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WHAT tempted the people of Canada to undertake so gigantic a work as the Canada Pacific Railway ? The difficulties in the way were great, unprecedented, unknown. Had they been known beforehand, the task would not have been attempted. We were under the inspiration of a national idea, and went forward. We were determined to be something more than a fortuitous collocation of provinces. That the difficulties were faced and overcome as they emerged, great temp- tP.tions to halt or retreat being tjuietly set , aside, proves that we, like our neighbors and progenitors, are not easily discouraged. Our ultimate destiny will be none the wcrse be- cause we have — not unwillingly — made sac- rifices in order to make ourselves a nation. Roughly speaking, the new country through which the great railway runs consists of three sections, — about a thousand miles of forest from the upper Ottawa to the Red River of the North ; then a thousand miles of alluvial ; and then five or six hundred miles of moun- " ' tains, from the first chain of the Rockies to r where the waters of the Pacific are sheltered _ by the breakwater of Vancouver Island. The , total length of the line from Montreal to the Pacific terminus is 2895 miles. The first sec- tion was long considered impracticable for a T~railway, and the expense of construction has ""been enormous. The rocks at the back of Lake Superior are the oldest known to men of science and the toughest known to engi- neers. But dynamite, if there be enough of it, can do anything. This part of the line was opened last spring most dramatically, it being used before actual completion to transport our militia to put down the half-breed and Indian rising in the North-west. No amount of champagne-drinking and of driving last spikes of gold could have called the attention of the country so emphatically to its impor- tance. The second section runs through what promises to be the great granary of the world. The third is being pushed across a sea oi mountains. Thousands of navvies of all na- tionalities are swarming in the valley of the Columbia, and thousands of Chinese are f working on the grade easterly. When this sec- { tion is completed, and the shortest of all .- transcontinental railways opened for traffic J from ocean to ocean, Canada will have attained to unification, so far as links of steel can unify. The work is so completely a political neces- sity that — along with the Intercolonial Rail- way, which binds the Atlantic provinces to old Canada — it may be called the symbol of our national existence. Whether it will pay the company financially or not is a question on which experts differ. That it will develop the country, and thus at any rate pay indirectly, seems to me unquestionable. The Intercolo- nial was run for a time at a cost to the Domin- ion of over half a million dollars annually. It now pays its way ; and though shorter through lines are to be built, the increasing local traffic, the best indication of the real value of the road to the country, will keep it running. So, too, the first section of the Canada Pacific pierces a wilderness that wise men said would not furnish business to pay for greasing the wheels ; but it gets freight enough in the shape of lumber alone to pay for the wheels as well as the grease. It is revolutionizing the mode of lumber transportation on the upper Ottawa and to the West. The lumber kings find thiU time is money. It is more i)rofitable to send on logs to market by rail than to continue the tedious plan of floating them, from the banks of far-away lakes and nameless streams in the interior, down countless rapids and slides to unbroken waterways. The danger now is that our timber limits, which constitute an essential part of the national capital, may be exhausted within a measurable time. With regard to the rugged Laurentian regions to the north of Lake Superior, unexplored as yet by men of science, there are grounds for believing that they will turn out to be as rich in mineral wealth as the southern shores of the lake ; and no business pays a railway so well as that which a mining community supplies. Then, the fertile plains of the North-west are certain to yield harvests that will tax to the utmost the carrying capacity of branch as well as trunk lines. These plains extend for eight hundred miles west of Winnipeg. Originally a north-western in.-iicad of a western route from Winnipeg had been chosen for the railway, because every one said that the only " fertile belt " was in that direction. This " l)elt," or rainbow, of fertile land swept semicircularly round a su iposed great wedge of the American desert. Lut the company came to the conclusion that the plains west of Winnipeg had been belied, and that the rainfall was sufficient for the growth of cereals or root crops. Singularly enough, their faith has been vindicated ; it turns out that we have no desert. This fact is a physical reality of the greatest importance with regard to the area in the North-west available for 236ol 8 THE BOSTONIANS. 88 1 things, asked herself whether they were what he was thinking of when he said, for instance, that he was sick of all the modern cant about freedom and had no sympathy with those who wanted an extension of it. What was needed for the good of the world was that people should make a better use of the liberty they possessed. Such declarations as this took Verena's breath away ; she didn't suppose you could hear any one say that in the nineteenth century, even the least advanced. It was of a piece with his denouncing the spread of education ; he thought the spread of education a gigantic farce — people stuffing their heads with a lot of empty catchwords that prevented them from doing their work fjuietly and honestly. You had a right to an education only if you had an intelligence, and if you looked at the matter with any desire to see things as they are, you soon perceived that an intelligence was a very rare luxury, the attri- bute of one person in a hundred. He seemed to take a pretty low view of humanity, any- way. Verena hoped that something really pretty bad had happened to him — not by way of gratifying any resentment he aroused in her nature, but to help herself to forgive him for so much contempt and brutality. She wanted to forgive him, for after they had sat on their bench half an hour and his jesting mood had abated a little, so that he talked with more consideration (as it seemed) and more sincerity, a strange feeling came over her, a perfect willingness not to keep insisting on her own side and a desire not to part fron. him with a mere accentuation of their differ- ences. Strange I call the nature of her re- flections, for they softly battled with each other as she listened, in the warm, still air, touched with the far-away hum of the immense city, to his deep, sweet, distinct voice, express- ing monstrous opinions with exotic cadences and mild, familiar laughs, which, as he leaned towards her, almost tickled her cheek and ear. It seemed to her strangely harsh, almost brutal, to have brought her out only to say to her things which, after all, free as she was to contradict them and good-natured as she always tried to be, could only give her pain; yet there was a spell upon her as she listened; It was in her nature to be easily submissive, to like being overborne. She could be silent when people insisted, and silent without acri- mony. Her whole relation to Olive was a kind of tacit assent to perpetual insistance, and if this had ended by being easy and agreeable to her (and indeed had never been anything else), it may be supposed that the struggle of yielding to a will which she felt to be stronger even than Olive's was not of long duration. Ransom's will had the effect of making her linger even while she knew the afternoon was going on, that Olive would have come back and found her still absent, and would have been submerged again in the bitter waves of anxiety. She saw her, in fact, as she must be at that moment, posted at the window of her room in Tenth street, watching for some sign of her return, listening for her step on the staircase, her voice in the hall. Verena looked at this image as at a painted picture, perceived all it represented, every detail. If it didn't move her more, make her start to her feet, dart away from Basil Ransom and hurry back to her friend, this was because the very torment to which she was conscious of subjecting that friend made her say to herself that it must be the very last. This was the last time she could ever sit by Mr. Ransom and hear him express himself in a manner that interfered so wi^h her 'ife ; the ordeal had been so familiar and so complete that she forgot, for the moment, that it was also the first time it had occurred. It might have been going on for months. She was perfectly aware that it could bring them to nothing, for one must lead one's own life ; it was impossible to lead the life of another, especially when the person was so different, so arbitrary, so inconsiderate. settll prac hun with! praiJ Nor) fifty] enoL worll 0"o be continueii.) Henry James. 88i t only to say :e as she was itured as she ive her pain; she Hstened ; y submissive, uld be silent without acri- Olive was a il insistance, ig easy and J never been bed that the :h she felt to s not of long le effect of he knew the Dlive would still absent, again in the her, in fact, osted at the et, watching ling for her in the hall. It a painted nted, every iiore, make from Basil friend, this which she riend made e the very could ever im express ed so wi^h miliar and e moment, ! occurred, mths. She ring them own life; f another, difterent. James. THE CANADA PACIFIC RAILWAY. 883 ^ settlement. That area is now known to be practically illimitable. The waves of a great human sea will in a short time roll steadily on, without break, from the boundary line to the prairies of the mighty Peace River, That new North-west of ours will a century hence have fifty millions of people, and they will raise enough to feed themselves and the rest of the world, if need be. Manitobans, it may be said here, have also great expectations of being able to export directly to Liverpool by Hudson's Bay, and of being thus independent of Chicago and Montreal alike. Should such an alternative route prove a reality, it would serve the whole Red River valley, as well as the Saskatchewan. Last year the Dominion (lovernment sent out a well-etjuipped vessel to ascertain definitely for how many months in the year the Hudson's Bay Straits are navigable, and other facts bearing on the question at issue. Parties were left at different points along the coast to winter, and make all needed observations. We shall soon know whether it is worth while constructing a railway to Fort Churchill. Dr. Robert Bell, Assistant Director of the Dominion Geological Survey, is sanguine that the produce of the North-west will have a new outlet in this dir-ction. If so, it will be a potent factor in the development of those far inland fertile wildernesses. But this line to Hudson's Bay is as yet in the air. For years to come the North-west must be served by tht Canada Pacific Railway. But how came it that the greater part of the country directly west from Winnipeg to the Rocky Mountains was once supposed to be semi-desert ? Captain Palliser, who was sent with a well-organi::ed expedition by Her Majesty's Government, in 1857, to explore the country between Lake Superior and the Rocky Mountains, found it rainless and condemned it. Superficial observers who visited it subsequently, and looked only at the short russet-colored grass that covered its illimitable, treeless, terribly lonely plains, had no hesitation in confirming his oj)inion. But five or six years ago Mr. John Maccoun. an ac- complished practical botanist, after exploring it lengthways and crossways and thoroughly examining soil, flora, and fauna, gave testimony of ail entirely opposite character. He was de- rided as an enthusiast or worse, but his opinions had probably something to do with determin- ing the new route taken by the Canada Pacific Railway; and in 1881 and 1882 setders, ignor- ing the proved fertility of the " fertile belt," or postponing its claims to a more convenient season, took up land along the railway almost as fast as it was constructed. They found that the soil was actually better for their purposes than the heavy tenacious loam of the Red River valley, just because it was lighter. Population flowed for some four hundred miles west of Winnipeg to the little towns of Regina and Moosegaw. There the masses of drift that constitute the " Coteau " of the Missouri show themselves, and there it was then said the good land ceased. The railway was built in the early part of 1883 four hundred miles farther west, and soon after Mr. Sandford Fleming and myself had sufficient oppor- tunities of examining the nature of the soil. Far from being barren, " it resembles," says Mr. Fleming, " in color and character that of the Carse of Gowrie in Perthshire," notoriously the most pr^. ductive district in Scotland. But why, then, had those vast plains been condemned ? Because there is very little rain in the summer months ; and because observers could not fail to notice that the grass was light, short, dry, and apparently withered. To their eyes it contrasted most unfavorably with the luxuriant green herbage of the well- watered belt along the North Saskatchewan. It did not occur to them that the grass of the plains might be the product of peculiar atmos- pheric conditions, and that what had been food in former days for countless millions of buffaloes, whose favorite resorts these plains had been, would in all probability be good food for domestic cattle. The facts are that spring comes early in these far western districts, and that the grass matures in the beginning of June, and turns into nutritious hay. If burned, there is sufficient moisture in the soil to i)ro- tluce a second growth. We saw at difterent points, towards the end of August, green patches where Mttle prairie fires had run <;ome weeks previously. If there is enough moisture for such a second crop, it seemed clear to us that there must be enough for cereals. The fact is that the roots of wheat penetrate to a great depth in search of moisture or nutriment. The intense cold of winter, instead of being a drawback, acts in the farmer's interest. The deeper the frost goes, the better. As it thaws out gradually in the summer it loosens the sub-soil, and sends up the needed moisture to the roots of the grain. Coal, too, of cretaceous age, being abundant, no one who is at all robust objects to the intense dry cold. Suf- ficient moisture being all but certain, the lack of rain makes harvesting sure, while the purity and dryness of the air and the con- tinual breeziness render the climate most healthful and pleasant. But, notwithstanding these facts, the impression was general that, at any rate from le grand Coteau dti Missouri to the Rocky Mountains, the country was worthless. The company, therefore,determined to try experiments that would be conclusive. Late in the autumn of 1883 men were sent 884 THE CANADA PACIFIC RAILWAY. out with instructions to plow up a few acres at intervals of about twenty miles along the line. This work was done, necessarily, in rough-and-ready fashion. The sod was turned up, and then the teams, put on board the next train, were moved on to another point. The following March seeds of various kinds were sown on the plowed sections and roots planted. No attempt at cultivating, cleaning, or protecting could be made, and yet the result was a magnificent crop on the experi- mental " farms." Every one who knows any- thing of prairie farming will acknowledge that a more rigorous test could not have been tried. The south of the beautiful Bow River is the chosen country of o"r cow-boys, a race — from Texas to the North — free, fearless, and pe- culiar, to whom all the rest of the world are " tenderfeet," and in whose eyes horse-stealing is the unpardonable sin. 'Fhe transport to England of cattle from this district, and ul- timately from the adjoining territories of Montana and Idaho, is certain to supply steady business to the railway; and the transport of coal on a large scale to Manitoba from the vast deposits which are being opened up near Medicine Hat and the head-waters of the Saskatchewan is still more certain. The Bow River, which takes its name from its repeated windings and doublings like an ox-bow, guides the railway into the mountains. The wide valley, inclosed by foot-hills, not very long ago the favorite haunt of the buffalo, is divided into ranches. These and all other industries in southern Alberta converge at Calgarry, an enterprising little town, once a Hudson's Bay fort, on a site of ideal beauty. It fronts the illimitable plains; snow-peaked mountains. Devil's Head preeminent, tower up behind; and two impetuous glacier-fed streams meet in the natural amphitheater that has been scooped out of the surrounding hills to give it ample rodn to spread itself. Forty miles farther up the river, and so much nearer the best hunting-grounds in the moun- tains, two villages of Stonies have gathered round the Methodist Mission of Morley, — a brave and hardy triba of mountaineers who, like their while neighlors, are taking to stock- raising, as they can no longer live by hunting. The railway climbs the valley of the Bow, crossing and recrossing, past Morley, past the mass of rock five thousand feet high called Cascade Mountain, where anthracite coal has been discovered, past the chiseled turrets of Castle Mountain, and into the core of the range, till within six miles of the summit, where it abandons the river and strikes up the bed of one of its tributaries. The railway terminus in September, 1883, being Calgarry, tourists generally stopped there ; but our party determined to push on to the Pacific. Four ranges of mountains in- tervened — the Rockies, the Selkirks,the Gold, and the Cascades. One engineer told us that it was prol)lematical whether we should get through. Another said that we should not. We determined to try, and we now congratulate ourselves that we were the first to cross from one side of the four ranges to the other side, on ' he line on which the railway is constructed. It was a journey to be remembered. I have seen many countries, but I know none where there are such magnificent rock-exjjosures for a hundred miles continuously as up the valley of the Bow, from Calgarry to the sum- mit of the Rockies. The general elevation of the valley is between four and five thousand feet, and the mountains on each side are only from one to six thousand feet higher; consequently, the beauty does not consist in the altitude of the mountains. Beside the Andes or even the Alps they are hardly worth speaking about; but nothing can be finer than the distinct stratification, the variety of form and clearness of outline, the great masses of bare rock standing out as if piled by masons and carved and chiseled by sculptors. Pho- tography alone could bring out their amazing richness in detail. Scenes of gloomy grandeur present themselves at every point for several miles along the summit ; and down the west- ern slope the views at times are even more striking. But our journey down the Kicking Horse should be read in the " England and Canada " of the distinguished engineer with whom I traveled, by those who wish to know more of our experiences. When we crossed the Rockies the hitherto nnconciuered Selkirks rose before us. To un- derstand the position of this range, take a map and look for the springs of the Columbia. This greatest of salmon rivers rises in Canada, and runs north-west so persistently that it appears doomed to fall into the Eraser. But, reaching the neighborhood of Mounts Brown and Hooker, it seems to have had enough of us,, and accordingly, sweeping right round in a " Big Bend," it makes straight for Washington Territory, cutting through all obstacles, the Dalles with the significant Dalle de Mart, and then spreads out into long, broad, calm expanses known as the Upper and Lower Arrow Lakes. \Vithin that great loop which it makes on our soil are inclosed the Selkirks. As they extend only to the Big Bend of the Columbia, our engi- neers had no concern with them when it was supposed that the Canada Pacific Railway was to run farther north ; but when the com- pany decided that they must have as nearly as possible an air-line from Winnipeg west to the ocean, the question of whether a pass. coull imp(| tour] Big the 4 plair backl of tl) alonJ couUl anotll its cc two gates| the Selki^ askec their I Mob^ theSe THE CANADA PACIFIC RAILWAY. 885 1 to push on lour.tains in- ks, the Gold, ■ told us that ; should get should not. congratulate cross from ther side, on nstructed. ■red. I have none where :k-exposures f as up the to the sum- elevation of /e thousand h side are "eet higher; t consist in Beside the ardly worth )e finer than ety of form t masses of by masons )tors. Pho- sir amazing ly grandeur for several n the west- even more le Kicking gland and neer with to know le hitherto To un- take a Columbia. Canada, that it iscr. But, Its Brown ugh of us,, und in a ishington icles, the Mart, and expanses w Lakes. s on our y extend our engi- n it was. Railway he com- nearly eg west r a pass. "■e 'y could be found across the Selkirks became important. If no pass could be found, a ilc- tour must be made away to the North by the Big Bend. Passes were known to exist through the other three ranges that rise between the plains and the Pacific. The Rockies proper, the backbone of this continent, are cloven north of the boundary line by half a dozen rivers, along the valley of any one of which a railway could be carried with ease to a summit where another stream is generally found beginning its course down the western slope. Then, the two ranges nearest the Pacific have also open gates wide enough for a railway. But between the Gold Mountains and the Rockies rose the Selkirks, apparently without a break. When asked about a pa.ss here, the Indians shook their heads ; so did the engineers, Mr. Walter Moberly excepted. He knew something about the Selkirks ; but though he pointed out the v/ay , to another fell the honor of solving the problem. Moberly had discovered a first-rate pass in 1865 through the Gold Mountains, greatly to the satisfaction of himself and all British Columbia. Gold had been found by enterpris- ing prospectors at the Big Bend, and the pro- vincial government, anxious to have a trail cut from the navigable waters in the heart of the colony to the new Eldorado, sent Moberly, then assistant jurveyor-general, to explore. One day, not far from Shuswap Lake, among tangled mountains choked with dense under- brush and fallen timber, valleys radiating to every point of the compass, but leading no- where, he saw an eagle flying to the east up one of the valleys. Accepting the omen, he followed and discovered the pass which he calledafter the eagle, though it mightmore fitly be called by his own name. Previous to this the Gold range had been supposed to be "an un- broken and impassable wall of mountains," but, thanks to Moberly, a wagon-road could now be made from the settled part of the province to the Columbia, to be followed — he was con- vinced — by a railway that would in due time extend to the fertile plains of the North-west. If a pass could only be found across the Sel- kirks, he felt that his work would be completed. He sent one and then another of his statit'to ex- plore, but their reports were discouraging. His Indians knew nothing, except thai iliey could not take their canoes that way. When they wished to get to the other side of the range, they descended the Columbia, and then crossed over to its head-waters by the Kootenay River. To them time was no object. Indians will go a hundred miles in a canoe, or ride across a prairie for the same distance, rather than cut through a mile of brush. In a forest they will walk for a hundred yards round a fallen tree, and others will continue for years to follow the trail, rather than be at the trouble of cutting through the obstruction. Moberly did not despair. He saw a fracture in the range, almost corresponding to the fracture of the Eagle Pass in the Gold range. Crossing the Columbia, though it was late in the season, and entering the mouth of this fracture, he forced his way up the banks of a stream called the Ille-Cille-Waet, chocolate- colored from the grains of slate it holds in solution. Twenty or thirty miles from its mouth the Ille-Cille-Waet forked. Trying the north fork, it led him into the slate range, intersected by innumerable veins of promising- looking quartz that prospectors have yet to test, but to nothing like a pass. His Indians then struck. He used every means to induce them to go with him up the east fork, but in vain. The snow had begun to fall on the mountains, and they said that they would be caught and would never get out again. Re- luctantly Moberly turned back, and as the colony could afibrd no more explorations, the Big Bend diggings not turning out as had been anticipated, he had to content himself with putting on record that the easterly fork of the Ille-Cille-Waet should be examined before a route for a transcontinental railway was finally determined on. Thus it happened that up to 1881 no man had crossed the virgin range. It was covered with heavy timber almost up to the snow-line. Without let or hindrance herds of noble car- ibou trotted along ancestral trails to their feeding-grounds or to water. Bears — black, brown, cinnamon, and grizzly — foundin shel- tered valleys exhaustless supplies of the berries on which they grow fat. From the opposite flanks of the range, east and west, short swollen streams rush down to join the Columbia, their sands often indicating gold ; while on the south, where the drainage flows into the Kootenay Lake and River, which also feed the Columbia, rich mines of argentiferous galena are now being worked. But no one knew of a pass. In February, 1881, the Syndicate appointed Major A. B. Rogers, C. E., engineer of the Mountain Division of the Canada Pacific Rail- way. He seemed about as unlikely a man for the work of ascertaining whether the Selkirks problem was soluble as could have been chosen. He knew Httle or nothing of moun- tains; his previous experiences had been in States where there is no counterpart to the characteristic scenery and difliculties of Brit- ish Columbia. But Major Rogers, like a true descendant of the Pilgrim or Puritan fathers, is a man who goes to the particular wilder- ness to which he may be appointed, asking no questions. Naturally intense, self-reliant, 886 THE CANADA PACIFIC RAILWAY. and scornful of appearances, the opposite schooling of an old-fashioned Down-Kast training, the rough experiences of engineer and frontier life have made him so downright that he is apt to he appalling to ordinary mortals, I'hougii between tifty and sixty years of age, hair and beard now white, no youngster in his ])arty will plunge into the grimmest mountain ranges with as little thought of commissariat or as comjjlete a contempt of danger, and no Indian will encounter fa- tigue or famine as stoically. Hard as nails himself, he exjjects others who take service with him to endure hardness; and should there be shirking, he is ajit to show his worst side rather than be guilty of what he has scorned as hypocrisy in others. He fitted out at Kam- loops for his first attempt on the Selkirks. The wonder is that he did not start with ritle on shoulder and a j)iece of i)ork in his pocket, two or three Indians pcrha])S carrying blank- ets and a few fixings; for at that time he thought that a gun ought to feed a party. He does not think so now. Man can have but one paradise at a time. If he goes into the mountains to hunt, he can do that ; if to prospect, he can do that, with a slightly dif- ferent outfit ; if to discover a pass or to get through to a given point by a given date, he may or may not succeed, — but it is (juite cer- tain that he cannot combine the three char- acters, or even two, on the one expedition. A bear or caribou may lead you miles from your course ; and if you shoot him, your In- dians have a capital excuse for delay, while they regard the meat as simply so much "kitchin" to their stock of pork and bacon. irhe Major and his nephew, Mr. Albert Rogers, hiring at Kamloops ten Shuswap In- dians from the Roman Catholic Mission to carry their jjacks, started in April to force their way to the east. They succeeded in reaching the core of the Selkirk range, by following the east fork of the Ille-Cille-Waet ; but, like Moberly on the north fork, they got only to a cul lie sac, and their packs having become ominously light, they — heavy with the con- sciousness of failure — came to the conclu- sion that retreat was inevitable. Before retracing their steps, however, they climbed the divide to see if any break could be detected in the range. Yes ; a valley appeared in the direction of an unexplored little affluent of the Ille-Cille-Waet, and, apparently connected with it, a depression extending to the east. Everywhere else, all around to the horizon, nothing but "snow-clad desolation." The result of five or six weeks' endurance of almost intolerable misery was this gleam of hope. Our journey enabled us to understand what they must have suffered. The underbrush is of the densest, owing to the ceaseless rain Black flies or mosijuitoes do their part un weariedly. What with fallen timber of enor mous size, i)recipices, prickly thorns, beave dams, marshes full of fetid water to be wade< through, alder swamps, lakelets surrounde( by blufts so steep that it would almost puzzl a chamois to get over or around them, we ha( all we wanted of the lUe-Cille-Waet and tht Kagle Pass. But they had started too earl; in the season. The snow was not only deep but it was melting and rotting under sprinj suns and rains, and therefore would not bea their weight. Down they sank at every step and often intc the worst kind of pitfalls. A first their loads were so heavy that they ha< to leave part behind, and then, after campin; early, return wearily on their tracks for th second load. The Indians would have de serted them a dozen times over, but the Majo had arranged with the Mission that if the returned without a certificate they were to gt a whipping instead of good pay. Nothing bu pluck kept them pegging away ; but in spit of all they failed that year. The following Ma the Major made his attack from the other sid of the range, and again he was unsuccessfu Swollen torrents and scarcity of supplit forced him back to his base, at the poir where the Kicking Horse River joins th Columbia. On this occasion, had it not bee for the discovery of a canoe, he and his part would have starved. Sorely against their wi he had put them on half rations, but he glac dened their hearts one morning by announcin that it was his birthday, and producing a litt! sugar to sweeten their tea. Nothing daunted, he started again th same summer, in the month of July, from th same base, and succeeded. Proceeding u the valley of tlni Beaver, a large stream thi enters the Columbia through an open canoi and then following the course of one of i tributaries a])propriately called Bear Creel he at length found the long-sought-for pas He saw the mountain from the summit c which the year before he and his nephew ha noticed the depression extending to the eas Not content while anything remained undon he made for the Ille-Cille-Waet, and followir it down to the north fork, ascended it to to ascertain if its head-waters would conne with a tributary of the Beaver, and so perha afford something better ; but nothing bett< or rather nothing at all, was found. The Si kirks have only one pass, but it is better th; the western slope of the main chain by t Kicking Horse. And an American has h the honor of finding that one on behalf Canada ! All honor to him I Compared with our experiences down t iO JUt! :an( Dftl The over i)Ott endi Bea\ then dens of th Our fit-lo( down Majo T]ie>- and h been ] Jiarty beside seen a ziy. I confid( are sti] to do 1 the sui such a the traj high bJ black bj grapes, we colli ing. tI cluster^ ered th] dar thai feet, if garden] surely open m| Major party pointedl Summi( posiie el our ye\J cheer ii| moss-gi the storl of morij not be hotel ! 'j AmericJ glaciers] above t| having i giving THE CANADA PAC/F/C JiAIl.lVAY. 887 s rain irt un I' enor heave wadec ounde< t puzzl we hat and th' )o earl; ly deep r sprini not bea ery step falls. A they hat campin; s for th have dt ;he Majo It if the- ere to gt )thing bu Lit in spit wing Ma other sid successfu f suppli*. the poir ■ joins th it not bee d his part St their wi ut he glai mnouncin cing a litt again tt .y, from th ceeding u stream th: jpen canoi (f one of i Bear Creel ;ht-for pas summit t nephew ha r to the eas ined undon ntl foUowir nded it to ould conne d so perha iihing bett( lid. The St is better th; chain by t ican has h on behalf :es down t kicking Horse, the ascent of the eastern sloi)e )f the Sclkirks was remarkably easy. The alley of the Beaver contracts near its mouth, io it is no wonder that observers from the jutside formed an incorrect idea of its impor- ;ance. The llle-C'ilie-Waet on the other sitle Df the range ends its course in tlie same way. The two streams by which the Sclkirks are overcome are thus something like two long bottles with their narrow necks facing antl ending in the Col il)ia. The trail uj) the Beaver led througli lorests of great cellars, and then of noble spruce, hemlot k, antl j)ine, so dense that il was impossible to get any views of the range before reaching the Rogers Pass. Our first evening was spent with a ])leasant, fit-looking lot of fellows, who were working down from the summit under the leadership of Major Critchelow, a West Point graduate. They did all they could for us, sharing tents and blankets, as well as porridge, as if we had been life-long comrades. Major Critchelow's party hatl been at work for three months, and, besides caribou and other large game, had seen about fifty bears, chiefly black and griz- zly. I can, with a reasonable measure of confidence, assure sportsmen that the bears are still there, for the engineers were too busy to do much hunting. We saw on our ride to the summit next morning why the jilace was such a favorite bear center. On both sides of the trail grew an extraordinary i)rofusion of high bushes laden with delicious wild fruits, blackberries and gooseberries as large as small grapes, and half a dozen other varieties, that we could i)ick by handfuls without dismount- ing. The rowan-tree droojjed its rich red clusters over the bushes, and high above tow- ered the magnificent forest primeval, one ce- dar that we passed having a diameter of nine feet. It was like riding through a deserted garden. Emerging from the forest, after a lei- surely three hours' ride, into a saucer-shajied open meadow covered with tall thick grass, Major Rogers, who had kindly joined our party at the mouth of the Kicking Horse, ])ointed to a little stream, saying, " That is Summit Creek, and there," pointing totheop- jiosile end of the meadow, " is the summit where our yew stake is planted." We gave a hearty cheer in his honor, and taking our seats on a moss-grown natural rockery, heard him recount the story of the discovery of the pass. A scene of more mingled grandeur and beauty could not be desired. " Such a spot for a summer hotel ! " would, I think, be the first cry of an American tourist. Snow-covered mountains, glaciers accumulating in lofty comb, and high above the snow, the looser shales of the peaks having weathered off, fantastic columns of rock giving to each mountain form an individual- ity that stam|)sit permanently on the memory; while we in the sunny valley at their feet tlineil on wiltl fruit, and our horses rolled contentedly among the deep succulent grasses ! Syntlicate, thetlistinctive peak among the mountains at the summit, is a veritable CanatlianMatterht)rn,bul it is not seen till you begin the western descent. The Selkirks tlid ntu let us off so easily as we hatl hoped from our experience of the as- cent. Where the trail ended the Major gave us his nephew as a guide antl half a dozen atii- letic, obliging young men to carry our i)acks to the second crtjssing of the Columbia. I shall never attempt to jjioneer through a wil- tlerness again, much less to carry a pack ; and (if all wiltlcrnesses, commend me to those t)f British Columbia as the best possible .samples to test wind and limb. It would simply weary readers to go into details of struggling through acres ot tlensest untlerbrush where you cannot see a yard ahead, wailing through swamjjs antl beaver dams, getting scratched from eyes to ankles with jmckly thorns, scaling ])recipices, falling over moss-coveretl rocks into pitfalls, your ])acks almost strangling you, losing the rest of the j^arty while you halt to feel all over whether any bones are broken, and then ex- periencing in your inmost soul the unutterable loneliness of savage mountains. Those who have not tried would not understand. It ttjok us five days to make seventeen miles, and we did our best. Right glad were we to see the Columbia again, a river now twelve hundred feet wide, full from bank to bank, sweeping ])ast this time to the south with a current of six or seven miles an hour. We struck it nearly opposite the Big Eddy, and one or two tents and a group of Indians among the aspens on the bank a little farther down comforted us with the thought that we could at any rate get what man considers the one thing neetl- ful in the wilderness — a supply of food. It might have an evil smell, but it would be food ; and starvation, at any rate, was now out of the question. Back a little from the noble river rose the (iold Mountains, cloven almost to the feet by the P2agle Pass. The Indians came across in their canoes and ferried us over; and we spent the night on the river bank, well to windward of Camp Siwash. Under a half-moon shining in a blue, cloudless sky, a great glacier on our right re- flected a ghostly light, and every peak came out clearly defined in the pure atmosphere. The rush of the great river and the muffled roar of the distant falls of the Ille-Cille-Waet alone broke the perfect stillness. Four or five camp-fires seen through the trees, with dusky figures silently flitting about, gave life to the scene. Reclining on spruce boughs, softer and more fragrant than beds of down, we felt the 8H( 888 THE CANADA PACIFIC RAILWAY. nn( sch tra' an( tha mo yej yo Kn of of ti« hit wi be ra' as loi Tl or x\\ et th H In til P' fe tl- 111 tc ai h y d ri t( P d c charm of frontier or backwoods life. Two or three hours after, awakened by rain first pat- tering on tent and leaves and then pouring down in earnest, the charm was forgotten. One had left his boots outside, another had hung his clothes near the camp-fire, and we knew that the men were lying on the ground, rolled in their blankets, and that to-morrow every pack would be fifty per cent, heavier to carry. We were still in the rainy region. P2ve night but one since leaving the summit oft Selkirks there had been rain with thunder anc. lightning; and yet, in spite of the discomfort, not a man showed a sign of discontent. Syb- arites still growl over their crumpled rose- leaves, but the race is not deteriorating. Before leaving Winnipeg Mr. T'leming had telegraphed to Hudson's Hay officials in Hrit- ish Columbia to send a party from Kamloops to meet us with provisions at some point on the Columbia near the mouth of the F'.agle Pass. When we saw the Indians every one was sure that the Kamloops party had reached the rendezvous before us. Our disappointment was brief, for the same evening half a dozen men were heard hallooing and struggling through the pass. This was our eagerly ex- jjected party, and great and natural was the delight at making such wonderfully close con- nections in a trackless wilderness ; but our countenances fell when, asking for the provi- sions, the leader simply handed us a large sheet of foolscaj) on which was inscribed in fine legible hand a list of supplies cached at a distance of some days' journey ! They had been able to carry barely enough for them- selves, and had we not wisely husbanded our pork and flour, they and we might have starved. Next morning we started up the Eagle Pass, with our sheet of foolscap and the Kam- loops men. They brought us good news at any rate. In three or four days we should get to horses and supplies, and in a day or two thereafter to a wagon-road that had been commenced from Lake Shuswap by the com- pany that is working the silver-bearing galena mines on the Kootenay. It turned out as they said. We found the horses, and a wealth of good things ; cups and saucers of crockery were included, to our infinite amusement. The horses were of little use except to carry the packs, for better speed can be made walk- ing than riding, and walking is safer and mucn more pleasant — if there can be pleasure on a trail along the Eagle River. We reached the wagon-road, Mr. G. V. Wright, in the center of a canvas town, superintending its construction, and ready to do anything for us. We sat luxuriously stretching our legs in the spring wagon in which he sent us on the beautiful star-shaped Lake .Shusw.Tp — last of a series of lakes strung like beads on the river that drains the western slope of the Eagle Pass. There the Hon. Mr. Mara, having heard of our a|)proa(h, had kindly kept the steamer JWHcss waiting for us. The dangers and the toils of our journey were over. With regard to the s( enery in the Selkirk and Cold Mountains little need be .said. Rain or snow falls almost unceasingly. The clouds from the Pacific shed some of their contents on Vancouver Island and the Cascades; then, rising high above these coast mountains, they float easterly over a wide intervening region, and empty their buckets most bounti- fully on the (Jold range. A moss carpet sev- eral inches thick covers the ground, the rocks, the fallen timber, in every direction — mosses extjuisitely delicate, as thickly and uniformly sown as if green showers had fallen silently from the heavens to replace the deep white snow of winter. From the branches of the trees hang mossy streamers. Softer than vel- vet is the coating of every bank. Dense un- derbrush and ferns from four to six or seven feet high fill the narrow valleys, save where the prickly devil's-club and enormous skunk cabbage dispute the ground with the ferns. I'lmerging from the dark-blue waters of Lake Shuswap and sailing the South Thompson, the air, the soft outlines of the hills, the park- like scenery recalling " the upper portions of the Arno and the Tiber," we come upon the intervening region of elevated broken plateau that extentls from the Gold range west to the Cascades. Its physical character is the exact opposite of the humid mountains left behind. Low rounded, russet-colored hills, and benches covered with bunch-grass, or, where that has been too greedily cropped, with sage and prickly pear, take the place of lofty, rugged peaks and valleys choked with heavy timber. This intervening region that extends to the Cascades has everywhere a dry, dusty, Cali- fornia look, except where some little creek has been made to do duty in the way of irriga- tion. Then we have a garden plot, a field, or a ranch converted into a carpet or ribbon of freshest green contrasting beautifully with the surrounding gray or russet. These bits of green are like oases in the desert. They yield ; abundantly every variety of fruit or grain. { Tomatoes, water- and musk- melons, and ; grapes ripen in the open air. Wheat, as in the j most favored spots of Oregon and Washington \ Territory, yields from forty to seventy bushels \ to the acre. At Lytton the Eraser comes down from its long circuit round the far north country, through gorges inclosed by snow- crested mountains, to receive the tribute of the united Thompson. The clear blueThomp THE CANADA PACIFIC RAILWAY. 889 iwap — last of Is on the river of the Eagle Mara, having ndly kept the 'The dangers re over, in the Selkirk be said. Rain yr. The clouds their contents he Cascades ; )ast mountains, le intervening ;s most bounti- I OSS carpet sev- und, the rocks, ction — mosses and uniformly I fallen silently the deep white • ranches of the Softer than vel- ik. Dense un- to six or seven ;ys, save where normous skunk with the ferns, waters of Lake uth Thompson, ; hills, the park- ; iper portions of ; come upon the broken plateau inge west to the :ter is the exact ains left behind, ills, and benches where that has with sage and ; of lofty, rugged h heavy timber, extends to the dry, dusty, Cali- e little creek has e way of irriga- i plot', a field, or pet or ribbon of lutifuUy with the These bits of sert. They yield j fruit or grain. \ sk- melons, and ; Wheat, as in the and Washington ) seventy bushels ; Fraser comes nd the far north dosed by snow- the tribute of ear blue Thomp- son flows into the turbid Fraser, and the swollen torrent, deep, narrow, swirling, eddy- ing, resistless, cuts its way through the granite of the Cascades to the sea. In this mountain- ous region, again, the farmer is no longer de- pendent on irrigation, and wherever there is soil anything can be raised. The Lower Fra- ser or New Westminster district is not ov\y the most valuable in Hritish Columbia, agri- culturally, but the river is full of salmon and sturgeon, the country abounds with game, and the timber along the coast would furnish masts for all the ailmirals in the world. But what will a railway get to do in this great sea of mountains ? P'or along those five hun