remark, if correct, that it produces no effect on land within 30 miles of the sea. * Granville is situated in one of these mountain basins, and is but a few miles from the foot of the Green and Bald moun¬ tains, which form the continuation of the great chain. The streams in this neigh¬ bourhood no longer fall into the Hudson, * This remark I have heard confirmed by well in¬ formed persons in the States. The most common theory of the use of gypsum seems to be its disposition to attract moisture, thus remedying the defects of dry warm soils. FRONTIER OF CANADA. 45 but make a northerly course to Lake Cham¬ plain. At Granville we quitted the main north road, to go to Whitehall, and take the benefit of sleighs, across the lake. I ob¬ served a quantity of red clay-slate in this neighbourhood, resembling the cliffs of the St. Lawrence near Quebec. The as¬ pect of the country remained much the same, only growing more wild and wintry as we proceeded. The snow which had hi¬ therto been partial, now began to impede the progress of our waggon, which had been moving at the rate of three and a half miles per hour. We were frequently obliged to alight, and walk down steep hills, thickly encrusted with ice and snow. A fine bear had preceded us, as we discovered by his large round foot prints, but he was not com¬ plaisant enough to show himself from some craggy knoll, and welcome us to his soli¬ tude. A small ground squirrel was the only specimen of bird or beast we encoun¬ tered. The valley closes in as you approach Whitehall, until its lofty barriers barely leave space sufficient for the site of the vil¬ lage, and the course of a small river, called Wood-creek, which rushes into the lake, 46 ALBANY TO THE with a small cascade ; its right bank rises perpendicularly several hundred feet: strata of dark grey lime-stone, disposed at regular parallels, exhibit an appearance of masonry so perfect as to require a second glance to convince one a wall is not built up from the bed of the stream. The heights on the op¬ posite side of the valley are equally bold, and marked with the same character ; their summits are every where darkened with forests of oak, pine, and cedar ; large detach¬ ed masses of granite are scattered generally through the valley, and among the houses of the village, which, like several others on our road, very much resembled a large tim¬ ber-yard, from the quantity of wood cutting up and scattered about for purposes of build¬ ing: indeed it is impossible to travel through the States without taking part with the unfor¬ tunate trees, who, unable like their persecu¬ ted fellows of the soil, the Indians, to make good a retreat, are exposed to every form and species of destruction Yankev con¬ venience or dexterity can invent; felling, burning, rooting up, tearing down, lopping, and chopping, are all employed with most unrelenting severity. We passed through FRONTIER OF CANADA. 47 many forests whose leafless trunks, blacken¬ ed with fire, rose above the underwood, like lonely columns, while their flat-wreathed roots lay scattered about, not unlike the capitals of Egyptian architecture. I believe some traveller has observed that there are no large trees in America, an observation not very wide of truth, to judge from what may be seen from the high road ; a few steps however into any of the woods, shew that they have abounded in very fine tim¬ ber, numerous remains of which are every where left standing ; but the extreme prodi¬ gality with which the finest timber trees have been employed, being often piled to¬ gether to make fences, and so left to rot, has begun to produce a comparative scarcity, especially near large towns, which has con¬ siderably increased the value of the pro¬ perty of woodland. At Whitehall we embarked in sleighs on Lake Champlain ; the afternoon was bright and mild, and well disposed us to enjoy the pleasing change from our snail- paced waggon to the smooth rapidity of a sleigh, gliding at the rate of nine miles an hour. The first object our driver was happy 48 ALBANY TO THE to point out to us, was several of our own flotilla, anchored near the town, sad “tro- “ phies of the fight.” The head of the lake called, “ the Narrows,” does not exceed the breadth of a small river ; the sides rise in lofty cliffs, whose grey strata sometimes as¬ sume the regular direction of the mason’s level, sometimes form an angle more or less acute with the horizon, and sometimes, particularly in projecting points, seem almost vertical to it. Our driver pointed out a cu¬ rious fissure in the left bank, called the “ devil’s pulpitit is in about the centre of the cliff, and seems broken with great regularity, much in this figure V- Tyconderoga point stands out in an atti¬ tude of defiance to those who ascend the lake, but its martial terrors are now extin¬ guished, or marked only by the crumbling remains of field works, and the ruin of an old fortified barrack. Lake George unites with Lake Champlain, at the foot of this moun¬ tain point, by a narrow stream, on the right bank of which, rises Mount Defiance, and on the opposite side of Lake Champlain, Mount Independence; names which be¬ speak their military fame in days of old, FRONTIERS OF CANADA. 49 but now, like retired country gentlemen, they are content to raise oak and pine woods, instead of frowning batteries. At Shoreham, nearly opposite to Crown Point, we found good accommodation for the night, at Mr. Larenburg’s tavern, and set off the next morning before breakfast; but we had soon cause to repent of thus committing our¬ selves fasting to the mercy of the elements. Thelake now began to widen, and the shores to sink in the same proportion ; the keen blasts of the north, sweeping over its frozen expanse, pierced us with needles of ice; the thermometer was 22° below zero ; buf¬ falo hides, bear skins, caps, shawls and handkerchiefs were vainly employed against a degree of cold so much beyond our ha¬ bits. Our guide, alone of the party, his chin and eye-lashes gemmed and powdered with the drifting snow, boldly set his face and horses in the teeth of the storm. Some¬ times a crack in the ice would compel us to wait, while he went forward to explore it with his axe, (without which, the Ameri- * can sleigh-drivers seldom travel,) when, hav¬ ing ascertained its breadth, and the foot¬ hold on either side, he would drive his E 50 ALBANY TO THE horses at speed, and clear the fissure, with its snow ridge, at a flying leap ; a sensation we found agreeable enough, but not so agreeable as a good inn and dinner at Bur¬ lington. Burlington is a beautiful little town, rising from the edge of the lake ; the principal buildings are disposed in a neat square; on a hill above the town stands the college, a plain brick building, the greater part of which is unoccupied, and seeming¬ ly unfinished. We crossed the next morning to Platts- burg, curious to view the theatre of our misfortunes; it is a flourishing little town, situated principally on the left bank of the Saranac, a little river, which, falling into the lake, makes, with an adjacent island, and Cumberland Point, a convenient bay, across which the American flotilla lay anchored, to receive our attack ; the untoward issue of which, decided the retreat of Sir George O Prevost’s army. We were particular in our inquiries into the position of the flotilla, that we might ascertain whether, as has been asserted, they were within cannon range from the shore; this we found at no time to have been the case, so that no move- FRONTIERS OF CANADA. 51 ment on our part by land, could have in- fluenced the event of the naval action. The fortifications are on the right bank of the Saranac ; the American commandant oblig¬ ingly conducted us through them; they consist of two square forts palisadoed, but with neither out-works, nor covered way. This officer informed us, that they had not even their gates hung when our army first arrived before them. Our retreat surprised them as much as it did many of our own people; it must however be observed, that though little or no doubt existed, that the works, if attacked, would have been carried, the object of the expedition fell to the ground with the loss of the flotilla, by means of which alone, the transport of stores and provisions could have been secured. The fight must have been for honour only, and Sir George Prevost certainly took the boldest part, when he declined it. “ Travelling after all,” says Madame de Stael, “ is but a melancholy pleasure; ’ an observation doubly true, if applied to travelling over an uniform surface of ice, in very cold weather. Curiosity freezes un¬ der such circumstances, and the only pro- e 2 52 ALBANY, &C. spect which rouses attention is the inn, or village, which is to afford the comforts of food and fire. I observed, however, that the shores of the lake gradually sunk down to the level of the water, while the moun¬ tain ridges fell off* to the right and left, leaving a broad and nearly level expanse of wood and water. Traces of cultivation di¬ minished as we approached the frontier ; a few solitary houses, commonly the resort of smugglers, were scattered on the shore, em¬ bosomed in forests of a most uninviting as¬ pect. Betwixt Champlain and Isle aux Noix, travellers take leave of America, and enter on the Canadian territory. A few words then on the American character, ere I and they part. CHARACTER OF THE AMERICANS. It is a bold enterprize to describe the habits, manners, and dispositions of a nation, after a fifteen days’ journey through it; but here I am encouraged by the example of all my travelling contemporaries of both hemispheres, whose courage in this re¬ spect, has gained them the proverbial re- CHARACTER OF THE AMERICANS. 53 nutation of a race of men, who are never dastardly enough to shrink from the task, on account of mere want of information, but who are always ready to depicture both the exterior and interior of the inhabitants they happen to catch a glimpse of, through the windows of their travelling carriage, with as much accuracy, “ As though they had stood by “ And seen them made.”- A great help in these cases is the labour of our predecessors, by whose means their followers are enabled to transmit a lie, un¬ polluted, to posterity. Now as there can be little doubt that such benevolent aid has been ever intended rather for the poor than the rich, I shall begin by begging the helping hand of my friend Knickerbocker, over an explanation of the term Yankie, generally applied to the New Englanders, both by us and themselves. The first settlers of New England were the Puritans, and other sectaries, who, persecuted and buf¬ feted at home, “ embarked for the w'ilder- “ ness of America, where they might enjoy “ unmolested the inestimable luxury of talk- e 3 54 CHARACTER OF THE AMERICANS. “ ing. No sooner did they land upon this loquacious soil, than as if they had caught “ the disease from the climate, they all lifted “ up their voices at once, and for the space “ of one whole year did keep up such a “joyful clamour, that we are told,they fright- “ ened every bird and beast out of the neigh- “ bourhood, and so completely dumb-found- “ ed certain fish, which abound on their coast, “ that they have been called ‘dumb-fish’ ever “ since. The simple aborigines of the land “ fora while contemplated these strange folk “ in utter astonishment, but discovering that “they wielded harmless, though noisy wea- “ pons, and were a lively, ingenious, good- “ humoured race of men, they became very “ friendly and sociable, and gave them the “ name of Yankies, which, in the Mais- “ Tchsuaeg (or Massachusett) language sig- “ nifies ‘ silent men ; ’ a waggish appellation “ since shortened into the familiar epithet of “ Yankies, which they retain unto the pre- “ sent day.”—I. p. 178. Nor have they re¬ tained a barren epithet, but are still eminent for the facility with which they engage in conversation. One table for meals is stage¬ coach fare even in England : one bed-room. CHARACTER OF THE AMERICANS. 55 containing a dozen beds, may be tolerated in a country new to the luxuries of travelling; but the spirit of sociability is a little excessive, when, as I have been told, it enjoins the traveller to halve his bed with whoever arrives too late to procure one for himself. I had often occasion to observe, the Americans have no idea of a private chit-chat betwixt two persons. I have several times fancied myself engaged tete-a-tete, when on raising my eyes, I have found a little circle formed round us, fully prepared with reply, rejoinder, or observation, as oppor¬ tunity might occur : let me, however, add without any intention of rudeness: im¬ pertinence I never met with, though they have sometimes rather a startling plainness in their manner of conveying their senti¬ ments. On our arrival at Poughkeepsie, a plain man stepped from the crowd round the inn-door, and addressing himself to the gentleman I was accompanying, (who had been appointedto the administration of Lower Canada,) wished him joy of his arrival, con¬ gratulated him on the peace between the two nations, and concluded by hoping he would not follow the example of his pre- e 4 56 CHARACTER OF TIIE AMERICANS. decessor; a kind of schooling, to which I believe their own rulers are no strangers. In fact, the art of government, that tre¬ mendous state engine, is no mystery here ; both men and measures are canvassed with equal freedom ; and, setting aside the bias of party feeling, with a degree of good sense and information, most probably unique in the mass of any nation on earth.' The late war was spoken of with equal de¬ testation by all parties; and so far did they seem from assuming any credit for engaging in it, that each party most studiously shifted the odium to the other. I could perceive none of that rancour against the English which some Englishmen seem so anxious to discover.* Individually I met with all civility from all parties ; I observed, indeed, among some of the shop-keepers of New York, an indifference towards their cus¬ tomers, more resembling the listlessness of the Portuguese, than the polite alacrity of a London tradesman; but I have no reason to think we came in for agreater share of it from * It is a curious circumstance that, while we accuse them of favouring the French, French writers invariably attack them for their rooted, and, as thev deem it, blind partiality to the English. Vide Volney/ Beaujour, &c. CHARACTER OF THE AMERICANS. being Englishmen : the want of competi¬ tion produces the same effect, both on the tradesman and inn-keeper, to whom it gives an air of independence, very commonly at¬ tributed to much profounder causes. The inn-keepers of America, are, in most villages, what we vulgarly call, “ topping men,” field officers of militia, with good farms attached to their taverns, so that they are apt to think, what, perhaps in a newly settled country, is not very wide of the truth, that travellers rather receive, than confer a favour by being accommodated at their houses. They always gave us plentiful fare, particularly at breakfast, where veal-cutlets, sweetmeats, cheese, eggs, and ham, were most liberally set before us. Dinner is little more than a repetition of breakfast, with spirits instead of coffee. I never heard wine called for ; the common drink is a small cyder ; rum, whiskey, and brandy, are placed on the table, and the use of them left to the discretion of the company, who seem rarely to abuse the privilege. Tea is a meal of the same solid construction with breakfast, an¬ swering also for supper. The daughters of the host officiate at tea and breakfast, and 58 CHARACTER OF THE AMERICANS. generally wait at dinner. Their behaviour is reserved in the extreme, but it enables them to serve as domestics, without losing their rank of equality with those on whom they attend. To judge from the books I frequently found lying about, they are w r ell educated; the landlord of an inn at Wa¬ terford was very particular in inquiring of a gentleman who was with me, for the most accomplished schoolmistress of New York, with whom to place his daughter ; the same man, after shrewdly commenting on the conduct of some of the first political cha¬ racters of the country, summed up his eulo- gium on his favourite, by saying, “ I make “ no objection to his lying and intrigues, for “ all politicians will do the same.” I cannot pretend to say how far this is practically true in America, but I have reason to think the sentiment at least too general. The spirit of speculation, in all professions of life, seems to go far towards weakening the finer feelings of political honour and integrity. The indolent habits of the Spaniard are thought to be favorable to the fidelity and honour observable in all his transactions ; the commercial activity of the CHARACTER OF THE AMERICANS. 59 Chinese degenerates into knavish trickery. It is for the Americans to consider, to which extreme they are verging, and to remem¬ ber above all, that the vital spirit of re¬ publicanism is virtue — but this is going deeper than 1 have any pretension to do at present; I have seen but a little portion of the mere surface. An English traveller is frequently sur¬ prised to find the highest magistrates and officers of the nation travelling by the same conveyances, sitting down at the same table, and joining in conversation with the meanest of the people ; borrowing from his own prejudices of rank, he is apt to fancy all the great world amusing them¬ selves in masquerade. I entered, casually, into conversation, on board the steam-boat, with a man whose appearance seemed to denote something betwixt the shop-keeper and farmer, though his conversation mark¬ ed him superior to both. He was the high sheriff of a county. I remember, among other observations, his remarks on the un-* happy condition of the greater part of emi¬ grants into America, particularly the poorer Irish, who are induced by flattering repre- 60 CHARACTER OF THE AMERICANS* sentations to strain every effort to procure a passage to New York, or some sea-port town, where they are left in total ignorance, both of the country most fit to settle in, and of the means of getting to it, until their little stock is either wasted by delay, or plunder¬ ed by sharpers, and themselves reduced to beggary, or the lowest drudgery of so¬ ciety. * It is very rare to find a native American begging, or indeed to find any condition resembling beggary throughout the States,except in the sea-port towns, in which these neglected wanderers are collected. To enlightened industry, this virgin con¬ tinent offers undiminished resources ; nor where success is in prospect will the Ame¬ rican turn his foot aside, however rugged the path to it; with his axe on his shoulder, his family and stock in a light waggon, he plunges into forests, which have never heard the woodman’s stroke, clears a space suffi¬ cient for his dwelling, and first vear’s con- sumption, and gradually converts the lone- dy wilderness into a flourishing farm. This * I have heard Americans complain, that almost all their crimes and misdemeanours are committed by per¬ sons of this description. CHARACTER OF THE AMERICANS. 61 almost national genius, has been ably de¬ lineated by Talleyrand, Volney, and other writers, whose observations all concur on this point of the American character. A humorous, but faithful account of the Ame¬ rican vis migratoria , is given by Knicker¬ bocker, 1. c. vii. “The most prominent of “ these habits is a certain rambling propen- “ sity, with which, like the sons of Ishmael, “ they seem to have been gifted by heaven, “ and which continually goads them on, to “ shift their residence from place to place, so “ that a Yankee farmer is in a constant state “ of migration ; tarrying occasionally here “ and there, clearing lands for other people to “ enjoy, building houses for others to inha- “ bit, and in a manner, may be considered the “ wandering Arab of America. His first “ thought on coming to the years of man- “ hood, is to settle himself in the world, “ which means nothing more or less, than to “ begin his rambles ; to this end, he takes “ unto himself for a wife, some dashingcoun- “ try heiress, that is to say, a buxom rosy- “ cheeked wench, passing rich in red rib- “ bands, glass beads, and mock tortoise-shell “ combs, with a white gown and Morrocco 62 CHARACTER OF THE AMERICANS. 44 shoes, for Sunday,and deeply skilled in the 44 mystery of making apple sweetmeats, long 44 sauce, and pumpkin pie. Having thus pro- 44 vided himself, like a true pedlar, with a 44 heavy knapsack, wherewith to regale his 44 shoulders through the journey of life, he li- 44 terally sets out on the peregrination. His 44 whole family,householdfurnitureandfarm- 44 ing utensils are hoisted into a covered cart; 44 his own and his wife’s wardrobe packed up 44 in a firkin ; which done, he shoulders his 44 axe, takes staff in hand, whistles 44 Yankee 44 doodle,” and trudges off to the woods, as 44 confident of the protection of Providence, “ and relying as cheerfully upon his own re- “ sources as did ever a patriarch of yore, 44 when he journeyed into a strange country 44 of the Gentiles. Having buried himself in 44 the wilderness, he builds himself a log-hut, 44 clears away a corn-field and potatoe patch; 44 and Providence smiling upon his labours, 44 is soon surrounded by a snug farm, and 44 some half-a-scoreof flaxen headed urchins, 44 who by their size, seem to have sprung all 44 at once out of the earth, like a crop of 44 toad-stools.” The pale of civilized life widens daily, CHARACTER OF THE AMERICANS. 63 and plainly intimates to the indignant and retiring Indian, that it will finally know no limit but the Pacific. Cultivators have be¬ gun to discover the superiority of the soil, westward of the Alleghany Ridges: the tide of emigration is accordingly turned to the neighbourhood of the Ohio. Six¬ teen thousand waggons, I was told, were counted last year passing the toll bridge of Cayuga. Settlements are creeping along the Missouri, and the mouth of the Co¬ lumbia is already designated to connect the Asiatic with the European commerce of the States. Such is the growth, and such the projects of this transatlantic re¬ public, great in extent of territory, in an active and well-informed population ; but above all, in a free government, which not only leaves individual talent unfettered, but calls it into life by all the incitements of ambition most grateful to the human mind. 64 CANADA. CHAPTER IX. CANADA. March 19th, Isle aux Noix. St. John’s - - 12 miles. La Prarie - - - 18 Montreal - 9 Albany to Montreal 250 The direct road is reckoned at 171 22d. Berthier, Riviere du Loup. 23d. Trois Rivieres - - 90 St. Anne,' 24th. Cap Sante, St. Augustine, 25th. Quebec, 90 sleighs. 180 New York to Albany, 1G0 Albany to Montreal, 250 590 miles. Total expence for three persons, four servants, and one waggon load of baggage, including six days’ living at New York, 755 dollars= 1 SB/. 15/. CANADA. 65 Nothing could be more Siberian than the aspect of the Canadian frontier: a narrow road, choaked with snow, led through a wood, in which, patches were occasionally cleared, on either side, to admit the construction of a few log-huts, round which a brood of ragged children, a starved pig, and a few half-broken rustic implements, formed an accompaniment more suited to an Irish landscape than to the thriving scenes we had just quitted. The Canadian peasant is still the same unsophisticated animal whom we may suppose to have been imported by Jacques Cartier. The sharp, unchangeable lineaments of the French countenance, set off with a blue or red night-cap, over which is drawn the hood of a grey capote, fa¬ shioned like a monk’s cowl, a red worsted girdle, hair tied in a greasy leathern queue, brown mocassins of undressed hide, and a short pipe in his mouth, give undeniable testimony of the presence of Jean Baptiste. His horse seems to have been equally so¬ licitous to shame neither his progenitors nor his owner, by any mixture with a fo¬ reign race, but exhibits the same relation- F 66 CANADA. ship to the horses, as his rider to the subjects of Louis XIII. Now, too, the frequent cross by the road side, thick- studded with all the implements of cruci- fixional torture, begins to indicate a catho¬ lic country: distorted virgins and ghastly saints decorate each inn room, while the light spires of the parish church, covered with plates of tin, glitter across the snowy plain. At La Prarie we crossed the ice to Montreal, whose isolated mountain forms a conspicuous object at the distance of some leagues. From thence to Quebec, the road follows the course of the St. Lawrence, whose banks present a succession of vil¬ lages, many of them delightfully situated; but all form and feature were absorbed in the snowy deluge, which now deepened every league; add to which, the sleigh- track, by frequently running on the bed of the river, placed us below prospect of every kind. We found the inns neat, and the people attentive j French politesse began to be contrasted with American bluntness. It is curious to observe that this charac¬ teristic of the Americans, which so fre- CANADA. 67 quently offends the polished feelings of English travellers, is exactly what was for¬ merly objected by the French to ourselves. The 44 rudesse ” of the English character was long a standing jest with our refined neighbours ; but we have now, it seems, so far shaken off this odious remnant of un- courtly habits, as to regard it with true French horror in our trans-atlantic cousins. It was Sunday when we arrived at St. Anne’s; mass was just finished, and above an hundred sleighs were rapidly dispersing themselves up the neighbouring heights, and across the bed of the river, to the ad¬ jacent villages. The common country sleigh is a clumsy, box-shaped machine, raised at both ends; perhaps not greatly unlike the old heroic car. It holds two persons, with the driver, who stands before them. One horse is commonly sufficient, but two are used in posting, when the leader is attached by cords, tandem-wise, and left to use his own discretion, without the re¬ straint of rein, or impulse of whip. Should, however, the latter stimulus become indis¬ pensable, the driver jumps from the sleigh, runs forward, applies his pack-thread lash, f 2 68 CANADA. and regains his seat without any hazard from extraordinary increase of impetus. The runners of these sleighs are formed of two slips of wood, so low that the shafts collect the snow into a succession of wavy hillocks, properly christened “ cahots,” for they almost dislocate your limbs five thou¬ sand times in a day’s journey. An attempt was once made to correct this evil, by pro¬ hibiting all low runners , as they are called, from coming within a certain distance of Quebec; meaning, thereby, to force the country people into the use of high runners, in the American fashion. Jean Baptiste, how ¬ ever, sturdily and effectually resisted this he¬ retical innovation, by halting with his pro¬ duce without the limits, and thus compel¬ ling the towns-people to come to him to make their purchases. The markets both of Montreal and Quebec exhibit several hundred market sleighs daily. They differ from the pleasure, or travelling sleigh, in having no sides ; that is, they consist merely of a plank bottom, with a kind of railing. Hay and wood seem the staple commo¬ dities at this season, both of which are im- moderately dear, especially at Quebec; CANADA. 69 even through the States, the common charge for one horse’s hay for a night, was a dollar. Provisions are brought to market frozen, in which state they are preserved during win¬ ter ; cod fish is brought from Boston, a land carriage of 500 miles, and then sells at a reasonable rate, the American commonly speculating on a cargo of smuggled goods back, to make up his profit; a kind of trade extremely brisk betwixt the frontier and Montreal. As we approached Quebec, snow lay to the depth of six feet; from the heights of Abram, the eye rested upon what seemed an immense lake of milk ; all smaller irre¬ gularities of ground, fences, boundaries, and copse woods, had disappeared; the tops of villages and scattered farm houses, with here and there dark lines of pine-wood, and occasionally the mast of some ice-locked schooner, marking the bed of the Charles river, were the only objects peering above it. A range of mountains, sweeping round from West to North, until it meets the St. Lawrence, bounds the horizon ; no herald of Spring had yet approached this dreary out¬ post of civilization ; we had observed a few f 3 70 CANADA. blue thrushes in the neighbourhood of Al- bany, but none had yet reached Canada; two only of the feathered tribe, brave the winter of this inclement region ; the cos¬ mopolite crow, and the snow bird *, a small white bird, reported to feed upon snow, because it is not very clear what else it can find. It would be acting unfairly to Quebec, to describe it as I found it on my arrival, choak- ed with ice and snow, which one day flooded the streets with a profusion of dirty ken¬ nels, and the next, cased them with a sheet of glass. Cloth or carpet boots ; galashes, with spikes to their heels, iron pointed walking-sticks, are the defensive weapons perpetually in employ on these occasions. The direction of the streets too, which are most of them built up a precipice, greatly facilitates any inclination one may enter¬ tain for tumbling, or neck-breaking. * Emberiza hyemalis. [ II ] CHAPTER X. THE FALLS OF MONTMORENCI. 1 he falls of Montmorenci are formed by a little river of that name, near its junction with the St. Lawrence, about five miles north of Quebec. They have a peculiar interest in winter, from the immense cone of ice, formed at their foot, which was unimpaired when I visited them, in the second week of April. After winding up a short biffc steep ascent, the road crosses a wooden bridge, beneath which the Montmorenci rushes betwixt its dark grey rocks, and precipitates itself in a broken torrent down a wooded glen on the right; it is not until you have wound round the edgeof this glen, which is done by quitting the road at the bridge-foot, that you obtain a view of the falls ; nor was their effect lessened by this approach; a partial thaw, succeeded by a f 4 72 THE FALLS OF MONTMOKENCI, frost, had spread a silvery brightness over the waste of snow. Every twig and branch of the surrounding pine-trees, every waving shrub and briar was encased in chrystal, and glittering to the sun beams, like the diamond forest of some northern elf-land. You are now on the edge of a precipice, to which the fall itself, a perpendicular of 220 feet, seems diminutive; it is not until you de¬ scend and approach its foot, that the whole majesty of the scene becomes apparent; the breadth of the torrent is about fifty feet. The waters, from their prodigious descent, seem snowy-white with foam, and enveloped in a light drapery of gauzy mist. The cone appears about 100 feet in height; mathe¬ matically regular in shape, with its base ex¬ tending nearly all across-the stream: its sides are not so steep but that ladies have as¬ cended to the top of it; the interior is hol¬ low. I regret to add, that a mill is con¬ structing on this river, which will, by di¬ verting the stream, destroy this imperial sport of nature ; or at least reduce it to the degradation of submitting to be played off at the miller’s discretion, like a Ver¬ sailles fountain. I 73 ] CHAPTER XI. QUEBEC AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. Towards the end of April, the town’s peo¬ ple begin, according to a law of the Pro¬ vince, to break up the ice and snow from before their doors ; and by the first week in May, the streets are tolerably cleared. The intermediate state, as may be suppos¬ ed, is a perfect chaos, through which the stumbling pedestrian, like the arch-fiend of old, “ pursues his way, “ And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps.” Meanwhile the landscape begins to ex¬ change its snowy mantle for a russet brown. A few wild-fowl and woodcocks, with some small birds, cautiously make their appear¬ ance ; the sheltered bottoms of the pine woods throw out the earliest flowers ; the St. Lawrence and Charles rivers become 74 QUEBEC AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. gradually disburthened of ice, and enliven¬ ed by the gliding sail; still, however, the foot of Spring seems lingering ; the mists, exhaled by the warmth of the sun, frequent¬ ly encounter the keen north-west, and are again precipitated in heavy snow-showers ; snow still blocks up the roads, and fills the dells and ditches, sheltered from the in¬ fluence of the sun j thus preserving the gloomy aspect of winter, through the month of May. The town, or rather city, of Quebec, is built on the northern extremity of a nar¬ row strip of high land, which follows the course of the St. Lawrence for several miles, to its confluence with the Charles. The basis of this height is a dark slate-rock, of which most of the buildings in the town are constructed. Cape Diamond terminates the promontory, with a bold precipice to¬ wards the St. Lawrence, to which, it is near¬ ly perpendicular, at the height of 320 feet. It derives its name from the chrystals of quartz found in it, which are so abundant, that after a shower the ground glitters with them. The lower town is built round the foot of these heights, without the fortifica- QUEBEC AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. 75 tions, which, with the upper town, occupy their crest, in bleak pre-eminence ; the for¬ mer, snug and dirty, is the abode of thriving commerce, and of most of the lower classes employed about the navy. The latter, cold and lofty, is the seat of Government, and principal residence of the military; and claims, in consequence, that kind of su¬ periority which some heads have been said to assert over the inglorious belly: to speak the truth, neither has much to boast on the score, either of beauty, or conveni¬ ence. Among the principal buildings, the Go¬ vernment house, or Castle of St. Louis, may take precedence, being a thin blue building, which seems quivering, like a theatrical side scene, on the verge of the precipice, towards the St. Lawrence : its front resembles that of a respectable gentleman’s house in Eng¬ land : the interior contains comfortable family apartments. For occasions of public festivity there is another building on the opposite side of the court-yard, much re¬ sembling a decayed gaol. The furniture is inherited, and paid for, by each successive governor. The grand entrance to the 76 QUEBEC AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. Chateau is flanked on one side by this grim mouldering pile, and on the other by the stables, with their appropriate dung-hills. There is a small garden on the bank of the river, commanding, as does the Chateau itself, an interesting view of the opposite shores of the St. Lawrence. These rise boldly precipitous, clothed with pine and cedar groves, and studded with white vil¬ lages, and detached farms ; beyond which the eye reposes on successive chains of wooded mountains, fading blue in the dis¬ tant horizon; meanwhile, the river below is spreading broadly towards the north, until it meets and divides round the Isle of Orleans. In front of the Chateau is an open space of ground, with great capabilities of being converted into a handsome square; but at this season, a formidable barrier of bog- land, intersected with rivulets of snow¬ water, is all that it presents to the bewil¬ dered pedestrian, who endeavours vainly to steer for the castle gate. On one side of it stands the Protestant cathedral church, an unfinished building, much more than large enough for the congregation usually as- QUEBEC AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. 77 sembled in it. In style and arrangement it resembles a London parochial church, and has nothing about it reproachable with earthly beauty. There is a good organ, but mute for want of an organist; and as there is no choir, the heavy flatness of the ser¬ vice amply secures the English church from all danger of being crowded with the over- flowings of its neighbour, the Catholic cathedral, in which are still displayed, with no inconsiderable degree of splendour, the enticing ceremonies of the Romish worship. I was present at the service on Easter Sun¬ day : a train of not less than fifty stoled priests and choristers surrounded the tapered altar : the bishop officiated in plenis pontificalibus, nor lacked the mitre “precious “ and aurophrygiate,” while the pealing organ, incense rolling from silver censors, and kneeling crowds, thronging the triple aisles, presented a spectacle, on which few are rigid enough, either in belief or un¬ belief, to look with absolute indifference. A lofty pile of gingerbread cakes, orna¬ mented with tinsel, was carried to the bi¬ shop to receive his blessing, and a sprink¬ ling of holy water, after which they were distributed among the people, who received 78 QUEBEC AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. them with most devout eagerness. These cakes I understood to be the pious offering of some devotee, more rich than wise, who certainly adopted a somewhat ludicrous expedient “ To bribe the rage of ill-requited Heaven,” with gingerbread. In Catholic countries there are few public buildings, either for use or ornament, but are in some way connected with religion, and most frequently with charity. There are several charitable Catholic institutions in Quebec : the principal of these is the “ Hotel Dieu,” founded in 1637, by the Duchess D’Aiguillon, (sister to Cardinal Richelieu,) for the poor sick. The esta¬ blishment consists of a superior and thirty- six nuns. The “ General Hospital” is a similar institution, consisting of a superior and forty-three nuns, founded by St. Val- lier, bishop of Quebec, in 1693, for “ Poor Sick and Mendicants.” It stands about a mile from the town, in a pleasant meadow watered by the Charles. ' The style of building is simple, and well suited to the purposes ol the establishment, consisting; n QUEBEC AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. 79 only of “ such plain roofs as piety could raise.” The present superior is a lady of Irish extraction, her age apparently bor¬ dering on thirty. In this conventual se¬ clusion, (devoted to what might well seem to the mind of a delicate female, the most disgusting duties of humanity,) she ex¬ hibits that easy elegance, and softened cheerfulness of manner, so often affected, and rarely attained by the many votaries, who dress their looks and carriage in “ the glass of fashion.” She conducted us, with the greatest politeness, through every part of the building, which, as well as the “ Hotel Dieu,” in point of order, neatness, and arrangement, seems singularly adapted to the comfort and recovery of the unfor¬ tunate beings, to whose reception they are consecrated. Their funds I understood to be small, and managed with strict economy. They receive a small sum annually from Government* in addition to the revenue arising from their domain-lands. There is no distinction in the admission of Catholic or Protestant: the hand of Charity has spread a couch for each in his infirmities. * In consideration of which, soldiers are received as patients. 80 QUEBEC AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD* Both houses hav r e a small pharmacopoeia in charge of a sister instructed in medicine. The several duties of tending the sick by night, cooking, &c. are distributed by ro¬ tation. Employment is thus equally se¬ cured to all, and the first evil of cankering thought effectually prevented. Good hu¬ mour and contented cheerfulness seem to be no strangers to these “ veiled vota¬ resses seem! nay, perhaps are ; for with¬ out ascribing any miraculous effect to the devotion of a cloister, it is no unreasonable supposition, that in an establishment of this kind, the duties and occupations of which prevent seclusion from stagnating into apathy, or thought from fretting itself into peevishness, a greater degree of tran¬ quility, (and this is happiness,) may possibly be obtained, than commonly falls to the lot of those who drudge through the ordi¬ nary callings, or weary themselves with the common enjoyments of society. Grave men have doubted whether the purposes of these institutions might not be better answered by our common hospital esta¬ blishments, and have even indulged them¬ selves in a sneer, at the idea of young men 10 QUEBEC AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. 81 being attended in sickness by nuns! On the question generally, it may be observed, that few (who have any knowledge of the system of common hospitals) can be at a loss to appreciate the difference betwixt the tender solicitude with which charity smooths, for conscience sake, the bed of suffering, and the heartless, grudging atten¬ dance which hospital nurses inflict upon their victims. If the action of the mind produce a sensible effect on the frame, par¬ ticularly in sickness, this is no immaterial circumstance, in a medical point of view. Even when the hour of human aid is past, it is, perhaps, still something, that the last earthly object should be a face of sympathy, and the last duties of humanity be paid with a semblance of affection. For those who dedicate themselves to this ministrv, some apology may be urged to such as admit motive as, at least an extenuating circumstance in the consideration of error. The moral critics, perhaps, who are fore¬ most to condemn their practice as super¬ stitious, revolt less from the superstition, than from the self-sacrifice it requires. Let the lash of satire fall mercilessly on G 82 QUEBEC AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. mere bigots, wherever they are found; but against the spirit, which, abjuring the plea¬ sures, devotes itself to the most painful du¬ ties of life, what argument can be directed, which may not be left for its refutation to the prayers and blessings of the poor ? The most objectionable part of the institu¬ tion seems to be the committing of insane persons, of both sexes, to the charge of fe¬ males : the answer is, that there is no other asylum for them ; the blame therefore at¬ taches to the police of the country ; for it is evident, that women are very inadequate to the charge of such patients as require coer¬ cive treatment, particularly men. * The Urseline Convent, founded by Ma- dame de la Peltrie, in 1639, for the educa¬ tion of female children, stands within the city. It has, both in its interior decora¬ tion, and the dress of its inhabitants, a greater appearance of wealth than the “ Ge¬ neral Hospital,” and “ Hotel Dieu.” Among the ornaments of the chapel, we were par¬ ticularly directed to the skull and bones of a missionary who had been murdered by * We saw one patient, who would never suffer him- self to be cloathed. QUEBEC AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. 83 the savages, for attempting their conver¬ sion : it is perhaps doubtful, considering the general indifference of the Indians on matters of religious controversy, whether this was the real and sole offence by which he won the crown of martyrdom. These nuns have generally about 200 little girls under their care, but I was sorry to observe their education bought with their health; not one of them but had a pallid sickly ap¬ pearance, arising probably from much con¬ finement, during a long winter, in an at¬ mosphere highly heated with stoves, joined to the salt, unwholesome diet, generally us¬ ed by the Canadians. I ought not to omit, for the honor of these ladies’ charity, that they keep a town bull. The seminary is a collegiate institution, for the gratuitous instruction of the Catho¬ lic youth of Canada. The number of scho¬ lars is commonly about 200. The expenses of professors, teaching, &c. are defrayed by the revenue arising from the Seignoral do¬ mains, belonging to the establishment. The course of studies here qualifies for or¬ dination. There is a small museum, or “ cabinet de physique,” which seems in a g 2 84 QUEBEC AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. growing condition ; it contains, besides na¬ tural curiosities, electrical apparatus, tele¬ scopes, and other instruments of science. The library is somewhat too theological; there is a small hell attached to it, in which I perceived our Common Prayer Books, Testaments, &c. in company with many divines, as well Catholic as Protestant, Bayle, and a few travellers and philosophers, but the greater part theologians. The old palace, besides the chambers for the coun¬ cil, and House of Assembly, contains a g6od public library ; the nature of the collection, may be defined generally, as the reverse of that of the seminary library. There is a good assortment of historical works, of a standard quality, and of travels ; but no clas¬ sics, probably because none of the inhabi¬ tants affect to read them. A librarv is also on the eve of being established, by the offi¬ cers of the staff and garrison ; but the so¬ ciety of Quebec is generally on too limited a scale, and too exclusively militarv or com¬ mercial, to foster any considerable spirit of literature or science. An attempt was made during Sir G. Prevost’s administra¬ tion, to establish a society on the plan of QUEBEC AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. 85 the Royal Institution, but it fell to the ground, for want of a sufficiency of efficient members, eleven being the supposed ne¬ cessary quantum to begin with ; nor is this seeming scarcity surprising, when we con¬ sider, that the short Canadian summer is appropriated to business, and that during the tedious winter, the men are never tired of dinners, nor the ladies of dancing. There are some peculiar and interesting features in the neighbourhood of Quebec. The lofty banks of the St. Lawrence, from Cape Diamond to Cape Rouge, are com¬ posed of clay-slate, generally of a dark co¬ lour, sometimes of a dull red, whence the name of “ Cap Rouge.” The bed of the river is of the same crumbling stone ; and being triturated by time and the elements, gives its sands a close resemblance, both in colour and consistency, to smith’s filings. Bare however, as they are of soil, these per¬ pendicular cliffs are every where cloathed with a luxuriant verdure of shrubs and trees, whose roots, wreathing themselves round barren rocks, seem to woo from the charity of the heavens, the nutriment denied them by a niggard parent. g 3 86 QUE EC AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. About two miles above Quebec, a break in the magnificent line of cliffs forms the little recess, called Wolfe’s Cove; a steep path-way leads up the heights to the plains of Abram ; traces of field-works are still vi¬ sible on the turf, and the stone is pointed out on which the hero expired. The cove is at present appropriated to the reception of lumber, whicli comes down the river from the States and Upper Province, in rafts, which frequently cover the surface of half an acre j when the wind is favorable, they spread 10 or 12 square sails, at other times they are poled down ; the men, who navi¬ gate them, build small wooden houses on them, and thus, transported with their families, poultry, and frequently cat¬ tle, form a complete floating village. A great proportion of the timber is brought from lake Champlain, and the trade is al¬ most wholly in the hands of the Ameri¬ cans. A second crescent-like recess, about a mile from Wolfe’s Cove, conceals the little village of Sillori. Nothing can be more romantic than the seclusion of this charm- ing spot. The river road to it turns round QUEBEC AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. 87 the foot of gigantic cliffs, which seem in¬ terposed betwixt it and the world’s turmoil. The heights which encircle it are deeply wooded to their summits, and retire suffi¬ ciently from the river to leave a pleasant meadow and hop-ground round the village, consisting of about half-a-dozen neat white houses, one of which is an inn. On the river’s edge stands the ruin of an old reli¬ gious house, built by French missionaries, for the purpose of preaching to the Huron tribes, who then inhabited this neighbour¬ hood. There is now no trace of these mis¬ sionaries, or of their labours, except in the little village of Loretto, which contains the only surviving relics of the once powerful Huron nation *: so efficaciously have di¬ sease and gunpowder seconded the con¬ verting zeal of Europeans. Besides the road which winds under the cliffs, Sil- lori has two leading to Quebec through the woods. These woods cover the greater part of the country, betwixt the St. Foi road, and the river, offering all the lux¬ ury of shade and sylvan loveliness to the * About forty heads of families. G 4 88 QUEBEC AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. few disposed to accept it. I 3ay the tew, for the fashionables of Quebec commonly prefer making a kind of Rotten Row ot the Plains of Abram, round which they parade with the periodical uniformity of blind horses in a mill. Lake Charles is generally talked of as one of the pleasantest spots round Quebec, and instances have been known of parties of pleasure reaching it. It is about three miles in length; and perhaps one at its greatest breadth. Towards the middle of it, two rocky points shoot out so as to form, properly speaking, two lakes, connected by a narrow channel. A scattered hamlet, taking its name from the lake, is seen with its meadows and tufted orchards along the right bank of the outward basin. Wooded heights rise on the opposite shore, and sur¬ round the whole of the interior lake, de¬ scending every where to the water’s edge, the whole forming a scene of lovely lone¬ liness, scarcely intruded on by the canoe of the silent angler. There is more in the whole landscape to feel, than to talk about, so that it is little wonderful (hat an excur- / QUEBEC. AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. 89 sion to Lake Charles should be more fre- ' quently talked about, than made. The Huron village of Loretto stands on the left bank of the Charles about four miles below the Lake, (eight from Quebec.) The river, immediately on passing thebridge, be¬ low the village, rushes down its broken bed of granite, with a descent of about seventy feet, and buries itself in the windings of the deeply-shadowed glen below. A part of the fall is diverted to turn a mill, which seems fearfully suspended above the foam¬ ing torrent. The village covers a plot of ground verv much in the manner of an English barrack, and altogether the reverse of the straggling Canadian method; it is, in fact, the method of their ancestors. I found the children amusing themselves with little bows and arrows. The houses had generally an air of poverty and slovenliness : that, however, of their principal chief, whom I visited, was neat and comfortable. One of their old men gave me a long account of the manner in which the Jesuits had con¬ trived to trick them out of their seignorai rights, and possession of the grant of land made them by the king of France, which 90 QUEBEC AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. consisted, originally, of four leagues, by one in breadth, from Sillori, north. Two leagues of this, which were taken from them by the French government, upon promise of an equivalent, they give up, he said, as lost; but as the property of the Jesuits is at present in the hands of commissioners appointed by our Government, they were in hopes of recovering the remainder, which it never could be proved that their ancestors either gave, sold, lent, or in any way ali¬ enated. Although the oldest among them retains no remembrance of the wandering life of their ancestors, it is still the life they covet; “ for,” said a young Huron, “ on s' ennuie dans le village, et on ne s'ennui e jrmtm s dans les bois." t 91 3 CHAPTER XII. QUEBEC TO K AMOUR ASK A. July 16th. St. Thomas 17th. Riviere Ouelle 18th. Kamouraska V • \ 36 Miles. 42 12 90 Miles. TO QUEBEC BY THE NORTH SHORE. 21 st. Malbay 20 Ferry. 22d. St. Paul’s Bay - 30 24th. La Petite Riviere - - 12 Water. 25th. St. Joakim - - - 18 do. Quebec - - - 30 110 90 200 92 QUEBEC TO KAMOUKASKA. Opposite to Quebec is Point Levi, a com¬ manding eminence on the right bank of the St. Lawrence, whose breadth here is little above a mile. A party of Michmac Indians were encamped on the shore. They were the first Indians I had seen, in any thing like their original condition of life, and are almost the only ones to be seen about Quebec. Their encampment con¬ sisted of four tents, raised with pine poles, and covered with the bark of the white birch, which is used generally for this pur¬ pose, and for canoes, by all the tribes of the continent. Two women were gum¬ ming their canoe at the water's edge ; three or four little half-naked “ bronzed varlets ” were dabbling in the tide, who, on my coming up, began to articulate “ how d’ye do,” in Michmac English. A man in one of the tents was making small canoes for children’s toys, and the rest were in that state of indolence most accordant to their dispositions, when their circumstances will permit it. In dress and personal appear¬ ance they were too like gypsies to require more particular description, except that QUEBEC TO KAMOURASKA. 93 their cheek-bones, high, and set wide apart, rendered them the ugliest looking mortals I had ever seen. The Michmacs originally dwelt, and hunted, betwixt the shores of Nova Scotia and the St. Lawrence. Like all Indians enclosed within the pale of ci¬ vilization, they are wasting fast from the effects of spirituous liquors, bad living, and indolent habits ; deprived of the resource of the chase by the progress of agriculture* they wander on the shores of the St. Lawrence, fish, beg, or steal, and live as they can, that is, ill enough. St. Michel is remarkable for the neatest inn in the country ; I dined there, and slept at the house of Mr. Couillard, a Canadian gentleman. His house, which he had late¬ ly erected, was a substantial stone building, furnished in the plainest manner, much perhaps, as were those of our country gen¬ tlemen a century ago; that is, much wain¬ scot, no papering, little or no mahogany, plain delft ware, a rustic establishment, with two or three little girls to wait, instead of a footman, and as many large dogs for por¬ ters. In the morning, Mr. Couillard ac¬ companied me to" the mouth of the South River, which falls over a ledge of rocks into 94 QUEBEC TO KAMOURASKA. the St. Lawrence, below his house, where the early fisherman was just visiting his nets, stretched below the fall. We returned through the village, which is one of the neatest in the province; the houses are placed in the Dutch fashion, with the gable end to the road. The number of inhabi¬ tants in the whole parish is reckoned at 1500, who have among them 1000 children ; a good proof, as Mr. Couillard seemed justly to think, of their populative disposition. On entering the church, we found the priest drilling a considerable number of them, previous to their receiving the sacrament, and bestowing a box on the ear, whenever it seemed necessary, to accustom the head to its proper position. There is an English school in the village. * The tract of country betwixt Quebec and St. Thomas, is generally a flat, of variable breadth, lying betwixt the river and a chain of mountains or high lands, which follows the same direction, sometimes approaching nearer to, and sometimes retiring from its banks. In the neighbourhood of St. Thomas, * By an Act 41 Geo. 3. an English school is esta¬ blished in each of the principal villages of the Lower Province. QUEBEC TO KAMOURASKA. 95 the breadth of cultivated land seldom seems to exceed two leagues ; beyond is hill and forest, into which no Canadian has yet ven¬ tured to penetrate for the purpose of set¬ tlement. Indeed, the most prominent trait in the character of this people, is an attach¬ ment to whatever is established. Far dif¬ ferent in this respect from the American? the Canadian will submit to any privation, rather than quit the spot his forefathers tilled, or remove from the sound of his pa¬ rish bells. The next evening brought me to the vil¬ lage of Ouelle, situated on the right bank of a river so called. I had a letter to the Seigneur, Mr. Casgrin, whom I found near the ferry, busied among his workmen, in the superintendance of a new bridge, to supply the place of the ferry. He received me very politely, and having conducted me to a neat house, facing the stream, invited me to his family supper, which in Canada, as well as in the States, is formed by a combi¬ nation of the tea equipage, with the consti¬ tuent parts of a more substantial meal. He introduced me to his architect, whose appearance well answered Mr. Casgrin s description of “ rusticus, abnormis , sapiens 96 QUEBEC TO KAMOURASKA. The whole of his workmen, 45 in number, were, according to the custom of the coun¬ try, boarded and lodged in his house ; and I must do them the justice to say? 45 quieter people never lodged beneath a roof. Early hours being the order of the day, we retir¬ ed to rest at nine o’clock; after an early breakfast, a relation of my host took me in his caleche, to visit a porpoise fishing in the neighbourhood; the drive was about four miles, the last two of them through a pine wood, preserved round the fishery, that the noise of agricultural occupations may not frighten the game from the shore. The fishery lies betwixt the mouth of the Ouelle, and a ridge of rocks jutting into the St. Lawrence, about a mile below it — from the extremity of this ridge, an enclosure of stakes runs a considerable way obliquely across the stream, and by crossing the re¬ treat of the porpoises, as the tide falls, con¬ ducts them into shallow water, where they are harpooned ; I saw one on the beach, which had been taken that morning; he was a small one, measuring but 10 feet in length, much more like a fat white hog, than a fish ; the aperture of the ear is cover- QtfEBEC to kamouraska. 97 ed by the skin, and by no means indicates the acuteness of hearing ascribed to this animal, by the fishermen ; the largest are 18 feet in length, and are computed to yield two hogsheads of oil each, the quality of which makes it in high request among the natives, even for culinary purposes. I was told, that as many as 300 were sometimes taken in a morning; the Seigneur is entitled to -rVth, and Mr. Casgrin received -A-tli, be¬ sides, as part owner. On the ledge of rocks was placed a small wooden cross, on which, every spring, the Cure is summoned to be¬ stow his benediction, without which, no success is to be expected through the sea¬ son. As the fishery is at present rather on the decline, it is probable the porpoises have hit upon some counter-charm. The inhabitants point out as a great curiosity, a succession of marks or fractures on these rocks, which, from their shape, they call the Rackets, or Snow Shoes, to which, they certainly bear considerable resemblance, both in shape, size, and position, being placed much at the distance a man would step. My host, probably no great geologist, conjectured they were really the impression H 98 QUEBEC TO KAMOURASKA. of shoes, made while the rock was soft; and this explanation perfectly satisfies the whole neighbourhood. Perhaps many important systems are built on analogies, not much closer. For some miles before reaching Ka- mouraska, a striking difference becomes vi¬ sible in the appearance of the country. The basis of the soil had hitherto consisted of the same clay-slate, generally red, which constitutes the bed and banks of the St. Lawrence about Quebec, interspersed with frequent detached blocks and masses of granite, apparently springing through it. Here, however, granite begins to quit its secondary rank, and gradually seems to be¬ come the general substratum of the soil * : instead of scattered masses, lofty ridges and mounds of considerable size make their ap¬ pearance. At St. Roch, the road runs for nearly a mile beneath a perpendicular ledge of it, probably 300 feet in height. Towards Kamouraska, it rises into a succession of sharp conical hills, resembling a line of lofty pyramids, ranged at angles to the The valley of the viver Ouelle, produces limestone, but of an inferior quality. QUEBEC TO KAMOURASKA. 99 course of the river. The most singular mass of this kind, I had an opportu¬ nity of observing closely, is about two miles below Kamouraska; its circumference is about a league at the base ; the height may be betwixt 4 and 500 feet; its sides rise in many places as smoothly perpendicular as if cut down by an axe, scarcely yielding a fissure, in which the stunted cedar can take root. A flat meadow divides this immense rock from another, seemingly of nearly equal dimensions, and towering up no less boldly. The small space which divides them, (not a quarter of a mile,) and the perfect congruity of their shape, irresistibly impress on the mind, the idea of their hav¬ ing once formed a single mountain. Kamouraska is pleasantly situated on the St. Lawrence, and is a village of some re¬ sort during summer, for sea-bathing; the salt-water first evidently commencing in this neighbourhood. The parish is of some extent, as may be conjectured from the value of the cure, estimated at 1000/. per annum ; that is, when all dues are fully paid, which was not the case with the last cure, recently deceased, who, “good easy man,” h 2 100 QUEBEC TO KAMOURASKA. was not only content to receive what his parishioners chose to give him, generally about one-third of his right, but gave away half of the little remainder, living in a crazy tenement, on apostolic diet, and amusing himself by walking on the beach, to ask and hear the news. Opposite Kamouraska is a cluster of small islands, or rather wooded rocks, round which there are considerable fisheries of salmon, herrings, and sardines ; the first two of which are cured and ex¬ ported to the West Indies. These fisheries are constructed much like the porpoise fishery; a considerable space of water is enclosed with two hedges, tapering to a point, and terminating in a small circular basin, from which the fish are taken at low water. I spent the greater part of a dav, on one of these islands, with a Canadian gentleman, to whom some of the fisheries belonged; we went round them in a cart, to take out our fish, which we broiled, and dined & la militaire , under our tent, on the rocks. Their stony soil, besides pine and ce¬ dar, and a variety of shrubs, produces the wild gooseberry, raspberry, cherry, and plum, in great abundance. A telegraph 4 QUEBEC TO KAMOURASKA. 101 is erected on one of them, where the sol¬ diers have established a thriving potatoe garden. We returned to Kamouraska in the evening* cheered on our way with the rude harmony of the Canadian boat-song. The ground rises gradually behind Ka¬ mouraska into a high rocky ridge, from whence the eye dwells delighted on the broad St. Lawrence, studded with woody isles, and bounded by the bold mountain shore of the northern bank. The little river of Kamouraska, descending from the eastern mountains, encounters this granite ridge, and falls in a broad sheet over a na¬ tural w T all of about thirty feet in height; a portion of the current is diverted from the summit to turn a grist mill, the property of the Seigneur, who receives one fourteenth of the quantity ground, amounting to one thou¬ sand bushels of wheat per annum, in addi¬ tion to the miller’s fee. The miller is an old Hanoverian, who served in the Ameri¬ can war. The St. LavVrence is twenty-two miles broad at Kamouraska. I was the whole of a day crossing it, in a little boat, to Malbay, or rather to a scattered hamlet, four miles h 3 102 QUEBEC TO ICAMOURASKA. to the north of it, the falling tide having prevented our doubling the last rocky point. From hence I was carted to the ferry of the little river at the mouth of which the village stands. I inquired, as is the custom in the untravelled parts of Canada, for the best house, in which to find hospitality for the night, and was directed to that of Madame Nairn, the lady of the Seignory. I found it a plain, and rather large dwelling, standing in a meadow, on the edge of the St. Law¬ rence. The lady was from home, but an old domestic assiduously welcomed me in: wine was immediately offered me, and in a few minutes, refreshments were on the table; eggs, tea, and bread and butter, to which a long fast inclined me to do ample justice. I afterwards walked round the vil¬ lage. Its site is a small semicircle of al¬ luvial land lying at the foot of mountains of a bolder and more romantic character than any I had yet seen in Canada. The only aperture in the chain affords a passage to the Malbay river, which emerges from a darkly-shaded glen, on the north-west of the village. The houses, about forty or fifty in number, follow the curve QUEBEC TO KAMOURASKA. 103 of the soil, or banks of the streamlet, near the mouth of which a neat white church rises, in striking relief, against the dark bold mountain, towering about half a mile be¬ yond it. Near the St. Lawrence I observed a number of sharp conical sand-hills, or mounds, from ten to forty feet in height. The extreme regularity of their figure, strongly impressed me with an idea of their artificial construction; upon an English down they would pass for barrows ; I even fancied I could trace the remains of a foss and raised path-way to some of them, like the entrance to a Roman camp; but whe¬ ther they are the graves of forgotten Sa¬ chems, or the work of the floods of former ages, I pretend not to decide. I found a comfortable chamber prepared on my re¬ turn, and breakfast on the table in the morning. “ How do you contrive to get through your time here, my girl?” said I, to the rosy-cheeked damsel who kept up my supply of fresh eggs; “ O, Sir, the 44 time goes very quick ; we have plenty of 44 employment.” 44 Well, but in winter?” 44 O the winter passes still quicker than 44 the summer.” I regretted I had not h 4 104 QUEBEC TO KAMOURASKA. an opportunity of paying my respects to my kind hostess, in whose family time was allow¬ ed to jog quietly on, without any extraordi¬ nary contrivances for his destruction, a pri¬ vilege so seldom granted him by the pre¬ sent generation. There is something of the romance of real life in Mrs. Nairn’s his¬ tory. She accompanied her husband from Scotland, during the American war, in which he served, and was rewarded by a grant of the Seignory of Malbay, a tract of mountain country, little prized by Canadian or English settlers, but dearer, perhaps to him, from its likeness to his native Highlands. When he settled on it there were but two houses, besides the one he built. He lived here till his death, and his widow has continued to reside here for forty-five years, during which the three houses have grown into a parish of three hundred inhabitants. Two of Mrs. Nairn’s daughters are married and settled in the village. Her son fell in the battle of Chrystler’s Farm. Malbay is the last settlement on the north bank of the St. Lawrence. The on¬ ly habitation beyond it, is a trading house QUEBEC TO KAMOURASKA. 105 of the North-west Company, who drive a pretty gainful traffic with the Indians of the neighbourhood, taking their furs at a shil¬ ling each, and selling them those commo¬ dities custom has rendered necessaries, at their own price ; no pains, nor even violence being spared, to prevent any competition likely to diminish their profits. A striking instance of this spirit occurred last year at Pistole. Nearly opposite to their trading post is a Canadian fishery, the business of which is generally carried on during the spring, when the fish frequent the south side of the river ; last year, however, owing to a scarcity of salt, it was necessarily put off until the autumn, when the fish are found on the north bank ; but when the fishermen attempted to pursue their vocation in this direction, they were set upon by an armed party of the subaltern agents of the North¬ west Company, their oars and boat tackling destroyed, and themselves set adrift, at the mercy of the elements. Fortunately they succeeded in gaining the shore in this con¬ dition, and are since understood to have commenced a process against these lawless 106 QUEBEC TO KAMOURASKA. traders, who, themselves, unchartered mo¬ nopolists, assumed the possibility of these fishermen communicating with the Indians, as a pretext for this unprovoked outrage. The road from Mai bay to St. Paul’s Bay, follows the direction of the river, over a tract of mountain country, occasionally crossed by deep glens, and covered with pine, cedar, elm, maple, birch, and wild cherry : neither oak, nor hickory, are found so far north. Scattered settlements are every where met with along the road, and many an acre, on which the half burnt pine-trunks are still standing, rather indicates the pro¬ gress of cultivation, than adds to the beauty of the landscape. Rather more than half way betwixt Malbay and St. Paul’s Bay, stands the little village of “ Les Eboule- mens.” I stopped my caleche at the house of the cure, whose rosy en bon point , and good humour, betokened him equally at ease in spirituals and temporals. * He re¬ galed me with wine and strawberries, served * I am sorry to say, I did not do his philosophy suf¬ ficient honor by the conjecture; I learned afterwards, that he was very poor, being very generous, and no fa¬ vorite with the bishop. QUEBEC TO KAMOURASKA. 107 by his sister, the staid gouvernante of his small menage ; and if wine and fruit, after a dusty journey, required any sauce, I should have found it in the pleasure my enter¬ tainers seemed to feel in my appetite. He lamented he had nothing better to offer me, but if I would stay a few days, and make his house my home, the best he could pro¬ cure was at my service. The only return he required, or I could make, to this hospi¬ tality, was to tell him the news, and leave him my name, to add to the small list of strangers, who had honoured his humble do¬ micile. Perverse fortune, that planted thy social spirit on the bleak crest of “ Les Eboulemens!” not one, I trust, of thy few vi¬ sitants, has forgotten the smile of thy ruddy countenance, thy band and cassock, some¬ what the worse for time and snuff, thy easy chair, and breviary tied up in black cloth ; or the neat flower garden round thy porch, whence, at the interval of thy evening de¬ votion, I can fancy thine eye resting com¬ placently on the lovely prospect it com¬ mands — the small white church, gleaming in the vale below ; beyond it, a succession of lofty capes and wooded promontories, 108 QUEBEC TO KAMOURASKA. jutting into the broad St. Lawrence; and “ Isle aux Coudres,” lying, like a shield, on its bright waters. St. Paul’s Bay is a flourishing little vil¬ lage, much resembling Malbay, in site and feature. The parish is reckoned to contain about 2000 inhabitants, the greater part of them settled along the little river, whose mouth forms the bay, and which once pro¬ bably covered the soil on which the village is built. From St. Paul’s Bay to St. Joachim, there is a road planned, but, as I had not leisure to wait its making, I procured a boat to take me round Cape Tormento. “ Isle aux Coudres” lies within the bay; it is one of the earliest settlements in Canada, and said still to retain, with the simple man¬ ners, a considerable share of the national urbanity of its first colonists. My boat’s crew, though strong in number, were weak in skill, nearly half of them being old men, for the first time in their lives handling an oar ; an evil which began to be felt, as soon as we had to contend with the short swell, caused by the opposition of wind and tide ; the contest, however, was but of short du- lation, for after a little bungling and tossing, QUEBEC TO KAMOURASKA. 109 and some aukward attempts, on the part of our young hands, to laugh away their fright, we found ourselves obliged to make for the village of “ La Petite Riviere,” to prevent greater evils. After securing our boat, we wound our way through a marshy meadow, towards a small wooden house at the end of the vil¬ lage, whose appearance bespoke it none of the best there, but it had the merit, as my commodore and pilot observed, of being kept by a clean woman, and of lying handy to the boat. We proceeded, accordingly, down the plashy path which led to it, and by the help of stepping stones, ma¬ noeuvred across the duck-puddle round the door-wav. The interior, however, did not discredit the “ gude wife’s ” character. The white-washed walls, against which hung the skin of a sea-wolf, were clean, and a small display of brown pans and many- coloured crockery, neatly arranged, front¬ ed the door. The dame and her daughter readily left their carding, to set about pre¬ paring a meal: and a plentiful dish of omlet, fried with bacon, and served up with maple sugar, was soon placed on what 110 QUEBEC TO KAMOURASKA. in height and dimensions might have passed equally for stool or table. Three iron forks, and as many platters, com¬ pleted our service; the only knife in the family being produced from our host s breeches pocket, where it usually reposed, after its daily duties of cutting sticks, bread for the family consumption, and bacon. As there was nothing in this banquet to in¬ duce excess, I ventured, immediately alter it, to commence a survey of the hamlet. It occupies a strip of land along the St. Law¬ rence, about four miles in length, and sel¬ dom half a mile in its greatest breadth. Towards either end of it, the bold ridge- shore closes in, and narrows this distance into little more than the breadth of a road, and pebbly beach. This screen of rocks, rising precipitously to the height of several hundred feet, and thus effectually protecting the territory of this secluded colony from the chilling north-west winds*, is cloathed * Experience confirms the rational conjecture, that it is to the severity of tins wind, sweeping over the bleak regions of Hudson’s Bay, and the Labrador coast, that the extreme cold of Lower Canada is principally attributable. The north-westerly course of the streams QUEBEC TO KAMOURASKA. Ill to the summit with deep groves of pines, beech, and maple; the latter of which afford annually more than sufficient sugar for the consumption of the inhabitants. The style of their houses is at once sub¬ stantial and commodious: walls freshly white-washed, and deftly-trimmed gardens, denote a condition beyond the mere gro¬ velling of existence. They are grouped, or irregularly scattered along the road, each embosomed in its own tufted orchard, at once the wealth and glory of its owner. This luxuriant abundance of fruit trees is not only the most graceful feature of the scene, but a very striking peculiarity in the site and soil of this favoured spot, which produces apples as abundantly, and of equal quality with those of Montreal; plums, cherries, and currants no less plentifully : even the peach deigns to ripen here, though which fall into the St. Lawrence, on its left bank, by opening a passage to this wind, obviates the good effects of the shelter afforded by its lofty shores. The village of La Petite Riviere seems indebted for its genial climate to the favourable distinction of being watered by a stream too narrow and winding to leave any con¬ siderable breach in the heights, by which it is sheltered, for the wind to pass through. 112 QUEBEC TO KAJWOURASKA. found no where besides in Canada, to the west of the Niagara frontier. Fruit is therefore the staple commodity of the vil¬ lage, and obtains for the inhabitants, not only the corn they have not space to raise in sufficient quantity for their consumption, but the few articles they are accustomed to consider the luxuries of life. At the lower end of the village, a rustic bridge of pine logs, crosses “ La Petite Riviere.” I sat down on a fallen tree to admire this swift gurgling streamlet, as it came from its green alcove, “ Making sweet music with th’ enameled stones,” and contrasting its white broken current with the deep, and varied verdure of the birch, pine, and maple, over-arching its rocky banks, as if to veil the secret urn, and repose of its Naiad. On my way back, I accepted one of the many courteous offers of the “ Fathers of the Hamlet,” to enter his house and refresh myself. After taking a glass of milk, the good man offered me, as the greatest treat within his means, rum and tobacco; and on my declining both, “What,” said he, “you neither drink 10 QUEBEC TO KAMOURASKA. 113 <£ rum nor smoke tobacco ? How rich you “ must be!” I could not assent to his conclusion, though it would, in general, be just enough, if in the place of rum and tobacco, one should substitute the equi¬ valent luxuries of more polished life. He informed me, the hamlet contained thirty fires, and one hundred and thirty grown up persons; or as he expressed it, “ Com¬ municants persons receiving the sacra¬ ment : a criterion of population very com¬ mon in Lower Canada, and very ill suited to most other countries. All his observa¬ tions bespoke a mind cheerful and con¬ tented. He praised the excellence of the soil, and observed, it was one of the earliest settlements in Canada. “ Their “ young men,” he said, “ had gone out “ during the war, but most of them had “ returned safe, for Sir George had always “ spared the Canadians.” He offered me his house, if I was unprovided with a lodging, adding, that every house in the village would be equally at my service, either for myself, or the persons who came with me. I repaid his kind offers, by giv¬ ing him the best advice I could, on the i 114 QUEBEC TO KAMOURASKA. disordered state of a watch he had pur¬ chased of a knavish tradesman in Quebec ; and vve parted, I think, with somewhat more of cordial leave-taking, than usually graces the separation of such brief acquaintance. On returning from my walk, I found my host’s family collected round a blazing hearth, though in the month of July. They could not sufficiently wonder among themselves, that I should have walked to the end of their village from mere curi¬ osity ; a restless feeling, with which the Canadian gentleman or peasant is little troubled. An iron lamp having been trimmed, and hung against the wall, a co¬ pious mess of milk porridge was served up for supper; soon after which, the old people retired to an inner room, to perform their evening devotions, while the younger members of the family knelt round the apartment, and having prayed some time in silence, retired to rest. If prayers can enter heaven, it must surely be, when they thus rise, a voluntary offering from the dwelling of contented poverty. I was loused, at midnight, to mount a bare¬ backed nag, which a barefooted gossoon QUEBEC TO KAMOURASKA. 115 led by the halter, through lanes and mea¬ dows, till emerging among the rocks, a distant light directed us to our boat, which lay, as the tide was low, some way in the stream, and we presently proceeded on our voyage. The cold star-beam enabled us to discern the dark outline of Cape Tormento, rising almost perpendicularly from the water’s edge. Its height is estimated by the Canadians at 1800 feet; but I should think 800 a sufficient allowance. I landed, soon after dav dawn, near St. Joachim. Here is a house with lands, belonging to the Quebec seminary, farmed out under the inspection of a steward. I fancied the cultivation of them superior in method, and their crops more abundant than any I had seen. The soil is altogether alluvial, lying on a level with the river, betwixt it and its rocky banks, as if redeemed from the water. My guide, charioteer, or carter, (for be it known, St. Joachim could furnish no costlier vehicle than a cart,) having intro¬ duced himself to my notice, with a compli¬ ment to the frankness and honour of his own dealings, (of which, by-the-bye, I had some i 2 116 QUEBEC TO KAMOURASKA. little doubt,) proceeded to inform me of a far more obvious peculiarity in his charac¬ ter ; (( quil aimoit beaucoup a jaser en che- “ min.” He followed up this enunciation, or rather denunciation, with a succession ot interrogatories, monologues, and eulogies on his steed “ Papillon,” (who had certainly nothing volatile in his whole anatomy,) and good humourcdly apologized, from time to time, for his excessive loquacity, which he ascribed to an extreme thirst for infor¬ mation ; without adding, whether for giv¬ ing or receiving it. He expressed much susprise at the pains taken, and bows be¬ stowed by the parliamentary candidates of the province; said, he imagined it must be “ pour Vhonneur ,” and desired to know if it was the same in England; I replied in the affirmative, with regard to the pains¬ taking and bowing, though I could not add it was altogether “ pour Vhonneur .” No less was his surprise at what he deemed my abstemiousness, when he found I took no meal betwixt breakfast and a four o’clock dinner; detailing, at the same time, the four diurnal meals with which he appeased his own appetite. “ I should like much QUEBEC TO KAMOURASKA. 117 “ to travel with you, said lie, but instead of “ receiving wages, I should request to eat « as I liked.” From St. Joachim the road runs at the foot of the cliffs, for the greater part of the way to Montmorenci; numberless little streams come hissing down the furrowed rocks, and having fed the thriving orchards, which cluster at their base, are received in stone tanks, round which, the bare-armed, naked¬ footed, (I am sorry I cannot say silver-foot¬ ed,) damsels of the village repair, uncon¬ sciously, to imitate the daughters of king Alcinous. At Quebec I parted with my garrulous friend, who very courteously pressed me to make his house my quarter*, should chance again lead me to St. Joachim, adding, by way of reply to my hint of the improbability of such an occurrence, that “ though mountains could not meet, men “ might.” [ U8 ] CHAPTER XIII. THE FALLS OF THE CHAUDIERE. The Falls of the Chaudiere are about tour miles from the junction of the Chaudiere with the St. Lawrence, which takes place on its south shore, five miles above Quebec. There are few who will not account an ex¬ cursion hither, among the interesting days of their life. The wooded cliffs of the St. Lawrence, with Sillori, and New Liver¬ pool, looking out, on opposite sides, from their romantic seclusion ; the broad expanse of the river itself, widening out from Cap Rouge, as the bastioned heights of Quebec seem to close its northern outlet; the fre¬ quent sail, or heavy timber-raft, “ floating many a rood,” prepare the mind, by a suc¬ cession of pleasing objects, for the enjoy¬ ment of the scene which awaits it. After walking from the little cove, in which you THE FALLS OF THE CHAUDIERE. 119 land, to the village of St. Nicholas, (about half a mile,) you are furnished with a con¬ veyance, cart or caleche, to within a mile of the Falls. The road turns from the village through the fields, and after descending in¬ to a little pebbly streamlet, passes through a deep wood, principally of pine and ma¬ ple, in the middle of which, it ceases to be practicable for carriages ; you continue by a footpath, and suddenly emerge upon a ledge of rocks, whose disjointed masses, and strata, upheaved from their primaeval bed, seem, while the rush of waters thunders around, to denote the immediate presence of some destroying minister of nature. Continuing over these rocks, you arrive at a crag, projecting midway across the river, and crested with a single cedar. The Falls are now directly before you ; the river, 240 yards in breadth, precipitates itself above 100 perpendicular feet; the bed of the fall is a red clay-slate, regularly, and even fanciful¬ ly penciled with thin layers of soft grey stone ; this gaiety of colouring, while it pleasingly relieves the solemn grandeur of the scene, lends a russet tinge to the de¬ scending flood, whose broken masses foam i 4 120 the falls of the CHAUDIERE. in their descent, “ like the mane of a chest* nut steed.” Part of it falls over a ledge ol rocks, at an oblique angle to the main chan¬ nel, forming a lesser cascade, which, but for its magnificent neighbour, would it¬ self be an interesting object. Nearly on the line of the falls, a wall of granite, about six feet in height, and three in thickness, springs through the strata, forming the bed of the river, and traverses them in a straight line, until broken through by the lesser fall, beyond which a fragment of it appears again, seeming to indicate, that it had once extended across the torrent, and resisted its passage. There is no other appearance of granite immediately round the falls, though im¬ mense masses of it cumber the stream about half a mile below them, and form consider¬ able rapids ; viewed from this spot, the falls lie in beautiful perspective,beyond the cliffs, which project from either shore, in their front. * * The corresponding position of these cliffs on both sides of the stream, affords strong reason to think they once formed part ot the ledge ot the Fall, which has since worn its wav backward to its present situation. THE FALLS OF THE CHAUDIF.RE. 12i The surrounding scenery is grand and quiet. The stately woods have never bowed before the ravage of improvement, nor has the stream been tortured, and diverted from its channel, for the supply of grist and saw mills. The freshness of nature is in ever) sight and sound, and cold must be the heart that feels not a momentary glow, while thus standing in the presence of her wildest loveliness. [ 122 ] CHAPTER XIV. QUEBEC TO MONTREAL. July 28th, Bridge of Jacques Cartier, 29th, Three Rivers, 30th, Falls of Shawinnegamme, August 1st, Berthier, 2d, St. Ours, St. Antoine, St. Denys, Belceil, 4th, Longueil, Montreal, Miles. 33 63 Caleche. 21 Canoe. 40 Caleche. 1 Ferry. 24 24 Caleche. 4 Ferry. 226 ^ Travellers frequently make a small de¬ tour to pass by the Jacques Cartier bridge, six or seven miles above the ferry. The river comes wildly down betwixt its wooded shores, and, after forming several cascades, QUEBEC TO MONTREAL. 123 teams through a narrow channel, which seems chisselled out of the solid rock to re¬ ceive it, and, having passed the bridge, buries itself from the eye of the spectator, in the deep valley below. The rock, which constitutes its bed, is formed into regular platforms, descending by natural steps to the edge of the torrent. The Jacques Car- tier is famous for its salmon, which are taken of a great size, and in great abun¬ dance below the bridge, at the foot of which stands a little inn, where the angler may have his game cooked for supper, and sleep in the lull of the torrent below his chamber window. Its white-washed parlour is adorned with stuffed birds, fishing tackle, records of large fish caught, and such like sporting trophies. I supped ingloriously, but heartily, on salmon I had not captured. After quitting this neighbourhood, the scenery of the St. Lawrence becomes flat and uniform. The high lands, which skirt the horizon of Quebec, fall off towards the north-west, leaving an expanse of level country as far as the hill, which the primi¬ tive settlers, in admiration of its solitary, and king-like eminence, denominated the 1^4 QUEBEC TO MONTREAL# Koyal Mountain. The road follows the direction of the river, sometimes running along the beetling cliff, which once em¬ banked it, and sometimes descending to the water’s edge, along the narrow alluvion time has redeemed from its bed. From Quebec to Montreal may be call¬ ed one long village. On either shore a stripe of land, seldom exceeding a mile in breadth, (except near the streams which fall into the St. Lawrence,) bounded by aboriginal forests, and thickly studded with low-browed farm houses, white-washed from top to bottom, to which a log-barn and stable are attached, and commonly a neat plot of gar¬ den ground, represents all that is inhabited of Lower Canada. A cluster of these houses becomes a village, generally honoured with the name of some saint, whose church glit¬ ters afar with tin spires and belfry. Upon the shoulders of this patron saint, the Cana¬ dian rests the chief part of his cares, both temporal and eternal — having committed his seed to the same ground, and in the same manner with his forefathers, he trusts that the “ bon Dieu ’ will, through the inter¬ cession of the said saint, do the rest. QUEBEC TO MONTREAL. 125 Should an inclement season, as was the case last year, disappoint his hopes, he is prepared patiently to confess himself, and die of hunger, fully persuaded that the blessed St. Anne, or St. Anthony, will not fail him in both worlds. The spirit, which endures an evil rather than overcome it, is not very favorable ta the comfort of a traveller : it indicates bad roads, bad inns, bad horses, and bad car¬ riages ; all which he finds accordingly ; yet in spite of all these, I prefer the travelling of Lower Canada, to that of every other part of the American Continent. You ar¬ rive at the post house, (as the words “ mai- son de poste” scrawled over the door give you notice, though the premises present no fur¬ ther hint of the appointment, than perhaps a tattered caleche under the adjoining shed.) “ Have you horses, Madame ?” “ out , Monsieur , tout de suite” — A loud cry of “ Oh ! bon homme ,” succeeds, to for¬ ward the intelligence to her husband, at work in the adjacent field — “ Mais, asseyez vous , Monsieur — and if you have patience to do this quietly for a few minutes, you will see Crebillon, Papillon, or some other 126 QUEBEC TO MONTREAL. on arrive from pasture, mounted by honest Jean in his blue night cap, with all his habi¬ liments shaking in the wind, at a full canter. The invariable preliminary of splicing and compounding the broken harness having been adjusted, the whip cracks, and you start to the exhilarating cry of “ marche done ,” at the rate of six, and often, seven miles an hour, with no stoppages. Should a further degree of speed be required, the place of the English “ extra shilling” is cheaply supplied by a few flowers of rhetoric, be¬ stowed in the shape of an eulogium on Jean s punchy, fumbling nag. " Oh Mon- “ sieur, il est bien capable,” is his complacent reply, (for be it known, that no knight of chivalry ere prized his gallant Bayardo, more than the Canadian his dumplin cour¬ ser), and straightway, an additional mile in his hour’s driving makes good his boast, and places, beyond the slur of sceptical doubt or criticism, Crebillon’s fame. THREE RIVERS, AND FALLS OF SHAWINNEGAMME. The village of “ Trois Rivieres ” stands at the mouths ol the St. Maurice, which being THREE RIVEES, &C. 127 three in number were mistsken by Jaques Cartier, or his successors, for three distinct rivers, and thence the village had its name. It contains an Ursuline convent, which marks it for a place of some note in a Ca¬ tholic country; but it is still more worthy of distinction for being the residence of the Abbe de Calonne, brother to the French minister of that name, so unfortunately memorable. This excellent old man, on the return of Louis XVIII. to France, came into possession of property (chiefly fo¬ rest-lands, which had remained in the hands of the government) to the value of 30001. per annum, the whole of which he imme¬ diately divided betwixt his nephews; rightly judging that the real affection of relatives consists, not in a testamentary gift of wealth they are no longer able to enjoy, but in the speediest application of whatever means they possess, for promoting the hap¬ piness of their connexions. For himself, he considers it wealth enough that he is able to employ the evening of life in acts of piety and benevolence towards his little cure, whose tears will honour his bier, and their grateful remembrance be all his glory 128 THREE RIVERS, &C. upon earth. He was at this time actively engaged in alleviating the distress resulting from the last year’s defective harvest. The in¬ habitants of many villageshad,forsometime, been reduced to live on such vegetables as they could pick from the woods and fields, and many had died of famine. Consi¬ derable relief was afforded by the sale of commissariat stores, which had been col¬ lected largely in case of a continuance of war. This measure had, perhaps, some collateral effect in producing the scarcity, but the production of such extreme dis¬ tress from a single bad harvest, may be considered, generally, as symptomatic of a bad system of agriculture. Having procured two experienced boat¬ men, with a bark canoe, I ascended the St. Maurice, to visit the Falls of Shawinne- gamme. The river banks, at first low, rise, on ascending the stream, to the height sometimes of 300 feet. There is an iron forge on the right bank, about seven miles from Trois Rivieres; after which, the si¬ lence of the scene is broken but by the sound of the Rapids, or the call of the wild duck, as she skims through the sedges be- 2 THREE RIVERS, &C. 129 fore the approach of the canoe. Consi^ derable skill and exertion are requisite to force these frail vehicles over the ledges of rock which form the rapids: should the boat-pole break, or be unskilfully planted, your paper craft is hurried off at the mercy of the torrent, and dashed to atoms: yet of this there is no danger; or, at least, no more than suffices to give the spirits an agreeable impulse. After ascending about fifteen miles, we disembarked at two port¬ ages, within a short distance of each other, formed by immense masses of granite, wildly scattered across the river bed, round which the stream roars and dashes, as if in¬ dignant at their resistance, and precipitates itself, sometimes to the depth of thirty or forty feet, cresting its tawny * waters with foam and vapour. One of the boatmen took the canoe, fourteen feet in length, on his head, the other carrying its contents, and walked steadily with it, and his fowling- piece in his hand, across rocks I found it quite enough to carry myself over. Af- * The St. Maurice, from the dark colour of its waters, is commonly called the Black River. K 130 THREE RIVERS, &C. ter paddling a few miles further, the river expanded into an ample basin, closed round with pine-clad mountains, reflected from its limpid bosom. Yet in this seeming se¬ curity dwells the greatest danger: the stream descending rapidly into it, from the immediate vicinity of the falls, is unable to find an exit with equal celerity, at the opposite point, where the channel narrows ; part of it, therefore, makes a turn within the basin, and produces a vortex about its centre, in which some of the early voya- geurs perished. The difficulty is easily avoided, when known, by creeping close round the edge of the shore. About half a mile above the basin, the river again ' widens. The tumbling of waters is now heard distinctly ; nothing however is visible but a smooth sheet of water, at the bottom of which, a lofty barrier of wooded rocks forbids all further progress. Cliffs, equally lofty, rise on either side. It is not till you have nearly reached the shore in front, that you perceive the Falls, rushing down on your right hand into a gloomy nook, which seems hollowed out for their reception. I THREE RIVERS, &C. 131 should conjecture their descent to be about 100 feet but the fall is not perpendicu¬ lar, and is divided by an islet, or mass of rocks, on which a few pine and cedar trees have taken root. The current betwixt this island and the right bank does not exceed the width of twelve yards. The ex¬ treme breadth of both falls together, may be sixty; this, however, is not easily esti¬ mated, because no front view can be obtained, but from the perpendicular cliffs which form the elbow round them, and which I had no means of ascending. Much clambering is requisite to reach the head of the descent, for the regular carrying path cuts off the whole angle, and though my boatmen had repeatedly ascended the river to the highlands, (above 100 leagues,) they had never before approached the Falls. The rocks round the foot of them are co¬ vered with trunks and limbs of trees, worn round and smooth, as if turned in a lathe, * The different falls and rapids betwixt the mouth of the river, and the great fall, cannot be reckoned at less than 100 feet more : for the whole descent of the river in this space, 150 would probably be no extreme cal¬ culation. K 2 132 THREE RIVERS, &C. by the action of the torrent. After spread¬ ing my repast on a granite table, and sharing my rustic meal with my conductors, we paddled rapidly down the current, and by the aid of a bright moon, reached Three Rivers at ten o’clock, making forty-four miles in thirteen hours. After quitting the St. Maurice, the tri¬ butary streams of the St. Lawrence descend slowly and muddily through a considerable extent of flat country, which skirts Lake St. Peter, and spreads at the back of the Montreal Island, as far as the Two Moun¬ tains. The only marked elevation through these extensive flats, is the ancient bank of the river, from thirty to fifty feet high, running in the direction of, but at various distances from, its present channel. Betwixt the Masquenonge and Berthier, its dis¬ tance is about a mile. M. Volney ob¬ serves, that this second ramp is more particularly distinguishable along the rivers of the west.* It is, however, not less remarkable on the St. Lawrence, and its tributary streams, as far as Lake Ontario. It is not only to be traced along the course * Tableau du Climat, &c. i. p. 89. THREE RIVERS, &C. 133 of the river generally, but follows each bay and winding with a corresponding flexure, thus indicating, that the subsequent change in the volume of water has taken place gradually, and without violence. I could never discover a single creek without this accompaniment, though the traveller re¬ peatedly encounters these banks, sepa¬ rated by a flat channel of eighty or a hundred yards in width, overgrown with trees, through which the track of a scanty streamlet is scarcely marked by a line of verdure, fresher than the adjacent bottom. The number of abandoned mill-seats, particularly in parts of the country recently settled, as well as the difficulty of work¬ ing many of those still in use, shew the same process of draining to be still conti¬ nuing. The little change which has taken place in the line and figure of these slopes warrants the belief, that few centuries have passed since the greater part of the culti¬ vated land of this continent was sub¬ merged in morass, and pouring rivers, which have since entirely disappeared, or been greatly reduced in their limits. k 3 134 THREE RIVERS* &C. Where the country is flat, this second bank must be sought at a considerable distance from the present channel; so that a ge¬ neral rise of fifty or sixty feet would probably overflow much of the inhabited country betwixt the Jaques Cartier and St. Maurice, the whole neighbourhood of Lake St. Peter and the Richelieu river, to the foot of the Beloeil Mountain, with the south-west shores of the Montreal Island, and the greater part of the upper pro¬ vince, betwixt the Uttawa and the neigh¬ bourhood of Prescott. Having ferried from Berthier to Con- trecoeur, I proceeded, “ en caleche ,” with two Crebillons, towards St. Ours, in the direction of the Beloeil Mountain, tow¬ ering in the misty horizon. The meadows were profusely decorated with the rich orange lily, and the banks and dingles with the crimson cones of the sumac, and a variety of flowering shrubs. Se¬ veral brigs and merchant-ships were drop¬ ping down with the tide, their crowded sails scarcely swelling in the languid sum¬ mer breeze, which just sufficed to temper the glowing atmosphere of August. THREE RIVERS, &C. 135 The Canadian summer (though the present year formed in some degree an exception) is hot in proportion to the se¬ verity of the winter, which enables the cultivator to raise Indian corn, water me¬ lons, gourds, capsicums, and such ve¬ getables as require a short and intense heat ; a circumstance which lends the country the aspect of a Portuguese summer, by way of appendix to a Russian winter. M. Volney observes, (tom. i. p. 134,) that this is the case along the whole extent of the Atlantic coast, as far as the southern states ; each portion of which is both hot¬ ter in summer, and colder in winter, than its parallels in Europe, by many degrees. The greatest heat experienced this summer (esteemed a very cold one) at Quebec was 92° of Fahren. In the shade, 80° and 82° were average temperatures during July and August. [ 136 ] CHAPTER XV. THE BELCEIL MOUNTAIN. On my arrival at the unfrequented village of Belceil, I proceeded, according to the travelling custom in Canada, to the house of the cure, who generally considers, in the remoter parts of the country, the trifling charges of hospitality repaid by the novel¬ ty of a stranger’s visit, and by the little news he commonly brings with him ; but the cure of Beloeil was a youth of the new school, a cold lanky figure, as different from my mountain friend in manners, as in ap¬ pearance. With a very stiff apology, he recommended me and my baggage to a neighbouring auberge, where I found more tolerable accommodation than the exterior seemed to promise; it had, however, one puzzling quality, but which could be exhibit- THE BELCEIL MOUNTAIN. 137 ed in wet weather only ; when the shutters were open the windows would not keep out the rain, and when they were closed, they would not let in the light, so that for one wet forenoon I had to choose betwixt dark¬ ness and deluge. The next morning I again crossed the river, and proceeded to¬ wards the mountain, which towered like a wall of rock above the flat country round it. A few wretched houses are scattered at its base, the inhabitants of which subsist chiefly by the produce of their apple-or¬ chards, whose luxuriant verdure richly em¬ bowers the whole slope, until the ascent be¬ comes difficult. At the end of this hamlet is a mill, built on the edge of a ravine, and turned by the streamlet of the mountain- lake descending down it. Here I stopped to breakfast; for the mill serves in the ca¬ pacity of an inn, to the few whom chance may mislead, or repentance for the sin of gluttony induce to stop at it. I found, however, bread, milk, and fresh eggs, (but no tea-spoon to eat them with,) and paid the price of a London hotel breakfast; a strong proof of the actual want prevailing in the province. To avoid the thick murky 138 THE BELCEIL MOUNTAIN. air of the dwelling, I had my table placed out of doors, in the shade of the house, and breakfasted to the admiration of half a dozen curly ragged heads, clustering at the window, to watch how I ate; an honour I remember, paid to the great traveller Gul¬ liver, by the natives of Lilliput. After breakfast I began the ascent. The first part of the way lies through a deep grove of maple, and presents no greater dif¬ ficulty than that of mounting, or creeping round the masses of rock which cover the ground, and effectually bar the road to one unacquainted with its defiles. The ragged urchin, who served me as guide, led on, like a goat bred on the soil, up the narrow tract, which, now ascending above the shel¬ ter of the woods, exposed us to a burning sun * ; the dust and fatigue of clambering, were in no want of this additional ally to render the expedition somewhat fatiguing. The height of the first pinnacle is 1200 feet; it is separated from the highest point, called the Sugar Loaf, by a deep and thickly tim¬ bered valley, towards the end of which, a * The thermometer stood at 80° in the shade, before I began to ascend. THE BEL CEIL MOUNTAIN. 139 beautiful lake, about half a mile in circum¬ ference, reposes amid its woods ; so calm, secluded, and raised above the earth, it seems the Mountain-Spirits’ bath, or the magic lake of some Arabian fiction. It abounds with excellent fish, though I have no reason to think they are of four colours, or make speeches in the frying-pan. From the summit of the cone *, (for the Sugar Loaf has some little claim to its ap¬ pellation,) the eye commands the course of the St. Lawrence, with its two lakes ; and betwixt them, the town and heights of Montreal: on one side, the course of the Richelieu, with the Chambly fort, and basin, and frontier woods beyond; on the other, the Atamasca; and to the south, continued mountain ridges, fading in the distance: except in this direction, the whole prospect is a level plain of woodland, intersected and spotted with brown patches of cultivation, and white villages. Volumes of smoke, from the casual, or intentional burning of woods, every where * The height of this pinnacle has been ascertained to be 1400 feet. 140 THE BELfEIL MOUNTAIN. clouded the horizon, and seemed to give additional heat to the glowing landscape. The basis of the mountain is granite, forming a bold termination to that branch of the Green Mountains, which divides the waters of lake Champlain from the sources of the Atamasca and St. Francis. * On my way down, I stopped to refresh myself at a delicious spring, in the valley of the lake, repaying the favour, as I could best af¬ ford, with an idle verse :— / " Seldom, O Naiad, thy sequester’d dell Hath pilgrim trodden, or bent o’er thy well To slake his thirst, and lave his throbbing brow, And thank thee for the boon, as I do now ! Thine is no stinted draught, but largely given As blessings are rain’d down on man by heav’n; Not as man gives to man — Therefore I’ll t hink , In future days, upon thy grassy brink, And nameless spring; cold, undisturb’d and clear. As Alpine icicles, or holy seer, Whose bosom passion never touch’d with fire: And this day’s memory shall live entire. To tell how on an August noon I toil’d To gain Belceil’s rude summits; all bemoil’d * Volney observes, i, 49. “ Le sommet de la montagne de Beloeil est de “ granit, ainsi que le chainon des montagnes blanches “ de New Hampshire, auquel on peut dire qu’il appar- “ tient ” THE BELCEIL MOUNTAIN. 141 With threading the hot wilderness of boughs, Whose intertwining, scanty path allows; And climbing rocks of granite, broad and bare, Which, thus upheaving their grey sides in air, Like Nature’s altars seem; or giant thrones, Where mountain Genii sit, to catch the tones Of heav’n’s high minstrelsy, and thence prolong In waterfalls and breezes, the deep song. The peak at length, and topmost stone I won, And gaz’d upon the landscape, wide and dun; Far-gleaming lakes, and the majestic river, Whose silver waters through the brown fields quiver; Broad forests mapp’d all round, the royal hill, In sultry mistiness repos’d and still: Descending thence, I hail thy silent bower, In its green freshness, at this glowing hour. When birds are panting in the leafy brakes, And the blythe grashopper shrill music makes, A noontide reveller — and long for thee Be this, thy valley of the mountain, free From woodman’s stroke; so o’er thy shaded spring These towering maples shall their verdure fling. And, shield-like, their broad, branches overspread, To fence the coolness of thy mossy bed.— My harp is feeble, Naiad, and its tone Best lieard by echoes, lonely as thine own, Else, with Bandusia’s fountain, thou shouldst live Th’ immortal life sweet poetry can give, Thou, and thy kindred lake, whose moonlight brim No summer elves have printed, gemm’d and trim, Evok’d by shepherd’s reed, or minstrel’s hymn. [ 142 ] CHAPTER XVI. MONTREAL. The basis of the Montreal Mountain is freestone; the ascent is consequently less steep, and the surface less broken, than those of Belceil : it is thickly wooded, and, from the river,' forms an elegant back-ground to the city : I should not suppose its height to exceed 1000 feet. Montreal is regularly built, for the most part of stone, and paved. In front of the gaol and court-house, is a column in honour of Lord Nelson, crowned with his statue.* The religious and charitable institutions of Montreal are counterparts of those at * It seems odd, that instead of a column to Lord Nelson, whose services, however glorious, were not very immediately connected with Canada, it was not thought preferable to erect some memorial to the memory of Wolfe. MONTREAL. 143 Quebec. The principal Catholic church is rich and handsome. The Protestant church, like its brother at Quebec, will probably decay ere finished. There seems some¬ thing in the Canadian climate, unfavour¬ able to the growth of Protestant churches, though the English inhabitants are great friends to Protestant ascendancy ; a feeling less costly than church building. The col¬ lege, or seminary, a capacious stone build¬ ing, has been lately repaired and enlarged. It was originally endowed as a branch of the seminary of Paris ; and has afforded an asylum, since the revolution, to several of the members of the latter, whose learning and talents have been employed in its ad¬ vancement.* The finest lands of the island belong to it. There seems a greater spirit of municipal improvement in Montreal than in Quebec : it is probably richer: besides being the emporium of the fur trade, its merchants carry on a considerable traffic with the United States, particularly Ver¬ mont, and the back country of New York. The fur-traders, or North-westers, as they are familiarly termed, take the lead in so- * This asylum was opened to them by our government. 144 MONTREAL. ciety, for they give the best dinners. Their ladies have consequently the privilege of leading the fashions ; an eminence not less anxiously desired, nor preserved with fewer heart-burnings, in a little town on the St. Lawrence, than in the capitals of France and England. The winter is accounted two months shorter here than at Quebec. The summer heat seems more oppressive : the flat and sheltered site of the town, its roofs covered with tin, and its window shutters plated with iron, together with abundance of dust, produce a furnace-like atmosphere. I met with nothing in the town which could be called remarkable, except a pathetic address to a run-a-way wife from her disconsolate husband, written on a window-pane where, I lodged. I call this remarkable, for sure¬ ly it is a strange propensity to make an at¬ tempt on public sympathy, by a disclosure of troubles more likely to excite ridicule than pity. We find, indeed, at every turn in life, persons eager to lighten their griefs by sharing them, even with a stranger, if he can be induced to lend a serious countenance to their recital, but this attempt upon the MONTREAL. 145 sympathy of strangers abstractedly, seems an odder instance of this leakiness of sor¬ row. I imagined, but did not subscribe, the following reply:— And who art thou, unfortunate, whose pain Thus asks the general tear ? Thy share of woe could’st thou so ill sustain, That thou should’st write it here, To meet the gaze of laughter-loving scorn, And court the public jeer? Deem’st thou, that first of men, the nuptial horn Thv brow hath glorified ? Yet learn such honours should be meekly worn Nor perk them in our faces, to deride Patient believers in a constant bride. Frail as this scribbled glass Are those fair things we worship and despise; Nor,—should thy life-blood pass Like rain-drops,—will they heed the sacrifice : To thy fair wanton’s ears The voice of thy complaint like music flows; And gemm’d with lover’s tears, The coronal of Beauty brighter glows: Then deem not she’ll relent, Or stoop the wild wing of her joyous flight. Pitying thy fond lament! Thou rather, in some cell of eremite, Thy foolery repent, That knew’st not Love’s sweet flowers with venom were aye blent. L [ 146 ] CHAPTER XVII. MONTREAL TO THE BOUNDARY. Aug. 8th. La Chine - 7 Miles. Point Clair - 9 St. Anne 9 [Ferry 3] Cedars - - 9 Coteau-du-Lac - 7 Caleche. 44 The road from Montreal to the ferry crosses a country generally level, but pleasingly diver¬ sified with wood and cultivated land, for the most part meadow. The hay harvest had commenced, and the fragrance of the fresh swathe seemed to unite with the cool in s aspect of the broad St. Lawrence in tem¬ pering the sun’s heat. The villages of La 9 MONTREAL TO THE BOUNDARY. 147 Chine, and Point Clair, were enlivened by groups ol soldiers, who had marched in from Montreal, and were taking up their quarters for the night; occasionally small parties ol Indians, from the opposite village of Cochenouaga, with their hats tricked out with feathers, necklaces of large blue beads, tinsel girdles, and bronzed infants, looking out from their cradles*, at their mothers’ backs, formed a fanciful contrast to the regular costume of the soldiers. The bustle of the road had all vanished by the time I entered the little wood im¬ mediately round the ferry, and was suc¬ ceeded by a scene of quiet splendour, that Claude would have delighted in. I seated myself on a rock, near the water’s edge, to admire it. An orchard, belonging to the ferrv-house, with the adjacent wood, closed the back ground : on my right, the river spread out into the lake of the Two Moun¬ tains, whose blue summits bounded the prospect in that direction: on my left was * I use this word for want of a better: the Indian wo¬ men still fasten their children to a flat board, which hangs behind them, and is defended by small hoops of wicker, on the exposed side. L 2 148 MONTREAL TO THE BOUNDARY. a little church of grey stone, stained with moss, and going fast to decay; beyond which, on the opposite shore, lay the mas¬ sive woods of L’Isle Perroi: the river in front of me (which is here about three miles aver) was spotted with numberless rocky islets, behind which, the sun, sinking in a flood of golden fire, presented, in beau¬ tiful relief, the dark clumps of pine trees, which seemed pencilled out on their sum¬ mits. A herd of cattle at this moment came down to water, and as they loi¬ tered listlessly in the glassy stream, seemed to share, with man, in the tran¬ quil feelings of the scene and hour. The ferryman’s broad straw hat, and light canoe, now appeared; and as we paddled swiftly by these many little island-bowers, towards the glowing west, fancy may be pardoned for half .sketching a passage to the Elysian fields, or enchanted gardens of Italian romance. The blaze of sun-set had mellowed into the purple tints of evening, before we reached the opposite shore: I proceeded by moonlight to the Cedars, where I procured tea, by knocking up a civil landlord, and the next morning went MONTREAL TO THE BOUNDARY. 149 on to “ Coteau-du-Lac,” between which, and Cornwall, runs the boundary line of the two provinces. After quitting the neighbourhood of Montreal, we see little of the French Cana¬ dian ; he is succeeded by settlers of a cha¬ racter very different; and with whom he is generally placed in humiliating contrast. He gains little by travellers ; few enter his cottage, or inquisitively scan the character of an ignorant and superstitious race, who aspire to little more than to walk in the steps of their priests, and forefathers. Cer¬ tainly if intellectual power be the sole mea¬ sure of human merit, their’s lies in little compass. — Ignorant they unquestionably are, though I doubt whether they have a right to such extreme pre-eminence in this respect, as Englishmen are usually liberal enough to assign them: Schools are common through the Province, and the number of colleges seems proportioned to the popula¬ tion : the gentry and tradesmen appear not much inferior in information, to the country gentlemen and tradesmen of wiser nations ; and if the share of the peasant’s in¬ tellect exceeds not much that of the ox he 150 MONTREAL TO THE BOUNDARY* drives, he may claim fellowship in this re¬ spect, with the peasant of almost every coun¬ try on the globe, except the United States. He is certainly superstitious, that is, he be¬ lieves all his priest tells him — no great peculiarity. Let not, however, those qua¬ lities be overlooked, which give a grace to his poverty, sweeten the cup of his priva¬ tions, and almost convert his ignorance in¬ to bliss. — Essentially a Frenchman, he is gay, courteous and contented: If the ri¬ gors of a Canadian climate have somewhat chilled the overflowing vivacity derived from his parent stock, he has still a sufficient portion of good spirits, and loquacity, to make his rulers, and neighbours seem cold and silent: To strangers and travellers, he is invariably civil, seeming to value their good-word beyond their money: He is reckoned parsimonious, because all his gains arise from his savings: He is satisfied with the humblest fare, and his utmost debauch never exceeds a “ coup” of rum, and pipe of tobacco, taken with a dish of gossip, the only luxury in which he can be accounted extravagant. The influence of the priests is probably injurious, as it affects mental im- MONTREAL TO THE BOUNDARY. 151 provement, beneficial with respectto morals. Religion, or rather superstition, and mora¬ lity, are so blended in the mind of the Ca¬ nadian, that were the former shaken, consi¬ derable time must elapse before any basis could be raised on which to found the lat¬ ter. At present, great crimes are almost unknown, and petty offences are rare ; I have indeed heard the lower classes accus¬ ed of a propensity to pilfer, but I am inclin¬ ed to think, few instances of this kind oc¬ cur, except from the pressure of extreme want. The late war, by calling out a con¬ siderable proportion of the population to serve in the militia, has produced an evi¬ dent change in the manners of the young men : I always found two invariable symp¬ toms of a man’s having served ; a little more intelligence, and a great deal more knavery. But if the war did not mend their morals, it certainly raised their character: They exhibited a high degree of courage in the field, and an affectionate zeal towards their governor, whom they believed their friend : a striking instance of this occurred early in the war. While Sir George Prevost was at Montreal, a body of several hundred pea- l 4 152 MONTREAL TO THE BOUNDARY. sants, from the remotest settlements of the province, came to wait on him ; each man was armed with whatever weapon lie could procure on the spur of the occasion, and all were cloathed and provisioned for im¬ mediate service : An old man, who had been a soldier in the revolutionary war, was at their head, who thus addressed Sir George: “ My general, we heard you were “ in difficulty, and have marched to your “ assistance; I have served myself, and “ though an old man,do not thinkl am quite * ( incapable of duty.” — Sir George, strong¬ ly affected with this instance of attachment, accepted their services, and they acted as a separate body during the whole of the cam¬ paign. The Canadians bear a considerable an¬ tipathy to the Americans, whom they de¬ nominate, " Sacres Bastonnais * 1 believe it to arise principally from religious preju¬ dices ; in proof of which, there is a striking anecdote related in the life of Franklin, who made an attempt to bring them over to the revolutionary cause. At this day, even the bet¬ ter informed among them are fully persuaded * Bostonese. Inhabitants of Boston. MONTREAL TO THE BOUNDARY. 153 that the American government is constantly plotting their ruin, and the destruction of the mighty city of Quebec. I was witness to a curi¬ ous exemplification of this feeling: A young Canadian, by no means illiterate, informed me one morning, with a very grave face, that a tremendous plot had been discover¬ ed — to destroy the whole city by blowing- up the powder magazine ; that a train had been found ready laid, and no doubt exist¬ ed of an American’s being at the end of it. I took the trouble to trace the source of this report, and found it to originate in an order to mend a broken door belonging to the magazine. A fire never happens in the town, (and they happen very often,) but the “ JSastonnais ” are the incendiaries. — Petty quarrels betwixt the natives and the Ver- montese keep this feeling alive ; and the English may well say of it, in the words of Sir Lucius O’Trigger, “ ’Tis a pretty quar- “ rel as it is, and explanation would spoil it.” t 154 ] CHAPTER XVIII. UPPER CANADA. August 8th, Cornwall, 9th, Milleroches, Williamsburg, Prescott, Brockville, 10th, Gananoqua, 7 11th, Kingston, 5 Miles. 40 Batteau. 5± 21 19 Stage. 14 Waggon. 36 Boat. 1351 ’Tis a sad waste of life to ascend the St. Lawrence in a batteau. After admiring the exertions with which the Canadian boat¬ men, who seem to have exclusive posses¬ sion of this employment, force their long flat-bottomed barks against the rapids, there is nothing left but to gaze listlesslv on the descending current, and its low wooded UPPER CANADA. 155 shores ; while the monotony of the oar- stroke is scarcely broken by the occasional rustling of a wild duck through the sedge, or cry of the American king-fisher, as he darts from some hanging bough on his scaly prey. It cost us 15 hours to row from Coteau-du-Lac to Cornwall, with but one incident during the voyage ; this was a pur¬ chase, or rather barter, of biscuit for dried eels, with a party of half-naked Indians, whom we found idly occupied, under a clump of trees on the shore, in curing the produce of their fishery. Several of their birch canoes were anchored among the islands, or glancing along the stream, as we passed the neighbourhood of St. Regis, where the Oswegatchies have a settlement. A stage-waggon runs from Montreal to Prescott, and carries the mail, which is af¬ terwards conveyed on horseback to Kings¬ ton ; I took it at Cornwall, and can answer for its being one of the roughest convey¬ ances on either side the Atlantic. The face of the country is invariably flat; and, (as in Lower Canada,) settlements have not spread far from the river, and main road, which follows its banks. There 156 UPPER CANADA. is, however, an evident difference betwixt the two provinces, as to the mode of settle- ing. The system of farming is here altogether English, or American. The low, deep-roof¬ ed Canadian dwelling, gives place to the English farm-house, or Yankey fir-boarded mansion, with a dozen sash windows in its front. Instead of churches we have taverns; gaols, and assembly-rooms for convents; and a half sulky nod for a French bow. Two Canadian postillions never meet without touching their hats ; the Portuguese pea¬ santry are equally ceremonious ; when the American or Englishman nods, ’tis like the growling salutation of a mastiff, who has not quite leisure enough to turn and quar¬ rel with you. The picturesque is but scantily spread through this tract of country ; occasionally, however, on emerging from a dark clump of pines, or hickory wood, the eye dwells with pleasure on the course of the river, broken with wooded islands, and foaming over a thousand rocks. * The chirp of the * There is a mill and small village, within a few miles of Cornwall, named “ Milleroches,” from the adjacent rapids. UPPER CANADA. 157 locust, the continual tapping of the red¬ headed woodpecker, ( picus erythrocephalits,) and the light bound of the squirrel, as he traverses the newly erected fences, are sights and sounds which enliven, what, as far as regards the features of the country, may be called a somewhat heavy journey. Prescott is remarkable for nothing but a spuare redoubt, or fort, called Fort Wel¬ lington. As a military traveller, I should observe, there is a small fort at Coteau-du- Lac, through the works of which a lock has been cut, to avoid a dangerous rapid. — I found the accommodations at Prescott so bad, that I seated myself at midnight in a light waggon, in which two gentlemen were going toBrockville,and was thus so far jumbled in¬ to their acquaintance, that they politely of¬ fered me a passage to Kingston, in a boat belonging to the navy, which was waiting for them at Brockville. I am always unlucky on the water, whether it be in crossing the ocean, or a duck pond : The wind proved contrary, and our heavy boat pulled slowly against the current; it was, however, not so bad as the batteau voyage : I had the 158 UPPER CANADA. advantage of agreeable company, and a good provision basket, the contents of which were spread, towards noon, on a granite ta¬ ble, near the shore ; a kettle was boiled at an adjacent cottage, and an excellent break¬ fast arranged, “ sub tegmine fagi .” Occa¬ sional repetitions of this ceremony tended evidently to relieve the tedium of the jour¬ ney, which lasted till the evening of the day after our embarkation. The river banks, from the neighbourhood of Brockville, are of limestone, from 20 to 50 feet in height, and evidently grooved, or hollowed, by the tides of former ages. Im¬ mense masses of reddish granite are scat¬ tered along the bed of the stream, and some¬ times project bare and bold from the shore. On one of these projections there is a block¬ house, forming a prominent object at a con¬ siderable distance. The islands which crowd the approach to Lake Ontario, called, from their number, 1000 isles, have all a granite basis, but are cloathed with cedar, pine, and abundance of raspberries : The bed of the Gananoqua is also of granite, and the lofty banks of the Kingston river, near the mills UPPER CANADA. 159 are ol the same rock, which probably crosses the country near the heads of the Oswe- gatchie, Muskinsons, Juniatta, and Appa- lusia rivers (the latter of which has a fall of 150 feet,) till it strikes, by Lake Champlain, the ridge of the Beloeil mountains. The Gananoqua is rising into importance, from the circumstance of a new settlement being formed, under the auspices of govern¬ ment, on the waters, with which it commu¬ nicates. This settlement lies on the head lakes of the Rideau, and is meant to secure a com¬ munication betwixt Montreal and Kingston, by way of the Uttawa, in case of another war: The settlers are chiefly disbanded soldiers, who clear and cultivate under the superintendance of officers of the quarter¬ master-general’s department. Each man draws rations for himself and family, the expence of which is about five shillings per ration, so that it may be justly called a hot¬ house settlement. A canal has been cut to avoid the falls of the Rideau, and the com¬ munication, either by the Gananoqua, or Kingston, will be improved by locks. 160 UPPER CANADA. Kingston is singularly happy in its site, for naval purposes; it consists of three parts, disposed thus :— \ The basis of the soil is a complete quarry of limestone, disposed in horizontal strata, on the surface of the earth, and requiring only to be raised with a lever, to be fit for UPPER CANADA. 161 use. The fort, which was merely a field work during the war, is now finishing with stone, dug from its own foundation ; and, having two stout Martello towers, already looks formidable from the lake: it is meant chiefly to defend the navy-yard, which it commands. There are batteries on Point Frederick; and on the point of the town, which is pallisaded, and strengthened with block-houses. It contains some good houses, and stores; a small theatre, built by the military for private theatricals; a large wooden Government-house, and all the ap¬ pendages of an extensive military, and naval establishment, with as much society as can reasonably be expected, in a town so lately created from the “ howling desert.” The adjacent country is flat, stony, and barren; a circumstance which perhaps increases the kind of interest peculiar to the place : do you approach it by land, the road lies through a tract of forest, in the midst of which the first rude traces of popula¬ tion are scarcely visible : do you come by water, uncultivated islands, and an unin¬ terrupted line of wooded shore, seem con¬ ducting you to the heart of a wilderness, 162 UPPER CANADA. known only to the hunter, and his prey : you emerge from a wood, double a head¬ land, and a fleet of ships lies before you, several of which are as large as any on the ocean: others, of equal dimensions, are building on the spot, where, a few months since, their frame-timbers were growing. Two sources of astonishment here rise in the mind: first, the magnitude of the re¬ sources called into action ; secondly, the object which called them forth. Of the first, some idea may be formed, by consi¬ dering that the St. Lawrence alone cost 300,000/. The Psyche frigate, sent from England in frame, cost 12,000/. in trans¬ porting from Quebec. The Commissariat disbursements at Kingston, during the w r ar, were estimated at 1000/. per diem. The present expence of the naval establishment is about 25,000/. per annum : the navy-yard employs 1200 labourers.* For the object, on one side, there is America, with “ millions “ on millions ” of acres beyond what her po¬ pulation can fill up, on the other, Eng¬ land, contending for, and expending her Considerable reductions have lately taken place itx the whole establishment. UPPER CANADA. 163 best blood and treasure in defence of, a country, one half of which is little better than a barren waste of snows, and the other, a wild forest, scarcely intersected by a thread of population. This is the “ gros “ jeu ” of society. [ 164 ] CHAPTER XIX. KINGSTON TO THE BAY OF QU1NTE. Ernest Town - - 18 Miles. Adolphus Town - 14 Lake of the Mountain - 2 34 This is the most interesting excursion in the neighbourhood of Kingston. Adol¬ phus Town is pleasantly situated on the neck of the bay. Its farms are thriving, and cultivation is pushing rapidly through the forests, round the numerous streams and bays, which water every part of the ad¬ jacent country. After crossing the ferry, two miles beyond Adolphus Town, I as¬ cended a limestone cliff, to the Lake of the Mountain, immediately on its verge: recent KINGSTON TO TIIE BAY OF QUINTE. 165 measurements have fixed its height at 175 feet: the lake may be a mile in circum¬ ference, and abounds in fish: it formerly discharged itseli' into the river by a per¬ pendicular fall from the summit of the cliff: the channel of the cascade still remains, but the stream is more profitably, though less tastefully, employed in working a mill. From this Table Land the eye commands a lovely prospect, along the irregular shores of the bay, into which the river Nappanee, and a variety of streams empty themselves, through a rich country, the dark mas¬ siveness of whose forests is already con¬ siderably broken, and relieved by settle¬ ments, and corn-fields. Wheat harvest was just now (August 16th) beginning in this neighbourhood, and generally through Upper Canada. Excepting the river Nap¬ panee, on which the Mohawks have a set¬ tlement, all the names round this bay are right loyal, or royal, from Ernest Town, to Adolphus Town, Prince Edward’s Bay, Sopliiasberg, Marysberg, and Ameliasberg, on the furthest neck of land at its head. This happy choice, if the inhabitants had any thing to do with it, speaks well for m 3 166 KINGSTON TO THE BAY OF QUINTE. their politics. Their morals are no less re¬ fined, being, to judge from their names of things, modelled on the Platonic system. I requested the fair Maritornes of the inn at Adolphus Town, to feed my horse, while I walked through the village. “ But is he ug- “ ly?” said she ; “handsome enough to be “ fed,” I answered; not then comprehending, that in the language of the country, she ele¬ gantly alluded to his moral qualities, ot which alone beauty, or deformity may be truly predicated. The road from Ernest Town to Kingston runs, for the most part, through forest; but the heaviness of the scenery is fre¬ quently relieved by the course of some quiet creek, descending betwixt its rocky banks to the lake, which gleams at intervals through the trees. The summer stillness of the landscape seemed forcibly to contrast itself with the sights and sounds of war, which had so lately prevailed there; and, as the inhabitants declare, had frightened all the deer and wolves back to Lake Hu¬ ron : certain it is, they have lately become very scarce, so the fact is poetically credible. KINGSTON TO THE BAY OF QUINTE. 167 Ontario’s ample breast is still, And silence walks the distant hill; And summer barks are gently gliding, Where lately yonder war-tow’rs ridinp- Seem’d, like leviathans, to load The bosom of the groaning flood. Oft as grey dawn broke o’er the wave, Each hostile line stern greeting gave. And oft, beneath the setting sun, Responsive peal’d each heavy gun. I hen crouch’d the midnight ambuscade, Within the pine-wood’s pillar’d shade, And Indian war-notes fiercely rose, A death-dirge to unwary foes, As bursttheir murdering attack Upon the drowsy Bivouac. Round leagur’d fort, and post, and ford. The crashing shell, and cannon roar’d, Till rung th’ alarum of the fray, From old Toronto’s * quiet bay, To where Niag’ra madly pours His boiling tide ’twixt mountain shores : — The eagle, whose broad wing was spread Above the cataract’s wild bed, Scar’d by unwonted thunders, cose To hang the nest of his repose, Where cedars desolately wave O’er Naniboja’s island-grave f: No wolf his moon-light hunt pursued, By Erie’s forest solitude, * The Indian name for York, where formerly was an Indian town. f One of the Manitoulin islands. For the story, vid. Henry’s Travels in Canada, in 1760 and 1776 , p. 168 . M 4 168 KINGSTON TO THE BAY OF QUINTE. But cowering from his covert ran, Dreading the lordlier chase of man; Nor dar’d th’ unhunted stag remain Near his lov’d haunts, and green demesne, But far from sounds of human slaughter, He strays by Huron’s distant water. [ 1G9 ] CHAPTER XX. WESTERN COUNTRY OF NEW YORK. Sept. 31 st, Sackett’s Harbour, 36 Packet. Mile*. 1st, Watertown, 10 Waggon. 2d, Denmark, 17 Martinsberg, 14 3d, Turin, 9 Leyden, 19 Steuben, 17 Trenton, } Utica, 5 13 5th, New Hartford, 4> Vernon, 11 Chenengo, 17 Manlius, 6 Jamesville, 5 Onondago Hollow, 5 Marcellus, 10 Skaneactas, 6 6th, Auburn, 8 Aurelius, 4 Cayuga, 5 Carry over, 216 170 WESTERN COUNTRY OF NEW YORK. Brought over, - 216 Geneva, - 13 Canandaigua, - 16 Stage. 7th, Burning Spring, - 9 Rochester, - 30 Jersey waggon. 8th, & 9th, Lewistown, by the 7 g0 g tafre> Bridge road, 5 ° 369 Sackett’s harbour has a mean appearance after Kingston ; its situation is low, the harbour small, and fortifications of very in¬ different construction, both as to form and materials. The navy-yard consists merely of a narrow tongue of land, the point ot which affords just space sufficient for the construction of one first-rate vessel, with barely room for workshops, and stores, on the remaining part of it. One of the largest vessels in the world is now on the stocks here ; her dimensions are 196 feet keel, by 57 beam ; she is built over, to preserve her, and may literally be said to be housed: there is an observatory on the top of the building, commanding an extensive view of the lake, and flat wooded country. About a mile up the river, there is another vessel of equal dimensions, built, and housed, literal- WESTERN COUNTRY OF NEW YORK. 171 ly in the woods. The town consists of a long street, in the direction of the river, with a few smaller ones, crossing it at right angles: it covers less ground than Kings¬ ton, and has fewer good houses ; it has however, the advantage of a broad flagged footway, while the good people of Kingston, notwithstanding the thousands expended in their town, and the quarries beneath their feet, submit to walk ancle deep in mud, after every shower. Whence this difference ? The people of Kingston are not poor, ignorant, French Canadians, but substantial, active, Scotch or Englishtraders. Probably it lies in this, that the Americans are at home, while the English Canadian considers himself as a temporary resident, for the purpose of making a fortune to spend in his native country. The fortifications at Sackett’s are so in¬ considerable, that one is equally surprised that the American government should have left their naval depot so inadequately pro¬ tected, and that our army should have fail¬ ed to take it. An American naval officer, who obligingly showed us through the navy yard, related by what singular accident the 172 WESTERN COUNTRY OF NEW YORK. place was saved from Sir George Prevost’s attack ; an anecdote I have since heard confirmed, from a variety of sources. The garrison consisted almost entirely of militia, under General Brown, and ran away on the first cannonade, leaving a few artillery-men in the fort, who were preparing to abandon it; the buildings of the navy-yard were al- already on fire. The general having in vain attempted to stop his panic-struck soldiers, crossed their flight, at the end of the street leading towards Brownville, declaring, that if they would run, they should not run to¬ wards home, and so turned them off to the Oswego road, which runs obliquely in the direction of the right flank of the British forces, as they had landed from Horse island. The latter perceiving a considerable force moving rapidly in this direction, con¬ cluded they had been falsely informed of the strength of the American force, and ac¬ tually gave up the attack, through fear of being cut off by the runaways. On such contingences depend the laurels of war. The Government of the United States not only preaches, but practises economy. The establishments at Sackett’s are on the 3 WESTERN COUNTRY OF NEW YORK. 173 most moderate scale. Two regiments of the line, with a proportion of artillery, for garrison duty, 80 men in the navy-yard, and one boat, the Lady of the Lake, in com¬ mission : what dreadful havoc would this parsimonious government make at Kings¬ ton ! * The road from Sackett’s to Watertown forks, at about three miles from the former, and leads on the left to Brownville, a thriv¬ ing little village, on the banks of the Black river, about five miles from its mouth. It is named from general Brown, whose pro¬ perty and residence are here. This gentle¬ man was one of the few fortunate Ameri¬ can generals in the late war. He was not bred a military man, but succeeded, from the command of the militia of the district, to the command of the frontier army ; I believe, chiefly, because the United States government had no regular general at hand, to take the situation. He is a plain, shrewd * There were in commission, when I was there, the Regent 74, Montreal, and Star, sloops of war, and Char- ville, a large, new transport, built since the war, capable of transporting the persons and property of almost all the lake population. 174 WESTERN COUNTRY OF NEW YORK. man, and carried this character into his mi¬ litary operations. He has also the merit of having never unnecessarily aggravated the calamities of war. From Brownville there is a new road opened, across the head of Chaumont’s bay to Gravelly Point, opposite Wolfe’s island, (about fourteen miles.) From Gravelly Point there is a ferry of a mile, to the island, and another, of three, from thence to Kingston. I took this route, in company with a friend, to escape a tedious passage in the packet; and hap¬ pening to land on Wolfe’s island, nearly at sun-set, we had to walk, or rather wade across it, (for ’tis wood and bog from be¬ ginning to end, about seven miles,) in the dark ; a jaunt I would recommend no one to repeat, without good reason, at the same hour. This new road seems intended to open the Kingston market to the produce of the fertile country of the Black river. At present a few log-huts, and patches of burnt timber, are the only marks cultivation has set on this tract of country. We passed two or three sportsmen, sitting by the road¬ side, with their rifles, watching for deer. WESTERN COUNTRY OF NEW YORK. 175 YVatertown is an elegant village*, on the Black river, about four miles above Brown- ville. The basis of the soil is limestone j a broad rock of which, several acres in ex¬ tent, divides the river, just at the town : the right branch, after breaking into several smaller falls, precipitates itself about 30 feet, and continues its course down a craggy valley; a paper mill stands on theleft branch, which descends more gradually. Large masses of rock strew the banks below, as if severed from above by the action of floods, and rains ; several cedar trees have been left so near the edge, that they have bent down for want of support, and continue clinging, with their roots uppermost. A youth, be¬ longing to the village, conducted me under the banks, towards the mill, and lesser fall, to an amphitheatrical range of natural steps, or benches in the rock, with a flat ceiling of limestone, about fifteen feet in breadth ; the whole of it abounding in shells. On the island are numerous fossil im¬ pressions of fish, seemingly of the eel kind, * The Americans, at least the Yankies, call their towns villages; applying the term town to what we call a township. 176 WESTERN COUNTRY OF NEW YORK. with the spines in perfect preservation. Higher up the river is a large cotton mill, beyond which, the banks on both sides con¬ tinue to rise boldly, thickly cloathed with maple, beech, and elm, whose deep shade, waving over the narrow stream, may pro¬ bably have given it its name. Water-town contains about 1200 inhabitants,chiefly emi¬ grants from New England. The houses are generally of wood, but tastefully finished : brick, however, is comingfast into use ; and begins every where to prevail, as soon as ex¬ perience has pronounced the soil, or situ¬ ation of a township to be capable of any considerable improvement. Here is a good tavern, which, besides the accidental advantage of coming after the Wapping inns of Sackett’s, afforded us the rare luxury of a private sitting-room, and a dinner at an English, that is, at our own hour. We found the church-yard worth a walk, not for the elegance of its monuments, or classic beauty of the epi¬ taphs, but for its pleasing site, on a rising ground beyond the village, commanding an interesting view of the falls and course of the river. It is, moreover, neatly kept; a WESTERN COUNTRY OF NEW YORK. 177 mark of respect to its silent tenants, too frequently neglected in the States. Within a few miles of Water-town the country rises boldly, presenting a refreshing con¬ trast of hill and valley, to the flat, heavy woods, through which we had been labour¬ ing from Sackett’s. The road, turning near Denmark, ascends the valley of the Black River by its left bank. The banks on either side are lofty, presenting, on the opposite shore, unbroken and majestic masses of forest: on the western side the soil is good, and coming rapidly into cultivation. A few pine-barrens occasionally intervene, upon sand mixed with blocks of talkous granite, rounded, and scattered down the water-courses. Indian corn seems the staple grain, as it generally is, on lands newly cleared, but al¬ most the whole of this year’s crop had been destroyed by July and August frosts. On the 28th of August there was ice at King¬ ston Mills, -A of an inch in thickness, and this inclemency was general, as far as Ca¬ rolina. Here and there, I observed fields that had escaped; and sometimes a small portion of a field would be untouched, N 178 WESTERN COUNTRY OF NEW YORK. while the remainder was as brown, as if scorched by fire. On examining these ex¬ ceptions more narrowly, I was induced to believe, they were all indebted, for their escape, to a situation more or less protected from the N. E. winds, which, by sweeping over deserts of ice, and forest, from the pole, become the chief agents of cold through the whole continent. The inha¬ bitants, indeed, seemed more inclined to ascribe these escapes to the proximity of streams, which had mitigated the frost; but frequently the bottom of a field had suf¬ fered, while the slope escaped: A valley crop was sometimes cut off, and a hill-crop uninjured. Betwixt Sackett’s and Water- town, I observed several fields sloping to the road, (that is, facingnearly south,) with a broad belt of timber, on the crest of the hills behind them, perfectly green and flou¬ rishing, while the whole valley, from Mar- tinsberg to Utica, down which, the road forms a N. W. funnel, or wind-course, was blighted, except where occasional angles, or returns, afforded a partial shelter. If these observations should be correct, it would seem no injudicious precaution, in WESTERN COUNTRY OF NEW YORK. 179 clearing lands, to leave a sufficient belt of timber to shut out the winds most likely to prove fatal; that is, the N. E. and N. W. from which quarters unseasonable frosts may always be expected. Utica stands on the right bank of the Mo¬ hawk, over which it is approached by a co¬ vered wooden bridge, of some length. The appearance of the town is highly preposses¬ sing : the streets are spacious ; the houses large and well-built, and the stores (the name given to shops throughout America*) as well supplied, and as handsomely fitted up, as those of New York or Philadel¬ phia. f There are two hotels, on a large scale ; for one of which, the York House, I can answer, as being equal in arrange¬ ment and accommodation, to any hotel beyond the Atlantic: it is kept by an Englishman from Bath. The number of inhabitants is reckoned at from 3 to 4000; they maintain four churches—one Episco¬ pal, one Presbyterian, and two Welch. To * May not this term be traced to the ship stores of the early colonists ? f I should compare them with our second clas9 of London shops, some may even rank with the first. N 2 180 WESTERN COUNTRY OP NEW YORK. judge from the contents of three large book¬ stores, their literary taste inclines chiefly towards theology and church history. I encountered but one effusion of native genius, in the shape of two verses, under three grim faces, painted on a tobacconist’s sign-board, as follows:— “We three are engag’d in one cause; “ I snuffs, I smokes, and I chaws.” The town is laid out upon a very exten¬ sive scale, of which a small part only is yet completed; but little doubt is entertained by the inhabitants, that ten years will ac¬ complish the whole. Fifteen have not past since the traveller found here no other trace of habitation than a solitary log-house, built for the occasional reception of mer¬ chandize, on its way down the Mohawk. The overflowing population of New Eng¬ land, fixing its exertions on a new, and fer¬ tile soil, has, in these few vears, effected this change, and goes on, working the mi¬ racles of industry and freedom, from the Mohawk to the Missouri. Utica has great advantages of situation, independent of its soil, being placed nearly WESTERN COUNTRY OF NEW YORK. 181 at the point of junction betwixt the waters of the Lakes and of the Atlantic. The Mohawk communicates with Wood’s Creek, by a canal, from Rome, fifteen miles north of Utica; and Wood’s Creek falls into the Oneida Lake, which is joined to that of Ontario, by the Oswego river. Should the proposed canal betwixt Buffalo and Rome be cut, it will add very considerably to these advantages, by drawing much of the produce of the Western country in this direction. The expence of this undertaking is variously estimated at from six, to 10,000,000 dollars; and the expence of carriage at about six dollars per ton. Commissioners have been appointed to survey the line of com¬ munication, and the canal is alreadv traced on paper. As far, however, as I could understand, the route of the St. Lawrence would be preferred, should the policy of our Government incline to give their commerce ingress and egress on moderate terms. With Utica commences that succession of flourishing villages, and settlements, which renders this tract of country the astonish¬ ment of travellers. That so large a portion n 3 182 WESTERN COUNTRY OF NEW YORK. of the soil should, on an average period of less than twenty years, be cleared, brought into cultivation, and have a large popula¬ tion settled on it, is in itself sufficiently surprising; but this feeling is consider¬ ably increased, when we consider the cha¬ racter of elegant opulence with which it every where smiles on the eye. Each vil¬ lage teems, like a hive, with activity and enjoyment: the houses, taken in the mass, are on a large scale, for (excepting the few primitive log-huts still surviving) there is scarcely, one, below the appearance of an opulent London tradesman’s country box ; nor is their style of building very unlike these, being generally of wood, painted white, with green doors and shutters, and porches, or verandas in front. The face of the country is beautifully varied: on the left of the road, lofty ridges divide the Lake streams from the head waters of the Chenengo, and Oriskany rivers; and again, shooting up towards the north, form the steep banks of the Canserage Creek, and the wooded heights, which embosom Onondago Hollow. The shores of the small lakes are picturesquely formed in the same WESTERN COUNTRY OF NEW YORK. 183 manner, and a succession of ridges is thus continued, till they terminate towards Lake Ontario, in the Niagara heights, and mingle, on the south, with the spurs of the Alle- ganies, round the sources of the Susquehan- nah. The timber of this country is mostly oak, elm, ash, maple, hickory, bass, hem¬ lock, and butternut. Betwixt Onondago and Skaneactas, our stage-party, which had consisted of several honest farmers, received an addition, in the person of a little man in grey, who might have well passed for what he was, a barber, had he not, early in the drive, begun to figure in the character of an apostle ; first of all, by pertinent remarks on the efficacy of the inward light; and secondly, by objurgating the coachman for his prophane language, who revenged himself, not only by sulky expressions of disbelief in the apostolic rights of his reprover, but infinitely more to our mortification, by considerably slackening his pace, as if to afford full lei¬ sure for our regeneration. To console us c5 under this misfortune, and as we now began to ascend a rather long hill, the barber, tak- n 4 ]84 WESTERN COUNTRY OF NEW YORK. ing off his hat, and turning his face to us, said; “ Gentlemen, if you have no objection “ I’ll sing you a hymn ; I have not a good “ voice for it, but the hymn is a very fine “ one, and will shorten the hill.” He be¬ gan accordingly, and soon induced us to as¬ sent unanimously to the first part of his pro¬ position, relative to his voice; the second seemed by no means equally convincing; and the third was altogether so dubious, that we determined, on any similar occa¬ sion, to try whether a hill would not be better shortened by walking, than singing, lip it. He had visited the chief town of the Onondago Indians, in this neighbourhood, and described them as extremely reserved, averse to communication with strangers, and closely addicted to their old forms of worship. “ They would neither receive a “ preacher,” he said, “ nor drink spirits facts, which he seemed to consider equally indicative of hardened idolatrv. Mr. Jefferson, in his Notes, quoting dif¬ ferent enumerations of the Indian tribes, gives the last estimate, (from Dodge, in 1779,) of the Onondagoes at 230. This is WESTERN COUNTRY OF NEAV YORK. 185 much below what they are at present rec¬ koned at * , in this part of the country. Skaneactas is pleasantly situated at the head of the lake from which it is named. We stopped here for the night, and admir¬ ed, by a clear moon, the sloping banks, descending with alternate promontories of wood, and cultivated land, to its smooth silvery waters, whilst here and there rose the tall mast of some trading schooner, anchoring under the shore. Cayuga, besides its agreeable site, is re¬ markable for a bridge over the head of the Cayuga lake, a mile in length : it is built on piles, and level; calculating from the time it took to pass it, I should think it ra¬ ther over-rated at a mile ; three-fourths is probably about the true length. Betwixt Cayuga and Geneva, is the flourishing little village of Waterloo, born and christened since the battle. Geneva contains many elegant houses, beautifully placed on the rising shore, at the head of the Geneva lake; a situation indicating that the name was not bestowed at random. * I have heard the Onondagoes estimated at 1000. 186 WESTERN COUNTRY OF NEW YORK. From Geneva to Canandaigua, a tract of hill and vale extends for 16 miles, with on¬ ly two houses. I neglected to observe ac¬ curately, or enquire whether the soil was of inferior quality : should this not be the case, this note would afford a traveller of 1826, an exact mean of estimating the growth of its improvement in 10 years. Canandai¬ gua is a town of villas, built on the rising shore of the Canandaigua lake, which terminates the picture, at the bottom of the main-street: the lower part of this street is occupied by stores and warehouses, but the upper, to the length of nearly two miles, consists of villas, or ornamented cottages, tastefully finished with colonnades, porches, and verandas, each within its own garden, or pleasure ground. The prospect down this long vista to the lake, is charming ; if it has a defect, not to the eye, but to the mind, it arises from a consideration of the perishable materials with which these elegant buildings are con¬ structed, impressing an idea of instability, like pleasure houses raised for an occasional festival. A fertile soil, and industrious po¬ pulation, are, however, bases on which brick will succeed to wood, and stone to brick. WESTERN COUNTRY OF NEW YORK. 187 From Canandaigua we turned from the main road nine miles S. W. to visit what is called “ the burning spring,” lately dis¬ covered. This tract of country is beauti¬ fully undulating, and richly cultivated: I was particularly pleased with the style of its clearing, being neither encumbered with heavy masses of wood, nor, like most new¬ ly cleared tracts, stript to nakedness, but exhibiting the rich, yet light studding of timber, we so much admire in many Eng¬ lish counties. Perhaps the change from a dusty jolting stage to an open easy waggon, or Dearborn, as they are called in this State *, disposed us to regard the landscape with more than usual complacency. Turning a little from the road, we entered a small, but thick wood of pine and maple, enclosed within a narrow ravine, the steep sides of which, composed of dark clay-slate, rise to the height of about 40 feet. Down this glen, whose width, at its en¬ trance, may be about 60 yards, trickles a * The body and carriage resemble a small waggon, in which a seat is placed for two persons, on wooden springs, Sometimes there are two seats, one behind the other. They obtained the name of Dearborn, from the General’s taking the field in one. 188 WESTERN COUNTRY OF NEW YORK. scanty streamlet, wandering from side to side, as scattered rocks, or fallen trees, af¬ ford, or deny it passage. We had advanced on its course about 50 yards, when close un¬ der the rocks of the right bank, we perceiv¬ ed a bright red flame, burning briskly on its waters. Pieces of lighted wood being applied to different adjacent spots, a space of several yards was immediately in a blaze. Being informed by our guide, that a repeti¬ tion of this phenomenon might be seen higher up the glen, we scrambled on, for about 100 yards, and directed in some de¬ gree by a strong smell of sulphur, applied our match to several places, with the same effect. The rocky banks here approach so closely, as to leave little more than a course to the stream, whose stony channel formed our path : sulphur in several places oozed from them abundantly. We advanced about 70 yards further, when we found the glen terminate in a perpendicular rock, about 30 feet high, overgrown with moss, and encumbered with fallen pine trees, through which the drops, at this dry period of the season, scarcely trickled. These fires, we were told, continue burning unceasingly, li WESTERN COUNTRY OF NEW YORK. 189 unless extinguished by accident. The phe¬ nomenon was discovered by the casual roll¬ ing of some lighted embers from the top of the bank, while it was clearing for culti¬ vation. In the intensity and duration of the flame, it probably exceeds any thing of the kind yet discovered : I could, however, And no traces of a spring on its whole course: the water on which the first fire was burning, had indeed a stagnant ap¬ pearance, and probably was so, from the failure of the current; but it had no peculiar taste or smell, was of the ordinary tempera¬ ture, and but a few inches deep ; a few bubbles indicated the passage of the in¬ flammable air through it: on applying a match to the adjacent parts of the dry rock, a momentary flame played along it also. These circumstances induced us to consider the bed of the streamlet, as accidentally affording an outlet to the inflammable air from below, and the water, as in some de¬ gree performing the part of a candle-wick, by preventing its immediate dispersion in¬ to the atmosphere. * I should observe, * Mr. Jefferson, in his Notes, p. 51. describes what I imagine to be a similar vapour, near the junction of the Elk river with the great Kanhaway. 190 WESTERN COUNTRY OF NEW YORK. that there are considerable sulphur springs nine miles N. W. of Canandaigua; and it may perhaps be worth noticing, that a line drawn through both, would strike, in a S. S. W. direction, the warm spring near Huntingdon, in Pennsylvania ; the Berkely medicinal waters on the Potowmac ; and thence, following the course of the moun¬ tains, S. W. the hot springs of Bath, and sulphur springs in the Allegany. Rochester is built immediately on the great falls of the Genesee, about eight miles above its entrance into Lake Ontario. It is four years since the yankey axeman began to dispossess the wood nymphs, or rather the wolves and bears, of this neigh¬ bourhood ; and the town now contains 100 good houses, furnished with all the conve¬ niences of life; several comfortable taverns, a large cotton-mill, and some large corn-mills. Town lots fetch from 500 to 1000 dollars, and are rising in value rapidly. The whole village is as a summer hive, full of life, bustle, and activity. Its site is grand: the Genesee rushes through it, like an arrow, over a bed of limestone, and precipitates itself down three ledges of rock, of 93, WESTERN COUNTRY OF NEW YORK. 191 30, and 76 feet, within the distance of a mile and a half from the town : the two first ledges are of limestone; the basis of the third, as well as the adjacent banks, is of the same red clay-slate, which every where forms the bed of the St. Lawrence. This lime-stone ridge, which cannot but be considered as a continuation of that of Niagara, crosses the river therefore at the second, and then striking in a S. E. direc¬ tion, divides the waters of the small lakes from those of Oneida and Ontario. The immediate vicinity of Rochester is still an unbroken forest, consisting of oak, hickory, ash, beech, bass, elm, and walnut: there is a black walnut tree betwixt the town and the great fall, twenty-four feet in its girth. The wild tenants of these woods have natu¬ rally retired before the sound of cultivation: there are, however, a few wolves and bears still in the neighbourhood; one of the latter lately seized a pig close to the town. Racoons, porcupines, squirrels, black and grey, and foxes, are still numerous. The hogs have done good service in destroying the rattle snakes, which are already beco¬ ming rare. Pigeons, quails, and blackbirds 192 WESTERN COUNTRY OF NEW YORK. abound. At Rochester, the line of settled country in this direction terminates; from hence to Lewistown are SO miles of wilder¬ ness, but of wilderness big with promise. The traveller, halting on the verge of these aboriginal shades, is inclined to pause in thought, and reconsider the interesting scenes through which he has been passing. They are such as reason must admire, for they are the result of industry, temperance, and freedom, directed by a spirit of sound knowledge, flowing through all condi¬ tions of men, and giving birth to a state of society, in which there is neither poverty, nor oppression, nor complaining. This thought pleases, in a world so full of woe and bitterness; it does more, it thrills exultingly through the heart; and yet I fancied something wanting : — it was the mellow touching of that great artist Time:— every thing wears too much the gloss of newness. — Here are no memorials of the past, for the whole country is of to-day ; five, ten, or at the utmost, twenty years ago, where are now corn-fields, towns and villages, was one mass of forest. Certain pains-taking New-Englanders, having dis- WESTERN COUNTRY OF NEW YORK. 193 covered the fertility of the soil, sat down to clear, till, settle, and improve it, and are now reaping the just harvest of their la¬ bours. — Imagination folds her wing over such a history, and we feel with Moore, “ No bright remembrance o’er the fancy plays; No classic dream, no star of other days, Has left that visionary glory here, That relic of its light so soft and dear, \Vhich gilds, and hallows e’en the rudest scene, The humblest shed where genius once has been.” I remember visiting the convent of “ Our Lady of the Rock,” near Cintra in Portu¬ gal. It was founded by Emanuel, to com¬ memorate the return of Vasco de Gama. For three centuries, the matin hymn had ascended daily from its mountain pinnacle, unmixed with sound of earth, when the step of the invader silenced and dispersed the ministers of its altar. There was one old man left; he was eighty years of age, and had forsaken the world at the period of the great earthquake of Lisbon. The effects of a moral convulsion, more devastating than earthquakes, had reached him, after fifty years of seclusion. What remembrances, what reflections crowded within the walls o 194 WESTERN COUNTRY OF NEW YORK. of this little monastery ! My feeble con¬ ductor, as he glided through the forsaken cloister, in the white habit of his order, seemed like an embodied spirit of the past, bearing record of the revolutions of nature, and of empires. — But to proceed through the woods. The road from Rochester to Lewistown has obtained the appellation of the Ridge road, from the circumstance of its running, generally, on the secondary bank of Lake Ontario. This bank is a gravelly ridge, seldom exceeding 15 feet in height, and is generally from five to eight miles from the present shore. The primitive limestone ridge, forming the Niagara, and Genesee falls, runs parallel to it, but further from the shore. The disposition of the ground, on the Canadian side of the St. Lawrence, is exactlv similar, but has been less spoken of, because inhabited by a less inquisitive, and specu¬ lating race of people. Sixteen miles west of Rochester, there is an Irish settlement, on Sandy Creek; iron is said to be found there. The average value of land is from 10 to 15 dollars an acre, and rises rapidly, as the country settles. One thousand families of 12 WESTERN COUNTRY OF NEW YORK. 195 settlers crossed Rochester bridge in 30 days, during the last summer. The soil cannot be called first-rate, being generally sandy, with a mixture of gravel; it however produces oak timber in great abundance : a tract of 30 or 40 miles along the ridge road, is called, " Oak Or¬ chard.” — The average return which the crops make on the line of the small lakes, is about 25 for one ; in some instances it exceeds this : a gentleman of Bloomfield town, stated the return of part of his lands, at 40 for one : in Lower Canada it seldom exceeds six or seven. Notwithstanding the bad state of the road, the stage waggon runs from Rochester to Lewistown in two days : this journey is heavy enough; it is some¬ times hecessary to alight, and walk several ' miles, or suffer a dislocation of limbs, in jolting over causeways, or logged roads, formed of pine, or oak trees laid crossways, without much regard to uniformity of size, or the comfort of those who may have to travel over them. Occasionally a wild deer starts from the brink of some overshadow¬ ed creek, and, at different intervals, square patches seem cut out of the forest, in the o 2 196 WESTERN COUNTRY OF NEW YORK* ntre of which, low log-huts have been constructed, without aid of saw, or plane, and surrounded by stumps of trees, black with the fires, kindled for the purpose of clearing. These fires are still usually burning, in some quarter round the house ; so that the whole settlement, betwixt the remains of former conflagrations, and the volumes of blue smoke, still curling through the massive woods, has a very Cimmerian aspect. While he clears his land, the Ame¬ rican settler seldom neglects to make potash : two men will make a ton of it in a month: its average value may be reckoned at 150 dollars : so that the land repays him the value of his labour at the outset. The stages meet, and put up for the night at a log-hut, dignified with the name of an inn, about 40 miles from Rochester. Our ac¬ commodations were of the lowest, but our charges, of the highest rate; for, as our host sagaciously observed, “ were he not “ to charge high, how was he ever to build a “ better house ?” By this rule we were com¬ pelled to contribute to posterity. Lewis- town was one of the frontier villages burnt during the war, to retaliate upon the Ame- WESTERN COUNTRY OF NEW YORK. 197 ricans for the destruction of Newark. It % has been since rebuilt, and all marks of its devastation effaced. It is agreeably situ¬ ated at the foot of the Limestone Ridge, on the steep bank of the St. Lawrence? which here rushes with a boiling, eddying torrent, from the Falls to Lake Ontario. Lewistown, notwithstanding its infancy, and remote situation, contains several good stores, to which I was obliged to have re¬ course for some trifling articles, during my stay at Queenston, on the Canadian side; particularly for a pair of shoes, when I ac¬ companied a friend to get his tea-pot mended ; Queenston affording neither tin¬ ker, nor shoemaker. f 198 ] CHAPTER XXI. NIAGARA FRONTIER. FORT GEORGE TO FORT ERIE. Queenston - 7 Mile*. Bridgewater, or Falls of Niagara 7 Chippewa - - - li Fort Erie - - - 18 33 | FORT GEORGE TO YORK, BY THE OUTLET OF BURLINGTON. Queenston - - - >7 St. David’s - - - 2 1 Twelve Mile Creek - - 12 Twenty ditto. - 8 Oct. 4 , Forty ditto. - - - 10 Stony Creek - - - 11 The Outlet - - - - 7 Carried forward 57 NIAGARA FRONTIER. 199 Brought over 5, Hopkins’s Inn Twelve Mile Creek Sixteen ditto. Credit River Etcbico River Mocaco River Humber River - York - 57 5 4 5 8 6 4 2 97i BY ANCASTER AND DUNDAS. Stony Creek to Ancaster - - 14 Dundas - - 4 Hopkins’s Inn - - - 10 Ancaster to the Grand River, and Indian Settlements - - 18 The peninsula included generally betwixt the two Lakes, and the Niagara river, ob¬ tained, during the war, and still keeps, the name of the Niagara Frontier. The Ouse, or Grand River, the banks of which are inhabited by the Six Nations, may be con¬ sidered its western boundary, and Burling¬ ton Bay its limit to the north. The Lime¬ stone Ridge, which we have observed skirt¬ ing the road from the Falls of the Genesee, crosses the Niagara at Queen ston, and, fol- o 4 200 NI AG All A FRONTIER. lowing the direction of the shores of Lake Ontario, as far as Ancaster, divides this frontier irregularly, nearly from east to west. At Ancaster it turns in the direction of the Lake, and having skirted the Bay of Burlington with a magnificent amphitheatre, strikes eastward, till it has crossed the Humber: but whether it afterwards pro¬ ceeds in the direction of Kingston, or bends northwardly, I am not able to deter¬ mine ; though from distant views, and some other circumstances, I am inclined to be¬ lieve it takes the former course. Its height may be averaged generally at from 200 to 250 feet : it is every where very steep ; in some places nearly perpendicular; and when viewed from below, being co¬ vered with trees to its summit, seems stretched across the country, like a magnifi¬ cent screen of verdure. The whole fron¬ tier may thus be considered as divided into two plateaux : the upper, on a level with Lake Erie; the lower, sloping from the foot of the ridge to Lake Ontario. There is a marked geological distinction betwixt these two tracts. Immediately below Queenston all traces of limestone disappear* The river banks, which are here about NIAGARA FRONTIER. 201 seventy feet in height, are composed of the same red clay-slate which seems generally to constitute the bed of the St. Lawrence, from hence downwards, beyond Quebec. The sides of the different creeks round the head of the lake, from Queenston to York, exhibit similar strata, nor does a single limestone rock appear to the eastward of the Kidge; from thence, however, to Lake Erie, it predominates almost exclusively, and constitutes the basis of a soil, famous through Canada for its fertility. The whole of this frontier is distinguished by a pe¬ culiar mildness of climate. Volney ob¬ serves, (tom. i. p. 137,) —“ A Niagara, bien “ au-dessus de Montreal, les neiges sont “ de deux mois encore plus courtes que “ dans cette ville : ce qui est precisement le “ contraire de la regie generale des niveaux “ observee sur le reste de la cote.” And again, p. 166, he observes the great in¬ crease of cold from Lake Erie, west; “ so “ that in the neighbourhood of Lake St. “ Clair, the only fruits which will ripen “ are apples and winter pears ; ” whereas at Niagara, peaches are raised in such abundance as to be the common food for hogs during the autumn : capsicums, me- 202 NIAGARA FRONTIER. Ions, and all sorts of gourds, are also abun¬ dantly raised in the open ground. M. Volney is inclined to attribute this difference of climate to the greater, or less prevalence of the S. and S. W. winds, which, he says, become less frequent round Lake St. Clair: but in addition to any ge¬ neral reason of this kind, there is a pecu¬ liar circumstance in the locale of this fron¬ tier, which has probably a more direct effect. The N. W. wind, as has been al¬ ready observed, is found to be the great agent of cold through nearly the whole of the American continent. It seems no less certain that it derives its chilling powers from the unbounded tract of frozen, uncul¬ tivated country over which it sweeps. Be¬ fore, however, it arrives at the Niagara frontier, it has past diagonally across both Lake Superior, and Lake Huron, and must therefore have lost some portion of its in¬ tense cold in its passage. To prove the correctness of this observation, it is neces¬ sary that the difference of climate should be co-extensive with the range of the N. W. wind, under these peculiar circumstances ; and this seems to be the case. A line drawn N. W. from York, would cross the nar- NIAGARA FRONTIER. 203 rowest extremity of Lake Huron, and sweep the shore, instead of crossing the expanse, of Lake Superior : now York is known to have longer and severer winters than the frontier, though but sixty miles N. W. of it. In like manner, a line drawn N. W. from Lake St. Clair, would fall beyond Lake Huron, and cross but a small portion of Lake Superior; the whole country, there¬ fore, from this lake west, may be expect¬ ed, as Volney observes to be the case, to feel an unmitigated winter: the fa¬ voured portion lying betwixt these two points, on both sides of Lake Erie.* Accordingly, a decided preference is given, by settlers, to this neighbourhood: on our side, the banks of the Grand River were long since chosen by the Six Nations for their fertility ; and from thence to the Thames, and Long Point, are the finest farms in the province. The whole of the American side is rapidly settling, and Erie, built on the site of the old fort, is already a considerable town. The northern point of the frontier, at * It seems probable that the whole of the Genesee country shares in this advantage. 204 NIAGARA FRONTIER. the junction of the Niagara* with Lake On¬ tario, is occupied by Fort Missisaga, built opposite to the American Fort, Niagara, which it is thought to command: it is star-shaped, and intended to be faced with stone, should the expence be deemed con¬ venient. From hence to Fort George there is about a mile of flat ground, mostly oc¬ cupied by the village of Newark, which has in great part been rebuilt. The houses are of wood, and being generally placed on frames, without foundations, seem to give a stranger no more reason to expect to find them standing when he next travels that way, than the tents of an Arab, or the booths of an annual fair. There is one large inn, of a gay exterior ; but being com¬ monly crowded with guests, is half finished, half furnished, and miserably dirty : beds, indeed, are in more than comfortable abun¬ dance ; it being no easy matter to squeeze betwixt each two of the dozen, crowded into a room. Betwixt Newark and Queenston the river is separated from the road by a light wood, through which it breaks on the sight at in- * The St. Lawrence, betwixt the two lakes, is com¬ monly called he Niagara. NIAGARA FRONTIER. 205 tervals, frequently with the top-sails of a schooner gliding just above its banks, and the tufted woods of the American shore beyond. On the right there is an unbroken succession of luxuriant orchards, corn-fields, and farm-houses; a rare and interesting sight in Canada. Queenston is built on the river’s edge, at the foot of the heights; it was embosomed in peach orchards before the war, but they were all felled, to aid our defensive operations, so that the vicinity looks bare, and war-worn. The heights are still crowned by a redoubt, and the remains of batteries, raised to defend the passage of the river. It was near to one of these, the gallant Sir Isaac Brocke was killed on the 13th of October, 1812, while with 400 men he gallantly opposed the landing of 1500 Americans, the whole of whom were after¬ wards captured by General Sheaffe.—But si¬ lence is now on the hill, and from the crumb¬ ling field-work the stranger’s eye dwells with admiration on the winding course of the Niagara; the rich adjacent country ; the op¬ posite fortresses at its mouth ; the blue ex¬ panse of Lake Ontario, with the white buildings of York just glimmering on the horizon; and beyond them a continuation 206 NIAGARA FRONTIER. of the same heights on which he stands, fading indistinctly into the sky. At Queenston I commenced a new, and infinitely more convenient mode of travel¬ ling, viz. in my own carriage ; this being a light Jersey waggon, (a machine I have al¬ ready described, by the name of a Dear¬ born,) for which I gave, at second-hand, 130 dollars; it was consequently above the million in appearance. My steed, a hardy Canadian, bred in the neighbourhood, cost me 70 dollars ; and with such preparation, a man may travel comfortably from Penobscot, to New Orleans. It was a fine autumnal morning, (Octo¬ ber 4,) when I put my equipage in motion from Queenston, towards York, accompa¬ nied by a friend, and a favourite pointer. The road follows the line of the heights, from which it is separated by an open mea¬ dow, studded with clumps of trees, over many of which the wild vine had woven natural bowers, but its graceful festooning is all its merit ; for the grapes are small and sour. The peculiarity of the Ge¬ nesee road is renewed here, or rather it is the same feature continued, and runs along a second bank, about twenty feet NIAGARA FRONTIER. 207 high, which follows generally the direction of the ridge, at a distance, varying from a quarter of a mile to a league. This little elevation gives a pleasing view, to the right of a fertile country, newly redeemed from the forest, while the steep, and sometimes perpendicular wall of limestone, wooded to its summit, magnificently bars the pro¬ spect on the left. Many small streams descend from the mountain to the lake, and where they have worn their channel through the second bank, cause pretty sharp dips in the road. They are all numerically, and vaguely enough, named by their once reputed distances from Fort George, as the two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve Mile Creeks. The village of St. David’s stands on the Four Mile Creek, and seems retiring into a nook of the mountain. A newspaper is printed here, and edited with ability : there are also two sadlers’ shops, at one of which I pur¬ chased a neat single harness for thirty dol¬ lars, when I set up my equipage. There are several miles of pine forest betwixt St. David’s and the Twelve Mile Creek, which, though little interesting to an agriculturist, are not, I think, without a charm for the 208 NIAGARA FRONTIER. traveller, whose business is merely to hunt out any combination of forms and colours, in which either eyes, or fancy may find their account. Its smooth brown flooring; straight trunks, shooting up like endless vistas of Gothic columns; the vaulting of dark foliage above them ; the universal stillness, and even the resinous fragrance, so power¬ ful on a hot day, combine to produce in the mind a solemn, and almost re¬ ligious feeling. “ Ilia proceritas sylvae, “ et secretum loci, et admiratio umbrae, fidem numinis facit.” There is a scat¬ tered hamlet, and court-house round the steep banks of the Twelve Mile Creek ; we stopped to bait our steed, and selves a few miles beyond, at a solitary log- liut in the centre of a forest; where, be¬ sides oats, we found excellent spruce beer made on the spot, and gingerbread cakes, as the sign specified, being underwritten “ Cakes and Beer.” We arrived at the % Forty Mile Creek in the dusk of the evening; the principal tavern was full, so we went to the second, where we were some¬ what crossly received by an old Irish land¬ lady ; luckily, however, she recovered her good temper on perceiving us to be English NIAGARA FRONTIER. 209 officers, a species of animal she had learnt, during the war, to treat with civility : her son had served in the militia, in token of which he was most obstreperously loyal, both in speech and song, during the whole evening. A fowl was speedily consigned from its slumbers to the pot, and served up, with the etceteras of the tea-table. The little room, or rather closet, in which we supped, contained a bed for one of us; the other was to sleep in the chamber above: an inspection, however, of the family loft so termed, induced me to alter this ar¬ rangement, by having my bed made up in the closet, which just held the two, and standing room betwixt them. I was also forced to make another infringement on the customs of the house, by requesting an additional sheet to the one, usually deemed sufficient. My friend walked out before breakfast and shot, immediately round the house, several quail, a brace of woodcocks, and a partridge. The quails frequent the buck-wheat, at this season, in great num¬ bers ; we frequently saw bevies of them by the road side. The American woodcock is smaller than ours ; its breast and belly are 210 NIAGARA FRONTIER. of a dirtyish pink. The partridge is more properly a species of pheasant, very nearly resembling our hen-pheasant, both in size and plumage, and is seldom found but in woods. On setting off to continue our journey, we took the pointer into the wag¬ gon, upon which our host exclaimed “ I’ll “ be hanged, if you Englishmen are not “ fonder of your dogs than of your wives;”— nor would this be any misplaced degree of affection, were we all wived like mine host. The road continues to Stony Creek, fol¬ lowing, as before, the direction of theheights, with little diversity of landscape, except such as arises from their occasional wind¬ ings, and darkly-wooded recesses. At Stony Creek it breaks off to the right, to¬ wards the lake, and approaches the outlet of Burlington-bay by a long neck of flat deep sand, thinly covered with coarse grass, and a few bushes and dwarf oaks. There is a pleasing view from the bridge, up the bay to Burlington, which is built on an elevated peninsula : beyond it lies another small lake, aptly denominated “ Coot’s Para¬ dise,” from which the land rises to the ridge, whose bold sweeping line encloses, NIAGARA FRONTIER. 211 with an amphitheatre of woods, the little village of Dundas, and all the country in that direction. We stopped to bait at a tavern of a substantial appearance, near the bridge, and looking to Lake Ontario. Our host, whose portly figure reflected no disgrace on the appearance of his house, received us with bustling importance. “ What could we have to eat ?” — “ What¬ ever you please/’ was the reply, he had every thing in the house — “ Well then a veal cutlet, as we are in haste.” He went in, and presently returned, protesting his wife was quite out of humour at our think¬ ing of veal cutlets, when the veal had been killed a fortnight. — “ Well then, we are not particular, a pork chop will do” — but the pork chop only increased the storm. — “ How could we expect a pork chop when the pork was all salted ?” — cannot co-exist with tyranny and moral debasement: they who rule by the lash, and the bayonet have incapacitated them- se’ /es from employing the golden weapons of humanity. ( % [ 316 ] CHAPTER XXVI. PHILADELPHIA TO WASHINGTON. Darby 71 Chester 71 '2 Nov. 26, Naaman’s Creek - 5 Wilmington - 7 \ Newport 4 Christiana Ol 27, Elkton - 10 Havre-de-Grace - 16t 28, Harford Bush - m Joppa - 6 i 29, Baltimore 18* Dec. 8 , Vansville - 251 Bladensburg ~ 8 * 9, Washington - 6 139 On the banks of the Schuylkill, about two miles from Philadelphia,there is a wild scene PHILADELPHIA TO WASHINGTON. 317 ofrocksbreaking the river into several rushes and falls : the metallic brilliancy of these rocks, whenever their strata are broken up, indicates the ridge of talkous granite, which Volney has traced for nearly 500 miles, from Long Island to the Roanoke, and which probably extends as far as the Sa¬ vannah.* It is observed to limit the tide waters by the cascades it forms on crossing the rivers, and to separate the barren sand- coast from the fertile alluvion districts above it, striking the Delaware at Trenton, the Schuylkill at Philadelphia, the Susquehan¬ na near Octarora Creek, the Gunpowder Creek near Joppa, the Patapsco at Elk- ridge, the Potowmac at George Town, the Rappahanock near Fredericksburg, the James at Richmond, the Appom'atox above Petersburg, and the Roanoke near Halifax. The road to Washington follows the line of this ridge, which naturally modifies the features of the country. Its apparent ele- * I found it about Raleigh in North Carolina, and it seems by the falls to cross the Fear River near Fay- ettville, and the Great Pedee near the Ferry of Queen- borough. It is in some places composed of micaceous schistus. .318 PHILADELPHIA TO WASHINGTON. vation is inconsiderable, just sufficient to undulate the face of the landscape, and occa¬ sionally presenting, especially round streams, bolder prominences, called bluffs in South Carolina. The creeks and rivers, wear¬ ing through a yielding soil, have frequent¬ ly their banks steep, and let the eye into deep woody glens ; the soil in such situa¬ tions is rendered fertile by a mixture of clay with the sand which constitutes its basis. * As far as Wilmington, the stately Delaware enriches the prospect: from thence the scenery is uniform, consisting of plantations, interspersed with oak and pine barrens. The houses universally shaded with large virandas, seem to give notice of a southern climate ; the huts round them, open to the elements, and void of every intention of comfort, tell a less pleasing tale : they in¬ form the traveller he has entered upon a land of masters and slaves, and he beholds the scene marred with wretched dwellings, and wretched faces. The eye, which for the first time looks on a slave, feels a pain- * I found abundance of iron-stone on this line, in blocks and detached masses. PHILADELPHIA TO WASHINGTON. 319 ful impression : he is one for whom the laws of humanity are reversed, who has known nothing of society but its injustice, nothing of his fellow man but his hardened, undisguised, atrocious selfishness. The cowering humility, the expressions of servile respect, with which the negro approaches the white man, strike on the senses, not like the courtesy of the French and Italian pea¬ sant, giving a grace to poverty, but with the chilling indication of a crushed spirit: the sound of the lash is in his accents of sub¬ mission, and the eye which shrinks from mine, caught its fear from that of the task¬ master. Habit steels us to all things, and it is not to be expected, that objects constantly present, should continue to ex¬ cite the same sensations which they cause, when looked upon for the first time ; (and this, perhaps, is one reason, why so much cruelty has been tolerated in the world;) but whoever should look on a slave for the first time in his life, with the same in¬ different gaze he would bestow on any casual object, may triumph in the good for¬ tune through which he was born free, but in his heart, he is a slave, and as a moral 320 PHILADELPHIA TO WASHINGTON. being, degraded infinitely below the negro, in whose soul, the light of freedom has been extinguished, not by his own insensi¬ bility, but by the tyranny of others. Did the miserable condition of the negro leave him mind for reflection, he might laugh in his chains to see how slavery has striken the land with ugliness. The smiling vil¬ lages, and happy population of the Eastern and Central states, give place to the splen¬ did equipages of a few planters, and a wretched negro population, crawling among filthy hovels — for villages, (after crossing the Susquehanna,) there are scarcely any ; there are only plantations — the very name speaks volumes. [ 321 ] CHAPTER XXVII. BALTIMORE. t ■ \ * While I was in Baltimore, I saw a sketch of the city, taken in 1750 ; it then consist¬ ed of about half a dozen houses, built round the landing place : it now contains 50,000 inhabitants, and is growing rapidly. Here are reckoned to be some of the largest for¬ tunes in the Union, that is, of from 500,000 to 1,000,000 dollars. To strangers, the po¬ lished hospitality of its inhabitants renders it a pleasanter residence than Philadelphia. For my own part, though very slightly in¬ troduced, I received more civilities in pro¬ portion, during the week I spent in this city, than in the whole course of my tra¬ vels besides. Perhaps this courteous dispo¬ sition is in a certain degree an inheritance : Y 322 BALTIMORE. during the colonial regime, Annapolis was the centre of fashion to all America: the Governors of Maryland were com¬ monly men of rank and family, who brought with them a taste for social ele¬ gance, which seems to have become the appanage of the old families, who, since Annapolis has fallen into decay, have be¬ come residents of Baltimore. The city is built round the head of a bay, or inlet of the Patuxent, about eight miles above its junction with Chesapeak Bay. The en¬ trance of the harbour at Gossuch Point is 150 yards across, and defended by a fort, which our fleet ineffectually bombarded during the war. A sand bank, about fifty feet in height, evidently the ancient bound¬ ary of the bay, forms a natural glacis round the town, and terminates at its southern extremity, in the hill of the signal post, from which there is a beautiful panoramic view of the city, fort, and harbour. It was on this natural terre-plein, the lines were constructed against our threatened attack. The public buildings of Baltimore, being all of brick, have little architectural beau- BALTIMORE. 323 ty; they evince the prosperity, and good polity, rather than the taste of the city. There is, however, a monument erecting to the memory of Washington, in a kind of park, adjoining the town; it consists ot a marble column, adorned with trophies in bronze: the design, like the man whose fame it records, is nobly simple. This is the first token of public gratitude America has consecrated to her first citizen; and, strange to tell, the design was set on foot, not by an American citizen, but by an Irish exile.* Annapolis continues to be the seat of government for Maryland. Most states choose some second rate town for this purpose, to preserve their legis¬ lators, either from the seductions or the mobs of a great city; though there seems to be little cause for alarm on either head. * It is ludicrous whenever a city corporation gives a dinner to a pubhc character to see what a clutter the newspapers raise about “ Republican Gratitude. Party zeal is sometimes a dreadful satirist. [ 824 ] CHAPTER XXVIII. WASHINGTON. The traveller, having passed through Bla- densburg, on the east branch of the Pa¬ tuxent, where the action was fought, which the Americans have nick-named the “ Bla- “ densburg races,’’ crosses a sandy tract, interspersed with oak barrens, and pine woods, until suddenly mounting a little rise, close to a poor cottage with its Indian corn patch, he finds himself opposite to the Capitol of the Federal city. It stands on an ancient bank of the Patowmac, about eighty feet above the present level of the river, the course of which it commands, as well as the adjacent country, as far as the Alleganey Ridges. The edifice consists WASHINGTON. 325 of two wings, intended to be connected by a centre, surmounted by a dome or cupola. The design is pure and elegant, but the whole building wants grandeur. Each wing would not be a large private mansion : the interior has consequently a contracted ap¬ pearance, a kind of economy of space dis¬ agreeably contrasting with the gigantic scale of nature without, as well as with our ideas of the growing magnitude of the American nation. The stairqase, which is a kind of vestibule to the impression to be produced by the whole building, is scarcely wide enough for three persons to pass con¬ veniently. The chambers of the senate and representatives, are of very moderate dimensions, and the judgment hall, with its low-brovved roof, and short columns, seems modelled after the prison of Constance in Marmion. Some of the decorations, too, are of very dubious taste. Mr. Latrobe has modelled a set of figures for the Cham- ber of Representatives, to personify the se¬ veral states of the Union ; but as it is not easy to discover an attribute, to say nothing of a poetical characteristic, by which Con¬ necticut may be distinguished from Massa- y 3 326 WASHINGTON. chusetts, North Carolina, from South Caro¬ lina, or Kentuckey from Ohio, recourse must be had to the ungraceful expedient of a superscription to point out his own tutel¬ ary saint to each representative. Mr. La- trobe has, indeed, hit upon one device for Massachusetts; she is leading by the hand an ugly cub of a boy, representing Maine, which boy besomes a girl when Maine as¬ sumes her proper state ;—a puerile conceit. One cannot help regretting the Americans should have neglected to give their new Capitol a character of grandeur worthy of their territory and ambition. Private edifices rise, decay, and are replaced by others of superior magnificence, as the taste or growing opulence of the nation require; but public buildings should have a character answerable to their purpose; they bear upon them the seal of the genius of the age, and sometimes prophetically reveal the political destinies of the nations by which they are raised. The Romans communi¬ cated to their erections the durability of their empire. The Americans, in “ their “ aspirations to be great,” seem sometimes to look towards Roman models, but the WASHINGTON. 327 imitation must be of things, not names; or instead of a noble parallel, they are in danger of producing a ludicrous contrast. From the foot of the Capitol hill there runs a straight road, (intended to be a street,) planted with poplars for about two miles, to the President’s house, a handsome stone mansion, forming a conspicuous ob¬ ject from the Capitol Hill: near it are the public offices, and some streets nearly filled up : about half a mile further is a pleasant row of houses, in one of which the Presi¬ dent at present resides : there are a few tolerable houses still further on the road to George Town, and this is nearly the sum total of the City for 1816. It used to be a joke against Washington, that next door neighbours must go through a wood to make their visits; but the jest and forest have vanished together : there is now scarcely a tree betwixt George Town and the Navy Yard, two miles beyond the Capitol, except the poplars I have mentioned, which may be considered as the locum tenentes of future houses. I doubt the policy of such thorough clearing; clumps of trees are preferable y 4 328 WASHINGTON. objects to vacant spaces, and the city in its present state, being commenced from the extremities instead of the centre, has a dis¬ jointed and naked appearance. The fiery ordeal has, however, fixt its destiny.* Land and houses are rising in value, new buildings are erecting, and with the aid of the intended university, there is little doubt that Washington will attain as great an ex¬ tent as can be expected for a city possest of no commercial advantages, and created, not by the natural course of events, but by a political speculation. The plan, indeed, supposes an immense growth, but even if this were attainable, it seems doubtful how far an overgrown luxurious capital would be the fittest seat for learning, or even legis¬ lation. Perhaps the true interest of the union would rather hold Washington sacred to science, philosophy, and the arts: a spot in some degree kept holy from commer¬ cial avarice, to which the members of dif * Our expedition against Washington had a singular fate: it pleased both sides. It pleased us, for it suc¬ ceeded, or seemed to succeed. It pleased the American government, for it provoked the spirit, by wounding the honour of the people. From that moment the war be¬ came national. WASHINGTON. 329 ferent states may repair to breathe an at¬ mosphere untainted by local prejudices, and find golden leisure for pursuits and specu¬ lations of public utility. Such fancies would be day dreams elsewhere, and are so perhaps here ; but America is young in the career of political life ; she has the light of former ages, and the sufferings of the pre¬ sent to guide her ; she has not crushed the spirits of the many, to build up the tyranny of the few, and, therefore, the prophetic eye of imagination may dwell upon her smilingly. I fell into very pleasant society at Wash- ton. Strangers who intend staying some days in a town, usually take lodgings at a boarding-house, in preference to a tavern: in this way, they obtain the best society the place affords ; for there are always gen¬ tlemen, and frequently ladies, either visi¬ tors or temporary residents, who live in this manner to avoid the trouble of housekeep¬ ing. At Washington, during the sittings of Congress, the boarding-houses are divid¬ ed into messes, according to the political principles of the inmates, nor is a stranger admitted without some introduction, and the 330 WASHINGTON. consent of the whole company. I chanced to join a democratic mess, and name a few of its members with gratitude, for the pleasuretheir society gave me:—Commodore Decatur and his lady, the Abbe Correa, the great bo¬ tanist and plenipotentiary of Portugal, the Secretary of the Navy, the Secretary of the Navy Board, known as the author of a hu¬ morous publication, entitled “John Bull, and Brother Jonathan,” with eight or ten members of Congress, principally from the Western states, which are generally consi¬ dered as most decidedly hostile to England, but whom I did not on this account find less good-humoured and courteous. It is from thus living in daily intercourse with the leading characters of the country, that one is enabled to judge with some degree of certainty of the practices of its govern¬ ment ; for to know the paper theory is no¬ thing, unless it be compared with the in¬ struments employed to carry it into effect. A political constitution may be nothing but a cabalistic form, to extract money and power from the people j but then the jug¬ glers must be in the dark, and “ no ad¬ mittance behind the curtain.” This way WASHINGTON. 331 of living affords too the best insight into the best part of society ; for if in a free na¬ tion the depositaries of the public confidence be ignorant, or vulgar, it is a very fruitless search to look for the opposite qualities in those they represent; whereas, if these be well informed in mind and manners, it proves at the least an inclination towards knowledge and refinement, in the general mass of citizens, by whom they are selected. My own experience obliges me to a favor¬ able verdict in this particular, I found the little circle into which 1 had happily fallen, full of good sense and good humour, and never quitted it without feeling myself a gainer on the score, either of useful infor¬ mation or of social enjoyment. The President, or rather his lady, holds a drawing-room weekly, during the sitting of Congress. He takes by the hand those who are presented to him ; shaking hands being discovered in America to be more ra¬ tional and manly than kissing them. For the rest, it is much as such things are every where, chatting, and tea, compliments and ices, a little music, (some scandal, I sup¬ pose, among the ladies,) and to bed. No- 332 WASHINGTON. thing in these assemblies more attracted my notice, than the extraordinary stature of most of the western members ; the room seemed filled with giants, among whom, moderately sized men crept like pigmies. I know not well, to what the difference may be attributed, but the surprising growth of the inhabitants of the Western states is mat¬ ter of astonishment to those of the Eastern, and of the coast line generally. This pheno¬ menon, which is certainly a considerable stumbling-block to the Abbe Raynal’s theory, may probably be resolved into the operation of three positive causes, and one negative, namely, plentiful but simple food, a healthy climate, constant exercise in the open air, and the absence of mental irri¬ tation. In a more advanced stage of so¬ ciety, luxurious and sedentary habits pro¬ duce in the rich that enfeeblement of vital¬ ity, which scanty food, and laborious or un¬ wholesome occupations bring upon the poor. The only persons to be compared with these Goliahs of the West, were six Indian chiefs from Georgia, Chactaws or Chickasaws, who having come to Washing¬ ton on public business, were presented at 10 WASHINGTON. 333 Mrs. Madison’s drawing-room. They had a still greater appearance of muscular power than the Americans ; and while looking on them, I comprehended the prowess of those ancient knights, whose single might held an army in check, “ and made all Troy re¬ tire.” The sittings of Congress are held in a temporary building, during the repair of the Capitol: I attended them frequently, and was fortunate enough to be present at one interesting debate on a change in the mode of Presidential elections : most of the principal speakers took a part in it: Messrs. Gaston, Calhoun, and Western in support of it; Randolph and Grosvenor against it. The merits of the question were not im¬ mediately to be comprehended by a stranger, but their style of speaking was, in the highest degree, correct and logical, particu¬ larly that of Mr. Western of New Hamp¬ shire, whose argumentative acuteness ex¬ torted a compliment from Mr. Randolph himself, “ albeit unused to the compliment¬ ing mood.” Mr. Grosvenor, both in action and language, might*be considered a finish¬ ed orator, as far as our present notions of 334 WASHINGTON*. practical oratory extend. Mr. Randolph, whose political talents, or rather political success, is said to be marred by an eccentric turn of thought, which chimes in with no party, seems rather a brilliant than a con¬ vincing speaker; his elocution is distinct and clear to shrillness, his command of lan¬ guage and illustration seems unlimited; but he gave me the idea of a man dealing huge blows against a shadow, and wasting his dexterity in splitting hairs: his politi¬ cal sentiments are singular: he considers the government of the United States as an elective monarchy ; “ Torture the constitu- “ tion as you will,” said he, in the course of the debate, “ the President will elect his suc- “ cessor, and that will be his son whenever “ has one old enough to succeed him.” No expressions are used, either of approbation or the contrary; whatever may be the opi¬ nion of the House, the most perfect atten¬ tion is given to each member j nor, how¬ ever long he may speak, is he ever inter¬ rupted by those indications of impatience so common in our House of Commons. This may reasonably be accounted for by supposing, that their average speeches are, WASHINGTON. 335 in themseiVes better; or more agreeably, by conjecturing that the American idea of excellence is put at a lower standard than our own. Both the talents, however, and behaviour of the members, seem worthy of the government, and of what America is, and may be. Their forms of business and debate nearly resemble those of our parlia¬ ment ; always excepting wigs and gowns, a piece of grave absurdity well omitted : for ’tis surely an odd conceit, to fancy the dig¬ nity of the first officers of States attached to, or supported by, large conglomerations of artificial hair. [ 336 ] CHAPTER XXIX. MOUNT VERNON. Crossing the Patowmac by a wooden bridge, a mile and a quarter in length, the toll of which is a dollar, I proceeded through Alexandria, to Mount Vernon. Whatever is worth describing in the house, or situa¬ tion, has been many times described : hav¬ ing walked through the gardens, I request¬ ed the old German gardiner, who acted as Ciceroni, to conduct me to the tomb of Washington : “ Dere, go by dat path, and “ you will come to it,” said he: I follow¬ ed the path across the lawn, to the brow that overlooks the Patowmac, and passing a kind of cellar in the bank, which seemed to be an ice-house, continued my search. MOUNT VERNON. 337 but to no effect: — I had already found it: this cellar-like hole in the bank, closed by an old wooden door, which had never been even painted, was the tomb of Washington, with not a rail, a stone, or even a laurel “ to flourish o’er his grave.” I stood for a moment overpowered with astonishmentand indignation:—behold, says prejudice, the gratitude of republics ! be¬ hold, says reason, the gratitude of man¬ kind ! Had Washington served a Czar of Russia, he might have shared with Suwaroff, a Siberian exile ; he lived and died, honor¬ ed by the country he had saved ; he is for¬ gotten in the grave, because man is feebly excited by any but selfish motives : the en¬ lightened selfishness of republicanism ho¬ nored its defender, but what form of polity has been discovered, in which gratitude survives the hope of future benefits ? Party zeal raises monuments over its victims, to stimulate the survivors : va¬ nity has not unfrequently urged the living to unite by such means, their perishable names with those of the immortal dead, but the mausoleum rises slowly to which nei¬ ther interest nor vanity contributes. It is z 338 MOUNT VERNON. said that the Federal city will finally receive the remains of its designer; but the dead can wait, and in the interim the matter was nearly cut short, by an attempt to steal the bones from their present receptacle, to carry them about for a show. The old door has since been kept padlocked. [ 339 CHAPTER XXX. WASHINGTON TO RICHMOND, BY THE SHE¬ NANDOAH VALLEY. George Town - - 1 Mile. Lower Falls of Patowmac - 2 Upper Falls - - H Dec. 22, Lansville - - - 10 Leesburg - - - 13 23, Waterford _ - 6 Hilsborough - - - 8 24, Harper’s Ferry - - 8 25, Charlestown - - 8 26, Winchester - - - 22 New Town, or Stevensburg - 8 Strasburg - - - 10 27, Woodstock - - - 12 Mount Pleasant - - 12 28, Newmarket - - 8 Big Spring - - - 10 29, Harrisonburg - - 10 Carried forward - 159 Z 2 310 WASHINGTON TO RICHMOND. Brought over 159 Port Republic - 15 30, Cave Inn 2 31, Staunton - 17 Middlebrook 12 Jan. 1, Brown sburg 11 Lexington - 13 2, Natural Bridge 14 Lexington to Fairfield 104 4, Greenville 13 Way enesborough 17 5, Rock Fish Gap - 4 6, Charlottesville - 24 7, Monticello H 8, Boyd’s Tavern 9 9, Mrs. Tisley’s Tavern 27 Goochland Court-house 15 10, Powell’s Tavern - 16 lb Richmond - 14 394 TflE MATILDA FALLS. Close to George Town the granite ridge strikes the Patowmac : the road winds agreeably under its cliff, till it crosses an old bed of the river, left dry in consequence of a canal which has been cut to turn the rapids : there is a chain bridge here, from which the broken bed of the river, the falls, THE MATILDA FALLS. 341 scattered masses of rock, and lofty banks, present a wild and pleasing picture. Having pursued my way for about nine miles, I quitted the main road to visit the upper, or Matilda Falls. A field track brought me into a scattered village, built along a canal, cut, like the one above-mentioned, to avoid the falls : having crossed it, I walked along its edge for about a quarter of a mile, on a broad green-sward path, as smooth and regular as a garden terrace : a little wood was on my right, the trees of which were fantastically grouped together by abundance ot wild vine, and other parasi¬ tical plants, trailing and twining through them ; the whole conveying no inadequate idea of a stately and fair pleasure-ground of Queen Elizabeth’s time : turning short from the canal, and stepping a few paces through the wood, I found myself on a bold precipice of rocks fronting the falls. — I started at a sight so much grander than any thing I had expected : as far as my eye could reach, the Patowmac came down from among its woods, dashing, and whit¬ ening over numberless ridges of rock, and breaking in a wild succession of cascades, z 3 842 TIIE MATILDA FALLS. till, as if wearied by its own efforts, it swept, with silent impetuosity through a contracted channel betwixt perpendicular cliffs, whose dark, bare masses of granite were scantily crested by a few pines and cedars. The perpendicular descent of the falls is reckon¬ ed by Volney at 72 feet*, but the rapids extend for several miles up the river, and the whole scene has a magnificent wildness, which may be gazed upon with delight and wonder, even after Niagara; so inexhausti¬ bly can nature vary her features, and be alike gracefully sublime in all. f * “ jElle a environ 72 pieds de hauteur , sur 800 a 900 “ de large: lejleuve qui jusqu’ alors avait coule dans une vallee bordee de coteaux, sauvages comme ceux du Hhotie “ en Vivarais , tombe tout-a-coup, comme le Saint Laurent , “ dans un profond ravin de pur roc granit taille a pic sur “ les deux rives.” Volnej/, Climat D’^merique, t. i. p. 125. I found mica-slate, and porphyry about the Falls, f It is remarkable, that Mr. Jefferson, so accurate in his notices of Virginia, makes no mention of these Falls. [ 343 ] CHAPTER XXXI. harper’s ferry. The road which ascends the right bank of the Patowmac, through Lansville and Lees¬ burg, has the credit, and I think justly, of being about the worst in the Union. It is a common saying of roads in Virginia, that they are “ not made, but created.” The soil towards the mountains, is generally, a stiff clay, and as each waggoner works his own way through the woods, the traveller is continually puzzled betwixt the equal probabilities of a variety of tracts, most of which, indeed, lead to the same point, but as this is not invariably the case, he must often journey on in doubt, or halt in muddy perplexity until he can procure in forma- z 4 344 harper’s ferry. tion. The villages are thinly scattered, but well built of brick, an advantage deriv¬ ed from the soil. Leesburg contains about 1200 inhabitants. The inn at which I stop¬ ped, had stabling for above an hundred horses, for the accommodation of farmers who come together on Court days. These court days are almost county meetings ; those who have business attend for busi¬ ness sake, those who have none attend to meet their neighbours, who may have busi¬ ness with them, and because it is discredi¬ table to be often absent. At Hilsborough,the road passes through a mountain gap, resembling the Wind Gap, on a small scale : this ridge is called the Short Mountain, and runs parallel to the Blue Ridge, at the distance of about five miles ; it crosses the Patowmac below Harper’s Ferry, and I am inclined to consider it as the same, which M. Volney observed near Co¬ lumbia Ferry, betwixt York and Lancaster, and which he is disposed to regard as the Blue Mountain itself. I should rather leave the Blue Mountain where it stands in the maps at present, and conjecture this collateral ridge to be a prolongation of the harper’s ferry. 345 Lehigh Mountain, perhaps communicating with Monticello. Immediately after passing it, the road turns to the right and continues betwixt it, and the Blue Mountain, to which it seems an immense out-work. The land rises gradually, nor is it until you have reached the ridge of the descent, and find yourself looking down towards the bed of the Patowmac, and its opposite shore, that you are aware of the elevation gained. Here commences the savage wildness of the picture. Your road lies down the side of the mountain, strewed with splinters and fragments of rock, which slide from beneath o your horse’s feet : immense masses of rock project their bold angles, so as frequently to leave a cranked and difficult passage; mean¬ time the mountains, stretching up on every side, and partially beheld between the scat¬ tered pine trees, seem contracting round with a deepening breadth of shadow and gloomy grandeur, until you find at their base the united Patowmac and Shenandoah, boiling over their incumbered channel. Continu¬ ing your way betwixt these waters, and the precipices of the Blue Mountain, 3 346 harper’s ferry. through which they seem to have burst, you reach the Shenandoah Ferry: but a sketch will best illustrate the locale of this extraordinary scene. I descended by the road A. The village is built round the foot of the height B : it is chiefly remarkable for a manufactory of small arms, about 10,000 stand of which, are linished yearly : " They make as many in harper’s ferry. 347 a week at Birmingham,” said one of the workmen, who had been formerly employ¬ ed there, to me. It is from this height, immediately above the village, and from a broad bare platform of Rock, known by the name of Jefferson’s rock, that the eye com¬ mands the magnificent prospect which Mr. Jefferson has so eloquently, yet correct¬ ly described. “ You stand on a very high “ point of land. On your right comes up “ the Shenandoah, having ranged along the “ foot of the mountain an hundred miles to “ seek a vent. On your left approaches “ the Patowmac, in quest of a passage also. “ In the moment of their junction, they t( rush together against the mountain, rend Id. p. 152. APPENDIX. 429 utensils comprise their whole stock : as for bed¬ ding, a negro is supposed to require none. While I was sitting in the public room of the tavern at Charlotteville, the master of some ne¬ groes was making arrangements relative to their hire by another man for the season *, when one of them requested, in the name of the rest, that they might be allowed the usual blanket a-piece, which they had not received in their former ser¬ vice. This trifling incident informed me to what kind of accommodation an equitable mas¬ ter considers his slave entitled; — a wretched ca¬ bin and a single blanket. For their clothing, with the exceptions I have already mentioned, I observed it almost invariably to be ragged and miserable in the extreme. The description of their food is well known ; Rice and Indian meal, with a little dried fish; it is, in. fact, the result of a calculation of the cheapest nutriment on which human life can be supported. I hav^ heard, indeed, of the many luxuries the negro might enjoy were he not too indolent; of the poultry and vegetables he might raise round his hut; but his unconquer¬ able idleness masters all other feelings. I have seldom heard an argument against the negroes that was not double-edged. If they are, in¬ deed, so indolent by nature that even a regard for their own comforts proves insufficient to * When an owner has no work for his slaves he com¬ monly lets them out for the year, or season, to any one in want of hands. 430 APPENDIX. rouse them to exertion, with what colour can it be asserted that they feel it no misfortune to be compelled to daily labour for another ? Is the sound of the whip so very exhilarating that it dispels at once indolence and suffering? But I admit the fact of their indolence. The human mind fits itself to its situation, and to the de¬ mands which are made upon its energies. Cut off hope for the future, and freedom for the pre¬ sent, superadd a due pressure of bodily suffering, and personal degradation, and you have a slave, who, of whatever zone, nation, or complexion, will be, what the poor African is, torpid, de¬ based, and lowered beneath the standard of hu¬ manity. To enquire if, so circumstanced, he is happy, would be a question idly ridiculous, except that the affirmative is not only gravely maintained, but constitutes an essential moral prop of the whole slave system. Neither they who affirm, nor they who deny, pretend to any talisman by which the feelings of the heart may be set in open day; but if general reasoning be resorted to, since pain and pleasure are found to be the necessary result of* the operation of certain ac¬ cidents on the human constitution, the aggre¬ gate of our sensations (that is, our happiness or misery) must be allowed to depend on the num¬ ber and combination of these accidents. “ If “ you prick us, do we not bleed ? If you tickle “ us, do we not laugh ? If you poison us, do “ we not die ?” APPENDIX. 431 Should there be any unknown principle in the negro’s constitution, which enables him to convert natural effects into their contraries, and so despise contingencies, whether of good or evil, he may pride himself on having over-past the glory both of saints and stoics ; but the fact would no more justify his oppressors, than did the stubborn endurance of Epictetus, the bar¬ barity of his master, who broke his leg. It would be too much, first to inflict a cruelty, and then to take credit for the patience with which it is supported ; but the fact itself is, in this case, more than doubtful. That to a cer¬ tain point the feelings of the slave grow callous under bondage, may be conceded : this is the mercy of Nature: but that they are wholly ex¬ tinguished, by suffering, is contradicted by facts of too palpable evidence; one of which is, that it is no uncommon thing for negroes to com¬ mit suicide. This I heard from a gentleman of Charleston; and I have since met with the still more unexceptionable testimony of a friend to the Slave Trade. Dr. Williamson, in his “ Medical and Miscel- “ laneous Observations, relative to the West In- “ dia Islands,” observes, “ Negroes anticipate “ that they will, upon death removing them “ from that country, be restored to their native “ land, and enjoy their friends’ society in a fu- “ ture state. The ill-disposed to their masters, “ will sometimes be guilty of suicide ; or by a ‘ resolute determination resort to dirt-eating; APPENDIX. Am “ and thence produce disease, and at length “ death.” i. 9d. This is the kind of man who, should he ever hear of the death of Cato, would call it the result of “ an ill disposition “ towards his master, Caesar.” I remember to have once heard a person assert, from his own experience, that a cargo of Africans expressed great pleasure on finding themselves made slaves, on their arrival in America. A further explanation, however, removed the seeming improbability of this anecdote. They imagined they had been purchased for the pui> pose of being eaten, and therefore rejoiced in their ignorance, when they discovered, they were . only to be held in bondage. The natural inferiority of the negro race, has been frequently urged, as an excuse for enslav¬ ing them; as if, admitting the fact, superiority of intellect conferred a right of oppression. It is to be regretted, that Mr. Jefferson has, to a certain extent, lent the sanction of his name to this opinion, not indeed to justify practices which no man more sincerely abhors * ; but as the re¬ sult of deliberate enquiry. The author of “ Letters from Virginia,” discusses his argu¬ ments on this subject, and I think proves them to be ill-grounded. If I am not mistaken in his character, the philosopher of Monticello * “ I tremble for my country,” says he, “ when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep for ever." Notes on Virginia, p. 241. APPENDIX. 433 will be himself among the first to rejoice in his own defeat. I forbear entering upon a question already de¬ cided by the irrefragable evidence of facts. A black empire has arisen amid European set¬ tlements. Do the public proceedings, and details of its government bespeak any inferiority to those of white men ? The state papers of Hayti are to be distinguished from those of European potentates, only by superior energy, and more exalted sentiments ; and while the manners and politics of Petion emulate those of his republican neighbours, the court of Christophe has at least as much gilding and foolery, as many lords and ladies of the bedchamber, lords in waiting, stars and ribbons, gilded coaches, and laced button-holes, as those of his brother potentates, all over the world. I shall conclude, by an account of the trial and execution of a negro, which took place during my stay at Charleston. A man died on board a merchant ship, ap¬ parently in consequence of poison mixed with the dinner served up to the ship’s company. The cabin-boy and cook were suspected, be¬ cause they were, from their occupations, the only persons on board who did not partake of the mess, the effects of which began to appear as soon as it was tasted. As the offence was committed on the high seas, the cook, though a negro, became entitled to the benefit of a jury, and, with the cabin-boy, was put on his trial F F APPENDIX. 434. ( The boy, a fine looking lad, and wholly un¬ abashed by his situation, was readily acquitted. The negro’s turn was next. He was a man of low stature, ill-shapen, and with a countenance singularly disgusting. The proofs against him were, first, that he was cook ; so who else could have poisoned the mess? It was indeed over¬ looked, that two of the crew had absconded since the ship came into port. Secondly, he had been heard to utter expressions of ill-humour before he went on board: that part of the evidence was indeed supprest, which went to explain these expressions. The real proof however was written in his skin, and in the uncouth lines of his countenance. He was found guilty. Mr. Crafts junior, a gentleman of the Charles¬ ton bar, who, from motives of humanity, had undertaken his defence, did not think a man ought to die for his colour, albeit it was the custom of the country; and moved in conse¬ quence for a new trial, on the ground of partial and insufficient evidence; but the judge, who had urged his condemnation with a vindictive earnestness, intrenched himself in forms, and found the law gave him no power in favour of mercy. He then forwarded a representation of the case to the President, through one of the senators of the State ; but the senator ridiculed the idea of interesting himself for the life of a negro, who was therefore left to his cell and the hangman. In this situation he did not however forsake himself; and it was now, when preju- APPENDIX. 435 dice and persecution had spent their last arrow on him, that he seemed to put on his proper nature, to vindicate not only his innocence, but the moral equality of his race, and those mental energies which the white man’s pride would deny to the shape of his head and the woolliness of his hair. Maintaining the most undeviating tranquillity, he conversed with ease and cheer¬ fulness, whenever his benevolent counsel, who continued his kind attentions to the last, visited his cell. I was present pn one of these oc¬ casions, and observed his tone and manner, neither sullen nor desperate, but quiet and re¬ signed, suggesting whatever occurred to him on the circumstances of his own case, with as much calmness as if he had been uninterested in the event; yet as if he deemed it a duty to omit none of the means placed within his reach for vindicating his innocence. He had constantly attended the exhortations of a Methodist preacher # , who for conscience-sake, visited “ those who were in prisonand having thus strengthened his spirit with religion, on the morning of his execution, breakfasted as usual, heartily; but before he was led out, he requested permission to address a few words of advice to the companions of his captivity. “ I * The church builders of Charleston are too happy in a monopoly of salvation to afford a salaried clergyman to the jail, and the salaried clergymen of the city cannot afford to contaminate their piety, by entering, unpaid, the abode of crime and misfortune. F F 2 436 APPENDIX. “ have observed much in them, lie added, which “ requires to be amended, and the advice of a “ man in my situation may be respected.” A circle was accordingly formed in his cell, in the midst of which he seated himself, and addressed them at some length, with a sober and collected earnestness of manner, on the profligacy which he had noted in their behaviour, while they had been fellow-prisoners ; recommending to them the rules of conduct prescribed by that religion, in which he now found his support and con¬ solation. Certainly, if we regard the quality and con¬ dition of the actors only, there is an infinite distance betwixt this scene and the parting of Socrates with his disciples; should we however put away from our thoughts, such differences as are merely accidental, and seize that point of coincidence which is most interesting and im¬ portant ; namely, the triumph of mental energy over the most clinging weaknesses of our nature ; the negro will not appear wholly unworthy of a comparison with the sage of Athens. The latter occupied an exalted station in the public eye ; though persecuted even unto death and ignominy, by a band of triumphant despots, he was surrounded in his last moments by his faith¬ ful friends and disciples, to whose talents and affection he might safely trust the vindication of his fame, and the unsullied whiteness of his memory: lie knew that his hour of glory must come, and that it would not pass away. The APPENDIX. 437 negro had none of these aids; he was a man friendless and despised; the sympathies of society were locked up against him ; he was to atone for an odious crime, by an ignominious death ; the consciousness of his innocence was confined to his own bosom, there probably to sleep for ever : to the rest of mankind he was a wretched criminal; an object perhaps of con¬ tempt and detestation, even to the guilty com¬ panions of his prison-house ; he had no phi¬ losophy with which to reason down those natural misgivings, which may be supposed to precede the violent dissolution of life and body: he could make no appeal to posterity to reverse an unjust judgment. — To have borne all this patiently, would have been much: he bore it heroically. Having ended his discourse, he was conducted to the scaffold, where having calmly surveyed the crowds collected to witness his fate, he requested leave to address them. Having ob¬ tained permission, he stept firmly to the edge of the scaffold, and having commanded silence by his gestures, “ you are come,” said he, “ to be “ spectators of my sufferings ; you are mistaken, “ there is not a person in this crowd but suffers « more than I do. I am cheerful and contented, “ for I am innocent.” He then observed, that he truly forgave all those who had taken any part in his condemnation, and believed that they had acted conscientiously from the evidence before them; and disclaimed all idea of im- FF 3 438 APPENDIX. puting guilt to any one. He then turned to his counsel, who with feelings, which honoured humanity, had attended him to the scaffold j to “ you, Sir,” said he, “ I am indeed most grateful, “ had you been my son, you could not have acted “ by me more kindlyand observing his tears, he continued ; “ this, Sir, distresses me beyond “ any thing I have felt yet. I entreat you will “ feel no distress on my account, I am happy then praying Heaven to reward his benevolence, he took leave of him, and signified his readiness to die; but requested he might be excused from having his eyes and hands bandaged ; wishing, with an excusable pride, to give this final proof of his unshaken firmness: he, however, sub¬ mitted on this point, to the representations of the sheriff, and died without the quivering of a muscle. The spectators, who had been drawn together, partly by idle curiosity, and partly by a de¬ testation of his supposed crime, retired with tears for his fate, and execrations on his mur¬ derers. APPENDIX. 4.39 No. II. OF THE AMERICAN CHARACTER. I ventured at an early period of my travels to delineate some features of the American charac¬ ter. Whatever I have seen since has tended' to confirm the impression then made, and this agreement of early impressions with subsequent experience may be admitted to prove that the national character is strongly pronounced, and therefore readily appreciated. Notwithstanding the important differences of climate, habits of life, and religion, there exists throughout the Union a feature of similitude countervailing all these. This feature is govern¬ ment. Political institutions have in other coun¬ tries a feeble and secondary influence: the duties of a subject are, for the most part passive; those of the American citizen are active, and perpetu¬ ally acting j and as they operate equally on every member of society, their general controul over the whole community must, in most instances, exceed that of any partial habit or opinion. The common qualities which may be said to be generated by this influence, are, intelligence, or a quick perception of utility, both general and individual; hence their attachment to free¬ dom, and to every species of improvement both public and private : energy, and perseverance in carrying their plans into effect; qualities in fact f f 4 440 APPENDIX. deducible from the former ; we are steady in pursuing, when thoroughly convinced of the value of the object: gravity of manner and de¬ portment, because they are habitually occupied upon matters of deep interest: taciturnity, which is the offspring of thought. They appear deficient in imagination or the poetry of life, because all its realities are at their disposal. They seem to have little sympathy, because their social system does not compel them to suffer. Oppression engenders pity •, disease and death require only resignation. But beside these general features, which may be considered as common to the whole mass of American citizens, each grand division of the Union has its own peculiar characteristics. By grand divisions, I mean, 1. The New England States ; 2. The Central; 3. The Southern ; and 4. The States to the west of the Alleganies. THE NEW ENGLAND STATES. The author of “ Letters from Virginia,” thus pourtrays the New Englanders, or Yankees. “ My young friend Manly came in to see “ me last evening. ‘ You are a traveller,’ said “ he, ‘ and make it a point to see every thing. “ Pray have you seen a Yankee yet about our “ wharves ?’ ‘ A Yankee ,’ said I, * what “ sort of an animal is that ?’ * A very strange “ animal, I assure you,* said he, with a smile. “ * It has the body of a man, but not the soul. 4 APPENDIX. 441 “ However, I mean one of our New England “ friends, who visit us in small crafts, to get “ our money. These are certainly a very “ strange race of people. You will see them “ with their eel-skins upon their hair, to save “ the expence of barbers, and their ear-rings in “ their ears, to improve their sight, to see how “ to cheat you better, I suppose. They would “ die sooner than part with one of these orna- “ ments, unless you pay ’em well for it. At “ the same time they live upon nothing. A “ rasher of pork is a feast for them, even on “ holidays. Their favorite drink is nothing “ but switchel, or molasses and water, which “ they will tell you is better than burgundy or “ champaign. They are however better taught “ than fed, and make the finest bold sailors in “ the world. They can sail to the North Pole “ and back again in an egg-shell, if the ice “ does not break it. Indeed, they are seamen “ by birth, and box the compass in their “ cradles. You know our genteel laziness un- “ fits us for the drudgery of commerce. So “ we leave it all to the Yankees. These craft- “ ing part of them, come here at all seasons “ in their sloops and schooners, bringing a “ miscellaneous cargo, of all sorts of notions, “ not metaphysical but material, such as cheese, “ butter, potatoes, cranberries, onions, beets, “ coffins —you smile, but it is a fact, that “ understanding some years ago, that the yel- “ low fever was raging here with great vio- appendix. Wi “ lence, some of them very charitably risked “ their own lives, to bring us a large quantity <« of ready-made coffins of all sizes, in nests, “ one within another, to supply customers at a « moment’s warning; an insult which we have “ hardly forgiven them yet. You will see them “ sailing up into all our bays, rivers, and creeks, wherever the water runs. As the winter “ comes on, they creep into some little har- «* hour, where they anchor their vessels, and “ open store on board, retailing out their ar- “ tides of every kind, to the poor country- men, who come to buy. Towards the spring, «they sail away with a load of plank or « shingles, which they often get very cheap. « Indeed the whole race of Yankee seamen « are certainly the most enterprising people in «« the world. They are in all quarters of the (i globe where a penny is to be made. In short, « they love money a little better than their own “ lives. What is worst, they are not always very « nice about the means of making it; but are k ready to break laws like cob-webs, whenever it « suits their interest. You know' we passed « an embargo-law sometime ago, to starve the << £ n glish out of house and home, and made tt all our coasting captains give bond, and take *t oath, that they would not sail to any foreign « port or place whatever. Suddenly there began « to blow a set of the most violent gales that had ** ever been known, and w T hat was rather singular, ««they all insisted upon blowing towards the APPENDIX. 443 “ West Indies, in the very teeth of the law, “ as if on purpose to save the penalty of the “ bonds. It looked indeed, to good people, as “ if Providence had determined to take those “ islands under his care, and send them supplies “ to save them from famine, in spite of the “ American Congress. Our rulers, however, “ who had learnt from history that these Yankees “ used formerly to deal with witches, began to “ suspect that all these storms were raised by “ the black art, or at least were manufactured “ in a notary’s office, expressly for the occasion, “ and therefore resolved to lay them at once. So “ they passed a law, which declared in substance “ that no kind of accident or distress should be “ given in evidence, to save the penalties of the “bonds. This act poured sweet oil upon the “ ocean at once, and produced a profound calm, « in spite of witches and notaries, and the “ winds soon went on to blow from all points of “ the compass as formerly, any thing in the act “ entitled, an Act laying an embargo , &c. to the* “ contrary notwithstanding.’ ” Letter VI. This is confessedly a caricature, but its dis¬ torted lineaments may help us to some of the true features of the New Englanders. They are the Scotchmen of the United States. Inhabiting a country of limited extent, and incapable of maintaining its own population, their industry naturally and successfully directed itself to com¬ mercial pursuits; but as even these became gra¬ dually insufficient to maintain their growing 444 APPENDIX. numbers, they began at an early period of their history to seek for settlements among their neigh¬ bours to the south and west. As it is probable that those who first began to have recourse to that expedient, were such as preferred the exertion of their wits, to an encrease of manual toil, reckless adventurers who were well-spared at home, they were far from being acceptable guests. The plodding Dutch and Germans of New York and Pennsylvania, held them in par¬ ticular abhorrence, and, as far as they could, hunted them from their neighbourhood, when¬ ever they attempted to gain a footing in it. “ It is (says the author of the “ Olive Branch*,”) “ within the memory of those over whose chins “ no razor has ever mowed a harvest, that “ Yankee and sharper were regarded as nearly “ synonimous, and this was not among the “ low, and the illiberal, the base, and the “ vulgar. It pervaded all ranks of society. In “ the Middle and Southern states, traders were “ universally very much on their guard against “ Yankee tricks, when dealing with those of the “ Eastern.” Page 274. It is therefore in this class of adventurers and emigrants we are to look for the least favourable traits of the New England character: patient, industrious, frugal, enterprising, and intelligent, * A political publication, by William Carey, of Philadel¬ phia, supposed to have had a greater run than any work of the sort, since Paine’s Common Sense; seven editions having been called for in thirteen months. APPENDIX. 445 it cannot be denied, but that they are frequently knavish, mean, and avaricious; as men who make gain the master-spring of their act ions. Here we perceive the force and meaning of the Virginian satire, but here too its application must be restricted : even emigration seems to be so far moulded into a system, that it is no longer the resort merely of rogues and vagabonds, but is embraced as an eligible mode of bettering their condition by the young and enterprising of all classes; it is a wholesome drain to the exuberance of population, and preserves at home that comparative equality, on which public hap¬ piness and morals so entirely depend. The New Englanders should be seen at home to be correctly judged of: as far as testimony goes, it is universally in their favour. “ I feel a pride, “and pleasure (says Mr. Carey) in doingjus- “ tice to the yeomanry of the Eastern States : “ they will not suffer in a comparison with the “ same class of men in any part of the world. “ They are upright, sober, orderly, and regular; “ shrewd, intelligent, and well-informed ; and I “ believe there is not a greater degree of genuine “ native urbanity among the yeomanry of any “ country under the canopy of heaven.” “ Olive “ Branch.” Page 275. This is the character my own experience recognized in the inhabit¬ ants of the beautiful Genesee country, which has been entirely cleared and settled by New Englanders. 446 APPENDIX. It is impossible to quit the Eastern States without speaking of their religion, which is scarcely more their glory in their own eyes, than their opprobrium in those of their neighbours. Pretensions to superior sanctity are always re¬ ceived with jealousy, especially by a people, among whom devotion is in repute. The contrast too, betwixt the pious seeming, and substantial knavery of many of the New Eng* land adventurers, naturally brings these pre¬ tensions into still greater discredit, and extorts a wish, that they had either a little more morality, or a little less religion. There is, however, no rea¬ son to doubt that in the bulk of the inhabitants, religion is not merely a shew and pretext, but a belief and practice: men tire of mutual hypo¬ crisy, when it has grown too common to impose. Calvinism, rigid, uncompromising Calvinism, is the inheritance the New Englanders have re¬ ceived from their forefathers ; it was the sacred fire their ancestors bore with them into exile, and which has continued to burn in the hearts, and on the altars of their descendants; sometimes in¬ deed like “ the furnace blue,” to which Moloch treated his worshippers, but of late years with a less fatal, though still angry, light, round which the trumpets and timbrels of the priests still sound *' in dreadful harmony.” Besides the indulgence of spiritual pride, (for spiritual pride is a luxury of the highest rate to those who are too frugal, or too conscientious to to- APPENDIX. 447 lerate grosser enjoyments,) the early colonists per¬ ceived the Calvinistic system of church discipline to be best suited to the poverty and simplicity of their condition. Calvinism has therefore grown up with republicanism, and from an accidental connec¬ tion, claims to be of the same kindred : but the vital spirit of Calvinism is intolerance, and into¬ lerance is in no shape a republican principle. It is true, this spirit is, to a certain extent, mitigated by the partial influence of good sense, and by the temper of the age, but it is still the same in essence, and waits but a favourable opportunity to prove itself the same in action. I do not, however, ascribe intolerance to Calvinism as a peculiarity ; it is a quality common to religious sects of every denomination, whenever faith girds on the sword of temporal power. The disposition of any sect to persecute others seems in exact proportion to its strength and credulity; increasing as these increase and unite, and grow¬ ing mild as they fade and separate. Thus all religions have in their turns been persecuting and tolerant, bloody and inoffensive. The Roman Catholic religion, harmless in Canada, and in the United States, opprest in Ireland, bed-ridden in France, still exhibits the vitality of its poison in Spain and Portugal. The Anglican church, persecuting even in its cradle, persecuting at its first establishment in Virginia, and still armed with exclusive privileges and penal statutes, has grown gradually tolerant from a decay of faith 448 APPENDIX. and a division of power. If Calvinism still re- tains in America the harsher features of its founder and early disciples, it is because the New Englanders have as yet found little leisure to unsettle their belief; while believers, by elevating their mortal passions and human weak¬ nesses to the throne of God, have made a cherished idol of their own pride, and authorize intolerance by Divine example. It is to be regretted, that this fanatical spirit is not confined to the Eastern States : either, for, that it is in itself naturally contagious, or that it has been carried abroad by emigration, it is now spreading rapidly through all parts of the Union ; sometimes, indeed, in a manner, which may well provoke a smile* ; but more frequently * I once picked up a work entitled “ The Christian's Journal,” written by a minister of Haddington, the aim of which was to extract some religious feeling from every ob¬ ject which might-meet a Christian eye, as for instance, " Now' “ the butcher shaves the neck of yonder sow, that he may 6t give her the killing stab, so Satan tickles and flatters “ my soul that he may murder her. — Yonder feed a flock of 44 geese ; a covey of ducks ; let me never resemble the first “ in being heady and high-minded ; nor the last in speaking “ much, and doing little, in walking slow, Sec. — Yonder are “ two kilns, one for drying corn or malt, another for burning “ bricks ; think, my soul, how Jehovah’s son was dried 44 roasted, and burnt amidst his Father’s indignation.” — The following must, I imagine, be spoken in a female character; 44 How filthy is this stable; but stop my soul, with wonder “ stop ! Was Jehovah born in a stable for me? Did he lie 4 ‘ in a manger, that he might lie for ever betw ixt my breasts, APPENDIX. 449 with a rigidity of aspect, before which the graces and pleasures of life wither. The Americans are habitually serious and silent, even beyond English taciturnity.* Their spirits are seldom p. 211. APPENDIX. 459 members of society; but says a proverb, those whom the devil finds idle, he sets about his own work. Dissipation must be always the resource of the unoccupied, and ill-instructed. If the political effects of slavery are perni¬ cious to the citizen, its moral effects are still more fatal to the man. “ There must doubt- “ less,” (says Mr. Jefferson,) “ be an unhappy 44 influence on the manners of the people, pro- “ duced by the existence of slavery among us. The whole commerce between master and “ slave, is a perpetual exercise of the most “ boisterous passions; the most unremitting des- “ potism on the one part, and degrading sub- 44 missions on the other. Our children see this, 44 and learn to imitate it, for man is an imitative 44 animal. The parent storms, the child looks “ on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on “ the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, «« give loose to the worst of passions, and thus 44 nursed, educated, and daily exercised in ty- 44 ranny, cannot but be stamped by.it with odious 44 peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy 44 who can retain his morals and manners un- 44 depraved by such circumstances.” Notes p. 241. We know the time of prodigies is past, and that natural effects will follow their causes. The Manners of the lower classes in the Southern siates are brutal and depraved. * Those of the * The stage drivers, for instance, are more inhuman, and much inferior in decency of behaviour to the negroes, who 460 APPENDIX. upper, corrupted by power, are frequently ar¬ rogant and assuming: unused to restraint or contradiction of any kind, they are necessarily quarrelsome ; and in their quarrels, the native ferocity of their hearts breaks out. Duelling is not only in general vogue and fashion, but is prac¬ tised with circumstances of peculiar vindictive¬ ness. It is usual when two persons have agreed to fight, for each to go out regularly and practise at a mark, in the presence of their friends, during the interval which precedes their meet¬ ing; one of the parties therefore commonly falls. Did the whole of the above causes operate with undiminished influence, the result would be horrible; but there are several circumstances continually working in mitigation of those evils. The American form of government, as power¬ fully impels to energy, as slave-proprietorship does to indolence. The example of neighbour¬ ing states continually urges on improvements. The learned and mercantile professions have little direct interest in the slave system, and are therefore less infected by its contagion. I have already noted a distinction betwixt the farmers of the upper country, and the planters of the lower. There is thus a consi¬ derable portion of comparatively untainted po¬ pulation. Even among the planters there are are sometimes employed in the same capacity; so that it seems not improbable that the effects of slavery, upon the lower orders at least, are more debasing to the governing class, than to the governed. APPENDIX. 4b 1 individuals, who, by a judicious use of the ad¬ vantages of leisure and fortune, by travel, and extensive intercourse with the world, have acquired manners more polished, and sentiments more refined than are the common lot of their fellow-citizens in other portions of the Union: but these are rare exceptions, stars in dark¬ ness, which shine, more sensibly to mark the deep shadows of the opposite extreme, where the contrast is strong, perpetual, and disgusting. THE WESTERN STATES. The inhabitants of Kentucky are, or at least ■were (for in America the wheel of society turns so swiftly, that 20 years work the changes of a, century) considered as the Irishmen of the United States: that is to say, a similar state of society had produced, in a certain degree, similar manners. The Kentuckians inhabited a fertile country, with few large towns or manufactories; they had therefore both leisure and abundance, as far as the necessaries of life went: they were consequently disposed to conviviality and social intercourse; and as the arts were little under¬ stood, and the refinements of literature and science unknown, their board was seldom spread by the graces, or their festivity restricted within the boundaries of temperance. They were in fact hospitable and open-hearted, but boisterous, and addicted to those vulgar, and even brutal 4 62 APPENDIX. amusements, which were once common in Vir¬ ginia, and have been common in all countries, as long as man knew no pleasure more refined than the alternate excitement and dissipation of his animal spirits by feats of physical strength, and coarse debauchery. To a certain extent therefore, there were points of similitude betwixt the Kentucky farmers and the Irish gentry, but there was al¬ ways this point of distinction; in Kentucky, leisure and abundance belonged to every man who would work for them ; in Ireland, they ap¬ pertained only to the few for whom the many worked. Kentucky has of late years become a manu¬ facturing state: towns have grown up rapidly, and the luxuries of social intercourse are scarcely less understood in Lexington than in New York : manners must therefore have undergone a con¬ siderable change, and those peculiarities of cha¬ racter, which were once supposed to mark Ken¬ tuckians, must probably now be sought among the more recent inhabitants of Tenessee or In¬ diana. It may safely be affirmed that between the Alleganies and the Missouri, every degree of civilization is to be met with which shades the character of social man, from a state of con¬ siderable luxury and refinement, until on the very verge of the pale, he almost ceases to be gre¬ garious, and attaches himself to a life of savage in¬ dependence. There are settlers, if they may be so 1 APPENDIX. 4G3 called, who are continually pushing forward, aban¬ doning their recent improvements as fast as neigh¬ bourhood overtakes them, and plunging deeper into primeval wildernesses. Mr. Boon, is a per¬ son of this description; he explored Kentucky in 1760; since this period, he has constantly formed the advanced patrole of civilization, until he is now, I believe, on the Missouri. It is a maxim with him, that a country is too thickly peopled, as soon as he cannot fall a tree from the forest into his ow r n inclosure. It seems a very simple process to go and settle in a fertile country, where land may be procured for two dollars the acre; a glance, how¬ ever, over an uncleared, and heavily-timbered tract, is sufficient, not only to correct our notions of the facility of the enterprise, but to render it astonishing, that men are found sufficiently ven¬ turesome and enduring to undertake the task. The stoutest labourer might well shrink at the prospect, but hope and freedom brace both soul and sinews. The manner in which the young ad¬ venturer sets out upon his pilgrimage, has been alreadv described in livelier colours than mine. j There is something almost poetical in the con¬ fidence and hardihood of such undertakings, and I have heard a kind of ballad-song, which turns upon them, with some such burthen as this : “ ’Tis you can reap and mow, love, And I can spin, and sew, And we’ll settle on the banks of The pleasant Ohio.” 4 64 APPENDIX. How these adventurers have thriven is well known ; Kentucky, first settled in 1773, in 1792 had a population estimated at 100,000, and by the census of 1810, at 406,511. Morse reckons the whole population of the Western territory in 1790, at 6000. According to the census of 1810, Ohio alone contained 227,843. Tenessee 261,227; and the other territories about 118,000; making an increase of 100 fold in 20 years. This rate is prodigious, even when compared with the most thriving of the Atlantic States. The population of New York, was in 1756 - - 97,000 1786 - - 239,000 1805 - 586,000 1810 - - 960,000 Averaging an increase of about twenty-four fold in forty years. In most of the New England States, the increase is extremely small: so that they seem to have nearly attained the amount of population their soil will support with ease and comfort. Connecticut contained in 1756 - - 130,611 inhabitants 1774 - - 198,000 1782 - - 203,000 1805 - - 252,000 1810 - - 262,000 It may be supposed that with such an ex¬ traordinary growth, the demand for labour through the Western states is very great: even in Upper Canada the want of mechanics and arti¬ ficers is severely felt. The cause is easily as- APPENDIX. 4 G5 signed. Whenever great facilities exist for becoming a land-owner, men will unwillingly submit to the drudgery of menial or mechanical occupations, or at least submit to them so long only, as will afford them the means of taking up what they will consider a preferable mode of life. Wages are therefore very high through the whole of the continent; in the new States from the natural scarcity of labour, in the old, from the competition of the new. I saw the following terms offered to journeymen tailors in a Knoxville newspaper: three dollars for making a coat; one for each job ; their board and lodg¬ ing found them, and certain employment for one year. Knoxville is the capital of East Tenessee. The views and feelings of the Western States are naturally influenced by their local position. All their streams, the Ohio, the Wabash, the Miami, the Kanhawa, and the Monongahela, discharge themselves finally into the Mississippi; the Missouri coming from the opposite direction, finds the same vent. The inhabitants look therefore to the gulf of Mexico, as the natural outlet of their commerce ; to them the Atlantic States are the back country. What changes this feeling may eventually work in the Union, it is now useless to enquire, but it seems evident, that at no distant date, the Western States wilt have far out-grown their neighbours in power and population. Already, the anticipating glance of ambition U H 466 APPENDIX. surveys an ample field ; the whole continent is parcelled out. Besides Indiana, the Mississippi, the Illinois, the Michigan, and the North-west territories, equal in extent to four Englands, the Missouri territory is thus described in the Ame¬ rican “ Traveller’s Directory:” “Boundaries — “ On the north, unsettled country ; south, Loui- “ siana, and Gulf of Mexico; east, Upper Canada, “ North-west territory, Illinois territory, Ken- “ tucky, Tenessee, Mississippi territory, and “ Louisiana; west, the Pacific Ocean, and south- “ west the Spanish internal provinces. Extent “ from north to south, about 1680 miles; “ from east to west, about 1680 miles. Area, “ about 1,580,000 square miles.” The popula¬ tion is as yet something inadequate, being only 21 , 000 . It is curious to observe, for how much, or rather for how little, the rights of the real pro¬ prietors of the soil, the Indians, count in these convenient distributions. They are in fact con¬ sidered as a race of wild animals, not less in¬ jurious to settlement and cultivation than waives and bears; but too strong, or too cunning to be exterminated exactly in the same way. Their final extinction, however, is not less certain. Then will the Queen of the Pacific ascend the throne of undisputed empire, “ et victrix domi - “ nabitur Orbt .” APPENDIX. 467 No. III. OF THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. Kt The United States, despairing of producing good man* €x ners, or a regard for private duties, by infusing into go- vernment the strongest solicitations to disregard public “ duties ; endeavour to secure the morality of government, Ci as the best security against the licentiousness of the peo- u pie. They forbear to excite ambition and avarice by he-