Before closing, however, permit me to give one of the most valuable points in the art of traveling. When you leave home drop its cares entirely and trustfully. Let your friends write nothing about your business unless it be such as they know should hurry you back and for that intended. Look on the bright side of everything before you, and do not complain because you have not the comforts of your home. Profitable travel is often laborious, and like all well applied labor, pays. As a young man I spent two years abroad and heard not a word as to my affairs. Since then I have made three trips to Europe and a long one around the world. Not a word on either of them did I hear of my business. Once a month during a Globe Circuit we received a cablegram telling us of the health of the loved ones at home.
To this policy I have ascribed the happiness and much of the benefits received. People we met in various quarters of the world looked regularly for and got advices on their affairs and were often uneasy and miserable, but were powerless to correct anything going wrong. Passengers on this ship are fretting about letters they expect to get at Victoria. I have heard nothing for a month and expect nothing until I wire home. If one keeps himself hopeful he can adopt as his traveling motto, "No news is good news." Try this and you will confess you owe me a good fee for sound advice.
LETTER VIII.
VANCOUVER. A PICTURESQUE, GROWING CITY. A RUN OVER THE CANADIAN PACIFIC. MAGNIFICENT SCENERY MET WITH FROM THE START. A GLORIOUS RIDE. FRASER RIVER GLUTTED WITH SALMON. A NEVER-TIRING VIEW FROM GLACIER HOUSE, FOUR THOUSAND FEET ABOVE THE SEA. RUGGED, PRECIPITOUS GRANDEUR OF THE SELKIRKS AND ROCKIES. NATURAL BEAUTIES OF BANFF. REFLECTIONS AT THE "SOO."
Canadian Pacific Steamer Alberta,
at Sault Ste. Marie, Aug. 23, '90.
Three years ago I wrote quite largely on a trip over the Canadian Pacific Railway, running from east to west. Perhaps by now writing of it beginning at the western terminus, an appearance of plagiarism upon myself may be avoided. It is so grand a road, however, and the magnificence and variety of scenery offered by it to the traveler are so great, that considerable repetition may be permissible, especially as the probabilities are that only a few ever read or now remembers what I said before.
My Alaskan letter was ended at Nanaimo. A sail of three hours on a little steamer owned in New Zealand and lately brought from Bombay brought us to Vancouver. It seemed somewhat singular that we should be voyaging on a short local run in North-west America on a small steamer owned and lately doing service in a land so far away, and that land, too, one which we are prone to regard as our ultima thule, whose inhabitants are but one degree removed from the ragged edge of savagery. The world has so rapidly progressed since many of us studied geography, that we have scarcely been able to keep pace with its strides. We have to pause and think to be able to realize that New Zealand is no longer the land of savages, but is populated by a highly cultivated and energetic people, and abounds in splendid cities.
Before reaching Vancouver we saw high on the rocks the hull of the old steamer "Beaver". It was the first steamer to cross the broad Pacific brought here long ago by the Hudson Bay company from Bombay. It was wrecked only last year, but is already in this humid climate green with moss and ocean weed.
Vancouver has grown marvelously. Five years since its site was covered by a forest of enormous cedars and firs. Three years ago when I visited there, it had only seven or eight hundred population. Now it boasts having about 15,000. It has well graded streets, a few of them paved and several well planked; fine water brought in from a distance; blocks of handsome stone houses and office buildings; commodious and elegant hotels, and many handsome residences. If I be not mistaken I suggested it three years ago as a good place for safe speculation. Had it not been for the long voyage then before me I should have dropped a thousand or two into its lots, and would have been considerably richer by the venture.