Homesteading 



pellers give their first revolutions, the last cheer 

 is raised from the landing-stage and returned 

 from the ship, and we are off. 



The voyage is soon over, with two or three 

 days of unpleasant weather perhaps, or possibly 

 we meet a gale and get a good bit of knocking 

 about, and then gradually slip into smoother 

 water and fog as we cross the banks. 



If we are wise we keep clear of cards ; there 

 are deck quoits, and many a tired mother will be 

 thankful if we can amuse the children by helping 

 them to skip or otherwise. We are probably 

 too early to see bergs that drift from far north, 

 and we certainly are for going up the noble Gulf 

 and River of St. Lawrence to Quebec and Mont- 

 real, so we must land at St. John's, and as this 

 means a still longer railway journey than from 

 the former ports, we shall be wise to make our- 

 selves as comfortable as we can right from the 

 start. With this end in view we will ask those 

 two pleasant young fellows to whom we were 

 talking to join us on the colonist car, unless indeed 

 we went in a tourist ; but that costs more. You 

 see, the difference between a tourist or colonist 

 car and an ordinary day car, from our point of 

 view, is that in the former you can make up beds, 

 and such cars are fitted with cooking-stoves, 

 while, though the latter may look to have beau- 



26 



