Within A Few Days After My Resolution Never Again To Trust Myself On Lake
Ontario, I Sailed Down It, On A Very Beautiful Morning, To Toronto.
The
royal mail steamer Arabian raced with us for the narrow entrance to the
canal which connects Burlington Bay with the main lake, and both captains
"piled on" to their utmost ability, but the Arabian passed us in
triumph.
The morning was so very fine, that I half forgot my dislike to
Lake Ontario. On the land side there was a succession of slightly elevated
promontories, covered with forests abounding in recent clearings, their
sombre colouring being relieved by the brilliant blue of the lake. I saw,
for the only time, that beautiful phenomenon called the "water-mirage," by
which trees, ships, and houses are placed in the most extraordinary and
sometimes inverted positions. Yet still these endless promontories
stretched away, till their distant outlines were lost in the soft blue
haze of the Indian summer. Yet there was an oppressiveness about the
tideless water and pestilential shore, and the white-hulled ships looked
like deserted punished things, whose doom for ages was to be ceaseless
sailing over these gloomy waters.
At Toronto my kind friend Mr. Forrest met me. He and his wife had invited
me some months before to visit them in their distant home in the Canadian
bush; therefore I was not a little surprised at the equipage which
awaited me at the hotel, as I had expected to jolt for twenty-two miles,
over corduroy roads, in a lumber-waggon. It was the most dashing vehicle
which I saw in Canada. It was a most unbush-like, sporting-looking,
high, mail phaëton, mounted by four steps; it had three seats, a hood in
front, and a rack for luggage behind. It would hold eight persons. The
body and wheels were painted bright scarlet and black; and it was drawn by
a pair of very showy-looking horses, about sixteen "hands" high, with
elegant and well-blacked harness. Mr. Forrest looked more like a sporting
English squire than an emigrant.
We drove out of Toronto by the Lake shore road, and I could scarcely
believe we were not by the sea, for a heavy surf was rolling and crashing
upon the beach, and no land was in sight on the opposite side. After some
time we came to a stream, with a most clumsy swing bridge, which was open
for the passage of two huge rafts laden with flour. This proceeding had
already occupied more than an hour, as we were informed by some
unfortunate détenus. We waited for half an hour while the raftmen
dawdled about it, but the rafts could not get through the surf, so they
were obliged to desist. I now reasonably supposed that they would have
shut the bridge as fast as possible, as about twenty vehicles, with
numerous foot-passengers, were waiting on either side; but no, they moved
it for a little distance, then smoked a bit, then moved it a few inches
and smoked again, and so on for another half-hour, while we were exposed
to a pitiless north-east wind. They evidently enjoyed our discomfiture,
and were trying how much of annoyance we would bear patiently. Fiery
tempers have to be curbed in Canada West, for the same spirit which at
home leads men not to "touch their hats" to those above them in station,
here would vent itself in open insolence and arrogance, if one requested
them to be a little quicker in their motions. The fabric would hardly come
together at all, and then only three joists appeared without anything to
cover them. This the men seemed to consider un fait accompli, and sat
down to smoke. At length, when it seemed impossible to bear a longer
detention with any semblance of patience, they covered these joists with
some planks, over which our horses, used to pick their way, passed in
safety, not, however, without overturning one of the boards, and leaving a
most dangerous gap. This was a favourable specimen of a Canadian bridge.
The manners of the emigrants who settle in Canada are far from
prepossessing. Wherever I heard torrents of slang and abuse of England;
wherever I noticed brutality of manner, unaccompanied by respect to
ladies, I always found upon inquiry that the delinquent had newly arrived
from the old country. Some time before I visited America, I saw a letter
from a young man who had emigrated, containing these words: "Here I
haven't to bow and cringe to gentlemen of the aristocracy - that is, to a
man who has a better coat on than myself." I was not prepared to find this
feeling so very prevalent among the lower classes in our own possessions.
The children are an improvement on their parents, and develop loyal and
constitutional sentiments. The Irish are the noisiest of the enemies of
England, and carry with them to Canada the most inveterate enmity to
"Sassenach" rule. The term "slang-whangers" must have been invented for
these.
After some miles of very bad road, which once had been corduroy, we got
upon a plank-road, upon which the draught is nearly as light as upon a
railroad. When these roads are good, the driving upon them is very easy;
when they are out of repair it is just the reverse. We came to an Indian
village of clap-board houses, built some years ago by Government for some
families of the Six Nations who resided here with their chief; but they
disliked the advances of the white man, and their remnants have removed
farther to the west. We drove for many miles through woods of the American
oak, little more than brushwood, but gorgeous in all shades of colouring,
from the scarlet of the geranium to deep crimson and Tyrian purple. Oh!
our poor faded tints of autumn, about which we write sentimental poetry!
Turning sharply round a bank of moss, and descending a long hill, we
entered the bush.
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