The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-12-07 00:00:00

TRAVELLING IN CANADA.

a most interesting letter from tutu'
respondent, from which we make the following extracts :
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" Porter ! " The voice broke the stillness of along
night, and suddenly woke me out of a deep sleep.
There was a mcment's pause, and then the voice,
which sounded t•ingularly near to my bed-curtains,
spoke again. " Porter !"--" Yes, sah !" 'You have
given me the wrong boots." From the foot of my bed,
as it seemed, there came another voice which said,
with querulous emphasis, "These are not my boots."
Then followed explanations, apologies, and inter-
change of boots; and before the parleying had
come to an end I was sufficiently awake to re-
member that on the previous night I had gone
to bed in a Pullman car at Montreal, and had
been speeding all night towards Halifax. It had
been mild autumnal weather in Montreal, and
the snow, which a week ago had fallen to the
depth of two or three inches, had been melted and
trodden out of sight save for the sprinkling which
remained on the crest of Mount Royal. Here, as a
glance through the window disclosed, we were again
in the land of 'snow. It was not deep, for winter has
not yet set in, and the sleighs, joyfully brought out
at the first fall, have been relegated to summer quar-
ters. But there was quite enough about to give the
country a cheerful wintry aspect, the morning sun
shining merrily over the white fields and the leafless
trees, bare save for the foliage with which the snow-
flakes had endowed them. It may have been an
equally fine morning in Montreal, but it is certain
ilai erraet,inagn dprw.e.
btleigatanitteoeermeaeldisetwsiocme
bri
perties of the Canadian air of which we had read
eatsh gho
ft at
nh
do
s ef reext
much more than up to the present time we had
realised.

On this long journey eastward travellers do not enter
the city of Quebec. They pass by on the other side of
the river, and thus gain the advantage of seeing Quebec
as a picture should be seen, from a convenient distance.
Also, like many celebrated paintings, Quebec will not
stand inspection at the length of the nose. Even taken
in detail, walking through its narrow and steep streets,
there is much in it to delight the eye. It has quaint old
howles, and shops with pea-green shutters, over which
flaunt crazy, large-lettered signs that it could have
entered into the heart of none but a Frenchman to
devise. Save for the absence of the blouse and the sabot
you might, picking your Way through the mud in a
street in the lower part .of the city, imagine your-
self in some quarters of Dieppe or Calais, or any other
of the busier towns in the north of France. The
peaked roofs, the unexpected balconies, the
regulated gables, and the general individuality of the
houses are pleasing to the eye wearied with the prim
monotony of English street architecture. But Quebec,
to be seen at its best, should be gazed at from the
harbour, or from the other side of the river. This
morning it is glorious, with its streets in the snow, its
many spires in the sunlight, and the blue haze of the
hills in the distance. We make our first stoppage at
Point Levi, the station for Quebec, and here there is
twenty minutes for breakfast.

This journey by rail between Montreal and Halifax,
without any break save what is necessary for re-
plenishing the engine stores, is that which (of course
beginning from the other end) will be taken in a few
days by the Marquis of Lorne and the Princess Louise.
Three years ago such a journey would have been im-
possible. The Grand Trunk, spanning the breadth of
the more favoured provinces of Ontario and Quebec,
leaves New Brunswick and Nova Scotia without other
means of intercommunication than was afforded by
its many rivers and its questionable roads. For
many years Canadian statesmen and all others
interested in the practical confederation of the
various provinces that make up the Dominion have
felt that the primary and surest bond of union
would ba a railway. The military authorities
have been even more urgent as to the necessity of
connecting Quebec and Halifax, and at one time a
military road was seriously talked about. Forty years
ago a railway was projected, and in 1846-8 a survey
was carried out with that object. From that date up
to 1869, when the road was actually commenced, the
matter was fitfully discussed, and it is only two years
since the railway was opened. It is, of course, only a
single line, and as a commercial undertaking is not
likely to pay at that, passing as it does through
long miles of territory where " still stands forests
primeval," But it was made by tho Dominion
Government in pursuance of a high national
policy, and it adequately and admirably meets the
ends for which it was devised. Its total length
from Riviere du Loup to Halifax is 561 miles. There
is a spur running down to St. John in the Bay of
Fundy, 89 miles long, another branch 62 miles long to
Pieton, a great coal district opposite the southern end
cf Prince Edward Island, and eleven miles, branching
off at Monckton and finishing at Point du Char, meets
the steamers for Prince Edward Island, making a total
length of 713 wiles. The rails are steel, and the road
is, utile for mile, as well-made as any in England.
The carriages are on the American principle—the long
waegone capable of seating 50 or 60 persons,
with an open passage down the centre, through
which the conductor and ticket collector periodically
walk. These are heated to distraction by means of a
huge stove at either end. It is of course possible to
open the windows, but this is to be easily accom-
purr had only after an apprenticeship too long for the
stay of the average traveller. Altar a painful hour
one gets accustomed to the atmosphere of the place,
as it is happily possible to get accustomed to any
atmosphere. lint the effect of these fierce stoves and
obstinate windows must be permanently deleterious.
The Pullman car has fortunately come to make rail-
way trayelling In America endurable. Apart from

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other considerations, the inevitable stove is better
managed than in the ordinary car. You are thoroughly
warmed, ocealsionally, it is true, par-boiled. But
there is at least freedom from the sulphurous
atmosphere which pervades the ordinary car,
with its two infernal machines, one at either
end. In addition, the Pullman cars have more
luxurious fittings, and are hung on smoother
springs. But it is at night that their value becomes
higher, and travellers are inclined to lie awake and
wonder how their fathers and elder brothers managed
to travel in the pre-Pullman era. Life is too short to
limit travelling on this continent to the daytime.
Travelling eight hours a day by rail, which we in Eng-
land think a pretty good allowance, it would take just
five slays to go from Montreal to Halifax. Tnanks to
the Pullman car and its adequate sleeping' accommoda-
tion, a business man can leave Montreal at 10 o'clock
at night, say on Monday, and be in Halifaxain time to
transact business shortly after noon on Wednesday.
Thus he loses only a day, for he must sleep somewhere
and he might find many a worse bed than is made up
for him on a Pullman. The arrangements for ventila-
tion leave nothing to be desired save a little less
apprehension on the part of Canadians of the supposed
malign influence of fresh air.. . .
After leaving Quebec, and for a run of more than
200 miles, the railway skirts the river St. Lawrence.
of which we get glimpses near and far. The time is
not far distant when this mighty river will be frozen
fully a mile out, and men may skate where Atlantis
steamers sail. At present the river is free, but the
frost comes like a thief in the night, and the wary
shipmasters have already gone into winter quarters.
The Sardinian, which sails to-day, carries the last
mail from Rimouski, and her departure marks the
final close of the ocean traffic with Quebec and
Montreal. The railway people are also preparing
for the two familiar terrors of the Canadian
winter. As we passed out of Quebec we saw the
snow ploughs conveniently shunted, ready for use
at a moment's notice. The snow sheds are a per-
manent institution on the Intercolonial Railway. Ihe
train passes through them sometimes for the length
of half a mile. They are simply wooden erections
like a box, built in parts of the line where the snow is
likely to drift. Passing swiftly through them just
now you catch glimmers of light through the crevices.
But presently, when the snow comes these will be
, effectually clesed up ; snow will lie a hundred feet
thick on either side, to the full height of the shed ;
and the train, as watched from the line, will seem to
vanish in an illimitable snow mound. But this is as
yet in the future. At present the landscape has all
the beauty that snow can give without the monotony of
the unrelieved waste of white. Mounds of brown
earth, tufts of grass, bits of road, roofs of houses,
and belts of pine showing above the sprinkling
of snow, give colour to the landscape. One divines
already why Canadians, in building their houses,
paint a door, or a side of a chimney, or a gable-end
red or chocolate, whilst all the rest is white. This
looks strange in the summer, or in the bleak interreg-
num when neither the sun nor the north-east wind can
be said absolutely to reign. But in the winter, when
far as the eye can roam it is wearied with the ever-
lasting snow, a patch of red or of warm brown on the
scarcely less white houses, is a surprising relief. The
country in the neighbourhood of Rivike du Loup,
where the Grand Trunk finishes and the Intercolonial
begins, is filled with comfortable homesteads. The
line runs through a valley between two ranges
of hills. All about the slopes on the river side
stand snug little houses, each within its own
grounds, and each having a peaked roof, which strives
more or less effectually to rival the steepness of its
neighbours. The houses straggle for miles down the
line, as if they had started out from Quebec with the
intention of founding a town for themselves, and had
stopped on the way, beguiled by the beauty of the
situation. Sometimes a little group stand together,
when be sure you shall find a Church, curiously small
but exceedingly ornate in its architecture. The spires
are coated with a glazed tile, which catches whatever
sunlight there may be about, and glisten strangely in
the landscape.
The first day following the first night of our journey
closed in a manner befitting its rare beauty. The sun
went down in a grandeur that illuminated all the world
to the west, transfigured the blue mountains veined
with snow, and spread a soft roseate blush over the
white lowlands. We went to bed in New Brunswick,
still in the hilly country which has been named by the
colonists Northumberland. We awoke in the narrow
neck of land which connects Novia Scotia with the
continent. It was like going to bed in Sweden or
Denmark, and waking in Ireland, in September.
The snow was melted; the sun was hidden behind
the one thin cloud that spread from horizon to horizon,
and the sharp, brisk air of yesterday was exchanged
for a cold, wet atmosphere, that distilled itself in
dank drops on the window-panes. The aspect of the
country was also changed The ground was sodden,
and the grass brown with perpetual wet. In one
field we saw the hapless haycocks floating in water.
Thus it was through Nova Scotia into Halifax—water
everywhere on the ground, and threatening rain in
the air.