My First Travels in North America
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My First Travels in North America
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Overview
Bird, whose youth was marred by illness, was advised by her physician to travel. With a budget of 100 pounds from her clergyman father, she ventured off to North America on the first of many journeys. Her later expeditions included forays to the Middle East and Asia, yielding books of discerning observations that have entertained and enlightened readers for over a century.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780486141299 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Dover Publications |
| Publication date: | 02/05/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 400 |
| Sales rank: | 701,726 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
Isabella Bird (1831–1904) was born in England and became one of the most famous travel writers of the 19th century. After a childhood marred by illness, she was encouraged by her physician to travel. With 100 pounds given to her by her clergyman father, Bird explored Canada and the United States. During her travels, she wrote to her sister about her experiences and drew on that material for her first book. Later, Bird journeyed to Japan, China, Tibet, and Korea. Her discerning observations have been entertaining readers for over a century.
Read an Excerpt
My First Travels in North America
By Isabella L. Bird
Dover Publications, Inc.
Copyright © 2010 Dover Publications, Inc.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-486-14129-9
CHAPTER 1
Prefatory and explanatory—The voyage out—The sentimental—The actual—The oblivious—The medley—Practical joking—An unwelcome companion—American patriotism—The first view- The departure.
As a general dislike of prefaces is unmistakeably evidenced by their uncut leaves, and as unknown readers could scarcely be induced to read a book by the most cogent representations of an unknown author, and as apologies for "rushing into print" are too trite and insincere to have any effect, I will merely prefix a few explanatory remarks to my first chapter.
Circumstances which it is unnecessary to dwell upon led me across the Atlantic with some relatives; and on my return, I was requested by numerous friends to give an account of my travels. As this volume has been written with a view to their gratification, there is far more of personal narrative than is likely to interest the general reader.
With respect to the people of the United States, I have given those impressions which as a traveller I formed; if they are more favourable than those of some of my predecessors, the difference may arise from my having taken out many excellent introductions, which afforded me greater facilities of seeing the best society in the States than are usually possessed by those who travel merely to see the country.
Where I have offered any opinions upon the effect produced by the institutions of America, or upon any great national question, I have done so with extreme diffidence, giving impressions rather than conclusions, feeling the great injustice of drawing general inferences from partial premises, as well as the impossibility of rightly estimating cause and effect during a brief residence in the United States. I have endeavoured to give a faithful picture of what I saw and heard, avoiding the beaten track as much as possible, and dwelling principally on those things in which I knew that my friends were most interested.
Previously to visiting the United States, I had read most of the American travels which had been published; yet from experience I can say that even those who read most on the Americans know little of them, from the disposition which leads travellers to seize and dwell upon the ludicrous points which continually present themselves.
We know that there is a vast continent across the Atlantic, first discovered by a Genoese sailing under the Spanish flag, and that for many years past it has swallowed up thousands of the hardiest of our population. Although our feelings are not particularly fraternal, we give the people inhabiting this continent the national cognomen of "Brother Jonathan," while we name individuals "Yankees." We know that they are famous for smoking, spitting, "gouging," and bowie-knives-for monster hotels, steamboat explosions, railway collisions, and repudiated debts. It is believed also that this nation is renowned for keeping three millions of Africans in slavery—for wooden nutmegs, paper money, and "fillibuster" expeditions—for carrying out nationally and individually the maxim
"That they may take who have the power,
And they may keep who can."
I went to the States with that amount of prejudice which seems the birthright of every English person, but I found that, under the knowledge of the Americans which can be attained by a traveller mixing in society in every grade, these prejudices gradually melted away. I found much which is worthy of commendation, even of imitation: that there is much which is very reprehensible, is not to be wondered at in a country which for years has been made a "cave of Adullam"-a refuge for those who have "left their country for their country's good"—a receptacle for the barbarous, the degraded, and the vicious of all other nations. It must never be forgotten that the noble, the learned, and the wealthy have shrunk from the United States; her broad lands have been peopled to a great extent by those whose stalwart arms have been their only possession.
Is it surprising, considering these antecedents, that much of arrogance, coarseness, and vulgarity should be met with? Is it not rather surprising, that a traveller should meet with so little to annoy—so few obvious departures from the rules of propriety?
An Englishman bears with patience any ridicule which foreigners cast upon him. John Bull never laughs so loudly as when he laughs at himself; but the Americans are nationally sensitive, and cannot endure that good-humoured raillery which jests at their weaknesses and foibles. Hence candid and even favourable statements of the truth by English travellers are received with a perfect outcry by the Americans; and the phrases, "shameful misstatements," "violation of the rights of hospitality," &c., are on every lip.
Most assuredly that spirit of envious rivalry and depreciating criticism in which many English travellers have written, is greatly to be deprecated, no less than the tone of servile adulation which some writers have adopted; but our American neighbours must recollect that they provoked both the virulent spirit and the hostile caricature by the way in which some of their most popular writers of travels have led an ungenerous onslaught against our institutions and people, and the bitter tone in which their newspaper press, headed by the Tribune, indulges towards the British nation.
Having made these few remarks, I must state that at the time of my visit to the States I had no intention of recording my "experiences" in print; and as my notes taken at the time were few and meagre, and have been elaborated from memory, some inaccuracies have occurred which it will not take a keen eye to detect. These must be set down to want of correct information rather than to wilful misrepresentation. The statistical information given is taken from works compiled by the Americans themselves. The few matters on which I write which did not come under my own observation, I learned from trustworthy persons who have been long resident in the country.
Of Canada it is scarcely necessary to speak here. Perhaps an English writer may be inclined to adopt too eulogistic a tone in speaking of that noble and loyal colony, in which British institutions are undergoing a Transatlantic trial, and where a free people is protected by British laws. There are, doubtless, some English readers who will be interested in the brief notices which I have given of its people, its society, and its astonishing capabilities.
The notes from which this volume is taken were written in the lands of which it treats: they have been amplified and corrected in the genial atmosphere of an English home. I will not offer hackneyed apologies for its very numerous faults and deficiencies; but will conclude these tedious but necessary introductory remarks with the sincere hope that my readers may receive one hundredth part of the pleasure from the perusal of this volume which I experienced among the scenes and people of which it is too imperfect a record.
Although bi-weekly steamers ply between England and the States, and many mercantile men cross the Atlantic twice annually on business, and think nothing of it, the voyage seems an important event when undertaken for the first time. Friends living in inland counties, and those who have been sea-sick in crossing the straits of Dover, exaggerate the dangers and discomforts of ocean travelling, and shake their heads knowingly about fogs and icebergs.
Then there are a certain number of boxes to be packed, and a very uncertain number of things to fill them, while clothing has to be provided suitable to a tropical summer, and a winter within the arctic circle. But a variety of minor arrangements, and even an indefinite number of leave-takings, cannot be indefinitely prolonged; and at eight o'clock on a Saturday morning in 1854, I found myself with my friends on the landing-stage at Liverpool.
Whatever sentimental feelings one might be inclined to indulge in on leaving the shores of England were usefully and instantaneously annihilated by the discomfort and crush in the Satellite steam-tender, in which the passengers were conveyed, helplessly huddled together like a flock of sheep, to the Canada, an 1850-ton paddle-wheel steamer of the Cunard line, which was moored in the centre of the Mersey.
An investigation into the state-rooms, and the recital of disappointed expectations consequent on the discovery of their very small dimensions, the rescue of "regulation" portmanteaus from sailors who were running off with them, and the indulgence of that errant curiosity which glances at everything and rests on nothing, occupied the time before the arrival of the mail-boat with about two tons of letters and newspapers, which were consigned to the mail-room with incredible rapidity.
Then friends were abruptly dismissed—two guns were fired—the lashings were cast off—the stars and stripes flaunted gaily from the 'fore—the captain and pilot took their places on the paddleboxes—the bell rang—our huge paddle-wheels revolved, and, to use the words in which the same event was chronicled by the daily press, "The Cunard royal mail steamer Canada, Captain Stone, left the Mersey this morning for Boston and Halifax, conveying the usual mails; with one hundred and sixty-eight passengers, and a large cargo on freight."
It was an auspiciously commenced voyage as far as appearances went. The summer sun shone brightly—the waves of the Mersey were crisp and foam-capped-and the fields of England had never worn a brighter green. The fleet of merchant-ships through which we passed was not without an interest. There were timber-ships, huge and square-sided, unmistakeably from Quebec or Miramichi—green high-sterned Dutch galliots—American ships with long black hulls and tall raking masts—and those far-famed "Black Ball" clippers, the Marco Polo and the Champion of the Seas—in short, the ships of all nations, with their marked and distinguishing peculiarities. But the most interesting object of all was the screw troop-ship Himalaya, which was embarking the Scots Greys for the Crimea—that regiment which has since earned so glorious but fatal a celebrity on the bloody field of Balaklava.
It is to be supposed that to those who were crossing the Atlantic for the first time to the western hemisphere there was some degree of excitement, and that regret was among the feelings with which they saw the coast of England become a faint cloud on the horizon; but soon oblivion stole over the intellects of most of the passengers, leaving one absorbing feeling of disgust, first to the viands, next to those who could partake of them, and lastly to everything connected with the sea. Fortunately this state of things only lasted for two days, as the weather was very calm, and we ran with studding-sails set before a fair wind as far as the Nova Scotian coast.
The genius of Idleness presided over us all. There were five ample meals every day, and people ate, and walked till they could eat again; while some, extended on sofas, slept over odd volumes of novels from the ship's library, and others played at chess, cards, or backgammon from morning to night. Some of the more active spirits played "shuffle-boards," which kept the deck in an uproar; while others enjoyed the dolce far niente in their berths, except when the bell summoned to meals. There were weather-wise people, who smoked round the funnel all day, and prophesied foul winds every night; and pertinacious querists, who asked the captain every hour or two when we should reach Halifax. Some betted on the "run," and others on the time of reaching port; in short, every expedient was resorted to by which time could be killed.
We had about twenty English passengers; the rest were Canadians, Americans, Jews, Germans, Dutch, French, Californians, Spaniards, and Bavarians. Strict equality was preserved in this heterogeneous assembly. An Irish pork-merchant was seated at dinner next a Jew, who regarded the pig in toto as an abomination—a lady, a scion of a ducal family, found herself next to a French cook going out to a San Franciscan eating-house—an officer, going out to high command at Halifax, was seated next a rough Californian, who wore "nuggets" of gold for buttons; and there were contrasts even stronger than these. The most conspicuous of our fellow-voyagers was the editor of an American paper, who was writing a series of clever but scurrilous articles on England, from materials gleaned in a three weeks' tour!
Some of the Americans were very fond of practical jokes, but these were rather of a stupid description. There was a Spanish gentleman who used to promenade the deck with a dignity worthy of the Cid Rodrigo, addressing everybody he met with the question, "Parlez-vous Français, Monsieur?" and at the end of the voyage his stock of English only amounted to "Dice? Sixpence." One day at dinner this gentleman requested a French-speaking Californian to tell him how to ask for du pain in English. "My donkeys," was the prompt reply, and the joke was winked down the table, while the Spaniard was hammering away at "My donkeys" till he got the pronunciation perfect. The waiter came round, and the unhappy man, in confident but mellifluous tones, pointing to the bread, asked for "My donkeys."
Comic drinking-songs, and satires on the English, the latter to the tune of "Yankee Doodle," were sung in the saloon in the evenings round large bowls of punch, and had the effect of keeping many of the ladies on deck, when a refuge from the cold and spray would have been desirable; but with this exception the conduct of the passengers on the whole was marked by far more propriety than could have been expected from so mixed a company. If the captain had been more of a disciplinarian, even this annoyance might have been avoided.
I had the misfortune of having for my companion in my state-room an Englishwoman who had resided for some years at New York, and who combined in herself the disagreeable qualities of both nations. She was in a frequent state of intoxication, and kept gin, brandy, and beer in her berth. Whether sober or not, she was equally voluble; and as her language was not only inelegant, but replete with coarseness and profanity, the annoyance was almost insupportable. She was a professed atheist, and as such justly an object of commiseration, the weakness of her unbelief being clearly manifested by the frequency with which she denied the existence of a God.
On one day, as I was reading my Bible, she exclaimed with a profane expression, " I wish you'd pitch that book overboard, it's enough to sink the ship;" the contradiction implied in the words showing the weakness of her atheism, which, while it promises a man the impunity of non-existence, and degrades him to desire it, very frequently seduces him to live as an infidel, but to die a terrified and despairing believer.
It was a very uneventful voyage. The foul winds prophesied never blew, the icebergs kept far away to the northward, the excitement of flight from Russian privateers was exchanged for the sight of one harmless merchantman; even the fogs off Newfoundland turned out complete myths.
On the seventh day out the bets on the hour of our arrival at Halifax increased in number and magnitude, and a lottery was started; on the eighth we passed Cape Race, and spoke the steamer Asia; our rigging was tightened, and our railings polished; and in nine days and five hours from Liverpool we landed on the shores of the New World. The day previous to our landing was a Sunday, and I was pleased to observe the decorum which pervaded the ship. Service was conducted with propriety in the morning; a large proportion of the passengers read their Bibles or other religious books; punch, chess, and cards were banished from the saloon; and though we had almost as many creeds as nationalities, and some had no creed at all, yet those who might ridicule the observance of the Sabbath themselves, avoided any proceedings calculated to shock what they might term the prejudices of others.
On the next day we had a slight head wind for the first time; most of the passengers were sea-sick, and those who were not so were promenading the wet, sooty deck in the rain, in a uniform of oilskin coats and caps. The sea and sky were both of a leaden colour; and as there was nothing to enliven the prospect but the gambols of some very uncouth-looking porpoises, I was lying half asleep on a settee, when I was roused by the voice of a kind-hearted Yankee skipper, saying, "Come, get up; there's a glorious country and no mistake; a great country, a progressive country, the greatest country under the sun." The honest sailor was rubbing his hands with delight as he spoke, his broad, open countenance beaming with a perfect glow of satisfaction. I looked in the direction indicated by his finger, and beheld, not the lofty pinnacled cliffs of the "Pilgrim Fathers," but a low gloomy coast, looming through a mist.
(Continues...)
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Table of Contents
Introduction ix
Chapter I 1
Prefatory and explanatory
The voyage out
The sentimental
The actual
The oblivious
The medley
Practical joking
An unwelcome companion
American patriotism
The first view
The departure
Chapter II 11
An inhospitable reception
Halifax and the Blue Noses
The heat
Disappointed expectations
The great departed
What the Blue Noses might be
What the coach was not
Nova Scotia and its capabilities
The roads and their annoyances
A tea dinner
A night journey and a Highland cabin
A nautical catastrophe
A joyful reunion
Chapter III 28
Popular ignorance
The garden island
Summer and winter contrasted
A wooden capital
Island politics, and their consequences
Gossip
"Blowin-tim"
Religion and the clergy
The servant nuisance
Colonial society
An evening party
An island premier
Agrarian outrage
A visit to the Indians
The pipe of peace
An Indian coquette
Country hospitality
A missionary
A novel mode of lobster-fishing
Uncivilised life
Far away in the woods
Starvation and dishonesty
An old Highlander and a Highland welcome
Hopes for the future
Chapter IV 46
From St. George's Cross to the Stars and Stripes
Unpunctuality
Incompetence
A wretched night
Colonial curiosity
The fashions
A night in a buffalo robe
A stage journey
A queer character
Politics
Chemistry
Mathematics
Rotten bridges
A midnight arrival
Colonial ignorance
Yankee conceit
What ten-horse power chaps can do
The pestilence
The city on the rock
New Brunswick
Steamboat peculiarities
Going ahead in the eating line
A storm
Stepping ashore
Chapter V 70
First experiences of American freedom
The "striped pig" and "Dusty Ben"
A country mouse
What the cars are like
Beauties of New England
The land of apples
A Mammoth hotel
The rusty inkstand exiled
Eloquent eyes
Alone in a crowd
Chapter VI 81
A suspected bill
A friend in need
All aboard for the Western cars
The wings of the wind
American politeness
A loquacious conductor
Three minutes for refreshments
A conversation on politics
A confession
The emigrant car
Beauties of die woods
A forest on fire
Dangers of the cars
The Queen City of the West
Chapter VII 90
The Queen City continued
Its beauties
Its inhabitants, human and equine
An American church
Where chairs and bedsteads come from
Pigs and pork
A peep into Kentucky
Popular opinions respecting slavery
The curse of America
Chapter VIII 103
The hickory stick
Chawing up ruins
A forest scene
A curious questioner
Hard and soft shells
Dangers of a ferry
The western prairies
Nocturnal detention
The Wild West and the Father of Rivers
Breakfast in a shed
What is an alligator?
Physiognomy, and its uses
The ladies' parlour
A Chicago hotel, its inmates and its horrors
A water-drinking people
The Prairie City
Progress of the West
Chapter IX 123
A vexatious incident
John Bull enraged
Woman's rights
Alligators become bosses
A popular host
Military display
A mirth-provoking gun
Grave reminiscences
Attractions of the fair
Past and present
A floating palace
Black companions
A black baby
Externals of Buffalo
The flag of England
Chapter X 141
The Place of Council
Its progress and its people
English hearts
"Sebastopol is taken"
Squibs and crackers
A ship on her beam-ends
Selfishness
A mongrel city
A Scot-Constancy rewarded
Monetary difficulties
Detention on a bridge
A Canadian homestead
Life in the clearings
The bush on fire
A word on farming
The "be" and its produce
Eccentricities of Mr. Haldimands
A ride on a troop-horse
Scotch patriotism
An English church
The servant nuisance
Richard Cobden
Chapter XI 168
"I've seen nothing"
A disappointment
Incongruities
Hotel gaieties and "doing Niagara"
Irish drosky-drivers
"The Hell of Waters"
Beauties of Niagara
The picnic party
The white canoe
A cold shower-bath
"The Thunder of Waters"
A magic word
"The Whirlpool"
Story of "Bloody Run"
Yankee opinions of English ladies
A metamorphosis
The nigger guide
A terrible situation
Termination Rock
Impressions of Niagara
Juvenile precocity
A midnight journey
Street adventures in Hamilton
Chapter XII 186
A scene at starting
That dear little Harry
The old lady and the race
Running the Rapids
An aside
Snow and discomfort
A new country
An extemporised ball
Adventure with a madman
Shooting the cataract
First appearance of Montreal
Its characteristics
Quebec in a fog
"Muffins"
Quebec gaieties
The pestilence
Restlessness
St. Louis and St. Roch
The shady side
Dark dens
External characteristics
Lord Elgin
Mistaking a senator
Chapter XIII 215
The House of Commons
Canadian gallantry
The constitution
Mr. Hincks
The ex-rebel
Parties and leaders
A street-row
Repeated disappointments
The "habitans"
Their houses and their virtues
A stationary people
Progress and its effects
Montmorenci
The natural staircase
The Indian summer
Lorette
The old people
Beauties of Quebec
The John Munn
Fear and its consequences
A gloomy journey
Chapter XIV 230
Concluding remarks on Canada
Territory
Climate
Capabilities
Railways and canals
Advantages for emigrants
Notices of emigration
Government
The franchise
Revenue
Population
Religion
Education
The press
Literature
Observations in conclusion
Chapter XV 251
Preliminary remarks on re-entering the States
Americanisms
A little slang
Liquoring up
Eccentricities in dress
A 'cute chap down east
Conversation on eating
A Kentucky gal
Lake Champlain
Delaval's
A noisy serenade
Albany
Beauties of the Hudson
The Empire City
Chapter XVI 261
Position of New York
Externals of the city
Conveyances
Maladministration
The stores
The hotels
Curiosities of the hospital
Ragged schools
The bad book
Monster schools
Amusements and oyster saloons
Monstrosities
A restaurant
Dwelling-houses
Equipages
Palaces
Dress
Figures
Manners
Education
Domestic habits
The ladies
The gentlemen
Society
Receptions
Anti-English feeling
Autographs
The "Buckram Englishman."
Chapter XVII 294
The cemetery
Its beauties
The "Potter's Field"
The graves of children
Monumental eccentricities
Arrival of emigrants
Their reception
Poor dwellings
The dangerous class
The elections
The riots
Characteristics of the streets
Journey to Boston
The sights of Boston
Longfellow
Cambridge university
Chapter XVIII 317
Origin of the Constitution
The Executive
Congress
Local Legislatures
The army and navy
Justice
Slavery
Political corruption
The foreign element
Absence of principle
Associations
The Know-nothings
The Press and its power
Religion
The Church
The Clergy
Chapter XIX 338
General remarks continued
The common schools
Their defect
Difficulties
Management of the schools
The free academy
Railways
Telegraphs
Poverty
Literature
Advantages for emigrants
Difficulties of emigrants
Peace or war
Concluding observations
Chapter XX 352
The America
A gloomy departure
An ugly night
Morning at Halifax
Our new passengers
Babies
Captain Leitch
A day at sea
Clippers and steamers
A storm
An Atlantic moonlight
Unpleasant sensations
A gale
Inkermann
Conclusion