Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 1Bonnycastle, Richard Henry, Sir
History
Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 1
Bonnycastle, Richard Henry, Sir
Canada -- Description and travel; Ontario -- Description and travel
So expansive a mind as Raleigh's undoubtedly was, was not free from that
universal credulity which still reigns in the breasts of all men
respecting matters with which they are not personally acquainted; and
the glowing descriptions of Columbus and his followers respecting the
rich Cathay and the Spice Islands of the Indies have had so permanent a
hold upon the imagination, that even the best educated amongst us have,
in their youth, galloped over Pampas, in search of visionary
_Uspallatas_. Nor is it yet quite clear that the golden city of El
Dorado is wholly fabulous, the region in which it was said to exist not
having yet been penetrated by Science; but it soon will be, for a
steamboat is to ply up the Maranon, and Peru and Europe are to be
brought in contact, although the voyage down that mighty flood has
hitherto been a labour of several months.
The poor emigrant, for we must return to him, lands at New York. Sharks
beset him in every direction, boarding-houses and grogshops open their
doors, and he is frequently obliged, from the loss of all his
hard-earned money, to work out his existence either in that exclusively
mercantile emporium, or to labour on any canal or railroad to which his
kind new friends may think proper, or most advantageous to themselves,
to send him. If he escapes all these snares for the unwary, the chances
are that, fancying himself now as great a man as the Duke of Leinster,
O'Connell, the Lord Mayor of London, or the Provost of Edinburgh, free
and unshackled, gloriously free, he becomes entangled with a host of
land-jobbers, and walks off to the weary West, there to encounter a life
of unremitting toil in the solitary forests, with an occasional visit
from the ague, or the milk-fever, which so debilitates his frame, that,
during the remainder of his wretched existence, he can expect but little
enjoyment of the manorial rights appendant to a hundred acres of wild
land.
Let no emigrant embark for the United States unless he has a kind friend
to guide and receive him there, and to point out to him the good and the
evil; for the native race look upon all foreigners with a jealous eye,
and particularly upon the Irish.
The Germans make the best settlers in that country, perhaps because, not
speaking English, they cannot be so easily imposed upon by the crimps,
and also because they seldom emigrate before they have arranged with
their friends in America respecting the lands which they are to occupy.
A society of British philanthropists has been established at New York to
direct British emigrants in their ultimate views; but it may well be
imagined that these gentlemen, who are chiefly engaged in trade, cannot
descend to understand fully, or are constant witnesses of, the low
tricks which are practised to seduce the unwary ones.
The emigrant to Canada is somewhat differently situated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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