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Lorsc^ua la document ast trap grand pour Atra raproduit an un saul ciichA, II ast film* A partir da I'angia supirisur gaucha, da gaucha A droita, at da haut an bas, an pranant la nombra d'imagas nAcaasaira. Las diagrammaa auivanta lliuatrant la mAthoda. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 8 \> Wolfe's Cove, on the St. Lawrence. ffv H.R.H, Pn'ticess Lotn'st, i 'i Pag* 32. ROUND THE GLOBE THROUGH GREATER BRITAIN EDITED BY W. C. PROCTER WITH EIGHTY ILLUSTRATIONS LONDON Wm. ISBISTER, Limited 56, LUDGATE HILL « 32. DEC 1 5 1972 ?6? > CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION PAOB II WESTWARD TO NIAGARA. By the Bishop of Rochester. CHAPTER I. THE ST. LAWRENCE AND QUEBEC II. MONTREAL AND OTTAWA . . . . III. TORONTO IV. THE HORSE-SHOE FALL . , , , V. THE AMERICAN FALL . . . . , 19 38 43 S3 OUR RAILWAY TO THE PACIFTC. By the Marquis of Lorne. I. A DARING PROJECT II. DAUNTING DI' "'ICULTIES . ; III. THE VICTORY .... IV. F]^0M the PACIFIC TO WINNIPEG V. WINNIPEG TO MONTREAL . 65 73 83 94 104 CONTENTS. IN THE FIJI ISLES. By C. F. Gordon Gumming. CHArrsK I. SCENERY AND NATURAL PRODUCTS . II. INDUSTRIES AND CUSTOMS . rAOB 119 NEW ZEALAND. I. NATURE OF THE COUNTRY ... . . . .145 II. THE HOT LAKES. By GEORGE MeRIVALE . . •154 III. THE W]i£STSRN SOUNDS ^ BY l6y IV. ,y „ ] Professor H. A. Strong. 176 AUSTRALIA. I. GENERAL DESCRIPTION II. WATER system AND CLIMATE III. NATURAL HISTORY. I . IT. NATURAL HISTORY. 2 . 1«S 192 205 INDIA AND CEYLON. I. POSITION AND EXTENT . » . . . . 215 II. PHYSICAL FEATURES . . . . . . .221 III. THE GANGES AND INDUS . . . . . 226 IV. CLIMATE AND PEOPLE . . . . 232 V. CHRISTIANITY IN BENARES | BY . . . . . 239 VI. „ M ; Dr. M. A. Sherrino . 248 THE HILL FORTS OF THE DECCAN. By the Rev. Francis Gell, M.A. Vll. I. A SAVAGE patriot 257 VIII. 2. TORNA 265 IX. 3. RAJGHUR AND OTHERS . * . . , . 27I X. 4. HOW THEY HAVE BEEN TAKEN . . . .284 CONTENTS. 7 CHAPTER '^°" xi. a day at cape comorin. by . . . Mrs. Murray Mitchell. 292 THE ISLE OF SPICY BREEZES. * By H. W. Lucy. xii. i. colombo 30* XIII. 2. KANDY J'tS MAURITIUS. By Lady Barker. i. first impressions . . . . . . . 333 ii. climate 3*9 iii. local characteristics 33$ SOUTH AFRICA. I. GENERAL DESCRIPTION 341 II. CLIMATE AND CUSTOMS 352 III. NATURAL PRODUCTS 359 HOMEWARD BY GIBRALTAR. gibraltar . - 369 By Flora L. Shaw. '"i-R*.*^ iP*«lfc*M'Miili! ii*ll!'*i ' LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. WESTWARD TO NIAGARA. WOLFE'S COVE ON THE ST. LAWRENCE. IHE ST. LAWRENCE IN WINTER . QUEBEC FROM THE CITADEL . INTERIOR OF THE CITADEL, QUEBEC CITADEL DITCH, AND RAMPARTS, QUEBEC THE ST. LAWRENCE FROM THE GOVERNOR- QUARTERS ROUGH LOGS FROM THE FOREST A lumberer's LOG CABIN TORONTO university . THE RAPIDS ABOVE THE FALL THE AMERICAN AND HORSE-SHOE FALLS ROCK OF AGES AND WHIRLWIND BRIDGE GENERALS PAGE 2 21 23 25 «7 29 34 36 41 49 SI 55 OUR RAILWAY TO THE PACIFIC. VIEW FROM VANCOUVER ISLAND, WITH MOUNT BAKER IN THE DISTANCE .' . 67 VIEW FROM THE GOVERNOR'S HOUSE, VANCOUVER ISLAND J I MOUNT SELWVN, AT THE PEACE RIVER PASS . . 79 AT CANMORE 90 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. '■ PAGE ON THE FRASER RIVER 9 1 MOUNT STEPHEN 95 BRANDON lOI THE LAKE OF THE WOODS IO9 JUNCTION OF THE GATINEAU AND OTTAWA , . .US IN THE FIJI ISLES. LEVUKA THE REWA IN VITI LEVU SUVA IN VITI LEVU SPECIMENS OF FIJIAN P017ERY CLUBS, SPEARS, AND PILLOWS CARVED WOODEN BOWLS FOR OIL . 121 . 125 . 129 132, 138, 139 • 13s . 141 NEW ZEALAND. AUCKLAND FROM THE SUMMIT OF MOUNT EDEN THE CANTERBURY PLAINS, WITH CHRISTCHURCH ONE OF THE HOT LAKES .... WET JACKET ARM, AND DUSKY SOUND . MILFORD SOUND FROM HARRISON'S COVE . 173 177 AUSTRALIA. THE HILLS RAILWAY . . . . . . . 188 WATERFALL IN THE BLACK SPUR 199 A VICTORIAN FOREST 20I A KANGAROO HUNT 207 THE DUCK-BILLED PLATYPUS 2O9 THE ADELAIDE LIGHTHOUSE 212 INDIA. THE GHAUTS, NEAR KHANDALA GANGES BOATS CUTTING THE INDIGO BEATING THE INDIGO PRESSING THE INDIGO A BRAHMIN . A CALCUTTA BABOO A BRAHMIN PUNDIT . 219 225, 253 . 230 . 231 . 231 . 236 . 237 • 237 10 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, PAOB RICE POUNDING ^S^ DANISH LUTHERAN CHURCH, SERAMPORE . . . 24O THE GANGES AT BENARES 245 WINDOW IN BENARES 247 .VISHNU • 249 APPROACH TO BALA KILA (LOWER PART) . 260 APPROACH TO BALA KILA (UPPER PART) . . . 261 WATER-CARRIER 27O GREAT GATE, RAJGHUR «73 POORUNDHUR 281 HORSE-KEEPERS 2S3 IN TRAVANCORE , . .29$ BUTTER-MAKING 3^4 CEYLON. COLOMBO 309 BARBER 315 PALM-TREES 3'7 TURBAN-TIER 3^0 MAURITIUS. LA CASCADE, BEAU BASSIN . ... . .33' SOUTH AFRICA. CAPE TOWN 343 TREKKING 347 GROUP OF ZULUS ........ 349 ZULU DWELLINGS 351 ZULU AND CLUB 3S8 ZULU DANCE . 361 GIBRALTAR. GIBRALTAR . 373 BAY OF GIBRALTAR 375 THE SIGNAL STATION 377 INTRODUCTION. jT was a happy thought to give the title of "Greater Britain" to the vast but scattered reahns which secure to the English language and literature a domain " on which the sun never sets." Never in the history of the world has there been seen so wonder- ful an expansion of one race, speaking one language, as that which is marked by this name. The purpose of the present volume, however, is not to give a full and elaborate account of the British colonies and dependencies. It is intended merely to present to those who have not much time for read- ing, and especially to the young, a few vivid glimpses of the English-speaking world beyond the seas. Greater Britain has been created partly by coloni- zation, and partly by conquest without colonization. North America and Australia form the chief instances of the former method, and Hindostan of the latter. It INTRODUCTION. '■ ri'l ;'!; i The separation of the United States from the mother country ought not to be regarded as severing the great republic from Greater Britain. Our American brethren speak the mother tongue ; the historic traditions of seventeen centuries are common to them and to us; their constitution is founded on English experience and English ideas. An American visiting England has a special interest in it as the home of his forefathers ; and an Englishman going to America feels as though he were visiting his married children. In fact, in regard to almost all moral, as distinguished from political bonds of unity, the United States belong much more really to Greater Britain than does Hindostan or Burmah. Nevertheless, as these latter countries are under the imperial government, we must necessarily regard them as provinces of the empire, and in that sense parts of Greater Britain. But it is with the English offshoots of the mother country that we are chiefly concerned here. It is said that when the English first came from Denmark to establish themselves in Britain, three small ships held them all. They now number about a hundred millions ; they fill two continents, North America and Australia, besides a large number of islands of the sea. Of course they have been joined by a considerable population belonging to other A INTRODUCTION, 1 3 w 'f\ races — German and French and Norse. But this i has not substantially affected the English character ^ of Greater Britain. For with some few exceptions, the laws are administered in English, the debates of ^ legislatures are in English, the public schools are % taught in English, and the whole development of each community proceeds from roots in English history. Many causes have contributed to this wonderful expansion of Britain, but they have all been sub- ordinate to the restlessness and adventurous energy of the race. Religious persecution was one of the chief secondary causes. This drove out the Puritans, \ in the days of the Stuart kings, to form a New England on the distant Atlantic shore. More recently the rapid increase of population has made it impos- sible to find occupation for all who are bom in our comparatively small island. Nearly all the avail- able land has been occupied, and spirited men who desired to farm their own land have been obliged to seek the opportunity of doing so in some wild and unsettled country. In the north of Scotland changes in the land system have caused a considerable shift- ing of population. Many of the people have obtained employment in manufacturing or commercial towns. But perhaps a still greater number have found homes across the sea. In Ireland a variety of causes that H INTRODUCTION, II need not be here discussed, have created an almost constant stream of emigration during the last fifty years. The population has been reduced by nearly one-half. About four millions have left their native land to begin life again, for the most part in the United States, but to some extent also in the British colonies. Changes also in the course of trade in pro- duce have induced many landowners to lay down their land in grass, because grazing appeared to be the most profitable way of using it. And this, too, has helped to swell the exodus of families from our rural districts. Nor must we altogether omit from the causes of emigration, the system of transportation for crime which prevailed during the earlier part of this century. It is impossible to regret that this system is now abandoned. It could not be expected that any British colony would permanently submit to have our criminal population transferred to its shores. At the same time it cannot be denied that the system had many advantages. Many prosperous and virtuous families at the antipodes have sprung from criminals who, when they found a new world opened to them, reformed their lives and entered upon a career of honest industry. At the present day there are several societies maintained for the purpose of assisting those who INTRODUCTION. 15 have no prospect in this country to find a new home in the colonies. But their operation is attended with many difficulties. If they send out the weakly, or the improvident, or the idle, who fail at home through their own defects, such people are not very likely to succeed elsewhere. And indeed both the United States and the British colonies are beginning to refuse to receive them. On the other hand, if we send out the strong and intelligent and enterprising, it may be said that we are robbing our own country of the best elements in its population. On the whole, it seems best not to interfere too much with individual choice or the operation of natural causes. Let information as to the opportunities afforded in the Eiitish dependencies be extended as widely as possible amongst the people. Thus young men who are forming their plans for life will be able to judge for themselves how far their prospects are likely to be improved by emigration. With all these changes the adventurous energy of our race seems as strong as ever. Our young people find no more attractive reading than bright pictures of travel, and a kind of personal or family interest draws them to think of lands where friends have gone before, it is hoped that the glimpses of Greater Britain here following may prove both attractive and useful to such readers. They are not dry disquisi- x6 INTRODUCTION. tions, but consist for the most part of lively and copiously illustrated sketches by well-known travellers, who have kindly permitted us to embody their experiences in this volume. Out of a number of detached journeys we frame as nearly as possible a continuous voyage round the world, nearly always amongst English-speaking people. This plan enables us to retain the vividness of personal narrative, while at the same time we have the variety afforded by many distinct observers. Starting from the mother country we cross the Atlantic ; we follow the Canadian line across North America, not without occasional glances at the United States ; we sail over the Pacific Ocean, calling at Fiji, and then proceed by New Zealand, Australia, India, the Cape, and Gibraltar, back again to our own land. In conclusion we have to express our thanks to the writers whose names are given in the table of contents, and to Mr. John Murray for permission to make some interesting extracts from the late Dr. Livingstone's travels pub- lished by him. W. C. Procter. (T WESTWARD TO NIAGARA. ', I WESTWARD TO NIAGARA. CHAPTEE I. THE ST. LAWRENCE AND QUEBEC. IVEN three good things, five weeks of holi- day, a wholesome liking for salt water, and fifty pounds ; can you do better with them than go to Niagara ? See what you will get by it. First, you will be boarded and lodged in a ship of a steam fleet, beaten by none in the Atlantic for safety, comfort, discipline, and cheapness. I mean Allan's Canadian line. Yo'i will have at least twenty days of the most pure and invigorating air that human lungs can inhale ; and quite sufficient to set up even a jaded Londoner for a fortnight of rather sharp travelling. You will have a varied, amusing, and by no means unprofitable oppor- tunity of studying human nature among numerous tIM 20 WFSTWAI^D TO NIAGARA, fellow-passengers of all countries, ages, and condi- tions. You will see a hundred or so of icebergs, which you certainly would not see either at Brighton or Scarborough. You will ascend the St. Lawrence, which, all things considered, is quite one of the most stately and interesting rivers in the world. You will pass through a district of Canada, which will bring you into contact with its oldest civilisation, and its most recent industries, its noblest public buildings, and the grandest memories of its early time. You may shoot rapids, gaze on the outskirts of the primeval forest, see native Indians, travel on railways in gilded saloons, which at night become bedrooms, or if going by water, in large steamers, some of which may accurately be described as floating palaces. Everywhere you will hear your native tongue spoken, you will see your native flag floating in the breeze, you will be surprised, let us hope gratified, by a hearty loyalty, you will see a young Empire in all the flush and enthusiasm of increasing greatness governing itself with decision, and developing its resources with such an amazing rapidity, that, as was " once said quaintly of the rush of a Canadian spring, if you would only put your head to the ground, you would hear the grass grow. Last, but not least, you will see what all your life afterwards you will be glad to have seen, and what with every returning summer you will long once more to visit, if but for one short afternoon. Nature's THE ST. LAWRENCE. 21 most peerless, most indescribable, most unapproach- able, most sublime marvel, Niagara Falls. My first impressions of the St. Lawrence, so much more beautiful than I had ever expected it to be. THE ST. LAWEENCE IN WINTEE. quite convince me that this is the right way of entering North America, and not the less so because the voyage from land to land is two days shorter than to New York. But it was hard to believe, as we steamed through the bright water, and looked I • If 22 WESTWARD TO NIAGARA. round on the mountains and woods and sky in all their summer beauty, that in a few months' time winter would be come, and all be a mass of ice. From Christmas to May the river at Quebec is so thoroughly frozen over as to be a common thorough- fare for the traffic from shore to shore; and the entire stoppage of the navigation for more than one- third of the year must be a serious bar to the progress of the country. We were two days in Quebec, in that time quite exhausting the sights of that rather sombre city, and coming to the conclusion about it that one comes to about so many other places, that it is better to look at than live in. Yet for the grandeur of its site and the exquisiteness as well as extent of the views from it, it has but few rivals. The views from the Esplanade, looking down the river towards the island oi Orleans, quite reminded me of the Bosphorus ; but the noblest prospect is from the Citadel. Northward, over the city and the St. Charles River, you look away towards far-off azure hills, clothed with primeval forest, and in all variety of rolling or peaked outline — one in particular standing all by itself, just like Mount Tabor. Then down the river, with its ships and steamers, and smaller craft of all kinds, and the white houses on the island of Orleans, and on the far horizon, blue with their indescribable blue, a grand mountain range, the like of which we should never see in Central Canada, nor, indeed, till we returned there again. Southward, right away into the States. QUEBEC FROM THE CITADEL. I* ■; H WESTWARD TO NIAGARA, \i\ !h towards Portland in Maine, is a great expanse of rich and cultivated country, the sky-line here again bounded by a range of hills. To the south-west the St. La^vrence stretches away towards Montreal, and, under a brilliant sun and with a sky just clouded enough for lights and shadows, the effect was superb. The interior of the city is dirty and commonplace ; there are but few fine buildings, and the place has an air of decay. The permanent removal of the Legis- lature to Ottawa, and the total withdrawal of the English garrison, was a double blow from which it is hard to recover. The streets are steep, rough, and uneven. The side walks are of wood, which is cheaper than flag, and less liable to injury from the breaking up of the frost, though more dangerous in case of fire. The tin on the spires of the churches and on the house-roofs makes them safer from sparks and the snow more readily falls off ; while in the sparkling atmosphere of Canada, whether in summer or winter, the effect is bright and picturesque. There are two romantic waterfalls near Quebec, both of which we visited. That of Montmorency is about eight miles from the city ; and our pleasant drive to it gave us a good opportunity of observing the old-fashioned and rather slovenly cultivation of the soil in this part of Canada — a cultivation, how- ever, peculiar to the French — as well as of admiring the pretty wooden houses, each with its portico and verandah, in the village we passed through. We did not observe any large timber, and the trees were mainly s o o ^ p g$ WESTWARD TO NIAGARA. ■f-: ash, spruce, larch, maple, and sycamore. The native flora of Canada is poor ; and labour is so expensive that few care much for flower gardens. As we approached Montmorency, we crossed the river, with deep brown pools full of trout, reminding me a good deal of the Roman bridge over the Lune at Kirkby Lonsdale. Then, passing through a little field fringed with wood, we came in sight of the fall ; the summit of it a sort of edge of water from shore to shore, about a hundred and ten feet high, and then the grand plunge of the river over a perfectly precipitous rock, one hundred and forty feet high, in a mass of white foam, into a great pool below. There is a wooden staircase leading down to the foot of the falls, from which a good view can be obtained; but we preferred the view from lower down the hill in the field, where with the prospect of the fall is combined quite the grandest sight of Quebec we had yet enjoyed, the Citadel, like another Gibraltar, looking down upon the city and river, the town itself glittering and sparkling in the afternoon sun, with the gentle murmur of the somewhat distant fall tumbling down through a setting of green foliage, and in an air far fresher and more exhilarating than a draught of the best champagne. The other waterfall is that of Lorette, near what is called an Indian village. The fall, which acts, in the first instance, as water-power to an extensive paper- mill, suddenly dashes down a long and sharp descent, thfough a deep gorge thickly covered with wood, on QUEBEC, 27 the side of which a pretty path has been cut. You m ay easily fancy yourself in a Scotch glen with the ITHB OITADEXi DITOH, ANB BAUFABTS. brawl of a big burn all roit^d, and though you miss the heather, you are compensated by infinite ferns. m- I*- ii !'f| iir 1 CHAPTER II. MONTREAL AND OTTAWA. N the afternoon we left for Montreal in a river steamer peculiar to this continent, but which with advantage might be used on the Thames. Perhaps a Noah's Ark best describes its queer appearance. Out- side it is three-storied, painted white, and fitted with pleasant green shutters to all the windows. Inside it is commodiously arranged and sumptuously furnished, especially in the "principal saloon — where there is an abundance of couches, easy-chairs, tables, a magnificent piano, and brilliantly burning lamps. All round this drawing-room, which extends the entire length of the vessel, are the tiny but exquisitely clean and comfortable cabins. Underneath is the refresh- ment saloon, where tea is served from seven to ten. In MONTREAL AND OTTAWA, 29 the evening there is usually good music with singing, always concluded with " God save the Queen." The 30 WESTWARD TO NIAGARA. I! i:^ !i boats are steered by a wheel in front, and make eighteen miles an hour. They are crowded with pas- sengers and cargo, and tlie charge is only four dollars, which includes the tea, one extra dollar ensuring the comfort of an entire cabin. We left Quebec at four, and reached Montreal in about fifteen hours. Both banks of the river are highly cultivated, and well inhabited. Many a bright little trout stream we saw leaping down into the great river ; and huge stores of sawed timber waiting to be fetched away. At seven next morning our hundred and eighty miles were nearly accomplished, and Montreal was in sight. Certainly the approach to what is incontest- ably the commercial metropolis of the Dominion is very fine. The well-built and spacious city, with its numerous church spires and towers, the Roman Catholic Cathedral grandly dominating over all ; the green mountain as a background ; the river bank lined with noble quays, rivalling even stately Bor- deaux ; the bustle of ships and steamers loading and unloading, as if there was not a single hour to lose ; the tubular bridge beyond spanning the glorious stream, ten thousand feet long, with its pier openings two hundred and fifty feet in width, and rising in the centre to one hundred feet above high-water mark, produce an instant impression of life and power, and of the vast opportunities, of which perhaps t^te most ambitious city in the Dominion is fully conscious. But as the traveller steps on shore, and walks up MONTREAL AND OTTAWA. %% the busy streets, his impression of the greatness ot Montreal will only be strengthened. Some of the new warehouses will compete with anything either in Manchester or London for the solidity of their con- struction, and for the admirable taste of the elevation ; while, built of a granite as durable as that of Aber- deen, they are of a far more cheerful colour. One unvarying indication of Canadian progress is in the post-offices, which, in the great towns, were either being rebuilt on a large and costly scale, or had just been completed. The new post-office at Quebec is a singularly fine building. At Toronto and Montreal they were being erected of a size that ought to anticipate the needs of the country for fifty years. The banks at Montreal are numerous and well- built ; but I was most struck with the number and handsomeness of the places of worship. All Protestant Churches seem to lay out as much on their spires and towers as Anglicans ; and the Roman Catholics, with vast wealth at their back, not content with their enormous Cathedral, said to hold ten thousand at a lime, and a Jesuit church adorned with some exquisite frescoes, were then slowly erecting a magnificent new Cathedral, c the model of St. Peter's. The Anglican Cathedral is a hand- some new church, built on the same plan as Salisbury Cathedral, but on a smaller scale, and holds its own among the other ecclesiastical buildings of the city. ^ , 32 WESTWARD TO NIAGARA. : I X li I i : I ; I iiii From Montreal we went to Ottawa, on whose river young English ladies in their earliest attempts at the oars sing "Row, brothers, row." The journey- occupies a day, and is performed chiefly by steamer on the Ottawa River, with an interlude of railway to avoid the rapids. At Lachine we first joined the boat, and were presently on the broad stream of the Ottawa, which at its junction with the St. Lawrence is eleven miles across, but soon narrows, and with its diminishing width becomes much more pleasing. The banks of the river are charmingly wooded, but all the fine timber has long ago disappeared. Cheer- ful villages, with piers for goods and passengers, give the river an air of life and bustle ; in the glorious light of a perfect summer's day there was a still golden richness over the scene, reminding me almost of the Nile, and my heart rose in thankfulness to God for having made his world so fair, and for having permitted me to see it. Occasionally there was a long stretch of water with a distant view, blue as only a Canadian prospect can be ; nevertheless, in the lower part of the river 'here is nothing to compare in beauty either with the Danube or the Rhine. As we neared Ottawa, the scenery grew finer. A bold bluff of land, shutting out the city, acts as a natural bastion to what lies behind it, and is a feature of real beauty in itself. This turned, Ottawa came full in view, with its noble Parliament buildings crowning a grand eminence above the river, the lofty spires of the MONTREAL AND OTTAWA. %l Roman Catholic Cathedral on the left, and the city itself, lying behind, and hardly visible from the water. These three things, the new Parliament buildings, the view of the river from the Lovers* Walk, and the Chaudiere Falls, are worth coming a very long way to see. The noble Parliament buildings and Government offices are quite unrivalled for purity of style, stateliness of elevation, and also perhaps for commodiousness of arrangement, by any public buildings on the North American continent. The Chaudiere Fall is truly an overpowering sight. Our going to it was altogether owing to the invita- tion of a friend in one of the Government depart- ments, who had kindly taken us over the Parliament building in the afternoon, and after dinner accom- panied us to the Fall. It had been raining hard, and the dusk was coming on, but there was still half an hour of daylight ; and calling a coach we drove rapidly through the back settlements of the town (mischievous people might call it all back settlement), and taking our scrambling path over the numerous logs of an immense timber yard, came out upon the Fall. We were just where it hurls itself down into the boiling cauldron from which it takes its name ; the light was fading away, the sky was additionally darkened with driving clouds, and the scene was as sublime as it could be. There was the great wide river, gloomy and angry under the lowering sky c 1 1 ■ .1 1 I' ROUGH LOGS FEOM IHE TOREST. MONTREAL AND OTTAWA. 35 rushing down from the frozen north on its way into the Atlantic. Tossing, heaving, struggling with itself, trying to resist its fate, but in the end passionately yielding to it, down it came rushing on in fierce and boisterous eddies till it tumbled head- long into the seething basin below, where anything solid would whirl round and round in everlasting circles, till the water dissolved it into atoms. A great cloud of mist went up and filled the air ; and as we looked down on the water falling, and after it had fallen, writhing as in contortions and spasms of agony, it was a sight with a strange spell in it, and quite of a different character in its shape and beauty from either Montmorency or Niagara. Going back, ,ve lingered for a moment in a great sawing yard near to see the process of sawing the logs, as they come down rough from the forest, into deals fit for the joiner's use. All is done by water power. First, the log is hooked and drawn up out of the water by a strong chain. Then it is pulled up a groove to an apparatus of eight saws, which with wonderful rapidity and precision cut it into eight pieces. These pieces are then trimmed into exact lengths, and by the same force conveyed away. In summer this work is carried on day and night continuously by relays of men. In winter the same men go 'into the forests for what is called lumbering, and are occupied, in spite of the ice and snow, in felling the timber, and then moving it to the water's 36 WESTWARD TO NIAGARA. A LmiDEREE S LOG CABIN. edge ready for the breaking up of the frost. The conveyance of the logs down stream is very hard and sometimes dangerous work, for when the river gets jammed with the timber, men have to get on it and cut it loose with axes, not infrequently getting them- selves terribly crushed, many miles from surgeon or MONTREAL AND OTTAWA, n hospital. But the wages are good. At the end of the winter, in addition to the board and lodging always provided, a skilful lumberer will sometimes receive, at Quebec, a hundred pounds for his labour, which he is too often tempted after the terrible hardships of a long winter to waste in a fortnight's frolic. Political feeling runs very high in Canada, yet, perhaps, nothing in the long run is more desirable for a young country than that each of her citizens should feel an interest in her prosperity, an honest pride in her greatness, and an actual responsibility for her good government. CHAPTEE III. TOKONTO. ^^^ ^ROM Ottawa we went to Toronto by railway, a journey of about twelve ho rs, through a flat uninteresting country. »vith nothing to relieve the fatiguing monotony of an ill- constructed railway but occasional glimpses of the River St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario, and bright gleams of woodland. At Toronto we made our abode at the Rosslin House Hotel, the only really good hotel we had as yet stayed at. The rooms were airy, the linen clean, the table excellent, while the charge was half a dollar a day less thru at Quebec or Montreal. The waiters were negroes, and capital waiters they were. Remark- ing this afterwards to an American gentleman, I elicited the instant reply that Providence had intended them to be servants. From a white man's point of view this was a convenient view of the TORONTO. 39 question. But it would hardly bo so self-evident to the black man, who might fairly retort that Provi- dence, in giving him his freedom, had at least afforded him the chance of doing as he pleased. The next day wns Sunday, and I was glad of the opportunity of attending service in the Cathedral, after a visit to the Dean's Sunday-school, where the hearty singing was delightful to hear. It is a fine Gothic church, and the congregation were com- pleting it by the erection of a beautiful spire. Dean Grasette's parochial organization seemed complete, and very much of the same type as that of a large town parish in England. There is no lack either of church accommodation, or of what is of still more consequence, zeal and ability among the clergy, outsiders, and not Anglicans, being witnesses ; and an English clergyman may be permitted to observe of brethren outside his own communion how ably and acceptably they seem to discharge their duties. Toronto is a handsome and thriving city on the banks of Lake Ontario, with a population of 125,000. It had, however, when we saw it, an unfinished appearance from some few of its principal thorough- fares not yet being built up ; and on the whole it looked best from the water, where the spires and towers gracefully break the monotony of the house- tops, and the green trees of the park make a pleasing background. The two principal buildings in Toronto, which also give it the exceptional importance of being a ^ 40 WESTWARD TO NIAGARA. judicial as well as an educational metropolis, are the Law Courts and the University. The Law Courts, otherwise known as Osgoode Hall, are a handsome Greek building in a grass enclosure railed off from the road, and ornamented with some shady trees. I did not sec the interior, but Mr. Trollope thought that the internal arrangements as far surpass those of the Four Courts in Dublin as the elevation of the Four Courts surpasses that of Osgoode Hall. But the University is the pride of Toronto. It is erected in a breezy and spacious park, to the north of the town, in pure Norman style, and of a durable grey stone at a total "'^st of £80,000. It was a great advantage for me to be taken over it by Professor Wilson. I saw the laboratory, museum, a fine room for academical meetings and the con- ferring of degrees, lecture-rooms, and the library. There are also living-rooms for students, who can be maintained at a cost of £45 a year, most of which can be met by a scholarship easily gained by an average amount of industry and ability. The students have their meals together, but there are separate dormitories. Sitting-rooms can be had by extra payment. The revenues of the University are large, accruing from lands with which it was endowed by George IV., so that the professors are liberally paid, and the host men the country can produce are forth- coming. The University is quite unconnected with any religious body; but Holy Scripture is read, and TORONTO, +1 prayers said daily for the resident students, who have the power of absenting themselves if their parents o to o H O I Hi wish for it. Only twice has the permission been claimed. Some years ago the University also 42 WESTWARD TO NIAGARA. \\^v. u granted degrees in theology ; but from a variety of causes, it was totally disconnected from the English Church ; and an Anglican College has existed for some years, which confers degrees, and is extremely useful for training clergymen, but of course with very scanty resources and a small professorial staff. I must not omit to mention the Normal Training School, a most important institution, where teachers are trained for the public schools. The system of free and rate-sustained schools is here in full opera- tion ; and when I inquired about their compulsory method for enforcing attendance, I was immediately told there was no necessity for it, as the children came well enough without. Perhaps closer inquiry might reveal a different tale. Toronto must be a pleasant place to live in both from its agreeable literary society, and also from the temperateness of its climate, which is much milder than that of Lower Canada. Not, however, that the air of this continent suits every one. English people accustomed to an island atmosphere are apt to feel the want of salt in the air of Canada ; and a medical man assured me, from his own domestic experience, that it was often fatal to young children not acclima- tised to it, producing a constant intestinal irritution, for which the only remedy is sea air. ^^'i f CHAPTEE lY. THE HORSE-SHOE FALL. iSrW)^OM Toronto to Niagara there are two routes open. One on the Great Western Railway by Hamilton and the head of the lake to Niagara Town ; the other by steamer across the lake to [Niagara River, a passage of about three hours, and in fine weather fairly enjoyable. Next mnrning we took our seats in the train, and, liki many travellers before us, we were soon made to feoi that, big as the world may be, it is not too big for all sorts of unexpected meetings. Whom should I see walking down the middle of the car but two young London clerg3mien, bound west as missionaries for Japan ; one the curate of a dear friend at St. Mary's, Newington, the other from my old rural deanery, and himself a native of Canada, come here to say farewell to his friends before his work began. 44 WESTllARD TO NIAGARA. V, ! On this railway I learned yet further to appreciate my own country from the somewhat qualifying com- ments on his native institutions given to me by an American gentleman ■■•'" 't-ong sense and agreeable address. " Now, sir, thi what I have to say about it, that if one of your people, supposing he's an intelligent man, after going about among us, and asking all sorts of questions from people who can give him an answer, don't go straight home, to put on all the breaks as fast as he can, and turn out a bigger Conservative than ever, I'm fixed." This railway was through a richly cultivated country, settled full a hundred years ago, and abounding in corn, wood, pasture, peach and apple orchards, with here and there a vineyard. It is on a high table-land, so that there are frequent glimpses of the distant country, and even oi Lake Ontario ; and on the right hand we passed the Brock Monu- ment, a tall and graceful pillar erected in memory of the gallant General Brock, who fell in the American war of 1812. At Niagara Town we had a moment's glimpse of the Falls, but we got out at the Clifton House Station, an insignificnit shed — which here, as at most railway stations on this continent, is all the accommodation afforded to the public — and after walking swiftly down the hill, the war of the Cataracts every moment becoming more audible, at a sudden bend in the road a great flash of light and foam came across us, and we were opposite the Falls. I THE HORSE-SHOE FALL, 45 It was a moment in one's life never to be for- gotten ; a more than sufficient reward for time and money, shaky railway and stormy seas ; ranking among one's past recollections of Mount Lebanon, and the Alps, and the Bay of Rio, and taking easy precedence of them all. If, indeed, I am called upon to say whether the first glimpse quite fulfilled previous anticipations, in strict accuracy I should answer that the Falls were certainly less high than I had expected, for their great breadth diminishes the impression of their height ; but in this respect only did they fall short, and then only for a time, of all that I had hoped to see. But there they were at last ; and it was hardly the moment for severely analyzing the quantity or quality of one's delight when, with a perfect summer's day, in which to sib down and gaze at them till their beauty became an actual part of one's memory, the end of my journey was gained. The Clifton House Hotel is on the Canadian side, and is so close both to the American and Horse-Shoe Falls, that, when the wind blows that way, the spray comes across, and will soon wet you through. What a delight it was, our rooms first secured, to sit down under one of the cool and spacious verandahs of that delightful hotel, and gaze on the Falls in simple ecstasy ! But it soon proved impossible to be either silent or solitary in that crowded place. People in America are neither so morose nor taciturn as they are occasionally represented to be. 46 WESTWARD TO NIAGARA. An elderly gentleman came up to me, and pleasantly asked if I knew a Mr. Bickersteth in England, who had written a poem that was much admired in America, and had also visited the country some years ago. On my answering that he was one of my greatest friends, he became intimate in a moment ; not in the least degree conscious that in that first half hour the only company a man could wish for was his own thoughts, and the only voice he cared to listen to the roar of the Falls ! Was it very selfish to feel a little in despair when he suddenly went away and then returned, bringing with him another gentleman, whom on the strength of his own previous introduction of himself he pleasantly introduced to me, as if it was the most natural thing possible ? Certainly he was an agreeable and excellent man, but one who seemed to be but the first of a long series of sociable idlers, who were to interview the stranger from London during the fast-flying minutes of one of the most precious days of his life. But the dinner- gong proved my friend ; and a carriage soon rescued me from the -kindly-meant courtesies which at another moment I should have been only too glad to enjoy. And now for Niagara, which I must ask to be permitted to describe in my own way; just pre- mising that those of my readers who are dissatisfied with what I tell them should ask for Professor Tyndall's paper on Niagara, which appeared in Macmilla% or the first volume of Mr. Anthony TroUope's " North America." THE HORSE-SHOE FALL. 47 of First, we make our way to an ugly-looking tower, about a mile distant in Lundy's Lane, on the road to Thorold, a thriving township on the Welland Canal, and climbing up many weary steps find at the summit an old soldier who points out the chief features in a very extensive prospect, and with military exactness explains the story of a famous engagement fought between England and the States in 1814, when each side found it very hard to conquer Anglo-Saxon enemies, and had to be ulti- mately content with a drawn battle. Here, also, is the spot where, in the closing page of the " Spy," Fenimore Cooper describes the dying scene of one of the principal characters of his story, Harvey Brooks : who was supposed to gain his living by the infamy of a spy hireling, and in whose pocket was found a letter from George Washington that vindicated his patriotism. From this tower was distinctly visible a panorama of sixty miles ; northward towards Lake Ontario, west- ward over the rich flats of Hamilton and London, southward in the extreme distance a faint blue moun- tain range, which the guide declared to be the Alle- ghany Mountains, but which could be nothing of the kind, as they were one hundred and fifty miles away ; and nearer in the middle distance, across a fine cham- paign of wood and cornfields. Lake Erie, with the towers and spires of thriving Buffalo rising above the trees. A little to the east, there is the grand flood of the Niagara river, much wider and statelier than 48 WESTWARD TO NIAGARA. below the Falls, and bearing with it the drainage of almost half a continent, passing out of sight as it approaches the Falls, and not visible again. From this height we see the beginning and the end of Niagara ; its beginning in the one lake, and its end in the other. Now we descend, and turning back towards the Falls, go to what is called the Burning Springs ; still on the Canada side, and commanding a view of the river, above the Horse-Shoe Fall. They are just at the spot where the water, in almost its greatest and grandest width, begins to stir and toss itself for its headlong journey, the white breakers on its turbulent current crisping into silvery foam under the dazzle of a cloudless sky. The sight supposed to be most worth seeing here is that of some mineral springs, emitting a gas which ignites at a candle, and affords an opportunity for charging half a dollar. I fear I hui ' the showman's feelings by avowing my preference for the water over the fire ; the sight of that fresh tumbling. river doing one good to behold. From these springs there is a delightful and very quiet drive by the edge of what we may still call the Canadian stream, now rushing on with an ever- increasing, velocity, and exactly verifying Mr. Trol- lope's remark about the " much little loveliness," at Niagara, " loveliness especially of water." There are a dozen spots where one could gladly linger for half a day, listening to the sleepy murnmr of the water, watching its flash and sparkle in the sun, enjoying it lLv_ THE HORSE-SHOE FALL. 49 all the more, because the tourists find it much too dull to linger there, and soon leave you alone with nature. Fifty yards further, and you are in the thick of the throng : carriages, horses, tourists all round you THE EAPIDS ABOVE THE FALL. two large bazaars, which you are invited to enter for the view from the summit, and photographers, who give you no peace till they have caricatured you oh the spot. While daylight lasts there is no solitude here. Still we must make the best of it. We are now at the Table Rock, or at least immediately behind what used to be known by that name. But D 50 WESTWARD TO NIAGARA. it has recently been removed, as it had become unsafe through the action of the cataract. Here, perhaps more than anywhere else, you will feel that every human being visiting the Falls has come here to gaze on them, and has a fellow-feeling with you about it. The position is a little higher than the great Horse- Shoe Fall. You see the river rolling and rushing on to the very edge of the cliff. You see it gracefully and smoothly fall over in a colour of the most exquisite green — always green, though green in various shades — and down it falls until it is lost in the cloud of spray that comes up half-way from below to meet it. The cloud, when the sun is on it, is enveloped in the haze of an exquisite rainbow, which towards evening seemed to rise higher and higher into the air. There was a peculiar charm about this rainbow, for the people of the place had not yet found out how to make a charge for it, and it was nature's free gift among a host of extortions. It was a singular enjoyment to stand watching the water as it slowly fell over the great lip of the preci- pice, and then to follow it through the creamy abyss of foam at the bottom until it slowly flowed on to join the waters from the American Fall. The height of the Horse-Shoe is somewhat less than that of the other, being one hundred and fifty- nine feet against one hundred and sixty-eight. It is said to be already turning itself eastward to " exca- vate its gorge along the centre of the upper river." V* ■a ^ THE HORSE-SHOE FALL. S« THE AMERICAN AND HORSE -SHOE FALLS. Its horse-shoe shape is supposed to be owing to the great mechanical force of the water, which also accounts for the greater depth of the river just below this fall. To my own mind the Horse-Shoe Fall is finer than the American, but the American has no cause to be jealous about pre-eminence. Either without the other would forfeit more than one-half of the combined grandeur of the whole. TTT I'l il I I ■ .■i ' - s^ WESTWARD TO NIAGARA, Now we go on. Goat Island is opposite us, which divides the Horse-Shoo from the American Fall, and is also the boundary between the Canadian and American territories. Then comes the American Fall, which presently we shall visit on its own soil. Beneath us is the Ferry. In front is the Suspension Bridsre and our own hotel. Our destination is the Whirlpool, a drive of two or three miles, and it is well worth the trouble. On three sides of the Pool rise lofty banks, thickly covered with wood, through which a path is cut down to the water. As you look on the right you see the river emerging from the Whirlpool Rapids, a few hundred yards above. To your left is an immense basin of deep green water, where, to borrow the scientific language of Professor Tyndall, " the sweep of the river prolongs itself in gyratory currents." In front, after having made a sharp bend at right angles, the stream flows calmly but rapidly away in the direction of Ontario, in a narrow but deep flood, and between well-wooded clifis, a hundred and fifty feet high, which tame down out of all their steepness before the river reaches the lake. I 1 I III ■r§- CHAPTER V. THE AMERICAN FALL. ^T may bo convenient here to glance for a moment at the most probable theory of the origin and the progress of the Falls. And without wearying my reader, either with extravagant speculations or contradictory authorities, it may be sufficient to say, as the probable explanation of them, that in far-back times, the Falls began at the precipitous declivity which crossed the Niagara from Lewiston on the American shore to Queenston on the Canadian (see Tyndall's paper on Niagara) ; that the Falls, in the course of many thousands of years, have gradually worked their way back to where they are now, and are still working their way, at the rate of perhaps a foot a year, until the time arrives (may a better Coming have regenerated the earth long, before) when the Falls will have worked their way back into Erie itself, and so will cease to be. Ill' I ill 54- WESTWARD TO NIAGARA. From the Whirlpool to the Whirlpool Rapids, if we were crows find not human beings, perhaps three minutes' steady ilying would take us ; and the wide waste of white roaring waters, known by that name, would be just under our feet. Being what we are, we must return by the way we came, and then driv- ing through the railway station pass on to the Railway Suspension Bridge, and with the railway track over our heads drive slowly into the States on the other side ; on our left looking down at the Rapids, on our right towards the Falls. In a few minutes we are at the entrance of an elegant saloon at the end of a by-road, with the wood on erch side fenced off mC\ high palisades, to prevent even a stray rabbit getting a look at the Rapids without paying for it. Passing through this saloon, you are directed to a lift, in which, if ignominiously, at least conveniently, you descend towards the river ; and on emerging, after going down a wooden ladder, you can either go into a small summer-house overlooking the Avater, or go down to the river's edge. Probably, if you have time, you will do both. These Whirlpool Rapids are certainly one of the most amazing features of the Niagara Falls. With a width of about three hundred ieet, and through well- wooded cliffs of about one hundred and fifty feet high, the great river comes tossing on in a sort of frantic passion, the surface a mass of white boiling waves rushing pell-mell, wave over wave, in such desperate speed, that every now and then, as if suddenly Hi THE AMERICAN FALL. EOCK OF AQEa AND WHIRLWIND BEEDGE. bruised on great boulders below, or scooped up and tossed into the air by tlie playful hands of giant mermaids, great jets and lumps of water leap up out of the stream, and then fall back and pass on. Never have I seen anything so strange, seldom any- thing so enjoyable. The rushing sound, the play of S6 WESTWARD TO NIAGARA. the sunlight on the water, the stillness of the lofty wooded banks, the absolute loneliness of the quiet evening scene — and then the question what causes it, set one thinking, without any sort of interruption of the luxury of quiet repose. Professor Tyndall's theory is probably nearest to the truth, that the Rapids are caused " by a lateral generation of the waves, and their propagation to the centre;" or to explain it more simply, if not pre- cisely in his own language, the water striking against the boulders, which are visible at the sides, produces large waves ; and as each wave is formed, the wave motion is compounded with the rush of the moving river. If the water was still, the ridges would proceed in circular curves round what disturbed it. In this case they cross the river obliquely, and the consequence is that the waves whicli have been formed at the side meet at the middle in a coales- cence of waves with waves, making "a grand illustra- tion of the principle of interference." Looking back at these Rapids, as I write of them in an English home, and wishing to reproduce them for my readers as vividly as I can, though at the possible risk of grotesqueness, I can find no readier illustration of their eccentricity and impetuousness than by the fancy that if the legion of evil spirits cast out of the demoniac of Gadara had flung them- selves down from those steep heights into the river below, their desperate fighting and struggling beneath the torrent of the drowning waters would have pro- THE AMERICAN FALL. 57 duced just tlie spectacle that the traveller gazes at here with a kind of str,rtled delight. One more drive : this, the longest and perhaps the least attractive of all, through the town of Niagara Falls and past the huge Cataract Hotel (where it is worth while to go and stay, if only to form an idea of American hotel-life on the most complete scale), towards Goat Island. We need not stop there now. Mr. Anthony Trollope has described, in language which no one will try to imitate or hope to surpass, the view over the river from the end of tlie little wooden bridge. But we will go into f o park ; and, as before on the Canadian side, so now on the American, we drive close to the rushing waters as they fly on faster and faster to their desperate spring. There is a little black rock peeping out of the water, and a sad story hangs to it. A man, who somehow or other had got into the river, and was drifting down the current to the Fall, managed to get on this rock, and to hold on there for twelve hours until rescue came. The difficulty of course was, how the rescue should be made. At last they sent off* a raft towards him, on which he was to spring, and then be dragged to shore. The critical moment came ; but in his eager hurry, as he stepped off* the rock to the raft, his foot slipped ; he fell into the foaming torrent, and in another moment was carried down the fall, never to be seen again. And now we are at Prospect Point, which rivals S8 WESTWARD TO NIAGARA. \\\ \ m the Table Rock as the finest sight at Niagara. A strong wall has been built (how could wages be high enough to recompense the masons for the peril of building it !) on the very edge of the cataract, and we stand within it and look over. The river rushes down so close to you that, with a long arm, you can put down your hand into its boiling stream. Before your very eyes it leaps down into the tremendous abyss ; the whole thing happens as close to you as the sheet on which I am writing is close to me. By reaching well over the wall you can look down right into the gulf, and feel the water falling. As you look away from the cataract on the sur- rounding scene, you see the river itself rushing towards the Whirlpool Rapids under the pretty suspension bridge. Across is the Clifton House, with its green verandahs, and its delightful air of coolness and comfort ; and then, not quite opposite, but a little to the left, white and grand under the gloom of the gathering twilight, is the Horse-Shoe Fall ; if possible, more impressive than when quite near. The feeling that came on me while looking down the fall was a very curious one. It would be an exaggera- tion to say that I felt any sort of wish to leap down it, or that it was necessary to exert self-control to prevent m^ self doing so. Yet I can perfectly under- stand, not only any one else wishing to do it, but actually doing it, in an irrepressible moment of ner- vous excitement ; and of this I am quite clear — that I should be sorry to bring any one, whose mental THE AMERICAN FALL. 59 equilibrium was the least shaky, under the strange nervous tension that comes over an excitable spirit in the immediate neighbourhood of the Fall. As to the abiding impression left on me by Niagara, this certainly I can say, that of all the glorious things in God's creation I have been permitted to see in the four quarters of the globe — and they have not been few — Niagara comes first. On various minds, it leaves various impressions ; and perhaps this is significant of its real power. To Charles Dickens, for instance, it gave the thought of peace. My own impression of it is not perhaps so much embodied in any one distinct idea, as in a sort of many-sided quiet yet rapturous enjoyment that possessed me about it. It made me so wonderfully happy to see it then ; it still makes me so htppy to recollect it now. There is its colour, as it falls so dazzlingly white, before it falls so exquisitely green, the greenness of emeralds. There is its motion, for ever going on, day and night, summer and winter, year after year, age after age ; the very embodiment and idea of quiet but irresistible power, wearing away the rocks, defying the wind to drive it back, and the frost to congeal it, with always the same volume of water, in heat or cold, in drought or rain. It is changing every moment, yet it is everlasting, ever bringing down fresh fountains from the lakes and hills of the north ; in its actual substance, dififerent moment by moment. Yet for almost infinite years before the ^0^ WJSSTWARD TO NIAGARA. r4M •■■I first human foot trod thoso woodland solitudes, or human face gazed tremblingly down on its awful beauty, it has been rolling on, unseen except by its Maker, towards the distant sea. And then its sound ! The wonderful thing is that it does not sound more. No doubt when you are close to it, there is a vast majesty in its deep roar ; but it is never grating, or harsh, or startling ; never a sound of terror, though it is indeed a voice of strength. Sweet, penetrating, winning rather than forcing its presence on you, it lulls you gently to sleep, as you listen to it from afar. And if I may so express myself without irreverence, I seemed while listening to it to understand as with a new intelli- gence how the Apostle John must himself have been listening with a like lingering rapture to the soft sweet music of some distant cataract, when, writing by the Spirit of God about Him who is Himself God's Word and mouthpiece, he said, "His voice was as the sound of many waters." Keturning east from the Falls, we took the steamer all the way to Montreal, a journey of about thirty hours ; of which half may have been spent on Lake Ontario, and half on the St. Lawrence. At the rather earty hour of three in the morning, the passage through the Thousand Islands begins. These islands are prettily wooded and variously sized, some of them just big enough for a goat and his family to live upon, others as large as twenty or thirty acres, which rise out of the clear water, and in the bright THE AMERICAN FALL. 6t dawn of a summer morning have a pleasing and almost picturesque efifect. I am not, however, pre- pared to say that I should care to get up at three o'clock in the morning to see them agaii, or that they deserve the very rapturous eulogy that natives bestow on them. This:?, however, I soon found to be an exceptional and distasteful opinion ; and having once or twice hinted it only to encounter strong dis- approbation, I afterwards held my peace, secretly determining to console myself by recording my con- victions here. At Prescott we were transferred into a smaller steamer, to enable us to shoot the rapids, which are numerous in this part of the river ; and as under the guidance of a strong and skilful hand (he vessel shook and quivered under the shock of the hissing waters, the question occurred, if the game was quite worth the candle. The last rapids, at Lachine, jusb above Montreal, are really dangerous, and I am not ashamed of confessing that I should decline to shoot them again. We passed on the very edge of the reef the bones of a wrecked steamer, -which had come to grief there, and the evening of the day after we passed through them safely, the steering chain of the steamer snapped, and the passengers had to be transferred in open boats in the dark from the vessel to the shore. One passenger contrived to get off -with the captain before the rest, so as to catch the train, and save his passage to England. I asked him what would have happened if the steering chain had ; yi 111: <' mi 62 WESTWARD TO NIAGARA. snapped one minute sooner. " Every soul on board would have been smashed to atoms." As I began, I end. My stay at the Falls was short, but, if measured by the new thoughts, and the deep fresh happiness they gave, it was a thing of months, nay, years. Like all other sorts of happiness, it must be interrupted and finished ; yet, when once possessed, it never can be all lost. Sitting by the fire, walking in the noisy streets, sleepless, or care- worn, he who has once been to Niagara, can by an act of will turn his memory westward, and he is there again. "Flow on for ever in thy glorious robe Of terror and of beauty. Yea, flow on Unfathomed and resistless. God hath set His rainbow on thy forehead ; and the cloud Mantled around thy feet ; and He doth give Thy voice of thunder power to speak of Him Eternally — bidding the lip of man Keep silence, and upon thine altar pour Incense of awe-struck praise. For thou dost speak Alone of God, who poured thee as a drop From His right hand— bidding the soul that looks Upon thv feariul majesty be still, Be humbly wrapped in its own nothingness, And lose itself in Him." Mrs. Sigourney. A. W. ROFFEN. OUR RAILWAY TO THE PACIFIC i l! i • 1 ! . 1 ; 1 i '^ ■ i '; ti , 1 : iii OUR RAILWAY TO THE PACIFIC. CHAPTEE I. A DARING PROJECT. i EFOKE we speak of the new railway, let us look at the sketches taken in that island to which the " Canadian Pacific " leads, namely, Vancouver Island, that earthly paradise lying off the western mainland coast, and shielding it from the storms of the outer ocean. Along its southern shore the island is also protected ; for the long range of the mountains of Washington Territory defend it from the south-westerly gales. One of the sketches, on page 71, shows this " Olym- pian Range " as seen from the house of the governor of the island. The hills are sixteen miles away, across the straits of San Juan de Fuca. The other sketch, on page 67, shows the lonely and gorgeous Mount H 1 1 I f 1 ii! M ■iji i 66 or;? RAIL WAV TO THE PACIFIC, Baker, veiled in mist, but lifting its double cone over ten thousand feet above the still waters of the archi- pelago. The low island blending with the mainland shore from this point of view is San Juan, about which there was so much contention between the British and American Governments. The King of Prussia, who was called in as arbitrator, decided that according to the wording of the treaty in dispute, it must be reckoned American territory. The drawings give a very accurate idea of the beauty of the land- scape. There is no fairer land in the world than the country about Victoria, the capital of Vancouver. The climate of much of the island is like that of Devonshire or Jersey. A more rigorous winter is to be met with at its northern end, and the high moun- tains which stud most of it afford opportunities of seeking an occasional snow-field in winter. But about Victoria the snow never lies long, and its inhabitants are far more ignorant of the art of skating than are their English cousins. The great coal mines of Nanamo, near one of the best harbours on the island, are seventy-five miles distant, and their produce is brought by rail and steamer to " the city." A quaint and charming town it is, with very pleasant society, many English and Canadians having recently settled there. There is good land to be bought at moderate prices. But the chief attraction is the sport, the climate, and the beautiful scenery. Other minerals besides coal are known to exist. Great woods of Douglas fir cover i M' 1' ■ ' 1 r it Mi f. ,!Jil m' I__ A DARING PROJECT. H tlie whole region, and there is a lovely undergrowth of arbutus, sallal, an evergreen shrub, and small maples, while underneath all grows a luxuriant vegetation of fern and other plants, giving proof of the mildness characteristic of the coast. Many Chinese and some thousands of Indians live in this part of British Columbia. The Chinese make excellent servants, but the Celestials are not popular, and it is probable that their numbers will be much diminished in a few years. The Indians are wholly unlike their brethren of the plains of the interior. They are almost wholly fish-eaters. On the islands to the north they build houses of carved woodwork, reminding the traveller much of the Sandwich Islanders' habitations. They are not inclined to warfare, and readily take employment in the steamers on the rivers, and in the industries connected with the catching and preserving of the salmon which swarm in every creek and stream from March to October. The results w<3 see in the provision shops in Britain, where the potted 'fish are sold in enor- mous quantities. In ^he shops and banks are to be observed the nuggets and gold dust parcels brought from the neighbouring mainland. These have been won from the soil and gravel of the workings in the Fraser and streams farther north, and the nuggets are often worth from £60 to £100 apiece. The crushing of tiie gold-laden quartz rocks will now become a prominent industry in the mountains, for the 70 OUR RAILWAY TO THE PACIFIC. i .: i :*!i! necessary machinery can by rail be easily imported. Vast mines of silver and copper will also be worked. Although the amount of agricultural land cannot be compared with that to be offered to emigrants in Alberta or Saskatschewan, there is a good deal still to be had, and the delta of the Fraser only wants good dykes to make it a closely peopled country. On account of its beauty and the many charms afforded by its society, sport, and natural advan- tages, Victoria is sure to become a favourite place of residence. Let us now turn to the railway which has con- nected Vancouver Island with the Atlantic. The following letter shows the interest which this great work awakened at the centre of the empire : — •'Ottawa, November 6th, 1885. — I am desired by His ExcoUoncy the Governor-General, to acquaint you that he has received her Majesty's commands to convey to the people of Canada her congratula- tions on the completion of the Canadian Pacific Eailway. Her Majesty has watched its progress with much interest, and hopes for the future success of a work of such value and importance to the Empire." So wrote Lord Melgund, in giving the message sent by the Queen to Mr. (now Sir) George Stephen, the President of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. The message conveyed a wish in which all her Majesty's subjects heartily joined, and not they alone, but all the dwellers in North America, who have now three lines traversing the continent. Not long ago there was but one. The southernmost should perhaps also be included, although it cannot 7? C>W? RAIL WAV TO THE PACIFIC, be called direct, passing as it does the Mexican frontier, and then turning northAvard through Southern California. No one expected that the British road would be completed so soon. The news seemed too good to bo true, when one of the men who was first connected with the enterprise, namely, the distinguished engineer and man of science, Mr. Sandford Fleming, was enabled to telegraph, " First through train from Montreal arrived at Vancouver ; most successful journey ; average speed, including stoppages, twenty-four miles per hour. Before long possible to travel from Liverpool to Pacific by Canadian National Line in ten days. Physical difficulties have been overcome by gigantic works skilfully executed, with marvellous rapidity." Then came the official announcement, "This com- pletes the Company's main system, covering a distance of 3,053 miles." Few would have believed, ten years ago, that such an announcement would be made during the present century. The work stands as the unrivalled national effort of a people only four and a half millions in numerical strength. That these should have not only deemed it possible, but should have persuaded others to think so also, is a success altogether unknown in history. ^ CHAPTEE II. DAUNTING DIFFICULTIES. iVIDENT as it was to the ministers of suc- cessive Cabinets, that the north-western prairie lands must be settled and mapped out with roads and railways and provincial boundaries, men feared to undertake the enormous outlay. " Times were bad," and emigration brought comparatively few to the British American shores. Twenty or thirty thousand was considered a fair number for the country to have attracted during one year. There was no regular communication with the prairie, beyond the great Lakes, unless the Hudson's Bay freighters could be considered as making those distant regions acces- sible. Courteous as were the officers of the Com- pany, and hospitable to any traveller going for sport or curiosity to visit their fur-trading posts, not one of them could be found who would not deprecate the 74 OUR RAILWAY TO THE PACIFIC, I V I idea of "opening the country for settlement." They could not foresee that a favourable bargain for the Company would be made in inference to their lands, and they only looked upon an immigrant invasion as the expulsion of the fur- bearing animals, which alone afforded a good trade. Had they been able to pro- phesy, they would have welcomed the tide of the white races, whose advent would enhance a thousandf Id the value of the as yet useless grass ocean around them. On the other hand, the influx of settlement can never penetrate into the northern forests, where for an apparently endless vista of years, the musk- rat, beaver, skunk, fox, and wolverine will yield their annual tribute for the European and American market. But the Hudson's Bay people had had enough trouble in years long past with their competitors of the old North-west Company, and having passed these troubles and procured a monopoly, they did not desire neighbours who might become interlopers and usurpers. So it was said that grain would not grow, that even roots were difficult to "raise," and that an arctic climate made life unbearable in winter, even for the buffalo. It was known that these spirited members of the ox tribe liked the country in sum- mer ; but who ever heard of their staying during the winter? and why should people in the comfortable groves of Ontario desire the comparatively bleak grassy levels of the Red River ? AVho knew if the virgin soil was worth the plough ? DAUNTING DIFFICULTIES. 75 Such was the language industriously employed. But there were doubts whether it was right that the country should be left to the musk-rats and buftaloes. Lord Selkirk had persuaded some of the High- landers, who, at the beginning of the century, thronged so easily to the emigrant vessels, to sail into Hudson's Bay, and to ascend the Nelson River, and to settle to the south of Lake Winnipeg. They formed a most flourishing colony, and the French voyageurs, who had taken unto themselves Indian wives, also throve and multiplied. Then again the Americans, higher up the Red River, which casts its dirty waters into the lake, had found the valley most fertile, with a soil marvellously black and rich. It became evident that vast wheat-fields, affording far more space and scope than any heretofore occupied, had been hidden away in that dim green north land. The old provinces of Canada, magnificent as they are in area, had their best tracts already used for agricul- ture, and that craving for novelty, and for yet better land and for new soil, which is the wholesome characteristic of the Transatlantic farmers, was strong among '^Ontarians and New Brunswickers, and Nova Scotians. Had not the Americans derived new life and hopes from the time that civilisation was carried inwards from the coast ? The mere fringe of the New England colonies, with the Carolinas and New York, had blossomed and bourgeoned into a nation controlling the Mississippi, and master of all the regions which pour their wealth through the great 76 OUR RAILWAY TO THE PACIFIC, market-place on the shores of Michigan, the city of Chicago. Why should not Canada also have its Chicago ? To be sure there was the rocky desert to the north of Lake Superior, and a further stretch of country which, like the north shore, was fit only for wood and minerals ; but had not the United States also their desert beyond the flats of Nebraska ? Was this rocky tract, which would very likely prove rich (as a part of it had already proved) in silver and copper, so bad an impediment as that horrible plain, so many hundred square miles in extent, filled with alkali dust and ugly sage scrub, called " the Ameri- , can Desert " ? Did not that brown Sahara extend almost to the Rocky Mountains on TJncle Sam's territory, and had the Canadians anything so disa- greeable and useless ? No ; on the contrary, it was known that once past the marshes and rocks and woods of Keewaytin, there was in Canadian territory one uninterrupted stretch of grass for eight hundred miles right up to the Western Mountains. And as to the quality of the soil, the veil had been lifted. Even Richardson, the traveller and naturalist, famous in boyhood's memory as the man who had once, on an arctic expedition, shot one of his companions, an Indian, because morally certain that the said Indian had begun, in his hunger, to kill and cat Richardson's white comrades — even Richardson long ago had declared the Saskatchewan country to be good. DAUNTING DIFFICULTIES. 77 Then, in our own time, Colonel Butler had written a charming book, describing with ecstasy the riches of a region which, in spite of the ice and snow covering enveloping it during the season of his journey, he had found to possess an excellent climate and promising soil. So the world began to believe in the north-west ; and Canada saw that she must have it soon under control, or the active American might go in and possess it ; and she decided to build a railway. She was so keen about doing this that, in order to get an indispensable member of her future sisterhood of provinces under the national government, she promised British Columbia that the line should be made so as to reach the Pacific in a very few years. At that time such a promise looked ac if the Govern- ment expected a miracle to be wrought on their behalf, for Mr. George Stephen had not at that date appeared above the political horizon. It was Mr. Stephen's assent to form a company to undertake the work that virtually produced the results we now witness. This may seem a remarkable statement, but it is the bare truth. If we^ look back we see how government after government had been floundering in the slough of half measures, and in the " muskegs " or bogs of the political difficulties always attendant on the under- taking by the State of any great public work. The smaller the State, and the more party conflicts centre around the domestic quarrels involved in the giving 7» OUR RAILWAY TO THE PACIFIC. ill ■\ of contracts to firms or companies, or even on the appointments by Government Departments to offices in connection with docks, railways, or canals, the more impossible does it become that the direct action of the State can prove a satisfactory method for the prosecution of an undertaking. A strong executive can alone provide the best means, and aie best means can alone be found in a powerful company with an able chief. To these agents it is essential to confide the business, under proper conditions. Witness the ineflfective progress made under Mr. Mackenzie's Government ; although, with the best intentions, surveys were pushed forward, and work commenced. The difficulties seemed almost insur- mountable ; and almost as soon as the facile promises had been given they were repented of, because the regions, hitherto unknown, showed obstacles, as soon as they were examined, enough to daunt the stoutest heart. The north shore of Superior was known to be a mass of rock. Then mighty mountain chains barred the way to the western coast, and no one knew of a pass on the most direct route through the " Rockies." There was one far to the north, and it was resolved to lay the line across the plains so as to reach it, and then take a zigzag course down the easiest river courses. But it was soon acknowledged that much more time must be given to surveying. Meanwhile the twenty thousand white men in British Columbia were exhorted to patience and moderation, qualities which, in view of the promises g i i B hj ^ 64 en 91 84 OUR RAILWAY TO THE PACIFIC. each, except by passage througli a foreign land ? How can a political whole be cemented together, when there is no backbone for the limbs ? A rail- way traversing the Dominion on its own soil was only to be delayed at the price of secession, dis- integration, and destruction of the Union. Completed, it would give new life and hope to the enormous territory, would carry emigrants direct to the place where they would be settled, would give to the farthest communities a pledge that their interests were not to be neglected or sacrificed, and would brace with the invigorating influence of national feel- ing the cohesion and solidarity of Canada. In 1881 the incorporation of the new company took effect, and with a capital of 100,000,000 dollars the start was made. Cash to the amount of twenty million dollars was to be given by the Government, and an equal number of acres of good land in the new territories was to be added. The small "bits" of the road already begun were to be completed, and handed over when finished. These portions traversed country that was formidable enough from an engi- neer's point of view, and very little labour had been *' put in " upon them. The first was that between the Lakes Superior and Winnipeg, a distance of no less than four hundred and twenty- eight miles, and these were miles covering an unbroken series of lakes, bogs, rocks, and woo4s, where no settlements were possible, where much cutting and "filling in" had to be done, with the probability that in many cases the stuff put 'THE VICTORY, 85 in 'the treacherous swamps would sink, and have to be again brought up to the requisite levels. But nitro-glycerine and giant powder were soon at work, and the pretty lakes gemmed with countless w^ater- lilies, and the Httle islets tufted with their crown of pine, and the lonely forests silent but for the knock- ing of the woodpeckers and the hooting of the owls, ho^.^rd the blasts that gave passage to the wide liberty of lae open plains. Again, in the far west, at the very limit of this track, almost nothing had been doLO. There the labour was far more serious, and great canons, ■*'' between immense precipices had to b*" tlireaded, and ledges made and tunnels bored along the mountain's face, over torrents that rose with the summer melting of the snow a hundred feet in perpendicular height, sweeping with tremendous violence through the bottom of the gorges. Yet the Government pro- mised to carry out the plan here also, and two hundred and thirteen miles of road-bed had to be laid and furnished to the satisfaction of the company. It was even undecided where the terminus was to be ; but this was soon settled, and a lovely fiord running far up into the hills was chosen, having at its mouth an excellent harbour. Along the shore of this ocean inlet grew wondrous specimens of the Douglas fir and gigantic cypress, to the height of 150 and 250 feet, anc^of a girth of 25 and 30 feet. * Narrow moiintain passes with lofty precipices ou either siilo are in America called cauons. ■I hi II ( 86 OC/Ii RAIL WAV TO THE 'PACIFIC, These stand close to the water's edge, and it is on the borders of such sheltered coasts that the tallest trees are found. Inland there are magnificent groves of the same species clothing the valleys of the Columbia Kiver ; but the finest are to be seen near the sea, and it is to be earnestly desired that they may be preserved in some area chosen as a national park, that travellers may have the attraction of visiting the tremendous aisles where the great shafts rise from the thickets of glossy-leaved shrubs, to be lost to sight in the dark green gloom above. I do not think there is any scenery more solemn and beautiful than the interior of such a grove. It wants, of course, the intense colour and the sunlit glory of the liana-hung woods of the south, and the undergrowth is not so varied or bright. But the russets and browns, the greys and sombre greens, the purple tints on the straight stems, varied by the vivid hues of the moss, which provides a compass for the wanderer, because it grows most abundantly on the side which feels the western sea moisture — all are most delicious to tho eye. And overhanging the sea margin, in crannies of the rocky bays or covering the jutting promon- tories, are the beautiful madrona-trees, the large- leaved arbutus, with the trunks as red as coral. All this forest is evergreen. "Winter strips the scattered maples of their autumnal fire, but makes little change on the steep slopes of these deep lochs. Away above, the hills become whiter, and the THE VICTORY. 87 snow comes far down, driving the wild sheep and gOLts to the -valleys. But the frost is light except in the interior. The temperature, however, was often quite low enough for the Chinese labourers even near Burrard's Inlet ; and as they hewed a lane through the woods and graded the track, they used every half-hour to rush away to warm themselves over little fires lit at intervals by the wayside. Crouching over these, the small blue figures, with their saucer-shaped straw hats, could be seen acting on the Indian principle that many tiny fires are better than one big one. " You make fire so big you must run away from it ; make small, then can sit close," says the Indian, and the Chincs(3 sooni to agree with him. For the cold weather to be encountered in the winter time on the higher ground white men were alone found to be of real use, and where they were employed the work went forward merrily. The big mountain buttresses were bored through ; trestle bridges, to be quickly made more substantial, carried the construction trains, so that the navvies had house and food carried along Avith them as they progressed. Curious obstacles had to be overcome, and one which was unique was encountered near where the Thompson River joins the rushing Fraser. At this spot a remarkable land slide seems to be in perpetual operation. Probably owing to the action of some springs of water, all the soil of a whole mountain slope is slov/ly descending at the even rate of about eight feet per year. It is like the move- 88 OUR RAILWAY TO THE PACIFIC. I s ment of a glacier, very slow, but very constant. Big blocks of earth, bearing on their tops shrubs and higher growth, are to be seen toppling over near the road. They look as if they would fa)), but the pressure of the soil above, where the like masses are seen in apparently the same predicament, is gradual, and there is no danger of sudden descent. Each year the lowest blocks aro pushed down into the im- petuous river, and are taken to form atoms of the delta plain which affords such good land to the settler by the sea. The engineers, I hear, have avoided the unusual difficulty by crossing over to the other bank, where firm gravel gives security to the road bed. Very grand are the views of peak and snow- fields from points in this tract of the vallc}^, and at one of the finest prospects a bend had to be made, giving the traveller an opportunity to let his eye dwell on beauties which are too often seen in such journeys only for an instant. Dangers of another kind have to bo guarded against in this Alpine country, where the snow-slides or avalanches had to bo taken into account. So much practice has been afforded by experience of difficulties of this kind on the American railways, that the only question is one of expense. So many " snow- sheds " have to be placed where the falls are heaviest. These are like the coverings seen on Swiss bridges. Stout timbers, of which there is no lack, support a strong roof capable of resisting the impact of any ordinary slide ; and spots where heavy falls occur are avoided, THE VICTORY. 89 or the safe shelter of the rocks themselves is used by the process of tunnelling beneath them. "Wherever high wooden bridges are necessary (and there is one which is perhaps the highest in the world), the lowest supports rest on masonry of the strongest kind. Cobweb-like as these wooden structures appear from a distance, it is wonderful what strength they possess, and how extremely rare accidents have been upon them, universal as is their use all over the American continent. The trains go over them at a leisurely pace, and the conductors usually call the attention of the passengers to the outlook ; otherwise they might never notice the extraordinary nature of the road they are craversing. The traveller, roused to attention, then finds that he is proceeding along a narrow way just wide enough to hold the pair of rails forming the single track, and with an abyss below him of two or three hundred feet. In the snug cars the transit is no more trying than is the walk across London Bridge. But if a man un- accustomed to heights tries to walk across as an experiment, the sensation is not so pleasant. The " ties " or sleepers are only a short distance apart, but between each yawns the gulf below, and many a person finds it advisable to halt and gather nerve as he goes on his way stepping from timber to timber ; for his eye gets confused in the effort to look through the intervals and to the next resting-place for the foot. Perhaps the shortest-sighted are the least inclined to giddiness in making such an effort. p 1^ i 11 ■( !\ 11 I i 90 0[/J^ RAIL WAV TO THE PACIFIC. Many, of course, ^W^ ^^'^^j^^^^p^e-^:,-- ^ laugh at the idea ' of such weak- nesses, but the strongest in body often prove the weakest in head. The engraving of Canmore gives a good idea of one of the fine hill views. The first surveys of these ravines and hills looked like one of the old physical geography charts of our boyhood, where all the acutest and tallest peaks of the globe were gathered together at the top of the map to show their relative heights. Such a formidable row of uneven sharks' teeth was never seen. It seemed impossible to run a straight line anywhere THE VICTORY, 91 among them. And for a long time it was believed that none could be found. Man after man who had explored the ranges had come back with the tale that as far as he could see through the dense forest un- broken range succeeded unbroken range. ON THE FEASER EIVEE. The entrance to the Fraser canon is not difficult. The engraving gives the outlook from near the foot of its great ravines. Every one knew the Fraser gorge could bu penetrated, costly as it would be ; 92 OUR RAILWAY TO THE PACIFIC, i: !' ' : I J ! 1 ' r for a waggon road had already been made to cling to the precipice walls above the foaming floods, and this had carried the gold miners up to regions where in old days the Indians could hardly get a mule along the craggy footpath scarcely fit for a goat. Then there was the Thompson River, giving access by more easy paths to Kamloop's Lake, and beyond again, by streams overshadowed by woods, to Lake Shu swap, a beautiful sheet of water, winding with many arms among the forest slopes. Then again, yet farther, there was the Eagle Pass to the Columbia River, which was a little difficult, but was certainly passable. Ah ! then came the puzzle ! We might follow the Columbia round its great bend of seventy-five miles and so reach the foot of an awful " coll " or neck, which might be reached by climbing three thousand feet, and so down over the " Kicking Horse Pass " to the eastern side of " The Rockies." But could the Columbia bend be avoided ? All accounts said, " No, it is impossible ; we see no chance of it." But Major Rogers, an American engineer, thought he would make another attempt. Through perils innumerable, from the difficulty of getting food, and with dreadful fatigue, he accomplished his ('bject. Following a stream called the Illocillowat, ho took observations, with the result that he came down from the entangled forests declaring that the thing could be done. He had found a practicable pass. Few believed him. but he was " not to be denied," and taking with THE VICTORY, 03 was him Mr. Sandford Fleming and Principal Grant, two men who, like himself, believed that nothing was impossible, he went over the route again, and light broke in on the darkest problem of this stupendous enterprise. The sea range in the Cascade Mountains had been traversed, the " Rockies," the most eastern, would give trouble, but a bit could be placed in their rugged jaws, and now the central or " Selkirk" range had also been conquered, for where the surveyor says the navvy can go, the iron horse can follow. xr.r . A ► ».:*£3, w^ #1%^ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) .^ 5^ .^ J % 1.0 I.I 11.25 iS. 192.0 liilM |25 y4 1^ 12.2 m m Hi lit HiotograiJiic Sciences Carporalion 23 WIST MAIN STMIT WnSTn,N.Y. USM (716)l7a-4S03 4^^^ I CHAPTEE IV. FROM THE PACIFIC TO WINNIPEO. HE task is done, and done in less time than many governments would take to talk of it. The Canadian Railway spans the con- tinent. Nowhere can finer scenery be enjoyed from the window of a car than upon this line. There is no doubt that the favourite Transatlantic excursion will no longer be to New York, Niagara, Montreal, and Quebec only, but that all who have a month's time to spend will go to the Pacific by the Northern American line, or come back that way, making the Canadian Railway their object on the outward or return journey. By the " Union and Central," striking as is some of the scenery on the western slope, there is very little worthy of note until the woods are reached ; for one is borne to the top of the high ranges without knowing it, so gradual and so tame is the ascent. FROM THE PACIFIC TO WINNIPEG, 95 N But on the two northern roads the approach to the mountains is most remarkable, and the view from the Canadian " Susa," namely, Calgary, is very grand. Clear from the long swells of greensward spring the rock walls and serrated ridges of the Western Alps. It is among these rock masses that it has been found in one place necessary to make a long tunnel under Mount Stephen, a formidable barrier to the line. The accompanying en- graving shows this I ' 96 OUR RAILWAY TO THE PACIFIC. "little difficulty." As the train leaves the hills, standing steel-blue against the golden sky of sunset, and we depart from this fascinating Alpine land, let us listen to the words of one of the latest settlers within its valleys, and beguile half an hour in the smoking-room of the train by hearing what he says. There is nothing so interesting as the recital of recent experience ; and the following letter was received by me a few weeks ago. It was written by an English officer who, last year, determined to try his luck in the ranche country ; and it gives so graphic a picture of life among the valleys of British Columbia, near to the borders of America, and a hundred and fifty miles from Alberta Territory, that it is worth far more than any general description. " I have now," he writes, " been over a twelve- month in this lovely country, and am therefore in a position to give an account of it which may be of value. Thanks to letters of introduction, my way was smoothed on my arrival at Victoria, and, accom- panied by my son, I made my way here last winter. "We had a hard time of it — in a tent up to last January, with the thermometer occasionally 40*^ below zero of Fahrenheit ; but from the 24th of January we had the most exquisite weather imagin- able. The winter was an unusually severe one, but I purposely braved it, in order to gain experience of the country at its worst season. "First let me give a brief description of the country and valley where we are located. Starting FROM THE PACIFIC TO WINNIPEG. 97 from the Kicking Horse Pass, where the Canadian Pacific Railway meets the Columbia River, we have a long valley formed by the Rocky Mountains on one side and the Selkirk Range on the other, and stretching for two hundred and fifty miles to the American boundary. About half-way along the valley is a flat piece of land of about two thousand acres area, with the foot-hills of the Rockies and Selkirks coming down on each side of it. This flat is, curiously enough, the watershed of the two great rivers, the Columbia and the Kootenay, there being only a difference of eleven feet between the two. The former flows north, and then makes a great bend to the south, the latter flows south and then makes a great bend to the north. " We thus have a long valley of two hundred and fifty miles, with the Columbia and Kootenay rivers flowing in opposite directions from its centre. Both these rivers are navigable for the above distance, and it is contemplated to put steamers upon them next year, which will bring the whole valley into water communication with the Canadian Pacific Railway. The width of the valley varies from fifteen to twenty miles, and it is composed of foot-hills, benches, or river-terraces, and bottom lands, all covered with bunch grass (an excellent, nutritious grass, making the best beef in the world), and a considerable quantity of magnificent pine and larch timber. It may be described as open forest with small prairies scattered through it. G i i 98 OUR RAILWAY TO THE PACIFIC. " North of the watershed there is no pine, and very- little larch, but Douglas fir is scattered over the grazings. The bunch grass gives way to pine grass about eighty miles north of the watershed. Good agricultural land is very much scattered in patches varying from three hundred acres to fifty, here and there, but the former quantity in one piece is rare. The soil is generally a sandy loam, with a gravelly sub-soil, and it bears splendid crops of potatoes, oats, barley, peas, and wheat, but where the sand pre- dominates over the clay irrigation is necessary. There are many streams flowing into the main river, which afiPord means for irrigation. Father Fouquet, the Roman Catholic priest, who has lived in the valley for fifteen years, declares that irrigation is not neces- sary ; but I should be loath to farm some of the lands without the power of irrigation on an emergency. " There are parts which must originally have been lakes, where the soil is deep and exceedingly rich, forming a dark vegetable loam, and I am fortunately located on such a spot. This year I had over ten tons of potatoes from one acre, and without manure or irrigation. An acre of oats averaged five feet three inches in height — and some stalks were six feet six inches. Turnips, carrots, and beet do admirably, but it is too cold for Indian corn to flourish. Currants, raspberries, ^'ooseberries, and strawbenies, together with numerous other berries, grow wild in the greatest profusion. There is also a wild vetch, a wild pea, and a wild onion. ,r FROM THE PACIFIC TO WINNIPEG. 99 4. ■j. "As to climate, I have found it perfectly de- lightful. There is generally a heavy fall of snow at this season (October), or early in November, which disappears in a few days. Just before Christmas the second snowfall occurs, and the snow lies until March, when it commences to thaw, and is generally gone by the first of April. The average depth of the snow is about fifteen inches. Horses do admirably on the wild grazings without any other food in the winter, and come out in the spring in admirable condition ; but unless a man is fond of gambling he should feed his cattle for three months in the winter, otherwise he might lose a large proportion of them in a very severe year. "Horses, or rather large ponies, may be bought at 27 dollars per head, taking a number of various ages ; cattle at 30 dollars in the same way. Wages and food are very high at present : labour 45 dollars and food per month in summer, and 30 dollars and food per month in winter. Beef sells at 1 3 cents, pork at 20 cents, fiour at 10 cents, potatoes at 3 cents per pound. But the local market is limited at those prices. Herds of cattle can be readily sold at Fort McLeod, distant two hundred miles from here, at 40 dollars per head. '*The future of the valley is dependent on its mining, timber, and cattle-ranching resources. There is an almost certain prospect of a very large mining popu- lation growing up in the valley, as gold is found in all the creeks, and one locality has given out over three 100 OUR RAILWAY TO THE PACIFIC, million dollars within the last twenty years. The country is yet in its infancy as far as mineral pro- specting is concerned, but /akiable discoveries are constantly being made. A clever mining engineer who has lately visited us, considers this to be one of the richest mining districts on the American con- tinent. " There is no doubt that the lumber trade will also develop, as the timber lies conveniently for supplying the north-wesu provinces. Cattle -ranching, with ordinary care, must prove very profitable, and there is yet a field open for settlement in that direction. There is no doubt that when communication is easy, the valley will become one of the great tourist routes, as the lake, river, and mountain scenery could not be surpassed. "The district is admirably suited for English gentle- man emigrants, provided they have capital. A steady man with a commonsense head and with not less than £3,000, would be sure to succeed; and with patience and hard work he might in twenty years have an in- come of as many thousands a year as he had capital to start with. But the man without capital should not come here; he will find the cost of food and wages so great that it will crush him before he can get returns from his farm, and he cannot count upon any returns worth mentioning under three years. " As to sport, there is plenty of game ; but it is difficult to get at, on account of the immense extent of forest on the mountains. There are grisly, brown, b) 102 OUR RAILWAY TO THE PACIFIC, and black bears ; here and there elk and cariboo, besides numbers of black and white-tailed deer, mountain sheep and goats, several kinds of grouse, wild swans, geese, and ducks ; but a large bag cannot be made. There are quantities of splendid trout in all the rivers and they take the fly readily. Hitherto we have been very much out of the world ; but with steamers on the Columbia and Kootenay rivers we shall be within fourteen days of England. " I ought to have mentioned that although in the winter months there are one or two cold waves of three days* duration, the remainder of the time has given us most enjoyable weather. February, March, and April were most lovely months. The altitude of the valley has never been accurately measured, but I make it about 3,000 feet above the sea; I would not advise any gentleman emigrant to bring out a wife at first; he should come himself for a year, and get things settled up, and then bring out his wife. "Yesterday an old man, over seventy years of age, came to me. Where had he come from ? He had been born and bred in Golspie. I gave him some of the whiskey of the country, and told him that when he next came I might be able to give him a glass of Clyneleish whiskey from Brora. I was amused at his remark of thanks, for the curse of this region may be put down as whiskey-drinking in excess. Such scruples had evidently not troubled my friend, for when I announced my expectation of the arrival of mountain dew from Sutherland » FROM THE PACIFIC TO WINNIPEG. 103 he said, ' Weel, now, sir, ye'll just be the making 0' this country ! ' " It may be mentioned in passing that the cattle droves have thriven marvellously of late on this side of the mountains, among which the writer of the fore- going letter is settled ; and that whiskey is not a commodity allowed to be sold in Alberta, so that the old Sutherland emigrant had better remain where the country has the bent chance of such " making." If the reader has not gone to sleep already he may do so now, as the train passes on. He will miss the junction of the line to the coal-mines, and the crossing of the Bow River, with the swift and clear water of the South Saskatchewan, whose waters are already made muddy by the alluvial deposits of the flat country. He will miss Regina, the official centre of the new provinces ; but he may console himself if he awakes when the morning's light shines upon cultivated fields, grain elevators, substantial stations, near busy little towns like that of Brandon, a three-year-old city. These are springing up like the flowers in spring-time all over the prairie country. They are not yet, as a rule, free of their aboriginal structures of plank, but they show church-towers and public buildings. CHAPTER V. WINNIPEG TO MONTREAL. INNIPEG itself deserves a more than pass- ing look, for the site gives promise of great wealth. The Assiniboine joins its waters to those of kindred hue in the Red River's stream. Fine buildings, wood - paved • streets, gas, and handsome shops show the vigorous growth of the young capital of the West. It is strange to think that only fifteen 3^ears ago, Riel the leader of two revolts, who has lately expiated his second crime by death, believed himself secure here when he raised the flag of a mon- grel separate state, and bade defiance to the British Empire. His last crime was the worst, for he at- tempted to raise the red against the white man ; but peace to these recollections, which may be deemed the last trouble of the newest country in the New World. WINNIPEG TO MONTREAL. 105 Henceforward let us hope that an uninterrupted time of ever-progressing prosperity lies before the great grain provinces of Canada. What they may do in the future has been shown this last, year, when, in spite of insurrection and disturbance, more than eight million bushels of wheat were ready for export. With careful sowing, the early frosts of aulunin can be made harmless, and, to judge by the looks and words of the people, there are health and comfort to be found in the wide north land now open to all who ^ove inde- pendence, and toil renumerative in the two great re- quisites of health and contentment. No one who has knowledge ofthe present condition of affairs dreads any Indian trouble, any more than death at a London crossing. The chiefs knew too well what was their sole chance of getting food, and did not join Riel. The exceptions were men living far to the north of the railway, and in contact with the half-breeds. The grievances of Kiel's deluded fol- lowers, the so-called Metis, have been fully investigated and remedied. No redskin would have dreamed of resistance to the law had it nc t been for the insti- gation of his evil-minded cousins. The exceeding promptness with which the Canadian troops were sent westwards, their swift tracking of the insurgent bands, the summary end put to the armed rebellion on the far away Saskatchewan, and the just and certain doom dealt out to the murderers, have produced the desired lesson. The land along the railway may still be obtained io6 OUR RAILWAY TO THE PACIFIC, at prices which are ridiculously cheap. Branch lines are being pushed in various directions. The whole of the eight hundred miles to the west of Winnipeg pays tribute to her advancing prosperity. The cattle ranches have proved as successful as was expected in Alberta, and where cattle cannot be easily grazed all the year round, a large amount of horse-breeding will probably be carried on, for horses appear to thrive well all over the plains, and especially in the north during the winter cold. The coal mines opened by Sir Alexander Gait have already reduced the price of coal at Winnipeg to eight dollars per ton. There is an apparently endless amount of good fuel, so that as other mines are developed, and a double track laid, the best provision can be made against winter's severity. The last news given to the Directors of the Hud- son's Bay Company is good. " There is," says their Land Commissioner, " a decided improvement in mercantile affairs in Manitoba. The bank deposits are largely increasing ; so much so, that the rate of interest is being steadily reduced. The wholesale and retail business throughout the city shows a marked improvement. Similar reports are received from Brandon and other points. The price of grain is much better than last year, and the quantity of first-class wheat much greater than was expected in September. The branch lines now being constructed are of benefit, both from the expenditure incurred and the improving transportation facilities for grain WINNIPEG TO MONTREAL, 107 which they are creating. The Fall has been fine and very dry. A large amount of land has been ploughed, and will be ready for early sowing next year." There is no doubt that, although in 1881 there was an undue amount of speculation, and the result- ant recoil, together with the general depression in business, produced much disappointment and distress, the country is now finding its level. The national highway must reap the benefit of this solid and satisfactory advance : the dangers which menaced it have been conquered. These consisted not so much in the rocky wildnesses of the Lake Superior shore, sufficient as they had been to make men decry the honest purpose of pushing the undertaking. No ; the real danger lay in persistent detraction by in- terested rivals, and in the attempts of New York rings to cut down stocks that might compete favour- ably with those supported by themselves. If once this gigantic effort, made by a people of such comparatively small numbers, should succeed, there was no doubt that the southern "combinations" would have to look to their laurels. What other company possessed, as did this new upstart, harbours on each ocean, entirely free only to themselves, relieving them from the obligation of parting with the " earnings of the most remunerative traffic " ? How could the fact be passed over that there was a saving in distance of more than four hundred miles, and that, if one looked at the saving in reaching Asia, the gain was enormous? Opposition was io8 OUR RAILWAY TO THE PACIFIC, natural. But it must be acknowledged that the public opinion of the great people of the United States overlooks the small jealousies of competing companies, and regards only the " greatest good of the greatest number;" and it hails with joy the open- ing of a new access to the West. No more appreciative notice has come from any quarter than that given by a Chicago writer. "A transcontinental railway parallel to, and in many respects a competitor with, those of the United States, but independert of them in respect to all agreements, is now completed. The Canadian Pacific has a continuous track from Port Moody, a distance of 2,900 miles ; the longest line in the world. A few days ago its trains commenced running from Montreal to Winnipeg, 1,430 miles, and from the latter point they already run west 1,000 miles. The entrance of this line into the field will soon develop some new phases of railway competition. The Cana- dian Pacific has been built as a national highway, and to develop the region through which it passes. Travel and freight traffic between Europe and Asia is to be diverted from the long all-sea route, and from the railways now reaching the sea at Portland and San Francisco ; and the trains of the Canadian Pacific, and the fast steamers which will ply in its interest between Vancouver Island and Japan and China, will offer all possible inducements. " There is no fear that American railroads will not hold their share of transcontinental business against WINNIPEG TO MONTREAL^ 109 le lof }(1 this new rival ; but it is not unlikely that rates may- be materially reduced in the struggle. The sugges- tion that this ambitious railway may also reach down and take business right from under the eyes of American roads seems comical, and yet it appears to be apprehended. Thus \}i\.QGazdie, published at Bil- ling's, Montana, advocates the building of a branch from the Northern Pacific THE LAKE OF THE WOODS. north-westerly to Fort Benton. The Canadian Pacific Railway has a great and useful work to no OUR RAILWAY TO THE PACIFIC. perform in developing the vast country which has called it into being, and in this the people of the United States will be glad to see it succeed. If it is operated on the principles of fair and reasonable competition it will receive honourable treatment from the railways of the United States ; and in time the growth of the continent, which all transcontinental lines will help to develop, will give them all ample support." Of the difficulties overcome north of Superior some idea may be formed from the annexed statement : — With the exception of about sixty miles, the principal material encountered was rock of the hardest description known to engineers and con- tractors, and the oldest known to geologists — sienite and trap. Over two and a half million cubic yards of solid rock excavation of this description — a mixture, chiefly, of feldspar, hornblende, and quartz — had to be removed, besides large quantities of loose rock and hardpan. The task may be judged of by the fact that for fifteen months one hundred tons of dynamite per month were used. The explosive property of dynamite is considered to be equal to twelve or thirteen times that of gunpowder; so that for every month, for fifteen months, if gunpowder had been employed, enough would have been required to freight one of the Company's large steel steamers running on Lake Superior. The dynamite was manufactured on the works. The operations went on without intermission. ik WINNIPEG TO MONTREAL. Ill winter and summer, day and night, controlled by an army numbering for the greater part of the time not less than twelve thousand men. There were also employed from fifteen hundred to two thousand teams of horses, supplemented in the winter by about three hundred trains of dogs. To house and accommo- date this vast host, nearly three thousand buildings of various descriptions were erected on the works. We can give no estimate of the quantities of food for men and dogs and forage for horses which were brought in ; but in the fall of the year seven months' provision had to be made for this hungry host, with appetites so whetted by the hard out-door work and the eager nipping air that each man consumed on an average five pounds of solid food per diem. To bring in these supplies and the material for the works, the company had seven steamers running, and the con- 'ractors five. For the same purpose fifteen docks and storehouses were built by the company along the shore of the lake, requiring three million feet of lumber in construction. The shore was so rough that supply roads could not be built except at enor- mous expense ; so the supplies and material were landed at these docks, and thence distributed by fleets of small boats along the line. And not only were there difficulties by land, there were difficulties by water as well. Michipicoten was one of the most valuable points of distribution along the entire coast ; but it could not be advantageously availed of, owing to the fierceness of the storms. Here two docks 112 OUR RAILWAY TO THE PACIFIC. were built, each in turn to be washed away by the violence of the sea, and here also two steamers were sunk. Consequently the supplies had to be landed four miles west of Michipicoten, and distributed from that point instead. The labour and expense of getting in the stuff from the coast at Michipicoten to the railway inland on the north may be estimated from the following : First, a road through the rocks had to be built seven miles in length ; then a lake six and a half miles long was struck, to traverse which a steamboat had to be constructed. A stretch of sixteen miles of rough mountainous country, requiring large rock blastings and cutting, had then to be encountered. That accomplished, a second lake eleven miles long was reached, where another transport steamer was built. Two and a half more miles of road inter- vened between this lake and Dog Lake, where a third steamer was built. This boat ran from the point of taking in the supplies fourteen miles to the north-west angle and twelve miles to the north- east angle of Dog Lake, distributing her freight along the works, which were now at last reached — about one hundred miles of the road east and west being in this way supplied from Michipicoten. On these inland lakes six docks and six warehouses were built. As many as eight hundred and sixty derricks were used on the works. Between Nipigon and the Pic there are five tunnels, and not less than ten rivers had to be aSiB^Hl WINNIPEG TO MONTREAL. "3 r fe id r d diverted from their natural courses and carried through rock tunnels excavated underneath the road bed. One of these rivers measures in width one hundred and fifty feet. There are along the coast eleven miles where in the living rock a shelf has been formed for the road bed of the railway, ave- raging twenty feet in width, in some places consi- derably wider: The rivers crossed by the line are spanned by iron bridges, the abutments — indeed, the stone work throughout — being the best kind of masonry. There is some temporary trestle work, which has mostly now been filled in. As a further evidence of the quality of the work, it may be remarked that no grade exceeds fifty-two feet to the mile, and the curvature is generally good, only two curves exceeding six degrees. There were few accidents to call the hospitals into requisition, and such was the care exercised in the dynamite factories that no casualty whatever arose in the manufacture of the tons upon tons of explosives. There was, however, one serious result from culpable ignorance and temerity, four men having brought dynamite into one of the houses and placed it on the stove to thaw ! The experience was a severs one, but to these poor fellows it carried no benefit. The survivors were more cautious. After the works were completed, care was taken to demolish the dynamite factories so as to render them innocuous. Although last winter was very severe, with heavy falls of snow, Mr. Ross regards it as exceptional, and 114 OUR RAILWAY TO THE PACIFIC, he does not apprehend difficulty in working tho line. The wmters of 1882-3 and 1883-4 north of Lake Superior were, he says, delightful, with only about two feet of snow, and no drifts. The character of the country, he states, is very dificrent from tho dreary waste between Port Arthur and Selkirk, being bold and, with the lakes and rivers, exceedingly changeable in its aspects, striking and picturesque. The work would have been completed earlier even than it was but for the transport of the troops to suppress the Kiel rising, the labour of laying track and building bridges having to bo suspended in order to take the forces round the gaps. The first troops reached the division about April 1st, and were through by the 20th. Fifteen days later a train passed over without a break. The last troops went past on May 19 th, fully equipped with sleeping and dining cars. Once the north-eastern shores are left behind the route runs througli the woody country skirting Nipissing, and so by the Upper Ottawa to familiar ground around the capital of the dominion. Crossing the Gatineau River, the junction of which with the Ottawa is here shown, we are reminded that coloni- sation is being actively carried on by the French Canadians in the valleys of the tributary streams, such as the Gatineau, Li^vre, and others, giving a "back country" to the Ottawa and St. Lawrence valleys. Montreal is reached in less than two hours from this point. •i WINNIPEG TO MONTREAL. «iS Controlling interests have been secured by the Canadian Pacific Railway in Ontario over other roads ii6 OUR RAILWAY TO THE PACIFIC. to prevent hostile intrigues. In brief, the history of the greatest undertaking of this age is seen at a glance in the following table : — CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. Incorporated February IGtk, 1881. Commenced building westward from Winnipeg, May, 1881. Owns in November, 1885 : — Miles. Miles. Main Line 2,894'7 Branch Lines, East 403'4 „ „ West 221-2 Leased Lines G98-3 4,217-6 Which have come into the Company's posses- sion in the following manner : — Built by Government and handed over to Com- pany 706-5 Acquired by purchase, lease, or otherwise . 1,370'r) Built by Company since May, 1881 . . . 2,140-6 4,217-6 The mileage operated by the Company next year will (approximately) be 4,235 Doll'irs. Net earnings, 9 months ending 30th September, 1885 . 2,289,000 II I am sure it will be the wish of all patriotic men, be they British or Canadian, that this backbone of the Dominion may, year after year, draw ever- increasing profits. Troops and freight may thereby be sent by a route several hundreds of miles shorter than any other to China and Japan. Mail service, if sent over by this way, will be greatly accelerated, and none but British ground, and none but British ships, need be touched from London to Hong Kong. It is a noble work nobly performed^ Lorne* 35 00 of 5y er sh IN THE FIJI ISLES. CHAPTER I. SCENERY AND NATURAL PRODUCTS. JJI, with its hundred and fifty isles, looks in the distance very much like many other isles a good deal nearer home — Harris, Lewis, and Skye, for instance — especially as seen on the day of our arrival. Thick mist alternated with such downpours of rain that we had to beat about for a considerable ti> le just outside the coral reef (which lies about a mile from the shore of Ovalau), actually within sound of the church bells, but seeing literally nothing, till a lull in the storm revealed the passage, i.e. the opening in the barrier reef. Through this we passed into the quiet harbour of Levuka, when a bright gleam of sunshine fell like a ray of promise on the little town, with its background of richly 120 IN THE FIJI ISLES. wooded hills, and dark craggy pinnacles far overhead, appearing above the white wreaths of floating mist. I confess that Levuka greatly exceeds our expecta- tions. We had imagined it was still the raffish haunt of uproarious planters and white men of the lowest type, described by visitors a few years ago ; instead of which we find a most orderly and respectable com- munity with strongly church-going tendencies. Be- sides the native chapels there are three well-attended churches of the Episcopal, Wesleyan, and Koman Catholic persuasions. We are told that the reforma- tion in the sobriety of the town is partly due to the Good Templars, who here muster a very considerable brotherhood. Doubtless their work is greatly facili- tated by the increased price of gin, which in former days flowed like water, at the modest price of a shil- ling per bottle, but has now risen to five times that sum. As concerns shops, or, as they are here called, stores, they are many and various, and if not troubled with a useless frontage of plate glass, they are at least fully stocked with all things needful ; and there are several boarding-houses and hotels which, if not luxurious, at least provide the necessaries of life. The situation of Levuka is by no means a desirable one for a capital which may become so important as that of Fiji, as it consists only of a very narrow strip of land on the edge of the sea, backed by steep hills, running up to nearly three thousand feet. Though, of course, the lower spurs of these may gradually be 122 IN THE FIJI ISLES. (lotted with villas, there is no possibility of extend- ing the town, unless by expensive terracing. Only Avithin the last few months has there been anything like what is ordinarily called a road — even the main street being only a strip of rocky sea-beach, and the few other footpaths are of the roughest description. So, from the moment we leave the very untempt- ing sea-beach, all our excursions must be on foot ; and such exhausting scrambles I have rarely been driven to attempt. The hills are so very steep, and, moreover, so densely wooded, that a moderate walker really need not attempt them, though the bluff faces of crag and rock pinnacle are certainly attractive. There is no means of locomotion save walking and boating ; the various Indian methods of carrying are unknown, and great was the amazement of the natives when the hrst horse was landed at Levuka. So gigantic a creature had never visited them in dreams, and one poor fellow still bears grievous traces of a frightful kick received while too confidingly tak- ing hold of the unknown animal by the tail. Greater still was the wonder when, on one of the larger islands, a couple of mounted horsemen appeared for the first time at some of the inland villages, and were, naturally enough, hailed as supernatural beings, at whose approach the affrighted people fled pre- cipitately, seeking refuge in the tallest palms, or wherever else they could find shelter. This island of Ovalau, though important by virtue of its being the site of Levuka, the present capital, is. I SCENERF AND NATURAL PRODUCTS, ii^ in point of size, somewhat insignificant ; considerably- larger, however, than Bau, the tiny isle on which King Thakombau's own particular town is situated. Both these isles lie off the coast of Viti Levu,*"'^ which is by far the largest of the whole group. Viti Levu simply means Great Viti, which is the name by which these islands are always called by their own people ; the name of Fiji, which we have adopted, being simply the Tongan mispronunciation of the word. The majority of these isles are protected by a partial rim of coral, which acts the part of a natural breakwater, and encloses a calm lagoon of shallow water whereon the smallest canoes can sail in safety j and as there seems invariably to be a break in the reef opposite the mouth of every stream, there are not lacking passages by which to enter these harbours of refuge. Moreover, many of the isles lie so near to one another, that you can often travel for a consider- able distance, almost always profiting by this shelter, and avoiding the dangers of the open sea. Others, however, lie as far asunder as the Scilly Isles from the Hebrides or the Orkneys, and Fiji is composed of several groups quite as distinct as these. Certainly nature has done her part well in offering surroundings of infinite beauty. There are innumer- able sites on these breezy hillsides whence, looking down through a veil of glittering palm-leaves and rich foliage, the eye that loves exquisite colour can never weary of simply watching the ever-changing • Pronounced " Veeteo Layvoo." 124 IN THE FIJI ISLES. \^,i. »-:! l scene outspread below ; for the calm sea-lake, whereon vessels of all sizes float so peacefully, is separated from the great purply ocean by a crystalline rainbow. The coral reef acts the part- of a submarine prism, producing a gleaming ray, wherein blends every shade of aquamarine, mauve, emerald green, sienna, and orange, for ever varying with the ebb and flow of the tide, which at high water covers the reef to the depth of several feet. The highest edge of the reef lies towards the ocean, and a line of dazzling white surf marks where the great breakers wage their ceaseless warfare on the barrier; but the passage through the reef is plainly marked by a break in the white line, and a broad roadway of deep blue con- necting the inner waters with the great deep. All along the horizon, '* Like sweet thoughts in a dream," lie the neighbouring isles, their beauty sorely at variance with such deeds of ruthless bloodshed and extermination of whole tribes as have been thereon enacted in very recent years. The great barrier reef is not our only marine rainbow, for a labyrinth of smaller patches crops up everywhere, making the navigation of these waters a thing of infinite danger to the uninitiated. But for a never-failing sensation of delight, I commend you to floating over the reef in a boat of very light draught, so that you may peer down into all the crevices of those wondrous coral gardens, where every tinge of delicate pink, lilac, and ' blue recalls the »*' S' V- h ii 12b IN THE FIJI ISLES. flowers of earth. Alas ! these sea-flowers fade away so soon as we take the beautiful tufts to land ; for the colour is given by the gelatinous coral insect, which drips its life away when taken from its home, and, in a few hours, leaves us only its white skeleton — a very poor substitute for the lovely thing we saw and coveted. The beautiful vision, moreover, like all that sub- marine garden, derived much of its charm from the medium through which we beheld it — the clear, translucent water. Sometimes we look down on patches of many-coloured weed, where exquisite fish of vivid hues congregate in families, some striped with crimson, some with black ; some are \ivid yellow, with a collar like peacocks* feathers. The commonest of all are either green or blue, each more dazzling than any brush could paint. Some of the loveliest of these are so tiny that you can keep a dozen in a tumbler ; others are about the length of your finger. Sometimes we pass over great tables of dark coral, whereon lie lumps of brain and mushroom coral, sponges, and madrepores. Of course, to secure these prizes it is necessary to step on to the reef; which, however tempting in some respects, is not altogether pleasant walking, the sharp points of the coral cutting through the thickest boots, while deceptive appear- ances make it probable that you will plunge into a much greater depth than you expected. But to the natives, untroubled by overmuch raiment, the reef is SCENERY AND NATURAL PRODUCTS. 127 ll a source of endless amusement and profit, and often at low tide they sail thither in their picturesque canoes, with large yellow mat sail, and curious out- rigger attached to one side. These canoes are always objects of interest, espe- cially those of the chiefs, which, besides carrying a flag, sometimes have a fringe of great streamers floating from the sail, while the canoe is richly adorned at both ends with ghstening white shells (the Cyprea ovula), which are also a favourite decora- tion for the main beam on roofs of houses. The boatmen (who rejoice in such quaint rendering of scriptural names as Luki, Joeli, Isaia, Ilijah, Solo- moni, Zachausi, Methusela, &c.) beguile the time by singing monotonous songs, which, but for the almost invariable and very peculiar accompaniment of clap- ping hands, would often recall the Gaelic lays of our own northern boatmen. Some of these are invocations of the idle wind, nor is the familiar custom of whistling for a breeze by any means unknown. Imagine the aggravation of day by day paddling over this warm sunny sea, sorely tempted to bathe therein, and yet knowing full well that the sharks here hold high revel and have an especial eye to white limbs ; not that they are particular, having no objection to eating turtles, shell and all, or anything else that comes in their way. As regards climate, our impressions are highly favourable. We see white men who have been here or years, going about without any of the ordinary ill I u i II ■I 1 r i 128 IN THE FIJI ISLES. precautions deemed necessary in tropical climates. White umbrellas and solar hats are alike neglected, and a white puggaree is considered ample protection in a country where sunstroke and fever are alike rare. The thermometer at 90° marks an exceptionally hot day, and with the exception of occasional tropical showers, we have generally fine weather — hot cer- tainly, in the mid-day hours, but almost invariably tempered by a balmy breeze and soft grey clouds. December is supposed to usher in midsummer heat and heavy rains — not incessant, but very much in earnest while they last, and for three months we may be liable to hurricanes, which, however, are not an invariable part of the programme ; n^r can they possibly be as severe as those of the West Indies, or all the frail buildings which compose this little capital would inevitably have long since been levelled with the ground. One unattractive characteristic of these isles forces itself on my notice all the more cruelly, coming in sharp contrast with the profusion of wild-flowers in Australia — namely, that they scarcely produce a blossom. I have walked day after day till I was weary, without finding so many flowers as would fill a small vase. The strange lack of animal life is one of the most remarkable peculiarities of these isles, where the only indigenous four-footed creatures are rats and flying foxes. Even the pigs, which no ,v run wild in the jungle, were originally introduced by the Ton- :e re in a a I c g n H !li! in SCENERY AND NATURAL PRODUCTS. 131 gans, who also brought ducks and fowls ; and as to other animals, such names as see'piy mutton ; gotiy goat ; pussi, cat ; ose, horse ; collie, dog, and bulla- macoiu, beef, sufficiently betray their origin. Hap- pily, the list of Fijian reptiles is equally small. The snakes are few, and not venomous. Scorpions and centipedes are very rare, so that flies and mos- quitoes are almost the only foes we have to combat. Even fire-flies, which we look upon as a positive right in all tropical lands, are very few and very dim. However great may be the shortcomings of Fiji in the matter of flowers, she may safely divide honours with Australia in respect ol ferns, which grow in richest profusion, and are of innumerable species. Nothing can be more beautiful than a damp ravine in either country, with luxuriant masses of exquisite ferns hanging from every bough of the grey old trees, and here and there the stem of a magnificent tree-fern rising thirty or forty feet above the sea of greenery below, bearing its noble crown, and having its lower fronds all tangled with glossy-leaved creepers or festoons of the delicate climbing fern, the tender leaves of which hang mid-air on long hair-like trails. But if Fiji has her lovely tree-ferns, she also has her tree-nettles, which attain the growth of large forest trees. Beautiful and treacherous are their large smooth leaves, veined with purple or white, so II : il ». '3» IN THE FIJI ISLES. tempting to the eye, so cruel to the unwary hand outstretched to gather them. Days will pass by ere the pain of that burning sting subsides. As regards the general foliage, it is almost identical with that of Ceylon, though perhaps scarcely so rich. SPECIMENS OF FIJIAN POTTERY. CHAPTEE II. INDUSTRIES AND CUSTOMS. VERY available corner of the ravines is laid out in tiny terraced fields, or rather minia- ture swamps, for the cultivation of the yams and tares, which form the staple of native food. Both these roots more or less resemble coarse potatoes, especially the former, which attain to a gigantic size, from one to ten feet in length, and are said sometimes to weigh one hundred pounds. The taro is of a bluish- grey colour, and both in appearance and consistency resembles mottled soap. As its name suggests (Arum esculentum), its leaves are like those of our own arum greatly magnified ; while those of the yam are like a very rich convolvulus, as is also its habit of growth, each plant being trained along a tall reed. A great many varieties are cultivated, includ- ing one the root of which is throughout of a vivid 134 IN THE FIJI ISLES, I! 1 ' mauve. The sweet potato is also in common use, and breadfruit and bananas are abundant. The favourite method of preparing the two latter is to wrap them up in a large leaf and bury them till they ferment. The stench when the leaf is dug up is simply intolerable to the uneducated nose of the foreigner ; but the Fijian inhales it with delight, therein scenting the mandrai (bread) and puddings in which his soul delights. These puddings are sometimes made on a gigantic scale, on the occasion of any great gathering of the tribes. We were told of one that measured twenty feet in circumference, and on the same occasion there was a dish of green leaves prepared, ten feet long by five wide, whereon were piled turtles and pigs roasted whole ; also a wall of cooked fish, five feet in height and twenty feet long. Certainly the masses of food accumulated on these great days beat everything we have heard of ancient Scottish funeral feasts. Mr. Calvert describes one festival at which he was present where there were fifteen tons of sweet puddi^ig, seventy turtles, fifty tons of cooked yams and taro (besides two hundred tons which were judiciously reserved), and as much yangona-root as would have filled five carts. The mode of laying the table on these occasions is peculiar. All food is arranged in heaps : a layer of cocoa-nut as foundation, then baked yams and taro ; next the gigantic puddings on green banana-leaves, the whole surmounted by pigs and turtles. These f f 136 IN THE FIJI ISLES. I; I I . are roasted whole in huge ovens, or rather pits in the ground, perhaps ten feet deep and twenty in diameter, which are first lined with firewood, on which is laid a layer of stones ; when these are heated the animals to be roasted are laid on them, with several hot stones inside to secure cooking throughout ; then comes a covering of leaves and earth, and the baking process completes itself. When all is ready certain men are told off, who carefully apportion this mass of food amongst the representatives of the various tribes present, these subdividing among themselves ; and great is the need for punctilious observance of all ceremonies and points of etiquette, as the smallest breach thereof would inevitably be noted, and involve certain revenge —or rather would have done so before the people became Christians. But prior to that great change a feast would have been held of small account whioH was not graced by abundant human flesh ; and if by chance there was no war on hand to provide this delicacy, there was rarely much difficulty in finding victims. A defence- less troop of women from some neighbouring vil ujLr, a canoe driven ashore by stress of weather, or failing these, a few insignificant serfs, or wives wLo Lad lost favour with their lords, supplied the place of liume- farm produce. Several peculiarities were observed concerning the hohala, or human flesh. It was con- sidered indigestible unless eaten with certain herbs, which were purposely grown in every village (Sola- rs .! INDUSTRIES AND CUSTOMS. 137 num anthropopJiagovum). Moreover, it was the only meat which was preferred rathe? high, and which must not be handled, from a belief that it would produce skin-disease. Therefore it was invariably- eaten with a pecuiL^r round wooden fork with four long prongs. Some of the most noted cannibals, who gloried in the multitude of men whom they had eaten, actually kept a record of their number by erecting lines of stones. One of these registers numbers eight hundred and seventy-two ! and the Christian son of this ogre declares that his father ate them all himself, allowing no one to share with him. Another member of the same family had registered forty-eight, when his becoming a Christian put a stop to the amusement, and compelled him to be satisfied with commonplace beef. In fact one of the excuses urged by Thakombau jt so long adhering to cannibalism was that he and his people had no other subst'.tute for English buU- amacow. It is, however, more than twenty-five years since he abjured the vile custom and accepted Christianity ; but many of the islanders kept it up till quite recentl3^ Strange, indeed, is the change that has come over these isles since first Messrs. Cargill and Cross, Wes- leyan missionaries, landed here in the year 1835, resolved, at the hazard of their lives, to bring the light of Christianity to these ferocious cannibals. Picture it in your own mind. Two white men, with- out any visible protection, landing in the midst of M 111 >Ji 138 m THE FIJI ISLES. these bloodthirsty hordes, whose unknown language the}'- had in the first place to master. Slow and dis- heartening was their labour ^ for years ; yet so well has that little leaven worked, that the eighty inhabited isles have all abjured canni- balism and other frightful customs, have lotued — i.e. become Christians — and are now, to all appearance, as gentle and kindly a race as any in the world. The common objects of industry in these isles are certainly superior to those of most savage people. Their baskets and mats are excellent, and of very varied pattern. So also is the carving of their war clubs, and the numerous variety of b^vvls of all sorts and forms — sacred bowls for the priests, and for the national beverage, yangona; also for oil. Most elaborate of all is the carving of the war spears, and greatly may we marvel when we recollect that the only tools possessed by these artists were stone axes, precisely similar to those familiar to our an- tiquarians, and which were firmly bound with cord to a wooden handle shaped at one end like a letter V. The fine carving was all done with saws of rats' teeth set in hard wood, and the s^jines of the echini were also occasionally turned to account. INDUSTRIES AND CUSTOMS, '39 The sinnet or string work, and the manufacture of tapa, i.e. cloth, are both positively works of art, so elaborate are the patterns produced. The manufacture of pottery is far in advance of that in any other isles of the Pacific, and although the potter's wheel is unknown some of the forms are most artistic. The clay used is unfortunately very friable, or perhaps its extreme brit- tleness is due to lack of proper baking. The pots are simply roughly modelled, glazed with pine resin, and lightly baked in a fire of grass and sticks. We are greatly struck by the wonderful quickness of these people in noting differences in white men, as well as the justice of their conclusions. One of the native princes gave us his opinion of the captain of a man-o'-war who had treated him very hospitably, and supposed that he had made a great impression. He said, " You know he is not exactly what ive should call a gentleman." On the other hand, Thakombau (or, as he is generally called, the Yunivalu, or root of war) summed up his opinion of the governor. Sir Arthur Hamilton Gordon, by saying, " He is quite our idea of a gentleman," that is, always courteous and con- 'I ■ I 1 Vt'3 140 IN H E FIJI ISLES. siderate, and punctiliously observant of the most minute details of native etiquette — a matter far too generally ignored by white men in their rough-shod intercourse with brown races. No better example exists of the curious combination I have just noted than the Vunivalu himself. He commenced his career of bloodshed at the early age of six, when with his own little hands he clubbed a play- fellow two years older. From this time forward he ■was noted for every species of atrocity, till the age of fifty, when he resolved to " lotu." Yet, throughout his whole life, he has been noted as a most courtly and dignified chief, especially when seen presiding at a council of minor chiefs. Now he does all in his power to help the progress of order and good, and says he w^ould rather have things as they are and see his people enjoy the blessings of peace, than recover all his old power. His ideas on all subjects were vastly enlarged by his visit to Sydney, and when you remember the amazement with which one horse was beheld here, that any form of wheeled vehicle is unknown, and that a two-storied house built by the missionaries at Viwa was considered a perfect miracle of con- struction, you can understand how wonderful so great a city as Sydney must have appeared in his eyes. He told us that the vastness of the crowds gave him some idea of what the gathering of people in heaven must be ! Wo said we wished he could see Westminster Abbey. He replied i e le % o o w w i w \ r/4)i THE WESTERN SOUNDS. 179 \ ) The entrance is so narrow that one wonders where the ship is going to find room to pass into the land- locked bay within. When fairly abreast of the entrance we descry Pembroke Peak, about three miles inland, rising on the north side to a distance of nearly seven thousand feet, while the Llawrenny Peaks on the south side rise to nearly an equal height. Imme- diately abutting on the fiord, and overshadowing it on its south side, is the fantastic Mitre Pock, so called from its form ; it attains a height of five thousand five hundred and sixty feet. As the eye wanders from the deck of the steamer up these stupendous heights, one appreciates the m.'irvellous effects that nature can produce by simple abruptness. As we pass into the centre of the sound a fine gorge opens on our view to the norih, and a pretty glacier on Mount Pembroke catches the eye in the background. To the back of this lie mountain ridges covered with eternal snow. The cascades which fall into the sound on cither side are far more striking than those in the Lauterbrunnen Valley. But their size and number depend upon the amount of the rainfall. On one of the three occasions of my visiting Milford Sound the cascades were all in flood, and as the wind was blowing in great gusty '' flaws " down the sound, its sides seemed enveloped in a drapery of moving spray. On another occasion we had a bright Italian sky, and little rain seemed to have fallen for some time, so that the cascades, instead of rushing down in tumultuous torrents, presented the appearance Ill 1 80 NEW ZEALAND. of thin blue or white threads, now losing themselves in the tangled drapery of the ferns, now breaking forth to plunge into the torrent below. About half way up the sound the steamer stops and fires a gun to wake the echoes, which seem, indeed, not to need much rousing, and, after booming round each neighbouring rock, produce the effect of a salvo of artillery fired from crags apparently half-way between earth and heaven. One of the most conspi- cuous objects is the Stirling Falls, where a large body of water falls sheer into the fiord from a height of four hundred feet, scattering afar the foam and the spray. We pass close beneath Mount Kimberly, whose frown- ing brow looks menacingly down on our deck from a height of two thousand five hundred feet.. Here and there, where a ledge is broad enough to admit of it, the native bush struggles to find a hold, and some of the trees seem to be throwing out their branches in despair before taking a leap for life into the waters below. But the most striking object in all the sound is, to my mind, the Bowen Fall, which is the outlet of the waters running from the Benton and Barren Peaks respectively. It first runs down a steep rocky chan- nel for some fifty or a hundred feet, and falling into the hollow of a rock, leaps up again and forms a huge bow ; then its waters plunge, as Mr. Green says, with a deafening roar, some three or four hundred feet sheer down into the fiord. There are some objects in nature and in art which are so won'lerful in their THE WESTERN SOUNDS. i8i beauty or in their magnificence that the senses seem to need an apprenticeship before they can appreciate them. Such is the picture of the Sixtine Madonna, such is the Church of St. Peter's at Rome, and such is the Bowen Falls. The scenery around is on a ">cale so stupendous that the falls hardly stand out in due prominence. The eye needs careful training to take in the size of the surrounding hills, and to realise the vastness of the volume of water which leaps so vigor- ously into the sound. Mr. Green, in his "High Alps of New Zealand," has given a very good account of the whole sound, nnd so has Mr. Bracken in his excellent " New Zealand Tourist." But there is plenty of room for a description more exhaustive than either of these, which should give the names and heights of each peak one passes, and not omit some account of the wonder- ful geological formation of the sound. At the head of the sound lies Freshwater Basiil, the easternmost of two coves, between Avhich a low tongue of scrub" covered land runs into the sound. Here the passengers are landed, and time is given to make a two or three hours' excursion into the scrub. On the land abutting on this cove stand two small shanties, lately erected, where one or two settlers are trying to make a living by shooting birds for their skins. They receive a packet of papers and some fresh provisions with intense delight. The solitude of the spot would oppress most men, but these did not seem to find it irksome ; and, indeed, some compen- sation for the loss of society may be fairly claimed 1 I m m »■' 'M l82 NEW ZEALAND. j; in the purity of the air and the water, while nature has abundantly provided them with an}^ quantity of fish for the trouble of catching them. When I see in the large and wealthy town of Liverpool, from which I write, the numbers of men and women, squalid, poor, and hopeless, that meet my eye each time I go out, I cannot but think that I would prefer a hundred times to be monarch of all I survey, beneath an Italian sky, and fronting an azure fiord, with store of food at my door, rather than remain an inmate of a city for the sake of exchanging notes on the pre- vailing state of poverty and hopelessness with my neighbours. H. A. Strong. i m AUSTRALIA. I p I ii AUSTRALIA. CHAPTEE I. GENERAL DESCRIPTION. EAVING New Zealand we turn, our face homewards, and with a western course we arrive within a few days on the shores of one of our greatest dependencies. Australia, although an island, is so vast in area, and has so many separate colonies — which are like so many countries — that it is often termed a " continent." There are v/ithin it five separate states, four of them having complete powers of self-government by means of elected Parliaments, while the Governors are appointed by the Crown. The system in Western Australia is somewhat diffe- rent, the Governor being assisted by a Legislative Council of twenty-one members, fourteen of whom are elected by the people, while seven are named by the Crown. I m t r^^'-'xm'M i86 AUSTRALIA. The great island may be regarded as divided into three sections or broad strips, whic;h stretch from north to south. The Avestern strip is called Western Australia, and the central South Australia.* The eastern strip is divided into three colonies — Victoria in the south, New South AVales in the middle, and Queensland in the north. The island of Tasmania, which lies south of Australia, is also a separate colony, with complete self-government. Australia was discovered by different navigators at different times ; and various parts of the country bordering the coast are named after the discoverers or explorers. A large portion of the island was first traced out by the Dutch, which accounts for the number of Dutch names in the country. These discoveries were made early in the seventeenth century. Later on. Englishmen were very industrious in navigating the waters around the South Sea Islands. First among them was Captain Cook, who sailed along the whole of the east coast of Australia. One part of this coast was named by him Botany Bay, from the large number of new plants which he found there. The mountainous country inland from Botany Bay he named New South Wales, from its fancied resemblance to the southern part of Wales. It was on the recommendation of Captain Cook that the English Government decided to found a penal settlement there for the employment of British convicts. * Becaiise the settled portion is in the south. GENERAL DESCRIPTION. ifi- At various dates afterwards English colonies were formed in different parts of the island. The interior of the country, however, has never yet heen thoroughly explored. Many attempts have heen made, and one or two travellers have crossed from north to south, but few have succeeded in reaching to any great distance inland from the west or east for want of water. We now call the country Australia, as the name of the greatest island among a group called Australasia, or Southern Asia. It was, however, formerly known also by the name of New Holland — a name given by the Dutch in honour of their own country, Holland. In shape Australia is not unlike a bishop's mitre, and in size it surpasses any other island on the globe, being about four-fifths the size of Europe. Its area is about 3,000,000 square miles, and its coast line measures about 8,000 miles. The regions along the coast (except at the north) are to a great extent rugged and mountainous, while the interior appears to be a vast pLun of sand and stones, partly covered Avith " scrtih ' —a very wilderness which seems to have been, at no remote period, the bottom of a great inland sea. The coast line is very regular, when we take into account the great area of the island. There are three distinct mountain ranges — one parallel to the east coast, one along the west coast, and one through the middle, running parallel to the other two. The ranges that run nearest to the coasts are strictly mountain chains, but the heights that n 1-Ki ^ .^^>. IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I t^t2A UZS m m u 14.0 IL25 III 1.4 1.6 6" Sciences Corporalion 23 VnST MAM STMIT W«BTm,N.Y. USM (716)872-4503 Vn i88 AUSTRALIA. i r^-. occur through the middle of the land are clusters of hills rather than a continued chain. All these ranges run in one di- rection, from north to south, and stretch from one end of the island nearly to the other, but they all become lower as they approach the north. The chief chain is I the one on the eastern side, called the "Divid- ing Range." This range extends for a length of about 2,000 miles, and runs in a broad band parallel to the coast at a distance of from 30 to 90 miles S^uC^i^^^ THE HILLS RAILWAY. GENERAL DESCRIPTION. 189 from it. The southern half of the range, known as the Australian Alps, is the highest, its chief peak (Mount Kosciusko) being 6,500 feet above the level of the sea. The northern heights, called the Blue Mountains, from their assuming a blue colour when seen at a distance, although of less elevation, are more rugged than the southern half of the range. The Blue Mountains are broken in rents and chasms, and have steep naked walls of rock, some of them standing 2,000 feet high. The eastern plams, between the mountains and the coast, are rich and fertile, and have numerous bays and harbours. For this reason these districts have been specially selected for coloni- sation by a large portion of the emigrants who have left their mother country to seek a living in this distant land. The most romantic feature of the coast is the Great Barrier Reef, a double chain of rocky islets which stretch for 1,000 miles along the north-east. This rocky chain stands out at sea 25 to 30 miles from the shore, and in some parts from 50 to 70 miles. In one respect it plays the part, on a large scale, of the Goodwin Sands off the south-east coast of England — that is, by breaking the rolling waves and preventing thei. surging on to the mainland, it forms a channel in which vessels can lie at anchor or proceed with safety. On the western side of the island there is one great inlet. The surface in this part consists mostly of granite cliffs, downs, and wavy hills, salt lakes and 190 AUSTRALIA. swamps, with a soil by no means noted for fertility. These regions are so dreary that few people are tempted to settle there. Although Western Australia is deemed a cheerless district, a party of explorers succeeded, in 1879, in discovering no less than 25,000,000 acres of land that had been supposed to be a sandy desert, but which proved to be a rich country for sheep-farming. Mr. Forrest and his party started from Perth, the western capital, and travelled a long distance north- ward along the coast. They then struck inland and eastward until they reached the Fitzroy River, and marched along its banks for 150 miles to the south- east, and then for 100 miles to the north-east. They found this to be a noble stream, teeming with fish, and navigable for 100 miles inland. The mud-flats along the banks have one drawback — they are apt to be flooded ; but as there are highlands only a few miles from the river, it is thought that cattle and sheep might be driven to the heights, where they could remain during the rainy season. But when the party left this rich region, and struck into the central area proper, they met the same fate as befell previous travellers. After passing through a land suited for sheep-farming, and leaving the Victoria River, they came to " an almost water- less country." Within a hundred miles of the tele- graph line which they were trying to reach, their food supply failed them. Forrest and one of his companions started to find the telegraph station, and GENERAL DESCRIPTION. 191 to fetch food for their comrades. They had a terrible march under a blazing sun. Their store of water dried up, and, day and night, while toiling on for sheer life, they suffered all the agonies of desperate thirst. Their tongues swelled up until they were nearly choked, and they were utterly speechless during the last two days of their march. Their horses had to be led, and the only temporary relief the pioneers could get was from sucking the moisture from the body of a snake which they happened to have killed by the way. Fortunately, these gallant fellows reached the telegraph station at last, and their comrades were soon rescued. They have the satisfaction of knowing that their heroic endurance has not been in vain ; for they have not only added to our stores of geographical knowledge, but have brought to light 25,000,000 acres of habitable land of which we were formerly ignorant. On the north, where the shores are low, there are several estuaries of large rivers ; but they are not much used, for of the people who have tried to settle there, nearly all have deserted it on account of the hot and unhealthy climate. The southern shores, along a coast line of about 700 miles, are lofty. In some parts the cliffs along the Great Bight vary from 200 to 400 feet in height, and at other parts there are hills and mountains from 1,200 to 3,000 feet high ; but the coast here is entirely without harbours or river mouths. I CHAPTEE n. WATER SYSTEM AND CLIMATE. ^USTRALIA is deficient in fresh water, whether in the form of rivers or lakes. Shallow lakes, it is true, are numerous, but they are mostly of salt water, as are also many rivers, on account of their run- ning through salt regions. Many rivers flow inland, and never reach the sea, but are lost in salt marshes. For their length, the rivers have the smallest volume of any in the world. In dry seasons many of them become mere chains of pools or mud- holes, and the land for miles on either side becomes baked and cracked by the heat of the sun. On the north there are many streams, but they are of little use for the purposes of navljation, as the climate is too hot for permanent settlement by Europeans. The chief rivers are the Victoria, Albert, Gilbert, Roper, and Flinder, which flow constantly, WATER SYSTEM AND CLIMATE. 193 being fed by heavy periodical rains, as in other tro- pical countries. On the west there is only one river of any note, called the Swan River, about 180 miles lonor. on which stands the town of Perth. The streams, as a rule, on this coast rise to a great height during the rains, and generally disappear during the dry season. On the east there are many streams, but they are of necessity short, as they flow down the sides of the mountain range, which runs parallel to the coast, and leaves but d. narrow margin of land between the heights and the sea. These streams afford plenty of ports all along the east coast, but they form only a minor feature in the river system of the country. The coast called the " Ninety Miles Beach," at the southern end of the country, is lined for a length of about 150 miles with a long series of lagoons, to which the sea gains admission by narrow straits be- tween spits of sand or low islands, forming a net- work of water passages suitable for navigation. In the whole of this vast island there is in reality only one great outlet to the sea. This is the River Murray, which opens to the ocean in Encounter Bay, on the south coast. The Murray, with its great tri- butaries, the Murrumbidgee, Lachlin, Macquarie, and Darling, drains all the western slopes of the Great Dividing Range and the Australian Alps. Its basin measures half ^ million square miles. The river is generally shallow, but is navigable for boats for about 1,500 miles during floods, and N % 194 AUSTRALIA, sometimes all the j^ear round. At its mouth it ex- pands into the shallow brackish Lake Victoria. This lake communicates with the sea at Encounter Bay by a very narrow passage, not very favourable to navi- gation. It was formerly believed that there must be a great lake in the interior of Australia, as so many rivers flow inland from the mountain slopes. It has been found, however, as we have pointed out, that a great part of the interior is occupied by sandy plains, some having rich, wild vegetation, others consisting of sand dunes, and some of marshes covered with reeds. There may be many lakes in these regions which man has not explored, but the sand alone would absorb such large quantities of water as to account for the disappearance of many streams. Still there are known to be many lakes in various parts of the island. Captain Sturt describes one which he found on his memorable journey, as a sheet of water measuring 80 miles in length from east to west, to which he gave the name of Cooper's Creek. There are others — notably Lake Torrens in South Australia — which are only lakes in the wet season, and at other times for the most part dry, with occasional mud holes and separate pools. In a coun- try where rain was abundant. Lake Torrens would be a permanent lake ; but here, where there are long dry seasons, it is merely a large depression during a great part of the year. The word *' creek" has become common, in the WATFJ^ SYSTEM AND CLIMATE. 195 language of the colonists, to represent the small streams in the interior of the island. The seasons in Australia are the reverse of those in Great Britain. The country being on the oppo- site side of the globe and in the southern hemisphere, the sun is seen in the north at mid-day. For the same reason the months of June, July, and August are the coldest months, and December, January, and February the hottest. Farmers, therefore, reap their crops at that part of the year when we are sow- ing seeds, and Christmas Day and New Year's Day occur in the hottest part . of the summer. Unlike England, the northern portion of the country is wanner than the south, for it is nearer to the equator ; indeed, it is within the tropics. The great peculiarity of the climate is the extreme dryness of the air. Being dry, it is not weakening to the human frame like the hot moist air of some countries; but, generally speaking, except in the north, it produces an elastic feeling, raises the spirits, and gives increased power of enduring fatigue. Another peculiarity is the evenness of temperature ; for the heat of summer and that of winter differ very little in the south and south-east, where the great bulk of the population is settled. There are very few sudden changes, except about four times during every summer, when in the south-eastern regions the hot wind blows from the interior for perhaps as long as two or three days. Almost the only discomfort of the climate is the 196 AUSTRALIA. suffering experienced by the colonists from these hot winds. They produce soreness of throat and eyes, and a flow of blood to the head. The leaves of plants become sere and yellow, figs and vines are partially destroyed, and whole fields of wheat and potatoes are occasionally blasted in a few hours. These winds are often laden with fine hot dust gathered in the desert, which finds its way through the crevices of doors and windows, so that escape from their effects is scarcely possible. As they blow from the north-west, they strike most forcibly on the colonies of Victoria and New South Wales, but do not spread to South Aus- tralia, or to Queensland at the north-east, neither of these being in the course of the winds. Kain, in the tropical parts of the north, falls at regular periods, as is common in tropical countries. At the south-eastern part of the island it is fairly regular, but in other parts the rainy season lasts for only three months in the year — from June to Sep- tember, which is the winter season. During these three months the rain sometimes falls in such torrents that the rivers are suddenly swollen to a great height, and the valleys are covered far and wide with muddy waters. L CHAPTEE III. NATURAL HISTORY. — 1.* ^N Australia, the vegetable, no less than the animal kingdom, presents features alto- gether different from those of other con- tinents, and the naturalist finds himself in a strange and isolated world, having com- paratively little in common with other divisions of the earth. The' extensive seaboard is everywhere characterized by a vegetation of a remarkably sombre and uniform colour, occasioned mainly by the peculiar foliage of the Eucalyptus and scrub, the leaves of which lack that striking contrast of shade on their outer and under surfaces which contributes so largely to the shifting tints of our European woodlands. Instead of spreading out horizontally, the foliage mostly * The substance of the account here given is based on "Wallace's ♦'Australasia/' iq8 AUSTRALIA. hangs vertically from the branches, hence producing little shade in the forests. Travelling is thereby rendered all the more fatiguing in the hot mid-day sun. The uniformity of the vegetation is more weari- some because of the great area over which the same forms extend. The change of the seasons also, else- where causing the fresh and vivid green of tho early spring to be succeeded by the softer summer hues and glorious golden tints of autumn, is marked by no such striking contrasts in the unvarying mantle of dull olive-green clothing the Australian wood- lands. Yet in the midst of this apparent monotony we light occasionally on spots covered by a gigantic and exuberant growth, here and there disposed in stately avenues free of scrub or underwood, elsewhere open- ing on sunny glades and sloping valleys, watered by purling streams, and clothed by the softest verdure. In other places the woodlands form a fringe round an open country, varied with hill and dale, and pleasantly relieved with isolated clusters of forest trees, covered with richest herbage, and decked with flowers of the most varied hues and forms. Or else the woodlands change to an interminable thicket, where countless flowering shrubs and lovely twining plants form an impenetrable mass of tangled foliage, such as can be matched by the virgin forests of Bra^l alone. A striking contrast to this luxuriant vegetation of NATURAL HISTORY, 100 , WATERFALL IN THE BLACK SPUR. the woodlands is presented by that of the various kinds of " scrubs " and heath which cover so large a portion of the surface of Australia. Just as Tartary % I T 200 AUSTRALIA. \\\ is characterized by its steppes, America by its prairies, and Africa by its deserts, so Australia has one feature peculiar to itself, and that is its " scrubs." Not only do they recur constantly with the same soil and the same peculiarities, but even in widely distant districts their flora is very similar. One of the most common of the scrubs is that termed " Mallee " by explorers, from its being com- posed of dwarf species of Eucalyptus called " Mallee " by the natives. The appearance of the " Mallee " is something like a bushy willow, or osier, the stems growing close together like reeds, so close that there are often ten or twelve on a square foot of ground. They grow fourteen feet high without a branch, and when a road is cut through a scrub of this kind, it appears like a deep trench, or as if enclosed by high walls. The aspect of such a country is very gloomy. From any eminence you can see nothing but a dark brown mass of bushes as far as the eye can reach. The soil is generally a yellow sand, and where a patch of it is visible, it gives an air of sterility in exchange for the monotony of the scrub. But the surface is generally unbroken, seeming like a heavy ocean of dark waves, out of which, here and here, a tree starts up above the brushwood, making a mournful and lonely landmark. On a dull day the view is most sad, and even sunlight makes it little more cheerful, for seldom bird or living thing gives variety to the scene, while light only extends the prospect and makes it more hopeless. In the south-eastern part ) £ i 'SI A VICTORIAN FOKEST, I I ;■ ' r NATURAL HISTORY. 203 of South Australia there is a tract about 9,000 square miles in extent covered with an unbroken expanse of this scrub, and similar tracts of it occur over every part of the southern half of Australia. Still more dreaded by the explorer is the " Mulga " scrub, consisting chiefly of bushy acacias. These grow in spreading irregular bushes, armed with strong spines, and, where matted with other shrubs, form a mass of vegetation through which it is impossible to penetrate. Fortunately this is far less common than the " Mallee," or the labour of the explorer would be still more distressing than it is. Other scrubs are formed chiefly by the " tea- tree " of the colonists. This beautiful flowering shrub is allied to the myrtle, and is very abundant in all parts of Australia. These do not grow in such dense masses ; and, mingled with a variety of other shrubs, form one of the ordinary and least disagreeable of the scrubs which occupy so much of the interior. Next in extent to the "Malleo" scrubs is the country occupied by dwarf shrubs, and generally known as "heath." This usually consists of vast level sandy tracts, dusty in summer and boggy in winter, supporting no grass, and but a few stunted trees, and everywhere covered with a tangled mass of woody vegetation about two feet high. In spring this country is excessively beautiful from its varied and bright-coloured flowers, among which are many species which we in England consider as ornaments to our greenhouses. r 204 AUSTRALIA, Mingled with these are larger bushes. One of them — the Banksia — is sometimes abundant, and is called the native honeysuckle, or bottle-brush tree. It is an irregularly branched bushy tree, with wedge- shaped leaves, and studded all over with yellow flowers, shaped like a bottle-brush ; but as the old decaying leaves and seed-vessels remain for years on the tree, \t always looks more or less unsightly. The most terrible production of the Australian interior is, however, the "spinifex," or porcupine grass, a thorny herb which extends for hundreds of miles over sandy plains, and probably covers a greater amount of surface than any other Australian plant. Fortunately it does not appear south of about 28° S. latitude, so that the settled districts are wholly free from it. of 1 is ree. ge- ■ow old on CHAPTER IV. NATURAL HISTORY. — 2. 'ANY remarkable kinds of vegetation give a special character to Australian scenery Foremost among these are the noble gum- trees of the genus Eucalyptus, These often attain a height of more than 250 feet, and a girth of from 12 to 20 feet. The banks of the rivers and the watercourses are generally bordered by these gigantic trees. They mark the course of the stream for a long distance as it wanders through the open plains or low desert scrub. Other species form dense forests on the mountain slopes, and among these have been dis- covered the tree giants of the vegetable kingdom, surpassing even the far-famed Wellingtonias of Cali- fornia. In the Dandenong Range, about 40 miles east of Melbourne, the ravines contain numerous trees over 420 feet high, and one fallen tree was 206 AUSTRALIA. ' I discovered of the enormous height of 480 feet — undoubtedly the grandest tree in the world. The numerous species of Eucalyptus, known as red-gum, blue-gum, stringy-bark, iron-bark, box, peppermint, and many others, produce valuable timber, each having special qualities adapting it for certain uses. The Beefwood, or Shea-oak, of the colonists, forms a remarkable group of leafless trees, whose long drooping, rigid branchlets, resembling those of our "horse-tails," render them the most singular and picturesque objects of the Australian flora. The V70od is as good as our oak, and of the colour of raw beef, whence its name. These trees are most com- mon in the south and west, but are often found in the barren wastes of the interior. The grass-trees form another peculiar feature in the Australian landscape. From a rugged stem, varying from two to ten or twelve feet in height, springs a tuft of drooping, wiry foliage, from the centre of which rises a spike, not unlike a huge bulrush. When it flowers in winter, this spike becomes covered with white stars, and a heath covered with grass- trees has an appearance at once singular and beautiful. Nowhere in the world are Acacias so abundant as in Australia, which contains nearly 300 species of this genus. These trees, more commonly called "wattles," abound in all parts of the country, and their elegant yellow flowers, usually fragrant, add greatly to the beauty of the country in early spring. Aromatic foliage and odoriferous flowers are especially NATURAL HISTORY. 20' abundant in Australia, so that the bush is more or less fragrant throughout the year. In contrast to the usually arid and somewhat monotonous aspect of Australian vegetation, many of the deep ravines and sheltered valleys of the eastern A KANGAEOO HUNT. slope of the mountains of New South Wales are clothed with forests of wild luxuriance. On descend- ing into these valleys we leave a dry and barren country, with a stunted vegetation, and find ourselves in a damp and humid atmosphere, sheltered by rocky barriers, and presenting on every side a luxuriant wealth of foliage. Here are graceful palms I msk, 2o8 AUSTRAUA. rising to 70 or even 100 feet ; the Indian fig, with its tortuous branches clothed with a drapery of curious parasites ; while graceful tree-ferns, 30 feet high, flourish in the damp atmosphere of the sheltered dells. The forest is often so rank with creepers, ferns, and vines, as to be quite impassable, and the gigantic stag-horn fern grows from the topmost limbs of the loftiest trees. Among the most striking individual plants of Aus- tralia are the " flame-tree " and the " fire-tree." The former, when covered with its large spikes of red flowers, renders the lUawarra Mountains conspicuous for miles out at sea. The latter, when in flower, is so covered with its orange-coloured blossoms as to be compared to a tree on fire. Still more remarkable is the rock-lily, a giant among its allies, for it sends up a flower stalk 30 feet high, bearing at its summit a crown of lily-like flowers several feet in circum- ference. Lovely bulbous plants and strange-flowered orchids also abound ; so that, although much of the Australian landscape is barren-looking, and for many months of the year the grass and herbage are almost completely parched up, yet no country in the world affords a greater variety of lovely flowers, or more strange and interesting forms of vegetable life. The animal kingdom, as developed in Australia, presents us with anomalies and peculiarities perhaps even more remarkable than are exhibited by the plants. Judged by its highest group — the mam- NATURAL HISTORY, 209 malia — Australia is by far the poorest and most isolated of all the continents. There are no apes or monkeys; no oxen, antelopes, or deer; no lions, tigers, elephants, or pigs ; no cats, wolves, or bears ; no hedgehogs, hares, squirrels, porcupines, or dor- mice. The only representatives of all these familiar groups are a number of peculiar species of rats and IHB DUO£-BILLED PLATYPUS. mice, and the "dingo," a half- wild dog, probably introduced by the earliest inhabitants. Yet there is a considerable variety of indigenous mammals very peculiar in structure. These are the pouched animals — the kangaroos, wallabies, " opossums," the curious duck-billed platypus, and many others. Among the temperate countries of the world, Aus- tralia stands unrivalled for the variety of form, the beauty of plumage, and the singularity of habits i\ 210 AUSTRALIA. 11 '( I characteristic of its birds. Its parrots and cockatoos are more numerous and beautiful than those of most tropical countries. Among the most remarkable of the birds of this continent are the lyre-bird, the emu, the brush turkeys, the bower-birds, and the gigantic idngfisher. Keptiles are abundant in Australia, there being no less than 140 different kinds of lizards, and between 60 and 70 snakes. Many of the latter are venomous. Frogs and toads are numerous. Almost as peculiar and as isolated as the flora and the fauna are the black aborigines of Australia, who are now fast disappearing before the European settler. The handful that still survive are split up into a number of tribes, but form collectively a special type, to be carefully distinguished from the dark, woolly-haired Papuans, and from the olive-yellow lank-haired Malays and Polynesians. Physically the native Australians are much inferior to Europeans. The limbs are thin, and the body is corpulent. The skull is long and narrow, and the forehead receding. The nose is somewhat squat, the mouth is large and unshapely, while the teeth are, on the contrary, fine and white. The complexion is oftener coffee-brown than actually black, the hair is richly developed, and the men show a thick growth of beard and whiskers. The pitch-black hair itself is somewhat curly, without, however, being woolly, and, when cleaned from the mass of grease and dirt thnt nsnnlly olo,c^s it, is fine and glossy. ' NATURAL HISTORY, 211 The mental qualities of these savages are decidedly inferior to those of most other savage races. They are skilful in tracking and running down game, and in the use of the simple implements — the spear and the boomerang — used in securing game ; but they have little foresight or self-restraint. No care is taken for the morrow, and life is passed in alterna- tions of eating and sleeping, hunger and the chase. Each recurring winter brings famine and privation, but no attempt is ever made to store up food in time of plenty. Their clothing is of the scantiest, and their dwellings of the rudest type. A cave, or a shelter of boughs, covered with turf or bark to keep off the rain, usually satisfies this primitive people. Their food is very varied ; of animal food they eat almost everything living. Not only mammals, birds, and fish, but lizards, snakes, frogs, and even insects are eaten, and in some of the tribes human flesh is preferred to any other. All efforts have hitherto failed to reconcile these native tribes to civilised life. It is our manifest duty to do all we can to protect them against violence and injustice. But it is too probable that, like the North American Indians, they will pass away, and all habitable parts of Australia will be occupied by European immigrants. % i i i f THE ADELAIDB LZOHIHOUSB. I >" 1': ■ 1. fi I ES-' 1 '. 1^! ::| fig INDIA. if; 1$ INDIA. CHAPTEE I. POSITION AND EXTENT. \F we start from the port of Adelaide in South Australia and sail westwards we find ourselves in a vast expanse of ocean, with no land except a few lonely islets within thousands of miles. Within a week or so we strike the 90th meridian of west longitude. Then if we turn due northwards along this line, within another week we cross the equator into the northern hemisphere. Still continuing due north we enter the Bay of Bengal, and at its upper end, when we can sail no farther, we find ourselves on a low coast through which several mouths of a mighty river pour their waters into the sea. That river is the Ganges ; and entering one of its mouths called the Hoogly, we slowly make our way up a sluggish stream until we are abrer^t of a great city. This is Calcutta, the commercial capital of India. I ,«> P ■1! I -11. A. 2l6 INDIA. % India is a country of special interest to English people. It is a part — and a very important part — of the great empire that has grown up through British enterprise and energy. Its people are sup- posed to number not far from 250,000,000, of whom nearly 200,000,000, or about six times as many as the population of the British Isles, are our fellow-subjects. The country, too, is so large, that tribes who livo among the forests and mountains know as little of the rest of the country as the savages of an island on the other side of the globe know of Europe. Hindostan (for this is one of its names) is so named from the people called Hindoos, and stan, a " country ; " thus it is the country of the Hindoos. There are many other races in India, but the most important people are the Hindoos. They invaded the country thousands of years ago, coming from the high lands of Central A.sia. The people living in those high lands at that distant time were called Aryans, and from them nearly all the Western nations, including the EngHsh, have sprung, as well as the Hindoos. Thus this large part of the Indian population is much more nearly related to us than the Chinese, for instance, or the Negroes. The other races in India, with some remarkable exceptions, to be explained later on, are romnants of the people whom the Aryans conquered. The term India means the country beyond the river " Indus " — a name given in olden times by the Persians, whose land used to stretch eastward to the banks of POSITION AND EXTENT, 217 that river. Hindostan h&s mountains — the highest in the world — which seem to reach the sky : heights covered with snow on whose simmits no human foot ever trod, nor can tread. It has plains, too, stretching away flat as the sea. The general name of India includes two sections of land — the one known as India Proper, and the other as Farther India. They are both peninsulas, but the former is compact and definite in shape. The latter includes a group of independent countries, and certain British territories, of which the most important is Burmah. India Proper is shaped like a wedge, or tongue — the narrow end pointing southward towards the equator. The tapering part of the wedge, including more than one-third of the whole surface of the empire, lies within the tropics. To the south-east of the extreme point there is the large island of Ceylon, the only island of any consequence on the whole of the coast. The peninsula has the Arabian Sea on the west and the Bay of Bengal on the east, both being parts of the great Indian Ocean. As a help in conceiving the extent of India, take the following figures. Its length from the mountain limits of Cashmere to Cape Comorin, the most southern point in the Indian Ocean, is 1,900 miles, and its breadth from the delta of the Indus on the west, to the extreme border of Assam on the east, 1,G00 miles. The area, inclusive of Farther India (60,000 square miles) and the island of Ceylon '4 m fl I! 218 INDIA. I; ' -- (24,000 square miles), is altogether 1,500,000 square miles, or about thirteen times the extent of the United Kingdom. It must not be supposed that the whole of India Proper is entirely under British control : only about two- thirds of it are completely so. Of the remainder, a portion consists of tributary states — states ruled by native princes on condition of their paying tribute in the form of a sum of money annually to our Indian Government ; and a smaller portion consists of nomi- nally independent states. The British possessions in India formerly consisted of three 'presidencies, each ruled by a governor or president. They were those of Bengal, Madras, and Bombay. As a political description, the term presi- dency is now obsolete. It applied to the time when the three settlements of Fort William (at Calcutta), Fort St. George (at Madras), and Bombay were under separate presidents. India, for administrative pur- poses, is now divided into eight provinces or govern- ments. Bombay and Madras retain their old names, and enjoy a greater share of self-government than the others. The latter are more immediately under the direct control of the Governor-General. Calcutta is the capital and the seat of the Central Government. Madras and Bombay are under their own Governors, and .'! '3 not often visited by the Viceroy. The coast-line of India is very extensive. Much of the shore is low and little indented, but there are some large openings with harbours where ships can mm .* \ I I :l I TUK ttHAUrS, NEAlt KHANDALA. !* 220 INDIA. be repaired and fitted ; and the vast rivers, the Indus and the Ganges, but especially the latter, are great highways of inland commercial intercourse. The gulf of Cutch and the gulf of Cambay are the principal openings on the west. A smaller inlet, skirted by various islands, forms the harbour of Bom- bay. Southwards to Cape Comorin the coast bounds a maritime belt from twenty to thirty miles wide. Innumerable short rivers run from the Western Ghauts, or mountain ranges, before reaching the shore, and the}'- spread out into long low-lying lagoons. There are fewer openings on the east coast than on the west, and no good harbours except that of Coringa, on the bay of Bengal. The coast of the Carnatic, an old native state in the south-east, is washed by such shallow seas that vessels only of the smallest burthen can pass through the gulf of Manaar and Palk Straits, which separate Ceylon from the mainland, and even these require careful navigation through a single narrow channel about a mile wide. The shores, from Point Calimere to the mouth of the Kistna, are known as the Coromandel coast. Along this coast, and as far as the delta of the Ganges, the absence of harbours and the gradually shelving shores oblige vessels to anchor several miles out at sea. The important town of Madras, for instance, possesses no harbour, and communication between the shore and the ships which lie at anchor in the roadstead is made by means of native boats. 1^ CHAPTEE II. PHYSICAL FEATURES. ;HE physical features of India are as well defined as its natural borders. It is a country of mountains and valleys, table- lands, plains, and river-basins in their fullest grandeur. Most prominent of all is the northern rampart of the mighty Himalaya Mountains, with the snowy peaks of Everest, Dhawalagiri, and many others, each soaring from five to five and a half miles towards the sky. The Himalayas form rather a mountainous region than a mountain chain. They extend in a direction from north-west to south-east for a distance of 1,800 miles, and have a breadth varying from 100 to 500 miles. Hundreds of the peaks of this region are far above the line of perpetual snow, and few of the passes across the main ridges are at a less altitude than 15,000 feet. The upper valleys are filled with glaciers, in comparison with which the glaciers of Switzerland are puny ice-streams. 222 INDIA, The basins of these rivers are divided by the Ara- vuUi ridge ; and farther southward the Vindhya Hills and their branches traverse east and west, forming, with the systems of the Ghauts* running near the east and west coasts, a rough triangle pointing south- wards to Cape Comorin. The Western Ghauts rise abruptly from their base, leaving a mere strip of land by the sea, and are more lofty and continuous than the Eastern Ghauts, which are farther in from the sea, and broken through by many rivers from the interior. The two ranges of Ghauts, following their respective coast lines, unite in Travancore, from which point northwards to the Vindhyas they border a series of terraces or table-lands of increasing altitude — those of Mysore and the Upper Carnatic, of the Nilgherries and the Deccan. Gaps of considerable breadth occur at intervals, forming the loveliest of valleys, whilst the mountains themselves are clothed with dense woods or jungle. There is much difference in the character of the eastern and western lowlands between the Ghauts and the sea. That on the west is a mere narrow strip running along the Arabian Sea, with wall-like cliffs in the background. The low land on the east is of varying width, and in some places opens into wide plains. One of these plains, that of the Carnatic, is 550 miles long and 80 miles wide. * Ghaut meana properly a pass or passage. It is applied to mountain passes, and hence to the mountains themselves. The Western and Eastern Ghauts are names given to mountain ranges stretching along the eastern and western coasts of India. PHYSICAL FEATURES, 21$ Fenced in by the Eastern and Western Ghauts on the sides, and towards the pointed end of the penin- sula by the Nilgherry Mountains (crossing from the one series of Ghauts to the other), there is a great territory of plain or table-land. This is called the Deccan (from " Dakshina," the south country) ; but latterly the northern part only has been so called, and the southern part, which extends to the Nil- gherry Hills, is now termed the Plain of Mysore. The great plains of India lie between the southern region of table-lands and the northern mountain district. They are chiefly occupied by the basins of the Indus and the Ganges, which slope very gently to the sea-shore on the western and eastern side of the penins" ^a. But one remarkable region, extend- ing from the Runn of Cutch (the dried-up bottom of an inland sea on the west coast) northward to the river Sutlej, and eastward to the base of the AravuUi, is a sandy desert, covering a surface of 150,000 square miles, or a tenth of the area of India. This sterile tract is called the Great Desert. Except near the Indus, or where a few wells are found, vegetation exists here only during the rainy season, the sur- face drying again in the " heats " into fine drifting sand. The Runn of Cutch is no less singular than the Great Desert. It is 6,500 square miles in area, a lake during the rainy season, and a dry, salt, sandy plain, with a few patches of vegetation, in the dry season. Its boundaries are as exact as the paths in III 224 INDIA, a garden. The traveller steps at once from a surface teeming with verdure to a treacherous soil full of dangerous quicksands, with no sign of fen or swamp to mark their locality. When the waters retire into the Gulf of Cutch, the ground is left covered with dead fish, prawns, and other marine forms ; and the dreary solitude is given up to untamable wild asses, apes, porcupines, and flocks of large birds. Connecting the plains of India with the mountain region is a strip of territory known as the Terai, varying from three to fifty miles in breadth, where the combined influences of heat, moisture, and fertile soil produce the utmost richness of vegetable life. It is overgrown with trees, twining plants, and brush- wood, the haunt of the wild elephant, tiger, black bear, hare, fox, jackal, wild hog, antelope and mon- key ; but so marshy and pestilential is it, that the neighbouring natives dare not approach this "Belt of Death " during a part of the year. An interesting fact about the Himalaya Mountains may usefully finish our description of the mountains and plains of India. Like most other mountain ranges, the Himalayas present their counter slope or steepest side to the nearest sea. The true slope facing the north is more gradual and easier of ascent. It is a singular fact that their snow line is from 2,000 to 3,000 feet lower on the southern side, facing a tropical sun, than on the northern side. Several causes account for this fact. The south-west mon- soons which blow for half the year from the Arabian \ PHYSICAL FEATURES, 225 If I Sea come laden with moisture, which is condensed by the cold mountain peaks, and falls as snc w on the south, so that those winds are comparatively dry when they roll over the mountain range. The counter currents from the north-east blow over the vast Asiatic table-lands and plains when intensely heated by the sun, and reach the Himalayas as dry winds. The reflected heat from the land during this season is very great, and influences the atmosphere of the mountain side, so that less snow falls on the northern slopes. Other pecuHarities of climate com- bine to reverse, as at first it seems, the order of nature's laws. A QAKaSS BOAT. CHAPTEE m. Ill THE aANGES AND HmuS. HE Ganges is the principal rivei* of India, and has one of the grandest river basins in the \7orld. It issues iiurci a glacier cave, 13,800 feet above the sea, ^mid a mountain group 22,800 feet high, and flows through the great plain of Hindostan — which spreads out on both sides in rich alluvial flats — in- creasing its volume by all the affluents flowing down the southern slopes of the Himalayas. About 200 miles from the sea a great expansion of the stream takes place, and so reduces the force of its flow that the sand and mud which it holds in suspension, and brings down in large quantities, are deposited in bars and shoals. These spread out into a delta as large as Wales, and form amaze of streams and creeks, which enclose a multitude of islands. The many mouths of this river deposit, every year, as much mud in the Bay of Bengal as would load a fleet of 2,000 ships, each carrying 1,400 .tons. THE GANGES AND INDUS, 227 The Ganges enters the sea on the north-eastern side of India by many channels, the two extreme openings being 200 miles apart. The whole delta is 240 miles long. The Hoogly, one of the delta streams, which passes Calcutta, is nearly the only one fit for sea-going vessels, but thousands of boat- men ply their traffic on the other branches, and on the main stream above the delta. The banks of the Hoogly down to the sea are dreary and desolate, but the river is regarded by the Hindoos as the true Ganges, and therefore held sacred. Some parts of the Ganges are held to be especially sacred, as at Gangotri, near where the river takes its rise ; at Allahabad, where the Jumna joins it; and at Benares; and to these places come devotees from all parts of India to pray, and wash in the holy water. The practice has not yet died out of bringing the dying and dead to the river banks for the tide to carry them to Paradise ; and even in the Hoogly the offensive sight of decomposed bodies floating up and down with the tide is of no rare occurrence. The great tidal wave from the Indian Ocean, increasing in height as it reaches the narrower, funnel-shaped head of the Bay of Bengal, rushes into the Hoogly with a crest 20 feet high, and with a roar as of thunder. The advancing billow is called the " bore," or " bore- head." Navigation is interrupted by the " bore," and likewise impeded by the shifting sands and mud of the river. The pestilent marshes or islands of the delta are 228 INDIA, named Sunderbunds. They are dotted with dense forests, with the rankest undergrowth of jungle, the lair of serpents and tigers, and are deadly to human beings, even natives. The low trees spread their arms so far across the lagoons and arms of the sea, as often to entangle the masts and sails of boats which ply in those narrow waters. Only second in interest to that of the Ganges is the less extensive basin of the Indus. The river Indus rises on the northern side of the Himalayas, at a height of 17,000 feet above the sea. According to an ancient tradition of Tibet, the Indus flows from a lion's mouth, the first part of its course having a name with that meaning. The Indus proper runs at the base of the Sulieman Mountains, from Cashmere, through Scinde, to its delta in the Arabian Sea, receiving in the country of the Sikhs four tributaries, which, with the Indus, give the name of Punjaub, or the region of the " five rivers," to the plains which they fertilise ; while the triangles of land between the forks of two streams are designated Dccibs. The rivers which unite to form the Lower Indus are the Jhelum or Upper Indus, Chenab, Kavee, Beas, and the Sutlej, Navigation is not without difficulty in this system of rivers. Part of the course of the true Indus is through a narrow and deep gorge, where at the season of the melting of the snow the force of the current is perilous to ships. The flow of the tide rushes up from the Arabian Sea with a violent bore-head, and the district is subject to furious storm THE GANGES AND INDUS. 229 blasts. Further, the channels of the delta, the two extreme openings of which are 125 miles apart, are constantly changing, new channels forming, and old ones filling up every year. The Brahmaputra or Burrumpooter, rising on the north of the Himalayas, and flowing for a great part of its course through an almost unknown country, brings down a greater volume of water than the Ganges, and is probably of greater length. It has numerous tributaries in Assam (to the east of India), where it turns sharply round to the west, and flows into the sea through the same delta with the Ganges. In the rainy season it floods a large part of the country on its banks. Its length from the glen where it breaks the Himalayas to the sea is 650 miles, and its great breadth gives it the aspect of a maritime inlet rather than a river. Of the fertile valleys of the Ganges and Brahma- putra, a writer* on India says : — " They teem with every product of nature, from the fierce beasts and irrepressible vegetation of the tropics to the stunted barley which the hill-man rears and the tiny furred animal which he hunts within sight of the unmelting snows. Tea, indigo, turmeric, lac, weaving white fields of the opium-poppy, wheat, and innumerable grains and pulses, pepper, ginger, betol-nut, quinine, and many costly spices and drugs, oil-seeds of all sorts, cotton, the silk-mulberry, inexhaustible crops of jute and other fibres ; timber, from the feathery bamboo ♦ * Dr. Hunter. * ! H 230 INDIA. and coroneted palm to the iron-hearted saZ-tree ; in short, every vegetable product which clothes and feeds a people, and enables it to trade with foreign nations, abounds." The animal world in India is of exceeding interest. Beasts of prey infest the jungle, and alligators the rivers and river-banks. Various species of deer abound everywhere. Buffaloes are native to the country. Elephants and rhinoceroses are numerous. Hundreds of elephants are caught and tamed every year in Assam and Ceylon. In the sandy parts of Cutch and the Great De-^ert the camel is the beast of burden, and wild asses roam at large. Indian horses are ill-formed and but little used; and the oxen are not eaten, but used as beasts of burden and regarded as sacred. Birds are -nore remarkable for their plumage than their song, but many have delicate flesh and are eaten. Our common varieties of poultry, except turkeys, which came from America, are natives of India. Bramah, Cochin China, and Bantam fowls still indicate their origin in their CUTTINa THE INDIOO. THE GANGES AND INDUS, 231 names. Fish abound in the rivers and seas. Insects swarm in the BEATING THE INDIQO. air, many- being of commercial value. Ker- mes pro- duce a bright scarlet dye, and the cli- mate favours the cochi- neal. Silk- worms yield four crops of silk in the year, inferior to Chmeseand Italian silk, but so abundant as to make the culture very profitable. Oysters are met with on some parts of the coast, small, but of fla- PRESSINa THE INDIGO. good vour ; and the shores of Ceylon and Coromandel have been noted from antiquity for their pearl fisheries. CHAPTEE IV. CLIMATE ASB PEOPLE. ,HE peninsular part of India being almost wholly within the Torrid Zone, and the northern part nowhere far removed from the Tropic of Cancer, the country is open to the I'^rning influence of the sun's vertical rays, tempered only by the moun- tains and the winds. Such, however, is the diversity of surface, that the climates of provinces, and even smaller areas, are more strongly marked than mere differences in latitude would lead us to expect. In the lowlands of the north and north-east the heat is scarcely less than in the Upper Carnatic, and the average temperature of Calcutta in the delta of the Ganges is higher than that of Madras. In Upper India the hot winds are described as blowing like hurricanes from a furnace. The hottest parts of India are the sandy levels of the Lower Carnatic. Here, CLIMATE AND PEOPLE, 233 indeed, within a few miles, every gradation of climate is represented ; so that while the plains are burnt up by unendurable heat, they are flanked by moun- tains capped with never-melting snow. Between these extremes the hills, to which Europeans repair for health and relaxation, rival in every delight of climate the most favoured regions of the Mediterranean Sea. Frosts do not occur in the Deccan or any part farther south except on the mountains ; and in the tablelands the mean temperature is lessened by the altitude. The most remarkable feature of the climate of India is the periodical winds, which blow over the country for half the year from the south-west, and the other half from the north-east. These winds are called the monsoons, that is, " season winds." They are the same as the ocean trade-winds, which Mow all the year round in the one direction from east to west, but are modified over India by the heated sur- face of the land. The monsoons follow the course of the sun, and their effects are chiefly felt in the south. The south-west monsoon reaches the western coast about the middle of April and lasts till September. The north-east monsoon reaches the eastern coast in October, and continues to blow till the following April. It is easy to trace the course of these winds and their effect upon the seasons. The south-west monsoon, during its path across the Indian Ocean, gets freighted to its full capacity with moisture from these heated Avaters, and, being arrested by the Western Ghauts, discharges a portion I : 234 INDIA. of its burden down the mountain slopes in deluges of rain. The whole west coast to the basin of the Indus is exposed to the force of this monsoon, and the amount of rainfall in the rainy season has been known to exceed 250 inches, which is more than in any other part of the earth. The water is said to fall as cataracts rather than as rain-drops, and the devastation caused by these rain-storms is such that no vegetation or soil can exist on the mountain side, which presents an aspect of water- worn, bare, rugged, and lofty cliffs. The monsoon having crossed the Ghauts, refreshes the Deccan and the plain of the Ganges with a moderate rainfall, and then again deluges the colder slopes of the Himalaya Mountains. The north-east monsoon very much resembles the south-west, but is less violent in character. Starting from the heated table-lands of Eastern Asia, it arrives at the bay of Bengal dry, and in its short passage across the bay it absorbs less moisture than in the Indian ocean. Thus, though it brings a rainy season to the eastern coast, in quantity of rain it bears no comparison with that of the opposite monsoon. Having traversed the whole of India, it brings a dry season to the western shores, and going forward over the Indian Ocean, thirstily sucking up its waters, it carries a rainy season to the east coast of the conti- nent of Africa. Thus the monsoons are wet or dry according to the path they have traversed, and thus have they performed their endless and beneficent, office, to and fro, through immeasurable time. r- CLIMATE AND PEOPLE. 23s The native races of India are popularly known under the common name of Hindoos, yet there are at least thirty distinct nationalities. These races are unlike in feature and build, manners, customs, and occupations. In the north the people are tall, fair, manly, strong, and warlike ; in the south, slight, dark, and timid. The Hindoo complexion varies from an olive-brown, through gradations of bright clear brown, to nearly black. It is difficult to explain the shades of complexion, for high-caste Brahmins are sometimes dark, while the outcast Pariah is as often fair. Nine-tenths of the people profess their faith in the religion of Brahma — a system full of cruel and re- volting rites and ceremonies. But it w^as not always so impure. In the oldest of its sacred books, written in the Sanscrit language, there are many true things said, and some fine hymns preserved. Very early, however, this religion became so debased, that the first thought a really good man had was to free himself from it. About 700 B.C. a preacher arose in Northern India who taught a simpler religion, consisting mainly of pure maxims of morality. He was afterwards called Buddha, or " the one who knows." At first his fol- lowers had great success, but after awhile the Brah- mins again asserted their superiority. In Ceylon, however, the religion of Buddha, very much cor- rupted, remains to this day the profession of the majority of the people. It also found so many converts in other parts of the world, that it is said 236 INDIA. I to control one-third of mankind. But it has sunk into a mere superstition. In India the Buddhists now number nearly 3,000,000, the worshippers of Brahma about 140,000,000, and the Christians less than 1,000,000. About 41,000,000^^ are supposed to be believers in the prophet Mohammed. They are chiefly the descendants of Arabs, who invaded India at different times, and brought that faith with them. Another sect is called the Parsees, or fire-worshippers, who think of the divine being as the Father of Light, and worship fire as his emblem. These are chiefly descen- dants of Persian im- migrants. The social state is peculiar, as compared with that of England. The people are very simple in their habits, and their dwellings are mostly of the lightest materials. In Bengal the cottages have cane walla and thatched roofs ; in the Deccan they are of mud and stone ; in the north-west regions they are of unburnt brick, and tiled. The cottage furniture is ♦ These numbers are exclusive of the native states. A BRAHMIN. CLIMATE AND PEOPLE. 237 A OALOUITA BABOO. scanty ; there are no tables ; a mat serves the pur- poses of a chair. Many of the villages are walled, or have a fence ; each has a temple and a bazaar, holds an annual fair, and celebrates an annual festival. The mud walls are of great strength, with stone gateways. The public roads pass near them, but not through them. The v/alls were needed at one time as a defence in time of war and against wild beasts ; they remain to remind us of past days, before the English ruled the land and secured the people against robbery and violence. Those "good old days" are now nightmares of history : the days of war, plun- der, and cruelty are gone. Travelling by rail is fast increasing under British rule, but in dis- tricts where there are no railways there are various modes of carriage. Some A BSAmON FITNBIT. 238 INDIA, people ride on elephants, some are drawn in carts by bullocks, and those who can afford it ride in palan- quins. Although the Hindoos will serve Europeans they will not eat with them, as the practice is forbidden by the law of caste. Even if it were not so, Europeans could scarcely mix with the natives at meals, as every Hindoo, however high his rank, eats as his forefathers did, squatted on a carpet, and uses his fingers in place of knife, fork, and spoon. BIOK POUNDING. CHAPTER V. CHRISTIANITY IN BENAEES. ^ENARES, on the river Ganges, is one of the most ancient cities in tiis world. The following account by the late Rev. Dr. Sherring of the progress made by Christian influence there, brings out very cl'-irly some special points of interest characteristic of this city. In these days of Christian enterprise, when thirty- five Protestant Missionary Societies are striving to evangelize the vast population of India, numbering two hundred and forty millions of people, it is difficult to realise the fact, that, at the beginning of the present century, it was impossible for any work of this nature to be undertaken in the British portion of the Indian Empire without meeting with violent opposition from the Government of the country. Dr. Carey had laid the foundations of his great mission J 240 INDIA. 1*. SAXISH LUTHEBAN (NOW ENQUSB) OHUBOU, S£BA3£F0BE. in Serampore, under the protection of the Danish Government, having been unsuccessful in his efforts to establish a mission in British territory. The London Missionary Society sent its first missionary to India in the year 1798 ; but after remaining in Calcutta for a time, he evaded the obstacles which beset^ him by quitting that city, and settling at Chinsurah, twenty miles distant, then under Dutch rule. Occasionally the British Government relented, and allowed missionaries, under certain severe conditions, to commence their Christian labours. For example, CHRISTIANITY IN BENARES. 241 the Rev. Messrs. Chamberlain and Peacock, of the Baptist Society, men of zeal and earnestness, were permitted to reside at Agra, in the North- Western Provinces. Yet so harsh and fickle was the Govern- ment that in less than eighteen months Mr. Cham- berlain, having fallen under the censure of the commandant of the fort of that city, was sent under a guard of sepoys out of British India, to the Danish settlement at Serampore, a distance of eight hundred miles. As late as 1812 the Government issued a general order that all missionaries who might arrive from abroad should be at once expelled from the country. Five American missionaries were thus expelled, one of whom was the Rev. Dr. Judson, who afterwards proceeded to Burmah, and founded a mission there which has gradually become one of the most impor- tant and prosperous of modern times, yet which, but for the banishment of its eminent founder, would not have been established till many years subsequently. The following order, which was served on the Rev. Mr. Thompson, of the London Missionary Society, on his arrival in Madras, on his way to Bellary in that Presidency, is a specimen of the. communications sent to missionaries on landing in India, and of the summary treatment which they received: — <