212 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



autumn of 1869, and in prosecuting their operations 

 frequently ran chain-lines across the farms of men 

 whose language they could not speak, and with 

 whom they had no feelings in common. A report 

 soon got abroad that the Canadian Government in- 

 tended possessing themselves of all the land for the 

 purpose of allotting it among the host of emigrants 

 who, rumour said, were to follow the establishment 

 of the new order of things. A large proportion of 

 farmers could produce no title-deeds to the lands they 

 claimed ; many could not even assert what is gen- 

 erally recognised as the outward visible symbol of 

 possession in such matters namely, the fact of their 

 being fenced in. The country had never been regu- 

 larly laid off for settlement; but according as each 

 successive settler occupied land, he had followed the 

 example of those who had done so before him that 

 is, he nominally "took up" 100 acres, abutting with 

 a narrow frontage on the river, but fenced in only 

 the few acres nearest the water, on which he built 

 his house, and which alone he placed under cultiva- 

 tion. In rear of this undefined plot of land extended 

 the prairie, over which, to a depth of two miles with 

 a breadth equal to the river frontage, the farmer 

 exercised by custom a right of cutting hay. There 

 was no market for produce : as the nearest railway 

 station was about 600 miles diotant in the United 

 States, the export of grain was practically impossible ; 

 and there was no internal demand for it, as every 



