LETTER III. 35 



yellow blankets, their faces coloured as brightly 

 as their blankets, feathers in their hair, and a 

 papoose on their back, followed by a squalid, 

 washed-out-looking chief in an old stove-pipe hat, 

 coat, and pantaloons, shuffling along in boots very 

 much down at heel. 



You must not expect me to take you along the 

 line and describe every place as it occurred, or 

 even every district. The people in the cars were 

 far too interesting to allow of my making notes, 

 and I can only give you some sort of general 

 picture from memory. My impression is, that 

 for two days we traversed forests stunted by cold 

 or withered by fires, 'amongst which the ground- 

 maples and dog-wood glowed with colour, re- 

 peated every now and then on huge boulders of 

 gneiss and granite. Here, in spite of nature, we 

 came now and again upon a spot whereon the 

 railway navvy's hut had remained and grown to 

 a poor cottage, round which long strips of half- 

 cleared land and a hundred or two of charred 

 stumps marked the first step in the founding of 

 a new town. Further on we came upon a town 

 of newly-built frame-houses, looking somewhat 

 drearily out of blindless windows into the forest 

 round them. Hard bronzed men, axes in hand, 

 blue-frocked Chinamen, and an Indian or two, 

 were at work still building the young city. A 



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