This is a reproduction of a book from the McGill University Library collection. Title: Letters from Canada and the United States Author: Borrett, George Tuthill Publisher, year: London : Printed for private circulation, by J. E. Adlard, 1865 The pages were digitized as they were. The original book may have contained pages with poor print. Marks, notations, and other marginalia present in the original volume may also appear. For wider or heavier books, a slight curvature to the text on the inside of pages may be noticeable. ISBN of reproduction: 978-1-926671-26-0 This reproduction is intended for personal use only, and may not be reproduced, re-published, or re-distributed commercially. For further information on permission regarding the use of this reproduction contact McGill University Library. McGill University Library www.mcgill.ca/library %/v J9. /j/' + /*/{ . / & ± '7 /t 1 LETTERS EKOM CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES. GEORGE TUTHILL BORRETT, M.A., FELLOW OF KING’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. LONDON: PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION, BY J. E. ADLARD, BARTHOLOMEW CLOSE. 1865. PREFACE. The following letters were addressed to my father upon the occasion of a three-months’ tour through Canada and the Northern States of America. Some of my friends who have seen them in manuscript, and others who have not, have kindly expressed a wish to see them in a more legible form. If any apology be needed for putting into print what was written with no such object, this must be mine. With the excep- tion of a few omissions of more private matters, and some additions to the closing pages, which were chiefly written on the voyage home, the letters remain in their original state. To all who care to read a traveller’s first impressions of the country and people of which it speaks I now offer this volume, in the hope that its perusal may not unpleasantly occupy an occasional half-hour. GEO. T. BORRETT. June, 1865 . I. LIVERPOOL TO MONTREAL. On board “ The North American/’ Saturday , August 13 th, .1864. After being knocked about for nine days and nights on the open sea, we sighted land this morning at twelve o’clock, and are now proceeding in compara- tive quiet through the straits of Belle Isle, with 700 miles still between us and the longed-for harbour of Quebec. I do not know that I have much to tell you at present, for our voyage has been marked by no particular incident beyond the ordinary occurrences of a trip across the Atlantic by this route ; but it is such a pleasure to find yourself in smooth water again — not running your head into your neighbour’s ribs, nor breaking your shins against every bench in the saloon — that, notwithstanding the fact that I could now relieve my eyes, wearied as they are with straining into empty space, by a view of land on each side of our beam, I am seized with an almost involuntary impulse to sit down at the table below, and communi- cate at once to you the joyful announcement that we 1 2 LIVERPOOL TO MONTREAL. have said good-bye to the Atlantic and its troubles, and can now reckon with tolerable certainty upon a speedy completion of what the captain considers “ a good passage/’ Sea voyages, I suppose, are usually pretty much such as we have hitherto had, for I imagine that what I have seen enables me to form a good idea of an ordinary ocean trip, and I do not see that this idea is much different from my preconceived notions of such an excursion ; and probably your notions of the same would very much coincide with mine, and so I shall not trouble you with any attempt at a lengthy de- scription of so hackneyed a subject. “ Nothing in the world to do, with plenty of time to do it in,” to my mind, is the most brief and accurate description of a passenger’s life on board ship ; and I cannot see that a sailor’s life, in such weather as we have had, is much more than an elaborate working out of the same satisfactory arrangement. Perhaps I am hard upon the seafaring race ; possibly I am so constituted that I cannot extract from a continued contemplation of the “ vasty deep” that mental and bodily exercise which land-lubbers like myself are taught to seek as necessary to salvation of soul and body. All I know is that I can imagine no life which I would not choose rather than a sailor’s in good weather, when there seems to me to be such an absence of employment of hand or brain as no other occupation in the world LIVERPOOL TO MONTREAL. 3 would offer. Say what they will, sailors will never persuade me that life aboard can be anything hut in- tolerably dull ; poetise as they may, enthusiasts will never make me believe that the simple fact of dashing through the water at full speed can compensate for the lack of anything to see or do on the way. It seems to me that a sailor must depend, for the hare excite- ment which will keep the rust from his mind and muscle, upon the fury of the winds and waves ; and if such be the only medium through which he can get that necessary amount of excitement, Heaven defend me from a life like his ! Now you must not imagine, from these few observa- tions, that we have been gliding along as it were upon a mill-pond, with a fair breeze all our way. We have had, as I remarked above, ic a good passage/’ yet that by no means signifies a smooth one. In fact, I have observed by experience that this is a nautical expres- sion of wonderful elasticity, which, in the mouths of a captain and his crew, may mean anything short of actual shipwreck. But we had two days, about half way across the Atlantic, which, compared with the other days, were enjoyable; still, even then, I think we all found it very hard to contrive some species of amuse- ment. We stared at the water, and vowed it was beautiful; we stared at the sky (for it was the only time when it was visible), and declared it to be clearer than it was at home ; and for a time, no doubt, the 4 LIVERPOOL TO MONTREAL. contemplation of the sea and sky, under such favor- able circumstances, is very pleasant ; but, like venison every day for dinner, it grows stale ; and, after all, if the eye is to rest on no sign of animal or vegetable life, the solitudes of nature, to please the ordinary observer, must be of a far more imposing character than that which is presented by the ocean on a calm day. And so I thought with myself, as I sat upon the deck for several consecutive days, and strained my eyes in every direction, in the hope of seeing a porpoise at least, or a gull, or a distant sail — anything, in fact, to convince me that I had a companion in life, if it had been only a wild goose. And then I wished it would blow a gale, or that somebody would go up a mast and tumble off, or that it would rain, or snow, or freeze, or do anything but preserve the imperturbable calm, which provoked me with its excessive dulness. And yet, I suppose, rough thick weather must be ad- mitted to be duller still. Yet there is this consolation, perhaps, though but a poor one, that in a fog you may possibly comfort yourself with the idea that there might lie something to see if it was only clear, while in clear weather you see only too clearly that there is abso- lutely nothing to see at all ; but, at the same time, there is a great deal of sameness and monotony about a damp fog, and more about a well-sustained, heavy roll in an Atlantic swell; and the fun of seeing the soup in your lap, and your neighbour’s fork within an ace of your LIVERPOOL TO MONTREAL. 5 eye, soon becomes a sort of practical joke which the Second Life Guards would hardly perpetrate ; and I am afraid you would, as I did, inevitably come to the conclusion that an ocean voyage, rough or smooth, is particularly dull. These are my general impressions, the result of what little experience T have had ; but do not suppose that I have found this voyage very tedious or wearisome. Luckily, we have a better selection of passengers than the first sight of them led me to anticipate, and we have some of us fraternised wonderfully together ; and the effect of our growing intimacy has been to let out some curious revelations, which have kept our tongues alive, and our ears on the alert, through many an hour of our long journey. But if I am to introduce you to the inmates of the ship, I think I ought to begin with the captain. Well, the captain is a remarkably plea- sant, affable man, who entertains us at the table with good anecdotes of his nautical experience, and, what is far more to his credit, manifests an amount of caution and skill in the conduct of the ship, which the late officers of this company never displayed ; for I cannot but see that this route is a very dangerous one, and nothing but extreme care can guide a vessel safely through the perils of the northern fogs and icebergs ; and the knowledge that this company has lost no less than eight steamships in as many years makes us ap- preciate the more highly the presence of these estim- 6 LIVERPOOL TO MONTREAL. able qualities in our present captain. Next to him sits a gushing young damsel of three-and-twenty, who is going out to be married under the escort of a Ca- nadian parson, who occupies the seat on her left, and manifests the most affectionate zeal in his delicate office. On the other side of the captain sits an elderly Englishman, who has travelled throughout the length and breadth of the New World, and has been very kind in putting me up to everything that ought to be seen, and how to see it. My place is between him and an agreeable young English banker, with whom I shall probably travel as far as Toronto, and in whom I expect to find a very pleasant compagnon de voyage; and on the other side of the table sit two young limbs of the law from Lincoln's Inn, on a long-vacation tour, like myself ; and opposite them a Canadian doctor, who is delightfully vulgar and amusing. These are the passengers with whom I have chiefly fraternised ; but lower down the table is a wonderful specimen of what most of us at first supposed to be a member of the swell mob. But by this gentleman hangs a tale, for we had observed a strange desire evinced by this personage to watch the movements of a repulsive-looking individual, with very long dirty- black hair, whose features indicated unmistakable felony ; and inquiry into the matter has revealed to us the somewhat startling fact that the long-haired miscreant is no more nor less than his face foretold LIVERPOOL TO MONTREAL. 7 that he is, in fact, a felon who has been captured in London, and is now on his way to Quebec, in charge of the flash cockney, who is a well-known serjcant in the London detective force. As you may suppose, this discovery was not particularly well received in the saloon, more especially amongst the ladies, with whom the assurance that the prisoner was locked up in his cabin at night did not seem to compensate for the dis- agreeable associations attached to the idea of sitting at table with him throughout the day. We had hardly acquainted ourselves with the truth of this story, when a rumour spread amongst the passengers that there was another individual on board whom it was found necessary to lock up in his cabin ; and true enough we discovered it to be that there was a wretched man below who had come on board dead drunk, and had kept so ever since, and had lately been seized with a severe attack of delirium tremens, which made him so violent as to render it imperative that he should be tied down in his berth. So this was another subject of conversation, and everybody wondered what the miserable creature would be like, if he ever recovered from his attack, and had the face to show in the sa- loon, and was uncommonly disappointed to find, on his first appearance yesterday at the table, that he was, after all, when sober, an extremely quiet, well-behaved gentleman, with a very agreeable wife and daughter, who were evidently well used to the fellow’s eccentricities. 8 LIVERPOOL TO MONTREAL. The rest of our table., and that on the other side of the saloon, are filled up with Scotch and Irish, mostly of the timber-merchant class, and several French Ca- nadians; and amongst them is a Yankee captain, in whom I have been immensely disappointed, for he is one of the most agreeable of the passengers, and I feel sure that if I meet many more such specimens of the Yankee race, my prejudices against them will he com- pletely smothered ; and from what I hear on board this vessel, I should not wonder if that were the result of my visit to their country. At any rate, I am pretty certain that I shall not find them such a set of ruffians as I anticipated ; indeed, I am positive that no branch of the human race could present such a miserable picture as that which I had painted to myself as the portrait of a Yankee ; so they cannot lose in my esti- mation, and must, as far as I see, gain. The junior officers of the ship are a decent lot of men ; and the steerage passengers, though not very sweet, are not noisy; and here I think you have a miniature view, which will enable you' to form some idea of the society on board our gallant ship. And now, having given you this slight sketch of the vessel and her freight, I suppose I ought to try and say a few words about the voyage itself; but, as I said before, an ocean voyage is characterised by no incident whatever unless you have a gale, and fortunately for our peace and comfort we were not so favoured. To LIVERPOOL TO MONTREAL. 9 begin with, then, our first three days, after leaving Londonderry, were days of but little progress, for we had a head wind and a heavy sea; and glad though I may honestly say I was to make acquaintance with the waves of the Atlantic, I may quite as honestly say that I have no anxiety to cultivate this acquaintance, or be anything more than a very distant friend. I should like to give you some idea of the “ swell” on the At- lantic, but am afraid that you would be disinclined to believe in the justice of my comparison, if I were to suggest to you anything on land with which to com- pare it ; yet I think I may venture thus far with safety, and say that the rising and sinking upon the ocean swell is more like going up and down Holborn Hill than anything of which I can just now think ; by which I mean that if you could fancy yourself gliding down such an inclined plane as that of Holborn Hill, and up such another as Snow Hill, with a long heavy lurch on to one beam as you went up, and another perhaps longer and heavier on to the other beam as you came down, and then imagined this grand but stomach-trying movement to continue for several days without cessation, you would get some notion of the kind of thing to which we had to get accustomed. Dinner, under these circumstances, is, naturally enough, a matter of some little difficulty. The first two days I was rather seedy, and showed but little desire for eating or drinking, but still I was not so 10 LIVERPOOL TO MONTREAL. unhappy as many. The fact is that I can stand the upward and downward movement tolerably well ; but it is the complex motion of the pitch and the roll that to the uninitiated is so heartrending. However, the third day saw me at the table with a famous appetite, and this, I believe, lasted me throughout the voyage; and it really is wonderful to see how readily one can adapt one's self to the vicissitudes of fortune, or rather of the ship ; but still I do not consider that I have yet mastered the difficulty of taking soup in a heavy sea. The plates and dishes are, of course, all secured be- tween layers or ledges of iron running parallel with the edges of the table; and this necessary but curious arrangement suggests the idea of pigs feeding out of a trough ; and very much like pigs many of us fed, for there was, as there is on the Peninsula and Oriental steamers — as there always is, I believe, on any pas- senger steamers — a profusion of viands of every kind ; indeed, many of the dishes each day have been quite first-rate, insomuch so, that I find great difficulty in appreciating the ignominy of position attached to the status of “ son of a sea-cook," and fancy that I should not much object to being looked upon as the offspring of such a chef as had the superintendence of our cuisine. On Sunday, the roughest day perhaps of all, we had a somewhat poor attempt at service, in the prayers and psalms whereof the motion of the vessel gave us much LIVERPOOL TO MONTREAL. 11 the appearance of the United States “ Jumpers” and “ Shakers while in the sermon the Canadian parson was both mentally and bodily emphatically at sea. The next two days were finer and more enjoyable, and our log-book showed a much higher score of miles com- pleted in the day's run. Wednesday, again, was rough; Thursday pretty much the same; Friday cold and foggy* And now I began to see the dangers and difficulties of this route ; for we were fast approaching the track of the icebergs in their passage from the North to the Gulf-stream, in whose genial warmth they are gradually dissolved, after spreading around them, in their course from the Arctic regions, an amount of cold and fog which must be felt and seen to be believed. And here it was that the captain evi- denced those estimable qualities to which I have alluded above. Nothing could exceed the cautious vigilance with which he superintended the steering of the ship. The fog was at times awfully thick, and the air so ex- cessively cold, that though we could not discern the ice, we felt pretty sure that it was all around us. The vessel was put at half speed, with sails furled; but the sea was high and the wind aft, and so a collision at the rate at which even then we were going would have been most disastrous. The excitement of this situa- tion, however, did not last long, and Friday night was clear enough to enable us to resume our usual speed. But it was bitterly cold, and all my means of wrap- 12 LIVERPOOL TO MONTREAL. ping up did little towards keeping the damp out of my bones. I do not know that I was more surprised with any- thing on the voyage than this excessive cold. It ap- pears to be caused by the ice 'which drifts down from the North, from Greenland and Labrador, and the vast area of cold water with which these icebergs travel ; and the fogs are created by the meeting of these cold waters of the Northern seas with the warm waters of the Gulf-stream, and the condensation of the hot air from the South as it flows over the cold waters from the North. This I imagine to be the true explanation of these extraordinary cold fogs, which have baffled the art of every navigator but whatever it may be, it un- doubtedly is a striking characteristic of this route, and by no means an agreeable one. I had no idea, when I left Liverpool, that I was about to be brought into such a freezing climate ; in fact, it never struck me that I was about to visit the neighbourhood of Green- land ; but a little reflection enabled me to see that our going so far north is only the result of the curve which we must necessarily take in order to get by the shortest route from one to another of two points situated as Liverpool and Quebec in the upper part of the Northern Hemisphere. I am afraid that I cannot exactly ex- plain what I mean by this “ curve ■” but I think you will see it by taking an orange and laying it on either end upon the table, and you will find that, to take the LIVERPOOL TO MONTREAL. 13 shortest line from one to another of two points, each situated near the top of the orange, you will have to ascend slightly to that part where the circumference is smaller, and in coming down again to the point of your destination you will complete a portion of a curve, which, on a larger scale upon the earth’s surface, is called in navigation “the great curve.” It is thus, then, that this route brings those who take it into such high latitudes. Of course, the Belle Isle line is only open to navigation in the height of summer ; but even now, as I have said, the thermometer stood so low, that I might easily have imagined myself to be in the depth of a severe winter. This morning was clear and sunny, though the air was still sharp ; but the mists were all gone, and now for the first time I got a view of the icebergs which had been our constant terror yesterday. They are certainly of a most imposing character, and with the sun shining brightly upon their jagged and broken edges, present an appearance upon the surface of the ocean of which I can give you no idea. They are of almost every hue and shape — some like fantastic castles with marble turrets and dark-shadowed casements ; some like gigantic conical ant-hills; some like cathe- dral spires ; others like Eastern mosques with rounded domes; all a strange jumble of hard edges and gro- tesque outlines, which assume a thousand different forms as the vessel speeds by their lofty sides, and 14 LIVERPOOL TO MONTREAL.. brings their various peaks, at each yard of her pro- gress, into a new alignment with the eye. Then there were whales spouting all round them, and porpoises rolling, and gulls and divers upon the waves, and, best of all, land in sight (though not to my inexperienced eyes till long after the sailors had descried it) ; and so this morning has passed away pleasantly enough, and my appetite has gone up a dozen degrees ; in fact, I feel myself another man altogether, and quite agree with the Irish sailor, who vowed that, after all, the best part of going to sea was the getting to laud again. Monday, August IMh. Our voyage is now pretty nearly closed ; we have our pilot on board and are steaming up the St. Law- rence with a fair wind, and by breakfast time to-morrow morning shall be (we hope) off the Citadel of Quebec.^ Sunday was a splendid day, and though not a very smooth one, for a screw steamer will roll, yet a favor- able one for the log-book tale, for it gave us a run of nearly 300 miles in the twenty-four hours, which was more than the captain thought the ship “ had in her.” Icebergs were still plentiful up to a late hour on Saturday evening, but most of them were rendered harmless by having drifted ashore on Belle Isle, or Newfoundland, where the waves broke over them grandly. Once we counted twenty-three in view', LIVERPOOL TO MONTREAL. 15 some of course diminutive, but many of enormous dimensions, 150 or 200 feet above the water, and many hundred yards in breadth and length. Such a height above the level of the water gives an enormous sum total of cubic feet, for you must remember that float- ing ice carries eight times as much of its mass below the water as is visible above. Some huge monsters had stranded in water where the chart showed a depth of many fathoms. 1 dare say you have not a very intimate acquaint- ance with the geography of these inhospitable regions. I was very shaky on the subject, but am decidedly im- proving. The straits of Belle Isle lie between the coast of Labrador and Newfoundland, and the island whence they take their name is at the entrance to the straits. It is a bleak barren rock, enveloped in fog, and snow, and ice, and perhaps you cannot quite see why it bears so promising a name. Some of the passengers suggested that it was a very poor joke on the part of some sarcastic navigator ; but I can easily suppose the most uninviting of rocks to be welcomed as “ beauti- ful” by any sailor who had been long knocked about in those dreary waters. The straits are about thirty miles wide on the average, and a hundred miles in length, but there is a strong current through them which carried us along at an immense speed : and now we are safe across the gulf of the St. Lawrence, and 600 miles from the Atlantic, in water as clear and 16 LIVERPOOL TO MONTREAL. smooth as glSss, with fine scenery on either side of us, and a bright blue sky above. It is a wonderful river, the St. Lawrence, far more like a large inland sea than what you or I are accus- tomed to look upon as a river. For several hundred miles from the ocean its banks are barely visible, and where they can be seen in this clear atmosphere would be quite invisible under our English sky, and even now at this great distance up the stream, over 600 miles, the width of the river is at times as much as thirty. But, of course, this marvellous display of natural irrigation is the great wonder of every stranger, and had I not been in the South of Europe I should have been as much astonished with the extraordinary clearness of the atmosphere. There is at this moment in sight a rock and signal station eighty miles distant from the spot where we now are. Such a statement will hardly be believed at home, but the outline is as definitely marked as if it were within ten miles. We are now in a very different climate, in fact it is fast becoming uncommonly hot, and after the cold through which we have passed the heat tells upon us with ten- fold effect. I do not think I found it so warm in the Mediterranean last month, and I am sure I did not see what has been amusing us more or less all the afternoon, “ the mirage ” and its quaint impositions of distant lakes and inverted mountains. Sometimes the whole of the hills on each side of us were seen LIVERPOOL TO MONTREAL. 17 repeated topsy-turvy on tlie horizon : all the ships were double, that is, had an inverted image of themselves above them ; one in the far distance had a third reflection of itself standing on the hull of the inverted image — this appearance, I believe, is very unusual — and still fui'ther from us was seen hanging in the air the image of a vessel which was “ hull down ” below the horizon, totally out of sight. This last certainly is a most ex- traordinary instance of the atmospherical refraction which creates the morning and evening twilight, and brings most forcibly to one’s mind the means by which we are enabled to see the sun’s disc so much earlier and later than it would, but for this refraction, be visible. The others are curious instances of seeing double; from which, however, I do not wish you to infer, that to see things in this way it is at all neces- sary to go through the same preliminaries as are indis- pensable to the attainment of the same result at home. 10 p.m. — We have all been on deck gazing in won- der at the Aurora Borealis, as it has for the last hour and a half been darting up its roseate streaks of fire from the northern horizon. The moon is shining with a brightness which I have only seen equalled at Malta, but her rays seem to have little or no effect in diminishing the powerful light of the Aurora. I wonder why this is not more often seen at home. It is visible any fine night in Canada, far further south than England. 2 18 LIVERPOOL TO MONTREAL. Quebec , Wednesday, August 17th. I am now safe and snug at Russell’s Hotel, Quebec. We reached the custom-house wharf at 7 a.m. yester- day, and may consider that we have made a good pas- sage, having accomplished the distance of something under 3000 miles in less than eleven days. Every one was up very early yesterday morning to see the scenery of the St. Lawrence and the view of the city as we approached. The banks had contracted very much since we saw them the day before, and the stream was studded with numerous islands, uncultivated but prettily wooded, till just as we reached Quebec the river narrowed to the very respectable, but for this continent insignificant, width of two miles. The banks all along were thickly populated ; French farms aud country villages alternated on either side ; neat look- ing villages with pretty churches fringed the margin of the water, aud shoals of little fishing boats plied their trade along the shores. Seven o’clock had just struck when we breasted the citadel of Quebec, and fired an imposing salute from two little pocket guns on the main deck. Quebec is grand from the river, clustering at the foot of a bold precipice from which the citadel frowns down upon the stream, and round behind the citadel walls creeping up the back of the rock with picturesque roofs and tower- LIVERPOOL TO MONTREAL. 19 ing spires, -which glitter in the sunlight like crystal. The cause of this peculiar brilliancy is the fact that the material used for roofing is tin. All the best houses, all church spires, all domes and gable ends are covered with tin. In our climate of course this cover- ing would barely last out a week ; but here, where the air is so perfectly dry, that corroding and rust are almost unknown, tin, though the most expensive at first, is in the end the cheapest as well as the most durable metal for the purpose. It looks well, especi- ally in the sun’s rays ; gives a good finish to the stone buildings, and I have no doubt gathers less snow than the old-fashioned slates and tiles. At any rate it is a great addition to the scenery. Down below' the town and round the base of the rock are spacious quays, with water deep enough to allow the largest vessels to lie alongside ; and across the stream on the opposite bank is a fine range of hills, with a large town facing the citadel, and known by the name of Levi Point — pro- nounced by Canadians Pint Leavy. Breakfast over at our hotel, in company with some of our passengers we hired a caleche, or rather a couple of those peculiar vehicles, each of which carries two persons. They are the funniest-looking machines, with the oddest horses, that I have seen for a long time ; there is no pretence to strength or ornament about them; two wheels with a diminutive imitation of the London man-about-town’s cab perched upon 20 LIVERPOOL TO MONTREAL. then^ and a little box-seat in front ; no springs, and a horse all harness— and the vehicle is complete. But the horse can go ahead, like the population, and the apparent absence of springs is possibly due to the in- different pavement of the streets, which is in many of them of wooden planks laid transversely across the road, and in others of stone, so unevenly put dow r n that I think it really the worse of the two. But the streets are too steep to admit of the construction of a good road, being for the most part narrow and tortu- ous, twisting in and out amongst the French-looking houses of the “ habitans ’’ which throw out all sorts of odd angles in every conceivable direction as if desi- rous of thrusting in the way of a good street every obstruction they possibly can. From the strong de- clivities on either side of the citadel heights I should think there must be little need of sanitary regulations, as the first heavy shower pours down a flood from above which washes down, with the speed of a torrent, all filth that would otherwise accumulate. The upper town is handsome and elegant — a striking contrast to the lower; but, after all, the city is one which does not improve upon acquaintance ; it looks extremely well from the river, but will not do at all when you come to examine it closely. From the top of the citadel we had a glorious view of the city, the river, and the sur- rounding country. We strolled along the fortifications, looked at the spot where Wolfe fell, heard the noon- LIVERPOOL TO MONTREAL. .21 day gun fired from the summit of the fort, and the grand reverberation, caused by its discharge, amongst the opposite heights, and driving through the city pro- ceeded to the celebrated falls of Montmorenci, by a pretty drive of ten miles along the northern bank of the river. These falls pleased us all immensely. They are far finer than anything of the kind I had seen in Europe. The body of water is enormous, the preci- pice over which it is dashed is 250 feet high, and the scenery above and below the falls romantic ; all neces- sary adjuncts to a good waterfall. Montreal, Friday , August 1 9th. A walk on the Esplanade, a lounge on the Terrace, a visit to the quays and the Houses of Parliament (a temporary erection while the buildings at Ottawa are in progress) finished my stay in Quebec, and in the afternoon my friend the banker and myself took the steamer for Montreal, where we are now located in the great hotel known as the St. Lawrence Hall. This was my first introduction to the river steamers of the New World, and truly they are an institution to which nothing that we have can for a moment be compared for comfort and speed combined. The Ameri- can river-boat, of which the Canadian is a copy, is no- thing more nor less than an immense floating hotel, a 22 LIVERPOOL TO MONTREAL. characteristic type of the people themselves, a curious combination of democratic follies and aristocratic pro- pensities ; a mixture of every kind of life — fast life, slow life, busy life, and lazy life, all under one roof. The saloon is a fine handsome room of great length and good height, fitted up with exaggerated decorations, ex- travagant and, as I think, tasteless. Along either side are the state cabins, each and all a good bedroom in itself, comfortably arranged and extremely well ventilated; and around them, on the outside, runs a sort of open deck or platform, where the passengers sit and promenade at their pleasure. At 6 p.m. was served in the saloon, at the lower end, which is set apart as a dining-room, a handsome “ high tea and after tea there was music, cards, chess, and so on, till late in the evening, when, after a final moonlight walk outside, the passengers turned in. I found my bed very comfortable, so did my companion, in so much so that we both had great difficulty in rousing ourselves on reaching Montreal, where we arrived in the morn- ing at 7.30. I am extremely glad that I came by boat rather than by rail, contrary to the advice of some of my friends ; for, though the journey occupies more time, yet the boats are very fast, the river is worth seeing, and the little insight I have gained into the American river-boat life has well repaid me for the extra time thus occupied. Besides, it is cheap travelling, and very LIVERPOOL TO MONTREAL. 23 amusing. I know (at present, at least) no other place where you can see a working artisan in fustian sitting down at table next a well-dressed lady, and lounging on an elegant sofa side by side with a high-bred swell. And then there is such a delightful air of perfect in- dependence and absence of respect for anything or any- body, an amount of self possession which is quite charm- ing; and yet a certain civility withal, but rude and un- polished, as I should hardly have expected it in a district where the population is considerably more than half of it of French extraction. I never recollect seeing such an example of the great principle of self-help as was dis- played to me that evening at tea, where every one, not bearishly or greedily, but with cool deliberate self- possession, helped himself or herself to the dish which was nearest, without a thought for the want of other appetites. I do not mean to say that there is any lack of charity amongst the Canadians ; from what I hear I believe no people can be more kind, attentive, and hospitable; but the great idea amongst them all seems to be “ help yourself,” “ never do for another what he can do for himself,” good maxims enough in their way, but here, I suspect, carried a stretch too far. Fashion seems to be set by the lower classes, though that, of course, is a term which would not be heard in a country like this, “ where every man is as good as his neighbour, and, if anything, better,” Manners are taken from the same class. No waiter addresses you 24 LIVERPOOL TO MONTREAL. as " Sir no cabman, or porter, or crossing sweeper (if there be any), would dignify you with such a title. Why should he ? He is away from the stuck-up one-horse aristocracy of England ; he looks upon them with pity and contempt, calls them “ proud and poor,” “ ten generations behind the age,” “ worthy only of a glass case and a place in a museum of antique euriosities.” He is, in fact, un-English ; he tells you that he is not, but he is, a Yankee — a Yankee in the sense in which we use the term at home, as synonymous with everything that smacks of democracy. You may accuse him of a desire for annexation to the Northern States of America, but he will be so loud in denying it, that you will have to change the subject. You may take up the key note of the : Times,’ and charge him with want of loyalty to the British Government, and he will of course as loudly deny this ; but talk to him and you will see that in- dependence is the “ acme ” of his desires, and to perfect it he knows no other means than hy “ throwing off the British yoke.” The day of final emancipation from the apron-strings of the mother country may not be yet at hand, but the child is fully weaned, and the novel scheme for a grand confederation of the British pro- vinces of this continent, which is now being broached in the journals, shows that he is shortly intending to essay running alone. We have taken a walk round Montreal, and are LIVERPOOL TO MONTREAL. 9:1 greatly astonished with what we have seen. To people arriving with the idea of finding the inhabitants dwelling in log shanties and brushwood huts it must be a surprising sight to come upon a fine handsome city, with splendid buildings and noble churches, aud all the indications of affluence which are characteristic of a wealthy commercial city ; but of this I must speak in my next. II. MONTREAL TO TORONTO. Montreal, August 20th. My last letter left me safely landed in Montreal, after a pleasant night-journey by steamer from Quebec, and gave you a hint, I believe, that this city far surpassed all my preconceived ideas of Canada. As yet, of course, I have only seen the more civilized side of Canadian life, and never expected to come across the rougher experiences of the Western forests in the streets of Montreal and Quebec ; but I must fairly admit that I did not look for much that is grand, or costly, or im- posing, or is associated with our ideas of wealth and luxury — I might almost say extravagance. Rapid de- velopment, brilliant progress, I knew I was sure to find, but not such a finished exterior. I anticipated a young colony with an old head, but not one with so old a face. Now my first walk through the streets of this city quite upset all my ideas, and showed me that MONTREAL TO TORONTO. 27 there was much more of the Old World’s architectural magnificence here than I had been willing to believe- Whether it was that my long-acquired habit of associ- ating all capitals of agricultural districts with Ipswich prevented me from anticipating in this country any higher style of architecture than is to be met with in that most respectable but seedy town, I know not ; but I certainly never expected to find that Canada had its Paris. However, I have been undeceived ; and if you know any one labouring under a like delusion, you may at once enlighten them, and tell them that the buildings of Montreal surpass those of many a fine city on their side of the Atlantic. The St. Lawrence Hall, the hotel in which I am staying — a well-known house amongst Canadians and Americans — is situated in the centre of the handsome edifices to which I have alluded. I will not trouble you with an enumeration of them, but merely say that these buildings are chiefly banks, offices of insurance, and other public companies, fine churches and chapels, spacious colleges, and asylums and hospitals, all well placed in broad streets, or detached in commanding positions. Those which pleased me most were the French cathedral, the Palais de Justice, and the Post Office — all perfect in their way. And then there are markets, three in number, and splendid stores, after the style of Cannon Street, and handsome squares in the suburbs, and grand wharves along the river, and 28 MONTREAL TO TORONTO. much more that is worth a visit, of which I have not time to tell. The city is backed by a thickly-wooded mountain, round the summit of which I had a beau- tiful drive to get a view of the neighbourhood ; and a grand one it is, with the city and its sparkling tin roofs beneath you, and the mighty St. Lawrence, two miles wide, beyond and all around the island on which the city stands, and at the western end of the city the far- famed Victoria tubular bridge spanning the breadth of the great river, and in the distance across the stream the purple mountains of Vermont, from which the Yankee sentinel can daily whet his hungry appetite by gazing at the tempting bait below. The ‘ New York Herald* is still at the old game, thirsting for “ Canada's blood ;** and if I am to believe what I hear of the vast circulation and influence of that beautiful journal, there must be an enormous number across the frontier who are intent upon thus satiating their thirst. But Canada is quite deaf to all their threats, perfectly indifferent to their taunts and sneers ; and yet I do not like to think that the ‘ Times* was right in its charges against the colony, and that the Canadian self- confidence is so much like apathy. They tell me that the volunteer movement is progressing, but I cannot say that I have seen anything of it yet. I only know that the volunteer department is entrusted to the care of the Attorney-general, under whose tender guidance it is said to thrive ; from which fact I am led to con- MONTREAL TO TORONTO. 29 elude that lawyers here eschew red tape, else I should hardly expect to find a precocious young colony, of very libera] views and independent principles, consigning its military organization to such a wholesale dealer in that repulsive article. The carriage in which my drive was taken, in com- pany with a lady and gentleman whose acquaintance I have made, was a perfect model of what a voiture a deux chevaux should be, set upon large and light Ame- rican wheels, and drawn by two excellent animals. There is, perhaps, more ornament upon the body of the carriage than we in England should admit, in the shape of electro- plated hinges, decorations, and devices; but extravagant ornament is the fashion here ; and after all, I doubt whether we at home are not too sparing with our colours, in our endeavours to attain a tame neatness. I cannot understand why we consider it necessary at home to plant our carriages upon pon- derous wheels, only suitable for Pickford’s vans or the cars of the Indian Juggernaut, while here every vehicle but those adapted for the transport of the very heaviest goods is set on high, light, elegant wheels, that seem to run as if they could not help it, and carry the horses on before them, as the sleighs do in the snow. It is not that our English roads are too rough for the Ame- rican wheels; Heaven knows, the turnpikes are bad enough in all conscience here. It is not, I feel sure, that, as a Yankee suggested to me, these light wheels 30 MONTREAL TO TORONTO. would succumb beneath the weight of an English belle (it would take half-a-dozen Yankee belles to make a shadow). It must be, I suppose, as an irritated Eng- lishman remarked, that an “ old-country” horse would always be running away with them ; and I verily be- lieve that the adoption of these wheels is in no small degree due to the poverty of the horse-flesh of this continent. Still, “ any-way,” as the Yankees say, here are the wheels, and here, too, as I have already seen, are many and many an ingenious adaptation or im- provement of a familiar old-world article, some easy method of working an old and elaborate contrivance, some simple modification of a complicated machine, some smart creation of American ingenuity ; and that not only in the cities and towns, but even in the vil- lages, the hamlets, the very fields — displayed alike in the gigantic grain-elevators of the corn-marts of the Western cities, and in the simple Canadian cottage pump ; so that I begin to wonder no longer at the “ mean/’ “ pitiable,” “ paltry” position which we, the “ poor old one-horse nation,” occupy in the eyes of this enlightened “ go-ahead” continent. I suppose you will expect me to tell you something about the hotel life of the New World ; and though I have not at present seen that peculiar characteristic of this continent in its fullest force and vigour, and shall not till I leave Canada, yet I am told that the St. Lawrence Hall, of Montreal, is intended to give, and MONTREAL TO TORONTO. 31 does give, an excellent miniature portrait of the vast hotels of New York. You have read Sala’s letters to the ‘Daily Telegraph/ and Russell’s to the ‘Times/ and other works upon this subject, of which all of us in England have heard so much. Some of them are, of course, exaggerated ; but it is difficult to convey a powerful impression of anything in language which shall be forcible but not extravagant ; still, most of what I had heard and read of this life is faithful and true, and, accordingly, I looked in the St. Lawrence Hall for just what I found, and little more. AY ell, I must ask you to imagine a fine handsome house, after the style of the new hotels in Loudon or Paris, with a noble entrance-hall, fronted by a covered arcade, opening upon a wide well-built street. Before the doorway of the hall will be a busy medley of carts, cabs, carriages, and omnibuses in the road, aud drivers, porters, pas- sengers, and baggage on the pavement. Inside the door, upon the right, is the reading-room, with the journals in frames upon reading-desks along the walls; and upon the left you will find the bar or coffee-room — a sort of well-dressed English taproom — and all about the doorway, the reading-room, and the bar, you will jostle against a crow d of noisy visitors, and hear such a buzz of human voices, as will drown the tur- moil of the traffic in the street. A few steps further in, and you will find yourself in a lofty second or inner hall, where the noise and bustle seems ten times greater 32 MONTREAL TO TORONTO, than at the entrance to the hotel. Opposite to you, at the further end of this inner hall, will be a long counter, on which lies the visitors’ book, with guide- books, maps, almanacks, and directories, and behind the counter you will see the maitre-d’hdtel, with his cashiers, clerks, and various assistants. On the right of the hall you will find the post office and newspaper- stall, circulating library, and telegraph bureau; and on the left the lavatory and, not the least important, the barber’s shop. All along the counter, and in and out the barber’s shop you will see and hear the most doing. At the counter, from morning to night, one incessant roll of clamour for beds and bills, and at the barber’s from dawn till dinner, a succession of unshorn Yankees — a Yankee never shaves himself — submitting their cheeks to the barber’s razor, and their ears to his latest news. You must not mind smoke, for you will be smo- thered with it ; you must learn to tolerate chewing, or you will get bilious ; you must be indifferent to spitting, or you will die of nausea. Montreal is crammed with Americans ; they are always here in great numbers, and now the war has at least doubled them. South- erners there are some, but Yankees preponderate; and with all the occupants of the hotel, be they of what nation they may, Yankee manners and customs are certainly the fashionable thing. But you must take no notice of these little eccentricities of our funnv cousins, and look at the master, the host himself. You MONTREAL TO TORONTO. 33 will see him smoking his cigar behind the counter, and conversing with his visitors right and left, ex- changing civilities with his new-comers, and shaking hands with those who are leaving him — very atten- tive, very affable ; in fact, exactly suited to his work, and this is saying a great deal, for a formidable task it must be to manage the details of the various depart- ments in one of these gigantic establishments, and well may the Yankees form their estimate of a man's smart- ness by his natural capacity for keeping an hotel. Passing on through the hall, and ascending the grand staircase, you will reach the reception-room — a handsome salon, of large and lofty dimensions, with anterooms and boudoirs attached to it ; and here you will find ladies and gentlemen in knots upon the chairs and sofas, receiving visitors, or conversing amongst themselves ; and at the piano, in the centre of the room, ten to one but you will see a precocious young Yankee girl, of the age of sixteen perhaps, or under, playing away before the assembled multitude, perfectly regardless of the ears and eyes intent upon her — pos- sibly even impudent enough to be practising her scales. Further on you will come upon the dining-hall — an elegant room like the last, entered by splendidly wide passages or corridors, and filled with innumerable small tables, which hold from four to eight or ten “ covers" each. The bedrooms are large, light, and airy, and the ventilation of the building perfect. 34 MONTREAL TO TORONTO. It is a noisy life this, of course; but for a bachelor travelling “ solo ” I can imagine nothing more enter- taining, and the living is cheap enough, when compared with the rates of our first-class hotels at home. Throughout this continent the charge is always so much per day, on the principle of the foreign “ pen- sions, and at all the best hotels in Canada that charge is now two dollars, i. e., something over eight shillings. For this you get bed, breakfast, luncheon, dinner, tea, and supper — such a meal at each sitting as would feast a Londoner for a week — everything in fact but beverages other than water, or what an American elegantly terms “ drinks.” Breakfast goes on from 8 to 11, lunch from 1 to 2, dinner from 5 to 7, tea from 8 to 10, supper from 11 to 12, which signifies that to obtain any particular meal you must present yourself at some time between the two hours during which it is announced as obtainable. Breakfast I think the most striking meal, and so I will ask you to accompany me to that. We will drop in, say at 9.30, sit down casually at any of the numerous tables which has a vacant place, and in a business-like tone of voice call for the carte. Now, having read Saia’s letters we shall not be the least puzzled at the length of the list of viands and delicacies, nor shall we forget his celebrated account of his first breakfast on this continent, and the difficulty he had to get anybody to attend to him because he ordered only one dish. I MONTREAL TO TORONTO. 35 must say that I did not quite believe the accuracy of that statement ; but I find now that it is all absolutely true, and that a man, who sits down and orders an egg and a bit of toast, has just as much chance of getting any one to wait upon him, as he has of seeing the Thames pure, or the Conservatives in office, or any other physical impossibility. So we are wise, and instead of selecting such dishes as we wish to try, point out to the waiter some two or three, of the fourteen, which we do not care to venture upon, and boldly order up the rest. The effect upon the waiter is magical ; he puts us down as “ smart ones,” and civility and attention are at once secured. This was my plan on my first breakfast here, but the result of the order was somewhat alarming, for I found my- self in about two minutes surrounded by a multitude of little oval dishes, on which were fish, steaks, chops, ham, chicken, turkey, rissoles, potatoes (boiled, roast and fried), cabbage, corn, cheese, onions and pickles, besides plates of hot rolls, buns, crumpets, toast and biscuits, flanked by a great jug full of milk and an enormous vessel of coffee. However, in the midst of my bewilderment, which seemed to puzzle the waiter, who had taken my order as a thing of every day occur- rence, my friend the banker turned up, and with his help I succeeded in demolishing a considerable portion of the formidable array of dishes. But there was a Yankee next to us who ordered much the same as I had 36 MONTREAL TO TORONTO. thus unintentionally been burdened with, and what was our astonishment to see him take six soft-boiled eggs, and breaking them on the edge of a tumbler, drop in suc- cessively their respective yolks, and then, after two or three whirls of his spoon in the glass, gobble them up as an “ appetiser/’ with a gurgle of delight that was quite musical. This was only the preliminary canter. You might have thought, perhaps, that at any rate he was off on his raid upon the menu, but no, he was only going through his paces previous to entering upon the severer work before him, and when he did set to, “ my eye, warnt it a caution to snakes ? ” Fish, steaks, chops, sausages, omelets, with vegetables of several kinds, vanished like gnats before a thunder- storm ; coffee and tea chased one another down that capacious throat, till, in less than three quarters of an hour from the firing of the first shot, the table was well nigh cleared, and a glass of iced milk brought to a triumphant close this interesting performance. Luncheon is served on the same liberal scale, dinner, tea, and supper, ditto. It is no use trving to shirk a dish, the waiters will insist on your trying everything, so your only course is to try. Everybody tries every dish ; no one feels any compunction at leaving un- touched what has been brought to him; waste is immaterial, for meat is dirt-cheap, vegetables and fruit abundant. All ages of either sex eat extravagantly; no one looks astonished to see ” a lovely plant of six- MONTREAL TO TORONTO. 37 teen summers, tucking down at breakfast kidneys, bam, and sausages after a tremendous plateful of fish ; no one stares to see a precocious youth of nine going straight through the dinner carte like a steam mowing-machine, puffing, and blowing, and spitting like an ill-used engine. It is a wonderful thing, truly, this Yankee appetite. I have been told in England that I myself am not deficient in this respect; I admit a considerable executive capacity — but set me down by a middle-aged Yankee lady, and by her side I am a mouse. And yet with all this absorption of tissue-making material, there is, as Sala says, nothing to show for it — the men are all lanky, gaunt, fleshless, yellow- complexioned, haggard lamp posts; the women, lean, skinny, angular, all sharp corners and edges — waltzing with them, till you get used to it, must be torture. I do not know how to account for this invariable poverty of flesh — possibly it arises from over-feeding, as cats grow thin upon black beetles ; perhaps it is the physical result of an exaggerated sort of Banting’s system ; and for my part I believe it almost impossible to get fat on meat three times a day — but I suppose the climate has much to do with it ; Arctic frosts and tropical heats alternating in unbroken succession are not appa- rently adapted for the cultivation of anything like a corporation. North America may be the field of enter- prise for every humbug under the sun, but Banting. 38 MONTREAL TO TORONTO. Ottawa, August 22nd. I am now in the future capital of the two provinces of Upper and Lower Canada. My journey here was made by rail to Lachine, a few miles west of Montreal, and thence by steamer up the Ottawa river. We had anticipated a fine day’s excursion, but unfortunately the bush had taken fire, and the country for miles and miles around was enveloped in clouds of smoke. At times the fog was so thick that we had to stop and drop our anchor ; at others we were delayed by frequent soundings ; once we made a complete circuit, and only discovered that we were returning to Montreal when the sun broke through the fog upon the wrong side of us. The Ottawa is a noble stream, called by the Indians the “ Grand River,” varying from two miles to one in breadth, and fringed by steep precipitous banks, with pleasing landscape scenery above them. But of this last I saw little or nothing, for the fog scarcely cleared all day, and it was not till near midnight that we reached the City of Ottawa. Since my arrival here we have had some heavy rains, which have extinguished the bush fire, that might, but for this fortuitous downfall, have, I am told, burnt for weeks. It is difficult to give you any idea of what one of these fires is like. It is by no means easy to convey an impression of what is signified by “ the MONTREAL TO TORONTO. 39 bush.” You must picture to yourself a tangled forest of closely-packed moderate-sized trees, with a dense undergrowth of shrubs ; pines will be the most pre- valent trees, but beech, maple, oak, sumac, walnut, and poplar, may all be included under the general term “pine forest.” Imagine this mass of leaf to extend over a flat swampy area of hundreds of square miles, broken only here and there by the log hut of some lonely settler, or the freshly cleared corn-field of a newly arrived farmer. You must then suppose the underwood to have taken fire from some seemingly in- significant accident — a spark from a settler’s pipe, perhaps, or a lighted ember from his log fire ; and the heat of the sun’s rays has so scorched the trees that they burn like touchwood down to the very roots, and so the fire is communicated to the parched turf or soil of the swamp, which smoulders away like peat for days and weeks and months, till rain falls and extinguishes the fire, after it has eaten its way into the earth perhaps three feet deep. At present you would find it difficult to recognise in Ottawa the future metropolis of Canada. The in- habitants talk of it as Ottawa City, but it is much more like an overgrown village perched upon the top of a steep cliff, and straggles along the banks of the river and out away into the country beyond, as if all the houses were afraid of touching each other, and objected to the formality of a continuous street. No one seems 40 MONTREAL TO TORONTO. exactly to know why it has been selected as the seat of Government. Some tell me, to avoid throwing down an apple of discord between the rival candidates, Montreal, Quebec, and Toronto, by preferring any one of them. Some say it was selected by mistake; some, I believe, think it was done by the Queen to spite the Canadians. But for whatever cause selected, it has every element necessary for the creation of a great city, and for the capital of the two provinces — a grand river, a lovely site, a considerable distance between its walls and the Yankee frontier, a very central position as regards the Eastern and Western Provinces, and easy access from all sides. People are talking about the proposed coalition of all the provinces now under British rule, and saying that, if this federation scheme comes off, Ottawa will never be permitted to retain her recently acquired privilege ; and that the seat of Government must in that case remain, as it now is, in Quebec. But I cannot believe that any one who has ever seen the new Parliament Buildings in course of erection at Ottawa would be so barbarous as to demand the destruction of that beautiful edifice. The cost of the new Houses has been enormous, and I do not think the Canadians are likely to stand by and see this money thrown to the winds. If the Parliament Buildings are not to be used, I cannot imagine a more flagrant instance of reckless expenditure. The Buildings consist of a central block, in which MONTREAL TO TORONTO. 41 are comprised the House or Chamber of the Legislative Council (the Lords), and the House of Assembly (the Commons), flanked by two wings, containing the various Government offices, an arrangement which brings them altogether under one roof ; and fronted by a spacious quadrangle, which will be ornamented with trees. The back of the buildings runs parallel with the river ; and, as with our Houses at home, there is a handsome terrace upon the river bank, only that the bank is here 100 feet high, and the river is not a sewer. The style is gothic, less ornamented than St. Stephen’s, and, I think, more substantial and effective. It is the work of native talent, and the Canadians may justly be proud, as they certainly are, of this magnificent pile. Everything has been done in the most costlv stvle, and I think vou would be as much surprised as I was to come upon such a building in what may be yet called the wilds of Canada. The rain was coming down in tropical fashion when we left the Houses of Parliament, but the Chaudiere Falls well repaid us the ducking we got in visiting them. A fine bridge spans the river just below these celebrated Falls, and from thence there is a view which some people say is second only to Xiagara in grandeur and magnificence. There is a marvellous variety about these Falls which I have never seen equalled elsewhere. Arraved in every imaginable form, in vast dark masses, in graceful cascades, in tumbling spray, they present 42 MONTREAL TO TORONTO. the appearance of a hundred rivers struggling with the rocks for a passage. And when the hundred passages are found, they plunge over the precipice into a deep, dark basin, where they hiss, and boil, and seethe, and whirl round in such hot haste as to verify the justice of their name of chaudiere, or caldron. By the Falls is one of the numerous saw-mills so prevalent in Ca- nada, which we next visited, and well worth the visit it was ; but I have not time to tell you of the ma- chinery, the noise, the saws, the bustle and business of the establishment, for I must say a word about the timber- slides, down one of which we took a ride, in imitation, I suppose, of the Prince of Wales, who did the same thing on his visit to Canada. These slides are not Uncommon in the Ottawa, being an ingenious method of avoiding the cataracts, and sending the timber from above to below the foaming waters, without endangering the destruction of the raft by collision with kindred rafts below, or annihilation on the rocks. They consist of a small miniature plan of a series of canals and weirs, so managed that the water never runs at so steep a gradient as to make it break and foam, but passes smoothly over a succession of inclined planes at an angle of forty-five degrees or less. At the bottom of each separate e{ shute” is a wooden platform or “ apron,” upon which the rafters are precipitated, and so preserved from diving down under the surface by the impetus of their fall. To MONTREAL TO TORONTO. 43 understand how the thing works, you must know that a “raft” consists of thirty or forty separate “ cribs,” that is, subdivisions or small rafts, each crib complete in itself, and all bound together by cords and withes. In coming down the rapids, or running the slides, the raft is broken up into cribs, and so reduced to a more manageable size ; and at the bottom of the slide, when the descent of all is completed, the cribs are again attached, and follow the current in one continuous raft till more slides or rapids are reached, when the process is repeated. They say that there is considerable danger in shooting these slides, but it is much exaggerated. Anyhow, I have done it once, and am safe. I do not care to try it again ; but I wanted to be able to say that I had done it, though, as Sidney Smith said, it would have been just as easy to say that, without ever doing it at all. My fellow-traveller and myself were, however, above any such imposture, so we walked to the head of the slide, got leave to go down with the two steerers upon one, and, stepping on board, found ourselves instantly in the current. It was a curious sensation certainly, not over agreeable, but very ex- citing. In a few seconds we were upon the first in- clined plane, and down we shot at a terrible pace, till, in less time than I can tell it in, we lodged upon the first “ apron” with a bump and a crash that sent the timbers jumping beneath our feet, and deluged the fore part of the crib with spray and foam. Then on again, 44 MONTREAL TO TORONTO. before we had bare time to recover our balance, down the next incline, with another bump upon the next apron, and so on down two more, when we thought our troubles were at an end ; but no, the crib in front of us had lost a spar in its downward passage, which had struck right athwart the current. There was no time to skedaddle, no chance of making a “ strategic movement” ; we hardly saw the obstacle in our way, when the end of our crib came upon it, and with a leap into the air, and a terrific splash on the descent into the water, we cleared the spar, and found ourselves in quiet water. I am glad that I saw this little incident, for it gave me a good idea of the dangers with which the poor raftsmen have to contend. It is a hard life — harder than you or I, perhaps, could have imagined it possible for human beings to endure. Five hundred miles down the stream, through rapids and slides, had the brave voyageurs who manned our crib brought the timber island which was now their only home. Fourteen months' absence from civilised life amongst the bears and wolves of the backwoods had been necessary to fell, carry, and put together the hundreds of trees of which the whole raft was composed, and two months more would elapse before they would be safely moored at Quebec, beyond the dangers of the rapids and the slides. A little hut, no larger than a dog-kennel, with just a hole in front by which to creep in on hands and knees, was the only MONTREAL TO TORONTO. 45 covering from the rain and the storm ; a plank awn- ing) on upright poles, formed their only apology for a kitchen, and three or four tin pots and an iron caul- dron composed the kitchen utensils, dinner-service, and plate. But for all this indication of needy circum- stances, there was an amount of pride amongst the twenty or thirty occupants of the raft which, to a stranger to the country, must be astonishing. Not one of them would have received a sixpence for his trouble in taking us down the slide ; each and all would have treated the offer as an insult. And so it is throughout Canada; so it is, I hear, in the States. No tipping waiters, no feeing porters; their spirit of independence forbids them to take any remuneration from any one but their master. They hold themselves in every bit as good a position as the visitor on whom they wait ; he looks upon them as of equal station with himself. No grades, no classes, no rank. We in England are totally unable to realise this great level- ling principle ; but it crops up in Canada as it does in the States, at every turn you take. You will meet it in the railway officials, who will quietly tell you to carry your bag yourself; you will find it in the cham- bermaid, who will answer the bell or not, just as she pleases, and if you politely suggest that you rang, will coolly reply that she is “ quite aware of it ;” you will notice it everywhere in being addressed as “ Mister” — none but niggers will call you “ Sir” — and find that 46 MONTBEAL TO TORONTO. no request made of you is ever preceded by “ if you please/’ no act of civility on your part followed by “thank you.” Uniforms, liveries, and such-like fri- volities of a bloated aristocracy, are alike discarded. The railway guard is dressed as yourself, the porters better; the captain and sailors of the steam-boats as town merchants and mechanics ; the coachmen and grooms as private gentlemen. But with all this inde- pendence — this over-laboured acting out of the liberte, egalite , fraternite system — there are, as I see already, many redeeming points about it. There may be little courtesy in the manners of the people, but there is plenty of generosity ; no French politesse, but a ready hand ; no good breeding, but a willing heart. Society is in a rough, rude state out here, but there is some- thing about it which I like, for all that ; nothing like pride, nothing artificial, as amongst our upper classes at home, no gulf separating rich from poor; but I will not say more in this strain, or yoti will be looking on me as a Democrat, and I do not consider that I am so far gone as that at present. The last few pages I have been writing at Toronto, where I arrived on the morning of the 25th ; and here I am now, staying with my cousin and his wife at their cottage in Yorkville, a suburb of Toronto, about two miles from the central part of the city. I left Ottawa on the morning of the 23rd by the ” cars” you never go by train on this continent — to Prescott, on the MONTREAL TO TORONTO. 47 St. Lawrence about 120 miles above Montreal, where I took the steam- boat, for the purpose of running the rapids between Prescott and Montreal. The fall in the river between the two places is very great, so much so as to create a succession of rapids at various inter- vals, up which it is, of course, impossible for any boats to pass ; but they venture to shoot them down the stream, performing the up journey through a long series of locks and canals. Having heard that it was a very exciting trip down the river, and a sight which I should regret to have missed, I determined to make the journey, though at the cost of retracing my steps towards the east ; but I am satisfied that the trip well repaid me. The scenery of the river here is not very striking, for the country is flat and uninteresting, so that I was glad to arrive at the first of the four Rapids which lay between us and Montreal. These were the Galop Rapids, the easiest of the four to run ; in fact, there was little or no perceptible effect on the motion of the vessel, with the exception of an acceleration of an al- ready high speed. But they only acted as a sort of en- tree to the more piquant “ sensation scenes” which met us further down. The Long Sault Rapids knocked us about much more, the current was fiercer, the interest of the surrounding country greater. There we went for two or more miles through the wild and roaring waters, while they dashed themselves in fury against 48 MONTREAL TO TORONTO. the vessel, hissing and seething around as if panting to devour her. It was a grand sight to see how the flood heaves and bounds over the polished rocks, that vainly try to stem its course, and to ride over the lofty waves in which it rises in its wrath. It makes one’s heart leap to think that one single slip on the pilot’s part would hurl the ship to her grave ; but the Indian to whose steady skill we trust, has been trained from boyhood to the work, and the four strong helms- men at the wheel stand ready to obey the slightest signal. The steam is shut off, and the vessel dashes in amongst the rocks that glare through the water in terrible proximity, and down the narrow channel we are hurried with fearful rapidity on the crest of the rough, unruly w r aves, sometimes running straight upon a rock, as it would seem, but, by a well-timed turn of the wheel, shooting aside and past the danger in safety; sometimes bumping and rolling on the breakers as they buffet and beat upon our bows; and then on again down another incline, where the current glides un- broken through the shoals, till we are once more in the calm of the broad stream. The Cedar and La- chine rapids, equally exciting, and, perhaps, more dangerous, were safely passed in gallant stvle, and before dusk we were steaming under the giant arches of the tubular bridge up to the quay of Montreal. Aniving there, I left again that night for Prescott by the Grand Trunk railroad. Slept at Prescott (a MONTREAL TO TORONTO, 49 miserable place), and on the 24th took the steamer to Toronto. By noon our good ship was steaming into the mazes of the Thousand Islands and their far-famed lake — a labyrinth of loveliness which no water scenery that I know equals. It smacks rather of an Irish “ bull ” to say it, but there are some eighteen hundred of these islands scattered about in careless irregularity in the current of the river ; some small, so small that they seem only a few yards in circumference ; others, again, some miles in circuit, all rich in verdure and fringed with trees down to the very margin of the lake. Ever and anon we hurry through a narrow channel between two islet3, that almost jam us in their grasp, apparently rushing into a cul-de-sac from which no exit is visible ; but as we near the seemingly im- penetrable barrier of rock, an opening discloses itself through which we turn only to find ourselves similarly land-locked again. And so it is for nearly fifty miles, the same land-locking, the same mode of egress, while we sail along in the midst of a continuation of rock and tree, browns and greens of every hue, such as I think the Scotch Highlands cannot surpass in depth and variety. After leaving Kingston we were soon out of sight of land — a novel idea in the case of fresh-water, — and we had a roughish night, too, upon the lake; but the morning was bright and clear, and by eight o’clock we were at the wharf of Toronto. 4 50 MONTREAL TO TORONTO. Toronto is a very pleasant town. I am not sure that I do not prefer it to Montreal. The streets are 'wide, the houses good, and the suburbs and parks /beautiful. Then there are some fine buildings to be seen : the English and French Cathedrals ; the Uni- versity, in the style of the new Parliament Houses of Ottawa; and the famous Osgoode Hall, which has been talked of as a model for our new law-courts in Lincoln’s Inn, and which may well be followed, for I do not see how it is possible to have any handsomer, better arranged building. I certainly was most sur- prised to find a young colony like this in the possession of such an institution. The courts are perfect ; large, lofty, and well ventilated ; fitted with comfortable seats for the bar, convenient means of access to them, and luxurious cushions for the Q.Cs., which are, I should fear, pre-eminently conducive to sleep. But, for all that, I do not see why it is necessary to keep the English Bar awake by putting them on seats upon which it is almost impossible to be decently comfortable. There is a handsome library, too, which is at present chiefly shelves, but I suppose the books will arrive in time ; if not, they can easily send to Chancery Lane for a few boxes of those old editions of legal text- books, which are said to be seen now and then packing for the colonies. The Judges and the Bar are very much what they are at home, except that they go bare- headed and eschew wigs ; a practice that entails an MONTREAL TO TORONTO. 51 amount of hair-brushing to which the hard-worked professional adviser cannot be expected to sacrifice his client's interest. A wig covers a multitude of short- comings. I have done little since I have been in Toronto but walk about the town, .ride in the street-cars, eat, drink, and enjoy myself ; and to-morrow I am off with my cousin on a tour to the West and the Mississippi. This is a grand time for travelling in the States, for the railway fare is at ordinary times exceedingly low, and, being fixed by statute, has not been affected by the present exceptional rise in prices. Consequently, to those who have the luck to bear in their pockets English gold or its equivalent, the expense of a jour- ney is a mere song. Gold, when I landed, stood at the extraordinary height of 260. A timely whisper hinted to me a coming fall, so with more curiosity than confidence in the solvency of the United States, I invested largely in greenbacks. Ten minutes after my purchase the next telegram sent it down 10 per cent. I begin to feel stealing over me the contagious influence of the gambling fever, with which the whole continent is infected, from Wall Street even to Toronto. Fancy my excitement if the next telegram sends it down another ten points, and then another, and another ten ! And how if it rushes up ? I dare not think of the alternative, nor have I time, for I am off at once to Niagara, where a treat is in store for me on which I have long been reckoning. III. NIAGARA TO BUFFALO. Chicago, September 4th, 1864. I am now fairly amongst the Americans, imbibiug all I can of the manners and customs of “ the Great West,” and attempting to get an insight into the character of the people ; but they are at present a tremendous puz- zle to me, unlike any nation whose representatives I have ever met with ; as little like plain, honest, steady- going Englishmen, as I believe it possible for a people professing to speak the English language to be. In fact I find that before I came out here I knew as little about them as I do of the inhabitants of the unex- plored wilds of Central Africa, indeed, I might almost say less, for I dare say it would not be difficult to guess with tolerable precision at the probable characteristics of those savage races ; but I do not believe the clair- voyance of Dr. Cumming himself could have prophe- sied to me the strange features of this unique country and its people. But of this more anon. My last letter, I think, brought me up to Toronto, where I NIAGARA TO BUFFALO. 53 spent four pleasant days with my cousin and his wife, in their comfortable cottage, and told you what I had seen in their pretty little city ; so that I will now conduct you across the lake of Ontario to the worlds wonder — Niagara. We started for the Falls by steamer on the morning of Tuesday, August the 30th, landing on the American side by the mouth of the Niagara River, and proceeding by rail to the largest of the several hotels on that side, (C The Cataract.” The journey was only a short one, noticeable for nothing beyond the curious feature presented by the confluence of the Niagara River and the broad waters of the Lake; where, as with the Rhone and the Arve at Geneva, the Ottawa and the St. Lawrence at Montreal, the Gulf Stream and the Atlantic Ocean, there seems to be such a want of chemical affinity between the two currents that their waters will not intermingle ; for miles you could trace the line of contact, so distinctly marked that you might fancy some hidden breakwater kept the two apart. Our steamer took us about eight miles up the Niagara River, a very pretty sail through lofty wooded cliffs, and thence “ the cars” whisked us along the top of the American shore, skirting the edge of the precipice at such a giddy height as made me shudder to look down and seethe angry rapids foaming and fretting beneath us. Half an hour, and we were in sight of the cloud of mist that day and night rises 54 NIAGARA TO BUFFALO. from the Falls, high above the forest and the town ; and another half-hour, and, after a very distant peep at the Falls themselves, we were landing from the cars within a few yards of the great Cataract Hotel. The house stands close upon the edge of the upper rapids of the river, just where they race and hustle through the rocks, as they prepare themselves for their final leap into the abyss beyond. There is no view from the windows of the actual Falls, but the scenery around is beautiful. The rooms open out upon the rapids, the drawing-room, a splendid apartment, with a balcony running round it, from which we took our first view of the magnificent scene ; our second look at the same grand picture being obtained from a wooden pier thrown out upon some boulder-stones that have lodged in the midst of the current. Opposite to the Hotel lies Goat Island, concealing from the eye the Canadian Falls, but adding to the beauty of the rapids by its own exquisite loveliness of foliage. It is this island that divides the waters of the river into two currents that are precipitated over the Canadian and American Falls. The Canadian or Horse-shoe Fall, is far the grander of the two. The American, of less volume, is at right angles with the former, some little distance lower down the river, for the Canadian Fall, the more powerful, has eaten away the upper bed of the stream faster than her sister Fall, and so retreated, as it were, several hundred yards higher up the gorge. NIAGARA TO BUFFALO. 55 Passing by a suspension bridge which connects Goat Island with the mainland, we walked to the lowest corner of the islet, and stood at' once upon the brink of the precipice down which thunders the American Fall, No scene that I have ever witnessed over- whelmed me with such uncontrollable wonder as that which I looked upon, when I first stood on the margin of the plunge of the mighty cataract. The height, the power, and volume of the Falls exceeded my utmost expectations. I had been told that I should be dis- appointed ; but if there be any who have been, I can- not conceive what their imagination could have antici- pated. I own I expected more noise, but the state of the atmosphere affects that, and the roar of the Falls, like that of Bottom and Earl Russell, will at one time be as paltry and insignificant as at another it will be grand and terrifying. I should like to have the power to give you some idea of the sublimity of the scene, but it is utterly useless to attempt a description of what is wholly indescribable. The tortuous surgings of the rapids, the sudden calmness at the brow of the cataract, the majestic sea-green curve in which the liquid mass glides over the edge of the precipice, the silvery ring- lets into which it is broken up soon after leaving the brink of the rock, the feathery mist in which it showers down into the eloud of spray that ever veils the last fifty feet of the Fall, and the infernal writhe and whiteness in which it reappears in the depths of the 56 NIAGARA TO BUFFALO. abyss, — all these wondrous features of the Queen of Cataracts must be seen, watched, sat beside for hours and days, before the mind can grasp the magnificence of the scene. But we were as yet only in sight of the American Fall. A walk along the further side of Goat Island brought us in view of the Canadian Fall, and then I found that I had been expending my fullest admira- tion and astonishment upon a mere thread of Niagara, the thousandth part of its volume and grandeur, for there was before me again the same glorious scene that I have so briefly sketched ; only it was a thousand tigies intensified. We ascended, and took a view from every one of the numerous points from which tourists are expected to survey the Falls, and paid all those preposterous sums which tourists are invariably doomed to give — for Niagara has its excursionists by thousands, and its “ look-outs,” “ summer-houses,” “ retreats,” “ stair- cases,” “ perilous seats,” and such-like attractions for an excursion party; but it is less cockneyfied, for all that, than many a place that I have visited — less so than Chamouni and the Rigi, and such favorite resorts that do not draw half so many visitors as the Falls. Having done our duty as pure excursionists, and been bled accordingly, we took a carriage and drove off to the Canadian side of the river, crossing by the famous suspension bridge which connects the British and American territories. It is an extraordinary triumph NIAGARA TO BUFFALO. 57 of engineering skill to have thrown across the yawning gulf such a mass of weighty metal as here spans the torrent. How it ever got there, is to my mind a dark inexplicable mystery, the solution of which I am not mathematician or engineer enough to see ; but there it is, to testify, in conjunction with the tubular bridge of Montreal and the canals of the St. Lawrence, to the ingenuity and enterprise of the people of Canada. The bridge is two miles below the falls, so that the view thence is too distant to be effective ; but the drive up to them along the Canadian cliff, past “ The Clifton House,” the great Canadian hotel, is, I think, the most beautiful road I have ever seen. It is from this side that you get, in one grand comprehensive landscape, the whole length of the American and Canadian Falls, with the steep precipices of Goat Island between them, and the cliffs of the American bank further down the gorge, and above them the roofs, and spires, and gables of the town peering out from amid the forest that forms the background of the picture. Table Rock is a lofty shelving promontory of limestone jutting out from the Canadian shore close upon the brink of the plunge of the great Horse-shoe Fall ; and there we sat, as all tourists do, and gazed in rapture at the marvels of nature unfolded around, above, beneath us. I cannot tell you what we saw ; you could not depicture it to yourself if I could. I will only say that that one view from Table Rock would 58 NIAGARA TO BUFFALO. repay any one a journey from the farthest corner of the world. All the landscapes I have ever seen — all the snow- pictures of the Alps — all the coast- scenery of the Mediterranean — all the lochs and moors of the Scotch Highlands — sink into insignificance when com- pared with the incomparable grandeur of Niagara. It is not the Falls themselves alone that create the mag- nificence of the scene ; but the beauty of the landscape, of which they are the centre, adds a hundredfold to their intrinsic splendour. The setting is worthy of the gem. But it is useless to tell you how I sat and wondered at the majesty of the view from Table Bock ; you must go and stand there yourself, and then you will be amazed, as I was, at the all-absorbing interest of the scene, and ponder, as I did, upon the marvellous force and volume of the waters that every second plunge down the heights before you, and wonder whence comes the inexhaustible supply, and whither it goes, and how many a long roll of countless summers has looked on the same unvaried scene ; and then you will wish, perhaps, to put down on paper some little me- mento of what you saw and felt, and find, I dare say, as I do, that the attempt is futile. But a distant view of the Falls gives but a faint idea of their solemn grandeur. To comprehend them in their awe-inspiring sublimity, you must descend to the base of the cliff, and walk in amongst the spray, and under the curve of their flight down the precipice, and NIAGARA TO BUFFALO. 59 see the terrific power of their waters and the impotence of man beside them ; in fact, you must do as I did, make the expedition to the “ Cave of the Winds,” and then you will have impressed upon your mind, perhaps too forcibly, the detail of the more awful properties of Niagara, which a close acquaintance can alone reveal to you. The “ Cave” lies underneath the American Fall ; the trip is decidedly a perilous one, but it is “ the thing,” and so, to be fashionable, I did it. The party of ad- venturers consisted of eight, with a guide, a French Canadian. At a house by the foot of the Fall,, we were provided with a dress, or at least an apology for a costume, the very queerest, oddest-looking, scantiest set of garments in which I have ever appeared in public. The suit consisted of a remarkably thin threadbare flannel shirt, a much thinner and much more thread- bare pair of flannel drawers, a pair of flannel socks or slippers, and a cord round the waist ; the whole sur- mounted by an oilskin skull-cap. I never felt more like the maniac who persisted in confining his street toilette to “hatband and straps,” or realised more painfully the confusing effect of the penetrating glances of half a dozen young ladies, than on the occasion when our little party in Indian file threaded the gauntlet of the inquisitive ones who had drawn up to see us enter the cave. But a bold face and buoyant spirits were necessary for the work that lay before us. 60 NIAGARA TO BUFFALO. After a few words of counsel from the guide about not being frightened, but keeping straight ahead, and energetic assurances that we should not be drowned — though we should be sure to fancy that would be the result, for every one, he said, thought so at first — we descended some steps that led right down into the spray of the Fall, and at the bottom came upon a path or narrow ledge that wound along the cliff inside the arch- way of the Fall. From the moment that we left the stairs, we got into a fine pelting rain that gradually increased in weight and volume, till it bore down upon our skull- caps like hail upon a skylight. But the cave lay on the further side of the sheet of water, through which we had to get as best we could. How that was, 1 cannot tell you. The guide led the way into the steam and turmoil, bending himself nearly double to keep the beating spray from his nostrils, and clinging on to the slimy rock, for the foothold was slippery and difficult. I believe I did the same, but I cannot say. The guide was immediately lost to our view; and all that I could hear, amid the thunder of the cataract beside us, was an injunction to push on when it came to the worst, for the illogical reason that it was shorter to get beyond the sheet of water than to turn back. I cannot de- scribe to you what a terrifying scene it was — how the waters roared around us — how the stifling spray beat upon our faces, so as to drive all the breath out of our NIAGARA TO BUFFALO. 61 bodies — how the wind, caused by the falling mass of water, blew about iu a thousand blinding gusts (as if old iEolus had untied every single sack, and let out the whole of his seminary for a general holiday), dashing the rain into our faces and chests, or driving it against our backs and legs, or both ways at once with equal fury — or what I did, or what I saw. I do not know where, or why, or how I went. I only know that I went down into this watery hell, and came up again uninjured, but very much out of breath and awfully frightened, half blinded, more than half deafened, and three-quarters drowned. The rest was comparatively simple — merely a scramble through the mist over slimy polished rocks, a swim across a little pool, and a climb to a chair fixed on a rugged crag, when I found myself out in front of the Fall, with a splendid view of it looking upwards before me, and, the greatest novelty of all, a circular rainbow all around me, at times too even doubled. Five minutes’ rest upon the crag, and we retraced our steps — for there was no other way back again to terra firma — and then in again amongst the rain and the din of waters, more panting for breath, more struggling with the wanton gusts, more bewildering of the eye and ear, more clinging for bare life to the slimy rock, and climbing up the slippery staircase ; and so we reached the more hos- pitable regions of the open air, and again ran the gauntlet of the curious eyes that awaited our return to 62 NIAGARA TO BUFFALO. daylight — less nervous, perhaps, about their gaze, after what we had faced below, but very much more degages and disreputable. I do not know that I should care to make the expedition again, though I met one rather stout Canadian, who told me he went down regularly twice a week, under the idea that it would reduce his fat; but I am not by nature amphibious, and I consider the feat well worthy of the certificate with which the guide presents the visitors before they leave, testifying to the fact that they have “ passed through the Cave of the Winds.” The Cataract Hotel was filled with guests — all the Hotels always are — and there was an amount of style about them which was very different from anything I had seen in Canada. Dinner was served with profuse liberality — dinner toilettes as profuse in their extrava- gance, colour everywhere, gaiety ditto ; a whirl of excitement, dress, flirtation, and fun; and all for £4 a day, which at the rate at which I sold my gold, was equal to 6s. 9 d. sterling, including music in the evening by a first-rate band, and such a Charlotte Russe as I never tasted elsewhere, and ice-creams, and lots of back hair, and no crinoline, and such blue eyes, and endless other luxuries, that made me very loth to leave the Falls, as we at length did, en route for the Great West. Our first station was Buffalo. An hour’s ride in the cars brought us to the depot or terminus, here pronounced “ deapo,” and five minutes more to the NIAGARA TO BUFFALO. 63 American House, the chief hotel of that city. Buffalo is a handsome city of 100,000 inhabitants, just at the lower end of Lake Erie. The main street is one of the finest streets I know — a broad, well-paved avenue stretching from the quays on the lake shore for a dis- tance of three miles back into the country ; the lower end composed of enormous warehouses, stores, shops, and hotels — the upper portion of splendid private resi- dences. We could not help noticing how different from Canada was the aspect of everything we saw in this the first great American city which lay in our road ; how busy were the wharves and the streets leading to them, how fine were all the buildings, how tasty and elegant the “ boulevards ” running into the main street from the various suburbs of the city ; how wealthy and prosperous everything looked and every- body ; how “ go-ahead ” was legibly written on all that met our eyes, and echoed in every word that struck our ears. There is a peculiar characteristic about these new American cities which is unlike any- think I have ever seen upon our side of the Atlantic. The people themselves express this trait by the word “fast/’ an epithet in which they take the greatest delight, for they are everlastingly assuring you that this much- prized feature is to be found in their national character to an extent unknown in the Old World. “We are a very fast people, yess sirrrr eeeeee.” And true enough there is a rapidity of development in their 64 NIAGARA TO BUFFALO. national and individual life, in their ideas and institu- tions, which in great measure justifies their vainglory ; the egg is prematurely hatched, the foetus artificially developed, and yet the pace does not kill. The wheels run easily, the machinery is well oiled ; there is less hitch or clog about it than in Canada. In Buffalo, and in Cleveland, which I passed through yesterday, and still more in Chicago, where I now am, there is a smartness, a brilliancy, a dash about everything, the like of which I did not see in the Canadian cities, still less have I seen it in steady-going old England. I do not know how to explain to you what I mean — I hardly know how to realize to myself what it is that makes this people differ so from any other with whom I have come in contact ; but there certainly is amongst these Western men a marked element of dis- similarity from all European races, a peculiarity of character which I have never seen sufficiently brought out in the writings of any newspaper correspondent or author. In fact, the more I see of the Americans, the more plainly I see how great and lamentable an ignorance of each other the people of two continents may live in, in spite of all the modern facilities of com- munication, when they have 3,000 miles’ breadth of water interposed between them, and no direct reason for improving their acquaintance. Soon after our arrival the intelligence reached the town that General M'Clellan had been nominated at NIAGARA TO BUFFALO. 65 the Chicago Convention. I was disappointed at having missed the opportunity of seeing and hearing the orators of the day, but I could not manage otherwise ; so I had to content myself with hearing the matter discussed in Buffalo, where the news of the General’s nomination was enthusiastically received. Bonfires were lit, and guns fired, and flags waved, and windows broken, till a very late hour of the night; for “ little Mac,” as he is familiarly called by his friends, is high in favour just now at Buffalo ; not that he is con- sidered the best representative of his party, but the Democratic “ platform,” which he is intended to typify, is the popular one in the great trading cities of the West, where, as far as I can see, the Republican “ ticket ” will curry no favour. To those who are accustomed to look upon Conservatism as the religion of the rural districts, and Liberalism as the faith of the towns, it must seem strange to find the order of things exactly reversed on this continent ; for the country farmers are here the Radicals, and the Conservative element is affected in the populous cities. This is, of course, a very interesting time to travel here, with the approaching election so near at hand, but it is extremely difficult to get with anything like certainty at the probable result of the coming contest. Both parties are now equally confident of success, and I have, as yet, little means of judging which is the stronger. Besides, people are very cautious about 5 6G NIAGARA TO BUFFALO. what they say on the subject of polities ; they will venture readily enough upon general remarks, but be- yond these they are unwilling to trust themselves. Indeed, I have only met with one man who opened his heart to me, and gave me what I suppose to have been his real ideas ; but he may have been a spy only sounding me. Still there is plenty of talk and squab- ble amongst themselves, for party feeling, running at all times far higher than it does with our less excitable politicians, is naturally swollen by the flood of. war; and Democrats and Republicans have a gulf between them which no coalition could bridge over. Two of my fellow-voyagers from England joined mv cousin and myself at Buffalo, and the following evening our party of four left by one of the Lake Erie steamers for Cleveland, on the Southern shore, intending to take the cars thence to Chicago, a dis- tance in all of 530 miles. But that is a mere nothin? <5 to the erratic people of this continent — a distance which I believe they would travel, if they could, every day of the year. For travelling is cheap, and, thougli not rapid (in the West), extremely comfortable. In the first place the water-communication is on such a scale as no other quarter of the world can equal, and the steamers that make use of it are m every wav excellent. Then the open cars are well adapted for a land wheie all stand upon the same level, and thou°h the track is not well laid, slow travelling obviates NIAGARA TO BUFFALO. 67 jolting ; and, in a country like this, where food is cheap and labour dear, and time proportionately of little value, speed is an object of less moment than in England, where every minute has its specific value in gold, and necessity drives men to a deadly struggle with time in which they strive to crowd sixty such minutes into every second. But here life is not such a burden ; money is made with half the labour, and goes more than twice as far ; food is cheap, land the same, house-rent not yet high, labour extremely scarce, and wages good enough, I should have thought, to populate the country ten times as fast as the present immigration does. A dollar a day (gold) and board besides is the princely salary of the commonest labourer : my wonder is that one single Irishman remains at home. Mechanics, clerks, cashiers, are paid almost fabulous wages : I cannot imagine how such high prices can be afforded by the masters, but there is little or no saving of money ; it comes with marvellous ease and rapidity, and goes as rapidly again. There is no slaving to lay by for the future; none of the bee’s instinctive providence for the frosts, none of the beaver’s care for her young. Why should there be ? A man gives his children a decent education, and con- siders that his duty is done. What reason has he for doing more ? He has risen from the lowest ranks himself, his son can make his way as well; if not, he may go to his Satanic majesty’s dominions. And so 68 NIAGARA TO BUFFALO. he does in three cases out of five. Aristocracy is a thing so odious in the eyes of the people, old family pride and what they call “ English feudalism ” are so nauseous in this land of freedom, that a man who starts without a penny in the world has a better chance often of success than the millionaire’s son with his pockets full. Then life is short, good old age, so common at home, is here very rarely met with, so saving of money for selfish reasons is a thing worse than useless : a butterfly’s life, a short and a merry one, is to be said, I suppose, of no people with such truth as of the Americans. Well then, if money is made so fast, and is so little worth keeping, it must be spent, and how can it be done more agreeably to the restless character of the makers of it, than by travelling ? Locomotion is made very easy ; the arrangements are perfect ; every- body plays into everybody’s hands ; the hotels, the trains, the boats, and the omnibuses all. work together most harmoniously. If the train by which you are to travel stops anywhere to enable the passengers to dine, you will not get dinner at the hotel ; if the boat gives a breakfast, you must take it on board, or go without; if the train gets in by supper time, you are expected to look for nothing to eat at the refreshment rooms, but wait till you reach your hotel. Then the steam- boats all “ connect ” with the trains, and the trains with the steamboats, and the omnibuses with both. NIAGARA TO BUFFALO. 69 Where the cars run in connection with the boats, the line is carried right down to the side of the wharf ■ where no water communication exists, the railway runs down the principal street, and the depot is in the cen- tre of the town ; for an American does not look upon a railroad as a nuisance to be kept out of sight down amongst the back slums of a city, but treats it as what it really is, the greatest comfort and convenience of the present century. Add to all this the low rate of the fares, fixed in most cases by Act of Congress, and thereby prevented from participating in the general rise of prices. For me, with the advantage of the favorable exchange, the fares are ridiculous. It cost me barely more than a guinea to travel from Buffalo to Chicago, 530 miles, and this included a bed, supper and breakfast, on board the steamboat to Cleveland. It is a marvel to me that John Bull and all the nations of Europe, whose gold is abundant, do not come out and travel here. The fare I have men- tioned is not unusually low ; indeed I have seen adver- tisements of some fares that would sound to your ears much more absurd ; and yet you must remember that excursion trains are here unknown; these are the ordinary fares, which remain unaltered all the year round. Having, then, every inducement to travel, the Ameri- cans turn out in extraordinary numbers; every one does his or her proper number of miles in thousands 70 NIAGARA TO BUFFALO. every year. Country seats are unknown, and some change being necessary to keep thjem alive, the people rush to and fro in a restless way that would surprise you, were you to see it. One old gentleman told me that he took his family to the seaside, 1800 miles, every year, and 1800 back, with less trouble and con- cern, I dare say, than a Londoner would make about going down to Ipswich. A youth of fifteen thinks himself ill-used, if he has not seen all the great cities of his country and the interior of every State ; a girl of thirteen considers her education neglected if her parents have not allowed her to see more. But it is not only in summer that the traffic is so enormous; it is all the year round just the same. People in the East are sure to have friends and relations in the West, who have come to grief and migrated thither, and the truants must be visited every year. Adven- turers and prodigals from the West must be welcomed as often in their deserted homes. So the nation is in a chronic state of "fidgets.” Men and women of every age, babies in arms, and men who are called old, females almost as numerous as the males, crowd the cars, stuff the steamboats, overwhelm the omnibuses, and storm the hotels. This fearful overcrowding of all the conveyances is the only nuisance which I have hitherto experienced in travelling, and in the cars it has sometimes amounted to something more than a personal inconvenience. XIAG AKA TO BUF’FAI.O. 71 lou have heard, of coarse, of the extravagant respect paid by the people of the West to what I cannot con- scientiously call here the softer sex — their frames are much too angular and uninviting. Now, I do not be- lieve in all this exaggerated deference to the weaker sex. If I have paid my fare for a seat in the cars, I do not see why I should give it up to any ill-clad woman who enters after me. If I have taken the trouble to secure a berth in the steamboat, I do not know on what principle of equity I am called upon to give it up to the ugliest woman who may ask for it. In the street cars the evil is far worse. No matter how full of hard-worked men the car may be, any fish- woman with her basket on her arm will hail it, know- ing that some gentleman must rise for her. It is an unnatural, untrue, mock respect, productive of ill con- sequences in the female mind, and, besides, totally superficial ; for with all this unhealthy outward show of deference, there is not half that quiet easy courtesy and simple unaffected homage which are the acknow- ledged tribute to the fair sex amongst the educated classes of England. I am getting behind -hand, I am afraid, in my account of what I have seen and done, for I have been two days in Chicago, and have not yet carried you more than half way here. But the novelty of every- thing and everybody gives me so much to say, that I 72 NIAGARA TO BUFFALO. must plead this as my excuse for taking you over the ground at first so slowly. You will overtake me, 1 have no doubt, when my supply of first impressions is all let off. IV. CLEVELAND TO CHICAGO. St. Paul’s, September lOtb. I have a good deal of work before me, so I must return at once to my story, and tell you that, after a good night’s rest on board the steamboat, we found ourselves in the morning off Cleveland harbour and, landing, proceeded to look at the city. It is a very pretty place, much like Buffalo, though of smaller dimensions ; but more tastefully laid out, especially in the suburbs, where the merchants’ houses are really beautiful. Certainly these Americans have wonderful taste. I thought that they were such utilitarians that architecture, decoration, and ornament would have been in their eyes foolishness and insanity. But I never was more mistaken. Utilitarians as they are, above every other nation of the earth, they are naturally great lovers of ornament, and in their pri- vate residences they display an amount of taste and 74 CLEVELAND TO CHICAGO. knowledge of “ the beautiful,” which the Italian villas can hardly exceed. With the Americans, as with the people of Italy, there seems to be a peculiar apprecia- tion of decorative art. Like the Italian, the American seems to demand art, not as a luxury, but as a neces- sity. If he cannot have it in good material he will have it in bad ; but in some shape or other he will gratify his eye, without which his vision would be blindness. If his means be ample, he will have his house of stone or marble ; if he cannot have it in stone, he will have it in stucco or painted iron ; if he cannot afford that, he will cover his house with creep- ers, or plant beside it some elegant tree ; but satisfy his craving he certainly will. Trees are a great feature in every town and city. The first thing which an Ameri- can does, in laying out a new street, is to plant on either side some ornamental timber ; so that every city becomes a map of Parisian “ boulevards, 3 ’ which add warmth and colour to the buildings, and in the sum- mer heats are incalculably useful. There is no particular object of interest in Cleve- land, as indeed there can hardly be in any city in so new a country as this ; there is of course an excellent hotel of unwieldy size and tremendous business, and if it does not always live in my memory for the almost inconceivable nastiness of its marble floors, notwith- standing the gigantic proportions of its spittoons, it certainly will for a dinner which I there had for the CLEVELAND TO CHICAGO. 75 sum of Is. 8irf. sterling, such as I could not have had in London or Paris for twenty times that sum. I have diligently preserved the bill of fare for your special edification. I •wish some of our English Hotel- Jews could see it and note the charge. (See next page.) Dinner over, we proceeded to the station, and en- gaged berths in the sleeping car for Chicago. This was my first introduction to this great institution of the model Republic, and for the life of me I cannot see why our night journeys in England should not be per- formed in some such comfortable way. You know, I dare say, what these cars are like, for you will recollect that there was one to be seen at the last exhibition, of 1862. I know no reason why a similar system should not be adopted at home ; though I do not suppose our English ladies would take to them very readily ; at any rate I am sure they would never turn in, as they do here, in the same car with the men, quite promiscuously. But a woman can do, and does, here, many things that she could never do in England ; one of which, that speaks more for the American people than any other fact I know, is, that she can travel unattended from one end of the Union to the other in absolute security from insult or interference of officious gallan- try. The sleeping car, being a novelty, was very amusing, and our novitiate equally amusing to the old travellers, who were continually bothering us with questions about our system, and Mr. Briggs’s murder. DINNER. CLEVELAND , O., SEPT. 2, 1864 SOUP. Tomato with Rice. FISH. Trout, Baked, Claret Sauce. BOILED. ROAST. Leg of Mutton, Caper sauce. Smoked Bacon with Greens. Corned Beef with Turnips. Smoked Beef Tongue, with Spinach. Beef, a la mode. Ham with Cabbage. Ribs of Beef, with Horseradish. Lamb, Mint sauce. Ham, Champagne sauce. Pork, Apple sauce. Loin of Veal. Saddle of Mutton with Jelly. ENTREES. Lamb Chops, Saute a la Jardinaire. Calf’s Brains, au Grattin, Sauce Alemaud. Veal Chops, breaded, h la Italian. Kidneys, saute, Champagne sauce. Friccasee of Young Chickens. Maccaroni baked with Cheese. Pancakes, with Jelly, h la Celestine. Fillets of Trout, Tomato sauce. Breast of Lamb, stuffed, au fine Herbs. Chicken Giblets, stewed. Wine sauce. COLD DISHES. Spiced Beef, h la mode. Beef Tongue. Leg of Mutton. Pressed Com Beef. Loin of Veal. Round of Beef. Boiled Potatoes. Mashed Potatoes. Baked Potatoes. Hominy. Green Corn. VEGETABLES. Egg Plant. Turnips. Beets. Onions. Sucotash. Squashes. Cabbage. Snap Beans. Rice and Milk. Tomatoes. Cold Slaw. Cucumbers. Mixed Pickles. RELISHES. Lettuce. French Mustard. Worcester Sauce. PASTRY AND DESSERT. Horse Uadish. Old Cheese. Pepper Sauce. Rice Pudding. Apple Pie. Custard Pie. Peach Puffs. Jelly Tartlets. Sponge Cake. Fruit Cake. Ice Cream. FRUIT. Melons. Raisins. Apples. Pears. Nuts. Peaches. FRENCH COFFEE. CLEVELAND TO CHICAGO. 77 Indeed I have hardly met an American who has not at one time or another, in the course of conversation, inquired of me whether such an assault is not of fre- quent occurrence. The papers have made more fuss about it than our English journals ever did. They look upon the system as an evidence of the tyrannical oppression to which a people will submit in the hands of a bloated aristocracy, and tell you, with virtuous in- dignation, that' no American citizen would ever allow himself to be locked up like a common vagabond. The newspapers teem with puritanical bosh about “ the profligacy of the English railway cars,” “ sin on wheels/’ and such like sensational headings. Why the nation has gone mad upon the incident of this un- fortunate murder — the solitary instance, so far as I know — is more than I can conceive ; but, excepting the great fight between Sayers and Heenan, I do not sup- pose any subject of English history has more inter- ested the American nation than this mysterious exploit of Mr. Muller. I had a comfortable night’s rest ; comfortable, I mean, considering the time and place of my courtship of Morpheus ; but they do not lay the track here with half the care with which our engineers put it down at home ; indeed the distances to be covered are so enor- mous, that in the present state of the country it could not pay to execute the lines with the same finish. So the rails are laid with little or no precision, upon logs of 78 CLEVELAND TO CHICAGO. wood, which are called “ties / 5 tossed down promiscu- ously upon the road, which is not half levelled. Nothing in particular keeps the “ ties 55 in their places, for they are covered with no ballast, not even sunk an inch into the ground. Less can be seen to preserve the rails on the “ ties 55 ; and on the older portions of the Grand Trunk of Canada, the worst specimens of railway engineering I have ever ridden over, the rails lie as if they partook of the general independence of the country, each bar of iron a separate entity, quite dis- tinct from and unconnected with its neighbouring bar, with inches often of vertical and lateral deviation between the two which irregularity makes itself pain- fully evident to any one that has unluckily taken a seat over a wheel, by a series of bumps and jars, and shocks to the nervous system that are simply excruci- ating. But the Grand Trunk is improving ; probably the complaints of the public induced the manager, a Can adjan notoriety, to take a seat for five minutes over a wheel. He is a fat podgy personage, and it would tell on him fearfully — but, however that may be, the lines are being re-laid, and the people are no longer to be subjected to a corporal punishment to which Eng- lish school discipline is a joke. After a dabhle in a teaspoonful of water, and a scrape with a bit of an old sack, in a box, which is dignified with the title of “ wash room 55 — for the American cars are, as it were, moveable hotels, with every accommo- CLEVELAND TO CHICAGO. 79 dation complete (including what, I think, from a sani- tary point of view, had very much better not be there), I took a walk up and down the train, with the rest of my fellow-passengers, and thereby improved my appe- tite for the breakfast which we were to take at a station on the road. It' was very well served, for the Americans understand this sort of thing quite as well as our French neighbours ; and by the time 1 had smoked a cigar, and taken another walk, to digest my meal, the cars reached Chicago. I now proceed to give you some account of this city, and first of the hotel at which I have been staying. The Tremont House is the largest hotel that I have seen as yet, though I am told that it is beaten by those in New York. It is a splendid block of buildings, arranged very much upon the principle of the St. Lawrence Hall at Montreal, with the exception that the basement floor of the block is occupied by shops in the exterior, while the inner portion is devoted to the offices and kitchens. The reception rooms are gigantic, the dining rooms still more so, and the noise and bustle of the establishment surpass anything you can imagine. It would be all very comfortable if it were not for that notorious American peculiarity, tobacco-chewing, and its unavoidable consequences. I am sorry to have to trouble you with so unpleasant a subject, but the fact is that, if I am to touch upon the national characteristics of the people, I do not see 80 CLEVELAND TO CHICAGO. how I can omit one which is undoubtedly, to a stranger, the most noticeable of all. It is a matter which every visitor to this country has written and talked of, and .1 had heard on all sides so much about it, that I thought the evil much exaggerated. But now that I have come and seen for myself the extravagant extent to which this beastly practice is carried, and the dis- gusting filthiness of habits attendant upon it, I can assure you that Russell and Sala have not said a word too harsh on this subject, which is a crying stain upon the enlightened civilisation of the people. I know I am in the West only as yet, where refinement of man- ners is little cultivated at present, and I am assured that tobacco-chewing, though by no means uncommon in the East, is there conducted in a much more gentle- manly style. But refine as you will, you cannot indulge in this luxury and not offend against the laws of decent society. If a man “ chews ” he must spit, and expectorated tobacco-juice must be nasty. You might say, naturally enough, “ Why not use the spit- toons Impossible — they would be swamped in no time. There are plenty of dark and dirty corners in the halls and passages of every hotel, where, in the centre of a nauseating triangle of deep brown splashes * and greasy blotches of black, you will find a brown earthen vessel sustaining an ill-directed fire of reddish fluid from the thousand passing throats ; but plentiful as these vessels are they are quite unequal to the demand. CLEVELAND TO CHICAGO. 81 So the Yankee makes a spittoon of every floor upon which he stands. No matter of what material it con- sists, carpet or marble, he must spit. From the pave- ment in the street within a dozen yards of the front door to the passages in the attics, the steps, corridors, and staircases are one vast uncivilised pigsty. You can hardly find a man in one of whose cheeks you will not see a protuberance like the nuts in a monkey's jaw ; you cannot watch his mouth for two minutes without observing a brown streak flying from it in amongst the boots of the bystanders. You converse with one of these biped cuttle-fish, and it makes no difference in the activity of his bronchial muscles ■, enter into con- versation with two or three of them, and you will have to keep it up under a cross fire of murky jets squirted across your face, over your shoulder, between your legs, over your hat — everywhere, in fact, within a bare inch of your person, as if you were standing up to a per- formance of the Chinese juggler's impalement. But I must give the Yankees credit for being a match for any of our Wimbledon shots ; their oral accuracy of aim is really surprising, and, like the Indian's skill with his bow, only to be accounted for by constant practice, following upon early education in the art, and juvenile experiments upon flies on the walls. And if the sight of all this nastiness is offensive to the eye, the unman- nerly noises by which it is accompanied are even more nauseous to the ear. Some of these fellows will retch 6 82 CLEVELAND TO CHICAGO. and hawk in suck a way that you would think they would spit themselves inside out ; no weak-minded patient, under the influence of an electro-biologist’s evil eye, could be more demonstrative in his efforts to get rid of the fancied poison. But I dare say you will be wondering how the ladies put up with all this beastliness. They do not ; they have a separate establishment of their own — a separate entrance, separate drawing-rooms, separate staircases in every hotel. They could not associate with the majority of the men whose habits are so diabolical, so they sit, go out, and come in by themselves, except in the case of husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, and so on, in which cases, of course, a man is admitted to the ladies’ drawing-rooms ; not that he is impera- tively excluded under other circumstances ; but it is unusual for a gentleman unattended by ladies to venture into the sanctum of the fair sex. This reminds me of a curious feature I have fre- quently observed in the manners and customs of this people, which is, the unjust preference given at all the railways, steamboats, and hotels to any man who can claim any sort of connection with any member of the opposite sex who will give him her protecting wing. I have remarked on the unfair advantages given to the weaker sex themselves, and now I must tell you of the still more unjust privileges which are conceded to men who are taken to be travelling with them. In England CLEVELAND TO CHICAGO. 83 and on the continent of Europe we are accustomed — I cannot deny it — to look upon the presence of a female companion as a drawback to the facilities of comfort- able locomotion ; but here I can assure you that a bachelor has a hard time of it, unless he has skill or impudence enough to attach himself to the skirt of some guardian angel. If you do not mind doing a bit of Yankee smartness, you can easily manage to repre- sent yourself as “ compagnon de voyage” to some fair or unfair protector. I am not particular to a t in a matter of this kind ; the system is so absurd that I consider myself justified in resorting to any low artifice that may tend to demonstrate its folly; so I have con- stantly tried some impromptu dodge of practising an imposition upon the railway conductor, or the steam- boat steward, and several times with complete success. With some officials the doing of a little light porterage in the way of a shawl or a dressing-case I have found to be quite sufficient to identify me as “belonging to that lady.” With one it was necessary to do some heavier work and carry a very dirty disagreeable baby for an ugly ill-dressed mother, before I could induce him to give me a berth as “one of the party.” It is a scandalous system altogether. Even granting that the females ought all to be accommodated first — a matter upon which I have my doubts — I see no principle whatever upon which the same privileges are to be extended to any loafer who passes himself off as in any way connected with 84 CLEVELAND TO CHICAGO. them, in preference to a man who may have been waiting twice as long for a place, but unfortunately happens to be alone and honest. While the rule is so easily evaded, it is perhaps not so great a hardship, for the people are extremely free and easy, and you have no difficulty in getting into conversation with any one ; but, at the same time, I object very much to the bother of constantly dressing myself in false colours, and I have had serious thoughts of hiring some old woman to travel with me through the West. Any specimen of her sex would do equally well — an old nigger, even, I think would pay — and next time I visit this extraordinary country I must find some means of making a more satisfactory provision for the evasion of this extravagant rule. I do not know that I have anything particular to say about the city of Chicago itself. As I said before, all American cities repeat themselves, like the Chinese. You know, of course how it lies, on the south-west corner of the Lake of Michigan; and you have heard how the streets that now contain nearly 300,000 in- habitants were less than thirty years ago, open prairie. Never, I suppose, since the birth of history has a new town sprung to life with more marvellous, fairy-like rapidity, than have the stone and marble edifices that compose this great mushroom city of the plain. To walk through the broad handsome streets and inspect the lofty buildings on either side, and then to think CLEVELAND TO CHICAGO. 85 that twenty-nine years ago there were scarce a dozen shanties on the spot, is to attempt to realise a thing so difficult of comprehension, that the mind becomes sceptical and refuses to believe it. But so it is ; and if you consider for a moment the site on which the city stands, the head of the vast central plain of the North American continent, a region of natural fertility elsewhere unmatched ; its facilities for water commu- nication with the Eastern States and Europe ; its position, the focus to which converge the lines of rail- way from all parts of Illinois and Indiana, from Wis- consin and Iowa, States which constitute the richest district of this agricultural wealth ; the long neglect of these natural resources, and the rapid development now consequent upon their discovery ; it becomes easier to understand how it is that Chicago has thus i’apidly become, what it now is, the greatest primary grain depot in the world, the fountainhead of the vast stream of commerce which passes round the great lakes down the St. Lawrence, bearing the bountiful produce of the Western States to the markets of Europe. The city is, in fact, what the Democrats would have it recognised to be, the capital of the Western States ; and I think the day is not far distant, though farther off than the English journals imagine, when Chicago and St. Louis — a city whose progress has been equally astounding — will be pitted in all the jealousy of a struggle for election to the honour of 86 CLEVELAND TO CHICAGO. being the commercial metropolis of a Western Con- federacy. On Sunday I attended service at the fashionable church, a very fine one — the churches in all these new cities are handsome and abundant — and heard a most eloquent sermon in the style of Dr. Goulburn, and music, such as I never heard at any other place than Exeter Hall, performed by four professionals, whose singing was the most delightful specimen of sacred harmony that the most critical ear could wish to listen to. The rest of the day was spent in prome- nading the town. Sunday is not well observed, for the foreign element in the city is enormous; and those shops that do no business on the Sabbath open their doors and windows, so that to the eye of a careless observer the trade might seem to be as lively as on any week- day. There was a violent storm raging on the lake, which agitated the waters just as much as I have ever seen them troubled in the English Channel, and the promenade by the lake shore was consequently deserted for more sheltered quarters of the city. But we walked to the end of it, just to get a view of some of the magnificent houses that have lately been erected on the lake shore by the more lucky of the great grain speculators of Chicago — splendid mansions many of them, of red freestone or white marble, adorned with greenhouses, creepers, and standard vines, worthy residences for English peers, though lightly spoken of as