Chapter XII: Part II (2)

When two or three letters had passed between us, we agreed that Mary should go over at once to her family, and join her personal influence to my special pleading.

I waited with great anxiety for her answer. At length it came. Her family had consented. Fortunately she was just of age; and as she remained steadfast in her attachment, they agreed with me that it would be best for her to go out with her future sister-in-law. Mary wrote to Mrs. C----, gratefully accepting her offer of chaperonage, and we despatched the joyful news to Herbert; but unfortunately named a date for their probable arrival which proved incorrect, as their vessel sailed from London two or three weeks before the expected time. This we shall see was productive of much temporary annoyance.

I pass over all the details of their voyage and subsequent journey, and now take up the narrative in Mrs. C----’s words, telling of their arrival at Mary’s future home:

“It was about noon of a burning day in August when the stage-wagon in which we came from Utterson turned out of the road into the Bush. After going some little way in a dreadful narrow track, covered with stumps, over which the wagon jolted fearfully, we were told to get down, as the driver could not go any farther with safety to the horses; and we therefore paid and dismissed him.

“We soon came to a shanty by the roadside, the owner of which met us and offered to be our guide. He evidently knew to whom we were going, but the perplexed and doubtful expression of his face when he caught sight of our party was most amusing. He looked from one to the other, and then burst out, in quite an injured tone, ‘But nothing is ready for you; the house even is not finished. Mr. Herbert knows nothing of your coming so soon; he told me this morning that he did not expect you for three weeks! What will he do?’ The poor man, a great friend and ally of Herbert’s, appeared quite angry at our ill-timed arrival; but we explained to him that we should only be too thankful for any kind of shelter, being dreadfully wearied with our long journey, and the poor children crying from heat, fatigue, and the attacks of the mosquitoes.

“Charles now proposed going in advance of us, to prepare Herbert for our arrival. He walked quickly on, and, entering the clearing, caught sight of Herbert, hard at work in the burning sun, covered with dust and perspiration, and, in fact, barely recognisable, being attired in a patched suit of common working-clothes, which he had snatched from the burning shanty, with his toes also peeping out of a pair of old boots with soles partly off.

“On first seeing his brother-in-law, every vestige of colour left his face, so great was his emotion, knowing that we must be close at hand. To rush into the house, after a few words of explanation, to make a brief toilet, greatly aided by a bucket of water and plenty of soap, to attire himself in a most becoming suit of cool brown linen, and, finally, to place on his hastily-brushed head a Panama hat, which we had often admired, was the work of little more than a quarter of an hour; and, to Charles’ great amusement, the scrubby, dirty-looking workman he had greeted, stepped forward in the much-improved guise of a handsome and aristocratic-looking young planter.

“In the meantime, our guide having brought us within sight of the outer fence, hastily took his leave, hardly waiting to receive our thanks. Mary and I have often laughed since at his great anxiety to get away from us, which we know now was partly from delicate reluctance to intrude upon our first interview, but a great deal more from his horror at the state in which he knew things to be at the house.

“Poor Herbert, when he reached us, could hardly speak. After one fond and grateful embrace of his darling, and a most kind and affectionate welcome to the children and myself, he conducted us to the house. Although his neighbour had prepared us for disappointment, yet I must own that we felt unutterable dismay when we looked around us.

“The house was certainly a good large one, but it was a mere shell; nothing but the walls and the roof were up, and even the walls were neither chinked nor mossed, so that we could see daylight between all the logs. The floor was not laid down, but in the middle of it an excavation had been begun for a cellar, so that there was a yawning hole, in which for some weeks my children found a play-closet and a hiding-place for all their rubbish.

“Furniture there was none, the only seats and tables being Herbert’s one trunk, partly burned, saved from the fire, and a few flour-barrels. There was no semblance of a bed, except a little hay in a corner, a few sacks, and an old blanket. Some milk-pans and a few plates and mugs completed the articles in this truly Irish cabin, of which Herbert did the honours with imperturbable grace and self-possession. He made no useless apologies for the existing discomforts; he told us simply what he meant the house to be as soon as he could get time to finish it; and in the interim he looked about with as much satisfaction as if his log-house had been Windsor Castle, and we the crowned heads to whom he was displaying its glories.

“We found the larder as scantily-furnished as the house; but Herbert made us a few cakes and baked them in the oven; he boiled some potatoes, and milked the cow, so that we were not long without some refreshment.

“For sleeping we curtained off a corner of the room with our travelling-cloaks and shawls, and made a tolerable bed with bundles of hay and a few sacks to cover us. We had brought nothing with us but our hand-baskets, so were obliged to lie down in most of our clothes, the nights beginning to be very chilly, and the night air coming in freely through the unchinked walls. We were, however, truly thankful this first night to put the children to bed quite early, and to retire ourselves, for we were thoroughly wearied and worn out. The two gentlemen lay down, just as they were, in the far corner of the room on some hay; and if we were chilly and uncomfortable, I think they must have been more so.

“The first night we were undisturbed; but on the next, we were hardly asleep when we were awoke by a horrid and continuous hissing, which seemed to come from the hay of our improvised bed. We all started up in terror, the poor frightened children crying loudly. The gentlemen, armed with sticks, beat the hay of the beds about, and scattered it completely. They soon had the pleasant sight of a tolerable-sized snake gliding swiftly from our corner, and making its escape under the door into the clearing, where Herbert found and killed it next morning. We must indeed have been tired to sleep soundly, as we all certainly did, after the beds had been re-arranged.

“The next day Mr. C---- proposed walking to Utterson, to purchase a few necessary articles of food; and Herbert went on to Bracebridge, to look for a clergyman to perform the marriage ceremony between him and Mary. As to waiting for our luggage, and for the elegant bridal attire which had been so carefully packed by loving hands, we all agreed that it would be ridiculous; and dear Mary, like a true heroine, accepted the discomforts of her situation bravely, and, far from uttering a single complaint, made the best of everything.

“Both Mr. C---- and myself had fits of irrepressible vexation at the state of affairs; but as we could in no way help ourselves, we thought it best to be silent, and to hurry on the building of a log-house for ourselves, which we at once did.

“The very day after our arrival, Mary and I undertook the work of housekeeping, taking it by turns day and day about. We found it most fatiguing, the days being so hot and the mosquitoes so tormenting. Moreover, the stove being placed outside, we were exposed to the burning sun every time we went near it, and felt quite ill in consequence.

“When Herbert returned from Bracebridge, he told us that the Church of England clergyman being away at Toronto, he had engaged the services of the Wesleyan minister whose chapel he had sometimes attended, and that gentleman had promised to come as soon as possible, and to bring with him a proper and respectable witness.

“The day of his coming being left uncertain, Mary and I were kept in a continual state of terror and expectation, and at such a time we felt doubly the annoyance of not being able to get from Toronto even the trunks containing our clothes. In vain we tried to renovate our soiled and travel-stained dresses; neither brushing, nor shaking, nor sponging could alter their unmistakably shabby appearance, and it required some philosophy to be contented. It was worse for poor Mary than for any one else; and I felt quite touched when I saw her carefully washing and ironing the lace frill from the neck of her dress, and then arranging it again as nicely as possible.

“Two days passed, and on the afternoon of the third we had put the poor children to sleep, and were lying down ourselves, quite overcome with the heat, when my husband entered hastily to tell us that the Rev. Mr. W---- had arrived to perform the marriage ceremony, and had brought with him as witness a good-natured store-keeper, who had left his business to oblige Herbert, with whom he had had many dealings.

“Herbert, who had dressed himself every day, not to be taken by surprise, was quite ready, and kept them in conversation while Mary and I arranged our hair, washed the children’s faces and hands, and, as well as we could, prepared the room. When all was ready they were summoned, and in making their introductory bows, both our visitors nearly backed themselves into the yawning cavern in the middle of the floor, which, in our trepidation, we had forgotten to point out.

“Very impressively did the good minister perform the marriage service; and at its close he addressed to the young couple a few words of serious and affectionate exhortation, well suited to the occasion.

“He begged them to remember, that living as they were about to do in the lonely forest, far from the public ordinances of religion, they must give the more heed to their religious duties, and to the study of the Word of God, endeavouring to live not for this world only, but for that other world to which young and old were alike hastening.

“Herbert looked his very best on this momentous occasion, and, in spite of all disadvantages of dress and difficulties of position, dear Mary looked most sweet and beautiful, and created, I am sure, quite a fatherly interest in the heart of the good old clergyman, himself the father of a numerous family. We could offer the clergyman and witness no refreshment; and when they were gone, our wedding-feast consisted of a very salt ham-bone, dough dumplings, and milk-and-water.”

So ends Mrs. C----’s narrative, to which I shall append but few observations. All went well from the day of the wedding, and on that day the sun went down on a happy couple. Doubt, anxiety, separation--all these were at an end; and, for weal or woe, John Herbert and Mary Lennox were indissolubly united. Trials and troubles might await them in the future; but for the present, youth, health, hope, and love were beckoning them onward with ineffable smiles.

The luggage soon arrived, and comfortable bedding superseded hay and snakes. Mr. and Mrs. C---- removed as soon as possible into their own log-house, leaving our young couple to the privacy of their home.

Herbert worked early and late to finish his house, and partitioned off a nice chamber for Mary, which was prettily furnished and ornamented with cherished books, and gifts, and keepsakes from dear and distant friends. The wealthier members of Mary’s family sent substantial tokens of goodwill, and many pretty and useful gifts came from the loving sister, who begins to talk of coming out herself.

Mary’s parents, cheered and comforted by the happy and contented tone breathed in her letters, ceased to regret having sanctioned the marriage; and, to crown all, a little son in due time made his appearance, to cement still further the love of his parents and to concentrate a very large portion of it in his own little person.

Here let the curtain drop. From time to time I may have had misgivings, but have long been fully satisfied that a blessing has rested on my well-meant endeavours to secure the happiness of two young and loving hearts.

ANECDOTES OF THE CANADIAN BUSH, THIRTY YEARS AGO.

TOLD ME BY THE WIFE OF AN OLD SETTLER.

ANECDOTES OF THE CANADIAN BUSH.

Thirty years ago, when I went into the Bush, quite a young girl, with my newly-made husband, the part in which we settled was a complete wilderness. Our lot was taken up about thirty miles east of Belle Ewart, now quite a flourishing village, with the railway passing through it.

Our small log-house was perfectly isolated, as at that time we had not a single neighbour nearer to us than twelve miles; all was dense forest, with but a very faint imperfect track leading by degrees to the main road. Here I passed the first years of my married life, encountering many hardships and enduring many troubles. By degrees my husband cleared and cultivated as much land as would supply our wants, though he never took heartily to the farming, not having been used to it, being by trade a gunsmith.

After several years, neighbours began to gather round us at the distance of two or three miles, and in time quite a settlement was formed. By one of these neighbours a few miles off I was invited to a wedding when my first baby was about a year old. My husband had a strong serviceable pony, but no buggy, and it was settled that I should ride on the pony with baby on my lap, and my husband walk at the side.

When we were within a mile of our destination we noticed a tree fallen across the path, which was a narrow track with forest on both sides, and we also saw that the tree had a bushy green top to it. We arrived at our friend’s, partook of the wedding festivities, and started on our return home at ten o’clock on a bright starlight night.

As we approached the fallen tree over which the pony had stepped quite quietly in the morning, the poor animal began to shiver all over, to snort, to caper about the road in a most extraordinary manner, and appeared too frightened to move on.

I whispered to my husband that I saw the green top of the tree moving, and that I had better get off with the baby for fear of the pony starting and throwing us off. He took me down, and we stepped across the tree, dragging the pony after us with the greatest difficulty; hardly had we got to the other side when from the bushy head of the tree out walked a great brown bear, who certainly looked very much astonished at our little party.

We were terribly frightened, expecting him to attack the pony, but he stood quite still. We thought it better to move on, slowly at first, and afterwards more quickly as we got nearer home. He followed us for more than a mile, indeed till we were quite in sight of our own door, then finding himself near a human habitation he gave one fearful growl before gliding off into the forest, and we lost sight of him.

When we were safely housed, and the poor pony well fed and locked into his little shed, I felt nearly dead with terror and fatigue.

My next interview with Bruin was in a buggy, three years afterwards, in which I was being driven homeward by my husband. This time we had two children with us, and had been to a considerable distance to purchase articles at a newly-established store, which could not be procured nearer. We were more than six miles from home, when the pony (the same mentioned before) began to be greatly agitated, refused to go on, then tried to start off, and gave loud snorts of distress.

My husband got out and stood at the pony’s head, holding him firmly to prevent his starting. The light was very dim in the shade of the Bush, but we both saw something large creeping along the edge of the forest next to where my husband stood; he had no weapon with him but his woodman’s knife and a thick stake picked up from the roadside. Presently a bear came slowly out of the forest, and advanced into the middle of the road at some distance from us, as if preparing for fight. I was terribly frightened, but my husband stood quite still, holding in the horse, but keeping in full view the bear, knowing what a terror they have of man.

After steadily looking at each other for at least five minutes--minutes of suspense and agony to us, Bruin evidently understood the difficulties of his position, and quietly slunk away into the Bush on the other side of the road; and we were glad to get home in safety.

At another time, I had a visit from a lynx; but as I certainly invited him myself, I could not be surprised at his coming as he did, almost close to my cottage door. My husband had been gone for two days on important business to a village a long way off, and on this particular evening I fully expected him home.

We were living in quite a small shanty till we could build a larger house; it had a fireplace on the floor, and an open chimney; the room was very low, and easy of access from the outside. I was living then with my three little children and a young sister of fourteen who helped me to take care of them. As it was getting dusk I thought I heard a human voice distinctly calling from the forest, “Hallo!” I went to the door and immediately answered in the same tone, “Hallo!” making sure that it was my husband, who finding the track very faint from the gloom of the forest, wanted our voices to guide him right. The voice replied to me. I hallooed again, and this went on for some minutes, the sound drawing nearer and nearer, till at length advancing from the edge of the forest, not my husband, but a good-sized lynx, attracted by my answering call, stood quite in front of the cottage--nothing more than the width of a broad road between us and it.

The children, most fortunately, were playing inside, but my sister and myself distinctly saw the eyes of the creature like globes of fire, and in the stillness of the evening we could hear its teeth gnashing as if with anxiety to attack us. Fortunately, through the open door of the shanty the savage animal could see the blazing fire on the hearth, and came no nearer.

We hastily shut the door, and my poor little sister began to cry and bemoan the danger we were in:

“Oh! the roof was so low, and it would clamber up and drop down the chimney, or it would spring through the window, or push open the door,” etc.

I begged her not to frighten the poor children who were playing in a corner, but at once to put more wood on the fire and make a good blaze. I now found that we had hardly any wood without going to the stack outside, which luckily was very close to the door, and fearing that my husband might at any moment return, and be pounced upon unawares, I made my sister light a candle, and opening the door placed her at it, telling her to move the light about so as to bewilder the lynx. Still the dreadful animal remained, uttering cries at intervals, but not moving a step. As quickly as I could I got plenty of wood, as much as I thought would last the night, and very gladly we again shut the door. We now piled up wood on the hearth till there was a great blaze, and no doubt the showers of sparks which must have gone out at the chimney-top greatly alarmed the lynx; it now gave a number of fierce angry cries and went off into the forest, the sound becoming fainter and fainter till it died away.

My husband did not return till the evening of the next day, and he had seen nothing of our unwelcome visitor.

At the time I speak of, the woods of Muskoka were quite infested with wolves, which, however, were only dangerous when many were together. A single wolf is at all times too cowardly to attack a man. My husband knew this, and therefore if he heard a single howl he took no notice, but if he heard by the howling that a pack was in the forest near at hand, he went on his road very cautiously, looking from side to side so as to secure a tree for climbing into should they attack him.

The Canadian wolf has not the audacity of the prairie wolf; should it drive a traveller to the shelter of a tree it will circle round it all night, but at the dawn of day is sure to disappear.

A neighbour’s child, a boy of twelve years old, had a narrow escape from four or five of them, having mistaken them for dogs. It was his business to feed the animals, and having neglected one morning to cut the potatoes small enough, a young calf was unfortunately choked from a piece too large sticking in her throat. The dead calf was laid under a fence not far from the shanty, and the boy having been severely scolded for his carelessness, remained sulkily within doors by himself.

He was engaged in peeling a long stick for an ox-whip, when he heard, as he thought, the barking of some dogs over the dead carcase of the calf; he rushed out with the long stick in his hand, and saw four or five animals busily tearing off the flesh from the calf; without a moment’s reflection he ran in among them, shouting and hallooing with all his might, and so valiantly laid about him with his stick that they all ran off to the covert of the forest, where they turned; and he heard a series of yells and howls which made his blood run cold, for he knew the sound well, and saw that they were wolves and not dogs whose repast he had interrupted. He said, that so great was his terror that he could hardly get back to the shanty and fasten the door.

All the Canadian wild animals are timid; they only begin to prowl about at dusk; they never attempt to enter a dwelling, and have a salutary dread of attacking a man; if attacked themselves they will fight fiercely, and a she-bear with cubs is always dangerous.

Since the time I speak of, the settlements all over the district have become very numerous, and the quantity of land cleared up is so great that the wild animals keep retreating farther and farther into the recesses of the forest; and even the trappers by profession find their trade much less lucrative than it was, they have so much more difficulty in finding game in any quantity.

It is hardly possible to make people understand, who are unacquainted with Bush-life, what the early settlers in Muskoka and other parts had to suffer. Young creatures with their babies were left alone in situations which in more settled countries call for the greatest care and tenderness, and in desolate solitudes where they were far from all human help.

Three weeks before the birth of my fourth child I became so ill with erysipelas that my husband thought he had better go to the place where my parents lived--more than twenty miles off, and bring back one of my sisters to nurse me. He started after breakfast, and soon after he left I became so dreadfully ill that I could not lift my head from the pillow, or indeed turn myself in the bed.

My children, of the respective ages of two, four, and six, were playing about, and as I lay watching them my terror was extreme lest one of them should fall into the fire; I can hardly tell how they fed themselves, or got to bed, or got up the next morning, for by that time I could move neither hand nor foot, and was in dreadful pain. Thus I lay all day, all night, and all the next day till the evening, when my husband returned with one of my sisters. After that I became delirious, and had hardly recovered when my child was born.

As soon as our land was well cleared up and a good house built, my husband sold the property and bought a piece of ground at Belle Ewart, where we have lived ever since, as his health would not allow him to continue farming.

I was always afraid when living in the Bush of the children being lost when they began to run about. The Bush at that time was so wild, and so few paths through it, that there was every fear of children straying once they turned off the narrow track.

A poor little boy, of eight years old, living some miles from us, was lost for more than a week, and only by a miracle was found alive. There was a windfall caused by a hurricane, not very far from his father’s shanty. It was not very broad, but extended in length for more than twenty miles, distinctly marking out the path of the tempest as it swept through the Bush. All this windfall was overgrown with blackberry-bushes, and at this time of year (the autumn) there were quantities of fruit, and parties used to be made for picking them, with a view to preserving.

Our poor little wanderer having strayed alone one morning and reached the windfall, began to eat the berries with great delight, and kept going about from bush to bush, till when it got late he became so bewildered that he could no longer tell in which direction his home lay. Days went by; he was missed and hunted for, but misled by some imaginary trace the first parties went in quite a wrong direction.

The child had no sustenance but the fruit; at length he became too much exhausted to pick, and, as he described it, only felt sleepy. Providentially, in passing an uprooted tree, he saw underneath a large hole, and creeping in found it warm, soft, and dry, being apparently well lined with moss and leaves. Here he remained till found by a party who fortunately took the direction of the windfall, accompanied by a sagacious dog used to tracking bears and other game.

The parties searching would have passed the tree, which was a little out of the track, and many others of the kind lying about, but seeing the dog suddenly come to a stop and begin sniffing and barking they made a careful examination; they found the poor child in his concealment almost at the point of death, and so scratched by the brambles and stained by the juice of the berries as to be scarcely recognisable. They had had the precaution to take with them a bottle of new milk, and very carefully they put down his throat a little at a time till he was able to swallow freely.

Now comes the extraordinary part of the story. The nights were already very chilly; when asked on his recovery if he had not felt the cold, he replied, “Oh no!” and said that every night at dusk a large brown dog came and lay down by him, and was so kind and good-natured that it let him creep quite close to it, and put his arms round it, and that in this way he slept quite warm. He added, that the brown dog went away every morning when it was light. Of course, as there was no large dog answering to this description in any of the adjacent settlements, and as the poor child was evidently in a bear’s den, people could not but suppose that it was a _bear_ who came to his side every evening, and that the animal, moved by some God-given instinct, refrained from injuring the forlorn child. Years afterwards this boy used to talk of the “kind brown dog” who had kept him so nice and warm in his hole in the tree.

My last fright from a bear was only a few years ago, when I was driving a married daughter home, who had been with me to pay a visit to a friend in the Bush twelve miles off. We had one of her little children with us, and were driving slowly, though the road was a good one, as the horse had been many miles that day.

It was getting dusk, and the road, being narrow like all Bush roads, was very gloomy. We were talking quietly of the visit we had just paid, when from the thick top of a tree overhanging the roadside, dropped down a large bear, who just grazed the back of the buggy in his fall. I had but a glimpse of him, as hearing the noise I turned my head for an instant; my daughter’s wild shriek of alarm as she clutched her little one firmly, added to the growl of the bear, so frightened our horse that he dashed off at full speed, and providentially meeting with no obstacle, never stopped till he reached the fence of my husband’s clearing. Even when locked into the house for the night we could hardly fancy ourselves in safety.

The respectable person to whom I was indebted for the above anecdotes, and who was in the capacity of nurse-tender to the mistress of the hotel where I was staying, was much to my regret suddenly called away to a fresh situation, by which I lost many more of her interesting experiences, for as she truly said, numberless were the expedients by which the wives of the early settlers protected themselves and their little ones during the unavoidable absences of their husbands. The pleasant gentlemanly host of the hotel where I was staying at Bracebridge told me of his sitting entranced, when a little child, at the feet of his old grandmother, to hear her stories of the wild beasts which abounded at the time of her first settlement in the Canadian wilderness.

Her husband belonged to an old and wealthy family in America, who, remaining loyal during the war of Independence, were driven over into Canada and all their property confiscated. They settled down, glad to be in safety in a wild unfrequented part; and whenever provisions were wanting, it was an affair of some days for the husband to go and return, the nearest settlement being fifty miles off.

Packs of wolves used to prowl about the log-hut as evening came on, and during the night the barking and howling was dreadful to hear; the only thing to keep them off was a large fire of pine-logs which his grandfather used to light of an evening as near the house as was consistent with safety. It depended on which way the wind blew at which end of the log-hut the fire was made. When he went away on an expedition, he used to take out a large chink at each end of the house and leave his wife an immense pointed pole, with which, putting it through the chink-hole, she was enabled in safety to brand up the fire, that is to draw the logs together so as to last through the night.

Wolves have long disappeared into the depths of the forest; a chance one may now and then be heard of, but rarely in the vicinity of large clearings. The visits of bears are becoming more and more frequent, for Bruin is very partial to young pig, and does not disdain a good meal of ripe grain. The barley-patch in my clearing, as the corn began to ripen this summer, was very much trodden down by a bear whose tracks were plainly to be seen, and he was supposed to be located in a cedar-swamp on my land, as every now and then he was seen, but always coming to or from that direction. One night we were roused from our sleep by a fearful noise of cattle-bells outside of the fence, and when we went out we found that there was a regular “stampede” of all the cattle in the immediate neighbourhood; cows, oxen, steers, were all tearing madly through the Bush towards a road at the other side of a deep gully near the edge of my lot. They were evidently flying from the pursuit of some wild animal.

Presently on the still night air rose a horrid fierce growl which was repeated at intervals two or three times, getting fainter in the distance till it quite died away. We all recognised the noise we had recently heard in France from the bears in a travelling show, only much fiercer and louder. My son, fully armed, started in pursuit, accompanied by a young friend armed also, but though, guided by the noise, they went far down the road, they caught but one glimpse of Bruin in the moonlight as he disappeared down a deep gully and from thence into the Bush, where at night it would not have been safe to follow him.

Hoping that towards morning he might, as is usually the case, return the same way, they seated themselves on a log by the roadside close to the edge of the forest that they might not be palpably in the bear’s sight, and there they remained for some hours till the cold of the dawn warned them to come home, being very lightly clad. The very next evening my son and his friend were pistol-shooting at a mark fixed on a tree at the end of the clearing, when “Black Bess,” the dog, gave tongue and rushed into the forest on the side next the cedar-swamp. Guided by her barking the two gentlemen followed quickly, and this time had a full view in broad daylight of a large brown bear in full flight, but never got within shooting distance. Unluckily the dog, though a good one for starting game, was young and untrained, and had not the sense to head the animal back so as to enable her master to get within range. This bear baffled all the arts of the settlers to get at it, and settlers with cows and oxen were mostly afraid to set traps for fear of accidents to their cattle.

A short time ago a settler living on the Muskoka Road was returning to his home by a short cut through the Bush, when he came suddenly upon a she-bear with two cubs. He had no weapon but a small pocket-knife, and hoped to steal past unobserved, but in a moment the beast attacked him, knocked his knife out of his hand and tore his arm from the shoulder to the wrist. He would probably have been killed but that his shouts brought up a party of men working on the Government road at no great distance, and Mrs. Bruin was only too glad to get safe off with her progeny into the depths of the Bush.

Two or three bears and a lynx were killed in the fall of 1873, in the vicinity of Bracebridge, and one within a mile of the village, on the road to the “South Falls,” one of my favourite walks when I was staying there. There is, however, but little danger of meeting any wild animal in the broad daylight. The words of David in the 104th Psalm are as strictly true now as they were in his time: “The sun ariseth, they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens.”

TERRA INCOGNITA;

OR,

THE WILDS OF MUSKOKA.

THE WILDS OF MUSKOKA.

In reading the history of newly-settled countries and the rise and progress of mighty states, nothing is more interesting than to trace the wonderful and rapid results which spring from the smallest beginnings. In changing the wilderness into a fruitful land, we notice first the laborious efforts to raise the rude and coarse necessaries of daily life, then the struggles for convenience and comfort, then the gradual demand for the luxuries of a higher civilisation. These last can only be obtained by the growth and encouragement of the ornamental as well as useful arts; then comes the dawning of political power, till at length we see with amusement that the scattered hamlet has become a thriving village, the village a populous town, and the town expanded into a stately city, carrying wealth, commerce, and civilisation to the remotest parts of what a few years back was simply unbroken forest.

Such is the future which, under the fulfilment of certain conditions, we may confidently predict for the free-grant lands of Muskoka, to which the Canadian Government are making strenuous efforts to draw the tide of emigration. Nothing can well be more picturesque than the tract of country already embracing twelve townships which constitutes the district of Muskoka, so called, not from the poetical tradition of “clear skies,” “no clouds,” which is by no means applicable to this variable climate, but more probably from Musquoto, the name of a Chippewa chief, which has been handed down to the present time, though every trace of Indian occupation has long been effaced.

Hill and dale, wood and water, a winding river, tributary streams, rapid waterfalls breaking the solitude with their wild music, the large Muskoka lake, smaller lakes on many of the lots; all these charms combine to form most beautiful scenery. Unfortunately the settlers, looking upon the trees as their natural enemies, hew them down with inexorable rancour, quite ignoring the fact that if they were to clear more judiciously, leaving here and there a clump of feathery balsams, or a broad belt of pine, spruce, maple, and birch, they would have some shelter for their crops from the destroying north-west wind, and some shade for their log-houses during the burning heat of summer.

Having been located in the township of Stephenson for more than two years, I am able to make some observations on the subject, and I find that as most of the settlers in my neighbourhood belong to the lower classes, they have but little sense of the beautiful in any shape, and no appreciation whatever of picturesque scenery. A settler of this class is perfectly satisfied with his own performance when he has cleared thirty or forty acres on his lot, leaving nothing so large as a gooseberry-bush to break the dreary uniformity of the scene.

The London of Muskoka is the pretty thriving town of Bracebridge. I say pretty, advisedly, for its situation on the river Muskoka is beautiful, the scenery highly varied, the environs abounding in lovely walks and choice bits of landscape which an artist might delight to portray.

Ten years ago the first adventurous settler built his log-hut on the hill south of the present town between the pretty falls at the entrance and the South Falls at three miles’ distance. All was then unbroken forest, its solitude only disturbed by occasional visits from a few scattered Chippewa Indians or lonely trappers in pursuit of the game, more and more driven northward by the advancing tide of civilisation.

A few statistics of Bracebridge at the close of the present year (1873) will show what progress has been made in every department.

Population 800
Children attending public schools 250
Children attending four Sunday schools 200
Number of churches 4
Clergymen 6
Medical doctors 2
Barristers, attorneys, conveyancers 7
Stores 15
In course of erection 5
Hotels 6
Printing-offices 2
Saw-mills 4
Grist and flour mill 1
Carding mill and woollen factory 1
Shoe shops 3
Butchers’ shops 3
Blacksmiths’ shops 4
Bakers’ shops 4

Besides these are many wheelwrights, carpenters, joiners, etc. The gentleman who wrote to the _Daily News_ in England from Huntsville in this neighbourhood, most unduly disparaged the little town of Bracebridge, but as he visited Muskoka in exceptionally bad weather at the close of a long-continued rainy season, and as his stay in the district was limited to a few days at most, his opinion can hardly be received as gospel truth. His dismay at the mud in the streets and the general badness of the roads was very natural in a stranger to this part of Canada. We certainly are greatly in want of assistance from some McAdam, and we have every hope that improvement in our roads, as in everything else, will reach us in time.

The climate of Muskoka is most favourable to health, even to invalids, provided they have no consumptive tendencies. For all pulmonary complaints it is most unsuitable, on account of the very sudden atmospheric changes. The short summer, with its inevitable accompaniment of tormenting mosquitoes, is burning hot, and the winter, stretching sometimes over seven months of the year, is intensely cold, and both these extremes render it a trying climate for consumptive patients. The air, however, is pure, clear, and bracing, and nervous and dyspeptic invalids soon lose many of their unpleasant sensations. A gentleman who formed one of our little colony when we came out in 1871, has to thank the air of Muskoka for the entire renovation of his health. His constitution was very much shattered by over-working his brain during a long course of scholastic pursuits, and as his only chance of recovery, he was ordered an entire change of climate and outdoor occupation instead of study.

The Bush-life and the pure air worked miracles; his recovery was complete, and he has been now, for some months, in holy orders as a clergyman of the Church of England. He is able to preach three times every Sabbath day, and to perform all the arduous duties of an out-station without undue fatigue or exhaustion. The same gentleman’s eldest child has derived as much benefit as his father from the change of climate. At five years old, when he was brought to Muskoka, he was most delicate, and had from infancy held life by a most precarious tenure; but at the present time he is a very fine specimen of healthy and robust childhood.

The twelve townships of Muskoka are increasing their population every day, from the steady influx of emigrants from the old country. It is most desirable that an Emigrant’s Home should be established in Bracebridge for the purpose of giving gratuitous shelter and assistance to the poorer class of emigrants, and sound and reliable advice to all who might apply for it. In my “Plea for Poor Emigrants,” contributed to the _Free Grant Gazette_, I earnestly endeavoured to draw public attention to this great want, and I still hope that when the necessary funds can be raised, something of the sort will be provided. Government has thrown open the free-grant lands to every applicant above the age of eighteen years; each one at that age may take up a lot of one hundred acres; the head of a family is allowed two hundred. The person located is not absolute master of the land till the end of five years from the date of his or her location, when, if the stipulated conditions have been fulfilled, the patent is taken out, and each holder of a lot becomes a freehold proprietor. The conditions are simply that he shall have cleared and got under cultivation fifteen acres, and have raised a log-house of proper dimensions.

Government found that some restrictions were absolutely necessary, as unprincipled speculators took up lots which they never meant to cultivate or settle on, but for the fraudulent purpose of felling and selling off the pine timber, and then leaving the country.

When a person has it in view to come to Muskoka, let him as much as possible abstain from reading any of the books published on the subject. Without accusing those who write them of wilfully saying the thing that is not, I must say that the warmth of their colouring and the unqualified praise they bestow greatly misleads ignorant people.

The poor emigrant comes out to Muskoka firmly believing it to be a veritable “Land of Promise” flowing with milk and honey, an El Dorado where the virgin soil only requires a slight scratching to yield cent. per cent. His golden visions speedily vanish; he finds the climate variable, the crops uncertain, the labour very hard, and Bush-farming for the first four or five years very uphill work. If, however, instead of yielding to discouragement he steadily perseveres, he may feel assured of ultimately attaining at least a moderate degree of success. It is also necessary for a settler in Muskoka to get out of his head once and for ever all his traditions of old-country farming. Bush-farming is different in every respect; the seasons are different, the spring seldom opens till the middle of May, and between that time and the end of September, all the farm-work of sowing, reaping, and storing away must be completed. The winters are mostly occupied in chopping. The best way for obtaining an insight into Bush-farming is for the newly-arrived emigrant to hire himself out to work on another person’s ground for at least a year before finally settling upon his own.

This is his wisest plan, even should he bring out (which is not generally the case) sufficient capital to start with. We sadly feel the want in our settlement of a few farmers of better education, and of a higher range of intelligence, who, having a little experience as well as money, might leaven the ignorance which occasions so many mistakes and so much failure among our poorer brethren in the Bush. It has been said that “a donation of a hundred acres is a descent into barbarism,” but few would be inclined to endorse this opinion who had witnessed, as I have done for two years, the patient daily toil, the perseverance under difficulties and privations, the self-denial, the frugality, the temperance, and the kind helpfulness of one another, found in the majority of our settlers. A black sheep may now and then be found in every flock, and it is undeniable that the very isolation of each settler on his own clearing, and the utter absence of all conventional restraint, engenders something of lawlessness, of contempt for public opinion, and occasionally of brutality to animals, but only I am bound to say in the ungenial and depraved natures of those whose conduct _out_ of the Bush would be equally reprehensible.

After all the pros and the cons of emigration to Muskoka have been fully discussed, one fact stands prominently forward for the consideration of the labouring classes of Great Britain.

The free grants offer an inestimable boon to the agricultural and the manufacturing population. The workmen in both these classes spend the prime of their health and strength in working for others, and after suffering with perhaps wives and families incredible hardships from cold and hunger, which cannot be kept away by insufficient wages, have nothing to look forward to in their declining years but the tender mercies of their parish workhouse, or the precarious charity of their former masters. In emigrating to Muskoka they may indeed count upon hard work, much privation, and many struggles and disappointments, but they may be equally certain that well-directed energy, unflagging industry and patient perseverance, will after a few years insure them a competence, if not affluence, and will enable them to leave to their children an inheritance and a position which would have been almost impossible of attainment in the old country.

A PLEA FOR POOR EMIGRANTS.

A PLEA FOR POOR EMIGRANTS.

During a visit of some weeks to Bracebridge, at the close of last winter, I was much interested in watching the different parties of emigrants who came into the town, many of them with wives and families, some without, but all looking more or less weary and travel-worn. I noticed also in the countenances of many of the men a perplexed and uneasy expression, as if they hardly knew where to go or what to do next.

Who but must feel the deepest sympathy with these poor wayfarers, whose troubles, far from ending when they have safely crossed the broad Atlantic, seem to begin afresh and to gather strength during the long and wearisome journey from Quebec to Muskoka.

All along the line are paid agents, who strive to turn the tide of emigration in any other direction than this district of Muskoka, and who perplex the tired traveller with recommendations to various places, and with no end of unsought advice.

Till very lately, Muskoka was but little known, and as a fitting place for emigration was greatly undervalued. I remember with some amusement that during my journey with my family from Quebec to Bracebridge, two years ago, it was sufficient in conversation to utter the cabalistic word “Muskoka,” for us to be immediately treated to admonitory shakes of the head, shrugs of the shoulders, uplifted hands, and very clearly expressed opinions that we were rushing to certain destruction.

Now, _we_ emigrated with a definite purpose in view. We were bound to a specific locality, and were in fact coming to join members of the family who had preceded us; but the remarks addressed to us were anything but cheering, and it may be imagined what an effect similar discouragements must have upon the poorer class of emigrants, whose slender resources have been taxed to the utmost to bring them out at all--who feel that poverty renders the step they have taken irretrievable, and who arrive at Bracebridge full of doubts and fears as to their comfortable settlement and ultimate success.

Happy would it be for the emigrant, married or single, if his difficulties were ended by his safe arrival at Bracebridge; but such is not the case. As in all communities there will be an admixture of worthless and designing characters, so in our thriving little town are to be found a few who lie in wait for the unwary, and throw temptation in the path of those who are not fortified by strong religious principle. Should an unmarried emigrant, a young man from the “old country”--with apparently a tolerable stock of money and clothes--arrive, he is at once followed and courted with professions of friendship, and on the plea of good fellowship is tempted to drink at the bars of the different hotels, and to join in the low gambling which seems unfortunately to be the special vice of Muskoka. Not till his money is all expended is the victim left to himself; and too often he has to begin his Bush-life penniless, or thankfully to engage in some job of hard work which will at least secure his daily bread.

The married emigrant likewise is often deceived and misled by people as ignorant as himself, who give him altogether false impressions of the value of his land, the price of labour and provisions, the tools he ought to buy, the crops he ought to put in, and many other details essential to his success in Bush-farming.

I speak from experience in saying that nothing can exceed the kindness and urbanity of the Commissioner of Crown Lands to all and every one going to his office for the purpose of taking up land; but it would be obviously impossible for this gentleman, and incompatible with the public duties of himself and his assistants, to enter minutely into the wants and requirements of each individual emigrant, or to give that detailed advice and assistance which in many cases is so absolutely necessary.

Could not much be done, and many evils be obviated, by the establishment of an “Emigrant Home” in the town, to which all incoming emigrants might be directed by large printed cards conspicuously hung up in the bar of every hotel?