Part 4 (1/2)
The county gaol and court-house at Amherst, about a mile and a half from Cobourg, is a fine stone edifice, situated on a rising ground, which commands an extensive view over the lake Ontario and surrounding scenery. As you advance farther up the country, in the direction of the Hamilton or Rice Lake plains, the land rises into bold sweeping hills and dales.
The outline of the country reminded me of the hilly part of Gloucesters.h.i.+re; you want, however, the charm with which civilization has so eminently adorned that fine county, with all its romantic villages, flouris.h.i.+ng towns, cultivated farms, and extensive downs, so thickly covered with flocks and herds. Here the bold forests of oak, beech, maple, and ba.s.s-wood, with now and then a grove of dark pine, cover the hills, only enlivened by an occasional settlement, with its log-house and zig-zag fences of split timber: these fences are very offensive to my eye. I look in vain for the rich hedge rows of my native country. Even the stone fences in the north and west of England, cold and bare as they are, are less unsightly. The settlers, however, invariably adopt whatever plan saves time, labour, and money. The great law of expediency is strictly observed;--it is borne of necessity.
Matters of taste appear to be little regarded, or are, at all events, after-considerations.
I could see a smile hover on the lips of my fellow travellers on hearing of our projected plans for the adornment of our future dwelling.
”If you go into the backwoods your house must necessarily be a log- house,” said an elderly gentleman, who had been a settler many years in the country. ”For you will most probably be out of the way of a saw- mill, and you will find so much to do, and so many obstacles to encounter, for the first two or three years, that you will hardly have opportunity for carrying these improvements into effect.
”There is an old saying,” he added, with a mixture of gravity and good humour in his looks, ”that I used to hear when I was a boy, 'first creep* and then go'. [* Derived from infants crawling on all-fours before they have strength to walk.] Matters are not carried on quite so easily here as at home; and the truth of this a very few weeks'
acquaintance with the _bush_, as we term all unbroken forest land, will prove. At the end of five years you may begin to talk of these pretty improvements and elegancies, and you will then be able to see a little what you are about.”
”I thought,” said I, ”every thing in this country was done with so much expedition. I am sure I have heard and read of houses being built in a day.” The old gentleman laughed.
”Yes, yes,” he replied, ”travellers find no difficulty in putting up a house in twelve or twenty-four hours, and so the log-walls can be raised in that time or even less; but the house is not completed when the outer walls are up, as your husband will find to his cost.”
”But all the works on emigration that I leave read,” replied I, ”give a fair and flattering picture of a settler's life; for, according to their statements, the difficulties are easily removed.”
”Never mind books,” said my companion, ”use your own reason. Look on those interminable forests, through which the eye can only penetrate a few yards, and tell me how those vast timbers are to be removed, utterly extirpated, I may say, from the face of the earth, the ground cleared and burnt, a crop sown and fenced, and a house to shelter you raised, without difficulty, without expense, and without great labour. Never tell me of what is said in books, written very frequently by tarry-at- home travellers. Give me facts. One honest, candid emigrant's experience is worth all that has been written on the subject. Besides, that which may be a true picture of one part of the country will hardly suit another. The advantages and disadvantages arising from soil, situation, and progress of civilization, are very different in different districts: even the prices of goods and of produce, stock and labour, vary exceedingly, according as you are near to, or distant from, towns and markets.”
I began to think my fellow-traveller spoke sensibly on the subject, with which the experience of thirteen years had made him perfectly conversant. I began to apprehend that we also had taken too flattering a view of a settler's life as it must be in the backwoods. Time and our own personal knowledge will be the surest test, and to that we must bow.
We are ever p.r.o.ne to believe that which we wish.
About halfway between Cobourg and the Rice Lake there is a pretty valley between two steep hills. Here there is a good deal of cleared land and a tavern: the place is called ”Cold Springs.” Who knows but some century or two hence this spot may become a fas.h.i.+onable place of resort to drink the waters. A Canadian Bath or Cheltenham may spring up where now Nature revels in her wilderness of forest trees.
We now ascended the plains--a fine elevation of land--for many miles scantily clothed with oaks, and here and there bushy pines, with other trees and shrubs. The soil is in some places sandy, but varies, I am told, considerably in different parts, and is covered in large tracks with rich herbage, affording abundance of the finest pasture for cattle.
A number of exquisite flowers and shrubs adorn these plains, which rival any garden in beauty during the spring and summer months. Many of these plants are peculiar to the plains, and are rarely met with in any other situation. The trees, too, though inferior in size to those in the forests, are more picturesque, growing in groups or singly, at considerable intervals, giving a sort of park-like appearance to this portion of the country. The prevailing opinion seems to be, that the plains laid out in grazing or dairy farms would answer the purpose of settlers well; as there is plenty of land that will grow wheat and other corn-crops, and can be improved at a small expense, besides abundance of natural pasture for cattle. One great advantage seems to be, that the plough can be introduced directly, and the labour of preparing the ground is necessarily much less than where it is wholly covered with wood.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Rice Grounds]
There are several settlers on these plains possessing considerable farms. The situation, I should think, must be healthy and agreeable, from the elevation and dryness of the land, and the pleasant prospect they command of the country below them, especially where the Rice Lake, with its various islands and picturesque sh.o.r.es, is visible. The ground itself is pleasingly broken into hill and valley, sometimes gently sloping, at other times abrupt and almost precipitous.
An American farmer, who formed one of our party at breakfast the following morning, told me that these plains were formerly famous hunting grounds of the Indians, who, to prevent the growth of the timbers, burned them year after year; this, in process of time, destroyed the young trees, so as to prevent them again from acc.u.mulating to the extent they formerly did. Sufficient only was left to form coverts; for the deer resort hither in great herds for the sake of a peculiar tall sort of gra.s.s with which these plains abound, called deer- gra.s.s, on which they become exceedingly fat at certain seasons of the year.
Evening closed in before we reached the tavern on the sh.o.r.es of the Rice Lake, where we were to pa.s.s the night; so that I lost something of the beautiful scenery which this fine expanse of water presents as you descend the plains towards its sh.o.r.es. The glimpses I caught of it were by the faint but frequent flashes of lightning that illumined the horizon to the north, which just revealed enough to make me regret I could see no more that night. The Rice Lake is prettily diversified with small wooded islets: the north bank rises gently from the water's edge.
Within sight of Sully, the tavern from which the steam-boat starts that goes up the Otanabee, you see several well cultivated settlements; and beyond the Indian village the missionaries have a school for the education and instruction of the Indian children. Many of them can both read and write fluently, and are greatly improved in their moral and religious conduct. They are well and comfortably clothed, and have houses to live in. But they are still too much attached to their wandering habits to become good and industrious settlers. During certain seasons they leave the village, and encamp themselves in the woods along the borders of those lakes and rivers that present the most advantageous hunting and fis.h.i.+ng grounds.
The Rice Lake and Mud Lake Indians belong, I am told, to the Chippewas; but the traits of cunning and warlike ferocity that formerly marked this singular people seem to have disappeared beneath the milder influence of Christianity.
Certain it is that the introduction of the Christian religion is the first greatest step towards civilization and improvement; its very tendency being to break down the strong-holds of prejudice and ignorance, and unite mankind in one bond of social brotherhood. I have been told that for some time drunkenness was unknown, and even the moderate use of spirits was religiously abstained from by all the converts. This abstinence is still practised by some families; but of late the love of ardent spirits has again crept in among them, bringing discredit upon their faith. It is indeed hardly to be wondered at, when the Indian sees those around him that call themselves Christians, and who are better educated, and enjoy the advantages of civilized society, indulging to excess in this degrading vice, that he should suffer his natural inclination to overcome his Christian duty, which might in some have taken no deep root. I have been surprised and disgusted by the censures pa.s.sed on the erring Indian by persons who were foremost in indulgence at the table and the tavern; as if the crime of drunkenness were more excusable in the man of education than in the half-reclaimed savage.
There are some fine settlements on the Rice Lake, but I am told the sh.o.r.es are not considered healthy, the inhabitants being subject to lake-fevers and ague, especially where the ground is low and swampy.
These fevers and agues are supposed by some people to originate in the extensive rice-beds which cause a stagnation in the water; the constant evaporation from the surface acting on a ma.s.s of decaying vegetation must tend to have a bad effect on the const.i.tution of those that are immediately exposed to its pernicious influence.
Besides numerous small streams, here called _creeks_, two considerable rivers, the Otanabee and the Trent, find an outlet for their waters in the Rice Lake. These rivers are connected by a chain of small lakes, which you may trace on any good map of the province. I send you a diagram, which has been published at Cobourg, which will give you the geography of this portion of the country. It is on one of these small lakes we purpose purchasing land, which, should the navigation of these waters be carried into effect, as is generally supposed to be in contemplation, will render the lands on their sh.o.r.es very advantageous to the settlers; at present they are interrupted by large blocks of granite and limestone, rapids, and falls, which prevent any but canoes or flat-bottomed boats from pa.s.sing on them, and even these are limited to certain parts, on account of the above-named obstacles. By deepening the bed of the river and lakes, and forming locks in some parts and ca.n.a.ls, the whole sweep of these waters might be thrown open to the Bay of Quinte. The expense, however, would necessarily be great; and till the towns.h.i.+ps of this portion of the district be fully settled, it is hardly to be expected that so vast an undertaking should be effected, however desirable it may be.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Sleigh driving]
We left the tavern at Rice Lake, after an unusual delay, at nine o'clock. The morning was damp, and a cold wind blew over the lake, which appeared to little advantage through the drizzling rain, from which I was glad to shroud my face in my warm plaid cloak, for there was no cabin or other shelter in the little steamer than an inefficient awning.