Canada and the Canadians Volume Ii Part 6

I heard the real whip-poor-will or night-jar last night frequently, sighing his melancholy ditty along the banks of the beautiful Thames.

The cry of the Canada quail, which is a very small partridge-like bird, is very plaintive. As we pa.s.sed them, they gave it out heartily--Phu--Phoo-iey. We arrived at Smith's tavern, seventeen miles, at half-past seven, breakfasted, and stayed until ten, at that miserable place.

We then drove on, and pa.s.sed Moncey in Caradoc, so named from an Indian tribe. It is a pretty village, where they had just finished a church, whereon banners were flying, which showed us, that if we had forgotten King William, some folks here had not; and, out of bravado, a refugee American had stuck a pocket-handkerchief flag of the Stars and Stripes up at his shop-door, which we prophesied, as evening came, would be pulled down, because orange, blue, and red flags flourished near it. This is an Indian village, into which the Americans and other white traders and adventurers have set foot.

I was charmed with the scenery, consisting of fertile fields, rich woods, the ever-winding Thames and undulating mammillated hills, covered with verdure. Happy Indians, if unhappy Whites were not thrusting you out!

We arrived at one o'clock at Fleming's Inn, much better than the last, twelve miles. Here we rested awhile.--Starting again, the country was found but very little settled, with long tiresome woods, but still beautiful, all nearly oak. We halted at the German Flats, not to get out, for there was no abiding-place, but to look at the ground, where the battle in the last American war took place, in which Tec.u.mseh, the great Tec.u.mseh, met his death, and where Kentucky heroes made razor-straps of his skin.

Seven miles after leaving these immense woods, the valley of the Thames opens most magnificently in a gorge below, and spreads into rich flats to the left, embowered with the most beautiful forest scenery, in which, about a mile off, stand the Moravian church, school, and Indian village. A more lovely spot could not have been selected. There is a large Indian settlement of old date here; and, as we drove along, we pa.s.sed through two deserted orchards; the road had rendered them useless; and, from which and its neighbourhood, the Indians had retired into their settled village below. Here the forest was gradually regaining the mastery: fruit-trees had become wild, and the Thames ran in a deep bold ravine far below, clothed with aged and solemn trees, willows and poplars, intermixed with oak, beech, ash, and altogether English and park-like. It put me in mind of the opening chapter of "Ivanhoe."

The road was a deep sand; and we stopped a little at Smith's Inn, three miles and a half from our night's halt. Here the soil changes to clay, and the country is not much settled, but is beginning to be so.

We saw bevies of quail on the roadside, which the driver cut at with his whip, but they were not disposed to fly. We arrived at Freeman's Inn at half-past six p.m., twelve miles, and brought up for the night at Thamesville, where there is a dam and an extensive bridge, and altogether the preparation for the plank road is a very extraordinary work, embracing much deep cutting. Here all is sand again, but the occasional glimpses of the Thames, as you approach this village, are very fine and picturesque. Squirrels, particularly the ground species, or chippemunk, amused us a good deal by their gambols as we drove along. The village of Thamesville is very small.

Oh, Father Thames, did you ever dream of having _ville_ tacked to your venerable name? But, as the Nevilles have it, _ne vile velis_.

I amused myself here on a scorching evening with looking about me, as well as the heat would permit; and here I first heard and first saw that curious little Canadian bird, the mourning dove. It came hopping along the ground close to the inn, but the evening was not light enough for me to distinguish more than that it was very small, not so big as a quail, and dark-coloured. It seemed to prefer the sandy road; and, as it had probably never been molested, picked up the oats or grain left in feeding the horses. It became so far domesticated as to approach mankind, although the slightest advance towards it sent it away. My host, a very intelligent man, told me that it always came thus on the hot summer nights; and we soon heard at various distances its soft but exceedingly melancholy call. It appears peculiar to this part of Canada, and is the smallest of the dove kind. I know of nothing to compare with its soft, cadenced, and plaintive cry; it almost makes one weep to hear it, and is totally different from the coo of the turtle dove. When it begins, and the whip-poor-will joins the concert, one is apt to fancy there is a lament among the feathered kind for some general loss, in the stillness and solemnity of a summer's night, when the leaves of the vast and obscure forest are unruffled, when the river is just murmuring in the distance, and the moon emerging from and re-entering the drifting night-cloud, in a land of the mere remnant of the Indian tribes gone to their eternal rest.

This in a contemplative mood forcibly reminds us of that sublime pa.s.sage of holy writ, wherein that thrilling command is embodied, to "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, when he shall rise up at the voice of the bird."

The cruel treatment of the aborigines of that half of the world discovered by Columbus rises, on such an occasion, to the memory, with all its force. Here we stood on that soil, a small portion of which has been doled out to them in return for an empire; and here we could not avoid reflecting upon the injustice which has been so unsparingly dealt out to the Indian in that neighbouring Republic inst.i.tuted to secure freedom and impartial government to all men.

Yes, a nation claiming to be the most powerful under the sun, claiming a common origin, quarrelled for self-government; the mild sway of a limited monarchy was tyranny and bigotry; established laws and a state religion were swept away under a feeling that the child was strong enough to defy the parent. A more perfect form of government was necessary to the welfare of the human race: Was.h.i.+ngton arose, and a Republic was created. Did it continue in unison with the aspirations and views of that great man? did he think it requisite to extirpate the Red Men? did he forbid the Catholic to exercise the rights of conscience? did he intend that the Conscript Fathers should break their ivory wands, and bow to the dust before plebeian rule? did he imagine, in declaring all men equal, that mind was to succ.u.mb before mere matter, that intelligence was to be ground under the foot of physical force?

The Englishman, the true Englishman, and by that word I mean a citizen of England, a Canadian, as well as he born in Britain or Ireland, judges differently; he acknowledges all men equal, and that all have an equal right inherent in them to receive equal protection; but he renders to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and as he loves his own self, so loves he the representative of every soul bearing the proud name of a British subject.

He well knows, from the experience of all history, sacred and profane, that it is by maintaining order, in the inst.i.tution of divers ranks in society and in government, that the true balance of power is found; and he feels that, if once that power is obtained by either extreme of the scale, his liberty, both of mind and of body, is at an end.

The manner in which Indian rights are treated in America is so glaring, that the philanthropist shudders. Protocols pa.s.s; the country west of the Mississippi is declared to belong first to Mexico, then to Spain, then to France, then to England, then to the United States. At last, the United States, strong enough to play a new game, a much more lofty one than the Tea Tragedy, defies the whole world, issues a decree irrevocable as those famous ones of the Medes and the Persians, and, perhaps, equally to pa.s.s into oblivion, that all the New World is to be the property of the descendants of the Anglo-Saxons--all the New World, never mind whether it be Monarchical England's, Imperial Brazil, Republican Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, &c.--all is to be guided by the banner of the Stars and Stripes.

Who among the statesmen ever dreams that the Red Man has any rights, who ever cares about his property in the wilds of the Prairies, of the Rocky Mountains, of the unknown lands of the Pacific! The United States declares that all Northern America is hers from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and the b.l.o.o.d.y flag of war is unfurled to obtain the commencement of this crusade against right and against reason, although the United States has ten times as much land already as ten times its present population can fill or cultivate, and then, Oregon is the war cry,

"Truly to speak it, and with no addition, We go to gain a little patch of ground, That hath in it no profit but the name; To pay five _dollars_, five, I would not farm it; Two thousand souls and twenty _million dollars_ Will not debate the question of this straw; This is th' imposthume of much wealth and peace, That inward breaks, and shows no cause without Why the man dies--"

and then, in case Oregon should fail, advantage is taken of Mexico's distractions to negotiate for California.

The Red Man, the poor Red Man, may however have a voice in all this, that may speak in thunder. He is neither so powerless, nor so utterly contemptible as is supposed. In the wilds of the West, it is said, including the roaming hors.e.m.e.n of Mexico, 100,000 warriors exist. Even against 20,000, what army entangled in the forest, hidden in the Prairie gra.s.s, lost in the wilderness defiles of the vast Andes of the north, could also exist? and can the American government afford to detach regular troops for such a dreadful warfare? will the militia undertake it? Can an American fleet of sufficient power and resources be kept in the Pacific to counteract and send supplies? He who knows the western wilds well knows that once concentrate Indian warfare, and it would be impossible to keep together or to supply such an army as that of the Republic, unsupported, as it must necessarily be, by a fleet.

The time is coming, and that rapidly, there can be no doubt, when the white man will possess exclusively the Pacific coast; but this is to be achieved by the commercial and not by the physical power, and that it is yet very distant when any one nation will obtain it is the belief of all reasoning people; for even should the Americans force Mexico from its proper station, should they obtain California and Oregon, will Russia look quite quietly on, will France see her great scheme of Pacific colonization in danger, and will England tamely submit to have her eastern territories and the new trade with China put in jeopardy?

I think not, and also conceive that it is as impossible for the United States to support a lengthened war with any great European power as it is for any great European power to conquer or to subdue any portion of the United States.

Spain too is gradually recovering from the shock, which the loss of her Ophir inflicted on her; more liberal notions are gaining ground in Iberia; and it is by no means impossible, that, backed by France, she may yet resume her power in America. Look at the tenacity with which, amidst all her reverses, she has held on to Cuba.

There is, in fact, no surmising the results of a mad war on the part of America.

But, in all their profound calculations, the Indian, the poor despised Indian, is forgotten. How he is to live, how he is to die, are alike matters of indifference.

Well may the mourning dove haunt the villages of the Five Nations!

Thamesville--how I detest the combination! it must have been named in the very spirit of gin-sling--is a place very likely to become of importance when the great western road is quite completed.

I was listening to the mourning dove, which then gave a balm to my wounded spirit, when I observed on the bench under the verandah, or _stoup_, as the Dutch settlers call it, of the inn, on the seat near me, a ma.s.s of black mud, or some such substance. Always curious--a phrenologic doctor told me I had the b.u.mp of wonder--I took hold of it, and found it to be adherent. It smelt strongly of bitumen. The landlord seeing me examining it chimed in, and said that the Indians had brought it to him from thirteen miles beyond Cornwall's Creek, where there was an immense deposit of the same kind. It was, in fact, soft asphalte, or petroleum, or bitumen, or whatever the learned may please to designate it, in a state of coherence.

My researches did not stop here: I had had specimens of all the Canadian woods to send officially for transmission to England, and amongst others I had observed a very curious one, called white wood, which was certainly neither pine, nor any thing approaching to the fir kind. It was very light, very tenacious, and is extensively employed in this portion of Canada, where fir and pine are not common, for the purposes of flooring and building, making an extremely delicate and ornamental board.

In travelling along I had asked the name of every strange tree, and so frequently had received the words white wood for answer, that I at last found it was a Canadian poplar, which grows in the western and London districts to an enormous size.

The cotton wood is also another species of western poplar, and both would form a useful and an ornamental addition to our park scenery at home.

The white wood, the cotton wood, and the yellow white wood, are used in this part of Canada for all building purposes, wherein pine is employed elsewhere, and the last named makes the best flooring. I should think, from its lightness and beauty, that it might be used with great advantage in Tunbridge ware.

The quaking asp is also another poplar of western West Canada, and is a variety of the aspen.

Here too I began to observe gigantic walnut-trees, from which such a large proportion of household furniture throughout Canada is manufactured, but regretted to find that it is much wasted in being split up into rails for fences by the farmers, on account of its durability. They are, however, beginning to be sensible of its value, for it is now largely exported to England and elsewhere. The size of the black walnut and of the cotton wood is inconceivable: of the latter curbs for the mouths of large wells are often made, by merely hollowing out the trunk.

Vegetation in the western district is, in fact, extraordinary, and altogether it is undoubtedly the garden of Canada. Tobacco grows well in some portions of it, and is largely cultivated near the sh.o.r.es of Lake Erie. I believe most of the Havana cigars smoked in Canada, particularly at Montreal, are Canadian tobacco. So much the better; for if a man must put an enemy to his digestive organs into his mouth, it is better that that enemy should be the produce of the soil of which he is a native or denizen, as he derives some benefit from the consumption, although consumption of another sort may accrue.

I have long and earnestly thought upon the subject of _the weed_, and have come to the conclusion that, as a necessary of life, it is about upon a par with opium. Men of the lower cla.s.ses, I mean labouring people, who leave off drinking either from religious motives or from fear, usually take to smoking, and in general their const.i.tutions are as much injured by the one as by the other. Cigar-smoking is a sort of devil-may-care imitation of the vulgar by gentlemen, and is no more requisite for health or amus.e.m.e.nt than whiskey, dice, or cards. It is amusing in the extreme to see old fellows aping extreme juvenility, and professing to smoke before breakfast; and it is ridiculous to see young gentlemen, very young and very green, cigar in mouth, fancying it very manly and very independent to imitate a rough, weather-beaten sailor or soldier, who, not being able to smoke a cigar, sticks to the pipe. That it stupifies is certain, that it is very vulgar is more certain, and that it injures health is more certain still. I wonder if Father Matthew smokes--almost all priests do: they have very little other solace.

The approach to Chatham is very pretty. Young Thames, for I do not see why there should not be Young Thames as well as Young England, that most absurd of all D'Israelisms, looks enchanting in a country where lakes as flat on their sh.o.r.es as a pancake take the lead, and where rivers are creeks, and creeks are--nothing.

We crossed a long whitewashed bridge, much out of repair, and saw an enormous American flag upon a very little American schooner, which had penetrated thus far into the bowels of the land. Bunting cannot be dear in the United States, and English Manchester must drive a pretty good trade in this article.

The town of Chatham is situated on the banks of the Thames and of a large creek; and, being a Kentish man, I should have felt quite at home but for three things, videlicet, that enormous American flag; the name of the creek, which was Mac Gill or Mac something; and a thermometer pointing to somewhere about 101 Fahrenheit at nine a.m.

Besides this, the town is a wooden one, and has a wooden little fort, which divides Scotland from Kent, or the river from the creek, nicely picketed in, and kept in the most perfect order by a worthy barrack serjeant, its sole tenant, whose room was hung round with prints of the Queen, Windsor Castle, the Duke of Wellington, and Lord Nelson--all in frames, and excellently well engraved, from the "Albion" newspaper.

The Albion newspaper is no ordinary hebdomadal; it has disseminated loyalty throughout America for years, and, as a gift on each 1st of January, has been in the habit of publis.h.i.+ng a print of large size, engraved in exceedingly brilliant style, which is presented to its subscribers. The Queen, the Duke, the Conqueror of the Seas, Walter Scott, and his Monument at Edinburgh, &c., are the fruits; and these plates would sell in England for at least half a guinea, or a guinea each.

The Albion, moreover, gives extracts at length from the current literature of England; and thus science, art, politics, agriculture, find admirers and readers in every corner of the backwoods.

Dr. Bartlett, its editor, at New York, deserves much more than this ephemeral encomium, for he has done more than all the orators upon loyalty in the Canadas towards keeping up a true British spirit in it.

The Albion, in fact, in Canada is a _Times_ as far as influence and sound feeling go; and although, like that autocrat of newspapers, it differs often from the powers that be, John Bull's, Paddy's, and Sawney's real interests are at the bottom, and the bottom is based upon the imperishable rock of real liberty. It steers a medium course between the _extreme droit_ of the so-called Family Compact, and the _extreme gauche_ of the Baldwin opposition.

Political feeling ran very high in the section of country through which we are travelling, both in the war of 1812 and in the rebellion of 1837; and, from the vicinity of the Western district to the United States, in both instances it was inferred by the American people that an easy conquest was certain. Proclamations followed upon proclamations, and attacks upon attacks, but the people loved their soil, and the invaders were driven back. So it will be again, if, unhappily, war should follow the mad courses now pursuing. The Canadians at heart are sound, and nowhere is this soundness more apparent than in the western district. It is not the mere name of liberty which can tempt thinking men to abandon the reality.

It has fallen to my lot to be acquainted with many leaders of faction, both in the Old and in the New World, and I never yet knew one whose personal ambition or whose private hatred had not stimulated him to endeavour to overturn all order, all rule. The patriot, whose sole aim is to amend and not to destroy, is now-a-days a _rara avis_, particularly if he is needy. One has only to read with attention the details of the horrors of the French revolution to be fully impressed with this fact. Where was patriotism then? and was not Napoleon the real patriot when he said, "two or three six-pounders would have settled the _canaille_ of Paris!" I by no means advocate the _ultima ratio regum_ being resorted to in popular commotions, in saying this; but France would have been happier had the little corporal been permitted to use his artillerymen. It has often surprised me, in reading the history of the American revolution, a.s.sisted as the Americans were by the demoralised French of that day, that that revolution was so bloodless a one; a fact only to be accounted for by the agricultural and pastoral character of the people who engaged in it, and by the unwillingness, even at the last moment, to sever all ties between the parent and the child. The character of that population has greatly altered since; generations have been born on the soil, whose recollections of their progenitors across the Atlantic have dwindled to the smallest span; and the intermixture of races has since done everything but destroy all filial feeling, has in fact destroyed nearly all but the common language, whilst ultra-democracy has been steadily at work upon the young idea to inculcate hatred to monarchy, and, above all, to the limited monarchy of England. Will the result be less harmless than the Tea Triumph? The world, it is to be feared, will yet see two nations, the most free in the world, speaking the same tongue, educated from the same sources, embruing their hands in each other's blood, to build up a new universal system, impossible in its very nature, or to support that which the experience of ages has perfected, and which three estates so continually watch over each other to guard.

CHAPTER XIV.

Intense Heat--Pigs, the Scavengers of Canada--Dutch Country--Moravian Indians--Young Father Thames--Ague, a cure for Consumption--Wild Horses--Immense Marsh.

I never remember so hot a day as the 13th of July; people in England can have no idea of the heat in Canada, which they always figure to themselves as an hyperborean region. On our journey from Thamesville, when near Louisville, a neat hamlet by the wayside, in a beautiful country, settled by old Dutch families, on a fine bend of the Thames, we pa.s.sed in the woods a dead horse, and found some friends at Chatham, who told us that it had dropped down from the intense heat.

Those scavengers of Canada, the pigs, were like certain politic worms already busily at work on the carcase, in which indeed one had buried itself.