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Un des symboles suivants apparattra sur la dernlAre image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbols -^ signifie "A SUIVRE". le symbols ▼ signifie "FIN". Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent Atre filmte A des taux de reduction diffArents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour Atre reproduit en un seul clichA, 11 est film* A partir de Tangle supArieur gauche, de gauche A droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images nAcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mAthode. 1 2 3 4 8 e 1^ National Library Bibtioth^ue nationale of Canada du Canada rC39C5'^ :r(oO /?€sg(ve RJULWAT NOTES IN THE NORTH-VEST; OR, THE DOMINION OF CANADA. nsY By the rev. harry JONES, M.A,, rRBBBNDARV OF ST. PAUL'S ^^(J/T >CCCLXXilIV f t y^ RAILWAY NOTES IN THE NORTH-WEST ; OR, THE DOMINION OF CANADA. CARLYLE says that the eye sees what it brings with it the power of seeing ; but this sentence is not to be taken to mean that the man with even the best sight scorns outside help and rests upon unaided vision. Thus before visiting a new place it is well for the intending traveller to realise it to himself as far as possible. The pictures of his anticipation may not turn out to be true, but he should in some measure know what to look for, and not carry a perfectly blank sheet for the reception of such impressions as may await him in the land whither he goes. Thus before starting for Canada I read divers books about it, and made it a frequent subject of conversation. I was not surprised at my own ignorance, for I cannot rightly understand a map till I have visited the country which it displays, but the general lack of inform.ation about ihe matter was notable. True, we all knew some- thing about the old provinces, but our knowledge of the North-West was found to be very limited. I took therefore a miscellaneous course of •* Mudie," and beg to place before my readers some fore- casts or anticipations which I set down on English paper before I set foot on board to cross the Atlantic. I venture to think that they encourage a belief in seeking manifold rapid information about a country from books. We are likely to read two or three works concerning the place we propose to visit, but a dozen are not too many. They need not be "studied." Indeed they had mostly better be skimmed. It is the repeated presenta- tion of a place through a number of eyes and minds which gives a fairly well proportioned view of its appearance and condition. Of course every traveller knows that there are aspects of a land which no descriptions ever convey, and which indeed can no more be described than a perfume or a tint. Failing, however, necessarily in conveying these, let me head my notes with a forecast of Canada which I took some pains in preparing, and which personal traversing of the country enables me to perceive is just. It may possibly serve to introduce such a small record of the impressions as I have actually received. The realisation of enormous fertile plains un- encumbered by the forest is really a new thing to former readers about Canada. In old days a settler was often called (by us in England at least) a '' backwoodsman," and his place was spoken of as a •* clearing." He began his battle with the axe. Now, the first tool used by the farmer in the great North-West is the plough, but the immense size of the area which may be thus conquered is being realised only by degrees. Our eyes, and those of many Canadians too, are being gradually opened to its real use. I say ** real " use, for a notable feature in the whoie estimate and outlook of Canadian resources is the early apprehension of this area ; it has long been appreciated and used, but for another pur- pose than that to which it seoms presently in great part about to be devoted. It was seen to be 'fruitful, not in corn, but in fur. Wealthy London companies, having obtained concessions in the very early days of emigration, employed the huge territories of the North-West simply for the getting of skins. This use of them began a little more than two hundred years ago when King Charles ii granted corporate privileges of which neither he nor the recipients perceived the full value. But one result was the penetra- tion of the huge region by enterprising trappers or gatherers of skins. Myriads upon myriads of square miles were studded with small and sparse *• forts." Away up to the Northern Lakes, under the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, along the banks of the far-flowing Saskatchewan, here and there, though it might be at intervals of some two hundred miles, a rude shelter or "fort" was built. These ** forts " dotted the whole region controlled by the North-West Fur and Hudson's Bay Companies — finally combined. Lonely little garrisons, sometimes of only two or three Euro- peans — often Scotsmen — dwelt in them, receiving, and periodically sendin ; away the skins brought in by the Indians. The forts, though very far apart, were really numerous and connected. Their connection was made, however, by the thinnest thread, a mere trail, which sometimes none but the Indian eye and foot could detect. Still the solitary guard-houses were thus finely linked, and at distant intervals, when travelling by sledge was least diflicult, heard some late echoes of the larger world of men. These came in winter up the frozen rivers, which made great flat white high roads, winding through the plains. 6 A single Redskin, with his dog-sledge, thus carried letters to the lonely guards who watched over the growing stores of fur which "brave" and "squaw" bartered for axe, blankets, firewater, and beads. There was a "Swampy" Indian named Adam, who for more than twenty years yearly went a postman's beat of 3,000 miles with his dog-train. Five dark winter months annually passed away before he had finished his solitary round and left his last packet at the last weary and expectant fort. This old Redskin " Adam " was, however, but one in many generations who continuously threaded the enormous North-West territories of British America, searching for, gathering, and dispatching " skins." Speaking broadly, and yet with carefully ascer- tained accuracy, this use of the great North-West went on for about two hundred years — from the times of Charles 11 to those of Napoleon iii. I really do not exaggerate or overdraw the picture. It was only the other day that we were reading of the Red River Rebellion and the expedition of Colonel, now Lord, Wolseley to suppress it. This marked the close of the old order of things, and arose in consequence of the transfer of its authority by the Hudson's Bay Company to the Dominion in 1869. An isolated colony, com- posed of various nationalities, with many half- breed French and Indians, resented this. Though they uttered threats, which were supposed capable of seriously disturbing the newly arranged compact, or making possible settlement more difficult to future inhabitants of the new-born Dominion, they yielded the moment Colonel Wolseley had finished his famous march and ap- peared on the scene with his soldiers. I mention this, however, not so much to revive memories of a distinguished military feat as to remark that the ultimate point of Colonel Wolsele/s aim was only the front gate of the corn-bearing territories now being opened to the settler. Till that time the Hudson's Bay Company had reigned supreme over the " Great Lone Land." Its southern part is now traversed by trains equipped with sleeping- cars ; but only the other day (in Butler's well- known book) it appeared to be repulsively im- practicable ; so at least most readers of popular travel mUst have thought. Year after year, till the years rose into centuries, the Indian moose, marten, beaver, and buffalo had the whole region to themselves. It belonged to the London Com- pany, whose directors drank pailfuls of port wine at City dinners while such men as the Redskin Adam drove his hungry dog-train up its frozen rivers, delivering the latest London letters and papers some eight months after date. All this while England, represented by the powerful fur companies, owned the huge land which is already being reckoned as the main wheat-growing sec- tion of North America. It has been noted that this continent may be roughly divided into three zones, producing respectively cotton, maize, and wheat. Explorers and experts are now saying that the last will be found to lie chiefly in British territory. The deep-soiled plains north of the* Saskatchewan, in Athabasca, as well as the fertile belt of Manitoba, are believed to be best fitted for this precious produce. No doubt there are agreeable and productive regions in the older parts of the Dominion, such as New Brunswick, which are sometimes carelessly passed by in the eagerness of the settler to push on towards the great North-West. Many men would take far more kindly to the older parts of the Dominion a (since they already possess the features of esta- blished civilisation) and yet at the same time make new and successful ventures in life as " set- tlers." But there has been a sort of charm about the discovery, as it might be called, of the huge region from the Red River to the Rocky Moun- tains. All at once it was seen to be poten- tially productive of abundant human food. But for two hundred years no one seriously thought of this. King Charles gaily made his concessions. As I have already said, small, long-enduring, lonesome parties were dropped and fenced in little forts here and there through- out the royally conceded regions. Shrewd London merchants sent out beads and knives for the skins which they gathered from the simple Indians. The Indians adorned themselves; and died of rum and small-pox. But few thought of their land, snow-buried in winter and sun-heated through the long summer days, as a future granary of Europe, till about the time of the battle of Sedan. Now an eager crowd, bearing ploughs and reaping machines, is pouring into it out of Europe and the old provinces of Canada. In writing thus, I do not forget the first settle- ment of Scots in Manitoba, when Lord Selkirl:, some sixty years ago, carried out a band of High- landers and set them down to farm south of Lake Winnipeg. But this acted prophecy was a long time in approaching fulfilment. It may be reckoned along with the one traditional swallow which does not make a summer. True, the late immigrants into Manitoba have been surprised at finding the now old nest of this early bird, but virtually he rush into the Ncrth-West did not begin till after 1 869, at which date the Hudson's Bay Company ceded its sovereign rights to the Dominion, and the Dominion began to realise the true use of its bargain. Soon it saw that wheat was better than fur, and that rivers which would bear steamboats were worth being navigated by something better than birch canoes. The poor Indians, at first much reduced in numbers by drink and disease, the fruits of civilisation, have been and are being swept up into " reserves " and taught the catechism. According to trustworthy accounts they are submissive enough. They re- ceive meat and flour from Government, at the rate of a pound of each per head daily. They are also paid ** treaty money " once a year, and are encouraged in industry which they dislike. It is said that their numbers rather increase now, as, in most cases, they are kept from alcohol. Though in some respects treated like a child, your " brave " hardly ever condescends to walk if he can muster a horse ; and his toy is a repeating rifle. As owner and master of the land in which his descendant is penned and survives, the day of the Indian has gone. Towns are growing around the little old weather-worn forts, and railways are following the faint trapper's trails. Trains now scream and rattle where the sledge slipped along in silence, and newspapers are published in places — I would instance Calgary at the foot of the Rocky Mountains — which were laboriously reached once in the winter by the Redskin post- man with his little dog-drawn box of letters. And yet it was only the other day, since the French and German War, that Butler, in his " Great Lone Land," speaking, not of the more distant parts of the North-West, but of Lake Winnipeg (from which the electric-lit, tram-traversed, degree-con- ferring " metropolis " of Manitoba takes its name), exclaims, " It may be that with these eyes of 10 mine I shall never see thee again, for thou liest far out of the track of life, and man mars not thy beauty with ways of civilised travel." The advance since this was written is prodigious. The out- break of progress, which has marked this long known but despised land changes the whole character and prospect of Canada and Canadian emigration. The deed almost exceeds the thought. It is more than the unexpected opening of a door revealing new rooms in an old house, for the regions revealed are not only enormous, but in- calculably pregnant with richness in the shape of malleable mineral, as well as corn-producing soil. The two volumes of Butler, however, on the "Great Lone Land" and the "Wild North Land," though in some respects they bring the late past and present of Canada into striking con- trast, do not perhaps set forth the position of the country so strikingly as another popular book, "Milton and Cheadle's North-West Passage." These adventurers travelled before any railroad at all had been made between the Atlantic and Pacific. Thus they help us better to realise the old state of intercommunication, and they also record the impressions produced by the Hudson's Bay Company's almost absolute rule, some of the last years, of which they saw. It had come to an end before Butler wrote on the Great Lone Land in iHyo. But it was in strong force when Lord Milton and Dr. Cheadle toiled across the great North-West regions to the Pacific. Here is what they say of the first part of the new region, Manitoba, which was entered in 1812 by Highland settlers, under Lord Selkirk, but which stood still till the transfer of rule from the company to that of the Dominion : — 1 1 til^ " The soil is so fertile that wheat is raised year after year on the same land, and yields fifty or sixty bushels to the acre without any manure being recruited. The pasturage is of the finest quality and unlimited m extent. . . . But shut out in this distant corner of the earth from any com- munication with the rest of the world, except an uncertain one with the young State of Minnesota I^ steamer during the summer, and with England by the company's ship which brings stores to York Factory, in Hudson's Bay, ome a year (the italics are mine), the farmers find no market for their produce." This was written less than twenty years ago. The writer has a prophetic eye, and pleads for the ultimate threading of the desolate North-West by a railroad which shall string together the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through British territory. Like Butler and other later travellers, he is astounded at the superb neglect of the un- broken plains of soil which he crosses in crawling across the continent towards the Rocky Moun- tains and the Pacific. He says : — *' It is the interest and policy of the company to discourage emigration, and keep the country as one vasv preserve for fur-bearing animals. . . . It is also their interest to prevent any trading except through themselves. . . . But the day of monopolies has gone by. . . . It is time the anomaly should cease, and a proper Colonial Government be established, whose efforts woula be directed to the opening out of a country so admirably adapted for settlement. From the Red River — i.e.., the Winnipeg region — to the Rocky Mountains, along the banks of the Assiniboine and the fertile belt of the Saskatchewan, at least sixty millions of acres of the richest soil lie ready for the farmer when he shall be allowed to enter in and possess it. This glorious country, capable of sustaining an enormous population, lies utterly useless, except for the support of a few Indians, and the enrichment of the shareholders of the last Great Monopoly." * * It wu this very region that I traversed in the same sleeping-car- riage with Dr. Cheadle hinuelf, in three days and nights, this last September.— H. j. 12 It might be difficult to learn and record in detail how they were enriched in former days, and by what cheap exchange they sometimes got store of costly marten fur (/>., sable) and other precious skins : but a few hints dropped by the writer of the ** North-West Passage " may indicate the nature of some traffic between the original dwellers in the land and the old devouring com- pany. Lord Milton and Dr. Cheadle "in a weak moment" promised to make one ** Kekek- Ooarsis," or " The Child of the Hawk," an old Indian, " a present of a small quantity of riim." •' Thereupon," the writer continues, "the old gentleman became all excitement," and asked for the "fire-water" at once. This name is given by Indians to alcoholic drink by reason of their rude analysis of that which is offered to them. The writer of the " North-West Passage " says : — "It must be strong enough to be inflammable, for en Indian always tests it by pouring a few drops into the iire. If it possesses the one property from which he has given it the name of fire-water, he is satisfied, whatever its flavour or other qualities may be." The result was that more Indians soon came into Lord Milton's and Dr. Cheadle's camp : — " They produce^ a number of marten and other skins, and all our explanations failed to make them understand that we had not come as traders. ... To end the matter we sent them off with what remained in the little keg. . . . In about two hours all returned more or less intoxicated. . . . First one fellow thrust a marten skin into our hands, another two or three fish, while a third, attempting to strip off his shirt for sale, fell senseless into the arms of his squaw." Boys, breathless, with news of the fire-water, had been sent off by the Indians in all directions, that »3 the poor possessors of the costly furs might come in to trade. That was their view of the position, and one does not want much power of imagina- tion to picture the emptying of many a native store of skins over a large area by means of a few casks of mm. The impregnation of this ancient race with Christianity must indeed be hard, since the grace of the Gospel is often accompanied by the vice of the greedy trader. Indians are at the same time proud and impulsive, naturally taciturn, and yet incapable of touching civilisa- tion without immediate and shameless clamour for the open indulgence of its worst vices. Mis- sionaries, mostly, it would seem, French Roman Catholic priests, have long laboured among them, and they pass into moods of religious acquies- cence, but self-command or self-sacrifice, which is the essence of practical Christianity, is far from them when they can smell rum. A whole tribe, chiefs, braves, and squaws alike, then seem to be moved by a common yearning, not for festivity, but for sheer drunkenness. They would seem to be wonderfully dignified and immovable under some conditions, but the chance of intoxication charms them. I say intoxication, for your Redskin does not drink for good company, nor because the liquor is toothsome, but simply to get drunk. Lord Milton's experience shows how the hope of this must have helped to store the forts in the great North-West with fur. But these days of such questionable trade are numbered or past. The present directors of the Hudson's Bay Company are another generation of men. They are moved with a better spirit, appreciating the produce of something beside skins in the region which they long controlled, but are now associated with on other commercial conditions. H The toil and tribulation of Lord Milton and Dr. Cheadle in crossing the North American con- tinent through British territory were almost in- conceivable. A few years ago (it was in the time of the American war) they spent twelve months in labour and hunger, cold and heat, while creeping across a continent, one route through which the members of the British Asso- ciation can see from the plate-glass windows of their sleeping-cars as they run rapidly in some ten days from Winnipeg to the Rocky Mountains and back, with opportunities by the way of stop- ping at specially interesting places and making an excursion into British Columbia. We may sometimes sentimentally complain or suspect that' the stomach of Englishmen for travel has abated since the days of the old explorers, but up to the very verge of luxurious locomotion men like Mil- ton, Cheadle, and. Butler have seemed to enjoy the most slow and miserable movement it is pos-' sible for man to survive. They did good scien- tific work ; and when . at last the two former arrived lean and empty within reach of food they, must be praised for honesty in admitting that they • cared less for the civilised news of a year than for- chops and potatoes. I turn over the printed ' instructions to the members of the British Asso- ciation who visit Canada this autumn and see that provision is made for regular meals at so much a head right away to the Rocky Mountains. There will probably be a restaurant in the train. Fire and Water are a fine couple, but their child Steam subdues the world after, a fashion which even yet we can hardly measure. The threading of British North Ami^rica is one of its most notable feats, inasn)uch as it. reveals the sudden opening of a people's eyes to the use of an enormous region • IS long left in the hands of a company which cared more for keeping up a population of wild beasts than of men. The visit to Canada of which these letters are a little record was made in the company of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. The occasion was unique, as its annual meeting had never been held beyond the British Isles. Several friends said to me, ** Surely you will get no true notions of the place if you travel in a crowd of English I " The impressions re- ceived, however, depend upon the crowd. Here we had no tame flock of tourists bleating at the heels of a ** personal conductor," but a set of fellow-travellers who had intelligent eyes in their heads and knew what to look for. Of course it is possible to find innocence and an ex- aggerated readiness to accept fresh impressions even among scientific men*. For instance, 1 heard of two philosophers who needed a vehicle one wet and chilly night, and on being asked whether they would not have a couple of buffaloes (the kind inquirer meant rugs), replied, quite Jmply, that they would prefer horses. Such charming receptivity, however, was rare." Several, e.g.^ of the final party with which I visited the Rocky Mountains were veterans in experi- ence of the roughest travel. They had been starved, frostbitten, or withered to their back- bones by Arctic winter winds; they had been upset in canoes and deserted by faithful Indians; they had eaten their leggings and tried to melt snow for tea ; they had wearily worked theli way, month after month, across the plains and through the forests which we traversed with a rush in rail- way sleeping-cars. They knew all about the i6 grasses on the surface of the plains, and the stores of coal which lay beneath them. They were learned in butterflies and grasshoppers, or, belonging to the *' Social Science section," were ready to tackle the most peremptory colonial on the burning questions of protection and free trade. They had analysed the soils up to the North Pole, and kne : all about the conditions necessar}' for the growth of corn. And with all this, and a great deal more, they were full of humour, kindliness, and bright conversation. Thus I was well advised bv the best influences to travel with selected bodies of the British Association, and my readers must not be sur- prised at frequent reference to my social and scientific surroundings. Montreal^ August ibth^ 1884. The Allan steamship Parisian — by which I have . sailed from Liverpool— ^is four hundred and fifty feet long and something under six thousand tons burden, and yet, though I am sitting at a window at Montreal looking over wooded hills, a thousand miles from the Straits of Belleisle, where we left the ocean, she is lying alongside the quay close by. The waterway by the River St. Lawrence into the heart of British North America is so wonderful^ that it is taken for granted. But the appearance of this huge steamer among the cornfields of an inland region is not so strange as that of the siir-^ roundings will be when I go farther westward into the very centre of the American continent. I shall then long lose sight of land and feel as though ocean-tossed, though it will be only by the waves of fresh-water lakes. Their presence in the middle of this great country, too, is not merely remarkable in itself. It also indicates 17 endless and manifold channels which supply them, or which they use in dispatching their surplus water to the great salt sea. We have had an unusually rough passage from Liverpool, since we dropped into a "depression" as it was "crossing the Atlantic" on its way to ** develop energy on the coasts of Great Britain and Norway." It is very interesting to note how the barometer dips down while a ship crosses a cyclone. It is well named a " depres- sion." Our captain said that ours was the rough- est voyage he had had this season. But we carried the President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and many of its members, and so sailed with a reserve of human energy which wholly rose above that of the ocean., The " mechanical section " should have taken a few barrels of oil wherewith to lay the waves. How- ever, as it was, I never saw such a parcel of boys in my life. We had "tugs of war" — made possible by ropes which grinning sailors brought — between " Chemistry and Geology" and other •* sections," between married and unmarried, between smokers and non-smokers (in which the latter and the bache- lors were heavily beaten), and many other portions of our company. Besides these were hopping matches, races, auctions, mock lectures, concerts, to say nothing of incessant shovel-board and sea- quoits. There were, however, graver phases of life to be found among us. We had services on the two Sundays which we spent at sea ; and our philosophers, in company with a number of steer- age emigrants, sang away like a Sunday school. It was a jubilant voyage. I never saw so large a proportion of passengers present themselves (though sometimes with much exercise of moral courage) at every meal, however much the ship i8 might roll and pitch. And she did pitch. Heavy masses (not sprinklings or splashes) of spray flew over her funnels, which were some hundred yards distant from the bows ; and when we tried to photograph waves three of us had to hold the legs of the camera-stand while others steadied those of the artist. Then too we found our- selves for a while in the region of ice. The ther- mometer went down to 42°, from the 93" in the shade which it had just reached at Greenwich, and we saw " bergs." They were the first I had ever seen. One tall white jagged island, steady as an inland rock, w'lich we passed close by, was bombarded by our p' jtographers as long as it remained within range. We had, moreover, an experience of fog mach about the same time, and as we were going fast enough to smash the Parisian up if we had run into heavy ice, we were not sorry when the screams of the fog-horn ceased and we slipped out once more into a clear sea. Altogether we had a unique voyage, and the way in which mind triumphed over matter speaks well for British science. The run up the St. Lawrence is very striking. Hills with marked outline, and mostly wooded, are fringed at the water's edge by a succession of white and red villages. Churches and light- houses (which might be convertible terms) occur frequently, the former at every seven miles. The hill of Quebec struck me as less than I expected. I will not dwell on the antique quaintness of the town and its population. It is curious to be met by the British flag and the French tongue on landing from a voyage across the Atlantic, and to have the first impressions of America, which some associate too exclusively with the last sup- posed products of religious freedom, traversed by 19 ^e on , and ivhich nuns and priests, acutely suggestive of mediae- val ism. We came here, to Montreal, by a slow express, burning the most bituminous coal that ever was dug up. The region we traversed expresses the condition of Quebec. A very large portion of the country is still primeval forest. Some of this bordered the Grand Trunk Railway by which v/e travelled, while other parts were thickly studded with the stumps of trees about three feet hio^h, and a little larger than telegraph posts. But there are many thousand homesteads scattered over the land, and marked by rectangular white wooden houses and barns. We passed occasional villages made up by a loose congregation of the same unpicturesque buildings, and each clustered around its church, carrying a bri-jht tin spire. The farming is very rough, and the crops look thin. I saw few sheep or pigs, and no roots whatever. There was a good number of short- horn cattle. I was surprised at not being able to perceive more barn-door fowls about many of the small farms which we passed, especially as there were many small patches of buckwheat and maize, which are their approved food. I was assured, however, that poultry are reared in large quantities in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario. The reaping-machine was busy in the fields, and the whole view suggested local suffi- ciency and ugly comfort more than any command of distant markets or large apprehension of agri- cultural influence. But in fact this last impres- sion would be deceptive, since there are many buyers of small quantities of corn to be found scattered over Canada as well as over England^ and it is the confluence of the product of the small holdings which flows into Europe more than any 20 one originally big stream of wheat which comes, like the water of the Nile, from great central reservoirs. The American farmer has mostly no market proper, but is often met by the buyer, at the station or on the road, who asks how much he wants for his load of corn. This suits those, and they are many, who do not grow corn on a large scale. Indeed, the smallness of the holding marks very much of the common American agri- cultural position. Some take up land in " sec- tions," t.e.y farms of 640 acres, but more content themselves with less than the half or quarter of this amount. The average size of Canadian holdings is stated by Professor Brown, of the Guelph Agricultural College, to be about 150 acres. It is this which makes many parts (of the United States especially) to appear more thickly or at least more generally inhabited than portions of the '* old country," where the tillers of the soil are gathered (often far too closely) in villages. On the American continent there is little dis- tinction between the occupier and real worker of the soil. The " farmer " there is the man who works with his own hands ; and though he may hire helpers, the "labourer," representing such a class as the English " peasant," who toils continuously on the farm, and sometimes on the same farm for years, or for a life, can hardly be said to exist. The rural population thus in Canada and the United States is as a rule sprinkled evenly over the face of the land. Each owner of a half or quarter section, or less, lives on his own plot, and, with his homestead, includ- ing several buildings, spots the view with frequent roofs. These are the more numerous, as in many instances the produce of the land is not stacked, but stored in barns which, being white and of 21 lany :ked, kd of wood, might easily be taken fon dwelling-houses at a little distance. To return to Montreal, whence I write. It is finely placed, though somewhat more smoky than I expected, and with provokingly bare and weedy plots among the houses towards the outskirts of the town. Its population is not so Frenchas that of Quebec, but the old Gallic ownership has left stubborn marks. For instance, when I went for a walk over the Royal Mount which gives its name to the place, and shows the city, river, and plains in one grand view, I asked my way thrice. Each time my question was rejected with a shnig, and I had to put it in French before receiving an answer. This indicates not only a very conservative adherence to national traditions, but a considerable amount of what I might call obstinate isolation. These people, anyhow, had either found enough of their own race and tongue to be independent of English society, or had affected not to understand me. I feel persuaded, however, that their failure to reply arose from . "^ sheer ignorance. The shrugs were genuine. They did not know enough English either to apprehend what I said, answer my question, or state their inability to do so. They only shrugged their shoulders at me as if I had been a Chinaman. This severance (although they are loyal citizens) is naturally much deprecated by the present masters of the country. I happened to fall into conversation with a gentleman from Toronto, and when he praised his own city remarked, " It is a pity that you have no Royal Mount there from which to look down on it." "Ay," he replied, " but we have no trench." Many of these live in the poorest parts of Mon- treal, and, with some Irish, form that stratum in 2S H the community which is the object of much un- questioning and too often disappointing liberality. Most of the charitable institutions here are natu- rally Roman Catholic, but I especially noticed one which announced on its outside that it was devoted to the care of " Protestant Infants." Poor little ticketed things ! There were two or three crowing at an open window close by on the ground floor, and if I had been the Pope himself they would have accepted my stick of barley-sugar with unhesitating acclamation. Since I am visiting Montreal as a member of the British Association, which is most generously welcomed, I share the hospitality which they receive, being most agreeably lodged in the hos- pitable house of the Hon. Donald A. Smith, who, as last chairman of the former Hudson's Bay Company, was a chief instrument in the transfer of its authority to the Dominion, and was subse- quently with Colonel Wolseley in the business of the Red River Rebellion. Thus I hear much at first hand of the most weighty changes in Canada, and am, as it were, resting in the cradle of its newborn history. I have, though, naturally been anxious during some pause in this gay time of science and luxury to see the poorer parts of the town. That there are such appears from, say, the dirty beggar- woman, with her wan-faced advertisement of a child sitting on the low wall in N6tre Dame Place. I have had talks with experienced and intelligent men who have much to do with the poor. There is distinctly much less drunkenness in Montreal than in London, though a few dock labourers may drink more here than they do there, simply because they earn more. Directly the winter stops their dock work, though they might *3 lame and the kssin iock lere, the light easily find other employment some way out of town, some beg, and are provided with food and warmed rooms. Otherwise they would be frozen as hard as boards, and the good people of Mon- treal would not like this. I'hey do not wish to be the last direct agents in thus applying the sen- tence, " If any man will not work, neither shall he eat." So they feed these lazy drunkards. I find, on repeated inquiry, that if a dock labourer can handle an axe he may in the winter earn twenty dollars a month, with board and lodging, at "lumbering," i>., chiefly cutting trees down in the forests ready for the spring freshets to float down to the saw-mills. If he is not expert enough at this, he can get employment in tending cattle, under shelter, for farmers, within accessible distance, at ten dollars a month, in addition to board and lodging. But he sometimes prefers the charity of Montreal. I have not, how- ever, confined my inquiries to those who know about the poorest class, but give the result of an expedition of several hours which I have made, under the kind 'guidance of Canon Ellegood, to some of the meanest places in Montreal. He has been more than thirty years in this city, and knows its pastoral and sanitary ins and outs as well as or better than most. He took great interest in my inquiries which I made pencil in hand. Genuine slums are found here, but they are not nearly so thick as in some parts of London. We paid a good many visits, though I do not record them all. Our first was to Mrs. S , in a back yard. Husband works for the "corporation" — 1>., what we should call " parish." Earns, when in work, equivalent to 2^. a week. Rent a little over 4^. a week. Seven children. Three small rooms. Mr. M , H 5J. a week, much the same story. Mr. D , uncertain occupation ; crippled. Wife does charing. Several children. Four rooms. Stag- nant water under floor. Been to the health officer. He came three weeks ago ; not been since. Nothing done. Pays 7^. a week rent, and ...nail water rate. Had to do a lot of his own papering and plastering to make the rooms decent. Has hired his tooms by the year. Pays lod. for a 4 lb. loaf. (We tested this by going into the shop round the corner, asking the price, and having the loaf weighed. I found that he bought the best bread. The cost of seconds in relation to the first was as three to four.) Vegetables — now what did he pay for vegetables ? ** Bring what you have just bought," cried he to his wife. She produced four moderately sized Swedish and two small white turnips. *' We got these," said she, "from a countryman in the street, for seven cents" — t.e., $^d, "Would have had to pay twice as much at a store" — 1>., shop. "Fish now ? " " Oh, missus, bring those haddocks. We paid thirty-five cents — i.e., is. s^d. — for them this morning." They were two small fish. "What do you pay for meat ? " " Well, the best is fifteen cents — t.e., 'j^d. a pound ; coarser, not more than 6., about 6s. a week, and a small water rate. I think she had three small rooms. " But," said he, •* rents have risen." danon Ellegood confirmed this, and said we had seen and interviewed repre- sentatives of the poorest classes, but that skilled artisans got from two to three dollars a day. The children (who are now at the tail of their holi- days, which last two months) were often dirt , but less so than those of a similar class in Eng* n towns. I saw no genuine specimen of the irre- pressible street boy. The Montreal urchin is quieter than his London cousin. Of course, he has some disputes over dirt-pies, and paddles in unclean puddles. But as far as I can see, he plays at neither marbles, top, cat, nor chuck-farthing ; though some toss balls aimlessly and feebly. I noticed that the first woman we called on had no shoes or stockings. No more had Mr. D ; but then he had no feet. They had been frost- bitten, and cut off. I need not give the result of several more visits ; they produced about the same tale. The first impression produced in several places on Mr. Brooke Lambert, the Vicar of Greenwich, and a keen social inquirer (who accompanied roe), and myself was that they were as bad as some we were familiar with in London. But the interiors were decidedly cleaner in most instances. After a long bout of visitation, we had each some milk in a small shop. For this we paid five cents —i.e., i\d. \tex glass. But the glass was rather larger than those used for the purpose in London. The milk had been skimmed, though. 26 ili . After our round we went to "The Montreal Protestant House of Industry and Refuge." Here one hundred and fifty men and women were found, mostly old and permanent inmates. But any man applying for a meal was supplied with one, and in winter there would be three hundred sleeping on the premises. We spoke to several from Bristol, Manchester, and elsewhere, who were still quite at sea. They were helpless sort of fellows, and the bright matron who went round with us and talked very audibly and freely about the inmates before their faces complained of such immigrants. She gave them, in one sense indirectly, for she did not address them, but ourselves, a " bit of her mind." And it was a very sensible kindly mind too. Some in the house were obviously of weak intellect, but several were most unmis- takable "cadgers.'* I have not been chairman of a large East London Charity Organisation com- mittee for ten years without being able to spot these gentlemen. This institution is the only Protestant one in Montreal which relieves men. Some others help women and children. All are supported by voluntary contributions or managed by volunteers, there being no poor-law here. I have already noticed that the Roman Catholics have their own philanthropical machinery, which is extensive, and, like other good work of the same sort, helps to breed pauperism. The internal condition of the Canadian towns docs not, however, measure the produce and pos- sibilities of the Dominion. Its energy is not focussed in cities, but is mostly operative in the field, plain, and forest. I ought, though, in referring to Canadian energy, to note one special phase of it, and must mention the spirited conduct of the Montreal 27 newspapers. They give the proceedings of the Association at great length, along with news and comments of local, colonial, and European interest. Many parties are being given in the afternoons and evenings. The Governor-General held a recep- tion the other night at the M'Gill College, and smilingly shook hands about a thousand times. Though a detailed account of our doings is suited only to current scientific journals, or ela- borate final ** reports," I cannot refrain from noticing a 'few phases in the procedure of the Association which have a wider and more popular interest than the *' papers" which were read. The municipal authorities welcomed their English kinsmen in the Queen's Hall, which holds about 1,200 people, and was well filled. The mayor (a short and smiling Frenchman in spectacles, heavily chained) read a well-written English ad- dress with laudable conscientiousness and very successful leaps over some ugly-looking verbal fences. Then, after a reply by Sir William Thompson, who represented the retiring presi- dent, Mr. Mayor, with a strong foreign accent and terse cordiality, called on the great assem- blage for " God Save the Queen." It was sung with a universal heartiness which instantly set upon the mind a deep impression of Canadian loyalty. This was, if possible, deepened in the evening, when the hall was again packed tight with a panting and patient crowd which watched for the faintest references to the radical relation- ship between Canada and England, and applauded them rapturously. The President, for lack of time, was unable to read the whole of his paper. His address was well received, and a short con- cluding reference he made to the inevitable difii- culty which a purely scientific worker feels when 28 he attempts to break into the higher mysteries of being with the tools of calculation and experi- ment was warmly appreciated. Lord Lansdowne made an excellent speech. It not merely touched the leading thoughts of those present with neat- ness, but was marked throughout by a generous, statesmanlike, and thoughtful cordiality. A French gentleman (I call him French, though he was a British citizen) delivered himself at great length, being unwisely cheered when he showed signs of pulling up. The audience were deter- mined to have it supposed that he was perfectly understood by all. So he was by many natives, Montreal being half French ; but I question if the crowd of "scientists" who clapped till their palms tingled were quite so clear in their minds abou. the details of his utterance. Montreal is a place of about 180,000 peoplet Its streets are spacious and furnished with good shops, nearly all of which have their signs or names sticking out. The cabs are made to open if necessary, and are well served. The hoardings invite the passer-by to purchase " Reckitt's Blue," ** Stephens' inks for hot weather," and ** Nestle's infant food." Carts go round and drop blocks of ice at every door. The French language sounds in the air and shows itself over shops. Spires and towers are numerous. I believe that this is called the " City of Churches." Swarthy Roman priests in spectacles, tall hats, and cassocks walk about the streets. Anglican parsons, in very cor- rect clerical suits, wear mostly black wideawakes. Many elegantly dressed ladies drive about and illustrate the latest advance in the science of fashionable adornment. The principal public edifices are as big and solid as the Mansion House. Policemen are equipped with flat caps 29 and blue serge sacks. They carry their hdtom in their hands, at the risk of lowering the influence of their moral force Ottawa^ August 30, 1884. This is a city of palaces and timber-yards. The Houses of Parliament are apparently big enough for the " Dominion ** over the earth. They are equipped with an excellent library of 110,000 volumes, and being set upon a hill are seen from afar. I noticed that there were no ** cross benches," and on asking whether any members of the Dominion Parliament had inde- pendent views, was answered in the negative. Anyhow, their places of deliberation, furnished with large galleries, wherefrom public opinion may be immediately gathered, are importunately big. But, in their way, the sawmills are bigger. Huge trunks of trees come floating lazily down the Ottawa and its aflluents for hundreds of miles till they reach a row of monsters, full of greedy teeth within, which straddle over the current. Here the trunks, all slippery and dripping, are caught up at one end of a shed and issue from the other, literally within a few minutes, in such finished planks as you might buy from a carpenter at Notting Hill. The way in which a great log, ten feet or twelve feet round, is hoisted fresh from the water, laid upon a truck, pinned rigidly down in an instant, and then, suddenly, by means of a great whirling saw, finds one side of himself as flat as a wall, is almost truculent. You expect him to cry out. But he is sliced up before he has time to think. I saw one of the smaller trunks cut into eight three-inch twenty-one-feet planks in seven seconds. In a very few minutes more these were trimmed and thrust out into the build- ?o ing world ; so far ready for use. Large and small trees are disposed of at an equal rate. Some half-dozen mouths iw a row, within one shed, keep gobbling them up at the same time and sending them out in clean deal boards without any appearance of chips, sawdust, or rounded outside slabs. These all disappear rapidly through holes in the floor, and no litter accom- panies the neat procession of planks which make their appearance at the land end of the shed, and are rapidly carried off in trucks. The accumulation of "deals" at Ottawa is of course enormous. When you look down from the terrace behind the Houses of Parliament the river banks far inland are seen to be brown with square stacks of prepared timber awaiting export. And much of the water is like Alderney cream. That is from the sawdust which is whirled down into the river from the mills. When a steamer traverses these yellow plains their more appro- priate resemblance to wood recurs, for the sheets of spray spring from her bows like coils of shavings from a plane. I do not offer any description of the city, nor dwell upon the influences which caused it to be chosen as the capital ; nor do I venture to defi.ie the political constitution of the Dominion. Are not these things written in books of reference ? Of course Montreal, Quebec, and Toronto each wished the seat of Government to be placed within itself. Thus the Home authorities took a pair of compasses, and finding roughly the centre of that which had been reckoned as Canada, built the houses of the Legislature at this hitherto almost obscure place. When the newly-opened North-West territories are as fully peopled as the old provinces the present arrangement will be 3» obviously lopsided. Measurement would then point to Winnipeg as the middle city. I date from Ottawa, as the Association is having a Saturday holiday, and a number of us have been most hospitably entertained here. First we had an address, written by the Bishop of Ontario, whom I shortly conversed with afterwards, and who was legitimately enjoying the consciousness of having taken a prominent part in the invitation of the British visitors to the metropolis of the Dominion. We have a special train in attend- ance, carriages to drive about in while here, and have been feasted at a grand spread, with a gilt menUf at the " Russell." A crowd waits at the station to see us off. The sky flutters with a forest of British flags, and the band is putting , trumpet to mouth that we may hear " God save the Queen " as we steam slowly away in a tumult of cheers. September ^rd. — I have been favoured with stn invitation to join the select party of the British Association which starts for the summit of thie Rocky Mountains to-morrow. This sets one smartly to work to gather up loose ends and realise that the rush of scientific and sumptuary provision is coming to a sudden end. But we have two or three more gatherings, and an army of importunate carpenters have been summoned by onr too hospitable host to *' rush up " (that, I believe, is the correct Canadian term) a spacious addition to his already roomy house in order to entertain some hundred and fifty extra guests to- night. The party going to the " Rockies '* will have a special train, be well cared for, and find facilities for visiting those spots in the prairie which will enable us best to form an opinion about the condition and prospects of settlers in the I i li 3* North-West. Meanwhile the work of the Asso- ciation draws to an end. It has been in one sense very successful, but the social side of it would seem to be as attractive as the " spectrum analy- sis." In fact, the making of the Atlantic as nothing, the extension of Albemarle Street to the Pacific Ocean, and the very short time in which it is now possible so to extend it, marks an " advance of science" which, when realised, swallows up smaller performances, strides over shorter steps, and leaves an impression on thousands beyond the circle in which the British Association is mostly honoured. Such a gathering, moreover, as we have had at Montreal emphasises the pro- gress which is being made in the realisation of Greater Britain. The better knowledge of one another by Englishmen beyond the seas and at home is no unfit phase of " science." This meet- ing helps to show that social as well as scientific sympathy, when appealed to on a large scale, over huge areas, is easier than many think. Thr.c which some held to be impossible in respect to the gathering here is now so far a th'w^ of the past as to have been done ; but I shall be greatly sur- prised if it does not set up a fresh action of fellowship with colonies of Englishmen, and become the mother of manifold meetings between such bodies as were supposed to have become in- evitably separated, however strong old ties may have been. Indeed, the project of holding a gathering at Melbourne is already being un- officially discussed. One of our moving spirits (or bodies) has asked me if I would, all well, be willing to attend a meeting in Australia. At the final assemblage in the Queen's Hall, when several honorary degrees were conferred on vice-presidents and distinguished visitors, the ill n be steam of loyalty was not seen to have been eva- porated in the least, and their sense of union was, perhaps, even more distinctly realised in the part- ing words of the speakers. There was a great interchange of kindly farewells. Then bags and boxes were soon seen to be crowding the fragile- looking Montreal cabs, and the trains began taking visitors off towards the uttermost parts of the earth, including eventually Australia. They will be sealed with some more American impressions before they reach home, but the " breaking-up '■ has come, and the college servants will soon wash off the staring paper notices which the bill- stickers have put up to guide us from section to section. I am not yet in a position to know what pecu- liarly new light has been shed upon science during the meeting. Indeed, it may be doubted in these days (when a fresh discovery, a new view of an old one, or a reasonable conclusion that has been reached, is immediately published) whether any wholly original or unexpected revelation can be made at these meetings. A man may possibly bottle his notions up and keep them dark till they can be uncorked in a " section " of the British Association. This, however, is, it seems, not usual, nor easy, but I am told that a curiously sug- gestive inner door has been indicated or opened into the past by an American, Mr. Gushing, whose name may be known to some of my readers as the contributor of some interesting articles to " Harper's Magazine." He is a singular-looking man, slight, youngish, with a dreamy eye and a far-off mystic gaze. He has been living with ancient New Me^'ican Indians for five years — as one of them— and has been initiated as a priest in their tribe. Being at the same time an antiquary I ■i J, l« ri ii> I: s a and keen anthropologist, he has given evidence which experts recognise as probably connecting some ornamentation of the oldest classic sort or pattern with the cavemen, through Indians of New Mexico who have preserved (or not destroyed) relics of manufacture dating from the dimmest past. A faint connecting thread may eventually come to be established between ancient Greece itself and those widespread cavemen who carved their tools with spirited delineations of the animals of their time, and hunted the woolly rhinoceros. Mr. Boyd Dawkins is keenly awake to this possible opening of or pointing to a door of history which may reveal fresh human vistas into the remote past. Of course, the grave procedure and sometimes ponderous performance of the week has been lit by sparks of scientific fun. Many were puzzled to know whether they should laugh or not when a *' cablegram " came from Australia saying that the Ornithorhynchus paradoxus had laid an t,^%. But unhesitating smiles pervaded the anxious faces of " scientists " on the receipt of a communication from a member who had reached and " wired " from the North Pole. " Found a Scotsman in charge. Says his name is Thomson. Please for- ward buns. Bears getting troublesome." I dare say that this is an old joke, but then old jokes are sometimes belter than new. One function which has been observed for several years has not been omitted at this gathering — I mean the '* Lion Dinner." It is a deliberate taking of the wits out of severely scientific harness, and a laying-down of the reins upon their necks, which results in a banquet w ih humorous circumstances aid speeches. But this play of the philosophers can- not be reproduced in cold blood and black ink. %- « ?5 The flavour of the thing would wholly disap- pear. Having spent a Sunday here, and finding the air quite silent so far as the forest of church spires and towers which mark Montreal are concerned, I asked a native whether they had any hells. '• Plenty," said he, ** but we hang them on our engines, not in our church towers." This is true enough. Each locomotive has a huge bell which tolls steadily as the bare train moves down the city street, or sets out from the station — like a funeral. My acquaintance added, " These and the ships' horns are enough for us." So the churches opened as silently as theatres, and I, fot one, cannot see why the use of town bells, especially those in London, should not be at least lessened. In some poor crowded districts the harsh jangling of a solitary church kettle for half an hour before morning service is enough to get the parson heartily cursed by the weary men who are seeking some little repose upon the day of rest. Of course there are no " chapels" here. I went with my good host in the morning to " St. Paul's Church." Organ, painted windows, congregation kneeling, or supposed to be so, during prayers, and standing to sing. Sermon preached from a manuscript. Outside were divers crosses ; stone, and those of that partly gilt metal which peculiarly mirks Roman Catholic churches. And this was a Presbyterian place of worship. I preached in the evening at St. James's, where the service is helped by an excellent surpliced choir and aiul- phonal organ, well played. It is dangerous to generalise, and I find myself on thin ice (though it is mostly three feet thick at Montreal) in setting down impressions I have already received about the work of the English Church in Canada ; yel i 1 ■;! 36 try to scrape as many brains as I can, besides looking about and listening for myself. There it here a far greater contrast between the position of the country and town clergyman than exists or can be realised in England. In such an old province as that of Quebec, where the majority of the population is in- tensely Roman Catholic, and both Presbyterians and Methodists are very powerful and active, the country clergyman with a scattered flock, who aims at anywise realising the position of a "parson" in the "old country," leads a life which in some senses, and to any educated man, must be a very trying one. A stream of them is thus they say setting towards the " North- West," of which English Canadian talk is full, and Roman Catholic authorities often step quickly in and occupy the places which have belonged to Anglicans. They ** buy them out," to use the expression of an experienced Montreal rector to myself. I may here note that the French and Irish show little desire to invade the newly-opened prairie territories, but (having an inherited ten- dency to small penurious farming and the cultiva- tion of unpromising soil) are creeping into those regions beyond the banks of the St. Lawrence which have hitherto been untouched. To return to the position of the clergy. Their stipends are more equalised than with us, but no one, I imagine, receives so much as the Presby- terian minister of St. Paul's, of which I have spoken. He is highly esteemed by his congrega- tion, especially as a conscientious " pastor." Pos- sibly, however, there might be found a church in Winnipeg nearly as well provided with an income, though perhaps strictly not an official one. That exception was suggested to me by a clergyman in ,jc~ «■ 37 the province of Quebec. One remark has been several times repeated to myself by loyal, long- resident churchmen here to the effect that there is somewhat too ready a tendency to lean too much on the great societies in England, and the money to be got there by asking. These tempta- tions, and the trips to indulge them, are, however, natural enough. But some Canadians smile. Again and again have I heard the remark made — mind you, with much good-humour and apprecia- tion of the energy of the man — " Yes. Sir. But the Bishop of Saskatchewan. . . . Well. . . . He is a beggar." Looking at the thing from this side, where " emigrants " are called " immigrants," and are no longer a drain upon the generous, I am inclined, from the free talk of laymen expressing theinselves loyally about the matter, to suspect that the use of the offertory in Canada itself, though general, is not yet sufficiently realised by some of the Dominion clergy. There are many country places, however, where a small grant from one of the old societies in the mother country is of more value than it seems. It is a material expression of sympathy, and sometimes acts like the pint of water which sets the pump working. I give these impressions for what they are worth. Anyhow, I have not been able to help receiving them. Toronto, September 5 . I am resting here on my way to the Rockies, while we are about to hear some address from the Corporation, attend a party, be presented at Government House, and look about the place. It is a striking example of Canadian growth, though often ranked with the much older cities of Mon- treal and Quebec. Within the lifetime of the 38 oldest Canadians Toronto had not begun to exist. The forest covered its site on the shore of Lake Ontario. Now, though there is a finished look about its chief streets, they have an air of movement and progress which makes the visitor readily believe the assurances of its further increase given by resic'enlf . It is growing fast. I lunched with the hospitable warden of Trinity College, which bilongs to the Episcopal Church, and realised the prescience of its founders, who built it out- side the city, and thus enabled it to be set in the mid&t of grounds nearly forty acres in extent. These bid fair to be in their turn surrounded by houses. Thus before very long this institution will eventually find itself admirably placed for the population of the town to come, and at the same time furnished with plenty of air and space for recreation. The colleges of Toronto, indeed, form its most striking features. Besides Trinity, which is really a University, somewhat on the lines of its namesake at Dublin, there is the great unsectarian establishment called after the city itself, and a large Presbyterian one, with several other halls and institutes? Thus the sentiment of education pervades Toronto. It has the charac- ter of producing the most marked literary atmo- sphere in the Dominion. Born of the forest eighty years ago, when its toilsome brave pro- genitors first brought human hand and hopes to bear upon its infancy, the earliest and latest pro- ductions of this city are as it were brought together in some of the last utterances of its children. I am thinking of a volume of poems by Isabella Valancy Crawford, published by Bain and Son, Toronto. The air is no doubt now darkened with endless pages of " poetry." They drop like leaves from the literary tree, mostly to perish un- 39 noticed in its shade, except when they are ruth- lessly swept up (to be soon carted away .out of sight) by the broom of the reviewer. But this book, though not without faults of untrained magniloquence, has the ring of great promise. In its author the continent of America may possibly hail another voice of which it may justly learn to be proud. I give a passage fitting the thought of a place of which the site was hewed from the primeval woods of Canada, and which yet in time bears the fruit of refined and educated words. '< I heard him tell How the first field upon his farm was ploughed. He and his brother Reuben, stalwart lads, Yoked themselves, side by side, to the new plough ; Their weaker father, in the grey of life (But rather the wan age of poverty Than many winters), in large gnarl'd hands The plunging handles held ; with mighty strains They drew the ripping beak through knotted sod, Thro' tortuous lanes of blackened, smoking stumps ; And past great flaming brush heaps, sending out Fierce summers, beating on their swollen brows. O, such a battle I had we heard of serfs Driven to like hot conflict with the soil. Armies had march'd, and navies swiftly sail'd To burst their gyves. But here's the little point — , The polished di'mond pivot on which spins The wheel of Difference— they own'd the rugged soil, And fought for love — dear love of wealth and pow'r And honest ease and fair esteem of men." Toronto may be pleased at publishing lines thus radically fresh. Among the other advantages accompanying the situation of this city its nearness to the Fa|Ts of Niagara might be mentioned. They are reached by a short run across the lake. I am not going to add another to the thousand descriptions of these, and say how the great green wheel of water, oceanic in its movement, turns slowly over the hidden cliff and fills the air far and wide with the sound as of a great soft crush, while the pillar of mist stands high above to mark the weighty plunge beneath. But I must add my mite to the protests which arise at the insufferably imperti- nent crowding of catchpenny interests around this awful fall of the St. Lawrence. There are people who would sell excursion tickets to the Garden of Eden itself after equipping it with a stuffed boa constrictor and wax models of Adam and Eve. Perhaps this suits an age which sends gaping tourists to see a " Passion Play" (what a collocation of words !) and prints in the papers how much a day the ** Christ " is paid to hang upon a histrionic cross ; but here a sublime living spectacle is marred by the fringe of peering pepper-boxes which squat upon its brink and entertain the sight-seer with the Falls of Niagara themselves — garnished with the sauce of lobster salad and brandy cocktails. I hate ♦• sights," and cordially growl at the greed which is permitted to do its best (or worst) to turn this vision of infinite falling waters into one. I could not even bring myself " to shoot the rapids" at Lachine. Many at Montreal talked of this sensational performance. " Have you done your rapids ? " was a frequent inquiry. •* You can take the train at seven in the morning to the station where the steamer starts, and get back to a late breakfast." The sensation would have tasted sweeter if it had come in the due course of an outing. !) I 41 Not so with the run to the Rocky Mountains. These were before us. They stood on the far- thest horizon of our projected expeditions. They formed the ultimate aim of the more distant ex- cursion arranged to be made on the breaking up of the scientific company at Montreal. Though we are still very far off from them here, I find that the privilege of being in the special party is becoming more distinct. " Are you a Rocky ? " is the question frequently asked. The party, too, now is somehow cut down from a hundred and fifty to about sixty. I happened to be one of the company at a grand reception in the grounds of the Government House, when a friend came up and told me that a hitch had arrived in the arrangements for our special train, and that the number of its passengers was being seriously limited. So I called a cab (necessarily with two horses, and really a big family barouche), and bidding the coachman drive with all speed to the office of the Canadian Pacific Railway, found myself there in less than two minutes. He did not tell me it was round the next corner. How- ever, my own place was safe. We go on to "Owen Sound" to-morrow, and take water (fresh) for Port Arthur, whence we run to Win- nipeg and pause again. Talking of water, that of Montreal and Toronto disagrees most seri- ously witF visitors at first. I have avoided it, as milk is plentiful, and you can get Apollinaris easily ; but some of my fellow-tra- vellers have suffered severely. The heat in the train yesterday was very great. At one station, where a cart of ice was being unloaded, the rush for fragments was tumultuous. We passed through a dreary region for fourteen hours. There were many settlers, it is true, and log ii J 42 houses. And there were villages ; but the soil is occasionally poor. Rocks perpetually hunched up their rounded shoulders and backs which had long ago been scraped by ice. Huge glaciers once ploughed our course. The crops look mean, and long stretches of imperfectly-cleared land are traversed by the track. Sometimes the train plunges into untouched primeval forest ; then it snorts through a wilderness of short stumps, the whole growth of wood having been shaved off a yard from the ground, and then seemingly singed. The engine burned bituminous coal, and as the wind mostly met us, it sent a great deal of its smoke into the carriages. Some of us were nearly as dirty as sweeps, and the adherence of the smuts was helped by the heat. I hung my thermometer up on the shady side of the compartment, and it marked 93 deg. A scientific fellow-traveller thought I had been playing tricks with it, and hung up his own. It told the same tale. Thus (though not crowded) we were hot and thirsty. At last we reached Toronto, and those who had taken the trouble to telegraph for a bedroom got one ; but the gentlemen, representatives of the corpo- ration, who *' boarded " us some miles from the town, were anxiously perplexed to advise a good many of our party, as there happens just now to be an exceptional strain put upon the hotels of the city. I had dispatched a postcard for a room — a simple precaution — and am very comfortably lodged. But I never spent such a melting and grimy jday as yesterday. The negro who serves my bedroom — I am writing there before break- fast — is quite affectionately impressed by my mention of it, and has brought in tea, bread-and- butter, and good store of ApoUinaris and ice. On his appearing with the latter, which I had not 43 es k- ordered, I have complimented him on his atten- tions, and assured him that the record of them is now being forwarded to the Religious Tract Society in London. And he has this moment bowed himself out as only a negro can, with an ivory smile reaching pretty well to the back of his neck, and an obvious impression that some- thing very pleasant is being said of him to some- body. And he deserves it. S.S. Alberta, on Lake Superior. We are now out of sight of land in the middle of the American continent. I had never made a voyage before in one of these fresh-water seas, but realise that its waters may be more stormy than some that are salt, and that a ship three hundred feet long can here be pitched about almost like a Channel steamer. But one misses the taste of brine upon the lips, however freely the spray may fly over the decks. Presently we expect to see the tip of Thunder Cape rise from the water as we shall approach Port Arthur, which is at the head of the lake. Thence we run straight to Winnipeg, doing Colonel Wolseley's famous march of some two or three months in twenty-four hours. The sense of the huge- ness of this British territory begins to creep closely upon one. I look out of my cabin win- dow towards the north — so indeed might I, had I one in a barge on the Regent's Canal — but the reflection that the whole population of the Domi nion hence, north, east, and west, from the Straits of Belle Isle to the Pacific, taking in the Pole, is about the same as that which is compressed into the metropolis of England, and traversed by an underground train in an hour, seems to leave much more room for man than he wants. It is 1 ^1 ti 4+ an unmeaning use of a word to say that the old owner, the Indian, is " crowded out." But he is so sensitive as to shrink at the first touch of the white hand. There are moods in which I find myself asking whether it is well to disturb this land of historical repose. We can all see a repul- sive side to the utilitarian movements of our day. What had the Indian done that he should be rudely thrust aside, or poisoned with small-pox and rum } Perhaps the answer should be *' no- thing." He is a lazy, quarrelsome, picturesque savage, fond of torturing his enemies and wearing their scalps as signs of social consideration. But the process of his extinction is unpleasant. The edge of the civilising wave is almost always un- clean, like the fringe of the tide which carries dead cats and old shoes in its front rank. Any- how, the Indian is seen here in no honour. He has shrunk from the touch of the busy white hand. Our surroundings often remind us of this withdrawal on his part. We have lately passed through the locks which enable great iron ships to mount in twenty minutes from the level of Huron to Superior. The rapids of Sault St. Marie tumble in blue and white whirlpools by their side. The Indian once was the unknown and undis- turbed master of both the bright-green wooded bar)ks between which they foam. Then the finger of the European began to creep in, and the Indian bent his back to carry loads from boats on the lower lake to those on the higher. Then the locks were made, and ships three hundred feet long rise from level to level, literally in a few minutes, with all their crews and merchandise on board. The only sign of the Indian now is a dancing bark canoe, wherein he sometimes tempts an idler to " shoot the rapids" for a shilling. So 45 i! has he come down. It may be right, but it is piteous. The town of Sault St. Marie is set on the river, some sixty miles long, which connects Huron with Superior, and near the exit of which from the latter lake the well-known rapids are met. The town itself is cut through by the boundary which divides the United States from Canada, and it is the basis of much American boast in these parts that the English side is asleep while the other is more than awake. " Look, sir," said a Yankee to me as our ship was entering the lock, *' at the difference between America and England. There" (pointing to the Canadian side) " a few will struggle down to see the Bishop land " (we had just set the Bishop of Algoma ashore by his square white stone house among the trees) " while here we move on." I could not help reminding him that the great ship we were on was English, and that if his people built locks, we largely used them. The locks, though, are a work of which any city might be proud. When the Canadian Pacific Railway has run for a while along the northern shore of Lake Superior, and the traveller will be able to sit in one seat while he is being whisked from Montreal to Winnipeg, the Canadian waterside should become fringed with industry. The track, they say, will be opened for use some time in 1885. At present every bank presents an incalculable store of wood, a solitary maple — already crimson — showing here and there like a red flag or danger-signal among the dark firs. Far away, in line above line where the horizon rises, there appears nothing but trees. Trees stand thick as jorn upon the plains, and the islands which lie off the shore are crowded with growing timber. Now and then, in- deed, you see a little brown line clos.; to *ij ir a;.' 46 IM the water's brink. This is a row of deal stacks which a saw- mill has eaten out of the forest ; and yet the biggest piles are but as tiny chips which a child might cut off a stick by the side of a great wood — mere wormcasts at the edge of a wide plain. Talk about the cultivation of this North- West ! I suppose it will come, but now it is as the tending of a flower-pot with a garden trowel in the corner of a rough twenty-acre field. Even in the old provinces of Ontario and Quebec, which are supposed to have been long tilled, an im- mense proportion of the soil is not cleared. Here let me say, in respect to such as is under cultivation, that an English farmer has need lo forget much if he would succeed. Speaking roughly, ** roots " are not grown. They can seldom be eaten off for winter feed, the frost being too intense, and therefore if so used have all to be carted under cover. Thus ensilage is eagerly being looked to for the feeding of cattle. Then too, in parts, there is a serious risk in autumn sowing of wheat. Early freezing spring winds are apt to shave it clean off. Then again the treatment of various parts differs much. But generally the farming is, to the English eye, very rough indeed. Indeed, throughout enormous districts there is, properly speaking, no farming at all. The settler puts in a few grains of corn and reaps many. In some places he grows wheat after wheat in a careless way without manure, but with some fair return. The soil eventually becomes exhausted. Then the farmer packs up his traps, goes West, and takes another holding. I hear great variety of opinion about the export of store cattle. Some think that it will increase largely ; others say, " Nay, but we will fat them at home." I should have said in respect to some remarks, in a former letter, about the agricultural homesteads 47 of the older provinces, that, since buyers wait there, the railway stations are virtually the f ...ners* market. The sight of the fields there, knowing, moreover, that it was to be followed by that of the fertile but unploughed prairie, had set one thinking of the course which should be followed by inexperienced young men desirous of seeking their fortune by Canadian farming. I asked many how they should begin. All said that some local experience was desirable, and that to work hard was impera- tive. We naturally have divers trustworthy agri- culturists with us, and from them I gather that a young fellow wishing to farm in Canada could not do better than go for a while to the Agricultural College at Guelph, Ontario. There he will not be tempted to keep hunters or play incessant lawn-tennis, but expected to put his bones into the business, and find his way into the work to be done with his hands as well as his eyes and ears. Port Arthur^ September 8. After two nights* and part of three days* direct steaming on this fresh-water sea we have reached Port Arthur, at present the great mouth of the North-VVest. It is being ** rushed up," and from a little distance much of it seems to be a collec- tion of huge deal cases. We were to have started in an hour, but the first word we heard when within earshot of the quay was that there had been a "big wash out" some i8o miles up the Winnipeg line. Floods have lately tried this new railway, and the result is that we are sent back to the Alberta, the engineer of the Canadian Pacific, who has come aboard, telling us that we cannot start before to-morrow. Thus we have wandered about the wooden side- walks of the town in cheery (^ 1 i I * ] 48 disappointment, and realised that we could buy pretty well anything wanted, from artificial flowers and Eno's Fruit Salt to " real estates." Nor are things dear. Dr. Selwyn has just bought a pair of very strong-looking boots for 5^^ dollars. There is also a " Port Arthur Literary Exchange and Reading-room," up a flight of new deal stairs, over a cigar-shop, professing to have " always on view " (as if they were waxwork) ** all the leading daily, weekly, and monthly periodicals, etc., of this continent and England." On my showing a disposition to go in the manager said I had better not, as there was a "young man sick there with some kind of low fever." We were boarded by the representatives of the press directly after our arrival, and in a few hours the " Daily Sentinel " published the names of the " distinguished visitors" of Port Arthur. We have also been visited by the mayor, and have had an interview with the late Premier, the Hon. Alex- ander Mackenzie, who, out of one of the most immovable faces I ever saw, suddenly produced about the best speech we have heard. He spoke exactly as one of Mr. Maskelyne's personages might, without the slightest play of feature or any seeming movement of the lip or eye. Two reporters behind him set it all down. Sir Richard Temple is our chief speaker in acknowledging the municipal and other salutations which the British Association (now consisting of about seventy *• Rockies ") meets with in traversing the con- tinent. They are mostly here around me in the saloon of the Alberta, writing up journals, examin- ing grasses they have plucked, or playing tricks with the buttons which rule the electric light of the ship. A buzz of talk fills the air, but all occa- sionally glance at the clock, awaiting the dinner 49 « bell. Meanwhile fresh torrents of rain rattle on the cabin roof, and ("the" hotel of Port Arthur having lately been burnt) I am at a loss to think what we shall do when the Alberta sails back again to Owen Sound to-morrow, and possibly leaves us unable to proceed towards Winnipeg. I suppose we shall have to put up in the motion- less Pulmans which are waiting to take us on our journey. . . . We have suddenly been all called from the cabin to bid farewell to the chosen Manitoba canoe men, who are just steaming care- fully out of the harbour to join Lord Wolseley's Egyptian force. We have duly cheered these mercenaries and watched them till we could not distinguish the notes of ** God Save the Queen," singing which they slipped slowly out into Thun- der Bay. Talking of singing, we had two services yesterday, almost all of tliose on board being pre- sent and joining heartily in worship. The Bishop of Ontario and I preached, a layman also giving an address. 9 a.m., Sept. 9. — I woke at five and listened for the rain. All was still save a subdued Gargantuan gurgle by the engines, which were talking in their sleep, and the boom of a champion snorer, who asserted himself like a foghorn. There is no rain, but great masses of moist-looking grey cloud are piled up towards a veiled moon. . . . Now we are off. . . . Evening. — All day long we have been passing through a half- burnt primeval forest (patched with small blue lakes) which our accompanying Canadian autho- rities tell us is ** private property." A man has come down our special, which consists of three Pulman cars, distributing large official maps of our route. These show square sections on either side (which look like prolongated chessboards). In so ! !• and the printed information which accompanies them and indicates the nature of their soil, tells us which are still for sale. We stop occasionally at a small station to water the engine. Then all our botanists jump out to reap and our entomo- logists to whisk after small prey with green gauze nets. We have had also a sufficient pause for a well-cooked and abundant midday dinner. This train will be our home for some ten days if we choose. Having lost twenty-four hours, it is pro- posed to push on to the Rockies, taking most objects of interest on our way back. At present we are all in tearing spirits at the welcome sun- shine and our delayed plunge into the great North-West. In a few hours we rose, by my aneroid, nearly a thousand feet above the level of Lake Superior, the rapidity of our rise being occasionally indicated by glimpses of a river of boiling coffee which plunged to meet us, some- times close to the track, and then far below between sloping wooded banks. I cannot spell its name, and no one can pronounce it when it is spelled. It begins with Kam, or Kan, and then has a tangled tail of vowels half a yard long with some q's in the middle. Our cars are very com- fortable, and the polite chief inspector or officer of the line travels with us, as if we were the Queen. We were to have been a train of men, being "limited to gentlemen only," but some- how, to our surprise, find that we have got three young ladies on board, besides Mrs. Laurie, the kind wife of the genial general who accompanies us. This is all very delightful at present, but promises to be embarrassing, as there is no speci- ally select ladies' compartment, and we all have to sleep and are supposed to "perform our toilets" in this. There is no prospect of these ■ * ) !l!i SI damsels being dropped at Winnipeg. They mean business, and whispers go about that one is a " stowaway," a young scientific lady from Aber- deen, who has made a vow to go with us to the Rockies. She comes by herself. Two have ad- mitted a pair of young "scientists" to play a game of cards v'.lh them, and are now chattering over it with a i utterance of merriment which forbids the thought of its being whist. You will perceive that I am writing in the train. I have indeed the next berth to these fair travellers. Meanwhile, hour after hour we are rushing through a primeval forest of trees, mostly firs, about twice the size of telegraph posts. This is marked with the signs of fire and water, being traversed by miles-wide bands of conflagration and spotted with bright ponds and meres. Clearings are very • scarce, but between the watering stations we sometimes pass a square log hut with a little growing circle of cultivation, and tanned children standing at the door to see us pass, or a conical Indian wigwam set at the edge of a lake, with a birch canoe drawn up on the shore hard by, and a few stolid squaws, with long, straight black hair, glowering at the train. No mountains are visible, but the ice-scraped shoulder of an under- ground one is sometimes thrust above the peaty soil. I must now end my letter, as it is proposed to pass by Winnipeg, possibly in the course of the night, visiting it as we, all well, return. We shall, however, dispatch a parcel of letters to the post there, and I send this among them. It has suddenly become pitch dark, but the train, full of lamps and English chatter, is whirling like a torch through the forest of the Great Lone Land. il i! In I 3' L m w i'-'i, 52 Winnipeg, September 17M, 1884. We could hardly be said to have left Winnipeg on our way west, for we did not stop there except for a few minutes in the dark to drop letters. These had been invited by a black satchel of mine, which hung all day at the end of our com- partment, with an envelope gummed on it and inscribed, " Post Office, Winnipeg." This was cleared at about five in the morning. Being curious to see the place, I was up betimes, and the things I noticed in the town as I turned out on the platform of the car in the raw dark air were three billiard-tables in a room brilliantly lit, the dim outline of a church, a wide street traversed by tramways which the train jolted across a right angles, and some electric lamps. These were put out a,s I was looking at them. The only one of our party who turned out with me was Sir R. Temple ; the rest were asleep. Presently we were clear of what they said was the city, and the sun rose on an interminable plain, as flat as it could possibly be, dotted with white wooden houses — some single, some in small groups. Near these the yellow-green grass which grew over the whole land was Lioken by rectangular un fenced fields, showing either wheat in sheaf, oats uncut and very unripe, or occasional black squares where the rich prairie had been fresh broken by the plough. Those places which had not been stirred at all were dotted by divers herds of short-horned cattle grazing knee-deep in the soft, succulent, and abundant hay. Shallow ponds or meres fringed by weeds were scattered about, the herbage around them having in many cases been irregularly mown by grass-cutters and stored in carelessly made stacks. That just outside the edges of the water seemed to be preferred for this 53 purpose ; it was rather finer than the rest. I was surprised to find the country so much cultivated within reach of the eye, but was told thai farms were still more abundant beyond the horizon. This comes in great measure from the railway authorities retaining some portions nearest the line in their own hands, with a view to its rise in the market. Such precaution was obvious enough. Many were the complaints, however, which I heard even in passing contact with settlers about this arrangement. They said, angrily, " Why didn't the railway (as if the iron track were to blame) settle the land close on both sides first, and not send us twenty miles off ? " But the procedure seems to be sufficiently legitimate. The country next the line is sure to be filled up, and will be- come all the more valuable as the outer band is cultivated. The inner strip is all safe to increase in price, though in several places its soil is not so good as that farther off". Then too, of course, the outer portions will some day be tapped by branch lines. The Canadian Pacific at present is a back- bone without ribs, and must be equipped with them if it is to embrace the body of the people. As it is, great preparations are made along the whole course of the main road for the reception of wheat. Huge wooden " elevators," capable of holding thousands upon thousands of bushels, are set up or being built where hardly an ear of corn is to be seen. These immense and lofty structures, visible for many miles across the plain, show like rudimentary cathedrals, and are the only mountains in the land. Well, when I have told you what the country is like for twenty miles out of Winnipeg, the description holds for eight hundred. Only the farms die away, the solitary houses disappear, ', ', rii>n 54 not a single roof or stack notches the long level of the horizon, and no square black patch marks the spot where the plough of the colonist has been at work. All these gradually disappear along with the herds of red and white cattle. The prairie alone remains, cut by the everlasting track of the railway, which runs straight through it as thin as a thread of the thinnest grey silk stretched tight across a perfectly smooth bowling- green. At last, when nearly eight hundred miles of plain have been crossed, when you stand on the platform at the end of the car and look west- ward, you will see a white saw slowly rise above the yellow-green horizon. This is made of the tops of the snow-peaks in the Rocky Mountains, As the tram rushes on to reach them these gradu- ally lift themselves up from the grass and show their grand range, which severs the North-West territories of the Dominion from British Colum- bia. There — I might now lay my pen down and say that I have fitly described the region through which we have just been carried westward from Winnipeg, and I should not be far wrong in my assertion. But then I travelled with some fifty pair of eyes besides my own, and they were mostly eyes which saw. I was in a " special " with those who represented the final effort of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Canada, and I only wish I could remember a quarter of the things pointed out and thoughts suggested by my companions and their unstudied comments and conversation. Then too we were in a train dispatched and equipped for our pur- pose by the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, who not only took us for nothing, and perched our carriages for two nights on the highest acces- 55 sible point of the Rocky Mountains (where we lay like the ark on Ararat) but caused us to be guided and guarded by their ^reat manager and authority, Mr. Egan. Thus many conditions were combined to make our run an exceptional and interesting one. We stopped occasionally to see what we wanted (being tied to no time-table), but when the train moved we travelled fast. Though the track was compara- tively new, and in some level places had been laid at the rate of four or five miles a day, on testing our speed we found that once or twice we were covering more than fifty in the hour. Indeed, en one occasion we did fiftv-five in that time. I was not sorry when these (experiments I was going to call them) were over, for a bad accident in the middle of the prairie would have been embarrass- ing. There was however little to be gained by lingering on the plains. Nothing was to be se^n one hundred miles after another but the same level horizon ; and, as I have said, after a while this ceased to be notched by the farm buildings and stacks of the settler. The only signs of human habitation, besides the occasional station where the engine was watered and a few small deal-board houses mingled with white tents ap- peared around it, were given by Indians. A word more about them. No doubt they rightly claim to be the original, or the oldest historic- ally known, inhabitants of this region, and it is not so long ago (less than a generation) since this claim was virtually if not officially allowed by the British authorities. These were represented by the Hudson Bay and other fur companies, which for two hundred years had, so to speak, the right of sport over these huge moors. And the Indians were their underkeepers, gillies, and iii: I s<> servants. The companies placed their represen- tatives, gatherers of skins, here and there in so- called forts throughout the land. These bought furs of the Indians. The place abounded with animals of many kinds. Thousands of buffalo runs, i.e.f strongly trodden paths of about a foot wide, were cut by the railway track at right angles. Through a considerable portion of our journey we had only to look out of a window and see them stretching straight away, far out of sight. They had for years, or rather ages, been worn by files of innumerable buffaloes as they moved their feeding-ground in the prairie. And many whitened skulls with dead whitened horns lay by their side, showing where some on the march had lain down to die before the sweet grass had been reached. The high growth of the prairie, too (in many places so high as to rise far above and sweep the stirrups of a man riding through it), abounded in smaller life. All this skin and fur- producing estate was really "preserved" by the old companies. To them the agricultural colonist was a poacher. They did what they could to keep the settler out. The population was bear, buffalo, skunk, marten, beaver, and Indians. These last preyed upon the first, and the repre- sentatives of European civilisation preyed upon them — traded with them, we will say, though perhaps -the Indians hardly realised the value of the sable which they gave in exchange for trum- pery beads and rum. Well, all this began to dwindle down as soon as the fur companies in 1869 handed their authority over to that of the Dominion, and men were invited and set to colonise the regions from which they had been excluded lest they should interfere with the busi- ness of the "trapper." 57 e o n These plains (ready for the com-grower and cowherd) we were now traversing. The con- sciousness of contrast between their past and prospective condition was aroused in a score of ways — not least, say, by conversations with Dr. Cheadle, who had accompanied Lord Milton in his famous journey twenty years before, and who now formed one of our party. He was being whirled in three days through a region which it had once taken him about a year to cross. Relics of the old (Redskin) human life began to meet us as we moved on west vard. I don't count the English-speaking Indiai of the old Canadian Provinces (who profesc^es Christianity and wears the shabbiest cast-off white man's clothes, espe- cially dinted tall hats) as the genuine representa- tive of the Redskin. He is, happily, too respect- able to be taken as a sample of his progenitors. His father may have been girded with a belt of scalps, but his own *• pants " are so shabbily modern as to preclude the recognition of his savage descent. He was, indeed, not to be seen as we drew westward, but the real man (especially the woman, with face painted a bright yellow, and a dab of red on each cheek) was lounging about several stations after his own peculiar sulky hunchbacked way. Some of our fellow-travellers eagerly secured the trappings of these dirty braves and squaws, buying the feather dresses off their heads and the moccasins off their feet. They accepted all this commerce in reluctant attitudes, and with an ill-concealed contempt, which, how- ever, did not hinder them from realising that strangers who would make surprising proposals for their old shoes might be induced to offer more. Some, who preferred silver money, presently had Liicir cheeks full — for an Indian pops a dollar into it.; llPi I S8 his mouth as a monkey does a nut, looking at you steadily all the while, as though to say, " If you think I don't know better than to swallow it you are wrong for once ! " Then he shrugs his shoulders again and sulks off. It is true that he has submitted to the partial restraint of " Re- serves," since recognition of them brings in from the Government so much meat and flour a dav, and five dollars (or/ i) a head annually; but the " Reserves " are not all of the best land. A de- tailed Canadian map of the line and its geolo- gical surroundings was given to me, and I noticed that a large district marked "Indian Reserve" in the far west was also marked, in other characters, "Drifting Sand." I called the attention of a Canadian official to this, and he replied, "Oh, yes : but guess we pay them ever so much ! " That indeed, I fear, is not always a perfectly accurate presentment of the actual state of affairs, since it was whispered — no, strongly asserted — that divers purveyors of Indian allowance stopped it on the way. The Indians come off worst in their int r- course with white men. They are doomed. So much indeed has been said in tb'::ir favour, that I am disposed to doubt their future the more. I know that the famous Jesuit Father who has for more than a generation laboured among them is looked on with filial eyes. I know that divers Methodist ministers who have also bravely put their souls into the effort to evangelise the Red- skin make an honest point of speaking well of him. I know that Ang'-^in missionaries do the same. One of the oldest bishops in Canada was good enough to favour me with his opinions about the Indian. " It is most pathetic," he said. " They are prominently devout. \ou should hear them take part in our Liturgy and sing our hymns ! 59 And yet I cannot imagine what is to become of them." I cannot help repeating my belief that they are in fact children without the prospect of growth — children for whom it is impossible to find a school, or any really promising phase of education. They were once the masters of the country, and have had a great fall, and all the king's horses and all the king's men can never set Humpty Dumpty where he was again. Half-breeds succeed and are not unfrequently conspicuous in the conduct of the country. They will survive, giving birth to quarter-breeds. The high-bridged nose of the " Southwind," and the ** Wild Eagle " may adorn the profiles of generations to come ; but the old Redskin with his grandly serene face, and insuperable aversion to steady labour of any sort (except it be the collection of scalps), will have to be classed along with the Dodo and the '* Cave Man." His remains slouched silently about the stations, with his dirty high-shouldered household around him, as our ** special " paused in its west- ward course. He affected coolness when a gentleman from Albemarle Street offered him three dollars for the twopennyworth of cock's- tail feathers he had stuck in his hair, but, his wigwam is doomed to be struck for ever, and his bastard or half-bred descendants alone will sur- vive in the great family of man. While the smoke-stained tent of the Indian disappears from the Prairie, another fabric already makes its appearance. It is curiously sugges- tive to watch the procreant buds of new cities " which are beginning to show above the grass like the white mushrooms of a night. They seem to grow according to no plan or law. They are 6o mostly of wood, and at a little distance look like loads of great deal boxes which have been roughly overturned by the way. Some of the structures indeed are of canvas, and shelter no mere nomads, but possibly the leading inhabi- tants of the place — I mean people of education who dress for dinner, carry card-cases, play the piano, and keep a carriage. I am quite serious. The United States consul in Manitoba, a gen- tleman of culture holding a very influential social as well as diplomatic position at Winnipeg, was kind enough to give me an introduction to some great friends of his, the R s, who lived at one of these new-born cities where even a deal shanty had not foretold its advent two years ago. Well, I innocently asked for Mr. R *s ** house," and a low canvas tent, pitched at the edge of a pond in the prairie a few hundred yards off, was pointed out to me. I made my way there and did what was equivalent to ringing the front-door bell. Mrs. R- only was at home. Mr. R was out riding and would be very sorry to have missed me. However, she was kind enough to ask me in, and I stayed a few minutes having an agreeable conversation with a hostess of whom one of Bishop Anson's chaplains spoke to me afterwards as being (not comparatively, as he who squints is king among the blind) one of the most accom- plished ladies in the country. She noticed per- haps my glance round her canvas home, and, laughing, said, ** We think we may have to ' move house ' next winter, and so we have thought it best not to build one at all." These social posi- tions, which at first appear somewhat paradoxical, are distinguishing features of the North-West of Canada. What would be called the livery stable 6i it of the place was kept by an Oxford graduate, and a labouring settler who chanced to be about some business in the place and looked ** dripping" into the little inn (it rained at the time) was referred to by a man in the " bar " as Lord So-and-So. He was, indeed, not a lord, but a member of one of our distinguished noble families (whose name he bore), and was then expecting a visit from an English Peer who happened to be travelling in America. A ** gentleman farmer " is a wholly different personage in the N. W. T. (as the North-West Territories are shortly called) from what he is in Norfolk. Here he has to work, and work hard too, with his own hands. I am inclined to won- der, though, why more placeless men in England, to whom all the liberal professions seem to be closed, do not come out here simply (at first) as labourers. Positions deterrent in the old country are not merely possible, but more than tolerable to a *' gentleman " here. Many a useless mem- ber of society at home, who yet is blessed with good lungs, liver, and sinews, might not only do good work here in helping to civilise a new land, but be paid more for it at once than he probably would earn for years if he were called to the Bar. In a short time, e.g., he would find himself worth thirty dollars a month, that is ^72 a year, his board (with a magnificent appetite to realise that part of his income) and lodging. Then, too, at odd times, supposing him to bring a gun, he could walk out without question by gamekeepers and fill his bag with wildfowl and prairie chicken. No doubt his life would some- times be very rough in divers ways, but he would find not a few gentlemen in the same boat as himself, counting it no social degradation to have ;;|i i 62 their hands horny with labour. Then, too, if industrious and .thrifty as a labourer, he may look forward to the possession of land of his own, or, using such tact as he possesses, combined with some experience of the country, may see some other door whereby to enter into a better furnished position. Before I realised the condition and duties of the settler I had an impression that the skill of the trained agricultural labourer would put him in an exceptionally good position. But now I am rather inclined to doubt it. He would have to unlearn much. The very neatness of his ^lethods might delay him. No one cares about driving a perfectly straight furrow on the prairie, or trims a hedge with the accuracy of a hairdresser. Hodge would bring a seasoned back and sinewy limbs to any outdoor work, but he would find his conservatism shocked by the un- tidiness of Canadian farming, and be some time before he could bring his mind to the looking after "his bullocks" full gallop, in a Mexican saddle. On the other hand, every departure from estab- lished methods of agricultural procedure tells in favour of the man who has been accustomed to none. As a cavalry officer in the old days pre- ferred any recruit to a postboy, so a Canadian farmer may find a ** help " ready to fall into his ways better than a man wedded to special ways of toil. Thus a gentleman, however strong and willing, is not likely to be twitted with his ignorance as he would be if he attempted to take his place in a team of prejudiced peasants at home. His freedom from the traditions of labour would assist him. Indeed, if my reader were to explore and examine these new '* cities" which are begin/ 63 ning to sprout here and there throughout the north-west of Canada he would be surprised and charmed at the number of " educated " persons who are already taking part in their birth. Every year, moreover, makes the plunge of a *• gentle- man" into these realms the easier, in a social sense, but the amount of work remaining to be done renders want of employment, to those who really will work, impossible for any time you like to count. The fiUing-up of this country is a work of the generations to come. Your noble and idle savage who lives by hunting is dead or doomed. He will not work himself, though he is not ashamed to beg.- He looks on, with occasional suggestions about his willingness to accept tobacco, and then paces off on his lame beast, pretending to think. Another nobler race, quickened with some of the best blood in the ** old country " (as England is always fondly termed here) should be ready to take its place among the masters of the richest parts of a young Dominion. The number of those seeking their fortune here who have known what is called a liberal education is even now remarkable, as I have already noticed. I had heard it before, but was hardly prepared to find it confirmed, notably, to such an extent as ap- peared by the company in which I travelled. One after another added his family or social ex- perience to enlarge our perception of the way in which these parts of Canada are being peopled by young English gentlemen. This applies to the whole land, though especially to its western parts. Some buckle to in the tilling of the soil, others choose a life in some respects more varied by serving on a cattle ranch, with the hope '>f eventually becoming the possessor of one. Here 64 the work is manifold. Hay has to be secured for winter in rough unthatched stacks. For this the likeliest spots on the prairie are swept, untidily, by the grass-cutter. But the procedure is varied and importunate, the chief result desired and aimed at being the production of calves, which cost comparatively nothing to keep, but eventu- ally become valuable beef. This business of course does not bring a quick return. Calves take time to grow, even in America ; but when once the first crop reaches maturity others rapidly succeed it. In all these callings and surround- ings of the settler, however, one valuable •' quantity " remains constant, and that is the superb air which he breathes. It is true that typhoid is being carelessly generated in some growing Canadian cities, but the smell of the prairie is as sweet as it is wholesome. Of course our progress through the country, as a detach- ment of the British Association, travelling in a special train, and stopping in disregard of all "time-tables," became generally known, and at divers stations there was good store of the new youth of the country (sprinkled with silent, scowl- ing Indians in paint and feathers) to see us. And a browner, healthier-looking, more long-limbed, square-shouldered, clear-eyed set of tall yoimg fellows I never saw. I was particularly struck by the physique of young Canada, being six feet myself, and having been built to match. Your little man is no judge of stature and limb. He does not discern sufficiently between five feet ten and six feet two. Your tall man is a better mea- surer of height. Thus I realised growth when many of these Canadian youngsters looked over my head, and strode past me like giants, as they were. If half of those young gentlemen who wear fcn 65 pointed boots and write with steel pens, chained in fogs and heats to the counters of, say, a bank, with no prospect of becoming partners in the business which enslaves them, could but once get their lungs filled with this grand prairie air, they would slam-to their ledgers, roll up their gloves, and, pitching them out of window, find themselves striding over this sweet grass, building their own log houses (and you can make a log hous^ as warm as a Dutch oven in the coldest winter), galloping after half-vild cattle, cooking their own dinners, measuring monthly more round the chest, and feeling that it will be their own fault if they do not take their places among the strong and independent men who are master- ing this new land. And, remember, a strong youngster who will lab (ir, working .vlth his hands, will soon get at h ast his /'yo or jf So a year with his board, and be tempted to no great expense at his tailor's. It is true that the winters in Canada are cold — very cold — and long. It is true that some con- stitutions cannot bear thera. But if there is any truth in testimony, this cold is not generally in- sufferable nor depressing, A climate which so treats the vine as to ripen grapes out of doors (there are large vineyards in Ontario from which wine is made) cannot be bad. Then, other fruits are excellent, aii ' inalarid is said to be unknown. Indeed, the su;i5Jaer is not merely hot, but hot with clean air and clear sunshine, and in winter the snow is feathery. People, moreover, live to a good old age, and the bulk of them look as if in excelltnt health. Of course, if you are care- less in January you may find your nose frozen as hard as a snuff-box. Then you have to thaw it gingerly or it will come off; but I saw no faces r ! in 66 from which this feature had been thus vexatiously removed. Still, there is no doubt but that the Canadian winters are ver)' severe. Extreme cold is, however, not confined to the British parts of North America. It is a saying in the older United States, ** If you can stand the climate of New England you can stand anything." The air of Boston is intensely nipping. I have just heard a gentleman living there refer to it bitterly. " Why," he said, " one day last winter, when I was driving a mile to my house of busi- ness, both my ears were wholly frostbitten." " Rubbed them with snow ? " I remarked. '* Yes, sir," he replied ; and then added, •* but that is not all. I have known the temperature vary thirty- five degrees in one day, between morning and night." Greater variations indeed have been experienced in the United States. Of course, in Canada, as in other countries where the winter is very severe, the warmest clothes must be worn, and caution exercised to avoid frost-bites. But the air, as I have said, is mostly still, and the sky bright. The snow, moreover, is stated to be shallower in the West, especially the extreme North-West, in Athabasca, than in the old Provinces. I have made this pause and divergence in giving utterance to my little record of a visit to the North-West while in the company of my fellow British Associates because an agreeable tendency to branch off into inquiry about and speculations on cognate matters was often indulged by my companions and enjoyed by myself. Indeed, the friendly chat which beguiled our way was (to me) often big with suggestive information about the land, its settlers, capabilities, and future. I will now, having glanced at the main features of the e) le 67 great North-West (if that may be said to have features which is all face), ask my readers to go with me more leisurely through the land, pausing to note some of the points at which we stopped either in going West or returning to Winnipeg from the Rocky Mountains. Here let me repeat a desirable explanation and say that a " city " in America does not mean a large town, but a ylace (often much smaller than many a village in Eng- land, since a population of three hundred enables it to fulfil municipal conditions) which has civic rights. The first of present importance reached from Winnipeg is Portage la Prairie. What shall I say of this flat and fertile place ? It largely receives grain. Its sky-line is quite Alpine with *• elevators." It grinds and manufactures, has a biscuit factory and a paper-mill, and is altogether ancient, having been founded twelve months be- fore Carberry, the next distinguished station, which is two years old. Yet for all that Carberry gives itself the airs of a long-established " city," inas- much as it not only advertises its livery stables, etc., etc., but when we visited it had placarded its walls with huge printed posters announcing the (first annual, I suppose) excursion of its ** Sabbath schools," etc., etc., to " Silver Lake," with a •• band," etc., etc. The bill indeed had the flavour of a search for change after the wearisome mono- tony of tame and long-drawn life in the close air of a town. Mind you, Carberry is only two years old. Twenty-four months ago it had not so much roof as an umbrella, and no means of locomotion so advanced and artificial as a wheelbarrow. It simply " was not." This deal-and-canvas bud, moreover, declined to reckon itself as of no weight in the British Kmpire, for the great poster an- nouncing the recreation proposed for its ex- I I 68 ! . Tiausted inhabitants was adorned with the assurance of its loyalty in a conspicuous line, which he who ran might read, " God Save the Queen." Indeed, the loyalty of Canadians would seem to be not merely apparent, but touchingly importunate — and genuine. I cannot affect the usefulness of a systematic guide-book, but must point to Brandon the next place of importance westward. It is three years old, but offers all kinds of commodities, from reaping-machines to artificial flowers (beside the influences which flow through church and school), with a cheerful confidence which charms the visitor. I bought there a^d brought away a pho- tograph of its main thoroughfare looking (in the photograph which disguised a freshness incapable of such reproduction) almost as old as, say, Aid- gate. Its soil is said to be excellent ; its air is most delicious, and nature has provided it with a slope (rare in this prairie), which should make its future drainage not only possible, but easy. Let us hope, however, that the unpolluted Assini- boine which flows by Brandon will not be turned into a sewer. Provision is made for much which mar' r civilisation in all those townships by the side oi the Canadian Pacific Railway which may become the sites of cities. For instance, sections of land are set aside for schools, and the building of churches (every place of worship is called a " church " in America) is facilitated, but the proper dip of a sewer, if the people have, as they probably will, that questionable equipment, would seem to be hardly possible in several of the places which we saw, and which were being marked out in streets. The time approaches rapidly in which their inhabitants will have a pro- blem to solve with the sewage. This too, unfor- 69 he ev tunately, is not recognised as, under any circum- stances, useful to the farmer, wiio wholly discards the use of manure for his land at present. The provision of water, moreover, is a serious question for some parts of the North-West. It is mostly alkaline, like very much that is found in the United States, and attempts are being made in some places to provide artesian wells. It is true that the Canadian water is harmless to the stranger wiien boiled or used with coffee or tea (which latter is largely drunk), and old hands (or stomachs) take it raw without unpleasant effect, but to a new comer it is most surprising and offensive, though agreeable enough to the taste. Several of our party suffered severely from choleraic diarrhoea in consequence of drinking it, and it occasionally kills the careless thirsty children of emigrants. Thus a few artesian wells are being sunk, sometimes with wholly unexpected results, of which I will say more presently when we reach the place where they have come to pass. The next place at which I stopped was Moosomin. I may here say that, as I write this from my notes on my return to Winnipeg, some of the spots I visited were seen on my way back. But it is more convenient to take them in con- secutive order going westward. Thus, following the order of the line, Moosomin comes next to Brandon. I was particularly desirous to see it as a number of Bethnal Green settlers have squatted in its neighbourhood, and I had been asked to visit them. It was felt that if these people, mostly quite ignorant of farming, took any root in the soil, the hopes of other colonists from cities would be brighter. I reached Moosomin at night. Two years ago it did not exist. Now it has a large railway station (a huge elevator being built hard ■4 li i r ii '1 ■! 1 (i by), and is a thriving town, of course mostly made with deal boards. I walktid across to the " Craw- ford House " by the light of a bobbing lantern, and found that the landlord had a room ready (new deal board as usual), apparently finished that .:fternoon. Next mornin^v irt the dining-room I found the breakfast to be (without any question except as to the choice between tea and coffee) porridge, beef-steak, potatoes, fritters, and treacle. These were served unordered. The landlord then took me a round in his " buggy," a gig on four high wheels, drawn by an excellent pair of black trotters. Here I came on an odd use of words. I had no sooner taken my seat securely by his side than he flourished his whip and said, " Get down." Before, however, I had begun to descend I realised that this was addressed to his horses instead of " Get up." Neither phrase, however, really suits the situation, for if the horse were to try to *' get up " after his driver had ascended the box it would be embarassing. To return to our Moosomin expedition. We took in a circuit of about twenty-five miles, follow- ing in most cases no track, but driving from one low turf-built house to another through superb crops of hay, so rich as in many places to lie down by their own weight. Here and there we passed a pool, from which rose wild ducks within easy shot, or a prairie hen whirred up close by our side. A skunk once ran close before us for some hundred yards, but as he was not alarmed we realised his presence by sight only. The first house we reached was one storey of rough deal, some i6ft. by 12ft. A quarter section of land — i.e., 160 acres — all magnificent hay to begin with, was attached to it. A small portion was broken up and had a crop of potatoes. A V sunburnt man stood at the low door. I got out of the buggy, and said, " You don't know me, but you know St. George's-in-the-East." " Why, yes, sir, I was a cab-driver at Bethnal Green." Then I asked him how he fared. He shared a cow with a neighbour, and had broken up seven acres. His previous wages had been about thirty shillings a week, and his wife could earn ten shil- lings a week at brushmaking. Now he is a " farmer," but he has been earning three pounds a week in helping to build the elevator, and his daughter, age thirteen, had been getting for ser- vice in Moosomin pay at the rate of sixteen pounds a year. His wife could earn more than twice as much. "Do you like it.''" said I. " Yes," he replied, "I do ; ** and if you should meet any more cab-drivers" (not improbable) *' tell them to come out here." He added, though, that the published Dominion prices of the oxen and implements necessary for beginning a farm had been misleading ; he and others had had to pay about 30 per cent, more than they had reckoned on. Almost all whom I visited remarked this. After the cabman I saw a Bethnal Green jobbing carpenter ; he had earned about fifteen shillings a week and his wife nothing. She could eat no breakfast in town, but now enjoyed her porridge, Then we drove on, and I called on Mr. Young, who had been a Scripture-reader, and was described by my landlord as a clergyman. He was not at home, but Mrs. Young told me about their condition. He, with his brother, had taken up half a section — />., 320 acres — and an adopted boy above eighteen had also 160. So they have 480 acres among them. Of course only a portion of this is broken up at present, but the rest is good hay, fit for cows. I^Irs. ''iii ::r 72 Young had been "mostly under the doctor" in London, but ** had never wanted one " since she came to Canada ; and liked it " very much." Then I called on a Mr. and Mrs. Cumbers, late of Bethnal Green. They have a low black turf bouse as warm as toast, and five Tonng . hil'^ren. He was a ** labourer," and earned about twenty-one shil- lings a week. His wife earned nothing. Now he has — he came from England last April — i6o acres of land, two pigs, nnd twenty chickens. The small plot already tilled bears potatoes alone. I did not think that Mr. Cumbers was very en- thusiastic about the matter, bUv he Mished his two brothers to come out, and gave me their addresses, and said, " I eat more heartier, and though the weather damps us a bit, I dare say we shall get on another year." hut, with its 1 60 acres, which owned by Mr. Cattermole, who {i.e., pair or yoke of oxen) with The next turf I visited, was shared a team his neighbour Cumbers. He also had five young children, had been a cellarman and '• done jobbing work," but "had been walking about for months" without any work. Health had been " middling good — never better, all right, now." He had no cow, which was a pity, since he had over a hundred acres of hay ; indeed, there were only about four acres broken on his section. He came out last April. From his hut I went to Mr. Bloom's. He had been a police constable and had also worked on a farm in England. His half-brother and his mother had come with him, and they had also taken up 160 acres. "Some people won't like it," he said, " because of the prohibition of liquor." " Good job too," said his mother, " and I hope it will be always kept out; but anyhow," she ded, laughing, " we mostly have a couple of ducks for dinner." *• Yes, I like that," said the ex-constable ; " a man can always take his gun and knock over a duck or a prairie fowl." Ducks, indeed ! There are hundreds, and fine ones too. Every little pool seemed to have some. I asked if they stayed in the winter. " No, they don't, but the prairie fowl do," was the reply. These people whom I have visited are fair specimens of the East End, and I really do not see why they should not do in another year. At first (barring the cab-driver) some had no idea how to harness a team or indeed do any agricultural work. Their first attempts at milking, too, are said to have puzzled the cows. But they all have potatoes. There is wood to be had for the gathering, and occasional work in Moosomin or near. Several will have a sharp pinch. I have just been having a long talk with the headman of a number of Scotch crofters who came out after the East-enders, and are settled near. Divers of these have between forty and fifty acres ploughed for wheat. Selling that next year, tho'inrh at a low price, they get a good return and are fairly "settled." Some of the Londoners are or have been puzzled, but will pull through. They are rather sore about the stocking of the farms costing more than they fancied, and hardly realise the unprofitableness of grumbling ; but the agent tells me that they are not working badly, though at present without sufficient skill. All that I have seen speak ivell of their health, but several lament the want of schools and places of public worship. These will come in time. Now much of this part of the country, though " taken up," is uncultivated. We drove simply over the prairie, bumping over badgers' holes, and big, worn stones hidden by the luxuriant grass The wood is small. Fire ^ I'! 'I \ 74 has frequently swept the land. When you go into a clump of growing bushes you find the ground covered, if not cumbered, with burnt relics of forest. The whole region is flat, and sprinkled with small pools or meres. The first grain " elevator" which is being built here is cal- culated to hold 50,000 bushels of wheat, and buyers will be always ready at the station to pur- chase produce even in the smallest parcels. After my round among the East-enders I called on a settler who had been a valet in Essex. He had acquired two hundred pounds, married, and come out last April. ** I have got," he said, " an acre of potatoes, ten acres ploughed for wheat, and have stacked thirty tons of hay." He has taken up the quarter section of 1 60 acres, has two yoke of oxen, a cow, a few fowls, but as yet no pigs. " How do you like it all ? " I asked, and his quick response, ''Very much indeed," left no doubt about his views. His next neighbour, who has quite lately come out, is a bricklayer. The possibilities of the place are, indeed, enor- mous, but the labour is great and the social draw- backs are serious. Two of the families had lost children since they came in April. One had been left at Winnipeg, having died by the way. An- other "was buried out there," said the mother, pointing to the prairie, with a choke in her voice. ** He was the eldest." There is one initial draw- back to settlement in Canada, though indeed it is shared by contiguous regions in the United States. I have already noticed it, but the fact is so notice- able that I naturally mention it again. The water is alkaline. New comers always suffer severely from it if they insist on drinking it raw, but when boiled or used with tea or coffee it is wholesome. Several people have expressed to 75 ' I! me their hope that lager beer will be allowed to be sold. All, outwardly at least, agree that the prohibition of spirits is good for the people. I cannot say that I have not seen a drunken man in Canada, but the temperance of the people is conspicuous. Since my return to Winnipeg I have been seeing a little and hearing much more about East London emigrants. It is generally felt that their exodus is a test one. There are several kinds of settlers. The most welcome is a man with a few hundred pounds, who can 'Make up" land, stock it well, work himself, and have enough to tide over till he can sell the produce of his farm. The agricultural labourer, too, if intelligent, steady, and industrious, has considerable openings here ; but if he brings no capital he must labour some- where till he saves enough to get his " quarter section '* and squat in a turf hut of his own. The sheer townsman, who has been used to a cook-shop round every corner, is often sorely tried when put down alone on his grassy lot, which, as it has no visible boundaries, is seemingly the boundless prairie. Thus the change may be too much for him, and the conduct of civilised life may be so rudely broken by his flitting as to take away his faith in the soil. Moreover, he has probably been accustomed not only to a quiek return for his labour, but to labour of a kind which produces an immediately obvious result. He does not realise the slow repayment of Nature. The breaking of the prairie sod promises too distant a wage. Thus when I had asked several Londoners what they had earned in the old country, and then went on to inquire what they got in the new, two or three pulled rather long faces, and said, " We shall get nothing till next fall " — they m m f6 had already learnt the American for " autumn." But they all spoke with hope, and not one ex- pressed a wish to return. I should repeat that they were justified in some complaints, for the prices of several necessary items published by the authorities here are misleading, e.g., nothing can really be done with the soil without a yoke of oxen to plough it, and the cost of these is thirty per cent, more than the settler is led to expect. This at first daunted some of our Londoners, who showed me the printed list which had misled them. However, as I heard an expert say, " They will worry through." And as they do, the problem involving the disposal of some of our surplus souls approaches solution. Of this I feel more confi- dent as I reflect on what I have seen and heard, since some of these settlers are not of the most provident and pushing class. I know the style of man I am thinking of well ; but here, though with an aptitude for grumbling, the whine seems to be going out of him. Some few, possibly, may fail altogether, and will return speaking evil of the land. Some will have a very hard pinch in the coming winter ; but I believe that they will win. Anyhow, if their condition should now be compared with what it was in London it would be favourably judged. And since their great draw- back (ignorance of agriculture) grows less every month, tlieir progress is the more hopeful as time goes on. The emigrants who seem to succeed most quickly are domestic servants, intelligent workmen of the railway labourer class, and those of a little better education, who are gifted with good health and strength, stick at nothing, and have plenty of " push." Let me give three examples out of many which might be produced. Mrs. Vatcher, of St. Philip's, 77 Stepney, sent out a party of poor girls from the East of London this last May, and asked me to look up one who had gone to Winnipeg. I did so. She was in a respectable place and earning 15 dollars a month — i.e.^ £^6 a year, with board and lodging. "I am quite happy and comfortable," she said, her face beaming when I told her that I had come from Mrs. Vatcher. The next case was that of a railway labourer, named Thomas Watson, from Lincolnshire. He had come out with his wife to join a brother-in-law some distance from Winnipeg, and on reaching the haven which he sought found that his relation had flitted, leaving no address that he could then find. He had "gone West." So Watson returned to the emigrant shed at Winnipeg with a long face. " What has he been doing since he came back } " I asked. " Well," was the elegant reply, " he has been tightening his belt to keep his belly together." And he certainly looked very lean as he came in (while I was standing by the shed) from another cruise after work. But there was a nascent twinkle in his eye. " Have you got any } " said the superintendent, a fine ex-Crimean soldier, full of kindliness and good sense. ** Yes, sir, I've got a section-house with 56 dollars a month, and my wife is to take in boarders." A " section-house " is one by the rail side where the men live who look after a certain " section " of the line. Thus, our friend had found his place, worth over / 130 a year, with house and firing. In asking the Rev. H. T. Leslie, "immigrant chaplain" at Winnipeg (who knows the place well, and most kindly gave me much assistance and information), whether this was a fair test case, he said it was, and added that the man's wife would possibly earn nearly as much. But then Watson is a shrewd, 78 strong, likely-looking fellow. Not so seemed a civil-speaking man from Notting Hill, whom I next interviewed. '' What is your trade ? " I asked. "Oh, nothing particular, sir," said he, *' but I want to keep about in the town." " He won't do," I remarked to the superintendent, whose reply was at once, *' No." Then he added, "And yet some such such a few years ago went to " — I forget the name of the place — *' and several were starved ; but the rest have become excellent citizens. It taught them." Our Not- ting Hill friend will, 1 fear, have a sharp time of it in his first winter. The third instance I refer to was that of a man with whom I conversed at length about the East London emigrants. " Look at me," he said. I did. He was six feet high, measured about forty- five inches round the chest, and had a black beard as strong as a quickset hedge. " Look at my hands," he said next. I did. They were not particularly dirty, but as hard as iron. ** These people," he continued, ** want oxen and ploughs to begin. Waal. Guess I came with these two hands without anything like the price of a cow in them, two years ago, and now I have thousands of dollars. Whenever I saw half a one I went for it." He was a Canadian born, and told me his history. I saw him presently driving a fine pair of horses in his own buggy, and he had "elegant" gloves on. These three instances of success which I have given are not exceptional, but then a man must pre-eminently have " push," and not sit in the middle of a field with a pail expecting some cow to come to be milked. Our friend, the* railway man from Lincolnshire, had met with an initial fall by failing to find his brother-in-law, but he soon recovered himself, and already I dare say has let out several holes in his belt. 79 After Moosomin the traveller will anyhow be sure to alight at Indian Head. Here is the much-talked-of "Bell Farm," ten miles square, worked like a machine with every suspicion of rural sentiment wholly discarded. Indeed, everything is sacrificed to supposed economy, including some of the horses, which were miser- ably poor. The engines, too, were pronounced by an expert in machinery, who formed one of our party, to be fragile fabrics. Huge tubs, looking like the Martello towers which fringe part of our eastern English coasts, and holdiag i,ooo bushels each, stand at suitable places to take the grain as it issues from the threshing machines. These are furnished with short elevators, which stick up like kettle-spouts so as to reach the hole in the upper rim of the tub into which the corn runs. It is afterwards collected from these temporary receptacles and taken to the nearest railway station. The wheat is white Fife, and you may see a great flat field containing 15,000 acres of it. It is of course reaped with binders. A good deal was uncut and patchy with green ears. Wheat is grown after wheat without manure or at present any clearing of the land, but we were told that a third of the soil would be rested every year. The last yield was twenty-two and a half bushels to the acre. This is a very fair return, consider- ing the haste or *' harum-scarum *' style of farming which marks the present agriculture of this part of the Dominion. Straw is used as fuel in the Bell Farm engines, and that which is not thus consumed is burnt to be got out of the way. The seed is sown by a broadcaster machine. Altogether, though more has to be done here, enough may be seen to make the wheat producer in England look grave. But the cities stand so thick with 8o consumers of bread that they may laugh and sing. The hope is that abundant bread may beget an ambitious appetite, and that English farmers may be able to grow fragile comforts which cannot be imported from afar, and have hitherto been beyond the purse of the million, but which if sold in towns at a very much cheaper rate than the present might yet well pay the tiller of home fields. The Bell Farm certainly set us thinking with emphatic seriousness about these, and a tobacco parliament met in the smoking-room of our *' special " to discuss agricultural prospects as we steamed away. Since the average holding of the Canadian farmer (according to a statement made during the meeting of the British Associa- tion at Montreal by Professor Brown, of the Agricultural College at Guelph) is only about 150 acres, the claims of this large wheat manu- factory at India Head are peculiar, if not unique, in the Dominion, and the public waits to see what a company can do with the soil in cheapen- ing wheat for the market and paying a dividend to its shareholders at the same time. The grain-producing soil of the North-West is seemingly as flat as possible in Manitoba, but as the train moves onwards and enters Assiniboia it is flatter still, notably in the great *' Regina Plain," some fifty miles wide and ninety long. Regina is the capital of Assiniboia, which con- tains about a hundred thousand square miles of land, and is thus rather larger than Kngland, Scotland, and W-'les all together. Both the province and its metropolis would seem to have been thought of, found out, and namtd only a few years ago. Their future is incalculable. Here is the seat of Government, reprtsented chiefly by the mounted police, who number about 8i 500 saddles, look exactly like the Horse Guards Red, with useless little caps (like cloth decanter stands) on one side of their heads, and uniforms so tight as to render movement uncomfortable. They are uncommonly fine fellows (mostly from the " old country"), and are employed in keeping the Indians under foot and spying, for whisky, w^hich, being prohibited, they are empowered to condemn, and are said, nevertheless (so ran the rumour even in this thinly-peopled land) to like the taste of. They make an imposing force, anyhow, and I was told that even one of them carried such an atmosphere of authority about him as to stalk into an Indian camp and walk off unchallenged with any '* brave " who was charged with, say, horse-stealing. This is the chief offence, or at least one of the most severely punished crimes in these parts. The guard kept against the introduction of alcohol into the North-West territories is a strict one. No doubt it is evaded to some extent, but it certainly hinders drunken- ness. Probably this liquor law is the more desirable here because of the poor Indians, who draw to the smell of rum as cats do to that of valerian, and who might become ungovernable if they could buy it. The instances of intoxication which I have noted in Canada have been peculiar, and seem- ingly shown by well-to-do people. Tea is mostly drunk at every meal, but the prairie air tasted (to me for one) almost alcoholic. I never breathtd such an inspiriting atmosphere — not even in the high plact's of Switzi'riand, nor amid the pure dry sands of the Arabian Desert. It is more- over, to some extent aromatic. I noticed this at R''gina, and a native confirmed my perception bv the immediate remark, " That is the mint in the grass." The passage over these enormous fertile plains, so long strictly " preserved " by the trapper, but now opened to the plough, produces an effect on the mind which is not realised at the moment. When one is beset by conversation in English the social ard natural surroundings are somehow unconsciously assumed to be fixed or established. A glance out of the window of the train over the prairie might suggest no more than that over an exaggerated hayfield or a flattened Salisbury Plain. Presently you begin to remember that you are crossing a virgin land only just wedded to an ambitious British mate, and that these unmeasured breadths of soil may some day be as crowded with human life as the most thickly- peopled districts of the Old Country. What will this new region produce ? Every fifty miles along the line a small square block is fenced off in the primeval grass and crammed full of wheat, barley, oats, potatoes, onions, beet, cabbages, carrots, turnips, swedes, mangold, maize, and — what not. How come they there ? What are these curiously manifold mixtures of field and market-garden fruits.^ These are "test "-farms. They are set thus thick to see what the soil will bring forth. They have been thus sown only a year. Twelve months ago they were unreclaimed prairie, and the result is amazing. I stood and looked at these varied crops, handled the roots (which were very large), rubbed the corn in my hands, counted the grains in divers ears, and walked off thinking, ** Why should not the whole face of the land be thus covered with the fruit of the earth?" Of course, the summer may have been exceptional, this, that, the other — may be, might be. Hut there, in the midst of an unmeasured '* wilder- ness " of grass, the potatoes, turnips, cabbages, 83 carrots, etc., etc., were, alon^ with great sheaves of corn. There they had grown, that year — little teeming squares crowded to their corners with luxuriant food. The thinnest thread of iron wire (I mean the rail) drawn across the plain had done it all, and meant to do the rest. This appeared the more possible as we entered the region about Medicine Hat, where the land dips to let the great Saskatchewan flow through, and by 'ts banks show huge black lumps of some- thing sticking out. Coal. Professor Boyd Daw- kins and all the geological section hopped out of the train and set to work picking away like miners around our carriage. " Really good coal," they said, coming back with their hands full of great lumps, which they began to fold up in paper and put away in their carpet bags. The luggage of these gentlemen must astonish porters when they get home, and I think that they rather envied the botanists, whose light spoil is entombed in hat- boxes and the like. But about the coal. Our experts told us that it reached away from the river for hundreds of miles, and that where it had been in its formation folded and compressed, nearer to the Rocky Moup*^ins. it was anthracite, becom- ing, farthest awa> ' om the hills, what they called " lignite." Anyhow, about Medicine Hat, the leader in a possible forest of tall chimneys had already risen (a new tret sprung from the decayed and long-a;^ . ransformed growth which made the coal scam)