A bed on the floor in a public
sleeping-room! Think of that; a public sleeping-room! - men, women,
and children, only divided by a paltry curtain. Oh, ye gods! think
of the snoring, squalling, grumbling, puffing; think of the kicking,
elbowing, and crowding; the suffocating heat, the mosquitoes, with
their infernal buzzing - and you will form some idea of the misery
I endured the first night of my arrival in the bush.
"But these are not half the evils with which you have to contend.
You are pestered with nocturnal visitants far more disagreeable
than even the mosquitoes, and must put up with annoyances more
disgusting than the crowded, close room. And then, to appease the
cravings of hunger, fat pork is served to you three times a day. No
wonder that the Jews eschewed the vile animal; they were people of
taste. Pork, morning, noon, and night, swimming in its own grease!
The bishop who complained of partridges every day should have been
condemned to three months' feeding upon pork in the bush; and he
would have become an anchorite, to escape the horrid sight of
swine's flesh for ever spread before him. No wonder I am thin;
I have been starved - starved upon pritters and port, and that
disgusting specimen of unleavened bread, yclept cakes in the pan.
"I had such a horror of the pork diet, that whenever I saw the
dinner in progress I fled to the canoe, in the hope of drowning
upon the waters all reminiscences of the hateful banquet; but even
here the very fowls of the air and the reptiles of the deep lifted
up their voices, and shouted, 'Pork, pork, pork!'"
M - - remonstrated with his friend for deserting the country for
such minor evils as these, which, after all, he said, could easily
be borne.
"Easily borne!" exclaimed the indignant Wilson. "Go and try them;
and then tell me that. I did try to bear them with a good grace,
but it would not do. I offended everybody with my grumbling. I was
constantly reminded by the ladies of the house that gentlemen
should not come to this country without they were able to put up
with a LITTLE inconvenience; that I should make as good a settler
as a butterfly in a beehive; that it was impossible to be nice
about food and dress in the BUSH; that people must learn to eat
what they could get, and be content to be shabby and dirty, like
their neighbours in the BUSH, - until that horrid word BUSH became
synonymous with all that was hateful and revolting in my mind.
"It was impossible to keep anything to myself. The children pulled
my books to pieces to look at the pictures; and an impudent,
bare-legged Irish servant-girl took my towels to wipe the dishes
with, and my clothes-brush to black the shoes - an operation which
she performed with a mixture of soot and grease.
