CHAPTER IV.
Leave Niagara—Suspension Bridge—In British territory—Hamilton City—Buildings—Proceed eastward—Toronto—Dine at Mess—Pay visits—Public edifices—Sleighs—Amusement of the boys—Camaraderiein the army—Kindly feeling displayed—Journey resumed towards Quebec—Intense cold—Snow landscape—Morning in the train—Hunger and lesser troubles—Kingston, its rise and military position—Harbour, dockyards—Its connection with the Prince of Wales’ Tour—The Upper St. Lawrence—Canada as to defence.
Leave Niagara—Suspension Bridge—In British territory—Hamilton City—Buildings—Proceed eastward—Toronto—Dine at Mess—Pay visits—Public edifices—Sleighs—Amusement of the boys—Camaraderiein the army—Kindly feeling displayed—Journey resumed towards Quebec—Intense cold—Snow landscape—Morning in the train—Hunger and lesser troubles—Kingston, its rise and military position—Harbour, dockyards—Its connection with the Prince of Wales’ Tour—The Upper St. Lawrence—Canada as to defence.
We left the Falls with regret—the “city of the Falls” without any painful emotion. The people at the hotel were perfectly civil and obliging, though they bore no particular good-will, perhaps, to one whom they had been taught to regard as the bitter enemy and traducer of their country and their cause.
Our guide seemed to pity us for our folly in going to such a place as Canada, when we could, if we liked, stay in an American hotel in the States. He assured us it was “only fit for Irish, Frenchmen, and free niggers.” The true American of this type is perhaps the most prejudiced man in the world, not even excepting the old type of the British farmer, or men of the Sibthorp epoch. His conviction of his immense superiority is founded on the readiness with which others flock to serve him. By their service he becomes a sort of aristocrat in regard to all immigrants,and can live without having recourse to any menial office or duty. I presume our hairy friend never brushed his boots in his life, and would sooner wear them dirty for ever than stoop to the unwonted task. At last came our time to depart.
Our sleighs glided smoothly down to the railway station at the Clifton, where the train was waiting to take us over the Suspension Bridge. That structure is, I fear, too beautiful to last. It requires a good deal of coolness and custom to look down from it on the fearful flood of the river rolling below, and mark the vibration as a heavy train passes over it. Then, too, there is the influence of cold on iron to be considered, the effects of tension, and the like: all have been duly provided for; and yet the bridge looks very light and very graceful, and let us hope it may be very strong and very lasting.
In five minutes we were in British territory. The first palpable and outward sign of the fact was an examination of our luggage by the customs officers at a station a few miles from the frontier, during which, or by which, one of the party lost a hat and its guardian box. The examination was rendered as little irksome as possible by the civility of the officials; and it made me quite happy to see the crowns on their brass buttons, degraded British subject as I was. One burly fellow congratulated me on “escaping alive out of the hands of the Yankees—he would not have given a cent for my life for the last six months.”
Our journey was not so much impeded by snow as we expected. It is forty-three miles from Niagara to the rising city of Hamilton, and we were little more than one hour and a quarter in doing the distance. AllI am aware of is that on our way we passed through vast snow-fields, by the mineral waters of St. Catherine’s, the frozen canal, and that we caught glimpses on our right of the blue expanse of Lake Ontario.
The first sight of Hamilton caused a rapid change in my mind respecting the condition of Canada, and a most agreeable feeling of surprise. It was evident the Americans were not justified in their affected depreciation of the provinces, if they contained such towns as these. Despite the unfavourable circumstances under which it was visited, the city presented an appearance of comfort and prosperity which even a democratic people might envy, and which scarcely justified the corporation in refusing, as I hear they do, to rely on local sources for liquidation of certain claims against them.
Fine-looking streets, a forest of spires, important public buildings, did no discredit to the old standard which floated over the Custom-house near the station. And yet it was not possible to help remarking that the passengers in the train were reading American not Canadian newspapers. They were enjoying the fruits of American piracy in their more serious studies. The literary thefts of the sanctimonious Harpers, who play for ever on the moods and tenses of the verb to steal—were in the hands of all the people who were reading books.
Not alone the British flag did we see at Hamilton, but the British soldier; for at the doorway of the hotel were two well-known faces. A battalion of the Rifle Brigade was expected every moment, and two officers had been sent on to provide for their reception, as there were no barracks to receive the force, and they were hunting up house-owners tolet their premises on the instant. It may be imagined that house-owners take a favourable view for themselves of the value of property thus suddenly in request; and the officers were proportionately indignant with those griping Canadians, as if they would have met different treatment from English colonists anywhere.
Hamilton is a city of some 20,000 inhabitants. It is on a bay (Burlington), which runs in at the west of Lake Ontario north of the peninsula formed by the lake, by the St. Lawrence, by Lake Erie, and by the river falling into Erie at Maitland. It is on the rail between the west from Detroit and London, the south-east from the States, and the east from Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec. In event of war it is exposed to an attack by any American gunboat from the harbours on the south shore of Lake Ontario, and yet, to the best of my belief, it is utterly destitute of defence, and has not even a martello tower for its protection.
The name is not fifty years old, and twenty years ago Hamilton had less than 4000 inhabitants. Its growth bears no comparison with that of some American cities, but it is still very remarkable, and its wealth, importance, and defencelessness are quite sufficient to make it an object of attack. The houses are built of stone. Banks, hotels, manufactories, churches—well constructed and handsome—give proof of the prosperity of the community; and the residence there of Sir Alan MacNab, who lived somewhere in the vicinity ina brand newmediæval castle, should be some guarantee for their loyalty. Indeed, I was told that in no place had the Prince a more gratifying or enthusiastic reception.
But men without discipline, organisation, or defensive works can do but little against gunboats. It is truethat Hamilton would not be of much service to the enemy, as it would not command the communications; but its possession by them would be very embarrassing, and its destruction, for lack of means to defend it, would be very discreditable. The population ought to yield at least 4000 able-bodied men for local service; and a casemated work, armed with powerful guns, could keep a mere mischief-seeking gunboat at proper distance, and save the place from destruction or injury.
Our halt at Hamilton was brief, and soon we were on our way eastwards once more, skirting the shores of the lake, fenced in by a monotonous line of snow-laden fir trees and palings. The people who got in and out at the stations were of a different race from the Americans—stouter and ruddier of hue, and many of them spoke with a Scotch or Irish accent, the former predominating. They did not talk much about anything but the weather, and did not give themselves concern about anything except the winter and its prospects, having made up their minds long ago that there was to be no fight between England and the United States.
Just as it became dusk we reached Toronto, having accomplished the thirty-eight miles in two hours, but late as it was we could make out the picturesque outlines of a large city. Close to the station a line of sleighs, and a mass of well-dressed people drawn up by the margin of a sheet of ice, on which a skated crowd were whirling about, gave an air of gaiety to the place.
A sharp smart sleigh drive, and we were at the comfortable hotel, called Rossin House, where an invitation from the officers of Her Majesty’s 30th to dinner was awaiting us. They were quartered in a substantialold-fashioned barrack on the shore of lake Ontario, some distance outside the city. The barracks are surrounded by an earthen parapet, provided with traverses and embrasures, and there is a very quaint and fantastic earthen redoubt on the beach, but any ordinary vessel of war could lay the whole establishment in ruins with perfect impunity in half-an-hour.
The mess table was surrounded by an unusual number of old Crimean officers, and I was glad to find the fears I had entertained that the inducements offered by the Americans to soldiers to desert, had not as yet given any considerable increase to the tendency in that direction, which causes such anxiety to regimental officers stationed near the frontier. Whilst I remained at Toronto, I dined daily at the same hospitable board.
A snapping fierce wind, laden with icy arrows, set in the day after our arrival. In the afternoon, however, I sleighed out and visited the bishop, one of the most lively, agreeable men conceivable, of the age of ninety or thereabouts; Mr. Brown, who is one of the powers of the State, and the editor and owner of the ablest paper in West Canada; the mayor, and other Torontians of eminence.
The city is so very surprising in the extent and excellence of its public edifices, that I was fain to write to an American friend at New York to come up and admire what had been done in architecture under a monarchy, if he wished to appreciate the horrible state of that branch of the fine arts under his democracy. Churches, cathedrals, market, post-office, colleges, schools, mechanics’ institute, rise in imperial dignity over the city; but there was a visible deterioration inthe beer and billiard saloons, and the drinking exchanges. The shops are large, and well furnished with goods, and trade even now is brisk enough, considering the time of the year. All this is within an enemy’s grasp, and more than this, the command of the railway east and west.
In this winter time the streets are filled with sleighs, and the air is gay with the caroling of their bells. Some of these vehicles are exceedingly elegant in form and finish, and are provided with very expensive furs, not only for the use of the occupants, but for mere display. The horses are small spirited animals, of no great pretension to beauty or breeding. The people in the streets were well-dressed, comfortable-looking, well-to-do—not so tall as the people in New York, but stouter and more sturdy-looking. Their winter brings no discomfort; for fuel is abundant and not dear, and when the wind is not blowing high, the weather is very agreeable.
Here, again, I observed that the young people have a curious custom of going about with small sleighs, which are, to the best of my belief, called “tarboggins,” though I did not see them indulge in the practice by which the youth of New York vex and fret the drivers of all vehicles in sleighing-time. I have been amused by observing the urchins in the Empire City prowling about with these primitive sleighs, watching for an opportunity to exercise their talents. Fortunate it is for the British coachman that the youth of these islands are not acquainted with this pleasing mode of locomotion. Our omnibuses, having a conductor behind, would be better defended than the American vehicles, which have no such protection; butthe four-wheeled cabs would fall a helpless prey into their hands.
The sport is carried on in this wise: the youths take their tarboggin or sleigh—a flat piece of board four feet long, with or without runners, will do; through a hole at one end is attached a piece of cord. The boys watch their opportunity, and when a vehicle passes, noiselessly on the snow they run out, slip the cord over the iron or any projection of the carriage behind, and, holding the end fast, throw themselves down on their sleigh, which is dragged along by the vehicle; and if cabby should arise in his wrath, in an instant the end of the cord is let go, and the young navigator, starting to his feet, runs off with his instrument of torture in search of a new victim. It adds much to this entertainment for one boy to catch hold of the leg or the sleigh of another boy, so that a string of four or five youths may be seen in full enjoyment of the recreation. Bless them! If I had not seen them following this sport, I should have fairly doubted if there were any boys in the United States.
If there was not all the cordiality which could be desired between the natives and the military, no fault could be found with the full measure of hospitality dealt out to their own countrymen by the officers of the garrison. Removed from the stiffness of home stations, the genial, kindly character of our young soldiers expatiates, in despite of middling cookery and colonial wines, and keeps open house for friends on foreign service. When sleighing for the day is over, and the skating party has come to an end, it is hard indeed for poor Jones to think of anything more than his dinner; but if he made the most of his opportunities,he might write a book in the solitude of his barrack, as those famous prisoners have done whose brains have conceived and brought forth such brilliant works in the darkness of the Tower.
The snows are well-nigh as binding and environing for a third of the year in bad seasons, and no doubt something would come of it all, but that the officer has his duties to attend to, and cannot escape from Private 1000’s stoppages, grievances, or failings. Now, it is no easy matter indeed for British officers to be very great friends in the same regiment. Of course you will find Pylades and Orestes there, but you may be sure if you do they are men who have no clashing interests, no contest of purses, no conflicting views about leave or steps. It is to me quite wonderful, all things considered, how bravely the natural kindliness of our officers contends against a system which, with all its advantages, creates a source of rivalry and jealousy not known in other services.
In a promotion-by-seniority service there can of course be no feeling against a man on the part of his juniors because he happens to be older; but no one can well brook the greater fortune which depends on the command of money,—though he may be willing to seize on it, if he can, by the same means,—in the case of his own juniors. I do not speak without some small knowledge when I say that there is a much larger amount ofcamaraderiein our service than ought to be found in it, but that there is much less than exists in some other armies. The French officer is jealous of the man promoted by merit, for the declaration of that superiority is a tacit censure on himself,and he is also prone to take umbrage at the good fortune of theimmortelsof theÉtat major; but he has little ground for antipathy to any of his own set, as regards social position or military rank in the corps.
Our strong love of field-sports also tends to create small difficulties when at home, from which spring other causes of estrangement. One man, for instance, wants to get to the spring-meeting when another is burning for the spring-fishing—shooting-leaves and hunting-leaves clash together, though in no army in the world is there such a liberal system of furlough as in our own. These causes do not operate in Canada, where there is now, in fact, but little sport of any kind within easy distances. Moose shooting in snow is slow work, and for other game the sportsman must wander far and wide. But when the table is set, and the full tide of conversation flows, what a cheery group of warriors, young and old, may be seen in Canadian quarters! They have had sleighing parties and skating adventures, and altogether have got over the day somehow, and are prepared to look pleasantly on the world, albeit the snow is two feet deep over it.
As to the position afforded by the buildings in these particular old barracks in Toronto, no more uncomfortable place could well be imagined in face of an enemy. The defences are so ludicrous, that a Chinese engineer would despise them. Certainly, we have no right to laugh at Americans, or to hold their worksin petto, if we take one glance at the fortifications of Toronto; and yet, as will be seen, it is a place of the very greatest importance.
My stay here would have been longer, perhaps, but that I was informed of a very kindly intention onthe part of the people which I did not desire to have carried out, at all events under the existing circumstances—being in hopes that a future opportunity would occur of proving that I was not indifferent to the good feeling and very flattering sentiments of the gentlemen who had commenced the movement towards myself; and so, in the sure hope that I would be back in Toronto ere I left America, I bade my good friends good-bye, never, as it proves, in all likelihood, to see them again, and, in the midst of a snow-fall, resumed my journey with my companions towards Quebec.
After undergoing a year of obloquy, ill-looks, slander, and popular disfavour in a great country, it was very pleasant to meet with such marks of good-will and kindness from one’s countrymen and fellow-subjects on the same continent; and it was quite as gratifying to know that such feelings were entertained by them, as it would have been to receive the outward token of their existence, which alone would have contented my friends.
The evening on which I left Toronto was intensely cold. Never for a moment had the snow and frost relented, and a wind of piercing keenness swept up the frozen dust in thick clouds, which penetrated every chink. The railway officials did their best for us, and the stove in the carriage was poked up to excessive energy; but the heat of these calorifiers is worse than cold itself.
Our way lay through a snow-field bordered by snow-hills, or by the stiff cones of snow-covered firs. Our fellow-passengers were big men in fur-coats and thick boots, who were given to silence and sleep. Slowly the train creaked through the soft barrier which so gently yet stiffly, opposed the tramp of the ironhorse. The landscape was simply nothing to see. It looked as if one were going for ever through a vast array of newly-washed sheets spread over the whole country. Darkness fell suddenly out of the skies on the whiteness, but still could not darken it. The whiteness shone through the depths of night, and flashed out in streaks of dazzling light, as the flare of the engine-fires and of the lamps shot out over the surface. And so it came to pass that at last we went to sleep, gathering up rug and greatcoat and wrapper into vast mounds, from which issued many aspiritus asperand susurrous sounds for the livelong night.
On waking up it seemed as though day had just dawned, but the watch said it was nearly eight o’clock. A cold white light, filled with rime, battled through the frost on the windows of the carriage, which was spread over the glass like beautiful damascened white tablecloths. Scraping away a lovely trellis pattern with my nail, I opened a space of clear transparent ocean in the ice-sea, and was rewarded for my pains by a view of a cloud of snow which had been falling all night, and now rested deep on the ground, and turned the pines and firs bounding the line of rail into ragged white tumuli.
The train still creaked and bumped now and then over the snow, squeaked, puffed, and grated, and at last came to a standstill, again went on, and again halted. At last we reached a station. Seven hours behind time! A sensation of hunger by no means slight fell upon us. Frost is an appetizer of undoubted merit. We had neglected laying in aviaticum. More prudent and accustomed travellers produced flasks and brown-paper parcels, and all the wonderful thingswhich Americans consume on the voyage. Let me not be fastidious, however; for after a time I envied men who were discussing pleasantly fragments of unseemly cakes, spice-nuts, and brandy-balls for breakfast.
My companions prowled up and down the horrid car, reeking with the stove-drawn odours of many bodies during the night—they sought food like young lions. Pah! what an atmosphere it was!—all windows closed by reason of cold intense outside, the hateful stoves, one in the centre of the car, and one at each end, heated almost to redness, surrounded by men who crowded up, and chewed tobacco, and smote the iron surface with hissing burnt-sienna-coloured jets!—frowsty, fusty, and muggy exceedingly. There was a deposit of train-oil,—a hot humanised dew all over us. And water, there was none to wash with. So I applied a handful of snow gathered on the carriage platform to my face and hands in lieu thereof, and got back to my seat just as A——n returned from some distant part of the train with hands full of apples. They were delicious, and with three or four of them, and a few cigars, we managed to construct a charming breakfast.
It was so dark when the train reached Kingston, that we could see nothing more than the outlines of the station. I was exceedingly anxious to visit a place of so much importance historically, commercially, and strategically, and fully intended to remain there for some days on my return to Toronto; but the Fates ordained that it was not to be, and all my personal knowledge of Kingston was derived from that glimpse in the dark of the railway terminus, and certain steeples and spires rising above the snow. But theposition of the city confers upon it a very high place on the list of military posts for the defence of Canada, and some considerations connected with it will be discussed hereafter.
Politically Kingston has become a dead body since 1844, when its short-lived career as the capital and seat of government was cut short. The military genius of the French occupants in early days, in seizing on the best positions for the defence and maintenance of their conquest, is shown still, by the fact that our forts occupy the sites of those which were originally constructed by them. More than a hundred years before there was any trace of a city at Kingston, or any building save the wigwam of the Indian or the log-huts of the soldiery, the Count de Frontenac built a fort in communication with the great system, from the St. Lawrence to the Ohio, of the French strongholds, which was destined to extend to the Mississippi, and to enclose the troublesome English Colonies within stringent limits. When this fort was captured by Colonel Bradstreet in 1756, the French had only established a kind of military colony and a very insignificant trading-post round the fort. In little more than twenty years subsequently, the present town was founded; and in the war with America the place became of very great consequence.
It is a fact curious enough, and worthy of some consideration, that the great war in the middle of the last century, which ended in the loss to France of her hopes of Indian influence and of empire, and in the seizure of her American Colonies by Great Britain, should have, according to the best of American statesmen and philosophical reasoners, led also to the establishment ofthe United States, and the foundation of the greatest Republic the world has ever seen.
Kingston commands the entrance to the Rideau Canal, one of the principal means of communication between Lake Ontario and the interior of the country, forming an admirable connection between the Ottawa River and Lake Ontario: it is, in fact, the most important means of inland intercourse, because the difficulties in the way of an enemy are very considerable, either in a direct attack upon Kingston, if properly fortified, or in a flank movement against it from the interior.
The canal is brought into working order with the Grand Trunk Railway; so that if the Americans, our only possible enemy, were to make demonstrations against our frontier and our lines, with a view of intercepting our supplies and internal relations between the east and west of the province, it would be easy to disembark men and munitions at Kingston Mills and forward them by railway. Kingston, again, is an excellent point of observation, and with proper defences and aggressive resources, ought to command Lake Ontario and the entrance from the St. Lawrence. An adequate force stationed there, with a proper flotilla, could effectually keep in check any hostile demonstration from Cape Vincent, Sacket’s Harbour, or the other posts from Oswego to the western extremity of Lake Ontario.
The harbour is said to be excellent; there is a dockyard, which could be rendered capable of doing most of the work required for our light gunboats: and with the additions pointed out and urged by our engineer officers to the existing fortifications, Kingston could be made a position of as much militarystrength as it undoubtedly now is of strategical importance.
Between Toronto and Kingston there are, however, Port Hope, Coburg, and Belville on the line of railway, all of which present facilities for the landing of an enemy: at any one of these points a hostile occupation would cut the regular communications at once; and indeed it is very much to be regretted, in a military point of view, that engineering, commercial, or other considerations caused the makers of the Grand Trunk Railway to run the line close to the shores of a great inland sea, the opposite side of which belongs to a foreign country which has from time to time announced (if not through the lips of statesmen, by the popular voice) that the conquest of Canada is a fixed principle in its policy.
The Americans, whether by accident or design, have constructed the New York Central, which runs along the south coast, at a distance of many miles from Lake Ontario, but cross-lines connect it with the principal ports upon the lake, from Buffalo to Sandusky; their line runs tolerably close to the shore of Lake Erie higher up, but there is no position on that lake which has to fear the aggression of such a force as could be collected at Kingston.
Perhaps to the generality of people in England, Kingston was first made known by the unpleasant incidence which compelled the Prince of Wales to pass it unvisited, or rather to remain on board the steamer. No doubt the Orangemen are now very sorry for what they did, and, in fact, feel that they were led by the fanaticism or the desire for notoriety of some small local leaders to make themselves very ridiculous andoffensive. The zeal of these Defenders of the Faith was no doubt stimulated by the presence of a large number of Irish Roman Catholics, who are at least as violent as their opponents.
The French-Canadians, with just as much fidelity to their faith, do not enter into the violent polemical, political, and miscalled religious controversies which led to such an unseemly result at Kingston; and certainly, it is much to be regretted that the peculiar influence of American institutions, which checks any attempt of religious parties to disturb the public peace or social relations for their own purposes and for the gratification of pride or lust of power, cannot be extended to the provinces and to the British Possessions, where they work such prodigious mischief.
From Kingston the line winds along the shore of the great lake-like river, studded with a thousand islands. Here, again, the Americans would possess considerable advantage in case of war, as their main-line is far inland, but branch-lines from it lead to Cape Vincent and Ogdensburgh, at right-angles to our line of communication. The American water-boundary, I believe, passes outside a considerable number of the more important islands; but the power which possesses naval supremacy on Lake Ontario will probably find the means of commanding the Upper St. Lawrence, no matter which belligerent establishes himself on the islands.
The Canadians with whom I conversed in the train declared they were quite ready to defend their country in case of invasion, but did not understand, they said, being taken away to distant points to fight for the homes of others. It seemed quite clear to them thatthe United States would only invade Canada to humiliate and weaken the mother-country, and that the general defence of the province ought to devolve on the power whose policy had led to the war; whilst the inhabitants should be ready to give the imperial troops every assistance in the localities where they are actually resident.