The End
London: Spottiswoodes and Shaw, New-street-Square
Footnotes
1 Through all these districts there are now railroads, and every facility for comfortable travelling.
2 Now removed to Kingston, though some of the courts of law still remain at Toronto.
3 The notes thrown together here are the result of three different visits to the Credit, and information otherwise obtained.
4 In this river the young sportsmen of the family had speared two hundred salmon in a single night. The salmon-hunts in Canada are exactly like that described so vividly in Guy Mannering. The fish thus caught is rather a large species of trout than genuine salmon. The sport is most exciting.
5 Among the addresses presented to Sir Francis Head in 1836, was one from the coloured inhabitants of this part of the province, signed by four hundred and thirty-one individuals, most of them refugees from the United States, or their descendants.
6 Near this place lived and died the chief Red-jacket, one of the last and greatest specimens of the Indian patriot and warrior.
7 That is, the better class of them. In some parts of Upper Canada, the stage-coaches conveying the mail were large oblong wooden boxes, formed of a few planks nailed together and placed on wheels, into which you entered by the windows, there being no doors to open and shut, and no springs. Two or three seats were suspended inside on leather straps. The travellers provided their own buffalo-skins or cushions to sit on.
8 From its resemblance in form to a shoe, this splendid flower bears every where the same name. The English call it lady’s-slipper; the Indians know it as the moccasin flower.
9 The average produce of an acre of land is greater throughout Canada than in England. In these western districts greater than in the rest of Canada.
10 Of the commuted pensioners, and their fate in Canada, more will be said hereafter.
11 When I remonstrated against this name for so beautiful a stream, Colonel Talbot told me that his first settlers had found a kettle on the bank, left by some Indians, and had given the river, from this slight circumstance, a name which he had not thought it worth while to alter.
12 Vide Sartor Resartus.
13 Dr. Dunlop.
14 Dick Talbot married Frances Jennings—la belle Jennings of De Grammont’s Memoirs, and elder sister of the celebrated Duchess of Marlborough.
15 The war of 1812.
16 We should perhaps read, “An entire absence of all knowledge of a Supreme Being, as revealed to us in the gospel of Christ;” for I never heard of any tribe of north-west Indians, however barbarous, who had not the notion of a God (the Great Spirit), and of a future life.
17 The Indian village of Lorette, near Quebec, which I visited subsequently, is a case in point. Seven hundred Indians, a wretched remnant of the Huron tribe, had once been congregated there under the protection of the Jesuits, and had always been cited as examples of what might be accomplished in the task of conversion and civilisation. When I was there, the number was under two hundred; many of the huts deserted, the inhabitants having fled to the woods and taken up the hunter’s life again; in those who remained, there was scarce a trace of native Indian blood.
18 Most of the small steam-boats on the American lakes have high-pressure engines, which make a horrible and perpetual snorting like the engine on a railroad.
19 Vide Historical Sketches of Michigan.
20 “Home,” by Miss Sedgwick.
21 This was written on the spot. Since the troubles in Upper Canada, it is understood to be the intention of the governor to fortify this coast.
22 I learned subsequently, that the cone-like form of the wigwam is proper to the Ottawas and Pottowottomies, and that the oblong form, in which the branches or poles are bent over at top in an arch, is proper to the Chippewa tribe. But as this latter is more troublesome to erect, the former construction is usually adopted by the Chippewas also in their temporary encampments.
23 This universal Indian salutation is merely a corruption of bon jour.
24 Michilimackinac was one of the forts surprised by the Indians at the breaking out of the Pontiac war, when seventy British soldiers with their officers were murdered and scalped. Henry gives a most vivid description of this scene of horror in few words. He was present, and escaped, through the friendship of an Indian (Wa,wa,tam) who, in consequence of a dream in early youth, had adopted him as his brother.
25 In 1828, Major Anderson, our Indian agent, computed the number of Canadians and mixed breed married to Indian women, and residing on the north shores of Lake Huron, and in the neighbourhood of Michilimackinac, at nine hundred. This he called the lowest estimate.
26 See Henry’s Travels, p. 117.
27 The skin or blanket suspended before the opening.
28 This custom is universal among the Chippewas and their kindred tribes. At a certain age, about twelve or fourteen, the youth or girl is shut up in a separate lodge to fast and dream. The usual term is from three to five or six days, or even longer. The object which during this time is most frequently presented in sleep—the disturbed feverish sleep of an exhausted frame and excited imagination—is the tutelary spirit or manito of the future life: it is the sun or moon or evening star; an eagle, a moose deer, a crane, a bat, &c. Wa,wa,tam, the Indian friend of Henry the traveller, had dreamed of a white man, whom the Great Spirit brought to him in his hand and presented as his brother. This dream saved Henry’s life.
29 History of the Moravian Missions. Mr. Schoolcraft
Notes
30 I have heard the particulars of this wild story of the origin of the white-fish, but cannot remember them. I think the woman was put to death by her sons. Most of the above particulars I learned from oral communication, and from some of the papers published by Mr. Schoolcraft. This gentleman and others instituted a society at Detroit (1832), called the Algic Society, for “evangelising the north-western tribes, inquiring into their history and superstitions, and promoting education, agriculture, industry, peace, and temperance among them.”
31 “One of the most distinguished men of the age, who has left a reputation which will be as lasting as it is great, was, when a boy, in constant fear of a very able but unmerciful schoolmaster, and in the state of mind which that constant fear produced, he fixed upon a great spider for his fetish (or manito), and used every day to pray to it that he might not be flogged.”—The Doctor, vol. v.
When a child, I was myself taken to a witch (or medicine woman) to be cured of an accidental burn by charms and incantations. I was then about six years old, and have a very distinct recollection of the whole scene, which left a strong and frightful impression on my childish fancy.
32 The picture by Weir, in the possession of Samuel Ward, Esq., of New York, which see—or rather see the beautiful lines of Halleck:—
“If he were with me, King of Tuscarora!
Gazing as I upon thy portrait now,
In all its medalled, fring’d, and beaded glory,
Its eyes’ dark beauty and its tranquil brow—
Its brow, half martial, and half diplomatic,
Its eye, upsoaring like an eagle’s wings—
Well might he boast that we, the democratic,
Outrival Europe, even in our kings!”
33 Since my return to England I found the following passage in the Morning Chronicle, extracted from the American papers:——“The Indians of Michigan have committed several shocking murders, in consequence of the payments due to them on land-treaties being made in goods instead of money. Serious alarm on that subject prevails in the State.”
The wretched individuals murdered were probably settlers, quite innocent in this business, probably women and children; but such is the well-known Indian law of retaliation.
34 The Indians gave the name of Cheemokomaun (Long Knives, or Big Knives) to the Americans at the time they were defeated by General Wayne, near the Miami river, in 1795, and suffered so severely from the sabres of the cavalry.
35 As I shall have much to say hereafter of this peculiar class of people, to save both reader and author time and trouble, the passage is here given:—
“The voyageurs form a kind of confraternity in the Canadas, like the arrieros or carriers of Spain. The dress of these people is generally half civilised, half savage. They wear a capote or surcoat, made of a blanket, a striped cotton shirt, cloth trowsers or leathern leggings, moccasins of deer-skin, and a belt of variegated worsted, from which are suspended the knife, tobacco-pouch, and other articles. Their language is of the same piebald character, being a French patois embroidered with English and Italian words and phrases. They are generally of French descent, and inherit much of the gaiety and lightness of heart of their ancestors; they inherit, too, a fund of civility and complaisance, and instead of that hardness and grossness, which men in laborious life are apt to indulge towards each other, they are mutually obliging and accommodating, interchanging kind offices, yielding each other assistance and comfort in every emergency, and using the familiar appellations of cousin and brother, when there is in fact no relationship. No men are more submissive to their leaders and employers, more capable of enduring hardships, or more good-humoured under privations. Never are they so happy as when on long and rough expeditions, towing up rivers or coasting lakes. They are dexterous boatmen, vigorous and adroit with the oar or paddle, and will row from morning till night without a murmur. The steersman often sings an old French song with some regular burthen in which they all join, keeping time with their oars. If at any time they flag in spirits or relax in exertion, it is but necessary to strike up a song of this kind to put them all in fresh spirits and activity.”—Astoria, vol. i. chap. 4.
36 The first British commandant of the fort was that miserable Lieutenant Jemette, who was scalped at the massacre at Michilimackinac.
37 That is, in the neighbourhood of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.
38 I spell the word as pronounced, never having seen it written.
39 The beaver is, however, becoming rare in these regions. It is a curious fact connected with the physiology and psychology of instinct, that the beaver is found to change its instincts and modes of life, as it has been more and more persecuted, and, instead of being a gregarious, it is now a solitary animal. The beavers, which are found living in solitary holes instead of communities and villages, the Indians call by a name which signifies Old Bachelor.
40 “The whole history of Indian warfare,” says Mr. Schoolcraft, “might be challenged in vain for a solitary instance of this kind. The Indians believe that to take a dishonourable advantage of their female prisoners would destroy their luck in hunting; it would be considered as effeminate and degrading in a warrior, and render him unfit for, and unworthy of, all manly achievement.”
41 “The total descent of the Fall of St. Mary’s has been ascertained to be twenty-two and a half perpendicular feet. It has been found impracticable to ascend the rapid; but canoes have ventured down, though the experiment is extremely nervous and hazardous, and avoided by a portage, two miles long, which connects the navigable parts of the strait.”—Bouchette’s Canada.
42 Ant. I know you now, Sir, a gentleman born.
Clo. Aye, that I have been any time these four hours.—Winter’s Tale.
43 The name is thus pronounced, but I have seen it spelt Wabbajik.
44 From Mr. Schoolcraft, translated literally by Mrs. Schoolcraft.
45 This amiable and interesting creature died a few years ago.
46 The reader will have the goodness to remark that all this passage relating to the Queen stands verbatim in the original printed in 1838.
47 The islands which fringe the north shores of Lake Huron from Lake George to Penetanguishine have been estimated by Lieut. Bayfield (in his official survey) at upwards of thirty-three thousand.
48 It appears, however, from the notes of the missionary Elliott, that a great number of Ottawas and Portoganasees had been residing on the Great Manitoolin two or three years previous to 1834, and had cultivated a portion of land.
49 See the Voyage of the Blonde.
50 I had once a description of an encounter between my illustrious grandpapa Waub-Ojeeg and an enormous elk, in which he had to contend with the infuriated animal, for his very life, for a space of three hours, and the snows were stained with his blood and that of his adversary for a hundred yards round. At last, while dodging the elk round and round a tree, he contrived to tear off the thong from his moccasin, and with it, to fasten his knife to the end of a stick, and with this he literally hacked at the creature till it fell from loss of blood.
51 Travels up the Missouri.
52 The common paddle (called by the Canadians aviron, and by the Indians abwee) is about two feet and a half long.
53 This part of Lake Huron, and indeed all its upper shores, are very incorrectly laid down in Wyld’s map of Upper Canada. Bouchette’s large map, and also a beautiful small one published by Blackwood in 1833, are much more accurate.
54 A species of otter.
55 It is often mentioned in the Travels of Back and Franklin.
56 I do not know the botanical name of this plant, which resembles a dwarf sumach: it was subsequently pointed out to me in the woods by a Methodist preacher, who told me that his daughter, merely by standing to windward of the plant while looking at it, suffered dreadfully. It is said that formerly the Indians used it to poison their arrows.
57 I have these particulars from the chief of the commissariat in Upper Canada, and the emigrant agent.
58 One of these men, stone-blind, was begging in the streets of Toronto.
59 Now Lord Seaton.