Montreal is a much finer-looking place than I had expected. The irregularity of the streets pleased the eye, wearied by straight lines and regular frontage. The houses of stone with double windows have plain bare fronts, and do not present so good an appearance as the best of New York; but the character of the residences as a whole is better, and the effect of the city, to compare small things with great, very much more interesting and picturesque.
Our destination in this drive was the Rink, or covered skating-ground, which is the fashionable sporting resort of Montrealese in the winter time. The crowd of sleighs and sleigh-drivers around the doors of a building which looked like a Methodist chapel, announced that the skaters were already assembled.
Anything but a Methodist-looking place inside. The room, which was like a large public bath-room, was crowded with women, young and old, skating or preparing to skate, for husbands, and spread in maiden rays over the glistening area of ice, gliding, swooping, revolving on legs of every description, which were generally revealed to mortal gaze in proportion to their goodness, and therefore were displayed on a principle so far unobjectionable. The room was lighted with gas, which, with the heat of the crowd, made the ice rather sloppy; but the skating of the natives was admirable, and some hardened campaigners of foreign origin had by long practice learned to emulate the graces and skill of the inhabitants.
It was a mighty pretty sight. The spectators sat or stood on the raised ledge round the ice parallelogram like swallows on a cliff, and now and then dashed off and swept away as if on the wing over the surface, in couples or alone, executing quadrilles, mazurkas, waltzes, and tours de force, that made one conceive the laws of gravitation must be suspended in the Rink, and that the outside edge is the most stable place for the human foot and figure. Mercy, what a crash! There is a fine stout young lady sprawling on the ice, tripped up by Dontstop of the Guards, who is making a first attempt, to the detriment of the lieges. How delighted the ladies are, and pretend not to be; for the fallen fair one is the best contortionist in the place! She is on her legs again—has shaken the powdered ice and splash off her dandy jacket and neat little breeches,—yes, they wear breeches, a good many of them,—and is zigzagging about once more like a pretty noiseless firework.
The little children skate, so do most portentous mammas. A line of recently arrived officers, in fur caps and coats, look on, all sucking their canes, and resolving to take private lessons early in the morning. Some, in the goose-step stage, perform awful first lines with their skates, and leave me in doubt as to whether they will split up or dash out their brains. The young ladies pretend to avoid them with unanimity, but sail round them still as seagulls sweep by a drowning man. And if a fellow should fall—and be saved by a lady? Well! It may end in an introduction, and a condition of “muffinage.” And what that is we must tell you hereafter. I can’t answer your question as to whether the women were pretty; eyes dark generally, and good complexions. The Rink is a bad place to judge of that point.
I paid my respects to Sir Fenwick Williams, who has his quarters in the hotel. The general has plenty of work to do at present, and did not seem quite so well as when I saw him after his return from Kars. There is a general impression that the Federals will keep their armies in good humour at the end of the war, by annexing Canada, if they can. No one asks what they will do with them when that work has been accomplished. Dined at the house of the Hon. John Rose, member for Montreal, and formerly a member of the Government. He had, after his hospitable wont, some young officers to dine also; and, after an agreeable evening, I slid home in a bitter snow drift to the hotel, and so to bed. Here is a page from my diary.
February 6.—The severe cold makes the head ache, and stupefies me ultra modum. I wrote to Mr. Hope, stating my reasons for declining the great compliment of a public dinner intended for me at Toronto. As I move about here, I feel that society is much under the influence of the unruly fellow, our next neighbour. There is no great love for him; but his prodigious kicks and blows, his threats, his bad language, his size and insolence, frighten them up here. There is great anxiety for the American news; and I am bound to say, the Northern Americans must have done something to make the Canadians dislike them, as there is little love for them even where little is felt for England. I saw a great many of the principal personages to-day. Called on the Bishop, whose sweet, benevolent face is an index of his mind. He spoke in high terms of his Roman Catholic coadjutor; indeed, it would be difficult to quarrel with Dr. Mountain. In education, they work harmoniously together. Mr. D’Arcy M’Ghie called on me. He is now a member of the Canadian Parliament, and is giving his support to the authority of the British Crown. His loyalty is, of course, stigmatised by some as treason to what they call the cause of Ireland; but I believe the atmosphere of Canada is found to have a vapour-dispelling, febrifuge character about it which works well on the mind of the Irish immigrant. A most entertaining, witty, well-informed barrister, also an Irishman, paid me a visit, and gave some admirable sketches of Canadian society, of the bar, of the working of parties, as well as his own ideas on all points, in a peculiarly terse and pleasant way.
CHAPTER VI.
Visit the “lions” of Montreal—The 47th Regiment—The city open to attack—Quays, public buildings—French colonisation—Rise of Montreal—Stone—A French-Anglicised city—Loyalty of Canadians—Arrival of Troops—Facings—British and American Army compared—Experience needed by latter—Slavery.