of exultant
thought at the prospect before me. I little knew then the limits of my
wanderings-I little thought that for many and many a day my track would
lie with almost undeviating precision towards the setting sun, that
summer would merge itself into autumn, and autumn darken into winter, and
that still the nightly bivouac would be made a little nearer to that west
whose golden gleam was suffusing sky and water.

But though all this was of course unknown, enough was still visible in
the foreground of the future to make even the swift-moving paddles seem
laggards as they beat to foam the long reaches of the darkening
Cataraqui. "We must leave matters to yourself, I think," said the
General, when I saw him for the last time in Montreal, "you will be best
judge of how to get on when you know and see the ground. I will not ask
you to visit Fort Garry, but if you find it feasible, it would be well if
you could drop down the Red River and join Wolseley before he gets to the
place. You know what I want, but how to do it, I will leave altogether to
yourself. For the rest, you can draw on us for any money you require.
Take care of those northern fellows. Good-bye, and success."

This was on the 12th June, and on the morning of the 13th I started by
the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada for the West. On that morning the Grand
Trunk Railway of Canada was in a high state of excitement. It was about
to attempt, for the first time, the despatch of a Lightning Express for
Toronto; and it was to carry from Montreal, on his way to Quebec, one of
the Royal Princes of England, whose sojourn in the Canadian capital was
drawing to a close. The Lightning Express was not attended with the
glowing success predicted for it by its originators. At some thirty or
forty miles from Montreal it came heavily to grief, owing to some
misfortune having attended the progress of a preceding train over the
rough uneven track. A delay of two hours having supervened, the Lightning
Express got into motion again, and jolted along with tolerable celerity
to Kingston. When darkness set in it worked itself up to a high pitch of
fury, and rushed along the low shores of Lake Ontario with a velocity
which promised disaster. The car in which I travelled was one belonging
to the director of the Northern Railroad of Canada, Mr. Cumberland, and
we had in it a minister of fisheries, one of education, a governor of a
province, a speaker of a house of commons, and a colonel