Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 6.djvu/375

 i28.vi.jusKi9.j9Jo.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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enough for six months. Among other civilities they pressed on me free passes for hundreds of miles of railway.

Wednesday [Oct. 15]. Up at 6.30 and ofE by the 8.30 train by way of Saratoga, Rutland and Burlington to Rouse's Point on Lake Champlain which we reached at 8.30 220 miles for 22 shil- lings a beautiful route all the way and such tints on the trees as defy belief in all but actual eye-sight. It was a happy relief that to-day I had no introductions and could rest my wearied larynx which was actually sore with such in- cessant talk. Dined very well at Rutland for two shillings, but the Liquor Law was in full force and I had to submit to iced water. Labou- chere and the gamblers.

Thursday \Oct. 16]. OfE at 8 and met in the train for Ogdensburg one of the Van Rensselaers of Albany and his wife. He introduced me to two others and we had a pleasant party enough though a most dreary forest broken only by yet more dreary clearings for 118 miles. Mrs. V. R. tells me she has lived 22 years in this wilderness without feeling it lonesome though the winter lasts five months and they have had the ther- mometer as high as 105 and as low as 18 below zero in the same year. The sight of the burnt and gridled trees is most melancholy and the log huts as bad as Irish cabins, but the people all had a well-fed comfortable look and there were lots of light waggons at every station. At Ogdensburg a place noted in all our frontier wars I found there was no boat for Montreal till next morning, so I started by the last floating caster up Lake Ontario to see the 1,000 islands. In this ship besides immense accommodation for pas- sengers, cattle waggons, &c., there was a barber's shop, a book-seller's, and an inexhaustible kitchen which gave us dinner and tea all com- prised in the two dollars I paid for a fifty miles journey. "The Lake and the islands are wonder- ful but it was dark when we got to Cape Vincent and the place did not look promising. I went, however, to a house kept by a Frenchman whom I conciliated by asking him to drink his own Saxiterne with me, and at 3 next morning got up and at 4 started back again to Ogdensburg.

Friday \Oct. 17]. I landed only this day week and in spite of delays at Boston and Albany have run over 800 miles. To-day we are running down the St. Lawrence rapids at the rate of 20 miles an hour, the banks rather low but covered with wood and the water brilliantly clear. There is not enough light to see the last and most formidable rapid, La Chine, and as I write we are being moored to wait for day-break. The fare for this run of 120 miles is $3.50 for which I have already had a capital dinner and supper and shall have breakfast to-morrow, the berths beautifully clean and sweet and the attendants (all Irish) complete. A new acquaintance on the boat assures me the waiters I praised so much at Albany are all fugitive slaves and the same is the case throughout Canada.

Saturday [Oct.'] 18. Waked at day-break by getting up anchor, but the fog so thick we had to wait an hour or two before starting. It cleared however before 8, and by 10 we were in Montreal, one of the handsomest cities something like Coblentz, I remember. The public buildings are almost on the scale of Paris and all of handsome

stone. It rained, however, all day and so it waff with no regret that I started in the boat at 5 o'clock for Quebec. I boxight here Macaulay's- last two vols. for 4s. very well got up in every respect. Ordered also a fur coat as the cold is- beginning to be. unpleasant. The fare to Quebec,.- 180 miles, in a vessel twice as fair as the Queen's- yacht, 2.50, with a bed and state room fit for a prince and the most abundant dinner.

Sunday [Oct. 19]. We ran the 180 miles in 12 hours and arrived here at 5 A.M. I had never waked since 10 P.M., and as it was no use landed at such an hour " concluded " to sleep till 7.-- I then landed and found the place in' spite of it - beautiful site with all the narrow streets and- squalid houses of a f ortr ess. After breakfast walked out to Wolfe's monument, the platform, the Plains of Abraham and Wolfe's Cove all in an incessant drizzle. Then after a slight refresh- ment to the Falls of Montinorenci said to ber 250 ft. high. In the evening the day improved and' the natural advantages of the place which are extraordinary became A'isible. Wolfe's attack must have been a desperate one. Montgomery was killed in 1775 in a place far more easy of attack. Wolfe must evidently have retreated and capitulated if Montcalm had " left him to his- remedy " instead of coming out to fight him. It is but fair that he should share the monument.- To-morrow I return by rail to Montreal (Indian> women aboard boat).

Monday [Oct. 20]. Had another long walk and started by rail at 3 for Montreal 180 miles, - the pass I had from Ross clearing me throughout, The country one continual forest as long as day- light lasted with only a log hut or two at the stations. How a railroad can ever be expected 1 to pay through such a country I can't imagine. The cars, however, are very good, well warmed and lighted so that I had no need of a coat and could read all the way. A long delay in crossing the river to Montreal in consequence of the fog.

Tuesday [Oct. 21] : Montreal. Found my fur coat ready and comfortable. Went into the Assize Court where they were trying prisoners, all Indians, for burning an Indian hut. The witnesses, the principal of whom was a woman, examined by an interpreter, the language rather euphonious with a great deal of action, the faces and still more the figures of the Indians very peculiar. The women were in their own costume,- the men wore the common dress of laboxirers but seemed very uncomfortable in it. The form of proceeding was pretty much as ours, but the prosecuting council, Driscoll, was in his dotage and the judges Lafontaine and Aylwin by nor means up to their work.

After lunch called on Mr. Rose who insisted on my going at once to his house where I soon found myself most comfortably installed. Ross and others came to dinner but the Roses are in violent opposition and Canadian politics ran high.

Tuesday [? Wednesday, Oct. 22]. Rose drove me into town and I went with Ross, Gait, Hodges, &c., over the water of the Victoria Bridge in comparison with which the Britannia is a mere- baby. In the evening a pleasant dinner-party including the Colonel Munro [?] of the 39th ta whom Macdonald gave the flannels. The Roses very bitter against Elgin.