Part 8

From Brandtford we came to Paris, a new settlement, beautifully situated, and thence to Woodstock, a distance of eighteen miles. There is no village, only isolated inns, far removed from each other. In one of these, kept by a Frenchman, I dined on milk and eggs and excellent bread. Here I found every appearance of prosperity and plenty. The landlady, an American woman, told me they had come into this wilderness twenty years ago, when there was not another farmhouse within fifty miles. She had brought up and settled in comfort several sons and daughters. An Irish farmer came in, who had refreshments spread for him in the porch, and with whom I had some amusing conversation. He, too, was prospering with a large farm and a large family--here a blessing and a means of wealth, too often in the old country a curse and a burden. The good-natured fellow was extremely scandalised by my homely and temperate fare, which he besought me to mend by accepting a glass of whisky out of his own travelling-store, genuine potheen, which he swore deeply, and not unpoetically, "had never seen God's beautiful world, nor the blessed light of day, since it had been bottled in ould Ireland." He told me, boastingly, that at Hamilton he had made eight hundred dollars by the present extraordinary rise in the price of wheat. In the early part of the year wheat had been selling for three or four dollars a bushel, and rose this summer to twelve and fourteen dollars a bushel, owing to the immense quantities exported during the winter to the back settlements of Michigan and the Illinois.

[Footnote 8: From its resemblance in form to a shoe, this splendid flower bears every where the same name. The English call it lady's-slipper; the Indians know it as the moccasin flower.]

ROADS IN CANADA.

The whole drive would have been productive of unmixed enjoyment, but for one almost intolerable drawback. The roads were throughout so execrably bad, that no words can give you an idea of them. We often sank into mud-holes above the axletree; then, over trunks of trees laid across swamps, called here corduroy roads, were my poor bones dislocated. A wheel here and there, or broken shaft lying by the way-side, told of former wrecks and disasters. In some places they had, in desperation, flung huge boughs of oak into the mud abyss, and covered them with clay and sod, the rich green foliage projecting on either side. This sort of illusive contrivance would sometimes give way, and we were nearly precipitated into the midst. By the time we arrived at Blandford, my hands were swelled and blistered by continually grasping with all my strength an iron bar in front of my vehicle, to prevent myself from being flung out, and my limbs ached wofully. I never beheld or imagined such roads. It is clear that the people do not apply any, even the commonest, principles of roadmaking; no drains are cut, no attempt is made at levelling or preparing a foundation. The settlers around are too much engrossed by the necessary toil for a daily subsistence to give a moment of their time to road-making, without compulsion or good payment. The statute labour does not appear to be duly enforced by the commissioners and magistrates, and there are no labourers, and no spare money: specie, never very plentiful in these parts, is not to be had at present, and the 500,000_l_. voted during the last session of the provincial parliament for the repair of the roads is not yet even raised, I believe.

Nor is this all: the vile state of the roads, the very little communication between places not far distant from each other, leave it in the power of ill-disposed persons to sow mischief among the ignorant, isolated people.

On emerging from a forest road seven miles in length, we stopped at a little inn to refresh the poor jaded horses. Several labourers were lounging about the door, and I spoke to them of the horrible state of the roads. They agreed, one and all, that it was entirely the fault of the Government; that their welfare was not cared for; that it was true that money had been voted for the roads, but that before anything could be done, or a shilling of it expended, it was always necessary to write to the old country to ask the king's permission--which might be sent or not--who could tell? And meantime they were ruined for want of roads, which it was nobody's business to reclaim.

It was in vain that I attempted to point out to the orator of the party the falsehood and absurdity of this notion. He only shook his head, and said he knew better.

One man observed, that as the team of Admiral Vansittart (one of the largest proprietors in the district) had lately broken down in a mud-hole, there was some hope that the roads about here might be looked to.

About sunset I arrived at Blandford, dreadfully weary, and fevered, and bruised, having been more than nine hours travelling twenty-five miles; and I must needs own that not all my _savoir faire_ could prevent me from feeling rather dejected and shy, as I drove up to the residence of a gentleman, to whom, indeed, I had not a letter, but whose family, as I had been assured, were prepared to receive me. It was rather formidable to arrive thus, at fall of night, a wayfaring lonely woman, spiritless, half-dead with fatigue, among entire strangers; but my reception set me at ease in a moment. The words "We have been long expecting you!" uttered in a kind, cordial voice, sounded "like sweetest music to attending ears." A handsome, elegant-looking woman, blending French ease and politeness with English cordiality, and a whole brood of lively children of all sizes and ages, stood beneath the porch to welcome me with smiles and outstretched hands. Can you imagine my bliss, my gratitude?--no!--impossible, unless you had travelled for three days through the wilds of Canada. In a few hours I felt quite at home, and my day of rest was insensibly prolonged to a week, spent with this amiable and interesting family--a week, ever while I live, to be remembered with pleasurable and grateful feelings.

WOODSTOCK.

The region of Canada in which I now find myself, is called the London District; you will see its situation at once by a glance on the map. It lies between the Gore District and the Western District, having to the south a large extent of the coast of Lake Erie; and on the north the Indian territories, and part of the southern shore of Lake Huron. It is watered by rivers flowing into both lakes, but chiefly by the river Thames, which is here (about one hundred miles from its mouth) a small but most beautiful stream, winding like the Isis at Oxford. Woodstock, the nearest _village_, as I suppose I must in modesty call it, is fast rising into an important town, and the whole district is, for its scenery, fertility, and advantages of every kind, perhaps the finest in Upper Canada.[9]

The society in this immediate neighbourhood is particularly good; several gentlemen of family, superior education, and large capital, (among whom is the brother of an English and the son of an Irish peer, a colonel and a major in the army,) have made very extensive purchases of land, and their estates are in flourishing progress.

One day we drove over to the settlement of one of these magnificos, Admiral Vansittart, who has already expended upwards of twenty thousand pounds in purchases and improvements. His house is really a curiosity, and at the first glance reminded me of an African village--a sort of Timbuctoo set down in the woods; it is two or three miles from the high road, in the midst of the forest, and looked as if a number of log-huts had jostled against each other by accident, and there stuck fast.

The admiral had begun, I imagine, by erecting, as is usual, a log-house, while the woods were clearing; then, being in want of space, he added another, then another and another, and so on, all of different shapes and sizes, and full of a seaman's contrivances--odd galleries, passages, porticos, corridors, saloons, cabins and cupboards; so that if the outside reminded me of an African village, the interior was no less like that of a man-of-war.

The drawing-room, which occupies an entire building, is really a noble room, with a chimney in which they pile twenty oak logs at once. Around this room runs a gallery, well lighted with windows from without, through which there is a constant circulation of air, keeping the room warm in winter and cool in summer. The admiral has, besides, so many ingenious and inexplicable contrivances for warming and airing his house, that no insurance office will insure him upon any terms. Altogether it was the most strangely picturesque sort of dwelling I ever beheld. The admiral's sister, an accomplished woman of independent fortune, has lately arrived from Europe, to take up her residence in the wilds. Having recently spent some years in Italy, she has brought out with her all those pretty objects of _virtu_, with which English travellers load themselves in that country. Here, ranged round the room, I found views of Rome and Naples; tazzi, and marbles, and sculpture in lava, or alabaster; miniature copies of the eternal Sibyl and Cenci, Raphael's Vatican, &c.--things not wonderful nor rare in themselves--the wonder was to see them here.

The woods are yet close up to the house; but there is a fine well-cultivated garden, and the process of clearing and log-burning proceeds all around with great animation.

On Sunday we attended the pretty little church at Woodstock, which was filled by the neighbouring settlers of all classes: the service was well read, and the hymns were sung by the ladies of the congregation. The sermon, which treated of some abstract and speculative point of theology, seemed to me not well adapted to the sort of congregation assembled. The situation of those who had here met together to seek a new existence in a new world, might have afforded topics of instruction, praise, and gratitude, far more practical, more congenial, more intelligible, than a mere controversial essay on a disputed text, which elicited no remark nor sympathy that I could perceive. After the service, the congregation remained some time assembled before the church-door, in various and interesting groups--the well-dressed families of settlers who had come from many miles' distance in vehicles well suited to the roads--that is to say, carts, or as they call them here teams or wagons; the belles and the beaux of "the Bush," in Sunday trim--and innumerable children. Many were the greetings and inquiries; the news and gossip of all the neighbourhood had to be exchanged. The conversation among the ladies was of marriages and births--lamentations on the want of servants, and the state of the roads--the last arrival of letters from England--and speculations upon the character of a new neighbour come to settle in the Bush: Among the gentlemen, it was of crops and clearings, lumber, price of wheat, road-mending, deer-shooting, log-burning, and so forth--subjects in which I felt a lively interest and curiosity; and if I could not take a very brilliant and prominent part in the discourse, I could at least listen, like the Irish corn-field, "with all my ears."

I think it was this day at dinner that a gentleman described to me a family of Mohawk Indians, consisting of seven individuals, who had encamped upon some of his uncleared land in two wigwams. They had made their first appearance in the early spring, and had since subsisted by hunting, selling their venison for whisky or tobacco; their appearance and situation were, he said, most wretched, and their indolence extreme. Within three months, five out of the seven were dead of consumption; two only were left--languid, squalid, helpless, hopeless, heartless.

[Footnote 9: The average produce of an acre of land is greater throughout Canada than in England. In these western districts greater than in the rest of Canada.]

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BLANDFORD.

After several pleasant and interesting visits to the neighbouring settlers, I took leave of my hospitable friends at Blandford with deep and real regret; and, in the best and only vehicle which could be procured--videlicet, a baker's cart--set out for London, the chief town of the district; the distance being about thirty miles--a long day's journey; the cost seven dollars.

The man who drove me proved a very intelligent and civilised person. He had come out to Canada in the capacity of a gentleman's servant; he now owned some land--I forget how many acres--and was besides baker-general for a large neighbourhood, rarely receiving money in pay, but wheat, and other farm produce. He had served as constable of the district for two years, and gave me some interesting accounts of his thief-taking expeditions through the wild forests in the deep winter nights. He considered himself, on the whole, a prosperous man. He said he should be quite happy here, were it not for his wife, who fretted and pined continually after her "home."

The case of this poor fellow with his discontented wife is of no unfrequent occurrence in Canada; and among the better class of settlers the matter is worse still, the suffering more acute, and of graver consequences.

I have not often in my life met with contented and cheerful-minded women, but I never met with so many repining and discontented women as in Canada. I never met with _one_ woman recently settled here, who considered herself happy in her new home and country: I _heard_ of one, and doubtless there are others, but they are exceptions to the general rule. Those born here, or brought here early by their parents and relations, seemed to me very happy, and many of them had adopted a sort of pride in their new country, which I liked much. There was always a great desire to visit England, and some little airs of self-complacency and superiority in those who had been there, though for a few months only; but all, without a single exception, returned with pleasure, unable to forego the early habitual influences of their native land.

I like patriotism and nationality in women. Among the German women both these feelings give a strong tincture to the character; and, seldom disunited, they blend with peculiar grace in our sex: but with a great statesman they should stand well distinguished. Nationality is not always patriotism, and patriotism is not, necessarily, nationality. The English are more patriotic than national; the Americans generally more national than patriotic; the Germans both national and patriotic.

I have observed that really accomplished women, accustomed to what is called the best society, have more resources here, and manage better, than some women who have no pretensions of any kind, and whose claims to social distinction could not have been great anywhere, but whom I found lamenting over themselves as if they had been so many exiled princesses.

Imagine the position of a fretful, frivolous woman, strong neither in mind nor frame, abandoned to her own resources in the wilds of Upper Canada! No--nothing can be imagined so pitiable, so ridiculous, and, to borrow the Canadian word, "so shiftless."

My new friend and kind hostess was a being of quite a different stamp; and though I believe she was far from thinking that she had found in Canada a terrestrial paradise, and the want of servants and the difficulty of educating her family as she wished, were subjects of great annoyance to her; yet these and other evils she had met with a cheerful spirit. Here, amid these forest wilds, she had recently given birth to a lovely baby, the tenth, or indeed I believe the twelfth, of a flock of manly boys and blooming girls. Her eldest daughter mean time, a fair and elegant girl, was acquiring, at the age of fifteen, qualities and habits which might well make ample amends for the possession of mere accomplishments. She acted as manager in chief, and glided about in her household avocations with a serene and quiet grace which was quite charming.

OXFORD.

The road, after leaving Woodstock, pursued the course of the winding Thames. We passed by the house of Colonel Light, in a situation of superlative natural beauty on a rising ground above the river. A lawn, tolerably cleared, sloped down to the margin, while the opposite shore rose clothed in varied woods, which had been managed with great taste, and a feeling for the picturesque not common here; but the Colonel being himself an accomplished artist accounts for this. We also passed Beechville, a small but beautiful village, round which the soil is reckoned very fine and fertile; a number of most respectable settlers have recently bought land and erected houses here. The next place we came to was Oxford, or rather Ingersol, where we stopped to dine and rest previous to plunging into an extensive forest called the Pine Woods.

Oxford is a little village, presenting the usual saw-mill, grocery-store and tavern, with a dozen shanties congregated on the bank of the stream, which is here rapid and confined by high banks. Two back-woodsmen were in deep consultation over a wagon which had broken down in the midst of that very forest road we were about to traverse, and which they described as most execrable--in some parts even dangerous. As it was necessary to gird up my strength for the undertaking, I laid in a good dinner, consisting of slices of dried venison, broiled, hot cakes of Indian corn, eggs, butter, and a bowl of milk. Of this good fare I partook in company with the two back-woodsmen, who appeared to me perfect specimens of their class--tall and strong, and bronzed and brawny, and shaggy and unshaven--very much like two bears set on their hind legs; rude, but not uncivil, and spare of speech, as men who had lived long at a distance from their kind. They were too busy, however, and so was I, to feel or express any mutual curiosity. Time was valuable, appetite urgent; so we discussed our venison steaks in silence, and after dinner I proceeded.

The forest land through which I had lately passed was principally covered with _hard timber_, as oak, walnut, elm, basswood. We were now in a forest of pines, rising tall and dark, and monotonous on either side. The road, worse certainly "than fancy ever feigned or fear conceived," put my neck in perpetual jeopardy. The driver had often to dismount and partly fill up some tremendous hole with boughs before we could pass, or drag or lift the wagon over trunks of trees; or we sometimes sank into abysses from which it is a wonder to me that we _ever_ emerged. A natural question were--why did you not get out and walk?--Yes indeed! I only wish it had been possible. Immediately on the border of the road, so called, was the wild, tangled, untrodden thicket, as impervious to the foot as the road was impassable, rich with vegetation, variegated verdure, and flowers of loveliest dye, but the haunt of the rattlesnake, and all manner of living and creeping things not pleasant to encounter, or even to think of.

The mosquitos, too, began to be troublesome; but not being yet in full force, I contrived to defend myself pretty well, by waving a green branch before me whenever my two hands were not employed in forcible endeavours to keep my seat. These seven miles of pine forest we traversed in three hours and a half; and then succeeded some miles of open flat country called the Oak Plains, and so called because covered with thickets and groups of oak dispersed with a park-like and beautiful effect; and still flowers, flowers everywhere. The soil appeared sandy, and not so rich as in other parts. The road was comparatively good; and as we approached London, clearings and new settlements appeared on every side.

The sun had set amid a tumultuous mass of lurid threatening clouds, and a tempest was brooding in the air, when I reached the town, and found very tolerable accommodations in the principal inn. I was so terribly bruised and beaten with fatigue, that to move was impossible, and even to speak too great an effort. I cast my weary aching limbs upon the bed, and requested of the very civil and obliging young lady who attended to bring me some books and newspapers. She brought me thereupon an old compendium of geography, published at Philadelphia forty years ago, and three old newspapers.

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LONDON.

July 5.

The next morning the weather continued very lowering and stormy. I received several visitors, who, hearing of my arrival, had come with kind offers of hospitality and attention, such as are most grateful to a solitary stranger. I had also much conversation relative to the place and people, and the settlements around; and then I took a long walk about the town, of which I here give you the results.

When Governor Simcoe was planning the foundation of a capital for the whole province, he fixed at first upon the present site of London, struck by its many and obvious advantages. Its central position in the midst of these great lakes, being at an equal distance from Huron, Erie, and Ontario, in the finest and most fertile district of the whole province, on the bank of a beautiful stream, and at a safe distance from the frontier, all pointed it out as the most eligible site for a metropolis; but there was the want of land and water communication--a want which still remains the only drawback to its rising prosperity. A canal or railroad, running from Toronto and Hamilton to London, then branching off on the right to the harbour of Goderich on Lake Huron, and on the left to Sandwich on Lake Erie, were a glorious thing!--the one thing needful to make this fine country the granary and storehouse of the west; for here all grain, all fruits which flourish in the south of Europe, might be cultivated with success--the finest wheat and rice, and hemp and flax, and tobacco. Yet, in spite of this want, soon, I trust, to be supplied, the town of London has sprung up and become within ten years a place of great importance. In size and population it exceeds every town I have yet visited, except Toronto and Hamilton. The first house was erected in 1827; now, that is in 1837, it contains more than two hundred frame or brick houses; and there are many more building. The population may be about thirteen hundred people. The jail and court-house, comprised in one large stately edifice, seemed the glory of the townspeople. As for the style of architecture, I may not attempt to name or describe it; but a gentleman informed me, in rather equivocal phrase, that it was "_somewhat Gothic_." There are five places of worship, for the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Roman Catholics, and Baptists. The church is handsome. There are also three or four schools, and seven taverns. The Thames is very beautiful here, and navigable for boats and barges. I saw to-day a large timber raft floating down the stream, containing many thousand feet of timber. On the whole, I have nowhere seen such evident signs of progress and prosperity.