A SLEIGH DRIVE IN CANADA WEST.

BY SIR J. E. ALEXANDER, KNIGHT, 14TH REGIMENT.

O Winter, ruler of the inverted year,
Thy scatter'd hair with sleet like ashes fill'd,
Thy breath congeal'd upon thy lips, thy cheeks
Fring'd with a beard made white with other snows
Than those of age, thy forehead wrapt in clouds,
A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne
A sliding car, indebted to no wheels,
But urged by storms along its slipp'ry way,
I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem'st,
And dreaded as thou art!

To make a break in a long Canadian winter,
a small party was formed in the garrison of
London, Canada West, in the beginning of
1843, to visit the Falls of Niagara when encir-
cled with a snowy mantle, and margined with
clustering icicles; and after viewing the sublime
cataract under this peculiar aspect, the parties
proposed to participate for a short season in the
gayeties of Toronto, before returning to the
stumps and squirrels" of the back woods.
Our company consisted of two ladies and four
officers, three servants, the same number of two-
horse sleighs, well provided with buffalo, fox,
and racoon robes. Clothes-bags were strapped
to the runners, fur caps and fur-breasted coats
were donned, and, with bells ringing on the
collars and breaststraps of the willing steeds,
the cavalcade briskly trotted over the natural
railroad of snow, to the sound of the leader's
horn.

The Canadian London which we had just left. and which now contains about 2600 souls, is in the midst of a considerable clearing in the pine woods, which on sandy ridges overhang the waters of the shallow and swift-running Thames. Among innumerable stumps and trunks, blasted by fire and girdling, are seen wide streets at right angles to each other; these are for the most part bordered by scattered wooden houses of one and two stories, and many houses have vegetable gardens about them. In the principal thoroughfare, Dundas-street, where the best stores are, the houses are adjacent, and some few are of brick. In the Market-square there is a castellated court-house and agaol; a handsome English church, Scotch, Roman Catholic, Wesleyan, and other places of worship are in various parts of the town. Frame barracks, which cost £30,000 currency,* and log ones, both surrounded with palisades, are outside of it, on high ground. Three wooden bridges span the river, dignified with the names of Blackfriars, Westminster, and Wellington; and on every side the view is bounded by the level tops of the dark forest.

As to climate, it is dry and healthy; hardly ever an officer on the sick list, and about four or five per cent. of the men in hospital at one time. Yet in the months of June, July, August, and September, the thermometer is often above 80°, and sometimes at 100° in the shade, whilst in winter, usually beginning about the 1st of December and ending about the beginning of April, the thermometer is sometimes seen at 30, 70, and 10° below Zero, on successive days

* £1 currency is equal to 16s. sterling.

at sunrise; though usually the cold is not in

tense.

For amusements, the military have their usual field-days on the drill-ground, their brigadeexercise in the country, a garrison theatre, a gymnasium, a racket court, and a select pack of hounds, to fight against the monotony of "the bush." The society of the town consists of, as yet, only three or four families; but when the plank-roads now in process of construction, from London to Brantford, to Port Stanley, Sarnia, Godrich, &c., are completed, and most of them will be this year, a great population will be "located" along these roads, and London will also rapidly increase.

As few people in the Old Country are acquainted with the nature of plank-roads, apparently so suitable for wooded countries in course of settlement, and which are now being laid for hundreds of miles in Canada West, I beg to annex a short description of one. The whole breadth of the clearing through the bush is 64 feet, the road-bed is 30 feet wide, the ditches on each side are 8 feet wide at top, 2 feet at bottom and 3 feet deep from the crown of the road. The plank-way, on which is the travelling for roughshod horses only, is 16 feet wide. There are five rows of sleepers, 4+6 inches, laid in the ground, the earth well rammed down on each side of them, 3-inch plank, 12 inches wide, is laid on the sleepers, and secured to them by spikes of iron, 6 inches long, by 3-8ths of an inch square. The road is graded to an elevation not to exceed 24 degrees; all the material to be of the best pine, and the expense averages £1000 currency per mile. The road will probably last ten years; when it may be renewed, or its place supplied by a macadamized road or a railroad. The road will pay for itself, indirectly, by attracting settlers.

Our way led past small log or frame farmhouses, separated from the road by the everywhere-seen zig-zag or snake fence. The smoke curled lazily from the chimneys; few moving objects were descried about the doors; an occasional wood-sleigh, or one laden with forage, would pass us on the road. Then we entered the woods of tall pine. the stumps of which in the foreground would be curiously topped with a foot or two of snow, like huge plum-cakes "iced" with sugar. A solitary black squirrel would run across the road, and mount a tree, but no sounds, save those of our bells, would interrupt the solitude of "the bush."

In Canada horses are treated as in some parts of Ireland,-"two feeds of water and one of oats;" we accordingly pulled up after fourteen miles to water, and then halted for a couple of hours at Ingersoll, twenty-five miles, to water again and feed. The principal movement here was produced by "small boys" dragging handsleighs up a slope, and then hurling on them to the bottom. We accomplished our sixty miles, without much fatigue to the horses, in seven hours, exclusive of the mid-day halt, and crossing the Ouse, or Grand River, by a covered wooden bridge, we took up our quarters in the large village of Brantford; named after Brant,

the Indian warrior.

Brantford is the scene of frequent riots and

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A SLEIGH DRIVE IN CANADA WEST.

disturbances. In passing through it in summer we heard that the American residents had just celebrated the anniversary of the independence of the United States, by firing musketry in the streets, and also a cannon, which had probably been originally intended to aid in the late rebellion. The loyal party attacked the Americans, and a sharp conflict ensued, ending in the withdrawal and concealment of the great gun and small arms, along with those who used them. Now there had been a municipal election, and one party had engaged a number of fighting Irishmen from the Welland Canal, to carry the day with knock-down arguments. A skirmish took place in the Town-hall, which was continued in the street, and followed up to various houses; and the result was forty people seriously injured.

At the thriving village of Simco, near the north shores of Lake Erie, one may board at a respectable inn, have a good bed and three meals (with meat at each,) a-day for 2 dollars, or 10s. a week,-£26 per annum.

This winter in Canada 100 lbs. weight of pork could be bought for 2 dollars, (8 shillings,) and the same quantity of flour for the same price, and even less. Potatoes for 74d. the bushel, so that allowing a man llb. of flour and 1 of pork a-day, the expense of this common feeding would amount to 15 dollars, or £3 a year; and wages are 2s. for a laborer, and 3s. or 4s. for a mechanic a day.

One of the chief annoyances to which householders in Canada are subject, is that of servants; the feeling of independence, and even of insolence, which they soon imbibe, causes endOur party found their peace also disturbed in less vexation to their masters. Long and faiththis unruly place, the genius loci seemingly be- ful service in Canada is almost unknown; but ing constant riot. The ladies of our party usu- if the stream of emigration continues to flow ally on the journey occupied the best bed-room towards "the land of the West," help of some in the house, whilst the gentlemen stretched sort, though not long by the same hands, may themselves on "shake downs" in the sitting- be counted on. Lately, a gentleman from the room, preferring this method for sociability's old country lived on a large farm, which he had sake, and to take advantage of the fire; most bought in the neighborhood of London, Canada of the bed-rooms in country inns in Canada are West; he had brought with him from England a laboring man, whom he promoted in Canada mere closets, with curtainless stretchers, containing feather-bed nuisances and very small to the office of bailiff and gardener; the wages pillows. At three o'clock in the morning a fe- of this functionary were good, and he was prumale entered our dormitory in the dark, craving dent. One morning he came to the gentleman, water, and finding a jug on the table, took a and said, "Measter! I have been a long time "Yes, you have, what of hearty pull at it, and then carried it off, but with you now." missing her footing at the head of the stairs, she that?" "I think, Measter, you and me's about rolled to the bottom, breaking the crockery, and equal." "How do you make out that?" "You alarming the house. Shortly after she appeared see, Measter, you makes me eat my vittels in again, but now with a light, and seizing a bot- your kitchen, now you know that won't do here." tle of Cogniac on the table, she said, "They" Well, what do you want?" "Why I wants a tell me there's some London officers here, I'll knife and fork in your parlor, or else I clears "What! to eat with my family? No, fix them? a bad set, to turn me, a soldier's wife, out." out of barracks, because some told lies about no; that will never do, so clear out as soon as me. I don't get a chance like this every day to you like." pay them off. They receive a serjeant's word, too, before a poor soldier's! but if I don't pull their chicken now (take advantage of them) its a pity."

Another Englishman cleverly kept his servant, and in the proper place, thus: he engaged an "Who is that for?" American female "help," who, the first day, laid an extra cover at table. was asked. "I guess it's for myself," was the answer. "Oh! you mean to dine with us!" She accord"Very well!" "I expect I do."' ye

"Oh! this is destruction," groaned one of the sleepers, clear out, and let us sleep."

"No, no, here I sit, I'll have a talk with first, and try your grog," whereupon she swal-ingly sat down with the family, and the master lowed half-a-tumbler of raw spirits. Fair words paid her the most marked attention, helped her and abuse were equally thrown away upon her. to the choicest food, assisted her to bread, beer, "She was as good as us, only she had not as &c., from the sideboard, and in short, so overmuch money in her pocket." She locked the powered her with civility, that she begged "for door, sat down before it, and put the key in her goodness sake" to be allowed to eat alone, and pocket; at last, on the landlord calling to her in her own place; and she did so, and did good from below, she seized up the bottle saying, service besides. "I'll treat the boys with this," and disappeared; a pursuit ensued by our servants, and the bottle was recovered from her lower garments.

But let us continue our drive. On the second morning we cheerfully "put to" at Brantford; and under the exhilarating influence of a sharp The usual charge at inns in Canada West is frost and clear sky, we glided over the frozen one shilling (English) for each meal, and six-snow at a rapid pace on our way to Hamilton. pence for a bed. A stranger travelling through the country will do well not to ask for a bill, for then it is very possible he may be overcharged, but if he goes up to the bar-keeper and says, "I've had so many meals," and deposits the corresponding number of shillings, all will be right. Three shillings a night is the usual charge for a pair of horses, and a shilling for a mid-day feed.

The Grand river was on our right, navigable in the open season for fifty miles toward Lake Erie, and we passed near a considerable colony of Indians on its banks, who at this season are muffled up in their blankets and red leggings.

By putting two of the servants in one sleigh with the baggage, four of the party could always be together, and thus the time was agreeably

diversified with song and story. Two of us had been "bronzed" in the East, a field always supplying a store of anecdote and adventure. Here is one of the recoilections of the land of the sun. The dexterity of Indian thieves is unrivalled; but an Irish officer, in a part of the country in bad repute, laid a heavy wager that they could not rob him; his brother officers took him up, and determined to rob him themselves, but they were saved the trouble. At night he went to bed in his tent, sleeping on a cot resting on and fixed to his two bullock trunks, a chain was passed through the handles of these and padlocked to the tent-pole; he placed his money under his pillow, and a brace of loaded pistols; his sword was on one side, and his double-barrel on the other; he had also a terrier dog with him. Taking "a night-cap," in the shape of a glass of brandy-and-water, he lay down in full security: but, alas! for all his precautions,-in the morning he lay on his sheet on the ground in a tent completely "gutted." The thieves had enticed away the dog, lifted him off the stretcher on the sheet, removed his money and arms, lifted the tent-pole and passed under it the chain which secured the bullock trunks, and got clear off with their booty!

him, told him to put on his cap. "I'll do that outside, Sur." No, put it on, now; you know a soldier should never take his cap off." It was done cautiously. "How long have you been sick?" "It's been coming on for some time, Sur." "What's that running over your eyes?" The patient putting up his hand, "Oh! 'tis nothing but the sweat, Sur." "How comes it black? Serjeant, bring him another dose of the same." Pat swallowed this with a terrible grimace and shudder; whilst the others, watching outside, cried to Pat, "By the powers but he's done ye," and forthwith disappeared.

Leaving Hamilton, we soon approached the battle-ground of Stony Creek, memorable in the late American war. On the right was the wooded ridge, leading towards Niagara; below was a level plateau, thinly sprinkled with trees; beneath this again were cultivated fields and the houses of the village of Stony Creek, through which the straight road led; on the left, fields and thickets sloped away gently towards Lake Ontario.

The American army, 3,500 strong, and following the British on their route towards the Burlington heights, one night took up their bivouac on the plateau beneath the ridge. The Hamilton on Burlington Bay, and near the present Governor of Newfoundland, the gallant celebrated heights of the same name, the natu- Sir John Harvey, asked leave of his Chief to ral citadel of Canada West, is in the midst of a return with 500 chosen men and surprise the most thriving district; beautiful farms are every- Americans, reposing in fancied security; leave where seen around, with fields clear of stumps, was granted. He made a desperate onslaught and enclosed with good fences. The town has at night; the Americans broke and fled, leava cheerful aspect, with broad streets and lofty ing their cannon, munitions of war, and two houses, and there is constantly a commercial Generals in the hands of the victors. An exmovement and bustle in it. With the clear wa-perienced military friend commonly says of afters of the bay in front, the back-ground of the picture is a rich screen of trees clothing the side of a ridge which runs to Niagara, distant fifty miles.

|

fairs of this sort, "The value of night attacks is not at all understood-it is a mine which has not been worked or appreciated."

We passed on to Forty Mile Creek, and there Teetotalism is extending in Hamilton, as else- took up our quarters for the night in the clean where in Canada; and it is needful it should do wayside inn, with “ Jennings” on the sign; but so in a land overflowing with whiskey at 6d. a new people had just taken the house, and though quart. Soldiers are sorely tried with this temp- somewhat unprovided for our party, yet they tation in Canada; and though among them made up for deficiences in provant and beds, by there is a good deal of "steady drinking," yet civility and attention; and we, being in good the extraordinary inebriation which used to health and spirits, were not in the mood to comprevail in India is unknown. There, the worthy plain of any thing. Whilst supper was preparMedico, one of our sleigh party, had once charge ing, some itinerant Italian organists, exhibiting of a detachment of 240 men; out of this number | wax figures in a box of the Siamese twins, playthere were 64 cases of delirium tremens, fromed lively tunes in the bar, and set the feet of our hard drinking, in three months! There was a | soldier-servants in motion, who danced jigs, to pump in the barrack-yard, and every morning the surprise of the "loafers" lazily collected he saw drunkards helped to it by their com- about the stove. rades, and copiously pumped on to fit them for parade, which passing, in a way, they drank again, and again were pumped on for evening parade!

66

"I cannot find beds for all you gentlemen," said the hostess, "but I'll do the best I can for ye." "Make up a family-bed for us in the sitting-room, with two mattresses side by side," He played them a trick one day. A party of we answered; and it was so contrived. An old them came to the hospital to get some medicine, and dry Yankee attendant amused us; he was to escape parade altogether. One came for- as civil as the rest of the people of the house, but ward; What is the matter with you?" "Oh! on the ladies objecting to his proposal to light I am very bad in my inside, Sur." "Go into the fire in their room in the morning, (as he the surgery, and you'll get some medicine. Ser- stood with his slouched glazed hat and looselyjeant, give this man some of the black bottle on fitting jacket and continuations at our door, lanthe upper shelf." A horrid mixture, kept for tern in hand, to ask if we wanted any more help malingerers, composed of salts, senna, tobacco- from him,) he replied, "Well, I guess the little water, assafoetida, &c. Pat tasted it, and not | girl will make the fire for ye, if ye are afeard of liking it, slyly emptied the glass into his cap. the old man; but ye are safe enough here, I tell The Doctor watched him, and calling him to ye."

museum.

The broad sheet of the American Fall presented the appearance of light green water and feathery spray, also margined by huge icicles. The great masses of rock at the bottom were covered, as it were, with pure white heaps of cotton, whilst on the left, and in front of the Fall, a cone was in process of formation from the congealing vapor. As in summer, the water rushing from under the vapor-cloud of the two Falls, was of a milky whiteness as far as the ferry, when it became dark, and interspersed with floating masses of ice. Here, last year, from the pieces of the ice being heaped and crushed together in great quantities, was formed a thick and high bridge of ice completely across the river, safe for passengers for some time; and in the middle of it a Yankee speculator had erect

Next morning we were off by times, with our ing on portions of the vapor into which the wasnowy railroad as good as ever, the three sleighs ter is comminuted below. Altogether the apmaking the woods on each side tuneful with pearance was most startling. It was observed, their light bells; the driver, who led, occasion-at 1 P. M., from the gallery of Mr. Burnett's ally blew a blast with a horn, to warn the country sleighs to share with us the road, but which brought the dwellers in the scattered houses to their doors; a piece of paper held up would bring them out for a fancied letter-they would run back for change for a shilling York (6d.) to pay for it, when the train would drive off, with much laughter. Mounting some steep ascents, and passing along an undulating road, we reached Drummondville, or Lundy's Lane, the scene of another sharp conflict; the favorable state of the snow now induced a repetition of the combat-one sleigh against another, with snowballs. Gliding down the street of the village we heard beneath us the heavy roar of the world's wonder, the mighty Niagara, and then found ourselves at the door of the Clifton hotel. The great cataract is seen by few travellers in its winter garb. I had seen it several years ed a shanty, for refreshments. before in all the glories of autumn, its encircling Lately, at a dinner party, I heard a Staff Offiwoods happily spared by the remorseless hatch-cer of talent propose to the company a singular et, and tinted with all the brilliant hues peculiar to the American "Fall." Now the glory had departed the woods were still there, but were generally black, with occasional green pines; beneath the gray trunks was spread a thick mantle of snow, and from the brown rocks, inclosing the deep channel of the Niagara river, hung huge clusters of icicles, twenty feet in length, like silver pipes of giant organs. The tumultuous rapids appeared to me to descend more regularly than formerly over the steps which distinctly extended across the wide river; in the midst of the rapids, and before the awful plunge of the cataract, was fixed a conspicuous black object, which appeared to be the remains of a vessel. These, I was assured, were the last vestiges of the Detroit, the flag ship of Commodore Barclay, and on whose deck he bled whilst sustaining his unequal combat on the waters of Lake Erie in 1813. In 1841 the Detroit was brought from Buffalo to be sent over the Falls, but grounding on the great ledges of the Rapids, it has, by degrees, been reduced to a few black ribs. It was impossible to look upon these melancholy remains of a fierce struggle without feelings of intense interest.

The portions of the British, or Horseshoe Fall, where the waters descend in masses of snowy whiteness, were unchanged by the season, except that vast sheets of ice and icicles hung on their margin; but where the deep waves of sea-green water roll majestically over the steep, large picces of descending ice were descried ever and anon on its bosom. No rainbows were now observed on the great vaporcloud, which shrouds for ever the bottom of the Fall; but we were extremely fortunate to see now plainly what I had looked for in vain at my last visit, the water-rockets, first described by Captain Hall, which shot up with a train of va por singly, and in flights of a dozen, from the abyss near Table Rock, curved towards the East, and burst and fell in front of the cataract. Vast masses of descending fluid produce this singular effect, by means of condensed air act

wager, a bet of £100 that he would go over the Falls of Niagara, and come out alive at the bottom! No one being inclined to take him up, and after a good deal of discussion as to how this most perilous feat was to be accomplished, the plan was disclosed. To place on Table Rock a crane, with a long arm reaching over the water at Horse-shoe Fall; from this arm would hang by a stout rope, a large bucket or cask: this would be taken up some distance above the Fall, where a mill-race slowly glides towards the cataract: here the adventurer would get into the cask, men stationed on the Table Rock would haul in the slack of the rope as he descended, and the crane would swing him clear from the cataract as he passed over. Here is a chance for any gentleman sportsman to immortalize himself!

A rapid thaw took place after we reached the Falls: the icicles which before had covered every blade of grass, twig, and tree, and caused them to bend to the Falls as if in worship of them, and all the while glittering in the sunbeams with exceeding splendor, while the caldron boiling beneath, and sending up its seething cloud, above which waterfowl wildly careered.under the influence of the thaw the icy glories began to vanish, and it was dangerous to pass under the cliffs where the great icicles hung, for an occasional crash would be heard, and masses of ice, like pillars of alabaster, would be detached and fall, tons weight at a time, on the path below.

We walked towards the old Pavilion Hotel, now the barracks of a party of the newly-embodied Royal Canadian Rifle Corps, composed of volunteers from various regiments stationed in this country. Their winter dress was comfortable and soldier-like, high and flat caps of black fur, gray great-coats, black belts, and long boots. We asked several men who had lately worn the red jacket, if they were pleased with their change of service, and they said that they were quite happy and contented. A man, lately of my company, had married a wife with