CHAPTER VII.
HALIFAX TO QUEBEC.
Home in Halifax—Start for the Pacific—The Intercolonial Railway—Major Robinson—Old Companions—The Ashburton Blunder—Quebec—The Provincial Legislature—Champlain—The Iroquois.
Arrived at my Halifax home, I made the few preparations necessary for the journey before me. In the interval, I rambled through the Dingle with my children and paddled over the north-western arm, a sheet of water of much beauty. There is always unusual pleasure in such quiet occupations, exacting neither labour, nor thought, nor any great strain upon the attention. We float along or stroll idly, as it were following the bent of our inclinations, now and then considering what lies before us, or reverting in memory to that which once has happened. Then I visited my old friends, who gave me the proverbial Halifax welcome. Two vessels of the fleet were in port, the “Northampton” and the “Canada,” the latter attracting some attention from the fact that Prince George, the second son of the Prince of Wales, was on board, performing the duties of a midshipman, as any other youngster in that position and as efficiently. A new Commander of the Forces had arrived, Lord Alexander Russell, formerly known in Canada as commanding one of the battalions of the Rifle Brigade, and the conversation of the garrison was the changes in discipline and general economy introduced, as is frequently the case by new administrators. All my friends were well and in good spirits. I had the additional pleasure of finding that the kindness of former days was unimpaired, and my whole visit was one of pleasantness.
I was four days in Halifax, and on the ninth of August, I started alone. Dr. Grant who accompanied me on my first trip to the Pacific eleven years ago, had accepted the invitation to accompany me across the Rocky Mountains, and it was arranged that he should join me in Winnipeg. My second son was also to be of the party. He was to meet me in Toronto.
My family went with me to the station. There was an unusual effort to say good-bye in starting on this long journey, but that matter has no interest here.
It is only on alternate nights that the Pullman car runs through from Halifax to Montreal. On this occasion I had to leave Halifax by the Pullman which went no further than Moncton Junction, and with the other western passengers I had to wait there for the train to arrive from St. John. We reached Moncton at two o’clock in the morning, an hour not the most convenient for effecting the change. It is among the minor miseries of travelling to be obliged to turn out at such an hour for a coming train. But the fault was my own. Had I curtailed my brief sojourn in Halifax a few hours, or had my arrangements admitted of delay for another day, I would have had the advantage of a through Pullman without the inconvenience of a break at this place. Moncton is in New Brunswick, at the junction of the lines from Halifax and St. John, whence a common course is followed to the St. Lawrence.
As I was sitting on the platform in the cool summer air before dawn, I could not but recollect that the 10th of August was one of the red letter days of my life. Thirty-one years back, on that day my railway career in Canada commenced. I was appointed as an Assistant-engineer on what was then known as the Ontario, Simcoe and Huron Railway, afterwards developed into the Northern Railway of Canada, and of which I remained chief engineer for a number of years. The Montreal and Portland Railway was under construction. The Grand Trunk Railway had just been commenced, and with the exception of some small lengths of line, such as the Lachine, the La Prairie, and the Carillon Railways, it may be said that, at that date, railways had no working existence in Canada.
The station ground at Moncton was illuminated by an electric light; to escape its piercing rays, I turned away to a seat which they did not reach. As I was thus sitting apart, my recollection went back over the last thirty-one years and to the many events which the spot suggested. The night was dark, and, excepting in the immediate neighbourhood, it seemed to be rendered darker by the light which flickered and glared directly above me. I cannot say that the dazzling “Brush” light is agreeable to me at any time, or on that occasion that my tone of thought was affected by it; but in spite of myself my mind ran over much of the past, and brought vividly before me many events long forgotten. I remembered the frequent mention of Moncton by Major Robinson in his well known report, and I felt how much I owed to his labours and to those of his efficient assistant Captain, now Sir Edmund Henderson. I thought of poor Major Pipon, who was drowned in one of the streams while gallantly striving to save the life of an Indian boy. Prominent among the actors I reverted to my friend Mr. Light, who constructed the line from Moncton to St. John, whose labours were continued on the Intercolonial Railway until its completion, and who is still actively engaged in his profession. Naturally, in connection with these memories, the whole staff of engineers who worked with me on the Intercolonial Railway passed before me, from the first long snow-shoe tramps through the forest and across the mountains in 1864 to the completion of the line in 1876. Some are no more; those who remain are scattered over this continent doing their work as manfully as they did it here, wherever their field of duty.
So far as the Intercolonial Railway appears before the public to-day, those engineers who were for years engaged in its construction are as if they never existed. I was struck with the similitude between the life of the engineer and of the soldier. There is much which is identical in the two professions. In both, privations and hardships are endured. In both, self-sacrifice is called for. In both, special qualities are demanded to gain desired results; and the possessors of them for a time obtain prominence, to pass out of mind with the necessity for their service, and to be forgotten and uncared for. It is peculiarly during an hour of patient waiting in the advanced hours of night that much of the past comes vividly before us. My mind reverted to all the incidents connected with the history of this national railway. I recalled many recollections of the Railway Commissioners whom the Government appointed at that date, and I did my best to forget many an unpleasantness. Differences of view were not unfrequent. They seemed important enough at the time, but on looking back to them now, how insignificant many of them appear. Those mistakes which permanently affect the public interests are only to be deplored. The train had just passed over the scene of one of the most glaring of these departures from a wise policy. In order to serve purely local interests, the railway was diverted many miles out of its true direction. The proper location would have cost less; the line, when completed, would have been better in an engineering point of view; the distance would have been ten miles shorter. But the local interests, in themselves insignificant, were sustained by political influence. Whatever administration was in power, there was some one prominent politician to advocate the location by the circuitous route. In this one point men on opposite sides of the House could meet on common ground, and in spite of all remonstrances[C] and regardless of the facts, their individual interests prevailed.
Thus the country was saddled with an unnecessary expense of construction of a needless increased length of line with its perpetual maintenance, and every person, and every ton of goods, entering or leaving Nova Scotia, has to pay a mileage charge of conveyance over ten extra unnecessary miles: a tax on the travelling public and the commerce of the country for ever! As I looked along the track into the darkness, I remembered that some fifteen years had passed since the troubles and unpleasantness of those days, and it came to my mind that the prominent actors in the events are dead. I was struck with the truth of our experience in the vanity of human wishes and the worse than folly of sacrificing permanent public interests for matters of passing moment.