Canada--The beginnings of the C.P.R.--Attitude of British Columbia--The
C.P.R. completed--Quebec--A swim at Niagara--Other mighty
waterfalls--Ottawa and Rideau Hall--Effects of dry climate--Personal
electricity--Every man his own dynamo--Attraction of
Ottawa--Curling--The "roaring game"--Skating--An ice-palace--A ball on
skates--Difficulties of translating the Bible into Eskimo--The building
of the snow hut--The snow hut in use--Sir John Macdonald--Some personal
traits--The Canadian Parliament buildings--Monsieur l'Orateur--A quaint
oration--The "Pages' Parliament"--An all-night sitting--The "Arctic
Cremorne"--A curious Lisbon custom--The Balkan
"souvenir-hunters"--Personal inspection of Canadian convents--Some
incidents--The unwelcome novice--The Montreal Carnival--The
Ice-castle--The Skating Carnival--A stupendous toboggan slide--The
pioneer of "ski" in Canada--The old-fashioned raquettes--A Canadian
Spring--Wonder of the Dominion.
When I was in Canada for the first time in 1884, the Canadian Pacific
Railway was not completed, and there was no through railway connection
between the Maritime Provinces, "Upper" and "Lower" Canada, and the
Pacific Coast, though, of course, in 1884 those old-fashioned terms for
the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec had been obsolete for some time.
Since the Federation of the Dominion in 1867, the opening of the
Trans-Continental railway has been the most potent factor in the
knitting together of Canada, and has developed the resources of the
Dominion to an extent which even the most enthusiastic of the original
promoters of the C.P.R. never anticipated. When British Columbia threw
in its lot with the Dominion in 1871, one of the terms upon which the
Pacific Province insisted was a guarantee that the Trans-Continental
railway should be completed in ten years--that is, in 1881. Two rival
Companies received in 1872 charters for building the railway; the
result was continual political intrigue, and very little construction
work. British Columbia grew extremely restive under the continual
delays, and threatened to retire from the Dominion. Lord Dufferin told
me himself, when I was his Private Secretary in Petrograd, that on the
occasion of his official visit to British Columbia (of course by sea),
in either 1876 or 1877, as Governor-General, he was expected to drive
under a triumphal arch which had been erected at Victoria, Vancouver
Island. This arch was inscribed on both sides with the word
"Separation." I remember perfectly Lord Dufferin's actual words in
describing the incident: "I sent for the Mayor of Victoria, and told
him that I must have a small--a very small--alteration made in the
inscription, before I could consent to drive under it; an alteration of
one letter only. The initial 'S' must be replaced with an 'R' and then
I would pledge my word that I would do my best to see that 'Reparation'
was made to the Province." This is so eminently characteristic of Lord
Dufferin's methods that it is worth recording. The suggested alteration
in the inscription was duly made, and Lord Dufferin drove under the
arch. In spite of continued efforts the Governor-General was unable to
expedite the construction of the railway under the Mackenzie
Administration, and it needed all his consummate tact to quiet the
ever-growing demand for separation from the Dominion on the part of
British Columbia, owing to the non-fulfilment of the terms of union. It
was not until 1881, under Sir John Macdonald's Premiership, that a
contract was signed with a new Company to complete the Canadian Pacific
within ten years, but so rapid was the progress made, that the last
spike was actually driven on November 7, 1886, five years before the
stipulated time. The names of three Scotsmen will always be associated
with this gigantic undertaking: those of the late Donald Smith,
afterwards Lord Strathcona; George Stephen, now Lord Mount-stephen; and
Mr. R. B. Angus of Montreal. The last spike, which was driven in at a
place called Craigellachie, by Mrs. Mackenzie, widow of the Premier
under whom the C.P.R. had been commenced, was of an unusual character,
for it was of eighteen-carat gold. In the course of an hour it was
replaced by a more serviceable spike of steel. I have often seen Mrs.
Mackenzie wearing the original gold spike, with "Craigellachie" on it
in diamonds.
There are few finer views in the world than that from the terrace of
the Citadel of Quebec over the mighty expanse of the St. Lawrence, with
ocean-going steamers lying so close below that it would be possible to
drop a stone from the Citadel on to their decks; and the view from the
Dufferin Terrace, two hundred feet lower down, is just as fine. My
brother-in-law, Lord Lansdowne, had been appointed Governor-General in
1883, and I well remember my first arrival in Quebec. We had been
living for five weeks in the backwoods of the Cascapedia, the famous
salmon-river, under the most primitive conditions imaginable. I had
come there straight from the Argentine Republic on a tramp steamer, and
we lived on the Cascapedia coatless and flannel-shirted, with our legs
encased in "beef moccasins" as a protection against the hordes of
voracious flies that battened ravenously on us from morning to night.
It was a considerable change from a tent on the banks of the rushing,
foaming Cascapedia to the Citadel of Quebec, which was then appointed
like a comfortable English country house, and gave one a thoroughly
home-like feeling at once. After my prolonged stay in South America I
was pleased, too, to recognise familiar pictures, furniture and china
which I had last met in their English Wiltshire home, all of them with
the stolid impassiveness of inanimate objects unaware that they had
been spirited across the Atlantic, three thousand miles from their
accustomed abiding-place.
In September 1884, at a point immediately below the Falls, I swam
Niagara with Mr. Cecil Baring, now a partner in Baring Brothers, then
an Oxford undergraduate. We were standing at the foot of the American
Falls, when we noticed a little board inscribed, "William Grenfell of
Taplow Court, England" (the present Lord Desborough), "swam Niagara at
this spot." I looked at Baring, Baring looked at me. "I don't see why
we shouldn't do it too," he observed, to which I replied, "We might
have a try," so we stripped, sent our clothes over to the Canadian
side, and entered the water. It was a far longer swim than either of us
had anticipated, the current was very strong, and the eddies bothered
us. When we landed on the Canadian shore, I was utterly exhausted,
though Baring, being eight years younger than me, did not feel the
effects of the exertion so much. I remember that the Falls, seen from
only six inches above the surface of the water, looked like a splendid
range of snow-clad hills tumbling about in mad confusion, and that the
roar of waters was deafening. As we both lay panting and gasping, puris
naturalibus, on the Canadian bank, I need hardly say, as we were on the
American continent, that a reporter made his appearance from nowhere,
armed with notebook and pencil. This young newspaper-man was not
troubled with false delicacy. He asked us point-blank what we had made
out of our swim. On learning that we had had no money on it, but had
merely done it for the fun of the thing, he mentioned the name of a
place of eternal punishment, shut up his notebook in disgust, and
walked off: there was evidently no "story" to be made out of us. After
some luncheon and a bottle of Burgundy, neither Baring nor I felt any
the worse for our swim, nor were we the least tired during the
remainder of the day. I have seen Niagara in summer, spring and in
mid-winter, and each time the fascination of these vast masses of
tumbling waters has grown on me. I have never, to my regret, seen the
Victoria Falls of the Zambesi, as on two separate occasions when
starting for them unforeseen circumstances detained me in Cape Town.
The Victoria Falls are more than double the height of Niagara, Niagara
falling 160 feet, and the Zambesi 330 feet, and the Falls are over one
mile broad, but I fancy that except in March and April, the volume of
water hurling itself over them into the great chasm below is smaller
than at Niagara. I have heard that the width of the Victoria Falls is
to within a few yards exactly the distance between the Marble Arch and
Oxford Circus. When I was in the Argentine Republic, the great Falls of
the River Iguazu, a tributary of the Parana, were absolutely
inaccessible. To reach them vast tracts of dense primeval forest had to
be traversed, where every inch of the track would have to be
laboriously hacked through the jungle. Their very existence was
questioned, for it depended on the testimony of wandering Indians, and
of one solitary white man, a Jesuit missionary. Now, since the railway
to Paraguay has been completed, the Iguazu Falls can be reached, though
the journey is still a difficult one. The Falls are 200 feet high, and
nearly a mile wide. In the very heart of the City of Ottawa there are
the fine Chaudiere Falls, where the entire River Ottawa drops fifty
feet over a rocky ledge. The boiling whirl of angry waters has well
earned its name of cauldron, or "Chaudiere," but so much of the water
has now been drawn off to supply electricity and power to the city,
that the volume of the falls has become sensibly diminished. I know of
no place in Europe where the irresistible might of falling waters is
more fully brought home to one than at Trollhattan in Sweden. Here the
Gotha River whirls itself down 120 feet in seven cataracts. They are
rapids rather than falls, but it is the immense volume of water which
makes them so impressive. Every year Trolhattan grows more and more
disfigured by saw-mills, carbide of calcium works, and other industrial
buildings sprouting up like unsightly mushrooms along the river-banks.
The last time that I was there it was almost impossible to see the
falls in their entirety from any point, owing to this congestion of
squalid factories.
Rideau Hall, the Government House at Ottawa, stands about two miles out
of the town, and is a long, low, unpretentious building, exceedingly
comfortable as a dwelling-house, if somewhat inadequate as an official
residence for the Governor-General of Canada. Lord Dufferin added a
large and very handsome ball-room, fitted with a stage at one end of
it, and a full-sized tennis-court. This tennis-court, by an ingenious
arrangement, can be converted in a few hours into a splendid
supper-room. A red and white tent is lowered bodily from the roof; a
carpet is spread over the floor; great white-and-gold electric
standards bearing the arms of the different Provinces are placed in
position, and the thing is done. The intense dryness of the Canadian
winter climate, especially in houses where furnace-heat intensifies the
dryness, produces some unexpected results. My brother-in-law had
brought out a number of old pieces of French inlaid furniture. The
excessive dryness forced out some of the inlaid marqueterie of these
pieces, and upon their return to Europe they had to undergo a long and
expensive course of treatment. Some fine Romneys and Gainesboroughs
also required the picture-restorer's attentions before they could
return to their Wiltshire home after a five years' sojourn in the dry
air of Canada. The ivory handles of razors shrink in the dry
atmosphere; as the steel frame cannot shrink correspondingly the ivory
splits in two. The thing most surprising to strangers was that it was
possible in winter-time to light the gas with one's finger. All that
was necessary was to shuffle over the carpet in thin shoes, and then on
touching any metal object, an electric spark half an inch long would
crack out of your finger. The size and power of the spark depended a
great deal on the temperament of the experimenter. A high-strung person
could produce quite a large spark; a stolid, bovine individual could
not obtain a glimmer of one. The late Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, whilst
staying at Government House, was told of this, but was inclined to be
sceptical. My sister, Lady Lansdowne, made him shuffle over the carpet,
and then and there touch a gas-burner from which she had removed the
globe. Mr. Chamberlain, with his nervous temperament, produced a spark
an inch long out of himself, and of course the gas flared up
immediately. I do not think that I had ever seen any one more
surprised. This power of generating static electricity from their own
bodies was naturally a source of immense delight to the Lansdowne
children. They loved, after shuffling their feet on the carpet, to
creep up to any adult relation and touch them lightly on the ear, a
most sensitive spot. There would be a little spark, a little shock, and
a little exclamation of surprise. Outside the children's schoolroom
there was a lobby warmed by a stove, and the air there was peculiarly
dry. The young people, with a dozen or so of their youthful friends,
would join hands, taking, however, care not to complete the circle, and
then shuffle their feet vigorously. On completing the circuit, they
could produce a combined spark over two inches long, with a
correspondingly sharp shock. In my bedroom at Ottawa there was an
old-fashioned high brass fender. Had I put on slippers, and have
attempted to warm myself at the fire previous to turning-in. I should
be reminded, by a sharp discharge from my protesting calves into the
metal fender, that I was in dry Canada. (At that date the dryness of
Canada was atmospherical only.) Curiously enough, a spark leaving the
body produces the same shock as one entering it, and no electricity
whatever can be generated with bare feet. One of the footmen at Ottawa
must have been an abnormally high-strung young man, for should one
inadvertently touch silver dinner-plate he handed one, a sharp electric
shock resulted. The children delighted in one very pretty experiment.
Many books for the young have their bindings plentifully adorned with
gold, notably the French series, the "Bibliotheque Rose." Should one of
these highly-gilt volumes be taken into a warm and dry place, and the
lights extinguished, the INNER side of the binding had only to be
rubbed briskly with a fur-cap for all the gilding to begin to sparkle
and coruscate, and to send out little flashes of light. The children
took the utmost pleasure in this example of the curious properties of
electricity.
The Ottawa of the "eighties" was an attractive little place, and Ottawa
Society was very pleasant. There was then a note of unaffected
simplicity about everything that was most engaging, and the people were
perfectly natural and free from pretence. The majority of them were
Civil servants of limited means, and as everybody knew what their
neighbours' incomes were, there was no occasion for make-believe. The
same note of simplicity ran through all amusements and entertaining,
and I think that it constituted the charm of the place. I called one
afternoon on the very agreeable wife of a high official, and was told
at the door that Lady R--was not at home. Recognizing my voice, a cry
came up from the kitchen-stairs. "Oh, yes! I am at home to you. Come
right down into the kitchen," where I found my friend, with her sleeves
rolled up, making with her own hands the sweets for the dinner-party
she was giving that night, as she mistrusted her cook's capabilities.
The Ottawa people had then that gift of being absolutely unaffected,
which makes the majority of Australians so attractive. Now everything
has changed; Ottawa has trebled in size since I first knew it, and on
revisiting it twenty-five years later, I found that it had become very
"smart" indeed, with elaborate houses and gorgeous raiment.
Rideau Hall had two open-air skating-rinks in its own grounds, two
imposing toboggan-slides, and a covered curling-rink. The "roaring
game" is played in Canada with very heavy straight-sided iron "stones,"
weighing from 50 to 60 lbs. As the ice in a covered rink can be
constantly flooded, it can be kept in the most perfect order, and with
the heavy stones far greater accuracy can be attained than with the
granite stones used in Scotland. The game becomes a sort of billiards
on ice. The Rideau Hall team consisted of Lord Lansdowne himself,
General Sir Henry Streatfield, a nephew of mine, and one of the
footmen, who seemed to have a natural gift as a curler. Our team were
invincible in 1888. At a curling-match against Montreal in 1887, a
long-distance telephone was used for the first time in Canada. Ottawa
is 120 miles distant from Montreal, and a telephone was specially
installed, and each "end" telephoned from Rideau Hall to Montreal,
where the result was shown on a board, excitement over the match
running high. Montreal proved the victors. On great occasions such as
this, the ice of the curling-rink was elaborately decorated in colours.
It was very easily done. Ready-prepared stencils, such as are used for
wall-decoration, were laid on the ice, and various coloured inks mixed
with water were poured through the stencil holes, and froze almost
immediately on to the ice below. In this fashion complicated designs of
roses, thistles and maple-leaves, all in their proper colours, could be
made in a very short time, and most effective they were until destroyed
by the first six "ends." When the Governor-General's time in Canada
expired and he was transferred to India, the curlers of Canada
presented him with a farewell address. Lord Lansdowne made, I thought,
a very happy reply. Speaking of the regret he felt at leaving Ottawa,
and at severing his many links of connection with Canada, he added
that, bearing in view the climate of Bengal, he did not anticipate much
curling in India, and that he would miss the "roaring game"; in fact,
the only "roaring game" he was likely to come in contact with would
probably take the unpleasant form of a Bengal tiger springing out at
him. Lord Lansdowne went on to say, "Let us hope that it will not
happen that your ex-Governor-General will be found, not pursuing the
roaring game, but being pursued by it."
From skating daily, most of the Government House party became very
expert, and could perform every kind of trick upon skates. Lord and
Lady Lansdowne and their two daughters, now Duchess of Devonshire and
Lady Osborne Beauclerk, could execute the most complicated Quadrilles
and Lancers on skates, and could do the most elaborate figures.
Once a week all Ottawa turned up at Rideau Hall to skate to the music
of a good military band. Every year in December a so-called ice-palace
was built for the band, of clear blocks of ice. Once given a design,
ice-architecture is most fascinating and very easy. Instead of mortar,
all that is required is a stream of water from a hose to freeze the
ice-blocks together, and as ice can be easily chipped into any shape,
the most fantastic pinnacles and ornaments can be contrived. Our
ice-palace was usually built in what I may call a free adaptation of
the Canado-Moresque style. A very necessary feature in the ice-palace
was the large stove for thawing the brass instruments of the band. A
moment's consideration will show that in the intense cold of a Canadian
winter, the moisture that accumulates in a brass instrument would
freeze solid, rendering the instrument useless. The bandsmen had always
to handle the brass with woollen gloves on, to prevent getting burnt.
How curious it is that the sensation of touching very hot or very cold
metal is identical, and that it produces the same effect on the human
skin! With thirty or more degrees of frost, great caution must be used
in handling skate-blades with bare fingers if burns are to be avoided.
The coldest day I have ever known was New Year's Day 1888, when the
thermometer at Ottawa registered 41 degrees below, or 73 degrees of
frost. The air was quite still, as it invariably is with great cold,
but every breath taken gave one a sensation of being pinched on the
nose, as the moisture in the nostrils froze together.
The weekly club-dances of the Ottawa Skating Club were a pretty sight.
They were held in a covered public rink, gay with many flags, with
garlands of artificial flowers and foliage, and blazing with sizzling
arc-lights. These people, accustomed to skates from their earliest
childhood, could dance as easily and as gracefully on them as on their
feet, whilst fur-muffled mothers sat on benches round the rink,
drinking tea and coffee as unconcernedly as though they were at a
garden-party in mid-July instead of in a temperature of zero. An
"Ottawa March" was a great institution. Couples formed up as though for
a country dance, the band struck up some rollicking tune, the leader
shouted his directions, and fifty couples whirled and twirled, and
skated backwards or forwards as he ordered, going through the most
complicated evolutions, in pairs or fours or singly, joining here,
parting there, but all in perfect time. Woe betide the leader should he
lose his head! A hundred people would get tangled up in a hideous
confusion, and there was nothing for it but to begin all over again.
It is curious that in countries like England and Prance, where from the
climatic conditions skating must be a very occasional amusement, there
is a special word for the pastime, and that in Germany and Russia,
where every winter brings its skating as a matter of course, there
should be no word for it. "Skate" in English, and patiner in French,
mean propelling oneself on iron runners over ice, and nothing else;
whereas in German there is only the clumsy compound-word
Schlittschuh-laufen, which means "to run on sledge shoes," and in
Russian it is called in equally roundabout fashion Katatsa-na-konkach,
or literally "to roll on little horses," hardly a felicitous
expression. As a rule people have no word for expressing a thing which
does not come within their own range of experience; for instance, no
one would expect that Arabs, or Somalis, or the inhabitants of the
Sahara would have any equivalent for either skating or tobogganing, nor
do I imagine that the Eskimo have any expression for "sunstroke" or
"heat-apoplexy," but one would have thought that Russians and Germans
might have evolved a word for skating.
Apropos of Eskimo, I once heard a missionary describe the extraordinary
difficulty he had found in translating the Bible into Eskimo. It was
useless to talk of corn or wine to a people who did not know even what
they meant, so he had to use equivalents within their powers of
comprehension. Thus in the Eskimo version of the Scriptures the miracle
of Cana of Galilee is described as turning the water into BLUBBER; the
8th verse of the 5th chapter of the First Epistle of St. Peter ran:
"Your adversary the devil, as a roaring Polar BEAR walketh about,
seeking whom he may devour." In the same way "A land flowing with milk
and honey" became "A land flowing with whale's blubber," and throughout
the New Testament the words "Lamb of God" had to be translated "little
Seal of God," as the nearest possible equivalent. The missionary added
that his converts had the lowest opinion of Jonah for not having
utilised his exceptional opportunities by killing and eating the whale.
Fired by the example of the builders of the ice-palace on the rink at
Rideau Hall, I offered to build for the Lansdowne children an ice-hut
for their very own, a chilly domicile which they had ardently longed
for. As it is my solitary achievement as an architect, I must dwell
rather lovingly on the building of this hut. The professional
ice-cutters were bringing up daily a large supply of great gleaming
transparent blocks from the river, both for the building of the
band-house and for the summer supply of Rideau Hall, so there was no
lack of material. On the American continent one is being told so
constantly that this-and-that "will cut no ice," that it is
satisfactory to be able to report that those French-Canadians cut ice
in the most efficient fashion. My sole building implement was a kettle
of boiling water. I placed ice-blocks in a circle, pouring boiling
water between each two blocks to melt the points of contact, and in
half an hour they had frozen into one solid lump. I and a friend
proceeded like this till the ice-walls were about four feet high,
spaces being left for the door and windows. As the blocks became too
heavy to lift, we used great wads of snow in their stead, melting them
with cold water and kneading them into shape with thick woollen gloves,
and so the walls rose. I wanted a snow roof; had we been mediaeval
cathedral builders we might possibly have fashioned a groined and
vaulted snow roof, with ice ribs, but being amateurs, our roof
perpetually collapsed, so we finally roofed the hut with
grooved-and-tongued boards, cutting a hole through them for the
chimney. We then built a brick fire-place, with mantelpiece complete,
ending in an iron chimney. The windows were our great triumph. I filled
large japanned tea-trays two inches deep with water and left them out
to freeze. Then we placed the trays in a hot bath and floated the
sheets of ice off. They broke time and time again, but after about the
twentieth try we succeeded in producing two great sheets of transparent
ice which were fitted into the window-spaces, and firmly cemented in
place with wet snow. Then the completed hut had to be furnished. A
carpenter in Ottawa made me a little dresser, a little table, and
little chairs of plain deal; I bought some cooking utensils, some
enamelled-iron tea-things and plates, and found in Ottawa some crude
oleographs printed on oil-cloth and impervious to damp. These were duly
hung on the snow walls of the hut, and the little girls worked some red
Turkey-twill curtains for the ice windows, and a frill for the
mantelpiece in orthodox south of England cottage style. The boys made a
winding tunnel through the snow-drifts up to the door of the hut, and
Nature did the rest, burying the hut in snow until its very existence
was unsuspected by strangers, though it may be unusual to see clouds of
wood-smoke issuing from an apparent snow-drift. That little house stood
for over three months; it afforded the utmost joy to its youthful
occupiers, and I confess that I took a great paternal pride in it
myself. Really at night, with the red curtains drawn over the ice
windows, with the pictures on its snow walls, a lamp alight and a
roaring log fire blazing on the brick hearth, it was the most
invitingly cosy little place. It is true that with the heat the snow
walls perspired freely, and the roof was apt to drip like a fat man in
August, but it was considered tactful to ignore these details. Here the
children entertained their friends at tea-parties, and made hideous
juvenile experiments in cookery; here, too, "Jerusalem the Golden" was
prepared. It was a simple operation; milk and honey were thoroughly
mixed in a bowl, the bowl was put out to freeze, and the frozen mass
dipped into hot water to loosen it; "Jerusalem the Golden" was then
broken up small, and the toothsome chips eagerly devoured. Those
familiar with the hymn will at once understand the allusion.
Sir John Macdonald, the Prime Minister, was very often at Government
House, and dined there perpetually. When at the Petrograd Embassy, I
was constantly hearing of Sir John from my chief, Lord Dufferin, who
had an immense admiration for him, and considered him the maker of the
Dominion, and a really great statesman. I was naturally anxious to meet
a man of whom I had heard so much. "John A.," as he was universally
known in Canada, had a very engaging personality, and conveyed an
impression of having an enormous reserve of latent force behind his
genial manner. Facially he was reminiscent of Lord Beaconsfield, but
there was nothing very striking about him as an orator: his style was
direct and straightforward.
The Houses of Parliament at Ottawa are a splendid pile of buildings,
and though they may owe a great deal to the wonderful site they occupy
on a semicircular wooded bluff projecting into the river, I should
consider them one of the most successful group of buildings erected
anywhere during the nineteenth century. All the details might not bear
close examination, but the general effect was admirable, especially
that of the great circular library, with its conical roof. In addition
to the Legislative Chambers proper, two flanking buildings in the same
style housed various Administrative departments. Seen from Rideau Hall
in dark silhouette against the sunset sky, the bold outline of the
conical roof of the library and the three tall towers flanking it gave
a sort of picturesque Nuremberg effect to the distant view of Ottawa,
The Parliament buildings proper were destroyed by an incendiary during
the war, but the library and wings escaped.
Everything in the House of Commons was modelled accurately on
Westminster. The Canadian Parliament being bi-lingual, French members
addressed the Speaker as "Monsieur l'Orateur," and the Usher of the
Black Rod of the Senate became "l'Huissier de la Verge Noire." To my
mind there was something intensely comical in addressing a man who
seldom opened his mouth except to cry, "Order, order," as "Monsieur
l'Orateur." A Frenchman from the Province of Quebec seems always to be
chosen as Canadian Speaker. In my time he was a M. Ouiment, the
TWENTY-FIRST child of the same parents, so French Canadians are
apparently not threatened with extinction. I heard in the House of
Commons at Ottawa the most curious peroration I have ever listened to.
It came from the late Nicholas Flood Davin, a member of Irish
extraction who sat for a Far-Western constituency. The House was
debating a dull Bill relating to the lumber industry, when Davin, who
may possibly have been under the influence of temporary excitement,
insisted on speaking. He made a long and absolutely irrelevant speech
in a voice of thunder, and finished with these words, every one of
which I remember: "There are some who declare that Canada's trade is
declining; there are some who maintain that the rich glow of health
which at present mantles o'er Canada's virgin cheek will soon be
replaced by the pallid hues of the corpse. To such pusillanimous
propagandists of a preposterous pessimism, I answer, Mr. Speaker with
all confidence, never! never!" As a rhetorical effort this is striking,
though there seems a lack of lucidity about it.
In the Canadian House of Commons there are a number of little pages who
run errands for members, and fetch them books and papers. These boys
sit on the steps of the Speaker's chair, and when the House adjourns
for dinner the pages hold a "Pages' Parliament." One boy, elected by
the others as Speaker, puts on a gown and seats himself in the
Speaker's chair; the "Prime Minister" and the members of the Government
sit on the Government benches, the Leader of the Opposition with his
supporters take their places opposite and the boys hold regular
debates. Many of the members took great interest in the "Pages'
Parliament," and coached the boys for their debates. I have seen Sir
John Macdonald giving the fourteen-year-old "Premier" points for his
speech that evening.
All-night sittings were far rarer at Ottawa than with us, and
constituted quite an event. Some of us went into the gallery at 5 a.m.
after a dance, to see the end of a long and stormy sitting. The House
was very uproarious. Some member had brought in a cricket-ball, and
they were throwing each other catches across the House. To the credit
of Canadian M.P.'s, I must say that we never saw a single catch missed.
When Sir John rose to close the debate, there were loud cries of, "You
have talked enough, John A. Give us a song instead." "All right," cried
Sir John, "I will give you 'God save the Queen.'" And he forthwith
started it in a lusty voice, all the members joining in. The
introduction of a cricket-ball might brighten all-night sittings in our
own Parliament, though somehow I cannot quite picture to myself Mr.
Asquith throwing catches to Sir Frederick Banbury across the floor of
the House of Commons.
I was once in the gallery of the South African Parliament at Capetown,
after the House had been sitting continuously for twenty hours. The
Speaker had had a stool brought him to rest his legs on, and was fast
asleep in his chair, with his wig all awry. Dutch farmer members from
the Back-Veld were stretched out at full length on the benches in the
lobbies, snoring loudly; in fact, the whole place was a sort of
Parliamentary Pullman Sleeping-car. That splendid man, the late General
Botha, told me that late hours in Parliament upset him terribly, as he
had been used all his life to going early to bed. Though the exterior
of the Capetown Parliament buildings is nothing very wonderful
architecturally, the interior is very handsome, and quite surprisingly
spacious.
The Governor-General gave two evening skating and tobaggoning parties
at Rideau Hall every winter. He termed these gatherings his "Arctic
Cremornes," after the then recently defunct gardens in London, and the
parties were wonderfully picturesque. In those days, though the fashion
now has quite disappeared, all members of snow-shoe and tobogganing
clubs, men and women alike, wore coloured blanket-suits consisting of
knickerbockers and long coats, with bright-coloured stockings, sash,
and knitted toque (invariably pronounced "tuke"). The club colours of
course varied. Rideau Hall was white with purple stockings and "tuke,"
and red sash. Others were sky-blue, with scarlet stockings and "tuke,"
or crimson and black, or brown and green. A collection of three hundred
people in blanket-suits gave the effect of a peripatetic rainbow
against the white snow. For the "Arctic Cremorne" the rinks were all
fringed with coloured fairy-lamps; the curling-rink and the tea-room
above it were also outlined with innumerable coloured electric bulbs,
and festoons of Japanese lanterns were stretched between the fir trees
in all directions. At the top of the toboggan slides powerful arc-lamps
blazed, and a stupendous bonfire roared on a little eminence. The
effect was indescribably pretty, and it was pleasant to reflect how man
had triumphed over Nature in being able to give an outdoor evening
party in mid-winter with the thermometer below zero. The gleaming
crystals of snow reflecting the coloured lamps; the Bengal lights
staining the white expanse crimson and green, and silhouetting the
outlines of the fir trees in dead black against the burnished steel of
the sky; the crowd of guests in their many-coloured blanket-suits, made
a singularly attractive picture, with a note of absolute novelty in it;
and the crash of the military band, the merry whirr of the skates, and
the roar of the descending toboggans had something extraordinarily
exhilarating about them in the keen, pure air. The supper-room always
struck me as being pleasingly unconventional. Supper was served in the
long, covered curling-rink, where the temperature was the same as that
of the open air outside, so there was a long table elaborately set out
with silver-branched candlesticks and all the Governor-General's fine
collection of plate, but the servants waited in heavy fur-coats and
caps. Of course no flowers could be used in that temperature, so the
silver vases held branches of spruce, hemlock, and other Canadian firs.
The French cook had to be very careful as to what dishes he prepared,
for anything with moisture in it would freeze at once; meringues, for
instance, would be frozen into uneatable cricket-balls, and tea,
coffee, and soup had to simmer perpetually over lamps. One so seldom
has a ball-supper with North Pole surroundings. We had a serious
toboggan accident one night owing to the stupidity of an old Senator,
who insisted on standing in the middle of the track, and the
Aides-de-Camps' room was converted into an operating theatre, and
reeked with the fumes of chloroform. The young man had bad concussion,
and was obliged to remain a week at Rideau Hall, whilst the poor girl
was disfigured for life.
Whilst on the subject of ball-suppers, there was a curious custom
prevailing in Lisbon. Most Portuguese having very limited means, it was
not usual to offer any refreshments whatever to guests at dances; but
when it was done, it took the form of a "tooth-pick-supper" (souper aux
curedents). Small pieces of chicken, tongue, or beef were piled on
plates, each piece skewered with a wooden toothpick. The guests picked
these off the plate by the toothpick, and nibbled the meat away from
it, eating it with slices of bread. This obviated the use of plates,
knives and forks, most Portuguese families having neither sufficient
silver table-plate for an entertainment nor the means to hire any.
There was another reason for this quaint custom. Some Portuguese
are--how shall we put it?--inveterate souvenir-hunters. The Duke of
Palmella, one of the few rich men in Portugal, gave a ball whilst I was
in Lisbon at which the supper was served in the ordinary fashion, with
plates, spoons, knives and forks. It was a matter of common knowledge
in Lisbon that 50 per cent. of the ducal silver spoons and forks had
left the house in the pockets of his Grace's guests, who doubtless
wished to preserve a slight memento of so pleasant an evening.
In a certain Balkan State which I will refrain from naming, the
inhabitants are also confirmed souvenir-hunters. At a dinner-party at
the British Legation in this nameless State, one of the Diplomatic
ladies was wearing a very fine necklace of pearls and enamel. A native
of the State admired this necklace immensely, and begged for permission
to examine it closer. The Diplomat's wife very unwisely unfastened her
pearl necklace, and it was passed around from hand to hand, amidst loud
expressions of admiration at its beautiful workmanship. At the end of
dinner the Diplomatic lady requested that her necklace might be
returned to her, but it was not forthcoming; no one knew anything about
it. The British Minister, who thought that he understood the people of
the country, rose to the occasion. Getting up from his chair, he said
with a smile, "We have just witnessed a very clever and very amusing
piece of legerdemain. Now we are going to see another little piece of
conjuring." The Minister walked quietly to both doors of the room,
locked them, and put the keys in his pocket. He then placed a small
silver bowl from the side-board in the centre of the dinner-table, and
continued: "I am now going to switch off all the lights, and to count
ten slowly. When I have reached ten, I shall turn on the lights again,
and hey presto! Madame de--'s necklace will be found lying in that
silver bowl!" The room became plunged in darkness, and the Minister
counted slowly up to ten. The electric light blazed out again, there
was no necklace, but the silver bowl had vanished!
I have enjoyed the exceptional experience of having inspected many
convents in Canada, even those of the most strictly cloistered Orders.
By long-established custom, the Governor-General's wife has the right
to inspect any convent in Canada on giving twenty-four hours' notice,
and she may take with her any two persons she chooses, of either sex.
My sister was fond of visiting convents, and she often took me with her
as I could speak French. We have thus been in convents of Ursulines,
Poor Clares, Grey Sisters, and in some of those of the more strictly
cloistered Orders. The procedure was always the same. We were ushered
into a beautifully clean, bare, whitewashed parloir, with a highly
polished floor redolent of beeswax. There would be hard benches running
round the parloir, raised on a platform, much after the fashion of
raised benches in a billiard-room. In the centre would be a chair for
the Reverend Mother. We then made polite conversation for a few
minutes, after which coffee (usually compounded of scorched beans, with
no relation whatever to "Coffea Arabica") was handed to us, and we went
over the convent. It was extremely difficult for two Protestants to
find any subject of conversation which could interest a Mother Superior
who knew nothing of the world outside her convent walls, nor was it
easy to find any common ground on which to meet her, all religious
topics being necessarily excluded, I had noticed that the nuns made
frequent allusions to a certain Marie Alacoque. Misled by the
similarity of the sound in French, I, in my ignorance, thought that
this referred to a method of cooking eggs. I learnt later that Marie
Alacoque was a French nun who lived in the seventeenth century, and I
discovered why her memory was so revered by her co-religionists. It was
easy to get a book from the Ottawa Library and to read her up, and
after that conversation became less difficult, for a few remarks about
Marie Alacoque were always appreciated in conventual circles. The
convents were invariably neat and clean, but I was perpetually struck
by the wax-like pallor of the inmates. The elder nuns in the strictly
cloistered Orders were as excited as children over this unexpected
irruption into their convent of two strangers from the world outside,
which they had left for so long. They struck me as most excellent,
earnest women, and they delighted in exhibiting all their treasures,
including the ecclesiastical vestments and their Church plate. They
always made a point of showing us, as an object of great interest, the
flat candlestick of bougie that the Cardinal-Archbishop had used when
he had last celebrated Pontifical High Mass in their chapel. In one
strictly cloistered convent there was a high wooden trellis across the
chapel, so that though the nuns could see the priest at the altar
through the trellis-work, he was unable to see them. In the Convent of
the Grey Sisters at Ottawa we found an old English nun who, in spite of
having spent thirty-five years in a French-Canadian convent, still
retained the strong Cockney accent of her native London. She was a
cheery old soul, and, with another old English nun, had charge of the
wardrobe, which they insisted on showing me. I was gazing at piles of
clothing neatly arranged on shelves, when the old Cockney nun clapped
her hands. "We will dress you up as a Sister," she cried, and they
promptly proceeded to do so. They put me on a habit (largest size) over
my other clothes, chuckling with glee meanwhile, and I was duly draped
in the guimpe, the piece of linen which covers a nun's head and
shoulders and frames her face, called, I believe, in English a
"wimple," and my toilet was complete except for my veil, when, by a
piece of real bad luck, the Reverend Mother and my sister came into the
room. We had no time to hide, so we were caught. Having no moustache, I
flattered myself that I made rather a saintly-looking novice, and I hid
my hands in the orthodox way in my sleeves, but the Mother Superior was
evidently very much put out. The clothes that had come in contact with
my heretical person were ordered to be placed on one side, I presume to
be morally disinfected, and I can only trust that the two old nuns did
not get into serious trouble over their little joke. I am sorry that my
toilet was not completed; I should like to have felt that just for once
in my life I had taken the veil, if for five minutes only.
In the "eighties" the city of Montreal spent large sums over their
Winter Carnival. It attracted crowds of strangers, principally from the
United States, and it certainly stimulated the retail trade of the
city. The Governor-General was in the habit of taking a house in
Montreal for the Carnival, and my brother-in-law was lent the home of a
hospitable sugar magnate. The dining-room of this house, in which its
owner had allowed full play to his Oriental imagination and love of
colour, was so singular that it merits a few words of description. The
room was square, with a domed ceiling. It was panelled in polished
satinwood to a height of about five feet. Above the panelling were
placed twelve owls in carved and silvered wood, each one about two feet
high, supporting gas-standards. Rose-coloured silk was stretched from
the panelling up to the heavy frieze, consisting of "swags" of fruit
and foliage modelled in high relief, and brilliantly coloured in their
natural hues. The domed ceiling was painted sky-blue, covered with
golden stars, gold and silver suns and moons, and the signs of the
Zodiac. I may add that the effect of this curious apartment was not
such as to warrant any one trying to reproduce it. The house also
contained a white marble swimming bath; an unnecessary adjunct, I
should have thought, to a dwelling built for winter occupation in
Montreal.
The Ice-Castle erected by the Municipality was really a joy to the eye.
It was rather larger than, say, the Westminster Guildhall, and had a
tower eighty feet high. It was an admirable reproduction of a Gothic
castle, designed and built by a competent architect, with barbican,
battlements, and machiocolaions all complete, the whole of gleaming,
transparent ice-blocks, a genuine thing of beauty. One of the principal
events of the Carnival was the storming of the Ice-Castle by the
snow-shoe clubs of Montreal. Hundreds of snow-shoers, in their
rainbow-hued blanket suits, advanced in line on the castle and fired
thousands of Roman candles at their objective, which returned the fire
with rockets innumerable, and an elaborate display of fireworks,
burning continually Bengal lights of various colours within its
translucent walls, and spouting gold and silver rain on its assailants.
It really was a gorgeous feast of colour for the eye, a most entrancing
spectacle, with all this polychrome glow seen against the dead-white
field of snow which covered Dominion Square, in the crystal clearness
of a Canadian winter night, with the thermometer down anywhere.
Another annual feature of the Carnival was the great fancy-dress
skating fete in the covered rink. The Victoria Rink at Montreal is a
huge building, and was profusely decorated for the occasion with the
usual flags, wreaths of artificial foliage, and coloured lamps. An
American sculptor had modelled six colossal groups of statuary out of
wet snow, and these were ranged down either side of the rink. As they
froze, they took on the appearance and texture of white marble, and
were very effective. Round a cluster of arc-lights in the roof there
was a sort of revolving cage of different coloured panes of glass;
these threw variegated beams of light over the brilliant kaleidoscopic
crowd below. Previous Governors-General had, in opening the fete
shuffled shamefacedly down the centre of the rink in overshoes and fur
coats to the dais, but Lord and Lady Lansdowne, being both expert
skaters, determined to do the thing in proper Carnival style, and
arrived in fancy dress, he in black as a Duke of Brunswick, she as Mary
Queen of Scots, attended by her two boys, then twelve and fourteen
years old, as pages, resplendent in crimson tights and crimson velvet.
The band struck up "God Save the Queen," and down the cleared space in
the centre skimmed, hand-in-hand, the Duke of Brunswick and Mary Queen
of Scots, with the two pages carrying her train, all four executing a
"Dutch roll" in the most workman-like manner. It was really a very
effective entrance, and was immensely appreciated by the crowd of
skaters present. I represented a Shakespearean character, and had
occasion to note what very inadequate protection is afforded by blue
silk tights, with nothing under them, against the cold of a Canadian
February. One of the Aides-de-Camp had arrayed himself in white silk as
Romeo; being only just out from England, he was anything but firm on
his skates. Some malicious young Montrealers of tender age, noticing
this, deliberately bumped into him again and again, sending his
conspicuous white figure spinning each time. Poor Romeo's experiences
were no more fortunate on the rink than in the tragedy associated with
his name; by the end of the evening, after his many tumbles, his
draggled white silk dress suggested irresistibly the plumage of a
soiled dove.
A hill (locally known as "The Mountain") rises immediately behind
Montreal, the original Mont Real, or Mount Royal, from which the city
derives its name. This naturally lends itself to the formation of
toboggan slides, and one of them, the "Montreal Club Slide," was really
terrifically steep. The start was precipitous enough, in all
conscience, but soon came a steep drop of sixty feet, at which point
all the working parts of one's anatomy seemed to leave one, to replace
themselves at the finish only. The pace was so tremendous that it was
difficult to breathe, but it was immensely exciting. The Montreal slide
was just one-third of a mile long, and the time occupied in the descent
on good ice was about twenty seconds, working out at sixty miles an
hour. Every precaution was taken against accidents; there was a
telephone from the far end, and no toboggan was allowed to start until
"track clear" had been signalled. Everything in this world is relative.
We had thought our Ottawa slides very fast, though the greatest speed
we ever attained was about thirty miles an hour, whilst at home we had
been delighted if we could coax fifteen miles an hour out of our rough
machines. The Lansdowne boys were very expert on toboggans, and could
go down the Ottawa slides standing erect, a thing no adult could
possibly manage. They had fitted their machines with gong-bells and red
and green lanterns, and the "Ottawa River Express" would come whizzing
down at night with bells clanging and lights gleaming.
I can claim to be the absolute pioneer of ski on the American
continent, for in January, 1887, I brought my Russian ski to Ottawa,
the very first pair that had ever been seen in the New World. I coasted
down hills on them amidst universal jeers; every one declared that they
were quite unsuited to Canadian conditions. The old-fashioned raquettes
had their advantages, for one could walk over the softest snow in them.
Here, again, I fancy that it was the sense of man triumphant over
Nature that made snow-shoeing so attractive. The Canadian snow-shoe
brings certain unaccustomed muscles into play, and these muscles show
their resentment by aching furiously. The French habitants term this
pain mal de raquettes. In my time snow-shoe tramps at night,
across-country into the woods, were one of the standard winter
amusements of Ottawa, and the girls showed great dexterity in vaulting
fences with their snow-shoes on.
A Canadian winter is bathed in sunshine. In the dry, crisp atmosphere
distant objects are as clear-cut and hard as though they were carved
out of wood; the air is like wine, and with every breath human beings
seem to enter on a new lease of life.
It is not so in the lower world. There is not a bird to be seen, for no
bird could secure a living with three feet of snow on the ground.
Nature is very dead, and I understood the glee with which the children
used to announce the return of the crows, for these wise birds are the
unfailing harbingers of Spring. With us Spring is undecided, fickle,
and coy. She is not sure of herself, and after making timid, tentative
advances, retreats again, uncertain as to her ability to cope with grim
Winter. In Canada, Spring comes with an all-conquering rush. In one
short fortnight she clothes the trees in green, and carpets the ground
with blue and white hepaticas. She is also, unfortunately, accompanied
by myriads of self-appointed official maids-of-honour in the shape of
mosquitoes, anxious to make up for their long winter fast. As the
fierce suns of April melt the surface snow, the water percolates
through to the ground, where it freezes again, forming a sheet of what
Canadians term "glare-ice." I have seen at Rideau Hall this ice split
in all directions over the flower-beds by the first tender shoots of
the crocuses. How these fragile little spears of green have the power
to penetrate an inch of ice is one of the mysteries of Nature.
Would space admit of it, and were paper not such an unreasonably
expensive commodity just now, I would like to speak of the glories of a
Canadian wood in May, with the ground flecked with red and white
trilliums; of the fields in British Columbia, gorgeous in spring-time
with blue lilies and drifts of rose-coloured cyclamens; of the autumn
woods in their sumptuous dress of scarlet, crimson, orange, and yellow,
the sugar-maples blazing like torches against the dark firs; of the
marvels of the three ranges of the Rockies, Selkirks, and Cascades, and
of the other wonders of the great Dominion.
As boys, I and my youngest brother knew "Hiawatha's Fishing" almost by
heart, so I had an intense desire to see "Gitche Gumee, the Big-Sea
Water," which we more prosaically call Lake Superior, the home of the
sturgeon "Nahma," of "Ugudwash" the sun-fish, of the pike the
"Maskenozha," and the actual scene of Hiawatha's fishing. To others,
without this sentimental interest, the Great Lakes might appear vast
but uninteresting expanses of water, chiefly remarkable for the hideous
form of vessel which has been evolved to navigate their clear depths.
One thing I can say with confidence. No one who makes a winter journey
to that land of sunshine and snow, with its energetic, pleasant, and
hospitable inhabitants, will ever regret it, and the wayfarer will
return home with the consciousness of having been in contact with an
intensely virile race, only now beginning to realise its own strength.