I Left The See House At Five O'clock On The Last Day
Of October, So Ill That I Could Scarcely Speak Or Stand.
It was pitch-
dark, and the rain was pouring in torrents.
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.
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