The Great Lone Land. Sir William Francis Butler
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which tells you plainly enough that he is conferring a very great favour by so doing. He is in all probability realizing a profit of from three to four hundred-per cent. on whatever the transaction may be; but, all the same, although you are fully aware of this fact, you are nevertheless almost overwhelmed with the sense of the very deep obligation which you owe to the man who thus deigns to receive your money.
It was about ten o'clock at night when the steamer anchored at the wharf at Boston. Not until midday. On the following day were we (the passengers) allowed to leave the vessel. The cause of this delay arose from the fact that the collector of customs of the port of Boston was an individual of great social importance; and as it would have been inconvenient for him to attend at an earlier hour for the purpose of being present at the examination of our baggage, we were detained prisoners until the day was far enough advanced to suit his convenience. From a conversation which subsequently I had with this gentleman at our hotel, I discovered that he was more obliging in his general capacity of politician and prominent citizen than he was in his particular duties of customs collector. Like many other instances of the kind in the United States, his was a case of evident unfitness for the post he held. A. socially smaller man would have made a much better customs official. Unfortunately for the comfort of the public, the remuneration attached to appointments in the postal and customs departments is frequently very large, and these situations are eagerly sought as prizes in the lottery of political life-prizes, too, which can only be held for the short term of four years. As. A consequence, the official who holds his situation by right of political service rendered to the chief of the predominant clique or party in his state does not consider that he owes to the public the service of his office. In theory he is a public servant; in reality he becomes the master of the public. This is, however, the fault of the system and not of the individual.
CHAPTER THREE
Bunker--New York--Niagara-Toronto-Spring--time in Quebec--A Summons--A Start--In good Company--Stripping a Peg--An Expedition--Poor Canada--An Old Glimpse at a New Land--Rival Routes--Change of Masters--The Red River Revolt--The Halfbreeds--Early Settlers-Bungling--"Eaters of Pemmican-"-M. Louis Riel--The Murder of Scott
When a city or a nation has but one military memory, it clings to it with all the affectionate tenacity of an old maid for her solitary poodle or parrot. Boston-supreme over any city in the Republic-can boast of possessing one military memento: she has the Hill of Bunker. Bunker has long passed into the bygone; but his hill remains, and is likely to remain for many a long day. It is not improbable that the life, character and habits, sayings, even the writings of Bunker-perhaps he couldn't write!-are familiar to many persons in the United States; but it is in Boston and Massachusetts that Bunker holds highest carnival. They keep in the Senate-chamber of the Capitol, nailed over the entrance doorway in full sight of the Speaker's chair, a drum, a musket, and a mitre-shaped soldier's hat-trophies of the fight fought in front of the low earthwork on Bunker's Hill. Thus the senators of Massachusetts have ever before them visible reminders of the glory of their fathers: and I am not sure that these former belongings of some long-waistcoated redcoat are not as valuable incentives to correct legislation as that historic "bauble" of our own constitution.
Meantime we must away. Boston and New York have had their stories told frequently enough-and, in reality, there is not much to tell about them. The world does not contain a more uninteresting accumulation of men and houses than the great city of New York: it is a place wherein the stranger feels inexplicably lonely. The traveller has no mental property in this city whose enormous growth of life has struck scant roots into the great heart of the past.
Our course, however, lies west. We will trace the onward stream of empire in many portions of its way; we will reach its limits, and pass beyond it into the lone spaces which yet silently await its coming; and farther still, where the solitude knows not of its approach and the Indian still reigns in savage supremacy.
NIAGARA--They have all had their say about Niagara. From Hennipin to Dilke, travellers have written much about this famous cataract, and yet, put all together, they have not said much about it; description depends so much on comparison, and comparison necessitates a something like. If there existed another Niagara on the earth, travellers might compare this one to that one; but as there does not exist a second Niagara, they are generally hard up for a comparison. In the matter of roar, however, comparisons are still open. There is so much noise in the world that analysis of noise becomes easy. One man hears in it the sound of the Battle of the Nile-a statement not likely to be challenged, as the survivors of that celebrated naval action are not numerous, the only one we ever had the pleasure of meeting having been stone-deaf. Another writer compares the roar to the sound of a vast mill; and this similitude, more flowery than poetical, is perhaps as good as that of the one who was in Aboukir Bay. To leave out Niagara when you can possibly bring it in would be as much against the stock-book of travel as to omit the duel, the steeple-chase, or the escape from the mad bull in a thirty-one-and-sixpenny fashionable novel. What the pyramids are to Egypt--what Vesuvius is to Naples--what the field of Waterloo has been for fifty years to Brussels, so is Niagara to the entire continent of North America.
It was early in the month of September, three years prior to the time I now write of, when I first visited this famous spot. The Niagara season was at its height: the monster hotels were ringing with song, music, and dance; tourists were doing the falls, and touts were doing the tourists. Newly-married couples were conducting themselves in that demonstrative manner characteristic of such as responded freely to the invitation contained in their favourite nigger melody. Venders of Indian bead-work; itinerant philosophers; camera-obscura men; imitation squaws; free and enlightened negroes; guides to go under the cataract, who should have been sent over it; spiritualists, phrenologists, and nigger minstrels had made the place their own. Shoddy and petroleum were having "a high old time of it," spending the dollar as though that "almighty article had become the thin end of nothing whittled fine:" altogether, Niagara was a place to be instinctively shunned.
Just four months after this time the month of January was drawing to a close. King Frost, holding dominion over Niagara, had worked strange wonders with the scene. Folly and ruffianism had been frozen up, shoddy and petroleum had betaken themselves to other haunts, the bride strongly demonstrative or weakly reciprocal had vanished, the monster hotels were silent and deserted, the free and enlightened negro had gone back to Buffalo, and the girls of that thriving city no longer danced, as of yore, "under de light of de moon." Well, Niagara was worth seeing then-and the less we say about it, perhaps, the better. "Pat," said an American to a staring Irishman lately landed, "did you ever see such a fall as that in the old country?" "Begarra! I niver did; but look here now, why wouldn't it fall? what's to hinder it from falling?"
When I reached the city of Toronto, capital of the province of Ontario, I found that the Red River Expeditionary Force had already been mustered, previous to its start for the North-West. Making my way to the quarters of the commander of the Expedition, I was greeted every now and again with a "You should have been here last week; every soul wants to get on the Expedition, and you hav'n't a chance. The whole thing is complete; we start to-morrow." Thus I encountered those few friends who on such occasions are as certain to offer their pithy condolences as your neighbour at the dinner-table when you are late is sure to tell you that the soup and fish were delicious. At last I met the commander himself.
"My good fellow, there's not a vacant berth for you," he said; "I got your telegram, but the whole army in Canada wanted to get on the Expedition."
"I think, sir, there is one berth still vacant," I answered.
"What is it?"
"You will want to know what they are doing in Minnesota and along the flank of your march, and you have no one to tell you," I said.
"You are right; we do want a man out there. Look now, start for Montreal by first train to-morrow; by to night's mail I will write to the general, recommending your appointment. If you see him as soon as possible, it may yet be all right."
I thanked him, said "Good-bye," and in little more than twenty-four hours later found