THE TRAVELLER’S STORY.—AN UMBRELLA.
“I am an expert in umbrellas, take good care of them, and they generally serve me for many years. I have one purchased in Florence, another from the Bon Marché, Paris, and this one, which I hold in my hand, bought at the Burlington Arcade, London, has been a good and faithful servant, having been used as a cane when tramping through Italy, France, Germany, and England. It has sheltered me from the rains of Japan, and the terrible sun in China, Ceylon, India, Egypt, and Turkey. It has been re-covered in Vienna, and had a new stick put in at New York, and, as you see, is now in fair condition. One day, in Constantinople, I wandered along the street called La Grande Rue de Pera, which is about a mile long, and on which are located the principal foreign shops; but I failed to discover anything grand about it, and one is annoyed to have to avoid stepping on great yellow dogs, who are sleeping on the sidewalks, when there are any, and in the roadway. At one end of this street are cable cars, which carry you down a sharp incline to the streets on the water. I took one of these cars down, and in a few minutes passed over the famous bridge which connects Galata with Constantinople proper, to a wharf, where I was detained some time waiting for a steamboat to take me on the splendid and never-to-be-forgotten trip up the Bosphorus, to the entrance of the Black Sea. Many large yellow dogs were wandering about on the wharf, and one of them coming near me, I scratched his back with this umbrella, which he took for a hostile demonstration, and bit the umbrella in a most savage way, with his long, sharp teeth. I succeeded in getting it away from him, and was glad that he did not try his teeth on me. From that day I have been careful about undertaking to pet strange dogs with umbrellas, or anything else, but I forgot the Constantinople experience yesterday at Sitka, when I went ashore, and after wandering around among the Indian women, who were sitting on the grass surrounded by their mats, bottles, and various curios, I stopped opposite one of them, and saw, lying down in front of her, a very small dog, which I supposed was a puppy, but it proved to be full grown, and a very ugly little beast. I touched him with the umbrella, and he barked in a furious manner, and making one jump, fastened his teeth into my leg above the knee. I shook him off, the Indian woman put him under her blanket, and I returned to the ship to repair damages with court-plaster, vowing that never shall this umbrella be used again to pet a strange dog.”
Indian reminiscences being in order, one of our party related the following:
SARAH ARBUCKLE AND THE INDIAN CHIEF.
A STORY OF FRONTIER LIFE IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.
“Sarah Arbuckle came to this country, with her father and brothers, about 1740, when she was sixteen years old. They settled in the midst of a dense wilderness, where the town of Merrimac now stands, many miles from neighbors, and she was their housekeeper. It was so lonely that many times a day, she would step out-of-doors to listen for the sound of their axes, and if it ceased for any length of time, she would tremble with fear lest the Indians or wild beasts had attacked them.
“One morning she was stooping over the fireplace, making the ‘stirabout’ (Indian hasty pudding) for breakfast, when a shadow falling across the floor startled her, and turning hastily to the open door, she was frightened almost to death at the sight of a gigantic Indian standing at the threshold, with blood streaming down all over one side of his face. He tried to speak to her, but she could not understand him. When she was a little over her fright, she saw that there was an arrow sticking in his eye, which he wanted her to remove. She plucked up courage, drew the arrow out, dressed the wound, gave him food, and he stayed there and was cared for a few days, and then disappeared in the woods. Some years after this occurrence, a war broke out between the Indians and settlers, and the Arbuckles were preparing to remove to the garrison house for safety, when, one evening, a band of Indians, with fearful yells, burst in the doors of their house, and the tomahawk was just descending on Sarah’s head, when at a word spoken by a chief, who rushed in after them, every warrior dropped his hand, and silently, one after another, filed out into the darkness, leaving the chief with the family. He had learned enough English to tell them that he had been there before, and had been assisted by them, and that they need fear nothing. They might remain on their place, and would not be molested. They did so throughout the war, and had no further trouble. This Indian came to see them annually, for years after, always bringing them some little present.”
These and other stories helped us to while away the time until we arrived at Nanaimo, at six o’clock on the morning of July 16th. Here our party left the steamer and embarked on a ferry-boat.
In two hours we landed at Vancouver, British Columbia, and found there a first-class hotel. Ten years ago, we were informed, the place on which the city is built was a wilderness, but when the Canadian Pacific Railroad made it the western terminus of its line, there was at once a “boom,” such as has been seen so often in our own Western States, and now there are banks, public buildings, fine streets, electric cars, and all the appliances to make strangers and residents happy.
CHAPTER XVI
ON THE CANADIAN PACIFIC.
Glacier House,
Canadian Pacific Railway, July 19, 1892.
WE left Vancouver at 2.20 p.m. on the 16th, and made our acquaintance with this great transcontinental railway. I think it fully as good as any of those over which I have travelled in recent years. A good roadbed, fine and comfortable cars, polite attendants, and every thing supplied to make travelling agreeable. The road runs for many miles on the banks of the Frazier River. Great mountains tower above, covered with snow, and there are distant views of glaciers, which would have been thought immense if we had not seen those in Alaska. We were detained all day Sunday at a place called Kamloops, a telegram having been received that a freight train had been derailed eighty miles eastward. Some of us attended service at a small Methodist Church, and listened to a good sermon from a young man who had for a congregation only about twenty persons. Leaving Kamloops on the evening of the 17th, we arrived here at seven the next morning. This hotel, which was built and is kept by the railway company, is a fine one, and guests are made very comfortable by the excellent manager, Mr. Pearly. The valley through which the road passes does not contain more than two or three hundred acres, and is surrounded by immense mountains, one of which, Sir Donald, is a mile and a half high. Small streams of melted ice and snow come rushing down from the tops of these mountains, and form a pretty little river, in some places not more than twenty-five feet wide. Our party took a two-mile walk over a rough path to a great glacier among the mountains, Mr. Pearly acting as guide. It was a hard tramp through the woods, and over small streams, but we all survived it, and in a couple of hours returned to the hotel, very much fatigued, but well pleased. Near the hotel, the railway tracks are covered with substantial snow-sheds about a mile long, made of heavy planks and timber, affording an excellent place for walking and viewing the surrounding mountains. A party of ladies and gentlemen went out on these sheds this morning, and spent some time walking back and forth, viewing the magnificent scenery. The surrounding mountains appeared colossal in their grandeur. We had a fine view of them, and of the great glacier, and the valley below. The scenery all along this railway from Vancouver impresses me as the most splendid I have ever seen anywhere, with the exception of once, when we came up from the hot plains of India, crossed the Ganges, and taking a little narrow-gauge railway, crawled up the mighty Himalayas to Darjeeling, arriving at sunset. It was a glorious sight, four mighty ranges of mountains, among them Mount Everest, twenty-nine thousand feet high. But this is a digression. From our place of observation on the snow-sheds we were looking down into the valley, when suddenly Mr. Edwin T. Townsend shouted: “There is a bear,” and all eyes were turned in the direction of the little stream running through the valley below, about one-third of a mile off. On a small island in this stream, wandering about, was a big grizzly, as large as a cow. He was in sight for half an hour, and seemed to be a playful kind of a beast. He would wade out into the stream, and get something to eat, probably refuse from the hotel, then go ashore and devour it; and once he got hold of a good-sized spruce-tree and shook it violently. Mr. Eden, of Winnipeg, went to the hotel for a gun, and, accompanied by another gentleman, tried to head off the bear and get a shot at him, but he disappeared and could not be found.
CHAPTER XVII
BANFF SPRINGS.
Banff Springs Hotel,
Canadian National Park, July 22, 1892.
WE left the Glacier Hotel on the 19th, at 1 p.m., or, as stated in the time tables of this country, at thirteen o’clock, and arrived here at 11 p.m. We spent the whole time on the observation car, viewing the mighty mountains and magnificent scenery along the banks of the Columbia and the Beaver.
Banff is an ideal place for an hotel, being situated near the Bow River Falls and the mouth of the Spray, and surrounded by great mountains, often ten thousand feet high. There are fine roads and walks everywhere. The hotel is a splendid one, built and run by the railway company, and everything about it is first-class. Sulphur springs are located two miles up among the mountains, the water being brought down in pipes to the rear of the hotel, where there are bathing houses, and an open-air bathing tank, thirty by twenty feet and five feet deep. The water in this tank is strongly impregnated with sulphur. Young Mr. Townsend and I took a bath in this tank, and found the water so delightful, soft, and nice to swim about in, that we stopped in too long, or were not sufficiently cautious coming out, and I caught a bad cold, followed by a cough and headache, and consequently had to spend a couple of days in bed, seeking, with the aid of Doctors Diet and Quiet, to recuperate.
CHAPTER XVIII
CONCLUSION.
WE left Banff at 10.20 p.m. on the 22d, and after two days and two nights on the cars, reached Winnipeg, the capital of Manitoba. At the hotel there we found the rooms for which we had telegraphed ready for us. The sulphur bath at Banff, and the subsequent exposure, proved too much for me, and I was obliged to go to bed and stay there for a week. Very often I suffered extreme pain in the head, and was only conscious of being carefully nursed by my sister and travelling companions, and attended by a skilful doctor. After three days and nights of continuous illness I grew better, and began to appreciate how exceedingly kind every one was. One lady, Mrs. E., of Winnipeg, sent for my use calf’s-foot jelly and beef tea prepared by her own fair hands, and accompanied with beautiful flowers from her garden. Another one, Mrs. B., of New Orleans, sent a pot of beautiful flowering fuchsia. All of which attentions were very acceptable.
Ever since we left Vancouver, all along the railroad, there was a small-pox scare. There had been a hundred cases at Victoria, and the city had been quarantined; reports were also circulated that the disease was bad at Vancouver, and as a consequence the passengers on our train were looked upon with suspicion. At one stopping place, called Medicine Hat, ropes were put around the station, and the passengers were prevented from going into the town. The governor of North Dakota issued a proclamation forbidding all persons to come into that State from Manitoba, by rail or otherwise, because a Chinaman near the line, and a girl who nursed him, had the small-pox. In two or three days, however, this proclamation was withdrawn, much to my relief, as I wished to return home by the shortest route. The Manitoba Hotel, where we were located, is owned and managed by the Northern Pacific Railroad Co., and is a model one in every way.
When sufficiently recovered from my at one time serious illness, I took several drives about the thriving and beautiful city, and finally, on August 2d, we started by the Great Northern Railroad for home. One day at Minneapolis was altogether too little time for seeing one of the finest cities of its size in the world. Two days were spent at Chicago, during which we drove around the Exposition buildings, now rapidly nearing completion; then we took places previously engaged on the Pennsylvania Limited, and in twenty-five hours were landed in Jersey City. We happened to occupy a car which had just been put on the road, containing many new appliances and conveniences, the latest inventions of Mr. Pullman.
Thus pleasantly our journey ended, and we arrived safely home again, after an absence of just fifty-one days.
