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rC39C5'^ :r(oO /?€sg(ve

RJULWAT NOTES IN THE NORTH-VEST;

OR,

THE DOMINION OF CANADA.

nsY

By the rev. harry JONES, M.A,,

rRBBBNDARV OF ST. PAUL'S

^^(J/T

>CCCLXXilIV f t y^

RAILWAY NOTES IN THE NORTH-WEST ;

OR,

THE DOMINION OF CANADA.

CARLYLE says that the eye sees what it brings
with it the power of seeing ; but this sentence
is not to be taken to mean that the man with
even the best sight scorns outside help and rests
upon unaided vision. Thus before visiting a new
place it is well for the intending traveller to realise
it to himself as far as possible.

The pictures of his anticipation may not turn
out to be true, but he should in some measure
know what to look for, and not carry a perfectly
blank sheet for the reception of such impressions
as may await him in the land whither he goes.
Thus before starting for Canada I read divers
books about it, and made it a frequent subject of
conversation. I was not surprised at my own
ignorance, for I cannot rightly understand a map
till I have visited the country which it displays,
but the general lack of inform.ation about ihe
matter was notable. True, we all knew some-
thing about the old provinces, but our knowledge
of the North-West was found to be very limited. I
took therefore a miscellaneous course of •* Mudie,"
and beg to place before my readers some fore-
casts or anticipations which I set down on

English paper before I set foot on board to cross
the Atlantic.

I venture to think that they encourage a belief
in seeking manifold rapid information about a
country from books. We are likely to read two or
three works concerning the place we propose to
visit, but a dozen are not too many. They need
not be "studied." Indeed they had mostly
better be skimmed. It is the repeated presenta-
tion of a place through a number of eyes and
minds which gives a fairly well proportioned
view of its appearance and condition. Of course
every traveller knows that there are aspects of
a land which no descriptions ever convey, and
which indeed can no more be described than a
perfume or a tint. Failing, however, necessarily
in conveying these, let me head my notes with a
forecast of Canada which I took some pains in
preparing, and which personal traversing of the
country enables me to perceive is just. It may
possibly serve to introduce such a small record of
the impressions as I have actually received.

The realisation of enormous fertile plains un-
encumbered by the forest is really a new thing to
former readers about Canada. In old days a
settler was often called (by us in England at
least) a '' backwoodsman," and his place was
spoken of as a •* clearing." He began his battle
with the axe. Now, the first tool used by the
farmer in the great North-West is the plough, but
the immense size of the area which may be thus
conquered is being realised only by degrees.
Our eyes, and those of many Canadians too, are
being gradually opened to its real use. I say
** real " use, for a notable feature in the whoie
estimate and outlook of Canadian resources is
the early apprehension of this area ; it has long

been appreciated and used, but for another pur-
pose than that to which it seoms presently in
great part about to be devoted. It was seen to
be 'fruitful, not in corn, but in fur. Wealthy
London companies, having obtained concessions
in the very early days of emigration, employed
the huge territories of the North-West simply
for the getting of skins. This use of them
began a little more than two hundred years ago
when King Charles ii granted corporate privileges
of which neither he nor the recipients perceived
the full value. But one result was the penetra-
tion of the huge region by enterprising trappers
or gatherers of skins. Myriads upon myriads of
square miles were studded with small and sparse
*• forts." Away up to the Northern Lakes, under
the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, along the
banks of the far-flowing Saskatchewan, here and
there, though it might be at intervals of some two
hundred miles, a rude shelter or "fort" was
built. These ** forts " dotted the whole region
controlled by the North-West Fur and Hudson's
Bay Companies — finally combined. Lonely little
garrisons, sometimes of only two or three Euro-
peans — often Scotsmen — dwelt in them, receiving,
and periodically sendin ; away the skins brought
in by the Indians. The forts, though very far
apart, were really numerous and connected.
Their connection was made, however, by the
thinnest thread, a mere trail, which sometimes
none but the Indian eye and foot could detect.
Still the solitary guard-houses were thus finely
linked, and at distant intervals, when travelling
by sledge was least diflicult, heard some late
echoes of the larger world of men. These came
in winter up the frozen rivers, which made great
flat white high roads, winding through the plains.

A single Redskin, with his dog-sledge, thus carried
letters to the lonely guards who watched over the
growing stores of fur which "brave" and "squaw"
bartered for axe, blankets, firewater, and beads.
There was a "Swampy" Indian named Adam,
who for more than twenty years yearly went a
postman's beat of 3,000 miles with his dog-train.
Five dark winter months annually passed away
before he had finished his solitary round and left
his last packet at the last weary and expectant
fort. This old Redskin " Adam " was, however,
but one in many generations who continuously
threaded the enormous North-West territories of
British America, searching for, gathering, and
dispatching " skins."

Speaking broadly, and yet with carefully ascer-
tained accuracy, this use of the great North-West
went on for about two hundred years — from the
times of Charles 11 to those of Napoleon iii. I
really do not exaggerate or overdraw the picture.
It was only the other day that we were reading of
the Red River Rebellion and the expedition of
Colonel, now Lord, Wolseley to suppress it.
This marked the close of the old order of things,
and arose in consequence of the transfer of its
authority by the Hudson's Bay Company to the
Dominion in 1869. An isolated colony, com-
posed of various nationalities, with many half-
breed French and Indians, resented this. Though
they uttered threats, which were supposed
capable of seriously disturbing the newly arranged
compact, or making possible settlement more
difficult to future inhabitants of the new-born
Dominion, they yielded the moment Colonel
Wolseley had finished his famous march and ap-
peared on the scene with his soldiers. I mention
this, however, not so much to revive memories of

a distinguished military feat as to remark that the
ultimate point of Colonel Wolsele/s aim was only
the front gate of the corn-bearing territories now
being opened to the settler. Till that time the
Hudson's Bay Company had reigned supreme
over the " Great Lone Land." Its southern part
is now traversed by trains equipped with sleeping-
cars ; but only the other day (in Butler's well-
known book) it appeared to be repulsively im-
practicable ; so at least most readers of popular
travel mUst have thought. Year after year, till
the years rose into centuries, the Indian moose,
marten, beaver, and buffalo had the whole region
to themselves. It belonged to the London Com-
pany, whose directors drank pailfuls of port wine
at City dinners while such men as the Redskin
Adam drove his hungry dog-train up its frozen
rivers, delivering the latest London letters and
papers some eight months after date. All this
while England, represented by the powerful fur
companies, owned the huge land which is already
being reckoned as the main wheat-growing sec-
tion of North America. It has been noted that
this continent may be roughly divided into three
zones, producing respectively cotton, maize, and
wheat. Explorers and experts are now saying
that the last will be found to lie chiefly in British
territory. The deep-soiled plains north of the*
Saskatchewan, in Athabasca, as well as the fertile
belt of Manitoba, are believed to be best fitted
for this precious produce. No doubt there are
agreeable and productive regions in the older
parts of the Dominion, such as New Brunswick,
which are sometimes carelessly passed by in the
eagerness of the settler to push on towards the
great North-West. Many men would take far
more kindly to the older parts of the Dominion

(since they already possess the features of esta-
blished civilisation) and yet at the same time
make new and successful ventures in life as " set-
tlers." But there has been a sort of charm about
the discovery, as it might be called, of the huge
region from the Red River to the Rocky Moun-
tains. All at once it was seen to be poten-
tially productive of abundant human food.
But for two hundred years no one seriously
thought of this. King Charles gaily made
his concessions. As I have already said, small,
long-enduring, lonesome parties were dropped
and fenced in little forts here and there through-
out the royally conceded regions. Shrewd
London merchants sent out beads and knives
for the skins which they gathered from the simple
Indians. The Indians adorned themselves; and
died of rum and small-pox. But few thought of
their land, snow-buried in winter and sun-heated
through the long summer days, as a future granary
of Europe, till about the time of the battle of
Sedan. Now an eager crowd, bearing ploughs
and reaping machines, is pouring into it out of
Europe and the old provinces of Canada.

In writing thus, I do not forget the first settle-
ment of Scots in Manitoba, when Lord Selkirl:,
some sixty years ago, carried out a band of High-
landers and set them down to farm south of Lake
Winnipeg. But this acted prophecy was a long
time in approaching fulfilment. It may be
reckoned along with the one traditional swallow
which does not make a summer. True, the late
immigrants into Manitoba have been surprised at
finding the now old nest of this early bird, but
virtually he rush into the Ncrth-West did not
begin till after 1 869, at which date the Hudson's
Bay Company ceded its sovereign rights to the

Dominion, and the Dominion began to realise the
true use of its bargain. Soon it saw that wheat
was better than fur, and that rivers which would
bear steamboats were worth being navigated by
something better than birch canoes. The poor
Indians, at first much reduced in numbers by
drink and disease, the fruits of civilisation, have
been and are being swept up into " reserves " and
taught the catechism. According to trustworthy
accounts they are submissive enough. They re-
ceive meat and flour from Government, at the
rate of a pound of each per head daily. They
are also paid ** treaty money " once a year, and
are encouraged in industry which they dislike.
It is said that their numbers rather increase now,
as, in most cases, they are kept from alcohol.
Though in some respects treated like a child,
your " brave " hardly ever condescends to walk if
he can muster a horse ; and his toy is a repeating
rifle. As owner and master of the land in which
his descendant is penned and survives, the day of
the Indian has gone. Towns are growing around
the little old weather-worn forts, and railways are
following the faint trapper's trails. Trains now
scream and rattle where the sledge slipped along
in silence, and newspapers are published in places
— I would instance Calgary at the foot of the
Rocky Mountains — which were laboriously
reached once in the winter by the Redskin post-
man with his little dog-drawn box of letters.
And yet it was only the other day, since the French
and German War, that Butler, in his " Great Lone
Land," speaking, not of the more distant parts
of the North-West, but of Lake Winnipeg (from
which the electric-lit, tram-traversed, degree-con-
ferring " metropolis " of Manitoba takes its name),
exclaims, " It may be that with these eyes of

mine I shall never see thee again, for thou liest
far out of the track of life, and man mars not thy
beauty with ways of civilised travel." The advance
since this was written is prodigious. The out-
break of progress, which has marked this long
known but despised land changes the whole
character and prospect of Canada and Canadian
emigration. The deed almost exceeds the thought.
It is more than the unexpected opening of a door
revealing new rooms in an old house, for the
regions revealed are not only enormous, but in-
calculably pregnant with richness in the shape
of malleable mineral, as well as corn-producing
soil.

The two volumes of Butler, however, on the
"Great Lone Land" and the "Wild North
Land," though in some respects they bring the
late past and present of Canada into striking con-
trast, do not perhaps set forth the position of the
country so strikingly as another popular book,
"Milton and Cheadle's North-West Passage."
These adventurers travelled before any railroad at
all had been made between the Atlantic and
Pacific. Thus they help us better to realise the
old state of intercommunication, and they also
record the impressions produced by the Hudson's
Bay Company's almost absolute rule, some of the
last years, of which they saw. It had come to an
end before Butler wrote on the Great Lone Land
in iHyo. But it was in strong force when Lord
Milton and Dr. Cheadle toiled across the great
North-West regions to the Pacific.

Here is what they say of the first part of the
new region, Manitoba, which was entered in 1812
by Highland settlers, under Lord Selkirk, but
which stood still till the transfer of rule from the
company to that of the Dominion : —

1 1

til^

" The soil is so fertile that wheat is raised year after year
on the same land, and yields fifty or sixty bushels to the
acre without any manure being recruited. The pasturage is
of the finest quality and unlimited m extent. . . . But
shut out in this distant corner of the earth from any com-
munication with the rest of the world, except an uncertain
one with the young State of Minnesota I^ steamer during
the summer, and with England by the company's ship which
brings stores to York Factory, in Hudson's Bay, ome a year
(the italics are mine), the farmers find no market for their
produce."

This was written less than twenty years ago.
The writer has a prophetic eye, and pleads for the
ultimate threading of the desolate North-West by
a railroad which shall string together the Atlantic
and Pacific Oceans through British territory.
Like Butler and other later travellers, he is
astounded at the superb neglect of the un-
broken plains of soil which he crosses in crawling
across the continent towards the Rocky Moun-
tains and the Pacific. He says : —

*' It is the interest and policy of the company to discourage
emigration, and keep the country as one vasv preserve for
fur-bearing animals. . . . It is also their interest to
prevent any trading except through themselves. . . .
But the day of monopolies has gone by. . . . It is
time the anomaly should cease, and a proper Colonial
Government be established, whose efforts woula be directed
to the opening out of a country so admirably adapted for
settlement. From the Red River — i.e.., the Winnipeg
region — to the Rocky Mountains, along the banks of the
Assiniboine and the fertile belt of the Saskatchewan, at least
sixty millions of acres of the richest soil lie ready for the
farmer when he shall be allowed to enter in and possess it.
This glorious country, capable of sustaining an enormous
population, lies utterly useless, except for the support of a
few Indians, and the enrichment of the shareholders of the
last Great Monopoly." *

* It wu this very region that I traversed in the same sleeping-car-
riage with Dr. Cheadle hinuelf, in three days and nights, this last
September.— H. j.

It might be difficult to learn and record in
detail how they were enriched in former days,
and by what cheap exchange they sometimes got
store of costly marten fur (/>., sable) and other
precious skins : but a few hints dropped by the
writer of the ** North-West Passage " may indicate
the nature of some traffic between the original
dwellers in the land and the old devouring com-
pany. Lord Milton and Dr. Cheadle "in a
weak moment" promised to make one ** Kekek-
Ooarsis," or " The Child of the Hawk," an old
Indian, " a present of a small quantity of riim."
•' Thereupon," the writer continues, "the old
gentleman became all excitement," and asked for
the "fire-water" at once. This name is given by
Indians to alcoholic drink by reason of their rude
analysis of that which is offered to them. The
writer of the " North-West Passage " says : —

"It must be strong enough to be inflammable, for en
Indian always tests it by pouring a few drops into the iire.
If it possesses the one property from which he has given it
the name of fire-water, he is satisfied, whatever its flavour
or other qualities may be."

The result was that more Indians soon came
into Lord Milton's and Dr. Cheadle's camp : —

" They produce^ a number of marten and other skins, and
all our explanations failed to make them understand that we
had not come as traders. ... To end the matter we
sent them off with what remained in the little keg. . . .
In about two hours all returned more or less intoxicated.
. . . First one fellow thrust a marten skin into our hands,
another two or three fish, while a third, attempting to strip
off his shirt for sale, fell senseless into the arms of his
squaw."

Boys, breathless, with news of the fire-water, had
been sent off by the Indians in all directions, that

»3

the poor possessors of the costly furs might come
in to trade. That was their view of the position,
and one does not want much power of imagina-
tion to picture the emptying of many a native
store of skins over a large area by means of a few
casks of mm. The impregnation of this ancient
race with Christianity must indeed be hard, since
the grace of the Gospel is often accompanied by
the vice of the greedy trader. Indians are at
the same time proud and impulsive, naturally
taciturn, and yet incapable of touching civilisa-
tion without immediate and shameless clamour
for the open indulgence of its worst vices. Mis-
sionaries, mostly, it would seem, French Roman
Catholic priests, have long laboured among them,
and they pass into moods of religious acquies-
cence, but self-command or self-sacrifice, which
is the essence of practical Christianity, is far from
them when they can smell rum. A whole tribe,
chiefs, braves, and squaws alike, then seem to be
moved by a common yearning, not for festivity,
but for sheer drunkenness. They would seem to
be wonderfully dignified and immovable under
some conditions, but the chance of intoxication
charms them. I say intoxication, for your Redskin
does not drink for good company, nor because
the liquor is toothsome, but simply to get drunk.
Lord Milton's experience shows how the hope
of this must have helped to store the forts in the
great North-West with fur. But these days of such
questionable trade are numbered or past. The
present directors of the Hudson's Bay Company
are another generation of men. They are moved
with a better spirit, appreciating the produce of
something beside skins in the region which they
long controlled, but are now associated with on
other commercial conditions.

The toil and tribulation of Lord Milton and
Dr. Cheadle in crossing the North American con-
tinent through British territory were almost in-
conceivable. A few years ago (it was in the
time of the American war) they spent twelve
months in labour and hunger, cold and heat,
while creeping across a continent, one route
through which the members of the British Asso-
ciation can see from the plate-glass windows of
their sleeping-cars as they run rapidly in some
ten days from Winnipeg to the Rocky Mountains
and back, with opportunities by the way of stop-
ping at specially interesting places and making
an excursion into British Columbia. We may
sometimes sentimentally complain or suspect that'
the stomach of Englishmen for travel has abated
since the days of the old explorers, but up to the
very verge of luxurious locomotion men like Mil-
ton, Cheadle, and. Butler have seemed to enjoy
the most slow and miserable movement it is pos-'
sible for man to survive. They did good scien-
tific work ; and when . at last the two former
arrived lean and empty within reach of food they,
must be praised for honesty in admitting that they •
cared less for the civilised news of a year than for-
chops and potatoes. I turn over the printed '
instructions to the members of the British Asso-
ciation who visit Canada this autumn and see that
provision is made for regular meals at so much a
head right away to the Rocky Mountains. There
will probably be a restaurant in the train. Fire
and Water are a fine couple, but their child Steam
subdues the world after, a fashion which even yet
we can hardly measure. The threading of British
North Ami^rica is one of its most notable feats,
inasn)uch as it. reveals the sudden opening of a
people's eyes to the use of an enormous region •

long left in the hands of a company which cared
more for keeping up a population of wild beasts
than of men.

The visit to Canada of which these letters
are a little record was made in the company of
the British Association for the Advancement of
Science. The occasion was unique, as its annual
meeting had never been held beyond the British
Isles. Several friends said to me, ** Surely you
will get no true notions of the place if you travel
in a crowd of English I " The impressions re-
ceived, however, depend upon the crowd.

Here we had no tame flock of tourists bleating
at the heels of a ** personal conductor," but a
set of fellow-travellers who had intelligent eyes
in their heads and knew what to look for. Of
course it is possible to find innocence and an ex-
aggerated readiness to accept fresh impressions
even among scientific men*. For instance, 1 heard
of two philosophers who needed a vehicle one wet
and chilly night, and on being asked whether they
would not have a couple of buffaloes (the kind
inquirer meant rugs), replied, quite Jmply, that
they would prefer horses.

Such charming receptivity, however, was rare."
Several, e.g.^ of the final party with which I visited
the Rocky Mountains were veterans in experi-
ence of the roughest travel. They had been
starved, frostbitten, or withered to their back-
bones by Arctic winter winds; they had been
upset in canoes and deserted by faithful Indians;
they had eaten their leggings and tried to melt
snow for tea ; they had wearily worked theli way,
month after month, across the plains and through
the forests which we traversed with a rush in rail-
way sleeping-cars. They knew all about the

grasses on the surface of the plains, and the
stores of coal which lay beneath them. They
were learned in butterflies and grasshoppers, or,
belonging to the *' Social Science section," were
ready to tackle the most peremptory colonial on
the burning questions of protection and free
trade. They had analysed the soils up to the
North Pole, and kne : all about the conditions
necessar}' for the growth of corn. And with all
this, and a great deal more, they were full of
humour, kindliness, and bright conversation.

Thus I was well advised bv the best influences
to travel with selected bodies of the British
Association, and my readers must not be sur-
prised at frequent reference to my social and
scientific surroundings.

Montreal^ August ibth^ 1884.

The Allan steamship Parisian — by which I have .
sailed from Liverpool— ^is four hundred and fifty
feet long and something under six thousand tons
burden, and yet, though I am sitting at a window
at Montreal looking over wooded hills, a thousand
miles from the Straits of Belleisle, where we left
the ocean, she is lying alongside the quay close
by. The waterway by the River St. Lawrence into
the heart of British North America is so wonderful^
that it is taken for granted. But the appearance
of this huge steamer among the cornfields of an
inland region is not so strange as that of the siir-^
roundings will be when I go farther westward
into the very centre of the American continent.
I shall then long lose sight of land and feel as
though ocean-tossed, though it will be only by
the waves of fresh-water lakes. Their presence
in the middle of this great country, too, is not
merely remarkable in itself. It also indicates

endless and manifold channels which supply them,
or which they use in dispatching their surplus
water to the great salt sea.

We have had an unusually rough passage from
Liverpool, since we dropped into a "depression"
as it was "crossing the Atlantic" on its way to
** develop energy on the coasts of Great Britain
and Norway." It is very interesting to note
how the barometer dips down while a ship
crosses a cyclone. It is well named a " depres-
sion." Our captain said that ours was the rough-
est voyage he had had this season. But we
carried the President of the British Association
for the Advancement of Science and many of its
members, and so sailed with a reserve of human
energy which wholly rose above that of the ocean.,
The " mechanical section " should have taken a
few barrels of oil wherewith to lay the waves. How-
ever, as it was, I never saw such a parcel of boys in
my life. We had "tugs of war" — made possible by
ropes which grinning sailors brought — between
" Chemistry and Geology" and other •* sections,"
between married and unmarried, between smokers
and non-smokers (in which the latter and the bache-
lors were heavily beaten), and many other portions
of our company. Besides these were hopping
matches, races, auctions, mock lectures, concerts,
to say nothing of incessant shovel-board and sea-
quoits. There were, however, graver phases of
life to be found among us. We had services on
the two Sundays which we spent at sea ; and our
philosophers, in company with a number of steer-
age emigrants, sang away like a Sunday school.
It was a jubilant voyage. I never saw so large a
proportion of passengers present themselves
(though sometimes with much exercise of moral
courage) at every meal, however much the ship

might roll and pitch. And she did pitch. Heavy
masses (not sprinklings or splashes) of spray
flew over her funnels, which were some hundred
yards distant from the bows ; and when we tried
to photograph waves three of us had to hold the
legs of the camera-stand while others steadied
those of the artist. Then too we found our-
selves for a while in the region of ice. The ther-
mometer went down to 42°, from the 93" in the
shade which it had just reached at Greenwich, and
we saw " bergs." They were the first I had ever seen.
One tall white jagged island, steady as an inland
rock, w'lich we passed close by, was bombarded by
our p' jtographers as long as it remained within
range. We had, moreover, an experience of fog
mach about the same time, and as we were going
fast enough to smash the Parisian up if we had
run into heavy ice, we were not sorry when the
screams of the fog-horn ceased and we slipped
out once more into a clear sea. Altogether we
had a unique voyage, and the way in which mind
triumphed over matter speaks well for British
science.

The run up the St. Lawrence is very striking.
Hills with marked outline, and mostly wooded,
are fringed at the water's edge by a succession of
white and red villages. Churches and light-
houses (which might be convertible terms) occur
frequently, the former at every seven miles. The
hill of Quebec struck me as less than I expected.
I will not dwell on the antique quaintness of the
town and its population. It is curious to be met
by the British flag and the French tongue on
landing from a voyage across the Atlantic, and
to have the first impressions of America, which
some associate too exclusively with the last sup-
posed products of religious freedom, traversed by

^e on

, and

ivhich

nuns and priests, acutely suggestive of mediae-
val ism.

We came here, to Montreal, by a slow express,
burning the most bituminous coal that ever was
dug up. The region we traversed expresses the
condition of Quebec. A very large portion of
the country is still primeval forest. Some of this
bordered the Grand Trunk Railway by which v/e
travelled, while other parts were thickly studded
with the stumps of trees about three feet hio^h,
and a little larger than telegraph posts. But
there are many thousand homesteads scattered
over the land, and marked by rectangular white
wooden houses and barns. We passed occasional
villages made up by a loose congregation of the
same unpicturesque buildings, and each clustered
around its church, carrying a bri-jht tin spire.
The farming is very rough, and the crops look
thin. I saw few sheep or pigs, and no roots
whatever. There was a good number of short-
horn cattle. I was surprised at not being able
to perceive more barn-door fowls about many
of the small farms which we passed, especially
as there were many small patches of buckwheat
and maize, which are their approved food. I
was assured, however, that poultry are reared in
large quantities in the provinces of Quebec and
Ontario. The reaping-machine was busy in the
fields, and the whole view suggested local suffi-
ciency and ugly comfort more than any command
of distant markets or large apprehension of agri-
cultural influence. But in fact this last impres-
sion would be deceptive, since there are many
buyers of small quantities of corn to be found
scattered over Canada as well as over England^
and it is the confluence of the product of the small
holdings which flows into Europe more than any

one originally big stream of wheat which comes,
like the water of the Nile, from great central
reservoirs. The American farmer has mostly no
market proper, but is often met by the buyer, at
the station or on the road, who asks how much
he wants for his load of corn. This suits those,
and they are many, who do not grow corn on a
large scale. Indeed, the smallness of the holding
marks very much of the common American agri-
cultural position. Some take up land in " sec-
tions," t.e.y farms of 640 acres, but more content
themselves with less than the half or quarter of this
amount. The average size of Canadian holdings
is stated by Professor Brown, of the Guelph
Agricultural College, to be about 150 acres. It
is this which makes many parts (of the United
States especially) to appear more thickly or at
least more generally inhabited than portions of
the '* old country," where the tillers of the soil
are gathered (often far too closely) in villages.
On the American continent there is little dis-
tinction between the occupier and real worker
of the soil. The " farmer " there is the man
who works with his own hands ; and though he
may hire helpers, the "labourer," representing
such a class as the English " peasant," who toils
continuously on the farm, and sometimes on the
same farm for years, or for a life, can hardly be
said to exist. The rural population thus in
Canada and the United States is as a rule
sprinkled evenly over the face of the land. Each
owner of a half or quarter section, or less, lives
on his own plot, and, with his homestead, includ-
ing several buildings, spots the view with frequent
roofs. These are the more numerous, as in many
instances the produce of the land is not stacked,
but stored in barns which, being white and of

lany
:ked,
kd of

wood, might easily be taken fon dwelling-houses
at a little distance.

To return to Montreal, whence I write. It is
finely placed, though somewhat more smoky than
I expected, and with provokingly bare and weedy
plots among the houses towards the outskirts
of the town. Its population is not so Frenchas
that of Quebec, but the old Gallic ownership has
left stubborn marks. For instance, when I went
for a walk over the Royal Mount which gives
its name to the place, and shows the city, river,
and plains in one grand view, I asked my way
thrice. Each time my question was rejected with
a shnig, and I had to put it in French before
receiving an answer. This indicates not only a
very conservative adherence to national traditions,
but a considerable amount of what I might call
obstinate isolation. These people, anyhow, had
either found enough of their own race and tongue
to be independent of English society, or had
affected not to understand me. I feel persuaded,
however, that their failure to reply arose from . "^
sheer ignorance. The shrugs were genuine. They
did not know enough English either to apprehend
what I said, answer my question, or state their
inability to do so. They only shrugged their
shoulders at me as if I had been a Chinaman.
This severance (although they are loyal citizens)
is naturally much deprecated by the present
masters of the country. I happened to fall
into conversation with a gentleman from Toronto,
and when he praised his own city remarked, " It
is a pity that you have no Royal Mount there
from which to look down on it." "Ay," he
replied, " but we have no trench."

Many of these live in the poorest parts of Mon-
treal, and, with some Irish, form that stratum in

the community which is the object of much un-
questioning and too often disappointing liberality.
Most of the charitable institutions here are natu-
rally Roman Catholic, but I especially noticed
one which announced on its outside that it was
devoted to the care of " Protestant Infants." Poor
little ticketed things ! There were two or three
crowing at an open window close by on the ground
floor, and if I had been the Pope himself they
would have accepted my stick of barley-sugar
with unhesitating acclamation.

Since I am visiting Montreal as a member of
the British Association, which is most generously
welcomed, I share the hospitality which they
receive, being most agreeably lodged in the hos-
pitable house of the Hon. Donald A. Smith, who,
as last chairman of the former Hudson's Bay
Company, was a chief instrument in the transfer
of its authority to the Dominion, and was subse-
quently with Colonel Wolseley in the business of
the Red River Rebellion. Thus I hear much at
first hand of the most weighty changes in Canada,
and am, as it were, resting in the cradle of its
newborn history.

I have, though, naturally been anxious during
some pause in this gay time of science and luxury
to see the poorer parts of the town. That there
are such appears from, say, the dirty beggar-
woman, with her wan-faced advertisement of a
child sitting on the low wall in N6tre Dame
Place. I have had talks with experienced and
intelligent men who have much to do with the
poor. There is distinctly much less drunkenness in
Montreal than in London, though a few dock
labourers may drink more here than they do there,
simply because they earn more. Directly the
winter stops their dock work, though they might

lame
and
the

kssin

iock

lere,

the

light

easily find other employment some way out of
town, some beg, and are provided with food and
warmed rooms. Otherwise they would be frozen
as hard as boards, and the good people of Mon-
treal would not like this. I'hey do not wish to be
the last direct agents in thus applying the sen-
tence, " If any man will not work, neither shall
he eat." So they feed these lazy drunkards. I
find, on repeated inquiry, that if a dock labourer
can handle an axe he may in the winter earn
twenty dollars a month, with board and lodging,
at "lumbering," i>., chiefly cutting trees down
in the forests ready for the spring freshets to
float down to the saw-mills. If he is not expert
enough at this, he can get employment in
tending cattle, under shelter, for farmers, within
accessible distance, at ten dollars a month, in
addition to board and lodging. But he sometimes
prefers the charity of Montreal. I have not, how-
ever, confined my inquiries to those who know
about the poorest class, but give the result of an
expedition of several hours which I have made,
under the kind 'guidance of Canon Ellegood, to
some of the meanest places in Montreal. He has
been more than thirty years in this city, and
knows its pastoral and sanitary ins and outs as
well as or better than most. He took great
interest in my inquiries which I made pencil in
hand. Genuine slums are found here, but they
are not nearly so thick as in some parts of
London. We paid a good many visits, though
I do not record them all. Our first was to
Mrs. S , in a back yard. Husband works

for the "corporation" — 1>., what we should
call " parish." Earns, when in work, equivalent
to 2^. a week. Rent a little over 4^. a week.
Seven children. Three small rooms. Mr. M ,

5J. a week, much the same story. Mr. D ,

uncertain occupation ; crippled. Wife does
charing. Several children. Four rooms. Stag-
nant water under floor. Been to the health
officer. He came three weeks ago ; not been
since. Nothing done. Pays 7^. a week rent, and
...nail water rate. Had to do a lot of his own
papering and plastering to make the rooms decent.
Has hired his tooms by the year. Pays lod. for a
4 lb. loaf. (We tested this by going into the shop
round the corner, asking the price, and having
the loaf weighed. I found that he bought the
best bread. The cost of seconds in relation to
the first was as three to four.) Vegetables — now
what did he pay for vegetables ? ** Bring what
you have just bought," cried he to his wife. She
produced four moderately sized Swedish and two
small white turnips. *' We got these," said she,
"from a countryman in the street, for seven
cents" — t.e., $^d, "Would have had to pay
twice as much at a store" — 1>., shop. "Fish
now ? " " Oh, missus, bring those haddocks. We
paid thirty-five cents — i.e., is. s^d. — for them this
morning." They were two small fish. "What
do you pay for meat ? " " Well, the best is fifteen
cents — t.e., 'j^d. a pound ; coarser, not more than
6</." Potatoes, is. a bushel. Paraffin, for lamp,
IS. a gallon. Coals, what were they ? About half-
a-crown a hundredweight now — in summer ; bitu-
minous a little dearer than anthracite. This is a
very heavy price. Butter ? Twenty-five cents —
I.e., IS. per pound. The Canon, who was watch-
ing and checking all these answers, said he paid
twenty-two cents for the best. Bacon, sd. to bd..
a pound. Suit of working clothes about ten dol-
lars — I.e., fi. The dustbin is generally emptied
in uie , -

twice

week. The drains were bad, and

"got into his brain." Lodgers? Didn't have
any, but might have as many as he pleased, pro-
vided they were "reputable." What were the
rents of the tenements above his ? " Well, the
lady in the next floor paid six dollars a month "
— !>., about 6s. a week, and a small water rate. I
think she had three small rooms. " But," said he,
•* rents have risen." danon Ellegood confirmed
this, and said we had seen and interviewed repre-
sentatives of the poorest classes, but that skilled
artisans got from two to three dollars a day. The
children (who are now at the tail of their holi-
days, which last two months) were often dirt ,
but less so than those of a similar class in Eng* n
towns. I saw no genuine specimen of the irre-
pressible street boy. The Montreal urchin is
quieter than his London cousin. Of course, he
has some disputes over dirt-pies, and paddles in
unclean puddles. But as far as I can see, he plays
at neither marbles, top, cat, nor chuck-farthing ;
though some toss balls aimlessly and feebly. I
noticed that the first woman we called on had no

shoes or stockings. No more had Mr. D ;

but then he had no feet. They had been frost-
bitten, and cut off. I need not give the result of
several more visits ; they produced about the
same tale. The first impression produced in
several places on Mr. Brooke Lambert, the Vicar
of Greenwich, and a keen social inquirer (who
accompanied roe), and myself was that they were
as bad as some we were familiar with in London.
But the interiors were decidedly cleaner in most
instances. After a long bout of visitation, we had
each some milk in a small shop. For this we
paid five cents —i.e., i\d. \tex glass. But the glass
was rather larger than those used for the purpose
in London. The milk had been skimmed, though.

ili

. After our round we went to "The Montreal
Protestant House of Industry and Refuge." Here
one hundred and fifty men and women were
found, mostly old and permanent inmates. But
any man applying for a meal was supplied with
one, and in winter there would be three hundred
sleeping on the premises. We spoke to several
from Bristol, Manchester, and elsewhere, who
were still quite at sea. They were helpless sort
of fellows, and the bright matron who went round
with us and talked very audibly and freely about
the inmates before their faces complained of such
immigrants. She gave them, in one sense indirectly,
for she did not address them, but ourselves, a " bit
of her mind." And it was a very sensible kindly
mind too. Some in the house were obviously
of weak intellect, but several were most unmis-
takable "cadgers.'* I have not been chairman of
a large East London Charity Organisation com-
mittee for ten years without being able to spot
these gentlemen. This institution is the only
Protestant one in Montreal which relieves men.
Some others help women and children. All are
supported by voluntary contributions or managed
by volunteers, there being no poor-law here. I
have already noticed that the Roman Catholics
have their own philanthropical machinery, which
is extensive, and, like other good work of
the same sort, helps to breed pauperism.
The internal condition of the Canadian towns
docs not, however, measure the produce and pos-
sibilities of the Dominion. Its energy is not
focussed in cities, but is mostly operative in the
field, plain, and forest.

I ought, though, in referring to Canadian
energy, to note one special phase of it, and must
mention the spirited conduct of the Montreal

newspapers. They give the proceedings of the
Association at great length, along with news and
comments of local, colonial, and European interest.
Many parties are being given in the afternoons and
evenings. The Governor-General held a recep-
tion the other night at the M'Gill College, and
smilingly shook hands about a thousand times.

Though a detailed account of our doings is
suited only to current scientific journals, or ela-
borate final ** reports," I cannot refrain from
noticing a 'few phases in the procedure of the
Association which have a wider and more popular
interest than the *' papers" which were read. The
municipal authorities welcomed their English
kinsmen in the Queen's Hall, which holds about
1,200 people, and was well filled. The mayor
(a short and smiling Frenchman in spectacles,
heavily chained) read a well-written English ad-
dress with laudable conscientiousness and very
successful leaps over some ugly-looking verbal
fences. Then, after a reply by Sir William
Thompson, who represented the retiring presi-
dent, Mr. Mayor, with a strong foreign accent
and terse cordiality, called on the great assem-
blage for " God Save the Queen." It was sung
with a universal heartiness which instantly
set upon the mind a deep impression of Canadian
loyalty. This was, if possible, deepened in the
evening, when the hall was again packed tight
with a panting and patient crowd which watched
for the faintest references to the radical relation-
ship between Canada and England, and applauded
them rapturously. The President, for lack of
time, was unable to read the whole of his paper.
His address was well received, and a short con-
cluding reference he made to the inevitable difii-
culty which a purely scientific worker feels when

he attempts to break into the higher mysteries of
being with the tools of calculation and experi-
ment was warmly appreciated. Lord Lansdowne
made an excellent speech. It not merely touched
the leading thoughts of those present with neat-
ness, but was marked throughout by a generous,
statesmanlike, and thoughtful cordiality. A
French gentleman (I call him French, though he
was a British citizen) delivered himself at great
length, being unwisely cheered when he showed
signs of pulling up. The audience were deter-
mined to have it supposed that he was perfectly
understood by all. So he was by many natives,
Montreal being half French ; but I question if the
crowd of "scientists" who clapped till their palms
tingled were quite so clear in their minds abou.
the details of his utterance.

Montreal is a place of about 180,000 peoplet
Its streets are spacious and furnished with good
shops, nearly all of which have their signs or
names sticking out. The cabs are made to open
if necessary, and are well served. The hoardings
invite the passer-by to purchase " Reckitt's Blue,"
** Stephens' inks for hot weather," and ** Nestle's
infant food." Carts go round and drop blocks of
ice at every door. The French language sounds
in the air and shows itself over shops. Spires
and towers are numerous. I believe that this is
called the " City of Churches." Swarthy Roman
priests in spectacles, tall hats, and cassocks walk
about the streets. Anglican parsons, in very cor-
rect clerical suits, wear mostly black wideawakes.
Many elegantly dressed ladies drive about and
illustrate the latest advance in the science of
fashionable adornment. The principal public
edifices are as big and solid as the Mansion
House. Policemen are equipped with flat caps

and blue serge sacks. They carry their hdtom in
their hands, at the risk of lowering the influence
of their moral force

Ottawa^ August 30, 1884.

This is a city of palaces and timber-yards.
The Houses of Parliament are apparently big
enough for the " Dominion ** over the earth.
They are equipped with an excellent library of
110,000 volumes, and being set upon a hill are
seen from afar. I noticed that there were no
** cross benches," and on asking whether any
members of the Dominion Parliament had inde-
pendent views, was answered in the negative.
Anyhow, their places of deliberation, furnished
with large galleries, wherefrom public opinion
may be immediately gathered, are importunately
big. But, in their way, the sawmills are bigger.
Huge trunks of trees come floating lazily down
the Ottawa and its aflluents for hundreds of miles
till they reach a row of monsters, full of greedy
teeth within, which straddle over the current.
Here the trunks, all slippery and dripping, are
caught up at one end of a shed and issue from
the other, literally within a few minutes, in such
finished planks as you might buy from a carpenter
at Notting Hill. The way in which a great log,
ten feet or twelve feet round, is hoisted fresh
from the water, laid upon a truck, pinned rigidly
down in an instant, and then, suddenly, by means
of a great whirling saw, finds one side of himself
as flat as a wall, is almost truculent. You expect
him to cry out. But he is sliced up before he has
time to think. I saw one of the smaller trunks
cut into eight three-inch twenty-one-feet planks
in seven seconds. In a very few minutes more
these were trimmed and thrust out into the build-

ing world ; so far ready for use. Large and small
trees are disposed of at an equal rate. Some
half-dozen mouths iw a row, within one shed,
keep gobbling them up at the same time and
sending them out in clean deal boards without
any appearance of chips, sawdust, or rounded
outside slabs. These all disappear rapidly
through holes in the floor, and no litter accom-
panies the neat procession of planks which make
their appearance at the land end of the shed, and
are rapidly carried off in trucks.

The accumulation of "deals" at Ottawa is of
course enormous. When you look down from
the terrace behind the Houses of Parliament the
river banks far inland are seen to be brown with
square stacks of prepared timber awaiting export.
And much of the water is like Alderney cream.
That is from the sawdust which is whirled down
into the river from the mills. When a steamer
traverses these yellow plains their more appro-
priate resemblance to wood recurs, for the sheets
of spray spring from her bows like coils of
shavings from a plane.

I do not offer any description of the city, nor
dwell upon the influences which caused it to be
chosen as the capital ; nor do I venture to defi.ie
the political constitution of the Dominion. Are
not these things written in books of reference ?
Of course Montreal, Quebec, and Toronto each
wished the seat of Government to be placed
within itself. Thus the Home authorities took a
pair of compasses, and finding roughly the centre
of that which had been reckoned as Canada,
built the houses of the Legislature at this hitherto
almost obscure place. When the newly-opened
North-West territories are as fully peopled as the
old provinces the present arrangement will be

3»

obviously lopsided. Measurement would then
point to Winnipeg as the middle city.

I date from Ottawa, as the Association is having
a Saturday holiday, and a number of us have been
most hospitably entertained here. First we had
an address, written by the Bishop of Ontario,
whom I shortly conversed with afterwards, and
who was legitimately enjoying the consciousness
of having taken a prominent part in the invitation
of the British visitors to the metropolis of the
Dominion. We have a special train in attend-
ance, carriages to drive about in while here, and
have been feasted at a grand spread, with a gilt
menUf at the " Russell." A crowd waits at the
station to see us off. The sky flutters with a
forest of British flags, and the band is putting ,
trumpet to mouth that we may hear " God save
the Queen " as we steam slowly away in a tumult
of cheers.

September ^rd. — I have been favoured with stn
invitation to join the select party of the British
Association which starts for the summit of thie
Rocky Mountains to-morrow. This sets one
smartly to work to gather up loose ends and
realise that the rush of scientific and sumptuary
provision is coming to a sudden end. But we
have two or three more gatherings, and an army
of importunate carpenters have been summoned
by onr too hospitable host to *' rush up " (that, I
believe, is the correct Canadian term) a spacious
addition to his already roomy house in order to
entertain some hundred and fifty extra guests to-
night. The party going to the " Rockies '* will
have a special train, be well cared for, and find
facilities for visiting those spots in the prairie
which will enable us best to form an opinion about
the condition and prospects of settlers in the

I i

North-West. Meanwhile the work of the Asso-
ciation draws to an end. It has been in one sense
very successful, but the social side of it would
seem to be as attractive as the " spectrum analy-
sis." In fact, the making of the Atlantic as
nothing, the extension of Albemarle Street to the
Pacific Ocean, and the very short time in which it
is now possible so to extend it, marks an " advance
of science" which, when realised, swallows up
smaller performances, strides over shorter steps,
and leaves an impression on thousands beyond
the circle in which the British Association is
mostly honoured. Such a gathering, moreover,
as we have had at Montreal emphasises the pro-
gress which is being made in the realisation of
Greater Britain. The better knowledge of one
another by Englishmen beyond the seas and at
home is no unfit phase of " science." This meet-
ing helps to show that social as well as scientific
sympathy, when appealed to on a large scale, over
huge areas, is easier than many think. Thr.c which
some held to be impossible in respect to the
gathering here is now so far a th'w^ of the past as
to have been done ; but I shall be greatly sur-
prised if it does not set up a fresh action of
fellowship with colonies of Englishmen, and
become the mother of manifold meetings between
such bodies as were supposed to have become in-
evitably separated, however strong old ties may
have been. Indeed, the project of holding a
gathering at Melbourne is already being un-
officially discussed. One of our moving spirits
(or bodies) has asked me if I would, all well, be
willing to attend a meeting in Australia.

At the final assemblage in the Queen's Hall,
when several honorary degrees were conferred on
vice-presidents and distinguished visitors, the

ill

steam of loyalty was not seen to have been eva-
porated in the least, and their sense of union was,
perhaps, even more distinctly realised in the part-
ing words of the speakers. There was a great
interchange of kindly farewells. Then bags and
boxes were soon seen to be crowding the fragile-
looking Montreal cabs, and the trains began taking
visitors off towards the uttermost parts of the
earth, including eventually Australia. They will be
sealed with some more American impressions
before they reach home, but the " breaking-up '■
has come, and the college servants will soon
wash off the staring paper notices which the bill-
stickers have put up to guide us from section to
section.

I am not yet in a position to know what pecu-
liarly new light has been shed upon science during
the meeting. Indeed, it may be doubted in these
days (when a fresh discovery, a new view of an old
one, or a reasonable conclusion that has been
reached, is immediately published) whether any
wholly original or unexpected revelation can be
made at these meetings. A man may possibly
bottle his notions up and keep them dark till they
can be uncorked in a " section " of the British
Association. This, however, is, it seems, not
usual, nor easy, but I am told that a curiously sug-
gestive inner door has been indicated or opened
into the past by an American, Mr. Gushing, whose
name may be known to some of my readers as
the contributor of some interesting articles to
" Harper's Magazine." He is a singular-looking
man, slight, youngish, with a dreamy eye and a
far-off mystic gaze. He has been living with
ancient New Me^'ican Indians for five years — as
one of them— and has been initiated as a priest
in their tribe. Being at the same time an antiquary

■i

l«

ii>

s a

and keen anthropologist, he has given evidence
which experts recognise as probably connecting
some ornamentation of the oldest classic sort or
pattern with the cavemen, through Indians of
New Mexico who have preserved (or not destroyed)
relics of manufacture dating from the dimmest
past. A faint connecting thread may eventually
come to be established between ancient Greece
itself and those widespread cavemen who carved
their tools with spirited delineations of the
animals of their time, and hunted the woolly
rhinoceros. Mr. Boyd Dawkins is keenly awake
to this possible opening of or pointing to a door
of history which may reveal fresh human vistas
into the remote past.

Of course, the grave procedure and sometimes
ponderous performance of the week has been lit
by sparks of scientific fun. Many were puzzled
to know whether they should laugh or not when a
*' cablegram " came from Australia saying that the
Ornithorhynchus paradoxus had laid an t,^%. But
unhesitating smiles pervaded the anxious faces of
" scientists " on the receipt of a communication
from a member who had reached and " wired "
from the North Pole. " Found a Scotsman in
charge. Says his name is Thomson. Please for-
ward buns. Bears getting troublesome." I dare
say that this is an old joke, but then old jokes are
sometimes belter than new. One function which
has been observed for several years has not been
omitted at this gathering — I mean the '* Lion
Dinner." It is a deliberate taking of the wits out
of severely scientific harness, and a laying-down
of the reins upon their necks, which results in
a banquet w ih humorous circumstances aid
speeches. But this play of the philosophers can-
not be reproduced in cold blood and black ink.

%- «

The flavour of the thing would wholly disap-
pear.

Having spent a Sunday here, and finding the
air quite silent so far as the forest of church spires
and towers which mark Montreal are concerned,
I asked a native whether they had any hells.
'• Plenty," said he, ** but we hang them on our
engines, not in our church towers." This is true
enough. Each locomotive has a huge bell which
tolls steadily as the bare train moves down the
city street, or sets out from the station — like
a funeral. My acquaintance added, " These and
the ships' horns are enough for us." So the
churches opened as silently as theatres, and I, fot
one, cannot see why the use of town bells,
especially those in London, should not be at
least lessened. In some poor crowded districts
the harsh jangling of a solitary church kettle for
half an hour before morning service is enough to get
the parson heartily cursed by the weary men who are
seeking some little repose upon the day of rest.

Of course there are no " chapels" here. I went
with my good host in the morning to " St. Paul's
Church." Organ, painted windows, congregation
kneeling, or supposed to be so, during prayers,
and standing to sing. Sermon preached from a
manuscript. Outside were divers crosses ; stone,
and those of that partly gilt metal which peculiarly
mirks Roman Catholic churches. And this was
a Presbyterian place of worship. I preached in
the evening at St. James's, where the service is
helped by an excellent surpliced choir and aiul-
phonal organ, well played. It is dangerous to
generalise, and I find myself on thin ice (though
it is mostly three feet thick at Montreal) in setting
down impressions I have already received about
the work of the English Church in Canada ; yel i

■;!

try to scrape as many brains as I can, besides
looking about and listening for myself. There
it here a far greater contrast between the
position of the country and town clergyman
than exists or can be realised in England.
In such an old province as that of Quebec,
where the majority of the population is in-
tensely Roman Catholic, and both Presbyterians
and Methodists are very powerful and active, the
country clergyman with a scattered flock, who
aims at anywise realising the position of a
"parson" in the "old country," leads a life
which in some senses, and to any educated man,
must be a very trying one. A stream of them
is thus they say setting towards the " North-
West," of which English Canadian talk is full,
and Roman Catholic authorities often step quickly
in and occupy the places which have belonged to
Anglicans. They ** buy them out," to use the
expression of an experienced Montreal rector to
myself. I may here note that the French and
Irish show little desire to invade the newly-opened
prairie territories, but (having an inherited ten-
dency to small penurious farming and the cultiva-
tion of unpromising soil) are creeping into those
regions beyond the banks of the St. Lawrence
which have hitherto been untouched.

To return to the position of the clergy. Their
stipends are more equalised than with us, but no
one, I imagine, receives so much as the Presby-
terian minister of St. Paul's, of which I have
spoken. He is highly esteemed by his congrega-
tion, especially as a conscientious " pastor." Pos-
sibly, however, there might be found a church in
Winnipeg nearly as well provided with an income,
though perhaps strictly not an official one. That
exception was suggested to me by a clergyman in

,jc~ «■

the province of Quebec. One remark has been
several times repeated to myself by loyal, long-
resident churchmen here to the effect that there
is somewhat too ready a tendency to lean too
much on the great societies in England, and the
money to be got there by asking. These tempta-
tions, and the trips to indulge them, are, however,
natural enough. But some Canadians smile.
Again and again have I heard the remark made —
mind you, with much good-humour and apprecia-
tion of the energy of the man — " Yes. Sir. But
the Bishop of Saskatchewan. . . . Well.
. . . He is a beggar." Looking at the thing
from this side, where " emigrants " are called
" immigrants," and are no longer a drain upon
the generous, I am inclined, from the free talk of
laymen expressing theinselves loyally about the
matter, to suspect that the use of the offertory in
Canada itself, though general, is not yet sufficiently
realised by some of the Dominion clergy. There
are many country places, however, where a small
grant from one of the old societies in the mother
country is of more value than it seems. It is a
material expression of sympathy, and sometimes
acts like the pint of water which sets the pump
working. I give these impressions for what they
are worth. Anyhow, I have not been able to help
receiving them.

Toronto, September 5 .

I am resting here on my way to the Rockies,
while we are about to hear some address from the
Corporation, attend a party, be presented at
Government House, and look about the place. It
is a striking example of Canadian growth, though
often ranked with the much older cities of Mon-
treal and Quebec. Within the lifetime of the

oldest Canadians Toronto had not begun to exist.
The forest covered its site on the shore of Lake
Ontario. Now, though there is a finished look
about its chief streets, they have an air of movement
and progress which makes the visitor readily
believe the assurances of its further increase given
by resic'enlf . It is growing fast. I lunched with
the hospitable warden of Trinity College, which
bilongs to the Episcopal Church, and realised
the prescience of its founders, who built it out-
side the city, and thus enabled it to be set in the
mid&t of grounds nearly forty acres in extent.
These bid fair to be in their turn surrounded by
houses. Thus before very long this institution
will eventually find itself admirably placed for the
population of the town to come, and at the same
time furnished with plenty of air and space for
recreation. The colleges of Toronto, indeed,
form its most striking features. Besides Trinity,
which is really a University, somewhat on the
lines of its namesake at Dublin, there is the great
unsectarian establishment called after the city
itself, and a large Presbyterian one, with several
other halls and institutes? Thus the sentiment of
education pervades Toronto. It has the charac-
ter of producing the most marked literary atmo-
sphere in the Dominion. Born of the forest
eighty years ago, when its toilsome brave pro-
genitors first brought human hand and hopes to
bear upon its infancy, the earliest and latest pro-
ductions of this city are as it were brought together
in some of the last utterances of its children. I
am thinking of a volume of poems by Isabella
Valancy Crawford, published by Bain and Son,
Toronto. The air is no doubt now darkened
with endless pages of " poetry." They drop like
leaves from the literary tree, mostly to perish un-

noticed in its shade, except when they are ruth-
lessly swept up (to be soon carted away .out of
sight) by the broom of the reviewer. But this
book, though not without faults of untrained
magniloquence, has the ring of great promise. In
its author the continent of America may possibly
hail another voice of which it may justly learn to
be proud. I give a passage fitting the thought of
a place of which the site was hewed from the
primeval woods of Canada, and which yet in time
bears the fruit of refined and educated words.

'< I heard him tell
How the first field upon his farm was ploughed.
He and his brother Reuben, stalwart lads,
Yoked themselves, side by side, to the new plough ;
Their weaker father, in the grey of life
(But rather the wan age of poverty
Than many winters), in large gnarl'd hands
The plunging handles held ; with mighty strains
They drew the ripping beak through knotted sod,
Thro' tortuous lanes of blackened, smoking stumps ;
And past great flaming brush heaps, sending out
Fierce summers, beating on their swollen brows.
O, such a battle I had we heard of serfs
Driven to like hot conflict with the soil.
Armies had march'd, and navies swiftly sail'd
To burst their gyves. But here's the little point — ,
The polished di'mond pivot on which spins
The wheel of Difference— they own'd the rugged soil,
And fought for love — dear love of wealth and pow'r
And honest ease and fair esteem of men."

Toronto may be pleased at publishing lines thus
radically fresh.

Among the other advantages accompanying the
situation of this city its nearness to the Fa|Ts of

Niagara might be mentioned. They are reached
by a short run across the lake. I am not going
to add another to the thousand descriptions of
these, and say how the great green wheel of
water, oceanic in its movement, turns slowly over
the hidden cliff and fills the air far and wide with
the sound as of a great soft crush, while the pillar
of mist stands high above to mark the weighty
plunge beneath. But I must add my mite to the
protests which arise at the insufferably imperti-
nent crowding of catchpenny interests around
this awful fall of the St. Lawrence. There are
people who would sell excursion tickets to the
Garden of Eden itself after equipping it with a
stuffed boa constrictor and wax models of Adam
and Eve. Perhaps this suits an age which sends
gaping tourists to see a " Passion Play" (what a
collocation of words !) and prints in the papers
how much a day the ** Christ " is paid to hang
upon a histrionic cross ; but here a sublime living
spectacle is marred by the fringe of peering
pepper-boxes which squat upon its brink and
entertain the sight-seer with the Falls of Niagara
themselves — garnished with the sauce of lobster
salad and brandy cocktails.

I hate ♦• sights," and cordially growl at the
greed which is permitted to do its best (or worst)
to turn this vision of infinite falling waters into
one. I could not even bring myself " to shoot
the rapids" at Lachine. Many at Montreal
talked of this sensational performance. " Have
you done your rapids ? " was a frequent inquiry.
•* You can take the train at seven in the morning
to the station where the steamer starts, and get
back to a late breakfast." The sensation would
have tasted sweeter if it had come in the due
course of an outing.

!) I

Not so with the run to the Rocky Mountains.
These were before us. They stood on the far-
thest horizon of our projected expeditions. They
formed the ultimate aim of the more distant ex-
cursion arranged to be made on the breaking up
of the scientific company at Montreal. Though
we are still very far off from them here, I find
that the privilege of being in the special party is
becoming more distinct. " Are you a Rocky ? "
is the question frequently asked. The party, too,
now is somehow cut down from a hundred and
fifty to about sixty. I happened to be one of the
company at a grand reception in the grounds of
the Government House, when a friend came up
and told me that a hitch had arrived in the
arrangements for our special train, and that the
number of its passengers was being seriously
limited. So I called a cab (necessarily with two
horses, and really a big family barouche), and
bidding the coachman drive with all speed to the
office of the Canadian Pacific Railway, found
myself there in less than two minutes. He did
not tell me it was round the next corner. How-
ever, my own place was safe. We go on to
"Owen Sound" to-morrow, and take water
(fresh) for Port Arthur, whence we run to Win-
nipeg and pause again. Talking of water, that
of Montreal and Toronto disagrees most seri-
ously witF visitors at first. I have avoided
it, as milk is plentiful, and you can get
Apollinaris easily ; but some of my fellow-tra-
vellers have suffered severely. The heat in the
train yesterday was very great. At one station,
where a cart of ice was being unloaded, the
rush for fragments was tumultuous. We passed
through a dreary region for fourteen hours.
There were many settlers, it is true, and log

houses. And there were villages ; but the soil is
occasionally poor. Rocks perpetually hunched up
their rounded shoulders and backs which had
long ago been scraped by ice. Huge glaciers
once ploughed our course. The crops look mean,
and long stretches of imperfectly-cleared land are
traversed by the track. Sometimes the train
plunges into untouched primeval forest ; then it
snorts through a wilderness of short stumps, the
whole growth of wood having been shaved off a
yard from the ground, and then seemingly singed.
The engine burned bituminous coal, and as the
wind mostly met us, it sent a great deal of its
smoke into the carriages. Some of us were nearly
as dirty as sweeps, and the adherence of the smuts
was helped by the heat. I hung my thermometer
up on the shady side of the compartment, and it
marked 93 deg. A scientific fellow-traveller
thought I had been playing tricks with it, and hung
up his own. It told the same tale. Thus (though
not crowded) we were hot and thirsty. At last
we reached Toronto, and those who had taken
the trouble to telegraph for a bedroom got one ;
but the gentlemen, representatives of the corpo-
ration, who *' boarded " us some miles from the
town, were anxiously perplexed to advise a good
many of our party, as there happens just now to
be an exceptional strain put upon the hotels of
the city. I had dispatched a postcard for a room
— a simple precaution — and am very comfortably
lodged. But I never spent such a melting and
grimy jday as yesterday. The negro who serves
my bedroom — I am writing there before break-
fast — is quite affectionately impressed by my
mention of it, and has brought in tea, bread-and-
butter, and good store of ApoUinaris and ice. On
his appearing with the latter, which I had not

es
k-

ordered, I have complimented him on his atten-
tions, and assured him that the record of them is
now being forwarded to the Religious Tract
Society in London. And he has this moment
bowed himself out as only a negro can, with an
ivory smile reaching pretty well to the back of
his neck, and an obvious impression that some-
thing very pleasant is being said of him to some-
body. And he deserves it.

S.S. Alberta, on Lake Superior.

We are now out of sight of land in the middle
of the American continent. I had never made a
voyage before in one of these fresh-water seas,
but realise that its waters may be more stormy
than some that are salt, and that a ship three
hundred feet long can here be pitched about
almost like a Channel steamer. But one misses
the taste of brine upon the lips, however freely
the spray may fly over the decks. Presently we
expect to see the tip of Thunder Cape rise from
the water as we shall approach Port Arthur,
which is at the head of the lake. Thence we run
straight to Winnipeg, doing Colonel Wolseley's
famous march of some two or three months
in twenty-four hours. The sense of the huge-
ness of this British territory begins to creep
closely upon one. I look out of my cabin win-
dow towards the north — so indeed might I, had I
one in a barge on the Regent's Canal — but the
reflection that the whole population of the Domi
nion hence, north, east, and west, from the Straits
of Belle Isle to the Pacific, taking in the Pole, is
about the same as that which is compressed into
the metropolis of England, and traversed by an
underground train in an hour, seems to leave
much more room for man than he wants. It is

an unmeaning use of a word to say that the old
owner, the Indian, is " crowded out." But he is
so sensitive as to shrink at the first touch of the
white hand. There are moods in which I find

myself asking whether it is well to disturb this
land of historical repose. We can all see a repul-
sive side to the utilitarian movements of our day.
What had the Indian done that he should be
rudely thrust aside, or poisoned with small-pox
and rum } Perhaps the answer should be *' no-
thing." He is a lazy, quarrelsome, picturesque
savage, fond of torturing his enemies and wearing
their scalps as signs of social consideration. But
the process of his extinction is unpleasant. The
edge of the civilising wave is almost always un-
clean, like the fringe of the tide which carries
dead cats and old shoes in its front rank. Any-
how, the Indian is seen here in no honour.
He has shrunk from the touch of the busy white
hand. Our surroundings often remind us of this
withdrawal on his part. We have lately passed
through the locks which enable great iron ships
to mount in twenty minutes from the level of
Huron to Superior. The rapids of Sault St. Marie
tumble in blue and white whirlpools by their side.
The Indian once was the unknown and undis-
turbed master of both the bright-green wooded
bar)ks between which they foam. Then the finger
of the European began to creep in, and the
Indian bent his back to carry loads from boats on
the lower lake to those on the higher. Then the
locks were made, and ships three hundred feet long
rise from level to level, literally in a few minutes,
with all their crews and merchandise on board.
The only sign of the Indian now is a dancing
bark canoe, wherein he sometimes tempts an
idler to " shoot the rapids" for a shilling. So

has he come down. It may be right, but it is
piteous.

The town of Sault St. Marie is set on the river,
some sixty miles long, which connects Huron
with Superior, and near the exit of which from
the latter lake the well-known rapids are met.
The town itself is cut through by the boundary
which divides the United States from Canada,
and it is the basis of much American boast in
these parts that the English side is asleep while
the other is more than awake. " Look, sir,"
said a Yankee to me as our ship was entering the
lock, *' at the difference between America and
England. There" (pointing to the Canadian
side) " a few will struggle down to see the Bishop
land " (we had just set the Bishop of Algoma
ashore by his square white stone house among
the trees) " while here we move on." I could
not help reminding him that the great ship we
were on was English, and that if his people built
locks, we largely used them. The locks, though,
are a work of which any city might be proud.
When the Canadian Pacific Railway has run for a
while along the northern shore of Lake Superior,
and the traveller will be able to sit in one seat
while he is being whisked from Montreal to
Winnipeg, the Canadian waterside should become
fringed with industry. The track, they say, will
be opened for use some time in 1885. At present
every bank presents an incalculable store of wood,
a solitary maple — already crimson — showing here
and there like a red flag or danger-signal among
the dark firs. Far away, in line above line where
the horizon rises, there appears nothing but trees.
Trees stand thick as jorn upon the plains, and
the islands which lie off the shore are crowded
with growing timber. Now and then, in-
deed, you see a little brown line clos.; to

*ij

a;.'

the water's brink. This is a row of deal stacks
which a saw- mill has eaten out of the forest ; and
yet the biggest piles are but as tiny chips which a
child might cut off a stick by the side of a great
wood — mere wormcasts at the edge of a wide
plain. Talk about the cultivation of this North-
West ! I suppose it will come, but now it is as the
tending of a flower-pot with a garden trowel in
the corner of a rough twenty-acre field. Even in
the old provinces of Ontario and Quebec, which
are supposed to have been long tilled, an im-
mense proportion of the soil is not cleared.
Here let me say, in respect to such as is under
cultivation, that an English farmer has need lo
forget much if he would succeed. Speaking
roughly, ** roots " are not grown. They can
seldom be eaten off for winter feed, the frost
being too intense, and therefore if so used have
all to be carted under cover. Thus ensilage is
eagerly being looked to for the feeding of cattle.
Then too, in parts, there is a serious risk in
autumn sowing of wheat. Early freezing spring
winds are apt to shave it clean off. Then again
the treatment of various parts differs much. But
generally the farming is, to the English eye, very
rough indeed. Indeed, throughout enormous
districts there is, properly speaking, no farming at
all. The settler puts in a few grains of corn and
reaps many. In some places he grows wheat after
wheat in a careless way without manure, but with
some fair return. The soil eventually becomes
exhausted. Then the farmer packs up his traps,
goes West, and takes another holding. I hear
great variety of opinion about the export of store
cattle. Some think that it will increase largely ;
others say, " Nay, but we will fat them at home."
I should have said in respect to some remarks, in
a former letter, about the agricultural homesteads

of the older provinces, that, since buyers wait
there, the railway stations are virtually the
f ...ners* market.

The sight of the fields there, knowing, moreover,
that it was to be followed by that of the fertile but
unploughed prairie, had set one thinking of the
course which should be followed by inexperienced
young men desirous of seeking their fortune by
Canadian farming. I asked many how they should
begin. All said that some local experience was
desirable, and that to work hard was impera-
tive. We naturally have divers trustworthy agri-
culturists with us, and from them I gather that a
young fellow wishing to farm in Canada could not
do better than go for a while to the Agricultural
College at Guelph, Ontario. There he will not
be tempted to keep hunters or play incessant
lawn-tennis, but expected to put his bones into
the business, and find his way into the work to be
done with his hands as well as his eyes and ears.

Port Arthur^ September 8.

After two nights* and part of three days* direct
steaming on this fresh-water sea we have reached
Port Arthur, at present the great mouth of the
North-VVest. It is being ** rushed up," and from
a little distance much of it seems to be a collec-
tion of huge deal cases. We were to have started
in an hour, but the first word we heard when
within earshot of the quay was that there had
been a "big wash out" some i8o miles up the
Winnipeg line. Floods have lately tried this new
railway, and the result is that we are sent back to
the Alberta, the engineer of the Canadian Pacific,
who has come aboard, telling us that we cannot
start before to-morrow. Thus we have wandered
about the wooden side- walks of the town in cheery

i I

* ]

disappointment, and realised that we could buy
pretty well anything wanted, from artificial flowers
and Eno's Fruit Salt to " real estates." Nor are
things dear. Dr. Selwyn has just bought a pair
of very strong-looking boots for 5^^ dollars. There
is also a " Port Arthur Literary Exchange and
Reading-room," up a flight of new deal stairs,
over a cigar-shop, professing to have " always on
view " (as if they were waxwork) ** all the leading
daily, weekly, and monthly periodicals, etc., of
this continent and England." On my showing a
disposition to go in the manager said I had better
not, as there was a "young man sick there with
some kind of low fever."

We were boarded by the representatives of the
press directly after our arrival, and in a few hours
the " Daily Sentinel " published the names of the
" distinguished visitors" of Port Arthur. We have
also been visited by the mayor, and have had an
interview with the late Premier, the Hon. Alex-
ander Mackenzie, who, out of one of the most
immovable faces I ever saw, suddenly produced
about the best speech we have heard. He spoke
exactly as one of Mr. Maskelyne's personages
might, without the slightest play of feature or any
seeming movement of the lip or eye. Two
reporters behind him set it all down. Sir Richard
Temple is our chief speaker in acknowledging the
municipal and other salutations which the British
Association (now consisting of about seventy
*• Rockies ") meets with in traversing the con-
tinent. They are mostly here around me in the
saloon of the Alberta, writing up journals, examin-
ing grasses they have plucked, or playing tricks with
the buttons which rule the electric light of the
ship. A buzz of talk fills the air, but all occa-
sionally glance at the clock, awaiting the dinner

bell. Meanwhile fresh torrents of rain rattle on
the cabin roof, and ("the" hotel of Port Arthur
having lately been burnt) I am at a loss to think
what we shall do when the Alberta sails back
again to Owen Sound to-morrow, and possibly
leaves us unable to proceed towards Winnipeg.
I suppose we shall have to put up in the motion-
less Pulmans which are waiting to take us on our
journey. . . . We have suddenly been all
called from the cabin to bid farewell to the chosen
Manitoba canoe men, who are just steaming care-
fully out of the harbour to join Lord Wolseley's
Egyptian force. We have duly cheered these
mercenaries and watched them till we could not
distinguish the notes of ** God Save the Queen,"
singing which they slipped slowly out into Thun-
der Bay. Talking of singing, we had two services
yesterday, almost all of tliose on board being pre-
sent and joining heartily in worship. The Bishop
of Ontario and I preached, a layman also giving
an address.

9 a.m., Sept. 9. — I woke at five and listened for
the rain. All was still save a subdued Gargantuan
gurgle by the engines, which were talking in their
sleep, and the boom of a champion snorer, who
asserted himself like a foghorn. There is no
rain, but great masses of moist-looking grey
cloud are piled up towards a veiled moon.
. . . Now we are off. . . . Evening. — All
day long we have been passing through a half-
burnt primeval forest (patched with small blue
lakes) which our accompanying Canadian autho-
rities tell us is ** private property." A man has
come down our special, which consists of three
Pulman cars, distributing large official maps of
our route. These show square sections on either
side (which look like prolongated chessboards).

! !•

and the printed information which accompanies
them and indicates the nature of their soil, tells
us which are still for sale. We stop occasionally
at a small station to water the engine. Then all
our botanists jump out to reap and our entomo-
logists to whisk after small prey with green gauze
nets. We have had also a sufficient pause for a
well-cooked and abundant midday dinner. This
train will be our home for some ten days if we
choose. Having lost twenty-four hours, it is pro-
posed to push on to the Rockies, taking most
objects of interest on our way back. At present
we are all in tearing spirits at the welcome sun-
shine and our delayed plunge into the great
North-West. In a few hours we rose, by my
aneroid, nearly a thousand feet above the level of
Lake Superior, the rapidity of our rise being
occasionally indicated by glimpses of a river of
boiling coffee which plunged to meet us, some-
times close to the track, and then far below
between sloping wooded banks. I cannot spell
its name, and no one can pronounce it when it is
spelled. It begins with Kam, or Kan, and then
has a tangled tail of vowels half a yard long with
some q's in the middle. Our cars are very com-
fortable, and the polite chief inspector or officer
of the line travels with us, as if we were the
Queen. We were to have been a train of men,
being "limited to gentlemen only," but some-
how, to our surprise, find that we have got three
young ladies on board, besides Mrs. Laurie, the
kind wife of the genial general who accompanies
us. This is all very delightful at present, but
promises to be embarrassing, as there is no speci-
ally select ladies' compartment, and we all have
to sleep and are supposed to "perform our
toilets" in this. There is no prospect of these

■ * )

!l!i

damsels being dropped at Winnipeg. They mean
business, and whispers go about that one is a
" stowaway," a young scientific lady from Aber-
deen, who has made a vow to go with us to the
Rockies. She comes by herself. Two have ad-
mitted a pair of young "scientists" to play a
game of cards v'.lh them, and are now chattering
over it with a i utterance of merriment which
forbids the thought of its being whist. You will
perceive that I am writing in the train. I have
indeed the next berth to these fair travellers.
Meanwhile, hour after hour we are rushing through
a primeval forest of trees, mostly firs, about twice
the size of telegraph posts. This is marked with
the signs of fire and water, being traversed by
miles-wide bands of conflagration and spotted
with bright ponds and meres. Clearings are very •
scarce, but between the watering stations we
sometimes pass a square log hut with a little
growing circle of cultivation, and tanned children
standing at the door to see us pass, or a conical
Indian wigwam set at the edge of a lake, with a
birch canoe drawn up on the shore hard by, and
a few stolid squaws, with long, straight black
hair, glowering at the train. No mountains are
visible, but the ice-scraped shoulder of an under-
ground one is sometimes thrust above the peaty
soil.

I must now end my letter, as it is proposed
to pass by Winnipeg, possibly in the course of
the night, visiting it as we, all well, return. We
shall, however, dispatch a parcel of letters to the
post there, and I send this among them. It has
suddenly become pitch dark, but the train, full of
lamps and English chatter, is whirling like a torch
through the forest of the Great Lone Land.

i! In

3' L

i'-'i,

Winnipeg, September 17M, 1884.
We could hardly be said to have left Winnipeg
on our way west, for we did not stop there except
for a few minutes in the dark to drop letters.
These had been invited by a black satchel of
mine, which hung all day at the end of our com-
partment, with an envelope gummed on it and
inscribed, " Post Office, Winnipeg." This was
cleared at about five in the morning. Being
curious to see the place, I was up betimes, and
the things I noticed in the town as I turned out
on the platform of the car in the raw dark air
were three billiard-tables in a room brilliantly
lit, the dim outline of a church, a wide street
traversed by tramways which the train jolted
across a right angles, and some electric lamps.
These were put out a,s I was looking at them. The
only one of our party who turned out with me was
Sir R. Temple ; the rest were asleep. Presently
we were clear of what they said was the city, and
the sun rose on an interminable plain, as flat as it
could possibly be, dotted with white wooden
houses — some single, some in small groups. Near
these the yellow-green grass which grew over the
whole land was Lioken by rectangular un fenced
fields, showing either wheat in sheaf, oats uncut
and very unripe, or occasional black squares
where the rich prairie had been fresh broken by
the plough. Those places which had not been
stirred at all were dotted by divers herds of
short-horned cattle grazing knee-deep in the
soft, succulent, and abundant hay. Shallow ponds
or meres fringed by weeds were scattered about, the
herbage around them having in many cases been
irregularly mown by grass-cutters and stored in
carelessly made stacks. That just outside the
edges of the water seemed to be preferred for this

purpose ; it was rather finer than the rest. I was
surprised to find the country so much cultivated
within reach of the eye, but was told thai farms
were still more abundant beyond the horizon.
This comes in great measure from the railway
authorities retaining some portions nearest the line
in their own hands, with a view to its rise in the
market. Such precaution was obvious enough.
Many were the complaints, however, which I
heard even in passing contact with settlers about
this arrangement. They said, angrily, " Why didn't
the railway (as if the iron track were to blame)
settle the land close on both sides first, and not
send us twenty miles off ? " But the procedure
seems to be sufficiently legitimate. The country
next the line is sure to be filled up, and will be-
come all the more valuable as the outer band is
cultivated. The inner strip is all safe to increase
in price, though in several places its soil is not so
good as that farther off". Then too, of course, the
outer portions will some day be tapped by branch
lines. The Canadian Pacific at present is a back-
bone without ribs, and must be equipped with
them if it is to embrace the body of the people.
As it is, great preparations are made along the
whole course of the main road for the reception
of wheat. Huge wooden " elevators," capable of
holding thousands upon thousands of bushels,
are set up or being built where hardly an ear of
corn is to be seen. These immense and lofty
structures, visible for many miles across the plain,
show like rudimentary cathedrals, and are the
only mountains in the land.

Well, when I have told you what the country
is like for twenty miles out of Winnipeg, the
description holds for eight hundred. Only the
farms die away, the solitary houses disappear,

', ', rii>n

not a single roof or stack notches the long level
of the horizon, and no square black patch marks
the spot where the plough of the colonist has
been at work. All these gradually disappear
along with the herds of red and white cattle.
The prairie alone remains, cut by the everlasting
track of the railway, which runs straight through
it as thin as a thread of the thinnest grey silk
stretched tight across a perfectly smooth bowling-
green. At last, when nearly eight hundred miles
of plain have been crossed, when you stand on
the platform at the end of the car and look west-
ward, you will see a white saw slowly rise above
the yellow-green horizon. This is made of the
tops of the snow-peaks in the Rocky Mountains,
As the tram rushes on to reach them these gradu-
ally lift themselves up from the grass and show
their grand range, which severs the North-West
territories of the Dominion from British Colum-
bia.

There — I might now lay my pen down and say
that I have fitly described the region through
which we have just been carried westward from
Winnipeg, and I should not be far wrong in my
assertion. But then I travelled with some fifty
pair of eyes besides my own, and they were mostly
eyes which saw. I was in a " special " with those
who represented the final effort of the British
Association for the Advancement of Science in
Canada, and I only wish I could remember a
quarter of the things pointed out and thoughts
suggested by my companions and their unstudied
comments and conversation. Then too we were
in a train dispatched and equipped for our pur-
pose by the Canadian Pacific Railway Company,
who not only took us for nothing, and perched
our carriages for two nights on the highest acces-

sible point of the Rocky Mountains (where we
lay like the ark on Ararat) but caused us to be
guided and guarded by their ^reat manager and
authority, Mr. Egan.

Thus many conditions were combined to make
our run an exceptional and interesting one. We
stopped occasionally to see what we wanted (being
tied to no time-table), but when the train moved
we travelled fast. Though the track was compara-
tively new, and in some level places had been laid
at the rate of four or five miles a day, on testing
our speed we found that once or twice we were
covering more than fifty in the hour. Indeed, en
one occasion we did fiftv-five in that time. I was
not sorry when these (experiments I was going
to call them) were over, for a bad accident in the
middle of the prairie would have been embarrass-
ing. There was however little to be gained by
lingering on the plains. Nothing was to be
se^n one hundred miles after another but the same
level horizon ; and, as I have said, after a while
this ceased to be notched by the farm buildings
and stacks of the settler. The only signs of
human habitation, besides the occasional station
where the engine was watered and a few small
deal-board houses mingled with white tents ap-
peared around it, were given by Indians.

A word more about them. No doubt they rightly
claim to be the original, or the oldest historic-
ally known, inhabitants of this region, and it is
not so long ago (less than a generation) since
this claim was virtually if not officially allowed by
the British authorities. These were represented
by the Hudson Bay and other fur companies,
which for two hundred years had, so to speak,
the right of sport over these huge moors. And
the Indians were their underkeepers, gillies, and

iii:

s<>

servants. The companies placed their represen-
tatives, gatherers of skins, here and there in so-
called forts throughout the land. These bought
furs of the Indians. The place abounded with
animals of many kinds. Thousands of buffalo
runs, i.e.f strongly trodden paths of about a foot
wide, were cut by the railway track at right
angles. Through a considerable portion of our
journey we had only to look out of a window and
see them stretching straight away, far out of sight.
They had for years, or rather ages, been worn
by files of innumerable buffaloes as they moved
their feeding-ground in the prairie. And many
whitened skulls with dead whitened horns lay by
their side, showing where some on the march had
lain down to die before the sweet grass had been
reached. The high growth of the prairie, too
(in many places so high as to rise far above and
sweep the stirrups of a man riding through it),
abounded in smaller life. All this skin and fur-
producing estate was really "preserved" by the
old companies. To them the agricultural colonist
was a poacher. They did what they could to
keep the settler out. The population was bear,
buffalo, skunk, marten, beaver, and Indians.
These last preyed upon the first, and the repre-
sentatives of European civilisation preyed upon
them — traded with them, we will say, though
perhaps -the Indians hardly realised the value of
the sable which they gave in exchange for trum-
pery beads and rum. Well, all this began to
dwindle down as soon as the fur companies in
1869 handed their authority over to that of the
Dominion, and men were invited and set to
colonise the regions from which they had been
excluded lest they should interfere with the busi-
ness of the "trapper."

e
o
n

These plains (ready for the com-grower and
cowherd) we were now traversing. The con-
sciousness of contrast between their past and
prospective condition was aroused in a score of
ways — not least, say, by conversations with Dr.
Cheadle, who had accompanied Lord Milton in
his famous journey twenty years before, and who
now formed one of our party. He was being
whirled in three days through a region which it
had once taken him about a year to cross. Relics
of the old (Redskin) human life began to meet
us as we moved on west vard. I don't count the
English-speaking Indiai of the old Canadian
Provinces (who profesc^es Christianity and wears
the shabbiest cast-off white man's clothes, espe-
cially dinted tall hats) as the genuine representa-
tive of the Redskin. He is, happily, too respect-
able to be taken as a sample of his progenitors.
His father may have been girded with a belt of
scalps, but his own *• pants " are so shabbily
modern as to preclude the recognition of his
savage descent. He was, indeed, not to be seen
as we drew westward, but the real man (especially
the woman, with face painted a bright yellow, and
a dab of red on each cheek) was lounging about
several stations after his own peculiar sulky
hunchbacked way. Some of our fellow-travellers
eagerly secured the trappings of these dirty braves
and squaws, buying the feather dresses off their
heads and the moccasins off their feet. They
accepted all this commerce in reluctant attitudes,
and with an ill-concealed contempt, which, how-
ever, did not hinder them from realising that
strangers who would make surprising proposals
for their old shoes might be induced to offer more.
Some, who preferred silver money, presently had
Liicir cheeks full — for an Indian pops a dollar into

it.;

llPi

his mouth as a monkey does a nut, looking at you
steadily all the while, as though to say, " If you
think I don't know better than to swallow it you
are wrong for once ! " Then he shrugs his
shoulders again and sulks off. It is true that he
has submitted to the partial restraint of " Re-
serves," since recognition of them brings in from
the Government so much meat and flour a dav,
and five dollars (or/ i) a head annually; but the
" Reserves " are not all of the best land. A de-
tailed Canadian map of the line and its geolo-
gical surroundings was given to me, and I noticed
that a large district marked "Indian Reserve" in
the far west was also marked, in other characters,
"Drifting Sand." I called the attention of a
Canadian official to this, and he replied, "Oh,
yes : but guess we pay them ever so much ! " That
indeed, I fear, is not always a perfectly accurate
presentment of the actual state of affairs, since it
was whispered — no, strongly asserted — that divers
purveyors of Indian allowance stopped it on the
way. The Indians come off worst in their int r-
course with white men. They are doomed. So
much indeed has been said in tb'::ir favour, that I
am disposed to doubt their future the more. I
know that the famous Jesuit Father who has for
more than a generation laboured among them is
looked on with filial eyes. I know that divers
Methodist ministers who have also bravely put
their souls into the effort to evangelise the Red-
skin make an honest point of speaking well of him.
I know that Ang'-^in missionaries do the same.
One of the oldest bishops in Canada was good
enough to favour me with his opinions about the
Indian. " It is most pathetic," he said. " They
are prominently devout. \ou should hear them
take part in our Liturgy and sing our hymns !

And yet I cannot imagine what is to become of
them." I cannot help repeating my belief that
they are in fact children without the prospect of
growth — children for whom it is impossible to
find a school, or any really promising phase of
education. They were once the masters of the
country, and have had a great fall, and all the
king's horses and all the king's men can never
set Humpty Dumpty where he was again.

Half-breeds succeed and are not unfrequently
conspicuous in the conduct of the country.
They will survive, giving birth to quarter-breeds.
The high-bridged nose of the " Southwind," and
the ** Wild Eagle " may adorn the profiles of
generations to come ; but the old Redskin
with his grandly serene face, and insuperable
aversion to steady labour of any sort (except it
be the collection of scalps), will have to be
classed along with the Dodo and the '* Cave
Man." His remains slouched silently about the
stations, with his dirty high-shouldered household
around him, as our ** special " paused in its west-
ward course. He affected coolness when a
gentleman from Albemarle Street offered him
three dollars for the twopennyworth of cock's-
tail feathers he had stuck in his hair, but, his
wigwam is doomed to be struck for ever, and his
bastard or half-bred descendants alone will sur-
vive in the great family of man.

While the smoke-stained tent of the Indian
disappears from the Prairie, another fabric already
makes its appearance. It is curiously sugges-
tive to watch the procreant buds of new cities "
which are beginning to show above the grass like
the white mushrooms of a night. They seem to
grow according to no plan or law. They are

mostly of wood, and at a little distance look like
loads of great deal boxes which have been
roughly overturned by the way. Some of the
structures indeed are of canvas, and shelter no
mere nomads, but possibly the leading inhabi-
tants of the place — I mean people of education
who dress for dinner, carry card-cases, play the
piano, and keep a carriage. I am quite serious.
The United States consul in Manitoba, a gen-
tleman of culture holding a very influential social
as well as diplomatic position at Winnipeg, was
kind enough to give me an introduction to some

great friends of his, the R s, who lived at one

of these new-born cities where even a deal shanty
had not foretold its advent two years ago. Well,

I innocently asked for Mr. R *s ** house," and

a low canvas tent, pitched at the edge of a pond
in the prairie a few hundred yards off, was pointed
out to me. I made my way there and did what
was equivalent to ringing the front-door bell.

Mrs. R- only was at home. Mr. R was

out riding and would be very sorry to have missed
me. However, she was kind enough to ask me
in, and I stayed a few minutes having an agreeable
conversation with a hostess of whom one of Bishop
Anson's chaplains spoke to me afterwards as
being (not comparatively, as he who squints is
king among the blind) one of the most accom-
plished ladies in the country. She noticed per-
haps my glance round her canvas home, and,
laughing, said, ** We think we may have to ' move
house ' next winter, and so we have thought it
best not to build one at all." These social posi-
tions, which at first appear somewhat paradoxical,
are distinguishing features of the North-West of
Canada. What would be called the livery stable

of the place was kept by an Oxford graduate, and
a labouring settler who chanced to be about some
business in the place and looked ** dripping" into
the little inn (it rained at the time) was referred
to by a man in the " bar " as Lord So-and-So.
He was, indeed, not a lord, but a member of one
of our distinguished noble families (whose name
he bore), and was then expecting a visit from an
English Peer who happened to be travelling in
America.

A ** gentleman farmer " is a wholly different
personage in the N. W. T. (as the North-West
Territories are shortly called) from what he is in
Norfolk. Here he has to work, and work hard
too, with his own hands. I am inclined to won-
der, though, why more placeless men in England,
to whom all the liberal professions seem to be
closed, do not come out here simply (at first) as
labourers. Positions deterrent in the old country
are not merely possible, but more than tolerable
to a *' gentleman " here. Many a useless mem-
ber of society at home, who yet is blessed
with good lungs, liver, and sinews, might not
only do good work here in helping to civilise
a new land, but be paid more for it at once than
he probably would earn for years if he were called
to the Bar. In a short time, e.g., he would find
himself worth thirty dollars a month, that is ^72
a year, his board (with a magnificent appetite to
realise that part of his income) and lodging.
Then, too, at odd times, supposing him to bring
a gun, he could walk out without question by
gamekeepers and fill his bag with wildfowl and
prairie chicken. No doubt his life would some-
times be very rough in divers ways, but he would
find not a few gentlemen in the same boat as
himself, counting it no social degradation to have

;;|i

their hands horny with labour. Then, too, if
industrious and .thrifty as a labourer, he may look
forward to the possession of land of his own, or,
using such tact as he possesses, combined with some
experience of the country, may see some other
door whereby to enter into a better furnished
position.

Before I realised the condition and duties of
the settler I had an impression that the skill of
the trained agricultural labourer would put him
in an exceptionally good position. But now
I am rather inclined to doubt it. He would
have to unlearn much. The very neatness of
his ^lethods might delay him. No one cares
about driving a perfectly straight furrow on the
prairie, or trims a hedge with the accuracy of a
hairdresser. Hodge would bring a seasoned back
and sinewy limbs to any outdoor work, but he
would find his conservatism shocked by the un-
tidiness of Canadian farming, and be some time
before he could bring his mind to the looking
after "his bullocks" full gallop, in a Mexican
saddle.

On the other hand, every departure from estab-
lished methods of agricultural procedure tells in
favour of the man who has been accustomed to
none. As a cavalry officer in the old days pre-
ferred any recruit to a postboy, so a Canadian
farmer may find a ** help " ready to fall into his
ways better than a man wedded to special ways of
toil. Thus a gentleman, however strong and
willing, is not likely to be twitted with his
ignorance as he would be if he attempted to take
his place in a team of prejudiced peasants at home.
His freedom from the traditions of labour would
assist him. Indeed, if my reader were to explore
and examine these new '* cities" which are begin/

ning to sprout here and there throughout the
north-west of Canada he would be surprised and
charmed at the number of " educated " persons
who are already taking part in their birth. Every
year, moreover, makes the plunge of a *• gentle-
man" into these realms the easier, in a social
sense, but the amount of work remaining to be
done renders want of employment, to those who
really will work, impossible for any time you like
to count.

The fiUing-up of this country is a work of the
generations to come. Your noble and idle
savage who lives by hunting is dead or doomed.
He will not work himself, though he is not ashamed
to beg.- He looks on, with occasional suggestions
about his willingness to accept tobacco, and then
paces off on his lame beast, pretending to think.
Another nobler race, quickened with some of
the best blood in the ** old country " (as England
is always fondly termed here) should be ready to
take its place among the masters of the richest
parts of a young Dominion. The number of
those seeking their fortune here who have known
what is called a liberal education is even now
remarkable, as I have already noticed. I had
heard it before, but was hardly prepared to find
it confirmed, notably, to such an extent as ap-
peared by the company in which I travelled.
One after another added his family or social ex-
perience to enlarge our perception of the way in
which these parts of Canada are being peopled
by young English gentlemen. This applies to
the whole land, though especially to its western
parts. Some buckle to in the tilling of the soil,
others choose a life in some respects more varied
by serving on a cattle ranch, with the hope '>f
eventually becoming the possessor of one. Here

the work is manifold. Hay has to be secured for
winter in rough unthatched stacks. For this the
likeliest spots on the prairie are swept, untidily,
by the grass-cutter. But the procedure is varied
and importunate, the chief result desired and
aimed at being the production of calves, which
cost comparatively nothing to keep, but eventu-
ally become valuable beef. This business of
course does not bring a quick return. Calves
take time to grow, even in America ; but when
once the first crop reaches maturity others rapidly
succeed it. In all these callings and surround-
ings of the settler, however, one valuable
•' quantity " remains constant, and that is the
superb air which he breathes. It is true that
typhoid is being carelessly generated in some
growing Canadian cities, but the smell of the
prairie is as sweet as it is wholesome. Of course
our progress through the country, as a detach-
ment of the British Association, travelling in a
special train, and stopping in disregard of all
"time-tables," became generally known, and at
divers stations there was good store of the new
youth of the country (sprinkled with silent, scowl-
ing Indians in paint and feathers) to see us. And
a browner, healthier-looking, more long-limbed,
square-shouldered, clear-eyed set of tall yoimg
fellows I never saw. I was particularly struck
by the physique of young Canada, being six feet
myself, and having been built to match. Your
little man is no judge of stature and limb. He
does not discern sufficiently between five feet ten
and six feet two. Your tall man is a better mea-
surer of height. Thus I realised growth when
many of these Canadian youngsters looked over my
head, and strode past me like giants, as they were.
If half of those young gentlemen who wear

fcn

pointed boots and write with steel pens, chained
in fogs and heats to the counters of, say, a bank,
with no prospect of becoming partners in the
business which enslaves them, could but once
get their lungs filled with this grand prairie air,
they would slam-to their ledgers, roll up their
gloves, and, pitching them out of window, find
themselves striding over this sweet grass, building
their own log houses (and you can make a log
hous^ as warm as a Dutch oven in the coldest
winter), galloping after half-vild cattle, cooking
their own dinners, measuring monthly more
round the chest, and feeling that it will be their
own fault if they do not take their places among
the strong and independent men who are master-
ing this new land. And, remember, a strong
youngster who will lab (ir, working .vlth his
hands, will soon get at h ast his /'yo or jf So a
year with his board, and be tempted to no great
expense at his tailor's.

It is true that the winters in Canada are cold —
very cold — and long. It is true that some con-
stitutions cannot bear thera. But if there is any
truth in testimony, this cold is not generally in-
sufferable nor depressing, A climate which so
treats the vine as to ripen grapes out of doors
(there are large vineyards in Ontario from which
wine is made) cannot be bad. Then, other fruits
are excellent, aii ' inalarid is said to be unknown.
Indeed, the su;i5Jaer is not merely hot, but hot
with clean air and clear sunshine, and in winter
the snow is feathery. People, moreover, live to
a good old age, and the bulk of them look as if
in excelltnt health. Of course, if you are care-
less in January you may find your nose frozen as
hard as a snuff-box. Then you have to thaw it
gingerly or it will come off; but I saw no faces

r ! in

from which this feature had been thus vexatiously
removed. Still, there is no doubt but that the
Canadian winters are ver)' severe.

Extreme cold is, however, not confined to the
British parts of North America. It is a saying in
the older United States, ** If you can stand the
climate of New England you can stand anything."
The air of Boston is intensely nipping. I have
just heard a gentleman living there refer to it
bitterly. " Why," he said, " one day last winter,
when I was driving a mile to my house of busi-
ness, both my ears were wholly frostbitten."
" Rubbed them with snow ? " I remarked. '* Yes,
sir," he replied ; and then added, •* but that is
not all. I have known the temperature vary thirty-
five degrees in one day, between morning and
night." Greater variations indeed have been
experienced in the United States.

Of course, in Canada, as in other countries
where the winter is very severe, the warmest
clothes must be worn, and caution exercised to
avoid frost-bites. But the air, as I have said,
is mostly still, and the sky bright. The snow,
moreover, is stated to be shallower in the West,
especially the extreme North-West, in Athabasca,
than in the old Provinces.

I have made this pause and divergence in giving
utterance to my little record of a visit to the
North-West while in the company of my fellow
British Associates because an agreeable tendency
to branch off into inquiry about and speculations
on cognate matters was often indulged by my
companions and enjoyed by myself. Indeed, the
friendly chat which beguiled our way was (to me)
often big with suggestive information about the
land, its settlers, capabilities, and future. I will
now, having glanced at the main features of the

e)
le

great North-West (if that may be said to have
features which is all face), ask my readers to go
with me more leisurely through the land, pausing
to note some of the points at which we stopped
either in going West or returning to Winnipeg
from the Rocky Mountains. Here let me repeat
a desirable explanation and say that a " city " in
America does not mean a large town, but a ylace
(often much smaller than many a village in Eng-
land, since a population of three hundred enables
it to fulfil municipal conditions) which has civic
rights. The first of present importance reached
from Winnipeg is Portage la Prairie. What shall
I say of this flat and fertile place ? It largely
receives grain. Its sky-line is quite Alpine with
*• elevators." It grinds and manufactures, has a
biscuit factory and a paper-mill, and is altogether
ancient, having been founded twelve months be-
fore Carberry, the next distinguished station, which
is two years old. Yet for all that Carberry gives
itself the airs of a long-established " city," inas-
much as it not only advertises its livery stables,
etc., etc., but when we visited it had placarded its
walls with huge printed posters announcing the
(first annual, I suppose) excursion of its ** Sabbath
schools," etc., etc., to " Silver Lake," with a
•• band," etc., etc. The bill indeed had the flavour
of a search for change after the wearisome mono-
tony of tame and long-drawn life in the close air
of a town. Mind you, Carberry is only two years
old. Twenty-four months ago it had not so much
roof as an umbrella, and no means of locomotion
so advanced and artificial as a wheelbarrow. It
simply " was not." This deal-and-canvas bud,
moreover, declined to reckon itself as of no weight
in the British Kmpire, for the great poster an-
nouncing the recreation proposed for its ex-

! .

Tiausted inhabitants was adorned with the
assurance of its loyalty in a conspicuous line,
which he who ran might read, " God Save the
Queen." Indeed, the loyalty of Canadians would
seem to be not merely apparent, but touchingly
importunate — and genuine.

I cannot affect the usefulness of a systematic
guide-book, but must point to Brandon the next
place of importance westward. It is three years
old, but offers all kinds of commodities, from
reaping-machines to artificial flowers (beside the
influences which flow through church and school),
with a cheerful confidence which charms the
visitor. I bought there a^d brought away a pho-
tograph of its main thoroughfare looking (in the
photograph which disguised a freshness incapable
of such reproduction) almost as old as, say, Aid-
gate. Its soil is said to be excellent ; its air is
most delicious, and nature has provided it with a
slope (rare in this prairie), which should make
its future drainage not only possible, but easy.
Let us hope, however, that the unpolluted Assini-
boine which flows by Brandon will not be turned
into a sewer. Provision is made for much which
mar' r civilisation in all those townships by the
side oi the Canadian Pacific Railway which may
become the sites of cities. For instance, sections
of land are set aside for schools, and the building
of churches (every place of worship is called a
" church " in America) is facilitated, but the
proper dip of a sewer, if the people have, as they
probably will, that questionable equipment,
would seem to be hardly possible in several of
the places which we saw, and which were being
marked out in streets. The time approaches
rapidly in which their inhabitants will have a pro-
blem to solve with the sewage. This too, unfor-

he
ev

tunately, is not recognised as, under any circum-
stances, useful to the farmer, wiio wholly discards
the use of manure for his land at present.

The provision of water, moreover, is a serious
question for some parts of the North-West. It
is mostly alkaline, like very much that is found in
the United States, and attempts are being made
in some places to provide artesian wells. It is
true that the Canadian water is harmless to the
stranger wiien boiled or used with coffee or tea
(which latter is largely drunk), and old hands (or
stomachs) take it raw without unpleasant effect,
but to a new comer it is most surprising and
offensive, though agreeable enough to the taste.
Several of our party suffered severely from choleraic
diarrhoea in consequence of drinking it, and it
occasionally kills the careless thirsty children of
emigrants. Thus a few artesian wells are being
sunk, sometimes with wholly unexpected results,
of which I will say more presently when we reach
the place where they have come to pass.

The next place at which I stopped was
Moosomin. I may here say that, as I write this
from my notes on my return to Winnipeg, some
of the spots I visited were seen on my way back.
But it is more convenient to take them in con-
secutive order going westward. Thus, following
the order of the line, Moosomin comes next to
Brandon. I was particularly desirous to see it as
a number of Bethnal Green settlers have squatted
in its neighbourhood, and I had been asked to
visit them. It was felt that if these people, mostly
quite ignorant of farming, took any root in the
soil, the hopes of other colonists from cities would
be brighter. I reached Moosomin at night. Two
years ago it did not exist. Now it has a large
railway station (a huge elevator being built hard

■4 li

■! 1

by), and is a thriving town, of course mostly made
with deal boards. I walktid across to the " Craw-
ford House " by the light of a bobbing lantern,
and found that the landlord had a room ready
(new deal board as usual), apparently finished that
.:fternoon. Next mornin^v irt the dining-room I
found the breakfast to be (without any question
except as to the choice between tea and coffee)
porridge, beef-steak, potatoes, fritters, and treacle.
These were served unordered. The landlord
then took me a round in his " buggy," a gig on
four high wheels, drawn by an excellent pair of
black trotters. Here I came on an odd use of
words. I had no sooner taken my seat securely
by his side than he flourished his whip and said,
" Get down." Before, however, I had begun to
descend I realised that this was addressed to his
horses instead of " Get up." Neither phrase,
however, really suits the situation, for if the horse
were to try to *' get up " after his driver had
ascended the box it would be embarassing.

To return to our Moosomin expedition. We
took in a circuit of about twenty-five miles, follow-
ing in most cases no track, but driving from one
low turf-built house to another through superb
crops of hay, so rich as in many places to lie
down by their own weight. Here and there we
passed a pool, from which rose wild ducks within
easy shot, or a prairie hen whirred up close by
our side. A skunk once ran close before us for
some hundred yards, but as he was not alarmed
we realised his presence by sight only.

The first house we reached was one storey of
rough deal, some i6ft. by 12ft. A quarter section
of land — i.e., 160 acres — all magnificent hay to
begin with, was attached to it. A small portion
was broken up and had a crop of potatoes. A

sunburnt man stood at the low door. I got out
of the buggy, and said, " You don't know me,
but you know St. George's-in-the-East." " Why,
yes, sir, I was a cab-driver at Bethnal Green."
Then I asked him how he fared. He shared a
cow with a neighbour, and had broken up seven
acres. His previous wages had been about thirty
shillings a week, and his wife could earn ten shil-
lings a week at brushmaking. Now he is a
" farmer," but he has been earning three pounds
a week in helping to build the elevator, and his
daughter, age thirteen, had been getting for ser-
vice in Moosomin pay at the rate of sixteen
pounds a year. His wife could earn more than
twice as much. "Do you like it.''" said I.
" Yes," he replied, "I do ; ** and if you should
meet any more cab-drivers" (not improbable)
*' tell them to come out here." He added, though,
that the published Dominion prices of the oxen
and implements necessary for beginning a farm
had been misleading ; he and others had had to
pay about 30 per cent, more than they had
reckoned on. Almost all whom I visited remarked
this. After the cabman I saw a Bethnal Green
jobbing carpenter ; he had earned about fifteen
shillings a week and his wife nothing. She could
eat no breakfast in town, but now enjoyed her
porridge, Then we drove on, and I called on Mr.
Young, who had been a Scripture-reader, and
was described by my landlord as a clergyman.
He was not at home, but Mrs. Young told me
about their condition. He, with his brother, had
taken up half a section — />., 320 acres — and an
adopted boy above eighteen had also 160. So
they have 480 acres among them. Of course
only a portion of this is broken up at present,
but the rest is good hay, fit for cows. I^Irs.

''iii

::r

Young had been "mostly under the doctor" in
London, but ** had never wanted one " since she
came to Canada ; and liked it " very much." Then
I called on a Mr. and Mrs. Cumbers, late of Bethnal
Green. They have a low black turf bouse as
warm as toast, and five Tonng . hil'^ren. He was
a ** labourer," and earned about twenty-one shil-
lings a week. His wife earned nothing. Now
he has — he came from England last April — i6o
acres of land, two pigs, nnd twenty chickens.
The small plot already tilled bears potatoes alone.
I did not think that Mr. Cumbers was very en-
thusiastic about the matter, bUv he Mished his
two brothers to come out, and gave me their
addresses, and said, " I eat more heartier, and
though the weather damps us a bit, I dare say
we shall get on another year."
hut, with its 1 60 acres, which
owned by Mr. Cattermole, who
{i.e., pair or yoke of oxen) with

The next turf
I visited, was
shared a team

his neighbour

Cumbers. He also had five young children, had
been a cellarman and '• done jobbing work," but
"had been walking about for months" without
any work. Health had been " middling good —
never better, all right, now." He had no cow,
which was a pity, since he had over a hundred
acres of hay ; indeed, there were only about four
acres broken on his section. He came out last
April. From his hut I went to Mr. Bloom's. He
had been a police constable and had also worked
on a farm in England. His half-brother and his
mother had come with him, and they had also
taken up 160 acres. "Some people won't like
it," he said, " because of the prohibition of liquor."
" Good job too," said his mother, " and I hope it
will be always kept out; but anyhow," she
ded, laughing, " we mostly have a couple of

ducks for dinner." *• Yes, I like that," said the
ex-constable ; " a man can always take his gun
and knock over a duck or a prairie fowl." Ducks,
indeed ! There are hundreds, and fine ones too.
Every little pool seemed to have some. I asked
if they stayed in the winter. " No, they don't,
but the prairie fowl do," was the reply. These
people whom I have visited are fair specimens of
the East End, and I really do not see why they
should not do in another year. At first (barring
the cab-driver) some had no idea how to harness a
team or indeed do any agricultural work. Their first
attempts at milking, too, are said to have puzzled
the cows. But they all have potatoes. There is
wood to be had for the gathering, and occasional
work in Moosomin or near. Several will have a
sharp pinch. I have just been having a long
talk with the headman of a number of Scotch
crofters who came out after the East-enders, and
are settled near. Divers of these have between
forty and fifty acres ploughed for wheat. Selling
that next year, tho'inrh at a low price, they get a
good return and are fairly "settled." Some of
the Londoners are or have been puzzled, but will
pull through. They are rather sore about the
stocking of the farms costing more than they
fancied, and hardly realise the unprofitableness of
grumbling ; but the agent tells me that they are
not working badly, though at present without
sufficient skill. All that I have seen speak ivell
of their health, but several lament the want of
schools and places of public worship. These will
come in time. Now much of this part of the
country, though " taken up," is uncultivated. We
drove simply over the prairie, bumping over
badgers' holes, and big, worn stones hidden by
the luxuriant grass The wood is small. Fire

^ I'!

has frequently swept the land. When you go
into a clump of growing bushes you find the
ground covered, if not cumbered, with burnt
relics of forest. The whole region is flat, and
sprinkled with small pools or meres. The first
grain " elevator" which is being built here is cal-
culated to hold 50,000 bushels of wheat, and
buyers will be always ready at the station to pur-
chase produce even in the smallest parcels. After
my round among the East-enders I called on a
settler who had been a valet in Essex. He had
acquired two hundred pounds, married, and come
out last April. ** I have got," he said, " an acre
of potatoes, ten acres ploughed for wheat, and
have stacked thirty tons of hay." He has taken
up the quarter section of 1 60 acres, has two yoke
of oxen, a cow, a few fowls, but as yet no pigs.
" How do you like it all ? " I asked, and his quick
response, ''Very much indeed," left no doubt
about his views. His next neighbour, who has
quite lately come out, is a bricklayer.

The possibilities of the place are, indeed, enor-
mous, but the labour is great and the social draw-
backs are serious. Two of the families had lost
children since they came in April. One had been
left at Winnipeg, having died by the way. An-
other "was buried out there," said the mother,
pointing to the prairie, with a choke in her voice.
** He was the eldest." There is one initial draw-
back to settlement in Canada, though indeed it is
shared by contiguous regions in the United States.
I have already noticed it, but the fact is so notice-
able that I naturally mention it again. The
water is alkaline. New comers always suffer
severely from it if they insist on drinking it raw,
but when boiled or used with tea or coffee it is
wholesome. Several people have expressed to

' I!

me their hope that lager beer will be allowed to
be sold. All, outwardly at least, agree that the
prohibition of spirits is good for the people. I
cannot say that I have not seen a drunken man
in Canada, but the temperance of the people is
conspicuous.

Since my return to Winnipeg I have been
seeing a little and hearing much more about East
London emigrants. It is generally felt that their
exodus is a test one. There are several kinds of
settlers. The most welcome is a man with a few
hundred pounds, who can 'Make up" land, stock
it well, work himself, and have enough to tide
over till he can sell the produce of his farm. The
agricultural labourer, too, if intelligent, steady,
and industrious, has considerable openings here ;
but if he brings no capital he must labour some-
where till he saves enough to get his " quarter
section '* and squat in a turf hut of his own. The
sheer townsman, who has been used to a cook-shop
round every corner, is often sorely tried when put
down alone on his grassy lot, which, as it has no
visible boundaries, is seemingly the boundless
prairie. Thus the change may be too much for
him, and the conduct of civilised life may be so
rudely broken by his flitting as to take away his
faith in the soil. Moreover, he has probably
been accustomed not only to a quiek return for
his labour, but to labour of a kind which produces
an immediately obvious result. He does not
realise the slow repayment of Nature. The
breaking of the prairie sod promises too distant a
wage. Thus when I had asked several Londoners
what they had earned in the old country, and
then went on to inquire what they got in the
new, two or three pulled rather long faces, and
said, " We shall get nothing till next fall " — they

had already learnt the American for " autumn."
But they all spoke with hope, and not one ex-
pressed a wish to return. I should repeat that
they were justified in some complaints, for the
prices of several necessary items published by the
authorities here are misleading, e.g., nothing
can really be done with the soil without a yoke of
oxen to plough it, and the cost of these is thirty
per cent, more than the settler is led to expect.
This at first daunted some of our Londoners, who
showed me the printed list which had misled
them. However, as I heard an expert say, " They
will worry through." And as they do, the problem
involving the disposal of some of our surplus souls
approaches solution. Of this I feel more confi-
dent as I reflect on what I have seen and heard,
since some of these settlers are not of the most
provident and pushing class. I know the style of
man I am thinking of well ; but here, though
with an aptitude for grumbling, the whine seems
to be going out of him. Some few, possibly, may
fail altogether, and will return speaking evil of
the land. Some will have a very hard pinch in
the coming winter ; but I believe that they will
win. Anyhow, if their condition should now be
compared with what it was in London it would be
favourably judged. And since their great draw-
back (ignorance of agriculture) grows less every
month, tlieir progress is the more hopeful as time
goes on. The emigrants who seem to succeed
most quickly are domestic servants, intelligent
workmen of the railway labourer class, and
those of a little better education, who are
gifted with good health and strength, stick at
nothing, and have plenty of " push." Let me
give three examples out of many which might
be produced. Mrs. Vatcher, of St. Philip's,

Stepney, sent out a party of poor girls from the
East of London this last May, and asked me to
look up one who had gone to Winnipeg. I did
so. She was in a respectable place and earning
15 dollars a month — i.e.^ £^6 a year, with board
and lodging. "I am quite happy and comfortable,"
she said, her face beaming when I told her that I
had come from Mrs. Vatcher. The next case was
that of a railway labourer, named Thomas Watson,
from Lincolnshire. He had come out with his
wife to join a brother-in-law some distance from
Winnipeg, and on reaching the haven which he
sought found that his relation had flitted, leaving
no address that he could then find. He had
"gone West." So Watson returned to the
emigrant shed at Winnipeg with a long face.
" What has he been doing since he came back } "
I asked. " Well," was the elegant reply, " he has
been tightening his belt to keep his belly together."
And he certainly looked very lean as he came in
(while I was standing by the shed) from another
cruise after work. But there was a nascent twinkle
in his eye. " Have you got any } " said the
superintendent, a fine ex-Crimean soldier, full of
kindliness and good sense. ** Yes, sir, I've got a
section-house with 56 dollars a month, and my
wife is to take in boarders." A " section-house " is
one by the rail side where the men live who look
after a certain " section " of the line. Thus, our
friend had found his place, worth over / 130 a
year, with house and firing. In asking the Rev.
H. T. Leslie, "immigrant chaplain" at Winnipeg
(who knows the place well, and most kindly
gave me much assistance and information),
whether this was a fair test case, he said it was, and
added that the man's wife would possibly earn
nearly as much. But then Watson is a shrewd,

strong, likely-looking fellow. Not so seemed a
civil-speaking man from Notting Hill, whom I
next interviewed. '' What is your trade ? " I
asked. "Oh, nothing particular, sir," said he,
*' but I want to keep about in the town." " He
won't do," I remarked to the superintendent,
whose reply was at once, *' No." Then he added,
"And yet some such such a few years ago went
to " — I forget the name of the place — *' and
several were starved ; but the rest have become
excellent citizens. It taught them." Our Not-
ting Hill friend will, 1 fear, have a sharp time of
it in his first winter.

The third instance I refer to was that of a man
with whom I conversed at length about the East
London emigrants. " Look at me," he said. I
did. He was six feet high, measured about forty-
five inches round the chest, and had a black
beard as strong as a quickset hedge. " Look at
my hands," he said next. I did. They were not
particularly dirty, but as hard as iron. ** These
people," he continued, ** want oxen and ploughs
to begin. Waal. Guess I came with these two
hands without anything like the price of a cow in
them, two years ago, and now I have thousands of
dollars. Whenever I saw half a one I went for it."
He was a Canadian born, and told me his history.
I saw him presently driving a fine pair of horses
in his own buggy, and he had "elegant" gloves
on. These three instances of success which I
have given are not exceptional, but then a man
must pre-eminently have " push," and not sit in
the middle of a field with a pail expecting some
cow to come to be milked. Our friend, the*
railway man from Lincolnshire, had met with an
initial fall by failing to find his brother-in-law,
but he soon recovered himself, and already I dare
say has let out several holes in his belt.

After Moosomin the traveller will anyhow be
sure to alight at Indian Head. Here is the
much-talked-of "Bell Farm," ten miles square,
worked like a machine with every suspicion
of rural sentiment wholly discarded. Indeed,
everything is sacrificed to supposed economy,
including some of the horses, which were miser-
ably poor. The engines, too, were pronounced
by an expert in machinery, who formed one of
our party, to be fragile fabrics. Huge tubs,
looking like the Martello towers which fringe part
of our eastern English coasts, and holdiag i,ooo
bushels each, stand at suitable places to take the
grain as it issues from the threshing machines.
These are furnished with short elevators, which
stick up like kettle-spouts so as to reach the
hole in the upper rim of the tub into which the
corn runs. It is afterwards collected from these
temporary receptacles and taken to the nearest
railway station. The wheat is white Fife, and you
may see a great flat field containing 15,000 acres
of it. It is of course reaped with binders. A
good deal was uncut and patchy with green ears.
Wheat is grown after wheat without manure or at
present any clearing of the land, but we were told
that a third of the soil would be rested every year.
The last yield was twenty-two and a half bushels
to the acre. This is a very fair return, consider-
ing the haste or *' harum-scarum *' style of farming
which marks the present agriculture of this part
of the Dominion. Straw is used as fuel in the
Bell Farm engines, and that which is not thus
consumed is burnt to be got out of the way. The
seed is sown by a broadcaster machine. Altogether,
though more has to be done here, enough may
be seen to make the wheat producer in England
look grave. But the cities stand so thick with

consumers of bread that they may laugh and sing.
The hope is that abundant bread may beget an
ambitious appetite, and that English farmers may
be able to grow fragile comforts which cannot be
imported from afar, and have hitherto been
beyond the purse of the million, but which if sold
in towns at a very much cheaper rate than the
present might yet well pay the tiller of home
fields. The Bell Farm certainly set us thinking
with emphatic seriousness about these, and a
tobacco parliament met in the smoking-room of
our *' special " to discuss agricultural prospects
as we steamed away. Since the average holding
of the Canadian farmer (according to a statement
made during the meeting of the British Associa-
tion at Montreal by Professor Brown, of the
Agricultural College at Guelph) is only about
150 acres, the claims of this large wheat manu-
factory at India Head are peculiar, if not unique,
in the Dominion, and the public waits to see
what a company can do with the soil in cheapen-
ing wheat for the market and paying a dividend
to its shareholders at the same time.

The grain-producing soil of the North-West is
seemingly as flat as possible in Manitoba, but as
the train moves onwards and enters Assiniboia
it is flatter still, notably in the great *' Regina
Plain," some fifty miles wide and ninety long.
Regina is the capital of Assiniboia, which con-
tains about a hundred thousand square miles of
land, and is thus rather larger than Kngland,
Scotland, and W-'les all together. Both the
province and its metropolis would seem to have
been thought of, found out, and namtd only a
few years ago. Their future is incalculable.
Here is the seat of Government, reprtsented
chiefly by the mounted police, who number about

500 saddles, look exactly like the Horse Guards
Red, with useless little caps (like cloth decanter
stands) on one side of their heads, and uniforms so
tight as to render movement uncomfortable.
They are uncommonly fine fellows (mostly from
the " old country"), and are employed in keeping
the Indians under foot and spying, for whisky,
w^hich, being prohibited, they are empowered to
condemn, and are said, nevertheless (so ran the
rumour even in this thinly-peopled land) to like
the taste of. They make an imposing force,
anyhow, and I was told that even one of them
carried such an atmosphere of authority about
him as to stalk into an Indian camp and walk off
unchallenged with any '* brave " who was charged
with, say, horse-stealing. This is the chief offence,
or at least one of the most severely punished
crimes in these parts. The guard kept against
the introduction of alcohol into the North-West
territories is a strict one. No doubt it is evaded
to some extent, but it certainly hinders drunken-
ness. Probably this liquor law is the more
desirable here because of the poor Indians, who
draw to the smell of rum as cats do to that of
valerian, and who might become ungovernable if
they could buy it.

The instances of intoxication which I have
noted in Canada have been peculiar, and seem-
ingly shown by well-to-do people. Tea is mostly
drunk at every meal, but the prairie air tasted (to
me for one) almost alcoholic. I never breathtd
such an inspiriting atmosphere — not even in the
high plact's of Switzi'riand, nor amid the pure
dry sands of the Arabian Desert. It is more-
over, to some extent aromatic. I noticed this at
R''gina, and a native confirmed my perception bv
the immediate remark, " That is the mint in the

grass." The passage over these enormous fertile
plains, so long strictly " preserved " by the
trapper, but now opened to the plough, produces
an effect on the mind which is not realised at the
moment. When one is beset by conversation in
English the social ard natural surroundings are
somehow unconsciously assumed to be fixed or
established. A glance out of the window of the
train over the prairie might suggest no more than
that over an exaggerated hayfield or a flattened
Salisbury Plain. Presently you begin to remember
that you are crossing a virgin land only just
wedded to an ambitious British mate, and that
these unmeasured breadths of soil may some day
be as crowded with human life as the most thickly-
peopled districts of the Old Country. What will
this new region produce ? Every fifty miles along
the line a small square block is fenced off in the
primeval grass and crammed full of wheat, barley,
oats, potatoes, onions, beet, cabbages, carrots,
turnips, swedes, mangold, maize, and — what not.
How come they there ? What are these curiously
manifold mixtures of field and market-garden
fruits.^ These are "test "-farms. They are set
thus thick to see what the soil will bring forth.
They have been thus sown only a year. Twelve
months ago they were unreclaimed prairie, and
the result is amazing. I stood and looked at these
varied crops, handled the roots (which were very
large), rubbed the corn in my hands, counted the
grains in divers ears, and walked off thinking,
** Why should not the whole face of the land be
thus covered with the fruit of the earth?" Of
course, the summer may have been exceptional,
this, that, the other — may be, might be. Hut
there, in the midst of an unmeasured '* wilder-
ness " of grass, the potatoes, turnips, cabbages,

carrots, etc., etc., were, alon^ with great sheaves of
corn. There they had grown, that year — little
teeming squares crowded to their corners with
luxuriant food. The thinnest thread of iron wire
(I mean the rail) drawn across the plain had done
it all, and meant to do the rest.

This appeared the more possible as we entered
the region about Medicine Hat, where the land
dips to let the great Saskatchewan flow through,
and by 'ts banks show huge black lumps of some-
thing sticking out. Coal. Professor Boyd Daw-
kins and all the geological section hopped out of
the train and set to work picking away like miners
around our carriage. " Really good coal," they
said, coming back with their hands full of great
lumps, which they began to fold up in paper and
put away in their carpet bags. The luggage of
these gentlemen must astonish porters when they
get home, and I think that they rather envied the
botanists, whose light spoil is entombed in hat-
boxes and the like. But about the coal. Our
experts told us that it reached away from the river
for hundreds of miles, and that where it had been
in its formation folded and compressed, nearer to
the Rocky Moup*^ins. it was anthracite, becom-
ing, farthest awa> ' om the hills, what they called
" lignite." Anyhow, about Medicine Hat, the
leader in a possible forest of tall chimneys had
already risen (a new tret sprung from the decayed
and long-a;^ . ransformed growth which made the
coal scam) <ind spread the first foul smuts in tbe
sweet prairie air. This region is pregnant wit*i
the fierce forces of what we call civilisation, as
marked by commerce, clangour, firedamp, party
politics, and other costlv discomfort. (ireat
steamers (with hind wheels) were waiting on the
Saskatchewan, apparently wiih (as yet) nothing to

do. There are, I believe, two trains a week west-
ward on the unfinished line — with no passengers
to speak of. The whole thing is hardly big enough
yet to be called even a bud, but it has a huge
growth behind it, and the very incidents of the
region are gigantic. For example, they (I can
hardly say who " they " were, for nobouy was to
be seen there besides the workmen) wanted water
at a place or station called Langevin, about fifty
miles beyond Medicine Hat ; and so they bored.
When they had bored over a thousand feet, hoping
to make an artesian well, the search for water was
repaid in fire. At least, one day the borers, hold-
ing a candle or striking a match close to their
hole, were thrust back by a fountain of flame
which licked up the house in which their engine
was at work, and then stood a pillar of fire in the
midst of the green desert. They had then reached
a depth of nearly eleven thousand feet, and, pass-
ing through the huge coal-bed which lies beneath,
had probably struck a fissure. Anyhow, up rushed
the gas, which, becoming ignited, soon consumed
their solitary shelter. Presently, however, after
some pains, the hole through which it issued was
plugged and fitted with an iron pipe, governed by
a tap. This was turned on while we were there
that we might hear the roar with which the flame
springs up and Sv^e the fiery fountain which it
raises. It had been burning continuously for nine
months, and suggested the prospect of an enor-
mous store of gas for some future city whose
inhabitants will scorn the puny measures of cubic
feet which mark the supply and swell the bills of
the Londoner. Meanwhile, since the people of
Langevin (that are Lo be) can scarcely be expected
to quench their thirst with flame, this Brobdignag
main is turned on and used to work a stationary

engine busy in boring again (for water) some ten
or fifteen yards away from the mouth of fire. A
depth of 1,145 ^66t had been reached when we
saw the borer at work, but it was still dry ; no sign
of water had appeared. The coal-bed, however,
had been pierced without the striking of another
fissure stored with gas. Of course, unless the
water (if found) rises, its discovery will prove to be
of no practical jse.

From Medicine Hat the ground creeps up
towards the Rocky Mountains. As we approached
them the fitness of the soil, or rather elevation,
to grow wheat becomes less. At Gleichen, how-
ever, which is 2,986 feet above the level of the
sea, the produce of the " test farm" appeared to
be excellent. The roots were very fine, and ears of
wheat held from twenty-five to thirty-one kernels.
The quality of the grain seemed to me to be good.
The soil had been used for its production the
first time since the creation, the seed having been
sown in the spring in fresh-broken ground. Such
success, though, would hardly be expected every
year at so great an elevation. The sample I saw-
was hardy, having originally come from Russia
and passed through Scotland. There were many
Indians hanging about this |.lace, and I must go
back to them for a moment, for they haunt me.
They were all pagans, and as gay in their attire
as they were sad in face. One (for a saddle-cloth)
was sitting on a Union Jack, but then his inten-
tions were honourable, and he evidently projected
a compliment to the authorities. He was a chief,
and on his way with many companions to some
place where they were to receive their *' treaty
money," five dollars a head, in new notes.

I should like to know what they thought of the
intrusive little square "test farm" staring them in

1: '

W -J

the face, and saying, '* You have been hunting
buffaloes here since the ages before history, and
now you must have done, and attend to me. A
stronger than you has come upon you. If these
white faces riding horseless into your land on
iron roads are going to tolerate your continuance
you must dig and sow." No wonder the Red-
skins looked sad. They showed some perception
of civilised life, though. When one of our party
got out his camera and prepared to photograph a
group of them, they posed themselves at once,
having a native eye towards the picturesque, and
desiring to come out well. Unfortunately the
sun refuses to transfer their colours to the plate,
and Mrs. Crowfoot (with a brilliant yellow face
and a perfectly distinct bright round red spot on
each cheekbone) will not be flattered. The
seemingly instantaneous appreciation of the
camera by the Indians surprised me, but perhaps
it was announced in a guttural oration which one
of the chiefs had just made. Anyhow, they
stiffened themselves like waxwork directly the
lens of the instrument was aimed at them.

The belt of land in which we then were,
parallel to the Rocky Mountains, had evidently
once been highly esteemed by them, for it had
been their great hunting ground. Indeed it still
was streaked with the paths of buffaloes " This,"
said Dr. Cheadle to me, as we sat looking from
the carriage window over the endless yellow-green
prairie where years ago he had passed and
erorded memorable months of wearisome travel
and privi ion, "is the home of the buffalo." He
might hdve said " was," for their number is
mysteriously shrinking fast. Not one, I need
hardly say, vv.is visibU-, for they quickly leave the
land which is traversed by the train. Once,

however, this was blackened by their hordes as
they wandered over it at their will, or marched
from one feeding- ground to another. In making
this remark, I might say that they do not run in
a mob as represented in some pictures, but move
in single file, like policemen. We crossed hundreds
of their deeply-worn tracks leading straight away
into the distance, and, surely, indicating that the
slopes of the " Rockies "are fitted for the purpose
to which they are being applied by the settler —
viz., the rearing and feeding of cattle. Where
the buffalo has thriven there the bull may be
expected to thrive. And, in fact, " ranches "
promise to become among the most profitable
growths of the extreme North-West territories.
The snow is so feathery that it blows off the
animal's back and also off the surface of the
prairie, the herbage of which is thus easily
reached by the beast. Of course this means
wind, and thus cold to the settler. Where the
air is quite still the severity of American frost is
little perceived. It is the wind which makes it felt,
and as this comes down the gullies of the Rocky
Mountains strong enough to blow the light snow
off the grass, it searches the cowherd to the bones
unless he is well clothed, like his beasts, in
leather. A buffalo-hide garment is obviously the
best, but he can bear almost as many coats as an
onion. Divers keepers of and workers on ranches
whom I saw seemed, nevertheless, to be in excel-
lent condition, though stung by the frost in winter
and mosquitos in the heat. I must say, in pass-
ing, that 1 felt, saw, and heard nothing of these
pests while in Canada. It was hot enough, I
thought, several times, especially in Montreal and
Toronto, to have ensured their presence and
whetted their venomous appetites, and yet I did

: ii

not once recognise the buzz with which they set
about their business. But (this is interpolated
since my return) directly I passed into the United
States I was badly bitten. The enemy was not
only at Chicago and Boston but in the railway
carriage, above the din of which his trumpet
might be heard. A series of detachments began
to live upon me directly I had got away from the
region of the Red River, and I carried their bites
across the Atlantic. There can be no doubt,
however, that mosquitos abound in many places
in Canada during the summer, and come to be a
national plague. Moreover, I inquired in vain
for serpents in the Dominion. These are a deadly
danger in several parts of the United States. I
see in my mind's eye now a rattlesnake coiled on
an inviting tree stump in California ready to kill
any one who offered to take a seat there. There
are no rattlesnakes in Canada. Nor, so far as I
could learn (and I repeatedly put the question),
is there any malarious escape from the newly-
stirred soil, as is found (often to the settler's cost)
farther south.

As we drew towards Calgary, which has long
been reckoned as a sort of temporary terminus to
the Canada Pacific Line now creeping across
British Columbia, we realised the fringe of the
last great division of the three into which British
North America is divided. The old provinces,
away to the west of Lake Superior, may be said
to have been forest. Then comes the plain,
stretching away 800 miles west from Winnipeg.
Rising abruptly from this, the mountain region
begins bright with snowpeak and glacier. These
three di\ si^ns are roughly and plainly discernible
on any good map, and they help in the realisation
of the varied provision made in the Dominion for

the use of man. We reached Calgary in a pour-
ing rain. The station, however, was crowded by
a number of expectant residents, who followed a
leader furnished with a complimentary address to
the British Association, which he read to us under
an umbrella. Our chief speaker, Sir R. Temple,
standing on the tailboard of a carriage, replied to
this in still more cheery and complimentary
language, whereupon we all cried " Hear ! hear !
hear!" heartily reciprocating the goodwill and
loyalty which had brought these gentlemen
together in a deluge to show their liking for the
distant " old country." Then, postponing our
exploration of Calgary till our return from the
summit of the " Rockies," we drew off and were
soon conscious of the uphill progress of our
" special " towards the resting-place amidst the
snows where it was destined to stand still while
we made a short expedition into British Columbia
on foot.

The train crept cautiously up by the side of the
Bow River, sometimes in its curves leading us
unpleasantly near to overhanging brinks. Pre-
sently peaks whitened with snow began to rise
around us on either side, till the night came,
showing only black jagged outlines to the right
and left. Then we stopped and slept, waking
next morning to find ourselves close to a fine
mountain tarn, " Kicking-horse Lake," and with
genuine Alpine scenery all around. Our carriage
stood at the height ot some 5,400 feet above the
sea level. This part of the Rocky Mountains is
much more broken into summits than that west
of Colorado which I had formerlv known, and
some of our party set forth at once to " bag," if
possible, one of the peaks. In this, however, they
were disappointed. The rest of us started off in

the direction of the track to see its end, closed as
yet by barriers of rock and ravine, but alive with
a crowd of navigators busy in pushing it onwards
towards the Pacific Ocean. Every now and then
we crossed a gully bridged by a temporary wooden
scaffold, across which we stepped from timber to
timber. On our left the mountain rose abruptly,
and on our right a valley, far below, was traversed
by a glacier stream, and dotted with a few white
tents belonging to some of the pioneers who were
leading the iron track through British Columbia.
Here a mischance occurred which might have
been fatal to several of our party. One of the
temporary wooden trestle bridges spanned a
great gully which led up far away into the rocks
on our left. Some half-dozen of us crossed it
and walked a mile or so farther. After recrossing
it on our return we sat down on a balk of timber
at its brink and lunched. Then, with a friend, I
walked back up the track while Dr. Selwyn and
two or three others remained. I had not gone far,
round a curve of the road, before I heard a great
crash. " That," I remarked to my companion,
" was a rock-fall ; I have often heard it in Switzer-
land." Thus we walked idly on, thinking no harm.
Presently a man overtook and passed us, mut-
tering something excitedly, but we took no heed.
'I'hen came another. They were hurrying on to
stop a "construction train" which (consisting of
an engine, and trucks loaded with sleepers, and a
number of men clustered on them) was bound for
the extreme end of the unfinished track. No
wonder they hurried, for the trestle bridge we had
just crossed had been carried away by the rock-
fall which I had heard. One of our party. Dr.
Selwyn, was on it when the rock fell, but, though
carried down a considerable distance with the dis-

located and broken timbers, was providentially
unhurt. There are rough surroundings in all
mountains, and when you thrust a railway among
them you may expect mishaps. The workers on
this part of the line are plainly set in the midst of
dangers. Only the day before our arrival one of
the locomotives had run away down the steep
gradient (one in twenty-four) which led towards
the bus\ A'd at the end of the track. As it
went ( I few attached trucks) the men on

them ji ♦". The engine itself left the tem-

porary plunged into a ravine. A doctor

in our paity bandaged the sprained and swelled
ankle (I hope it was no worse) of a man who had
leaped from it in time. We found him sitting by
the track-side, and in a great state of excitement
about the construction train which had passed by
towards the newly-broken bridge.

I was struck by the sobriety of these navigators.
They were a rough, thirsty-looking company, and
there were some thousand of them, but they had
no " drink ; " so they said. Anyhow, the only
staggerer 1 saw was a poor fellow almost helpless
from sickness. I gave him a pannikin of strong
tea, for which he was very thankful.

In the middle of our second night the train
slipped away from its standing-place among the
mountains, and next morning landed us again at
Calgary, to move toward the east from this time.
The unfortunate hands of our watches had now to
be shifted in another direction as we rushed to
meet the sun (which didn't shine) at Winnipeg,
and crossed both plains and " meridians " on our
way. But if we missed its full light, we saw that
of superb auroras. Sometimes an enormous con-
flagration seemed to consume the horizon with
leaping electric flames. Then a great white bow

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bridged the sky, to be suddenly changed into an
arch of comets. This was soon after we had re-
turned to Winnipeg. I stood long in the street
gazing at it. But no one of the multitude looked
up or cared for these things. They were too
busy after the almighty dollar.

Now about Winnipeg itself. It is one of the
newest, liveliest, muddiest cities I ever saw. Set
on a dead fiat, on a foundation of rich soil which
rain turns into deep black grease (" Main" Street
was once an Indian trail and has not yet been
paved), its railways and rivers command Mani-
toba, at present. What the sprouting towns
along the Canadian Pacific Line will grow to re-
mains to be seen. Now Winnipeg is '* that
swelled and gentlefolked " — as Joe Gargery said
of Pip — that it is justified in considering itself
exceptional. Many of its shops are seemingly as
good as those in Toronto (the Hudson Bay Com-
pany Store might be in the Haymarket), and
the city is lit with electric light. But other
little flashes or sparks appeared which helped
towards the hint that a very fewyears ago it was
a small hamlet in the prairie. The Indians had
just been paid their yearly dole, and some were
coming into Winnipeg to spend it. I went to the
bank to get a little money, and was paid in brand
new notes. ** How is this ? " I asked (for the
paper money of the Dominion is often dirty and
ragged). '* Indian treaty money coming in," said
the clerk, who had a six-shooter lying at thtt
right-hand of his writing-pad. I paused at the
desk of the next cashier, and he had a six-shooter
handy too. " I've seen more revolvers here," I
remarked, *• than in the rest of Canada." " Ah ! "
said the two clerks. "And more mud," I added.
•* Ah ! " they said, " but you should see it in the

spring." So I took my clean money and de-
parted, thinking about Indians, pistols, mud,
electric light, clerks with rings on their fingers,
immigrants, and general transformation. Pre-
sently I saw a Redskin sulking into a grocery
store, intent seemingly on buying a bagful of
•' Keen's mustard," which importunately pre-
sented itself. Possibly he intends to paint his
wife and family with it. They much affect yellow.
I cannot think what will be done about the
future drainage of this place, except at the cost
of the (now delicious) fish in the Red River.
The suburb of Winnipeg is now pitted with small
cesspools, as the body of the town no doubt was
before it grew. The same apprehension applies
to the scores of *' cities " now beginning to spring
up over the prairie, in several of which there is
apparently no fall. Indeed, typhoid fever is
among some congregations of new settlers already,
though the breeze around them is keen with re-
serve of life and perfumed with the spicy herbage
of the prairie. I have already noticed that at
Regina the air was scented with the mint crushed
under foot. Some of ihe smells I came across in
Winnipeg were mischievously pungent. The town
is laid out to grow to any size, the straight roads
lined with telegraph posts and plank *' side- walks"
pointing to the prairie, being really invitations to
the streets to follow. The common form of build-
ing advertisement, " Lots to sell," has often a
peculiar propriety here, and suggests gigantic pro-
posals, since behind the wayside board there may
be some few hundred thousand square miles to be
bought. At present the suburb of wooden houses
and shanties stands about in liitle groups or soli-
tary deal board fabrics mostly with an open drain
before them. But the mud in the middle of the

city is far worse than that in the newest suburb.
For instance, opposite the Town Hall — a very im-
posing structure — two waggons have sunk into it
so deeply that they have had to be left. There
they were, or are, buried to their axles. All
omnibus traffic is of course suspended, but I have
seen a few two-horse cabs " at plough." A large
pool in the middle of the chief thoroughfare has
been equipped by some wag with a card set on
the end of a stick bearing the inscription, '* Bath-
ing strictly prohibited." I have heard a great
deal of bad language at Winnipeg. It is all aimed
at the municipal authorities, and if ever men de-
served it they do. Now the state of things is
enough to choke off trade, for facility of commu-
nication is the first feature of really civilised life.

The Bishop of Rupertsland has been kind
enough to show me over St. John's College, a fine
building fitted for more students than at present
apply for admission. But in time it bids fair to
occupy a commanding position in respect to the
higher educational needs of Manitoba, of which
it helps with a Presbyterian establishment and
that of St. Boniface — Roman Catholic — to form
the University. This now grants degrees. At
present there is apparently no common ** Union "
in which the several colleges may discuss womer
rights and the execution of Cnarles i, but t;
debating room of St. John's was in full force, the
next subject being " That the existence of the
House of Lords as at present constituted is incon-
sistent with the spirit of liberty."

Here I must be allowed to remark that though
the provision of suitable buildings for higher
education no doubt forms an important part of
the duty of the Church, it is obvious that mission-
ary visitation is much needed in a region over

which increasing numbers of her people are being
dispersed. Visitation is, loo, all the more neces-
sary as the country population is far more sepa-
rated than it is in England. Not only are settlers
spread over an enormous region, but even where
the land is " taken up " most, each settler is set
down on his own quarter, or half-section, a mile
or so distant from his next neighbour. Thus the
kindly entry of a minister of religion into a house
has a value which can hardly be appreciated in
sundry places at home. I am sure that many a
young man, instead of settling down directly after
his ordination into a rural village or district, might
well come here for at least a little while, and help
to feed and teach a strong nation in its cradle.
Whatever his after work or position, he would
meet and fill it with a knowledge of human nature
impossible to be acquired in the old country.
Here he would not be set to minister where the
language and customs of Christianity are respect-
ably conventional, and it is sometimes hard to
stir the air of tame and thoughtless acquiescence
in religious sentiment, but he would be launched in
a strong human breeze, and feel himself to be a
pastor among pioneers. He would have to deal
with keenly awakened and receptive minds, rough,
sharp, but intensely alive ; tingling with vitality.
It would do him a world of good, and create
suggestive memories for after life. He would
have to drive or ride across breadths of sweet-
smelling prairie from house to house, or from one
sprouting village near a track to another. His
welcome would be always hearty. He should not
forget a double-barrel central-fire gun, whereby
to help himself out of the profusion of wild duck
and prairie chicken he will put up as he goes
along, and may cook, or get cooked, for his

meals. As he will also at present be pretty sure
to come across deer, he should bring, not a rifle,
but a store of buckshot cartridges with him. The
air he would breathe is delicious. He might do
a good stroke of genuine Christian work. He
will see a fresh people striking their roots into
and rising from a soil which has waited for them
from the creation of the world. He will watch
the growth of cities, feeling their own life, and
help to keep up f he sense of England's expansion.
He might then go back, after a few years, with a
reserve of experience which would enable him to
realise humanity as he hardly could otherwise ; or
he may become so charmed with his work as to
take up his residence in this England which is
beyond the seas, but which is continually being
brought closer to the old county by ships and
railways. In the use of these, interchange of visits
becomes easier every year. I stumbled on Mr.
Bolton, the chaplain of Bishop Anson, cooking
his dinner in a new deal hut, and just then wash-
ing his potatoes. He was full of enthusiasm
about his pastoral work, but will not thank me for
calling his residence a hut, since I think he has
dubbed it "Church House," and holds service
there. Anyhow, the pot was beginning to boil in
the middle of the Mission-room, some hymn-
books and leaflets lay about, and a belt of cart-
ridges hung on a nail in the wall.

But I must return to Winnipeg for a minute
before I lay down my pen. Though wages are
high — bricklayers being now on strike here for
four dollars, i.e., i6j., a day, — some things are
rather costly, and some kinds of work, such, e.g., as
bricklaying, cannot be done in the winter, which is
long and very cold. Of course hotel prices are
always excessive (I have to pay ten cents, i.e.,

ite
ire
for
ire
as
is
ire

5</., for each collar washed, and a bottle of bitter
beer costs 3^.), but in the poorest part a glass
of milk is 5 cents, or z^d. Sugar is somewhat
dear, tea and coffee are reasonable, clothing is
from some 10 per cent, dearer than in England.
Away in young prairie cities near the track the
price of necessaries is being much equalised.
One thing to be remembered is that meat is
cheap, the commoner joints being about 5</. a
pound, and offal, such as bullock's heart and liver,
about 2^d. Wood is chiefly used for fuel in the
stoves — you don't see open fires — and can gene-
rally be got for the getting; but this state of
things cannot last long as the population in-
creases and the sparsely- wooded parts of the
country are exhausted. Timber does not grow in
a day, and though coal is found at the surface in
several places throughout the North-West, it will
not come of its own accord to the cold settler,
who has five months of winter to get through. I
found that the price of coal at Moosomin, 219
miles west of Winnipeg, was from seven to eight
dollars a ton, anthracite, if bought, costing as
much as eighteen. Coal oil, for lamps, is de-
cidedly cheap. The price of a cow is from/* 10
to /'is, and a good team or yoke of oxen costs
between /'40 and /"so. The pigs are mostly
Berkshire or Suffolk, and struck me as very dear,
fetching, I was told, jfi each when taken from
the sow. This cannot last, except with pedigree
swine. Butter is about a shilling a pound, and
potatoes are 40 cents, or is. Sd., a bushel. They
have been much cheaper in England this season.

BarnesvilUf Minnesota^ U.S.A.^

September i% 1884, 9 a.m.

I believe that the world has become flat. After
whirling on day after day across the interminable
prairie, on the edge of which the Rocky Moun-
tains are laid, and seeing a perfectly level, yellow-
green horizon around Winnipeg, I went to sleep
in my berth last night " on board " the train to
Chicago. On looking out of my window about
six o'clock this morning, some way within the
United States, the only changes in the plain were
little groups of small conical wheat stacks, with
roofs so high-pitched as to need no thatching.
The flatness of the land certainly favours locomo-
tion of all sorts. When stopping here for break-
fast we found the town about three-quarters of a
mile from the station. Being hungry, we flocked
unobservantly into the dining-hall, where we ate
the conventional meal — porridge and various
meats, finished ofl" with fritters drenched in maple
syrup. On going out'to wait for the tram's return
to the platform we have realised that the city is
on the move — literally. There had been a dispute
about the title to the land on which it was built,
and so it is following the railway establishment.
First in the race is a largish hotel — " Knovle's
Hotel " in big letters on its front. This is getting
quite close to the station. " Waal," says a man
by me, *' guess the main town will soon by here.
They would squat where they had no right." Of
course all the buildings are of wood, and, put on
rollers, can be hauled with ropes gently across the
flat. But the hotel is winning by half a mile.
Curious life this ; but very convenient. My sleep-
ing berth ticket is good only to " St. Paul," and I

have just asked the conductor about renewing it
for me when we reach that populous city. How
widespread the name of the Apostle has become !
Mr. Conductor says, " If you will speak, sir, to
this gentleman," indicating the coloured car
attendant who has just been blacking our boots,
" he will telegraph for you." And now as 1 write
Sambo is standing by me filling up a form. " It
will be all right, sir," says he, with a smile. My
reader may perceive that we have now left the
station, beating the hotel hollow, and that I am
writing in the train with ease. Behind us, as I
look through the glass door leading to the last
platform on the train where some passengers
lounge and smoke, the two rails dwindle to a
thin perfectly straight dark line ruled across the
green cloth of the — now more and more cultivated
— prairie. This has, however, begun to " roll "
slightly. Hay is being cut, and wheat carried, in
long low waggons drawn by oxen on either side,
and an occasional pool gives the farmer excel-
lent duck shooting. But the fowl are on the
move. I see, looking up, out of my left-hand
window a long string of wild geese flying south.
The soil is blackish, like that near Ely, and there
is not a tree in sight as high as a telegraph post.
S p.m. — We have now entered the country of maize,
fields of which appear instead of wheat. I'rees
abound, and occasionally we pass through a cut-
ting. The region has been under cultivation for
some time, and we have just passed a farm from
the yard of which a man was carting manure.
This morning we saw great heaps of straw being
burnt, simply to get it out of the way. The
fields are much smaller and fenced. The tem-
perature has risen considerably, conversation

100

becomes more nasal, and four Yankees, who have
been playing euchre for hours close by, with an
occasional bar of " John Brown," feel very dis-
tinctly at home. In fact we are fast approaching
the canopy of smoke which hangs over the twin
cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, full of telegraph
wires, trams, electric lights, and '* push." At our
side the Mississippi is beginning to toil through
its long course by sawing up fleets of round logs
which wait lazily upon its waters soon to be eaten
with noise and greediness in mills which intercept
a portion of its stream.

September 20, i p.m. — We are now approaching
Chicago, and, for the first time in the States, I
perceive about a score of sheep. Maize has
largely taken the place of wheat, but I have not
seen a field of roots. I think that a notable
feature of this long railway run has been the com-
plaint which I have heard about farming from
stray passengers. I had a talk last night with a
man who was made very sore by the low price he
got for his wheat. ** It's the same with all of us,"
he said, speaking of holders of farms of 200 or 300
acres. " We have all had to borrow money. You
can't get labour, and have to pay ever so much
for a * binder,* which you use for a week and then
leave to rust for the rest of the year. I don't know
whatever we shall do, sir, down in my part — west."
This must be taken for what it is worth, but he
was very sore, and apparently a representative
man. " What shall you grow, then," I asked, " if
wheat does not pay } " " Well, sir," he said —
they always call everybody "sir" here — "guess
we go in for flax. There is a lot of flax been
grown this year." But then it must be remem-
bered that this is not properly the wheat country.

lOI

That lies farther north, and it 13 from the great
North-West territories of Canada that we may ex-
pect larger supplies of it. The assertion, though,
of Major Bell, which he openly made when I with
others drove over his ftirm, that he would place
wheat on the market in Liverpool at 20^. the
quarter and put 8 per cent, profit into his pocket at
the same time, must be justified to be believed. I
have already said something about his famous
establishment, but more that I have heard since I
wrote confirms my belief in the exaggerated
nature of several statements respecting it. There
is com enough in all conscience coming from the
northern part of the American continent, but
there is a limit to the low cost of freight as well
as of production. It is all very well, too, working
maiden soil, but there is an end to this. I have
been told of once flourishing places in Canada
where the produce has dropped to something
below three coombs an acre. Anyhow, in railway
waiting-rooms, trains, and the like, I have recog-
nised the genuine agricultural grumble, especially
at the low prices of wheat. Farmers, too, who
live at some distance from a market are indignant
at the way they are treated by the buyers at the
stations. I heard the other day of a man who
had sent a waggon-load of wheat, drawn by oxen,
thirty miles to be sold. The station-buyer offered
him a very low price for his load, thinking he
would take anything rather than haul it back all
that way. But the farmer turned his waddling
weary oxen round and departed. Three miles off,
however, he unyoked them, and hiring or borrow-
ing a pair of fresh farm horses, presented himself
again briskly at the same railway shed, was taken
for another seller, and sold his corn at his own

102

price. The need for this smartness will dis-
appear as branch lines are made. These will
surely appear in many parts of the North-West.
And if ever tracks are laid from Port Nelson, in
Hudson's Bay, to help the rivers in tapping the
plains of Athabasca — which are only some nine
hundred feet above the level of the sea — and if
shippers can be found to risk the floating ice in
the straits during the short summer, a new strong
stream of wheat will flow into Europe. Many
factors, however, affect the solution of this
problem. It was being warmly discussed, not
only by the "scientists" who formed out party,
but by men sitting round the stove in " hotel "
bars. Some great authorities among the former
were dead against it.

Chicago^ September 22.

I am now on my way back from an intensely
interesting run, which will have become one of
about twelve thousand miles in something over
six weeks, when, please God, I reach England
again. Hospitalities, kindness, and wayside
civility have met me everywhere. The flight
across the plains and visit to the Rocky Moun-
tains was far the more agreeable and instructive
as it was made in the company of those men of
science who did not dribble off into the United
States, but pushed Albemarle Street into British
Columbia. This selected English contingent,
too, had the great advantage of the presence of
such men as Professor Macoun, of Guelph, and
Dr. Selwyn, the leading geological authority of
Canada. He lives at Ottawa, but is better known
in the scientific world than even in his own
country. A passage from the Dominion into the

103

United States is a fit sequel to a journey in the
former, for it enables the traveller to compare the
mere buds of towns he sees upon the plains with
the cities of the United States which are still
young, but have grown up. Canada presents,
indeed, great contrasts in, say, the mediaeval air
of Quebec and the suddenness of Winnipeg, but
it somehow seems to want the intermediate con-
dition of civil growth notable in many parts of the
United States. These new North- West territories
are a long way behind. This city in which I am
now stopping, Chicago, is peculiar in being not
exactly young, but bom again after it was sup-
posed to have grc^vn up. It is so improved by
reason of the fire which swept off all mistakes and
architectural experiments that it has sprung for-
ward into the third place among the cities of the
States, and will probably take the second. The
outward and immediate impression of the com*
mercial success which it has reached comes in
great measure from the bringing together of all
those features in a city which go to make its great-
ness. Warehouses, ships, leading fashionable
hotels, docks, business streets, and private houses
are mixed — in a Londoner's eye at least. There
is not merely a succession of thoroughfares,
differently named, which connect the east with
the west, but unbroken streets or avenues, num-
bered up to 4,000 or 5,000, traverse the whole
city. It is as if a house in Hyde Park Gardens
were called 5,240, Whitechapel Road, or the
Butchers' Row, in Aldgate, was merely known as a
continuation of Oxford Street. It is the number
in the street, and not the street itself, which indi-
cates the position of a dwelling in such a city as
Chicago. The dwellers in St. Giles's and St.

104

James's perch on different parts of the same
bough ; they do not live on opposite sides of the
tree.

I have been very much struck with the quiet
sobriety and orderliness of Chicago. It is true
that I did not penetrate into the very poorest
suburbs, but I prowled about rather late on Satur-
day night and did not see a drunken man or
woman. In my explorations, moreover, I went
into two of the cheapest places of amusement I
could find, one being the gallery of some distinctly
" low ** theatre, where I sat sometime in a crowd,
but was driven out by the heat. I did not hear a
bad word nor see a rough action. The only re-
mark made to myself came from a poor boy who
advised me not to lean back in my seat as the rail
had lately been painted, and I might smear my
coat. The entrance-fee to this place was ten
cents, which corresponds to much that costs two-^
pence in England. No doubt there is plenty of
vice for the vicious, who know where to look, but
it does not thrust itself upon the wayfarer. The
behaviour of the crowds which filled Lincoln Park
in the afternoon was that simply of the same class
in London. They walked about somewhat list-
lessly — indeed, an American multitude in its Sun-
day clothes is quieter, less sprightly, than an
English one. The Chicago holiday-makers, how-
ever, were better dressed than with us, and the
men smoked cigars rather than pipes. They were
almost all genuine working people. This appeared
from their hands, which were not merely rough-
ened and sunburnt, as those of many gentlemen
in England who do not wear gloves, but their
nails were mostly broken or stained, showing
some kind of handicraft. The crowd in Lincoln

»os

Park was made up of artisans, labourers, and their
families. And 1 hope they were enjoying them-
selves.

I cannot leave Chicago without a word about
the slaughter-houses, which really make the place
and its wealth. Long trains of bellowing or
grunting freights converge to this place from dis-
tant ranches and feeding troughs to be sent forth
again laden with silent bacon and beef. The
slaughter and packing houses in which this trans-
formation is brought about lie a few miles off the
city proper ; but no one has seen Chicago who
has failed to visit the " stockyards," as they are
called.

I took the open tram in State Street and got
out when it stopped. We had a run of some two
or three miles so perfectly straight that in the view
down the street from the hind seat of the car the
more distant houses were obliterated by the many
branched telegraph posts, and I seemed to be
looking into a vista of leafless fir-trees. Then I
took another tram which at last brought me to
the verge of a region of cattle-pens. These were
square, and hedged with strong wooden fences
six feet high, the top bar of which was a nine-
inch plank laid flat. This I noticed, but did not
immediately realise the use of. Presently I did.
It seems that this huge region of pens is traversed
by roads along which the cattle are driven to their
particular yards. These roads are occasionally
barred by strong gates, to check or turn the tide
of oxen, but along them the oxen come driven by
men on horseback using Mexican saddles. I was
innocently making my way farther into this pro-
vince of enclosures when I heard cries of " Get
up." A gate at one end of the road had been

1 06

opened and down there came thundering along
some hundred Texas cattle, with drivers after
them, full gallop. So I perceived the use of the
flat nine-inch top board, and surveyed the herd
from the summit of the fence. The cry to get up
was not addressed to me alone, but to several
others who were penetrating the region by this
lower path. I found afterwards that there was a
sort of air road, or raised wooden causeway, which
led over the tops of all the fences. By this I re-
turned ; but I made my way to one of the chief
slaughter-houses by the ox-route, with an occa-
sional retreat to the top plank when more wild
bulls of Basan came along, flourishing their huge
horns.

I did not know where to look for the most
representative place, but as I drew near to a
building like a good-sized factory with two smok-
ing chimneys, I heard a popping as of a " hot
corner " at a battue, and wondered what it meant.
I soon learnt. Reaching the factory and seeing a
man I looked at him inquisitively. " Go up the
stairs," he said, and walked off. So I went up
some outside stairs and found myself on a sort of
pier sticking out into the sea of pens and closely
overlooking several which were contiguous to the
factory. I observed that these were fringed by a
number of stalls capable of holding two oxen
each, and leading into the basement of the build-
ing. The tops of these stalls, which were about
eight feet high, were crossed by a plank walk,
about two feet wide, which bridged them all at
right angles. At the end of this plank walk there
lounged against the factory wall a tall young man
in a red jersey with a rifle in his hand. And all
the causeway was sprinkled with bright empty

107

metal cartridge cases. The narrow path leading
into the stalls from the pens was deep in filth, and
the air was loaded with the smell of blood. Pre-
sently the gate from a yard of wild-looking cattle
was opened, and imps of barefooted swearing boys
with long poles ran along the tops of the fences,
banging and goading the poor beasts till they
entered the path. Once in they could not get
back, the two end ones being successively shoved
into a stall, the door of which was immediately
shut behind them. Thus the stalls were all filled.
Then the work of the lounging young man began.
Loitering along the plank bridge over the trem-
bling beasts, he shot them all, holding his rifle
like a pistol, and nearly touching the neck of each
as he passed and fired down between its horns.
Each dropped dead almost before the flash had
passed. One I noticed close below where I stood,
a wild-eyed Texas ox with trembling nostrils, as
full as a beast could be of fresh prairie life, fell so
stone dead as not to twitch an eyelid or move a
hoof.

Then great iron claws and ropes came out of
the factory and sucked the warm carcases in. They
were skinned, disembowelled, cut up, boned,
packed in tins, which — surrounded with ice — were
placed in boxes, heaved on board the train, and
sent off as frozen or refrigerated meat sooner than
I cared to pursue the process. Thus the one firm
I visited killed sixteen to eighteen hundred oxen a
day, and I do not know how many hogs. The
slaughter of these was suspended while I was
there, and scores of horribly fat pigs were sweetly
— no, not sweetly — asleep on an upper floor above
the fatal trough down which they presently were
destined to slide on their way to bacon. Alto-

io8

gether this "sight" of Chicago was a sickening
and repulsive one ; but I felt most for the wild-
eyed oxen fresh from the plains. The interest
they had in life was keener and cleaner than that
of the huge gross hogs. These lay contentedly
enough at the edge of the pit of destruction ; but
the sweet-breathed trembling cattle shuddered as
they smelt the tainted air of the shambles. What
a life is led by the men who do their repulsive
business after the bleeding carcases have been
drawn into the factor}* ! One came out, a powerful
young fellow, with a singularly pale or whitened
face. But he was dripping with blood. He asked
for ** the price of a can of beer," though I was told
that some of these men received five dollars or^i
a day. The number of people employed in or
about the stockyards was stated to be altogether
thirty thousand. . Besides the establishment which
I visited there are divers more, and the pens
seemed to reach out of sight. I came away half
disposed to become a vegetarian from that hour.

S.S. PavoniOf October b, i%%\..

After leaving Chicago I stayed for a few days
in Boston. It lately claimed to be more than
the hub of the " world," inasmuch as the dome of
the State House (which holds a high place in the
city) had been gilt, and was one morning honoured
by the arrival of a planet, which for some hours
made its orbit around it. So I was assured on the
spot.

There is something in New England which
strangely affects the palate of one's perception
with an undefinable taste of " Englishness." This
is felt even in the shape of the Boston streets,
some of which are as crooked as those in the oldest

I09

British borough. But I wish I could fix my
fleeting sense^of other manifold influences which
fill this fertile air. Perhaps, beyond the flavour
of hospitality shown by a kind host and hostess,
I somehow felt one sign of regard for public
opinion, and respect or consideration for the feel-
ings of the many, more keenly or freshly at Boston
than elsewhere. I am not thinking of any poli-
tical professions made in newspapers and the like.
I do not sufficiently understand the nomenclature
of American politics. I would illustrate what I
mean by an example which should put some
dwellers in the suburbs of London to shame. My
host drove me about, and in one of our drives we
passed a number of irregularly-placed villas,
before and between which there appeared to be
no fence. Wayfarers overlooked their grounds,
and each resident overlooked his neighbour. The
result was pleasing to the wayfarer, but my in-
sular instincts led me to remark that such publi-
city must be disagreeable to the occupants of these
pretty, though somev/hat fantastically designed,
wooden houses. I was corrected by the explana-
tion that those who lived in them were pleased to
give pleasure to others by abstinence from selfishly
hedging themselves about. I thought of some
places near London where a man no sooner gets
a few acres of his own than he fences them in,
often by means of a high oak hoarding which no
man nor boy can see through nor get over, since
it is finished off" with a fringe of sharp rusty nails
which turn every way to keep the cockney para-
dise.

Probably many things about Boston preserve the
old Puritan flavour so strongly as (rightly) to
off"end the modern nose, but a little matter like

that I have mentioned is a good lesson to the
rich exclusive snobs who are so many, and
whose private greediness is not touched by the
public efforts which have been made of late years '
to dress unused spaces daintily for the public
eye.

While in New England I really stayed in Cam-
bridge, not Boston itself, but somehow failed to
scent the air which is associated with a Univer-
sity at home. This is fruitful in good learning, I
know, but the academical atmosphere of an old
country is incapable of reproduction except after
centuries of life. The Wellesley College, how-
ever, M^ich is wholly given to the higher educa-
tion of women, stood outside all tests of anti-
quity, and seemed to me a very substantial dream,
eluding satisfactory apprehension. I do not mean
that its management is anywise other than grati-
fying, but the scale upon which it is carried out,
the atmosphere it breathes (or rather creates), and
the surroundings in which it is set, combine to
make a chance visitor like myself pause before he
attempts to put its picture into words. I will
thus only say that at Wellesley College, about
twelve miles from Boston, there are between five
and six hundred resident undergraduate young
ladies, the president, doctors, professors, and
tutors being also all women. The handsome red
buildings which enshrine their studies stand
amidst abundant trees, traversed by winding
walks and dotted with level lawns. Here they
play tennis. Beyond these the still wooded
grounds dip down to a large and lovely mere.
This is fringed with many-coloured foliage and
brightened by the varied boats and dresses of the
college crews — all girls. The courteous and

Ill

bright Lady President took me round the building.
It was sumptuous, and silent, though full of
students. Most of them barely glanced up from
their books as we passed by with hushed and
cautious tread. The stillness of the place seemed
wholly irreconcilable with the presence of five
hundred young women. One quarter of that
number of young men would have kept at least a
virile hum continuously audible. But not a
sound was heard, not even a sneeze as small, as a
kitten's. How do they cheer their winning boats ?
Do they ever have '* bump " suppers ? Is there
any arrangement for the deliverance of under-
graduate sauciness and salt in a Senate House on
grave occasions ?

Anyhow, the institution is unique and excellent.
It sends teachers all over the United States, after
taking them as scholars from California to Japan
by the way of England and India. We looked
into one of the lecture-rooms where the work
of the day was going on. The subject happened
to be Physiology, and a young professor in white
muslin was teaching a class of about 120 girls,
aided by the skeleton of a man who stood help-
lessly on her left hand. It was the only one on
the premises besides those still in use by my friend
and myself.

I add these lines to my letter as I near the
English coast by means of the good Cunard
ship Pavonia. She is not so swift as some, but
dry ; which the "greyhounds of the Atlantic" are
not — if they meet waves. These they are
equipped to drive through, and not ride over.
Thus spray abounds, and the decks are uncom-
fortably wet. In one particular, however, all or
most of these new ships far surpass the old, being

•.TTT^

112

lit with the electric light. Its use adds so much
to the comfort of a voyage that I do not think I
would cross again except by a ship so furnished.
Here a separate " switch " enables me to read or
write in my cabin as late as I like, and there is no
smell from the putting out of the ship's (oil)
lamps at night. Emigrant and saloon passengers,
moreover, equally enjoy the cleanliness and bril-
liancy of this beautiful illumination, which shines
down into the engine-room itself. I have few
fellow-travellers (almost all are Americans) but
we are sociable enough. I often think that for-
tuitous company is as good as that which is
ceremoniously prepared. There is a special a-
terest in speculating on your companions ^nd
testing what may be talked about. Bnt most
people are shy. I don't think that as a rule even
the captains of these ocean passenger ships realise
the peculiar conversational advantages they pos-
sess. Of course the ship is, and ought to be, on
an officer's mind during the voyage, but some-
times it might be taken off during meals. Captains
would return to their duty none the worse for
this passing relaxation. They sit in the chief
rooms at feasts amid the best company ; and this
company changes so often that a good story is
never old, and well-worn information about the
voyage remains always fresh. These gentlemen
have the cream of the social interchange between
America and Europe — ^the pick of some of the
best talkers in the two hemispheres — as their
guests for a week (and a week only) at a time.
But I do not think that they always appreciate
the commanding social place which they might
fill. Our captain is quite seriously said to be one
of the '^most approachable" in the whole fleet.

e
n
n
e

I found him cheery enough after a little while,
but almost the first remark I made to him he
replied to with a shortness which threatened to
preclude all conversation. He was then not on
** duty " except so far as involved the presiding at
his own table where I was seated.

There is no novelty to record in an ordinary
passage across this ocean. We have had a
prosperous windy voyage, but one incident was
distressing. A little weary panting land bird
was blown on board when we were in the
very middle of the Atlantic, and the same gale
brought a battered yellow butterfly. We had com-
passion on the bird, talking to it, and offering
crumbs ; but when it had rested for a little while
it caught and ate the butterfly. Then the wind
arose and blew it quite away, so that we saw it no
more.

How strong water is I Great iron ships look
and feel so steady while in dock that one thinks
them to be immovable as cliffs. But, having no
root, how easily they are swayed, and, however
large, how small they grow when they are thrust
out far into the wide sea. We realised the uncer-
tainty of artificial dominion over the winds and
waves the other day. A bolt came off something
down in the engine. This caused the bending of
a steel arm which worked with oily exactitude
between two surfaces. Thus the least curve
made it quite impotent, and with a vehement and
shrill blowing-off of steam we stopped, and sud-
denly became a helpless iron log. Fortunately
the bend was so very slight that it was corrected
(I believe chiefly with sand or emery paper) in
about five or six hours, after which we went on
our way rejoicing. I never more enjoyed the

114

throb of a screw than I did on its revival after
our pause, for a slightly more serious mishap
might have left us wallowing about, to be blown
to and 'fro for a week or more. This delay signi-
ficantly revealed the dependent nature of any ship
, which relies upon steam to drive it to the haven
where it would be. With a favourable breeze one
of these great steamers would of course make
some progress under sail, but it could not beat up
against the wind. And the direction of this is
very uncertain in the Atlantic. We have just
emerged from a cyclone which helped us along
grandly for three days, and now the breeze is full
in our teeth. But land shows, and the horizon
of the Channel is notched with angular sails,
square towers of canvas, and long pennons of
smoke from steamers going to or leaving Liver-
pool.

Bartonmere^ October ii, 1884.
I see a crowd of notes still waiting in my jour-
nal, but I overlook their importunity and say no^
more except to remark that people who can
manage to get a few weeks' holiday may do better
than spend it looking through a telescope and
hearing the band play at one of our familiar
watering-places. I have threaded a huge new
land quivering with national conjecture and aspi-
rations, to ^nd the same stale old misunderstand-
ings about some twopenny details going on in
the same old corners of England, and the calf
that was born before I departed a little calf still.
Looking into my club on my way through town, I
saw the same men sitting in the same chairs, read-
ing the same papers, as if they had not risen from
their seats since I left. As I passed the door of
the billiard-room I heard the same clicking of the

115

balls which was going on while I was last there,
and the marker saying "ninety-six, ninety-two," as
if the same near game of " a hundred up " was not
yet quite ended. The fact is that I have been
away for less than two months (sailing for Canada
in the middle of August and returning at the end
of September), though I seem to have been absent
for many, so numerous are the memories which
this tour has created in my mind. Moreover,
my eye had so caught the impression of rough
American agriculture, that Suffolk fields appear to
be finished with needle and thread (so neat are
they), while the hedges look as if they had been
trimmed by a hairdresser.

Our little crowded isle, at least the regions
in it which lie within reach of millions- of town
mouths and kitchens, ought surely to be more of a
garden for the cities of the land. This first thought
presses on me as I enter a desponding agricul-
tural county, which almost touches Middlesex
with its borders. Another is one of wonder why
the notice of our Canadian relationships is so often
shut up in a poor inch of newspapers which give a
column to a horse race. We do not realise
what ** the Dominion " is, what it has done and is
doing for itself, what an example it is setting to
other colonies, and what hints it gives about suc-
cessful confederate government. Above all, we
hardly apprehend the love of the daughter for
her parent, the affectionateness and loyalty of that
enormous growing and incalculably capable kin-
dred region across the sea which is British in
everything but the name, and, over the greatest
part of its extent, intensely English in the life
which it now lives and the hopes which brighten
its future.