Life in the Clearings versus the BushMoodie, Susanna
History
Life in the Clearings versus the Bush
Moodie, Susanna
Frontier and pioneer life -- Ontario; Moodie, Susannah, 1803-1885; Ontario -- Description and travel
Carried away from my subject by an impetuous current of thought, I must
step back to the show from which I derived a great deal of satisfaction
and pleasure. The space in which it was exhibited contained, I am told,
about sixteen acres. The rear of this, where the animals were shown, was
a large grove covered with tall spreading trees, beneath the shade of
which, reposing or standing in the most picturesque attitudes, were to
be seen the finest breeds of cattle, horses, and sheep, in the province.
This inclosure was surrounded by a high boarded fence, against which
pens were erected for the accommodation of plethoric-looking pigs, fat
sleepy lambs, and wild mischievous goats; while noble horses were led
to and fro by their owners or their servants, snorting and curveting
in all the conscious pride of strength and beauty. These handsome,
proud-looking creatures, might be considered the aristocracy of the
animal department; yet, in spite of their prancing hoofs, arched necks,
and glances of fire, they had to labour in their vocation as well as the
poorest pig that grunted and panted in its close pen. There was a donkey
there--a solitary ass--the first of his kind I ever beheld in the
province. Unused to such a stir and bustle, he lifted up his voice, and
made the grove ring with his discordant notes. The horses bounded and
reared, and glanced down upon him in such mad disdain, that they could
scarcely be controlled by their keepers. I can imagine the astonishment
they must have felt on hearing the first bray of an ass; they could not
have appeared more startled at a lion's roar. Whoever exhibited Mr.
Braham was a brave man. A gentleman, who settled in the neighbourhood of
Peterboro twenty years ago, brought out a donkey with him to Canada, and
until the day of his death he went by no other name than the undignified
one of Donkey.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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