Canadian Scenery, Volume 1 (of 2)

by Nathaniel Parker Willis

Nelson’s Pillar,
Montreal.

“About ten o’clock, we made towards a light which we saw on the shore, and landed a committee of inquiry, who reported so unfavourably of the miserable cabin from which it issued, that we determined to proceed, tired as the ladies were. Our scouts informed us, that they had found in the cabin four or five Canadians, dancing to a sleeping fiddler, whose music ceased as soon as they awoke him. A mile or two further, we found a better house, where we called the family up, and, with the help of our well-bred and efficient ladies, some gunpowder tea they had with them, some milk that was obtained from a cow that was awakened for the purpose, and the services of my servant, we sat down, a party of twenty, to a tolerably comfortable meal. When the ladies were about to retire, they found there was no door to their chamber, but they supplied the deficiency with a sheet. The gentlemen lay on blankets, in a sort of barrack room; but I found the fleas so annoying, that I got up and sat at the door of the house. I should have enjoyed the clear night after the storm, and the placid lake, if I had been less tired and sleepy; but wearied as I was, I was very glad to see the day break. Our gunpowder tea made its appearance again at five o’clock; after which we embarked, passing the remaining rapids, (the Cedars, the Split Rock, and the Cascades, as they are called,) and the mouth of the Ottawa River; and, being becalmed in the fine lake, St. Louis, we arrived at night at La Chine, about 150 miles from Ogdensburgh, which we had left the preceding morning. As we approached La Chine, the houses and villages on the banks of the river and lake assumed a much more comfortable appearance; but of the Canadians in my next letter.

“Some of our party staid all night at La Chine, but several of my friends and myself proceeded to Montreal in a wretched vehicle, for which I was obliged to apologize to my American companions, by reminding them that it was only a colonial, and that there were parts of our colonial system which none of us attempted to defend. We met some miserable calèches, of which I was ashamed even as colonials; and I was compelled to repress the rising smiles of the party, by suggesting to their recollection, that, after all, we were still in America and not in England. After riding nine miles, almost in the dark, we entered the faubourg of Montreal, and jolted along a narrow street a mile long, which my companions, accustomed to the spacious streets in America, supposed to be an alley, though it is the principal street. At the end of it we stopped at the Mansion-house, a very fine inn; and here I was not ashamed to welcome my companions to the dominions of his Britannic Majesty.

“The Mansion-house is situated on the banks of the St. Lawrence, which its handsome apartments overlook, and which is here almost two and a half miles broad. The windows of our room open upon a fine terrace, from which there is a charming and extensive view of the distant country. In the evening this is a very favourite promenade with the inmates of the house.

“I am delighted to sit down once more under the British flag, which is waving over us, for Lord Dalhousie, the governor, is staying in the house; and I am gratified by the sight of our own red coats, who have mounted guard.”

“Montreal, 23d August, 1822.

“I have just received your letter of the 19th ult. The uncommon cold of the last winter, and the unusual heat of the present summer, appear, in some degree, to have extended to you. Individually, I am not sorry to have the opportunity of experiencing, in the course of the year I have passed in America, a range of temperature beyond even the ordinary limits of the country. The great and sudden changes, however, continue to strike me more than even extremes of cold and heat, so much beyond those we experience in England. After a week of the hottest weather they have had here this summer, (the other morning the thermometer was currently reported, and I believe correctly, to be 98° of Fahrenheit in the shade,) thin clothes of every description have disappeared; and last night, when I sat down to write to you, I found it too cold to proceed. The oppressive heat of the summer here, and in the United States, is alleviated, in some degree, by the liberal use of ice. We see it in every form, and use it with the utmost profusion. The butter regularly comes to table with a fine thick transparent piece of ice upon it; large pieces are generally floating in the water jugs at dinner, or in your chambers; and it is often handed round on plates, in small pieces, to be used at dinner. The plan of preserving ice in this country, and the United States, is much more simple than with us, and, I have no doubt, more judicious, as, notwithstanding the superior heat of the climate, it is so much more cheap and plentiful. Almost every farmer has his ice-house.

“I have already given you some account of our sail down the Rapids. It was extremely pleasant; and although we were becalmed for many hours, we descended on the St. Lawrence in less than two days, a distance which the boatmen seldom reascend in less than nine or ten, even with the occasional assistance of locks at the side of the river. I am surprised we hear so little of this noble river. It is computed, I do not know with what accuracy, to discharge one-half more water than the Mississippi. Its depth between Ogdensburgh and La Chine (130 miles) seldom varies more than three feet in the course of a year; while the Mississippi was falling one foot each day when I ascended it. The St. Lawrence is much clearer than the Mississippi, and its current much more rapid; so rapid, indeed, that the Lake Erie steam-boat, which has been in operation for three years, has not been able to ascend from Black Rock to Lake Erie more than twice without twelve oxen. The banks of the St. Lawrence do not present the rich and beautiful cultivation which adorns the banks of the Mississippi in Louisiana; but if they do not exhibit extensive and highly-dressed plantations of sugar and cotton, or the magnificent forest trees peculiar to the south and west, the prospect is never blackened by a range of miserable slave-cabins, or gangs of negroes working like cattle in the field. I cannot describe to you the pleasure I derived from contrasting the various scenes through which I am passing with each other, they have so many peculiar features, and all so highly interesting.

“It is remarkable, that, rising from the same table-land, and so intimately connected by intersecting branches, which occasionally flow into each other during periods of inundation, the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence present the most striking contrast in their general features. Many of these are mentioned in the observations I will copy for you from Darby; but others, not much less interesting, might be added.