A Fight with Distances. The States; the Hawaiian Islands, Canada ... the Bahamas. With ... maps

Front matter

A FIGHT WITH DISTANCES a BY THE SAME AUTHOR. A FLIGHT TO MEXICO. With 7 full-page Illustrations and a Railway Map of Mexico. Crown 8vo, 7a bd. " An instructive and entertaining book." — Spectator. " Mr. Aubertin has the eye of a poet and a traveller for description." — Saturday Rez'iew. SIX MONTHS IN CAPE COLONY AND NATAL. With 6 Illustrations and Map. Crown 8vo, 6s. "A lively and pleasant book." — Academy. "Very readable and instructive. . . . Full of graphic touches of scenery. " — Graphic. THE LUSIADS OF CAMOENS. Portuguese Text, with Translation. Second Edition. 2 vols. Crown 8vo, izc. " In contact with his favourite poet, his language gains singular felicity and strength, rising at times to poetic elevation." — Times. " Mr. Aubertin's translation is definite." — Aiketueum. '* The skill of Mr. Aubertin's translation is throughout admirable." — St. James's Gazette.

SEVENTY SONNETS OF CAMOENS, WITH ORIGINAL POEMS. Crown 8vo, ys. 6d. 'A scholar-like version of Camoens* verse. "—Graphic. '' Marvellously successful." — Academy. London : Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. THE THREE BROTHERS. YO SEMITE VALLEY. A FIGHT WITH DISTANCES THE STATES THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS CANADA, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CUBA THE BAHAMAS BY J. J. AUBERTIl^ TRANSLATOR OF "THE LUSIADS," ABU " SEVENTY SONNETS OF CAMOENS " AND AUTHOR OF " A FLIGHT TO MEXICO," " SIX MONTHS IN CAPE COLONY," ETC WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS AND TWO MAPS LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., r, PATERNOSTER SQUARE 188S I DEDICATE THIS CONVERSATIONAL RECORD OF MY LATE WIDE RAMBLE THROUGH THE WEST TO ALL THOSE WHO FROM TIME TO TIME CONTRIBUTED BY THEIR FELLOWSHIP TO RENDER IT BRIGHT AND PROSPEROUS. April, 1888. PAGE 7 17 48 $2 106 CONTENTS.

Chapter I Introductory

The Route — What do you think of the States ?— Phrygia and Pamphylia — Title .. II. Liverpool to Quebec. Out at Sea — Fellow-passengers — Sea-fogs — Icebergs — The St. Lawrence — Cape Diamond III. Quebec to Niagara. Quebec — The Heights of Abraham — Falls of Montmorency — Montreal — Home Rule — The Grand Trunk Railway — Kingston — The Thousand Islands — The Rapids— The Canadian Pacific Railway — Ottawa — Toronto — Niagara — The Cave of the Winds IV. The States — Chicago — Minnesota. The Northern Pacific Railway — Railway Time— Heat and Dust — Chicago — Pig-killing — Hotels — Minneapolis and St. Paul— Dacota Minneapolis to Tacoma. V. James Town — Bad Lands — Yellowstone Park — The Geysers — The Canon — Back to Livingston — A Travelling Correspondent — Columbia River — Mount Tacoma VI. British Columbia.

Victoria — The Canadian Pacific Railway — Hudson's Bay Company — Yale — Mountain and River Scenery — Calgari — Back to Victoria — Portland — Astoria — To San Francisco CONTENTS.

CHAPTER VII. PAGE

San Francisco — Yo Semite. The Palace Hotel — The Chinese — Their Theatre- Opium Dens — Restaurants — Yo Semite Valley — Inspiration Point — The Falls — The Big Trees, Mariposa 131 VIII. The Hawaiian Islands. Bound for Honolulu — Optical illusions — ' ' Interviewed " — A Drive to the Pali — The Crater of Kilauea — Haleakala — The Prime Minister — King Kalakoua — The Chinese — Education — Parliament House — Drives — On the San Francisco Boat ... ... 1 58 Manitou — Albany — Boston. IX The Burlington Route — Nevada — Salt Lake and City — The Denver and Rio Grande Railway — The Black Canon — Marshall's Pass — The Royal George — Pike's Peak — The Garden of the Gods — Albany — Lake George — Cohoes — Lenox — Boston ... ... 209 New York. X Fifth Avenue Hotel — Elevated Railways — Brooklyn Bridge — Tram-cars — Post-office — Hudson River — Statue of Liberty— Police— The Star Theatre— The Streets — The Central Park — Advertisements ... 236 Philadelphia.

XI History— Public Buildings— The Park — The Continental Hotel 265 XII Washington. District of Columbia — Plan of the City — Congress — Courts of Justice — Pensions— Luray Caves — Caves of Kentucky — Back to Washington — Government Offices — The Geometrical Lathe — At the Cosmos — Army Medical Museum — Washington Monument — Mount Vernon — The Evening Star ... ... 272 Florida. XIII. Jacksonville — The Oldest Town in the States — Citra — An Orange Grove — Orlando — Tampa — Key West ... 316 XIV, Cuba. Havana — Cigars— A Bull-fight — Climate — Matanzas — Cienfuegos — Santiago de Cuba — Nassau — New Providence — New York — Home •■• LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. The Three Brothers, Yo Semite ... ... Frontispiece Raft on the St. Lawrence ... ... To face sage 26 Ottawa ... ... ... ... ... „ 32 Mammoth Hot Springs... ... ... ,, 86 Old Faithful ... ... ... ... „ 90 Glimpse of the Great Falls ... ... ,, 94 The Grand Canon, Yellowstone River ... ,, 96 Map of Yo Semite Valley ... ... ,, 137 Map of the Hawaiian Islands ... ... ,, 163 Garden of the Gods, and Pike's Peak... ,, 222 Map of Route ... ... •■• ••• ••• At end

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.

In the calendar of life, while recalling memories of certain impressions and events, we are at liberty to carve out our own complete space of twelvemonths without being bound to the rigid tables of the almanac ; and, availing myself of this privilege, I mark exactly one year, dating back from my now taking up my pen for recording my experiences during that period. It was the 10th of June, 1886, when, with many others, I sailed from Liverpool in the S.S. Parisian (Captain J. Wylie), of the Allan Line, bound for Quebec, with the intention of taking a long course, to and fro, in the States, beginning with a visit to the Dominion ; and though, when we sailed out of port to the distant West, I was very far from making my first voyage at sea, yet I must confess to have felt a striking sense of novelty and strangeness in the idea that I was at last going to realize great North America and the great States, across the great North Atlantic.

" You ought to have visited the States long ago," B >"" I have had said to me ; but I nevertheless feel that I was not a day too late, and, moreover, that in a very short space of time, unless I can go there again, I shall believe that I have been too soon. Every hour, as it seems, makes a step towards surprising develop ments in this still young, though vastly grown country. I had at first thought of a journey round the world, continuing from San Francisco in our west through our colonies to our east, but I soon found that I had plenty to compass by remaining on the great continent where I found myself ; and, moreover, I felt there would be a strange mixture of confused impressions, incongruously mingled in the mind, had I combined the old peoples and majesties of India and China with the newest development of imported mankind in North America.

It is true, however, that from San Francisco I managed a passage to the Sandwich, or more properly Hawaiian Islands, where I spent the month of September, visiting their large active, and their still larger extinct, volcanoes. These islands, however, with now only one week's sail from the western coast, belong almost geographi cally, as indeed almost sympathetically, to the States themselves. When the wanderer's round is completed, and he is at home again, it is not an ungrateful occupation to open the map and trace out the whole course of his journey, while sitting at ease and released from all the toil that his curiosity entailed on him for its satisfaction. This I am now tempted to do. INTRODUCTORY. 3 First, then, I landed in Quebec ; visited Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto. Thence I crossed Lake Ontario to Niagara Falls ; and from the Falls I went on to the States, entering at Detroit, in Michigan, and stopping at Chicago.

Thence I struck upwards to the two already flourishing and still growing rival cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, and on my way to Portland, Oregon, stopped at Cinnabar for a visit to the Yellow Stone Park. From Portland I travelled northwards to Victoria, in Vancouver's Island, eoin? over the mountain ranges of the Canadian Pacific railway to Calgari, in British Columbia, and returning. Once again at Portland, I took steamer for San Francisco, whence I visited the Yo Semite Valley, and on my return sailed for the Hawaiian Islands. Once again at San Francisco I started for Salt Lake City, and continued through the gorges of the Rio Grande and Delver railway, stopping at Manitou to see Colorado Springs and to make the ascent of Pike's Peak in the Rockies. Hence I made the best of my way by the Burlington Route to Chicago, towards the New England States, a visit which I had purposely delayed till now, in order that I might realize the surpassing beauties of their autumn tints.

Having seen the two cities Albany and Boston, I came down the beautiful Hudson to New York, and, after a due sojourn in that city, continued southwards to Philadelphia and Washington, passing through Florida, after visiting on my way the Mammoth Caves of Kentucky. Eventually, I left the States at Tacoma for Cuba, returning by the Bahamas to New York ; and sailing thence by the Cunard boat Servia (Captain McKay) for Liverpool, arrived there on a downright raw day on the 3rd of April, 1887, having been absent just ten months. Not so very long ago travel like this would have astonished, and its particulars have been studied with avidity ; and though it is not quite common place even now, yet the world is growing every day so much smaller and so much more familiar to all, even to those who stay at home (the number of those who move about constantly increasing), that the appetite of curiosity has been already fed by many caterers, and it may be asked where are we to look for sufficient novelty to engage attention, even in coursing over the globe ?

In some sort, Heligoland and Gala pagos Island might excite more interest than New York itself, whither men of business, day after day, cross the Atlantic almost as familiarly as they cross the Channel to France. In proportion, however, as it has become more easy to see the world, the world has had more to show — a result of people having made their way, and opened the way, to formerly untrodden scenes, and established life in all its varied activity where mere curiosity had blankly gazed before. Still, it is not only novelty that can please, for though " the first time " has always a charm pecu liarly its own, either in seeing or hearing, so also is there great satisfaction in a revisit, or in reading INTRODUCTORY. 5 an account by another's pen of scenes where we have already wandered. Return you whence you may, it is a fact that you are sure to be met by many questions ; so that it would seem the traveller's tongue or pen should be always welcome or un welcome by his own fault only.

I am quite sure I could not say how many times the question has been put to me, " And what do you think of the States ? " How could one answer this very usual form of examination ? If your travel has afforded no materials beyond those which would supply a corresponding offhand answer, you would indeed have very little to think, or even to talk, about. And so many things there are to think and talk about after a visit to the New World — still the New World, even to its own self, notwithstanding all its astonishing achievements — that it is difficult to know where and under what title to begin relating one's experiences and impressions. Certainly I shall not attempt to be too profound — a very safely taken resolution, perhaps. But it is, nevertheless, necessary to establish this condition, for no one knows what some people may expect as the fruits of a few months' sojourn.

I was, in truth, nearly knocked down by one question, the form of which I remember with some exactness, " Now that you have been there, what would you say Was your opinion of the effects of republican institutions upon the morals, intellect, and genius of a young and aspiring nation ? " When I had recovered, I replied simply (in more senses than one, my interrogator may possibly have thought), "My good sir, whatever the subject I may chance to touch upon, I shall paint it only as a sketch." And now for my title. It is easy to single out a text and preach up to it ; it is not always so easy to give a title to a book. Sterne says somewhere, in his usual flippant style, that if you chose your subject well, and treat it well, " Phrygia and Pamphylia " would be just as good a text as any other.

Scarcely daring to be able to satisfy the above two conditions, I have resolved to register a very abiding impression that remains with me on my return, and therefore entitle my book " A Fight with Distances." On mentioning this to some Americans, they were much amused, and one of them, taking up the thought, suggested, " Distances and Dust."

Chapter II. Liverpool To Quebec

We sailed from Liverpool on Thursday, the ioth of June, 1886, touching at Moville, Lough Foyle, for the mail, from Holyhead to Dublin, of the previous night. There was nothing to remark upon as to weather, save, indeed, that the wind, which on land had been long and steadfastly blowing from the east, imparting to our " gentle spring " that peculiar " ethereal mild ness " which is now that delightful season's usual blessing, suddenly veered round at sea to the west, and continued to blow steadfastly and coldly from that direction during the whole passage, now and then making the vessel pitch and the screw race. She went along, however, well, and very steadily, this last feature being attributed (as I understood) to her double flange at or near the keel. When fairly out at sea we were formally placed at table, and I at once realized the fact that we can scarcely be anywhere without finding or being found out, for, by mistaking one end of the table for the other, I went to claim my seat at the wrong side, and by doing so stumbled upon a passenger whom I had never met before, but whose grandmother proved to be my godmother !

This was Colonel Ravenhill, of the Artillery, who, with Colonel Philips of the 4th Hussars, was going out to Canada, commissioned by our Government to buy horses, accompanied by Veterinary Surgeon (First-Class) Mathews of the Blues. Colonel Philips was sitting opposite to my real place, and in his case also we soon discovered that we had common acquaintances. It was a lady's seat I was about to claim wrong fully, and she turned out to be a Mrs. Bird, who was employing her life in educating English children, and bringing them out in groups from time to time for gaining their livelihood in Canada. She had some of them on board at that moment, and the dis tinguishing feature of her system, she informed me, is that she does not, like others, find them and pro pose to them to come out, but educates them in England first, with the express purpose of emigration.

She has what she calls "Shelter Homes" in Liverpool, and a "Distribution Home" in Canada, "very near Montreal." " How far off? " I asked. " Could I visit it ? " " Only some seventy-five miles." Thus it is that they measure " very near " in vast Canada. She registers all their names, and all their movements from place to place and occupation to occupation, until they are twenty-one or are married ; and there appears to be a constant inquiry for her " shipments " at the farmhouses and on the farms. Surely this seems, on LLVERPOOL TO QUEBEC. 9 more accounts than one, an excellent undertaking, and the individuals who thus devote themselves should be esteemed philanthropists — not sentimental merely, but practical. Of course, it may be suspected that they have perhaps thrown aside and are neglecting more immediate and less ambitious duties for these " higher calls," as they are termed.

" Higher calls " are now and then allowed to put lower ones aside that ought to be the first attended to. It is very difficult to resist the proneness of our dispositions, and equally so to confess to ourselves that, even in our higher aspirations, we are, after all, only feeding a natural propensity. As regards Mrs. Bird's system, it has this great advantage over some others of the like class : she knows everything about the children she brings out. They are virtually her own when they come, and look on her as in some sort a mother ; and a motherly sort of person she appeared to be. And how can I omit to mention one other passenger, who from time to time kept company with us even to Niagara ? always cheerful, always looking out to do some good act in his own sphere, and with an eye of resistance and command which now and then stood us in good stead on shore — I mean the Rev. E. A. Pitcairn Campbell, of Vicars' Cross, Chester.

Long may he live ! and may we meet again ! In the course of the voyage, conversations struck up with various people, either of first or second class. One of the latter I remember as a very intelligent individual, who, according to a rather vulgar phrase, " gassed " about everything colonial in the well known style. It conferred no benefit on the river St. Lawrence that he did so, for I was led to expect a great deal more than I found. The scenery on both sides was to surpass anything anybody ever heard or thought of, and people who had seen all the rivers in Europe had told him they were a mere nothing. What I really found the St. Lawrence to be, to my own quiet capacities of judging at all events, I will presently say, but one little item of our conversation I cannot pass over. It was not only his river he was so proud of.

" What part of our country do you belong to ? " he asked. " To no part," I replied. " I come from England." " Dear me ! " said he ; "I should never have sup posed that." " Why not ? " " Because of your mode of talking." Here I felt somewhat humbled, but ventured a dangerous question, and asked, " Don't I speak cor rectly, then ? " I felt reinstated at once. " Oh yes ! that's it. You talk so well ; " but then he added, ''you talk like us." I was almost going to say that I felt as if I had been knocked down, and then picked up, and then knocked down again. My friend had no particular twang in his enunciation, but certainly showed no LIVERPOOL TO QUEBEC. 11 signs of superior education, and I was tempted to ask him what were the defects of English talkers. He thought that they did not know much of their own language ; and his answer on one point was a rather curious one, and afterwards became particularly so to me, because I heard it so often repeated in different parts of the States — " All the English that come over here leave out their /is."

It is a seemingly bold accusation. In the course of our passage we were subjected to sea-fogs, and in those latitudes in June it is well known what these mysterious visitors serve to shroud. Accordingly we came into the neighbourhood of icebergs — objects totally new and marvel lously interesting to me — those strange, huge, ghostly masses of fresh-water ice that break away in gigantic volume from the far-away solitudes of the glaciers and ice-sheets that cover Greenland and Spitz bergen, and other polar lands, and sail out southward to sea, to be gradually melted by warmer airs and oceans. Fortunately these intruders on our course were few, and could be realized and enjoyed without the threat of danger. This is always great when icebergs are near and numerous ; for the vast proportion of their ice below water compared with that above — being given as eight, and indeed nine, to one — and the extremely irregular shape of them, as well as their continual change of equilibrium from the rapid melting under water, serve to make the apparent distance of their hidden bulk deceptive, and to render them liable to heel over suddenly and crush.

It was on the early morning of Wednesday, the 16th of June, that the foggy wind blew very cold, and that the proximity of some of these masses was con jectured. Accordingly, about noon, when all was again bright and clear, a low distant form was visible to our south, off our port bow, and by-and-by a very much larger one hove in sight in the same bearing. To this latter one I owe my appreciation of what an iceberg really is. It was some six miles distant, and was pronounced by the captain to be a large one. The distance was not so great as to detract materially from its volume ; on the contrary, it was just great enough to bring it into good focus, and permit the indulgence of imagination, in conjuring out its mysterious form. It was a beautiful object, particularly when viewed through a binocular, and must have been of great height.

It was glittering and sparkling in full sunshine, and I now first realized that peculiar glitter in sunshine of ice and snow, pure and simple, standing out high on water in brilliant air, against a spotless blue background of sky, and presenting half transparencies. This iceberg's varying shapes as we approached, came abreast of it, and then left it to its melting fate behind us, were marvellous. At first it looked like a vast, jagged, towering rock, crowned with a feudal castle, where a large white flag was flying. How strange to be able to imagine thus of LIVERPOOL TO QUEBEC. 13 life where all was mere frozen solitude ! Then as we breasted it, still distant, the hinder part of the rock discovered itself, deeply honeycombed to the eye from base to summit ; a long, rough flat extended thence, and eventually ended in a smaller rock at the stern.

And over this vast flat we now saw the breakers wildly dashing from the other side, throwing up immense clouds of spray, and of course rapidly destroying the huge invader. From such breakers, it seems, the presence of an iceberg is most readily discovered in dark hours or misty weather. At last, the various features of our monster clubbed together ; but even in the far distance, and to the last, it still glittered, white with its own peculiar whiteness. These sea-fogs from time to time brought us to a standstill, or to very slow movement, and the dreary and portentous fog-horn sounded more than once to disturb and warn the night. This cost us several hours, and, moreover, we could not pass by the strait of Belle Isle — first explored by the Allan Company — to enter the Gulf of St. Lawrence by the north of Newfoundland, on account of the ice, but had to make a deviation to the south, entering by Cape Breton Island, thus adding more than a hundred miles to our voyage, and bringing up the total distance from Liverpool to Quebec to very nearly three thousand.

In these regions the fogs were very heavy, and the fog-horn very constant, and this state of affairs is characteristic of Newfoundland. On the afternoon of Friday, the 18th, we left the island of Anticosti to our north, and in the course of the following morning were fairly in the vast river St. Lawrence itself. " Good morning, sir ! " exclaimed a passenger with a frightful twang, with whom I had talked before and taken for an American, though he was a Canadian, and who challenged me the moment I came on deck — "good morning, sir ! " he twanged out with great off hand rapidity. " Too late, too late ; lost all the best of the scenery." " Lost it all ? Where and what was it all, then ? " " About fifteen miles down stream." " Was it very fine ? " " Don't know at all, sir ; didn't see it myself."

This is the way so many of them talk. I am well persuaded nobody had said a word to him on the subject. The St. Lawrence was now fairly before me, and we were sailing up that noble breast of water, the grand entrance to Canada, and the outlet to all the six vast lakes above, which contain the greatest body of fresh water in the world. And this is the splendid St. Lawrence. In what does its splendour consist ? It mainly consists in the breadth and volume of its own magnificent bosom ; and not only so, but in the bright, clear sparkle of its continuous mighty stream — no taint, no stain ; all crystal. But this very breadth of water has an opposing effect. It serves to minimize the scenery of the banks — features so vital to the beauties of a LIVERPOOL TO QUEBEC. 15 river. The hills are not, for the most part, par ticularly high, and they are some miles away from you.

From the real entrance to the river proper, which is marked as ending between Pointe des Monts and Cape Chat, up to Quebec, the width of the stream is said to vary from ten to thirty miles, that distance being about six hundred. And here, again, one is wonderfully impressed with the reflection that the great steamer you are sailing on can not only reach Quebec, but steam up to Montreal, some two hundred miles above. Virgil had not seen the St. Lawrence when he wrote " Fluviorum Rex Eridanus." To say that there is comparatively nothing to see on either side of you would be to exaggerate in an opposite direction from those who descant too largely in the usual style of scene-describing sentences. But if any one who had beheld the Columbia and Hudson were led to expect the same class of beauty on both sides of the St. Lawrence, proportionate with the huge waters, he would be disappointed, and would be looking in the wrong direction for the really grand feature of the scene.

But apart from all these considerations, and above them, are the sensations of the beholder, " for the first time," in finding himself, after many days of blank ocean, gazing on all about him in a still really New World, far distant from the old familiar nest of European countries, and occupied in all its vastness by one people under one crown. All is distant, all is new, all is vast, and all feels free. It was early on the morning of Sunday, June the 20th, that the well-known Cape Diamond, rising 340 feet above the river, gradually rode out into the view, and formed the great centre object in the per spective. Looking towards its towering and in creasing form as we moved along between the banks, the effect was grand. Surmounted by the citadel of Quebec, it stood over Quebec itself, which with its upper and lower towns spread down to the water's edge below, and occupied with its wharfs the point that is there formed by the confluence of the St. Charles with the St. Lawrence.

Familiar history, and a well-known painting (rather more fancifulthan historical), came to the mind simultaneously with this great object to the eye ; and it seemed to me that such associations could be more readily evoked while gazing on the whole at this distance than by wandering over the actual ground with every evidence that all had been long since changed. Bold shores surround, and the Isle of Orleans, which divides the stream, enhances the beauty of the scene, and forces your vessel to take a course which best serves to display its varied and impressive attractions.

Chapter III. Quebec To Niagara

So here we are in Canada. And on landing at Quebec, you at once realize what you have to pay for the pleasure of gazing on a noble rock. The Colonels, the Divine, and the non-Divine, we all clambered up through dust, and certainly not much architectural beauty, to the St. Louis Hotel. It owns a good entrance-hall, but we all know what old fashioned buildings in cities like Quebec must be ; the rooms are necessarily all small, and some of them curiously shaped, but we fared very well altogether. One article we experienced in overflowing abundance — that utterly intolerable and unclean nuisance called the house-fly. This was inside the house, while on the outside, immediately at the entrance, was another — the fly-men. They all want you to be always wanting a fly. You go across the street for some thing and come back — twice you are tormented ; so that I came to say, at last, that I knew not which were the greatest nuisance, the fly-men or the flies.