CHAPTER XXX
THE GREAT DIVIDE
We are now in the train running toward the great ridge of mountains which rises like a backbone through the country from north to south, cutting off the territory of British Columbia from Alberta, though both are provinces of Canada. The Rockies! What ideas of grizzly bears and Indians and scalps and trails the name brings up before me! I don't suppose you have anything like the same feeling about them, because you weren't brought up on Fenimore Cooper and Ballantyne and all those other writers who are old-fashioned nowadays. Perhaps you have never even read The Wild Man of the West, or Nick o' the Woods? It makes me sorry for you!
The Clays were good to the last; they brought us up on the little launch by river to New Westminster, and then we went by electric cable-car to the mighty town of Vancouver on the Pacific Coast. What a town! Wide streets, huge buildings, tram-cars, and much bustle and life. But what struck us most was the splendid playground of Stanley Park which covers all the ground at the end of the peninsula stretching out into the sea. This is not an Englishman's idea of a park at all, for we think of the rather stiff green expanses, with a few trees scattered here and there, that we are used to at home. Stanley Park is just a bit of primeval forest with roads running through it. There are immense trees rearing their crowns on stems twelve feet in diameter. There are thickets and wild creatures and rich undergrowth. The inhabitants of Vancouver are lucky indeed, and they have another park on the other side of the town too. Stanley Park overlooks the harbour, where lie ships of all nations, from the liners of China and Japan to the tiny tugs of the Cannery Companies. The amount of trade coming here is immense. The ships carry cargoes of tea, rice, and silk and oranges, with skins from Siberia, and take away grain, timber, fish, machinery, cattle, and manufactured goods. There are some sailing ships, you still see them in this part of the world, and these are loading masses of timber baulks from the great pine woods inland. Lumbering and logging are the two great occupations of the Western Canadian winter, and what you see here is the fruit of that work. Terribly hard work it is too. Swinging an axe all day among the great giants of the forest requires knack as well as strength, and when a man first starts that game he quickly finds he is as weak as a baby till his muscles get hardened to it. When cut down the trunks are dragged to any stream, or creek, as they call them here, to be drifted down to the coast. It is a wonderful sight to see a river about half a mile wide literally covered with tree trunks wedged against one another from bank to bank. When the logs get jammed, and have to be released, it requires a great deal of courage to go right into the middle of the stream and find the key-log, the one which holds the whole together, like the keystone of an arch; most exciting work this is, many a man loses his life or his limbs over it. In Burma, where the teak companies run their business on the same lines, elephants are taught to do this; they feel around with their trunks and draw out the right log, and then make for the banks at full speed, to get out of the way before the whole mass of tons' weight breaks loose and comes down upon them. But here there are no elephants; dogs are the beasts of burden, and fine work they do in teams, drawing laden sleighs over the frozen snow,—but dogs can't pull out timber when it is jammed. A lumber man has to be a bit of an engineer too, and learn how to dam up the stream to make enough water to float his logs; he is a jack of many trades, and generally a fine fellow too.
If we had come straight on from Victoria in the Empress steamer from Japan we should have landed at Vancouver. The Empress Line belongs to the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, which has its terminus there. This is one of the most miraculous railways in the world. We are on it now. When first it ran out to the Western end, after surmounting indescribable difficulties in crossing the mountain country, it stopped at that little place we passed through when we came to Vancouver from New Westminster. You remember we saw a deserted town, solitary and silent, on the inner curve of the bay? It is called Port Moody, and the name suits it to a T. It has a right to be moody, for when it was known the railway was going to end here the town sprang up in a week or two, in the way Canadian towns do; but the very first winter was so terribly severe that ice was driven up into the bay and blocked it completely, preventing vessels from getting to the terminus at all, and so the directors saw they must carry their line on farther round the bay to the northern point, and here Vancouver arose; but the irony of it was that no such winter has ever been known again! It only came that once, just to blot out Port Moody's chances. So the place lies mouldering away, with the lumber houses falling to pieces and the wharves rotting, and only a few wooden crosses and headstones on the hill to mark the graves of those who stayed behind when the others went.
NEGRO ATTENDANT.
This is a very fine train, the cars are open all the way down, so we can walk from end to end, the seats face in the direction we are going, and the backs can be swung over to the other side in the same way as on a tram-car. I know you have already noticed the very spruce negro attendants, because I saw you staring at the first one who appeared with all your eyes! There is an observation car with huge plate-glass windows at the end of the train, and we will go there to-morrow when we get into the mountains. I saw that there was a placard saying the negro attendant will answer all questions! I hope he gets a very high salary!
It was eight o'clock at night before we left Vancouver, and as there is a capital dining-car on the train, we had better get dinner at once. But the fun begins when we go to bed. I send you along first and say I'll turn in after a last smoke, but I have hardly settled down to an interesting conversation with a man in the smoking-car before I see you standing beside me looking very troubled. Well, what is it? In a low whisper you say—
"I can't go to bed there; there's a lady in the same car."