The Englishwoman In America By Isabella Lucy Bird
























































































































 -  The high wind blew out the
lamp which was held at the door; an unpropitious commencement of a
journey. Something - Page 159
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The High Wind Blew Out The Lamp Which Was Held At The Door; An Unpropitious Commencement Of A Journey.

Something was wrong with the harness; the uncouth vehicle was nearly upset backwards; the steam ferryboat was the height of gloom, heated to a stifling extent, and full of people with oil-skin coats and dripping umbrellas.

We crossed the rushing St. Lawrence just as the yellow gas-lights of Montreal were struggling with the pale, murky dawn of an autumn morning, and reached the cars on the other side before it was light enough to see objects distinctly. Here the servant who had been kindly sent with me left me, and the few hours which were to elapse before I should join my friends seemed to present insurmountable difficulties. The people in the cars were French, the names of the stations were French, and "Prenez-garde de la locomotive!" denoted the crossings. How the laissez-faire habits of the habitans must he outraged by the clatter of a steam-engine passing their dwellings at a speed of thirty-five miles an hour! Yet these very habitans were talking in the most unconcerned manner in French about a railway accident in Upper Canada, by which forty- eight persons were killed! After a journey of two hours I reached Rouse's Point, and, entering a handsome steamer on Lake Champlain, took leave of the British dominions.

Before re-entering the territory of the stars and stripes, I will offer a few concluding remarks on Canada.

CHAPTER XIV.

Concluding remarks on Canada - Territory - Climate - Capabilities - Railways and canals - Advantages for emigrants - Notices of emigration - Government - The franchise - Revenue - Population - Religion - Education - The press - Literature - Observations in conclusion.

The increasing interest which attaches to this noble colony fully justifies me in devoting a chapter to a fuller account of its state and capabilities than has yet been given here.

Canada extends from Gaspe, on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, to Lake Superior. Its shores are washed by the lakes Huron, Erie, and Ontario, and by the river St. Lawrence as far as the 45th parallel of latitude; from thence the river flows through the centre of the province to the sea. Canada is bounded on the west and south by the Great Lakes and the United States; to the east by New Brunswick and the ocean; and to the north by the Hudson's Bay territory, though its limits in this direction are by no means accurately defined. Canada is but a small portion of the vast tract of country known under the name of British America, the area of which is a ninth part of the globe, and is considerably larger than that of the United States, being 2,630,163,200 acres.

Canada contains 17,939,000 occupied acres of land, only 7,300,000 of which are cultivated; and about 137,000,000 acres are still unoccupied. Nearly the whole of this vast territory was originally covered with forests, and from the more distant districts timber still forms a most profitable article of export; but wherever the land is cleared it is found to be fertile in an uncommon degree.

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