Volume Ii Part 1 (1/2)
Canada and the Canadians.
by Richard Henry Bonnycastle.
VOL. II.
CHAPTER X.
Return to Toronto, after a flight to Lake Superior--Loons natural Diving Bells--Birds caught with hooks at the bottom of Niagara River--Ice-jam--Affecting story--Trust well placed--Fast Steamer--Trip to Hamilton--Kekequawkonnaby, alias Peter Jones--John Bull and the Ojibbeways--Port Credit, Oakville, Bronte, Wellington Square--Burlington Bay and Ca.n.a.l--Hamilton--Ancaster--Immense expenditure on Public Works--Value of the Union of Canada with Britain, not likely to lead to a Repeal--Mackenzie's fate--Family compact--Church and Kirk--Free Church and High Church--The vital principle--The University--President Polk, Oregon, and Canada.
After a ramble in this very desultory manner, which the reader has, no doubt, now become accustomed to, I returned to Toronto, having first observed that the harvest looked very ill on the Niagara frontier; that the peaches had entirely failed, and that the gra.s.s was destroyed by a long drought; that the Indian corn was sickly, and the potatoes very bad. Cherries alone seemed plentiful; the caterpillars had destroyed the apples--nay, to such an extent had these insects ravaged the whole province, that many fruit-trees had few or no leaves upon them. A remarkable frost on the 30th of May had also pa.s.sed over all Upper Canada, and had so injured the woods and orchards, that, in July, the trees in exposed places, instead of being in full vigour, were crisped, brown, and blasted, and getting a renewal of foliage very slowly.
My return to Toronto was caused by duty, as well as by a desire to visit as many of the districts as I possibly could, in order to observe the progress they had made since 1837, as well as to employ the mind actively, to prevent the reaction which threatened to a.s.sail it from the occurrence of a severe dispensation.
I heard a very curious fact in natural history, whilst at Niagara, in company with a medical friend, who took much interest in such matters.
I had often remarked, when in the habit of shooting, the very great length of time that the loon, or northern diver, (_colymbus glacialis_,) remained under water after being fired at, and fancied he must be a living diving-bell, endued with some peculiar functions which enabled him to obtain a supply of air at great depth; but I was not prepared for the circ.u.mstance that the fishermen actually catch them on the hooks of their deepest lines in the Niagara river, when fis.h.i.+ng at the bottom for salmon-trout, &c. Such is, however, the fact.
An affecting incident at Queenston, whilst we were waiting for the Transit to take us to Toronto, must be related. I have mentioned that, in the spring of 1845, an ice-jam, as it is called here, occurred, which suddenly raised the level of the Niagara between thirty and forty feet above its ordinary floods, and overset or beat down, by the grinding of mountain ma.s.ses of ice, all the wharfs and buildings on the adjacent banks.
The barrack of the Royal Canadian Rifles at Queenston was thus a.s.sailed in the darkest hours of the night, and the soldiers had barely time to escape, before the strong stone building they inhabited was crushed. The next to it, but on higher ground, more than thirty feet above the natural level of the river, was a neat wooden cottage, inhabited by a very aged man and his helpless imbecile wife, equally aged with himself. This man, formerly a soldier, was a cabinet-maker, and amused his declining years by forming very ingenious articles in his line of business; his house was a model of curious nick-nackeries, and thus he picked up just barely enough in the retrograding village to keep the wolf from the door; whilst the soldiers helped him out, by sparing from their messes occasionally a little nouris.h.i.+ng food.
That night, the dreadful darkness, the elemental warnings, the soul-sickening rush of the river, the groaning and grinding of the ice, piling itself, layer after layer, upon the banks of the river, a.s.sailed the old man with horrors, to which all his ancient campaigns had afforded no parallel.
He heard the irresistible enemy, slowly, deliberately, and determinedly advancing to bury his house in its cold embrace. He hurried the unmindful sharer of his destiny from her bed, gathered the most precious of his household goods, and knew not how or where to fly. Loudly and oft the angry spirit of the water shrieked: Niagara was mounting the hill.
The soldiers, perceiving his imminent peril, ventured down the bank, and shouted to him to fly to them. He moved not; they entreated him, and, knowing his great age and infirmity, and the utter imbecility of the poor old dame, insisted upon taking them out.
But the man withstood them. He looked abroad, and the glimmering night showed him nothing but ruin around.
”I put my trust in Him who never fails,” said the veteran. ”He will not suffer me to perish.”
The soldiers, awed by the wreck of nature, rushed forward, and took the ancient pair out by strength of arms; and, no sooner had they done so, than the waters, which had been so eager for their prey, reached the lower floor, and a large wooden building near them was toppled over by waves of solid ice. Much of the poor man's ingeniously-wrought furniture was injured; but, although the neighbouring buildings were crushed, cracked, rent, and turned over, the old man's habitation was spared, and he still dwells there, waiting in the suns.h.i.+ne for his appointed time, with the same faith as he displayed in the utter darkness of the storm.
He had built his cottage on land belonging to the Crown; and, in consequence of an act recently pa.s.sed, he, with many others who had thus taken possession, had been ordered to remove. But his affecting history had gained him friends, and he has now permission to dwell thereon, until he shall be summoned away by another and a higher authority, by that Power in whom he has his being, and in whom he put his trust.
We landed once more at Toronto, at present ”The City” of Upper Canada, on the 7th of July, and left it again on the 8th, in the fine and very fast steamer Eclipse for Hamilton, in the Gore district, at three o'clock, p.m. The day was fine; and thus we saw to advantage the whole sh.o.r.e of Ontario, from Toronto to Burlington.
Our first stopping place was Port Credit, a place remarkable for the settlement near it of an Indian tribe, to which the half-bred Peter Jones, or Kekequawkonnaby, as he is called, belongs.
This man, or, rather, this somewhat remarkable person, and, I think, missionary teacher of the Wesleyan Methodists, attained a share of notoriety in England a few years ago, by marrying a young English woman of respectable connections, and pa.s.sed with most people in wonder-loving London as a great Indian Chief, and a remarkable instance of the development of the Indian mind. He was, or rather is, for I believe he is living, a clever fellow, and had taken some pains with himself; but, like most of the Canadian lions in London, does not pa.s.s in his own country for any thing more than what he is known to be there, and that is, like the village he lives near, of credit enough.
It answers certain purposes every now and then to send people to represent particular interests to England; and, in nearly all these cases, John Bull receives them with open arms, and, with his national gullibility, is often apt to overrate them.
The O-jibbeway or Chippewa Indians, so lately in vogue, were a pleasant instance, and we could name other more important personages who have made dukes, and lords, and knights of the s.h.i.+re, esquires of the body, and simple citizens pay pretty dearly for having confided their consciences or their purse-strings to their keeping.
Beware, dear brother John Bull, of those who announce their coming with flourishes of trumpet, and who, when they arrive on your warm hearths, fill every newspaper with your banquetings, addresses, and talks, not to honour _you_, but to tell the Canadian public what extraordinary mistakes they have made in not having so readily, as you have done, found out their superexcellencies.
These are the men who sometimes, however, find a rotten rung in Fortune's ladder, and thus are suddenly hurled to the earth, but who, if they succeed and return safely, become the picked men of company, forget men's names, and, though you be called John, call you Peter.
The mouth of the little river Credit is called Port Credit, the port being made by the parallel piers run out into deep water on cribs, or frames of timber filled with stones, the usual mode of forming piers in Canada West. It is a small place, with some trade, but the Indians complain sadly that the mills and encroachments of the Whites have destroyed their salmon-fishery, which was their chief resource. Where do the Whites come in contact with the Red without destroying their chief resource? Echo answers, Where?