IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1" 1.0 I.I 828 950 '""""" I'o 111112.0 [2.5 2.2 1.8 1.25 1.4 111.6 ^ 6" . ^ ■' ^> Photographic Sciences Corporation ,\ ^ ^Q 33 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4S03 4 \ % V ?^ C\ \ <» O^ 1" ' ' CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series. CIHM/ICMH Collection de microfiches. Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions / Institut Canadian de microreproductions historiques ■ 1 Technical and Bibliographic Notas/Notaa techniques et bibliographiquet The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Features of this copy which may be bibliographically unique, which may alter any of the images in the reproduction, or which may significantly change the usual method of filming, are checked below. D D D D Coloured covers/ Couverture de couleur r~n Covers damaged/ Couverture endommagte Covers restored and/or laminated/ Couverture restaurAe et/ou pelliculAe Cover title missing/ Le titre de couverture manque Coloured maps/ Cartes gAographiques en couleur Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or black)/ Encre de couleur (I.e. autre quct bleue ou noire) Coloured plates and/or illustrations/ Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur D Bound with other material/ ReliA avec d'autres documents Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion along Interior margin/ La reliura serrde peut causer de I'ombre ou de la distortion le long de la marge intArieure Blank leaves added during restoration may appear within the text. Whenever possible, these have been omitted from filming/ II se peut que certaines pages blanches ajoutAes lors d'une restauration apparaissent dans le texte, mals. lorsque cela Atait possible, ces pages n'ont pas Ate filmAes. Additional comments:/ Commentaires supplAmentaires: L'Institut a microfilm^ le meilleur exemplaire qu'il lui a AtA possible de se procurer. Les details de cet exemplaire qui sont peut-Atre uniques du point de vue bibliographique, qui peuvent modifier une image reproduite, ou qui peuvent exiger une modification dans la methods normale de f ilmage sont indiquAs ci-dessous. I I Coloured pages/ D D Pages de couleur Pages damaged/ Pages endommagAes Pages restored and/oi Pages restaur6es et/ou pelliculAes Pages discoloured, stained or foxe( Pages dAcolorAes, tachetAes ou piqutes Pages detached/ Pages ditachAes Showthroughy Transparence Quality of prir Qualit4 inigale de I'impresslon Includes supplementary materii Comprend du materiel supplAmentaire I — I Pages damaged/ I I Pages restored and/or laminated/ I I Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/ r~n Pages detached/ I I Showthrough/ I I Quality of print varies/ |~n Includes supplementary material/ Only edition available/ Seule 6dition disponible Pages wholly or partially obscured by errata slips, tissues, etc.. have been refilmed to ensure the best possible image/ Les pages totalement ou partiellement obscurcies par ur feuillet d'errata, une pelure. etc.. ont M filmies A nouvsau de fa^on A obtenir la meilleure image possible. This item is filmed at the reduction ratio checked below/ Ce document est film6 au taux de reduction indiqu* ci-d«ssous. 10X 14X ItX 22X 26X »X / 12X 16X 20X MX 28X n 32X Th« copy filmed hare hat baan raproducad thanks to tha ganarotity of: Library Division Provincial Archives of British Columbia Tha imagas appearing hara ara tha bast quaiity possibia considaring tha condition and iagibility of tha original copy and in kaaping with tha filming contract spacifications. Original copias in printad papar covers ara filmed beginning with the front cover end ending on the lest psge with e printed or illustrated impres- sion, or the beck cover when appropriate. All other originel copies are filmed beginning on the first poge with e printed c r illustrsted impres- cion, end ending on the iest page with e printed or illustrated impression. The lest recorded frame on each microfiche shell contain the symbol "^ (meaning "CON- TINUED"), or the symbol V (meaning "END"), whichever applies. Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: L'exempleire film* f ut reproduit grAce A le gAnArositA de: Library Division Provincial Archi- bs of British Columbia Les imeges suiventes ont At* reproduites ovec le plus grend soin. compte tenu de le condition et de le nettet* de l'exempleire film*, et en conformity evec les conditions du contrat de filmege. Les exempleires origineux dont le couverture en papior est ImprimAe sont filmAs en commenpent per le premier plet et en terminant soit par la darnlAre pege qui comporte una empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration. soit par le second plet. selon le ces. Tous les autres exempleires origineux sont film6s en comment ant par la premiere page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la darnlAre page qui comporte une telle empreinte. Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la derniAre image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbols — ^ signifie "A SUIVRE ", le symbols V signifie "FIN ". Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent Atre filmAs A des taux de rAduction diffArents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour Atre reproduit en un seul clichA, il est filmA A partir de I'angle supArieur gauche, de gauche A droite, et de haut en bas, en pranant le nombre d'images nAcessaira. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mAthode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 iijir«ai' »w, 55-TT-r- — !■ -•■'■•■■ ■w^ ■■■'- ■ ■*>* f T'*t ,"l^ DIARY Of the Christie Party's 'I'l'ip to tlie I\icific Coast. By W. F. M. •I ;| ■ « f if *■ ■■ .V C. iM. KIlis, Printer, Toronto. ;. ^ t-'* liifiliWiMtfMlitfiiilftliiwiiii^HBii pppppp^-r fcr. [The few copies of the " Diary " first printed were not enough, it seems, to go round, sp the " Printing Committee " ordered another batch, a Ki'cund rditiim. if you please, the issue of which herewith has afforded the writer an opportunity to extend one or two of his observations, to omit a few of the manifold i rudities of the original, and to correct some errors of typography and detail. One irreparable mistake was made in leaving out the humors of the trip. The writer must either have enjoyed the fun too well to make a note of it at the right time, or the attracti«)ns outside were too much for him. I'here is this also to be said, that we had anither chiel amang us takin' notes-a real born iiiiiml^nr — expressly commissioned to immortalize the " wit, wisdom and wickedness " of the I'arty.] \ liarn CHRISTIE PARTY'S TRIP TO THE PACIFIC COAST. By W. F. M^rro TORONTO, CANADA : C. M. El.i.rs, Printer ,ind Publisher, 67 Adelaide St. West. ■a^naanpwi ^ NOTK. This Diary was writti-n for the aimiscmciu of my children, but, (»n readiiiK over some parts of the manuscript t;> certain members of the Christie I'arty. it was thouKlit that, in a more sightly and readable form, like wiiai it iias nuu assumed, it might be worth preserving as a souvenir of a trip which, to most of us, was a new, dclijfhlful and wonderful experience. W. F. M. Novar, Sept., 1897. 210826 M'JR'W 1 it ■I DIARY OF THE CHRISTIE PARTY'S TRIP TO THE PACIFIC COAST. m On the 15th day of July, 1897, fifteen persons met at the Union Station, Toronto, fully equipped for a long journey together. Our route was by the C.P.R. to Detroit, by the Wabash to Chicago, by the Burlington to Denver, by the Denver and Rio Grande to Ogden, by the Oregon Short Line to Garrison, by the Northern Pacific to Cinnabar, back again to Garrison and on to Seattle, then by the Seattle and International to its junction with the C.P.R., onward thence to Vancouver, then, after taking in Victoria, home by the C.P.R. to North Bay, and from North Bay, by the Grand Trunk, to Toronto, with stoppages at all the more important points of interest, — Chicago, Denver, Colorado Springs, and Pike's Peak, Salt Lake, Yellowstone Park, Seattle, Van- couver, Victoria, Banfif, Winnipeg, Rat Portage, etc. For convenience a special boudoir car, the " Waterloo " by name, accommodated to the height of the bridges, sheds and tunnels on the different roadj we had to travel on, had to be brought from Chicago, and had arrived the night before, we were informed. The fifteen persons therefore expected to find it connected with the regular v ^stern C.P.R. train scheduled to leave at 4 o'clock ; but, strange to say, at 4 o'clock, and even at 5 o'clock, no special boudoir car could be seen. Here was a hitch to begin with — in limine, etc., our classical man whispered, quoting some old Roman conceit about y omens. The regular pisseilgsrs, not understanding the delay, were not in the best of humor. Finally, we learned from the train officials that someone bad blundered : the " Waterloo " had beon sent to Buffalo, bat was on its way back and would be here soon. At length aboat a quarter past 5, the runaway appeared ; not another minute was lost in hitching it on to the train, and off we started on a long and beautifully smooth run to Detroit. We soon had our several staterooms allotted. " When a man's single," he has to have a stateroom to him- self, and when it happens to be roomy and next door to the smokinf compartment, which is inconveniently small and overloaded with impedimenta, such a state- room is apt to become a rendezvous, and to have a name given to it. All through the trip a stateroom of this character went by the name of Munrovia- Here the songs were sung, the stories told, the hairs split. Here, as the train bore us smoothly and comfortably along through the lovely afternoon, past fields of yellow grain, across green meadows, by forest glades and murmuring streams, we spoke of what we had proposed to do in the way of " solid reading," for which careful preparation had been made. I had brought Geikie's " Geology," his " Physical Geography," and " Geological Essays," for example ; but it was prophesied that as this first evening had been, so would the days to follow be, — full of ease and content, but with little science and philosophy, at first hand. This wisdom was fully justified in our experience throughout the trip. Here must be put in the composition of the party. First and foremost, the " General " himself, as he came to be designated — William Christie, far-ken'd his name, 6 obsequious to no man's opinions, having plenty of his own, ready to take up any gauntlet and hold his own with the best of them ; a dour carle to thwart, but a big man every way, with a warm heart and an open hand. On this occasion it had opened wide, else this trip had not been made, and this tale had not been told. Next, the General's wife, unofficious, unflustered, smooth, ever ready with the kind act and word. Their only son, Ro- bert, a chip of the old block, ready of tongue, given to nice distinctions, full of fun, comic songs, and good nature. His wife, graceful as a. fawn, and as shy some- times — " Kid," her boy used to call her. Next, Captain Mellis and his gracious, stately wife, from Huntly, in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, on a visit to the General — a distant relative. The captain has a fine voice, and can melt the Scottish heart as few can do. " Of a' the airts the win' can blaw " is one of his best, and rarely was it heard sung with more feeling. James Duncan and his wife — a sister of Captain Mellis — come next. Origin- ally from the north of Scotland, they have been long resident in London, England. " A genial soul " was what the General promised us in Mr. Duncan, and the promise was amply fulfilled. In addition, we found him a ripe scholar, with a " fouth " of anecdote, and the funniest of old-world stories. His wife is a perfectly loveable little woman. The General's three married daughters come next. Mrs. Palmer, the eldest, has seen the world : she is a manager, and a born sight-seer, eager that you should see also and share her delight. Her daughter Mamie, dark-eyed and thoughtful, well trained and well- read, the pet and " Untie " of the party. Mrs. Barclay, the little one, smart as a cricket, hard to keep your hands off her. (Laui'a) Mrs. Clark, the youngest, tall, 6 stately, voluble, you feel that she thinks about your comfort, and would make you happy; one would like always to call her Laura. Last of all, except the writer, we had Mr. Thomas Robertson and his wife — a daring adventure for the latter to undertake, slie having barely I'eoovered from the effects of a terrible accident ; but Mrs. Robertson is a woman of nerve, yet withal yielding, and soft of speech — no one more thoughtful of others. " Tam " is a metaphysician when he is serious ; but the memory of youthful pranks is often with him, and then, as well as when he is sefious, he is all that a companion ought to be. Tam looks at life and nature from the purely picturesque or artistic point of view — if life or nature have any other aspect it is all in the beholder, and he don't amount to much. We had now crossed the Detroit River on the huge ferry — a marvel to our Scottip'" friends, as were also the high tower electric lights in the city. Our road was henceforth by the Wabash, and we hoped to resurrect in Chicago in the morning. This we did about 8 o'clock by Toronto time, but found we had gained an hour. It took us fully this hour to reach the station, to such an out- rageous extent do the suburbs of the city extend, ap- proaching it by the Wabash. And such suburbs ! mean- ness, filth and squalor on all sides. On arrival at Dear- born Street, however, leaving " Waterloo " in charge of Shaw, our good-natured white negro porter, we were soon transported to the marble grandeur of the Auditorium, and a sumptuous breakfast. About 11 o'clock we all mounted a superb tally-ho and went off to see the sights, the day warm and bright. We drove along Michigan Avenue to 35th Street, then through Grand BouLvard, Drexel Boulevard, and on to Smith's Club House on 50th jn street, where we had lunch. We had seen the finest residential part of the city ; many of the buildings were very much admired. After lunch, we drove through the World's Fair grounds, which recalled the splendor of 1893. Here the human interest was vividly awakened, and I should have been glad to linger and recall faded scenes and recollections. The lagoons are all back to a state of nature, but the Art Building still stands in all its white Grecian perfection. It is now used as a museum, but we had no time to visit the interior. The return was by the same route, except that we passed through Prairie Avenue, another beautiful residential street. Before reaching the hotel, a short detour was made into State Street, and we had a glance at the tall buildings, but were glad to be out of the throng, which was no place for a tally-ho. The trip lasted six hours. We had dinner at 6.30, our party being enlarged to seventeen by the addition of two invited friends of the General. There was much freedom and fun at table, American cousins looking on and taking notes ; we had no thought of being in a foreign country. At length it wag time to prepare to resume travel. Leaving by coach at 9.45, we drove to the station of the C. B. & Q. (Chi- cago, Burlington & Quincy), and started at 10.80 p.m. on the long run of 1,025 miles to Denver. Being worn out with sight-seeing, we retired early. Saturday, July 17. — We had crossed Illinois and the Mississippi at Burlington long ere most of the party had risen. I was one of the forgetful ones on this, perhaps the only occasion where there was a sight to be seen, and it is a sight to cross this great river by the magnifi- cent bridge at Burlington. All day we ran through in- 8 terminable fields of corn, the staple crop of Iowa. This State seems to be a vast rolling prairie, the soil deep and rich. Except for the few scattered towns and villages, one would scarcely imagine that the country was occu- pied, so insignificant are the farm buildings as seen from the train. Travelling by road, perhaps it would be dif- ferent. The run through Iowa was rather trying to some of the party on account of the heat. Towards evening it cooled considerably, and at dinner in the dining car it was almost comfortable, and would have been more so but for the number of lamps burning. The dinner was first-class, equal if not superior to yesterday's at the Auditorium. Those of the male persuasion of our party Kut on in the dining car and smoked — being the last to be served, and the waiters having been well tipped, this was tolerated. A conversation beginning with some re- ference to the General's aneroid barometer, which was always on hand to give us our altitude, drifted into an argument about the effect of water- vapor on atmospheric pressure. The writer maintained that the principal factor in determining barometric pressure, next to altitude, was the amount of water-vapor in suspension in the air. To illustrate the fact, Geikie's well-known experiment of weighing water- vapor and dry air was quoted, thus : Take two vessels, each capable of holding exactly one cubic foot of any substance ; exhaust the air from each vessel, then fill one with water-vapor and the other with dry air, both at the same temperature. If the temperature be at 50" Fah. the water- vapor will weigh 4.10 grains and the dry air 547 grains; that is, dry air is about 138 times heavier than water-vapor. Hence, it was obvious that atmospheric ai. saturated with water-vapor would be much lighter, and therefore would exert much less pres- ' ' ^ L 9 sure than when free from such vapor. The discussion was rather amusing. The General did not directly at- tack the position, namely, that the presence of water- vapor in the air necessarily lightened it, but he went for the experiment. He contended that the experiment — that is, the determination of the relative weights of the two gases, water-vapor and dry air — was inconclusive, unless there was taken into account the pressure under which the two vessels were filled. I was of the opinion that temperature was the only factor in the case. Here the subject dropped for the present,* and we betook our selves to Monrovia to sing, smoke, and tell stories. We had crossed Iowa, the Missouri, and the Platte, and were rushing through Nebraska, another corn State — in the general opinion of the party more attractive than Iowa. Sunday, July 18. — I rose early and found we had left vegetation behind, having entered Colorado, still on the same vast plain, now considerably elevated, and showing signs of cactus and sage brush. Out of the west rose the peaks of the Rocky Mountains, a serried purple ram- * The subject was never resumed, but in thinking over it since I have seen that, theoretically, pressure has to do with the experi- ment, though Geikie does not mention it as a factor. For one of the vessels might have its eharge forced into it, while the other might be allowed to fill under ordinary atmospheric pressure. The reason, I think, that pressure is not referred to is, that both vessels are filled under the same ordinary conditions, — that is, under one atmosphere. At the same time, the Law of Avogadro, as it is called — namely, that all gases in equal quantities have the same number of molecules — requires that the gases be under the same conditions as to both temperature utid pressure. This, of course, is not a law founded upon actual experiment, but an assumption, which, how- ever, is verified by other experiments founded upon it. I 10 part, seemingly impassable. At 7 a.m. we arrived at Denver, and drove to the Brown Palace Hotel, worthy a better name, where we had breakfast. The city im- pressed us very favorably, not only at first sight, but aftewards when we drove through its main streets and suburbs, which we did in the "Seeing Denver Excursion Car." This is an electric tram, which makes the tour of the city twice a day on week days and onee on Sundays, for the purpose of showing off the place to visitors. It was started by a land company, and is conducted by an agent, who stops at all points of interest, and in very good English lectures the passengers on the mineral and agricultural resources and capabilities of the State, es- pecially the latter. As these were not very conspicuous as far as we could see, they seemed to be all the more in need of advertising. And ye.t it was surprising to see what could be done with a little water. We stopped at some gardens that were irrigated, and lo ! the desert ap- peared to blossom as the rose. That, we were told, was what water would do in Colorado, which doubtless was the truth. As none of us contemplated raising garden truck, we took more interest in the historical part of the lecture. At Clear Creek Valley we were shown the stream where gold was first found in 1859, and whence it was traced to the mountains, which led to the rush of fortune seekers and the saying " Pike's Peak or bust !" At another point we had a wonderful range of vision, taking in, on the side of the Bockies, a sweep, it was said, of 250 miles. On the plain side, the eye took in a stretch sufficient to hold the entire population of the globe, al- lowing a square yard for every man, woman and child in existence. This vast plain rises abruptly into the Rocky Mountains — so abruptly in some cases that, ac- 11 cording to Geikie, " one might sit on the flat bed and lean his back on the vertical one." The sudden upheaval of the plain is due, according to the same authority, not to volcanic. action, but to contraction of the crust. The rocks underlying the prairie to the east for hundreds of miles are all of cretaceous or tertiary origin, and become visible on ascending any of the gorges or canyons which have been eroded by the escaping drainage from the mountains. Bursting through the rocks of the plain, the ancient granitic and crystalline rocks have risen to be the peaks of the Colorado Mountains. But for this throwing up of these archaean masses the " Centennial Sate" would have been a quiet pastoral territory like the region to the eastward. The rise of these granitic ridges, how- ever, has brought incredible wealth to the State, and in a few years has converted the loneliest mountain solitudes into busy hives of industry. In the Excursion Car we met a passenger who had ridden from New York on a donkey, and was on a bet of $5,000 to complete the ride to San Francisco within a certain date. He told us lie had to make his living by the way, and one of his methods was to stand in front of a drug store with his donkey and sell a patent medicine, amubing the crowd meanwhile with an account of his travels. He had clippings from newspapers giving accounts of his progress, and was engaged in writing a narrative of his journey, to be called " The Picturesque Pilgrimage of Pythagoras Pod," the accent on the penultimate of Pythagoras. I drew his attention to this, but he thought hie western friends would prefer the vulgar pronounciation. We were very much pleased with Denver and its sur- roundings. It is said to have a population of 163,000, 41 public schools, and 65 churches. The State Capitol sm ! I i! 12 and the City Hall are both magnificent buildings. Den- ver was founded in 1858, on a barren waste, dry and treeless ; it is now the " Queen City of the Plains." Its clear, invigorating air and dry climate are famous. The plain on which it stands is 5,196 feet above ihe sea. After dinner at the Brown Palace, we prepared to re- sume our journey southward by the Denver and Bio Grande Railroad to Colorado Springs, a run of seventy miles. On this part of the trip we encountered the first break in the weather, which ecJed in a rather severe thunderstorm as we approached what was to be our des- tination for the next two or three days. It was dark and very moist when we urew up at Colorado Springs, and walked to the Antler Hotel, a short distance from the station. I put in a very unhappy night. Something had gone wrong. In the morning I was sore and weak, and there was nothing for it but to reconcile myself to forego the ascent to Pike's Peak, which was planned for the day. I found it very hard to do this, as it was to me one of the great events of the trip. There was the famous Peak, 14,147 feet high, right in front of my bedroom window, only a few miles off as it seemed, and I bed- ridden ! Well, there was no help for it, so I lay and slept. I forget how the day passed ; I think it rained. Towards evening I heard with great satisfaction that the party had not gone up the Peak, but on account of the weather had driven in carriages to the Garden of the Gods. So there was still a chance for next day. And next day I was myself again, and t>o was the weather ; neither could have been better. In the morning, a few of us rode out in the street car to see the ruins of the famous Broadmoor Casino, which had been burnt to the ground a day or two before. It was a favorite resort of Iff the natives and of visitors to the Springs. We were not admitted to the grounds, but could see that it was a choice spot, situate at the foot of the mountains. On returning- to the hotel, we got ready for the afternoon trip to the Peak. The talk was all about the Peak, in which it was often twisted into " Peak's Pike," and this now became the party's name for it. We were off for the " Pike." An electric trolley took us first to Manitou, situate at the mouth of the gorge up which is the cog- wheel route to the summit of the famous mountain. Manitou, according to the guide-books, is " the most famous pleasure resort in the West." It abounds in mineral springs, caves and caverns, but with the " Pike" ahead of us we had no time to explore the wonders of Manitou. On the way to it we passed the skirts of the " Garden of the Gods," and could see part of the crop, affording rare delectation, no doubt, for a geologist, but unattractive and uncomfortable for gods accustomed to a soft seat. This Garden of the Gods grows nothing „ c red rocks, standing on end in every conceivable shape and form, the protruding fractured ribs of the tertiary or cretaceous plain, crumbling slowly away by the com- bined action of frost, wind, and rain. It was not without fear and trembling that one or two of our party made the venture of ascending the Peak ; one was forbidden positively by his medical adviser to attempt it, but we all did it with perfect impunity. I felt a little giddy on the summit, that was all. The day was so fine we hardly had any occasion to put on our overcoats. How can I describe what I saw ? I had my field glass. What a panorama ! 40,000 square miles of the earth's surface lay at our feet. To the east the vast plain, with towns and villages scattered about, no bigger li iiiHJi i 1 I 14 than flo\\'er-garden8 ; to the west the Sangre de Christo range, ever white with snow ; to the south the Raton Mountains of New Mexico ; to the north more moun- tains, Denver and the abyss ! Art could never portray such a scene, and description fails. The cog-wheel railway is a curiosity ; it is about nine miles long, the maximum grade is about 25 per cent., the average 16 per cent.; it was finished October 20th, 1890, and must have been a work of enormous difficulty. The present equipment of the road consists of four locomo- tives and six passenger coaches. The engine pushes the car in ascending, and precedes it in descending : it is provided with two double steel cog-wheels, through which the power is applied, and these run in rack rails laid in the centre of the track, which is of standard guage. Powerful steam brakes are used. The scenery of the gorge is indescribable. Through its lower portion rushes a snow-fed mountain stream, sometimes dashing against the huge masses of rock, that have fallen into its channel from the giddy heights above, at other times wholly hidden from view under these same masses, when, but for its roar, it would seem to have sunk into the bowels of the earth. What this stream is like after a cloud-burst on the mountains, or in the season of melting snow, one can but faintly imagine ; and it requires a vivid imagination as well as intelligent research to be convinced that this strt^am, insignificant as it now appears, has been the agent which scooped out this gorge, and filled its own channel with the rocks that impede its course. An observant eye is required also to verify Geikie's theory with regard to the bending up of the Tertiary strata, and the escape upwards of the un- derlying granite. Had we been here soon after the final IS uplieaval took place, the jagged line of breakage would have been more visible, but the ever-active forces of denudation have been at work for ages, and worn away or covered up the flaws. Still, it is an easy matter to distinguish the later rocks at the lower end of ihe gorge from the more ancient at the upper. I had tl'e impres- sion, and it was shared by others of our purty, that Pike's Peak wus an isolated cone, risin in solitary state from the plain ; but, seen from Colorado Borings, it is but a ridge, apparently in close connection with many other ridges, but as we rise above the Halfway House and pass through the narrow rugged walls of Hell's Gate, we enter a comparatively level stretch of two and a quarter miles, with mountains of course on either hand, though at some distance, and here Pike's Peak begins to assert its bold individuality. It was 5.80 p.m. when we got back to the hotel, the ascent and descent having occupied about two hours and a half. After dinner, Captain Mellis and I went to the Opera House and heard the Hungarian Band play some very fine music. This band had been playing at the Casino, and in the fire had lost much valuable music — this concert was given for their benefit. Colorado Springs is a city of 17,000 inhabitants, said to be, but I would judge that nearly half of that number were away from home. It has some good buildings, fine streets, and plenty of stores. It is a famous health resort, especially for consumptives, several of whom we met carrying th burden of their fell disease. There was at least one patie t at the Antler, whom I heard at nights but did not see- -clear sky and mountain air would be unavailing in his case, poor fellow ! I would not care to recommend an hotel with such guests. At the same time S£SSSMb3533 i :i6 the Antler is a fine house, with stately rooms, a good table, and music in the hall in the evenings. But the time had come for us to leave it ; accordingly on Wednes- day morning, the 21st July, after a final saunter round the city, and a look into the shop windows, we started by the Denver and Rio Grpndt, en route for Salt Lake City. The road runs due south through a hot barren waste until we reach Pueblo, some 40 miles distant from Colorado Springs. Here we seemed to be in a furnace, where the air quivered over the arid soil formed of the waste of a soft whitish rock, through deep cuttings in which the train rushed amid cloud° of smoke. We were told to imagine ourselves in New Mexico, which was not far away to the south, as in all respects it was the same kind of a country. No one cared to go to New Mexico ; yet at Pueblo we were in the second city of the state, a busy thriving centre of trade and manufacture. Im- mense quantities of raw material and fuel abound in the vicinity ; there are blast furnaces, steel works, and roll- ing mills. We were shown the picture of a mineral palace which cost a million dollars, holding a permanent exhibit of Colorado's mineral productions, from stone and coal to pure gold. We dia not stop, having an idea we should have perished from thirst, so dry and parched everything seemed in the middle of the day. The railroad turns sharp near Pueblo and runs west. In the afternoon we enter the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas River, which is justly regarded as one of the greatest sights of the western mountain region. Nothing like this had ever been seen by any of us except the General himself and one or two others who had been through it before. We ran along the left bank of the Arkansas, brawling over its rock-strewn channel. Above, seemingly reaching to n the clouds, rose shear walls of rocks, sometimes receding from the river bank and forming glades and grassy holms, on which, strange as it appeared, were ofien seen cattle grazing. How they got there was a mystery. On the side of the gorge along which the railroad ran the scene varied every moment ; now it Wi^e through a space where vast cutting had to be done, now over huge embankments on the river. On looking out, we seemed to be always entering or issuing out of some fearful chasm. It was only a glimpse I could get at the rock formation, but I was satisfied it was some paleozoic foimajion sc meta- morphosed by heat and pressure as to be beyond recog- nition. At one point we observed, both in situ and de- tached, great masses of red conglomerate, consisting of rounded pebbles held together by a matrix of red clay, apparently indurated and perhaps as solid as iron per- oxide cement could make it. I grudged not being able to exaioine this more closely. Before we left this awful gorge oar wonder faculties began to totter and fail ; another gorge at that time would have been a surfeit. It must be a great thing for a railway to have such a gorge among its assets. I was told, but apparently not in full detail, of a fierce struggle between two rival lines of rail- way for the possession of this gorge. The Denver and Rio Grande won it by stratagem. As I understand it, this line quickly moved in the material of a bridge to a l)oint where it was necessary to cross the river. Here they made a stand with over one hundred armed men, threw the bridge across, and held the position till the rival line had to quit the field. The gorge railway is on a continual rise, as we readily opine from the absence of still reaches in the river, along the banks of which we continue to run till we escape from it altogether; and 18 then we are still rising, until towards the gloaming we reach Leadville, which, however, lies in a valley, but the valley is 10,200 feet above the sea. Here we left our ear for half an hour and had supper at the station. We had no sight of the town, which is at some distance from the railway, but there were several mean -looking houses about, reminding us of what it must have been twenty years ago when the miners first came in ; thankful we were for the lapse of time and the departed reign of the six-shooter. Crowds of little urchins, boys and girls, met us on the platform with specimens of ore, which, at a nickel apiece, were not dear. There was an uproarioi night in Munrovia as we turned the axis of the mountains and sped down hill 6,000 feet to Glenwood Springs near the western base of the Rockies. Here the Roaring Fork and the Grand River — the main tributary of the Colorado — unite in a pictui'esque valley surrounded by mountains. There is said to be nothing in the State equal to Glenwood Springs, with its vapor caves, hot sulphur springs, and magnificent hotel, the " Colorado," said to be finer than anything at Long Branch, Saratoga or Newport, and except in size, equal in every respect to the Ponce de Leon at St. Augustine. We saw its search light gleam across the waters of the Grand River, but we did not stop. After a good sweeping out and airing, Munrovia was converted into a sleeping apartment, and I lay down to dream of gorges and " Duncan " rivers. Captain Mellis was never at a loss for a name, and our genial com- panion, Mr. Duncan, lent his ungrudgingly to almost every unknown and remarkabib object. 19 oammg we ey, but the eft our car 1. We had 2e from the ing houses Ben twenty lankful we eign of the and girls, which, at ovia as we down hill jrn base of the Grand -unite in a There is Glen wood )rings, and I finer than ivport, and B Ponce de ight gleam we did not nrovia was ly down to tain Mellis mial com- to almost Thursday, 22nd July. — On looking 3ut this morning, the eye took in a scene of desolation almost inconceiv- able. A vast plain of bare earth covered with alkaline crust or dotted here and there with hideous sage brush. Far and near, rising out of the plain, were seen huge crumbling cliffs of brown stratified rock, with enormous talus mounds at their base, of the same material as the surface soil on all sides — a dreary, hopeless, forbidding scene ! Not a drop of water, no sign of vegetation in sight. Occasionally we passed a spot, generally a station, where water had been struck, and there life once more made its appearance. We breakfasted in the car. At length we entered the valley that leads to Salt Lake, and things began to improve. This valley forms part of the Great Basin of the continent, from which no water escapes except by evaporation. The Great Basin is equal in area to the whole of France, of triangular shape, oc- cupying the western portion of Utah, nearly the whole of Nevada, and sections of Oregon, California and Idaho. It is bounded on the west by the Sierra Nevada, and on the east by the Wahsatch Mountains. The base of the triangle in the north is some 500 miles from east to west, and it extends from north to south for nearly 800 miles. It is thus girded round on evexy side by high mountains, and traversed throughout by numerous ranges, some- times parallel, sometimes blending and crossing. The valleys are usually sinks, the principal one being Salt Lake, which we are now approaching, wonderful as a natural phenomenon, still more wonderful to meat least, as the theatre of great events. Salt Lake, though still 60 miles long by 82 miles wide, at its widest, according to Geikie, is but a mere mill- pond to what it once was. The successive stages of the 20 it H i! shrinking process it has undergone are traceable on the flanks of the Wahsatch Mountains, against which its waters once beat. Two old shore lines are seen to wind in and out, always horizontal, and always the same dis- tance apart. I should mention, however, that these old lake beaches are not always in evidence to the eye at a distance. I watched for them very carefully, but could only detect them at a few points, the reason, I have no doubt, being, that they have been weathered away, or the detritus fjom the heights above has covered them up. The highest of these old beaches is 940 feet above the present surface of the lake, which is 4,250 feet above the sea level ; hence, when the lake stood at the line of that high beach, it was 5,190 feet above the sea, and must then have been a great fresh-water lake, over 1000 feet deep, 300 miles long, and 180 miles wide, according to Geikie, having an outlet to the Pacific Ocean by Snake Biver, it is supposed. Geikie made an interesting dis- covery on his visit to the lake. He found the moraine of an old glacier which terminated at the upper beach. He does not theorize much on this find of his, but I have no doubt he was convinced in his own mind that when the Wahsatch Mountains had glaciers running down their flanks, they were much higher than they are to-day. At twice their present height, might there not be more than four times the moisture and precipitation there is to-day ? If so, the land would have blossomed abundantly, and re- joiced with joy and singing. A.nd if the mountains have shrivelled here, why not in Arizona and New Mexico ? What if the old inhabitan^is of the south disappeared pari jyassu with their mountains ? Sir John Lubbock says that the European Alps now stand on the site of an earlier Alps that were worn away by slow denudation. 21 eable on the it which its Been to wind he same dis- lat these old the eye at a ly, but could n, I have no away, or the ed them up. et above the et above the > line of that a, and must er 1000 feet according to m by Snake eresting dis- the moraine ipper beach. i, but I have d that when g down their to-day. At e more than •e is to-day? itly, and re- ntains have 3w Mexico ? disappeared in Lubbock e site of an ludation. We arrived at the station of Salt Lake City about 12. 80 p.m. On the way we were told that there were great goings on in the city, and that possibly there might be IV lack of hotel accommodation ; the General therefore took a cab and went ofif to spy the land. He found that the " Knutsford " would be pleased to receive us, so we went there by street car, and found it a splendid first- class hotel, equal to any we had been in. It was evi- dent that something extraordinary was iu the wind. The city was aflame with flags and bunting, the streets were crowded with people. Was it the Passover, the Feast of Tabernacles, or the year of Jubilee, these imitation Jews were celebrating ? It seems that it was on the 24th of July, fifty years ago, that Brigham Young, like Moses from the top of Pisgah, looked down from "Ensign Peak" on the future land of Mormon promise. He had seen it all before in a vision ; this far-stretching valley and broad, smooth lake {I wonder if he knew it was brine ?) Here at length after long wandering in the wilderness, like the older chosen race, and under a new Moses, were they to enter into possesssop and begin the old story over again ; and yet it was to be the old story with variations — the Jewish theocracy and polity were to be blended with primitive Christianity, but it was not to be the Puritan blend, — there were to be no ** Scarlet Letters " in it. I confess to a very lively interest in these people, and what they have, done, Brigham Young must have been a man of great natural ability. Born in 1801 in the State of Vermont, he went with his parents to New York and lived with them on a bush farm till he was twenty, when he married his first wife. He had no schooling. His parents were Methodists and he was one also. After his in.irriage he worked some years as a carpenter. In 1830, some one showed him the Book of Mormon ; that settled him. He had a brother in Canada, a Methodist parson, one would like to know where ; him he went to see, and, with the Book of Mormon, had no trouble in converting. The family readily took to new revelations, and stuck to them. His first wife soon died, leaving two little girls. " The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints " was established at Kirtland, Ohio ; there Brig- ham met the prophet Joseph Smith, and being asked to pray, he " spoke in tongues," and Joseph's opinion being asked respecting this miraculous gift, he assured them " it was pure Adamic language." Henceforth Brigham was ever on the move preaching the Gospel, he was made one of the twelve apostles, and undertook to convert the Indians, the Yankees of the Eastern States, and even the British nation. With seven of the twelve apostles, of -whom he was now presi- dent, he landed at Liverpool in the spring of 1840, a stranger and penniless. In a ye&r he had baptized 8,000 souls, printed 5,000 Books of Mormon, 8,000 hymn books and 50,000 tracts, sent a thousand saints to Nauvoo, and established a permanent shipping agency to keep up the stream of emigration. In all these things, he says, " I acknowledge the hand of God." He was no fool. He must have begun to see that there was a big thing in it. Great persecution fell upon the Saints at N .ivoo ; Joseph the prophet was murdered in Carthage jail m June, 1844. Brigham stepped into the breach and became his suc- cessor, and eventually led the chosen people forth out of the land of bondage. The story of the exodus is one of thrilling interest. In a book which I purchased at the " Hall of Relics," each day's progress is recorded. I 23 5arpenter. In !iIormon; that I, a Methodist m he went to no trouble in w revelations, id, leaving two of Latter Day there Brig- >eing asked to opinion being assured them )ve preaching I apostles, and .nkees of the ition. With v&a now presi- >g of 1840, a )aptized 8,000 9 hymn books ) Nauvoo, and keep up the I, he says, "I no fool. He g thing in it. >ivoo; Joseph n June, 1844. ime his suc- 3 forth out of dus is one of ^ased at the recorded. I have talked with several of the old pioneers, and seen many interesting mementoes of their eventful journey across the plains. In driving around the city, taking in the sights, I sat beside the coachman, who was a grandson of Heber C. Kimball, next in authority among the pioneers to Brigham Y ng himself. This man showed us everything ; he tooK us to the Tabernacle and Temple, the former an immense building with a turtle back roof ; it has a seating capacity of 12,000 people, and wonderful acousiir^ properties. One of the officials in charge illustrated these properties by dropping a pin on a table at one end of the building, while we stood at the other, and we distinctly heard it fall. The Temple is a magnificent piece of architecture, built of pure white granite at a cost, it is said, of six millions of dollars, raised no doubt by contributions from the Saints all over England and America. There are said to be marvels of sculpture and ornamentation within, but no profane eye has ever seen them. The faithful alone, and those only of a certain rank, are permitted to tread these sacred courts and look behind the veil. We drove to " Emigrant Canyon," down which fifty years ago the first pioneers descended to take possession of the valley ; we were shown their first camping ground and the first potato patch. Near by is now Camp Doug- las, a military station located in 1862 ; it is occupied at present by a colored regiment, the 24th U.S. Infantry, a fine soldierly body of men, in command of Colonel J. Ford Kent. Salt Lake City was originally laid out in ten acre blocks, with streets crossing at right angles, 182 feet wide ; these blocks were subdivided into parts, one of which became the portion of a Saint, on which to build !ii i In lilt 24 his house ; he was allotted a portion of land in the valley on which to expend his energies for a living. Many of the original town lots have still the original buildings on them, some of these of adobe, but the majority have been subdivided, sold and re-sold ; many of them are now worth a fortune. Near Temple Square ptands Pioneer Monument, the gift of the people of Utah to perpetuate the memory of those who gave civilization to the West. Its shaft is sur- mounted by a heroic figure of Brigham Young, which is very imposing, and in excellent taste. Near by is the " Hall of Belies," a miniature of the Parthenon, built ap- parently of the composite material used in the buildings at the World's Fair. The work seems to be well executed, but the effect is lost owing to the situation of the build- ing, which stands alongside others which overtop it, and are by no means classic. A Parthenon must stand severely alone, and on an eminence. I spent an hour within this beautiful building. It contains the few re- maining souvenirs and relics of the wilderness journey, fragments, which, to the 600 surviving pioneers, tell some tale of trial and endurance. That the souvenirs are few may be inferred from the fact that all superfluous things were denied transit, for teams were precious and life itself at stake ; the wonder is that so many things escaped the order to " lighten up," as the weary loads, the weary days, and the weary months rolled on. This great Jubilee feast of the Mormons was to last five days ; we struck it on the third day, and were in luck. After dinner, I strolled out among the crowds and sav the night parade. The streets were brilliantly illu- minated with colored incandescent lights. There was a long procession of emblematic figures mounted on wheeled platforms drawn by double teams of horses, and repre- i I iiCWfilTi'MiKiairtfi 26 in the valley g. Many of buildings on ty have been re now worth Monument, le memory of ' shaft is sur- ing, which is ar by is the on, built ap- he buildings ell executed, >f the build- overtop it, must stand nt an hour the few re- 338 journey, oneers, tell B souvenirs superfluous recious and lany things eary loads, on. 'as to last id were in jrowds and iantly illu- lere was a an wheeled md repre- senting scenes and events in Mormon life, state industry, history and ethnology. Each county of the State was represented and had its place in the procession ; its native races, descendants of the aboriginal cliff-dwellers, naked and unadorned, were displayed, along with its other natural, agricultural and mining products. Fanci- ful figures were numerous. The " Serpent of the Great Salt Lake " attracted much attention ; it was moved rhythmically along by Chinamen hidden in the mon- ster's interior. A together, it was the best show of the kind I had ever seen. Friday, 23rd July. — After breakfast we were out again sight-seeing. This day's parade was nearly what we saw the night before. In the afternoon we took the train to " Saltair," on the lake, some eleven miles distant. This is the great pleasure resort of Mormons and Gentiles, of whom there is said to be about an equality in number in Salt Lake City. A magnificent casino has been built on piles out in the Lake where the water is four or five feet deep, the approach to it being a long platform built in the same way. Crowds come here every day to bathe, dance and drink cofifee or beer. The Saints are in no way sanctimonious. Our coachman of yesterday, a good Mormon, told me that his people were in no way differ- ent from others, except in religion. They were now only a religious sect, tolerated and tolerating ; the utmost harmony prevailed, both in religion and politics, they were all after the dollar, and the great majority in the city, as well as all over the State, wanted a silver dollar, they were all Bryanites — 16 to 1 was the only salvation for Utah. In municipal affairH there is no preponder- ance on the side of the Mormons, the honors being SHI '15 I! r I I Hltl ! i i w 26 • mutually shared. The whole State has been more or less Mormonized. The pioneers were indefatigable in the early days in planting colonies of believing immigrants wherever they could find suitable pluces for them. Utah is therefore a Mormon State, but the same thing has happened in every settlement, namely, a compromise first, and then fusion, in worldly affairs at least. This great Jubilee demonstration is a proof. They are all mormons and all gentiles for the time being. All clasiies are interested in it, all have taken part in it. The Gover- nor of the State walked in the procession, and Uncle Sam's soldiers will march to-morrow. It is the jubilee of the settlement of the West, and they all wan

ii' Ml I finding the house full — we had arrived in the wake of a fierce invasion of excursionists, mostly Christian Endea- vorers, on their way back from San Francisco, where it was said 40,000 of them had assembled. Most c ' Kxnm wereelderly, yellow, spectacled, unhappy-look ;;• ■> i, far from robust. To bedragged round those du .oy /cads to look at hot spouting water was a punishment many of f hem thought they had not deserved, — we heard them bemoan their cruel fate. Notwithstanding the crush, the General managed to make it tolerably smooth for our party, all of whom succeeded in getting rooms. After dinner, and when it was getting dusk, we etrolled over to the nearest Springs, distant not over 100 yards from the verandah of the hotel. We saw a number of circu- lar and semi-circular basins, each of which had an ex- quisitely fretted rim, the hot water flowing over in places and gathering into other basins at lower levels. Wher- ever the water trickles down it leaves, on evaporation, a white sinter, which when dry and exposed to the weathei cracks into thin scales, or crumbles to powder ; but ihe sinter of the rims of the basins, and of the little terraces over which the water continually falls, is as hard as flint, and difficult to break off if one were allowed to do that ; but breaking off sinter and taking it away ere strictly forbidden, and the Park Police are always at hand to enforce the regulations. The sinter at these springs in calcareous ; when moisi, and fresh it has a bead-like tracery of scarlet, yellow, orange, and green, on a wb^U' ground-work, the colors being due, it is said, to the pre sence of certain colored algae that live in waters of high temperature, and by whose instrumentrJity the sinter deposits have boen built np, Frca Miuse lower basins a path leade up a steep hill oi crumble ■ liite sinter t.) the wake of a istian Endea- isco, where it Most ' t.iXHva Jedu.iiy /oada ment many of heard them the crush, the looth for our •ooms. After strolled over K) yards from nber of circu- !h had an ex- over in places »vel8. Wher- jvaporation, a CO the weathei 'der; but uie little terraces > hard as flinty d to do that ; y are strictly '8 at hand to >8e springs is 3 a bead-likft 1, on a wh U' 1, to the pre- iters of high y the sinter lower basing, ite sinter t.) I 88 another series of springs occupying the summit. From the hotel, this hill looks like the termination of a glacier. It presents on one side a steep front to the narrow plain at its base ; in places where the front is dry and weath- ered it looks like chalk, but where the water pours over, and the algse are still at work, the coloring is very marked. The overflow from these upper springs runs down one side of the hill into a creek, the waters of which are quite warm a considerable distance beyond. Returning to the hotel, we rested and refreshed, sat on the long verandah and smoked, looking often up at the ghostly hill, and thinking. Thus ended Morday, the 26th of July. To-morrow, we have a long, hot, dusty ride of forty miles before us, and are to start early Tuesday, 27th July. — The General managed that our two coaches should iiead the long procession thnt was to start at 7 o'clock en route for Fountain Geyser, 40 miles to the south. When, after a good breakfast, the party assembled in the morning ready for the journey, we founa the long verandah of the hotel already crowded with Endea vorers waiting for their (oaches to draw up. There was a h .iied surprise when ihe Canadian party were summoned to uheir seats in thd first two coaches; they must havt thought we 'vere no mean crowd. From what they saw of us the night before, they probably concltided we were a broad-minded type of Christian Endeavorers. It is a rule of the i*oad that the coaches keep their place in the procession, so we kept the lead throughout the day, and thereby escaped much of the dust, still we had our share, and the heat was impar- tially distributed ; some of the ladies suffered a great deal. The first four miles of the drive from Mammoth 34 li-jt! liiii .!ii i!i' Hot Springs to Norrib' Geyser Basin is up a long hill leading to the "Golden Gatf ," where w ) enter the wildest art of the Canyon of Glen Creek by a i oad, which in ome parts is a mere gash in the side of the mountain, m others it has been built up with great labor from pro- jecting shoulders in the steep slope. Through the pine woods far below we caught gleams of the rushing tor- rent. It was a ticklish spot, and somewhat trying on the nerves. Looking back to the north and west after reaching the summit of the pasd, we had a splendid view of the Gallatin range of mountains, of which Electric Peak, 11,155 feet above sea level, forms part, said to be a great natural galvanic battery, giving powerful shocks to the venturesome climber if he happens to be high up during a thunderstorm ; the play of the lightning on the peak ut night is said to be one of the great sights. Far- ther on the road had been cut at great expense through ridges of obsidian, which rise in vertical columns like basalt hundreds of feet in height. Although lying about in tons, visitors are not allowed to take specimens. Mr. Robert Christie's hat blew off as we were passing, and he had to get down ; it was said that the driver winked when he got up again. Obsidian is found in almost all volcanic countries ; it was brought to Rome by a person named Obsidius— hence the name, — and was used for making mirrors. They used it for this purpose in Peru and Mexico, and also for making spear and arrow heads. That deadly club the Aztecs fought the Spaniards with was armed with obsidian. It is the vitreous condition of an acid lava, mostly black, but sometimes green, red, brown, striped or spotted, and more rarely shot-colored, — then it is worth having your hat blown off to get a sample. It is a curious circumstance that whole masses ii;!! iiinl. 86 a long hill 9r the wildest adl which in le mountain, )or from pro- ugh the pine rushing tor- at trying on id west after jplendid view hich Electric rt, said to be iverful shocks ;o be high up itningon the sights. Far- ense through columns like 1 lying about simens. Mr. passing, and Iriver winked in almost all 1 by a person ivas used for pose in Peru arrow heads, aniards with us condition IS green, red, 3hot-colored, off to get a rhole masses of this rock undergo devitrification and pass into a stony enamel-like substance, which gets the name of pearl- stone ; but we saw no signs of devitrification going on here, the obsidian is all as black as anthracite. To run a road along and through a solid wall of glass was no mean undertaking ; it it said that the engineer, having in mind, perhaps, how Hannibal crossed the Alps, made great fires on the cliffs, and then poured water on them, which broke them up. Objects of interest multiply as we advance. Beaver Lake on th« r'*. I hazarded the filled-up n examination was composed )ng since dried ere still active, filling up going 1 for the night, lotel were bub- ; their deposit e distance of a eyser threw up directions, and in, a mile or so operation, luch congested, ing on their way yser Basin, and int as ourselves i to get dinner, rolled up to the -thinking hard, tances. A little I Pot. I stood g I could bring luge vat of boil- anieter, jerking he sides of the cauldron the mud was more pasty, and somewlmi colored; here the bubbles when formed remained, and became enlarged by expansion from within ; then they would burst on top, and the thin mud would pour over the sides — for all the world like minature volcanoes. " I wonder what does it ? " I heard someone say. He was evidently thinking, so was I ; and though it was really of no use, as I have said, this is what I did think about it : Here was a boiling spring, that might have been as clear and limpid as another just beside it on a somewhat lower level, but on its way up to the surface it encountered a shattered vein of rock which, eith'ir by the mere mecha- nical force of ebullition producing friction between dis- jointed fragments, or by chemical action, it reduced to powder, which it has been cooking ever since. But at once I felt ashamed that a more obvious theory did not first present itself — namely, that the spring, instead of grinding the stuff out of hard rock, found it ready ground in some deep bed of old sinter, through which it burst up anew after ages of inactivity. At Hell Hole (or, if that is not its real name, it ought to be) we looked down into a vast boiling cauldron acres in extent, which had abruptly sunk down 80 feet or more in the floor of a wide plain of sinter. In its perpendicular sides, from top to bottom, one could see the thin ragged edges of the rup- tured layers of sinter, deposited during a long succession of years, perhaps ages. Something went wrong below, and the bottom fell out ; luckily nobody was there at the time, as it happened long before a white man ever saw it, and we may be sure no Indians were about, as they have too much respect for the Great Spirit to venture within the bounds of his private property. By the theory last suggested, this ought to have been a Paint Pot, and it 88 would have been a monster, but the water was still and clear, perhaps it had not been churned long enough, or it may have lacked some chemical constituent necessary to convert the sinter into mud. The stuff in the Devil's Paint Pot, first mentioned, looks like thin whitish putty- plaster, and may be largely lime, but only an analysis could tell what ten thousand years' cooking at the boiling point has made of it. Wherever we had been hitherto I had always had a room to myself ; to-night I slept ir the parlor with eight others, and I slept well. Not so all of our party. Mr. Duncan had suffered much from the heat and the long ride, and was ill and weak. Captain Mellis, never at a loss for a name, called his complaint " Duncanitis." Most of us had had a touch of it ; the General rather enjoyed it, though it had its inconveniences, especially in a procession / Wednesday, 28th July. — There lay before us, to-day, a nine miles' ride to Upper Geyser Basin, the exploration of the wonders there, and the ride back to the Fountain Hotel to spend another night. The day was perfection, as all the days had been but the one at Colorado Springs. The heat in the middle of the day was a little trouble- some, but the nights were delicious. I speak here for myself. We started at 8 a.m., heading the procession as before. Much to our regret, Mr. Duncan could not go with us, although we were going to see the greatest of all the wonders of the Park. The General was very much " chagrined." However, there was no help for it, so we left our genial friend and his faithful wife behind to watch the cooking in the Devil's Paint Pot, and superin- tend the performances in the Fountain Geyser, till our 89 was still and g enough, or mt necessary n the Devil's hitish putty- an analysis at the boiling ilways had a or with eight party. Mr. and the long s, never at a Duncanitis." eneral rather B8, especially i US, to-day, a e exploration the Fountain as perfection, rado Springs, little trouble- eak here for procession as could not go e greatest of as very much p for it, so we ife behind to and superin- yser, till our return. We had a merry ride, and many surprises by the way, the greatest of all to my mind being "The Morning Glory," a still, deep, circular pool, as clear as crystal, the water warm, I know not how warm, full to the brim, and almost level with the road we were passing along; a cavernous hole down at the bottom was seen to shade off from deep blue to utter Mackness, while the sides, contriicting downwards, were one mass of blazing jewels, reflecting in the sunlight all the colors of the rainbow. Not a ripple disturbed the surface, and very little steam arose. As I gazed at this lovely and yet terrible sight, I thought of the New Jerusalem, but down that awful blue-black hole was the way to another place. Upper Geyser BaeJn was to be the limit of our wander- ings and explorations in the Park. We were sixty miles from our home in "Waterloo," fifty miles from the Mammoth Hot Springs, and we had all the journey to do over again to-morrow, no wonder the General thought we had better leave out the " Grand Canyon." There used to be a large hotel at Upper Geyser Basin, but it was burnt down, and now there is only a restaurant, without night accommodation. On arrival here we had lunch, and then commenced exploring. We had not far to go. From the verandah of the restaurant nearly all the great geysers were within view, some were spouting, others getting ready, all steaming. " Old Faithful," the nearest, had had a fit a little before we arrived, and was due to have another soon. I sauntered up and looked into her mouth, but not too near ; a young man a few minutes before had not been so cautious, and got his face badly scalded with the superheated vapor. We saw him later all bandaged up, and suffering much pain. The vent of Old Faithful is about a couple of feet in f mi^. > j.ju...,Lmi-. ^I^PWi 40 MM! I vv diameter, and rises two or three feet above the broad terraced mound of sinter deposit its waters have formed around it. The sinter in this basin is silicious, and brownish when moist, but when the algee die in it, and it is exposed to the weather, it crumbias into scales and dust like that at Mammoth Hot Springs and elsewhere. As we stood looking on at Old Faithful she began to get angry, expressing her feelings by loud gurgitation, then all of a sudden, with a roar of indignation, she threw up a column of ncingled water and steam to a height of over JOO feet it was said. This avalanche of boiling water fell in a torrent over the mound, and ran from one fretted terrace to another until it found it; nay into the Firehole River, which receives the drainage of all the region and carries it northward into the Madison, the Madison into the Snake, the Snake into the Columbia, and the Columbia into the Pacific Ocean. We are close on the Continental Divide ; a few miles to the east and the drainage finds its way into the Atlantic. The Yellow- stone, for instance, flows into the Missouri, the Missouri into the Mississippi, and the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico. Old Faithful repeats her performances every hour and some minutes, and can always be depended upon, hence her name, but she is by no means the most imposing of the geysers, either in cne volume of her discharge or the height to which she rises. The Giant, the Giantess, and the Beehive far surpass her, but they are intermittent and fitful. The Castle Geyser, which has an immense cone, favored us with a magnificent ex- hibition just as we were leaving. An old habitue of the Park, Mr. G.L. Henderson, whom the General had met on a former visit, introduced us to the " Three Sisters." These are hot springs commmunicating with each other 41 ve the broad have formed liliciouB, and die in it, and o scales and nd elsewhere. began to get [itation, then she threw up leight of over )oiling water ran from one ^ay into the ige of all the Madison, the he Columbia, We are close the east and The Yellow- , the Missouri to the Gulf of mances every I be depended Jans the most 'olume of her The Giant, her, hut they reyser, which agnincent ex- labitue of the sral had met tiree Sisters." kh each other through rifts in their beautifully-fretted rims. One of them, Mr. Henderson considered, was the greatest curio- sity in the Park. Every seven or eights minutes there was seen rising from the crater at the bottom large and small transparent globes of gas, which as they neared the sur- face burst, throwing up the water, which, as it fell, took on a tinge of heavenly blue, with touches of carnation, [t was a beautiful sight, Mrs. Palmar was in ecstacies. We watched it subside and begin again. Mr. Henderson, who lives near it and keeps store, had watched it for years, and knew no change from what we saw. He had ascertained that the bubbles consisted of light carbu- retted hydi'ogen. If so, they would ignite if a light was held above the water when the explosion took place, I said. Mr. Henderson never thought of that, but was of the opinion that there would be no flame. Thinking it over, I came to the conolusion that the gas might be so attenuated by heat that there would be nothing to burn. The General and I had a long talk with this in- telligent old gentleman in his store. He had all the lore of the Park at his finger ends, and has been writing about it in newspapers and pamphlets for years. He is now engaged in publishing his most important work or- f nf. subject, to be called " The Two Wonderlands," which will contain sketches embracing fifteen years of the Park's history and development. The Park evidently owes much to Mr. Henderson, who seems to have been fascinated with it from the first. It was mainly by his writings and representations to the Government that the Park has been gradually improved so as to be made accessible to the public. Being of a metaphysical turn of mind, h« sees in the Park two wonderlands, one without and another within, the latter being the " human increment," 42 as he calls it. His classification of geyser activity may, however, be correct. There are (our varieties, he says — the Gaseous, of which the " Mugwump," one of the " Three Sisters " mentioned, is an example ; the Vapor- ous, like the Roarer we passed ; the Aqueous, or spouting geyser, like Old Faithful and others ; and the Chemical, of which the Paint Pots are an illustration. The General subscribed for copies of " The Two Wonderlands," and no doubt the book will be interesting. The whole party crossed the Firehole Riv a foot bridge, and wandered over tha wide sinter plam, passing close by, and looking into, the great geyser vents — the Giantess, the Beehive, the Lion and Pups, etc., etc. We were satisfied. Sauntering along, 1 picked up a small piece of sinter, and was putting it in my pocket when I felt a hand laid on my shoulder. I turned around and faced one of the Park police, who told me I had trans- gressed the rules. I dropped the specimen, and told him I had forgotten. Of course, if these rules were not en- forced the vandals would soon destroy those beautifully fretted rims of the terraced basins. I never would have thought of doing anything like that ; the piece I picked up was lying loose among the heaps scattered about in all directions. But the time was approaching when we must leave this wonder-haunted spot. By 6 o'clock we were back once more to our hotel at Fountain Basin. " The rage of thirst and hunger satisfied," we had another look at the Devil's Paint Pot. The mess was still cooking, no one could tell when it would be ready. At dusk we went to see the bears — real, wild bears, but well accustomed to the sight of man, who is not allowed to shoot them, or any other game in the National Park. Emboldened by 48 ictivity may, ities, he says " one of the ; theVapor- i, or spouting he Chemical, The General jrlands," and V( a foot }lam, passing Br vents — the etc., etc. We i up a small )ocket when I 1 around and I had trans- and told him were not en- se beautifully Br would have piece I picked ered about in lust leave this ere back once ' The rage of ler look at the oking, no one 3k we went to iccustomed to lioot them, or mboldened by immunity, Mr. Bear frequents the garbage heaps around the liotels, and helps himself to whatever he can find. We saw four, one great black fellow, two smaller black ones and a large cinnamon. A crowd of visitors stood a hundred yards ofT looking at them unconcernedly nosing in the rubbish. All at once a dozan or so of young fel- Iow3, a woman or two among them, mad" a rush as if to head them off from the woods which wt i e close at hand ; off scampered the bears, the boys after them yelling ; one of the bears took to a tree, and was up among the top branches in no time. It was a sight to see him climb. There he sat looking down at his pursuers, who dared not do more than shout at him. They say the bears are getting too numerous, however, and will have to be killed off. Elk and deer are said to be abundant, but we saw none. Thursday, 29th July. — Up early and prepared for our long ride back to " Waterloo," waiting for us, we hoped, at Cinnabar. We started at 7 o'clock ; the morning bright and cool, and Mr. Duncan in good heart for the journey. At Norris Basin we had our two hours' rest. The afternoon drive to Mammoth Hot Springs was in the heat, and with lots of dust, but we got through it, arriv- ing at 4 p.m. After a good dinner, we pushed on over the last stage of seven miles to Cinnabar, arriving at 8 o'clock, and finding Shaw and " Waterloo " both ready to receive us. In fifteen minutes we were off, back to Livingstone, on the main line of the Northern Pacific, there to meet the Overland west-bourid train for Seattle, going over the ground we came by as far as Garrison, then into new territory. This night we were tired, the air was less blue in Munrovia, we went early to bed and slept well, I did, at least. ill E I I ^Hlf i ;; 'in 1111 ■BH 44 Friday, 30th July. — All day in the train, rushing through a sea of mountains, and passing many grand sights in the north-western portion of Montana. It was dark when we entered Spokane, in the State of Washing- ton. The General spoke at one time of stopping off here and taking us up to Bossland, but our time was running on, and we had far to go and much else to see. I would have liked to have had a peep at Spokane, which is the metropolis of the western portion of the State, p, great lumber and rail\^ay cenLe, and growing rapidly in popu- lation and importance, but the train made only a short stay, and it was too dark tu see anything. This night we did not retire quite so early, and Munrovia had to be well swept out and aired . Next morning, Saturday, Slst, I noticed a change ; there was a freshness in the air, and a ^jreener shade in the vegetation. We were coming under uhe influence of the great ocean. We made eome wonderful curves and doublings in our final escape from the mountains. The Northern Pacific must have had many nit> engineering difficulties to overcome a*; this end of the road. We saw men at work over i\ large section tearing down tlie hill- sides with artificial geysers, and running streams ot mud into the ravines +c fill them up. These ravines — great deep gorges some of them — were crossed by woe len trestle bridges, and now these ware being buried up to the sleepers in the washed-down mud. About 2 o'clock p.m. we arrived at Seattle, the terminus of the line, situ- ate on Elliot Bay, an arm of Puget Sound, and some eighteen miles north of Tacoraa. The approach to the city by rail is over a long platform on trestles laved by the salt water of the ba^ when the tide is in. At low il 45 ,in, rushing many grand Mi&. It was of Washing- ping off here was running ee. I would which is the tate, n great idly in popu- only a short This night via had to be d a change ; 'ner shade in 3 influence of Lil curves and ntains. The > engineering ad. We saw lown the hill- reanis ot mud ivines — great d by woolen buried up to >out 2 o'clock the line, situ- id, and some proach to the sties laved by s in. At low water, as was the case when we came in, we seemed to be crossing a far-stretching lake of slime ; but the briny smell of the sea greeted us a? we passed along. At the station we left our car and the good natured Shaw, and were driven to the Reiner Grand Hotel, where some of the party had lunch, but most of ua waited for dinner to be served at 6.30, and meantime set forth to view the city. It did not take long to discover that Seattle is a stirring place, and well worth fneing. Beautifully situ- ated on a succession of roiling hills, it looks down on a fine bay, with more than sixty wharves along its water front. The business pa 't is down below, the residential part above, on the hills. Cable cars run up and down ; of these we took advantage, seeing the sights and enjoy- ing the cool breezefi. It was evident that the gold craze bad something to do with the bustle and eager crowd that was seen on the streets. Outfits and supplies for Alaska were advertised at every uoor, and th j windows were hung with maps of the gold fields showing the different routes. Pamphlets, made up for the most part of Ogilvie's reports to the Canadian Government, were also in abundance. A shipload of adventisrershad sailed a day or two ago for the Yukon, and '\'.eve were crowds waiting for passage by the next steamer. There was no word of going to Canada, it was all Alaska. Still, this is by no means one of your bumptious American cities, forever dangling "Old Glory" in your eyes; we did not notice it the whole day. Seattle claims 65,000 of a population. In 1889 a terrible fire destroyed the whole l)usines8 portion — 60 blocks with the wharves. The loss was nearly $10,000,000. Within a year 265 new build- ings, mostly of iron and stone, besides 60 wharves, were 46 erected. It is the chief seat of the State lumber trade, and has an immense shipping. We had a good dinner at the Reiner Grand, and after another stroll, betook ourselves to Waterloo, which had to slay in the railway yard all night, there being no connection to be had for Vancouver till morning. We had a quiet night, out of the bustle of the city, and lying along the wharves on Elliot Bay. ii Hi i Sunday, August 1st. — Our route was now by the Seattle and International Line to Vancouver. This line connects at Mission Junction with the main line of the Canadian Pacific, of which virtually it is a southern extension, connection thereby being made with the other transcontinental lines, and with San Francisco. We left at 9 a.m., all well and hearty, and with no thought, alas ! of its being the " Sawbath " day. The sky was bright, the air fresh, and the woods green ; no Sunday solemnity in nature either. So on we went and on, ever through greener woods and richer grass till we crossed the 49th parallel and were at last in our '* ain countree." There were signs of an outburst of patriotism on the part of the younger members of the party, which the General, careful of our dignity, and of giving unnecessary offence, suppressed for the time. But there were no restrictions upon " The Maple Leaf " and other patriotic songs when we were well over the border. At length we struck our own main line at Mission Junction, but had to wait over an hour for the train. From this point to Vancouver, across the broad delta of the noble Fraser River, and along Burrard Inlet, the ride was inspiring. We arrived at Vancouver, the terminus of our great railway, at 6 p.m. The first thing to strike a stranger, arriving at 47 mber trade, 1, and after ivhich had e being no ning. We , and lying low by the This line line of the a southern ih the other SCO. We left )ught, alas ! was bright, ly solemnity ver through led the 49th Be." There the part of he General, sary offence, restrictions songs when B struck our to wait over Vancouver, River, and We arrived railway, at arriving at this time of the year, is the dense growth of vegetation. The undergrowth in the woods seems impenetrable, and any small clearing we passed, not under crop, was over- grown with a rank profusion of tall coarse ferns, half burying the enormous blackened and charred stumps of cedar and Douglas fir. Twelve years ago, the site of Vancouver was covered with just such vegetation, the remains of it still visible on some of the streets. Now it is a bright, clean city, in a noble situation, surrounded by mountains. It has miles of well-made streets, with electric trams, a hospital, a handsome opera-house, buildings of brick and granite, three parks, extensive wharves, with a regular steamship service' to China, Japan, Australia, San Francisco, anrl Alaska. We drove to the Vancouver Hotel, a splendid i-ture, and hand- somely appointed. After a clean up, and a good dinner, we sat and smoked on the spacious verandah, gazing at the mountains to the north, on the highest peaks of which lay crouching in silent majesty the "Lion and Lioness." The night was delicious, and our content- ment full. Monday, August 2nd. — Spent the day visiting the sights. One of the C.P.R.'s three White Empresses, the Empress of India, was to sail to-day for Japan. I sat for two hours on the wharf, and watched the passengers and freight going on board. I was afterwards taken through the vessel, which I thought magnificent. A great many Chinese and Japs were leaving, among the latter Prince Arisugawa and his retinue, returning from the Jubilee. In the afternoon we drove through Stanley Park, and saw the " big trees " — cedars and Douglas firs ; one cedar not less than 60 feet round, firs 250 feet in height. The l! 48 park is entirely virgin forest, with dense undergrowth, through which walks have heen cut in places. The main drive is round the outskirts, affording fine vjpw:. of tl.^ Inlet, especially at the Narrows, English Bay, and Coal Harhor. In the evening we strolled around town, ci sat on the verandah of the hotel — the mountains were still there, with the lions on top, above all, the North Star, mountains we knew, what was it ? Tuesday, 8rd August. — Eose at 7, and walked about. After breakfast, made ready ror a trip io New Westmin- ster, on the Eraser Biver, to see the Canneries. Started about noon, distance nine miles by electric tram, through dense woods and some clearings. The run took fifty minutes. New Westminster is a much older place than Vancouver. It was once the capital, hut Victoria has snatched away that honor, and made haste to ensure it for all time to come by getting the Provincial buildings erected. This may be all very well for Victoria, but Vancouver, the terminus of the railway, by all odds should have been the capital. New Westminster is still an important place, with a population of 8,000, and the head of the salmon canning industry. It has a peniten- tiary, a lunatic asylum, and there are large saw mills. We visited one of the canneries, of which there are said to be over thirty in operation on the Fraser this season. The run had been prodigious, this being one of the great years. In Vancouver I saw ■ magnificent fish, a boun- tiful meal for a large family, sold for five cents. The canneries are large wooden sh.'ds on the bank of the river, with narrow wharves on which to land the fish. At one end of the cannery we visited the floor was heaped with a cargo just landed, and all hands, nearly all Chinese, 49 ergrowth, The main I wo of tu^ and Coal WD, Gi sat were still orth Star. ced about. Westmin- i. Started Q, through took fifty place than ctoria has ) ensure it buildings Jtoria, but y all odds ster is still 0, and the a peniten- saw mills. *e are said lis season. * the great 1, a boun- nts. The ' the river, 1. At one aped with I Chinese, were busy. Boys with iron hooks lifted the fish by the head and laid them on to the cutting table. The first operation was to cut the head, tail and fins off, open the body, and roughly remove the inside. The fish was then passed on to other tables to be washed, to be cut up and packed in tins, which were then soldered and tested for air-tightness. They were then placed in vats of boiling water, afterwards in close steam boxes at a tempe)'ature of 240 deg. The cans were then washed, and packed in cases for shipment. Our impression of the entire pro- cess was, that canned salmon might be eaten by the most fastidious ; everything was done with cleanliness and despatch. I asked one of the men what was done with the offal, but his answer was not entirely satisfac- tory, — on the steamer to Victoria next day, however, I saw where it went. This is not right, and there has been an outcry about it. It seems they carry it away in barges and dump it out at the mouth of the river ten miles below, where vast quantities of it were seen float- ing- What stupid waste ! but this will all be mended some day. After some rest and refreshment ' the Guichon Hotel, we took the tram again, and were back to the Vancouver in good time for dinner. In the evening we had the verandah, cigars, and the mountains. What more could one want ? Wednesday, August 4th. — Our next move was to pack up for a trip to Victoria, by the steamer Charmer, a large vessel making the trip in six hours, starting on the arrival of the overland train from the east. There were quite a number of pan iigers, the weather was perfect and the scenery ma: "hless. I never enjoyed a sail better. A -..-I >I llii!!i|l ':< il9 i!ii!;!!)i| ii'! 60 Northward stretched the Straits of Georgia, studded with islands, mountains all round ; to the south the long coast line of the State of Washington, and Mount Baker, white with snow, behind. We arrived at Victoria about dusk, di-ove to the Driard Hotel, in the heart of the city, and had a good dinner. In the evening some of us strolled out, and explored the Chinese quarter. Good order and seeming comfort ap- peared to prevail everywhere ; we suffered no molestation, in fact, some of them lit up their joss-house for our in- spection. It was a strange sight but quite indescribable. A native tried to explain the gaudily tinselled ornaments and emblematic devices, but we could make little out of it, his English being very deficient. Buddha in his sacred shrine we of course recognized, but all else was mystery, and of little interest. One thi"jg 1 did notice — the Chinaman is utterly devoid of reverence. On the way back to the hotel we tried to get a cup of Chinese tea, but were too late, and called instead at the " Poodle Dog," a famous restaurant, where some of us had refreshments. Thursday, 5th August, was a day very full of interest. In the morning, I was introduced to a young English- man, Mr. Cowell, a practical assayist and mineralogist. He showed me over and explained his whole plant, chemi- cal apparatus, and machinery. He has a powerful two- stamp mill, just put in, with all the latest improvements, capable of crushing ore by the ton load, which affords the only reliable test for gold. He had just finished a mill test of 14 tons. At 11 o'clock we met by appoint- ment Mr. H. D. Helmcken, who had come over in the boat with us from Vancouver, where we had been intro- 61 t'uced to him. He is a lawyer, and prominent in Vic- toria, being the grandson of Vancouver's first Governor, Sir James Douglas, when Vancouver was a crown colony. Under Mr. Helracken's jMlotage, and through his influ- ence, we explored from top to bottom the new Provincial Parliament buildings, not yet completed. Nothing we had seen in our travels was at all comparable with this magnificent building of white stone. It is Roman in architecture, with a vast St. Peter's dome crowned with a fine statue of Vancouver, the old Britisl caplain who more than a hundred years ago mapped out a>nd mea- sured, with so much accuracy, the coast line of the great island that will forever bear his name. Mr. Helmcken took us through the quaint old guber- natorial mansion, embosomed in rare trees and rich shrubbery ; in all its internal arrangements the old house is just as his grandfather left it. In the afternoon, Mr. Helmcken took us by electric tram to Esquimault (pro- nounced " Squimalt ") a distance of perhaps two niijps. Here England's flag, and the flag of a British admiral, floated proudly on a famous ship — the first-class "ruiser Imperieuse. After viewirg the magnificent dry dock, we Wei's put on board a small propeller, and mude the cir- cuit of the harbor. Then we drew up alongsid(^ the Imperieuse, and after a short preliminary were permitted to board her. I had never been on the deck of a man-of- war, and it was with the keenest interest and enjoyment that I saw everything, the guns especially. A barefooted sailor, whom the General lavishly tipped, showed us around the whole ship, and explained everything. There was another man-of-war in the harbor, the Comus, of an inferior class ; we passed her alongside, but did not go on board. ' I:l0d26 62 Mr. Helmcken's family was residing for the summer in a cottage on the harbor ; here we were landed, and royally entertained. After enjoying ourselves for an hour we steered back to the landing, took the cars, and reached the hotel in time for dinner. We had to leave that night. The Charmer sailed at 11 p.m. on her return trip to Vancouver, But our short stay in Victoria had been made very pleasant. It is an attractive city, charmingly situated on a deep bay near the south-en st extremity of the Island. It has a cathedral, public library, a fine park on Beacon Hill, and a number of factories. The climate is that of the south of England, and the town is peculiarly English in most of its charac- teristics. Originally a post of the Hudson Bay Co'y, its connections were mostly with England, until the com- pletion of the C. P. R. in 1885, when it came more in touch with the Dominion. The Inland of Vancouver became a crown colony in 1849, when it was leased to the Hudson Bay Co'y for ten years. It united with the colony of British Columbia in 1866, and in 1871 the united colonies joined the Canadian confederation. Friday, 6th August. — On looking from the window of my sleeping berth early this morning, I found that we were more than half-way back to Vancouver. There was a cool morning breeze, and a considerable ru^de on fie water, which had a Eraser River color, that is, a dirty white ; the offal from the canneries was also very much in evidence. I dressed and stepped on deck. It was a glorious sight. The Charmer soon took us into blue water, and past lovely islands — Mount Baker gleaming white in the distance — and at length through the Nar- rows into Burrard Inlet, and on to the wharf, which we in ! I 68 reached about 9 o'clock. Then back to our old quarters in the Vancouver, to a good breakfast, to which was to succeed more sailing and sight-seeing ; for in the after- noon Mr. Gideon Robinson and his pretty daughter took us in a small propeller uj) to near the head of the Inlet, a trip full of enjoyment. All the way up and back we seemed to be passing through a succession of lakes, girt about with forest-clad mountains. We were back to the hotel in time for dinner ; after that, the verandah and the Lions. Saturday, 7th August. — We had still this day and part of to-morrow to spend in this charming city. After breakfast some of us had a stroll ; culled on the Oi)pen- heimers at their store, where they do a large wholesale grocery business. Mr. D. Oppenheimer showed us some very rich specimens of gold ore, and gave us a descrip- tion of his Antler Creek property in Cariboo. He and some others had secured from the Provincial Govern- ment a twenty years' lease of fifteen miles of placer dig- gings on Antler and other creeks, along with a charter granting concessions of unusual liberality, as he stated. He gave us a copy of the Bill to study on our way home. In the afternoon a number of us went to English Bay, a part of Burrard Inlet, to have a swim in salt water. We found the shore alive with bathers, but there was plenty of room out on a raft in deep water. I plunged m, with Mr. R. Christie and Mr. Duncan, and had a glorious Bwim. Only two of the ladies, Mrs. and Miss Palmer, ventured in. We spent the evening about the hotel as usual. Sunday, 8th August. — We started in the afternoon in ', HI ■ i 1 j j 1 i! 1 04 bright warm sunshine, the same that had ever shone on us since we left home, with the single exception of the day at Colorado Springs. We have had here a week of sight'Seeing and enjoyment such as I, for one, never had before. And lo ! we are only half way on our journey ; the other half to be accomplished in half the time, though crowded with greater sights and wonders than we had yet seen. The journey homewards through another wonderland, another system of mountain passes, lakes and cataracts, was undertaken with an appetite for these blunted to some extent by our experience of the wonderlands we had already seen. After the Royal Gorge and the Yel- lowstone Park, what remained to startle and amaze, to revive and excite our flagging faculty of wonder ? The answer must be— ^the canyons of the Frazer and Thomp- son rivers, the cataracts of the Illecilliwaet, the passes, peaks and precipices of the Gold Range, the Selkirks, and the Rocky Mountains. Things that separately were beautiful, terrible, or sublime we had often seen, and were still to see, but it was reserved for our trip from Vancouver to Banff to experience the sense of terror, beauty and sublimity combined. The southern moun- tains would ever be associated in our minds with bald- ness and glowing heat, the brown, treeless wastes with the deserts of Syria or Arabia — " a dry and thirsty land, wherein no waters be." We were now to enter a grander, greener, wilder, and sterner land. For the first 13 miles we ran along the south shore of Burrard Inlet, a far- fetched arm of the mighty Pacific, creeping in at the " Narrows " from the Strait of Georgia, which separates the island of Vancouver from the mainland. Snow-tipped mountains on the opposite shore reflect their shadows 56 in the smooth gleaming water. At Fort Moody, once the terminus of the railway, now silent and deHerted, wo leave salt water (not very salt) behind, and continue east by south, through the vast delta of the Frazer, to Mission Junction. So much of the way we had already passed over, beyond was all new to most of us. Keeping still on the right bank of the groat river, we pass along north-easterly, crossing Ruby Creek, so named from the red garnets found in it, and past Agassiz, where there is a Government Experimental Farm, growing fruit and grain of all kinds ; past the bottomless pit, or Devil's Lake, and on to Hope. The geologists say this is the head of the old estuary of the Frazer, that below it was a great arm of the sea, now filled up by the detritus brought down by the river, and at length converted into a vast fertile plain, the granary of British Columbia, subject, unfortunately, in seasons of extraordinary pre- cipitation in the mountains, to overflow, like the flats of the Assiniboine and Red River. When we think of the length, breadth and depth of this great alluvial plain, we are struck with the wonderful eroding and transporting power of running water. All this alluvium was once rock or glacial drift, and that too was once rock ; it all came from the great central plateau of British Columbia, which has an average height of 3,500 feet above the se.\. What must it have l>een before the delta of the Frazer was formed ? A plateau is not always a plain ; this one is s-iid to be like the ocean in a storm when the waves are van- ning mountains high, but the waves are mountains, and they are standing still ; between them are the inevitable valleys, beds of torrents at certain seasons of the year, all bearing down detritus to some main channel, which finally empties into the Frazer. Speaking of the Frazer <)!l ?::| pi '.piWlfTIW^WIPpf H 66 from the point of view of the gold-miner, Dawson, in hiu " Mineral Wealth of British Columbia," says: " It may be regarded as gigantic ground sluice ; its valley, ori- ginally excavated in tertiary times, in the rocky substra- tum of the country, was subsequently, during the glacial period, largely filled with drift material, through which, at a still later date, it had to re-excavate its bed, leaving great series of terraces or benches along its banks in many places, as this was gradually accomplished. A portion of the gold now found in its bed and banks has without doubt been worn out of its rocky matrix directly by the action of the river, while another portion may have been derived from the glacially transported drift materials. The first- mentioned moiety may be supposed to include the ' coarse ' gold, the last must be in great part ' fine ' gold." Not alone the Frazer, but all the old stream courses that find their way into it, especially from the Cariboo district, are found, according to the same authority, " to have pursued very much the same directions that their present representatives follow" — a very important point for the miner to know. These old stream courses, of which there is a complete network in the Cariboo coun- try, were originally trenched out of the same rocky sub- stratum as that of the Frazer ; they were all filled up with glacial drift, through which, with more or less suc- cess, they have cut, or are still cutting, their way. Down in their old beds, where these can be reached and worked to advantage, as well as all the way up to the top of their benches, gold is still found in paying quantities. In the early "sixties" this region was what Klondyke is to-day ; over $20,000,000, it is said, was taken out of a space of only a few miles, on Lightning, Williams and Antler 'f':; 67 Creeks alone. The two former creeks happened to have a bed of boulder clay beneath their present channels, and above the gravelly floor of their old beds, which kept the water well out of the shafts and tunnels, hence the rich finds on those creeks ; but Antler Greek has no clay, and up till now, according to Dawson, has not been bot- tomed. I have heard old miners who have worked on the benches of this creek say the same thing. The day is not far oflf, however, when improved methods and more powerful machinery will master all difficulties, and Cari- boo will yet become a great mining centre. There is a good stage road from Ashcroft, on the C.P.B., to Barker- ville, on Williams Creek, a distance of 270 miles. I met the gentleman who has the contract for carrying the mails between these places ; he told me it was not a bad country to live in, the roads were good and perfectly safe, and there was gold everywhere. He saw a man make five dollars a day on the roadside opposite his office window. At Yale, fourteen miles above Hope, we arrive at the head of navigation ; a welcome bpot to reach it must have been for old Simon Frazer after his experience among the foaming rapids of the awful gorges through which he was the first to steer a birch-bark canoe It was Alexander Mackenzie, of the old North-West Fur Company, after whom the Mackenzie River is named, who, in crossing the divide from the Peace River, first struck the head waters of the Frazer, which he believed to be the Columbia ; this was in 1793 ; thirteen years later, Simon Frazer followed the river from its source to the sea, 1,000 miles at least, and gave it his own name. The story of his canoe voyage is one of thrilling adventure. 58 [I I ,U m 'ii 11 ' iii It wa6 some distance above Yale where gold wi^a first discovered on the Frazer; this was in 1857 ; a great rush took place the following year. It was the universal belief at the time that the lower Frazer was a great sink of gold, which had its origin in richer deposits towards the sources of the great river ; it was this belief which led to the rush into Cariboo in 1860 ahd 1861, There cannot be the least doubt that immense treasure lies buried in the deep sinks of the lower Frazer ; the coarse gold does not travel a great way, but the *' flour " floats far, and settles like other sediment ; how vast an accumulatiori of this fine stuff lies buried in the broad delta of the great river who can tell ? Yale was formerly an outfitting point for miners and ranchmen northward ; it occupies a bench above the river; a deep glade behind it, with high mountains rising abruptly around. From Yale to Boston Bar, a distance of 2S miles, the great river, rushes in swirling eddies or foaming cataracts through the great canyon. It was now too dark for nn to take in its wonderful scenery, though we sat up late looking out, now from one side, now from the other, some from the rear platform of the car, and all calling to one another to come and see something imagined to be more vwnderful than what one was look- ing at. It was only snatches here and there, revealed t)y the uncertain light of the moon, that any of us could obtain, but they were snatches that impressed the mind with a sense of awful grandeur. It is not, however, from a moving train, even in daylight, that one gets the full effect of such scenes ; the tourist must take time, and stop over a day or two at all stations where accommoda- tion is provided ; these stations, fortuiiately, are numer- ous and well-appointed, There is a charming little I ■ 59 chalet hotel so'ae few miles above the canyon, where amid scenen of matchless p;randeur and magnificence one might revel for a week. Near Cisco we cross the great river by a steel canti- lever bridge, and at Lytton, six miles further up, enter the valley and canyons of ihe Thompson River, which here rnshes into the Prazer out of a gorge almost as profound as the one from which we have just escaped. But Monrovia is now deserted by all but its single occupant, and he is asleep. ■SI Next morning we are still in the valley and gorges of the Thompson River, winding slowly northward : two powerful engines in front, and thirteen ears behind, all, but our own " Waterloo," loadid for the most part with Christian Endeavorers. At Ashcroft, the point of de- parture for Cariboo and other gold fields in the northern interior of British Columbia, the railway turns to the east, still along the loft bank of the Thompson, through f.anyon after canyon. After these the river widens into K'iraloops Lake, along tlie south shore of which the rail- way runs some 20 miles. A series of mountain spurs project into the lake, these are pierced by numerous tunnels, one following the other in rapid succession. At Kamloops we have attained an altitude of IIHO feet. The north fork of the Tb'^mpson comes down from the mountains '200 miles north waid, and here joins the main river. After this we get a glimpse of grass, fenced fields, and growing crops, with herds of cattle. This is a ranching country extending far to the north and south and one of the garden Hpott* Oi British Columbia. Beyond is the great Shuswap Lake, so named from the Indian tribe that lived (m its banks and still has a reserve there. mm 60 It is a curious lake, or rather Itibvrinth of lakes, its long arms winding in and out among the mountains. The railway runs along the southern shore of one of its widest stretches, and crosses one of its arms at a place called Sicamous, from which a branch of the railway runs south t ) the head of Lake Okanagan, on which a steamer plies to the new Boundary Creek mining region ; the country along and around is said to be very beautiful, and well settled. Near the lake, at a place called Kalowna, Lord Aberdeen has a large fruit farm and employs a great many men. After crossing the " Narrows ." at Sicamous, we have three great ranges of mountains before us, — the Gold Range, the Selkirks, and the Rockies, all fhree, roughly speaking, parallel, running north-west and south-east, all differing in form, contour, age and constitution, fine subjects for expansive treatment if one had only the geological knowledge and experience. I must confess I have no sentiment with regard to them ; my mind dwells on the nature and operation of the awful forces that have produced them, — still more on That which seems to be behind, of which we knov no more than what we can think about it. Is it a waste of energy, indulged in only by the weak and ill-informed, as my friend Robert- son will have it, to think about it at all ? You may be all right, Tam, and your peculiar view of life and na- ture may be the right one. " Wha's contrain' ye? " as the General would say. However, our present business is to get through the Gold Range. We are quite su e we can get through, but can't exactly tell how, unless a big hole has been bored somewhere in that great rampart ahead. Sure enough, there is just such a hole, not made with hands, indeed, 61 as but a well-finished job all the same, the credit of which is due mainly to the Eagle River. It was a lucky find for the C.P.R. when this valley was discovered. I don^t know who discovered it ; perhaps some keen sportsman in his canoe on Slmswap Lake put in for the night at the mouth of Ragle River, which enters the lake above the Narrows, and next day followed it up to the moun- tains; perhaps, and thv3 is more likely, the pass was discovered from the other side — some explorer in the Cr'iumbia valley caught sight of it, fortunate for the railway, as 1 have said, otherwise it might have had to make a lon,r, detour, perhaps as long as the Columbia has to make in doubling the north end of the Selkirks. The valley of the Eagle River, with its dense forests of Doug- las fir, hemlock and cedar, its four beautiful lakes in succession, Eagle Pass, and the lofty mountains on either hand, combine to foriii a picture the effect of which it would be hard to describe. I had the impression that I would enjoy camping here for a week. The highest point on Eagle Pass is at Summit Lake, from which we descend into the broad valley of the Columbia, which, after being fed from the eastern flanks of the Selkirks. doubles round them at the Big Bend and flows south- ward, expanding into long navigable lakes, after which it enters upon a brilliant career through the State of Washington, finishing up in the Pacific Ocean. Hail ! Columbia, thou art a noble river, and I would like to thread your mazy course from the vSelkirks to the sea.. It requires a bridge of half a' mile in length to span this great river at Revelstoke. And now for the Selkirks, up the valley of the " Rushing Water " (Illecilliwaet), white and cold from the glacier heights, mighty as ah eroding force, but for which there would be no thoroughfare in €' 62 .m ^^ these mountains ; but what a thoroughfare ! We enter it by a chasm not more than ten yards in width, with vertical rocky walls, the tops of which we had to crane our necks far out to see. Here, where there was a fierce struggle for right of way between the railway and the rushing lUecilliwaet, the din of the train and the roaring river was deafening. At Albert Canyon, a few miles fur- ther up, the railway is perhaps 800 feet above the bed of the torrent, which is here compressed into a boiling flume about twenty feet wide. The train is stopped for a few minutes at this point for passengers to wonder and think of their latter end. At one point the rock rose perpendicularly from the water to a level with the rail- way without a joint or flaw, a solid, uniform mass of apparently crystalline schist, clean cut as if it had been done with a knife, — where the other slice was no one could even imagine, there was no place around where it could have been hidden. According to Dawson, crys- talline schists and granites are scarcely known in the Kocky Mountains between the 49th and 60th parallels, but, he observes, they are abundant in the Selkirks and Gold Range, together with great masses of palaeozoic rocks. This Rock at Albert Canyon, therefore, may be palaeozoic, metamorphosed beyond recognition, for aught I know. Between Albert Canyon and the Glacier House, near the summit of the Selkirks, there is a stretch of 22 miles according io the mileage table in the guide- books, the figures given indicating the distance west of Montreal; But how do they do it ? — here in the Loop Valley we are twisting and turning and doubling on our tracks, cutting great gashes in the mountain sides one above the Ouher in the heroic attempt to climb the vast bulwarks 68 of the old carboniferous ocean that rolled far to the east before the Rockies — things of yesterday— were born. At length we reach the summit at Glacier House, — not exactly the summit, which is two miles furtheir up, where the altitude of the pass is 4,300 feet above the sea — at Glacier House the altitude is 4,122 feet. Here we should have btopped over a day or two if the General had not been misled. William Spotswood Green, F.R.G.S., the famous glacier specialist, spent six weeks here, and found the time too short. For the accommodation of those who can stay — and they are the lucky ones — the C.P.R. has built a handsome Swiss chalet hotel. A mile and a half away, ari only a few hundred feet above the level of the track, the forefoot of the great glacier of the Selkirks is seen — from the verandah of the hotel it appears to be only a few hundred yards away. But what can I say about it, or about the hoary peaks of Cheops and Sir Donald, and the cascade which ploughs down the almost perpendicular side of a mountain, in full view of the rail- way station ? We were only an hour there, eating half the time. Mr. Green, perfectly familiar with the high Alps of New Zealand and Switzierland, took more than two weeks to develop the topography of the region. He went about it systematically, measuring a base line of 660 yards on the top of the snow sheds, and from [joints at either end fixed a third station at the opposite side of the loop made by the railway. On his plane-table he then took the bearings of all the peaks in view, making profile sketches, and numbering them for future identi- fication. But you must read his book, " Among the Selkirk Glaciers," published in 1890 ; you will find it a rich treat. Let me give you a short extract ; " A short distance from the inn, and just beyond 64 where the forest had been demolished by the great ava- lanche (there is a good road through it now), we left the path and struck straight up the mountain side through the heavy timber. The whole ascent was one cor.- tinuous scramble, the bushes giving us the means of hauling ourselves upward. For 2,000 feet we ascended through forests so dense that no distant view was possible. Nothing %vas visible but the huge stems of the hemlock and balsam firs. At an elevation of 2,000 feet above the railway the trees become more gnarled and dwarfish ; in shady hollows we come on patches of anow; next we come to some grass slopes, and after a scramble over great heaps of shattered rocks composed chiefly of conglomerate which cropped out at a gentle angle dipping to the south-west, we reached the knoll forming the apex of a triangle which we had plotted on the previous evening. Though not actually the summit of the ridge it was a good clearly-marked position, commanding a splendid view of Sir Donald and all the surrounding mountains Looking eastward the great fall of the glacier formed a tine foreground." We are not yet done wifh the savage Selkirks. Before descending their eastern flanks into the upper valley of the Columbia, we have to go through Rogers Pass, named after A. B. Rogers, the fortunate, discoverer. Previous to 1883, no human feet had ever, trod the awful solitudes of this part of the great central range. The pass is through a vast amphitheatre of snow^clad moun- tains, the grandeur of which is beyond description : Mount Macdonald on the right, the Hermit on the left, the Beaver River below, rivalling in the fierceness of its torrent the Illecilliwaet which we left behind at Glacier House. There is a " Beaver Canyon " in the Rocky 65 Mountains, on the border line between Montana and Idaho, which we paased on our way to Garrison, but did not 6C& — would it compare with its namesake down which we were now thundering in the dark, to meet once more the great Columbia at the foot of the Selkirks ? I cannot say, but I doubt very much. From Beaver mouth, where, out of a frightful gorge, the river plunges into the Columbia, the railway follows up the valley of that river to Donald, the headquarters of the mountain section of the railway with repair shops, etc. Here the time changes and we lose one of the three hours gained on the trip west. The great river at this place is over 1,000 feet higher up than when we last saw it at Bevelstoke, on the other side of the Range, and we cross it here by a much shorter bridge. It is well fed, a.s I have said, from both the east and the west flanks of the Selkirk range, but, according to Mr. Green, it gets little or nothing from the Rockies, except during a short time in the spring ; this means that the Rockies do not get their fair share of moisture, and it is well seen on them when their vege- tation is compared with any of the three ranges to the west. When, after leaving Donald, we began the ascent of the Rocky Mountains, all thought of Munrovia being the sleeping apartment of a modest " young man " was for- gotten — conventionality went by the board. As long as we live, this, our second night in the mountains, will never be forgotten. The dread magnificence of the scene in moonlight who cf.n portiay? The full moon, riding on the silvered edffe of a dark cloud, seemed to dance from one lofty peaK to another, mocking us on our way, and fleeing altogether as we enter the Cimms- rian gloom of that terrible gorge lying between Golden i 66 And Palliser. Here exhausted nature claimed it8 victims, and the party, " serene and mortal," sank to repose. Tuesday, 10th August. — In blissful unconsciousness we bad been carried up the lofty steep of the Rocky Mountains, through the Kicking Horse Pass, and over the summit at Stephen, 5,296 feet above the sea. That great mountain mass behind is " Hector," so named in honor of the discoverer of the celebrated pass. Dr. Hector was attached to Captain Palliser's expedition sent out by the British Government in 1858 to explore the western mountain region of North America. He had crossed the mountains to the westward, and, on seeking his way back, struck a river coming down towards the north-west, and near where it empties into the Columbia, he received a severe kick in the chest from his horse, which rendered him senseless. He says in his published diary : " My recovery might have been much more tedious than it was, but for the fact that we were now starving, and I found it absolutely necessary to push on after two days. On 31st August we struck up the valley of Kicking Horse River, travelling as fast as we could get oar jaded horses to go, and as I could bear the motion, and on the 2nd September reached the height of land." In his report to the British Government Captain Palliser thus comments on Dr. Hector's discovery : " In that pass Dr. Hector had observed a peculiarity which distinguishes it from the others we had examined, viz., the absence of any abrupt step at the commencement of the descent to the coast. This Idd him to report very favor- ably upon the facilities offered by this pass for the con- struction of a waggon-road, and even that the project of a railroad by this route might be reasonably entertained." 67. I wonder how the new Crow's Nest PasH, or the old AthabAHca Pass of the fur traders, between Mts. Hooker and Brown and through to the big bend of the Columbia, would compare with the Kicking Horse — would like very well to settle the question by actual examination and at my leisure. But here is Banff, on the verge of the great plain into which we are about to descend, still, however, at an altitude of 4,500 feet ! We are driven a mile and a half away to the lovely hotel built by the railway com- pany above the falls of the Bow River and the mouth of the rapid Spray. Seated on one of the noble balconies, at a vast height above the junction of these rivers, and encompassed by an ampitheatre of peaks bathed in a haze of sunlight, I thought of Beulah Land and the Delectable Mountains — if ever I get there I shall say, I have seen all this before. Banff is the station for Rocky Mountain Park, a national reservation, 26 miles long north-east and 10 miles wide Honth-west, in which there are many scenes of indescribable beauty and interest ; the roads and bridle-paths are excellent. The railway company have a small propellor on the Bow River above the falls, where the water is smooth and deep for about eight miles up ; twelve of us went on board and enjoyed the sail immensely ; tlie water was ice-cold and grey-white, like all the glacial-born rivers we had seen ; it looked clear when dipped out and was pleasant to drink. From every point of view we seemed to be moving in the centre of a circle circumscribed by mountain peaks of every conceivable shape and form. This most enjoyable trip lasted two hours. On returning to the little wharf, Captain Mellis, Mr. Robertson and I walked up the river to the " Cave and Basin " — warm sulphur springs, now under Government control and in 68 charge of attendants. The cave is a great natural curiosity ; we got the history of its discovery when sailing up the river. A village blacksmith was one day pros- pecting among the hills when he discovered a hole in the ground, and, putting his ear to it, heard water gurgling at some depth below. Procuring a rope, he let himself down some 25 feet to the bottom, when he found himself in a round natural cave of about 40 feet in diameter, with warm water bubbling up from the floor. The blacksmith lost no time in applying for a grant of the land, which he obtained, but the Government, hear- ing of the discovery, revoked the grant, and made the cave a pleasure resort for the public. The hole in the roof remains, but the entrance is now by a tunnel about 30 yards in length pierced in the side of the hill. The hill is a solid mass of calcareous sinter, deposited very long ago from water charged with lime, as it is rounded and weathered on the top. The dome-shaped roof and jagged walls of the cave are composed of the same material, as, in fact, is the whole region around, which leads to the conjecture that this spring is the feeble sur- vivor of some ancient and powerful geyser. The floor of the cave has been hollowed out, levelled and rounded into a pool three or four feet deep, and bathing is al- lowed in it. But, for swimmers, the " Basin," close by, open to the light of day, but surrounded with walls of sinter, from which it has been excavated, deep, and clear as the " Morning Glory," is much to be preferred. We all had a glorious plunge in it, and were loth to come out ; the temperature of the water is constant at about 80 deg. Fahr. The rest of the evening was spent on the balconies of the hotel watching the mountains and the moon, not 69 very sure but there might be a diminutive thunderBtorm after the great heat of the day, but it all passed over with a display of tireworks, the clouds giviiij^ way before the heat radiated into them from beh)W. It was one of the nights when even " Tam " Robertson would forgive the indulgence of sentiment. I never reuu'inber wit- nessing such a combination of the beautiful and the sublime. Here was a presence that disturbed " with the joy of elevated thoughts " — " A sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean, and the living air. And the blue sky, and in the mind of man." . We were to have connection with the next train for the east, to arrive during the night, a long way behind time, owing tothe heavy loads ; for the Christian Endeavorers wer« still on the wing, and would be with us as far as Moose Jaw, where most of them, it was expected, would take the Great Northern for a short cut home. Let us hope they all got there in safety, with their tninds full of what they saw in Canada, which I am sure they will remember to the end of their days. I think we were all sound asleep when " Waterloo " began to move, and we were well out of the mountains before breakfast, though still, even at Calgary, we stood 3,388 feet above sea level. This is a place I would have liked very well to stop at — a place from which a new career, so to speak, opens, a coign of vantage, from which to study the ampli- tude, the wonder, wealth, and beauty of that great country we are proud tocall our o\iit to timeB long ante- cedent to the present or the more recent ; one thinks of the old carboniferous ocean whose waves once lashed the Hanks of the Selkirks, l)efore the rise and fall of the plain and the outbreak of the Rockies ; then, of the subsequent '.-retaceons sea, whose western shore was these same Rockies, from whose base, as the waters gradually receded, stretched long lagoons and marshes, out of which have grown the lignites of the Bow, the Red Deer, and the Saskatchewan ; later still, of the fresh-water " Mediterra,nean " of the waning glacial period, when the drainage to the north was still blocked by the lingering ice, which in great masses floated southwards dropping huge boulders on the way — a god-send to future generations of mangy buffalo. How everything works round for good if we could only see it, the mange as well, perhaps, but that is one of the things the carnal mind is unfit co deal with, though we should l)e glad to believe (if we could) that " good is the final goal of ill." But we must get on — I am anxious to see Will at the head of his company in Winnipeg, and how the city has prospered since I last saw it thirteen years ago. The railway distance between Calgary and Winnipeg is 840 miles, and there are 52 regular and 46 flag stations in- tervening ; with our heavy load, we have almost two days' run before us, but the feeling is, we are at home in our own country, " where green grass gi-owt-," not in brown arid wastes, though for many a mile the soil is too dry for wheat. It was incautiously claimed that no sage-brush grew in Canada; Mrs. I'almer knew better, and won a bet on it from " Tani "; but sage-brush and the protruding broken bones of the back of the old cre- taceous or tertiary plane, to use Geikie's nomenclature, tl: 74 which covers the central part of the whole North Ame- rican continent, are soon left hehind ; ko is the Bow- River, which kept ne company most of the way from Banff; we shall hail it for a moment once more at Crow- foot, and then, " No more by thee my steps shall be," etc. I have a real regard for the Bow, and was proud of its acquaintance up among the mountains, — more pleased, however, to have been able to explore its deep shaley beds above Calgar}', had that been possible. We are now in a famous ranching country, and the grass is abundant and gi'een — greener surely than usual in August. What billowy bays of grass, ever rolling in shadow and sunshine, there must be here and all over in early June ! Coal is also plenty — the coal of cretaceous times, an excellent fuel ; I have told you w^hat the geo- logists say with regard to its origin. Now we are in the valley of the South Saskatchewan, the great deep drain of the eastern face of the Rocky Mountains to the south, far separated from its other and longer arm doing the same duty up north, both arms, however, gravitating towards each other and meeting at length beyond Prince Albert, whence, after long wandering and many vicissi- tudes, it attains " Nirvana " in the bosom of Hudson's Bay ; but first it takes a header into Lake Winnipeg, and there, perhaps it may be said, loses all its individuality. Until the opening of the railway, this great river had been the main liighway into the interior ; the Hudson's Bay Company have used it for 200 years as their only route to the Mackenzie basin and down to the Arctic Ocean, and, but for three or four miles of rapids occur- ring above its entrance into Lake Winnipeg, the city of Winnipeg would have an uninterrn))ted waterway of 1,000 miles to Edmonton : the city, however, would have to 75 Wiend its own ways on the Eed River down at Selkirk ; they have been trying to t^et the Goverment to do this for them. The Hudson's Bay people get over the rapids on the Saskatchewan by a short railway, and the only other portage of any account they have from this point to the mouth of the Mackenzie River is between Edmon- ton and Athabasca Landing, a distance of 90 miles. It is along this portage that it is proposed to extend the Calgary and Edmonton branch of the C.P.R. in order to establish a Canadian route to the Klondyke. This has taken us a long way from Medicine Hat, where we cross the south branch of the great river on a fine steel bridge. I like the appearance of the place, but it is fiercely hot in the afternoon, and one's impression is that a good shower of rain would be a blessing; the river is fuU, but nowliere else is there any sign of water ; water is what this country wants evidently, and I am told it is going to get it — irrigation works are being agitated, and as the country prospers, they are sure to be introduced, with a result similar to what we saw in Colorado. Seven miles beyond Medicine Hat is Dunmore, where a branch line leads oif westerly to Lethbridge, 110 miles distant. Lethbridge is famous for its coal, which is said to be superior to the lignites farther north. From this point the new line through the Crow's Nest Pass is to run to Nelson in the Kootenay mining region, and in time probably to the coast : what will then become of the old line with its panorama of wonders'? Surely the railway will never give these up. For some 30 miles beyond Dunmore there are rock exposures said to be rich in fossils of the Reptilian Age; this was earlier than the Te/-iiary ; the great saurians lived in Jurassic times, and it might settle a long dispute if these rocks were li i It 76 proved to be Jurassic — we had no opportunity of exam- ining them. From Medicine Hat to Swift Current the line skirts or pierces the spurs of the northern edge of the great plateau extending southward to tiie Missouri River, sometimes called the " American Desert," or part of it, more commonly the Coteati de Missouri. That small portion of it which extends mto Canada gets the name of the Cypress Hills, and sometimes the " Dirt Hills" — these literal names betraying the " untutored mind," which has not attained the sesthetic plane. " Moose Jaw," for instance, is " The creek where the white man mended his cart with a moose jaw," but the Indian could make it much shorter, and the white man has followed his example. " Moose Jaw " and " Kicking Horse Pass " will probably stand, but " Pile of Bones Creek " would never do for the capital of the Territories. The Cypress Hills, as one prefers to call them, attain an elevation of 3,800 feet toward the west ; some parts of them are well wooded, but, 1 am afraid, not with cypress ; cypress bushes there may he, but not the wood that NoaVi made his ark out of, or Cupid hi^ arrows. Don't be too ready to remind me that it y/AHffoplier-wood the ark was made of ; it is true the Scripture says so, but learned commentators know better, and assure us, on a priori authority, that it was cyprt-c^s, the i . Semper- rireits of the Medite^raneai: countries, a W«i:;ifnl and one of the most du/ahte of woods, which »<\*\*«T!Cs k^r the hull of the ark lastiii,:; down to »bout febt- ISlh century, when it was a common thing for pifwr*. eft^stwrr. travellerb to bring home well-preBerveU pi««i»!> of it, which the curious may still find in the mii>*? ims )f the faithful; among other sacred and veiital>le rwlit's of the past. As for tlie arrowb of Cupid, there cntn be no ipiesticn ah to 77 their bein<^ made from :!ie same material as the ark. After'this disquisition, it may be a little irrelevant to mention that the skirts of the Cypress Hills, owing to the abundance of water and the shelter afforded by their deep gullies and wooded groves, are well-adapted for stock-raising, and here there are some famous ranches. At Swift Current, the Canadian Land and Ranch Com- pany have their principal sheep farm, where they round up annually some 28,000 head. This great company have quite a number of farms in different parts of the country, aggregating, it is said, about 105,000 acres — they grow griiin, and raise horses, cattle and sheep. In front of us now lies the gre»l broad Hegiu ; plain, 200 miles in length, al>solutely treeless, b jt of the finest agricultural land. At Moose .law. or rather eight miles further on, at a place called Pastjua, we part with our Christian friends, the Endeavorers, who, weary and worn, take the branch line to Estevan. by which connec- tion is made with St. Paul, Minneapolis, ami oth'tr {Knuts south and east. It is now dark, the waning moon being -• " Vlow the horizon. Standing on tlu) rear plalforu. i uit car a:r. we bowl along, a great level blank like the oceun at leK is seen stretching to the sky-line ; the imiiHiasurabie purple va\ilt above is powdered with stars down to the very rim : low down in the south the fearful Scor»i«n blazes, how baleful is the gleam of Antares — tmi- vta'ses on fire, millions of them, millions more E»)t on fire and therefore invisible. " It's a sair sicht," asCar- lyle would have said — did say, in fact, when on one otvasion liis friends pointed liw the stars as the best an- swer to his doubts there was no comfort there for him — " This most excellent canopy th*- air, look you, this ill 78 brave o'erhanging ftrmanient, tbis majestical roof fretted with golden fire — why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregatiin of vapors." And yet, when he was a young man with a good digestion, though his dyspepsia came early, he was fond of Addison's beautiful hymn, which so well expresses the old teleology : " The spacious firmament on high, With all the blue ethereal sky, And spangled heavens, a shining frame Their Great Original proclaim." He was an unhappy old man because his stomach was out of order as the General maintains, but, no less, be- cause the old teleology no longer covered the wider field of his experience, and there was nothing yet in sight to take its place. But let us in to Munrovia and hear what another doubting Thomas has to say — nothing sour about him, and if there is a way of correlating hilarity and good fellowship with the Sphinx of the universe, he is the man to do it ; meantime, " Fill high the bowl with Sainian wine, We will not think on themes like these." y/hy court the malady of thought? Give ns "The Cooper o' Fife," or a good story from the General or Jamie Duncan. Mind you, this is not my philosophy, as you know ; it is never anybody's, really, and even if it were, what have we ready and conclusive to say against it ? It was a " grand nicht," but we missed seeing the capital of the Territories. We used to wonder how they fixed the capital of Assiniboia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Athabasca at wmmmm 79 " Pile of Bones Creek " ; changing the name to Regina did not mend it ; how it was done let the archives of scan- dal tell. Here the Council of the Territories meets, and the Lieutenant-Governor resides. It is the headquarters of the Mounted Police Force, a military organization numbering at present I believe about 800 men, stationed in small parties at many different points, to look after the Indians and preserve order. A branch line extends northward uo Prince Albert, crossing the south branch of the Saskatchewan at Saskatoon. This part of the country is well settled ; for many miles east and west it was nearly all taken up by th^ abortive Colonization Companies of former times — we know the history of some of them. The morning of Thursday, August 12th, usherer^ us into the Province of Manitoba with itsi farms and wheat fields, many of them ready for the reaper, others not so ready. Our General was moved at the sight, and, if the owners of these late crops had been around, they would have got a lecture. Judging from his remarks on tlie appearance of the fields as we passed along, the lecture would have been something like this : " Gentlemen, your neighbors' wheat is yellow and yours is green ; this can- not be from any difference in the soil or the sun, it must be in yourselves. You did not have your seeding done in time, your fields were not ready in spring ; if you don't conform to the demands ef your climate your wheat will be frosted, and don't you forget it." We stopped but a short time in Brandon, but long enough to be convinced that, 'or a fifteen-year-old town, it was a marvel. Occupying a splendid situation on the high bank of the Assiniboine, it is dry and clean, has 80 well-made streets, and many substantial buildings, in- cluding eight elevators for storing and shipping grnin. It has a populatien of over 5,000» and is the centre and distributing market of a rich and prosperous country extf nding far and wide on all sides, with branch lines of railway pushing out into still more remote regions to the north-west, the south and south-west. Brandon is well up on the second steppe, at an eleva- tion of 1,150 feet ; the land, all the way down to the first steppe, rises and falls in long low swells. At Austin, we descend into the valley of the Assiniboine, and, having passed station after station, arrive at Portage la Prairie, the next town of imjjortance before reaching Winnipeg. Here the county is as level as a lake all the way to the Red Kiver and beyond as far as the " Ridge." The " Portage " is a much older town than Brandon or Win- nipeg itself, being originally a French half-breed settle- ment. French half-breeds once occupied most of the lands along the Assiniboine down to the Red River, a distance of 60 miles; but many of them, by this time, have probably sold out and left. Their river-front farms were only a few rods wide, but they stretched for miles into the prairie — farms they were not, only a few acres near their houses on the river were ever cultivated, and that by the women for the most part, while their hus- bands were away hunting or freighting. I could have much to say to you about the half-breeds, and the country lying between Portage la Prairie and the head of Lake Winnipegoosis, but Ned knows something about both, and you have read what I wrote in the Caiia.di