The Americans have very fine steam vessels on their side of the lake, but they are flimsily constructed, painted glaringly, white, and green, and yellow, without comfort or good attendance, and with a devil-may-care sort of captain, who seems really scarcely to know or to care whether he has passengers or has not, a scrambling hurried meal, and divers other unmentionables.

The American gentry always prefer the British boats, for two good reasons; they see Queen Victoria's people, and they meet with the utmost civility, attention, and comfort. They sit down to dinner, or breakfast, or tea, like Christian men and women, where there is no railway eating and drinking; where due time is spent in refreshing the body and spirits; and where people help each other, or the waiters help them, at table, without a scramble, like hogs, for the best and the most—a custom which all travelled Americans detest and abominate as much as the most fastidious Englishman.

It is not unusual at hotel dinners, or on board steamers, to see a man, I cannot call him a gentleman, sitting next a female, totally neglect her, and heap his plate with fish, with flesh, with pie, with pudding, with potato, with cranberry jam, with pickles, with salad, with all and every thing then within his reach, swallow in a trice all this jumble of edibles, jump up and vanish.

Can such a being have a stomach, or a digestion, and must he not necessarily, about thirty-five years of age, be yellow, spare, and parchment-skinned, with angular projections, and a prodigious tendency to tobacco?

An American gentleman—mind, I lay a stress upon the second word—never bolts his victuals, never picks his teeth at table, never spits upon the carpet, or guesses; he knows not gin-sling, and he eschews mint-julep; but he does, I am ashamed to say, admire a sherry cobbler, particularly if he does not get a second-hand piece of vermicelli to suck it through. Reader, do you know what a sherry cobbler is? I will enlighten you. Let the sun shine at about 80 deg. Fahrenheit. Then take a lump of ice; fix it at the edge of a board; rasp it with a tool made like a drawing knife or carpenter's plane, set face upwards. Collect the raspings, the fine raspings, mind, in a capacious tumbler; pour thereon two glasses of good sherry, and a good spoonful of powdered white sugar, with a few small bits, not slices, but bits of lemon, about as big as a gooseberry. Stir with a wooden macerator. Drink through a tube of macaroni or vermicelli. C'est l'eau benite, as the English lord said to the garcon at the Milles Colonnes, when he first tasted real parfait amour.—C'est beaucoup mieux, Milor, answered the waiter with a profound reverence.

Gin-sling, cock-tail, mint-julep, are about as vulgar as blue ruin and old tom at home; but sherry cobbler is an affair of consideration—only never pound your ice, always rasp it.

It is a custom on board the Canadian steamers for gentlemen to call for a pint of wine at dinner, or for a bottle, according to the strength of the party; but it is a custom more honoured in the breach than the observance; for sherry and port are the usual stock, both fiery as brandy, and costing the moderate price of seven shillings and sixpence a bottle, the steward having laid the same in at about one shilling and eight pence, or at most two shillings. Why this imposition, the only one you meet with in travelling in Canada at hotels or steamboats, is perpetrated and perpetuated, I could never learn.

Many American gentlemen, however, encourage it, and have told me that they do so because they get no good port in the States. Ale and porter are charged two shillings and sixpence a bottle, which is double their worth. Be careful also not to drink freely of the iced water, which is always supplied ad libitum. Few Europeans escape the effects of water-drinking when they land at Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, Toronto, &c. There is something peculiar, which has never yet been satisfactorily explained by medical men, in the sudden attack upon the system produced by the waters of Canada: this is sometimes slight, but more often lasts several days, and reduces the strength a good deal. Iced water is worse, and produces country cholera. The Americans use ice profusely, and drink such draughts of iced water, that I have been astonished at the impunity with which they did so.

Perhaps the change from a moist sea atmosphere to the dry and desiccating air of Canada, where iron does not rust, may be one cause of the malady alluded to, and another, in addition to the water, the difference of cookery; for here, at public tables and on board the boats generally, where black cooks prevail, all is butter and grease.

But the change of climate is undoubtedly great. I had been long an inhabitant of Upper Canada, and fancied myself seasoned; but, having returned to England, and spending afterwards two or three years in the excessively humid air of the sea-coast of Newfoundland at St. Johns, where I became somewhat stout, on my return to Upper Canada, for want of a little preparatory caution in medicine, although naturally of a spare habit, I was seized with a violent bleeding at the nose, which baffled all remedies for several months, until artificial mineral water and a copious use of solutions of iron stopped it. No doubt this prevented the fever of the lakes, and was owing to the dryness of the air. I mention this to caution all new-comers, young and old, to take timely advice and medicine.

There is another complaint in Upper Canada, which attacks the settler very soon after his arrival, especially if young, and that is worms; a disorder very prevalent at all times in Canada, particularly among the poorer classes, and probably owing to food.

These, with ague and colic, or country cholera, are the chief evils of the clime; few are, however, fatal, excepting the lake fever, and that principally among children.

The sportsman should recollect, in so marshy and woody a country, subject as it is to the most surprising alternations of temperature, that instead of minding that celebrated rule, "Keep your powder dry," he should read, "Keep your feet dry." Dry feet and the avoidance of sitting in wet or damp clothes, or drinking iced water when hot, or of cooling yourself in a delicious draught of air when in a perspiration, are the best precautions against ague, fever, colic, or cholera—in a country where the thermometer reaches 90 deg. in the shade, and sometimes 110 deg., as it did last summer, and 27 deg. below zero in the winter, with rapid alternations embracing such a range of the scale as is unknown elsewhere.

In the country places, in travelling, you will invariably find that windows are very little attended to, and that the head of your bed, or the side of it, is placed against a loosely-fitting broken sash. The night-fogs and damps are highly dangerous to new-comers; so act accordingly.

Fleas and bugs, and "such small deer," you must expect in every inn you stop at, even in the cities; for it appears—and indeed I did not know the fact until this year—that bugs are indigenous, native to the soil, and breed in the bark of old trees; so that if you build a new house, you bring the enemy into your camp. Nothing but cleanliness and frequent whitewash, colouring, paint, and soft soap, will get rid of them. If it were not for the strong smell of red cedar and its extreme brittleness, I would have my bedstead of that material; for even the iron bedsteads, in the soldiers' barracks, become infested with them if not painted often. Red cedar they happily eschew.

Travellers may talk as they please of mosquitoes being the scourge of new countries; the bugs in Canada are worse, and the black fly and sand-fly superlatively superior in annoyance. The black fly exists in the neighbourhood of rivers or swamps, and attacks you behind the ear, drawing a pretty copious supply of blood at each bite. The sand-fly, as its name imports, exists in sandy soil, and is so small that it cannot be seen without close inspection; its bite is sharp and fiery.

Then the farmer has the wheat-fly and the turnip-fly to contend against; the former has actually devoured Lower Canada, and the latter has obliged me in a garden to sow several successive crops. The melon-bug is another nuisance; it is a small winged animal, of a bright yellow colour, striped with black bars, and takes up its abode in the flower of the melon and pumpkin, breeding fast, and destroying wherever it settles, for young plants are literally eaten up by it.

The grub, living under ground in the daytime, and sallying forth at night, is a ferocious enemy to cabbage-plants, lettuce, and most of the young, tender vegetables; but, by taking a lantern and a pan after dark, the gentlemen can be collected whilst on their tour, and poultry are very fond of them. Last year, the potato crop failed throughout Canada. What a singular dispensation!—for it alike suffered in Europe, and no doubt the malady was atmospheric. The hay crop, too, suffered severely; but still, by a merciful Providence, the wheat and corn harvest was ample, and gathered in a month before the customary time.

By the word corn I mean oats, rye, and barley; but in the Canadas and in the United States that word means maize or Indian-corn only, which in Canada, last summer, was not, I should think, even an average crop. It is extensively used here for food, as well as buckwheat, and for feeding poultry.

But to our journey westward. I arrived at Toronto on the 27th of June, and found the weather had changed to variable and fine.

On steaming up the harbour, I was greatly surprised and very much pleased to see such an alteration as Toronto has undergone for the better since 1837. Then, although a flourishing village, be-citied, to be sure, it was not one third of its present size. Now it is a city in earnest, with upwards of twenty thousand inhabitants—gas-lit, with good plank side-walks and macadamized streets, and with vast sewers, and fine houses, of brick or stone. The main street, King Street, is two miles and more in length, and would not do shame to any town, and has a much more English look than most Canadian places have.

Toronto is still the seat of the Courts of Law for Western Canada, of the University of King's College, of the Bishopric of Toronto, and of the Indian Office. Kingston has retained the militia head-quarter office, and the Principal Emigrant Agency, with the Naval and Military grand depots; so that the removal of the seat of Government to Montreal has done no injury to Toronto, and will do very little to Kingston: in fact, I believe firmly that, instead of being injurious, it will be very beneficial. The presence of Government at Kingston gave an unnatural stimulus to speculation among a population very far from wealthy; and buildings of the most frail construction were run up in hundreds, for the sake of the rent which they yielded temporarily.

The plan upon which these houses were erected was that of mortgage; thus almost all are now in possession of one person who became suddenly possessed of the requisite means by the sale of a large tract required for military purposes. But this species of property seldom does the owner good in his lifetime; and, if he does reclaim it, there is no tenant to be had now; so that the building decays, and in a very short time becomes an incumbrance. Mortgages only thrive where the demand is superior and certain to the investment; and then, if all goes smoothly, mortgager and mortgagee may benefit; but where a mechanic or a storekeeper, with little or no capital, undertakes to run up an extensive range of houses to meet an equivocal demand, the result is obvious. If the houses he builds are of stone or brick, and well finished, the man who loans the money is the gainer; if they are of wood, indifferently constructed and of green materials, both must suffer. So it is a speculation, and, like all speculations, a good deal of repudiation mixes up with it.

There are two good houses of entertainment for the gentleman traveller in Toronto; the Club House in Chewett's Buildings and Macdonald's Hotel. In the former, a bachelor will find himself quite at home; in the latter, a family man will have no reason to regret his stay.

But servants at Toronto—by which I mean attendants—are about on a par with the same race all over Canada. The coloured people are the best, but never make yourself dependent on either; for, if you are to start by the stage or the steamer, depend on your watch, instead of upon your boots being cleaned or your shaving-water being ready. In the latter case, shave with cold water by the light of your candle, lit by your own lucifer match. They are civil, however, and attentive, as far as the very free and easy style of their acquirements will permit them; for a cook will leave at a moment's notice, if she can better herself; and any trivial occurrence will call off the waiter and the boots. The only punctual people are the porters; and, as they wear glazed hats, with the name of the hotel emblazoned thereon, frigate-fashion, you can always find them.

An excellent arrangement is the omnibus attached to the hotels in Canada West, which conveys you cost-free to and from the steamboat, and a very comfortable wooden convenience it is, resembling very much the vans which, in days of yore, plied near London.

My first start from Toronto was to Ultima Thule, Penetanguishene, a locality scarcely to be found in the maps, and yet one of much importance, situate and being north-north-west of the city some hundred and eight miles, on Lake Huron.

The route is per coach to St. Alban's, thirty and three miles, along Yonge Street, of which about one-third is macadamized from granite boulders; the rest mud and etceteras, too numerous to mention. Yonge Street is a continuous settlement, with an occasional sprinkling of the original forest. The land on each side is fertile, and supplies Toronto market.

It rises gradually by those singular steps, or ridges, formerly banks or shores oL antediluvian oceans, till it reaches the vicinity of the Holland river, a tortuous, sluggish, marshy, natural canal, flowing or lazily creeping into Lake Simcoe, at an elevation of upwards of seven-hundred and fifty feet above Lake Ontario, and emptying itself into Lake Huron by a series of rapids, called the Matchedash or Severn River.

The first quarter of the route to St. Alban's is a series of country-houses, gentlemen's seats, half-pay officers' farms, prettily fenced, and pleasant to the sight: the next third embraces Thornhill, a nice village in a hollow; Richmond Hill, with a beautiful prospect and detached settlements: the ultimate third is a rich, undulating country, inhabited by well-to-do Quakers, with Newmarket on their right, and looking for all the world very like "dear home," with orchards, and as rich corn-fields and pastures as may be seen any where, backed, however, by the eternal forest. It is peculiarly and particularly beautiful.

A short distance before reaching St. Alban's, which is quite a new village, the road descends rapidly, and the ground is broken into hummocks.

But I must not forget Bond's Lake, a most singular feature of this part of the road, which, perhaps, I shall treat of in returning from Penetanguishene, as I am now in a hurry to get to St. Alban's.

Here, where all was scrub forest in 1837, are a little street, a house of some pretension occupied by Mr. Laughton, the enterprising owner of the Beaver steamboat, plying on Lake Simcoe, and two inns.

I stopped for the night, for Yonge Street is still a tiresome journey, although only a stage of thirty three miles, at Winch's Tavern. This is a very good road-side house, and the landlord and landlady are civil and attentive. Before you go to roost, for stopping by the way-side is pretty much like roosting, as you must be up with Chanticleer, you can just look over Mr. Laughton's paling, and you will see as pretty a florist's display as may be imagined. The owner is fond of flowers, and he has lots of them, and, when you make his acquaintance afterwards in the Beaver, you will find that he has lots of information also. But I did not go in the Beaver, which ship "wharfs" some two or three miles further ahead, at Holland River Landing, commonly called "the Landing," par excellence. Here flies, mosquitoes, ague, and other plagues, are so rife, that all attempts at settlement are vanity and vexation of spirit.

So, being willing to see what had happened in Gwillimbury since 1837, I took a waggon and the land road, and went off as day broke, or rather before it broke, about four a.m., in a deep gray mist. The waggon should be described, as it is the best voiture in Western Canada.

Four wheels, of a narrow tire, are attached without any springs to a long body, formed of straight boards, like a piano-case, only more clumsy; in which, resting on inside rims or battens, are two seats, with or without backs, generally without, on which, perhaps, a hay-cushion, or a buffalo-skin, or both, are placed. Two horses, good, bad, or indifferent, as the case may be, the positive and comparative degrees being the commonest, drag you along with a clever driver, who can turn his hand to chopping, carpentering, wheelwright's work, playing the fiddle, drinking, or any other sort of thing, and is usually an Irishman or an Irishman's son. For two dollars and a half a day he will drive you to Melville Island, or Parry's Sound, if you will only stick by him; and he jogs along, smoking his dudeen, over corduroy roads, through mud holes that would astonish a cockney, and over sand and swamp, rocks and rough places enough to dislocate every joint in your body, all his own being anchylosed or used to it, which is the same thing, in the dictionary.

He will keep you au courant, at the same time, tell the name of every settler and settlement, and some good stories to boot. He is a capital fellow, is "Paddy the driver," generally a small farmer, and always has a contract with the commissariat.

The first place of any note we came to, as day broke out of the blue fog which rose from the swampy forest, was Holland River Bridge, an extraordinary structure, half bridge, half road, over a swamp created by that river in times long gone by; a level tract of marsh and wild rice as far as the eye can reach, full of ducks and deer, with the Holland River in the midst, winding about like a serpentine canal, and looking as if it had been fast asleep since its last shake of the ague.

Crossing this bridge-road, now in good order, but in 1837 requiring great dexterity and agility to pass, you come to a slight elevation of the land, and a little village in West Gwillimbury, which, I should think, is a capital place to catch lake-fever in.

The road to it is good, but, after passing it and turning northwards, is but little improved, being very primitive through the township of Innisfil. However, we jogged along in mist and rain, on the 29th of June, and saw the smoke, ay, and smelt it too, of numerous clearings or forest burnings, indicating settlement, till we reached Wilson's Tavern, where, every body having the ague, it was somewhat difficult to get breakfast. This is thirteen miles from St. Alban's.

Having refreshed, however, with such as it was, we visited Mr. Wilson's stable, and saw a splendid stud horse which he was rearing, and as handsome a thorough-bred black as you could wish to see in the backwoods.

Proceeding in rain, we drove, by what in England would be called an execrable road, through the townships of Innisfil and Vespra to Barrie, the capital hamlet of the district of Simcoe.

On emerging from the woods three or four miles from Barrie, Kempenfeldt Bay suddenly appears before you, and if the road was better, a more beautiful ride there is not in all broad Canada. Fancy, however, that, without any Hibernicism, the best road is in the water of the lake. This is owing to the swampy nature of the land, and to the circumstance that a belt of hard sand lines the edge of the bay; so Paddy drove smack into the water of Kempenfeldt, and, as he said, sure we were travelling by water every way, for we had a deluge of rain above, and Lake Simcoe under us.

But natheless we arrived at Barrie by mid-day, a very fair journey of twenty-eight miles in eight hours, over roads, as the French say, inconcevable; and alighted like river gods at the Queen's Arms, J. Bingham, Barrie.

Barrie, named after the late commodore, Sir Robert Barrie, is no common village, nor is the Queen's Arms a common hostel. It is a good, substantial, stone edifice, fitted up and kept in a style which neither Toronto nor Kingston, nay, nor Montreal can rival, as far as its extent goes. I do assure you, it is a perfect paradise after the road from St. Alban's; and, as the culinary department is unexceptionable, and the beds free from bugs, and all neatness and no noise, I will award Mrs. Bingham a place in these pages, which must of course immortalize her. They are English people; and, when I last visited their house, in 1837, had only a log-hut: now they are well to do, and have built themselves a neat country-house.

When I first saw Barrie, or rather before Barrie was, as I passed over its present site, in 1831, there was but one building and a little clearance. In 1846, it is fast approaching to be a town, and will be a city, as it is admirably placed at the bottom of an immense inlet of Lake Simcoe, with every capability of opening a communication with the new settlements of Owen Sound and St. Vincent, and the south shore of Lake Huron.

It has been objected, to this opinion respecting Barrie, that the Narrows of Lake Simcoe is the proper site for "The City of the North," as the communication by land, instead of being thirty-six miles to Penetanguishene, the best harbour on Lake Huron, is only fourteen, or at most nineteen miles, the former taking to Cold Water Creek, and the latter to Sturgeon Bay; but then there is a long and somewhat dangerous transit in the shallowest part of the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron to Penetanguishene.

If a railroad was established between Barrie and the naval station, this would be not only the shortest but the safest route to Lake Huron; for, if Sturgeon Bay is chosen, in war-time the transit trade and the despatch of stores for the government would be subjected to continual hindrance and depredation from the multitude of islands and hiding-places between Sturgeon Bay and Penetanguishene; whilst, on the other hand, no sagacious enemy would penetrate the country from Sturgeon Bay and leave such a stronghold as Penetanguishene in his rear, whereby all his vessels and supplies might be suddenly cut off, and his return rendered impracticable.

Barrie is, therefore, well chosen, both as a transit town and as the site of naval operations on Lake Simcoe, whenever they may be necessary.

For this reason, government commenced the military road between Barrie and Penetanguishene, and settled it with pensioned soldiers, and also settled naval and military retired or half-pay officers all round Lake Simcoe. But, as we shall have to talk a good deal about this part of the country, and I must return by the road, let us hasten on to our night's lodging at the Ordnance Arms, kept by the ancient widow of J. Bruce, an old artilleryman.

Since 1837, the road, then impassable for anything but horses or very small light waggons, has been much improved, and Paddy drove us on, after dinner at Bingham's, through the heavy rain a merveille!

When I passed this road before, what a road it was! or, in the words of the eulogist of the great Highland road-maker, General Wade,

"Had you seen this road, before it was made, You would have lift up your eyes and blessed" General somebody.

It was necessary, as late as 1837, to take a horse; and, placing your valise on another, mount the second with a guide. My guide was always a French Canadian named Francois; and many an adventure in the interminable forest have we experienced together; for if Francois had lost his way, we should have perhaps reached the Copper-mine River, or the Northern Frozen Ocean, and have solved the question of the passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, or else we should have had a certain convocation of politic wolves or bears, busy in rendering us and our horses invisible; for, after all, they have the true receipt of fern seed, and you can walk about, after having suffered transmigration into their substance, without its ever being suspected that you were either an officer of engineers or a Franco-Canadian guide.

An old and respected officer, once travelling this bridle road with Francois and myself, and mounted on a better horse than either of ours, which was lent to him by the Assistant Commissary-General stationed at Penetanguishene, got ahead of us considerably, and, by some accident, wandered into the gloomy pine forest. Missing him for a quarter of an hour, I rode as fast as my horse, which was not encumbered with baggage, would go ahead, and, observing fresh tracks of a horse's shoes in the mud, followed them until I heard in the depths of the endless and solemn woods faint shouts, which, as I came nearer to them, resolved themselves into the syllables of my name. I found my chief, and begged him never again, as he had never been there before, to think of leaving us. Had he gone out of sound, his fate would have been sealed, unless the horse, used as it was to the path, had wandered into it again; but horses and cattle are frequently lost in these solitudes, and, perhaps being frightened by the smell of the wild beasts, or, as man always does when lost, they wander in a circle, and thus frequently come near the place from which they started, but not sufficiently so to hit the almost invisible path.

But although the road, excepting in the middle of summer, is still indifferent, it is perfectly safe, and a lady may now go to Penetanguishene comparatively comfortably.

Bruce's tavern is a respectable log-house, twelve miles from Barrie; and here you can get the usual fare of ham, eggs, and chickens, with occasionally fresh meat from Barrie, and perhaps as good a bed as can be had in Canada. We started from Barrie at half-past two, and arrived at half-past five.

Whiskey, be it known, with very atrocious brandy, is the only beverage, excepting water, along the country roads of Canada.

From Bruce's we drove to Dawson's, also kept by the widow of an old soldier, where every thing is equally clean, respectable, and comfortable. It is seven miles distant.

Beyond this is Nicoll's, near a corduroy swamp road; and three miles further (which place eschew), seven years ago, I heard the landlady's voice chiding a little girl, who had been sent a quarter of a mile for a jug of water. I heard the same voice again in action, and for the same cause, and a very dirty urchin again brought some very dirty water. In fact, whiskey was too plentiful and water too scarce.

From Nicoll's to Jeff's Corner is ten long and weary miles, five or six of which are through the forest. Jeff's is not a tavern, so that you must go to bait the horses to Des Hommes, about two miles further, where there is no inducement to stay, it being kept by an old French Canadian, who has a large family of half-breeds. Therefore, on to the village of Penetanguishene, which is twenty miles from Bruce's, or some say twenty-four. We started from Bruce's at half-past three in the morning, and reached "The Village," as it is always called, at half-past twelve, on the 30th of June, and the rain still continuing ever since we left Toronto. Thus, with great expedition, it took the best portion of three days for a transit of only 108 miles. This has been done in twenty-four hours by another route, as I shall explain on my return.

Penetanguishene is a small village, which has not progressed in the same ratio as the military road to it has done. It is peopled by French Canadians, Indians, and half-breeds, and is very prettily situated at the bottom of the harbour. Lieutenant-Colonel Phillpotts, of the Royal Engineers, selected this site after the peace of 1815, when Drummond's Island on Lake Huron was resigned to the Americans, for an asylum for such of the Canadian French settled there as would not transfer their allegiance. They migrated in a body.

This is the nearest point of Western Canada at which the traveller from Europe can observe the unmixed Indian, the real wild man of the woods, with medals hanging in his ears, as large as the bottom of a silver saucepan, rings in his nose, the single tuft of hair on the scalp, eagle's plumes, a row of human scalps about his neck, and the other amiable etceteras of a painted and greased sauvage.

Here also you first see the half-breed, the offspring of the white and red, who has all the bad qualities of both with very few of the good of either, except in rare instances.



CHAPTER IV.

The French Canadian.

At Penetanguishene you see the original pioneer of the West, that unmistakeable French Canadian, a good-natured, indolent man, who is never active but in his canoe singing, or a la chasse, a true voyageur, of which type of human society the marks are wearing out fast, and the imprint will ere long be illegible. It makes me serious, indeed, to contemplate the Canadian of the old dominant race, and I shall enter a little into his history.

Res ardua vetustis novitatem dare; and never could an author impose upon himself a greater task than that of endeavouring succinctly to trace such a history, in this age of railroads and steam-vessels, or to bring before the mind's eye events which have long slumbered in oblivion, but which it behoves thinking minds not to lose sight of.

Man is now a locomotive animal, both as regards the faculties of mind and of motion; unless in the schools, in the cabinet, or in amusing fictions founded on fact, he rarely finds leisure to think about a forgotten people.

Canada and Canadian affairs have, however, succeeded in interesting the public of America and the public of Europe—the "go-ahead" English reader in the New World—because Canada would be a very desirable addition to the already overgrown Republic founded by the Pilgrim Fathers and Europeans; because French interest looks with a somewhat wistful eye to the race which at one time peopled and governed so large a portion of the Columbian continent. Regrets, mingling with desires, are powerful stimulants. An unconquerable and natural jealousy exists in France that England should have succeeded in laying the foundations of an empire, which bids fair to perpetuate the glories of the Anglo-Saxon race in its Transatlantic dominion; whilst the true Briton, on the other hand, regards Canada as the apple of his eye, and sees with pleasure and with pride that his beloved country, forewarned by the grand error committed at Boston, and so prophetically denounced by Chatham, has obtained a fairer and more fertile field for British legitimate ambition.

Tocqueville, a sensible and somewhat impartial writer, is the only political foreign reasoner who has done justice to Canada; but it is par parenthese only; and even his powers of mind and of reasoning, nurtured as they have been in republicanism, fail to convince fearless hearts that democracy is a human necessity.

That the American nation will endeavour to put a wet blanket over the nascent fires of Spanish ambition in the miserable new States of the Northern Continent, and to absorb them in the stars of Columbia, there can be no doubt. California, the most distant of the old American settlements of Spain, has felt already the bald eagle's claw; Texas is annexed; and unless European interests prevent it, which they must do, Mexico, Guatemala, Yucatan, and all the petty priest-ridden republics of the Isthmus, must follow, and that too very soon.

But what do the people of the United States, (for the government is not a particeps, save by force,) pretend to effect by their enormous sovereignty? The control probably of the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards is the grand object, and, to effect this, Canada and Nova Scotia stand in the way, and Canada and Nova Scotia are therefore marked down as other Stars in the American galaxy.

The Russian empire is cited, as a case in point, for immense extension being no obstacle to central coercion, or government, if the term be more pleasing.

We forget that each individual State of the present Union repudiates centralization, and acts independently. Little Maine wanted to go to war with mighty England on its own bottom; and there was a rebellion in Lesser Rhode Island, which puzzled all the diplomatists very considerably. Now let us sketch a military picture, and bring out the lights and shades boldly.

Suppose that the United States determines upon a war with Great Britain, let us look to the consequences. Firstly, an immense re-action has taken place in Canada, and a mass of growlers, who two years ago would perhaps have been neutral, would readily take arms now in favour of British institutions, simply because "impartiality" has been evinced in governing them.

Next, the French Canadians have no idea of surrendering their homes, their laws, their language, their altars, to the restless and destructive people whose motto is "Liberty!" but whose mind is "Submission," without reservation of creed or colour.

Then, on the boundless West, innumerable Indians, disgusted by the unceremonious manner in which the Big Knife has driven them out, are ready, at the call of another Tecumseh, to hoist the red-cross flag.

In the South, the negro, already taught very carefully by the North a lesson of emancipation, only waits the hour to commence a servile and horrible war, worse than that exercised by the poor Cherokees and Creeks in Florida, which, miserable as were the numbers, scanty the resources, and indomitable the courage, defied the united means and skill of the American armies to quell.

A person who ponders on these matters deplores the infatuation of the mob, or of the western backwoodsmen, who advocate war to the knife with England; for, should it unhappily occur and continue, war to the knife it must be.

American orators have asserted that England, base as she is, dare not, in this enlightened age, let loose the blacks. I fear that, self-defence being the first law of Nature, rather than lose Canada, and rather than not gain it, both England and the United States will have recourse to every expedient likely to bring the matter to an issue, and will abide by that Machiavelian axiom—the end sanctifies the means.

An abominable outcry was raised during the last war against the employment of the savage Indians with our armies; but the loudest in this vituperation forgot that the Americans did the same, as far as their scanty control over the Red Man permitted, and that, where it failed, the barbarous backwoodsman completed the tragedy.

Making razor-strops of Tecumsehs' skin was not a very Christian employment, in retaliation for a scalp found wrapped up in paper in the writing-desk of a clerk, when the public offices were sacked at Little York. The poor man most likely thought it a very great curiosity; and I dare say there are some in the British Museum, as well as preserved heads of the South Sea islanders.

A war between England and the United States is a calamity affecting the whole world, and, excepting for political interest, or that devouring fire burning in the breasts of so many for change, I am persuaded that the intelligence of the Union is opposed to it. America cannot sweep England from the seas, or blot out its escutcheon from The Temple of Fame. It is child's play even to dream of it. England is as vitally essential to the prosperity of America as America is to the prosperity of England; and, although American feelings are gaining ground in England, by which I do not mean that the President of the United States will ever govern our island, but independent notions and axioms similar to those practised in the Union; yet the time has not, nor ever will, arrive, that Britain will succumb to the United States, either from policy or fear, any more than that her grandchildren, on this side of the Atlantic, could pull down the Stars and Stripes, and run the meteor flag up to the mast-head again.

The United States is a wonderful confederation, and Nature seems, in creating that people, to have given them constitutions resembling the summers of the northern portion of the New World, where she makes things grow ten times as fast as elsewhere. A grain of wheat takes a decent time to ripen in England, and requires the sweat of the brow and the labour of the hands to bring it to perfection; but in North America it becomes flour and food almost before it is in ear in the old country. Nature marches quick in America, but is soon exhausted; so her people there think and act ten times as fast as elsewhere, and die before they are aged. The women are old at thirty, and boys of fifteen are men; and so they ripe and ripe, and so they rot and rot.

Everything in the States goes at a railroad pace; every carter or teamster is a Solon, in his own idea; and every citizen is a king de facto, for he rules the powers that be. They think in America too fast for genius to expand to purpose; and as their digestion is impaired by a Napoleonic style of eating, so very powerful and very highly cultivated minds are comparatively rare in the Union. There is no time for study, and they take a democratic road to learning.

And yet, ceteris paribus, the Union produces great men and great minds; and if any thing but dollars was paid attention to, the literature of America would soon be upon a par with that of the Old World; as it is, it pays better to reprint French and English authors than to tax the brains of the natives.

For this reason, the agricultural population of the States are more reasonable, more amiable, and more original than those engaged in incessant trade. I have seen an American farmer in my travels this year, who was the perfect image of the English franklin, before his daughters wore parasols and thrummed the piano. Oh, railways, ye have much to answer for! for, although the prosperity of the mass may be increased by you, the happiness and contentment of the million is deteriorating every day.

I am not about to write a history of Canada at present, for that is already done, as far as its military annals are concerned, during the three years since I last addressed the public; but it shall yet slumber awhile in its box of pine wood, until the time is ripe for development: I merely intend here to put together some reminiscences which strike me as to the part the French Canadian has played, and to show that we should neither forget nor neglect him.

Canada, as it is well known, was French, both by claim of discovery and by the more powerful right of possession.

Stimulated by the fame of Cabot, and ambitious to be pilots of the Meta Incognita, that visionary channel which was to conduct European valour to the golden Cathay and to the rich Spice Islands of the East, French adventurers eagerly sought the coveted honours which such a voyage could not fail to yield them, and to combine overflowing wealth with chivalric renown. France, England, Spain, Portugal, and Italy, sent forth those daring spirits whose hopes were uniformly crushed, either by encountering the unbroken line of continental coast, or dashed to pieces amidst the terrors of that truly Cimmerian region, where ice and fog, cold and darkness, contend for empire.

Of all those heroic navigators, who would have rivalled Columbus under happier circumstances, none were successful, even in a limited sense, in attempting to reach China by the northern Atlantic, excepting the French alone, who may fairly be allowed the merit of having traversed nearly one half of the broadest portion of the New World in the discovery of the St. Lawrence and its connecting streams, and in having afterwards reached Mexico by the Mississippi.

Even in our own days, nearly four centuries after the Columbian era, the idea of reaching China by the North Pole has not been abandoned, and is actively pursuing by the most enlightened naval government in the world, and, very possibly, will be achieved; and, as coal exists on the northern frozen coasts, we shall have ports established, where the British ensign will fly, in the realms of eternal frost—nay, more, we shall yet place an iron belt from the Atlantic to the Pacific, a railroad from Halifax to Nootka Sound, and thus reach China in a pleasure voyage.

I recollect that, about twelve years ago, a person of very strong mind, who edited the "Patriot," a newspaper published at Toronto, Mr. Thomas Dalton, was looked upon as a mere enthusiast, because one of his favourite ideas, frequently expressed, was, that much time would not elapse before the teas and silks of China would be transported direct from the shores of the Pacific to Toronto, by canal, by river, by railroad, and by steam.

Twelve years have scarcely passed since he first broached such an apparently preposterous notion, as people of limited views universally esteemed it; and yet he nearly lived to see an uninterrupted steamboat communication from England to Lake Superior—a consummation which those who laughed at him then never even dreamt of—and now a railroad all the way to the Pacific is in progress of discussion.

Mac Taggart, a lively Scotch civil engineer, who wrote, in 1829, an amusing work, entitled "Three Years in Canada," was even more sanguine on this subject; and, as he was a clerk of works on the Rideau Canal, naturally turned his attention to the practicability of opening a road by water, by the lakes and rivers, to Nootka Sound.

Two thousand miles of water road by the Ottawa, the St. Lawrence, and the Welland, has been opened in 1845, and a future generation will see the white and bearded stranger toiling over the rocky barriers that alone remain to repel his advances between the great Superior and the Pacific. A New Simplon and a peaceful Napoleonic mind will accomplish this.

The China trade will receive an impulse; and, as the arms of England have overcome those of the Celestial Empire, and we are colonizing the outer Barbarian, so shall we colonize the shores of the Pacific, south of Russian America, in order to retain the supremacy of British influence both in India and in China. The vast and splendid forests north of the Columbia River will, ere long, furnish the dockyards of the Pacific coast with the inexhaustible means of extending our commercial and our military marine.

And who were the pioneers? who cleared the way for this enterprise? Frenchmen! The hardy, the enduring, the chivalrous Gaul, penetrated from the Atlantic, in frail vessels, as far as these frail barks could carry him; and where their service ceased, with ready courage adopted the still more fragile transport afforded by the canoe of the Indian, in which, singing merrily, he traversed the greater part of the northern continent, and actually discovered all that we now know, and much more, since lapsed into oblivion.

But his genius was that of conquest, and not of permanent colonization; and, trammelled by feudal laws and observances, although he extended the national domain and the glory of France beyond his most ardent desire, yet he took no steps to insure its duration, and thus left the Saxon and the Anglo-Norman to consolidate the structure of which he had merely laid the extensive foundation.

But, even now, amidst all the enlightenment of the Christian nations, the descendants of the French in Canada shake off the dust of feudality with painful difficulty; and, instead of quietly yielding to a better order of things, prefer to dwell, from sire to son, the willing slaves of customs derived from the obsolete decrees of a despotic monarchy.

Whether they individually are gainers or losers by thus adhering to the rules which guided their ancestors, is another question, too difficult for discussion to grapple with here. As far as worldly happiness and simple contentment are concerned, I believe they would lose by the change, which, however, must take place. The restless and enterprising American is too close a neighbour to let them slumber long in contented ignorance.

The Frenchman was, however, adapted, by his nature, to win his way, either by friendship or by force, among the warlike and untutored sons of the forest. Accommodating himself with ease to the nomadic life of the tribes; contrasting his gay and lively temperament with the solemn taciturnity and immoveable phlegm of the savage; dazzling him with the splendour of his religious ceremonies; abstemious in his diet, and coinciding in his recklessness of life; equally a warrior and equally a hunter; unmoved by the dangers of canoe navigation, for which he seemed as well adapted as the Red Man himself; the enterprising Gaul was everywhere feared and everywhere welcome.

The Briton, on the contrary, cold as the Indian, but not so cunning; accustomed to comparative luxury and ease; despising the child of the woods as an inferior caste; accompanied in his wars or wanderings by no outward and visible sign of the religion he would fain implant; unaccustomed to yield even to his equals in opinion; unprepared for alternate seasons of severe fasting or riotous plenty; and wholly without that sanguine temper which causes mirth and song to break forth spontaneously amidst the most painful toil and privations; was not the best of pioneers in the wilderness, and was, therefore, not received with open arms by the American aboriginal nations, until experience had taught the sterling value of his character, or, rather, until it became thoroughly apparent.

To this day, where, in the interminable wilderness, all trace of French influence is buried, the Indian reveres the recollections of his forefathers respecting that gallant race; and, wherever the canoe now penetrates, the solemn and silent shades of the vast West, the Bois Brule, or mixed offspring of the Indian and the Frenchman, may be heard awakening the slumber of ages with carols derived from the olden France, as he paddles swiftly and merrily along.

Such was the Frenchman, such the French Canadian; let us therefore give due honour to their descendants, and let not any feeling of distrust or dislike enter our minds against a race of men, who, from my long acquaintance with them, are, I am fully persuaded, the most innocent, the most contented, and the most happy yeomanry and peasantry of the whole civilized world.

I have observed already, in a former work, that, as far as my experience of travelling in the wilds of Canada goes, and it is rather extensive, I should always in future journeys prefer to provide myself with the true French Canadian boatmen, or voyageurs, or, in default of them, with Indians. With either I should feel perfectly at ease; and, having crossed the mountain waves of Huron in a Canada trading birch canoe with both, should have the less hesitation in trusting myself in the trackless forest, under their sole guidance and protection.

Honneur a Jean Baptiste! C'est un si bon enfant!



CHAPTER V.

Penetanguishene—The Nipissang Cannibals, and a Friendly Brother in the Wilderness.

Penetanguishene, pronounced by the Indians Pen-et-awn-gu-shene, "the Bay of the White Rolling Sand," is a magnificent harbour, about three miles in length, narrow and land-locked completely by hills on each side. Here is always a steam-vessel of war, of a small class, with others in ordinary, stores and appliances, a small military force, hospital and commissariat, an Indian interpreter, and a surgeon.

But the presents are no longer given out here, as in 1837 and previously, to the wild tribes; so that, to see the Indian in perfection, you must take the annual government trader, and sail to the Grand Manitoulin Island, about a hundred miles on the northern shore of Lake Huron, where, at Manitou-a-wanning, there is a large settlement of Indian people, removed thither by the government to keep them from being plundered of their presents by the Whites, who were in the habit of giving whiskey and tobacco for their blankets, rifles, clothing, axes, knives, and other useful articles, with which, by treaty, they are annually supplied.

The Great Manitoulin, or Island of the Great Spirit, is an immense island, and, being good land, it is hoped that the benevolent intentions of the government will be successful. An Indian agent, or superintendent, resides with them; and a steamboat, called the Goderich, has made one or two trips to it, and up to the head of Lake Huron, last summer.

I went to Penetanguishene with the intention of meeting this vessel and going with her, but fear that her enterprise will be a failure. She was chartered to run from Sturgeon Bay, about nineteen miles beyond the narrows of Lake Simcoe, in connection with the mail or stage from Toronto, and the Beaver steamboat, plying on Lake Simcoe.

From Sturgeon Bay she went to Penetanguishene, and then to St. Vincent Settlement, and Owen's Sound, on Lake Huron, where a vast body of emigrants are locating. From Owen's Sound, she coasted and doubled Cabot's Head, and then ran down three hundred miles of the shore of Lake Huron to Goderich, Sarnia, Fort Gratiot, Windsor, and Detroit, with an occasional pleasure-trip to Manitoulin, St. Joseph's, and St. Mary's; so that all the north shore of Lake Huron could be seen, and the passengers might take a peep at Lake Superior, by going up the rapids of St. Mary to Gros Cap. But a variety of obstacles occurred in this immense voyage, although ultimately they will no doubt be overcome.

By starting in the Toronto stage early in the morning, the traveller slept on board the Goderich at Sturgeon Bay, a good road having been formed from the Narrows, although, by some strange oversight, this road terminates in a marsh six hundred feet from the bank to the island, on which the wharf and storehouse built for the steamer are erected. This caused much inconvenience to the passengers.

The stage went, or goes, once a week, on Monday, to Holland Landing, thirty six miles, meets the Beaver, which then crosses Lake Simcoe to the Narrows, a small village, thriving very fast since it is no longer a government Indian station, fifty miles, and there lands the travellers, who proceed by stage to Sturgeon Bay, nineteen more, and sleep on board the Goderich, arriving about eight p.m. The vessel gets under weigh, and reaches Penetanguishene by six in the morning: thus the whole route from Toronto, which takes three days by the land road, is performed in twenty-four hours.

But there are drawbacks: the Georgian Bay, between Sturgeon Bay and Penetanguishene, is, as I have already observed, dangerous at night, or in a fog. At Owen's Sound, the population is not far enough advanced to build the extensive wharf requisite, or to lay in sufficient supplies of fuel, and thus great detention was experienced there. At Penetanguishene, the wharf is not taken far enough into deep water for the vessel to lie at, and thus she usually grounded in the mud, and detention again arose. Then again, after rounding Cabot's Head and getting into the open lake, the coast is very dangerous, having not one harbour, until we arrive at the artificial one of Goderich, which is a pier-harbour; for the Saugeen is a roadstead full of rocks, and cannot be approached by a large vessel.

If, therefore, any thing happens to the machinery, and a steamer has to trust to her sails, the westerly winds which prevail on Lake Huron and blow tremendously, raising a sea that must be seen to be conceived of in a fresh-water lake, she has only to keep off the shore out into the main lake, and avoid Goderich altogether, by making for the St. Clair River.

However, the vessel did perform the voyage successfully seven times; and in summer it may do, and, if it does do, will be of incalculable benefit to the Huron tract, and the new settlements of the far west of Canada.

I am, however, afraid that the railroad schemes for opening the country to the south of this tract will for some time prevent a profitable steamboat speculation, although vast quantities of very superior fish are caught and cured now on the shores of Huron, such as salmon-trout and white fish, which, when properly salted or dried, are equal to any salt sea-fish whatever.

The Canadian French, the half-breeds, and the Indians, are chiefly engaged in this trade, which promises to become one of great importance to the country, and is already much encroached upon by adventurers from the United States.

The herring, as far as I can learn, ascends the St. Lawrence no higher than the Niagara River, but Ontario abounds with them and with salmon; a smaller species of white fish also has of late years spread itself over that lake, and is now sold plentifully in the Kingston market, where it was never seen only seven years ago. It is a beautiful fish, firm and well tasted, but rather too fat.

A farmer on the Penetanguishene road has introduced English breeds of cattle and sheep of the best kind. He was, and perhaps still is, contractor for the troops, and his stock is well worth seeing; he lives a few miles from Barrie. Thus the garrison is constantly supplied with finer meat than any other station in Canada, although more out of the world and in the wilderness than any other; and, as fish is plentiful, the soldiers and sailors of Queen Victoria in the Bay of the White Rolling Sand live well.

I was agreeably surprised to find at this remote post that only one soldier drank anything stronger than beer or water; and of course very little of the former, owing to the expense of transport, was to be had. The soldier that did drink spirits did not drink to excess.

How did all this happen in a place where drunkenness had been proverbial? The soldiers, who were of the 82nd regiment, had been selected for the station as married men. Their young commanding officer patronized gardening, cricketing, boating, and every manly amusement, but permitted no gambling. He formed a school for the soldiers and their families, and, in short, he knew how to manage them, and to keep their minds engaged; for they worked and played, read and reasoned; and so whiskey, which is as cheap as dirt there, was not a temptation which they could not resist. In winter, he had sleighing, snowshoeing, and every exercise compatible with the severe weather and the very deep snow incident to the station.

I feel persuaded that, now government has provided such handsome garrison libraries of choice and well selected books for the soldiers, if a ball alley, or racket court, and a cricket ground were attached to every large barrack, there would not only be less drinking in the army, but that vice would ultimately be scorned, as it has been within the last twenty years by the officers. A hard-drinking officer will scarcely be tolerated in a regiment now, simply because excessive drinking is a low, mean vice, being the indulgence of self for unworthy motives, and beneath the character of a gentleman. To be brought to a court-martial for drunkenness is now as disgraceful and injurious to the reputation of an officer as it was to be tried for cowardice, and therefore seldom occurs in the British army.

The vice of Canada is, however, drink; and Temperance Societies will not mend it. Their good is very equivocal, unless combined with religion, as there is only one Father Matthew in the world, nor is it probable that there will be another.

Penetanguishene is at present the ultima Thule of the British military posts in North America. It borders on the great wilderness of the North, and on that backbone of primary rocks running from the Alleghanies, across the thousand islands of the St. Lawrence, to the unknown interior of the northern verge of Lake Superior.

Penetanguishene will not, however, be long the ultima Thule of British military posts in Western Canada, as a large and most important settlement is making at Owen's Sound, on Lake Huron, connected by a long road through the wilderness with Saugeen river, another settlement on the shores of that lake, to prevent the necessity of the difficult water-passage round Cabot's Head; and a steamboat has been put on the route by the Canada Company, to connect Saugeen with Goderich.

The government, up to the 31st of December, 1845, had sold or granted 54,056 acres of land at Owen's Sound, of which 1,168 acres had been chopped or cleared of the forest last year alone; and 1,787 acres of wheat and 1,414 acres of oats had been harvested in 1845. There were 483 oxen, 596 cows, 433 young cattle, and 26 horses; and the population was 1,950, of which 759 were males above sixteen, and 399 males under sixteen, with 395 females above, and 399 under, the same age.

In this new colony there were 1,005 Presbyterians, 195 Roman Catholics, 173 Methodists, 167 of the Church of England, 67 Baptists, 8 Quakers. The other sects or divisions were not enumerated with sufficient accuracy to detail; and Owen's Sound, being as yet buried in the Bush, cannot be visited by casual travellers, unless when an occasional steamer plies from Penetanguishene. There is yet no post-office; but 1,500 newspapers and letters were received or sent in 1845; and two flour-mills and two saw-mills are erected and in use. Three schooners of a small class ply in summer to Penetanguishene. The village is at the head of Owen's Sound, fifteen miles from Cape Croker, and is named Sydenham, containing already thirty-six houses. Government gives 50 acres free, on condition of actual settlement, and that one third is cleared and cropped in four years, when a deed is obtained: another fifty is granted by paying 8s. an acre within three years, 9s. within six years, 10s. an acre within nine years. The soil is good and climate healthy.

North-north-west and north-east of Penetanguishene, all is wood, rock, lake, river, and desert, in which, towards the French river, the Nipissang Indian, the most degraded and helpless of the Red Men, wanders, and obtains scanty food, for game is rare, although fish is more plentiful.

An exploring expedition into this country was sent by Sir John Colborne, in 1835, with a view of ascertaining its capabilities for settlement. An officer of engineers, Captain Baddely, was the astronomer and geologist; a naval officer the pilot; with surveyors and a hardy suite.

They left Lake Simcoe in the township of Rama from the Severn river, and, going a short journey eastward, struck the division line of the Home and the Newcastle districts, which commences between the townships of Whitby and Darlington, on the shore of Lake Ontario, and runs a little to the westward of north in a straight course, until it strikes the south-east borders of Lake Nipissang, embracing more than two degrees of latitude, not one half of which has ever been fully explored.

The plan adopted was to cut out this line, and diverge occasionally from it to the right and left, until a great extent of unknown land on the east, and the distance between it and Lake Huron, which contained a large portion of the Chippewa Indian hunting-grounds, was thoroughly surveyed.

In performing so very arduous a task, much privation and many obstacles occurred—forests, swamps, rivers, lakes, rocky ridges—all had to be passed.

To the eastward of the main line, and for some distance to the westward, good land appeared; and, as the agricultural probe was freely used, chance was not permitted to sway. The agricultural probe is an instrument which I first saw slung over my friend Baddely's shoulders, and of his invention. It is a sort of huge screw gimblet, or auger, which readily penetrates the ground by being worked with a long cross-handle, and brings up the subsoil in a groove to a considerable depth. Specimens of the soil and of rocks and minerals were collected, and a plan was adopted which is a useful lesson to future explorers. A small piece of linen or cotton, about four inches square, had two pieces of twine sewed on opposite corners, and the cloth was marked in printers' ink, from stamps, with figures from 1 to 500. A knapsack was provided, and the specimens were reduced to a size small enough to be carefully tied up in one of these numbered square cloths; and, as the specimens were collected, they were entered in the journal as to number and locality, strata, dip, and appearance. Thus a vast number of small specimens could be brought on a man's back, and examined at leisure.

The toils, however, of such a journey in the vast and untrodden wilderness are very severe, and the privations greater. For, in this tract, on the side next to Lake Huron, there was an absence of game which scarcely ever occurs in the forest near the great lakes. With ice forming and snow commencing, and with every prospect of being frozen in, a portion of the explorers missed their supplies, and subsisted for three whole days and nights on almost nothing; a putrid deer's liver, hanging on a bush near a recent Indian trail, was all the animal food they had found; but this even hunger could scarcely tempt them to cook. I was exploring in a more civilized country near them; but even there our Indian guide was at fault, and, from want of proper precaution, our provision failed. A small fish amongst four or five persons was one day's luxury.

The Nipissang Indians, a very degraded and wretched tribe, live in this desolate region, and, it is said, have sometimes been so reduced for want of game as to resort to cannibalism. We heard that they had recently been obliged to resort to this practice. I was directed, with my friends, to conciliate these people, and to assure them that the British government, so far from intending to injure them by an examination of their country, desired only to ameliorate their sad condition.[3]

[Footnote 3: Some time afterwards, during the period in which Lord Glenelg held the Colonial Office, I was appointed to report upon the state and condition of the Indians of Canada, by his lordship, without my knowledge or solicitation; this was never communicated to me by the then Lieut.-Governor of Upper Canada, and I only knew of it last year, by accidentally reading a report on the subject made by order of the House of Assembly, after I left Canada. I do not know if his lordship will ever read this work, or the gentleman to whom I believe I was indebted for the intended kindness; and, if either should, I beg to tender my thanks thus publicly.]

We had a council. The astronomer royal, who was also the geologist, was a fine, portly fellow, whose bodily proportions would make three such carcases as that which I rejoice in. The nation sat in council and the Talk was held. Grim old savages, filthy and forbidding, half-starved warriors, hideous to the eye, sat in large circle, with the two great Red Fathers, as they called my friend and myself, on account of our scarlet jackets. The pipe passed from hand to hand and from mouth to mouth, and many a solemn whiff ascended in curling clouds: all was solemn and sad.

The speech was made and answered with an acuteness which we were not prepared for. But our explanation and mission were at length received, and the pledge of peace, the wampum-belts, were accepted and worn by the aged chiefs. My friend jogged my elbow once or twice, and thought they were eyeing him suspiciously, for he was to proceed into their country. He looked so fat and so healthy, that he thought their greasy mouths watered for a roasted slice of so fine a subject!

But the wampum pledge is never broken, and we had smoked the calumet of friendship. Thus, although he luxuriated, after a total abstinence of three days, on the sight of a decayed deer's liver, which he could not be prevailed upon to partake of, yet the Nipissang, starving as he must also have been, never fried my friend, nor feasted on his fatness.

This is not the only good story to be told of Penetanguishene; for the American press of the frontier, with its accustomed adherence to truth, discovered a mare's nest there lately, and stated that the British government kept enormous supplies of naval stores, several steam-vessels, a depot of coal, and everything necessary for the equipment of a large war fleet on Lake Huron, at this little outpost of the West, and that a tremendous force of mounted cavaliers were always ready to embark on board of it at all times.

There are now certainly a good many horses at the village, whereas, in 1837, perhaps one might have found out a dozen by great research there: as for cavalry, unless Brother Jonathan can manufacture it as cheaply and as lucratively as he does wooden clocks or nutmegs, it would be somewhat difficult to raise it at Penetanguishene.

The village is a small, rambling place, with a little Roman Catholic church and a storehouse or general shop or two, about which, in summer, you always see idle Indians playing at some game or other, or else smoking with as idle villagers.

The garrison is three miles from the village, and is always called "The Establishment;" and in the forest between the two places is a new church, built of wood, very small, but sufficient for the Established Church, as it is sometimes called, of that portion of Canada. A clergyman is constantly stationed here for the army, navy, and civilians, and near the church is a collection of log huts, which I placed there some years ago by order of Lord Seaton, with small plots of ground attached to each as a refuge for destitute soldiers who had commuted their pensions.

This Chelsea in miniature flourished for a time, and drained the streets of the large towns of Canada of the miserable objects; but, such was the improvidence of most of these settlers and such their broken constitutions, that, on my present visit, I found but one old serjeant left, and he was on the point of moving.

The commutation of pensions was an experiment of the most benevolent intention. It was thought that the married pensioner would purchase stock for a small farm, and set himself down to provide for his children with a sum of money in hand which he could never have obtained in any other way. Many did so, and are now independent; but the majority, helpless in their habits, and giving way to drink, soon got cheated of their dollars and became beggars; so that the government was actually obliged at length to restore a small portion of the pension to keep them from starvation. They died out, would not work at the Penetanguishene settlement, and have vanished from the things that be. Poor fellows! many a tale have they told me of flood and field, of being sabred by the cuirassiers at Waterloo, of being impaled on a Polish lance, and of their wanderings and sufferings.

The military settlement, however, of the Penetanguishene road is a different affair. It was effected by pensioned non-commissioned officers and soldiers, who had grants of a hundred acres and sometimes more; and it will please the benevolent founder, should these pages meet his eye, to know that many of them are now prosperous, and almost all well to do in the world.

But we must retrace our steps, and waggon back again by their doors to Barrie.

I left the village at half-past six in the morning, raining still, with the wind in the south-east, and very cold. We arrived at the Widow Marlow's, nineteen miles, at mid-day; the weather having changed to fine and blowing hard—certainly not pleasant in the forest-road, on account of the danger of falling trees, to which this pass is so liable that a party of axemen have sometimes to go ahead to cut out a way for the horses.

We passed through the twelve mile woods by a new road, which reduces the extent of actual forest to five, and avoids altogether the Trees of the Two Brothers, noted in Penetanguishene history for the fatal accident, narrated in a former volume, by which one soldier died, and his brother was, it is supposed, frightened to death, in the solemn depths of the primeval and then endless woods.

Near the end of the five mile Bush, about a mile from the first clearance, Jeffrey, the landlord of the inn at the village, has built a small cottage for the refreshment of the traveller, and in it he intends to place his son. In the mean time, until quite completed, for money is scarce and things not to be done at railroad pace so near the North Pole, he has located here an old well known black gentleman, called Mr. Davenport, who was once better to do in the world, and kept a tavern himself.

Having had the honour of his acquaintance for many years, I stopped to see how my old friend was getting on, particularly as I heard that he was now very old, and that his white consort had left him alone in the narrow world of the house in the woods. He received me with grinning delight, and told me that he had just left the new jail at Barrie for selling liquor without a license, which, I opine, is rather hard law against a poor old nigger, who had literally no other means of support, and was most usefully stationed, like the monks of St. Bernard, in a dangerous pass.

But the wind is tempered to the shorn lamb, and the woolly head of old Davenport had matter of satisfaction in it from a source that he never dreamed of.

Alone—far away from the whole human world, in the depth of a hideous forest, with a road nearly impassable one half of the year,—he found an unexpected friend.

For fear of the visits of two-footed and four-footed brutes during the long nights of his Robinson Crusoe solitude, old Davenport always shut up his log castle early, and retired to rest as soon as daylight departed; for it did so very early in the evening there, as the solemn pines, with their gray trunks and far-spreading moss-grown arms and dismal evergreen foliage, if it can be called foliage, stood close to his dwelling—nay, brushed with the breath of the wind his very roof.

Recollect, reader, that this lonely dweller in the Bush resided near the spot where the two soldier brothers perished; and you may imagine his thoughts, after his castle was closed at night by the lone warder. No one could come to his assistance, if he had the bugle that roused the echoes of Fontarabia.

He had retired to rest early one night in the young spring-time, when he heard a singular noise on the outside of his house, like somebody moaning, and rubbing forcibly under his window, which was close to the head of his pallet-bed. Quivering with fear, he lay, with these sounds continuing at short intervals, through the whole night, and did not rise until the sun was well up. He then peeped cautiously about, but neither heard nor saw any thing; and, axe in hand and gun loaded, he went forth, but could not perceive aught more than that the ground had been slightly disturbed. This went on for some time, until at last, one fine moonlight night, the old man ventured to open a part of his narrow window; and there he saw rubbing himself, very composedly, a fine large he bear, who looked up very affectionately at him, and whined in a decent melancholy growl.

Davenport had, it seems, thrown some useless article of food out of this window; and Bruin supposed, no doubt, that Blackey did it out of compassionate feeling for a fellow denizen of the forest, and repeated his visits to obtain something more substantial, rubbing himself, to get rid of the mosquitoes, as it was his custom of an afternoon, against the rough logs of the dwelling. He had, moreover, become a little impatient at not being noticed, and scratched like a dog to make the lord of the mansion aware of his presence. This usually occurred about nine o'clock.

Davenport, at last, threw some salt pork to Bruin, which was most gratefully received; and every night after that, for the whole summer and autumn, at nine o'clock or thereabouts, the bear came to receive bread, meat, milk, or potatoes, or whatever could be spared from the larder, which was left on the ground under the window for him. In fact, they soon came to be upon very friendly terms, and spent many hours in each other's company, with a stout log-wall between Davenport and his brother, as he always calls the bear.

When the snows of winter, the long, severe winter of these northern woods, at last came, Bruin ceased his nocturnal visitations, and has never been seen since, the old man thinking that he has been shot or trapped by the Indian hunters.

I asked Davenport if he ever ventured out to look for his brother, but he shook his head and replied, "My brudder might have hugged me too hard, perhaps." The poor old fellow is very cheerful, and regrets his brother's absence daily. The bailiffs most likely would not have put him in jail for selling whiskey to a tired traveller, but would have avoided the castle in the woods, if they thought there was any chance of meeting Bruin.



CHAPTER VI.

Barrie and Big Trees—A new Capital of a new District—Nature's Canal—The Devil's Elbow—Macadamization and Mud—Richmond Hill without the Lass—The Rebellion and the Radicals—Blue Hill and Bricks.

We reached Barrie safely that night, and slept at the Queen's Arms. Next morning, I had an excellent opportunity of seeing this thriving village.

It is very well situated on the shore of Kempenfeldt Bay, on ground rising gradually to a considerable height, and is neatly laid out, containing already about five hundred people.

On the high ground overlooking the place are a church, a court-house, and a jail, all standing at a small distance from each other, nearly on a line, and adding very much indeed to the appearance of the place. The deep woods now form a background, but are gradually disappearing. I went about a mile into them, and saw several new clearances, with some nice houses building or built; and particularly one by Bingham, our landlord, a very comfortable, English-looking, large cottage, with outhouses and an immense barn, round which the rascally ground squirrels were playing at hide-and-seek very fearlessly.

The Court House contains the district school, which appears very respectable, and is conducted by a young Irishman; it also contains all the district offices, and is two stories high, massively and well built, the lower story being of stone and the upper of brick, both from materials on the spot.

The church is of wood, plain and neat. The jail is worth a visit, and shows what may be done in the forest and in a brand-new district, as the district of Simcoe is, although I believe about half the money it cost would have been better employed on the roads; for it has never been used, except as a place of confinement for an unfortunate lunatic.

It is formed in the castellated style, of a handsome octagonal tower, of very white, shelly limestone, with a square turreted stone enclosure, on the top of which is an iron chevaux de frize, and which enclosure is subdivided into separate day-yards for prisoners. The entrance is under a Gothic archway; and in the centre of the tower is an internal space, open from top to bottom, and preventing all access to the stairs from the cells, which are very neat, clean, and commodious, with a good supply of water, and excellent ventilation. It is, in short, as pretty a toy penitentiary as you could see anywhere, and looks more like an Isle of Wight gentleman's fortress, copied after the most approved Wyattville pattern of baronial mansion, with a little touch of the card-house. In short, it is as fine as you can conceive, and sets off the village wonderfully well.

The red pine, near Barrie and through all the Penetanguishene country, grows to an enormous size. I measured one near Barrie no less than twenty-six feet in girth, and this was merely a chance one by the path-side. Its height, I think, must have been at least two hundred feet, and it was vigorously healthy. What was its age? It would have made a plank eight feet broad, after the bark was stripped off.

But the woods generally disappoint travellers, as they never penetrate them; and the lumberers have cut down all available pines and oaks within reach of the settlements, excepting where they were not worth the expence of transport. The pines, moreover, take no deep root; and, as soon as the underbrush or thicket is cleared, they fall before the storm. Provident settlers, therefore, rarely leave large and lofty trees near their dwellings for fear of accident.

The pine, in the Penetanguishene country, has a strange fancy to start out of the earth in three, five, or more trunks, all joined at the base, and each trunk an enormous tree. I have an idea that this has arisen from the stony, loose soil they grow in, which has caused this strange freak of Nature, by making it difficult for the young plant to rear its head out of the ground. Whatever is the reason, however, all the masts of some "great Amiral" might be truly provided out of a single pine-tree.

But we must leave Barrie, after just mentioning Kempenfeldt, about a mile or so distant, which was the original village; and, although at the actual terminus of the land road, has never flourished, and still consists of some half dozen houses. The newer Admiral superseded the more ancient one; for Barrie did deeds of renown, which it suited the Canadians to commemorate much more than the unfortunate Kempenfeldt and his melancholy end.

If ever there was an infamous road between two villages so close together, it is the road between these two places; I hope it will be mended, for it is both dark and dangerous.

I always wondered not a little how it happened that Bingham of Barrie kept such a good table, where fresh meat was as plentiful as at Toronto. I looked for the market-place of the capital of Simcoe: there was none. But the mystery was solved the moment I put my foot on board the Beaver steamer to go back by the water road.

What will the reader think of Leadenhall Market being condensed and floating? Such, however, was the case; there was a regular travelling butcher's-shop, for the supply of the settlers around Lake Simcoe; and meat, clean and enticing as at the finest stall in the market aforesaid, where upon regular hooks were regularly displayed the fine roasting and boiling joints of the season. And a very fair speculation no doubt it is, this pedlar butchery.

On the 3rd of July, at half-past twelve, I left the capital of the Simcoe district, and am particular as to dates and seasons, because it tells the traveller for pleasure what are the times and the tides he should choose.

We embarked on board the good ship Beaver, a large steam-vessel, for the Holland Landing, distant twenty-eight miles—twenty-one of them by the lake, and seven by the river. The vessel stops by the way at several settlements, where half-pay officers generally have pitched their tents; and twice a week she makes the grand tour of the whole lake, at an altitude of upwards of seven hundred and fifty feet above Lake Ontario, and not forty miles from it.

This navigation of the Holland river is very well worth seeing, as it is a natural canal flowing through a vast marsh, and very narrow, with most serpentine convolutions, often doubling upon itself.—Conceive the difficulty of steering a large steamboat in such a course; yet it is done every day in summer and autumn, by means of long poles, slackening the steam, backing, &c., though very rarely without running a little way into the soft mud of the swamp. The motion of the paddles has, however, in the course of years, widened the channel and prevented the growth of flags and weeds.

There is one place called the Devil's Elbow, a common name in Canada for a difficult river pass, where the sluggish water fairly makes a double, and great care is necessary. Here the enterprising owner and master of the vessel tried to cut a channel; but, after getting a straight course through the mud for two-thirds of the way, he found it too expensive to proceed, but declares that he will persevere. Why does not the Board of Works, which has literally the expenditure of more than a million, take the business in hand, and complete it? One or two hundred pounds would finish the affair. But perhaps it is too trifling, and, like the cut at the Long Point, Lake Erie, to which we shall come presently, is overlooked in the magnitude of greater things.

Of all the unformed, unfinished public establishments in Canada, it has always appeared to me that the Crown Lands department, and the Board of Works, are pre-eminent. One costs more to manage the funds it raises than the funds amount to; and the other was for several years a mere political job. No very eminent civil engineer could have afforded to devote his time and talents to it, as he must have been constantly exposed to be turned out of office by caprice or cupidity. I do not know how it is now managed, but the political jobbing is, I believe, at an end, as the same person presides over the office who held it when it was in very bad odour. This gentleman must, however, be quite adequate to the office, as some of the public works are magnificent; but I cannot go so far as to say that one must approve of all. The St. Lawrence Canal has cost the best part of a million, is useless in time of war, and a mere foil at all times to the Rideau navigation, which the British government constructed free of any provincial funds. The timber slides on the Trent are so much money put into the timber-merchants' pockets, to the extreme detriment of the neighbouring settlers, whose lands have been swept of every available stick by the lawless hordes of woodcutters engaged to furnish this work; and who, living in the forest, were beyond the reach of justice or of reason, destroying more trees than they could carry away, and defying, gun and axe in hand, the peaceable proprietors.

It was intended, before the rebellion broke out, to render the river Trent navigable by a splendid canal, which would have opened the finest lands in Canada for hundreds of miles, and eventually to have connected Lake Huron with Lake Ontario. A large sum of money was expended on it before the Board of Works was constituted, and an experienced clerk of works, fresh from the Rideau Canal, was chosen to superintend; but the troubles commenced, and the money was wanted elsewhere.

When money became again plentiful, and the country so loudly demanded the Trent Canal, why was it not finished? I shall give by and by an account of a recent excursion to the Trent, and then we shall perhaps learn more about it, and why perishing timber slides were substituted for a magnificent canal.

But the Devil's Elbow should be straightened by the Board of Works at all events, otherwise it may stick in the mud, and then nobody can help it; for the marsh is very extensive, and there would be no Jupiter to cry out to.

Well, however, in spite of all obstacles, Captain Laughton piloted us safe to Ague and Fever Landing, where, depend upon it, we did not stay a moment longer than sufficed to jump into a coloured gentleman's waggon, which was in waiting, and in which we were driven off as a coloured gentleman always drives, that is to say, in a hand-gallop, to Winch's tavern, our old accustomed inn at St. Alban's, where we arrived in due time, and there hired another Jehu, who was an American Irishman (a sad compound), to take us as far towards Yonge Street as practicable. We reached Richmond Hill, seventeen miles from the Landing, at about eight o'clock, having made a better day's journey than is usually accomplished on a road which will be macadamized some fine day; for the Board of Works have a Polish engineer hard at work surveying it—of course no Canadian was to be found equal to this intricate piece of engineering—and I saw a variety of sticks stuck up, but what they meant I cannot guess at. I suppose they were going to grade it, which is the favourite American term—a term, by the by, by no manner or method meaning gradus ad Parnassum, or even laying it out in steps and stairs, like the Scotch military road near Loch Ness; but which, as far as my limited information in Webster's Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon tongue goes, signifies levelling. I may, however, be mistaken; and this puts me in mind of another tale to beguile the way.

A character set out from England to try his fortune in Canada. He was conversing about prospects in that country, on board the vessel, with a person who knew him, but whom he knew not. "I have not quite made up my mind," said the character, "as to what pursuit I shall follow in Canada; but that which brings most grist to the mill will answer best; and I hear a man may turn his hand to anything there, without the folly of an apprenticeship being necessary; for, if he has only brains, bread will come—now, what do you think would be the best business for my market?"

"Why," said the gentleman, after pondering a little, "I should advise you to try civil engineering; for they are getting up a Board of Works there, and want that branch of industry very much, for they won't take natives; nothing but foreigners or strangers will go down."

"What is a civil engineer?" said the character.

"A man always measuring and calculating," responded his adviser, "and that will just suit you."

"So it will," rejoined Character; and a civil engineer he became accordingly, and a very good one into the bargain; for he had brains, and had used a yard measure all his lifetime.

I was told this story by a person of veracity, who heard the conversation, but it is by no means a wonderful one; for such is the versatility of talent which the climate of Northern America engenders, that I knew a leading member of parliament provincial, who was a preacher, a shopkeeper, a doctor, a lawyer, a banker, a militia colonel, and who undertook to build a suspension bridge across the cataracted river Niagara, to connect the United States with Canada for L8,000, lawful money of the colony; an undertaking which Rennie would perchance have valued at about L100,000; but n'importe, the bill was passed, and a banking shop set up instead of a bridge, which answered every purpose, for the notes passed freely on both sides until they were worn out.

Behold us, however, at Richmond Hill, having safely passed the Slough of Despond, which the vaunted Yonge Street mud road presents, between the celebrated hamlet of St. Alban's and the aforesaid hill, one of the greatest curiosities of which road, near St. Alban's, is the vicinity of a sort of Mormon establishment, where a fellow of the name of David Wilson, commonly called David, has set up a Temple of the Davidites, with Virgins of the Sun, dressed in white, and all the tomfooleries of a long beard and exclusive sanctity. But America is a fine country for such knavery. Another curiosity is less pitiable and more natural. It is Bond Lake, a large narrow sheet of water, on the summit between Lake Simcoe and Lake Ontario, which has no visible outlet or inlet, and is therefore, like David Wilson, mysterious, although common sense soon lays the mystery in both cases bare; one is a freak of Nature concealing the source and exitus, the other a fraud of man.

The oak ridges, and the stair-like descents of plateau after plateau to Ontario, are also remarkable enough, showing even to the most thoughtless that here ancient shores of ancient seas once bounded the forest, gradually becoming lower and lower as the water subsided. Lyell visited these with the late Mr. Roy, a person little appreciated and less understood by the great ones of the earth at Toronto, who made an excellent geological survey of this part of the province, and whose widow had infinite difficulty in obtaining a paltry recompense for his labours in developing the resources of the country. The honey which this industrious bee manufactured was sucked by drones, and no one has done him even a shadow of justice, but Mr. Lyell, who, having no colonial dependence, had no fears in so doing.

But of Richmond Hill, why so called I never could discover, for it is neither very highly picturesque, nor very highly poetical, although Dolby's Tavern is a most comfortable resting-place for a wearied traveller, at which prose writer or poetaster may find a haven. Attention, good fare, and neatness prevail. It is English.

I have observed two things in journeying through Upper Canada. If you find neatness at an hostel, it is kept by old-country people. If you meet with indifference and greasy meats, they are Americans. If you see the best parlour hung round with bad prints of presidents, looking like Mormon preachers, they are radicals of the worst leaven. If prints from the New York Albion, neatly framed and glazed, hang on each side of a wooden clock, over a sideboard in the centre of the room, opposite to the windows, the said prints representing Queen Victoria, Lord Nelson, Windsor Castle, or the New Houses of Parliament, be assured that loyalty and John Bullism reign there; and, although you meet with no servility, you will not be disgusted with vulgar assumption, such as cocking up dirty legs in dirty boots on a dirty stove, wearing the hat, and not deigning to answer a civil question.

Personally, no man cares less for the mode of reception, when I take mine ease at mine inn, than I do, for old soldiers are not very fastidious, and old travellers still less so; but give me sturdy John Bull, with his blunt plainness and true independence, before the silly insolence of a fellow, who thinks he shows his equality, by lowering the character of a man to that of a brute, in coarse exhibitions of assumed importance, which his vocation of extracting money from his unwilling guests renders only more hateful.

We departed from Richmond Hill at half-past five, and waggoned on to Finch's Inn, seven miles, where we breakfasted. This is another excellent resting-place, and the country between the two is thickly settled. I forgot to mention that we have now been travelling through scenes celebrated in the rebellion of Mackenzie. About five miles from Holland Landing is the Blacksmith's Shop, which was the head-quarters of Lount, the smith, who, like Jack Cade, set himself up to reform abuses, and suffered the penalty of the outraged laws.

Lount was a misled person, who, imbued with strong republican feelings, and forgetting the favours of the government he lived under, which had made him what he was, took up arms at Mackenzie's instigation, and thought he had a call—a call to be a great general. He passed to his account, so 'requiescas in pace,' Lount! for many a villain yet lives, to whose vile advices you owed your untimely end, and who ought to have met with your fate instead of you. Lount had the mind of an honest man in some things, for it is well known that his counsels curbed the bloody and incendiary spirit of Mackenzie in many instances. The government has not sequestered his property, although his sons were equally guilty with himself.

We also pass, in going to Toronto, two other remarkable places. Finch's Tavern, where we breakfasted at seven o'clock, was formerly the Old Stand, as it was so called, of the notorious Montgomery, another general, a tavern general of Mackenzie's, who moved to a place about four miles from the city, where the rebels were attacked in 1837 by Sir Francis Head, and near which the battle of Gallows Hill was fought.

Montgomery was taken prisoner, sent to Kingston, and escaped by connivance, with several others, from the fortress there on a dark night, fell into a ditch, broke his leg, and afterwards was hauled by his comrades over a high wall, and got across the St. Lawrence into the United States, where he was run over afterwards by a waggon and much injured. His tavern was burnt to the ground by the militia during the action, on account of the barbarous murder there of Colonel Moodie, a very old retired officer, who was killed by Mackenzie's orders in cold blood. It is now rebuilt on a very extensive scale; and he is again there, having been permitted to return, and his property, which was confiscated, has been restored to his creditors.

Such were Mackenzie's intended government and the tools he was to govern by! Such is the British government! The Upper Canadians wisely preferred the latter.

Next to Richmond Hill is Thornhill, all on the macadamized portion of the road to Toronto. Thornhill is a very pretty place, with a neat church and a dell, in which a river must formerly have meandered, but where now a streamlet runs to join Lake Ontario. Here are extensive mills, owned by Mr. Thorne, a wealthy merchant, who exports flour largely, the Yonge Street settlement being a grain country of vast extent, which not only supplies his mills, but the Red Mills, near Holland Landing, and many others.

From Montgomery's Tavern to Toronto is almost a continued series for four miles of gentlemen's seats and cottages, and, being a straight road, you see the great lake for miles before its shores are reached. Large sums have been expended on this road, which is carried through a brick-clay soil, in which the Don has cut deep ravines, so that immense embankments and deep excavations for the level have been requisite.

Near Toronto, at Blue Hill, large brick yards are in operation, and here white brick is now made, of which a handsome specimen of church architecture has been lately erected in the west end of the city. Tiles, elsewhere not seen in Canada, are also manufactured near Blue Hill; but they are not extensively used, the snow and high winds being unfavourable to their adoption, shingles or split wood being cheaper, and tinned iron plates more durable and less liable to accident.

In most parts of Upper Canada, near the shores of the great lakes, you can build a house either of stone or brick, as it suits your fancy, for both these materials are plentiful, particularly clay; but at Toronto there is no suitable building-stone; plenty of clay, however, is found, for there you may build your house out of the very excavations for your cellars; and I confess that I prefer a brick house in Canada to one of limestone, for the latter material imbibes moisture; and if a brick house has a good projecting roof, it lasts very long, and is always warm.

It is surprising to observe the effects of the climate on buildings in this country. A good stone house, not ten years old, carefully built, and pointed between the joints of the masonry with the best cement, requires a total repair after that period, and often before. The window-sills and lintels of limestone break and crack, and the chimneys soon become disjointed and unsafe. Although it may seem paradoxical, yet it is true that the woodwork of a house lasts good much longer than the stone, or rather the cement, which joins the stone; but wood decays also very rapidly. A bridge becomes rotten in ten years, and a shingled roof lasts only fifteen; but then wood is never seasoned in America; it would not pay.