Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847. Various
and dressing by candlelight, having even donned hat and gloves, to join my companions, when the waiter entered my room with a grin. 'I guess,' said the rascal, 'I have put my foot in it. Are you the man that wanted to be called at two?' 'No,' was my reply. 'Then,' said he, 'I calculate I have fixed the wrong man, so you had better go to bed again.' Having delivered himself of this friendly advice, he went to awaken my neighbour, who had all this time been quietly enjoying the sleep that properly belonged to me. Instead of following the fellow's recommendation, I sat up for the rest of the night." Whether the author possessed a watch we cannot tell, but if he was master of that useful and not very rare article, he might have saved himself his premature trouble, and escaped shaving at midnight.
On crossing into the Canadian territory, he encounters one of those evidences of popular liberty which belong to rather the American than the English side. In the village of St John's, some of the party went a-head to the principal inn, and as it was late at night, and their knocking produced no effect, they appealed to what they regarded as the most accessible of the landlord's susceptibilities, his pocket, by saying that they were fourteen, more coming, with a whole host of drivers. This appeal was the most unlucky possible, for the landlord had another sensibility, the fear of being tarred and feathered, if not hanged. On the door being opened at last, the landlord was not to be found; his brother wandered about, the very ghost of despair. The establishment was searched upside and downside, inside and outside, in vain; and they began to think themselves the cause of some domestic tragedy; but it must have been a late perpetration, for on looking into his bed, they found the lair warm.
However, after a short time, mine host returned with a face all smiles. The mystery was then explained. The election had taken place during the day, and the landlord, having taken the part of the candidate who eventually succeeded, was threatened with vengeance by the losing party. The arrival of the travellers convinced him that his hour was come, and he had jumped out of bed and hidden himself in some inscrutable corner. But a good supper reconciled every thing.
The author crossed the ice to Montreal, and had a showy view of the metropolis of the Canadas. A curious observation is suggested by Montreal, on the different characters of the English and French population. In the days of Wolf and Amherst, it was all French; but John Bull, with his spirit of activity and industry, has quietly become master of all the trading situations of the city, while the French have as quietly retreated, and spread themselves through the upper sections of it, to a great degree cut off from its commercial portions.
From Montreal the travel began. The heavy canoes were sent forward some days before, under the charge of some of the Company's officers, the light canoes waited for the author, with Colonel Oldfield, chief engineer in Canada, who was going up the country on a survey of the navigation, and the Earls of Mulgrave and Caledon, who were going to the Red River, buffalo-hunting.
All was now ready in form, and on the 4th of May the two canoes were floating on the Lactrine canal. The crews, thirteen to one vessel, and fourteen to the other, were partly Canadians, but principally Iroquois. Those voyageurs, as they are called, had each been supplied with a feather in his cap, in honour of the occasion, and evidently expected to produce a sensation on shore. But a north-wester blowing prevented the hoisting of their flags, which mulcted the pageant of much of its intended glory. These canoes are thirty-five feet in length, and five feet wide in the centre; drawing about eighteen inches water, and weighing between three and four hundred pounds; capitally fitted for a navigation among rocks, rapids, and portages; but they seem most uncomfortable in rough weather. The waves of the St Lawrence rolled like a sea, the gale was biting, and the snow drifted heavily in the faces of the party. In this luckless condition, we are not surprised at the intelligence, that at St Anne's Rapids, notwithstanding the authority of the poet, "they sang no evening hymn."
This style of travelling was not certainly much mingled with luxury. Next morning, after "toiling for six hours," they breakfasted, "with the wet ground for their table, and with rain in place of milk to cool their tea." On this day, while running close under the falls of the Rideau, they seem to have had a narrow escape from a finale to their voyage; their canoes being swept into the middle of the river, under an immense fall, fifty feet in height.
They now learned the art of bivouaching, and after a day of toiling through portages, reserving the severest of them, the Grand Calumet, for the renewed vigour of the morning, they made ready for the forest night. The description, brief as it is, is one among many which shows the artist eye.
"The tents were pitched in a small clump of pines, while round a blazing fire the passengers were collected, amid a medley of boxes, barrels, cloaks, and on the rock above the foaming rapids were lying the canoes; the men flitting about the fires as if they were enjoying a holiday, and watching a huge cauldron suspended above the fire. The whole with a background of dense woods and a lake."
Yet, startling as this "wooing of nature" in her rough moods may seem to the silk-and-velvet portion of the world, we doubt whether this wild life, with its desperate toil and its ground sleep, may not be the true charm of travel to saint, savage, or sage, when once fairly forced to the experiment. The blazing fire, the bed of leaves, the gay supper, made gayer still by incomparable appetite, and the sleep after all, in which the whole outward man remains imbedded, without the movement of a muscle and without a dream, until the morning awakes him up a new being, are fully worth all the inventions of art, to make us enjoy rest unearned by fatigue, and food without waiting for appetite. "The sleep of the weary man is sweet," said the ancient and wise king who slept among curtains of gold, and under roofs of cedar; the true way to taste that sleep is to spend a day, dragging canoes up Indian portages, and lie down with one's feet warmed by a pine blaze and one's back to the shelter of a forest.
But, as the time will assuredly come when this "life in the woods" will be no more, when huge inns will supersede the canopy of the skies, and down beds will make the memory of birch twigs and heather blossoms pass away, we give from authority the proceedings of an evening's rest, which the next generation will study with somewhat of the feeling of reading Tacitus De Moribus Germanorum.
As the sun approached his setting, every eye in the canoes, as they pulled along, was speculating on some dry and tolerably open spot on the shore. That once found, all were on shore in an instant. Then the axe was heard ringing among the trees, to prepare for the fires, and make room for the tents. In ten minutes, the tents were pitched, the fires blazing in front of each, and the supper preparing in all its diversities. The beds were next made, consisting of an oil-cloth laid on the ground, with blankets and a pillow; occasionally aided by great-coats, à discretion. The crews, drawing the canoes on shore, first made an inspection of their hurts during the day; and having done this, the little vessels were turned into a shelter, and each man wrapping himself in his blanket defied the weather and the world.
But this state of happiness was never destined to last long. About one in the morning, the cry, of "Leve, leve," broke all slumbers. We must acknowledge that the hour seems premature, and that the most patient of travellers might have solicited a couple of hours more of "tired Nature's sweet restorer." But the discipline of the bivouac was Spartan. If the slumberer did not instantly start up, the tent was pulled down about him, and he found himself half-smothered in canvass. However, we must presume that this seldom happened, and, within half an hour, every thing would be packed, the canoes laden, and the paddles moving to some "merry old song." In this manner passed the day, six hours of rest, to eighteen of labour, a tremendous disproportion, even to the sturdy Englishman, or the active Irishman, but perfectly congenial to the sinews and spirit of the gay voyageur.
A few touches more give the complete picture of the day. About eight, a convenient site would be selected for breakfast. Three-quarters of an hour being the whole time allotted for unpacking and packing, boiling and frying, eating and drinking. "While the preliminaries were arranging, the hardier among us would wash and shave, each person carrying soap and towel in his pocket, and finding a mirror in the same sandy or rocky basin which held the water. About two in the afternoon, we put ashore for dinner, and as this meal needed no fire, or, at least, got none, it was not allowed to occupy more than twenty minutes, or half an hour."
We recommend the following considerations to the amateur boat clubs, and others, who plume themselves on their naval achievements between Putney