The Englishwoman in America, Isabella Lucy Bird [top 10 books of all time txt] 📗

and consequently exposed to the fury of the waves. I had sat in my state-room for half an hour, feeling very apathetic, and wishing myself anywhere but where I was, when something struck the ship, and the wretched fabric fell over on her side. Another and another--then silence for a second, broken only by the crash and roar of winds and waters. The inner door burst open, letting in an inundation of water. My companion jumped up, shrieking, "Oh, my children! we're lost--we're lost!" and crawled, pale and trembling, into the saloon. The vessel was lying on her side, therefore locomotion was most difficult; but sea-sick people were emerging from their state-rooms, shrieking, some that they were lost-- others for their children--others for mercy; while a group of gentlemen, less noisy, but not less frightened, and drenched to the skin, were standing together, with pale and ashy faces. "What is the matter?" inquired my companion, taking hold of one of these men. "Say your prayers, for we are going down," was the brutal reply. For the first and only time during my American travels I was really petrified with fear. Suddenly a wave struck the hapless vessel, and with a stunning crash broke through the thin woodwork of the side of the saloon. I caught hold of a life-buoy which was near me--a gentleman clutched it from me, for fright makes some men selfish--and, breathless, I was thrown down into the gurgling water. I learned then how quickly thoughts can pass through the mind, for in those few seconds I thought less of the anticipated death-struggle amid the boiling surges of the lake, and of the quiet sleep beneath its gloomy waters, than of the unsatisfactory manner in which those at home would glean the terrible tidings from the accident columns of a newspaper. Another minute, and I was swept through the open door into a state-room-- another one of suspense, and the ship righted as if by a superhuman effort. There seemed a respite--there was a silence, broken only by the roar of winds and waves, and with the respite came hope. Shortly after, the master of the ship appeared, with his hat off, and completely drenched. "Thank God, we're safe!" he said, and returned to his duty. We had all supposed that we had struck on a rock or wreck. I never knew the precise nature of our danger beyond this, that the vessel had been thrown on her beam-ends in a squall, and that, the wind immediately veering round, the fury of the waves had been spent upon her.

Many of the passengers now wished the captain to return, but he said that he should incur greater danger in an attempt to make the harbour of Toronto than by proceeding down the open lake. For some time nothing was to be seen but a dense fog, a storm of sleet which quite darkened the air, and raging waves, on which we mounted sometimes, while at others we were buried between them. In another hour the gale had completely subsided, and, after we had changed our drenched habiliments, no token remained of the previous storm but the drowned and dismantled appearance of the saloon, and the resolution on my own mind never to trust myself again on one of these fearful lakes. I was amused to observe that those people who had displayed the greatest symptoms of fear during the storm were the first to protest that, "as for them, they never thought there was any danger." The afternoon, though cold, was extremely beautiful, but, owing to the storm in the early part of our voyage, we did not reach Hamilton till nightfall, or three hours after our appointed time.

I do not like these inland lakes, or tideless fresh-water seas, as they may more appropriately be termed. I know Lake Ontario well; I have crossed it twice, and have been up and down it five times. I have sojourned upon its shores, and have seen them under the hot light of an autumn sun, and underneath a mantle of wintry snow; but there is to me something peculiarly oppressive about this vast expanse of water. If the lake is rough, there are no harbours of refuge in which to take shelter--if calm, the waters, though blue, pure, and clear, look monotonous and dead. The very ships look lonely things; their hulls and sails are white, and some of them have been known in time of cholera to drift over the lake from day to day, with none to guide the helm. The shores, too, are flat and uninteresting; my eyes wearied of following that interminable boundary of trees stretching away to the distant horizon.

Yet Lake Ontario affords great advantages to both Canada and the United States. The former has the large towns of Hamilton, Toronto, and Kingston on its shores, with the exporting places of Oakville, Credit, and Cobourg. The important towns of Oswego and Rochester, with smaller ones too numerous to name, are on the American side. This lake is five hundred miles round, and, owing to its very great depth, never freezes, except just along the shores. An immense trade is carried on upon it, both in steamers and sailing vessels. A ship-canal connects Lake Ontario with Lake Erie, thereby overcoming the obstacle to navigation produced by the Falls of Niagara. This stupendous work is called the Welland Canal.

At Hamilton I received a most cordial welcome from the friends whom I went to visit, and saw something of the surrounding country. It is, I think, the most bustling place in Canada. It is a very juvenile city, yet already has a population of twenty-five thousand people. The stores and hotels are handsome, and the streets are brilliantly lighted with gas. Hamilton has a peculiarly unfinished appearance. Indications of progress meet one on every side--there are houses being built, and houses being pulled down to make room for larger and more substantial ones--streets are being extended, and new ones are being staked out, and every external feature seems to be acquiring fresh and rapid development. People hurry about as if their lives depended on their speed. "I guess" and "I calculate" are frequently heard, together with "Well posted up," and "A long chalk;" and locomotives and steamers whistle all day long. Hamilton is a very Americanised place. I heard of "grievances, independence, and annexation," and, altogether, should have supposed it to be on the other side of the boundary-line.

It is situated on a little lake, called Burlington Bay, separated from Lake Ontario by a narrow strip of sandy shingle. This has been cut through, and, as two steamers leave the pier at Hamilton at the same hour every morning, there is a daily and very exciting race for the first entrance into the narrow passage. This racing is sometimes productive of very serious collisions.

The town is built upon very low and aguish ground, at the foot of a peculiar and steep eminence, which the inhabitants dignify with the name of the Mountain. I ascended this mountain, which might better be called a molehill, by a flight of a hundred and thirty steps. The view from the top was very magnificent, but, as an elevated building offered us one still more extensive, we ascended to the roof by six flights of steps, to see a _camera obscura_ which was ostentatiously advertised. A very good _camera obscura_ might have been worth so long an ascent in a house redolent of spirits and onions; but after we had reached the top, with a great expenditure of toil and breath, a ragged, shoeless little boy very pompously opened the door of a small wooden erection, and introduced us to four panes of coloured glass, through which we viewed the town of Hamilton, under the different aspects of spring, summer, autumn, and winter!

Dundurn Castle, a handsome, castellated, baronial-looking building, the residence of the present Premier, Sir Allan M'Nab, is near Hamilton, and it has besides some very handsome stone villa residences. There I saw, for the first and only time in the New World, beautifully kept grass lawns, with flower-beds in the English style. One very fine morning, when the maple-leaves were tinted with the first scarlet of the fall, my friends took me to see Ancaster and Dundas; the former, an old place, very like some of our grey, quiet Lancashire villages--the latter a good type of the rapid development and enterprising spirit which are making Canada West to rival the States in rapidity of progress. There were bridges in course of construction--railway embankments swarming with labourers--macadamised roads succeeding those of corduroy and plank--snake-fences giving place to those of posts and rails, and stone walls--and saw and grist mills were springing up wherever a "water privilege" could be found. Laden waggons proceeded heavily along the roads, and the encouraging announcements of "Cash for wheat," and "Cash for wool," were frequently to be seen. The views were very fine as we skirted the Mountain, but Canadian scenery is monotonous and rather gloomy; though the glorious tints of the American fall give the leaves of some of the trees the appearance rather of tropical flowers than of foliage.

Ancaster is an old place, outstripped by towns of ten years' existence, as it has neither a port nor a river. There was an agricultural show, and monster pumpkins and overgrown cabbages were displayed to admiring crowds, under the shadow of a prodigious union jack.

Dundas, a near neighbour of Ancaster, has completely eclipsed it. This appears to be one of the busiest little places in Canada West. It is a collection of woollen-mills, grist-mills, and iron-foundries; and though, in my preformed notions of political economy, I had supposed manufactures suited exclusively to an old country, in which capital and labour are alike redundant, the aspect of this place was most thriving. In one of the flour-mills the machinery seemed as perfect as in the biscuit factory at Portsmouth--by some ingenious mechanism the flour was cooled, barrelled, and branded with great celerity. At an iron-foundry I was surprised to find that steam-engines and flour-mill machinery could not be manufactured fast enough to meet the demand. In this neighbourhood I heard rather an interesting anecdote of what steady perseverance can do, in the history of a Scot from the shores of the Forth.

This young man was a pauper boy, and was apprenticed to the master of an iron-foundry in Scotland, but ran away before the expiration of his apprenticeship, and, entering a ship at Glasgow, worked his passage across to Quebec. Here he gained employment for some months as a porter, and, having saved a little money, went up to the neighbourhood of Lake Simcoe, where he became a day labourer. Here he fell in love with his master's daughter, who returned his affection, but her father scornfully rejected the humble Scotchman's suit. Love but added an incentive to ambition; and obtaining work in a neighbouring township, he increased his income by teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic in the evenings. He lived penuriously, denied himself even necessaries, and carefully treasured his hoarded savings. Late one evening, clothed almost in rags, he sought the house of his lady-love, and told her that within two years he would come to claim her hand of her father, with a waggon and pair of horses.

Still in his ragged clothing, for it does not appear that he had any other, he trudged to Toronto, and sought employment, his accumulated savings sewn up in the lining of his waistcoat. He went about from person to person, but could not obtain employment, and his waggon and horses receded further and further in the dim perspective. One day, while walking along at the unfinished end of King Street West, he saw something glittering in the mud, and, on taking it up, found it to be