Feb. 27, I860.] PALLISER ON THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 75 



ness of the European climate. The opening up of this country would, in a 

 great degree, counterbalance the power acquired by the United States from 

 the possession of a more southern route. Many years ago, he had endeavoured 

 to make the Panama route a neutral one ; but, as it was evident that it would 

 fall into the hands of the United States, it was all the more incumbent upon 

 us to open a route across our own territory, so as to give us free access to both 

 the American and Pacific sides of the continent. This was no more a dream 

 than it would have been one to have told our ancestors in the year 1400 that 

 there would arise a great people on a continent three thousand miles away, 

 who, in the course of a few centuries, would rival the world. 



Dr. Thomas Hodgkin, f.r.g.s., rejoiced to hear the sentiments just ex- 

 pressed. A few weeks ago he referred to this route across British North 

 America, and he ventured to say that the contemplated line of railway would 

 be the most important upon the surface of the globe. Certainly, as respects 

 the possessions of this country, there was not a line that could be compared 

 with it. It would not merely be a line of great importance to North America, 

 but it would affect other parts of the world, Asiatic and European as well as 

 American. 



The Eev. Dr. O'Meara said he should look at the subject as a missionary and 

 a philanthropist. He was much struck with the contrast between the way in 

 which these tribes looked upon each other and the way in which they treated 

 white men who came among them. Those who accompanied Captain Palliser, 

 when they came to the territory of another tribe were afraid to go on. This 

 was quite in accordance with his own experience of these tribes for more than 

 twenty years' residence among them as a missionary. He had known a whole 

 Indian village thrown into confusion by hearing that two or three men of a 

 different tribe had been seen in the neighbourhood. The tribes were at war, 

 and afraid of each other in consequence ; but, when a white man came among 

 them, he was received as a friend. The question was, whether our expectations 

 of these poor Indians, who have not yet had the experience that other Indians 

 have had of the white man, would be realised. We knew what had been the 

 result in other cases : that some of the tribes had been altogether blotted out 

 from the face of the earth, and others had been driven far back from their 

 original possessions into a part of the country where they could not get the 

 means of subsistence. He hoped no svich fate would befal the Indians who 

 had received Captain Palliser with so much hospitality. It was in our power 

 to prevent it by watching the progress of our explorers and colonists with the 

 eye of a philanthropist, and guarding against the introduction of those evils 

 among them that had been so destructive in other instances. He remembered 

 once telling an Indian chief that he suspected the reason why he opposed the 

 progress of Christianity among his people was because he was fond of fire- 

 water. The chief gave him a look of scorn, and said, " Yes, I love the fire- 

 water ; I know it is destroying me and my people, but how came we by the 

 fire-water ? Before the white man came among us, we ate fish, deer, beaver, 

 and other animals, and drank the water of our lakes and rivers, and we 

 suffered no harm. The white man came, and told us the fire-water would 

 make us very happy. We drank it, and at last we came to love it. And if 

 you wish us not to make use of it, tell your own people, your traders, not to 

 bring it among us." It occurred to him, then, that something should be done 

 to stay the progress of the evils that had hitherto accompanied the white 

 man in going among the Indians, so that with the progress of our coloni- 

 zation there might be a corresponding progress of our Christianity and our 

 civilization. 



Dr. J. Eae, f.r.g.s., thought his friend Captain Palliser overrated the danger 

 of travelling through the country. He was at Ked River when Lord Southesk, 

 who had accompanied Sir George Simpson to that colony, went off into 



