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

clean. The floor was thickly strewn with the young shoots of the var, and we sat down with them for half an hour. The younger squaw, a girl of sixteen, was very handsome and coquettish. She had a beautiful cap, worked in beads, which she would not put on at the request of any of the ladies; but directly Mr. Kenjins hinted a wish to that effect, she placed it coquettishly on her head, and certainly looked most bewitching. Though only sixteen, she had been married two years, and had recently lost her twins. Mr. Kenjins asked her the meaning of an Indian phrase. She replied in broken English, "What one little boy say to one little girl: I love you." "I suppose your husband said so to you before you were married?" "Yes, and he say so now," she replied, and both she and her mother laughed long and uncontrollably. These Indians retain few of their ancient characteristics, except their dark complexions and their comfortless nomade way of living. They are not represented in the Legislative Assembly.

Very different are the Indians of Central America, the fierce Sioux, Comanches, and Blackfeet. In Canada West I saw a race differing in appearance from the Mohawks and Mic-Macs, and retaining to a certain extent their ancient customs. Among these tribes I entered a wigwam, and was received in sullen silence. I seated myself on the floor with about eight Indians; still not a word was spoken. A short pipe was then lighted and offered to me. I took, as previously directed, a few whiffs of the fragrant weed, and then the pipe was passed round the circle, after which the oldest man present began to speak. [Footnote: "Why has our white sister visited the wigwams of her red brethren?" was the salutation with which they broke silence--a question rather difficult to answer.] This pipe is the celebrated calumet, or pipe of peace, and it is considered even among the fiercest tribes as a sacred obligation. A week before I left Prince Edward Island I went for a tour of five days in the north-west of the island with Mr. and Miss Kenjins. This was a delightful change, an uninterrupted stream of novelty and enjoyment. It was a relief from Charlotte Town, with its gossiping morning calls, its malicious stories, its political puerilities, its endless discussions on servants, turnips, and plovers; it was a bound into a region of genuine kindness and primitive hospitality.

We left Charlotte Town early on a brilliant morning, in a light waggon, suitably attired for "roughing it in the bush." Our wardrobes, a draught- board, and a number of books (which we never read), were packed into a carpetbag of most diminutive proportions. We took large buffalo robes with us, in case we should not be able to procure a better shelter for the night than a barn. We were for the time being perfectly congenial, and determined on thoroughly enjoying ourselves. We sang, and rowed, and fished, and laughed, and made others laugh, and were perfectly happy, never knowing and scarcely caring where we should obtain shelter for the night. Our first day's dinner was some cold meat and bread, eaten in a wood, our horse eating his oats by our side; and we made drinking-cups, in Indian fashion, of birch-tree bark--cups of Tantalus, properly speaking, for very little of the water reached our lips. While engaged in drawing some from a stream, the branch on which I leaned gave way, and I fell into the water, a mishap which amused my companions so much that they could not help me out.

After a journey of thirty miles our further course was stopped by a wide river, with low wooded hills and promontories, but there was no ferry- boat, so, putting up our horse in a settler's barn, we sat on the beach till a cranky, leaky boat, covered with fish-scales, was with some difficulty launched, and a man took us across the beautiful stream. This kindly individual came for us again the next morning, and would accept nothing but our thanks for his trouble. The settler in whose barn we had left our horse fed him well with oats, and was equally generous. The people in this part of the island are principally emigrants from the north of Scotland, who thus carry Highland hospitality with them to their distant homes. After a long walk through a wood, we came upon a little church, with a small house near it, and craved a night's hospitality. The church was one of those strongholds of religion and loyalty which I rejoice to see in the colonies. There, Sabbath after Sabbath, the inhabitants of this peaceful locality worship in the pure faith of their forefathers: here, when "life's fitful fever" is over, they sleep in the hallowed ground around these sacred walls. Nor could a more peaceful resting-place be desired: from the graveyard one could catch distant glimpses of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and tall pine-trees flung their dark shadows over the low green graves.

Leaving our friends in the house, we went down to a small creek running up into the woods, the most formidable "_longer fences_" not intercepting our progress. After some ineffectual attempts to gain possession of a log- canoe, we launched a leaky boat, and went out towards the sea. The purple beams of the setting sun fell upon the dark pine woods, and lay in long lines upon the calm waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It was a glorious evening, and the scene was among the fairest which I saw in the New World. On our return we found our host, the missionary, returned from his walk of twenty-two miles, and a repast of tea, wheaten scones, raspberries, and cream, awaited us. This good man left England twenty-five years ago, and lived for twenty in one of the most desolate parts of Newfoundland. Yet he has retained his vivid interest in England, and kept us up till a late hour talking over its church and people. Contented in his isolated position, which is not without its severe hardships, this good missionary pursues his useful course unnoticed by the world as it bustles along; his sole earthly wish seems to be that he may return to England to die.

The next morning at seven we left his humble home, where such hospitality had awaited us, and he accompanied us to the river. He returned to his honourable work--I shortly afterwards went to the United States--another of the party is with the Turkish army in the Crimea--and the youngest is married in a distant land. For several hours we passed through lovely scenery, on one of the loveliest mornings I ever saw. We stopped at the hut of an old Highland woman, who was "_terribly glad_" to see us, and gave us some milk; and we came up with a sturdy little barefooted urchin of eight years old, carrying a basket. "What's your name?" we asked. "_Mr. Crazier_," was the bold and complacent reply.

At noon we reached St. Eleanor's, rather a large village, where we met with great hospitality for two days at the house of a keeper of a small store, who had married the lively and accomplished daughter of an English clergyman. The two Irish servant-girls were ill, but she said she should be delighted to receive us if we would help her to do the household work. The same afternoon we drove to the house of a shipbuilder at a little hamlet called Greenshore, and went out lobster-fishing in his beautiful boat. The way of fishing for these creatures was a novel one to me, but so easy that a mere novice may be very successful. We tied _sinks_ to mackerel, and let them down in six fathoms water. We gently raised them now and then, and, if we felt anything pulling the bait, raised it slowly up. Gently, gently, or the fish suspects foul play; but soon, just under the surface, I saw an immense lobster, and one of the gentlemen caught it by the tail and threw it into the boat. We fished for an hour, and caught fifteen of these esteemed creatures, which we took to the house in a wheelbarrow. At night we drove to St. Eleanor's, taking some of our spoil with us, and immediately adjourned to the kitchen, a large, unfinished place built of logs, with a clay floor and huge smoke-stained rafters. We sat by a large stove in the centre, and looked as if we had never known civilised life. Miss Kenjins and I sat on either side of the fireplace in broad-brimmed straw hats, Mrs. Maccallummore in front, warming the feet of the unhappy baby, who bad been a passive spectator of the fishing; the three gentlemen stood round in easy attitudes, these, be it remembered, holding glasses of brandy and water; and the two invalid servants stood behind, occasionally uttering suppressed shrieks as Mr. Oppe took one out of a heap of lobsters and threw it into a caldron of boiling water on the stove. This strange scene was illuminated by a blazing pine-knot. Mr. Kenjins laughingly reminded me of the elegant drawing-room in which he last saw me in England--"Look on this picture and on that."

On the Sunday we crossed the Grand River, on a day so stormy that the ferryman would not take the "_scow_" across. We rowed ourselves over in a crazy boat, which seemed about to fill and sink when we got to the middle of the river, and attended service at Port Hill, one of the most desolate- looking places I ever saw. We saw Lenox Island, where on St. Ann's day all the island Indians meet and go through ceremonies with the Romish priests.

We remained for part of the next day with our hospitable friends at St. Eleanor's, and set out on an exploring expedition in search of a spring which Mr. K. remembered in his childish days. We went down to a lonely cabin to make inquiries, and were told that "none but the old people knew of it--it was far away in the woods." Here was mystery; so, leaving the waggon, into the woods we went to seek for it, and far away in the woods we found it, and now others besides the "old people" know of it.

We struck into the forest, an old, untrodden forest, where generations of trees had rotted away, and strange flowers and lichens grew, and bats flew past us in the artificial darkness; and there were snakes too, ugly spotted things, which hissed at us, and put out their double tongues, and then coiled themselves away in the dim recesses of the forest. But on we went, climbing with difficulty over prostrate firs, or breaking through matted juniper, and still the spring was not, though we were "far away in the woods." But still we climbed on, through swamp and jungle, till we tore our dresses to pieces, and our hats got pulled off in a tree and some of our hair with them; but at last we reached the spring. It was such a scene as one might have dreamed of in some forest in a fabulous Elysium. It was a large, deep basin of pure white sand, covered with clear water, and seven powerful springs, each about a foot high, rose from it; and trees had fallen over it, and were covered with bright green moss, and others bent over it ready to fall; and above them the tall hemlocks shut out the light, except where a few stray beams glittered on the pure transparent water.

And here it lay in lonely beauty, as it had done for centuries, probably known only to the old people and to the wandering Indians. In enterprising England a town would have been built