NORTH AMERICA, SIBERIA, AND RUSSIA. ¹

The circumnavigation of the world is now a matter of ordinary occurrence to our bold mariners: and after a few years it will be a sort of summer excursion to our steamers. We shall have the requisitions of the Travellers' Club more stringent as the sphere of action grows wider; and no man will be eligible who has not paid a visit to Pekin, or sunned himself in Siam.

But a circuit of the globe on terra firma is, we believe, new. Sir George Simpson will have no competitor, that we have ever heard, to claim from him the honour of having first galloped right a-head—from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Pacific to the British Channel. One or two slight divergencies of some thousand miles down the smooth and sunny bosom of the Pacific, are to be reckoned as mere episodes: but Sir George soon recovers his course, plunges in through the regions of the polar star; defies time, trouble, and Tartary; marches in the track of tribes, of which all but the names have expired; follows the glories of conquerors, whose bones have mingled five hundred years ago with the dust of the desert; gives a flying glance on one side towards the Wall of China, and on the other towards the Arctic Circle; still presses on, till he reaches the confines of the frozen civilisation of the Russian empire; and sweeps along, among bowing governors and prostrate serfs,—still but emerging from barbarism—until he does homage to the pomp of the Russian court, and finally lands in the soil of freedom, funds, and the income tax.

What the actual object of all this gyration may have been, is not revealed, nor, probably, revealable by a "Governor of the Hudson's Bay territories," who, having the fear of other governors before his eyes, dedicates his two handsome volumes to "The Directors of the Hudson's Bay Company;" but the late negotiations on Oregon, the Russian interest in the new empire rising on the shore of the Northern Pacific, the vigorous efforts of Russia to turn its Siberian world into a place of human habitancy, and the unexpected interest directed to those regions by the discovery of gold deposits which throw the old wealth of the Spanish main into the shade, might be sufficient motives for the curiosity of an individual of intelligence, and for the anxious inquiries of a great company, bordering on two mighty powers in North America, both of them more remarkable for the vigour of their ambition than for the reverence of their hunters and fishers for the jus gentium.

Those volumes, then, will supply a general and a very well conceived estimate of immense tracts of the globe, hitherto but little known to the English public. The view is clear, quick, and discriminative. The countries of which it gives us a new knowledge are probably destined to act with great power on our interests, some as the rivals of our commerce, some as the depôts of our manufactures, and some as the recipients of that overflow of population which Europe is now pouring out from all her fields on the open wilderness of the world.

This spread of emigration to the north is a curious instance of the reflux of the human tide; for, from the north evidently was Europe originally peopled. Japhet was a powerful propeller; and often as he has dwelt in the tents of Shem, he is likely to overwhelm the whole territory of the southern brother once more. The Turk, the Egyptian, the man of Asia Minor, the man of Thrace, will yet be but tribes in that army of the new Xerxes which, pouring from Moscow, and impelled from St Petersburg, will renew the invasions of Genghiz and Tamerlane, and try the civilized strength of the west against the wild courage and countless multitudes of Tartary. Into this strange, but important, and prospectively powerful country, we now follow the traveller. Embarking from Liverpool in the Caledonia, a vessel of 1300 tons and 450 horse power, he was amply prepared to face the perils of the most stormy of all oceans, the Atlantic. The run across lad the usual fortunes of all voyages, and within a week after their departure from terra firma they saw a whale, who saw them with rather more indifference, for he lay lounging on the surface until the steamer had nearly run over him. At last he dived down, and was seen no more. Next day, while there was so little wind, that all their light canvass was set, they saw the phenomenon of a ship under close-reefed topsails. This apparent timidity was laughed at by some of the passengers, but the more experienced guessed that the vessel had come out of a gale, of which they were likely to have a share before long, a conjecture which was soon verified.

On the morning of the 9th day, the captain, discovering that the barometer had fallen between two and three inches during the night, due preparations were of course made to meet the storm. It came on in the afternoon, a hurricane. Then followed the usual havock of boats and canvass, the surges making a clean breach over the deck; the passengers, of course, gave themselves up for lost, and even the crew are said to have been pretty nearly of the same opinion. However, the wind went down at last, the sea grew comparatively smooth, and in twenty-four hours more, they found themselves on the banks of Newfoundland. The writer thinks that it was fortunate for them that the storm had not caught them in the short swell of these shallow waters, as was probably the case of the President, whose melancholy fate so long excited, and still excites a feeling of surprise and sorrow in the public mind.

It was lost in this very storm. Next day came another of the sea wonders. The cry of land started them all from the dinner table; but the land happened to be an immense field of ice, which, with the inequalities of its surface and the effect of refraction, presented some appearance of a wooded country. On that night the cry of "Light a-head," while they were still several hundred miles from land, excited new astonishment. "All the knowing ones" clearly distinguished a magnificent revolver. The paddles were accordingly stopped to have a cast of the lead, but in another half hour it was ascertained that the revolver was a newly risen star.

At length land was really seen, and after a run of fourteen days, they cast anchor in the harbour of Halifax. But as Boston was their true destination they steered for it at once. Their progress had been rapid, for they entered Boston Bay in thirty-six hours from Halifax, a distance of 390 miles. Boston is more English looking than New York. The gently undulating shores of the bay, highly cultivated, bring to memory the green hills of England, and within the town the buildings and the inhabitants have a peculiarly English air.

As speed was an object, the party immediately left the town by the railway, passing through Lowell and reaching Nashua. This is one of the rapid growths of America. In 1819 this place was a village of but nineteen houses. It now contains 19,000 inhabitants, with churches, hotels, prisons, and banks. Here the party went off in two detachments, one in a sleigh with six horses, and the other rattled along in a coach-and-four. At the next stage the author exchanged the coach for a sleigh, a matter of no great importance to the world, but which may be mentioned as a caution against rash changes. For the first few miles the new conveyance went on merrily, and the passengers congratulated themselves on their wisdom. We must now let him speak for himself.

"The sun, as the day advanced, kept thawing the snow, till at last, on coming to a deep drift, we were repeatedly obliged to get out, sometimes walking up to the knees, and sometimes helping to lift the vehicle out of the snow. However, at length we fairly stuck fast, in spite of all our hauling and pushing. The horses struggled and plunged to no purpose, excepting that the leaders, after breaking part of their tackle, galloped off over the hills and far away, leaving us to kick our heels in the slush, till they were brought back after a chase of several miles."

The road now passed through Vermont, the state of green mountains. The country appeared striking; and Montpelier, where they breakfasted, seems to be a very pretty place, looking more the residence of hereditary ease and luxury, than the capital of a republic of thrifty graziers. It is, in fact, an assemblage of villas; the wide streets run between rows of trees, and the houses, each in its own little garden, are shaded by verandas.

In that very pleasant little book, the "Miseries of Human Life," one of those small calamities is, the being called at the wrong hour to go off in the wrong coach from a Yorkshire inn. Time and the railroad have changed all this in England, but in America we have the primitive misery well described.

The author, after forty-two hours of hard jolting, goes to bed at one o'clock to obtain a little repose, leaving orders to be called at five in the morning. He is wrapt in the profoundest of all possible slumbers, when a peal of blows is heard at his door. "In spite, however, of laziness, and a cold morning to boot," he says, "I had completed the operations of washing and dressing by candlelight, having even donned hat and gloves, to join my companions, when the waiter entered my room with a grin. 'I guess,' said the rascal, 'I have put my foot in it. Are you the man that wanted to be called at two?' 'No,' was my reply. 'Then,' said he, 'I calculate I have fixed the wrong man, so you had better go to bed again.' Having delivered himself of this friendly advice, he went to awaken my neighbour, who had all this time been quietly enjoying the sleep that properly belonged to me. Instead of following the fellow's recommendation, I sat up for the rest of the night." Whether the author possessed a watch we cannot tell, but if he was master of that useful and not very rare article, he might have saved himself his premature trouble, and escaped shaving at midnight.

On crossing into the Canadian territory, he encounters one of those evidences of popular liberty which belong to rather the American than the English side. In the village of St John's, some of the party went a-head to the principal inn, and as it was late at night, and their knocking produced no effect, they appealed to what they regarded as the most accessible of the landlord's susceptibilities, his pocket, by saying that they were fourteen, more coming, with a whole host of drivers. This appeal was the most unlucky possible, for the landlord had another sensibility, the fear of being tarred and feathered, if not hanged. On the door being opened at last, the landlord was not to be found; his brother wandered about, the very ghost of despair. The establishment was searched upside and downside, inside and outside, in vain; and they began to think themselves the cause of some domestic tragedy; but it must have been a late perpetration, for on looking into his bed, they found the lair warm.

However, after a short time, mine host returned with a face all smiles. The mystery was then explained. The election had taken place during the day, and the landlord, having taken the part of the candidate who eventually succeeded, was threatened with vengeance by the losing party. The arrival of the travellers convinced him that his hour was come, and he had jumped out of bed and hidden himself in some inscrutable corner. But a good supper reconciled every thing.

The author crossed the ice to Montreal, and had a showy view of the metropolis of the Canadas. A curious observation is suggested by Montreal, on the different characters of the English and French population. In the days of Wolf and Amherst, it was all French; but John Bull, with his spirit of activity and industry, has quietly become master of all the trading situations of the city, while the French have as quietly retreated, and spread themselves through the upper sections of it, to a great degree cut off from its commercial portions.

From Montreal the travel began. The heavy canoes were sent forward some days before, under the charge of some of the Company's officers, the light canoes waited for the author, with Colonel Oldfield, chief engineer in Canada, who was going up the country on a survey of the navigation, and the Earls of Mulgrave and Caledon, who were going to the Red River, buffalo-hunting.

All was now ready in form, and on the 4th of May the two canoes were floating on the Lactrine canal. The crews, thirteen to one vessel, and fourteen to the other, were partly Canadians, but principally Iroquois. Those voyageurs, as they are called, had each been supplied with a feather in his cap, in honour of the occasion, and evidently expected to produce a sensation on shore. But a north-wester blowing prevented the hoisting of their flags, which mulcted the pageant of much of its intended glory. These canoes are thirty-five feet in length, and five feet wide in the centre; drawing about eighteen inches water, and weighing between three and four hundred pounds; capitally fitted for a navigation among rocks, rapids, and portages; but they seem most uncomfortable in rough weather. The waves of the St Lawrence rolled like a sea, the gale was biting, and the snow drifted heavily in the faces of the party. In this luckless condition, we are not surprised at the intelligence, that at St Anne's Rapids, notwithstanding the authority of the poet, "they sang no evening hymn."

This style of travelling was not certainly much mingled with luxury. Next morning, after "toiling for six hours," they breakfasted, "with the wet ground for their table, and with rain in place of milk to cool their tea." On this day, while running close under the falls of the Rideau, they seem to have had a narrow escape from a finale to their voyage; their canoes being swept into the middle of the river, under an immense fall, fifty feet in height.

They now learned the art of bivouaching, and after a day of toiling through portages, reserving the severest of them, the Grand Calumet, for the renewed vigour of the morning, they made ready for the forest night. The description, brief as it is, is one among many which shows the artist eye.

"The tents were pitched in a small clump of pines, while round a blazing fire the passengers were collected, amid a medley of boxes, barrels, cloaks, and on the rock above the foaming rapids were lying the canoes; the men flitting about the fires as if they were enjoying a holiday, and watching a huge cauldron suspended above the fire. The whole with a background of dense woods and a lake."

Yet, startling as this "wooing of nature" in her rough moods may seem to the silk-and-velvet portion of the world, we doubt whether this wild life, with its desperate toil and its ground sleep, may not be the true charm of travel to saint, savage, or sage, when once fairly forced to the experiment. The blazing fire, the bed of leaves, the gay supper, made gayer still by incomparable appetite, and the sleep after all, in which the whole outward man remains imbedded, without the movement of a muscle and without a dream, until the morning awakes him up a new being, are fully worth all the inventions of art, to make us enjoy rest unearned by fatigue, and food without waiting for appetite. "The sleep of the weary man is sweet," said the ancient and wise king who slept among curtains of gold, and under roofs of cedar; the true way to taste that sleep is to spend a day, dragging canoes up Indian portages, and lie down with one's feet warmed by a pine blaze and one's back to the shelter of a forest.

But, as the time will assuredly come when this "life in the woods" will be no more, when huge inns will supersede the canopy of the skies, and down beds will make the memory of birch twigs and heather blossoms pass away, we give from authority the proceedings of an evening's rest, which the next generation will study with somewhat of the feeling of reading Tacitus De Moribus Germanorum.

As the sun approached his setting, every eye in the canoes, as they pulled along, was speculating on some dry and tolerably open spot on the shore. That