And O how deep the corn along the battlefield!”
It was a quick transition from the spear to the plough. First the pioneer, squatting on his unbounded run; next, the road and the railway; and then more settlers; and more settlers still; but never enough settlers; for this fair land shall hold many millions where now it holds one. But these musings on the plain below and its past are disturbed by a chance remark from our genial host, with frosted head, sitting beside his fair daughter on the hilltop. Thirty years ago he climbed these mountains, and he knows the history of the plain as only the pioneer knows it. He is the typical “Colonist in his Garden,” in that delightful poem of William Pember Reeves’:—
“See, I have poured o’er plain and hill
Gold, open-handed, wealth that will
Win children’s children’s smiles,
—Autumnal glories, glowing leaves,
And aureate flowers and warmth of sheaves,
’Mid weary pastoral miles.
Yonder my poplars, burning gold,
Flare in tall rows of torches bold,