Kitabı oku: «The Perils and Adventures of Harry Skipwith by Land and Sea», sayfa 9
I have but a word or two to say of Havanna as a city. The streets are numerous, but narrow and dirty; there is a tolerably large palace for the governor, a good opera-house for the people on the evenings of most days in the week, and a very ugly big cathedral for the Sunday mornings, and a paseo, or public drive, for the afternoons. On this paseo are seen various antique vehicles, called volantes, each carrying two or three dames in full dress. A volante is built like a cabriolet on two wheels, with very long shafts, the points resting in a sort of saddle on a horse’s back, – which horse is ridden by a huge negro in vast leather leg coverings reaching, as he sits, almost up to his ears, and no feet to them, though with silver spurs, white breeches, a gold-laced red jacket, and a broad-brimmed straw hat. Everybody knows that cigars are manufactured in Havanna, that the slave trade is winked at, if not encouraged, by the authorities, who find it not altogether unprofitable to their own pockets, and that piracy, for the same reason, is not held in absolute disrepute by the same respectable gentlemen.
I had gone down to see the last of the frigate as she sailed out of the harbour, when, as I was about to return hotel-wards, I saw a black head rise slowly out of the fore-peak of a Spanish brig lying near, and soon the whole figure of Marcus appeared in view. He saw me, and as the vessels in that harbour are moored stem on to the quays, side by side, he came along over the bowsprit and swung himself down close to me. He congratulated himself on being once more at liberty, though he thought it best not to tell me how he had obtained his freedom. I told him that I was very glad to see him at liberty, and offered to supply him with funds, slender as mine were, to enable him to undertake some honest calling. He replied that he had ample means for his support, a thick roll of gold round his waist, besides a purse full of coin. “Indeed,” he added, “I hope that I shall not offend you, sir, when I tell you that I purposed offering you money, to enable you to proceed on your travels till you could reach some place where you may replenish your purse.” I thanked Marcus for his generous offer, but I felt doubly obliged to my friend the captain, who had enabled me to supply myself with funds, lest I should have been tempted to accept it; for I could not help reflecting how that money must have been obtained.
“We may, I hope,” said Marcus, “meet again, though in what part of the world I know not; but I have one favour to ask, – it is that you will give me your address in England, and that should I ever again reach that country of true freedom, I may be allowed to visit you.”
I need scarcely say that I agreed to what Marcus proposed. There was something about him which strangely attracted me, and with regret I bid him farewell, scarcely expecting ever to see him again.
Havanna had no charms for me, and I was therefore glad once more to embark on the fickle ocean in an attempt to reach New Orleans.
Chapter Thirteen
From Cuba to New Orleans, and hence up the Mississippi on to St. Louis – Our Voyage up the Ohio – Kentucky Shots – Cincinnati – Away to Toronto – The Hudson’s Bay Company’s Territory described
After we had lost sight of Cuba I could scarcely help expecting to see some rakish-looking craft hearing down on us, and I must own that it was with inward satisfaction that I remembered the fact that the black schooner and most of the scoundrels on board her were blown up, and unable any more to trouble voyagers over the deep sea. Poor Peter was continually on the look-out for an enemy, and if he saw a sail in the horizon he would come up to me and ask if we hadn’t better get ready to fight, lest it should be “another on them cut-throat gentlemen a-coming to look for us.”
Notwithstanding all the lad’s prognostications of evil, we reached, without any misadventure, the Crescent City, as New Orleans is not inappropriately called, on account of the shape it presents, built along the curving shore of the river. I hastened at once on landing, followed by Peter and Ready, to the office of the merchant on whom I had letters of credit, fortunately forwarded originally in duplicate by post, and having obtained a supply of cash, and such necessaries as I required, I was in a few hours on my way up the Mississippi, earnestly hoping that on this voyage I should escape being snagged, and not be blown up, as Aunt Becky had predicted would be my fate.
I have not been complimentary to New Orleans, but I must say that it is a very grand city. It is divided into two parts by Canal Street – the Old and the New – the Old, built by original French and Spanish founders, contains narrow and dirty streets and the worst class of the population, while in the New are numerous fine buildings, broad streets, and wealthy and respectable inhabitants. It is not nearly so unhealthy as is supposed when once a person is acclimatised, – but to be sure a good many die in the process. And so I make my bow to New Orlieens, as the natives call it. Although I had not many fears on the subject, I was glad to get away without being recognised, nor did anyone on board the steamer take especial notice of me, that I could discover. It was curious to go paddling on day after day, and night after night, and still to find oneself floating on the same broad stream, sometimes with rich level land on either side, and at others with light bluffs, or towns, or villages; also to pass the mouths of large rivers, and to be told that one was navigable eight hundred or a thousand miles up, and that five or six tributaries, each also navigable for six hundred miles or so, while others fell into it. Truly the eastern, southern, and northern parts of North America present a wonderful river system, suited for internal navigation.
We had a curious collection of passengers on board – five hundred at least in the main cabin – some of them, I judged by their physiognomies, not the most respectable portion of the human race. A party of them got round me, and in the most insinuating manner invited me to join them in a friendly game of cards, or dice, or dominoes, indeed they were not particular, anything that would enable me to pass the time agreeably. In spite of all their arguments I persevered in declining their polite invitations, and at length, in reply to no very polite remarks on my manners and appearance, and a strong expression of doubt as to whether I had anything to lose —
“You’ve hit it, gentlemen,” I remarked, quietly looking up at them. “It’s dull work to skin a flint, and I did not wish to give you the trouble.”
“You did well to keep clear of those fellows,” observed a gentleman to me shortly afterwards. “If they could catch you on a dark night near the side of the vessel, they wouldn’t scruple to rob you and heave you overboard.”
In many places the banks of the Mississippi exhibit high bluffs of an earthy nature, sometimes broken into the most fantastic forms, representing castles, towers, church steeples, and ruins of every description.
On the morning of the sixth day we were off the mouth of the Ohio, which river can be ascended for nine hundred miles to Pittsburg, and it must be remembered that I had already come upwards of a thousand miles from New Orleans. The next day, after paddling against stream two hundred miles farther, I landed at St. Louis, in the State of Missouri. It is a handsome city, built on ground sloping up from the Mississippi, about twenty miles distant from the mouths of the two mighty streams of the Missouri and Illinois, while the Mississippi itself has there already pursued a course of nearly seventeen hundred miles. It is a very busy place, and vessels of every description crowd its quays. Proceeding up the Ohio, I landed at Louisville, the chief town in Kentucky. Everyone has heard what Kentucky riflemen can do with their weapons. Understanding that a match was going forward outside the town I went to see it. To my disappointment it was over, but I saw two men shooting away as fast as they could load, at two cocks in a sort of enclosure, with an open space towards us, through which they kept constantly coming into view. Nearly a dozen shots had been tired, and the birds ran about as lively as at first. “Well, sir, I think with uncle’s old fowling-piece I could knock over them barn-doors a precious sight faster than that,” observed Peter, eyeing the marksmen with a glance of contempt.
“Now I guess, stranger, if you was to look closer you wouldn’t be quite so ready to boast of what you could do,” observed a stout, good-natured looking man near us. “Understand, just what you say you could do, they don’t want to do. Their business is to knock the feathers out of them birds’ tails, and do them no mortal injury. There’s a chalked line on their tails, inside of which a shot mustn’t go, or the man who fires it loses the match. Each man, too, has his bird and it requires a sharp eye to know which is which.”
Such I found to be the case. One man had shot all but one short feather away, and he was afraid of killing his bird; the other had shot all but two very long thin ones away, and his bullets constantly flew between them.
The next day we stopped at Cincinnati, a very handsome, civilised-looking city, and one of the most important west of the Alleganies. Here we embarked on board a much smaller steamer than any which had before carried us, though we had still four hundred miles farther to go up the stream to Pittsburg, from whence it was my intention to proceed to Toronto, and so find my way into the Hudson’s Bay Territory, in the best way I could. The boat drew very little water, for we had rapids and shallows to pass over; not so little, however, as a builder on board boasted was the case with one he had constructed – “Six inches, sir! why you know well enough, I guess, that if you was to attempt to send a craft drawing six inches of water up some of our streams, she’d be grounding every day in the week, and ten times in the day,” I heard him exclaim, in a tone of contempt, to a fellow-passenger. “Talk of inches, sir – what do you say to one I built, sir – why, she’d go along right slick across the prairie, provided the dew was thick enough on the grass in the morning. Why, sir, nothing could stop that craft if she could but get a taste of water.” Whether or not his assertion was believed I do not know, but as he was a big strapping fellow, and carried a formidable-looking bowie-knife in his waistcoat pocket, with which he used to pick his teeth and carve his meat, or indeed, what was not so pleasant, any dish intended for the public before him, nobody chose to call his assertion in question.
The country in which I was now about to seek for adventures, is a region which must before long become of importance on account of the great highway between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans passing over it. Through that region indeed will be found the true and only practicable North-west passage, but it will be across the rolling prairie instead of the rolling ocean, and over rocky mountains instead of mountainous billows. The land I speak of is Central British America, also known as “Rupert’s Land,” “the North West Territory,” and the “Hudson’s Bay Company’s Territory.”
The earlier French settlers in Canada believed, and not without reason, that the high road to China would be found along the course of the mighty river on the banks of which they had located themselves. Their idea was ridiculed, and the name of La Chine was given to a village to the west of Montreal by those who believed that the explorers would never get farther in that direction, little supposing that ere long a rich province, full of wealthy cities, would have its eastern limits beyond the point in question; while only of late years the truth has dawned on a few far-sighted individuals that in that direction will be found the shortest and safest high road not only to China, but to provinces fast rising into importance, to British Columbia and Vancouver’s Island, to the wide-spreading shores of the Pacific, and to the numberless islands which stud its bosom; that it will afford a western outlet to the commercial enterprise of the British North American Confederation, which will raise it to a position of great wealth and power.
Let me try and map-down this great country. Following up the course of the St. Lawrence across Lake Ontario, and passing over a broad isthmus, where a deep canal is to be formed, we reach lake Huron. Still going west some two thousand miles distant from the month of the St. Lawrence, we arrive at the Saulte St. Marie, where the waters of the great Lake Superior fall into that of Huron. Here is a free port, and a free settlement has been formed; but we have yet Lake Superior to cross, when we shall reach Fort William, in Thunder Bay, where the most western British American settlement has lately been established. From Thunder Bay, a spot of great picturesque beauty, a good map will show us a succession of lakes, joined by rivers, and known as Dog Lake, Lac des Milles Lacs, Rainy Lake, and Lake of the Woods, the chain, extending till the extensive Lake Winnipeg is reached, having again numberless other lakes and rivers farther west. A journey of about eighty miles beyond the extreme west of the lovely Lake of the Woods carries us to a settlement of British people; not of people who have cast off their allegiance to the British crown, but true subjects, who desire to live under British laws and institutions, and to enjoy all the privileges which Britons justly value as their birthright; yet it is not too much to say that no community of the British race is more completely debarred from the advantages possessed by Englishmen at large than are the inhabitants of the settlement in question.
A glance at our map will show us a river rising in the State of Minnesota, and running nearly due north, entering the British territory at the forty-ninth parallel of latitude, and finally falling into Lake Winnipeg. This is the Red River, and the British settlements on its banks are known as the Selkirk, or Red River settlements. Here are located about six thousand white inhabitants. The spiritual wants of the people have not been neglected, and a bishop, called the Bishop of Rupert’s Land, and about eight Protestant clergymen are placed there, besides a Roman Catholic bishop and several priests. The productions of the district are valuable and numerous, and the climate, though cold enough in winter to ensure a supply of snow, and very warm in summer, is healthy in the extreme, and admirably adapted to British constitutions. The Red River is navigable from the States to the settlements, and again thence to Lake Winnipeg, from which there is a ramification of water communication by lakes and rivers, navigable for steamers for many hundred miles.
The Hudson’s Bay Company have a strongly-fortified post at the junction of the Assiniboine and Red Rivers, called Fort Garry, which serves as the citadel or capital of the settlements, for town or village there is not. The general aspect of the country here is that of a rich level prairie, with the river cutting its way tortuously through it towards Lake Winnipeg, forming steep or cliff-like banks. Belts of trees, however, are to be seen near the river, and woods scattered about, and to the east ranges of hills, while along the sides of both rivers are homesteads, substantial farm-houses, mills, stores, churches, parsonages, and school buildings. These settlements are about four hundred miles west of Thunder Bay, in Lake Superior, and the country for this distance must be the first opened up, and about three hundred miles of it is by far the most difficult part of the undertaking; yet the engineering difficulties for forming such a road as is required are trifling compared to those which have been overcome in numerous works in Canada.
It is a country peculiarly of lakes, and rivers, and forests, the timber being very fine. The timber, by means of the lakes and rivers, can be carried to the settlements, while it is most valuable for the formation of the roads, dams, canals, and villages about to be constructed. I am speaking of the first three hundred miles of road to be formed, whether that road is by lake, river, canal, or on the firm earth. The great object is to get a way opened up with the greatest expedition and at the least expense. Now let us turn our eyes west of the settlements, and we shall see a belt of fertile land, in some places one hundred, in others fifty miles wide, extending for eight hundred miles, to the very base of the Rocky Mountains. This magnificent belt of land has already been traversed from one end to the other by exploring expeditions, and emigrant parties with carts, dragged by oxen travelling at the rate of twenty miles a day. It is intersected by many rivers. The carts were unladen, formed into rafts, and towed across; the cattle swam or waded. The once declared impassable Rocky Mountains were passed with perfect ease, in several places, and British Columbia entered.
To understand clearly the nature of the country, let us suppose ourselves standing on the banks of the Red River, looking west. In front we have the fertile belt stretching out before, us, consisting chiefly of rich level prairie land, ascending gradually towards the Rocky Mountains. Rivers and streams run directly across it at intervals, invariably lined with trees, and here and there are forests of considerable extent, though generally trees are found in small clumps or copses, covering a few acres, having escaped the ravages of the fires which destroyed the primeval forests.
On the left, running from west to east, there is the Assiniboine River, connected by the Calling River with the south branch of the Saskatchewan. On the right, extending in a north-easterly direction, is a range of wood-covered mountains known as the Riding, Duck, and Porcupine Mountains, and on the other side of these are three large lakes, the Winnipeg, Manitobah, and Winnepegosis. Into the northern end of the first falls the important river Saskatchewan, navigable by steamers for two or more hundred miles, and, with certain breaks, up to the very; foot of the Rocky Mountains. The Saskatchewan gives its name to the greater portion of the fertile territory, which is known as the valley of the Saskatchewan. This wonderful chain of rivers and lakes abounds in a great variety of excellent fish, on which once numerous tribes of natives entirely subsisted – so that they thus afford a never-failing supply of food, abundant irrigation, and extensive water inter-communication.
Compared with the latitude of the British North American Provinces, the climate may be supposed to be severe, but it should be understood that as the west is approached the climate improves, and the fact is that near the Rocky Mountains, farther north, and at a far greater elevation, the climate is not more severe than at the Red River. Thus there is uniformity of temperature and natural productions throughout the territory. The cold is great, but not greater than in Lower Canada, and sometimes the winters are so mild that, as Mr Ross, an old settler, states, he has known ploughs at work at Christmas. When spring begins, the heat becomes considerable; thus all the productions of the earth ripen with wonderful rapidity, and from sowing to harvest time is often but three months.
Professor Hind, of the University of Toronto, stated some years ago that the valley of the Saskatchewan, or rather the basin of Lake Winnipeg, contains an area available for cultivation of eighty thousand square miles – a territory very nearly as large as England – and that it is capable of supporting an agricultural population exceeding fifteen millions of souls. “The outlying patches of fertile land lying within the limits of the great plains, together with the deep, narrow valleys of the rivers which run through those arid regions (that is, to the south of the fertile belt), the east flanks of the Rocky Mountains, and the low lands in the region of the great lakes, might support another ten millions, so that the present available area of arable soil – the greater portion of which is susceptible of being at once turned up by the plough – would sustain an agricultural population equal to that of Prussia.” Indeed, vast as is Canada, the professor’s calculations show an excess of land fitted for the permanent abode of man, in favour of the basin of Lake Winnipeg over Prussia, before its recent accessions of territory, of five million five hundred thousand acres. If the whole quantity of land fit for cultivation in Canada were occupied, it would sustain a population of eighteen millions, while in the same proportion the territory under discussion would sustain nineteen millions of people. Including the Red-men, who slaughter the buffaloes which roam over its rich pastures for the sake of their skins alone, it scarcely now supports twenty thousand souls.
As to the natural productions of this region, it may briefly be stated to contain abundance of wood, stone, and clay for building; lignite in many districts, and coal in others; iron of excellent quality, in the neighbourhood of coal; salt, which has long been in use, the springs being easy of access; and grasses, which afford rich fodder in abundance throughout the winter season to large numbers of horses, and to many cattle. “Within the limits of the fertile belt vast herds of buffalo come in winter to feed and fatten on the rich natural grasses, which the early frosts in autumn convert into nutritious hay.” To sum up the capabilities of the territory: It is an admirable grazing country, and cattle and horses can remain out all the winter. Sheep thrive and multiply. Pigs, where there are oak woods, if turned out, require no looking after.
It must be understood that agricultural operations have for many years been carried on at the Red River, and round the mission-stations and trading-posts, and that the statements made are the results of actual experience. Wheat is the staple produce. The ordinary yield is thirty bushels to the acre, and oftentimes forty bushels. It is cut three months from the date of sowing. Indian corn is very fine, and never fails on dry lands. Root crops, especially potatoes, turnips, and beet, yield abundantly, and attain large dimensions. The potato disease is unknown. Garden vegetables grow luxuriantly, and equal those of Canada. Barley and oats, when cultivated with care, yield as abundantly as wheat. Of hay from the natural grasses an abundance can be made. Tobacco is successfully cultivated. Hops, in great luxuriance, grow wild. Ale is brewed with them at Red River. Hemp and flax have also been successfully cultivated. A variety of fruits grow wild, such as strawberries, raspberries, currants, and gooseberries; so does rice. Melons grown in the open air are very fine, and sugar, as in Canada, is abundantly obtained from the maple-tree.
Again, considering the abundant supply of fish, and the various sorts of game, large and small, from the buffalo and deer to the hare and rabbit, it will be understood how amply the territory is provided by nature for the support of a large population.
Of the Indians, there are scarcely forty thousand in the fertile belt and wood and lake regions together, who chiefly subsist on buffalo flesh and fish, and live in skin or birch-bark tents. The Prairie Indians have large numbers of hones, while only some tribes of the Wood Indians possess those animals. Some few have been converted to Christianity, but the larger proportion retain all their heathen customs, though generally they do not show any hostility to the whites. The Sioux Indians, however, across the boundary line, from the treatment they have received from the people of the United States, are determined enemies of the white men and half-breeds.
But how, it may be asked, can this vast territory be peopled? By a simple and easily carried out system. The object, in the first place, is to establish a direct communication across it. A railroad is out of the question for many years to come, and even a regular macadamised road can scarcely be expected for some time, but we may well be content if we can obtain a road over which a wheeled vehicle may travel some forty miles in the day, and horsemen at still greater speed. In the first instance, there must be settlements, and it is proposed to establish them at about twenty-five miles apart, in a direct line from Lake Superior to the Rocky Mountains. Grants of land with freedom from taxation, and the certainty of obtaining ample employment, will quickly attract settlers. In the first place, in each settlement a wheelwright and cart-builder, a blacksmith, two or more carpenters, a painter and glazier, a baker, a butcher, an innkeeper, and other artisans obviously required on a great highway, would find employment. Several farmers and agricultural labourers, and a market-gardener, would be wanted to supply food. Stable-keepers, and grooms, and postilions may be named, and all these would, of course, attract storekeepers, tailors, and shoemakers. A police force, with small bodies of military pensioners, and perhaps a few troops, might be stationed at intervals in the settlements along the line. To these communities, with the aid of some navvies, might be confided the duty of improving the road at first roughly marked out. Bridges might be required over small streams, and ferries would certainly be required over broad ones, and here boat-builders and ferrymen would be called for.
It will thus be seen in what way the settlements can first be formed; but before they are placed along the whole line, the more difficult part of the country between Lake Superior and the Lake of the Woods must be pierced through. Trees have to be cut down, rough places smoothed, and bridges erected; and where the line is by water, dams have to be constructed, landing-places formed, and steamers launched. Scarcely one summer, however, would be required for the work; and it must be remembered that the route in question has been traversed for years back, and that, although heavy luggage cannot at present be carried that way, passengers and light goods may be transported by canoes through the lakes and rivers which have been described. The first settlement has already been formed by the colonial government at Fort William, on Thunder Bay. About forty miles to the west is the boundary line between the British North American Confederation, which is destined ere long to include the whole of British North America, and the Hudson’s Bay Company’s territory.
