the
ordinary means of propulsion, and the average length of voyage of 237
vessels arriving at Quebec in 1840 was well over forty days.[2] To the
immigrant, however, the voyage across the Atlantic was the least of his
troubles; for the internal communications of Canada left much to be
desired. The assistance {10} of railway transportation might be
entirely ignored,--as late as 1847 only twenty-two miles of railway
lines had been laid and worked.[3] There was, of course, during the
open season, the wonderful passage by river and lake into the heart of
the continent; although the long winter months broke into the
regularity of the traffic by water, and the St. Lawrence rapids added
to the traveller's difficulties and expenses. Even the magic of a
governor-general's wand could not dispel the inconveniences of this
simplest of Canadian routes. "I arrived here on Thursday week,"
grumbled Poulett Thomson, writing from Toronto in 1839. "The journey
was bad enough; a portage to Lachine; then the steamboat to the
Cascades, twenty-four miles further; then road again (if road it can be
called) for sixteen miles; then steam to Cornwall forty miles; then
road, twelve miles; then, by a change of steamers on to Lake Ontario to
Kingston, and thence here. I slept one night on the road, and two on
board the steamers. Such, as I have described it, is the boasted
navigation of the St. Lawrence!"[4] For military purposes there was
the alternative route, up the Ottawa to Bytown, {11} and thence by the
Rideau military canal to Kingston and the Lakes. On land, progress was
much more complicated, for even the main road along the river and lake
front was in shamefully bad condition, more especially when autumn
passed into winter, or when spring once more loosened up the roads.
There is a quite unanimous chorus of condemnation from all--British,
Americans, and Canadians. One lively traveller in 1840 protested that
on his way from Montreal, he was compelled to walk at the carriage side
for hours, ankle-deep in mud, with the reins in his hands, and that,
with infinite fatigue to both man and beast, he accomplished sixty
miles in two days--a wonderful performance.[5] In the very heart of
the rebellion, W. L. Mackenzie seems to have found the roads fighting
against him, for he speaks of the march along Yonge Street as over
"thirty or forty miles of the worst roads in the world"; and attributes
part of the disheartening of his men to what o