Фредерик Марриет
Diary in America, Series One
Volume Two—Chapter Two
I have been for some time journeying through the province of Upper Canada, and, on the whole, I consider it the finest portion of all North America. In America every degree of longitude which you proceed west, is equal to a degree of latitude to the southward in increasing the mildness of the temperature. Upper Canada, which is not so far west as to sever you from the civilised world, has every possible advantage of navigation, and is at the same time, from being nearly surrounded by water, much milder than the American States to the southward of it. Every thing grows well and flourishes in Upper Canada; even tobacco, which requires a very warm atmosphere. The land of this province is excellent, but it is a hard land to clear, the timber being very close and of a very large size. A certain proof of the value of the land of Upper Canada is, that there are already so many Americans who have settled there. Most of them had originally emigrated to establish themselves in the neighbouring state of Michigan; but the greater part of that state is at present so unhealthy from swamps, and the people suffer so much from fever and agues, that the emigrants have fallen back upon Upper Canada, which (a very small portion of it excepted) is the most healthy portion of North America. I have before observed, that the Rideau and Welland canals, splendid works as they are, are too much in advance of the country: and had the Government spent one-half the money in opening communications and making good roads, the province would have been much more benefited. In the United States you have a singular proof of the advantages of communication; in the old continent, towns and villages rise up first, and the communications, are made afterwards; in the United States, the roads are made first, and when made, towns and villages make their appearance on each side of them, just as the birds drop down for their aliment upon the fresh furrows made across the fallow by the plough.
From Hamilton, on Lake Ontario, to Bradford, the country is very beautifully broken and undulating, occasionally precipitate and hilly. You pass through forests of splendid timber, chiefly fir, but of a size which is surprising. Here are masts for “tall admirals,” so lofty that you could not well perceive a squirrel, or even a large animal, if upon one of the topmast boughs. The pine forests are diversified by the oak; you sometimes pass through six or seven miles of the first description of timber, which gradually changes, until you have six or seven miles of forest composed entirely of oak. The road is repairing and levelling, preparatory to its being macadamised—certainly not before it was required, for it is at present execrable throughout the whole province. Every mile or so you descend into a hollow, at the bottom of which is what they term a mud hole, that is, a certain quantity of water and mud, which is of a depth unknown, but which you must fathom by passing through it. To give an Englishman an idea of the roads is not easy; I can only say that it is very possible for a horse to be drowned in one of the ruts, and for a pair of them to disappear, waggon and all, in a mud hole.
At Bradford, on Grand River, are located some remnants of the Mohawk tribe of Indians; they are more than demi-civilised; they till their farms, and have plenty of horses and cattle. A smart looking Indian drove into town, when I was there, in a waggon with a pair of good horses; in the waggon were some daughters of one of their chiefs; they were very richly dressed after their own fashion, their petticoats and leggings being worked with beads to the height of two feet from the bottom, and in very good taste; and they wore beaver hats and feathers of a pattern which used formerly to be much in vogue with the ladies of the seamen at Plymouth and Portsmouth.
From Bradford to London the roads are comparatively good; the country rises, and the plain is nearly one hundred feet above the level of the river Thames, a beautifully wide stream, whose two branches join at the site of this town. The land here is considered to be the finest in the whole province, and the country the most healthy.
From London to Chatham the roads are really awful. I had the pleasure of tumbling over head and ears into a mud hole, at about twelve o’clock at night; the horses were with difficulty saved, and the waggon remained fixed for upwards of three hours, during which we laboured hard, and were refreshed with plentiful showers of rain.
Chatham, on the river Thames, is at present a sad dirty hole; but, as the country rises, will be a place of great importance. From Chatham I embarked in the steam-boat, and went down the Thames into Lake St. Clair, and from thence to Sandwich, having passed through the finest country, the most beautiful land, and about the most infamous roads that are to be met with in all America.
Within these last seven or eight years the lakes have risen; many hypotheses have been offered to account for this change. I do not coincide with any of the opinions which I have heard, yet, at the same time, it is but fair to acknowledge that I can offer none of my own. It is quite a mystery. The consequence of this rising of the waters is, that some of the finest farms at the month of the river Thames and on Lake St. Clair, occupied by the old Canadian settlers, are, and have been for two or three years under water. These Canadians have not removed; they are waiting for the water to subside; their houses stand in the lake, the basements being under water, and they occupy the first floors with their families, communicating by boats. As they cannot cultivate their land, they shoot and fish. Several miles on each side of the mouth of the river Thames the water is studded with these houses, which have, as may be supposed, a very forlorn appearance, especially as the top rail of the fences is generally above water, marking out the fields which are now tenanted by fish instead of cattle.
Went out with a party into the bush, as it is termed, to see some land which had been purchased. Part of the road was up to the saddle-flaps under water, from the rise of the lakes. We soon entered the woods, not so thickly growing but that our horses could pass through them, had it not been for the obstacles below our feet. At every third step a tree lay across the path, forming, by its obstruction to the drainage, a pool of water; but the Canadian horses are so accustomed to this that they very coolly walked over them, although some were two feet in diameter. They never attempted to jump, but deliberately put one foot over and the other—with equal dexterity avoiding the stumps and sunken logs concealed under water. An English horse would have been foundered before he had proceeded fifty yards. Sometimes we would be for miles wading through swamps; at others the land rose, and then it was clear and dry, and we could gallop under the oak trees.
We continued till noon before we could arrive at the land in question, forcing our way through the woods, and guided by the blazing of the trees. Blazing is cutting off a portion of the bark of the trees on both sides of the road with an axe, and these marks, which will remain for many years, serve as a guide. If lost in the woods you have but to look out for a blaze, and by following it you are certain to arrive at some inhabited place. We found the land at last, which was high, dry, and covered with large oak trees. A herd of deer bounded past us as we approached the river, which ran through it; and we could perceive the flocks of wild turkeys at a distance, running almost as fast as the deer. The river was choked by trees which had fallen across its bed, damming up its stream, and spreading it over the land; but the scene was very beautiful and wild, and I could not help fancying what a pretty spot it would one day be, when it should be cleared, and farm-houses built on the banks of the river.
On our way we called upon a man who had been in the hush but a year or so; he had a wife and six children. He was young and healthy, and although he had been used to a life of literary idleness, he had made up his mind to the change, and taken up the axe—a thing very few people can do. I never saw a person apparently more cheerful and contented. He had already cleared away about fifteen acres, and had procured a summer crop from off a portion of it the year before! having no other assistance than his two boys, one thirteen and the other fourteen years old, healthy, but not powerfully built lads. When we called upon him, he was busied in burning the felled timber, and planting Indian corn. One of his boys was fencing-in the ground. I went with the man into his log-hut, which was large and convenient, and found his wife working at her needle, and three little girls all as busy as bees; the eldest of these girls was not twelve years old, yet she cooked, baked, washed, and, with the assistance of her two little sisters, did all that was required for the household. After a short repose, we went out again into the clearing, when one of my friends asked him how he got on with his axe? “Pretty well,” replied he, laughing; “I’ll show you.” He led us to where a button-wood tree was lying; the trunk was at least ninety feet long, and the diameter where it had been cut through between five and six feet; it was an enormous tree. “And did you cut that down yourself?” enquired my companion, who was an old settler. “Not quite; but I cut through the north half while my two boys cut through the south; we did it between us.” This was really astonishing, for if these two lads could cut through half the tree, it is evident that they could have cut it down altogether. We had here a proof of how useful children can be made at an early age.
We promised to call upon him on our return; which we did. We found him sitting with his wife in his log-house; it was five o’clock in the afternoon; he told us “work was over now, and that the children had gone into the bush to play.” They had all worked from five o’clock in the morning, and had since learnt their lessons. We heard their laughter ringing in the woods at a distance.
Now this is rather a remarkable instance among settlers, as I shall hereafter explain. Had this man been a bachelor, he would have been, in all probability, a drunkard; but, with his family, he was a happy, contented, and thriving man. We parted with him, and arrived at Windsor, opposite Detroit, very tired, having been, with little exception, fourteen hours in the saddle.
I took cold, and was laid up with a fever. I mention this, not as any thing interesting to the reader, but merely to show what you may expect when you travel in these countries. I had been in bed three days, when my landlady came into the room. “Well, captain, how do you find yourself by this time?” “Oh, I am a little better, thank you,” replied I. “Well, I am glad of it, because I want to whitewash your room; for if the coloured man stops to do it to-morrow, he’ll be for charging us another quarter of a dollar.” “But I am not able to leave my room.” “Well, then, I’ll speak to him; I dare say he won’t mind your being in bed while he whitewashes.”
I have often remarked the strange effects of intoxication, and the different manner in which persons are affected with liquor. When I was on the road from London to Chatham, a man who was very much intoxicated got into the waggon, and sat beside me. As people in that state generally are, he was excessively familiar; and although jerked off with no small degree of violence, would continue, until we arrived at the inn where we were to sup, to attempt to lay his head upon my shoulder.
As soon as we arrived, supper was announced. At first he refused to take any, but on the artful landlady bawling in his ear, that all gentlemen supped when they arrived, he hesitated to consider (which certainly was not at all necessary) whether he was not bound to take some. Another very important remark of the hostess, which was, that he would have nothing to eat until the next morning, it being then eleven o’clock at night, decided him, and he staggered in, observing, “Nothing to eat till next morning! well, I never thought of that.” He sat down opposite to me, at the same table. It appeared as if his vision was inverted by the quantity of liquor which he had taken; everything close to him on the table he considered to be out of his reach, whilst everything at a distance he attempted to lay hold of. He sat up as erect as he could, balancing himself so as not to appear canned, and fixing his eyes upon me, said, “Sir, I’ll trouble you—for some fried ham.” Now the ham was in the dish next to him, and altogether out of my reach; I told him so. “Sir,” said he again, “as a gentleman, I ask you to give me some of that fried ham.” Amused with the curious demand, I rose from my chair, went round to him and helped him. “Shall I give you a potato,” said I, the potatoes being at my end of the table, and I not wishing to rise again. “No, Sir,” replied he, “I can help myself to them.” He made a dash at them, but did not reach them; then made another, and another, till he lost his balance, and lay down upon his plate; this time he gained the potatoes, helped himself, and commenced eating. After a few minutes he again fixed his eyes upon me. “Sir, I’ll trouble you—for the pickles.” They were actually under his nose, and I pointed them out to him. “I believe, Sir, I asked you for the pickles,” repeated he, after a time. “Well, there they are,” replied I, wishing to see what he would do. “Sir, are you a gentleman—as a gentleman—I ask you as a gentleman, for them ’ere pickles.” It was impossible to resist this appeal, so I rose and helped him. I was now convinced that his vision was somehow or another inverted, and to prove it, when he asked me for the salt, which was within his reach, I removed it farther off. “Thank ye, Sir,” said he, sprawling over the table after it. The circumstance, absurd as it was, was really a subject for the investigation of Dr Brewster.
At Windsor, which is directly opposite to Detroit, where the river is about half a mile across, are stores of English goods, sent there entirely for the supply of the Americans, by smugglers. There is also a row of tailor shops, for cloth is a very dear article in America, and costs nearly double the price it does in the English provinces. The Americans go over there, and are measured for a suit of clothes which, when ready, they put on, and cross back to Detroit with their old clothes in a bundle. The smuggling is already very extensive, and will, of course, increase as the Western country becomes more populous.
Near Windsor and Sandwich are several villages of free blacks, probably the major portion of them having been assisted in their escape by the Abolitionists. They are not very good neighbours from their propensity to thieving, which either is innate, or, as Miss Martineau would have it, is the effect of slavery. I shall not dispute that point; but it is certain that they are most inveterately hostile to the Americans, and will fight to the last, from the dread of being again subjected to their former masters. They are an excellent frontier population; and in the last troubles they proved how valuable they would become, in case their services were more seriously required.
Volume Two—Chapter Three
Once more on board of the Michigan, one of the best vessels on Lake Erie; as usual, full of emigrants, chiefly Irish. It is impossible not to feel compassion for these poor people, wearied as they are with confinement and suffering, and yet they do compose occasionally about as laughable a group as can well be conceived. In the first place, they bring out with them from Ireland, articles which no other people would consider worth the carriage. I saw one Irish woman who had old tin tea pots; there was but one spout among the whole, and I believe not one bottom really sound and good. And then their costumes, more particularly the fitting out of the children, who are not troubled with any extra supply of clothes at any time! I have witnessed the seat of an old pair of corduroy trowsers transformed into a sort of bonnet for a laughing fair-haired girl. But what amused me more was the very reverse of this arrangement; a boy’s father had just put a patch upon the hinder part of his son’s trousers; and cloth not being at hand, he had, as an expedient for stopping the gap, inserted a piece of an old straw bonnet; in so doing he had not taken the precaution to put the smooth side of the plait inwards, and, in consequence, young Teddy when he first sat down felt rather uncomfortable. “What’s the matter wid ye, Teddy; what makes ye wriggle about in that way? Sit aisy, man; sure enough, havn’t ye a strait-bottomed chair to sit down upon all the rest of your journey, which is more than your father ever had before you?” And then their turning in for the night! A single bed will contain one adult and four little ones at one end, and another adult and two half-grown at the other. But they are all packed away so snug and close, and not one venturing to move, there appears to be room for all.
We stopped half an hour at Mackinaw to take in wood, and then started for Green Bay, in the Wisconsin territory. Green Bay is a military station; it is a pretty little place, with soil as rich as garden mould. The Fox river debouches here, but the navigation is checked a few miles above the town by the rapids, which have been dammed up into a water power; yet there is no doubt that as soon as the whole of the Wisconsin lands are offered for sale by the American Government, the river will be made navigable up to its meeting with the Wisconsin, which falls into the Mississippi. There is only a portage of a mile and a half between the two, through which a canal will be cut, and then there will be another junction between the lakes and the Far West. It was my original intention to have taken the usual route by Chicago and Galena to St. Louis, but I fell in with Major F—, with whom I had been previously acquainted, who informed me that he was about to send a detachment of troops from Green Bay to Fort Winnebago, across Wisconsin territory. As this afforded me an opportunity of seeing the country, which seldom occurs, I availed myself of an offer to join the party. The detachment consisted of about one hundred recruits, nearly the whole of them Canada patriots, as they are usually called, who, having failed in taking the provinces from John Bull, were fain to accept the shilling from uncle Sam.
Major F— accompanied us to pay the troops at the fort, and we therefore had five waggons with us, loaded with a considerable quantity of bread and pork, and not quite so large a proportion of specie, the latter not having as yet become plentiful again in the United States. We set off, and marched fifteen miles in about half a day, passing through the settlement Des Peres, which is situated at the rapids of the Fox river. Formerly they were called the Rapids des Peres, from a Jesuit college which had been established there by the French. Our course lay along the banks of the Fox river, a beautiful swift stream pouring down between high ridges, covered with fine oak timber.
The American Government have disposed of all the land on the banks of this river and the Lake Winnebago, and consequently it is well settled; but the Winnebago territory in Wisconsin, lately purchased of the Winnebago Indians, and comprising all the prairie land and rich mineral country from Galena to Mineral Point, is not yet offered for sale: when it is, it will be eagerly purchased; and the American Government, as it only paid the Indians at the rate of one cent and a fraction per acre, will make an enormous profit by the speculation. Well may the Indians be said, like Esau, to part with their birthright for a mess of pottage; but, in truth, they are compelled to sell—the purchase-money being a mere subterfuge, by which it may appear as if their lands were not wrested from them, although, in fact, it is.
On the second day we continued our march along the banks of the Fox river, which, as we advanced, continued to be well settled, and would have been more so, if some of the best land had not fallen, as usual, into the hands of speculators, who, aware of its value, hold out that they may obtain a high price for it. The country through which we passed was undulating, consisting of a succession of ridges, covered with oaks of a large size, but not growing close as in a forest; you could gallop your horse through any part of it. The tracks of deer were frequent, but we saw but one herd of fifteen, and that was at a distance. We now left the banks of the river, and cut across the country to Fond du Lac, at the bottom of Lake Winnebago, of which we had had already an occasional glimpse through the openings of the forest. The deer were too wild to allow of our getting near them; so I was obliged to content myself with shooting wood pigeons, which were very plentiful.
On the night of the third day we encamped upon a very high ridge; as usual studded with oak trees. The term used here to distinguish this variety of timber land from the impervious woods is oak openings. I never saw a more beautiful view than that which was afforded us from our encampment. From the high ground upon which our tents were pitched, we looked down to the left, upon a prairie flat and level as a billiard-table, extending, as far as the eye could scan, one rich surface of unrivalled green. To the right the prairie gradually changed to oak openings, and then to a thick forest, the topmost boughs and heads of which were level with our tents. Beyond them was the whole broad expanse of the Winnebago lake, smooth and reflecting like a mirror the brilliant tints of the setting sun, which disappeared, leaving a portion of his glory behind him; while the moon in her ascent, with the dark portion of her disk as clearly defined as that which was lighted, gradually increased in brilliancy, and the stars twinkled in the clear sky. We watched the features of the landscape gradually fading from our sight, until nothing was left but broad masses partially lighted up by the young moon.
Nor was the foreground less picturesque: the spreading oaks, the tents of the soldiers, the waggons drawn up with the horses tethered, all lighted up by the blaze of our large fires. Now, when I say our large fires, I mean the large fires of America, consisting of three or four oak trees, containing a load of wood each, besides many large boughs and branches, altogether forming a fire some twenty or thirty feet long, with flames flickering up twice as high as one’s head. At a certain distance from this blazing pile you may perceive what in another situation would be considered as a large coffee-pot (before this huge fire it makes a very diminutive appearance). It is placed over some embers drawn out from the mass, which would have soon burnt up coffee-pot and coffee all together; and at a still more respectful distance you may perceive small rods, not above four or five feet long, bifurcated at the smaller end, and fixed by the larger in the ground, so as to hang towards the huge fire, at an angle of forty degrees, like so many tiny fishing-rods. These rods have at their bifurcated ends a piece of pork or ham, or of bread, or perhaps of venison, for we bought some, not having shot any: they are all private property, as each party cooks for himself. Seeing these rods at some distance, you might almost imagine that they were the fishing-rods of little imps bobbing for salamanders in the fiery furnace.
In the mean time, while the meat is cooking and the coffee is boiling, the brandy and whisky are severely taxed, as we lie upon our cloaks and buffalo skins at the front of our tents. There certainly is a charm in this wild sort of life, which wins upon people the more they practise it; nor can it be wondered at: our wants are in reality so few and so easily satisfied, without the restraint of form and ceremony. How often, in my wanderings, have I felt the truth of Shakespeare’s lines in “As You Like It.”
“Now, my co-mates and partners in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam—
The seasons’ difference.”
On the fourth day we descended, crossed the wide prairie, and arrived at the Fond du Lac, where we again fell in with the Fox river, which runs through the Winnebago lake. The roads through the forests had been very bad, and the men and horses showed signs of fatigue; but we had now passed through all the thickly wooded country, and had entered into the prairie country, extending to Fort Winnebago, and which was beautiful beyond concoction. Its features alone can be described; but its effects can only be felt by being seen. The prairies here are not very large, seldom being above six or seven miles in length or breadth; generally speaking, they lie in gentle undulating flats, and the ridges and hills between them are composed of oak openings. To form an idea of these oak openings, imagine an inland country covered with splendid trees, about as thickly planted as in our English parks; in fact, it is English park scenery, Nature having here spontaneously produced what it has been the care and labour of centuries in our own country to effect. Sometimes the prairie will rise and extend along the hills, and assume an undulating appearance, like the long swell of the ocean; it is then called rolling prairie.
Often, when I looked down upon some fifteen or twenty thousand acres of these prairies, full of rich grass, without one animal, tame or wild, to be seen, I would fancy what thousands of cattle will, in a few years, be luxuriating in those pastures, which, since the herds of buffalo have retreated from them, are now useless, and throwing up each year a fresh crop, to seed and to die unheeded.
On our way we had fallen in with a young Frenchman, who had purchased some land at Fond du Lac, and was proceeding there in company with an American, whom he had hired to settle on it. I now parted company with him; he had gone out with me in my shooting excursions, and talked of nothing but his purchase: it had water; it had a waterfall; it had, in fact, everything that he could desire; but he thought that, after two years, he would go home and get a wife: a Paradise without an Eve would be no Paradise at all.
The price of labour is, as may be supposed, very high in this part of the country. Hiring by the year, you find a man in food, board, and washing, and pay him three hundred dollars per annum (about 70 pounds English.)
The last night that we bivouacked out was the only unfortunate one. We had been all comfortably settled for the night, and fast asleep, when a sudden storm came on, accompanied with such torrents of rain as would have washed us out of our tents, if they had not been already blown down by the violence of the gale. Had we had any warning, we should have provided against it; as it was, we made up huge fires, which defied the rain; and thus we remained till day-light, the rain pouring on us, while the heat of the fire drying us almost as fast as we got wet, each man threw up a column of steam from his still saturating and still heated garments. Every night we encamped where there was a run of water, and plenty of dead timber for our fires; and thus did we go on, emptying our waggons daily of the bread and pork, and filling up the vacancies left by the removal of the empty casks with the sick and lame, until at last we arrived at Fort Winnebago.
