Sketches in Canada, and rambles among the red menJameson, Mrs. (Anna)
History
Sketches in Canada, and rambles among the red men
Jameson, Mrs. (Anna)
Indians of North America -- Canada; Ontario -- Description and travel
her master died, and it was said that all the slaves on the estate would
be sold, and therefore she ran away. "Were you not attached to your
mistress?" I asked. "Yes," said she, "I liked my mistress, but I did not
like to be sold." I asked her if she was happy here in Canada? She
hesitated a moment, and then replied, on my repeating the question,
"Yes--that is, I _was_ happy here--but now--I don't know--I thought we
were safe _here_--I thought nothing could touch us _here_, on your
British ground, but it seems I was mistaken, and if so, I won't stay
here--I won't--I won't! I'll go and find some country where they cannot
reach us! I'll go to the end of the world, I will!" And as she spoke,
her black eyes flashing, she extended her arms, and folded them across
her bosom, with an attitude and expression of resolute dignity, which a
painter might have studied; and truly the fairest white face I ever
looked on never beamed with more of soul and high resolve than hers at
that moment.
[Footnote 5: Among the addresses presented to Sir Francis Head in 1836,
was one from the coloured inhabitants of this part of the province,
signed by four hundred and thirty-one individuals, most of them refugees
from the United States, or their descendants.]
* * * * *
NIAGARA IN SUMMER.
Between the town of Queenston and the cataract of Niagara lies the
pretty little village of Stamford (close to Lundy Lane, the site of a
famous battle in the last war), and celebrated for its fine air. Near it
is a beautiful house with its domain, called Stamford Park, built and
laid out by a former governor (Sir Peregrine Maitland). It is the only
place I saw in Upper Canada combining our ideas of an elegant,
well-furnished English villa and ornamented grounds, with some of the
grandest and wildest features of the forest scene. It enchanted me
altogether. From the lawn before the house, an open glade, commanding a
park-like range of broken and undulating ground and wooded valleys,
displayed beyond them the wide expanse of Lake Ontario, even the Toronto
light-house, at a distance of thirty miles, being frequently visible to
the naked eye. By the hostess of this charming seat I was conveyed in a
light pony carriage to the hotel at the Falls, and left, with real
kindness, to follow my own devices. The moment I was alone, I hurried
down to the Table-rock. The body of water was more full and tremendous
than in the winter. The spray rose, densely falling again in thick
showers, and behind those rolling volumes of vapour the last gleams of
the evening light shone in lurid brightness, amid amber and crimson
clouds; on the other side, night was rapidly coming on, and all was
black, impenetrable gloom, and "boundless contiguity of shade." It was
very, very beautiful, and strangely awful too! For now it was late, and
as I stood there, lost in a thousand reveries, there was no human being
near, no light but that reflected from the leaping, whirling foam; and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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