INT ROD UC TION. xiii 



build across Siberia to the Pacific ; of reports of 

 the great new line which the British have built 

 across their Siberia from Montreal to Vancouver. 

 It is an interesting race, this race of the 

 Teuton and the Slav for the Pacific, and we all 

 wanted to see as much of our share of the course 

 as possible before all this new North-West of ours 

 shall have become trite and commonplace as a 

 London suburb. We knew that the same causes 

 had been at work driving each of these great 

 colonizing nations forward to the same great 

 peaceful ocean ; that religious persecution had 

 driven the English to New England, the Russian 

 to the Caucasus and Siberia ; gold had enticed 

 the Russian to the Ourals, gold had attracted 

 the Briton to British Columbia ; that the 

 Hudson Bay trappers had followed beaver and 

 marten ever further and further west, while his 

 Cossack rival had followed the fur-bearing beast 

 ever further and further to the east ; we had 

 grown interested in this march of rival nations 

 towards a common goal, led as they are by 

 descendants from the same old sea-king stock, 

 whether through Rurik, or our William the 

 Conqueror ; and, stirred possibly by some tiny 

 leaven of the old wandering blood, which is 

 every Englishman's inheritance, we gave ready 

 ear to the persuasions of our fair friends, and 



