 CHAPTER X The people of Toronto informed me, immediately on my arrival in their city, that Toronto is the most English place to be met with out of England. At first I was at a loss to understand their meaning. Wooden houses, long streets crossing each other at right angles, and wooden sidewalks, looked very un-English to my eye. But when I had been for a few days at Toronto, and had become accustomed to the necessarily unfinished appearance of a town which has only enjoyed sixty years of existence, I fully agreed with the laudatory remarks passed upon it. The wooden houses have altogether disappeared from the principal streets, and have been replaced by substantial erections of brick and stone. The churches are numerous, and of tasteful architecture. The principal edifices are well situated and very handsome. King Street, the principal thoroughfare, is two miles in length, and the sidewalks are lined with handsome shops. The outskirts of Toronto abound in villa residences, standing in gardens or shrubberies. The people do not run, hurry scurry along the streets, but there are no idlers to be observed. Here suit as centricities have also disappeared. The beard is rarely seen, and the mustache is not considered a necessary ornament. The faded, care-worn look of the American ladies has given place to the bright complexion, the dimpled smile, and the active elastic tread, so peculiarly English. Indeed, in walking along the streets there is nothing to tell that one is not in England, and if anything were needed to complete the illusion, those sure tokens of British civilization, a jail and a lunatic asylum, are not wanting. Toronto possesses, in a remarkable degree, the appearances of stability and progress. No town on the western continent has progressed more rapidly, certainly none more surely. I conversed with an old gentleman who remembered its sight when it was covered with a forest, when the smoke of Indian wigwams ascended through the trees, and when wild fowl crowded the waters of the harbour. The place then bore the name of Toronto, the place of council. The name was changed by the first settlers to Little York, but in 1814 its euphonious name of Toronto was again bestowed upon it. Its population in 1801 was three hundred and thirty-six. It is now nearly fifty thousand. Toronto is not the fungus growth, staring and wooden, of a temporary necessity. It is the result of persevering industry, well-applied capital, and healthy and progressive commercial prosperity. This railroads are in course of construction, which will make the exporting market for the increasing produce of the interior, and as the migratory Canadian legislature is now stationary at Toronto for four years, its future progress will probably be more rapid than its past. Its wharves are always crowded with freight and passenger steamers, by which it communicates two or three times a day with the great cities of the United States and Quebec and Montreal. It is the seat of Canadian learning, and besides excellent schools, possesses a university and several theological and general seminaries. The society is said to be highly superior. I give willing testimony in favour of this assertion, from the little which I saw of it, but an attack of awe prevented me from presenting my letters of introduction. It is a very musical place, and at Toronto Jenny Lind gave the only concerts with which she honoured Canada. A large number of the inhabitants are scotch, which may account for the admirable way in which the Sabbath is observed. If I was pleased to find that the streets, the stores, the accent, the manners were English, I was rejoiced to see that from the highest to the lowest, the hearts of the people were English also. I was at Toronto when the false dispatch was received, announcing the capture of Sebastopol and of the Russian army. I was spending the evening at the house of a friend, when a gentleman ran in to say that the church bells were ringing for a great victory. It was but the work of a few minutes for us to jump into a hack and drive at full speed to the office of the Globe newspaper, where the report was apparently confirmed. A great crowd in a state of eager excitement besieged the doors, and presently a man mounted on a lamppost read the words, Sebastopol is taken, the Russian fleet burnt, eighteen thousand killed and wounded, loss of the Allies two thousand five hundred, the news had been telegraphed from Boston, and surely the trembling tongue of steel had never before told such a bloody tale. One shout of hurrah for old England burst from the crowd, and hearty English cheers were given, which were caught up and repeated down the crowded streets of Toronto. The shout thrilled through my heart, it told that the flag of England waved over the loyal, true-hearted and brave. It told of attachment to the Constitution and the throne. It told that in our times of difficulty and danger St. George and Mary England would prove a gathering cry even on the prosperous shores of Lake Ontario. Greater enthusiasm could not have been exhibited on the receipt of this false but glorious news in any city at home. The bells, which a few days before had told for the catastrophe of the Arctic, now peeled forth in triumph for the victory of the Alma. Toronto knew no rest that night. Those who rejoiced over a victory gained over the northern despot were those who had successfully resisted the despotism of a band of rebels. The streets were almost impassable from the crowds who thronged them. Hand rockets exploded almost into people's eyes, serpents and squibs were hissing and cracking over the pavements, and people were rushing about in all directions for fuel for the different bonfires. The largest of these was opposite the St. Lawrence Hall. It was a monster one of tar barrels and lighted up the whole street, pailing the sickly flame of the gas lamps. There was a large and accumulating crowd round it shouting, Hurrah for Old England, down with the Russians, three cheers for the Queen, and the like. Sky rockets were blazing high in the air, men were rushing about firing muskets, the small swivels of the steamers at the wharves were firing incessantly, and carts with combustibles were going at full speed along the streets, each fresh arrival being hailed with enthusiastic cheering. There were firemen, too, in their picturesque dresses, who had turned out at the first sound of the bells, and their services were soon put into requisition, for enthusiasm produced recklessness, and two or three shingle roofs were set on fire by the descent of rockets upon them. This display of attachment to England was not confined to the loyal and aristocratic city of Toronto. At Hamilton, a thriving commercial place of suspected American tendencies, the town council was assembled at the time the dispatch was received, and instantly voted a sum for an illumination. From my praise of Toronto I must accept the hotels which are of a very inferior class. They are a poor imitation of those in the States. Russell's hotel, at which I stayed for eight days, was a disagreeable contrast to the national hotel at Detroit, and another of some pretensions the North American was said to be even more comfortless. The bedrooms at Russell's swarmed with mosquitoes, and the waiters who were runaway slaves were inattentive and uncivil. After staying some little time with my friends at Toronto I went to pay a visit to some friends at Hamilton. The afternoon was very windy and stormy. The lake looked very unpromising from the wharf, the island protected the harbor, but beyond this the waves were breaking with fury. Several persons who came down, intending to take their passage for Hamilton, were deterred by the threatening aspect of the weather. But, not having heard anything against the character of Lake Ontario, I had sufficient confidence in it to persevere in my intention. I said to the captain, I suppose it won't be rough? To which he replied that he could not flatter me by saying so, adding that he had never seen so many persons sick as in the morning. Manor was served immediately on our leaving the harbor, but the number of those who sat down, at first about thirty, soon diminished to five, the others having rushed in a most mysterious manner to state rooms or windows. For my own part I cannot say that the allowed excellence of the cuisine tempted me to make a very substantial meal, and I was glad of an excuse for retiring to a state room which I shared with the lady who had just taken leave of her three children. This cabin was very prettily arranged, but the movements of things were rather erratic, and my valise gave most disagreeable manifestations of spiritual agency. The ship was making little way, and rolling and pitching fearfully, and knowing how very top-heavy she was, I did not at all like the glimpses of raging water to which I, with difficulty, obtained through the cabin windows. To understand what followed it will be necessary for the reader to recollect that the saloon and state rooms in this vessel formed an erection, or deck-house, about eight feet high upon the deck, and that the part of the saloon where most of the passengers were congregated, as well as the state room where I was sitting, were within a few feet of the bow of the ship, and consequently exposed to the fury of the waves. I had sat in my state room for half an hour, feeling very apathetic and wishing myself anywhere but where I was, when something struck the ship, and the wretched fabric fell over on her side. Another and another, in silence for a second, broken only by the crash and roar of winds and waters. The inner door burst open, letting in an inundation of water. My companion jumped up, shrieking, Oh! my children, we're lost, we're lost, and crawled, pale and trembling into the saloon. The vessel was lying on her side, therefore locomotion was most difficult, but seasick people were emerging from their state rooms, shrieking, some that they were lost, others for their children, others for mercy, while the group of gentlemen, less noisy but not less frightened and drenched to the skin, were standing together with pale and ashy faces. What is the matter? inquired my companion, taking hold of one of these men. Say your prayers, for we're going down, was the brutal reply. For the first and only time during my American travels I was really petrified with fear. Suddenly a wave struck the hapless vessel, and with a stunning crash broke through the thin woodwork of the side of the saloon. I caught hold of a life-boy which was near me, a gentleman clutched it from me, for fright makes some men selfish, and breathless I was thrown down into the gurgling water. I learned then how quickly thoughts can pass through the mine, for in those few seconds I thought less of the anticipated death-struggle amid the boiling surges of the lake, and of the quiet sleep beneath its gloomy waters, than of the unsatisfactory manner in which those at home would glean the terrible tidings from the accident columns of a newspaper. Another minute, and I was swept through the open door into a state-room, another of suspense, and the ship rided as if by superhuman effort. There seemed a respite, there was a silence broken only by the roar of winds and waves, and with the respite came hope. Shortly after the master of the ship appeared with his hat off and completely drenched. Thank God we're safe, he said, and returned to his duty. We had all supposed that we had struck on a rock or a wreck. I never knew the precise nature of our danger beyond this, that the vessel had been thrown on her beam ends in a squall, and that, the wind immediately veering round, the fury of the waves had been spent upon her. Many of the passengers now wished the captain to return, but he said that he should incur great danger in an attempt to make the harbor of Toronto than by proceeding down the open lake. For some time nothing was to be seen but a dense fog, a storm of sleet which quite darkened the air and raging waves, on which we mounted sometimes, while at others we were buried between them. In another hour the gale had completely subsided, and after we had changed our drenched habillement. No token remained of the previous storm but the drowned and dismantled appearance of the saloon, and the resolution on my own mind never to trust myself again on one of these fearful lakes. I was amused to observe that those people who had displayed the greatest symptoms of fear during the storm were the first to protest that, as for them, they never thought there was any danger. The afternoon, though cold, was extremely beautiful, but owing to the storm in the early part of our voyage we did not reach Hamilton till nightfall, or three hours after our appointed time. I do not like these inland lakes or tideless freshwater seas, as they may more appropriately be termed. I know Lake Ontario well, I have crossed it twice, and I have been up and down it five times. I have sojourned upon its shores, and I have seen them under the hot light of an autumn sun, and underneath a mantle of wintery snow. But there is to me something peculiarly oppressive about this vast expanse of water. If the lake is rough there are no harbors of refuge in which to take shelter. If calm the waters, though pure, blue, and clear, look monotonous and dead. The very ships look lonely things, their hulls and sails are white, and some of them have been known in time of cholera to drift over the lake from day to day with none to guide the helm. The shores, too, are flat and uninteresting. My eyes wearied of following that interminable boundary of trees stretching away to the distant horizon. Yet Lake Ontario affords great advantages both to Canada and the United States. The former has the large towns of Hamilton, Toronto, and Kingston on its shores, with the exporting places of Oakville, Credit, and Cobor. The important towns of Oswego and Rochester, with smaller ones too numerous to name, are on the American side. The lake is five hundred miles around, and owing to its very great depth never freezes except just along the shores. An immense trade is carried upon it, both in steamers and sailing vessels. A ship canal connects Lake Ontario with Lake Erie, thereby overcoming the obstacle to navigation produced by the falls of Niagara. This stupendous work is called the Welland Canal. At Hamilton I received a most cordial welcome from the friends whom I went to visit, and saw something of the surrounding country. It is, I think, the most bustling place in Canada. It is a very juvenile city, yet already has a population of twenty-five thousand people. The stores and hotels are handsome, and the streets are brilliantly lighted with gas. Hamilton has a peculiarly unfinished appearance. Indications of progress meet one on every side. There are houses being built, and houses being pulled down to make room for larger and more substantial ones. Streets are being extended, and new ones are being staked out, and every external feature seems to be acquiring fresh and rapid development. People hurry about as if their lives depended on their speed. I guess, and I calculate, are frequently heard, together with well posted up, and along chalk, and locomotives and steamers whistle all day long. Hamilton is a very Americanized place. I heard of grievances, independence, and annexation, and altogether should have supposed it to be on the other side of the boundary line. It is situated on a little lake, called Burlington Bay, separated from Lake Ontario by a narrow strip of sandy shingle. This has been cut through, and as two steamers leave the pier at Hamilton at the same hour every morning, there is a daily and very exciting race for the first entrance into the narrow passage. This racing is sometimes productive of very serious collisions. The town is built upon very low and augish ground, at the foot of a peculiar and steep eminence which the inhabitants dignify with the name of the mountain. I ascended this mountain, which might better be called a Mole Hill, by a flight of a hundred and thirty steps. The view from the top was very magnificent, but as an elevated building offered us one still more extensive, we ascended to the roof by six flights of steps to see a camera obscura which was ostentatiously advertised. A very good camera obscura might have been worth so long an ascent in a house redolent of spirits and onions, but after we had reached the top, with a great expenditure of toil and breath, a ragged, shoeless little boy very pompously opened the door of a small wooden erection and introduced us to four panes of colored glass, through which we viewed the town of Hamilton, under the different aspects of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Dundern Castle, a handsome, casillated, baronial-looking building. The residence of the present premier, Sir Alan McNabb, is near Hamilton, and it has beside some very handsome stone villa residences. There I saw, for the first and only time in the New World, beautifully kept grass lawns with flower beds in the English style. One very fine morning, when the maple leaves were tinted with the first scarlet of the fall, my friends took me to see Anchester and Dundas, the former and old place very like some of our gray, quiet Lancashire villages, the latter a good type of the rapid development and enterprising spirit which are making Canada West to rival the states in rapidity of progress. There were bridges in course of construction, railway embankments swarming with laborers, macadamized roads succeeding those of corduroy and plank, snake fences giving place to those of post and rails, and stone walls, and saw and grist mills were springing up wherever a water privilege could be found. Layed in wagons, proceeded heavily along the roads, and the encouraging announcements of cash for wheat and cash for wool were frequently to be seen. The views were very fine as we skirted the mountain, but Canadian scenery is monotonous and rather gloomy, though the glorious tints of the American fall give the leaves of some of the trees the appearance rather of tropical flowers than of foliage. Lancaster is an old place, outstripped by towns of ten years existence, as it has neither a port nor a river. There was an agricultural show, and monster pumpkins and overgrown cabbages were displayed to admiring crowds under the shadow of a prodigious union jack. Dundas, a near-neighbor of Lancaster, has completely eclipsed it. This appears to be one of the busiest little places in Canada West. It is a collection of woolen mills, grist mills, and iron foundries, and though in my preformed notions of political economy I had supposed manufacturers suited exclusively to an old country, in which capital and labour are like redundant, the aspect of this place was most thriving. In one of the flower mills the machinery seemed as perfect as in the biscuit factory at Portsmouth. By some ingenious mechanism the flower was cooled, barreled, and branded with great celerity. At an iron foundry I was surprised to find that steam engines and flower mill machinery could not be manufactured fast enough to meet the demand. In this neighbourhood I heard rather an interesting anecdote of what steady perseverance can do in the history of a scot from the shores of the Forth. This young man was a pauper boy and was apprentice to the master of an iron foundry in Scotland, but ran away before the expiration of his apprenticeship, and entering a ship at Glasgow worked his passage across to Quebec. Here he gained employment for some months as a porter, and having saved a little money went up to the neighbourhood of Lake Simcoe, where he became a day labourer. Here he fell in love with his master's daughter, who returned his affection, but her father scornfully rejected the humble Scotchman's suit. Love but added an incentive to ambition and obtaining work in a neighbouring township he increased his income by teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic in the evenings. He lived penuriously, denied himself even necessities, and carefully treasured his hoarded savings. Late one evening, clothed almost in rags, he sought out the house of his lady-love, and told her that within two years he would come to claim her hand of her father with a wagon and a pair of horses. Still in his ragged clothing, for it does not appear that he had any other, he trudged to Toronto and sought employment. His accumulated savings sewn up in the lining of his waistcoat. He went about from person to person but could not obtain employment, and his wagon and horses receded further and further in the dim perspective. One day, while walking along at the unfinished end of King Street West, he saw something glittering in the mud, and on taking it up found it to be the steel snap of a pocket-book. This pocket-book contained notes to the amount of one hundred and fifty dollars, and the next day a reward of five and twenty was offered to the finder of them. The Scotchman waited on the owner, who was a tool manufacturer, and declining the reward asked only for work, for leave to toil as Burns has expressed it. This was granted him, and in less than four months he became a clerk in the establishment. His salary was gradually raised. In the evenings he obtained employment in riding for a lawyer, and his savings, judiciously managed, increased to such an extent that at the end of eighteen months he purchased a thriving farm in the neighbourhood of London, and as there was water-power upon it he built a grist mill. His industry still continued successful, and just before the two years expired he drove in a light wagon with two hearty Canadian horses to the dwelling of his former master to claim his daughter's hand, though be it remembered he had never held any communication with her since he parted from her in rags two years before. At first they did not recognise the vagrant ragged Scotch labourer in the well-dressed driver and possessor of the knowing-looking Equipage. His altered circumstances removed all difficulty on the father's part. The maiden had been constant, and soon afterwards they were married. He still continued to prosper and added land to land, and three years after his marriage sent twenty pounds to his former master in Scotland as a compensation for the loss of his services. Strange to say the son of that very master is now employed in the mill of the runaway apprentice. Such instances as this, while they afford encouragement to honest industry, show at the same time the great capabilities of Canada west. At Hamilton, where the stores are excellent, I made several purchases, but I was extremely puzzled with the Canadian currency. The state's money is very convenient. I soon understood dollars, cents, and dimes, but in the colonies I never knew what my money was worth. In Prince Edward Island the sovereign is worth thirty shillings, in New Brunswick in Nova Scotia twenty-five, while in Canada at the time of my visit it was worth twenty-four and four pence. There your shilling is fifteen pence, or a quarter dollar, while your quarter dollar is a shilling. Your six pence is seven pence half-penny, or a York shilling, while your penny is a copper of indeterminate value, apparently. Comparatively speaking very little metallic money is in circulation. You receive bills marked five shillings, when, to your surprise, you can only change them for four metallic shillings. Altogether in Canada I had to rely upon people's honesty, or probably on their ignorance of my ignorance, for any attempts at explanation only made confusion worse confounded, and I seldom comprehended anything of a higher grade than a York shilling. From my stupidity about the currency and my frequent query, how many dollars or cents is it, together with my offering dirty, crumpled pieces of paper bearing such names as Troy, Palmyra, and Geneva, which were in fact notes of American banks which might have suspended payment, I was constantly taken, not for an ignoramus from the old country, but for a genuine down-easter. Canadian credit is excellent, but the banking system of the States is on a very insecure footing. Some bank or other breaks every day, and lists of the defaulters are posted up in the steamboats and hotels. Within a few days after my resolution never again to trust myself on Lake Ontario, I sailed down it, on a very beautiful morning, to Toronto. The royal male steamer Arabian raced with us for the narrow entrance to the canal, which connects Burlington Bay with the main lake, and both captains piled on to their utmost ability, but the Arabian passed us in triumph. The morning was so very fine that I have forgot my dislike to Lake Ontario. On the land side there was a secession of slightly elevated promontories, covered with forests abounding in recent clearings, their somber colouring being relieved by the brilliant blue of the lake. I saw for the only time that beautiful phenomenon called the water mirage, by which trees, ships, and houses are placed in the most extraordinary and sometimes inverted positions. Yet still these endless promontories stretched away till their distant outlines were lost in the soft blue haze of the Indian summer. Yet there was an oppressiveness about the tideless water and pestilential shore, and the white-holed ships looked like deserted, punished things, whose doom for ages was to be ceaselessly sailing over these gloomy waters. At Toronto my kind friend Mr. Forrest met me. He and his wife had invited me some months before to visit them in their distant home in the Canadian bush. Therefore I was not a little surprised at the Equipage which awaited me at the hotel, as I had expected to jolt for twenty-two miles over corduroy roads in a lumber wagon. It was the most dashing vehicle which I saw in Canada. It was a most un-bush-like, sporting-looking, high male faton, mounted by four steps. It had three seats, a hood in front, and a rack for luggage behind. It would hold eight persons. The body and wheels were painted bright scarlet and black, and it was drawn by a pair of very showy-looking horses, about sixteen hands high, with elegant and well black tarnists. Mr. Forrest looked more like a sporting English squire than an immigrant. We drove out of Toronto by the Lakeshore Road, and I could scarcely believe we were not by the sea, for a heavy surf was rolling and crashing upon the beach, and no land was inside on the opposite side. After some time we came to a stream with a most clumsy swing-bridge, which was open for the passage of two huge rafts laden with flour. This proceeding had already occupied more than an hour as we were informed by some unfortunate detenues. We waited for half an hour while the raftmen dwaddled about, but the rafts could not get through the surf, so they were obliged to desist. I now reasonably supposed that they would have shut the bridge as fast as possible, as about twenty vehicles with numerous foot-passengers were waiting on either side. But no, they moved it for a little distance, then smoked a bit, then moved it a few inches and smoked again, and so on for another half hour while we were exposed to a pitiless northeast wind. They evidently enjoyed our disconfiture, and were trying to see how much of an annoyance we would bear patiently. Fiery timbers have to be curved in Canada West, for the same spirit which at home leads men not to touch their hats to those above them in station, here would vent itself in open insolence and arrogance if one requested them to be a little quicker in their motions. The fabric would hardly come together at all, and then only three joists appeared without anything to cover them. This the men seemed to consider amfeta complet, and sat down to smoke. At length, when it seemed impossible to bear a longer detention with any semblance of patience, they covered these joists with some planks, over which our horses used to pick their way past in safety, not, however, without overturning one of the boards and leaving a most dangerous gap. This was a favourable specimen of a Canadian bridge. The manners of the emigrants who settle in Canada are far from prepossessing. Wherever I heard torrents of slang and abuse of England, wherever I noticed brutality of manner, unaccompanied by respect to ladies, I always found upon inquiry that the delinquent had newly arrived from the old country. Some time before I visited America I saw a letter from a young man who had emigrated containing these words. Here I haven't to bow and cringe to gentlemen of the aristocracy, that is, to a man who has a better codon than myself. I was not prepared to find this feeling so very prevalent among the lower classes in our own possessions. The children are an improvement on their parents and develop loyal and constitutional sentiments. The Irish are the noisiest of the enemies of England and carry with them to Canada the most invenerate enmity to Sasanak rule. The term slang wangers must have been invented for these. After some miles of very bad road, which had once been corduroy, we got upon a plank road, upon which the road draft is nearly as light as upon a railroad. When these roads are good the driving upon them is very easy. When they are out of repair it is just the reverse. We came to an Indian village of clapboard houses built some years ago by the government for some families of the six nations who resided here with their chief. But they disliked the advances of the white man and their remnants have removed farther to the west. We drove for many miles through woods of the American oak, little more than brushwood, but gorgeous in all shades of coloring, from the scarlet of the geranium to deep crimson and Tyrion purple. Oh, our poor, faded tints of autumn about which we write sentimental poetry. Turning sharply around a bank of moss and descending a long hill we entered the bush. There all my dreams of Canadian scenery were more than realized. Trees grew in every variety of the picturesque. The forest was dark and oppressively still and such a deadly chill came on that I drew my cloak closer round me. A fragrant but heavy smell arose and Mr. Forest said that we were going down into a cedar swamp where there was a chill even in the hottest weather. It was very beautiful. Emerging from this we came upon a little whitewashed English church standing upon a steep knoll with its little spire rising through the trees and leaving this behind we turned off upon a road through very wild country. The ground had once been cleared but no use had been made of it and it was covered with charged stumps about two feet high. Beyond this appeared an interminable bush. Mr. Forest told me that his house was near and from the appearance of the country I expected to come upon a log cabin, but we turned into a field and drove under some very fine apple trees to a house the very perfection of elegance and comfort. It looked as if a pretty villa from Northwood or Hampstead had been transported to this Canadian clearing. The dwelling was a substantially built brick one storied house with a deep green veranda surrounding it as a protection from the snow and winter and the heat in summer. Apple trees laden with richly colored fruit were planted round and sumac trees in all the glorious coloring of the fall were opposite the front door. The very house seemed to smile a welcome and seldom have I met a more cordial one than I received for Mrs. Forest, the kindly and graceful hostess who met me at the door, her pretty simple dress of pink and white muslin contrasting strangely with the charred stumps which were in sight and the long lines of gloomy bush which stood out dark and sharp against the evening sky. Will you go into the drawing room? asked Mrs. Forest. I was surprised for I had not associated a drawing-room with immigrant life in Canada, but I followed her along a pretty entrance lobby, floored with polished oak into a lofty room, furnished with all the elegances and luxuries of the mansion of an affluent Englishman at home, a beautiful piano not being wanting. It was in this house containing every comfort and welcomed with the kindest hospitality that I received my first impressions of life in the clearings. My hosts were only recovering from the fatigues of a thrashing bee of the day before, and while we were playing at Bagatelle one of the gentlemen assistants came to the door and asked if the boss were at home. A lady told me that, when she first came out, a servant asked her how the boss liked his shirts done. As Mrs. Moody had not then enlightened the world on the subject of subtler slang, the lady did not understand her, and asked what she meant by the boss, to which she replied, Why, lock, Mrs., your hubby, to be sure. I spent some time with these kind and most agreeable friends and returned to them after a visit to the Falls of Niagara. My sojourn with them is among my sunniest memories of Canada. Though my expectations were in one sense entirely disappointed on awakening to the pleasant consciousness of reposing on the softest of feathers, I did not feel romance enough to wish myself on a buffalo robe on the floor of a log cabin. Nearly every day I saw some operation of Canadian farming with its difficulties and pleasures. Among the former is that of obtaining men to do the work. The wages given are five shillings per diem, and in many cases rations besides. While I was at Mr. Forest's, two men were sinking a well, and one Cooley took up his tools and walked away, because only half a pound of butter had been allowed for breakfast. Mr. Forest possesses sixty acres of land, fifteen of which are still in bush. The barns are very large and substantial, more so than at home, for no produce can be left out of doors in the winter. There were two hundred and fifty bushels of wheat, the produce of a thrashing bee, and various other edibles. Oxen, huge and powerful, do all the draft work on this farm, and their stable looked the very perfection of comfort. Round the house, snake fences had given place to those of post and rail, but a few hundred yards away was the unclear bush. The land thus railed around had been cleared for some years, the grass is good and the stumps few a number. Leaving this we came to the stubble of last year, where the stumps were more numerous, and then to the land only cleared in the spring, covered thickly with charred stumps, the soil rich and black and wheat springing up in all directions. Beyond this there was nothing but bush. A scramble through a bush, though very interesting in its way, produces disagreeable consequences. When the excitement of the novelty was over, and I returned to the house, I contemplated with very woeful feelings the in-road which had been made upon my wardrobe, the garments torn in all directions beyond any possibility of repair, and the shoes reduced to the consistency of soaked brown paper with wading through a bog. It was a serious consideration to me, who at that time was travelling through the west with a very small and very way-worn portmanteau, with Glasgow, Torquay, Boston, Rock Island, and I know not what besides upon it. The bush, however, for the time being was very enjoyable, in spite of numerous bruises and scratches. Huge pines raised their heads to heaven, others lay prostrate and rotting away, probably thrown down in some tornado. In the distance numbers of trees were lying on the ground, and men were cutting off their branches and burning them in heaps, which slowly smoldered away, and sent up clouds of curling blue smoke, which diffused itself as a thin blue veil over the dark pines. This bush is in dangerous proximity to Mr. Forrest's house. The fire ran through it in the spring, and many of the trees, which are still standing, are blackened by its effects. One night in April, after a prolonged drought, just as the household were retiring to rest, Mr. Forrest looked out of the window and saw a light in the bush scarcely bigger or brighter than a glowworm. Presently it rushed up a tall pine, entwining its fiery arms round the very highest branches. The fire burned on for a fortnight. They knew it must burn till rain came, and Mr. Forrest and his man never left it day or night, all their food being carried to the bush. One night, during a breeze, it made a sudden rush towards the house. In a twinkling they got out the oxen and plough, and some of the neighbors coming to their assistance, they ploughed up so much soil between the fire and the stubble round the house that it stopped, but not before Mr. Forrest's straw hat was burnt, and the hair of the oxen singed. Mrs. Forrest, meanwhile, though trembling for her husband's safety, was occupied in wetting blankets and carrying them to the roof of the house, for the dry shingles would have been indenided by a spark. On our return it was necessary to climb over some snake or zigzag fences about six feet high. These fences are peculiar to new countries, and, though very cheap, requiring neither tools nor nails, have a peculiarly untidy appearance. It is not thought wise to buy a farm which has not enough bush or growing timber for both rails and firewood. In clearing of which I saw all the processes, the first is to cut down the trees, in which difficult operation axes of British manufacture are rendered useless after a few hours' work. The trees are cut about two feet above the roof, and often bring others down with them in their fall. Sometimes these trees are split up at the time into rails or firewood, sometimes dragged to the saw mills to be made into lumber, but are often piled into heaps and burnt, unnecessary but prodigal waste of wood, to which I never became reconciled. When the wood has been cleared off, wheat is sown among the stumps, and then grass, which appears only to last about four years. Fire is put on the tops of these unsightly stumps to burn them down as much as possible, and when it is supposed, after two or three years, that the roots have rotted in the ground, several oxen are attached by a chain to each, and pull it out. Generally this is done by means of a logging bee. I must explain this term, as it refers neither to the industrious insect nor the imperial bee of Napoleon. The very name reminds me of early rising, healthy activity, merriment, and a well-spread board. A bee is a necessity arising from the great scarcity of labour in the new world. When a person wishes to thrash his corn, he gives notice to eight or ten of his neighbours, and a day is appointed on which they are to meet at his house. For two or three days before, grand culinary preparations are made by the hostess, and on the preceding evening a table is loaded with provisions. The morning comes, and eight or ten stalwart Saxons make their appearance, and work hard till noon, while the lady of the house is engaged in hotter work before the fire, in the preparation of hot meat, puddings, and pies, for well she knows that the good humour of her guests depends on the quantity and quality of her viens. They come into dinner, black from the dust of a peculiar Canadian weed, hot, tired, hungry, and thirsty. They eat as no other people eat, and set all our notions of the separability of different viens at a defiance. At the end of the day they have a very substantial supper, with plenty of whisky, and if everything has been satisfactory, the convivial proceedings are prolonged till past midnight. The giver of a bee is bound to attend the bees of all his neighbours. A thrashing bee is considered very slow affair by the younger portion of the community. There are quilting bees, where the thick quilts so necessary in Canada, or fabricated, apple bees, where this fruit is sliced and strung for the winter, shelling bees, where peas and bushels are shelled and barreled, and logging bees, where the decayed stumps in the clearings are rooted up by oxen. At the quilting, apple and shelling bees there are numbers of the fair sex, and games, dancing, and merry-making are invariably kept up till the morning. In the winter, as in the eastern colonies, all outdoor employments are stopped, and dancing and evening parties of different kinds are continually given. The whole country is like one vast road, and the fine, cold, aurora-lighted nights are cheery with the lively sound of the sleigh bells, as merry parties, enveloped in furs, drive briskly over the crisp surface of the snow. The way of life at Mr. Forest was peculiarly agreeable. The breakfast hour was nominally seven, and afterwards Mr. Forest went out to his farm. The one Irish servant who never seemed happy with her shoes on was capable of little else than boiling potatoes, so all the preparations for dinner devolved upon Mrs. Forest, who, till she came to Canada, had never attempted anything in the culinary line. I used to accompany her into the kitchen and learned how to solve the problem which puzzled an English king, Viz, how apples get into a dumpling. We dined at the medieval hour of twelve, and everything was of home-raising. Fresh meat is a rarity, but a calf had been killed, and furnished dinners for seven days, and the most marvellous thing was that each day it was dressed in a different manner. Mrs. Forest's skill in this respect rivaling that of a Lexus Sawyer. A home-fed pig, one of eleven slaughtered on one fell day, produced the excellent ham, the squash and potatoes were from the garden, and the bread and beer were from home-grown wheat and hops. After dinner Mr. Forest and I used to take lengthy rides along wild roads, on horses of extraordinary capabilities, and in the evenings we used to have bagatelle and reading aloud. Such was life in the clearings. On one or two evenings some very agreeable neighbours came in, and in addition to bagatelle we had puzzles, conundrums, and conjuring tricks. One of these neighbours was a young married lady, the prettiest person I had seen in America. She was a French Canadian, and added to the graces of person and manner for which they are famed, a cleverness and sprightliness peculiarly her own. I was very much pleased with the friendly, agreeable society of the neighbourhood. There are a great many gentlemen residing there, with fixed incomes, who have adopted Canada as their home because of the comforts which they can enjoy in an untaxed country, and one in which it is not necessary to keep up appearances. For instance, a gentleman does not lose cased by grooming his own horse, or driving his own produce to market in a lumber wagon, and a lady is not less a lady, though she may wear a dress and bonnet of a fashion three years old. I was surprised one morning by the phenomenon of some morning collars. Yes, morning collars in a Canadian clearing. I sighed to think that such a pest and accompaniment of civilisation should have crossed the Atlantic. The collars of that morning, the Haldemans, amused me very much. They give themselves great heirs. Canada, with them, is a wretched whole. The society is composed of boars. In a few minutes they had asked me who I was, where I came from, what I was doing there, how I got to know my friends, and if I had come to live with them. Mr. Haldemans, finding I came from England, asked me if I knew a certain beautiful young lady, and recounted his flirtations with her. Dukes, earls, and viscounts flowed from his nimble tongue, when I was hunting with Lord this, or when I was waltzing with lady that. His regrets were after the opera and Almax, and his hide of felicity seemed to be driving a foreign hand drag. After expatiating to me in the most vociferous manner on the delights of tidal society, he turned to Mrs. Forrest and said, After the society in which we used to move, you may imagine how distasteful all this is to us. Barely a civil speech, I thought. This eccentric individual was taking a lady, whom he considered a person of consequence, for a drive in a carriage, when a man driving a lumber wagon kept crossing the road in front of him, hindering his progress. Mr. Haldemans gradually got into a towering passion, which resulted in his springing out, throwing the reins to the lady and rushing furiously at the teamster with his fists squared, shouting in a perfect scream, Flesh and blood can't bear this, one of us must die. The man whipped up his horses and made off, and Mr. Haldemans tried in vain to hush up a story which made him appear so superlatively ridiculous. We actually paid some morning visits, and I thought the society very agreeable and free from gossip. One of our visits was paid to the family of one of the oldest settlers in Canada. His place was the very perfection of beauty. It was built in a park formed out of a civilized wood, the grounds extending to the verge of a precipice, looking from which I saw the river, sometimes glittering in the sunshine, sometimes foaming along in a wood, just realizing Mrs. Moody's charming description of the Atanabi. Far below the water glittered like diamond sparks among the dark woods, pines had fallen into and across it in the same way in which trees only fall in America, and no two trees were of the same tint. The wild vine hung over the precipice, and smothered the trees with its clusters and tendrils, and hurriedly in some places, gently in others, the cold rivulet flowed down to the lake, no bold speculator having as yet dared to turn the water privilege to account. My first ride was an amusing one for various reasons. My riding habit was left at Toronto, but this seemed not to be a difficulty. Mrs. Forrest's fashionable habit and white gauntlet gloves fitted me beautifully, and the difficulty about a hat was at once overcome by sending to an obliging neighbor who politely sent a very stylish looking, plumed riding hat. There was a side saddle and a most elegant bridle, indeed the whole equipment would not have disgraced Rotten Row. But the horse! My courage had to be screwed to the sticking-point before I could mount him. He was a very fine animal, a magnificent, coal-black charger, sixteen hands high, with a most determined will of his own, not broken for the saddle. Mr. Forrest rode a splendid bay which seldom went over six consecutive yards of ground without performing some erratic movement. My horse's paces were a tremendous trot, breaking sometimes into a furious gallop, in both which he acted in a perfectly independent manner, any attempts of mine to control him with my whole strength and weight, being alike useless. We came to the top of a precipice overlooking the river, where his gyrations were so fearful that I turned him into the bush. It appeared to me a ride of imminent dangers, and hair-breath escapes. By this beauteous river we came to a place where rain and flood had worn the precipice into a steep declivity, shelving towards another precipice, and my horse, accustomed to it, took me down where an English donkey would scarcely have ventured. Beauty might be written upon everything in this dell. I never saw a fairer compound of rock, wood, and water. Above was flat and comparatively an interesting country. Then these precipices, with trees growing out wherever they could find a footing, arrayed in all the gorgeous coloring of the American fall. At the foot of these was a narrow, bright green savanna, with fine trees growing upon it, as though planted by someone anxious to produce a park-like effect. Above this the dell contracted to the width of Dovdale, and, through it all, the river, sometimes a foaming, brawling stream, at others fringed with flowers, and questiant in deep, clear pools, pours down to the lake. After galloping upon the savanna we plunged into the river, and after our horses had broken through a plank bridge at the great risk of their legs, we rode for many miles through bush and clearing, down sandy tracks and scratching thickets to the pebbly beach of Lake Ontario. The contrast between the horses and their equipment, and the country we rode through, was somewhat singular. The former were suitable for Hyde Park. The latter was mere bush-riding, climbing down precipices, forwarding rapid rivers, scrambling through fences and overtember, floundering in mud, going through the bush with hands before us to push the branches from our faces, and finally watering our horses in the deep blue waters of Lake Ontario. Yet I never enjoyed a ride along the green lanes of England so much as this one in the wild scenery of Canada. The Sundays that I spent at Mr. Forests were very enjoyable, though the heat of the first was nearly insupportable, and the cold of the last like that of an English Christmas in bygone years. There are multitudes of Presbyterians in Western Canada, who worship in their pure and simple faith with as much fervency and sincerity as did their covenanting forefathers in the days of the persecuting Dundee. And the quaint old psalms, to which they are so much attached, sung to the strange old tunes, sound to them as sweet among the backwoods of Canada as in the peaceful villages of the lowlands, or in the remote highland glens, where I have often listened to their slow and plaintive strains, born upon the mountain breezes. Are you frae the breezes of Glenifar, said an old Scotch woman to me, where you add our Kirk o Sabbath last, you wouldn't again the difference. The Irishman declaims against the land he has forsaken. The Englishman too often suffers the remembrance of his poverty to sever the tie which binds him to the land of his birth, but where shall we find the Scotchman in whose breast love of his country is not a prominent feeling? Whether it be the light-haired Saxons from the south, or the dark-haired, sallow-visaged Kelt from the highlands, driven forth by the gaunt hand of famine, all look back to Scotland as to their country, the mention of its name kindles animation in the dim eye of age, and causes the bounding heart of youth to leap with enthusiasm. It may be that the Scotch immigrant's only remembrance is of the cold hut on the lone hillside, where years wore away in poverty and hunger, but to him it is the dearest spot of earth. It may be that he is attained a competence in Canada, and that its fertile soil produces crops which the heathery-brays of Scotland could never yield. No matter, it is yet his home. It is the land where his father sleep. It is the land of his birth. His dreams are of the mountain and of the flood, of lonely locks and mountain-girded furths, and when the purple light on a summer evening streams over the forest, he fancies that the same beams are falling on Morvin and the Colic lens, and that the soft sound pervading the air is the echo of the shepherd's pipe. To the latest hour of his life he cherishes the idea of returning to some homestead by a tumbling burning. He can never bring himself to utter to his mountain land, from the depths of his heart the melancholy words, Chetilna-twee, we return no more. The Episcopal Church was only two miles from us, but we were most mercifully jolted over a plank-road, where many of the planks had made a descent into a sea of mud, on the depth of which I did not attempt to speculate. Even in beautiful England I never saw a prettier sight than the assemblage of the congregation. The church is built upon a very steep little knoll, the base of which is nearly encircled by a river. Close to it is a long shed, in which the horses are tethered during service, and little belligerent sounds, such as screaming and kicking, occasionally find their way into church. The building is light and pretty inside, very simple but excellent in taste, and though there is no organ, the singing and chanting, conducted by the younger portion of the congregation, is on par with some of the best in our town churches at home. There were no persons poorly clad, and all looked happy, sturdy and independent. The bright scarlet leaves of the oak and maple pressed against the windows, giving them in the sunlight something of the appearance of stained glass. The rippling of the river was heard below, and round us, far, far away, stretched the forest. Here where the great manatee was once worshipped, a purer faith now reigns, and the allegiance of the people is more firmly established by the sound of the church going bells than by the bayonets of our troops. These heaven-pointing spires are links between Canada and England. They remind the immigrant of the ivy-mantle church in which he was first taught to bend his knees to his creator, and of the hallowed dust around its walls, where the sacred ashes of his father's sleep. There is great attachment to England among those who are protected by her laws, and live under the shadow of her standard of freedom. In many instances no remembrances of wrongs received, of injuries sustained, of hopeless poverty and ill-requited toil, can sever that holiest, most sacred of ties, which binds, until his last breath, the heart of the exile to his native land. The great annoyance of which the people complain in this pleasant land is the difficulty of obtaining domestic servants, and the extraordinary specimens of humanity who go out in this capacity. It is difficult to obtain any, and those that are procured are solely Irish-Roman Catholics who think at a great hardship to wear shoes and speak of their master as the boss. At one house where I visited, the servant, or help, after condescending to bring in the dinner, took a book from the chiffonier and sat down on the sofa to read it. On being remonstrated with for her conduct, she replied that she would not remain an hour in a house where those she helped had an objection to a young lady's improving her mind. At an hotel in Toronto, one chambermaid, pointing to another, said, That young lady will show you your room. I left Mr. Forrest even for three days with great regret, and after a nine-miles drive on a very wet morning, and a water-transit of two hours, found myself at Toronto, whereas usual on the wharf I was greeted with the clamorous demand for wharfage. I found the Walrances and other agreeable quaintances at Russell's Hotel, but was surprised with what I thought rather a want of a discrimination on the part of all. I was showing a valuable collection of autographs, beginning with Cromwell, and containing, in addition to those of several deceased and living royal personages, valuable letters of Scott, Byron, Wellington, Russell, Palmerston, Wilberforce, Dickens, etc. The shades of kings, statesmen, and poets might almost have been incited to appear when the signature of Richard Cobden was preferred before all. CHAPTER XI. Have you seen the falls? No. Then you've seen nothing of America. I might have seen Trenton Falls, Genesee Falls, the Falls of Montmorency and Lorette, but I had seen nothing if I had not seen the falls, par excellence of Niagara. There were diverse reasons why my friends in the States were anxious that I should see Niagara. One was, as I was frequently told, that all I had seen, even to the prayer eyes, would go for nothing on my return, for in England America was supposed to be a vast tract of country containing one town, New York, and one astonishing natural phenomenon called Niagara. See New York, Quebec, and Niagara was the direction I received when I started upon my travels. I never could make out how, but somehow or other, from my earliest infancy, I had been familiar with the name of Niagara, and from the numerous pictures I had seen of it, I could, I supposed, have sketched a very accurate likeness of the horseshoe fall. Since I landed at Portland, I had continually met with people who went into ecstatic raptures with Niagara, and after passing with inside of its spray and within hearing of its roar, after seeing it the great center of attraction to all persons of every class, my desire to see it for myself became absorbing. Numerous difficulties had arisen, and at one time I had reluctantly given up all hope of seeing it, when Mr. and Mrs. Walrants kindly said that if I would go with them they would return to the east by way of Niagara. Between the anticipation of this event and the din of the rejoicings for the capture of Sebastopol, I slept very little on the night before leaving Toronto, and was by no means sorry when the cold gray of dawn quenched the light of tar barrels and gas lamps. I crossed Lake Ontario in the iron steamer peerless. The lake was rough, as usual, and after a promenade of two hours on the spray-drenched deck, I retired to the cabin and spent some time in dreamily wondering whether Niagara itself would compensate for the discomforts of the journey thither. Captain D. gravely informed me that there were a good many cases below, and I never saw people so deplorably seasick as in this steamer. An Indian officer who had crossed the line seventeen times was seasick for the first time on Lake Ontario. The short cross chopping seas affect most people. The only persons in the saloon who were not discomposed by them were two tall schoolgirls, who seemed to have innumerable whispered confidences and secrets took confide to each other. We touched the wharf at Niagara, a town on the British side of the Niagara River, cars for buffalo all aboard, and just crossing a platform we entered the Canada cars, and on the top of some frightful precipices and round some terrific curves we were whirled to the Clifton house at Niagara. I left the cars and walked down the slope of the verge of the cliff. I forgot my friends who had called me to the hotel to lunch. I forgot everything, for I was looking at the falls of Niagara. No more than this, what seemed it now, by that far flood to stand. A thousand streams of lovelier flow bave my own mountain land, and thence o'er waste and ocean track their wild sweet voices called me back. They called me back to many a glade, my childhood haunt of play, where brightly mid the birch and shade their waters glanced away. They called me with their thousand waves back to my fathers' hills and graves. The feelings which Mrs. Hemmons had attributed to Bruce at the source of the Nile were mine as I took my first view of Niagara. The horseshoe fall at some distance to my right was partially hidden, but directly in front of me were the American and Crescent Falls. The former is perfectly straight, and looked like a gigantic millware. This resemblance is further heightened by an enormous wooden many-window fabric, said to be the largest paper mill in the United States. A whole collection of mills disfigures this romantic spot, which has received the name of Manchester, and bids fair to become a thriving manufacturing town. Even on the British side, where one would have hoped for a better state of things, there is a great fungus growth of museums, curiosity shops, taverns, and pagodas with shining tin cupolas. Not far from where I stood, the members of a picnic party were flirting and laughing hilariously, throwing chicken bones and peach stones over the cliff, drinking champagne and soda water. Just as I had succeeded in attaining the proper degree of mental abstraction with which it is necessary to contemplate Niagara, a ragged droskey driver came up. Your honour, may be you're in want of a carriage, I'll take you the whole round. Goat Island, Whirlpool, and Deals Hole, for the matter of four dollars. Niagara, made a matter of a round, dollars and cents, was too much for my equanimity, and in the hope of losing my feelings of disappointment, I went into the Clifton House, enduring a whole volley of requests from the half-tipsy droskey drivers who thronged the doorway. This celebrated hotel, which is kept on the American plan, is a huge white block of building, with three green verandas round it, and can accommodate about four hundred people. In the summer season it is the abode of a most unparalleled gaiety. Here congregate tourists, merchants, lawyers, officers, senators, wealthy southerners, and sallowed down easters, all flying alike from business and heat. Here meet all ranks, those of the highest character, and those who have no character to lose, those who by some fortunate accident have become possessive of few dollars, and those whose mine of wealth lies in the gambling house, all for the time being on terms of perfect equality. Falls, indoors and out of doors, nightly succeed to parties and picnics, the most novel of which are those in the beautiful garden in front of the hotel. This garden has spacious lawns lighted by lamps, and here, as in the mid-summer night stream, the visitors dance on summer evenings to the strains of invisible music. But at the time of my second visit to the falls all the gaiety was over, the men of business had returned to the cities, the southerners had fled to their sunny homes, part of the house was shut up, and in the great dining room, with tables for three hundred, we sat down to lunch with about twenty-five persons, most of them Americans and Germans of the most repulsive description. After this meal, eaten in the five minutes all aboard style, we started on a sightseeing expedition. Instead of being allowed to sit quietly on table rock, gazing upon the cataract, the visitor, yielding to the demands of a supposed necessity, is dragged a weary round. He must see the falls from the front, from above and from below. He must go behind them and be drenched by them. He must descend spiral staircases at the risk of his limbs, and cross fairies at that of his life. He must visit Bloody Run, the burning springs, and Indian curiosity shops, which have nothing to do with them at all. And, when the poor wretch is thoroughly bewildered and weary by doing Niagara, he is allowed to steal quietly off to what he really came to see, the mighty Horseshoe Fall, with all its accompaniments of majesty, sublimity, and terror. Round the door of the Clifton House were about twenty ragged, vociferous droskey-drivers of most demoralized appearance, all clamorous for a fair. We want to go to Goad Island, how much is it? Five dollars. I'll take you for four and a half. No, sir, is a cheat and a blacker. I'll take you for four. I'll take you as cheap as any one, shouts a man in rags. I'll take you for three. Very well. I'll take you as cheap as he. He's drunk, and his carriage isn't fit for a lady to step into. Shouted the man who had at first asked five dollars. After this they commenced a regular melee, when blows were given and received, and frequent illusions were made to the bones of St. Patrick. At last our friend in rags succeeded in driving up to the door, and we found his carriage really unfit for ladies, as the stuffing in most places was quite bare, and the step and splash boards were only kept in their place by pieces of rope. The shouting and squabbling were accompanied by Niagara, whose deep, awful, thundering bass drowns all other sounds. We drove for two miles along the precipice bank of the Niagara River. This precipice is two hundred and fifty feet high, without a parapet, and the green, deep flood rages below. At the suspension bridge they demanded a toll of sixty cents, and contemptuously refused two five dollar notes offered to them by Mr. Walrins, saying they were only waste paper. This extraordinary bridge, over which a train of cars weighing four hundred and forty tons has recently passed, has a span of eight hundred feet, and a double roadway, the upper one being used by the railway. The floor of the bridge is two hundred and thirty feet above the river, and the depth of the river immediately under it is two hundred and fifty feet. The view from it is magnificent. To the left, the furious river, confined in a narrow space, rushes in rapids to the whirlpool, and to the right the horseshoe fall pours its torrent of waters into the dark and ever-invisible embiss. When we reached the American side we had to declare to a Custom House officer that we were no smugglers, and then, by an awful road, partly covered with stumps and partly full of holes, over the one, and through the other, our half-tipsy driver jolted us, till we wished ourselves a thousand miles from Niagara. They're now faith, and wasn't I nearly done for myself, he exclaimed, as a jolt threw him from his seat, nearly over the dashboard. We passed through the town bearing the names of Niagara Falls in Manchester, and a glomeration of tea gardens, curiosity shops, and monster hotels, with domes of shining tin. We drove down a steep hill, and crossed a very insecure looking wooden bridge to a small wooded island, where a man with a strong nasal twang demanded a toll of twenty-five cents, and in on we crossed a long bridge over the lesser rapids. The cloudy morning had given place to a glorious day, abounding in varieties of light and shade. A slight shower had fallen, and the sparkling raindrops hung from every leaf and twig. A rain-bose vanned the Niagara River, and the leaves wore the glorious scarlet and crimson tints of the American autumn. Sun and sky were propitious. It was the season, and the day in which to see Niagara. Quarrelsome drosky drivers, incongruous mills, and the thousand tremperies of the place were all forgotten in the perfect beauty of the scene, in the full, the joyous realization of my ideas of Niagara. Beauty and terror here formed a perfect combination. Around islets covered with fair foliage of trees and vines, and carpeted with moss untrodden by the foot of man, the waters in the wild turmoil, rage and foam, rushing on recklessly beneath the trembling bridge on which we stood to their doomed fall. This place is called the Hell of Waters, and has been the scene of more than one terrible tragedy. This bridge took us to Iris Island, so named from the rain-bose which perpetually hover round its base. Everything of terrestrial beauty may be found in Iris Island. It stands amid the eternal din of the waters, a barrier between the Canadian and American falls. It is not more than sixty-two acres in extent, yet it has grows of huge forest trees and secluded roads underneath them in the deepest shade, far, apparently, from the busy world, yet thousands from every part of the globe yearly tread its walks of beauty. We stopped at the top of a dizzy pathway, and leaving the wallrances to purchase some curiosities, I descended it, crossing a trembling footbridge and stood alone on Luna Island between the crescent and American falls. This beautyous and richly-embowered little spot, which is said to tremble and looks as if any wave might sweep it away, has a view of matchless magnificence. From it can be seen the whole expanse of the American rapids, rolling and struggling down, chafing the sunny islets as if jealous of their beauty. The Canadian fall was on my left, away in front stretched the scarlet woods, the incongruities of the place were out of sight, and at my feet the broad sheet of the American fall tumbled down in terrible majesty. The violence of the rapids cannot be imagined by one who has not seen their resistless force. The turbulent waters are flung upward, as if infuriated against the sky. The rocks, whose jagged points are seen among them, fling off the hurried and foamy waves, as if with supernatural strength. Nearer and nearer they come to the fall, becoming every instant more agitated. They seem to recoil as they approach its verge. A momentary calm follows, and then, like all their predecessors, they go down the abyss together. There is something very exciting in this view. One cannot help investing Niagara with feelings of human agony and apprehension. One feels a new sensation, something neither terror, wonder nor admiration, as one looks at the phenomena which it displays. I have been surprised to see how a visit to the falls galvanizes the most matter-of-fact person into a brief exercise of the imaginative powers. As the sound of the muffled drum too often accompanies the trumpet, so the beauty of Luna Island must ever remain associated in my mind with a terrible catastrophe which recently occurred there. Niagara was at its gayest, and the summer at its hottest, when a joyous party went to spend the day on Luna Island. It consisted of a Mr. and a Mrs. DeForest, their beautiful child Nettie, a young man of great talent and promise, Mr. Addington, and a few other persons. It was a fair evening in June, when moonlight was struggling for ascendancy with the declining beams of the setting sun. The elders of the party, being tired, shared to the seats on Iris Island to rest. Mr. DeForest calling to Nettie, Come here, my child, don't go near the water. Never mind, let her alone, I'll watch her, said Mr. Addington, for the child was very beautiful and a great favorite, and the youthful members of the party started for Luna Island. Nettie pulled Addington's coat in her glee. Ah, you rogue, you're caught, said he, catching hold of her. Shall I throw you in? She sprang forward from his arms, one step too far, and fell into the roaring rapid. Oh, Mercy, say, she's gone! the young man cried, and sprang into the water. He caught hold of Nettie, and, by one or two vigorous strokes, aided by Nettie, was brought close to the island. One instant more, and his terrified companions would have been able to lay hold of him. But no, the hour of both was come. The waves of the rapid hurried them past. One piercing cry came from Mr. Addington's lips, for Jesus' sake, oh, save our souls, and locked in each other's arms, both were carried over the fatal falls. The dashing torrent rolled onward, unheeding that bitter, despairing cry of human agony, and the bodies of these two, hurried into eternity in the bloom of youth, were not found for some days. Mrs. DeForest did not long survive the fate of her child. The guide related to me another story in which my readers may be interested, as it is one of the poetical legends of the Indians. It took place in years now long gone by, when the Indians worshipped the Great Spirit where they beheld such a manifestation of his power. Here, where the presence of deity made the forest ring, and the ground tremble, the Indians offered a living sacrifice once a year to be confayed by the water spirit to the unknown gulf. Annually, in the month of August, the sacchum gave the word, and fruits and flowers were stowed in white canoe, to be paddled by the fairest maiden among the tribe. The tribe thought itself highly honoured when its turn came to float the blooming offering to the shrine of the Great Spirit, and still more honoured was the maid who was a fitting sacrifice. Oronto, the proudest chief of the Seneca's, had an only child named Lena. This chief was a noted and dreaded warrior. Over many a bloody fight his single eagle plume had waved, and ever in battle he left a red track of his hatchet and tomahawk. Years rolled by, and every one sent its summer offering to the thunder-god of the then unexplored Niagara. Oronto danced at many a feast which followed the sacrificial gift, which his tribe had rejoicingly given in their turn. He felt not for the fathers whose children were thus taken from their wigwams, and committed to the grave of the roaring waters. Kalma, his wife, had fallen by a foeman's arrow, and in the blood of his enemies he had terribly avenged his bereavement. Fifteen years had passed since then, and the infant which Kalma left had matured into a beautiful maiden. The day of sacrifice came. It was the year of the Seneca's, and Lena was acknowledged to be the fairest maiden of the tribe. The moonlit hour has come, the rejoicing dance goes on. Oronto has, without a tear, parted from his child to meet her in the happy hunting grounds where the Great Spirit reigns. The yell of triumph rises from the assembled Indians. The white canoe, loosed by the saccums, has shot from the bank, but errant has sped from the shore another dancing craft has gone forth upon the whirling water, and both have set out on a voyage to eternity. The first bears the offering. Lena, seated amidst fruits and flowers. The second contains Oronto, the proud chief of the Seneca's. Both seem to pause on the verge of the descent. Then together rise on the whirling rapids. One mingled look of apprehension and affection is exchanged, and while the woods ring with the yells of the savages, Oronto and Lena plunge into the abyss in their white canoes. This wild legend was told me by the guide in full view of the cataract, and seemed so real and lifelike that I was somewhat startled by being accosted thus, by a voice speaking in a sharp, nasal, down-east twang. Well, stranger, I guess that's the finest water-power you've ever set eyes on. My thoughts were likewise recalled to the fact that it was necessary to put on an oil-skin dress and scramble down a very dilapidated staircase to the cave of the winds in order to do Niagara in the regulation manner. This cave is partly behind the American fall and is the abode of howling winds and ceaseless eddies of spray. It is an extremely good shower-bath, but the day was rather too cold to make that luxury enjoyable. I went down another steep path, and after crossing a shaky footbridge over part of the Grand Rapids, ascended the Prospect Tower, a stone erection forty-five feet high, built on the very verge of the horseshoe fall. It is said that people feel involuntarily suicidal intentions while standing on the balcony round this tower. I did not experience them myself, possibly because my only companion was the half-tipsy Irish drosky driver. The view from this tower is awful. The edifice has been twice swept away, and probably no strength of masonry could permanently endure the wear of the rushing water at its base. Down come these beautyous billows, as if eager for their terrible leap. Along the ledge over which they fall, they are still for one moment in a sheet of clear, brilliant green. Another, and down they fall like cataracts of driven snow, chasing each other, till, roaring and hissing, they reach the abyss, sending up a column of spray one hundred feet in height. No existing words can describe it. No painter can give the remotest idea of it. It is the voice of the great Creator, its name signifying in the beautiful language of the Iroquois, the thunder of waters. Looking from this tower above you see the Grand Rapids, one dizzying sheet of leaping, foamy billows, and below you look, if you can, into the very cauldron itself, and see how the bright green waves are lost in foam and mist, and behind you look to shore, and shudder to think how the frail bridge by which you came in another moment may be washed away. I felt as I came down the trembling staircase that one wish of my life had been gratified in seeing Niagara. Some graves were recently discovered in Iris Island, with skeletons in a sitting posture inside them. Probably the remains of those aboriginal races who here in their ignorance worshipped the great spirit within the sound of his almighty voice. We paused on the bridge, and looked once more at the islets in the Rapids, and stopped on Bath Island, lovely in itself, but desecrated by the presence of a remarkably here-suit American, who keeps a toll-house with the words ice-creams and Indian curiosities painted in large letters upon it. Again another bridge by which we crossed to the main land, and while overwhelmed at once by the beauty and the sublimity of the scene, all at once the idea struck me that the Yankee who called Niagara an almighty fine water privilege was tolerably correct in his definition, for the water is led off in several directions for the use of large saw and paper mills. We made several purchases at an Indian curiosity shop, where we paid for the articles about six times their value, and meanwhile our driver took the opportunity of getting some at warm, which very nearly resulted in our getting something cold, for twice in our driving over a stump he all but upset us into ponds. Crossing the suspension bridge we arrived at the VR Custom House, where attiresome detention usually occurs, but a few words spoken in Gaelic to the scotch officer produced a magical effect, which might have been the same had we possessed anything contraband. A drive of three miles brought us to the Whirlpool. The giant cliffs, which rise to the height of nearly three hundred feet, wall in the waters and can find their impetuous rush, so that their force raises them in the middle and hurls them up some feet into the air. Their fury is resistless, and the bodies of those who are carried over the falls are whirled around here in a horrible dance, frequently till decomposition takes place. There is nothing to excite admiration about the Whirlpool, the impression which it leaves on the mind is highly unpleasing. Another disagreeable necessity was to visit a dark, deep chasm in the bank, a very gloomy spot. This demon-titled cavity has never felt the influence of a ray of light. A massive cliff rises above it, and a narrow stream, bearing the horrible name of Bloody Run, pours over this cliff into the chasm. To most minds there is a strange fascination about the terrible and mysterious, and in spite of warning looks and beseeching gestures on the part of Mr. Lawrence, who feared the effect of the story on the weak nerves of his wife, I sat down by the chasm and asked the origin of the name Bloody Run. I will confess that, as I looked down into the yawning hole, imagination lent an added horror to the tale which was bad enough in itself. In 1759, while the French, who had in their pay the Seneca Indians, hovered round the British, a large supply of provisions was forwarded from Fort Niagara to Fort Slosher by the latter under the escort of a hundred regulars. The savage chief of the Seneca's, anxious to obtain the promised reward for scalps, formed an ambuscade of chosen warriors, several hundred in number. The devil's hole was the spot chosen. It seemed made on purpose for the Bloody Project. It was a hot, sultry day in August, and the British scattered and sauntered on their toys some way till, overcome by fatigue or curiosity, they sat down near the margin of the precipice. A fearful yellow rose, accompanied by a volley of bullets, and the Indians, breaking from their cover under the combined influences of ferocity and firewater, rushed upon their unhappy victims before they had time to stand to their arms, and tomahawked them on the spot. Wagons, horses, soldiers, and drivers were then hurled over the precipice, and the little stream ran into the Niagara River, a torrent purple with human gore. Only two escaped to tell the terrible tale. Some years ago, bones, arms, and broken wheels were found among the rocks, mementos of the barbarity which has given the little streamlet the terror-inspiring name of Bloody Run. After depositing our purchases at the Clifton House, where the waiter warned us to put them under lock and key, I hoped that sightseeing was over, and that at last I should be able to gaze upon what I had really come to visit, the falls of Niagara. But no, I was to be victimized still further. I must go behind the great sheet. Mr. and Mrs. Walerance would not go. They said their heads would not stand it. But that, as an English woman, go I must. In America the capabilities of English ladies are very much overrated. It is supposed that they go about in all weathers, invariably walk ten miles a day, and leap five-barreled fences on horseback. Yielding to the inexorable law of a stern city, I went to the rock house, and a very pleasing girl produced a suit of oiled calico. I took off my cloak, bonnet, and dress. Oh, she said, you must change everything. It is so very wet. As to save time I kept demurring to taking off various articles of apparel I always received the same reply, and finally abandoned myself to a complete change of attire. I looked in the mirror and beheld as complete a tattered demoleon as one could see begging upon an Irish highway, though there was nothing about the dress which the most lively imagination could have tortured into the picturesque. The externals of this strange equipment consisted of an oiled calico hood, a garment like a Carter's frock, a pair of blue worsted stockings, and a pair of India rubber shoes, much too large for me. My appearance was so comic as to excite the laughter of my grave friends, and I had to reflect that numbers of persons had gone out in the same attire before I could make up my mind to run the gauntlet of the loiterers around the door. Here a negro guide of most repulsive appearance awaited me, and I waded through a perfect sea of mud to the shaft by which people go under table rock. My friends were evidently ashamed of my appearance, but they met me here to wish me a safe return, and following the guide I dived down a spiral staircase, very dark and very much out of repair. Leaving this staircase I followed the guide along a narrow path covered with fragments of shale, with table rock above and the deep abyss below. A cold damp wind blew against me, succeeded by a sharp pelting rain, and the path became more slippery and difficult. Still I was not near the sheet of water, and felt not the slightest dizziness. I speedily arrived at the difficult point of my progress. Heavy gusts almost blew me away. Showers of spray nearly blinded me. I was quite deafened and half-drowned. I wished to retreat and assayed to use my voice to stop the progress of my guide. I raised it to a scream, but it was lost in the thunder of the cataract. The negro saw my insertitude and extended his hand. I shuttered even there as I took hold of it, not quite free from the juvenile idea that the black comes off. He seemed at that moment to wear the aspect of a black imp leading me to destruction. The path is a narrow, slippery ledge of rock. I am blinded with spray. The darkening sheet of water is before me. Shall I go on? The spray beats against my face, driven by the contending gusts of wind which rush into the eyes, nostrils, and mouth and almost prevent my progress. The narrowing ledge is not more than a foot wide, and the boiling gulf is seventy feet below. Yet thousands have pursued this way before, so why should not I? I grasped tighter hold of the guide's hand and proceed step by step, holding down my head. The water beats against me, the path narrows, and will only hold my two feet abreast. I ask the guide to stop, but my voice is drowned by the thunder of waters. He guesses what I would say and shrieks in my ear, it's worse going back. I make a desperate attempt, four steps more and I am at the end of the ledge. My breath is taken away, and I can only just stand against the gusts of wind which are driving the water against me. The gulf is but a few inches from me, and gasping for breath and drenched to the skin, I become conscious that I have reached termination rock. Once arrived at this place, the clouds of driving spray are a little thinner, and though it is still very difficult either to see or breathe, the magnificence of the temple, which here is formed by the natural bend of the cataract and the backward shelf of the precipice, makes a lasting impression on the mind. The temple seems to fit an awful shrine for him who rides on the wings of mighty winds, and completely shut out from man's puny works. The mind rises naturally in adoring contemplation to him, whose voice is heard in the thunder of the waters. The path was so very narrow that I had to shuffle backwards for a few feet, and then, drenched, shivering, and breathless, my galoshes full of water and slipping off at every step, I fought my way through the blinding clouds of spray, and climbing up the darkened staircase, again stood on table rock, with water dripping from my hair and garments. It is usual for those persons who survived the expedition to take hot brandy and water after changing their dresses, and it was probably from neglecting this precaution that I took such a severe chill as afterwards produced the aug. On the whole this achievement is pleasanter in the remembrance than in the act. There is nothing whatsoever to boast of in having accomplished it, and nothing to regret in leaving it undone. I knew the danger and disagreeableness of the exploit before I went, and had I known that going behind the sheet was synonymous with going to termination rock I should never have gone. No person who has not a very strong head ought to go at all, and it is by every one far better omitted, as the remaining portion of table rock may fall at any moment, for which reason some of the most respectable guides decline to take visitors underneath it. I believe that no amateur ever thinks of going a second time. After all, the front view is the only one for Niagara. Going behind the sheet is like going behind a picture frame. After this we went to the top of a tower, where I had a very good bird's-eye view of the falls, the rapids, and the general aspect of the country, and then refusing to be victimized by burning springs, museums, prison eagles, and main jubuffalos, I left the Walrances, who were tired, to go to the hotel, and walked down to the ferry, and scrambling out to the rock farthest in the water and nearest to the cataract, I sat down, completely undisturbed in view of the mighty fall. I was not distracted by parasitic guides or sandwich-eating visitors. The vile museums, pagodas, and tea gardens were out of sight. The sublimity of the falls far exceeded my expectations, and I appreciated them the more, perhaps, from having been disappointed with the first view. As I sat watching them, a complete oblivion of everything but the falls themselves stole over me. A person may be very learned in statistics. He may tell you that the falls are one hundred and sixty feet high, that their whole width is nearly four fifths of a mile, that according to estimate ninety million tons of water pass over them at every hour, that they are the outlet of several bodies of water covering one hundred and fifty thousand square miles. But unless he has seen Niagara, he cannot form the faintest conception of it. It was so very light what I had expected, and yet so totally different. I sat there watching that sea-green curve against the sky till sunset, and then the crimson rays just fell upon the column of spray above the Canadian fall, turning it a most beautiful rose color. The sunset, a young moon arose, and brilliant stars shone through the light veil of mist, and in the darkness the cataract looked like drifted snow. I rose at length, perfectly unconscious that I had been watching the falls for nearly four hours, and that my clothes were saturated with the damp and mist. It would be out of place to enter upon the numerous geological speculations which have arisen upon the structure and recession of Niagara. It seems as if the faint light which science has shed upon the abyss of bygone ages were but to show that its depths must remain forever unlighted by human reason and research. There was such an air of gloom about Clifton House that we sat in the balcony till the cold became intense, and as it was too dark to see anything but a white object in front, I could not help regretting the waste, as it seems, of this wonderful display going on, when no eyes can feast upon its sublimity. In the saloon there was a little fair-haired boy of seven years old, with the intellectual faculties largely developed, indeed so much so as to be painfully suggestive of water on the brain. His father called him in the middle of the room, and he repeated a long oration of Daniel Webster's without once halting for a word, giving to it the action and emphasis of the order. This was a fair specimen of the frequent undue development of the minds of American children. At Niagara I finally took leave of the Walrances as I had many visits to pay, and near midnight left for Hamilton, under the escort of a very kind, but very grandiasonian scotch gentleman. I was intensely tired and sleepy, and it was a very cheerless thing to leave a warm room at midnight for an omnibus drive of two miles along a bad, unlighted road. There did not appear to be any waiting room at the bustling station at the Suspension Bridge. For alas, the hollow scream of the locomotive is heard even above the thunder of Niagara. I slept in the cars for an hour before we started, and never woke till the conductor demanded payment of my fare in no very gentle tones. We reached Hamilton shortly after two in the morning, in the midst of a high wind and pouring rain, and in company with a dozen very dirty immigrants we entered a lumber wagon with a canvas top, drawn by one miserable horse. The curtains very imperfectly kept out the rain, and we were in continual fear of an upset. At last the vehicle went down on one side, and all the Irish immigrants tumbled over each other and us, with the profusion of ox, murders, and spalpeens. The driver composedly shouted to us to a light, the hole was only deep enough to sink the vehicle to the axle-tree. We got out into a very capacious lake of mud, and in, again, in very hill humor. At last the horse fell down in a hole, and my scotch-friend and I got out and walked in the rain for some distance to a very comfortable hotel, the city arms. The sun had scarcely warmed the world into waking life before I was startled from my sleep by the cry, six o'clock, all aboard for the bus at half-past, them as goes by the passport and Highlander. But it was half-past, and I had barely time to dress before the disagreeable shout of all aboard echoed through the house, and I hurried downstairs into an omnibus which held twenty-two persons inside, commodiously seated in arm-chairs. I went down Lake Ontario in the Highlander, Mr. Forest met me on the wharf, and in a few hours I was again warmly welcomed at his hospitable place. My relics of my visit to Niagara consisted of a few Indian curiosities, and a printed certificate filled up with my name stating that I had walked for two hundred and thirty feet behind the Great Fall, which statement I was assured by an American fellow-traveller was a cell right entirely, an all-mighty all-fired big flam.