We had a very rough passage, fighting against head winds nearly all the way; but rapidly getting our sea-legs, we suffered little from ennui, being diverted by our observations on a somewhat curious collection of fellow-passengers. Conspicuous amongst them were two Romish bishops of Canadian sees, on their return from Rome, where they had assisted at the canonisation of the Japanese martyrs, and each gloried in the possession of a handsome silver medal, presented to them by his Holiness the Pope for their eminent services on that occasion. These two dignitaries presented a striking contrast. One, very tall and emaciated, was the very picture of an ascetic, and passed the greater part of his time in the cabin reading his missal and holy books. His inner man he satisfied by a spare diet of soup and fish, gratifying to the full no carnal appetite except that for snuff, which he took in prodigious quantity, and avoiding all society except that of his brother bishop. The latter, “a round, fat, oily man of God,” of genial temper, and sociable disposition, despised not the good things of this world, and greatly affected a huge meerschaum pipe, from which he blew a cloud with great complacency. As an antidote to them, we had an old lady afflicted with Papophobia, who caused us much amusement by inveighing bitterly against the culpable weakness of which Her Majesty the Queen had been guilty, in accepting the present of a side-board from Pius IX. A Canadian colonel, dignified, majestic, and speaking as with authority, discoursed political wisdom to an admiring and obsequious audience. He lorded it over our little society for a brief season, and then suddenly disappeared. Awful groans and noises, significant of sickness and suffering, were heard proceeding from his cabin. But, at last, one day when the weather had moderated a little, we discovered the colonel once more on deck, but, alas! how changed. His white hat, formerly so trim, was now frightfully battered; his cravat negligently tied; his whole dress slovenly. He sat with his head between his hands, dejected, silent, and forlorn.
The purser, a jolly Irishman, came up at the moment, and cried, “Holloa, colonel! on deck? Glad to see you all right again.”
“All right, sir!” cried the colonel, fiercely; “all right, sir? I’m not all right. I’m frightfully ill, sir! I’ve suffered the tortures of the—condemned; horrible beyond expression; but it’s not the pain I complain of; that, sir, a soldier like myself knows how to endure. But I’m thoroughly ashamed of myself, and shall never hold up my head again!”
“My dear sir,” said the purser, soothingly, with a sly wink at us, “what on earth have you been doing? There is nothing, surely, in sea-sickness to be ashamed of.”
“I tell you, sir,” said the colonel, passionately, “that it’s most demoralising! Think of a man of my years, and of my standing and position, lying for hours prone on the floor, with his head over a basin, making a disgusting beast of himself in the face of the company! I’ve lost my self-respect, sir; and I shall never be able to hold up my head amongst my fellow-men again!”
As he finished speaking, he again dropped his head between his hands, and thus did not observe the malicious smile on the purser’s face, or notice the suppressed laughter of the circle of listeners attracted round him by the violence of his language.
The young lady of our society—for we had but one—was remarkable for her solitary habits and pensive taciturnity. When we arrived at Quebec harbour, a most extraordinary change came over her; and we watched her in amazement, as she darted restlessly up and down the landing-stage in a state of the greatest agitation, evidently looking for some one who could not be found. In vain she searched, and at last rushed off to the telegraph office in a state of frantic excitement. Later the same day we met her at the hotel, seated by the side of a young gentleman, and as placid as ever. It turned out that she had come over to be married, but her lover had arrived too late to meet her; he, however, had at last made his appearance, and honourably fulfilled his engagement. A wild Irishman, continually roaring with laughter, a Northern American, rabid against “rebels,” and twenty others, made up our list of cabin passengers. Out of these we beg to introduce, as Mr. Treemiss, a gentleman going out like ourselves, to hunt buffalo on the plains, and equally enthusiastic in his anticipations of a glorious life in the far West. We soon struck up an intimate acquaintance, and agreed to travel in company as far as might be agreeable to the plans of each.
Before we reached the banks of Newfoundland we fell in with numerous evidences of a recent storm; a quantity of broken spars floated past, and a dismasted schooner, battered and deserted by her crew. On her stern was the name Ruby, and the stumps of her masts bore the marks of having been recently cut away.
Off the “banks” we encountered a fog so dense that we could not see twenty yards ahead. The steam whistle was blown every five minutes, and the lead kept constantly going. The ship crashed through broken ice, and we all strained our eyes for the first sight of some iceberg looming through the mist. A steamer passed close to us, her proximity being betrayed only by the scream of her whistle. Horrible stories of ships lost with all hands on board, from running against an iceberg, or on the rock-bound coast, became the favourite topic of conversation amongst the passengers; the captain looked anxious, and every one uncomfortable.
After two days, however, we emerged in safety from the raw, chilling fogs into clear sunlight at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, and on the 2nd of July steamed up the river to Quebec. The city of Quebec, with its bright white houses, picked out with green, clinging to the sides of a commanding bluff, which appears to rise up in the middle of the great river so as to bar all passage, has a striking beauty beyond comparison. We stayed but to see the glorious plains of Abraham, and then hastened up the St. Lawrence by Montreal, through the lovely scenery of the “Thousand Islands,” and across Lake Ontario to Toronto.