The
Canadian Pacific Railway Was Given A Bit Of A Line Here And A Bit Of A
Line There And
Almost as much land as it wanted, and the laughter was
still going on when the last spike was driven
Between east and west, at
the very place where the drunken man sprawled behind the engine, and the
iron band ran from tideway to tideway as the Premier said, and people in
England said 'How interesting,' and proceeded to talk about the 'bloated
Army estimates.' Incidentally, the man who told us - he had nothing to do
with the Canadian Pacific Railway - explained how it paid the line to
encourage immigration, and told of the arrival at Winnipeg of a
train-load of Scotch crofters on a Sunday. They wanted to stop then and
there for the Sabbath - they and all the little stock they had brought
with them. It was the Winnipeg agent who had to go among them arguing
(he was Scotch too, and they could not quite understand it) on the
impropriety of dislocating the company's traffic. So their own minister
held a service in the station, and the agent gave them a good dinner,
cheering them in Gaelic, at which they wept, and they went on to settle
at Moosomin, where they lived happily ever afterwards. Of the manager,
the head of the line from Montreal to Vancouver, our companion spoke
with reverence that was almost awe. That manager lived in a palace at
Montreal, but from time to time he would sally forth in his special car
and whirl over his 3000 miles at 50 miles an hour. The regulation pace
is twenty-two, but he sells his neck with his head. Few drivers cared
for the honour of taking him over the road. A mysterious man he was, who
'carried the profile of the line in his head,' and, more than that, knew
intimately the possibilities of back country which he had never seen nor
travelled over. There is always one such man on every line. You can hear
similar tales from drivers on the Great Western in England or Eurasian
stationmasters on the big North-Western in India. Then a
fellow-traveller spoke, as many others had done, on the possibilities of
Canadian union with the United States; and his language was not the
language of Mr. Goldwin Smith. It was brutal in places. Summarised it
came to a pronounced objection to having anything to do with a land
rotten before it was ripe, a land with seven million negroes as yet
unwelded into the population, their race-type unevolved, and rather more
than crude notions on murder, marriage, and honesty. 'We've picked up
their ways of politics,' he said mournfully. 'That comes of living next
door to them; but I don't think we're anxious to mix up with their other
messes. They say they don't want us. They keep on saying it. There's a
nigger on the fence somewhere, or they wouldn't lie about it.'
'But does it follow that they are lying?'
'Sure. I've lived among 'em. They can't go straight. There's some dam'
fraud at the back of it.'
From this belief he would not be shaken. He had lived among
them - perhaps had been bested in trade. Let them keep themselves and
their manners and customs to their own side of the line, he said.
This is very sad and chilling. It seemed quite otherwise in New York,
where Canada was represented as a ripe plum ready to fell into Uncle
Sam's mouth when he should open it. The Canadian has no special love for
England - the Mother of Colonies has a wonderful gift for alienating the
affections of her own household by neglect - but, perhaps, he loves his
own country. We ran out of the snow through mile upon mile of
snow-sheds, braced with twelve-inch beams, and planked with two-inch
planking. In one place a snow slide had caught just the edge of a shed
and scooped it away as a knife scoops cheese. High up the hills men had
built diverting barriers to turn the drifts, but the drifts had swept
over everything, and lay five deep on the top of the sheds. When we woke
it was on the banks of the muddy Fraser River and the spring was
hurrying to meet us. The snow had gone; the pink blossoms of the wild
currant were open, the budding alders stood misty green against the blue
black of the pines, the brambles on the burnt stumps were in tenderest
leaf, and every moss on every stone was this year's work, fresh from the
hand of the Maker. The land opened into clearings of soft black earth.
At one station a hen had laid an egg and was telling the world about it.
The world answered with a breath of real spring - spring that flooded the
stuffy car and drove us out on the platform to snuff and sing and
rejoice and pluck squashy green marsh-flags and throw them at the
colts, and shout at the wild duck that rose from a jewel-green lakelet.
God be thanked that in travel one can follow the year! This, my spring,
I lost last November in New Zealand. Now I shall hold her fast through
Japan and the summer into New Zealand again.
Here are the waters of the Pacific, and Vancouver (completely destitute
of any decent defences) grown out of all knowledge in the last three
years. At the railway wharf, with never a gun to protect her, lies the
Empress of India - the Japan boat - and what more auspicious name could
you wish to find at the end of one of the strong chains of empire?
THE EDGE OF THE EAST
The mist was clearing off Yokohama harbour and a hundred junks had their
sails hoisted for the morning breeze, and the veiled horizon was
stippled with square blurs of silver.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 8 of 71
Words from 7143 to 8145
of 71314
