Forty Thousand Miles Over Land and Water
At Syracuse we experienced for the first time the strange custom of running the train through a street in the heart of the city. Many lives are annually lost, and terrible accidents occur frequently at the level crossings. "Look out for the locomotive" is on a large sign-board, but the public depend more upon the shrill whistle or the ringing of the engine bell. The effect of these engine bells is very melodious when, deep-toned and loud-voiced, coming and going in a station they chime to each other.
Friday, July 18th, Clifton House, Niagara Falls.—"What a moment in a lifetime is that in which we first behold Niagara!" And it is difficult with a very feeble pen to say anything superior to such a commonplace platitude, even when in the presence of one of Nature's most glorious works.
Notwithstanding all written and said, imagined or described, Niagara cannot be put into words; cannot be conveyed to the imagination through the usual medium of pen and paper; can only be seen to be—even then but partially—understood.
There is a blue river, two miles wide, without ripple or ruffle on the surface, coming down from a great lake, pursuing its even course. There are breakers ahead—little clouds, then white foam sprayed into mid-air. The contagion spreads, until on the whole surface of the river are troubled waves, noisily hurrying down, down, with ever-increasing velocity, to the great Canadian fall. The mockery of those few yards of clear, still water! In a suction green as an uncut emerald, a volume of water, twenty fathoms deep, is hurled over a precipice 160 feet high. One hundred million tons of water pass over every hour, with a roar that can be heard ten miles away, and a reverberation that shakes the very earth itself, into the seething cauldron below, shrouded in an eternal mist:—"There is neither speech nor language, but their voices are heard."
In a minor key the American waters repeat the mighty cannonade, and blending their voices, mirror the sea-green colour of the wooded precipices as they flow on their onward course. Long serpent trails of foam alone bear witness to the late convulsion.
The gorge is narrowing; the waters are compressed into a smaller space; they are angry, and jostle each other. They hiss, they swirl; they separate to rush together in shooting shower of spray, and so struggle through the Rapids.
A gloomy pool, with darkling precipices of purple rocks, forms a basin. The waters are rushing too surely into that iron-bound pool. The current is checked and turned back on itself, to meet the oncoming stream. A mighty Whirlpool forms. The waters divide under the current, and one volume returns to eddy and swirl helplessly against the great barrier, whilst the other volume, more happy, finds a cleft, broadened now into a wide gateway, and gurgling and laughing to itself, glides away on a smooth course, to lose its volume in Lake Ontario. What a world-renown that stream will always have—a short course full of awful incident.
On the 25th of July, 1883, Captain Webb was drowned while attempting to swim the rapids. Diving from a small boat about 300 yards above the new cantilever bridge, he plunged into the stream. The force of the current turned him over several times; then he threw up his arms and sank, crushed to death, it is supposed, by the pressure of the water. The enterprising owners of the restaurant at the rapids, have arranged with his widow to come over during the season to sell photographs opposite the spot where her husband perished.
Goat Island forms the division between the American and Canadian Falls. The waters are rapidly eating away the banks, and the rocky promontory, which forms such a principal feature, may some day disappear. What a glorious junction it would be! Four years ago a large piece of rock in the centre of the horse-shoe came away, and its symmetry was somewhat marred. The three pretty little Sister Islands are joined by their graceful suspension bridges to Goat Island. These islands, lying out as they do amidst the roughest and most tumultuous part of the rapids, have a magnificent view of the waters as they come tumbling down. The Hermit's Cascade is connected with the pathetic story of a young Englishman who, coming one day to see Niagara, remained day after day overpoweringly fascinated. Unable to tear himself away, he lived year after year for ever within sight and hearing of the falls. He is supposed to have perished in their waters whilst bathing one day, but whether intentionally or not was never known. I believe those who have sat and watched those tumultuous waters for any great length of time would understand the working of the spell on a sensitive brain.
Biddle's Stairs lead down to the "Cave of the Winds." It is awe-inspiring to watch the fall from below, and yet this is only a streamlet of the great volume of the fall. What must it be inside, when the beating of the spray-like hail, the roaring of the winds, mingling with the thunder of the cataract, form a combination of the majesty of the elements on earth.
After a morning spent amongst these terrifying wonders, we had a quiet drive along the right bank of the river through Cedar Island. The thunder and roar was succeeded by quiet pools and swiftly-flowing currents, calm and clear, rippling in the afternoon sunlight. Weeping-willows, long grasses, and bending reeds whispered in the cool breezes. From the heights above we again surveyed the whole scene. And returning home once more came under the spell of the Mermaid, looming white and mysterious in the gloaming.
Niagara becomes very dear—a child of the affections; and to those who are unfortunate enough to have to picture Niagara from description, I should say efface mine quickly, quickly I say, and turn to that of Anthony Trollope:—
"Of all the sights on this earth of ours which tourists travel to see—at least, of all those which I have seen—I am inclined to give the palm to the Falls of Niagara. In the catalogue of such sights I intend to include all buildings, pictures, statues, and wonders of art made by men's hands, and also all beauties of nature prepared by the Creator for the delight of His creatures. I know no other one thing so beautiful, so glorious, and so powerful.
"We will go at once on to the glory, and the thunder, and the majesty, and the wrath of that upper belt of waters.
"Go down to the end of that wooden bridge, seat yourself on the rail, and there sit till all the outer world is lost to you. There is no grander spot about Niagara than this. The waters are absolutely around you. If you have that power of eye-control which is so necessary to the full enjoyment of scenery, you will see nothing but the water. You will certainly hear nothing else. And the sound, I beg you to remember, is not an ear-cracking, agonized crash and clang of noises, but is melodious and soft withal, though loud as thunder. It fills your ears, and, as it were, envelopes them; but at the same time you can speak to your neighbour without an effort. But at these places, and in these moments, the less of speaking I should say the better. There is no grander spot than this. Here, seated on the rail of the bridge, you will not see the whole depth of the fall. In looking at the grandest works of nature, and of art too, I fancy, it is never well to see all. There should be something left to the imagination, and much should be half concealed in mystery.
"And so here, at Niagara, that converging rush of waters may fall down, down at once into a hell of rivers for what the eye can see. It is glorious to watch them in their first curve over the rocks. They come green as a bank of emeralds, but with a fitful flying colour, as though conscious that in one moment more they would be dashed into spray and rise into air, pale as driven snow. The vapour rises high into the air, and is gathered there, visible always as a permanent white cloud over the cataract; but the bulk of the spray which fills the lower hollow of that horse-shoe is like a tumult of snow.
"The head of it rises ever and anon out of that cauldron below, but the cauldron itself will be invisible. It is ever so far down—far as your own imagination can sink it. But your eyes will rest full upon the curve of the waters. The shape you will be looking at is that of a horse-shoe, but of a horse-shoe miraculously deep from toe to heel; and this depth becomes greater as you sit there. That which at first was only great and beautiful, becomes gigantic and sublime till the mind is at a loss to find an epithet for its own use. To realize Niagara, you must sit there till you see nothing else than that which you have come to see. You will hear nothing else, and think of nothing else. At length you will be at one with the tumbling river before you. You will find yourself among the waters as though you belonged to them. The cool liquid green will run through your veins, and the voice of the cataract will be the expression of your own heart. You will fall as the bright waters fall, rushing down into your new world with no hesitation and with no dismay; and you will rise again as the spray rises, bright, beautiful, and pure. Then you will flow away in your course to the uncompassed, distant, and eternal ocean.
"Oh! my friend, let there be no one there to speak to thee then; no, not even a brother. As you stand there speak only to the waters!"
CHAPTER III
THE DOMINION OF CANADA
Since our arrival at Niagara we had been on Canadian soil, and in view of the falls, which form Canada's greatest glory; but our first experience of the Dominion only really commenced when we left Niagara Station by the Grand Trunk Railway for Toronto.
It may have been prejudice, but we thought that the country bore signs of greater prosperity than over the American border.
The farms are more English in character and the cattle in greater abundance. The soil looks richer, and the pretty wooden zigzag fences, which take the place of hedges or railings, look most picturesque. In many places the blackened stumps of trees showed the recent clearing by fire.
From Hamilton, a prosperous town, we ran for nearly forty miles along the shores of Lake Ontario to Toronto.
Toronto is the capital of the province of Ontario, the chief city of Upper Canada, and the Queen City of the West. There is jealous rivalry between Montreal and Toronto. The former has the shipping interest, and for a long time held the lead; but Toronto is quickly gaining ground, and is the centre for a rapidly increasing commercial interest. Five lines of railway converge to her termini.
Hamilton and London, both rising places, centralize their commerce here. Lake Ontario supplies water transit to Montreal and the ocean; and the numerous banks do a thriving trade. In 1871 the census of the population was 50,600; ten years later it was 80,445. Wide streets of great length, avenues of trees, and churches are the chief characteristics of Toronto. The churches are built from the voluntary subscriptions of the congregations, the pastors being chosen and maintained by them. There is no State Church, and the Dissenters have as fine places of worship as the Episcopal body. The Metropolitan Methodist Church, with almost cathedral proportions, was built by Mr. Puncheon, the American Spurgeon, and it compares as advantageously to the Tabernacle as do the Churches to the Chapels of England.
Toronto abounds in pretty suburbs, chief among them being Rosedale. The comfortable wooden houses of the upper and middle orders convey an idea of prosperity, with their neat gardens, a swinging hammock in the creeper-covered verandah, and the family sitting out in the cool of the evening.
The Provincial Parliament is a dingy building; but Osgood Hall—or the Law Courts—opened in 1860 by the Prince of Wales, and called after the Chief Justice of that day, is a very fine stone edifice, complete in all its arrangements. There are full-length portraits of the Chief Justices in succession, which being continued, will form a very complete legal gallery of local talent. There are fourteen judges, receiving 5000 dollars a year, nominated by the Governor-General from local men. The bar and solicitors are united as in America, and work together in firms, and are both eligible for judicial preferment, and have a like right of audience.
The Toronto University is second only to Harvard on the American Continent. The lecture-rooms, hall, museum, and library are all worthy of the fine Gothic building. There are 600 students, many of whose families coming to reside in Toronto, add much to the pleasantness of society. We stayed three days at Toronto. Mr. Hodgins, Q.C., Master in Chancery, was most kind in introducing my husband to some of the chief political men—to Mr. Mackenzie, the late Liberal Premier; Mr. Blake, the present leader of the Opposition; Mr. Ross, the Minister of Public Education, and others. The latter Minister showed us over the Normal School for the Instruction of Teachers. It has a well-arranged library and museum, and copies of many works of the old masters, and busts of the principal men in British history. Toronto is considered the most English of all the Canadian towns, and the Torontans pride themselves on this, and take a keen interest in home affairs. The previous night's debate in Parliament is on the breakfast-table: cabled over, and aided by the five hours' difference between the time of Greenwich and that of the Dominion, it appears in the first edition.
We dined with Mr. Goldwin Smith, the distinguished Oxford Professor of History, who, after a long sojourn in the United States and Canada, has settled with his wife at Toronto. Their house is delightfully old-fashioned. Though in the centre of the town, the garden and some of the original forest trees are still preserved to it; and it contains the tail-end of family collections, valuable bits of China, busts by Canova and Thorwaldsen, ivory carvings, morsels of jade, and some relics of the first settlers. Amongst the latter are some wine-glasses belonging to General Simcoe, the first Governor-General in 1794, which are without feet,—"To be returned when empty."
Wednesday, July 23rd.—We left Toronto in the afternoon by the steamer Algeria, coasting along the low-lying country of the left bank of Lake Ontario. Touching at the various thriving towns, we judged by the crowd who came down to the pier that it was the usual thing for the population to stroll down in the evening and watch for the arrival of the steamer.
All night we were crossing Lake Ontario, and at four o'clock the next morning, in the grey dawn, touched at Kingston. We waited here an hour for daylight, in which to approach the Thousand Islands. As we passed out we saw the gilt dome of the famous Military College.
In the freshness of the early morning, with the sun just flushing the waters and warming into life the bare and purple rocks, we wound in and out of the narrow channel of the Thousand Islands. It is the largest collective number of islands in the world. Some are formed of a few bare rocks just appearing on the surface of the water, others are large enough for a villa, a garden, and a boat-house, and others again for farming purposes. Their uniform flatness causes some disappointment and mars their collective beauty, though here and there one may be singled out for the prettiness of its woods.
At Alexandra Bay, a familiar summer resort, with two monster hotels, the St. Lawrence opens away from the lake, and we are descending between its monotonous banks for some hours.
The increasing swiftness of the current and the prevailing thrill of excitement of all on board, warns us of the approach of the Long Sault Rapids. We see a stormy sea, heaving and surging in huge billows.
All steam is shut off, four men are required at the wheel to keep the vessel steady, as we "shoot the rapid." One minute we are engulfed; the next rising on the crest of the wave. Intense and breathless excitement is combined with the exhilaration of being carried in a few minutes down the nine miles of descent. Every now and again a peculiar motion is felt, as if the ship was settling down, as she glides from one ledge of rock to another.
We pass some smaller rapids; but it is late in the afternoon before Baptiste, the Indian pilot, comes on board for the shooting of the great Lachine Rapid. Whirlpools and a storm-lashed sea mingle in this reach, for the shoal-water is hurled about among the rocks. The greatest care and precision of skill are necessary, for with lightning speed we rush between two rocks, jagged and cruel, lying in wait for the broaching of the vessel. A steamer wrecked last year lies stranded away on the rocks as a warning. These natural barriers to the water communication between Montreal and the West, are overcome by canals running parallel with the rapids.
The Ottawa forms a junction with the St. Lawrence at the pretty village of St. Anne's, which has become famed by Moore's well-known Canadian boat-song,—
"Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast,The rapids are near and the daylight's past,Soon as the woods on shore grow dim,We'll sing at St. Anne's our evening hymn."The Victoria Bridge, a triumph of engineering skill, spans the river above Montreal. It is built of solid blocks of granite, a mile and three quarters in length; and it is in passing under its noble arches that we get our first view of Montreal, the metropolis of the Dominion.
A filmy mist lay over the "city of spires," spreading up even to the sides of Mount Royal—the wooded mountain that rises abruptly and stands solitary guard behind the city. The golden dome of the old market of Bonsecours, and the twin spires of the cathedral of Notre Dame loomed faintly out from its midst. Before us there is a sea frontage of three miles—vessels of 5000 tons being able to anchor beside the quay.
One hundred and fifty years ago the French evacuated Montreal, but you might think it was but yesterday, so tenaciously do the lower orders cling to the tradition of their founder, Jacques Cartier. The quaint gabled houses and crooked streets of the lower town, the clattering and gesticulating of the white-capped women marketing in Bonsecours, remind one of a typical Normandy town. Notices are posted in French and English, and municipal and local affairs are conducted in both languages.
The post-office, the bank, and the assurance company make a fine block of buildings as the nucleus of the principal street of Notre Dame, but all the others are crooked, narrow, and ill-paved.
The Catholic Cathedral in the quiet square is very remarkable for its double tier of galleries, and for being painted and decorated gaudily from floor to roof. The Young Men's Christian Association has erected another of its fine buildings at Montreal. The society seems to thrive and to be doing an enormous work of good throughout the length and breadth of the American Continent. We found it well-housed in every considerable town we visited, and what was our surprise when later we found it had penetrated even to the Sandwich Islands, and that the Y.M.C.A. was one of Honolulu's finest buildings!
Sunday, July 26th.—We went to morning service at the English Cathedral of Christ Church. The interior is bare and unfinished at present, but it is the best specimen of English Gothic architecture on the Western continent. There was a good mixed choir of men and women.
We had a charming drive in the afternoon, up Mount Royal from which the city takes its name. Fine houses and villas standing in their own gardens, lie around the base, and the ascent, through luxuriant groves of sycamore trees, is so well engineered as to be almost imperceptible. You do not realize how high you are till the glorious panorama opens out before you, and you stand on a platform—Montreal at your feet, the broad river flowing to right and left, and the blue mountains on the horizon line.
We returned by the cemetery, a square mile, laid out in avenues and shady walks. Flowers blossoming on the graves and smooth-shaven turf, made it a garden, and favourite drive and walk. At the entrance was a notice—a sarcasm on human nature—desiring persons "wishing to return from funerals by the mountain drive to remove their mourning badges!"
That evening we dined with Mr. and Mrs. George Stephen in their beautiful house in Drummond Street. He is the President of the Canadian Pacific Railway. In two years time this railway will run from ocean to ocean, and will join the Atlantic and Pacific; opening up the unlimited lands of the great North-West, so rich in mineral wealth, and containing the best wheat-growing country in the world. This discovery of the North West has altered the whole aspect of affairs in Canada, and by bringing into habitation a country as large as the United States, laid the foundation of an immense future for our great possession. Thirty-six thousand men are now working on the railway, and it will be completed in half the time of the contract, viz. five years instead of ten.
Monday, July 27th.—Three hours by rail, through a thinly-populated district and backwoods roughly cleared by burning, brought us to a gloriously golden sunset against which rose the spires of the Dominion Houses of Parliament at Ottawa.
Ottawa was only a small town with about 4000 inhabitants in 1867. All ask, "Why was it chosen as the seat of government?" which previously had been at Quebec, Montreal, and Toronto alternately. A minister's wife travelling with us in the train, laughingly gave us the answer. Quebec refused to vote for Montreal, Montreal for Quebec, and between them there was always warring jealousy. Toronto "WOULD" have voted for Montreal if Quebec had been willing to do the same. The authorities at home—it is said the Queen herself—taking the map, pointed to Ottawa as being equidistant from all, and on the borders of both Upper and Lower Canada. A magnificent pile of buildings accordingly rose, containing two legislative halls for the Senate and the House of Commons (both the same size as their English originals), and other public offices. The Parliament buildings are built of buff freestone with many towers and miniature spires, and have a very fine frontage of 1200 feet, surmounted by the iron crown of the Victoria Tower. The Octagonal Tower contains a library of 40,000 books, open not only to members, but to all the inhabitants of the town. In the centre stands a full-length marble statue of the Queen, by Marshall Wood. The members speak in French or English at will, and all notices of motions are in both languages.
Timber-lugging is the great trade of Ottawa. As seen from the upper town, the lower presents the appearance of one vast timber-yard; masses of piles line the banks, and cover the surface of the stream. These piles are cut in the winter from the back forests, and floated down some 100 miles. At Ottawa they pass into the yards through what is called a timber-slide, to avoid the dangerous channel of the Chaudière Falls. Here they are lashed together to form rafts, houses being built for the men who drift down on them to Quebec. From thence they are shipped to all parts of the world, principally to England. We went over one of these large timber-mills and Eddy's match manufactory, both immensely interesting, with the perfection of machinery, entirely superseding any manual dexterity, and driven by the neighbouring water-power.
The La Chaudière Falls, so called from the cauldron into which they seethe and boil, though not of a great height, have been sounded to 300 feet without touching the bottom. They contain a very angry, copper-coloured element.
We drove out to Rideau Hall, the residence of the Governor-General, who was away at the time. We found a very deserted, miserable building, about which the only sign of life was a sleepy policeman. A tobogging-slide seemed to usurp the greater part of the garden. The Ottawa public was much offended by a recent prohibition forbidding entrance to the park, which has hitherto been free to all. There is a little occurrence which will always remain connected in our minds with Ottawa, an example which we certainly found followed nowhere else. Our driver, even after considerable pressure, refused to take more than his ordinary fare!
Ottawa, other than the Parliament buildings, which are alone worth coming to see, is the dullest and most primitive of towns. C. was, however, glad to have been there, as it gave him the opportunity of meeting the Ministers of Inland Revenue, and Agriculture, and other authorities, and hearing their views on the rapid development of Canada.