Canada—Embarkation of the Prince and Suite—Voyage to Newfoundland—Reception—Departure for Halifax—Preparations in the Town—Excitement in Halifax—Arrival—Indians—Procession through the Town—The Weather—Festivities: The Ball—Illuminations—Regatta—Visit to An Indian Encampment—Departure—Visit to Windsor.

The tour of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales through Canada and the United States was the first great progress ever made in the West by any member of the English Royal family. If in future times for the next century to come one should be undertaken by every succeeding heir apparent to the British Crown, none is ever likely to meet with a more remarkable reception than that accorded to Albert Edward, in 1860. History, I believe, affords no records of any royal progress extending over such a vast territory, and continued through so long a period of time where the reception was, from first to last, on such a lavish scale of splendour and hospitality, and distinguished B 0020 2 by such boundless enthusiasm of loyalty. Yet this remarkable progress, destined I believe to be productive of the most important results—arising not more from the extended knowledge which the English public has gained of the magnitude and resources of their great Canadian empire, than from witnessing the kind and hearty feeling of friendship evinced towards their country by all classes of Americans, at the outset, excited but little notice in England. The general public only knew that His Royal Highness was departing on a kind of state tour to the British North American provinces and Canada—colonies about which, as a rule, they knew still less. Some curiosity was felt as to whether he would pass through the States; and of course an interest evinced as to kind of reception he would get there. But beyond this there seemed at first very little feeling in the matter. The prince of Wales had been through Italy, Germany, France, and Spain without attracting any extraordinary amount of attention at home or abroad. In England the public seemed to imagine that the visit to Canada, though of course of a more important and festive kind, would nevertheless, very much resemble his previous travels on the continent, almost overlooking the fact that His Highness was going to visit, and for a time reside among a people as truly and a sterlingly English as any yeoman from Land's End to John o' Groats. Thus at the time the whole length and breadth of Canada and the North American provinces were steeped in festive preparations and making ready for grand displays of every sort and on every scale of magnitude, it was not even known at home to where the tour of His Royal Highness would really extend. While the native tribes were mustering on Lake Huron to do honour to the son of “their Great Mother;” while the back-woods' tracks 0021 3 round Ottawa were being made or repaired for him to pass along on his winding route to all the chief towns in Upper Canada, almost the most that had transpired in England was, that he was certainly going to Quebec—that he would open the great Victoria Bridge at Montreal—probably visit the President, and not improbably go to New York; the whole visit lasting about a month. In fact, the English public knew very little about the matter at all; and, if I am not mistaken, the first intimation they received of the real extent and importance of the great visit was from the programme of what was to be done in Canada, forwarded to the Times from Quebec.

Some little stir was made by the embarkation of His Royal Highness at Plymouth, and a kindly farewell address was presented to him by the mayor and corporation of that town; but this was almost the only public formality that marked the departure of the Prince of Wales on one of the longest, grandest, and most important tours which royalty has ever undertaken.

The vessels chosen to accompany the Prince and form the royal squadron, were the Hero, 91 guns, Captain Seymour; the Ariadne, 26, Captain Vansittart; and the Flying Fish, 6, Commander Hope. The two first named are the finest and fastest ships in the navy—probably of their class the two finest and fastest ships in the world. The last, though a most beautiful steam sloop to look at, is like all of the same sort, by no means a good one to go, but on the contrary, so slow, that it was necessary to give her a week's start of the other vessels to enable her to arrive at St. John's in time. On board the “Hero” were the Prince, the Duke of Newcastle, Secretary of the Colonies, and state adviser on this tour to His Royal Highness; Earl B 2 0022 4 St. Germains, Lord Steward of Her Majesty's house-hold; and Major-General the Hon. R. Bruce, governor to the Prince. Dr. Ackland, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford, attended as the Prince's physician; Lieutenant-Colonel Grey and Major Teesdale, the equerries to His Royal Highness; and Mr. G. D. Engleheart, the Duke of Newcastle's private secretary, were also of the party on board the “Hero.” The poop cabin on the upper deck, furnished in the very plainest style, and with an ordinary ship's cot swinging in the corner of the sleeping cabin, was for the use of His Royal Highness. The Duke of Newcastle and Earl St. Germains divided the ward room. The other members of the royal party had temporary cabins built for them along the main deck, the greater part of the room in each of which was of course monopolised by a long 32-pounder. A college friend of the Prince, the Hon. C. Ellice, a son of Lord Howard De Walden, went in the Ariadne; Viscount Hinchinbrooke and the Hon. G. Elliot (son of the Earl St. Germains), also friends of the Prince, and who joined and travelled with the royal party in America, preceded the departure of the squadron, and went to New York in the ordinary mail steamer. On the morning of July the 10th the vessels steamed out of Plymouth Sou1nd, and the voyage to America commenced.

On this cruise out there was very little to vary the dull monotony, which made Johnson liken a sea voyage to being in prison, with the chance of being drowned. When off Rame Head, the “Hero” fell in with the Channel fleet, sailing along in two splendid lines. The whole squadron saluted, cheered, and then wore round in fine style, and made a formidable escort to the “Hero” till clear of the coast of Ireland, and well out into the broad Atlantic. The flag-ship then signalled 0023 5 a farewell, again the whole fleet poured forth its thundering homage to the royal standard, and tacking down Channel, were soon out of sight below the horizon.

They were lost sight of with almost a feeling of regret, for somehow or other they were generally supposed to have taken the fine weather with them. Certainly, if the fleet had not some other vessels had, for most assuredly none remained with the royal squadron. From that time out there was nothing but bad weather. It was not downright heavy weather of the violent kind, which forces one to take an interest in the barometer, and make furtive inquiries as to the ship being strong and a good sea-boat—the kind of weather which makes all food but biscuit or sea-pie impossible to be got. Fortunately it was not of this sort (though if it had been it would not have mattered much to His Royal Highness, who is as good a sailor as his brother Alfred), but still the vagaries of a line-of-battle ship in a gale in the Atlantic are rather alarming to witness for the first time. It was merely then unfavourable weather, and, short of a hurricane, nothing worse for discomfort is to be met at sea than what is encountered under this mild general term. There was drizzle and rain on deck, damp and discomfort below, with just sufficient head sea to impede progress, but, apparently, by no means enough to justify the breakage that was exterminating crockery on all sides. Fortunately, not only His Royal Highness but all the suite were exempt from that nauseous leveller, sea-sickness, so in spite of all the time was passed tolerably well, sometimes in speculations as to when there was likely to be a fair wind, or else in making “chaffing” signals to the “Ariadne.” Then, cabin number 7 invited cabins number 5 and 3 to a quiet cigar, when cabins 4 and 6 were sure to drop 0024 6 in, and at a later hour cabins 1, 2, and 9, and the “festivities were prolonged to an advanced hour.” On the seventh day out the breeze became more prononcé and there was every prospect of a longer cruise, and of the good citizens of the British provinces being kept waiting for the arrival of their long expected visitor till their arches were faded and their enthusiasm down to zero. It blew hard, with a heavy swell, and the suite were speculating on a rough night, when the attention of all was arrested by that most startling of all sounds at sea, the cry of a “man overboard.” In almost as little time as it takes to tell it, both life-buoys were let go, and the “Hero” rounded to. The poor fellow, who had jumped into the water in a fit of temporary insanity, as it was supposed, could be seen astern struggling amid the surges. With some risk and difficulty a boat was manned and lowered, and pulled away with desperate strokes, to save the wretched man. So quick was all that could be done accomplished that it seemed almost certain the poor fellow would be saved, when suddenly, as the boat was almost alongside him, he disappeared and was seen no more. This most painful incident—the only incident of the voyage—by no means made the cruise more cheerful, and the dull, wet, unfavourable weather seemed duller and more gloomy than ever. There was nothing, in fact, to enliven it but hazy conjectures as to when they would arrive, with now and then a small discussion as to whether or not the “Ariadne” would part company in the next fog. But of this latter there was little fear, for wind, rain, fog, or storm, the splendid consort of the “Hero” never parted once from her stern but for a few short hours, when in a thicker fog than ever off the coast of Newfoundland. Thus day by day was passed, and the Prince's barometrical ill luck, which followed him 0025 7 almost throughout the tour, became more and more evident with each foul wind, dead calm, head sea, or denser fog. With such weather, therefore, every one was not a little pleased to hear on the night of the 22nd of July that the “Hero” was close upon the shores of Newfoundland. The following morning found the squadron off the harbour of St. John's, and before breakfast each vessel was quietly moored abreast of the wide, straggling, quaint colonial capital.

Newfoundland, though in appearance a poor and small colony, is not without its own peculiar importance and one certainly which is as widely known by name and fame as any British possession in the whole world. There is, however, no tract of country of the same size belonging to the English crown, except perhaps Australia, the internal natural resources of which are so little explored. Of the interior of Newfoundland almost nothing has been discovered beyond that it is supposed, on general rumour, to contain many lakes, to be full of swamps and bogs, with isolated hills thinly covered with trees of small growth. In fact, the whole population of the island live in sight of the sea, from which, of course, they seldom move, as from its waves are drawn their only means for commerce and subsistence. Out of a population numbering more than 110,000 beings, there are scarcely 3000 who are not directly or indirectly connected with, or dependant on, the fisheries. Among a people so employed, of course very little attention is ever bestowed upon the interior of the island, which to them appears, not only by rumour but from a commercial point of view and as having no fisheries, to be a mere waste. Almost the very first effort which was undertaken, not to explore, but merely to cross Newfoundland, was to survey a route in connection with the Atlantic Telegraph. The result 0026 8 of this attempt, which was successful, though during it very many of the Indians who accompanied Mr. Gisborne died of privation and fatigue, showed that for once the wild and sterile nature of an almost unknown interior had not been exaggerated. The island beyond the actual coast line was found to be a mere swamp—cold, raw, utterly wild, and almost destitute of either animals or trees.

On such an island there was, of course, very little for the royal party to see, except in the actual town of St. John's, which had made an amount of preparations in the way of arches and evergreens, such as no one had expected. This festive exhibition would no doubt have been worth seeing, but for the rain, which, as throughout the voyage, accompanied His Royal Highness to this his first landing-place, and poured in such torrents that for some hours the disembarkation had to be postponed. Of what took place at this visit to St. John's there is really so little to record that, but as a link in the narrative of the progress, it might almost be omitted entirely. A few things, however, are worthy of mention, one being that the cod fish caught at Newfoundland, when fresh, is as tasteless as water and as unpalatable as cotton wool. It is only when salted (the only condition in which it is exported) that it becomes even tolerably good; and, fortunately for the value of the fisheries, the cod of Newfoundland bears salting better than any other species known. Another fact discovered during the royal visit demands especial notice, as it was subsequently much commented on, and formed, if anything could form, a sort of foundation for the monstrous superstructure of false reports which were designedly circulated among the Orangemen of Upper Canada. The Protestants and Roman Catholics of Newfoundland are pretty equal in number, and 0027 9 to their credit be it said, the ministers of both creeds live on terms of the most perfect amity and friendship without interferences or jealousies of any kind. So perfect is this concord that when, after the landing, each body presented an address to His Royal Highness, both at once consented to be included in a joint-reply—perhaps the first instance of the kind on record. This reply the Prince delivered to them as follows:—

“I receive with deep gratification the Address which you have presented to me.

“The anxiety which has ever been manifested by the Queen for the promotion of all that concerns the religious, moral, and social condition of her people is well known to you. She will, therefore, rejoice to hear that your labours in this island have been crowned with so large a measure of success, and that good order and obedience to the laws characterise the population among whom, by the Divine will, your lot has been cast.

“That the inhabitants of this colony may long live in the possession of an earnest faith, and, at the same time, in religious peace and harmony, shall be my constant prayer.

“Personally, I thank you for your congratulations upon my safe arrival, and for your good wishes.”

After this and many other addresses, from various corporations and societies, * His Royal Highness, having nothing else either to do or see, made a private visit to inspect the really fine interior of the Protestant cathedral. On quitting this building he was requested to

* There were upwards of 380 addresses presented to His Royal Highness during the whole tour, and more than 100 of these were honoured with replies. The whole, if printed, would form a thicker volume than that now before the reader, and even the principal ones, which have since been reprinted by the Colonial Office, make a very fair-sized book. Of course, under such circumstances, it would be mere waste of the reader's time and patience to give even the Prince's answers, except in those cases where subsequent events connected with the tour showed them to have more than a local importance. Such was the address to the united clergy of Newfoundland.

This was the only Roman Catholic place of worship the Prince entered during the whole tour from beginning to end.

After these visits and the drive round the town, the Prince proceeded to the residence of Sir Alexander Bannerman, held a short levee, and afterwards, at a banquet, met some of the most distinguished citizens of St. John's. Later in the evening there was a ball, which began the Prince's long series of triumphs at these fêtes, for his grace, affability, and kind good nature won the hearts of all.

It was intended to amuse the populace with fireworks on this evening, but the rain had been so incessant that very few attended to witness the display. This was fortunate, as, few as were the people present, there were fewer still of the pyrotechnics that could be got to light by any means, so that on the whole the intended exhibition was rather a decided failure than otherwise.

On the morning following the ball and projected outdoor entertainment, the inhabitants of Newfoundland presented the Prince with one of the largest and noblest looking specimens of the breed of dogs for which the island is famed all over the world. This 0029 11 magnificent brute, though still very young, was quite as large as an ordinary donkey, and, like all pure Newfoundland dogs, a deep jet black. With him also was presented a superb silver collar and chain, the former enriched with elaborate chasings, and having between the arms of the colony and the Prince of Wales, a short but appropriate inscription to His Highness. The dog had received the name of “Avalon,” after the first colony established in the island by Lord Baltimore, in 1623. The Prince, however, proposed calling the animal by the name of the great discoverer of Newfoundland, Cabot, and this new title the splendid brute soon became accustomed to on board the “Hero.” The size, courage, strength, and perfect docility of Cabot, of course made him an universal favourite among the officers of the ship.

It was soon found, however, that his daring and love for the water was of such an absorbing nature as was likely to terminate his career abruptly, unless closely watched while on board the flagship. The first day he was let loose for a run on the main deck, to the astonishment of every one, the instant he caught sight of the sea, he made one bound clear through a port, down into the water, and of course a boat had to be lowered to pick Master Cabot up again. On a second occasion, when let loose, his love of swimming again overpowered all fear of consequences, and Cabot was overboard in the twinkling of an eye, frisking and enjoying himself among the heavy waves with as much delight as if he was born there.

One or two other little escapades of the same daring kind proved beyond a doubt that Cabot was not “fit to be at large” when in sight of the sea. The higher the waves the more anxious and determined he seemed to plunge among them. In sight or out of sight of land 0030 12 made no manner of difference to him, and it was therefore feared he would go overboard some day when the sea might be so wild that it would be dangerous to lower a boat for his rescue and recapture. Therefore Cabot was kept chained up while at sea, rambling about a dog's house large enough to accommodate a small family.

On the Saturday following the ball the royal squadron quitted Newfoundland and proceeded under easy steam for Halifax. For such a cruise there was plenty of time and to spare, before the hour fixed for the arrival at the capital of Nova Scotia. On Sunday afternoon, therefore, the ships turned aside into the harbour of Sydney, the chief town of Cape Breton Island. Here His Royal Highness landed quietly, and took a short drive round the small though very clean and pretty streets of the capital. It is almost needless to say what was the delight of the inhabitants, who were not the less excited by the honour from the fact of its being totally unexpected. A very thick fog set in soon after the royal party re-embarked from this small province, but the weather was then of small account, for the ships were close to Halifax, where the real state progress through the provinces and Canada was to commence. The squadron accordingly lay to for the night, off the entrance of the harbour, so as to be ready to steam into Halifax at once with the return of daylight.

I had arrived at Halifax some two days or so before the time when His Royal Highness was expected to land at that ancient colony. A telegram had just been received from St. John's, announcing that the Prince of Wales had arrived safely at Newfoundland on the night of the 23rd. But beyond this very meagre amount of information, little if anything was known for 0031 13 certainty, so that all Nova Scotia was in quite a fever of excitement and delightful expectation. The entire population seemed to think of nothing—certainly they talked of nothing, and one might almost fancy dreamt of nothing but the Prince, and how best to receive him. I had arrived at New York in the “Great Eastern,” nearly six weeks before the time when His Royal Highness was expected in the west, and employed the interval in travelling over Canada, as much as I could in so short a period. To my astonishment I found that the whole land from Halifax to Lake Huron resounded only with preparations for the approaching royal visit. It was difficult to find a daily paper which was not full of acrostics on the name of Albert Edward, verses in his praise, anecdotes of his childhood, and predictions of a future glory which should equal that of his royal mother, whose name it must be said is never mentioned either in Canada or the United States, but in such terms of reverence and admiration as every Englishman feels glad and proud to hear. No advertisement ever appeared without some adroit allusion to his expected arrival to rivet the attention of readers to the puff. His name and titles were somehow mysteriously associated by advertisers with cheap pork, old patents, ladies' dresses, sales of timber—everything in fact from a waterproof coat to a barrel of mild cider. You could not sit down to dinner but his portrait loomed dimly from beneath the gravy in the centre of the plate. It was Prince's hats, Prince's boots, Prince's umbrellas, Prince's coats, Prince's cigars, and the whole colony nodded, in fact, with Prince's coronets and feathers. Into all this brilliant turmoil of preparation and display, Halifax appeared to enter with the keenest interest.

The town of Halifax by no means impresses the visitor on his first entrance. As is generally the case, the road from the station passes through some of the poorest thoroughfares and meanest houses. The latter seem in built and tumbling to their decay, with their doors and windows mostly crowded with seedy looking, squalid inhabitants, who lounge about as if they had very little to do, and were too idle to do even that. Here and there this monotony of seediness is relieved by the presence of one or two brightly dressed Indian squaws, with their flat Tartar features half hidden under a fell of long, coarse, unkempt hair; their great splay feet covered over with blanket mocassins, tramping along with their little papooses tied down hand and foot to a flat piece of board, and looking for all the world like some curious preparation of an infant being dried in the sun. Further up, towards what may be called the more fashionable quarter of the town, the streets are better and wider, though always as hilly, as dusty, and as stony as all towns in the provinces seem bound to be. Still the whole place has an air of antiquated sleepiness about it, a kind of wooden imitation of the dulness of old cathedral towns in England, where each ricketty house seems as if it only nudged its neighbour to keep still. The churches and public buildings, however, are, large and handsome; and if the traveller has not first visited the flourishing town of St. John's, New Brunswick—the Liverpool of the British North American Provinces—he is apt on the whole to be very well satisfied with the capital of Nova Scotia. To the lovers of beautifully wild and romantic scenery, all the country round the town offers charms which may really be said to be inexhaustible; and the constant presence of a numerous garrison, with the importance of the place as a naval station, secures to 0033 15 the inhabitants of Halifax more of what is termed “good society” than can be found in any other of the provinces.

The visit of His Royal Highness to St. John's, Newfoundland, of course excited little interest except among the inhabitants of that remote fishing station, as it was at Halifax that the royal progress was understood to commence. Thither, accordingly, visitors flocked from all parts of Canada, and even from many parts of the United States, till Halifax looked not only crowded, but almost busy. The hotels of the town have deservedly always stood extremely low in the estimation of even the least fastidious tourists. The fact of their being then crowded with about four times the number of visitors they ever pretended to accommodate, certainly did very little towards diminishing their evil repute. Beds commanded fancy prices. As a general rule, travelling with beds in one's luggage should be avoided; but here was an exception, and the trouble and expense of dragging one down even to such an “ ultima thule ” as Halifax, would have amply compensated any gentleman at all particular on the score of comfort, and one might almost say cleanliness. All visitors who arrived late found themselves suddenly called upon to solve an impossible problem, as to finding beds, while, to add to the general harmony and peace of mind, every one appeared to have got some one else's luggage, and the wildest confusion prevailed.

The inhabitants of Halifax, however, were very little affected by these contretemps. Their minds were all concentrated on one darling purpose, that of giving the Prince a grand and hearty welcome. For, no matter how much behind St. John's and other towns of our great Canadian colonies in material wealth or 0034 16 commercial future, Nova Scotia is inferior to no colony England has ever owned in warm and generous loyalty to the British throne. Only one impulse therefore seemed to actuate the whole population; all the ordinary duties of life or business seemed to have been laid aside, that the people might devote themselves heart and soul to welcoming their future king with fitting warmth and splendour. Nothing was thought too good for the occasion; and as not only the town, but every street and almost every house worked to the same end, the result may be anticipated, though even those who have seen it cannot easily do it full justice. The Prince's progress all through Canada was one grand state procession from Halifax to Hamilton; but beautiful and impressive as were all his receptions, His Highness saw very little which surpassed his first welcome at Halifax. Very few indeed were the places which even recalled to mind the exquisite street decorations which for the time being transformed the dull old dusty town into a perfect bower. Even a week before the Prince's arrival, scarcely a house but was preparing its illuminations and transparencies, not a street so small as to be without its triumphal arch. In some there were constantly as many as four or five, in others more than ten: a perfect vista of flags and evergreens. All the houses, even to the smallest, were almost covered over with boughs of spruce fir. Which filled the air with its rich sweet smell, while the eye was charmed by resting on its deep, rich, mellow-looking green. While on this subject, I must not omit to mention the most gratifying fact connected with this really beautiful display—a display which would have done credit to the largest and most loyal town in England. Nearly the whole of the expenses of these multitudinous arches and illuminations were defrayed by private subscriptions 0035 17 among the inhabitants. It is speaking quite within the mark when I say that at least fifty beautiful arches were finished before the Prince arrived; and of all these the provincial government only bore the expense of two. Of course, if it had been necessary, the government would cheerfully have met the cost of all; but the loyalty of the Haligonians left no room for improvement in this respect.

The rather meagre doings at Newfoundland had been duly telegraphed to Halifax, and kept the people in a constant state of nervous anxiety lest anything should be shown at the fishing colony which might even bear comparison with what they were preparing. There was, however, but little fear of this, for, by the Saturday before the arrival of His Royal Highness, the town was perfectly concealed under such a mass of triumphal arches, illuminations, decorations, arcades, flags, and banners, that Halifax proper was no longer to be seen, but in its stead was a town of colours, tinsel, wreaths, lamps, flowers, and evergreens, till each street was more like those “bowers of bliss and realms of never ending felicity” in which pantomimes are always expected to terminate, than a part of the dull seaport capital of Nova Scotia. All these preparations were not got through without a terrific din of hammering and sawing; and, though apparently nails enough were driven to have built a city, yet something, of course, remained to do at the last moment. So Sunday was rigidly observed till twelve o'clock, when the hammering was renewed with conscientious accuracy and redoubled vigour, and a lively night was the result to all who lived within hearing (as who did not?) of some monstrous hollow drumming arch. One would have thought from the sound, that each leaf on the structure required a tenpenny nail to secure it. C

Popular belief varied as to the time when the Prince would arrive at Halifax, and any hour between 3 A.m. and noon in turn became the favourite, as the squadron was now rumoured to be in the bay, and the next moment all but missing. Before five o'clock in the morning every one was astir in the town: not that even the most inveterate of sightseers found or expected much to interest him then, but because it was evident that there was no sleeping with the Prince so near at hand. So people turned out, and gossipped and speculated on the great event, till rumours, hopes, and fears got wilder and more vague each moment. The general uncertainty was not diminished when from the flagstaff on the citadel the signal was run up that two steamers were in sight. This at once made it evident to the meanest capacity that these ships could not belong to the royal squadron, when their approach was announced in such an off-hand manner, without any greater marks of reverence or formality than precede the arrival of an ordinary mail. Nevertheless the royal squadron it proved to be, though still so far off that they only seemed at the entrance of the noble harbour of Halifax like dots upon the edge of the horizon.

The discovery made as great a sensation as if it was the most unexpected thing in the world, and not what all Nova Scotia had been waiting and looking forward to for the previous six months. The good news spread from mouth to mouth, and on the instant steamers, yachts, cutters, and row-boats, started out to meet the fleet, though still some nine or ten miles distant. Everybody, however, could not go this way; and those who were left behind consoled themselves for their disappointment by hoisting up still more flags, banners, and lamps, for, though only six in the 0037 19 morning, popular enthusiasm ran as high as ever, and seemed to be rising every minute. It was a little damped, however, by the sudden recollection that the three signal guns which were to be fired from the citadel when the royal squadron was in sight, had not been fired at all. For want of the proper information as to the cause of this, public enthusiasm underwent a slight reaction, and Halifax gradually went in-doors again en masse. A fresh topic for anxiety deepened the temporary despondency very much, as the delicate attention of a sou'-west wind brought up some heavy masses of black clouds, which gradually shrouded the hills and citadel, raining a little now and a little then, and threatening to become entirely obnoxious as the day wore on.

At eight o'clock it poured so hard that even the firing of the three long-looked-for guns which officially proclaimed that the Prince had come at last, had no effect in getting the people out. All the boats which were to meet the squadron, had long gone; and to do Halifax mere justice, its inhabitants appeared much too used to seeing heavy rain to find anything in it sufficiently attractive to bring them out on that occasion. Fortunately there were intervals when it held off, and made believe as if it meant to clear up thoroughly. During one of these, the ships of the royal fleet, the “Hero” leading statelily, but all eclipsed by the perfect form and noble lines of the “Ariadne,” came slowly up the bay. Then from the citadel and forts, from Fort Redoubt, from George's Island. Point Pleasant, and the batteries along the shore, the royal salute began to thunder out in one long solemn roar, which went on multiplying as it reverberated among the hills till the very air seemed to tremble under the heavy sound. Another minute and all the C 2 0038 20 town of Halifax was in the streets, cheering, hurrying, pushing; every one on the move, though none seeming to know where to go, crowding out of houses, where they could see very well, into little alleys where they couldn't see at all, and otherwise conducting themselves in a wild manner, like a loyal and enthusiastic people. The wharves and the windows, the hills, and even the roofs of the houses were crowded—the only points of vantage which were at all respected during the general rush being the tops of the triumphal arches themselves. The dockyard was the great centre of attraction, for there, not only the public were admitted, but there the Prince was to land, and there the chief officers and gentry of the province were to receive His Highness, with Earl Mulgrave the Lieutenant-Governor, Admiral Milne, the Members of the Legislative Assembly, the Mayor and Corporation, &c.

Precisely at ten o'clock the “Hero,” half hidden by the smoke of guns, came opposite the town, when the “Nile,” the “Cossack,” and the “Valorous,” each fired a royal salute and manned yards to the very mast-head—the men as neat as pins in their white shirts and trousers, and looking somewhat like pins, too, as they stood up in close rows, like a fringe to the yards.

The “Hero” kept on till abreast of the dockyard, when she passed under the stern of the “Nile,” and rounding to almost in twice her own length, came at once to her moorings. The “Ariadne” with a majestic sweep that was beautiful, though which at one time seemed as if about to send her ashore on the other side of the bay, followed the “Hero;” while the little “Flying Fish,” the smartest looking vessel of her class afloat, seemed, as she rose and fell to the undulations of the water, to be skipping lightly after her huge sisters.

Of course, as all eyes were strained to see the Prince, it need scarcely be told how every one that a glimpse was caught of on board the “Hero,” from a sailor boy standing in a conspicuous position on the side, up to the officer of marines, was in turn mistaken for him, and in turn elicited from the spectators the warmest expressions of admiration. Few seemed to know that the slight, quiet-looking young man, standing with three or four others on the poop, with an unmistakeably sunburnt tinge of brown over his fair complexion, and who was the first to raise his hat as the strains of the national anthem came from the ships of war, was really the Prince of Wales—the royal visitor so long prepared for and so anxiously expected. Immediately that the vessels came to their moorings, a train of some ten or twelve Indian canoes, of various sizes, paddled rapidly up under the stern of the “Hero.” The Indians in them were of the tribe of the Micmacs, who had come in from the woods especially to do honour to the arrival of His Highness. Their light birch-bark canoes had little sprigs of fern in them at the bows, and looked characteristic enough. Not so did their occupants, who were dressed in blue frock coats and trousers, and had their swarthy, broad, Mongol features, and long, coarse, straight, black hair, almost concealed under common English beaver hats, about twice too large even for their wide heads. By way of reconciling them to this most un-Indian costume, the cuffs and collars of the coats were ornamented with rough beadwork, making such a curious mélange of the whole dress, that it was hard to say of the two whether civilisation or barbarism was most travestied. The men themselves, though carefully selected from the best of the tribe, and in most cases tall, and in one or two instances athletic-looking, were on the whole 0040 22 immeasurably inferior in physical development to the average of ordinary white men. Their arms were long, weak-looking, and nerveless; each man stooped so much as to appear almost deformed, walking, when on shore, with a shambling, flat-footed gait, and gazing about the streets with such a vacuous expression of countenance as at once showed them weak alike in mind and body, a fast degenerating race of men. On Lake Huron real Indians—Indians who would not know what to do with all the trousers in Bond Street if they were given them to wear for nothing—afterwards met the Prince, and those tall, lithe, swarthy savages were worth seeing. But alas for what the Micmacs could offer to interest! In their long blue coats and ornamented cuffs and collars, they looked like the mummies of an antiquated beadledom—the parochial scourings of some long bygone Indian village. Their chief was a fine-looking man, but he was an Englishman, who had “taken up” among the Indians as a “medicine-man,” and to whose unskilful ministerings, by the way, the very dilapidated appearance of his new associates may be, perhaps, ascribed.

Lord Mulgrave with Admiral Milne went on board the “Hero,” and had an interview with the Prince, who expressed his intention of landing at 12 o'clock. A few minutes before that hour the ships of war manned yards, and precisely as 12 o'clock struck there was a little stir on board the “Hero,” and shaking hands as he left with all the officers of the ship, the Prince of Wales came down the side, followed by the Duke of Newcastle, Earl St. Germains, Major-General Bruce, and the other officers of his suite, and took his seat in the handsome royal barge. As it pushed from the side, the Prince Royal Standard—the arms of England quartered, according to the heraldic bearings of the 0041 23 heir apparent—was hoisted amid the thundering roar of guns from forts and fleet.

The Prince landed at the dockyard steps near a triumphal arch, which, to typify the nautical character of the locale, was moored by two small anchors at either side, with a canoe on the top with the Prince of Wales's feathers springing out of the middle like three little masts. Under this the Prince stepped ashore, wearing the uniform of a colonel in the army, with the broad blue riband of the Garter across his breast. Here he stood for some seconds motionless, for he had kindly complied with a request of the city that a photograph might be taken of him as he first landed on Nova Scotian soil. It was rather a trying position for any young man, even though a Prince, to stand motionless, close to the eager, scrutinizing, admiring gaze of thousands, for nearly half a minute without varying a feature or a muscle, and amid such a silence that almost the breathing of the great crowd was audible. But, with his hat raised, and a kind smile on his face which reminded every one irresistibly of his Royal mother, the Prince bore the ordeal gracefully and well—so well that a tremendous cheer, with applause from the ladies, and cries of “How kind of him!” “How condescending!” “How affable!” rewarded him most amply for his slight delay. Before he had well done acknowledging the salutes of the governor, the legislature, and the judges, His Royal Highness was if possible more popular at Halifax than he had even been at St. John's.

After a few formal presentations and a few still more formal addresses he mounted his horse and, accompanied by Lord Mulgrave, the Lieutenant-Governor, and all his suite, issued forth from the dockyard into the main street leading up toward the town. Here 0042 24 indeed all Halifax was out, shouting, cheering, waving handkerchiefs and clapping hands, as if they were demented. For the first part of the way the street was kept by the fire companies, then by corps of volunteers; among them was a strong company of negroes, and then came the regulars. But through all these barriers save the last the crowd went plunging on, quite irresistible, not only at times overwhelming the line of sentries, but sometimes even carrying them away with them with a headlong rush that no obstacle could check, till they were abreast of the Prince, when they stopped, and with scrupulous reverence forbore to crowd on him, though they made up for this reserve by cheering, shouting, and throwing their caps into the air like madmen. The great street was soon entered—one long vista of flags, arches, flowers, and wreaths, with the roadway densely crowded, and all the windows, roofs, and balconies thronged with hundreds of ladies waving handkerchiefs and throwing down bouquets till the whole place seemed fluttering in the wind. The scene was one of the most enthusiastic delight, the contagious spirit of which spread even to the coldest, till the people seemed actually as if they were taking leave of their senses. I have had a good deal of experience in these royal progresses, but, except on the occasion of the Princess Royal's departure from Gravesend after her marriage, never saw anything to surpass the reception of the Prince of Wales at Halifax. His Royal Highness's horse was young and fiery, and pranced as if quite used to carrying blood royal. He betrayed his inexperience, however, by starting now and then at the cheers, but, as the Prince sits a horse beautifully, the fretfulness of the steed only showed off the rider to the best advantage; and the expressions of fervent admiration which were heard now and then 0043 25 from the ladies in the balconies as he rode by bowing to them, in spite of his unruly horse, with easy grace, were enough to turn the head of any crown prince in Christendom.

Under arches erected to him by English, Irish, and Scotch, each bearing some well-turned motto expressive of welcome to himself and admiration for his royal mother, the Prince passed slowly on, the crowd always surging after him like a great sea of human beings, tumbling over each other and whatever else came in their way, but always shouting louder and louder every minute. At last the procession turned out of the street leading from the dockyard, and wound up the hill to the Parade, where a beautiful scene presented itself. Over the whole Parade-ground had been erected an immense bench of seats, something like the orchestra of the Crystal Palace, which held nearly 3000 children—the sons and daughters of the citizens. All were very nicely dressed, and looked at a distance, in the gay confusion of colours, like a huge flower-bed, framed in by the arches, and flags, and evergreens in the background, in a bright striking picture. At the foot of the gallery the Prince reined in his horse while the children sang “God save the Queen” with all the strength and harmony of their little voices. The first verse was very well given—so well that the Prince made them a low bow as the second was proceeding, and this put an end to the music at once, for, carried away by enthusiasm at this acknowledgment, two or three rosy little girls and boys began to cheer, and in a second they all rose and shouted, clapped their hands, and waved bonnets, caps, and handkerchiefs in such a vivid and spontaneous burst of juvenile enthusiasm as was truly touching. Their little voices echoed through the square alone for 0044 26 a moment, for even the great crowd seemed to love to watch them, till they, too, were carried away, and one great heartfelt cheer from everybody present rent the very air. From this point to the door of Government House it was one long continued ovation of eager loyalty and respect.

At Lord Mulgrave's the Prince alighted, and proceeded at once to visit the Countess and Lady Milne. Here Lady Mulgrave gave him a present which had been left at the house for him by a young Indian squaw that morning. It was a cigar-case, beautifully worked in slips of different coloured woods, and further adorned with the little coloured bead ornaments in making which the Indians excel. With the case was a small basket, similar in its make and decorations, which the girl begged the Prince would take to the Queen. Both were made by herself, she said, and a daughter of the Micmacs would be proud if the Prince would accept her gift, and present the basket to his Royal mother. Of course, the Prince accepted his own present, and took charge of that for the Queen.

For the romance of this incident I am sorry to be obliged to add that the squaw called afterwards for the present in return, and plainly intimated that no acknowledgment would be so acceptable as one tendered in the lawful coin of the province.

After a short interval of rest His Royal Highness received a deputation from the members of the Government and Legislative Assembly, who presented him with another very long address, which, among other subjects, alluded with pride to the Nova Scotians who served and fell in the Crimea, and to whose memory a handsome monument had been erected on the hill fronting the Government residence.

On that evening a grand banquet was given at 0045 27 Government House, and it was intended to amuse the town with fireworks and a general illumination. But the Prince's ill fortune in the matter of weather was as marked at Halifax as it had been at St. John's—as it continued in fact almost throughout the whole of his visit through Lower and Upper Canada. All the day had been threatening and occasionally fulfilling its threats with showers of heavy rain. Still people hoped against hope, till at twelve o'clock, exactly as the Prince landed, a steady drizzle began. From that time out it continued to increase with every hour, not in showers, but with a continued, massive, steady downpour: the kind of rain in fact which is so peculiar to public holydays and out-door festivities in England. Under such a waterfall, of course, the fireworks were as great a failure at Halifax as at St. John's. They seemed to sputter and hiss at their own failures, and the damp dreary mob which came to witness them had but little to console them for their wetting. The fleet had been ordered to illuminate, but, of course, counter-orders were sent, and it would have been well if the same thing could have been done throughout the town. That, however, was not tried, and as a matter of course the attempt to light up was an utter failure. Transparencies and variegated lamps inside houses did well enough, save that there were but few in the splashy streets to admire them; but with the arches and the best displays of lamps, which were of course outside, nothing whatever could be done. If they had even tried to set the arches on fire the rain would have put them out at once, and the only tokens of illumination which they bore was where some red lamp, partly sheltered, blinked feebly for a few minutes here and there, like an inflamed eye winking through the darkness, and then went out for ever.

The following day (Tuesday, July 31st) was, like the previous one, observed as a general holiday, shops and stores were closed, the telegraph was impervious to messages, and even the mail viâ St. John's to Boston did not go. In fact, as it was popularly expressed, Halifax was in a “general bust,” and nothing but holidays and fêtes were thought of. The printers, it was said, availed themselves of the opportunity to strike work, and this brought the journals of Halifax to a dead stop, a fact of no particular moment, inasmuch as the weak little press bantlings of that town are, at the best of times, only published semi-occasionally. Even the special gazette, containing the addresses and replies delivered the previous day, was only brought out with great difficulty. It would never have been brought out at all but for the energy displayed by a most genial and courteous member of the Government, who resuming his practice of a long disused vocation, managed, with the assistance of a captured apprentice, to set up sufficient of the type in time. That day the Prince went to the common, near the citadel, and reviewed two regiments of the garrison, with all the various corps of rifle volunteers. There was scarcely the same crowd on this occasion as on the landing, for in truth on the previous evening all Halifax had kept it up rather late, and in spite of the disappointment caused by the weather—perhaps in consequence of it—the festivities in doors were “prolonged to an advanced hour.” However, notwithstanding this, there was still a great muster on the common, where the Prince was received with a royal salute, and, what was more to the purpose, with the utmost enthusiasm by the people. The regulars, consisting of the 62nd and 63rd regiments, with some artillery, were, with the volunteers, inspected together, and then marched past at slow and quick 0047 29 time, after which the volunteers were drilled and reviewed before the Prince separately. In number I should say there were not less than 1100, all composed of volunteers belonging to the town of Halifax. They were divided into different companies, whereof one was entirely of Negroes—the only one it must be said in truth that was at all careless and slovenly in its drill.

The others were, without exception, as fine a body of men as one would wish to see—careful and steady in their discipline, neat and handsome in their uniform and equipments, and altogether fine and serviceable-looking corps. Their marching past was quite equal to that of the regulars, and only in one or two of the more complicated evolutions could any difference in drill be detected, and even this was so slight that a week's extra drill would be sufficient to remove it. To Lord Mulgrave is due the credit of having formed these corps in Nova Scotia, and the example thus set has been followed more or less throughout the other provinces, who have provided themselves with a numerous and well-trained militia, which is likely for some time to come to be equal to all the emergencies that can arise in their local governments.

Without making invidious comparisons, mere justice compels me to add, that the volunteer militia of Halifax are, as a body, infinitely superior to those of the other provinces, or even of many parts of Upper Canada. Very many of them indeed are equal to the picked companies of the best volunteer regiments in London. Halifax justly prided itself on their efficiency and soldier-like appearance on this occasion, and while this interest is manifested by the inhabitants and the same esprit du corps maintained among the volunteers themselves, the superiority of the Nova Scotian militia is likely to be lasting.

After the review the Prince visited the citadel, which, as usual, is perched on the peak of a hill, dominating the town and country for miles around. I was told it was a very strong place, and, as a patriotic Englishman, am willing to believe that all English citadels must be strong places. It seemed to me, however, that as a rule, the calibre of its ordnance was very much lighter than it should be to keep pace with the recent advances made in the use of heavy guns. It is curious to contrast how the Admiralty arm our vessels of war with the heaviest ordnance (often too heavy for the men to handle), while in very many of our forts and citadels the guns are, for the age, ridiculously light. This is the more strange when we remember that great weight of metal is often a serious drawback in a ship; it can be none in a fortress.

After this visit, in the afternoon military games, races in sacks, climbing the greasy pole, and other sports for the people, took place on the common; but at these His Royal Highness was not present, and he only left Government House at ten o'clock, with all his suite and staff, to honour the grand ball with his presence. This ball was intended to be one of the chief features in the Halifax entertainment, and it certainly was beyond all doubt a most successful and brilliant affair. At first the arrangements respecting the fête gave rise to considerable dissensions and animosities, which for a day or two before the great event came off, seemed likely to materially interfere with the success of the whole affair. As the expenses of the ball were defrayed by the province, and as there was certain to be a deficit of some 200 l. , it was determined to make everybody pay their ten dollars—everybody, that is, excepting the Prince and his suite, the naval and military officers, and “the persons of distinction,” who were to be presented 0049 31 with invitations. This course—the only really fair one that the committee could take with an entertainment given at the expense of all—opened the Haligonian temple of Janus at once, for as might have been expected, a great many more people thought themselves “persons of distinction” than could get the committee to agree with them in that opinion. The little press of Halifax had its columns enlivened with letters from “Observer,” “Nemo,” “Little Bo Peep,” “Avenger,” &c., denouncing the committee for having, with the fatal tact which always attaches to the management of such local celebrations, contrived to offend, at one fell swoop, both the ladies and the militia. The anger of the latter might be defied, but that of the former threatened them, of course, with social ruin. However, as the time for the fête drew near, not only the wisdom but the actual necessity of the course taken by the committee became apparent, and to outward seeming, at least, all was amicably arranged.

The fête was given in the Province House, where the members of the Nova Scotian Legislature hold their Parliament, and debate, and intrigue, and struggle for places and power with as much vehemence as at St. Stephen's. This building, however, though a large and roomy one, was far too much broken up into apartments, for the Cabinet, for the House, for the President of council, &c., to afford any space in which some 1200 persons could promenade, dance, and flirt. The House of Commons' room, therefore, was given up bodily to refreshments, and the little speaker's chair and strangers' gallery were half concealed among the roses and evergreens which formed an ornamental background to the tables of confectionery. The supper was laid in a large wooden building, specially erected for the purpose, and another to correspond was built for the ballroom. 0050 32 All the passages between these were handsomely decorated with mirrors, evergreens, banks of flowers, groups of weapons, and gas stars and chandeliers innumerable. The temporary ball and supper rooms were draped in the style of tents, canopied with pink and white, and, on the whole, the entire aspect of all the rooms was tasteful and striking in the extreme. The Prince was expected to arrive at the hall at ten o'clock, and of course, therefore, long before that hour the room was well filled with the chief ladies and gentlemen of the province, and a strong muster of the officers of the fleet and garrison. On the whole, it was really a brilliant assemblage, and one which would have done honour to any ball-room in Europe.

The Prince arrived exactly at ten o'clock, and was welcomed with tremendous cheers by the crowd outside—by the visitors in the ball-room with bows and courtesies. As His Royal Highness was in high spirits, and seemed anxious that no time should be lost, the ball commenced at once, the Prince opening it in a quadrille with Lady Mulgrave. He next danced with Lady Milne, which duties discharged to the two chief ladies present, he sought partners for himself in every succeeding dance, and led out some one or other of the distinguished young belles of Halifax. It need hardly be said how popular was this mode, even among the young officers and dandies, whose “engagements” he must have broken through in the most ruthless manner, and whose fair partners he bore away in triumph. At half-past twelve o'clock the royal party went to supper, which was laid out in the temporary building with great taste and splendour. Here at the conclusion of the repast, the Mayor of Halifax gave “the Health of Her Majesty, the Prince Consort, and the Prince of Wales,” toasts which were, of course, received with 0051 33 immense enthusiasm, and there was evidently a lingering expectation in the minds of some of the good citizens of Halifax that the Prince would favour the company with a speech in reply to each. His Highness, however, had more taste than to prefer speech-making to dancing, and, accordingly, as soon as the toasts had been duly honoured he bowed his acknowledgments, and returned at once to the amusements of the ball-room.

Contrary to general opinion that it was etiquette for royalty to retire from such entertainments early, the Prince showed not the least disposition to leave after the supper. One, two, and three o'clock passed, and still found him dancing indefatigably. It was not till nearly four o'clock, and the last dance but one in the programme was reached, that he took his departure, followed to his carriage by nearly all the visitors, who added their cheers to the enthusiastic shouts of the crowd still round the building as the carriage drove off.

On this night the fêtes of Halifax culminated to their highest point, for the inhabitants had taken advantage of a pause in the rain to really illuminate the town. The fleet followed the example, so that on the whole, Halifax made rather a long and brilliant festivity of it.

On the day following the ball the Prince rode out in plain clothes, to visit an estate near Halifax called the Duke of Kent's Lodge. This pretty estate was formerly the property of Sir John Wentworth, Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia, but now belonging to his heir, Mr. Wentworth Gore, who had specially come out from England to receive the Prince in the visit it was almost certain he would make to the mansion formerly occupied by his grandfather. The gravestone D 0052 34 of the Duke of Kent's favourite charger, in the picturesque pleasure-grounds of the now ruined lodge, was an especial object of interest to His Royal Highness. After this His Royal Highness and suite proceeded to the “Hero” to witness a grand regatta, in which row boats, sailing cutters, and Indian canoes were engaged. The day, for once, was beautiful, and as some hundred small craft of all kinds were entered for the contests, it made a most animated scene. There was such an uninterrupted succession of races, that the whole bay was covered with boats of all kinds, rowing wildly from point to point, winners and losers being cheered alike, and so tremendously, that the general impression left upon the mind of the spectator was that everybody had won something.

The speed with which some of the boats from the squadron (especially the “Ariadne's”) and the Halifax boats were pulled, was, considering the weight and shape of their craft, almost astonishing. The most interesting race of the day, however, was between the canoes, manned—or I had better say paddled—by Indian squaws. To watch the way these women paddled, beating the water into foam behind them, their wild, uncouth, swarthy features kindled into an expression of savage excitement, as they forced their light bark canoes along, shouting to each other in a high, squalling, almost unintelligible tone, embodying such taunts and sneers at their antagonists as even Indian women know how to inflict with cutting accuracy, was an extraordinary sight to witness. The gravity which has been so much talked of among the Indians is certainly not an attribute of their squaws, for apparently a more loquacious set of women, whether white or brown, never ventured on the water. Which canoe won the race it was difficult to say; but the 0053 35 general result must have been of interest, for it seemed to terminate in one loud chorus of gesture and vituperation, which to the spectators appeared not a whit less forcible from their not understanding a word of it.

The faint traces that still remain throughout Lower Canada and the provinces of the once powerful aboriginal population, are daily getting fewer and fewer. It is seldom one sees east of Lake Huron a pure-blooded Indian, and even the members of the tribes who still enjoy their hunting-grounds round the shores of that great inland sea, fail almost entirely to realise the romantic notions which are formed as to their skill, their strength, their dignity, and their courage. That the “braves” of the six nations who once held undisputed sway over the whole of North America, and more especially the men of the Mohawks, the Delawares, the Iroquois, and the Hurons, were fierce and dangerous enemies, the bloody annals of the first early settlers in America sufficiently prove. But even these very annals show that in the open field a band of fifty white men was more than a match for five times that number of redskins. Their real strength and danger to the settler lay in their skill as huntsmen, for the craft and subtlety which enabled an Indian to surprise and kill even the most wary kind of deer, was always more than sufficient to enable him to “stalk” a colonist. In the matter of hunting, even among the few half-caste natives that yet remain, their skill is as great now as it was then. In all else one feels almost a kind of wonder that the natives, as they are now seen—so sensitive to cold—so racked with rheumatism—so helpless, idle, beggarly, and drunken—could ever, even in their best days, have been a people with whom treaties were made, and whose courage and warlike skill made it necessary to conciliate them with offers D 2 0054 36 of friendship and money. A race really possessed of the wild virtues so liberally attributed to them by romancists would never have died out in the rapid and extraordinary manner in which the millions of North American Indians have disappeared. The few half-caste descendants that still remain are now in Canada what the gypsies are in England—a race mostly of beggars and poachers, with the only difference that the Indians are seldom thieves. It is gradually becoming the custom to give an Indian money—not because he deserves it, but because he is an Indian—a kind of charity which will, I should think, if anything can, tend much to stop the extinction of the race.

On the opposite side of the bay, facing the town of Halifax, and while the Prince was on his visit, a real Indian encampment was fixed. The wigwams of birch bark, stretched over pine poles, would be to a back-woodsman or a lumberer warm and comfortable enough. When I visited it the women were cooking, fetching wood, making little ornaments for sale, or minding the papooses. Some of the men were down at the water's edge fishing, while others were engaged building a canoe. It was interesting to watch the skill and rapidity with which the latter work went on, though one could not but feel that it was less skill than a kind of instinct. They were making a canoe as their forefathers had made it two or three hundred years before, without improvement or alteration—its form, its substance, and its size, a mere type of all the other canoes that ever floated upon American waters. Within half-a-mile of them the magnificent form and bulk of the “Hero,” screw line-of-battle ship, rose like a fortress from the water. The contrast was suggestive; I do not mean to say that I ever expected to find the 0055 37 Indians building a screw line-of-battle ship. The scene is only worth mentioning as perhaps one of the means of accounting for the extinction of a people who cling to forms and types, for form's sake, even in their competition with one of the most progressive races of men the world has yet seen. As it is with the North American Indians, so in another century will it be with the Chinese and Japanese.

The Regatta, over the Prince quitted the “Hero,” and paid visits to all the vessels of the squadron; and what with the cheering of the people, manning yards, and firing salutes, the royal progress through the fleet was a most attractive feature of the day. The “Valorous” had got up steam, and in this frigate His Highness proceeded through the Narrows above the harbour into the celebrated Bedford basin, or inner natural harbour of Halifax, the finest probably on the face of the earth. This noble sheet of water is about ten miles long, by seven broad, free from almost any rocks, with a great depth of water all over it. Except at its narrow entrance, it is completely landlocked and shut in by the picturesque semi-mountainous hills, which, clad with red and white pine to their very summits, make the whole scenery of the lake as rich and solemn-looking as can well be imagined. To say that the whole navy of Britain could ride here in safety gives but a poor idea of the immense capacity of this harbour. Not only the royal navy, but all the shipping of Liverpool, could be accommodated in it with ease, and with room to spare. The heights around it, too, are so steep and rugged that a very little trouble or expense would convert them into such a series of impregnable fortresses as might defy all the armies and navies of the world to assail.

The place is recognised as an important naval depôt 0056 38 to a certain extent; but the few ships that are scattered there now and then only serve to prove that the undeveloped resources of the basin for the accommodation of fleets are almost boundless. Halifax must eventually become one of the greatest and most important naval stations in the possession of Great Britain, and the only matter for surprise is that it is not so already. After steaming round the basin the Prince returned to the Governor's house, where there was a levee in the afternoon, at which nearly everybody was presented, and where the crush to get in was as severe in its way as it used to be in St. James's. All seemed so bent on “making way,” as it is termed, and keeping the passage clear, that it at one time seemed more than probable that no one would get in at all. Eventually, however, the stream took an onward course, and after a lapse of some three hours, about 1000 gentlemen were presented, bowed, and hurried out again as fast as possible, to make room for others. In the evening Lady Mulgrave gave a ball, which coming so close after the fête of the previous night was, of course, by comparison, rather a tame affair, and one which terminated early. Not so, however, with the festivities in the town of Halifax, which was again illuminated, and where in the houses and in the streets the people indulged in such a whirl of rejoicings and other festivities that the whole place seemed to have lost its senses. Certainly the stimulus which the Prince's visit gave appeared to have utterly exhausted and overcome a considerable portion of the inhabitants, for I have seldom seen so many stupified people as were about the streets that night.

Yet, notwithstanding this extensive dissipation, no one seemed the worse for it, and the streets were as full by six o'clock on the morning of the 2d of August 0057 39 as they were on the day of the Prince's arrival. The time fixed for the departure of His Royal Highness was eight o'clock; but long before this, the road leading to the station was thronged with thousands anxious to bid a kind farewell to the young visitor who had almost turned their heads and quite won their hearts.

The most enthusiastic cheers and acclamations rent the air as the Prince drove along to the train, and even after he had started the kind farewells could be heard ringing out among the solitary hills, and springing back from rock to rock in vague unmeaning echoes like shadows of a sound. Thus the Prince quitted Halifax, and I do not think that in all the broad dominions to which he is heir, there is a town or a city which for its size and means could have given him a better or more heartstirring welcome.

The rail from Halifax to Windsor, near where the Prince was to embark, lay through a rugged country, where rocks seemed striving with scanty pines for the possession of the soil, and where huge limestone cliffs and groups of moss-grown withered trees, long fallen, drooped about in dreary confusion, like the ruins of a dead world. Now and then a wretched log-hut was seen through the forest, empty and half-unroofed, and at long intervals came a shanty station, with its half civilisation on the very borders of a half-tamed wilderness, through which a rusty telegraph wire ran—a clue to the progress making far beyond the wilds. The train arrived at Windsor after a run of some two hours, and then the Prince alighted for a short visit en passant.

The town or rather village of Windsor, on the western side of Nova Scotia, belongs to that small class of townships which are known throughout Canada. and America as “one-horse places.”

Nevertheless, small as it was, it managed to get up a most beautiful display of arches and decorations, and an assemblage not less noteworthy of kindly and loyal people. All these His Royal Highness had time to study in their minutest details, while an address of the most inordinate length was slowly read to him. This long and very solemn ceremonial over (the incessant repetition of which at every place must have taxed the patience of the heir apparent to the utmost) the Prince and suite, with a large party of invited guests, went to lunch. Every one seemed hungry enough, but the lunch took less time than the address which preceded it, after which all the party proceeded to the little village of Hansport, where H.M.S. “Styx,” under the command of Captain Vesey, was in waiting to convey them across the celebrated basin of Minas to St. John, the commercial capital of the province of New Brunswick.

Bay of Fundy—Arrival at St. John—Reception—Illuminations—Fertility of the Province—Arrival at Fredericton—A Grand Ball—Visit to Carleton.

The only route by which the traveller can reach this most flourishing and beautiful colony from Halifax is by steamer across the basin of Minas, and down the Bay of Fundy to St. John. His Royal Highness and suite went in the war steamer “Styx,” and at the same time there was a very general exodus of all the chief officials and gentry of Halifax, bent on following the Royal visitor through the ceremonies and festivities of the adjoining province. The boats that ply between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are admirably formed, very fast in their speed, and most ample in their means for accommodating passengers. In short, they are boats on the American plan; floating hotels, of the comforts of travelling in which we English are as ignorant as of comfort in our fixed hotels, and which I fear are very deservedly the dread of tourists all over the world. Thus the passage from Nova Scotia to St. John is quick and pleasant enough, averaging, on the whole, less than ten hours. But were it ten times less rapid and comfortable than it really is no traveller should 0060 42 neglect to make this voyage, and, above all, to arrange it so as to make it in the day, when he may perhaps be able to enjoy the magnificent scenery of the Basin of Minas. But, in spite of every care as to time and tide of starting, it is quite possible that one might cross it a dozen times and yet see nothing of the shores on either side, so dense and so frequent are the fogs. It is on the shores of this basin that Longfellow lays the scene of his “Evangeline,” and the little village of Grandpré can be seen, nestled down in a beautiful valley, behind the bold lofty headland of Blomidon. Foggy as is the locale in general, no fogs ever cling over this picturesque French settlement, but wrap in huge dense masses the rugged crest of Blomidon, which nearly always looks like a mountain whose summit is lost in the clouds. As the steamer crosses from the basin into the Bay of Fundy, passing between Split Cape and the picturesque village of Parksborough, the scenery is most beautiful. Split Cape is something like our Needles at Southampton, but of limestone rock, much loftier, and clothed up the sides with brushwood, and crowned with clumps of that proudest and most solemn looking of all trees, the true Canadian pine. The village of Parksborough, too, with its white houses, reposing quietly at the bottom of a deep valley, like a nest of eggs, and surrounded by lofty hills and forests, is one of the most exquisite little bits of landscape which it is possible to imagine. Once out of this noble gateway, if it may be so called, the charm of the voyage rapidly diminishes, for you pass from the basin of Minas into the Bay of Fundy, than which no transition can possibly be more disagreeable.

Humboldt goes into extacies about the natural phenomena of the Bay of Fundy,—its huge waves, its rapid currents, and the immense rise and fall of the tide, 0061 43 greater by many feet than in any other part of the world. The impressions of those who cross it, as I did often, in a fog, a heavily laden boat, and during two-thirds of a southerly gale, sending in a tremendous swell, will not, however, be quite so enthusiastic. Most of my fellow passengers on this occasion seemed not only unused to the Bay of Fundy, but to bays of any kind whatever. Conversation, which up to this time had been so flowing and so genial, lulled at once, and a painful silence fell upon the passengers as the boat reeled and splashed through the huge seas. Before she had been ten minutes at this drunken work all within her was as silent as the “Flying Dutchman,” save when the stillness was broken by some unhappy Canadian, who, in an exaggerated attitude of despair, proclaimed his intention of perishing on the spot. It was some comfort that none of these dismal anticipations were realised, though at one time they seemed not improbable. St. John, the real, though not the legislative, capital of New Brunswick, is one of the most thriving and beautiful towns of all in the North American provinces. Like nearly all which His Royal Highness visited on the Western Continent (except Washington and Kingston), it looks very fine indeed from the water, but, unlike a great many of these, landing does not destroy the enchantment proverbially lent by distance to the view. The town stands in a well sheltered nook of the Bay of Fundy, in a rich amphitheatre of high though gently rising hills. In the centre of the semicircle the noble river St. John divides it, so that the city of St. John proper is on one bank and the suburb of Carleton facing it. The streets of St. John, though in some places very steep, are wide and scrupulously clean; the houses are all finely built, lofty and regular, and an air of active 0062 44 business and prosperity pervades the whole place, very different indeed from the utter languor which ordinarily appears to weigh down Halifax in the dust. There are large and spacious docks, well-built stone-faced quays, saw-mills, employing many thousands of men, and the banks of the river are covered in with building yards, filled with frames of ships on the stocks, in every stage of forwardness. The public buildings are handsome and spacious; the churches are large and beautiful; and a suspension bridge, built at the cost of the town, over the river St. John, is as handsome as that at Niagara, and more than one-third longer in its span. With such evidence of permanent and long-established prosperity before him, the traveller finds it difficult to believe that sixty-five years have scarcely elapsed since the site of the town was covered with a dense untrodden forest. Such, however, is the fact, and some of the first settlers are still living at St. John who can well recollect the time when a log hut on the site of the present docks was a luxury,—when they had to pacify the Indians with rum and blankets, and band together during the long winter nights to save and keep their cattle from the wolves.

St. John, with its enterprising population, its fast rising importance, and for a colonial city its large trade and great wealth, could easily have given the Prince a reception which would have eclipsed even that of Halifax, but of which it must be told in truth it certainly fell short. For this, however, the officials gave a very reasonable explanation, in the fact that His Royal Highness did not unfortunately visit the city for four complete days, as at the capital of Nova Scotia, but merely passed through it, resting one night while en route to Fredericton. Another, though rather a doubtful excuse was, that the preparations, 0063 45 had inadvertently been so much delayed from various causes that even up to the moment of the Prince's landing they were scarcely finished. There is an old French proverb which says “ qui s'excuse s'accuse ,” and this applies in all, its force to the apology for the display at St. John. Had nothing at all been said about the matter every one would have thought it admirable, but making excuses only courts criticism for what would otherwise be passed unnoticed. The triumphal arches though few in number were all lofty, well decorated structures, and each one singly infinitely better of its kind than any single arch at Halifax. But at Halifax every street was a perfect bower of arches, and every house between them was only dimly seen through its wreaths and evergreens. There were, it must be admitted, very few such private efforts made at St. John, so that the arches, though very handsome and well placed on lofty hills, stood almost alone in their glory.

The Prince arrived off St. John at ten on the night of the 2nd, and early on the 3rd signified his intention of landing at ten in the morning. The place where he was to be received was enclosed on three sides by high tiers of seats. But these were the venture of a private speculation where all the places had to be paid for. The charge for admission was a dollar and it was evident that the figure must have been thought too high, as there was at the last moment rather an ugly array of empty benches, which took largely from the general and not too brilliant effect. To add to the contretemps , too, an American steamer was moored almost across the entrance to the landing-place, and the captain obstinately declined to budge an inch, as the position his vessel occupied was the very best for witnessing the spectacle, and he, like a smart captain, 0064 46 had taken early advantage of this post and let his ship to visitors, greatly to the detriment of the benches before-mentioned. The steps up to the top of the wharf, also, were not complete when the Prince was ready to land, so that the carpenters were actually driving nails at one end of the stage at the very moment when his Highness began the ascent at the other. The term “ascent” is meant in all its force, for, precarious as the gradual ascents of Royalty have often been, I doubt if any ever had a more difficult path to tread than that by which the Prince and his suite scaled the wharf which landed them at the city of St. John. It was a very broad staging of planks, placed at a very steep incline, scored across, at rather distant intervals, with rough strips of wood, apparently intended to trip up the whole cortége —Prince Duke, Admirals, Generals, and all—in reality, placed there under a vague general idea that they would be of some assistance in the escalade. It was an exciting moment when the “Styx” began to man yards and the royal barge pushed off from her side, and still the unfortunate landing-stage was not completed. The good mayor and sheriffs hurried about hither and thither; provincial dignitaries, seizing on tools, began to hammer wildly, dragging a smooth carpet over the inequalities of the woodwork, as if the whole machine was not slippery and dangerous enough already. Nearer and nearer came the barge and louder and louder grew the hammering. Everybody said it would be finished though everybody thought it wouldn't, until at last, as the Prince disembarked, the professional carpenters were driven away, while the amateurs threw down their tools and stood with a bland smile to receive His Highness, as if everything had been ready, and they in waiting for his landing since midnight.

The Lieutenant-Governor of the province, the Hon. Manners Sutton, and staff, were in attendance to welcome His Royal Highness, for whom at once three cheers were ordered. But in the matter of cheering, the education of the New Brunswickers seemed to have been sadly neglected, for every one was so busy in looking at the Prince that the cheers on the whole were rather failures than otherwise. No stay was made at the landing-place and no addresses were presented, so that the Prince went at once to his carriage, and a kind of procession was formed of the private chariots in which His Highness and suite were seated. From the time of leaving the landing-stage till the procession stopped at the house of the late Judge Chapman, which had been fitted up for the stay of His Highness, there was scarcely any cheering whatever. The people, who lined the streets in dense crowds, gazed eagerly and, apparently, almost awe-struck on the Prince, and seldom ventured on a sound or movement. But the Prince seemed much more pleased with this decorum than with any amount of acclamation, as it gave him an opportunity to observe the town and the splendid rows of men composing the Volunteer Fire Companies, who, in their handsome uniforms and their decorated engines, drawn up in lines, kept the streets on both sides clear. There were many Volunteer Rifle Companies out also, but their appearance bore no comparison with the fine corps which the Prince reviewed at Halifax. On the lawn in front of the Prince's residence a large number of beautiful little children, all dressed in white with blue sashes, were collected to sing “God save the Queen,” with some new verses specially introduced in honour of His Royal Highness, on whose path, as he advanced towards the house, they were also to strew the bouquets of flowers with which 0066 48 they were amply provided for that purpose. These little innocents, however, like their fathers and brothers outside the gates, seemed to forget everything but clapping their hands and gazing on His Highness, and in their loyal confusion gave the National Anthem with most surprising variations as to time and tune. From the same cause the Prince received quite a shower bath of flowers, which were flung at him, round him, and over him by dozens, and eager was the scramble when he had passed to get any one of the little bouquets on which he had chanced to tread.

The house fitted up for his reception, though very small, had been very well decorated and furnished with everything new, save the table, easy chair, and a few articles of furniture which had been used by his grandfather, the Duke of Kent, when staying on a visit there, and which, though very many years had since elapsed, had always been carefully preserved as relics. It required, however, a very strong belief in the force of traditions and associations to reconcile one to their appearance in the apartments. At two o'clock in the afternoon the Prince held a levée at the Court-house, the interior of which had been most handsomely gilt and decorated specially for the occasion. Here addresses, as well as individuals, were presented. It would be hard to say exactly how many gentlemen were presented, but, to judge from the crowd and the time it occupied, a very large per-centage of the male inhabitants of St. John must have had that honour. In the evening the whole town was illuminated, and though it would of course be easy to mention illuminations which were infinitely better, still it must be said that one more general or more effective the Prince did not often witness in all his long and magnificent progress.

Very few designs were attempted. In their stead 0067 49 every house and every tree was covered with hundreds of Chinese lanterns and variegated lamps, hung here and there in brilliant and picturesque confusion. Nowhere was this rich strange glittering medley of bright colours to be seen to better advantage than in the prettily-laid-out King's Square, in the centre of the town, where the lanterns swung in myriads, and gleamed and sparkled in every conceivable form and colour. It was said that some 25,000 extra visitors were in St. John on that night, and no accommodation was to be got for money, and certainly not for love. It was this want of shelter, doubtless, which led so many of the masses to fortify themselves in such an uncommon degree against the ill effects of sleeping in the night air, and subsequently to recline on road and footway in attitudes indicative of the most profound oblivion to personal comfort and safety. In provincial phraseology, St. John was very “tight” that evening, for the arrival of His Royal Highness seemed to have transported the people with delight, and drinking his health and long life was considered an excuse for everything, Yet, no disturbance; not even a street row occurred during the whole time of the royal visit. On the morning of the 4th of August the Prince started for Fredericton. The whole suite drove in carriages to a little village called the Nine-mile Station, and about that distance from the city. Here on the Kennebekasis river, a noble branch of the St. John, the royal party embarked on board the “Forest Queen,” and went by water up to Fredericton, the legislative capital of the province, a distance of eighty miles. The weather, unfortunately, was again very unfavourable, thick and dull, with now and then showers of heavy rain. The wild and beautifully romantic scenery was thus on this occasion almost hidden, and it was not till the return E 0068 50 voyage back to St. John that the superb character of the shores of the river could be fully appreciated. At every little shanty village—and there were many along the whole route—the people turned out as the steamer passed, waving flags, ringing bells, and firing muskets, with as much enthusiasm and delight as if the royal visit had been made to them especially, and the Prince was coming to stay among them for a month at least.

Every one on board seemed much impressed by the rich luxuriance of the soil, and every one asked the question, which no one could answer, “Why were not emigrants brought there?” The three provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island comprise in all an extent of country capable of supporting some 10,000,000 people. The united population of all three is much short of 500,000.

Abounding in the most magnificent harbours and rivers, with fisheries second only in value to those of Newfoundland; with almost boundless mineral resources in coal, iron, copper, and plumbago; with land of the richest description to be had almost for asking, and with a demand for labour which is almost greater than in any other part of the world; it seemed almost a mystery how it was that there were not more colonists. The great tide of emigration always sets towards the prairie land of the far west. It would be absurd attempting to deny the inducements which these prairies really do offer to poor settlers; but it would be equally vain to conceal that in the reckless indiscriminate raid made to all parts of the states, emigrants often commit the most ruinous mistakes. If small agriculturists in England were only made aware of the advantages held out to settlers in New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Upper Canada, there would be a chance for 0069 51 these colonies becoming as great, wealthy, and powerful as the new states of America even in our own time. But the British North American Provinces are as unknown, not only to emigrants, but to the mass of Englishmen as Mesopotamia, or the shores of the Caspian Sea. The popular impression regarding the provinces seems to be that they are much akin to Labrador—half barren rocks, surrounded with icebergs during three-fourths of the year. Thus, during the last thirteen years, the total number of emigrants who have settled at New Brunswick has been short of 20,000, while to keep pace with the urgent demand for labour in all parts of the province, scarcely that number yearly would be sufficient.

Prince Edward Island is even more fertile than New Brunswick. In both places land may be bought for about 4 s. 6 d. an acre, and the payment of even this small sum spread over a long term of years. Yet only a small proportion of the persons who settle in New Brunswick ever take to farming. They generally go into the lumber trade; for felling the pines and floating them down the stream on rafts yields the quickest return, though nothing like the profit that, it is said, may be gained by steady farming. Many in England are apt to associate a soil covered with pine trees with the thin stony hills from which the Scotch fir wrings a precarious existence. But there is as much difference between a luxuriant Canadian pine and a Scotch fir as there is between a myrtle and an oak. For farm labourers sufficiently intelligent to understand how a virgin soil should be treated, and who are willing to work hard for a few years, few places offer such inducements as New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. If those who,go there have a little capital, say 100 l. or 150 l. , of course, so much the better; but even those E 2 0070 52 who only bring their labour are certain of getting a good living, and, by the exertion, of that industry and frugality which are necessary all over the world, may well look forward in the course of time to competence, Nature, in fact, seems to have done everything for the country—man nothing; and for want of settlers to clear the land and fell the trees, even the capital of the province, the pretty little town of Fredericton, is hemmed in by a forest so primitive and wild, as still to harbour bears, deer, and wolves on the very confines of the city.

The provinces will, indeed, have reason to bless the visit of the Prince, if it only sufficiently directs attention to these colonies to gain them that of which above all other things they stand so much in need—some hardy young immigrants, whether men or women. For Irish settlers, New Brunswick is, above all others, the place; for nearly three-fourths of the entire population in St. John are from the sister island, and all seem to be doing remarkably well.

Fredericton, though the capital of the province and the seat of the Government, is not, by any means, a large place. It only numbers about 4500 inhabitants, and in spite of the large handsome church, which is called the cathedral, there are many villages in England, of twice its size, twice its population, and more than, twice its trade. Still, it is a most charmingly clean and pretty town. The streets are wide, regular, and, well planted at the edges of the footpaths with luxuriant trees. The houses are high and well built, and the three churches are all striking and spacious buildings, so that from the water the town, locked in by a noble ridge of purple hills, has a rural beauty which at once impresses the visitor in its favour. On the summit of a conspicuous gentle slope in the centre of 0071 53 the town is a fine collegiate school: for to the honour of the inhabitants of Fredericton, be it said, there are few English colonies where the advantages of a sound liberal education are more keenly appreciated. The boat with His Royal Highness and suite arrived off Fredericton at seven on the evening of Saturday the 4th. With its arrival, of course, came rain and thick weather. The landing was, nevertheless, a very pretty scene. The banks of the beautiful river were lined with crowds. The church bells rang. The houses were decorated with flags and evergreens; the streets crowned with handsome arches, and every point where even a passing glimpse could be gained of the heir apparent, was thronged with well-dressed occupants.

The Prince disembarked under a royal salute, fired by the Volunteer artillery; a guard of honour, also of the Volunteers, presented arms and lowered colours with most creditable precision. The cheers were deafening for a moment until the Prince got into his carriage, when loyalty overpowered every other sentiment, and the crowd rushing rather tumultuously round the equipage, scattered the aldermen and other dignitaries of the town before them till they got sight of the Prince, when they stood still aud cheered till the hills echoed again. Escorted by a fine and well-drilled detachment of Yeomanry cavalry, the Prince's carriage was drawn slowly through the town to Government House, and everywhere His Highness received the same enthusiastic marks of devotion and respect.

The Government House at Fredericton, now occupied by Mr. Manners Sutton, is one of the largest and handsomest of the kind in all the provinces. The grounds round it towards the river are beautifully kept, and the Prince's rooms commanded a magnificent prospect over the river St. John, and up one of its 0072 54 many most picturesque Indian tributaries, the Nash Waak.

In the evening there was a torchlight procession, in honour of His Royal Highness, round the Government House. It was a very brilliant and well managed affair; after which—for a very little gaiety amuses Fredericton—the people really went soberly to bed.

Sunday, the 5th, was, of course, observed as a day of rest—a day of rest which, even early as it was in the tour, began to be rather eagerly looked forward to by some, rather weary of the perpetual fêting.

But on Monday, the 6th, the town resumed its rejoicings with redoubled vigour, and the state labours of the Prince commenced again. The first proceeding was to formally open a cleared meadow of some thirty acres, the germ of a future park which Fredericton had added to its other luxuries. There never was a place less in want of a park, considering that the hills and woods are within a stone's throw of any part of it, and there never yet was a spot which answers less to the name of “park” than that which the Prince opened there, inasmuch as the whole meadow is as level as a bowling-green, and every tree is carefully uprooted. Nevertheless, the people liked it, and were proportionately pleased at the Prince opening it. After this, of course, there was another levée, at which every one was presented; and the local papers explained the niceties of evening dress, and were at pains to point out at length what it meant, and that a dress coat should not be a frock coat, or of any colour but black, with other valuable and important information with regard to neckerchiefs and waistcoats. Even these slight rules of etiquette were not without their use, and had the effect of keeping the applicants for the honour of presentation within tolerably moderate bounds. There was no 0073 55 limit to the number of those who wished to attend, but there was a most decided limit to the number of dress coats in the province, and the levées were thus kept down.

In the evening there was a grand ball at the Provincial House of Assembly, which passed off very well, in spite of the arrangements, which here, too, at one time threatened its success. Fredericton, though a small place, is by no means so small as not to have its quarrels and divided parties. Thus there had been so great a difference of opinion as to the propriety of building one large temporary ball-room, that the matter had to be compromised by building two or three little ones, which were all decorated on different plans, except one, to the adornment of which a great legal functionary had given up his mind, and which was bedizened with evergreens on no plan at all. The result of such an arrangement was obvious. The room in which the Prince was dancing was desperately crowded, and the others, of course, nearly empty. However, as long as the Prince was dancing and people could see him, everybody was pleased, and His Royal Highness himself won golden opinions by the assiduity with which he danced all night, and the good taste with which he selected some of the prettiest young ladies in the room—of whom there were plenty—for his partners. What they thought of his liveliness and conversational powers afterwards it is not difficult to imagine, but some of them appeared so nervous and so agitated during the whole time they were his partners that it may be more than doubtful if they were able to recollect, when the dance was over, a single word of what he had said to them during it. In consequence of the before-mentioned arrangement of little rooms the Prince and suite supped alone, while the general 0074 56 visitors went into the court-house and ranged themselves, like prisoners at the bar, at a table spread in front of the judge's seat.

Though His Royal Highness had arranged to return to St. John by the “Forest Queen” at six next morning, yet, as at Halifax and Newfoundland, it was near four o'clock before he quitted the ball-room at Fredericton; consequently it was past eight o'clock in the morning ere he commenced his voyage down the river again. The day, for once, was magnificent, and the noble scenery was thus seen to its fullest advantage. At times it was exceedingly wild, grand, and rugged, almost like that of the Hudson at West Point. Its general character, however, was rich luxuriant beauty, like the valleys in Devonshire on a large scale. The Prince's boat landed him at Indian Town—a suburb of St. John which he had not previously seen, and where some beautiful decorations were prepared in honour of his arrival. All the people were out, too, in their gayest—the old Welsh settlers, the Irish and Scotch, with a thin sprinkling here and there of Indians, stalking in abnormal dignity and sullen raggedness, the remnants of a broken, expiring race. It was one grand ovation all along the streets, for the people seemed suddenly to have recovered their voices and made the houses ring again with their cheers. The Prince's carriage did not enter the city of St. John at all, but turning off short across the beautiful suspension-bridge went straight towards Carleton on the opposite side, where he was to embark from the ferry and return on board the “Styx.”

While crossing this bridge His Highness got the best view of the magnificent river of St John—a river which is inferior only to the St. Lawrence in British North America. The mouth of it, just under 0075 57 the bridge, has a sunken ridge of rocks, over which, when the immense tide of the Bay of Fundy is rising, a cascade pours into the river. When the tide, on the contrary, is falling, the cascade flows the other way—out of the river. Only at high tide can this bar be crossed by shipping. Above the bar, however, there is fine navigable water to Woodstock, a distance of some 150 miles from St. John. The fine branch called the Kennebekasis is a sort of small inland lake, not at all unlike Bedford basin, though even more picturesque in its shores.

Carleton, like all suburbs of a town, has rather a good opinion of itself and its attractions, and the Prince was accordingly invited to pass through it on the day of his arrival; and he, with the utmost kindness, at once consented to do so. Carleton shrouded itself at once in evergreens and arches, swept up its streets, proclaimed a general holyday, and arranged a very pretty procession of its firemen and volunteers to escort His Royal Highness and keep the streets clear. Twelve o'clock was the hour fixed for his arrival; but twelve o'clock came, and one, and two, and three, and the people waited and waited and waited, but still he did not come. At last a message came to state that His Highness would not be able to pay the intended compliment to Carleton. The grief and disappointment of the people was something overwhelming; and when the Prince left St. John next morning, and he was really gone, and Carleton still unvisited, their fury in words against some local authorities to whom they attributed the slight, knew no bounds; Carleton forthwith hoisted its flags half-mast high, in token of its mourning and desolation. The news of this affliction, of course, reached the Prince, and as no slight was intended, and the good people who had made such preparation 0076 58 had on the whole been treated rather hardly, he at once signified his intention of paying Carleton a visit on his return from Fredericton, and embarking from it. At this news the Carleton flags went up again to the tops of the poles, and the whole place beamed once more with smiles. The reception which they gave His Royal Highness was extraordinary, from its deep warm enthusiasm and delight. Flowers were strewed in his path by hundreds of children dressed in white; every moment the excitement of enthusiasm grew more and more unbounded, till at last the people made a rush at the carriage, had the horses out in a twinkling, and drew it themselves in triumph to the shore. The kind leave-taking, from the thousands gathered on the beach, was something touching. The sun was setting over the Bay of Fundy, the ships of war and forts were all saluting; the harbour was covered with multitudes of boats and steamers, the occupants of which were all cheering and waving handkerchiefs. Never have regrets for the departure of any prince appeared more general and sincere, than those which followed the Prince of Wales from New Brunswick. As the barge moved off from the shore the cheering was changed for cries of “Good bye, God bless you, and farewell!” till the boat had got beyond hearing, when the crowds stood mute and looking almost mournful, till the echoes of the last guns had died away, and the “Styx” itself was a mere black speck upon the waters of the Bay of Fundy.

Route from Windsor—Destruction of Timber—Loyalty of Truro—Departure from Pictou—Ball at Charlotte Town—The Aurora Borealis—The “Hero” aground.

The route which His Royal Highness took to reach this most fertile of all the provinces, was as long and circuitous as could well be contrived, in order to enable him to see as much of the country of Nova Scotia as possible. The arrangement was to return from St. John to Hansport, thence by carriage to Windsor, thence by rail to Truro, and thence by carriage again to Pictou Bay, and so on in the “Hero” to Charlotte Town, the capital of the province of Prince Edward Island. The night the Prince embarked from St. John was wonderfully still and calm, though towards morning it rained heavily; and, as usual, when the Prince landed at Hansport at six in the morning, it was in the middle of a tremendous shower. A beautiful drive round the head of the inlet brought the party to Windsor, at a little before eight in the morning.

This little village had, as I have already told, made a most tasteful display of arches and garlands on the occasion of the Prince's first visit; though as a small place, and one through which His Highness only passed en route , it might well have excused itself this expense. 0078 60 Yet its good inhabitants seemed to think that even this was not enough, and that the honour of a second call demanded fresh acknowledgments: so more flags and more evergreens were put, till the whole place seemed like a big garden, and the air was scented with the sweet smell of the spruce firs.

A king's ransom would scarcely have got a bed in Windsor on the previous evening, though why people had hired them it was impossible to say, for assuredly no one went to sleep, but remained promenading between the thinly-scattered houses all through the hot, still night. As the Prince was not to arrive before eight o'clock, of course everybody, in spite of the rain, was in their place on his line of route by five A.M., and seemed to derive a mysterious sort of satisfaction from looking eagerly up the road along which he was expected to come. At last he did come, and the good people of Windsor cheered with such vigour and effect as would have led any one only listening to believe it was a populous place, or one at least which, on the whole, was rather flush of inhabitants than otherwise.

His Royal Highness and suite took breakfast at the Clifton House, and, this important prelude to a long and difficult journey having been duly performed, the royal train arrived, and, amid cheers and waving of handkerchiefs, the Prince took his departure from Windsor. With him also went the hearts of half the young ladies of the province of Nova Scotia, who were wild about him, and who seemed not likely to recover their sober senses for months. A popular sonnet was once written on a pathetic—very pathetic—incident at New Orleans. On this an affecting ballad, entitled, “Let me kiss him for his mother,” was composed. These words had, however, been quite divested of their melancholy associations by the young ladies of 0079 61 Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and “Let me kiss him for his mother,” first said archly enough at the ball at Halifax, had gradually passed into a motto among all the belles of the provinces.

Part of the route from Windsor lay through the almost primeval forests, which cover so much of the provinces and of Canada, and than which nothing more wild, more beautiful, and more impressive in their silent grandeur can be imagined, Sometimes the rail would go for miles through deep impenetrable woods, where as yet apparently no man had trodden, and where the never-ending pines towered above the swamp ash, spruce maple, and white poplar, which give such a luxuriant aspect to the otherwise formal vegetation of North American scenery. Every now and then you saw amid the thick mass of boughs a gigantic pine which had tottered, but not found room to fall, and, as if fearing to disturb the tremendous silence by the crash of its ruin, reclined high in air amid the branches of his more sturdy fellows. Miles upon miles of such a route were passed, until it began to approach the location of some new settler, when the aspect of the forest again changed, for the great trees had been girdled round to kill them, and stood up like skeletons amid the general life around, blanched, dead, and white as snow. It is always a solemn scene this, and more so when the trees which have stood unmolested for 200 years at last begin to fall, and lie piled high over one another in the most fantastic heaps, so gray, so lifeless, and so overthrown, that you are glad to see the bright green leaves of the sycamore and wild raspberry creeping over them, as if to hide their ruins from the light. Then came places where many, but not all, had fallen, leaving the tallest and most powerful withering alone, straight and bare as 0080 62 iron pillars, like a series of the most colossal hoppoles, or else, broken off some fifty feet above the earth, they seemed, like Flaxman's ruined column, to be Nature's tombstones, monuments to the memory of departed forest life and grandeur.

Now and then the wild solitude is broken by a rude fence of piles of little trees enclosing a few acres of half-cleared land, where, amid tall, ragged, half-burnt stumps and twisted roots, a thick coarse grass straggles up, and is eagerly devoured by cows or sheep almost as wild as deer. The next patch is oats, potatoes, or sometimes Indian corn, rich, green, and wavy-looking like fountains of leaves, and then comes the settler's hut. It is only a poor log shanty, hot and dusty in summer, cold and draughty in winter, without a tree to shade it from the sun and wind, for it is generally put in the centre of the clearing. A lot of children with bare, sunburnt arms and legs are sure to be scampering about among the pigs and poultry, looking as brown, as vigorous, and as sturdy in their way as the very pines they have so lately dispossessed. Pass by this hut in ten years hence, and you will find the shanty used not as a dwelling, but a barn, and the settler already on his way to comfort and independence, if not fortune, building himself a rough, commodious, homely mansion, at the door of which the tax-gatherer never knocks, and where there is always work and welcome for the labourer for a year, and a spare cow and horse at the end of that time, when he too takes his axe in hand and starts to clear the wilderness like the rest.

The wanton destruction of timber that is now so fast going on in the provinces and Canada must be looked upon by all that regard more than the gratification of their own immediate wants, at least with regret, if not 0081 63 with alarm. The settler looks upon a tree as his natural enemy, as, indeed, within certain limits, for the time it is. His first act is to fell enough timber round his hut to save that from burning; his next is very often to set fire to the woods. In the day the huge dun mass of smoke from these forest fires lingers over the horizon for miles and covers the hills like a cloud. But at night it lights them with a dull red effulgence, a sea of fire, fanned for a moment into a sheet of bright flame as the wind rises and bears it up round some tall pine, in the branches of which it seems to play and jump about from limb to limb, till the whole is one great pyramid of fire, crackling and blazing fiercely. A few minutes and it burns out, and a great tree, the growth of some eighty or hundred years, is destroyed, all save the first forty or fifty feet of its lofty trunk, which keep hissing and sparkling feebly now and then like the case of an exploded firework. It is depressing to see the devastation caused by these fires. You go for miles through a black dead country—not the sound of a bird, not the sign of a leaf, nor a vestige of any living thing to break its awful silent monotony. The dry, sultry ashes of the forest crumple under your feet, and this and the occasional falling of a trunk, which crackles lightly down in a cloud of charcoal ashes, are the only sounds which disturb the painful solitude. The aspect of ravage and desolation which a great fire causes is bad enough in all places, but nowhere does the destruction seem so complete and awful as on the spot where a great forest has been thus destroyed. It seems as if some natural phenomenon had smitten the woods black, silent, and desolate for ever. In cases where the fires have occurred the year before, however, the scene is not so desolate, for even in such a short space the inexhaustible fertility 0082 64 of the soil has done much to repair the mischief, and thickets of young shrubs are seen to be fast springing up, while perfect bushes of wild geraniums, fire flowers, wood lilies, and foxgloves, crowd around the charred stumps, making such colour contrasts, as their scarlet blossoms push up between the charcoal, as give a strange, peculiar beauty to the scene.

It is an extraordinary fact, but one which is strictly true, that when a forest is burnt, trees of an utterly different kind to those which formerly grew there, spring up again in their place. Thus, if a forest of soft woods, such as pines and swamp ash are burnt down, oak and beech trees instantly spring, though such trees may never have been seen in the district before. The reverse of this takes place when woods of oak and beech are destroyed by fire: it is then the pines which replace the hard woods.

How do natural philosophers and botanists account for this apparent phenomenon? The result of the wholesale destruction of timber which has been going on for years shows most disadvantageously in the lands which have been long settled. They are almost like prairies—an unbroken expanse of land—a sea of grass, and without a single tree or shrub worth the name for miles. In the longer settled parts of the Canadas the want of wood is already beginning to be felt, and of course, as time goes on it must be felt still more, especially when to the want of wood is added that which is certain to follow it—the want of water. In the wilder portions of the country—nearly nine-tenths of its whole extent at the present day—timber of all kinds is still a nuisance, and though a war of extermination is levied on it in all its forms by axe and fire, and miles upon miles are burnt down in a single day, it still covers the country in a dense mantle of pines, 0083 65 giving shelter to thousands of deer and moose, and no small quantity of bears and wolves as well.

Through such a country as this the royal train passed, every little shanty turning out its inmates to cheer, and everybody seemingly in the highest degree pleased at catching a flying glimpse, not indeed of His Royal Highness, but of His Royal Highness's carriage. Between the junction from Windsor to Truro the train was nearly taking fire, but a few buckets of water put an end to the danger, and without further contretemps it reached Truro soon after 11. The preparations made at Truro were really beautiful. Triumphal arches had occurred all through the progress in such an uninterrupted succession that one took them as things of course. Those of Truro, however, wrung admiration from the most blasé such matters. There were very many of them, their forms were beautiful, and all were decorated with a good taste and effectiveness which would have done honour to any town in Great Britain. All the people, not only of the town, but of the surrounding country for miles and miles, lined the little streets, dressed in the most festive of costumes, and the royal salute fired by Volunteer Artillery was the signal for an uproarious outburst of enthusiasm and applause, mingled with a little shower of bouquets, well aimed at the carriage at least, if not at the Prince.

An impromptu procession of vehicles was soon formed, which crossed the little town under no end of decorations, and debouched upon a kind of village green, where the Prince was to receive and reply to an address. In the centre of this green a very handsome trophy over an extemporaneous fountain had been erected and hung with garlands and draped with crimson curtains; it really looked one of the best efforts F 0084 66 of the kind the Prince had met. Under this, a loyal address was read, and a royal reply delivered, about which nothing more need be said than that both were appropriate, and the former very long. The party then retired to lunch, after which, at twelve o'clock, the whole cortége entered carriages and began their journey across country to Pictou, a distance of forty-six miles. Relays of horses had been arranged along the road, and it was well that this precautionary measure was taken, for along the wild and desert track which led to Pictou there was as little chance of finding a horse as finding a man. The road, the only one across the province, was really a good one, and His Royal Highness and suite managed to travel along this at the rate of some eight miles an hour—not bad speed when horses, roads, and carriages were considered together. So surely as any place was reached which had two or three houses, so surely was there an arch of some kind or another; sometimes a simple one of sweet spruce fir, sometimes a more ambitious effort, in which half the wild flowers of the woods were woven in rich confusion. At the entrance to the county of Pictou there was a most beautiful arch and a numerous assemblage of people, though where they all came from it was hard to imagine. From this point to the town, a distance of some eighteen or twenty miles, arches and wreaths occurred frequently, till, at six in the evening, His Royal Highness came in sight of the wide harbour of Pictou, with the red, quaint little town forming a small belt of houses on its edge. Every street here wore a decoration, and the people had assembled from all parts of the country. But except for the gratification of their own feelings of loyalty, it was scarcely worth while, for the Prince only drove through the town, and had embarked in his barge almost before the smoke of 0085 67 the guns for the royal salute had cleared away. But at Pictou, as was the case throughout the whole progress, the people were amply satisfied for all their toil of preparations, and all their patient waiting on the route for hours, if they only saw His Highness and knew that he saw the decorations they had erected in honour of his coming.

It was almost getting dark when the Prince embarked, or I believe he intended to have availed himself of the opportunity of visiting some of the celebrated coal mines of Pictou. Only at Pictou and at Cape Breton Island does coal exist in all British North America. At the former town, however, the seams are found thicker than probably in any other mines in the world. One seam, the extent of which is not yet known, or only known vaguely to be very large, varies from thirty to thirty-six feet in thickness.

From Pictou, however, His Royal Highness was obliged to go at once on board the “Flying Fish,” which Commander Hope and his officers had, almost entirely at their own expense, repainted and decorated as bright and shining as a little yacht. Here the Prince and suite were at once at home, as in fact the Prince always was when once he got on board a vessel of the royal squadron, and could throw off the state and checks of royalty.

His stay on board the “Flying Fish,” however, was but short; and after an interval of some two hours, the pretty sloop got under weigh, and steamed to the outer bay, where the “Ariadne” and “Hero” lay about ten miles off the shore, owing to the shoalness of the water. At six A.M. on the morning of Thursday, the 9th of August, the squadron got under weigh again, and steamed across Northumberland strait for Charlotte Town, the capital of Prince Edward Island. F 2

This province is considered the most fertile of all the English North American possessions, and is one of the dozen claimants that insist on being called the garden of Canada, though the only portion that has any really justifiable pretensions to that high title is the magnificent tract of land that extends over the whole country lying between Toronto and Hamilton in Upper Canada. Still Prince Edward Island is the most fertile of the provinces, though immeasurably behind St. John in everything but the value of its soil for agricultural produce. The whole island is, in fact, a large dairy farm, only wanting emigrants to turn its rich resources to account. The great fertility of the soil is in a great measure due to the abundance of streams that cross it in all directions, while the island itself is so deeply indented by bays and inlets, that it is said no part of it is more than eight miles distant from the ebb and flow of the sea tide.

Charlotte Town itself, if such a little group of houses can be called a city, stands on the junction of the Hillsborough, York, and Elliott rivers. Beyond it all the country seems like a gigantic park, so richly is it wooded, so fertile are its wide extent of meadows and soft grassy uplands. The whole population of the place, however, is very small, scarcely more than 90,000, very far less than that of any of the Metropolitan boroughs. Yet Prince Edward Island has not only its members, but its Upper and Lower Houses of Assembly—a House of Lords and Commons for 90,000 widely-scattered agriculturists! It seems like putting paddle-engines into a canoe. But, poor and small as Prince Edward Island is, compared to other provinces, far more was done for the Prince in the way of state preparation than could have possibly been expected. It rained, of course, just as the Prince landed, and continued 0087 69 to pour in torrents all the rest of the day and night. Fortunately, the arches and other decorations were of too solid a character to be easily washed out, but, on the contrary, looked all the better and the fresher for their wetting. The same remark may apply to the people, who appeared to have been “wetting” considerably, and who consequently were very “fresh” indeed. Before the ball, which took place on the night of the 10th, His Royal Highness reviewed the Volunteers, who, though far from numerous, were, in all relating to equipment and discipline, a credit to the colony. After this small military display, every one made up their minds for the fête of the evening, which, if all I heard was true, must have been anxiously looked forward to all over the island since the previous Christmas. The ball, therefore, was in its way a very gay affair. As at Halifax it took place in the rooms where the Legislative Assembly meet semi-occasionally for transacting the affairs of the island. Certainly, whatever other advantages these rooms possessed, they were not large. So the ball-room was very crowded, and not many could get in, or, being in, get out. But people like being crowded at a ball, especially when dancing is not their forte, and thus even the most critical at Charlotte Town could not detect whether the bewildered individuals, pushing here and there, were really involved in the mazes of a quadrille or only trying to gain the door. The Prince was there, too, laughing and dancing as much as any, and the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Dundas, the Lieutenant-Governor, were equally amused and equally complicated among the crowd. So the whole fête was voted a decided success, and “the festivities prolonged to an advanced hour.”

Saturday, the 11th, was a quiet day—that is, the Prince only received visitors and embarked in state on 0088 70 board the “Hero,” which, with the “Ariadne,” “Cossack,” and “Flying Fish,” and a French 42-gun frigate, “Pomone,” were all dressed in colours, had yards manned, and saluted. This made a good spectacle of the departure, and the crowds of people lining the shores finished the effect, and made the whole ceremony one of considerable state and éclat , in spite of the rain, which had, of course, been dropping all the morning, and which the thunder of the guns brought down at last with drenching vehemence. At two P.M. the signal was made to weigh anchor, and in half an hour afterwards the squadron was steaming quickly down the straits, with light winds, thick, rainy weather, a little cross sea, and a decided prospect of each and all getting worse as the night drew on. The course was down the Gut of Cansou, across some dangerous shoals between Prince Edward Island and the mainlalid, where the channel for large ships is narrow and intricate, and where, on that night at least, there was but little prospect of getting sight of any bearings by which the squadron could judge of its whereabouts. Fortunately the rain kept down the wind, as, indeed, it seemed capable of keeping down anything; but it was a wretched night, and by ten o'clock the vessels were slowly creeping on, sounding their way with the leadlines as they advanced, and hoisting groups of lights at the mainyard whenever any was fortunate enough to find some water deeper than the rest. Thus moving, stopping, sounding, and signaling, the squadron crept slowly past the Escumenar light and Mirimichi Bay, till daylight broke, when the open sea was gained at last. Sunday, the 10th, was at first as bad as Saturday, in point of weather, till the evening, when the breeze fell, and the rain ceased as the ships steamed in towards Gaspé Point. To see the bold magnificence 0089 71 of this coast to the best advantage, all the squadron stood into the narrow channel between Bonaventure Island and Cape Gaspé,, where the huge cliffs of steep red sandstone, lit up by the setting sun, seemed like mountains of fire, in which the dark shadows caused by rents and chasms stood out with a black distinctness that was almost terrible. Just beyond Cape Gaspé is an insulated mass of fiery sandstone, known by the name of the Percé Rock. It is caverned into a heap of rents and holes, some of which penetrate its entire mass, and allow a faint daylight to peer through it, showing like spots of dirty chalk upon its straight blood-coloured sides. The “Hero” ran close to this to enable His Royal Highness to see its rough grandeur at the best, and passing across Mal Bay stood straight for Gaspé Harbour.

It was night again, however, before this was gained, and as the last rays of the sun were overpowered by darkness the Aurora Borealis seemed suddenly to spring into light and life in the sky, and kept playing across every part of the heavens, as if the active principle of the light which had just departed was rejoicing over its release from work. Sometimes it would entirely vanish with a sudden blink, as if the illumination was blown out, and then come faintly streaming down the sky in thin, lambent, pencilled veins, which spread out in sudden shoots, now brightening, now fading, till the whole lit up in one rich vivid blaze, and died out to reappear again in another direction. The squadron reached Gaspé Bay soon after dark, and anchored for the night alongside the “Victoria” and the “Lady Head” steamers, which had come down with the Governor of Canada, Sir Edmund Head, Lord Lyons, our minister at Washington, and the chief members of the Canadian government, including Mr. Cartier, Mr. 0090 72 Macdonald, Mr. Vankougnet, Mr. Rose, &c., to meet His Royal Highness.

Early in the morning of the 13th, after a visit had been duly paid to the “Hero” by the Executive officials, the squadron was signalled to get under way and follow the commodore into the inner harbour of Gaspé. The whole coast line of the North American provinces abounds with natural and almost landlocked harbours, many of which are superior in size and security and depth of water to the most vaunted harbours of Great Britain. Milford Haven, Queenstown, Bantry Bay, or Plymouth, are almost below any standard of comparison with these magnificent refuges; and Gaspé, though far from one of the best, is still immeasurably better than many of the best of ours. A long chain of richly wooded undulating hills encloses it on three sides, and its broad capacious mouth, some five miles wide, has a natural breakwater across half its extent in the shape of a sandbank, which, stretching out in a sharp curve, stops the angry water from passing into the inner harbour. The “Hero,” followed by the “Ariadne,” “Flying-Fish,” “Victoria,” and “Lady Head,” steamed up this basin till the little town of Gaspé, with its stiff-looking white-washed houses, its cleared fields, and regular sharp outlines of small trees, for all the world like the villages children build with a box of Dutch toys, came close in view. There was still the inner harbour of all to enter, and up this the “Hero” was, of course, to lead.

On a high, commanding spit of land a heavy battery commenced firing a royal salute as the vessel approached, and the echoes went reverberating among the hills in a deep, sustained roar, as if the mountains were shouting to each other in tones of thunder. All this time the “Hero,” with the royal standard flying, seemed 0091 73 unaccountably still. The last gun was fired, and the uproar which it called into being waxed fainter and fainter, till it ceased gently in a hoarse murmur, the shadow of its former self, and still the “Hero” continued quiet and motionless as a rock. At last a crowd of little signals were hoisted with the “Ariadne's” pennants, and went down again before a landsman could well count their number. But, quick as they went up and down, they had been read by the squadron, and it was “Hands up—stream cables!” for the “Hero” was hard ashore. In trying to enter the inner harbour she had taken the ground on a low spit of shoal, and there she remained hard and fast. In a few minutes the “Ariadne” went ahead, and, skimming round the bay with a speed which no ocean-going frigate ever surpassed, turned in her own length and backed in, stern foremost, to assist the flag-ship. The manœuvre was beautifully executed, though quite in vain, for where the “Hero” gets aground there is not much water for the “Ariadne.” She, too, touched the shoal with her stern, but of course went off again, and got out her boats at once with hawsers to tow. The Commodore then signalled the “Flying Fish” to close, and in a minute or so afterwards that pretty little sloop was brought under the stern of the “Hero” with such skill and ease that, though the vessels actually touched, the distance was calculated with such minute care and nicety that, as sailors say, the two ships would scarcely have broken an egg between them. In a very few words Commodore Seymour gave his instructions, and in a very few minutes Commander Hope carried them out, taking the “Hero's” stream cable through the stern port, and dropping it with a bower anchor in the very spot where it was necessary to haul on. Simply as this is said in words, it was on the whole a difficult 0092 74 thing to do properly; but the “Flying Fish” did it, and did it well, too. Hauling upon this, and steaming full power astern till the water was in foam, the “Hero” made a desperate effort to clear herself, but all in vain. Nothing moved her, and there seemed at one time a strong probability that she would have to run her guns aft, if not to lower them into the “Flying Fish” entirely, before she floated. During this interval of time a number of gaily-dressed boats had come out from Gaspé town, and quite unaware of the untoward circumstances of the case, collected in a crowd under the “Hero's” bows, their crews cheering and waving handkerchiefs as if His Royal Highness had purposely gone ashore to receive their ovations at his ease. At his ease, indeed, the Prince certainly seemed to be, “sky-larking” about the quarter-deck of the “Hero” with the younger officers with as much good-humour and sang-froid as if he visited Gaspé every day in the year, and was rather in the habit than otherwise of getting ashore in a line-of-battle ship. At last, after an hour or more had been spent in useless attempts to move the “Hero” off, the “Ariadne” passed two hawsers out astern, and, taking the flag-ship in tow, pulled her out of her difficulties bodily and set her afloat once more in deep water.

The “Hero” aground again—Scenery of the River—A little Excursion—Mountain Echoes—Arrival at Quebec.

After the narrow escape of the “Hero,” which if she had gone ashore a little harder would have been placed in a very awkward position, and might have remained in it for a week, no further attempt was made by any of the squadron to enter the inner harbour of Gaspé. As soon therefore as the flagship had recovered herself, recalled her boats, and in a manner resettled her plumage, the signal was hoisted, “Prepare to weigh.” In ten minutes afterwards the squadron was steaming down the bay as fast as they could run, for a huge Atlantic fog-bank, dense as a shoal, came pouring in, and, safe as the harbour is at all times, it was not thought quite advisable to keep large ships tacking about in it in fog which was quite of the colour and almost of the consistency of butter. All, therefore, made haste to get out at once, the “Hero” leading round Cape Gaspé—a tremendous headland of limestone rock, gray and solemn-looking, with its massive brow furrowed into deep chasms, like wrinkles, by the action of the elements upon it for ages past. The “Flying Fish” was afforded rather a close opportunity of studying this awful rock, for in the fog the “Ariadne,” 0094 76 suddenly made her appearance close astern, compelling the “Flying Fish” to turn almost into the rock to avoid a still more dangerous collision. Outside the harbour the fog was, if possible, even more dense, and in half an hour the ships were anywhere but together, and there seemed not the least chance of their coming together unless they ran into one another in the fog. To avoid the risk of this and warn her consorts, the “Hero” fired guns at short intervals, but to make the confusion worse the lighthouse on Cape Gaspé began firing, while a couple of guns somewhere ashore fired also. Of course when the “Ariadne” and “Flying Fish” replied to these, guns were going off on all sides through the thickest fog, none knowing why or wherefore, and the wildest bewilderment prevailed.

On the 14th it cleared a little, and the ships went ahead fast—so fast, indeed, that the “Flying Fish” was soon making a long stern chase of it, and though her heavy guns were brought aft, and all other nautical devices adopted to increase her speed, she continued dropping astern till she would have been left behind altogether had not the commodore signalled the “Ariadne” to take her in tow. To a frigate of such speed and power as the “Ariadne” it made very little difference whether she had a line-of-battle ship in tow or only a sloop like the “Flying Fish;” but on this occasion unfortunately her attempts to tow were not successful, for hardly had she got the “Flying Fish” well under weigh ere part of her engine broke down, and the gallant “Ariadne” came to a dead stand-still. There was nothing for it therefore, but to leave her to beat up under sail till she could repair the accident, while the “Flying Fish” pressed on full power to rejoin the “Hero”—an effort which took her the whole night 0095 77 to accomplish, and which she never would have accomplished at all if the flag-ship had not slackened speed as she neared the mouth of that most awful-looking of all rivers, the Saguenay, up which it was intended the squadron should steam. The Saguenay is only some 120 miles distant from Quebec; but, as the river is of its kind the most extraordinary in the whole world, it had been arranged that the Prince should spend at least two days in fishing and boating between the tremendous cliffs which hem it in on every side. While the “Hero” was preparing to enter this river the “Ariadne” rejoined the squadron. She had repaired the damages to her engines by nine on the previous night, and had steamed up a distance of 122 knots in eleven hours.

All the vessels were preparing to enter the mouth of the river when the “Hero” got ashore again on a very little shoal, but one on which she nevertheless managed to get aground, and pretty firmly too. The water round the entrance to the Saguenay is deep enough for any line-of-battle ship that ever floated, except in one small place called the Four-fathom Patch, the only spot in the whole bay where she could take the ground, and on this the pilot contrived to run her rather hard. The buoys which indicated the presence of this danger had shifted considerably—so considerably, in fact, that it was said the pilot should have seen at once by their bearings that they were not where they ought to have been. As the tide was falling fast there seemed to be very little probability of her being got off for some hours. The “Ariadne” was preparing to pull her off again if she would come, or pull her in half if she wouldn't, and the “Hero” was beginning to get her guns aft, when suddenly, to the astonishment of all, she moved a little, and then bumped a little, then 0096 78 moved a little more as the sweep of the tide pushed her, and at last, as she went full power astern with her screw, gradually worked clear of the shoal, and was once more quietly afloat. This made an end at once of the chance of the squadron going up the Saguenay; so the Prince and his suite disembarked and went on board the Governor's steamer, which had followed them from Gaspé, and thus the first day's tour was made up the wildest and gloomiest river in the world. The day was about as wretched and unfavourable as could possibly have chanced for any other trip.

For a voyage up the Saguenay, however, every one thought it the most appropriate weather that could have happened, and the wonder was that as this was the case the day was not fine. The wind was high and rushing in fierce sharp squalls which drove the rain like small shot in your face. Gloomy black clouds rested on the mountains, and seemed to double their height, pouring over the ragged cliffs in a stream of mist, till, lifting suddenly with the hoarse gusts of wind, they allowed short glimpses into what may almost be called the terrors of the Saguenay scenery. It is on such a day, above all others, that the savage wildness and gloom of this extraordinary river is seen to the greatest advantage. Sunlight and clear skies are out of place over its black waters. Anything which petals the life and smile of nature is not in unison with the huge naked cliffs, raw, cold, and silent as tombs. An Italian spring could effect no change in its deadly rugged aspect, nor does winter add an iota to its mournful desolation. It is a river which one should see if only to know what dreadful aspects Nature can assume in her wild moods. Once seen, however, few will care to visit it again, for it is with a sense of relief that the tourist emerges from its sullen gloom, and looks back upon it as a kind of 0097 79 vault,—Nature's sarcophagus, where life or sound seems never to have entered. Compared to it the Dead Sea is blooming, and the wildest ravines look cosy and smiling. It is wild without the least variety, and grand apparently in spite of itself, while so utter is the solitude, so dreary and monotonous the frown of its great black walls of rock, that the tourist is sure to get impatient with its sullen dead reserve till he feels almost an antipathy to its very name. Some six miles above is the little town, or, as in England we should call it, village of Tadousiac. It is more than 300 years since Jacques Cartier, the discoverer of Canada, the bold adventurer who, through his misinterpretation of the Indian word “welcome,” gave the present name to the country, landed here. It was almost his first real resting-place, and the first mention which we have of the Saguenay is one which now well befits its savage aspect, for Cartier sent a boat and crew to explore its rocky chasm which were never more heard of. From that day to this the river has had a name which, allowing for the difference of times and creeds, only the Styx can equal. At the mouth of the Saguenay the water varies in depth from ten to sixteen fathoms, but once between the walls of the river and the depth from end to end is never less than 100 fathoms, generally 150. On either side, at a distance of about a mile apart, the cliffs rise up thin, white, and straight, varying in perpendicular height from 1,200 to 1,600 feet, and this is the character of the river Saguenay from its mouth to its source. On the right bank the cliffs are poorly mantled here and there with stunted pines, but on the left there is scarcely a sign of life or verdure, and the limestone rocks stick up white and bleached in the gloomy air like the bones of an old world.

At two places, St. Marguerite and between Capes 0098 80 Trinity and Eternity, where smaller tributaries pour their contributions into the deep, black stream, a breach occurs in the wall of rocks, as if some giant hand had torn them forcibly back, and left them strewn and baffled of their power in uncouth lumps over the valleys beyond. But these are the only openings, the only means of escape, if they may be so called, from the silent gloom of this dead river. The Saguenay seems to want painting, wants blowing up, or draining; anything, in short, to alter its morose, eternal, quiet awe. Talk of Lethe or the Styx, they must have been purling brooks compared with this savage river, and a picnic on the banks of either would be preferable to one on the Saguenay! On the occasion of the Prince's first visit, on the 15th, the mist and rain hid half its gloom, but more than enough was seen to send the party back to the “Hero” at about five o'clock wet and dull. There was rather a state dinner on board the flagship that evening, and the Prince, having to be up early the next morning, retired at twelve. Before turning in he made a bet with one of the officers of the ship that he would be up before four o'clock next morning—a bet, too, which he won, though much tired with the fatigues of the previous day—he overslept himself so far that he had barely time to make his appearance on the quarterdeck of the “Hero” in a hurried and very imperfect toilette before eight bells (four o'clock) was sounded. Before six A.M. he was again on board the Governor's steamer, and away up the Saguenay to fish. Before he left, Captain Hope, of the “Flying Fish,” had received orders to get up steam and take all the officers of the squadron on an excursion up the river. Of course, everybody wished to go, and, as the day was bright and glorious, everybody that could come came. The “Flying Fish” thus had the honour of being the first 0099 81 man-of-war that ever passed up the Saguenay, and if the whole navy of England is sent, I am sure a merrier party will never enter its waters than steamed up on that occasion. Even the Saguenay could not depress their spirits, and if that was not a proof of the zest with which all entered into the day's enjoyment it would be hard to say what was. From St. Marguerite the smart little sloop steamed on to where the wild scenery of the river culminates at a little inlet on the right bank between Capes Trinity and Eternity. Than these two dreadful headlands nothing can be imagined more grand or more impressive. For one brief moment the rugged character of the river is partly softened, and, looking back into the deep valley between the capes, the land has an aspect of life and wild luxuriance which, though not rich, at least seems so in comparison with the previous awful barrenness. Cape Trinity on the side towards the landward opening is pretty thickly clothed with fir and birch mingled together in a colour contrast which is beautiful enough, especially when the rocks show out among them, with their little cascades and waterfalls like strips of silver shining in the sun. But Cape Eternity well becomes its name, and is the very reverse of all this. It seems to frown in gloomy indignation on its brother cape for the weakness it betrays in allowing anything like life or verdure to shield its wild, uncouth deformity of strength. Cape Eternity certainly shows no sign of relaxing in this respect from its deep savage grandeur. It is one tremendous cliff of limestone, more than 1500 feet high, and inclining forward nearly 200 feet, brow-beating all beneath it, and making as if at any moment it would fall and overwhelm the deep black stream which flows down so cold, so deep and motionless below. High up on its rough gray brows a few stunted pines show like G 0100 82 bristles their scathed white arms, giving an awful weird aspect to the mass, blanched here and there by the tempests of ages, stained and discoloured by little waterfalls, in blotchy and decaying spots, but all speaking mutely of a long-gone time when the Saguenay was old, silent, and gloomy, before England was known, or the name of Christianity understood. Unlike Niagara, and all other of God's great works in nature, one does not wish for silence or solitude here. Companionship becomes doubly necessary in an awful solitude like this, and, though you involuntarily talk in subdued tones, still talk you must, if only to relieve your mind of the feeling of loneliness and desolation which seems to weigh on all who venture up this stern grim watery chasm.

The “Flying Fish” passed under this cape slowly with her yards almost touching the rock, though with more than 1000 feet of water under her. Even the Middies and youngsters from the squadron were awed by the scene into a temporary quietness. The solemn and almost forbidding silence at last became too much. The party said they had not come out to be overawed, chilled, and subdued by rocks, however tremendous, so it was carried nem. con. that, dead and stony as they were, they must at least have echoes, and the time was come to wake them. In a minute after, and Captain Hope having good-naturedly given his consent, one of the largest 68-pounders was cast loose and trained aft to face the cliff. From under its overhanging mass the “Flying Fish” was moved with care lest any loose crag should be sufficiently disturbed by the concussion to come down bodily upon her decks. A safe distance thus gained, the gun was fired. None who were in the “Flying Fish” that day will ever forget its sound. For the space of a half a minute or so after the discharge 0101 83 charge there was a dead silence, and then, as if the report and concussion were hurled back upon the decks, the echoes down came on crash on crash. It seemed as if the rocks and crags had all sprung into life under the tremendous din, and as if each was firing 68-pounders full upon us, in sharp crushing volleys, till at last they grew hoarser and hoarser in their anger, and retreated, bellowing slowly, carrying the tale of invaded solitude from hill to hill, till all the distant mountains seemed to roar and groan at the intrusion. It was the first time these hideous cliffs had ever been made to speak, and when they did break silence they did it to some purpose.

A few miles further on, the “Flying Fish” passed under Statue Point, where, at about 1000 feet above the water a huge rough Gothic arch gives entrance to a cave in which, as yet, the foot of man has never trodden. Before the entrance to this black aperture a gigantic rock, like the statue of some dead Titan, once stood. A few years ago, during the winter, it gave way, and the monstrous figure came crashing down through the ice of the Saguenay, and left bare to view the entrance to the cavern it had guarded perhaps for ages. Beyond this, again, was the Tableau Rock, a sheet of dark-coloured limestone, some 600 feet high by 300 wide, as straight and almost as smooth as a mirror.

After passing this the interest in the scenery declined, so the “Flying Fish” turned about and made the best of her way down the river at full speed. Passing St. Marguerite the Prince was still busy with his fishing, and a royal salute was fired, the echoes of which, I believe, are still wandering in search of rest to this very hour.

His Royal Highness returned to the “Hero” at G 2 0102 84 about nine o'clock. His sport, owing to the fineness of the day, had not been very great, as a few small trout were all the whole party had to boast of. Mr. Price hooked a large salmon, and gave it to the Prince to land, but his attempt was not successful. The Prince had not had sufficent practice in salmon fishing to enable him to accomplish that most difficult of all feats to a beginner—that of landing a very large fish with a very small line. It was not for the want of advice, however; there was plenty of that. Every one called out what to do, and, as a matter of course, every one suggested a different mode from every body else, so that His Highness was bewildered, and the salmon proved the truth of the old proverb, that “in a multitude of counsellors there is safety;” and, breaking the line, got clear away.

Fishing, however, was not the only sport enjoyed. A party of Indians waited at St. Marguerite with their canoes; and in these the Prince, with the Duke of Newcastle, Major-General Bruce, and other members of the suite, embarked, and ventured down the rapids, which pour from that beautiful tributary into the main stream. I had always been of opinion that sitting in a Turkish caique was the most uncomfortable means of conveyance ever resorted to on water; but sitting in a canoe I found was a trifle more difficult still. Nobody but an Indian ever liked a canoe, or felt at ease in it. Its bark is so thin, that the very ripple of the water may almost be felt through it as through a blanket, while in appearance the effervescence of a bottle of Allsopp would be more than enough to overset it. In reality, however, they are safe enough as long as one keeps perfectly still; and in order to enable them to do this, the seats on which the traveller sits are slung so that the body moves with every motion of the frail little 0103 85 skiff. In one of these canoes the Prince (who seemed to know as little of fear as any man that ever lived) came down the rather angry and boiling rapids of St. Marguerite. They were not, of course, equal to those of the St. Lawrence; but even down these I believe His Royal Highness would have ventured, had he only had a good Oxford crew on whom he could depend to back him.

It was long past daylight ere this pleasant quiet party on the Saguenay gave up their amusement and, re-entering the precincts of the gloomy river, ran quickly down its black channel to the St. Lawrence.

As he came alongside the “Hero,” the ship burnt blue lights, and in an instant, as if in rivalry of their pale bright fires, the aurora borealis sprang up into the sky, playing such fantastic tricks of light and vivid colour as shamed all terrestrial illuminations into nothing. The squadron anchored for the night off the mouth of the Saguenay, and at 6 A.M. on the 17th got under weigh for Quebec. There was rather a fresh breeze and strong tide down the St. Lawrence, so that quick progress was not possible, and at seven o'clock in the evening the vessels anchored at Isle d'Orleans, twenty miles below Quebec, the first, the oldest, and the strongest of all the cities of Canada.

The Prince on Board—Aspect of the City—Sectarian Squabbles—Illuminations—The Chaudiêre Falls—The Speakers of the Upper and Lower Houses Knighted—Falls of Montmorenci—The Natural Steps—Ball at Quebec—Falls of Lorette—Roman Catholics of Laval—The Heights of Abraham—Departure from Quebec.

The Royal squadron remained at Isle d'Orleans till nearly two o'clock on the 18th. Long before it started, therefore, a whole fleet of river steamers had come down from Quebec all dressed with colours, and covered with festive evergreens from stem to stern. These, however, were the only demonstrations ventured on, for of cheering, or, indeed, any but decorative enthusiasm, there were none. It might have been that the weather exercised an adverse influence in this respect, for it was cold, rainy, and very wet; but, whatever the reason, there was at least no doubt of the fact, and no cheering was attempted at any time in the whole passage from Isle d'Orleans to Quebec. It was not for the want of a better example either that their rather cold decorum was observed, for the Prince, before starting, paid a long private visit to the “Ariadne,” and in leaving that magnificent frigate the crew rushed into the rigging and gave such cheers as only 500 blue jackets really can give. All the Quebec steamers then followed alongside the Prince as he returned in his barge to the “Hero;” but nevertheless the silence remained unbroken, and, as at St. John 0105 87 the people in their burning anxiety to have a good look at him, seemed not to think of the usual tokens of welcome and loyal recognition.

The Prince had celebrated his last night on board the “Hero” by inviting all the young officers of the ships to dine with him before parting. The smoking time after dinner was prolonged for an hour—a privilege of which His Royal Highness availed himself to the last minute, though he was the first to set the example of throwing his cigar away when the time expired. In conformity to the rules of the ship, both as to lights and smoking, he was always most strict: neither breaking them himself nor countenancing some of his particular friends among the younger officers in doing so.

The result was, of course, that he was not only liked but respected by all the officers on board, though liked is perhaps much too weak a term to express the feelings entertained towards him. His popularity was not at all the effect of his exalted rank. Every one who knows anything of a line-of-battle ship, ward-room, and gun-room, knows how little mere rank, however high, counts there, if unaccompanied by more sterling attributes. On board the “Hero,” and indeed in all the ships of the royal squadron, he will not alone be remembered as the Prince of Wales, but better still as the most good-natured, courteous, fun-loving, kind-hearted gentleman that ever entered a ship.

At two o'clock the squadron got under weigh. The “Hero” led, followed by the “Ariadne” and the “Flying Fish.” With the flagship, of course, went the fleet of river steamers, and as the wind was up the river, each was enabled to follow His Royal Highness's vessel with such a dense, impenetrable mass of smoke as was never seen in the St. Lawrence before. 0106 88 Viewed from the deck of the “Flying Fish,” which, as the last ship, was just clear of the sooty atmosphere, the fleet ahead seemed as though they were in some tremendous naval engagement, and as much of the scene as could be distinguished had thus rather a fine effect. Whether those on board the “Hero,” only the very top of the mainmast of which was visible, thought as well of the display was not doubtful, for nearly every one there regarded it somehow as a most intolerable nuisance. All the little houses, churches, and villages on the banks of the river were decked with flags (nearly always the French tricolour), and the sputtering, irregular fire of guns and small arms never ceased along the route for an instant, so that with the smoke of the guns, steamers, and squadron, the St. Lawrence seemed on fire from one end to the other.

But the weather almost spoiled everything. The great and naturally picturesque features of the reception at Quebec were fortunately such as no amount of rain could utterly destroy; and though certainly the deluge which fell on the day of the landing did no good, it certainly did less harm than might have been expected. Just before three o'clock the squadron came in sight of Point Levi, and then slowly on the other side of the broad river, the steep rugged heights of Abraham and lofty outlines of Quebec—the Gibraltar of North America—rose gradually into view.

The appearance of this quaint old city from the bay is always grand and imposing. Its old historical associations are well borne out by the rough gray tiers of houses rising one above the other with their bright tin gable roofs contrasting with the antique fashion of the buildings themselves, amid which in huge heavy outlines the walls of the fortress wind up and down with 0107 89 all the engineering eccentricities of salient and reentering angles. But on shore it is such a combination of the old and the new, of a peaceful, prosperous town built in and out of a tremendous citadel—a mélange of modern “stores,” guns, bastions, crenelated walls, suburban residences, and houses of tin and pine wood—as makes it resemble no other place under the sun. Take a large part of Malta, mix it up with St Peter's at Guernsey, add a few of the old houses at Abbeville, strew it here and there with log houses, roof it all over with tin, pave roads and paths with wooden logs, put an immense citadel at the top, cover the streets rather profusely with dirt, and stick the whole on one of the hills over Milford Haven, with an English Government and a French population, and there you have Quebec. Everything there seems in an anomalous state—the footpaths are ladders and the roads are slides. There is a Parliament building, which is not to be used. There are good squares, which are always empty, and narrow, difficult flights of streets, which are always full. With the English the name of Quebec is indissolubly associated with the name of Wolfe. Among the Quebecians Montcalm is revered. In a strategical point of view one would say the shops of Quebec were the keys of the position, for batteries loom over the roofs of chemists and haberdashers, and you can walk in few places without finding your movements inspected by huge open-mouthed guns, which lurk in ambush at every corner, behind trees, in gardens, or half concealed by roofs and stacks of chimneys. Of its kind Quebec must be unique, and I am glad to think it is, for it seems to have got old without becoming venerable, and prosperous without much activity or cleanliness. But from the water, before the Prince landed, it looked grand, as all lofty 0108 90 places from the water somehow or other do. The chief buildings were decorated with flags, the houses, wharfs, and terraces were thronged with thousands, and up the steep streets the points of triumphal arches could be seen with their bright decorations still flaunting, though rather dulled of their splendour by the rain and wind. As the “Hero” came up opposite the town the forts began to salute from the citadel, the terrace, and the batteries near Wolfe's Cove, where the rugged path up which the ardent young General struggled with his men is still to be seen. The effect of this repeated cannonade, as the great masses of smoke wreathed over the whole of the lofty town, through which the tin steeples and spires dimly shone, was very fine indeed, and seemed to bring out the old character of the place for war and glory more strongly than ever.

His Royal Highness landed from the “Hero” at four o'clock under a tremendous cannonade from all the forts and vessels of war in the harbour—the latter having yards manned, and giving three grand cheers as the royal barge swept past to the shore.

Great decorative preparations had been made for the reception at Quebec. All the streets were beautifully decorated, trees were set in the ground at the edge of all the footpaths, houses were screened in with deep ornamental balconies of evergreens and transparencies, and lofty arches crowded all the main thoroughfares. Nothing was really more astonishing, when the short time of the Prince's stay in each place was considered, than the lavish expenditure which had everywhere been incurred to give him a fitting and splendid reception. It was only after the landing, when one drove about Quebec, and found in remote corners handsome arches which 0109 91 it was never once expected he would pass under, or even see, that the real nature and universality of the welcome given to him could be properly appreciated. Except on one or two remarkable occasions, I had never seen anything like it at royal progresses in England, and in Canada each city seemed to strive to surpass whatever had been done before.

In arranging the procession that was to meet His Royal Highness, symptoms were shown of that religious discord which was afterwards worked upon with such effect by some unscrupulous politicians as to nearly put an end to the whole tour in Upper Canada. Three-fourths or more of the population of Quebec are Roman Catholics, and this was alleged as the reason, or rather excuse, for assigning to the Roman Catholic Bishop precedence over the Protestant Bishop Mountain, in the order of the cortége. The Protestant Bishop very properly refused to submit to this implied inferiority. The Roman Catholic Bishop, it was said, would not for a time give way, and the dispute at once gave rise to a good deal of religious bitterness and feeling in the town. Eventually, however, the Roman Catholic Bishop was made to see that his claim for precedence was utterly untenable, and indeed could not be listened to for a moment, when he at length yielded. But the dispute, of course, left an ill feeling. Among the English the attempt was viewed as another instance of the encroaching arrogance of the Church of Rome; among the French Roman Catholics as a slight to the religion of the great mass of the people, in fact, the religion of Lower Canada. * From the visit to Quebec, or rather from the wanton

* A large and important meeting was held in Toronto last month to denounce the conduct of those members of the Canadian opposition, who, for the sake of political capital, had originated, or at least aggravated, the Orange disturbances in Kingston. In referring to the question of precedence between the Bishops at Quebec, Mr. J. A. Macdonald, one of the chiefs of the Canadian government, himself an Orangeman, and member for Kingston, said, that, in claiming precedence, the Roman Catholic Bishops only claimed a legal right which was guaranteed to them under the treaties by which Canada was ceded to England. On finding the strong feeling of opposition that was raised to their claim, they themselves withdrew it on the understanding that by so doing their rights were not to be prejudiced on any future occasion. But still the dispute left the feelings I have alluded to at Quebec on both sides.

This ceremony over three cheers were called for, and, to a certain extent, given. For it must in truth be admitted that cheering is not the forte of the Lower Canadians. All the streets, in spite of the incessant rain, and the deepest, blackest, and most tenacious kind of mud, were thronged with people from every part of the country, many of whom had come from long distances. The Prince and all the suite seemed 0111 93 much surprised at such a concourse in such weather, and were especially struck with the extent and beauty of some of the chief arches which, as at St. John, were better than those at Halifax, though not nearly so numerous.

His Royal Highness passed through the city for the greater part of its entire length, issuing out under the St. Louis gate, on his way to Cataraqui, the residence of Sir Edmund Head, the Governor-General of Canada. In the evening Quebec illuminated, and a more effective display of this kind is not often seen. It was not quite as general as that at St. John, but it was almost as good, and the effect, owing to the natural advantages of the city, was infinitely greater. To see Point Levi on one side of the St. Lawrence, and Quebec on the other, from the water that night was really a charming spectacle. Every house had lights in its windows, all the chief buildings were lit up, and the tiers of streets, rising one above another in rich gradations of light and colour, all of which were vividly reflected back by the river, made a kind of quadruple display which is neither easily described nor forgotten. All night, as a matter of course, the streets were crowded, and the light-fingered professors, who were there from New York in considerable numbers, made a splendid harvest, if all the complaints were true. Their presence, however, would have been less annoying if they had made the streets the only places for the exercise of their skilful vocation. Unfortunately, they penetrated the hotels with a spirit and enterprise that was bitterly felt by many.

On Sunday, the 19th, the Prince rested, and attended divine service in the cathedral. Even there, however, the same gang of daring thieves were present, and money and watches to the value of more than 0112 94 600 l. were stolen from various members of the congregation, who, of course, attended on this occasion in most pious and considerable numbers.

On the night of Sunday the rain, which for a time had lulled, set in again with vindictive impetuosity. Thus it continued during all Monday, pouring down with a steady, dull monotony of water, as if it meant to wash away Quebec, winding up in the night with a terrific thunderstorm, which left the air rather thicker than it was before, and certainly no drier. By this storm the decorations of some of the arches were decomposed into the dimmest and most extraordinary outlines of their former selves, the balconies were limp and frowzy, and people groped their devious ways through the streets under the branches of small wet fir trees, that rendered an umbrella doubly necessary at the time they utterly prevented its use. In fact, these festive evergreens seemed only to answer the purpose of wetting the benighted struggling passengers, save in the night where the wind had overturned them across the footway in dark corners, where they all at once fulfilled another and still more unpleasant duty for those who did not cautiously look where they were treading. The streets and little by-ways of Quebec (the latter always the majority) were trodden into swamps, neither mud nor water, though partaking largely of the most unpleasant attributes of both, and in these crowds of Canadians squattered and splashed, for many had come into town that day to see the fireworks which were appropriately fixed for the evening, as affording some variety after the rather liberal allowance of the other element. On such a day, and in such weather, of course, all jumped to the conclusion that nothing would be done by His Royal Highness, and the idea was encouraged by every 0113 95 rational and sober-minded person in the town. But royalty has its duties, &., and as it had been arranged that the Prince was to make a private and unostentatious visit to the Falls of the Chaudière on this day, to the Falls he went accordingly.

During the rest of the time he was in America, he never again passed through so much water to see so little. Mark Tapley himself would have succumbed to the damp influences of such a day, and had the trip been arranged for any but royalty, it would have been thought sheer lunacy to have adhered to it. But the programme of what the Prince was to see and do was clung to everywhere with a desperate tenacity, which made the laws of the Medes and Persians mere by-rules in comparison.

So the Prince and his suite pushed their way through the dense rain as they best could, and saw the tumbling, smoking Falls of the Chaudière, which, as their name implies, seethe away in spray as if their waters were boiling hot and fell steaming among the rocks. Their effect, however, must have been rather lessened in royal estimation by the weather of the morning, for such a waterfall as they had passed through to reach them was almost enough to make anything short of Niagara seem tame and dull.

Tuesday, the 21st, was fixed for the return of the Prince from Cataraqui, where he had been staying at the Governor-General's, to his palace at Quebec, in the old Parliamentary Buildings, which, although he was only to occupy them for two nights, had been all re-decorated and furnished throughout in the most costly style. Fortunately, on the occasion of this return, just as he entered the city, the weather changed, and cleared up fine and warm—too warm, perhaps, for though it failed to dry the streets 0114 96 (what could?) it converted their slushy mud into a paste as tenacious as bird lime, and by no means so clean.

Immediately after his arrival, the Prince held a levée in the chamber of the Upper House, which had been richly decorated for the occasion, and which, with its handsome throne, its wall draped with heavy folds of crimson cloth, and overhung with a fine series of paintings, had a regal and most imposing aspect.

The ministers of the Canadian Government were in uniform, and there was a very large and brilliant staff of naval and military officers, and all previous levées were therefore quite eclipsed by this. The speakers of the Upper and Lower House had the honour of receiving knighthood from His Royal Highness—the first time that the Prince had ever conferred that distinction on any one. Sir Narcisse Belleau was the first created. There was some doubt whether the speaker of the Lower House was to be so honoured, but it was soon removed, when the Prince again took the sword of the Duke of Newcastle, desired Mr. Smith to kneel, and, laying it lightly twice across his shoulders, plain Mr. Smith rose up Sir Henry. Before these honorary rewards had been bestowed, two addresses—one from each branch of the legislature—had been read, first in English and then in French, and duly presented and responded to by His Royal Highness. Another address was also presented from Bishop Mountain and the members of the Anglican Church of Quebec, to which the Prince likewise made a graceful and appropriate reply, that gave great satisfaction to the clergy. After this there was a state déjeûner , from the hot crush of which the Prince was soon very glad to escape, and drive to the Falls of 0115 97 Montmorenci, situated between the picturesque hills which form the left bank of the St. Lawrence, some eight miles below Quebec.

The road to these Falls is pretty enough; not much in its way, though sufficiently undulating to prove that it must at one time have been richly picturesque, before all the trees were utterly uprooted and destroyed. Now it is fine, well-cultivated land, cleared of even the semblance of a shrub, and closely dotted here and there with white wooden houses, all of which are tenanted by French Canadians, who preserve their Gallic type, Gallic language, and, in some cases, Gallic antipathies, to this very day. Like all such conservative settlers, in whatever land, they are quiet, frugal, and industrious, but unprogressive, seldom meddling much in the political concerns of the colony, though, when they do so, invariably siding with their compatriots on all subjects.

The Falls of Montmorenci are said to be, after those of Yo Hamite, in California, the highest in North America. The river, rather a deep one, though only some 150 feet across, comes brawling down a series of rocky chasms to the edge of a tremendous cliff which opens on the St. Lawrence, and over which the stream rushes in one grand heavy mass down a sheer unbroken depth of nearly 300 feet. The character of this beautiful Fall is generally thin and foamy—at a distance like a huge avalanche of snow reposing softly among the gaunt black rocks. Its appearance of majestic repose, however, soon gets broken as the visitor advances towards it, and the roar gets louder and fiercer till you come out upon a little point which overlooks its edge, and gaze upon a huge sheet of water springing madly over, white, boiling, and angry, its long shoots of spray plunging further and further down, till 0116 98 the whole is lost in piles of mist below, soft, white, and irregular as a summer cloud. When the Prince saw it it was at its grandest. Unlike that lofty monarch of cascades, Niagara, to the might and rush of which the melting of the winter snows or the longest summer drought neither adds nor detracts, Montmorenci, and, indeed, all other falls, are visibly increased by much wet weather.

After the very heavy and uninterrupted rain of the three previous days, therefore, the Fall was swollen to its utmost, and came down the rapids bellowing with a noise like thunder as its great final plunge, which was to shut it out for ever from the light of day, grew more imminent. It was really a grand sight, and one which is regarded almost with a regretful awe as the river, in all its fiercest energy of life and power, make its last leap, and, all torn and dishevelled, with not a trace of the stately grandeur with which it left the cliffs above, but a mere crowd of hurrying, broken water, enters the unfathomable hole at its base, and is never seen again. Strange as it may seem, of this tremendous body of water, which pours down within a few feet or so of the St. Lawrence, not a drop is known to enter the river which it apparently rushes to meet. A little narrow semicircular ledge of rock, a couple of feet high, surrounds the foot of the fall, separating it from the tidal mark of the great river. Over this ledge, which marks the rim of a yawning funnel-shaped hole, the baffled waters of the Montmorenci never pass, but sink at once without a sign, and rush on no one knows whither. The hole has never been fathomed, its course has never been traced, and things that pass over Montmorenci are never more seen. The almost mournful impression this creates is rather heightened 0117 99 by the gloomy luxuriance of the scenery around. The black, dead-looking rocks and lofty seared pine trees, the white gravestone-looking towers of granite, which till two or three years back supported a suspension bridge over the Falls, when it suddenly gave way, hurrying those upon it to an instant and dreadful death, all add to the sad effect. At the foot of these Falls, too, General Wolfe made his most desperate and most disastrous attempt upon Quebec. Here he suffered a severe defeat from Montcalm—a defeat which he so signally avenged within two months afterwards by his capture of the Heights of Abraham, and Quebec itself. Montmorenci roars and plunges now without a change as fiercely as it did on that disastrous day, yet the very name of the battle is almost forgotten, or degenerated into a local tradition, and the mounds of the redoubt which Wolfe reared to cover his retreat and embarkation are mere shapeless ridges, which even the eyes of the curious can but faintly trace. From Montmorenci the Prince proceeded some three miles up the rocky banks of the stream to a place called the Natural Steps—a little gem of Canadian scenery which, for its size and peculiar character, is not to be surpassed in any part of America. It is a wild, lonely place, where a series of rocks, as regular as colossal steps, jut out on either side into the deep, narrow rapids of the Montmorenci. Their geological formation, I have no doubt, is curious, and some learned theories have been broached as to the cause of their being there at all, though few will care to think or read of these when in that rich, wild, quiet glen where the river, not yet brawling angrily with upstart rocks, flows on with quick, silent dignity, as if it knew the massive steps as friends since all creation, and recognised their H 2 0118 100 solemn limestone masses as characteristic ornaments of its own brown, decayed-looking waters. Higher up, the steps, still old, worn, and imposing, break into a kind of mournful irregularity, and loom about in great gray pinnacles like the ruins of an old castle, with gaps and rents in the tremendous walls between, speaking rather of their strength than weakness. Everything tells of age and quiet here, and the woods, which almost close in the glen at the top, give a dull, solemn repose to the whole, as if the dark apertures between their trunks were vaults, and the very leaves rustled gently of the mysteries of nature. It is a pity that these exquisite scenes of Canadian beauty are seldom painted, photographed, or printed,—are in short, almost unknown by name to the world in general. If the Falls of Montmorenci and their Natural Steps were in the United States, there would be pictures of them everywhere, a fine hotel in their immediate neighbourhood, and thousands going to visit them annually. As it is, not 10 per cent. of those who drive to Montmorenci even see or hear of the Natural Steps at all. On the evening after this excursion, the Prince entertained a large party at a banquet; at the conclusion of which, all went to the Grand Ball given by the Mayor and citizens of Quebec to His Royal Highness. This fête was given in the Music Hall—a large and very lofty building, sometimes used for concerts, sometimes as a theatre, and once, after the fire which destroyed the Parliament House, as a place of meeting for the Canadian legislature. Yet in spite of these vicissitudes of fortune, it still remains a noble and well-decorated saloon; and on the occasion of the ball, it had, at great expense, been entirely rehabilitated in fresh paint and gilding in such a beautiful and costly style, that the 0119 101 recollections of the hall at Halifax were then, for the first time, quite eclipsed by comparison. About 1600 guests were present in all. Among them was a very large muster of naval and military officers; and, as usual when the sister services meet on these occasions, the military generally go to the wall. There is an impetuosity about the gallantry of naval officers which carries all before it with the fair sex, and against which the conventional beau of a garrison town stands no chance. Thus the commanders and lieutenants whirled off the prettiest belles in triumph, while ensigns and subalterns could scarcely find partners at all.

The Prince with the Duke of Newcastle and suite arrived at ten o'clock, and His Highness immediately betook himself to the festivities of the evening with that gallantry and keen relish of the scene which always distinguished the heir apparent on these occasions. He danced every dance that was danced between ten that night and four next morning! Great numbers were at the same time dancing, or rather trying to dance, and knocking against each with an energy and determination that was worthy of a better cause. None could well avoid collision when limited to a spot little larger than an ordinary table-cloth, and the Prince and his fair partners had to run the gauntlet of polkas and waltzes like the rest. During one of these terpsichorean struggles, the Prince caught his spurs in a lady's dress—tripped and fell. He was up again in an instant, laughing heartily, and dancing away more vigorously than ever.

In its vulgar way the New York Herald did its best to make the Prince appear ridiculous from this little contretemps. Five minutes after the occurrence it was telegraphed to that Journal. Probably in half-an-hour 0120 102 it was known in Texas, while the Herald drew attention to the fact in an alarming series of “headings,” of which the following are only a few:—

“THE CANADIAN COMMOTION. “Splendid Splurge of the Quebeckers. “The Prince at the Grand Ball given by the City. “He danced Twenty-two Times, tripped and fell, his Beautiful Partner rolling over him. “Honi soit qui mal y pense. “The Prince immediately picked himself and Partner up and continued the Dance. “Terrible Flutter of Crinoline.”

Certainly to judge from the accounts in this veracious Journal, the fall must have been an extraordinary one, inasmuch as it was detailed how it occurred in no less than three different ways, and with four different partners. Princes fall very much like other people, and even if they did not, His Royal Highness would have found it most difficult to have touched the floor in the way indicated by the Herald , according to which he “cut his eye” while coming “heavily on the back of his head.”

The supper preparations at this fête were for a time involved in a state of the most perilous uncertainty, for when the hour came for that banquet to be laid, it was found with dismay that none of the waiters were in a condition to be safely entrusted with anything that could be broken by dropping.

Eventually by all sorts of aids and contrivance in the way of amateur assistants, this formidable difficulty, which had been clearly foreseen and calmly expected by many, was overcome; and the curtain of the pretty little theatre, at the end of the hall, rose at last on the supper. Like most theatrical suppers, however, it had a bright, unreal character, for the tables would not accommodate a tithe of the guests, 0121 103 and a very numerous majority, therefore, could only feast their eyes—the most unsatisfactory medium possible through which to enjoy a banquet. We will let the curtain fall again, therefore, over this delusive portion of the entertainment, and return to the hall, where dancing was kept up by almost undiminished numbers, and certainly with undiminished spirit, till the lights began to “pale their ineffectual fires” before the rising sun.

On Wednesday, the 22d, it had been arranged that his Highness should drive out to the Falls of Lorette and visit the Indian village near. The former is a beautiful cataract; the latter, like everything else connected with the Indians, was a delusion and a snare. The Falls pour down a very rocky glen, tumbling over a sloping mass of cliff, which beats the black waters of the Lorette into the nearest approach to a white foam they can ever be forced to assume. From this cliff the whole mass of water rushes down a chasm in the rock some 800 feet deep, and about six feet wide, at an inclination of nearly sixty feet in a hundred. The velocity of the torrent at this paxt is therefore, perhaps, not to be equalled by any other fall in the world. So great is it that at the termination of its mad rush it is hurled up out of the chasm so as to form a perfect arch of water, like the letter S, thus [???]. The visitor to the Indian village naturally makes up his mind for wigwams, tomahawks, war-paint, and stalking chiefs wrapped in abnormal dignity and ragged blankets. He at least expects a war-whoop on entering, and summons up all his courtesy not to be annoyed if the chiefs take his visit in dudgeon, and receive him with sullen, dignified silence. Preparing himself, therefore, to endure anything rather than not visit the wild children of the soil, he commences a search among 0122 104 neat cottages and pretty little churches for some tokens of the huts of the Red Men. I wandered there for an hour in vain, and was at last driven to accost a young man whose features I thought showed unmistakeably that he was of Indian origin. In reply to my inquiry if there really was an Indian village anywhere near, he replied, with a bow that was almost Parisian, “ Mais oui, Monsieur; c'est ici. ” It was a fact, and I had really driven out some twelve miles on a hot day to see an Indian village about as characteristic of the Hurons as Kew or Brentford. My informant further added that the marriage festival of the chief's daughter was then being celebrated at his house, and kindly offered to conduct me there. The house was something like a small English parsonage, and in which one would as soon have thought of intruding as in any private residence in England, but that my guide begged me in excellent French to enter. The chief who welcomed me was dressed in a plain substantial broadcloth suit, in all respects like an ordinary English farmer, save that, as a mark of his dignity, he wore something like a beadwork toastrack on his head. Encouraged by the appearance of this peculiar head-dress and with a faint hope that at the marriage of the chief's daughter I must see something characteristic of the race, I entered the room, where the chiefs, with their wives, daughters, and “young men of the tribe,” were enjoying themselves. I found in a clean, large room, just like any other room at a substantial farm, a party of some twenty-five or thirty, the “chiefs” in unexceptionable morning dress, the “squaws” in white muslin dresses, hats and feathers, scarfs and gloves. They were dancing the Lancers to the music of an excellent pianoforte! This was enough for me. I had seen quite sufficient of savage life.

The Prince did not visit Lorette. He had doubtless been informed what these Indians really were like. His not visiting them, however, was a matter of small importance, for I was told that some of the gentlemen who attended the levée were “chiefs of the tribe.”

Instead of driving out to Lorette His Royal Highness and suite paid a visit to the great Roman Catholic University of Laval, where he received an address from the bishops of that Church. In his reply the Prince did not address them by any title, such as My Lords, but commenced at once by saying, “I accept with the greatest satisfaction the welcome you offer,” &c., &c.

At this omission of what they claimed as their legal title, the Roman Catholic hierarchy took deep offence, and through Mr. Cartier, the Canadian prime minister, asked explanations of the Duke of Newcastle for what they said they would otherwise consider as an intentional affront. His grace at once replied that it was ridiculous to suppose that an “intentional affront” could have been meant in a courteous reply to an address of welcome and congratulation. The duke further stated that in the replies addressed unitedly to the Protestant and Roman Catholic clergy of St. John's, Newfoundland, no style or title had been used, and that the same rule would be adhered to in replying to the addresses of the clergy, of whatever denomination, throughout the province. This explanation the Roman Catholic bishops said they would at once accept if the duke would give a promise that he would not in future allow any titles to be used in replies to the addresses from religious bodies. To this as a matter of course his grace said he would give no promise, and that if they had not sufficient confidence in his impartiality 0124 106 and wish to avoid giving cause of offence to any religious body, he was sorry for it, and could not help them but give a promise he certainly would not. With this answer the bishops were obliged to be content, though they submitted with a doubtful grace, and the idea of an “intentional affront” appeared to rankle in some minds. It is necessary to mention this matter in detail, for on this visit to the University of Laval and the alleged preference it showed to the Roman Catholics, the Orangemen insisted on founding their grievances and their rights to an Orange demonstration. Thus, while the Orangemen regarded this visit as a marked favour to the Roman Catholics, and as an instance of the Duke of Newcastle's Popish leanings, the Roman Catholics looked on it as an “intentional affront,” and as a proof of the duke's bigoted Protestant antipathies. Truly, in a country where religious animosities run so high as in Canada, it was hard to please everybody, and the duke by being rigidly impartial between all at first pleased nobody.

From Laval the Prince went to the convent of the Ursulines. This convent, which was founded in 1639, holds a high position in the estimation of the Roman Catholics of Quebec. It always has a superior, fifty nuns, and six novices who give instruction and teach needlework to poor children. The rule of this convent is that no male person can ever be admitted within the wall which encloses it, save only one of the royal family or the sovereign's representative. This reservation was made in favour of the Bourbons, when Canada was still a proud appanage of the French Crown. After the capture of Quebec by Wolfe, in 1759, the privilege of entering the convent was by the then superior and nuns transferred to the English 0125 107 royal family or their direct representative, including all whom they might bring with them in their suite. Thus for the last century a new Governor-General of Canada in taking office always claims and exercises his privilege, as the representative of the sovereign, of paying a semi-state visit to the Convent of the Ursulines, and on these occasions the public are admitted with him. Beyond such visits made once in every seven years, no male person passes the outer walls, and this bigoted exclusion extends even to the relatives of the nuns. An instance was mentioned to me of a French gentleman who had a relative in this convent with whom he was most deeply anxious to have a personal interview, if only of a few minutes. To all his entreaties, however, a deaf ear was turned, and he had to wait for five years till the occasion of the Governor-General's visit, when he claimed and was allowed the right of entering with his excellency, and thus saw his relative.

The Prince of Wales exercised his right of royalty of entering this convent, and many of the public entered it with him. The nuns presented him with an address praying for blessings on his future career; and one of them, robed in white, sung a kind of hymn for his happiness, in a voice of such exquisite sweetness and melody as few present ever heard surpassed. In the afternoon His Royal Highness went to the almost impregnable citadel of Quebec, and thence drove to the Heights of Abraham, and saw the plain column which is erected on the spot where Wolfe fell, with the simple inscription, “Here Wolfe died victorious.” The small redoubt which the troops threw up on that eventful day may still be faintly traced—slight mounds of earth which gave England the possession of this gigantic empire. It is a pity 0126 108 no care is taken to preserve the remains of this little work. Wolfe might well do without a column, for to no man that ever lived does the motto over Wren so well apply, when you stand on the Heights of Abraham and look round on the magnificent panorama beneath of rivers, plains, and mountains which his skill and daring conquered at a blow. From the monument a winding road is cut down through the rock to Wolfe's Cove, where he landed from the opposite bank of the river and scaled hills to which those of Inkermann were mere molehills, either for height or steepness. The road that leads from this spot into Quebec is like the alleys of Shadwell in point of squalor, and the huts like the tenements that hang loosely together in that villanous quarter of Constantinople that extends between Galata and St. Stephanie. It is the most curious mélange of dirt, ruinous houses, and historic rocks, perhaps, in all America.

On this evening there was another grand banquet at Parliament House, and the long deferred fireworks for the people came off at last. The pyrotechnics were very fine, but the display was marred in the midst by an alarming accident. A large stage had been erected for the accommodation of visitors, of such slight materials that many refused to venture on it. Enough, however, essayed to bring it all to the ground, injuring many most seriously, and some fatally, in its fall. There was of course an inquiry, but it perhaps right to add, that for the most culpable negligence employed in the erection of this stage nobody was found to be in the least degree responsible.

At an early hour on the following morning (23rd August), the Prince quitted Quebec in the “Kingston” 0127 109 steamer, and at once every one began to fly the town for Montreal as fast as possible. In a few hours Quebec was dull and empty, its faded decorations looking stained, mournful, and slatternly, like old Vauxhall in the day time.

Situation of Montreal—The Volunteers—Address from the Corporation, and the Prince's Reply—The Industrial Exhibition—The Victoria Bridge—Indian Games—Ball at Montreal—Rapids of the St. Lawrence—The Thousand Islands—The Lachine Rapids—The People's Ball—Eccentricities of Dress—Unfavdurable Weather.

The Prince left Quebec in the steamer “Kingston,” which had been specially hired by the Canadian government, and beautifully fitted up for the accommodation of His Royal Highness and all the suite. With the “Kingston” went the “Flying Fish,” “Valorous,” and “Styx.” The two latter did not belong to, or form part of the royal squadron, and were only sent as a state escort in consequence of there not being sufficient depth of water to enable such large vessels as the “Hero” and “Ariadne” to follow the Prince in his visit to the fine capital of Canada. Midway between Quebec and Montreal, at a small town called the Three Rivers, the ships anchored for the night. The chief inhabitants came off to present an address, which was duly acknowledged by His Royal Highness, and then the town of the Three Rivers illuminated in honour of the occasion; and, certainly, as it was seen from the water, it appeared to be a most beautiful display. Both from its extent and duration the whole 0129 111 affair must have cost the inhabitants (by no means numerous or rich) a very considerable sum. Yet there, as all through Canada, cost was never allowed to enter into the consideration of these f6tes. The only question seemed to be what would best do honour to the occasion, and when this point had once been decided, it was carried out at any price. On the following morning, soon after daybreak, the squadron resumed its slow journey up the rapid current of the St. Lawrence to Montreal.

Montreal is in wealth, in population, in intelligence, and in refinement, in fact in all the great social and commercial qualities which go to form a capital— the capital of Canada. A recent decision of the home government has declared that the legislature, and as far as possible the actual capital of Canada, is to be in future at Ottawa, and accordingly an attempt is now being made to build up such houses round about that pretty little township as may do away with the straggling village look of the place, and render it more worthy of the name of capital. Into the political reasons which led to this decision it is of course needless to enter, except to remark that almost each Governor-General of Canada has, when it was wished to remove the legislative capital from Montreal, chosen a different site, and thus Toronto, Quebec, and Kingston, have all in turn been tried as capitals and failed. Each fresh failure has demonstrated the impossibility of ever depriving Montreal of its leading place in the estimation of the Canadians. In fact, between Montreal and any of the other towns or cities of Canada, there is no comparison whatever. No other city has the same commanding situation for commerce, and, to compare great things with small, it would be about as feasible attempting now to found the capital 0130 112 of England at Malvern, as seek to dispossess Montreal of its hold upon the minds and feelings of the Canadians in favour of Ottawa.

Viewed from the opposite bank of the St. Lawrence, or from the commanding summit of Mont Royale, from which the place is named, the appearance of the whole city is not to be surpassed by many in all North America. The churches and public buildings are massive and noble looking stone structures. The houses are all lofty and handsomely built; the streets wide, clean, and most admirably paved. About the whole place too there is an air of business and wealth which speaks at once of active long established prosperity. On the river side almost the whole extent of the city is fronted in with massive stone quays and docks which are the admiration of Americans, for no city in the States has anything to equal them. Unlike the levees on the Mississippi and Ohio, those at Montreal are not disfigured by huge unsightly warehouses, but are separated from the city by a broad massive terrace of limestone along their whole extent.

At such a capital, and among a people so celebrated, colonially speaking, for their wealth, taste, and refinement, it may readily be guessed that the preparations for doing honour to the heir apparent were made on a scale of unusual grandeur and magnificence. The streets were not looped in by arches nor shrouded by evergreens, as at Halifax: wood was far too scarce round Montreal to permit that. So the sweet spruce fir was for once absent; and in its place were the built decorated wooden arches, which are usually erected on the same occasions in England, and the great object in the design of which is generally to make them as granite-looking as possible, and deprive them, in fact, of all appearances which could show what they really 0131 113 were—decorations specially erected in honour of the Prince. Some of these, however, meant only for inspection by day, were very good, though the constant rain had by no means improved them; others, meant for illumination and filled in with transparencies, showed but poorly in the day, and had a rough, half-finished, scene-painted look, which was not agreeable. But by night those same arches carried off all the honours, for when lit from the inside, as they were from base to summit, they had a wonderfully beautiful effect, as they spanned the streets in long undulating lines of coloured lights. For the rest, all the streets were draped with flags, English fashion; and as not a house in any of the chief thoroughfares was without some large transparency or illumination more or less appropriate, the city of Montreal, even by the sombre light of a clouded sky, was wonderfully gay and brilliant. A detachment of the Boston Fusiliers, consisting of several fine companies of well-dressed and well-drilled volunteers, had come up from Boston especially to do honour to the Prince's arrival. This was a marked compliment, and the Prince felt much pleased and flattered by the attention. In addition to these, the Montreal Volunteer Cavalry turned out, and better troops it would be difficult to see, either for discipline or soldier-like bearing. There were also some Volunteer Artillery, wearing the old grenadier cap of the time of Marlborough, and otherwise looking like an “army” of supers, escaped from some minor theatre.

Friday, the 24th August, was the day originally fixed for the Prince's landing; and at Montreal, as at all other places in the Canadian tour, the day was ushered in by a regular deluge of rain. It was such a perfect storm of water, that anything like an out-door display became literally impossible. A grand procession I 0132 114 had been arranged to meet the Prince, and, infact, this was intended to be a great feature of the programme; but in such weather a procession of anything but canoes was out of the question. This was a bitter disappointment to Montreal—A disappointment which could only be allayed by the civic dignitaries going on board the “Kingston,” and requesting, in the name of the city, that His Royal Highness would kindly defer his landing till the following day, in the hope of better weather. To this the Prince, who was waiting in uniform, and ready to land, at once consented; and the grief of Montreal was allayed on learning, from “authority,” that the procession would certainly take place next day, weather permitting.

Fortunately for the peace of mind of the city, the morning of the 25th was not ushered in by heavy rain, and the thick black clouds at last began to break, though with extreme reluctance, and as if they had not quite made up their minds about giving way so soon. The Prince disembarked at nine o'clock in the morning, under a superb pavilion. With him also landed the suite, then immensely augmented by the Governor-General, the Commander-in-Chief (Sir Fenwick Williams), and Admiral Milne, all with their suites of aide-de, camps, or secretaries. All the chief dignities of Canada were in attendance to welcome His Highness to Montreal. Here also, was the Mayor, Mr. Rodier, in gorgeous robes of state, with the members of the common council, the consuls in uniform, the magistrates, bishops, chaplains, moderators, judges, and heads of societies, all more or less emblazoned and adorned. The Prince accepted the address presented to him with a kind smile, and replied as follows:—

“Gentlemen,—The address you have just presented to me, in which you proclaim your loyalty to the Queen and attachment to the British Crown, demands my warmest acknowledgments.

“The impression made upon me by the kind and cordial reception which has been accorded to me on this first visit to Canada can never fade from my mind; and deeply will the Queen be gratified by the proof which it affords that the interest which she takes in the welfare of this portion of her empire, and which she has been anxious to mark by my presence among you, is met on their part by feelings of affectionate devotion to herself and her family.

“For myself, I rejoice at the opportunity which has been afforded me of visiting this city—a great emporium of the trade of Canada—and whose growing prosperity offers so striking an example of what may be effected by energy and enterprise under the influence of free institutions.

“That this prosperity may be still further enlarged is my earnest hope, and there can be little doubt that by the completion of that stupendous monument of engineering skill and labour which I have come in the name of the Queen to inaugurate, new sources of wealth will be opened to your citizens, and to the country new elements of power developed, and new links forged to bind together in peaceful co-operation the exertions of a wide-spread and rapidly increasing population.”

After this, everybody fell into the gentle state of hurry and confusion peculiar to “making way” for the procession, which was really a very long and a very grand one indeed, and one which, on the whole, it was worth waiting for a fair day to see carried out in all its projected pomp. Heading it, though not included in the programme, was a small party of the Cawknawaaga Indians, who lived near Lachine, on the rapids whence their rather inharmonious title is immediately derived. They are one of the few remaining branches of the Iroquois—of the six great nations which once held I 2 0134 116 all North America as their hunting ground. No travestie on modern civilisation was attempted here, nor did they wear frockcoats decked with a backwoods' millinery of beads and feathers. The Cawknawaagas were all attired in full dress after the fashion of their nation; that is to say, with loose bead-embroidered woollen tunics, mocassins, head-dresses of beadwork and feathers, and their features disfigured or adorned, as the spectator chose to think, under a profuse layer of many-coloured paints. Thus equipped, they were certainly not prepossessing objects; and, though they looked characteristic enough, I must own I preferred the Indian “pure and simple” as I saw him at Lorette to those with such pigmentary eccentricities of colour on their features as these Cawknawaagians displayed. For the rest, they were persons of every size and age, though when you saw one you saw all—there was not the least appearance of individuality or character about any which would enable you, even after careful scrutiny, to distinguish him from the rest. They had the same flat, broad, Tartar features—thick-lipped and wide-mouthed, with sallow, tawny faces, long, coarse, wiry hair; white, sharp, irregular teeth; and small, quick, black eyes. The latter were keenly suggestive of either a genius for petty traffic, or the acquisition of small-ware generally by any means.

The most intense feeling of enthusiasm and loyalty seemed to animate the populace when the Prince landed. They shouted with deafening vehemence, and all the many steeples in the city rang out tremendous peals in a confused grand clamour, that filled the air with a rich embroidery of sound, adding to the whirl and excitement of the whole display.

In such state His Royal Highness was escorted to his residence, formerly the mansion of Mr. Rose, Chief 0135 117 Commissioner of Public Works in Canada, which had been placed at his disposal during his visit. Only a very short halt was made there, for a great deal of ceremonial and high state had to be got through this day, with but little time for breathing between each event; so, after a short pause, just sufficient to enable the crowds that had witnessed the procession to flock to the Exhibition, His Royal Highness again commenced a progress through the streets to formally open and inaugurate the Industrial Exhibition of Montreal and Province of Canada.

The permanent building which had been erected for this exhibition stands in a commanding situation on the northern side of the city, just where the slopes of Mont Royale begin a slow rise. The building itself, in outer form and general internal arrangement, is very like one of the end transepts of the Crystal Palace at Norwood, only on a much smaller scale, and built with brick walls, roofed in with an arched wooden ceiling. For the rest, the columns, girders, and tie-rods of the interior are much the same in principle as in the English Exhibition. The outside, however, is handsomely adorned with light ornamental woodwork and painting, which give it a clean and pleasing effect. The time for opening this exhibition, as was originally intended, should have been at least ten days or a fortnight later than the 25th of August. But advantage was taken of the presence of His Highness to inaugurate the exhibition with the utmost state and éclat; and this compelled the committee to open the building before much more than half its contents had arrived, and when even of that half not more than one-third of the articles were unpacked from their cases. Thus the galleries set apart for the various products of Canadian growth or manufacture were almost empty, a fact on 0136 118 which Mr. Chamberlain, the indefatigable secretary, congratulated himself not a little when he found how pressed he was for space to accommodate spectators. The Prince arrived at the exhibition at eleven o'clock, and, passing through a marquee set aside for the display of a fine collection of hothouse plants, waited a short time in a handsome reception room till a sufficient number of naval, military, and civic dignitaries had arrived to constitute something between a “brilliant staff” and a small procession. This formed, His Royal Highness at once entered the building, and passed to the dais, amidst the warmest acclamations of enthusiasm and flutterings of handkerchiefs that ever any heir-apparent was greeted with. “God save the Queen” was sung splendidly by the chorus, after which the Governor—General read another address—nothing ever was done without reading a long address—to which, as usual, the Prince responded, and these formalities being over, a complete tour was made of the building. There was not a great deal in it to delay this part of the ceremony. There were some rich specimens of iron and copper ores, in both of which minerals all Canada abounds, though as yet these sources of colonial wealth have been most imperfectly developed. The copper ore is badly and expensively worked, though, in spite of all waste, the mines yield an enormous profit, and would yield ten times more if better managed. Iron ore of the richest kind is abundant everywhere, especially in Western Canada, where, at a place called Croxly, it yields from 60 to 70 per cent. of pure metal. Some very fine specimens of this ore were shown to the Prince. A conspicuous object in the centre of the building was a column of coal cut from one seam, and thirty-seven feet high. In Canada there is no coal formation whatever—a serious check on the profitable 0137 119 working of the iron ores. Only at Pictou and Cape Breton is coal found, and from the mines at the former place this noble column was cut entire. The Prince inspected these and some fine specimens of native marbles. Among other objects in this department was a small grindstone sent as a present to His Royal Highness, on which, in gilt letters, was inscribed the rather premature inscription, “To our hopeful King.” On the upper galleries of the building was a splendid display of furs and skins in every stage of preparation, and a gallery of Canadian pictures, in which, among others of a much lower order of merit, were several really fine works.

The circuit of the building made, the Exhibition was declared to be formally opened, and almost instantly after came a general and rapid rush for carriages and vehicles of every kind, for the opening of the Victoria Bridge was to take place in about an hour afterwards, and the two points of interest were just sufficiently wide apart to make it extremely doubtful whether those who left the Exhibition last would be able to reach the bridge in time. The drivers of hired carriages of course “improved the occasion” under these circumstances, and dictated their own terms. These were hard enough, for twelve dollars, about 2 l. 12 s. sterling, was always asked and often given for taking a fare a distance of some two miles and a half.

The formal opening and inauguration of the Victoria Bridge was, in colonial importance, the chief feature in the royal visit to Montreal, and the completion of this noble structure deserved to be celebrated with all the state and pomp which the presence of His Royal Highness could bestow. As an engineering triumph over natural difficulties of the most stupendous kind, it is not only without its equal in the world, but the 0138 120 world offers nothing which may fairly be put in comparison with it—nothing which can be pointed to as evidencing more determined perseverance in the face of almost hopeless obstacles—more genius, or more consummate skill. The Menai Bridge is a noble structure, yet after all only the germ of the great idea here developed to its fullest. Brunel's great bridge at Saltash is remarkable for the wonderful skill with which it overcomes obstacles which were, in fact, almost created that that gifted engineer might have the pleasure and merit of vanquishing them. Roebling's suspension-bridge over the Rapids of Niagara—the most ingenious, and, perhaps, even the most beautiful bridge of its kind in the world, is only designed for a special and peculiar gorge, and, apart from this, no fair comparison can be drawn between the Niagara and the Victoria, when the former is only eight hundred feet long, and the latter more than nine thousand! To appreciate the Victoria Bridge—to do justice to its grand conception, and, what seems the almost superhuman energy and skill necessary to carry out the idea in all its present grand perfection, one must see it. One must not only see it, for a merely indefinite length gives no real idea of the immensity of the undertaking. The tourist should look at the St. Lawrence in winter, when millions of tons of floating ice come crashing down it, and in summer, when even at its lowest ebb the current flows like a sluice, at the rate of eight miles an hour. He must remember that the whole of its bed is a mere quicksand, strewed over the bottom with gigantic boulders, weighing twenty-five and thirty tons, that the depth of water is seldom less than twenty-five feet, and that the stream at this point is two miles wide. When any one takes the trouble to think quietly over the nature of these obstacles, and 0139 121 then looks up at the lofty rib of iron which stretches high in air from shore to shore, he must be more or less than human if he does not regard it as the grandest and most successful engineering work which, at least, has yet been accomplished.

It is by no means an imposing, or even tolerably well-looking structure. Its height from the water and its immense length gave it more the appearance of a gigantic girder than a bridge. Viewed at sunset, when its dull tints are brightened into red, and with Montreal as a background, with all its tin roofs and steeples glistening like silver in the sun, it looks well enough, though never much more than an iron footpath to the picturesque city beyond. Few can believe at the first glance that it is really more than five times longer and bigger than the longest bridge ever yet constructed.

Its total length is very nearly two miles (9500 feet); its height from the water little over 100 feet. It is composed of twenty-five tubes joined in lengths of two tubes, each about 270 feet, with a centre one of 330 at the highest part above the river. In weight of iron it is actually very little over a ton per foot in length (the lightest bridge of its kind ever made with the same strength), and the contraction and expansion of the whole make a difference in its length between summer and winter of more than ten feet. This is of course, properly allowed for in its construction. The piers, which are twenty-four in number, and contain some 3,000,000 cubic feet of masonry, were formed by forcing down coffer-dams of wood in the exact places where the foundations were to be laid, then driving rows of piles round these, and filling in between the two with wads of clay, forced down till they were water-tight. The water inside the coffer-dam was then pumped out by steam pumps, and the work of clearing out the 0140 122 gravel and mud, and laying the masonry down on the very rock commenced. Quicksands let in the water to such an extent that no pumps could keep the cofferdams empty, and tiers upon tiers of piles had to be driven all round them till the subterranean communication was cut off at last. At other times huge boulders were in the way, and divers had to be employed for months in the bed of the river, securing chains to these rough masses before they could be hooked up and taken away. When all was clear and progressing well the mere force of the swift current would sometimes destroy the dams, and masses of floating ice in one short winter's day laid waste the labour of a whole summer. It may give the reader some idea of the varied and overwhelming nature of the obstacles contended against, when it is stated that some piers were destroyed by ice and quicksands as often as six or seven times year after year, and that on the average of the whole twenty-four piers the works of each one were actually destroyed thrice. Only the genius of Stephenson and Ross, and only the unconquerable nerve and readiness of Mr. Hodges, to whom the entire work of the building was entrusted, could have overcome such obstacles, and persevered in the face of such apparently hopeless reverses. At last the piers got above water, and were faced towards the set of the current with a long massive wedge of granite masonry, strong and sharp enough to divide even the icefields of the St. Lawrence. Gradually, and only working in the summer, they were built to the required height, and then the labour of constructing the tubes commenced. The dangerous rapidity of the stream made it impossible that the tubes could be built on shore, floated out on rafts, and then raised to their positions in one piece, as was the case with the bridge at Menai. So the whole tube was 0141 123 first actually built in England, and sent out piecemeal, with every plate, bar, and angle-iron numbered with such minute exactness that, as far as the mere putting together was concerned, there was no more difficulty than with a child's toy. Thus, with the assistance of a temporary scaffolding stretched between the piers, tube after tube was slowly built across to the centre, where the great span of 330 feet comes. As may be imagined, the work of building this across with no supports from below presented a series of engineering difficulties such as have never yet been encountered in any piece of ironwork that was ever put together. Mr. Hodges, however, persevered and triumphed here, as he had done elsewhere, and at length at the close of 1859, five years after the commencement of the work, the first stone and iron bridge over the St. Lawrence was completed. It was tested with a strain more than ten times greater than any which the ordinary exigencies of traffic could ever bring upon it; and nothing exemplified more strongly the confidence felt by Mr. Hodges in the strength of his work than the test to which he exposed it. A train was sent through it so heavily loaded that two of the most powerful engines were unable to move it. A third engine was obtained, and even then the three were barely able to force the weight to the centre tube.

Speaking of this tremendous test, Mr. Legge, C.E., * says he well remembers the “peculiar feelings” he experienced when standing at the marking-post assigned him, surrounded by an Egyptian darkness, dense enough to be felt, arising from the condensed steam and the smoke of the engine, and totally obscuring the light of a glass lamp two feet distant. To thus stand

* “The Victoria Bridge, and the Men who Built it.”

In a strategical point of view it seems rather a mistake to cross the St. Lawrence at this spot, and thence continue the railway to Quebec along what may be called the American side of the St. Lawrence. In case of any “difficulty” with our western cousins a corporal's guard would suffice to capture the whole 180 miles of line which stretch from Montreal to Quebec. Had it been taken along the northern bank the broad rushing stream of the St. Lawrence would have been almost a complete safeguard, perhaps not from injury, but certainly from capture. A railway bridge over the St. Lawrence was, of course, necessary for communication with the States, but taking such an important length of line as that mentioned along the American side of the stream seems not only unnecessary, but imprudent in a military point of view. The Canadians, of course, think very highly of the Grand Trunk Railway, and well they may, for, however little the line has 0143 125 done for its shareholders, it has unquestionably done everything for Canada. Before the line was finished it used to take in winter from a week to ten or fourteen days to journey from Montreal city to Quebec; and hundreds are still living who can remember when it took from three to four months to send goods in boats poling up the stream from Quebec to Toronto. The journey from Quebec to Montreal is now done in six hours, and from Quebec to Toronto in sixteen.

The mere ceremony of opening a bridge is very much the same at all places. All the visitors to this rather meagre ceremonial were conveyed in special trains to Point St. Charles, at the entrance to the bridge on the Montreal side. Deeply cut over the stone aperture at this side were the inscriptions:

ERECTED, A. D. MDCCCLIX. ROBERT STEPHENSON AND ALEXANDER M. ROSS, ENGINEERS.

While on the lintels was carved: BUILT BY JOHN HODGES, FOR SIR SAMUEL MORTON PETO, BART., THOMAS BRASSEY, AND EDWARD LADD BETTS, CONTRACTORS.

There was the usual platform covered with scarlet cloth, and a little scaffolding, from which hung a ponderous slab of granite, the last stone required to complete the masonry of the marvellous undertaking. The men at the windlass above—the real layers of the stone, like humble, but necessary sceneshifters, were carefully concealed from view. The Prince with all his suite and officials came at two o'clock in a beautifully-constructed open railway car specially built for the occasion. Of course, he was received with deafening 0144 126 outbursts of enthusiasm, and a number of fair standard-bearers who held little silver flags on which his coronet was worked, waved them with most astonishing energy.

Laying the last stone was soon accomplished. The Prince patted and touched the bed of mortar, and the mass of granite was slowly lowered into its place. There was no cheering, so it was a solemn affair, and seemed like laying a tombstone over the grave of 15,000,000 l. The Prince then entered his car again, and proceeded through the bridge, the hot air from the iron tube giving, on the whole, rather an unpleasant sensation. The bridge bellowed and rumbled like thunder as the train progressed, and the opening by which it had entered grew smaller and smaller till it only shone faintly in the distance like a pale blue star. At last a dim twilight appeared ahead, and the engine gradually stopped. It was in the centre of the bridge where the Prince was to drive the last rivet, so there was a general scramble out, and all the party stood listening with a feeling almost of awe as the hoarse sustained rumble of the engine moving away went echoing up and down the dark tube, which seemed to sway and vibrate as the noise went rolling on backwards and forwards, striving for escape from its hollow iron prison.

His Royal Highness went outside to one of the openings in the masonry of the centre tower, and gazed down on the St. Lawrence rushing past in one grand bluish-looking stream far below, sweeping under the bridge in eddies and whirlpools, or bursting into little spirts of angry foam as they touched the sharp edges of the granite masonry. None could glance below on this great river, and then look along the sides of the iron tube, which tapered away at each end in the distance till it seemed a mere reed of metal, without feeling 0145 127 astounded not only how such a design was carried out, but how it could ever have been conceived as practicable.

The formality of completing the bridge was here gone through. Four rivets had been left unfinished, and these were closed with iron bolts by two workmen. The last, a silver rivet, was clinched by the Prince himself. The ceremony is nothing to describe, though it would have made a grand picture. The two workmen wielding their tremendous hammers with a din that was awful, the rich uniforms of the Prince and suite, half hidden in the gloom, and softened down by the wreaths of thick wood-smoke which curled from the funnel of the engine in the background—the little glimpse through the opening into the bright sunlight—the St. Lawrence far beneath—the flaunting decorations and shining roofs of Montreal beyond the river—all made a striking subject for a picture.

The Prince turned a look of humorous inquiry on the Duke of Newcastle as he saw the process of riveting going forward, which said, as plainly as look could speak, “I shall never be able to use those hammers that way.” His turn soon came. The last iron rivets were fixed, and the last of all, a silver one, was inserted. The Prince took the hammer, and, heavy as it was, prepared to wield it stoutly—of course, with the wrong or big end foremost, which any one but a professional smith would surely think was the right one to use. He laughed, and rectified the mistake when pointed out. Then Mr. Hodges adjusted the silver knob, and with some stout, sounding blows, the Prince finished the last rivet in the Victoria-bridge. There was no cheering over it—the company was too select for that; and the wood-smoke from the engine had long ceased to be a pictorial accessory, and become a 0146 128 stifling nuisance. So every one stumbled back in the dark to the car, which went on through the tunnel to the other side of the river, where a magnificent view of Montreal could be gained. Here the party remained for a few minutes, and Mr. Blackwell, in the name of the Grand Trunk Railway Company, presented the Prince with some beautiful gold medals executed by Wyon, commemorative of the occasion. The suite were presented with similar ones, but in silver.

The Royal car then returned through the bridge to one of the large workshops of the company, where a splendid lunch had been prepared, and which, as the guests were not only hungry but numerous, was soon disposed of. At its conclusion the Prince passed through the workshops, where all the machines were going at full speed, with their lathe-bands decorated with rosettes, and every part of the machinery covered with little plumes and bunches of flowers, which kept whirling round like silent fireworks. Only a short stay was made here, for the day had been a long one, and the Prince, though not looking tired, must have felt so. The party, therefore, returned at once to their house, and in the evening Montreal illuminated. It was one of the best illuminations which the Prince had seen. Every one of the streets was a perfect blaze of light, and fireworks were going off in all directions. The Prince intended to come in and walk about town incog. , and only attended by two or three of his suite. A dark, quiet spot was arranged for his carriage to draw up at the corner of Craig-street, where Mr. Rose was waiting to escort the party round the main streets of the city. This Haroun-al-Raschid plan, which, though likely to be devoid of incident, was certain to be productive of much amusement, and which the Prince looked forward to with a 0147 129 keen anticipation of fun, unfortunately fell to the ground. General Williams was with His Royal Highness in the carriage, and, in order to preserve his i ncog. to the fullest, he wore a Staff cap with gold band, and of course was known at once. When he was seen the Prince was soon discovered, in spite of his slouched hat drawn close over his face. The crowd set up tremendous cheers; there was no stopping at Craig-street, and His Royal Highness had to drive through the town as fast as he could, followed by shouting hundreds.

Sunday, to the great relief of all, was a day of rest; but with the Monday the rush of fêtes, shows, displays and rejoicings commenced afresh, and as usual the rain commenced afresh too. The first thing done on this day was to witness some Indian games by the Cawknawaagas. After the specimens of “Indians” which had been seen at Lorette, there was a rather general suspicion among the suite that these games would turn out to be chess, draughts, or at most cricket. It was not so bad as this, however. The Indians were mostly those who had figured in the procession on the Saturday previous, whose general appearance has already been described. The first exhibition they indulged in was a very popular game called La Crosse, a species of hurley, except that to the end of the stick is attached a small purse net, in which the ball may be caught, and so carried through the goal. In this game the Cawknawaagas showed a surprising amount of activity, and completely outrun and outleapt the party of young Canadians who had been pitted against them. The next exhibition was not so interesting. It was a war dance, but one so ridiculously absurd, that even the squaws could not keep from shouts of laughter as the “braves” grimaced and rolled their eyes, and K 0148 130 counterfeited lunacy in the most absurd manner. No one was sorry that the drenching rain brought this stupid mummery to a sudden close, though not so sudden but that the ladies and gentlemen present were wet through before it was half over. Then followed a levee, which was immensely crowded, and at which, as at Quebec, a great number of the Roman Catholic bishops and curés attended to pay their respects, and were of course presented. This concluded the state labours of the day, for the crême de la crême of the festivities, the grand ball of Montreal, was to take place that night, and for this magnificent fête all held themselves and their gaiety in reserve. So exceptional was this entertainment to all others in its splendour and good taste, that it demands notice at greater length than any others which followed or preceded it. Long as His Royal Highness may live, and many as are the fêtes of the kind he is likely to honour with his presence, he will not witness many more brilliant, better arranged, and better carried out than that which was given to him by the citizens of the capital of Canada. When it was understood that the Prince preferred balls to any other kind of entertainment that could be offered to him, the citizens of Montreal met in conclave and determined to give him one on a scale which not only could not be equalled in Canada, but which should leave even New York itself no chance of successful competition. The latter was the great object of their ambition, and they succeeded, for their fête was one of which any capital in Europe might be proud, and which none could give without bestowing the same care, money, and attention to the whole affair which all Montreal did from first to last. The Hon. John Young was appointed president of the Ball Committee, and he, with his colleagues, at once determined that 0149 131 not only a ball-room, but extensive surroundings in the way of pleasure-grounds, fountains, groves, and bowers, all lighted up like a second Vauxhall, should be specially constructed for the occasion. Costly and almost extravagant as such an idea may now appear to many for the sake of a single night's entertainment, it was welcomed with acclamations by the citizens, who, instead of any economical curtailments, leant entirely in the other direction, and even enlarged upon the cost and proposed decorations of the first plan. The spot chosen for the intended edifice—for edifice, in the most permanent sense of the word, it may be fairly called—was on the north side of Montreal, almost at the foot of Mont Royale, and in the centre of a large extent of meadows. Only five weeks before the date fixed for the ball the cattle were grazing over the ground which on Monday night, the 27th August, looked like a fairy land. Less than five weeks previously, as I was told, the woodwork of the building was in the form of huge pine logs! The design for the whole construction was intrusted to Mr. Toft, who hit upon the happy idea of forming the interior of the ball-room in one immense circle, with an orchestra in the centre, beneath the lofty-peaked roof, which gradually sloped down towards the outer walls so as to resemble in the design a circular pavilion tent—though, of course, of colossal dimensions, as the diameter of the ball-room was nearly 100 yards from side to side. In the midst the double orchestra was placed, reaching from the ground to the roof of the building. The design of this centre ornament, if it may be so called, was light and exceedingly beautiful, and its trellis of open columns was almost entirely concealed under garlands of flowers. Three circles of columns, similarly decorated, supported the roof in the space between the K 2 0150 132 orchestra and outer wall. The latter was about twenty-five feet high, and on this, raised some twelve feet from the ground, was a deep balcony, or rather gallery, of sloping seats, extending round the whole circumference of the building, and in which those who preferred the brilliant scene beneath to dancing or flirting might survey it at their ease. Beneath this balcony, on one side, was a raised dais and Royal alcove for the Prince. Round all the rest of the circle, except at the doors of the entrance, the supper was to be served by unseen waiters, for whose hands there was just sufficient room left between the tiers of refreshments to enable them to minister perfectly to the wants of the guests without entering the ball-room.

Every part of the room was decorated with such consummate taste and knowledge of effect that no portion could be selected for particular admiration. The prevailing tone of the whole was pink, but of such a soft tint, that it was only when one saw it in immediate contact with the white and gold that its actual colour could easily be distinguished. Even the floor of the ball-room was stained of the same light, rosy hue. The roof of the pavilion was painted, not alone for mere night effect, but with a care and minute attention that is rarely seen in such ball-room adornments, especially when only wanted for one evening. So also with the front of the raised gallery and the walls beneath it. Every column was wreathed with garlands and three immense circles of lamps—one on the outer diameter, one over the centre, and one round the orchestra—nearly two thousand in all, lighted up every part of the circle beneath with the most perfect brilliancy. The interior, of course, was made the feature in the design, and when such a perfect success had been achieved, and only a night's entertainment was intended, the 0151 133 exterior might very reasonably have been passed over with small care. This, however, was not so. The committee determined to do the whole thing thoroughly from beginning to end, and set to work to make the outside almost as good in its way as the grand ballroom itself. Four handsome entrances were accordingly made into the building, flanked with battlemented towers with low walls and turrets connecting them, while the apex of the pavilion was surrounded by a cupola and open lantern, not only to finish the effect, but to secure to the utmost a perfect ventilation. I do not know how many acres of ground round the building were set apart for the bowers, promenades, &c., but there must have been very many—apparently not less in all than fifty or sixty at the least. Every path over the whole of this extent was planted with small trees, and every branch was decorated with coloured lanterns. Near the building a little lake was actually formed, with a bridge across it hung with coloured lamps, for by this His Royal Highness was to enter the building. The whole surface of the lake, too, was covered with imitation water-lilies, which were lighted up in the night, and shone over the smooth surface like little stars in the water.

The Ball, in fact, was the grand feature of the reception. All Montreal looked forward to it; all who had heard of its intended splendours were to a certain extent prepared for something good in a colonial way, though quite convinced in their own minds that it would be nothing after all at which travellers would need be excessively astonished. Those connected with the fête maintained a decorous reserve; those not connected with it were incredulous; and those indifferent or opposed to it (of which latter there were certainly some) rather hinted at the prospect of a 0152 134 crush, hot rooms, dust, drunken waiters, and general failure.

For the garden portion of the fête—one of the chief attractions—there were no hopes, even among the committee; for the weather, which had caused His Royal Highness to be called “the reigning Prince,” set in again, as has been told, on Monday with all the inclemency of an English summer. It was not so much downright heavy rain, which, within certain limits, a man can excuse—for heavy showers always seem as if they had something to do and did it. It was thick, “muggy,” wretched weather, damp and slippery in the streets, close and depressing within doors, with a slow, stupid, idle sort of rain, that neither came down nor stayed up, but dropped with a sullen, weak saunter through the air. This put an end to all hopes for the gardens round the hall, and all the chances of moonlit walks and small flirtations which might have been based thereon.

With the ball itself, however, nothing in the way of rain could interfere, so that, on the whole, it perhaps only deepened the interest in that great centre of attraction. His Royal Highness always arrived at ten o'clock, and, as it was not etiquette to come later, some 4000 or 5000 people seemed suddenly smitten with a desire to be on the spot at half-past nine precisely. This desire (which sufferers believed was fostered and goaded to the utmost by the carriage owners) of course had only one result—that of raising the hire of vehicles to prices little short of the legitimate value of the entire teams. For once carriages were really not to be got at almost any price, and the Montreal hotel busses, (having very much the appearance, with three times the length, of an ordinary English hearse,) were at last called into requisition to transport whole crowds 0153 135 of city belles to their great scene of action. Dank, dismal, and uncomfortable as the evening was, it could not rob the gardens round the ball-room of all their bright effect, and the little lake, with its illuminated bridge and shining water-lilies, the rows of trees covered with varigated lamps in all directions, seemed the more festive in comparison with the weather, and, like forbidden fruit, became most tempting in appearance when most out of reach. Perhaps, if one could have walked among the trees and bowers of this extemporised Eden, much of its illusions would have disappeared; but as it was, it was all couleur de rose from a distance, and the lake, under the dim wood-covered eminence of Mont Royale, looked like a lake, and the little trees threw their arms abroad with all the dignity of nature, and made believe as if they grew there and the lamps were their natural fruit.

The inside of the building presented an exquisitely brilliant sight. Its soft pink tone, its brightness, its rows of lights, the fresh green leaves and flowers twining up the columns, its crowds of officers of every service intermingled with ladies in all the glories of Parisian toilettes, long ordered, long arranged, and at last displayed, made one rich sudden picture of luxuriant gaiety, which, though few who saw it can forget, none who saw it can describe. It left a vague impression of music, flowers, rich uniforms, and splendid dresses; quiet, and yet festivity; a sort of reserved enthusiasm of display which, seen under the spacious dome of that pavilion, made it one of the most impressive, yet one of the least describable scenes which I ever witnessed. The eye could rest on nothing of itself remarkable beyond the general effect. Everything harmonised so well, from the bright yet soft tones of the ceiling over the pillars of flowers, and round the spacious gallery 0154 136 where laced uniforms and rustling silks seemed natural accompaniments, down to the quiet pink floor, promenaded by hundreds and hundreds of the great of Canada, all as natural too as if they had lived there all their lives. In fact, this ball stands alone of its kind, and marks an era in the history and general management of such entertainments, which those who wish to thrive in similar affairs must copy entirely or fail to equal. New Yorkers—men especially deputed to invite the Prince to similar displays—were there in plenty, and owned at once with frank dismay that the Empire City could do nothing to welcome His Royal Highness in a way that would at all bear comparison with the fête of Montreal.

His Royal Highness arrived at ten o'clock, and was welcomed with the most profound salutation as he passed the dais, and in a few minutes afterwards the ball was opened, with some thirty or forty sets of quadrilles, for all of which there was room and to spare in the spacious pavilion. This first set was of course ushered in by an air which may be regarded as almost the national song of Canada, as the maple leaf is its emblem. Its real name is “ă la Claire Fontaine,” though it is only known in Canada by the burden of its refrain, “Jamais je ne t'oublierai.” It is a sweet, sparkling, little melody, which appropriately enough was always played in honour of the Prince.

Apparently the keen, endless scrutiny to which His Highness was exposed from the throng made but small impression on him, for he danced and laughed away the time with perfect enjoyment and unconcern. That he enjoyed the ball may be judged from the fact that he danced every dance in the programme, except the last of all. Before the rather lively hilarity of “Sir Roger de Corerley” he retired, but as it was nearly five o'clock 0155 137 ere he quitted the saloon, it could not be said that he made any considerable sacrifice on the score of leaving too soon.

On Tuesday, the 28th, His Royal Highness was up again early, though he could scarcely have had more than two hours' sleep, and prepared to start for his trip down the Rapids of the St. Lawrence.

These great Rapids, which are formed by a series of declivities in the bed of the river between Lake Ontario and Montreal, and down which the stream rushes with a velocity varying from seventeen to nearly twenty-four miles an hour, are among the things which tourists who visit Canada never fail “to do.” Until within the last few years they were considered as too dangerous for any vessel, and it was not without great misgivings that a steamer at last attempted to run them, the immediate and inevitable destruction of ship and all on board being, of course, foretold by everybody as a certainty. Contrary to this general expectation, and not a little, perhaps, to the actual disappointment of those who relied upon the invincibility of the far-famed Rapids, and felt it as a positive indignity that they could be traversed in any vessel with safety, the steamer arrived at Montreal, all well. Since that date they have run regularly down the stream every day, returning back to the head of Lake Ontario by means of a magnificent canal with almost innumerable lock-gates to prevent that becoming a rapid as well as the rest. Every one who goes to Niagara comes down the Rapids to Montreal, and there are not a few who make a great noise about it afterwards, as if the feat was something very perilous and wonderful. One might as well attempt to stem the Rapids themselves as assure the majority of tourists through Canada that there is really nothing very tremendous in them after all. You are sure to be 0156 138 met on every side with the questions, “Suppose the steamer broke down, sprang a dangerous leak, or struck full upon a rock, where would the passengers be then?”—queries which, if they have any weight at all, apply with equal force to a trip across the Atlantic, which now, at least, is not thought such a wonderful achievement as it used to be. The fact is that the terror of these Rapids exists far more in appearance than in reality, for the channel they have worn is so deep that the steamer could not get out of it if it tried. To be sure, if the vessel went full tilt against a rock, turned over, and threw all the passengers into the torrent, few, if any, would be saved; but, even taking this extreme view of the case, there would not be much difference in result between an upset on the St. Lawrence and on any other of the large, wild, and rapid streams of North America. How many are saved when a Mississippi boat gets “snagged” in the night and goes down in the centre of that yellow, turgid, desolate stream? So, all who go down the Rapids are told they have accomplished a tremendous feat, and as none are like to be incredulous of their own heroism the delusion is passed on from tourist to tourist, and the ravening ferocity of the waters of the St. Lawrence maintained in as much dignity as if crowds of rafts, barges, and steamers did not come down them every day, without trouble or danger. I am quite aware that if any one fell into the Rapids it would be a thousand chances to one against his being saved, but it is equally sure that there would be nearly the same chance of meeting the same fate in every other of the broad rapid rivers of America I have seen.

This language is dreadful guide-book heresy of course, but the worst is yet to come. Canadians tell you that if there is anything better worth seeing than 0157 139 the Rapids it is the Thousand Islands which dot the surface of the St. Lawrence just where Lake Ontario ends and the river commences. Here, you are told, the rich grandeur of the Hudson, the luxuriance of the Bosphorus, the wild stern magnificence of the Saguenay, and, for aught you hear to the contrary, the flowery beauty of the Euphrates in spring, may all be met with.

It is a trying thing to have to contend against such notions, but, if an individual opinion is worth anything, I must unhesitatingly give mine that these Thousand Islands are in their way a delusion and a snare, and will as much bear comparison with the Hudson or the Saguenay, or the Bosphorus, as the Thames below Blackwall. Take slips of the Isle of Dogs of all sizes, from an island as large as a footstool up to ten or twelve acres, plant the large ones with stunted firs, strew the little ones over with broken stones as if they were about to be macadamized, put them near the surface of the water in a mechanical disarray, giving confusion without picturesqueness and number without variety,—imagine these choking the highway of a broad, noble river, and you can fancy yourself on the St. Lawrence and in the middle of the far-famed Thousand Islands.

The Prince went by rail to a place called Dickenson's Landing, where he had an opportunity of seeing some, though only a few, of these unpicturesque obstructions,—obstructions which, even seen at their best, look like cast-away boulders. The disappointment of running through the Thousand Islands was reserved for the 4th of September. At Dickenson's Landing a steamer was in waiting for the Royal party to take them down the Rapids, which are four in number—the Long Sault, Cascades, Cedars, and Lachine. Long Sault 0158 140 the first of all, is certainly the best. The current runs there at some eighteen or twenty miles an hour, and, as the water is very deep and the river makes a sharp bend, the first glance of these tumbling waves as they fill the river with a foam-like snow is really very fine. The sight is finer still as you near them, and you see the whole river ploughed up by a series of wild dangerous breakers, which plunge and start up in a broken sea nearly twenty feet into the air. These waves are all quite fierce and dangerous enough to destroy any small boat in a minute, and even give the steamer some heavy blows, which cover her decks with foam and spray. But the current is so strong that, before you can well appreciate their turbulence, the Rapid is passed, for the Long Sault is scarcely more than a quarter of a mile in length. The Cascades and Cedars are both fine Rapids, and certainly worth seeing, especially the latter, which foams and rushes down with tremendous velocity for some four or five miles. I am told that in three miles of its course the river here falls fifty feet, and can well believe it, for the boat flies past the banks like an express train. But of danger, as I have said before, there is actually very little. At the last of all, Lachine, where some dangerous rocks obstruct a very narrow passage, some five or six miles above Victoria Bridge, there very likely may have been great danger to the boats at first; but the pilots are now so thoroughly used to the channel that they smile at the idea of risk, and run their craft through with apparent indifference.

Through this fierce torrent the “Kingston,” with His Royal Highness and suite on board, quickly ran, so as to bring them to Montreal a little before dusk. The Montreal Oratorio Society performed that evening before the Prince a grand cantata specially composed 0159 141 by Mr. Sabatier in commemoration of the Royal visit. This fête was almost as grand as the ball. Every one was prepared to judge leniently of music composed for the occasion, and hardly expected in the efforts of a till then almost unknown composer the exquisite melodies and choruses with which the whole piece abounds. So all were delighted and impressed with the sweetness and originality of the music, and none more so apparently than the Prince, who asked for Mr. Sabatier's score to read, and was loud and frequent in his expressions of applause.

At an early hour the following morning there was a long and brilliant review, after which all the party went again above Lachine to an island in the centre of the St. Lawrence, the residence of Sir George Simpson, the then Governor-General of the Hudson's Bay Company, and the head-quarters of that great trading corporation. From this island, at the commencement of every spring, large bodies of trained voyageurs set out in canoes with goods and packages for the various posts in the wilderness. On the waters here, above the Lachine Rapids, a number of large and splendid canoes were provided, manned by boatmen in the employ of the company, all dressed in scarlet uniforms, and many wearing the medal given for Arctic services. In these canoes His Royal Highness and the members of his suite skimmed up and down the rapid current, the boatmen sending their light birch-bark skiffs over the water with the speed of arrows. It was thought at one time in Montreal that the Prince had ventured down Lachine itself in one of these quick, dancing little craft, in which you require to sit with as much care and quietness as in the caiques of the Bosphorus. If the Hudson's Bay boatmen, who in their voyages through the various wilds of North America shoot 0160 142 Rapids almost more dangerous than Lachine, saw that they could have taken the Prince down safely, they would have done it; but the river was much swollen after the heavy rains of late, and the aspect of Lachine some two miles below, with its deluge of waters pouring down with irresistible velocity and force, was not inviting, and very prudently, therefore, no attempt to run them was made by any of the party. So the Prince and his suite had lunch, and amused themselves on the water, and had for once a pleasant and a strictly private day. Its recollections, however, were saddened two days afterwards by the arrival of news at Ottawa that Sir George Simpson, the kind and genial host of His Royal Highness on this occasion, had been stricken with apoplexy and was dead.

On the evening following this day's quiet enjoyment, there was a firemen's procession in Montreal, each man carrying torches and Roman candles, and ringing bells, so that a very lively night was the result. It must be added, however, that I saw less symptoms of general inebriety at Montreal than in any of the towns the Prince had yet visited. This could hardly be due to the presence of a large French population, as there are at least as many, if not more, French at Quebec than in Montreal. Yet, on the whole, Quebec managed to maintain as high an average of festive intoxication as any place of its size, always saving and excepting Charlotte Town, the capital of Prince Edward Island. Sailors, as a class, possess a secret of intoxication peculiar to themselves, and somehow manage to get drunk when no one else can get any liquor; so that it has been said if you locked up twenty of them in an empty room, and visited them an hour or so after, you would find them all intoxicated. The Prince Edward Islanders appear also to enjoy this attribute of mysterious 0161 143 inebriety, for though nearly all their hotels are conducted on temperance principles, and sell neither wines nor spirits, yet somehow during the Prince's visit intoxication seemed to be the normal condition of half the lower class inhabitants.

On Thursday, the 30th, the Prince had to make a long excursion to St. Hyacinth and Sherbrook, the former a purely French, the latter an almost entirely English township. Both towns were exquisitely decorated, and both, of course, presented long addresses. At the latter town, to the great delight of the inhabitants, His Royal Highness restored Lieutenant Felton to his command in the royal navy, from which he had been arbitrarily dismissed by a sentence of court nearly twenty years before.

On the night of his return from this trip, the Prince, with all his suite, went to “the people's ball.” This entertainment was given in the grand ball-room. The tickets were only a dollar each, and it was announced everywhere that there were “no restrictions as to dress.” Up to that time, in all the state ceremonies, the Prince had seen very little of the masses of the French Canadians, except in so far as he saw them thronging the streets on his arrival. Nothing, therefore, could possibly have had a better effect than this spontaneous visit to “the people's ball,” though very few, when the intention was first rumoured about, could bring themselves to believe that it was not a ruse of the committee, or that His Highness would condescend to be present at all. Almost for the first time during his visit, the night was mild and splendid; with a full clear moon and soft, warm air. It was also the night chosen for the grand display of fireworks at the foot of the Mount. These pyrotechnics, like everything else that had been undertaken, were splendid, and thousands 0162 144 of persons of all classes assembled to witness them. The Prince of Wales's plumes in coloured rockets, and the royal arms and motto in fires of every hue, were, of course, among the greatest attractions of such a night; and, though the illuminations of the arches were continued, as they had been ever since the Prince entered the city, they on that evening, for the first time, “failed to draw.” Every one went to the fireworks, and, once there, waited for another and another, and then “only one more,” before they went to the ball; so that as the time drew nigh when His Royal Highness was expected, there were only some 2,000 present—a mere handful in a building of such size and space of floor. It was built to accommodate 8,000 people dancing, and 2,000, therefore, made but a scanty morsel on its wide expanse. Of those present, too, such a considerable majority had collected round the royal dais, and near the entrance where the Prince would enter, that at the first glance it seemed as if the room was almost empty. By-and-by, however, they began to drop in faster, and before ten o'clock some 3,000 or 3,500 were assembled. The announcement of “no restrictions as to dress” was taken advantage of on the most liberal scale, and the few who ventured into the arena in real evening dress became as much objects of curiosity and interest as they would have been at an ordinary assembly in a suit of chain mail. White ties became unpleasantly conspicuous objects, and were, on the whole, rather tolerated than otherwise. The “no restrictions as to dress” was popularly interpreted to niean corduroys, brown or gray shooting-jacket, yellow vest, and scarlet necktie, without gloves, or with thick leather ones, as the case might be; and those who attended in evening costume were regarded with disfavour, and as having taken advantage 0163 145 of the committee's leniency in point of toilet to a rather unwarrantable extent. The toilets of the ladies, of course, are never alluded to except in terms of praise, but it may be said that I could praise them more if there had not been rather a sameness in the matter of bonnets and shawls. There were “no restrictions as to dress,” certainly, but the dollar ticket necessitated a very stern restriction as to the supply of refreshments, and this might account for the fact that every one seemed at first bent on eating sandwiches before the Prince arrived, while one or two appeared to have “refreshed” themselves to an extent that appeared likely to last them throughout the evening. In truth, however, it must be stated that of these latter there were only one or two, and that, with few exceptions, there was nothing in the actual demeanour of those present which would have enabled any chance spectator to distinguish between them and the aristocratic assembly of the previous Monday night.

Before the Prince came, Mayor Rhodier, still robed in gorgeous municipal splendours, made an attempt to open the ball with a quadrille. It was not successful, however, as no one followed the example save four young men, who danced, with a strange independence of time or tune, among themselves, and whose eccentric movements unfortunately rivetted the attention of the band to such an extent, that when they stopped the music stopped, and the Mayor's party—a little oasis of festivity in the great desert of floor-were left unsupported in the midst of their figure, and slunk back again with a disconcerted air, though trying to “make believe” that it was quite en régle , and that they rather liked the band stopping suddenly than otherwise. Things in general were getting very flat, when, fortunately, the Prince came with his suite, in evening L 0164 146 dress, and entered a box in the gallery overlooking the circle, He was welcomed, of course, with tremendous cheering, but was not tempted thereby to descend and join the dancers. He remained little more than an hour, though he would, most probably, have stayed longer had not people preferred standing round him in a dense crowd to dancing. This was, of course, dull work, and hastened his departure. As he left, the news that he had really come (which up to the last moment was disbelieved as too good to be true) was spreading abroad, and numbers began to flock in. It was too late, however, for the Prince had gone, and the festivities had all to be maintained among the “people,” who resumed dancing with tremendous energy.

The visit, however, had a very good effect, and a more generally-appreciated compliment could not have been paid to the “People's Ball.” It made him personally popular among a class which till then had only seen him at a distance, en route to State ceremonies from which they were excluded.

On the following morning His Royal Highness and suite, and all the rank and fashion of Canada who had come to or resided in the capital, took their departure in a rush, that lasted all through the day, for Ottawa.

Notwithstanding the earliness of the hour there would have been a grand demonstration, but it rained. It was taken quite as a matter of course that the rain was to attend at nearly all the ceremonies incident to the arrival, departure, and entertainment of His Royal Highness. Processions under umbrellas, and Court suits and uniforms swathed in mackintoshes, had been the normal state of things throughout. So the manifestation of popular feeling was rather damped out on the morning of the departure from Montreal, for with whatever drizzle the weather might content itself 0165 147 while the Prince remained at a town, it made no mistake at all about the matter when it heralded his arrival or departure. On those occasions it was always to be relied upon for such raw, violent intensity, as the “oldest inhabitant” repeatedly declared, in the colonial papers, he had never seen before. L 2

St. Anne's River—Arrival at Ottawa—Procession of Lumberers—Aspect of Ottawa—Its want of fitness for a Capital—Laying Foundation Stone of Parliament Buildings—The Lumber Arch—Down a Timber Shoot—Commencement of the Orange Difficulties.

The route the Prince took to this wild, picturesque, most modern, and most muddy capital of Canada, was a sort of compound progress by rail and boat, alternately and specially arranged to afford him the best view of the country through which he passed. After once leaving Montreal, with its quaint, tall, handsome streets, and massive limestone houses, there is very little to see before St. Anne's, and over this part of the journey he accordingly went by special train. The outlying country around Montreal is not at all impressive. The land has all been cleared, and has a close, well-shaven aspect, the dull green uniformity of which is only broken at rare intervals by rough timber hedges or log huts, both of which seem about equally well calculated for purposes of shelter. Now and then a larger farmhouse than the rest was announced by the hoarse screaming of the whistle, to drive the cows off the line, or else a station was passed which might with propriety have been used as a cowhouse, if by any process known to 0167 149 carpenters it could only have been made moderately weather-tight. But beyond such poor stimulants to curiosity there was nothing worth seeing, or at all calculated to interrupt the dreary monotony of railway travelling whether in Canada or the States.

At St. Anne's the royal party alighted to proceed on board the steamer for Carillon, and at this point there was a prospect worthy of attention, even for those who had seen Halifax and St. John's, the Saguenay and the St. Lawrence. The St. Anne's river is one of the most picturesque (at least at this point) of all the noble tributaries of the great Canadian father of waters. The stream is wide, dark, and rapid, hedged in by steep, lofty, richly-wooded banks, and forcing a swift and devious way through little aits and islands, all clothed with trees and verdure down to the water's edge. A railway bridge of singular beauty spans the stream, where two steep headlands confine it to its narrowest limits, and from this point the finest prospect can be gained. You look down far beneath you on the quick black sheet of water, closed in by hills and cliffs, and studded over all its surface with beautiful little islands, while higher up as on a slope is the summit of the stream, marked by a dim, rough, tumbling line of foam, where the rapids of St. Anne's, which Moore has so immortalised in his Canadian boat-song, begin their rush and whirl. As compared with the rapids of the St. Lawrence, the great breakers of the Long Sault, or the mighty rush of the cascades, those of St. Anne's, of course, are nothing. But there is something wild, yet quiet in its rich scenery, something in the equal solemn flow of the rapids, which befits the plaintive music in which Moore has sung fl@em suiig tliem, and which makes file the whole scene seem not strange, but a beautiful prospect, with 0168 150 which you were long familiar and had long been parted from.

From this quiet little gem of Canadian scenery, His Royal Highness went by steamer to Carillon. Here he again took the railway across a wild, woody country, where, amid the great forests of pine, the leaves of the maple, already assuming their scarlet livery, told of the Indian summer being near at hand, and of the woods arraying themselves in all the gorgeous colours of American scenery in the fall. It was very early in the season then to see among the forests that rich confusion of bright colours of every hue with which the almost Arctic winter of Canada heralds its formidable approach. But the cold rains had hastened matters a few weeks, and the deep green of the forests was fast breaking into groups of reds and yellows, and the flaunting fire weeds, wild geraniums, and wood lilies were nearly all withered and gone.

After a run of 14 miles by rail the party again embarked on board the “Phœnix,” and steamed away to Ottawa. The whole day had been a sort of exaggeration of April weather, with wind, hot sun, and showers of heavy rain. But as the steamer neared the new and very upstart township, now called the capital of Canada, of course the sky became black and overcast, and the rain came down with the drenching vehemence familiar to all royal landings on the tour.

Just as this set in, the procession of lumberers in their canoes, paddling down the Ottawa to meet the steamer, came in sight. A more striking or more characteristic procession the Prince had not seen. At first it seemed like a dim crowd of red colour on the water, but as it drew nearer and nearer the quick regular chants of the Canadian boatmen could be 0169 151 heard, and the long, sharp outlines of the canoes were seen, with their quaint ornamented prows, just turning up above the surface of the water, over which they came gliding like arrows, without noise or ripple. All these little skiffs were of light birch bark, beautifully painted, and each carried from six to fifteen men, in the scarlet tunics which on state occasions is the lumberer's grandest uniform. Their song had nothing in it of the long melodious air which in England is popularly supposed to be peculiar to these Canadian voyageurs. The half-caste Canadians only sing in their canoes when beating the light, thin, rickety cradles in which they journey for thousands of miles up against a stream, or coming full speed down it through rocks and over rapids which would make a man giddy to look at. Their song, therefore, is only meant to accompany the quick beat of their paddles—a strange rhyme, which the man in the bows gives out, and to which the rest of the crew respond with one or two short words of hoarse chorus, as they strike their paddles straight down over the sides into the current. But all music sounds well on the water, and the quick, rough strains of this song, came modulated by the distance into perfect melody, and the effect of the whole—the mass of scarlet canoes dancing lightly down the river, the bold, picturesque headlands on which Ottawa is intended to be built, the grand heavy falls of the river in the background boiling up into a cloud of smoky spray as if the river was on fire, all made together one of the strangest, wildest, and most beautiful scenes that it is possible to imagine.

Lumberers care little for rain, or frost, or snow, or, indeed, any other form in which nature may show her inclemency, so the downpour of the night made no manner of difference to them as they paddled down to 0170 152 the Prince's steamer, shouting and waving their paddles with half frantic gestures. They seemed delighted, not only at the honour of being chosen to receive the Prince's steamer, but at the opportunity it gave them of showing their strength and skill as they whirled round their canoes in the water, and, breaking out again into their wild quick song, kept pace with the “Phœnix” with as much ease as if she had been a sand barge. It would be difficult in any country to have seen a finer, more athletic, and, I may add, a browner body of young men than these same 1200 lumberers. Their boats seemed to shoot along without an effort. Among some 120 a collision seemed inevitable, but just as one heavy canoe, impelled by 14 powerful brawny fellows, seemed on the point of running down another, a quick turn of a long paddle in the stern altered its course in an instant, and, without stopping their hurried song, they all kept gliding on together, so light, so quick, so easy in their movements, that it more resembled flying in its gentle rapidity than any other motion. Why do none of our London rowing clubs try a canoe on the Thames, the water of which above bridge is better suited to such light craft than many rivers in Canada, where they are much used? To see a man carry down a canoe weighing some 50lb to the water's edge, launch it, let half-a-dozen people into it, and then force it over the water at the rate of 10 knots an hour, would be a “caution” to some of our outrigger amateurs. In large canoes, capable of containing 25, or even 80 men, the Indians think nothing of venturing on lake Huron in a gale, though the sea there is sometimes as broken and almost more dangerous in its way than in the Atlantic.

The lumberers, who in Ottawa welcomed the Prince in their procession of canoes, are a race of men peculiar 0171 153 to Canada, and who make this intended capital, the centre of the lumber trade, their head-quarters. As their name implies, they are the working men for carrying on the great timber trade in which nearly half of all Canada and the provinces are engaged. In the depth of the winter their work in the backwoods begins. Then they start forth to fell the huge white and red pines, which are drawn out of the snow by oxen, and piled near the frozen rivers till the return of spring gives them an opportunity of floating them down in immense rafts and masses, which fill all the surface of the streams, in May, for miles and miles. Of course, in these expeditions, which last for months together, the men lead a hardy, backwoods sort of life, which so nearly approaches that of the Indian that, except in the drunkenness and physical infirmity of the latter, there is but little difference as to the mode of life between the two. Their adventures up in the mountains with bears and wolves, or, worse still, in struggling with hunger and with cold, would fill whole volumes; but in spite of its labour the life has a charm of recklessness about it which seems to be perfectly fascinating, and which leads the spirited young labourers of Canada to join it, as, with us, all the scapegraces and daredevils of a poor family are sure to go into the navy. By hurling the pine logs over cliffs and dragging them down ravines, the lumberers, before the thaw sets in, manage to collect along the banks of the various tributaries of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence some millions of cubic feet of timber, and when the ice-bound streams are free once more, their more arduous and dangerous labour recommences. Loosely joined together in huge, rough, uncouth rafts, the logs are set adrift, and, with a few poles and misshapen oars to 0172 154 guide them, the lumberer goes in charge down currents and rapids of deep rivers, swollen and flowing fiercely with the waters from the melting snow. It is all very well as long as these rafts hold together, but hurried and tumbled over rapids they often break up, and woe betide the unhappy lumberers who are on them when the great logs come rolling in fierce confusion one over the other, and go smashing down the rapids from rock to rock till they are all cast adrift in splinters. When such accidents occur, as they do frequently, it sometimes happens that the logs get so wedged and bound together on the brow of some stony rapid that they remain immoveable, and all the miles of rafts which are following behind are stopped at once. It then becomes necessary to cut the obstructing logs away with axes. Only the bravest, coolest, and most experienced of the lumberers can attempt this most dangerous of all their tasks, for when once the logs which bar the passage are half cut through, the weight of the press behind breaks them like straws, and some 10,000 trunks of trees come plunging down with a rush and confusion that but too often renders all the activity of the lumberers who are trying to escape the avalanche of no avail. In such wild expeditions and dangerous feats these lumberers pass their early lives, gaining sufficient, if they are prudent or saving, after a few years' labour, to commence trading on their own account from Ottawa—the great centre of the lumber trade of Canada.

Not many of the lumberers axe English. Three-fourths are French Canadians, or what are styled as such, though having a certain proportion of half-caste Indians among them, whose flat features, coarse hair, and white skins at once betray their hybrid origin. It is singular that the half-caste Indian girls are often 0173 155 remarkable for their beauty, while with the men the mixture of the white blood seems only to result in additional and more inveterate ugliness.

The Prince landed at Ottawa a little before dusk. There was a royal salute, and there would have been a procession but for the rain, which, as has been told, was heavy enough to have almost cleaned the streets of the so-called city, than which task it would be difficult to imagine harder work for water, no matter how profusely applied. His Royal Highness and suite were lodged at the Victoria Hotel, which and the Roman Catholic Cathedral at present form the only two buildings worthy of the name in Ottawa. All other and less distinguished visitors shifted as well as they could, which was ill enough. Most of the hotels of Ottawa had a strong reformatory element running through them, which manifested itself by rules to have doors bolted and lights out by 11 P.M., which required every one to be up by half-past seven o'clock, or go without his breakfast, and which otherwise suggested the rigours of prison discipline with all the discomforts of a bad hotel. Matters in these respects were not much mended by the arrival, late in the evening, of an immense train from Montreal laden solely with colonial dignitaries and others of sufficient influence and station to be expected to follow the Prince, and all of whom were disembarked in the mud, and fell easy victims to swamps and morasses in their search after carriages and lodgings. There was a general débacle among the luggage that night, and only those who, quite irrespective of ownership, were wise enough to take whatever trunks came first to hand got anything at all. People were sanguine enough to believe that at some remote period (probably when Ottawa is built) the trunks which had been lost in 0174 156 the tour would turn up somewhere. I tried that kind of consolation on several of my own friends, who were thus bereaved by the railways, and left to face a three months' journey with only an odd pair of gloves and a pocket-handkerchief. As a rule, however, such sympathy had become very common, and had lost the little charm it possessed in the earlier stages of the progress.

Only a few days before arriving at Ottawa, I heard that a gentleman prepared with a sumptuous wardrobe for following the Prince throughout, received a notice that some of his trunks had been sent per mail to England—a rather annoying intimation, though softened down by a courteous assurance that they would be returned at the first opportunity. The fact was, that the American system of checking baggage through to destinations, did not answer for the unusual emergencies of a royal progress. Only a certain number of brass checks seemed to be allowed to each station, and when the proper ones were exhausted the luggage was checked wildly all over the States and Canada, and at last didn't get checked at all; when, of course, it was left behind, or taken too far, or something or other done with it in the long interval which elapsed before one saw it again, if ever you did so at all. By the merest accident I discovered, when coming up from Quebec, that one of my trunks was “checked” through to Chicago and another for Portland, both being intended for Montreal.

The morning of Saturday, the 1st of September, was really bright and beautiful, a fact which is worth recording, considering that the day was fixed for ceremonial and rejoicing in honour of the Prince. With colonial promptitude the people got up in what Brummel would call the middle of the night, and at 0175 157 8 A.M. the one or two good thoroughfares of Ottawa were as thronged as they could well be, considering that the “capital” only boasted some 12,000 inhabitants—very little if at all more than now belongs to Sydenham or Norwood.

Ottawa, as the capital of Canada, seems such a monstrous absurdity, that, like all who have penetrated to it, I can never treat its metropolitan future as anything more than a bad practical joke, in which no one ever saw any meaning, but which, now that the Prince has solemnly laid the foundation stone of “intended” Parliament buildings, is considered as having gone rather too far, and is awakening a feeling of almost indignation throughout Canada. The site which has been chosen for the capital is one of the most picturesque I ever saw for any city in my life, save that on which Constantinople has been founded. But a merely picturesque situation is no reason for building a capital when all other requisites are deficient, or, if so, the Chaudière Falls or those of Montmorenci would certainly have been preferable. Ottawa must always be the centre of the lumber trade; with a few thousand pounds' outlay it may be made all impregnable fortress; but a great city, much less a capital, it is not likely to become. The geographical features of the country are against it. It is surrounded by wide shallow rapids, over which great bluffs of cliff and headlands lean in beautiful disarray. The river itself, for commercial purposes, is entirely useless. It is too shallow for any but such steamers as ply on the Thames between Mortlake and Richmond, while all the means of access to the stream above the city are cut off by the steep Falls of the Ottawa, which pour over the cliffs of limestone just above the timber-shoots. If Ottawa were a fortified, town like Quebec; 0176 158 if it were not close on the frontier of the United States; if it were solely inhabited by English settlers, or were now, or ever had in future times a fair chance of becoming, a great city, there might possibly have been some reason for the extreme step of changing the seat of government from Montreal. But in all and every of these points of view, either commercially, strategically, or legislatively, the choice of Ottawa seems to have been a grand mistake; and, if persevered in, will, at no distant date, give rise to ill feeling in Canada. Throughout the whole province there is dissatisfaction with the choice, and the expression of this each day grows stronger and more strong. As well might Ventnor or Malvern be selected as the seat of the government of England; and the change from the city of Montreal to the township of Ottawa, it must be remembered, was the act of the English Government, and almost thrust upon the Canadians. Judging from the state of feeling among all classes of Canadians, it would seem almost impossible to carry out the plan. The mere fact of Parliament buildings having been begun there, is really of no weight at all in the consideration of this question. Parliament buildings have in a manner been scattered broadcast throughout the province. Those building at Ottawa will be admirably suited for lunatic asylums, whenever the town is sufficiently prosperous to require them for that purpose. Until then as some £400,000 is required to complete them, the works need only be continued with that slow dignity which pertains exclusively to Parliament buildings both in England and Canada.

For the rest the appearance of Ottawa as it is at present, is very like the harbour of Sevastopol, and if the reader has seen that stronghold and can fancy its 0177 159 heights clad down to the water's edge with thick pine-trees, and a huge cascade pouring over a high reef of rocks at the head of the harbour, then he sees Ottawa. Thus much for this intended city.

On Saturday the Prince proceeded to lay the cornerstone of the Parliament buildings, which, if their plan is carried out according to the present design, will prove the finest Gothic buildings in all America. They err, perhaps, like all the earlier Gothic structures, on the side of heaviness; but, this fault excepted, they will be grand, regal, and ancient-looking enough.

The ceremony of laying a foundation stone is, of course, like opening a bridge (which has been traversed for months), or inaugurating waterworks, or any other meagre and unsatisfactory State ceremonial which Royalty is occasionally compelled to endure in deference to public feeling. At this the splendid silver trowel was, of course, an object of interest second only to the Prince himself, and people who couldn't see either one or the other concentrated their attention on the stone—a great block of white marble, with an inscription to the effect that “This stone of the buildings intended to receive the Parliament of Canada was laid,” &c. The delightful ambiguity about the word “intended” was a source of unalloyed satisfaction to everybody present. The scaffolding over the stone was in the form of a handsome Gothic arch. The seats were ranged in tiers around it. There was a dais near the stone, with three seats and a full-length portrait of the Queen in the centre of the enclosure, and which, in order that the spectators might judge of the artist's work from a disinterested point of view, was placed on its head. When these facts are remarked, and it is further stated that the day was hot 0178 160 and clear, all that is required to be said about the preparations for laying the foundation stone of the “intended” Parliament buildings has been told. One feature, however, connected with the fête, which, though not prepared, was especially prominent, deserves conspicuous mention, and that was the mud. Mud was apparently the only thing which had been completed and brought to perfection in the city of Ottawa, and there, indeed, on this occasion, it lay about the streets in quagmires which Saurians might revel in.

The Prince came out on the dais at eleven o'clock, and in five minutes after the stone was declared by him to be “well and truly laid,” and the ceremony was over. Before this the portrait of Her Majesty had been restored to the position originally intended by the painter, and was placed at the back of the Prince's chair. This, as the ceremony concluded, was slipped aside, disclosing a private way out, and while those in the outskirts of the crowd were wondering when the stone was to be laid, the Prince was quietly walking back to his hotel. So everybody gradually made a move towards the dais, and half Ottawa waited and took turns to sit down in the chair of State, in which the Prince had never sat at all.

After the Parliament buildings came a levee, which was soon over, when the Prince drove round the town. The few conveyances that were in Ottawa let at once at five dollars an hour, and at this rather heavy figure were taken up eagerly, so that before the Prince had gone 100 yards he was followed by a long train of vehicles of every kind, all splashing through the mud in wild confusion. The little town was soon traversed almost from end to end, and almost every street 0179 161 elicited from the Royal party new expressions of approbation at the singular architectural beauty and grace of its triumphal arches. Whatever else it seemed to want, Ottawa was not deficient in genuine good taste, for both in form and decoration, though not in number, its arches were far finer than those of any town the Prince had visited. They were, indeed, so good, and so purely Gothic, as to excite a very general suspicion that some one or other connected with the “intended” Parliamentary buildings had designed them. After this drive there was a déjeûner in rather a more costly style than usual, from which His Royal Highness retired early, for he had still to visit the Falls of the Ottawa, the Lumber-arch, and the timber-shoots. This he did at five o'clock in the afternoon, all Ottawa and as many inhabitants as could be spared from the surrounding wilderness being on the road to cheer him, and follow him in all he did, and to all he saw.

He drove from the Victoria Hotel to the suspension bridge over the Falls of the Ottawa, where the whole mass of the river comes tumbling down a series of huge cliffs of a laminated kind of limestone, much like the Natural Steps of Montmorenci, with a cataract coming over them. These Falls are wonderfully picturesque, more so for their decayed masses of rock than for their rush of water. They somehow look as if they were out of repair and falling to decay—as if a river had been turned over the ruins of some gigantic building, and left to fret and fume itself away amid its shattered walls, great porticoes, and broken columns. Such a ruined aspect as nature here puts on is seen at no other cataract in America; and beneath the mass of dark brown water the eye can trace out such a regularity of disarray, such chambers, M 0180 162 such nooks, such passages and pillars as scarcely seem the freak of nature, but more resemble the stately vestiges of the old rock-hewn temples of Egypt. At one corner of the Falls, and removed from the turbulent mass of foam and mist in the centre, is a stream called the “Lost River,” where a part of the Ottawa drops down over the columns of rocks and disappears in a deep, unfathomable hole, at the base. The Prince and his suite stayed for a long time inspecting these ruins of cataracts, and then returned under the Lumber-arch.

This arch was the most extraordinary the Prince had seen, or is likely to see again. It was erected by the lumber-men. In form a broad and lofty structure, like the Marble Arch of Hyde Park, but built entirely of planks of raw deal laid transversely one over the other, without a nail or fastening of any kind from first to last. Light as it seemed, there were nearly 200,000 lineal feet of plank used in its construction. The Prince, as, indeed, every one who saw it, was astonished, for its effect, though not easy to describe, was really wonderful to look at. It was the arch of all the arches the Prince had had erected to his honour: and it was almost a pity that a monument so strong, so beautiful, and so characteristic of the country should be removed.

From this arch the Prince went down the banks of the river to the head of one of the longest timber shoots, where a raft had been prepared for him to run down these artificial but most rapid of all rapids in this part of America. A few words will suffice to explain to the reader what a timber shoot is. When the great mass of lumber is brought down to the Falls of the Ottawa, a special contrivance is of course necessary to get it below them, as the result of letting 0181 163 it over the Falls themselves would be simply to destroy the logs. For this purpose, then, a certain portion of the river is dammed off, and turned into a broad wide channel of timber, which is taken at a sharp incline cut into the bank of the river, and down which, of course, the waters of the Ottawa rush at terrific speed. The head of this shoot is placed some 300 or 400 yards above the Falls, and terminates, after a run of about three quarters of a mile, in the still waters of the river below their base. But a raft on such a steep incline, and hurried along by such a rush of water, would attain a speed which would destroy itself and all upon it; the fall of the shoot is broken at intervals by straight runs, along which it glides at a comparatively reduced speed, till it again drops over the next incline, and commences another headlong rush. Some of these runs also terminate with a perpendicular drop of three or four feet, over which the raft goes smash, and wallows in the boiling water beneath, till the current again gets the mastery, and forces it on faster and more furiously than before. More than 20,000,000 cubic feet of timber come down the shoots of the Ottawa in this manner each year. The rafts are generally made of from fifteen to twenty trees, with two transverse ones to secure them at each end, and a kind of raised bridge for the lumberers to stand on, who without such aid would be almost washed off it, as the mass drops from shoot to shoot down the Rapids and seems to disappear some few feet under water with each plunge. The same risk attends these shoots as attends the rafts on natural rapids. If not carefully secured the mass of timber may break up, when all on it would have but a poor chance of escape; or else it may get “stubbed” that is, twist and jam itself so as M 2 0182 164 to come to a dead stop, when the men are hurled headlong off it, as if thrown from an express train. With well-made rafts and careful raftsmen, however, these accidents are unknown, and for all practical purposes running a timber-shoot on a raft is safe enough, or with only just sufficient apprehension of danger to give zest to the feat.

Of course every possible precaution was taken to insure strength and careful guides for the raft on which the Prince was to rush down the shoot. Only the immediate members of the suite and a few gentlemen, in all about twenty, were allowed to be on it. When these were fairly settled down, the Prince sitting on a raised plank, between the Duke of Newcastle and the Governor-General, the rope which held the mass of timber against the current was cut, and instantly the raft began to move. At first it went with a slow, stately motion, but gradually as it entered the narrower parts of the shoot, where the incline began, the speed quickened, and every one held fast as the first jump and steep descent drew nearer. Before you could well say it was coming the mass tipped up, and slid over the edge with an uneasy kind of gliding leap, like a huge porpoise tumbling, and went rushing down faster and faster till there was another jump, and then a straight run which plunged the beams under water, wetting some of the royal party to the knees. Quicker and quicker the banks flew by, all thronged with people cheering and waving handkerchiefs, and faster and faster the raft plunged down, groaning and creaking, now half hidden by the boiling water, into which it dashed at the end of each shoot, gliding rapidly along the logs of the straight runs with jerks and thumps, as if it was being forced over rocks, till it came to another jump and another steep incline, 0183 165 taking each one faster than the others in one grand headlong sort of flying whirl which gave a notion of irresistible force, and made each passenger seem, as it were, a component part of raft and rapids both. To go down the rapids of the St. Lawrence is nothing. But to go down the rapids of a timber shoot, to keep pace with the flying waters, and see them hissing and rushing up over the raft beneath your feet, is the most exhilarating adventure in all the repertoire of American travel. It is something which partakes of flying and swimming; the immense speed of the whole mass—the rush of the water, the succession of “shoots” stretching out far down beneath you like sloping steps of stairs, the delight of flying over these with the easy skim of a bird—the rough, long straights in which the raft seems to dive and founder, letting the water up beneath and over it behind till it is again urged forward, and there comes another incline of water which you whirl madly down as if you were in a swing. To steady yourself on the narrow plank amidships, and hold on with might and main as the timber snaps and works like a bundle of reeds, getting a momentary rest with each quick incline, and again thumping over the straights with sharp, uneasy struggles, is to experience such a heap of new sensations as neither balloons nor diving bells afford, such a whirl as only three-quarters of a mile down the great timber shoots of the Ottawa can ever give. All on the raft with the Prince, to whom the sensation was as novel as it seemed beautiful and terrible, were delighted, and the only regret which His Royal Highness expressed when the raft at last did condescend to stop in the centre of the river, below the Falls, was that the shoot was not at least a mile longer.

From off this raft His Royal Highness went in a 0184 166 canoe to witness canoe races, which were exciting, and closely contested, and in which everybody, if they did not win, at least said and thought they did, which was much the same. Six Indians of the Allejonquin tribe, however, distanced the best crews and canoes of the lumbermen beyond all chance of doubt.

These sports were still at their highest when His Royal Highness left, as the sun was setting over the picturesque headlands of Ottawa in such a flood of purple grandeur as impressed into admiration of the scene even the rough natures of the lumbermen. On that night there was a banquet at the Victoria House, and the township of Ottawa lit all its candles and stuck them in the windows in honour of the occasion. There were fireworks too, and an attempt at a torch-light procession, the only very bad one which the Prince saw.

Before leaving Montreal the rumours of the disunion caused in several of the towns of Upper Canada by the avowed intentions of the Orangemen to receive the Prince with Orange processions, had reached the ears of the Canadian Ministry, Sir Edmund Head, and the Duke of Newcastle. It is not necessary in this portion of the narrative to enter into the causes which led certain members of the Canadian opposition to foster and encourage this unfortunate outbreak of party feeling. It is sufficient to say, that the Orangemen of Kingston, Toronto, Belleville, Cobourg, and other places which His Royal Highness was to visit in his tour through Upper Canada, had already nearly completed their Orange arches, and arranged the programme of the Orange processions with which the Prince was to be received. In all these towns the Roman Catholics were in a considerable minority; but they at once called public meetings, and 0185 167 passed resolutions protesting against Orange processions being allowed to receive the Prince, and calling upon their co-religionists throughout the province to abstain from joining in any processions if the Orangemen were thus officially encouraged on the occasion. A very few days sufficed to fan all the slumbering animosities of the two parties into a regular flame, which might possibly have resulted in furious outbreaks in Upper and Lower Canada if the movement was not checked instanter. The Duke of Newcastle was aware that these disputes were commencing when at Montreal, but before the resolutions or memorials of either Orangemen or Roman Catholics reached him, he at once wrote to Sir Edmund Head, the Governor-General, hoping that by a timely expression of the course he should advise His Royal Highness to pursue in case Orange demonstrations were persisted in, the whole affair might be stopped at the outset, His Grace's letter was as follows:—

“My dear Sir Fdmund,—I am informed that it is the intention of the Orangemen of Toronto to erect an arch on the line of route which it is desired by the citizens that the Prince of Wales shall take on Friday next, and to decorate it with the insignia of their association. I am also told that they mean to appear in the procession similarly decorated with party badges,

“It is obvious that a display of this nature on such an occasion is likely to lead to religious feud and breach of the peace, and it is my duty to prevent, as far as I am able, the exposure of the Prince to supposed participation in a scene so much to be deprecated, and so alien to the spirit in which he visits Canada.

“I trust you may be able to persuade those who are concerned in these preparations to abandon their intentions; but that there may be no mistake, I hope you will inform them that, in the event of any such arch being erected, I shall advise the Prince to refuse to pass under it, and enter the town by 0186 168 another street; and further, if any Orange demonstration, or any other demonstration of a party character is persisted in, I shall advise the Prince to abandon his visit to the town altogether.

“I have heard, but with less certainty, that a similar demonstration is contemplated at Kingston. I need not say that my remarks apply equally to that or any other town. “I am, &c., “ Newcastle.

“To the Right Hon. Sir E. Head.”

A copy of this explicit statement was at once forwarded by Sir Edmund to the Mayor of Toronto, with one equally plain and decisive of his own, which is well worth perusal:— “ Ottawa, Aug. 31.

“Sir,—I have the honour to enclose a copy of a letter addressed to me by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, now in attendance on His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.

“In explanation of this letter, I desire to call your attention to the fact, that according to an advertisement which has appeared in a Toronto paper, it is the intention of the Orange body in that city to display, in the procession which is to take place on the reception of His Royal Highness, and in the streets through which he is to pass, certain emblems and decorations belonging especially to their own society.

“I may state in the most explicit terms, that any such display, or, any attempt to connect with His Royal Highness's reception the public and open reception of the Orangemen or any party association, would be viewed with extreme dissatisfaction.

“You will bear in mind, sir, that His Royal Highness visits this colony on the special invitation of the whole people, as conveyed by both branches of the Legislature, without distinction of creed or party; and it would be inconsistent with the spirit and object of such an invitation, and such a visit, to thrust on him the exhibition of banners or other badges of distinction which are known to be offensive to any portion of Her Majesty's subjects

“I feel satisfied that his Grace's reasons for expressing these views will, on consideration, be deemed satisfactory; and I have to request you, as chief magistrate of the city of Toronto, will take care that no such cause of complaint may exist, either in the procession itself or in the decoration of the streets through which His Royal Highness will pass.

“I have further to request that you will, by letter, addressed to me at Kingston, inform me explicitly as to whether any doubt exists as to a compliance with the wishes expressed by the Duke of Newcastle in this matter, as the coarse likely to be pursued at Toronto may materially affect the route to be taken by His Royal Highness in his future progress through the province. “I have the honour to be, &c., “ Edmund Head.

“His Worship the Mayor, Toronto.”

Kingston, though thus merely alluded to en passant , was the first place at which His Royal Highness was to land, and there, therefore, it was tacitly understood that the question whether the Prince or the Orangemen would give way was to be tried. Up to this time it was believed that the whole affair would blow over. Very few were aware that many of the Orangemen of Kingston had been so misled and exasperated by false statements, as to make them feel that an assertion of Orange and Protestant principles had become a conscientious duty on their part.

Scenery of the Upper Ottawa—The Châts Portage—Through the Woods—Brockville—Kingston—The Orange Procession——The Prince declines to land—Belleville—Cobourg.

The route taken by the Prince from Ottawa to Kingston was about as circuitous as could by any possibility be contrived. It was much of the same kind as would be taken by a bewildered pedestrian, who, starting from London Bridge, should try to reach Charing Cross viâ Peckham and Battersea. The course, however, was admirably chosen for showing the Royal party the magnificent scenery of the Upper Ottawa, and though in a mild and agreeable form, the difficulties incident to Canadian travel in the wilder parts of the country. The journey had been looked forward to by the Prince with pleasant anticipations, which were certainly realised to their fullest; for, excepting the unavoidable inconvenience of heat and dust (component and necessary parts of a rough day's travel anywhere), it was one of the most agreeable and diversified the party had in Canada. If anything, it was, perhaps, a little too long and a little too fatiguing. The whole party left Ottawa before eight in the morning of the 3rd, and some two hours after a loyal, patient, and much-enduring crowd had been 0189 171 standing in the mud round his hotel to give the Prince one farewell cheer. The first stage was by carriage to Aylmer, a little village on the edge of the Upper Ottawa, and about ten miles from the town. There was no peculiarity about this drive, save that it was very rapid and very hot—for the day for once was fine, and the fierce rays of the sun even at that early hour gave promise of one of those scorching days which at that time of the year occasionally glare down on Canada with all the heat of a West Indian summer. If there had been no arches over the road, which wound along the lovely shores of the Ottawa, the fact would be worthy of especial mention; but as it was I can only say, what has been so often said before, that arches seemed to spring up everywhere the Prince would, could, or might pass. At little hamlets where only three or four log cabins were in view, and where the whole population—to the number of some thirty-five or thirty-six—turned out en masse in a group which might be covered with a tablecloth, there was sure to be an arch of some shape or other. It might only be, as it very often was, a mere bent screen of spruce firs, decked here and there with huge bouquets of wild flowers, or twisted round with garlands of water-lilies and wild geraniums. But, whatever the effect, it was a kind, spontaneous effort to do honour to the Prince; and the little knot of settlers who reared it were always close beneath, bareheaded and dressed in their best, and each with something like a flag in his hands, content and happy if His Royal Highness only for one brief second drove under an arch which archwhich it had taxed their slender means and taken them hours of labour to erect. On lakes and rivers in wild and unknown spots, the evidences of strong and almost devotional loyalty with which the Prince 0190 172 was welcomed were really touching. Even in byway clearings in the forest, when the Royal train shot past at full speed, limpses might be caught amid the trees of rough log shanties all covered over with fir branches and flowers, and with a family of settlers gathered round the charred stumps in front, having waited, perhaps, all day merely to shout and cheer as it flew by. The journey from Ottawa to Brockville was one long-continued repetition of such incidents, except when at Brockville itself, where the people gave him a reception which, for enthusiasm and general beauty of effect, was better than any he had had in Canada, Lower or Upper.

At Aylmer, a pretty little village above Ottawa, the whole place was checkered with arches of every sort. What they wanted in high art effect was more than compensated by their number, and, speaking at random, there must have been an arch erected or garland hung across the road for every ten people in the place. Here the party embarked on board a steamer which was to convey them higher up the Ottawa to Les Châts Portage, where the canoes were waiting. The scenery during the journey up was of exquisite beauty. The wheather was that hot, dead, sultry calm when lake scenery, as that part of the river might be called, is always seen to the best advantage—when the water seems to languish under the sun in a lazy calm, as if oppressed by heat, and the mountains have a dim cool blue about them, with all the rich, soft, glowing indistinctness of one of Turner's landscapes. It is such a lake as this the Prince went up, with a great, fertile, but utterly wild country stretching round—a huge extent of rich uncultivated land, supporting a wolf or a bear to such a number of square miles as, under happier auspices, would give food and labour for all the 0191 173 population of Lancashire. It is a painful, even a shameful truth—but I am sure it is a truth—that more is known in England of the Terai, or the mouth of the Peiho, than of the whole of. Canada or the Provinces put together—ay, and even among public men and great colonial oracles. Twenty years ago Macaulay told how well-educated Englishmen were not ashamed to confess their utter ignorance of the history of Hindostan—how they could not even tell the difference between a Hindoo and a Mussulman, nor name the country over which Holkar once ruled. How many well-educated Englishmen are there at this day who, if told that Nova Scotia was an island, and, like Labrador, half rock, half glacier, would disbelieve it? What are the popular notions of New Brunswick—the Liverpool of our North American Provinces—the finest and most flourishing of all our small American colonies? I am sorry to think that the ignorance on all connected with these colonies can arise only from the most utter indifference either to where they are or what they are. But, to return to the Prince on the Upper Ottawa (less known by far than Lake Ngami), the boat continued steaming quickly on its way for some miles. The captain of the vessel and one or two others connected with the canoe expedition could tell the best deer runs of the shores around, and how from ten to twelve might easily be killed in a day; but beyond this they knew nothing, for nothing whatever is known. Once a lumber-boat came out to salute with muskets, and once or twice a shrill halloo of welcome came from a few who on the cliffs had been watching for the Prince's boat since daybreak, but beyond these two incidents there was nothing to tell of human beings, or that these great wilds had ever been trodden by the foot of man. When will the government send out some Livingstone to 0192 174 explore and explain the resources of Upper Canada? There are maps of it, as there are maps of Japan, but of both countries any single State in the Union knows more than nearly all England put together. A sudden bend in the wide lake-like river brought the Royal steamer in front of the Châts Portage, one of the finest pieces of rock and river scenery on the Ottawa, if not on any river in North America. It is a huge semicircle of rocks, nearly three miles wide, and over which the river pours in no less than twenty-four distinct huge waterfalls, some of them about fifty or sixty feet high, but all with a broad impetuous rush of water which gives to the whole portage a wild, rough, animated grandeur, the effect of which from the river below is striking beyond all description. Seen, as the Prince saw it, with the hot sun lighting up each cataract with rainbows, the gay little canoes dancing about among the Rapids below them: the intense, deep stillness of the pine forests sleeping in the sun: the air of still, solemn, wild repose which reigned over everything, mountain and rock, lake and wood, with only the great drowsy roar of the cataracts to fill the ear with a dim, sleepy hum!—these made altogether one of those scenes of soft impressive grandeur which can never be forgotten. The fussy little steamer which bore the Prince seemed an intrusion on this great scene of nature's repose, and when the pace was slowed as the cataracts were neared, it seemed as if the very boat felt the influence of the scene, and was moving quietly lest it should break the solemn stillness.

Slowly as the boat approached the portage the canoes, manned by lumbermen, Indians, and squaws, tossed their paddles into the air and gave one long cheering whoop, which went echoing away among the hills with a soft and gentle noise as the sound died out. In 0193 175 another minute the canoes were alongside the steamer. The Royal party had been reduced to its smallest limits; only the Duke of Newcastle, the two equerries, Commodore Seymour, Mr. Engleheart, Mr. Rose, Dr. Acland, M. Cartier, the Canadian Prime Minister, Mr. Elliott, and the Marquis and Marchioness of Chandos, who were then travelling for amusement, with the Governor-General and his Aide-de-camp, Captain Retallach, were present. The Prince, with the Duke and the Governor-General, went in one very large canoe; for the rest one canoe was placed at the disposal of every two members of the party. Before definitively arranging themselves, however, the canoes were carried over the rocky portage, and launched at the other side in the comparatively smooth water above the Falls; and here the whole party embarked and started away over the water to the half-mile portage, another rocky rapid some four miles up the river, where the canoes were again to be landed and carried through the woods to the smooth water as before. The Prince's canoe was manned by twelve strapping Scotch lumberers, who sent it along like an arrow, so that it soon became a race among the rest, all paddling and splashing through the water as if rowing for their lives, and all the crews occasionally refreshing themselves with a long shrill whoop that was deafening to hear. M. Cartier gave out the old Canadian song, “Il y a longtemps que je t'aime, jamais je ne t'oublierai,” which was caught up in an instant by the boatmen, and its sweet quick melody rather agreeably replaced the discordant whoops and yells with which they had excited and goaded each other into exerting their utmost speed. Faster and faster they went on, fouling each other as they passed, splashing everybody, laughing, cheering, and singing; the men labouring at their paddles as if they 0194 176 would break them, and straining every nerve under a sun which, on the still water, was almost tropical in its heat. But fast as the canoes paddled there was one which kept its place with ease, and this was an Indian canoe, of which half the crew were squaws, clad after the festive and highly decorated custom of their nation, but mounting English hats and feathers as a delicate compliment, doubtless, to the Royal visitor. In the centre of this canoe was a young squaw, with her little papoose swaddled down upon a flat strip of board, which she held aloft something after the fashion of a sail, and seemed so desirous to attract the Prince's attention with it, that I began to think she would end by offering it to him as a present at the next landing.

There were some quick rapids at the foot of the portage which it required no ordinary exertions on the part of the lumberers to overcome, but at last they passed them, and ran the canoes under shelter of the land into a picturesque little nook among the rocks and trees, where everybody scrambled out as they best could. In another minute the lumberers and Indians had dragged their light bark skiffs from the water, had them upon their shoulders, and were trudging away through the woods to the next point of embarkation. This was said to be half a mile distant, but seemed to everybody the longest half mile they ever walked in their lives,—not that it was an uninteresting one, far from it. It was impossible not to be amused at the helter-skelter ramble of the whole party through the thick forest, with the rude procession of canoes and flags intermixed among them. After this quick, hot scramble of some half hour, the path through the forest emerged at last upon an immense sheet of water, like a large inland lake, though only the uppermost continuation of the Ottawa, and on this the party again 0195 177 embarked in the canoes and stood across the water some six miles to Arnprior. At this beautiful little village there had been some handsome arches erected, and here of course in the middle of a great crowd an address of welcome was read. This ceremony over, His Royal Highness proceeded to the picturesque house of Mr. M'Loughlin, where the party partook of a luncheon which would have done credit to the Trois Frères for its style and elegance. From this point carriages were provided for a long drive through the forest road to a place called Almonte, a distance of twenty miles. The track was partly through the forest, over what was called a corduroy road, a colonial synonym for no road at all; a kind of track where the natural inequalities of the ground are aggravated to their utmost by a profuse intermixture of pine logs. The route at this part lay across a perfectly wild country. Only a log cabin broke the monotony of the forest here and there, with a group of ragged brown girls and boys clustered on pine logs to cheer the Prince. The despotism of fashion, however, had penetrated into the remotest recesses of these back woods; for, however ragged might be the female members of a settler's family, I never saw any who did not wear the most monstrous wooden hoops under their petticoats. After a few miles of such a track the road turned out on a better country, where the travelling was good, but so dusty that nearly all the suite were suffocated, and their dress and features became alike of one dim tawny hue.

At the village of Pakenham a great many arches had been built up; but no pause was made there, as there were still some seventy miles to go by road and rail, and the day was waning fast. The pretty little village of Almonte (of course for the moment concealed under N 0196 178 the usual amount of evergreens) was reached a little before six o'clock, and by that time, with the exception of the Prince, not one single member of the party was distinguishable under their hideous masks of dust. In all my travels I have never seen any small party of gentlemen so utterly begrimed and filthy. Fortunately there was plenty of sherry and Seltzer water in the royal car, and I have not the least doubt but that many members of the suite were driven to ablutions in the latter beverage. Though miserably uncomfortable it was nevertheless not a little funny to look at the black masks of dust which all wore; and for a long time the laughter in the royal car, as each one looked at the other, was continuous. After a brief pause to allow the multitude time to see and cheer the Prince, and then all haste was made for Brockville. Half way, however, His Royal Highness had again to alight and show himself to the people at Smith's Falls. They had been waiting outside the station in thousands all day round a small raised square platform covered with scarlet cloth, and otherwise very much resembling the old pictures of the scaffold on Tower Hill. On this the Prince mounted and showed himself to the people, in company with the Duke of Newcastle and suite, and the Mayor of the place. The latter functionary, not being aware of the precise costume in which it was befitting that the Mayor of Smith's Falls should appear before royalty, had attired himself in a gorgeous green and gold jerkin, with tight nether hose of the same material, and looked altogether a very beau ideal of the fancy portraits of Robin Hood.

It was quite dark when Brockville was reached, and some 25,000 people had been waiting there also since three o'clock in the afternoon. The Prince alighted under a rich pavilion, amid the tremendous cheers of 0197 179 the loyal settlers who had come in from all parts of the country. Some said an address was read, and some one else informed me that the Prince replied to it, but all I know of my own knowledge is that there was an immense crowd, and a very severe crush; that carriages were provided for all the suite, into which, after long struggling, they scrambled somehow, and the procession through Brockville to the steamer “Kingston” commenced. The firemen, to the number of some 1200, formed a double line on each side of the carriages, each having a Roman candle in his hand, which shot out their brilliant sparks of light from both sides of the street, meeting in the centre above the carriages in a perfect arcade of coloured fire nearly a quarter of a mile long. The little town was in a blaze of light. Every house from the roof to the basement was illuminated inside and out, and all the long groves of trees along the roads were covered with variegated lamps on every branch. From the windows of the houses the people held Roman candles; from the roofs they were letting off flights of rockets and bomb-shells and coloured fire; every bell in the place was ringing madly, and the whole was such a confused brilliant whirl of lamps, fireworks, and illumination, of people shouting, tossing their caps into the air, and almost embracing the very horses of the royal carriage, that the scene is scarcely describable. Even when His Royal Highness was on board the steamer “Kingston” it did not end. There were fireworks on the water, bonfires on the Thousand Islands, flights of rockets from all parts of the town, serenades from all sorts of bands; everything, in fact, which the most intense enthusiasm and loyalty could devise was done, and done admirably well.

As a matter of course, there was very little sleep to N 2 0198 180 be got in Brockville that night, and the rumours of what was going on at Kingston made me anxious to reach it at once. So I left Brockville still in a blaze of light and festivity, and went on by train. As the road is only fifty miles, and as the train was a special express, it only took three hours to traverse the distance, and I found myself at last in the wide, straggling, and uncomfortable streets of Kingston at about three o'clock in the morning of the 4th. I had been writing and travelling nearly fifty hours without sleep or change of clothes, and was not fastidious about accommodation, and was delighted to be received at one of the dirty lodging-houses which in Kingston are called hotels. Here my narrative of enthusiastic receptions and displays receives a sudden check, for Kingston, which with a few other towns of Upper Canada boasts of having exclusive possession of the feeling of loyal devotion to the throne, set such an indisputable example of disregard of their duty to their royal guest's wishes as prevented the Prince from landing at all.

Much of the angry feeling which the Orange display of Kingston and its consequences at one time caused has now happily passed away, and the few desperate politicians of the opposition who raised the cry among the people with a view of embarrassing and eventually overthrowing the Canadian Ministry, have, by this act, lost their last faint hold on the public mind of Canada.

In Lower Canada, that is in the country immediately round Montreal, and from Montreal the entire province down to New Brunswick, more than nine-tenths of the whole population are either French or Irish Roman Catholics. In a few towns of Upper Canada the Protestants and Roman Catholics are pretty equal in number, while in very many of the chief towns, such as 0199 181 Toronto, Hamilton, Kingston, Coburg, Whitby, Port Hope, and Belleville, they are only as one to ten, or even less of the number of Protestants. Generally speaking Lower Canada is supposed to be Roman Catholic and Upper Canada to be Protestant, though in the latter province there is such an admixture of Roman Catholics as gives on the whole a large majority of the whole population of Canada, Upper and Lower, to the Romanists. Many of the new towns of Upper Canada have within a comparatively recent period become great centres of Orange organisation, which as a matter of course have given rise to feuds of the most bitter and intemperate kind between the Orangemen and the Roman Catholics. Temperate and sensible gentlemen who had at one time been Orangemen told me, that they had soon become painfully aware that peace and good-will fled the towns in which amid a population following different religions Orange organisations had been established, and Orange celebrations and processions attempted to be carried out. Some of the most serious riots and disturbances which have taken place in Canada and the Provinces have been owing to Orange processions, and celebrations of the 12th of July, when the Romanists have suddenly preached tolerance for all creeds, and enforced their arguments by a free fight with the Orangemen. There had been a lull in these most wretched quarrels for a considerable time, when it unfortunately occurred to the parliamentary leaders of the Canadian opposition, that an immense fund of political capital for the coming session might be gained by embroiling the Orange party of Upper Canada with the Prince, in such a manner as would seriously compromise the present Cartier Macdonald administration with the Upper Canadians. In regarding the causes, therefore, which 0200 182 led to these ill-timed attempts, no greater mistake can be committed than to view them as at all connected except by name with religious differences. All Orange organisations are more or less political. In Upper Canada they are entirely so, and an Orangeman there is only another name for an ultra-Tory. There is just a sufficient taint of religious or rather sectarian animus to give zest and earnestness to the subordinates on both sides, whose fanatical zeal is worked upon by abler heads, who simply adopt Orangeism as a stepping stone to political power.

Accordingly those leaders who secretly pulled the strings, fostered to the utmost, among the Orangemen, the belief that a grand Orange demonstration was necessary, to counteract the baleful influence which would otherwise be exercised by the example of the Prince's Romanist backslidings in Canada. That these backslidings could not have been of a very encouraging character to the Roman Catholics, is sufficiently shown by the simple fact, that the whole of the Roman Catholic hierarchy at Quebec felt deeply offended at what they called His Royal Highness's Protestant antipathies in not styling them by their title of My Lords, in his reply to their address. But the tide of animosity must be at very low ebb indeed, when it is impossible to find or make an excuse to justify a foregone conclusion. The political leaders first determined on an Orange demonstration, and then proceeded to make reasons for it. So, reports and statements were industriously circulated among the Orangemen of Kingston and Toronto, that the Host had been carried in procession before the Prince at Quebec, that in many public ceremonials he had been attended by 100 or more Romish priests in their vestments, that he had constantly visited all the Roman Catholic 0201 183 cathedrals and churches, neglecting those of his own religion, and that partly in deference to the Popish leanings of the Duke of Newcastle, the Romish bishops had been allowed precedence over all in the procession which received His Royal Highness at Quebec.

It is scarcely necessary to tell the reader, that for all these monstrous charges there was not an atom of foundation. In the chapter on Newfoundland I have already stated that in that colony the Protestants and Roman Catholic clergy live in most creditable harmony with each other, and that with the consent of both parties, His Royal Highness gave to their separate addresses a joint reply. After it he drove privately to visit the Protestant cathedral, and afterwards to see the interior of that of the Roman Catholics. This was the only Roman Catholic church the Prince ever entered during the whole tour from first to last. With regard to the question of precedence at Quebec, that matter has been sufficiently explained already, in the narrative of the proceedings at that city. These fabrications, however, were believed by the Orangemen of Kingston at least, if not by those of Toronto. The Kingston men at once determined that the civic processions which had been arranged to meet the Prince, should be further adorned and increased by the procession of the Orange lodges, with all their banners and insignia. The mayor of the town, Mr. Strange, it was known was in feeling entirely with the Orangemen, and his brother, one of the masters of a lodge, was most active in supporting the notion of a procession. With him was a Mr. Flannigan, a butcher of Kingston, and a Tom Robinson, whom I was told was a plumber and painter in a small way of business.

Such were the men who proposed to dictate to a whole province, and such were the men whom the angry 0202 184 zeal of party politics for a time elevated to a position which enabled them to insult their Prince and guest with impunity, and almost mar the effect of one of the grandest and most enthusiastic progresses which royalty was ever welcomed with. The Orange question at Toronto for a moment fell into the background, and the whole interest of the movement centered in the little town of Kingston. A copy of the letters sent by the Duke of Newcastle from Montreal, and Sir Edmund Head from Ottawa, were duly transmitted to Mr. Strange, the Mayor of Kingston, and by him communicated to the Town Council. On this there was a momentary appearance of hesitation. Each party, for and against the movement, wrote little articles to the daily papers; third parties interfered in other journals, and fourth parties enunciated opinions in peculiar organs, to compromise matters, and of course made them worse than ever. The hesitation, however, was only momentary, and the resolution of the Orangemen was soon come to. As they never for one moment believed that the Duke would continue firm, they determined that Orange arches should be erected, and the Prince should be received with an Orange procession in attendance on the Corporation, and with none other. This resolution, I was assured, was privately encouraged to the very utmost by telegrams from the chief Orange leaders of Toronto, exhorting Kingston to stand firm and insist on an Orange demonstration, and that 15,000 Orangemen would do the same at Toronto. Yet these very leaders were afterwards, it was said, the first to back out of the whole affair, when they found that the public feeling of Canada was against them, and one, the most conspicuous of all, was foremost in congratulating the Duke on the firm stand he had made against the dictation 0203 185 of the lodges. Thus stimulated by Toronto, and further urged forward by Mr. Flannigan, and the Mayor's brother, the thing of course went forward at Kingston, accompanied, as is usual in such cases, by the strongest protestations of loyalty and respect, and the constant assertion, that what was being done was entirely for the Prince's own good. Two Orange arches were accordingly erected in the chief thoroughfares of Kingston, through which the Prince would pass. Except as sources of keen ill-feeling, these would have been totally unworthy of note, so poor and paltry were they both in design and execution. The first one, and the best, was merely papered with orange paper and with rather a handsome model of the Ark of the Covenant at the top. The sides were filled in with the Orange societies' insignia, with portraits of Garibaldi and the Prince, the latter with the motto of “The faith of my forefathers and mine,” a portrait of “William III., of glorious, pious, and immortal memory;” little banners containing the names of Baker, Walker, and Murray, of Londonderry fame, with scrolls of “No Surrender,” and other mottoes equally inappropriate to the occasion. Whether public attention was so much engrossed in the erection of this trophy, which after the Prince's wishes on the subject could only be regarded as insulting, or whether they wished to render it more conspicuous by not erecting others, I cannot say; but it is certain that scarcely any other attempts were made at decorating the town, and that the few arches that were put up were worse than any he had seen on his way through the woods from Arnprior to Almonte. Of course the Royal suite soon heard of this wanton discourtesy, and a private intimation was conveyed to Kingston that the Orange procession must be given up, or the Prince would not 0204 186 land. The Mayor accordingly issued an order that there would be no municipal procession whatever, upon which some of the Orangemen met, and, encouraged by Mr. Flannigan and Toronto telegrams, decided with a good deal of hot-headed talk about giving His Royal Highness a lesson, that they would receive him with an Orange procession, and with such a display only, and that if the Prince did not like it he might leave it and not land at all.

The “Kingston” steamer, with the Royal party, was expected to arrive about noon; but with a view of allowing the people of Kingston time to change their minds, the arrival of the boat was much delayed. This delay was made entirely in the hope that the Orangemen would have better taste and more loyalty than to insist on insulting their young Prince and guest, but it was made in vain, for by ten o'clock in the day the obnoxious procession began to muster in all sorts of tawdry finery, marching along to the tunes of the “Boyne Water,” and “Croppies lie down.” When they really had formed up in a long line to the number of some 800 or 1,000, it seemed difficult to believe that a set so worthless, and apparently so little entitled to the least consideration, could really force their procession on the town and begin a movement of dictation to the Prince which, for aught is known, may yet lead to unpleasant consequences in Upper Canada. They, of course, were all Irish, and all belonging to the working classes. None were without orange ribands and cockades, many had the crimson cloaks of the Royal Scarlet Society, as it is termed, and all these faded symptoms of display were more or less stained with the unmistakeable traces of tavern wassail, which, in Kingston at least, forms a most important feature in Orange organisation. Every third man carried 0205 187 a banner with “No Surrender” mottoes, or painted likenesses of King William, and a large minority had drawn swords, with which they flourished and vapoured and marshalled the others, as if about to lead them into action direct. There were plenty of men who acted as chaplains to the lodges, and who were dressed as much like clergymen as their dirty surplices could make them, with orange bows and orange ribands over all. Their chief leader, Mr. Robinson, in a medley costume, like a broken down circus rider, went about with others on horseback, haranguing each Lodge, exhorting them to stand by their colours, and die by their colours rather than give way. In making such arrangements the morning passed. The weak remonstrances and lukewarm entreaties of the authorities of the town were of course of no avail; the Orangemen replied that either the Prince or the Orangemen must give way, and it should not be the Orangemen if they stood there for a month.

The spot chosen for the landing of the Prince was near the battery, a small work commanding the approach to the town from Lake Ontario, and surrounded by high stone walls, which prevented its being seen into from the adjoining street. Here the chief authorities of the town were in waiting, and here Captain Flannigan brought down his troop of Volunteer Cavalry, all wearing the Orange riband and insignia on their uniforms, the gallant Captain himself being so covered with such tawdry decorations as to look at a distance like a General officer. This innovation in uniform was at once noticed, and Captain Flannigan was requested by the Commandant to take them off himself and desire his men to do the same. This, in my presence, he at once promised to do, and removed his decorations, but when the Commandant turned his 0206 188 back he again put them on, and went out and told his men he had promised to take off his decorations, and had done so, but as he had said nothing about when they were to be put on again, he had chosen to put them on immediately. The men cheered at this evasion, which somehow appeared to excite general admiration and applause. At last the “Kingston” steamer came in sight, was received with a Royal salute, and great was the excitement as she came alongside the wharf, for everyone made sure that the Prince was about to land forthwith, and the Orangemen cheered, not so much in welcome to the Prince, but almost solely and entirely for what they rather prematurely considered was their own undoubted victory over their young guest. But an hour passed, and yet another, and still he did not land. At first it was said he was putting on his uniform, next that he was receiving addresses, then that he would land privately. At last the truth came out in the form of an official verbal intimation from the Mayor to the Orangemen that His Royal Highness would not land to join any partisan procession of the kind; that His Royal Highness would remain till nine o'clock the next morning to allow them time to think over it, and if the demonstration were then persisted in he would leave Kingston altogether. The chiefs of the movement, upon this, held another short council, at which it was determined nem. con. that His Royal Highness might quit Kingston if he chose, but that land he should not without the Orange procession to accompany him. With this resolution the procession at last broke up at five in the afternoon, and horsemen went flying through the town all night, warning the members of the Lodges that the Prince might try and land privately at eight A.M. next morning, and that, therefore, it behoved them to be out and stirring with their procession 0207 189 early. There was a masquerading procession through the town that night, and the houses refused to illuminate, and there was an unusual amount of drunkenness among the common people, and a great deal of vapouring stupid talk about their resistance to the Prince's wishes being supported by their Orange brothers across the water; that the Orangemen in Ireland could shake him on his throne, &c., with other nonsense of the same kind, which angry ignorant men will talk, but which one hardly expected to hear from those who claimed to be the only loyal subjects in Canada.

At eight o'clock on the morning following, the Orangemen were again at their posts in procession round the battery, and so hour after hour passed till mid-day, and the thing began to wear a ridiculous and undignified aspect. There were the Prince and his party quietly in the steamer off the battery, and there were Orangemen outside standing obstinately in the road, as they had done all the previous day, showing, however, unmistakeable signs of their having kept it up rather late the night before, and from the effect of which debauch a rather large number appeared to have not entirely recovered. At last Lord Lyons came ashore to inform the authorities that the Prince would leave in an hour, and to convey to an American company of volunteers His Royal Highness's regrets that he would not be able to have the pleasure of seeing them at Kingston. With this intimation came an invitation from the Duke of Newcastle to the Moderator and Synod of the Presbyterian Church, and to the Mayor and Corporation of the town of Kingston, to present their addresses to the Prince on board the steamer before he left. This the members of the Presbyterian Church at once did. The Mayor and 0208 190 Corporation refused to present theirs unless the Prince landed, and thus the authorities became in a manner accessories after the fact to the insult offered by the Orangemen. By their apologists their refusal was excused on the ground that they feared molestation from the Orangemen, if they had consented to such a step. This, however, was not so, and their refusal arose from no other cause than that of strong sympathy with the Orange processionists. Before leaving the Duke addressed the following letter to the Mayor of Kingston:—

“Off Kingtson, Sept. 5.

“Sir,—It is with the utmost regret that I now find myself compelled to take the extreme course contemplated as possible in my letter to Sir Edmund Head of the 30th of August, which was immediately communicated to you by HIS Excellency, and to advise the Prince of Wales to proceed on his way without landing in the city of Kingston.

“When we arrived yesterday we found an arch covered with Orange decorations, and an organised body of many hundreds wearing all the insignia of their order, with numerous flags, a band, and every accompaniment which characterises such processions. I could hardly bring myself to believe that after seeing you and the other gentlemen who accompanied you on board the steamboat, and fully explaining to you the motives which actuated my advice to the Prince, the objections I took to these party displays on such an occasion, and the necessary consequences which must ensue, the Orangemen would be so misguided in their own conduct, and act so offensively to the whole of their fellow-citizens—Protestant and Roman Catholic—as to persevere in their intention of preventing the Prince from accepting the hospitality of your city.

“I have been disappointed. The Prince has consented to wait twenty-four hours to give the Orangemen time to reconsider their resolve. They adhere to it, and it is my duty, therefore, to advise the Prince to pursue his journey.

“What is the sacrifice I asked the Orangemen to make? 0209 191 Merely to abstain from displaying in the presence of a young Prince of nineteen years of age, the heir to a sceptre which rules over millions of every form of Christianity, symbols of religious and political organisation which are notoriously offensive to the members of another creed, and which in one portion of the empire have repeatedly produced, not only discord and heartburning, but riot and bloodshed.

“I never doubted the loyalty of the persons composing the Orange body. I based my appeal to them on the ground of that loyalty and of their good feeling. I did not ask them to sacrifice a principle, but to furl a flag and abstain from an article of dress. I wished the Prince to see them, but not to give countenance to a society which has been disapproved in the mother country by the Sovereign and Legislature of Great Britain. I am told that they represent this act of mine as a slight to the Protestant religion. Until they can prove that the great mass of Englishmen who are not Orangemen are also not Protestants, it is quite unnecessary for me to repudiate so unfounded and absurd a charge.

“I am well aware that such party processions are not illegal in this country as they are in Ireland. This is a conclusive answer, if I asked you, as Mayor, to exercise your authority; but it is no answer to my remonstrance. I made it, not as Secretary for the Colonies, called upon to enforce a law, but as a Minister of the Queen attending the Prince of Wales, by command of Her Majesty, in an official visit to this colony at the invitation of its Legislature; and I ask you in what position would the Prince be placed by my sanction if he were now to pass through such a scene as was prepared for him (which happens not to be forbidden by the Colonial Legislature), and new year visit the north of Ireland, where he could not be a party to such an exhibition without violating the laws of his country?

“His Royal Highness will continue the route which had been prepared for him, but in any place where similar demonstrations are adhered to, a similar course to that pursued at Kingston will be taken.

“I cannot conclude this letter without an expression of regret that the corporation did not accept the offer which I 0210 192 made them, through you, to present their address on board the steamer—an offer readily accepted by the Moderator and Synod of the Presbyterian Church in connexion with the Church of Scotland.

“It is impossible to believe that the members of the Corporation were influenced by sympathy with the conduct of the Orangemen, but I fear such a construction is too likely to be put upon their decision.

“I am, Sir, your very obedient servant, “ Newcastle.

“The Worshipful the Mayor of Kingston.”

The announcement that the Prince was about to leave was only considered by the Orangemen as a weak ruse to get them out of the way, so they closed up their (by this time) rather disorderly ranks firmer than ever. At last the Royal steamer moved away from the battery, and the Orangemen called out that he was going to land privately some two miles below the town. If such a step had been likely it would, one would have thought, have been a sufficient humiliation for the Prince to satisfy even the hot-headed zealots of Kingston. But this was not so, and off they started at a run to get their procession to the landing before him. They had only the exercise, however, for their pains, for the steamer stood westward up the lake, and in a few minutes was out of sight.

When he was really gone the people were, of course, bitterly angry, though they affected to consider the whole thing a victory and decided triumph for the Orange party. A mass meeting was instantly held, at which some very violent language was used against both the Prince and the Duke, and it was decided privately that all the Orangemen of Kingston that could follow to the places where the Prince was likely to land should at once do so, and meet him at the various landing-towns with their flags and banners, and try everywhere to 0211 193 compel him to accept their procession, or not land at all. This was done accordingly, and a large party started at once for Belleville, the next town at which the Prince was to disembark. To Tom Robinson was given the charge of this detachment, and of course under the management of that ranting demagogue the party succeeded in offering another inhospitable insult to their invited guest. They travelled over-night with their banners, band, and other insignia, and arrived in time to form something like a procession at Belleville.

If anything was wanted to show the animus of the miserable persecution it was this step. The Orangemen of Kingston had, according to their notions, a right to do what they liked in their own town, and, of course, having that place completely under their control, could dictate whatever offensive ceremonies they pleased, as to the manner in which their guest was to be received. But when they had insisted on their own petty affront, and carried it to an extent that drove the Prince away, they might surely have remained content with their most inhospitable and disloyal victory, and left other towns to decide for themselves whether they would allow their royal guest to land, or keep him wandering in a steamboat rejected from the very cities to which he had been invited. But there was an avariciousness of insult about the Kingston demagogues that was not to be satiated with merely expelling the Prince from that township. It was not every day that men like Mr. Flannigan or Mr. Robinson had opportunities of compelling royalty to bow before their opposition, and turn back from their own town to avoid their insults. As it was not likely that they would soon again have an opportunity of insulting another Prince of Wales, they made the most of the chance they had. O

With regard to Belleville it is, only doing the people of that pretty town mere justice to say that they had abandoned all idea of forcing an Orange procession on the Prince, and the Orange arches which had been erected had been denuded of their partisan symbols. The chief authorities implored the Orangemen not to assemble as Orangemen; and the ladies signed a petition to the County and Grand Masters of the Lodges to the same effect, praying that the Prince might be allowed to land. The Belleville Orangemen did relent, and no procession would have been formed but for the arrival of the men from Kingston. The importation of these firebrands soon decided the matter, and their vulgar declamation about giving the Prince a lesson was, unfortunately, listened to by many of the Belleville deputy masters. The result was that an Orange procession was improvised on the very spot where the Prince was to land, though I was assured that more than nine-tenths of it was entirely composed of Kingston men and supplied with Kingston banners. The Prince's steamer came; His Royal Highness saw the old “No Surrender” and other Orange flags, and, without making any stay at all, the vessel turned round at once and went away to Cobourg. For all any at Belleville knew, the royal party might have been short of provisions on board, and, in fact, this would actually have been the case but for the care of Mr. Rose, who privately sent a quantity on board before the vessel quitted Kingston. I, however, quite believe that the party might have been half-starved ere Messrs. Flannigan and Robinson would have furled a single banner or abated one item of their persevering annoyance.

At the little town of Cobourg, which was the next in the route from Belleville, no procession was attempted, though it was not the fault of the Kingston men that 0213 195 one was not insisted on. Mr. Flannigan, and Mr. Strange, the Mayor of Kingston's brother, having entrusted the Belleville insult to Robinson, took charge of Cobourg themselves, and with a number of Orange flags and banners hurried up by train from Kingston. Their coming and their purpose was at once telegraphed to the authorities, and by a curious coincidence it happened that the train stopped so long at various stations, that it soon got half-an-hour, then an hour, then an hour and a half, and then two hours behind time, to the boundless annoyance and wrath of Messrs. Flannigan and Co. The result of this unexpected delay was, that the Prince had been received at Cobourg before the train arrived, and the chance of a further affront to the royal guest was lost. In fact, a reaction of feeling was beginning. The Orange Lodges of Cobourg said they preferred deciding for themselves, without the aid or coercion of the Kingston men; and decide they did at once, in favour of the Prince's wishes, and gracefully and willingly. No Orange procession was thought of. The town gave the Prince a brilliant reception, and a very well-arranged ball, at which His Royal Highness danced till near daylight on the 7th.

From this fête he of course came out completely victorious. Gentlemen were there from Peterborough and Whitby, and even Toronto. Whatever Orange schemes they might have entertained while His Royal Highness was at a distance disappeared for ever from their minds that night, and the idea of forcing anything on a young guest, whose good-humoured courtesy won all hearts, became out of the question. With such favourable impressions, too, was mingled a vague but strong idea that he had been in the right after all, and had maintained the dignity of his own high position O 2 0214 196 with firmness and with moderation. Before the Prince was ready to start next morning, telegrams of entreaty that he would visit them, and promises that no Orange display of any kind or sort would be permitted, came in from Peterborough, Port Hope, Whitby, and even from the head-quarters of Orangeism—the splendid capital of Upper Canada—Toronto itself.

Reaction in Orange feeling—Peterborough—Port Hope—Whitby—Orange arch at Toronto—Duplicity of the Mayor—Correspondence—The Mayor's Apology—Reception at Osgoode Hall—Fatiguing Character of the Progress—Excursion to Collingwood—“Indian Summer”—Addresses from Kingston and Belleville—The Prince's Reply—Leaves Toronto.

On the morning following the reception at Cobourg, it was evident that the Orange difficulty was fast coming to an end. Even the fiercest partisans no longer spoke of anything but submission—sullenly and with reluctance at first, it is true; but still it was submission, and one at which three-fourths of the lodge members rejoiced exceedingly. The quiet determination of the Duke of Newcastle at the commencement of the movement at Kingston, the certainty that the same firmness would be shown throughout, the feeling of indignation that was aroused through the province at the idea of its royal guest being affronted and excluded from the places to which he had come on invitation; and, above all, the violent language, and still more unjustifiable conduct, of the Kingston Lodges, gradually brought about a reaction, which put a decided check on the whole affair.

The whole ebullition had, as I have said, been entirely due to political causes. Properly managed, 0216 198 an amount of political capital might have been made out of it sufficient to have driven the present Cartier and Macdonald ministry from power. But the Kingston men who were chosen to fight the battle, and whose reputation for fanatical obstinacy justly stood so high in the province, that it was thought if any men could do it they could, fell into a very common mistake in such matters, and overdid their parts. The result was, that they alienated and disgusted many of their best lodges; by their own violence they, at the very outset, checked a movement which might have given most serious cause of trouble; they did not upset the ministry, or even much shake it; and the opposition of Canada was and is still out of office. It was a grievous want of tact on the part of those who secretly pulled the strings, to entrust the execution of a scheme so delicate and so fraught with danger to hot-headed men of the Flannigan and Robinson stamp. If the Kingston people had been content with showing their own most mistaken and inhospitable feeling of independence, I believe that it was more than probable one or two other towns would have been silly enough to follow their example. But when Messrs. Flannigan and Co. went beyond this, and determined, as at Belleville, to follow the Prince through to other places, and, by the exhibition of their banners, oppose his landing, it wore a very different aspect. The mass of the Protestants, who, of course, were not Orangemen, were indignant at the determined annoyance with which their Prince was threatened, while the gentlemen connected with the Orange societies found their standing and position in the order overborne by the outcry of a handful of vulgar subordinates. The grief and indignation of the people of Belleville, who had decorated their town with exquisite care, and who saw the Prince turned 0217 199 away from it by the Kingston fanatics, also had its effect. Above all, every woman in the province, no matter of what rank or age, of course, took the part of the Prince with such determined energy, that popular feeling underwent a reaction; all the stronger for its being so sudden. It began to be told how Kingston, that had made no preparation or decoration beyond its offensive Orange arch, could well afford to keep the Prince from seeing the nakedness of the little place. But all the other towns, from Peterborough to Sarnia, had determined to give him a brilliant royal welcome, and almost choked at the idea that their trouble and expense might be rendered of no avail by the act of a few demagogues from another town, who, having achieved the disgrace of expelling the Prince, and feeling rather doubtful of the triumph, could only hope to mitigate their humiliation by getting others to share it by following their disloyal example. The idea, too, of a few zealots, like Flannigan, or a bar-room orator of the Tom Robinson sort, suddenly determining to give laws to the whole province, and exclude the Prince from his mother's own dominions, became rather too much for the other societies; so Kingston was voted to have committed a stupid insult, and the Flannigan clique little better than a public nuisance.

So the Prince went to Peterborough by rail, crossing en route the little inland sheet of water called Lake Rice, on the shores of which he was met by a party of Indians, who fired a royal salute from muskets, and who, with a small band of native musicians, welcomed him with “God save the Queen,” played with extreme slowness and careful pauses, as if the orchestra was rather doubtful of its powers in quick movements. At Peterborough there were some beautiful decorations, and long addresses and replies, and, above all, there 0218 200 were tremendous cheers of welcome, compared to which, in the eyes of the Kingston emissaries, gall and wormwood would have been luxuries. From Peterborough the royal party returned by rail to Port Hope, a very pretty little town on the northern shore of Lake Ontario, and a centre of Orange organisation, reported to be not inferior in determination to any in Upper Canada. There it was very likely an Orange procession would have been formed, but for the conduct of the Kingston men, whose overbearing interference again turned all against them. Nevertheless, some among the crowd called out the Orange watchword, “No surrender!” as the Prince stepped ashore, while several shouted that for no man living save the Prince of Wales would they have given in—a statement which admitted of no doubt whatever. On the whole, however, the efforts of the turbulent few at Port Hope were entirely discouraged by the chiefs of the party, who would have enforced greater rigour but that they feared losing their influence altogether, and giving the lead to the most violent members, who were already clamouring for it. At Whitby there was a great concourse of people, who received His Royal Highness with unalloyed manifestations of delight and loyalty; and there, addresses having been duly received and acknowledged, the Prince again embarked on board the steamer “Kingston” for Toronto, only a few miles distant.

There had been at first great doubts whether the Prince would be able to land at Toronto at all; for Kingston men had been very busy, and not without success, among the lowest ranks of the Orange association. Mr. Hilyard Cameron, a solicitor of great eminence, and the grand master of the Lodges of Upper Canada, had, it was alleged by his friends, done his 0219 201 utmost to prevent a demonstration, and in this he had been sincerely backed by all the respectable members of the society, and, of course, by Protestants of every class.

For a gentleman possessing such influence as Mr. Cameron was known to possess among the Orangemen, his interference seemed, for some unaccountable reason or other, to be of very little avail. There was a rooted belief among the Orangemen, that what little he did publicly to check them was merely to keep up appearances, and that in his heart he wished the matter to go forward to the utmost. Certain it is, that the Orangemen at Kingston openly related that they were encouraged to hold out by telegrams from Mr. Cameron; and though I did not see any of these alleged messages, I was told of the fact of their arrival by gentlemen who said they had seen them, and had read their contents. Of these facts, however, I cannot speak of my own knowledge, and merely repeat them as they were openly and publicly spoken of at the time. It was strongly wished to form an Orange procession in Toronto; but in this matter Mr. Cameron appears to have exerted himself energetically, and supported as he was by nearly all the inhabitants, who were determined to risk anything rather than that the Prince should be driven away, the Orangemen reluctantly yielded. So a sort of compromise was effected, and it was agreed that the Orange demonstration should take place at two o'clock, and be over by three; to which every one consented, as His Royal Highness was not expected to land till later in the evening.

But before this decision was arrived at, the Orangemen had built an Orange arch in the main street, under which the Prince would have to pass on his way through the town. It was not coloured orange, being intended 0220 202 to represent the gate of Londonderry; but it had several Orange insignia on it, with a transparency of King William III. crossing the Boyne, with the figures “1688” and the motto, “The glorious, pious, and immortal memory of King William III.” These transparencies were placed on both sides of the arch, while the top was surmounted with the usual Orange emblem of a Bible and Crown, and its accompanying motto, “These we maintain.”

Except for the unfortunate misunderstandings and ill-feeling to which this arch gave rise, it would scarcely be worth mentioning; for even the Orangemen admitted with a smile that, as an arch, it was the ugliest obstruction the Prince had seen.

Of course, the Governor-General and the Duke of Newcastle heard of this arch, and Mr. Wilson, the Mayor of Toronto, was at once written to and informed that the Prince would pass under no party memo memorials of the kind. The Mayor replied that the Orange insignia would be removed, and that the Orangemen had consented to take down the transparencies of King William with their party mottoes, substituting a portrait of the Prince of Wales. The change in the portraits was to be made accordingly on the night the Prince was at Cobourg. But the Kingston men were in Toronto when this pacific alteration was proposed, and during the night worked upon the feelings of the violent members of the Irish party to such an extent, that on the morning the Prince was to land they came to a determination that King William should remain where he was. Mr. Gamble, the city solicitor, took a letter to the duke from the Mayor stating that the intended change had been effected, though it had not; and Mr. Gamble himself made no mention of the fact that the Orange arch was as much an Orange arch 0221 203 as ever, and that it was intended to represent the gate of Derry. Relying, however, upon the assurance of the Mayor, the duke at once came on.

With the single exception of this arch, all the decorations of Toronto were exquisitely beautiful. At the landing-place a pavilion had been erected, surrounded with a wide amphitheatre of seats, with a magnificent lofty arch in the centre, which cost upwards of 3000 dollars. The main street, too, was a perfect arcade of arches, having in the centre, where four streets met, a trophy which deserves especial mention. It was in shape like the old Market Cross at Salisbury, or the peculiar vaulted arch which supports the spire of Salisbury Cathedral. It was composed entirely of pine, covered with rough pine bark. Where the four ribs of the arch met in the centre, over King Street, was a magnificent crown, almost large enough to accommodate a dinner party inside it. All the ribs of the arch were covered with sheaves of ripe corn. At-the corners whence the arches sprang were tall waving plants of Indian corn, with large open-work baskets filled full of melons, apples, peaches, and grapes, with other fruit and vegetable products of the colony, which just then were in full season. Altogether, the whole idea, as a kind of autumnal harvest-home welcome, was admirable, and the beautiful lines of the arch enabled the effect to be carried out to the best and most poetical advantage. Before the Prince arrived the Orange procession marched through the town in great state; and certainly, both in the appearance of the members, in richness of dress, and in banners, it differed as widely from the display made by the Kingston people as light from darkness. It was intended that this parade should not occupy more than an hour, but at four and five o'clock the men were still abroad, and people 0222 204 began to fear that the Prince would not come. The precursor of royalty throughout this tour—the dull, heavy rain—which soon set in, made them easy on this score, for it seemed evident, from the way it lowered and fell in heavy drops, that the Prince was really going to land. It was strange that, throughout all the tour, only at Kingston and Belleville had the Prince had a chance of disembarking with fair weather and clear skies, and at both those places he was not allowed to put his foot ashore.

It was getting dark on the evening of the 7th as the royal steamer was seen winding round the long spit of land which stretches out before Toronto, and forms for its commerce one of the most perfect natural harbours in the world. Among those who knew that the Orange arch was intended to represent the gate of Londonderry, and that the lodges had refused to remove the transparency of King William crossing the Boyne, the announcement of the arrival created a great sensation, for it was scarcely hoped that the Prince would pass under it along the route arranged for the cortége. Very few were aware that in these matters the Mayor had deceived the Duke of Newcastle, and that the Royal party relied entirely on the reiterated assurance given that no party emblems had been erected. So the Prince came to the landing-place. All the amphitheatre was filled with ladies and gentlemen, the lower seats being occupied by nearly 8,000 children dressed in white. As the Prince stepped on shore all these infant voices broke out with the National Anthem, and the effect of the whole scene—the dark, gloomy sunset over Lake Ontario—the cheering of the crowd outside, just heard over the strong, solemn chorus of the children—the flags of the arches, and the dim illuminations of the city in the distance, along the streets of which the 0223 205 crowds were running with a great rush by thousands, all made it one of those pictorial and poetical displays which no description, however vivid, can recall. There was a sense of relief, too, mingled with the feeling of rejoicing, which led the crowds gradually to join with the anthem, which went pealing out over the water in a grand volume of sound, enough almost to be heard on the shores of the United States beyond. An address was presented by the civic authorities, which there was considerable difficulty in reading, even with the aid of lights, for the night had now fallen and was dark and windy. At the conclusion of this the procession was formed, and, followed by hundreds of people cheering, the cortége wound through the principal streets to the old residence of the Governor of the Province, which, like all the other resting places of His Royal Highness, had been carefully prepared for his accommodation in the most splendid style. The Chief Commissioner of Public Works, the Hon. John Rose, had charge of all the arrangements for the Prince's tour throughout, and at every single place, whether among the wilds of the Upper Ottawa, across the woods from Arnprior to Almonte, or at the little towns like Brockville or Sherbrook, they were perfect to a degree that elicited not admiration only, but almost the astonishment of the royal party. While on his way to the Government residence, however, the Prince passed under the Orange arch. Its character was not seen by the Duke of Newcastle, who was sitting with his back to the horses, until he had actually passed under it. There were a few “hurrahs!” from Orangemen, and cries of “No surrender,” as the carriage went beneath it, but this was all.

Even at that hour, had there been time to have turned the horses and gone by another route, the duke would 0224 206 have done so; but it was too late, and, ere it was fairly seen, the Prince had passed it. For the rest, all the houses were gaily illuminated, and thousands were in the streets, a great many wearing Orange ribands; but the popular feeling being strong in favour of giving the Prince a welcome, independent of partisan feeling of any kind, the St. George's Temperance Society, with one or two other associations of the same kind, joined the procession with their flags and banners, in which it was said, amid the darkness and hurry, a few of the Orange flags were mixed. But of this fact I cannot speak of my own knowledge, for it was much too dark, notwithstanding the illuminations, to distinguish anything with accuracy, and all the Orangemen seemed quite content with their victory in having got His Royal Highness to pass under their arch without just then venturing anything further. The greatest blaze of light which was shed on the procession was at the Rossin House, the principal hotel in Canada, where many of the royal suite were to stay, and which was illuminated from top to bottom as if it was on fire, and viewing the cortége from that point I certainly could not distinguish any Orange banners in it.

When His Royal Highness arrived at the Government House the Duke of Newcastle at once had an interview with the Mayor, and in the strongest terms complained of the deceit which had been practised on the Prince, and of the manner in which, relying upon the Mayor's promise that all party emblems had been removed, His Highness had been entrapped into passing under the Orange arch. The Duke of Newcastle also stated that, if some apology or explanation were not given for such an affront, he would feel it his duty to advise the Prince either to leave the city, or to mark his sense of the deceit practised upon him by declining 0225 207 to receive the Mayor or any other members of the corporation who had been parties to it at his levée on the following day. His worship requested time to convene the Common Council, in order that a formal answer might be returned on the following morning; nd to this, of course, the duke at once consented.

Saturday, the 8th of September, was fixed for a grand review of the volunteers; but the weather, as usual, was in the highest degree unfavourable; and as at Newfoundland, as at Halifax, as at Prince Edward Island, at Quebec, at Montreal, at Ottawa, at all the resting-places along the route, the rain came down in torrents. The review, of course, became out of the question. The rain would have been too heavy even for an inspection of Canadian lumberers, so it was early announced that only the levée would take place. The Duke of Newcastle waited long in the expectation of receiving some reply from the Mayor of Toronto in the matter of the Orange arch. None came, however, and accordingly his grace sent the following letter to Mr. Wilson:—

“Government House, Toronto, Sept. 8.

“Sir,—I deeply regret that you have not thought fit to send any explanation of the occurrence of which I made complaint to you last evening.

“I would not willingly revert to any cause of offence after the most magnificent and warm-hearted reception which the Prince of Wales met with in this city yesterday; but there are matters which cannot be overlooked without loss of honour and position. You distinctly informed me that the transparency of William III. was removed, and one of the Prince of Wales was substituted. I relied upon your word, and the consequence was that the Prince was thereby led into doing what I had distinctly informed you he would not do. As the levee is announced to be held at this house, no alteration will be made; 0226 208 but I hope you will see the propriety of not attending it so long as this matter is unexplained and no reparation offered.

“I am, sir, &c., “ Newcastle.

“P.S.—I reopen my letter to say that yours has been this moment (eleven o'clock) received. I trust the result of the meeting may be satisfactory; but I am sure you must feel that the reparation must precede any further communication.

“The Worshipful the Mayor of Toronto.”

Just before this letter was despatched, a note from the Mayor was forwarded to Government House. It was to this document that the P.S. of the Duke of Newcastle referred. By this time it had become more generally known that the arch was built to represent the gate of Londonderry; but, as a matter of course, such information was not forwarded to the duke; and among strangers it was thought, on the whole, to be rather a concession on the part of the Orangemen that they had not adopted their party tinge to paint their arch, but had, on the contrary, used common stone colour. The letter of the Mayor, to which the postscript of the duke referred, was as follows:—

“Mayor's Office, Toronto, Sept. 8.

“My Lord Duke,—In consequence of the very painful interview your grace did me the honour of holding with me last evening respecting the portrait of King William III., which has been placed on the arch erected by the Orangemen of thin city, and which was to have been dispensed with, and one of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales adopted for it; and respecting also the communication specifying the proposed change which I had the honour of addressing to his Excellency the Governor-General a few days since, and which was permitted to remain uncontradicted, either by the later communication to his Excellency, or by any personal statement, I have convened the council for this morning at half-past nine o'clock, when I trust to be enabled to make an explanation and apology to your 0227 209 Grace and to his Excellency which I hope may be accepted as satisfactory.

“I should have held this meeting last night, but I could find neither clerks nor messengers, and I was told I should have had still greater difficulty in finding the members.

“I have the honour to be, my Lord Duke, “Your Grace's most obedient humble servant, “ Adam Wilson, Mayor.

“To his Grace the Duke of Newcastle.”

The levée took place at the time announced in the programme. It was of the usual dull routine style of all the others which preceded it, though certainly not nearly so numerously attended as those at Quebec or Montreal. Of course, after the intimation conveyed in the duke's letter, neither the Mayor nor any members of the common council presented themselves; and it was soon noised abroad that they had attended the levée, and been refused the honour of a presentation to His Royal Highness because they were Orangemen. The mob never stopped to consider (as what mob does?), that had the rule of excluding Orangemen as Orangemen been laid down and enforced, very few would have been presented at all. So the rumour spread that an insult had been offered to the city in the person of its municipality, and all the old Orange animus was revived among the lower orders of society with greater force than ever. The Kingston emissaries, who till then had found their occupation gone, at once perceived their chance, and improved upon it. While these worthies were expatiating on the wrong done so unjustly to the city, the Mayor and common council had met, and the Mayor had written and sent his letter of apology to the duke, an apology which admitted the deceit practised—which in fact stated that it was the first P 0228 210 time his worship had ever been guilty of such an act, and which promised, if the offence was overlooked, that he would never be guilty of it again. It was as follows:—

“Mayor's Office, Toronto, Sept. 8.

“My Lord Duke,—Adverting to the interview which your Grace did me the honour of holding with me last evening on the subject of the transparency of King William III. on the Orangemen's arch, in this city, and the letter which I had the honour of addressing to his Excellency the Governor-General, stating that such a decoration was not to have been placed there, I am now desirous of acknowledging to your Grace that I ought most undoubtedly to have stated the change which was subsequently proposed to be made, and which was afterwards, in fact, made. And although the Roman Catholics were quite willing to acquiesce, and did acquiesce, in the alteration, it was, nevertheless, only due to your Grace and to his Excellency that such a deviation from the understood arrangement should have been promptly transmitted; and, looking back to what I have done from the present view of matters, it may appear that it was presumptuous on my part to judge whether your Grace or his Excellency would or would not have esteemed this deviation as of that consequence which it has now assumed.

“There has been much difficulty in arranging satisfactorily the late threatening and serious state of affairs here, and I trust I have not been wanting in my efforts to bring about this pleasing result. It is painful to me, therefore, to feel that I have even unintentionally failed in discharging my duty in this particular, but it is infinitely more painful to me to think that your Grace should think that I have omitted to communicate this information from any unworthy motive, or for the purpose of compromising His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, your Grace, or his Excellency the Governor-General; or even for the sake of complaisance towards any portion of my fellow-citizens.

“I can safely appeal to any one who knows me, and who I am sure will satisfy your Grace that I would not, unless I were to depart from the whole tenour of my life, act in the 0229 211 manner to which your Grace alluded last evening; but I admit again that much does appear in what has occurred to have induced your Grace to form the strong opinion which your Grace gave expression to on the occasion in question.

“I have now only to implore your Grace that, whatever omission or offence I may be chargeable with, it may not be visited in any manner upon this most loyal city, for as towards your Grace and his Excellency I am alone to blame.

“I have the honour to be, my Lord Duke, “Your Grace's most obedient, humble servant, “ Adam Wilson, Mayor.

“His Grace the Duke of Newcastle, &c.”

To the almost abject apology of the Mayor the Duke of Newcastle replied in the following letter, which terminated the affair:—

“Government House, Toronto, Sept. 8.

“Sir,—I am so sincerely anxious that all the painful events of the last few days should be at once and for ever buried in oblivion, and nothing remembered but the heart-stirring scene which last night proclaimed to the world the unanimous and enthusiastic loyalty of the city of Toronto, that it is a real relief to my mind to feel that I can, without any sacrifice of duty to the Prince of Wales, accept the apology which is offered by your letter just received. In this spirit I will not continue a discussion which must have been so painful to you, and has certainly been no less so to me, but I must point out to you that it was your letters which really gave an obnoxious character. to the transparency of William III. Nobody can object to a representation (in itself) of one of the most illustrious of our kings, but when you informed me that the transparency was to be removed by the Orangemen as an acknowledged party symbol, it at once assumed the objectionable feature of the display which I had advised the Prince not to countenance, and its restoration made it impossible for the Prince to pass under the arch without violating the terms of my letter to the Governor-General. I can only hope that from this moment all differences may as P 2 0230 212 completely vanish from the minds of others as they will from that of “Sir, yours very obediently, “ Newcastle. ”

“The Worshipful the Mayor of Toronto.”

This closed the correspondence on the subject between his worship and the duke, and it was intimated to the Mayor and members of the council that, the matter being forgiven and forgotten, they would all have the honour of being presented to His Royal Highness before the visit to Toronto terminated, which they were accordingly.

On the evening of the 8th, after the banquet at the Government House, His Royal Highness held a grand reception at Osgoode Hall. This hall, which, like all the other public buildings at Toronto, is a really magnificent structure, is at once both the Middle Temple and Westminster Hall of Upper Canada. The external features of the architecture much resemble, on a smaller scale, the noble entrance to the British Museum, while the entrance hall inside is built with a double row of Gothic columns, and a corridor round it, after the plan of the hall of Bridgewater House. All the interior is of massive cut stone, with inlaid tesselated pavement of the most exquisite designs. The mode of lighting is from behind coloured glass screens in the ceiling of each chamber, and the effect of the soft rich light which is thus diffused over the whole is exceedingly chaste and beautiful. In different parts of the building the various courts of law are situated, all loftier, more commodious, and better ventilated than those of Westminster Hall. One side of the hall is entirely occupied by a splendid library, and in this, as the largest apartment, a raised dais was placed for the Prince. His Royal Highness arrived at the building at nine o'clock, 0231 213 and was received by the visitors who had been invited to meet him at the hall with a great outburst of enthusiasm. Mr. Hilyard Cameron, the Treasurer of the Law Society, with all the judges and members of the Canadian bar, met His Highness in the lower hall, and presented him with a long and eloquent address, to which the Prince replied; and this and walking through the courts formed the only ceremonial part of the business, and dancing was at once commenced in the library with some eight or ten sets of quadrilles. Spacious as this apartment was, however, it was too limited to accommodate all who wished to dance; so, as there were plenty of bands, auxiliary polkas and waltzes were soon formed in all the learned nooks and corners of the building, and Courts of Common Pleas and solemn Halls of Convocation resounded with galops, music, laughter, and the little whisperings of half-concealed flirtations. The Prince, as usual, danced every dance till nearly twelve o'clock, and the duke, who never did dance, was sufficiently occupied in receiving the congratulations of the chief members of the Orange Lodges for the firm stand he had made against violent dictation. Before twelve o'clock the Prince left, and, as it was then nearly Sunday morning, every one followed his example, and soon after midnight the spacious building was silent and deserted.

On Sunday the Prince and suite attended divine service at St. James's, the beautiful cathedral church of Toronto, which was situated almost alongside of the Orange arch. By driving round another way, however, His Royal Highness avoided passing under it, and the groups of Orangemen who had collected near it were savagely angry and violent at what they were pleased to call a slight to their memorial. They soon became more exasperated, and their groans and cries of “No 0232 214 surrender!” with yellings at the name of Newcastle, began almost to disturb the quiet service of the cathedral, round which the mob gathered. Amid cheers and shouts a large number of Orange banners were brought down and hung all over the arch, while some five or six, carried by the most violent of the crowd, were held near the cathedral door, so that they might be the first objects seen when the Prince issued from church. At the conclusion of the service the Prince and his party passed out through the vestry into the churchyard to avoid the crowd. In this, however, they were not quite successful, as they were seen crossing the inclosure, and there were great groans and hootings at the Duke of Newcastle. None however, alluded to the Prince, save when he stepped into his carriage, when there was a cry raised to cut the traces and drag the carriage perforce under the Orange arch.

There were, however, too many police on the spot to make it easy to carry out such a daring affront, and, as had been remarked, the Orangemen yielded when their violence was likely to be repelled in kind. The Prince, therefore, drove away unmolested, and did not pass under the Orange arch after all, though when he was seen to turn in another direction the mob yelled and hooted at “Newcastle” with redoubled energy. As a Sabbath recreation the whole scene was certainly not calculated to impress one with the notion that, in a religious point of view, Orangemen were a bit more scrupulous or moral than other Protestants.

The Prince did not go out again that day, but the Duke of Newcastle, with Sir Edmund Head, General Bruce, and Mr. Engleheart took a short walk through the city. They were recognised in the principal street, and soon followed by a little mob hooting and yelling 0233 215 at the Duke and the Governor-General. Two or three policemen, however, kept the crowd back, and threatened to make some arrests. But even without this interference his grace would have run no risk of any personal violence. Later in the afternoon, by the order of the various Grand Masters, the Orange banners were quietly taken down from the arch and returned to the lodges, and the temporary excitement soon died out.

Sunday over, and the tour was resumed again with redoubled vigour.

It has been my lot to attend a great many royal progresses, visits, and tours The Times newspaper, and I therefore know from sad experience, how much is expected from the illustrious personages on those occasions; but I must admit that I have never heard of any during which the pace of incidents and celebrations was so dreadfully fast as during the Canadian progress. For instance, on the Monday following the Orange insult at Toronto, the Prince started early in the morning and flew up by the Northern Railway to Collingwood, on Lake Huron, visiting en route Newmarket, Bradford, and Barrie, receiving and replying to addresses at each place, and being cheered, arched, and be-welcomed at all. On the next day, amid the pouring rain, there was a regatta at eleven o'clock, at which His Royal Highness was of course present; at half-past eleven there was a visit to Trinity College, at twelve there was an auguration of a park, at half-past twelve an inspection of Volunteers, at one a visit to the Toronto University, at two a reception of Kingston and Belleville deputations, an inauguration of Horticultural Societies' grounds at three, a visit of inspection to Knox's College and Normal School at four, and a grand ball in the evening at nine, at which, 0234 216 as usual, the Prince danced every dance till four in the morning. The suite began to think that if the programme was to be followed out in that manner, His Royal Highness was certain to come back a sadder and a wiser man, for the mere personal fatigue involved in such continued journeys, balls, addresses, and receptions, was enough almost to affect a constitution of iron. But the inexhaustible fund of good-humour and good-nature which His Royal Highness possessed seemed enough to carry him through anything, though at this time I almost feared that arrangements would have to be made for relieving the suite, who, though of course not wanting in the amiable characteristics which distinguished His Royal Highness, did not possess that charm against all excitement and all fatigue which belongs alone to youth.

The adventures of Rasselas, as a warning to royal travellers, were nothing compared to the experience of the Prince of Wales; and when it was recollected that he had to go round through the States by way of Chicago to Portland, the question which occurred to every one was, how was he to do it all? Why wasn't there a proxy Prince of Wales to go ahead with the courier, do battle with the Orangemen, collect the addresses in hampers, and take the rough edge off city festivities, ere His Highness himself arrived? Grand landings, or state balls, might have been reserved for the real Dauphin of Great Britain, but for the perpetual opening of parks and halls, which had been opened and in use for years, the long journeys there and back again, the excursions to see places where nothing was to be seen,—these might all, with a great saving of time and inconvenience, have been turned over to a royal deputy.

As for the mere journalists, who had to go everywhere, 0235 217 see everything—travel all day and write all night—relays of them should have been ordered in advance along the route like post-horses. I must own that after that dreadful Tuesday at Toronto, I almost succumbed. Following the Prince from regatta to review, from review to universities, deputations, inaugurations, parks, pleasure-grounds, colleges, and schools, and all through such mud and such rain as there was at Toronto, was enough to fatigue even a “special correspondent,” whose forte is popularly supposed to be an aptitude for doing without meals or sleep, travelling and sight-seeing twenty-three hours a day, and writing a long and cheerful history of the whole during the twenty-fourth.

The excursion to Collingwood on Monday was, however, a pleasant affair; and inasmuch as the trip only necessitated a journey of 200 miles, with a state visit to three towns, it was, on the whole, rather a quiet day than otherwise. The first tract of country which stretches between Toronto city and Lake Huron is of the quiet, undulating character which distinguishes the scenery of Lower Canada, where the land has been partly cleared in some places, and where a general demolition of the forest growth is actively going on at all. There was no medium in the scenery here. Where cleared, the land was as level and monotonous as a vast meadow; and where the clearings ceased, the eternal mass of pine forests began. The late and always continuous rains had hastened the advance of autumn. Already the evenings were very chill, and a light frost rested on the ground at night, leaving a trace in glowing colours on the forests, which deepened day by day. The full rich green of Canadian woodland was altering hourly, the maple had donned its brightest scarlet, and the swamp ash seemed wreathed 0236 218 with gold. Every leaf and shrub was changing, a mass of the richest colours spread out on all the hills, and the trees seemed to revel in glorious tints before the tremendous frost of the Canadian winter hid them in ice and snow for a long six months. What in England is called autumn is in Canada called the “fall,” and the terms are characteristic. There is no “fall” in England, only a long decay of summer, when the sun shines with a cold sickly gleam, and the withered leaves, all brown and shrivelled, rustle down day by day, as the winter winds rise. It is, in fact, rather a period of the year which we call autumn because it is only not winter by courtesy, when the nights are long, damp, and foggy, the mornings crisp with a misty frost, and the sun only comes at long intervals to apologise for the general absence of daylight. In North America there is nothing of all this. The summer there never tries to struggle through long wintry days, perishing leaf by leaf. Like the black swan, that is said only to sing before it dies, the woods and fields are most glorious when most near decay, and ripen into such masses of scarlet and gold, such pinks and soft rich browns, streaked here and there, amid the deep green lofty pines, that the forests become pictures of unutterable beauty, and you feel as you gaze upon the scene that Providence has in its goodness, and as if in compensation, made the gradual approach of a tremendous winter more lovely than even the most glowing spring. For two or three short weeks the woods and mountains remain thus in piles of gorgeous colour like sunset clouds. During this, the “Indian summer” as it is called, the air is mild, calm, and still, with a solemnity of quiet as if Nature knew the impending change, and the very woods listen in every leaf for the coming of their great foe. At last it comes, in one keen, angry 0237 219 night of freezing cold, stopping great rivers and fierce rapids as though it struck them dead, and covering the hills and valleys with that ghastly shroud of snow under which all North America lies torpid for half the year. Then comes “the fall.” In four-and-twenty hours after the leaves of thousands of miles of forest are on the ground in patches of reds and yellows, which the snow makes haste to cover in massive drifts, as if it rejoiced in its long-disputed victory, and tyrannised over the woods it had at last subdued. The “fall” had not then come, but it was fast approaching, and one could see at a glance by the aspect of the woods which lay between Toronto and Lake Huron that the first assaults of winter were visible in the rich glowing colours of the trees and leaves. At all the stations His Royal Highness passed on the line some attempt at decoration had been made; some little muster of the backwoods' population was sure to be in waiting to see the train rush by, and cheer and wave their hats and hands in a general way to everybody in it. At most of the little villages there were arches; at Aurora there were three erected right across the line. One was simple and pretty; another was Masonic and unintelligible; the third was Orange. There was no mistake about the character of this last. It was pure Orange, with all its insignia portrait of the “glorious, pious, and immortal Monarch,” and the letters and number of the lodge by which it was stuck up. It was right across the line too, so there was no help for it or time to help it, and the royal train with the Prince, per force, passed under the Orange arch. No one in it could forbear a smile at the obstinate pertinacity displayed by the Orangemen, and the ingenious manner in which they had compelled His Royal Highness to pass under their party emblem, all 0238 220 bedizened as it was with the most obnoxious of their banners. The whole thing was, of course, a trap laid by the lodge, and showed such a determination to overcome their royal guest which would have done credit even to the Kingston men. At the little town of Aurora the Prince stopped for a minute while an address was read, to which he briefly replied. From this the train passed on through Newmarket, Bradford, and Barrie to Collingwood, at all of which places there were crowds and arches, but no Orange symbol or flag of any kind. At Barrie there was a very beautiful agricultural arch covered in with sheaves of corn, with gourds and pumpkins, grapes, and melons.

Barrie is very picturesquely situated on Kempenfelt Bay, a long inland branch of Lake Simcoe, with a small population three-fourths of which were originally composed of retired naval officers, and where the inhabitants are consequently both poor and proud, much given to ancestry, and an avoidance of labour. From Barrie the train went at once to Collingwood, a little town situated on a low sandy shore at the head of Georgian Bay, on Lake Huron. Travellers who have not seen these great lakes of North America are apt to imagine that they must be wonderfully beautiful, and because Windermere and Killarney are little gems, therefore larger lakes must be proportionately finer. Let any of my readers who want to see Lake Huron, go down to the little sandy hills of Pakefield, near Lowestoft, and standing up to the ankles in the sand look out upon the German Ocean, and there he will see all he sees on the shores of Lake Huron. Collingwood is a small straggling town, tolerable, and only worth seeing from the fact that last autumn it only attained its fifth year. Six years ago not a stick was cut in the wilderness on which Collingwood now stands, and it promises 0239 221 to extend itself in a few years more to the dignity of a city of Upper Canada. At this place, after the usual ovation, the royal party embarked on board a small steamer, and made a short excursion on to the lake and to Nottawasaga Island not remarkable for anything but its being an island, which was somehow or other in this case turned into a claim of surpassing interest. From Col]ingwood His Royal Highness returned over the same road to Toronto, where he was received by an immense crowd with a hearty and loyal welcome; and, contrary to the expectation of the alarmists, no rudeness was offered to the Prince; even the duke escaped scatheless, and instead of being groaned at, was loudly cheered.

I have already alluded to Tuesday the llth as being a day which was set apart for a most inordinate number of festivities. Several of these had been fixed for other days, but the incessant rain had necessitated their postponement to this Tuesday, and lo, on this day it rained harder than ever! and nothing but bedraggled and bemired processions, all dank and dripping, were to be seen about the streets in all directions.

The first festive effort was a regatta, at which, as usual, without the slightest preconcerted signal, a crowd of little yachts stood out into Lake Ontario and disappeared in the rain; and this interesting ceremony over, the crowd left them to their own devices, and all roofed in by umbrellas went splashing and squattering through the mud to another grand celebration—the inspection of the Volunteers. On this latter event, however, I must be allowed to drop the veil. An “inspection” is not an exhilarating ceremony; and when to its natural drawbacks must be added the facts that the “troops” on the ground were short of a strong regimental company—that the spectators under parapluies 0240 222 looked as muddy and damp as a group of fungi—that the ground was little better than a dilapidated watercourse, and every one was in a hurry to get home and change his clothes, I think I have told enough. Waving handkerchiefs to the Prince that had occasion-ally to be wrung dry, had not a cheering effect; and the aspect of crowds of country people, come in for a great holiday, standing up to their ankles in slush, cheerless, dripping, and weary, had, on the whole, rather a depressing influence than otherwise. So with the opening of the park (which it would have been an act of humanity to shut on such a day). The rain was heavy and incessant, driving in eccentric rushes under umbrellas, and bouncing off the ground with such violence that it seemed to be coming up as well as down. Here His Royal Highness laid the foundation-stone of a statue of the Queen, the ceremony connected with which was of the usual meagre character. The stone having been duly lowered and plumbed, the inevitable address was read, and a magnificent silver trowel, with which the Prince tapped the mortar, was duly presented to him, and the “Queen's Park” declared to be form, ally opened.

After this the deputations from Belleville and Kingston were received at Government House. The address from the people at Belleville and Kingston deplored in the most earnest manner the unfortunate occurrences which had prevented His Royal Highness from landing, and besought him to believe that the great mass of the people of the town entirely disclaimed any share in the party processions, which were as offensive to them as to the Prince. It concluded with a warm request that His Royal Highness might even then honour them with a visit, thus restoring them to the right to feel that they were in the opinion of the world, but more especially 0241 223 in the sight of the Queen and His Royal Highness, lovers of peace and order, and loyal British subjects.

To this kindly and apologetic address His Royal Highness made the following reply:

“Gentlemen,—It gives me the most sincere pleasure to receive this numerous and influential deputation from Belleville, and to hear from your lips the assurances and explanations contained in your address.

“All painful feelings occasioned by the proceedings in your town on a recent occasion, which I knew were heartily disapproved by the great majority of the inhabitants, are now entirely removed; and the only regret that I experience is that I am unable to comply with the strongly-expressed wish of your citizens, and those of Kingston, that I would go back and pay them that visit which was so unhappily prevented last week. My engagements to other places will not admit of such a change as a return so far eastward would necessarily entail, and I cannot break faith with those who have so kindly made preparations to receive me. It causes me real sorrow to leave Kingston and Belleville behind me unvisited; but I will not fail to inform the Queen of your protestations of loyalty and devotion, nor to add my own conviction of their entire sincerity.”

The deputation at an end, and a hurried lunch over, the Prince had to start again to visit the University, which, like the other public buildings in Toronto, is a spacious and handsome structure, and one which would do honour to either of the Universities in England. Here he was received by the heads of the University and the various professors, and conducted through the fine building, signing his name in the students' book, and, as he had not then graduated, receiving an ad eundem statum instead of an ad eundem gradum.

From the University the Prince drove to inaugurate the Horticultural Societies' grounds. It was not a day 0242 224 for inaugurating anything but ponds, fountains, aqueducts, and waterworks, but the Prince went to this, nevertheless. There was a magnificent display of fruit and flowers under the tents, and a wonderful collection of garden-stuff in the way of mangolds and swedes, cucumbers, carrots, squashes, and pumpkins, with other vegetable eccentricities of grotesque forms, looking like lobsters grown upon vines. These the Prince inspected with his suite, and then proceeded to inaugurate the grounds by planting a meek-looking vegetable called a young maple-tree. This was done in the usual stone-laying style, His Royal Highness distributing the earth, then very like mortar, with a silver spade, which, of course, was presented to him when he had finished the state gardening. Everybody seemed to wonder when these gold medals, silver trowels and spades, would come to an end. His Royal Highness had still to open the Agricultural Exhibition of Upper Canada, at Hamilton; and it was almost thought that this would result in a silver plough with ebony handles, or a steam threshing-machine with a Calliope attached to play “God save the Queen,” or an oat-bruiser beautifully embroidered with the royal arms, like the chair of state which Miss Wilder had sent on the previous day to Government House, being presented to him. From the Horticultural inauguration the Prince went to Knox's College, thence to the Normal Schools, and thence, after a state dinner, to the grand ball given by the citizens of Toronto. This was a very beautiful fête—better than that at Quebec, but of course far inferior to that of Montreal. It was given in the Crystal Palace Exhibition building of Toronto (Exhibition buildings are as common in Canada as Government or Parliament houses), and this was as admirably adapted to the purpose as any ball-room not specially 0243 225 built for the occasion ever could be. It was sufficiently crowded to show the anxiety of the people to be present, and sufficiently spacious to accommodate all without inconvenience. The Prince of course danced till four in the morning. Within six hours after the conclusion of this entertainment the whole party were again en route for their next halting-place at London.

Welcome at London—Close of Orange Correspondence—Duke of Newcastle's Reply—Parallel between London in England and London in Canada West—Indiana of Sarnia—Distribution of Medals—Procceds to Niagara.

Had His Royal Highness been really making his first state visit into the colonial metropolis after which this town of Canada West is named, he could not have received a more hearty or a more kindly welcome. In no part of Upper Canada had I seen a greater concourse than was assembled to meet him at the station, and in very few cities had His Royal Highness seen streets better or more tastefully decorated than those of London. Not content with shouting till the people were almost black in the face, the whole dense mass surged after the royal cortége to the hotel where the party were to stay. In front of this they remained the whole day, cheering with such unyielding vigour that the Prince had to come to the windows again and again to bow his acknowledgments of a reception that was really astonishing from its intense fervour. When His Royal Highness had done this so often that even the crowd felt they could not in courtesy ask him to appear again, there arose an equally loud demand for the Duke of Newcastle, which, as the good citizens of 0245 227 London are many of them Orangemen and all strict Protestants, evidenced pretty clearly that his grace's conduct during the party disputes at Kingston and Toronto had gained for him the admiration and goodwill of all sensible classes of the community, and of a large majority of the Orangemen themselves. The duke was for a long time reluctant to notice the demand made by the people, but after some time, finding that nothing else would content them, he too had to make his appearance in the balcony, when he Was greeted with such demonstrations of applause as were scarcely, if at all, inferior to those bestowed on the Prince himself. After this it is almost unnecessary to add that there were no symptoms of Orangeism at London, and in fact it was shown most conclusively that the Orangemen as a body were foremost in condemning the outrageous conduct of those at Kingston, and the few who had attempted to follow their example at Toronto. While on the subject I may inform the reader that the Orange correspondence was closed in this city by the receipt of an inordinately long letter addressed by the Mayor of Kingston to his grace, in which the reasons for the demonstration at that town were coolly attempted to be justified, and the blame on the whole rather thrown on the duke than otherwise. The style of this document, which again renewed the falsehood that the Prince had always been attended by Romish priests and bishops at Quebec, in their robes and insignia, may be judged from the fact that, when published, one sentence wound through forty-four lines of closely printed type.

To this long epistle the duke at once despatched the following brief reply:—

“ London, Canada West, Sept. 13.

“Sir,—I have the honour to acknowledge the letter of the Q 2 0246 228 11th inst, which reached me this afternoon. It would be easy to refute the arguments, and contradict the statements advanced by you on behalf of the Council of the city of Kingston, but I have neither time nor inclination for the task. I have only, therefore, to express my hope that it is your intention to publish your letter without delay. If you do not, I shall feel it my duty to do so, in order that it may receive an answer from the good sense of the Canadian people.

“I am, Sir, &c.,

“ Newcastle. ”

With this quiet rejoinder the Orange correspondence ended for the rest of the tour.

The city of London, in the county of Middlesex in Canada West, is as a matter of course very firmly believed in by all the inhabitants, who hold it as an article of faith that the only difference between their young town and the metropolis of Britain is one of a purely geographical nature, allowing for which and the natural superiority of climate enjoyed by the Canadian London, both cities are much on a par. The Marseillais have a saying that Paris only wants a Rue Cannebière to be a little Marseilles, and I think the Londoners of Canada have a notion that the British Middlesex only requires to be half covered with wild pine wood to bring it up to the standard of its namesake in Canada West. In order still further to carry out this illusion of the strong resemblance, there is one rough wide street, with a few trees and a few houses and a wooden footway, which is called Oxford-street, and another wilder and more remote, with a carriage traffic about equal to that of Burlington-arcade, which is known as Cheapside. There is a Bond-street, which has only one side partly finished, the other abutting immediately upon the fields; and there is a Regent-street very like Bond-street, 0247 229 but without the one side. There is a little river which one might almost jump across called the Thames, as unlike it in size as in the purity of its clear wholesome water. Across this there is a temporary wooden structure, which tourists are requested to recognise as Westminster Bridge, and which certainly the traveller finds no manner of difficulty in believing is as unsafe and obstructive as its English namesake, till that great adorner of the Thames, Mr. Page, took it down. There is a St. Paul's and a Cheapside, which, like the

“row most modestly called Paradise, Which Eve might quit without much sacrifice,”

have about as much resemblance to the places they are called after, as Wellington-street has to the Iron Duke. There is a park and a Pall Mall, too, and a Covent Garden Market, a fine, well-built place, smaller, certainly, but one almost as well supplied with fruits, flowers, and vegetables as our own in England. But, as I have told the reader, in this colonial backwoods parody of the great metropolis the inhabitants have an unshaken faith, for they have carried their English feelings and English recollections with them into the far west, and look round on the little London of their own making with a feeling of pride and affection which, naturally enough, if not greater is at least as great as that they feel so evidently towards the mother country. In that town a real Londoner may safely intimate that the city does not much remind him of that which he has left behind, though woe betide any Lower Canadian or American who should do the same, or draw any comparisons disparaging to the London of Canada West. For the rest, the streets are very wide, and scrupulously 0248 230 clean, the houses lofty and substantial stone structures, the few public buildings are large and handsome, and infinitely above the average of what would be found in towns of the same size in England; and the Londoners themselves are, like all the townspeople of Upper Canada, known well and widely for their progressive spirit and warm and kindly hospitality. Great, however, as may be the resources of this miniature metropolis in other respects, it did not afford a private residence large enough to accommodate His Royal Highness. The Prince, therefore, with all his suite, was lodged in the chief hotel of the town—a huge building like a barrack, called the “Tecumseh House,” after a fierce and celebrated Indian warrior; though why an hotel should be called after a savage Chippewa any more than a maternity charity or a foundling hospital it is hard to imagine.

Nothing in the way of State, beyond the interminable addresses, was done at London on the day of the Prince's arrival, so the people had to content themselves with standing all day in crowds to look at the exterior of the Tecumseh House, which they did accordingly with a perseverance that was astonishing. In the evening the town illuminated, of course, and though the display in this matter was not very great, it was greater than could have been anticipated from the means at the disposal of the city, and, on the whole, made a pretty show. Early in the morning of the 13th the Prince started by the Great Western Railway for Sarnia, the extreme western terminus of the Grand Trunk, where its long line of 1100 miles of rail ends at last upon the wilds of Lake Huron. Sarnia is a quiet, pretty little, town, of the Collingwood class, though infinitely more picturesque in its surroundings, while the country which stretches between it and 0249 231 London is about the best cultivated and most fertile of all the lands of Upper Canada. At Sarnia there was a deputation of some 150 Indians from the tribe of the Chippewas in waiting to receive His Royal Highness. Unlike those at Lorette, these were real Indians, both in their dress, which was wild and picturesque, abounding, as usual, in unpleasant paint and motley feathers, and in their bearing, which was reserved and dignified. They indulged in no efforts to counterfeit lunacy in the shape of war dances, nor made any display of schoolboy agility and strength in attempts to perform the so-called “Indian games,” such as were made in the presence of His Royal Highness at Montreal. They had a wild, keen, and really savage look, which, however, retained all the sullen hauteur and studied apathy said to be peculiar to the North American Indians in the days when their voice was law to the early settlers, and they ruled the hunting-grounds from New York Island to beyond Lake Michigan. Their chief advanced as the Prince drew near, followed by the tall, lithe, swarthy forms of his braves in a kind of semicircle round him. When within a few steps of His Royal Highness the band stopped, and the chief, in a deep, harsh, guttural voice, which he accompanied now and then with a quick expressive movement of his hand, addressed the Prince in the Indian language. What the actual words of the speech were, of course, I cannot say, but it was a kind of general welcome from the tribe of the Chippewas, mixed with protestations of devoted loyalty to the Prince and his Royal mother. His Royal Highness replied in English, stating the satisfaction which it gave him to see them, and thanking them on the part of the Sovereign and himself for their expressions of loyalty and good will. This speech was translated by an interpreter, and at the end of each 0250 232 sentence a deep “ugh” of satisfaction went round among the red skins, who gave a shrill wild whoop at the termination of the address. His Royal Highness gave each of the chiefs a magnificent silver medal to commemorate his visit, and smaller ones of the same kind to the subordinate members of the tribe. These they received with unmistakeable symptoms of satisfaction, though so carefully concealed under a studied reserve that it was only by the quick flashing eye and proud curl of their hard, cruel-looking lips that the spectators could detect it. The medals given on this occasion were unusually large and handsome: nearly four inches in diameter and very massive. I was told that they had been struck at the close of the last century for distribution among the chiefs of the tribes who had most distinguished themselves in the war against the Americans. From some cause or another they were never given, but remained “in store” till the arrival of His Royal Highness, when the matter was recollected by some one or other, and they were once more brought out, furbished up, and re-chased with the coronet of the Prince of Wales. Thus the medals intended by George III. as rewards for bloody service rendered against the then revolted Americans, were more than fifty years afterwards distributed by his great grandson, while en route to visit the President and Washington's tomb, to the last surviving remains of a totally different tribe. As a rule the Indians prize their medals beyond anything, and I saw several who cherished as priceless heir-looms the medals their forefathers had earned in the War of Independence. No money will induce the Indians to part with these, but the tourist had better be careful how he trades in the matter of tomahawks, of which he is sure to see plenty which the whole tribe will swear and affirm are 0251 233 the old originals used in many a bloody fray with the French and Americans. I was shown an old Indian who invariably refused at first to take twenty-five dollars for such a weapon, but who was always glad after a little bargaining to take ten or fifteen. I use the word always in its fullest sense, as “The cunning little Beaver” or “The Hawk terrible in War,” for the chief rejoiced in private life in some such astonishing title, had sold “ever so many” of those veritable tomahawks to eager travellers, and the instant one was gone he made another precisely like it. On the return of the royal party to London a levee was held, attended as usual by all the town disguised for the nonce in boisterous stocks which they could scarcely see over, and other raw colonial produce intended to personify evening dress.

In the evening there was a very grand ball in a long wooden ball-room, specially built and most extensively decorated for the occasion. At this, of course, the Prince danced all night, and, as elsewhere, speedily became the very idol of the assembly from the cordial good humour and courtesy with which he not only enjoyed it himself but made every one else enjoy it also.

Early on the following morning (14th September) travelling was again resumed, and the party started for Woodstock to receive addresses and return replies. From thence His Royal Highness went by train to Paris, another backwoods town having as strong a resemblance to the French capital as the London of Canada bears to the English metropolis. From Paris, through a country of the most surpassing richness and beauty it is possible to conceive, the Prince went on to Brentford, where more addresses were presented by a family of nine Indians, and where the Royal party stopped to lunch. 0252 234 There was but short time for this meal, however, as a long route still lay before them; so all haste was made from Brentford to Fort Erie by rail, thence by steamer to Chippewa, and thence again by rail to the Falls of Niagara.

Temporary Quiet—Aspect of the Falls—How to see Niagara—The Falls Illuminated—Performances of Blondin—Visit to the Whirlpool—Fatal accidents.

Here for a few short days—too few by far—there was a temporary lull in the whirlwind of addresses, reviews, processions, state balls, and noisy Orangemen. The Prince lived privately at the pretty cottage of the late Mr. Zimmerman, and several of the suite were accommodated in the rows of little cottages which fill the beautiful gardens of the Clifton House Hotel. The Prince for once in Canada was in private. State and pomp were scattered to the winds, and he rode out and walked cut without a mob at his heels, and could sit and watch unobserved for hours the tremendous majesty of the scenes around him. It was on the whole quite as well that royalty was incog. before Niagara. The shout of a mob, or the tinsel of a procession, would have showed poorly by the side of that great Altar of Nature, where a misty incense is always rising to heaven, and the eternity of water speaks only of One. Amid that scene princes, powers, and denominations are all forgotten, as you stand before the Falls of Niagara, which pour down with such a majesty of power that you can only 0254 236 gaze with solemn awe upon the grandest and most terrible of all God's works in nature. It is a scene which poets and authors have tried for years, but always failed to tell. Artists have studied there, poets have drawn their inspirations from its huge green billows, and some of the ablest writers of the Old World have told us less what they saw, perhaps, than what they thought of these mighty cataracts. But Niagara is still and must always be unpainted and unsung. You miss in all the best attempts its might, its everchanging play of colour, its hideous rush, its restlessness, its roar. Words, in fact, are powerless before the stupendous force and terror of this cataract, and all the wealth of language would be exhausted before one could tell how the great hill of waters which drops from the monstrous cliff so smooth, so green, so deep, changes ere one can mark its fall into millions of columns of spray which, darting out like white fireworks, shoot down and down till lost in the clouds of mist which always wrap the base of the Falls in dim and grand obscurity.

Along a path where many so immeasurably abler than myself have striven, but striven in vain, to pass, I will not attempt to follow. Like the men here who, clad in waterproof, venture behind the cliff of waters with visitors, I must content myself with the humbler office of guide, and try and explain how it is that so many people affect to be disappointed with their first view of Niagara. Every one expects so much from these cataracts, and is so eager to see them, that, fired with the notion of a second deluge, they strain their eyes in all directions as they advance and catch stray glimpses of the Falls here and there, now hidden by trees, now lost in spray, till, when they do really stand before them, they are apt at last to 0255 237 experience a feeling which, if not disappointment, is at least one of less surprise. Let the visitor fortify himself against indulging in these hurried glances. If anything can possibly lessen one's appreciation, or rather awe, of these tremendous cataracts, it is this. If he comes to the Canadian side, as most visitors do, he must pass over the beautiful suspension-bridge, which, like a web of iron, thin and delicate as a net, spans a tremendous ravine between the cliffs, which on either side hem the rapids in some two miles below the Falls. Let him from this look down the stream. There is quite enough to occupy attention as the mass of deep blue water rushes madly through the gorge far down below him, checked here and there for a moment by a sunken rock, over which they storm and rave and seem to turn upon their hidden enemies in a circle of dreadful whirlpools, the ring of angry froth in which shows the vortex where beams, and trees, and logs of timber are dragged beneath and hurried down for miles and miles till they emerge at last in the quiet, solemn-looking waters of Lake Ontario. Who that has ever gazed down here from this bridge can wonder at the belief of the Indians that an evil spirit resided beneath these dreadful waters? for ever and anon out of its least angry spots a huge green wave will suddenly upheave and seem to choke and struggle with the rest. For an instant it spreads dark and terrible from cliff to cliff, as though it strove for room; then, with a fierce roar, tumbling headlong forward in a cloud of spray is carried off with a rush like the sweep of destiny. To watch these rapids as, stayed for a moment by rocks too solid even for their dash, they go pouring down wave on wave for ever will occupy the traveller sufficiently till his carriage crosses the bridge. Then 0256 238 let him by a winding road drive far above the Falls on the American side, and beyond where the swiftest and most awful of all rapids, those which are pouring towards the cataract, begin to show their force. Before him he will see a noble river, more than three times the width of the Thames at London, without a ripple on its deep blue surface, and flowing quickly on, though still so smooth, so treacherously quiet in its might, that one might almost think of swimming in it but that the branches of trees and little bits of timber which hurry down so fast give such a warning of the power beneath the water as even a fish would not care to disregard. A mile or so lower down, and the river begins to throw off all disguise, and hurries swiftly on, keeping the roots and plants that fringe its edge flickering and waving tremulously out, or pouring against the points of rocks and islands with a force that makes it recoil back in a feather of spray, as from the bows of a steamboat, till you can almost fancy that the very islands have got adrift and are struggling fiercely up against the stream. By-and-by foam appears on the water, then whirlpools, which spin till your head reels to look at them, then more foam, then lines of deep sunken gullies, where the blue water drops heavily down and seems to choke and rave till it become a livid, frothy white, freeing its waves at last in sullen heaves and throes, and rushing on again, torn, jagged, and roaring, wilder and more dangerous than ever. As you gaze upon the rush you feel a horrid yearning in your heart to plunge in and join the mad whirl and see the mystery out. Yet even with this thought at its strongest you shrink instinctively from the dreadful brink, where the very waters themselves seem hurrying to destruction. Faster and faster, and wilder and wilder, it 0257 239 pours with every minute throbbing over the rocks and stones in mounds of spray, like loosely driven snow, bent into crooked channels between the islands, but always rushing on as if the river was mad. Trees, tumbled over and over, toss their wet branches out of water as if they strove for help against their enemy, and cling for one brief instant to the banks to be whirled down the next more rapidly than ever. Gradually Goat Island comes in sight, its massive piles of rocks and dense quiet foliage contrasting so strongly against the wild terrible uproar and rush of waters, writhing and dashing madly past its base. You are nearing the cataracts, and soon a dreadful line of foaming breakers begin to show white in their restless anger, and looking from their massive deep slow plunges like a sea of half-thawed snow as they rave and hiss and cast their flakes high into the air. Every minute the race increases till the bubble and rush from the seething waters fill your ear and prepare the mind for that great scene below, where their majesty of terrors culminates. Yet there seem no rocks among these breakers, and you notice with surprise that all their heaving struggles are back against the stream, as if the very waves themselves were conscious of the tremendous abyss into which they were being hurried, and strove against their fate. But all in vain do the surges rise; each second adds perceptibly to their might and dash, till round Goat Island, where the great rapids commence, and where the waves

“headlong plunge and writhe in agony”

—a perfect hell of waters—the Charybdis of the western world. None can stand on the frail bridge which spans the Rapids here without a feeling of almost alarm as he looks beneath and sees those surges, 0258 240 terribly beautiful, within fifty yards of their great leap, smashing over everything with a force that makes the very banks quiver with the vibration, plunging and whirling down from rock to rock with a headlong delirious fury that is at once dreadful and sublime. One minute and they overwhelm the rocks in a crowd of waves, then receding with a great convulsive leap and roar, leave the stones bare, smooth, and polished for a single instant, till drowned and hidden by another surge that, thundering and rushing on, bounds from stone to stone,

“Crashing on cliffs which, downward worn and rent With its fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a dreadful vent.”

It is here that the resistless might of the great Falls can be best appreciated as you note the tumbling waters gathering strength for that great avalanche of waves where, racing and struggling over the cliff, they fall at last, and a mighty river is dashed into beads of foam. Let the visitor not turn aside from the route I have attempted to describe to look at the American Falls. Elsewhere, perhaps, they would be grand and beautiful. Here, close to the great Horseshoe Cataract, on the Canadian side of Goat Island, they seem almost nothing—a mere picturesque accident of the situation. The traveller should pass at once across Goat Island, and at its furthest extremity is a frail wooden bridge, which, stretching from rock to rock on the very verge of the great Fall, leads to Terrapin Tower. And here my humble duty as guide ends, for,—

“Lo! where it comes, like an eternity, As if to sweep down all things in its track, Charming the eye with dread”

—Niagara. The idol of all the worshippers of nature 0259 241 —the goal and object of western travel—the cataract of all the cataracts in the world is before you, and you pause with devotional sadness as “deep calleth unto deep” with thundering roar, and the great amphitheatre of green waters pouring down in silent majesty is lost for ever in the clouds of spray which rise so dense beneath them. Here words are powerless, guides are useless, and he who wishes to see and feel Niagara must watch it for himself. He must study it, he must live near it, he must hear its solemn roar, and fill his mind with its every hue and aspect. He must rise at dawn and see the sun break through the pine woods, till its rays fall on the cataract, and wake its colours into life and play, lighting it up in the distance like a gigantic glacier. He must watch it hour by hour as the deep green mass always keeps nearing the edge, and no longer struggling now in waves yields to its fate, and flowing smooth as oil nearer and nearer, come slowly and solemnly over the cliff like a green curtain, and with one stately massive plunge pours down and down, till the eye loses its rush, and the bright emerald hill of water shades into dazzling white, as broken at last in its long fall it parts into spray and disappears in the mist. He must watch its feathery edges darting over like cascades of snow upon the rocks beneath, rushing into the great basin at the foot of the cataracts, where the waters hiss and seethe in foam, yet lie all motionless now, as if stunned and crushed by their deep overthrow. Niagara has flowed from all time as it thunders now, yet even those who have lived there longest see in its mighty rush fresh beauties every hour, though its eternity of waters never alter in their bulk for summer sun or melting of the great Canadian snows. Sometimes a sudden gust of wind will rise and, clearing up the mist in broken masses like a torn R 0260 242 cloud, show the base of the Falls, a Phlegethon of waters, where they seem to writhe, and creep, and boil in endless torture. To see this is grand; but to watch them in the evening and the night from the Canadian side is the finest and most solemn scene of all. As the sun goes behind the hills, the mist rises higher and higher, in a gauze-like cloud, which spreads from shore to shore, wrapping Goat Island in its grey sombre tinge, and making its very rocks and pine woods look watery and unsubstantial as a vision. When the silence of night settles down at last upon the scene, the roar of the cataract seems louder and more grand, and through the darkness its great outline of foam and livid water can be dimly seen, vague, terrible, and ill-defined as is the ocean in a storm, yet making its impression of eternal force and grandeur not less distinct upon the memory, never to be forgotten. As often happens to those who watch these cataracts on a summer's night you may see the lightning playing down among the angry waters, and then the scene is one of unutterable terror and lurid grandeur.

There are three notable ways of seeing the Falls, which are always shown to such visitors as have the courage to attempt them. The first is under the hollow cliff on the Canadian side, where a winding staircase in a wooden tower, leaning against the face of the rock, leads down to the level of the water. From this point out of the reach of the fall of waters, though dreadfully accessible to their massive spray, a scrambling, narrow ridge of loose stone leads down. Clad in a waterproof suit like the dress of a diver, you venture out upon this path. You need all your coolness and vigilance here, as the clouds of water keep eddying out from the cataract on your left almost dense enough to drown, and quite thick 0261 243 enough to blind. One false step and all the world could not prolong your life a single instant. As you advance upon the path and dimly see the little stony track before you the stoutest heart beats quicker. High over head a cave-like mass of black limestone projects in a rough arch for more than 50 feet, and beneath this a vista opens up which might pass for the entrance to the pit of Acheron. Yet a little further and the spray meets you in a suffocating mass, till half drowned with the water and stunned with the hideous roar, you gasp for breath as the cold strikes a chill through your frame and drives you to seek a moment's shelter with your face close pressed against the wet rocks ere yon dare it further. A minute or two for breath and you creep on again, shielding your eyes from the water and looking down cautiously upon the smooth slippery path, now and then turning sharp round to avoid the whirlwinds of spray which dash and eddy up in fierce clouds as though they meant to tear you from the cliff. At the end of the path you pause, and during the brief intervals between the drowning showers you try to survey the scene. You are some 40 or 50 yards under the edge of the Great Horseshoe Falls, and in the thick and greenish twilight can see the huge curtain of water falling from the cliff 200 feet above you like a sheet of rough ground glass, and shooting into streams and columns, as it falls lower and lower down on the pointed rocks before you, which steam and seethe, and send the great mass hissing off as though they were red hot. It is a tremendous and an awful sight, neither beautiful nor picturesque, but without its equal in the wide world for grand and solemn majesty of force. Yet truly speaking its terrors sink away to nothing in comparison with the view disclosed as you turn and look straight ahead 0262 244 beneath the Falls. Some yards before you, though only dimly seen, stands a tall solitary strip of rock—thin, sharp, and even as the edge of a knife, and round the base of which no human foot has ever passed. Let those who visit Niagara, and dare this utmost passage, press close to its edge, and wait for a chance to look beyond. Now and then with a hoarse roar, heard even above the din of waters, the clouds of spray are hurled upward like a steam explosion, and you can see dimly into the green darkness beyond, almost beneath, where the great fall comes over like a deluge, and where, for one brief instant as the misty curtain lifts, you half descry where something like a cavern yawns, blacker and gloomier than all. It is only for an instant that these glimpses may be had, and one may wait a chance for hours ere it will please Niagara to afford even such a scanty gaze into the mysteries which these dreadful waters have hidden from all eternity.

Another way of seeing them close is to go up in the little steamer “Maid of the Mist” to the foot of the cataract itself, and the third is to master the details of the American Falls by creeping behind them to visit the Cave of the Winds. The last of these feats is the most difficult, and even the most dangerous. It should only be attempted in fine weather, as creeping right behind the Falls and coming out upon the rocks at their base necessitates rather a long immersion in cold water, and indeed, the whole feat requires courage of no ordinary kind to undertake it at all. But all the risk and all the drenching is more than repaid by the unequalled magnificence when the rocks at the foot are gained at last. The first view which the Prince got of the cataracts was on the evening of his arrival, when he saw them as no man had ever seen them before and as they will probably never be seen again— 0263 245 he saw the Falls of Niagara illuminated! the first idea it seems about as feasible to light up the Atlantic as those great outpourings of Lake Erie, and Mr. Blackwell, when he started the idea, was looked on as well meaning and all that, but chimerical, to use the mildest term. Mr. Blackwell, however, persevered, and had some 200 Bengal lights made of the very largest size which it was possible to manufacture. About 50 or 60 of these were placed in a row under the cliffs, beneath Clifton House and facing the American Fall; 50 or 60 more were placed under Table Rock, and 50 or 60 behind the sheet of water itself, the entrance to which, from the Canadian side I have already described to the reader. At ten o'clock at night they were all lit, and their effect was something grand, magical, brilliant, and wonderful beyond all power of words to pourtray. In an instant the whole mass of water, glowing vivid, and as if incandescent in the intense light, seemed turned to molten silver. From behind the Fall the light shone with such dazzling brilliancy that the waters immediately before it looked like a sheet of crystal glass, a cascade of diamonds, every bead and stream in which leapt and sparkled and spread the glare over the whole scene, like a river of lighted phosphorus. The boiling rapids underneath dimly reflected back the pale livid gleam as from a mirror, lighting up the trees and rocks and all the wild torn chasm through which the rapids pour, and showing out the old grey ruins of Table Rock like the remains of a huge dilapidated tower. The smoke, too, rose in thick dense masses, spreading upwards over the cataracts in a luminous cloud that it seemed as if Niagara was in a blaze from base to summit. But all this grandeur and beauty were as nothing to the effect produced when the lights were 0264 246 changed from white to red. Niagara seemed turned to blood in co]our, but so bright, so lurid in its deep effulgence that a river of seething, roaring, hellish fire appeared to have taken the place in an instant of the cold, stern, eternal Falls. None could look upon this scene, the huge, fiery, blood-red mass, dark-looking and clotted in the centre, without a feeling of awe. You could not speak, so sublime were its terrors, nor move your gaze from the blazing caldron underneath the Falls, where the river seemed in its frothy red foam like boiling blood.

His Royal Highness walked quietly out on Table Rock and saw the whole of this grand scene to the best advantage, and afterwards walked round past the Clifton to his own house, quite unknown to the dense crowd.

On the following day His Royal Highness saw M. Blondin execute his most terrific feat—that of crossing the Rapids on a tight rope with a man on his back. To leave the study of these eternal cataracts to witness the feats of any rope-dancer, however skilful, is very much like shutting your prayer-book to go and witness a pantomime. Nevertheless, among the Americans Blondin is a great favourite, and many of them actually carry their admiration of his feats so far as to say that unless you see “Blondin walk” you don't see Niagara. Without being too analytical in searching after motives, I verily believe that at least one-half of the crowds that go to see Blondin go in the firm expectation that as he must fall off and be lost some day or other, they may have the good fortune to be there when he be does so miss his footing, and witness the whole catastrophe from the best point of view. One thing, however, is certain, that if you do go to see Blondin, when he once begins his feats you can never take your eyes off him 0265 247 (unless you shut them from a very sickness of terror), till he is safe back again on land. The place where his rope was stretched was about a quarter of a mile below the Suspension Bridge, over the lower Rapids, and about two below the Falls. To do Blondin justice, his skill is so great that he would as soon stretch his rope along the edge of the Falls themselves as not, but at this place there is no point on either side to which he could secure it. All the waters of Niagara however, could not make his fate more certain and inevitable than it would be if he fell from the place where his rope was then fixed.

It was stretched between two of the steepest cliffs over the Rapids, about 230 feet from where the waters boil and roar and plunge on in massive waves at the rate of some twenty miles an hour. To see him venture out on this thin cord and turn summersaults in the centre, standing on his head, or sitting down holding by his hands, revolving backwards over the rope like a Catherine wheel, is bad enough for nervous people; but on this Saturday, after keeping every one's hair on end thus for twenty minutes, he prepared to carry a man across on his back. The mere physical exertion of carrying any one nearly a distance of half a mile is no slight feat, but when that space has to be traversed on a half-tight rope higher than the Monument, from the sea of boiling rapids underneath, where one false movement, the tremour of a single nerve, a moment's gust of wind, or temporary faintness, would hurry both to an instant and dreadful death, the attempt is so full of sickening terror that not many can bring themselves to witness it, and those who do, remain cold, trembling, and silent till the dreadful venture is safely passed. Blondin took the whole matter coolly enough. His Royal Highness was urgent with him not to attempt it, but he 0266 248 replied that there was far less real danger in the feat than appeared to lookers-on, that he was quite used to it and felt quite at ease, and that as lie had everywhere announced his intention of performing it before relinquishing his attempts for the season, he felt bound to go on. He accordingly divested himself of his Indian chief's head-dress and bead-work coat, and put two strong straps crosswise over his broad muscular shoulders, each strap fitted with a flat wide iron hook, to rest on his hips, for in those his adventurous companion was to place his legs. Mr. Calcourt was the man to be carried, and this person, in addition to his own coolness and confidence in Blondin, had himself a sufficient knowledge of rope-walking to enable him to stand on it alone whenever Blondin himself wanted rest. The preparations were soon made. Blondin took a very long and rather heavy balance pole. Calcourt divested himself of his boots, and put on a pair of ordinary slippers, the soles of which were well chalked. Blondin then stood steadily, and Calcourt, grasping him round the neck, gently and slowly hoisted first one leg into the hook and then the other, and allowing his limbs to swing as relaxed as possible, the venture commenced. Of course, with a rope nearly half-a-mile long, no power could draw it straight across such a gulf. It therefore sloped rapidly down at both sides from the edges of the cliffs on which it was secured. This made the attempt look doubly fearful, for it seemed impossible, as Bloudin went down the steep incline of cord with slow, cautious, trembling feet, with body carefully thrown back to keep his balance as he almost felt his way, that he could avoid slipping, and being dashed to fragments on the rocks far down beneath. At last, however, he passed it, though very slowly, and in about five minutes more gained 0267 249 the centre of the rope and stopped, when Calcourt, gently raising his legs from the hooks, slid down and stood upon the cord while Blondin rested. Getting upon his back again was a terrible business. Twice Calcourt missed raising his legs to the hooks, and Blondin oscillated violently under the efforts made on his back. This unintentional awkwardness, which no doubt arose from nervousness, I was afterwards informed, led to a fierce altercation between the voyageurs, and Blondin swore, if Calcourt was not more careful, he would leave him on the rope to get back as he best could. Awed by this threat, Calcourt was more careful, or more fortunate in his third attempt, and the dreadful walk was resumed. Three more such stoppages for rest were made. During one, when almost in the centre of the rope, there was a violent gust of wind, which fluttered Calcourt's coat tails about as if it would blow them away, and made both men sway on the little cord till the spectators were almost sick with fear and anxiety. The whole passage occupied about a quarter of an hour.

Blondin then performed the still more dangerous task of returning along the rope on stilts about three feet high, and this he did quickly and with apparent ease.

His Royal Highness went afterwards to the foot of the Falls in the “Maid of the Mist.” Let the reader imagine three sides of a square larger than Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, formed of rocks 170 feet high, and a body of water 100 times as great as that of the Thames at London Bridge, rushing over them each minute, and then he will have some faint idea of what these Falls are when the little steamer gets into the hollow square of water, just before she is forced back by the tremendous rush from them down the stream again.

Sunday was, of course, a day of rest, but on Monday the Prince again went driving round to the magnificent scenery in the neighbourhood of the Falls. It is, perhaps, the best proof which can be given of the attractiveness of these stupendous cataracts that very few people trouble themselves with the neighbouring scenery at all, though, if the Falls were not there, the exquisite combination of rock and woodland all around would alone suffice to draw visitors from all parts of North America. Of course the Prince, with the chief members of his suite, paid a long visit to the great whirlpool which the Rapids form some three miles below the Falls. This whirlpool, after the cataracts themselves, is the finest and most magnificent of all the grand features of Niagara scenery. As a mere whirlpool it is not much to see, the great vortex, which devours all things coming over the Falls, being far beneath the surface of the water, and only indicating its presence now and then, and at rare intervals, by allowing some beam or tree to escape its hidden grasp, and dart wildly up to the surface, where it flounders about like a huge alligator till again dragged under and kept whirling round for months and months together. It is here that the bodies of those who are lost over the centre of the great Horseshoe Fall are nearly always found; and, singularly enough, are always found uninjured, and nearly always naked. Little trace or vestige is ever found of those who are hurled over the shallow edges of the cataract at either side. The weight of the water crushes them into the crevices of the pointed rocks below, and there they remain, or only emerge in such mutilated fragments as escape recognition. An exception to this rule was in the case of a German, who committed suicide by jumping off the edge of the 0269 251 Fall on the Canadian side last autumn. Two or three hours afterwards one of his legs was found in the whirlpool, but no other trace of the wretched being was ever discovered. His was almost a solitary instance of suicide committed over the Falls, and I do not wonder that so few have ever attempted it, for in no place in all creation is man so solemnly reminded of that Being who holds the waters in the hollow of His hand.

There are, on the average, from three to four fatal accidents each year at the Falls, either from incautious or foolhardy persons falling into the Rapids. One such most melancholy accident had occurred only two or three weeks before the arrival of the Prince, to the nephew of Mr. Street, the owner of the islands, on the very edge of the Horseshoe Fall. Between these islands Mr. Street has had small bridges thrown across, and on the largest and most picturesque of the group, near the very edge of the cataract, and in the centre of the fiercest of the rapids, he has erected a lofty wooden tower, from the summit of which the prospect is one of unsurpassed grandeur. While walking here with his nephew one Sunday, the young man's hat blew into the Rapids. It stayed for one second under the lee of the land, during which the unfortunate young gentleman attempted to seize it, lost his balance and fell into the water. In another instant he was whirled over the centre of the Horseshoe Fall, and no trace of him was ever after found, though the whirlpool was searched for days and days in vain.

The whirlpool is a part of the Rapids below the Falls, where the perpendicular cliffs are some 300 or 400 feet high, and where a huge circular basin is formed, from which apparently the waters have no outlet, but go whirling round and round, in vain endeavouring to 0270 252 escape. It is not till you have descended apparently interminable flights of steps (a second Niagara of ladders along the face of the cliff), and, scrambling over rocks and brushwood, reach the water's edge, that you discover on the right a narrow steep rift between the cliffs through which all the waters of Niagara pour and rush with such velocity and might, that it seems at first as if cliffs and rocks, ay, and the very land itself, would yield to their irresistible rush. Standing near this outlet, and looking back on the whirlpool, you notice with astonishment that the whole of the immense body of water in the latter rises in a globular shape, at least from three to four feet higher than the level of the water at the outlet. In fact it rushes in much faster than it escapes, and it is only by the immense pressure from behind forcing the flood through with tremendous velocity, that the rising of the waters in the whirlpool is kept down at all. To sit on the rocks here and watch the terrific outpour of water occasionally leaping up in huge green waves or masses of snowy foam, is a sight only inferior in force and grandeur to the Horseshoe Fall itself. The Royal party remained there a considerable time, and a glorious sunset seemed turning the cliffs and rocks into mountains of gold before they left the whirlpool, and drove back over the Suspension Bridge into Canada.

Laying corner-stone of Monument to Sir I. Brock—Address, and the Prince's Reply—St. Catharine's—Contrast between Upper and Lower Canada—Situation of Hamilton—Reception of the Prince—Levée at the Royal Hotel—Ball at the Anglo-American—A Turbulent Dutchman—Inauguration of Agricultural Exhibition and Farewell Address—Excellence of Arrangements—Departure from Hamilton.

On the morning of the 18th His Royal Highness quitted Niagara for Hamilton and, en route, proceeded to lay the corner-stone of the monument erected to Sir Isaac Brock, “the hero of Upper Canada,” as he is still affectionately called, and who, like Wolfe, fell victorious on Queenstown Heights, after totally defeating and making prisoner the American army, in the war of 1812. A fine monument was erected to this great and gallant man soon after the war, but an Irish renegade carried hatred of the mother country to such an extent, as to cross the frontier in 1840, and blow it up completely with gunpowder. A new monument, costing £2000, was erected by subscription in Canada, and inaugurated with great state and pomp in the presence of an immense assemblage in 1859. The pinnacle of it, however, was left uncompleted that His Royal Highness might have the honour of perfecting the work. Many of the old veterans of the desperate war of 1812 0272 254 were assembled round this venerated spot,—men with their children and grandchildren, who, more than half a century ago, had left their homes as volunteers to meet the enemy upon the border. Not a few had been present at the celebrated battle of York,—men who had witnessed the blowing up of the powder magazine which gave the signal for the retreat that resulted in the capture of Toronto,—and nearly all had assisted at the victory of Queenstown Heights, and charged up the hill to the shout of “Revenge the General.” Among those present who fought on that day as volunteers were such names as Sir J. B. Robinson, his Lordship the Bishop of Toronto, Judge McLean, Sir E. P. Tache, Sir Allen McNab, Mr. Robert Stanton, Hon. Mr. Gordon, Mr. G. Ryerson, Hon. Mr. Merritt, Col. Kingsmill, Hon. Mr. Dickson, Col. McDougal, Col. Kirby, Col. Thornton, Mr. J. C. Ball, Mr. R. Woodruff, Col. Clarke, Col. Street, Col. Denison, Rev. Mr. Richardson, &c. The Prince came upon the ground soon after eleven, when the volunteers, headed by the venerable Chief Justice, Sir J. B. Robinson, presented an address, which deserves to be recorded here:—

“ May it Please Your Royal Highness, —

“Some of the few survivors of the militia volunteers, who waisted in defending Canada against the in vading enemy during the last American war, have assembled from different parts of the provinces, in the hope that they may be graciously permitted to offer to your Royal Highness the expression of their loyal welcome, upon your arrival in this portion of Her Majesty's dominions.

“In the long period that has elapsed very many have gone to their rest, who, having served in higher ranks than ourselves, took a more conspicuous part in that glorious contest.

“They would have delighted in the opportunity we now 0273 255 enjoy, of beholding in their country a descendant of the just and pious Sovereign in whose cause they and their fellows fought, and whom they were from infancy taught to revere, for his many public and private virtues.

“We feel deeply grateful to Her Majesty, whose condescension to the wishes of her Canadian subjects has conferred upon us the honour of a visit from your Royal Highness; and we rejoice in the thought that what your Royal Highness has seen, and will see, of this properous and happy land will enable you to judge how valuable a possession was saved to the British crown by the successful resistance made in the trying contest in which it was our fortune to bear a part,—and your Royal Highness will then be able, also, to judge how large a debt the Empire owed to the lamented hero Brock, whose gallant and generous heart shrunk not in the darkest hour of the conflict from the most discouraging odds, and whose example inspired the few with the ability and spirit to do the work of many.

“We pray that God may bless your Royal Highness with many years of health and happiness, and may lead you by His providence to walk in the paths of our revered and beloved Queen, to whom the world looks up as an illustrious example of all the virtues that can dignify the highest rank, support worthily the responsibilities of the most anxious station, and promote the peace, security, and happiness of private life.”

To which the Prince replied,—

“Gentlemen,—I accept with mingled feelings of pride and pain the address which you have presented to me on this spot,—pride in the gallant deeds of my countrymen, but pain for the reflection that so many of the noble band that you once belonged to have passed away from the scenes of the bravery of their youth, and from the peaceful avocations of their riper years. I have willingly consented to lay the foundation stone of this monument. Every nation may without offence to its neighbours commemorate its heroic deeds—their deeds of arms—their noble deaths. This is no taunting boast of victory, no revival of long passed animosities—but an honourable tribute to a soldier's fame; the more honourable because we readily 0274 256 acknowledge the bravery and chivalry of that people by whose act he fell I trust that Canada will never want such volunteers as those who fought in the last war—nor volunteers without such leaders. But no less the more fervently I pray that your sons and your grandsons may never be called upon to add other laurels to those you have so gallantly won. In the Queen's name accept from me thanks for your expressions of devoted loyalty.”

The stone on the splendid obelisk was then solemnly laid. It was a singular coincidence that the Prince at New York visited General Scott on the 13th of October, the very anniversary of the day when, forty-eight years before, he, as Lieut.-Col. Scott, had, with the entire American army, been taken prisoner at the battle of Queenstown Heights. The rather meagre ceremony over, the Prince and Royal party had time to admire the superb and unequalled panorama which was to be gained from the heights over the surrounding country. The rich gently-undulating well-cultivated hills, the soft blue expanse of Lake Ontario, and the deep black ravine down which Niagara thundered in the distance, with its roar faintly heard like a dying wind, and its course only marked by a soft ridge of haze, the aspect of quiet cultivation which reigned over all, from the broad green meadows in the horizon to the white wooden farm buildings in the foreground, with their orchards filled with clumps of peach trees, ruddy and heavy with their massive growth of fruit, all made it a landscape which, for diversity and richness, would bear comparison with any in North America. From Queenstown Heights the Royal party drove to the edge of the river, where they embarked on board the steamer and stood down the stream for the little and very pretty town of Niagara. Here were very many handsome arches, one of which bore the inscription, “Edward 0275 257 Duke of Kent, August 22, 1792,” the date when the Prince of Wales's grandfather landed at Niagara, which then, only seventy years ago, was actually the capital and chief town of Upper Canada! Perhaps seventy years hence the grandson of the Prince of Wales will visit Canada and gaze with equal surprise at the neglected and half-deserted remains of Ottawa, and wonder, as the Prince did when he saw Niagara, how such a place could ever have been meant as the capital of an immense colonial empire.

From Niagara the steamer went at once to St. Catharine's, a very pretty town on the shore of Lake Ontario, in which, though the Prince was only to pass through on his way to the train, more preparations and decorations had been made than were attempted in the whole town of Kingston. Among other characteristic arches erected there was one entirely composed of flour barrels, and which in spite of its rather unstable appearance was, apart from its singularity, a handsome and well-proportioned structure. The route from St. Catharine's on to Hamilton was, like all the country of Upper Canada, fertile, rich, and picturesque, as undulating and as well cultivated as the finest parts of Devon. Indeed, there are very few parts even of Devon which would not rather suffer by comparison with the scenery of Upper Canada, such as that round Paris, Dundas, London, Sarnia, and Hamilton. Nothing more puzzles a traveller than the total and utter difference which exists both in country and people between the Upper and Lower Canadas. In fact, Upper Canada is Canada, so far as the prosperity, intelligence, and energy of the people go. The first entrance into the North American provinces viâ Halifax, that quaint, ricketty little village, less like a town itself than the débris of an old one for sale, with its S 0276 258 dusty narrow streets—stagnant and lethargic without being quiet—noisy without being busy—gives a rather unfavourable impression to the visitor. But before his mind becomes so saturated with its idle, unprogressive aspect, as to receive no other impression, he arrives at the handsome, thriving town of St. John, New Brunswick, the appearance of which at once acts as an antidote to the sleepy feeling which the sight of Halifax engenders in the mind.

From Prince Edward Island to Quebec and from Quebec almost to Montreal, throughout the whole of Lower Canada—though the longest settled and best cleared of any land in the provinces—there is such an absence of energy, or life, or enterprise among the people that their great indolence almost weighs upon the spirits. From Montreal and all through Upper Canada the scene changes as if by magic—as if one entered at once among a people of a different race (as in fact is the case)—among a people who were governed by better and more liberal laws, and who, besides the advantages of long settlement, enjoyed the still greater ones of better soil and better climate. Yet, except in the matter of the laws, which of course are the same for both Upper and Lower Canada, the reverse of all this is really the case. Scarcely fifty years have elapsed since the sites of the great towns of Toronto, Hamilton, London, Kingston, and Brockville were mere wildernesses, or at most only frequented by a few venturesome settlers or regular hunters of the forest. In regard to the luxuriance of the soil, Upper Canada has no doubt an advantage over Lower, though more than this is required to account for the immensely rapid growth of the settlements and the almost marvellous manner in which its resources have been developed in so short a time. The real cause of the difference lies in the population 0277 259 themselves—that of Lower Canada being almost entirely composed of the descendants of the early French agricultural settlers—men who are content to farm their lands as their ancestors did a hundred years ago, and who, though realising small independencies from the culture of their farms, have not the enterprise to extend their operations even by the addition of a dozen acres, though certain ultimately of the most complete success. Upper Canada is occupied entirely by British, Irish, and Scotch settlers, and the energetic vigour of their operations is visible at once in the immense extent of well-cleared cultivated land, in the pine forests supplanted by orchards, in their system of railways, canals, good roads, and fine, well-built, wide-streeted towns.

If the Governments of Upper and Lower Canada, with the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, were all united under one head and into one general Legislative Assembly, much good would be certain to result, even if it were only from the introduction of a powerful English element from the provinces, which would more than counteract the French influence in Lower Canada. Such a scheme, however, is sure to be opposed by the Home Government, and by all the detached provinces, which, instead of two Houses, would then, perhaps, have only two members. The Imperial Government appears to have some peculiar notion that the provinces act as a check on Canada, which only means, in other words, that if united in one Parliament the whole of Canadian and provincial North America would be too strong for undue meddling with.

Hamilton, if not one of the largest, is certainly one of the most thriving and picturesque of all the cities of Upper Canada. It is situated at the western S 2 0278 260 extremity of Lake Ontario, under the shelter of a steep and rather lofty chain of heights, and with railway communication not only with Canada but the States, and the great corn mart prairie cities of the Far West. The streets—in this respect, indeed, like all the towns of the upper province—are as wide as the very widest thoroughfares in London. The houses are lofty and commodious, and the hotels such as one meets nowhere in Canada but at Montreal, London, and Toronto. The public buildings are solid and very handsome structures; there are whole streets of spacious and well-furnished shops, and the market would do credit to any town in Europe. On the whole, I saw few places which impressed me more favourably than Hamilton, not only for its scrupulous cleanliness and good arrangement, if I may so term it, for a city, but for its thoroughly business and thriving aspect, shown not more in its streets and houses than in the unmistakeable well-to-do-air of energy and independence in all its industrious population. Though Hamilton runs not to fashions and such frivolities, it can, nevertheless, put on a very gay appearance when it likes, and even among the very lower orders of the working people I did not see one during the three days of the Prince's stay there who was not cleanly and comfortably clad. As a corporation the city is poor just now, as it is paying off debts honourably incurred in carrying out a thorough system of water supply for the town and other local improvements which have, no doubt, done so much to make the town appear as it does. The poverty of the corporation, however, is merely nominal, and as far as one could judge in so short a time, I should certainly be of opinion that Hamilton, for its population, was better off than any other place of its size in Upper Canada. Perhaps London, of the new cities, comes the nearest to it, 0279 261 and, indeed, in many respects, much resembles it, except in picturesqueness; but of the two Hamilton certainly appears the best.

His Royal Highness, of course, got a very good reception, and the pretty city put on its best to do honour to the occasion. The evergreens seemed greener than ever; there were garlands and festoons which looped up the windows of the houses till one could hardly see out of them or into them, and there were arches and columns and fountains and pavilions, making the whole town as if some one had tried to build a city in the middle of Cremorne. I can't say that the arrangements of the railway station where the Prince was to arrive were so faultless, inasmuch as the Hamiltonian police seemed to have the wildest notions of performing their duty, and wouldn't let anybody in, and wouldn't let anybody out, and wouldn't let anybody stay there.

However, the Prince came at last, and was duly addressed with rather long and loyal effusions, after which a procession was formed. The elements of processional grandeur certainly seemed to be scanty at Hamilton, for the cortége had to be eked out with the Temperance Brethren and Sistren, two and two, with very long intervals between each. There was also a “coloured” portion of the cortége , the members of which, all wearing white hats, (why are negroes so fond of white hats?) came along grinning with all the dental abandon peculiar to their race. At the side of the Royal carriage strode an Indian—a veritable Indian, with a ring through his nose as big as a child's hoop, and whose costume in other respects was of the lightest possible kind, inasmuch as a few streaks of red paint and a couple of feathers constituted nearly the whole of it. For the rest, there was an immense rush of 0280 262 people thronging on each other in a solid mass, cheering and shouting in a way far more suggestive of an enthusiastic welcome than any mere ceremonial could ever be. His Royal Highness and suite drove at once to a private residence prepared for the reception of some of its members, the surplus being accommodated at the Royal Hotel.

There was a philharmonic concert that night, which the Prince attended, and where of course when once he entered the music became a sham and a delusion, and the Prince of Wales was singer, orchestra, and everything. Certainly no one appeared to pay the least attention to anything else.

Early on the following morning His Royal Highness paid a short visit to the public schools of this city, and returned to the Royal Hotel to hold a levée.

As this was the last which his Royal Highness held in Canada it was well—that is to say, very numerously—attended. In fact so many were waiting to pay their respects that it was at one time thought extremely probable that the stairs would give way under the loyal influx, and to avert such an unpleasant contretemps it was necessary to clear them. The same feeling of eagerness may perhaps also account for some trifling irregularities which were perceptible with regard to costume, said which varied the formal conventionalities of evening dress in a manner which was surprising at least, if not agreeable. In like manner were the cards, with two of which each candidate for presentation was always supposed to be prepared, one for the indefatigable aide-de-camp at the door, and the other to be given on presentation. As a matter of course during all these levées it had often happened that some startling form of pasteboard and mode of superscription had been thus tendered, During this last levée I saw one as 0281 263 large as a proclamation (the bearer of which, however, was not allowed to enter), within the engraved border of which the following was printed in all kinds of capitals:—

“Try Horning's Mills, where you will find a varied assortment of dry goods and groceries selected expressly for this market, by Mr. Blank Blank, sole agent.”

Of course this commercial circular was not presented. I have rather a curious collection of such cards, all more or less outré , though this was certainly by far the worst that turned up in Canada.

After the levée the Prince went to a private view of the great Agricultural Exhibition of Upper Canada, which was so excessively private, and so unusually select, that there was scarcely any moving about the building, in consequence of the immense crowds admitted. No amount of crowding, however, could take from the real merit of the display, which was really one equal to the best of the best agricultural counties at home. The breed of cattle is most carefully attended to in the country round Hamilton, especially that of the horses, and the animals sent in for exhibition, though mostly all for farming purposes, were unexceptionable of their kind. Among the farming produce were ears of Indian corn as big as moderate bolsters, with huge specimens of beet and carrots; for the root crops of the country round, and indeed all Upper Canada, are proverbial for their exceeding fineness.

In the evening there was a very grand ball, which was a very great success, though like most of these fêtes in Canada there were not a few difficulties to overcome when the preparations commenced. It was given at the Anglo-American Hotel, a building about twice as spacious and well fitted as the Great Western 0282 264 Hotel of London, and with a much finer exterior. At the back of this a temporary ball-room was being built when it was suddenly found that the wooden house of a Dutch settler was much in the way. It was proposed to him to have it moved back some twenty feet, to be moved forward again when the fête was over. As one not acquainted with the peculiar mode of moving houses adopted in Upper Canada and America, I admit I was not a little astonished to hear that such a wild proposition was ever thought of by the committee as possible. The Dutchman, however, unless heavily compensated, refused to move his dwelling a single inch, and the committee threatened to remove it by force. But to this extreme measure of violently collaring a dwelling-house and making it “move on” the authorities fortunately did not proceed, but compromised matters by building the orchestra at the end of the ball-room right over his roof. The Dutchman, whose only aim in the matter was, it was said, to extort an exorbitant amount of compensation from the city, was enraged at this mancœuvre, and as his chimneys led right up under the orchestra, he threatened to light his fires and smoke the whole ball-room out.

As it was not only quite easy to carry out this amiable intention, but very likely that the Dutchman would try it, the engines were kept in waiting the whole night of the ball, with the hose so placed as to send a flood of water down the chimneys on the first token of combustion below appearing therefrom. Fortunately for himself, Mynheer did not attempt to carry his threats as far as this, so the ball passed off without any necessity arising of calling in the engines to its aid. Certainly, from what I afterwards saw of the process of house-moving as practised in America, it was scarcely worth the Dutchman's while to make so 0283 265 great a fuss about so small a matter. But of course, like every obstructive, he contended that he was only turbulent and annoying on principle.

On the following morning the Prince was to leave Canada, and, crossing the frontier to Detroit, commence his journey through the United States, and sink from Prince of Wales to plain Baron Renfrew. Before leaving Hamilton he formally inaugurated the Agricultural Exhibition he had visited so “privately” the day before. This was the last of his state labours in Canada, and, at its conclusion, he delivered the following farewell address:—

“Gentlemen,—I return you my warm acknowledgments for the address which you have just presented upon the occasion of the opening of the fifteenth exhibition of the Agricultural Society of Upper Canada, and I take this opportunity of thanking the agricultural citizens and manufacturers who are now assembled from distant parts in this city of Hamilton for the more than kind an