Cottages.—Draw-wells.—Arrival at
Cornwall.—Accommodation at the Inn.—Departure from Cornwall, and
Arrival at Prescott.—Arrival at Brockville.—Ship-launch there.—Voyage
through Lake Ontario.—Arrival at Cobourg

Nelson Hotel, Montreal, August 21.

Once more on terra ferma, dearest mother: what a strange sensation it is to tread the land once again, free from the motion of the heaving waters, to which I was now, in truth, glad to bid farewell.

By daybreak every creature on board was up and busily preparing for going on shore. The captain himself obligingly escorted us, and walked as far with us as the hotel, where we are at present lodged.

We found some difficulty in getting on shore, owing to the badness of the landing. The river was full of floating timbers, between which it required some skill to guide the boat. A wharf is now being built—not before it was needed*. [* Some excellent wharfs have since been completed.]

We were struck by the dirty, narrow, ill-paved or unpaved streets of the suburbs, and overpowered by the noisome vapour arising from a deep open fosse that ran along the street behind the wharf. This ditch seemed the receptacle for every abomination, and sufficient in itself to infect a whole town with malignant fevers*.

[* This has since been arched over. A market has been erected above it.]

I was greatly disappointed in my first acquaintance with the interior of Montreal; a place of which travellers had said so much. I could compare it only to the fruits of the Dead sea, which are said to be fair and tempting to look upon, but yield only ashes and bitterness when tasted by the thirsty traveller**.

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[** The following description of Montreal is given by M'Gregor in his British America, vol. ii. p. 504:—"Betwixt the royal mountain and the river, on a ridge of gentle elevation, stands the town. Including the suburbs, it is more extensive than Quebec. Both cities differ very greatly in appearance; the low banks of the St. Laurence at Montreal want the tremendous precipices frowning over them, and all that grand sublimity which characterizes Quebec.

"There are no wharfs at Montreal, and the ships and steamers lie quietly in pretty deep water, close to the clayey and generally filthy bank of the city. The whole of the lower town is covered with gloomy-looking houses, having dark iron shutters; and although it may be a little cleaner than Quebec, it is still very dirty; and the streets are not only narrow and ill-paved, but the footpaths are interrupted by slanting cellar doors and other projections."

"It is impossible (says Mr. Talbot, in his Five Years' Residence) to walk the streets of Montreal on a Sunday or holiday, when the shops are closed, without receiving the most gloomy impressions; the whole city seems one vast prison;"—alluding to the window-shutters and outer doors of iron, that have been adopted to counteract the effects of fire.]

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I noticed one peculiar feature in the buildings along the suburb facing the river—that they were mostly furnished with broad wooden balconies from the lower to the upper story; in some instances they surrounded the houses on three sides, and seemed to form a sort of outer chamber. Some of these balconies were ascended by flights of broad stairs from the outside.

I remember when a child dreaming of houses so constructed, and fancying them very delightful; and so I think they might be rendered, if shaded by climbing shrubs, and adorned with flowers, to represent a hanging- garden or sweet-scented bowery walk. But nothing of this kind gladdened our eyes as we toiled along the hot streets. Every house of public resort was crowded from the top to the bottom with emigrants of all ages, English, Irish, and Scotch. The sounds of riotous merriment that burst from them seemed but ill-assorted with the haggard, careworn faces of many of the thoughtless revellers.

The contrast was only too apparent and too painful a subject to those that looked upon this show of outward gaiety and inward misery.

The cholera had made awful ravages, and its devastating effects were to be seen in the darkened dwellings and the mourning habiliments of all classes. An expression of dejection and anxiety appeared in the faces of the few persons we encountered in our walk to the hotel, which plainly indicated the state of their minds.

In some situations whole streets had been nearly depopulated; those that were able fled panic-stricken to the country villages, while others remained to die in the bosom of their families.

To no class, I am told, has the disease proved so fatal as to the poorer sort of emigrants. Many of these, debilitated by the privations and fatigue of a long voyage, on reaching Quebec or Montreal indulged in every sort of excess, especially the dangerous one of intoxication; and, as if purposely paving the way to certain destruction, they fell immediate victims to the complaint.

In one house eleven persons died, in another seventeen; a little child of seven years old was the only creature left to tell the woful tale. This poor desolate orphan was taken by the nuns to their benevolent institution, where every attention was paid that humanity could suggest.

The number both of Catholic and Protestant benevolent societies is very great, and these are maintained with a liberality of principle that does honour to both parties, who seem indeed actuated by a fervent spirit of Christian charity.

I know of no place, not even excepting London itself, where the exercise of benevolent feelings is more called for than in these two cities, Quebec and Montreal. Here meet together the unfortunate, the improvident, the helpless orphan, the sick, the aged, the poor virtuous man, driven by the stern hand of necessity from his country and his home, perhaps to be overtaken by sickness or want in a land of strangers.

It is melancholy to reflect that a great number of the poorest class of emigrants that perished in the reign of the cholera have left no trace by which their sorrowing anxious friends in the old country may learn their fate. The disease is so sudden and so violent that it leaves no time for arranging worldly matters; the sentinel comes, not as it did to Hezekiah, "Set thine house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live."

The weather is sultry hot, accompanied by frequent thunder-showers, which have not the effect one would expect, that of cooling the heated atmosphere. I experience a degree of languor and oppression that is very distressing, and worse than actual pain.

Instead of leaving this place by the first conveyance for the upper province, as we fully purposed doing, we find ourselves obliged to remain two days longer, owing to the dilatoriness of the custom-house officers in overlooking our packages. The fact is that everything and everybody are out of sorts.

The heat has been too oppressive to allow of my walking much abroad. I have seen but little of the town beyond the streets adjacent to the hotel: with the exception of the Catholic Cathedral, I have seen few of the public buildings. With the former I was much pleased: it is a fine building, though still in an unfinished state, the towers not having been carried to the height originally intended. The eastern window, behind the altar, is seventy feet in height by thirty-three in width. The effect of this magnificent window from the entrance, the altar with its adornments and paintings, the several smaller altars and shrines, all decorated with scriptural designs, the light tiers of galleries that surround the central part of the church, the double range of columns