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The Great Lone Land

by Sir William Francis Butler · English · Gutenberg #15401 · 736,198 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Great Lone Land

Author: Sir William Francis Butler


        
Release date: March 18, 2005 [eBook #15401]
                Most recently updated: December 14, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15401

Credits: Produced by Col Choat


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THE GREAT LONE LAND: A NARRATIVE OF TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE IN THE
NORT-WEST OF AMERICA.

BY COLONEL W. F. BUTLER, C.B., F.R.G.S.
AUTHOR OF "HISTORICAL EVENTS CONNECTED WITH THE SIXTY-NINTH REGIMENT," ETC.


"A full fed river winding slow,
By herds-upon an endless plain."

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

"And some one pacing there alone
Who paced for ever in a glimmering land,
Lit with a low, large moon."

TENNYSON.



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND ROUTE MAP. [Not included in this ebook.]

LONDON SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY Limited
St. Dunstan's House FETTER LANE, FLEET STREET,

First Published 1872 (All rights reserved)

PRINTED BY GILBERT AND RIFINGTON, LD.,
ST. JOHN'S HOUSE, CLERKEMWELL ROAD, E.C.



PREFACE.

At York Factory on Hudson Bay there lived, not very long ago, a man who
had stored away in his mind one fixed resolution it was to write a book.

"When I put down," he used to say, "all that I have seen, and all that I
havn't seen, I will be able to write a good book."

It is probable that had this man carried his intention into effect the
negative portion of his vision would have been more successfal than the
positive. People are generally more ready to believe what a man hasn't
seen'than what he has seen. So, at least, thought Karkakonias the
Chippeway Chief at Pembina.

Karkakonias was taken to Washington during the great Southern War, in
order that his native mind might be astonished by the grandeur of the
United States, and by the strength and power of the army of the Potomac.

Upon his return to his tribe he remained silent and impassive; his days
were spent in smoking, his evenings in quiet contemplation; he spoke not
of his adventures in the land of the great white medicine-man. But at
length the tribe grew discontented; they had expected to hear the recital
of the wonders seen by their chief, and lo! he had come-back to them as
silent as though his wanderings had ended on the Coteau of the Missouri,
or by the borders of the Kitchi-Gami. Their discontent found vent in
words.

"Our father, Karkakonias, has come back to us," they said; "why does he
not tell his children of the medicine of the white man? Is our father
dumb that he does not speak to us of these things?"

Then the old chief took his calumet from his lips, and replied, "'If
Karkakonias told his children of the medicines of the white man--of his
war-canoes moving by fire, and making thunder as they move, of his
warriors more numerous than the buffalo in the days of our fathers, of
all the wonderful things he has looked upon-his children would point and
say, Behold! Karkakonias has become in his old age a maker of lies! No,
my children, Karkakonias has seen many wonderful things, and his tongue
is still able to speak; but, until your eyes have travelled as far as has
his tongue, he will sit silent and smoke the calumet, thinking only of
what he has looked upon."

Perhaps I too should have followed the example of the old Chippeway
chief, not because of any wonders I have looked upon; but rather because
of that well-known prejudice against travellers tales, and of that
terribly terse adjuration-".O that mine enemy might write a book!" Be
that as it may, the book has been written; and it only remains to say a
few words about its title and its theories.

The "Great Lone Land" is no sensational name. The North-west fulfils, at
the present time, every essential of that title. There is no other
portion of the globe in which travel is possible where loneliness can be
said to live so thoroughly. One may wander 500 miles in a direct line
without seeing a human being, or an animal larger than a wolf. And if
vastness of plain, and magnitude of lake, mountain, and river can mark a
land as great, then no region possesses higher claims to that
distinction.

A word upon more personal matters. Some two months since I sent to the
firm from whose hands this work has emanated a portion of the unfinished
manuscript. I received in reply a communication to the effect that their
Reader thought highly of my descriptions of real occurrences, but less
of my theories. As it is possible that the general reader may fully
endorse at least the latter portion of this opinion, I have only one
observation to make.

Almost every page of this book has been written amid the ever-present
pressure of those feelings which spring from a sense of unrequited
labour, of toil and service theoretically and officially recognized, but
practically and professionally denied. However, a personal preface is not
my object, nor should these things find allusion here, save to account in
some manner, if account be necessary, for peculiarities of language or
opinion which may hereafter make themselves apparent to the reader. Let
it be.

In the solitudes of the Great Lone Land, whither I am once more about to
turn my steps, the trifles that spring from such disappointments will
cease to trouble.

April 14th 1872.



CONTENTS.

CHAPTER ONE. Peace--Rumours of War--Retrenchment--A Cloud in the far
West--A Distant Settlement-Personal--The Purchase System--A
Cable-gram--Away to the West

CHAPTER TWO. The "Samaria"--Across the Atlantic-Shipmates--The Despot of
the Deck--"Keep her Nor'-West"--Democrat versus Republican--A First
Glimpse--Boston

CHAPTER THREE. Bunker--New York--Niagara-Toronto-Spring--time in
Quebec--A Summons--A Start--In good Company--Stripping a Peg--An
Expedition--Poor Canada--An Old Glimpse at a New Land--Rival
Routes--Change of Masters--The Red River Revolt--The Halfbreeds--Early
Settlers-Bungling--"Eaters of Pemmican-"--M. Louis Riel--The Murder of
Scott

CHAPTER FOUR. Chicago--"Who is S. B. D.?"--Milwaukie--The Great
Fusion-Wisconsin--The Sleeping-car--The Train Boy-Minnesota--St. Paul--I
start for Lake Superior--The Future City--"Bust up" and "Gone on"--The
End of the Track

CHAPTER FIVE. Lake Superior--The Dalles of the St. Louis--The North
Pacific Railroad--Fond-du-Lac-Duluth--Superior City--The Great Lake--A
Plan to dry up Niagara--Stage Driving--Tom's Shanty again--St. Paul and
its Neighbourhood.

CHAPTER SIX. Our Cousins--Doing America--Two Lessons--St. Cloud-Sauk
Rapids--"Steam Pudding or Pumpkin Pie?"--Trotting him out--Away for the
Red River.

CHAPTER SEVEN. North Minnesota--A beautiful Land--Rival
Savages-Abercrombie--News from the North-Plans--A Lonely Shanty--The Red
River-Prairies-Sunset-Mosquitoes--Going North--A Mosquito Night--A
Thunder-storm--A Prussian-Dakota--I ride for it--The Steamer
"International "--Pembina.

CHAPTER EIGHT. Retrospective--The North-west Passage--The Bay of
Hudson--Rival Claims--The Old French Fur Trade--The North-west
Company--How the Half-breeds came--The Highlanders
defeated-Progress--Old Feuds.

CHAPTER NINE. Running the Gauntlet--Across the Line--Mischief
ahead-Preparations--A Night March--The Steamer captured--The
Pursuit-Daylight--The Lower Fort--The Red Indian at last--The Chief's
Speech--A Big Feed--Making ready for the Winnipeg--A Delay--I visit Fort
Garry--Mr. President Riel--The Final Start-Lake Winnipeg--The First Night
out--My Crew.

CHAPTER TEN. The Winnipeg River--The Ojibbeway's House--Rushing a
Rapid--A Camp--No Tidings of the Coming Man--Hope in Danger--Rat
Portage--A far-fetched Islington--"Like Pemmican".

CHAPTER ELEVEN. The Expedition--The Lake of the Woods--A Night Alarm--A
close Shave--Rainy River--A Night Paddle--Fort Francis--A Meeting--The
Officer commanding the Expedition--The Rank and File--The 60th Rifles--A
Windigo--Ojibbeway Bravery--Canadian Volunteers.

CHAPTER TWELVE. To Fort Garry--Down the Winnipeg--Her Majesty's Royal
Mail--Grilling a Mail-bag--Running a Rapid--Up the Red River-A dreary
Bivouac--The President bolts--The Rebel Chiefs--Departure of the Regular
Troops.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN. Westward--News from the Outside World--I retrace my
Steps--An Offer--The West--The Kissaskatchewan--The Inland
Ocean--Preparations-Departure--A Terrible Plague--A lonely
Grave-Digressive--The Assineboine River--Rossette.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN. The Hudson Bay Company--Furs and Free Trade--Fort
Ellice--Quick Travelling-Horses--Little Blackie--Touchwood Hills--A
Snow-storm--The South Saskatchewan--Attempt to cross the River--Death of
poor Blackie--Carlton.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN. Saskatchewan--Start from Carlton--Wild Mares--Lose our
Way--A long Ride--Battle River--Mistawassis the Cree--A Dance.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN. The Red Man--Leave Battle River--The Red Deer Hills--A
long Ride--Fort Pitt--The Plague--Hauling by the Tail--A pleasant
Companion--An easy Method of Divorce--Reach Edmonton.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. Edmonton--The Ruffian Tahakooch--French
Missionaries--Westward still--A beautiful Land--The Blackfeet-Horses--A
"Bellox" Soldier--A Blackfoot Speech--The Indian Land--First Sight of the
Rocky Mountains--The Mountain House--The Mountain Assineboines--An Indian
Trade--M. la Combe--Fire-water-A Night Assault.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. Eastward--A beautiful Light.

CHAPTER NINETEEN. I start from Edmonton with Dogs--Dog-travelling--The
Cabri Sack--A cold Day-Victoria--"Sent to Rome"--Battle Fort Pitt--The
blind Cree--A Feast or a Famine--Death of Pe-na-koam the Blackfoot.

CHAPTER TWENTY. The Buffalo--His Limits and favourite Grounds--Modes of
Hunting--A Fight--His inevitable End--I become a Medicine-man--Great
Cold-Carlton--Family Responsibilities.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE. The Great Sub-Arctic Forest--The "Forks" of the
Saskatchewan--An Iroquois--Fort-à-la-Corne--News from the outside
World--All haste for Home--The solitary Wigwam--Joe Miller's Death.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO. Cumberland---We bury poor Joe--A good Train of
Dogs--The great Marsh-Mutiny--Chicag the Sturgeon-fisher--A Night with a
Medicine-man--Lakes Winnipegoosis and Manitoba--Muskeymote eats his
Boots--We reach the Settlement--From the Saskatchewan to the Seine.

APPENDIX

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Map of the Great Lone Land.
Working up the Winnipeg.
I waved to the leading Canoe.
Across the Plains in November.
The Rocky Mountains at the Sources of the Saskatchewan.
Leaving a cosy Camp at dawn.
The "Forks" of the Saskatchewan.




THE GREAT LONE LAND.

CHAPTER ONE.

Peace--Rumours of War-Retrenchment--A Cloud in the far West--A Distant
Settlement-Personal--The Purchase System--A Cable-gram--Away to the West

IT was a period of universal peace over the wide world. There was not a
shadow of war in the North, the South, the East, or the West. There was
not even a Bashote in South Africa, a Beloochee in Scinde, a Bhoottea, a
Burmese, or any other of the many "eses" or "eas" forming the great
colonial empire of Britain who seemed capable of kicking up the semblance
of a row. Newspapers had never been so dull; illustrated journals had to
content themselves with pictorial representations of prize pigs,
foundation stones, and provincial civic magnates. Some of the great
powers were bent upon disarming; several influential persons of both
sexes had decided, at a meeting held for the suppression of vice, to
abolish standing armies. But, to be more precise as to the date of this
epoch, it will be necessary to state that the time was the close of the
year 1869, just twenty-two months ago. Looking back at this most-piping
period of peace from the stand-point of today, it is not at all
improbable that even at that tranquil moment a great power, now, very
much greater, had a firm hold of certain wires carefully concealed; the
dexterous pulling of which would cause 100,000,000 of men to rush at
each other's throats: nor is this supposition rendered the more
unlikely because of the utterance of the most religious sentiments on the
part of the great power in question, and because of the well-known
Christianity and orthodoxy of its ruler. But this was not the only power
that possessed a deeper insight into the future than did its neighbours.
It is hardly to be gainsaid that there was, about that period, another
great power popularly supposed to dwell amidst darkness-a power which is
said also to possess the faculty of making Scriptural quotations to his
own advantage. It is not at all unlikely that amidst this scene of
universal quietude he too was watching certain little snow-wrapt hamlets,
scenes of straw-yard and deep thatched byre in which cattle munched their
winter provender-watching them with the perspective scent of death and
destruction in his nostrils; gloating over them with the knowledge of
what was to be their fate before another snow time had come round. It
could not be supposed that amidst such an era of tranquillity the army of
England should have been allowed to remain in a very formidable position.
When other powers were talking of disarming, was it not necessary that
Great Britain should actually disarm? of course there was a slight
difference existing between the respective cases, inasmuch as Great
Britain had never armed; but that distinction was not taken into account,
or was not deemed of sufficient importance to be noticed, except by a few
of the opposition journals; and is not every one aware that when a
country is governed on the principle of parties, the party which iscalled
the opposition must be in the wrong? So it was decreed about this time
that the fighting force of the British nation should be reduced. It was
useless to speak of the chances of war, said the British tax-payer,
speak-ing through the mouths of innumerable members of the British
Legislature. Had not the late Prince Consort and the late Mr. Cobden
come to the same conclusion from the widely different points of great
exhibitions and free trade, that war could never be? And if; in the face
of great exhibitions and universal free trade-even if war did become
possible, had we not ambassadors, and legations, and consulates all over
the world; had we not military attaches at every great court of Europe;
and would we not know all about it long before it commenced? No, no, said
the tax-payer, speaking through the same medium as before, reduce the
army, put the ships of war out of commission, take your largest and most
powerful transport steamships, fill them full with your best and most
experienced skilled military and naval artisans and labourers, send them
across the Atlantic to forge guns, anchors, and material of war in the
navy-yards of Norfolk and the arsenals of Springfield and Rock Island;
and let us hear no more of war or its alarms. It is true, there were some
persons who thought otherwise upon this subject, but many of them were
men whose views had become warped and deranged in such out-of-the-way
places as Southern Russia, Eastern China, Central Hindoostan, Southern
Africa, and Northern America military men, who, in fact, could not be
expected to understand questions of grave political economy, astute
matters of place.-and party, upon which the very existence of the
parliamentary system depended; and who, from the ignorance of these nice
distinctions of liberal-conservative and conservative-liberal, had
imagined that the strength and power of the empire was not of secondary
importance to the strength and power of a party. But the year 1869 did
not pass altogether into the bygone without giving a faint echo of
disturbance in one far-away region of the earth. It is true, that not the
smallest breathing of that strife which was to make: the succeeding year
crimson through the centuries had yet sounded on the continent of Europe.
No; all was as quiet there as befits the mighty hush which precedes
colossal conflicts. But far away in the very farthest West, so far that
not one man in fifty could tell its whereabouts, up somewhere between the
Rocky Mountains, Hudson Bay, and Lake Superior, along a river called the
Red River of the North, a people, of whom nobody could tell who or what
they were, had risen in insurrection. Well-informed persons said these
insurgents were only Indians; others, who had relations in America,
averreed that they were Scotchmen, and one journal, well-known for its
clearness upon all subjects connected with the American Continent,
asserted that they were Frenchmen. Amongst so much conflicting testimony,
it was only natural that the average Englishman should possess no very
decided opinions upon the matter; in fact, it came to pass that the
average Englishman, having heard that somebody was rebelling against him
somewhere or other, looked to his atlas and his journal for information
on the subject, and having failed in obtaining any from either source,
naturally concluded that the whole thing was something which no fellow
could be expected to understand. As, however, they who follow the writer
of these pages through such vicissitudes as he may encounter will have
to live awhile amongst these people of the Red River of the North, it
will be necessary to examine this little cloud of insurrection which the
last days of 1869 pushed above the political horizon. Bookmark About the
time when Napoleon was carrying half a million of men through the snows
of Russia, a Scotch nobleman of somewhat eccentric habits conceived the
idea of planting a colony of his countrymen in the very heart of the
vast continent of North America. It was by no means an original idea that
entered into the brain of Lord Selkirk; other British lords had tried in
earlier centuries the same experiment; and they, in turn, were only the
imitators of those great Spanish nobles who, in the sixteenth century,
had planted on the coast of the Carolinas and along the Gulf of Mexico
the first germs of colonization in the New World. But in one respect Lord
Selkirk's experiment was wholly different from those that had preceded
it. The earlier adventurers had sought the coast-line of the Atlantic
upon which to fix their infant colonies. He boldly penetrated into the
very centre of the continent and reached a fertile spot which to this day
is most difficult of access. But at that time what an oasis in the vast
wilderness of America was this Red River of the North! For 1400 miles
between it and the Atlantic lay the solitudes that now teem with the
cities of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. Indeed,
so distant appeared the nearest outpost of civilization towards the
Atlantic that all means of communication in that direction was utterly
unthought of. The settlers had entered into the new land by the
ice-locked bay of Hudson, and all communication with the outside world
should be maintained through the same outlet. No easy task! 300 miles of
lake and 400 miles of river, wildly foaming over rocky ledges in its
descent of 700 feet, lay between them and the ocean, and then only to
reach the stormy waters of the great Bay of Hudson, whose ice-bound
outlet to the Atlantic is fast locked save during two short months of
latest summer. No wonder that the infant colony had hard times in store
for it-hard times, if left to fight its way against winter rigour and
summer: inundation, but doubly hard when the hand of a powerful enemy was
raised to crush it in the first year of its existence. Of this more
before we part. Enough for us now to know: that the little colony, in
spite of opposition, increased and multiplied; people lived in it, were
married in it, and died in it, undisturbed by the busy rush of the
outside world, until, in the last months of 1869, just fifty-seven years
after its formation, it rose in insurrection.

And now, my reader, gentle or cruel, whichsoever you may be, the
positions we have hitherto occupied in these few preliminary pages must
undergo some slight variation. You, if you be gentle, will I trust remain
so until the end; if you be cruel, you will perhaps relent; but for me,
it will be necessary to come forth in the full glory of the individual
"I," and to retain it until we part.

It was about the end of the year 1869 that I became conscious of having
experienced a decided check in life. One day I received from a
distinguished military functionary an intimation to the effect that a
company in Her Majesty's service would be at my disposal, provided I
could produce the sum of 1100 pounds. Some dozen years previous to the
date of this letter I entered the British army, and by the slow process
of existence had reached-a position among the subalterns of the regiment
technically known as first for purchase; but now, when the moment arrived
to turn that position to account, I found that neither the 1100 pounds of
regulation amount nor the 400 pounds of over-regulation items (terms
very familiar now, but soon, I trust, to be for ever obsolete) were
forthcoming, and so it came about that younger hands began to pass me in
the race of life. What was to be done? What course lay open? Serve on;
let the dull routine of barrack-life grow duller; go from Canada to the
Cape, from the Cape to the Mauritius, from Mauritius to Madras, from
Madras goodness knows where, and trust to delirium tremens, yellow fever,
or: cholera morbus for promotion and advancement; or, on the other hand,
cut the service, become in the lapse of time governor of a penitentiary,
secretary to a London club, or adjutant of militia. And yet-here came the
rub-when every fibre of one's existence beat in unison with the true
spirit of military adventure, when the old feeling which in boyhood had
made the study of history a delightful pastime, in late years had grown
into a fixed unalterable longing for active service, when the whole
current of thought ran in the direction of adventure-no matter in what
climate, or under what circumstances-it was hard beyond the measure of
words to sever in an instant the link that bound one to a life where such
aspirations were still possible of fulfilment; to separate one's destiny
for ever from that noble profession of arms; to become an outsider, to
admit that the twelve best years of life had been a useless dream, and
to bury oneself far away in some Western wilderness out of the reach or
sight of red coat or sound of bugle-sights and sounds which old
associations would have made unbearable. Surely it could not be done; and
so, looking abroad into the future, it was difficult to trace a path
Which could turn the flank of this formidable barrier flung thus suddenly
into the highway of life.

Thus it was that one, at least, in Great Britain watched with anxious
gaze this small speck of revolt rising so far away in the vast wilderness
of the North-West; and when, about the beginning of the month of April,
1870, news came of the projected despatch of an armed force from Canada
against the malcontents of Red River, there was one who beheld in the
approaching expedition the chance of a solution to the difficulties which
had beset him in his career. That one was myself.

There was little time to be lost, for already; the cable said, the
arrangements were in a forward state; the staff of the little force had
been organized, the rough outline of the expedition had been sketched,
and with the opening of navigation on the northern lakes the first move
would be commenced. Going one morning to the nearest telegraph station, I
sent the following message under the Atlantic to America:--"To: Winnipeg
Expedition. Please remember me." When words cost at the rate of four
shillings each, conversation and correspondence become of necessity
limited. In the present instance I was only allowed the use of ten words
to convey address, signature, and substance, and the five words of my
message were framed both with a view to economy and politeness, as well
as in a manner which by calling for no direct answer still left undecided
the great question of success. Having despatched my message under the
ocean, I determined to seek the Horse Guards in a final effort to procure
unattached promotion in the army. It is almost unnecessary to remark that
this attempt failed; and as I issued from the audience in which I had
been informed of the utter hopelessness of my request, I had at least the
satisfaction of having reduced my chances of fortune to the narrow limits
of a single throw. Pausing at the gate of the Horse Guards I reviewed in
a moment the whole situation; whatever was to be the result there was no
time for delay and so, hailing a hansom, I told the cabby to drive to the
office of the Cunard Steamship Company, Old Broad Street, City.

"What steamer sails on Wednesday for America?"

"The 'Samaria for Boston, the 'Marathon for New York."

"The 'Samaria broke her shaft, didn't she, last voyage, and was a
missing ship for a month?" I asked.

"Yes, sir," answered the clerk.

"Then book me a passage in her," I replied; "she's not likely to play
that prank twice in two voyages."





CHAPTER TWO.

The "Samaria "--Across the Atlantic-Shipmates--The Despot of the
Deck--"Keep her Nor'-West"--Democrat versus Republican--A First
Glimpse--Boston

POLITICAL economists and newspaper editors for years have dwelt upon the
unfortunate fact that Ireland is not a manufacturing nation, and does not
export largely the products of her soil. But persons who have lived in
the island, or who have visited the ports of its northern or southern
shores, or crossed the Atlantic by any of the ocean steamers which sail
daily from the United Kingdom, must have arrived at a conclusion totally
at variance with these writers; for assuredly there is no nation under
the sun which manufactures the material called man so readily as does
that grass-covered island. Ireland is not a manufacturing nation, says
the political economist. Indeed, my good sir, you are wholly mistaken.
She is not only a manufacturing nation, but she manufactures nations. You
do not see her broad-cloth, or her soft fabrics, or her steam-engines,
but you see the broad shoulder of her sons and the soft cheeks of her
daughters in vast states whose names you are utterly ignorant of; and as
for the exportation of her products to foreign lands, just come with me
on board this ocean steamship "Samaria", and look at them. The good ship
has run down the channel during the night and now lies at anchor in
Queenstown harbour, waiting for mails and passengers. The latter came,
quickly and thickly enough. No poor, ill-fed, miserably dressed crowd,
but fresh, and fair, and strong, and well clad, the bone and muscle and
rustic beauty of the land; the little steam-tender that plies from the
shore to the ship is crowded at every trip, and you can scan them as they
come on board in batches of seventy or eighty. Some eyes among the girls
are red with crying, but tears dry quickly on young cheeks, and they will
be laughing before an hour is over. "Let them go," says the economist;
"we have too many mouths to feed in these little islands of ours; their
going will give us more room, more cattle, more chance to keep our acres
for the few'; let them go." My friend, that is just half the picture, and
no more; we may get a peep at the other half before you and I part.

It was about five o'clock in the afternoon of the 4th of May when the
"Samaria" steamed slowly between the capes of Camden and Carlisle, and
rounding out into Atlantic turned her head towards the western horizon.
The ocean lay unruffled along the rocky headlands of Ireland's southmost
shore. A long line of smoke hanging suspended between sky and sea marked
the unseen course of another steamship farther away to the south. A
hill-top, blue and lonely, rose above the rugged coast-line, the far-off
summit of some inland mountain; and as evening came down over the still
tranquil ocean and the vessel clove her outward way through
phosphorescent water, the lights along the iron coast grew fainter in
distance till there lay around only the unbroken circle of the sea.

ON BOARD.-A trip across the Atlantic is now-a-days a very ordinary
business; in fact, it is no longer a voyage-it is a run, you may almost
count its duration to within four hours; and as for fine weather, blue
skies, and calm seas, if they come, you may be thankful for them, but
don't expect them, and you won't add a sense of disappointment to one of
discomfort. Some experience of the Atlantic enables me to affirm that
north or south of 35 degrees north and south latitude there exists no such
thing as pleasant sailing.

But the usual run of weather, time, and tide outside the ship is not
more alike in its characteristics than the usual run of passenger one
meets inside. There is the man who has never been sea-sick in his life,
and there is the man who has never felt well upon board ship, but who,
nevertheless, both manage to consume about fifty meals of solid food in
ten days. There is the nautical landsman who tells you that he has been
eighteen times across the Atlantic and four times round the Cape of Good
Hope, and who is generally such a bore upon marine questions that it is a
subject of infinite regret that he should not be performing a fifth
voyage round that distant and interesting promontory. Early in the
voyage, owing to his superior sailing qualities, he has been able to
cultivate a close intimacy with the captain of the ship; but this
intimacy has been on the decline for some days, and, as he has committed
the unpardonable error of differing in opinion with the captain upon a
subject connected with the general direction and termination of the Gulf
Stream, he begins to fall quickly in the estimation of that potentate.
Then there is the relict of the late Major Fusby, of the Fusiliers, going
to or returning from England. Mrs. Fusby has a predilection for port
negus and the first Burmese war, in which campaign her late husband
received a wound of such a vital description (he died just twenty-two
years later), that it has enabled her to provide, at the expense of a
grateful nation, for three youthful Fusbies, who now serve their country
in various parts of the world. She does not suffer from sea-sickness, but
occasionally undergoes periods of nervous depression which require the
administration of the stimulant already referred to. It is a singular
fact that the present voyage is strangely illustrative of remarkable
events in the life of the late Fusby; there has not been a sail or a
porpoise in sight that has not called up some reminiscence of the early
career of the major; indeed, even the somewhat unusual appearance of an
iceberg, has been turned to account as suggestive of the intense
suffering undergone by the major during the period of his wound, owing to
the scarcity of the article ice in tropical countries. Then on deck
we have the inevitable old sailor who is perpetually engaged in scraping
the vestiges of paint from your favourite seat, and who, having arrived
at the completion of his monotonous task after four days incessant
labour, is found on the morning of the fifth engaged in smearing the
paint-denuded place of rest with a vilely glutinous compound peculiar to
ship-board. He never looks directly at you as you approach, with book and
jug, the desired spot, but you can tell by the leer in his eye and the
roll of the quid in his immense mouth that the old villain knows all
about the discomfort he is causing you, and you fancy you can detect a
chuckle, you turn away in a vain quest for a quiet cosy spot. Then there
is the captain himself, that most mighty despot. What king ever wielded
such power, what czar or kaiser had ever such obedience yielded to their
decrees? This man, who on shore is nothing, is here on his deck a very
pope; he is infallible. Canute could not stay the tide, but our sea-king
regulates the sun. Charles the Fifth could not make half a dozen clocks
go in unison, but Captain Smith can make it twelve o'clock any time he
pleases; nay, more, when the sun has made it twelve o'clock no tongue of
bell or sound of clock can proclaim time's decree until it has been
ratified by the fiat of the captain; and even in his misfortunes what
gran deur, what absence of excuse or crimination of others in the hour of
his disaster! Who has not heard of that captain who sailed away from
Liverpool one day bound for America? He had been hard worked on shore,
and it was said that when he sought the seclusion of his own cabin he was
not unmindful of that comfort which we are told the first navigator of
the ocean did not disdain to use. For a little time things went well. The
Isle of Man was passed; but unfortunately, on the second day out, the
good ship struck the shore of the north-east coast of Ireland and became
a total wreck. As the weather was extremely fine, and there appeared to
be no reason for the disaster, the subject became matter for
investigation by the authorities connected with the Board of Trade.
During the inquiry it was deposed that the Calf of Man had been passed at
such an hour on such a day, and the circumstance duly reported to the
captain, who, it was said, was below. It was also stated that having
received the report of the passage of the Calf of Man the captain had
ordered the ship to be kept in a north-west course until further orders.
About six hours later the vessel went ashore on the coast of Ireland.
Such was the evidence of the first officer. The captain was shortly after
called and examined.

"It appears, sir," said the president of the court, "that the passing of
the Calf of Man was duly reported to you by the first officer. May I ask,
sir, what course you ordered to be steered upon receipt of that
information?"

"North-west, sir," answered the captain; "I said, 'Keep her north-west."'

"North-west," repeated the president; "a very excellent general course
for making the coast of America, but not until you had cleared the
channel and were well into the Atlantic. Why, sir, the whole of Ireland
lay between you and America on that course."

"Can't help that, sir; can't help that, sir," replied the sea-king in a
tone of half-contemptuous pity, that the whole of Ireland should have
been so very unreasonable as to intrude itself in such a position.

And yet, with all the despotism of the deck, what kindly spirits are
these old sea-captains with the freckled hard knuckled hands and the grim
storm-seamed faces! What honest genuine hearts are lying buttoned beneath
those rough pea-jackets! If all despots had been of that kind perhaps we
shouldn't have known quite as much about Parliamentary Institutions as we
do.

And now, while we have been talking thus, the "Samaria" has been getting
far out into mid Atlantic, and yet we know not one among our
fellow-passengers, although they do not number much above a dozen: a
merchant from Maryland, a sea-captain-from Maine, a young doctor from
Pennsylvania, a Massachusetts man, a Rhode Islander, a German geologist
going to inspect seams in Colorado, a priest's sister from Ireland going
to look after some little property left her by her brother, a poor fellow
who was always ill, who never appeared at table, and who alluded to the
demon sea-sickness that preyed upon him as "it". "It comes on very bad at
night. It prevents me touching food. It never leaves me," he would say;
and in truth this terrible "it" never did leave him until the harbour of
Boston was reached, and even then, I fancy, dwelt in his thoughts during
many a day on shore.

The sea-captain from Maine was a violent democrat, the Massachusetts man
a rabid republican; and many a fierce battle waged between them on the
vexed questions of state rights, negro suffrage, and free trade in
liquor. To many Englishmen the terms republican and democrat may seem
synonymous; but not between radical and conservative, between outmost
Whig and inmost Tory exist more opposite extremes than between these
great rival political parties of the United States. As a drop of
sea-water possesses the properties of the entire water of the ocean, so
these units of American political controversy were microscopic
representatives of their respective parties. It was curious to remark what
a prominent part their religious convictions played in the war of words.
The republican was a member of the Baptist congregation; the democrat held
opinions not very easy of description, something of a universalist and
semi-unitarian tendency; these opinions became frequently intermixed with
their political jargon, forming that curious combination of ideas which
to unaccustomed ears sounds slightly blasphemous. I recollect a very
earnest American once saying that he considered all religious, political,
social, and historical teaching should be reduced to three subjects: the
Sermon on the Mount, the Declaration of American Independence, and the
Chicago Republican Platform of 1860.

On the present occasion the Massachusetts man was a person whose nerves
were as weak as his political convictions were strong, and the democrat
being equally gifted with strong opinions, strong nerves, and a tendency
towards strong waters, was enabled, particularly after dinner, to obtain
an easy victory over his less powerfully gifted antagonist. In fact it
was to the weakness of the latter's nervous system that we were indebted
for the pleasure of his society on board. Eight weeks before he had been
ordered by his medical adviser to leave his wife and office in the little
village of Hyde Park to seek change and relaxation on the continent of
Europe. He was now returning to his native land filled, he informed us,
with the gloomiest forebodings. He had a very powerful presentiment that
we were never to see the shores of America. By what agency our
destruction was to be accomplished he did not enlighten us, but the ship
had not well commenced her voyage before he commenced his evil
prognostications. That these were not founded upon any prophetic
knowledge of future events will be sufficiently apparent from the fact of
this book being written. Indeed, when the mid Atlantic had been passed
our Massachusetts acquaintance began to entertain more hopeful
expectations of once more pressing his wife to his bosom, although he
repeatedly reiterated that if that domestic event was really destined to
take place no persuasion on earth, medical or other wise, would ever
induce him to place the treacherous billows of the Atlantic between him
and the person of that bosom's partner. It was drawing near the end of
the voyage when an event occurred which, though in itself of a most
trivial nature, had for some time a disturbing effect upon our party. The
priest's sister, an elderly maiden lady of placidly weak intellect,
announced one morning at breakfast that the sea-captain from Maine had on
the previous day addressed her in terms of endearment, and had, in fact,
called her his "little duck." This announcement, which was made
generally to the table, and which was received in dead silence by every
member of the community, had by no means a pleasurable effect upon the
countenance of the person most closely concerned. Indeed, amidst the
silence which succeeded the revelation, a half-smothered sentence, more
forcible than polite, was audible from the lips of the democrat, in which
those accustomed to the vernacular of America could plainly distinguish
"darned old fool." Meantime, in spite of political discussions, or
amorous revelations, or prophetic disaster, in spite of mid-ocean storm
and misty-fog-bank, our gigantic screw, unceasing as the whirl of life
itself, had wound its way into the waters which wash the rugged shores of
New England. To those whose lives are spent in ceaseless movement over
the world, who wander from continent to continent, from island to island,
who dwell in many cities but are the citizens of no city, who sail away
and come back again, whose home is the broad earth itself, to such as
these the coming in sight of land is no unusual occurrence, and yet the
man has grown old at his trade of wandering who can look utterly
uninterested upon the first glimpse of land rising out of the waste of
ocean: small as that glimpse may be, only a rock, a cape, a mountain
crest, it has the power of localizing an idea, the very vastness Of which
prevents its realization on shore. From the deck of an outward-bound
vessel one sees rising, faint and blue, a rocky headland or a mountain
summit-one does not ask if the mountain be of Maine, or of Mexico, or the
Cape be St. Ann's or Hatteras, one only sees America. Behind that strip
of blue coast lies a world, and that world the new one. Far away inland
lie scattered many landscapes glorious with mountain, lake, river, and
forest, all unseen, all unknown to the wanderer who for the first time
seeks the American shore; yet instinctively their presence is felt in
that faint outline of sea-lapped coast which lifts itself above the
ocean; and even if in after-time it becomes the lot of the wanderer, as
it became my lot, to look again upon these mountain summits, these
immense inland seas; these mighty rivers whose waters seek their mother
ocean through 3000 miles of meadow, in none of these glorious parts, vast
though they be, will the sense of the still vaster whole be realized as
strongly as in that first glimpse of land showing dimly over the western
horizon of the Atlantic.

The sunset of a very beautiful evening in May was making bright the
shores of Massachusetts as the "Samaria," under her fullest head of
steam, ran up the entrance to Plymouth Sound. To save daylight into port
was an object of moment to the Captain, for the approach to Boston
harbour is as intricate as shoal, sunken rock, and fort-crowned island
can make it. If ever that much talked-of conflict between the two great
branches of the Anglo-Saxon race is destined to quit the realms of fancy
for those of fact, Boston, at least, will rest as safe from the
destructive engines of British iron-clads as the city of Omaha on the
Missouri River. It was only natural that the Massachusetts man should
have been in a fever of excitement at finding himself once more within
sight of home; and for once human nature exhibited the unusual spectacle
of rejoicing over the falsity of its own predictions. As every revolution
of the screw brought out some new feature into prominence, he skipped
gleefully about; and, recognizing in my person the stranger element in
the assembly, he took particular pains to point out the lions of the
landscape. "There, serais Fort Warren, where we kept our rebel prisoners
during the war. In a few minutes more, sir, we will be in sight of
Bunker's Hill;" and then, in a frenzy of excitement, he skipped away to
some post of vantage upon the forecastle.

Night had come down over the harbour, and Boston had lighted all her
lamps, before the "Samaria," swinging round in the fast-running tide,
lay, with quiet screw and smokeless funnel, alongside the wharf of New
England's oldest city.

"Real mean of that darned Baptist pointing you out Bunker's Hill," said
the sea-captain from Maine; "just like the ill-mannered republican cuss!"
It was useless to tell him that I had felt really obliged for the
information given me by his political opponent. "Never mind," he said,
"to-morrow I'll show you how these moral Bostonians break their darned
liquor law in every hotel in their city."

Boston has a clean, English look about it, peculiar to it alone of all
the cities in the United States. Its streets, running in curious curves,
as though they had not the least idea where they were going, are full of
prettily dressed pretty girls, who look as though they had a very fair
idea of where they were going to. Atlantic fogs and French fashions have
combined to make Boston belles pink, pretty,-and piquante; while the
western states, by drawing fully half their male population from New
England, make the preponderance of the female element apparent at a
glance. The ladies, thus left at home, have not been idle: their
colleges, their clubs, their reading-classes are numerous; like the man
in "Hudibras,"

"'Tis known they can speak Greek as naturally as pigs squeak;"

and it is probable that no city in the world can boast so high a standard
of female education as Boston: nevertheless, it must be regretted that
this standard of mental excellence attributable to the ladies of Boston
should not have been found capable of association with the duties of
domestic life. Without going deeper into topics which are better
understood in America than in England, and which have undergone most
eloquent elucidation at the hands of Mr. Hepworth Dixon, but which are
nevertheless dlightly nauseating, it may safely be observed, that the
inculcation at ladies colleges of that somewhat rude but forcible home
truth, enunciated by the first Napoleon in reply to the most illustrious
Frenchwoman of her day, when questioned Upon the subject of female
excellence, should not be forgotten.

There exists a very generally received idea that strangers are more
likely to notice and complain of the short-comings of a social habit or
system than are residents who have grown old under that infliction; but I
cannot help thinking that there exists a considerable amount of error in
this opinion. A stranger will frequently submit to extortion, to
insolence, or to inconvenience, because, being a stranger, he believes
that extortion, insolence, and inconvenience are the habitual
characteristics of the new place in which he finds himself: they do not
strike him as things to be objected to, or even wondered at; they are
simply to be submitted to and endured. If he were at home, he would die
sooner than yield that extra half-dollar; he would leave the house at
once in which he was told to get up at an unearthly hour in the morning;
but, being in another country, he submits, without even a thought of
resistance. In no other way can we account for the strange silence on the
part of English writers upon the tyrannical disposition of American
social life. A nation everlastingly boasting itself the freest on the
earth submits unhesitatingly to more social tyranny than any people in
the world. In the United States one is marshalled to every event of the
day. Whether you like it or not, you must get up, breakfast, dine, sup,
and go to bed at fixed hours. Attached upon the inside of your bedroom-door
is a printed document which informs you of all the things you are not to
do in the hotel-a list in which, like Mr. J. S. Mill's definition
of Christian doctrine, the shall-nots predominate over the shalls. In the
event of your disobeying any of the numerous mandates set forth in this
document-such as not getting up very early-you will not be sent to the
penitentiary or put in the pillory, for that process of punishment would
imply a necessity for trouble and exertion on the part of the
richly-apparelled gentleman who does you the honour of receiving your
petitions and grossly overcharging you at the office-no, you have simply
to go without food until dinner-time, or to go to bed by the light of a
jet of gas for which you will be charged an exorbitant price in your
bill. As in the days of Roman despotism we know that the slaves were
occasionally permitted to indulge in the grossest excesses, so, under the
rigorous system of the hotel-keeper, the guest is allowed to expectorate
profusely over every thing; over the marble with which the hall is
paved, over the Brussels carpet which covers the drawing-room, over the
bed-room, and over the lobby. Expectoration is apparently the one saving
clause which American liberty demands as the price of its submission to
the prevailing tyranny of the hotel. Do not imagine-you, who have never
yet tasted the sweets of a transatlantic transaction-that this tyranny is
confined to the hotel: every person to whom you pay money in the ordinary
travelling transactions of life-your omnibus-man, your railway-conductor,
your steamboat-clerk-takes your money, it is true, but takes it in a
manner which tells you plainly enough that he is conferring a very great
favour by so doing. He is in all probability realizing a profit of from
three to four hundred-per cent. on whatever the transaction may be; but,
all the same, although you are fully aware of this fact, you are
nevertheless almost overwhelmed with the sense of the very deep
obligation which you owe to the man who thus deigns to receive your
money.

It was about ten o'clock at night when the steamer anchored at the wharf
at Boston. Not until midday. On the following day were we (the
passengers) allowed to leave the vessel. The cause of this delay arose
from the fact that the collector of customs of the port of Boston was an
individual of great social importance; and as it would have been
inconvenient for him to attend at an earlier hour for the purpose of
being present at the examination of our baggage, we were detained
prisoners until the day was far enough advanced to suit his convenience.
From a conversation which subsequently I had with this gentleman at our
hotel, I discovered that he was more obliging in his general capacity of
politician and prominent citizen than he was in his particular duties of
customs collector. Like many other instances of the kind in the United
States, his was a case of evident unfitness for the post he held. A.
socially smaller man would have made a much better customs official.
Unfortunately for the comfort of the public, the remuneration attached to
appointments in the postal and customs departments is frequently very
large, and these situations are eagerly sought as prizes in the lottery
of political life-prizes, too, which can only be held for the short term
of four years. As. A consequence, the official who holds his situation by
right of political service rendered to the chief of the predominant
clique or party in his state does not consider that he owes to the public
the service of his office. In theory he is a public servant; in reality
he becomes the master of the public. This is, however, the fault of the
system and not of the individual.





CHAPTER THREE

Bunker--New York--Niagara-Toronto-Spring--time in Quebec--A Summons--A
Start--In good Company--Stripping a Peg--An Expedition--Poor Canada--An
Old Glimpse at a New Land--Rival Routes--Change of Masters--The Red River
Revolt--The Halfbreeds--Early Settlers-Bungling--"Eaters of Pemmican-"-M.
Louis Riel--The Murder of Scott

When a city or a nation has but one military memory, it clings to it with
all the affectionate tenacity of an old maid for her solitary poodle or
parrot. Boston-supreme over any city in the Republic-can boast of
possessing one military memento: she has the Hill of Bunker. Bunker has
long passed into the bygone; but his hill remains, and is likely to
remain for many a long day. It is not improbable that the life, character
and habits, sayings, even the writings of Bunker-perhaps he couldn't
write!-are familiar to many persons in the United States; but it is in
Boston and Massachusetts that Bunker holds highest carnival. They keep in
the Senate-chamber of the Capitol, nailed over the entrance doorway in
full sight of the Speaker's chair, a drum, a musket, and a mitre-shaped
soldier's hat-trophies of the fight fought in front of the low earthwork
on Bunker's Hill. Thus the senators of Massachusetts have ever before
them visible reminders of the glory of their fathers: and I am not sure
that these former belongings of some long-waistcoated redcoat are not as
valuable incentives to correct legislation as that historic "bauble" of
our own constitution.

Meantime we must away. Boston and New York have had their stories told
frequently enough-and, in reality, there is not much to tell about them.
The world does not contain a more uninteresting accumulation of men and
houses than the great city of New York: it is a place wherein the
stranger feels inexplicably lonely. The traveller has no mental property
in this city whose enormous growth of life has struck scant roots into
the great heart of the past.

Our course, however, lies west. We will trace the onward stream of empire
in many portions of its way; we will reach its limits, and pass beyond it
into the lone spaces which yet silently await its coming; and farther
still, where the solitude knows not of its approach and the Indian still
reigns in savage supremacy.

NIAGARA--They have all had their say about Niagara. From Hennipin to
Dilke, travellers have written much about this famous cataract, and yet,
put all together, they have not said much about it; description depends
so much on comparison, and comparison necessitates a something like. If
there existed another Niagara on the earth, travellers might compare this
one to that one; but as there does not exist a second Niagara, they are
generally hard up for a comparison. In the matter of roar, however,
comparisons are still open. There is so much noise in the world that
analysis of noise becomes easy. One man hears in it the sound of the
Battle of the Nile-a statement not likely to be challenged, as the
survivors of that celebrated naval action are not numerous, the only one
we ever had the pleasure of meeting having been stone-deaf. Another
writer compares the roar to the sound of a vast mill; and this
similitude, more flowery than poetical, is perhaps as good as that of the
one who was in Aboukir Bay. To leave out Niagara when you can possibly
bring it in would be as much against the stock-book of travel as to omit
the duel, the steeple-chase, or the escape from the mad bull in a
thirty-one-and-sixpenny fashionable novel. What the pyramids are to
Egypt--what Vesuvius is to Naples--what the field of Waterloo has been
for fifty years to Brussels, so is Niagara to the entire continent of
North America.

It was early in the month of September, three years prior to the time I
now write of, when I first visited this famous spot. The Niagara season
was at its height: the monster hotels were ringing with song, music, and
dance; tourists were doing the falls, and touts were doing the tourists.
Newly-married couples were conducting themselves in that demonstrative
manner characteristic of such as responded freely to the invitation
contained in their favourite nigger melody. Venders of Indian bead-work;
itinerant philosophers; camera-obscura men; imitation squaws; free and
enlightened negroes; guides to go under the cataract, who should have
been sent over it; spiritualists, phrenologists, and nigger minstrels had
made the place their own. Shoddy and petroleum were having "a high old
time of it," spending the dollar as though that "almighty article had
become the thin end of nothing whittled fine:" altogether, Niagara was a
place to be instinctively shunned.

Just four months after this time the month of January was drawing to a
close. King Frost, holding dominion over Niagara, had worked strange
wonders with the scene. Folly and ruffianism had been frozen up, shoddy
and petroleum had betaken themselves to other haunts, the bride strongly
demonstrative or weakly reciprocal had vanished, the monster hotels were
silent and deserted, the free and enlightened negro had gone back to
Buffalo, and the girls of that thriving city no longer danced, as of
yore, "under de light of de moon." Well, Niagara was worth seeing
then-and the less we say about it, perhaps, the better. "Pat," said an
American to a staring Irishman lately landed, "did you ever see such a
fall as that in the old country?" "Begarra! I niver did; but look here
now, why wouldn't it fall? what's to hinder it from falling?"

When I reached the city of Toronto, capital of the province of Ontario, I
found that the Red River Expeditionary Force had already been mustered,
previous to its start for the North-West. Making my way to the quarters
of the commander of the Expedition, I was greeted every now and again
with a "You should have been here last week; every soul wants to get on
the Expedition, and you hav'n't a chance. The whole thing is complete; we
start to-morrow." Thus I encountered those few friends who on such
occasions are as certain to offer their pithy condolences as your
neighbour at the dinner-table when you are late is sure to tell you that
the soup and fish were delicious. At last I met the commander himself.

"My good fellow, there's not a vacant berth for you," he said; "I got
your telegram, but the whole army in Canada wanted to get on the
Expedition."

"I think, sir, there is one berth still vacant," I answered.

"What is it?"

"You will want to know what they are doing in Minnesota and along the
flank of your march, and you have no one to tell you," I said.

"You are right; we do want a man out there. Look now, start for Montreal
by first train to-morrow; by to night's mail I will write to the general,
recommending your appointment. If you see him as soon as possible, it may
yet be all right."

I thanked him, said "Good-bye," and in little more than twenty-four hours
later found myself in Montreal, the commercial capital of Canada.

"Let me see," said the general next morning, when I presented myself
before him, "you sent a cable message from the South of Ireland last
month, didn't you? and you now want to get out to the West? Well, we will
require a man there, but the thing doesn't rest with me; it will have to
be referred to Ottawa; and meantime you can remain here, or with your
regiment, pending the receipt of an answer."

So I went back to my regiment to wait.

Spring breaks late over the province of Quebec-that portion of America
known to our fathers as Lower Canada, and of old to the subjects of the
Grand Monarque as the kingdom of New France. But when the young trees
begin to open their leafy lids after the long sleep of winter, they do it
quickly. The snow is not all gone before the maple-trees are all green;
the maple, that most beautiful of trees! Well has Canada made the symbol
of her new nationality that tree whose green gives the spring its
earliest freshness, whose autumn dying tints are richer than the clouds,
sunset, whose life-stream is sweeter than honey, and whose branches are
drowsy through the long summer with the scent and the hum of bee and
flower! Still the long line of the Canadas admits of a varied spring.
When the trees are green at Lake St. Clair, they are scarcely budding at
Kingston, they are leafless at Montreal, and Quebec is white with snow.
Even between Montreal and Quebec, a short night's steaming, there exists
a difference of ten days in the opening of the summer. But late as comes
the summer to Quebec, it comes in its loveliest and most enticing form,
as though it wished to atone for its long delay in banishing from such a
landscape the cold tyranny of winter. And with what loveliness does the
whole face of plain, river, lake, and mountain turn from the iron clasp
of icy winter to kiss the balmy lips of returning summer, and to welcome
his bridal gifts of sun and shower! The trees open their leafy lids to
look at the brooks and streamlets break forth into songs of
gladness--"the birch-tree," as the old Saxon said, "becomes beautiful in
its branches, and rustles sweetly in its leafy summit, moved to and fro
by the breath of heaven "--the lakes uncover their sweet faces, and their
mimic shores steal down in quiet evenings to bathe themselves in the
transparent waters--far into the depths of the great forest speeds the
glad message of returning glory, and graceful fern-and soft velvet moss,
and-white wax-like lily peep forth to cover rock and fallen tree and
wreck of last year's autumn in one great sea of foliage. There are many
landscapes which can never be painted, photographed, or described, but
which the mind carries away instinctively to look at again And again in
after-time-these are the celebrated views of the world, and they are not
easy to find. From the Queen's rampart, on the citadel of Quebec, the eye
sweeps over a greater diversity of landscape than is probably to be found
in any one spot in the universe. Blue mountain, far stretching river,
foaming cascade, the white sails of ocean ships, the black trunks of
many-sized guns, the pointed roofs, the white village nestling amidst its
fields of green, the great isle in mid-channel, the many shades of colour
from deep blue pine-wood to yellowing corn-field in what other spot on
the earth's broad bosom lie grouped together in a single glance so many
of these "things of beauty" which the eye loves to feast on and to place
in memory as joys-for ever?

I had been domiciled in Quebec for about a week, when there appeared one
morning in General Orders a paragraph commanding my presence in Montreal
to receive instructions from the military authorities relative to my
further destination. It was the long-looked-for order, and
fortune, after many frowns, seemed at length about to smile upon me. It
was on the evening of the 8th June, exactly two months after the despatch
of my cable message from the South of Ireland, that I turned my face to
the West and commenced a long journey towards the setting sun. When the
broad curves of the majestic river had shut out the rugged outline of the
citadel, and the east was growing coldly dim while the west still glowed
with the fires of sunset, I could not help feeling a thrill of exultant
thought at the prospect before me. I little knew then the limits of my
wanderings-I little thought that for many and many a day my track would
lie with almost undeviating precision towards the setting sun, that
summer would merge itself into autumn, and autumn darken into winter, and
that still the nightly bivouac would be made a little nearer to that west
whose golden gleam was suffusing sky and water.

But though all this was of course unknown, enough was still visible in
the foreground of the future to make even the swift-moving paddles seem
laggards as they beat to foam the long reaches of the darkening
Cataraqui. "We must leave matters to yourself, I think," said the
General, when I saw him for the last time in Montreal, "you will be best
judge of how to get on when you know and see the ground. I will not ask
you to visit Fort Garry, but if you find it feasible, it would be well if
you could drop down the Red River and join Wolseley before he gets to the
place. You know what I want, but how to do it, I will leave altogether to
yourself. For the rest, you can draw on us for any money you require.
Take care of those northern fellows. Good-bye, and success."

This was on the 12th June, and on the morning of the 13th I started by
the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada for the West. On that morning the Grand
Trunk Railway of Canada was in a high state of excitement. It was about
to attempt, for the first time, the despatch of a Lightning Express for
Toronto; and it was to carry from Montreal, on his way to Quebec, one of
the Royal Princes of England, whose sojourn in the Canadian capital was
drawing to a close. The Lightning Express was not attended with the
glowing success predicted for it by its originators. At some thirty or
forty miles from Montreal it came heavily to grief, owing to some
misfortune having attended the progress of a preceding train over the
rough uneven track. A delay of two hours having supervened, the Lightning
Express got into motion again, and jolted along with tolerable celerity
to Kingston. When darkness set in it worked itself up to a high pitch of
fury, and rushed along the low shores of Lake Ontario with a velocity
which promised disaster. The car in which I travelled was one belonging
to the director of the Northern Railroad of Canada, Mr. Cumberland, and
we had in it a minister of fisheries, one of education, a governor of a
province, a speaker of a house of commons, and a colonel of a
distinguished rifle regiment. Being the last car of the train, the
vibration caused by the unusual rate of speed over the very rough rails
was excessive; it was, however, consolatory to feel that any little
unpleasantness which might occur through the fact of the car leaving the
track would be attended with some sense of alleviation. The rook is said
to have thought he was paying dear for good company when he was put into
the pigeon pie, but it by no means follows that a leap from an
embankment, or an upset into a river, would be as disastrous as is
usually supposed, if taken in the society of such pillars of the state as
those I have already mentioned. Whether a speaker of a house of commons
and a governor of a large province, to say nothing of a minister of
fisheries, would tend in reality to mitigate the unpleasantness of being
"telescoped through colliding," I cannot decide, for we reached Toronto
without accident, at midnight, and I saw no more of my distinguished
fellow-travellers.

I remained long enough in the city of Toronto to provide myself with a
wardrobe suitable to the countries I was about to seek. In one of the
principal commercial streets of the flourishing capital of Ontario I
found a small tailoring establishment, at the door of which stood an
excellent representation of a colonial. The garments be longing to this
figure appeared to have been originally designed from the world-famous
pattern of the American flag, presenting above a combination of stars,
and below having a tendency to stripes. The general groundwork of the
whole rig appeared to be shoddy of an inferior-description, and a small
card attached to the figure intimated that the entire fit-out was
procurable at the very reasonable sum of ten dollars. It was impossible
to resist the fascination of this attire. While the bargain was being
transacted the tailor looked askance at the garments worn by his
customer, which, having only a few months before emanated from the
establishment of a well-known London cutter, presented a considerable
contrast to the new investment; he even ventured upon some remarks which
evidently had for their object the elucidation of the enigma, but a word
that such clothes as those worn by me were utterly un suited to the bush
repelled all further questioning-indeed, so pleased did the noor fellow
appear in a pecuniary point of view, that he insisted upon presenting me
gratis with a neck-tie of green and yellow, fully in keeping with the
other articles composing the costume. And now, while I am thus arranging
these little preliminary matters so essential to the work I was about to
engage in, let us examine for a moment the objects and scope of that
work, and settle the limits and extent of the first portion of my
journey, and sketch the route of the Expedition. It will be recollected
that the Expedition destined for the Red River of the North had started
some time before for its true base of operations, namely Fort William, on
the north-west shore of Lake Superior. The distance intervening between
Toronto and Thunder Bay is about 600 miles, 100 being by railroad
conveyance and 500 by water. The island-studded expanse of Lake Huron,
known as Georgian Bay, receives at the northern extremity the waters of
the great Lake Superior, but a difference of level amounting to upwards
of thirty feet between the broad bosoms of these two vast expanses of
fresh water has rendered necessary the construction of a canal of
considerable magnitude. This canal is situated upon American territory-a
fact which gives our friendly cousins the exclusive possession of the
great northern basin, and which enabled them at the very outset of the
Red River affair to cause annoyance and delay to the Canadian Expedition.
Poor Canada! when one looks at you along the immense length of your noble
river boundary, how vividly become apparent the evils under which your
youth has grown to manhood! Looked at from home by every succeeding
colonial minister through the particular whig, or tory spectacles of his
party, subject to violent and radical alterations of policy because of
some party vote in a Legislative Assembly 3000 miles from your nearest
coast-line, your own politicians, for years, too timid to grasp the
limits of your possible future, parties every where in your provinces,
and of every kind, except a national party; no breadth, no depth, no
earnest striving to make you great amongst the nations, each one for
himself and no-one for the country; men fighting for a sect, for a
province, for a nationality, but no one for the nation; and all this
while, close alongside, your great rival grew with giant's growth,
looking far into the future before him, cutting his cloth with
perspective ideas of what his limbs would attain to in after-time,'
digging his canals and grading, his railroads, with one eye on the
Atlantic and the other on the Pacific, spreading himself, monopolizing,
annexing, outmanoeuvring and flanking those colonial bodies who sat in
solemn state in Downing Street and wrote windy proclamations and
despatches anent boundary-lines, of which they knew next to nothing.
Macaulay laughs at poor Newcastle for his childish delight in finding out
that Cape Breton was an island, but I strongly suspect there were other
and later Newcastles whose geographical knowledge of matters American
were not a whit superior. Poor Canada! they muddled you out of Maine,
and the open harbour of Portland, out of Rouse's Point, and the command
of Lake Champlain, out of many a fair mile far away by the Rocky
Mountains. It little matters whether it was the treaty of 1783, or 1818,
or '21, or '48, or '71, the worst of every bargain, at all times, fell to
you.

I have said that the possession of the canal at the Sault St. Marie
enabled the Americans to delay the progress of the Red River Expedition.
The embargo put upon the Canadian vessels originated, however, in the
State, and not the Federal, authorities; that is to say, the State of
Michigan issued the prohibition against the passage of the steam boat,
and not the Cabinet of Washington. Finally, Washington overruled the
decision of Michigan-a feat far more feasible now than it would have been
prior to the Southern war-and the steamers were permitted to pass through
into the waters of Lake Superior. From thence to Thunder Bay was only the
steaming of four-and-twenty hours through a lake whose vast bosom is the
favourite playmate of the wild storm-king of the North. But although
full half the total distance from Toronto to the Red River had been
traversed when the Expedition reached Thunder Bay, not a twentieth of the
time nor one hundredth part of the labour and fatigue had been
accomplished. For a distance of 600 miles there stretched away to the
northwest a vast tract of rock-fringed lake, swamp, and forest; lying
spread in primeval savagery, an untravelled wilderness; the home of the
Ojibbeway, who here, entrenched amongst Nature's fastnesses, has long
called this land his own. Long before Wolfe had scaled the heights of
Abraham, before even Marlborough, and Eugene, and Villers, and V'endome,
and Villeroy had commenced to fight their giants fights in divers
portions of the low countries, some adventurous subjects of the Grand
Monarque were forcing their way, for the first time, along the northern
shores of Lake Superior, nor stopping there: away to the north-west there
dwelt wild tribes to be sought out by two classes of men-by the black
robe, who laboured for souls; by the trader, who sought for skins-and a
hard race had these two widely different pioneers who sought at that
early day these remote and friendless regions, so hard that it would
almost seem as though the great powers of good and of evil had both
despatched at this same moment, on rival errands, ambassadors to gain
dominion over these distant savages. It was a curious contest: on the one
hand, showy robes, shining beads, and maddening fire-water, on the other,
the old, old story of peace and brotherhood, of Christ and Calvary--a
contest so full of interest, so teeming with adventure, so pregnant with
the discovery of mighty rivers and great inland seas, that one would fain
ramble away into its depths; but it must not be, or else the journey I
have to travel myself would never even begin.

Vast as is the accumulation of fresh water in Lake Superior, the area of
the country which it drains is limited enough. Fifty miles from its
northern shores the rugged hills which form the backbone or "divide" of
the continent raise their barren heads, and the streams carry from thence
the vast rainfall of this region into the Bay of Hudson. Thus, when the
voyageur has paddled, tracked, poled, and carried his canoe up any of the
many rivers which rush like mountain torrents into Lake Superior from the
north, he reaches the height of land between the Atlantic Ocean and
Hudson Bay. Here, at an elevation of 1500 feet above the sea level, and
of 900 above Lake Superior, he launches his canoe upon water flowing
north and west; then he has before him hundreds of miles of quiet-lying
lake, of wildly rushing river, of rock-broken rapid, of foaming cataract,
but through it all runs ever towards the north the ocean-seeking current.
As later on we shall see many and many a mile of this wilderness--living
in it, eating in it, sleeping in it-although reaching it from a different
direction altogether from the one spoken of now, I anticipate, by
alluding to it here, only as illustrating the track of the Expedition
between Lake Superior and Red River. For myself, my route was to be
altogether a different one. I was to follow the lines of railroad which
ran-out into the frontier territories of the United States, then, leaving
the iron horse, I was to make my way to the settlements on the west shore
of Lake Superior, and from thence to work Round to the American
boundary-line at Pembina on the Red River; so far through American
territory, and with distinct and definite instructions; after that,
altogether to my own resources, but with this summary of the general's
wishes: "I will not ask you to visit Fort Garry, but however you manage
it, try and reach Wolseley-before he gets through from Lake Superior, and
let him know what these Red River men are going to do." Thus the military
Expedition under Colonel Wolseley was to work its way Across from Lake
Superior to Red River, through British territory; I was to pass round by
the United States, and, after ascertaining the likelihood of Fenian
intervention from the side of Minnesota and Dakota, endeavour to reach
Colonel Wolseley beyond Red River, with all tidings as to state of
parties and chances of fight. But as the reader has heard only a very
brief mention of the state of affairs in Red River, and as he may very
naturally be inclined to ask, What is this Expedition going to do--why
are these men sent through swamp and wilderness at all? A few explanatory
words may not be out of place, serving to make matters now and at a later
period much more intelligible. I have said in the opening chapter of this
book, that the little community, or rather a portion of the little
community, of Red River Settlement had risen in insurrection, protesting
vehemently against certain arrangements made between the Governor of
Canada and the Hon. Hudson's Bay Company relative to the cession of
territorial rights and governing powers. After forcibly expelling the
Governor of the country appointed by Canada, from the frontier station at
Pembina, the French malcontents had proceeded to other and still more
questionable proceedings. Assembling in large numbers, they had fortified
portions of the road between Pembina and Fort Garry, and had taken armed
possession of the latter place, in which large stores of provisions,
clothing, and merchandise of all descriptions had been stored by the
Hudson Bay Company. The occupation of this fort, which stands close to
the confluence of the Red and Assineboine Rivers, nearly midway between
the American boundary-line and the southern shore of Lake Winnipeg, gave
the French party the virtual command of the entire settlement. The
abundant stores of clothing and provisions were not so important as the
arms and ammunition which also fell into their hands--a battery of
nine-pound bronze guns, complete in every respect, besides several
smaller pieces of ordnance, together with large store of Enfield rifles
and old brown-bess smooth bores. The place was, in fact, abundantly
supplied with war material of every description. It is almost refreshing
to notice the ability, the energy, the determination which up to this
point had characterized all the movements of the originator and
mainspring of the movement, M. Louis Riel. One hates so much to see a
thing bungled, that even resistance, although it borders upon rebellion,
becomes respectable when it is carried out with courage, energy, and
decision.

And, in truth, up to this point in the little insurrection it is not easy
to condemn the wild Metis of the North-west--wild as the bison which he
hunted, unreclaimed as the prairies he loved so well, what knew he of
State duty or of loyalty? He knew that this land was his, and that strong
men were coming to square it into rectangular farms and to push him
farther west by the mere pressure of civilization. He had heard of
England and the English, but it was in a shadowy, vague, unsubstantial
sort of way, unaccompanied by any fixed idea of government or law. The
Company--not the Hudson Bay Company, but the Company-represented for him
all law, all power, all government. Protection he did not need-his quick
ear, his unerring eye, his untiring horse, his trading gun, gave him
that; but a market for his taurreau, for his buffalo robe, for his lynx,
fox, and wolf skins, for the produce of his summer hunt and winter trade,
he did need, and in the forts of the Company he found it. His wants were
few-a capôte of blue cloth, with shining brass buttons; a cap, with beads
and tassel; a blanket; a gun, and ball and powder; a box: of matches, and
a knife, these were all he wanted, and at every fort, from the mountain
to the banks of his well-loved River Rouge, he found them, too. What were
these new people coming to do with him? Who could tell? If they meant him
fair, why did they not say so? why did they not come up and tell him what
they wanted, and what they were going to do for him, and ask him what he
wished for? But, no; they either meant to outwit him, or they held him of
so small account that it mattered little what he thought about it; and,
with all the pride of his mother's race, that idea of his being slighted
hurt him even more than the idea of his being wronged. Did not every
thing point to his disappearance under the new order of things? He had
only to look round him to verify the fact; for years before this
annexation to Canada had been carried into effect stragglers from the
east had occasionally reached Red River. It is true that these new-comers
found much to foster the worst passions of the Anglo-Saxon settler. They
found a few thousand occupants, half-farmers, half-hunters, living under
a vast commercial monopoly, which, though it practically rested upon a
basis of the most paternal kindness towards its subjects, was
theoretically hostile to all opposition. Had these men settled quietly to
the usual avocations of farming, clearing the wooded ridges, fencing the
rich expanses of prairie, covering the great swamps and plains with
herds and flocks, it is probable that all would have gone well between
the new-comers and the old proprietors. Over that great western thousand
miles of prairie there was room for all. But, no; they came to trade and
not to till, and trade on the Red River of the North was conducted upon
the most peculiar principles. There was, in fact, but one trade, and that
was the fur trade. Now, the fur trade is, for some reason or other, a
very curious description of barter. Like some mysterious chemical agency,
it pervades and permeates every thing it touches. If a man cuts off legs,
cures diseases, draws teeth, sells whiskey, cotton, wool, or any other
commodity of civilized or uncivilized life, he will be as sure to do it
with a view to furs as any doctor, dentist, or general merchant will be
sure to practise his particular calling with a view to the acquisition of
gold and silver. Thus, then, in the first instance were the new-comers
set in antagonism to the Company, and finally to the inhabitants
themselves. Let us try and be just to all parties in this little oasis of
the Western wilderness.

The early settlers in a Western country are not by any means persons much
given to the study of abstract justice, still less to its practice; and
it is as well, perhaps, that they should not be. They have rough work to
do, and they generally do it roughly. The very fact of their coming out
so far into the wilderness implies the other fact of their not being able
to dwell quietly and peaceably at home. They are, as it were, the
advanced pioneers of civilization who make smooth the way of the coming
race. Obstacles of any kind are their peculiar detestation-if it is a
tree, cut it down; if it is a savage, shoot it down; if it is a
half-breed, force it down. That is about their creed, and it must be said
they act up to their convictions.

'Now, had the country bordering on Red River been an unpeopled
wilderness, the plan carried out in effecting the transfer of land in the
North-west from the Hudson's Bay Company to the Crown, and from the Crown
to the Dominion of Canada, would have been an eminently wise one; but,
unfortunately for its wisdom, there were some 15,000 persons living in
peaceful possession of the soil thus transferred, and these 15,000
persons very naturally objected to have themselves and possessions signed
away without one word of consent or one note of approval. Nay, more than
that, these straggling pioneers had on many an occasion taunted the vain
half-breed with what would happen when the irresistible march of events
had thrown the country into the arms of Canada: then civilization would
dawn upon the benighted country, the half-breed would seek some western
region, the Company would dis appear, and all the institutions of New
World progress would shed-prosperity over the land; prosperity, not to
the old dwellers and of the old type, but to the new-comers and of the
new order of things. Small wonder, then, if the little community,
resenting all this threatened improvement off the face of the earth, got
their powder-horns ready, took the covers off their trading flint-guns,
and with much gesticulation summarily interfered with several
anticipatory surveys of their farms, doubling up the sextants, bundling
the surveying parties out of their freeholds, and very peremptorily
informing Mr. Governor M'Dougall, just arrived from Canada, that his
presence was by no means of the least desirability to Red River or its
inhabitants. The man who, with remarkable energy and perseverance, had
worked up his fellow-citizens to this pitch of resistance, organizing and
directing the whole movement, was a young French half-breed named Louis
Riel--a man possessing many of the attributes suited to the leadership of
parties, and quite certain to rise to the surface in any time of
political disturbances. It has doubtless occurred to any body who has
followed me through this brief sketch of the causes which led to the
assumption of this attitude on the part of the French half-breeds-it has
occurred to them, I say, to ask who then was to blame for the
mismanagement of the transfer: was it the Hudson Bay Company who
surrendered for 300,000 pounds their territorial rights? was it the
Imperial Government who accepted that surrender? or was it the Dominion
Government to whom the country was in turn retransferred by the Imperial
authorities? I answer that the blame of having bungled the whole business
belongs collectively to all the great and puissant bodies. Any ordinary
matter-of-fact, sensible man would have managed the whole affair in a few
hours; but so many high and potent powers had to consult together, to pen
despatches, to speechify, and to lay down the law about it, that the
whole affair became hopelessly muddled. Of course, ignorance and
carelessness were, as they always are, at the bottom of it all. Nothing
would have been easier than to have sent a commissioner from England to
Red River, while the negotiations for transfer were pending, who would
have ascertained the feelings and wishes of the people of the country
relative to` the transfer, and would have guaranteed them the exercise of
their rights and liberties under any and every new arrangement that might
be entered into. Now, it is no excuse for any Government to plead
ignorance upon any matter pertaining to the people it governs, or expects
to govern, for a Government has no right to be ignorant on any such
matter, and its ignorance must be its condemnation; yet this is the plea
put forward by the Dominion Government of Canada, and yet the Dominion
Government and the Imperial Government had ample opportunity of arriving
at a-correct knowledge of the state of affairs in Red River, if they had
only taken the trouble to do so. Nay, more, it is an undoubted fact that
warning had been given to the Dominion Government of the state of feeling
amongst the half-breeds, and the phrase, "they are only eaters of
pemmican," so cutting to the Metis, was then first originated by a
distinguished Canadian politician.

And now let us see what the "eaters of pemmican" proceeded to do after
their forcible occupation of Fort Garry. Well, it must be admitted they
behaved in a very indifferent manner, going steadily from bad to worse,
and much befriended in their seditious proceedings by continued and oft
repeated bungling on the part of their opponents. Early in the month of
December, 1869, Mr. M'Dougall issued two proclamations from his post at
Pembina, on the frontier: in one he declared himself Lieutenant-Governor
of the territory which Her Majesty had transferred to Canada; and in the
other he commissioned an officer of the Canadian militia, under the
high-sounding title of "Conservator of the Peace," "to attack, arrest,
-disarm, and disperse armed men disturbing the public peace, and to
assault, fire upon, and break into houses in which these armed men were
to be found." Now, of the first proclamation it will be only necessary to
remark, that Her Majesty the Queen had not done any thing of the kind,
imputed to her; and of the second it has probably already occurred to the
reader that the title of "Conservator of the Peace" was singularly
inappropriate to one vested with such sanguinary and destructive powers
as was the holder of this commission, who was to "assault, fire upon,
and break into houses, and to attack, arrest, disarm, and disperse
people," and generally to conduct himself after the manner of Attila,
Genshis Khan, the Emperor Theodore, or any other ferocious magnate of
ancient or modern times. The officer holding this destructive commission
thought he could do nothing better than imitate the tactics of his French
adversary, accordingly we find him taking possession of the other
rectangular building known as the Lower Fort Garry, situated some twenty
miles north of the one in which the French had taken post, but
unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, not finding within its walls the
same store of warlike material which had existed in the Fort Garry
senior.

The Indians, ever ready to have a hand in any fighting which may be
"knocking around," came forward in all the glory of paint, feathers, and
pow-wow; and to the number of fifty were put as garrison into the place.
Some hundreds of English and Scotch half-breeds were enlisted, told off
to companies under captains improvised for the occasion, and every thing
pointed to a very pretty quarrel before many days had run their course.
But, in truth, the hearts of the English and Scotch settlers were not in
this business. By nature peaceably disposed, inheriting from their Orkney
and Shetland forefathers much of the frugal habits of the Scotchmen,
these people only asked to be left in peace. So far the French party had
been only fighting the battle of every half-breed, whether his father had
hailed from the northern isles, the shires of England, or the snows of
Lower Canada; so, after a little time, the Scotch and English volunteers
began to melt away, and on the 9th of December the last warrior had
disappeared. But the effects of their futile demonstration soon became
apparent in the increasing violence and tyranny of Riel and his
followers. The threatened attempt to upset his authority by arraying the
Scotch and English half-breeds against him served only to add strength to
his party. The number of armed malcontents in Fort Garry became very much
increased, clergymen of both parties, neglecting their manifest
functions, began to take sides in the conflict, and the worst form of
religious animosity became apparent in the little community. Emboldened
by the presence of some five or six hundred armed followers, Riel
determined to strike a blow against the party most obnoxious to him. This
was the English-Canadian party, the pioneers of the Western settlement
already alluded to as having been previously in antagonism with the
people of Red River. Some sixty or seventy of these men, believing in the
certain advance of the English force upon Fort Garry, had taken up a
position in the little village of Winnipeg, less than a mile distant from
the fort, where they awaited the advance of their adherents previous to
making a combined assault upon the French. But Riel proved himself more
than a match for his antagonists; marching quickly out of his stronghold,
he surrounded the buildings in which they were posted, and, planting a
gun in a conspicuously commanding position, summoned them all to
surrender in the shortest possible space of time. As is usual on such
occasions, and in such circumstances, the whole party did as they were
ordered, and marching out-with or without side-arms and military honours
history does not relate-were forthwith conducted into close confinement
within the walls of Fort Garry. Having by this bold coup got possession
not only of the most energetic of his opponents, but also of many
valuable American Remington Rifles, fourteen shooters and revolvers, Mr.
Riel, with all the vanity of the Indian peeping out, began to imagine
himself a very great personage, and as very great personages are
sometimes supposed to be believers in the idea that to take a man's
property is only to confiscate it, and to take his life is merely to
execute him, he too commenced to violently sequestrate, annex, and
requisition not only divers of his prisoners, but also a considerable
share of the goods stored in warehouses of the Hudson Bay Company, having
particular regard to some hogsheads of old port wine and very potent
Jamaica rum. The proverb which has reference to a mendicant suddenly
Placed in an equestrian position had notable exemplification in the case
of the Provisional Government, and many of his colleagues; going steadily
from bad to worse, from violence to pillage, from pillage to robbery of a
very low type, much supplemented by rum-drunkenness and dictatorial
debauchery, he and they finally, on the 4th of March, 1870, disregarding
some touching appeals for mercy, and with many accessories of needless
cruelty, shot to death a helpless Canadian prisoner named Thomas Scott.
This act, committed in the coldest of cold blood, bears only one name:
the red name of murder-a name which instantly and for ever drew between
Riel and his followers, and the outside Canadian world, that impassable
gulf which the murderer in all ages digs between himself and society, and
which society attempts to bridge by the aid of the gallows. It is
needless here to enter into details of this matter; of the second rising
which preceded it; of the dead blank which followed it; of the heartless
and disgusting cruelty which made the prisoners death a foregone
conclusion at his mock trial; or of the deeds worse than butchery which
characterized the last scene. Still, before quitting the revolting
subject, there is one point that deserves remark, as it seems to
illustrate the feeling entertained by the leaders themselves. On the
night of the murder the body was interred in a very deep hole which had
been dug within the walls of the fort. Two clergymen had asked permission
to inter the remains in either of their churches, but this request had
been denied. On the anniversary of the murder, namely, the 4th March,
1871, other powers being then predominant in Fort Garry, a large crowd
gathered at the spot where the murdered man had been interred, for the
purpose of exhuming the body. After digging for some time they came to
an oblong box or coffin in which the remains had been placed, but it was
empty, the interment within the walls had been a mock ceremony, and the
final resting-place of the body lies hidden in mystery. Now there is one
thing very evident from the fact, and that is that Riel and his
immediate followers were themselves conscious of the enormity of the deed
they had committed, for had they believed that the taking of this man's
life was really an execution justified upon any grounds of military or
political necessity, or a forfeit fairly paid as price for crimes
committed, then the hole inside the gateway of Fort Garry would have held
its skeleton, and the midnight interment would not have been a senseless
lie. The murderer and the law both take life--it is only the murderer who
hides under the midnight shadows the body of his victim.





CHAPTER FOUR.

Chicago--"Who is S. B. D.?"--Milwaukie--The Great Fusion-Wisconsin--The
Sleeping-car--The Train Boy-Minnesota--St. Paul--I start for Lake
Superior--The Future City--"Bust up" and "Gone on"--The End of the Track.

ALAS! I have to go a long way back to the city of Toronto, where I had
just completed the purchase of a full costume of a Western borderer. On
the 10th of June I crossed the Detroit River from Western Canada to the
State of Michigan, and travelling by the central railway of that state
reached the great city of Chicago on the following day. All Americans,
but particularly all Western Americans, are very proud of this big city,
which is not yet as old as many of its inhabitants, and they are justly
proud of it. It is by very much the largest and the richest of the new
cities of the New World. Maps made fifty years ago will be searched in
vain for Chicago. Chicago was then a swamp where the skunks, after whom
it is called, held undisputed revels. To-day Chicago numbers about
300,000 souls, and it is about "the livest city in our great Republic;
sir."

Chicago lies almost 1000 miles due west of New York. A traveller leaving
the latter city, let us say on Monday morning, finds himself on Tuesday
at eight o'clock in the evening in Chicago-one thousand miles in
thirty-four hours. In the meantime he will have eaten three meals and
slept soundly "on board" his palace-car, if he is so minded. For many
hundred miles during the latter portion of his journey he will have
noticed great tracts of swamp and forest, with towns and cities and
settlements interspersed between; and then, when these tracts of swamp
and unreclaimed forest seem to be increasing instead of diminishing, he
comes all of a sudden upon a vast, full-grown, bustling city, with tall
chimneys sending out much smoke, with heavy horses dragging great: drays
of bulky freight through thronged and busy streets, and with tall-masted
ships and whole fleets of steamers lying packed against the crowded
quays. He has begun to dream himself in the West, and lo! there rises up
a great city. "But is not this the West?" will ask the new-comer from the
Atlantic states. "Upon your own showing we are here 1000 miles from New
York, by water 1500 miles to Quebec; surely this must be the West?" No;
for in this New World the West is ever on the move. Twenty years ago
Chicago was West; ten years ago it was Omaha; then it was Salt Lake City,
and now it is San Francisco on the Pacific Ocean.

This big city, with its monster hotels and teeming traffic, was no new
scene to me, for I had spent pleasant days in it three years before. An
American in America is a very pleasant fellow. It is true that on many
social points and habits his views may differ from ours in a manner very
shocking to our prejudices, insular or insolent, as these prejudices of
ours too frequently are; but meet him with fair allowance for the fact
that there may be two sides to a question, and that a man may not tub
every morning and yet be a good fellow, and in nine cases of ten you will
find him most agreeable, a little inquisitive perhaps to know your
peculiar belongings, but equally ready to impart to you the details of
every item connected with his business--altogether a very jolly every-day
companion when met on even basis. If you happen to be a military man, he
will call you Colonel or General, and expect similar recognition: of rank
by virtue of his volunteer services in the 44th: Illinois, or 55th
Missourian. At present, and for many years to come, it is and will be a
safe method of beginning any observation to a Western American with "I
say, General," and on no account ever to get below the rank of field
officer when addressing anybody holding a socially smaller position than
that of bar-keeper. Indeed major-generals were as plentiful in the United
States at the termination of the great rebellion as brevet-majors were in
the British service at the close of the Crimean campaign. It was at
Plymouth, I think, that a grievance was established by a youngster on
the score that he really could not spit out of his own window without
hitting a brevet major outside; and it was in a Western city that the man
threw his stick at a dog across the road, "missed that dawg, sir, but hit
five major-generals on t'other side, and 'twasn't a good day for
major-generals either, sir." Not less necessary than knowledge of social
position is knowledge of the political institutions and characters of the
West. Not to know Rufus P. W. Smidge, or Ossian W. Dodge of Minnesota, is
simply to argue yourself utterly unknown. My first experience of Chicago
fully impressed me with this fact. I had made the acquaintance of an
American gentleman "on board" the train, and as we approached the city
along the sandy margin of Lake Michigan he kindly pointed out the
buildings and public institutions of the neighbourhood.

"There, sir," he finally said, "there is our new monument to Stephen B.
Douglas."

I looked in the direction indicated, and beheld some blocks of granite in
course of erection into a pedestal. I confess to having been entirely
ignorant at the time as to what claim Stephen B. Douglas may have had to
this public recognition of his worth, but the tone of my informant's
voice was sufficient to warn me that everybody knew Stephen B. Douglas,
and that ignorance of his career might prove hurtful to the feelings of
my new acquaintance, so I carefully refrained from showing by word or
look the drawback under which I laboured. There was with me, however, a
travelling companion who, to an ignorance of Stephen B. D. fully equal to
mine own, added a truly British indignation that monumental honours
should be bestowed upon one whose fame was still faint across the
Atlantic. Looking partly at the monument, partly at our American
informant, and partly at me, he hastily ejaculated, "Who the devil was
Stephen B. Douglas?"

Alas! the murder was out, and out in its most aggravating form. I hastily
attempted a rescue. "Not know who Stephen B. Douglas was?" I exclaimed,
in a tone of mingled reproof and surprise. "Is it possible you don't know
who Stephen B. Douglas was?"

Nothing cowed by the assumption of knowledge implied by my question, my
fellow-traveller was not to be done. "All deuced fine," he went on, "I'll
bet you a fiver you don't know who he was either!"

I kicked at him under the seat of the carriage, but it was of no use, he
persisted in his reckless offers of "laying fivers," and our united
ignorance stood fatally revealed.

Round the city of Chicago stretches upon three sides a vast level
prairie, a meadow larger than the area of England and Wales, and as
fertile as the luxuriant vegetation of thousands of years decaying under
a semi-tropic sun could make it. Illinois is in round numbers 400 miles
from north to south, its greatest breadth being about 200 miles. The
Mississippi, running in vast curves along the entire length of its
western frontier for 700 miles, bears away to southern ports the rich
burden of wheat and Indian corn. The inland sea of Michigan carries on
its waters the wealth of the northern portion of the state to the
Atlantic seaboard. The Ohio, flowing south and west, unwaters the
south-eastern counties, while 5500 miles of completed railroad traverse
the interior of the state. This 5500 miles of iron road is a significant
fact--5500 miles of railway in the compass of a single western state!
More than all Hindostan can boast of, and nearly half the railway mileage
of the United Kingdom. Of this immense system of interior connexion
Chicago is the centre and heart. Other great centres of commerce have
striven to rival the City of the Skunk, but all have failed; and to-day,
thanks to the dauntless energy of the men of Chicago, the garden state of
the Union possesses this immense extent of railroad, ships its own
produce, north, east, and south, and boasts a population scarcely
inferior to that of many older states; and yet it is only fifty years ago
since William Cobbett laboured long and earnestly to prove that English
emigrants who pushed on into the "wilderness of the Illinois went
straight to misery and ruin."

Passing through Chicago, and going out by one of the lines running north
along the shore of Lake Michigan, I reached the city of Milwaukie late in
the evening. Now the city of Milwaukie stands above 100 miles north of
Chicago and is to the State of Wisconsin what its southern neighbour (100
miles in the States is nothing) is to Illinois. Being, also some 100
miles nearer to the entrance to Lake Michigan, and consequently nearer by
water to New York and the Atlantic, Milwaukie caries off no small share
of the export wheat trade of the North-west. Behind it lie the rolling
prairies of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, the three wheat-growing
states of the American Union. Scandinavia, Germany, and Ireland have made
this portion of America their own, and in the streets of Milwaukie one
hears the guttural sounds of the Teuton and the deep brogue of the Irish
Celt mixed in curious combinations. This railway-station at Milwaukie is
one of the great distributing points of the in-coming flood from Northern
Europe. From here they scatter far and wide over the plains which lie
between Lake Michigan and the head-waters of the Mississippi. No one
stops to look at these people as they throng the wooden platform and fill
the sheds at the depot, the sight is too common to cause interest now,
and yet it is a curious sight this entry of the outcasts into the
promised land. Tired, travel-stained, and worn come the fair-haired crowd
of men and women and many children, eating all manner of strange food
while they rest, and speaking all manner of strange tongues, carrying the
most uncouth shapeless boxes that trunk-maker of Bergen or Upsal can
devise--such queer oval red-and-green painted wooden cases, more like
boxes to hold musical instruments than for the Sunday kit of Hans or
Christian--clothing much soiled and worn by lower-deck lodgment and spray
of mid-Atlantic roller, and dust of that 1100 miles of railroad since
New York was left behind, but still with many traces, under dust and
seediness, of Scandinavian rustic fashion; altogether a homely people,
but destined ere long to lose every vestige of their old Norse habits
under the grindstone of the great mill they are now entering. That vast
human machine Which grinds Celt and Saxon, Teuton and Dane, Fin and Goth
into the same image and likeness of the inevitable Yankee--grinds him too
into that image in one short generation, and oftentimes in less; doing it
without any apparent outward pressure or any tyrannical law of language
or religion, but nevertheless beating out, welding, and amalgamating the
various conflicting races of the Old World into the great American
people. Assuredly the world has never witnessed any experiment of so
gigantic a nature as this immense fusion of the Caucasian race now going
on before our eyes in North America. One asks oneself, with feelings of
dread, what is to be the result? Is it to eliminate from the human race
the evil habits of each nationality, and to preserve in the new one the
noble characteristics of all? I say one asks the question with a feeling
of dread, for it is the question of the well-being, of the whole human
family of the future, the question of the advance or retrogression of the
human race. No man living can answer that question. Time alone can solve
it; but one thing is certain-so far the experiment bodes ill for success.
Too often the best and noblest attributes of the people wither and die
out by the process of transplanting. The German preserves inviolate his
love of lager, and leaves behind him his love of Fatherland. The Celt,
Scotch or Irish, appears to eliminate from his nature many of those
traits of humour of which their native lands are so pregnant. It may be
that this is only the beginning, that a national decomposition of the old
distinctions must occur before the new elements can arise, and that from
it all will come in the fulness of time a regenerated society:--

"Sin itself be found,
A cloudy porch oft opening on the sun."

But at present, looking abroad over the great seething mass of American
society, there seems little reason to hope for required alteration. The
dollar must cease to be the only God, and that old, old proverb that
"honesty is the best policy" must once more come into fashion.

Four hundred and six miles intervene between Milwaukie, in the State of
Wisconsin, and St. Paul, the capital and principal city of the State of
Minnesota. About half that distance lies through the State of Wisconsin,
and the remaining half is somewhat unequally divided between Iowa and
Minnesota. Leaving Milwaukie at eleven o'clock a.m., one reaches the
Mississippi at Prairie-du-Chien at ten o'clock same night; here a steamer
ferries the broad swift-running stream, and at North Macgregor, on the
Iowa shore, a train is in waiting to take on board the now sleepy
passengers. The railway sleeping-car is essentially an American
institution. Like every other institution, it has its critics, favourable
and severe. On the one hand, it is said to be the acme of comfort; on the
other, the essence of unrest. But it is just what might be expected under
the circumstances, neither one thing nor the other. No one in his senses
would prefer to sleep in a bed which was being bornc violently along over
rough and uneven iron when he could select a stationary resting-place. On
the other hand, it is a very great saving of time and expense to travel
for some eighty or one hundred consecutive hours, and this can only be
effected by means of the sleeping-car. Take this distance, from New York
to St. Paul, as an instance. It is about 1450 miles, and it can be
accomplished in sixty-four hours. Of course one cannot expect to find
oneself as comfortably located as in an hotel; but, all things
considered, the balance of advantage is very much on the side of the
sleeping-car. After a night or two one becomes accustomed to the noise
and oscillation; the little peculiarities incidental to turning-in in
rather a promiscuous manner with ladies old and young, children in arms
and out of arms, vanish before the force of habit; the necessity of
making an early rush to the lavatory appliances in the morning, and there
securing a plentiful supply of water and clean towels, becomes quickly
apparent, and altogether the sleeping-car ceases to be a thing of
nuisance and is accepted as an accomplished fact. The interior
arrangements of the car are conducted as follows. A passage runs down the
centre from one door to the other; on either side are placed the berths
or "sections" for sleeping; during the day-time these form seats, and are
occupied by such as care to take them in the ordinary manner of railroad
cars. At night, however, the whole car undergoes a complete
transformation. A negro attendant commences to make down the beds. This
operation is performed by drawing out, after the manner of telescopes,
portions of the car heretofore looked upon as immoveable; from various
receptacles thus rendered visible he extracts large store of blankets,
mattresses, bolsters, pillows, sheets, all which he arranges after the
usual method of such articles. His work is done speedily and without
noise or bustle, and in a very short time the interior of the car
presents the spectacle of a long, dimly lighted passage, having on either
side the striped damask curtains which partly shroud the berths behind
them. Into these berths the passengers soon withdraw themselves, and all
goes quietly till morning-unless, indeed, some stray turning bridge has
been left turned over one of the numerous creeks that underlie the track,
or the loud whistle of "brakes down" is the short prelude to one of the
many disasters of American railroad travel. There are many varieties of
the sleeping-car, but the principle and mode of procedure are identical
in each. Some of those constructed by Messrs. Pullman and Wagner are as
gorgeously decorated as gilding, plating, velvet, and damask can make
them. The former gentleman is likely to live long after his death in the
title of his cars. One takes a Pullman (of course, only a share of a
Pullman) as one takes a Hansom. Pullman and sleeping-car have become
synonymous terms likely to last the wear of time. Travelling from sunrise
to sunset through a country which offers but few changes to the eye, and
at a rate which in the remoter districts seldom exceeds twenty miles an
hour, is doubtless a very tiresome occupation; still it has much to
relieve the tedium of what under the English system of railroad travel
would be almost insupportable. The fact of easy communication being
maintained between the different cars renders the passage from one car to
another during motion a most feasible undertaking. One can visit the
various cars and inspect their occupants, and to a man travelling to
obtain information this is no small boon. Americans are always ready to
enter into conversation, and though many queer fish will doubtless be met
with in such interviews, still as one is certain to fall in with persons
from all parts of the Union--easters, Southerners, Western men, and
Californians--the experiment of "knocking around the cars" is well worth
the trial of any person who is not above taking human nature, as we take
the weather, just as it comes.

The individual known by the title of "train-boy" is also worth some
study. He is oftentimes a grown-up man, but more frequently a most
precocious boy; he is the agent for some enterprising house in Chicago,
New York, or Philadelphia, or some other large town, and his aim is to
dispose of a very miscellaneous collection of mental and bodily
nourishment. He usually commences operations with the mental diet, which
he serves round in several courses. The first course consists of works of
a high moral character standard English novels in American reprints, and
works of travel or biography. These he lays beside each passenger,
stopping now and then to recommend one or the other for some particular
excellence of morality or binding. Having distributed a portion through
the car, he passes into the next car, and so through the train. After a
few minutes delay he returns again to pick up the books and to settle
with any one who may be disposed to retain possession of one. After the
lapse of a very short time he reappears with the second course of
literature. This usually consists of a much lower standard of excellence
--Yankee fun, illustrated periodicals of a feeble nature, and cheap
reprints of popular works. The third course, which soon follows, is,
however, a very much lower one, and it is a subject for regret on the
part of the moralist that the same powers of persuasion which but a
little time ago were put forth to advocate the sale of some works of high
moral excellence should now be exerted to push a vigorous circulation of
the "Last Sensation," "The Dime Illustrated," "New York under Gas
light," "The Bandits of the Rocky Mountains," and other similar
productions. These pernicious periodicals having been shown around, the
train-boy evidently becomes convinced that mental culture requires from
him no further effort; he relinquishes that portion of his labour and
devotes all his energies to the sale of the bodily nourishment,
consisting of oranges and peaches, according to season, of a very sickly
and uninviting description; these he follows with sugar in various
preparations of stickiness, supplementing the whole with pea-nuts and
crackers. In the end he becomes without any doubt a terrible nuisance;
one conceives a mortal hatred for this precocious pedlar who with his
vile compounds is ever bent upon forcing you to purchase his wares. He
gets, he will tell you, a percentage on his sales of ten cents in the
dollar; if you are going a long journey, he will calculate to sell you a
dollar's worth of his stock. You are therefore worth to him ten cents.
Now you cannot do better in his first round of high moral literature than
present him at once with this ten cents, stipulating that on no account
is he to invite your attention, press you to buy, or offer you any candy,
condiment, or book during the remainder of the journey. If you do this
you will get out of the train-boy at a reasonable rate.

Going to sleep as the train works its way slowly up the grades which lead
to the higher level of the State of Iowa from the waters of Mississippi
one sinks into a state of dim consciousness of all that is going on in
the long carriage. The whistle of the locomotive--which, by the way, is
very much more melodious than the one in use in England, being softer,
deeper, and reaching to a greater distance-the roll of the train into
stations, the stop and the start, all become, as it were, blended into
uneasy sleep, until daylight sets the darkey at his work of making up the
sections. When the sun rose we were well into Minnesota, the-most
northern of the Union States. Around on every side stretched the great
wheat lands of the North-west, that region whose farthest limits lie far
within the territories where yet the red man holds his own. Here, in the
south of Minnesota, one is only on the verge of that great wheat region.
Far beyond the northern limit of the state it stretches away into
latitudes unknown, save to the fur trader and the red man, latitudes
which, if you tire not on the road, good reader, you and I may journey
into together.

The City of St. Paul, capital and chief town of the State of Minnesota,
gives promise of rising to a very high position among the great trade
centres of America. It stands almost at the head of the navigation of the
Mississippi River, about 2050 miles from New Orleans; not that the great
river has its beginning here or in the vicinity, its cradle lies far to
the north, 700 miles along the stream. But the Falls of St. Anthony, a
few miles above St. Paul, interrupt all navigation, and the course of the
river for a considerable distance above the fall is full of rapids and
obstructions. Immediately above and below St. Paul the Mississippi River
receives several large tributary streams from north-east and north west;
the St. Peter's or Minnesota River coming from near the Coteau of the
Missouri, and the St. Croix unwatering the great tract of pine land which
lies West of Lake Superior; but it is not alone to water communication
that St. Paul owes its commercial importance. With the same restless
energy of the Northern American, its leading men have looked far into the
future, and shaped their course for later times; railroads are stretching
out in every direction to pierce the solitude of the yet uninhabited
prairies and pine forests of the North. There is probably no part of the
world in which the inhabitants are so unhealthy as in America; but the
life is more trying than the climate, the constant use of spirit taken
"straight," the incessant chewing of tobacco with its disgusting
accompaniment, the want of healthier exercise, the habit of eating in a
hurry, all tend to cut short the term of man's life in the New World.'
Nowhere have I seen so many young wrecks. "Yes, sir, we live fast here,"
said a general officer to me one day on the Missouri; "And we die fast
too," echoed a major from another part of the room. As a matter of
course, places possessing salubrious climates are crowded with pallid
seekers after health, and as St. Paul enjoys a dry and bracing atmosphere
from its great elevation above the sea level, as well as from the purity
of the surrounding prairies, its hotels--and they are many--are crowded
with the broken wrecks of half the Eastern states; some find what they
seek, but the majority come to Minnesota only to die.

Business connected with the supply of the troops during the coming winter
in Red River, detained me for some weeks in Minnesota, and as the
letters which I had despatched upon my arrival giving the necessary
particulars regarding the proposed arrangements, required at least a week
to obtain replies to, I determined to visit in the interim the shores of
Lake Superior. Here I would glean what tidings I could of the progress of
the Expedition, from whose base at Fort William, I would be only 100
miles distant, as well as examine the% chances of Fenian intervention, so
much talked of in the American newspapers, as likely to place in peril
the flank of the expeditionary force as it followed the devious track of
swamp and forest which has on one side Minnesota, and on the other the
Canadian Dominion.

Since my departure from Canada the weather had been intensely warm:
pleasant in Detroit, warm in Chicago, hot in Milwaukie, and sweltering,
blazing in St. Paul, would have aptly described the temperature, although
the last named city is some hundred miles more to the north than the
first. But latitude is no criterion of summer heat in America, and the
short Arctic summer of the Mackenzie River knows often a fiercer heat
than the swamp lands of the Carolinas. So, putting together a very light
field-kit, I started early one morning from St. Paul for the new town of
Duluth, on the extreme westerly end of Lake Superior.

Duluth, I was told, was the very newest of new towns, in fact it only had
an existence of eighteen months; as may be inferred, it had no past, but
any want in that respect was compensated for in its marvellous future. It
was to be the great grain emporium of the North-west; it was to kill St.
Paul, Milwaukie, Chicago, and half-a-dozen other thriving towns; its
murderous propensities seemed to have no bounds; lots were already
selling at fabulous prices, and everybody seemed to have Duluth in some
shape or other on the brain. To reach this paradise of the future I had
to travel 100 miles by the Superior and Mississippi railroad, to a
halting-place known as the End of the Track-a name which gave a very
accurate idea of its whereabouts and general capabilities. The line was,
in fact, in course of formation, and was being rapidly pushed forward
from both ends with a view to its being opened through by the 1st day of
August. About forty miles north-east of St. Paul we entered the region of
pine forest. At intervals of ten or twelve miles the train stopped at
places bearing high-sounding titles, such as Rush City, Pine City; but
upon examination one looked in vain for any realization of these names,
pines and rushes certainly were plentiful enough, but the city part of
the arrangement was nowhere visible. Upon asking a fellow-passenger for
some explanation of the phenomena, he answered, "Guess there was a city
hereaway last year, but it busted up or gone on." Travellers unacquainted
with the vernacular of America might have conjured up visions of a
catastrophe not less terrible than that of Pompeii or Herculaneum, but
an earlier acquaintance of Western cities had years before taught me to
comprehend such phrases. In the autumn of 1867 I had visited the prairies
of Nebraska, along the banks of the Platte River. Buffalo were numerous
on the sandy plains which form the hunting-grounds of the Shienne and
Arapahoe Indians, and amongst the vast herds the bright October days
passed quickly enough. One day, in company with an American officer, we
were following, as usual, a herd of buffalo, when we came upon a town
standing silent and deserted in the middle the Trairie. "That," said the
American, "is Kearney City; it did a good trade in the old wagon times,
but it busted up when the railroad went on farther west; the people moved
on to North Platte and Julesburg--guess there's only one man left in it
now, and he's got snakes in his boots the hull season." Marvelling what
manner of man this might be who dwelt alone in the silent city, we rode
on. One house showed some traces of occupation, and in this house dwelt
the man. We had passed through the deserted grass-grown street, and were
again on the prairie, when a shot rang out behind us, the bullet cutting
up the dust away to the left. "By G---- he's on the shoot," cried our
friend; "ride, boys!" and so we rode. Much has been written and said of
cities old and new, of Aztec and Peruvian monuments, but I venture to
offer to the attention of the future historian of America this sample of
the busted up city of Kearney and its solitary indweller, who had snakes
in his boots and was on the shoot.

After that explanation of a "busted-up" and "gone-on" city, I was of
course sufficiently well "posted" not to require further explanation as
to the fate of Pine and Rush Cities; but had I entertained any doubts
upon the subject, the final stoppage of the train at Moose Lake, or City,
would have effectually dispelled them. For there stood the portions of
Rush and Pine Cities which had not "bust up," but had simply "gone
on." Two shanties, with a few outlying sheds, stood on either side of the
track, which here crossed a clear running forest stream. Passenger
communication ended at this point; the rails were laid down for a
distance of eight miles farther, but only the "construction train," with
supplies, men, etc. proceeded to that point. Track-laying was going on at
the rate of three miles a day, I was informed, and the line would soon be
opened to the Dalles of the St. Louis River, near the hecad of Lake
Superior. The heat all day had been very great, and it was refreshing to
get out of the dusty car, even though the shanties, in which eating,
drinking, and sleeping were supposed to be carried on, were of the very
lowest description. I had made the acquaintance of the express agent, a
gentleman connected with the baggage department of the train, and during
the journey he had taken me somewhat into his confidence on the matter of
the lodging and entertainment which were to be found in the shanties.
"The food ain't bad," he said, "but that there shanty of Tom's licks
creation for bugs." This terse and forcibly expressed opinion made me
select the interior of a wagon, and some fresh hay, as a place of rest,
where, in spite of vast numbers of mosquitoes, I slept the sleep of the
weary.

The construction train started from Moose City at six o'clock a.m., and
as the stage, which was supposed to connect with the passenger train and
carry forward its human freight to Superior City was filled to
overflowing, I determined to take advantage of the construction train,
and travel on it as far as it would take me. A very motley group of
lumberers, navvies, and speculators assembled for breakfast at five
o'clock a.m. at Tom's table, and although I cannot quite confirm the
favourable opinion of my friend the express agent as to the quality of
the viands which graced it, I can at least testify to the vigour with
which the "guests" disposed of the pork and beans, the molasses and
dried apples which Tom, with foul fingers, had set before them. Seated on
the floor of a waggon in the construction train, in the midst of navvies
of all countries and ages, I reached the end of the track while the
morning sun was yet low in the east. I had struck up a kind of
partnership for the journey with a pedlar Jew and an Ohio man, both going
to Duluth, and as we had a march of eighteen miles to get through
between the end of the track and the town of Fond-du-Lac, it became
necessary to push on before the sun had reached his midday level; so,
shouldering our baggage, we left the busy scene of track-laying and
struck out along the graded line for the Dalles of the St. Louis. Up to
this point the line had been fully levelled, and the walking was easy
enough, but when the much-talked of Dalles were reached a complete
change took place, and the toil became excessive. The St. Louis River,
which in reality forms the headwater of the great St. Lawrence, has its
source in the dividing ridge between Minnesota and the British territory.
From these rugged Laurentian ridges it foams down in an impetuous torrent
through wild pine-clad steeps of rock and towering precipice, apparently
to force an outlet into the valley of the Mississippi, but at the Dalles
it seems to have suddenly preferred to seek the cold waters of the
Atlantic, and, bending its course abruptly to the east, it pours its
foaming torrent into the great Lake Superior below the old French
trading-post of Fond-du-Lac. The load which I carried was not of itself a
heavy one, but its weight became intolerable under the rapidly increasing
heat of the sun and from the toilsome nature of the road. The deep narrow
gorges over which the railway was to be carried were yet unbridged, and
we had to let ourselves down the steep yielding embankment to a depth of
over 100 feet, and then clamber up the other side almost upon hands and
knees-this under a sun that beat down between the hills with terrible
intensity on the yellow sand of the railway cuttings! The Ohio man
carried no baggage, but the Jew was heavily laden, and soon fell behind.
For a time I kept pace with my light companion; but soon I too was
obliged to lag, and about midday found myself alone in the solitudes of
the Dalles. At last there came a gorge deeper and steeper than any thing
that had preceded it, and I was forced to rest long before attempting its
almost perpendicular ascent. When I did reach the top, it was to find
myself thoroughly done up--the sun came down on the side of the
embankment as though it would burn the sandy soil into ashes, not a
breath of air moved through the silent hills, not a leaf stirred in the
forest. My load was more than I could bear, and again I had to lie down
to avoid falling down. Only once before had I experienced a similar
sensation of choking, and that was in toiling through a Burmese swamp,
snipe-shooting under a midday sun. How near that was to sun-stroke, I
can't say; but I don't think it could be very far. After a little time, I
saw, some distance down below, smoke rising from a shanty. I made my way
with no small difficulty to the door, and found the place full of some
twenty or more rough-bearded looking men sitting down to dinner.

"About played out, I guess?" said one. "Wall, that sun is h--; any how,
come in and have a bit. Have a drink of tea or some vinegar and water."

They filled me out a literal dish of tea, black and boiling; and I
drained the tin with a feeling of relief such as one seldom knows. The
place was lined round with bunks like the forecastle of a ship. After a
time I rose to depart and asked the man who acted as cook how much there
was to pay.

"Not a cent, stranger;" and so I left my rough hospitable friends, and,
gaining the railroad, lay down to rest until the fiery sun had got lower
in the west. The remainder of the road was thronged with gangs of men at
work along it, bridging, blasting, building, and levelling--strong
able-bodied fellows fit for any thing. Each gang was under the
superintendence of a railroad "boss," and all seemed to be working well.
But then two dollars a head per diem will make men work well even under
such a sun.





CHAPTER FIVE.

Lake Superior--The Dalles of the St. Louis--The North Pacific
Railroad--Fond-du-Lac-Duluth--Superior City--The Great Lake--A Plan to
dry up Niagara--Stage Driving--Tom's Shanty again--St. Paul and its
Neighbourhood.

ALMOST in the centre of the Dalles I passed the spot where the Northern
Pacific Railroad had on that day turned its first sod, commencing its
long course across the continent. This North Pacific Railroad is destined
to play a great part in the future history of the United States; it is
the second great link which is to bind together the Atlantic and Pacific
States (before twenty years there will be many others). From Puget Sound
on the Pacific to Duluth on Lake Superior is about 2200 miles, and across
this distance the North Pacific Railroad is to run. The immense plains of
Dakota, the grassy uplands of Montana and Washington, and the centre of
the State of Minnesota will behold ere long this iron road of the North
Pacific Company piercing their lonely wilds. "Red Cloud" and "Black
Eagle" and "Standing Buffalo" may gather their braves beyond the Coteau
to battle against this steam-horse which scares their bison from his
favourite breeding grounds on the scant pastures of the great Missouri
plateau; but all their efforts will be in vain, the dollar will beat them
out. Poor Red Cloud! in spite of thy towering form and mighty strength,
the dollar is mightier still, and the fiat has gone forth before which
thou and thy braves must pass away from the land! Very tired and covered
deep with the dust of railroad cuttings, I reached the collection of
scattered houses which bears the name of Fond-du Lac. Upon inquiring at
the first house which I came to as to the whereabouts of the hotel, I was
informed by a sour-visaged old female, that if I wanted to drink and get
drunk, I must go farther on; but that if I wished to behave in a quiet
and respectable manner, and could live %without liquor, I could stay in
her house, which was at once post office, Temperance Hotel, and very
respectable. Being weary and footsore, I. did not feel disposed to seek
farther, for the place looked clean, the river was close at hand, and the
whole aspect of the scene was suggestive of rest. In the evening hours
myriads of mosquitoes and flying things of minutest size came forth from
the wooded hills and did their best towards making life a misery; so bad
were they that I welcomed a passing navvy who dropped in as a real
godsend.

"You're come up to look after work on this North Pacific Railroad, I
guess?" he commenced-he was a Southern Irish man, but "guessed" all the
same--"well, now, look here, the North Pacific Railroad will never be
like the U.P. (Union Pacific) I worked there, and I know what it was; it
was bully, I can tell you. A chap lay in his bunk all day and got two
dollars and a half for doing it; ay, and bit the boss on the head with
his shovel if the boss gave him any d---- chat. No, sirree, the North
Pacific will never be like that."

I could not help thinking that it was perhaps quite as well for the North
Pacific Railroad Company and the boss if they never were destined to
rival the Union Pacific Company as pictured by my companion; but I did
not attempt to say so, as it might have come under the heading of
"d---- chat," worthy only of being replied to by that convincing argument,
the shovel.

A good night's sleep and a swim in the St. Louis river banished all trace
of toil. I left Fond-du-Lac early in the afternoon, and, descending by a
small steamer the many-winding St. Louis River, soon came in sight of the
town of Duluth. The heat had become excessive; the Bay of St. Louis, shut
in on all sides by lofty hills, lay under a mingled mass of thunder-cloud
and sunshine; far out in Lake Superior vivid lightnings flashed over the
gloomy water and long rolls of thunder shook the hills around. On board
our little steamboat the atmosphere was stifling, and could not have been
short of 100 degrees in the coolest place (it was 93 at six o'clock same
evening in the hotel at Duluth); there was nothing for it but to lie
quietly on a wooden bench and listen to the loud talking of some
fellow-passengers. Three of the hardest of hard cases were engaged in the
mental recreation of "'swapping lies;" their respective exchanges
consisting on this occasion of feats of stealing; the experiences of one
I recollect in particular. He had stolen an axe from a man on the North
Pacific Railroad and a few days later sold him the same article. This
Piece of knavery was received as the acme of cuteness; and I well
recollect the language in which the brute wound up his self-laudations:
"If any chap can steal faster than me, let him."

As we emerged from the last bend of the river and stood across the Bay of
St. Louis, Duluth, in all its barrenness, stood before us. The future
capital of the Lakes, the great central port of the continent, the town
whose wharves were to be laden with the teas of China and the silks of
Japan stood out on the rocky north shore of Lake Superior, the sorriest
spectacle of city that eye of man could look upon-wooden houses scattered
at intervals along a steep ridge from which the forest had been only
partially cleared, houses of the smallest possible limits growing out of
a reedy marsh, which lay between lake and ridge, tree-stumps and lumber
standing in street and landing-place, the swamps croaking with bull-frogs
and passable only by crazy looking planks of tilting proclivities--over
all, a sun fit for a Carnatic coolie, and around, a forest vegetation in
whose heart the memory of Arctic winter rigour seemed to live for ever.
Still, in spite of rock and swamp and icy winter, Yankee energy will
triumph here as it has triumphed else where over kindred difficulties.

"There's got to be a Boss City hereaway on this end of the lake," said
the captain of the little boat; and though he spoke with much labour of
imprecation, both needless then and now, taking what might be termed a
cursory view of the situation, he summed up the prospects of Duluth
conclusively and clearly enough.

I cannot say I enjoyed a stay of two days in Duluth. Several new saloons
(name for dram-shops, gaming-houses, and generally questionable places)
were being opened for the first time to the public, and free drinks were
consequently the rule. Now "free drinks" have generally a demoralizing
tendency upon a community, but taken in connexion with a temperature of
98 degrees in the shade, they quickly develop into free revolvers and
freer bowie-knives. Besides, the spirit of speculation was rampant in the
hotel, and so many men had corner lots, dock locations, pine forests, and
pre-empted lands to sell me, that nothing but flight prevented my
becoming a large holder of all manner of Duluth securities upon terms
that, upon the clearest showing, would have been ridiculously favourable
to me. The principal object of my visit to Duluth was to discover if any
settlement existed at the Vermilion Lakes, eighty miles to the north and
not far from the track of the Expedition, a place which had been named to
the military authorities in Canada as likely to form a base of attack for
any filibusters who would be adventurous enough to make a dash at the
communication of the expeditionary force. A report of the discovery of
gold and silver mines around the Vermilion Lakes had induced a rush of
miners there during the previous year; but the mines had all "bust up,"
and the miners had been blown away to other regions, leaving the plant
and fixtures of quartz-crushing machinery standing drearily in the
wilderness. These facts I ascertained from the engineer, who had
constructed a forest track from Duluth to the mines, and into whose
office I penetrated in quest of information. He, too, looked upon me as a
speculator.

"Don't mind them mines," he said, after I had questioned him on all
points of distance and road; "don't touch them mines; they're clean gone
up. The gold in them mines don't amount to a row of pines, and there's
not a man there now."

That evening there came a violent thunder-storm, which cleared and cooled
the atmosphere; between ten o'clock in the morning and three in the
afternoon the thermometer fell 30 degrees. Lake Superior had asserted its
icy influence over the sun. Glad to get away from Duluth, I crossed the
bay to Superior City, situated on the opposite, or Wisconsin shore of the
lake. A curious formation of sand and shingle runs out from the shore of
Duluth, forming a long narrow spit of land projecting far into Lake
Superior. It bears the name of Minnesota Point, and has evidently been
formed by the opposing influence of the east wind over the great expanse
of the lake, and the current of the St. Louis River from the West. It has
a length of seven miles, and is only a few yards in width. Close to the
Wisconsin shore a break occurs in this long narrow spit, and inside this
opening lies the harbour and city of Superior incomparably a better
situation for a city and lake-port, level, sheltered, capacious; but,
nevertheless, Superior City is doomed to delay, while eight miles off its
young rival is rapidly rushing to wealth. This anomaly is easily
explained. Duluth is pushed forward by the capital of the State of
Minnesota, while the legislature of Wisconsin looks with jealous eye upon
the formation of a second lake-port city which might draw off to itself
the trade of Milwaukie.

In course of time, however, Superior City must rise, in spite of all
hostility, to the very prominent position to which its natural advantages
entitle it. I had not been many minutes in the hotel at Superior City
before the trying and unsought character of land speculator was again
thrust upon me.

"Now, stranger," said a long-legged Yankee, who, with his boots on the
stove---the day had got raw and cold--and his knees considerably higher
than his head, was gazing intently at me, "'I guess I've fixed you." I
was taken aback by the sudden identification of my business, when he
continued, "Yes, I've just fixed you. You air a Kanady speculator, ain't
ye?" Not deeming it altogether wise to deny the correct ness of his
fixing, I replied I had lived in Kanady for some time, but that I was not
going to begin speculation until I had knocked round a little. An
invitation to liquor soon followed. The disagreeable consequence
resulting from this admission soon became apparent. I was much pestered
towards evening by offers of investment in things varying from a
sand-hill to a city-square, or what would infallibly in course of time
develop into a city-square. A gentleman rejoicing in the name of Vose
Palmer insisted upon inter viewing me until a protracted hour of the night,
with a view towards my investing in straight drinks for him at the bar and
in an extensive pine forest for myself some where on the north shore of
Lake Superior. I have no doubt the pine forest is still in the market; and
should any enterprising capitalist in this country feel disposed to enter
into partnership on a basis of bearing all expenses himself, giving only
the profits to his partner, he will find "Vose Palmer, Superior City,
Wisconsin, United States," ever ready to attend to him.

Before turning our steps westward from this inland ocean of Superior, it
will be well to pause a moment on its shore and look out over its bosom.
It is worth looking at, for the world possesses not its equal. Four
Hundred English miles in length, 50 miles across it, 600 feet above
Atlantic level, 900 feet in depth-one vast spring of purest crystal
water, so cold, that during summer months its waters are like ice itself,
and so clear, that hundreds of feet below the surface the rocks stand out
as distinctly as though seen through plate-glass. Follow in fancy the
outpourings of this wonderful basin; seek its future course in Huron,
Erie, and Ontario, in that wild leap from the rocky ledge which makes
Niagara famous through the world. Seek it farther still, in the quiet
loveliness of the Thousand Isles; in the whirl and sweep of the Cedar
Rapids; in the silent rush of the great current under the rocks at the
foot of Quebec. Ay, and even farther away still, down where the lone
Laurentian Hills come forth to look again upon that water whose earliest
beginnings they cradled along the shores of Lake Superior. There, close
to the sounding billows of the Atlantic, 2000 miles from Superior, these
hills--the only ones that ever last-guard the great gate by which the St.
Lawrence seeks the sea.

There are rivers whose current, running red with the silt and mud of
their soft alluvial shores, carry far into the ocean the record of their
muddy progress; but this glorious river system, through its many lakes
and various names, is ever the same crystal current, flowing pure from
the fountain-head of Lake Superior. Great cities stud its shores; but
they are powerless to dim the transparency of its waters. Steamships
cover the broad bosom of its lakes and estuaries; but they change not the
beauty of the water-no more than the fleets of the world mark the waves
of the ocean. Any person looking at the map's of the region bounding the
great lakes of North America will be struck by the absence of rivers
flowing into Lakes Superior, Michigan, or Huron from the south; in fact,
the drainage of the states bordering these lakes on the south is
altogether carried off by the valley of the Mississippi-it follows that
this valley of Mississippi is at a much lower level than the surface of
the lakes. These lakes, containing an area of some 73,000 square miles,
are therefore an immense reservoir held high over the level of the great
Mississippi valley, from which they are separated by a barrier of slight
elevation and extent.

It is not many years ago since an enterprising Yankee proposed to
annihilate Canada, dry up Niagara, and "fix British creation" generally,
by diverting the current of Lake Erie, through a deep canal, into the
Ohio River; but should nature, in one of her freaks of earthquake, ever
cause a disruption to this intervening barrier on the southern shores of
the great northern lakes, the drying up of Niagara, the annihilation of
Canada, and the divers disasters to British power, will in all
probability be followed by the submersion of half of the Mississippi
states under the waters of these inland seas.

On the 26th June I quitted the shores of Lake Superior and made my way
back to Moose Lake. Without any exception, the road thither was the very
worst I had ever travelled over--four horses essayed to drag a stage-waggon
over, or rather, I should say, through, a track of mud and ruts
impossible to picture. The stage fare amounted to $6, or 4s. for 34
miles. An extra dollar reserved the box-seat and gave me the double
advantage of knowing what was coming in the rut line and taking another
lesson in the idiom of the American stage-driver. This idiom consists of
the smallest possible amount of dictionary words, a few Scriptural names
rather irreverently used, a very large intermixture of "git-ups" and
ejaculatory "his," and a general tendency to blasphemy all round. We
reached Tom's shanty at dusk. As before, it was crowded to excess, and
the memory of the express man's warning was still sufficiently strong to
make me prefer the forest to "bunking in" with the motley assemblage; a
couple of Eastern Americans shared with me the little camp. We made a
fire, laid some boards on the ground, spread a blanket upon them, pulled
the "mosquito bars" over our heads, and lay down to attempt to sleep. It
was a vain effort; mosquitoes came out in myriads, little atoms of gnats
penetrated through the netting of the "bars," and rendered rest or sleep
impossible. At last, when the gnats seemed disposed to retire, two
Germans came along, and, seeing our fire, commenced stumbling about our
boards. To be roused at two o'clock a.m., when one is just sinking into
obliviousness after four hours of useless struggle with unseen enemies,
is provoking enough, but to be roused under such circumstances by Germans
is simply unbearable.

At last daylight came. A bathe in the creek, despite the clouds of
mosquitoes, freshened one up a little and made Tom's terrible table see
less repulsive. Then came a long hot day in the dusty cars, until at
length St. Paul was reached.

I remained at St. Paul some twelve days, detained there from day to day
awaiting the arrival of letters from Canada relative to the future supply
of the Expedition. This delay was at the time most irksome, as I too
frequently pictured the troops pushing on towards Fort Garry while I was
detained inactive in Minnesota; but one morning the American papers came
out with news that the expeditionary forces had met with much delay in
their first move from Thunder Bay; the road over which it was necessary
for them to transport their boats, munitions, and supplies for a distance
of forty-four miles from Superior to Lake Shebandowan was utterly
impracticable, portions of it, indeed, had still to be made, bridges to
be built, swamps to be corduroyed, and thus at the very outset of the
Expedition a long delay became necessary. Of course, the American press
held high jubilee over this check, which was represented as only the
beginning of the end of a series of disasters. The British Expedition was
never destined to reach Red River--swamps would entrap it, rapids would
engulf it; and if, in spite of these obstacles, some few men did succeed
in piercing the rugged wilderness, the trusty rifle of the Metis would
soon annihilate the presumptive intruders. Such was the news and such
were the comments I had to read day after day, as I anxiously scanned the
columns of the newspapers for intelligence. Nor were these comments on
the Expedition confined to prophecy of its failure from the swamps and
rapids of the route: Fenian aid was largely spoken of by one portion of
the press. Arms and ammunition, and hands to use them, were being pushed
towards St. Cloud and the Red River to aid the free sons of the
North-west to follow out their manifest destiny, which, of course, was
annexation to the United States. But although these items made reading a
matter of no pleasant description, there were other things to be done in
the good city of St. Paul not without their special interest. The Falls
of the Mississippi at St. Anthony, and the lovely little Fall of
Minnehaha, lay only some seven miles distant. Minnehaha is a perfect
little beauty; its bright sparkling waters, forming innumerable fleecy
threads! of silk-like wavelets, seem to laugh over the rocky edge; so
light and so lace-like is the curtain, that the sunlight streaming
through looks like a lovely bride through some rich bridal veil. The
Falls of St. Anthony are neither grand nor beautiful, and are utterly
disfigured by the various sawmills that surround them.

The hotel in which I lodged at St. Paul was a very favourable specimen
of the American hostelry; its proprietor was, of course, a colonel, so it
may be presumed that he kept his company in excellent order. I had but
few acquaintances in St. Paul, and had little to do besides study
American character as displayed in dining-room, lounging-hall, and
verandah, during the hot fine days; but when the hour of sunset came it
was my wont to ascend to the roof of the building to look at the glorious
panorama spread out before me-for sunset in America is of itself a sight
of rare beauty, and the valley of the Mississippi never appeared to
better advantage than when the rich hues of the western sun were gilding
the steep ridges that over hang it.





CHAPTER SIX.

Our Cousins--Doing America--Two Lessons--St. Cloud--Sauk Rapids--"Steam
Pudding or Pumpkin Pie?"--Trotting him out--Away for the Red River.

ENGLISHMEN who visit America take away with them two widely different
sets of opinions. In most instances they have rushed through the land,
note-book in hand, recording impressions and eliciting information. The
visit is too frequently a first and a last one; the thirty-seven states
are run over in thirty-seven days; then out comes the book, and the great
question of America, socially and politically considered, is sealed for
evermore. Now, if these gentlemen would only recollect that impressions,
which are thus hastily collected must of necessity share the
imperfection of all things done in a hurry, they would not record these
hurriedly gleaned facts with such an appearance of infallibility, or,
rather, they might be induced to try a second rush across the Atlantic
before attempting that first rush into print. Let them remember that even
the genius of Dickens was not proof against such error, and that a
subsequent visit to the States caused no small amount of alteration in
his impressions of America. This second visit should be a rule with every
man who wishes to read aright, for his own benefit, or for that of
others, the great book which America holds open to the traveller. Above
all, the English traveller who enters the United States with a portfolio
filled with letters of introduction will generally prove the most
untrustworthy guide to those who follow him for information. He will
travel from city to city, finding everywhere lavish hospitality and
boundless kindness; at every hotel he will be introduced to several of
"our leading citizens;" newspapers will report his progress,
general-superintendents of railroads will pester him with free passes
over half the lines in the Union; and he will take his departure from New
York after a dinner at Delmonico's, the cartes of which will cost a
dollar each. The chances are extremely probable that his book will be
about as fair a representation of American social and political
institutions as his dinner at Delmonico's would justly represent the
ordinary cuisine throughout the Western States.

Having been fêted and free-passed through the Union, he of course comes
away delighted with everything. If he is what is called a Liberal in
politics, his political bias still further strengthens his favourable
impressions of democracy and Delmonico; if he is a rigid Conservative,
democracy loses half its terrors when it is seen across the
Atlantic--just as widow-burning or Juggernaut are institutions much better
suited to Bengal than they would be to Berkshire. Of course Canada and
things Canadian are utterly beneath the notice of our traveller. He may,
however, introduce them casually with reference to Niagara, which has a
Canadian shore, or Quebec, which possesses a fine view; for the rest,
America, past, present, and to come, is to be studied in New York,
Boston, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and half a dozen other big places, and,
with Niagara, Salt Lake City and San Francisco thrown in for scenic
effect, the whole thing is complete. Salt Lake City is peculiarly
valuable to the traveller, as it affords him much subject-matter for
questionable writing. It might be well to recollect, however, that there
really exists no necessity for crossing the Atlantic and travelling as
far west as Utah in order to compose questionable books upon
unquestionable subjects; similar materials in vast quantities exist much
nearer home, and Pimlico and St. John's Wood will be found quite as
prolific in "Spiritual Wives" and "Gothic" affinities as any creek or
lake in the Western wilderness. Neither is it to be wondered at that so
many travellers carry away with them a fixed idea that our cousins are
cousins in heart as well as in relationship-the friendship is of the
Delmonico type too. Those speeches made to the departing guest, those
Pledges of brotherhood over the champagne glass, this "old lang syne"
with hands held in Scotch fashion, all these are not worth much in the
markets of brotherhood. You will be told that the hostility of the
inhabitants of the United States towards England is confined to one
class, and that class, though numerically large, is politically
insignificant. Do not believe it for one instant: the hostility to
England is universal; it is more deep rooted than any other feeling; it
is an instinct and not a reason, and consequently possesses the dogged
strength of unreasoning antipathy. I tell you, Mr. Bull, that were you
pitted to-morrow against a race that had not one idea in kindred with
your own, were you fighting a deadly struggle against a despotism the
most galling on earth, were you engaged with an enemy whose grip was
around your neck and whose foot was on your chest, that English-speaking
cousin of yours over the Atlantic whose language is your language, whose
literature is your literature, whose civil code is begotten from your
digests of law would stir no hand, no foot, to save you, would gloat
over your agony, would keep the ring while you were, being knocked out of
all semblance of nation and power, and would not be very far distant when
the moment came to hold a feast of eagles over your vast disjointed
limbs. Make no mistake in this matter, and be not blinded by ties of
kindred or belief. You imagine that because he is your cousin-sometimes
even your very son-that he cannot hate you, and you nurse yourself in the
belief that in a moment of peril the stars and stripes would fly
alongside the old red cross. Listen one moment; we cannot go five miles
through any State in the American Union without coming upon a square
substantial building in which children are being taught one universal
lesson-the history of how, through long years of blood and strife, their
country came forth a nation from the bungling tyranny of Britain. Until
five short years ago that was the one bit of history that went home to
the heart of Young America, that Was the lesson your cousin learned, and
still learns, in spite of later conflicts. Let us see what was the lesson
your son had laid to heart. Well, your son learned his lesson, not from
books, for too often he could not read, but he learned it in a manner
which perhaps stamps it deeper into the mind than even letter-press or
schoolmaster. He left you because you would not keep him, because you
preferred grouse-moors and deer-forests in Scotland, or meadows and
sheep-walks in Ireland to him or his. He did not leave you as one or two
from a household--as one who would go away and establish a branch
connexion across the ocean; he went away by families, by clans, by kith
and kin, for ever and for aye and he went away with hate in his heart and
dark thoughts towards you who should have been his mother. It matters
little that he has bettered himself and grown rich in the new land; that
is his affair; so far as you were concerned, it was about even betting
whether he went to the bottom of the Atlantic or to the top of the
social tree-so, I say, to close this subject, that son and cousin owe you
and give you, scant and feeblest love. You will find themn the firm
friend of the Russian, because that Russian is likely to become your
enemy in Herat, in Cabool, in Kashgar, or in Constantinople; you will
find him the ally of the Prussian whenever Kaiser William, after the
fashion of his tribe, orders his legions to obliterate the line between
Holland and Germany, taking hold of that metaphorical pistol which you
spent so many millions-to turn from your throat in the days of the first
Napoleon. Nay, even should any woman-killing Sepoy put you to sore
strait by indiscriminate and ruthless slaughter, he will be your cousin's
friend, for the simple reason that he is your enemy.

But a study of American habits and opinions, however interesting in
itself, was not calculated to facilitate in any way the solving of the
problem which now beset me, namely, the further progress of my journey to
the Northwest. The accounts which I daily received were not encouraging.
Sometimes there came news that M. Riel had grown tired of his
pre-eminence and was anxious to lay down his authority; at other times I
heard of preparation made and making to oppose the Expedition by force,
and of strict watch being maintained along the Pembina frontier to arrest
and turn back all persons except such as were friendly to the Provisional
Government.

Nor was my own position in St. Paul at all a pleasant one. The inquiries
I had to make on subjects connected with the supply of the troops in Red
River had made so many persons acquainted with my identity, that it soon
became known that there was a British officer in the place--a knowledge
which did not tend in any manner to make the days pleasant in themselves
nor hopeful in the anticipation of a successful prosecution of my journey
in the time to come. About the first week in July I left St. Paul for
St. Cloud, seventy miles higher up on the Mississippi, having decided to
wait no longer'` for instructions, but to trust to chance for further
progress towards the North-west. "You will meet with no obstacle at this
side of the line," said an American gentleman who was acquainted with the
object of my journey, "but I won't answer for the other side;" and so,
not knowing exactly how I was to get through to join the Expedition, but'
determined to try it some way or other, I set out for Sauk Rapids and St.
Cloud. Sauk Rapids, on the Mississippi River, is a city which has neither
burst up nor gone on. It has thought fit to remain, without monument of
any kind, where it originally located itself-on the left bank of the
Mississippi, opposite the confluence of the Sauk River with the "Father
of Waters." It takes its name partly from the Sauk River and partly from
the rapids of the Mississippi which lie abreast of the town. Like many
other cities, it had nourished feelings of the most deadly enmity.
against its neighbours, and was to "kill creation" on every side; but
these ideas of animosity have decreased considerably in lapse of time: Of
course it possessed a newspaper--I believe it also possessed a church,
but I did not see that edifice; the paper, however, I did see, and was
much struck by the fact that the greater portion of the first page--the
paper had only two-was taken up with a pictorial delineation of what
Sauk Rapids would attain to in the future, when it had sufficiently
developed its immense water-power; In the mean time previous to the
development of said water-power-Sauk Rapids was not a bad sort of place:
a bath at an hotel in St. Paul was a more expensive luxury than a dinner;
but the Mississippi flowing by the door of the hotel at Sauk Rapids
permitted free bathing in its waters. Any traveller in the United States
will fully appreciate this condescension on the part of the great river.
If a man wishes to be clean, he has to pay highly for the luxury. The
baths which exist in the hotels are evidently meant for very rare and
important occasions.

"I would like," said an American gentleman to a friend of mine travelling
by railway, "I would like to show % you round our city, and I will call
for you at the hotel."

"Thank you," replied my friend; "I have only to take a bath, and will be
ready in half an hour."

"Take a bath!" answered the American; "why, you ain't sick, air you?"

There are not many commandments strictly adhered to in the United
States; but had there ever existed a "Thou shalt not tub," the implicit
obedience rendered to it would have been delightful, but perhaps, in that
case, every American would have been a Diogenes.

The Russell House at Sauk Rapids was presided over by Dr. Chase.
According to his card, Dr. Chase conferred more benefactions upon the
human race for the very smallest remuneration than any man living. His
hotel was situated in the loveliest portion of Minnesota, commanding the
magnificent rapids of the Mississippi; his board and lodging were of the
choicest description; horses and buggies were free, gratis, and medical
attendance was also uncharged for. Finally, the card intimated that, upon
turning over, still more astonishing revelations would meet the eye of
the reader. Prepared for some terrible instance of humane abnegation on
the part of Dr. Chase, I proceeded to do, as directed, and, turning over
the card, read, "Present of a $500 greenback"!!! The gift of the green
back was attended with some little drawback, inasmuch as it was
conditional upon paying to Dr. Chase the sum of $20,000 for the goodwill,
etc., of his hotel, farm, and appurtenances, or procuring a purchaser for
them at that figure, which was, as a matter of course, a ridiculously low
one. Two damsels who assisted Dr. Chase in ministering to the wants of
his guests at dinner had a very appalling manner of presenting to the
frightened feeder his choice of viands. The solemn silence which usually
pervades the dinner-table of an American hotel was nowhere more
observable than in this Doctor's establishment; whether it was from the
fact that each guest suffered under a painful knowledge of the superhuman
efforts which the Doctor was making for his or her benefit, I cannot say;
but I never witnessed the proverbially frightened appearance of the
American people at meals to such a degree as at the dinner-table of the
Sauk Hotel. When the damsels before alluded to commenced their
peregrinations round the table, giving in terribly terse language the
choice of meats, the solemnity of the proceeding could not have been
exceeded. "Pork or beef?" "Pork," would answer the trembling feeder;
"Beef or pork?" "Beef," would again reply the guest, grasping eagerly at
the first name which struck upon his ear. But when the second course came
round the damsels presented us with a choice of a very mysterious nature
indeed. I dimly heard two names being uttered into the ears of my
fellow-eaters, and I just had time to notice the paralyzing effect which
the communication appeared to have upon them, when presently over my own
shoulder I heard the mystic sound-I regret to say that at first these
sounds entirely failed to present to my mind any idea of food or
sustenance of known description, I therefore begged for a repetition of
the words; this time there was no mistake about it, "Steam-pudding or
pumpkin-pie?" echoed the maiden, giving me the terrible alternative in
her most cutting tones; "Both!" I ejaculated, with equal distinctness,
but, I believe, audacity unparalleled since the times of Twist. The
female Bumble seemed to reel beneath the shock, and I noticed that after
communicating her experience to her fellow waiting-woman, I was not
thought of much account for the remainder of the meal.

Upon the day of my arrival at Sauk Rapids I had let it be known pretty
widely that I was ready to become the purchaser of a saddle-horse, if any
person had such an animal to dispose of. In the three following days the
amount of saddle-horses produced in the neighbourhood was perfectly
astonishing; indeed the fact of placing a saddle upon the back of any
thing possessing four legs seemed to constitute the required animal; even
a German--a "Dutchman'" came along with a miserable thing in horseflesh,
sand-cracked and spavined, for which he only asked the trifling sum of
$100. Two livery stables in St. Cloud sent up their superannuated
stagers, and Dr. Chase had something to recommend of a very superior
description. The end of it all was, that, declining to purchase any of
the animals brought up for inspection, I found there was little chance of
being able to get over the 400 miles which lay between St. Cloud and Fort
Garry. It was now the 12th of July; I had reached the farthest limit of
railroad communication, and before me lay 200 miles of partly settled
country lying between the Mississippi and the Red River. It is true that
a four-horse stage ran from St. Cloud to Fort Abercrombie on Red River,
but that would only have conveyed me to about 300 miles distant from Fort
Garry, and over that last 300 miles I could see no prospect of
travelling. I had therefore determined upon procuring a horse and riding
the entire way, and it was with this object that I had entered into these
inspections of horseflesh already mentioned. Matters were in this
unsatisfactory state on the 12th of July, when I was informed that the
solitary steamboat which plied upon the waters of the Red River was about
to make a descent to Fort Garry, and that a week would elapse before she
would start from her moorings below Georgetown, a. station of the Hudson
Bay Company situated 250 miles from St. Cloud. This was indeed the best
of good news to me; I saw in it the long-looked-for chance of bridging
this great stretch of 400 miles and reaching at last the Red River
Settlement. I saw in it still more the prospect of joining at no very
distant time the expeditionary force itself, after I had run the gauntlet
of M. Riel and his associates, and although many obstacles yet remained
to be overcome, and distances vast and wild had to be covered before that
hope could be realized, still the prospect of immediate movement overcame
every perspective difficulty; and glad indeed I was when from the top of
a well-horsed stage I saw the wooden houses of St. Cloud disappear
beneath the prairie behind me, and I bade good-bye for many a day to the
valley of the Mississippi,





CHAPTER SEVEN.

North Minnesota--A beautiful Land--Rival Savages-Abercrombie--News from
the North-Plans--A Lonely Shanty--The Red River--Prairies--Sunset--
Mosquitoes--Going North--A Mosquito Night--A Thunder-storm--A Prussian--
Dakota--I ride for it--The Steamer "International"--Pembina.

The stage-coach takes three days to run from St. Cloud to Fort
Abercrombie, about 180 miles. The road was tolerably good, and many
portions of the country were very beautiful to look at. On the second day
one reaches the height of land between the Mississippi and Red Rivers, a
region abounding in clear crystal lakes of every size and shape, the old
home of the great Sioux nation, the true Minnesota of their dreams.
Minnesota ("sky-coloured water"), how aptly did it describe that home
which was no longer theirs! They have left it for ever; the Norwegian and
the Swede now call it theirs, and nothing remains of the red man save
these sounding names of lake and river which long years ago he gave them.
Along the margins of these lakes many comfortable dwellings nestle
amongst oak openings and glades, and hill and valley are golden in
summer with fields of wheat and corn, and little towns are springing up
where twenty years ago the Sioux lodge-poles were the only signs of
habitation; but one cannot look on this transformation without feeling,
with Longfellow, the terrible surge of the white man, "whose breath, like
the blast of the east wind, drifts evermore to the west the scanty smoke
of the wigwams." What savages, too, are they, the successors of the old
race--savages! not less barbarous because they do not scalp, or
war-dance, or go out to meet the Ojibbeway in the woods or the
Assineboine in the plains.

We had passed a beautiful sheet of water called Lake Osakis, and reached
another lake not less lovely, the name of which I did not know.

"What is the name of this place?" I asked the driver who had stopped to
water his horses.

"I don't know," he answered, lifting a bucket of water to his thirsty
steeds; "some God-dam Italian name, I guess." This high rolling land
which divides the waters flowing into the Gulf of Mexico from those of
Hudson Bay lies at an elevation of 1600 feet above the sea level. It is
rich in every thing that can make a country prosperous; and that portion
of the "down-trodden millions," who "starve in the garrets of Europe,"
and have made their homes along that height of land, have no reason to
regret their choice.

On the evening of the second day we stopped for the night at the old
stockaded post of Pomme-de-Terre, not far from the Ottertail River. The
place was foul beyond the power of words to paint it, but a "shake down"
amidst the hay in a cow-house was far preferable to the society of man
close by.

At eleven o'clock on the following morning we reached and crossed the
Ottertail River, the main branch of the Red River, and I beheld with joy
the stream upon whose banks, still many hundred miles distant, stood Fort
Garry. Later in the day, having passed the great level expanse known as
The Breckenridge Flats, the stage drew up at Fort Abercrombie, and I saw
for the first time the yellow, muddy waters of the Red River of the
North. Mr. Nolan, express agent, stage agent, and hotel keeper in the
town of McAulyville, put me up for that night, and although the room
which I occupied was shared by no less than five other individuals, he
nevertheless most kindly provided me with a bed to myself. I can't say
that I enjoyed the diggings very much. A person lately returned from Fort
Garry detailed his experiences of that place and his interview with the
President at some length. A large band of the Sioux Indians was ready to
support the Dictator against all comers, and a vigilant watch was
maintained upon the Pembina frontier for the purpose of excluding
strangers who might attempt to enter from the United States; and
altogether M. Riel was as securely established in Fort Garry as if there
had not existed a red-coat in the universe. As for the Expedition, its
failure was looked upon as a foregone conclusion; nothing had been heard
of it excepting a single rumour, and that was one of disaster. An Indian
coming from beyond Fort Francis, somewhere in the wilderness north of
Lake Superior, had brought tidings to the Lake of the Woods, that forty
Canadian soldiers had already been lost in one of the boiling rapids of
the route. "Not a man will get through!" was the general verdict of
society, as that body was represented at Mr. Nolan's hotel, and, truth'
to say, society seemed elated at its verdict. All this, told to a roomful
of Americans, had no very exhilarating effect upon me as I sat, unknown
and unnoticed, on my portmanteau, a stranger to every one. When our luck
seems at its lowest there is only one thing to be done, and that is to go
on and try again. Things certainly looked badly, obstacles grew bigger as
I got nearer to them--but that is a way they have, and they never grow
smaller merely by being looked at; so I laid my plans for rapid
movement. There was no horse or conveyance of any kind to be had from
Abercrombie; but I discovered in the course of questions that the captain
of the "International" steamboat on the Red River had gone to St. Paul a
week before, and was expected to return to Abercrombie by the next stage,
two days from this time; he had left a horse and Red River cart at
Abercrombie, and it was his intention to start with this horse and cart
for his steamboat immediately upon his arrival by stage from St. Paul.
Now the boat "International" was lying at a part of the Red River known
as Frog Point, distant by land 100 miles north from Abercrombie, and as I
had no means of getting over this 100 miles, except through the agency of
this horse and cart of the captain's, it became a question of the very
greatest importance to secure a place in it, for, be it understood, that
a Red River cart is a very limited conveyance, and a Red River horse, as
we shall hereafter know, an animal capable of wonders, but not of
impossibilities. To pen a brief letter to the captain asking for
conveyance in his cart to Frog Point, and to despatch it-by the stage
back towards St. Cloud, was the work of the following morning, and as two
days had to elapse before the return stage could bring the captain, I set
out to pass that time in a solitary house in the centre of the
Breckenridge Prairie, ten miles back on the stage-road towards St. Cloud.
This move withdrew me from the society of Fort Abercrombie, which for
many reasons was a matter for congratulation, and put me in a position to
intercept the captain on his way to Abercrombie. So-on the 13th of July I
left Nolan's hotel, and, with dog and gun, arrived at the solitary house
which was situated not very far from the junction of the Ottertail and
Bois-des-Sioux River on the Minnesota shore, a small, rough settler's
log-hut which stood out upon the level sea of grass and was visible miles
and miles before one reached it. Here had rested one of those unquiet
birds whose flight is ever westward, building himself a rude nest of such
material as the oak-wooded "bays" of the Red River afforded, and
multiplying--in spite of much opposition to the contrary. His eldest had
been struck dead in his house only a few months before by the
thunderbolt, which so frequently hurls destruction upon the valley of the
Red River. The settler had seen many lands since his old home in Cavan
had been left behind, and but for his name it would have been difficult
to tell his Irish nationality. He had wandered up to Red River Settlement
and wandered back again, had squatted in Iowa, and finally, like some
bird which long wheels in circles ere it settles upon the earth, had
pitched his tent on the Red River.

The Red River--let us trace it while we wait the coming captain who is to
navigate us down its tortuous channel. Close to the Lake Ithaska, in
which the great river Mississippi takes its rise, there is a small sheet
of water known as Elbow Lake. Here, at an elevation of 1689 feet above
the sea level, nine feet higher than the source of the Mississippi, the
Red River has its birth. It is curious that the primary direction of both
rivers should be in courses diametrically opposite to their afterlines;
the Mississippi first running to the north, and the Red River first
bending towards the south; in fact, it is only when it gets down here,
near the Breckenridge Prairies, that it finally determines to seek a
northern outlet to the ocean. Meeting the current of the Bois-des-Sioux,
which has its source in Lac Travers, in which the Minnesota River, a
tributary of the Mississippi, also takes its rise, the Red River hurries
on into the level prairie and soon commences its immense windings. This
Lac Travers discharges in wet seasons north and south, and is the only
sheet of water on the Continent which sheds its waters into the tropics
of the Gulf of Mexico and into the polar ocean of the Hudson Bay. In
former times the whole system of rivers bore the name of the great Dakota
nation the Sioux River and the title of Red River was only borne by that
portion of the stream which flows from Red Lake to the forks of the
Assineboine. Now, however, the whole stream, from its source in Elbow
Lake to its estuary in Lake Winnipeg fully 900 miles by water, is called
the Red River: people say that the name is derived from a bloody Indian
battle which once took place upon its banks, tinging the waters with
crimson dye. It certainly cannot be called red from the hue of the water,
which is of a dirty-white colour. Flowing towards the north with
innumerable twists and sudden turnings, the Red River divides the State
of Minnesota, which it has upon its right, from the great territory of
Dakota, receiving from each side many tributary streams which take their
source in the Leaf Hills of Minnesota and in the Coteau of the Missouri.
Its tributaries from the east flow through dense forests, those from the
west wind through the vast sandy wastes of the Dakota Prairie, where
trees are almost unknown. The plain through which Red River flows is
fertile beyond description. At a little distance it looks one vast level
plain through which the windings of the river are marked by a dark line
of woods fringing the whole length of the stream--each tributary has also
its line of forest--a line visible many miles away over the great sea of
grass. As one travels on, there first rise above the prairie the summits
of the trees; these gradually'! grow larger, until finally, after many
hours, the river is reached. Nothing else breaks the uniform level.
Standing upon the ground the eye ranges over many miles of grass,
standing on a waggon, one doubles the area of vision, and to look over
the plains from an elevation of twelve feet above the earth is to survey
at a glance a space so vast that distance alone seems to bound its
limits. The effect of sunset over these oceans of verdure is very
beautiful; a thousand hues spread themselves upon the grassy plains; a
thousand tints of gold are cast along the heavens, and the two oceans of
the sky and of the earth intermingle in one great blaze of glory at the
very gates of the setting sun. But to speak of sunsets now is only to
anticipate. Here at the Red River we are only at the threshold of the
sunset, its true home yet lies many days journey to the west: there,
where the long shadows of the vast herds of bison trail slowly over the
immense plains, huge and dark against the golden west; there, where the
red man still sees in the glory of the setting sun the realization of his
dream of heaven.

Shooting the prairie plover, which were numerous around the solitary
shanty, gossipping with Mr. Connelly on Western life and Red River
experiences--I passed the long July day until evening came to a close.
Then came the time of the mosquito; he swarmed around the shanty, he came
out from blade of grass and up from river sedge, from the wooded bay and
the dusky prairie, in clouds and clouds, until the air hummed with his
presence. My host "made a smoke," and the cattle came close around and
stood into the very fire itself, scorching their hides in attempting to
escape the stings of their ruthless tormentors. My friend's house was not
a large one, but he managed to make me a shake-down on the loft overhead,
and to it he led the way. To live in a country infested by mosquitoes
ought to insure to a person the possession of health, wisdom, and riches,
for assuredly I know of nothing so conducive to early turning in and
early turning out as that most pitiless pest. On the present occasion I
had not long turned in before I became aware of the presence of at least
two other persons within the limits of the little loft, for only a few
feet distant soft whispers became fintly audible. Listening attentively,
I gathered the following dialogue:

"Do you think he has got it about him?"

"Maybe he has," replied the first speaker with the voice of a woman.

"Are you shure he has it at all at all?"

"Didn't I see it in his own hand?"

Here was a fearful position! The dark loft, the lonely shanty miles away
from any other habitation, the mysterious allusions to the possession of
property, all naturally combined to raise the most dreadful suspicions in
the mind of the solitary traveller. Strange to say, this conversation had
not the terrible effect upon me which might be supposed. It was evident
that my old friends, father and mother of Mrs. C----, occupied the loft in
company with me, and the mention of that most suggestive word,
"crathure," was sufficient to neutralize all suspicions connected with
the lonely surroundings of the place. It was, in fact, a drop of that
much-desired "crathure" that the old couple were so anxious to obtain.

About three o'clock on the afternoon of Sunday the 17th July I left the
house of Mr. Connelly, and journeyed back to Abercrombie in the stage
waggon from St. Cloud. I had as a fellow-passenger the captain of the
"International" steamboat, whose acquaintance was quickly made. He had
received my letter at Pomme-de-Terre, and most kindly offered his pony
and cart for our joint conveyance to George town that evening; so, having
waited only long enough at Abercrombie to satisfy hunger and get ready
the Red River cart, we left Mr. Nolan's door some little time before
sunset, and turning north along the river held our way towards
Georgetown. The evening was beautifully fine and clear; the plug trotted
steadily on, and darkness soon wrapped its mantle around the prairie. My
new acquaintance had many questions to ask and much information to
impart, and although a Red River cart is not the easiest mode of
conveyance to one who sits amidships between the wheels, still when I
looked to the northern skies and saw the old pointers marking our course
almost due north, and thought that at last I was launched fair on a road
whose termination was the goal for which I had longed so earnestly, I
little recked the rough jolting of the wheels whose revolutions brought
me closer to my journey's end. Shortly after leaving Abercrombie we
passed a small creek in whose leaves and stagnant waters mosquitoes were
numerous.

"If the mosquitoes let us travel," said my companion, as we emerged upon
the prairie again, "we should reach Georgetown to breakfast."

"If the mosquitoes let us travel?" thought I. "Surely he must be
joking!"

I little knew then the significance of the captain's words. I thought
that my experiences of mosquitoes in Indian jungles and Irrawaddy swamps,
to say nothing of my recent wanderings by Mississippi forests, had taught
me something about these pests; but I was doomed to learn a lesson that
night and the following which will cause me never to doubt the
possibility of anything, no matter how formidable or how unlikely it may
appear, connected with mosquitoes. It was about ten o'clock at night when
there rose close to the south-west a small dark cloud scarcely visible
above the horizon. The wind, which was very light, was blowing from the
north-east; so when my attention had been called to the speck of cloud by
my companion I naturally concluded that it could in no way concern us,
but in this I was grievously mistaken. In a very short space of time the
little cloud grew bigger, the wind died away altogether, and the stars
began to look mistily from a sky no longer blue. Every now and again my
companion looked towards this increasing cloud, and each time his opinion
seemed to be less favourable. But another change also occurred of a
character altogether different. There came upon us, brought apparently by
the cloud, dense swarms of mosquitoes, humming and buzzing along with us
as we journeyed on, and covering our faces and heads with their sharp
stinging bites. They seemed to come with us, after us, and against us,
from above and from below, in volumes that ever increased. It soon began
to dawn upon me that this might mean something akin to the "mosquitoes
allowing us to travel," of which my friend had spoken some three hours
earlier. Meantime the cloud had increased to large proportions; it was no
longer in the south-west; it occupied the whole west, and was moving on
towards the north. Presently, from out of the dark heavens, streamed
liquid fire, and long peals of thunder rolled far away over the gloomy
prairies. So sudden appeared the change that one could scarce realize
that only a little while before the stars had been shining so brightly
upon the ocean of grass. At length the bright flashes came nearer and
nearer, the thunder rolled louder and louder, and the mosquitoes seemed
to have made up their minds that to achieve the maximum of torture in the
minimum of time was the sole end and aim of their existence. The
captain's pony showed many signs of agony; my dog howled with pain, and
rolled himself amongst the baggage in useless writhings.

"I thought it would come to this," said the captain. "We must unhitch
and lie down."

It was now midnight. To loose the horse from the shafts, to put the
oil-cloth over the cart, and to creep underneath the wheels did-not take
my friend long. I followed his movements, crept in and drew a blanket over
my head. Then came the crash; the fire seemed to pour out of the clouds.
It was impossible to keep the blanket on, so raising it every now and
again I. looked out from between the spokes of the wheel. During three
hours the lightning seemed to run like a river of flame out of the
clouds. Sometimes a stream would descend, then, dividing into two
branches, would pour down on the prairie two distinct channels of fire.
The thunder rang sharply, as though the metallic clash of steel was about
it, and the rain descended in torrents upon the level prairies. At about
three o'clock in the morning the storm seemed to lull a little. My
companion crept out from underneath the cart; I followed. The plug, who
had managed to improve the occasion by stuffing himself with grass, was
soon in the shafts again, and just as dawn began to streak the dense
low-lying clouds towards the east we were once more in motion. Still for
a couple of hours more the rain came down in drenching torrents and the
lightning flashed with angry fury over the long corn-like grass beaten
flat by the rain-torrent. What a dreary prospect lay stretched around us
when the light grew strong enough to show it! rain and cloud lying low
upon the dank prairie.

Soaked through and through, cold, shivering, and sleepy, glad indeed was
I when a house appeared in view and we drew up at the door of a shanty
for Food and fire. The house belonged to a Prussian subject of the name
of Probsfeld, a terribly self-opinionated North German, with all the
bumptious proclivities of that thriving nation most fully developed.'
Herr Probsfeld appeared to be a man who regretted that men in general
should be persons of a very inferior order of intellect, but who accepted
the fact as a thing not to be avoided under the existing arrangements of
limitation regarding Prussia in general and Probsfelds in particular.
While the Herr was thus engaged in illuminating our minds, the Frau was
much more agreeably employed in preparing something for our bodily
comfort. I noticed with pleasure that there appeared some hope for the
future of the human race, in the fact that the generation of the
Probsfelds seemed to be progressing satisfactorily. Many youthful
Probsfelds were visible around, and matters appeared to promise a
continuation of the line, so that the State of Minnesota and that portion
of Dakota lying adjacent to it may still look confidently to the future.
It is more than probable that Herr Probsfeld realized the fact, that just
at that moment, when the sun was breaking out through the eastern clouds
over the distant outline of the Leaf Hills, 700,000 of his countrymen
were moving hastily toward the French frontier for the special
furtherance of those ideas so dear to his mind-it is most probable, I
say, that his self-laudation and cock-like conceit would have been in no
ways lessened.

Our arrival at Georgetown had been delayed by the night storm on the
prairie, and it was midday on the 18th when we reached the Hudson Bay
Company Post which stood at the confluence of the Buffalo and Red
Rivers. Food and fresh horses were all we required, and after these
requisites had been obtained the journey was prosecuted with renewed
vigour. Forty miles had yet to be traversed before the point at which
the Steamboat lay could be reached, and for that distance the track ran
on the left or Dakota side of the Red River. As we journeyed along the
Dakota prairies the last hour of daylight overtook us, bringing with it
a Scene of magical beauty. The sun resting on the rim of the prairie
cast over the vast expanse of grass a flood of light. On the east lay
the darker green of the trees of the Red River. The whole western sky
was full of wild-looking thunder-clouds, through which the rays of
sunlight shot upward in great trembling shafts of glory. Being on
horseback and alone, for my companion had trotted on in his waggon, I
had time to watch and note this brilliant spectacle; but as soon as the
sun had dipped beneath the sea of verdure an ominous sound caused me
to gallop on with increasing haste. The pony seemed to know the
significance of that sound much better than its rider. He no longer
lagged, nor needed the spur or whip to urge him to faster exertion, for
darker and denser than on the previous night there rose around us vast
numbers of mosquitoes--choking masses of biting insects, no mere cloud
thicker and denser in one place than in another, but one huge wall of
never-ending insects filling nostrils, ears, and eyes. Where they came
from I cannot tell; the prairie seemed too small to hold them; the air
too limited to yield them space. I had seen many vast accumulations of
insect life in lands old and new, but never any thing that approached to
this mountain of mosquitoes on the prairies of Dakota. To say that they
covered the coat of the horse I rode would be to give but a faint idea
of their numbers; they were literally six or eight deep upon his skin,
and with a single sweep of the hand one could crush myriads from his
neck. Their hum seemed to be in all things around. To ride for it was
the sole resource. Darkness came quickly down, but the track knew no
turn, and for seven miles I kept the pony at a gallop; my face, neck,
and hands cut and bleeding.

At last in the gloom I saw, down in what appeared to be the bottom of a
valley, a long white wooden building, with lights showing out through
the windows. Riding quickly down this valley we reached, followed by
hosts of winged pursuers, the edge of some water lying amidst
tree-covered banks-the water was the Red River, and the white wooden
building the steamboat "International."

Now one word about mosquitoes in the valley of the Red River. People will
be inclined to say, "We know well what a mosquito is--very troublesome
and annoying, no doubt, but you needn't make so much of what every one
understands." People reading what I have written about this insect will
probably say this. I would have said so myself before the occurrences of
the last two nights, but I will never say so again, nor perhaps will my
readers when they have read the following: It is no unusual event during
a wet summer in that portion of Minnesota and Dakota to which I refer for
oxen and horses to perish from the bites of mosquitoes. An exposure of a
very few hours duration is sufficient to cause death to these animals.
It is said, too, that not many years ago the Sioux were in the habit of
sometimes killing their captives by exposing them at night to the attacks
of the mosquitoes; and any person who has experienced the full intensity
of a mosquito night along the American portion of the Red River will not
have any difficulty in realizing how short a period would be necessary to
cause death.

Our arrival at the "International" was the cause of no small amount of
discomfort to the persons already on board that vessel. It took us but
little time to rush over the gangway and seek safety from our pursuers
within the precincts of the steamboat: but they were not to be baffled
easily; they came in after us in millions; like Bishop Haddo's rats, they
came "in at the windows and in at the doors," until in a very short space
of time the interior of the boat became perfectly black with insects.
Attracted by the light they flocked into the saloon, covering walls and
ceiling in one dark mass. We attempted supper, but had to give it up.
They got into the coffee, they stuck fast in the soft, melting butter,
until at length, feverish, bitten, bleeding, and hungry, I sought refuge
beneath the gauze curtains in my cabin, and fell asleep from sheer
exhaustion.

And in truth there was reason enough for sleep independently of
mosquitoes bites. By dint of hard travel we had accomplished 104 miles
in twenty-seven hours. The midnight storm had lost us three hours and
added in no small degree to discomfort. Mosquitoes had certainly caused
but little thought to be bestowed upon fatigue during the last two hours;
but I much doubt if the spur-goaded horse, when he stretches himself at
night to rest his weary limbs, feels the less tired because the miles
flew behind him all unheeded under the influence of the spur-rowel. When
morning broke we were in motion. The air was fresh and cool; not a
mosquito was visible. The green banks of Red River looked pleasant to the
eye as the "International" puffed along between them, rolling the
tranquil water before her in a great muddy wave, which broke amidst the
red and grey willows on the shore. Now and then the eye caught glimpses
of the prairies through the skirting of oak woods on the left, but to the
right there lay an unbroken line of forest fringing deeply the Minnesota
shore. The "International" was a curious craft; she measured about 130
feet in length, drew only two feet of water, and was propelled by an
enormous wheel placed over her stern. Eight summers of varied success and
as many winters of total inaction had told heavily against her river
worthiness; the sun had cracked her roof and sides, the rigour of the
Winnipeg winter left its trace on bows and hull. Her engines were a
perfect marvel of patchwork--pieces of rope seemed twisted around crank
and shaft, mud was laid thickly on boiler and pipes, little jets and
spurts of steam had a disagreeable way of coming out from places not
supposed to be capable of such outpourings. Her capacity for going on
fire seemed to be very great; each gust of wind sent showers of sparks
from the furnaces flying along the lower deck, the charred beams of which
attested the frequency of the occurrence. Alarmed at the prospect of
seeing my conveyance wrapped in flames, I shouted vigorously for
assistance, and will long remember the look of surprise and pity with
which the native regarded me as he leisurely approached with the
water-bucket and cast its contents along the smoking deck.

I have already mentioned the tortuous course which the Red River has
wound for itself through these level northern prairies. The windings of
the river more than double the length of its general direction, and the
turns are so sharp that after steaming a mile the traveller will often
arrive at a spot not one hundred yards distant from where he started.

Steaming thus for one day and one night down the Red River of the North,
enjoying no variation of scene or change of prospect, but nevertheless
enjoying beyond expression a profound sense of mingled rest and
progression, I reached at eight o'clock on the morning of the-20th of
July the frontier post of Pembina.

And here, at the verge of my destination, on the boundary of the Red
River Settlement, although making but short delay myself, I must ask my
readers to pause awhile and to go back through long years into earlier
times. For it would ill suit the purpose of writer or of reader if the
latter were to be thus hastily introduced to the isolated colony of
Assineboine without any preliminary-acquaintance with its history or its
inhabitants.





CHAPTER EIGHT.

Retrospective--The North-west Passage--The Bay of Hudson--Rival
Claims--The Old French Fur Trade--The North-west Company--How the
Half-breeds came--The Highlanders defeated-Progress--Old Feuds.

WE who have seen in our times the solution of the long-hidden secret
worked out amidst the icy solitudes of the Polar Seas cannot realize the
excitement which for nigh 400 years vexed the minds of European kings and
peoples--how they thought and toiled over this northern passage to wild
realms of Cathay and Hindostan--how from every port, from the Adriatic to
the Baltic, ships had sailed out in quest of this ocean strait, to find
in succession portions of the great world which Columbus had given to the
human race.

Adventurous spirits were these early navigators who thus fearlessly
entered the great unknown oceans of the North in craft scarce larger
than canal-boats. And how long and how tenaciously did they hold that
some passage must exist by which the Indies could be reached! Not a
creek, not a bay, but seemed to promise the long-sought-for opening to
the Pacific.

Hudson and Frobisher, Fox, Baffin, Davis, and James, how little thought
they of that vast continent whose presence was but an obstacle in the
path of their discovery! Hudson had long perished in the ocean which
bears his name before it was known to be a cul-de-sac. Two hundred years
had passed away from the time of Columbus ere his dream of an open sea to
the city of Quinsay in Cathay had ceased to find believers. This immense
inlet of Hudson Bay must lead to the Western Ocean. So, at least, thought
a host of bold navigators who steered their way through fog and ice into
the great Sea of Hudson, giving those names to strait and bay and island,
which we read in our school-days upon great wall-hung maps and never
think or care about again. Nor were these anticipations of reaching the
East held only by the sailors.

La Salle, when he fitted out his expeditions from the Island of Montreal
for the West, named his point of departure La Chine, so certain was he
that his canoes would eventually reach Cathay. And La Chine still exists
to attest his object. But those who went on into the great continent,
reaching the shores of vast lakes and the banks of mighty rivers, learnt
another and a truer story. They saw these rivers flowing with vast
volumes of water from the north-west; and, standing on the brink of their
unknown waves, they rightly judged that such rolling volumes of water
must have their sources far away in distant mountain ranges. Well might
the great heart of De Soto sink within him when, after long months of
arduous toil through swamp and forest, he stood at last on the low shores
of the Mississippi and beheld in thought the enormous space which lay
between him and the spot where such a river had its birth.

The East--it was always the East. Columbus had said the world was not so
large as the common herd believed it, and yet when he had increased it by
a continent he tried to make it smaller than it really was. So fixed were
men's minds upon the East, that it was long before they would think of
turning to account the discoveries of those early navigators. But in time
there came to the markets of Europe the products of the New World. The
gold and the silver of Mexico and the rich sables of the frozen North
found their way into the marts of Western Europe. And while Drake
plundered galleons from the Spanish Main, England and France commenced
their career of rivalry for the possession of that trade in furs and
peltries which had its sources round the icy shores of the Bay of Hudson.
It was reserved however for the fiery Prince Rupert to carry into effect
the idea of opening up the North-west. Through the ocean of Hudson Bay.

Somewhere about 200 years ago a ship sailed away from England bearing in
it a company of adventurers sent out to form a colony upon the southern
shores of James's Bay. These men named the new land after the Prince who
sent them forth, and were the pioneers of that "Hon. Company of
Adventurers from England trading into Hudson Bay."

More than forty years previous to the date of the charter by which
Charles II. conferred the territory of Rupert's Land upon the London
company, a similar grant had been made by the French monarch, Louis
XIII, to "La Compagnie de la Nouvelle France." Thus there had arisen
rival claims to the possession of this sterile region, and although
treaties had at various times attempted to rectify boundaries or to
rearrange watersheds, the question of the right of Canada or of the
Company to hold a portion of the vast territory draining into Hudson Bay
had never been legally solved.

For some eighty years after this settlement on James's Bay, the
Compan

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