ties. On the stations the local school
children were always drawn up in ranks, most of them holding flags,
many having a broad red-white-and-blue ribbon across their front rank
to show their patriotism.

At North Bay, a purposeful little town that lets the traveller either
into the scenic and sporting delights of Lake Nipissing, or into the
mining districts of the Timiskaming country, there was a bright little
reception. North Bay is a characteristic Canadian town. It was born
in a night, so to speak, and its growth outstrips editions of guide
books. Outside the neat station there is a big grass oblong, and about
this green the frame houses and the shops extend. Behind it is the
town so keen on growing up about the big railway repair shops, that it
has no time yet to give to road-making.

The ceremonial was in the green oblong, and all North Bay left their
houses and shops to attend. The visit had more the air of a family
party than aught else, for, after a mere pretence of keeping ranks, the
people broke in upon the function, and Prince and Staff and people
became inextricably mixed. When His Royal Highness took car to drive
around the town, the crowd cut off the cars in the procession, and for
half an hour North Bay was full of orderlies and committee-men
automobiling about speculative streets in search of a missing Prince,
plus one Mayor.

Sudbury, the same type of town, growing at a distracting pace because
of its railway connection and its smelting plants, had the same sort of
ceremony. From here we passed through a land of almost sinister
bleakness. There were tracts livid and stark, entirely without
vegetation, and with the livid white and naked surface cut into wild
channels and gullies by rains that must have been as pitiless as the
land. It was as though we had steamed out of a human land into the
drear valleys of the moon, and one expected to catch glimpses of
creatures as terrifying as any Mr. Wells has imagined. So cadaverous a
realm could breed little else.

It was the country of nickel and copper. We saw occasionally the
buildings and workings (scarce less grim than the land) through the
agency of which came the grey slime that had rendered the country so
bleak. They are particularly rich mines, and rank high among the
nickel workings in the world. They were also, let it be said, of
immense value to the Allies during the war.

Pushing south, the line soon redeems itself in the beauty o