But This Disgusting Work Was The Work Of Freemen,
High-Spirited And Energetic Fellows, Who Feared Neither Man Nor Wild
Beast, And Trusted To Their Own Strong Arms To Conquer All
Difficulties, While They Could Discern The Light Of Freedom And
Independence Glimmering Through The Dark Woods Before Them.
A few years afterwards, I visited C - -, and looked about for the
dreadful cedar-swamp which struck such a chill into my heart, and
destroyed the illusion which had possessed my mind of the beauty of
the Canadian woods.
The trees were gone, the tangled roots were
gone, and the cedar-swamp was converted into a fair grassy meadow,
as smooth as a bowling-green. About sixteen years after my first
visit to this spot, I saw it again, and it was covered with stone
and brick houses; and one portion of it was occupied by a large
manufactory, five or six stories high, with steam-engines,
spinning-jennies, and all the machinery for working up the wool
of the country into every description of clothing. This is
civilisation! This is freedom!
The sites of towns and villages in Canada are never selected at
random. In England, a concurrence of circumstances has generally led
to the gradual formation of hamlets, villages, and towns. In many
instances, towns have grown up in barbarous ages around a place of
refuge during war; around a fortalice or castle, and more frequently
around the ford over a river, where the detention of travellers has
led to the establishment of a place of entertainment, a blacksmith's
or carpenter's shop. A village or town never grows to any size in
Canada without a saw or a grist mill, both which require a certain
amount of water-power to work the machinery. Whenever there is a
river or stream available for such purposes, and the surrounding
country is fertile, the village rapidly rises to be a considerable
town. Frame-houses are so quickly erected, and the materials are so
easily procured near a saw-mill, that, in the first instance, no
other description of houses is to be found in our incipient towns.
But as the town increases, brick and stone houses rapidly supplant
these less substantial edifices, which seldom remain good for more
than thirty or forty years.
Mr. S - -'s tavern, or hotel, was an extensive frame-building of the
kind common in the country. All the lodgers frequent the same long
table at all their meals, at one end of which the landlord generally
presides. Mr. S - -, however, usually preferred the company of his
family in another part of the house; and some one of the gentlemen
who boarded at the tavern, and who possessed a sufficiently large
organ of self-esteem, voted himself into the post of honour, without
waiting for an invitation from the rest of the company. This happy
individual is generally some little fellow, with a long, protruding
nose; some gentleman who can stretch his neck and backbone almost
to dislocation, and who has a prodigious deal of talk, all about
nothing.
The taverns in this country are frequented by all single men, and
by many married men without children, who wish to avoid the trouble
and greater expense of keeping house. Thus a large portion of the
population of the towns take all their meals at the hotels or
taverns, in order to save both expense and time. The extraordinary
despatch used at meals in the United States has often been mentioned
by travellers. The same observation equally applies to Canada, and
for the same reason. Wages are high, and time is, therefore,
valuable in both countries, and as one clerk is waiting in the shop
while another is bolting his dinner, it would of course be
exceedingly unkind to protract unnecessarily the sufferings of the
hungry expectant; no one possessing any bowels of compassion could
act so cruelly. For the same reason, every one is expected to take
care of himself, without minding his neighbours. At times a degree
of compassion is extended by some naturalised old countryman towards
some diffident, over-scrupulous new comer, by offering to help him
first; but such marks of consideration, except to ladies, to whom
all classes in Canada are attentive, are never continued a bit
longer than is thought sufficient for becoming acquainted with the
ways of the country.
Soon after our arrival at C - -, I remember asking a person, who
was what the Canadians call "a hickory Quaker," from the north of
Ireland, to help me to a bit of very nice salmon-trout, which was
vanishing alarmingly fast from the breakfast-table.
Obadiah very considerately lent a deaf ear to my repeated
entreaties, pretending to be intently occupied with his own plate of
fish; then, transferring the remains of the salmon-trout to his own
place, he turned round to me with the most innocent face imaginable,
saying very coolly, "I beg your pardon, friend, did you speak to me?
There is such a noise at the table, I cannot hear very well."
Between meals there is "considerable of drinking," among the idlers
about the tavern, of the various ingenious Yankee inventions
resorted to in this country to disturb the brain. In the evening the
plot thickens, and a number of young and middle-aged men drop in,
and are found in little knots in the different public rooms.
The practice of "treating" is almost universal in this country, and,
though friendly and sociable in its way, is the fruitful source of
much dissipation. It is almost impossible, in travelling, to steer
clear of this evil habit. Strangers are almost invariably drawn into
it in the course of business.
The town of C - - being the point where a large number of emigrants
landed on their way to the backwoods of this part of the colony,
it became for a time a place of great resort, and here a number of
land-jobbers were established, who made a profitable trade of buying
lands from private individuals, or at the government sales of wild
land, and selling them again to the settlers from the old country.
Though my wife had some near relatives settled in the backwoods,
about forty miles inland, to the north of C - -, I had made up my
mind to buy a cleared farm near Lake Ontario, if I could get one to
my mind, and the price of which would come within my limited means.
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