IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-S) LO 11= 11.25 |S0 ■^" ^ y£ 12.0 M 2.2 1.8 i^ III 1.6 ^N^ iV ^ V N> ^^\ '^\ ^ ^<^ ^ v% % CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series. CIHM/ICMH Collection de microfiches. Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions Inst tut Canadian de microreproductions historiques 1980 Technical Notes / Notes techniques The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Physical features of this copy which may alter any of the images in the reproduction are checked below. D D Coloured covers/ Couvertures de couleur Coloured maps/ Cartes gdographiques en couleur L'Institut a micrcfilm6 le meilleur exemplaire qu'il lui a 6t6 possible de se procurer. Certains d6fauts susceptibles de nuire d la quality de la reproduction sont not^s ci-dessous. D D Coloured pages/ Pages de couleur Coloured plates/ Planches en couleur Tl P< o\ fil Tl C( Ol ai Tl fi ir Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/ Pages d6color6es, tachet6es ou piqudes Tight binding (may cause shadows or distortion along interior margin)/ Reliure serr6 (peut causer de I'ombre ou de la distortion le long de la marge intdrieure) D D Show through/ Transparence Pagas damaged/ Pages endommagdes IV ir u b f< D Additional comments/ Commentaires suppldmentaires Bibliographic Notes / Notes bibiiographiques D D D Only edition available/ Seule Edition disponible Bound with other material/ Reli6 avec d'autres documents Cover title missing/ Le titra de couverture manque D D D Pagination incorrect/ Erreurs de pagination Pages missing/ Des pages manquent Maps missing/ Des cartes g6ographiques manquent D Plates missing/ Des planches manquent n Additional comments/ Commentaires supplAmentaires The images appearing here ore the best quality possible considering the condition and legibility of the original copy and in keeping with the filming contract specifications. Les images suivantes ont 6t6 reproduites avec le plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition at de la netteti de I'exemplaire film6, et en conformity avec leb conditions du contrat de filmage. The last recorded frame on each microfiche shall contain the symbol —»- (meaning CONTINUED"), or the symbol V (meaning "END"), whichever applies. The original copy was borrowed from, and filmed with, the i ''■:. -'>^ ►^ r I ! •^ ILLUSTRATED BY 70//^ PEDDEE, //. SIIEPPARD DALE, CEO. BICKHAM, And the AUTHOR ^jiiiBim^innM**!''"'!"""''""™''""'""'"'''"' LAHORE GATE, DELHI FORT. LONDON GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL GLASGOW AND NEW YORK 1888 Q 4 fa Q fS LONDON : PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. TO MY CONSTITUENTS AND FRIENDS AT BARROW-IN-FURNESS, TO WHOM THESE LETTERS WERE ORIGINALLY ADDRESSED, THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. € & i%' o © o oo tf' PREFACE. Tins volume consists of a reprint of letters addressed to the Barrozv Neius, the leading newspaper of the constituency I represent in Parliament, dating from August 1887 to March 1888. The letters were written during idle hours on board steamer'-j for the amusement and information of my con- stituents and personal friends, but with no intention of adding to the many volumes of travel which deal with the various countries I have seen in my rapid tour round the world. I have, however, found by experience, that the obiter dicta of other travellers have been of so much greater service to me during my own journey than the recognized guide books, many of which have been put quite out of date by the rapid developments of transit, and the equally rapid changes in Eastern customs, that I venture to add my modest contribution to the literature of travel. I hope it may prove of value to some of that increasing number of English and Americans to whom a tour round the world is becoming a matter of course, and perhaps also of some interest to the general reader. I have tried to make my letters readable by old and young alike. In one respect this volume differs — so far as I am aware — X PREFACE. from any other of the kind which has yet been published. It is profusely illustrated. I trust more to my pictures than to my inexperienced literary powers, to make this volume acceptable to the public. I wish to acknowledge gratefully the assistance - I have had from my old friend, Mr. John Pedder, of Maiden- head, who has evolved the greater portion of the illustrations, with accuracy and artistic skill, from a heterogeneous collection of rough sketches and photographs made by me on my journey; and also to Mr. H. Sheppard Dale for the excellent architectural drawings of Japanese and Indian buildings which bear his name. The journey taken by my daughter and myself has entailed no hardship or inconvenience, with the not very serious ex- ception of our voyage across the Pacific. Sii:, W i U ta m - JP^a^eels steamers can be avoided by other travellers, without losing the enchanting scenery of the Canadian Pacific route, or incurring extra expense. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company will book passengers from Quebec or Montreal, through to San Francisco, at slightly higher rates than the direct American Pacific Railroads ; the sea passage from Vancouver to San Francisco is for the most part in smooth water, the coast being extremely beautiful, and the steamers comfortable. The only really good line of steamers crossing the Pacific are those chartered from the White Star Line sailing from San Francisco ; their names all end with " ic," 291 CHAPTER XX. CALCUTTA TO BENARES Thomas Cook and Son, benefactors !-CaIcutta-The Hooghly-Our Christmas dinner — Beadon Square — Young Bengal — Indian railways-Country scenes-Benares-Dr. Lazarus-The Hindoo XX CONTENTS, I'AGB gate of heaven — Buddhism — Sarnath — 1454 temples — The bathing ghdts — The Rain God — The Goddess of Small Pox — The observatory —The Maharajah's launch— The well of healing — The well of knowledge — The golden temple — Pictures from the " Arabian Nights " — The sacred bull — Fakeers — The goddess Durga's temple — Her monkeys — The mosque of Aurungzebe — The Ganges .. 30/ CHAPTE XXI. THE CITY OF THE GREAT MOGULS. Agra — The river Jumna — The fort — The Delhi gate — The pearl mosque — The great divan — The courtyard — The harem — The Jasmine tower — The three pavilions — The glass palace — The view from the terrace — The Taj-Mahal — Its beauty — The gardens — The mausoleum — Moonlight — The jewelled tombs of Shah Jehan and his beloved wife — The marble trellis — The great gateway — Sikandra — Akbar's tomb — The gateway at Sikandra — Mausoleum of Prince Etmad Dowlat — Fattehpur Sikri — The royal buildings — Akbar's palace — The divers — The Fakeer's grave — Birbul's house — The peacock throne — Mission work in Agra — Village life— Roadside scenes — Work and wages 325 CHAPTER XXII. DELHI. One of the ancient cities of the world — Toglakabad — Timour the Tartar — The Kutab-Minar — The mosque of Kutab-ul Islam — The iron pillar — The tomb of Humayoun — Indrapat — Firozabad — Asoka's pillar— The great Jumma Musjid— The fort of Delhi— The Chandni Chowk — Merchants 350 CHAPTER XXIII. JEYPORE TO BOMBAY. Rajputana — Jeypore — The stables — Man-eating tigers — The Maharajah —His park — Palace — Museum — Art gallery — College schools — Hospital — School of Art — Prison — Picturesque street scenes — The deserted city of Amber — An elephant ride — Alligators— Hindoo Ascetics — The palace— Ajmere— The Dargah — The Mayo college CONTENTS. xxi FAG8 -The tank-The bazaars-Ahmcdabad-Its trade -Sidi Said's marble window-The mosques-Rani Sipri's tomb and mosquc- rhe Jam temple-Lonely Sarkhej-Bombay-The Parsees-The towers of silence— The caves of Elcphanta CHAPTER XXIV. SOCIAL PROBLEMS IN INDIA. The Struggle for existence-Race differences-One of the poorest countries in the world-Average annual income of the people- Famine - Cholera - Taxation - Land tax -The usurer -The zemindar-The ryot-Education : primary, intermediate. University -Mission schools-Cultured natives and social reforms-Technical education-Loyalty of educated natives-Their desire for a share in the governmem of their country-The National Indian Congress- The Civil 3ervice-The Indian Council 3«o LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 1, "^ \ Jin-rickisha travelling in Japan . Lahore Gate, Delhi ..... Aurora Borealis ...... Quebec, from Point Levis .... Horse Shoe Fall, Niagara .... Whirlpool Rapids, Niagara .... Emery Hall, a Canadian Homestead Sault St. Marie Lock, Lake Superior . Thunder Cape, Lake Superior A Manitoba Homestead .... Threshing out Wheat-stacks on the Prairie . Railway Dep6t, Brandon .... Calgary, with distant view of the Rocky Mountains Bull's Head, the Sarcee Chief Sarcee Squaw and Pony Cart Eagle Rib, a Sarcee Chief .... " Bravo, Ted I " a Salvation Army incident . The Gap : Entrance to the Rocky Mountains Canmore Rocks ..... Castle Mountain • View of Banff from above the Sanatorium Bridge of Boats and Twin Peaks, Banff. Cascade Mountain ..... On the Bow River, Banff .... The Bow Falls Vermilion Lake, National Park, Banff . A Forest Fire, National Park, Banff Canadian Pacific Railway Hotel, National Park, Banff. View in the Selkirks ..... Summit Lake Kicking Horse Pass ..... Field Station The Monarchs of the Rocky Mountains . DRAWN DV . yo/ift redder IT. Sheppard Dak IV. S. Caine y. redder IV. S. Caiite y. redder IV. S. Caine y. redder II i> IV. S. Caine y. redder II II II II II W. S. Caine II y. redder . IV. S. Caine y Pedder II II 11 W. S. Caine y. Pedder II PACE {Frontis- piece, title-page 8 i6 29 31 35 39 40 49 53 55 59 6i 63 64 65 69 71 72 73 77 80 81 83 85 89 91 92 93 95 97 99 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. XXlll PAGB { FrontiS' \ piece. lie tide-page e . 8 . . I6 • • 29 • • 31 e • 35 • • 3) ^ . 40 • , • 49 • • S3 • . 55 ^ . 59 • . 61 . . 63 . . 64 t . 6s • . 69 • 71 72 73 • * 77 80 ■ 1 81 . 83 • ■ 85 • • 89 • • 91 92 93 » • 95 • • 97 • t 99 The Bear Hunt .,..,. Snow Sheds ...... Mount Sir Donald and the Great Glacier The Great I3cnd of the Canadian Pacific Railway Roger's Pass : the Summit of the Sclkii'.s An Indian Salmon Cache .... Salmon Cannery on the Fraser River . Harrison Lake ...... The " Yosemite " leaving Vancouver . Indians Salmon Fishing on the Fraser River . Douglas Pines, Vancouver .... Esquimault Harbour ..... The " Port Victor " Vrics Volcano, Yokohama I3ay . Tea House, Yokv.hama Bay. Yokohama Harbour . , . , . A Street in Yokohama .... Buying Chrysanthemums, Yokohama . Group of v";hildren, Utsunomiya . Doll and Fan Interior of Tea House, Bedroom Floor . Jin-rickisha Man in his Straw R.dn-Coat The Road to Nikko The Hotel at Nikko Row of Buddhas at Nikko .... The Pagoda, Nikko Iloiy Water Cistern, Nikko. The Kio-zo, or Library, Nikko . Korean Bronze Lantern, Nikko . The Yo-mei-mon Gate, Nikko The Yo-mei-mon Cloisters, Nikko. The Nio-mon Gate, entrance to the Temples of lye The Kara-mon Gate, lye-mitsu's Temples The Chinese Gate, lye-yasu's Temples On the Road to Chiu-sen-je. The Great Buddha, Kamakura Fuji-yama, the Sacred Mountain Shooting the Rapids, Kioto. A Shinto Priest . Music, Japan Dancing Girl, Japan . A Street Scene, Kioto The Inland Sea of Japan , mitsu DRAWN DV PAGR . y. Pediier , . lOJ M . . 105 . H^. S. Cain,- . 107 . 7. redder . no >» • III • »t • "3 ■ j» . . 116 . IV. S. Caitte. • "7 7. redder . . 119 >> . 121 »> • . 125 tt . 129 7. redder . . 146 IV. S. Caine. . 151 7. redder . • 154 II . • 154 II . • 155 If • • 157 II . 162 If . 163 II • i I6S »» • . 167 If . . 168 tf . • 174 W. S. Caine. 176 H. Sheppard Dale . 179 If • • 180 11 1 . 181 II • 182 1* . 184 »i • 187 fi • • 189 II • • 190 >i . . 191 W. S. Caine. 19s 7. redder . 197 W. S. Caine. 201 7. redder . 203 If • • 211 11 • . 214 If • . 215 f» • 227 H'. S. Caine 220 :^xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. \\\ ■ \ Pappenburg Island, Nagasaki Harbour . The Kowloong Hills, Hong Kong Harbour Chinese Town, Hong Kong Singapore : a Mango Breakfast in July Adam's Peak, Ceylon . The Dekanda Valley, Ceylon On the Kandy Railway— Sensation Rock The India-rubber Tree, Kandy The Giant Bamboo, Peradenia Gardens, Kandy Sir John Coode's Breakwater, Colombo Devil-dancer and Tom-tom, Ceylon A Cingalese Workman A Village Shop, Ceylon In the Bay of Bengal . The Bathing Ghats, Benares Nothing is Sacred to a Snake ! . The Jasmine Tower, Agra Fort . The Taj Mahal, from the Summit of the Great Gateway View from the Terrace of the Fort, Agra The Tomb of Akbar, Sikandra . The Palace of Fattehpur Sikri Birbul's House, Fattehpur Sikri . The Mausoleum of Prince Etmad Dowlat The Kutab Minar, Delhi . The Ruined City of Indrapat, Delhi , The Jumma Musjid, Delhi . The Pearl Mosque, Delhi Fort Street Scene at Jeypore The Ruined City of Amber . The Great Well of the Dargah, Ajmere Carved Window of the Mosque of Rani Sipri, Ahmedabad Pierced Marble Window of Sidi's Said Mosque, Ahme dabad .... The Tomb of Rani Sipri, Ahmedabad Cave Temple of Elephanta . Aden Harbour . . . • DRAWN BY PAGE . W. S. Caine . 230 >> . 233 . y. redder . . 237 . Geo. Bickham . 260 . IV. S. Caine . 262 . H. S. Dale . . 265 • i> • , 266 • >> • . 269 i» • . 272 )> • , 281 . y. Pedder . . 285 . H. S. Dale . . 297 . y Pedder . . 303 »» . 306 i» • . 315 . Geo. Bickhan t . 320 . H. S. Dale . . 327 . y. Pedder . • 331 • >> " . 333 >> . 336 . //. S. Dale ■ 337 • >i . 341 >> • 343 . y Pedder • 352 i> • 354 . H. S. Dale • 355 • )» . 357 . y Pedder . 362 • ij . 367 • »> . 369 ad //. S. Dale . 371 • »> . 372 • >» . 374 . y Pedder . . 378 • »» . 399 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. CHAPTER I. FROM LIVERPOOL TO QUEBEC. On Thursday afternoon, the 1 8th of August, I embarked with my eldest djaughter on board the Allan liner " Sarmatian," on my voyage round the world. Our first care on coming on board was to find our cabins, and get the luggage for the voyage safely stowed in them. I had wisely left the choice of the cabins to my old friends, Messrs. Allan Bros, & Co., and found they had provided for our pccommodation the first officer's and purser's cabins, on the spar deck, so situated as to secure the minimum of motion with the maximum of fresh air. Compared with the accommodation furnished on ai Atlantic liner for the ordinary passenger, which is humorously termed a " state-room," our cabins are little palaces, replete with every comfort. The officers turn a nimble ninepence during the summer months by letting their cabins for the voyage to passengers who like the extra accommodation, but find their luxury acceptable enough in the terrible voyages which they have often to endure in the winter. I write this letter in a room about 12 feet square, with four windows, a hot- water apparatus, a fine mahogany desk, a wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a wash-stand which disappears into a recess when not B 11 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. \ i ! required, a large and comfortable sofa, and a bed. When the cabin passengers are sent to bed at ten o'clock, wakeful or sleepy, and their lights arbitrarily extinguished, I lie on my sofa reading by the light of a handsome duplex lamp till sleep comes without effort ; then I turn in. I know no more fearful punishment for an unhappy Member of Parliament, trained by sad experience to sit up and keep awake till three in the morning, than to be sent to bed at ten, with his light, dim and unsatisfactory at the best, ruthlessly put out at half past, leaving him tumbling in bed at his very wakefullest moments. We settled down in our comfortable cabins, put our clothes neatly away in the drawers, thankfully remembering other voyages when we have had to get to the bottom of portmanteaux while the ship was standing on her head, and then sallied forth for a tour of inspection round the ship which is to be our floating home for the next ten d?ys. The " Sarmatian " is a fine steamer of the second class. She has a speed of 13 to 14 knots, as her five full-day Atlantic runs on this voyage show, viz. 314, 318, 320, 322, 320 knots each day, giving a shade over 13 knots an hour. She carries a goodly family to provide for on the voyage. There are 631 souls en board — 105 cabin, 85 intermediate, 325 steerage passengers, and a crew of 116. The anchor is weighed at five o'clock, and soon New Brighton fort and lighthouse, the various lightships and the foaming sandy bar of the Mersey, drop astern one by one, and we take our last look of England for six months, going to bed to dream of home and friends, mingled with intermittent visions of the Rocky Mountains, the Flowery Land, the Mikado, " the spicy breezes that blow o'er Ceylon's isle," and the horrors of sea- sickness. August 19th. — We wake up to find ourselves running close in liUI FROM LIVERPOOL TO QUEBEC. 3 along the Antrim coast, which gives us some of the finest scenery in the kingdom. I am glad to view from the sea points of interest I had previously enjoyed on shore. Garron Head and Fair Head were well in sight, then, passing through the strait between Rathlin Island and the mainland, Carrick-a-Rede, with its terrible rope bridge 120 feet in the air, the organ rock of the Giant's Causeway, the rising watering-place of Portrush follow in rapid succession, and at eleven o'clock we steam into Lough Foyle, and drop anchor off Moville to wait for the mails A magnificent Atlantic steamer is already there, and my thoughts fly off to my constituency as I recognise the good work of the Barrow Shipbuilding Company in the Anchor liner " Devonia." The mails come on board by four o'clock, and away we go. By nine the light of Tory Island disappears, and we are rocked upon the bosom of the treacherous Atlantic, with a breeze fresh enough to send us to bed with mingled fears and hopes for the morrow's breakfast. August 20th. — The hopes have it ! It is fairly calm, and but few passengers are absent from table. The glass has fallen a trifle during the night, and the bill of fare is scanned carefully with a view to wholesome dishes. The choice is varied : you may have tea or coffee, rolls, toast, potato scones, brown and white bread, corn-meal bread, oat cake and porridge, beefsteak and onions, savoury omelette, fried fish, Finnan haddie, sausages, bacon, grilled bones, cold ham, tongue and beef, eggs and marmalade. The morning keeps fine, and the saloon deck presents the usual aspect. Ladies are grouped about in pleasant corners in easy deck-chairs, reading (yellow-back novels mostly), chatting, and working. Shuffle-board, a sort of deck bagatelle, and rope quoits, are in full swing, and we all go about making acquaintance with one another. The bright keen- B 2 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. looking gentleman, with white hair and a clean shaved face, is Sir Alexander Gait, a w-ell-known Canadian politician, who was at one time Finance Minister. He has spent four years of a long and useful life on board Atlantic steamers, having crossed and recrossed from Canada to England more than lOO times. He is in conversation with Mr. Gibbs, Q.C., one of the leaders of the Northern Circuit, who is spending a well-earned long vacation in Canada and the United States. That active clever- faced lady, who seems almost ubiquitous, is Miss Macpherson, who is taking 47 orphan lads from London slums to Canada. The breezy fellow in a yachting cap, whom every one says is the purser, is J. P. Sheldon, Professor of Agriculture at Downton College, near Salisbury, and a defeated aspirant for Parlia- mentary honours, who is going to Canada to report on the farming resources of the North- West Provinces on behalf of the Dominion Government, the Canadian Pacific Railway, and the Allan Line, all of which august bodies are jointly interested in the commission. The Japanese gentleman, who leans against the smoke-room door puffing his cigarette, is the head of a firm of engineers and shipbuilders in Tokio employing 400 hands, and I have already made an appointment to go over his works with him in October. The bright jolly-looking young lady watching the gulls astern is a teacher in the Girls' Collegiate Institute at Toronto. The eager pale face, whose earnest grey eyes look | out of gold-rimmed spectacles, belongs to a young missionary, who, years ago, was taken from the London gutter by Miss Macpherson, and is going to join the China inland mission. The sturdy young fellow who walks the deck with him is another of Miss Macpherson's lambs, alro destined for China, but who in the meantime is to have a winter's colportage work at Toronto. . . . But there goes the luncheon bell, and the deck clears like magic. FROM LIVERPOOL TO QUEBEC. s For this meal we have excellent hot soup, cold meats of all kinds, cold fresh salmon, salad, sardines, stewed fruit, pastry, and cheese. It is a light and trivial meal compared with breakfast and dinner. The afternoon is mostly spent in slumber, induced by the strong, fresh Atlantic breeze, through which we are bowling along at the rate of 14 miles an hour ; but every one wakes up at the sound of the dinner bell, the event of the day to those who are able for it. This is indeed a meal. Here is the bill of fare : — Soup. Mulligatawny. Vermicelli. Fish. Boiled salmon. Entries. Grilled pigeons and mushrooms. Fillet of beef k la Francaise. Parsley sauce. Veal and ham pie. Vol au vent of lobster. Roast. Beef and Yorkshire pudding. Lamb and mint sauce. Sucking pig and currant sauce. Gosling and apple sauce. Boiled. Fowls and lemon sauce. Mutton and caper sauce. Ham. Tongue. Beef. Vegetables. Plain and mashed potatoes. Broad beans. Puddings and pastry. Jam rolls. Rice puddings. Rhubarb pie. Plum pie. Italian cream. Apple charlotte. Lemon cheese cakes. Marmalade tartlets. Dessert. Apples, oranges, plums, raisins, figs, nuts, tea, and coffee. There is a slight roll getting up, and I notice with interest that boiled fowl and rice pudding are in great demand, and A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. that sucking pig, gosling, vol au vent, jam rolls, and lemon cheese cakes are not much sought after. The lavish profusion of the bills of fare in Atlantic liners always seems to me very unnecessary ; but as there are 1 16 in the crew, and sometimes 500 to 800 steerage passengers, I suppose the enormous surplus gets eaten up somewhere. The intermediate passengers fare quite as well as the saloon, but with a simpler list of viands. The steerage passengers have for breakfast fresh bread and butter, porridge, Irish stew, tea and coffee ; for dinner, soup, hot joints, potatoes, and bread ; for tea, bread and butter and tea ; for supper, oatmeal porridge. When the weather is decent their capacity for innocent enjoyment in the way of food is astounding. There are biscuits ad libitum at eleven, so that I was net surprised to hear a fat German emigrant say, " Himmel ! vot a ship ! Five square meals a day, and noding extra to pay ! " To-night we run into the tail-end of a gale, and soon find out how utterly miserable 500 people can be at sea. The ship is largely laden with steel rails — as a member of the iron trade, I was glad to hear this at starting, but before night was over I was fain to wish they were at the bottom of the mine instead of the bottom of the " Sarmatian." Their dead-weight caused the ship to roll like a pendulum, and it was impossible to sleep. I sat up reading all night, and at breakfast next morning it was found that quite two-thirds of the passengers were badly under the weather, my daughter among the rest. This roll continued more or less during the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd, to the vast discomfort of everybody ; but on the 24th we entered the great Labrador current, and all were happy. The temperature, however, fell to about 42 degrees, and everybody was glad to rummage up their warm clothes. The wind was fresh and keen, blowing straight " from Greenland's icy mountains." This great FROM LIVERPOOL TO QUEBEC. current flows continuously at the rate of about two miles an hour direct from the Arctic sea, and every one was on the look- out for the iccber ^»v^.^^ AURORA BORKALIS. From a rA^/'cA by the Author. The 26th finds us in bad weather again. Rain all day, with a heavy sea rolling up into the Gulf direct from the Atlantic. At night thick fog, half-speed, and the steam whistle murdering sleep ; but the morning of the 27th brings us into calm water and fine weather, the ship running within three or four miles of the coast of Gaspe, well into the mouth of the St. Lawrence. At the request of a number of the passengers, a large pro- portion of whom are teetotallers, I gave an address on the Temperance Movement on deck this afternoon. This vessel affords fresh proof of the rapid strides with which the Temperance Reformation has advanced of late years. In conversation with Mr. Heaton, the pleasant and courteous gentleman who acts as chief steward, he tells me that the FROM LIVERPOOL TO QUEBEC. 9 change which has come over the drinking habits of the saloon passengers during the last ten years is very remarkable. Turning up his books for 1878, he showed me entries of over £\2Q> paid in a single voyage for strong liquors by forty-five cabin passengers. This voyage 105 passengers will not spend £lQ. Nearly half the Canadians on board are abstainers, and of those who are not, few drink at their rneals. Only thirteen passengers take wine or beer at dinner, and these are English. I am within the mark in saying that fully half the intermediate and steerage passengers are teetotallers. This evening a concert was given on behalf of that most valuable charity, the Liverpool Seamen's Orphanage, and a handsome collection was taken. A large number of the 750 children cared for by this institution have lost their fathers by the perils of the sea crossing the Atlantic, incurred while conveying passengers and cargo to and from America. Ihcre is no class of the community needing an orphanage to the same extent as seamen. Since this institution was founded sixteen years ago, more than 40,000 British seamen have been drowned at sea, and 27,000 more have died in foreign ports. It is a disgrace to us as a maritime nation that 2,500 of our seamen should thus find a watery grave every year, and only such legislation as that which Mr. Joseph Chamberlain vainly en- deavoured to make law will cope with this terrible loss of life. A large amount of money is secured for the orphanage by means of concerts and other entertainments, and the collection on Sundays on board all Atlantic liners is devoted to this object. 1 have been much interested in the children who are being taken out by Miss Macpherson for adoption by Canadian farmers. Miss Macpherson does not emigrate pauper children, but rather seeks those children who are on the edge of the workhouse schools, and who, but for her interference, would lO A IRIP ROUND THE WORLD. quickly find themselves there. Let me give the stories of two or three of these on board as a sample of the whole. A. B. is a lad who was found ten years ago by a city missionary in an underground cellar ; he was then about four years old, and nothing could be discovered as to his belongings. He was taken to the Islington Boys' Home, and has been re- commended as a good willing boy suitable for emigration to Canada. C. D. was a gutter arab, motherless, son of a drunken father who beat and starved him. He drifted into a boys' home at Winchester, and now, at fifteen years of age, is off " to reap and mow, to plough and sow, and be a farmer's boy " in Canada. He is a bright, sharp lad, full of expectation and hope, and will do well. There are a dozen such lads among the forty-seven on board, but sometimes the facts are reversed by the father being dead and the mother gone to the bad, while others have lost both parents, the loss being the lad's gain. E. F. is a bright, sharp little girl of ten, delighted with the ship and all on board, the pet of the steerage. When I asked her how she liked her cabin, she said, " Jolly I I've got a whole soap- box all to myself for a bed." This was the realisation of her wildest notion of luxury. Hitherto, if she had liad a soap-box at all, she shared it with other children. Her father was drowned at sea, and she has been half starved by an unsatisfac- tory mother all her life. She is about half the size she ought to be. G. H. is a lad who has been deserted by his parents, who fell at once into kind hands. A lady in his neighbourhood pays the cost of his emigration. Many of the children have been rescued from horrible ill- treatment at the hands of step-fathers and step-mothers, others have been adopted by Miss Macpherson out of large poor FROM LIVERPOOL TO QUEBEC. II families, whose parents seem glad enough to let them go, and others are orphans from various boys' homes. All these children are purged as far as possible from the evil influences of their past lives by the kind and judicious treat- ment they receive in Miss Macpherson's homes in England and Canada. Their excellent behaviour on board ship, under the relaxed discipline which is inevitable from the sea-sickness of their superintendents, speaks volumes for their brief training, and they live in the continual praise of all the passengers. Miss Macpherson has taken out to Canada altogether four thousand four hundred of these waifs and strays, every one of whom would otherwise have gone to swell the ranks of the dangerous or pauper classes. The results fully justify her action. Two thousand five hundred are now comfortably settled on Canadian farms, the adopted children rather than the ser- vants of the farmers. Five hundred have been formally adopted by childless people, another five hundred have been put out in trades, over two hundred are married and doing well ; some, of course, have died, but of the whole lot only seven have turned out hopelessly bad, and are now in reformatories with what- ever poor chance those institutions afford for a fresh start in life. All wonder at this happy result vanishes before an hour's cnat with the gracious Christian lady who is the life and soul of it all. This emigration of poor children is but an incident in the noble life of Miss Macpherson, and is her solution of one aspect of the sorrow and suffering passing under her notice In her work among the densely-crowded districts of East London These poor children, taken away from their horrible surroundings in time, grow up useful God-fearing citizens of Canada, and often rise to good positions. More than a score are in professions, and one of the brightest and most intelligent men I ever met, 13 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. now goinjj out on this ship, destined for a missionary's life, is one of Miss Macpherson's rescued boys. Probably no man is better acquainted u ith the inner social life of Canada than Sir Alexander Gait. He has fully confirmed me in the deeply favourable impression I have formed of Miss Macpherson and her work, and assures me that in his judgment no one person is at this time promoting to the same extent the real interests of the Dominion of Canada. I was not surprised to hear from Miss Macpherson that she utterly refused to emigrate children who had once entered the doors of a workhouse school. My own experience as a Guardian of one of the largest unions in London confirms her wisdom. I wish every one of these detestable and costly institutions were abolished and the boarding-out system made universal ; but this is a domestic issue that pertains not to the story of a voyage round the world. I do not wonder that Dr. Barnardo, and others who have the care of orphan children of the very poor, are following Miss Macpherson's noble example. May God bless her and her patriotic work ! It is, indeed, '* something accomplished, some- thing done," to have turned 5,000 street arabs from probable thieves and lost women into prosperous Canadian farmers and happy wives and mothers. We are now running up the St. Lawrence, and an amusing incident has just occurred. The Dominion Government have a law that no one shall enter Canada who has not been vaccinated during the last seven years. Yesterday the ship's doctor went through all the intermediate and steerage passengers, examined their arms, and informed those who had not recently been vaccinated that they would not be let ashore without a fortnight's quarantine on an island unless they submitted to his lancet. About four dozen were operated upon ; but a Wesleyan minister FROM LIVERPOOL TO QUEBEC, 13 and another flatly refused even to show their arms. A medical officer of health came on board at Rimouski at one o'clock this morning, and the two recalcitrants were roused out of bed to face him. They continued obstinate, and were in consequence reported by telegraph to the Quarantine Static whose officer has just stopped the ship. The martyrs have broken down at last, on seeing their luggage placed upon the quarantine launch, and, with much indignation, have submitted to vaccination. They do not seem to have had scruples about vaccination itself, but refused on what seems to me the very just ground that the saloon passengers have been entirely exempt from the operation of the law. There were no exemptions in the original Act, until it was found that saloon passengers were exempted from a similar law in the United States, and that in consequence saloon passenger traffic was being diverted from Quebec to New York. Shortly after lunch the picturesque city of Quebec hove in sight, and the " Sarmatian" steamed alongside the wharf at Point Levis, the terminus of the Grand Trunk Railway, on the opposite side of the great river. We have had a delightful and prosperous voyage, the pleasant- est of all the five journeys I have made across the Atlantic ; but we are all glad to see land again, and to rush off to the telegraph office to send word to those at home that we have arrived safe and well. /'ij- '■ ml 14 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. CHAPTER II. QUEBEC TO MONTREAL. As soon as the medical officer had issued his fiat permitting the passengers to go ashore, my daughter and I started off for the ferry, determined to see all we could of Quebec in the three hourr> before the steamer once more started off up the river to Montreal. It seemed ridiculous on British territory to be hailed in French by a car-driver, to read the shop-signs in French and English, with even such simple directions as were needed to point the road to the steam ferry, being given in both languages, thus — This way! Par ici ! And yet I am told that if any public institution such as a steam ferry omitted the " Par ici " it would bring about an immediate revolution. Quebec is as French as Boulogne— yet as loyal to the British Crown as Folkestone. The ancient province of Lower Canada has maintained unimpaired the language and religion of its original settlers. Three-fourths of its population are French-speaking Roman Catholics. French customs, lan- guage, and laws remain intact, though the British flag waves from its citadel. Champlain, the famous navigator, who dis- covered and settled Quebec, established a fort, a trading station, and a chapel. The Quebec of to-day is simply an enlargement #a ill r i-.' ii'l ■; ill u ■ji 31 a o M MONTREAL. 17 h u a u D a of all three. The town lies on a tongue of land under the shelter of a bold cliff 350 feet above the water, with the Charles River protecting it on the landward side. The citadel crowns the hill, and all round are forts and bastions commanding every point of the river. The whole forms a fortress that would be impregnable if armed with modern guns, and which would hold the gates of Canada against any navy that could be sent to force them. The armaments, however, are of an ancient and obsolete character, with the exception of three Armstrong guns of about six or seven tons weight, which escaped the fire of last year. There is, however, a brass howitzer, on which is engraved, " This gun was captured at the battle of Bunkers Hill " — a bit of British swagger which greatly amuses Yankee visitors, who are apt to remark, " Wal, if you have the gun, I guess we've got the hill ! " There are few more picturesque towns in the world than Quebec. As we steamed away up the St. Lawrence, the lofty citadel and its satellite forts, with the quaint old French town nestling under its protection, were all one dark purple mass against a glorious sunset sky, relieved only by the twinkling lights of the houses and streets, just blinking into notice as the day darkened and closed — a scene of beauty not easily to be forgotten. Quebec is going down hill. It was a melancholy place for a business man to visit ten years ago, when I was there seeking custom for English iron, but it seemed to me sadder than ever in the walk we took through the business streets. It still maintains its supremacy as the great seat of the timber trade ; but as that trade finds its way to the sea more and more by the great network of railways which centre in Montreal, lumber will follow wheat and locate itself in the up-river port, to the neglect of poor old Quebec. Sunday morning, August 28th, found us 50 miles above C r ■ \- A ;. 4 Mi i8 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. Quebec, on the broad bosom of the St. Lawrence, the great highway of the Dominion of Canada, and the outlet of the greatest body of fresh water in the world. The vast inland seas of Superior, Huron, Eric, Michigan, Ontario, Nepigon, and Champlain, besides a thousand lakes of less degree, pour out to the Atlantic past the citadel of Quebec. This noble river drains an area of over 400,000 square miles of territory, and contains more than half the fresh water of the globe. The total length of its course is over 2,000 miles, and its principal port, Montreal, is 1 50 miles distant from salt water. By the aid of the Welland Canal three-masted vessels^ with 1,500 or 2,000 tons of wheat in their holds can load at Port Arthur on Lake Superior, 1,200 miles from the sea, and after traversing the St. Lawrence, cross the Atlantic and discharge their cargoes at Liverpool or Barrow. The St. Lawrence from Quebec to Montreal is from one to three miles wide. Its banks are thickly populated by the descendants of the early French Settlers, every village clustering round a fine Roman Catholic Church, whose tin roofs and spires glitter in the morning sun. The people are very poor, and have been rendered so by a bad system of sub- division of land similar to that which prevails in many parts of Ireland, The habitants, as these French Canadians are called, are a hardy, thrifty race ; their young men form the great strength of the lumber trade, and a backwoodsman would move Mr. Gladstone to amazement and envy by the way in which he can wield the axe. About three o'clock in the afternoon the wooded heights of Mount Royal appear above the low river banks, and the passengers throng into the bows of the ship for the first view of that city of churches, Montreal. As we round the last bend of the river, the fine stone quays, flanked by a long mile of noble MONTREAL. 19 warehouses, overtopped by a hundred spires and domes, the whole set in the olive-green of Mount Royal, form a fine panorama. In less than an hour we are fast to the Allan Wharf. A polite customs officer declines to suspect a British M.P. of smuggling. Our luggage is placed in the hotel waggon, and we jolt through the disgracefully paved streets to the Windsor Hotel, a marble palace of 800 rooms, which condescends to board and lodge its visitors handsomely for I'js. 6d. a day. We c«rtainly had no reason to complain of the treatment we received. The head clerk, on seeing my name, asked me if I was not a British Member of Parliament. I owned the soft impeachment, and, knowing what a mixed lot we are, waited with trepidation the effect. Should I be refused admission, or be huddled away in some garret ? To my great delight we were ushered into a gorgeous apartment, consisting of a large drawing-room and two spacious bedrooms, with fine bath-rooms attached. I protested that this splendour was quite beyond my means, but was at once politely assured that I was, so far as these handsome rooms were concerned, the guest of the landlords of the " Windsor." Monday, August 29th. — We rose betimes to catch the 7.45 train for Lachine, a pretty village which stands at the head of the chain of locks which raises the water traffic of the St. Lawrence over the far-famed Lachine Rapids, which it was our intention presently to descend in a steamer. It was a glorious morning, the hot sun tempered with a touch of autumn frost, which threw a thin veil of mist over the river, and its beautiful wooded banks and islands. The steamer left the moorings under the care of an ancient half-breed Indian pilot, who steers her into the broad expanse of river which spreads out above the fall. The old exploier Jacques Cartier took it for a fresh ocean, that would, if he dared venture to cross it, lead him on to C 2 illji y I !ii ao A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. r m lli China ; standing on its shores, exclaiming " La Chine ! La Chine!'' he little thought that 350 years later the Canadian Pacific Railway would cross the point on which he stood, carrying passengers and mails from Europe to China in the short space of five weeks. Soon the broad river narrows into a width of about two miles, and the increased speed of the vessel lets us know that we are nearing the great Lachine Rapids. The pace becomes tremendous as she leaps into the roaring cataract. Standing in the bows, it seems as if nothing could save the steamer from being dashed to pieces on the mighty rocks which split the stream ; but the skilful pilot drives her down between the two biggest, which almost brush the vessel's sides, and in another minute we are paddling down a gentle ripple, and Montreal, glistening in the morning sun, comes into view. The interest of this delightful little trip, which hardly lasts two hours, has been greatly enhanced by the magnificent cantilever bridge by which the Canadian Pacific Railway crosses the Sv. Lawrence at the head of the Lachine Rapids, seeking an outlet for its western traffic through St. John and Halifax and the New England States. This bridge is built on the same lines and plan as the well-known Tay Bridge in Scotland. The steamer swept under it with such speed that all detail was lost, leaving only on the memory the impression of the lightest and most beautiful iron structure I had ever seen. Montreal can boast the possession of two of the finest bridges in the world, for the great rival of the Canadian Pacific, the older Grand Trunk, owns the famous Victoria Tubular Bridge, which was designed by Robert Stephenson, built by Peto, Brassey, and Betts, and formally opened by the Prince of Wales in i860. This bridge connects lower Canada with the United States, and carries off all the Montreal traffic during the six MONTREAL. 21 months of winter when the St. Lawrence is blocked with ice. This stupendous work cost ;^i, 200,000. It stands upon 26 piers, and the centre is about 60 feet above the level of the river. It is over 3,000 yards long, and contains three million cubic feet of masonry, and over 8,000 tons of iron. It links together the system of the Grand Trunk Railway, which on bf th sides of the St. Lawrence embraces some 2,200 miles of road. After breakfast I called at the offices of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and made the acquaintance of its president, Sir George Stephen, Bart., and Mr. Van Home, its vice-president and general-manager. They were good enough to give me nearly three hours of their valuable time, and allowed me to see their rate-books, and classification-books, and gave me much information of great interest to a Member of Parliament who had served for two years on "The Select Committee on Railway Rates." The rest of the afternoon I spent in calling upon the many old friends in the iron trade who, before I became absorbed in politics, were valued customers, and to whom I used to export iron and other metals. Much of our conversation naturally turned on the recent heavy increase of the import duties on iron and steel, which has so much excited the indignation of our iron trade at home. I found an almost universal opinion, in which I fully share, that these protective duties will not be sufficient to call into existence any important rolling-mills within the Dominion, though it may do something for iron and steel manu- factured goods. The duty on finished iron is raised from i 'js. 6d. per ton to £1. The first result of this will be to drive the iron trade into the hands of great capitalist merchants, and to squeeze out small dealers and importers. A dealer could, under the old duty, buy a stock of 500 tons of merchant iron from England and put it duty paid into his warehouse for about ;^3,200, and litlE 22 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. m \\ !■' ' as he could obtain four to six months' credit from English merchants for ;^2,5oo of that amount, he only required ^700 in cash capital to pay freight and duties. By the increase in the tariff he finds this amount suddenly raised upon him to some ;^i,700, and unless he can immediately bring an extra ^1,000 in hard cash into his business he must either reduce his stock or be otherwise crippled. In all my business experience, I have always found these sudden changes in tariff rates the most disturbing element I have had to cope with. The strong protests which were made, at the time the tariff was changed, by the English iron trade, were successful in inducing the Canadian Government to make some important alterations in favour of Great Britain, so far as it affects the interests of the mother country and the rival interests of foreign countries. A memorandum has been recently issued by the Canadian Minister of Finance, which endeavours to show how far the tariff changes are actually beneficial to British manufactures. An analysis of the imports into Canada of iron and steel and manufactures thereof exhibits the remarkable fact that while five years ago Great Britain contributed 55 per cent, of the dutiable and 94 per cent, of the free imports of these goods, last year the pro- portion from that country had declined to 50 per cent, and 86 per cent. These figures are put forward with some justice, as showing a drift of trade from British to foreign iron producers, and the Finance Minister contends that if the old tariff had re- mained in operation the Canadian market must in time have passed under the control of the manufacturers of the United States, Belgium, and Germany. I do not believe this myself; but if the conviction has come home to the Finance Minister, and induced him to vary the tariff with a view to preventing it, we need not complain. I never could understand the infatuation of new countries MONTREAL. 33 for Protection. For years past Canada has been paying 50 per cent, more for every article of clothing than we pay in England, with a view to creating textile industries of her own Yesterday I went through the largest retail drapery store in Canada, containing every kind of textile fabrics for both sexes. The owner admitted to me that he had not in his store, from cellar to attic, five shillings' worth of Canadian manufactures. The one great pleasure of Canada is fishing. Yesterday I bought a green heart trout rod ; in England it would have cost me 2\s. — I paid 32J. ; two dozen trout flies, 8.f. per dozen — the same flies in England would cost 2s. ; gut casting lines, 4J. each instead of \s. 3^. — and all imported from England. I asked specially for a Canadian-made rod, but the dealer hadn't got one fit for fly-fishing ; all his stock had come from England or the States in spite of 30 per cent, protective duty. The duties on foreign iron in the United States practically double the price of iron all over that country, yet fail to keep out foreign competition. The total importations of manu- factured iron and steel productions into the States last fiscal year were 100,000 tons in excess of the two previous years combined. During the fiscal year just ended the States imported 1,524,000 tons, against a total in the two years of 1 885-1 886 of 1,445,000. The same appears in iron ore, last year showing 1,142,000 tons imported, against a total ot 1,127,000 in the two years previous. There seems to be no signs of any diminution of this great import. I do not wonder to read this week in a leading New York commercial paper that " indications warrant the belief that the heavy importations of manufactured iron and steel production to this country are a very serious menace to the industrial prosperity of America. The pertinent inquiry arises — '* How much longer can this country keep on importing foreign iron and steel in such hi,: till if ■si is* Ilj I. I I H A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. enormous quantities without precipitating a first-class collapse in the iron and steel industries ? " I have no fear whatever of any disastrous result to the English iron trade from Canadian Protective tariffs, Canada will continue to buy from us in increasing quantities ; and if any capitalist is fool enough to start extensive iron-works in the Dominion, they will end in what the Yankees call a " first- class collapse." I * ( 25 ) CHAPTER III. NIAGARA. On Tuesday morning, August 31st, we left Montreal for Toronto by the new route of the Canadian Pacific Railway, which passes through a thinly-settled district of some beauty abounding in lakes and streams. In 380 miles we only passed two towns of any size — Perth, the centre of a good farming district, in which many Irish have located themselves, and Peterborough, placed on the Otonabee River, which here falls about 150 feet in nine miles, furnishing water-power for many corn and lumber mills. At the end of 12 hours we reached the great capital of the province of Ontorio — Toronto. Our journey was made pleasant by the magnificent parlour-car in which we rode, furnished with large arm-chairs, movable tables, and that best of all luxuries when travelling in hot weather, a sumptuous lavatory. We had an excellent lunch and tea sensed to us, and I noted with satisfaction that no alcoholic liquors appeared in the bill of fare which was presented to us, the Canadian Pacific refreshment-rooms on this section being apparently conducted on strictly temperance principles. Toronto is at once the most English and the most prosperous town in Canada. Its citizens are justly proud of it, and take ^ no pains to conceal their pride. I noticed on the voyage that, if any passenger walked the deck with an air of being Somebody, if any lady sat in her deck-chair with a cold and repellent air m A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. towards strangers, they were sure to hail from Toronto. It is the Boston of Canada. All culture and refinement begins and ends there so far as the Dominion is concerned. Kurope may furnish interesting relics of the past, but there is no real progress outside Toronto. I never converse with a Toronto citizen without being reminded of the old Peebles anecdote. " I've seen London and Paris, but for downright pleesure gie me Peebles 1 " However, with all the " side " taken off, Toronto is a very fine city of over 100,000 inhabitants, to which it has grown from a tenth of that number in about 50 years. It has plenty of fine buildings, broad and handsome streets, electric lights, and the usual detestable pavement, which seems inevitable in every American town. It has a noble frontage to Lake Ontario of several miles in extent ; viewed from the lake on a fine evening, it has almost the appearance of Venice from the Lido, and is quite the most picturesque town in all Canada, except Quebec. The University is a large Norman building, situated in the public park, in which is a monument to the students of the University who were killed in resisting the iniquitous Fenian invasion of 1866, one of the unpunished villainies of the Irish scoundrels who abuse the hospitality of the freest country in the world. The new Parliament House — in which, when finished, the Ontario Parliament will exercise its carefully-guarded functions — is only just above the ground, and we could -not judge of its merits. We visited the Normal School, in which the elementary teachers of the province are trained, and found every possible advantage to the students, well arranged in a stately building. In different quarters of the city we saw various colleges, denominational and otherwise, which are aflfiliated to the University, for the Ontario system of university education has been successful in including within its teaching influence, both NrAGARA. »r Rom;in Catholic as well as all Protestant denominational colleges — an example I should like to see followed by our ancient seats of learning at Oxford and Cambridge. The University has an endowment of ;^2oo,ooo and an income of ;^i6,ooo a year, with i,8oo graduates and about 400 students. It contains excellent museums of natural history, mineralogy, geology, and ethnology. The churches of Toronto are one of its chief glories. It boasts the tallest spire, and the handsomest church clock on the Continent of America. We went over the leading Methodist Church ; it will seat nearly 3,000 people, and ha.s, besides a handsomely-fitted lecture-hall to accommodate 600, the finest series of Sunday-.school class-rooms I ever saw, and a noble suite of drawing-rooms, in which are held that peculiarly American institution — the " Church Sociable " — at which the minister receives the whole of his congregation at evening parties, on terms of absolute social equality. From Toronto we crossed the lake to Niagara, where we spent three delightful days. I will not add to the thousand and one failures to describe the indescribable. I have seen pictures of Niagara. I have read poems on Niagara. They are about as like what they try to describe as Martin's " Plains of Heaven." The only honest attempt to describe Niagara was made by a poet who was specially commissioned by the Neiv York Herald to produce a description in verse that should for all time stand in the forefront of every other. The poet went, stayed three months, and then sat down to write. He began — " Niagara ! Niagara ! You are indeed a staggerer ! " He could get no further, and his body was found three days after in the whirlpool. ■ 1 i 1 1 1 1 >| 1 III ■P 1 ■ 1 i 28 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. m lit I II But without attempting to emulate the poet, I will try to give to those of my readers who have never seen, and may never see this wonder of the world, some faint idea of what it really is. Niagara Falls are formed by the sudden descent of the Niagara River down a ledge of perpendicular rocks half a mile wide and more than i6o feet in height, into a huge foaming caldron over 400 feet in depth. The river flows out of this caldron in smooth circling eddies for a mile or so, and then rushes through a mighty gorge only 300 feet wide at the rate of 30 miles an hour, piling its roaring and foaming waves 30 feet higher in the centre than at the margin, sweeping at its outlet into a vast circular basin surrounded by high precipitous cliffs, forming a huge whirlpool in which the river circles previous to its final rush into Lake Ontario. To state the bare fact that, according to Sir Charles Lyell, the water passing the Niagara falls, travels at the rate of 1,500,000,000 cubic feet per minute, may convey to the minds of my readers a dim notion of the terrific force and sublimity of this stupendous cataract. When I was last at Niagara, some ten years ago, both banks were in the hands of speculators, who charged a dollar for every coign of vantage, and before the unhappy tourist could see his Niagara he had to pay out £\ or ;^5 for admission fees. But these fiends had other methods of making money. As you stood on the table rock, the finest point from which to view the Horse Shoe Falls, a huge board, which you could not possibly evade, informed you all the time that " Jennings' liver pills were sure, quiet, but searching." The fine trees which frame every lovely picture on Goat Island had been let out to a wretch who had painted on every trunk the startling fact that " Gargling oil was good for man and beast," and the lovely rocks of Luna Island llOlviiK SUOK VALL, NIAGARA, r( k] G si( be as t\v I; J S^ fort: attra respe man. from boxei the p NIAGARA. 31 resounded with the cry that " Lovell's worm powder was never known to fail " ! But two or three years ago the enh'ghtened Governments of the United States and Canada purchased both sides of the river, and swept out speculators and quacks with the besom of destructiori. Every approach of the falls is now free as air, the land being cleared of every building, and turned into two national parks. Niagara appears to have irresistible charms m. ■■''i\ 4 S ! WHIRLPOOL RAPIDS, NIAGARA. for the fools who enjoy seeing performances in which the main attraction is danger to human life. We saw a number of people respectfully surrounding a big but very stupid-looking young man. Asking who this was, we were told that he was a hero from Buffalo who had shot the Whirlpool Rapids last week, boxed up in the small hold of a canoe decked over for the purpose. There was no skill displayed in this foolhardy ii J 33 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. i mm ' 4 i performance, as the hero of it was simply cargo and nothing more, yet scores of people were turning their backs on the grandest scene in the world to gape and stare at this foolish youth. In the height of the season, multitudes of people come in from Buffalo, Detroit, Toronto, and even Chicago and New York, not to admire the wondrous beauty of Niagara, but to see a female named Signorina Maria Spelterina dance on a tight-rope over the Whirlpool Rapids. We were fortunate in visiting Niagara at the full moon, which added greatly to its charm. This was my third visit to this scene of wonder, and each visit deepens the impression that so far as I have seen Nature, Niagara is the sublimest and most beautiful sight on earth. In the winter of 1872 I saw the falls in the grasp of the severest frost ever known to living Canadians. The caldron beneath the falls was frozen over, and it was possible to walk into the very face of the cataract, whose dark green waters contrasted with the pure white snow and massive icicles which hung about the edges. The spray which rises always like a lovely veil from the base of the falls, had frozen as it rose and encrusted everything on the banks — trees, shrubs, railings — with a delicate frost-work that glistened like pure silver in the bright winter sunshine of Canada, and, falling on the frozen surface in front, had formed enormous cones of ice, one of which, 120 feet high, I mounted, gainmg an unusual familiarity with the inner recesses of the falls, that was deeply impressive. But I do not venture to express any opinion on the rival charms of Niagara in winter, spring, or autumn, in each of which seasons I have seen and wondered at its strange beauty and terrible sublimity. We managed to snatch half a day from Niagara to visit the locks on the Welland Canal, which connect the navigation iMif NIAGARA. 33 between Ontario and Erie, and make it possible for vessels to surmount the obstacle presented by Niagara. Erie is on a higher level than Ontario by 300 feet, and this level is reached by a chain of locks on the Welland Canal 26 in number. Each lock is over 300 feet long and 45 feet wide, and vessels of 2,000 tons burden, drawing 14 feet, can pass them. It takes a ship about 14 hours to get through the complete chain of locks, and they pay dues amounting to gd. a ton if loaded, ?>d. if in ballast. It was a wonderful sight to stand on the upper lock and see the vast steps of masonry sweeping round the hillside for miles, with large three-masted ships mounting to Erie or dropping to Ontario all along the great curve, undoubtedly one of the finest public works in the world. The Canadian Government, with a view to divert the great grain trade of the lakes to Montreal, have reduced the tolls on grain coming to that port through the Welland Canal to id, per ton ; but although the old rate of gd. is charged to American vessels the quantity of grain passing down the Welland Canal from United States ports to United States ports increased from 47,000 tons in 1880 to 151,000 tons in 1886, while the carrying of grain from lake ports of both nations to Montreal has rather decreased than increased. This is owing to the great develop- ment of railways in the Dominion of Canada, which seem destined here, as at home, slowly to press water-carriage out of existence. The quantity of cereals arriving at Montreal vid the two great railway systems of Canada, the Grand Trunk and the Canadian Pacific, has steadily increased during recent years as follows : — 1884 1882 Tons. 75,000 1883 Tons. 99,000 Tons. 142,000 1885 Tons. 161,000 1886 Tons. 166,000 1> 1' !' ?■! U m I !: D I i 34 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. The quantity passing down the St. Lawrence system of canals to Montreal for the same period was — 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 Tons. Tons. Tons. Tons, Tons. 230,000 263,000 • 174,000 134)000 272,000 American experience also goes to prove the growing ascend- ancy of railways over canals. The New York canals last year brought to that port 1,490,000 tons of cereals, while the New York railways in the same year carried over 3,800,000. I think a careful study of canal and railway statistics in Canada and the United States would be profitable to the venturesome capitalists who are taking shares in the Manchester Ship Canal. The road from Niagara to Welland and back led us through many fine farms, the yards and orchards of which gave evidence of much prosperity. This is a famous fruit district, and produces the Newtown pippin, the American apple that is such a favourite in England. On Saturday, September 3rd, we bid a reluctant farewell to Niagara and its beauties, and started off to spend Sunday with a relative who had settled on a farm near St. Thomas, in the best agricultural district of Canada. Shortly after the train started, which was the express from New York to Chicago, we were amused by the conductor calling out in the car — "The next station is Falls View — five minutes allowed to see Niagara Falls ! " And there are quite a number of Americans who are happy and content to have seen their greatest wonder in this hasty fashion. It may perhaps interest some of my readers to know what is the life of the average Canadian farmer. My relative, Mr. Emery, has a small farm of about 70 acres of very good land. His house is built of wood entirely, consists of one storey, and contains NIAGARA. %% a kitchen, dining-room, parlour, and five bedrooms. The farm, with the exception of groceries, furnishes food for the family throughout the year, the produce consisting of wheat, Indian corn, peas, hay, vegetables, and fruit. There is abundance of milk and cream, eggs, poultry occasionally, and the meat of three pigs each year, in the shape of pickled pork and bacon. During the three hot months very little meat is eaten by the average Canadian farmer, but when the frost fairly sets in he supplements his pig-meat with a sheep and half a bullock, Tjl ,4'.T •■y. v 1-"- ' I .-*.A<.V> •,■■■-, '■''■-. ." '.,-: -CA V^, ■• ■ - ^,,. .^,j.:.,.,. ':^'/-'. i^'^"?>'-;.-;,;.;:'s: •&■■ ' - «f:.-' ■'-'■iffK^iJi^ ..^.,.X^7 j-::*;-.irg !!»fe?aas-: :.V EMERY HALL. from a sketch by the Author, ; ; i . which he hangs up in the frosty air in some place where vermin cannot reach it, and saws off the meat as he wants it. It keeps perfectly fresh as long as the frost lasts, which is four or five months. He sells his surplus produce, after feeding his family and his stock out of it, and as he has no rent to pay, his wants arc confined to clothing, groceries, and a few minor sundries. He educates his children free. He has great opportunities for putting out his family in the world. My relative has five sons and two daughters. Two of his sons arc well placed in the I) 2 M liiii 36 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. employ of a great railway company in the Western States, one of his daughters being a shorthand type-writer in the same employ with a good salary. Another son went off platelaying on the Canadian Pacific while it was being made, saved the bulk of his wages, chose his location as he went along, and is now farming 600 acres of his own near Calgary, in the North-West Province. He has one daughter at home to help her mother, and one son who manages the farm. His youngest lad is 16, and goes to a high school at a neighbouring town of 2,000 population, where he obtains, entirely free, an education equal to any of our great public schools, with four University men to teach him. He lodges in a single room, for which he pays six shillings a month, and on Monday morning drives over to his school, taking with him a basket of provisions to last him till Friday evening, when he comes home for the week end. He will probably become a school teacher for a few years, save money, and eventually educate himself for the medical or legal profession. The more I see of Canada, the more convinced I am of the incalculable benefits of a sy.stem of free education, which enables any lad of brains to work himself up from humble circumstances to any position in the Dominion, I wish we had it in the old country. I never tasted such delicious apples as were ripening in my cousin's orchard. His farm is in the very primest part of the great fruit-growing district that lies on both shores of Lakes Ontario and Erie. Apples, pears, quinces, melons, chestnuts and grapes grow in great abundance, and as we travelled from Niagara to London, the country-side was gilded with the rich fruit of the farm-orchards. Splendid apples can be bought for is, 6d. per bushel, and many of the farmers make a special trade of apple- packing for the English market, and have houses specially built for the purpose. The growth of the trade is shown by the NIAGARA. sr returns of exports, which have increased from 50,000 barrels in 1874, to nearly 300,000 last year. In England we do not know what luscious fruit Canada can produce, as the best varieties will not carry without decay. It is, however, proposed to construct cold chambers on the ocean steamers by which these short - keeping and delicate varieties may be brought to England in perfect preservation. On Monday, September 5th, we left our relative's hospitable roof for London, a town of 30,000 inhabitants. An old friend met us at the station, and drove us round before dinner. "New" London imitates old London as closely as possible. The streets are called Cornhill, Regent Street, Piccadilly, Bond Street, &c., &c. Our friend lives in Westminster, on the other side of the Thames ; and there is even a Westminster Abbey, though that, alas ! in New London, is a tavern. Westminster is under the Scott Act, and the Westminster Abbey is, nolens volens, a temperance tavern. I was struck with one singular result of the Scott Act. Both my fricr:ds, the farmer and my London friend, live under the Scott Act. Neither of them are teetotallers, yet in deference to public opinion, as expressed by the adoption of the Act, neither of them place mtoxicating liquors before their guests, or keep them in their houses. I hope to write at some length on the operations of the Scott Act and the prohibitory laws of the North-West when I have seen more of the country. Tuesday, September 6th, we spent at Toronto, chiefly in visiting old friends. The town was all astir from the opening of a provincial exhibition, to which his Excellency the Governor- General had come. I had an interesting conversation with Lord Lansdowne, who asked me to come and see him to discuss some of the political questions which are coming to the front in the Dominion. In the evening we dined with my old acquaintance iii i ^^ ''Mi i| 'i 38 /I TRIP ROUND THE WORLD, Professor Goldwin Smith, who li^ taking the lead in the agitation for commercial union with the States, the most burning question of the hour in Canada. Wednesday, September 7th. — We left Toronto at 10.30 for Winnipeg. The train took us through a beautiful country to Owen Sound, situated on Georgian Bay, Lake Huron. Here we got on board the "Alberta," a magnificent Clyde-built steamer of 1,800 tons burden, specially designed for the Canadian Pacific Railway to carry the passenger-traffic between Owen Sound and Port Arthur, their station on the north shores of Lake Superior. She and her sister ship, the "Athabasca," steamed across the Atlantic, were cut in two at Montreal, towed through the lakes and the Welland Canal, and joined together again on the shores o! Huron. It was blowing a gale of wind, and it was soon made evident that it is quite as easy for people to be sea-sick on fresh water as on salt. We ran up Georgian Bay under shelter of a long peninsula, but about ten o'clock at night we felt the full brunt of the storm blowing up Lake Huron, and were tumbled about quite as much as if we had been on the North Atlantic. Early in the morning the wind abated, and we breakfasted in peace and plenty under the shelter of Manitoulin Island. Soon we entered the St. Marie River, which flows for about 40 miles connecting Lakes Superior and Erie. The shores are low, and covered with forest, the changing tints of which warned us that summer was departing. The river channel is very crooked, but is carefully buoyed, though the passage is even then so difficult that it is never attempted at night. By noon we reached the Sault St. Marie, a pretty cataract rippling over a rocky bed, falling about eighteen feet in a quarter of a mile. This cataract is surmounted by a fine lock. We had to wait while a big four-masted steamer, bound from Duluth on Superior to Buffalo on Erie, ana laden with 2,300 tons of wheat, was taken NIAGARA. 39 i; through. Then we entered, and in fifteen minutes were raised to the level of Lake Superior. The lock is 515 feet long, 80 feet wide, 60 feet at the gates, 39 feet 6 inches deep, and will pass vessels drawing 14 feet. The banks of the lock arc laid out as a pretty little park, which is the favourite resort of the population of Sault St. Marie, many of whom "saw us through." Half an hour brought us to Lake Superior, the afternoon SAULT ST. MARIE LOCK. being bright, sunny, and calm as a mill-pond. Some wonderful effects of mirage, distant islands and vessels being raised into the sky just above the horizon, were watched with much interest by all the passengers. Presently the masts of a large screw- steamer are seen sticking up out of the water — no mirage, unhappily, for we are told that she foundered in the gale of last night, and that seventeen lives were lost. At ten o'clock this evening, as we were all going to bed, a sudden storm of Pipf 40 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. thunder and heavy rain burst upon us, followed by a smart blow and tumbling sea ; but this morning breaks fine and cold, and we pass Silver Island and Thunder Cape glistening in the morning sun. '% h' ■' r' ^'- ~>f 1" i ' I Wi "^'c^^^-'- -'-■s??-'^^^.s.>-; THUNDER CAPE, LAKE SUPERIOR. From a sketch by the Author'. ( 41 ) CHAPTER IV. WINNIPEG. i. il On Friday, September 9th, at ten o'clock in the morning, the good ship "Alberta" moored alongside the pier at Port Arthur, and at two o'clock the same afternoon wc joined the Pacific express on our way westward. Port Arthur was our first experience of the rapidity with which quite large towns spring up like mushrooms in the wake of the Pacific Railway. Ten years ago there was only a landing-place and one or two shanties, the trade of the north shore of Lake Superior being centred eight miles away at the old trading port of Fort William, at the mouth of the Kamin- istiquia River, which affords a good harbour, and which place is still used by the Canadian Pacific as their chief coal depot and distributing point for timber, rails, and other heavy supplies. Port Arthur, however, attracts the general trade of the district, and if a twentieth part of the hopes entertained by the sanguine mining speculators who are exploring Thunder Bay and the islands are realised, it will not be long before the present agglomeration of wooden stores and houses give way to a second Swansea and Barrow-in-Furness rolled into one. There is undoubtedly great mineral wealth, copper, silver, manga- nese, and magnetic iron ore, that some day will be developed and make Port Arthur populous and thriving. A hard-working and enterprising population of about 4,000 souls have settled \ i il'i ■ 42 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD, i| here during the last four or five years, and the country round is being rapidly taken up and farmed. Its own natural resources, added to its position at the juncture of the railway with the head of the St. Lawrence navigation, make the prospects of the place unusually promising. The scenery at the head of Lake Superior, of which we had heard much exaggerated praise, was disappointing. Thunder Cape is a fine range of cliffs, about 800 or 1000 feet high, but the rest of the country is flat and dull. We did not see the Nepigon region, lying some distance from Port Arthur, which is the paradise of the Canadian sportsman. We met some fishermen returning from a month's camping out, and mistook them for negroes recovering from a bad attack of confluent small-pox. Their remarkable complexion, however, was due to elaborate precautions against mosquitoes and sand-flies. Immediately on arrival at the shores of Nepigon, each sportsman coats himself over with a gruesome mixture of which coal tar, raw petroleum, and peppermint are the leading ingredients. This is renewed from time to time, and never washed off till he departs ; on getting home, he undergoes a detergent process of many hours. This precautionary measure is only partly successful, for if it cracks, every mosquito and sand-fly within a mile " goes " for that crack. The country between Port Arthur and Winnipeg contains little of interest. It is poor, thin, stony soil, covered with poplar and shabby little spruce trees, and the only point of attraction to the traveller is the beautiful clear-flowing Kaministiquia, a river which makes an angler's heart ache with envy as he views from the train its almost virgin stream. At one of our lonely stopping-places, at which the small gang of men who looked after that section of the line were the only living souls for twenty miles round. 1 asked the station-master if he ever WINNIPEG. 43 fished the river. "Occasionally," was the reply. "What," I asked, "would you expect to catch in an afternoon's fishing?" The reply was, " I could catch as many trout as I could catch grasshoppers for bait. I suppose I could bring home 150 or 200 in a good day's fishing, weighing about 120 lbs."! The general appearance of the stream makes this statement quite credible. A night in the sleeping-car of the train, made more or less hideous by the presence of thirteen weary and unchecked babies and small children, brought us to the capital of Manitoba, the new and thriving City of Winnipeg. The wonderful change in travel which the Canadian Pacific has brought about in the North-West of the Dominion of Canada is well shown in a comparison between our journey from Toronto to Winnipeg in 1887, and Lord Wolseley's journey over exactly the same ground with his little army in 1870. He took ninety-five days to complete a journey which wc accomplished in forty-five hours. After settling down at the Lcland House, the principal hotel in Winnipeg, we called on our only acquaintance in the city, Mr. R. A. Barker, a son of Mr. T. H. Barker, the well-known secretary of the United Kingdom Alliance. Mr. Barker holds a responsible position in the Government offices of Manitoba. He called for us after lunch with a carriage and pair, and drove us all round the city and its suburbs. In 1870 Winnipeg was only a few small wooden shanties clustering round the old Hudson Bay Company's trading port of Fort Garry, with 200 inhabitants, rendered memorable in modern history from having been the centre of the French half-breed rebellion under Louis Riel in 1870. In 1875 it had grown to 5,000 inhabitants, in 1879 the railway reached it and raised its population to 8,000, in 1S80 it was 12,000, and now it is a handsome well-paved oity of nearly j:« ti 44 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. 1 hi 30,000 in population, which will probably reach 100,000 before the end of the century. Winnipeg is, and must always be^ the capital and trading focus of the whole North-West, a fertile region reaching from the Red River to the Rocky Mountains, and from the United States frontier to the North Saskatchewan River, a tract of over a million square miles. It is impossible to forecast the future of the focus of such an area, but Winnipeg land-jobbers tell me that Chicago must take a back seat in much less than twenty years. Winnipeg is well situated on the tongue of land formed by the meeting of the Red River and the Assiniboine, about 90 miles from the United States frontier, and 50 miles south of the great Winnipeg Lake, into which the Red River runs, and which opens up by water all the vast and fertile region of the Saskatchewan River, which is 550 miles long and drains an area of 250,000 square miles. The main street of Winnipeg is one of the finest in the world. It is about two miles long, 132 feet in width, perfectly paved with blocks of wood, with wide side-walks, and is bordered by a long succession of fine buildings in brick, stone, and timber, the City Hall, the Hudson Bay Company's stores, the Bank of Montreal, the post office, and others being lofty and im- posing structures of which any town in England might well be proud. The shops are as fine as those in Regent Street in London, and the Hudson Bay stores alone turn over about a quarter of a million sterling every year. One of the finest buildings in Canada is the new grocery store of Messrs. Gait, son and nephew of Sir Alexander Gait, who trade over the whole country of which Winnipeg is the centrv^ The stir, bustle, and business activity of the people are sucii as one sees in an American town like Buffalo, Cleveland, or Chicago, and the whole place is brilliantly lighted at night by electricity. I took some pains to inquire into the prospects afforded WINNIPEG. 45- by Manitoba and Winnipeg to intending emigrants from the old country. We partook of the hospitality of the Lieutenant- Governor of Manitoba, Mr. Aikens, with whom I had a long conversation, and I also spent an evening with Mr. John Gait, who was one o'" the earliest picneers of trade in the North- West country. Mr. Barker, to whom I have already referred, has exceptional opportunities of knowledge, and I also got much help from a very clever and capable young accountant, Mr. J. W, Rigby, who has been all over Manitoba in half a dozen different capacities, with his eyes open all the time, so that I think my authorities are as good as I could find. With regard to the city itself, it is at present a trading and not a manufacturing community. There is no opening at all for commercial men from the old country. The ground is taken up not only in Winnipeg, but all over Manitoba, by men who have had ripe experience in the stores of Montreal and Toronto ; any commercial man or shopkeeper coming over from England would be doomed to certain failure. I put a hypothetical case to a dozen of the best authorities. I asked what were the chances of success for a smart Englishman of five-and-thirty who had had a 15 years' training in so."ie good merchant's office in Liverpool or London, and had saved ;^2,ooo ? The replies were all the same — Manitoba wants neither him nor his money. All the trade of the country is plucked before it is ripe by Canadians from Ontario and Quebec. The ordinary clerk or book-keeper is a drug in the market ; he can only get labourers' wages. The town is full of them, sent out by friends in England. They go by the name of " Remit- tance men," because their chief occupation is borrowing dollars "till they get their remittance from home." There is, however, a real demand for agricultural labourers, who need not remain at the Emigration Depot at Winnipeg for a m • ' (■ ii ■ i 1 '. ■ it'! iii I ' ^ 46 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. 11 week, and there is also a fair demand for first-class artisans. The town is manned at present by second-rate hands from Canada and the States, and if a good English artisan, who is really capable and sober, comes along, he quickly displaces the inferior Canadian. If he comes out with a few pounds in his pocket, and is a thrifty, saving fellow, he becomes a master very quickly in Mani- toba, and can go right ahead without a check. It was pleasant to find that with every tradesman I interviewed teetotallers are in great demand as workmen, and get an early chance of showing what they arc good for. The time to arrive in Manitoba, for all classes of emigrants, is March or April. I made careful inquiries among different tradespeople and others as to the rates of wages actually being paid to-day in Winnipeg. Carpenters in regular work get two dollars, or 8^. ^d. a day ; cabinetmakers, ^s. 4^. a day ; upholsterers (by piecework), 12s. to 14J". ; smiths, \2s. 6d. ; foundrymen (limited demand), Si". 4d.; wood-turners, \2s. 6d.\ bakers, \os. 6d.; tin-smiths, los. 6d. ; labourers, 6s. in summer, ^s. to 4^. in winter ; a first-rate printer can earn i$s. a day ; and good tailors (at piecework) can make 15^. to ijs. 6d. a day. There is also plenty of good employment for women. Hotel servants get £^ a month with board ; domestic servants, £i to ;^3 loi". a month with board, and they arc rushed for the moment they arrive in the town. Seamstresses get 3^. to 4^. a day with meals for plain sewing. A lady showed me a plain stuff walking-dress for the making of which she had paid 2>2)^., and an ordinary print house-dress cost her i6s. to get made ; she of course finding all materials. Telegraph and shop girls get 4^-. a day. Agricultural labourers of good quality can get places by the year for about .:^50 to £60 in money and good board. Mr. Barker told me that a Member of the Provincial Parliament, who lives in his constituency 80 mile3 WINNIPEG. M from Winnipeg, is constantly writing to him to send along agricultural labourers at these rates of pay, but that the men are always being snapped up by farmers at intermediate stations who waylay them on the road, and bid higher. There is no doubt that a good steady unmarried agricultural labourer can come out to Manitoba, save ;^30 or £^o a year for three or four years, and then take up land of his own and become a prosperous farmer on his own account. But to all those pleasant pictures there is a reverse side. The cost of living in Winnipeg is undoubtedly higher in almost all respects than it is in England, largely in consequence of the heavy protective tariff of the Dominion. The single man gets off best in the way of food and lodging, as he can board well, with meat three times a day if he wants it, at \6s. a week. The married man with a family will, however, find that he cannot make his high wages go much further than his lower wages in England. Free trade enables him at home to buy everything that Manitoba produces in his own markets for loss money than he would pay in the capital of Manitoba. Winnipeg market prices last week were : Beef and mutton, very inferior to English, l^^d. per lb. ; fresh pork, t)\d. ; bacon and ham, 'j\,d. ; sugar, 4-;V^. ; bread, 6d. for 4-lb. loaf; butter, salt, \od. ; cheese, yd. ; tea, 2s. 6d. ; coffee, is. Sd. ; tobacco is cheap, 4s. per lb. ; a ready-made slop suit of cheap tweed costs £4 ; a good cloth suit, ;^8 ; an overcoat, £s > white calico shirts, gs. each ; ready-made boots, 24s. per pair ; made to measure, 30^'. ; very bad coal, 40s. per ton ; wood dear and scarce. The fuel is a serious item in a climate with nearly six months of winter in which the thermometer is seldom higher than 15 or 20 degrees below zero. I went through the fuel-bills for a four-room cottage, and they reached a total of over ;^I5 for the year. House-rent is very exorbitant. A M 1 i 1 ,ii Ii3 iff h.!i 48 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. four-roomed cottage cannot be got for less than £2 a month, and a small six-roomed house fetches £1 easily. On the whole, however, the high wage more than makes up for the extra cost of living, and a thrifty artisan who gets steady work is, on the whole, much better off in Winnipeg than in the old country. He gets his children's education free, which must also be taken into account. The emigrant who is really wanted in Manitoba is the clever agricultural labourer who is a single man. He can get employment at once, and can easily save £y:) or ;^35 a year. In three years, having ^100 of capital and a knowledge of the country, he can take up his 160 acres of good land, and become a yeoman farmer on his own account. I had the curiosity to trace the success or otherwise of such men as these when they take up land, and I will give a few specimens. A. B. took up 160 acres in the autumn of 1881, with £^0 of capital, with which, and a little credit, he purchased a yoke of oxen for ;^30, a cow for £10, a heifer £6^ and a horse. To-day he has cleared himself from debt, has 40 of 160 acres broken up for crops, and has the following possessions : — 10 head of cattle ...... worth 74 I horse ........ 40 100 head of poultry ...... I pair harrows, a good waggon, a plough, a reaper, a mower, and a rake, half paid for , A good, well-built house of hewn logs, three stables, a barn, and a granary . . . , 10 36 „ 300 £\^ And if you add to this the improved value of his land, it is greatly understating the case to say that his ^^40 of capital has grown in six years to fully £'joo. I have no doubt he WINNIPEG, 49 could get more than that to clear out. This man never hired any help ; he had a bijj family of growing lads, and his eldest, 22 years of age, has just taken up his own 160 acres. His arable land crops 25 bushels of wheat, 50 bushels of oats, and 45 of barley to the acre, on average years. C. D. bought some good land in 1883 for ^150, paying half cash, and getting credit for the rest. He broke up 20 acres in 1883, and 40 more in 1884, in which year he cropped ^ilil MANITOBA HOMESTEAD. 35 bushels of wheat to each of his 60 acres. His position to-day is as follows (capital to begin, ;^75) : — I Debt paid off 75 1 1 head of cattle . 50 Good log house 40 Mower, rake, and reaper 55 Set of binders 50 Plough. 5 Yoke of oxen 30 Team of horses 60 Waggons 15 Value of land 450 So that his capital has been increased, in four years, fully ten-fold. E Il 50 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. ' I 'Il ' ! M E. F. took up land in 1877, the usual 160 acres. He started with ;^320 of capital. His position to-day is — houses, implements, waggons, stock, &c., ^550; value of land in open market, ^600; total, ;^i,i5P. G. H. took up land in 188 1, with a capital of £160, just 20s. for each acre. First year he broke 30 acres, and cropped 34^ bushels per acre the year following. He has now 140 acres under plough, and gets an average of about 2,200 bushels a year off 100 acres of wheat, and about 1,200 bushels of oats off 40 acres. He owns 21 head of cattle, three span of mules, 29 hogs, poultry, a complete set of good implements, an excellent house, a large granary and stable, and 100 tons of hay stacked. This stock and plant is worth ;^920, and for the whole farm, land, and stock, he could get ;^ 1,500 at least. I. J. began with ;6^ioo in 1879, and is now worth ;^900. K. L. started in 1878 with £160^ and is now worth £7S'^> and I should not e aggerate if I said that more than half the farmers in Manitoba can tell similar stories. The bulk of these prosperous men are the sons of Ontario and Quebec farmers, but there arc hundreds of them who have come out from the old country, A man vutst be a farmer to succeed. The broken-down tradesmen who are helped out by friends, the young scapegraces who a''e shipped by their relatives with a draft for ;^ioo on a Winnipeg bank, are doomed to certain failure, and even an English or Scottish farmer is the better of a year or two of service with an older settler before taking up land for himself, if only to help him the better to choose his location. " Glenbeigh " and " Bodyke " tenants, if they were generously helped out to this magnificent country, and lent ;^ioo per family to stock theii 160 acres of granted land, would thrive and do ii WINNIPEG, well. If the Uritish Government, instead of en.barking on the doubtful poliey of Irish Land Purehase, would spend 20 m,llu.ns .n settling gradually i„ Manitoba 200,000 families of „sh tenant farmers from the eongested distriets, there would be no diffieulty in getting back the money in easy n,stalments from the prosperous yeomen they would thus create and by easing the undue competition for farms in Ireland they would bring the landlords to fair rents, by the simple laws of supply and demand. But as long as Ireland is the shuttlecock of pohfcal party, while Irish agitators hold the battledore common sense has but a poor chance. ' % m E 2 sa A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. CHAPTER V. CALGARY AND THE RANCHING COUNTRY. I 'I Mi! The country between Winnipeg and Calgary traverses the great Canadian prairie for over 1,000 miles, and we did not leave the train between the two points. The Canadian Pacific Railway run restaurant cars with each train, and provide a capital breakfast, lunch, and dinner, for a uniform charge of 3i', each. Of course the Pullman sleeping-car is also part of the train, and by these two conveniences the fatigue of the long journey is greatly reduced. The first part of the journey follows the course of the Assiniboine River, a pretty undulating country, covered with fields of stubble, with great stacks of wheat in the centre waiting for the threshing machine. The homesteads are the usual Canadian frame-house, built of sawn planks nailed to a strong wooden frame. They are as ugly as it is possible to make them. The first important station is Portage la Prairie, the market town of the richest district of Manitoba, and the junction of the railway, a considerable portion of which is opened for traffic, which is to bring down the produce of the great Saskatchewan district. This is a busy place, with paper-mills, biscuit-factory, and flour-mills, and enjoys a considerable grain trade. Another 80 miles of rich wheat lands brought us to Brandon, a flourishing market town of 4,000 inhabitants, with extensive grain elevators or 1 ■ i '" ■ ifl i» U£di f J t ' 'm jjAt iH n ■ 1^ the acre in tl fanri undc blaci The CALGARY AND THE RANCHING COUNTRY. 55 warehouses at the station. Wc ran all afternoon through a district very thinly settled, and it was dark before wc reached Indian Head, where the famous Ikll Farm is situated, the train running through it. If there had been any hotel accommoda- tion within reach I would have stayed over to see this farm, one of the most interesting agricultural experiments on the Continent of America, but I was obliged to pass it by. The Bell Farm is the property of a limited company, managed for RAILWAY DEI'OT, BRANDON. the shareholders by Major W. R. Bell. Its area is about 64,000 acres, or about 100 square miles, and is the largest arable farm in the world. Of course it is not yet all under cultivation. The farm was started in 1882, and was acquired by the company under a special Act of Parliament. The land is the famous black soil of the prairie, and is well vatered by streams. The contract with the Dominion Government nyis a purchase at ^l« I 56 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. I i ^s. per anrc, the company undeitaking to bring the land under cultivation at the rate of 5,000 acres a year for the first five years. The scheme of the company is first to bring the land under cultivation -by the use of the best machinery and then divide it into 250 farms, each provided with house and buildings, to be sold to the men in their employ at a valuation price, payable by instalments over a term of years. No steam plough is used. There are 200 horses employed on the farm, and they would stand idle for want of work in ploughing time if steam were used. The ploughman sits on his plough, and can generally turn 20 miles of furrows in a day's work. The furrows are often two miles long. Forty- five ploughs are on the ground each day till the work is finished. ^90,000 of capital has been sunk in the farm, and employment is given to about 200 men. If the ploughing had to be done with a single team it would have to travel 140,000 miles, nearly six times round the world. The value of the 10,000 acres now under cultivation is about ^4 per acre, and is increasing rapidly every year. The produce is, on an average, about 20 bushels per acre. The great wheat belt of Manitoba of which this is a portion, is about 500 miles long and 250 miles wide, and is capable of producing sixteen hundred million bushels of wheat, if it were all under good cultivation. The more I sec of this wonderful stretch of land, with soil often 200 or 300 feet deep, the more I wonder why a \. ealthy country like England endures the misery of the congested Irish counties, when a few millions would remove and settle their starving populations in the midst of plenty and content, with the certainty of the repayment of every farthing expended. We passed Regina, the capital of the province of Assinaboia, at midnight. This is the head-quarters of the 1, Jian service, and of the North-West mounted police, a magnificent body III! CALGARY AND THE RANCHING COUNTRY. 57 of men, 1,000 strong, whose business it is to keep the Indians in order, and to enforce the rigorous prohibitory liquor law which exists in the North-West territories. These officers board the trains, searching passengers and luggage at will, to guard against the importation of strong liquors. The morning of September 13th found us out on the boundless prairie, travelling through a desolate and entirely unsettled country. For over 200 miles no sign of human life was visible, except that every 10 miles or so a cottage was placed at a rail- road siding, in which lived the three or four men whose duty it is to patrol the line daily. The prairie appeared very fertile, covered with an abundance of grass. The only life visible was an occasional flock of ducks or wild geese on the small lakes, now and then a large species of hawk, and the universal "gopher," a comical little burrowing animal, which is found all over the North-West. At noon we reached Maple Creek, a post of the mounted police, and a station for a large ranching district some 15 miles to the southward. Near this place there is a reserve of the Black Feet Indians, and the noble savages crowded round the platform^ offering polished buffalo horns for sale. The days of wampum and buffalo robes have passed away, and these braves were attired in remarkable costumes of bright coloured blankets, cut into home-made jackets and trousers by the squaw. One of them had wide peg-top breeches and loose jacket of white blanket, covered with huge circles of red, blue, and green about the size of a cheese-plate, the whole surmounted with a veritable clown's white jelly-bag hat ; as his face was picked out with a devious vermilion pattern on a rich ground of yellow ochre, he felt justified in maintaining a dignified and superior demeanour, leaving dirty trade to his squaw, who was 30 years of age, and looked about 300. \'% m. '!! i 58 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. At Dunmore a narrow-gauge railway runs 109 miles across the prairie to Lethbridge, where an English company, under the management of one of the many clever sons of Sir Alexander Gait, arc working a valuable coal mine capable of producing 2,000 tons a day if a market were available. At Langevin, a single house station, the man who was located there as line inspector sunk an artesian well for water, but found it undrink- able. A chance light explained the cause, for he had struck a well of natural gas. I went into his cottage, and saw a large stove lighted and heated by this gas, without any other fuel, brought up from the well by a pipe. He can warm his whole house to 70 degrees with this gas alone when the temperature is down to 35 or 40 below zero. Perhaps some day a valuable deposit of mineral oil will be discovered at Langevin. At one o'clock on Wednesday morning, the 14th September, we alighted at Calgary, well content to be at last at the end of our "^y hours' confinement in the railway train. Calgary is a thriving infant of two years old. It is a place of much vigour and bustle, with a population of nearly 2,000. Building is going on everywhere, and, with three or four exceptions, everything is of wood. The place looks exactly like a great international exhibition a week or two before the opening day. It is laid out or " graded," as they say here, in the usual ambitious fashion, in wide streets, covering an area of about two miles each way. The bulk of these noble streets are at present prairie, bat a brisk trade goes on in "town lots," which seems the tavourite form of gambling in these new western towns. Last year Calgary was incorporated, and a Mayor and Council elected. There was, however, some informality in the election, and the town proceeded to elect a fresh lot. The first Corpora- tion, however, declined to resign, and both of them proceeded to govern the town. After a good deal of ill-feeling the matter mn CALGARY AND THE RANCHING COUNTRY. 59 was settled by litigation, and " now there is one." Calgary is beautifully situated at the junction of the Bow and Elbow Rivers, fine clear streams of pure water, fresh and cool from the Rocky Mountains, whose snow-clad outlines were visible on the horizon 60 miles away. Calgary is the capital of the magnificent grazing country which lies along the foot hills of the Rocky Mountains, between the South Saskatchewan River and Montana. This is probably the finest ranching country on the Continent. For some years the Dominion Government admitted cattle free of duty into this CALGARY. From a sketch hy the Author. district from the States ; but the rush of cattle from Montana and Oregon, whose ranchers threw up their holdings to secure this superior grazing, was so great that last year an import duty of 10 per cent, was levied, and is still maintained. The area of this fine grazing country is about four million acres, well watered throughout by stream.s from the Rocky Mountains. I drove over three or four of the smaller ranches lying round Calgary, and also had the pleasure of a long interview with ; ! Ill mssmmm 69 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. H 1 ■)' la Mr. Stimson, the largest rancher in Canada, who has taken up 100,000 acres about 50 miles south of Calgary, on the foot hills. This gentleman settled on his present holding in 1881. He pays the Dominion Government one halfpenny per acre rent ; he has the option of buying 5,000 acres at 5^. per acre, and got his usual 160 acres free for homestead purposes. At that time he was ranching in Idaho, and he drove his head of 3,600 cattle and 200 horses over the frontier to his new tract in Canada. In five years he has increased his stock to 9,000 head of cattle, 1,000 calves, 500 horses, and 150 colts. This is natural increment only, as he has not only bought nothing, but during the five years he has sold 1,500 beasts and 100 horses, the sale of which has enabled him to pay working expenses and invest ;^i,200 in plant and building. He employs ten men, eight cowboys, a man for the horses, and a cook. A smart cowboy can earn ;^io a month and his board, so that if he doesn't care to spend his money, he can save ^100 a year, and soon become a rancher on his own account. Two of Mr. Stim.son's cowboys are worth ;^8oo and ;^ 1,200 respectively, well invested in cattle, which run with Mr. Stimson's herd. Presently they will have enough to form a small herd of their own, when they will wish him good- bye and start for themselves. Mr. Stimson told me that three years ago he took a smart young English lad of 18 on a month's trial. He was the son of an officer in the army, well educated, and a strong lithe fellow, who could ride well. At the end of the trial he engaged him permanently. The lad saved a year's pay, took up a homestead of 160 acres, took cattle on shares, he looking after them, his partner finding the money, and in three years he has made ;^i,ooc out of nothing but a good seat in the saddle, a clear head, and a strong constitution. Any young fellow with these three qualifications, who can stand a rough life in a country where he cannot get a CALGARY AND THE RANCHING COUNTRY. 6i drop of strong drink (except on the sly in a town 50 miles away from his work) can easily become a rich man in 10 or 20 years. But he must serve his apprenticeship as a cowboy first, for ranching, like every other trade, must be learnt. While at Calgary we drove out with Mr. Springctt, one of the Indian agents, to visit the reserves of the Sarcce Indians, a fighting tribe which, under the lead of their chief. Bull's Head, at one time gave a good deal of trouble to the Govern- ; ' ^^g#^iass3.r'^!;iT?a;v^' s^iiiSi ■.AtSv^T^i* bull's head. ment, but are now peaceable enough under the generous treatment they receive on their reserves. Each Canadian Indian who settles on a reserve is paid five dollars a year per head of his family, including the papoose of a week old. For each person in his family he gets daily one pound of beef and half a pound of flour, with a good allowance of tobacco and tea. For his protection against the Indian's curse — strong drink —the sale and manufacture of drink is prohibited throughout :|(f 62 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. the whole North-West territory, and any person, wliitc or brown, found with liquor in his possession without a special permit from the Governor, is fined heavily, and may be severely imprisoned as well. The week before I reached Calgary a raid had been made on some illicit dealers in whisky, and fines amounting to iJ"26o inflicted. The interpreter who accompanied my daughter and myself in our visit to the "wigwams" or *' topees," as their tents are called, translated for me the high- sounding names by which the braves of the Sarcees are called. I will quote a few : — Big Crow, Big Bear, Big Knife, Prairie Head, Badger, Bear's Cap, Going to War, Fire Long Ago, Eagle Rib, Flint, Holy, Dog Skin, Hit First, Hit Twice, Lazy Boy, Little Calf, Many Horses, Lodge Pole, Many Swans, Old Man Spotted, Starlight, Splashing Water, Stops Outside the Lodge, Heavy Behind 1 Walking in the Water, Weazel Head, Went to Slaughter, Wolf Carrier, White Knife, Rolling Hills, &c. Bull's Head, the monarch of the Sarcees, has a Civil list of ten dollars a head per annum for himself and family, and two pounds of beef and one of flour daily, with tobacco and tea. In the middle of the camp was a comfortable two-storied house, surrounded by a few good fields and a garden, the resi- dence of Major de Bellenhard, the Government agent, whose excellent wife teaches the Indian children the three R's in a smart little school-house. The Indians live in tents in the summer, and small one-roomed log huts in the winter. They were busy getting these huts ready for occupation. Their tents were about 12 feet in diameter at the base, and the whole family ate, slept, and cooked their rations inside it. They sleep on the floor, rolled up in blankets. The squaws are hideous and over-worked. They catch and harness the pony, cut the wood, dig the potato patch, smack the children, cook the food, and do everything but spend the Government grant, which is all the CALGARY AND THE RANCHING COUNTRY. 63 work a brave will condescend to do, except smoke his pipe and shoot an occasional duck. The Cree and Sarcee Indian has no religion. He has a few superstitions, but the missionary can make nothing of him. The Indian's vices are drunkenness and gambling. The mounted police make the first practically impossible. The second still prevails, and an Indian will gamble away every- thing he possesses, to the shirt off his back and his next issue of rations. Those who know most about them despair of ever SAKCEE SQUAW AND "ONY-CART. bringing them into harmony with Anglo-Saxon civilization, and say the reserve system must go on indefinitely. The great feature of Calgary society is the overwhelming predominance of the male sex. Hardly a woman is to be seen in the streets. The men have not yet had time to think about matrimony ; that will follow in a year or two, when the many adventurers settle down to whatever they are fit for. Neither did I see any old men. The whole population appeared to be under thirty years of age, and almost entirely English. The hotel at which we stayed was full to overflowing, many sleeping ii m.% 64 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. two in a bed, and all young men ; my daughter was the only lady in the house. If the Leland Hotel had possessed a liquor bar it would have been impossible for decent, quiet people to stay there, and a similar town to Calgary across the frontier, in ilM EAGLE RIB, A SARCEE CHIEF. Idaho, Montana, or Dakota, would have been one long avenue of liquor saloons and low dancing and music halls. The same clas« of population frequent Calgary— cowboys, farmers, idlers waiting their chance, swarm everywhere — yet the town is as CALGARY AND THE RANCHING COUNTRY. 65 quiet as an English country village. The popular amusement is the Salvation Army, conducted by a captain and three comely young women, who were treated everywhere with marked respect. We went to their meeting in the evening. Thev marched round the town in their usual fashion, passing through crowds of cowboys and similar young fellows, without encountering a jeer or a coarse word. When they entered their barracks all the "BRAVO, TED !" men in the place swarmed in after them, to the tune of 500 or 600, took their seats quietly, joined heartily in the choruses of the hymns, which they seemed to know by heart, and evidently enjoyed themselves thoroughly. The Salvation Army young ladies were cordially welcomed with clapping of hands. The meetings seemed to have been successful, for there were arranged in a row on the platform a dozen young fellows of the cowboy pattern, who had been converted at previous meetings, and who '■pB ^iMU ! Wll 11^. 66 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. I! i' gave their experience in simple, and sometimes very touching sentences. One of them was received by the whole audience with several rounds of warm applause, and cries of " Bravo, Ted ! " I was informed that Ted was the champion rowdy of Calgary, and the population were evidently much pleased that "he had got religion, and was going right ahead into better ways," as my next neighbour said to me. Ted made a rattling speech, in which he appealed very pointedly to some old pals in the hall to come up to the penitent form, and was launching out into somewhat minute details of his past life, when the captain put both hands on his shoulders, wheeled him round into his seat, and told him his was "an experience that had better be taken in sections, and they would have some more to-morrow night." I conversed with several of the audience coming out, and they all spoke in the warmest terms of the officers of the army in Calgary, and it would evidently fare ill with any cowboy or idler who ventured to say a rude word to any of the hallelujah lasses. My evening at the Calgary barracks strengthened the high opinion I hold with regard to the Salvation Army. I think nothing has impressed me on my journey so much as the moral tone and great respect- ability of this crude population, composed almost entirely of young men whose occupation is rough, who had many of them come in to the town after months of hard life on the prairie, and who might naturally unbend for a little fun. If liquor were sold, Calgary would be the rowdiest place in the Domin'on. Pro- hibition makes it one of the quietest, most respectable, and law- abiding places, with the Salvation Army barracks as its most popular place of entertainment. Of course the existence of a small amount of secret drinking raises in some quarters a cry for a license law ; but I am quite sure that if a license law were passed for the North-West territory it would become a dead C.ILGARY AND THE RANCHIXG COUSTRY. 67 letter from the universal adoption of the prohibitory clauses of the Scott Act. Calgary has a fine volunteer fire brigade, and needs it, for a fire to windward in a gale would lay it in ashes in about an hour. There is no gas in the town, and the streets are pitch- dark at night, but in a week or two the electric light will change all that. It is a curious sign of the entire newness of the line of country opened up by the Canadian Pacific Railway that there are many towns in which gas never has been and never will be known, and where the first illuminant used in the public streets has been electricity. Calgary will be a big town veiy soon, the centre of that great cattle, horse, and sheep trade that is rapidly taking up all the suitable land in the district. There are now about 120,000 head of cattle and 12,000 horses breeding upon the ranches, and there is every reason to believe that this number will be more than doubled during the next eight or ten years. I left Calgary with regret, for I should have liked to stay on and see more of the striking characteristics of a region that will eventually become one of the wealthiest and most prosperous provinces of the Dominion of Canada. I would like to note that every soul in Calgary is Free Trader to the backbone, for duty, sea and land frcigh*:, and the profits thereon, make the cost of everything sold in the stores fully double that of English stores. IMilll \ A F 2 IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET {MT-3) k A •/ ,V' ^^^t^ Mp^ (A 1.0 I.I |jo "^ l^S ^ U£ 12.0 11:25 i 1.4 I— 1.6 Vj vQ % P, 4 ^ <^ >-^' 68 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD, wl CHAPTER VI. THE CANADIAN NATURAL PARK. At one o'clock in the morning', on the i6th of September, we got on board the Western train at Calgary Station bound for Banff. The train soon reaches the Gap, the gateway of the Rocky Mountains, through which the Bow River flows on its 1,500 miles journey to Hudson's Bay. As we were to reach Banff in less than four hours, we did not get much sleep, but were on the look out for the dawn to see all we could of the magnificent scenery we were entering. We had just light enough to see the weird rocks at Canmore, before we were turned out at Banff Station in the grey of the morning. We drove at once some three miles to Dr. Brett's Sanitarium, the only accommodation at present available in the great natural park of Canada. The Canadian Pacific Railway are building a gigantic hotel which will accommodate 300 guests, but it will not be open till next year. We sat down to an early breakfast, and then set to work to s^^e as much as possible of the beautiful, and in many respects unique scenery by which we were surrounded. Dr. Brett took us up to the top of the house that we might take in the general prospect. We saw stretching out before us a broad, flat valley, about two miles wide, filled with primeval forest. The sombre green of pine and spruce contrasted with the brilliant yellow of the fading poplar and the vermilion of dying o o H O o 'if ir th tc sn lei eten seen grou justi this THE CANADIAN T>A TIONAL PARK. 71 maple leaf; while the Bow River — the loveliest on earth — winds through the whole in a bright blue ribbon. Right in front towers the snow-capped Cascade Mountain, so called from a small stream which leaps i,ooo feet from its flanks. On the left the Castle Mountain range — a magnificent panorama of CANMORE ROCKS. eternal snow, reminding me somewhat of the Jungfrau group as seen from Lauterbrunnen ; on the right the Devil's Head group, v/ith the singular rock towering above the whole mass, justifying by its remarkable outline the Indian name of which this is the translation, while behind are the pine-clad Sulphur 72 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD, Mountains, and a terrific row of lofty crags known as " The Twins." The whole forms a panorama of mountains from 10,000 to 1 1,000 feet high, which for beauty and grandeur can only be equalled by the Cortina dolomites in the Austrian Tyrol. Dr. Brett's Sanitarium is intended mainly for the reception of those invalids who require the treatment which the hot sulphur spring furnishes, and we took our fi'ot walk to see the caves from which these healing fountains issue. The two principal .^$- -,^^ ■■---■': /^^^^^..-.^M CASTLE MOUNTAIN. [From a sketch by the Author^ springs, which are now being utilised, flow from the central spur of Sulphur Mountain, 8oo feet above the l(;vel of the Bow River. The main spring issues at the rate of a million and a half gallons daily, and has a temperature of 1 1 5 degrees. At a short distance another spring is found, of a heat about 85 degrees, which is used for a plunge-bath. On the other flank of the mountain is a cave, with a narrow entrance up which a wooden ladder leads into a spacious chamber, lighted by a hole in the stalactite roof. In this chamber is a large pool about 30 feet wide and from 3 to 6 feet deep, in which hot ^ i '. 1 ' i V 11 t I t F a ii a V S( P" is or In to S( P( an Tl an fol THE CANADIAN NATIONAL PARK. 7$ springs bubble which fill the cave with steam, and make the atmosphere almost unbearable with the sulphur fumes which are thrown off. !"ersons suffering from rheumatism bathe in this cave, and some wonderful cures have been performed. A crutch hangs on the wall with this dubious label on it, " Owner has gone home ! " I do not pretend to know anything about the curative proper- ties of these springs, but as the leading medical men of the United States and Canada seem all agreed about recommending them for various diseases, it is probable that Banff will become a place of great resort for invalids troubled with rheumatism and affections of the skin and blood. There is a nice plunge-bath in the open air near the bath-house, in which the water stands at about 85 degrees, and in which I had a pleasant swim. Without the springs, the bracing and pure air and the delightful scenery will always be sufficient to attract thousands of visitors every year. Just below the sanitarium is a new iron bridge, almost com- pleted, which is to take the place of the bridge of boats which is now the only means of communication between the hotel and springs and the railway station. On a bit of cleared forest at one end of the bridge, a handsome, aristocratic Englishman lives in a' small tent, looking after half-a-dozen canoes belonging to one of the small inns. He is reputed to be the Honourable Somebody Something, and looks the part well enough. The Twin Peaks, the great feature of Banff, are best seen from this bridge. The liow River presents a most attractive appearance to the angler, but does not, in experience, come up to his expectations. There are trout, and large ones too, but they are hard to catch, and have an aggravating way of inspectiog your fly, which they follow to the bank, and then refuse with slow scorn. I tried every fly in my book, from a " Dusty miller " to a black gnat, i I i i ' ill 76 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. but could catch nothing at all. A youth who came along informed me that " it was no use trying with them things, guv'nor — you try a bit of beef liver ! " Later on in the day I met an angler who had come down to "beef," and he caught one small and pallid trout. On rare occasions they take fly in the spring and early summer, but they have a bad character for capriciousness generally. I heard of wonderful fish being caught in the Devil's Head Lake, a piece of water about 10 miles from Banff. I saw a man who had been there and had caught jy trout, weighing 220 Ibti., in a single day, trolling with a couple of hand-lines and spoon-bait, and one trout weighing 43 lbs. was caught there last year with a piece of beef. The place was too distant for me to reach, as it is uphill, and the only path an old Indian trail, but an active young Englishman rode over during our visit and did his best, but never saw a fish of any kind. The following day we explored one of the small streams tributary to the Bow, with a view to learning how to manage an Indian birch-bark canoe. These canoes are so light that a boy can lift them out of the water and carry them on his back. The paddler sits or kneels in the stern and propels the canoe with a broad, single-bladed paddle, steering with a sort of back stroke that takes a good deal of learning. However, I managed to canoe my daughter up two or three miles of a swift running brook, and across a very beautiful lake from which it flowed called the Vermilion Lake. Probably no white man had ever seen that lake till two or three years ago, and it was a most perfect bit of wild and untouched nature. The day before, we had vainly endeavoured to reach this lake by land, but the forest was so dense with fallen trees piled one over the other that it was quite impassable. I cannot find words adequately to describe the unique charms of the primitive and unspoiled scenery. The lake was as smooth as glass, its banks were a wild tangle of brushwood, poplar and •X •< z H Q <; H »: o n b o u o o Vi||! n- ^>l 1 ; i f ♦ ' \ ... i , ■:■■■ I I' I n s] w t\ w w sc h< T M m ar lai he se frc th liv hii as tei ac( vvh a 1 St; int see exi Go var THE CANADIAN NATIONAL PARK. 79 maple, a perfect blaze of autumn red and gold, out of which sprang tall and s-jmbre cedars and piie trees. Behind these were the snow-clad mountains, the whole perfectly repeated on the surface of the water. We spent a quiet and pleasant Sunday at Banff. This rising watering-place cannot yet boast a place of worship, though :. wooden Weslcyan chapel is nearly finished, and a site has been selected on which to build an Episcopal church. Service is held in the Town Hall, a humble edifice of logs and shingles. The only regular service is on Sunday evening, conducted by Mr. Williams, the Wesleyan minister, an energetic young Welsh- man, who for many years had been doing a fine pioneer work amongst these new western villages and towns. His service is largely attended by the workpeople engaged in building the new hotel, by whom he is greatly esteemed. He also holds a morning service at Anthracite, a colony of coal miners, about eight miles from Banff. The Episcopalians hold a morning service when they can catch a clergyman, and this Sunday they caught a real live bishop, the Bishop of Saskatchewan, who is a good father to his own children, whatever he may be to his scattered diocese, as any one could tell who saw him feeding his baby most tenderly with spoon-meat at breakfast in the hotel. He was accompanied by the archdeacon, a jolly young Irish-Canadian, who occupied a front seat at the Wesleyan service in the evening, a not unusual occurrence in Canada, where the absence of a State Church leads the Episcopalian clergy into more cordial intercourse with their brethren of other denominations than seems possible in the old country. The whole of the Banff valley and adjacent mountains, to the extent of 100,000 acres, have been set apart by the Dominion Government as a national park for ever. They have voted various sums of .noney, in all about ;^ 16,000, for the making of n I \i . ',; ;i . illll i'lrili ,li''!' I 80 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. roads and footpaths through the dense forests to various points of attraction, and will continue to vote further sums until the work is satisfactorily completed. I had two conversations with Mr. G. A Stewart, the National Park Ranger, who explained to me all that he intends doing, and the work could not be in better or wiser hands. He will let nature alone as mi'.ch as possible ; he will strictly preserve all the wild beasts and birds, carefully regulate the fisheries, and content himself with making good roads and pathways through and through the Reserve to all B AW-'^ vr, CASCADE MOUNTAIN. {From a sketch by the Author.") points of interest. He will also endeavour to acclimatise forest trees not indigenous to the soil. No land speculator can smirch the beauty of the place, as no land will be sold, only leased under strict terms and for specific purposes. When Mr. Stewart has completed his labours, the Canadian National Park will be one of the most attractive holiday resorts on the globe. The park will be 24 miles long and 9 wide. Within its area will be found 1 5 miles of the Bow River (of which 9 are deep water, capable of navigation by a small steamer), 6 miles JM *• of m ic flc on G\ an we are anc fin( sidi see THE CANADIAN NATIONAL PARK. 83 of the Spray River, a clear crystal mountain stream with a fall of \QO feet within the limits of the park, flowing through a forest which just now is one blaze of orange, vermilion, and gold. The Ghost River and the Cascade River, the Forty Mile Creek, and half a dozen other brooks, combine altogether a great wealth of the finest river scenery, in infinite variety. The area of the park also contains the Devil's Lake, 12 miles long and 2 wide, and the Vermilion Lakes. The water of these fine sheets is deep and clear, and mountain ranges on each side rising thousands of feet above their surface, present scenery of the g^re«itest t?eauty. The Vermilion Lakes are i'l m m '1 . li-W<' I 84 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. I fm . ^i 111 til : linked together by short streams navigable by light canoes, and are the resort of a great variety of wild fowl. The junction of the Bow and Spray River is extremely beautiful. The Bow falls over a leap of rock about 70 feet high, in a succession of cascades, into a fine pool about 200 feet across, into which the Spray rushes. The Tunnel Mountain breaks just over this_^ pool into a frowning piecipice 700 or 800 feet high, the broken base of which is covered with a wealth of maple, poplar, and undergrowth, the autumn colour of which beggars all description. Large game as well as fish are becoming very scarce in the neighbourhood of the National Park. It has long been a favourite hunting ground of the Indians resident in a large surrounding area. Skin hunters, Indian fishers, who net the streams, and lately have added other resources of civilisation in the shape of dynamite, have made sad havoc. Mr. Stewart fully realises the importance of preserving the animals and fish, which add so many wild attractions to the scenic beauty of the National Park. Among the four-footed game still to be met with in its area is the Wapiti deer, or blue elk, admirably adapted by form and habit to the park-like woodlands which fringe the small prairies and cover the green slopes of the surrounding mountains, while the gullies which extend far up the mountain sides afford ample shelter during the winter. The lesser deer are more numerous, and are often to be seen in the glades. Among these are the black- tail, the white-tail or jumping deer, the red deer, and the prong-horn antelope. In the mountain tops are bands of big-horns, a huge wild sheep familiar by name to all boys who love Mayne Reid and Fennimore Cooper, as well as goats with long silky hair, much hunted by Indians for their handsome skins. There are three kinds of bears— grizzly, cinnamon, and black. it H Ui et 1 ' '^ H4'it Ih^UI -i ^9 nBi' r .siijUgU PTT^ ! hil tHE CANADIAN NATIONAL PARK. Zj The gn'zzly is almost extinct except in remote and un- explored parts of the Rocky Mountains; and the cinnamon and black bear are vegetarian feeders, harmless unless wantonly attacked.- There are many other beautiful animals pursued by Indian and other hunters for their fur, such as beavers, otter, musk, fishers, muskrats, martens, badgers, marmots, squirrels, and such-like, as well as many varieties of plumage and song birds. All these Mr. Stewart proposes strictly to preserve and en- courage, while at the same time he will endeavour to ex- terminate all those animals which prey upon others, such as wolves, coyotes, foxes, lynxes, skunks, wild cats, catamounts, panthers, and porcupines, together with such birds of prey as feed upon fish. Feathered game consists chiefly of migratory or water-fowl. Wild swans, geese, and ducks breed freely in the lakes, swamps, and woodland streams, the Bow River being one of the great migration waters from the valley of the Columbia River. Besides these, herons, bitterns, gulls, grebes, pelicans, cormorants, land- rails, coots, partridge, blue grouse, ptarmigan, sage-cock, and prairie fowl all nest and hatch in spring and summer time, an added charm to the wanderer who loves nature in all its forms. These also will be strictly preserved. The fish in the various streams comprise white fish, which takes no bait or fly, having a small mouth and living on suction — a fine fish for the pan, however; several varieties of trout, one of which, salmo irideus, I had never seen before I caught one with a small phantom minnow — it is so called from its brilliant rainbow-like tints when first cai St ; grayling, which take the fly well, mountain herring, a .ight silvery little fish, very like the Welsh " gwyniad " ; gold eyes, a sort of carp cat-fish, small chub, and suckers. The trout spawn in April and May, but get into good condition in September. 83 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. J 'Mi lii!' : 1 ; I I had a breakfast of the salino iridens, which was excellent eating, with firm white flesh. Mr. Sicwart wisely intends to confine all fishing t^ fair rod and line only, solely for sport and private use, and to increase the stock, now sadly worn down by the improvident destructive- ness of Indian fishing, by artificial hatching and rearing. He will also plant the lakes and marshes with wild rice, which is very attractive to wild fowl of every kind, both for food and shelter. Mr. Stewart also proposes, by damming up some portions of the many streams which run through the park to fill up a chain of old marshes, and turn them into lakes. I rather protested against this interference with nature, for I found a special beauty in these marshes such as I had never seen before. But he explained that his chief object was not so much to create lakes as to act as a fire-break from the many con-* flagrations which rage through the Rocky Mountains during the summer, and which might at any time sweep through the National Park. There was some dread of this during the late very dry summer, when forest fires have been frequent and extensive. I have myself seen areas of 15 or 20 square miles of burnt forest, with every vestige of green life burnt up, and only the thicker trees standing up, the gaunt charred ghosts of their former grandeur. Mr. Stewart also talks of importing pheasants and quails from Vancouver Island, where they were introduced some yearL ago, and have thriven. It is proposed to give the Indians who have hitherto hunted, trapped, and fished over the area of the National Park some compensation in the shape of increased rations or other allowance, and then absolutely prohibit them from further operations of the kind. It is thought that with an efficient staff of police at Banff to maintain order, enforce regulations, and " 11 mted, some other rther t staff and < Pi <: o z H e/i U O i| ' § i,^ r e a in pl- an m( Pa Pa vel Dr THE CANADIAN NATIONAL PARK. 91 uphold the special measures necessary, composed of forest rangers qualified by mountain experience and familiarity with the haunts and habits of the wild animals of the country, of which force selected Indians would form a part, there would be no difficulty in jj^ining the objects in view, and in securing the strictest protection for the game and fish still inhabiting the park. The Government have been urged to establish at Banff a museum of Natural history and an aquarium, so that the efforts of Mr. Stewart may be made of service to science, and no doubt this recommendation will be carried out. 9Kfr::'Sjt. CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY HOTEL, BANFF. Such then are, briefly, the particulars of one of the most interesting experiments of modern times, and I venture to predict that in a few years, when it has been thus cared for and opened out by roads and pathways, there will be few more delightful holiday resorts in the world than the National Park of the Dominion of Canada. The magnificent hotel which is being built by the Canadian Pacific Railway will furnish that foreground to the maf- vellous landscape which always won the special admiration of Dr. Johnson. \" • 1' 1 *'ll I I Ml VIEW IN THE SELKIRKS. {From a sketch by the Author.") CHAPTER VII. THE SELKIRKS. On Monday, September 19th, we were roused from our beds at 4 o'clock A.M., as the westward bound daily train passed through Banff at five o'clock. At the station we met with the only instance of neglect of duty on the perfectly-ordered Canadian Pacific Railway. The station-master did not condescend to leave his warm bed to see the train off, and we had to carry our luggage ourselves from the omnibus to the luggage car, and let them go on unchecked to Field, our next stopping place. It was a cold, sleety morning, and the magnificent scenery through which we passed was not THE SELKIRKS, 93 seen to the best advantage, as the tops of the mountain." were enveloped in snow clouds. At seven we passed a SUMMIT LAKE. Station called Silver City. Three or four years ago there was a " boom " in silver mines in the Rocky Mountains ; a good deal of exploration went on, and a considerable wooden \ it \\ bH|! i •MilKfi ;! 1 94 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. village was built. But there was no "silver," and now there is no "city." Its glory has departed, and only the empty and deserted log-houses remain to tell of its butterfly existence. Shortly after, Mount Lefroy, a commanding snowy peak 11,658 feet above sea-level, comes into view, and presently the birthplace of the noble Bow River is discerned in a small glacier wedged in between Mount Hector and Goat Mountain, both over 10,000 feet. Then the highest point of the railway is reached, 5,300 feet above the sea, at the summit lake, marshy and shallow, from which trickles a stream at each end, one of which travels 2,000 miles to the Atlantic, and the other 1,500 to the Pacific Ocean. We now bid good-bye to the beautiful Bow River, which has been our genial companion for so many pleasant days, and under the shadow of Mount Stephen, the monarch of the Rocky Mountains, said to be over 12,000 feet, and named after the president of the Canadian Pacific Railway, we enter Kicking Horse Pass. This pass received its ridiculous name from an incident connected with some obstreperous horse ridden by one of the surveyors of the line, which will stick to it for ever. A magnificent view meets the gaze. A huge valley, filled from side to side with magnificent pines and cedars, their dark green intensified by the red-brown of huge areas burnt up by forest fires, in which the enormous trunks stand up like black masts 200 feet high, and 10 or 12 feet thick, is flanked by peak and pinnacle, the Kicking Horse River meandering through the bottom like a silver ribbon. The train, with two powerful engines reversed, and every brake screwed to its tightest, slides down a gradient of 1,250 feet in less than 10 miles. The road is cut out of the sides of great cliff's, hundreds of feet above the roaring torrent, and every now and then we crawl over a trestle bridge two or three hundred feet n . ill THE SELKIRKS. 97 above some gorge torn out of the mountain side by a rushing torrent. At nine o'clock we draw up at Field Station, a lonely FIELD STATION. post in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, where the Canadian Pacific Railway Company have built a comfortable little hotel, B 98 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. I 11 at which we decide to stay for 24 hours. It was a great com- fort to know, as we came down this terrible descent, that we were travelling on rails made from good honest Cumberland Haematite. I have noted, with interest, but without surprise, that the word " Barrow " always appeared on the rails which the Canadian Pacific Railway have laid down in dangerous places, or where there is specially heavy wear and tear. We found the hotel at Field one of the most comfortable and well-ordered hotels in Canada, and the manager at once claimed acquaintance with me as having "voted for me when I stood for Liverpool." Our party, consisting of four officers from the Fleet at Esquimault, Mr. F. W. Gibbs, Q.C., a most delightful and charming travelling companion, a young friend of his, my daughter, and myself, very nearly filled the little hostelry, which we had to ourselves. After an excellent breakfast, the materials for which were brought from Calgary, 130 miles away, the nearest town where a shop exists, we sallied forth to view the magnificent scenery. The landlord informed us that he had the day before set a snare for mountain goats, and invited us to go up the mountain for a mile or so, to see if any had been caught. All went except my daughter and myself, and we started off for a walk down the line, the railway being actually the only path of any kind for 30 miles each way through the dense forest which everywhere clothes the mountain sides, and which is prac- tically impassable. About a mile from the station the valley narrowed to a very small space, with the Kicking Horse River running quietly between two gravelly banks. Here we saw a very fine bear on the other side of the river, coming in and out of the woods, seemingly hunting for something on the gravel beds. Just at that moment three or four men from Field, line inspectors, came up on a hand trolly, and it com- :hat we berland mrprise, liich the ; places, ifortable at once ne when ■ officers , a most ig friend :he little excellent Calgary, xists, we landlord nare for lin for a it except ilk down of any ;st which is prac- le valley [g Horse Here , coming imething "our men lly, and H 2 THE\ S ELK IRKS. lOI we called their attention to the bear. They at once turned back to the Field Station, begging us to follow down the line keeping Mr. Bear in sight, as he showed himself every now and then out of the wood, while they fetched a miner who owned a Winchester rifle, and who was a crack shot. In about half-an-hour he arrived. We had seen the bear frequently, and pointed out the spot where we had last noticed him. The owner of the rifle at once plunged up to the middle in the icy river, waded across, and entered the wood stealthily. In a few minutes the bear trotted out on the gravel, much perturbed in his mind. Presently he seemed reassured, and began to grub in the ground with his nose. Then the hunter crept out of the bushes till he was well within range. Taking aim, he gave a shrill whistle ; the startled bear threw up his head, and in a moment he was shot through the heart, and all was over. The others then rushed through the river, dragged him back through the water, and presently he was laid on the trolly in triun.ph. He was a fine " silver-tip " bear, about as big as a large calf, with very formidable teeth and claws. I have his skin, which I shall get dressed into a hearthrug when I reach Victoria. On Tuesday morning, the 20th, we again took train, and journeyed as far as "Glacier House," another comfortable little hotel erected by the Canadian Pacific Railway at the foot of the great glacier which comes down from the eternal snowfields of Mount Sir Donald, the highest peak of the Selkirk Range, about 11,000 feet above the sea, named after one of the directors and first promoters of the railway, Sir Donald Smith. We reached it at noon, and after lunch started off to explore the glacier, to the foot of which a trail has been cleared. It is a fine and imposing glacier, half-a- tn'le wide, and seven or eight miles long, but bearing !;f.J 102 A TRIP RO'JND THE WORLD. I "i '^m no comparison whatever with such vast ice fields as the Corner or Aletsch glaciers in Switzerland. It was covered with fresh snow, and looked very beautiful in the bright sunlight. Mount Sir Donald has never yet been climbed, and there is a legend at the hotel that the first man to reach the summit will receive a thousand dollars and a free pass over the line for his life, from the directors of the Canadian Pacific Railway. In the opinion of my friend Mr. Gibbs, Q.C., who is a member of the Alpine Club, the thousand dollars may be pocketed by the first smart Alpine Clubbist who comes along, and certainly to my comparatively inexperienced eye it did not seem impossible to an active Cumberland shepherd. It is however a superb mountain. The scenery of the Selkirk Range is finer in all respects than the Rocky Mountaiii ., which are devoid of glaciers, and also of any extent of snow fields. From the railway platform at Glacier House there is a view which rivals any of the notable Swiss cycloramas, and I counted at least a dozen fine peaks, all of which appeared to be at least 10,000 feet high, and whose flanks bore miles of snow fields and many picturesque, though comparatively small glaciers. The Hermit Range, so named from its fancied resemblance to a Monk of St. Bernard followed by his dog, is as fine a group of snow mountains as the world can furnish. Next morning we walked up the line to see the great snow sheds, and some of the trestle bridges which span the cataracts rushing down the sides of these magnificent mountains. One of these bridges is 176 feet high and 600 feet long, and another crosi-ing the Canyon of Stoney Creek is 296 feet high and 450 feet long. These structures are truss bridges supported upon great timber towers, built up from the bottom of the valley far below, and Stoney Creek Bridge is the highest THE BEAR HUNT. n .ill i' ^ It B BMlii ; T^K ^H^t'' { S Im^BEL Wl ph art "si THE SELKIRKS. los timber railway bridge in the world. The whole structure is of wood, cut from the forests through which the railway travels. The snow sheds are solid buildings of crib work and piling, SNOW SHEDS. with very strong roofs of two courses, one of logs and another of planks, strongly backed with heavy stone work. These sheds are placed along the line wherever the devastated track of a "snow slide" or avalanche appears on the mountain side. It % fo6 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. is impossible to describe adequately the tremendous power of these Selkirk avalanches. Enormous volumes of snow gather during the winter in some hollow high up the mountain side, and in spring rush down with a force which nothing can resist into the valley below. Everything is swept before them — trees of the largest size, boulders, soil, brushwood, are torn up and tumbled into a confused mass at the bottom of the valley. The wind caused by the avalanche is almost as resistless as the slide itself, and the trees on each side of its track for a wide area are broken into matchwood. These slides have been a great difficulty and danger to the line, and have caused stoppage of the tiaffic for weeks at a time, besides much loss of life. But now the trai)is run through the snow sheds, and their powerful roofs, inclined to the angle of the slide, enables the snow and debris to shoot harmlessly over. There are still some 3,000 men at work along the line at these various snow sheds, some of which are over half a mile long, and their many canvas encampments form picturesque incidents in the scenery through which the line passes. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company engage to feed and lodge them for four dollars a week, and right well these fellows live, with three good meat meals a day, and the finest air in the world for sauce. During the morning we walked back up the line to Rogers Pass, the highest point reached by the railway in crossing the Selkirk Range. Here is a collection of wooden shanties, used as liquor- saloons, music and dancing-houses, and places of worse resort still, to which the more loose-living of these workmen resort. I found, however, that the bulk of them were steady, sober men, intent on saving their surplus wages, and on the look-out for favourable chances in this new country. There- was a good deal of snow at Rogers Pass, which is a narrow gorge closely hemmed in by lofty snow-clad mountains. \i ^ -.^'^r. 1^ y^ \ Pass, :lkirk iquor- resort rt. I ■- men, It for deal imed ,«r u « 5 s \ ( t V 1: t I. 11 c P SI w w p w s\ ai th w R ar or di THE SELKIRKS. 109 Leaving Glacier House on Wednesday, 2 1st, we found attached to the train one of the handsome private travelling carriages which are used by directors and officials on the long lines which cross the American Continent, and which are travelling homes of both comfort and luxury. Shortly after starting, a coloured servant brought me a card bearing the name of Mr. Baker, the General Superintendent of the Manitoba and North- Western Railway, a line which opens up a fine agricul- tural district north of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Mr. Baker wished my daughter and me to ride through the beautiful scenery of the Selkirk range in his carriage, which,, being at the tail of the train, commanded a clear view, and he also asked us to dine with him afterwards. He first showed us over his car, in which he lives all the year round for nine days out of fourteen travelling up and down his line. It was a carriage somewhat longer than a North-Western first-class coach. It was divided into a dining-room, large drawing-room, kitchen, pantry, and two comfortable bedrooms, all handsomely furnished, with a small platform or terrace at each end, on one of which was kept the stores in ice-lined boxes, and the other was a sort of balcony on which to sit and view the passing scenery. An admirable dinner was served, consisting of soup, oysters, roast beef, two vegetables, pudding, and dessert, with a cup of excellent coffee. Mr. Baker was taking a holiday with some English friends. The car was shunted at any station along the line which they wished to visit, and the party were enjoying excellent opportunities for sport on the many lakes along the prairie, the resorts of a great variety of wild-fowl, as well as being able to see the whole scenery of the Rockies and the Selkirks by daylight, by hooking on to freight and ballast trains. We left them behind about ten o'clock, p.m. on an arm cf the great Shuswap Lake, wheiie they had good duck shooting next day, while Mr. Baker killed six trout over no A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. 2 lbs. each. Soon after quitting Glacier House Station, the railway descends 600 feet in two miles of actual distance. This is done by utilizing two ravines which meet at right angles, and is a triumph of engineering skill. The line runs along one side of the first gorge for about a mile, then crosses a high bridge, and romes back along the other side close to where it started, but on a much lower level ; thence it runs into the ir ■ THE GREAT BEND. second ravine, crosses it high up its course, coming back down the opposite side 120 feet below its entrance, yet only 130 feet further down the pass ; then it doubles upon itself in the main valley, crosses the river, and presently recrosses. From the top of these loops one can view six almost parallel lines of railway, each at a lower level than the others, and the whole largely composed of trestle bridges and elaborate timber cribbing. It is a wonderful sight to stand at the top and watch a train ligh up iwn the 30 feet e main the top railway, largely ribbing. a train Roger's pass: the summit of the selkirks. Tnf:^n i|;! t] sl ol re of lai fai an in of sal: of: THE SELKIRKS. "3 twist in and out of this succession of loops like some hissing snake. The whole forms a remarkable feat of engineering skill. Morning found us in the Gold Range, running down p the valley of the Thompson River, a tributary of the great Fraser River, into which it flowed at Lytton, a colony of gold miners. The Gold Range is not so lofty as either the Selkirks or the Rockies. There are no glaciers at all, but many of the peaks are snow-capped, and the sides of the moun- tains have a much greater variety of timber, giving a richness and depth of colour which is more beautiful than the dark greens of the loftier ranges. As we descend the slopes, and get into the valley of the great Fraser River, we reach the better settled parts of British Columbia, and the landscape is brightened by farmsteads, Indian villages, and Chinese camps, engaged in the three leading industries of the country — farming, salmon preserving, and mining. Every now and then a group of Indians would be seen, ingeniously hanging dried salmon on I INDIAN SALMON CACHE, \-l i I 114 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. trees in such fashion that bears or other climbing animals cannot reach them. This is the country of big trees and endless forest, which must eventually beccme the main timber supply of the whole Am-^rican Continent, as the vast and increasing population of the States consumes its own limited and rapidly decreasing lumber districts. All through British Columbia the summer is warm and rainless, and its forests are scourged by continual fires, mainly the result of careless Indians and other dwellers in tents. We saw many of these forest fires, for which, when near the line, probably sparks from Canadian Pacific Railway engines are mainly responsible. In ordinary pine woods they rage through the brushwood and undergrowth, the big trees escaping with a scorching, which does not seem greatly to injure them, except in appearance. But wherever there are big cedars the flames burn merrily, and everything is destroyed. The trunks of these trees become hollow and decayed, and when they are reached by the fire they draw like a factory chimney, and the trunk falling, with its 200 feet long in blaze, gives the fire a fresh start. It is surprising with what speed this genial climate fills up the blackened spaces with fresh vegetation, and ten or twelve years replaces the fallen giants with thriving children which an English park might feel very proud to raise in thirty years of growth. Sometimes these fires are disagreeably hot to the passengers on board the train, as they rush through them at the rate of 25 miles an hour. On one occasion a whole train, except one carriage, was entirely destroyed. The engine driver was running through as usual, when he ran quietly off the rails into the middle of the track. The heat of the fire had ex- panded the rails and warped them. The passengers were all got out easily enough, as it is possible to walk from one end of an American train to the other, and no one was seriously TtJE SELKIRICS. Its injured except the conductor, who was badly burned in trying to get out the mails. They managed to get away the end car, a Pullman sleeping car, but the rest of the train added itself to the ashes of the forest fire. It is, however, after all but a small percentage of these vast forests which fall under this scourge, and every station affords proof, by the quantity of logs, dressed timber, and firewood waiting despatch, that the new railway is laying the foundation for one of the biggest lumber trades in the world. Up the valley of the Fraser, and afterwards up the Thompson, runs the only waggon road in British Columbia, from New Westminster to Cariboo, the centre of the gold-mining district, round which there are also several flourishing settle- ments of farmers. This road was made by the Government of British Columbia at very great cost, and the lower portion of it is now superseded, so far as through traffic is concerned, by the Canadian Pacific Railway. The traffic on this road is carried on by waggons drawn by teams of oxen, ten or twelve yoked together, and it is also used by Indians moving their camps from point to point after salmon and game of various kinds. The Fraser River is the' chief watercourse of; British Columbia, rising in the far north of the Rocky Mountains, and is navigable for about 120 miles from the sea. The railway follows it for 250 miles, giving an infinite variety of beautiful scenery. Now it flows through some deep and rocky ravine, foaming and tumbling in a series of rapids and falls, then flowing in rippling stream and placid pool, forming sand bars which are being washed over for gold by the industrious heathen Chinee, and other " placer " miners, and presently broadening into a noble river, navigable by steamboats, dotted I 2 ii6 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. m i!:i il iiJJ by Indian canoes salmon fishing, and bordered by variegated timber ablaze with autumn gold and copper, with every now and then a comfortable homestead farm and herds of fine cattle. At New Westminster, 15 miles from the mouth, it widens into a stream two miles across, from whence it distributes its wealth in ocean ships and steamers all over the world. I saw a vessel leave New Westminster for London with 2,200 tons of tinned salmon on board. SALMON CANNERY ON THE FRASER, We got out on the morning of the 22nd, at the little roadside station of Agassiz, that we might spend 24 hours on Harrison Lake, a sheet of water 50 miles long, in the heart of the best district of British Columbia. We drove in a waggon some six miles over the very worst road I ever saw in my life, to a new hotel which has just been built on the edge of the lake, the only hoi!se upon its beautiful shores, but which we found very comfortable and scrupulously clean. The lake is surrounded by two ranges of mountains, the first densely wooded to the THE SELKmKS. 117 summit, the second bare and snowcapped. The scenery is about half way between Windermere and Como. With the exception of the rough track from the station, there is not a footpath which does not end lOO yards from the hotel in dense impenetrable forest. We spent the day on the lake, exploring its beauties, and occasionally trying for a big trout, but only catching one very small one of remarkable beauty. The next day we went on to Vancouver, the Pacific terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and brought to a close a ti HARRISON LAKE. \From a sketch by the Author.) railway journey of over 3,(XXD miles, which, whether for human interest or natural beauty, far exceeds any previous journey of my life. Vancouver is the youngest town in Canada. It was commenced less than three years ago, when it was a forest of Douglas pines, cedars, and spruce, of enormous size. I measured one stump which had been sawn off about 6 feet from the ground, and it was 1 1 feet 8 inches across. In June last year, after it had reached a respectable infancy, Vancouver ' 1 i r ii8 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. was completely burnt down, not a house escaping, so that the present " city," as the Vancouverites insist on calling it, is just fifteen months' old. It is of course still a wooden town, but several fine brick and stone buildings are already erected, and many are rapidly reaching completion. The Canadian Pacific Railway Hotel is a handsome building, almost ready for opening, which will accommodate some 200 guests. Extensive wharves and warehouses line the shore, and ocean-going steamers of 3,000 or 4,000 tons can load and discharge there, The main street is full of handsome shops, and there is a busy, hardworking population of 4,000 souls, mostly men. Van- couver will be a town of 20,000 or 30,000 popula ion before it is ten years old. THE *'YOSEMITE" LEAVING VANCOUVER. CHAPTER VIII. BRITISH COLUMBIA. v.. On Saturday, the 25th, we left Vancouver in the steamer " Yosemite " for Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, where we were to spend a fortnight previous to sailing for Japan. I have long been anxious to see this colony, so remote and inaccessible until it has been brought near by the Canadian Pacific Railway. Five years ago the only direct communication between British Columbia and the mother-country was by sea round the Horn, a voyage of six or seven months for the smart barques which have so long carried on the trade, and which show no signs of being displaced by the railway. Now the two countries are within 14 or 15 days of each other, and the ease with which emigrants can reach this land of infinite capacity and resources will quickly develop it into one of the most important portions of our Colonial Empire. I propose to give a brief account of the impressions I have formed of British Columbia, based upon careful investigations made during the three weeks I have travelled over it — investigations in which I have had the guidance I20 A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD, w l: I il'i and help of the Lieut.-Governor, Mayor Fell, Senator Macdonald, and many other old colonists. The sail from Vancouver to Victoria gives one a very good idea of the general characteristics of the country, which has been compared to a sea of mountains and valleys. These valleys as they approach the sea become long inlets often lOO miles in length, which large ocean-going steamers can navigate to the very top, while at the same time the long chain of islands of which Vancouver, 300 miles long, is the chief, lying between these inlets and the Pacific, render their smooth waters equally navigable to the Indian's birch canoe and the unwieldy stern- wheel trading steamer. There is no country in the world whose area is so wonderfully opened up by water carriage as British Columbia. These bays, inlets, and rivers swarm with fish of excellent quality, valuable for food and oil. I priced the stock of a fishmonger in the leading street of Victoria. He was selling fresh salmon at 2d. per lb. ; cod, 2\d. ; halibut, ^d. ; fine plaice, 34-(af. ; fresh sardines, a delicious dish, i^d. ; herrings, i\d. ; smelts, 4//. ; whiting, l^d. ; trout, 4^. — all per lb. Fine crabs, 35-. per dozen. I suppose the fisheries of British Columbia must be practically inexhaustible. Although salmon is the great staple food of the people, they exported in 1885 7,324,000 lbs. of canned salmon. This means a catch of about two millions of salmon at 7 lbs. each, which appears almost incredible ; yet the take this year is larger than ever, and is virtually confined to the Fraser River and its tributaries. There are three separate runs of salmon every year. They run for fresh water in the spawning season, ascending as far inland as possible, after the manner of salmon at home. Those entering the Fraser River work their way to a point 800 miles from salt water. The main seat of the salmon fishing is New Westminster, and for miles above the town the river swarms BRITISH COLUMBIA. 121 with boats, manned chiefly by Indians, who scoop the fish out of the water with nets lii