272 SIR WILLIAM EAMSAY 



Thursday had been spent by the Ramsays in driving 

 about Quebec and the neighbourhood under the guid- 

 ance of a very loquacious driver, who was much more 

 interested in pointing out a window from which he had 

 seen Crippen look out the week before than anything 

 on the Plains of Abraham. 



The first part of the time was to be spent with Dr. 

 and Mrs. Nichols at their country house on one of the 

 Thousand Islands in the St. Lawrence. Dr. Nichols was 

 already a great friend of Ramsay's, and was to be 

 President of the Congress. On arriving at Montreal a 

 friend of Dr. Nichols met the steamer, rushed the Ram- 

 says and their baggage through the Custom House and 

 put them in the train for the next stage of the journey. 

 At the station to which they had, so to speak, been 

 consigned (Gananaque), they were met by Dr. Nichols, 

 Mrs. Nichols and other members of their family in one 

 of their yachts, which in an hour or two brought them 

 to " Nokomis." 



Like the islands round Helsingfors, in Finland, each 

 of the Thousand Islands has one or more summer homes 

 built on it, and these vary from the palatial dwellings 

 of American or Canadian millionaires to tiny structures 

 built on slabs of naked rock, but all with boat-house, 

 boat or boats and landing-stage. The Nichols' invita- 

 tion had been worded " to stay at our little camp on 

 the St. Lawrence," but " camp " is a word of wide 

 interpretation. If being built of wood made it a camp, 

 then camp it was, but a very lovely picturesque house 



