LETTER III. 33 



cars are on cradle springs, and rock evenly as 

 they rush along the line. Lying in a cosy bed, 

 I drew up the blind of the window which ran 

 beside my pillow, and as I dozed away looked 

 out upon the wild Canadian night. The tall 

 telegraph-poles, just noticeable here and there 

 amongst the forest trees, were (in those first few 

 hours en route) the only things beyond the line 

 to remind me that man and nature had yet met 

 in the districts we were traversing. Forests 

 rugged, gray, and stunted, swept through at no 

 distant date by fires ; streams fighting for a pas- 

 sage through the rocks, or crawling sluggishly 

 through the muskeg (peat) ; night mists rising 

 from river and lake, and a long pennon of our 

 smoke floating over all in the moonlight these 

 were the things I saw as I lay dozing, or which 

 wove themselves into my dreams, while the air- 

 brake sighed, and the engine screamed like a 

 banshee, flying through the night from Ottawa 

 to Ni pissing. An inviting outlook, perhaps, for 

 the hunter, angler, lumberer, or miner, but surely 

 there is no room here for the settler. No 

 human courage, I thought, could tame this wil- 

 derness ; but I was wrong. Daylight showed me 

 towns where men seemed busier than they are 

 at home, where houses were being built out of 

 the trees just felled to make room for them ; 



3 



