Read Ebook: The Englishwoman in America by Bird Isabella L Isabella Lucy

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Prefatory and explanatory--The voyage out--The sentimental--The actual --The oblivious--The medley--Practical joking--An unwelcome companion-- American patriotism--The first view--The departure.

An inhospitable reception--Halifax and the Blue Noses--The heat-- Disappointed expectations--The great departed--What the Blue Noses might be--What the coach was not--Nova Scotia and its capabilities--The roads and their annoyances--A tea dinner--A night journey and a Highland cabin --A nautical catastrophe--A joyful reunion.

Popular ignorance--The garden island--Summer and winter contrasted--A wooden capital--Island politics, and their consequences--Gossip--"Blowin- time"--Religion and the clergy--The servant nuisance--Colonial society--An evening party--An island premier--Agrarian outrage--A visit to the Indians--The pipe of peace--An Indian coquette--Country hospitality--A missionary--A novel mode of lobster-fishing--Uncivilised life--Far away in the woods--Starvation and dishonesty--An old Highlander and a Highland welcome--Hopes for the future.

From St. George's Cross to the Stars and Stripes--Unpunctuality-- Incompetence--A wretched night--Colonial curiosity--The fashions--A night in a buffalo robe--A stage journey--A queer character--Politics-- Chemistry--Mathematics--Rotten bridges--A midnight arrival--Colonial ignorance--Yankee conceit--What ten-horse power chaps can do--The pestilence--The city on the rock--New Brunswick--Steamboat peculiarities --Going ahead in the eating line--A storm--Stepping ashore.

First experiences of American freedom--The "striped pig" and "Dusty Ben" --A country mouse--What the cars are like--Beauties of New England--The land of apples--A Mammoth hotel--The rusty inkstand exiled--Eloquent eyes --Alone in a crowd.

A suspected bill--A friend in need--All aboard for the Western cars-- The wings of the wind--American politeness--A loquacious conductor-- Three minutes for refreshments--A conversation on politics--A confession--The emigrant car--Beauties of the woods--A forest on fire-- Dangers of the cars--The Queen City of the West.

The Queen City continued--Its beauties--Its inhabitants, human and equine--An American church--Where chairs and bedsteads come from--Pigs and pork--A peep into Kentucky--Popular opinions respecting slavery-- The curse of America.

The hickory stick--Chawing up ruins--A forest scene--A curious questioner --Hard and soft shells--Dangers of a ferry--The western prairies-- Nocturnal detention--The Wild West and the Father of Rivers--Breakfast in a shed--What is an alligator?--Physiognomy, and its uses--The ladies' parlour--A Chicago hotel, its inmates and its horrors--A water-drinking people--The Prairie City--Progress of the West.

A vexatious incident--John Bull enraged--Woman's rights--Alligators become hosses--A popular host--Military display--A mirth-provoking gun --Grave reminiscences--Attractions of the fair--Past and present--A floating palace--Black companions--A black baby--Externals of Buffalo-- The flag of England.

The Place of Council--Its progress and its people--English hearts-- "Sebastopol is taken"--Squibs and crackers--A ship on her beam-ends-- Selfishness--A mongrel city--A Scot--Constancy rewarded--Monetary difficulties--Detention on a bridge--A Canadian homestead--Life in the clearings--The bush on fire--A word on farming--The "bee" and its produce --Eccentricities of Mr. Haldimands--A ride on a troop-horse--Scotch patriotism--An English church--The servant nuisance--Richard Cobden.

"I've seen nothing"--A disappointment--Incongruities--Hotel gaieties and "doing Niagara"--Irish drosky-drivers--"The Hell of Waters"--Beauties of Niagara--The picnic party--The white canoe--A cold shower-bath--"The Thunder of Waters"--A magic word--"The Whirlpool"--Story of "Bloody Run"-- Yankee opinions of English ladies--A metamorphosis--The nigger guide--A terrible situation--Termination Rock--Impressions of Niagara--Juvenile precocity--A midnight journey--Street adventures in Hamilton.

A scene at starting--That dear little Harry--The old lady and the race --Running the Rapids--An aside--Snow and discomfort--A new country--An extemporised ball--Adventure with a madman--Shooting the cataract-- First appearance of Montreal--Its characteristics--Quebec in a fog-- "Muffins"--Quebec gaieties--The pestilence--Restlessness--St. Louis and St. Roch--The shady side--Dark dens--External characteristics--Lord Elgin--Mistaking a senator.

Concluding remarks on Canada--Territory--Climate--Capabilities--Railways and canals--Advantages for emigrants--Notices of emigration--Government-- The franchise--Revenue--Population--Religion--Education--The press-- Literature--Observations in conclusion.

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.

The cemetery--Its beauties--The "Potter's Field"--The graves of children-- Monumental eccentricities--Arrival of emigrants--Their reception--Poor dwellings--The dangerous class--The elections--The riots--Characteristics of the streets--Journey to Boston--The sights of Boston--Longfellow-- Cambridge University.

Origin of the Constitution--The Executive--Congress--Local Legislatures-- The army and navy--Justice--Slavery--Political corruption--The foreign element--Absence of principle--Associations--The Know-nothings--The press and its power--Religion--The church--The clergy.

General remarks continued--The common schools--Their defect--Difficulties --Management of the schools--The free academy--Hallways--Telegraphs-- Poverty--Literature--Advantages for emigrants--Difficulties of emigrants-- Peace or war--Concluding observations.

THE ENGLISHWOMAN IN AMERICA.

Prefatory and explanatory--The voyage out--The sentimental--The actual-- The oblivious--The medley--Practical joking--An unwelcome companion-- American patriotism--The first view--The departure.

As a general dislike of prefaces is unmistakeably evidenced by their uncut leaves, and as unknown readers could scarcely be induced to read a book by the most cogent representations of an unknown author, and as apologies for "rushing into print" are too trite and insincere to have any effect, I will merely prefix a few explanatory remarks to my first chapter.

Circumstances which it is unnecessary to dwell upon led me across the Atlantic with some relatives; and on my return, I was requested by numerous friends to give an account of my travels. As this volume has been written with a view to their gratification, there is far more of personal narrative than is likely to interest the general reader.

With respect to the people of the United States, I have given those impressions which as a traveller I formed; if they are more favourable than those of some of my predecessors, the difference may arise from my having taken out many excellent introductions, which afforded me greater facilities of seeing the best society in the States than are usually possessed by those who travel merely to see the country.

Previously to visiting the United States, I had read most of the American travels which had been published; yet from experience I can say that even those who read most on the Americans know little of them, from the disposition which leads travellers to seize and dwell upon the ludicrous points which continually present themselves.

"That they may take who have the power, And they may keep who can."

I went to the States with that amount of prejudice which seems the birthright of every English person, but I found that, under the knowledge of the Americans which can be attained by a traveller mixing in society in every grade, these prejudices gradually melted away. I found much which is worthy of commendation, even of imitation: that there is much which is very reprehensible, is not to be wondered at in a country which for years has been made a "cave of Adullam"--a refuge for those who have "left their country for their country's good"--a receptacle for the barbarous, the degraded, and the vicious of all other nations. It must never be forgotten that the noble, the learned, and the wealthy have shrunk from the United States; her broad lands have been peopled to a great extent by those whose stalwart arms have been their only possession.

Is it surprising, considering these antecedents, that much of arrogance, coarseness, and vulgarity should be met with? Is it not rather surprising, that a traveller should meet with so little to annoy--so few obvious departures from the rules of propriety?

Having made these few remarks, I must state that at the time of my visit to the States I had no intention of recording my "experiences" in print; and as my notes taken at the time were few and meagre, and have been elaborated from memory, some inaccuracies have occurred which it will not take a keen eye to detect. These must be set down to want of correct information rather than to wilful misrepresentation. The statistical information given is taken from works compiled by the Americans themselves. The few matters on which I write which did not come under my own observation, I learned from trustworthy persons who have been long resident in the country.

Of Canada it is scarcely necessary to speak here. Perhaps an English writer may be inclined to adopt too eulogistic a tone in speaking of that noble and loyal colony, in which British institutions are undergoing a Transatlantic trial, and where a free people is protected by British laws. There are, doubtless, some English readers who will be interested in the brief notices which I have given of its people, its society, and its astonishing capabilities.

The notes from which this volume is taken were written in the lands of which it treats: they have been amplified and corrected in the genial atmosphere of an English home. I will not offer hackneyed apologies for its very numerous faults and deficiencies; but will conclude these tedious but necessary introductory remarks with the sincere hope that my readers may receive one hundredth part of the pleasure from the perusal of this volume which I experienced among the scenes and people of which it is too imperfect a record.

Although bi-weekly steamers ply between England and the States, and many mercantile men cross the Atlantic twice annually on business, and think nothing of it, the voyage seems an important event when undertaken for the first time. Friends living in inland counties, and those who have been sea-sick in crossing the straits of Dover, exaggerate the dangers and discomforts of ocean travelling, and shake their heads knowingly about fogs and icebergs.

Then there are a certain number of boxes to be packed, and a very uncertain number of things to fill them, while clothing has to be provided suitable to a tropical summer, and a winter within the arctic circle. But a variety of minor arrangements, and even an indefinite number of leave- takings, cannot be indefinitely prolonged; and at eight o'clock on a Saturday morning in 1854, I found myself with my friends on the landing- stage at Liverpool.

An investigation into the state-rooms, and the recital of disappointed expectations consequent on the discovery of their very small dimensions, the rescue of "regulation" portmanteaus from sailors who were running off with them, and the indulgence of that errant curiosity which glances at everything and rests on nothing, occupied the time before the arrival of the mail-boat with about two tons of letters and newspapers, which were consigned to the mail-room with incredible rapidity.

It is to be supposed that to those who were crossing the Atlantic for the first time to the western hemisphere there was some degree of excitement, and that regret was among the feelings with which they saw the coast of England become a faint cloud on the horizon; but soon oblivion stole over the intellects of most of the passengers, leaving one absorbing feeling of disgust, first to the viands, next to those who could partake of them, and lastly to everything connected with the sea. Fortunately this state of things only lasted for two days, as the weather was very calm, and we ran with studding-sails set before a fair wind as far as the Nova Scotian coast.

Comic drinking-songs, and satires on the English, the latter to the tune of 'Yankee Doodle,' were sung in the saloon in the evenings round large bowls of punch, and had the effect of keeping many of the ladies on deck, when a refuge from the cold and spray would have been desirable; but with this exception the conduct of the passengers on the whole was marked by far more propriety than could have been expected from so mixed a company. If the captain had been more of a disciplinarian, even this annoyance might have been avoided.

I had the misfortune of having for my companion in my state-room an Englishwoman who had resided for some years at New York, and who combined in herself the disagreeable qualities of both nations. She was in a frequent state of intoxication, and kept gin, brandy, and beer in her berth. Whether sober or not, she was equally voluble; and as her language was not only inelegant, but replete with coarseness and profanity, the annoyance was almost insupportable. She was a professed atheist, and as such justly an object of commiseration, the weakness of her unbelief being clearly manifested by the frequency with which she denied the existence of a God.

On one day, as I was reading my Bible, she exclaimed with a profane expression, "I wish you'd pitch that book overboard, it's enough to sink the ship;" the contradiction implied in the words showing the weakness of her atheism, which, while it promises a man the impunity of non-existence, and degrades him to desire it, very frequently seduces him to live as an infidel, but to die a terrified and despairing believer.

On the next day we had a slight head wind for the first time; most of the passengers were sea-sick, and those who were not so were promenading the wet, sooty deck in the rain, in a uniform of oilskin coats and caps. The sea and sky were both of a leaden colour; and as there was nothing to enliven the prospect but the gambols of some very uncouth-looking porpoises, I was lying half asleep on a settee, when I was roused by the voice of a kind-hearted Yankee skipper, saying, "Come, get up; there's a glorious country and no mistake; a great country, a progressive country, the greatest country under the sun." The honest sailor was rubbing his hands with delight as he spoke, his broad, open countenance beaming with a perfect glow of satisfaction. I looked in the direction indicated by his finger, and beheld, not the lofty pinnacled cliffs of the "Pilgrim Fathers," but a low gloomy coast, looming through a mist.

At dusk, after steaming during the whole day along the low green coast of Nova Scotia, we were just outside the heads of Halifax harbour, and the setting sun was bathing the low, pine-clad hills of America in floods of purple light. A pilot came off to offer his services, but was rejected, and to my delight he hailed in a pure English accent, which sounded like a friendly welcome. The captain took his place on the paddle-box, and our speed was slackened. Two guns were fired, and their echoes rolled for many a mile among the low, purple hills, from which a soft, fragrant scent of pines was borne to us on the evening breeze, reminding me of the far- distant mountains of Scotland. The tiny waves rippled towards us like diamonds, the moon and stars shone brilliantly from a summer sky, and the white smoke from our guns floated away in silver clouds.

People were tumbling over each other in their haste, and making impossible demands, each one being anxious to have his luggage produced first, though the said luggage might be at the bottom of the hold; babies, as babies always do, persisted in crying just at the wrong time; articles essential to the toilet were missing, and sixpences or half-sovereigns had found their way into impossible crevices. Invitations were given, cards exchanged, elderly ladies unthinkingly promised to make errant expeditions to visit agreeable acquaintances in California, and by the time the last words had been spoken we were safely moored at Cunard's wharf.

The evening gun boomed from the citadel. I heard the well-known British bugle; I saw the familiar scarlet of our troops; the voices which vociferated were English; the physiognomies had the Anglo-Saxon cast and complexion; and on the shores of the western hemisphere I felt myself at home. Yet, as I sprang from the boat, and set my foot for the first time on American soil, I was vexed that these familiar sights and sounds should deprive me of the pleasurable feeling of excitement which I had expected to experience under such novel circumstances.

An inhospitable reception--Halifax and the Blue Noses--The heat-- Disappointed expectations--The great departed--What the Blue Noses might be--What the coach was not--Nova Scotia and its capabilities--The roads and their annoyances--A tea dinner--A night journey and a Highland cabin-- A nautical catastrophe--A joyful reunion.

The wharf was dirty, unlighted, and under repair, covered with heaps and full of holes. My friend was carrying three parcels, when three or four men made a rush at us, seized them from him, and were only compelled to relinquish them by some sharp physical arguments. A large gateway, lighted by one feeble oil-lamp at the head of the wharf, was then opened, and the crowd pent up behind it came pouring down the sloping road. There was a simultaneous rush of trucks, hand-carts, waggons, and cars, their horses at full trot or canter, two of them rushing against the gravel-heap on which I was standing, where they were upset. Struggling, shouting, beating, and scuffling, the drivers all forced their way upon the wharf, regardless of cries from the ladies and threats from the gentlemen, for all the passengers had landed and were fighting their way to an ice-shop. Porters were scuffling with each other for the possession of portmanteaus, wheels were locked, and drivers were vehemently expostulating in the rich brogue of Erin; people were jostling each other in their haste, or diving into the dimly-lighted custom-house, and it must have been fully half an hour before we had extricated ourselves from this chaos of mismanagement and disorder, by scrambling over gravel-heaps and piles of timber, into the dirty, unlighted streets of Halifax.

Dirty they were then, though the weather was very dry, for oyster-shells, fish heads and bones, potato-skins, and cabbage-stalks littered the roads; but dirty was a word which does not give the faintest description of the almost impassable state in which I found them, when I waded through them ankle-deep in mud some months afterwards.

But when he found a torrid sun, and the thermometer at 93? in the shade, his courage failed him, and, with all his preconceived ideas overthrown by the burning experience of one day, despair seized on him, and his expressions of horror and astonishment were coupled with lamentations over the green fertility of Jersey. The colonel was obliged to report himself at head-quarters in his full uniform, which was evidently tight and hot; and after changing his apparel three times in the day, apparently without being a gainer, he went out to make certain meteorological inquiries, among others if 93? were a common temperature.

The conclusion he arrived at was, that the "climate alternates between the heat of India and the cold of Lapland."

The Mic-Macs were a fierce and warlike people, too proud to mingle with an alien race--too restless and active to conform to the settled habits of civilization. Too proud to avail themselves of its advantages, they learned its vices, and, as the snow-wreaths in spring, they melted away before the poisonous "fire-water," and the deadly curse of the white man's wars. They had welcomed the "pale faces" to the "land of the setting sun," and withered up before them, smitten by their crimes.

Almost destitute of tradition, their history involved in obscurity, their broad lands filled with their unknown and nameless graves, these mighty races have passed away; they could not pass into slavery, therefore they must die.

At some future day a mighty voice may ask of those who have thus wronged the Indian, "Where is now thy brother?" It is true that frequently we arrived too late to save them as a race from degradation and dispersion; but as they heavily tottered along to their last home, under the burden of the woes which contact with civilization ever entails upon the aborigines, we might have spoken to them the tidings of "peace on earth and good will to men"--of a Saviour "who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through his gospel." Far away amid the thunders of Niagara, surrounded by a perpetual rainbow, Iris Island contains almost the only known burying-place of the race of red men. Probably the simple Indians who buried their dead in a place of such difficult access, and sacred to the Great Spirit, did so from a wish that none might ever disturb their ashes. None can tell how long those interred there have slept their last long sleep, but the ruthless hands of the white men have profaned the last resting-place of the departed race.

There were also numerous blacks in the streets, and, if I might judge from the brilliant colours and good quality of their clothing, they must gain a pretty good living by their industry. A large number of these blacks and their parents were carried away from the States by one of our admirals in the war of 1812, and landed at Halifax.

The capital of Nova Scotia looks like a town of cards, nearly all the buildings being of wood. There are wooden houses, wooden churches, wooden wharfs, wooden slates, and, if there are side walks, they are of wood also. I was pleased at a distance with the appearance of two churches, one of them a Gothic edifice, but on nearer inspection I found them to be of wood, and took refuge in the substantial masonry of the really handsome Province Building and Government House. We went up to the citadel, which crowns the hill, and is composed of an agglomeration of granite walls, fosses, and casemates, mounds, ditches, barracks, and water-tanks.

If I was pleased with the familiar uniforms of the artillerymen who lounged about the barracks, I was far more so with the view from the citadel. It was a soft summer evening, and, seen through the transparent atmosphere, everything looked unnaturally near. The large town of Halifax sloped down to a lake-like harbour, about two miles wide, dotted with islands; and ranges of picturesque country spangled with white cottages lay on the other side. The lake or firth reminded me of the Gareloch, and boats were sailing about in all directions before the evening breeze. From tangled coppices of birch and fir proceeded the tinkle of the bells of numerous cows, and, mingled with the hum of the city, the strains of a military band rose from the streets to our ears.

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