England and Canada: A Summer Tour Between Old and New Westminster, with Historical NotesFleming, Sandford
History
England and Canada: A Summer Tour Between Old and New Westminster, with Historical Notes
Fleming, Sandford
Canada -- Description and travel
The concert was, as usual, a success, at least everybody was pleased.
Thirteen pounds sterling were collected. Those who ventured on supper
partook of all the usual delicacies in vogue on these occasions, and
the disciple of the pipe and cigar indulged himself for some time on
deck. By half-past eleven the last of us had turned in.
It was wet the following day; we were steaming up the St. Lawrence as
we took breakfast. Those who were to leave at Rimouski, of whom I was
one, point out that it is the last time we may take this meal together,
for we may arrive at Rimouski by night. In the afternoon we have fog,
showers, and fine weather alternately. We overtake the “Hanoverian.”
She had passed us during the five hours we had lost in the fog. Night
comes on, and at ten o’clock we run into a dense fog. Prudence dictates
that we advance “dead slow,” so I throw myself on my bed without
undressing, to catch some little sleep in the interval before we are
met by the Rimouski tender.
We are called at three o’clock on Saturday morning; we take a cup of
coffee in the saloon, and I receive a batch of letters from my family
and other correspondents. We enter the tender and arrive at the long
Rimouski wharf just as dawn is breaking. My daughter and myself go
southward to Halifax with three others, amongst them the venerable
Bishop Rogers, of Chatham.
However pleasant the trip across the ocean has been, and although
many of us found its associations most agreeable and we separate from
them only by necessity, nevertheless all of us reach the shore with
no little satisfaction. The fact is we are subjected to a new set of
influences. We revive old associations. We see well-known scenes,
and meet familiar faces. There is a change from our life of the last
nine days to a new series of events and excitements. One of the first
Canadians to give us a welcome was the young son of Madam Lepage, who
had seen us off by the tender on 17th June.
The train carries us over the familiar Inter-Colonial Railway, nearly
every spot along the line having a special claim on my recollection.
The landscape is always striking in the neighbourhood of the Metapedia
and Restigouche. There has been much rain and the vegetation is
luxuriant. Bishop Rogers and myself revert to fifteen years ago when we
crossed the Atlantic together. Then, as now, he was returning from a
visit to the Holy Father at Rome. The Bishop insisted on acting as host
at breakfast at Campbelton: he held that we had now entered his diocese
and that he must consider us his guests. It would have pained the good
old Bishop had we declined his courtesy.
We learn that the fishing on the Restigouche this season has been
excellent. As usual, we have the best of fresh salmon for breakfast. We
say good-bye to the Bishop, who leaves us at Newcastle, and we proceed
on our journey, arriving late at night safely at our home in Halifax.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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