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Pedestrian Tour of a Scottish Emigrant in the Middle States of America
Article from Tait's Edinburgh Magazine


The late travellers in America have generally gone “starring” thither, taking the grand route in grand costume. The humble traveller, whom we are about to introduce to our readers, saw nothing of fashionable hotels or watering-places, little of the great cities, and nothing at all of great or noted personages. He visited the Americans “at home,” in their farms and villages; threw himself upon their hospitality; lived among them for years; and saw more of their real manners and character than falls within the ordinary scope of a stranger's observation. He was a young Scotchman, of respectable education, and very slender means, who, without apparently any very definite plan of proceeding, set off, in the first place, for Lover Canada, in national phrase, “to push his fortune.* He lived for some years as a schoolmaster about Chaleur Bay, and afterwards in different places in the United States. His bulky MSS., now before us, contain a long, minute, and faithful description of his original dreary sojourn among the fishermen, wood-choppers, and Indian tribes of Lower Canada. When tired of that Jenality, he formed the design of visiting the United States, partly from curiosity, and probebly with some hope of bettering his fortune. For this purpose, he went from Chaleur Bay by tailing vessel to Quebec, ascended the St Lawrence to Montreal by steam, and, finally, found his way to New York by the customary route. In the course of his voyage he picked up a young Irishman, still poorer than himself; and, on the faith of a reputed rich uncle at Baltimore, who was to send money to await his nephew's arrival at New York, the Scot made those pecuniary advance which confirmed their friendship, and left him almost penniless. We take them up at New York, exactly as, on an autumn evening, they had left the steamer which brought them from Albany.

I have extracted the three parts in pdf format for you to view below...

Part 1  |  Part 2  |  Part 3


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