"The tents were pitched in a small clump of pines, while round a blazing fire the passengers were collected, amid a medley of boxes, barrels, cloaks, and on the rock above the foaming rapids were lying the canoes; the men flitting about the fires as if they were enjoying a holiday, and watching a huge cauldron suspended above the fire. The whole with a background of dense woods and a lake."
Yet, startling as this "wooing of nature" in her rough moods may seem to the silk-and-velvet portion of the world, we doubt whether this wild life, with its desperate toil and its ground sleep, may not be the true charm of travel to saint, savage, or sage, when once fairly forced to the experiment. The blazing fire, the bed of leaves, the gay supper, made gayer still by incomparable appetite, and the sleep after all, in which the whole outward man remains imbedded, without the movement of a muscle and without a dream, until the morning awakes him up a new being, are fully worth all the inventions of art, to make us enjoy rest unearned by fatigue, and food without waiting for appetite. "The sleep of the weary man is sweet," said the ancient and wise king who slept among curtains of gold, and under roofs of cedar; the true way to taste that sleep is to spend a day, dragging canoes up Indian portages, and lie down with one's feet warmed by a pine blaze and one's back to the shelter of a forest.
But, as the time will assuredly come when this "life in the woods" will be no more, when huge inns will supersede the canopy of the skies, and down beds will make the memory of birch twigs and heather blossoms pass away, we give from authority the proceedings of an evening's rest, which the next generation will study with somewhat of the feeling of reading Tacitus De Moribus Germanorum.
As the sun approached his setting, every eye in the canoes, as they pulled along, was speculating on some dry and tolerably open spot on the shore. That once found, all were on shore in an instant. Then the axe was heard ringing among the trees, to prepare for the fires, and make room for the tents. In ten minutes, the tents were pitched, the fires blazing in front of each, and the supper preparing in all its diversities. The beds were next made, consisting of an oil-cloth laid on the ground, with blankets and a pillow; occasionally aided by great-coats, à discretion. The crews, drawing the canoes on shore, first made an inspection of their hurts during the day; and having done this, the little vessels were turned into a shelter, and each man wrapping himself in his blanket defied the weather and the world.
But this state of happiness was never destined to last long. About one in the morning, the cry, of "Leve, leve," broke all slumbers. We must acknowledge that the hour seems premature, and that the most patient of travellers might have solicited a couple of hours more of "tired Nature's sweet restorer." But the discipline of the bivouac was Spartan. If the slumberer did not instantly start up, the tent was pulled down about him, and he found himself half-smothered in canvass. However, we must presume that this seldom happened, and, within half an hour, every thing would be packed, the canoes laden, and the paddles moving to some "merry old song." In this manner passed the day, six hours of rest, to eighteen of labour, a tremendous disproportion, even to the sturdy Englishman, or the active Irishman, but perfectly congenial to the sinews and spirit of the gay voyageur.
A few touches more give the complete picture of the day. About eight, a convenient site would be selected for breakfast. Three-quarters of an hour being the whole time allotted for unpacking and packing, boiling and frying, eating and drinking. "While the preliminaries were arranging, the hardier among us would wash and shave, each person carrying soap and towel in his pocket, and finding a mirror in the same sandy or rocky basin which held the water. About two in the afternoon, we put ashore for dinner, and as this meal needed no fire, or, at least, got none, it was not allowed to occupy more than twenty minutes, or half an hour."
We recommend the following considerations to the amateur boat clubs, and others, who plume themselves on their naval achievements between Putney and Vauxhall bridges. Let them take the work of a Canadian paddle-man to heart, and lower their plumage accordingly.
"The quality of the work, even more than the quantity, requires operatives of iron mould. In smooth water, the paddle is plied with twice the rapidity of the oar, taxing both arms and lungs to the utmost extent. Amid shallows, the canoe is literally dragged by the men, wading to their knees or their loins, while each poor fellow, after replacing his drier half in his seat, laughingly strikes the heavier of the wet from his legs over the gunwale, before he gives them an inside berth. In rapids, the towing line has to be hauled along over rocks and stumps, through swamps and thickets, excepting that when the ground is utterly impracticable, poles are substituted, and occasionally also the bushes on the shore."
This however is "plain sailing," to the Portages, where the tracks are of all imaginable kinds and degrees of badness, and the canoes and their cargoes are never carried across in less than two or three trips; the little vessels alone monopolizing, in the first turn, the more expert half of their respective crews. Of the baggage, each man has to carry at least two pieces, estimated at a hundred and eighty pounds weight, which he suspends in slings placed across his forehead, so that he may have his hands free, to clear his way among the branches and standing or fallen trunks. Besides all this, the voyageur performs the part of bridge, or jetty, on the arrival of the canoe at its place of rest, the gentlemen passengers being carried on shore on the backs of these good-humoured and sinewy fellows.
For the benefit of the untravelled, we should say, that a Portage is the fragment of land-passage between the foot and head of a rapid, when the rush of the stream is too strong for the tow-rope.