This magnificent steamer has provided us with the most luxurious accommodation, and has landed us here in less than six days since we left England. I am just remaining on board to finish this dispatch to you, and beyond expressing the satisfaction of all on board with the treatment we have received from officers and men, and with the arrangements of the company, I have only one remark of any importance to make. All who have known the inconveniences and delay which have hitherto attended the voyage to Canada agree that it is a disgrace to the Empire that no steamers of the class of the Teutonic are available to complete the circle of our connection round the world. I have just been on shore and seen the accommodation which is provided for us by the Canadian Pacific Railway. Nothing can be more perfect than the arrangements for the convenience both of officers and men. If only passengers could start from England and sail here through the splendid scenery of the St. Lawrence up to this quaint old town, and thence pass by this excellent railway, there can be no doubt that travellers, to the East at all events, whether for China, Australia, New Zealand, or even India, would come this way rather than by New York, or any other line. As it is, numbers now cross to New York, join the Canadian Pacific by way of Montreal, and complete their journey in that way to the East. I can only hope, and I express the wishes of all, that no time may be lost in establishing, with the aid of a Government subsidy, a really effective line of steamers from England to Quebec. Here the trains were drawn up by the side of the steamer. The men marched straight into the carriages, the baggage, for the transhipment of which large gangs of men were at hand, was put upon the trains within five hours and fourteen minutes. Precisely at that interval after the steamer had come alongside, the first of the three trains employed steamed out of the station amid the cheers of the crowd which had gathered to see the men off.
It must be remembered that when the party of Marines and Blue-Jackets, who were the pioneers of this line among the military forces, came here in December, they necessarily landed in Halifax. We have, therefore, saved on that expedition three hundred miles of dreary railway travel by the Intercolonial Railway.
Vancouver, June 5.
We have finished our journey across the continent, and are all as thoroughly content with our railway trip as with our voyage to Quebec. I enclose you several sketches which will show you the accommodation provided for the men, and some of the scenes on the train. What has interested us most, both in what we have seen and what we have heard at the different stations that we have stopped at, is the amazing development which is taking place throughout the whole of this country.
The old Ontario farmers appear to be all on the move farther westwards. Splendid as is that province they appear to prefer to sell off the farms they have made at the best rate they can, and to move on to the rich new lands which are available in the north-west. One hears of men here, who, with their own hands, having three horses with all sorts of improved machinery, but no other assistance, have actually sown a hundred acres of wheat this spring. It is said here that in a very few years this region will be able to supply a surplus grain crop for England equal to the surplus product of the whole of the United States.
TOMMY ATKINS BARGAINING WITH THE INDIANS ON THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY.
We were naturally a good deal interested in making inquiries about the prospects of the great railway itself, which has done so much for Canada and become such an important link between different parts of the Empire. I came over it with the Governor-General’s party which went down to British Columbia, soon after the railway was opened. The development of the country itself, of course, is the first thing that strikes me. Green fields of corn and comfortable homesteads as far as the eye can reach, where there was nothing but wild prairie! The trains loaded up with corn of last year’s crop are still travelling eastwards to Quebec, because it has not been even yet possible to transport it all, so great is the accumulation. But no less remarkable were the trains travelling westwards which we passed at the several stations in our rapid transit, full of farmers, commercial travellers, and others engaged in the rapidly developing commerce of the country. Great piles of agricultural implements and household stuff going westward showed that even in those parts of the line where the land near the railway has been bought up by speculators, so that cultivation recedes to some distance from it, rapid development is taking place.
OUR NEW ROUTE TO INDIA: RATIONS ON THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY.