<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII.</h2></div>
<div class="blockquot inhead medium">
<p>The Look-out Mountain.—A gigantic tree.—The Untiring
retires before superior numbers.—Fort St. James.—A
strange sight in the forest.—Lake Noola.—Quesnelle.—Cerf-vola
in civilized life.—Old dog, good-bye.</p>
</div>
<p class="in0"><span class="firstword">We</span> marched that day over thirty miles, and
halted in a valley of cotton-wood trees, amid
green leaves again. We were yet distant about
forty-five miles from the Fort St. James, but my
friend Rufus declared that a rapid march on the
morrow would take us to the half-way house by
sun-down. Rapid marches had long since become
familiar, and one more or less did not matter
much.</p>
<p>Daybreak found us in motion; it was a fast
walk, it was a faster walk, it was a run, and ere
the mid-day sun hung over the rich undulating
forest-land, we were thirty miles from our camp
in the cotton-wood. Before noon, a lofty ridge
rose before us; the trail wound up its long ascent,
Rufus called it “the Look-out Mountain.” The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">328</span>
top was bare of forest, the day was bright with
sunshine; not a cloud lay over the vast plateau of
Middle New Caledonia.</p>
<p>Five hundred snowy peaks rose up along the
horizon: the Nation Lake Mountains, the further
ranges of the Ominica, the ridges which lie
between the many tributaries of the Peace and the
countless lakes of the North Frazer. Babine,
Tatla, Pinkley, Stuart’s, and far off to the west
the old monarchs of the Rocky Mountains rose up
to look a last farewell to the wanderer, who now
carried away to distant lands a hundred memories
of their lonely beauty. On the south slope of the
Look-out Mountain, a gigantic pine-tree first
attracts the traveller’s eye; its seamed trunk is
dusky red, its dark and sombre head is lifted
high above all other trees, and the music which
the winds make through its branches seems to
come from a great distance. It is the Douglas
Pine of the Pacific coast, the monarch of Columbian
forests, a tree which Turner must have seen
in his dreams.</p>
<p>A few miles south of the mountain, the country
opened out into pleasant prairies fringed with
groves of cotton-wood; the grass was growing
thick and green, the meadows were bright with
flowers. Three fat horses were feeding upon one of
these meadows; they were the property of Rufus.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">329</span>
We caught them with some little difficulty, and
turned our two poor thin animals adrift in peace
and plenty; then mounting the fresh steeds, Rufus
and I hurried on to Fort St. James.</p>
<p>The saddle was a pleasant change after the
hard marching of the last few days. Mud and dust
and stones, alternating with the snow of the mountains,
had told heavily against our moccassined
feet; but the worst was now over, and henceforth
we would have horses to Quesnelle.</p>
<p>It was yet some time before sun-down when we
cantered down the sloping trail which leads to
the Fort St. James. Of course the Untiring was
at his usual post—well to the front. Be it dog-train,
or march on foot, or march with horses, the
Untiring led the van, his tail like the plume of
Henry of Navarre at Ivry, ever waving his followers
to renewed exertions. It would be no easy
matter for me to enumerate all the Hudson’s Bay
forts which the Untiring had entered at the head
of his train. Long and varied experience had
made him familiar with every description of post,
from the imposing array of wooden buildings
which marked the residence of a chief factor, down
to the little isolated hut wherein some half-breed
servant carries on his winter traffic on the shore
of a nameless lake.</p>
<p>Cerf-vola knew them all. Freed from his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">330</span>
harness in the square of a fort—an event which
he usually accelerated by dragging his sled and
three other dogs to the doorway of the principal
house—he at once made himself master of the
situation, paying particular attention to two objective
points. First, the intimidation of resident
dogs; second, the topography of the provision
store. Ten minutes after his entry into a previously
unexplored fort, he knew to a nicety
where the white fish were kept, and where the
dry meat and pemmican lay. But on this occasion
at Fort St. James a woful disaster awaited him.</p>
<p>With the memory of many triumphal entries
full upon him, he now led the way into the square
of the fort, totally forgetting that he was no
longer a hauling-dog, but a free lance or a rover
on his own account. In an instant four huge
haulers espied him, and charging from every side
ere I could force in upon the conflict to balance
sides a little, they completely prostrated the
hitherto invincible Esquimaux, and at his last
Hudson Bay post, near the close of his 2500 mile
march, he experienced his first defeat. We
rescued him from his enemies before he had
suffered much bodily hurt, but he looked considerably
tail-fallen at this unlooked-for reception,
and passed the remainder of the day in strict
seclusion underneath my bed.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">331</span></p>
<p>Stuart’s Lake is a very beautiful sheet of water.
Tall mountains rise along its western and northern
shores, and forest promontories stretch far into
its deep blue waters. It is the favourite home of
the salmon, when late in summer he has worked
his long, toilsome way up the innumerable rapids
of the Frazer, 500 miles from the Pacific.</p>
<p>Colossal sturgeon are also found in its waters,
sometimes weighing as much as 800 pounds.
With the exception of rabbits, game is scarce,
along the shores, but at certain times rabbits are
found in incredible numbers; the Indian women
snare them by sacksful, and every one lives on
rabbit, for when rabbits are numerous, salmon are
scarce.</p>
<p>The daily rations of a man in the wide domain of
the Hudson’s Bay Company are singularly varied.</p>
<p>On the south shores of Hudson’s Bay a <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">voyageur</i>
receives every day one wild goose; in the Saskatchewan
he gets ten pounds of buffalo-meat;
in Athabasca eight pounds of moose-meat; in
English River three large white fish; in the
North, half fish and reindeer; and here in New
Caledonia he receives for his day’s food eight
rabbits or one salmon. Start not, reader, at the
last item! The salmon is a dried one, and does
not weigh more than a pound and a half in its
reduced form.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">332</span></p>
<p>After a day’s delay at Fort St. James, we
started again on our southern road. A canoe
carried us to a point some five and twenty miles
lower down the Stuart’s River—a rapid stream of
considerable size, which bears the out-flow of the
lake and of the long line of lakes lying north of
Stuart’s, into the main Frazer River.</p>
<p>I here said good-bye to Kalder, who was to
return to Peace River on the following day. A
whisky saloon in the neighbourhood of the fort
had proved too much for this hot-tempered half-breed,
and he was in a state of hilarious grief
when we parted. “He had been very hasty,” he
said, “would I exsqueeze him, as he was sorry; he
would always go with this master again if he ever
came back to Peace River;” and then the dog
caught his eye, and overpowered by his feelings he
vanished into the saloon.</p>
<p>Guided by an old carrier Indian chief, the
canoe swept out of the beautiful lake and ran
swiftly down the Stuart’s River. By sun-down we
had reached the spot where the trail crosses the
stream, and here we camped for the night; our
horses had arrived before us under convoy of Tom
the Indian.</p>
<p>On the following morning, the 31st of May, we
reached the banks of the Nacharcole River, a large
stream flowing from the west; open prairies of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">333</span>
rich land fringed the banks of this river, and far
as the eye could reach to the west no mountain
ridge barred the way to the Western Ocean.</p>
<p>This river has its source within twenty miles of
the Pacific, and is without doubt the true line to
the sea for a northern railroad, whenever Canada
shall earnestly take in hand the work of riveting
together the now widely-severed portions of her
vast dominion; but to this subject I hope to have
time to devote a special chapter in the Appendix
to this book, now my long journey is drawing to
a close, and these latter pages of its story are
written amid stormy waves, where a southward-steering
ship reels on beneath the shadow of
Madeira’s mountains.</p>
<p>Crossing the wide Nacharcole River, and continuing
south for a few miles, we reached a broadly
cut trail which bore curious traces of past civilization.
Old telegraph poles stood at intervals along
the forest-cleared opening, and rusted wire hung
in loose festoons down from their tops, or lay
tangled amid the growing brushwood of the
cleared space. A telegraph in the wilderness!
What did it mean?</p>
<p>When civilization once grasps the wild, lone
spaces of the earth it seldom releases its hold;
yet here civilization had once advanced her footsteps,
and apparently shrunk back again frightened<span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">334</span>
at her boldness. It was even so; this trail, with
its ruined wire, told of the wreck of a great enterprise.
While yet the Atlantic cable was an
unsettled question, a bold idea sprung to life in
the brain of an American. It was to connect the
Old World and the New, by a wire stretched
through the vast forests of British Columbia and
Alaska, to the Straits of Behring; thence across
the Tundras of Kamtschatka, and around the
shores of Okhotsk the wires would run to the
Amoor River, to meet a line which the Russian
Government would lay from Moscow to the
Pacific.</p>
<p>It was a grand scheme, but it lacked the
elements of success, because of ill-judged route
and faulty execution. The great Telegraph Company
of the United States entered warmly into
the plan. Exploring parties were sent out; one
pierced these silent forests; another surveyed the
long line of the Yukon; another followed the wintry
shores of the Sea of Okhotsk, and passed the
Tundras of the black Gulf of Anadir.</p>
<p>Four millions of dollars were spent in these
expeditions. Suddenly news came that the Atlantic
cable was an accomplished fact. Brunel had died
of a broken heart; but the New World and the
Old had welded their thoughts together, with the
same blow that broke his heart.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">335</span></p>
<p>Europe spoke to America beneath the ocean, and
the voice which men had sought to waft through
the vast forests of the Wild North Land, and over
the Tundras of Siberia, died away in utter desolation.</p>
<p>So the great enterprise was abandoned, and
to-day from the lonely shores of Lake Babine to the
bend of the Frazer at Quesnelle, the ruined wire
hangs loosely through the forest.</p>
<p>During the first two days of June we journeyed
through a wild, undulating country, filled with
lakes and rolling hills; grassy openings were
numerous, and many small streams stocked with
fish intersected the land.</p>
<p>The lakes of this northern plateau are singularly
beautiful. Many isles lie upon their surface;
from tiny promontories the huge Douglas pine lifts
his motionless head. The great northern diver,
the loon, dips his white breast in the blue wavelets,
and sounds his melancholy cry through the solitude.
I do not think that I have ever listened
to a sound which conveys a sense of indescribable
loneliness so completely as this wail, which the
loon sends at night over the forest shores. The
man who wrote</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">“And on the mere the wailing died away”</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="in0">must have heard it in his dreams.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">336</span></p>
<p>We passed the noisy Indian village of Lake
Noola and the silent Indian graves on the grassy
shore of Lake Noolkai, and the evening of the
2nd of June found us camped in the green meadows
of the West Road River, up which a white
man first penetrated to the Pacific Ocean just
eighty years ago.</p>
<p>A stray Indian came along with news of disaster.
A canoe had upset near the cotton-wood cañon of
the Frazer, and the Hudson’s Bay officer at Fort
George had gone down beneath a pile of driftwood,
in the whirlpools of the treacherous river.
The Indian had been with him, but he had reached
the shore with difficulty, and was now making his
way to Fort St. James, carrying news of the
catastrophe.</p>
<p>Forty more miles brought us to the summit of
a ridge, from which a large river was seen flowing
in the centre of a deep valley far into the south.
Beyond, on the further shore, a few scattered
wooden houses stood grouped upon a level bank;
the wild rose-trees were in blossom; it was summer
in the forest, and the evening air was fragrant
with the scent of flowers.</p>
<p>I drew rein a moment on the ridge, and looked
wistfully back along the forest trail.</p>
<p>Before me spread civilization and the waters
of the Pacific; behind me, vague and vast,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">337</span>
lay a hundred memories of the Wild North
Land.</p>
<div class="tb">* * * * *</div>
<p>For many reasons it is fitting to end this story
here. Between the ridge on the west shore of
the Frazer and those scattered wooden houses on
the east, lies a gulf wider than a score of valleys.
On one side man—on the other the wilderness;
on one side noise of steam and hammer—on the
other voice of wild things and the silence of the
solitude.</p>
<p>It is still many hundred miles ere I can hope to
reach anything save a border civilization. The
road which runs from Quesnelle to Victoria is
400 miles in length. Washington territory,
Oregon, and California have yet to be traversed
ere, 1500 miles from here, the golden gate of San
Francisco opens on the sunset of the Pacific
Ocean.</p>
<p>Many scenes of beauty lie in that long track
hidden in the bosom of the Sierras. The Cascades
Ranier, Hood, and Shasta will throw their
shadows across my path as the Untiring dog and
his now tired master, wander south towards the
grim Yosemite; but to link these things into the
story of a winter journey across the yet untamed
wilds of the Great North would be an impossible
task.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">338</span></p>
<p>One evening I stood in a muddy street of New
York. A crowd had gathered before the door of
one of those immense buildings which our cousins
rear along their city thoroughfares and call hotels.
The door opened, and half a dozen dusky men
came forth.</p>
<p>“Who are they?” I asked.</p>
<p>“They are the Sioux chiefs from the Yellowstone,”
answered a bystander; “they’re a taking
them to the the-a-ter, to see Lester Wallick.”</p>
<p>Out on the Great Prairie I had often seen the
red man in his boundless home; savage if you
will, but still a power in the land, and fitting in
every way the wilds in which he dwells. The
names of Red Cloud and his brother chiefs from
the Yellowstone were household words to me. It
was this same Red Cloud who led his 500 whooping
warriors on Fetterman’s troops, when not one
soldier escaped to tell the story of the fight in the
foot-hills of the Wyoming Mountains; and here
was Red Cloud now in semi-civilized dress, but
still a giant ’midst the puny rabble that thronged
to see him come forth; with the gaslight falling
on his dusky features and his eyes staring in
bewildered vacancy at the crowd around him.</p>
<p>Captain Jack was right: better, poor hunted
savage, thy grave in the lava-beds, than this
burlesque union of street and wilderness! But<span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">339</span>
there was one denizen of the wilds who followed
my footsteps into southern lands, and of him the
reader might ask, “What more?”</p>
<p>Well, the Untiring took readily to civilization;
he looked at Shasta, he sailed on the Columbia
River, he climbed the dizzy ledges of the Yosemite,
he gazed at the Golden Gate, and saw the sun
sink beyond the blue waves of the great Salt
Lake, but none of these scenes seemed to affect
him in the slightest degree.</p>
<p>He journeyed in the boot or on the roof of a
stage-coach for more than 800 miles; he was
weighed once as extra baggage, and classified and
charged as such; he conducted himself with all
possible decorum in the rooms and corridors of
the grand hotel at San Francisco; he crossed
the continent in a railway carriage to Montreal and
Boston, as though he had been a first-class passenger
since childhood; he thought no more of the
reception-room of Brigham Young in Utah, than
had he been standing on a snow-drift in Athabasca
Lake; he was duly photographed and petted and
pampered, but he took it all as a matter of course.</p>
<p>There were, however, two facts in civilization
which caused him unutterable astonishment—a
brass band, and a butcher’s stall. He fled from
the one; he howled with delight before the other.</p>
<p>I frequently endeavoured to find out the cause<span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">340</span>
of his aversion to music. Although he was popularly
supposed to belong to the species of savage
beast, music had anything but a soothing effect
upon him. Whenever he heard a band, he fled to
my hotel; and once, when they were burying a
renowned general of volunteers in San Francisco
with full military honours, he caused no small
confusion amidst the mournful cortége by charging
full tilt through the entire crowd.</p>
<p>But the butcher’s stall was something to be
long remembered. Six or eight sheep, and half as
many fat oxen hung up by the heels, apparently all
for his benefit, was something that no dog could
understand. Planting himself full before it, he
howled hilariously for some moments, and when
with difficulty I succeeded in conducting him to
the seclusion of my room, he took advantage of
my absence to remove with the aid of his teeth
the obnoxious door-panel which intervened between
him and this paradise of mutton.</p>
<p>On the Atlantic shore I bid my old friend a
long good-bye. It was night; and as the ship
sailed away from the land, and I found myself
separated for the first time during so many long
months from the friend and servant and partner
who</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">Thro’ every swift vicissitude</div>
<div class="verse indent0">Of changeful time, unchanged had stood,</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">341</span></p>
<p class="in0">I strung together these few rhymes, which were
not the less true because they were only</p>
<p class="p1 center">MORE DOGGEREL.</p>
<div class="poetry-container p0">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">Old dog, good-bye, the parting time has come,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Hero on the verge of wild Atlantic foam;</div>
<div class="verse indent0">He who would follow, when fast beats the drum,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Must have no place of rest, no dog, no home.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">And yet I cannot leave thee even here,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Where toil and cold in peace and rest shall end,</div>
<div class="verse indent0">Poor faithful partner of a wild career,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Through icy leagues my sole unceasing friend,</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">Without one word to mark our long good-bye,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Without a line to paint that wintry dream,</div>
<div class="verse indent0">When day by day, old Husky, thou, and I,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Toiled o’er the great Unchagah’s frozen stream.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">For now, when it is time to go, strange sights</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Rise from the ocean of the vanish’d year,</div>
<div class="verse indent0">And wail of pines, and sheen of northern lights,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Flash o’er the sight and float on mem’ry’s ear.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">We cross again the lone, dim shrouded lake,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Where stunted cedars bend before the blast;</div>
<div class="verse indent0">Again the camp is made amidst the brake,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The pine-log’s light upon thy face is cast.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">We talk together, yes—we often spent</div>
<div class="verse indent2">An hour in converse, while my bit thou shared.</div>
<div class="verse indent0">One eye, a friendly one, on me was bent;</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The other, on some comrade fiercely glared.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">Deep slept the night, the owl had ceased his cry,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Unbroken stillness o’er the earth was shed;</div>
<div class="verse indent0">And crouch’d beside me thou wert sure to lie,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Thy rest a watching, snow thy only bed.</div>
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">342</span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">The miles went on, the tens ’neath twenties lay;</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The scores to hundreds slowly, slowly, roll’d;</div>
<div class="verse indent0">And ere the winter wore itself away,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The hundreds turn’d to thousands doubly told.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">But still thou wert the leader of the band,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And still thy step went on thro’ toil and pain;</div>
<div class="verse indent0">Until like giants in the Wild North Land,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">A thousand glittering peaks frown’d o’er the plain.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">And yet we did not part; beside me still</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Was seen thy bushy tail, thy well-known face;</div>
<div class="verse indent0">Through cañon dark, and by the snow-clad hill,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Thou kept unchanged thy old familiar pace.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">Why tell it all? through fifty scenes we went,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Where Shasta’s peak its lonely shadows cast;</div>
<div class="verse indent0">Till now for Afric’s shore my steps are bent,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And thou and I, old friend, must part at last.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">Thou wilt not miss me, home and care are thine,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And peace and rest will lull thee to the end;</div>
<div class="verse indent0">But still, perchance with low and wistful whine,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Thou’lt sometimes scan the landscape for thy friend.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">Or when the drowsy summer noon is nigh,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Or wintry moon upon the white snow shines,</div>
<div class="verse indent0">From dreamy sleep will rise a muffled cry,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">For him who led thee through the land of pines.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<hr />
<div id="toclink_343" class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_343">343</span></p>
<h2 class="nobreak" id="POSTSCRIPT">POSTSCRIPT</h2></div>
<div class="blockquot inhead short">
<p>FOR THE EDITION OF 1907.</p>
</div>
<p class="in0"><span class="firstword">I have</span> been asked to write a few new words
for this old book, and it is not easy to do it.
Most of the men and all the dogs of that wild
time in the North are dead. I have never been
able to understand why dogs should have short
lives, and so many other things, such as tortoises,
elephants, carp, and even men, should have long
lives.</p>
<p>A few months ago I saw at St. Helena two
tortoises which were said to have been at Plantation
House for more than one hundred years.
During a visit which I made to St. Helena in
1864 I became the owner of a picture of Plantation
House, dated 1840. Two tortoises are
shown in that picture on the lawn in front of
the house, much smaller in size than the two
now there. So it is probable that the legend
of the hundred years on the Island is correct.</p>
<p>Strange! Napoleon, Bertrand, Montholon,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_344">344</span>
Las Cases, Gourgaud, Hudson Lowe, O’Meara,
all gone long ago—the two tortoises still there!</p>
<p>At the end of the Preface of 1873 I said that
I was then about to proceed to Africa—a continent
which appeared at the moment “to be
offering adventure with a liberal hand.” That
is thirty-four years ago; and, had Africa continued
in her liberal mood, it might have been
easier to write this Postscript to-day. Unfortunately
the mood did not last. Africa proffered
her adventures to me with a very conservative
hand—so much so, indeed, that a great blank
or void has arisen in my mind between these
old days of the snow-shoe, the dog-sled, the
buffalo, and the prairie of the Wild North Land
and the present time. Over and above the
lapse of years, Africa has intervened with rather
more than a full share of her by-products—fever,
ineffectual labour, and that eventual frustration
of human effort which seems to have been the
inevitable outcome of African adventure from the
time of Hannibal the Carthaginian to Moneyball,
the London Latitudinarian.</p>
<p>If you look at a map of the world you will
see that what is, in a topographical sense, thickest<span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">345</span>
and longest in Africa is thinnest and shortest in
the rest of the globe. Africa, measured along the
10th degree of North latitude, gives about 4000
miles of land-line. The same latitude in all the
other continents combined will give about 400
miles. We call the equator an imaginary line,
but it is the only real live line that has lasting
significance in relation to man’s life on earth.</p>
<p>The equator may be said to be the chest and
heart of Africa. Elsewhere over the globe it
is as a finger-tip or a toe-nail. That fact holds
an immense human problem.</p>
<p>When the Great Divider of earth and ocean
scooped out the central portion of the two
Americas, forming the vast water receptacle
now filled by the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean
Sea, He laid the line of a good deal of
man’s destiny in the world.</p>
<p>Run the eye from this great sea gap in America
across the Atlantic to the west coast of Africa,
and in the same latitudes you find a corresponding
land protuberance, sufficient (if we could tow
it across the ocean) to fill the opposite land
vacuum in Central America. And it is strange
to note that it was from this African protuberance<span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">346</span>
that the vast majority of the negroes were
taken in the days of the slave trade, and carried
over the Atlantic to work as slaves among the
islands and on the coasts of this same Mexican
Gulf and Carib Sea. Were the slave-traders
of Bristol and Liverpool, unconsciously, in this
hideous traffic, reversing the after idea of Canning
by calling the old world into American
slavery in order to redress the balance of colour
in the new? For what seems probable is that
had these, say twenty degrees, of solid Equatorial
Africa originally filled up that Central American
sea space, the greater part of the entire continent
would to-day have belonged to the negro
race.</p>
<p>The Aztec has gone, the Indian is going, but
the imported African black man is going ahead.</p>
<p>At the end of the Civil War less than three
million negroes were in the United States. There
are now, I am told, ten millions. In spite of
old slavery and modern race-exclusion and outrage,
the African is making his way in the new
world. Emigration from Europe throws nearly
a million virile whites annually into America.
Africa sends no fresh blood to replenish the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">347</span>
old slave stock; nevertheless, the ratio of black
increase exceeds that of the white.</p>
<p>Herein a strange contrariety presents itself
in the two colours. The white man fails to
live and propagate himself in Equatorial Africa,
but the black man thrives and multiplies in
America. And meanwhile what about the Wild
North Land? That, like the men and dogs, is
also dead.</p>
<p>One of the old friends of that time still survives—the
gentleman of the Hudson’s Bay Company
who was my companion from Fort Carlton
to Lake Athabasca in the winter of ’72–73.
His letters still breathe the same unconquerable
energy that characterised him in the far North.
He tells me in a letter written from Winnipeg
at Christmas last that my little village at Fort
Garry is now a great city, “which will one
day,” he writes, “be the greatest, and in short
the Chicago of Canada.” He tells me also of
booms and bridges and expansions, and he sends
me newspapers with pictures of hotels, grain-elevators,
and universities, all of approved
American design, and of entirely up-to-date
ugliness. He says that even “a more progressive<span class="pagenum" id="Page_348">348</span>
city government is expected from a new
mayor who has recently been elected by nearly
double the largest majority ever obtained by
any previous mayor.”</p>
<p>All this is no doubt quite as it should be;
but it goes to prove, all the same, that the
Wild North Land is dead and buried. I do
not want to see its grave—I prefer to remember
it as I saw it more than a generation ago; and
I believe that one Chicago is amply sufficient
for any one world.</p>
<p>Indeed, I can never be grateful enough that
it was given me to see the old things of North
America before the deluge. Prairies pure and
unspotted; great herds of buffaloes moving; the
sun setting over a silent wilderness.</p>
<p class="sigright">W. F. B.</p>
<p class="in0 in1 smaller"><i>January 1907.</i></p>
<hr />
<div id="toclink_349" class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_349">349</span></p>
<h2 class="nobreak" id="APPENDIX">APPENDIX.</h2></div>
<p class="center vspace wspace larger">ON THE PASSES THROUGH THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS<br/>
IN BRITISH TERRITORY,</p>
<p class="p1 b1 smaller center">AND</p>
<p class="center vspace wspace larger">THE BEST ROUTE FOR A CANADIAN RAILROAD TO<br/>
THE PACIFIC OCEAN.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_351">351</span></p>
<h2 class="nobreak">APPENDIX.</h2></div>
<p class="in0"><span class="firstword">Nearly</span> twenty years ago we began to talk of building a
railroad across the continent of North America to lie wholly
within British territory, and we are still talking about it.</p>
<p>Meantime our cousins have built their inter-oceanic road,
and having opened it and run upon it for six years: they are
also talking much about their work. But of such things it
is, perhaps, better to speak after the work has been accomplished
than before it has been begun.</p>
<p>The line which thus connects the Pacific and Atlantic
Oceans bears the name of the Union Pacific Railroad. It
crosses the continent nearly through the centre of the
United States, following, with slight deviation, the 42nd
parallel of latitude. Two other lines have been projected
south, and one north of this Union Pacific road, all
lying within the United States; but all have come to
untimely ends, stopping midway in their career across the
sandy plains of the West.</p>
<p>There was the Southern Pacific Railroad to follow the
30th parallel; there was the Kansas Pacific line following
the Republican valley, and stopping short at the city
of Denver in Colorado; and there was the Northern Pacific
Railroad, the most ambitious of all the later lines, which,
starting from the city of Duluth on the western extremity<span class="pagenum" id="Page_352">352</span>
of Lake Superior, traversed the northern half of the State
of Minnesota, crossed the sandy wastes of Dakota, and has
just now come heavily to grief at the Big Bend of the
Missouri River, on the borders of the “Bad Lands” of the
Yellowstone.</p>
<p>In an early chapter of this book it has been remarked
that the continent of North America, east of the Rocky
Mountains, sloped from south to north. This slope, which
is observable from Mexico to the Arctic Ocean, has an
important bearing on the practical working of railroad lines
across the continent. The Union Pacific road, taken in
connexion with the Central Pacific, attains at its maximum
elevation an altitude of over 8000 feet above the sea-level,
and runs far over 900 miles at an average height of about
4500 feet; the Northern Pacific reaches over 5000 feet,
and fully half its projected course lies through a country
3000 to 4000 feet above ocean-level; the line of the Kansas
Pacific is still more elevated, and the great plateau of the
Colorado River is more than 7000 feet above the sea. Continuing
northward, into British territory, the next projected
line is that of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and it
is with this road that our business chiefly lies in these few
pages of Appendix.</p>
<p>The depression, or slope, of the prairie level towards the
north continues, with marked regularity, throughout the
whole of British America; thus at the 49th parallel
(the boundary-line between the United States), the mean
elevation of the plains is about 4000 feet. Two hundred
and fifty miles north, or in the 53rd parallel, it is about
3000 feet; and 300 miles still farther north, or about
the entrance to the Peace River Pass, it has fallen to something
like 1700 feet above the sea-level.</p>
<p>But these elevations have reference only to the prairies
at the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains. We must<span class="pagenum" id="Page_353">353</span>
now glance at the mountains themselves, which form the
real obstacle to inter-oceanic lines of railroad.</p>
<p>It might be inferred from this gradual slope of the
plains northwards, that the mountain-ranges followed the
same law, and decreased in a corresponding degree after
they passed the 49th parallel, but such is not the case; so
far from it, they only attain their maximum elevation in
52° N. latitude, where, from an altitude of 16,000 feet,
the summits of Mounts Brown and Hooker look down on
the fertile plains at the sources of the Saskatchewan River.</p>
<p>As may be supposed, it is only here that the Rocky
Mountains present themselves in their grandest form.
Rising from a base only 3000 feet above the ocean, their
full magnitude strikes at once upon the eye of the beholder;
whereas, when looked at in the American States
from a standpoint already elevated 6000 or 7000 feet above
the sea, and rising only to an altitude of 10,000 or 12,000
feet, they appear insignificant, and the traveller experiences
a sense of disappointment as he looks at their peaks thus
slightly elevated above the plain. But though the summits
of the range increase in height as we go north, the levels
of the valleys or passes, decrease in a most remarkable
degree.</p>
<p>Let us look for a moment at these gaps which Nature
has formed through this mighty barrier. Twenty miles
north of the boundary-line the Kootanie Pass traverses
the Rocky Mountains.</p>
<p>The waters of the Belly River upon the east, and those
of the Wigwam River on the west, have their sources in
this valley, the highest point of which is more than 6000
feet above sea-level.</p>
<p>Fifty miles north of the Kootanie, the Kananaskiss Pass
cuts the three parallel ranges which here form the Rocky
Mountains; the height of land is here 5700 feet. Thirty<span class="pagenum" id="Page_354">354</span>
miles more to the north the Vermilion Pass finds its highest
level at 4903; twenty miles again to the north the
Kicking Horse Pass reaches 5210 feet; then comes the
House Pass, 4500 feet; and, lastly, the pass variously
known by the names of Jasper’s House, Tête Jeune, and
Leather Pass, the highest point of which is 3400 feet.</p>
<p>From the House Pass to the Tête Jeune is a little more
than sixty miles, and it is a singular fact that these two
lowest passes in the range have lying between them the
loftiest summits of the Rocky Mountains from Mexico to
the Arctic Ocean.</p>
<p>The outflow from all these passes, with the exception of
the one last named, seeks on the east the river systems of
the Saskatchewan, and on the west the Columbia and its
tributaries. The Tête Jeune, on the other hand, sheds its
dividing waters into the Athabasca River on the east, and
into the Frazer River on the west.</p>
<p>So far we have followed the mountains to the 53° of N.
latitude, and here we must pause a moment to glance back
at the long-projected line of the Canadian Pacific Railroad.
As we have already stated, it is now nearly twenty years
since the idea of a railroad through British America was
first entertained. A few years later a well-equipped expedition
was sent out by the British Government for the
purpose of thoroughly exploring the prairie region lying
between Red River and the Rocky Mountains, and also
reporting upon the nature of the passes traversing the
range, with a view to the practicability of running a railroad
across the continent. Of this expedition it will be
sufficient to observe, that while the details of survey were
carried out with minute attention and much labour, the
graver question, whether it was possible to carry a railroad
through British territory to the Pacific, appears to have
been imperfectly examined and, after a survey extending<span class="pagenum" id="Page_355">355</span>
us far north as the Jasper’s House Pass, but not including
that remarkable valley, the project was unfavourably reported
upon by the leader of the expedition.</p>
<p>The reasons adduced in support of this view were strong
ones. Not only had the unfortunate selection of an astronomical
boundary-line (the 49th parallel) shut us out from
the western extreme of Lake Superior, and left us the
Laurentian wilderness lying north of that lake, as a
threshold to the fertile lands of the Saskatchewan and the
Red River; but far away to the west of the Rocky Mountains,
and extending to the very shores of the Pacific, there
lay a land of rugged mountains almost insurmountable to
railroad enterprise.</p>
<p>Such was the substance of the Report of the expedition.
It would be a long, long story now to enter into the details
involved in this question; but one fact connected with “this
unfortunate selection of an astronomical line” may here be
pertinently alluded to, as evincing the spirit of candour,
and the tendency to sharp practice which the Great
Republic early developed in its dealings with its discarded
mother. By the treaty of 1783, the northern limit of the
United States was defined as running from the north-west
angle of the Lake of the Woods to the river Mississippi
along the 49th parallel; but as we have before stated, the
49th parallel did not touch the north-west angle of the
Lake of the Woods or the river Mississippi; the former lay
north of it, the latter south. Here was clearly a case for
a new arrangement. As matters stood we had unquestionably
the best of the mistake; for, whereas the angle of the
Lake of the Woods lay only a few miles north of the parallel,
the extreme source of the Mississippi lay a long, long way
south of it: so that if we lost ten miles at the beginning
of the line, we would gain 100 or more at the end of it.</p>
<p>All this did not escape the eyes of the fur-hunters in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_356">356</span>
early days of the century. Mackenzie and Thompson both
noticed it and both concluded that the objective point being
the river Mississippi, the line would eventually be run with
a view to its terminal definitions, the Lake of the Woods
and the Mississippi. In 1806, the United States Government
sent out two Exploring Expeditions into its newly-acquired
territory of Louisiana; one of them, in charge of
a Mr. Zebulon Pike of the American army, ascended the
Mississippi, and crossed from thence to Lake Superior.
Here are his remarks upon the boundary-line. “The
admission of this pretension” (the terminal point at the
river Mississippi) “will throw out of our territory the
upper portion of Red River, and nearly two-fifths of the
territory of Louisiana; whereas if the line is run due west
from the head of the Lake of the Woods, it will cross Red
River nearly at the centre, and strike the Western Ocean
at Queen Charlotte’s Sound. This difference of opinion, it
is presumed, might be easily adjusted between the two
Governments at the present day; but delay, <em>by unfolding
the true value of the country</em>, may produce difficulties which
do not now exist.”</p>
<p>The italics are mine.</p>
<p>Zebulon Pike has long passed to his Puritan fathers.
Twelve years after he had visited the shores of Lake Superior,
and long before our Government knew “the value of
the country” of which it was discoursing, the matter was
arranged to the entire satisfaction of Pike and his countrymen.
They held tenaciously to their end, the Lake of
the Woods; we hastened to abandon ours, the Mississippi
River. All this is past and gone; but if to-day we write
Fish, or Sumner, or any other of the many names which
figure in boundary commissions or consequential claims,
instead of that of Zebulon Pike, the change of signature
will but slightly affect the character of the document.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_357">357</span></p>
<p>But we must return to the Rocky Mountains. It has ever
been the habit of explorers in the north-west of America,
to imagine that beyond the farthest extreme to which they
penetrate, there lay a region of utter worthlessness. One
hundred years ago, Niagara lay on the confines of the
habitable earth; fifty years ago a man travelling in what
are now the States of Wisconsin and Minnesota, would
have been far beyond the faintest echo of civilization.
So each one thought, as in after-time fresh regions were
brought within the limits of the settler. The Government
Exploring Expedition of sixteen years since, deemed
that it had exhausted the regions fit for settlement when it
reached the northern boundary of the Saskatchewan valley.
The project of a railroad through British territory was
judged upon the merits of the mountains lying west of the
sources of the Saskatchewan, and the labyrinth of rock and
peak stretching between the Rocky Mountains and the
Pacific. Even to-day, with the knowledge of further
exploration in its possessions, the Government of the
Dominion of Canada seems bent upon making a similar
error. A line has been projected across the continent, which,
if followed, must entail ruin upon the persons who would
attempt to settle along it upon the bleak treeless prairies
east of the mountains, and lead to an expenditure west of
the range, in crossing the multitudinous ranges of Middle
and Southern British Columbia, which must ever prevent
its being a remunerative enterprise.</p>
<p>The Tête Jeune Pass is at present the one selected for
the passage of the Rocky Mountains. This pass has many
things to recommend it, so far as it is immediately connected
with the range which it traverses; but unfortunately
the real obstacles become only apparent when its western
extremity is reached, and the impassable “divide” between
the Frazer, the Columbia, and the Thompson Rivers looms<span class="pagenum" id="Page_358">358</span>
up before the traveller. It is true that the cañon valley of
the North Thompson lies open, but to follow this outlet, is
to face still more imposing obstacles where the Thompson
River unites with the Frazer at Lytton, some 250 miles
nearer to the south-west; here, along the Frazer, the
Cascade Mountains lift their rugged heads, and the river
for full sixty miles flows at the bottom of a vast angle cut
by nature through the heart of the mountains, whose steep
sides rise abruptly from the water’s edge: in many places a
wall of rock.</p>
<p>In fact, it is useless to disguise that the Frazer River
affords the sole outlet from that portion of the Rocky
Mountains lying between the boundary-line, the 53rd
parallel of latitude and the Pacific Ocean; and that the
Frazer River valley is one so singularly formed, that it
would seem as though some superhuman sword had at a
single stroke cut through a labyrinth of mountains for 300
miles, down deep into the bowels of the land.</p>
<p>Let us suppose that the mass of mountains lying west of
the Tête Jeune has been found practicable for a line, and
that the Frazer River has been finally reached on any part
of its course between Quesnelle and the Cascade range at
Lytton.</p>
<p>What then would be the result?</p>
<p>Simply this: to turn south along the valley of the river,
would be to face the cañons of the Cascades, between Lytton
and Yale. To hold west, would be to cross the Frazer
River itself, and by following the Chilcotin River, reach
the Pacific Ocean at a point about 200 miles north of the
estuary of the Frazer. But to cross this Frazer River
would be a work of enormous magnitude,—a work greater,
I believe, than any at present existing on the earth; for at
no point of its course from Quesnelle to Lytton is the
Frazer River less than 1200 feet below the level of the land<span class="pagenum" id="Page_359">359</span>
lying at either side of it, and from one steep scarped bank
to the other is a distance of a mile or more than a mile.</p>
<p>How, I ask, is this mighty fissure, extending right down
the country from north to south, to be crossed, and a
passage gained to the Pacific? I answer that the <em>true
passage to the Pacific lies far north of the Frazer River</em>, and
that <em>the true passage of the Rocky Mountains lies far north
of the Tête Jeune Pass</em>.</p>
<p>And now it will be necessary to travel north from this
Tête Jeune Pass, along the range of the Rocky Mountains.</p>
<p>One hundred miles north of the Tête Jeune, on the east,
or Saskatchewan side of the Rocky Mountains, there lies a
beautiful land. It is some of the richest prairie land in the
entire range of the north-west. It has wood and water
in abundance. On its western side the mountains rise
with an ascent so gradual that horses can be ridden to the
summits of the outer range, and into the valley lying
between that range and the Central Mountain.</p>
<p>To the north of this prairie country, lies the Peace
River; south, the Lesser Slave Lake; east, a land of wood
and muskeg and trackless forest. The Smoking River
flows almost through its centre, rising near Jasper’s
House, and flowing north and east until it passes into the
Peace River, fifty miles below Dunveyan. From the most
northerly point of the fertile land of the Saskatchewan,
to the most southerly point of this Smoking River
country, is about 100 or 120 miles. The intervening land
is forest or muskeg, and partly open.</p>
<p>The average elevation of this prairie above sea level
would be under 2000 feet. In the mountains lying west
and north-west there are two passes; one is the Peace
River, with which we are already acquainted; the other is
a pass lying some thirty or forty miles south of the Peace
River, known at present only to the Indians, but well worth<span class="pagenum" id="Page_360">360</span>
the trouble and expense of a thorough exploration, ere
Canada hastily decides upon the best route across its wide
Dominion.</p>
<p>And here I may allude to the exploratory surveys which
the Canadian Government has already inaugurated. A
great amount of work has without doubt been accomplished,
by the several parties sent out over the long line from
Ottawa to New Westminster; but the results have not
been, so far, equal to the expenditure of the surveys, or to
the means placed at the disposal of the various parties. In
all these matters, the strength of an Executive Government
resting for a term of years independent of political parties,
as in the case of the United States, becomes vividly apparent;
and it is not necessary for us in England to seek in
Canada for an exemplification of the evils which militate
against a great national undertaking, where an Executive
has to frame a budget, or produce a report, to suit the
delicate digestions of evenly balanced parties.</p>
<p>It would be invidious to particularize individuals, where
many men have worked well and earnestly; but I cannot
refrain from paying a passing tribute to the energy and
earnestness displayed by the gentlemen who, during the
close of the summer of 1872, crossed the mountains by the
Peace River Pass, and reached the coast at Fort Simpson,
near the mouth of the Skeena River.</p>
<p>But to return to the Indian Pass, lying west of the
Smoking River prairies. As I have already stated, this pass
is known only to the Indians; yet their report of it is one
of great moment. They say (and who has found an Indian
wrong in matters of practical engineering?) that they can
go in three or four days’ journey from the Hope of Hudson
to the fort on Lake Macleod, across the Rocky Mountains;
they further assert that they can in summer take horses to
the central range, and that they could take them all the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_361">361</span>
way across to the west side, but for the fallen timber which
encumbers the western slope.</p>
<p>Now when it is borne in mind that this Lake Macleod
is situated near the height of land between the Arctic and
Pacific Oceans; that it stands at the head of the Parsnip
River (the south branch of the Peace); and that further, a
level or rolling plateau extends from the fort to the coast
range of mountains at Dean’s Inlet, or the Bentinck arm on
the coast of British Columbia, nearly opposite the northern
extreme of Vancouver’s Island; the full importance of this
Indian Pass, as a highway to the Pacific through the
Rocky Mountains, will be easily understood.</p>
<p>But should this Indian Pass at the head of the Pine
River prove to be, on examination, unfit to carry a railroad
across, I am still of opinion that in that case the Peace
River affords a passage to the Western Ocean vastly superior
to any of the known passes lying south of it. What
are the advantages which I claim for it? They can be
briefly stated.</p>
<p>It is level throughout its entire course; it has a wide,
deep, and navigable river flowing through it; its highest
elevation in the main range of the Rocky Mountains is
about 1800 feet; the average depth of its winter fall of
snow is about <em>three feet</em>; by the first week of May this
year the snow (unusually deep during the winter) had
entirely disappeared from the north shore of the river, and
vegetation was already forward in the woods along the
mountain base.</p>
<p>But though these are important advantages for this
mountain pass, the most important of all remains to be
stated. From the western end of the pass to the coast
range of mountains, a distance of 300 miles across British
Columbia, there does not exist one single formidable impediment
to a railroad. By following the valley of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_362">362</span>
Parsnip River from “the Forks” to Lake Macleod, the
Ominica range is left to the north, and the rolling plateau
land of Stuart’s Lake is reached without a single mountain
intervening; from thence the valley of the Nacharcole
can be attained, as we have seen in my story, without
the slightest difficulty, and a line of country followed to
within twenty miles of the ocean, at the head of Dean’s
Inlet.</p>
<p>I claim, moreover, for this route that it is shorter than
any projected line at present under consideration; that it
would develope a land as rich, if not richer, than any
portion of the Saskatchewan territory; that it altogether
avoids the tremendous mountain ranges of
Southern British Columbia, and the great gorge of the
Frazer River; and, finally, that along the Nacharcole
River there will be found a country admirably suited to
settlement, and possessing prairie land of a kind nowhere
else to be found in British Columbia.</p>
<p>With regard to the climate of the country lying east of
the mountains, those who have followed me through my
journey will remember the state in which I found the
prairies of Chimeroo on the 22nd and 23rd of April, snow
all gone and mosquitoes already at work. Canadians will
understand these items. I have looked from the ramparts
of Quebec on the second last day of April, and seen the
wide landscape still white with the winter’s snow.</p>
<p>In the foregoing sentences I have briefly pointed out the
advantages of the Peace River Pass, the absence of mountain-ranges
in the valleys of the Parsnip and Nacharcole
Rivers, and the fertile nature of the country between the
Lesser Slave Lake and the eastern base of the Rocky
Mountains. It only remains to speak of the connecting
line between the Saskatchewan territory and the Smoking
River prairies.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_363">363</span></p>
<p>The present projected line through the Saskatchewan is
eminently unsuited to the settlement; it crosses the bleak,
poor prairies of the Eagle Hills, the country where, as
described in an earlier chapter, we hunted the buffalo
during the month of November in the preceding year.
For all purposes of settlement it may be said to lie fully
80 miles too far south during a course of some 300 or 400
miles.</p>
<p>The experience of those most intimately acquainted with
the territory points to a line <em>north</em> of the North Saskatchewan
as one best calculated to reach the country really
fitted for immediate settlement; a country where rich
soil, good water, and abundant wood for fuel and building
can be easily obtained. All of these essentials are almost
wholly wanting along the present projected route throughout
some 350 miles of its course.</p>
<p>Now if we take a line from the neighbourhood of the
Mission of Prince Albert, and continue it through the
very rich and fertile country lying 20 or 30 miles to the
north of Carlton, and follow it still further to a point 15
or 20 miles north of Fort Pitt, we will be about the centre
of the <em>true</em> Fertile Belt of this portion of the continent.
Continuing north-west for another 60 miles, we would
reach the neighbourhood of the Lac la Biche (a French
mission, where all crops have been most successfully cultivated
for many years), and be on the water-shed of the
Northern Ocean.</p>
<p>Crossing the Athabasca, near the point where it receives
the Rivière la Biche, a region of <em>presumed</em> muskeg or swamp
would be encountered, but one neither so extensive nor of
as serious a character as that which occurs on the line at
present projected between the Saskatchewan and Jasper’s
House.</p>
<p>The opinions thus briefly stated regarding the best<span class="pagenum" id="Page_364">364</span>
route for a Canadian-Pacific Railroad across the continent
result from no inconsiderable experience in the North-West
Territory, nor are they held solely by myself. I
could quote, if necessary, very much evidence in support
of them from the testimony of those who have seen portions
of the route indicated.</p>
<p>In the deed of surrender, by which the Hudson’s Bay
Company transferred to the Government of Canada the
territory of the North-West, the Fertile Belt was defined
as being bounded on the north by the North Saskatchewan
River. It will yet be found that there are ten acres of
fertile land lying <em>north</em> of the North Saskatchewan for
every one acre lying south of it.</p>
<div class="tb">* * * * *</div>
<p>These few pages of Appendix must here end. There yet
remain many subjects connected with the settlement of
Indian tribes of the West and their protection against the
inevitable injustice of the incoming settler, and to these I
would like to call attention, but there is not time to do so.</p>
<p>Already the low surf-beat shores of West Africa have
been visible for days, and ’midst the sultry atmosphere of
the Tropics it has become no easy task to fling back one’s
thoughts into the cold solitudes of the northern wilds.</p>
<p class="p2"><span class="smcap">Sierra Leone</span>, <i>October 15th, 1873</i>.</p>
<div class="transnote">
<h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Notes">Transcriber’s Notes</h2>
<p>Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made
consistent when a predominant preference was found
in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.</p>
<p>Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced
quotation marks were remedied when the change was
obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced.</p>
<p>Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned
between paragraphs and outside quotations. In versions
of this eBook that support hyperlinks, the page
references in the List of Illustrations lead to the
corresponding illustrations.</p>
<p>The missing part of the map was in the binding of the original book.</p>
<p>In the Table of Contents, page references to the
first three chapters were off by 2, and have
been corrected here.</p>
<p>Transcriber removed redundant hemi-title following
the List of Illustrations.</p>
<p>Original text used “cortége” and “cortêge”. Although
neither is likely correct, this ebook uses “cortége.”</p>
<p><SPAN href="#Page_256">Page 256</SPAN>: “household gods” was printed that way;
may be a typo for “household goods.”</p>
<p><SPAN href="#Page_334">Page 334</SPAN>: “Kamtschatka” was printed that way.</p>
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