238 SIR VICTOR BROOKE CHAP. 



but the feeding-cars are excellent. One day we had to 

 go without it and feed in some of the wretched little 

 shanties near the stations in the middle of the vast 

 forests we were passing through, and the food was 

 impossible. From Montreal to Winnipeg you pass 

 (1400 miles) through endless forests with innumerable 

 lakes and morasses, the abode of elk, reindeer, and 

 bears. They are very beautiful in their way, but of 

 course one gets tired of them. All along the shores 

 of the noble Lake Superior (360 miles long by 140 

 broad) is very fine. Wooded promontories jut into 

 the lake, and precipitous islands stud it, forming lovely 

 bays'; and one can easily picture the Indians in their 

 war-paint in the olden days stealing about in their canoes 

 on the war-path. All are gone now from these parts, 

 the vices of civilisation having rooted them out, while the 

 wild game, their companions, still exist in quantities. 

 These forests are uninhabited except by hunters few 

 and far between, and there is not a road. At Winnipeg 

 we stopped yesterday two or three hours, and we went 

 and examined a very good stuffer's shop, and saw a lot 

 of the beasts and birds of the country which was most 

 interesting. It is a very large place now, nearly all 

 wood, 28,000 inhabitants, and in 1871 there were only 

 100. After leaving Winnipeg the country changes 

 entirely. The forests stop absolutely, and in their place 

 you find flat reclaimed prairie all settled, wood farm- 

 steads as far as the eye can reach. This goes on for 

 about 400 miles, when you come to the real prairie. 

 Imagine an Egyptian desert of the flatter kind covered 

 with grass and you have a prairie, only for effect the 

 former beats the latter hands down. The saddest thing 

 is to see the buffalo tracks like sheep pads in all direc- 

 tions traversing the prairie, however always from north 

 to south, as they used to go in their migrations like the 



