He Took Me, A Few Days Later, Right
Across To The Pacific In This Same Car, Which Certainly Was A Complete
House On Wheels - Bedroom, "Parlour, Kitchen And All." His First
Practical Suggestion Was, Would I Take A Little Of Mr. Van Horn's "Old
Bourbon" Whisky?
It was "very fine, first rate." On my assenting, he
asked would I take it "straight," as Mr. Van Horn did, or would I have
a little seltzer water?
I elected the latter, at the same time
observing, that when I neared the Rocky Mountains perhaps I should have
improved my ways so much that I could take it "straight" also.
At Montreal, my old friend and aforetime collaborateur, Mr. Joseph
Hickson, met me and took me home with him; and in his house, under the
kind and generous care of Mrs. Hickson, I spent three delightful days,
and renewed acquaintance with many old friends of times long passed. It
was on the 28th December, 1861, that Mr. Hickson first went to Canada
in the Cunard steamer "Canada" from Liverpool. He was accompanied by
Mr. Watkin, our only son, a youth of 15, anxious to see the bigger
England. Mr. Watkin afterwards entered the service (Grand Trunk), in
the locomotive department, at Montreal, and deservedly gained the
respect of his superior officer, who had to delegate to Mr. Watkin,
then under 18, the charge of a thousand men. There were, also, Howson,
Wright, Wainwright, and Barker; subsequently, Wallis. Mr. John Taylor,
who acted as my private secretary in my previous visit, I had left
behind, much to his distress at the time, much for his good afterwards.
Mr. Barker is now the able manager of the Buenos Ayres Great Southern
Railway, a most prosperous undertaking; and poor dear, big, valiant,
hard-working Wallis is, alas! no more: struck down two years ago by
fever. These old friends, still left in Canada, are leading honorable,
useful, and successful lives, respected by the community. To see them
again made it seem as if the world had stood still for a quarter of a
century. Then, again, there was my old friend and once colleague, the
Honble. James Ferrier, a young-minded and vigorous man of 86: who, on
my return to Montreal, walked down to the grand new offices of the
Grand Trunk, near Point St. Charles - offices very much unlike the old
wooden things I left behind, and which were burnt down - to see me and
walked back again. Next day I had the advantage of visiting the
extensive workshops and vast stock yards of the Canadian Pacific, at
Hochelaga, to the eastward of Montreal, and of renewing my acquaintance
with the able solicitor of the Company, Mr. Abbot, and with the
secretary, an old Manchester man, Mr. Drinkwater. Then on the following
day Mr. Peterson, the engineer of this section of the Canadian Pacific
Company, drove me out to Lachine, and took me by his boat, manned by
the chief and a crew of Indians, to see the finished piers and also the
coffer-dams and works of the new bridge over the St. Lawrence, by means
of which his Company are to reach the Eastern Railways of the United
States, without having to use the great Victoria Bridge at Montreal.
This bridge, of 1,000 yards, or 3,000 feet, in length, is a remarkable
structure.
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