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diff --git a/old/62844.txt b/old/62844.txt deleted file mode 100644 index bcee856..0000000 --- a/old/62844.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6927 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fair Dominion, by R. E. Vernede - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Fair Dominion - A Record of Canadian Impressions - -Author: R. E. Vernede - -Illustrator: Cyrus Cuneo - -Release Date: August 3, 2020 [EBook #62844] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FAIR DOMINION *** - - - - -Produced by Al Haines - - - - - - - - - -[Illustration: Cover art] - - - - -[Frontispiece: LOOKING FROM LAKE AGNES DOWN ON LAKES MIRROR AND -LOUISE.] - - - - - THE FAIR DOMINION - - A RECORD OF CANADIAN IMPRESSIONS - - - BY - - R. E. VERNEDE - - AUTHOR OF - 'THE PURSUIT OF MR. FAVIEL,' 'MERIEL OF THE MOORS,' ETC. - - - - With 12 Illustrations in Colour - from Drawings by - CYRUS CUNEO - - - - LONDON - KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUeBNER & CO., LTD. - DRYDEN HOUSE, GERRARD STREET, W. - 1911 - - - - - -{v} - -PREFACE - -You know how long ago, in the earlier-than-Victorian days, the -country cousin, in order to see life, went up to the Metropolis. A -terrible journey it was, but well worth the labour and anxiety. -Accounts are still extant of how the bustle and noise of the streets -amazed him, of how endless the houses seemed, how startled he was by -the glittering, clattering folk, how innocent and countrified he felt -by comparison with them. Nowadays, though the London we know is to -that old London as a vast and sleepless city to a small somnolent -town, the country cousin is no longer carried off his feet by a visit -to it. It is not vast enough or noisy enough or new enough to -impress him. Perhaps no single city ever will be again. - -But Canada! Some Winnipeg school teachers who came over recently to -see London, told a journalist that it seemed so quiet compared with -Canadian cities. 'In our cities,' {vi} they said, 'it is impossible -to escape from the noise of the streets.' ... Yet the streets and the -cities are not really the things that impress one most in Canada. -The amazing things are the forests and the fields, the prairies and -the lakes and the mountains: all the illimitable space and the -irrepressible men who are closing it in and giving it names for us to -know it by. - -Clearly the English country cousin who wishes to be impressed should -go to Canada. It is as easy to reach as London was in the old days, -and there are no highwaymen. He will come back--if he comes -back--with many stories to tell his friends of the wonders he has -seen and of the still more incredible things that will soon be -visible. That is at least my position. I went out originally for -the _Bystander_, which wanted its Canadian news, like all its other -news, up-to-date and not too solemn, and I am indebted to the editor -of that journal for permission to make use in parts of the articles I -sent him for this book, in which, by the way, I have still -endeavoured to avoid solemnity. For some reason or other, many -writers upon Canada do fall into a solemn and portentous way of -describing the country--with the result {vii} that people who know -nothing of the facts say to themselves, 'This is indeed an important -Dominion, but dull.' As a matter of fact, of course, Canada is a -highly exciting country--from its grizzly bears to its political -problems--and having spent delightful months in various parts, some -well known, others, such as the French River, the Columbia Valley, -and the Selkirks, very little known; riding in trains or on mountain -ponies, sometimes trying to catch maskinonges (a tigerish kind of -pike), sometimes trying to catch prime ministers (who cannot be -described in such a general way)--I have tried to set down my -impressions as incompletely as I received them. Never, I hope, have -I fallen into the error of describing exactly how many salmon are -canned in the Dominion, or what Sir Wilfrid Laurier should do if he -really wishes to remain a great party leader. The errors I have -fallen into will be obvious, and I need not run through them here.... -As for criticisms--if now and then I stop to make some--if I start -saying, 'Canada is a great country, nevertheless, we do some things -just as well or better at home,' no Canadian need mind. Country -cousins have said just {viii} that sort of thing from all time. -Every cousin--even the most countrified--makes some reservations in -favour of his own place; he would not be worth entertaining -otherwise. If the criticisms are pointless, Canadians may say, 'What -can you expect from a country cousin?' If there is something in -them, they will be entitled to remark, 'This English country cousin -shows some intelligence. But then he has been to Canada--the centre -of things.' - - - - -{ix} - -CONTENTS - - -CHAP. - -I. THE START FROM LIVERPOOL - -II. THE STEERAGE PASSAGE - -III. LANDING IN CANADA - -IV. A FAIRLY LONG DAY IN QUEBEC - -V. THE ATTRACTION OF THE SAGUENAY - -VI. STE. ANNE DE BEAUPRE AND A TRAVELLER'S VOW - -VII. A HABITANT VILLAGE AND ITS NOTAIRE - -VIII. GLIMPSES OF MONTREAL - -IX. TORONTO, NIAGARA FALLS, AND A NEGRO PORTER - -X. MASKINONGE FISHING ON THE FRENCH RIVER - -XI. SOME SUPERFICIAL REFLECTIONS AT SUDBURY - -XII. THROUGH THE HIGHLANDS OF ONTARIO - -XIII. THE OLD TIMERS OF KILDONAN AND THE NEW TIMERS OF WINNIPEG - -XIV. A PRAIRIE TOWN AND THE PRAIRIE POLICE - -XV. IN CALGARY - -{x} - -XVI. THE AMERICANISATION QUESTION - -XVII. AMONG THE READY-MADE FARMS - -XVIII. INTO THE ROCKIES WITH A DEFENDER OF THE FAITH - -XIX. A HOT BATH IN BANFF - -XX. CANADA AND WOMAN - -XXI. THE LAKES AMONG THE CLOUDS - -XXII. A SOLITARY RIDE INTO THE YOHO VALLEY - -XXIII. THE FRUIT-LANDS OF LAKE WINDERMERE - -XXIV. THE SELKIRKS--A GRIZZLY-BEAR COUNTRY - -XXV. AN EIGHTY-MILE WALK THROUGH THE COLUMBIA VALLEY - -XXVI. FROM GOLDEN TO THE COAST - -XXVII. A LITTLE ABOUT VANCOUVER CITY - -XXVIII. THE HAPPY FARMERS OF THE ISLAND - -XXIX. A CHAT WITH THE PRIME MINISTER OF - BRITISH COLUMBIA AND A BIG FIRE AT VICTORIA - -XXX. BACK THROUGH OTTAWA - -INDEX - - - - -{xi} - -LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - -LOOKING FROM LAKE AGNES DOWN ON LAKES MIRROR AND LOUISE ... -Frontispiece - -CHATEAU FRONTENAC FROM THE OLD RAMPARTS. DAY. QUEBEC - -CHATEAU FRONTENAC AND DUFFERIN TERRACE. NIGHT. QUEBEC - -MOUNT LEFROY. CANADIAN ROCKIES - -A TRAIL IN THE ROCKIES - -THE HALT. SADDLEBACK. LAGGAN - -LAKE LOUISE. LAGGAN. ALBERTA - -IN THE VALLEY OF THE TEN PEAKS. ROCKY MOUNTAINS - -ON THE TRAIL, YOHO VALLEY - -THE DEVIL'S FINGERS. ROCKY MOUNTAINS - -A SENTINEL OF THE ROCKIES - -IN THE SELKIRKS. THE RETURN FROM THE HUNT - - - - -{1} - -THE FAIR DOMINION - - - -CHAPTER I - -THE START FROM LIVERPOOL - -Canada and its wonders might lie before us, yet it was not all joy -there at the Liverpool docks, where we waited our opportunity to go -on board S.S. _Empress of Britain_. For one thing, the sun on that -August day of last year was so unusually warm that standing about -with a bag amongst crowds of people who were seeing other people off -was hard work; for another, I had left behind me in my Hertfordshire -home my bull-mastiff, forlorn ever since I had begun packing, and not -a bit deceived by the bone she had been supplied with at parting. -Even while she had gnawed it, she had whined. All those other people -already on the great ship, the people in the bows--the -emigrants--were leaving more even than a bull-mastiff: friends--for -who knew how long?--their parents in England perhaps for ever. Here -were thoughts to obscure the {2} pleasure of those who were making -for a new world, thoughts to sadden those who, whether by their own -choice or not, were staying behind. Less than my bull-mastiff could -they be either deceived or solaced. True, they might remember that -this is the way a great Empire is made. We talk of the Empire often -enough. But then we who talk of it are rarely those who make it or -suffer for it; and perhaps we are therefore more easily consoled by a -great idea than they. - -Luckily going on board ship has to be a bustling business. My two -companions and I, who had been promised a four-berth third-class -cabin between us, had to bustle quite a lot--to different gangways -from which we were rapidly sent back and into various queues, which -turned out, after we had waited in them for some time, to be composed -of some other class of passenger. We were extremely heated before we -found ourselves in the end about to be passed up a gangway at which -the medical inspection of a group of Scandinavians was at the moment -going on. Scandinavian seems to be a roomy word which covers all -Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, Lapps; and no foreigners not coming under -this category are carried by the 'Empress' boats. - -{3} - -The theory seems to be in regard to them that they are the only right -and proper shipmates for English emigrants going to Canada. They -were being pretty carefully examined all the same, men and women -alike. The doctors' attention seemed to centre on their heads and -eyelids. Hats were pulled off as they came level with them, and -tow-coloured hair was grasped and peered into apparently with -satisfactory results, for only a couple of elderly people were held -back for a few minutes; and they I fancy had not passed the eye test, -and were therefore not free from suspicion of having trachoma--a not -uncommon North European disease supposed to cause total blindness, -which is least of all to be desired in a new country. The two -detained Scandinavians were re-examined and passed, after which our -turn came. I think we all three felt a little uneasy in the eyelids -as we advanced upon the doctor, but we need not have been anxious, -for after a swift glance at us he reassured us by grinning and -saying, 'There's nothing wrong with you, I should say,'--and so we -passed on board. For the next hour or two we were part of a whirl of -confused humanity. There is always a tendency among landsmen to -become sheepish at sea, and in the steerage there were nine {4} -hundred of us, most of whom had never been at sea before. So we -rushed together and got jammed down companionways and in passages -which even on so big a liner as this could not hold us all abreast, -and scrummed to find the numbers of our berths from the steward, and -flung ourselves in masses upon our baggage, and pressed pell-mell to -the sides of the ship to wave good-bye, and formed a solid tossing -square saloonwards when bells rang and we thought they might mean -meals. - -Of course there must have been even then self-possessed passengers, -who knew what they were about and only seemed to be lost with the -crowd, and to be vaguely trying to muddle through. Canadians -returning to their own country were conspicuous later by reason of -their cool bearing and air of knowing their way about the world. And -the invisible discipline of the ship that was to turn us all later -into reasonable and orderly individuals was no doubt already at work. -But the impression any one looking down on us that first evening -would have received would have been the impression of a scurrying -crowd, fancifully and variously dressed for its Atlantic -voyage--clerks in pink shirts and high collars and bowler hats, -peasants in smocks, women in the {5} very latest flapping head-gear, -or bareheaded and shawled, infants either terribly smart or mere -bundles of old clothes. - -Up on the first-class deck superior people were walking calmly about -with just the right clothes and manners for such a small event as -crossing the Atlantic must have been to most of them. Occasionally -one of these upper folk would come to the rails, lean over and -smilingly stare at us: wondering perhaps at our confusion. But then -all our fortunes were embarked on the ship, and only a little part of -theirs. - -When I went to sleep that night on a clean straw mattress in a lower -berth, with a pleasant air blowing in through the port-hole in the -passage, we were, I suppose, out to sea, and the air was Atlantic -air, and no longer that of the old country. - - - - -{6} - -CHAPTER II - -THE STEERAGE PASSAGE - -Apart from its other merits the steerage has this to its -credit--every one is very friendly and affable. No one required an -introduction before entering into conversation, and the suspicion -that we might be making the acquaintance of some doubtful and -inferior person who would perhaps presume upon it later did not worry -any of us. I sat at a delightful table. Some one who knew the ins -and outs of a steerage passage had advised me to go in to meals with -the first 'rush,' instead of waiting for the second or third. His -theory was that the first relay got the pick of the food. So my two -friends and I had taken care to answer the very first call to the -saloon, which happened to be for high tea, and, seating ourselves at -random, found that we were thereby self-condemned to take every meal -in the same order--including breakfast at the unaccustomed and -somewhat dispiriting hour of 7 A.M. {7} I do not know that it -greatly mattered. In the cabin next ours there were several small -children, who appeared to wake and weep about 4 A.M., and either to -throw themselves or be thrown out of their berths on to the floor a -little later. Their lamentations then became so considerable, that -we were not sorry to rise and go elsewhere. - -Besides the three of us, there were at our table the following:-- - -(1) A Norwegian peasant. Going on to the land. Quiet and rapid in -his eating. - -(2) Another Norwegian peasant, also going on to the land. He must -have arrived on board very hungry, and he remained so throughout the -voyage. He used to help himself to butter with his egg spoon, after -he had finished most of his egg with it. Moreover, he would rise and -stretch a red and dusky arm all down the table, if he sighted -something appetising afar off. As we had a most excellent table -steward, whose waiting could not have been beaten in the first-class, -we all rather resented this behaviour, and I--as his next door -neighbour--was deputed to hold him courteously in his seat until the -desired eatables could be passed him. - -(3) A Durham miner going to a mine in {8} northern Ontario. A cheery -red-faced person. He had bought a revolver before starting for -Canada, because friends had told him that they were rough sort of -places up there. I afterwards stayed a night in a mining town, and -the only row that I heard was caused by a young Salvation Army girl, -who beat a drum violently for hours outside the bar. We advised the -miner to practise with his revolver in some isolated spot, these -weapons being tricky. - -(4) A small shy cockney boy who was going out to his dad at Winnipeg. -I don't know what his dad was, but I should think a clerk of sorts. - -(5) A brass metal worker from the North. Going to a job in -Peterborough. A quiet pleasant young man. - -(6) A chauffeur who had also been in the Royal Engineers. Had been -in the South African War, and told stories about it much more -interesting than those you see in books. - -(7) A horse-breaker, with whom I spent many hours learning about bits -and bridles and shoes. He was the only married man among these -seven. He hoped to bring his wife and family out within the year, -and was not going to be happy until he did, even though {9} the kids -would have to be vaccinated, and he had most conscientious objections -to this process. - -All these men--even the Norwegian with his egg-spoon habits--would -be, I could not help thinking, a distinct gain to any country. I -fancy too that they represented the steerage generally. Of course -there were other types. I remember some characteristic Londoners of -the less worthy sort--gummy-faced youths in dirty clothes that had -been smart. There was one in particular, whom the horse-breaker -would refer to as 'that lad that goes about in what was once a soot -o' clothes,' who had a perfect genius for card tricks and making -music on a comb. His career in Canada, judging by criticisms passed -upon him by returning Canadians, was likely to be brief and -unsuccessful. - -The food--to turn to what is always of considerable interest on a -voyage--was good but solid. Pea soup, followed by pork chops and -plum-pudding, makes an excellent dinner when you are hungry. -Everybody was hungry the first day and also the last three days. In -between there was a cessation of appetites. The sea was never in the -least rough, but there was some slight motion on the second day out, -{10} and the majority of the nine hundred had probably never been to -sea before. The strange affliction took them unawares, and they did -not know how to deal with it. Where they were first seized, there -they remained and were ill. The sides of the ship which appealed to -more experienced travellers did not allure them. It was during this -affliction that a device which had struck me as a most excellent idea -upon going on board seemed in practice less good. This was a -railed-in sand-pit which the paternal company had constructed between -decks for the entertainment of the emigrant children. I had seen a -dozen or more at a time playing in it with every manifestation of -delight. Even now while they were ailing there, they did not seem to -mind it. - -Everywhere one went on that day of tribulation one had to walk warily. - -Afterwards the sea settled down into a mill pond, and every one began -to wear a cheerful and hopeful look. In the evenings, and sometimes -in the afternoons as well, some of the Scandinavians would produce -concertinas and violins, and the whole of them would dance their -folk-dances for hours. It was extraordinary how gracefully they -danced--the squat fair-haired women and the big men heavily {11} -clothed and booted. There was an attempt on the part of some of the -English people to take part in these dances, but they soon realised -their inferiority, and gave it up in favour of sports and concerts. -The sports, though highly successful in themselves, led to a slight -contretemps when the Bishop of London, who happened to be on board, -came over by request to distribute the prizes. The Scandinavians, -who quite wrongly thought they had been left out of the sports, -seized the opportunity afforded by the bishop's address (which was -concerned with our future in Canada), to form in Indian file, with a -concertinist at their head, and march round and round the platform on -which the bishop stood, making a deafening noise. It looked for a -little as if there might be a scuffle between them and the -prize-winners, but peace prevailed, though we were all prevented from -hearing what was no doubt very sound advice. Apart from this, there -was no horseplay to speak of until the last night but one, when a -rowdy set, headed by a fat Yorkshireman, chose to throw bottles about -in the dark, down in that part of the ship where about fifty men were -berthed together. For this the ringleader was hauled before the -captain and properly threatened. - -{12} - -Our concerts went with less eclat. They were held in the -dining-saloon, and there were usually good audiences. It seemed -however that we had only one accompanist, whose command of the piano -was limited, and in any case self-consciousness invariably got the -better of the performers at the last moment. Either they would not -come forward at all when their turn arrived, or else, having come -forward, they turned very red, wavered through a few notes and then -lost their voices altogether. Our best English concertina player, a -fat little Lancashire engineer, had his instrument seized with the -strangest noises halfway through 'Variations on the Harmonica,' and -after a manly effort to restrain them, failed and had to retire in -haste. We generally bridged over these recurring gaps in the -programme by singing 'Yip i addy.' - -It was so fine most of the voyage, that one could be quite happy on -deck doing nothing at all but resting and strolling and talking. A -few of the girls skipped occasionally and some of the men boxed: -there was no real zeal for deck games. The voyage was too short, and -with the new life and the new world at the end of it we all wanted to -find out from one another what we knew--or at least what we {13} -thought--Canada would be like. We stood in some awe of returning -Canadians who talked of dollars as if they were pence, and we -wondered if we should get jobs as easily as people said we should. -Almost every type of worker was represented among us, and many types -of people. - -Chief among my own particular acquaintances made on the boat were a -young lady-help from Alberta, two Russian Jews from Archangel, a -Norwegian farm hand from somewhere near the Arctic circle, two miners -from Ontario, and three small boys belonging to Perth, Scotland. - -I do not know how the Russian Jews came to be on the boat. They had -some Finnish, and I suppose slipped in with the Scandinavians. They -also spoke a few words of German, which was the language we misused -together. They were brothers, good-looking men with charming -manners. The elder wore a frock coat and a bowler hat, and looked a -romantic Shylock. The other was clothed in a smock, and was hatless. -They said they had fled from the strife of Russia, and they wished -particularly to know if Canada was a free country. The younger man -was an ironworker and made penny puzzles in iron {14} which, so far -as I could make out, the elder brother invented. They had one puzzle -with them, but it was very complicated, and I was afraid that the -sale of such things in Canada might be limited, unless Canadians -fancied bewildering themselves over intricate ironwork during the -long winters. Still those two fugitives rolled Russian cigarettes -very well too, which should earn them a living. - -The Norwegian was a simple youth in a queer hat, which afterwards -blew off into the sea much to his sorrow. He was very bent on -acquiring the English language during the voyage, not having any of -it to start with. I used to sit with him on one side and the small -Perthshire boys on the other, while we translated Scottish into -Norwegian and back again. The Scotch boys would inquire of me what -'hat' was in Norse, and I would point to the queer head-gear -above-mentioned, and ask its owner to name its Norwegian equivalent. -One of the things that stumped me--being a mere Englishman--was a -question put by the smallest Perth boy: 'Whit is gollasses in -Norwegian?' - -It took me some time to find out what gollasses were in English, and -I don't know how to spell them now. - - - - -{15} - -CHAPTER III - -LANDING IN CANADA - -It was while we were still out to sea that I first realised what -Canada might be like, and how different from England. We had been -steaming for five days, and hitherto the Atlantic had seemed a -familiar and still English sea. The sky above, the air around, even -the vast slowly heaving waters and the set of the sun one might see -from an English cliff. But on this last day but one, which was a day -of hot sun, the sky seemed to have risen immeasurably higher than in -England and to have become incredibly clearer, except where little -white rugged clouds were set. Snow clouds in a perfect winter's sky, -I should have said, if I had known myself to be at home; yet the air -round the ship was of the very balmiest summer. We should never get -such a sky and such an air together in England, and we were all -stimulated by it and began to forget England and think more of -Canada. We wondered {16} when we were going to see the lights of -Belle Isle, and somebody said we should pass an island called -Anticosti, and we began to look out for Anticosti, and anybody who -knew anything about Anticosti was listened to like an oracle. Not -that anybody did know much--even those who had crossed to and fro -several times. After all there was no reason why they should, for -Atlantic liners do not stop there, and there is not much to be seen -in passing. Still we weighed the words of those who had passed it -carefully, and decided to see what we could of it so that we might -also be regarded as oracles next time we came that way. - -Though we had not seen Canada, yet we had received a favourable -impression of it, which was lucky, because the next day, when we had -got into the St. Lawrence, it came on to sleet and vapour. We of the -steerage, who had brought up our boxes and babies almost before -breakfast, so as to be ready to land at the earliest moment, had to -content ourselves with sitting on them between decks (on the boxes, -for choice, but the babies would get in the way too), and watch the -little white villages and tinned church spires and dark woods of -French Canada drive past the portholes in the {17} mist. We should -like to have been on deck seeing more of our new home, breathing some -of its bracing air; but the rain was incessant. Heavens, but it got -stuffy too on that lower deck. Nine hundred of us in our best -clothes and our overcoats--holding on to bundles and kids, and -sweating. It got so stuffy, that I took the opportunity of crossing -in the rain to the first-class, and hunting out two people to whom I -had introductions. One was the Canadian Minister for Emigration, who -had already been over to inspect us in a paternal sort of way and -declared that we were 'a particularly good lot'--very different, he -hinted, from the sort of English emigrants who used to be shipped -over, and got Englishmen a bad name in the new country for years. -His gratification at our general excellence was so natural that I did -not broach the question of whether Canada's gain was England's loss. -I hope it was not. I suppose we can afford to lose even good men, -provided we are not going to lose them really, but only station them -at a different spot along the great road of the Empire. - -The other person I was anxious to see was Archbishop Bourne, who was -going out to the Eucharistic Congress at Montreal. We {18} discussed -that extraordinarily lucid book of Monsieur Andre Siegfried, which -deals with the race question in Canada. The archbishop admitted its -value, though he thought it unfair in parts. He was assured, for -example, that the unsocial attitude of the Irish and French Canadian -Catholics towards one another as well as towards those of another -religion was fast disappearing, nor did he seem to think that the -Church any longer tended to frustrate enterprise by keeping its -members under its wing in the East. Many Catholics were going West -nowadays, and after the Congress he himself was going West in the -spirit of the times. Perhaps he was right about the _rapprochement_ -of the Irish and French Catholics, though men on the spot maintain -that their unsociability is largely due to the fact that both have a -singular yearning for State employment and the employment will not -always go round. - -It was still raining when I recrossed to the steerage, and it was -still raining when we got into the Canadian Pacific Railway dock at -about 5 P.M. I was standing beside the horse-breaker at the time, -and the first thing that caught his eye in Quebec was the shape of -the telegraph poles. - -{19} - -'Why, look at them,' he said, 'they're all crooked!' - -A little later, he commented on the slowness with which the -French-Canadian porters were getting the baggage off the boat. 'They -may have this here hustle on them that they talk of,' he said, 'but -I've seen that done a lot quicker in London.' - -It was more loyalty to the old country than disloyalty to the new -that prompted the remark, in which there was perhaps some -justification. A Canadian who was standing by seemed to think so at -any rate. - -'This is only French Canada,' he said, 'wait till you get West.' - -Still we all of us had to wait a bit in French Canada anyhow. We did -not get through the emigration sheds till 9.30 P.M., and then there -was one's baggage to be got through the Customs after. Not that -there was much in that, the officials being most amiable. But we -none of us much enjoyed the emigrant inspection. It is necessary and -desirable no doubt, but we felt that we had been inspected pretty -often already on board the boat, and we had been up since daylight, -and we were hungry and miserable, and hot in the sheds and cold out -of them, and the babies fractious, {20} and everybody shoving and -pushing, and we felt like some sheep at sheep-dog trials which have -to be driven through pen after pen, and would go so much faster if -they only knew how, and the dogs didn't press them. However it was -all accomplished at last, and then the emigrants got into the -westbound train that was waiting for them. First and second-class -passengers had long since vanished in carriages to such abodes of -luxury as the Chateau Frontenac and the rest of the leading hotels. -Now there were no carriages left. And we heard that a hundred people -at least had been turned away from the Chateau Frontenac, so full was -it; and since in any case we wished to start our Canadian impressions -from a humbler standpoint, we set out in the rain for a Quebec inn -which some of the Canadians returning in the steerage had told us of. -I suppose we had a good deal more than a mile to go through the rain -carrying bags, along those awful roads from the docks. I know -something about those roads, because I not only walked along them -that night, but next morning I drove a dray along them. I had gone -back to the docks to get my trunk which I had had to leave there, and -the dray was the only thing I could get to drive up in. Soon after -we had started {21} I said to the driver--a merry-faced French -Canadian--'Il trotte bien,' referring to the horse, and he was so -pleased with the compliment, or the French perhaps, that he handed me -the reins and let me drive the rest of the way through the stone -piles and mud that appeared to form the roads in lower Quebec. In -return for the reins I had lent him my tobacco pouch; and when the -horse leapt an extra deep hole, he would stop filling his pipe and -hold me in round the waist. - -To go back to the inn--I suppose it was ten o'clock before we got -there. A few men sat smoking, with their feet against the wall in -the entrance room where the office was; and after we had waited about -for ten minutes or so, one of them told us if we wanted to see the -clerk we'd better ring a bell. We did so, and presently a youth -turned up and patronisingly accorded us rooms for the night. - -'Is there any chance of getting a meal to-night?' we inquired, -somewhat damped by his unenthusiastic reception. (I may say that I -never met an office clerk in a Canadian hotel who did seem keen on -welcoming guests. That is one of the differences between the old -world and the new.) - -'Yup, there's a cafe downstairs,' said the {22} youth, as he lit a -cigar and sat down to read a newspaper. - -We went downstairs, and there in a narrow little room behind a long -counter which had plates of sausage rolls, under meat covers to keep -them from the flies, upon it, and little high stools upon which you -sit in discomfort to eat the sausage rolls quickly in front of it, we -found a small pale-faced boy who said 'Sure!' in the cheeriest way -when we repeated our question about food. Five minutes later he had -produced from a stove which he was almost too small to reach fried -bacon and eggs and coffee, and while we sat and ate these good -things, he gave us advice about the future. He evidently knew -without asking that we were emigrants from the old country, and he -supposed we wanted jobs. He recommended waiting as a start--waiting -in a hotel. Waiting was not, he said, much of a thing to stick at; -but there was pretty good money to be made at it in the season. Lots -of tourists gave good tips--especially in Quebec--and you could save -money as a waiter if you tried. He himself was from the States, but -he liked Quebec well enough. Of course it was not as hustling as -further west, and not to be compared to the States. If a man {23} -had ideas, the States was the place for him. There were more -opportunities for a man with ideas in the States than there were in -Canada. We asked him how much a man with ideas could reckon upon -making in the States, and he said such a man could reckon upon making -as much as five dollars a day. It did not seem an overwhelming -amount to my aspiring mind--not for a man with ideas. Perhaps that -is because one has heard of so many millionaires down in the States, -beginning with Mr. Rockefeller. But then again, perhaps millionaires -are not men with ideas themselves so much as men who know how to use -the ideas of others. - -Having started on money, the boy gave us a lecture on the Canadian -coinage, the advantages of the decimal system, where copper money -held good and why--all in a way that would have done credit to a -financial expert. We thought him an amazing boy to be frying eggs -and bacon behind a counter in a small cafe: only you don't just stick -to one groove in Canada. At least you ought not to, as the boy -himself told us. Englishmen were like that, but it didn't do in the -States or Canada. A man should have several strings to his bow, and -be ready to turn his hand to anything. - -{24} - -Refreshed by our supper and his advice, we adjourned to the bar which -was handy, and got further enlightenment from the barman there. He -was a French Canadian, very dapper in a stiff white shirt and patent -leather boots. Money was also his theme. He told us he made forty -cents an hour, and meant to get up to seventy-five cents pretty soon. -That was good money to get, but he was worth it, and if the boss -didn't think so he would try some other boss who did. It was no good -a man's sitting down and taking less money than he was worth. A man -would not get anywhere if he did that sort of thing. He certainly -mixed cocktails at a lightning pace, and all the time he chatted he -strode up and down behind the bar like a caged jackal. He gave me my -first idea of that un-English restlessness--American, I suppose, in -its origin--which is beginning to spread so rapidly through Canada. -In America I fancy they are beginning to distrust it a little. Too -much enterprise may lead to an unsettled condition that is not much -better than stagnation. Farm hands tend to leave their employers at -critical moments, just for the sake of novelty. Farmers themselves -are so anxious to get on that they take what they can out of the -land, and move {25} to new farms, leaving the old ruined. It may be -that in a newer country like Canada enterprise is less perilous. -That remains to be seen. We retired to bed at midnight, sleepier -even than men from the old country are reputed to be. - - - - -{26} - -CHAPTER IV - -A FAIRLY LONG DAY IN QUEBEC - -Quebec city is full of charms and memories. I am no lover of cities -when they have grown so great that no one knows any longer what site -they were built on, or what sort of a country is buried beneath them. -Their streets may teem with people and their buildings be very -splendid, but if they have shut off the landscape altogether I cannot -admire them. Quebec will never be one of those cities, however great -she may grow. Quebec stands on a hill, and just as a city on a hill -cannot be hid, so too it cannot hide from those who live in it the -country round, nor even the country it stands on. Always there will -be in Quebec a sense of steepness. The cliffs still climb even where -they are crowded with houses. And the air that reaches Quebec is the -air of the hills. Always too--from Dufferin Terrace at least--there -will be visible the sweep of the St. Lawrence, the dark crawl to the -north-east {27} of the Laurentian Mountains, and the clear and -immensely lofty Canadian skies. - -I spent the whole of my first day in Quebec on Dufferin Terrace, -except for that journey down to the docks. Once I was on the -terrace, I forgot how bad the roads had been. You might drive a -thousand miles through stones and mud, and forget them all the moment -you set foot on Dufferin Terrace. Everything you see from it is -beautiful, from the Chateau Frontenac behind--surely the most -picturesque and most picturesquely situated hotel in the world--to -the wind on the river below. Most beautiful of all the things I saw -was the moon starting to rise behind Port Levis. It started in the -trees, and at first I thought it was a forest fire. There was -nothing but red flame that spread and spread among the trees at -first. Suddenly it shot up into a round ball of glowing orange, so -that I knew it was the moon long before it turned silver, high up, -and made a glimmering pathway across the river. - -During this moonrise the band was playing on the terrace, and all -Quebec was strolling up and down or standing listening to the music, -as is its custom on summer evenings. The scene on the terrace has -often enough been described--with its mingling of many {28} types, -American tourists and Dominican friars, habitants from far villages, -and business men from the centre of things, archbishops and Members -of Parliament, and ships' stewards and commercial travellers, and -freshly arrived immigrants and old market women. The fair Quebeckers -love the terrace as much as their men folk, and I saw several pretty -faces among them and many pretty figures. They know how to walk, -these French Canadian ladies, and also how to dress--the latter an -art which has still to be achieved by the women of the West. - -[Illustration: CHATEAU FRONTENAC, QUEBEC, FROM THE OLD RAMPARTS.] - -The terrace besides being gay is very friendly too. My two -companions of the voyage had gone on that morning, being in a hurry -to reach the prairie; but I found several new friends on the terrace -in the course of the day. One was a young working man from England, -who had brought his child on to the terrace to play when I first met -him. He was so well-dressed and prosperous looking that I should -never have guessed he was only a shoe-leather cutter, as he told me -he was. But then he had been out in Quebec for five years, and he -was making twenty-five dollars a week instead of the thirty-two -shillings a week he used to make in Nottingham at the same trade. He -said he {29} had been sorry to leave England, but you were more of a -man in Canada. There were not twenty men after one job--that was the -difference. Consequently, if your boss offered to give you any dirt, -you could tell him to go to Hell. I suppose we should have counted -him a wicked and dangerous Socialist in England, but there is no -doubt that he is a typical Canadian citizen, and the kind of man they -want there. Another acquaintance I picked up was a commercial -traveller from Toronto--a stout tubby energetic man, who asked me, -almost with tears in his eyes, why England would not give up Free -Trade and study Canadian needs? He was particularly keen on English -manufacturers studying Canadian needs, and he put the matter in quite -a novel light as far as I was concerned. His argument was that we -made things in England too well. What was the use, he demanded, of -making good durable things when Canadians did not want them? It only -meant that the States jumped in with inferior goods more suited to -the moment. He assured me that Canada was a new country, and -Canadians did not want to buy things that would last hundreds of -years. Take furniture, machinery, anything--Canadians only wanted -stuff that {30} would last them a year or two, after which they could -scrap it and get something new. That kept the money in circulation. -Anyway, he insisted, a thing was no good if it was better than what a -customer required. I had not thought of things in that way before, -and it was interesting to hear him. - -My third acquaintance was a member of the Quebec Parliament, who -started to chat quite informally, and having ascertained that I was -fresh from the old country took me to his house, that I might drink -Scotch whisky, and be informed that French Canadians loved the King -and hated the Boer War. I think when a French Canadian does not know -you well, he will always make these two admissions--but not any -more--lest you should be unsympathetic or he should give himself away. - -That is why, since the position of French Canadians in Canadian -politics will some day be of the greatest importance, we ought all to -be thankful for the existence of Mr. Bourassa. Mr. Bourassa is -represented--by his opponents--as the violent leader of a small -faction of French Canadians, as a trial to moderate men of all sorts, -including the majority of his own French-Canadian fellow-citizens. -All this is very true. In Canadian politics, as they stand {31} at -present, Mr. Bourassa stands for just that and very little more. -Politically he is an extremist and a nuisance. But disregarding for -a moment immediate practical politics, Mr. Bourassa stands for much -more than that--stands indeed for the real essence of French Canada. -He is the French Canadian in action, shouting on the house-tops what -most of them prefer to dream of by the fire-side, insisting upon -bringing forward ideas which the others would leave to be brought -forward by chance or in the lapse of time. - -He has been called the Parnell of Canada, but these international -metaphors are generally calculated to mislead. The most that Parnell -ever demanded was Home Rule for Ireland--that small part of Great -Britain, that fraction of the Empire. Mr. Bourassa does not only -want Home Rule for Quebec. He wants it for Canada; only the Canada -he sees thus self-ruling is a Canada permeated by French Canadianism. -If Parnell had wanted Home Rule, so that England, Scotland, and Wales -might be ruled from Dublin, he would have attained to something of -the completeness of Mr. Bourassa's policy. Mr. Bradley, whose book -on _Canada in the Twentieth Century_ is as complete as any one book -on Canada could {32} be, and as up-to-date as any--allowing for the -fact that Canada changes yearly--declared in in it, some years ago, -that the French Canadians realised that for them to populate the -North-West was a dream to be given up. It may be a dream, but I -doubt if it is given up: and the dreams of a population more prolific -than any other on the face of the earth may some day become -realities. What is against these dreams? The influx of English -immigrants? The rush for the land of American farmers? But these -are only temporary obstacles. The Americans may go back again. They -often do. The English immigrants are largely unmarried young men, -and there are no women in the West. They are making ready the land, -but the inheritors of it have yet to appear. It is not strange if -Mr. Bourassa sees those inheritors among his own people--only it is -not yet their time, not for many years yet--not for so many years yet -that it seems almost unpractical and absurd to look forward to it. -Even such a faith as that which Mr. Bourassa has confessed to in -regard to the Eastern provinces--Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, New -Brunswick--that 'In fifteen years they will have become French in -language and Roman Catholic in faith,' seems highly unpractical. -{33} Ontario is not likely to become Roman Catholic any faster than -Ulster. But on the other hand it will only increase in its -anti-Frenchness and its anti-Roman Catholicism in so far as it is -upheld and influenced by Imperialism. Imperialism to Mr. Bourassa is -that bogey which goes about linking up all those small -non-conforming, hustling, militant and materialistic communities -which unaided would come into the Catholic French-Canadian fold. It -is that odious system which prevents other nations within the -Empire--such as French Canada--from developing along their own -natural lines. It is something which easily causes Mr. Bourassa to -forget that England and Englishmen--representing a distant -sovereignty which keeps the world's peace--have been a boon and a -blessing to French Canadians rather than otherwise; and causes him to -remember that they may in a moment become an imminent -sovereignty--imposing conscription, war, chapels (things that the -Ontarian takes to like a duck to water) upon the whole Canadian -community. Such impositions would not only strengthen the non-French -Canadians, and ruin the natural progress-to-power of the French -Canadians; but they would topple down like a house of {34} cards -those splendid dreams which might in a French-Canadianised Canada -become realities. What dreams? Rome shifted to Montreal for one, -and the Vatican gardens of the future sweeping down to the St. -Lawrence. The whole vast wealth of the Dominion diverted to the -carrying out of those traditions which are neither French nor English -but Canadian ... started four hundred years before by the captains -and the priests, voyageurs and martyrs, who in an age of unbelief -went forth in response to miraculous signs for the furtherance of the -glory of God. - -[Illustration: CHATEAU FRONTENAC AND DUFFERIN TERRACE. NIGHT. -QUEBEC.] - -I said that Quebec was full of memories. It is well to remember that -most of these are French-Canadian memories. The Englishman, at home -or touring, thinks most naturally of Wolfe in connection with Quebec, -and thinks with pride how that fight on the Plains of Abraham marked, -in Major Wood's words, 'three of the mightiest epochs of modern -times--the death of Greater France, the coming of age of Greater -Britain, and the birth of the United States.' The splendid daring -climb of the English army, the romantic fevered valour of its -general, the suddenness and completeness of the reversal of -positions, unite to make us think that never was a more glorious {35} -event, or one better calculated to appeal to men of the New World. -But do not let us forget that for French Canadians--great event as it -was, severing their allegiance to France for ever on the one hand, -leaving them free men as never before on the other--it was only one -event in a new world that was already for them (but not for us) three -hundred years old. 'Here Wolfe fell.' But here also, long before -Wolfe fell, Champlain stood, and French captains led valiant men on -expeditions against strange insidious foes, and the Cross was carried -onwards by the priests, and amid mystic voices and divinations, and -slaughterings and endurances, the faith prevailed and the character -of the people was formed. They have no hankering for France--these -people to whom Wolfe's battle seems but one out of many. France, -they think, has forsaken the Church. But they are French -still--these people--and amazingly conservative in their customs and -their creed. We may tell them that England--which sent out -Wolfe--has given them material prosperity, equality under the law, -the means of justice. They will reply, or rather they will silently -think, and only an occasional Nationalist will dare to say:-- - -'We owe nothing to Great Britain. England {36} did not take Canada -for love, or to plant the Cross of religion as the French did, but in -order to plant their trading posts and make money.' - -Gratitude is not a virtue nations take pride in possessing; they are -indeed seldom nations until they have forgotten to be grateful. I -suppose French Canadians are on their way to forgetting to be -grateful to England for what she did in times past, but it is not -because they have any real quarrel with England, or desire to injure -her. Merely because they feel that from England exudes that -Imperialism which appeals in no way from the past, and menaces, they -think, their future. - - - - -{37} - -CHAPTER V - -THE ATTRACTION OF THE SAGUENAY - -Almost directly one lands in Canada, one feels the desire to move -west. It is not that the east fails to attract and interest, or that -a man might not spend many years in Quebec province alone, and still -have seen little of its vast, wild, northern parts. Again there is -the Evangeline country, little known for all that it is 'storied.' -But the tide is west just at present. Everybody asks everybody -else--Have you been West, or Are you going West? And every one who -has been West or is going feels himself to be in the movement. Some -day no doubt the tide will set back again, or flow both ways equally. -To-day it flows westward. - -I should have been sorry, however, if I had not gone eastward at -least as far as the Saguenay, and I am duly grateful to the American -who, so to speak, irritated me into going there. He was a thin, pale -youth, somewhat bald from {38} clutching at his hair, who sat next to -me at dinner my third day at Quebec. He announced to the table at -large that he was travelling for his pleasure, but to judge from his -strained face, travelling for his pleasure was one of the hardest -jobs he had tried. He had been doing Quebec, and he gave all -Canadians present to understand that Quebec had made him very very -tired. Look at the trips around too. Look at the Montmorency Falls. -Had anybody present seen Niagara? Well, if anybody had seen Niagara, -the Montmorency Falls could only make him tired. One or two -Canadians present bent lower to their food. But on the whole -Canadians do not readily enter into argument, and half Niagara Falls -is Canadian too, so that finding no opponents the youth proceeded -triumphantly to give the relative proportions in figures of the two -falls. As he directed them chiefly at me, I felt bound to say that I -had seen falls about a tenth the size of either which had struck me -as worth going to see. He then said that he guessed I was from -England. I said this was so. Thereupon he told me that everybody in -England was asleep. I suggested that sleep was better than insomnia, -and shocked by my soporific levity, he advised me to go and have a -look at {39} New York if I wanted to know how things could hum. I -said I supposed that New York was a fairly busy place. A silly -remark--only he happened to be a New Yorker, and all that tiredness -left him. I learnt so much about the busyness of New York that I -have hardly forgotten it all yet. - -Afterwards, but some time afterwards, when the American had left the -table, a Scottish Canadian asked me if I had done the Saguenay trip, -and when I said that I had not done it, he strongly advised me not to -miss it. - -'It's the finest trip in Canada. Yes, sir.' - -I decided to go. It takes just two days from the start at Quebec to -Chicoutimi and back, and you go in a spacious sort of houseboat which -paddles along at just the right pace, first on one side of the river -then on the other, stopping to load and unload at the little villages -along the St. Lawrence. There to the left--a great sheet of silver -hung from the cliff--were the Montmorency Falls, which had made that -young American tired. A hundred and twenty years ago Queen -Victoria's father occupied the Kent house, hard by the Falls, now a -hotel. Wolfe lay ill for two weeks in a farm close by; probably on -no other sick-bed in the world were plans so big with fate {40} -conceived. Then the Ile d'Orleans floats by--that fertile island -which Cartier named after the Grape God four hundred years ago, -because of the vines that grew there. All this waterway is history, -French-Canadian history mostly. With a fine mist hung over the -river, concealing the few modern spires and roofs, you can see the -country to-day just as Cartier saw it when he came sailing up. -Neither four hundred nor four thousand years will serve to modernise -the banks of the St. Lawrence. Take that thirty-mile stretch where -the Laurentides climb sheer from the water. That is what Cartier -saw--nothing different. No houses, no people; only the grey rock -growing out of the green trees, and the grey sky overhead. Lower -down, with the sun shining as it did for us, Cartier would see, if he -came sailing up to-day, all those picturesque French-Canadian -villages which have sprung up along the shore--Baie St. Paul, St. -Irenee, Murray Bay, Tadousac, with the white farms of the Habitants, -and the summer homes of the Quebeckers and Montrealers, and the -shining spires of the churches, and the wooden piers jutting far out -into the river. Those piers are particularly cheerful places. There -are always gangs of porters waiting to run out freight from the hold, -and {41} a gathering of ladies in gay frocks who want to greet -friends on board, and heaps of little habitants playing about or -smoking their pipes. The habitant appears to start his pipe at the -age of eight or nine years, judging from those who frequent the piers. - -I think I was the only Englishman on board that boat. Most of the -passengers were Americans, but cheerful ones--not like that young man -at the hotel--and we were all very keen on seeing everything, so that -it became dusk much too soon for most of us. We got to Tadousac just -about dusk, which I was particularly sorry for, since of all the -places we passed, it held the most memories. In 1600 the whole fur -trade of Canada centred round this benighted little spot, and the men -of St. Malo were the rivals of the Basques for the black foxes -trapped by the Indians of that date. I should like to have seen this -queer little port by daylight, but I suppose for most purposes -Parkman's description holds good, and cannot easily be beaten:-- - -'A desolation of barren mountain closes round it, betwixt whose ribs -of rugged granite, bristling with savins, birches, and firs, the -Saguenay rolls its gloomy waters from the northern wilderness. -Centuries of civilisation {42} have not tamed the wildness of the -place; and still, in grim repose, the mountains hold their guard -around the waveless lake that glistens in their shadow, and doubles, -in its sullen mirror, crag, precipice and forest.' - -I know that Parkman goes on to say that when Champlain landed here in -April 1608 he found the lodges of an Indian camp, which he marked in -his plan of Tadousac. When we landed, there were also a few shacks -in much the same spot, and in one of the best lighted of them hung a -placard to this effect:-- - - THE ONLY REAL INDIAN - BUY WORK FROM HIM. - - -The lodges Champlain saw belonged to an Algonquin horde, 'Denizens of -surrounding wilds, and gatherers of their only harvest--skins of the -moose, cariboo, and bear; fur of the beaver, marten, otter, fox, wild -cat, and lynx.' - -Other days, other harvests. From the shack of the Only Real Indian I -saw one stout tourist issue forth (a Chicago pork-packer he must have -been, if persons ever correspond to their professions), laden with -three toy bows and arrows, as many miniature canoes, and what -appeared to be a couple of patchwork bedspreads. That the descendant -of braves should live by making {43} patchwork bedspreads seemed too -much, even though I had given up as illusions the Red Indians of my -boyhood. Far rather would I at that moment have seen the stout -tourist come forth, either scalpless himself, or dangling at his -ample belt the raven locks of the Only Real Indian. - -In the night we went on to Chicoutimi, but saw nothing of that, being -asleep. We had sung songs, American songs--'John Brown's Body,' -'Marching through Georgia,' etc., till a late hour of the night; and -in any case the bracing river air would have insured sleep. Only in -the morning as we came down the Saguenay again did I wake to its -beauty and strangeness. Men have learnt to tunnel through rocks at -last, but the Saguenay learnt this art for itself thousands of years -ago. A wide water tunnel through the sheer rock, a roofless tunnel, -open to the sky, that is the Saguenay--most magnificent at the point -where Cap Trinite looms up, a wall of darkness fifteen hundred feet -high. - -It is a curious fact that famous landscapes always produce a -remarkable frivolity in the human tourist visiting them. Perhaps it -is man's instinct to assert himself against nature. When the boat -draws opposite Cap Trinite, {44} stewards produce buckets of stones -and passengers are invited to try and hit the Cap with the stones -from impossible distances. I do not know that it greatly added to -the pleasure of the trip, but we all tried to hit the cliff with the -stones and most of us failed, and had to content ourselves with -drawing echoes from it. After that we went on, and some of the white -whales which are characteristic of the Saguenay began to appear, and -experienced travellers explained that they were not really white -whales but a sort of white porpoise. Once again, as we passed it, -Tadousac was invisible, but this time because a white fog had wrapped -it round. So silently we turned out of the Saguenay into the St. -Lawrence. I think the silence of the Saguenay was what had most -impressed me. Not very long before I had steamed down the Hoogly -where by day the kites wheel and shriek overhead, and the air buzzes -with insects' sounds, and all night the jackals scream--a noisy -river, full of treacherous sandbanks, its shores green with the -bright poisonous green of the East. The Saguenay, unique as it is in -many ways, seemed by the contrast of its deepness and silence, and by -the fresh darkness of the rocks and trees that shut it in, to be -peculiarly a river of the West. I do not know if it {45} would have -made the somewhat bald young American tired. - -It is only fair to say that his attitude about Quebec is not at all -characteristic of his fellow-countrymen. For most Americans, Quebec -province (and still more perhaps the woods of Ontario) is becoming -almost as popular a playground as Switzerland is for Englishmen. -Camping out has become a great craze among Americans, and if the -camping out can be done amid unspoilt natural surroundings, close to -rivers where one can fish and woods where one can hunt, an ideal -holiday is assured them. I forget who it was who said that much of -the old American versatility and nobility had disappeared since the -American boys left off whittling sticks, but in any case the desire -to whittle sticks is renewed again among them, from Mr. Roosevelt -downwards. And in Canada this whittling of sticks--this return to -nature--can easily be accomplished. For the north is still there, -unexploited. In Quebec province, fishing and hunting clubs of Quebec -and Montreal have secured the rights over vast tracts of country. So -vast are those tracts that one or two clubs, I was told, have not -even set eyes on all the trout streams they preserve. This may be an -exaggeration, though probably {46} not a great one. There -remains--especially in Ontario--much water and wood that any one may -sport in unlicensed, or get access to by permission of the local -hotel proprietor. Some of the Americans on the boat had been fishing -in Quebec streams and told me of excellent sport they had had, so -that I began to wonder why no Englishmen ever came this way. The -voyage to Canada is a little further than that to Norway, but there -are more fish in Canada. And there is certainly only one Saguenay in -the world. - - - - -{47} - -CHAPTER VI - -STE. ANNE DE BEAUPRE AND A TRAVELLER'S VOW - -Ste. Anne de Beaupre is usually referred to as the Lourdes of Canada. -When a metaphor of this sort is used it usually means that the spot -referred to is in some way inferior to the original. In the case of -Ste. Anne de Beaupre, the inferiority is not, I believe, in the -matter of the number of miracles wrought there, but in the matter of -general picturesqueness. Ste. Anne de Beaupre is not nearly so -picturesque as Lourdes. If you wish to palliate this fact, you say, -as one writer has said, that 'The beauty of modern architecture -mingles at Beaupre with the remains of a hoary past.' If you do not -wish to palliate it, you say, as I do, that Ste. Anne de Beaupre is -not in the least picturesque. I did not particularly care for the -modern architecture, and the hoary past is not particularly in -evidence. Do not suppose me to say that Beaupre has not a hoary -past. Red Indians, long before the days of railroads, {48} travelled -thither to pray at the feet of Ste. Anne. Breton seamen, who belong -only to tradition, promised a shrine to Ste. Anne, if she would save -them from shipwreck. They erected the first chapel. The second and -larger chapel was built as far back as 1657, and miracles were quite -frequent from then onwards. Nevertheless, the basilica is quite new, -and so is the whole appearance of the place. - -I visited it in company with a French-Canadian commercial traveller. -He was a great big good-looking youth with curly hair and blue eyes, -and he travelled in corsets or something of that sort for a Montreal -firm. I could not help thinking that many ladies would buy corsets -from him or anything else whether they wanted them or not, because of -his charming boyish manner and his good looks. He asked me to go to -Ste. Anne de Beaupre with him. He said that he supposed that I was -not a Catholic, but that did not matter. He wished to go to the good -Ste. Anne, and it would be a good thing to go. He had been several -times before, but he had not been for several years. He could easily -take the afternoon off, and first of all we would go by the electric -train to the good Ste. Anne, and then on the way back we would step -off {49} at the Falls station, and see the Montmorency Falls, and -also the Zoo that is there. It would be great fun to see the Zoo. -He had not seen the Zoo for several years, and the animals would be -very interesting. - -So we took an afternoon electric train. There are electric trains -for pilgrims, of whom a hundred thousand at least are said to visit -the shrine yearly, and there are also electric trains for tourists. -We took a tourist train, and having secured one of the little -handbooks supplied by the electric company, had the gratification of -knowing that even if the car was pretty full it was, so the company -claimed, run at a greater rate of speed than any other electric -service. - -At times in Canada I found myself getting very slack in attempting -descriptions of things simply because some company that had rights of -transport over the particular district had, so to speak, thrust into -my hand some pamphlet in which all the description was done for me. -Thus it was in the case of the district line between Quebec and Ste. -Anne de Beaupre. 'It is difficult,' I read in the electric company's -handbook which we had secured, 'to describe in words the dainty -beauty of the scenery along this route.' - -{50} - -'That is a nuisance,' I said to my companion, 'because words are the -only things I could describe it in.' - -'It is much better to smoke,' said he. - -So we smoked; and now I tell you straight out of that illogical -pamphlet, that 'The route from Quebec to Ste. Anne may be compared to -a splendid panorama. There are shady woodlands and green pastures, -undulating hills and sparkling rivers, whose banks are lined with -pretty villages, the tinned spires of the parish churches rising -above the rest of the houses, sparkling in the sun.' There, a little -ungrammatically, you have the scene 'to which,' adds my pamphlet, -'the Falls of Montmorency river add a touch of grandeur.' Ste. Anne -de Beaupre itself is twenty-one miles from Quebec. We went straight -from the station into the church, where the first thing to catch the -eye are the votive offerings and particularly the crutches, -walking-sticks, and other appliances left there by pilgrims who, -having been cured of their infirmities by miracle, had no further use -for these material aids. It is difficult to arrange such things in -any way that can be called artistic, and since the general effect is -nothing but ugly it might be wise for the church officials also to -dispense with such material {51} aids to faith. Apart from these the -most striking object is the miraculous statue. It stands on a -pedestal ten feet high and twelve feet from the communion rails. The -pedestal was the gift of a New York lady, the statue itself was -presented by a Belgian family. At the foot of it many people were -kneeling. A mass was being said and the church was very full, and -every time a petitioner got up from his knees from the feet of the -statue another moved down the aisle and took his or her place. I -suppose we were in the church fully half an hour before my companion -found an opportunity to go and kneel at the feet of the good Ste. -Anne, and having watched him there, I got up from my place and went -out into the village. It was rather a depressing village, full of -small hotels and restaurants and shops stocked with miraculous -souvenirs. I suppose more rubbish is sold in this line than in any -other. After inspecting a variety of it, I bought a bottle of cider -and a local cigar and sat on a fence smoking until my friend -reappeared. He came out most subdued and grave--not in the least the -boisterous person who had gone in--and said we would now go back. As -we had to wait half an hour for a returning train, I suggested that -we should go and have some more cider, {52} but he said no, he would -rather drink from the holy spring. 'Although this water,' said my -pamphlet, 'has always been known to be there, it is only within the -last thirty or thirty-five years that the pilgrims began to make a -pious use of it. What particular occasion gave rise to this -confidence, or when this practice first spread among the people, -cannot be positively asserted. However it may be, it is undeniable -that faith in the water from the fountain has become general, and the -use of it, from motives of devotion, often produces effects of a -marvellous nature.' Unfortunately, the fountain was not working, -owing, I expect, to the water having got low in the dry weather, and -my friend had to go without his drink. He said, however, that it did -not matter, and remained in a grave, aloof state all the way back in -the train as far as the Falls station, and indeed till we got to the -Zoo in the Kent house grounds. There, the exertion of trying to get -the beavers to cease working and come out and show themselves to -me--an exertion finally crowned with success, for the fat, furry, -silent creatures came out and sat on a log for us--livened him up a -bit. But he fell into a muse again in front of the cage containing -the timber wolf, and remained there so long that I was almost {53} -overcome by the smell of this ferocious animal. I got him away at -last, and I do not think he spoke after that until we got to Quebec -and were walking from the station to our inn. - -'I have made a vow,' he then said suddenly. - -'What sort of vow?' I inquired. - -'I made it this afternoon,' he said, 'to the good Ste. Anne--never -any more to drink whisky.' - -'It's not a bad vow to have made,' I said. - -'No,' he said seriously, 'whisky is very terrible stuff. I shall -never drink it again. When I drink it it goes very quickly to my -head. Soon I am tight. That will not do.' - -'Much better not to drink it certainly,' I agreed. - -'Yes,' he continued vehemently. 'I am married. You did not guess -that perhaps? Also it is only recently that I have gone "on the -road." If the company I work for hears that I go about and get -tight, I shall at once be fired. So I shall not drink any more -whisky. Never. That is why I made the vow to the good Ste. Anne.' - -We walked in silence the rest of the way to the inn, and I reflected -on the nature of vows. {54} It seemed very possible that a vow like -this might easily be a help to my companion. He was obviously not -what is called a strong character. It is strange how often a charm -of manner goes with a weakness of the will. And commercial -travelling--particularly perhaps in Canada--lays a man open to the -temptations of drink. If he went on drinking, it would probably mean -the ruin of the young girl he had married. Only one has always the -feeling that a vow is only a partial aid to keeping upright, just as -a stick is to walking. A man may lean too heavily on either. -Moreover, the making of a vow, while it may strengthen a man -temporarily in one direction tends to leave him unbalanced in other -directions. It makes him feel so strong perhaps in one part of him -that he forgets other parts where he is weak. I rather think that -the last part of these somewhat superficial reflections upon vows -occurred to me later in the evening, and not as we were walking home. -We had had supper by that time, and my companion had drunk a good -deal of water during the meal--a beverage, by the way, which is not -particularly safe either here or in any other Canadian town. At -times he had been depressed by it, at times elevated. After we had -smoked {55} together and he had grown more and more restless, he -jumped up and said: - -'Let us go out for a walk.' - -'Where to?' I asked. - -'Oh, up on to the terrace,' he said. 'I tell you,' he went on -excitedly, 'where I will take you. There is a special place up there -that I know very well. It is where one meets the girls. We will go -there to-night and meet the girls.' - -Really, I could have given a very good exposition of the temptation -offered by vows at that moment when he suggested this Sentimental -Journey. - - - - -{56} - -CHAPTER VII - -A HABITANT VILLAGE AND ITS NOTAIRE - -'Il trotte bien.' - -The second time I made use of this simple compliment I was again -being driven by a French Canadian, and again it was on an -extraordinarily bad road. But the vehicle was a sulky, and the road -was a country road--about halfway between Quebec and Montreal. I had -been already two days in the Habitant country which the ordinary -Englishman misses. Tourists in particular will go through French -Canada too fast. Their first stop after Quebec is Montreal, and the -guide-books help them to believe that they have lost nothing. It may -be that they do lose nothing in the way of spectacular views or big -hotels, but on the other hand they have undoubtedly lost the peaceful -charm of many a Laurentian village, and they have seen nothing at all -of the life of the French-Canadian farmer. That is a pity for the -English tourist, because they too, {57} the Habitants, belong to the -Empire, and we ought to know them for what they are apart from their -politics--courteous, solid, essentially prudent folk, often well to -do, but with no disposition to make a show of themselves. - -I had spent my two days at the villa of a most hospitable French -lady, in one of the older villages on the St. Lawrence. It was not -exactly a beautiful village--rather ramshackle in fact--but -remarkably peaceful, and the great smooth river running by must give -it a perennial charm, such as comes from having the sea near. I had -missed my train going from that village, and had passed the time by -taking lunch at a little inn near the station. It was Friday, and -the landlord gave me pike and eggs for lunch. I had seen my pike and -several others lying in a sandy ditch near, passing a sort of -amphibious life in it, until Friday and a guest should make it -necessary for one of them to go into the frying pan. The landlord -came and chatted with me while I had lunch, and was grieved to find -that I was not a Catholic. I was English, but not Catholic? I said -that was so, and he shook his head sorrowfully. But there were -Catholics in England, he asked a little later. I said, Oh yes, -certainly. Many? I said that there {58} must be a good many, but I -could not tell him the exact numbers. Would a tenth of the English -at least be Catholics, he next demanded? I said I thought at least -that number, but I left him, I fear, a disappointed man. He had -hoped more from England than that, and even my strenuous praise of -the fried pike did not draw a smile from him. - -My compliment about the horse drawing the sulky--to go back to that -drive, obtained a better response. The driver replied in the French -tongue: 'Monsieur, he trots very well, particularly in considering -that he has the age of twenty-eight years.' - -I said that this was wonderful, and the driver replied that it was, -but that in French Canada such wonders did happen. He was intensely -patriotic, and this made the drive more interesting. He was all for -French-Canadian things, excepting, I think, the roads, which were -indeed nothing but ruts, some of the ruts being less deep than the -others, and being selected accordingly for the greater convenience of -our ancient steed. I liked his patriotism. It was at once so -genuine and so complete. For example, when I said that I had not -seen any Jersey cows on the farms we had passed, the driver said: -'No. The {59} cow of Jersey is a good cow and gives much milk. But -the Canadian cow is a better cow and gives still more milk.' I was -unable to make out what the prevailing milch-cow was in that part. -Canada has, I believe, begun to swear by the Holstein, but this can -hardly as yet be claimed as the Canadian cow. Still it passed the -time very pleasantly to have my driver so enthusiastic, and of what -should a man speak well, if not of his own country? He articulated -his French very slowly and distinctly, so that I was able to -understand him more easily than I should have understood a European -Frenchman. I was surprised at this, because one is usually told that -French Canadians talk so queerly that they are very hard to follow. -Perhaps my obvious inferiority in the language caused those Habitants -I met to adapt themselves to my necessity. I can only say that from -a few days' experience of conversation with all sorts and conditions, -I carried away the impression that French-Canadian was a very clear -and easy language. As for the country, I should call it serene and -spacious in aspect rather than fine. The farmhouses are pleasant -enough and comfortable within, but their immediate surroundings are -apt to be untidy. Very seldom of course {60} does one see a flower -garden, and vegetables do not make amends for the lack of flowers. -On the other hand, the tobacco patch that is so frequently to be seen -in the neighbourhood of the small farms is pleasant to look at, -especially for one who thinks much of smoke. There is not much -satisfaction to the eye in the small wired fields, nor would either -the farming or the soil startle an English farmer. I think that the -maple woods are the one thing that he would regard with real envy. - -Nevertheless, no one would have denied that it was a really pretty -village, to which my driver brought me at last in the sulky. It was -built all round an old church in a sort of dell, behind which the -land rose steeply to a wood of maples. I had been given an -introduction to the cure, and we drove to his house by the church, -only to be told by the sexton (I think it was the sexton) that -Monsieur le Cure had, much to his regret, been called to Quebec, but -had begged that I would go over to the notaire, who would be pleased -to show me everything that was to be seen. We went to the notaire. -I think he was the postmaster too--at any rate he lived in the post -office, and a very kindly old gentleman he was. I do not know one I -have liked more {61} on so short an acquaintance, though he did start -by giving me Canadian wine to drink. It was a sort of port or -sherry--or both mixed--and was made, I think he said, in Montreal. -It had the genuine oily taste, but also a smack of vinegar. That in -itself would not have mattered so much, if the notaire had not said -it was best drunk with a little water, and provided me with water -from a saline spring which had its source in his backyard. These -saline springs seem not uncommon in Canada, and must be considered as -a distinct asset. But not mixed with port. Some local tobacco which -was very good, as indeed much of the tobacco grown in Quebec province -seems to be, took the taste away, and after that the notaire proposed -that he should take me out to see one of the huts where they boil -down the maple water in the early spring. He told me that my own -horse and driver should rest, and that we should go on the carriage -of Monsieur Blanc which was, it appeared, already in waiting, -together with Monsieur Blanc himself. Monsieur Blanc was the local -miller, and solely for the purpose of showing the village to a -stranger from England he had put himself to all this trouble. After -we had all bowed to one another and exchanged {62} compliments, we -started for the maple wood, and all the way the notaire explained to -me the economy of the village. It appeared that the farms round -averaged eighty acres of arable land, and a man and his son would -work one of that size. Each farmer would also have rights of grazing -on pasture land which was held in common--not to mention his piece of -maple wood. All the farmers belonged to a co-operative farmers' -society, which saved much when purchasing seeds, implements, and so -forth. The notaire himself was secretary of this society. I believe -he was also secretary of pretty well everything that mattered, and -might be regarded as the business uncle of the parish in which the -cure was spiritual father. As we drove along, avoiding roads as much -as possible, because the fields were so much more level, he greeted -everybody and everybody greeted him, stopping their field work for -the purpose. Jules left hay-making to show us the shortest cut to -the nearest hut; Antoine fetched the key. It was a tiny wooden -shack, the one we inspected--standing in the middle of the -trees--with just room in it for the heating apparatus and the boilers -to boil the maple water in. The cups which are attached to the trees -in the early spring, when {63} the sap begins to run--the tapping is -done high up--hung along the wooden walls. The notaire explained the -whole process to me. In the spring, when all is sleet and slush and -nothing can be done on the farm, the farmer and perhaps his wife come -up into the wood, and tap the trees and boil the water up until the -syrup is formed. It takes them days, very cold days, and they camp -out in the hut, though it hardly seemed possible that there should be -room for them. But it is all very healthy and pleasant, and they -drink so much of the syrup, while they are working, that they usually -go back to their farms very 'fat and salubrious.' So the notaire -said, and he also assured me that seven years before another English -visitor who spoke French very badly (he put it much more politely -than that though) had come to the village in the spring, and slept in -one of the huts for days, and helped make the sugar and enjoyed -himself thoroughly. I told the notaire I could quite believe it and -wished I had come in the spring too. I am not sure that I shall not -go back in the spring some day, for the simplicity of the place was -fascinating, even though the railway had come closer, and land had -doubled in value, and the farmers were more scientific than they used -to {64} be and made more money, though even so--as the notaire -earnestly declared--they would would never spend it on show. I -remarked that the notaire, even while he was recounting these modern -innovations, such as wealth, was not carried away by the glory of -them as a Westerner would be. He took a simple pride in the fact -that the village marched forward, but he was prouder still that it -remained modest. And when we got back to the post office, he told me -that what he liked best was the simplicity of it all. People used to -ask him sometimes why he who spoke English and Latin and Greek, for -he had been five years at college, qualifying to become a notaire, -should be content to live in such a small out-of-the-way place, -instead of setting up in Quebec or Montreal. They could not -understand that to be one's own master, and not to be rushed hither -and thither at the beck of clients, contented him, especially in a -place where the farmers looked upon him as their friend, and he could -play the organ in the village church. He made me understand it very -well, even though his English was rusty (for I think the syrup-making -Englishman had been the last he had talked with), and he had a -scholarly dislike to using any but the {65} right word, and he would -sometimes bring up a dozen wrong ones and reject them, before our -united efforts found the only one that conveyed his precise meaning. - -I think I understood, and many times on the way back, seated behind -the twenty-eight year-old horse, I said to myself, that altogether -the notaire was a very fine old gentleman, and if there were many -such to be found in the French Canadian villages, I hoped they would -not change too soon. To make the money circulate--after the fashion -of the Toronto drummer--is a virtue no doubt; but courtesy and -simplicity and prudence are also virtues that not the greatest -country that is yet to come will find itself able to dispense with. - - - - -{66} - -CHAPTER VIII - -GLIMPSES OF MONTREAL - -Just as a man who knows mountains can in a little time describe the -character of a mountain that is new to him, so a man who knows the -country in general will soon find himself becoming acquainted with -new country. It is not so with cities. Only a long residence in it -will reveal the character of a city. I suppose that is because man -is more subtle than nature. A clay land is always a clay land; it -produces the same crops, the same weeds, the same men. But who will -undertake to say what a city on a clay land produces? Only the man -who has long been familiar with the particular city, and he probably -will not even be aware that it stands on clay. - -This is preparatory to saying that being a stranger to Montreal, I -did not find out much about it in the few days I was there, and I -will not pretend that I did. It is, I suppose, architecturally, far -the most beautiful city in {67} the Dominion, and indeed in the -Western Hemisphere, and for that very reason appears less strange to -European eyes than most other Canadian towns. I would not suggest -that all European towns are architecturally beautiful, or that -Montreal is anything but Canadian inwardly. Superficially it looks -like some fine French town. It also smells French. - - 'But them thereon didst only breathe - And sentst it back to me, - Since when it blows and smells, I swear, - Not of itself but thee.' - -Thus England might address France on the subject of Montreal, though -indeed France did more than breathe on Montreal. I would not be -taken to suggest that the smell is a malodorous one--merely French. -You get just that smell in summer in any French town from Rouen to -Marseilles, and it is probably due to nothing but the sun being at -the right temperature to bring out the mingled scent of omelettes and -road grit, cigarettes, _aperitifs_, and washing in sufficient -strength to attract the sensitive British nose. As for Montreal's -French appearance--the city is by all accounts strictly divided into -a French East-end and an English West-end, St. Laurent being the -dividing line. But when I passed west of {68} St. Laurent, and -hundreds of French men and French women and French children continued -to file past me, and I asked my way many times in English and was not -understood, I began to doubt the reality of that dividing line. It -seems a pity that there should be one, but there is of course, and it -runs through Canada as well as Montreal. Race and religion and -language combine to keep that line marked out, and it only becomes -faint in business quarters. - -The time has gone by for great commercial undertakings to be -conducted by means of gesticulations or by the aid of an interpreter. -Master and man must speak the same language, at any rate outwardly. -Therefore all clerks learn English, which is also American; and I -take it that statistics, if they were kept, would show many more -French Canadians speaking English every year--whatever they may be -thinking. - -So commerce, long the butt of moralists, takes its part among the -moral influences of the world. Already writers like Mr. Angell have -begun to assure us that it alone--by reason of its enormous and -far-reaching interests--can keep international war at a distance: -here is an example of how it {69} increases peace within a nation. -In the end, perhaps, Mammon himself may appear, purged of his -grossness upon the canonical list--St. Mammon! - -Montreal has, so I am told, sixty-four millionaires--real, not dollar -millionaires; self-made, not descended millionaires; strenuous, not -idle millionaires. Most of them live in Sherbrooke Street, or near -it, on the way up to the Mountain. It is a fine wide road with an -extraordinary variety of houses in it. You cannot point to any one -house and say this is the sort of house a millionaire builds, for the -next one is quite different, and so is the next and the next. It is -natural that Canadians should be more original in their -house-building than our millionaires. They are more original men -altogether. They have made their money in a more original way, and -when they have made it, they have to think out original methods of -spending it--unlike ours, who find the etiquette of it all ready made -for them, and a practised set of people who want nothing more than to -be able to help millionaires scatter their money in the only correct -and fashionable way. You have to think everything out for yourself -in Canada, even to the spending of your money. That is, if you have -the money in large quantities. {70} For the ordinary person the -inherent slipperiness of the dollar suffices, and he will find that -it will circulate itself without his worrying. The diversity of -house-building, such as may be found in Sherbrooke Street, should -give encouragement to Canadian architects, but does, as a matter of -fact, let in the American architects as well. I could not feel that -they had altogether succeeded in this street--certainly not half so -well as they have succeeded in some of the business buildings, -especially the interior of the Bank of Montreal--but that is not -surprising. Architects must have their motives, and the reasons that -went to the building of some of the stately private houses of Europe -have ceased to exist now. The most that a man can demand from his -house--certainly in Canada--is that it shall be luxurious. Nobody is -going to keep retainers there. The three hundred servants even that -went to make up the household of an Elizabethan nobleman could not be -had in Canada either for love or money. Those three hundred serve in -the bank or the shops--not in the houses--and it is there that the -big man works also. Slowly we come to the right proportions of -things; nor am I suggesting that the private houses of the Canadian -millionaires are in the {71} least lacking in size. They are as -large as they need be, if not larger; and where they did not -altogether succeed was, I thought, in the attempt made with some of -them to achieve importance by rococo effects. The road itself, -curiously enough, was rather bad and rutty; I began to think, seeing -it, that there is some strange influence at work in French Canada -which prevents a road from ever being first-rate. It may be that -since roads there are only needed in summer, for a half year instead -of a whole one, the care and affection we lavish upon them is not -necessary. The good snow comes and turns Sherbrooke Street into a -sleigh-bearing thoroughfare only comparable with those of St. -Petersburg. The ruts are drifted up and vanish--why bother about -them? It is a good enough explanation. If another is needed, it may -be that there is money to be made--by those in charge of the keeping -up of the roads--by the simple method of not keeping them up. - -Montreal has slums as well as Sherbrooke Street, which seems to show -that sixty-four millionaires are no real guarantee of a city's -perfectness. I heard about those slums from the editor of one of -Montreal's leading newspapers. The subject arose out of a question -{72} I put him as to whether he could tell me the difference between -Conservatives and Liberals in Canada. Some people maintain that the -difference even in England is so slight as to be unreal. To a -Canadian who is not much of a politician (but is, of course, either a -Liberal or a Conservative), the question amounts to being a catch -question. He has to think for a long time before he answers. This -editor, who was a Liberal, took it quite coolly. - -'Oh,' he said, 'Liberals here are very much like Liberals in the old -country; we stand for Social Reform and the interests of the People.' - -Then he told me about the slums in Montreal. But for these I should -have felt doubtful about the parallel, even though it was drawn by so -eminent an authority as the editor of a newspaper. For, naturally, -at present in most parts of Canada there is no People (with our own -English capital P) to stand for, just as there are no peers and no -Constitution. Where there are slums, there may be a People to be -represented. The more is the pity that there should be slums. Why -does Montreal possess them? Largely, I suppose, for the reason that -any very great city possesses them. There are landlords who can make -money out of them, there are people so poor that they will live in -them; {73} and their poverty is accounted for by the fact that cities -draw the destitute as the moon the tides. It seems against reason -that Canada, capable of absorbing hundreds of thousands of -immigrants, calling for them to be absorbed, so long as they are able -men, should have any destitute to be drawn to the cities; but it has -to be remembered that no immigration laws can really prevent a -percentage of incapables arriving. They may not be incapables as -such, but they are incapables on the land, which is indeed in Canada -endlessly absorbent, but absorbent only of those who have in them in -some way the land-spirit. To expect the land to take on hordes of -the city-bred without ever failing is to dream. It would be easier -for the sea to swallow men clothed in cork jackets. Some are bound -to be rejected, and they turn to the cities. But the cities of a New -World cannot absorb indefinite numbers of men; London or Glasgow -cannot. The work is not there for them--not for all of them. - -The Canadian winter also has to be remembered as a factor driving men -to cities like Montreal. Even good men on the land cannot always -during the winter obtain work on the farms; or think that the little -they can make there is not worth while. So they, too, make {74} for -the cities, not always to their own improving. This problem of the -Canadian winter is one that has still to be reckoned with, and no -doubt the Canadians will solve it in due course--perhaps by some -extension of the Russian methods whereby the peasant of the summer -becomes the handicraftsman of the winter. It is not the winter -itself that is at fault in Canada, as used to be thought; it is the -method of dealing with it. The Canadian may not mind the hard, cold -months--may even boast of them, but he cannot ignore them. And the -solution of the winter problem seems to be that though Canada is -marked out as an agricultural country, it must also equally become a -manufacturing one, so that men--who cannot hibernate like -dormice--may be able to work the year through. The whitest nation is -that nation whose leisure is got by choice not by compulsion. - -There must be local reasons, too, for Montreal slums, but these a -visitor is not happy in describing. Municipal mismanagement is -unfortunately not exclusive to Europe; and my editor gave me examples -of it in Montreal which were impressive without being novel. - -He also pointed out that there were forty thousand Jews in Montreal, -as though that {75} might have something to do with her slums. -Others point out that the Catholic Church, which believes that the -poor must be always with us, is supreme in Montreal; poverty and the -faith, they say, go always together. I think it is truest to argue -that, while all these things are in their degree contributory, it is -not fair to fix on any one of them as the chief cause of the ill. -One thing is certain. Montreal's slums are not typical of Canada, -but of a great city. No great city has as yet found itself -completely, and the greater it is, the less soluble are its problems -of poverty. It may be that they can be resolved only by the great -cities ceasing to exist in the form we know them. - -Meanwhile it looks as though the welfare of employees is not being -neglected by the leading directors of industry. Take, for example, -the Angus Shops, which are larger than any other engineering shops in -the world. Here are built these huge houses of cranks and pistons, -the railway engines of the Canadian Pacific, that hustle one from end -to end of the Dominion; here also are turned out all else that -appertains to the biggest railway company in existence. In these -shops a system has been introduced which might be called a -Bourneville system, only Canadianised. The management {76} refers to -it as Welfare Work, and it consists mainly in certain methods whereby -the men can obtain good food--while they are working--at low prices, -apprentices are helped to an education, the cost of 'holiday homes' -is defrayed, and so on. Very sensibly the management admits the -system to be a part of a business plan, which it finds remunerative. -The idea that beneficence plays a leading part in it is almost -scouted; indeed it would not be easy to persuade Canadian working-men -that their bosses were doing things from charity. I went over the -shops, and found them built on a vast and airy scale. Not being an -engineering sort of person, I usually feel, when I invade a machinery -place, like some unfortunate beetle that has strayed into a beehive, -and may at any moment be attacked by the busy and alarming creatures -that are buzzing about there. As I watched the huge engines, swung -like bags of feathers from the roof, some black demon would heave -showers of sparks at me, and when I started back, another would come -raiding out with red-hot tongs. I admired respectfully. But I am -one of those who can enjoy my honey just as much without knowing just -how it was made. Still, here was a big bit of Montreal, and what -miles of French houses {77} with green shutters one drove past to get -to it! - -It would be absurd to suggest that poverty or slums are conspicuous -things in Montreal. The average tourist will see none of them, but -only many beautiful things--from the Bank of Montreal to the -Cathedral, from the Lachine Rapids to the Mountain. I will not -describe shooting the Rapids, it has been so often done. I wish I -could describe the view from the Mountain. It is the most beautiful -view of a city that can be seen. Marseilles from her hill is -beautiful, so is Paris from Champigny. From neither of these, nor -from any hill that I know of, is there so complete a view of so fair -a city. The Mountain is wooded, and through the arches of the trees -you gain a score of changing outlooks; but from the edge you see all -Montreal--houses and streets and spires, each roof and gate, each -chimney and window--so it seems. And beyond, the great river, and -beyond, and on every side--Canada. If there were a mountain above -Oxford, something like this might be seen. - -It was up this wooded steep to Fletcher's field, where an altar had -been set up, that the great Eucharistic procession of 1910 wound its -way. I was in Montreal just before this event, {78} for which the -Montrealers had spent months preparing, and I realised a little why -Montreal hopes some day to be the New Rome. The whole city was in a -fervour of enthusiasm. A society had been formed for the special -purpose of growing flowers to line the way along which the -Cardinal-legate would walk, and gifts of money for the same purpose -had been received from every part of Canada. The papers, of course, -were full of every detail about Church dignitaries arriving or about -to arrive. Nor were the shops behindhand. 'Eucharistic Congress! -House decoration at moderate prices' was everywhere placarded; and -papal flags and papal arms were to be had cheap. There were Congress -sales, too, and you could buy Congress 'creations' from the -dressmakers, Congress hats from the milliners, Congress boots from -the bootmakers. - -On the day that Cardinal Vannutelli arrived, in a dismal and violent -downpour of rain, all Montreal in macintoshes was to be seen dashing -for the Bonsecours wharf to offer its respectful greetings to the -papal legate. - -Will the Montrealers' dream of providing the New Rome ever be -achieved? Who can say? Rome, though Italians may become subversive -of the faith, will perhaps stand for ever. If it {79} ceased, as the -centre of the Catholic faith, Montreal might certainly claim to take -its place. It is already the centre of French-Canadian Catholicism; -it might become the religious centre of Canada. There is no -certainty that Catholicism will persist in Canada only among the -French Canadians. It seems equally possible that Rome will prevail -among non-French Canadians. Both in Canada and the States her -strides forward have been enormous--comparable perhaps only to the -steps taken in other directions by Free Thought in Europe. Is it -that Catholicism makes peculiar appeal in a new country, or that in -these new countries the propagation of the faith has been great and -unceasing? These are debatable questions (though undebatable, I -think, is the statement that in the New World Rome has a marvellous -history of things attempted splendidly and achieved without -reproach). I will not debate, then, but rather return to the -Mountain and ask you to picture the great Eucharistic procession -moving slowly up to it--up to the altar built there in the open, -under the high and clear Canadian skies--all the inhabitants of a -mighty city moving with it, till the city itself is left behind and -all that is low and earthly left for the moment {80} with it. Then -you will have in your mind one picture of Montreal at least not -unworthy of it. It will be a picture of Montreal at its best and -highest--a city of the faithful--near to their Mountain. - - - - -{81} - -CHAPTER IX - -TORONTO, NIAGARA FALLS, AND A NEGRO PORTER - -From Montreal to Toronto is a pleasant run through a southern part of -Canada. One passes orchards and woods and Smith's Falls, where -bricks are made, and Peterborough, which has the largest hydraulic -lift-lock in the world. The Union railway station at Toronto, when I -got there, was a seething mass of people and baggage, with an -occasional railway official hidden in the vortex. I spent an hour -trying to put a bag into the parcel-room, and after that gave up -trying. Canadians are singularly patient in matters of this kind. -Laden with heavy bags, they will collect in crowds outside the small -window of a parcel-room, and burdened thus will wait there for hours -without a murmur, while the youth inside lounges about at his -leisure. My temper has frequently been stretched to the limit in -Germany when I have had to wait perhaps ten minutes for a penny stamp -while the Prussian {82} postal official behind the glass slit curled -his moustaches in imitation of the Kaiser. I think the methods at -that parcel-room in Toronto were even more trying. I will admit that -it was Labour Day, and that Toronto was also in the throes of the -World's Fair. But in a city of that size one would expect some -preparation to be made for forthcoming throes. The truth seems to be -that throughout Canada important events, attracting immense crowds, -are brought off without any extra provision being made. Montreal -managed to contain its Congress hordes pretty well, but Toronto -during the World's Fair had a general air about it of sleeping six in -a bed, if it slept at all. I kept coming across the same sort of -thing at other places. Calgary, I remember, looked for the few days -I was there like the Old Kent Road on a Saturday night, so crowded -was it with people who had come in to witness the return to its -native heath of a victorious football team. Regina was overrun with -the Canadian bankers who, in massive formation, were touring the -North-West. In one or two small places in the Rockies enormous -trainloads of Canada's leading merchants, who were inspecting British -Columbia with an eye to its future, were deposited for a day in -passing, and caused as much {83} confusion as the canoe-loads of -savages must have done when they descended on Robinson Crusoe's -island. - -Labour Day is in the New World very different from what it is with -us. In Canada, if you like, you may for three hundred and sixty-four -days labour and do all that you have to do, but the three hundred and -sixty-fifth is Labour Day, and no manner of work--except -transportation--may be done that day. Transport work is necessary, -because by way of observing Labour Day it is the thing to go -somewhere in great multitudes, preferably by rail, and pursue the -sort of pleasure that is only to be obtained by those who seek it -multitudinously. - -Toronto was on this occasion a chosen spot for people to rollick in. -This, added to the fact that the World's Fair was also in progress, -prevented me from being able to get a room for the night, though I -applied at five different hotels. At the sixth, which was full of -excited commercial travellers, I was granted a bed on a top landing. -I did not mind so much because I was seeing Toronto in a lively -state. Ordinarily, I imagine, Toronto is the least bit too decorous, -not devoid of cheerfulness, but not joyous either. There is nothing -Parisian about Toronto, you would say. This stands to reason, {84} -because if there is any Parisian air in Canada at all it belongs to -Montreal, and Toronto would be the last place to imitate Montreal in -any manner. The extraordinary rivalry that exists between the great -East Canadian cities never leads to imitation. On the plains it is -different. Winnipeg is the great model for all the little towns on -the plains. But while Quebec resents the idea that Montreal is a -much more important city than itself, and Montreal regrets that the -seat of Government should be at so small a place as Ottawa, and -Toronto considers Montreal ill-balanced in spite of its wealth, each -of them would only consent to expand its own real superiority along -its own particular lines and in its own particular manner. - -Still on Labour Night Toronto was quite gay. It did not look like -the Boston of Canada at all, though it has substantial grounds, I -read somewhere, for making this claim. I could realise that it was -entitled to make this claim if it wanted to. If one shut one's eyes -to the crowds, one could feel an air of brisk sobriety permeating it; -and everything that one reads about it goes to show that a brisk -sobriety is what it aims at. It keeps the Sabbath, for example, most -strictly, though it hustles or almost hustles the rest of the week. -I should {85} guess Toronto places briskness next to godliness, not a -very bad second either. Its industries and its opulence are too well -known to be worth detailing here. What struck me as most interesting -about Toronto was that it seemed to represent more than any other -place in Canada what we mean in England when we talk of Canadians. -We do not mean the French Canadians of Quebec Province, nor the -American Canadians and English public-school boys who are to be found -in such numbers in Alberta and the plains. The sort of people we are -thinking of are people who have been born in Canada, who have even -spent generations there, but are, nevertheless, British by descent -and British in tongue. There are people of this sort in other parts -of Canada. The inhabitants of the Maritime Provinces are such, in -spite of the fact that Mr. Bourassa has claimed that within fifteen -years they will have become French in language and Roman Catholic in -faith. Mr. Bourassa has made the same claim, to be sure, with regard -to the inhabitants of Ontario. In the meantime, it would be truer to -describe the inhabitants of Ontario as Canadians in the English -sense. And Toronto is their capital. It is, of course, the home of -the United Empire Loyalists who {86} settled here when the States -broke away from our rule. The temper that made any rule but -England's and any liberty that was not English liberty unendurable -still remains, and I think Mr. Bourassa will have his work cut out to -Gallicise them. Still even the sternest traditions of loyalty do not -prevent--nay, even encourage--a certain change in the character of a -people. - -It is probable that Ontarians are less English now than they were, -just as Quebeckers are less French. Which have the right to be held -more essentially Canadian may be questioned, but I repeat that when -we in England talk of Canadians we have in mind a type of men to -which the Ontarians correspond more than any others. It would be -absurd, no doubt, to look for the English type in a metropolis like -London, and perhaps it is absurd to look for the Ontarian type in a -metropolis like Toronto. But it is less absurd, I think, and anyhow -I did look for it there. What did I find? Well, I hope elsewhere to -go cautiously and delicately into this matter of what a typical -Canadian is like. Here I will only say that if you can imagine a -Lowland Scot, cautious and self-possessed, outwardly resisting -American exuberance and {87} extravagance, but inwardly by slow -degrees absorbing--and thereby moderating--that hustling spirit of -which these things are manifestations, you have something not unlike -the Canadian of Toronto. Remember that Toronto is the southern -gateway of Canada. It fronts on the States. It deals with the -States. Between it and the States there is constant intercourse. It -pursues the same industries, following in many cases the same -methods. Many American managers of men are to be found in Toronto. -It is not unnatural that some of the American spirit should dwell -there also, and even tend to breed there. - -Now for the Fair. Fairing is a pretty old thing, and I have done a -good deal of it, but fairing at Toronto struck me as being somehow -new. I do not mean in the way of the exhibits one saw. They were -nothing out of the way to any one who has seen the more famous -exhibitions of the Old World, and the arrangements struck me as poor. -The grounds by the lake are fairly extensive, but the buildings are -second-rate. I thought when I saw the fruit exhibit in one of them -that the whole display was little better than at a little English -village flower show. But the keenness of the crowd visiting the -ground! There was the {88} novelty. They did not glimpse at things -in our blase European way, and then sink into seats to listen to the -band. They did listen to the band, but that was because the band was -part of the show; and they wanted to do the show, every inch of it. -Whole families camped for the day on the grounds. They brought meals -with them in paper bags and boxes to fortify themselves lest they -should drop before they had seen everything. Not that there was any -lack of smartness either. The ladies had on their best hats and -frocks, and the Canadian best in these respects is very fine. But -one did not suspect them, as one would have suspected ladies at the -White City or the Brussels Exhibition, of being there merely to show -themselves off. Their frocks were in honour of the Fair. The Fair -was the thing. It was a scene of the greatest enthusiasm under a -tolerably hot sun. I had been asked to note if any English firms had -taken the trouble to exhibit, and I am bound to say that I saw very -few. It seems a pity when one considers the sort of people who visit -the Fair--not merely a crowd amusing itself for an hour or two with -glancing at the exhibits, but a crowd trying to find out what there -was to buy--a crowd with dollars in its pockets and plenty of dollars -in its banks. {89} I dare say there are difficulties in the way. -There was not, for example, indefinite room for more exhibits, nor -are Canadian manufacturers, with rumours of reduced tariffs going -about, to be presumed eager to encourage competitors. Still, it -seemed a pity. - -I clove my way to bed that night on the top landing through a horde -of keen commercial travellers joyfully discussing all the business -the exhibition would bring them. Next day I went to Niagara, by -steamer, across the great lake. Toronto owes at least half its -greatness to the Falls, and there should be, but I do not think there -is, a really big monument to their discoverer, Father Louis Hennepin. -Very likely, though, the discovery of Niagara was its own reward, -especially for so inquisitive a man as that friar. He has himself -confessed how, in the old days, when he was only a begging friar, -sent by the Superior of his Order to beg for alms at the seaport of -Calais, he used, in his curiosity, to hide himself behind tavern -doors and listen to the sailors within telling of their voyages, -while their tobacco smoke was wafted out and made him 'very sick at -the stomach.' In the end he was the first white man to see the -Falls, in the winter of 1687.... - -They were framed in a most gorgeous sunset {90} when I saw them on an -August day. The green and white foam swooped from a mountain of -clouds all grey and gold--clouds piled fantastically into the -furthest sky. No one seeing them in such a light could be -disappointed with them, but I would forbid any more writers to write -about them. Every man should be his own poet where the greater -sights of the world are concerned. On second thoughts it is -permissible to read Mr. Howells on the subject, and even Dickens, -provided one is never likely to see them with one's own eyes. I saw -the Falls at sunset, by starlight, and in the sunrise, and I can -commend them at all these times. The river that drowned Captain Webb -and was crossed by Blondin on the tight-rope, though extraordinary in -its way, seemed to me comparatively unbeautiful and uninteresting. -Any big sea on the Atlantic or Pacific is a finer sight and grips a -man harder. I like a river quiet myself. Moreover, the villas above -Niagara River give the landscape a domestic air in which its mad -swirl seems only like an attempt to show off malignantly. - -One of my pleasantest recollections of Niagara is a conversation I -had with the porter at the hotel where I stopped on the Canadian -side. He was an American negro, extremely urbane {91} and chatty. -He told me that he guessed I was an Englishman. It was pretty easy, -he said, to tell that. I did not feel sure whether to feel flattered -or not, but I felt sure later, when he introduced me to the -lift-boy--a typical little stunted anaemic street arab from one of our -northern cities--with a wave of the hand and the remark, 'Thar's one -of your fellow-countrymen.' Afterwards, in self-defence, I steered -the conversation towards Canada, and the porter, who regarded himself -as an American citizen only, told me that the Canadians were a slow, -stupid people, who could not be trusted of themselves to do anything -but cultivate a little land badly. - -'Look at Toronto,' he said; 'do you think there'd be any hustle in -that place if the Canadians had been left to themselves? No, sah. -But we came along and lent them our brains and our enterprise, and I -guess now it's a big fine city.' - - - - -{92} - -CHAPTER X - -MASKINONGE FISHING ON THE FRENCH RIVER - -A friend, acquainted with Canada, met me in Toronto, and I told him I -was tired of cities and thought of going to the Muskoka Lakes. - -'What do you expect to get there?' he asked. - -'Scenery,' I said--'camping, fishing. A Fenimore Cooper existence in -the backwoods. Isn't it to be had there?' - -'The scenery's all right,' he said, 'and you can camp out of course, -and there are some fish. But if you mean you want a quiet, -unconventional life----' - -'I do for a few days,' I said. - -'You'd better go further than the Muskoka district, then,' he said. -'It's beginning to be rather a fashionable camping-ground--quite -pleasant in its way. If you care to see charming American maidens in -expensive frocks falling out of canoes just on purpose to be able to -change into frocks still more expensive, the Muskoka country is the -place for you. If {93} not, you had better come with me and fish for -maskinonges on the French River.' - -I did not know where the French River was or what maskinonges were, -or how you caught them; but I said 'Yes,' being very tired of cities, -and we took the night train from Toronto, and at 4.30 A.M. dropped -off it on to a bridge that spanned a deep, big river. The dawn was -exceedingly cold and grey. - -Literally we dropped off the train, for it did not stop but only -slowed down, and after us the negro porter dropped our bags and -tackle. A minute later the train had vanished, and we were left -alone on the bridge, staring at the rocky, wooded cliffs that rose on -either bank. Rock, wood, and water indeed met the eye wherever one -looked. It seemed a country where Nature had once built mountains, -savage and sparsely wooded mountains in the midst of a great inland -sea, then in a cataclysmal mood had dashed them to pieces in every -direction. And as the boulders and splinters of boulders flew, some -fell in circles and made little lakes out of the great sea; some fell -in heaped cliffs and banks, between which the sea was squeezed into -winding, forking streams; some fell and sank and left the sea a -shallow swamp above them; some fell and stood up {94} out of the -water and became islands of dry rock. Every splinter that flew bore -in some crack of it a seed of spruce or fir or birch, which grew; so -that all this barren rock and waste of water became crowned with -trees. I dare say any geologist could explain exactly what did -happen. I am merely explaining what appears to have happened, when -you look at it the first time with eyes still full of sleep. - -It was the French River at which we were gazing, and it looked at -this point somewhat wider than the Thames at Hammersmith. It was -flat and full with a good current; and my friend made some remark -about never having been given to understand, when he was at school in -England, that there was such a river at all--much less that it was -finer than the Thames. - -'I doubt if one would find it marked on an English school map even -now,' he continued. - -'I don't know, I'm sure,' I replied. - -'Doesn't it show how disgracefully ignorant we are of Canada?' he -demanded in the hollow tones of an Imperial enthusiast. - -'Yes,' I agreed. I daresay I should have agreed anyhow. It was -disgraceful that we neither of us had known anything about the {95} -French River. But the reason I agreed so quickly was that, if I had -not done so, he was capable of proving to me that such gross -ignorance, if persisted in, will some day prove fatal to the Empire. -Whereas I merely wanted breakfast. Any one who has been dropped off -a train at 4.30 on a misty morning in the sort of country I have -described will sympathise with me. - -Luckily the dawn soon became a little less grey, and presently we -beheld a wooden shack standing on a crag some quarter of a mile up -stream, with a dozen canoes moored below it. Presently also--and -this was more to the point--some one in the shack became aware of us -standing on the bridge, and put out in an old boat fitted with a -motor to fetch us. An hour later we were enjoying breakfast inside -the shack, which is really a hotel of sorts, and its proprietor, Mr. -Fenton, was explaining to us all about the fishing to be had on the -French River. For five dollars--or nine for two persons, he would -supply us with a canoe, an Indian guide, a tent, provisions, and a -hundred miles or so of first-class fishing. - -Now for the benefit of all benighted Englishmen who do not know the -French River or Mr. Fenton of Pickerel, but would like to make {96} -their acquaintance and that of the maskinonge, let me enlarge upon my -existence for the next few days. - -Let me begin with Bill. Bill was our Indian guide. He was an -Ojibway. Youthful, well built, reserved in manner, he paddled us on -the average eight hours, cooked three meals, and set up or took down -our tent in an incredibly short time every day. When either of us -caught a fish, Bill laughed; when we did not, he stared into space. -He laughed pretty often, for we caught quite a number of fish. It -seemed unavoidable on the French River. Occasionally, in answer to -questions, Bill spoke. He spoke English. Once or twice he spoke on -his own account. I remember his saying that he preferred eggs to -fish. I do not know how much Bill thought. Accustomed to connect -such outward reserve and dignity as Bill showed with a philosophic -mind, I fancied for quite a long time that Bill must think a great -deal. I doubt it now. Those who have studied the Red Indian in his -native haunts have discovered, I believe, that though his mind works -in mysterious ways, it does work; but not quickly, or with superhuman -gravity or discernment. As for that look of reserve--it indicates no -more brain-work or {97} brain-power than the look of reserve on the -face of an alligator. When I read hereafter that the hero of a book -has a reserved face and an imperturbable manner (he so very often has -in the novels of ladies) I shall think of Bill, and be delighted. -Bill was so soothing. So was the French River. It is worth an -Englishman's while to know of it--worth his private as well as his -Imperial while. American sportsmen seem to know it well. They come -fishing up it in fair numbers earlier in the year, and they come -shooting later--deer and partridge and cariboo. The partridge -shooting is said to be some of the finest in Canada. - -The French explorers also knew the French River, for it was by this -route that they first found their way to Lake Huron when, by reason -of Bill's ancestors being out on the war-path, seeking scalps, they -found Lake Ontario impossible of crossing. In width it varies -considerably. Sometimes it narrows to rapids, at others it broadens -to over a mile across, and is divided into channels by steep islands. -The scenery of it is as changeful as its channel. Now the banks are -built in sheer stone, a hundred feet high; again they rise terrace by -terrace, smooth as if men had made them; a little later they are -nothing but a {98} chaos of strewn rock. Sometimes the firs -predominate, sometimes the birches, pale green still these latter, or -yellowing in the fall. Then a splash of cherry colour or crimson -shows a maple on its way to winter. There are reedy backwaters where -great pike lie; and natural weirs, below which the rock bass wait for -their food; the deep pools hold pickerel or catfish. Everywhere the -air exhilarates, and along the wider reaches we used to meet a wind -like a sea-wind that put the river in waves and set them tippling -into the bows of the canoe. - -For the most part we trolled, six or seven miles upstream from -Pickerel landing, using an artificial minnow or feathered double -spoon, which latter seemed to attract pike, bass, and pickerel, -though the last, like the cat-fish, preferred a worm. However, it is -a dull fish, the pickerel, hardly worth catching. Not so the -cat-fish. A six-pounder of this variety can be very strenuous -indeed, and the only drawback to it is, as an American we met -remarked, you would have to shut your eyes before you could eat it. -Certainly it is one of the most grotesque and hideous of freshwater -fish, having four slimy tendrils growing from the sides of its mouth, -with pig's eyes between. The bass is a fine eater. We got {99} bass -up to four pounds, and if it is not mean to mention such a matter in -connection with so sporting a fish, you know that when you have -landed one you have landed a glorious supper. Those suppers over the -camp fire, which Bill could set roaring within three minutes--so much -timber and touchwood lies everywhere--what would one not give to -enjoy the like in England? In an artificial sort of way you can do -so. Here one is in the wilds as they were from the beginning--except -that the Indian is cooking for the white man instead of cooking the -white man for fun. - -What a delight it was, too, to go to bed on a couch of fir boughs, -with the wind rustling through the birches, to the soothing sound of -Bill, stretched at the foot of the tent, spitting gently into the -night. It was a soothing sound, until I awoke one night to find that -Bill had drawn the flap of the tent tight, but was still spitting--I -do not know whither. - -We spent four days on the French River, and our catch averaged over -twelve pounds a day. It would have been much more if we had fished -for every sort of fish and taken no photographs. As it was we took a -good many photographs, and spent most of our time trying to lure the -maskinonge. It is {100} the king-fish of these waters--a sort of -pike--but with the leaping powers of a salmon and the heart of a -tiger. Bill used to madden us with tales of how the last party he -had guided had landed twenty maskinonges in three days. We fished -and fished, and then I, trolling with a spoon, hooked one. We saw -him almost instantly take a great white leap into the sun, thirty -yards from the canoe. Then Bill paddled gently for the nearest shore -at which one could land him, and I played him the while with such -care ... Oh, my maskinonge, never to be mine! I got him to the -bank--a flat piece of rock with a kindly slope to the water. Perhaps -he was not more than fifteen pounds in weight. Perhaps he was. Bill -said not. But then Bill had not hooked him; and in fact it was Bill -who lost him. Anyway, fifteen pounds is fifteen pounds, even if they -do run to forty. Yes, it was Bill that lost him. I stick to -that--though I admit that we had all been stupid enough to come out -without a gaff. So it came about that, though I drew him ever so -gingerly to the rock, yet--yet as Bill made a lunge at him to get him -up--my maskinonge leaped once more--and broke the line! - -There for a second he lay, all dazed and {101} silvery, in the -shallow water--then woke up and vanished, spoon and all!... - -Bill vowed that the line was too weak; but what line would have stood -it? - -No matter--though I did not say 'no matter' at the time. Some day -perhaps I shall go back to the French River. For fifty pounds a man -could get there from England, spend three weeks in fishing, and -return again to the old country--a five-weeks trip in all--and know, -maybe, the best August and September of his life. Yes, I hope to go -back and catch maskinonge, and listen once more to the wind in the -birches, and go to sleep again to the sound of Bill spitting--for -choice into the night. - - - - -{102} - -CHAPTER XI - -SUPERFICIAL REFLECTIONS AT SUDBURY - -Coming away from the French River, we spent a night at Sudbury, which -lies in the midst of 'rich deposits of nickeliferous pyrrhotite.' -Had I a brain capable of appreciating nickeliferous pyrrhotite, I -should have got more pleasure out of this prosperous mining town than -I did. My chief recollections of it are that it was unattractive, -that everybody looked prosperous in it, that trucks were shunted -under my bedroom window all night long, and that the hotel proprietor -forgot to wake us at the time we had requested, with the result that -we got to the station breakfastless, about half an hour after the -train was due to start. Luckily it was late. I do not care for -missing trains at any time, but to have missed that train at Sudbury -would have been singularly annoying. There was, in effect, nothing -of interest in Sudbury if you were not interested in nickeliferous -pyrrhotite. I know that I should not {103} make such a remark. -_Humani nihil a me alienum_ should be every writer's motto. But it -is one thing to possess a motto, another to act upon it after trucks -have been shunted under one's window all night, and one stands -breakfastless on a dull station very early in the morning, waiting -for a train that will not come. - -Let me recall what sort of humanity was about. There was a stout, -middle-aged Indian guide, who told us the finest trout fishing in -Canada was to be had a few miles from Sudbury. He was the most -cheerful Indian I saw in Canada--really a cheerful man--creased with -smiles. There were miners looking out for jobs or leaving -them--mostly spitting. They were all young men. I only saw about -four old men in the whole Dominion. I do not know if Canadians are -shut up after a certain age, or do not grow to it, or retire like -butterflies to end their days far from the ken of man. So that there -was nothing surprising in there being only young men at the station. -More surprising was the amount of nationalities that seemed to be -represented among them. They seemed of every race and yet very -alike. I suppose a miner is a miner, whatever his nationality, just -as a mahout is a mahout. In the strange worlds both these kinds of -experts {104} live in, the one sort in the bowels of the earth, the -other on the necks of elephants, our little international -distinctions would tend to become of less importance. If a man is a -miner, he may also be a Belgian or a German or a Yorkshireman--but -his real country is subterranean: he is before all things a citizen -of the underworld. I do not know if one would get to recognise a -miner in Canada quite so easily as one gets to recognise a miner at -home--for miners there shift about more than in England, and spend -more time, therefore, in the upper world; which stamps men -differently. Still, though tales of new finds in new countries, -where wages will be almost incredibly high, constantly reach them, -and tempt them forth, after all they emerge from one part of the dark -earth only to plunge into another--passing the between-time -above-ground magnificently; but less magnificently than their wives. -The prices paid by miners' wives for their hats at some of the big -stores would startle the more extravagant of our own smart set. I -believe there were some lumbermen in the station too, taking their -ease, but I had not then grown to know the look of a lumberjack as I -did later. The chief thing about him is his magnificent -complexion--enviable of women. Canada {105} is not generous in the -matter of complexions, and one usually hears that the dry winds of -the winter time are accountable for making them poor, especially on -the plains. The hot stoves of the shacks are a still more likely -cause. Why then should the lumbermen have such incomparable skins? -Partly because they are men in 'the pink of condition'--so long as -they work (their condition out of it is best realised by a perusal of -_Woodsmen of the West_, one of the few fine local studies of a real -type of Canadian life that have yet been written); partly because -their work is in the woods which are windless and not dry. - -Tokens of the lumbering life--besides the complexion--are jollity, a -freedom from care amounting to something even more delightful than -irresponsibility, an air of equality with something of superiority in -it--indeed, with a good deal of superiority in it--and a childlike -loquaciousness or an equally childlike dislike of talk. These last -two qualities are both, I fancy, Canadian in general. One is -generally told that the Canadians are ready talkers, will always -address a stranger in the train, will be inquisitive and -self-revealing to an extent unimagined by the Englishman. Mr. -Kipling remarked, I remember, in his Canadian {106} letters that you -will learn from an Englishman in two years less than you will learn -from a Canadian in two minutes. Mr. Kipling is perhaps the best -boaster Canada ever drew to herself. My own experience in the matter -of Canadian conversation is that a lot depends upon the individual. -Introductions are certainly not waited for, and on a journey one may -chat with strangers to one's heart's content. But it must be borne -in mind that the traveller _par excellence_ in Canada is the -commercial traveller whose business it is to talk. Off the line--and -on it, where other travellers are concerned--one finds men with a -gift of silence that can at times be disheartening. It is natural -that this should be so. Men in remote places lose the use of their -tongues. All men are not talkers, indeed I think the great majority -of men in any country are not talkers. When Canadians do talk, it -must be admitted that they excel us, or their working-men do. Their -working-men are not only ready, but also, superficially at any rate, -remarkably well-informed about things outside their own particular -job. They know what is being talked of, the prices of things, the -value of land, astonishingly well. All Canadians know something -about land; and about what he knows, {107} the Canadian is not -deprecating. Precisely for this reason, perhaps, the more educated -men among them are at times considerably less interesting than ours. -It is not that their conversational topics are few, but that they are -circumscribed. The personal and dogmatic element enters into them, -with the result that the subject discussed seems incapable of -extension, and tends to become circular. I have met quite young men -who were bores, and bores not only in essence, but in manner, like -the clergymen of our comic papers. I do not know why it is, but I do -know that it is sad. It may be that there are not enough women in -Canada to prevent it. Men are so patient they will stand -anything--even a bore. But where women abound, a man may not be -tiresome either in his clothes or his conversation.... - -I believe the train at Sudbury was almost an hour late, which is why -I have gone on so long noting trifles at large. When it did come in, -somewhere about 8 A.M., we discovered that it was full up, and people -had been standing in the first-class carriages all night. They had -mostly breakfasted since, and the first-class carriage we got into -was littered from end to end with bun-bags and sandwich-papers and -orange peel, and all the refuse that results {108} from picnics in -trains. Tired parents and sleepy children were piled above this -flotsam in an atmosphere hard to endure. Yet everybody was cheerful, -and though we both wished in our hearts that we could have got -'sleepers' entitling us to Pullman accommodation, we were both -grateful--or ought to have been grateful--that we were privileged to -witness the contented spirit with which these representatives of the -great Dominion bore their trials. Not a grumble--oh, my brother -Englishman, not a grumble! Think of it. - - - - -{109} - -CHAPTER XII - -THROUGH THE HIGHLANDS OF ONTARIO - -I sat in the tail of the train smoking, while Ontario dropped behind, -league after league of thin trees growing out of the rock, of rock -growing out of bog or lake, of bog or lake covering all solid things. -Sometimes the trees were green and dark; sometimes green and light; -sometimes nothing but scorched trunks--black skeletons of trees left -by a forest fire which had killed everything within reach like a -beast of prey, but consumed only the tender parts. - -Somebody, as we swung over a typical piece of muskeg country--black -and juicy bogland covered with a foot maybe of clear water--began to -tell a story of a train that had run off the rails and plunged head -first into just such a place. It had been a long train, he said; a -goods train, and it had gone down and down. When he saw it, the last -truck only stuck out of the muskeg. We listened respectfully. It -{110} was at least a well-found story, illustrating the difficulties -the engineers had had in laying the lines across a treacherous ooze -that nothing seemed to fill or make firm. - -What will become of this one-thousand-mile stretch of swamped -rock-land? Nobody knows. There it lies separating East from West, -as land impassable, unnavigable as water. Firs and minerals, these -are the only things to be expected from it. Firs tend to grow less, -but the minerals of course may in the end so count that no one will -wish the country other than the rock it is. All along the line the -railway authorities have up the names of stations, as though there -really were stations there, and, even more, as though there were -villages or towns which those stations served. You are carried past -a hundred such stations--names on a board and nothing more at all, -unless it be a solitary wooden shack in which some railway -subordinate passes his life seeing that the line is clear. The gangs -of workers, Galicians or Italians, who do repairs along the line, -camp out; you see their camps now and then, temporary settlements in -this No Man's Land. - -'_Pays melancolique et marecageux!_' So Pierre Loti named Les -Landes, and the description fits this country too, though I doubt if -{111} melancholy is a word to be found in a Canadian's vocabulary. -'Pretty poor stuff' a Canadian might allow it to be, but would -immediately begin to talk of the fish in its waters, the big game to -be got among the woods, and the mining possibilities it would reveal -as soon as prospectors and syndicates got together. There never was -a people less born to be depressed than the Canadians; nor do I think -they will ever produce a Pierre Loti. - -For my part, I began to find this country most fascinating when I -started to think of its effect upon the history of Canada. It is -easy to see that its very impenetrability hindered for a long time -the growth of the West. Where there was no road there was no way for -progress, and the great wheatlands were shut up beyond it, while -Eastern Canada developed. What is less easy to see is the effect -such a waste must have when the country on the other side has been -populated and fertilised. A little time ago people began to think -that East and West would simply reverse their order of importance. -They said, 'Quebec and Ontario have depreciated in value. The rich -land of Ontario has been ruined, why should any one stay there when -in the West there is limitless wheatland to settle on?' {112} But the -trackless country still lay between--distance is not annihilated by a -single railroad, nor by a dozen railroads. Quebeckers did not move -West much. Ontarian farmers began to find that exhausted land could -be renovated by scientific methods. If the plains had adjoined their -farms, they would not have bothered to try those methods, but the -muskeg and rock lay between. Some of them went West, but not all; -they did not like it that the West was being settled from the States -and Europe. In any case the West would have been an unfamiliar -country--the American and English immigrants only made it more -so--and the boasts of the West roused Eastern pride. Was the West -best? Ontarians looked about them and found that not only could -their present farms be improved but that there lay still in their own -particular country virgin land that needed only to be cleared and -worked. Already there is the new Ontario, north of the old Ontario, -offering fresh fields and pastures new for the Canadian born who -didn't mind clearing land as well as working it. It is land upon -which the average immigrant is lost, upon which the average Ontarian -is at home. Thus begins a northern movement which may spread any -distance. - -{113} - -I have not said, and would not say, that the rock and water of -Ontario account for this northern movement, for the fact that people -are beginning to say, 'This East and West business is overdone. -Canada is not a thin, straight line from the Atlantic to the Pacific, -but a country stretching north to Hudson Bay, having the depth of the -States almost, if a race spreads hardy enough to inhabit it.' The -immediate cause of the northern movement was the discovery that wheat -was as hardy as men, if not hardier, and would grow more north than -an old-time settler ever dreamed of. The movement began in the -North-West. All I would say is that if the waste country had not -lain between the Ontarian farmer and the West he would have rushed -with the rest, and the balance of importance would have shifted -altogether westward. As it is, Ontarian farmers thrive again; new -Ontario thrives excellently in a score of ways; the Canadian-born -prosper in that part of Canada where they are--and always have -been--most massed and most solidly Canadian. The West is a medley of -races; and if it had suddenly become dominant by reason of its vastly -superior prosperity, a people that could definitely be called -Canadian would have been still further to seek than it is. {114} -Canada, in effect, would have had to restart becoming a nation. - -All that day the rock and bog and timber kept dropping behind the -train, and it was sunset before we came to the shore of Lake -Superior. A thunderous glow hung over the lake, glimmering on the -great granite cliffs. It was dark before we came to Port -Arthur--proud possessor of the largest elevator in the world, and -fierce rival of Fort William. In the morning we were in Manitoba. - - - - -{115} - -CHAPTER XIII - - THE OLD TIMERS OF KILDONAN AND THE NEW - TIMERS OF WINNIPEG - -Winnipeg introduces the West. 'If you like Winnipeg,' I had been -told before I got there, 'you will like the West.' I had been -somewhat disheartened by this information. I had pictured Winnipeg -as a smoke-laden city of mean and narrow streets, set off with board -walks and wooden shacks of various sizes. I knew that I should not -like Winnipeg if it were like that. Well, it is not like that. Main -Street, which follows exactly the lines of the old Hudson Bay -Company's trail, is a hundred and thirty-two feet wide, and the other -streets are in proportion. Above is the immensely clear and lofty -Canadian sky. The wooden shacks are not there, and you will have to -go far to find the board walks. True, the buildings are, on the -whole, less impressive than the streets, but there are some -magnificent blocks rising several stories; and if you take an {116} -observation-car to go and see the sights of Winnipeg, you will find -yourself brought to spots where further fine blocks are rising; and -with the eye of the imagination you will behold Winnipeg as -splendidly lofty as New York. I am not sure that for a place as warm -as Winnipeg in summer and as cold in winter (I have heard the very -truest Canadians say that they have been nearly frozen there in -winter) the laying out of the town in so spacious a style is ideal. -Streets narrower and more easily screened from the sun and wind would -have seemed more comfortable to begin with. But then Winnipeg is -growing, growing, growing; and it may be that some day even Main -Street will seem shut in when it has its skyscrapers. - -Certainly it is a mistake to have preconceptions of Canada. I found -Winnipeg spacious instead of mean. I next found that instead of -consisting of elevators and all the apparatus connected with the -storage of wheat, it was all banks and cinematograph parlours. There -were, it is true, shops and such things sandwiched in between. I -recall a jeweller's shop containing the suitable and attractive -placard in its window--'Marriage Licences for Sale Here.' It is -true, too, that banks and cinematograph {117} shows are not -unconnected with wheat. In the banks you store the dollars you have -made out of wheat; at the cinematograph shows you circulate them. -But really there was an almost incredible number of these -institutions. - -Of the two kinds of business I felt that personally I would rather -own a moving picture show. Winnipegers are, I feel sure, easy to -amuse. And they look exceedingly prosperous. The air of prosperity -struck me as more obvious in Winnipeg than in any other part of -Canada. This may have been due in part to the ladies' hats. I saw -some wonderful hats in Winnipeg. Of course there are some women who -seem born to wear wonderful hats. Whatever they put on seems -wonderful. But in Winnipeg this art of wearing wonders seemed almost -universal. Ladies who might otherwise have passed for school -teachers--so serene and even precise was their general bearing--were -to be seen in hats that would be astounding either on Hampstead Heath -or in Covent Garden opera. I was told the hats come direct either -from London or Paris, and form an important part of the Steamship -Companies' freights, since they are charged for not by weight but by -their superficial area. I thought to myself, {118} after I had seen -a few samples of them, what sleepless nights the creators of these -marvels must pass in the fear that they can never again rival, much -less surpass, the last consignment to the Wheat City. - -The men too have a prosperous appearance--always new hats, new coats, -new cigars; and I was so much impressed by it that I began to study -their faces to see if some new type--with the Croesus gift--had been -developed in this western place. If they had all looked alike, or -had not all looked prosperous, it would have been simpler. But they -all looked different--more different than Londoners--as they -would--for here all the nations of the earth are gathered, and over a -score of languages are taught in the schools (just think of it!); and -among these different faces one saw the old familiar aspects--the -shrewd and the foolish, the strong-mouthed and the weak, the -bluffer's and that of the man who counts. Clearly, they were not all -amazing organisers, or men with the grit and the brains that must -take them to the top. Not any more were so, I mean, than you would -see in any big place. No, it was the economic conditions, not the -men, which were changed. - -Yet there is one thing noticeable in most of {119} the faces one sees -here. It is a general air of buoyancy--of greater expectation and, -therewith, of greater self-satisfaction--in a good sense--than one -sees at home. Just as the London clerk's face might be made to -read!--'I am merely a city clerk on L50 a year--I shall never rise -much higher, and I hope I may keep my place,' so the Winnipeg clerk's -face might be taken to announce--'At present I'm helping along the -Dominion Elevator Company. Luckily for them they're a go-ahead lot. -I guess, though, they'll have to raise my salary soon, pretty good -though it is now. If they don't, they'll have to look for another -man. There are plenty of jobs waiting for me.' - -If it is the truth, what could be better? - -That there are more jobs than men in the West seems undeniable, -though most of them of course are on the land. I had the pleasure of -a talk with Mr. Bruce Walker, through whose hands all the immigrants -to the West pass. Mr. Bruce Walker's office is in the station, which -is one of the sights of the West, when an immigrant train arrives. -For Winnipeg is their distributing centre, and in the station, when -the train comes in, you may see more types of men and women than a -year's travel in Europe would give you, and you may hear {120} more -different languages being spoken than went to the unmaking of the -tower of Babel. To place all these people, men, women and children, -in positions suited to their capacities, before the small sums of -money with which they have arrived in the New World have given out, -would seem to be a task which Napoleon might have shrunk from. But -Mr. Bruce Walker appeared quite undismayed. Although in the first -six months of 1910 the immigration from Great Britain alone had -increased 98 per cent. over any other corresponding period, he had -found no difficulty in dealing with it. He admitted that it meant -increase of work for himself and his staff, but that was nothing, he -said, so long as there were more jobs than men. 'And there are more -jobs,' he said. 'It's amazing. But the extent to which Canada can -absorb men seems endless.' He told me many excellent and amusing -stories of the difficulties that arise in connection with the -new-comers, but I have no space for them here. - -The chief criticism to be directed against the Canadian Government's -methods in dealing with immigrants is, I think, that it encourages on -to the land men who are in some cases wasted there. It is natural -that it should {121} place immigrants on the land as far as possible. -The land is there, apparently endlessly absorbent. It offers, -superficially, work that any strong and able-bodied man should be -capable of doing. Again, that Canadian theory that a man should be -ready to turn his hand to anything, encourages the Canadian -Government to believe that it is justified in turning the hands of -immigrants to the work that most obviously wants doing. On the other -side, it has to be remembered that while a man may be capable of -turning his hand to anything, he is probably much more capable of -turning his hand to the work he has been trained to; and not only -that, but he is wasted to a large extent if he is not doing it. I am -thinking particularly of the skilled workmen who emigrate to Canada -from England. Turn them on to land and they may do fairly well; but -turn them on to the work they are used to, and they will do much -better. I do not say that the Canadian Government is bound to find -for such men the work for which they are fitted; but in so far as -they undertake to find work for immigrants, they should as far as -possible find the right work. That jealousy which causes the United -States to put obstacles in the way of the skilled immigrant who {122} -comes into the country, should not be encouraged in Canada. It is -absurd to suppose that Canada is already stocked with skilled -workmen, and I repeat it is waste to use men, who are skilled, in -work to which they are wholly unaccustomed. Moreover, though these -skilled artisans may in many cases only spend a certain time on the -land (after which they find the job which they want and are -accustomed to), yet in many other cases they may be so sickened by -their time on the land, doing unaccustomed work badly, that they -either become wastrels, or leave Canada altogether, believing it to -be no country for workers like themselves, and saying so with all the -bitterness of men who were capable of succeeding but did actually -fail. Another point to which the immigration department might give -all the attention it can spare, is that of making it as simple as -possible for decent immigrants to be joined at the earliest -opportunity by their wives and families. The lack of women in Canada -is a curse which there is no disguising. For one thing, to have a -country full only of able-bodied men without wives or families is to -give it an air of prosperity which is unreal. For another, it is to -leave it without any of the ambitions which cause the majority of men -{123} to save the money they make, and lay the foundations of a -civilised nation. The other objections are obvious. A wise -Government policy might go far towards making the period of -separation between an immigrant and his wife shorter. - -Later on, to get a contrast with Winnipeg, I went out to see Kildonan -with a friend. It is the village where the Old-timers--the crofters -from the highlands, whom Lord Selkirk brought out in 1812 to colonise -the land--finally settled down. They had hard years enough; trouble -with the Indians, great trouble with the rival fur company. The -fur-traders could see in the farmers only men who would reduce the -wild and spoil their own industry. Only after years were their -disputes settled. Kildonan is three miles out from Winnipeg by -electric-car--along a dusty road fenced with wire from the fat black -land. The crofters must have rejoiced to see that loam. Nowadays it -has mostly been turned to market-gardening for the supplying of -Winnipeg, and the farmers have shifted further West. We turned down -a country lane, shaded with maple woods and golden birches, and came -presently to the banks of the Red River. Over on the other side, -standing among light trees, stood Kildonan {124} Church, the oldest -church in Western Canada. We crossed by the ferry, and walked up -into the churchyard. It is not large, but it is full, and everywhere -you read the familiar Scottish names--Macleod--Black--Ferguson and -the rest. The death among infants in those days seems to have been -great--naturally enough--for Kildonan then was far from civilisation -and doctor's help; and so, many small, unconscious settlers spent -only a few days or weeks in the new land. But there were others that -lived long. One of the most interesting gravestones commemorated the -death of a settler who had come out from Kildonan, Sutherlandshire, -at the age of nine. This in the year 1815--the year of Waterloo. He -had lived to be past ninety. For his epitaph some one had chosen -those noble words from the Epistle to the Hebrews: 'He looked for a -city which hath foundations--whose maker and builder is God.' - -I think it cannot matter now that the old man died before the great -Canadian boom came, before Winnipeg had become the biggest -wheat-centre of the world, before he could realise, who looked for a -city which hath foundations, that even in his life he had attained to -'God's own country.' - - - - -{125} - -CHAPTER XIV - -A PRAIRIE TOWN AND THE PRAIRIE POLICE - -Any one who knows the plains of Canada is aware that they rise in -three tiers, the rise having a westward trend, and that the scenery -of them varies as greatly as does the vegetation. Any one who has -only been through the Canadian plains in the train is under the -impression that, save for a bit of rolling country here and there in -the distance, they are as level as a billiard table; and that, except -that parts are cultivated and other parts are not, they look the same -almost from start to finish. - -The moral is obvious. Do not suppose that from the train you can see -even the surface of the world. - -This seemingly endless flat land, then, holds hills and gullies, -rivers and lakes--everything indeed but trees. But what am I saying? -There are heaps of trees in reality. Only they have a habit of -concealing themselves, and {126} those who want to see them in haste -should perhaps take a guide. - -There is more monotony in the towns of the plains, I think, than in -the plains themselves. Not but what these towns must have -differences known to their inhabitants. A man who lived in Moosejaw -might conceivably deny that he could feel equally at home in Regina. -A citizen of Regina would not dream of admitting that he could find -his way blindfold about Moosejaw. Nevertheless all these little -towns are singularly alike in construction. It is reasonable that -they should be. They are all centres of a country engaged in a -single great industry--the raising of wheat. Other things are -raised, but in such small quantities, comparatively, that they do not -count. And the people engaged in this great industry of -wheat-raising are on a particular equality as regards the work they -do, the leisure they have, and the tastes that result from the -combination of that work and leisure. Some are richer, some poorer, -some are wise, some foolish, but mostly they are working together -pretty hard. The towns represent the places where they come after -their work to bargain and be amused. Moreover, as I suggested in a -previous chapter, the model for all other towns of the plains has -{127} always been Winnipeg, and Winnipeg is the embodiment of the -notion that a city may be a finer city than Chicago if it only tries -hard enough. - -Architecturally, Winnipeg looks as though it always has allowed, and -always will allow, for its own expansion. Other great cities have -grown up anyhow, usually on lines that suggest that their greatness -was thrust upon them unexpectedly. Winnipeg too has grown -big--beyond all expectation one would have thought--yet it suggests -in its lines that it never felt, even in those far-off days when Main -Street was the Hudson Bay trail, that it would be anything but -tremendous. Very likely it is an accident that Winnipeg did possess -this power of expanding and Winnipegers did not deliberately foresee -and provide for its future vastness. Be this as it may, the towns of -the plains are not going to leave anything to chance. They are so -planned, that when the time comes they will be ready to outdo -Winnipeg. They rather expect to outdo Winnipeg. They even warn you -that they will. Here is an example. I got out at some little -station on the plains--let us call it Thebes. I don't think there is -a Thebes in existence, but if not, it will come along soon, {128} for -the classics as well as the Indian languages are being ransacked to -provide names for Canada's thousands of new-born towns. I prefer the -classical or Indian-named towns to those that bear hybrid titles like -Higgsville. I saw at once that Thebes consisted of about twenty -shacks and a store. It was all there, just outside the station, and -beyond was level prairie again, with one or two farmhouses on the -horizon--wooden boxes, like bathing-machines off their wheels to look -at. - -I should not have been impressed by the greatness of Thebes, present -or future, had I not, just by the ticket office, come upon a great -placard, calling attention to a plan of the district marked off in -square blocks in red and black cross lines. Beneath were two -fanciful spheres, side by side, such as statisticians use--a large -one marked Winnipeg, a smaller one marked Thebes: also, the following -notification:-- - - 'In 1870 Winnipeg had 240 inhabitants. - In 1910 Winnipeg has 180,000 inhabitants. - In 1910 Thebes has 74 inhabitants. - How many will Thebes have in 1925? - Buy a Thebes town lot.' - - -It may be that the method is an American one, recalling that by which -Martin Chuzzlewit {129} was persuaded to buy a lot in Eden city. An -old-fashioned Englishman, straight from the old country, might even -now be scared by it, and decide on the strength of it not to become a -citizen of Thebes. He need not be scared. He can dislike the -advertisement if he chooses, but he should bear in mind that by just -such advertisements men were attracted to prosperity in the States as -much as to adversity--even in the Dickens period--that real cities as -well as sham ones were built up by them, and that anyway most of the -Canadian land thus advertised is of an easily ascertainable value. -He should remember, too, that a man nowadays, certainly in the new -world, is not presumed to take every advertisement he sees as Bible -truth. A smart advertisement, such as the Thebes one, is to a -Canadian or American simply a proof that whoever it is wishes to sell -Thebes town lots is a go-ahead person who clearly wants to do -business, who probably knows how business ought to be done, who is -likely to come to the point of doing it more quickly and ably than a -man who won't even take the trouble to attract attention. No doubt -the purchase of town lots is bound to be a speculative business. -These little prairie villages may or may not become {130} Winnipegs. -Of the particular chances a man must satisfy himself. That there are -chances is a certainty; and the advertiser is only clothing that -certainty in what he considers an attractive garb. - -I am very far from delighting in the 'plush of speech,' as Meredith -called the language of the advertisers. Apart altogether from the -fact that Canadians have not as yet learnt the art of understatement, -the plush of speech is far too common in Canada. I suppose it was to -be expected. Hard by lie the United States whose advertisers have, -in a very few years, done more to blazon all the horrors of which the -English tongue is capable than their great writers have done to point -out its beauties. Their example has spread. So that in Canada, too, -a barber's is announced as 'A Tonsorial Saloon'; a hat shop is 'A Bon -Ton Millinery Parlour.' There may be some magic attraction in the -words. The desire for a hat in the heart of a woman is not a -definitely economic want; perhaps to be able to get a hat from a -millinery parlour may strengthen that want. Only I know that -speaking for myself, I would not willingly have my hair shortened -oftener than was necessary, even if a tonsorial palace should be open -to me for the process. - -{131} - -To go back to the prairie towns, their future is ever before them, -and their citizens talk of them in the same proud, fond spirit as -that in which a mother will discuss the career of the -creature-in-the-perambulator, which for the ordinary person is too -embryo to be distinguished as either a boy or a girl. Already, of -course, the prairie towns are of all sizes, though you must never -judge them by the size they are. Take Regina. It is a capital city, -but the usual definition of a line--only reversed--best describes it. -It has breadth without length. Its streets, which are called -avenues, are astonishingly wide, the more astonishingly, because as -soon as you start to walk along them they come to an end in prairie. -I thought a notice which caught my eye as I wandered through the town -rather characteristic. The notice was pasted outside a half-built -block. It ran:-- - -'These premises will be open by September 5.' - -It was long past 5th September, and those premises were not going to -be open for some weeks to come. The roof was not on yet, and in fact -I think the fourth wall had to go up. Still, when they were opened, -they would be fine and solid. You could see that. It is the same -with many of these western towns {132} themselves. Some day they, -too, are going to be fine and solid, but they are not really open -yet, though a good deal of business is being done, with the roof -still, so to speak, off, and the fourth wall still to go up. On the -outskirts of Regina, for example, there are some 1911 Exhibition -buildings which look rather larger than Regina itself. That is -enterprise. - -I stayed a whole day in Regina because I wanted to see the barracks -of the famous North-West Mounted Police. It was a very hot day, and -I was not sure where the barracks were, so I went into a hotel, -partly to find out, partly to have a drink. The hotel was cool and -pleasant, and after a little while a well-dressed gentleman came over -and began chatting. We talked of various things, and then he asked -me if I would not like to have my suit pressed for Sunday, as he -would do it for a dollar. I said I should like it very well, but I -had not time for it as I had to go out to the police barracks. - -'You don't think of joining them, do you?' he inquired with much -disdain. - -'Why?' I asked. - -'You're a fool if you do,' he said; 'there's too much discipline -about them. You spend {133} your whole time saluting every one you -see if you're in the police. I know what it is. I was two years in -the American Navy.' - -I did not inform the ex-naval clothes-presser that I'd rather belong -to the police than press clothes, nor, indeed, did I waste any -further time upon him, and I only mention him because he is one of -the less valuable American types that find their way into Canada, and -also because he was the only man I met who had a word to say against -the mounted police. - -The sun can be very hot on the prairie, and it was very hot that -afternoon when I did at last set out for a two-miles' tramp to the -barracks. Nobody was walking that way except myself, and nobody was -even riding. There was a fine dust about, and I needed brushing as -well as pressing before I reached my destination. When I did get -there, the courteous welcome of the second-in-command caused me to -forget that the way had been long, or that anything greatly mattered -except to hear about the North-West Mounted Police from the officer -who was good enough to show me all round, from the horse-hospital to -the prison cells. The latter were the least inviting part of the -barracks, and I decided on the spot that if I committed a crime I -would {134} not select the North-West of Canada for the scene of it. - -I doubt if Canada, or England, has anything to be prouder of than the -North-West Mounted Police. Some of their deeds have been told from -time to time--that of the mounted policeman, for example, who brought -a homicidally-disposed maniac down hundreds of miles from the frozen -country, saved his charge from frost-bite, and lost his own reason in -the process; that of the corporal who went into the camp where -Sitting Bull sat armed with all his braves about him, and gave him a -quarter of an hour to clear over the border. But under a hundred -less-known acts the same spirit has run--the spirit of the one -representative of justice triumphant over incredible odds. - -'It's made possible,' said my guide, 'partly because we have men who -regard every capture they're told off to make as a matter of personal -honour, partly because people know that if a man commits a crime, we -get him in the end. We go on till we do. Sitting Bull knew that if -he killed our corporal we'd hang him and every man with him. So he -went.' - -All kinds of men are represented in the mounted police, but this -officer told me that the recruit they liked best to get was 'the -{135} young man with blood in him,' from an English public school or -university, as much as from anywhere; fond of riding and shooting, -and not lost when he is acting alone hundreds of miles from -headquarters. The district patrolled, remember, by five hundred men -is not much smaller than Europe minus Russia. Wanting that kind of -man, the authorities see to it that, in barracks at all events, he is -comfortable, and very little in the way of the accommodation for -these police could be improved upon. - -The most historic part of the barracks is that window through which -Louis Riel stepped out--to drop with the rope round his neck. I was -shown it hurriedly. It is the capture of their man, not his -execution, that is these policemen's pride. Their record shows that -almost always they take him alive, with no struggle--a strange thing, -and one more proof of the reputation the police have built up for -themselves. 'What is the use of struggling with these men?' seems to -be the natural thought in the mind of the pursued; and no doubt much -bloodshed is saved as a result of it. I learnt a lot of stray -Canadian facts that afternoon. I learnt that the immigrants known -under the somewhat vague heading of 'Galicians' are at present -considered the leading {136} toughs, owing to their habit of using -their knives at random. Galicians mean roughly all those who come -from central Europe, and would, of course, include Letts. So that it -is not, apparently, merely the climate of England that induces in -these particular aliens a homicidal mania. It would be interesting -to know the opinion of a North-West Mounted Policeman on 'the Battle -of London.' Another thing I learnt was that a hundred miles a day is -no unusual distance for one of these policemen to cover on horseback, -and that of all the districts patrolled by them that in the -neighbourhood of the North Pole is most sought after. They do not -believe in English stirrups and girths any more than they believe in -the British truncheon. They do believe in sobriety. The man with -the drinking habit cannot continue, so I was told, a mounted -policeman. - -As I walked back into Regina, I remember seeing in one of the -principal streets a second notice which struck me as quaint. The -notice was:-- - -'Please do not spit on the side-walks.' - -The quaintness of it consisted in the last three words. 'Please do -not spit' one could understand. I should like to see that notice up -almost anywhere in Canada, since the habit it {137} deprecates is -almost universal. It is worst, perhaps, in a smoking compartment, -where it is difficult to get one's legs away from the neighbourhood -of spittoons. I have sat for hours feeling all the emotions of the -son of William Tell while the apple was still balanced on his head, -and his father was in the act to shoot. But it is an uncivilised, -unhealthy, absolutely unnecessary habit anywhere. That is why, for a -public authority to suggest that it may be done, provided it is not -done on the side-walks, is quaint. It should either be ignored or -penalised. When one reads, as one does so often in the papers, of -the ravages made by tuberculosis in Canada, it almost looks as if -offenders should be penalised. Certainly they should not be politely -requested to spit a few inches more to the left or the right. And -why provide them with spittoons? - - - - -{138} - -CHAPTER XV - -IN CALGARY - -Alberta is at present the _debutante_ of the Dominion. - -Countries, like cities, used to grow up and, if we stick to our -metaphor, 'come out' anyhow. It is true there were people called -statesmen who had at times bright ideas concerning the commonweal -which they tried to put into practice, and sometimes succeeded in -putting into practice, with not unsatisfactory results. But the -commonweal they had in mind was a limited one. It was not truly -'common,' either in respect of the people whose weal was considered, -or in respect of the weal it was desired to affect. Statesmen, in -fact, thought usually only of a particular section or part of the -population of their country and also thought only of a particular -aspect of that section's welfare--usually either its soul or its -prestige; very rarely its material prosperity. - -Things have not altogether changed. Things {139} don't. Statesmen -still consider particular classes rather than the nation as a whole, -and their notions of what weal means are still limited notions. But -there is this difference. That aspect of the commonweal which can be -referred to somewhat vaguely as material prosperity now bulks very -large in their minds, and, as a result of it, the idea is beginning -to prevail that not only can cities be planned before they are built, -but that whole provinces can and should be encouraged to grow in -certain thought-out directions. - -In the old world the new idea is likely to work slowly and somewhat -obscurely. Cities and countries have already grown up there in the -old-and-anyhow style; and grown-up things, like grown-up people, are -not easily changed. In England, for example, we may think that large -properties are a mistake; but they will not, with anything that can -be called celerity, be turned into small holdings. So with our -cities. There they are--fully grown and fully stocked with vested -interests. The possessors of those interests cannot see in any -proposed change the vast improvement that the non-possessors see in -it. The most that can be expected in England in the immediate future -is that, slowly and imperceptibly, certain {140} outrageous mistakes -of the past will be remedied, and that where new developments are -essential, they shall be the result of ideas, rather than of -confusions. The Town-Planning Bill is, I imagine, a case in point. -The most conservative people are beginning to see that in itself an -idea is not a vicious thing and may even produce a good result. - -In the new world (and perhaps in the German Empire too) the notion of -planning the future of town or country instead of leaving it to luck -is having much swifter and more demonstrable effects. On the -Canadian plains, as I have pointed out, towns are being laid out -largely with an eye to their future. The same thing is being done -for the countryside. It, too, is being planned with an eye to its -future. It is not growing up just anyhow; it is being made to grow -in particular directions. - -How much this is the idea of statesmen, of the public officials, that -is to say, of the Dominion; and how much it is due to the managers of -private companies and enterprises, historians will some day be able -to decide. I incline to the view that at present the big railway -companies represent far the most influential force in Canada, and -that they, without any of the outward paraphernalia of office, {141} -are deciding what Canada is to be for a good many years to come. - -Naturally they work from what may be called the railway point of -view. Their notion of a Canadian commonweal takes the form, -therefore, of a country in which a settled and prosperous population -lives along the lines of the railroads, and is so distributed that -there shall be no uninhabited spaces through which the running of -trains will cease to be a paying proposition. There are bound, of -course, to be some intervals of the kind. The highlands of Ontario -form such a gap in the system of the Canadian Pacific Railway. That -gap is not easy to fill: Alberta is. - -A few years ago Alberta was far from being a profitable country -through which to run trains. Cattle-ranching maintained the thinnest -of populations, and the leagues of sunburnt plains east of Calgary -seemed to offer few chances to a more numerous class of settler. Any -one who had prophesied then that they would shortly be crowded with -wheat-farmers would have been laughed at. But they are being -crowded, comparatively crowded, now. And the credit for this must be -given those who started the Bow River irrigation works. No doubt -there are other reasons for the rise of Alberta. The {142} -discoverers of new wheats have helped it; so have the American -farmers who, by spoiling the land across the line, created a demand -for new land. But the irrigation works are the main factor, and when -the Octopus, as the Canadian Pacific Railway is not uncommonly -called, is had up for judgment, these and many other of their -achievements will help them to make a stout defence. True, it is -their own land they are irrigating; it is passengers and freight for -themselves that they want to secure; but, whatever the motive, they -are advertising and causing to be populated and cultivated hundreds -of square miles on either side of their own particular land which -might otherwise have lain waste for many years. - -It may be said--Where is the plan in this? Where is it any different -from the schemes of any railway country in the old world. The -difference is that in the old world as a rule the railway company -follows trade, and runs only through populous parts where that trade -is to be got; whereas in Canada, railway companies lay their lines -through the desert, so to speak, and then start to fill it in an -orderly and profitable manner. Alberta at present is being planned -into existence. It is not booming simply on its own merits, great -though these {143} may be. It lay fallow for many years. For all -one knows, other parts of Canada may have more of a future. But they -are not being boomed as Alberta is, because the time has not yet come -when they must, in the opinion of the railway companies, be filled in. - -The need for the filling in of Alberta is one of the reasons why -Calgary has sprung up so quickly. A few years ago Calgary had no -future to speak of. Men not as yet middle-aged, can remember camping -in Calgary in tents. There was only one place to dance in, and -ranchers used to take turns at entering it. Now Calgary is a -stone-built town of solid appearance, and still more solid -importance. Like so many other Canadian towns, it is more important -than it looks. It looks bustling enough, but hardly important. -There are no buildings of a size to take the eye. The hotels are -singularly inadequate. They are not only not comfortable enough for -their guests, but they are not large enough. I had occasion to visit -Calgary twice within a week, and each time I got the last bed in a -different hotel, and tried to be thankful for it, but did not -succeed. I suppose that prosperity has overtaken it at such a pace -that it has not had time as yet to consider its responsibilities. -{144} A town which permits one of its best hotels to place three -double beds in one bedroom--and perhaps as many as nine guests in the -three double beds--may already be great, but it has not realised its -greatness. - -Calgary differs from the prairie towns which lie between it and -Winnipeg, in that it is not really a prairie town, but a town on the -edge of the prairie. It looks at the mountains; and it is built of -the grey stone that is found near by; the Chinook winds that sweep it -and make its climate comparatively mild, are mountain winds; and it -stands on the Bow River, which is a mountain river, swift and clear, -and blue with the blue that is melted from snowfields. This is none -of your turbid streams like the Assiniboine or the Red River. All -rivers must run to the plains at last, but the Bow River does not -seem to belong to them, though it feeds them more than most. In the -old days Calgary, such as it was, owed everything to the hills. The -cattle-ranchers settled round there because the Chinook winds, -scatterers of the snow, made outdoor grazing possible for their -cattle during months when Manitoba and Saskatchewan were deep in -frozen drifts. And since it was just at the foot of the mountains, -the miners in the mountains {145} used it as a supply centre. It is -still a centre for ranchers and miners; but its real importance is -that it has become the headquarters of that prairie which produced -once, perhaps, half a ton of hay to the acre, and now yields the -finest wheat in the world. If any statues are to be put up in the -town--and it would be as well to wait for a native sculptor of -talent--they should be the statues of the men who constructed the -irrigation works. - -Later on, but this is a smaller matter perhaps, I should like to see -a statue put up to the man who will make it possible for the bars of -Calgary to be allowed to remain open between the hours of 7 P.M. on -Saturday, and 7 A.M. on Monday. At present they are shut during -those hours, which means, I take it, that Calgarians, if admitted, -would drink more than was good for them. The person therefore, to -whom the suggested statue should be raised, would be the man who made -the Calgarian attitude towards the drink question more civilised. I -know that the problem is not peculiar to Calgary or to Canada. It -may even be that Canada for a new country does more to solve it than -most. I recollect than when I got back to England, one of the first -things that caught my eye was an {146} interview given to a local -paper by a leading Hertfordshire man, who had also just returned from -travelling through Canada. He assured the interviewer that, having -been from end to end of Canada, he had never once seen a man the -worse for liquor. It must have been a delightful, but perhaps unique -experience. I had not his good fortune, and having talked with many -decent Canadians, seldom fanatics, and rarely indeed total -abstainers, who nevertheless deplored the prevalence of the drink -evil in the West, I cannot think that that Hertfordshire traveller's -happy blindness is a thing to be imitated. Drink takes another -form--perhaps a less vicious one--in a new country; but it ruins more -good men than it does in an old one. - - - - -{147} - -CHAPTER XVI - -THE AMERICANISATION QUESTION - -There is vague talk at times about the Americanisation of Canada. -Very dismal people talk about its Americanisation by force of arms. -Minor pessimists think the change will come about peaceably. How can -the Canadians--they ask--continue to assert themselves for ever -against the constant influx from the other side? - -Monsieur Andre Siegfried, in that most lucid and excellent book, _Les -Deux Races en Canada_, considers this question a little, but the very -fact that he has called the book _Les Deux Races en Canada_, shows -that he considers the question premature. The two races he treats of -are not the Canadians and the Americans, but the French Canadians and -the Canadians who are not French. Certainly these two peoples are at -present, and must for a considerable time to come, be considered the -two main races of the Dominion. They {148} are still for all -practical purposes separate without being hostile; and it is quite -possible that one of these may Canadianise the other before any real -Americanisation makes itself felt. Should the French Canadians get -the upper hand, it is pretty certain that American influence would -get a set-back of perhaps centuries. Yet English writers as a rule -never seem to consider this contingency. Perhaps if they did, they -would begin to think that they would rather see Canada Americanised -than Gallicised. - -Still the Americanisation may happen, and it is at least an -interesting possibility. Let us consider the task that lies before -the Americans. They will have to absorb-- - -(1) The French Canadians. - -(2) The Canadian born, who are not French. - -(3) The English who have immigrated. - -(4) Foreign immigrants; _e.g._ Scandinavians, Galicians, Italians, -Doukhobors--all that strange assortment of people who have flowed in -from the poorer countries of Europe. - -The Americans themselves represent at present only a small fifth in -this conglomeration of nations. Still, they have this in their -favour, that they start in while Canada is still an unfixed nation. -French Canadians--a small {149} third--only number about three -millions. Non-French Canadians about the same. The whole population -is under ten millions. It may in fifty years be ten times that -number. So that anything may happen. - -Meanwhile, many effective American influences are at work. Their -order of effectiveness is not easy to define, but when one considers -their representatives of business enterprise, capital, journalism and -farming at work in the country, one can see that the Americans are -likely to go far. - -What is their present value to the Dominion? Take American farmers. -They are an undoubted gain to Canada in so far as they possess -energy, capital, a knowledge of the local conditions, versatility and -adaptability. I hardly know if it is an example of their versatility -or their adaptability, but as soon as they cross over the line, -American farmers who were Tariff Reformers instantly become Free -Traders. It is not, of course, that they have adopted nobler -principles in their new country. It is merely that, having become -Canadians, they have now to support Canadian manufactures, and pay -more for their farming machines and shoddy clothes. Naturally they -think tariffs a mistake. - -{150} - -Setting aside for a moment this political elasticity as of doubtful -value, Canadians may still wonder if the American farmer is all gain -to them. Is it an objection, for example, that the American -introduces the purely commercial spirit into farming? Not entirely. -Not certainly so far as love of gain induces promptness and -enterprise. It is, however, an objection if it destroys that love of -the land which causes the English farmer to stick by his farm, -generation after generation. Perhaps American farmers have not that -land love in any case. If they had, they would not have crossed the -line. In most cases, they have crossed it to make money--more money. -It may be argued that the English farmers come further for the same -purpose, but that is not really the case. English farmers who come -are mostly men who were tenants, and find themselves either not -making money or expecting to have their rents raised if they do. Or -they are the sons of farmers who have not the capital to start -farming in the old country, or cannot get the land. The American -farmer is usually quite ready to admit that he is in Canada to make -money, and his enemies will admit for him that though this ideal may -lead him to adopt new methods {151} of farming which are good, it -also induces him to adopt that very old method of farming which -consists of getting all you can out of the land, putting nothing into -it, selling it to a fool and moving on to fresh land--which is a bad -method. Any one who is acquainted with the States at all, knows how -at present people there are awakening to the viciousness of this -practice. All their papers and speakers are full of the wastefulness -which Americans practised in the last century thinking it to be -smartness. Fine land, they say, was spoilt by it; forests were -annihilated; water supplies were overdrawn; people were made -restless. It was getting rich quick at the expense of posterity, and -it bred in Americans a nomadic spirit, and an imprudence in -considering the future, which has become a menace. - -Canadians cannot altogether condemn the American farmer, for just -these methods spoilt so much of the land in Ontario; and only now are -their farmers beginning to improve on them. Still, they would do -well to indicate to American farmers that they are welcome only as -improvers and not as wasters of the new country. The trouble is to -give an effective indication of that kind. Settlement of the land is -still reckoned, especially by the {152} railway companies, as the -first of virtues, covering a multitude of sins; though even they, I -think, are recognising a little that the English farmer, whose aim is -not an immediate fortune, but a home which he can retain for his life -and hand over to his children after him, is not to be scorned as he -was a few years ago. The ready-made farms, made possible by the -irrigation work of the Canadian Pacific Railway, are the chief -example of the attempts made to draw the Englishman. 'We hope,' said -one of the Canadian Pacific Railway officials, speaking a few months -ago before the London Chamber of Commerce, 'that the Englishmen on -these farms will leaven the lot.' A few years ago, compliments of -that sort were not being offered to the English farmer in Canada. -Probably he was not so good a type as comes in now. But it is to be -remembered that the English immigrant has always had more adaptations -to make than the American. To the American from the northern States, -Canada is the country he is used to--only a little more north. The -Englishman finds a new soil, new climate, new manners, and new -methods. I should say that man for man, the English farmer knows at -least as much as the American about farming, and {153} a great deal -more than the average Canadian. But when he goes out to Canada he -has to put this knowledge behind him and learn afresh--a difficult -thing for a conservative race. The American can hold on to what he -knows and simply go ahead. The accident of birth has given him a -fine start over the Englishman. - -The same advantage belongs to other Americans in Canada. Business -men, capitalists, journalists have only had to cross a non-existent -line, instead of an undeniable ocean. When Canadians complain that -Englishmen take no interest even in those Canadian schemes for which -they have found the money, they forget that capitalists cannot always -be close to their investments. I repeat, the Atlantic is not a thing -to be denied, nor is it fair to call the English mere moneylenders -because they have not always personally accompanied their loans. At -least they have shown themselves trustful of the men on the spot. - -Nevertheless, I think that Canada has every reason to be grateful for -the able business men whom the States have sent her. That negro -porter at the Niagara Hotel who said that Canadians were a stupid -people, and would have done nothing without the {154} Americans, was -taking rather a spread-eagle view of the facts. Still there is no -doubt that American brains have been--and still are--of great service -to Canada; nor can I see that they can be charged with Americanising -tendencies. Business men are nearly always cosmopolitan in their -achievements, whatever their motives may be. - -It is rather different with American journalists. They can hardly as -yet be charged with being citizens of the world, and where their -influence penetrates, an American trend is noticeable. They are -beginning to leave their mark in Canada. Canadian papers are -numerous and creditable, but an American atmosphere broods over them. -The most trivial incident is magnified by headlines, which repeat -three times over in large type and increasingly pompous language all -and more than all that follows in the news space. I am not talking -of the best Canadian newspapers but of the average ones. If their -methods are American, so very largely are the matters they deal with. -In some small up-country Canadian journal one will find the leading -columns occupied with the account of some dinner given, say, by Mrs. -Van So-and-So of New York, wife of the Coffin King, {155} with full -accounts of the costumes, menu, etc.,--wearisome and vulgar matter, -staringly of no interest whatever to the bucolic readers of the -journal in question. But it was all very cheaply wired from the -States: whereas news from England would be costly in the extreme. -The result is that Canadians--in spite of their local sagacity--are -at least as ignorant of the things that happen in Great Britain and -Europe as we are of what is happening in Canada. Often I have felt -while the Canadian-born were talking to me of the 'Old Country,' -talking of it too, not only in a loyal, but a fond and even wistful -manner--that they had in their minds a picture of it that would -probably have fitted England better in the fourteenth century than it -does now. A poor, worn-out, tottering old country is what they are -thinking of; and nothing would amaze some of them more than to see -modern England as it is. - -Why should they have got this idea into their heads? Largely, I -suppose, because the new with them is necessarily best. The old -things were put up anyhow by men in a hurry and they are always -superseded by better things. The very epithet 'old' connotes badness -to a Canadian. Then, again, it is a {156} country of young men, and -young men are apt to favour youth, which they hardly associate with -England. No country--not even Spain--can be as antique and -ramshackle as many of them undoubtedly believe England to be. -Birmingham and Manchester are on paper such very ancient cities -compared with Regina and Moosejaw that the untravelled Canadian -thinks pityingly of the former; whereas he considers the latter -infinitely up-to-date and important, and would be hurt to know that -we have in England hundreds of little prosperous country towns very -like them, of which the ordinary Englishman hardly knows the names -and, if he did, would think no more of than he would think of Regina -and Moosejaw. - -I would not seek to minimise that Canadian pride and optimism which -finds such satisfaction in everything that they build. Pride and -optimism are valuable assets to any country. All I would suggest is -that they should realise that the English habit of grumbling and -self-depreciation does not indicate that all Englishmen live in a -tottering old realm, doing nothing but decay and grumble. - -Here we come back to newspapers. Most people derive their facts from -newspapers nowadays, and if Canadians find that everything {157} of -importance happens in the new world, whereas in the old world nothing -happens except an occasional sensational murder or the deposition of -a third-class king, they cannot infer that Europe is still an -important continent, and that perhaps the most important country in -it is England. What is to enlighten them? I suppose the receipt of -more news from Europe. - -Probably the All Red Cable would do much in this direction. News has -to be cheap or it is not news (the converse proposition that news if -it is cheap must be news, is not true). Much also might be done by -private enterprise. English publishers could do more to push their -wares. So could English magazine proprietors. Most of the books and -magazines one can get in a hurry in Canada are American. English -Cabinet Ministers might now and again make a tour in the Dominion and -explain to Canadians some of those political principles in which at -home they have such fervid belief. It may be that the Americanising -tendency is too strong for any of these suggestions to be of much -avail in combating it. Reciprocity treaties between the States and -Canada may inevitably result in closer union, though I never could -feel that it was a marked human characteristic to pine for -fellow-citizenship with the man whom {158} one supplies with bread in -return for a reaping-machine. Trade relations may result in that -mystic fraternal sentiment by which nations come together, though -hitherto in the world's history men have never shown any very frantic -desire for a heart-to-heart intimacy with their tradespeople. -'Utility, Reciprocity, Fraternity' sounds rather a cold cry by which -to rally two great people together.[1] - - -[1] This chapter was written before the Reciprocity business flamed -forth. I return to the subject later. - - -When all is said and done, and there are a hundred other pros and -cons which might be considered, the chief obstacle to the -Americanisation of Canada is climate. Canada is north and America is -south; and those two show less inclination to rush together than even -east and west. Of course it is not extremes of north and south that -are represented in the two countries;--along the boundary the -climates are not dissimilar. Yet it seems to me that while Canada is -bound to be mainly a country of northern peoples, Americans are fast -becoming more and more southernised, I do not mean in the old sense -of becoming languid and effeminate and semi-tropical, but -southernised in just the same way as the French from being Norsemen -have become southernised. Have {159} you seen prints of old Paris -when it was a Gothic city? If you have, you will realise the -completeness of the change that has come over it. It spreads itself -to the sun now, faces to the Midi, and some such change might easily -come over New York, Chicago, and the rest of those at present -northern cities. Already the typical American is far from being the -son of a grim and dour Pilgrim Father. Rather he is lively and -energetic--with a temperament always on tiptoe--logical and apt to be -materialistic, yet sentimental and passionate too. You find such a -temperament among the French and Italians of northern Italy. It is -the sun working on them. Even the stolid German and the moody -Scandinavian feels it when he gets to the States, and thaws--into an -American. - -It is not so in Canada. The northern immigrants there remain silent -and frosty, though the touch of fortune makes them perhaps more -genial. Canada will never become a southern country, even though its -northern parts are rendered temperate by the cutting down of timber -and constant ploughing. No, I think Canadians will remain a hardy -and somewhat dour race, slow-moving on the whole, but industrious and -virtuous, suspicious of talkers and hustlers; so suspicious, too, of -free {160} thought and new morals as to lay themselves open maybe to -the charge of hypocrisy; given at times to self-distrust and -self-depreciation, but for the most part steadfast, and holding in -their hearts the belief that there is no place like Canada and no men -like the inhabitants thereof. - -In short, they are as likely as not to end by becoming Anglicised. - - - - -{161} - -CHAPTER XVII - -AMONG THE READY-MADE FARMS - -There was a time when Englishmen got a very bad name in Canada. It -was not to be wondered at. For a long time English youths, who came -to be known as Remittance Men, used to be shipped out by relations -anxious only to get rid of them. These helped to create an opinion -that Englishmen were more remarkable for their drinking than their -working powers; and when to them was added shipload after shipload of -unemployables from yet lower classes, Canadians began to get -impatient of English immigrants. It was not logical of them to -suppose that these were favourable specimens of our working-classes; -it is never logical to suppose that the best men of a country are -ready to leave it. Logic, however, is difficult to insist on under -these circumstances, and though there were plenty of Englishmen even -then, and even more Scots perhaps, who were obviously as good as any -farmers on the {162} prairie, the bad name of the English clung to -them. That is all, or nearly all, changed now; and the project -connected with those farms, which came to be known in the English -papers as the Ready-made farms, proved that the Canadian Pacific -Railway Company at any rate, which is the biggest landowner in -Canada, was ready to welcome English farmers to the land, if they -could get the right sort. Readers will perhaps remember that the -idea of the company was to provide farms ploughed, irrigated, sowed, -and furnished with house and out-buildings, into which English -colonists, having been handed the front-door key, could -enter--straight from England--as well equipped almost as settlers who -had lived there for years. The purchase money was to be spread over -a certain term, after which the land would become the property of the -farmers. - -The plan saves all that intermediate period during which the ordinary -homesteader has to set up his shack, sink his well, and generally -unsettle himself over the tedious work of settling in. Good farmers -are not necessarily born pioneers; and since the prairie in winter, -when work is slack, does not show a very hospitable climate to -new-comers and those unaccustomed to it, it generally happens that -{163} the English immigrant has to waste the spring and perhaps the -whole working season in the unremunerative business of settling in. -The Ready-made farms were intended to save all this time and trouble, -and they were at once filled--in the spring of 1910--by specially -picked men from the old country. The men were not all necessarily -farmers, but they were, hypothetically, at any rate, men of -intelligence and grit. - -I wanted to see how they were getting on after six months of this new -life on the prairie. For that purpose I took train from Calgary with -a friend, back along the line to Strathmore, which is forty miles -east, and is the station for Nightingale, as this first colony of -ready-made farmers has been named. Strathmore itself is not -peculiarly beautiful or peculiarly interesting, though it has a -demonstration farm which is. We went over the demonstration farm -with Professor Eliott, its manager, who struck me as one of the -keenest and most interesting men of the West. What he does not know -of the productivity of the prairie is probably not worth knowing; and -his experience seems to be at the service of any farmer who has the -intelligence to apply for it. He showed us his barns and splendid -teams of horses and leviathan oats, and the little trees which he has -planted {164} in this country where it was thought no trees would -grow, and which he believes will change the face of it in a few -years. We were full of the future of the prairie when we got back to -Strathmore, and put up for the night in the last bedroom of the one -and only hotel. The two of us were lucky to get that last bedroom -containing a double bed to ourselves, for more often even than in -Calgary six people sleep in such a room and are very glad of the -accommodation. So I was told. It shows how things move in Alberta; -what a hustle there is upon the country. - -We tossed for the bed, and I got it, and the other man took two -blankets and the floor. I slept very well, especially after a -mounted policeman came in and threw out two gentlemen next door who -were, as the hotel boy tersely put it, 'seeing snakes together.' My -friend slept less well. The room was small, not much bigger than the -bed, and we could not get the window to stay open. It had not been -constructed with a view to admitting fresh air. Still, after -breakfast in a dark chamber, where about thirty guests of every -profession and clothing (but all land-seekers) ate in silence, we -started pretty fit for Nightingale in a two-horse rig. - -{165} - -I wish I could describe the prairie. Harvesting was over, so that in -any case the leagues of golden wheat which you read about in -advertisements were not visible. It was another kind of monotony -altogether that we drove through--a kind I cannot begin to suggest -the charm of. It was a kind of bare, rolling, sunburnt country, with -a high sea-wind blowing through it, and waves of dust and an endless -sky. Intensely wearisome or intensely refreshing it must be, -according to a man's temperament; and going there from trees and -hills must be like changing from a room with patterned paper to one -with whitewashed walls. And then the soil, light and fertile, -stoneless, ready for the plough--the farmer wants no variety of that. - -We drove fourteen miles, as far as I can remember, to get to -Nightingale, and it was all bad driving. Alberta seems to want roads -badly. In the old ranching days roads mattered less. The prairie -was a ready-made riding country, and nothing was produced or needed -that could not, so to speak, go of itself across country. 'I never -owned a plough the seventeen years I was there,' a retired rancher -told me proudly. 'It was a fine country then.' But it is a fine -country now, too, and going to be finer still when it has roads. At -present even {166} the roadways are changing. Once you could go -everywhere. Now from day to day a new farmer takes up a new piece of -land, and what was the road is enclosed by a wire fence. - -One of the most inspiriting farms we passed was that of a man who had -been out from Cheshire only three months. He was now a chicken -rancher--kept fowls, as we say; and in his brief occupation had got -up--off a quarter block--eighty tons of hay, besides winning -thirty-eight prizes at Albertan poultry shows. This would seem to -show that Alberta is not yet rich in pure bred fowls. The Cheshire -chicken rancher said he hoped to show the people round what a good -table bird ought to look like. He was already a Canadian in all but -accent. May he prosper! - -After talking with him we drove on again towards Nightingale in the -same sea-wind along the same bad roads. The sameness of the country -was amazing; nor should I have known in the end that we had come to -Nightingale but for the man driving us. 'See that avenue?' he said. -'The shacks standing along that are the farms. It seems more -sociable being along a road.' 'Certainly,' I said. So it is more -sociable to live along a road, provided you know it is a road. I -{167} didn't, but the colonists did, and that was the main thing. We -found those we visited apparently contented and undoubtedly hopeful. -Canada has the gift of making men hopeful. Though it had been in -this part a very poor year, owing to drought, and though the -irrigation had not been properly ready (but accidents will happen, -and the company was charging only a nominal rent as a result of this) -the farmers seemed as cheery as they would have been dismal in -England. The crops had been poor, but they would do for -chicken-feed. A bumper year was a sure thing some time or other. -The future held no clouds. They were going to study Canadian methods -suited to the country. I rubbed my eyes. These sentiments were -being enunciated by an English farmer, who was meanwhile giving us a -most hospitable English lunch. He was going to tell more people to -come out. It was the finest farming land possible, once you get the -water on it. Only one must take local advice how to run things. It -was no good standing out, and knowing better than people on the spot, -as one of the colonists was doing. He, I gathered, was the only man -regarded as likely to do badly, being determined to stick to the -methods of his English forebears. His leading {168} wrongheadedness -was in declining to believe that the winter was going to be or could -be as long and as hard as people said, and he had not got in half the -food needful for his cattle. - -I suppose, but for that winter, the prairie would be the most -sought-after country in the world. But for that winter, however, it -would not possess the amazing friable soil it does. As has been -remarked, one cannot have everything all the time. The winter is -very severe, and there should be no disguising of the fact, nor -indeed any exaggerating of it. Formerly its hardships were no doubt -exaggerated. People had no use for a hard winter. Nowadays leisured -people go in search of it--on the understanding, however, that it -shall be made easy for them. They would like it less if they had to -work in it in a below zero temperature, twenty or thirty miles from -anywhere. I do not say that work under such conditions should or -would disgust healthy and energetic men, provided they were prepared -for it. It might even delight them. But it should be prepared for. -English farmers in particular should be made to understand the -drawbacks as well as the advantages of the new land they are going -to. Honesty is in fact the best {169} emigration policy. Given -that, it is tolerably certain that these transplanted English farmers -are going to find it more than worth while to have settled in -Nightingale or any of the newer prairie colonies, and what is -more--Canada is going to find it more than worth while to have them -settled there. - - - - -{170} - -CHAPTER XVIII - -INTO THE ROCKIES WITH A DEFENDER OF THE FAITH - -For several days I had seen the Rockies far off--a black and jagged -coil of mountains, that seemed at times almost to be moving like some -prehistoric great scaly beast on its endless crawl across the plains. -Now I was to see them near by--some part of them at least. What has -any man seen in that ocean of mountains but a few drops? - -At the unpleasing hour of 3.30 A.M. I disengaged myself from one of -the three double beds with which my room in the hotel was furnished, -washed slightly, dressed completely, and walked to the station. -Calgary was quiet at last. There had been a sound of revelry by -night. A man with a tenor voice had been singing songs in some -adjacent room to the hotel up to 3.30. But his songs and the vamped -accompaniment to them had ceased now, and peace prevailed. I don't -{171} remember to have passed any one on the way to the station. -There were two or three sleepy-eyed people lounging about there; -there always seem to be a few in Canadian stations, no matter what -the hour. I think they must be out-of-works who keep their spirits -up by listening to the squeaking and clash of shunting trucks, and -the letting off of steam, and the great clang of the bells that are -sounded from the engines as a trans-continental train comes in--all -those sounds of life and hustle that are dear to the Canadian soul. - -[Illustration: MOUNT LEFROY. CANADIAN ROCKIES.] - -The train I was waiting for entered slowly with the usual peal of -bells. All the blinds were drawn in the sleeping-carriages; and the -only sign of life from them was the protruded woolly head, here and -there, of a negro car conductor. I think I was the only person who -got in. - -'What a lot of people,' I said to myself as I sat down in an empty -smoking compartment, and shivering lit a pipe, 'would envy the -prospects of a man about to spend days and perhaps weeks in the heart -of the Rockies.' 'What a lot of people,' myself replied to me, -'would see the Rockies further before they got out of bed at this -unholy hour.' - -{172} - -My pipe held the balance between us and gradually soothed the -rebellious part of me. It was still too dark to see anything, and -there was nothing to be done but wait patiently for the dawn. I -could not but regret that I was missing the scenery of the foothills, -for which those who have lived among them seem to have a peculiar -affection. But I was consoled by the entry a little later of two -fellow-passengers, who had evidently been disturbed in their sleep -and wanted smoke and conversation. Strange and various types one -sees in a Westbound train. The West is still--even to the Canadian -born--the Unknown and the Happy Hunting-grounds and Eldorado and -Ultima Thule and the Blessed Isles. West is where the farmer's son -of spirit goes to seek fresh lands, where the prospector goes to find -gold, where successful men go because they want to be more -successful, or maybe because they want to retire and enjoy -themselves, and they have heard that West there is a climate which -hardly includes winter, and has none at all of that fierce break-up -of winter which makes the plains in parts trying to the toughest -constitution; where the failures go because they have tried all other -places, and the last is {173} West. All sorts of other men may be -seen going West too--bank clerks and lumbermen, commercial travellers -and engineers, tourists and politicians, trappers and amateurs of -sport. But I never saw a more strangely assorted pair than these two -men who came into the smoking compartment where I sat as the train -mounted the foothills. - -One was a very old man. I do not know what his profession was, but -his clothes and himself were equally weather-stained and dirty. He -had the coarsest snow-white hair hanging in cords about his neck and -cheeks and mouth, which gave him the appearance of a vicious old -billy-goat. He was, I discovered, a moderately vicious old man. The -other was a lumberjack--hardly more than a boy, sturdy, and -strikingly handsome, with the clearest blue eyes and a complexion -that a woman would give a fortune for. The old man--as they came in -together--was already engaged in telling the young one what you might -call a backwoods smoking-room story, and he went on with others even -thicker, over which the young one betrayed the hugest amusement. -What particularly won his laughter and admiration was the fact that -so elderly a person should enter into such topics with {174} so much -zest. I can still hear him repeating, 'There ain't many fellows as -old as you, Daddy, that 'ud be such sports. No, sir.' - -And the old man would grin and chuckle at the compliment, and become -more highly improper in the warmth of the boy's praise. He became -indeed so elevated by it--especially after the boy had got up once or -twice and executed a brief step-dance to mark the exuberance of his -delight--that, thinking to gain even more glory by being still more -startling, he dropped the subject of women and took up that of -religion. It seemed he was an atheist of the old three-shots-a-penny -variety, and he went for Christianity hot and strong. He had, it -must be admitted, a perfectly skilled command of the old cheap -arguments, and marshalled them in good order. Only, the unexpected -happened. The boy, who had not minded being boyishly wicked, was -plainly shocked by this new thing, and he said so in language so warm -that a minister of the faith he was defending would have felt -positively faint to hear it. The old man, surprised and still more -annoyed, brought out further iconoclastic arguments, excellently -directed. It is true any theologian could have warded them off -easily enough. Any {175} debater could have. But it was clear that -the boy had never argued in his life. That didn't matter. He was -not going to sit there and listen to that sort of thing. He got -indeed quite hopelessly confused; intellectually he was tripped time -and again; he deferred with a lamb's innocence to the old man's -boasts of having perused Persian literature, Hebrew literature, all -the books that have to do with Buddhism and Zoroastrianism (I am -afraid I did not believe any of this); he allowed that so much -learning and thought must be a fine thing, but not an inch did he -yield of his creed. And the more the old man got at him with -arguments the more sulphurous grew the boy's language. I have never -known so queer a Defender of the Faith as that lumberjack--or in a -way a more successful one. His manner was childlike, his words -unprintable; he made a muddle whenever he attempted to follow the -simplest of the old villain's inferences. Yet never the least shake -could his opponent give him, and his dogged reiteration of the -statement that 'A man by ---- could only stick to the ---- faith that -he had, and Daddy was a ---- fool to think his that ---- arguments -made any difference'--wore the old free-thinker out in {176} the end. -He did not give in, but he gave up: a wiser but, it is to be feared, -not a better old man. - -Meanwhile we were getting into the hills, and my first impressions -were rather of great rocks than of mountains. Most people, I -suppose, come upon the Rockies first from the east, and they seem -tremendous if only for the reason that one has come upon them after -days spent in those plains which, even while they rise, rise -imperceptibly. But tremendous as they seem from the east, they must -be far more so from the north, and far more beautiful from the west. -On the east the mountains have less height than on the north. Their -timber is poor by comparison with the trees that grow further west; -their valleys have little of the luxuriance of the Pacific valleys. -One feels a certain coldness and hardness about them, and after a -little while there seems almost a monotony of corrugated peaks, all -thrown together and slanting eastward. They are striking enough even -so, and the view from the train, especially when one considers that -railways are run through mountains by the easiest route not by the -finest, and that grades have to be counted before landscapes, cannot -disappoint anybody. - -[Illustration: A TRAIL IN THE ROCKIES] - -{177} - -Comparisons with the Alps and the Himalayas should be kept till the -Rockies have been seen at closer quarters. The finest view I ever -had of the Rockies was from a mountain in the Selkirks, at a height -of over ten thousand feet, and over a hundred miles from the nearest -railway. There I forgot to make comparisons, which after all are -somewhat useless. It is easy to say that the Alps are softer and -more pictorial--showing that deep blue sky above their snows, which -is rarely if ever to be seen in the Rockies. The Canadian skies are -too lofty and distant ever to seem to be resting even on the topmost -snowfields. The Himalayas again have giants unparalleled. -Kinchinjunga, leaning out of the clouds, cannot be matched among the -Rockies. But the Rockies--well, the Rockies are different. As yet -we are only just getting to Banff. - - - - -{178} - -CHAPTER XIX - -A HOT BATH IN BANFF - -Everybody stops at Banff. The popular places of the world are not -necessarily the most beautiful; and even if they start beautiful, -they are not rendered more so by the accretion in their midst of a -large number of even first-class hotels. Perhaps first-class hotels -increase the feeling for beauty. Indeed the sole defence of luxury -worth consideration is that it has this effect. Without luxury, -would there exist such an appreciator of beauty as d'Annunzio, to -name but one? Pardon, I am getting away from Banff. - -It is a very beautiful watering-place at the foot of mountains. It -is not spoilt yet, and it will be difficult to spoil it. The air is -superb. I learnt that just as I was getting into it on my way from -the station. I seemed to be the only person walking into it that -morning--except for a local Canadian who was going in to his work. -It was still very {179} early in the morning, and distinctly cold, -and I said to this Canadian workman: - -'It's pretty cold at Banff.' - -'It's the finest air in Canada,' he replied, with that characteristic -touch of resentment of anything that might be taken as a criticism of -his native heath, which every Canadian invariably shows. 'Yes, sir, -it's the finest air in Canada, and they're putting down concrete -sidewalks.' - -He was, as a matter of fact, engaged in that work himself, and after -I had expressed a proper admiration of it, he became friendly enough -and directed me to the hotel I wanted to stay in. - -I wish it had not rained at Banff while I was there. It was an -unusually cold and early rain, and it prevented me from seeing many -of the sights of the place. The motor boat, which as a rule runs -several times a day up the Bow River, did not run at all while I was -there, and so I did not see this lovely valley. Nor did I take much -stock of the buffaloes of the National Park, which are one of the -greatest features of Banff, one that tourists with cameras always -make for first. Rain was the reason of my abstention. On the other -hand, the rain was the immediate {180} cause of my spending a most -delightful afternoon in a hot sulphur swimming-bath. There are three -such baths in Banff, and I chose the upper one, walking two miles up -a winding road, whose woods were beginning to show all the reds of -autumn, to get to it. I found that it was an open-air bath, fed by a -sulphur stream that trickles steaming down the face of a mountain, -and since no one had been tempted there on so gloomy a day, I had it -all to myself, and swam up and down in water that varied from 110 deg. to -95 deg. for an hour or more, looking at the hilltops opposite, and the -mists that rose and sank about them. The rain and the cold mattered -nothing so long as I swam there, wondering if luxury could go further -in this world of ours. For there I was lapped about with all the -warmth and peace that come to the beach-comber or the lotus-eater, -and yet drinking in the brisk mountain air and feeling the challenge -of the hills. It was to combine the emotions of a man climbing the -Alps with the emotions of a man squatting in a Turkish bath; and only -when the latter threatened to become rather the stronger of the two, -did I get out, feeling weak but fresh. I had the pleasure while -dressing of reading in a printed advertisement {181} of the baths -that I had been curing myself of rheumatism, sciatica, asthma, -anaemia, insomnia and, I fancy, any other disease I might happen to -have latent. Certainly I felt well and uncommonly drowsy when I got -back to the hotel. Indeed those who intend to explore Banff with -energy would be well advised to postpone the baths till their last -day. There is plenty to explore. The National Park alone is 5400 -square miles in extent, and encloses half a dozen subsidiary ranges -of the Rocky Mountains; and if Banff is to be regarded as the centre -for mountain climbing, fishing, and big game hunting, there is of -course no end to it. Guide-books mention in a vague way that it is -such a centre--which only means that if you want to do any of these -things from a highly civilised and comfortable hotel, you had better -make Banff your stopping place. Good climbing is to be had quite -near, but whether the same is to be said for shooting or fishing -depends upon whether anything short of the best in these matters is -good. You cannot expect fish and big game to remain centralised. -Particularly is this the case with big game. They avoid the centre -of things, and prefer to keep on the circumference. In these sort of -matters {182} guide-books are very little use. Nowhere do conditions -change more rapidly than in Canada, and the man who wants big-horn or -big trout will have to make for the circumference too. But there he -will neither expect nor find first-class hotels. - -Speaking of first-class hotels, I took part--quite an unwilling -part--in an incident that goes to show some of the difficulties -attendant upon trying to run them in Canada. Frankly, except for -those run by the Canadian Pacific Railway, there are practically -none. It is not to be wondered at. Cookery is an art, like -literature or music, not greatly encouraged in a new country. Take -waiters again. Though the wages they make are good and the standard -of waiting expected from them is rarely the highest, I believe they -are a perennial difficulty to hotel proprietors. On the trains and -in the big towns in the East one usually finds that the waiters are -Englishmen not long out; and they are so not because they have -acquired the science of waiting in the old country (as one might -suppose, since it is usually well learnt there), but because they -have not as yet acquired that Canadian spirit which makes anything -savouring of domestic service--or even of undue courtesy as from man -to {183} man--distasteful to the Canadian born, who, in any case, -dislikes working for uncertainly long hours. Englishmen, it has to -be admitted, are not particularly zealous for long and uncertain -hours of work either in these days; and therefore it generally -happens that as soon as the newcomer is the least acclimatised, he, -too, drops waiting if he has taken it up. In the East a freshly -arrived immigrant takes his place; but in the West there is no such -constant supply of spare white men. The result is that Western -hotels are more or less driven to employ as waiters either women or -Japanese and Chinese boys. - -The hotel I stayed in at Banff had a staff of the former. Heaven -knows we have women waiters enough in England, but in Canada I do not -think heaven can know.... As soon as I came in to breakfast in the -morning I became aware of a sharp-featured maiden with eyeglasses and -tight lips and stiff white cuffs--very much the type of the Girton -girl in the older times--who was clearly in charge of the room, and -meant to let every one know it. I shrank down at the nearest table, -and in a hushed voice requested and received my breakfast from one of -the waitresses who were theoretically in attendance. She was very -kindly, {184} only she brought me tea instead of coffee. I wanted -coffee. I felt it was taking a risk, but as a man at his breakfast -usually prefers his own fancy to other people's, I looked about -delicately to see if I could catch my waitress's eye and induce her -to change the pot. By bad fortune I merely caught the eye of the -sharp young lady who, coming up and learning from my unwilling lips -that I had been given the wrong drink, said imperiously: - -'Kindly tell me which of the girls gave you this!' - -Now I had not particularly noticed the girl who had been good enough -to help me--an inexcusable carelessness--which the sharp young woman -evidently interpreted as a desire to fence with her, for while I -hesitated she went on: - -'I'll tell you why I want to know. There's some game on this -morning----' - -'Oh,' I said, 'yes.' - -'And I'm not going to stand it,' said the sharp young woman fiercely. -'I fired two of the girls yesterday, and I don't mind if I fire the -lot, so if you'll tell me which of them brought you this I'll see to -her straight away.' - -'I'm afraid I should not know her again,' I said hastily. A scene of -strife around my {185} unlucky person, while breakfast got cold and -all the other guests at the other tables looked on, was terrible to -my fancy. The sharp one seemed most disappointed. - -'I wish you could,' she said. 'I'd fix her right now.' - -'Quite impossible,' I murmured, hoping that I was speaking the truth. -Not so far off there was a young woman, standing chatting genially -with two men at another table, who might have brought me that tea. - -'Oh, well, of course if you can't,' said the sharp one, and presently -brought me coffee with her own fair white-cuffed hands. I thanked -her warmly, and she went away; after which I was rewarded for my -supposed chivalry by the young woman who had been entertaining those -other two men coming up to me and saying in a sweet voice: - -'I say, I'm awfully sorry that I brought you that tea instead of -coffee. The fact is we're awfully rushed this morning.' - -'Not at all,' I said, 'don't think of it,' and hoped inwardly that -she would go away before the sharp one spotted her and bore down upon -us. She did not seem so rushed as she had said. - -'Sure you won't have anything else now?' she persisted in the -kindliest way. - -{186} - -'No, thank you,' I said, and seeing, I suppose, that I was not an -entertaining person, she flitted gracefully away to a third table -where another male sat, to whom I heard her whisper in passing--on -the way to further chat with the other two men: - -'Now, mind you don't forget to meet me outside the hotel at six -sharp!' - -My sympathies almost went out to the sharp-visaged spinster, for -really there were quite a number of guests looking about them for -food while the rushed staff chatted freely and pleasantly with such -male visitors as seemed by their bearing to be worthy of being -fascinated. This at breakfast-time--breakfast-time when an -Englishman at all events wants food and would not be put off by the -conversation of Cleopatra or Helen of Troy. Canadians may be a more -gallant race at this hour of the day, but I am not sure of this. The -preponderance of Japanese waiters as one gets further West seems to -point to the fact that even they prefer food--at meal-times--to -sentiment. The Japanese may demand high wages, and leave their -places suddenly if they feel like it, but at least they do not -threaten one with an emotional scene over one's morning coffee. Nor -do I imagine that they require to be treated by their {187} employers -with quite that reverential respect of which I remember seeing an -example in a small hotel in the Columbia Valley. I was stopping at -the hotel over Sunday with a friend, and as we wanted to go out for -the day, we asked the manager if we could be supplied with some -sandwiches for lunch. He was a mild and obliging young man, but his -face fell. - -'I'll--I'll see what can be done,' he said, and I heard him go to the -young lady who vouchsafed to wait at table occasionally in a superior -way. 'My God!' I heard him say in an extremely humble voice to her, -'I'm most awfully sorry to ask such a thing of you, but these chaps -want to go out and take some sandwiches. I say, do you suppose it -could be managed?' - -We got two sandwiches each as a result of his intercession, and in -that mountain air we could have done with six times the number. But -we realised from the manager's face when he brought them to us that -the goddess who had provided them might, instead of doing so, have -stalked straight out of the hotel for good. - - - - -{188} - -CHAPTER XX - -CANADA AND WOMAN - -Few books are complete nowadays without a chapter on the woman -question. Man can be treated of in between; one would not as yet -care to write a book without mentioning man in it. As a subsidiary -agent for keeping the world going man is still not without his -importance. But woman, as I have said, must have a chapter to -herself. And since I unwittingly arrived on the last page at the -subject of woman's work in Canada, I will pause--even on the -threshold of the mountains--and go further into the matter. - -The most noticeable thing about woman in Western Canada is that she -has not yet arrived there. If any one wished to get an idea of how -the world would arrange itself supposing there were no women in it at -all, they would have to go a little further north and west, into some -of the British Columbian valleys or into the Yukon country, and look -around. - -{189} - -What a simple world it seems. No clothes question, no washing, the -simplest cookery, one man one plate (and that plate never washed), -one knife for eating with or for skinning a grizzly bear, no carpets -or curtains in the houses, no dustings or spring-cleanings, no -knick-knacks to knock over or break, no flowers without or within -except such as grow wild, no luxuries, in short, either to enjoy or -to pay for, and a terrible amount of dirt. That is the physical -aspect of the world without women. - -The spiritual side of it is less easy to arrive at. These bachelors -you see in the backwoods are a silent people, lacking in -self-consciousness, and, I daresay, in manners, but law-abiding and -amiable and peculiarly handy. All men are handy who have not women -to steal that talent from them; and most womenless men are silent -too. One knows, of course, that bores may be found among men at -times, but never chatterboxes. There is something to be said for the -view that speech arose by women putting questions so often that men -were driven, in sheer weariness, to make answers. - -Does it seem an unattractive life that these hardy bachelors have -perforce to live? Perhaps. But you will not find them bemoaning -{190} their lot. That is not the way of bachelors. We know they are -to be pitied, but they do not pity themselves. Seriously, the -trouble with these men is that they have none of those inducements to -consider the future which make a man better than a machine. They -take the world as it comes, which is well enough for themselves but -not well enough for the world. I doubt if it is well for themselves -really. True, they have nothing to worry them so long as they are in -health. They can make big money when they choose and take holidays -when they choose, conscious that when their money is spent they have -only to set to again. Their wages are indeed to them little more -than trinkgeld--and this means that those splendid workers have no -real reward for their work, leave no successors to carry on the -traditions of their toil, enrich only the bar-keepers and the rogues -who live on the folly of honest men. - -Clearly the most honourable opening for women in Canada is marriage. -Only wives are capable of putting down the drink curse, preventing -the growth of a particularly odious plutocracy, establishing a -permanent instead of a nomad population in the West. Nor might it be -a bad thing (but for Anglo-Saxon {191} prejudices) if provincial -governments there could start marriage offices, due attention being -paid to eugenics. Even in so small a matter as the following, the -presence of wives should make all the difference. All down the -Columbia valley I found the cattle ranchers, who were bachelors, -drinking tinned milk, while scores of cows ran wild and went dry. -When I asked if it wasn't worth while to keep one cow milking, I was -always told, 'No, we haven't time to bother about it,' till I came to -the shack of a married Swede, whose wife had time to bother about it. -In his shack tinned milk was anathema, as it should be everywhere. - -As prejudice would undoubtedly prevent the formation of governmental -marriage offices, marriage can only be considered as an indirect -opening for women. What are the directer openings? A great deal -depends on what part of Canada immigrant women make for. In the East -there is no such lack of women as in the West. The sexes are fairly -balanced. In the big towns there is the usual demand for domestic -servants, but not many more openings for educated Englishwomen than -there are in big towns at home. There are a few more, because those -cities are going at a faster pace than our English cities, and -because all work there is {192} more valuable than in England. Women -skilled in the arts that have to do with personal decoration, such as -millinery, dressmaking, etc., could make their way there. - -Factory work in Canada is hardly worth going into here, the chief -point about it being that wages are of course higher; nor did I -notice any unusual professions engaging the attention of women, -unless it were the checking of parcels and the playing in hotel -orchestras, neither of which requires a man's strength. - -[Illustration: THE HALT. LAGGAN.] - -French Canada offers employment to but very few. Western Canadians -sniff at the Habitants because they let their women work in the -fields; haymaking and hoeing. But the idea of using women as outdoor -workers is not so uncivilised as it looks to those unaccustomed to -seeing it. Ethnologists are agreed nowadays that the tribes in which -women do the fieldwork are not the least but the most civilised, and -maintain that the position of women among such tribes is higher than -among any others. Women began to work out-of-doors because the -primitive peoples believed in a connection between their fertility -and that of the earth; and where they do such work, women are always -the keepers of the grain store--hold in their hands, that is to say, -the {193} food upon which the life of the tribe depends. The most -honourable primitive customs are not always the best in modern times, -but there can be no doubt of the fertility of the French Canadians. - -As one goes West, woman becomes more of an indoor creature; and this -may be due to the greater chivalry of their men folk. But one has to -remember that the great charm of Canadian life, especially on the -prairies, is an outdoor charm--working in the exhilarating air--not -cooking over a hot stove indoors. One hears of a few cases in which -women have taken up farming or vegetable-gardening and made a success -of it, but no one could honestly say that the fortune awaiting women -who take up such work is usually a great one. The work is too hard, -especially in the winter time. Chicken-ranching is perhaps easier; -but the real demand in the West is for women to do that housework -which the men have not time for. At such work capable women can earn -from three to five pounds a month with board and lodging; and while -they are likely to find it rather harder--certainly not less -hard--than similar work at home, it has compensations besides the -money to be made by it. For one thing there is none of the odium -that attaches {194} to it in the older countries. The cook is as -good as her employer, who probably did the cook's work for years -before the cook was to be had. It is natural that the work which -most ladies have to do for themselves, because neither love nor money -can obtain them substitutes, should lose its menial and unpleasant -aspect, and the finest ladies in western Canada do it unashamed. -Often their guests will help them to wash up, and even prepare the -dinner. Personally, I found myself becoming quite expert at cleaning -fish for a hostess who thereafter cooked it and dished it up, and yet -appeared at table as fresh and elegant and apparently leisured as any -lady who keeps a staff of servants in the old country. And I found -as I got on that I rather liked cleaning fish. - -It stands to reason that the lady help is not wanted. The precise -duties demanded of such a lady are always a little misty, but I -imagine that they include a little sewing and a little reading, the -ability to chat pleasantly, to be good-tempered (and possibly a -Protestant), to feed the canary, and, at a pinch, even to clean out -its cage. None of these talents are needed in a new country, and I -heard of forty women who were on the books of an employment {195} -office in Calgary, all wanting to be lady helps and all likely to go -on wanting it till Doomsday. - -One hears a good deal of discussion (not in Canada) of the openings -in the colonies for educated women. There is an English -committee--the Committee of Colonial Intelligence for Educated -Women--which, 'recognising the crying need of our colonies for the -best type of educated women,' undertakes to furnish them with -detailed, practical and up-to-date information, before advising them -to go out. This committee hopes later on to found settlements in the -colonies, where training, suitable to the needs of each colony, can -be given, and centres can be formed to which the girls can return in -the intervals of employment. There is much sense both in the -recognition of the need for educated women in the colonies and in the -perception that the most educated woman will be lost there unless she -is prepared to be practical. The truth is that that same -adaptability which is required of men in Canada is required of women -also. They must first suit the country before they can hope to leave -their mark on it. Educated women can leave their mark there by their -inward, not by their outward, superiority. - -Centres to which the girls can go in the first {196} place, and to -which they can return in the intervals of employment, are an -excellent idea, and one which central or local government authorities -in Canada would do well to support. Of course the Young Women's -Christian Association already gives much help in this direction, but -it cannot be expected to have branches everywhere. New towns and -settlements are planned and put through very quickly in Canada, and -wherever they result in creating a demand for women's work, some such -centre for girls as near the railway depot as possible should be -started. For one thing it would facilitate the engagement of girls, -for another it would attract a better class. Probably the best -openings of all for women in Canada--educated women, I mean--are in -the big cities of the furthest West. In Vancouver and Victoria -wealthy people reside who can afford to pay for such luxuries as -private school-mistresses and governesses. And the supply of women -is not so great there. Women also seem to be more employed there as -hotel manageresses and under-manageresses, and as cashiers in hotels -and offices. I never heard of women being real estate agents, but in -a profession in which the arts of persuasion play a leading part, -there seems no reason why they {197} should not shine. Of bachelor -girls, living their own lives, I have also never heard in the West. -They could hardly have the hearts to do it with so many bachelor men -wasting their lives around them. - -On the whole, the position of woman in Canada is one of honourable -toil lightened by the high consideration in which they are held. -They have hardly as yet obtained that dominant super-man eminence -which American women are said to occupy. That is, perhaps, because -they have not gone in so much for that culture and social -fastidiousness by the lack of which in themselves some American -husbands are made to feel their inferiority. On the other hand they -seem to keep their men folk contented, and remain contented with -them. Divorce is, I believe, uncommon in Canada. - - - - -{198} - -CHAPTER XXI - -THE LAKES AMONG THE CLOUDS - -Who thinks the Rockies only of a forbidding magnificence, of a -grandeur always dark and fierce? Let him go to Lake Louise. The -only phrase I know that fits it is that German one--_maerchenhaft -schoen_--lovely as a scene of fairyland. Coming upon it suddenly, on -a moonlight night, it seems so unlooked-for, so exquisite, that one -says to oneself, 'Surely it will vanish like a dream.' - -[Illustration: LAKE LOUISE, LAGGAN, ALBERTA] - -It is quite a little lake, shut in for the most part by hills. The -hills are wooded at their base, and wooded high up--wooded, indeed, -right into the clouds; but higher still they turn to bare walls of -rock or snow-strewn peaks, where the snow and the flowers grow side -by side. Up among the heights other little lakes lie--the Lakes in -the Clouds, they are called--and sometimes they are in the clouds and -sometimes not, and they are coloured like thick opals and moonstones, -and you can see {199} the tall, slim firs growing at the bottom as if -they were real trees and not only reflections. I think it is the -colours of these lakes that are so fairy-like. People may say of the -Rockies that they never give the contrast of white snow-fields and -deep blue sky that is so marked in the Swiss and Italian Alps, but -what of that? The colours they do yield are, in truth, far more -delicate and varied--perhaps because the Canadian skies are so much -loftier and farther away--and, if you do not believe it, go and look -at the waters of Lake Louise. They are distilled from peacocks' -tails and paved with mother-of-pearl, and into them rush those wild -blues that are only mixed in the heart of glaciers. - -Across the end of the lake stretches the hotel garden--green turf -crossed by one great border of Iceland poppies, golden and orange, -fringing the water front. One other plant I should have liked to see -growing there--the opal anchusa. Its colour is so exactly the colour -of the lake, in sun and in shadow. Still, more colour is hardly -needed anywhere round Lake Louise. As I have said, the very snows -are gay when you get to them, and pied with flowers, as old English -meadows used to be when old English poets used that word, before -{200} scientific farming came in and determined that flowers were -weeds and killed them. And I had thought of these valleys as black -and frowning, full of melancholy noises among the trees, rather than -windless and radiant. - -The station for Lake Louise is Laggan, and the time to arrive there -is in the evening, just before the moon rises. It does not matter if -the drive up from the station is accomplished in the dark. The road -is wooded and beautiful, but do not wish for the moon till the last -bend of it leads you suddenly on to the lake. Then wish for the moon -hard. Or, if you want to make sure of it, and the moon (though it -seems always magical in its uprising) follows laws like other things -and will not rise unless it is due to, make cold calculations some -time ahead, and be sure they are right. There never could be -anything better worth timing than moonrise on Lake Louise. - -If the poppied air that was fabled to pervade certain lovely places -in the old world hung about this region, there would be no coming -away from it. You would remain gazing drowsily for ever at the lake -like the lover on the Greek urn that Keats described. But all around -are the mountains which distil an air keen and exhilarating, so that -before you know {201} it you are set walking, or riding or -climbing--in some way adventuring forth. Some people adventure forth -in a carriage, but that is rather too like going out to battle in -evening clothes. - -Myself, having but two days at my disposal--which I could very well -have spent looking across the Iceland poppies at the lake--was urged -by the air and a sense of duty to take a long walk the first day and -a longish ride the second. For this second expedition I hired a -mountain pony and decided to reach the Moraine Lake, which lies at -the end of The Valley of the Ten Peaks. It was my first experience -of a Rocky Mountain pony, and I will state at once that it was an -unfavourable one. There exist, no doubt, a few excellent mountain -ponies. I bestrode one or two later in different places. But this -first one was so dispiriting that he warped my mind concerning the -whole breed. The truth is that mountain ponies, being intended for -the average tourist who seems to be not much of a rider, are both -bred and trained to go no faster, and exhibit no more spirit than a -bath-chair man. Not theirs to trot or canter, even if a smooth -stretch of road present itself. Enough if they move steadily up -mountain trails and along mountain {202} ledges and down precipitous -tracks in a manner designed to make the tourist feel that mules are -stumbling creatures by comparison. Enough in one way but not in -another, for to emulate a baser creature corrupts the best-bred pony -in the world. Ponies have that much of humanity in them. Besides, -it is not worth while to breed the best ponies for such work; and, -further and anyway, a mountain pony is, so to say, a contradiction in -species. A pony as much as a horse is a creature of the plains; -place him in the mountains and he becomes something -different--scarcely a pony at all. He is then an animal that picks -up his feet in a marvellous way, is free from mountain sickness and -the faintness that comes from high altitudes, and carries a pack or a -person on his back. But he is no longer the friend of man. He is -merely the tool of the tourist. - -We started downhill--that pony and I--directly after lunch. -Words--words--words. I mounted that pony directly after lunch. The -road led downhill in the first instance. I tried to start the pony -in that direction. That is a truer description of what actually -happened. But after I had got his head set towards the Ten Peaks -Valley, he slewed it round again. We had not by any means {203} -started. 'He is frightened of the hill,' I thought to myself, and -redirected his head, encouraging him with words and reins. I had no -whip. The owners of these hired mountain ponies seem to think whips -unnecessary, and, indeed, they are very little use. I tried one cut -from the roadside some five minutes later. We had by that time made -about a hundred yards. I beat him also with his own reins and my -heels, and we accomplished about a quarter of a mile downhill, going -delicately. I said to myself, 'Patience. The descent will soon be -over. The road then rises. We shall see a different animal.' - -What I saw when we came, by sideways and prolonged efforts, to the -first part of the ascent, was that, greatly as that pony hated a -down-hill grade, far more did he loathe an uphill one. We mounted it -at what seemed to be a mile an hour or less, and I groaned to think -that we had eight or nine to accomplish before we got to the lake, -and the same in returning. By late afternoon I judged we had made -the half distance and were still going weakly. I had cut two or -three different sticks by now, and encouraged the pony with different -words from those I had used at the start. He woke up once or twice -and trotted for a moment. {204} The road was not really steep for -most of the way; where it was steep I walked, dragging the pony -behind me. He did not seem to mind whether I was on his back or off, -provided no motion was required of him. I found it was cooler work -to get off and pull him than to propel him from the saddle. Always -he stood still for choice. - -The road was good--good underfoot and good to observe from. On our -left lay a broad valley, and on our right the hills. I should love -to have paused voluntarily and absorbed the views, but in point of -fact I only paused in passion to cut whips; the pony, meanwhile, -grazing. He knew the road to the Moraine Lake better than I did, and -he contested every inch of it. - -I think I was aware long before the Ten Peaks came into sight that I -should not reach the lake that day--or perhaps ever; but I was -determined that I would at least see where it lay, though the sun set. - -We came within sight of it at last. Before then the Ten Peaks had -come into line one by one till there they stood, ten white peaks all -in a row. At their base I thought I saw the lake lying, very still -and cold among its ice-worn pebbles. - -[Illustration: IN THE VALLEY OF THE TEN PEAKS. ROCKY MOUNTAINS.] - -{205} - -If I did not see it, if it was but a mirage, I do not greatly care. -I achieved something more that afternoon than the mere sight of a -lake. I got that pony back to the hotel almost in time for dinner. -I was pretty stiff in the arms. It was not to be wondered at. -Hauling a pony nine miles is no light work. - - - - -{206} - -CHAPTER XXII - -A SOLITARY RIDE INTO THE YOHO VALLEY - -Emerald Lake is beautiful, but less beautiful, I think, than Lake -Louise. It is more like a lake among mountains, and less like a lake -in a dream. I went to it because I wanted to get into the Yoho -Valley, if only for a day, and the trail from Emerald Lake into the -Yoho is, I had heard, the most picturesque of all. Even -superficially to see the valley takes four days, and I had left -myself with only one, so that it was in a deprecating spirit that I -asked the manageress of the lake chalet if I could at least get -within sight of the valley and back before dark. She said that if I -started at two o'clock punctually, on a pony, the thing could just be -done. I said that I had tried one or two mountain ponies, and did -not care about them when I was in a hurry. - -[Illustration: ON THE TRAIL, YOHO VALLEY.] - -'Oh, but I'll give you a slicker,' said the manageress. 'You see -there's no run on {207} the ponies at present, and I'll ask the man -to give you his very best. He'll just get you there and back in -time.' - -I thanked her and said I would try the slicker; and, half an hour -later, the slicker and I were skirting the wooded shore of the -Emerald Lake at what was, for a mountain pony, quite a fast trot. We -were alone together. There were a few guests at the chalet, but the -lateness of the season and the snow-clouds that loomed on the horizon -had deterred any of them from starting on the Yoho Valley trip that -day. Earlier in the year, there would have been quite a party riding -together with a guide in the direction I was taking, for there are -four camps in the valley, placed at picturesque points an easy day's -ride apart, where you may rest and sleep, one night beneath a -waterfall, the next on the edge of a glacier, with the ponies -tethered round, and the camp-fires crackling pleasantly, so that you -feel that you are pioneering, but pioneering luxuriously. - -But now, as I have said, it was late in the season, and the -snow-clouds were holding themselves in the sky ready for further -attacks, and a keen wind was beginning to rise, so that no one else -thought the Yoho Valley {208} tempting enough, and it was certain I -should have it all to myself if I got there. - -The trail was not difficult to follow. There, at the end of the -lake, was a mountain pass visible from the chalet, and the thin white -line that screwed about among the rocks and trees was the trail. The -slicker trotted. He trotted through the wood that borders the lake; -he trotted through a wonderful pebbled valley beyond it which might -have been a sea beach (only everywhere slim spruces, like sharp, -green, tenpenny nails, grew out of the pebbles); and he trotted up -the first stretch of trail leading to the pass ahead of us. Then for -an hour or more the slicker climbed as steadily as a Swiss guide. -The trail was less than a yard wide and metalled with rolling stones, -and though it wound continually, its most generous spirals left it, -to my fancy, almost sheer. We wound with it, past boulders and -hanging trees and little cataracts that shot through air from some -invisible lips of stone above--between shadowy crags and over -unprotected places where the sun glared. In the end the slicker -brought me to the pass itself, and we rode into a dark wood there, -and the trees grew bigger and bigger, and the trail grew stickier and -stickier, and the {209} pass ended suddenly, and below, far, far -below, was the Yoho Valley. - -The story of the boy who cried 'wolf' when there was no wolf is a -familiar one, but much more familiar in everyday life is the story of -the man who cries 'lion' when there is no lion. You know him and you -don't believe him. You know that, moved by the immoderate enthusiasm -which is the chief qualification for the profession of writing, he is -doing his level best to make you believe that the object he is -presenting to you is a lion, for the simple reason that if you -believe it, you will be more attracted by it and him. Canada, being -a much-advertised country at present, is full of lions. 'The finest -view in Canada. Yes, sir.' How often I heard that remark! How -often it turned out to be an overstatement. How distrustfully I came -to listen to it. - -Was it, then, that for some months I had imbibed the Canadian air, -that when I reached the Rockies I too was carried away, and became as -immoderately enthusiastic as any Canadian? I do not know. I merely -have to confess that I was carried away, that I have already cried -'lion' more than once, and that I must do so once again now that I -have got to the Yoho Valley. Baedeker saves his own dignity--and -{210} that of literature--by using an asterisk at these critical -points, or two asterisks if his emotions are very poignant. But I, -who have to fill paper, must use words. Well, I am not afraid of -exaggerating the beauties of the Yoho. This valley of enormous trees -spiring up from unseen gorges to wellnigh unseen heights; of -cataracts that fall in foam a thousand feet; of massed innumerable -glaciers; this valley into which it seems you could drop all -Switzerland, and still look down--is not easily overpraised. The -difficulty is to praise it at all adequately. - -It seemed to me as I rode on along the high trail that sometimes -edged out to the gulf below and sometimes swerved back from it, that -one of the wonders of the valley was a thing that in smaller places -would have made for disappointment, and that is that it lies, and -always has lain, outside the human radius. It has none of those -connections with men that set us thrilling in other parts. No -Hannibal ever led his army by this route across these mountains. No -hardy tribesmen watched the approach of an enemy among its crags, or -bred among them a race of mountaineers. No gods dwelt on its -heights, and no poets ever came near to sing them. History {211} has -nothing to tell of it. Little hills and little valleys have their -stories and their songs, their memories and their miracles. They are -haunted still with those forgotten mysteries which stir men's fancies -more deeply than things remembered or discovered can. This valley -walled about with mountains has been above and beyond men's ken from -the beginning of the world: and now that men have come into it, they -find nothing to discover in it except its vastness and immunity from -the touch of men. It strikes one even now as not only devoid of -human adjuncts but needless of them. A man no more looks for legends -there than he would look for them in the centre of a typhoon. - -I suppose that men did pass through it--even before the valley became -a known part of the world, and even a sight for tourists. It was -not, as the phrase goes, untrodden by the foot of man. A few -prospectors must have passed this way from time to time many years -ago. Some may have died there for all one knows. Indian hunters, -too, would enter the valley in pursuit of game. But no one possessed -it; no one gave it the human air: or, if they did, the records are -lost. Prospectors tell us only of their finds, nothing {212} of -their lives. Of the Indians, some one someday may, perhaps, find -some traces. At present their white brothers are little troubled by -them or their history or their origin. Canadians are content to -think of them as a primitive, decaying people who came from God knows -where to a country they never realised was God's. It will be easier -to forget them than to understand them, these strange men with faces -no more expressive than wood, who, if they ever came to the Yoho -Valley, must have passed through it more like trees walking among the -trees than like men that stop and wonder, and leave a habitation and -a name. - -Shadowy, disregardable creatures, then, as uninfluential as the -slicker and myself, may have roamed the valley in times past and left -no more traces upon it. We two realising, I trust, our minuteness -and unimportance, went on, as it turned out, far beyond the point -intended for our afternoon's excursion. In contemplation of the -valley I had given the slicker the rein, and he, poor pony, no doubt -thought that he was bound for the first camp, there to rest the night -in the ordinary course. Presently I found him, his two front feet -planted firmly together, sliding down the {213} slipperiest piece of -trail we had yet encountered, sliding and sliding till we had got to -the very bottom of the valley--whereupon I discovered that we had -indeed attained the first camp. - -It was a queer, unexpected sight--a few little lean-to tents and a -couple of log huts, standing side by side on a flat piece of the -valley floor, just beyond the spray of a cascade that dropped from -ledge to ledge of the mountain opposite, starting so high up that it -seemed to spring from the sky. The place seemed deserted, but while -the slicker and I paused to look about us, out of the biggest tent -there came a small, silent, yellow figure. It did not speak to me, -but only stared, and I, having stared back for a little and having -wondered if it were some gnome peculiar to the valley, suddenly saw -that it had a pigtail, and remembered that I had been told that there -was a Chinese cook in every camp. - -'Is this the first camp?' I therefore asked. - -'Yup!' - -'Can you give me some tea?' - -'Yup!' he repeated, and vanished into the tent whence he had come. - -By the time I had tethered the slicker on the grassiest spot I could -find, that boy had {214} tea ready. He stared at me while I ate it, -stared at me when I paid him for it, and stared at me when, having -offered the slicker some bread and sugar in vain, I remounted him and -set him on the homeward trail. I had not a watch with me. But it -was evident from the position of the sun that we had very little -daylight left for the return ride. Dusk, indeed, came on just as we -reached the other side of the pass, with a mountain side still to -descend. Dusk and an exceedingly cold wind--in the face of which -that corkscrew trail seemed doubly steep. It was one of those -occasions when vowing candles to one's patron saint might have added -to one's peace of mind. But I have no patron saint and could but -give the reins to the slicker, and he rewarded me for my trust by not -falling down till we had actually accomplished the descent and were -on the pebbled beach. Then, in the pitch-dark night, we both rolled -over together. A match, lighted with difficulty, revealed the fact -that neither of us was injured; and so, very steadily and cautiously, -we moved on to the chalet, where we arrived to find dinner finished. -But we had seen splendid things, the slicker and I. - - - - -{215} - -CHAPTER XXIII - -THE FRUIT-LANDS OF LAKE WINDERMERE - -It would have been harder to leave the Rockies if I had not been -bound for the Selkirks, which have this advantage over the Rockies, -that they are perhaps less known. That part I was bound for is, -indeed, not known at all to tourists, and very little known to -anybody. The known part of the range lies round Glacier House, and -includes Mount Abbott, the Great Illecillewaet Glacier, Mount Sir -Donald, etc., which high places the railway has now made accessible -for tourists who can climb. The part I was to see lies to the -south-east, at the head of the Columbia Valley, and is at present a -hundred miles from the nearest railway station. - -First of all I took train to Golden. If you take a map of Canada and -follow the trans-continental line westward, you will see that it -emerges from the Rockies at Golden. Golden is a little mining town -lying in the Columbia {216} Valley, with the Rockies on one side of -it and the Selkirks on the other. It was chiefly to see this -valley--one of the most fertile in British Columbia, but at present -unopened--that I got out at Golden with a friend. An excursion into -the Selkirks was to depend upon the time at our disposal. We had -been told that near Lake Windermere, at a place called Wilmer, there -was a great irrigation scheme in progress, which would shortly result -in 60,000 acres of dry belt-land being ready for fruit-farming. -This, when the rail from Kamloops to Golden was completed, would make -the Columbia Valley as famous for its fruit as the Okanagan. We both -wanted to see it. My friend wanted to buy land. The problem was how -to get up the valley. - -[Illustration: THE DEVIL'S FINGERS. ROCKY MOUNTAINS.] - -There were, we found, five different ways of doing the eighty miles -from Golden to Wilmer. - -1. The first was to wait for that day of the week on which the -stage-coach ran. It took two days to do the distance, and was very -convenient if we did not mind waiting in Golden a few days first. -But we were in a hurry. - -2. This way was by river-boat--a delightful trip. But there were -one or two objections to it. The water of the Columbia was very -{217} low at this time of the year, the sand-banks were numerous, and -the boat had gone up some days before and nobody knew when it would -get down again. We gave up the boat. - -3. The third way, which we decided should be ours, was to go up in -the only motor which Golden possessed. This would cost fifty -dollars, but the journey there would only take about seven hours. -When we had decided upon this, we went to the proprietor of the motor -and found that the car was already out for an indefinite number of -days. - -4. This way was to walk the eighty miles--a plan I favoured and -tried on the way back, as I shall describe. But my friend could not -fancy it. Statelier than myself, he had to carry five more stones -with him. - -5. This was the way we took. We hired a two-horse rig which -undertook to do the journey in the same time as the stage--but for -twenty dollars apiece instead of five. - -We started from Golden on a Monday morning in the two-horse rig, -driven by a young American. He had been in the United States navy, -and also in Alberta, farming, but he had had no luck with his farm, -having started with too small a capital to tide over {218} the two -bad seasons which he had met there. He told us that he found Canada -very similar to the States--neither much better nor worse; and he -took his own luck there philosophically. He seemed to me altogether -a capable man, whose fortune might have been all the other way. -Anyway he drove excellently and was not a grumbler, like the American -ex-sailor I met at Regina. - -Nothing could have been more beautiful than the late September -morning when we started out of Golden. A spreading village of pretty -poplar-lined avenues and pleasant bungalows, Golden explained its own -name as we went. The wooded hills on either side were all splashed -with autumn yellows, and the sun, striking down through a grove of -silver poplars which shuts off the south end of the village, made it -all seem shot with gold. It is a mining village, but compared with -the usual mining village of Great Britain it seemed as Eden to the -Inferno. - -Coming out of it we struck what is the dominant scenery of the -valley--the blue Columbia winding in and out, sometimes wooded to its -brim, sometimes sweeping over into open marshland, but always with -the hills lightly wooded, facing one another across it, and behind -{219} them the white peaks hung with snow. At every mile or two a -silvery creek, sometimes a mere ribbon of water, sometimes almost a -river, rushed down to join the Columbia below; by the side of these -creeks mostly would be the cleared land which small ranchers had -settled, and where they had gone on living presumably on what they -could grow off their own places, since the chances of reaching a -market became obviously more difficult at every mile. Every wind of -the road--and it mostly follows the river--gave views that were -always changing and beautiful. - -It was on the second day of our driving that the appearance of the -valley grew different. The creeks became rarer; the soil drier. -Instead of silver poplars rising among a tangled underbush, there -were now jack-pines growing out of a burnt-up sward. We might have -been going through some English park in the south country, and some -one had evidently thought this before, for a man we met driving told -us that this part of the valley was known as the Park. Passing -through it we came at last to the real dry belt. Those who know the -Okanagan would no doubt find it less strange, but it amazed me to -find a country among these mountains almost Egyptian in its colouring -and {220} texture. Drier and drier became the soil; the trees became -sparser and sparser; there was now no underwood at all. The straight -firs rose clear out of sandy hills and hollows. Sandy they might -appear, but this was not sand in the vulgar sense. It was glacial -silt--bottomless drifts of powdered clay that has slipped down from -the mountains and piled and sloped itself into 'benches' above the -river. - -We had to cross the river to get to Wilmer, which is the headquarters -of the irrigation. Headquarters sounds imposing; and in a few years, -doubtless, Wilmer will be imposing, but at present it consists of a -few shacks, two small stores, a dirty little hotel (in the bar of -which a man was shot the day after we left), and one presiding genius -who has made Wilmer what it is and also what it will be shortly. -Need I say that it was a Scot who years ago saw the far-reaching -value of this land, conceived the idea of irrigating it, and -personally superintended the carrying out of his conception? I don't -know that I need. I came to the conclusion before I left Canada that -Scots, more than any other race, were at the bottom, and generally -also at the top, of most of the enterprises that were being carried -out there. No {221} one talks of the Scotticisation of Canada. -Perhaps Scots do not proselytise. Perhaps they do not find any other -people worthy of being taken into their community. They prefer to -remain an international oligarchy, managing others but not admitting -them to equal rights. They effect their intentions by usually -working alone and always sticking together. A paradoxical people. -It is amazing to think that at the beginning of the eighteenth -century the Scottish Highlander was regarded by the average -Englishman in much the same light as we now regard the Hottentot or -the Andaman Islander, a hopelessly idle and uncouthly impossible -person, destined to remain a barbarian for ever. _Dis aliter visum_. -The Highlander now directs the Empire, distinguishing himself in that -respect even more than his Lowland brother. Yet only two hundred -years have passed since he was outside the pale. - -My friend knew Mr. Randolph Bruce, the Highlander who presides over -the Columbia Valley Irrigation Works, and will, it seems to me, rank -as one of the many makers of Canada, and Mr. Bruce most hospitably -put us up while we were in Wilmer, and showed us what he has done and -what he means to do. What he means to do is to create a town on the -shores {222} of Lake Windermere, and he drove us down there to show -us the lake, which is not the least like its English original, but -very beautiful nevertheless, lying as it does clear and still among -the sand-hills, a belt of autumn-tinted trees around it, and, above, -the hills and the snows. It looked like some African lake stretched -at the feet of the Mountains of the Moon. It looked as if it might -lie thus for centuries, silent and untouched by the hands of men. -But it was a Canadian lake, and though it might seem to be at the -very back of the world, it was shortly to have a town built on its -shores. Mr. Bruce showed us the town site, the hotel site, the site -of the bowling-green and the polo ground. I rather think he showed -us the race-course that was going to be. I saw it all the more -clearly because Mr. Bruce also showed us the work already actually -accomplished--the canals and ditches that brought the upper mountain -lakes down on to the benches of friable clay that were to grow the -apples we shall eat in England a few years hence. It is all -extraordinarily interesting, seeing this town of the future and these -fruit-lands of the future--of which my friend bought twenty acres, -which were to be named after him. The Columbia River ran just below -the {223} bench-land he bought, and I wished I had some capital handy -that I might buy the adjoining plot, that I might also grow fruit -there and have a portion of the fair Dominion named after me. If the -Windermere race-course had already been in existence, and a race -being run, I should have backed one of the horses against all my -principles, and laid out the proceeds in a fruit-farm. - - - - -{224} - -CHAPTER XXIV - -THE SELKIRKS--A GRIZZLY-BEAR COUNTRY - -Behind Wilmer lies a part of the Selkirks which is known only to a -few ranchers in the neighbourhood, and is scarcely accessible except -from this point. We had spent two days in the neighbourhood of Lake -Windermere, and on the third, though each of us was booked to be -hundreds of miles further on our way by the end of the week, and -heaven only knew how we were even going to reach Golden again, for we -had let the rig go back and the boat was reported stuck somewhere on -the Columbia River, we neither of us could resist an offer that was -made us of an opportunity to climb Iron Top Mountain, which was -somewhere at the back of this alluring country. - -The offer came from a Mr. Starboard. In Canada you will sometimes -find, several hundreds of miles from civilisation, some strenuous and -capable man whom you would think civilisation needed and would -require. But the wilds in {225} Canada are more important. Mr. -Starboard had come to these parts originally as a prospector and -miner, but the mine he had come to had shut down--not for lack of -silver and lead in it, but for lack of transport facilities; -whereupon Mr. Starboard, fascinated by one of these valleys, had -started horse-breeding there, occupying what time was left from -clearing his land in making roads through the mountains and hunting -big game. Dropping in at Mr. Bruce's casually one morning, he asked -us if we should like to see the best view he knew of in the Selkirks. -We said we should; and each, equipped with a toothbrush and a comb, -was driven out to Starboard's ranch for lunch. - -Travelling in the remoter parts of Canada gives you strange table -companions. You never know quite what company you will meet, though -you can generally count upon its being interesting. While we were -being driven up the Columbia Valley a few days before, we had heard -from various homesteaders that there was 'a big German bug' staying -up in the mountains with his friends, trying for bear. 'They call -him the Land Crab,' our informant would usually add for further -elucidation of the big bug's official position. On arriving at Mr. -Starboard's ranch we found that the big bug {226} in question was, in -the commoner prose of Europe, the Landgraf of Hesse with two -equerries and a small retinue. For a motley collection, the party -that sat down to lunch that day in the chief room of Starboard's -ranch would be difficult to beat. There was the Landgraf himself and -his German companions, a well-known Canadian official, three -valets--these all neatly dressed--Mrs. Starboard quite wonderfully -frocked, as the fashion papers say, Mr. Starboard in ranching -costume, and ourselves who had slept in our clothes for several days. -The waiters were a Japanese and a Chinese. We fed off bear, shot by -one of the Germans, who had been most successful in their hunting -both of bear and goat. - -Bear, by the way, was only one among other delicacies. Its taste is -rather like that of Christmas beef stewed in the gravy of a goose. -Vegetarians would not care about it; but after living on little else -for two days I can answer for its being both appetising and -sustaining, particularly in high altitudes. After lunch, four of us, -Mr. Starboard, the railway man, my friend, and myself started for -Iron Top Mountain, which lay seventeen miles off along a trail that -rose steeply most of the way. The ponies were excellent ones, better -even than {227} the slicker. Mr. Starboard had specially picked -them, because he wanted to see if they could be got to carry us to -the top of the mountain, a little over ten thousand feet. He had -never taken ponies as high before, and doubted if the test had ever -been made in Canada, though I fancy ponies have done as much or more -in the Himalayas. - -We did fourteen miles that afternoon, following at first the bank of -a blue foaming stream, then turning eastward up a steeper valley -through which a smaller stream flowed. The trail was far better than -many roads in French Canada or on the prairie, and had been -constructed by Mr. Starboard himself to provide access to a silver -and lead mine which had been shut down for some time. It seemed -extraordinary that in a country so wild and remote there should be -any trail at all, but miners go anywhere. A man who has to find his -way into the earth makes no difficulty about finding his way across -it. - -It was a day, half sunshine and half mist, and the mountains would -sometimes be shut entirely in shrouds of vapour, sometimes would -reveal slanted white tops cut off in mid-air by the fog below, -sometimes would clear altogether, so that one could see everything on -them, {228} from the snowslides down which the grizzlies travel to -the narrow tracks of the goats. As we mounted, the valley grew -steeper and steeper, and the trail wound more and more. We passed -one place where, earlier in the year, there had been a terrific slide -of snow half a mile in width. The huge firs still lay where they had -fallen, shattered and splintered before it. Half-way down, the -avalanche had met a great pinnacle of rock that had stood the shock -unmoved, and caused the snow to part to left and to right, where it -had hewn two lanes of almost equal breadth through the trees. It was -just near here that Mr. Starboard showed me a grizzly's track, and -told me that he had seen no less than seventeen of these bears in the -last fortnight. He said that their numbers were increasing yearly in -that neighbourhood. A little later a porcupine crossed the trail -ahead of us, and lurched unwieldily into the undergrowth. The trees -grew close together all the way, except where we passed a great -stretch of mountainside where a forest fire had raged, and even there -the scorched trunks still stood, gibbeted skeletons of trees. - -We put up for the night in a deserted mining camp, almost a village -it was, with wooden shacks likely to be used again when the Kamloops -{229} to Golden Railway is completed and it is worth while getting -the stuff out of the mine. - -Up there it had begun to freeze hard, but a big fire and much bear, -which the railway man fried over it with skill, kept us warm enough -till we went to bed under many blankets in one of the shacks. - -It was bitterly chill--the start in the early morning--after a -breakfast of cold bear; and very soon after we set out we got into -snow, and the trees ceased, and the ponies' flanks began to heave -steadily. The morning was as bright as it was cold, however, and -Mount Farnham, shaped like a chimney-pot, glittered right over us on -the left. I remarked to Mr. Starboard what a nasty mountain it -looked for climbing purposes, whereupon he astonished me by saying he -had been up it. - -'You went up to see if it could be done?' I said, thinking I had -struck a keen climber in the European sense of the word. - -'No,' said Mr. Starboard simply; 'you would not catch me going up a -place like that for the climb. I went there because I thought there -was silver and lead there.' - -The ponies were now beginning to show their respective stamina, two -of them going right ahead, and the one that carried my friend {230} -getting slower and slower. We had got by this time into a sort of -rocky amphitheatre where the snow lay thicker, and just as I passed -under a little cascade congealed into fantastic icicles as it spouted -from a cleft, I heard a noise in my rear, and turned to see my friend -and his pony doing Catherine wheels in the snow together. Luckily -they fell--and rolled--softly and rose uninjured; but very soon after -that the ponies had to be left. We turned them loose on a platform -of rock which was, Mr. Starboard said, just short of ten thousand -feet up. Only a few hundred more remained to be done, which we -accomplished on foot through knee-deep snow, gaining the summit just -in time. - -For the first time I got a view of the Rockies. We looked down a -long, narrow, purple valley that ran at right angles to the Columbia -River, over the first hills beyond Wilmer, into a sea of mountains. -I had heard that phrase--a sea of mountains--applied to the Rockies -before, but I had not realised its fitness before. - -[Illustration: A SENTINEL OF THE ROCKIES.] - -There it was, a sea of white caps frozen eternally in the very moment -when they had stormed the sky. - -For just five minutes we gazed, and then a mist settled down on them, -and, where we were, {231} immediately a bitter wind began to blow and -caused us to make for the ponies hurriedly. As we rode down the -frozen trail we startled some ptarmigan, which rose and fluttered -above the snow like big white butterflies. - - - - -{232} - -CHAPTER XXV - -AN EIGHTY-MILE WALK THROUGH THE COLUMBIA VALLEY - -We got back to Wilmer the following morning, and the problem then -was--how to reach Golden again. The boat was due up the river some -time in the day, but sandbanks do not encourage punctuality. I had -my suspicions of that boat, and in any case, even if it arrived that -day, it would certainly not start back again till the morning -following. I did not want to wait for it at Wilmer, and decided -instead that I would start walking down the valley at once and pick -the boat up at Spellamacheen, forty miles downstream, some time next -day. My friend was as suspicious of the walk as I was of the boat; -and since he had heard that some men were likely to turn up that day -in a motor from Golden who might give him a lift back in case the -boat failed, he decided to wait for them. - -So we parted, and rather late in the day--at {233} noon, to be -exact--I set out on my walk. Forty miles is not much of a walk. It -can be done in ten hours very easily--in eight if you make up your -mind to it. I decided I would take nine hours over it and waste no -time. I did not stop for lunch in Athelmer--where one crosses the -Columbia--but merely bought some chocolate and a pound of apples, and -hurried on. - -About a mile out of Athelmer I ate the apples, because they were a -nuisance to carry, and wished I could as easily get rid of my heavy -overcoat, which had its pockets stuffed with toilet and sleeping -accessories just like a suit-case. I also wished that I had on boots -that I had ever tried walking in. Still I did six or seven miles in -the first hour and a half, and then I realised that two things -destructive to fast walking were about to happen. One was -footsoreness and the other was rain. Both came upon me a few minutes -later, and both increased steadily hour after hour. The valley which -had looked so beautiful in all the reds of autumn, as we drove -through it in the sunlight, was now filled with a clammy mist; and -the road which had seemed a fine road for the horses in fine weather -now struck me as offensively sticky, and my pace declined {234} to -something under three miles an hour. I consoled myself for a little -with the thought that I was getting an experience of autumn in the -Columbia Valley. Afterwards I decided that I would gladly do without -it. I could have imagined it just as well. The road was like glue -and my coat had increased in weight several pounds. To balance this -as far as possible, I sat on a wet spruce tree that had fallen by the -side of the road and ate my packet of chocolate; after which I moved -on at a very sober pace. I began to doubt if I should get to -Spellamacheen that night; and the doubt soon increased to a certainty -that I should not. Then I remembered that on the drive out we had -passed a place called Dolans, only twenty-eight miles from Wilmer. I -did some mental arithmetic which seemed to prove that even Dolans was -a terrible distance off, and I tried a little running, but it was not -of a kind to win a Marathon race. Running through glue when you are -footsore is trying work. Nevertheless by six o'clock I calculated I -was only about three miles from Dolans, which rejoiced me, until the -horrid thought cropped up--if I got in after the supper hour, should -I get any supper? - -It was by no means certain in that valley. - -{235} - -Providence a few minutes later sent a buggy, driven by a small, -glum-looking man up behind me, and the glum-looking man said 'Care to -drive?' I said 'Yes,' and found he was bound for Dolans like myself. -We got there about seven o'clock. The rancher and his wife were in; -also another wayfarer like ourselves, who had arrived a few minutes -before us. He was an elderly man, with a great shock of iron-grey -hair, who was driving into Golden in a farm-cart from some place -several days distant. He had the strangest pair in his cart--a -little brown mare of about fourteen hands, and a great lanky horse -the height of a giraffe. - -We were all given a good meal, and ate it in silence, and sat in -silence to digest it. Canadians in these valleys are often that way; -it is due not to unsociability but to disuse of their tongues. -Possibly to ruminate is the better way, but silence can be -oppressive, and if you start a conversation and the other people only -reflect upon your words, they may be weighing them as if they were -gold, but you are not sure enough of this to be elated. I was rather -glad to be shown to my bed, which was in a barn (but the blankets -were clean, Mr. Dolans said), pretty early. {236} Mr. Dolans sat on -the bed for a bit, and advised me to buy the ranch. I promised to -think the matter over, and went to sleep instead in a nice atmosphere -of hay, and got up for six o'clock breakfast. The other two had -already driven off; but the rain had ceased, and though the road was -a mud slide, I started for Spellamacheen in high hopes of catching -the boat in spite of being footsore. - -I need not have worried myself, for when I got there at 12.30, I -learnt that the boat had just passed on its way up to Wilmer, and was -not likely to be down again for two or three days. - -Spellamacheen consists of a rest-house ranch in full view of a -semicircle of snowclad mountains, but I was a little disheartened in -spite of the view. I particularly wanted to catch the midnight train -from Golden to Vancouver, and now I realised that to do this I should -have to walk the rest of the way--another forty miles. From two -o'clock to twelve is ten hours. If I did four miles an hour, I -should catch the train to a nicety. - -When I am resting on a walk I am always singularly optimistic. I was -stiff after lunch--partly from the unusual exercise, partly from -sleeping in wet clothes, and my feet {237} were sorer than ever, but -I set out for Golden, confident that I should catch that train. A -young man with a bundle on his back, who had got into Spellamacheen -just ahead of me, offered to hike with me. He also was for Golden, -but thought twenty miles more that day would satisfy him. - -He was a pleasant and conversational young man, and told me that he -was from New Brunswick, but had for the last eight months been at -work digging the ditches for the Columbia Valley Irrigation Company. -He had had enough of it, he said; in fact too much. Compared with -New Brunswick, British Columbia was no catch at all, and he meant to -go back home. Frenchmen are not fonder of their 'patrie' than are -the Canadian-born. He brimmed over, did that young man, with praises -of New Brunswick--brimmed over very intelligently, telling me about -the Reversible Falls of St. John and the conditions of farming in the -province with a clearness which few Englishmen of his class could -emulate. He said that he would only get one and a half dollars a day -instead of two and a half, but then one and a half would go much -further there than two and a half in British Columbia. You could -live better on it, and life was easier {238} there. British Columbia -was too rough: he allowed there was no pioneer about him. He had got -tired of the Columbia Valley months before, and had started to come -out of it in July, but had only got as far as Athelmer. There he had -gone to a hotel for the night, and had got drinking, and somehow -before he knew it all the money he had saved during his months of -digging had been drunk. So he had gone back to the ditches. But he -meant to get out of the valley this time. I gathered that even this -time it had been a near shave, for having again got as far as the -hotel, he had found a lot of fellows drinking what he called -'Schlampagne.' He supposed there must have been a hundred bottles of -schlampagne drunk last night, and whisky afterwards, but he himself -had been very careful and had taken gin instead. You never knew, he -said, what the whisky would be made of, but if you drank from a -bottle of gin marked English, it was all right. He felt a bit funny -inside to-day, but seemed quite cheerful about it because he had won -away from the hotel, and was pretty sure now to get back to New -Brunswick, after which he would not go pioneering again. He doubted, -however, if we were likely to get to Golden that day. There was -{239} a place called M'Kie's we could put up at eighteen miles on, or -if we felt like it, another called Petersen's--eight miles further. -I said I wanted to catch the midnight train from Golden, and was -going to walk on by night: at which he said he would do the same. He -repeated that he was funny inside and footsore, but he thought he -could do it. We would get to M'Kie's for supper, or rather get M'Kie -to make us up a supper, which we would eat upon the road, and we -should thus get into Golden in good time. He was sure we were going -at least four miles an hour. - -I was sure we were scarcely doing three, and by the time we did get -to M'Kie's, just before dark, we were both so sure that a rest would -do us good that we thought we would eat our supper there after all. - -M'Kie's was a shack just off the road, with a huge puma-skin nailed -to the verandah. Inside was a very old woman, who said that we could -get our tea all right, but M'Kie wasn't in yet, and we'd better wait -for him. So we sat down in the road, and I paddled in an icy creek -that went foaming by the house door. Then the old woman asked us in -and chatted to us while she cooked the meal. M'Kie turning up, we -fell to, and {240} M'Kie entertained us with trapping stories. It -seemed he was half-trapper, half-rancher, and the big skin we had -seen outside he had got only a few days before. The mountain lion -had come down right into the sheepfold, and his two dogs had treed -it, and a single bullet had brought it down. It was the biggest skin -that he had ever seen, and measured ten feet six from tip to tail. -It certainly was a large skin, but a puma's tail counts for a good -deal. M'Kie had also shot a bear in the sheepfold the week before, -and he talked so much about cinnamons and grizzlies, which seemed -very plentiful round there, that the New Brunswicker insisted on our -having his opinion as to whether they ever attacked unarmed men -walking by night. M'Kie thought not. So we started on again, -somewhat reassured, along what promised to be an uncommonly dark road. - -The sky was all clouded over, and it was now 8.30, and there was no -chance whatever of my catching the midnight train, since twenty miles -still remained to be accomplished, and our limp condition made even -three miles an hour hard. But we walked on, mostly because I now -wanted to get the morning train at eleven o'clock, and I felt that if -we {241} went back to M'Kie's and stopped the night, I should be so -stiff that I could not walk at all next day. The New Brunswicker -sportingly said that he would go on for as long as he could anyhow, -though he wasn't bent on any particular train; and for some four -mortal hours we splashed along through mud and water in what was the -next thing to pitch darkness. To add to the discomfort, a high, -cold, and very wet wind began to blow, and there was every prospect -of rain soon descending in torrents. It was at this point, I think, -that our thoughts began to turn to Petersen's. The New Brunswicker -remarked that if we had passed Petersen's there was nowhere to stop -at between where we were and Golden; but if we had not passed -Petersen's, we might rest there a few minutes and perhaps get some -milk to drink. Soon after this we felt sure that we had passed -Petersen's in the dark; and though neither of us admitted it, I think -our respective hearts sank. We decided to rest a little, which we -did, and we rested again a few minutes later without deciding to do -it. As we got up from a brief smoke on a fallen log the rain began -to pelt down, and we saw a light just off the road. - -I own I should have wanted to stop at {242} Petersen's anyhow, even -if the New Brunswicker had not confessed that he could not go any -further: but I don't know that I should have had his perseverance in -knocking Petersen's up. There certainly was a light there. But I -was convinced that everybody inside was deep in sleep. The New -Brunswicker thought somebody might be up, and after knocking vainly -for ten minutes at the front door of the house he went round to the -back, while I sat on the doorstep, wondering what fifteen miles in -that black rain would be like. - -A couple of minutes later, the New Brunswicker appeared triumphant. -The Petersens, he said, were up--in their kitchen--and thither we -limped, much relieved. They were the kindest people--Swedes, both of -them, and kept a milk cow, and gave us milk and buttermilk. They -said they were sorry they hadn't a bed to offer us, but we could have -the kitchen. Fastidious travellers might have thought the kitchen -untidy and stuffy, and even the New Brunswicker before he went to -sleep on the floor on his blankets, with some old clothes that we -found hanging on the walls over our legs--even he got a broom (after -the Petersens had gone to bed) and swept a clean space {243} for us -to lie on. But at least it was warm, and a haven of luxury compared -with the road. - -Personally, I know that I was very sorry to have to get up off that -floor at 4 A.M., when that industrious old lady, Mrs. Petersen, came -in again to relight the stove and to prepare breakfast. She was -followed presently by her husband and son and a hired man, while from -the barn there issued forth not only that shock-headed old man with -the queer rig whom I had seen at Dolans, but no less than five other -men who had been working in different parts of the valley, and were -hiking out before the winter should come. These had all spent their -night in the barn, which seems to be a privileged resting-place for -travellers in this part of the country. - -Mrs. Petersen had to get breakfast for some dozen people, and an odd -company we were, all unkempt and unshaven, and most of us looking, -truthfully enough, as if we had slept for some months in our clothes. -We all did a wash before breakfast, however. Two of the men at table -were socialists, and we had a desultory conversation on that subject -while we were not occupied in eating Mrs. Petersen's bacon and eggs. -Nobody seemed much to dispute the socialist position, but {244} this -might have been because nobody was greatly interested in it. I -remember that the socialists thought that capital ought to be done -away with, but Mr. Petersen, who no doubt had a small amount himself -and kept a hired man, thought it was a useful thing, and should be -retained. Everybody went off directly the meal was finished, except -ourselves, who lingered because the New Brunswicker had boldly -requested the shock-headed old man to drive us in to Golden in his -farm-cart, and we went to help harness the little mare and the big -giraffe. - -It was still raining heavily when we started, and it rained just as -heavily all the way into Golden. I never was so damped in my life, -and this was due not merely to the rain, but because the farm-cart -was so full of the old man's things (he seemed to be moving his house -in it) that the only place available in it for me was a sack of hay. -The cart had stood out all night in the rain, and the sack of hay was -wet through, which made it like a sponge, so that the more I dried -off the top of it the more moisture I seemed to absorb from the under -part. The little mare and the big horse made about two and a half -miles an hour, and if I could have walked, {245} I should have done -so, for now again the eleven o'clock train seemed in danger of -getting off from Golden without me. Indeed it was half-past eleven -before we got to Golden, and, resigned to despair, I accompanied the -New Brunswicker into an inn, where I thought I should have to wait -again for the midnight train. We ordered beer in the bar, and as I -was explaining to the proprietor what a nuisance it was to have -missed the train, he put down his glass and said, 'Wait a minute,' -and went to the telephone. He came back to inform me that the train -had just been signalled, being very late. He thought I should just -have time to catch it if I rushed. - - - - -{246} - -CHAPTER XXVI - -FROM GOLDEN TO THE COAST - -I managed to get that train, and also a half bottle of rye whisky on -the way to it, and sank into a seat in the smoking compartment, where -I sat all soaked and miserable, supping my rye whisky at intervals -and half dozing until two grizzly-bear hunters got in a few stations -down the line. They were very wonderfully arrayed in moccasins and -Arctic socks and turned-up overalls and sweaters and cartridge belts; -and though they were modest enough in their bearing, and did not talk -about their exploits until they were asked questions, the whole -compartment was soon eagerly chatting of nothing but grizzly bears. -The two hunters, who were amateurs of the sport, had been up in the -mountains alone, a three days' portage from the railroad, and had got -three grizzlies, and would have got more, they said, but that heavy -falls of snow had forced them to decamp. They spoke like good -shots--which does not {247} mean that they said they were good -shots--and they seemed very keen on their sport, which they claimed -to be the most dangerous and exacting in the world; nor would they -listen to my meek suggestion that the Bengal tiger would compare -favourably with the grizzly. - -'It's a cat,' one of them said sniffily; 'you shoot it off elephants.' - -I said that I knew Anglo-Indians who went after tigers on foot, and I -also argued that even in the case of shooting from elephants the -combination of a charging tiger and a restive elephant offered -opportunity of showing one's nerve to be in order such as is not to -be despised, especially if the howdah happens to have been inexpertly -fixed and slides at the critical moment. They allowed that there -might be something in this, but persisted that in any case -tiger-hunting was done at ease, with natives to do all the portering, -whereas grizzly-bear hunters like themselves had to carry everything -with them, and camp in the snow, and shoot on mountain-sides, down -which a grizzly bear would charge at a man quicker than a racehorse. -They gave graphic descriptions of charges of grizzly bears, with -their back legs flying ahead of their front ones. The {248} last -bear they had bagged had dropped, they said, within twenty paces of -them, after being rolled over three times. - -I fancy they spoke reasonably enough, and that the pursuit of the -grizzly--certainly if done without a guide--is as good a test of a -man's nerve as any other. As to the merits of the grizzly considered -as a brute likely to do for you if you do not previously do for it, -and compared with such others as the tiger, the buffalo, the -rhinoceros, the elephant, or the lion, there is no arriving at any -final conclusion. African hunters never seem agreed about the -comparative merits of the last three; while one Indian sportsman -supports the buffalo, another will support the tiger. Not having any -experience of the grizzly bear myself, I can only say that, judging -from what I have heard, he must be accounted big enough game for -anybody. There is no doubt that most of the old trappers have a -wholesome respect for him, and the longer they are after him, the -greater, as a rule, their respect grows. His pace, when charging, is -said to be something terrific, and, downhill, it always charges as -soon as hit, its back legs flying out before it at a nightmare speed. -Add that it seems less easy to drop finally than any other animal, -that your fingers {249} may be frozen to the trigger in the intervals -of shooting, and that a single blow from one of its front paws is -strong enough to claw the face out of an ox, and it will be seen that -it is no contemptible foe. On the other hand, experts seem agreed -that it rarely if ever charges uphill, and if shot from above is -therefore comparatively harmless. If a man could always pick his -position for shooting, this would reduce the value of the grizzly -bear as a sporting animal; but obviously the hunter cannot always -choose. Any one who has been on a snowslide will realise that. From -the point of view of an unarmed person, the grizzly bear would seem -to be rather less dangerous than he is sometimes made out to be. You -will often hear that grizzly bears will attack a man at sight. The -truth seems to be that--as is the case with any other bears--attacks -are only to be feared either from female grizzlies with cubs, or from -a grizzly of either sex, if the intruder is so placed as to appear to -the grizzly's eyes to be cutting off its retreat to its lair. Of -course no unarmed man would elect to put himself in either of these -positions, and equally naturally he might unwittingly do so--in which -case it would be better not to be that man, though I believe there is -an {250} authentic story of a lumberman who, returning alone from his -work, was suddenly attacked by two grizzlies, and managed to kill -both of them with his axe, though the second mauled him badly. -Authentic or not, and one grizzly or two, it is pretty certain that -few people would care to try a similar encounter. - -Afterwards the conversation shifted to timber-wolves and the Yukon. -One of the passengers scoffed at the notion of a dog being able to -kill a timber-wolf, as happens in one of Mr. Jack London's novels. A -northern timber-wolf, according to this critic, is at least twice the -size of the European wolf, with a disproportionately large and -powerful jaw--a single snap from which would polish off any dog. Two -or three of the biggest dogs known could hardly even hold a -timber-wolf much less kill it. I dare say there was more in this -criticism than in one I heard later, anent Mr. Maurice Hewlett. A -very solemn fruit-rancher was ploughing wearily through one of Mr. -Hewlett's earlier romances, and he looked up presently to say it was -funny the sort of yarns these writing chaps seemed to believe in. -There was a girl in the book who milked a wild deer. He had seen -plenty of deer in his time, but none of them had seemed to fancy -coming close enough to {251} be milked. If a chap wanted to write -about the country he ought to know it right through like Mr. Service. -Had we read Service's poems? Several of the men in the compartment -evidently had read them; and, indeed, Mr. Service's poems concerning -the Yukon seemed to have reached the heights of popularity. I think -it is due in part to the fascination which the north exercises on all -sorts and conditions of Canadians, not only because it stands for -romance and mystery, but because a sort of idea is gaining ground -that these inhospitable and well-nigh polar regions only await a -sufficiently hardy type of colonist to have as great a boom almost as -some of the more southern districts. The idea exists not only among -business-like estate-agents, who see themselves in fancy selling -Arctic blocks to this expected race, but among quite disinterested -and patriotic people, who talk of it, as Mr. Service himself does, as -a strong man's land. A few peculiarly strong men may survive there; -and it is excusable for a poet to regard them as super-men--Canada's -noblest type. As a matter of fact it is at least as romantic to -weave halos about the heads of the crowd that seeks the Yukon country -as it is to make one's heroine milk a wild deer. A certain praise -{252} is always due to pioneers, and the struggle with nature at its -cruellest and most wild is not a bad test of an individual's -character; but for respectable ranchers and fruit-growers (who have -never been to the Yukon themselves, but have struggled with nature -quite as valiantly elsewhere) to talk enthusiastically about the -great lone land as the country for breeding men is absurd. Canadians -may be able to colonise further north than they have done at present, -and their descendants will, no doubt, be a fine and hardy race. But -there is a point in the north just as there is a point in the south -beyond which no white man's country lies. If any strong men are -going to perpetuate their families beyond that northern point, they -are going to be strong Esquimaux--not strong Canadians. Esquimaux -already do quite a lot of grappling with nature in lone lands, but -they are not the heroes of Mr. Service's poems. I don't wish to -labour the point, but this northern strong man business seems to me -entirely overdone. There is always going to be romance attached to -the uninhabitable country, and adventurous young men will get there; -but the theory that these are the people of whom Canada has -peculiarly to be proud will not do. Adam Gordon's bush-riders {253} -had a certain merit; so had Mr. Kipling's gentlemen-rankers; so have -Mr. Service's prospectors; but none of them ever forwarded -civilisation very greatly. The fact is, there are true and admirable -pioneers, men like Hudson and Thompson, of whom Canada has had -plenty; and there are pioneers of doubtful value like those in Mr. -Service's poems. These latter are picturesque enough in verse, -especially in Mr. Service's verse, which catches the fascination of -the north at times admirably, but the others are the men worth -boasting about. - -The rain persisted while we sat talking of all these matters, and the -mountains were hung about with a clammy vapour which spoilt the view -from the train. I should like to have stopped at Glacier, which is -the usual centre for the better-known Selkirks, of which many of the -giants have been climbed only within the last six or seven years, but -I had not time, and they all swam by in the mist, which changed into -dusk as we reached Revelstoke. There a number of lumberjacks filled -up the carriage, and were very cheery and conversational all night. -Having slept only two hours the night before, I should not have -minded being able to get a sleeper, but they were all taken; and -{254} indeed there were not even seats enough to go all round, though -it was a first-class carriage. In any case the lumberjacks in my -part of the carriage would have prevented sleep. Sometimes they -would sit down for a few minutes and tell stories, then they would -dart off to have a look at a carriage-load of Doukhobors who were on -in front and seemed rather better than a show to judge by the -lumbermen's guffaws when they came back from these trips. Canadian -trains may not always be restful, but they are generally -entertaining. The distances traversed are so great that people -cannot afford to sit in them in hunched silence. They have to -unbend, and some of them unbend thoroughly. That is why, though the -ordinary traveller has to pass through great tracts of land in the -train, he is not losing local colour to quite the extent one loses it -in an European train. Some one in the carriage is sure to know -something about the district one is passing through and to be ready -to talk about it. The smoking compartment becomes an animated -club-room in which conversation becomes general on any subject. -There is no better place for a discussion of political problems, and -I fancy a great many Canadians reserve their consideration of these -for {255} the time they have to spend in the train. Certainly they -grow very keen in the train, and I have heard the warmest arguments -and the most libellous denunciations of leading Canadian statesmen -hurled freely about among men who had never set eyes on one another -before. And there are plenty of other arguments with which to pass -the time. As we got to Sicamous Junction, for example, we took on -board two fruit-growers, one of whom was a 'wet' grower and the other -a 'dry.' A wet fruit-grower is a man who does not irrigate his -fruit-land, and a dry fruit-grower is one who, having settled in the -dry belt, has to irrigate. As fierce a debate was started between -these two as ever you heard between exponents of wet and dry -fly-fishing. - -[Illustration: IN THE SELKIRKS. THE RETURN FROM THE HUNT.] - -As far as fruit-raising is concerned, the 'dry' men appear to have -the advantage. Their contention is that they can turn off the water -so as to leave their trees dry for the winter when frost at wet roots -is so fatal; while they can turn the water on whenever it is wanted -for swelling the fruit. In addition, the dry belt country gets a -longer season of sunshine, which is more favourable for the growth of -the earlier and finer dessert apples. It seems curious that none of -our finest-flavoured apples, {256} such as Cox's Orange Pippin or -Ribston Pippin, seem to come to perfection in Canada; and I found -British Columbian fruit-growers very anxious that English people -should appreciate this fact, and also get to know which are the -British Columbian apples most worth asking for in England, as though -some of the older orchards are still growing comparatively worthless -apples, the new ones are being planted only with a few best kinds, -which are as wine to water. One of these best kinds, by the way, is -called Wine-sap; two of the other selectest varieties being Jonathan -and Winter Banana. The latter is said to have a strong banana -flavour. It is worth the English public's while, if it is going in -largely for British Columbian apples, to encourage only the growing -of the best, and that is to be done by demanding only the best from -our own greengrocers by name. It is just as simple to plant a good -apple tree as it is to plant a bad one, and there is no reason why -the world in general should not eat only the best apples. So long as -people are contented to look only at the colour of the fruit, which -is no criterion whatever, and to pay their greengrocers' price for an -unnamed sort, the best apples will not be for sale, and one will go -on being provided with {257} highly-coloured samples that taste like -inferior turnips. - -The weather picked up in the morning, and I was able to see some of -the beauties of the great Fraser River, though I somehow missed the -Chinamen washing for gold, Indians spearing salmon, bright red, split -salmon drying on frames, Chinese cabins and Indian villages with -their beflagged graveyards, which are said to be visible from the car -windows. Perhaps I was talking too much. - - - - -{258} - -CHAPTER XXVII - -A LITTLE ABOUT VANCOUVER CITY - -A diminutive Japanese who picked up my fairly heavy trunk, slung it -over his shoulder and walked down the platform with it as though it -were nothing but a shawl, was the first person I met in Vancouver, -reminding me that that land-locked sea below was the Pacific, which -white men do not own but only share with the brown and yellow -Orientals. I wonder--will the day come when the latter want an ocean -all to themselves? And are there, in view of this contingency, plans -of this intricate coast among the Japanese naval archives? They knew -the other side pretty well before the war began with Russia, and they -are not a people to leave things to chance. The yellow men have -known the Pacific coast from San Francisco to Vancouver as long as -the white men, and put in a great deal of work there and eaten much -humble pie, and also realised by the constant {259} rise in their -wages--ten times anything their own country offers--that the white -man is strangely lost without them. They had no flair for colonising -half a century ago, when the rush was made for the Pacific coast, but -they have it now. - -Vancouver is very beautifully situated. The ground sloping to the -shut sea, girt with those huge, straight trees that give a sense of -luxuriance to this northern Pacific coast which no tropic country can -excel, is a perfect situation for a big city. Vancouver is a big -city. It is so big that many people are afraid for its immediate -future. They say that it is already far bigger than it has any right -to be, and that by the dubiously beneficent aid of innumerable real -estate men, it is increasing at a pace that is bound to end in -disaster. The slump had been expected in 1909, it was expected last -year, it is expected this year. Some year it will come; and if I -were a patriotic and hard-working inhabitant of Vancouver, I should -then head a deputation which had for its purpose the dumping in the -sea of a large number of the real estate agents who swarm hungrily in -the place. There is a big street entirely filled with their offices, -and the mark of them is {260} everywhere. Mr. A. G. Bradley, in that -encyclopaedic work _Canada in the Twentieth Century_, jeers at the -English for their distrust of the real estate man, who, he thinks, -serves a useful and necessary purpose. Better go to the real estate -man, says Mr. Bradley, if you want to buy land, than to the bar -loafer. There is a great deal in that. In individual cases they are -excellent men. But, collected together in vast numbers, as in -Vancouver, they can do mischief in a way the bar loafer never can, -and that is by so magnifying the importance of the buying and selling -of land, that people take to it in exchange for work, and falsely -imagine that enormous prosperity is coming to a place which is in -reality doing nothing but changing its land at fancy and speculative -prices, expecting the prosperity somehow and some day to follow of -itself. - -I suppose Seattle, with less justification, is in very much the same -case. Both, besides being ports with great expectations, happen to -be the last place, so to speak, in their respective countries; and -there is something magnetic in the attraction of a last place. -Thither drifts that very considerable population which, by getting on -geographically, almost persuades itself that it is getting on -materially. Having {261} attained the limit, it stays there and does -as little as it can. Such people give a city a false air of -greatness, and are, in fact, a surplus population with nothing to do -but bid up land against one another. - -Of course there are plenty of genuine citizens in Vancouver, with all -the enterprise and intelligence that help to make cities great. -Practically, too, the greatness of Vancouver is in the end assured. -It is already a magnificent port, having a big trade with the East, -but nothing to what it will have. The Panama Canal will make it the -centre, by sea, of the world. Again, it is the terminus of the -Canadian Pacific Railway, and is destined, every one says, to become -the terminus of the Grand Trunk, and any other railroad that wants to -outlet on the Pacific. Wheat has begun to come through it from the -prairie that used to go west to Montreal. The new reciprocity treaty -will divert some of this freight to the south, no doubt, but that -remains to be seen. In any case, besides being a port, Vancouver -will remain the business capital of a province endlessly rich in -minerals and timber, and increasingly rich in fruit- and farm-land. -Some day, therefore, Vancouver will extend to those remote spots -{262} where already town lots are being disposed of. Some day. -Only, a big city should not live upon its future; and the sale of -such lots miles off in the backwoods to people who, having bought -them, cannot pay for them or cannot put up houses on them, or cannot -afford to live in those houses even if they put them up, because -there is nothing for them to do there and their money has run -out--this sort of sale, while it enriches the real estate man, does -not enrich anybody else. Moreover, it creates a restless spirit -among those genuine farmers out in the country who would honestly be -farming their land, if real estate agents would leave them alone, and -not persuade them that it is just as profitable a game to hang about -waiting for opportunities to sell their farms in plots. Of course -they, like most other people who get as far as Vancouver, are not -mere innocents. Sellers and buyers are probably equally aware of the -risks they run; but where a tide of speculation sets in, the -shrewdest people seem ready to take the most absurd risks. And the -slump has taken so long in coming, and the possibilities of Vancouver -seem so immense, that speculation in land has become a perfect -fascination. - -{263} - -'What will it be worth next year?' - -That is the formula you constantly see at the end of an advertisement -of some town lot--five miles, perhaps, from anywhere. The correct -answer varies. If the slump does not come off next year, the lot may -be worth double what is being asked for it now. If the slump does -come off it will be worth a twentieth, perhaps, of what was given for -it. Slump or no slump, this method of building up a city is -unsatisfactory. Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg--these have become great -as the centres of comparatively populous provinces, in which wealth -has been gradually and carefully created by agricultural and -industrial enterprises established on a firm basis. The jobs have -been waiting for the men. In Vancouver alone, of all big Canadian -cities, the men are waiting for the jobs, or, what is worse, waiting -in the belief that money comes anyhow, and that jobs are not the -prerequisite of money-making. I do not wish to give the impression -that Vancouver is full of unemployed people, still less of -unemployable ones; merely that many of the people there employed are -not engaged in the undertakings that ensure the continuity of a -city's prosperity. - -{264} - -Certainly any picture of Vancouver that made it out gloomy would be a -mistake. Nothing could be livelier than its streets and its people; -and if the slump does not come, and the Jeremiahs are wrong, -Vancouver citizens will be justified of any amount of exultation. -Already they have most of the things that make citizens pleased and -proud--a beautiful site, fine streets, the most splendid of public -parks, water-ways innumerable in front, and, behind, a country good -to look at and rich in potentialities. Vancouver's industries, even -if they do not justify the size of the place, are important and -prosperous; and its propinquity to the salmon fisheries and vast -timber tracts of British Columbia is something which alone would make -a great town. In tone it is new world compared with Victoria, but -old world compared with Seattle. There are many English people -there. Living is high. No coin under five cents is, of course, in -use, and when you start the day by paying that sum for a newspaper -marked one cent, you find it difficult to beat down prices during the -rest of the day. Apropos of newspapers, I was told of a very -successful strike among the paper-boys of Vancouver some little time -ago. Many people must have heard {265} of it, but it is worth -retelling. The strike was headed by a youthful organiser, popularly -known as Reddy, from the colour of his hair. Reddy was alleged to be -thirteen years of age at the time, but Pitt was not so much older -when he became Prime Minister of Great Britain. Holding the firm -conviction that he and his fellow-workers were entitled to at least -two cents out of the five for every paper sold (I am not sure of my -figures), Reddy proclaimed a strike, and conducted it so successfully -that the newspaper proprietors of Vancouver were compelled to wait -upon him humbly, and yield in every particular to his demands. Among -historic strikes this seems worthy of a place. - - - - -{266} - -CHAPTER XXVIII - -THE HAPPY FARMERS OF THE ISLAND - -There are no lotus-lands attached to the Dominion, and will not be, -unless we make over to it at some date the West Indies. But because -Vancouver Island has a climate excelling that of any other part of -Canada, and a beauty of scenery not surpassed anywhere; because also -the men who have settled there have reckoned these possessions dearer -than other things, such as the fat soil of the prairie and the chance -of growing quickly rich, Canadians of the mainland are given at times -to lay a charge of lotus-eating against them. I think the charge is -an unfair one. Life may be less strenuous on the island, and there -are men there, no doubt, who take their work there over easily. -Against this has to be set the fact that the work that does go on in -Vancouver Island goes on all the year round, that the colonists are -men with an eye to the far future as well as to the immediate {267} -one (they have, that is to say, an English ideal of permanent -residence instead of the notion of getting what they can from the -place and decamping), and that in their hands, if the island is not -being developed as fast as it might be, it is at least safe from -spoliation and waste. Some day, when the mainland Canadians have -time to consider the amenities of a country life as well as the -necessities, they will find themselves going to the island for hints. - -As one crosses from Vancouver, the beauty of the straits prepares one -a little for the beauty of the island which, so far as I saw it, has -no bare or ugly places. Its coast-line has the contour of the -Scandinavian fiords, but its charm is greater, owing to the luxuriant -growth of the tall and splendid trees. Right to the edge of these -rock-bound sea-water lakes the forest grows--Douglas firs, surely the -finest of all straight-growing trees, cedar and maple, jack-pine and -arbutus, and at their feet, flowers and mosses and saxifrages. -Arriving at Victoria, I went straight through to Duncans, and, -looking from the train, was reminded by the greenness of the land, -freshened by the delicate rain that was falling, of the mountainous -parts of Ceylon--which impression was strengthened by the fact of the -{268} smoking-compartment being crowded with Orientals of all sorts, -mostly Chinese, but Japanese too and some Indians, all seeming very -much at their ease among the white men. It was a harmonious sight; -but what, I wondered, would an Anglo-Indian say if he found himself -condemned to sit with his cheroot among this riff-raff of natives? -and what chance of any agreement on questions affecting our Indian -Empire between the officials of India and these Westerners who admit -the Oriental to an equality with themselves? - -I was bound on a visit to friends who had a farm on Quamichan Lake, -and found a buggy waiting for me at Duncans station, driven by an -elderly man who had all the Canadian optimism, in spite of the fact -that he had, in 1882, sold for a song the whole of Edmonton, then in -his possession. Another of the missed millionaires of Canada. He -brought me in the dark to my friends' farm, and when I looked out of -my window next morning, I almost believed myself to be back in -England. A little lake lay two fields below--a fresh-water lake -still and reedy, with woods or orchards sloping to its edge, and in -the distance a ring of hills. It might be Grasmere transported to -some warmer county such as Devonshire; {269} but Devonshire never -grew such stately trees, nor has England anywhere mountains wooded -like these to their peaks. A heat-mist lay on the water, and the -apples in the orchard seemed the reddest I had ever seen. Only the -grass was not English grass, though it was greener than most of the -grass of the new world. All round the lake were farms, belonging -largely to Englishmen, dairy-farming or fruit-farming, making use of -science and co-operation, but not sacrificing beauty to utility. -Perhaps they could not spoil the island if they tried. The trees are -so dominant and stately that every piece of cleared land seems to -look at once like a part of an old English park. - -It should have been called New England, this beautiful country which -has so many English people in it, which carries on so much of the -English tradition and sentiment, and which has even the English -pheasant. I saw thousands of pheasants during the days I spent -there. They were put down on the island not so very many years ago, -and they have increased enormously. The deer were already there, and -you may see them in the orchards, unless they are very high-fenced, -at almost any time in the early morning. And there are {270} grouse -and partridges in plenty too, and beasts that England no longer -possesses--the coon and the puma, and the bear and the wolverine. To -see the salmon leaping all across Cowichan Bay, on a bright October -morning, is a sight for sore eyes, if they happen to be an angler's. -To drive along the roads is to realise instantly that they are the -best roads in the Dominion. Duncans is particularly English, even -for Vancouver Island. I think it is vanity and a certain cause of -vexation to expect in the new world a conformity to the ways of the -old, which necessary differences of living--the indispensable growth -of new habits, some of them better than the old--render in time -impossible. Those who expect such a conformity are usually the first -to forget that the old country changes too, and that it is we, as -often as those across the sea, who have forgotten the ancient order -and taken on the new, generally without thought, and often without -reason. Though it is absurd to expect to find Canada a replica in -ideas and habits of the old world, it is nevertheless pleasant to -come upon a community there which, without holding itself too much -apart from its neighbours or standing out against what is -progressive, does represent some peculiarly {271} English qualities -at their best. That is, perhaps, why the island makes a particular -appeal to the man newly out from home. I certainly do not think its -inhabitants are to be charged with stiffness and unadaptability. Men -who have taken on the new life, and work in a spirit of optimism not -less than that shown elsewhere, are rather to be admired than -otherwise if they have retained, and even insist on, what is good in -the old. And a love of sport and beauty and sociability, and even of -leisure, is a good thing, especially when it is found among men who -do their own work as these men do, and more especially when found -among women who work as the women of the island do. The work is the -best of all, but all work and no play turns many people--and not a -few Canadians--not merely into dull folk, but into narrow-minded and -backward ones, who will some day have all the unpleasantness of being -rudely awakened to the fact. - -No doubt there are some ne'er-do-weels on the island, but the great -majority of those I met seemed to me to be capable men, likely to do -well by what is the most beautiful, and will some day be, perhaps, -the most valuable part of the Empire. - - - - -{272} - -CHAPTER XXIX - - A CHAT WITH THE PRIME MINISTER OF BRITISH - COLUMBIA AND A BIG FIRE AT VICTORIA - -As everybody knows who has been in Canada, there are two hotel -systems in vogue there. By the one system you pay for your room and -board separately, and this is called the European plan. By the other -you take your meals and lodging at a fixed price, and that is called -the American plan. - -In much the same way one might say there are two systems of life in -Canada, and indeed elsewhere. By the one you distinguish between -your work and your play, and treat each as a separate item. By the -other you mix the two up, and are apt to consider yourself a -strenuous person. I don't know that it is fair to describe these -respectively as the American and the European system of life; but I -am pretty certain that whether you apply the systems to life or to a -hotel, the results produced by them are not on the whole very -different. {273} Applying them to life, the main distinction seems -to be that the exponents of the strenuous or American method--those -who get their fun out of their work and their holidays out of their -forced travel, or their compulsory rest by doctor's orders--are -frequently led to confuse the appearance of work with the reality, -and to be disentitled to wear that air of superiority which, in the -presence of confessed believers of leisure, they too frequently -assume. For, when all is said and done, leisure is as necessary to -man as work, and everybody takes it, whatever he may think. - -Vancouver laughs at Victoria for its dead-aliveness and want of -hustle. Victoria smiles at Vancouver for its restlessness and -superfluity of energy. - -Now you see the point of my aphorism. I do not propose to hold the -balance between these distinguished cities. Both have their peculiar -merits; and if Vancouver is likely in years to come to leave Victoria -far behind in the race for industrial supremacy, Victoria is none the -less likely to remain ahead of Vancouver in culture and the arts. At -present I should judge that Victoria is distinctly the steadier city -of the two. Speculation in land is the exception rather than the -rule; prices go {274} up steadily, and the land is bought by -intending residents. At which point I will abandon comparisons, -which are the more absurd because the destinies of the two towns are -so widely different. Vancouver is a great port on the mainland of -Canada, connecting it with Asia, the western States, South America, -and whatever countries will henceforth export merchandise via the -Panama Canal. Victoria is the political capital of British Columbia, -with all the prestige that attaches to such a position and the finest -climate in the Dominion. Not that it is only that. Some of its -inhabitants consider that its prospects are immeasurably superior to -those of Seattle, 'since the riches of Vancouver Island' (I quote -from a local pamphlet), 'in their entirety incomparably more valuable -than the gold-mines of Alaska, are directly tributary to the British -Columbia capital.' - -There is a great deal in this, though one has to remember that those -riches will take many years to develop. The drawback to the -immediate development of Vancouver Island is that it is covered with -enormous timber. Reciprocity with the States is likely to give a -fillip to the lumber industry, and the clearing of the land will then -go on far quicker than {275} hitherto. True, lumbermen do not -actually clear the land; they leave the stumps behind them, and all -the poorer trees. But they undoubtedly open the land up. Moreover, -the revival of Esquimalt as a naval base will revive the prestige of -Victoria, and create more work, besides inducing railwaymen to press -on into the island. - -I stopped there on my way back, partly to see the town itself, partly -because I wished to see Mr. Richard M'Bride. The town disappointed -me just a little. It commands a magnificent view of the mountains on -the mainland, and the country all round is beautiful. But the villas -and gardens, which one hears so much praised, struck me as a little -commonplace. Perhaps it is that I like a town to be a town and a -garden to be a garden; whereas Victoria is a sort of garden city, -grateful no doubt to those eyes that are accustomed to the -utilitarian towns of the West, but altogether lacking in -architectural fineness. The Parliament Buildings are good, and would -be very good if those responsible for their maintenance would remove -the inscription 'Canada' from across the front of them. In its -coloured lettering it looks like the icing-sugar mottoes you see -inscribed on birthday cakes. - -{276} - -But let a more enthusiastic pen than mine (again I fall back on that -local pamphlet) describe Victoria as it appears to Victorians. - -'If there are sights more beautiful than the Olympian Mountains from -Beacon Hill, or the windings of the Gorge as the waters come in from -the sea between waving battlements of plumy firs, then eyes have not -seen them. If there is a sweeter song than the skylark's matin -melodies high up from Cadboro Bay, then ears have not heard it. If -there be more bewildering loveliness than clusters about the shaded -and flower-gemmed gardens of Victorian homes looking seaward, then -poets have not written it in imperishable numbers, nor minstrels -celebrated it in well-remembered song. If there be a city of dreams, -even the fabled Atlantis of antiquity, or vision of Babylonian towers -set in hanging gardens, and redolent of strange odours of musk and -myrrh, or fairy casements opening out to perilous seas forlorn, then -never one approached in splendour this jewel of all time, ringed by -the azure seas and sentinelled by everlasting hills.... A bird's -song drops like the sudden peal of a bell. Outside are broad -boulevards, grey with powdery macadam, stretching towards the -bustling city; highways of progress and {277} modernity, now scrolled -by the flight of a whizzing automobile, now echoing with the staccato -sound of hurrying hoof-beats. Inside are flowers and brooding -hedges, the sheen of close-cropped grasses and sun-lacquered -tree-trunks--rest, peace, and sweet seclusion.' - -After this it comes almost as a relief to know from the same pamphlet -that 'the climate of Victoria is best expressed in figures.' There -is a great deal to be said for figures. - -There is a very good, small, natural-history museum in a wing -attached to the Parliament Buildings, but it is absurdly small. The -collection of Indian curios is remarkably inadequate, and merely -tempts the visitor to ask when Canadians are going to devote some of -the money they are undoubtedly making to a genuine study and -collection of the remains of their predecessors in the land. Indians -are not dying out as fast as some people suppose; but their crafts -are, and so are their creeds and all that appertains to them. It -would be easy even now to create a magnificent Indian museum, but it -will become less and less easy as the years go by. Relics of Indian -times are constantly being picked up by men travelling in -out-of-the-way parts, or unearthed during railroad and other {278} -excavations, and if it were known that the authorities would be glad -to receive them and would perhaps pay the cost of their carriage to -some centre, there is no doubt that many valuable finds would be -forwarded to them. The making of museums, just like the building of -ships, is a branch of empire work which should not be neglected; and -Victorians are eminently the people to recognise this. - -It was in his rooms in Parliament Buildings that Mr. M'Bride -conversed with me on the subject of British Columbia. You hear -people say in Canada, that if ever that astutest of party leaders, -Sir Wilfrid Laurier, goes out of office with his Liberals, Mr. -M'Bride will shortly after become Prime Minister of the Dominion--as -Conservative leader, be it understood. He is not a great orator, and -he has no scheme even for a party millennium. That, however, in -Canada is a strength rather than a weakness. Politicians are not -expected in Canada to bring about the millennium: indeed, so far as I -could make out, the average Canadian is of opinion that when the -millennium comes, it will be noticeable for an absence of -politicians. They have not our reverence for these great men. But -on the other hand, they require from them evidence of qualities which -{279} may or may not be present in our ministers. One is a readiness -to seize opportunity as it comes. Another is, to have a practical -understanding of the ways of finance. Yet a third is, to be in touch -with men and things--the sort of quality we mean, however vaguely, -when we raise the cry of a Cabinet of Business Men. All these -qualities Mr. M'Bride possesses, together with that readiness to seem -agreeable which is almost a necessity to a public man. - -Mr. M'Bride confined his conversation with me to British Columbia--a -big enough subject for a short interview. I wished to know if the -survey of the province was being carried out as quickly as possible. -In a vast country like British Columbia, it seems one of the most -important things. The right to acquire land must be made simple and -certain. Mr. M'Bride declared that surveying was going on as fast as -men and money could do it, and referred me to the surveyor-general -for details. I wish I could go further into the subject, but there -is no space for it here. Then we got on to education, and Mr. -M'Bride asked me to assure the working men of England that the -education facilities of British Columbia were as fine as any to be -got anywhere. {280} Perhaps this is so, though I heard some -criticism of the public schools from another eminent Victorian. It -is easier, perhaps, to be enthusiastic than to be unanimous about any -given system of education. To take but one small point, the -co-education of boys and girls is a thing upon which people are not -agreed even in British Columbia. - -I was on the steamboat, ready to start for Vancouver, when the great -fire of 1910 broke out in the town. With a considerable wind blowing -it seemed to me not improbable that the whole of Victoria would be -burnt down that night, and I had sufficient of the journalistic -instinct to leave my things to go on by the boat and to go back -myself to watch the blaze. Luckily the wind dropped and the fire was -kept to one quarter, and I rather regretted my haste when I found -myself stranded in Victoria at three o'clock in the morning. Still, -it was worth while to have been there, if only to observe the working -of the Canadian mind in a crisis of this sort. In England you would -have heard ejaculations of horror and much sympathy expressed with -those who were bound to suffer by the fire. The Victorian crowd took -it quite differently. 'This'll create more work,' said one {281} man -fervidly. 'Just what the town needed,' said another enthusiast. -'We'll be able to have a better-looking street there after this. -Those shops weren't good enough.' I even heard some of the men who -had rushed out of their burning offices talking keenly and proudly of -the sort of buildings they'd have to start putting up next day--much -better buildings. Presumably they were insured, but even so men in -the old country would have been a little shocked and perturbed, and -regretful of the old rooms they were accustomed to. I fell asleep, -when I had found a hotel, almost oppressed by the optimism of Canada. - - - - -{282} - -CHAPTER XXX - -BACK THROUGH OTTAWA - -It was just before sunrise that I first saw Ottawa. I was on my way -back from Vancouver, and had spent four successive days in the train, -getting out only for minutes at a time to stamp about platforms where -the train waited long enough to permit of such exercise. - -Such days, varied only by meals for which one is always looking, but -never hungry, tend to become monotonous, even though one spends them -mostly in the observation car. The fact is, observation pure and -simple is one of the most difficult things possible to a member of -the human tribe--as hard as doing compulsory jig-saws; and reading -humorous American magazines, one after the other, is an alternative -that also requires the strong mind. If I must travel long distances -by train, I want to be the engine-driver. - -The country, I thought, looked less attractive {283} as I repassed it -now than it looked before, and I put this down to the freeze-up, -which had come unusually early, people kept saying, and gave to the -land a black and ruffled look, like a sick bird's. Later it would be -beautiful again in snow, and the life and work of the season of snow -would begin. Meanwhile, people in the little northerly stations we -passed had the appearance of having stopped work. You saw them -standing about--always with their backs to buildings to get out of -the shrivelling wind. I suppose in most of these places there is a -between-time in which nobody can work. - -Nothing much was doing in Ottawa when I got out there, but that of -course was due to the earliness of the hour. It was so early that -when I reached a hotel they told me breakfast was not to be had for -some time yet, and so, since I was too wide-awake to go to sleep -again, I thought I would spend the hour looking at the Dominion -Parliament Buildings. Perhaps it was the too early hour, perhaps it -was the coldness of the wind blowing round that bluff above the river -on which the famous buildings stand--but I could feel none of that -satisfaction, when I looked at them, which great architecture gives. -The {284} situation is fine, but not the buildings. Anthony Trollope -has written of them:--'As regards purity of art and manliness of -conception, the work is entitled to the very highest praise.... I -know no modern Gothic purer of its kind or less sullied with -fictitious ornamentation'--but I think he must have breakfasted -handsomely first. Some one else, but I forget who, and it does not -matter, has described the buildings as 'a noble pile,' which seems to -hit the mark, if, as I fancy, that mid-Victorian expression suggests -something on so large a scale, which has obviously cost such a lot of -money, that vague admiration is the least of the emotions which -should be produced by a sight of it. 'A noble pile,' then, let them -remain, especially since, seen from some distance, with the beautiful -river below and a spacious country stretched before them, they -possess a certain imposing appearance. Closer up, one is less -impressed. There is a long-backed unmeaning set to the buildings, as -though the architects had found concentration a vexation, and had -decided to extend instead. Still, they might have elaborated -painfully, and they did not--except for those little turrets on the -side-buildings, surmounted by railings which one associates chiefly -with {285} the London area. Area railings are meant, I suppose, to -prevent errand-boys from falling into the areas, but there can be few -errands to the roof of the Parliament Buildings. In passing, I did -not like those hundreds of silly little windows that peep all round: -one, as it were, for every official to peep from. - -Reflection should serve to temper criticism, however. The year 1867, -in which the Dominion Parliament required its Houses, was not one of -brilliant achievement in the architectural world; and when it is -remembered that Canada itself was also a new country, the wonder is -that nothing worse was built. Only a few years before, we in England -had been transfixed with admiration of the Crystal Palace; Royal -Academicians were above criticism, and 'almost too great to live'; -bright in the sun gleamed the Albert Memorial. We ruled the waves, -but not the arts; and 'our daughter of the snows' took over our large -ideas and our little taste in building. - -Whether she took over our political ideas is another matter, upon -which I pondered as I contemplated those Parliament Buildings. There -stood the House in which Sir John Macdonald evolved that -east-and-west policy which seemed such an empire-cementing thing; -{286} where Sir Wilfrid Laurier teaches the world how to lead a -party; where not as yet had been ratified that Reciprocity Agreement -with America which has been agitating our statesmen so much this -year, though, even as I gazed, it must have been in course of -construction. Would an Imperial Parliament sit there some day, I -wondered, and direct the affairs of the British Empire from what -would be, not so long hence, a far more central and important spot -than Westminster? I could not quite imagine it. I could not even -like the idea, as some Imperialists at any price can. Home Rule for -England is one of the policies I shall always stand for, I believe; -even when Canadians have that grasp of Imperial affairs which we in -England impute to them--by comparison, we generally mean, with our -own English political opponents--that grasp which, as a matter of -fact, is much less common among them at present than it is among us, -whether we be Liberals or Conservatives. - -I wish our party political system allowed of our minimising the zeal -and intelligence of the side opposed to us without magnifying those -qualities in a third party which, in strict reality, it scarcely -possesses. I wish, for example, that Tariff Reformers could deride -{287} the Imperialistic attitude of Free Traders (and vice versa) -without declaring that Canadians could in this matter teach us all -lessons. For the truth is that Canadians could not give lessons to -either in this matter. They have an Imperial sentiment all right, -but they do not worry over it as we do. Take that question of -Preference which has been making us all so hot for several years now. -It never troubled Canadians at all. They thought that there was a -good deal in it from a business point of view, and they were prepared -to try it--and did so. But they never for a moment fancied or -perturbed themselves with thinking that, either with or without it, -the Empire would totter to its fall. Our fervours left them entirely -cool; and in that business-like state of coolness, after duly -granting us Preference, they have, equally duly in their opinion, set -out to establish reciprocity with the States. The only thing likely -to make them hot in this matter is the suggestion that they have been -lacking in Imperial spirit. Of course they had been lacking in that -early, romantic, self-immolating and fantastically quaint, Imperial -spirit which we attributed to them--just to make our own Little -Englanders try and feel ashamed; but, equally again, they {288} never -had it, and would not dream of claiming it even if they could be made -to understand what our devotees meant by it. To forgo trade in order -to uphold the flag would not appeal to a Canadian--mainly for the -reason that the idea would strike him as grotesque. - -In the matter of this Reciprocity Agreement, then, I think it is we -who are wrong if we make it a reproach to the Canadians. It may or -may not be a sound economic proceeding, but it is entered upon -without prejudice to Imperial sentiment. Only if we first assume -that all Canadians have been burning for years past with the same -zeal for an Imperial Zollverein that has animated our own Tariff -Reformers, can we now credit them with cooling off and backsliding. -But such an assumption would be a very great mistake. All -assumptions that Canadians view our political problems from our point -of view are great mistakes. They no more do so than we view theirs -from their point of view. We do not. Nothing struck me more -forcibly than the fact that what causes us political turmoil in Great -Britain is viewed with complete coolness in Canada, and that what -Canadians are keen after remains unknown to us. While I was there, I -kept seeing letters {289} in English papers (reproduced -sometimes--but very briefly--in Canadian papers) saying that Canada -was whole-hearted for Tariff Reform, or that Canadian Free Traders -were sweeping the country; whereas the fact was and is, that these -two terms (whatever might in reality be the state of Canadian -parties) never conveyed in the least in Canada what we mean by them, -and therefore conveyed no truth that could be understood of both -peoples equally. - -Does this inter-Imperial lack of comprehension threaten the future of -the Empire? It might seem so at first. Lack of understanding -between fellow-citizens cannot be a good thing in itself. But it has -this merit, that it makes real interference on either side a rare -thing. If we understood--or believed we understood--what was for the -future welfare of Canada, it is doubtful if we could refrain from -pointing it out, even if we could refrain from insisting upon it. If -the Canadians thought themselves capable of directing us in the right -way--say in the management of India--they would feel urged to give -their opinion, and Anglo-Indian officials, having this last straw -added to their backs, would strike _en masse_. As it is, we let each -other's real problems {290} alone, and are satisfied with our own -solutions of them. Imperial Conferences are necessary because in -some matters the Empire must work together, having the same -interests. Cables and Dreadnoughts are cases in point. That Great -Britain still bears the main expenditure in all such matters is -proof, if proof be needed, that what American papers somewhat -unkindly call 'British Island Politics' are, still, more Imperial -than the politics of any other part of the Empire. We pay and we ask -for little in return, and the Empire will go on, even now that Canada -has become a nation. Only some mistake could, I think, part us--a -mistake as big as that which parted us from the United States--and we -are not likely to make it; nor is Canada likely to wish for it, -however great she may picture and make her own destiny. But that she -will want to rule entirely in her own house is certain. Canadians -themselves--the voters I mean--are not likely for a long time to wish -for much more than they have in the way of national liberty. I do -not think they would much worry as to whether their ambassador at -Washington, for example, was appointed from Ottawa or from London. -The results in either case would be likely to be very similar, {291} -and in any case, as I have said, Canadians are not obsessed at -present with politics. But it has to be remembered that besides -Canadian voters, there are Canadian politicians, and since it is in -the nature of politicians to be at least as ambitious as other -people, it is natural that Canadian politicians should want in their -own hands all the important posts that are to be had. Just at -present Canadians take such a disrespectful view of politicians in -general--which is unfair no doubt to their own political -representatives, but natural perhaps in a new country which has not -too much time to reflect upon the real benefactions politicians may -confer, and rather fancies, from isolated examples, that 'graft' is -what they are usually after--that they are not likely to demand of -their own accord more power to the hand of their own statesmen. But -the accord of voters depends in due course upon the persuasive powers -of candidates, and I foresee the candidates persuading pretty hard in -the near future: all of which will make work for Imperial Conferences -of the near future, but not, it is to be hoped, impossible work. - -I find that having represented myself as reflecting upon Canadian -politics outside the {292} Dominion Parliament Buildings, I have -altogether omitted Canadian politics in favour of Imperial -considerations. Beyond showing, or rather trying to show, that -Canadian politics--the things that really interest Canadians--are not -in the least what we are accustomed to think them, I have got no -further at all. Still, that--if I have shown it--is something, for -it may suggest to some gentle reader that an Empire is not a simple, -extended Great Britain, in which every one thinks precisely the same -things to be of the same immediate importance; of which all the -emotions and reflections may be realised in full by a perusal, let us -say, of the Standard of Empire. - -And so I remove myself from that bluff above the river at Ottawa to -my hotel, and thence to divers parts of that charming town, which -looked then--for Parliament was not sitting--something like Oxford -out of term; and thence to the train carrying me back to Montreal and -Quebec. - -Afterwards came the return across the Atlantic to a country smaller -than Canada--(less than a week of steaming, my friends), in company -with Canadians who were returning to see what the old place was like -after many years. I think they would not be {293} ill-pleased with -it, small as it is by comparison. I hope they found behind it some -of the qualities which, as it seems to me, are to be found also in -THE FAIR DOMINION, making it to my eyes yet more fair. - - - - -{294} - -INDEX - - -ABBOTT, MOUNT, 215. - -Alaska, 274. - -Alberta, 13, 138, 141, 142, 143, 164, 165, 217. - -Alps, the, 177, 180, 199. - -Angell, Norman, 68. - -Annunzio, Gabriel d', 178. - -Anticosti, 16. - -Archangel, 13. - -Athelmer, 233, 238. - - - -BAIE ST. PAUL, 40. - -Banff, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 183. - -Beacon Hill, 276. - -Beaupre, 47, 48, 49, 50. - -Beaupre, Ste. Anne de, 48, 51, 53. - -Bears, Grizzly, 246-50. - -Belle Isle, 16. - -Birmingham, 156. - -Blondin, 90. - -Bourassa, Mr., 30, 31, 33, 85, 86. - -Bourne, Archbishop, 17. - -Bow River, 141, 144, 179. - -Bradley, A. G., 31. - -British Columbia, 188, 216, 237, 238, 256, 274, 279. - -Bruce, Randolph, 221, 222, 225. - -Brussels, 88. - - - -CADBORO' BAY, 276. - -Calgary, 141, 143, 144, 145, 163, 164, 170, 195. - -Canadian Pacific Railway, 18, 141, 142, 152, 162, 182, 261. - -Cartier, 40. - -Ceylon, 267. - -Champlain, 35, 42. - -Chicago, 159. - -Chicoutimi, 39, 43. - -Chuzzlewit, Martin, 128. - -Colonial Intelligence for Educated Women, Committee of, 195. - -Columbia River, 218, 219, 222, 224, 230, 233. - -Columbia Valley, 215, 216, 225, 234, 238. - -Cooper, Fenimore, 92. - -Covent Garden, 117. - - - -DICKENS, CHARLES, 29, 90. - -Dufferin Terrace, 26, 27, 28. - -Duncans, 267, 268, 270. - - - -EDEN CITY, 129. - -Edmonton, 268. - -Eliott, Professor, 163. - -Emerald Lake, 206. - -_Empress of Britain_, S.S., 1. - -Eucharistic Congress, the, 17, 77, 78, 79. - - - -FARNHAM, MOUNT, 229. - -Fort William, 114. - -Fraser River, 257. - -Free Trade, 29, 149, 287. - -French River, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99, 101, 102. - - - -GLACIER HOUSE, 215. - -Glasgow, 73. - -Golden, 215, 216, 217, 218, 224, 232, 236, 237, 238, 239, 241, 244. - -Gordon, Adam, 252. - -Grand Trunk Railway, 261. - -Grasmere, 268. - - - -HAMMERSMITH, 94. - -Hampstead Heath, 117. - -Heights of Abraham, 34. - -Hennepin, Father Louis, 89. - -Hesse, Landgraf of, 226. - -Hewlett, Maurice, 250. - -Higgsville, 128. - -Himalayas, the, 177, 227. - -Home Rule, 31. - -Hoogly, the, 44. - -Howells, W. D., 90. - -Hudson Bay Company, 115. - - - -IMPERIALISM, 33, 36, 287, 290. - -Illecillewaet Glacier, the Great, 215. - -Iron Top Mountain, 224. - -Irrigation Company, Columbia Valley, 237. - -Irrigation Works, Columbia Valley, 221. - - - -KAMLOOPS, 216, 229. - -Keats, John, 200. - -Kildonan, 123, 124. - -Kinchinjunga, 177. - -Kipling, Rudyard, 105, 106, 253. - - - -LACHINE RAPIDS, 77. - -Laggan, 200. - -Laurentian Mountains, 27. - -Laurier, Sir Wilfrid, 278, 286. - -Liverpool, 1. - - - -LONDON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, 152. - -London, 73, 86, 117, 118, 119, 285. - -Loti, Pierre, 110, 111. - -Louise, Lake, 198, 199, 200, 206. - -Lourdes, 47. - - - -MACDONALD, SIR JOHN, 285. - -Manchester, 156. - -Manitoba, 114, 144. - -Marseilles, 77. - -Maskinonge, 93, 96, 99, 100. - -M'Bride, Richard, 275, 278, 279. - -Meredith, George, 130. - -Montmorency Falls, 38, 39, 49, 50. - -Montreal, 17, 34, 45, 56, 64, 66, 67, 68, 69, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, -77, 79, 80, 81, 84, 292. - -Moosejaw, 126, 156. - -Moraine Lake, 201, 204. - -Murray Bay, 40. - -Muskoka Lakes, 92. - - - -NAPOLEON, 120. - -National Park, 179, 181. - -New Brunswick, 32, 237, 238, 242. - -New York, 39, 51, 154, 159. - -Niagara Falls, 38, 89, 90. - -Nightingale, 163, 165, 166. - -North Pole, 136. - -Nottingham, 28. - -Nova Scotia, 32. - - - -OJIBWAY, AN, 96, 97, 99, 100. - -Okanagan, 216, 219. - -Olympian Mountains, 276. - -Ontario, 8, 13, 32, 33, 45, 85, 109, 111, 112, 113, 141, 151. - -Orleans, Ile d', 40. - -Ottawa, 84, 282, 283, 292. - -Oxford, 77, 292. - - - -PANAMA CANAL, 261, 274. - -Paris, 77, 117, 158. - -Parkman, Francis, 41, 42. - -Parnell, Charles Stewart, 31. - -Peterborough, 8, 81. - -Pickerel, 95, 98. - -Pitt, William, 265. - -Police, North-West Mounted, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136. - -Port Arthur, 114. - - - -QUAMICHAN LAKE, 268. - -Quebec, 18, 20, 22, 26, 28, 31, 32, 34, 37, 38, 39, 45, 49, 50, 53, -56, 60, 61, 64, 111, 112, 292. - - - -REVELSTOKE, 253. - -Red River, 123, 144. - -'Reddy,' 265. - -Regina, 82, 126, 131, 132, 136, 156, 218. - -Remittance Men, 161. - -Rockefeller, 23. - -Rockies, the, 170, 171, 177, 181, 198, 209, 215, 216, 230. - -Rome, 34, 79. - -Roosevelt, Theodore, 45. - -Russia, 135. - - - -SAGUENAY, 37, 39, 41, 43, 44, 46. - -San Francisco, 258. - -St. Irenee, 40. - -St. John, Reversible Falls of, 237. - -St. Laurent, 67, 68. - -St. Lawrence, 16, 26, 34, 39, 40, 44, 57. - -St. Malo, 41. - -Saskatchewan, 144. - -Seattle, 260, 264, 274. - -Selkirk, Lord, 123. - -Selkirks, the, 215, 216, 224, 225, 253. - -Siegfried, Andre, 18, 147. - -Sir Donald, Mount, 215. - -Spain, 156. - -Spillamacheen, 232, 234, 237. - -Strathmore, 163, 164. - -Sudbury, 102, 107. - -Superior, Lake, 114. - - - -TADOUSAC, 40, 41, 42, 44. - -Tariff Reform, 149, 286, 288. - -Thames, 94. - -Thebes, 127, 128, 129. - -Toronto, 29, 65, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 91, 92, 93. - -Town Planning Bill, 140. - -Trachoma, 3. - -Trinite, Cap, 43, 44. - -Trollope, Anthony, 284. - - - -ULSTER, 33. - - - -VALLEY OF THE TEN PEAKS, 201, 202, 204. - -Vancouver, 196, 236, 258, 259, 261, 262, 263, 264, 265, 267, 273, -274, 282. - -Vancouver Island, 266-71, 274. - -Vannutelli, Cardinal, 78. - -Victoria, 196, 267, 273, 275, 277, 280. - - - -WALKER, BRUCE, 119, 120. - -Webb, Captain, 90. - -Wilmer, 216, 220, 221, 224, 232, 236. - -Windermere, Lake, 222, 223. - -Winnipeg, 8, 84, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 123, 124, 127, 128, 130, -144. - -Wolfe, General, 34, 35, 39. - -Wood, Major, 34. - -World's Fair, the, 82, 83, 87, 88. - - - -YOHO VALLEY, 206, 207, 209, 210. - -Young Women's Christian Association, 196. - -Yukon, 188, 250, 251, 252. - - - - - Printed by T. and A. 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