Round the Wonderful World

It is late before we get back, and we have no time to wander round the homestead that day. Next morning you are up and out early to investigate something for yourself. I know quite well what it is, for you talked "gopher" in your sleep.

In coming across the prairie we saw here and there colonies of odd little beasts that looked a cross between a squirrel and a rat. They jumped up and sat on the tops of their holes to see us pass, and then disappeared like a Jack-in-the-box when we got near. When I go out a bit later I find you in fits of laughter at the inquisitive little creatures. They can't resist peeping, and when they have popped into their holes, back come the little heads and bright eyes to watch what you are doing. I am pretty tired, as I was kept awake most of the night by a bird in a tree near the window which kept saying, "Whip-poor-will" over and over again at intervals. I understand that's its name, and it is hated by the ranchers. No, it is not the bright little black and white bird like a small magpie which pecks around, that is a Whisky-Jack.

I spend a gloriously lazy morning watching you crawling around behind the holes and trying to grab the gophers! Needless to say you never get one!

At dinner-time Mr. Humphrey is much amused at your game. "They drive dogs just frantic," he says, "especially young ones that don't know them. Rabbits aren't in it!"

After dinner he suggests driving us round the ranch, and invites you to come and help him to yoke up. A minute or two later you both reappear without the horses.

"A brute of a skunk," says Mr. Humphrey tersely; "we'll have to wait a while."

It seems that one of these awful beasts has got into the shed among the harness, and till he chooses to move nothing can be done. Naturally I want to see him.

"You'll have to be as quiet as a mouse," you say, guiding me round on tiptoe. "Mr. Humphrey says that he has a store of acrid fluid that stinks like rotten eggs, and if he's disturbed he lets you know it. It's weeks and months before any place is free from the smell."

So we peep cautiously and see an animal about the size of a large cat, with bright black and white markings, lying harmlessly on a pile of harness. It has no sting, no formidable claws or beak, and yet it is able to keep any number of men from disturbing it while it chooses to lie on their possessions. No god could receive more respect from his believers. It is after tea-time when you, creeping to report, tell us the good news that at last Mr. Skunk has gone away!

A day or two later Mr. Humphrey says he will take us to see an Indian reserve, as he thinks we ought not to leave the country without seeing one.

You know the Indians are now looked after by the Government. There are certain pieces of land kept for them, and no one else may live on them. As the white men have spread over the land, and used it for corn and cattle, the Indians have been driven farther back, and find more difficulty in getting a living, so now Government agents are appointed to manage these reserves; they know all the Indians in their charge, and deal out to them certain amounts of stores and look after them.

The settlement we are to visit is at Battle River, about forty miles south of Edmonton. The day chosen is the one when the Indians come in from the country to get their rations. They are a shabby-looking crowd as they gather up near the lumber houses where the agent lives and where the stores are kept.

These are men and women of the tribe of the Crees, a very quiet, peaceful tribe, not troublesome, like the Blood Indians. If you imagined we should see them with feathers sticking out round their heads and fringes of scalps on their leggings you will be terribly disappointed. All these men are in European clothes, with round black felt hats, soiled coats, and blue overalls for trousers. The only thing Indian about them are their moccasins, the soft leather foot-covering they wear instead of boots. They have broad faces, lanky hair, dark reddish skins, and rather a sullen expression mostly, and look dirty and untidy, like old tramps. The squaws, who wear old shawls and skirts, sit solemnly smoking all the time; they nearly all carry on their backs papooses (babies) tied up tightly like little mummies. There are endless numbers of lean cur dogs, yapping and snarling at each other as they prowl for scraps.

The Indians go in single file past the counter in the store and get rice and tea and flour dealt out to them, and then each one receives a portion of meat. The agent speaks to each of them by name, calling them Jim, Dick, or Charlie. Such grand names as "Sitting-Bull" or "Swift-as-the-Moose" are mostly discarded now in favour of something more European, which is considered more fashionable. The Indians hardly speak and never smile, the expression on their faces does not alter in the slightest when the agent chaffs them. When they leave the store they carry their provisions over to where a lot of rough-looking ponies are grazing. Do you see what a simple arrangement these ponies drag? It is made merely of a couple of long sticks, which run on each side of the pony like shafts; at the back the ends are crossed and tied together and trail on the ground. The goods are fixed on to these sticks, and then, seating themselves on the top of the bundles, the Indians set off homeward, followed by their patient squaws, who trail along after them on foot, carrying the papooses.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE GREAT LAKES

If we found the prairie astonishing even when uncultivated, what of this? Corn, ripened in the sun, and spreading over mile after mile on both sides of the railway line! There are no neat little fences to cut it up into fields, and it does not grow unevenly, but all at one height, so the effect is a flat and boundless plain, yellow as the desert sand. Everyone has heard of the grain fields of Canada, the great stretch of land, about a thousand miles in width, from whence corn is shipped to the remotest ends of the earth.

We lingered on so long with the Humphreys that already the harvest is ready for cutting. On leaving Calgary we passed through some towns with astonishing names. The first we noticed was Medicine Hat, which Mr. Kipling has written about as "The Town that was Born Lucky," because gas was discovered in great quantities below the surface, and when holes are bored for it huge jets spring forth and can be used in countless ways; even the engines of the C.P.R. make use of it.

Then we came across Moose Jaw, Swift Current, Indian Head, and Portage La Prairie. I forget at which of these it was we saw Indians in all the gaudy finery of their ancestors, with feathers sticking up on their heads, buckskin shirts covered all over with beads and decorated with tassels, in which coloured grasses were twisted. As the Indian may not take scalps now he has to find other trimmings! These men dress up like this to attract tourists, because they want to sell buffalo horns, bead-work moccasins and bags, and many other things.

Then we got to Regina, the headquarters of the Royal North-West Mounted Police, and were lucky enough to catch sight of one or two of the force in their neat work-manlike khaki, with their round broad-brimmed hats which the Boy Scouts have imitated. These men are hard as nails and absolutely fearless; the story of the adventures of the force would make a thrilling book.

At every station we notice tall odd-looking buildings which form no part of an English station. These are grain-elevators. When the farmer has threshed his corn he can bring it here and receive a receipt for it, and have it stored; then it is run up to the top of one of these places by endless ropes, and thence can be easily poured down out of a funnel-like shaft into the waiting trucks for shipment.

At last there is a farm where the corn is being cut! I have been watching to see one. That row of machines following each other, in what seems from here to be a line, are cutting and binding the corn and turning it out in neat sheaves. The Canadian farmer is often very much ahead of us in the way of machinery. He has to be, for sometimes he has furrows four miles long and a farm the size of an English county. There is, for instance, a steam-plough which takes twelve fourteen-inch furrows at once! What would an English yokel, meandering along at the tail of his two slow horses, say to that? His little job would be done before it was time for breakfast! Hullo! there is another field, all in stooks already – look across the boundless plain to the horizon. There is nothing to be seen but stooks and that thin telephone wire running like a line in the sky in the far distance. When you look at any map of Canada you can't help noticing how straight the boundaries of the provinces are, just as if ruled with a ruler; as a matter of fact they run usually on lines of longitude or latitude, and are thus very different from our county boundaries, which have grown up anyhow. This province we are now in, Manitoba, has recently been increased by an immense area of land in the north, so that it now has a seashore on Hudson Bay, but before that it was nearly square. The farms are measured out in the same exact way too; men have land given to them in sections a mile square, and a man can take more than one section, or he can have a part of one, but every bit of land granted is marked out evenly like the squares on a chess-board.

The days of our journey east seem to be just a succession of endless cornfields and grain-elevators, with glimpses of busy towns and small stations. And in the evening we see a yellow glow of sunset lighting up the uncut fields in a splendour of light that is worth coming far to see. There is a very striking difference about the twilight here and in the East. You remember there how night seemed to shut down close upon sunset, here the light remains on in the sky for many hours, even at nine o'clock we can see the hands of our watches.

Every now and then we discover our watches are an hour slow, and we have to jump the pointers on. This is because Canada and the States are divided up into strips by north and south lines, which mark off the time to be kept in each. As I explained long ago – how very long ago it seems! – America is too vast a continent to keep one set time from shore to shore, as we do in our little country, so it was found convenient to make definite lines, each one hour apart, all the way across.

Then we arrive at Winnipeg, the capital of Manitoba and the largest corn-market in the world. The town is almost exactly half-way across Canada. But we are not going to stop here, for towns do not interest us so much as nature, though if we could have had a peep into the wide main street, with its towering buildings, remembering it was a prairie trail thirty years ago, it would have been worth while.

The rest of that day we run through much prettier scenery than the cornland, which has become very monotonous, and at night-time arrive at a place called Port Arthur, where we are going to leave the train and explore the Great Lakes. Well may they be called "Great"! In Lake Superior, the largest of the five, you could put the whole of your native land, Scotland, and have nearly two thousand square miles left over! This is the largest fresh-water lake in the world. There are five lakes here lying together, and the three largest – Superior, Michigan, and Huron – spring from a common centre and stretch out just like the fingers of a horse-chestnut leaf, but you will find out all this to-morrow.

It is a glorious afternoon the next day when we first catch sight of the steamer waiting to take us across Lake Superior. She is more like an ocean liner than anything else. She is called the Hamonic, and is indeed as large as many of the ships of well-known lines running out to the East from England, for she is five thousand tons, with accommodation for four hundred first-class passengers. On the upper deck is an observation room with windows along the whole length of each side. For all we can see, when once we are out of sight of the shore, we might have left Canada for ever and be taking our final plunge across the Atlantic homeward. And it is the same thing all the next day. We see no land and might as well be on the broad ocean, until, after luncheon, we come to the great lock, or canal, which joins the two lakes of Superior and Huron. It is nine hundred feet long, and had to be made because the levels of the two lakes are different, and no steamer could have come through the rapids which the Indians used to love to shoot in their canoes. When we are through the lock we stop at a large and flourishing place called Sault Ste Marie, and then get into far the prettiest part of the route among the islands, where we see fine trees already turning crimson and gold. Right across Lake Huron we go, passing the entrance to Lake Michigan, and reach Sarnia at one o'clock the next day. Sarnia stands on a narrow strait, and just opposite is part of the territory of the United States of America.

If Canadians are sons and daughters of Great Britain, the Americans are first cousins, for there is no other country in the world, outside the British Empire, of nearer kin to us than the mighty nation which leads in the van of progress in all manufactures and enterprise.

CHAPTER XXXIII

OLD FRIENDS AGAIN

Supposing that some of our friends in Britain, who are expecting to greet us at home in a week, could see us now, suddenly, I wonder where they would think we had got to! Covered in borrowed oilskins, we stand in a mighty cavern, whose vast stone roof reaches up to a hundred feet or more, though in width it is comparatively narrow, like a long shelf. In front of us is a wall of water so thick and overwhelming that it resembles a curtain of giants; the roar of the falling water and the howl of the never-ceasing wind mingle in a great turmoil, and the air is thick with dashing spray. Fitting is the name of the Cave of the Winds! For we are standing in a cave right beneath one of the wonders of the world – the Falls of Niagara, on the American side. We have only had a glimpse of the gigantic waterfall so far, for we came straight here, and presently are going round outside on an electric tram.

These Falls lie between the two least of the Great Lakes, Erie and Ontario, and on one side of them is America, and the other Canada. We crossed on a bridge from the American side to an island in the middle called Goat Island, and then dived downward to this gigantic cave right below the American Fall. It gives one a mighty idea of power, doesn't it? The world can't afford to waste power nowadays when it can be harnessed up for use in generating electricity and a hundred other ways, and not long before the end of the last century power stations were started on both sides of the Falls to use this force. People cried out at first, thinking that the stupendous sight might be spoiled, but not a bit of it. What man has used is but as a few spoonfuls compared with the vast energy of the tons of water flowing resistlessly and ceaselessly day and night down these precipices and onward to the sea. Put out your finger and thrust it into the wall of water; the force of it sends your arm down to your side like a railway signal. We are not alone in the cave; there are many other people from all parts of the world. We heard French and German talked as we came across, though there is no chance of hearing any conversation now. As we climb up again and put off the wet oilskins, kept for the use of visitors, the roar becomes less, and when suddenly someone takes hold of my arm in a friendly way, and calls out my name, I wheel round to face the "nice" American who saved us from starvation in the train in Egypt! He has recognised us at once and grips our hands heartily. When we emerge on to the bridge he is full of questions about our trip, and wants to know what we have seen and what we have done. He has with him a boy who looks several years older than you, and he tells us that this is his son, who is studying at Harvard, but off on the long vacation. So we all go together back to Prospect Park, on the American side, and get into an electric car, which swings over a bridge just below the Falls, where we can see the whole grand panorama and both Falls. The Canadian one is called the Horseshoe Fall. Often you must have seen pictures of Niagara; but pictures do not convey much, and this is one of the few sights in the world that runs beyond expectation. As the torrent pouring over strikes the water below, the foam flies up in a vast frothy mass into the air; we, from our height, look down upon it and upon a tiny steamer in the basin just below. The reason why the steamer is able to sail so near the Falls without being swept down is because the falling water descends with such force that it goes right below the surface of the bay and does not agitate it at all. On the other side, away from the Falls, farther down the river, there is a high suspension bridge belonging to the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada, with a place for carriages and foot-passengers below the lines. A carriage crawling over it looks like a small beetle. There was an awful scene here not so long ago in the winter-time, when the river was frozen from shore to shore. Some people were on the ice, which began to break up in large blocks, and in the very sight of hundreds of their fellow-creatures, who vainly tried to save them by throwing ropes, several were swept away, including a man and his wife, who were on a floating hummock. The man actually got hold of one of the ropes, but his wife had fainted, and in trying to support her the rope slipped through his fingers, and together the two black specks on the white ice-block were borne by the current to their doom. A never-to-be-forgotten tragedy!

After we have crossed the water we run along on the Canadian side close to the edge of the cliff, high up, following the course of the current downward; we go round a great curve, where it boils in a whirlpool, we pass by a tall monument, and then, much farther down, we cross another bridge, and are brought back on the American side, where the line runs at first low down and gradually mounts till, after passing below the suspension bridge, we reach our starting-place. While we are close to the surface of the water we see the Rapids splendidly. This is where the swift water from the Falls has come again to the surface, and, hemmed in by the walls of the gorge, it tosses in fury; long sprays leap up from below like grabbing fingers clutching to drag men down; miniature whirlpools boil, and in the centre the water is forced up higher than at the sides.

All the time our American friend and his son, who seems quite a man of the world, and has been to the Falls several times before, are trying to persuade us to go home by New York and pay them a visit en route. Unfortunately we cannot. Our passages are booked by a steamer belonging to the Allan Line, which sails from Montreal the day after to-morrow. But I think perhaps sometime we may come back and make a tour of the States!

It is hard to say good-bye and tear ourselves away from our hospitable friends, but it must be done. The next day sees us at the fine city of Montreal, having come by way of Toronto, the capital of Ontario.

Montreal is a very bright city, with trees lining the streets and the mountains rising at the back, and all the inhabitants seem cheerful and good-natured. The great liner waiting to carry us homeward can only get as far as this up the St. Lawrence in the summer; in winter she sets down her passengers at Halifax, in Nova Scotia, right out on the ocean.

As she steams slowly up the beautiful river we see the trees bursting out here and there into a perfect flame of colour. The maple is Canada's special tree, and it is the maples that make those crimson flame-like patches among the other foliage. We notice, too, what an unusual quantity of dead wood is left standing; this, in a small country like England, would be cleared out or cut away, but here the forests are so vast that it is left to rot.

Then we pass Quebec on its heights, where Wolfe won his great victory, and so made Canada British for ever. It is odd, however, to notice, especially during the last part of our journey, how very French the people are in their ways and customs. At one small station I remember hearing a man chatting away in French and gesticulating like a Frenchman, and as he turned to go another called after him, "Ha, MacDougall!" The truth is that the original settlers here were mostly French, but after a while many emigrants came over from Scotland and intermarried with them, and the children, who naturally bore their father's surnames, learned their mother's native tongue!

Once out of the St. Lawrence we begin to feel the roll of the great waves, but we need not at this time of year expect anything very bad, and we shall see no icebergs. The early summer is the worst time for them, for the warm currents have loosened them from the icefields in the north, and they float southwards. The voyage is uneventful, and, seasoned sailors as we are, we never miss a meal during the week that it takes to cross before we sight the chimneys and wharves of grimy Liverpool.

As we step on to British soil once more, on the wharf we turn and look at each other.

Has it come up to expectation? You are not sorry you went with me?

As for me, I have never had a pleasanter companion and never wish for one. Hullo! here are your people, ready to carry you off, rejoiced to find you safe and sound after not having seen you for nearly a year, during which time you have spanned the world and travelled somewhere about twenty-five thousand miles.

Good-bye!

THE END