"Then it's your opinion, I guess, that a man may be tempted by the devil?"
"Yes, and I should suppose as how that has been your case, friend; though," added he, looking at him from head to foot with no equivocal expression, "I think the devil himself might have more charity than to put a man in such a pickle."
"What do you mean by that?" exclaimed the wretch fiercely, and for the first time uttering a horrid oath. The emigrant only replied by shaking his head significantly; and the other, after pouring forth a volley of abuse against the insolence of the "old country folk," stretched himself on his back, and kicking up his legs on high, and setting his feet against the roof of the Coach, fell asleep in this attitude, and snored, till, at the end of a long hour, he was tumbled out at the door of another drinking hovel as he had tumbled in, and we saw him no more.
HAMILTON.
The distance from the town of Niagara to Hamilton is about forty miles. We had left the former place at ten in the morning, yet it was nearly midnight before we arrived, having had no refreshment during the whole day. It was market-day, and the time of the assizes, and not a bed to be had at the only tolerable hotel, which, I should add, is large and commodious. The people were civil beyond measure, and a bed was made up for me in a back parlour, into which I sank half starved, and very completely tired.
The next day rose bright and beautiful, and I amused myself walking up and down the pretty town for two or three hours.
Hamilton is the capital of the Gore district, and one of the most flourishing places in Upper Canada. It is situated at the extreme point of Burlington Bay, at the head of Lake Ontario, with a population, annually increasing, of about three thousand. The town is about a mile from the lake shore, a space which, in the course of time, will probably be covered with buildings. I understand that seventeen thousand bushels of wheat were shipped here in one month. There is a bank here; a court-house and jail looking unfinished, and the commencement of a public reading-room and literary society, of which I cannot speak from my own knowledge, and which appears as yet in embryo. Some of the linendrapers' shops, called here clothing stores, and the grocery stores, or shops for all descriptions of imported merchandise, made a very good appearance; and there was an air of business, and bustle, and animation about the place, which pleased me. I saw no bookseller's shop, but a few books on the shelves of a grocery store, of the most common and coarse description.
I should not forget to mention, that in the Niagara and Gore districts there is a vast number of Dutch and German settlers, favourably distinguished by their industrious, sober, and thriving habits. They are always to be distinguished in person and dress from the British settlers; and their houses and churches, and, above all, their burial-places, have a distinct and characteristic look. At Berlin, the Germans have a printing-press, and publish a newspaper in their own language, which is circulated among their countrymen through the whole province.
At Hamilton I hired a light wagon, as they call it, a sort of gig perched in the middle of a wooden tray, wherein my baggage was stowed; and a man to drive me over to Brandtford, the distance being about five-and-twenty miles, and the charge five dollars. The country all the way was rich, and beautiful, and fertile beyond description—the roads abominable as could be imagined to exist. So I then thought, but have learned since that there are degrees of badness in this respect, to which the human imagination has not yet descended. I remember a space of about three miles on this road, bordered entirely on each side by dead trees, which had been artificially blasted by fire, or by girdling. It was a ghastly forest of tall white spectres, strangely contrasting with the glowing luxurious foliage all around.
The pity I have for the trees in Canada, shows how far I am yet from being a true Canadian. How do we know that trees do not feel their downfall? We know nothing about it. The line which divides animal from vegetable sensibility is as undefined as the line which divides animal from human intelligence. And if it be true "that nothing dies on earth but nature mourns," how must she mourn for these the mighty children of her bosom—her pride, her glory, her garment? Without exactly believing the assertion of the old philosopher, quoted by Evelyn, that a tree feels the first stroke of the axe, I know I never witness nor hear the first stroke without a shudder; and as yet I cannot look on with indifference, far less share the Canadian's exultation, when these huge oaks, these umbrageous elms and stately pines, are lying prostrate, lopped of all their honours, and piled in heaps with the brushwood, to be fired,—or burned down to a charred and blackened fragment,—or standing, leafless, sapless, seared, ghastly, having been "girdled," and left to perish. The "Fool i' the Forest" moralised not more quaintly over the wounded deer, than I could sometimes over those prostrate and mangled trees. I remember, in one of the clearings to-day, one particular tree which had been burned and blasted; only a blackened stump of mouldering bark—a mere shell remained; and from the centre of this, as from some hidden source of vitality, sprang up a young green shoot, tall and flourishing, and fresh and leafy. I looked and thought of hope! Why, indeed, should we ever despair? Can Heaven do for the blasted tree what it cannot do for the human heart?