Part 9 (1/2)
I suppose our scientific botanists in Britain would consider me very impertinent in bestowing names on the flowers and plants I meet with in these wild woods: I can only say, I am glad to discover the Canadian or even the Indian names if I can, and where they fail I consider myself free to become their floral G.o.dmother, and give them names of my own choosing.
Among our wild fruits we have plums, which, in some towns.h.i.+ps, are very fine and abundant; these make admirable preserves, especially when boiled in maple mola.s.ses, as is done by the American housewives. Wild cherries, also a sort called choke cherries, from their peculiar astringent qualities, high and low-bush cranberries, blackberries, which are brought by the Squaws in birch baskets,--all these are found on the plains and beaver meadows. The low-bush cranberries are brought in great quant.i.ties by the Indians to the towns and villages. They form a standing preserve on the tea-tables in most of the settlers' houses; but for richness of flavour, and for beauty of appearance, I admire the high-bush cranberries; these are little sought after, on account of the large flat seeds, which prevent them from being used as a jam: the jelly, however, is delightful, both in colour and flavour.
The bush on which this cranberry grows resembles the guelder rose. The blossoms are pure white, and grow in loose umbels; they are very ornamental, when in bloom, to the woods and swamps, skirting the lakes.
The berries are rather of a long oval, and of a brilliant scarlet, and when just touched by the frosts are semi-transparent, and look like pendent bunches of scarlet grapes.
I was tempted one fine frosty afternoon to take a walk with my husband on the ice, which I was a.s.sured was perfectly safe. I must confess for the first half-mile I felt very timid, especially when the ice is so transparent that you may see every little pebble or weed at the bottom of the water. Sometimes the ice was thick and white, and quite opaque.
As we kept within a little distance of the sh.o.r.e, I was struck by the appearance of some splendid red berries on the leafless bushes that hung over the margin of the lake, and soon recognized them to be the aforesaid high-bush cranberries. My husband soon stripped the boughs of their tempting treasure, and I, delighted with my prize, hastened home, and boiled the fruit with some sugar, to eat at tea with our cakes. I never ate any thing more delicious than they proved; the more so perhaps from having been so long without tasting fruit of any kind, with the exception of preserves, during our journey, and at Peterborough.
Soon after this I made another excursion on the ice, but it was not in quite so sound a state. We nevertheless walked on for about three- quarters of a mile. We were overtaken on our return by S------ with a handsleigh, which is a sort of wheelbarrow, such as porters use, without sides, and instead of a wheel, is fixed on wooden runners, which you can drag over the snow and ice with the greatest ease, if ever so heavily laden. S------ insisted that he would draw me home over the ice like a Lapland lady on a sledge. I was soon seated in state, and in another minute felt myself impelled forward with a velocity that nearly took away my breath. By the time we reached the sh.o.r.e I was in a glow from head to foot.
You would be pleased with the situation of our house. The spot chosen is the summit of a fine sloping bank above the lake, distant from the water's edge some hundred or two yards: the lake is not quite a mile from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e. To the south again we command a different view, which will be extremely pretty when fully opened--a fine smooth basin of water, diversified with beautiful islands, that rise like verdant groves from its bosom. Below these there is a fall of some feet, where the waters of the lakes, confined within a narrow channel between beds of limestone, rush along with great impetuosity, foaming and das.h.i.+ng up the spray in mimic clouds.
During the summer the waters are much lower, and we can walk for some way along the flat sh.o.r.es, which are composed of different strata of limestone, full of fossil remains, evidently of very recent formation.
Those sh.e.l.ls and river-insects that are scattered loose over the surface of the limestone, left by the recession of the waters, are similar to the sh.e.l.ls and insects incrusted in the body of the limestone. I am told that the bed of one of the lakes above us (I forget which) is of limestone; that it abounds in a variety of beautiful river-sh.e.l.ls, which are deposited in vast quant.i.ties in the different strata, and also in the blocks of limestone scattered along the sh.o.r.es. These sh.e.l.ls are also found in great profusion in the soil of the Beaver meadows.
When I see these things, and hear of them, I regret I know nothing of geology or conchology; as I might then be able to account for many circ.u.mstances that at present only excite my curiosity.
[Maps: Charts shewing the Interior Navigation of the District of Newcastle and Upper Canada.]
Just below the waterfall I was mentioning there is a curious natural arch in the limestone rock, which at this place rises to a height of ten or fifteen feet like a wall; it is composed of large plates of grey limestone, lying one upon the other; the arch seems like a rent in the wall, but worn away, and hollowed, possibly, by the action of water rus.h.i.+ng through it at some high flood. Trees grow on the top of this rock. Hemlock firs and cedars are waving on this elevated spot, above the turbulent waters, and clothing the stone barrier with a sad but never-fading verdure. Here, too, the wild vine, red creeper, and poison- elder, luxuriate, and wreathe fantastic bowers above the moss-covered ma.s.ses of the stone. A sudden turn in this bank brought us to a broad, perfectly flat and smooth bed of the same stone, occupying a s.p.a.ce of full fifty feet along the sh.o.r.e. Between the fissures of this bed I found some rosebushes, and a variety of flowers that had sprung up during the spring and summer, when it was left dry, and free from the action of the water.
This place will shortly be appropriated for the building of a saw and grist-mill, which, I fear, will interfere with its natural beauty. I dare say, I shall be the only person in the neighbourhood who will regret the erection of so useful and valuable an acquisition to this portion of the towns.h.i.+p.
The first time you send a parcel or box, do not forget to enclose flower-seeds, and the stones of plums, damsons, bullace, pips of the best kinds of apples, in the orchard and garden, as apples may be raised here from seed, which will bear very good fruit without being grafted; the latter, however, are finer in size and flavour. I should be grateful for a few nuts from our beautiful old stock-nut trees. Dear old trees!
how many gambels have we had in their branches when I was as light of spirit and as free from care as the squirrels that perched among the topmost boughs above us.--”Well,” you will say, ”the less that sage matrons talk of such wild tricks as climbing nut-trees, the better.”
Fortunately, young ladies are in no temptation here, seeing that nothing but a squirrel or a bear could climb our lofty forest-trees. Even a sailor must give it up in despair.
I am very desirous of having the seeds of our wild primrose and sweet violet preserved for me; I long to introduce them in our meadows and gardens. Pray let the cottage-children collect some.
My husband requests a small quant.i.ty of lucerne-seed, which he seems inclined to think may be cultivated to advantage.
LETTER X.
Variations in the Temperature of the Weather.--Electrical Phenomenon.-- Canadian Winter.--Country deficient in Poetical a.s.sociations.--Sugar- making. Fis.h.i.+ng Season.--Mode of Fis.h.i.+ng.--Duck-shooting.--Family of Indians.--_Papouses_ and their Cradle-cases.--Indian Manufactures.-- _Frogs_.
Lake House, May the 9th. 1833.
WHAT a different winter this has been to what I had antic.i.p.ated. The snows of December were continually thawing; on the 1st of January not a flake was to be seen on our clearing, though it lingered in the bush.
The warmth of the sun was so great on the first and second days of the new year that it was hardly possible to endure a cloak, or even shawl, out of doors; and within, the fire was quite too much for us. The weather remained pretty open till the latter part of the month, when the cold set in severely enough, and continued so during February. The 1st of March was the coldest day and night I ever experienced in my life; the mercury was down to twenty five degrees in the house; abroad it was much lower. The sensation of cold early in the morning was very painful, producing an involuntary shuddering, and an almost convulsive feeling in the chest and stomach. Our breaths were congealed in h.o.a.r-frost on the sheets and blankets. Every thing we touched of metal seemed to freeze our fingers. This excessive degree of cold only lasted three days, and then a gradual amelioration of temperature was felt.
During this very cold weather I was surprised by the frequent recurrence of a phenomenon that I suppose was of an electrical nature. When the frosts were most intense I noticed that when I undressed, my clothes, which are at this cold season chiefly of woollen cloth, or lined with flannel, gave out when moved a succession of sounds, like the crackling and snapping of fire, and in the absence of a candle emitted sparks of a pale whitish blue light, similar to the flashes produced by cutting loaf-sugar in the dark, or stroking the back of a black cat: the same effect was also produced when I combed and brushed my hair*.
[* This phenomenon is common enough everywhere when the air is very dry.--Ed.]
The snow lay very deep on the ground during February, and until the l9th of March, when a rapid thaw commenced, which continued without intermission till the ground was thoroughly freed from its h.o.a.ry livery, which was effected in less than a fortnight's time. The air during the progress of the thaw was much warmer and more balmy than it usually is in England, when a disagreeable damp cold is felt during that process.