180 FOURTH EXPLORATION, 1880 



tive point, but one where, naturally, a large city would spring up. 

 I place the above extract here because it brings the matter of 

 railways up to date and shows that my work was appreciated 

 more fully than I realized at the time. 



We reached Portage La Prairie in due course and found that 

 the railway had reached Poplar Point, eight miles out, so I left 

 my party to go out to the railway and reached Winnipeg without 

 difficulty. My men arrived shortly after in good shape, but the 

 horses were nearly dead, as there had been a frost and a thaw and 

 the wheels took up the clay and, every few hundred yards, the 

 men had to stop and clear out the wheels to enable the horses to 

 draw the empty carts. This was the condition of Portage Avenue, 

 the great street of Winnipeg in the autumn of the year 1880. 



