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
The road continued very tolerable during the greater part of this day,
running due west, at a distance of about six or ten miles from the shore
of Lake Erie. On either side I met a constant succession of farms
partially cleared, and in cultivation, but no village, town, or hamlet.
One part of the country through which I passed to-day is settled chiefly
by Highlanders, who bring hither all their clannish attachments, and
their thrifty, dirty habits--add also their pride and their honesty. We
stopped about noon at one of these Highland settlements, to rest the
horses and procure refreshments. The house was called Campbell's Inn,
and consisted of a log-hut and a cattle-shed. A long pole, stuck into
the decayed stump of a tree in front of the hut, served for a sign. The
family spoke nothing but Gaelic; a brood of children, ragged, dirty, and
without shoes or stockings (which latter I found hanging against the
wall of the best room, as if for a show), were running about--and all
stared upon me with a sort of half-scared, uncouth curiosity, which was
quite savage. With some difficulty I made my wants understood, and
procured some milk and Indian corn cakes. This family, notwithstanding
their wretched appearance, might be considered prosperous. They have a
property of two hundred acres of excellent land, of which sixty acres
are cleared, and in cultivation: five cows and forty sheep. They have
been settled here sixteen years,--had come out destitute, and obtained
their land gratis. For them, what a change from abject poverty and want
to independence and plenty! But the advantages are all outward; if there
be any inward change, it is apparently retrogradation, not advancement.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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