My First Travels in North America by Isabella L. Bird Clarence C. Strowbridge

Author:Isabella L. Bird, Clarence C. Strowbridge [Isabella L. Bird, Clarence C. Strowbridge]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780486141299
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2013-02-05T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XII

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.

The Arabian, by which I left Toronto, was inferior to any American steamer I had travelled in. It was crowded with both saloon and steerage passengers, bound for Cobourg, Port Hope, and Montreal. It was very bustling and dirty, and the carpet was plentifully sprinkled with tobacco-juice. The captain was very much flustered with his unusually large living cargo, but he was a good-hearted man, and very careful, having, to use his own phrase, “climbed in at the hawse-holes, and worked his way aft, instead of creeping in at the cabin window with his gloves on.” The stewards were dirty, and the stewardess too smart to attend to the comforts of the passengers.

As passengers, crates, and boxes poured in at both the fore and aft entrances, I went out on the little slip of deck to look at the prevalent confusion, having previously ascertained that all my effects were secure. The scene was a very amusing one, for, acting out the maxim that “time is money,” comparatively few of the passengers came down to the wharf more than five minutes before the hour of sailing. People, among whom were a number of “unprotected females,” and juveniles who would not move on, were entangled among trucks and carts discharging cargo—hacks, horses, crates, and barrels. These passengers, who would find it difficult to elbow their way unencumbered, find it next to impossible when their hands are burdened with uncut books, baskets of provender, and diminutive carpet-bags. Horses back carts against helpless females, barrels roll upon people’s toes, newspaper hawkers puff their wares, bonbon venders push their plaster of Paris abominations almost at people’s eyes, yet, strange to say, it is very seldom that any accident occurs. Family groups invariably are separated, and distracted mammas are running after children whom everybody wishes out of the way, giving utterance to hopes that they are not on shore. Then the obedient papa is sent on shore to look after “that dear little Harry,” who is probably all the time in the ladies’ saloon on some child-fancier’s lap eating bonbons. The board is drawn in—the moorings are cast off—the wheels revolve—the bell rings—the engine squeals, and away speeds the steamer down the calm waters of Lake Ontario. Little children and inquisitive young ladies are knocked down or blackened in coiling the hawser, by “hands” who, being nothing but hands, evidently cannot say, “I beg your pardon, miss.” There were children, who always will go where they ought not to go, running against people, and taking hold of their clothes with sticky, smeared hands, asking commercial gentlemen to spin their tops, and corpulent ladies to play at hide and seek. I saw one stern-visaged gentleman tormented in this way till he looked ready to give the child its “final quietus.

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