First Impressions of the New World Part 2

After dinner we went to deliver a letter which papa had brought for Mr.

Street, who has a house above the Falls. He was not at home; but we went through the grounds and over a suspension bridge he has built to connect a large island, also his property, with the mainland. There are, in fact, not one but many islands, into which one large one has probably, in the course of time, become divided by the raging torrent. It is just above the Horse-Shoe Fall, in the midst of the most boisterous part of the rapids; and it was quite sublime on looking up the river to see the horizon formed at a considerable level above our heads by the ma.s.s of foaming water. But now for the Falls!

You must fill up this blank with your imagination, for no words can convey any idea of the scene. They far surpa.s.s anything we could have believed of them. This, however, I write after a thorough study of them from various points of view; for when we first caught a glimpse, in our drive to-day, of the Fall on the American side, it disappointed us; but from the verandah of this hotel, on which our bed-room windows open, we had the first astounding view of the two Falls, with Goat Island dividing them; and that sight baffles all description. The Horse-Shoe Fall is magnificent. The curve is so graceful and beautiful; and the mist so mysterious, rising, as it does, from the depths below, and presenting the appearance of a moving veil as it glides past, whether yielding to every breath of wind, or, as now, when driven quickly by a gale; then the height of the clouds of light white mist rising above the trees; and, above all, the delicate emerald green where the curve itself takes place: all these elements of beauty combined, fill the mind with wonder, when contemplating so glorious a work of G.o.d's hand; so simple, and yet so striking and magnificent. We can gaze at the whole all day and all night, if we please, from our own windows. The moon being nearly full, is a _great_ addition to the beauty of the scene. I have frequently risen from my seat while writing this, to look first at the rapids above the American Fall, lit up and shining like the brightest silver; then at the moon on the mist, illuminating first one part of it and then another. I must proceed with my description of our doings (if I can) on Monday, before leaving this for Toronto, which we are to do on Monday afternoon; but this must be posted here, and I should like to finish my description of Niagara in this letter. We met a real Indian to-day. He had somewhat of a Chinese cast of countenance. Perhaps we shall see more of them. It is said that some of the black waiters in this hotel are escaped slaves, having come to English ground for safety.

_September 19th._--This being Sunday, we went to a chapel in a village of native Indians of the Tuscarrara tribe. The chapel was about half filled with these poor Indians and half with visitors like ourselves.

They have had a missionary among them for about fifty years, and it is to be hoped that former missionaries talked more sense to them, and taught them better truths, than the one we heard to-day. His sermon was both long and tedious, and was interpreted into the Tuscarrara language sentence by sentence as the preacher, who was a Presbyterian, delivered it. The burden of it was their ingrat.i.tude, not to G.o.d, but to the Government of the United States, which had devoted an untold number of dollars for their conversion; and he ended by a threat that this generosity on their part would be withdrawn if they did not alter their wicked course of life. As we were there for half an hour before the service began, we had an opportunity of conversing with many of these poor people, who seemed little to deserve this severe censure, for many of them had evidently come from a distance, having brought their food with them, and the people seemed of a quiet and harmless disposition.

Few of them seemed to understand English, and these only the men, as the women professed, at least, not to understand papa when he tried to talk to them. They had all of them remarkably piercing and intelligent black eyes, but were not otherwise good looking. There were two little babies in their mothers' arms, one in a bright yellow dress. The women wore handkerchiefs tied over their heads, except one or two who wore round hats and feathers. Some in hoops and crinolines! All wore bead necklaces. They are the makers of the well-known mohair and bark and beadwork. In the churchyard were many tombstones with English inscriptions. The following is the copy we made of one:--

"SEKWARIHTHICH-DEA WM. CHEW,

GRAND SACHEM OF THE TUSCARRARA NATION OF INDIANS,

WHO DIED DEC. 16, 1857,

In the 61st year of his age.

The memory of his many virtues will be embalmed in the hearts of his people, and posterity will speak of his praise.

He was a good man, and a just.

He held the office of Grand Sachem 30 years, and was Missionary Interpreter 29 years."

After chapel we returned to the American side of the Fall, where the _table d'hote_ dinner was later than at the Clifton Hotel, which we had missed. While waiting for dinner, we went again to Goat Island, and had some splendid views of the Falls, the day being magnificent beyond all description. Papa and William afterwards took a long walk to get a new view of the whirlpool. Papa has made me dreadfully anxious all day by going too close to the edges of the precipices; and as the rock is very brittle and easily crumbles off, and as his feet often trip in walking, you may suppose the agonies I have been in; at last I began to wish myself and him safe in the streets of Toronto. I was not the least frightened for myself, but it was trying to see him always looking over, and about to lean against old crazy wooden bal.u.s.trades that William said must have given way from sheer rottenness with any weight upon them.

This is _such_ a night, not a single cloud; the clearest possible sky and the moon shining brightly, as it did over the two Falls the first night we were here. Papa calls me every minute--"Oh come, do come, this minute; I do not believe you have ever yet seen the Falls!!!" To-morrow we have one remaining expedition,--to go in a small steamer called the "Maid of the Mist," which pokes her nose into the two Falls about six times a day. The pa.s.sengers are put into waterproof dresses. This I hope to describe to you to-morrow, and shall despatch my letter before starting for Toronto.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] My English maid.

[3] The Erie Ca.n.a.l is one of the three great means of communication which existed previous to the introduction of railways between the Eastern States and those that lie to the west of the Alleghanies; the other two being the Pennsylvania and the Baltimore and Ohio Ca.n.a.ls.

Sections of these great works are shown on the map.

LETTER IV.

NIAGARA.--MAID OF THE MIST.--ARRIVAL AT TORONTO.--TORONTO.--THOUSAND ISLANDS.--RAPIDS OF THE ST.

LAWRENCE.--MONTREAL.--VICTORIA BRIDGE.

Clifton Hotel, Falls of Niagara, Sept. 20th, 1858.

I intended to have wound up the description of Niagara in the letter I despatched to you two hours ago, but we returned home from our expedition this morning only five minutes before the post hour for England, so that our packet had to be hastily closed.

We had rather a chapter of accidents this morning, but all has ended well. We went out immediately after breakfast, the weather being splendid, though there was a high wind, and finding the mist driving very hard, we decided on going over to the opposite sh.o.r.e across the suspension bridge, rather than be ferried over to the steamer in a small open boat, which can never, I imagine, be very pleasant in such a near neighbourhood to the two Falls. William, however, remained on this side, preferring the ferry, and we were to meet on the opposite bank and take to the little steamer; but though our drive took half-an-hour and his row five minutes, he was not at the place of rendezvous when, we arrived, nor did he appear after we had waited for him some time. Papa then went in a sort of open car down an inclined plane, contrived to save the fatigue of a long stair. On getting to the bottom he saw nothing of William, and in walking on the wet planks he slipped down and fell on his side, and cut his face and bruised his eye; he says his eye was within a hair's breadth of being put out by the sharp corner of a rock. He walked up the long stair, being too giddy after his fall to attempt the car, and he felt very headachy and unwell in consequence all the morning. At last William made his appearance. There had been no ferryman for a long time, and when he came he knew so little how to manage the boat, that had not William rowed they would have been down the river and over the rapids! At last we all four (Thrower included), started down the inclined plane to the steamer, and were warned by papa's tumble to take care of our footing. It might easily be made a more pleasant landing-place than it is by means of their everlasting wood. We got on to the "Maid of the Mist," and were made to take off our bonnets and hats, and put on a sort of waterproof capuchin cloak and hood, and up we went on deck. In one moment we were drenched; the deck was a running sea, and the mist drove upon us much harder than pouring rain. I went there with a cold, and if it gets no worse, shall think fresh water is as innocuous as salt. It was quite a question whether the thing was worth doing: the day was probably unfavourable, as the mist drove on us instead of the other way, but some parts were very fine. We returned to the same landing-place, as they most stupidly have none on this side; so up we went again in the open cars, and on landing we had our photographs done twice with views of the Falls as a background. They were very well and rapidly done. We then drove William towards the Cave of the Winds, which is a pa.s.sage behind what looks from these windows a mere thread of a waterfall, but is really a very considerable one.

Ladies, however, perform this feat as well as gentlemen, but they have entirely to change their dress--it is like walking through a great shower-bath to a _cul de sac_ in the rock. Circular rainbows are seen here, and William saw two; he seemed to be standing on one which made a perfect circle round him. A certificate was given him of his having accomplished this feat. While he was doing this we bought a few things made by the Indians and the Shakers, and then met William, and hurried home in time only to sign and despatch our letters to England. We then dined, and I am now obliged suddenly to stop short in writing, as my despatch-box must be packed, for we leave this at half-past four for Toronto.

_Rossin House, Toronto, Sept. 21st._--Our journey here yesterday was not through as pretty a country as usual, and this part of Canada strikes us as much tamer than anything we have yet seen in America. We changed trains at Hamilton and remained there nearly an hour. Sir Allan McNab has a country house in the neighbourhood, said to be a very pretty one, and we shall probably go in the train to-morrow to see him. The railroad, for some time towards the end of our journey yesterday, ran along the sh.o.r.e of Lake Ontario. The sky was pure and clear, with the moon shining brightly on the waters of the quiet lake. It was difficult to believe that the immense expanse of water was not salt. It looked so like the sea, especially when within a few miles of Toronto we saw tiny waves and minute pebbles and sand, which gave it an appearance of a miniature sea beach. Had I not been on a railway when I saw these small pebbles, I should have picked up some for you, and I think you would have valued them as much as your cornelians at Cromer. I searched for them later, and never came up with such a pretty pebbly beach again.

_Montreal, Sept. 25th._--Unhappily this sheet has been packed up by mistake for some days, and I have not been able to go on with my journal, but I resume it this evening, for it must be despatched to you the day after to-morrow.

We pa.s.sed the 22nd and 23rd at Toronto, and had much pleasure there in seeing a great deal of the Alfred O.'s, and their very nice children, and it was quite touching to see the pleasure our visit gave them. We had the sorrow, however, of parting from William, who left us on the morning of the 23rd for the Far West. He went with Mr. Latham and Mr.

Kilburn, and it was a very great comfort to us that he had such pleasant companions, instead of travelling such a distance alone. We had an early visit at Toronto from Mr. and Mrs. W., friends of the O.'s: they begged us so earnestly to remain over the 23rd to dine with them, that we consented to do so. Toronto is a most melancholy-looking place. It has suffered in the "crisis," and the consequence is that wide streets seem to have been begun but never finished, giving the town a very disastrous look. There is one wide handsome street with good shops, and our hotel was an enormous one; but when this is said, there is little more to add about it, for it looks otherwise very forlorn, and altogether the town is the least inviting one we have yet seen in our travels.

In the course of our drive we had an opportunity of seeing the interiors of some of the houses, many of which display considerable wealth; the rooms being large, and filled with ornaments of every sort. The ladies dress magnificently; a handsome coral brooch is often worn, and is almost an infallible sign, both here and in the United States, of a tour to Italy having been accomplished; indeed I can feel nearly as certain that the wearer has travelled so far, by seeing her collar fastened with it, as if she told me the fact, and many such journeys must have been performed, judging by the number of coral brooches we see.

We did little the first day but drive about the streets. We drank tea at the A. O.'s, and the next day they took us to see one very beautiful sight; the New University, which is in course of building, and is the most beautiful structure we have seen in America. Indeed it is the only one which makes the least attempt at Mediaeval architecture, and is a very correct specimen of the twelfth century. The funds for building this university arise out of the misappropriation (by secularising them) of the clergy reserves; the lands appropriated to the college giving them possession of funds to the amount of about three hundred thousand pounds. Of this the building, it is supposed, will absorb about one hundred and twenty thousand pounds, and they propose to lay out a large sum to increase an already very good library, which is rich in works on natural history and English topography. Dr. McCaul, who is the president of the college, is a brother of the preacher in London.

We dined at the W.'s on the evening of the 23rd. Their house is very large, having been lately added to, and the town being very busy, preparing for an Agricultural Meeting, the upholsterer had not time to put down the carpets or put up the curtains, and the night being cold, we felt a little twinge of what a Canadian winter is; but the drawing-rooms were exceedingly pretty,--the walls being very light stucco, with ornaments in relief, and they were brilliantly lighted. We were eighteen at dinner, the party including the O.'s, the Mayor, Dr.

and Mrs. McCaul, and Sir Allan McNab, who had come from his country-place to meet us. The dinner was as well appointed, in all respects, as if it had taken place in London. In the evening Mrs. W.

sang "Where the bee sucks" most beautifully. Papa encored it, and was quite delighted at hearing so favourite a song so well sung. The mayoress also sang, and so did another lady. The furniture of the rooms was of American oak and black walnut, which are favourite woods; but we did not much admire them. When we were leaving, Mrs. W. showed us her bed-room, which was really splendid,--so s.p.a.cious, and so beautifully furnished; there was a bath-room near it, and other bed-rooms also of large dimensions. We drove back to our hotel in the moonlight, so bright and clear that it was difficult not to suppose it daylight, except that the planets were so brilliant.

We took leave that night of the O.'s, as we had to make an early start next day, and were very sorry to part from them. On the 24th, we were off at eight in the morning by train to Kingston, arriving there early in the afternoon. It is the best sleeping-place between Toronto and Montreal. The road was uninteresting, though at times we came upon the broad waters of the lake, which varied the scenery. We had an excellent dinner at the station, and I ought to mention, that as we were travelling on the Grand Trunk Railway, and on English soil, we had first cla.s.s carriages; there being both first and second cla.s.s on this line, but varying only in the softness of the seats. There was no other difference from other lines.

Kingston is a prosperous little town on the borders of the lake, and the hotel quite a small country inn. We drove out to see the Penitentiary, or prison, for the whole of the Two Canadas,--a most ma.s.sive stone structure. I never was within prison-walls before, so that I cannot compare it with others; but, though papa had much admired the prison at Boston, he preferred the principle of giving the prisoners work in public (which is the case at Kingston), to the solitary system at Boston. We saw the men hard at work making furniture, and in the blacksmith's forge, and making an enormous quant.i.ty of boots; they work ten hours a day in total silence, and all had a subdued look; but we were glad to think they had employment, and could see each other. Their food is excellent,--a good meat diet, and the best bread. The sleeping-places seemed to us dreadful little solitary dens, though the man who showed us over them said they were better than they would have had on board ship. There were sixty female prisoners employed in making the men's clothes, but these we were not allowed to see. One lady is permitted to visit them, in order to give them religious instruction, but they do not otherwise see the visitors to the prison. There are prisoners of all religious denominations, a good many being Roman Catholics; and there are chaplains to suit their creeds, and morning and evening prayers.

We walked back to Kingston, and on the walls observed notices of a meeting to be held in the town that evening, to remonstrate against the work done by the prisoners, which is said to injure trade; but, as we were to make a very early start in the morning, we did not go to it.

We were called at half-past four to be ready for the boat which started at six for Montreal. It was a rainy morning, and I awoke in a rather depressed state of mind, with the prospect before me of having to descend the rapids of the St. Lawrence in the steamer; and as the captain of our vessel in crossing the Atlantic had said, he was not a little nervous at going down them, I thought I might be so too. We had first, however, to go through the Thousand Islands, which sounds very romantic, but turned out rather a failure. There are in reality about 1,400 of these islands, where the river St. Lawrence issues from Lake Ontario. The morning was unpropitious, it being very rainy, and this, no doubt, helped to give them a dismal appearance. They are of all forms and sizes, some three miles long, and some hardly appearing above the water. The disappointment to us was their flatness, and their all being alike in their general aspect, being covered with light wood. When this is lit up by the sun, they are probably very pretty, as we experienced later in the day, which turned out to be a most brilliant one. The islands are generally uninhabited, except by wild ducks, deer, foxes, racc.o.o.ns, squirrels, musk-rats, and minxes, and also by partridges in abundance. We have tasted the wild duck, which is very good.

About one o'clock in the day we lost sight of the islands, except a few, which occasionally are scattered along the river; we had no longer however to thread our way among them, as we had done earlier in the day.

Dinner was at two, but we were not much disposed to go down, for we had just pa.s.sed one rapid, and were coming to the finest of all, the Cedars; but they turned out to be by no means alarming to an unpractised eye.

The water is much disturbed, and full of small crests of waves. There were four men at the wheel, besides four at the tiller, and they had no doubt to keep a sharp look out; we stood on deck, and received a good sea in our faces, and were much excited by the scene. The longest rapid occupied us about twenty minutes, being nine miles long. It is called the Long Sault. The banks on either side continued flat; we stopped occasionally at pretty little villages to take in pa.s.sengers or wood, but these stoppages told much against our progress, and the days now being short, we were informed that the vessel could not reach Montreal that night. There is a rapid a few miles above Montreal, which is the most dangerous of them all, and cannot be pa.s.sed in the dark. The boat, therefore, stopped at La Chine for the night, and we had our choice of sleeping on board or landing and taking the train for eight miles to Montreal; and as we had seen all the rest of the rapids, and did not feel much disposed for the pleasure of a night in a small cabin, we decided on landing. We had tea first, with plenty of cold meat on the table, and the fare was excellent on board, with no extra charge for it.

Before landing we had a most magnificent sunset. The sun sank at the stern of the vessel; and the sky remained for an hour after in the most exquisite shades of colouring, from clear blue, shading to a pale green, and then to a most glorious golden colour. The water was of the deepest blue, and the great width of the n.o.ble river added to the grandeur of the scene. The Canadian evenings and nights are surpa.s.singly beautiful.

The atmosphere is so light, and the colouring of the sunset and the bright light of the moon are beyond all description. We made acquaintance with a couple of Yankees on board, who amused us much. They were a young couple, travelling, they said, for pleasure. They looked of the middle cla.s.s, and were an amusing specimen of Yankee vulgarity. The lady's expression for admiration was "ullegant:" the dinner was "ullegant," the sunset was "ullegant," and so was the moonrise, and so were the corn-cakes and corn-pops _fixed_ by herself or her mother. She was delighted with the bead bracelet I was making, and I gave her a pattern of the beads. She was astonished to find that the English made the electric cable. She and her husband mean to go to England and Scotland in two years. I was obliged to prepare her for bad hotels and thick atmosphere, at both of which she seemed astonished. She was also much surprised that she would not find Negro waiters in London. They remained on board for the night; and on meeting her in the street yesterday, she a.s.sured us the last rapid was "ullegant," and that we had missed much in not seeing it.

We arrived at Montreal at eight o'clock on the evening of the 24th, and walked a little about the town. The moon was so bright that colours could be clearly distinguished. We yesterday spent many hours on the Victoria bridge which is building here across the river in connection with the Grand Trunk Railway. It is a most wonderful work, and I must refer you to an interesting article in the last _Edinburgh Review_ for a full account of it. Papa had letters to the chief officials of the railway, which procured us the advantage of being shown the work in every detail by Mr. Hodges (an Englishman), who has undertaken the superintendence of it--the plans having been given him by Stephenson.

The expense will be enormous--about a million and a quarter sterling; almost all raised in England. The great difficulties to be contended with are:--the width of the river--it being two miles wide at this point; its rapidity--the current running at the rate of seven miles an hour; and the enormous ma.s.ses of ice which acc.u.mulate in the river in the winter; rising as high sometimes as the houses on either side, and then bursting their bounds and covering the road. The stone piers are built with a view to resist as much as possible this pressure; and a great number of them are finished, and have never yet received a scratch from the ice, which is satisfactory. Their profile is of this form. And this knife-like edge cuts the ice through as it pa.s.ses down the river, enabling the blocks to divide at the piers and pa.s.s under the bridge on each side. The piers are built of limestone, in blocks varying from eight to ten feet high: but in sinking a foundation for them, springs are frequently met with under some large boulders in the bed of the river, and this causes great delay, as the water has to be pumped out before the building can proceed. The bridge will be an iron tubular one; the tubes come out from Birkenhead in pieces, and are riveted together here. We first rowed across the river with Mr. Hodges in a six-oared boat; and the day being warm and very fine, we enjoyed it much. This gave us some idea of the breadth of the river and of the length of the bridge, of which it is impossible to judge when seen fore-shortened from the sh.o.r.e.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bridge piers]

We then mounted the bridge and were astonished at the magnitude of the work. There is an immense forest of woodwork underneath most of it at present, but they are glad to clear this away as fast as the progress of the upper work admits, as if left till winter the force of the ice cuts through these enormous beams as if they were straw. We could only proceed across two piers at the end furthest from the town, but here we had a very fine view of Montreal, lying at the foot of the hill from which it takes its name. It has many large churches, the largest being the Roman Catholic cathedral, and the tin roofs of the houses and churches glittered in the sun and gave a brilliant effect. We returned to the boat and rowed again across the river below the bridge, and here, owing to the strength of the current our boat had to pursue a most zig-zag path, pulling up under the eddy of each b.u.t.tress, but our boatmen knew well what they were about, as they are in the habit of taking Mr. Hodges daily to the bridge and it was very pretty to hear the warning of _doucement! doucement!_ from the helmsman as we approached any peril. Mr. H. said that without the familiarity they had with the river, the boat would in an instant be carried down the stream and out of all control. The French language is much more spoken than the English, there being a large body of French Roman Catholic Canadians here and at Quebec. I say this to account for the _doucement_; but must now leave this wonderful bridge, and tell you that after seeing it we drove to the Bishop of Montreal's. We found him and Mrs. Fulford at home, and sat some time with them, and they asked us to drink tea with them, which we did. There was no one there but ourselves, and we pa.s.sed an agreeable evening with them, and came home by moonlight with the comet also beaming on us.

_September 27th._--We went yesterday morning to a small church in the suburbs where the bishop preached. We found Lord and Lady Radstock in the hotel, and papa walked with him in the afternoon, and endeavoured to learn something of the Christian Young Men's a.s.sociation here. They found the secretary at home, and from him learnt that the revivals of religion here have lately been of a satisfactory nature, and that there is a great deal of religious feeling at work among the middle cla.s.ses. I forgot to mention that on Sat.u.r.day we met a long procession of nuns going to the church of Notre Dame, which gave the place a very foreign look. We went into the church for a few minutes. It was very large, part of it was well filled, and a French sermon going on. There are a good many convents here, and I shall try to visit one. The Jesuits are said to be very busy. We hear French constantly spoken in the streets. We went to church again yesterday evening, when the bishop preached on the text, "Demas hath forsaken me."

To-day we took Lord and Lady Radstock to Mr. Hodges, who promised to show them over the bridge, and since that papa and I have had a pleasant drive round the mountain. From one part we had a good view of the Ottawa river, celebrated by Moore, who wrote his Canadian boat song in a canoe on the rapids of that river. The town of Ottawa has been named by the Queen as the seat of Government; but after consulting her on the subject, the inhabitants seem disinclined to take her advice. The views were very pretty, and the day warm and pleasant. As we drove we frequently saw on the walls, large placards with a single text in French or English, an evidence of the work of the revival going on here. We wound up our visit to Montreal by buying some furs, this being the best place to get them: they are to be shipped from here in a sailing vessel, and therefore will not reach London for some time, but notice will be sent of their coming; so be on the look out for them some day. We are off this afternoon for Quebec, where we hope to find some good news from you all. So adieu, my dear child.

LETTER V.