The Englishwoman in America Part 14

The census gives some interesting tables relating to the origins of the inhabitants of Canada. I wish that I had s.p.a.ce to present my readers with the whole, instead of with this brief extract:--

_Canadians_, French origin 695,000 _Canadians_, English origin 651,000 England and Wales 93,000 Scotland 90,000 Ireland 227,000 United States 56,000 Germany 10,000

Besides these there are 8000 coloured persons and 14,000 Indians in Canada, and emigrants from every civilised country in the world.

As far as regards the Church of England, Canada is divided into three dioceses--Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec--with a prospect of the creation of a fourth, that of Kingston. The clergy, whose duties are very arduous and ill-requited, have been paid by the Society for Propagating the Gospel, and out of the proceeds of the clergy reserves. The Society has, in great measure, withdrawn its support, and recent legislative enactments have a tendency to place the Church of England in Canada, to some extent, on the voluntary system. The inhabitants of Canada are fully able to support any form of wors.h.i.+p to which they may choose to attach themselves.

Trinity College, at Toronto, is in close connexion with the Church of England.

The Roman Catholics have enormous endowments, including a great part of the island of Montreal, and several valuable seigneuries. Very large sums are also received by them from those who enter the convents, and for baptisms, burials, and ma.s.ses for the dead. The enslaving, enervating, and r.e.t.a.r.ding effects of Roman Catholicism are nowhere better seen than in Lower Canada, where the priests exercise despotic authority. They have numerous and wealthy conventual establishments, both at Quebec and Montreal, and several Jesuit and other seminaries. The Irish emigrants const.i.tute the great body of Romanists in Upper Canada; in the Lower Province there are more than 746,000 adherents to this faith.

The Presbyterians are a very respectable, influential, and important body in Canada, bound firmly together by their uniformity of wors.h.i.+p and doctrine. Though an Episcopalian form of church government and a form of wors.h.i.+p are as obnoxious to them as at home, their opposition seldom amounts to hostility. Generally speaking, they are very friendly in their intercourse with the zealous and hard-working clergy of the Church of England; and, indeed, the comparative absence of sectarian feeling, and the way in which the ministers of all denominations act in harmonious combination for the general good, is one of the most pleasing features connected with religion in Canada.

In Upper Canada there are 1559 churches, for 952,000 adherents, being one place of wors.h.i.+p for every 612 inhabitants. Of these houses of wors.h.i.+p, 226 belong to the Church of England, 135 to the Roman Catholics, 148 to the Presbyterians, and 471 to the Methodists. In Lower Canada there are 610 churches, for 890,261 adherents, 746,000 of whom are Roman Catholics.

There is therefore in the Lower Province one place of wors.h.i.+p for every 1459 inhabitants. These religious statistics furnish additional proof of the progress of Upper Canada. The numbers adhering to the five most important denominations are as follows, in round numbers:--

Roman Catholics 914,000 Episcopalians 268,000 Presbyterians 237,000 Methodists 183,000 Baptists 49,000

Beside these there are more than 20 sects, some of them holding the most extravagant and fanatical tenets. In the Lower Province there are 45,000 persons belonging to the Church of England, 33,000 are Presbyterians, and 746,000 are Roman Catholics. With this vast number of Romanists in Canada, it is not surprising that under the present system of representation, which gives an equal number of representatives to each province, irrespective of population, the Roman Catholics should exercise a very powerful influence on the colonial Parliament. This influence is greatly to be deplored, not less socially and politically than religiously. Popery paralyses those countries under its dominion; and the stationary condition of Lower Canada is mainly to be attributed to the successful efforts of the priests to keep up that system of ignorance and terrorism, without which their power could not continue to exist.

More importance is attached generally to education in Upper Canada than might have been supposed from the extreme deficiencies of the first settlers. A national system of education, on a most liberal scale, has been organised by the Legislature, which presents in unfavourable contrast the feeble and isolated efforts made for this object by private benevolence in England. Acting on the principle that the first duty of government is to provide for the education of its subjects, a uniform and universal educational system has been put into force in Canada.

This system of public instruction is founded on the co-operation of the Executive Government with the local munic.i.p.alities. The members of these corporations are elected by the freeholders and householders. The system, therefore, is strictly popular and national, as the people voluntarily tax themselves for its support, and, through their elected trustees, manage the schools themselves. It is probable that the working of this plan may exercise a beneficial influence on the minds of the people, in training them to thought for their offspring, as regards their best interests. No compulsion whatever is exercised by the Legislature over the proceedings of the local munic.i.p.alities; it merely offers a pecuniary grant, on the condition of local exertion. The children of every cla.s.s of the population have equal access to these schools, and there is no compulsion upon the religious faith of any. Religious minorities in school munic.i.p.alities have the alternative of separate schools, and attach considerable importance to this provision. Although what we should term religious instruction is not a part of the common school system, it is gratifying to know that both the Bible and Testament are read in a very large majority of these schools, and that the number where they are used is annually on the increase. They are in Upper Canada 3127 common schools, about 1800 of which are free, or partially free. The total amount available for school purposes in 1853 amounted to 199,674_l._, and magnificent sum, considering the youth and comparatively thin population of the country. The total number of pupils in the same year was 194,136. But though this number appears large, the painful fact must also be stated, that there were 79,000 children dest.i.tute of the blessings of education of any kind. The whole number of teachers at the same period was 3539, of whom 885 were Methodists, 850 were Presbyterians, 629 were Episcopalians, 351 were Roman Catholics, and 194 belonged to the Baptist persuasion. The inspection of schools, which is severe and systematic, is conducted by local superintendents appointed by the different munic.i.p.alities. There is a Board of Public Instruction in each county for the examination and licensing of teachers; the standard of their qualifications is fixed by provincial authority. At the head of the whole are a Council of Public Instruction and a Chief Commissioner of Schools, both appointed by the Crown. There are several colleges, very much on the system of the Scotch Universities, including Trinity College at Toronto, in connection with the Church of England, and Knox's College, a Presbyterian theological seminary. There are also medical colleges, both in Upper and Lower Canada, and a chair of agriculture has been established in University College, Toronto. From these statements it will be seen that, from the ample provision made, a good education can be obtained at a very small cost. There are in Lower Canada upwards of 1100 schools.

Every town, and I believe I may with truth write every village, has its daily and weekly papers, advocating all shades of political opinion. The press in Canada is the medium through which the people receive, first by telegraphic despatch, and later in full, every item of English intelligence brought by the bi-weekly mails. Taking the newspapers as a whole, they are far more gentlemanly in their tone than those of the neighbouring republic, and perhaps are not more abusive and personal than _some_ of our English provincial papers. There is, however, very great room for improvement, and no doubt, as the national palate becomes improved by education, the morsels presented to it will be more choice.

Quebec, Montreal, and Toronto have each of them several daily papers, but, as far as I am aware, no paper openly professes republican or annexationist views, and some of the journals advocate in the strongest manner an attachment to British inst.i.tutions. The prices of these papers vary from a penny to threepence each, and a workman would as soon think of depriving himself of his breakfast as of his morning journal. It is stated that thousands of the subscribers to the newspapers are so illiterate as to depend upon their children for a knowledge of their contents. At present few people, comparatively speaking, are more than half educated.

The knowledge of this fact lowers the tone of the press, and circ.u.mscribes both authors and speakers, as any allusions to history or general literature would be very imperfectly, if at all, understood.

The merchants and lawyers of Canada have, if of British extraction, generally received a sound and useful education, which, together with the admirable way in which they keep pace with the politics and literature of Europe, enables them to pa.s.s very creditably in any society. There are very good book-stores in Canada, particularly at Toronto, where the best English works are to be purchased for little more than half the price which is paid for them at home, and these are largely read by the educated Canadians, who frequently possess excellent libraries. Cheap American novels, often of a very objectionable tendency, are largely circulated among the lower cla.s.ses; but to provide them with literature of a better character, large libraries have been formed by local efforts, a.s.sisted by government grants. Canada as yet possesses no literature of her own, and the literary man is surrounded by difficulties. Independently of the heavy task of addressing himself to uneducated minds, unable to appreciate depth of thought and beauty of language, it is not likely that, where the absorbing pa.s.sion is the acquisition of wealth, much encouragement would be given to the struggles of native talent.

Canada, young as she is, has made great progress in the mechanical arts, and some of her machinery and productions make a very creditable show at the Paris Exhibition; but it must be borne in mind that this is due to the government, rather than to the enterprise of private exhibitors.

Taken altogether, there is perhaps no country in the world so prosperous or so favoured as Canada, after giving full weight to the disadvantages which she possesses, in a large Roman Catholic population, an unsettled state of society, and a mixed and imperfectly educated people. It is the freest land under the sun, acknowledging neither a despotic sovereign nor a tyrant populace; life and property are alike secure--liberty has not yet degenerated into lawlessness--the const.i.tution combines the advantages of the monarchical and republican forms of government--the Legislative a.s.sembly, to a great extent, represents the people--religious toleration is enjoyed in the fullest degree--taxation and debt, which cripple the energies and excite the disaffection of older communities, are unfelt--the slave flying from bondage in the south knows no sense of liberty or security till he finds both on the banks of the St. Lawrence, under the shadow of the British flag. Free from the curse of slavery, Canada has started untrammelled in the race of nations, and her progress already bids fair to outstrip in rapidity that of her older and gigantic neighbour.

Labour is what she requires, and as if to meet that requirement, circ.u.mstances have directed the attention of emigrants towards her--the young, the enterprising, and the vigorous, are daily leaving the wasted sh.o.r.es of Scotland and Ireland for her fertile soil, where the laws of England shall still protect them, and her flag shall still wave over them.

Large numbers of persons are now leaving the north-east of Scotland for Canada, and these are among the most valuable of the emigrants who seek her sh.o.r.es. They carry with them the high moral sense, the integrity, and the loyalty which characterise them at home; and in many cases more than this--the religious principle, and the "G.o.dliness which has promise of the life which now is, and of that which is to come."

Taken as a _whole_, the inhabitants of both provinces are attached to England and England's rule; they receive the news of our reverses with sorrow, and our victories create a burst of enthusiasm from the sh.o.r.es of the St. Lawrence to those of Lake Superior. As might be expected, the Anglo-French alliance is extremely popular: to show the sympathy of Canada, the Legislature made the munificent grant of 20,000_l._ to be divided between the Patriotic Funds of both nations, and every towns.h.i.+p and village has contributed to swell a further sum of 30,000_l._ to be applied to the same object. The imperial garrisons in Canada have recently been considerably diminished, and with perfect safety; the efforts of agitators to produce disaffection have signally failed; and it is stated by those best acquainted with the temper of the people, that Canada will not become a separate country, except by England's voluntary act.

At present every obstacle to her further development seems to be removed-- her const.i.tution has been remodelled within the last few years on an enlarged and liberal basis--her religious endowments have just been placed on a permanent footing--all the points likely to cause a rupture with the United States have been amicably settled--and important commercial advantages have been obtained: the sun of prosperity s.h.i.+nes upon her from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the distant sh.o.r.es of the Ottawa and the Western Lakes. She requires only for the future the blessing of G.o.d, so freely accorded to the nations which honour Him, to make her great and powerful. The future of nations, as of individuals, is mercifully veiled in mystery; we can trace the rise and progress of empires, but we know not the time when they shall droop and decay--when the wealthy and populous cities of the Present shall be numbered with the Nineveh and Babylon of the Past. It may be that in future years our mighty nation shall go the way of all that have been before it; but whether the wise decrees of Providence doom it to flourish or decline, we can still look with confident hope to this n.o.ble colony in the New World, believing that on her enlightened and happy sh.o.r.es, under the influence of beneficent inst.i.tutions and of a scriptural faith, the Anglo-Saxon race may renew the vigour of its youth, and realise in time to come the brightest hopes which have ever been formed of England in the New World.

CHAPTER XV.

Preliminary remarks on re-entering the States--Americanisms--A little slang--Liquoring up--Eccentricities in dress--A 'cute chap down east-- Conversation on eating--A Kentucky gal--Lake Champlain--Delaval's--A noisy serenade--Albany--Beauties of the Hudson--The Empire City.

It has been truly observed that a reliable book on the United States yet remains to be written. The writer of such a volume must neither be a tourist nor a temporary resident. He must spend years, in the different States, nicely estimating the different characteristics of each, as well as the broadly-marked shades of difference between East, West, and South.

He must trace the effect of Republican principles upon the various races which form this vast community; and, while a.n.a.lysing the prosperity of the country, he must carefully distinguish between the real, the fict.i.tious, and the speculative. In England we speak of America as "_Brother Jonathan_" in the singular number, without any fraternal feeling however, and consider it as one nation, possessing uniform distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristics. I saw _less_ difference between Edinburgh and Boston, than between Boston and Chicago; the dark-haired Celts of the west of Scotland, and the stirring artisans of our manufacturing cities, have more in common than the descendants of the Puritans in New England, and the reckless, lawless inhabitants of the newly-settled territories west of the Mississippi. It must not be forgotten that the thirty-two States of which the Union is composed, may be considered in some degree as separate countries, each possessing its governor and a.s.sembly, and framing, to a considerable extent, its own laws. Beyond the voice which each State possesses in the Congress and Senate at Was.h.i.+ngton, there is apparently little to bind this vast community together; there is no national form of religion, or state endowed church; Unitarianism may be the prevailing faith in one State. Presbyterianism in another, and Universalism in a third; while between the Northern and Southern States there is as wide a difference as between England and Russia--a difference stamped on the very soil itself, and which, in the opinion of some, threatens a disseverance of the Union.

Other causes also produce highly distinctive features in the inhabitants.

In the long-settled districts bordering upon the Atlantic, all the accompaniments and appliances of civilisation may be met with, and a comparatively stationary, refined, and intellectual condition of society.

Travel for forty hours to the westward, and everything is in a transition state: there are rough roads and unfinished railroads; foundations of cities laid in soil scarcely cleared from the forest; splendid hotels within sound of the hunter's rifle and the lumberer's axe; while the elements of society are more chaotic than the features of the country.

Every year a tide of emigration rolls westward, not from Europe only, but from the crowded eastern cities, forming a tangled web of races, manners, and religions which the hasty observer cannot attempt to disentangle. Yet there are many external features of uniformity which the traveller cannot fail to lay hold of, and which go under the general name of Americanisms.

These are peculiarities of dress, manners, and phraseology, and, to some extent, of opinion, and may be partly produced by the locomotive life which the American leads, and the way in which all cla.s.ses are brought into contact in travelling. These peculiarities are not to be found among the highest or the highly-educated cla.s.ses, but they force themselves upon the tourist to a remarkable, and frequently to a repulsive, extent; and it is safer for him to narrate facts and comment upon externals, though in doing so he presents a very partial and superficial view of the people, than to present his readers with general inferences drawn from partial premises, or with conclusions based upon imperfect, and often erroneous, data.

An entire revolution had been effected in my way of looking at things since I landed on the sh.o.r.es of the New World. I had ceased to look for vestiges of the past, or for relics of ancient magnificence, and, in place of these, I now contemplated vast resources in a state of progressive and almost feverish development, and, having become accustomed to a general absence of the picturesque, had learned to look at the practical and the utilitarian with a high degree of interest and pleasure. The change from the lethargy and feudalism of Lower Canada and the gaiety of Quebec, to the activity of the New England population, was very startling. It was not less so from the _reposeful_ manners and gentlemanly appearance of the English Canadians, and the vivacity and politeness of the French, to Yankee dress, tw.a.n.g, and peculiarities.

These appeared, as the Americans say, in "full blast," during the few hours which I spent on Lake Champlain. There were about a hundred pa.s.sengers, including a sprinkling of the fair s.e.x. The amus.e.m.e.nts were story-telling, whittling, and smoking. Fully half the stories told began with, "There was a 'cute 'c.o.o.n down east," and the burden of nearly all was some clever act of cheating, "sucking a greenhorn," as the phrase is.

There were occasional anecdotes of "bustings-up" on the southern rivers, "making tracks" from importunate creditors, of practical jokes, and glaring impositions. There was a great deal of "liquoring-up" going on the whole time. The best story-teller was repeatedly called upon to "liquor some," which was accordingly done by copious draughts of "gin-sling," but at last he declared he was a "gone 'c.o.o.n, fairly stumped," by which he meant to express that he was tired and could do no more. This a.s.sertion was met by encouragements to "pile on," upon which the individual declared that he "couldn't get his steam up, he was tired some." This word _some_ is synonymous in its use with our word _rather_, or its Yankee equivalent "_kinder_." On this occasion some one applied it to the boat, which he declared was "almighty dirty, and shaky some"--a great libel, by the way.

The dress of these individuals somewhat amused me. The prevailing costumes of the gentlemen were straw hats, black dress coats remarkably s.h.i.+ny, tight pantaloons, and pumps. These were worn by the sallow narrators of the tales of successful roguery. There were a very few hardy western men, habited in scarlet flannel s.h.i.+rts, and trowsers tucked into high boots, their garments supported by stout leathern belts, with dependent bowie- knives; these told "yarns" of adventures, and dangers from Indians, something in the style of Colonel Crockett.

The ladies wore their satin or kid shoes of various colours, of which the mud had made woeful havoc. The stories, which called forth the applause of the company in exact proportion to the barefaced roguery and utter want of principle displayed in each, would not have been worth listening to, had it not been from the extraordinary vernacular in which they were clothed, and the racy and emphatic manner of the narrators. Some of these voted three legs of their chairs superfluous, and balanced themselves on the fourth; while others hooked their feet on the top of the windows, and balanced themselves on the back legs of their chairs, in a position strongly suggestive of hanging by the heels. One of the stories which excited the most amus.e.m.e.nt reads very tamely divested of the slang and manner of the story-teller.

A "'cute chap down east" had a "2-50" black mare (one which could perform a mile in two minutes fifty seconds), and, being about to "make tracks,"

he sold her to a gentleman for 350 dollars. In the night he stole her, cut her tail, painted her legs white, gave her a "blaze" on her face, sold her for 100 dollars, and decamped, sending a note to the first purchaser acquainting him with the particulars of the transaction. "'Cute chap that;" "A wide-awake feller;" "That c.o.o.n had cut his eye-teeth;" "A smart sell that;" were the comments made on this roguish transaction, all the sympathy of the listeners being on the side of the rogue.

The stories related by Barnum of the tricks and impositions practised by himself and others are a fair sample, so far as roguery goes, of those which are to be heard in hotels, steamboats, and cars. I have heard men openly boast, before a miscellaneous company, of acts of dishonesty which in England would have procured transportation for them. Mammon is the idol which the people wors.h.i.+p; the one desire is the acquisition of money; the most nefarious trickery and bold dishonesty are invested with a spurious dignity if they act as aids to the attainment of this object. Children from their earliest years imbibe the idea that sin is sin--_only when found out_.

The breakfast bell rang, and a general rush took place, and I was left alone with two young ladies who had just become acquainted, and were resolutely bent upon finding out each other's likes and dislikes, with the intention of vowing an eternal friends.h.i.+p. A gentleman who looked as if he had come out of a ball-room came up, and with a profusion of bows addressed them, or the prettiest of them, thus:--"Miss, it's feeding time, I guess; what will you eat?" "You're very polite; what's the ticket?"

"Chicken and corn-fixings, and pork with onion-fixings." "Well, I'm hungry some; I'll have some pig and fixings." The swain retired, and brought a profusion of viands, which elicited the remark, "Well, I guess that's substantial, anyhow." The young ladies' appet.i.tes seemed to be very good, for I heard the observation, "Well, you eat considerable; you're in full blast, I guess." "Guess I am: its all-fired cold, and I have been an everlastin long time off my feed." A long undertoned conversation followed this interchange of civilities, when I heard the lady say in rather elevated tones, "You're trying to rile me some; you're piling it on a trifle too high." "Well, I did want to put up your dander. Do tell now, where was you raised?" "In Kentucky." "I could have guessed that; whenever I sees a splenderiferous gal, a kinder gentle goer, and high stepper, I says to myself, That gal's from old Kentuck, and no mistake."

This couple carried on a long conversation in the same style of graceful badinage; but I have given enough of it.

Lake Champlain is extremely pretty, though it is on rather too large a scale to please an English eye, being about 150 miles long. The sh.o.r.es are gentle slopes, wooded and cultivated, with the Green Mountains of Vermont in the background. There was not a ripple on the water, and the morning was so warm and showery, that I could have believed it to be an April day had not the leafless trees told another tale. Whatever the boasted beauties of Lake Champlain were, they veiled themselves from English eyes in a thick fog, through which we steamed at half-speed, with a dismal fog- bell incessantly tolling.

I landed at Burlington, a thriving modern town, prettily situated below some wooded hills, on a bay, the margin of which is pure white sand, Here, as at nearly every town, great and small, in the United States, there was an excellent hotel. No people have such confidence in the future as the Americans. You frequently find a splendid hotel surrounded by a few clapboard houses, and may feel inclined to smile at the incongruity. The builder looks into futurity, and sees that in two years a thriving city will need hotel accommodation; and seldom is he wrong. The American is a gregarious animal, and it is not impossible that an hotel, with a _table- d'hote_, may act as a magnet. Here I joined Mr. and Mrs. Alderson, and travelled with them to Albany, through Vermont and New York. The country was hilly, and more suited for sheep-farming than for corn. Water- privileges were abundant in the shape of picturesque torrents, and numerous mills turned their capabilities to profitable account. Our companions were rather of a low description, many of them Germans, and desperate tobacco-chewers. The whole floor of the car was covered with streams of tobacco-juice, apple-cores, grape-skins, and chestnut-husks.

We crossed the Hudson River, and spent the night at Delaval's, at Albany.

The great peculiarity of this most comfortable hotel is, that the fifty waiters are Irish girls, neatly and simply dressed. They are under a coloured manager, and their civility and alacrity made me wonder that the highly-paid services of male waiters were not more frequently dispensed with. The railway ran along the street in which the hotel is situated.

From my bedroom window I looked down into the funnel of a locomotive, and all night long was serenaded with screams, ringing of bells, and cries of "All aboard" and "Go ahead."

Albany, the capital of the State of New York, is one of the prettiest towns in the Union. The slope on which it is built faces the Hudson, and is crowned by a large state-house, the place of meeting for the legislature of the Empire State. The Americans repudiate the "centralization" principle, and for wise reasons, of which the Irish form a considerable number, they almost invariably locate the government of each state, not at the most important or populous town, but at some inconsiderable place, where the learned legislators are not in danger of having their embarra.s.sments increased by deliberating under the coercion of a turbulent urban population. Albany has several public buildings, and a number of conspicuous churches, and is a very thriving place. The traffic on the river between it and New York is enormous. There is a perpetual stream of small vessels up and down. The Empire City receives its daily supplies of vegetables, meat, b.u.t.ter, and eggs from its neighbourhood. The Erie and Champlain ca.n.a.ls here meet the Hudson, and through the former the produce of the teeming West pours to the Atlantic.

The traffic is carried on in small sailing sloops and steamers. Sometimes a little screw-vessel of fifteen or twenty tons may be seen to hurry, puffing and panting, up to a large vessel and drag it down to the sea; but generally one paddle-tug takes six vessels down, four being towed behind and one or two lashed on either side. As both steamers and sloops are painted white, and the sails are perfectly dazzling in their purity, and twenty, thirty, and forty of these flotillas may be seen in the course of a morning, the Hudson river presents a very animated and unique appearance. It is said that everybody loses a portmanteau at Albany: I was more fortunate, and left it without having experienced the slightest annoyance.

On the other side of the ferry a very undignified scramble takes place for the seats on the right side of the cars, as the scenery for 130 miles is perfectly magnificent. "Go ahead" rapidly succeeded "All aboard," and we whizzed along this most extraordinary line of railway, so prolific in accidents that, when people leave New York by it, their friends frequently request them to notify their safe arrival at their destination. It runs along the very verge of the river, below a steep cliff, but often is supported just above the surface of the water upon a wooden platform.

Guide-books inform us that the trains which run on this line, and the steamers which ply on the Hudson, are equally unsafe, the former from collisions and "upsets," the latter from "bustings-up;" but most people prefer the boats, from the advantage of seeing both sides of the river.

The sun of a November morning had just risen as I left Albany, and in a short time beamed upon swelling hills, green savannahs, and waving woods fringing the margin of the Hudson. At c.o.xsackie the river expands into a small lake, and the majestic Catsgill Mountains rise abruptly from the western side. The scenery among these mountains is very grand and varied.

Its silence and rugged sublimity recall the Old World: it has rocky pinnacles and desert pa.s.ses, inaccessible eminences and yawning chasms.

The world might grow populous at the feet of the Catsgills, but it would leave them untouched and unprofaned in their stern majesty. From this point for a hundred miles the eyes of the traveller are perfectly steeped in beauty, which, gathering and increasing, culminates at West Point, a lofty eminence jutting upon a lake apparently without any outlet. The spurs of mountain ranges which meet here project in precipices from five to fifteen hundred feet in height; trees find a place for their roots in every rift among the rocks; festoons of clematis and wild-vine hang in graceful drapery from base to summit, and the dark mountain shadows loom over the lake-like expanse below. The hand wearies of writing of the loveliness of this river. I saw it on a perfect day. The Indian summer lingered, as though unwilling that the chilly blasts of winter should blight the loveliness of this beauteous scene. The gloom of autumn was not there, but its glories were on every leaf and twig. The bright scarlet of the maple vied with the brilliant berries of the rowan, and from among the tendrils of the creepers, which were waving in the sighs of the west wind, peeped forth the deep crimson of the sumach. There were very few signs of cultivation; the banks of the Hudson are barren in all but beauty. The river is a succession of small wild lakes, connected by narrow reaches, bound for ever between abrupt precipices. There are lakes more beauteous than Loch Katrine, softer in their features than Loch Achray, though like both, or like the waters which glitter beneath the blue sky of Italy.

Along their margins the woods hung in scarlet and gold--high above towered the purple peaks--the blue waters flashed back the rays of a sun s.h.i.+ning from an unclouded sky--the air was warm like June--and I think the sunbeams of that day scarcely shone upon a fairer scene. At mid-day the Highlands of Hudson were left behind--the mountains melted into hills--the river expanded into a n.o.ble stream about a mile in width--the scarlet woods, the silvery lakes, and the majestic Catsgills faded away in the distance; and with a whoop, and a roar, and a clatter, the cars entered into, and proceeded at slackened speed down, a long street called Tenth Avenue, among carts, children, and pigs.

True enough, we were in New York, the western receptacle not only of the traveller and the energetic merchant, but of the dest.i.tute, the friendless, the vagabond, and in short of all the outpourings of Europe, who here form a conglomerate ma.s.s of evil, making America responsible for their vices and their crimes. Yet the usual signs of approach to an enormous city were awanting--dwarfed trees, market-gardens, c.o.c.kney arbours, in which citizens smoke their pipes in the evening, and imagine themselves in Arcadia, rows of small houses, and a murky canopy of smoke.

We had steamed down Tenth Avenue for two or three miles, when we came to a standstill where several streets met. The train was taken to pieces, and to each car four horses or mules were attached, which took us for some distance into the very heart of the town, racing apparently with omnibuses and carriages, till at last we were deposited in Chambers Street, not in a station, or even under cover, be it observed. My baggage, or "plunder" as it is termed, had been previously disposed of, but, while waiting with my head disagreeably near to a horse's nose, I saw people making distracted attempts, and futile ones as it appeared, to preserve their effects from the clutches of numerous porters, many of them probably thieves. To judge from appearances, many people would mourn the loss of their portmanteaus that night.

New York deserves the name applied to Was.h.i.+ngton, "the city of magnificent distances." I drove in a hack for three miles to my destination, along crowded, handsome streets, but I believe that I only traversed a third part of the city.