Part 10 (2/2)

The Indians are acquainted with a variety of dyes, with which they stain the more elegant fancy-baskets and porcupine-quills. Our parlour is ornamented with several very pretty specimens of their ingenuity in this way, which answer the purpose of note and letter-cases, flower-stands, and work-baskets.

They appear to value the useful rather more highly than the merely ornamental articles that you may exhibit to them. They are very shrewd and close in all their bargains, and exhibit a surprising degree of caution in their dealings. The men are much less difficult to trade with than the women: they display a singular pertinacity in some instances.

If they have fixed their mind on any one article, they will come to you day after day, refusing any other you may offer to their notice. One of the squaws fell in love with a gay chintz dressing-gown belonging to my husband, and though I resolutely refused to part with it, all the squaws in the wigwam by turns came to look at ”gown,” which they p.r.o.nounced with their peculiarly plaintive tone of voice; and when I said ”no gown to sell,” they uttered a melancholy exclamation of regret, and went away.

They will seldom make any article you want on purpose for you. If you express a desire to have baskets of a particular pattern that they do not happen to have ready made by them, they give you the usual vague reply of ”by-and-by.” If the goods you offer them in exchange for theirs do not answer their expectations, they give a sullen and dogged look or reply, ”_Car-car_” (no, no), or ”_Carwinni_,” which is a still more forcible negative. But when the bargain pleases them, they signify their approbation by several affirmative nods of the head, and a note not much unlike a grunt; the ducks, fish, venison, or baskets, are placed beside you, and the articles of exchange transferred to the folds of their capacious blankets, or deposited in a sort of rushen wallets, not unlike those straw baskets in which English carpenters carry their tools.

The women imitate the dresses of the whites, and are rather skilful in converting their purchases. Many of the young girls can sew very neatly.

I often give them bits of silk and velvet, and braid, for which they appear very thankful.

I am just now very busy with my garden. Some of our vegetable seeds are in the ground, though I am told we have been premature; there being ten chances to one but the young plants will be cut off by the late frosts, which are often felt through May, and even the beginning of June.

Our garden at present has nothing to boast of, being merely a spot of ground enclosed with a rough unsightly fence of split rails to keep the cattle from destroying the vegetables. Another spring, I hope to have a nice fence, and a portion of the ground devoted to flowers. This spring there is so much pressing work to be done on the land in clearing for the crops, that I do not like to urge my claims on behalf of a pretty garden.

The forest-trees are nearly all in leaf. Never did spring burst forth with greater rapidity than it has done this year. The verdure of the leaves is most vivid. A thousand lovely flowers are expanding in the woods and clearings. Nor are our Canadian songsters mute: the cheerful melody of the robin, the bugle-song of the blackbird and thrush, with the weak but not unpleasing call of the little bird called _Thitabecec_, and a wren, whose note is sweet and thrilling, fill our woods.

For my part, I see no reason or wisdom in carping at the good we do possess, because it lacks something of that which we formerly enjoyed. I am aware it is the fas.h.i.+on for travellers to a.s.sert that our feathered tribes are either mute or give utterance to discordant cries that pierce the ear, and disgust rather than please. It would be untrue were I to a.s.sert that our singing birds were as numerous or as melodious on the whole as those of Europe; but I must not suffer prejudice to rob my adopted country of her rights without one word being spoken in behalf of her feathered vocalists. Nay, I consider her very frogs have been belied: if it were not for the monotony of their notes, I really consider they are not quite unmusical. The green frogs are very handsome, being marked over with brown oval s.h.i.+elds on the most vivid green coat: they are larger in size than the biggest of our English frogs, and certainly much handsomer in every respect. Their note resembles that of a bird, and has nothing of the creek in it.

The bull-frogs are very different from the greens frogs. Instead of being angry with their comical notes, I can hardly refrain from laughing when a great fellow pops up his broad brown head from the margin of the water, and says, ”_Williroo, williroo, williroo_,” to which another bull-frog, from a distant part of the swamp, replies, in hoa.r.s.er accents, ”_Get out, get out, get out_;” and presently a sudden chorus is heard of old and young, as if each party was desirous of out-croaking the other.

In my next I shall give you an account of our logging-bee, which will take place the latter end of this month. I feel some anxiety respecting the burning of the log-heaps on the fallow round the house, as it appears to me rather a hazardous matter.

I shall write again very shortly. Farewell, dearest of friends.

LETTER XI

Emigrants suitable for Canada.--Qualities requisite to ensure success.-- Investment of Capital.--Useful Articles to be brought out.-- Qualifications and Occupations of a Settler's Family.--Deficiency of Patience and Energy in some Females.--Management of the Dairy.--Cheese.

--Indian Corn, and its Cultivation.--Potatoes.--Rates of Wages.

August 9, 1833

WITH respect to the various questions, my dear friend, to which you request my particular attention, I can only promise that I will do my best to answer them as explicitly as possible, though at the same time I must remind you, that brevity in epistolary correspondence is not one of my excellencies. If I become too diffuse in describing mere matters of fact, you must bear with mine infirmity, and attribute it to my womanly propensity of over-much talking; so, for your comfort, if your eyes be wearied, your ears will at least escape.

I shall take your queries in due rotation; first, then, you ask, ”Who are the persons best adapted for bush-settlers?”

To which I reply without hesitation--the poor hard-working, sober labourers, who have industrious habits, a large family to provide for, and a laudable horror of the workhouse and parish-overseers: this will bear them through the hards.h.i.+ps and privations of a first settlement in the backwoods; and in due time they will realize an honest independence, and be above want, though not work. Artisans of all crafts are better paid in village-towns, or long-cleared districts, than as mere bush- settlers.

”Who are the next best suited for emigration?”

Men of a moderate income or good capital may make money in Canada. If they have judgment, and can afford to purchase on a large scale, they will double or treble their capital by judicious purchases and sales.

But it would be easier for me to point out who are not fit for emigration than who are.

The poor gentleman of delicate and refined habits, who cannot afford to employ all the labour requisite to carry on the business of clearing on a tolerable large scale, and is unwilling or incapable of working himself, is not fitted for Canada, especially if his habits are expensive. Even the man of small income, unless he can condescend to take in hand the axe or the chopper, will find, even with prudent and economical habits, much difficulty in keeping free from debt for the first two or even three years. Many such have succeeded, but the struggle has been severe.

But there is another cla.s.s of persons most unsuited to the woods: these are the wives and families of those who have once been opulent tradesmen, accustomed to the daily enjoyment of every luxury that money could procure or fas.h.i.+on invent; whose ideas of happiness are connected with a round of amus.e.m.e.nts, company, and all the novelties of dress and pleasure that the gay world can offer. Young ladies who have been brought up at fas.h.i.+onable boarding schools, with a contempt of every thing useful or economical, make very indifferent settlers' wives.

Nothing can be more unfortunate than the situations in the woods of Canada of persons so educated: disgusted with the unpleasant change in their mode of life, wearied and discontented with all the objects around them, they find every exertion a trouble, and every occupation a degradation.

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