Volume I Part 3 (1/2)

I sometimes fancy that I would fain be a Roman Catholic,--if I could; as also I would often wish to be still a child, if that were possible.

All this is on the way to the Falls of Montmorency. These falls are placed exactly at the mouth of the little river of the same name, so that it may be said absolutely to fall into the St. Lawrence. The people of the country, however, declare that the river into which the waters of the Montmorency fall is not the St. Lawrence, but the Charles. Without a map I do not know that I can explain this. The river Charles appears to, and in fact does, run into the St. Lawrence just below Quebec. But the waters do not mix. The thicker, browner stream of the lesser river still keeps the north-eastern bank till it comes to the island of Orleans, which lies in the river five or six miles below Quebec. Here or hereabouts are the Falls of the Montmorency, and then the great river is divided for twenty-five miles by the Isle of Orleans. It is said that the waters of the Charles and the St. Lawrence do not mix till they meet each other at the foot of this island.

I do not know that I am particularly happy at describing a waterfall, and what little capacity I may have in this way I would wish to keep for Niagara. One thing I can say very positively about Montmorency, and one piece of advice I can give to those who visit the falls.

The place from which to see them is not the horrible little wooden temple, which has been built immediately over them on that side which lies nearest to Quebec. The stranger is put down at a gate through which a path leads to this temple, and at which a woman demands from him twenty-five cents for the privilege of entrance. Let him by all means pay the twenty-five cents. Why should he attempt to see the falls for nothing, seeing that this woman has a vested interest in the showing of them? I declare that if I thought that I should hinder this woman from her perquisites by what I write, I would leave it unwritten, and let my readers pursue their course to the temple--to their manifest injury. But they will pay the twenty-five cents. Then let them cross over the bridge, eschewing the temple, and wander round on the open field till they get the view of the falls, and the view of Quebec also, from the other side. It is worth the twenty-five cents, and the hire of the carriage also. Immediately over the falls there was a suspension bridge, of which the supporting, or rather non-supporting, pillars are still to be seen. But the bridge fell down one day into the river; and, alas, alas! with the bridge fell down an old woman, and a boy, and a cart,--a cart and horse,--and all found a watery grave together in the spray. No attempt has been made since that to renew the suspension bridge; but the present wooden bridge has been built higher up, in lieu of it.

Strangers naturally visit Quebec in summer or autumn, seeing that a Canada winter is a season with which a man cannot trifle; but I imagine that the mid-winter is the best time for seeing the Falls of Montmorency. The water in its fall is dashed into spray, and that spray becomes frozen, till a cone of ice is formed immediately under the cataract, which gradually rises till the temporary glacier reaches nearly half-way to the level of the higher river. Up this men climb,--and ladies also, I am told,--and then descend with pleasant rapidity on sledges of wood, sometimes not without an innocent tumble in the descent. As we were at Quebec in September, we did not experience the delights of this pastime.

As I was too early for the ice cone under the Montmorency Falls, so also was I too late to visit the Saguenay river which runs into the St. Lawrence some hundred miles below Quebec. I presume that the scenery of the Saguenay is the finest in Canada. During the summer steamers run down the St. Lawrence and up the Saguenay, but I was too late for them. An offer was made to us through the kindness of Sir Edmund Head, who was then the Governor-General, of the use of a steam-tug belonging to a gentleman who carries on a large commercial enterprise at Chicoutimi, far up the Saguenay; but an acceptance of this offer would have entailed some delay at Quebec, and as we were anxious to get into the North Western States before the winter commenced, we were obliged with great regret to decline the journey.

I feel bound to say that a stranger regarding Quebec merely as a town, finds very much of which he cannot but complain. The foot-paths through the streets are almost entirely of wood, as indeed seems to be general throughout Canada. Wood is of course the cheapest material, and though it may not be altogether good for such a purpose it would not create animadversion if it were kept in tolerable order.

But in Quebec the paths are intolerably bad. They are full of holes.

The boards are rotten and worn in some places to dirt. The nails have gone, and the broken planks go up and down under the feet, and in the dark they are absolutely dangerous. But if the paths are bad the roadways are worse. The street through the lower town along the quays is, I think, the most disgraceful thoroughfare I ever saw in any town. I believe the whole of it, or at any rate a great portion, has been paved with wood; but the boards have been worked into mud, and the ground under the boards has been worked into holes, till the street is more like the bottom of a filthy ditch than a roadway through one of the most thickly populated parts of a city. Had Quebec in Wolfe's time been as it is now, Wolfe would have stuck in the mud between the river and the rock, before he reached the point which he desired to climb. In the upper town the roads are not so bad as they are below, but still they are very bad. I was told that this arose from disputes among the munic.i.p.al corporations. Everything in Canada relating to roads, and a very great deal affecting the internal government of the people, is done by these munic.i.p.alities. It is made a subject of great boast in Canada that the communal authorities do carry on so large a part of the public business, and that they do it generally so well, and at so cheap a rate. I have nothing to say against this, and as a whole believe that the boast is true. I must protest, however, that the streets of the greater cities,--for Montreal is nearly as bad as Quebec,--prove the rule by a very sad exception. The munic.i.p.alities of which I speak extend, I believe, to all Canada; the two provinces being divided into counties, and the counties subdivided into towns.h.i.+ps to which, as a matter of course, the munic.i.p.alities are attached.

From Quebec to Montreal there are two modes of travel. There are the steamers up the St. Lawrence which, as all the world know is, or at any rate hitherto has been, the high road of the Canadas; and there is the Grand Trunk Railway. Pa.s.sengers choosing the latter go towards Portland as far as Richmond, and there join the main line of the road, pa.s.sing from Richmond on to Montreal. We learned while at Quebec that it behoved us not to leave the colony till we had seen the lake and mountains of Memphra-Magog, and as we were clearly neglecting our duty with regard to the Saguenay, we felt bound to make such amends as lay in our power, by deviating from our way to the lake above named. In order to do this we were obliged to choose the railway, and to go back beyond Richmond to the station at Sherbrooke. Sherbrooke is a large village on the confines of Canada, and as it is on the railway will no doubt become a large town. It is very prettily situated on the meeting of two rivers; it has three or four different churches, and intends to thrive. It possesses two newspapers, of the prosperity of which I should be inclined to feel less a.s.sured. The annual subscription to such a newspaper published twice a week is ten s.h.i.+llings per annum. A sale of a thousand copies is not considered bad. Such a sale would produce 500 a year, and this would, if entirely devoted to that purpose, give a moderate income to a gentleman qualified to conduct a newspaper. But the paper and printing must cost something, and the capital invested should receive its proper remuneration. And then,--such at least is the general idea,--the getting together of news and the framing of intelligence is a costly operation. I can only hope that all this is paid for by the advertis.e.m.e.nts, for I must trust that the editors do not receive less than the moderate sum above named. At Sherbrooke we are still in Lower Canada. Indeed, as regards distance, we are when there nearly as far removed from Upper Canada as at Quebec. But the race of people here is very different. The French population had made their way down into these towns.h.i.+ps before the English and American war broke out, but had not done so in great numbers. The country was then very unapproachable, being far to the south of the St. Lawrence, and far also from any great line of internal communication towards the Atlantic. But, nevertheless, many settlers made their way in here from the States; men who preferred to live under British rule, and perhaps doubted the stability of the new order of things. They or their children have remained here since, and as the whole country has been opened up by the railway many others have flocked in. Thus a better cla.s.s of people than the French hold possession of the larger farms, and are on the whole doing well. I am told that many Americans are now coming here, driven over the borders from Maine, New Hamps.h.i.+re, and Vermont by fears of the war and the weight of taxation. I do not think that fears of war or the paying of taxes drive many individuals away from home. Men who would be so influenced have not the amount of foresight which would induce them to avoid such evils; or, at any rate, such fears would act slowly. Labourers, however, will go where work is certain, where work is well paid, and where the wages to be earned will give plenty in return. It may be that work will become scarce in the States, as it has done with those poor jewellers at Attleborough, of whom we spoke, and that food will become dear. If this be so, labourers from the States will no doubt find their way into Canada.

From Sherbrooke we went with the mails on a pair-horse waggon to Magog. Cross country mails are not interesting to the generality of readers, but I have a professional liking for them myself. I have spent the best part of my life in looking after and I hope in improving such mails, and I always endeavour to do a stroke of work when I come across them. I learned on this occasion that the conveyance of mails with a pair of horses in Canada costs little more than half what is paid for the same work in England with one horse, and something less than what is paid in Ireland, also for one horse.

But in Canada the average pace is only five miles an hour. In Ireland it is seven, and the time is accurately kept, which does not seem to be the case in Canada. In England the pace is eight miles an hour.

In Canada and in Ireland these conveyances carry pa.s.sengers; but in England they are prohibited from doing so. In Canada the vehicles are much better got up than they are in England, and the horses too look better. Taking Ireland as a whole they are more respectable in appearance there than in England. From all which it appears that pace is the article that costs the highest price, and that appearance does not go for much in the bill. In Canada the roads are very bad in comparison with the English or Irish roads; but to make up for this, the price of forage is very low.

I have said that the cross mail conveyances in Canada did not seem to be very closely bound as to time; but they are regulated by clock-work in comparison with some of them in the United States.

”Are you going this morning?” I said to a mail-driver in Vermont. ”I thought you always started in the evening.” ”Wa'll; I guess I do. But it rained some last night, so I jist stayed at home.” I do not know that I ever felt more shocked in my life, and I could hardly keep my tongue off the man. The mails, however, would have paid no respect to me in Vermont, and I was obliged to walk away crestfallen.

We went with the mails from Sherbrooke to a village called Magog at the outlet of the lake, and from thence by a steamer up the lake to a solitary hotel called the Mountain House, which is built at the foot of the mountain on the sh.o.r.e, and which is surrounded on every side by thick forest. There is no road within two miles of the house. The lake therefore is the only highway, and that is frozen up for four months in the year. When frozen, however, it is still a road, for it is pa.s.sable for sledges. I have seldom been in a house that seemed so remote from the world, and so little within reach of doctors, parsons, or butchers. Bakers in this country are not required, as all persons make their own bread. But in spite of its position the hotel is well kept, and on the whole we were more comfortable there than at any other inn in Lower Canada. The Mountain House is but five miles from the borders of Vermont, in which State the head of the lake lies. The steamer which brought us runs on to Newport,--or rather from Newport to Magog and back again. And Newport is in Vermont.

The one thing to be done at the Mountain House is the ascent of the mountain called the Owl's Head. The world there offers nothing else of active enterprise to the traveller, unless fis.h.i.+ng be considered an active enterprise. I am not capable of fis.h.i.+ng, therefore we resolved on going up the Owl's Head. To dine in the middle of the day is absolutely imperative at these hotels, and thus we were driven to select either the morning or the afternoon. Evening lights we declared were the best for all views, and therefore we decided on the afternoon. It is but two miles; but then, as we were told more than once by those who had spoken to us on the subject, those two miles are not like other miles. ”I doubt if the lady can do it,” one man said to me. I asked if ladies did not sometimes go up. ”Yes; young women do, at times,” he said. After that my wife resolved that she would see the top of the Owl's Head, or die in the attempt, and so we started. They never think of sending a guide with one in these places, whereas in Europe a traveller is not allowed to go a step without one. When I asked for one to show us the way up Mount Was.h.i.+ngton, I was told that there were no idle boys about that place.

The path was indicated to us, and off we started with high hopes.

I have been up many mountains, and have climbed some that were perhaps somewhat dangerous in their ascent. In climbing the Owl's Head there is no danger. One is closed in by thick trees the whole way. But I doubt if I ever went up a steeper ascent. It was very hard work, but we were not beaten. We reached the top, and there sitting down thoroughly enjoyed our victory. It was then half-past five o'clock, and the sun was not yet absolutely sinking. It did not seem to give us any warning that we should especially require its aid, and as the prospect below us was very lovely we remained there for a quarter of an hour. The ascent of the Owl's Head is certainly a thing to do, and I still think, in spite of our following misfortune, that it is a thing to do late in the afternoon. The view down upon the lakes and the forests around, and on the wooded hills below, is wonderfully lovely. I never was on a mountain which gave me a more perfect command of all the country round. But as we arose to descend we saw a little cloud coming towards us from over Newport.

The little cloud came on with speed, and we had hardly freed ourselves from the rocks of the summit before we were surrounded by rain. As the rain became thicker, we were surrounded by darkness also, or if not by darkness by so dim a light that it became a task to find our path. I still thought that the daylight had not gone, and that as we descended and so escaped from the cloud we should find light enough to guide us. But it was not so. The rain soon became a matter of indifference, and so also did the mud and briars beneath our feet. Even the steepness of the way was almost forgotten as we endeavoured to thread our path through the forest before it should become impossible to discern the track. A dog had followed us up, and though the beast would not stay with us so as to be our guide, he returned ever and anon and made us aware of his presence by das.h.i.+ng by us. I may confess now that I became much frightened. We were wet through, and a night out in the forest would have been unpleasant to us. At last I did utterly lose the track. It had become quite dark, so dark that we could hardly see each other. We had succeeded in getting down the steepest and worst part of the mountain, but we were still among dense forest-trees, and up to our knees in mud. But the people at the Mountain House were Christians, and men with lanterns were sent hallooing after us through the dark night. When we were thus found we were not many yards from the path, but unfortunately on the wrong side of a stream. Through that we waded and then made our way in safety to the inn. In spite of which misadventure I advise all travellers in Lower Canada to go up the Owl's Head.

On the following day we crossed the lake to Georgeville, and drove round another lake called the Ma.s.sawhippi back to Sherbrooke. This was all very well, for it showed us a part of the country which is comparatively well tilled, and has been long settled; but the Ma.s.sawhippi itself is not worth a visit. The route by which we returned occupies a longer time than the other, and is more costly as it must be made in a hired vehicle. The people here are quiet, orderly, and I should say a little slow. It is manifest that a strong feeling against the Northern States has lately sprung up. This is much to be deprecated, but I cannot but say that it is natural. It is not that the Canadians have any special Secession feelings, or that they have entered with peculiar warmth into the questions of American politics; but they have been vexed and acerbated by the braggadocio of the Northern States. They constantly hear that they are to be invaded, and translated into citizens of the Union: that British rule is to be swept off the Continent, and that the star-spangled banner is to be waved over them in pity. The star-spangled banner is in fact a fine flag, and has waved to some purpose; but those who live near it, and not under it, fancy that they hear too much of it. At the present moment the loyalty of both the Canadas to Great Britain is beyond all question. From all that I can hear I doubt whether this feeling in the Provinces was ever so strong, and under such circ.u.mstances American abuse of England and American braggadocio is more than usually distasteful. All this abuse and all this braggadocio comes to Canada from the Northern States, and therefore the Southern cause is at the present moment the more popular with them.

I have said that the Canadians hereabouts are somewhat slow. As we were driving back to Sherbrooke it became necessary that we should rest for an hour or so in the middle of the day, and for this purpose we stopped at a village inn. It was a large house, in which there appeared to be three public sitting-rooms of ample size, one of which was occupied as the bar. In this there were congregated some six or seven men, seated in arm-chairs round a stove, and among these I placed myself. No one spoke a word either to me or to any one else.

No one smoked, and no one read, nor did they even whittle sticks. I asked a question first of one and then of another, and was answered with monosyllables. So I gave up any hope in that direction, and sat staring at the big stove in the middle of the room, as the others did. Presently another stranger entered, having arrived in a waggon as I had done. He entered the room and sat down, addressing no one, and addressed by no one. After a while, however, he spoke. ”Will there be any chance of dinner here?” he said. ”I guess there'll be dinner by-and-by,” answered the landlord, and then there was silence for another ten minutes, during which the stranger stared at the stove. ”Is that dinner any way ready?” he asked again. ”I guess it is,” said the landlord. And then the stranger went out to see after his dinner himself. When we started at the end of an hour n.o.body said anything to us. The driver ”hitched” on the horses, as they call it, and we started on our way, having been charged nothing for our accommodation. That some profit arose from the horse provender is to be hoped.

On the following day we reached Montreal, which, as I have said before, is the commercial capital of the two Provinces. This question of the capitals is at the present moment a subject of great interest in Canada, but as I shall be driven to say something on the matter when I report myself as being at Ottawa, I will refrain now. There are two special public affairs at the present moment to interest a traveller in Canada. The first I have named, and the second is the Grand Trunk Railway. I have already stated what is the course of this line. It runs from the Western State of Michigan to Portland on the Atlantic in the State of Maine, sweeping the whole length of Canada in its route. It was originally made by three Companies. The Atlantic and St. Lawrence constructed it from Portland to Island Pond on the borders of the States. The St. Lawrence and Atlantic took it from the South Eastern side of the river at Montreal to the same point, viz., Island Pond. And the Grand Trunk Company have made it from Detroit to Montreal, crossing the river there with a stupendous tubular bridge, and have also made the branch connecting the main line with Quebec and Riviere du Loup. This latter company is now incorporated with the St. Lawrence and Atlantic, but has only leased the portion of the line running through the States. This they have done, guaranteeing the shareholders an interest of six per cent. There never was a grander enterprise set on foot. I will not say there never was one more unfortunate, for is there not the Great Eastern, which by the weight and constancy of its failures demands for itself a proud pre-eminence of misfortune? But surely the Grand Trunk comes next to it. I presume it to be quite out of the question that the shareholders should get any interest whatever on their shares for years. The company when I was at Montreal had not paid the interest due to the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Company for the last year, and there was a doubt whether the lease would not be broken. No party that had advanced money to the undertaking was able to recover what had been advanced. I believe that one firm in London had lent nearly a million to the Company and is now willing to accept half the sum so lent in quittance of the whole debt. In 1860 the line could not carry the freight that offered, not having or being able to obtain the necessary rolling stock; and on all sides I heard men discussing whether the line would be kept open for traffic. The Government of Canada advanced to the Company three millions of money, with an understanding that neither interest nor princ.i.p.al should be demanded till all other debts were paid, and all shareholders in receipt of six per cent. interest. But the three millions were clogged with conditions which, though they have been of service to the country, have been so expensive to the Company that it is hardly more solvent with it than it would have been without it. As it is, the whole property seems to be involved in ruin; and yet the line is one of the grandest commercial conceptions that was ever carried out on the face of the globe, and in the process of a few years will do more to make bread cheap in England than any other single enterprise that exists.

I do not know that blame is to be attached to any one. I at least attach no such blame. Probably it might be easy now to show that the road might have been made with sufficient accommodation for ordinary purposes without some of the more costly details. The great tubular bridge on which was expended 1,300,000 might, I should think, have been dispensed with. The Detroit end of the line might have been left for later time. As it stands now, however, it is a wonderful operation carried to a successful issue as far as the public are concerned, and one can only grieve that it should be so absolute a failure to those who have placed their money in it. There are schemes which seem to be too big for men to work out with any ordinary regard to profit and loss. The Great Eastern is one, and this is another.

The national advantage arising from such enterprises is immense; but the wonder is that men should be found willing to embark their money where the risk is so great, and the return even hoped for is so small.

While I was in Canada some gentlemen were there from the Lower Provinces--Nova Scotia, that is, and New Brunswick--agitating the subject of another great line of railway from Quebec to Halifax.

The project is one in favour of which very much may be said. In a national point of view an Englishman or a Canadian cannot but regret that there should be no winter mode of exit from, or entrance to, Canada, except through the United States. The St. Lawrence is blocked up for four or five months in winter, and the steamers which run to Quebec in the summer run to Portland during the season of ice.

There is at present no mode of public conveyance between the Canadas and the Lower Provinces, and an immense district of country on the borders of Lower Canada, through New Brunswick and into Nova Scotia is now absolutely closed against civilization, which by such a railway would be opened up to the light of day. We all know how much the want of such a road was felt when our troops were being forwarded to Canada during the last winter. It was necessary they should reach their destination without delay; and as the river was closed, and the pa.s.sing of troops through the States was of course out of the question, that long overland journey across Nova Scotia and New Brunswick became a necessity. It would certainly be a very great thing for British interests if a direct line could be made from such a port as Halifax, a port which is open throughout the whole year, up into the Canadas. If these Colonies belonged to France or to any other despotic Government, the thing would be done. But the Colonies do not belong to any despotic Government.

Such a line would in fact be a continuance of the Grand Trunk; and who that looks at the present state of the finances of the Grand Trunk can think it to be on the cards that private enterprise should come forward with more money,--with more millions? The idea is that England will advance the money, and that the English House of Commons will guarantee the interest, with some counter-guarantee from the Colonies that this interest shall be duly paid. But it would seem that if such Colonial guarantee is to go for anything, the Colonies might raise the money in the money market without the intervention of the British House of Commons.