I Jumped Into The Boat, Where I Stood With My Feet In The Water, In
Company With Several Gentlemen With Dripping Umbrellas, Whose Marked Want
Of Nasal Development Rendered Disraeli's Description Of "Flat-Nosed
Franks" Peculiarly Appropriate.
The rain poured down as rain never pours
in England; and under these very dispiriting circumstances I began my
travels over the North American continent.
I went down to my miserable berth, and vainly tried to sleep, the
discomfort and mismanagement which prevailed leading my thoughts by force
of contrast to the order, cleanliness, and regularity of the inimitable
line of steamers on the West Highland coast. Wherever the means of
locomotion are concerned, these colonies are very far behind either the
"old country" or their enterprising neighbours in Canada; and at present
they do not appear conscious of the deficiencies which are sternly forced
upon a traveller's observation.
The prospect which appeared through the door was not calculated to please,
as it consisted of a low, dark, and suffocating cabin, filled with men in
suits of oilskin, existing in a steamy atmosphere, loaded with the odours
of india-rubber, tobacco, and spirits. The stewardess was ill, and my
companions were groaning; unheeded babies were crying; and the only
pleasing feature in the scene was the gruff old pilot, ubiquitous in
kindness, ever performing some act of humanity. At one moment he was
holding smelling-salts to some exhausted lady - at another carrying down a
poor Irishwoman, who, though a steerage passenger, should not, he said, be
left to perish from cold and hunger - and again, feeding some crying baby
with bread and milk. My clothes were completely saturated, and his good
offices probably saved me from a severe illness by covering me up with a
blanket.
At twelve we reached Shediac in New Brunswick, a place from which an
enormous quantity of timber is annually exported. It is a village in a
marsh, on a large bay surrounded by low wooded hills, and presents every
appearance of unhealthiness. Huge square-sided ships, English, Dutch, and
Austrian, were swallowing up rafts of pine which kept arriving from the
shore. The water on this coast is shallow, and, though our steamer was not
of more than 150 tons burthen, we were obliged to anchor nearly two miles
from shore.
Shediac bad recently been visited by the cholera, and there was an
infectious melancholy about its aspect, which, coupled with the fact that
I was wet, cold, and weary, and with the discovery that my escort and I
had not two ideas in common, had a tendency to produce anything but a
lively frame of mind.
We and our luggage were unceremoniously trundled into two large boats,
some of the gentlemen, I am sorry to say, forcing their way into the
first, in order to secure for themselves inside places in the stage. An
American gentleman offered our rowers a dollar if they could gain the
shore first, but they failed in doing so, and these very ungallant
individuals hired the first waggon, and drove off at full speed to the
Bend on the Petticodiac river, confident in the success of their scheme.
What was their surprise and mortification to find that a gentleman of our
party, who said he was "an old stager, and up to a dodge or two," had
leisurely telegraphed from Shediac for nine places!
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