The book Arran; - Cook Clan

IMPROVEMENT AND EMIGRATION 219
service, delivering an address from the text, ' Casting all your
care upon Him ; for He careth for you '
(1 Peter v. 7).
And so the little company in the little ship sailed hopefully
away to the big, empty land across the ocean.^
Others would have gone at the same time but there was
no room. The brig had her complement of 180 ; but four
families followed from Greenock in a larger vessel, the Albion,
on June 5th, and others came a few years later, as the
squeeze of improvement grew tighter. The Caledonia con-
tingent included four families of M'Killop, three of Kelsos,
two of M'Millans, with M'Kinnons, M'Kenzies, and Brodies
to complete. Unmarried were two Stewarts, a Henry, and
a Cook. A leader for the company was at once assumed in
Archibald M'Killop, a Saul in stature among his fellows,
devout, practical, and commanding. Preparations had been
long making, and everything portable seems to have accompanied
the emigrants in their great chests, plenty of homespun
clothes, cooking utensils, some furniture and books.
Gaelic Bibles particularly were no fruit of the backwoods :
of these went a good supply.
Two long months at sea in a tumbling little ship before
—on June 25th— ^they arrived at Quebec. Renfrew County,
on the river Ottawa, was the destination of the Arran
passengers, and so the ship was towed by a steamer up to
Montreal. Of all the novel sights on the passage up the
river, what stuck in the memories of the new arrivals was
the odd appearance of the tree stumps in the clearings along
the shore. After disembarking at Montreal, a fortnight at
Point St. Charles was devoted to a great wash-up, nothing
of the kind having been possible in the cramped quarters
of the brig. And here the destination of the party was
changed.
The immigration agent at Quebec had advised strongly
against the site in Renfrew County, and while he may have
' The fare was £i a head, but three children under fifteen counted as one.