Humours of '37, Grave, Gay and Grim: Rebellion Times in the CanadasLizars, Robina
History
Humours of '37, Grave, Gay and Grim: Rebellion Times in the Canadas
Lizars, Robina
Canada -- History -- Rebellion, 1837-1838
The amount of thought bestowed upon the Canadas by these statesmen no
one, not even the most discontented Canadian, denied. But the mistaken
data from which many of the arguments were drawn maddened some; and
aristocratic mannerisms, when brought into contact with the democratic
Upper Canadian, gave offence. There was a great deal of the picturesque
about Jean Baptiste, and of him much was known; retiring governors and
officers took with them bulky note-books full of anecdotes. In Upper
Canada there was nothing of the picturesque, and the same note-books,
developed into goodly volumes, tell us it in print without flinching.
True, those intent on learning had Basil Hall’s Sketches, with accounts
of Hall’s five thousand two hundred and thirty-seven miles of travel;
but though the former were beautifully done the latter were meagre, and
with the exception of Niagara make the Upper Province as uninteresting
as its own crows. For foundation they had Charlevoix; but, says
Charlevoix, “The horned owl is good eating, many prefer his flesh to
chickens. He lives in winter on ground mice which he has caught the
previous fall, breaking their legs first, a most useful precaution to
prevent their escape, and then fattens them up with care for daily
use.” Could housewife with Thanksgiving turkey do more!
Now a good many of those who came after Charlevoix and reported on
us took him--perhaps unconsciously, perhaps conscientiously, for
Charlevoix was a good man--for a literary model, pushing to the extreme
limit their rights and privileges as travellers. They read, did these
mighty and well-meaning statesmen, in their leisure hours. Nor in later
years were the English less credulous when Canadian curiosities came to
them bodily. When a party of Indians were nightly attracting large and
wondering masses of the classes, one of the Royal Household, with two
others as white as himself, one of the trio six feet two of apparent
savagedom, arrayed themselves as magnificent Bois Brûlé, a Sac and a
Sioux respectively, to appear before a brilliant array of fashion,
wealth and beauty, carry out an unusually thrilling programme and be
loaded with gifts by the spectators. The “interpreter” of the three got
into rather a mess through his attempt to interpret too much, and in a
final frenzy of dancing they danced off some paint made liquid by their
desire to be honest in giving enough for their lavish remuneration.
An earl in the audience failed to recognize his brother in one of the
chief actors, voice and speech being disguised by a rifle bullet held
in the mouth. The sequel was the return of the presents and a chase
home to lodgings, followed by a yelling crowd of ragamuffins who turned
out to be truer savages than those whom they termed Hopjibbeways. The
Indian came first in romantic interest to the Englishman, particularly
when got ready for an audience by a clever manager. To hear a handsome,
strapping Bois Brûlé sing “To the land of my fathers, white man, let
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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