NOTES ON TRAVEL 227 



They were afterwards to work with Ramsay when he 

 succeeded Professor Williamson at that institution. At 

 Winnipeg they stepped off to see what remained of old / 

 Fort Garry, the great seat of the early days of the/ 

 Hudson's Bay Company. Twenty years later the British^ 

 Association was to be royally entertained there, but at 

 that time it was just in its infancy. The houses were 

 mostly one or two-storied buildings, standing back from 

 " side walks " made of rough planking, and the middle 

 of the streets were virgin soil. There had been rainy 

 weather and the traffic had made deep ruts that were 

 nearing danger point, and a great plough was going over 

 them, followed by a thing like a harrow ploughing up 

 the main streets and levelling them down. In a few 

 years all was asphalt and order with electric light and 

 street cars, and old Fort Garry was a thing of the remote 

 past ! The next stopping place was Rat Portage, a 

 small station near the Lake of the Woods, which they had 

 been advised to see. They had no very clear idea how 

 to proceed ; but while breakfasting they heard a Scot- 

 tish voice insisting on seeing Professor Ramsay. " A 

 cousin of my own," said the voice, and Ramsay went 

 out to find it belonged to Dr. John Brown, of Burnley, 

 son of old Dr. John Brown, the well-known naturalist 

 of the Cape, of whom he had heard all his life. Dr. and 

 Mrs. Brown had arrived the day before, and had been 

 made welcome by the agent of the Hudson's Bay Com- 

 pany, who had arranged for them a trip in the little 

 steamer that was used to bring in the skins that the 



