Leaving Montreal at 10.15 p.m., I arrived at Vancouver about noon on the 24th, having travelled straight through.
The Canadian Pacific Railway is probably the most extensively advertised line in the world. I cannot say it complied with modern requirements as regards convenience and comfort.
Every one knows the much-vaunted Pullman Car system of America—men and women in the same carriage, the only privacy being offered by drawing the curtains across the berths which are arranged in two long rows on either side of the car.
If you have a section of two berths, which is essential to comfort, you can stand upright in the lower berth to dress and undress, and put away your clothes where you can.
If you have only a single berth, you have to dress and undress as best you can, sitting in your berth.
On my first trip to Canada, I was only going as far as Mattawa, one night in the train, so contented myself with a single lower berth.
The upper berth was occupied by a very stout lady, who in descending in the morning, gave me an exhibition of understandings as unexpected by me as it was unintentional on her part.
The real advantage of a section, in taking the long Trans-Continental journey, is that when the berths are put up in the day-time, one has a nice compartment to oneself; that is, if the black porter does not condescend sometimes to occupy one of the seats, and only to move, on being politely requested to do so.
The sporting pamphlets of the Canadian Pacific Railway make a sportsman's mouth water. Here we have the paradise of the fisherman—there the Mecca of the sportsman.
It was certainly then disappointing, to say the least of it, to find in the Restaurant Car, that though passing through the paradise of the fisherman, two days out from Montreal, we were eating stale mackerel, and on the return journey when the sporting season was in full swing and duck and prairie hens were being brought in abundance to the car for sale—they were only purchased by the black porters for re-sale at Montreal at a handsome profit. None of them appeared at our table.