He
introduced me to two priests, one of whom had been working among the
Indians thirty years. Afterwards he had a talk with John, and remarked
upon my youthfulness to be his mother. Of course, I am always being
taken for his wife, and they seem very much puzzled about it altogether.
_Saturday night, the 20th_. - We reached Calgary after a quieter
night - quite an important city. A good many wooden houses, two or three
churches (I think the congregations must be very small in each), and on
Sunday morning all the inhabitants were out in their best, the men
loafing and smoking about, and quite smart-looking young ladies showing
their finery with great enjoyment, as they do at home. A mounted police
officer drove a pair of good horses to meet some of his men, and there
are cavalry barracks here for them. The train twice a week from Winnipeg
is their only communication with the outer world, so when it arrives
everyone, even from long distances, crowds the platform. We always take
a walk at these resting places, but it is nervous work to go far, as the
train starts without any notice, and they never keep to the time named.
_Wednesday, September 25th_. - After leaving Calgary, which I
forgot to say is near a coal mine (Mr. de Winton, son of Sir Francis,
has a ranch near), and is likely to be an important place some day, we
went to Laggan, which is well into the mountains, and there we saw
Professor George Ramsay, brother of Sir James, and he told us to get
hold of the contractor, Mr. Ross, who would help us about going further
on. The railway people, &c., all said to our great disgust that ladies
would not be allowed to go down the steep incline to British Columbia;
upon this we found out Mr. Boss, and he kindly consented to take us down
the Pacific slope in his own car. At first the boys said I had better
remain behind in our own car, but I felt that if there was a risk I
would rather encounter it with them, and I wanted to see more of the
country, so we prepared to start on Monday, but it poured, and Mr. Ross
would not go till Tuesday. We took a small bag with night-gown, brush
and comb, &c., and left the rest of our goods in charge of the odious,
but I think honest, David, and started yesterday morning in Mr. Ross's
car, in some respects a more convenient one than ours, for it has a
writing table and a stove in the sitting room after an early breakfast
at half-past seven. It was a glorious sunny day. We had two engines
reversed, one before and one behind, and no end of brakes with safety
'switches,' every now and then to be turned on and to send us up hill if
the engines ran away with us, and we crept down very slowly.
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